Guardian 28,293 / Crucible

76 comments on “Guardian 28,293 / Crucible”

1. No prizes for guessing Crucible’s day job (if I remember correctly – or is it another setter who’s a surgeon?). Quite tough for me. Favourites were STOMACH and BACTERIA, and I also enjoyed CARBOHYDRATES. LOI was EYEBRIGHT, which took a bit of thought. Many thanks to C & E.

2. Very difficult puzzle. I failed to spot a theme as usual.

   Liked SURGERY, BREATHING, and DRIP – for once, I saw the 1 pence/1p;

   Could not parse B/AGG/AGE [I had the word broken up in wrong place for parsing]; BACTERIA (never heard of BERIA).

   New: SCAPULA; CARBOY = large bottle

   I failed GENOME. I did not know that Zurich bankers are known as gnomes. I would have thought goblins ala the Harry Potter universe where the Gringotts goblins are the bankers for the magical world.

   Also failed WAIST.

   Thanks, Eileen and Crucible.

3. I liked BACTERIA and STOMACH but I found the last few, EYEBRIGHT and WAIST especially, very tricky. Needed CARBOHYDRATES parsed and theme not spotted as usual. Thanks Eileen & Cruclble

4. drofle @1 – Philistine’s the heart surgeon: according to Orlando’s site, Duggie Anderson (Crucible / Radian / Redshank) worked in computing and publishing fo thirty five years

5. Even though our esteemed setter is not a surgeon as Eileen points out, there are obviously plenty of medical-type thematic references, including the ISLET one. I liked some of the more complicated parsing such as CARBOHYDRATES, the appearance of BERIA (though not in real life thanks!), EYEBRIGHT and the word MUNIFICENT.

   Ended up failing on WAIST, which I never would have parsed. I know wat (oops, sorry for the typo) to think of when I next see ‘temple’ in a clue anyway.

   Thanks to Crucible and Eileen

6. I enjoyed this. Fairly flew through the first half, then really had to work hard for the rest but they were all gettable from the clever cluing. Some lovely surfaces too. Thanks to Crucible and to Eileen for the explanations. Yes Ailsa Craig had me completely foxed until I thought to Google it! [ For those who like a musical link, I see that The Gnomes of Zurich were a band. Not that I knew that. I was just wondering about the derivation of the term and up it popped.]

7. Yep, pretty neat and smooth bunch of clues, Nutmeg-ish I thought, whereas Crucible can sometimes be meaner and gnarlier, eg ones in Angkor, my loi. And Beria…only remembered in retro. Re which, lots of medical, anatomical and hormone-ish stuff, but stuffed if I get the actual theme..no doubt the adepts will advise. I’ve always thought that munificence was more general…”distributing [eg] largesse”? And that inutile was French for useless, but no, my old SOED has it. And yes Eileen, liked radii to go with ulnii (sp ? 🙂 ). All good fun, thanks both.

8. 14D. A typo.  B (British), not BR (British).

9. In 14a you’ve got too many Rs! Harold Wilson coined the phrase “Gnomes of Zurich” along with “the unacceptable face of capitalism” when forced to devalue the pound in 1967 I think.

10. Thanks to Crucible and Eileen.

    I’ve always been fond of the Islets of Langerhans. You imagine them sitting there producing insulin surrounded by the sea.

    I thought that I’d get the big one down the middle first, but I’ve never heard of a carboy and Jeroboam, Methuselah, Nebuchadnezzar etc didn’t seem to work, so had to cone back later.

    I think my favourite was probably EYEBRIGHT.

11. Thank you, Eileen.

    Failed to parse WAIST and a dnf anyway through bunging in INFIDEL unparsed instead of ANTIGEN.

    Tough stuff for me today but enjoyable nonetheless.

    Many thanks, Crucible.

12. Thanks Crucible and Eileen

    A DNF for me with WAIST too – very clever, but WAT for “temple” didn’t spring to mind. (I actually found 2 units to fit – GAUSS and PAESI – but obviously couldn’t parse either.) I too was stumped by the BAGE bit of BAGGAGE.

    INUTILE was one of my favourites types of clue – build up a word I hadn’t heard of from its bits, then find out it’s correct! BREATHING also stood out from lots of good clues.

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen MARIHUANA spelled like that, so it’s fortunate it was an anagram.

13. VDS @8 and PeterJohnN @9 – thank you – corrected now.

14. A lot of fun this morning – very slow start but once I worked the overall theme out, bits started popping in quite happily.  Last to give was NE but that was just the order I did things in because nothing particularly troubling there.

    DNK IMAGO, EYEBRIGHT, total theme-based guess on GENOME.  Spotted a couple of the long-ones early on which helped.

    Lovely puzzle.

    Thanks Crucible and Eileen!

15. Enjoyed this puzzle.

    Don’t think we’re supposed to call them the islets of Langerhans, any more, though.  Are we?

    Thanks Crucible and Eileen.

     

16. And yes, had to search Ailsa C before getting is let, and missed the theme-ness of atrium (with occasional fibrillation of the atria, should have been more alert).

17. muffin @12: I believe that MARIHUANA is the original (correct) spelling in Spanish and the H was changed to a J when it became popular in America.

18. There have been Crucibles in the past that I haven’t enjoyed but this one was certainly up to scratch with the exception of the rather hackneyed (D)ISRAELI.  And, for once, the theme was unmissable though, as Eileen and gif have observed, hard to know how to label it.

    I enjoyed EYEBRIGHT (what a lovely name), BACTERIA, ATRIUM. IMAGO, RADII and CARBOHYDRATES.  A few quiblets though; I wouldn’t normally equate ASPIRIN(g) with yearning – the second has more desperation/urgency in my book; I feel BREATHING is a bit of a loose def by example for instinctive activity and I’d agree with gif’s version of MUNIFICENCE.

    Thanks Crucible and Eileen

19. ..thus affording its Mary Jane nickname, MaidenBartok @17..

    And yes, I tried Gauss, muffin @16.

20. [btw eyebrights may be tiny flowers, but they are worth looking at closely – they are exquisite!]

21. ..er, make that muffin@11 (I think; desktop view n/a)

22. grantinfreo @7 and PostMark @18 – I don’t really see your quibble re MUNIFICENT: it doesn’t simply mean ‘distributing’. The word comes from the Latin munus, a gift and facere, to make. See Collins ‘(of a person) generous; bountiful’; SOED ‘splendidly generous’. [It’s my granddaughter’s birthday tomorrow and I’ve sent her the kind of gift she always finds acceptable. 😉 ]

23. Hi Eileen, it’s the “money” bit..too specific..

24. Thank you to Crucible, but I was a DNF on this one despite my enjoyment of both the theme and the puzzle. I couldn’t for the life of me see ISLET at 17a. Sadly had not heard of the island Ailsa Craig (I thought it was a person – should just have looked it up like trishincharente@6 and gif@16!) and kept trying to anagram AILSA, until BREATHING sent me back to the beginning. I also kept thinking “rented” could mean “torn”. Never mind. There were lots of good clues. I agree with several already mentioned, but also ticked 19a ADRENALIN and 4d ISRAELI. Thanks to Eileen for the instructive and thorough blog. [Like your grandaughter, my nieces and nephews seem to appreciate my munificence (!) for their birthdays and at Christmas time.]

    .

25. I enjoyed today, thank you Cricuible and, for once, I needed no help with the parsing but it is always good to read Eileen’s explanations.

    Favourite today was BAGGAGE.

26. @9 PeterJohnN: wasn’t it Heath rather than Wilson who originated the term ‘unacceptable face of capitalism’? Applying it to the activities of Tiny Rowland, one-time Observer owner, so a bit close to home.

    re 17ac, Ailsa Craig will be familiar to anyone who used to watch the Open Golf when it happened at Turnberry, and the producers loved to show it on camera. Those were happier days, when coverage was still free to air AND the place had not yet been taken over as ‘Trump Turnberry’. Apologies for this reminder of the man’s outreach. The main course is evidently known as the Ailsa.

    https://www.top100golfcourses.com/golf-course/trump-turnberry-ailsa

27. Would “medical” do as a theme label? Nho EYEBRIGHT. LOI like others, WAIST. I have visited the temple complex at Ankor Wat, but it didn’t help much! Couldn’t parse BAGGAGE for the life of me.

    Thanks Eileen and Crucible.

28. Did stumble over the line eventually, but needed Eileen to rescue me with the cluing of WAIST, EYEBRIGHT and BACTERIA. Can’t say I use the rather clumsy sounding word INUTILE very often. We used to be able to see the pimple shaped volcanic island of Ailsa Craig far across the sea when we used to go for school field trips to the marine biological station at Millport. In the Sixties.

29. [Originally all curling stones were made from Ailsa Craig granite. More recently, one quarry in Wales has also been acceptable.]

30. Fess up time, just like William @11. My substitute for ANTIGEN was INSIDER, on the grounds that an insider has current information and maybe there’s a sort of double definition going on with the rest of the clue. Wishful thinking.
    Rather a shame as this was a clever crossword with a theme that even I could spot. I’d got the WAT for temple too, I’m sure it cropped up here a few weeks ago.

31. @26 quenbarrow: It was indeed Heath who coined the phrase.  Legend has it that he intended to say “an unacceptable facet of capitalism”, the indefinite article and the extra “t” making for a sentiment more in line with what one would have expected of a Conservative PM.

32. As a native Glaswegian, I’m very familiar with Ailsa Craig from many journeys along the A77 road to Ayr, Girvan, Stranraer, etc. (Annoyingly, I still didn’t solve the clue.) The islet is also known as “Paddy’s Milestone”, it being about half way between Scotland and Ireland.

33. A good enjoyable challenge today. Couldn’t parse Carbohydrates – had been obsessed incorrectly by Nebuchadnezar (sic), forgetting it actually has two Z’s and so wouldn’t fit. Finally the crossers did their stuff. Many thanks both.

34. [James O’Hagan @32

    Paddy’s Milestone – a short (just over a minute) Pathé film about Ailsa Craig.]

35. Eileen @22 & gif @23: same as gif.  I do see that Collins defines it as generous with money but had always associated it with the broader generosity – kindness, hospitality, gifts, support…  more than just ‘dispensing large amounts of money’.

36. Does anybody know why the comments aren’t numbered on my screen? They always used to be. Quenbarrow, I stand corrected! Dementia setting in.

37. Penfold @10: if you drink your champagne in Methuselahs and Nebuchadnezzars, a carboy is the person you give your keys to when you arrive at the restaurant.  And he hopefully keeps hold of them to make sure you don’t drive home afterwards.

    Whilst the Nebuchadnezzar is generally seen as the largest champagne bottle (holding 20 bottles-worth), there are two absolute monsters, the Primat holding 36 bottles and the Melchizedek holding a whopping 40 bottles (30 litres)

    I originally started thinking that the bottle would be a magnum and that the fuel in question would begin with ‘ma’ and end in ‘um’ which, given the names of many of the radioactive elements, might have made sense.

38. PJN @ 36

    Are you viewing on a phone? That could be why comments aren’t numbered. You may be able to switch it to desktop mode.

39. Don’t know what the Guardian setters have been smoking but there’s been a multitude of cannabis-related clues in the past couple of weeks, including this lesser-used spelling

40. Bunged in an unparsed ‘transplant’ (with three crossers) for ‘giving heart’ at 11ac until disproved by the lack of ‘l’ in the obvious anagram at 7d.

41. [muffin @12, I share your sentiments re words like INUTILE that you can put together and look up to check they exist (which is why I get so irritated with clues that cannot be put together unless you get the answer first)]

42. Belated thanks to Eileen@4. I suspected I might have been wrong as surely you would have mentioned it in your blog if Crucible had based the puzzle on his day job.

43. [Pedro @41: I just saw your note – and agree with both muffin’s and your sentiments.  I’ve just come back from posting on another crossword where I went through exactly that process, ended up with a word I didn’t know, thought “that just can’t be”, gave up and pressed Reveal … yep, you’ve guessed, to discover it actually was that word after all!  Grrr!]

44. I’m going to open Quibblers Quorner today and suggest that ‘foreign invader’ is not a suitable definition for ANTIGEN (because all cells have antigens), nor is ‘cell contents’ for GENOME (because a genome is specific to an organism rather than a cell).

    Enjoyed the solve, though. Polished off the eastern grid quickly, but the west proved distinctly more crunchy. Thanks Crucible and Eileen.

45. Ailsa Craig is also a variety of onion as well as tomato. I used to think it was named after the shape of the island. Both onion and tomato were bred in the West of Scotland. WAIST was my LOI. I don’t like to whinge but  I never like a grid where you just get two crossers in a five letter word.

46. Boffo @44; although genome is usually used for organisms, there is a technique called single cell whole genome sequencing, so it’s probably OK. Yes, all cells can display antigens but maybe the setter was using the Oxford Dictionary definition: A toxin or other foreign substance which induces an immune response in the body, especially the production of antibodies.

    Enjoyable crossword; I particularly liked BREATHING, BRUSHING and DRIP.

    Thanks Crucible and Eileen.

47. Just how big can an ISLET be? Ailsa Craig qualifies as a full blown island, surely?

    As for the rest, too much very obscure “G”K for my
    liking. Wat elastin carboy imago was I supposed to see staring back at me from the clues? And it appears I also Yoda imitated should have.

    I’m glad many of you enjoyed it; maybe after a few more decades I’ll appreciate puzzles like this more.

48. Like quenbarrow @26 I was familiar with Ailsa Craig from watching golf on TV. Thanks Eileen for reminding me of the Islets of Langerhans, about five minutes before Anna @15 told me not to use the term! (Why?)

    I see I’m in good company for failing to get WAIST – I’d got IS for units (I’m sure the parsing is correct but reads a little awkwardly – what a shame that the International System of Units takes its abbreviation from the French Système international), but couldn’t bring WAT to mind, though the cryptic definition should have given me the answer anyway. (Cluing it as “pear or apple-shaped?” could have fitted nicely with the medical theme.)

    My last ones in were the relatively obvious TRYING and BAGGAGE, so I was clearly suffering from brainfade. I was alert enough earlier in the process as many clues were solved from putting together the wordplay, rather than having a stab at the definition or identifying the answer from crossers; a more satisfying way to solve clues, as others have commented.

    Thanks to Crucible and Eileen.

49. muffin @12, Pedro @41 and sheffield hatter @48 – I call that satisfying kind of clue a jorum, as I’ve mentioned several times here since I solved and blogged it in a Puck Alphabetical five years ago.

     

50. muffin@29, re 17a ISLET, I’m surprised that most of the commenters here associate Ailsa Craig with golf. There cannot be many curlers on this site.

    [ I may be wrong, but I think that Welsh granite is only used for the striking bands, while the running surfaces are inserts still made from blue hone granite from Ailsa Craig. ]

    [ On a recent (pre-covid) curling trip to Scotland, we persuaded our bus driver to take us to the coast where we could see Ailsa Craig. It is as close to a shrine for curlers as there is. Unfortunately, to get there we had to pass by TRUMP Turnberry (that’s how the sign reads – sheesh), whereupon the entire busload let out a very loud Bronx cheer. ]

51. [Eileen – thanks for the JORUM reference and link. I would have attempted the crossword, but it was only available as a pdf of the newspaper version, so I just read the blog instead!]

52. An enjoyable and quite chewy solve today! Though a DNF (GENOME) and one DNP (BAGGAGE)… but feel good about solving/parsing the rest. For once, actually saw a theme AND it helped (on both BACTERIA and CARBOHYDRATES).

    GENOME just didn’t click, though parsing was clear on reveal. Dabbled w/gene but nothing gelled, then mired on aerobe, eventually entered as unparsed guess. In part stymied by what I think a weak defn… genome is merely one of MANY cell components (and a minor one at that, by volume)… ‘cell contents’ being just genome seems rather a stretch.

    Got BAGGAGE, but couldn’t suss GAG (or alternatively AGG). Mired on censor as public official and thought of an AG (attorney general) of some kind; Eileen’s elucidation elicited a hearty “doh!”

    For ADRENALINE, ought “stimulated by” be underlined too? Seems part of defn to me… otherwise what’s their role?

    Not thrilled by SCALA, having only ever heard/seen it as ‘La Scala’… or is there a ref to justify scala as a generic term for opera house? Anyway, thought “unnoted opera house” would’ve played much better.

    Hats off to Crucible for a fun puzzle, to Eileen for a fine blog, and to commenters for their fortifying discussion 🙂

53. [To be very picky, GENOME isn’t even a “component” – it’s the code stored on the “component” chromosomes. It’s a bit like saying a computer program is a component of a computer, when it’s just the code that the computer runs. I let it pass, though…]

54. Once again my lack of knowledge caused a DNF — EYEBRIGHT, Ailsa Craig, and Beria were all stumbling blocks for me. Still I found much to enjoy with ATRIUM, MARIHUANA, and ELASTIN as favourites. Thanks to both.

55. OddOtter @52. La Scala (or Teatro alla Scala, to give it its full name) includes the definite article. So your doubts about SCALA are analagous to objecting to Met instead of (The) Met, or Old Vic instead of (The) Old Vic.

56. OddOtter @52 – I see what you mean but adding ‘stimulated by’ to the definition would ruin the grammar for the answer ADRENALIN.

    Re BAGGAGE: that took me a minute or two, too: my first thought when I see ‘censor’ in a clue is always CATO!

     

57. OddOtter @52; Scala is an entry in Collins online, meaning La Scala.

58. That was hard, although most of bottom half went in quickly. Put it to rest overnight, finished it this morning, and now not sure why I found it so tough. Like Lautus@33 wanted to force  an unparsed Nebuchadnezzar where it would not go till crosses and another think through the clue helped. Might have met carboy previously but did check its definition. Also looked up Ailsa Craig, which was then a gimme.

    Agree with quibble re ASPIRINg not being a synonym for yearning and also GENOME for cell contents. No such concerns for ANTIGEN, they are what the body recognises as foreign.

    Thanks to Crucible for the fun and Eileen for the blog.

     

59. I filled in at least half of this really quickly (well, quickly for me, anyway) but then things got slower and slower. Like everyone else on the planet, I couldn’t completely parse WAIST – so a big virtual hug to Eileen for the wat part, what-what?
    At least I spotted the medical-ish theme, which helped with ANTIGEN, UREA, RADII, GENOME (hooray, a “banker” connected with readies rather than riversides) and, of course, it meant the theatre in 1d was medical rather than dramatic.
    I’m always pleased to see a Crucible – and pleased as punch to finish the thing!
    Thanks to Crucible and Eileen for the fun and the explanations

60. Wellbeck @59 – thank you! – a hug of any kind is most welcome. 😉

    I  confess that WAT was a guess-and- google from knowing Angkor Wat.

61. I did know WAT but the discussions about genomes and antigens are right over my head. Gosh, but there are some clever people on this blog! I am in awe. Night all. Wonder what fun is in store for tomorrow.

62. I spent ages trying to get stoma to parse along with cat etc, great puzzle though

63. JEFFERY ROBINSON @57, thanks for the ref.  Collins indicates “Scala” by itself is British, which might explain my (USian) unfamiliarity with it (but then, Collins says “La Scala” is British too and that’s certainly familiar over here, at least in US xword puzzles, so not sure if those attributions are reliable).  Still think “unnoted opera house” would’ve been apropos.

    sheffield hatter @55, yes, understand it’s the definite article that’s dropped… but am personally of the opinion that when it’s a foreign language phrase adopted into common use it’s a little different (and less forgiving) than your English language examples (plus I’m of the camp that feels in some cases dropping of the article does fundamentally change the meaning).

    Eileen @56, no doubt it’s come up before, but I wonder if there’s a convention for how to denote defns by description (or even by allusion), rather than simply by synonymy (to which we eagerly apply the part-of-speech and plug-and-play tests).  We tend to encounter/focus on the latter… but occasionally do encounter/accept the former.  Here, I find it hard to see just “this” as defn; put that word alone in front of someone, and basically NO chance they’re gonna come back with anything even remotely close to adrenalin… as a bare pronoun, it simply lacks meaning w/out context.  I think “one might be stimulated by this” would normally suffice as a defn by description, and here I see that as abridged to “stimulated by this”, with “one might be” being implied”, hence my suggestion to extend the underlining (in combination with the fact that otherwise “stimulated by” are left dangling as not part of wordplay NOR defn, which I always see as a real no-no).  Could also perhaps see the whole clue as a cad, with defn by description/allusion.  But “this” alone (and with significant dangling words) doesn’t work for me.  Not trying to be critical… just trying to talk it through (with myself as much as others), and see if there’s a reasonable/accepted way of denoting this sort of less-common defn where the only thing that matches the grammar is a contextless pronoun.

64. OddOtter @63. I find myself somewhat in agreement with you about “stimulated by” being left dangling, but I also tend to agree with Eileen that adding it to the definition ruins the cryptic grammar. “This” alone doesn’t work, but it does in the presence of “stimulated by”, whereas “stimulated by this” is a no-no if the answer is ADRENALIN.

    I don’t know if someone will join in here and say that the whole clue is therefore invalid, but I would prefer to say that “this” is given a steer, a nudge, or perhaps a context, by the addition of “stimulated by”. It is not dangling, but is also not really part of the definition. I seem to have painted myself into a corner, and can see myself being torn to pieces by some passing lions, but I can’t get away from the fact that the clue works, and also has a vivid and relevant surface.

    As you say – just trying to talk it through (with myself as much as others)!

65. OddOtter and sh @63/64 – how stimulating  😉

    In the same spirit of thinking out loud, could I broaden the discussion to include 16a WAIST and 3d IMAGO?  In those two instances Eileen (I’m sure correctly) doesn’t restrict the definition-underlining to ‘it’, but rather includes ‘belt round it perhaps’ and ‘It’s matured’ respectively.

    Yet strictly speaking neither of those passes the ‘plug-and-play’ test.

    ‘It’s matured’ can’t be grammatically equivalent to IMAGO, because it’s a finite clause, not a noun or a noun phrase.

    ‘Belt round it perhaps’ is a noun phrase, but it still fails the test because the thing defined by ‘belt round it’ is the belt, not the it.

    So I’m edging towards OddOtter’s suggestion for 19a ADRENALIN, on the basis that ‘stimulated by this’ is grammatically parallel to ‘belt round it’.

    I hope that doesn’t put me in sh’s flesh-tearing lion category.

    [Speaking of lions, this has absolutely nothing to do with the crossword, but I can’t resist sharing.  It’s a bit old, but I only came across it yesterday – and anyway it now has more of a celebratory feel  🙂 ]

66. grantinfreo@11 It’s ulnae, not ulnii (ulnii would be the plural of ulnus, if there were such a word).

    Seems to me a genome is a set of information rather than a physical thing, but I feel a bit shaky about that.

    Eileen @49 Your post reminds me of a jorum of my own which started a sequence of links that ended in bringing me to this site.  Years ago I discovered that the New York Post printed the Times cryptic, and became a regular with it (though my cousin’s son-in-law said he couldn’t imagine bringing himself to pay for a Murdoch publication).  Some cryptic bits assembled themselves into a word that looked like nothing I’d ever seen, so I googled it, and sure enough it was a real word for some kind of china.  (Don’t ask me what.)  There was also an entry for Times for the Times, a blog then run by Peter Biddlecombe on Times cryptics.  I glommed onto that until the Post stopped carrying the Times puzzle, but on that site was a mention Fifteensquared and … here I am.  So happy to have found another circle of friends, especially in these don’t-touch-me times.

     

67. sheffield hatter and essexboy, thanks for additional thoughtful discussion. WAIST & IMAGO are indeed examples of what I’m getting at re defn by description, rather than by synonymy; wonderful to have them at hand in the same puzzle/blog, and many thx for highlighting them!

    [eb, yeah, saw/liked that one a while back. You’d no doubt also appreciate Randy Rainbow… e.g. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DPDPzbLFeP4. So painful to actually be living thru it tho; despite the election things are still ugly over here.]

68. essexboy @65. Thanks for your thoughtful contribution. I guess, putting those three examples together, we’re looking at a slightly different category of definition: it’s not a synonym, not a cryptic or whimsical definition, but is it an allusion? Perhaps it can best be described as a nudge…

69. sh & e-b: Such defns by description aren’t uncommon either; today’s Tramp puzzle has at least two… we’ll see how they get blogged.

70. Hi all commenters after 62

    First, my apologies to OddOtter @63 – I did see your comment but was a bit too tired to get my head round composing a response and left it for the morning, then I was on my way to bed when sheffield hatter’s (thank you for that) arrived and didn’t see it. I missed one of the most interesting threads of the day.

    I take all of essexboy’s points and realise that I’ve been inconsistent. And thank you so much for the song – brilliant!! (And OddOtter, for yours, too. Randy Rainbow is a genius – someone here directed us to his ‘Modern Major General’ version a while ago.)

    Valentine, one of the questions I always ask new people I meet at S and B gatherings is how they came across 15² – serendipitously, in most cases.

    The discussion about the cluing could (and probably  will) be continued at a later date – but many thanks for all your observations and apologies for having only just seen them.

71. Can someone please help with “lots of” being “eye”

72. Simons @71 – it’s ‘get a load of’ (not ‘lots of’) – a slang expression for look at, or eye – see here

73. Eileen — to add a link to my jorum chain, I discovered the Times puzzle in the New York Post on the subway.  Somebody standing across the car from me was reading the Post, and the puzzle was on the part he’d folded back, and you can tell a cryptic puzzle from a non-cryptic one from across the room (or car) by the number of black squares — a non-cryptic puzzle has continuous spreads of white.  Being in New York at the time, I bought a Post.  It took a while for me to discover that my local gas-station-cum-convenience-store also carried it.  And then on to Times for the Times …

74. Many thanks Eileen

75. You’re welcome (literally) Simons – hope to hear from you again.

76. Reading some of the above posts, I’ll say what I’ve said before, ie that I do find that I am better able to complete crosswords by lacking knowledge in many fields as I then do not know enough to be so pedantic about some answers

Comments are closed.