But first, a few things about this puzzle. I didn’t like MORNING GLORY, but whatever, I think I have only ever seen one puzzle in all these years that I thought was “perfect”. And they are free. And the 225 blog often clears up my little “gripes”. And it’s free. And it’s all fun.

Now to the blogging/exegesis of the clues. One thing I do while solving is use a few shorthand techniques (I print from the website and solve on my own paper, btw) to indicate how I parsed the clue, unless it was dead simple, in case when struggling with one it checks I question a letter. I’ll underline anagrams, letters built by charades, etc. This helps when I glance back, I can see instantly that the earlier solution is indeed correct (or a bit iffy, though those usually stay in pencil).

It only takes a couple or three lines to both “quote” the clue and explicate, IMHO.

Now this works perfectly for purely Ximenian clues. But when we drift into libertarian territory, sometimes I have seen clues, especially from The Rev., where I can use every word of the clue in some way, in a more organic fashion, to make the answer make perfect sense – but there’s no way I could “logically” parse them. They are just correct and what they are. I do actually admire such clues, even though they can really stretch the bounds at times.

And a final note about the worry about dear Ximenes and the style… Rufus routinely includes at least a half dozen “non-Ximenean” clues every week, and most other setters also do so, but with lower frequency. Cryptic definitions and double definitions are, by definition, non-Ximenian (unless also &lits?), but no one complains that I can see.

Hi everyone

Thanks as always for the blog, Eileen, and to the Master for an interesting and as always amusing puzzle. And to everyone else for your interesting thoughts and input!

I think I am exonerated by Stella’s comments @ 37!

For me, MORNING GLORY came about from Cat = MOGGY and RN + IN. LOR I simply decided not to bother thinking about. I didn’t know the plant was edible. I’ve heard the seeds can be psycho-active, whether by preparing a tincture or grinding then smoking them I know not.

QUICK OFF THE MARK, here I didn’t understand precise origin of THEM. I decided it was THE + an unfathomable M. Having been a ‘scientist’ in early years QUARK was easy. Interestingly they come in ‘threes’ and the story goes that they were so called after a line in Finnegan’s Wake, “Three Quarks for Muster Mark”. A particle physicist who has read Joyce, quite a thought!

Final point about things that are obvious to some solvers and stump others. Sorry to hark back to an earlier puzzle, but RCWhiting’s “perfectly easy” equation of ’causes small wavelets’ to ‘light breeze’ baffled me even though I had ‘light’ and the crossing letters. My scientific bent had me thinking about ‘packets’ and ‘quanta’ and sometimes it’s hard to ditch an idea no matter how obviously wrong. I solved it by painstakingly going through the alphabet and was glad to get clarification from PeterJohnN

I’ve seen ‘g’ for horse a few times over the years.

My hunt for the pangram certainly helped me to see ‘hYpothesis’, but then the pangram never materialised!

It’s not customary here to go back on a previous day’s blog, but as a novice you’re forgiven.

IMO your latest explanation of MARSEILLES, which I totally missed, is by far the clearest of all those posted, and I’d like to include a belated mea culpa: as a linguist whose first foreign language was French, I should, course, have realised the discrepancy between English and French spellings.

On the other hand, I took “it causes small wavelets” as a simple definition, and it didn’t occur to me to look at the Beaufort scale, so thanks for that – it adds an extra dimension to the clue.

To Arachne, if you’re looking in this late, apologies for not realising so many details, in my hurry to complete the blog

Not wishing to harp on about it, but just as an example, one of yesterday’s clues was “Broadcaster perhaps pronounced French city’s name the English way”. The solution was MARSEILLES. The definition was in the last 6 words, viz. “French ciy’s name the English way.” That is because in French, there is no final S in MARSEILLE. That leaves “Broadcaster perhaps pronounced” as the subsidiary clue, giving MARR (broadcaster Andrew), SAY (perhaps, for example) as the (French) pronunciation of MARSEILLE.
However, many people made comments about the English pronunciation of Marseille, which was mixing up the two parts of the clue, and irrelevant.

Another clue was “Answer to clue? It’s easy, but it causes small wavelets”. The solution was “LIGHT BREEZE”. The definition was “it causes small wavelets”. That is because a “Light Breeze” is the name for Force 2 on the Beaufort scale of wind strength, which is officially described as causing “small wavelets” (Google “Beaufort Scale” if you need proof!). The subsidiary part of the clue was “Answer to clue? It’s easy” which was well explained by Stella.

Sorry Stella, didn’t know you lived in Spain. Buenas noches!

I understand that not all bloggers have the time to produce thorough blogs, but there will always be someone else who’ll help to explain any queries.