Cryptic crossword No 3,156
Mon 23 Feb 2026, set bytpgrammar
Special Instructions: A modern malady has entered the grid and swept through my country, how about yours? (for additional, extra-special instructions, please see the first comment below)
Across
- Purposeful tpg certain to scrap clues in the end (8)
- First ever males accepting help (6)
- Exhausted Rothko rebuffed the German salon's initial requests (6)
- Free spirits drained Limoncello and Newcastle w/ pitted olive special (4,6)
- Losing cocaine in sofa, Earl and Sierra yelped interjections (6)
- Defiant fire destroyed property (11)
- Returned bundle of letters found in old-school Soviet city (4)
- Two-piece band's opening number follows head-scratching tiki islander's intro (6)
- They carry soup in Portugal's heartland with revolutionary scorn (7)
- Observe and put up with Eton eccentric (4,4)
- Whistleblowers take walk to find a place far, far away (5,5)
- Annoy with question in conversation (4)
- Dreamer in Utah quietly cycling (7)
Down
- Money raised for Goldfinger's home? (4)
- Books openings for vasectomy or lobotomy - undecided - maybe either’s sufficient? (7)
- Caught unawares, uncovered wasp, bled and wept (6)
- Competition calls for two priests wearing glasses to sit on belly of lions (10)
- Losing time, wanting third revised script? (11)
- Sounds like you are going through boyfriend's desk (6)
- Heard Billy, the one dancing with himself, is unemployed (4)
- Vintage doll regularly wakened twerp's sister (6)
- Three mines blowing up break into small fragments (10)
- Bypassing channel, quickly left anonymous note on detective's train (4,4)
- Altogether iconic sandwiches - heavenly! (7)
- Superfan, concealing a slippery character, married Superman? (8)
- Rubber head cut from Lynch film (6)
tpgrammar has made 2 changes since publishing this crossword.
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