Title Builder Beta See instructions

Welcome to Title Builder Beta.

This small piece of kit is designed to make building your Quiz, Crossword or Puzzle question more effective. It should make finding your question easier for others and, the easier it is to find, the more likely someone is to answer it!

To build an easy to find question title simply select the paper and quiz, enter the quiz number if relevant and fill in the Publication Date. Once you’re happy click “Build Title” and the information should populate the Title field. Fill in the final required details of your question as you normally would, and click submit.

As this is a Beta we only have a limited number of papers and quizzes listed. If you think your favourite Quiz, Crossword or Puzzle should be listed here don’t hesitate to contact us.

Remember: You do not have to use the title builder - simply enter the title and question as you normally would and click submit!

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Sunday Times Cryptic 5024

Pyxis | 11:41 Thu 09th Feb 2023 | Crosswords

2 Answers

The parsing of this is doing my head in!

7d. “Daydream influenced by a region of France”. (14)

From other letters I got, I know the answer is “Departmentally”. I even checked that answer was correct, and it seems to be. I just cannot work out why.

I know a region of France is a department.
I know ‘de’ means ‘of’ in French.
Does “depart mentally” mean to daydream, making the clue a double definition? That might be the best parsing, but I’ve not come across the phrase before.
Is “department ally” somehow involved? Can “ally” mean to influence?
I can’t find a synonym of “daydream” that fits, or a French Department name that fits.

One other crossword site also seems rather perplexed by it.
As the parsing is the main part of the fun, rather than just getting the word that fits, can anyone shed some light? Thanks