The World Is Lovely Sporadic trivialities aimed to please

Apis Clue-Writing Competition: PROPELLING

It seems nobody has bothered to complete the last round-up’s very special crossword. I suppose I’ll keep my nonagons to myself.

Entries from spurious accounts are really starting to rival real ones. @Andrew_Taylor suggested a possible reason:

I think that's because 'propelling' is a ridiculous word to clue.

The nail is suffering from severe concussion. But of course, those of you dedicated enough to participate overcame that problem admirably. And because cryptic crosswords naturally attract people who follow a certain kind of lifestyle, this week’s entries were all about sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll.

Sex

Leg and lip involved in dirty porn? Encouraging! (@extraperson)

Spoiler

LEG, LIP and PORN anagram to become PROPELLING, ‘encouraging’.

ejaculating head of penis, thrust with love inside arsehole (@ndrew_taylor)

Spoiler

I’m not really sure, to be honest. I’m getting a bit bored of @ndrew_taylor.

As is apparently traditional, the filthy clues came from Fake People.

Drugs

Pushing proposition 50, about ecstasy, with endless jargon (@Andrew_Taylor)

Spoiler

‘Proposition’ is PROP and ‘fifty’ is L in Roman numerals; they’re around E for ecstasy. ‘Endless jargon’ is LINGO without its last letter. The definition is ‘pushing’.

Topical! Sort of.

Rock ’n’ Roll

Pushing for sound, keeping measure (@stecks)

Spoiler

‘for’ = PRO, ‘sound’ = PING, keeping ELL, ‘a varying measure of length originally taken from the arm’ if you trust Chambers.

Alas, Katie was determined to ruin my already slightly strained presentation and offered a different final submission:

Sending for pin, left leg broken

Spoiler

PRO is ‘for’ again, followed by an anagram of PIN L LEG. ‘Sending’ is the definintion.

Apparently it came to her in a dream. That’s how much she hates effective competition round-up paradigms. It’s a sickness. But at least she tried! Not like these jokers.

Driving forwards with two consecutive changes of direction could make decent circle (@apaultaylor)

Spoiler

‘Driving forwards’ is PROPELLING; if the two L(eft)s changed to R(ight)s, it’d be PROPER RING, ‘decent circle’.

Paul passed his driving test not long ago. I assume this was a celebration.

US currency taken out of support for literacy? Onwards! @frizfrizzle

Spoiler

S ($) is taken out of PRO SPELLING. The definition is ‘Onwards!’, which is a bit dodgy.

A noble sentiment, perhaps, but even if I had wanted to give Friz the prize two weeks in a row his definition was a bit dodgy.

Taking off string lines in table (as in, not tennis?) (Kilbey)

Spoiler

‘String’ = ROPE and LL, ‘lines’, inside PING. I think Paul’s under the impression that ‘ping’ means table and ‘pong’ means tennis. The definition is ‘taking off’.

And so, with a somewhat ropey connection, we come to our winner, nobly submitted by my dad:

Pushing or pulling? Sounds like you should go for rope

Spoiler

The U of PULLING (‘Sounds like you’) is replaced with ROPE, giving PROPELLING, defined as ‘Pushing’.

Dad’s tidy clue also offers valuable advice to all of us, although I’m not really sure how a rope helps with pushing. He wins a mechanical pencil. He might feel a bit shortchanged, but frankly you shouldn’t expect a decent prize in a week when the theme is ‘pencils’.

This week’s competition word – by which, thanks to my laxity, I mean ‘last week’s competition word’, is ASSASSIN, but you don’t really need to know that because it’s far too late to do anything about it. More usefully, this week’s is MARRY. And that’s much nicer.