Guardian 28,277 / Paul

119 comments on “Guardian 28,277 / Paul”

1. I took 16d as M1 (quick way) around (to dress) (R)ankin.

2. Eileen, in 8 down I think that WIT is “cut WITh”

3. Thanks Paul and Eileen

   Paul being irritating again. The third note, except in that appalling song, is MI – it comes from the “mirfa” in the Latin Hymn. SEE YOU is clever, but there is no indication that “vale” isn’t in English – “Foreign vale” perhaps? The clue in 14d is grammatically incorrect – should be “me” instead of “I”, though that wouldn’t work, of course.

   I liked AMID.

   Cut WIT(h), Eileen.

4. I think Mankini is M1 over a topless Ian Rankin. A very tricky solve and thank you for parsing Carvery, Vale and Amid, amongst others. Humdinger was my favourite clue. Ta to Paul as well

5. 16D must be (R)ankin in M1. And in 8D WIT is cut WIT(H).

6. Typo – MIRA, not “mirfa”

7. Thanks Eileen and Paul. The crime writer created Rebus, the quick way is the M1.
   Wit is cut with.

8. 16 down is ankin for Rankin , topless crime writer in M1 for a quick way.

9. Thanks Paul and eileen

   I think 8 is ‘ATONE’ then ‘cut WITh’ and ‘last of chequeS’, both in SEND (post).

10. Typed too slow!

11. Many thanks all (and any more who come after) – I’ll amend the blog now.

12. Thank you, Paul and Eileen.

    In 8dn, “wit” is wit(h) cut.

    16dn, [R]ankin in M1, ie the motorway

13. Re 16d, M1 is quick way, and topless Rankin fills. Challenging tonight, but good to finish. Ta Paul and Eileen for showing little unexplained bits.

14. Also, I had Wee-Weed as Shrimp (wee) and Went (weed as in urinated)

15. In 8d the missing WIT explanation is cut with.

16. Managed most of this for a change. 16d is ian r(ANKIN) in the motorway M1

17. Oh I get Wee-weed now. Please ignore the above Eileen and thanks again

18. Convinced that 16d must have Italian roots, I was beaten by the K.

    Enjoyable, if tough, so thanks to Paul and thanks to Eileen for working out some obscure parsing.

19. This took me far longer than usual.  I did parse the ones that stumped you, Eileen, as confirmed by contributors above, but the ones that stumped for a long time were 19d and – stupidly – 27ac.  My difficulty with both of these is that I made two mistakes – I mis-spelled cacao – even though I knew perfectly well what it should be – and I chose “regain” instead of “recoup” for 27ac.  This then threw me for the 19d trap.  As always, I loved my morning mental workout.  I detest the quibbles and quibblers – so mean-spirited in the face of such ingenuity and wit.  My grateful thanks to the very great setter and the spiffing blogger.

20. Hmmm…more irritation than aha for me this morning.

    I had CARVERY immediately but discarded it through no parse.  There must be millions of machines with battery.

    Like muffin and Eileen, I winced at I instead of me at HUMDINGER.

    Some, were parsed and bunged in like MINECRAFT and WHERE’S WALLY so many thanks to Eileen for that.

    Hey-ho, can’t win them all.

     

21. [I meant to say that I’ve been to Cawdor. The castle is nothing special (and later than Macbeth), but the gardens are nice and it has some of the most attractive woodlands I’ve seen anywhere.]

22. Yes, tough, but satisfying. Thanks Paul and Eileen.

    Had to get Big Eyed Beans From Venus out of my head to allow FLYTRAP in.

    Carol Cleveland was a PYTHONESS. Makes a change from Eric Idle.

23. Wow – hell of a struggle but got there in the end. Favourites were SEE YOU, AMID and EXEUNT. Couldn’t parse COCCYX because I thought everyone else mispronounced it!! Many thanks to Paul and Eileen.

24. Oh, how I wish someone would pop in and explain the WIT in 8d and MANKINI….

    muffin @3: the ME/MI issue arose in another recent puzzle.  I commented there that my mnemonic is the name of a 1972 Hawkwind album, Doremi Fasol Latido. I sympathise with your frustration re ‘vale’ – but would venture that it’s one of those Latin words that is quite well known (ergo, aqua etc).  I guess, whenever I see it, I’m open to the two very different options the word can present.

    I enjoyed the definition of YELLOW CARD; the anagram for PYTHONESS (how many others started off with ‘Cassandra’ like me, I wonder?); MINECRAFT which absorbs my younger teenager and was, as Eileen says, impeccably clued; ENRICHES for the neat surface and FLYTRAP for the same reason.  CARVERY was a lovely misdirect though I couldn’t parse the ‘very’: Eileen, I think you’re right.  Despite your criticism, I did smile at HUMDINGER.  And rather liked ESCAPEE too.  Sorry!

    Thanks Paul and Eileen

     

25. Hello all Guardianistas – fancy meeting the Telegraph crossword editor? He’s very bravely coming to the Zoom with Paul session tonight 7.30pm to answer your questions: hosted by John Halpern, aka Paul (me).

    Subscribe here for the Zoom link: https://www.johnhalpern.co.uk/

    If you haven’t been before, they’re great fun (well, I would say that, wouldn’t I?).

    Thanks again for all your comments on today’s puzzle, and I look forward to meeting you tonight at 7.30.

    John aka Paul

     

     

     

26. Hi muffin @21 – so have I and I agree.

    PostMark@24 – I did try to forestall the repetitions @!!. (When I started typing it, there were only four comments!)

27. This was quite a challenge and there were a few where I guessed the answers but needed help with the parsing.  I know what you mean about ESCAPEE Eileen – someone who escapes should logically be an escaper.  But there are also some fairly awful -ee words that do refer to the person on the receiving end.  “Tutee” and “mentee” for example seem to be based on the idea that a tutor and a mentor are people who “tute” and “ment” respectively.

    (In 14d HUMDINGER I think you mean the solecism of “I” in the surface reading – the cryptic reading seems to be fine.)

    Many thanks Paul and Eileen.

28. I was on Team Annoyed on this one. If I get too annoyed, I start hitting “reveal,” and that’s where I was with this. NINETEEN TO THE DOZEN isn’t a phrase in my dialect, it appears I mispronounce COCCYX, and I was incorrectly expecting a biscuit I hadn’t heard of rather than a cookie I definitely had. So half of the annoyance was my fault. Still, plenty of trademark wit, and–of course when it’s Paul, you know “urine” for some bathroom humor.

29. Oof, brain treacle again today, no intuitive Zen, eg yellow card (not an anag of scoundrel + r or k). Myth gk absent for 13ac (not Mrs Cleese). 13ac vaguely rang (ABC mod cult shows). Still don’t get cock/angle (dog that 7d??). Of course, very for dead, should have parsed that…my Lancs cousin’s kids say Aye that were dead good! Those carnivore plants are native here, so that helped, and I’d see a flick, on a plane I think, that sounded like 20,2, which helped, oddly. Shiraz and recovery time now, thanks Paul and Eileen.

30. Hi Lord Jim @27 – thanks: I did of course mean ‘surface’. I’ll amend it now.

31. ..I’d seeN..

32. gif @29: ouch.  You do sound like someone in trouble this morning.  With me, it’ll be the “Shiraz and recovery time” from the day before that’s responsible!  Re cock/angle – to cock one’s head is to turn it at an angle – to angle it.  And, yes, both my dogs cock their legs for aforementioned purpose.

33. Some tricky parsing today – thanks Eileen for VERY and just about everyone else on the planet for WITS END and MANKINI. I did manage NINETEEN TO THE DOZEN eventually… OUTTURN AND MINECRAFT new to me.

34. I normally relish the challenge of a Paul but found this one a struggle, because of some uncharacteristically tortuous surfaces and my own sluggishness.  Nevertheless, thanks to Paul and, of course, to Eileen for shining a light into some dark corners.

35. Thanks Eileen. Like others, your help and that of others with some of the parsing was appreciated. Favourite was 1a CAWDOR for the Shakespearean connection, and I smiled when I got WEE-WEED, my LOI at 7d.

    Much appreciated, Paul. I really enjoyed your clever humour AMID today’s challenging clues.

36. ..oh yes, as per gladys re mankini (wot?), a total fail here, not mini round something.. M1 round [R]ankin indeed!

37. A few notches up on the toughness scale after a few gentle days. I came here with about half a dozen unparsed, so of course couldn’t fully appreciate Paul’s wit during the solve. Would have done better with it except for entering WHERES WALDO at 20,2 and consequently having no chance with the clever SEE YOU. I had no idea that you Brits call the game by a different name. Hoping the Friday offering won’t make me feel quite so dumb.

    Thanks to Paul for the workout and to Eileen for what was surely a challenging blog.

38. I comment far more infrequently these days but having solved SEE YOU, WHERE’S WALLY and CAWDOR consecutively, I knew with certainty that I must since this is the puzzle that has made me smile most (with possible exception of Vlad’s joyous slaying of Dido) in recent days. COCCYX and WEE-WEED not bad either! And, of course, it’s that ever-creative Paul again. As I’ve said here many times – how does he keep doing it?
    I may zoom in tonight (if I can get away and if not stymied by technology!)
    Many thanks to Eileen and Paul

39. …and would commenters on 15² please refer to clues using block capitals rather than clue number/reference. This saves others from having to be forever scrolling up and down (or simply ignoring the comment). Thanks

40. I’m afraid I found the NW corner impenetrable, so a miserable DNF for me today

41. Good puzzle and excellent blog

42. I took 7 to refer to the last line of  “This little piggy went to market” etc, thus: how “this little piggy” (i.e shrimp) went “all the way home.”

43. No chance for me solving this without lots of computer help. I BIFD quite a few and then tried to unravel the parsing, which in most cases I did (failed on NINETEEN TO THE DOZEN).

    muffin @3; VALE is in all the main dictionaries, so I think it is fair game. When I saw it, the first thought I had was bye-bye.

    Thanks Paul for stimulating my neuron(e)s and to Eileen for clear explanations.

44. A bit too tough for me. I did like HUMDINGER and WEE-WEED. Definitely a guess first then try to parse. Thanks so much to Eileen for explaining the parsing of a significant number of the answers. Thanks also to Paul.

    [PostMark – I can’t even attribute my failings to the Shiraz…]

45. Tough but fair I thought. Thanks to Paul for the workout, to Eileen for helping me iron-out some of the creases in my parsing and to Penfold for reminding me of ‘Big-Eyed Beans from Venus’!

46. I was going to quibble about AMID because I was using the “in” to signal that I should look for something in “Potsdam I design” that meant “pots” and when I read the blog I thought that the “pots” was redundant – then of course the penny dropped – should have dropped sooner as I have been potting quince jelly recently.

    Found it very tough. But enjoyed the ones I got. Some I would never have got and even after I revealed couldn’t see how to parse.

    Thanks to Eileen and Paul

47. Yesterday I said I wouldn’t have minded a longer solve so along comes Paul. It was the NW corner that did it; I see I’m not alone. Though I did kick myself when I finally vocalised the C U.

48. I had trouble getting started on this, and for some reason it felt like it was set in USA, not UK and that hindered me because I inserted WHERE”S WALDO instead of WALLY!

    Liked MEMO, FLYTRAP, SEE YOU.

    Failed MANKINI – ugh, I see it is like what Borat wore.

    Did not parse MANKINI, AT ONE’S WITS END, the ‘very’ in CARVERY; or the king in 4/25 (had wrongly assumed card – scoundrel).

    Found CAWDOR via google – had heard of it in the past but had forgotten about it.

    New: OUTTURN, NINETEEN TO THE DOZEN (liked this but I parsed it after guessing the answer).

    Thanks, Paul and Eileen.

49. I’m with the thumbs-uppers on this one.  Favourites were SEE YOU and FLYTRAP (always puts me in mind of the Little Shop of Horrors).

    Eileen, regarding your two grammatical quibbles –

    1)  I’m totally in agreement re the ‘I’ in 14d, especially as it would have been such a HUMDINGER of a clue if only he’d changed the I to me.  Pace muffin @3, I think it would still have worked: unlike the proliferating ‘I’-as-object-of-verb, which smacks of ‘snob’s pronoun’ as my English teacher used to call it, it’s surely fine to have me in a clue signalling I in a solution, since the two can be equivalent in contexts such as ‘It’s me!’

    ‘Who’s that?’  ‘It’s me’ (standard usage) = ‘It is I’ (super-correct)

    2)  On ESCAPEE I’m more inclined to be forgiving, as it mirrors the French rescapé(e) for survivor.

    Our suffix -EE is of course derived from the French -é/ée, which is the past participle ending for -er verbs.

    Because the past participle of transitive verbs is commonly applied passively, e.g. employé(e)/employed, the general principle is that -ER/-eur is the doer of an action, while -EE is he/she to whom an action is done.

    However, in French – and in French-derived words in English – it’s not an absolute rule.  For verbs of motion especially, the past participle is often used to refer to the doer/goer/comer. A parvenu is someone who has newly come along (the -u is a past participle ending, just like -é(e), but for a different category of verb).

    And a thing which is passé is something which has passed into disuse (active), not is passed (passive).

    [mrpenney @28:  urine sheffield hatter’s firing line now 😉 ]

50. [As we go into lockdown here once again could I just say a huge thank you to all the setters and bloggers who deliver the goods day after day. Such a wonderful diversion during the long day stuck at home, particularly now that winter is on its way. You are very, very much appreciated.]

51. Haven’t read through any of the many comments so far, so my apologies if I am merely repeating what’s been said already.

    Neither CORE nor DOOR (which to me both rhyme) sound anything like either syllable of CAWDOR.

52. Many thanks for that, essexboy @49.

    I liked your ‘snob’s pronoun’. That’s the really annoying thing about that error: people who do it think they’re being so correct. (When I was teaching English, my Head of Department used to do it!) I always told my students to take out the other person and see which pronoun they would use. (“You would never say ‘for / to I’, would you?”)

    Re ESCAPEE: as I said, I know it’s correct – but I don’t have to like it! 😉

53. DNF for me as I have never heard of MINECRAFT, but apart from that I thought this was a classic!  Favourites WEE WEED, SEE YOU and the Borat MANKINI.  Very many thanks to Paul for getting the grey cells moving and several laughs and smiles. And thank you also Eileen for the insights!!

54. essexboy Thanks for explaining why I intuitively don’t mind escapee while sharing Eileen’s hatred  of “attendee”. As for MANKINI it’s been a while since the M1 has been a quick way. In HUMDINGER would it still have been a solecism if the setter had followed the device of using “Paul” instead of I?

55. Or one instead of I??

56. Hi Petert (I had the same thought about the M1) and trishincharente (thank you for your kind words @50).

    As it’s the surface reading we’re talking about, I don’t think it would make any difference: ‘Paul’ or ‘one’ would still be the object of the sentence, requiring ‘me’, not ‘I’.

57. I’m sorry EILEEN, muffin and others, but I can’t see what is so terrible about a solecism in a crossword clue.  Many clues by some of the best setters are often gobbledegook so a mere I for me is not so bad, and the Gruniad is littered with errors and solecisms so why not the crossword.  If John wrote a piece for publication and made the mistake that would be different but this is – dare I say it – just a crossword!  And as for the Caw door argument ………..please don’t get me started.

58. I’m inclined to agree with SPanza @57, but Paul could have avoided the problem with “Boss and I are overwhelmed by lust for a beauty.”

59. That’s more like it, DaveinNCarolina!

60. Unlike some here, I found this very enjoyable. I didn’t find  I/ME a problem. I was slowed down in the SE by writing COCCIX, until I realised. The Cymru clue was great – I laughed when the penny dropped. Of course, it wouln’t be Paul without wee-wees and sexism.

     

61. DaveinNCarolina @58. In your example ‘Boss and I’ are still the object of the verb, so it should be ‘Boss and me’. But as SPanza @57 has said, what’s wrong with a grammatical error in a crossword clue? Yes, it grates and is hard to forgive if read as an attempt at a proper English sentence, but loads of clues are arrant nonsense, so just solve it and move on.

    Puns, on the other hand….

     

62. DaveinNCarolina @58 – sorry, misread your suggested correction. Eileen @59 is right of course. The rest of my point still stands, I think.

63. Thanks both,
    Satisfyingly gnarly. For some reason, I don’t mind ‘escapee’ but loathe ‘attendee’. Nil gustibus, I suppose. Like SPanza @57, I didn’t mind the hypercorrection in 14d.

64. SPanza et al

    Eileen and I are retired teachers. (I don’t know about William). It’s second nature to correct errors in grammar!

65. Eileen@56 I wonder if it is a generally accepted rule that definition equivalent of something in the surface always had to be grammatically consistent with the way it is used in the clue? I am struggling to recall cases where it hasn’t but I feel that they exist.

66. After stellar crosswords by Nutmeg and Brendan I found this to be a hopeless slog. I got a smattering of answers, decided to reveal NINETEEN TO THE DOZEN, and realized I would never complete this. By the way the FT prize puzzle by Mudd last weekend was a true gem so I have not lost faith in Mr. Halpern.

67. Some GK which I didn’t have – AMID and PYTHONESS (though having a classics graduate sitting next to you helps with the latter), but the wordplay was clear enough to get me there. Some classic Paul (WEE-WEED), some brilliant misdirections, and a few clues which just seemed to be quite brilliantly put together, of which my favourites were ATONE WIT S END and NINE TEE NTOTHE DOZEN.

    I have no problem at all with the clue for SEE YOU because the word in the clue wasn’t “vale” but “Vale”. When I saw the answer my reaction wasn’t “Oh it should have been labelled as ‘foreign'” but “That’s really neat”.

    Like others, I regret BOSS AND I, especially because, as Dave @58 points out, the clue could so easily have been rearranged to be grammatically correct.

    But a very enjoyable start to the day from one of my favourite compilers.

68. Muffin @64:

    It’s not just retired teachers. A very dear friend of mine, now deceased, was an accountant. He will always be fondly remembered for the exchange when we met up with him and his family for a big lunch (which turned out to be a farewell) after he had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour.

    “Hello, Sue. I’m dying, you know.”

    “Well, we’re all dying, Chris. You’re just doing it quicker.”

    (Without missing a beat) “More quickly. It’s an adverb”.

    (Ave atque) VALE…

69. Loved this. A real humdinger. Paul was pretty much the setter that got me into cryptics. I just found myself on his wavelength, and enjoyed his clue writing and tendency to be a little saucy. Even so, I still sniggered when I finally got “wee-weed” – wasn’t really expecting that.

     

    Lovely to see my first love – videogames – featured in a crossword with Minecraft (as someone who worked in the videogame industry for 20 years, and still makes games in my spare time, it surprises me that there are still folk who haven’t heard of Minecraft – it’s probably the single biggest entertainment product of all time. It’s enormous. Microsoft paid $2 billion dollars to buy the small company that made it. $2 billion to get the rights to one videogame! But different folks, different strokes I guess…)

70. [NeilH @68. Lovely story. Shows great character. Hope I’d still be threatening awful punsters with the firing squad in my final days.]

71. Tough today. Unlike most other contributors Mrs Job and I are totally familiar with MINECRAFT, having a grandson who is absolutely besotted. Didn’t prevent the angry groan when we finally got it – last one in.
    Thanks Eileen – we needed your help – and Paul

72. [yes muffin @ 64 Eileen has an excuse but you taught Chemistry……….]

73. SPanza @ 72

    Yes, but “all teachers are English teachers”!

    (Mind you, I once inherited a class in which pretty much each member spelled “soluble” as “soluAble”, as that’s the way their previous teacher had spelled it…)

74. An utter disaster for me.  I gave up with about 6 solved.  Revealed a couple, then continued, revealed another couple.  Didn’t enjoy this at all, but I can have no complaints, I’m just not experienced enough – yet 🙂

75. Really enjoyed this and was very chuffed to get NINETEEN TO THE DOZEN and that helped a lot.  I too wondered about the I as an object, and welcome DaveinNCarolina @58’s suggestion as a neat way round the problem.  However, so many people use “me” as a subject these days (“Me and my mates are going…”) that I try not to call out the grammer police every time I hear it…  I couldn’t parse several, so thank you to Eileen and the [R]ANKIN/WIT[h] explainers at the top of the blog.  And many thanks of course to Paul. [Will try to come along later.]

76. Sorry this is so late but could someone explain the final ‘pots’ in 15 please. I see ‘amid’ of course.
    Thanks

77. Hi MartinD @76

    In sort of means “puts inside”, so it’s the inclusion indicator.

78. MartinD @76: the final ‘pots’ is the containment indicator.  To pot being to put something inside something else.  So ‘Potsdam, I design’ pots or contains AMID which is ‘In’.

79. Sorry, “It”, not “In”.

80. Ah. Thank you both. So it’s a verb rather than a noun. Sneaky.

81. Hi Martin @ 76 and 80 – we quite often see ‘trousers’ and ‘houses’ used in the same way.

82. Well I thought it was a shocker. No fun. A struggle from start to finish. People say tough but fair quite often. I’m never sure what fair means in this context. But if you think m1 for quick way around a random crime writer making an obscure piece of clothing is fair then anything is. So plainly I’m grumpy because I hate giving up but this one beat me. I’m going for a lie down now.

83. NeilH, muffin and SPanza – I switched to teaching English when the (state) school I was teaching at dropped Classics from the curriculum – a move which had upset the then Head of English (not the one I mentioned earlier). She said, “We’ve always relied on you Classicists to teach English Grammar”. 😉

84. Thanks Eileen. Every day’s a school day.

85. 11a Fwiw, CYMRU, which is Welsh for Welsh,is pronounced “kumm-ree, thus reversing the usual English pronunciation of those vowels.  I know you didn’t need to know that.

    In Educating Rita, the comedy about the pompous professor tutoring (tuting?) the brash working class woman, she has become devoted to an arty woman she’s come to know, and she says admiringly, “Everything about her is dead unpretentious.”  That’s become my favorite example of “dead” for “totally.”

    Eileen: “attendee” is one of my pet hates too.  I had a guess about the development of that odd usage, but essexboy@29 has pre-empted it.

    muffin@3 “Me” is the third note in the minor scale, with the changed vowel telling you that it’s flattened.  Similarly, “ti” is “te” in those scales where the seventh note is flattened.  @21 — do you suppose you saw the re-settled Birnam Wood?

    Lord Jim @27

    Two tutors who tooted the flute

    Tried to tutor two tutors to toot.

    Said the two to the tutors,

    “Is it harder to toot or

    To tutor two tutors to toot?”

    I’d never seen OUTTURN before.  Is it sort of like “output”?

    sheffield hatter @61, “Boss and I” are the recipients of the action that Dave’s sentence describes, but grammatically they are the subjects of the verb.  Me was overwhelmed by the simplicity of this idea.

    Please, everybody, read the comments before you post something five other people have already said!

    And big thanks to both Paul and Eileen!

86. I thoroughly enjoyed this.  Took a while to crack WHERE’S WALLY (I’m also more familiar with the US version – Where’s Waldo).  That unlocked the rest of the NW.  I was surprised Paul went with CAWDOR at 1a when the crossers shouted COWBOY to me.

    I liked trishincharente @55’s suggestion of one for I in 14 (to give “A beauty has boss, one overwhelmed by lust”) and Penfold @22’s suggestion of Carol Cleveland for the definition in 13, which would make a fine surface – “Honest spy’s failure in Cleveland?”.  Happy coincidence of the latter and LION TAMER (famous Python sketch) at 6?  I don’t see any other connections to suggest a ghost theme though.

    Faves:  SEE YOU, FLYTRAP and the tricky NINETEEN TO THE DOZEN.

    Thanks, Paul and Eileen for a fun Thursday puzzle.  Shame I can’t make the Zoom call.  Hope you all have fun with the post mortem!

87. Valentine @85: thanks for the rhyme!  It probably works best in an American accent, with “tutor” sounding the same as “tooter”.

88. Valentine @ 85 note to muffin.  I sing in a choir in southern Spain where we use the doh re me notation, but I never knew the change of spelling from me to mi and te to ti was the minor notation nor that if represented the flattened note.  Very many thanks for the information.  This site is full of useful information!!

89. Valentine @85

    So “me” would have to be “one of the third notes”, then…

90. Hi Valentine @85 – I really enjoyed reading your post. (Re your penultimate sentence, see me at 26  – sounds suitably schoolmarmish 😉 )

    I’ve always loved dead = very – and I love that film. I remember (last century) a (Maths) colleague, about to go to France on holiday, when we asked her how good her French was, replying – we tried to keep up with the students – that she was mort fluent.

91. muffin @89

    Of course the snobs would sing doh, re, I…  😉

92. sxboy ?91

    🙂

93. Excellent puzzle as always from Paul, and I have never yet managed to finish one of his crosswords before I complete my commute to work. It’s always a finish on the way home job.
    My mother always said ten to the dozen so that clue took much longer for me than others it seems

94. I was hoping to join Paul’s Zoom session this evening, but have not received an email despite registering. Wondering if anyone else is in the same boat or can share the link?

    Thanks in advance.

95. PersonaNonGrata @94 – sorry, we have no involvement with this: I can only direct you to Paul’s post @25.

96. Thanks to Paul and a bouquet for Eileen.

    I’m with tc@82. MANKINI ruined it for me – it had to be but why?
    Ah well. WEE-WEED caused an involuntary snort so swings and roundabouts.

97. Great discussion btw.

98. Hoodie @93 – interesting. I meant to follow this up this morning but there was a lot else to do and I didn’t get round to it. ‘Talking nineteen to the dozen’, suggesting faster than normal, is the expression I’m used to but ‘ten to the dozen’, suggesting the contrary, seemed to ring a bell, too. I’ve consulted Brewer’s, which cites only the former, with no explanation.

    I did find a reference online to Newcomen’s beam engine, which I remembered from my teaching Social and Economic History.  The best discussion I can find is here.

    [Many thanks for the flowers, Alphalpha.  😉 ]

99. Eileen @90 — your note reminded me to go back to you at 26, where this time I deduced that your two exclamation marks stood for eleven and not for enthusiasm, and read you at 11.  Point taken.

    Personanongrata @94  Try info@johnhalpern.co.uk.  I hope it will guide you from there.

100. Valentine @99 – thank you: a common lapsus digiti – not easy to spot – of mine. 😉

     [I wasn’t really aiming for the century – I’m nearly ready for bed: it’s been a long day.]

101. Thanks for the link Eileen! I’ve never heard of forty to the dozen, but I was thinking the same as you were – namely that ten to the dozen suggests the opposite.
     But having been brought up with that version I suppose I’ve always assumed it inferred an acceleration or significant increase.
     Much like Spinal Tap’s 11

102. OK, this was one of the toughest puzzles in recent times. And I’m not sure it was totally fair – CARVERY, EXEUNT and OUTTURN were all a bit too much for me, and I had Tankini instead of Mankini (never heard of the latter). And worst of all – in the US it’s Where’s Waldo, not Where’s Wally; that just killed me!

     All that said, FLYTRAP and MINECRAFT were brilliant!

103. Unusually for Paul I had a couple of quibbles. If the parsing of 15ac is as suggested what is pots doing in the clue? Also I thought cluing minecraft as a game for children is a bit misleading. In my experience it’s mostly played by adults. Still an enjoyable solve though.

104. Desmodeus @103 – please see comments 76-78.

105. Solved this yesterday in between cups of tea whilst visiting son at (not yet locked down) university.  Luckily, his room in halls is on the ground floor so I think I can spring him out through the window under cover of darkness should I need to…

     This was tough.  But do-able whcih for me back in March, it would not have been.

     I have to say that MANKINI was nearly FOI but this is because one of the events whilst visiting son was to watch “Borat – Subsequent Moviefilm” which is a) quite funny b) childish and c) quite funny.  There was some family disagreement about 20,2d – I got “Where’s Wally” but my son insisted on it being “Where’s Waldo” that being the name given to it in the US (where he lived 5 years of his life).

     Sorry to have missed Paul’s Zoom this evening but belatd thanks to Paul and Eileen for the fun solve.

106. Got very few on first pass but then it all came together for a satisfying solve. SEE was wonderful as was WEE WEED. Excellent puzzle in my view especially as I often struggle a bit with Paul!

107. …sorry SEE YOU

108. Can someone explain the need for “..nicking it?” in 4 & 25A? Thanks!

109. LesleyA @ 108 In YELLOW CARD, “cad” (scoundrel) nicks R (king).

110. I may be the only one still about, so can I suggest to LesleyA @108 that the clue did require something to indicate that the king (R) is to be inserted into the yellow cad.

     By the way, I’m with those who think this was a great puzzle.

111. Favourite setter. But not today.

112. I’ve been enjoying fifteensquared since I left teaching ten years ago, but have never commented – it is rare for me to complete a crossword, and if I do it is far too late to add anything to what has already been said. But I have meant, many times, to thank all concerned, and express my appreciation. I read with interest the recent discussion on multiple comments, and the time it takes Gaufrid to check them all, so I apologise for verbosity, but I was prompted to write after reading this comment thread, on Friday night. It had been a miserable day (general world situation getting to me I think) and I went to the blog for the Shed puzzle where I had managed about half the clues. Then, as I saw that Eileen (one of my favourites) had blogged the Paul from Thursday, (I did some, and puzzled over the other answers at breakfast the next day) I read through that blog and the comment thread. Thought I ought to let you know that it lifted my spirits, and made me chuckle – all the blogs are great, and I always look forward to reading what all the regular contributors have to say, but this one hit the spot on a grim day. Have an image in my mind of peoples’ characters, and although I never contribute I feel a sense of community with all those who do. So, apart from helping me, very gradually, get better at solving clues, you do provide a sense of ‘not doing crosswords on my own’. Mr R is not interested (although he can sometimes supply useful knowledge) so fifteensquared is a bit like it was to solve clues with my dad. Thank you all – excellent website, no adverts, and virtual company too!

113. Mrs R @112: Nice to hear from you. It’s good to know that it’s not just the regular commenters on here who get a “sense of community”. Keep on plugging away, you will get better at the crosswords!

114. Mrs R @112 – I echo what sheffield hatter says. Thank you very much for your kind comments.

     I’m sorry I’m a bit late in responding: I didn’t see your comment yesterday, as I was preparing for my daughter and her partner coming round  for a meal. (They are in my bubble. 😉 )  I’m glad you enjoy your visits to 15² and hope you will comment again,  now that you have taken the plunge. It’s never really too late to do so, as bloggers are sent an email of comments on their blogs, so they, at least, see them, if no one else does.

     My husband and I always did the Guardian crossword together and I really missed that when he died. 15² didn’t exist then but I bless the day, several years later, when I discovered it by chance. Since then, I have been at ‘Sloggers and Betters’ meetings at various venues around the  country and made many friends (or, rather, met for the first time friends that I felt I already knew, because, as you say, you do get a ‘feel’ for people through their comments). It was very disappointing that we weren’t able to have our annual York gathering just yesterday.

115. Very late to say Thank You Eileen, I started this Friday evening and finished Sunday tea-time, doing other things in-between but still a slow process – how you and the gang get the blog out and polished off so quickly is remarkable. Put me in with the happy campers as I got a real sense of achievement at completing and understanding all of this, even though I needed my wife to confirm that “Nineteen to the dozen” really is a phrase (thanks for your link, so I am not the only one to wonder why nineteen and not some other N > 12?).

     I can make a small contribution of my own for anyone still caring: every quarter the Scotch Malt Whisky Society sends me a pamphlet listing their latest bottlings , entitled “OUTTURN”, where the word refers to the number of bottles squeezed out of each individual cask (maybe 200 from a hogshead or over 500 from a sherry butt). I have never otherwise seen it anywhere.

     I enjoyed the discussion too but have a minor quibble re WEE WEED as I have never encountered WEE WEE as a verb thus don’t see how it can be ‘past-participlised’ if you see what I mean – my son may want a wee-wee or perhaps already did a wee wee but only ever weed, never wee-weed. But it’s cryptic Paul and I eventually saw it so no lingering resentment.

     [Mrs R @112 I was in a similar position to you a while back but failed to send such a gracious note so I hope you stick at it, every clue solved that is slightly harder than your comfort level will bring elevated satisfaction until one day a tough nut like this will be cracked, even if it takes the whole weekend, and you will believe it time very well spent.]

     Thanks Paul, this really was good, I think SEE YOU takes the biscuit for the time it took me to just do what it said, having spotted the meaning of Vale early on (thanks to some lines from LA Confidential!).

116. Hi Gazzh – as I said above, it’s never really too late – Congratulations on finishing!

     Thanks for the Scottish input – my husband was a member of that Society. 😉

     Chambers gives WEE-WEE as an alternative to WEE. I’ve certainly heard it.

117. Thanks Eileen. I defer, as always, to the mighty Chambers!

118. I too very rarely post in time to be read but I wholeheartedly agree with Mrs R. Although I’m sure no ever reads my posts (other than Eileen) I do still feel a bond with those who post regularly and in a timely fashion. Thanks all.

119. Good to hear from you, Sugarbutties!

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