1. Cryptic Crosswords -A straight and a cryptic clue

For Blaugust this year I decided to publish a series of cryptic crossword posts.
I'm aiming for one a day. Unfortunately for some of the time I will be camping, so I hope to manage this, but it might get a bit tricky if I have no internet access.

Many of our friends over the years have said that cryptic crosswords don't make sense. They certainly do play with your mind, and that is why I take delight in them.  I love the surprising discovery inside a puzzle and the challenge of twisting the usual thought patterns and making them do something else.

So, without further explanation, here is post number 1.

 In a cryptic crossword there will always be both a straight and a cryptic clue. There is usually also an indicator -this is a word or phrase that migot give you a clue as to what you need to do with the other words.  In a simple clue there may not be an indicator, but in a complex one there usually is.

The straight clue is usually at the very start or the very end.

If you can pick the straight clue you can let your brain go and just think of all the words that might fit that clue.  Often you will chance on one that fits the rest of the clue in a cryptic way. That is when you get that "aha" moment which is the joy of cryptic crosswords. Sometimes it even makes you laugh.

We had one that made us laugh recently:

Flighty battle between two boxers? (8)

We spent lots of time thinking about what words might mean either flighty or boxers.
In the end we had a D to start it and I thought about boxers being a breed of dog.
So I tried to fit dog in the front-suddenly I realised that a dogfight was a battle in the air (a flighty battle)-get it?  The question mark was the sign that something a bit tricky was in here.
 In this example a flighty battle was the straight clue
And a battle between two boxers is a dog fight too!