I wish that the Guardian took the same care over the words and sentiments that are used in the crossword as they do in the rest of the newspaper. Of course, I understand completely that the world of the crossword is a bizarre alternative universe (as I think Sandy Balfour described it?) but it would be a trivial matter to just be a bit more careful to not cause offence. There have been four or five such issues over the last couple of years that I can remember off-hand.

Unfortunately, the crossword editor’s past response to such questions is just completely inadequate:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/2004/feb/02/crossword-editor-update

Yes, it’s difficult to know where to draw the line, but I don’t think that someone who would defend the clue “Are they capped in Ulster?” on the basis that it’s a “joke” is anywhere near drawing it in the right place.

So, my minor complaint about the clue in this puzzle should really be seen in the context of a more general problem that I have with the Guardian crossword in recent years. (I say it’s a minor complaint since in this case the surface reading as a stereotype is obviously ridiculous, and clouded by the odd grammar that the clue’s construction forces.)

(Incidentally, I’m afraid I don’t have much time for complaints about “political correctness”, which is too often used as a pejorative term for honest attempts to avoid causing personal offence.)

Well done, Araucaria.

23d REMUS perfectly acceptable.

Laughed at 17a BOGART.

1a SECULARISATION very good, but I failed to get it.

I should have said more about RAREE, but on Wikipedia it redirects to a rather Not Safe For Work page about Peep Shows, and I didn’t have time to find a better reference. The OED gives these definitions for “raree-show”:

1. A set of pictures or a puppet show exhibited in a portable box for public entertainment; a peep show. Now hist.

2. a. In extended use: an exhibition, show, or spectacle of any kind, esp. one regarded as lurid, vulgar, or populist. b. As a mass noun: spectacular or lurid display. Now rare.

I hadn’t heard of RENDSBURG either, rather disappointingly, since I thought my knowledge of German cities was pretty good from playing the excellent board game “Power Grid” :)

Rishi: I don’t like “of” as connector much either, but I think it just deserves a shrug in this case – I didn’t see the print version, but I don’t think “on” would work in the surface reading.

Lots of good stuff here which has somehow become overshadowed by the debate over 23 down.

Loved the inter connection between 10,11,14.27 across and 5 down.

- Also liked 1a and 1d -more than what I see of Paul’s today, at which I’ve just had a glance….

What’s ‘of’ doing there? Can it be taken as a connector? I don’t think so!

Is it a typo for ‘on’? What was the print version?

Fn re Avuncular. The word means ‘with the quality of an uncle’. It may be purely descriptive of the genealogical condition of being someone’s mother’s brother or father’s brother etc. And/Or it may refer to the quality of such a relationship, and here it usually has positive connotations though there are plenty of wicked uncles about in life and literature. Originally, for what it is worth, the Latin term ‘avunculus’ was literally ‘a little grandfather’ and I seem to remember it referred only to the relatively friendly mother’s brother in contrast to the authoriarian father in patriarchal Roman society.