[Edit: This is one of my early crosswords, where the clue “surfaces” don’t always make sense. Links may now be broken. Sorry about all that. 🙂 While my March-Sept 2019 puzzles are just about okay, they may have the odd sketchy surface, or unlovely grid. For “proper” cryptic puzzles, skip to October 2019 and onwards.]

This was my first attempt at setting a cryptic crossword. For any non-jugglers reading, it’s only fair to point out that 1A and 65A rely on specific knowledge. Everything else is okay though.

Except… oh gosh, what a mess, I made some mistakes in the clues. (Look, I was rushing a bit to finish it off before the convention started, ok? Hmmm… no, it’s not okay – Be more thorough! Alright.)
72A Typo. Should be “Darshna”.
83A “Platonic” is simply incorrect. A misapprehension I was under. Oops.
41D Should read “atom” not “molecule”.

Also, my friend Hairy is much more experienced than me at cryptics, and he told me “Oh my god, you can’t have the definition in the middle of a clue!”. Alright, I learned something! But he did tell me he particularly liked some of my clues. 21A was his favourite.

Right then, here’s the puzzle, as a jpg.
Right-click>Save image>Print [fit to page]

The answers are […edit: gone].

Okay, maybe this blog would be a good place to host my crosswords.

I’ve done crosswords for years, but only idly, and I’m really only recently getting to grips with cryptics. I enjoy a binge-solve with a few friends a few times a year when we meet up, but don’t go overboard on solving that many myself. (I don’t buy newspapers, which doesn’t help when the only sane way to solve crosswords is with pen & paper.) For the last couple of months, I’ve been printing off and solving the Everyman from the Guardian.

But earlier this year, I decided to set a cryptic crossword for a juggling convention I go to. I enjoyed doing it, and also enjoyed watching my friends’ struggles/frustrations/delight at solving it. Also, whilst there, I met an Italian crossword setter (Hi Armando!) who showed me that there was such a thing as crossword software, to help create a puzzle. I’d made my one purely by hand, so, coo, that was a revelation. Hmmmm… maybe setting crosswords is something I could get into….