Teams may face difficulties solving these cryptic crossword clues at the first instance, as the clues may not make sense. The key here is to note the use of the word “mixer” in the puzzle title and the words “assortment” and “queer” in the flavortext, which are all cryptic crossword indicators for anagrams.
Each cryptic crossword clue in fact contains an anagrammed word. The easiest way to get this aha is through the clue: “Heroine of "Divergent" series stumbles - on pressure!”. The first segment of the clue clearly points at TRIS. The second segment would clue at TRIS had it been “stumbles - no pressure!”, which then clues “TRIPS (stumbles) - P (no pressure) = TRIS”. “No” had been anagrammed in this clue.
The answers to all the cryptic crossword clues are listed below with their explanations. The part of the clue which provides the definition is bolded, while the anagrammed word is italicised. The answers are listed in alphabetical order.
| Clue | Explanation | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| Large boxes with big holes lacking radius (6) | ‘Big holes’ = CRATERS, ‘lacking radius’ means to take away “R” from CRATERS | CRATES |
| Spoilers (maybe): Spot belonging to woman without heart (6) | ‘Spot’ = DOT, ‘belonging to woman’ = HERS, ‘without heart’ means to take away “H”. If you dote on someone, you might spoil him/her, hence “spoilers (maybe)” | DOTERS |
| Constructed car to accommodate me (6) | ‘Car’ = FORD (a brand), ‘accommodate me’ means to take in ME, to get FORMED | FORMED |
| Shop users present musical composition (4) | OPUS lies in “Shop users” | OPUS |
| Commander or diner patron, before a meal (7) | Both a commander and a diner patron (before a meal) are ORDERERs. | ORDERER |
| Sportsmen smuggling meal scraps (4) | ORTS lies in “Sportsmen” | ORTS |
| Friends get unknown paralysis with involuntary tremors (5) | ‘Friends’ = PALS, ‘unknown’ = Y (a mathematical variable) | PALSY |
| Person giving tirade about donor losing $1000 (6) | ‘Donor’ = GRANTER, ‘losing $1000’ = losing a grand (G) | RANTER |
| Tuber critic blows top after tea (5) | ‘Critic’ = HATER, ‘blows top’ means to take away the first letter, ‘after tea’ means to add the remaining letter segment after the letter T | TATER |
| Camelot king doubly beheaded after Wed (4) | ‘Camelot king’ = ARTHUR, ‘doubly beheaded’ means to take away the first two letters. | THUR |
| Platters of primarily tiny fish with wing-like fins (5) | ‘Primarily tiny’ = T (first letter of tiny), ‘fish with wing-like fins’ = RAYS | TRAYS |
| Heroine of "Divergent" series stumbles - no pressure! (4) | ‘Stumbles’ = TRIPS, ‘no pressure’ means to take away P | TRIS |
| Holding ashes makes money, by the sound of it (4) | ‘Makes money’ = EARNS. URNS sounds like EARNS. | URNS |
Solvers can then insert these answers into the crossword puzzle. In the process of doing so, they may realise an ambiguity with the positions of OPUS and ORTS (which seem to be interchangeable). The solved crossword is as follows:
So… how does one extract the answer? The next aha is to realise that all the answers are themselves anagrams of cryptic crossword anagram indicators.
| Answer | Cryptic Crossword Anagram Indicator |
|---|---|
| CRATES | RECAST |
| DOTERS | SORTED |
| FORMED | DEFORM |
| OPUS | SOUP |
| ORDERER | REORDER |
| ORTS | SORT |
| PALSY | PLAYS |
| RANTER | ERRANT |
| TATER | TREAT |
| THUR | HURT |
| TRAYS | STRAY |
| TRIS | STIR |
| URNS | RUNS |
The anagrammed answers will fit into the crossword in the same positions as the original answers. This also provides the disambiguation of OPUS/SOUP and ORTS/SORT. The final step is to identify the invariant letters between the two crosswords (see highlighted letters in green), to yield the answer ERUPTIONS, which is itself another anagram indicator.
Author’s notes
Ideally, I (Chork) would have loved to have a fully connected crossword puzzle. However, this puzzle turned out to be much harder to construct than expected, as the pool of anagram indicators that were themselves anagrammable was very limited. This pool is further reduced when I had to find words which had no invariant letters or only 1-2 invariant letters which are the letters of ERUPTIONS. The last additional constraint was that the final answer should be readable directly from the grid (from left to right) without having to unscramble the invariant letters. All these constraints put together made it a much harder to construct puzzle than I had imagined - thanks to Janice for helping to figure this out!