Noun, verb or adjective? 1

Jo leaves musical instrument in bar (3)

Ancient Rome's where red gemstones drop brief resolution (3)

Angela's holding stick (3)

Secretly record is too much bother (3)

150 to leave cable in Lincoln shortly (3)

Love playing soccer (3)

Cryptic puzzles often try to confuse you by using words which could be a noun in one context, but could be a verb or an adjective in another. The usual rule with cryptic clues is, if your first thought is that it's a verb, it's probably a noun or an adjective and vice versa. For example, "Bar 50% of public (3)" is phrased in such a way to imply that "bar" is a VERB, meaning PROHIBIT, but it's actually a NOUN meaning PLACE THAT SELLS ALCOHOL (the answer is, of course, PUB, which is 50% of the word PUBLIC). The one- and two-clue puns in the following crossword mostly rely on at least one word in the clue messing with your head in this way. If you enjoy my crosswords, you'll LOVE the Cryptic Mystic's fantastic YouTube channel, which has been kind enough to feature a couple of my crosswords and is THE best resource for cryptic beginners: https://www.youtube.com/@The_Cryptic_Mystic

Really fun, thank you!

Not sure I fully get 1A; I assume ban refers to bar, but I’m not sure what to do with ‘Jo’

BANJO is the musical instrument

Ohhh that makes so much sense, thank you!

I read it as "musical instrument" meaning BANJO and then when JO leaves, we're left with BAN.

I couldn’t think of banjo for some reason haha, thanks!

I didn't fully get 4A but now I think I've figured it out: "Ancient Rome's where" is a definition of UBI (in Latin). For the wordplay, "red gemstones" mean to start with RUBIES, then "drop brief resolution" i.e., remove RES to leave UBI.

Could anyone walk me through the wordplay part of 1D? I see that either end of the clue gives the answer but not sure if I'm missing something or if there's any interplay between them, etc. Thanks!

Hi - there's not really any interplay between them. It's a straightforward two-clue pun, where you're given two alternative definitions of the word [1} secretly record [2] too much bother adjacently. The wordplay (such as it is) consists of the fact that the wording tricks you into thinking that "too much bother" is a noun phrase when it's actually a verb phrase (although it would be quite unnatural to phrase a verb phrase like that - you'd put the adverbial AFTER the verb, give the verb a direct object and say "bother someone too much", so I'm not 100% happy with this clue)

Thanks for the explanation! I do appreciate it. I was worried there was some signifier word (IMO the hardest part of learning to do cryptics) pointing to the double clue that I hadn't picked up on. Wonderful puzzle - these "how to" puzzles of yours are so valuable and helpful.

Thank you so much for such a lovely comment x

Noun, verb or adjective? 1

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