Guardian Cryptic 28421 Paul

86 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28421 Paul”

1. All very clever but even though I got the author early, the characters were too obscure for my limited knowledge, although I was pleased to solve most of them from the clues, especially FRABJOUS and VORPAL. I sadly had to reveal BANDERSNATCH and could have kicked myself as it was the title of a brilliant Black Mirror production in 2018. I liked BOOJUM as I remember in my teens ‘bumming a SMOKE’ and JOCOSE as ‘chortle’ was one of his portmanteau-for chuckle and snort, as noted by scchua. Lots of Js in this puzzle as well.

   It could only be SNOWDONIA NATIONAL PARK but my brain was too frazzled by then to even attempt parsing it. MORTAL BLOW was nice, so ultimately, delighted to have almost finished it.

   Ta Paul & scchua for the great blog

2. And MB, you get another mention 🙂

3. Wot no maiden?

   Apart from that, brillig! Especially liked CARROLL and SOUP PLATE. Thanks P & s

4. I found this difficult because of the use of slang terms: smoke for draw and bomb for fortune and cane for whale (I googled ‘cane whale’ and was rewarded with a musical group called three cane whale so I now presume there is such a creature). So many thanks sschua for parsing a few I would never have understood.

   But what a great idea to use Lewis Carroll as a theme. BOOJUM was my favourite. Thanks Paul.

5. I can’t understand why FRABJOUS and VORPAL didn’t immediately spring to mind when I saw the definition, as I used to know the Jabberwocky by heart. [I found that reciting it in a monotone was a good way to get the kids off to sleep when they were little.] Familiarity breeding contempt, perhaps?

6. It’s Paul. You know it’s going to be a challenge but very enjoyable. So it proved despite getting Carroll early on. Slowly but surely the whole was revealed. LOI was 27ac, at least the Well bit. Not a phrase i’m overly familiar with. Many thanks Paul and scchua.

7. I parsed SOUP PLATE as like=SO and then a dash of paraffin P in UP LATE.

8. Thanks AlanC@7. Missed the UP. Blog amended.

9. For once I spotted a theme. And it actually helped the solve. Apart from the ones I couldn’t solve.

   Thank goodness for scchua!

10. I didn’t think that was too bad for a Paul although I did need some help. I’m afraid Lewis Carroll has always left me a bit cold – all a bit ‘made-up’ for me (same with Tolkein, Gaiman and The Ring Cycle!) but many of the words are well-known.

    Rather nice to get the name-check at 8d! Think I’ll go and bash some Mikrokosmos this morning although my on/off relationship with Ligeti is currently ‘doing my head in.’

    [I once booked tickets to see the multimillion-pound production of ‘The Hunting of the Snark’ as even though I hate musicals with a passion this was in theory more operatic than muscial(-ic?). Tickets bought, turned up at the theatre to discover that it closed down in less than 7 weeks. The reviews were universally awful – http://www.cix.co.uk/~shutters/reviews/91117.htm

    Went to see a fabulous production of Porgy and Bess at the Savoy which I really enjoyed but the intended recipient of the day out didn’t and was therefore also closed down in about 7 weeks…]

    Thank you Paul and scchua!

11. Callooh! Callay! Plenty of chortles from me this morning with two of my favourite nonsense poems. Jabberwocky is one of the few poems I ever got to learn by heart (blaise @5) and I really enjoyed the many references Paul has managed to insert. Until SNOWDONIA fell at the end, I was wondering where the Snark had got to.

    I’ve mentioned before that sometimes the list of contributors to this blog reads a little like the list of Snark hunters in Fit the First – without the alliteration.

    I’m not sure I parsed quite everything so will look forward to learning more from others as the blog progresses. So many ticks, though, I don’t know which ones to highlight. Some succinct and simple but clever like JILL and OWLET, others cleverly constructed yet very fair like WELL ASSESSED and the thematic BANDERSNATCH. And it can’t be easy to clue words like BOOJUM or JABBERWOCK.

    Nice to revisit ESSEN again – we’ve had fewer opportunities since lockdowns have been in place and lovely for MB to get a second namecheck in as many months.

    Thanks Paul and scchua

12. Thanks scchua – when your blog arrived a little later than usual I was worried that you had softly and suddenly vanished away…

    I chortled when I spotted the theme (FRABJOUS did it for me). Lots of fun clues with amusing surfaces – SNOWDONIA NATIONAL PARK is particularly good. My LOI was MORTAL BLOW as I had interpreted ‘women’s ultimate’ as N, so that the anagrist made no sense. Was this fortuitous, or was Paul being deliberately slithy?

13. [AlanC @2 and PostMark @11: I know! I’m just putting the double-doors in so I can get my head out of the study…]

14. I took SOUP PLATE as an anagram of UP SO LATE + [P]araffin.

15. Heaven help anyone not familiar with the Snark and the Jabberwock! After doing as many non-themers as I could, I got to BOOJUM which gave the author, and then the rest collapsed in a heap. I had NATIONAL PARK for a while before deciding which one, and I hope Paul had fun constructing that parsing…
    I got WELL ASSESSED easily enough, but it doesn’t feel like a Thing.
    I was trying to find a composer with BART in the middle for quite a while.

16. Gervase @12: lovely! My own concern was that whichever blogger had been allocated the puzzle had confused their diary and was desperately trying to solve, parse and blog a probably tricky Paul this morning whilst conscious of a community champing at the bit to comment.

    scchua: re 21d in the blog, it’s a really tiny point and I’m nitpicking but, whilst it is the Jabberwock that’s slain, the poem is entitled simply Jabberwocky

17. Jabberwock and frabjous (the latter via Rumpole) were about the limit of my Carroll-speak, tho boojum sounded familiar. Snark, as in the hunting of, also familiar, but only know Snowdonia via Mrs ginf’s Wales series by the Cadfael lady writing in her other name. Nothing like a bit off wire crossing to add to the fun. Bandersnatch and Vorpal were nhos and took a bit of guess and check. Took a minute to remember tabu instead of oo. All good, ta both.

18. Yesyes @4 me too! I briefly toyed with trying to make it work before deciding this would be a bit obscure even if used in the Azed.

19. Gervase@12: Yes, I had “women’s ultimate” as N too. And is a SOUP PLATE really a “vessel”?

20. PostMark@16, re “The …”, point taken and noted.

21. gladys @19: I don’t think Paul’s bowling a googly. Most of the definitions I’ve seen for vessel give examples of ‘curved containers used to hold liquids’ that include bowls and any search for ‘soup plate’ is illustrated with shallow bowls so I’d say Paul’s in the clear.

22. Great fun. Acquaintance with the writer certainly helped. I remembered “the VORPAL sword went snicker-snack,” but Carroll doesn’t give any clue as to the word’s meaning. Chambers says “… coined by Lewis Carroll to describe a sword, later used to mean sharp-edged.” It seems the “sharp” sense comes from Dungeons and Dragons.

23. Very nice use of theme with VORPAL, FRABJOUS and the rest. Of the non-themers, I thought SMOKE BOMB was really good when I finally understood it – I was initially wondering how “draw” was SMOKE, but of course it’s “draw on”! Very good.

    I agree with JerryG @6 and gladys @15 in doubting whether 27a is really “a thing” ie a well-known phrase, rather than just two words that can go together, like “blue teapot”. “Well-considered” yes, but WELL-ASSESSED?

    Thanks Paul and scchua.

24. Right up my street! For anyone wanting to know more about the theme I can recommend Martin Gardner’s Annotated Alice. As Robert McCrum put it in the Observer: “The indispensable guide to a classic of English literature…no one who has ever wondered about the meaning of ‘Jabberwocky’ should fail to include on their Christmas list.”
    Thanks to Paul and scchua

25. Just couldn’t winkle out that small part of the NW corner, with the tricky OWLET, BOOJUM and JOT DOWN, so not quite a finished puzzle today. But very much enjoyed the rest of it once I had managed to suss out Mr CARROLL. That took a while too…

26. Thanks schhua, agree on smoke bomb a bit iffy, and especially for pointing out Chortle as a Carrollism which helps me to enjoy that clue, having had to use a wordsearch (I always think of Kos as the island with Cos a lettuce or a trig fn but need to get out of that mindset, I’m sure Paul has used it like this before in a themed puzzle).
    I was held up by the same error as Gervase@12 with the anagrist (i’m sure setters enjoy leaving a little ambiguity like that in clues knowing it may lead us temporarily astray), and by misreading the order of words in the nat park clue.
    Big fan of Alice, vaguely remember the Jabberwocky but that’s all, so enjoyed the challenge of solving the obscurer creations through wordplay which then triggered long-dormant memories eg my LOI VORPAL and the blade going snicker-snack. Funny how the brain works!
    Thought this seemed to involve a little less “reaching” for definitions than other Pauls recently (even more than other setters it can feel like when he uses a word it means exactly what he chooses it to mean!) and was very enjoyable. My favourite was FRABJOUS, thanks Paul.

27. [I’m surprised that (to my knowledge) no crossword setter had adopted the moniker “Bellman.” I’m surprised that (to my knowledge) no crossword setter had adopted the moniker “Bellman.” I’m surprised that (to my knowledge) no crossword setter had adopted the moniker “Bellman.”]

28. Great fun once the thematic penny dropped. I had no idea you could spell TABU like that – it sounds more like dodgy nightclub or a new Lynx fragrance worn by hopeful adolescents?
    [MaidenBartok maybe you should celebrate another appearance by treating yourself to the DCS BARTOK DAC & Headphone amp – a snip at just £14,449 :)]

29. [Auriga @24: I heartily endorse your recommendation of Martin Gardner’s book. It was there that I learned many years ago that some of Carroll’s poems are parodies of serious works that were probably better-known to his contemporaries than they are now – “You Are Old Father William” being based on Southey’s “The Old Man’s Comforts” and “A-sitting on a Gate” on Wordsworth’s “Resolution and Independence”. I find it impossible to read the originals now without hooting with laughter.]

30. Thanks for the blog, love the pictures though I rather think it is a little owl not an owlet. Surprising how much Carroll you pick up despite having no interest in it and the strange words were clearly clued.
    AlanC at number 1 yet again, he is the new Slade.

31. Presumably WELL-ASSESSED is what happened after Jack and JILL’s injuries in 18ac were reported to the Health and Safety inspectorate?

    Thanks Paul and scchua

32. A slow start with the clue for 22a not ringing any bells, until I got JILL followed by JOCOSE, followed by the thought “could it be Carroll?” Like Auriga I’m a big fan of Martin Gardner’s Annotated Alice, so the rest of the puzzle went swimmingly – in fact, it was all over much too soon.

    Like scchua I wasn’t sure about a SMOKE BOMB being a weapon as such – and isn’t ‘draw’ a noun rather than a verb to make it equivalent to smoke? To smoke a cigarette is to draw on it, so the verbs are not equivalent but the nouns are – at least, I’m sure I’ve heard it used as a noun but can’t find an instance; could it be Scottish?

    Thanks Paul and scchua.

33. Roz@30. I’ve replaced the owlet/young owl with more of a chick.

34. Thank you , definitely an owlet now. Sorry I was not complaining, it was just an observation. A little owl is a species in its own right and the picture was a very grown up little owl.

35. [Roz @30: lol you’ve skweezed me and pleezed me. Penfold @31, WELL-ASSESSED – cute

36. I thought this was tremendous, but it took me time to realise that BOOJUM came from Lewis Carroll and hence for the penny to drop. Besides all the Alice references I liked TABLEAU and SOUP PLATE. Many thanks to Paul as ever, and to scchua.

37. I am a carroll fan and loved this crossword.
    Re his poems being parodies of well-known works, there is also
    ’tis the voice of the lobster’ and ‘how does the little crocodile’ – both parodies of isaac watts somewhat moralistic poems for young children – I didn’t know the ones given in by lord jim at 29 though, so another bit of knowledge gained

38. [bodycheetah @28: OH WOW! Do you know me in ‘real’ life and I haven’t realised it? That is a) right up my street and b) far beyond my ability to pay!

    As part of the pandemic I’ve amassed the contents of a small recording studio and was looking on-line yesterday for some decent monitors and a cheap ribbon mic for piano recording and came across this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BBC-Local-Radio-Mk3-desk-complete-radio-studio-needs-good-home/133721162349 ]

39. Thought this was going to be one of my blank Pauls but when I got CARROLL things started to move; though I looked for Wonderland refs first, so they didn’t move all that quickly for a while.

    Proud of myself for getting there, via a bit of checking – I’d forgotten about the BOOJUM for starters, but what else could it be – but I often find many of Paul’s clues a bit convoluted, and so it was today. Imogen, who set the best puzzle of the week on Wednesday, was concise and to the point in comparison.

40. My way in was through BOOJUM – worked out from the wordplay, which immediately made me think of Lewis CARROLL. It certainly helped with a few of the others – BANDERSNATCH being the first. Up until then I was making heavy weather of it. Although it was quite challenging in places, I had everything parsed in the end. Paul really makes you think laterally, doesn’t he? JABBERWOCKy was a particular favorite of mine, and is great to read to kids – as well as being linguistically interesting in showing how we can make sense of a string of nonsense words. MaidenBartok @10 – playing with reality (or making things up) is what makes all those you listed a joy to me. Thanks, Paul and scchua.

41. Well that was annoying. A Paul finished by 10 past 9. Came here to post my earliest comment ever. And the trail was not yet started. So here I am at no. 37!
    I had managed 5 answers on first read though none connected to the theme but somehow I was convinced it would be Carroll. Once established via jocose it fell into place relatively smoothly except loi smoke bomb held me up even with all the crossers as I couldn’t parse it. Very enjoyable and satisfying.

42. Yeah, I found this possibly the easiest of the week. No bad thing, mind you, after my ritual torturing from Imogen and a pair of tricky Monday puzzles.

    Being familiar with Carroll helped all the references slide in (I started with BOOJUM), and I also have a variety of connection to SNOWDONIA NATIONAL PARK, which was more or less my favourite clue today.

43. I thought that was a good Paul puzzle as I dont recall too many past puzzles theming Mr Dodgson’s workL
    Loved the clue for BARTOK and consulted the poem for ?VORPAL
    And for once the gateway clue was not too obscure
    Thumbs up here-and for blog-thanks

44. [MB@38 that’s rather fabulous! One of these would complement it beautifully]

45. [Well spotted Roz@30, the original picture was an owlet but a mature spotted owlet rather than a baby owl so not appropriate for the clue definition, thanks for swapping schhua.

    maidenbartok@38 wow what a find, i hope it ends up somewhere appropriate. I am only an occasional dabbler in old mid range separates but got excited just reading the list of sundry items at the bottom!

    In case anyone interested in the logical content of Carroll’s work isn’t already aware, the works of Raymond Smullyan may be of interest eg “What is the name of this book?” ]

46. This was hard until FRABJOUS, at which point it became, well, frabjous. I used to use Jabberwocky in lectures on the nature of understanding, so I’m more relieved than anything that I found my entry point.

47. Blaise@27
    What you tell us three times is true.

48. A total joy – sheer poetry!

49. This was right in my wheelhouse. I could even forgive the “homophone” in BANDERSNATCH.

50. [It seems that most of us enjoyed this crossword and its references. But it does surprise me that not all those fond of words and puzzles find Carroll’s wordplay appealing. It isn’t just English speakers who are attracted by his nonsense verse – there are at least a dozen different translations of ‘Jabberwocky’ in Italian, for example, each full of ‘nonsense’ words which nevertheless follow the phonological rules of the language, as do the originals. BTW, what is the past participle of ‘outgribe’?]

51. [Gazzh @45: you’re right to allude to Carroll’s logic work, which is less well known than his stories. He published The Game of Logic in 1886 and, subsequently, the more academically weighty Symbolic Logic. And I recall reading a book many years ago – (what was the name of that book?) – that explored the logical conundrums he built into his lighter work. The Game of Logic is not dissimilar to Venn Diagrams and, I think I recall, the famous lateral thinker, Edward de Bono, came up with something along the same lines.]

52. Last night I got four or five answers (no 22’s) and then hit the brick wall. This morning I tried again, got BOOJUM but didn’t make the connection, and then VORPAL opened the gate. I completely finished, didn’t need the check button at all.

    As well as coining such portmanteaux as “frabjous” and “chortle,” Carroll (or Humpty Dumpty) started the use of “portmanteau” to mean “two words combined into one.” (The word already existed for a piece of luggage.)

    scchua, thanks for parsing KRUGER.

    Has anyone ever actually said, “There, there” to soothe someone?
    essexboy@3 Was the puzzle really brillig? According to Humpty Dumpty, “brillig” means “four in the afternoon.”

    Gervase@12 I got stuck also on N for “women’s ultimate.” Held me up some.

    Thank you for the blog, scchua, and for the delightful puzzle, Paul.

    PostMark @53 Outgribben perhaps?

53. Gervase@50
    How about “outgribben”?

54. Lord Jim@29: the one I can’t read with a straight face is this from Kipling, which lends Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat its shape and rhythm:

    http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_longtrail.htm

55. Gervase @50: I’m slightly confused by your question about outgribe in that I’d always taken ‘outgrabe’ in the poem as the past tense. There’s a very brief but interesting exchange I found on Twitter in which – unless there’s a spoof involved – no less weighty an authority than the OED pronounces on outgrabe. As the past tense of outgribe.

56. Nice to see a fairly easy Paul, after the rigours of his previous puzzle, which took me more that twice as long as that week’s Azed ( I only persisted because of the prospect of the Zoom call, which I then could not take part in).

    Phi is (or was) one of the organizing committee of the Lewis Carroll Society. Personally, I like Dodgson’s writings on mathematics and logic (very useful if you are into Alan Garner’s Red Shift), but I cannot stand the rest of his work.

57. I think that as a child before ever I read Lewis Carroll I encountered some of his coinages through reading books about Billy Bunter. In those pre-PC days Bunter would be abused by his peer group as a “burbling bandersnatch” and a “footling frabjous freak”.

58. Valentine@52 perhaps “there there my dear” by Dexys Midnight Runners which by cruciverbal coincidence I was listening to just last night. Not sure if that helped the solve though

59. PostMark @55: ‘outgrabe’ is indeed the past tense, as it appears in the poem. Humpty Dumpty later explains to Alice – “Well, ‘outgribing’ is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle”. So we have a strong verb, with the present tense ‘outgribe’ and the past tense ‘outgribe’. This doesn’t quite follow the ablaut pattern of any native English verbs, but it is interesting that both Valentine and Auriga suggest ‘outgribben’, which is exactly what I had posited myself. Carroll’s skill was to invent nonsense words which though weird sound completely natural.

60. Beautiful! The theme certainly helped but lots of great fun along the way! Thanks to Paul and scchua

61. Oops – I wrote outgribe instead of outgrabe for the past tense, and I discover that it is because my autocorrect has only learnt the present tense!

62. Thanks Paul and scchua

    Re the smoke / draw (on) noun / verb discussion, in certain circles both smoke and draw are nouns referring to a herbal confection of dubious legality. Or so I’m told.

63. [PostMark @51 As I may have previously mentioned, John Venn of diagram fame also invented the first bowling machine.

    In 2003, former England fast bowler Darren Gough made a brief cameo appearance in the Beano, bowling to Billy Whizz. He had one word to say: ‘Chortle!’

    Bodycheetah @58 Dexys Midnight Runners? Aren’t they the band that sometimes get frustrated if the blog for the Guardian cryptic doesn’t appear first thing in the morning?]

64. [Penfold @51: ah, but did it produce SOUP PLATES?]

65. [Oops @63 of course]

66. I enjoyed this puzzle. It was easy to guess some answers due to the theme 22ac, but harder to parse them.

    Favourites: BARTOK, OWLET (loi)

    Did not parse: whale = cane 6d; BANDERSNATCH, JABBERWOCK apart from JAB.
    Guessed 10/2/15 and parsed it afterwards, ditto 19ac.

    Thanks, Paul and scchua.

67. [bodycheetah@44: I’ve gone all weak at the knees….

    One of the most memorable Proms I went to was a late-night featuring the music of Daphne Oram and Suzanne Ciani with a similary fabulous piece of electronics in the middle of the Arena. I can’t find the video of the whole thing but here is Ciani doing here stuff… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCLbC06XcfE ]

68. In my efforts to confirm that “berk” was actually a word for buffoon, I encountered a rather unsavoury alternative meaning from rhyming slang. See Wiktionary for the etymology.

69. Yesyes@4 Three Cane Whale should really be Three Cane Wale, which is a basketry reference. They are a group whose music I find most enjoyable.

70. [Doug431@68: ‘berk’ definitely IS a swear word but one that most people are unaware of which makes it all-the-more interesting 🙂 ]

71. For a change, I was able to finish a Paul puzzle (I’m still struggling with his weekend prize puzzle… 🙁
    I still find his cluing to be too obscure and I really don’t enjoy it when the clues don’t make up nice stand-alone sentences or phrases (much less really clever ones like with yesterday’s beautiful offering from Crucible…).

72. I started well by trying NATIONAL PARK which gave me BARTOK and then the A meant it had to be SNOWDONIA. Parsing went awry as I took NATIONAL to be the race (as in Grand) leaving P for the mountain. I took the theme to be JABBERWOCKY (where I thought the CARROLL words came from) so I spent too long trying JUBJUB at 7d until OWLET told me I was wrong. I gave up in the end not knowing BOOJUM and, like others, trying to put N into 13a. Thanks to Paul and scchua

73. Valentine @52 – ah, but can we believe Humpty Dumpty? 😉

    Re ‘there, there’, if you’re not into the discombobulatingly anapostrophic Dexys, you could try here and here.

74. Valentine @52: re Humpty Dumpty’s “brillig” means “four in the afternoon.” I think that this character would be described nowadays as a wind bag; he certainly was not to be relied upon.

    Simon S @62. Yes, I think the references I was thinking of @32 were not to over-the-counter smokes. It seems that Paul has also moved in similar circles.

75. I’m with Trailman@39 and JiP@71. I was quite happy with the theme, but find a puzzle less enjoyable when the clues are hard to read – as many of these were. I didn’t complete yesterday’s Crucible until this morning which made the contrast in setting styles all the more apparent. As I’m in a minority of the people who have commented I’ll leave it there, with thanks to Paul for bringing Carroll’s creatures into a puzzle and scchua for the explanations.

76. Thanks to both, but not in the mood for this trip down the rabbit-hole. My bad.

    I got THERE but not much else on the first tour and suspected a word containing ..OOJ.. which led me to think I might be up a gum-tree – I could only think of “hoojah” which I am fairly sure (subject to better advices) is a family word meaning “thingummyjig”. Further pondering indicated that this would serve better as a training exercise and the reveals proved this to be the correct diagnosis – I’m just not sufficiently familiar with Carroll’s oeuvre to enjoy this as intended.

    If it had been a prize I might have persevered, but I still have the NE of last week’s prize Paul to unlock and there’s only so much a SOUP PLATE can hold. Much to admire of course, including the AFORESAID “THERE”.

77. Alphalpha @76. I can sympathise to some extent, since I was thinking along much the same lines until I realised it was Carroll. There are plenty of authors I might have struggled with – a ‘creation’ of Chandler or Conrad, for example (ok, wrong enumeration, but you get the point). I think the unique thing about Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was his creativity with words and (ok, several unique things) his connection between story-telling, linguistics, poetry, mathematics, logic and hallucinogenic drugs. A suitable subject for something as recondite as a cryptic crossword. Sorry his “thingummyjig” didn’t tickle your “hoojah”. 😉

78. sh @32 and 74: interesting though it is, there’s no need to consider “smoke” or “draw” as nouns. As scchua says in the blog, and I tried to say @23, it’s “Draw on” = SMOKE (verb), “fortune” = BOMB. It’s easy to read the “on” as meaning “on top of”, as I initially did, but that’s not what it’s there for.

79. Lord Jim @78. It’s easy to read the “on” as meaning “on top of”. You are quite right, of course; that’s exactly what I did. And I got drawn into the world of illicit drugs when of course nothing of the sort was intended by the setter. Though I’m pretty sure Carroll would have sympathised.

80. [PostMark@51 thank you, in all these years it had never occurred to me to look at his professional output, now I see it is on Project Gutenberg and looks quite readable and dare I say fun – i did a course in logic at uni but even the lecturer admitted it was taught appallingly and I never really gave it the attention it deserved. Also agree about outgrabe as past tense, since the borogoves WERE mimsy – by the way “Mimsy were the Borogoves” is quite a famous golden age sf story which links back to Alice.

    Doug431@68 Maidenbartok is of course quite right but over time Berk has acquired a much less obscene status than its rhyming slang origin, so much so that it was the name of the protagonist of an excellent animated children’s TV series of the 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trap_Door ]

81. sh@77: thanks for that. I sometimes judge myself to be at the infra-red end of the 15^2 spectrum (not always) and today was just one of those days of harrumph. I wonder if any of our transpontines felt the same way?

    At least some (PM@11) enjoyed hunting the snark.

82. [essexboy@73 the dexys apostrophe has been troubling me for decades. Presumably it’s an abbreviated plural for dexedrine? But reviewers would typically apostrophise when referring to Dexy’s latest album but they may be former grocer’s. Who knows …]

83. completely stumped after getting Rowling instead of Carroll!

84. [bodycheetah @82: yep, “Dexy’s latest”… except of course in the Guardian, which (at least here, see foot of article) conscientiously insists on Dexys’!!]

85. Very rare for me to get a theme with boojum early and unambiguous. Revisited the text to look for “mortal blow”.
    Thanks Paul and Scchua

86. [Oh! Dear – recently (almost) convinced myself to give up 15² as threads were taking much longer to read than puzzles to solve. And some were becoming stuffed with more irrelevant irrelevancies, and repetitions, than apposite comment. I don’t know if it’s FOMO or just a human hesitancy to give up, but have found myself ‘catching up’ on old threads today and it seems to have paid off. I’ve enjoyed this day’s meanderings enormously; these are relevant irrelevancies! ? ]
    And this was yet another fabulous offering from our Paul – and a memorable one; I really don’t know how he does it – there’s always something fresh.
    Scchua, many thanks – another super, and selfless, contribution to this site’s invaluable output.
    And heartfelt thanks to others!
    And Gaufrid – always.

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