Guardian 28,120 / Boatman

105 comments on “Guardian 28,120 / Boatman”

1. Thanks Eileen. I think 5d is just B[ook] + ORDER (to book).

2. Always a pleasure to attack a Boatman and I thought this was an excellent puzzle.  With one exception, smooth surfaces and a range of devices.  My only quibble is I didn’t like 9ac: a clue utilising that many initial letters will rarely read well and it didn’t.

   That aside, there was plenty to admire.  Ticks went to REPAIRERS, REMOTE and ARREST where the misdirection was elegant and barely noticeable; EDUCATE for a device I always enjoy; the Spoonerism which made me smile, UTTER for a definition I nearly missed and BOOK CLUB where the capitalised R misled me for a while.

   I also entered the wrong TALE first time around; seems to me the clue works for either homonym.  ABIOTIC was new.  But COTD goes to TOPLESS which is very clever.

   Thanks for the workout, Boatman, and Eileen for the helpful blog – which could only have been better if you could have explained BORDER to me!  I’m sure ‘order’ must play a part but can’t see how.

3. Thanks, Andrew!

4. Thanks Eileen.
   I think 5D is order = book, as in reserve. On top of B
   17D – works fine. If prose is topless it becomes rose, ie got up.

5. Andrew @1 That must be right.  Tea tray moment.

6. Thanks Boatman and Eileen

   I usually have more question marks against Boatman clues than other compilers’, mostly my inability to parse, and this was no exception.

   I find ambiguous clues like 16d irritating – there should be only one correct solution without needing crossers.

   I didn’t parse BORDER and am not convinced by Andrew’s offer. Also not parsed were TOPLESS, LIBBER (should have seen that), and KICKER, though I did know the definition.

   “Staff” for CLUB seems rather loose. What is “relationship” doing in 10a?

   I loved the clue for PEANUT!

7. I liked the books/literature/writers thread through the clues. The little linking of Ezra Pound and TS Eliot in a couple of down clues pleased me – lovely misdirections! Reminded me of Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row” “(the two poets) fighting in the captain’s tower” lyric. Lots of the surfaces were fun.

   Sorry, Eileen, I had a ? beside BORDER at 5d, hoping the blog would explain, as I can’t see it myself. Trust someone else might have an explanation.

   I had triple ticks for 25a TOODLE-PIP. Only ever read in British books I am sure, but a great inclusion.

   LORD REITH at 9a was unfamiliar but I enjoyed the “to be sure” check which led to some investigative research that followed on from solving that one.

   I tried so hard to have BUCKLE fit at 21d (surely a BUCK is the “US version of Pound”, I thought). But when it was clear the SW corner wasn’t yielding, and I couldn’t quite see the King and Knight, I rethought that, and then recalled “nicker” from previous puzzles to finally see KICKER.

   Many thanks to Boatman for all the tricksy pathways that led me to finishing, and of course to Eileen for many explanations that were much more precisely expressed than anything I could have said.

    

8. Jacqui @4 – I was commenting on topless – minus first letter.

9. This landed plumb centre of my Goldilocks zone.

   Clever cluing everywhere with some crackers including TOPLESS, ADORE, UTTER, KICKER, REMOTE.

   At DROPLETS, Boatman may be said to have poked one toe into the reef-strewn waters of the derived anagram, but it is so neatly done as to be admired rather than criticised.

   Failed to parse BORDER so thanks to Andrew @1.

   LIBBER confused for a while as the setter chose The Bible as his example of a book and (BIBLE + B (bishop)* also gives LIBBER.

   Many thanks, both, for brightening a depressingly drab day.

10. By the time I typed that I went from being #1 to #7 in the comments.

    Thanks Andrew@1 re BORDER: I think you are right.

11. William @9

    I tried to do something with BIBLE* too, but doesn’t it give “libbeb”?

12. Julie @7. I noticed that too (Desolation Row’s a great song for the times). One of its mermaids gets a look-in as well.

    Praise be to Nero’s Neptune, the Titanic sails at dawn
    Everybody’s shouting, “Which side are you on?!”
    And Ezra Pound and TS Eliot fighting in the captain’s tower
    While calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers
    Between the windows of the sea where lovely mermaids flow
    And nobody has to think too much about Desolation Row

    But the only other reference I can see is in “She wears an iron vest/Her profession’s her religion/Her sin is her lifelessness”

13. I enjoyed this. I liked being misled here and there before cottoning on to what was really going on, and I liked the definitions especially in REPAIRERS, TOODLE-PIP, REMOTE and ASBO.
    I needed help with the parsings of KICKER and TOPLESS, although I did manage BORDER. I also had to leave UTTER unparsed and, er, unsolved.
    It wasn’t possible to write in TALE/TAIL until BOOK CLUB forced the former. I suppose also TALE was more in keeping with the theme.
    Thanks to Boatman and Eileen.

14. I didn’t like the suggestion that slim and remote mean the same thing. Just because they can both be used to define a sort of chance doesn’t mean that they are similar. Could the setter have used fat for the same purpose? Fat chance of that I would suggest.

15. I found that a good challenge – the top went in mostly OK, then the SE followed and finally the SW was a tougher nut to crack. “Tale” vs “tail” really annoyed me, “topless” for an across clue is fine by me (if you “top and tail” a carrot it does not have to be vertical!) and it was a great clue, and I thought the theme was very well worked. “border(‘s)” is a bookshop too, so kind of counts.

    Is Boatman telling us something with the nina “to sea” in row 5? And “SBS” (special boat service) in row 7? Or am I just suffering a cruciverbal form of pareidolia?

    Anyhow, many thanks Boatman, a splendid puzzle, and Eileen for the blog.

16. Muffin@9 went down the libbeb route myself but tried to correct it by supposing the bishop was only half of an RR – the other trouble with that is that Latin is unused.

17. Had to reveal 6d, and still struggled to parse kicker. I winced a bit at 22 across, spent ages trying to work in an anagram of bible, but enjoyed toodle-pip. Thanks to Boatman and Eileen

18. Tom@14 I was going to make a similar comment but on realizing that there are quite a few synonyms of chance for which they work (possibility, likelihood, probability, maybe others), I convinced myself the clue is fine.

19. My favourites were the Spoonerism at 4, 24 WRITER’S BLOCK and the nice Fawlty Towers reference at 8a HOTEL.

    William @9: I think the anagram is fine at 15d DROPLETS.  Tramp’s comments about indirect anagrams @32 on puzzle 28,029 are relevant.

    Many thanks Boatman and Eileen.

20. Yes, I too wondered if the fact that SLIM and REMOTE can both be used with “chance” made them synonyms, and (reluctantly) decided it did.

21. Doc What:  Did you mean me @9?

22. William@21 brain-fart! I actually meant muffin@11, from where we get to you, sorry.

23. Lord Jim @19:  Thanks.  I looked up your reference and agree.  I withdraw my unfounded remark and am prepared to make full reparation for any slur or slight…

24. I too had ? next to relationship in 10ac, among a couple of the others: reserves for shelves, and club for staff or perhaps for ‘staff meeting?’ which, together with the nho acronym abso, made that pair the loisi. Otherwise pretty smooth sailing, with the NW and SE easiest, then the SW, then NE last. My Lancashire rels sometimes say ‘us’ for ‘our’, so wondered vaguely whether nicker was ‘US … pound’ but didn’t linger over it. Liked the topless prose, and remote as slim (tho far from new), and the Spoonerism was ok too. Sardonic always reminds me of the late Mrs ginf’s wicked dry wit. So, lots to love in the time of covid, thanks both, and good luck all as the isolation eases.

25. Dr W & muffin:  Of course (BIBLE + B)* doesn’t gibe LIBBER!  What was I thinking?  Brain-fag.

26. Just to be persnickety, in 20a, “meeting for” should be part of definition.

27. I am a beginner. I can hardly get any answer, but when I do, it is such a thrill!

    Thank you.

28. Aargh! Hovis @26- not pernickety at all. I actually said I liked the surface, then carelessly left that out. I shall amend it immediately

29. Congratulations, Elroy @27 – and welcome, if you’re new. 😉

30. The Zed @ 15 – I too couldn’t avoid seeing potential Ninas in the perimunches!
    I enjoyed this bookish jaunt on an unruffled sea, with Boatman another setter being relatively gentle in this time of Cowrongunvirus. No turbulence in today’s smooth waters; some great constructions and surfaces. I particularly liked ABIOTIC, EMIGRÉ and EDUCATE.
    Many thanks,both and all.

31. Elroy @27:  Welcome!  As a beginner, solving any non-Monday clue in the Graun deserves applause.  Keep it up.

32. grantinfreo @24:  I worried about reserves for shelves, by Chambers include ‘to put aside’ for shelve, so decided it was fair enough.

33. I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but on the remote/slim connection, it sort of makes sense from the fact that when things are far away they seem to shrink. I now can’t get out of my head (a probably defective memory of) Bill Oddie in ISIRTA explaining that to capture dinosaurs you walk away so they look smaller, then pounce.

34. Thanks, Eileen and all – I’m glad to see fun being had in the middle of all this strangeness.

    Tom @14 – That’s interesting … I too dislike the type of non-synonym that I sometimes see in my students’ work where the only connection is that both words are frequently found linked with another. I usually say that it’s a bit like claiming that “red” is a synonym for “London” because a London bus is also a red bus. I felt that this doesn’t apply in the case of “slim” and “remote”, because the two are independently substitutable in at least some sentences without changing the meaning: “the chances of this happening were remote” and “the chances of this happening were slim” both read acceptably to me, and the meaning is identical. I’m inclined to agree with you about “fat”, though: “fat chance” may mean nearly the same thing as “slim chance”, but only in the context of those set phrases – you couldn’t say “the chances of this happening were fat”, so “fat” isn’t substitutable for “thin”, however appealing the apparent contradiction might be!

35. Must have been in the wrong mood or on the wrong wavelength for this today, and I didn’t like the look of the grid to begin with. Like others I had the wrong TAIL/TALE in place, so couldn’t fathom what 20ac was supposed to be. A DNF therefore, but perhaps I should have exercised a little more patience…

36. Dr W @33 – Hah! Your (synchronously written) observation about the connection between “slim” and “remote” is much more interesting than mine!

37. On the topic of the definition of REMOTE, I count slim as being a good and close synonym for remote (when describing a possibilty or a chance).  ‘Fat chance’ means the same as ‘slim chance’ because in this context ‘fat’ is the sarcastic equivalent of ‘slim’.

    [Learning from recent events, I thought I would get my ‘sarcastic’ description in up front and not post later to claim just that.]

38. Parsed libber as per Eileen, b in liber, but with a shrug as I only know ‘Ex libris … (owner’s name)’ in lent books, in which I guess libris means library. At 72, just that bit late for school Latin, to my regret. The Marist Brothers boys on the same bus route were still practicing ama, amas, amant (sp?), but for various reasons I wouldn’t have swapped places.

39. I failed to solve UTTER, and could not parse KICKER – both nicker and kicker were new for me. Also failed to parse TOPLESS.

    New word =ABIOTIC.

    Thanks, Boatman and Eileen.

40. Potentially fascinating coincidences – re 22a, Germaine GREER with a B inside leads to Johannes GREBER, who translated the New Testament with the assistance of the spirit world.  Unfortunately the ghosts appear to have assisted him with Greek rather than Latin sources. And the first crosser doesn’t match, of course. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Greber

41. Very enjoyable but somehow I was stumped by TOPLESS – I had TOGLESS (without togs) but of course it wouldn’t parse. Favourites were ABIOTIC and DROPLETS. Many thanks to Boatman and Eileen.

42. 17 was both LOI and, for its sheer audacity, COD. Excellent puzzle and illuminating blog; thanks Boatman and Eileen.

43. Van W @40 – Lovely! If you’ve read my book, you’ll know how much I appreciate an unlooked-for coincidence. That’s going into my notes for the next volume (should there be one) right now …

44. Fair enough. Sorry I misunderstood. Thanks, Eileen

45. That was fun. Struggled with the NE corner because the crossers weren’t helpful. But EDUCATE is a smashing bit of wordplay. And WRITER’S BLOCK drew a genuine smile.

46. Hi Van Winkle @40. Thanks for that – very interesting. Greer was, of course, the first to spring to mind.

    I’ve never heard of Greber but you’ve reminded me of the classical scholar, W.F. Jackson Knight, the leading authority on Virgil, my favourite Roman poet. He was a spiritualist, too. He came to address  our Classical Society at Bristol University and, over tea after the lecture, startled us by saying casually, ‘A friend of mine was talking to Heraclitus the other day …’

    Hi grant @38 – putting my teaching hat on – Ex libris means ‘from the books [of]’. We get ‘library’ from the same word, of course. [Just for the record: it’s amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant. 😉 ]

47. OK, remote chance = slim chance, but not because remote = slim.

48. Thanks Boatman and Eileen. From my distant memory of Latin lessons, I guess that your impeccable conjugation of amo must make you close to Mensa.?

49. I also meant to say “Good stuff, both S and B”.

50. Good crossword with a variety of different clues.

    I was another getting my ‘nickers’ in a twist over the Latin bible – I realised the anagram didn’t work and forgot my Latin liber.

    I got the wrong tail at first but that was no great problem. I liked RESERVES (clever dd), ABIOTIC and TOPLESS, which gave me a tea tray moment when I saw it.

    Thanks Boatman and Eileen – I thought the week had gone remarkably quickly since your last blog, but then I realised it was for the Saturday Prize Puzzle.

51. Lovely puzzle with too many favourites to mention, so I’ll certainly forgive any ambiguity concerning TALE/TAIL. All parsed except for KICKER (didn’t realize it was a US usage and was looking for US version of pound), so thanks to Eileen for that. Thanks also to Boatman for the workout and also for the lucid explanation of why “slim” works for REMOTE but “fat” doesn’t.

52. I have occasionally been described by friends as ‘remote’.  I shall take it as a compliment in future and assume they mean ‘slim’.

53. Couldn’t finish this and there are a few I still can’t make sense of e.g. shelves=reserves?

    I nearly got kicker but had nickel as US equivalent of pound but kickel made no sense, but still can’t see where nicker comes from. Sounds more cockney to me.

54. Thanks Eileen and Boatman who was on form today.

    21 is an excellent example of misdirection in that the clue must be split between US and version when it all reads so logically as a surface.

    But I dont want to see that answer again!

55. howard @53

    Read shelves and reserves as verbs

56. A witty puzzle, and just enough of a stretch for me. Thanks to Eileen for explaining 22a.

57. With regard to Border, is there a name for a clue that uses the same word “book” in two different ways?

58. Graciously said, Cop @54 – thank you! I don’t think I’ll rush to use that sense of the word again in the near future, but it was too tempting not to use just this once.

59. Many enjoyable moments but couldn’t finish, defeated by 26a. (Thanks Michelle @39 for letting me know I wasn’t the only one!) I vaguely remember not getting UTTER last time it was clued as “say” too, so obviously a blind spot for me.

    Favourite was ABIOTIC, mostly because of the way I was able to talk myself out of the totally made up ISTOLID and read the clue again.

60. ADORE was a classic IKEA clue for me – I could see what I wanted to make but couldn’t figure out the instructions. I bamboozled myself by spotting DRE in sounD RElationship and think maybe the love was O part of it but what about the A? Wonderful stuff as always from the master mariner. Cheers

61. The Zed @15. Agreed tale v tail is very irritating.

62. Sheffield Hatter and Michelle, I tried my hardest to make it a club of three but mutter’s had me too often and didn’t quite beat me today. Bodycheetah, I love your IKEA clue but it was more of an IKEA crossword for me; the nuts, bolts, screws and allen keys were all over the floor before I assembled this one.

    Thank you Eileen and it’s always a pleasure to lock boat hooks with Popeye. Anchors Aweigh !

63. Thanks so much for a very enjoyable puzzle Boatman. I’ve recently come back to regular cryptics after many years of no time to spare and usually find yours tough going, but this one gave me a huge grin. Either you were easier on us today or that wavelength magic was working, but I had nothing unparsed apart from the first part of 7a REPAIR for which I kept trying to find a theatrical homophone… a well-laid tea tray indeed. And on the strength of this I’ve just ordered 2 copies of your book, as I find the workings behind the scene as interesting as the puzzles themselves. Much like theatre, where I spent my working life – and why 7a shouldn’t have troubled me.

    Thanks very much to Eileen too, I always enjoy your blogs and your btl comments.

64. Clever use of the theme.  I found quite a lot went in on the first pass.  LOI was HOTEL which took me an age to see (couldn’t get pass WOE for misery for a long time).  I was misled by the “US version of Pound” phrase – nicely done.  I liked the Spoonerism and TOPLESS for the construction.  I toyed with MEIOTIC for 19, but there was obviously no way it meant lifeless, almost the opposite.

    Not sure why there’s such a kerfuffle about REMOTE/SLIM.  Plenty of words have one meaning in one context and a different one elsewhere.  Both Chambers and Collins online list them as synonymous, so I don’t see the doubt.

    Thanks, Eileen and Boatman.

65. Petert @57 – If you ever find an answer to your question, let me know. It’s the sort of thing that Barnard might have identified and given a Greek-sounding name …

66. We found this a struggle but got there in the end, albeit without having parsed TOPLESS (an excellent clue of the type that I’m still looking for a name for) and l, along with many others, KICKER where I fell into the well laid trap of looking for a US version of Pound. My favourites were the relatively simple (once you get them!) ADORE and UTTER. I wasn’t keen on BOOK CLUB. Thanks to Boatman for the puzzle and contributions to the thread, to Eileen for the excellent blog, and to JinA and others for the Desolation Row links – I’ve never been able to understand what he was saying and now I know why!

67. John MacNeill @47

    re: “OK, remote chance = slim chance, but not because remote = slim.”

    If someone asked what are the chances of that? The reply could be either “slim” or “remote” and the same message comes across. They’re as synonymous as they need to be, IMO.

    Lovely puzzle, thanks Boatman and blogger.

     

68. Thanks to Boatman and Eileen.

    All has been said, and most of it the positives I might have offered.  With Boatman palely loitering, I am loth to wiggle the eyebrows but it did occur to me that between LIBBER and LORD REITH we could have been in the 1960s (Fawlty Towers notwithstanding).  I enjoyed EDUCATE – I needed it to start making ground and it was worth tightening up the cerebral corset for a few (too many) moments.

    Petert @57: Is the use of “book” in BORDER simply double-duty?

69. Ally @ 63 – Excellent! Your books are ready to go to you as soon as our village post office opens tomorrow morning. If you’d like anything writing in the front of one of them, just drop me a line using the contact form on my website any time today. I hope you have a lot of fun with them!

70. Too late to contribute anything new, but I enjoyed this greatly.  Thank you Boatman for the workout and for entering into the spirit of the thread, it is always enjoyable for me to hear what the setter thinks of the various comments.  Favourites were UTTER, the excellent Spoonerism, WRITERS BLOCK and TOPLESS, the sort of clue I always struggle with but love when/if I finally get it.  There were several I was unsure how to parse so many thanks to Eileen.

71. Re MarkN @ 67

     

    In the context of “chance”, “remote” & “slim” of course convey the same info, but they do so figuratively (not by their literal meanings) in different ways, which to my mind doesn’t make them synonyms.

72. Re the remote/slim discussion. Surely the fact that words have different meanings in different contexts is the basis of many crossword clues, and why cryptics work so well!

73. Alpha @68 – That’s why this sort of thing is so interesting – “book” is doing something very similar to a double-duty, but not quite. In a true double-duty, you have to mentally insert part of the clue that is logically missing. For example, if I wrote “Last of its last in first of last” as a clue for FINAL, “first” would be doing double-duty, as the wordplay should be “of its last” = F + “in” = IN + “first” = A + “first of last” = L, and the clue should logically be “Last of its last in first, first of last”. In the case of “Margin of book, its left edge on top”, on the other hand, “its” stands logically in place of “book” – you could replace “its” by “book” to give the logically equivalent “Margin of book, book’s left edge on top”, but you don’t have to insert a missing piece of the logic. There’s clearly something of a feeling of double-duty even so, in that you have to use “book” in two ways, but it doesn’t have the damaging effect of omitting a logical element of the clue, and for that reason it’s something slightly different.

74. Boatman@73: Thanks for that.  I think I thought something like that, but how elegantly you put it.  Thanks again for all the distraction and keep well.

75. I’ve had another look at BORDER, and sort of see how it works. I don’t think I would use “book” and “order” interchangeably though – “I’ve booked dinner for next Saturday”, “I’ve ordered dinner for 8 o’clock”.

76. …in that “book” means “make a reservation”, while “order” means “place a contract for something to be prepared/delivered etc.”.

77. muffin, how about “I’ve booked/ordered a taxi for 8 o’clock”?

78. Surely with booked/ordered or slim/remote you get to the right answer, which in the end is the only judgement.  Nobody can say they did not fill in the answer because they did not think the words were not sufficiently equivalent.  I just do not understand the problem except that people are being pedantic!

79. sorry should be “were sufficiently equivalent”

80. phitonelly @77: a gallant effort – and it almost works – but I can’t in all honesty imagine myself or anyone else ‘ordering’ a taxi.

    First thing this morning, I was kicking myself for not having seen Andrew’s seemingly obvious parsing – which, interestingly, others also failed to see.

    In the present situation, as per muffin’s explanation @76, I book a supermarket online delivery [if I’m lucky enough to get a slot] and then place an order.

    Spanza @78 – I have no problems at all with slim / remote [I supplied what I thought was the justification] and I admitted that I couldn’t parse the answer to 5dn.

     

81. phitonelly @77

    Yes, that works. There are stil different shades of meaning, though.

    SPanza @78

    Of course I’m pedantic – I’m a retired teacher!

82. I’m almost sorry I agreed, phitonelly, given that Eileen is of my original opinion 🙂

83. Eileen @80 I would usually say “I’ve ordered a taxi”. I’m a bit odd though 🙂

84. bodycheetah – I think we all are.

85. Robert Owen, the social reformer (some question about the exact wording):

    ‘All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer’

86. Eileen: I would of course not dream of suggesting that you are the odd one, but ordering a taxi sounds perfectly natural to me.

87. Eileen I certainly wasn’t getting at you – heaven forfend – I was merely making the general point that only when one cannot get to the answer are these sorts of arguments important.

    muffin I started out as a teacher, but then went on to work for thirty years in the world of aid, where pedantry was replaced by cynicism!!

88. Please can someone help me with 17 ac. I just don’t get it. What is the role of “rose” in the clue/solution ???
    i just don’t see it and it’s driving me crazy.

    Thanks

89. Leyther @88

    If PROSE were “topless” – i.e. without the P (though I agree that it works better in a down clue), it would be ROSE or “got up”.

    I didn’t parse this, and, in contrast to some others, I don’t think it’s that good.

90. Leyther @ 88 the clue is; ‘In this way, prose would be got up, daringly exposed (7).’  OK the definition is ‘daringly exposed’ ie TOPLESS. As Eileen points out in her blog, [p]ROSE [‘topless’ – got up].  So if you make prose topless that is take away the p it becomes ‘rose’ which means got up, as in, he rose at 8am every day.   Hope that helps!

91. Sorry muffin we crossed!! And yours is a much more succinct explanation!

92. Leyther – if PROSE was topless (i.e. without a P) it would make ROSE (got up). Hope that covers it.
    But I couldn’t see UTTER and didn’t know ABIOTIC, so DNF. But enjoyable, thanks Boatman and Eileen.

93. SPanza @87 – I know! This is all getting [or got, a while ago] a bit silly, isn’t it? [My point is that if book = order is so obvious, how come I [and several others] just couldn’t see it? – I got the answer from the definition alone.

    I’m glad you managed to spend most of your working life in the real world. 😉 I treasure the student who asked me, ‘Miss, did you always want to be a teacher?*  Didn’t you ever have any ambition?’

    [*actually, yes, from primary school days – she was right.]

    Leyther @88 – ROSE = ‘got up’ is [p]ROSE minus its first letter [topless] – sorry if it wasn’t clear. [And welcome, if you’re new here.]

    [Sorry, I annoyingly lost internet connection while posting – I see I’ve been overtaken on Leyther’s point.]

94. PS: I’ve certainly no ambition to help hit the comments centenary for the second time in a week.

    Thanks to all for your comments and to Boatman for your contributions. I’m calling it a day now.

95. Eileen  @ 93 Working in overseas aid allowed me to travel all over the developing world which for me was a real privilege.  However, I am by no means convinced after 30 years in the field that I made much, if any difference to the lives of those I was sent to help.  A good teacher on the other hand – and I stress the word good – is of real benefit!!

96. Alphalpha @74

    “Palely loitering”? I suppose that is a little more prepossessing description for Boatman than “eflin grot”.

    Altogether a finely crafted crossword.

97. Thanks everyone. Had a bit of mind block on that one.
    I’m a regular reader of the blog – I generally find there are at least a couple of clues I can’t parse and I rely on Fifteensquared to help me out. This is my first post – thanks again!

98. SPanza – I tried to reply earlier – I’m having a few internet problems.

    I can’t leave this on a flippant note. As a [very] long-standing supporter and activist for Christian Aid and, latterly, WDM [Global Justice Now], I’ve campaigned in various ways, including marching round London several times re Trade Justice and Climate Change and, memorably, Edinburgh re Make Poverty History. It gives you a real buzz at the time but it never gets real media publicity, so it’s really down to people like you.

    I’d really like to think that we’ve  both made a little bit of difference, one way or another.

99. What a lot of comments! Can we make it to 100? I enjoyed this a lot- thanks to both. Can I offer an alternative parsing to 10a ADORE? Not saying this is what the setter intended, but I read it as A Do Re … the entry to a sound relationship being the first two notes of the tonic sol fa. It almost works!

100. Thank you Boatman for a cracker of a puzzle. Got within 1d of a finish (interesting to see that clue commented on) which is good going for one more used to the DT back pager. Struggled to parse a few & used the check if correct button a couple of times but am slowly getting better.

101. My how busy!
     Thanks to Eileen and Boatman for the fun.
     I would certainly use ‘book’ and ‘order’ interchangeably for a taxi. I still can’t see much difference between the two definitions for RESERVE given.
     ‘A sound relationship’ is a decent definition of a homophone.
     On whether it matters if a synonym is poor, as long as you get the right answer, I personally feel peeved if I feel I have got the answer despite the clue rather than because of it – and sorry for other solvers. Which doesn’t apply to this puzzle, which was super.
     Happy to be sub-Mensa myself…

102. Couldn’t 8ac just as easily been Tomes = books. “T o e s” from fa(w)ulty Towers and “m” from Misery with no end, i.e. remove “isery”

103. Tamarac@102: Hate to leave a question un-answered, so no.

104. Just looked into the ‘slim’ ‘remote’ matter further, and they can both mean ‘slight’, as in “I have a remote inkling that we shall see this brought up again, though I have not the remotest interest in it being soon”. 🙂

105. I always thought the correct declension was “amo amas amat amonk amink aminibus “.”

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