Guardian 28,300 / Nutmeg

111 comments on “Guardian 28,300 / Nutmeg”

1. A wonderful puzzle, witty as ever from Nutmeg. I loved ANXIOUSLY (a brilliant clue), DAIRYMEN and EX-SERVICEMAN (what an anagram!) in particular. Many thanks to Nutmeg, and to Eileen as ever.

2. Which one gave you the most difficulty, Eileen?  You do not say.  I thought 12ac was my CoD.  Great puzzle.

3. Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen

   Quite hard for a Nutmeg, but a satisfying solve. I didn’t parse FROMAGE FRAIS of BRIEFS (I was working on “provided” giving the IF, but got nowehere with the rest). ANXIOUSLY and EGOMANIAC were favourites.

   11 is a bit Yodaesque. Don’t we say “ex-servicemen” for the US “veterans”?

4. Challenging but enjoyable.

   Favourites: DRUMSTICK, FROMAGE FRAIS, ROPED OFF, INDUS.

   Thanks, Eileen and Nutmeg

5. Sorry, Eileen – you DO say – I skim-read.  Yes 4d took homework but it’s all there.

6. Well-and-truly Nutmegged this morning despite starting at 6.30am.  COTD was FROMAGE FRAIS and INDUS gave me some moments of grief because I was just looking in the wrong direction.

   Hard going but what I needed this morning!

   Thanks Eileen and Nutmeg!

7. I ticked the same as you Eileen plus EGOMANIAC, ESTEEMED and AMBIENCE. The NW took longer than perhaps it should have but it was worth the effort. Nutmeg never fails. I needed FROMAGE FRAIS parsed so thanks for that one. Ta both.

8. First reading gave me just one answer. It looked really difficult for a while and then suddenly yielded. Never heard jerry for po before and couldn’t parse the dairy product.

   Thanks as ever to Eileen for enlightenment and Nutmeg for the challenge.

9. Oh second COTD was DRUMSTICKS which I thought was a) hilarious and b) and lovely piece of mis-direction.  Chapeau!

10. Thank you so much Eileen, I finished this with loads of guesses that I could not parse – not least fromage frais! I found it quite hard as a result, but my guesses turned out to be correct much to my surprise.

11. Thanks Eileen for explaining the word “last”in 23

    Great puzzle

12. Lovely puzzle. Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen.

    Apparently Petit Filous means “little rascals”, so it’s no surprise that FROMAGE FRAIS was rather tricky.

    I liked that Jerry turned out to be a guzunder and enjoyed travelling East to find the INDUS and TAIPEI.

13. Thanks both.
    I thought that 23a had a mistake in it (should be first European not last) so I appreciate your parsing for that clue, like copmus @ 11

14. Beaten by TAIPEI which just wouldn’t come to mind, having gone through every eastern capital I could think of so wondered if it was a currency i didn’t know.  And never thought of dictator in the right way.  Spent ages trying to work a word for salary into Mao as a container.

    Same experience as Auriga @8: LIFE SENTENCE was the only solution from the first pass, then the SE and SW corners opened up quite smoothly before grinding to a halt.  NW held out til last until I mustered the confidence to plump for EXECUTOR (lovely definition) and then INDUS jumped out and the last few followed with the delightful FROMAGE FRAIS as LOI.  And, for once, everything (bar TAIPEI) parsed as it should.

    Same ticks as Eileen and the posters who precede me.  I also rather liked REJOICED, the beautiful DEMUR and, like Penfold, PSEUDO with its misdirectional use of Jerry.  I do rather feel for the elderly and their quivering – but I can’t think of any other group to whom I would apply the word DODDER!

    Nothing to criticise in this puzzle for me.  Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen for a flawless blog.

15. Shirl @13 – I don’t think Nutmeg would use the frowned-on ‘first European’. 😉

16. Succinct as ever from the spice lady, with a bit of chew as befitting midweek. Yes Eileen, the fromage bit was ‘what else’, but fairs for markets is a bit Cadfael, so last one parsed. GoD (groan of the day) goes to Tie Pay. Vaguely remembered that a Jerry was a po (origin…something non-pc from tha war?), so pseudo was fun, tho seen before, along with clues for egomaniac. All things nice, thanks N and E.

17. Just beautiful.  I was nearly beaten by TAIPEI (like PostMark, I was working my way through Crosswordland’s favourite dictators) but finally the homophonic penny dropped, and it became my COTD.  And the clue had the added virtue of annoying the Chinese government (I assume they’re avid solvers).

    muffin @3:  I read 11d ‘veteran in US’ as being an abbreviated way of saying ‘When you hear ‘veteran’ in the US, what does it mean (to us in the UK)?’

    If I were being extremely picky, I’d point out that most of the inhabitants of the regions through which the INDUS flows are monotheists.  And actually it’s a moot point whether Hindus can be seen as an example or subset of ‘polytheists’.

    Many thanks Nutmeg and Eileen.  I’m another who needed help with Penfold’s little rascals.

18. essexboy @17

    Yes, as Yoda would say it 🙂

19. grantinfreo @16: for once not tempted down the U-Bend of toilet humour, here are two interesting links I came across whilst looking up the derivation of jerry.  One seems a quite authoritative review of lavatorial terminology through the ages; the other is a Guardian site on which several folk – also quite authoritatively – give a range of explanations specifically for jerry.

20. This puzzle truly hit the spot in every way … just the right degree of difficulty and excellent clues throughout, with the best and most amusing already called out above. First-one-in was MOCHAS, last-one PSEUDO …  so ended with one of the best laughs of all, and everything parsed-as-you-go, which is always satifactory.  Very enjoyable all round. Thanks, setter.

21. Ta for the links PostMark, nothing definitive, so a nice ongoing etymological gazundrum.

22. I love Nutmeg’s puzzles and this was no exception. Enjoyed SNEAK PREVIEW once I’d finally worked it out. I couldn’t parse FROMAGE FRAIS at all and the DEMUR construction really caught me out, so many thanks Eileen for your explanations.

    Funnily enough, ODDER is in today’s Guardian Quick, with the exact same (straight) definition as the particle in DODDER here (‘more rum’).

    Thanks both.

23. Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen. I found this a hard but steady solve. FROMAGE FRAIS took me ages to parse also, but the penny dropped after a while. TAIPEI, ANXIOUSLY my favourites but so much to like.

24. Postmark @19; Chambers gives the derivation of jerry from jeroboam.

    What a great puzzle! So many delightful clues. I particularly liked SNEAK PREVIEW [what Andre saw?], AMBIENCE, DRUMSTICK and DAIRYMEN.

    The clues are so precise and the surfaces are good; what else do you need in a terrific cryptic crossword?

    Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen (I eventually unravelled FROMAGE FRAIS; LOI was SNEAK PREVIEW).

25. PS The OED also gives the derivation of jerry as probably from jeroboam.

26. Loved this, despite failing to get TAIPEI! Plenty of grins as I worked my way through, swiftly at first. I was held up by FROMAGE FRAIS for a while.

27. [For those mystified by my Andr?? quote above, please watch this (I think Eileen has probably given a similar link before)]

28. Found this tough at first too, but great fun. Had to reboot my brain to Franglais to get FROMAGE FRAIS which was almost LOI. DRUMSTICK made me chuckle. By no means a TREADMILL, as it’s always a pleasure to see Nutmeg as the day’s setter…

29. Great puzzle, as expected from Nutmeg. ‘Dictator’s’ as a homophone indicator is a wonderful misdirection, and a new one, at least for me. I share the quibble of essexboy@17: the inhabitants of the INDUS valley are predominantly Moslem.
    EX-SERVICEMAN held me up for a long time, partly because it is an unlikely and ingenious anagram, and partly because I was thrown by the ‘in US’. We would use this expression also in the UK, surely? The reason may be the definition of ‘veteran’ in Chambers (online, at least):
    A person who has seen long service in any activity
    An experienced soldier
    An ex-serviceman or -woman (often shortened to vet; N American)
    I think the ‘N American’ refers only to the abbreviation ‘vet’ (which in the UK is a veterinarian).
    I got FROMAGE FRAIS just from the initial F and the enumeration – the parsing escaped me. Thanks Eileen!

30. Robi @24 & 25: I saw that too.  I haven’t come across anything that explains the derivation from jeroboam more fully. It seems an odd connection – however large the champagne bottle, it’s not the most obvious or convenient receptacle to use in the relevant circumstances.

    PS. One can never tire of either M&W or the 2R’s.  Thanks for the clip.

31. Many thanks Nutmeg and Eileen, thoroughly enjoyable.

    Tiny point re 20d, but BRIEFS are the instructions provided to barristers in an action, so the second definition starts with “provided for….”

32. What a lovely puzzle to find on coming back to solving, and with my favourite dessert – like Gervase @29 entered from the initial letter and the enumeration, thank you Eileen for the parsing, and thank you Nutmeg for the puzzle.

33. Hi Robi @27  I have – more than once! (And I had a perfect opportunity in yesterday’s Indy blog to provide the 2Rs crossword one. 😉 )

    Jay @31  Thanks for that – of course. I wasn’t happy with the ‘provided for’ but didn’t see what was staring me in the face. Brief can mean barrister, too, but I’ve just found in Chambers that it’s slang. I’ll amend the blog.

    Good to see you back, Cookie @32!

34. Postmark @30; for jeroboam, the OED has: A large bowl or goblet; a very large wine-bottle.

35. [This is ABSOLUTELY not to criticize him, but I want to pick up on an expression used by essexboy@17 – moot point.  In an international (read: UK +US) audience, instead of helping this term can actually muddy the waters.  While in British English it means a subject open to debate, in American English it means not practically worth debating any more.  Curious, that.]

36. This was enormously enjoyable. I loved the misdirection in DAIRYMEN, DRUMSTICK and LIFE SENTENCE, BRIEFS and TAIPEI were neat – and REJOICED was truly classy.
    Many thanks to Eileen for explaining the parsing to FRAIS (totally beyond me!) and for the blog, and a twenty-one gun salute to Nutmeg for a masterly crossword.

37. Lovely crossword and a joy for me after yesterday’s, which left me floundering. Laughed out loud at the anal sister and, like Essexboy, wasted far too long on all the dictators for 10a. Thanks to Eileen for the parsing of FROMAGE FRAIS, which I couldn’t see, and of course to Nutmeg for the entertainment.

38. @DrWhatson

    They mean the same thing – a moot is a debate but the sense in which ‘a moot point’ is used in the UK is precisely the same as the US in that it refers to a point that is theoretically open to debate but in practice such debate would make no difference, or it’s ‘academic’ to put it another way

39. Delighted to find my enjoyable struggle with this was matched by others – felt sure that many would fly through it. I hesitate to make so bold as to point out that the definition in the blog for REJOICED has overflowed to include the renowned writer’s nationality.
    [Much tickled by the discussion of “moot” which is heading for a self-referential Mandelbrot spiral. I’m standing clear.]

40. I had FROMAGE FRAIS quite early, and the wordplay helped me to get there, so no problem with the parsing. Any feeling of triumph turned out to be not just premature but hubristic, and pride inevitably came before a fall as I ground to an ignominious halt (am I being prolix enough?) with eight or nine still to go, mostly in the SE but including a couple in the SW (I’m making an effort at “inanities about the order in which clues have been filled in” now) and I had to do something completely unrelated for half an hour. At which point everything fell into place as though it were a Monday!

    Some truly devious definitions, of which “sampler” stood out at 18a, while “quiver, like the elderly” gives me something else to look forward to in my (very) old age. Like trishincharente I found the anal sister worth a chuckle, and DRUMSTICKS was amusingly defined and quite possibly my cotd.

    Thanks to Eileen for the reminder: I don’t think Nutmeg would use the frowned-on ‘first European’. I’d held myself up unnecessarily by looking to take the last letter of European out of a synonym for modest. I’ll consider my wrist slapped.

    Many thanks to Nutmeg – it was a struggle but a rewarding one, with plenty to enjoy.

41. muffin @3 & essexboy @17 re: EX-SERVICEMAN. I see the clue having an equals sign in the middle: “Marshal receives Manx=veteran in US”

42. [Alphalpha @39. Thanks for the metaphor for the discussion on moot point. Here are some illustrations.]

43. Just finished.  Very enjoyable.  Held up for a long time on SNEAK PREVIEW.  Loved 11D.

44. Thanks, Alphalpha @39 – no idea how that happened. Fixed now.

45. [Also glad to see cookie@32 back. Have expressed concern at disappearance here before. There was a suggestion the other day that it was the prolix nature of contributions which had (ahem) contributed but clearly not. Nobody’s business of course.]

46. [Since there seems to be room today for a bit of “prolix” (mh@40 – we crossed) my inner and much suppressed pedant feels the need to say that “pride cometh before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall”.
    Yes that is my coat – why do you ask? Oh…]

47. Thanks for explaining FROMAGE FRAIS (I got as far as the fairs but no further) BRIEFS (another one looking for an IF here) and TAIPEI which I got but couldn’t explain, and don’t much like the explanation now I know it!
    Favourites were EXECUTOR, EX SERVICEMAN, INDUS, EGOMANIAC and SNEAK PREVIEW (for which I think the def is “sample showing” not just “sample”.)

48. Sorry to spoil the party but I have a few quibbles. EGOMANIAC doesn’t really work for me, and “in US” is superfluous for EX-SERVICEMAN. BRIEFS was clear enough from the crossers, but I don’t think “leaders in action” works, even if it does turn up as an obscure meaning in a dictionary. And VARIED doesn’t really mean new character.
    At least I did get all of those, but got stuck on others that were completely fair. But then I always find Nutmeg difficult.

49. Oh dear, gladys @47 – you’re right, of course. I’ll fix it now.

50. Bingy@38 check out for instance the Wiktionary entry  -spedifically the usage notes.

51. I loved the tiddly duke in 28a DODDER!

    Why is a pew an aisle seat?

    Gervase @29 “vet” can also mean veterinarian in the US, as well as (military) veteran.  It’s hard to imagine a context where the two would be confused.

    Welcome back, Cookie!

    What a delightful puzzle.  Incomplete last night, left me plenty to go with breakfast and with help from the blog.  Good job, Nutmeg, and thanks for the delightful breakfast company, Eileen.

52. [Re ‘moot point’ – thanks Dr W @35 for raising that.  I hadn’t even realised there was an issue until reading your post.  Bingy @38, this article seems to confirm that there is a difference in usage.  Just to clarify, the sense in which I was using it @17 (when asking whether Hinduism = polytheism) was the ‘British’ usage, i.e. it’s open to debate, and that debate might a difference by shedding more light on the question.  Alphalpha and sh, thanks for the Mandelbrotica.  Did you know Mandelbrot means almond bread?]

53. [Alphalpha @45, I was doing research into the susceptibility of ethnic groups in the UK to SARS-CoV-2, so upsetting seeing so many from so called minority groups dying.]

54. Hi Valentine @51 – a pew is a seat in an aisle, which is a side portion of a church, as well as being a passageway between rows of seats, as in a theatre or aeroplane.

55. The 1980s American movie review show <a href=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneak_Previews#Post-Siskel_and_Ebert”>Sneak Previews</a> used to end with one of the critics saying “Save us the aisle seats.” That was how I got 18ac once I had the S K in but I wonder if it can really be something Nutmeg had in mind? It’s very old, obscure, and American! (I’m given to understand I shouldn’t say “quite.”)

56. [matt w @55

    There’s a much easier way to include links. Copy the URL, highlight the word(s) you want the link on, click on the paperclip icon above the text entry box, paste the URL in the dialg box, click the “return” icon.]

57. Paperclip icon? What paperclip icon?

58. Wherever it was possible to get misdirected, I was, but arrived at the destination in the end. I was so convinced that “nothing to confess” in IMPOSING was 0 Sin, that I couldn’t work out where the G came from.

59. gladys @57

    If you are working on a computer, above the box you are typing in you will see B I ABC, then two more icons. The first is the paperclip icon for adding links; the last one deletes links.

60. Eileen @54 I’m familiar with aisles and pews in churches, but a pew is a very long bench, and only the seats at the two ends of it are on the aisle.  And don’t we also include the long pew that connects the two aisles as well as the shorter ones on the side of the church?

61. Valentine @ 64

    If the pew/bench is located in the aisle, then any position on it could be described as an aisle seat.

62. I’m not a fortune-teller. I simply can’t read straight.

63. Late to the party today.  [My employer gave us the day off in advance of the Thanksgiving holiday this year, which is a bit bizarre since this is also the one year when traveling for the holiday is thoroughly discouraged.  So I’m sitting at home doing crosswords.  Tomorrow I get to cook Thanksgiving dinner for two–I’m a decent cook, but I have never made any of the traditional recipes before; I’ll let you know if I burn the turkey.]

    Anyway, regarding the crossword, it’s all been said already.  I was another for whom the FROMAGE FRAIS was the last one parsed.  But some comments on comments:

    Matt W, as a big fan of the late Roger Ebert, I thought of Sneak Previews and “save us the aisle seats” too!  I doubt the show was ever syndicated as far away as the UK, but it still wouldn’t surprise me if Nutmeg knew the reference.  The clue’s surface works so well that it might not be an accident.

    Gervase @29, a vet here can be either a veteran or a veterinarian–it’s only obvious from context which meaning is intended.

    On to the Independent!

64. Some nice cluing here… but I stumbled badly early on, hurriedly guessing “roped out” and “fromage blanc” w/out fully parsing (a bad idea w/Nutmeg). So a DNF, but recovered and got/parsed the rest, and enjoyed things toward the end once my wounded pride recovered.

    Re SNEAK PREVIEW, would agree w/gladys @47 re “sample showing” except the clue has “sampler” instead (to make the surface work), and I’ve not found any refs w/sampler as an adjective. So I think “showing” just connector, not part of defn.

    Re TAIPEI, loved the clue (in part because I got it), but wonder re ‘to’? Eileen, you show it in the hphone-ind; can you elucidate? To me, if “dictator’s” is possessive (not contraction) then “to” must be in the hphone fodder. Makes the fodder a tad less clean, as defn by description – ala dictionary – rather than plug&play synonymy; but as haggled out recently, that’s ok so long as we recognize it for what it is 🙂

    Valentine, your last sentence re “vet” got me musing over what such a context might look like. How about (perhaps speaking of someone deceased): “he/she was a vet in the canine corps.”

    muffin, re links: One caveat is that, like comment #s, the special editing buttons (underling, italics, links, etc) aren’t available on the mobile version of the website.

65. Valentine @69 – we’re talking about different meanings of ‘aisle’ (see the plan in the link I gave @54). The pews in the North and South Aisles go up to the walls. (I’m not expressing this very well – I’ve been searching in vain for pictures!)

66. Wow that was hard.

    Thanks for the challenge Nutmeg.

    Thanks for the help Eileen

67. And a hearty thanks to our setter, blogger, and commenters… indeed to ALL our setters/bloggers, and Gaufrid, and our whole community. With US Thanksgiving Day tomorrow, not sure I’ll get a chance to comment.. but I sincerely give thanks for this amazing group, and the fun & enlightenment they’ve afforded me during this difficult stretch.

68. Eileen@65: Indeed. And popular usage has an aisle run up the centre of the nave too, along which the bride (and anyone else in a procession) processes!

69. Eileen @65

    There’s a nice picture in this Wiki ref for the aisle as church architecture meaning.

    Nice puzzle.  I had the same problems as most people it seems.  I found it tricky to rationalise “any” with “whatever” in the clue for ANXIOUSLY, nut Collins online sorted it out for me.

    Thanks, S&B

70. OddOtter @64:  The “to” in the TAIPEI clue can be understood as part of the definition of “tie” = “to restrict” (in the way that verbs in dictionaries are generally defined in their infinitive mood). And it’s necessary to make the surface of the clue make sense.

71. [but, not nut].  Wish there was an edit function.

72. After reading mrpenney’s comment @63, I think it’s worth posting Matt W’s link to the US TV show Sneak Previews, in the manner suggested by muffin.  I’d never heard of it (I don’t think it was syndicated here) but clearly it was a Big Thing on PBS in the States.

    The catchphrase ‘Save us the aisle seats’ could be just coincidence, but then again if Nutmeg spent time in the States, perhaps not.

73. mrpenney, re TAIPEI: Yes, agreed… that’s what I tried to express, apparently not w/complete success. My point is that the blog has “to” grouped not with “tie” but in the hphone-ind, as “(dictator’s to)”, and I wonder if Eileen, thoughtful individual that she is, might have an alternate parsing to justify that.

74. Hi phitonelly @65 – thanks, but I think I’ve gone as far as I can on this one. The Wiki article (which I’d seen) makes the distinction between the  two meanings. For the purposes of the clue, I think Nutmeg was simply indicating the seat as being in a church, i.e. a pew.

75. I spent ages trying to parse ‘clotted cream’ instead of ‘fromage frais’ as being out of season dairy product (cream teas in summer) then the penny dropped, doh!

76. OddOtter @64. Re SNEAK PREVIEW. I think “showing” just connector, not part of defn. I agree, though I wouldn’t want to suggest that Eileen change her underlining back to what it was! I saw “sampler” as the definition, as I said @40 (where I called it “truly devious”, though with familiarity and hindsight it doesn’t seem quite so terrifying now!), with ‘showing’ having the function of setting out the wordplay, much like ‘from’ might do. A sampler, back in the day, was an album such as Son of Gutbucket or All Good Clean Fun, whereby record companies would set out their wares for potential buyers to try. The other meaning, from even further back, would be “a piece of embroidery worked in various stitches as a specimen of skill”. Either of those possibilities was enough to distract me from the potential meaning of this clue for quite some time, until the crossing K plus REV+  in PEW led me to see the light.

77. OddOtter @64 and 73 – I have not been ignoring you!

    Re SNEAK PREVIEW: when typos etc are pointed out, my immediate reaction is to amend them as quickly as possible, before another handful of people point them out. When gladys @47 posted ‘(for which I think the def is “sample showing” not just “sample”.)’ I immediately (and carelessly) amended the blog, forgetting why I had opted for my original parsing. My apologies.

    As for ‘dictator’s to’ – I hold my hands up: not sufficiently thought through.

78. Thanks, sheffield hatter @76!

79. It’s always a pleasure to see Nutmeg’s name on a puzzle. I found this one much harder than the usual Nutmeg. I barely finished and couldn’t parse a couple. Both halves of JERRY = PO were unfamiliar, although I’m sure I’ve seen the latter in previous puzzles, and I completely failed to parse FROMAGE FRAIS.

     

80. Eileen: No worries… always appreciate how you take time to read/consider all the comments to your blogs, and knew you’d get there eventually 🙂

81. Many thanks, OddOtter. 😉

82. [muffin, et al: One more aside re links, to avoid confusion for others… tho the link button (in desktop-view) might at first look like a paper clip, I believe it’s intended as 3 chain links, the middle seen edge on and representing creation of a link. The next button over is the two outer links with the inner link broken, thus removal of a link.]

83. I think you are right, OddOtter.

84. That seems to be true OddOtter.  Happy Thanksgiving to all transpontines.

85. Last in for me was DEMUR… I knew that that was the answer but refused to put it in unless I understood why. I kept thinking “Last European” meant the letter N (was to be removed from a synonym of modest). I knew demure was the most likely synonym but took *forever* to see the light. I give credit where credit is due and that was indeed meticulous.

86. [OddOtter @67: Thanksgiving is the one tradition we still stick to from our 5 years Stateside sojourn – taking time to reflect on what you have and should be thankful for seems to be to be a very good thing we could all do this year as we hope for better next.  Happy, Peaceful, Safe, Healthy Thanksgiving].

87. Many thanks for all the comments.

    Echoing Maidenbartok’s sentiments, a very Happy Thanksgiving to all – and all the best with the turkey, mrpenney! (Looking forward to hearing how it went. 😉 )

88. 12a:

    Although I like the definition of ‘banker’ to indicate ‘river’, I must protest.

    Hindus are not polytheists. They are ‘selective monotheists’. In the Indian theistic Dharma, the One God has many faces, or expressions, or manifestations (avatars).

    I have an MA in Theology to back this up.

89. What a constructive all-round set of thoughtful, elucidating and entertaining posts today. A pleasure to peruse. Thanks to all, and of course to Nutmeg and Eileen.

90. Eileen @77: it was me, not you, who was careless. My apologies.

91. Bless you, gladys – a bit of ‘six of one …’, I think. 😉

92. Apologies if I’ve missed any mention upthread of what I take to be a nina.  Reading across rows 4 and 12 (if ‘a European quits’!), we have “DUM MEMOR IPSE MEI,” which is part of a quote from Aeneid iv.335-6: “nor will I regret my thoughts of you, Elissa, while memory itself is mine, and breath controls these limbs.”

93. irony towers: KA-POW!!! (as in sound of mind being blown)… Did I mention how AMAZING the people are here? Wow… just…… wow…

94. And looking back now, perhaps a subtle psychology or psychoanalysis theme?

95. irony towers – wow, that really is quite something, well spotted! And well played, Nutmeg. I wonder why that particular phrase. I loved studying the Aeneid IV at university, so a happy memory too. As OddOtter says, the erudition of those on this site is often truly impressive.

96. Well, I am well and truly flabbergasted. I don’t usually look for themes and Ninas in Nutmeg’s puzzles and I certainly didn’t spot that one,

    I’m very familiar with the quotation –  like Conrad, I love the book and have enjoyed teaching it several times – but would never have spotted it here.

    ‘Why that particular phrase?’ I’ve been doing some research and discovered that it is the motto of the Irvine family – and Nutmeg is Margaret Irvine!

    Well done and huge thanks, irony towers and, of course, renewed thanks to Nutmeg. I would love to have spotted it myself. 😉

97. Eileen – wonderful! Thank you for that, makes it *even* better. Consider my gast well and truly flabbered, too, Nutmeg!

98. Is that anything to do with the 3rd Earl of Bute and the Dowager Princess of Wales Augusta? – https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/FAQ_Answers-g551924-d1510298-t3565925-I_would_really_like_to_have_the_Latin_wording_of.html

99. Gordon McDougall @98

    I found that link, too – and also this one – but I challenge the translation!

100. If you’re still there, irony towers@92

     Looking back, I realise I didn’t pay enough attention to your translation – and I challenge it, too!

     (It’s something like ‘While / so long as I am mindful of myself…’.

101. I shan’t contest it, Eileen; my days as a Classical student are far behind me, and given the lateness of the time of posting I did a cut-and-paste from a paraphrase.  mea maxima culpa.

102. That’s fine, irony towers – I’d just love to know how you spotted it!
     (Have you visited this site before?)

103. Ivory towers@92 that was brilliant, well done!  My own memory (no pun intended) ends at Arma virumque cano – not particularly far in!

104. Eileen @102

     Long-time visitor, first-time poster.  I didn’t know the quote, and it wasn’t until I had all but the SE that I spotted some Latin-looking bits.

     While I’m here, let me give a plug to the leviathan of a crossword thread at https://www.onetouchfootball.com/forum/one-touch-football/games, where the solution to the previous clue must be incorporated into the next.  It’s been going for something like 20 years since its original incarnation, and new setters are more than welcome.

105. Well, that makes it all the more remarkable (‘Latin-looking bits’, indeed!). I thought you perhaps had a family connection!

     I hope you’ll become a regular poster. Thanks for the link – looks interesting.

106. Now that’s what I call a decent “thread’ (even an ‘afterthread’?!). And something, relating directly to the crossword, that without the respective dawning of cyberspace and more latterly fifteensquared, I’d otherwise have surely, and sorely, missed.
     Nice spot, irony towers, and I fully echo Eileen@105

107. […and, while I’m catching up with 15², it’s good to have cookie back…]

108. For 24ac, I had seconds being “mo” and “s”‘ ie two meanings of second as opposed to “mos”, ie the plural of second. I love Nutmeg puzzles. Whilst I am on, I do the crosswords many days after they are published and find the blogs by going to the main fifteensquared site and on the left hand side there is usually a list of each newspaper which I click on and then find the crossword number. However, for the past few days that facility has disappeared and so I have to keep guessing at the date the crossword and find it through the calendar. Eileen or Guafrid, is this a problem with my iPad or has that facility been removed ?

109. Sugarbutties @108

     In anticipation of installing a new responsive theme for the site, I have moved the Categories list from the LH sidebar to the RH sidebar and have changed it to a drop-down menu.

110. Tanks for that, Gaufrid.

     Re 24ac, I think you may be right, Sugarbutties: either works, of course but yours is cleverer, so probably closer to Nutmeg. 😉

111. Thank you both

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