Puzzling

I'm very excited to announce my interview with Alan Connor, from The Guardian 's Crossword blog. You may recall that I indexed Alan's book, Two Girls, One on Each Knee , last year .  Alan raised the idea of interviewing me about my CrypticGuide app when I was writing his index — and it has finally come to fruition. CrypticGuide is an app that my husband and I developed over a year — it is a 'slender' cryptic dictionary, with around 7,000 cryptic definitions, abbreviations, indicator words, and homophones. It also includes an anagram solver and wildcard search. It is very much a work in progress, with new cryptic definitions being added to the app over time. If you come across any cryptic terms in your puzzle solving, which aren't in the app, please let me know, so we can include them in future releases! CrypticGuide is available on the App Store . It works on iPhones, iPods, and iPads. Unfortunately, at the moment it is only available for iOS, as ...

This is my explanation of the clues from the Gemini Cryptic Crossword #6639, from The Canberra Times  yesterday (6 June 2013). As usual, the definition is underlined, except in cryptic definition and double definition clues. My new app, CrypticGuide, in use ... it will be ready for release in a few weeks. Stay tuned! Across 1) A Royal in Canadian capital surrounded by a crowd (8) = PRINCESS Nothing to do with Ottawa! A container clue — put IN + C (the capital letter of Canadian) inside ( surrounded by ) PRESS ( a crowd ). 5) Book of plays (4) = ACTS Cryptic definition, of sorts. I guess Book  might refer to the Bible, and Acts of the Apostles. And of course, plays are written in acts too. 9) As you can see it forms a ring (5) = ATOLL Charade, A + TOLL ( ring ), as in the tolling of a bell. And an atoll does form a ring. Maybe an &lit clue? What do you think? 10) Twice mother holds the hat for a revered sage (7) = MAHATMA (Ghandi) Twice mother ...