Cheers…

When I left the country, the recent wave of Pakistani immigrants meant that all people resembling them were derisively called ‘Pakis’, and Margaret Thatcher had been voted in for North Finchley, where I have worked at one time, on the promise of ‘dealing’ with them – aagh!

I think the “hidden indicator” is the ‘S, which can be read as “has”.

To be fair, the confusion with the numbers applies to billion rather than milliard. I gave the definition from Chambers to give some idea of the size.

Thanks Big Dave for your usual pictorially entertaining blog. I see that you didn’t give a picture for 5d, unlike a previous time with your tortoises. I didn’t get the parsing of DISPLACE until I got here, although perhaps I should have.

MILLIARD is all very confusing – see billion. I can’t say I have ever seen this expression used in the UK. A thousand million is generally called a billion these days (after the American usage.)

I particularly liked IGNOBLE and SWEETHEART.

I’d never heard of DIWALI but guessed it correctly.

I was puzzled by ASSASSIN as being female because, surely, most of them were males?

Your picture of Nikita and link have not reproduced for me.