Guardian 28,270 / Qaos

89 comments on “Guardian 28,270 / Qaos”

1. Cobro worked out the theme when we were nearly done. Sadly, it did not help us with 8D and it was a DNF for us.

   Favourites were GOLDEN and PENTHOUSES.

   Thanks Eileen and Qaos!

2. The BRITS aka ‘Brit Awards’ are an apparent omission from your list.

   As is regularly the case with Qaos, this was on the easy side but enjoyable. I loved the cheekiness of PENTHOUSES and the slight daftness of GRIND and HUGO. Managed to mislead myself by filling in NANNYGOAT at 24a and not getting the ROOT connection (‘Booker grind? Is that an RnB thing?’)

   Only clocked the theme after having a long hard stare at the completed grid. Thanks to Qaos and Eileen

3. Grrh! – the Brits were on my list: see the comment  in my preamble! Thanks, Boffo.

4. As BRITS was my last one in, I failed to find a theme, despite looking hard all the way through; it wouldn’t have mattered – most of them were unfamiliar to me, anyway.

   I found this an easier solve than Qaos’ usual offering, enjoyable nonetheless.

    

   Thanks Eileen (BB should be BOO in 4d – though by the time I have typed this others will no doubt have commented) and Qaos.

5. Thanks Eileen. As usual, I didn’t see the theme. For 4d, you have BB instead of boo.

6. Very slow finishing this one.  Lots of foreign – RSVP, SKOL, BONJOUR.

   (There’s a dog food called BRIT in Finland.)

   Thanks Qaos and Eileen

7. Thanks, Dave and Myrvin – will correct.

8. I have no problem with “Informally, we” as a definition of BRITS.

   I have a lot of problems with the matey/cuddly “BoJo” to refer to the unprincipled disgrace currently resident at No 10.

   16dn raised a smile. Slightly kicking myself for not parsing 8dn. Wondered whether there was a theme going with 28ac, 19dn, 22dn, but evidently not.

    

9. I got the theme with Golden Globe, Darwin and Booker but not anything like your comprehensive list Eileen. Penthouses was a gem. Ta Eileen and chaos

10. Well, I managed to spot the theme – though the problem with a Qaos is you’re looking for one from the outset and there were several candidates.  That said, I only recognised half of those identified by Eileen.  One of those where I now start wondering if there’s an RSVP prize, (perhaps for the writer with fewest returns) or a BABEL prize (for Presidential eloquence?)

    I was largely on the setter’s wavelength today, only held up by PENTHOUSES at the end which I couldn’t see for the life of me, even though I’d guessed the top shelf allusion.  I should probably be pleased that the name of the periodical in question didn’t leap to mind.  Ticks for shortish ones today: KYOTO, GOLDEN (once I’d untangled the parsing of the number), NIMBI, BABEL and BRITS stood out.  And the mathematicians should have no gripes about ROOT today.

    Minor quiblets with PEWIT which I’d spell as does our blogger and HERBIVORES: I always understood goats to be a great example of omnivores.  BONJOUR and ANDROMEDA delivered slightly disappointing surfaces but, otherwise, no other complaints.

    Thanks Qaos and Eileen

11. Tough.  DNF as cricket is an unknown quantity to me so 8d was a no-show (as were several others).

    Theme?  Not spotted…

    Thanks Qos and Eileen!

12. NeilH @8 – it was our non-UK friends I was thinking of! I’m in total agreement about 13ac – I couldn’t bring (or trust) myself to make a comment.

13. One more I found. https://skoll.org/about/skoll-awards/

14. i did this before bed and just now remembered how i had MICRONET for a while, figuring that was just something gadget-y I’d never heard of before getting the rather better known (and correct) answer.

    Very unusually for me I got the theme fairly early though there are some on the list I naturally didn’t know. One that hasn’t been mentioned yet I think are the PEN prizes… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PEN_literary_awards

    Thanks Qaos and Eileen!

15. Andy, I did see that one but discounted it, because of the double letter.

16. Thanks for that one, wonderstevie – I’ve added it above.

17. Andy @13 & Eileen @15: strictly not a contender but one is inclined to give Qaos a half credit for that one?

    Self @10:before I enrage the members of the Herbivore Society, I see that goats are classified as herbivores, though their tendency and ability to sample a range of non-vegetable items is acknowledged.  What kind of ‘-vore’ is a herbivore that’ll eat a tin can or a plastic bottle?

18. Tee hee-I first had BO as familiar PM and N + “UR”=”HEUR” hom but BONHEUR clashed with what was obviously penthouses so BO(N)JO UR it was

    This was trickier than his last puzzles and all te better for it’

    Thanks Eileen and Q

19. Forgot about Penthouse the mag, and thought top shelf? referred to the wealthy who can afford them, whatev. Don’t really mind ‘us’ or ‘we’ meaning Brits…love for the G dwarfs that sort of niggle. Similarly, forgive Qaos for complicity in the cuddliness of Bojo, the clue is too cute to reject. The Nobel, the Fields should have rung the theme bell, but I think mine is cracked and, if anything, just goes donk. Fun puzzle though, ta Q and E.

20. Eileen @12 – Informally, we small-minded islanders…?

    Only kidding. I think.

21. Anna @6, skol…foreign?!! You’re right next door!

22. Good stuff Eileen, too many weirdo cryptic bits to comment on, for the most part I just went for the literal parts of the clues. My first half dozen went in with no confidence at all. PEWIT for one, Bonjour, Pen and Listing were others.

     

    Bojo and EN escaped me completely and pound (pen) …. I marvel how you manage to figure out every mystical clue – GLOBE type clues in particular are going to take me a while to spot cryptically. Thanks Eileen, as helpful as ever – I’m retired and definitely going backwards , so might spot that next time :O)

     

23. 12 and 20 – I commented on the puzzle page about “we or us” and the likes of ausgirl.  I don’t think it was a good clue at all.

24. Managed to finish this, but needed to refer to Eileen for the parsing of a few of these, GLOBE and HUGH in the last to yield SW corner for two. Liked BABEL and SANDALWOOD…

25. Nope – I missed the theme completely. So disappointed as I thought BOOKER at 4d was quite an unusual solution to include – why didn’t I go that one step further? I didn’t understand 17a BRITS, a guess and my LOI (as for Dave Ellison@4), so I needed to come here – but again I am kicking myself as I KNOW porridge means prison. I also didn’t really “get” the link between Her Maj and 16d GRIND.  I liked 13d, BABEL, which seemed fitting given the pun in Qaos’ pseudonym.

    Many thanks to Eileen and Qaos.

26. Thanks Eileen. Failed to parse BRITS, d’oh (but did not mind the defn, it is in a brit national paper after all) and failed to crack the theme despite seeing golden globe and nobel, got stuck on the idea of winners of the globes, double d’oh. Fav clue wasGLOBE.
    Thanks to Qaos.

27. Saw the theme – I was looking for it – though it didn’t really help much. Shortest answer went in last!

    Anna @ 6, I sympathise. There is a casual assumption that everyone has a working knowledge of French. Latin, German and Spanish are occasionally used by setters, but only at a GK sort of level.

    Thanks to Qoas for the fun and Eileen for the blog (couldn’t parse 14a for the life of me!)

28. wonderstevie: Me too – put MICRONET in at first. [ex telecoms engineer so made sense??]

29. J in A @ 25, it’s a trope here that the Queen wears a CRINE and toffs in general go DINE to TINE etc.

30. Brava, Eileen, for working out the theme.  Started hunting for the setter’s trademark but gave up and just enjoyed it instead.

    For some reason, always considered spend and invest to be opposites.  It’s quite wrong of course.  Perhaps they are auto-antonyms?  Hmm?

    Winced a bit at the grammatically incorrect their in the HERBIVORE clue.  I’d have preferred to see his.

    Hugely enjoyable, many thanks, Qaos.

31. I didn’t write in BRITS until after I came here and read what Eileen had copied from Qaos’s website, so technically a dnf. (I just couldn’t see <stir.) Other than that a fairly steady solve, though hesitated for a long time over FIELDS, thinking that someone who fields a question is more likely to be intent on avoiding giving an answer. (Yes, I’m looking at you, Johnson.) Not sure either about many=LOT (a lot, or lots, but not just lot).

    The penny should have dropped when I got HUGO, given the size of my SF collection, but like grantinfreo @19 I have one of those bells that goes donk when it comes to spotting themes, so thanks to Eileen and commenters for an unexpectedly long list.

32. Zero out of three themes spotted last week, two out of two so far this. And the cd that is STAGE DOOR went in with barely a thought. What is going on? The rain outside my window creating new linkages across the ether? Or the kindly Qaos nudging us gently towards the light?
    I was hoping there might be an unnoticed IG hanging round with which to preface NOBEL and hence claim an additional award but I’ll happily settle for what I’ve got.

33. Impressive setting to get all the prizes in.

    Yes, I didn’t like the ‘devices’ in 10 and 17. It would have been easy to put ‘part of Japan’ and ‘… we at first breakfast …

    I also thought of micronet for 18 but was soon disabused.

    I looked for the theme and even thought of prizes but got hung up on DARWIN and FRANKLIN as scientists. Nicely misleading 4 of 16 to get ROOT but, of course, GK needed.

    Thanks Qaos for the entertainment and to Eileen for a comprehensive blog.

34. I think one of the PEN prizes mentioned by wonderstevie @14 is the GOLDEN PEN.

    I can’t see anything to object to in the definition for BRITS.  There was nothing in the clue to imply that “we” meant the setter and solvers – it can (and did) just mean we people in the country in which the crossword is published.  I agree however with Robi @33 about “first breakfast” for B in the same clue.

    Many thanks Qaos and Eileen.

35. An enjoyable and entertaining puzzle. I got the theme and am now better off for having the half of the connections I missed being pointed out to me!
    PEWIT was tough until DARWIN went in, likewise GLOBE until I had the idea of actually looking for it.
    I liked BRITS, NIMBI, RSVP, GRIND and GOLDEN very much. GRIND calls to mind a hilarious Two Ronnies sketch in which they talk mock royal in exactly this way. And Ronnie Barker is of central to Porridge (meaning STIR or prison).
    I expected to see a ‘numbers’ clue and wasn’t disappointed, the ‘£’ sign pointing to G and not M or K.
    Thanks to Qaos and Eileen, and to commenters for their thoughts and views.

36. William@30: I read “their” in the HERBIVORE clue as the gender-neutral singular form. It works absolutely fine for me.

    I loved the homophone for HUGO, but I still don’t understand the one for GRIND. I cannot in the life of me construct such a pronunciation of ground. Ah well, dialectal homophones are always tricky.

37. We in clues sometimes means setters generally and sometimes the paper where the puzzle appears (though usually the paper’s in the clue), but I don’t understand who the we in 17ac is referring to.  A group of which Qaos is one.  It can’t be referring to solvers, or English speakers.  That would be no better than using ‘informally we’ to clue blokes.

    ‘Object displaying kite mark’ for ITEM is like ‘Mathematical symbol displayed on a blackboard’ for NABLA a while back.  That clue got a fair amount of stick, not just from me, for making no sense, but hey, the answer required zero thought so that’s ok.

38. NOBELIUM also indirectly part of the them

39. It’s there, Simon! (as NOBEL).

40. Enjoyed today’s puzzle, especially ROOT and GRIND. Didn’t spot the theme until after I’d got BRITS as my last one in. Some of the awards are new to me. Apologies to Rosalind Franklin, but I’d never heard of HERBIVORE ?

    [PostMark @17 You’re not allowed to feed tin cans and plastic bottles to goats anymore. It’s another example of the nanny state.]

41. Unlike some others here, I found a different way to get misled by 18d. Looking at **T***O* and playing around with the letters, I found NETRICOM, which google told me is a Canadian telecommunications company. (Hmm, not British but kind of semi-British, and maybe ‘building’ is just a linking word … bung it in and check … rats!) Like the other ‘furriners’ above, I had no problem with BRITS in a British puzzle. Missed the theme of course, so thanks to Eileen for that, and thanks also to one of my favorite setters.

42. ContrapuntalAnt @36:

    There is an affected way of speaking which used to appeal to a certain kind of toff, which pronounced the “ow” sound as “eye” – thus Steve Bell has the Duke of Edinburgh referring to his TRIZERS. Similarly the short “o” being pronounced “or”, so that the person who spoke in this way was a torf rather than a toff.

    Less common nowadays, I think, since people like the Unprincipled Disgrace realised that if they made an effort to sound demotic people would fall for it.

    Penfold @40:

    🙂

    But shame on you for not adding “I’ll get my goat”

43. Parsed 24 as the men’s outfitter talking to the actor, rather than instructing (“bossing”). Kind of a double definition?

44. This was a very nice way to blur the memory of the last two puzzles. Many clues to enjoy, and few not to. Favorites included FRANKLIN, BRITS, NIMBI, KYOTO, NOBELIUM – and I’m no self-publicist but of course I have to include SHAW. Last-one-in: after staring blankly at clues 4 & 16 for several minutes – was ROOT – I groaned at misleading myself so thoroughly. A pity there was not a less clumsy clue for ANDROMEDA, but that’s a minor quibble. Oh, by the way, concerning GRIND, does she really still speak like that? I’ve not heard her in ages ….

45. William @30: after much agonizing, and with greater awareness of the trans community, the world has decided that singular “they” is perfectly fine for a person of indeterminate gender. You’ll probably find it in your dictionary if it’s less than a couple years old. You’ll also find that it’s not a new usage–examples can be found dating back to the 14th century.

    One could argue that a goat is not a person, but if Qaos had used “it,” that would give the game away.

    I don’t object to the use of “we” to define BRITS. I do know I’m doing a British puzzle, after all. If I’m talking to someone else and they throw a “we” into a sentence, it can either mean “you and I” or “I and these other people I’m associated with,” and it’s clear from context which is meant.

    @ Anna on the foreign words: I do find the level of French expected of me annoying sometimes, but I have to remind myself that most (all?) Brits probably take French in school. Here, the default assumption is that you took Spanish, but it’s not universal. So you can’t *expect* an American to know more Spanish than they could pick up from the menu of their local taqueria. But in the case of this puzzle–RSVP isn’t even foreign at this point, and BONJOUR is so basic that you’d have to be living under a rock not to know it. SKOL, same thing.

46. [Penfold @40 and NeilH @42: sorry to appear a little gruff but those are a bit ‘Meh’]

47. PostMark @46:

    Is the reference to Gruff a nod to the troll who lives under the bridge?

    (Sorry, but it’s raining and Johnson is still PM)

48. Re ground/grind:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20hcYXBqnPg&ab_channel=GideonShandy

49. [NeilH @47: first troll that comes to mind doesn’t live under a bridge but in a big white House]

50. Completely unaware of a theme until I came here, but I don’t think it would have helped me to solve this fun crossword which was not too hard anyway.  In spite of agreeing that BOJO is much too pink and fluffy for the hopeless Boris I did enjoy BONJOUR.    Other favourites were ROOT ‘coz, sorry I am a cricket fanatic and PENTHOUSE,  (Is it still being published, if so why??)  Many thanks Qaos and Eileen for more help than I care to admit to!

51. Penfold @40 – thanks for the smiles. You’re not alone re Rosalind Franklin – see here.

    Russell Hunter @43 – I parsed 24 as you did, with (HUGO) Boss as the definition and ‘tell’ being the homophone indicator.

    Auriga @48 – thanks for unearthing that 😉 – and thanks to NeilH and PostMark for all the kidding.

     

52. Spent ages trying to parse the solution to 24ac. Maybe I’m missing something but there must be a better way to clue Herbivore.

53. I thought the syntax of the mathematical part of ROOT was a bit awkward (polite way of saying wrong).   4 is the root of 16, but who says that root is 4 of 16, even with a question mark?  Shades of secant!

    Also, I think sh@31 is right about FIELDS.  To field a question is to handle or deal with it, not to answer it.  It’s one of those false parallels we’ve seen before.

54. Kidding aside (ref 40, 42 & 46) I forgot to add that as always, I enjoyed this from Qaos.

55. Things like 17a’s “first breakfast” are my pet hate. How can that mean B? “Firstly breakfast”, “breakfast at first”, sure. But just slapping any old indicator next to a word is not sufficient.

56. Pedro @54: good to see you caught up in badpunland today.  At least we gave you some fodder to work with, whether you be herbi, omni or carni 😀 ]

57. I am puzzled by how often contributors mention individual setters’ foibles. I have been doing the Guardian crossword for some years, solving on average I should think at least 75% of them. I just notice rhem being between very hard to very easy … the only individual setters that have really stood out for me were Bunthorne (always very hard) and Araucaria (always very entertaining with themed puzzles etc). Both of these were quite some time ago as some of you will no doubt remember.

    What do you do to achieve this familiarity with individual setters. Make notes each day or something ?

58. I plead femininity as my excuse for not spotting the shelf reference in PENTHOUSES. Thanks for parsing PEWIT (which I suspect is only spelt that way when the setter can’t find room for the other E) and PEN (spend=invest doesn’t work for me).
    No, I think Her Majesty has lost the worst of the strangled upper class vowels of her youth – but the thing has become an indestructible meme.

59. Auriga @ 27

    mrpenney @ 45

    I wasn’t objecting to it!  Quite the opposite.

60. [Apologies – a number of posts from me today but most quite short!  Argyle @57: that’s an interesting point.  I can only speak for my part and I’ve been doing Guardian puzzles for fewer years than many on here, but this site has certainly helped draw out some of the individual characteristics.  Each setter comes around sufficiently often for their styles to just become familiar.  I now have a good feeling for what to expect from certain setters – Vulcan (and predecessor, Rufus of course), Paul (though others have upped their risque quotient making that slightly less of a trademark.  It’s not his only defining mark), Qaos and the ever present theme and numeric clue, Boatman with the regular use of self reference, Nutmeg for the succinct smoothness.  I’m certainly not dismissing any of the other regular setters but I’m not confident I could identify what makes a definitive Tramp, Pasquale, Imogen, Brendan etc.  I suspect, if I had to identify setter from puzzle, I’d find that far, far trickier.]

61. [Dr. WhatsOn @53 You’ve rooted out another mathematical inexactitude. Secant ye shall find.]

62. In 21a, I can see that A LOT OF and LOTS OF are equivalent to MANY, but how does LOT=MANY?

63. Argyle @ 57: Just to add to the good answer @60, there is also one referred to as ‘The Don’ (so many P’s I forget which one) who is fond of having a few obscure words in the grid

64. Penfold @61:

    Or, as my maths master several decades ago remarked, absolutely deadpan, to a class of 13-year-old boys, explaining how to solve a problem in trigonometry: “Let’s reduce everything to secs”

65. gladys @ 58

    PEWIT is in my >40yo SOED, and dated to 1529. I don’t think many crosswords were being set then.

66. As usual I missed the theme and needed to reveal a few along the way but overall I was satisfied with this crossword due to clues like NIMBI, GLOBE, SKOL, and SHAW. Thanks to both.

67. Thanks Eileen, I didn’t have the WIT to parse the end of 11A and got lucky guessing that there was an alt spelling. Add me to the list of brave fools who dived straight in with MICRONET before the crossers forced a rethink. I agree with some of the quibbles above eg James@37 “ITEM” but see also end.

    Since childhood I have heard and used they/their as general 3rd person pronouns and I didn’t associate kids with goats necessarily, so no problem with HERBIVORE.

    Thanks QAOS, I enjoyed this harder challenge to the recent ones (although I haven’t done last week’s yet so maybe the trend was bucked then). WOLFS and GLOBE share the honours today.

    [in square brackets as this will be wordy and not very clearly expressed but i think it has been suggested in the past: I wonder if we need to think of elements like ‘First breakfast = b’ and ‘Root is 4 of 16’ (which I thought was brilliantly misleading) as if they use some sort of computer language or logical syntax? We are expected to know various musical and latin abbreviations so why not require us to expand our understanding of “sentence structure” as well? To conflate with another topic, maybe QAOS is alone or among very few setters pushing us this way, in which case it is a good job the setter is identified each time in the Guardian.]

68. Simon S @unknown number (mobiles don’t give them)
    Of course it’s in dictionaries, and I’m not surprised it dates back to Tudor times: but who outside of a crossword spells it like that now? All the bird books use both E’s.

69. [Others may have said this so apologies if so, but…] MILES Franklin out here in Oz.

70. PEWIT (or PEEWIT) is another name for Monday’s LAPWING.

    I liked that 16d specified the accent for the homophone, even if it may be an exaggeration.  As well as the Two Ronnies for reference, there’s the line in Rocky Horror Show about someone weighing “98 pineds”, “kicked to the grind”.  And, ISTR, an old Steve Bell “If” cartoon subtitled “Hunting Grice”.

71. I am new to Qaos, so perhaps that’s why I was very disappointed with 23d. I was hoping for something genuinely clever; instead, I had to discard an extraneous £ and put a space after each comma to make any sense of it.

    Clues have changed since my last foray into cryptic crosswords and I am having to learn new types of sub-clue; some are entirely fair, and some less so. In my opinion, every word should count and such tricks as taking just even letters should have a reasonable pointer. I feel that there is a level of sloppiness that I don’t recall from Araucaria.

    Still, there were some great moments when I worked out 6d, 7d, 10a, 20a etc.

72. 24ac has to be the least cryptic cryptic definition I’ve ever seen. Like Deadhead @52 I couldn’t help thinking there had to be more to it, but I guess not.

    Not living in the UK, I spend a lot less time listening to Her Majesty than some people, but I’ve never noticed the particular vowel switch required for 16dn. I have a vague memory of being confused by a similar clue some time in the past.

    I uncharacteristically spotted the theme about halfway through, but I don’t think it helped me solve anything.

     

73. Deadhead and Ted: ‘Déjà vu on Merseyside?’ (9)

74. ROME in Andromeda is a further prize. Never spot the themes personally and don’t look out for them but fun finding out about them post solve. Enjoyed the test very much.

75. essexboy @73 — Thanks for the laugh! I would certainly not have solved that clue in a hurry if I had encountered it in the wild.

76. I’m usually limited to the Monday puzzles but I took a crack at this and was fairly pleased at having got over the halfway mark despite an overwhelming number of unfamiliar abbreviations! Hospital=SAN, Horse=GG, International=I, Nurse=EN, Radical=RAD, Mask=M, Fellow=F, Section=S… Is one supposed to be able to infer these? It seems like just about any word can be substituted for its first letter!

    Regardless I enjoyed it, especially GRIND which came to me by trying to imagine how the Queen talks and working backwards from there

77. Gillafox @76: certainly a step up from a typical Monday – but some Monday setters have been upping the challenge of late so you’re probably better than you think!  A minor point but, in case you were thinking ‘M’ is an acceptable abbreviation for mask, it’s not.  The clue included “on front of mask” which is where the ‘m’ came from.  That said, plenty of things for which  M could be an abbreviation so you’re not out of the woods yet!

78. Wonderful puzzle at just the right level!  Never knew that the queen says “Grind” – guess I haven’t really heard her much!
    And of course, I missed the theme altogether 🙁

    Thanks Qaos and Eileen.

79. [essexboy @73. I can’t believe you did that! Those homophone police will catch up with you one of these days. I thought you were keeping your head down after that firing squad incident the other night?]

80. [sh @79:  The bizzies are her now.  They want to talk to me about yesterday’s camembert as well.  If you don’t her from me for a while you’ll know why.]

81. [essexboy: To be fair, that one did stink.]

82. Had to cheat to see BRITS. Second day running I DNF due to a short clue, when I had every other letter. Yesterday it was GOOD. Did manage to parse Brits when I saw it however. Still think the definitions for both are very weak. Totally failed to spot the theme. Enjoyed PENTHOUSES and HUGO. We had a Peewit patrol in the scouts (60+ years ago) but had not seen this spelling before.

83. James @ 37

    The kite mark used to be the toy safety standard before we had the CE label. Perhaps it will make a re-appearance when Brexit is done and dusted. Although I suspect we’ll stick to something like CE – after all, toys will still need to pass the European standards or it won’t be legal to export them to the continent.

84. Re the theme, here’s an obscure one from Melbourne (9ac).

85. Thanks both,

    I had ‘scar’ instead of shaw in 27d, on the grounds that it could be not quite (O)scar and not quite scar(f). It would have fitted the theme better.

     

86. Thanks Qaos for the challenge – I did fail on HERBIVORE (started with NANNYGOAT, then went for CARNIVORE, which works too imo – they’d have no trouble because they wouldn’t try).
    ROOT could be ‘4 for 16’ if that makes any sense cricket-wise.
    Thanks Eileen.
    [Good to see the trig puns continuing – I left a comment late yesterday.]

87. Katherine @ 83

    The Kitemark and the CE label are completely different.

    The Kitemark is gained by an independent assessment of whether a product meets or not a specification standard, be it BS (UK), EN (EU), or ISO (worldwide). It applies to all products fo which a standard exists, not just toys.

    CE marking is self-certification that a product meets an EU standard.

    If UK abandons EN or ISO it will be limited to selling within its own shores.

88. I’m trying to teach myself to be able to solve cryptic crosswords.  This website is great for this as all the answers are explained.  I only managed to get four answers without cheating. I gauge my progress of how much I am learning by the number of answers I get on my own before cheating. 🙂   Enjoyable.

89. I was sure there would be an Andromeda Award for science fiction, but no. Hold on though – Tokyo Women’s Medical University “Andromeda award” has been won by Kazuhiko Shimizu – if that’s any help.

Comments are closed.