David Alfred Bywaters's Crossword Cavalcade & Fortnightly Victorian Novel Recommender. Every Saturday! Either a new language-torturing puzzle or an old novel by an unjustly neglected Victorian author. Why waste time on other amusements?

Crossword 159: Not According to Hoyle

John Pettie, The Gambler's Victim
John Pettie, The Gambler's Victim

All the clues for this puzzle’s theme bear a sort of sideways relationship to their answers; three of the five themed clue-answer sets appear to make no mention of the theme they jointly imply.  Puns are piled upon, or wedged within, puns. When I made the puzzle I thought this was enormously clever; now I’m half-convinced it’s just annoyingly obscure.

Well, either way, the cost to you is the same.  And even if you don’t like the theme, the fill is full of fun things like animals (I count ten of them, including a fish, three birds, two insects, an amphibian, and three mammals), and foreign pronouns (only two—maybe more next time!).


Download this week’s crossword:

159-Not-According-to-Hoyle.puz

159-Not-According-to-Hoyle.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

159 Not According to Hoyle