Guardian Cryptic 28,310 by Matilda

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/28310.

Matilda has been gracing the Quiptic and Cryptic slots for eighteen months now, and has been getting plaudits in both; this is no exception. I found it not too difficult, but with some slightly novel takes on standard clue forms.

ACROSS
1 SUPERVISION Great faculty management (11)
A charade of SUPER (‘great’) plus VISION (‘faculty’).
9 TYPHOON Tea with nightcap gives shocking wind (7)
A charade of TYPHOO (trade name, ‘tea’) plus N (‘Nightcap’).
10 SPECTRE Spirit of staff having mushroom turnover (7)
SCEPTRE (‘staff’) with CEP (‘mushroom’, Boletus edulis) reversed (‘turnover’).
11 VELODROME Loved to play by city racetrack (9)
A charade of VELOD, an anagram (‘to play’) of ‘loved’; plus ROME (‘city’).
12 LOOPS Circles yacht, front to back (5)
SLOOP (‘yacht’) with the initial S moved to the end (‘front to back’).
13 SOME Attractive handout in part (4)
HANDSOME (‘attractive’) minus HAND (‘handout’).
14 PROTESTANT Poor patron taking exam for believer (10)
An envelope (‘taking’) of TEST (‘exam’) in PROANT, an anagram (‘poor’) of ‘patron’.
16 SINE QUA NON Fancy sequin soon becoming a must (4,3,3)
An anagram (‘fancy’) of ‘sequin soon’. A charade of SINEQU, an anagram (‘fancy’) of ‘sequin’; plus ANON (‘soon’).
 19 FLOG Thrash in return game (4)
A reversal (‘return’) of GOLF (‘game’).
21 PLAZA Old jazz uncovered in dad’s open space (5)
An envelope (‘in’) of LAZ (‘oLd jAZz uncovered’) in PA (‘dad’).
22 TRUCK STOP Transport cafe providing tea, by the sound of it? (5,4)
TRUCK’S TOP is T (‘tea, by the sound of it’).
24 HEIRESS Wildly theorises, but not to successor (7)
An anagram (‘wildly’) of ‘[t]he[o]rises’ minus TO (‘but not to’).
25 DEAREST Love is almost dead — what’s left? (7)
A charade of ‘dea[d]’ minus the last letter (‘almost’) plus REST (‘what’s left’).
26 NOT ENTIRELY To a degree, Matilda depends on reason to sleep under the stars (3,8)
A charade of NO TENT (‘reason to sleep under the stars’) plus I RELY (‘Matilda depends’).
DOWN
1 SUPPLEMENTATION Flexible thought process is adding something (15)
A charade of SUPPLE (‘flexible’) plus MENTATION (‘thought process’).
2 PROUD Specialist on Underground, extremely pleased with herself (5)
A charade of PRO (‘specialist’) plus UD (‘UndergrounD extremely’).
3 RANCOUR Lutheran court full of bitterness (7)
A hidden answer (‘full of’) in ‘LutheRAN COURt’.
4 INSPECT What Ofsted does this month is to cover heads of primary English course (7)
An envelope (‘is to cover’) of PEC (‘heads of Primary English Course’) in INST (‘this month’). Ofsted inspects schools etc.
5 IDEALISM Boxer’s entering the same move­ment with lofty aspirations (8)
An envelope (‘entering’) of ALI’S (‘boxer’s’) in IDEM (‘the same’).
6 NATIONAL LOTTERY River dweller in countrywide draw (8,7)
An envelope (‘in’) of OTTER (‘river dweller’) in NATIONALLY (‘countrywide’).
7 ST IVES When the essence of Mr Jobs is iPhones at last resort (2,4)
STEVE (‘Mr Jobs’) with its middle letter (‘essence’) changed to (‘is’) I (from ‘iPhones’) plus S (-‘PhoneS at last’).
8 JET SET Across the Channel, I take special exotic trips, primarily with this lot (3,3)
A charade of JE (French; ‘across the Channel, I’) plus TSET (‘Take Special Exotic Trips, primarily’), with an extended definition.
15 SQUAREST Start of summer as break is most traditional (8)
A charade of S (‘start of Summer’) plus QUA (‘as’) plus REST (‘break’).
16 SAPPHO Drain soup for old poet (6)
A charade of SAP (‘drain’) plus PHO (Vietnamese ‘soup’)
17 ARTISAN To exclude outsiders from party list, pay any skilled worker (7)
Removing first and last letters from each word (‘to exclude outsiders’): ‘pARTy lISt pAy aNy’.
18 OPUS DEI Made soup with dopehead, that’s uplifting God’s work (4,3)
A charade of OPUS, an anagram (‘made’) of ‘soup’ plus D (‘Dopehead’) plus EI, a reversal (‘uplifting’, in a down light) of IE (‘that’s’). Like IE (id est), OPUS DEI is Latin as given in the clue in translation; further, OPUS DEI is an institution within the Roman Catholic Church which stresses the sanctity of ordinary life, so that the clue can be taken as having an extended definition.
20 G SPOTS Golf locales could be tricky to find? (1,5)
A charade of G (‘golf’, radio code) plus spots (‘locales’).
23 KNAVE Scoundrel reported in place for worship (5)
Sounds like (‘reported’). NAVE (‘place for worship’, for the congregation in a church).

 

image of grid

79 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,310 by Matilda”

  1. Thanks PeterO and Matilda. As you say quite tricky in parsing many.

    On ST IVES, ‘iPhones’ has to be split (to i and Phones at last) so a ‘lift and separate’?

  2. A lot to enjoy, but a DNF for me, with more convoluted surfaces than expected on a Monday.

    I can’t help wondering if the setter originally tried to do something with Jonathan Ive in 7d, as he was the iPhone’s designer (and iPad and iPod, I think). A funny coincidence if not.

    PeterO, a small correction: SINE QUA NON is actually an anagram of Sequin, then anon for ‘soon’. (I guess you knew that, but missed it when it came to the blog.)

    DEAREST was my favourite. Gloomy but quite poetic.

  3. Nice gentle gridfill, but quite a few parsing ?s. Wondered where the staff was in 10ac, d’oh! 6d similar, didn’t see the otter. In 5d, was thinking id es(t) and scratching head. And didn’t know pho the soup in Sappho. So, not feeling too clever…thanks Matilda for the lessons and PeterO for the explanations.

  4. Matilda seems in quite a Latin mood today – not that there’s anything wrong with that!  Altogether, a nicely constructed puzzle I thought.

    PeterO:  you missed a P in the explanation of 1d.

  5. Wow… Monday and a lack of write-ins (which is a SINE QUA NON as far as I’m concerned) .. in fact a gentle and enjoyable challenge … and I’m not too PROUD to admit that 2d was my LOI.  On now to the Quiptic for dessert …

  6. Some tricky parsing for ST IVES and NOT ENTIRELY amongst others made this hard to both solve and parse and I ended up by missing the parsing of NATIONAL LOTTERY. I liked TRUCK STOP and the ‘could be tricky to find?’ def for G SPOTS.

    Look forward to doing the offering from Matilda’s alter ego Velia in today’s FT.

    Thanks to Matilda and PeterO

  7. Very satisfying though NOT ENTIRELY because I was stumped by that clue — otherwise it was a romp with TYPHOON, SOME, HEIRESS, JET SET, and ARTISAN being among my favourites. Thanks to both.

  8. Yes, I couldn’t for the life of me parse “truck stop”–which makes me even more grateful for PeterO’s splendid explanations! But the Latin took me back to schooldays of yore: sic transit…

  12. Found this distinctly more challenging than a typical Monday… A DNF (-1.0 XOO) and at least a couple DNPs. Like Dr. WhatsOn, noticed lots of Latin, and wondered if there might be a theme but nothing gelled. Also a possible nina (down unches btw 4 & 5), but unable to connect it to anything.. perhaps someone else can see more?

    Thought SUPPLEMENTATION quite good… But COTD was, of course, NATIONAL LOTTERY 🙂

    Thx to our setter/blogger/commenters for the challenge/elucidations/entertainment!

  14. Peri1561 @9 – 26a  😉  (no BQW as far as I can see)

    OddOtter @12 – yep, saw the ballerina – but couldn’t find Tracy, Davis or Frank (or Betty).

    Maybe it’s the time of morning, but I very much liked the tea-related clues (TRUCK STOP and TYPHOON), though I did wonder if Typhoo would be a problem for non-UK solvers.

    One quibble: surely having no tent is a reason not to sleep under the stars?

    Very enjoyable, thanks Matilda and Peter.

    (Oh, and by the way, SINE QUA NON is…  dammit, didn’t even make the podium)

  15. I got an ‘OO’ with TYPHOON and it was good to see our ‘odd’ friend make an appearance in the NATIONAL LOTTERY.

    I think I’ll go and listen to Nick Cave’s Nature Boy quoting Sappho in the original Greek.

    Thanks to Matilda and PeterO.

  16. Another almost a Pangram (Peri1561@9), continuing a recent trend it seems. A tricky solve for a Monday and some very inventive clues. I thought ST IVES and NATIONAL LOTTERY were clever and was tickled by G SPOT. Needed SAPPHO and TRUCK STOP parsed. Ta PeterO & MATILDA.

  17. DNF for me as I had IDEALIST at 5d which was my LOI just sloppily thought IDET was a handy Latin tag even though I’d had ISM as the probable ending earlier. Nice to have a more challenging puzzle on a Monday. Thanks PeterO for help with parsing on TRUCk STOp and National LOTtERY. I thought there might have been a lefty theme emerging from proud , national lottery, Protestant but then it petered out. G SPOT made me smile.

  18. Yes, I don’t think we have Typhoo, essexboy @14, but it sounded like a relative of Lan Choo, which we do have.

  19. [essexboy @14 You make a strong pitch that having no tent is a reason not to sleep under the stars and if you were to canvas(s) my opinion, then I’d be in your camp]

  21. I liked 25a DEAREST (like Nila P@2), 16d SAPPHO and 20d G SPOTS (similar to Word Plodder@6 and CanberraGirl@17) – and (like WP and essexboy@14) I also added 22a TRUCK STOP to my favourites once I realised what was going on. An interesting link between G from the NATO alphabet in the latter, and the game that crossed it (reversed) to give FLOG at 19a. You are right essexboy, I only got TYPHOON at 9a from the crossers and definition as, like grantinfreo@18, I wasn’t familiar with that type of tea.

    Thanks to PeterO and Matilda.

  23. An amusingly Pauline G-SPOTS.

    Thanks to PeterO for the parsing of SPECTRE and TRUCK STOP. I remain unconvinced by the mechanics of ST IVES.

    Like CanberraGirl @17 I had IDEALIST, which I parsed as ALI in ID EST. No more inexact than a lot of what finds its way into clues.

    And a somewhat Pauline reminiscence with which to finish; Typhoo tea used to be made in Birmingham (apparently the brainchild of John Sumner jr in 1903 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoo)

    And I have a happy memory of travelling into the centre of Brum on the train and seeing a very neatly executed graffito which inquired IF TYPHOO PUT THE T IN BRITAIN WHO PUT THE [a word even Paul wouldn’t include in a crossword] IN SCUNTHORPE?

    Thanks to Matilda and to PeterO

  24. I have a possible alternative parsing for ST IVES though with ‘resort’ doing double duty.  I took the essence of Mr Jobs to be s(TEV)e + IS + iPhone(S) and resorted them to get the answer.  Not entirely satisfactory but then I’m not convinced the alternatives are either.

    Nice to see OTTER in a solution, of course and, as PeterO has observed, to enjoy some unusual tricks today.  I loved TYPHOON and – belatedly – TRUCK STOP where I needed the blog for explanation..  SINE QUA NON and NOT ENTIRELY earned ticks and I did enjoy the surface/device for ARTISAN.

    Thanks Matilda and PeterO

  25. I couldn’t get on Matilda’s wavelength, but ground out all the answers, and having had the parsing of a few explained, in retrospect it felt a better crossword than when I was solving it. Too much Latin for my taste I think, and perhaps unexpectedly knarly for a Monday, e.g. pho seems a bit obscure.

  26. essexboy: Have known various campers/backpackers for whom a tent is sleeping outdoors, but only having nothing over your head qualifies as sleeping under the stars. As for Typhoo, yes, DNK… but got it from crossers/defn & just presumed it a Britishism.

    Van Winkle: Thx for the hint, though unable to divine the significance there… a secret identity? Only other thought was of Herbert S., who died Dec 8.

    Think LOOPS also merits mention for trickiness, as could also be “pools”, as in groups (depending on how one takes “circles”), so needed crossers to suss it.

  27. essexboy @14, the clue for 26ac brought to mind this old chestnut:

    Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are going camping. They pitch their tent under the stars and go to sleep. In the middle of the night Holmes wakes Watson up: “Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you deduce.”

    Watson: “I see millions of stars and even if a few of those have planets, it’s quite likely there are some planets like Earth, and if there are a few planets like Earth out there, there might also be life.”

    Holmes: “Watson, you fool, it means somebody’s stolen our tent!”

  28. Many thanks, Matilda, for a bit more to chew on for a Monday and thanks to PeterO for the blog.

    I really enjoyed this, especially TYPHOON, VELODROME, TRUCKSTOP, ST IVES, which I parsed as PeterO did, ARTISAN and – top of the list – NOT ENTIRELY.

    Thanks for the smile, Conrad @27.

  29. Last Monday I said “this is more difficult than a typical Monday.”  This Monday I’m saying “this is more difficult than a typical Monday.”  At what point does this become more typical and I change to “that was easier than a typical Monday?”

    FOI ST IVES; LOI with a guffaw G-SPOTS.

    Very enjoyable – good brain workout.  Thanks muchly to Matilda and PeterO!

  30. Had to cheat on ST. IVES as the parsing was tricky and I only know the town from the riddle (not as a resort). And I was baffled by TYPHOON, since we don’t have that tea brand here. Thanks to PeterO for the explanations.

    [They have truck stops in the UK? Wouldn’t they be lorry stops?]

  31. A bit of a stunner from Matilda I thought. It felt like a mini-tour around the Guardian stable, from Nutmeg’s precision (ARTISAN), through Pasquale’s fondness for religion (OPUS DEI), Tramp’s offbeat inventiveness (SCEPTRE), Paul’s toilet humour (TYPHOON), Vulcan’s disarming straightforwardness (SUPERVISION, NATIONAL LOTTERY) and Philstine’s willingness to play with convention (ST IVES). And as for G-SPOTS? Let’s give Matilda full credit for that.

    My Top 5 setters list might be in danger if she keeps this up.

  32. Thanks Matilda and PeterO

    I didn’t parse SPECTRE, though I saw the CEP, or TRUCK STOP. PHO is a pretty obscure soup, though I have made one a few times (from a recipe in Guardian Feast, so I suppose Guardian readers may well have seen it!

    G SPOTS was fun, but the definition is very loose, and a pity it crosses with the GOLF reversal.

    Favourites VELODROME and NOT ENTIRELY.

  33. Matilda was gentle in her definitions so this was solved in standard Monday time but as others have noticed the parsings were another matter entirely. So a bit of a curate’s egg for me.

    [mrpenny @30, they are called truck stops, but lorries pull up there. They are driven by lorry drivers or, possibly, truckers.]

  34. Lovely puzzle to start the week.

    Just difficult enough not to be boring but not too difficult either.

    Thanks Matilda

  35. Great crossword for a foggy Monday morning.Thanks Matilda.

    And extra thanks to PeterO; I couldn’t parse 13ac or 21ac or 16dn (didn’t know the soup).

  36. I think the nod is to Herbert Spencer, where IDEALISM and NATIONAL LOTTERY (and no doubt some others , PROTESTANT?) might be connected.

    Quite chewy in parts. The NW quadrant was the last to yield. I particularly enjoyed NOT ENTIRELY, SOME, ST IVES, and now it has been explained, SPECTRE.

    I’ll be somewhat controversial by saying that there is a school of thought that the G-SPOT doesn’t exist, but I’m not really qualified to comment further …

    Thanks Matilda and PeterO.

  38. I was struggling a bit with this until I saw 1d, which quickly gave 1a and then it all fell. I agree that some of the parsing is quite difficult (I noticed that 16a was not an anagram of sequin soon, but thought it was a setter’s error). Thanks, PeterO for help with parsings, and Matilda for the puzzle. Now back to the three that are holding me up on the Quiptic…

  39. Maybe I’m just not fully awake yet, but that felt distinctly harder than usual for Matilda, and quite a few I couldn’t parse even if I could see the solution from the wordplay nonetheless (finding the A in SINE QUA NON eluded me totally). All forgiven for TRUCKSTOP though.

  40. Had to reveal both 16’s.

    Annoyed that I had never heard of PHO or SAPPHO because last time I was in Brighton my son treated me and his Mum to a bowl of PHO in a quaint little restaurant that you share with sacks and boxes etc as if you were in someone’s cellar. 16a was a reveal all day long, I never did Latin at school.

    Spent hours trying to get 6d which I thought was a 15 letter letter anagram, compounded by putting the Y at the end of both words and checking this to see a hit on the second word!  Before that I looked for OTTER because I have seen them in Stour Meadows, Blandford and river and OTTER are synonymous for me. Never thought about OTTER again until Peter revealed it – even more annoying than PHO!

    Enjoyed most of it, some clever clues (if only I was able to think ok of the ‘core’ letters type of clue which is totally alien to me!). Matilda relied on those several times which made those clues harder.

  41. Yes, a few non-parsings here too, and with the final severing of HAND from HANDSOME, as LOI, I was done. Enjoyed this mostly, or as someone else has already commented, NOT ENTIRELY…

  42. …and akaRebornBeginner, have quite recently been to that PHO place in Brighton, but we took our boxes to the Prom to eat it there…

  44. penfold @15, a belated thanks for the Friday nudge to jump to 7.45 on Sit Down. Mind blown that I have never heard that before, or had it explained by anyone. Much appreciated

    (Nature Boy is an excellent choice)

    ***

    I found today’s surprisingly tricky but so did quite a few people. Thanks to PeterO for the parsing of those I hadn’t quite managed, plus Matilda

  45. We found it tricky for a Monday, but good to hear that it was easy for PeterO.  He must be very clever, and it’s good of him to let us all know.

  50. argyle: “staff” means sceptre (i.e. what a king/queen might hold). Then within sceptre take just the part that’s a mushroom (“cep”) and reverse it while leaving the rest alone, giving spectre. Bit of an unusual construct, so tricky to solve.

  51. For a while I thought it not unlikely that 26 was “not unlikely”, but though it fitted all the crossers, I could not entirely parse it.

  52. [Essexboy @14: As an American who’s vacationed in Britain I remembered Typhoo tea. It can be found in the US via Amazon as well as other mail order merchants. More commonly available is PG Tips which is found in most large urban area supermarkets.]

  53. Thanks both,
    Missed the parsing of ‘truck stop’ and ‘handsome’ where I got as far as ‘attractive’ = ‘so me’.

  55. Just popping by to admire NATIONAL LOTTERY among others already mentioned above.

    Peter & Ant@45: PeterO is indeed very clever and neither tells us nor needs to. An acknowledgement of that superior cleverness, and that of other bloggers, is surely the SINE QUA NON of our visitations to 15^2?

    And JET SET, I liked that one too.

  57. [There is an interesting ‘meet the setter’ interview on the Guardian site in which I discovered that Imogen and Vulcan are one and the same. Well worth a read.]

  58. Another Idealist here. Also POOLS for LOOPS for a while until the crossers corrected me[Neil H @23 In the early days of internet filters I remember a student being very puzzled about the difficulty he was having with research into Scunthorpe]

  59. Hello all. Only my second post on here.

    I had time to do this one during the day today, as I’m on the train to Glasgow to go and look after my aged mother. I got almost all but it was quite a hard slog for a Monday. Like many I didn’t parse SPECTRE correctly, although I found the CEP. I had (unparsed) NOT UNLIKELY for 26ac but I agree with the parsing now I’ve seen it. Under the stars is in the open air, not in a tent I think. Other error was 13ac where I had bunged in SEMI as a synonym of ‘in part’.

    I got SAPPHO as the old poet but didn’t see the drain or the soup. Is ‘sap’ a verb for ‘to drain sap from a tree’, then?

  61. Thanks, PeterO for SOME SAPPLHO and TRUCK’S TOP, and Nila Palin for SINE QUA NON, which my anagram gave one O too many and one A too few.

    JF@10 and Geoff @13 — read the comments before you post.  Nila Palin made your poinT @2.

    PHO is familiar to me — half the Vietnamese restaurants around here are called PHO something.  TYPHOO tea was too, though I don’t know why.

  62. kenromford@59

    Sap
    Old English sæp, probably of Germanic origin. The verb (dating from the mid 18th century) is often interpreted as a figurative use of the notion ‘drain the sap from’, but is derived originally from the verb sap in the sense ‘undermine’. Dictionary.com always useful for word origins

     

  63. Thanks for parsing ST IVES and SPECTRE (I knew the mushroom, but where was the staff…) When two of my first three were SINE QUA NON and OPUS DEI, I thought we were in for a Latin theme – but that’s all there was. Favourites TRUCK STOP, VELODROME, NOT ENTIRELY and SOME.

  65. gladys: I noted the possible nina as well in my initial comment. Van Winkle @20 offered some follow up, but tho I saw the name I think he meant (RANDA J), I was unable to track further (unless Matilda is a nurse practitioner in Brighton). I had also commented that Herbert S. might be relevant (having died Dec 8), and Robi later did as well, with additional context. I think that’s about as far as we’ve gotten (except maybe for those who might know but aren’t telling).

  66. Lots of parsing help needed today, so thanks Peter.
    A DNF due to the poet, a new kne for me which will be duly forgotten by the time I hit ‘Post Comment’.
    Thanks Matilda

  67. HAven’t commented for ages because work got in the way of solving early enough. Coming to this one late too. Loved TYPHOO, but surely Yorkshire Gold, as served at Betty’s of Harogate – is the tea envisaged by TRUCKSTOP…. one of my favourite clues. Loved SPECTRE and NOT ENTIRELY as well once Peter O explained how to parse them – for which many thanks. G SPOTS made me giggle. [Conrad@27 – you got there before me with the stolent tent joke]. Brillaint start to the week – thank you Matilda and PeterO.

  69. [Larry @57: So Vulcan = Imogen? I guess the grumbling about the former is offset by the praise of the latter?]

  70. So pleased to have totally solved this on my 62nd birthday- loi was not entirely.
    I usually need the help of the good doctor David W but today was my DAY. Liked flog and g-spots

  71. [Oh, and for those who haven’t heard of pho, it’s the Vietnamese national dish.  It’s a delicious, hearty broth with noodles, thinly sliced meat that cooks in the broth, and fresh basil and vegetables added right at the table.  Most restaurants serve several varieties, with the type of meat the main thing varying–but of course it’s the quality of the broth that makes or breaks the dish.  I live about a mile from Chicago’s Little Saigon area, so I’ve eaten my share of pho.  Another thing:  the vowel is short, so it’s pronounced to make “What the pho?” sound like you just avoided an F-bomb.]

    [It’s perfect pho weather here right now–a giant bowl of soup sounds like heaven.  Dang–now I want pho.]

     

  72. Another DNF for me: I struggle with homophones where the initial letter is silent. (-1 XOO, but no, I haven’t started a spreadsheet yet.)

    That apart, there were some very clever clues here, some of which I could not parse (SPECTRE) and some I didn’t bother to parse because the answer was clear from defn & crossers (TRUCK STOP). I liked the Steve Jobs clue and can’t see a problem with it. Favourite was NO TENT I RELY – the Sherlock Holmes joke doesn’t work for modern tents with integral groundsheets, but still raises a gruckle (my portmanteau word for the groan/chuckle reserved for puns and schoolboy humour in general).

    I too had POOLS at first rather than LOOPS but more due to carelessness than any conviction about an alternative interpretation of ‘circles’, as the wordplay is clear enough. The plural solution to 20d made me think, not for the first time, that I have been missing something that everyone else knew about.

    I’d be happy with a crossword of this standard and style on Mondays. Thanks Matilda.

  74. Thanks for the link re Imogen/Vulcan, essexboy@68. I thought his comment about the difficulty of writing good, short clues was interesting. For me, Matilda (e.g. today) and Orlando are among the best at this.

  75. An excellent crossword. Quite proud I got Opus Dei Pools\loops took ages as did not entirely (love the word play and your jokes in that) as I had supplementalism truck stop ,dearest all good Typhoon foi no problem.

  76. esexboy@68. Thanks for the link. I remember someone here referring to Imogen as “she” and being disabused by someone else who gave his name and former role as crossword editor of The Times, citing the character of that name in The Winter’s Tale as evidence that it can be a man’s name. I thought it was an erudite misdirection on Mr Browne’s part but it turns out that he chose it because he and is wife liked it.

  78. [Pino @76: there is no character called Imogen in The Winter’s Tale.  The only Imogen in Shakespeare’s works is in Cymbeline, and she is definitely female.  (Although, typically for Shakespearean heroines, she does disguise herself as a boy for a while, under the name of Fidele.)]

  79. Thanks, Lord Jim@78. I have no idea where I got that from if it wasn’t somewhere on this site. At least I posted so late that few will have read it.

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