Danny Vibes vs Maskarade

You really did, didn’t you Crossword? You thought you were better than me, didn’t you? You really thought you had me this time. You printed this bullshit and sat back in your high ivory chair in your ivory tower swirling your brandy in your ivory brandy glass, toasting to evil, thinking no one would get up in your shit this time? WELL GUESS AGAIN FUCKO. Prepare to be viciously raped in the mouth.



You all see that fucking bullshit? Yeah check this shit out. Fuck.

Each clue consists of two parts, run together: the solution to the first part belonging to grid A and the second part to grid B. The initial letters of the 26 solutions in each grid run from A to Z. Of the total of 52 solutions, 26 are of a kind and are not further defined. The initial letters of these 26 themed solutions also run from A to Z, with 14 appearing in grid A and 12 in grid B. The solutions should be entered in the grids, jigsaw-wise wherever they will go.

Get fucked.

A Friendly sailor in a distance race, totally – that is right ( 7; 6) | Amiable; Allier |And so it begins. Sailor is unsurprisingly AB, and a distance race is A MILE, so there we have AMIABLE for friendly. Then totally is ALL and that is stands for IE and right is R for the first of our themed clues. No definition for them, just cryptic. What is the ALLIER, I hear you cry? The first of 26 boring things. Strap in!

B Bottle for Babylonian King – composer dropped small one placed on middle of tray (9; 11) | Balthazar; Brahmaputra |Okay, here’s where the learning starts. Thanks to the internet I managed to find out that BALTHAZAR is one of the three dudes who brought presents to the baby Jesus for the creepiest birthday ever. Wait, that’s not a Babylonian King…oh here it is, let me blow the dust off these pages. Seems that it’s an alternate spelling for BELZHAZZAR, an actual king. Oh and it’s also a biblical measurement of wine. Well what a massive dickaround that was, thanks a bunch Crossword. And that’s only half of it…

Composer is BRAHMS, drop small from BRAHM, one is A, placed is PUT, and the middle of TRAY is RA. BRAHMAPUTRA. What the flying fuck is that, Crossword? Fuck me sideways, we’re only up to B.

C Sugar producer accepts money (mark) in charge of certain irrigation (7; 7) | Cayenne; Colonic |Sugar comes from CANE, and if it takes in the money YEN we get CAYENNE. Are these all a series of peppers? Nearly there. Where it gets trickier is that the mark in brackets ain’t the German money kind, it’s this one : so if it’s In Charge we get COLONIC, a certain type of irrigation. A gross type.

D Bad dream about times frighten Dutch relative (8; 5) | Demerara; Daunt |A bad DREAM isn’t a nightmare it seems, just DEMRA. Put that around times or an ERA and you get DEMERARA, which I thought was a kind of sugar. Maybe they’re all just condiments and seasonings? Is ALLIER spicy, I wonder…BRAHMAPUTRA sounds like it’d be in a curry. Anyway the next word means frighten, so a relative is AUNT and Dutch it seems is a new code for the letter D. I can think of something much more apt that stands for, Crossword.

E Cross in sort of triangle, outside hut Parsee rebuilt (8; 9) | External; Euphrates |I am taking this inanimate piece of paper called Crossword into a science lab and getting all Dr Frankenstein on it, stitching limbs onto it and giving it a brain and a mouth and bringing it to life just so it can suck my dick. Seriously, you fuck?! A sort of triangle?! Eat me. It’s not any of the kinds of triangles we all learnt about at school, like equilateral, isosceles or scalene, and it’s not even the Bermuda triangle. It’s an ETERNAL triangle, which is some love bullshit. Great. Put a cross in and you get EXTERNAL meaning outside. Well shit. At least HUT PARSEE was an anagram so transparent it gave the whole game away for me. The EUPHRATES is a river, like the ALLIER, the BRAHMAPUTRA, the CAYENNE, and the DEMERARA. WE’RE LOOKING FOR RIVERS, PEOPLE! 26 RIVERS FROM EVERY LETTER OF THE ALPHABET! STAY ALERT MOTHERFUCKERS!

F German eleven upset about boy heading off, seen with Fred – oddly, makes on invisible! (5; 4-4) | Foyle; Fern-seed |Never mind, you won’t have heard of half of these rivers, so get Googling. Eleven in German is ELF, which couldn’t POSSIBLY have been clued any other way gee what else does that word mean YOU FUCK and put that about a BOY with its head of you get FOYLE, the river. Oh and remember how FERN-SEED is famously meant to make you invisible? Yeah me neither. Well it does. So you know. Anagram, SEEN with FRED.



G Cast an eye around sort of suit on shelf for group of workers and card-playing opponents (6; 6) | Gledge; Ganges |GLEDGE? Git te fuck, Crossword. GLEDGE? Doesn’t even sound real. A sort of suit must be a G, because a shelf is a LEDGE, giving us this horseshit word meaning look around, but which could mean whatever the fuck because it’s fucking made the fuck up by Crossfuckingword. The themed clue eases up a bit here, a river starting with G comes from a GANG of workers and the East and South bridge playing opponents giving ES for the GANGES. Still…fuck off, Crossword.

H Could be the Ural leader, high in Germany, crashing mini – on heroin (7; 2,3,4) | Herault; Ho Chi Minh |This gave me the dicking around of a lifetime. That fucking comma. Could be the Ural – that’s the river clue. HERAULT, it seems. The leader is the definition of the latter half of the clue. High in German is HOCH, again with this famous love of all things German. Crash MINI for IMIN, and add heroin or H on the end for the leader HO CHI MINH. Balltickler.

I Rather than mix of fine oats with date, males tucked into most of the rice dish (7,2; 7) | Instead Of; Ilmenau |’Rather than’ is an excellently worded literal definition for a clue, especially one coming in two distinct parts with two separate clauses to it, and ESPECIALLY coming from Crossword who is a massive cunt. A mix of FINE OATS with D for date gives INSTEAD OF. Searching for a river beginning with I, we get the rice dish PILAU, or most of it at least for ILAU, and throw males or MEN in for the ILMENAU, which is a fine river, a fine river indeed. Which is, of course, as far as rivers go, which is I don’t give a shit about rivers go fuck yourcrosswordself.

J Katie Price or basketball star from Jamaica I left with fliers for prisoners (6; 9) | Jordan; Jailbirds |Two clues for the undefined bit? Someone’s feeling generous. Or maybe just isolated and desperate. Yeah let’s go with that. The ‘model’ Katie Price is better known as JORDAN, which is the surname of Michael of basketball fame. Also a massive river. Leaving us with a regular cryptic clue, Jamaica becoming JA, I remaining as I, left becoming L, and fliers being BIRDS BECAUSE THEY FLY HAHAHAHAHA and JAILBIRDS are prisoners. Not even halfway. Fuck.

K Branagh cut translation of Kelt Rose for author and political refugee (6; 8) | Kennet; Koestler | Oh even YOU’RE getting sick of it, Crossword! Let’s go through all the Branaghs we know, okay KENNETH and we’re done. Cut it for KENNET, which Google will tell you is a river somewhere. Then ask a friend if they’ve heard of an author or political refugee whose name has the letters KELT ROSE in it and they will hopefully have heard of KOESTLER because I sure as shit hadn’t but then again I’m a vulgar ignoramus so what do I know.

L Plates broken in a meal during Angelo’s siesta (7; 6) | Laminae; Lossie |Reverse the first half for the answer; IN A MEAL broken means plates or LAMINAE. And the river is found during Angelo’s siesta, so start at the L in angeLO and keep going with the SIESta until there’s no more room and LOSSIE is the river.

M Reminders – notes – notes about half of the Russian capital on fashion magazine (9; 7) | Mementoes; Moselle |Yes, notes meaning ME and ME like Do Re Me and then NOTES about meaning NTOES is very clever, but a MEME is a thing now and could have also been a good reference but you are old and out of touch and the clue is bad and you should feel bad. MEMENTOES are reminders, by the by. So we take half of the Russian capital MOSCOW for MOS, and add the fashion magazine ELLE on for the river MOSELLE. Oh boy I bet that’s got water and banks and flows into a larger body of water just like the rest of them WOOOHOOOOO RIVERS

NB That there were no answers JOAN or PHOENIX in this theme is a fucking crime and a wasted opportunity for some excellent wordplay, which let’s face, is the whole fucking point of the game. Slitslapper.

N Back again with artist – no way drink is the cure (7; 7) | Niagara; Nostrum | Hey, AGAIN backwards is NIAGA! And RA is an artist, giving us the river. No means NO, and not just when it comes to sexual assault! Okay that’s the worst thing I’ve ever written here, moving on. A way is a ST and a drink is RUM, combined for the cure NOSTRUM, which I thought was just a latin word meaning ours but there ya go.

O Not impeding progress to a few youth arranged books, getting thanks starting to walk away (3,2,3,3; 6) | Out Of The Way; Ottawa | Anagram of TO A FEW YOUTH for OUT OF THE WAY meaning not impeding. Great, now for the river. Books are the Old Testament because Crossword needs to remind everyone of his views. Live and let live, I thought they said? Ah whatever. So OT gets thanks or TA and the starts to Walk Away join for the OTTAWA river.

P Part of pitch where a player gets tangled with a net – Scotsman after snapshot not having a second (7,4; 7) | Penalty Area; Potomac | I stared at the letters of A PLAYER A NET for ages and only in the closing moments of entering the other clues did I get PENALTY AREA because eat a dick Crossword. Part of pitch? Sure thing, dickhead, whatever. POTOMAC though, leapt off the page! River starting with P? What else? Also a Scotsman is MAC to the racist English which Crossword definitely is, and a snapshot is a PHOTO, not having a second for POTO. Racist!

Q Witty remark to a Republican standing in line at gardens’ annexe, we’re told (6; 7) | Quipar; Queuing |Not even a fucking river I don’t think. Google sure searched far and wide and all it found was a misspelt Spanish settlement. But there’s a river there so fuck it. A witty remark is a QUIP and a Republican is A R, just like Dutch is now just D. Shithouse. Second bit’s not bad though, a gardens’ annexe, we’re told? KEW WING. Or QUEUING, meaning standing in line. ¡Me gusta! Entonces.



R Awfully virile Nationalist will talk and talk, country walk having started (7; 6,2) | Rivelin; Ramble On |What is with the initialling of whatever the fuck? Nationalist just becomes N, making RIVILE N awful for the RIVELIN, which is about as good an anagram as Jeremy’s Iron. But to talk and talk is to RAMBLE ON, a country walk being a RAMBLE and having started meaning to be ON. Just like Crossword always is, aintcha pal?! *slaps back, Crossword spills drink on self*

S Apostle’s Oxbridge college badly gilds the one window next to door (2,5; 9) | St John’s; Sidelight | Well, it’s either gonna be St Mark’s, St Luke’s, or as a quick search through Oxbridge college names will tell you, ST JOHN’S. Then anagram GILDS THE I for SIDELIGHT, which is not the thing Crossword said it is but will have to do. Maybe it’s an English thing that never made it to the internet because you know how the British mind their own business and keep to themselves and never venture off their island or impose their stuff onto others ever.

T Redhead in temporary shelter making auction bid for a couple of baseball fields (5; 3,8) | Trent; Two Diamonds | I’m not even checking that the TRENT is a river, Redhead is R and a temporary shelter is surely a TENT. Okay moving on, this auction bid is not for a house, but for a hand of cards. A couple of baseball fields are TWO DIAMONDS, a solid bid in bridge. NEEEEEERRRRRRD *gives wedgie*

U Upper-class loo with cloth cover is brought back, not measured, remounted incorrectly with bits of gold missing (8; 7) | Ullapool; Unmeted | Hey Crossword, now is a better time than ever for you to get fucked. From here on, you’re clutching at straws. Not even straws, you’re clutching at the straw-shaped cloud of smoke left behind from when the straws at which you were once clutching were rapidly torn from within your grasp. What I’m saying is for each of the letters U to Z, you can get fucked, so that’s twice for six remaining letters, so that’s you getting fucked a dozen times before we’re finished. And then I’ll have more to say.

Oh incidentally in case you’re wondering, Not measured is the literal, which is made from REMOUNTED incorrectly without bits of gold, meaning OR here for Spanish reasons I think. And ULLAPOOL is a river starting with U, and loo is in it backwards plus some other shit.

V Word picture that’s on a banknote and volume from Gaul – not half! (8; 5) | Vignette; Volga | VIGNETTE must be something on a British banknote. Who cares. Take half of the words VOLUME and GAUL away and you get VOLGA, which is…wait for it…yeah that’s right, a fucking river.

W Rainbound Grand National fence with fancy gold awning (5,4; 8) | Water Jump; Wanganui | Actually forget what I said, you can get fucked twice for each of these, for a total of fourteen times. Rainbound, which usually means nothing at all, here means the words WATER and JUMP, which is a type of fence you’ll find in the Grand National horse racing event. Steeplechase or some shit. Seriously twice the sodomy for you for that one. And WANGANUI officially has an H in it, but this must have been such a clusterfuck to construct that you thought it would be fine to make some shitty half arsed anagrams to solve, right? Because it’ll be EASIER and MORE OBVIOUS if you don’t use the official spelling, right? Cuntwit. AU for gold and fancy AU AWNING for the answer.

X Ten popular leading extracts from Guardian copies about sex and love with king (5; 7) | Xingu; Xeroxes | Reeeeally scraping the barrel here, Crossword. Ten is X because what else was it going to be when the answers both start with X. Popular is IN and the leading extracts from Guardian are just GU. Great, XINGU is a river. And SEX and love or O and king or REX is SEX-O-REX, which sounds like some fucked up dog mating service, but backwards it’s just XEROXES for copies. Oh.



Y Go back into nomads’ tents for desserts during holiday on Nevis (7; 5) | Yogurts; Yonne | Nomads tents are YURTS, so there’s that to find out first. Then put GO backwards into it for YOGURTS, which is apparently how the English are spelling YOGHURT now. First they say it wrong, then they SPELL it wrong, and now they’re telling me it’s a dessert food?! You have it on muesli for breakfast you fucking idiot. Go have some chips and warm beer. Now for the next bit find the letter Y and then take the four letters following it from holidaY ON NEvis for YONNE. One left.

Z Once, after a bit of sleep, by Yorkshire dale, Zulu eats out, composing letters (5; 5) | Zaire; Zetas | Two possibilities for this one’s reasoning: once is A, a bit of sleep is Z, and the ‘dale’ from YorkshIRE is the final third of it…OR, and which I suspect is more likely, once means ERE, and maybe people from Yorkshire would say it to make it sound like ZAIRE. Either way, it’s a river. Zulu just means Z, like Dutch means D and Nationalist means N and Crossword and Cunt are both C words. EATS out afterwards makes ZETAS, which are letters. Holy mother of shitballs, we actually did it. PS Lolz eats out rofl.

Okay…those are the answers. At first I thought you had to solve them all before fitting them into the grid, but the lengths of the clues are a help. There’s only two clues in each grid that are 11 letters long. Even just having one of them should tell you which way it goes. I got OUT OF THE WAY first, and running it across meant that the second down clue would end in a U, which is less likely than an 8-letter across clue starting with a U, which we know is the case. Same deal for the second grid with TWO DIAMONDS, which is more likely to go down so there’s an across clue of 8 letters starting with a W. Once you have a handful in, you can work out the starting letter of certain clues from the lengths, and with a few cross letters everything starts to fall into place. For the final placements, see below. I’m going on holiday.