Trying to think like a cryptic puzzler

Having recently immersed myself in David Astle's book Rewording the Brain, I keep noticing the intricacies of words as I see or hear them.

Just for my own enjoyment I'm going to keep a list here of ideas that pop into my head. I'm intending to come back to this post and add to it.

So...
prancer - Topless dancer uses PR to become a famous hoofer.
emulate - copy a bird dead (Hmm... this one doesn't really work, but I'm having fun.)

Okay... this is all a bit harder than it seemed at first.

emulate - successfully rival a bird left devoured. Nope, not going well. I wonder if I could somehow incorporate the word port, as in the left side of a ship.

Bird left and dined. No, now I'm missing the vital clue as to the entire meaning the answer.
Wait a minute... Rival bird left and dined. I like that.

Let's try another one.

sourdough - spiteful Doug initially has bread. That might work. I'll have to reread the chapters on types of clues and on the use of uppercase letters in a clue.

kith - friends help with a set of tools

A search of Macquarie Dictionary surprised me on this one. I thought 'kith and kin' meant family, but it turns out kith means acquaintances or friends and only the word kin means relatives.

Now, just as I'm about the stop writing here, I've noticed the word beet blutacked to my wall. What about that one? Bee has a drink.
But how do I work in the overall meaning of beet?
Et means and in Latin.
Or I could make it a container clue (page 115 of Astle's book) with bet containing the letter e.

No, I must make myself stop right now and get back to reading the book.

Cryptic crosswords as food for the brain

A friend bought me a copy of David Astle's new book, Rewording the Brain and I'm loving it.

It's written in three sections. Part One discusses the value of puzzling for maintaining brain function. Part Two is an examination of the main types of clues we could expect in a cryptic puzzle. Part Three is a selection of puzzles with ascending levels of difficulty plus assistance in solving them.

I'm particularly grateful for the section at the end of the book with solutions and an explanation for each as to how the answers were achieved.

For years I've been enjoying cryptics in our local newspapers, but don't usually attempt David Astle's puzzles because I thought they would be too difficult for me. Perhaps after working my way through the fifty examples in this book I'll be brave enough to attempt his weekly one.

in his book David Astle mentions The Big Issue, our local street magazine. The Big Issue has a cryptic crossword each fortnight, and the puzzle is always accompanied by a 'straight' version, so you can look across at the ordinary clue if the cryptic one has you puzzled.