22 down: Hospital using chunk seen in foot X-ray? (5)
23 across: Dole once fishy at Job Centre (5)
17 down: Loudly loots Nero’s city to find Fu Manchu author (3, 6)
11 across: Timid little dog lost tail to large mouse (5)
10 across: New-age therapy required about $1000 between two (5)
3 down: Dry colours expressed UK poet (3, 6)
25 across: Regularly hold revue near Melbourne’s lead theatre (5)
28 across: Drunken disgrace after nog cocktail? (7)
An aspect of cryptics that I particularly enjoy is that they usually require at least some passing acquaintance with a whole host of language and trivia, high, middle and low of brow in status.
Sometimes, though, that catholicism can be used for nasty ends, and this week, I reckon DA crossed the line into overly recondite.
Now, I don’t think any one of the clues above use words of a too obscure nature, but in concert on a single crossword, that’s some nasty work. I would find it difficult to believe that anybody would have known all of the following words and their intended denotations before having done the crossword: talus, susso, Sax Rohmer, coypu, reiki, ted, odeum, sidecar.
I had no idea who or what susso, Sax Rohmer (making the wordplay aural was particularly nasty for those of us who’ve never heard of him), coypu, odeum and ted (I think this references hay, not beer) denoted. That’s quite a long list for a single crossword, and I don’t think mine would have been abnormally long.
Am I just complaining for no good reason? Should I have had a wider acquaintance with the language and trivia referred to and I’m the dunce? Was this crossword a good reason to resurrect an almost moribund category in DA Nastiness?