Guardian Cryptic 28,318 by Puck

99 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,318 by Puck”

1. I don’t like MUCK UP. I was thinking that the 12th letter of Puck’s anagram is the m. But I didn’t understand how it might work.
   I actually knew BALE, as there were all sorts of jokes about ‘Bale ar y bêl’ (Bale on the ball).
   Surfaces execrable.
   I know a lot of solvers on the Guardian site are saying the puzzle is good, and I’m sure there will be here too. But I thought it was only an average effort.
   Thanks nevertheless to Puck and to loonapick.

2. Ageing sluggish brain not quite up to the puckster today. Cheated first to get liken (great clue), which helped with Bonnie Charlie’s escape song, then again to get Bale (know a few soccer greats, not this one) and lube (neat.. must remember Blue!). So, not my finest effort, tribute to Puck, and thanks Loonapick.

3. Does B mean soft in pencils? I always thought it was black.

4. There is a mini theme – SKYE, MULL, LEWIS,HARRIS, RUM and MUCK are all Hebridean islands.

5. Andy @3: This came up on Only Connect a couple of weeks ago. “B” is what causes blackness but actually refers to the softness of the graphite as the opposite to the Hardness, H. https://www.pencilsdirect.co.uk/blog/pencil-leads-what-does-hb-2b-etc-mean-362/

   Not too sluggish this morning with a couple of DNKs – ICHNEUMON being the main one. FOI was SKYE BOAT SONG which will now be my earworm of the day – memories of playing that in music lessons on a dodgy old recorder at school.

   Even managed the couple of sporting references today so there must be life in this old noddle after all!

   Thanks Puck and loonapick!

6. Very tough, but I enjoyed it. DNF as I had to cheat BALE, but I kicked myself for it (more than the man himself has kicked a ball in the last year or two!). A first for me in that I spotted the mini theme in time for it to be helpful.

   Agree with Anna @21 that the surfaces could use some polish, and yes, Andy @3 “B” does mean black on a pencil, but it also indicates a softer graphite which leaves a blacker mark.

7. MaidenBartok @5 sorry – got interrupted and we crossed pencils!

8. Thanks lunapick and Puck.

   In 4ac, could the notes be ‘ti’ and ‘me’ as in the song? Otherwise I don’t see the link between ‘time’ and ‘notes’.

9. I got the theme reasonably early and it helped me get RUM BABA. I needed RIVER WYE and LIKEN parsed and I see our ‘not so ugly’ Model T appeared again after yesterday’s discussion. I thought BUSHBABY was funny and couldn’t get the image of Dubya, with a dummy in his mouth, out of my head. Ta loonapick &Puck

10. Failed on ‘lube’, but I think it’s an ugly abbreviation and an unwelcome import from America. Other than that, an enjoyable puzzle and with a theme that even I couldn’t miss.

11. Thanks Puck loonapick and beery for great puzzle, supplying extra islands and parsing of 20 and 23

12. Apologies. 4dn

13. TimW @6
    You are so much more diplomatic than I am ! 🙂

14. Thanks Puck and loonapick
    I enjoyed this, with favourites OGRE and TASERING. I think MUCK UP is a little unfair, as there is no indication of the Greek alphabet (though I did parse it after guessing).
    I didn’t know the beard part of LIKEN.
    I parsed TIME as TI ME as well, dantheman, and hated it, of course!

15. Anna@1 I did the same with the ‘m’ as you so yes MUCKED UP needed parsing as well.

16. This was a welcome distraction at 4.30 am before getting back to sleep.
    I’m sorry Anna @1 disliked the surfaces; I thought most of them were rather good.
    And well done Puck for a perfectly legitimate “soft” that wasn’t P.
    I’m not sure about 20dn. If it’s legitimate to expect solvers to think of the twelfth letter of the Greek alphabet without any indication that it’s a non-English alphabet, let alone which one, would it be legitimate to use the same device to clue (for instance) H, the twelfth letter of the Welsh alphabet or N, the twelfth letter of the Italian? And why is 7ac not simply “Complain about this hairstyle”, if no foreign language indicator is needed?
    Thanks to Puck and loonapick.

17. George @10 – I agree that LUBE is a not terribly attractive import from America (a bit like our beloved Prime Minister, come to think of it), but it amused me in the small hours to recall it being used in the most devastating Internet take-down of a Presidential hopeful – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_for_the_neologism_%22santorum%22.
    By the side of which BUSHBABY, prompting the entertaining image of Dubya to which AlanC @9 refers, is quite gentle.

18. NeilH, thanks for the link, very interesting read

19. NeilH @16 I kind of agree, but only the greek alphabet has mu in it, as far as I know. The Welsh alphabet is a different arrangement of letters from the Latin alphabet, again as far as I know. Does it have any letters that differ from Latin, other than pronunciation?

20. A dnf for me, needing help to get BALE, not realising b=soft and not being a soccer follower. Same quibble as others re mu; MUCK UP was unparsed. RIVER WYE was unparsed and though thought of the answer early on did not put in till I had crossers for that very reason. Also did not fully parse ROISTERER as ROI = Ireland new to me. And I missed the theme, d’oh. Not my best day. Ta to P and L.

21. ravenrider @ 19

    The Welsh alphabet has 29 letters, including some so-called double letters in it. A misnomer, as they are regarded as single letters in Welsh and would, for example, occupy a single square in a crossword.

    The 4th letter is CH. The 6th is DD The 9th is FF. The 11th is NG. The 16th is LL. The 21st is PH. The 23rd is RH.

    The letter NG comes after G.

22. Great puzzle, very tough so pleased to finish. Couldn’t parse ROISTERER or RIVER WYE; loved MOHICAN, ELUSIVE, SKYE BOAT SONG, TASERING and MULL OVER. Many thanks to Puck and loonapick.

23. COTD was LICHEN for me as I have just been reading the amazing Entangled Life.

24. Solving this within sight of both the Isle of Skye and Rum, I was delighted when SKYE BOAT SONG was FOI and when LEWIS HAMILTON and HARRIS TWEED popped up, the theme became clear and then I noticed I’d already solved RUM BABA (and how nice to see ‘rumba’ turn up again but in a different way to usual. On the subject of which, yet another OGRE: they are breeding, it seems). So, as far as the theme goes, I Canna complain.

    I’m another who parsed ILL TIMED with the musical notes ‘ti’ and ‘me’ but I didn’t fully parse MUCK UP and couldn’t figure out LUBE at all. I’m more inclined to NeilH’s view on the surfaces than Anna’s – though I will grant they are not as smooth as yesterday’s. MULL OVER, BUSHBABY, MOHICAN and TASERING all brought smiles. I’d agree with loonapick’s intro: Puck at his mischievous best.

    Thanks Puck and loonapick

25. A tough solve. Some interesting geography. I enjoyed finding the Hebridean isles and it’s pleasing that Lewis and Harris are joined. The RIVER WYE (the Derbyshire one) is my favourite river, so that gets the thumbs up.

    Flora (Macdonald) and fauna also. I’ve a likin’ for lichen, but ICHNEUMON? Not many people will have known that. I doubt many mongooses know it.

    Thanks to Puck and Loonapick.

26. Not for me I’m afraid, couldn’t enjoy 22/23 and too many googles. Granted, some good clues, but some real clunkers. As for the 20d in 4d, I think it’s safe to assume that the setter meant ‘inopportune, so the question is, what is the crossword editor doing for his weekly envelope? As they say round here, “They only gave you one job…..”

27. I was put out by entering ichumenon, a perfectly acceptable answer to 11dn as far as I can see.

28. Thanks for the blog, loonapick, especially for the parsing of RIVER WYE.

    I parsed 4dn as dantheman @8 and muffin @14.

    I agree generally with NeilH about the surfaces – ‘execrable’ is a pretty harsh choice of epithet, Anna. 😉

    I had ticks for MOHICAN, LEWIS HAMILTON, UNCLE SAM, MACARONIC (which has given me the seasonable ‘In dulci jubilo’ as a welcome earworm) and MULL OVER.

    I have searched several times in the archive for the clue for LEWIS HAMILTON from years ago, in a Paul puzzle, I think, which involved ‘hotel’ and the construction was LEWISHAM ‘ILTON, which really tickled me at the time

    Many thanks to Puck for the fun and the evocative theme.

29. [Anna @21: I’ve always been amused at the – understandable – efforts of the Welsh (and other countries do similar) to maintain their linguistic independence and integrity whilst also accommodating English imports. Bearing in mind the 9th letter of the Welsh alphabet highlighted in your post, I recall driving into the town of Flint and noticing the signs welcoming drivers to – in English, Flint and – in Welsh, Fflint. It seemed at the time a slightly desperate attempt to maintain ‘Welshness’. On which subject, I was delighted to learn recently that the Welsh for ironing board is ‘bwrdd smwddio’ pronounced ‘board smoothio’ !]

30. Not for me either. Agree with others that MU in Muck Up is unfair. Also struggled with the parsing of RIVER WYE….so contrived as to be unfair again IMHO. Hey ho. Thanks to all as usual though for the fun of the chase and explanations.

31. [Eileen @28 – I think this is the one you want, from 2008:

    Paul 24407: F1 driver’s ‘otel in southeast London? (5,8)]

32. [PostMark @29
    There is a Welsh translation office run by the government, to ensure that all road signs are bilingual. There’s a story from a year or two ago – I forget the exact details – of someone Emailing the dept for a translation or “No lorries on Saturdays or Sundays” (or something similar). When the sign was made up, the Welsh bit said “I’m on hioliday. Please leave your text for translation”…]

33. Could 2d be parsed as an anagram of REVIEWED without the ED (briefly seen) inside RY (edges of rockery)?

34. I loved this one , by the way, FOI 12a followed by 11d, 10a and 3D, by which time I got the theme – a first for me! Thank you Puck!

35. Cheers loonapick, I was fooled completely on a few.

    10a I thought ROI was king which screwed further logic, especially when I thought Eire was the Irish connection!
    23d B for Boris and T for Tory screwed me there. I love this clue now I twigged the answer! As a motorcyclist, I found it very funny.
    I thought 2a was anagram of viewer and RY

    Great clues from Puck, though twelfth letter not being “L” was concerning!
    I had Puck Off at the time!

36. Muffin @32 –
    Indeed. My understanding is that it was Swansea Council (in the less Welsh-speaking south of the country) seeking to keep HGVs out of a residential road near an Asda store.
    See “May it Please You, Madam, A Little Book of Legal Whimsy” (Amazon, £6.99) p 152. I declare an interest…

37. Well I quite enjoyed that, and no complaint about MUCK UP. The anagram gets you to ??CK UP, then a combination of trying some likely solutions plus realising you need 2 letters not 1 so it is probably not a Roman letter gets you there quite fairly in my opinion. Mu is a letter as per the clue, it is in Chambers as such and Greek is by no means an obscure alphabet. Generating a bit of head scratching and challenging us to think a bit laterally at times is part of the fun of these crosswords isn’t it?

38. Hi beery @31 – huge thanks! I’d given up ever finding it – I don’t know how you do it. I knew it was from my early days with 15² – and it’s even cleverer than I remembered it. (I meant ‘otel, of course. 😉 )

39. [PostMark @24: We haven’t had a pun-off for a while and given your current near-island location, whilst you CANNA complain, I couldn’t KERRERA less. May I borrow your coat?]

40. ]NeilH @36
    Found, but I’ll give it a miss. The Amazon price is just a smidge under £3000!]

41. [PS: I’ve just found it in the archive – can’t think how I missed it so many times!]

42. I’m afraid I thought MUCK UP rather deviously clued, even though the Greek alphabet is forever ingrained in my memory. The mini theme of those Scottish islands pointed me towards the answer rather than plucking the 12th letter out of that remembered sequence. Didn’t know MUSTY as old fashioned.

43. Muffin @40:
    You may have turned up the first edition. The current edition is on there at £6.99. Will I get jumped on by the moderators if I post the link?

44. [Eileen @38 – once I worked out how to create the list of all the clues (almost 190000 of them) and as long as I have a fairly clear idea of what to search, I let the computer do the hard work. Your memory for clues is far more impressive]

45. [This one is quite elegant too:
    Araucaria 24186: The French want a poet as a driver (5,8)]

46. [MaidenBartok @39 A pun-off is Eriskay challenge. Iona map of the Hebrides and I wouldn’t want you yo be left with Eigg on your face.]

47. Penfold@25: ICHNEUMON just came to me out of the blue. I suppose it had lodged in some deep recess of my memory, almost certainly connected with a wasp rather than a mongoose.

48. [Penfold @46 & MB @39; I just returned from walking the dog – in a gale – and musing upon punnish replies involving the Hebrides. And I refresh the blog to find Penfold has done the punning tradition proud. But then he’s more Uist to it than are we…]

49. PostMark @ 29

    In the Welsh alphabet, the letter F represents the sound of English V.
    The sound of English F is written in Welsh by the letter FF.
    So FLINT in English but FFLINT in Welsh.
    France is Ffrainc and Finland is y Ffindir.

50. [Penfold @46 and PostMark @48: Goodness me, the JURAs out on those puns. To be honest, you can just STAFFA them where the sun don’t shine – a RHUM do all round.

    PM@48 – my guffaw was so loud that Son of Bartok back from Uni was woken up by it and had a real go at me…]

51. [You are all making my head Hirta]

52. PostMark @ 24
    Eileen @ 28

    I think Mark has hit the nail on the head. The clues in yesterday’s puzzle read so smoothly that perhaps I felt today’s surfaces were execrable in comparison. I still feel that they were. And I would be pleased not to have grimaces thrown in my direction. I used to be a teacher too and I’m not impressed. If I feel that something is execrable, then I shall say so. I hope I have made that clear. (And I’m wagging my finger, while I speak).

53. Quite a tough challenge but everything works if you look hard enough. I especially like the prevalence of linked clues such as MULL OVER – a useful way of hitting two parts of the grid for the price of one.

    Rather pleased at spotting the little theme, although alas it was so little that it didn’t help.

54. The online version of the clue for 4 Down has now been revised to read “…inopportune moment.”

55. I seem to recall a road sign in South Wales a few years ago where road works advertising a Welsh Office scheme translated into Welsh as conspiracy

56. [MaidenBartok @50 and beery hiker @51: I glanced again at Penfold’s map and it appears Barra-n of further opportunity. And this could become Tiree-ng (and/or Tiree-some for other readers.) We should Coll it a day.]

    Anna @49 (&52): thanks for your comments. Your linguistic knowledge is ineffable.

57. neverrainsinbarry @55: and, of course, Barry in Welsh is Barri!

58. [PostMark @56: Yes; we wouldn’t want to fall FOULA the rules.]

59. I’ve never posted before without reading all the comments, but I have to leave and I don’t want to be on the trailing end. Apologies to those whose comments I repeat. Unless the comment is “Thank you loonapick and Puck,” which we can all repeat.

    Seems to me that “say” is doing double duty in the clue for LIKEN, both as homophone indicator and “for instance.”

    21a gives me an excuse to trot out my favorite macaronic poem.

    WHAT is this that roareth thus?
    Can it be a Motor Bus?
    Yes, the smell and hideous hum
    Indicat Motorem Bum!
    Implet in the Corn and High
    Terror me Motoris Bi:
    Bo Motori clamitabo
    Ne Motore caedar a Bo–
    Dative be or Ablative
    So thou only let us live:
    Whither shall thy victims flee?
    Spare us, spare us, Motor Be!
    Thus I sang; and still and still anigh
    Came in hordes Motores Bi,
    Et complebat omne forum
    Copia Motorum Borum.
    How shall wretches live like us
    Cincti Bis Motoribus?
    Domine, defende nos
    Contra hos Motores Bos!

    How does “seat” = LOCATE?

    Ths SKYE BOAT SONG was the first song I ever heard. My mother used to sing it, along with “My Spanish Cavailier,” which I’ve never heard since.

60. Valentine @59: I shall seat/locate this here? And thanks for the verse: I might have seen it ebfore not too long ago but never knew it to be macaronic. Glorious word.

61. The mini theme can be broadened to include two other places in Scotland River Tweed and town of Hamilton

62. This is a question concerning the use of “one” to stand for a thing in the particular syntax used in the clue for LUBE. Would anyone put it that way in real life, if what is referred to is a thing, not a person? For example, “One who promotes” sounds fine here, “One which promotes” does not, and the clue is essentially saying the latter. You can fudge it up by saying “This is the one which promotes …” but the clue didn’t do that. It just sounds a bit peculiar to me the way it is.

63. Dr. WhatsOn @62. I agree, “one promoting” didn’t get me thinking of a substance, but presumably misdirection was Puck’s intention anyway? I was not convinced about seat=LOCATE, and I’m afraid Mark’s potential example @60 doesn’t do it for me either. Failed on BALE, not seeing B=soft pencil (yet another substitute to add to Tramp’s list yesterday). And of course my favourite bête noire gets me again: an anagram of an unknown word, which came down to four possibles once I had the crossers: ICH_E_M_N. So not a very successful outing for me today.

    I really don’t think “Flower briefly seen in borders of rockery”=RIVER WYE works. Loonapick parses this as
    “Brief” versions of R (abbreviation for river) and Y (which is pronounced “wye”). Flower=river, so river briefly=R is the first ‘border’ of rockery. But WYE is not seen in rockery’s second border – it’s heard, so we’re left with an unindicated homophone, unless Loonapick means that ‘briefly’ includes ‘as heard when being briefed’ as well as ‘short version or abbreviation’?

64. Oh dear. I got Fusty for 20a. It does mean old fashioned but left me red faced with 20d!!

65. JerryG @64. FUSTY is actually a better fit for “old fashioned” than MUSTY. In Chambers fusty is “stale; musty; stuffy; old-fashioned”; musty is “mouldy; spoiled by damp; stale in smell or taste; deteriorated from disuse” but crucially, not fusty. So while fusty can access musty’s meanings, the favour is not returned. It does rather muck you up for 20d though, hence your red face.

66. Aside from agreeing with previous comments (when I saw loonapick’s explanation for 20d, I thought, “oh! THAT 12th letter!”, and I’m another who parsed 4d as including “ti” and “me”), I feel I should query why “importune” is considered by others to be odd, or that it is a misprint for “innoportune”.

    “Oh! Full Surrey twilight!
    Importunate band!
    Oh! Strongly adorable tennis-girl’s hand!”

    Seems fair to me…

67. Dr What’s On @ 62. I think “one” is particularly problematic here as LUBE is uncountable, so I find it difficult to match up. Maybe “ME: I need some gel: Pharmacist or Garage Owner: What sort? ME One promoting free movement. Pharmacist or Garage Owner It’s LUBE you want ????

68. On the web 4d has now been changed to “inopportune,” so someone agrees with the run of comments here!

    Was I the only one who filled in 9ac as “Ogle” for a cryptic definition and thought, “Hmm, the tense is wrong”?

    For 23d, from the other side of the pond, the issue is not remembering which color Tories are. As you may know if you watched the election maps, which judging by the last month of crosswords everyone did, here the conservatives are red… I’ve heard a few conflicting stories about why.

69. when ICHNEUMON was in the crossword it meant a kind of wasp, here it means a kind of mongoose. I hope it doesn’t appear again soon meaning something else!

70. Trismegistus @66. Chambers agrees with you, but to be fair, the equivalance of importunate and inopportune is marked (obs).

71. A couple of minor issues with this. Like some other commenters, I’m not too impressed with 20d expecting the solver to know for herself it’s the Greek alphabet being referred to. In 10a I think “meeting” would be better than “meets” in both surface and cryptic readings; then, if clues should be kept as succinct as possible, “two queens” would also do the job quite nicely.

    Overall, I thought the surface readings were okay. Some strike me as a little odd but I suppose it may be just a lack of imagination on my part that I can’t see an awful lot of sense in 8a, 3d/16a or 19d.

    On the other hand, I really liked 12/13, 21 and 22 – the last-mentioned because I don’t recall having seen ‘B’ clued like this before. Perhaps I haven’t been solving enough puzzles recently. At least I remembered BLT, although if you’d asked me last night out of context what this abbreviation meant, I might have been struggling.

    Thanks to Puck and loonapick.

72. sheffield hatter@70 I merely pointed out that “Importunate” has been used in a popular context relatively recently, and so I didn’t think it was obsolete no matter what Chambers says.

    And matt w @68, this is precisely why I tend to lurk nowadays and offer few comments. This used to be a friendly forum where people discussed different viewpoints on language usage, but now it has become a medium whereby people try to demonstrate their superiority. Your “my mates back me up” attitude is a very good example of this trend.

    I shall now go back to lurking. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, I should have read Chambers before reading Betjeman. Domine miserere mei.

73. [PostMark @56, in that case, though I could continue for some time, I Shiant.]

74. Trismegistus @72. The point about importunate and inopportune is that in the Betjeman poem you quote, importunate does not mean inconvenient or ill-timed (the obsolete sense), it means troublesomely persistent (the modern sense). If you have a different sense of Betjeman’;s meaning, I would be glad to hear it.

    I was not having a go at you, and there is no need for you to act as though I did. I was trying to “discuss different viewpoints on language usage”, and nothing could have been further from my mind than to “try to demonstrate [my] superiority”. And your characterisation of matt w @68 as saying “my mates back me up” looks way off beam to me – he was pointing out that the setter and/or editor seemed to have agreed with several on this forum that importunate was an error and had corrected it.

    Good luck with the lurking.

75. Those defending the wording of 4dn seem to be ignoring the fact that the word used is “importune”, a verb, which, in an attempt to justify its use, seems to have morphed into “importunate”, which is an adjective.
    In addition, the third note in the tonic-sol-fa scale is “mi” not “me”.

76. John Crellin @ 75

    ME is given as an acceptable Anglicisation of MI

77. This seemed to be a mid-strength puzzle as Puck’s go (I got about half on the first read through). I was surprised by the comments about poor surfaces. I checked through these again and I really enjoyed them. My favourites were those for LEWIS HAMILTON, MULL OVER, ICHNEUMON, LOCATE and RUM BABA. Actually a DNF for me, as I failed on the latter and LUBE in the SE.
    I don’t see the problem with not indicating the particular alphabet for MU in MUCK UP. To do so would make the clue far too easy.
    Missed the islands theme, but quite enjoyed the punning comments for a while. However, I Beag you to stop now.
    Thanks, Puck and loonapick.

78. Enjoyable crossword and fine helpful blog, Thanks Puck and loonapick. I see the sharks are circling around the tank again making mere swimmers uncomfortable!! Shame!
    I think that ‘me’ and ‘mi’ in the solfa scale has to do with the semitones. We had a long discussion on this about a month ago which was very interesting!

79. A Scarp much too steep for this USian solving sans refs… definitely had my keister Handa-d to me! Struggled to get a little over half in, then an hour yielded only one more entry before I capitulated. But got/parsed MUCK UP, so that’s something 🙂 Limited COTD choices (sticking to what I actually solved)… have to go with LIKEN, for the fun clue (and semi-plant ref, many lichens being fungus/alga symbiotes).

    Sounds like others enjoyed this, so that’s cool. Nods to all…

80. Thanks to loonapick for the blog and to others for your comments. The thematic puns have been fun to read.

    My apologies for the inopportune ‘importune’ error at 4dn.

    [For those who might be interested, I have posted a 2021 3D Crossword Calendar update under that subject in the Announcements on this site. The main message there is that the printed version has now sold out, but the virtual downloadable version is very much still available for purchase.]

81. In 20d, if you start counting from the P of Puck, the 12th letter you get to is M. That’s how I parsed it but admittedly I couldn’t account for the extra U. I had BALL for 22a; I’m not up to date! Thanks Puck and Loonapick

82. gofirstmate@71 I could tell you at 3 am what BLT stands for. I would have thought it was American, it’s very well known here as one of my favorite sandwiches. But I do think it’s US-based.

    John Crellin @75 and SPanza @78 The musical note “me” is pronounced “meh” and is different from “mi,” as “teh” is different from the more usual “ti.” They are the flatted third and seventh in the minor scale, while “mi” and “ti” in the major scale are a half step higher.

83. Too much arcana for me — ROISTERER, MACARONIC, MOHICAN, ICHNEUMON, SKYE BOAT SONG — was happy to figure out RUM BABA and LEWIS HAMILTON but generally the joy was ELUSIVE for me. Thanks to both.

84. Sorry Sancho feels uncomfortable with legitimate criticism.
    I am with those who dislike the RIVER WYE clue and don’t regard them, or myself, as sharks.
    Any subscriber to this site is entitled to an opinion without being the object of derogatory epithets.

85. [Monkey @73: ISAY that’s the best call].

86. [SOAY punfest, then?]

87. Thanks to those posters who have made it clear that HB (of pencils) is an oxymoron.

88. Sheffield Hatter @63… I’m tying myself in knots unpicking 2d as it is, but fir what it’s worth, I’m not sure WYE Is necessarily an unindicated homophone as it’s also how you spell the letter y.

    Chambers: wye noun – the letter Y or anything shaped like it

89. Spot on, Bluth.
    I was also in the where’s-the-homophone-indicator camp but not anymore.

    For those complaining about the lack of good surfaces, have another look at those of our all-time hero Araucaria. You will be surprised to see how clunky or even nonsensical some were.
    His adventurous twists and turns more than made up for it.
    Perhaps, Puck – together with Hob and Wanderer – is the real successor of The Great Master?

    Needless to say that I likde this crossword very much, sharing loonapick’s enthusiasm.

90. I had a look at the surfaces a few minutes ago, and I could see no more than five that seemed in any way questionable. As a collection of surfaces I don’t think they are right up at the top, but neither are they poorer than average in my opinion. But if we all agreed, there would be little to discuss.

91. Defeated by the interlocking 22,23 in the end but no real complaints – thanks Puck and loonapick.
    Anyone not convinced by ‘seat’=’locate’, I offer ‘the bulb was arcing because it was not properly seated/located in its socket.’

92. Made little progress with this. As bad as I can remember.

    On revealing the answers have to say the fault was with me so well done to Puck.

93. I did better than I expected to on the first pass, FOI was MACARONIC from somewhere in the depths of memory, ICHNEUMON I also associated with wasps but it was perfectly clear from the clue. Thanks Puck!

94. 17A. The one of two refers to the two children of President Bush senior – only one became a president i.e. Bush junior, the other child was the governor of Florida I think.

95. Sorry, 17D, not 17A

96. 20D. I have a hard time accepting that Puck meant the twelfth Greek alphabet MU – he probably meant the thirteenth alphabet i.e. M, which serves the purpose. Methinks he just miscounted – it happens!

97. Shafar @ 96

    That leaves an unexplained U.

98. Bluth @88. Thanks for putting me right about that: “the letter Y or anything shaped like it”. It hadn’t occured to me that Y would be spelt wye. Anything shaped like the letter Y is Y-shaped, is it not? Presumably that modern way of saying it is why no one uses wye?

99. Thanks to Bluth@88 for glossing ‘wye’ as ‘Y-shaped’. Does the river’s name thus refer to a confluence from which it flows (cf Fulda + Werra > Weser, as I remember being taught back in 1963)?

    And many thanks to Loonapick and Puck.

Comments are closed.