“Onyx” and “clavicle” have no common letters, so getting the first wouldn’t have helped get the second. Also, one reads across and the other reads down, so they couldn’t both have been solvable from the same previous word, nor would they be consecutive clues in either list.
It’s not impossible to do crosswords jumping around like that, but usually there’s some reason why one word leads to another.
(My understanding is that Francis struggles with English and so the Sunday Times crossword is not likely one of his pastimes anyway, but I can suspend my disbelief on that.)
“Onyx” and “clavicle” have no common letters, so getting the first wouldn’t have helped get the second. Also, one reads across and the other reads down, so they couldn’t both have been solvable from the same previous word, nor would they be consecutive clues in either list.
It’s not impossible to do crosswords jumping around like that, but usually there’s some reason why one word leads to another.
(My understanding is that Francis struggles with English and so the Sunday Times crossword is not likely one of his pastimes anyway, but I can suspend my disbelief on that.)