Wild Asian Ass

Doing the crossword, even if you’re not particularly good at them is one of the greatest pleasures of the Slow Life. There was a time, in days when I seemed to have more leisure, when I always did the cryptic crosswords in the Times and the Telegraph but nowadays it’s the Times 2 crossword, always preceded by the Polygon and the Codeword.

It’s not really the done thing to use a dictionary, and definitely taboo to fall back on the internet. There was a letter in the Times recently from a man who was stumped by the clue “Wild asian ass” (6) and when he googled it, instead of the answer, which is “onager” got a site headed “hot asian chicks shaking love booty”, which put him off the crossword for the rest of the day.
​
Sometimes a crossword clue is so good you don’t forget it. Here are some of my favourites:
Pain (7,5)
g g e (9,3)
Bar of soap (6,6)
To which the answers are, respectively: French bread; scrambled egg and Rover’s Return.