h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So, I've read up on how clues are set, and I wonder if I'm on the right track here.


Beaten pots sounded like opuses! (9)


_ O _ T _ _ _ E _

Although it's not listed in the article, 'beaten' could be a clue for an anagram, and given the O is in 2nd places, that would leave me with Post or Tops. A homophone for opuses could be opposes, so that could mean the word is postpones.
Am I anywhere near the solution?

OK, so beaten =Knock (homophone=noc) but how do you get to the last part?

Dear Bel

Please accept my sincere apologies for not replying earlier. I rarely receive messages here and so I don't often look.

I think one needs to be a bit devious by nature to be good at solving (or setting) cryptic crosswords - not necessarily, though: you couldn't hope to meet a nicer person than my father, and yet he [(almost always) manages to solve all the clues in the Telegraph crossword, every single day... leaving me to struggle with the simple (non-cryptic) one].

Also, you need to have plenty of time to spare - a resource you may not have too much of, in view of your commitment to the etc.

The clue you refer to above could have been made far simpler had I used more obvious sysonyms/descriptions (e.g. 'rapped for 'knocked' and 'vases' for 'urns' but, having taken the trouble to make the clue read like a reasonable sentence, I didn't want it to be solved too quickly . By the way, the homophone indicator covered both words.

You could try to set some clues of your own - it helped me learn, and can be quite enjoyable. I find this site http://cryptics.wikia.com/wiki/Cryptipedia to be helpful, although there are many such resources on the net.

The number of contributors to the cryptic thread has dwindled drastically, so it would be great to have you join in.

'sysonyms' synonyms

You might be wondering what the square brackets are for.... me too!

Thank you Rudi.

Don't worry about not replying sooner, as you can see, I only found your posts just now. I must dash now but will have a look at your link later.

I'm going to be offline for a while too.