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catnipxword.bsky.social
Catnip
@catnipxword.bsky.social
430 followers 570 following 1.9K posts
Learning to set cryptic crosswords at https://mycrossword.co.uk/Catnip. Lover of wordplay, silliness, awful puns, quizzes, etc. Part-time proofreader. Booklover. Bellringer. Accidental runner. I also have a day job.
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catnipxword.bsky.social
That's a coincidence. I was just wondering how Gollum's internship at the Graun was going.
First sentence of an article in the Guardian. It reads: "After Democrats's devastating loss to Donald Trump, the path forward for the party remains uncertain."
November 28, 2025 at 12:40 PM
catnipxword.bsky.social
Interesting to see Spoonerisms in the wild. A bit of research shows that the "Stuck Farmer" slogan is consistently coloured like this.

Even stroppy farmers recognise the need to clearly indicate a Spoonerism.
Young farmers, looking like they might have just stumbled out of the nearest Spoons, holding protest signs including an apparently highly marketed slogan "Stuck Farmer". The colour of the words (ST coloured the same as ARMER, F coloured like UCK) invites the reader to perform a Spoonerism.
November 28, 2025 at 8:16 AM
catnipxword.bsky.social
For the record, 1:45. My watch had me 1:44 something, so I missed an extra landmark by the margin of extra running to get around people. 🥳
A happy and tired Catnip.
November 23, 2025 at 12:18 PM
catnipxword.bsky.social
Yeah, that's pretty close to my view.
Much memed image of a handwritten protest sign, reading "Our expectations for you were low, but HOLY FUCK"
November 16, 2025 at 4:59 PM
catnipxword.bsky.social
Same energy. Not all synonyms are equal.
A 2008 story from OneNewsNow.com (no, me neither) who decided to automatically render the word "gay" as "homosexual" because they thought "gay" was too positive, and wanted to express their bigotry in some small, symbolic way even when reposting Associated Press stories. But a variation of the Scunthorpe Problem led to sprinter Tyson Gay's performance in a race being headlined "Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials", with additional information referring to him throughout as first "Tyson Homosexual" and thereafter just "Homosexual".
November 9, 2025 at 8:41 AM
catnipxword.bsky.social
A Zohran Mamdani sign made to say "Wordplay for Definition"
November 8, 2025 at 10:39 PM
catnipxword.bsky.social
Relevant Simpsons, which lives rent-free in my head:
Homer Simpson speaking to Lisa ahead of her (future, non-canon) wedding in the episode Lisa's Wedding: "You're my greatest accomplishment and you did it all yourself."
October 29, 2025 at 9:57 AM
catnipxword.bsky.social
This rather leapt out at me this morning. 🤔
Top row of Connections for 27th October. The words read, left to right, Only Connect Olive Branch
October 27, 2025 at 7:48 AM
catnipxword.bsky.social
Well hello there, you lovely thing.
My new copy of Unch #1
October 17, 2025 at 1:39 PM
catnipxword.bsky.social
A photo of Peter Cook as E.L.Wisty
October 14, 2025 at 3:14 PM
catnipxword.bsky.social
I had to read this several times before I realised they weren't proposing to relocate unsuccessful benefit claimants to SE England.
Guardian headline, reading: "Tories say people denied benefits in UK can return to home countries" That's countries, not counties.
October 6, 2025 at 9:44 AM
catnipxword.bsky.social
Semprini? Excuse me! This is a family site.
Prof Enid Gumby standing in a street, in the middle of a vox pops saying that he likes to wear an aftershave called Semprini. He was quite rightly arrested immediately afterwards, because you can't allow that sort of filth on TV.
September 27, 2025 at 8:30 PM
catnipxword.bsky.social
It's basically this, all over the place.
Still from Bill Grundy interviewing the Sex Pistols on TV, captioned with his notorious encouragement to "Say something outrageous". Grundy is labelled as "Media" and the Sex Pistols as "Fascists".
September 18, 2025 at 1:32 PM
catnipxword.bsky.social
🧐
AI Overview, which reads: '"Catnip's puzzles" refers to puzzle toys for cats, designed to provide mental and physical stimulation by challenging them to solve problems to get treats or toys. You can expect your cat to engage in natural hunting behaviors like stalking, pouncing, and kicking, leading to mental enrichment and physical activity. These toys prevent boredom, reduce stress, and can even calm anxious cats after the initial euphoric rush from the catnip subsides.'
September 9, 2025 at 6:39 PM
catnipxword.bsky.social
What more could you want from a holiday?
Picture of a table, holding a mug of coffee, a pastel de nata and a book of crosswords.
August 23, 2025 at 11:08 AM
catnipxword.bsky.social
Absolutely, and Minute Cryptic has this in its guide. I must confess, I'm astonished that anyone could think like this when a definition is pretty much universally an unindicated synonym, frequently a devious one. But my failure of imagination counts for little.
Snip from Minute Cryptic solving guide. Substitutions: Substitutions are the heart of wordplay - swapping one word for another to build the answer. These swaps can be full synonyms or shorter abbreviations.
July 21, 2025 at 9:03 AM
catnipxword.bsky.social
Incredible commitment to the wordplay silliness. Could only be improved if the horse turned out to be four of these guys in a trenchcoat.
A picture of a potoo. A brown bird facing the camera full face. Its eyes are large and golden yellow, and appear to be facing out, giving the bird a confused look.
July 19, 2025 at 7:03 AM
catnipxword.bsky.social
Amazing the number of things these sports keep stats on.
Para from a BBC Sport report, which reads: "PGA Tour players hole 90% of putts from four feet. At that time, Scheffler was making 80%. The best player in the world was ranked outside the top 150 in putting and fending off the same questions every week." Just imagine being a top sportsman who's so bad at media duties that you're an also-ran in the all-important "fending off the same questions every week" metric.
July 15, 2025 at 1:48 PM
catnipxword.bsky.social
A stab in the dark.
Simpsons meme. Mr Burns, posing as "Mr Snrub" with an unconvincing fake moustache, with text reading "Hello. My name is Mr Irah and I come from, uh... someplace far away."
July 6, 2025 at 8:38 PM
catnipxword.bsky.social
Yeah, well Ralph Wiggum can top that.
Simpson meme. Ralph Wiggum is talking to his parents: "Mrs Krabappel and Principal Skinner were in the closet making babies and I saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me."
July 1, 2025 at 9:48 PM
catnipxword.bsky.social
Me, trying to catch up with Bluesky this morning.
Simpsons meme, in which Richard Nixon is stumbling to match JFK's endorsement of Duff Beer. Caption reads: "I'd also like to express my fondness for that particular candidate"
June 25, 2025 at 7:27 AM
catnipxword.bsky.social
More like this, surely?
Meme of underpants gnomes from South Park. A gnome stands in front of a board depicting their strategy in three phases. The board reads: Phase 1 - Whatever this policy is Phase 2 - ? Phase 3 - Win
June 24, 2025 at 6:00 PM
catnipxword.bsky.social
There's a debate to be had over whether this is really terrorism, but it's definitely an action that was inevitably going to be dealt with very harshly for obvious reasons.

Welcome to the FO phase.
Peep Show meme. First panel (Jez): What's it like when you're sowing? Second panel (The Handyman, grinning): Ha! It's incredible! Third panel (Jez): And what's it like when you're reaping? Fourth panel (The Handyman, mournful): Ah, it's terrible. It's awful.
June 21, 2025 at 9:04 AM
catnipxword.bsky.social
Not to mention JonBenét Ramsey's killer is still at large.
Satirical Clickhole headline: "Selfish: This man found time to build a birdhouse while JonBenét Ramsey's murder is still unsolved". It's dated April 2017, and I think it's still unbeaten as mockery of a certain kind of terminally online attitude.
June 12, 2025 at 7:31 PM
catnipxword.bsky.social
That's incredible.
Simpsons meme. A fire safety exhibit of Smokey The Bear asks "Only who can prevent forest fires?" And responds to Bart's button selection by saying "You pressed 'you,' referring to me."
June 12, 2025 at 12:29 PM