Guardian 28,389 / Tramp

115 comments on “Guardian 28,389 / Tramp”

1. Thoroughly enjoyed this esp the long anagrams and was delighted to find that udder clue types are available

2. Very enjoyable. I particularly liked SHUFTIS as it reminds me of my dad. Here’s a short article on the origins of shufti, together with an appropriate clip from Beyond The Fringe.

   I also liked 8d, for the excuse to revisit ‘The Recalcitrant Cow’
   There was a farm in Huddersfield
   That had a cow that wouldn’t yield
   The reason that she wouldn’t yield
   She didn’t like her UDDERS feeled.

   Thanks to Tramp and Eileen

3. Excellent test this morning from Tramp. I did wonder whether his first across clue signalled a crie de coeur from a setter who’s had his share of criticisms? If so, then he’s met his detractors full on with some first class clueing today. Lots to enjoy including the two long anagrams – 1d is a cracker and 6d shouldn’t have been so tricky, given my younger son sat a mock A Level in the subject yesterday. I loved some of the misdirection – COLONEL for rank, ASKS instead of the more obvious ‘sits’, ENTER for put down in ASSENTER, for example. The cheeky SEX ACTS, THRUST STAGE which was new to me but could only be that, SLAP UP which, again, misdirected me and the delightful SHUFTIS all earned ticks. Hard to pick a favourite: ROLE MODELS was LOI and I liked the watch device, AMUSE is clever and I didn’t spot the reversal for ages but TAKE A BOW should probably steal the applause as COTD for the ‘giving it up’ .

   I did wonder if there was a cheeky mini theme of ‘making the earth move’? SEX ACTS, PENETRATE, THRUST, LIKE MAD and SAN ANDREAS FAULT. There may be others.

   One gripe only: as Eileen says, Tramp seems to regularly use McDonalds to stand for M and it surprises me that no-one complains (other than me!) I get it: the golden arches logo, in the shape of an M, is the key. But, if I encounter a simple letter M, not for one moment does it make me think McDonalds. (Or, for that matter, Metro, Morrisons or Motorola). Like a single F doesn’t make me think Facebook or a single G Google. Doesn’t work for me but I accept that’s a personal stance.

   Thanks Tramp and Eileen

4. Great puzzle! Like others, I suspect, my LOI was SHUFTIS. Favourites were ROLE MODELS, GAFFE and UDDERS, and I enjoyed the long anagrams. Many thanks to Tramp and to Eileen.

5. This was a straightforward solve, only held up at the end by PERM, which I guessed but couldn’t parse. I thought SAN ANDREAS FAULT was just wonderful and I also liked SHUFTIS, which might be unfamiliar outside the UK? LENTIGO and THRUST STAGE were new. I also liked the superfood, AVOCADO and BOX OFFICE.

   I gulped at the clue for COMPUTER SCIENCE, as I was listening to the breaking and deeply disturbing news about the missing girl London. Just one of those horrible coincidences.

   Ta Tramp & Eileen

6. PostMark@3 – Yes, M doesn’t necessarily make one think of McDonalds, but McDonalds does make one think of M!

7. Thanks TRamp and Eileen
   I was on Tramp’s wavelength today and it all went fairly quickly, though I didn’t parse PERM or see ROLEX in the next on.e Favourite was SAN ANDREAS FAULT. I also enjoyed being able to create the unknown THRUST STAGE.

8. Another lovely start to the day. Good week this. Thanks Tramp and Eileen.

9. Just like AlanC @5 I guessed PERM so thanks Eileen for the parsing. And I too thought SAN ANDREAS FAULT with that wonderful surface was brilliant. COTD. Thanks Tramp.

10. I really enjoyed today’s puzzle.
    Like others, for me, ‘perm’ and ‘shuftis’ were the last to fall and be parsed.
    Thanks to Tramp and Eileen.

11. For Tramp, I found this easier than I expected (certainly easier than Vlad yesterday), but it had its tough spots, notably PERM which I never got: I shall have to add the McDonald’s trick to my etui. It’s only a more egregious example of my old pet peeve, Any Word Can Mean Its First Letter (see AVOCADO for example, though I’m sure they are all justifiable).

    LENTIGO and THRUST STAGE were new to me but gettable. Liked the two big anagrams, and especially TAKE A BOW for a lovely twisty definition.

12. Thanks Eileen, not familiar with Tramp so needed you to explain PERM (and the end of ASSENTER) but will look out for more as this was very enjoyable – some great surfaces, a few obscure definitions but clued clearly (Jorum aplenty, even the anagram for THRUST STAGE) and cunning wordplay for sneakily but fairly defined solutions being my overall impression, plus lots of amusement. Now trying to recall if I know SHUFTI from Only Fools, Minder or somewhere else entirely. Can’t decide between the SAN ANDREAS FAULT and SEAMSTRESS for my favourite, thanks Tramp.

13. Could 13a be referencing this ? https://metro.co.uk/2018/02/23/called-meet-mcdonalds-haircut-7336444/

14. Good to see Bodycheetah kick of the phonopuns. Yep, nice puzzle, loi per m as for some udders. Shuftis is cute, no prob to an Oz of a certain age. (Take a gink, probably Oz-only, is even older, and have a scrute is inter-war Sydney push-ish). All part of the fun. Thanks both.

15. Lovely puzzle held up by LOI PERM, which was a guess and check, not understanding either the defn nor the parsing. AlanC@5 this NZr is familiar with SHUFTI. Fav was SAN ANDREAS FAULT but there were lots of ticks including for neat misdirections mentioned by others. Ta to Tramp and to Eileen

16. Does anyone remember the older generation doing the Pools: “perm any three from 8”.

17. We need a futile gesture at this stage. Pop over to Bremen, take a shufti, don’t come back. Beyond the Fringe

18. gladys @16 Yes, PERM also made me think of The Treble Chance.

19. Yep, saw that page, John @13; had Tramp? Wouldn’t be surprised.

20. Yes, pleasant amenable puzzle today. (initially had doubts about get put down = ENTER, but OK with it now)

21. After yesterday’s amazing DNF/DNK, today was a lovely! I remember my grandad using the phrase “let’s have a quick shufti” so it was fabulous to see that come up and brought back some lovely memories for me. He had been in the Port of London Police in the late 50s/60s after serving in the Army in the war (in various interesting places, some of which are only coming to light now…) and consequently had a strong command of Polari so “shufti” and “vada” were in common usage…

    [Bodycheetah @1: You could go in an-udder direction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML-P1eLE_-Y ]

22. MB @21: unforgivable 🙂

23. Tramp in mild mood this morning. I couldn’t parse PERM (although I have visited the city!) and ROLE MODELS was LOI for no good reason. Didn’t realise THRUST STAGE was obscure and I occasionally say SHUFTI myself. LENTIGO was new to me but easily derived.
    Thanks to Tramp and Eileen.

24. I was VERY DNF yesterday (good old Vlad), so this came as a pleasant relief. I do enjoy Tramp’s wry take on wordplay without being as convoluted as Philistine or Paul can be.

    I particularly enjoyed SYMPATHETIC and REBUSES today, although I suspect the latter is close to the venerable Old Chestnut territory.

25. Thank you to Tramp for another fine puzzle to cheer up a grey and stormy day

    Thanks also to Eileen for the blog

26. Ta for the blog.

    I thought that the puzzle was a curate’s egg, with some pedestrian clues and some head-scratchers. Completed without aids, although guessed PERM LOI – I guessed (John @13) that a MacDonald’s was some hairstyle … seems rather better than M for MacDonalds.

27. Enjoyed this one – it flowed a little more smoothly than most Tramp puzzles but still enough trickier ones to make it feel like a challenge.

    Thanks to Tramp and Eileen

28. Quite fun and easy, but I gave up on 13ac PERM and could not parse it when I saw the solution to it. Does M = McDonald’s? If yes, I am not too keen on this clue.

    Favourites: SEAMSTRESS, SEX ACTS, GAFFE, SYMPATHETIC + SAN ADREAS FAULT (these two were solved and parsed later).
    New words for me today: THRUST STAGE, SHUFTIS.

    Thanks, Tramp and Eileen.

29. [AlanC @22: Sorry 🙂 ]

    And apologies because I missed my thanks to Tramp for a fun puzzle and Eileen for a fabulous blog.

30. An excellent puzzle from Tramp – the two long anagrams are splendid but there was much more to enjoy. My only quibbles are the egregious Golden Arches, and that I’m not entirely comfortable with ‘like’ = ‘peer’ – I can see the semantic relation, but I can’t think of a context in which the words are interchangeable. However that didn’t detract from the pleasure in solving this one.

    Although a DNK for some of us, my FOI was LENTIGO! (And the last was PERM).

    SEAMSTRESS reminded me of the comments we often have about occupational names which can be construed as sexist. But there is no such thing as a ‘seamster’ I thought to myself smugly, only to find that the word does in fact exist….

31. I was motoring along quite happily until I got to 24a, where the (to me) offensive ‘paddy’ brought me down with a thud.

    The rest of the puzzle was fun, though I thought 10a rather sloppy with the extraneous ‘needs’.

32. Yes, another good one from Tramp.

    Like John @13, I found the ‘Meet me at McDonald’s’ haircut, although I agree with Eileen’s parsing. When I saw ‘sewer’ in 16, I immediately thought of SEAMSTRESS, must have done too many cryptics recently.

    I liked COLONEL, SAN ANDREAS FAULT and ASSENTER (as others have said, nice use of ‘put down’ for enter).

    Thanks Tramp and Eileen.

33. I loved SAN ANDREAS FAULT which just leapt out at me. I was very surprised to learn that so many commenters here have never heard of a THRUST STAGE [I was seated right next to one for the Kinks juke box musical Sunny Afternoon – a wonderful position]. Also suprised, GinF @14, that Aussies of a certain age (and I think we have established through a Pentangle concert that we are of similar ages) would know SHUFTIS – definitely a NHO for me (and LOI). Thanks, Tramp and Eileen.

34. Gervase @30 – how about Hamlet’s
    ‘He was a man. Take him for all in all.
    I shall not look upon his like again.’?

35. I enjoyed this though I was some way away from PERM. I hadn’t realised the offensive connotations of “paddy”. I think my father was the last person I heard say SHUFTI, so that was a nice memory.

36. I would have called the thrust stage an apron stage. I’ve looked on Wiki and the descriptions of each sound pretty much the same, though oddly the entries don’t reference each other. Is there a difference?

37. Enjoyable, though the parsing of PERM was a bit of a stretch.

38. An excellent puzzle and blog – thanks to Tramp and Eileen, whose help I needed to parse PERM where like AndySmith@26 I went for “a McDonald” being a perm – as in Liz McDonald in Coronation Street. Other than that everything fell into place, although the ENTER part of 15d took a while. 1d was a great surface and ASKS got my double tick for the surface misdirection which suggested SITS as the obvious, but unparsable, answer.

39. poc @31: I’m Irish as well and I can’t see any suggestion that ‘paddy’ was anything other than huff. Such a shame it ruined your enjoyment.

40. me @36
    Sorry, checked again . The Wiki on apron stage does say it’s the same as thrust stage.

41. Lovely crossword, thank you Eileen. Nice to see a word like shufti. Thrust stage was new but very well clued so fair enough.
    Perm turns up in Permutations and Combinations in statistics, I do not like to grumble about clues so let us just say this one was below the standard of the rest.

42. AlanC@39. Does the word paddy meaning a huff have any Irish reference at all ? I have never thought about it before. Paddy is widely used to describe toddlers having a tantrum.

43. Eileen @34: Thanks for that – it does work, albeit somewhat archaically!

    I’ve come up with another grumble about PEER: ‘per’ is not a synonym of ‘a’, although Eileen correctly identifies how the construction works. ‘£10 a kilo’(or indeed ‘£10 the pair’) is an idiomatic expression in which the preposition is omitted – you can equally well say ‘£10 FOR a kilo’. ‘Per’ is never followed by an indefinite or definite article, presumably because the expression is borrowed straight from Latin, which has no such determiners.

    Despite that, I have to admire the clue for its great surface and ingenious construction. Naughty but nice?

44. muffin @36/40: yep, as you say wiki suggests ‘apron stage’ can be another name for ‘thrust stage’. But in my mind a thrust sticks out further than an apron, and that seems to be backed up by this article on the redevelopment of the RST in Stratford. When I first went there it was a conventional proscenium-arch stage, with only the tiniest protrusion jutting out into the audience. Then in the 1980s (I think) ‘the stage was extended beyond the proscenium by means of an apron’. Then came the big Transformation Project, completed in 2010, which incorporated a full-blown thrust.

45. G @43 I guess words can be fungible without being synonymous? Esp in a cryptic

46. Thanks essexboy @44. So the thrust is a more extreme version of the apron? I wonder if it was an American idea!

47. Gervase @ 43 – you seem to have confused your PEER and PER(M). 😉

48. Roz @42: I always assumed it was a shortening of Patrick. When I first came to England in the 80s, I was called it a lot and I found it lazy rather than insulting. I never hear it used these days thankfully.

49. Gervase @ 43

    “The meal cost £20 per / a head” seem interchangeable. “The meal cost £20 for a head” has somewhat grisly connotations, to me anyway.

50. muffin @46, that’s how I think of it, but others may know better. Of course the idea of performers being ‘thrust’ out into the midst of the audience is an ancient one, and is the pattern for Shakespeare’s Globe (original and modern).

    Incidentally, writing thrust so many times makes me think PM had a point with his mini-theme @3. Especially with tickle in the clues and slap in the answers. And what’s that fella doing? 😉

51. Muffin @ 36 & 40 I have seen the Wiki entry on ‘Apron Stage’ to which you refer, but I think the equation of the two is dubious. An apron stage is, as the Wiki entry properly defines it, a forward extension of a basic proscenium stage. I have always, albeit perhaps misguidedly, taken a ‘thrust stage’, as at the Swan in Stratford-upon-Avon or as in the illustration to the ‘thrust stage’ article in Wikipedia, to be one where the entire stage action takes place on a stage with an audience seated on three sides, with the ‘side’ spectators sitting at right angles to the ‘straight-ahead’ spectators. Maybe ‘usage’ tends to conflate the two, but I think (again maybe mea culpa) that in terms of theatrical dynamics they are distinct. If there is an expert on physical theatre out there among the commentariat, please clear this up.

52. Sorry AlanC , I did not express myself very well. I know the term Paddy can be offensive in some uses. I just do not know if paddy meaning a huff or a tantrum has the same connotations.

53. I think the “A” in 4d is superfluous.

54. Much more straightforward than Monk and the usual stamp of excellence from Tramp.
    But the only DNF for me. I really couldnt be bothered sifting through the possibilities for 13
    And no tea tray or sense of shame when I saw the answer
    Thanks Tramp and Eileen

55. POC @ 31 I don’t like the use of the word ‘paddy’ here either. I think it’s right to push on this, principally because I don’t think most people connect this sense of the word with negative Irish stereotypes at all, and, according to OED at least, that IS the origin of this sense, and it is a derogatory one too. Like Roz @42 I know I was actually surprised to learn that the two were linked – it’s now used widely, especially of toddlers without question or connotations of Irishness. However, that doesn’t make it harmless, and the history of a word does matter; I don’t think it should have been used.

56. eb @50: I don’t try to milk a response but I was mildly surprised, given some of our unashamedly risque commenters, that no-one at all had picked up on my – admittedly mischievous – suggestion. I mean it as a compliment to Tramp that he’s one of the setters I could imagine doing such a thing, getting away with it and not being hugely bothered if he didn’t. I did spot your wink-worthy candidate. There may be others.

57. Thanks to Tramp for a nice workout and to Eileen for the personal training.

    Enjoyed all the chat about SHUFTIS (is the plural allowable – I mean would it ever meaningfully be used?) but the one that caught my eye was SLAP-UP which I have only ever seen in conjunction with “feed” and then only in (if memory serves) Billy Bunter books so a long fetch for any transpontines among us.

    I see the equivalence of BOX OFFICE and “public appeal” but only if I hold it up to the light and view it through a mirror. And is the adjectival SYMPATHETIC really the same as the noun “feeling”. But these are quibblets – a most enjoyable stretch on the rack for the most part.

58. Offspinner @ 53

    ‘A Greek’ points you to a person: ‘Greek’ would, I think, point you more towards ‘Hellenic’.

59. Guessed PERM from “change the order” but to try to justify I googled “mcdonalds perm” and learned that there is a town called Perm 1000 miles east of Moscow – with a McDonald’s!

    Isn’t ASKS=poses relying on “ask a question” = “pose a question”, which has the same issue as red=London from “red bus” = “London bus”? I know this was some time ago, but I think the community agreed it doesn’t work.

60. [Dr. WhatsOn @59
    The town of Perm gives its name to the Permian geological period, so it’s probably upset that it isn’t better known!]

61. ( Spooner’s catflap – Lord Jim, who else, found a usage of character to mean reference in Conrad, he just beat me to it. It is in The End of the Tether, right at the start of chapter lX . )

62. Came late to this, but thought it excellent and rewarded the time spent unravelling some quite complicated cluing today. Thought that several were gettable simply by the strong definitions within the clue, or at least they gave very helpful pointers. Strictly a DNF, as I gave up on PERM and SHUFTIS as it was time to move on to other things…

63. […not to be confused with the (now thawing..help!) permafrost, presumably..]

64. Alphalpha @57 – I shared both your queries initially but found, for BOX OFFICE
    Collins: the public appeal of an actor or performance
    Chambers: ability to draw an audience; an attraction as judged by the box office
    and SLAP-UP
    Collins: (esp of meals) lavish, excellent, first-class
    Chambers: first-class, lavish, sumptuous.

    PostMark and essexboy, I think you’re right – just sorry I missed it. 😉

65. I suppose if you search hard enough you’ll find something offensive somewhere. I wonder if the Chinese are insulted by paddy field?

66. Many thanks, Eileen, for the superb blog and thanks to all for the comments.

    I might limit my use of McDonald’s for M in future as it is a little difficult. “A fiver a/per head” seems reasonable to me and I will continue to use that.

    Thanks

    Neil

67. Tramp @66: thanks for dropping by, and for some great entertainment. As I said, I think that clue is very clever, but I still don’t like using the indefinite article to clue a preposition. However, if you continue to use it I promise not to complain again! Keep up the good work.

    (‘A fiver a pair’ and ‘a fiver the pair’ can mean the same thing, but if anyone clued THE as ‘a’ I think more eyebrows than mine would be raised!)

68. Used up considerable time at the end trying to fit something into S*U*T*S. The distraction drove me to the web where I tentatively chucked an I into the last * and got my reward. Some of that time I’d been pondering whether the paddy might have been an Irishman, but I’d long discounted that because neither the Guardian nor Tramp would be so crass. And I was right.

69. Alphalpha @ 57

    Feeling can also be adjectival: “X is a feeling person”.

70. I had no hope of ever parsing PERM. Thanks, Eileen.

    This meaning of paddy was new to me.

    Penfod@2 — I tried to play the Beyond the Fringe sketch, but couldn’t find a link.

    [I lived for 14 years in San Francisco over the San Andreas Fault. I was out of the country during the big 1989 quake, but experienced several others — once I woke up to see the hanging plant swinging in its heavy pot right over my head! Not a mistake a native San Franciscan would make. I moved it pronto.]

    Discussions of “per” (above, passim, especially Simon S@49) remind me of the great Stanley Holloway and “Per tuppence per person per trip,” at
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqmVWOaBD14. (Apparently there’s a way to make long addresses into short links, but I don’t know the spell.)

71. Thank you Tramp for a fun puzzle and Eileen for a helpful blog.

    I failed to parse PERM, the reference given by John @13 was interesting!

    AVOCADOs are supposed to be aphrodisiacs, and the original form of the name meant testicle,
    Aztec ?huacatl …

72. @71 the ? is meant to be an ‘a’ with a line over it…

73. I’ve always known Perm as short for permutation and originated in the 1950s in football pools, always remember writing “perm any 8 from 11”
    on my fathers’ coupon before sending it off on to Vernons. Never won anything
    Perhaps Tramp has a history of football pools
    Thanks to Tramp and Eileen

74. Box office = public appeal: an actor whose public appeal has declined is said to be “box office poison”.

75. Gervase @30 – the original derivation of “seamster” was from “sempster”, for “a woman who sews”. So women have first had the term taken away from their exclusive use and then been excluded from it altogether by the dubious invention of a supposedly female counterpart. Definitely time for an end to SEAMSTRESS.

76. Alan @65: paddy fields are named from the Malay word “padi”(rice) and therefore have no possible connection with Irish-related offensiveness.
    I think the other “paddy” goes back to the 19th century Irish navvies’ reputation for being able to start a fight in an empty room: I leave it to the Irish to decide how offensive they find it today.

77. [Valentine @70, thanks for the Stanley Holloway recording. Poor old (young) Albert! For Penfold’s Beyond the Fringe sketch, try clicking on this link.

    Cookie @71, re AVOCADO: clearly another one for PM’s ever-expanding mini-theme.]

78. Van Winkle @75: indeed yes – SEAMSTRESS should be consigned to the sewer.

79. [eb @77: sadly, now the setter’s been and gone, I’m afraid we have to conclude it was all in my mind. The lascivity was in the eye of the beholder and the ground shook for nobody.]

80. Thanks Gladys, I was being a bit puckish. Now that you have explained it, that makes more sense. I don’t like it, along with mick and bogtrotter to name another couple, but as I said before, it seems to be a rare slur these days. I cannot imagine that Neil would be so crass, as Trailman @68 commented, although I’m surprised he didn’t tackle it in his earlier comment @66.

81. Thanks Tramp, that was fun even though I was baffled by PERM and hadn’t heard of SHUFTIS. The surface in 1d was brilliant and I also enjoyed AMUSE and ASKS. I’m generally on Tramp’s wavelength and this was no exception. Thanks Eileen for the blog.

82. great stuff as always. I missed PERM. Many thanks Tramp & Eileen

83. DrW @59 I think Tramp’s off the hook on two fronts;
    ASK & POSE can both mean to proclaim or assert (at least according to the red book)
    “ask a q” and “pose a q” mean roughly the same thing whereas “red bus” and “London bus” don’t?

84. The two meanings of paddy are clearly linked in Merriam-Webster, though how offensive it might be is not mentioned.

    I wasn’t on Tramp’s wavelength at all today, and there were plenty of hold ups. I have doubts about SHUFTI in the plural, as one or two others have mentioned. “Take a shufti” is the common usage, would you ever say “take a few shuftis at that”? Similarly, STEAL for bargain is fine, but it’s used in the expression “it’s a steal at that price”; no one would say “there’s a sale on and I got several steals”.

    I couldn’t get PERM, more from not seeing ‘a’=PER then any problem with the golden arches. And I shot myself in the foot with TAKE A PEW (having been misled by ‘giving it up for you’), which made ROLE MODELS as out of reach as a Rolex for me. So congratulations to Tramp – you win again!

    I did wonder whether the (very cleverly clued) SAN ANDREAS FAULT might be a THRUST fault, but it seems that it is a continental transform fault. So it seems the thrust is more likely to be involved in the apparent orgy identified by Mark @3.

    Thanks to Eileen @34 for the explanation for ‘peer’=LIKE, which had eluded me.

85. PERM to mean “permutate” is new to me–I think of it as something at the hair salon (so what do they call salon perms in Britain?)–and SHUFTI was also unknown (the dictionary says “informal, British,” which of course is a category of words I’m less likely to be familiar with). Also new was paddy = huff, which has the same note in the dictionary. That made these two answers the first time in weeks that I was still mystified even after hitting the cheat button. Thanks to Eileen for the explanations.

86. mrpenny @85, they’re called ‘perms’ here, too – but then perm is short for ‘permanent’ (wave).

87. bodycheetah @83 – I agree about ‘poses’ and ASKS. They’re given as synonyms in my thesaurus, though the nearest Chambers comes is via question: to put questions to, to ask questions, and pose: to perplex by questions. But the usage “pose a question”, as you mention, is common enough.

88. Just registering my agreement with the many above who felt ‘PERM’ was the only clunker in an otherwise enjoyable and ingenious puzzle.

89. I couldn’t parse 9d because I took “and you we hear” as a near homophone for “others” and the “summers not initially” baffled me.

    Thanks Tramp and Eileen.

90. Postmark @3 saw one mini-theme; I was looking for another with thrust stage, box office, take a bow and the partials “acts” and “role,” with a stretch to seamstress in the costume department.

    I shall forever associate thrust stage with my beloved [Tyrone] Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

91. sheffield hatter@84 – i thought that about STEALS but googling got me several shopping websites (admittedly US based from those that I have seen) highlighting their “Deals and steals” so the plural isn’t entirely unknown.
    [gladys@16 et al: while I also remember the term “perm” from football pools, they didn’t involve true permutations, just combinations (no ordering was specified, just a selection). For anyone who, like me, wondered about the mysterious “Pools Panel”, this may be of interest:
    https://www.theguardian.com/football/the-agony-and-the-ecstasy/2020/jun/17/pools-panel-footballers-lockdown-premier-league-liverpool%5D

92. Like some others I missed on 13ac and 24ac; I figured out “S” and “Tis” but would’ve thought it was spelled “Shufty/shufties” and the meaning of “paddy” as “fuss” was completely new to me. I can see “per” for “a” but would certainly have an easier time if it showed up in longer words where there was more context!

    Geravse@30, “We will not see his like again” seems like one could just about sub “peer” in.

    I do find “I got some steals” natural so maybe it’s more a US thing!

    Enjoyed the big anagrams and AMUSE was very cleverly hid. Thanks Tramp for the puzzle and Eileen for the blog.

93. Nice one, Gazzh. And for SHUFTIS there’s the wartime RAF’s 208 Squadron: The Flying Shuftis.

94. Simon S@69: you’re right of course. (More of Mark’s smut?)
    Gazzh@91: Unfortunately that link doesn’t work? Or is it just me and mine?….

95. Alphalpha @57 – I missed out my response to your final comment. I meant to say, cf Simon S @69, it might be helpful to look at it from the negative side: unfeeling / unsympathetic.

96. I found this a bit trickier than Tramp normally is. Everything parsed OK for me, but I had a slight difference in the PERM parse, reading is as PER = in a + M (McDonald’s), definition – “Change the order”. PER as in 8 furlongs in a/per mile.
    I’m surprised by the “paddy” discussion. The paddy = huff meaning is used in both surface and cryptic reading with no hint of Irishness. Surely Paddy for an Irishman refers to the common Irish name Patrick (at least that’s what Collins assures me). Also a bit surprised SHUFTI is Arabic in origin. I would have guessed Hindi, like its synonym Dekko.
    TILT today was LENTIGO which I’m pleased to have constructed from the wordplay prior to checking. SAN ANDREAS FAULT was very cleverly written.
    Thanks, Tramp and Eileen.

97. [Here’s that link that Gazzh added at 91. There was a stray character at the end that was preventing it working.]

98. Interesting puzzle today. Managed to complete most of it! I am not sure why there is concern about M for McDonald’s when there are regular examples of the first letter of a word being part of the answer without any further explanation. I am ok with V for very but today, for example, we have had C (club) A (advanced). To me they are at least as obscure as M (McDonald). I am relatively new to the cryptic world. Am I missing something obvious?
    Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the trouble to explain.

99. Eileen@95: yes, thanks that brings it crashing into focus.
    @97: thanks SH (glad you’ve got rid of your “+”)

100. Leyther @98
     C is the standard abbreviation for clubs in bridge. A is a bit more dubious – it stands for “Advanced” in A level, but that is more of a compound abbreviation. M for McDonalds was much more obscure!

101. Leyther @98: if you’re new, more than happy to help. Lots of the ‘accepted’ single letter abbreviations do appear regularly in all sorts of contexts. V for very – think V Diff rock climbing or VG for very good; C for club – think MCC or MUFC; A for advanced – think A Levels. Just about every letter can be handled thus. And then you have the various devices for pointing the solver at a first, last, middle letter or letters in a word. Some accepted by all, some by just a few and some highly contentious. I was one who is not a fan of M as an accepted abbreviation for McDonalds, even though it appears as the logo. If an initial letter indicator had been used, no problem. Others are of a different opinion, which is all part of the fun. Hope this helps.

102. Leyther@98:
     Usually a solo-ing letter will be an accepted abbreviated as in “v” for “very” (as you point out); “c” for clubs is accepted from use in card games, particularly Auction Bridge – see any newspaper with a Bridge column (spades, hearts and diamonds don’t seem to pop up in cryptics as their pseudonyms S, H and D – perhaps they’re not ambiguous enough?).

     “A” for “advanced” – I’m gonna take the “A-train” here: anything with the prefix “A” would be “advanced” as in to the fore, definitely ahead of the “B” bow in the context of the clue so not perhaps an abbreviation at all. I certainly can’t come up with an example of any common expression where “A” stands for “advanced” but no doubt others could.

     There is a developing tendency for setters to use something like “a little bit of..” to indicate the first letter of a word as a soloist – I don’t like to roll my eyes out loud and in public, but this strikes me as just about the nadir of setting skill and makes me LIKE MAD!

     Like…

103. Ah – crossers!

104. Leyther@98, just to add my bit. I always think that an initial letter is allowed for a word as long as there is a reference to this in the Chambers Dictionary. Not all setters and solvers may agree.

105. Incidentally, in American cryptics you sometimes see “club” mean Y. (The YMCA, where it is supposedly fun to stay, is referred to colloquially over here as “the Y.”) I’ve been doing so many British puzzles in recent years, where “club” is always, always C unless it’s literal, that that one throws me every time!

106. [Thanks sheffield hatter@97, it might have been a closing square bracket that let me down!]
     Leyther@98 – I am fairly new and don’t have a copy of Chambers, but have slowly learned to try initial letters, then first two letters (eg EN for English, AR for arab have appeared more than once) when stuck. Some tend to “stick” in my memory more than others. A = PER is one I have seen before but forgotten, never seen M for Mcdonalds but I think it’s fair given the ubiquity of the golden arches and quite like the fact that it may not be in Chambers but must be seen by more people every day than any page of a dictionary! As for A = Advanced, wasn’t there an Advanced Passenger Train (APT) some time ago, that made everyone ill long before the Pendolino came along?

107. Gazzh @ 106

     If you’re on some form of tablet Chambers Dictionary and Thesaurus are generally available as a reasonably priced bundle.

108. Simon S: What do Gazzh’s medical conditions have to do with it?
     But seriously folks, thanks to Eileen and to Tramp for the fun puzzle and for popping in. FWIW I had WOW FACTOR for 22 to start with.

109. Tramp@66 & Gervaise@67
     “A fiver the pair” (socks or underpants, say) vs “A fiver a pair” (apples, say, or pears even). The article depends on the article, you could say.
     Re SLAP UP, when I first arrived in Oz I discovered it meant exactly the opposite of what I thought it to mean: I was expecting a grand feast, but what I got was just something thrown together from odds and ends left in the fridge. – so it went down a bomb in the US rather than the UK sense!
     In other news, I enjoyed the theatrical THRUST – shades of Avtobezed in the other place.
     Thanks to Eileen and to Tramp, of course.

110. [Apologies for Frenchifying your name, Gervase, and apologies also to Gaufrid for omitting the square brackets of irrelevancy!].

111. On the like/peer question. I had two justifications. One was as Eileen @various and the other was ‘peer-to-peer network’ which could be described as a ‘like-to-like network’. But I also realise that probably nobody has ever actually said that! But they could.

112. To return to the ‘paddy’ question: as have several people have pointed out, the word used in this sense is clearly related to the derogatory term for an Irishman. The fact that there is nothing specifically Irish about the context makes it if anything worse in my view, as if the obvious sense of ‘huff’ meant ‘behaving like an Irishman’. Personally I had never seen or heard it until I started solving cryptics, where it is thankfully quite rare, and when I first saw it it had to be explained to me, at which point I immediately found it offensive. I’ve never been called ‘a paddy’ in my hearing, but would strongly object to it if I were. I also would never use terms like ‘jock’ for a Scotsman or ‘taff’ for a Welshman (‘welching on a bet’ is perhaps too established, and Chambers gives its origin as ‘uncertain’). Maybe that’s just me.

113. AlphaAlpha @102 A [advanced] levels?

114. PERM? GAFB!

115. Leyther@98: What all the explanation adds up to is that lots of words can mean their (unindicated) first letter: some are very well known and some are definitely not, but somebody somewhere will know of a context in which they are recognised abbreviations, and therefore complaint is futile.

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