Sunday Times clue writing contest 1860: Parkour

Good clues

Richard Freeland, Cowbridge, South Glamorgan
It’s French for taking a run with the ultimate element of risk!
Parkour undoubtedly has the potential to be hazardous, and this is reflected here in an all-in-one/&lit clue, in which “French for” indicates POUR, and inside this is A , R=run ,K from “risk”. If you like all-in-one clues, this is possibly your choice as the winner, but if you also value natural English in the surface and logic, this has “the ultimate” which would probably be “a” or “a small” in a real-life version, and “taking” as the containment indicator, which seems a shade metaphorical – if you take something, you can be said to be holding it, but that seems more like holding as in me holding the role of crossword editor than as in holding a pencil. On the other hand, it’s good to see “French for” in the more realistic order, rather than a copy of the order in “the French”.

Lynne Davis, London NW7
Run round estate wanting bit of practice for this sport
This is another clue using “run” to indicate POUR, and this time it surrounds “park” as in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, with the “bit of practice” omitted. You can see “(this) sport” as the definition, or the whole clue when “estate” is one like London’s Broadwater Farm.

Steve Randall, Reading
Sport pensioner rejected seeing extremes of risk involved?
I think the clue as a whole has to count as ironic comment rather than a definition. If you have a good memory for stock cryptic crossword material, you should see sport = RU and pensioner = OAP, and the “extremes of risk” shouldn’t be too hard to interpret either, for the letters to be inserted into the reversal.

Elizabeth Manning, Malvern, Worcestershire
Stop driving car that we own, getting around town on foot
This is a combination of PARK and OUR, with “getting around town on foot” as a slightly understated definition.

John Maguire, Dublin, Ireland
Series of tough challenges for animal sanctuary in flood
In a metaphorical sense at least, “poor” and “flood” are synonyms – in a busy week here, the puzzle entries can “flood in” or “pour in”, so “animal sanctuary in flood” can indicate P(ARK)OUR as well as ARK. The definition is on the vague side, but that allows a convincing and deceptive surface story.

RC Teuton, Frampton Cotterell, South Gloucestershire
Green space provided for the nation’s urban exercise
The surface here suggests long-ago training runs through London’s “three parks”, one of which was indeed “Green”. The wordplay is PARK = OUR = “provided for the nation”. The definition is plain but just a shade vague for the sake of the surface reading.

David Long, Nantwich, Cheshire
Free running rugby gets fair praise from Aussie backs
A sporting surface about the wrong kind of sport is enough to deceive, and as backs in rugby are expected to do some spectacular running, they’re appropriate people for it. As you’ve probably guessed, “rugby” here means RU (though RL should be equally possible), and “fair” indicates OK. And it’s a fact that “rap” and “wrap” in Australian informal speech can mean “(to) praise”, so RAP completes the letters to be reversed. This is included in Collins English Dictionary, so it’s legal, but I’d say more than ideally obscure, and “(A gets B,C) backs” as the linguistic structure involved is something else that’s legal and in this case worth it for the surface story, but less than ideal.

Ciaran Daly, Cork, Ireland
Korean national sport
If someone is Korean, there is apparently about a 50 per cent chance of their surname being Kim, Lee or Park (in the most common Western spellings), so this is a bit like “German” indicating “Fritz”, although none of the Korean surnames are in the dictionary with this meaning yet. To win a prize, some indication of possibility would be needed, though it would be hard to do without diluting the surface reading. I’m happy with “national” meaning “our”, in the same way as “the nation’s”.

Ross Harrison, Dechmont, West Lothian
Set down the procedures allowing skilled people to move freely across regions
“Set down” matches an informal meaning of “park”, and “the” can be equated with “our”, so the wordplay is over in a flash here. The long definition has lots to like, but “regions” seems an overstatement for urban areas, and “the procedures allowing” seems rather formal for an activity which at least gives the impression of tackling physical challenges “on the fly”.

Some comments on other clues

Jams turn city into an obstacle course
I think this clue telling a traffic-related story is intended to be a cryptic definition. I’m happy with “city” and “obstacle course” as elements, but the fact that a group of parkour “traceurs” is called a “jam” is not recorded in our reference dictionaries and has to count as jargon that non-participants won’t know. We could easily use jargon from umpteen activities to help us create convincing surface readings, but if we did, I think we’d also produce unsolvable puzzles.

Green space belongs to us! Take a running jump!
This is fairly obviously an additive clue using PARK, OUR. But the only thing I’m really happy with here is “Green space”. I wondered a little about “that we own” as an indication for “our”, as “(the) car that we own” is “our car” rather than “car our”, but although there’s a change in word order, the meaning is definitely right. The meaning of “belongs to us” is surely “is our(s)”, and I’m less happy with dropping a word than changing order. “Take a running jump” is a verb phrase, and “parkour” is not yet listed in our dictionaries as a verb.

Craze for jumpers, green, bottom half velour
This entry seems to be a first attempt, and the first point to make is that “craze for jumpers” is a definition that fits well in the surface story and seems accurate enough – the parkour participant in our picture is certainly jumping. As the indication for PARK, “green” seems just about OK, given that place names like “Golders Green” refer to something more substantial than a village green. But although one half of “velour” is certainly “our”, I’m reluctant to call it the bottom half, even in a down clue, because I don’t accept the idea used in some crosswords, that the whole of a down clue can be thought of as written downwards. In this clue, “green, half velour” would have been equally plausible.

Upwardly mobile in an urban environment? This is it
Parkour can certainly include upward movement, and is in an urban environment, but for me this is a cryptic definition which doesn’t have enough in it to confirm that “parkour” is the answer. I can remember solving crosswords 30-odd years ago with corners sometimes consisting of vague double definitions and vague cryptic definitions, and having to decide which of half a dozen clues was the most definite and therefore the one to write in first.

Clue writing contest 1863 Pucker

You are invited to write an original cryptic clue for the word above, in Sunday Times crossword style. Email your entry to puzzle.entries@sunday-times.co.uk. The contest closes on Monday, May 10, and the best entry wins £25

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