Paul returns to the Saturday slot, with what I thought was a pretty straightforward puzzle. As far as I can see, it’s squeaky-clean and I’m not sure I would have recognised it as a Paul puzzle without his name at the top.
There is a theme (again rather unusual for Paul, I think) – of Steven Spielberg films: I counted eleven, seven in the clues, easily identifiable from the capital letters, and four in the answers, at 12ac 18,24 and 5dn, but there may be more. There are a couple of places where I thought the wordplay / definition / surface suffered, in order to accommodate the theme.
No outstanding clues for me this time but I did, at the time, quite like the definition for 18dn, before some enlightening – and, I think, conclusive – discussion, later in the week, on the blog of a similar clue in Wednesday’s Nutmeg puzzle (comments passim 35-69); as I said in a comment there, in view of recent extensive and constructive discussion and new Comment Guidelines, I hope there won’t be too much further discussion here. 😉
Thanks for the puzzle, Paul.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Fish in sea given drug, swimming with huge power (12)
SUPERCHARGED
PERCH (fish) in an anagram (swimming) of SEA and DRUG
9 Pack leader of female kangaroos bouncing back (5)
AKELA
Reverse hidden (bouncing back) in femALE KAngaroos – known as The Lone Wolf or Big Wolf in The Jungle Book and adopted by the Scout movement as the name for a Cubmaster – one held in great awe by my young sons, when they were cub scouts, I remember
10 Probation: message about it breaking through (9)
NOVITIATE
NOTE (message) round IT in (breaking) VIA (through)
11 Inebriate, Charlie leaving from the Highlands (7)
SOTTISH
S[c]OTTISH (from the Highlands) minus c (charlie – NATO phonetic alphabet)
12 A film trailer for movie (7)
AMISTAD
A MIST (a film) + AD (trailer) – I hadn’t heard of this film (it looks interesting) but managed to build it from the blocks
13 Beginning of fast: a tad suety, possibly? (3,7)
FAT TUESDAY
F(ast) + an anagram (possibly) of A TAD SUETY – a clue as definition: I knew that ‘Mardi Gras’ meant ‘Fat Tuesday’ but I don’t think I’ve actually met the expression
15 Comic actor, film star in audition? (4)
IDLE
Sounds like (in audition) ‘idol’ (film star)
(Eric) IDLE, comic actor, appeared in the previous Saturday’s puzzle by Picaroon: ‘Python seized by intrepid lemur’
18, 24 down Survivor cut in Duel gets shiner (9)
FIRELIGHT
RELI[c] (survivor, cut – it could also, I suppose, be RELI[ct], as in Paul’s Mudd FT puzzle last week ‘Survivor fired up again about beginning of challenge (6)’ – in FIGHT (duel); I think the definition’s rather loose but Paul has managed to get a film title in both clue and solution
19 Infant school’s last break, 1:10 curiously (5,5)
ANKLE BITER
An anagram (curiously) of [schoo]L BREAK I TEN
22 Video devoid of content in things like Gremlins develops (7)
EVOLVES
V[ide]O (devoid of content) in ELVES (things like Gremlins)
24 Academic gained by working on novel, finally (7)
LEARNED
[nove]L + EARNED (gained by working) – not really convinced by the definition (although I see that Chambers gives ‘scholarly’ as a definition for both) – in a rather hackneyed construction
25 Jumper something with hole, back grimy originally (5,4)
GREEN FROG
GREEN (something with hole – on a golf course) + FRO (back) + G[rimy] – as I think you know by now, I set a lot of store by surfaces and I often have issues with Paul’s: any help with making any meaningful sense of this one would be very welcome – I’m not very impressed with the definition, either!
26 Opener enthusiastic about collecting runs (5)
INTRO
INTO (enthusiastic about) round R (runs)
27 Notes passed on correction of line in Jaws (5,7)
CHAIN LETTERS
An anagram (correction) of LINE in CHATTERS (jaws)
Down
1 Person watching abridged version of Poltergeist claiming little bit short (9)
SPECTATOR
SPECTR[e] (poltergeist) round ATO[m] (little bit, short) – again, I take issue with a definition: SPECTRE comes from the same root as SPECTATOR, so, essentially, something seen [if only imaginarily) whereas a poltergeist is, essentially, an invisible spirit
2 Whitish grey, a metal in The Color Purple (8)
PLATINUM
A TIN (a metal) in PLUM (the colour purple)
3 American plot has department devoid of leadership (5)
RANCH
[b]RANCH (department)
4 Eat everything, including salt, and enjoy yourself (4,1,4)
HAVE A BALL
HAVE ALL (eat everything) round AB (Able Seaman – salt)
5 Market two films screened by opposite sides (6)
RETAIL
ET AI (two films) in R L (opposite sides) – neat to manage to squeeze two films within six letters but, again, a dodgy definition: I’ve been assured by several people in the business(es) that retailing (selling) is not the same as marketing (Edit – but see Dr WhatsOn @3)
6 Spot on end of nose needing operation after kiss (5)
EXACT
[nos]E + ACT (operation) after X (kiss)
7 State-provided range (6)
MASSIF
MASS[achusetts] (state) + IF (provided)
8 Sound decoration for fiddle (6)
MEDDLE
Sounds like medal (decoration)
14 Following offence, criminal trials left (9)
SINISTRAL
SIN (offence) + an anagram (criminal) of TRIALS
16 School in Close Encounters blows up (9)
DETONATES
ETON (school) in DATES (close encounters)
17 In Lincoln, key turning up for case (8)
ABLATIVE
In ABE (Lincoln) a reversal (turning up) of VITAL (key)
18 Get down ridge below peak of Fuji (6)
FLEDGE
F[uji] + LEDGE (ridge) – I liked the definition, but please see my preamble above; I was struggling to equate ridge and ledge but I found that ‘ledge’ is a geological term for ‘a ridge or shelf of rocks’ (Chambers); ‘a ridge of rock that lies beneath the surface of the sea’ (Collins)
20 Poker like this, expected to win (3,3)
RED HOT
Double definition – the first a reference to this plant, the second as in ‘red-hot favourite’
21 A vehicle: it rolled forward! (6)
AVANTI
A VAN (a vehicle) + a reversal (rolled) of IT
23 Hiding in wardrobe, a handsome Caribbean charmer (5)
OBEAH
see here
Thanks to Paul and Eileen. As a retired academic, I had trouble linking that term with LEARNED and also took a long time getting the green in GREEN FROG and also FIRELIGHT.
Thought you may want to put Jaws in red too…..
Well I quite liked this one, despite a few somewhat dodgy surfaces, as Eileen points out.
I glossed over the retail/market distinction while solving, and agree with Eileen they are not the same as verbs, but if you look at retail as describing a kind of market, as distinct from a wholesale market, I think Paul is off the hook.
Agree with all Eileen’s comments — in my own words, ho-hum, but we’ve seen much worse.
The Color Purple was a fave of Mrs ginf (she thought it should have got the Oscar), and we saw Close Encounters, and Lincoln turned up on the telly sometime, but no, the theme bell didn’t ring. As for green frog, it was a total shrug, didn’t twig either the golf ref or fro/back, d’oh, but tbh I think I just filled the grid and didn’t much bother. Thanks Paul and Eileen. Now to see what today brings.
Thanks Eileen. Missed the theme and remained baffled for ages afterwards for the survivor in FIRELIGHT (wondering if it might be a TV thing). Thought 6D was spot on brilliant.
Thanks P&E. Chambers does have for market ‘”To deal at a market; to buy and sell … to sell”.
Not sleeping well, so a nocturnal contribution.
I enjoyed this puzzle. I’m not a church-goer but I thought that the beginning of the fast is Ash Wednesday, not the Tuesday.
Yep, Akela also used in Finland for the leader of the cubs.
Good to see the ablative make an appearance too. It’s one of the six situational cases in Finnish.
Thanks to Paul and to Eileen.
Anna@8 I imagine a number of us here encountered the ablative in Latin. I hear Finnish is several times more difficult for English-speakers (or maybe that should read, anyone) to learn.
Thank you, Ant @2. It’s my arithmetic at fault – sorted now.
Point taken, Dr WhatsOn @3.
And thank you, Anna – I’ve just woken up, too. 😉 I’m interested that Finnish, as well as Latin, has six cases – I might investigate that in the morning. And well spotted – yes, of course, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, not Shrove Tuesday!
I’m going back to sleep now, I hope …
Struggled through much of this and, after an extensive alphabet trawl, had AVIATED (AV=film, but couldn’t account for the rest) for LOI 12a (had dismissed AMISTED) – so, DNF. Only a vague memory of hearing about the film – is it named after a slaving ship? I liked RETAIL for the included films (without seeing the theme!) – I think the equivalence works in (modern business-speak) phrases like ‘I plan to market/retail [sausages]’ – ugly, but heard. I have to admit I got 18d from the discussion you refer to, Eileen – that’s why they have embargoes, isn’t it? Thanks to Paul and Eileen for enlightenment on 12a.
I found this one tough too and it took me ages. I saw some of the references to the Spielberg films but didn’t pursue the theme exhaustively, so thanks to Eileen and other contributors for joining the dots. Dredged 12a ARMISTAD up from the depths but needed crossers and fodder to get it. I loved the colloquial phrase 19a ANKLE BITER. Ta muchly to Paul for the challenge and Eileen for the commentary.
[gif@ I too loved The Colour Purple both book and film. BTW, I added some comments to you late on yesterday’s Crucible blog. Anna@8, delighted to see your post including your customary contribution to our linguistic knowledge. What a clever and complex language Finnish must be.]
This was a struggle with a few answers entered unparsed, but lots to enjoy, including ANKLE BITER and MEDDLE, the latter of which occupied me for far too long. I agree with Eileen that the surface of 25a was godawful, even for a setter known for clunky surfaces.
[Does anyone else experience greater success with Paul’s prize puzzles than with his weekday offerings? With me the difference is pretty dramatic: weekday puzzles (42 attempted, 5 completed) vs. prizes (20 attempted, 18 completed). I usually do them in one sitting, so having a week to complete a prize doesn’t account for the difference. Yes, I know that keeping track of such things tells me how much I need to get a life.]
[JinA, a complete wire-cross yesterday…I meant Eddie VH of course, but earlier had been listening to a long interview with Jimmy Barnes..ageing brain 🙂 ]
I thought I knew my movies well enough that I didn’t need to bother Googling Spielberg film titles, even if I’d not seen them all – I was never a fan of most of his early ones like Jaws, Close Encounters, ET, although I remembering really enjoying Duel. I was wrong, because I sat for ages at the end with a missing 12a, unable to think of anything remotely plausible except for A-LISTED (A-LIST was a movie, and it did have a Hollywood/ Spielberg feel – hey, I was stuck). Finally I looked him up, and realised I had never even heard of AMISTAD, let alone seen it. Other than that, mostly a slow and steady solve, with a couple of missed parsings: the survivor, and the green jumper. I had liked HOT TIP for the poker/favourite, but had to think again. It isn’t really relevant, but AVANTI was also a film, but not a Spielberg – a light but entertaining Billy Wilder/Jack Lemmon comedy which is where I learned the word ‘Avanti’. Thanks for the puzzle, Paul, and for the blog, Eileen.
As a fledgling solver it was a rare occasion for me to nestle up to a Paul puzzle and complete it in one day. Sorry, Eileen, I couldn’t resist – I hope you don’t mind.
KeithS @15 – I had HOT TIP as well, until those nasty crossers… Seems like just as good an answer as the real one.
Somewhat to my surprise I found the theme before finishing the puzzle AND this helped me complete as cd remember AMISTAD as a Spielberg even though not seen by me.
Enjoyed this even if not many highlight clues, the theme was fun!
Fat Tuesday was my fave answer even if Anna is correct from a liturgical perspective , a (semi?) &lit is always pleasant (IMO). EXACT was also a fun shorter clue
Thanks Paul and Eileen for explaining it all, and to all learned commentators on here!
Great minds, TassieTim @17. Clearly an ambiguous clue….
Julie in Aus @12
I wanted to say thank you for your kind words on Gaufrid’s ‘Comments’ posting the other day. Much appreciated – and reciprocated.
DrWhatsOn @ 9
Eileen @ 10
Julie in Aus @12
!! POSTING ABOUT FINNISH LANGUAGE !!
Finnish has six situational or ‘local’ cases but it also has lots of others. At least a dozen are in everyday use and there are a few more less frequently used. About 15 in total.
The Finnish cases don’t really ‘match up’ with those of Indo-European languages though some of the case names are familiar because the language was first analysed and written down by Swedes who were educated in Latin.
Finnish is not the easiest language for an English speaker to learn but I doubt it’s the most difficult either. No genders (hurray!) No definite or indefinite articles (hurray!) Very few irregularities or exceptions (hurray!) The sounds of Finnish are mostly quite easy (hurray!) But there are lots of suffixes for the cases and for a host of other things too. Finnish is agglutinative – you can add several suffixes to the same word to build up meanings.
My favourite case is the translative (becoming/turning into) (vanha – old ; tulen vanhaksi – I’m getting old). I am also very fond of the illative (movement into) (Suomi – Finland : menen Suomeen – I’m going to Finland).
Many thanks, Paul. Exceptionally (for me) completed with limited use of aids and spotting all the crypticism. Very satisfying. Fat Tuesday absolutely fine. A fast begins with a good stoke-up.
My Latin teacher told us we were lucky to be learning such an easy language, as Finnish was much harder, about as hard as it gets (“you never Finnish it”, said one learned, academic boy).
And academics in Economics take a condescending view of Business Studies as a discipline – the word ‘Market’ has a slightly different meaning in each, I suspect.
Surely the surface in GREEN FROG relates to ‘Jumper’ meaning a woollen sweater (not much used in the US, I believe). Many of us will have one with holes and a dirty back. But not a very cunning clue, I agree.
I shared Anna@8’s doubts about FAT TUESDAY, but finally settled for Choldunk@22’s approach. It was a cunning way of getting the F.
A fairly straightforward puzzle, with no need to spot the Spielberg link (I did not), and thanks to Paul and Eileen.
[Thanks Anna @21 for the fascinating insights. You reminded me that Finnish belongs to an entirely different family from most other European languages – but it might give you a head start when learning Estonian?]
Back to the crossword – thank you Eileen for pointing out the Spielberg connections. (I did realise there were a lot of films, but never got beyond that!)
Like others I ticked EXACT, and DETONATES made me smile too.
Re the clue for GREEN FROG – it made me think of my long-standing problem when attempting to put on (sleeveless) jumpers – my head always seemed to end up in the wrong hole. Some of them may have had grimy backs as well, although not ‘originally’. I assume Paul was tempted by the idea of golf courses and (wearable) jumpers both having holes – shame it didn’t quite come off.
[Since beginning to type I see sjshart @23’s mind was working along similar lines.]
Thanks to Paul for what I thought was a stiff challenge, and Eileen for her customary helpfulness and illumination.
Thanks Eileen. Put me down as another who missed the theme and whose LOI was AMISTAD after trying in vain to fit in AVIATOR and wondering if MEDDLE was correct. I see I have made no pencil marks on my paper copy so I guess I didn’t find anything remarkable about it.
Anna@21. Isn’t there a similarity between Finnish and Hungarian? Something to do with migration streams I’m told.
essexboy @ 24
Biggles A @ 25
Estonian is indeed a very close relative of Finnish. Some people here even refer to Estonian irrevererently as ‘hassusuomi’ (‘funny Finnish’). Though there are some false friends ….
And yes, Finnish and Hungarian are related, though distantly.
We can more-or-less understand written Estonian, and the spoken language if the Estonian speaks slowly and clearly. We can’t understand Hungarian at all.
Did not parse novitiate, firelight, ankle biter
New: OBEAH
Liked FAT TUESDAY, GREEN FROG, DETONATES.
Thanks to Paul and Eileen.
I enjoyed this and found it quite challenging. I was making good progress until I hit a wall on the right-hand side, with 10 clues unsolved. Thinking ANKLE BITER would be the key to opening up that sector I tried hard to solve that, but in fact it was the deceptively simple DETONATES that did it, and ANKLE BITER was my last in, purely because that descriptive name for an infant was new to me. (It would seem to describe those small yapping dogs rather better.)
Another unkown was FAT TUESDAY, but it was a straightforward solve from the clue. Finally (again highlighting my poor GK for these puzzles!), I left just AMISTAD unsolved (as I see others also did), although there was clearly nothing wrong with the clue.
[I appreciated today’s lesson(s) in Finnish from Anna. I have a lifelong interest (since my schooldays) in language and linguistics, and was aware of a connection between Finnish and Hungarian as to the type of language they are, and I was interested today to learn something about Finnish articles, gender and cases.]
Anna @21 and 26
Many thanks for taking the trouble to explain. Finnish sounds a fascinating language. A member of my erstwhile Latin reading group used to talk about it, as she visits her son and his family in Finland.
Eileen, you seem to have forgotten the anagram of LINE within CHAIN LETTERS.
Like Eileen (thanks for the blog) I had some problems with loose definitions; MEDDLE didn’t occur to me until I had all the crossers, so I think ‘fiddle’ was a poor definition. The nearest equivalents I could find in Chambers were falsify (for fiddle) and tamper (with) for meddle. MASSIF=range was also a bit of a stretch, I thought, though the answer was obvious once the crossing F was in place.
And Paul’s surfaces! But the surface of 25a was so bad that I wonder if there is a colon missing: ‘Jumper: something with hole, back grimy originally’ looks like an improvement. This is not to say that the surfaces here were universally awful; I thought the two ‘school’ clues (16d & 19a) were very good, for example.
[TassieTim @11 re18d. …that’s why they have embargoes, isn’t it? Apologies for the discussion of Nutmeg’s very similar clue on Wednesday, but when I mentioned it I didn’t realise that I had seen similar wordplay in this crossword, I just had a vague memory of having seen it recently. Once the cat was out of the bag, I thought the discussion centred, quite properly, on Nutmeg’s clue rather than Paul’s. It’s just a weird coincidence that a very similar clue had appeared within days.]
[Anna @8, 21 & 26. Many thanks for the Finnish lesson. Fascinating!]
Despite the criticisms, there was lots to like about this crossword (which took me until Friday to complete!), so thanks to Paul for an entertaining challenge.
I realised that the theme was films but didn’t twig while solving that they were all from Spielberg.
As others above have pointed out, the clue for GREEN FROG just about makes sense if the jumper is a sweater. ANKLE BITER is given in Chambers and Collins as Australian slang, although Oxford just says humorous, so I guess that just about gives Paul a get-out-of-jail card. I’ve never heard the phrase before.
Thanks Paul and Eileen.
thanks, roughtrade @30 – corrected now.
Thank you Paul, as I remember it I enjoyed this and did not find it too hard. There were however several I could not fully parse, so thanks Eileen as ever for the detailed blog.. To keep this short I will not mention all my favourites but must just say I thought GREEN FROG a bit of a gem!! AMISTAD strangely was my FOI: it is of course very newsworthy currently.
[Anna thanks for the very interesting information about Finnish, it is why I would hate to see off topic threads outlawed completely. May I be so bold as to ask if you are Finnish, or if you are a Brit living there. If the latter, how do you rank your Finish? I ask as someone who lives in Spain much of the time, speaks quite good Spanish but makes frequent and horrendous grammatical errors when speaking fast!!]
It’s interesting that this puzzle had two entries very similar to entries in recent puzzles (‘get down’ and Idle) when this is something the Editor specifically looks to avoid (as taken from the horse’s mouth in a recent Oaul Zoom meeting). I wonder if the puzzle was scheduled in at short notice for some reason?
[I learnt rather a lot about this puzzle, before I’d had time to look at it, by tuning into Paul’s open Zoom meeting the same day it was published. I usually avoid attending them unless I’ve managed to squeeze in a solve first (extremely rare on a Saturday) but he promised to talk about creating themed puzzles and I was curious to hear what he said. Sadly, I got in late and I think most of his remarks on the subject had already been made, so I had the puzzle spoilt with little to compensate.
Anna, thanks for the Finnish lesson. As soon as you mentioned the large number of cases, I rushed to Wikipedia to learn more. Regarding the tongue’s origins, I also understood that the ancestor language of both Finnish and Hungarian was spoken by a (Turkic?) race that migrated from the east. I believe Turkish is also an agglutinative language(?).
Regarding the debate about whether a bird is fledged when it ‘gets down’, and those who argued on Wednesday that it means ‘get feathers’ and down is a type of feathers, I note that the word appears to have an etymology related specifically to flying rather than the feathers needed to do that.]
Having solved 12a from the wordplay I checked that it was the name of a movie on Google. Coincidentally I bought a Salvia Amistad with long purple flowers less than a month ago so I knew that Amistad was a real word. Google said that it was one of Spielberg’s films and so was A.I. and I half remembered that E.T. was too so I guessed there was a theme. My son, who actually goes to the pictures, spotted the ones that Eileen did and I can now reveal that Spielberg had nothing to do with the films called CHAIN LETTER, FAT TUESDAY, OBEAH, and RED HOT unless Gooogle has missed something.
I solved the Nutmeg clue on Wednesday without much of a thought. I don’t think I read those comments on the blog, so I didn’t know there was a controversy. Then when I got to 18dn in this puzzle (which wasn’t until after Wednesday), I found myself completely baffled by the definition. Funny how the mind works.
[Anna @21 – thank you – great thumbnail sketch]
We have a Guardian digital sub and I do the cryptic crossword online (pity that the Sandwich Sudoku is not online as I really miss those). Can anyone tell me why occasionally the prize weekend crossword is not there online, on an Android device? I can only find missing ones by using my PC.
[SPanza @32. I had assumed that Anna was Finnish with a fantastic command of English. Either that or the other way around would be quite an accomplishment.]
[Tony Collman @33. In the editor’s defence, the Nutmeg clue used fledglings in the wordplay to arrive at GET DOWN, while Paul’s used get down in the wordplay to arrive at FLEDGE, so the close relationship between the two might have been easy to miss. Not easy to devise a world-beating checking system that could pick those two up, I suggest.]
Overall I must have liked this crossword due to the number of ticks I made on my copy. I agree with others, however, about some “dodgy surfaces.” As far as the similarity of clues across setters, I often wonder if many of them use the same software that might suggest such things.
[sh@40 It’s actually not that difficult, assuming you have the right skills and the right software libraries. The problem, I think, is somewhat different. It’s not unlike the unexpected finding that it only takes about 25 people in a room together for there to be a 50% chance that two of them have same birthday – or maybe it’s 26, whatever. Since each puzzle has about 30 clues, that means that in the last 3 weeks, say, there would be about 540 prior clues that a given puzzle might clash with, i.e. about 16,000 opportunities for a clash. It’s maybe surprising it doesn’t happen more often (or maybe it does, we just don’t notice.)]
[ Tony C @35:
I don’t want to pre-empt a response from Anna, but your comments/questions regarding Finnish and Turkish prompted me to do a little more searching myself.
Turkish is indeed an agglutinative language, like Finnish. This and other common features gave rise to the theory of a common ancestor: the Uralo-Altaic hypothesis.
The idea, which was popular up until the 1960s, was that the Uralic languages (including Finnish and Hungarian) were related to ‘Altaic’ (a proposed language family including the Turkic languages, as well as Mongolian and possibly even Japanese and Korean).
Just two problems: (i) the very concept of ‘Altaic’ is now widely rejected; (ii) even those linguists who still defend the idea of an Altaic family have now discarded any ancestral relationship with Uralic.
So, who were the ancestors of the Finns and Hungarians, and where did they come from? There’s an interesting wiki article here (and also a nice colourful map, which is a relief to those of us who get tired of reading after a while!) ]
Eileen, thanks for enlightening me about the red hot poker as a plant–when I solved this last week, I had in mind the supposed instrument of Edward II’s death, and I was unsatisfied because that kind of poker isn’t necessarily or even usually red-hot! [My excuse is that I wrote about Edward II–the play by Marlowe and its adaptation by Brecht–for my master’s thesis.]
[For those who haven’t seen AMISTAD, it’s a pretty good movie–I mean, anything with Morgan Freeman involved is guaranteed at least one good facet, right?–but I don’t find it especially re-watchable; it’s one of those movies where, well, once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. Not one of Spielberg’s strongest efforts.
[Also, note that Spielberg wrote but did not direct Poltergeist, and produced but did not direct Gremlins.]
[Hi essexboy @ 43
Wow! – many thanks for all of that. I meant to say earlier that I’m sorry I’m too old to embark on learning Finnish, because it seems I would surely enjoy it – many thanks again to Anna for sparking off this discussion.
mrpenney @44 – I did think about Edward II’s death but I don’t really like to do so and my grandpa used to have red hot pokers in his garden, so I went down that path. 😉
@SueM I too have been wondering about the missing prize puzzles in the app: it is very annoying! I found this hard and did not parse a good deal, though I worked out all the answers by identifying definitions. ANKLE BITERS is common parlance for regular length trousers in a tall women’s group of which I am a member: we are always looking for those which do not do this! (A challenge for women with a >36″ in seam! Thankfully mine is ‘only’ 34″ these days…) Anna thank you fir the Finnish explanation and also for pointing out the linguistic link to Estonian. Fascinating!
And many thanks to Eileen for explaining the many answers I had not parsed and to Paul for the challenge.
DrW @40
[Actually it’s 23.
Look up birthday problem on wikipedia if you want know why.]
Sorry DrW @ 42
[Essexboy@43, many thanks for that. It certainly can get tiring reading about so many places and peoples, cultures and tongues. Watch out for Uralo-Altaic hypothesis as a crossword answer, eh?]
A mild protest at 18 dn. When a bird fledges it does not get down, it sheds down in favour of proper feathers
Thanks for that, Croc @51. As I said in my preamble to the puzzle, your point was raised and discussed earlier in the week in the blog of the Nutmeg puzzle – see here http://www.fifteensquared.net/2020/10/07/guardian-cryptic-28258-by-nutmeg/ – comments passim 35-69.
Eileen, perhaps Croc also needs pointing at the fresh-off-the-press Comment Guidelines, in particular:
“Please try to avoid duplicating anything that has already been said in the blog or a previous comment.”
I am really annoyed by all the chat about a clue in Nutmeg’s puzzle that I am yet to do but which it seems clear I will now know the answer straight away. It is quite rich of Tony Collman to be quoting Guidelines when his was the first comment that gave this away.
Sugarbutties, I’m on mobile so I haven’t got a quick link to the Comment Guidelines, but I don’t recall any about not mentioning answers to puzzles whose solutions have already been published. Eileen mentioned it in the preamble to this post, anyway.
Duplication
And see Eileen’s post at 69 on the Nutmeg crossword
Sugarbutties @56
I don’t think there’s any other mention of the etymology of ‘fledge’ anywhere on this post or on the post for the Nutmeg.
Eileen’s post @69 in the comments to the Nutmeg was, in fact, a more serious breach of Guidelines (as pointed out by me @76). Failing to respect the request made there was not a breach of policy. I think Eileen wanted to avoid seeing all the same points being made on this post as had already been made there, but mine was a new point, so di not breach the spirit of the request in any case. It would have been better imho for Eileen to have made her request in the preamble to the instant post, which indeed she did … thereby also repeating the point made on the Wedsnesday. Naughty Eileen! 🙂
I’m over it now. Best wishes