Thanks for your comment; I do check to see if any of mine get responded to.

Regarding the Scrabble info I gave. I see my new Collins does give Jazzily as a word, as does a very old Chambers that I have. I double checked the official Scrabble dictionary and it definitely doesn’t list Jazzily as a word. Perhaps if there is an official UK Scrabble dictionary that would be in. My wife entered competitions for scrabble many years ago – before she met me – and tells me that for International competitions they have rules to allow words from both the UK and the USA for example. So color and colour would both be accepted. That must mean there is an agreed UK list of accepted words, but I have never seen it.

I find it very frustrating to play scrabble with her too as I always lose. I often put down UK spellings which she ‘challenges’ as we had not agreed to play by ‘International’ rules. Even worse is that she has memorised ALL the 2 letter words. I refuse to use any word that I don’t know the meaning of, or in my opinion is a bit iffy. To have a word such as OE being defined as the ‘local name for a whirlwind in the Faroe Islands’ is a bit much for me. Every time there is a new scrabble dictionary that comes out they brag that they have added another 5-10 2-letter words. They must scour the globe for these. Eventually every possible combination of 2-letter words will be in and that will end that little game!

I very nearly added a comment a few months ago when the conversation was on grammar, which you were very articulate about. I can see the UK blindly following the US on horrible changes to accepted speech and written grammar. For example the adverb is virtually dead over here, adjectives being used almost always instead. It grates on me and I sincerely hope my kids back in Stockport NEVER pick up such bad habits. As both did English at University I have a chance.

Best wishes

Gordon

As has been said before, it’s never too late to make a comment, in that at least the blogger sees it as s/he gets an email of every comment on their blog. It may very well be that no one else sees it – or, indeed that you don’t return here yourself! – but, if you do, many thanks for the personal comment.

My reading of U was the same as yours – in fact, looking back at the blog I see I didn’t even spell it out, since U in Crosswordland invariably means ‘widely accepted’.

Re your doing the puzzles earlier next year: it seems to me that US readers have a real advantage over us here. They can download the puzzle in their early evening and have it finished long before we over here wake up! Anyway, here’s hoping to hear more from you in the New Year.

In the meantime, Happy Christmas!

I took it that ‘U’ as in ‘widely accepted’ refers back to the old method of classifying films. A ‘U’ film was able to be seen by anyone. The alternative mentioned in the blog that ‘U’ is from being as accepted by the Upper Class is inaccurate I think as ‘U’ and ‘non U’ meant what was discussed as being ‘In fashion’ or ‘Out of fashion’ – fashion being what the ‘Sloane Rangers’ did rather than what they wore.

Secondly re: the Scrabble clue. Another twist not noticed by anyone is that JAZZILY is NOT an accepted word in Scrabble – not in competitions anyhow. I have the ‘official’ scrabble dictionary – produced by Merriam Webster and it lists Jazz, Jazzed, Jazzer, Jazzing, Jazzes or Jazzy, but NOT Jazzily. So, if you put Jazzily down you would get 0 points and lose your turn!!

The incorrect definition of 6D also appeared in the Guardian Weekly, which threw me for a while and is not surprising as they regularly make mistakes, most usually by failing to get the setter’s name right, put the setter in at all or miss ‘special instructions’. It all makes for making the crossword, far more difficult. The issue was dated December 3, 2010, so they had over a week to correct this before publication, but didn’t, so it is yet another Guardian ‘balls-up’

By the way Eileen I did ask Gaufrid many months ago to pass on my thanks to you for not only doing the best blogs, but also having the most entertaining comments to other people’s blogs. I’m just repeating this here in case it didn’t get through to you.

Hopefully in the New Year I’ll find time [here is the USA] to do the crossword each day as it appears online so you might get used to seeing more comments from me.

Have a good Christmas or [as they irritatingly say over here] ‘Happy holidays’.

Ridiculously late, I know, but I was enjoying it and reluctant to give up. Thanks, Eileen, for explaining a lot of clues that I couldn’t parse.

The other one was 1A. I was surprised that wasn’t the “typo” Eileen was referring to. I also liked that I had a vague memory of the comedy duo from that earlier puzzle. I was hoping “DYSTAFF” was an alternate archaic spelling, but, sadly, no.

Thanks Paul for the very nice puzzle – wait, did I miss it or was there no cheekiness in this one – and Eileen for the blog, and others for helping with/confirming my two minor issues.

I just love how these blogs go off on such irrelevant topics…

I t could be understood that way, but NOT= no T is quite acceptable on its own, IMO.

Hi Eileen.

As you say in your email, not quite satisfactory

Re my Comment 59: this amended clue is now in the Guardian crossword archive: 6 Old star not widely accepted as deity (6)