Guardian 26,033 / Puck

73 comments on “Guardian 26,033 / Puck”

1. I particularly liked 12a, 3d, 8a, 5/24d, 10a & 6d and my favourites were 13/14 EWE GNU, 1/18 JOHN TRAVOLTA & 16a ETON CROP.

   New word for me was TAX DISC.

   I couldn’t parse 2/15d, 26a, 9a.

   Thanks Puck and Eileen – you have a typo for the number of the puzzle – it should be 26,033.

2. Thanks, Michelle – corrected.

3. Thanks Eileen
   I’ll help you out with 2,15. The abbreviation (initially) for HIGH-SPEED TRAIN is HST which can be found in (discovered in) ‘PharaoH’S Time’.

4. Many thanks, Gaufrid – and thank goodness. Having stared at that since 6.00am, I don’t think I would ever have got it: I was fixated on D being ‘initially dicovered’.

   It seems to have foxed quite a few of the regulars, too. I was expecting my inbox to be buzzing a minute after clicking ‘Publish’.

   [It seems that it’s usually Puck who leads me up the garden – but he does it so charmingly!]

5. Gaufrid@3
   thanks for the parsing of 2/15 – it’s a very clever clue and you are brilliant to have parsed it! I was also fixated on D being “initially discovered”.

6. Thanks for the blog, Eileen. And thanks to Gaufrid for explaining HST which had me foxed, too.

   I enjoyed this very much — lots of variety and smiles.

7. This was too tough for me, and only managed three quarters of it. No complaints, just how it is.

8. Very entertaining crossword, although I got stuck on the LH side.

   Thanks Eileen (& Gaufrid); I was another ‘initially discovered’=’d.’ 🙁

   EARN MORE THAN is a bit of a peculiar stand-alone phrase (and not found on any wordsearches) but I guess nothing much else would fit in there.

   I particularly liked the clue for JOHN TRAVOLTA.

   P.S. Gaufrid, I can’t seem to get the ‘Preview Comment’ to work these days – is this a general problem?

9. Hi Robi @8
   “P.S. Gaufrid, I can’t seem to get the ‘Preview Comment’ to work these days – is this a general problem?”

   It works fine for me (using IE10) and no one else has mentioned having a similar problem.

10. Thanks Puck and Eileen

    I found this very tough, used a lot of letterspraying plus check, had to cheat on my last two otherwise I’d have done nothing else today. But I did enjoy it and thought it very well constructed.

    Ref 17 UTRECHT
    “Reversal [backed] of CERT [banker – for once not a river] in THU [day] – there doesn’t seem to be an indicator that ‘day’ is also reversed”

    I may be straining, but I think you can see it (written algebraically) as

    ( ( ( ‘Day THU’ ) “in which” ‘banker CERT’ ) gets backed ) in the City

    Simon ô¿ô

11. Too tough for me too! I only got about half a dozen clues, mainly on the left, before having to resort to help. Even with everything at my disposal I failed to get EARN MORE THAN, despite being confident it was an anagram. Like some others, I couldn’t parse 2,15.

    I wonder how many solvers will complete this today. Should the editor impose stricter limits on the level of difficulty for routine midweek puzzles?

12. Thanks, Eileen.

    Ingenious puzzle from the púca. Trickier than most Prize crosswords, IMHO.

    I almost gave up, having stared at it for ten minutes with only four solutions spotted, but patience was rewarded in the end. I was expecting more of a semantic theme in the down answers, which threw me until I realised I was looking for something that wasn’t there. Last in for me were ANORAK (rather odd clue) and EARN MORE THAN (as Robi says, a bit unusual as a stand-alone phrase, but none the worse for that).

    5,24 was easily the best of the down clues for me, though 1,18 produced a smile (and 11,25 a snigger). 26,21 has a very clever construction – pity the surface isn’t really up to snuff.

13. Thanks, Eileen. My still developing knowledge of British culture proved my undoing here, as I’d never heard of TAX DISCS (considered RAM DISKS, but wasn’t sure why they’d be on display), and the GOODIEs was an entirely inaccessible (i.e., not even Wikipedia to the rescue) reference. While I got 17a and 32a, I needed help with the parsing. (Presumably, a CERT in the UK is someone who is certified to conduct financial transactions?) The secondary meaning of ANORAK was also new. A struggle, certainly, but an enjoyable one. If I had to pick a favorite, I’d opt for the silly but groan-worthy 13/14.

14. Keeper @13

    CERT is an abbreviation for a certainty, deriving from gambling, especially horse racing – a dead cert or a racing cert is one that (you at least are sure) is going to win.

    hth

    Simon ô¿ô

15. All the cryptics today seem to be on the tricky side and this one was no exception. An enjoyable battle was had, thank you Puck and Eileen too.

16. I liked it all but for the EARN MORE THAN which shouldn’t be in a crossword, and it was defined ‘cheekily’ which made thnings worse!! Some Guardiansisms. like red… breast (!) but I quite like this setter. Very good were BAREFOOT DOCTOR and 28, but there were odditties like the HST, and strange things like EWE GNU, which I did mnot understand very well.

    Rowly.

17. This was the most difficult Guardian crossword I have attempted in the last 10 years, Prize puzzles included. I rarely take more than an hour to finish the Saturday puzzle but after well over an hour I had only managed about 8 clues. I read Eileen’s intro which includes the ones she found easy and got one more before giving up. I have often been surprised at Michelle’s new words and that she manages to complete the puzzle regardless. Today her only new word was TAX DISC. For me there were new words or new meanings of familiar words throughout – ANORAK, ETON CROP, WARREN HASTINGS, HST etc. I have ridden the TGV, Shinkansen, Maglev. Does anyone refer to an equivalent as an HST?

    But that is not the main reason I decided to write today. I was appalled at the clue for 5dn and disappointed that no-one else has objected. That word is offensive and inappropriate. I know there is a large contingent here who claim that words are just strings of letters, but I doubt seriously if nigger, kike, wop etc. would be considered acceptable. And there is no justification for using an ethnic slur when Chinese would have served the same purpose. Shame.

18. Oh dear, HKColin @17 – I don’t suppose Puck realised it was contentious. There is an interesting Wiki article on usage of the word.

19. HKColin@17

    “Warren Hastings” was new to me today also, but I did not mention it (but I COULD solve the clue). I do always try to mention words that are new to me, but sometimes I forget one or two, and I know that some people on 15 squared find my postings too long and wordy so I guess I try to keep it short.

    I have heard of “high speed train” but as I mentioned, I could not parse 2/15 – HST is unfamiliar to me.

    I discovered today in OED that “Chinaman” is ” informal dated offensive”. Last week “Hottentot” was used in a cryptic crossword (I forget which) – and according to Oxford dictionaries online that word is also offensive:

    “The word Hottentot is first recorded in the late 17th century and was a name applied by white Europeans to the Khoikhoi. It is now regarded as offensive with reference to people and should always be avoided in favour of Khoikhoi or the names of the particular peoples.”

    So, I suppose that I assumed that certain offensive words are “acceptable” in cryptic crossword-land (while others are not).

20. Having read the comments above, I confess to feeling a lot better than I did yesterday (when I struggled with Paul and had to cheat on BIRDSEYE), as I completed this one without aids, and even parsed 2,15. My last in was TAX DISCS: don’t know why, although it strikes me that ‘items on display’ is pretty vague as a definition – but fair enough I suppose. A very enjoyable work-out, but, for me, by no means the most difficult Guardian crossword I’ve seen. It’s a wavelength thing, clearly (I sometimes struggle with a Rufus more than this, but it’s because I have a blind spot for, and consequently find tiresome, multiple double and cryptic definitions). Possibly also because I had the luxury of a train journey after a particularly difficult meeting, so the synapses were firing and I had some guilt-free, undisturbed, time!)
    Thanks to Puck for an entertaining hour.

21. HKColin@17
    In cricketing parlance, the word “chinaman” is used to describe the stock delivery of a left-arm “unorthodox” spin bowler. [see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-arm_unorthodox_spin%5D

    So, some words (offensive or not) may simply refuse to “disappear” from English language.

22. HKColin @17
    I think perhaps the reason no one has commented is that they may be like me and completely unaware that the word is offensive. I’m 70 and have lived in the UK all my life, in darkest Salford and upwards and don’t recall having heard the word used as a derogatory term, or indeed at all. It’s hard to imagine it being spray painted on walls by the EDL or BNP and would be met by much head scratching if it were. I’m not a cricket fan but I do know that it is used to describe a fiendishly cunning method of bowling (I think), but other than that the word is not common, whereas Chinese, as you prefer, is. I had to google the word to discover that it is regarded as offensive, though I do realise that ignorance is no excuse. Mind you, I have absolutely no idea why it should define a barefoot doctor either, but then I was pretty much stumped by the whole of this crossword.

23. ‘Chnaman’ is rarely used in cricket now because it is an offensive word, and ‘wrong ‘un’ or ‘googly’ is prefeerd. You cannot say ‘eskimo’ now either, has to be ‘innuit’.

    Rowls.

24. Rowly @23

    Does that mean we now have to sing ‘Inuit Nell’? 😉

    Simon ô¿ô

25. Thanks, Eileen.

    Like many others I found this really tough. I completed the rhs, apart from —N MORE THAN, and 9a, leaving the lhs almost blank.

    Eileen says: “Along with some easy ones to set the ball rolling [14, 24, 27, 31ac, for instance], there is some very ingenious cluing…” These were amongst the last in for me, so I don’t regard them as easy. How is COURIER = ESCORT? I have checked several on-line/ off-line dictionaries for synonyms, but they don’t list them as a pair. There is a car Ford Escort Courier, however.

    I agree there was some ingenious cluing.

26. Simon @ 24 I hope not, it would ruin the scansion of a perfectly good song.

27. Hard grind for the class dummy.

    HKColin, The very first fast diesel that we had over here was always refered to as the HST or Intercity-125. It went at up to 125 mph. It was never fast on an international scale, but it remained the fastest on our ancient wiggly waggly routes for many years (because going much faster on such routes would be dangerous). They are well past their sell by date, but are still in regular use having proved to be very reliable. They won’t be used for much longer though.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterCity_125

28. Dave @25:

    For courier, Chambers has “a guide who travels with and looks after, parties of tourists,” while Merriam-Webster has “a traveler’s paid attendant.” That sounds like an escort to me.

    (And Simon @14: Thanks for explaining CERT. Never would have made that connection.)

29. I have been out since before lunchtime, so have been unaware of the discussion re Chinaman. I’m totally with Harry Sinclair @22 on this. It never occurred to me to look it up and I had no idea it was offensive.

    Hi Dave Ellison @25

    Once again the danger in describing clues as ‘easy’ [or not] is exposed. I apologise. The main problems I had with this puzzle were with the parsing, rather than the solving, but then I knew of Warren Hastings and the Goodies and tax discs and can see that they would be more difficult for non-UK-based solvers.
    Re COURIER = ‘escort’: a courier is a person who escorts people on package holidays, so I never thought to look it up to check for synonyms.

30. Better yet, Dave:

    Collins explicitly lists “escort” among synonyms for courier:

    http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english-thesaurus/courier?showCookiePolicy=true

31. Apologies, keeper, for the cross.

32. Thanks Eileen and Puck.

    I found this hard, but fortunately I had a long train journey during which to crack it. For the first leg from Swansea to Cardiff I found myself on an HST.I solved 2d 15d without making the connection (at least consciously), and I completely failed to parse it. Glad to see I was not alone.

    As Derek Lazenby says at @27, these trains are old but reliable. They are also much more comfortable and spacious than any British rolling stock built subsequently – they were designed for real people rather than midgets. As if to make the point about reliability, the inferior train into which I changed promptly broke down.

    By the way, I am one of those who was completely unaware that the C word is now regarded as derogatory, even in the cricket context. One of many things I have learned from this site.

33. There is that expression ‘all fur coat and no knickers’ which seems to apply to this one. Maybe it’s in the cluemanship, don’t know, but there’s this ambition in the ‘set’ if that’s the right word, and in the tone, but does it hang together? Stuffed if I know.

    The old gang inc. Araucaria can pull this stuff off with ease I’d say, but does the newer crew need a bit more ground work? More simple jobs under the belt? Get that experience before trying for the big one?

    That said I did like the HST one, that was okay, and had no problem with the so-called ‘offensive’ bits and bobs.

34. Thank you HKCollin@17.

    Agreed – words are not just strings of letters – they carry power.

    I recall a few few weeks back when the world fell in on me as I objected to the words cunt and moron in a clue.

    What is the Guardian’s politics on use of derogatory language?

35. Words are offensive because a) some moron decided to use a previously innocent word in that completely invalid way and b) some gullible idiot decided to validate that moron’s mis-usage by taking offence. Words are offensive because people want to offend and others choose to be offended. That choice has nothing to do with the word. Those who are offended by the words above are offended because they choose to be offended, thereby allowing their language to ruled by the dictats morons.

36. In many ways I’m with Derek @ 35 on this – context is all-important.

    For instance, I’ve never been able to understand why ‘c***’ is unacceptably offensive while ‘twat’ seems to be completely acceptable aalmost anywhere…anyone got any clues?

    Similarly, in terms of context (and apologies in advance if anyone finds this offensive), look at how ‘nigger’ (or ‘niggah’) became intra-racially acceptable but remains inter-racially taboo…and yet Patti Smith has been singing “Rock ‘n Roll Nigger” since 1976 (singing it, I know it wasn’t released till 1978).

    I gather that The Dambusters has been changed so that Guy Gibson’s dog is Blackie – can anyone confirm this?

    Thanks

    Simon ô¿ô

37. Sorry.’almost’

38. Doh! Thanks Eileen and others for reminding me about COURIER = ESCORT in the shepherding tourists sense – my brain must have been idling today; what excuse the synonyms on line etc have I am uncertain 🙂

39. I did also check in my Concise Oxford Dictionary which didn’t mention COURIER = ESCORT; however, that was the 1964 edition, so I would guess the meaning has emerged since then.

40. We had some difficulty with the puzzle and were glad that we weren’t blogging this one!

    We were totally unaware of the offensive nature of chinaman in 5 24 and had not come across the answer either – we needed every checking letter.

    We read Rowland’s comment @23 about eskimos. When we were in Alaska about 4 years ago we were very careful about what we said but were amazed at the number of references to the word ‘eskimo’ in written and the spoken word especially in museums. We were told that it referred to particular groups of innuit and was fine to use but not as a general term. Whether that is correct or not we don’t know but that’s how we have used the word since then.

    Anyway, thanks Puck – a real head-scratcher today. Thanks also to Eileen for the blog!

41. Sorry for banging on. COD says: Courier “Servant employed to make travel arrangements on continent” I must move in the wrong circles!

42. Bertandjoyce, you were unaware of any controversy because it is purely imaginary.

    Look everybody…..

    I am English, that is generic. To be gender specific we make that Englishman.
    I come from Yorkshire and am therefore a Yorkshireman.
    Our friends north of the border are Scots and a man a Scotsman.
    Our friends to the west are Welsh and a male is a Welshman.
    Our friends over the pond are French and a male is a Frenchman.
    etc etc etc
    So someone from China is Chinese, but a man is a Chinaman.

    It is how the language works

    So someone give me any valid logic by which any one of those constructs can be regarded offensive if the others are not.

    Or should I be offended at being called an Englishman?

    Your only valid logic for being offended is “you are an incompetent user of English because you have no idea how words are validly put together” which is possibly qualified by “you are an inveterate knicker wetter and will mindlessly do that without analysing why you are doing it”.

43. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who found this puzzle extremely tricky. I never felt on Puck’s wavelength today, and I even struggled to see some of those answers that should have been easy, such as MOHICANS and ETON CROP. There were some obscurities, like the Garden/Oddie GOODIE clue (and I’m old enough to have watched the show when it first came out), and my LOI was EARN MORE THAN (I agree with Rowly that it should never see the light of day again) after I finally saw what was going on with the frankly bizarre ANORAK. I also didn’t parse HIGH SPEED TRAIN so thanks to Gaufrid for that.

    As far as “unacceptable” words are concerned, I’m very much with Derek Lazenby.

44. During the cultural revolution many Chinese barefoot doctors were women, so Puck’s use of ‘Chinaman’ manages to be sexist as well as racially insensitive.

    Steve@34 – the Guardian’s style guide is clear about the use of offensive expressions denoting race, nationality etc. I have remarked before that this is often disregarded by some of the paper’s setters.

45. Tremendous puzzle but really really difficult for me, as for some others. Some of the clues were very clever. I almost got there in the end, but agree with HKColin@17 that it was one of the most difficult I’ve attempted in years.

46. Thanks Puck and Eileen. Very difficult, as others have noted. Clue of the day for me was the well-disguised HST. As I have said before, it’s amazing what one learns here. I never knew that CHINAMAN was derogatory. (Chambers , apparently, agrees with HKCollin). Does anyone know why it is offensive while Scotsman, Frenchman etc are not?

47. Thanks for the blog Eileen, and to others for your comments.

    cholecyst@46 – see Robi@18 for a link to a Wiki page about ‘Chinaman’.

    No offence was meant by my use of ‘Chinaman’ in the clue for 5,24. When writing the clue, I was unaware that the word is considered derogatory, and I would have avoided using it if I had known. I originally had ‘Chinese treating….’ but felt that suggested the plural form more than the singular I was wanting. I could have used ‘Chinese man’ (or better ‘Chinese woman’?) instead of ‘Chinaman’, but was conscious that the clue was already rather long.

    It seems from the comments so far that most were also unaware that ‘Chinaman’ is derogatory, but I suppose that doesn’t really make it any more acceptable. It is also surprising that it got through the editing process, as the crossword editor is in fact usually the first to pick me up on any incorrect usage (eg Eskimo rather than Inuit).

    The positive thing is that there is a debate, and the chance to learn things that we did not previously know.

    As to the difficulty level of the puzzle, it wasn’t really meant to be that tricky. In hindsight, I might have made some of the across clues easier to allow solvers more ways in, given there are so few down clues and the fact that most of these have an unchecked first letter.

48. During my youth I spent many hours standing by the West Coast Main Line hoping for sight of the Advanced Passenger Train. This unicorn of the railway world marked the high (or low if you like) water mark of British Rail’s attempts to run fast trains on the UK’s railway system. (Most of which was built by private act of parliament requiring many compromises which meant that railways rarely ran straight…)

    After sulking for thirty years we finally concluded that new lines were needed if we wanted to keep up with the rest of the world.

    In other news, a man from Germany is presumably a Germanyman?

    Innuit innit.

49. Many thanks, Puck, for dropping in and confirming your intentions re Chinaman.

    And many thanks again for a great puzzle.

50. Paul W. now make a logical case for why a linguistic construct is racially insensitive when applied to one race, but not when applied to any other race.

    Other people say so is not a logical explanation.

51. Thanks Eileen and Puck

    I found this extremely hard as I struggled with it on and off during the day.
    Quite my worst solving performance for a long time.

    No fault of Puck. A very clever puzzle with a lot of wit and imaginative cluing.

52. re Chinaman
    Derek if you had said eg Englandman instead of Englishman your argument would hold more water.
    If that word had a history of being used to refer to all Europeans in a dismissive racist manner then it would also be offensive.
    Brilliant puzzle Puck, I had been anticipating your appearance to point out the hidden theme we had all missed but alas it was not to be.

53. I also listed Yorkshire and Yorkshireman. You have any idea how much abuse that gets from others? So what should I do? Make it into some sort of offensive term? I’m not that stupid, although I know most of you think otherwise.

54. Well Derek thats not really relevant to my point as Yorkshire is not a country and “insertanyregion/cityname MAN” is common parlance. I cant think of a single other country where there is a common word ( offensive or otherwise ) that is made up of its name followed by man unless you want to get into prehistoric fossil identification or inanimate objects.
    Perhaps the offence comes from this depersonalisation?

55. I know it’s bad for me, but I was just thinking, remember how in the old days there was an untold number of Irish jokes? Does that mean that Irishman is now taboo? No? So what’s the difference?

56. As Derek has so wisely argued, words in themselves are not innately offensive; it’s the pejorative connotations which some people choose to attach to them which can cause some other people to take offence. Hence the pointlessness of changing the names of unpopular things – the negative associations eventually transfer to the new title (viz Windscale/Sellafield).

57. Well Derek that also does not address the point I made. Of course Irishman is not offensive I am an Irishman I am also an Ulsterman, an Antrimman and a Belfastman one thing I am not is an Irelandman.
    I have a distant Asian ancestor so maybe I am a Chinaman to some who care naught about others sensibilities and put it down to “Dictionary Nazis” or “Political correctness gone mad”.
    Bullhassocks LOL @ “wisely argued”.

58. You’re making a trivial and pointless piece of nit picking, to which I gave you a different answer which you ignored because you have no answer to it.

    But, let’s not deviate like you do…

    Every racial name and racialy associated name, has it’s abusers around the world. They don’t get regarded as taboo as a result. One rule for all, or are you making a racial slur implying that some races are such sensitive flowers that they can’t give as good as they get? Because they sure as hell do give as good as they get.

    So, um, are you implying that the Irish have never used the word Englishman as a derogatory term? You are aware of your political history aren’t you?

59. Well Derek I will keep it simple for you.
    Cite another portmanteau word with a country name as the first half and MAN as its second.
    Not an adjective as the first half but a COUNTRY NAME.
    Im not obfuscating or avoiding any point you made, however clumsily, and it seems that you are doing exactly what you accuse me of.
    Englishman may indeed be used in a derogatory manner by some Irish people to refer to some activities eg “You ???????? like an Englishman” but as far as I know ENGLANDMAN was only ever a short lived Marvel Comics character whose special power was crushing his enemies with a colonial epithet delivered by his butler.

60. What a great puzzle – one for the hall of fame.

    Thanks Eileen too, although “not so daunting” – it daunted me but I got there in the end except that my tentative expl for ORAK in ANORAK was a pun on IRAQ – I think yours is definitely the right one.

    EARN MORE THAN is of course perfectly good.

    Collins: outgross – to surpass in earning

    Couldn’t get much closer than that.

    Not sure about Chinaman. The dictionaries indicate its capitalised use as archaic or offensive but not clear why.

    In cricket the Indian Express, in an article only one month ago about Kuldeep Yadav, India’s up-and-coming Warney, explains:

    A chinaman bowler is a left-arm spinner who turns the ball to come in to a right-hand batsman instead of going away. It is named after the 1930s’ West Indian bowler Ellis Achong, the first Test player of Chinese descent, who would sometimes use this wrist ball as a variation.

    so if we deny the term we deny Mr Achong his well-deserved fame – unless we rename them “achongers” or some such.

61. Many thanks Puck and Eileen really enjoyed this. Am in complete agreement with Derek L.

62. Paul Wolfarth @ 44

    “During the cultural revolution many Chinese barefoot doctors were women, so Puck’s use of ‘Chinaman’ manages to be sexist as well as racially insensitive.”

    I assume this is a joke. You forgot to put in the smiley! 😉

    Came to this late after being away so I was tackling 3 days worth of fun! Following Paul this Puck was far too diificult for 11:00pm and 3 beers so I gracefully gave up at half way. Nice puzzle though.

    Thanks to Eileen and Puck

    By the way Stiofain

    See United-Statesman and Jerseyman, Highly offensive. 🙂

63. Eileen,

    Thanks for all your hard work on this puzzle. Why can’t 9a simply read, “A killer said to carry a jacket”? How does the rest of the clue work?

64. Hi John

    You’re quite right: the clue would make perfect sense as you write it.
    The secondary meaning of ‘anorak’ [‘someone who follows a pursuit or interest that is regarded as dull and unsociable [inf]; someone who has an obsessive interest in the statistics and trivia ssociated with a subject [sl]’ [Chambers] ie ‘full of useless facts and figures’ turns it into a double / cryptic definition.

65. Some years ago I was royally told-off by a very PC friend for using the term “half-caste” in describing the appearance of a very good-looking person I’d seen. It never occurred to me that it was offensive. My Father was a cavalry man in India in the 1930s and occasionally used the word in the same – I think innocent – way. Similarly one of the German set books I had to read in the 1960s for my O-Level contained the terms “Quadroon” and”Octaroon”. Context is all, and personally I’m much more offended by Paul’s wearisome smuttiness than anything else in Guardian crossword land. May I say “lighten up, folks”?

66. DL – I have looked, as commanded, at your post @42.

    Your final sentence is essentially a personal attack on HKColin. Although his use of the word “appalled” is hyperbolic, his comment @17 and Robi’s link @18 to the Wiki article added something to my and, evidently, others’ understanding of our language. I thank them both.

    Apart from that your comment demonstrated a lack of “valid logic”, an incomplete understanding of “the way the language works” and a singularly “incompetent” use of English.

67. Oh that is really hilarious rho. Apart from the first paragraph of that post, the rest was intoduced by “Look everybody…” and so could not possibly directed at any one person as you claim. You really should learn to read before attempting your ill-informed attempts at vitriol which always fail. Thanks for that, gave me a real laugh, as always.

68. Derek & rhotician
    Enough is enough! This is getting way off topic. If you wish to continue this debate please do so via email.

    rhotician, you can contact Derek by clicking on his name in the previous comment. This will take you to his website and there you will find an email link entitled ‘Feedback’.

69. How many of 68 comments were relevant? Phew!!

70. When I discovered this website recently I was enchanted by how polite everyone was when compared to the standard of discourse on the internet, with almost all commenters thanking both the setter and blogger. Now I’m beginning to wonder – there have been some serious arguments in the last week or so, and all because of . . . crosswords.

71. Always the same people start fights. It looks dleiberate to me, and it messes up the site. That is my ”opinion’.

72. As a recovering trainspotter I find the definition used for ANORAK deeply offensive.

73. Gaufrid – even coming to this some years later, I’m disturbed by the use of a particular four-letter word by Steve@34. I am surprised you didn’t moderate it with a couple of asterisks as you had done previously when uncle Yap insisted on its repeated use. For the sake of the sensibilities usually applied at this site (and with consideration for future visitors, probably archive solvers) is it too late to do so now?

Comments are closed.