3D Crossword Solution – August 2025

Clues by Vlad and Grid by Calluna

Theme: 2 Tone/Two Tone record label founded in 1979

Winner: Sandra Weir of Dundee

Review of the August 2025 3D crossword

It’s high summer, so now is an ideal time to relax in the garden on a sunny weekend afternoon with a glass of white wine and an entertaining thematic crossword. This August (and august) offering is a quintessential 3D puzzle, since it showcases a perfect symbiotic relationship between two people at the top of their game. 

Calluna is, I understand, a two-person team who have been prolific suppliers of thematic grids to the 3D series, having together contributed at least nine over the last three years. Vlad (the Compiler), “the Impaler’s more civilised brother”, has been composing for the Guardian for over ten years and sets also as Tyrus in the Independent and Lato in, among other publications, the Listener.

In the Guardian’s “Meet the Setter” blog series from 2020, Vlad reveals himself as a secondary school teacher (hurrah, comrade!) who lives in Liverpool. When asked what makes a successful clue, he says: ‘I always prefer clues that read naturally and have a meaningful surface. I dislike obscurity for its own sake — the challenge should be to present the familiar in an unfamiliar way, as someone once said.’ That is precisely what he has delivered in this puzzle.

It is difficult to identify a favourite clue, since the quality of the clueing, while not unduly flamboyant, is just so consistently high, blending concision with clever cryptic surfaces. Here are a few examples: ‘Ball bearing swallowed by fish’ for DANCE; ‘Spice Girl finally appearing in Cavern’ for CLOVE; ‘Gunners right-back, one that is extremely competitive’ for RAT RACE; ‘Bristle at current politician’s pledge’ for IMPAWN. Add in a sprinkling of great musically related anagrams (such as ‘CD players’ for CLEPSYDRA; ‘Lou Reed’ for URODELE; and ‘his song’ for HIGSONS) and you have a harmonious feast for the solver.

And so, to the theme: equal credit for the success of this puzzle must go to Calluna. The 9x7x5 grid format allowed them to include such a wealth of thematic material that I am not certain I have discovered it all. Solvers of my generation will be familiar with the TWO TONE music genre (which prompted a smile at the choice of the zebra in the background photograph) of the late 70’s and early 80’s. 

The first band to open up the theme for me was THE BEAT at 37, but they were soon followed by THE SPECIALS, THE SELECTER, MADNESS, (THE) HIGSONS, and (BAD) MANNERS. GHOST TOWN and RAT RACE are songs by the Specials and Jerry DAMMERS is a founder member of the band. As if that were not enough, solvers also had to identify WALT JABSCO, COVENTRY and PORK PIE HAT from the tinted cells in the final grid. Phew, what a tour de force!

Walt Jabsco may have been a difficult anagram for some, but Frank Paul’s drawing might just have helped: LAW backwards with J(ack) in a heartless TAB(a)SCO. 

Altogether, then, a highly enjoyable and satisfying puzzle. Sincere thanks to both Calluna and Vlad.

KM

Grid solution

Visual clue

A judge’s gavel and the scales of justice indicate LAW, which the left arrow tells us to reverse. Added to that is a bottle of ‘heartless’ TABASCO sauce being poured over a Jack from a deck of cards. So remove the middle letter of TABASCO and insert a J to get the name of the black and white 2 Tone symbol:

LAW< + J in TAB(a)SCO = WALT JABSCO

Background image

The backdrop to this month’s puzzle is the two-tone “Zebra Stripes” by Elijah Henderson (CC0 1.0 licence).

Clues and explanations

Thematic solutions are indicated with an asterisk.

Solvers’ comments

As I write this, Rudy (A Message To You) has just come on the radio. As soon as I got Dammers I knew this was right in my wheelhouse. Saw The Specials on their last tour before Terry Hall left us. Fantastic puzzle, thank you! [JT]

Splendid tribute to this genre of West Midlands origin. Walt Jabsco was new to me. [NI]

Fantastic puzzle. And Vlad and Calluna may be interested to learn that one of my sisters was the singer in an early Coventry Two-tone band, and the other sister (AKA Two-tone Tess!) joined her in another, playing the clarinet. [AJ]

Way out of my comfort zone – I’m a brass band girl! Nice clues got me through. [PD]

Not really my area of musical knowledge or taste, but I knew enough to get started and find the theme. Extras 1 and 3 needed research. Some nice words, CLEPSYDRA and URODELE among them. Some nice cluing (clueing?), particularly 36 and 38, but less common containers: “looks after” at 23, “on” at 41. [MJ]

This movement passed me by completely. I guess I’m still stuck in July’s rock and roll era. But to my huge satisfaction I got there in the end. Thanks Vlad and Calluna. [BB]

Great theme, I loved Ghost Town by the Specials, and many other songs in this genre. As usual some words were new to me, but gettable from the wordplay. Thanks to Vlad and Calluna for a fun puzzle. [RS]

Brilliant [LA]

I am embarrassingly clueless about this puzzle’s theme (I choose to blame the combo of my age + 🇨🇦-ness), so I ended up down a deep Wikipedia rabbit hole on multiple occasions. This was an incredibly enjoyable puzzle through and through — heaps of obscure words (for me, anyhow), but all so cleanly and cleverly clued! A handful of my favourites include Days 6, 11, 26, 36, & 45, & Frank Paul’s drawing for the first Easter Egg is a riot!! Finally, I could have sworn there was a vowel between the G and M in “rigmarole”… probably just my brain gaslighting itself 🫠 [MS]

A much more contemporary theme than usual, and lots of interesting clues. Great fun. [RP]

How fun to have two musical themes in succession! These excellent bands were part of my youth, and great to have them all evoked again in a lovely puzzle, with some really elegant clueing. As familiar as this era was, I still learned a few new names (including the name of the symbol). I suppose all crosswords are two-tone! [MS]

That was a lot of fun! A bit of a slow start for us, but when we got HIGSONS (with a couple of crossers, that had to be the anagram’s solution), the theme became clear and the puzzle became easier and very enjoyable. A lot of thematic answers and a satisfying outing. Several new words for both of us this time – which we always view as a bonus. Thank you Vlad and Calluna. [CW]

Glad I grew up in that era. This puzzle brought back many memories of the times (plus I learned some new words….) [MH]

A great theme and happy memories of the music too. Thank you Vlad and Calluna [GW]

Took me right back to hearing Jeremy playing boogie-woogie in the Albany in Earlsdon 🙂 [RE]

A lot of googling was required for this one as I had no idea about any of the bands apart from Madness. There was the usual sprinkling of new words which I always enjoy. My favourite was ettle. [MP]

Not my scene at all, so very educational! [TH]

Interesting puzzle with a theme I was only vaguely aware of, but the excellent clueing ensured I was able to solve (and learned something). [JP]

I’d never heard of SKA Revival, so this month’s challenge really educated me. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, thank you! [SF]

Should I cavil over the use of “culture” in the preamble?… Naaaw. From a position of total ignorance, I had a wild guess at “dammers”, looked it up on the off chance and found a web page that gave almost all the answers, although the “symbol” proved very elusive – I had to resort to anagram-solver and even then I nearly didn’t bother checking on the impossible set of letters it came up with! The nearest I got from the picture clue for that symbol was “JACKET” or perhaps “JACKAL”. There was a brief spell when it became a bit of a grind, but the high proportion of doable and entertaining clues kept me going. All in all very satisfying, informative and witty. [EF]

Brilliant, great subject and well woven clues. This was my era but I did not know the symbol! [SB]

Lovely theme, head full of great music now! Thanks to Vlad, Calluna et al. [JC]

I’m a huge fan of 2-tone so I loved it! Many thanks to Vlad. [SC]

Thanks to Vlad and Calluna. This puzzle led me back to a fascinating and entertaining revisiting of the 2 Tone Music record label and reggae and ska music in general. [RIP Peter Tosh – a tragic life in so many ways but part of a great musical legacy.] I just loved the “black and white” theme symbolised in the zebra photograph! Lots of hard clues and several unfamiliar words, so who knows whether I have a full solve or not this time around? [Just as a point of interest, I notice that these three “Easter Eggs” have the enumerations indicated, thought these were not given for the Easter Eggs in the July Sirius puzzle. If I had only known that the second of the Easter Egg words in that fiendish crossword had only four letters, I would never have made the stupid mistake of thinking the answer was “AROUND” as in “ROCK AROUND the Clock” instead of “ROLL” as in “ROCK and ROLL”. And I would have achieved a complete solve in July if I’d got that right! But now I can’t recall if the usual convention is to give those enumerations or not. But I guess I just have to conclude that all’s fair in love and crosswords!] [JA]

An excellent themed puzzle on a subject I knew nothing about. There were plenty of new words among the non-themed answers too, but everything was fairly clued. It was nice again to have enumerations for the Easter Eggs as well as for the clues. Congratulations to Vlad and Calluna. [AB]

Something’s wrong and I can’t find it! Been through it all again with the hints and tips today but to no avail. Will have to concede defeat and await the solution. Enjoyed it though and it all makes sense to me! Thanks as ever. Special thanks for the personal help with the letter count at day 38. I had left the s off on the written version but typed it in. Now all is well!😅 [HH]
– [The letter count check was missing from Day 38 in the entry form. It should have been impossible to submit the wrong length so it was only fair to point it out and fix the missing check. All part of the service! – Ed]

Thanks Calluna for the memories. Oh Two Tone, how we need you now! [PA]

This was a most enjoyable diversion for a summer evening: the theme came alive from solving day 17, so we had to listen to the biggest hits, find all the great thematic links and look up a couple of rather obscure word with day 16 being the final one to yield. [DR]

Another enjoyable puzzle. Having lived in Coventry in the late 1970s some of the answers came easily, but I soon discovered large holes in my 2 Tone knowledge! I spent some time trying to work out the anagram for Walt before having to resort to Wikipedia! I have an answer for 42 but not so ‘sure’ about the parsing so will look forward to seeing how it is done. Thanks for another good work-out. [SB]

Not our specialist subject, took a while to get into the groove. [J&JH]

Gosh, I loved this puzzle so much! Getting 44 early helped but I had an inkling early on, and luckily I was and still am a fan, so the thematic clues came readily. Many new words (I love that there is a word for a hole in a hedge) but the crossers allowed a satisfying solve. A couple of clues were the laugh out loud kind—Berkshire home, indeed! 🙂 Many thanks to Vlad and Calluna—and a clever photo, to boot! [JS]

Wow! Never thought I’d manage this one but solved it more easily than I thought, before getting to the theme. Funnily enough, it was Coventry and google which led me to that and confirmed some guesses! [JB]

Well clued for the obscure words in the list so could be easily checked. Could only make Walt Jacobs from letters so had to look this up. [DM]

Really enjoyable puzzle – I’m not familiar with this movement but seeing the theme emerge was a lot of fun. I especially liked solving the Easter Eggs. Thanks to all. [BS]

I Learnt a number of new words and bands. [KD]

Loved the theme so that kept me going. Wasn’t sure at first as no idea of when, but once I’d worked out the hat it was on the cards – and some of the clues made it obvious. [JC]

The music was not in my ken, but somehow I get most of the way with help from Google. [MM]

Phew – that was tough! I learnt a lot, having never heard of the theme before and thinking I would be out of my depth. But most of the thematic clues were fair, despite some very obscure answers here and there. [SB]

Complete MADNESS! I’d SELECTER this as one of THE SPECIALS. Liked the TWO TONE zebra. It would be BAD MANNERS to complain about any of it…if I did, I’d get THE **** BEATen out of me and be sent to a GHOST TOWN, Thanks, Vlad and Calluna… [MC]

Excellent [RL]