Guardian 28,329 / Enigmatist

117 comments on “Guardian 28,329 / Enigmatist”

1. Should 22 A be 10 A. Thanks as always Eileen. Enigmatist often too daunting for me.

2. Sorry 12 A not 22A

3. Funny how your first one in failed to appear in the blog. I found this quite easy but didn’t know the expression at 24a, my loi. Thought 25/26 a bit weak. THLIPSIS was new to me but an easy guess. Thanks to S&B.

4. Eileen – 12ac may have been your first one in but it’s missing from the blog.

5. Favourites: CARDS ON THE TABLE, WILLIAM WALLACE, ORANG UTAN, GODDAM
   New: The Needles, wet the babys head, thlipsis
   Got the def but did not parse YANKEE DOODLE, or the final E of DIOCESE (never heard of E base) .
   * I had imagined there was more to Yankee Doodle than just a dd/cd…

   Thanks E+E

6. Thanks Enigmatist and Eileen
   Mostly fairly straightforward, though I needed a wordsearch for THLIPSIS, and was stuck for ages on APHID as I had a perfectly plausible LABILE at 22a – it simply didn’t occur to me that it was wrong until I checked BAHAD!
   Somone on the Guardian site claims to have seen a theme, but it escapes me.

7. Tough but enjoyable and, I think, fair – the one really obscure word, THLIPSIS, could hardly have had clearer wordplay.
   Two or three I didn’t parse – thank you as ever, Eileen.

8. I was and still am puzzled by what seems a superfluous “book” in 25/26. Is there an explanation for that? Thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle and thanks for the blog, particularly for the parsing of 15ac where I failed to see “land” as a/light.

9. A very enjoyable pouzzle. I didn’t know the Scottish rock group so I spent ages worrying over the ‘Scottish’ in 5dn. 11ac was a new word to me but gettable from the word play. 13dn was a teaser to parse but once you see it it is a delight. 15ac LOI almost defeated me. But clue of the day was, for the surface, 18dn.

   Thanks Enigmatist and Eileen

10. This was no piece of cake – but quite a rich meringue when eventually solved. Just securing a foothold on the grid posed a slight problem (APHID – perhaps the only trite clue). However soon the CARDS were ON THE TABLE, and from then on I found I could GO TO TOWN on the whole grid. I enjoyed YANKEE DOODLE, among others. GODDAM was the last-goddam-one-in, as appropriate. Thanks setter, for a fun puzzle.

11. In 25 26 A. Is “book might include one: a reference to bookmaking and bets. In this case a YANKEE? My 1971 summer holiday job pays a little dividend at last?

12. TerriBlislow @8: I had the “song” in 25/26a as a Yodel (the music, not the awful delivery company).

    Like others, I’ve learnt to quake when Enigmatist appears but this was quite an easy stroll this morning – pretty much a write-in for some of the clues. FOI was PRINCE ANDREW quickly followed by the other “long-ones” which gave me a good base to work from.

    DNK THLIPSIS but the wordplay was concise enough with the crossers.

    Thanks to Enigmatist and Eileen!

13. Very enjoyable puzzle – and, yes, some of the surfaces are very pleasing.
    CARDS ON THE TABLE and STIGMA – are we worrying at the lack of indication that the letters are Greek? We have a sort of indication of Greekness with the Athens reference but the last letter of Athens in Greek is either an alpha or an iota. I think we had discussion on this recently …
    THLIPSIS – a new word to me but entirely solvable from the wordplay. I am in two minds about it. I usually love the sound TH but absolutely cannot abide -ps- in any word. Hate it.
    Got stater straightaway as I used to collect coins when I was younger and remember looking at pictures of Celtic copies of staters in the catalogue.
    I just assumed carelessly that the NEEDLES must be a rock formation in Scotland, like the one off the Isle of Wight. Thanks for the full explanation.
    Thanks to Enigmatist and to Eileen.

14. …and meant to add that the Yodel I was referring to was the instructional books often seen in the US for the style of country-music yodelling as opposed to the lederhosen variety.

15. Very sorry – I don’t know how 12ac dropped out. I’ll reinstate it now.

16. A Yankee bet is a combination bet on four different races. Such as might appear in a bookie’s book.

17. I see from Chambers that “book” can be a record of bets and “Yankee” can be a type of bet in horse racing so “book might include one” could refer to “Yankee”.

18. Eileen’s opening comments mirror my own thoughts – Enigmatist hasn’t tended to appear high on my list of preferred setters, partly due to the rarity of appearances but also because most of those I’ve done haven’t clicked with me. With the exception of THLIPSIS, which has every appearance of being the setter’s LOI making heavy use of word search to find something that would fit (or it was the first one in and Enigmatist is being devilish!), no particular problems so I rather enjoyed this morning’s outing. The four long perimeter answers were all fairly clear and gave lots of help (once I’d realised I’d bunged in EDWARD where I should have had ANDREW). Big Ticks from me for WET THE BABYS HEAD, LIABLE, DIOCESE and GODDAM. I also liked CROUTON – a stunning fedeat indeed! I managed to solve NEEDLES and spot the Sly device but, like others, hadn’t heard of the Scottish band.

    Thanks Enigmatist and Eileen

19. Anna @13 – as I tried to indicate in the blog, I thought the inclusion of Athens indicated the Greekness of the letter, with the ‘perhaps’ indicating that Enigmatist knows that the Greek for Athens doesn’t, in fact, end with sigma. I liked it – it’s rather like the Nice and Nancy clues for French words.

20. Very enjoyable and quite straightforward as already mentioned. I really liked NEEDLES and the long answers. Ta Eileen for the great blog & Enigmatist, who we don’t see enough

21. Enigmatist’s puzzles are very distinctive – there are always some unusual and imaginative constructions, and one or two tortuous charades. An example of the first is STIGMA, which doesn’t really work for me; the ‘end of Athens’ is either S, in English, or alpha in Modern Greek (iota in Ancient Greek, where it was plural) or conceivably even OMEGA.
    CARDS ON THE TABLE is a characteristic Enigmatist charade.
    THLIPSIS (lovely word) was a new one for me – I spotted the LIPS and toyed with ELLIPSIS at first.
    A lot of enjoyable clues – my favourite was WET THE BABY’S HEAD. Thanks to Eileen and Enigmatist.

22. My bet is that it is simply that an american might doodle in a song book.

23. I reached “22A Subject to change, bilateral art removed (6) ” and entered LABILE which I thought an equally valid solution. It didn’t fit with APHID however.
    Quite a few write-ins which made it less challenging than the usual Enigmatist.
    As others have mentioned THLIPSIS was a new one but very clearly clued. STIGMA was a guess from the crossers but the parsing eluded me so thanks Eileen for the explanation.

24. My goodness, Eileen, that’s a tour de force, brava.

    I ran out of time and to finish, bunged in STIGMA, ISLAND, YANKEE DOODLE, NEEDLES, ORANG UTAN, DIOCESE, & TALLY-HO all unparsed.

    With the hint of “the edges in this” at 11a, I was convinced there was a Nina to look for down the left and right sides.

    I think the YANKEE part of 25a is probably a reference to the bet.

    Still don’t quite get the LIABLE clue. Is the def ‘subject to’ perhaps?

    Many thanks, Enigmatist.

25. Like muffin and Pentman I originally put LABILE in for 22ac, but on reflection this would require ‘change’ to be doing double duty

26. William @24 – I did toy with underlining ‘to’ in 22a. ‘Subject to’ and ‘liable to’ are not equivalents – it would need to be ‘liable for’, I think. I’m still not sure.

    Thanks for all the betting suggestions for 25,26. I’ll amend the blog.

27. I simply ask, is thlipsis really necessary?

28. William @24 and Eileen @26
    How about “The road is subject/liable to flooding”?

29. Not difficult but a masterclass in classy cluing. I loved Dorothy’s dog but initially saw TOTO backwards in GO TO TOWN and couldn’t figure out where the reversal indicator was – doh!
    Cheers all

30. Thanks Gervase @25. I’m never sure whether an item doing “double duty” is an acceptable contraption in crosswords.

31. This was rough for me, as Enigmatist usually is. I’ll spare you the details. What I do have to add is the quibble that YANKEE DOODLE is not originally an American song. It was a British one, and an unkind one at that, which we coopted. The fascinating story can be found (e.g.) here:

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/sunday-review/that-diss-song-known-as-yankee-doodle.amp.html

32. Not wishing to be pedantic, but being reasonably familiar with John Donne’s work, the reference in 15 is not a poem, nor set out in verse. It is part of Diversions on emergent occasions and several steps in my sicknes – Meditation XVII

33. On the Greek point (Anna @13, Eileen @19, Gervase @21): ‘of Athens’ could work in modern Greek as the genitive ending is alpha sigma – but then strictly speaking the clue would have to read ‘the end of of Athens’.

    In the older form Athenai (confusingly also used in modern Greece until the 1970s) the genitive wouldn’t work as the ending is omega nu. The accusative would work however [as an example, and relevant to a recent puzzle but I hope not a spoiler (!), I’ve just discovered ‘komízo gláfka eis Athínas’ ? take coals to Newcastle (literally, “carry owls to Athens”) 🙂 ]

    Eileen, I know that you know all this much better than I do, but I thought it was interesting.

    Many thanks to you and Enigmatist.

34. Further to @32, here’s the Donne text (from the Gutenberg Project archive):

    https://www.gutenberg.org/files/23772/23772-h/23772-h.htm#Page_1

35. Not sure I’d describe Sly and the Family Stone as a rock band. I’m also convinced that E meant to use ‘the needles’ as a rock group (ie the IOW attraction) since the Aberdeen group of that name is, let’s ve honest, painfully obscure…

36. I thought it was a fair while since he’d appeared but when someone posted “is he a new setter?” I wondered if he was being ironic after I’d finished laughing
    His quality is always there at all levels of difficulty
    I’m still struggling slowly over the Elgar double so it was nice to see this
    Thanks JH and Eileen.Too hard to pick a favourite

37. essexboy @ 33

    I did think about the genitive ‘of Athens’ but dismissed it for the reason you give, that the ‘of’ in the clue would have to have a double function.
    I didn’t know the expression about carrying owls to Athens but love it. Thanks.
    I wonder why you think Eileen knows all about ‘this’ (though I’m sure she does) but I don’t. The older form,as you call it, is katharevousa and reflects more the Ancient Greek form.

38. @Bingy was there a Glasgow band called The Pins?

39. mrpenney @31 and Gordon McDougall @32 – many thanks for the elucidation. I think I did know about the ‘poem’ (I admit to simply copying and pasting this morning) but I didn’t know about the song. In both cases, I was quoting from the clue.

    And many thanks for your input, too, essexboy and pserve_p2 – I didn’t know the lovely ‘owls’ saying but Athena, the protectress of Athens had, as goddess of wisdom, the owl as one of her symbols.

    Bingy @35 – I said I didn’t know about Sly and the Stone Family but, if you’re right about the NEEDLES, how do you account for ‘Scottish’ in the clue?

    This puzzle is turning out to be even more interesting than I thought it was.

40. @bingy
    certainly true that Sly & The Family Stone weren’t a rock band musically, but, er, *Stone*…geddit?

41. Hi Eileen – don’t get me wrong, I agree it makes no sense for it to be Scottish, I just meant that it might be that he had several ideas floating around for the def and ended up with quite a weird one. Surely ‘southern rock group’ or something would have been neater and not required the solver to check the Aberdeen Almanack of Indie Bands 1995-2001…

42. @Baerchen – through on a technicality

43. Anna @37 – I didn’t see your comment before I posted mine. I think essexboy was just being polite. My degree was in Latin, with subsidiary Greek, which I had to learn from scratch, since my (state) school didn’t offer it and so I’ve never been quite so confident with it as with Latin – and I don’t know modern Greek at all.

    Bingy @35 – I forgot to say that I’ll delete ‘rock’ from the blog.

44. Bingy @ a few posts up: Sly and the Family Stone are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I mean, that doesn’t settle the issue–those folks in Cleveland have a very broad definition of the genre. But it’s enough that calling them a rock band is fair.

    They were at the place where rock and funk intersect. And of course Sly Stone himself was one of those cross-genre influential people such that you could call him an (inter alia) rock musician.

    Today’s ear worm for you:

    https://youtu.be/Jn2PNlhvy8E

45. Either I’m getting very good at this crossword lark or Enigmatist is getting soft. Since I’ve got here and read the comments, it seems that our favourite tough man has dialled things down a bit. All in keeping with the generosity of the season, no doubt. We the average solvers salute you.

    I’m still subtracting too many S’s to get NEEDLES but given the quality everywhere else I’m not complaining. PRINCE ANDREW is the best Christmas cracker I’ve pulled yet, and there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.

46. Thanks Eileen. I agree with Bingy that the Aberdeen group would be an exceptionally obscure definition… unless it’s part of a theme that nobody has yet worked out?

47. PeterO @28: Yes, that’s cleared that up, thanks.

48. Not as difficult as many an Enigmatist but very enjoyable. Thanks to him and (lucky) Eileen

    [I haven’t done the Times yet but I will say that the rest of today’s cryptics have made it the most enjoyable crossword solving day for some time]

49. Hi everyone

    In view of all the surmising and suggestions re 5dn, I asked Enigmatist if he would clarify his intentions. His reply was that his originally submitted clue was

    ‘For no good reason sacking front-man of the Family Stone rock group (7)’

50. I was pleasantly surprised to solve PRINCE ANDREW (after guessing Edward wrongly) and a few others at the beginning. Like Eileen, I have a sense of trepidation when seeing the name of Enigmatist.

    I didn’t know STATER as the coin, so I assumed at the beginning that 11A was ellipsis. I think Enigmatist got rather boxed in with STATER and THLIPSIS. For everyone saying that that word was an easy solve, I disagree, as apart from being obscure, one wouldn’t normally expect Enigmatist to use ‘this’ in the clue and answer (obviously used because of the obscurity).

    I didn’t think ATTEST as a noun without qualification was very fair because it’s not in most dictionaries (and Chambers gives it as Shakespearean).

    I did enjoy the anagrams for PRINCE ANDREW (I was waiting for Woking to appear!) and PLASTIC SURGERY.

    Thanks to Enigmatist for a fine puzzle and to Eileen for unravelling it all.

51. Sorry, I forgot that evidence can also be used as a verb, doh!

52. Robi, I too impetuously thought I’d quickly and cleverly solved the anagram for 1,4 across as Prince Edward (only one letter out), then spent a great deal of time trying to think of other possible WALLACE Scottish heroes/heroines instead of the obvious one. Plus now making the NE corner impenetrable for a while. Liked many of these clues, particularly the meditative ISLAND.

53. Robi @50, evidence can be a verb, so attest as a verb can be a synonym of it.

    I really enjoyed this puzzle until I had four interlinked answers left in the northeast: 5, 8, 11, 14. Each of these involved obscure (to me) knowledge, and were on a completely different level to the rest.

    Eileen, I don’t understand how LAND is ‘light’. ‘Alight’?

54. Just to clarify, E (e, actually) is the “base” for natural logarithms. It crops up in calculus. It has a value of 2.718….

55. @Eileen 49
    Enigmatist’s tweet announcing this puzzle features 5d as the sample clue and he (somewhat pointedly) begins it by saying “sample clue written for…” which I think leads me to conclude that is was Professor Stephenson in the study with the lead piping

56. I grew up in Hampshire, so was expecting the IOW Needles, but what about these on Skye?
    https://www.alamy.com/the-needles-quiraing-isle-of-skye-scotland-image69206030.html

57. I was sure 11a was a Greek word, and that it had to be “??????”, but as its modern Greek meaning is “grief”, I began to doubt myself. A little learning …….

58. baerchen @55. “Professor Stephenson in the study with the lead piping” indeed! The original clue was perfect, and the “improvement” was something else.

    I made things harder for myself with EDWARD instead of ANDREW at 4a (though I see I’m in good company there) and a rather weird ASLANT (some reference to CS Lewis?) where the much simpler ISLAND would eventually alight. The setter’s reputation had me looking for something odd in 11a, where the clue ends with a question mark – but it seems this was merely a hint at the obscurity of the solution, or possibly an apology for using ‘this’ in the clue and TH____IS in the grid.

    Favourite moment was the image of Oscar Wilde climbing the belfry after the chimes rang out. Many thanks to Enigmatist and Eileen.

59. Thanks both,
    I haven’t enjoyed a crossword more in ages. Diocese was my tentative solution for 17dn. It took me a long while to see the definition, tho. Cunning clues are all the more satisfying once solved.

60. After about 40 years I must have finally been on Enigmatists wavelength.

    Only a couple not solved and a couple not parsed.

    Great blog Eileen

61. [Eileen – I meant to acknowledge your “poignantly topical…” comment on John Donne’s No man is an island. It made me think that if one particular clod were to be washed away by the sea, it might presage an upturn rather than diminishment in Europe’s fortunes. “Eheu!”, as Nigel Molesworth was wont to say.]

62. Monkey @53 – light and alight have practically identical entries in Chambers.

    For ‘light’, Collins has ‘(esp of birds) to settle or land after flight’.

63. Thanks, sheffield hatter.

64. Tyngewick @59

    “It took me a long while to see the definition, tho.” 😉

65. Having convinced myself that ELIS was a too clever for me way of clueing this, I stuck in Ellipsis, mistyped it and ended up with lllipsis, which led to STALER a constriction of this taler. All sorted out eventually but had to Google to convince myself that thlipsis and stater were real words.
    Though, technically, Meditation 17 may not be a poem, it uses rhythm and metaphor in a poetic way, and was written by a poet, so I think Enigmatist may be allowed his “poetically”

66. …and John Donne was a poet.

67. [Belated apologies Anna @37. I knew of Eileen’s classical expertise but not yours – though I should have guessed! And, while I’m about it, I apologise if I inadvertently under-estimated Gervase too 😉 ]

    [Also – thanks mrpenney @44 for the earworm. We need more funk on 15². Worth it just for the reminder of Mustang Sally.]

68. A good idea to WET THE BABY’S HEAD, but then abstain from the Scotch on the rocks.

    Thanks to Enigmatist and Eileen.

69. I’m not usually defeated by the Guardian puzzle but I gave up on this with a few clues unsolved as I needed to get on with other things. Like PostMark @18 I bunged in PRINCE EDWARD without checking the letters carefully enough. Nevertheless, lots to like, and a most enjoyable tussle. Many thanks to Engimatist and Eileen.

70. Thank you Eileen for explaining a lot, and for various others among you for further background on bookies, owls, and more – I have especially enjoyed the original vs “improved” debate around Needles and, while the IoW ones are perhaps better known, I have only visited those linked by Herb@56 so have no problem with the revised clue, and can thoroughly recommend a day stumbling around the Quiraing if you get the chance.
    I stumbled here a few times too, mostly already noted above but I did manage to think that CROSTIN might fit for CROUTON (as a hypothetical singular of crostini) before coming to my senses.
    Maybe i have asked this before and forgotten, but can anyone please explain why Con = Study? Is it just an obscure definition?
    I also struggled for light = land but I think it is also possible to light/land on a solution isn’t it?
    Anyway nice work Enigmatist, thank goodness for all those long clues and I particularly rate GODDAM and DIOCESE (same reasoning as Tyngewick@59).

71. Generally I skip crosswords by Enigmatist/Io because I seldom get far enough to enjoy them. I attempted this one, however, because I saw SCHOONER and APHID immediately. Even though I needed to reveal a few I enjoyed this quite a bit. The surfaces for PRINCE ANDREW and PLASTIC SURGERY were superb and I liked STIGMA and GODDAM as well. Thanks to both.

72. Loved this puzzle, but as someone with a mathematical background I am not convinced by “base” as a definition for E in DIOCESE. That is very far from its primary significance in calculus and certainly not how I would describe it to anyone. Sitting in a (stationary!) car right now so cannot check whether Chambers has that definition, but it feels a stretch to me. Yes it is the base for natural logarithms but any number can be a base so I really dont think it works. Maybe it’s just me.

    As it happens I got to the right solution via an incorrect anagram of CODES I C and thinking that a diocese could be a bishop’s base, and anyway it fits so that must be it. Very enjoyable puzzle though, and as so often with this setter, a few other clues I thought weak until I saw the parsing here and realised the problem was all at my end.

    Still don’t like base = e though.

73. Gazzh @70

    i nearly commented in the blog that it seems a while since I saw con = study. Time was when it was almost as common as ‘den’.

    Did you see my comment @62 re ‘light’? Funnily enough, I almost used the expression ‘light on’ in the preamble in relation to seeing the answer to 12ac.

74. Gazzh @70: online Chambers has ‘to read over and learn by heart’ as the second definition of con; another online dictionary defines it as ‘study attentively or learn by heart’. Both note it as archaic. (TBH, I’d always thought it was associated with the conning or steerage of a ship which requires studying charts, routes etc but turns out that’s yet another definition.)

75. I drew a complete blank on this. Couldn’t do a single one.

76. Herb @56: I have a sneaky suspicion you may have lighted on an incorrectly titled photo. I believe the Skye rock formation is known as the Needle – singular – and any searches I’ve done on the Web looking for the plural version in Scotland only refer to that one.

77. Fiery Jack @72 – I’ve seen E (or rather, as muffin said, e) = base so often in crosswords that I didn’t think twice about it.

    I’ve just looked it up in Chambers, which gives ‘e symbol: the base of the natural system of logarithms.’

    Gazzh – PS re con – I meant to give this link: https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/study#:~:text=Some%20common%20synonyms%20of%20study,attention%20to%20details%20and%20minutiae.

78. Gazzh @70 – to add to the mix:

    For Cassius is a-weary of the world;
    Hated by one he loves; braved by his brother;
    Check’d like a bondman; all his faults observed,
    Set in a note-book, learn’d and conn’d by rote…

79. I see I’ve got quite a bit of company in having confidently written in PRINCE EDWARD without checking the anagram. I got ISLAND shortly after that and thought I saw a Canadian theme emerging, but it was not to be.

    Other than that, I found that this puzzle progressed more smoothly than expected (having struggled with Enigmatist in the past). I didn’t know “wet the baby’s head” or “thlipsis”, but the clues led me to the answers anyway. And I didn’t know that a tally-ho was a carriage. So I learned a bunch of things today.

    Like others, I wondered about the fact that “Athens” doesn’t end with a sigma in Greek, but I decided that this was amusing playfulness on Enigmatist’s part rather than an error in the clue. (My Greek isn’t good enough for the possibility of its being in the genitive to occur to me).

80. As I have not come across Enigmatist before, I was please to get to 4 left before the wheels came off. Had the 8d, 11a combination been crossing, I flatter myself that I could have solved them. 10a I should have got, 14a was the other and still not sure I understand it.
    Thanks Eileen for the explanations.

81. I originally had the same thoughts about e that Fiery Jack@72 mentioned, but I realized this clue is consistent with a lot of other cryptic practice. As we all know, “synonyms” are rarely exactly that, and strictly accurate definitions, while welcome are not required. Frequently it is the case that “used as” is sufficient to qualify: e is one of the 3 most commonly encountered bases, so it works on that basis (no pun intended). I’ll grant that that doesn’t mean that one thinks “e” as soon as one sees “base”, but that’s fair.

    Talking about fair or not, no-one has mentioned the “wanting” in 18a. It seems to be wanting a role.

82. Hi Ted above, I did exactly the same.

83. Is there anybody here who has ever heard of thlipsis?

    Loved the No Man Is an Island clue, which completely escaped me till I read Eileen’s explanation.

    Loved Toto all dressed up in a gown.

    How is “LIABLE” subject to change, other than by fitting the anagram? I was one of the large LABILE club?

    Do I take it that Professor Stephenson is a character in Cluedo (Clue in the US)? Over here he’s Professor Plum, and all the characters have color names. The nurse is Mrs. White, for instance and the floozy is Miss Scarlet.

    Didn’t know the Yankee meaning of bet, even though I am one (a Yankee, not a bet). A Connecticut Yankee, in fact.

    And thank you, Enigmatist, for an enjoyable excursion and Eileen for an even-mre-than-usual enlightening blog. (Thanks to mrpenney too.)
    Gazzh @70 Unlike DEN, CON as “study” is a verb.

84. Eileen, PostMark, essexboy: thank you for furthering my education. I wonder whether this “con” is derived from whatever Latin word presumably gives “connaitre” in French then?
    Eileen yes I saw your remark on birds and had thought about alighting on land from a ship and then thought about solutions in general.
    PostMark@76, i just went back and looked at my photos which indeed include the Needle singular, so I will cross the floor and join those who find the original draft far superior to the edited version. I’m also in the gang that find STIGMA a bit too clever for its own good, for what that’s worth.

85. He must have dumbed down this one. SCHOONER a write-in.

86. Hi Valentine @83 – taking your comments in order …

    I don’t think anyone has admitted to it – my apologies if I’ve missed anyone – but most, I think, admit that the clue was clear and therefore fair.

    So did I! 😉

    Liable (to) is the definition of subject (to) – see PeterO @28. ‘Change’ is the anagram indicator

    baerchen’s comment was tongue-in-cheek (as indeed yours might have been 😉 ): Professor Hugh Stephenson is the Guardian Crossword Editor.

    I didn’t know the YANKEE bet, either.

    Thanks, as always, for your comments.

87. Gazzh @84 – fascinating question, and one which I had to do a bit of searching to confirm.

    ‘Con’ in the ‘study’ sense is derived from Middle English connen, Old English cunnan (=to know/know how). The hypothesised root form is Proto-Germanic *kunnana (whence modern German können).

    If you go back even further you get to Proto-Indo-European *gneh- (again hypothesised). This is also understood to be the root of Greek gnosis, and Latin (g)nosco, which combines with the prefix con- (‘with’) to give cognosco (whence French connaître).

    So (i) yes there is a connection; (ii) it’s a bit more distant than a simple Latin derivation; and (iii) the ‘con’ bit of connaître actually comes from a different word entirely!

    Thanks for sending me down the rabbit hole 🙂

88. [Connecticut Yankee Valentine @83
    Some sources suggest that the name of the ‘Yankee’ bet comes from a convenient, but probably apocryphal, account of an American GI who made a substantial profit from placing such as bet at some unconfirmed point in history.
    However, it’s more likely that the name of the bet was derived from an Australian nuance of ‘Yankee’, meaning ‘American’, but in the sense of ‘equal for all’. A ‘Yankee shout’ is a social outing in which everyone pays for themselves. It follows that ‘Yankee’ should also be used to describe a multiple bet in which each horse is coupled, in doubles, trebles and an accumulator with every other horse in the bet.]

89. Coming to this very late. Just to say grateful, as ever, to Eileen for mking clear a lot that was not. The debate on the Scottish clue, quite fascinating, and good to know the original was way better. Thanks to mrpenney for the insight into Yankee Doodle@31, and for the earworm @44. Generally like the earworms on 125 which is a bonus. And no, I didn’t know THLIPSIS either and was in the LABILE camp for a long time. Brilliant brain work-out – thanks to the Enigmatist & Eileen.

90. Enjoyed this one, but Pedantic Boy is on my shoulder, saying, “I think you’ll find that ‘No man is an island’ comes from a sermon, not a poem.” I reply, “Yes, but it’s a poetic sermon.” So there.

91. I rarely manage to complete an Enigmatist crossword – and my shining delight at doing so today erases the grey and wet weather. I’m not as skilled a classicist as other commenters, but fortunately I know my John Donne and my Noel Coward and my Wizard of Oz – and the two long clues went in nice and early so that helped too.
    With Enigmatist, I always feel I’ve learned summat along the way. So hearty thanks to him/her for the intellectual workout, and to Eileen for the careful explanations

92. Wellbeck @ 91

    Enigmatist is John Henderson (as are Nimrod, Io and Elgar).

93. Essexboy – Isn’t koennen to be able and kennen to know in German?

94. Hi Fitzbackhand @90 – I don’t recognise your name, so welcome to the site if you’re new – and sincere apologies if you’re not.

    I know it can be a pain for later commenters to have to trawl through previous comments but have you seen Gordon McDougall’s comment @32 and subsequent comments justifying Enigmatist’s use of ‘poetically’? I’m happy with that.

    Hi Wellbeck @91 – I’ve certainly learned a lot along the way today, too and I’ve really enjoyed the discussion.

    I’ve a Zoom meeting coming up and I haven’t eaten yet, so I’m going to call it a day for now, so thanks to all and renewed thanks to Enigmatist, for an enjoyable – and stimulating – puzzle.

95. trishincharente @93. You are right, but the words können and kennen come from the same root. My copy of Chambers has this for can: “from Old English cunnan to know (how to do a thing); Gothic kunnan, Ger können. See also con, ken, know.”

96. Thoroughly enjoyable puzzle with a couple of gems in the surfaces (1/4 and 1/16). Possibly also the easiest Enigmatist I’ve ever done. Even so, I struggled with the last few, STIGMA being last in and TALLY-HO, YANKEE DOODLE and ISLAND being not fully parsed. Good to learn THLIPSIS, though I’ll probably forget quickly.
    The insertion of “Scottish” seems very odd to me. I could see it if the original involved an error, but this seems a case of the editor rewriting a clue to his own liking for no appearent reason, if indeed that’s what happened. Like I say, very odd and takes the shine off a fine clue.

    Thanks, Enigmatist and Eileen for my daily brain work-out.

97. Thank you Sheffield Hatter – that works. To know how to do a thing = can. Neat. Isn’t language great? Thanks all for an interesting blog today, super crossword from Enigmatist and Eileen for shining a light into the darkest corners.

98. trishincharente @93 – yes indeed, but as sh @95 says (got there while I was typing!) they are both thought to derive from the same (very distant) Indo-European root.

    German ‘kennen’ is cognate with Scots/English ken, and means to know in the sense of ‘to be familiar with’ a person, place etc. – just like French connaître.

    Können is can/be able, but is also used in the sense of ‘to know how to do something’ eg Kannst du Deutsch? = Do you (know how to) speak German?

    And as you say @97 (again, got there before me!) ‘can do’ and ‘know how to do’ are very similar ideas.

    What I didn’t realise until today is that English ‘con’ ( = study in order to gain knowledge of/learn by heart) shares an etymological root with English ‘can’.

    (But not in the tin/prison/toilet senses 😉 )

99. Haha. One for Paul to work on!
    So I’ve learned quite a lot today … all very interesting.

100. I believe PostMark is correct to say that there is a singular Needle in the Quirang on Skye.I had a vague memory that its first ascent was by a schoolboy. After much fruitless searching online I found the reference in “The Scottish Peaks” by WA Poucher: Kevin R Bridges, a youth of 16 1/2 on 19 August 1977. Isn’t that interesting?

101. [jellyroll @100
     I once stayed in the same hotel in North Wales at the same time as Poucher. He was a devotee of men using make-up.]

102. I’m an untutored beginner at cryptics so pretty much teaching myself with the help of the delicious 15 Squared but even some of your comments are too clever by half for little me. So help me move in here by telling me what the oft used LOI means

103. last one in

104. …and here’s a helpful page of FAQs, including abbreviations:

     https://www.fifteensquared.net/faq/

105. …and welcome to the site, newchum

106. Welcome, newchum – what a great name you’ve chosen!

     Congratulations on tackling an Enigmatist – untutored! Don’t ever be afraid to ask a question, however simple it may sound. It’s easy for us to drop into shorthand, which may not be obvious to more recent commenters.

     We’ve welcomed a lot of newcomers since Lockdown, so there’s been a bit of explaining to do along the way.

     essexboy – you prompted me to revisit the FAQs page and I see they haven’t changed much since I discovered the site twelve years ago. The first two questions are completely out of date. The first, as explained, goes back to the days when the papers had a premium phone line for those who got stuck, so it was only courteous for 15² not to cover the whole puzzle. So it’s embarrassingly ironical that it should crop up today of all days, when I omitted one of the clues – and I still don’t know how that happened. Thank Goodness it was the easiest clue in the grid!

     As for the second, I can’t remember the last time a puzzle was omitted altogether. Nowadays, when a blogger doesn’t show up , for whatever reason, someone stands in, however late in the day – invariably the indefatigable Gaufrid.

     Do keep persevering and commenting, newchum – you’re obviously hooked already. 😉

107. newchum@102 — are you Australian? I associate “new chum” with sheep shearing in Australian songs.

     Eileen @86 I didn’t say I thought the clue for “thlipsis” was unfair, and I don’t think it was — I agree with everybody else that the wordplay couldn’t have been clearer (and I still managed to miss it and try like a few others to shoehorn “ellipsis” in). I was just marvelling at such a very obscure (aInd funny-looking) word.

     I took “liable” as the definition rather than “liable to,” noticing that “to” would have to do double duty.

     I missed baerchen’s joke, even though I attended Professor Hugh’s guest appearance on John Halpern’s zoom gathering; his last name had never registered with me.

     I was stuck on T_L__-_O for a long time, thinking “I can’t think of anything that fits that except “tally-ho,” but what does a four-in-hand have to do with fox hunting or fox hunting with neckties?

     Speaking of tally-ho, I assume that kennen and koennen are related to “d’ye ken John Peel with his coat so gay?” According to another tribute song for him, “A plain Skiddaw grey was his garment, and he wore it for work, not for show.” Tge song is “The Horn of the Hunter,” and there’s an interesting article about it, and John Peel, and Cumberland, at https://mainlynorfolk.info/steeleye.span/songs/thehornofthehunter.html.

     [I just heard on our local public radio station: “We’ve got a treat for Connecticut Yankee fans.” But this isn’t about New Englanders who live in Connecticut, but about people in Connecticut who are fans of the New York Yankees, as opposed to the Boston Red Sox. Our state is halfway between the two cities and baseball rivalry is a dividing line here.]

108. thanks essexboy for such a well researched response and trishincharente and sheffieldhatter for elaborating kennen/können in depth. That connection didn’t occur to me despite German having replaced French as the foreign language with which I am least unfamiliar. So I go to bed having learned quite a lot from the main event and the debrief.

109. Thanks for the info(obvs, eh!) and the welcome aboard muffin, Eileen and essexboy and to Valentine – good guess – NZer actually.
     BTW I used to be able to see numbers beside posts but now can’t – new puzzle to solve

110. I’m apparently the only person stuck for a while with ‘ameba’ instead of ‘aphid.’ I thought: “A BA is not really that high a degree, and an ameba is both a variant spelling and only sometimes pestilential,” but when you convince yourself something has to be right, it sits staring at you for a long time.

111. Shouldn’t liable be subject to, with the rest (change bla bla) being the anagram indicator. The only way labile would fit is if the whole thing were an &lit. There is a classic &lit clue ‘liable to change (6)’ which is labile. Occam’s razor did it and I picked liable.

112. Was 10ac quite fair? I can’t think of a sentence in which ‘attest’ means ‘evidence’. ‘Attest to’, certainly, but I don’t see how attest by itself could work.

     That aside a good puzzle as always.

     In reply to muffin @101, the only thing I know about Poucher other than the fact he was some kind of mountaineer/mountain photographer is that he used to wear make-up. My late mother used to refer to the fact in horror every time his name was mentioned. I don’t know how she knew this or why she was quite so struck by it – it does seem rather an unusual combination of interests, I suppose.

113. I’m also not sure about the Scottish rock group – funny how it was so much better a clue before the editor got hold of it. I’ve walked and climbed round the Quiraing and the pinnacles there aren’t called the Needles by climbers as far as I know, though I’m prepared to believe some people call them that. But obviously the original intent was the famous Isle of Wight ones. I suppose the editor just missed the cryptic definition and/or was misled by the surface, and thought solvers needed more help before googling such an obscure band.

114. Radixnephew @112, if you’re still there – I don’t recognise your name but forgive me if you’ve commented before. Otherwise, welcome to the site!

     Re 10ac: both Chambers and Collins give ‘attest’ as a transitive verb, respectively ‘to bear witness TO’, ‘to give proof OF’ and ‘to affirm the correctness or truth OF, ‘to make evident’, to provide evidence FOR’.

     As for the ‘Scottish rock group’, I think Enigmatist’s reply explains everything and makes any further discussion of the Quiraig pinnacles and the Aberdonian band irrelevant, surely?

115. As always we were late to start this puzzle because the paper boy doesn’t deliver until after our breakfast.

     We really enjoyed this puzzle – thank you Enigmatist and Eileen.

     We had particular fun with 5 down. Rock group beginning with N we thought of NIRVANA, which we discovered were formed in Aberdeen – but of course Aberdeen Washington State. Then we got NEEDLES from the wordplay (we had heard of Sly and the Family Stone) and thought of the group of rocks, but that, of course, is off the Isle of Wight. Then we discovered the Scottish rock group The Needles who were formed in – yes – Aberdeen.

     One of the reasons we enjoy Enigmatist puzzles is you always learn something new.

116. Hello, Jenny and Charles – I’ve missed you!

     Did you see the amendment to 5dn @49? – nothing to do with Scotland!

117. Hi Eileen, yes we did see the amendment, which makes a lot of sense.

     We just enjoyed the coincidence of Nirvana and The Needles both being formed in Aberdeen, but thousands of miles apart.

     We need to make sure we comment more often in the weekend puzzles.

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