Guardian Saturday Crossword 28,572 by Tramp (9 October 2021)

88 comments on “Guardian Saturday Crossword 28,572 by Tramp (9 October 2021)”

1. I solved this but was unable parse many of the solutions. Thank you mcetc for clarifying things. And thank you tramp – many of those clues were poetic in their concision

2. Thanks mc_rapper67 and welcome. Anyone who won a Saturday Prize has my respect, I tried unsuccessfully for years. Like you, I had entered AQUARIUS for 5d and spent far too long trying to explain it before realization. I’m sure you are right about 12a, it took some time too but I think it’s fair. 14a was another that required quite a lot of shuffling of letters with pencil and paper before I could explain it.

3. I thought this was top notch.
   Thanks Tramp, and thanks mc_rapper67.

4. I loved 1a for it’s precision and brevity. I was an unparsed AQUARIUS so thank you mc_rapper for setting me straight but not making me feel too bad about it and for the whole of your excellent blog. NEBRASKA was my LOI on Tuesday and MASCOT defeated me for almost as long but when I finally got it I realised what a clever surface and clue it was. Ideal prize level for me, easy to get into and hard to finish. Thank you Tramp.

5. I got stuck thinking 16A was ‘pretenders’ (bartender instead of server, perhaps they can?) and so missed ‘vibrate’. Also had ‘roils’ for ‘teems’ but no way to make the rest of the parsing work so I reckon ‘rains’ is correct

6. Thanks for the blog, bit different to the Cyclops but top notch. Best Saturday for a while this one, many elegant and clever clues. Ticks for 1,7,15,and 16 D although perhaps it is soon time for Harry Kane to retire.
   Lots of praise I am sure so one very minor quibble. The link between 5D and 6D is rather redundant

7. Failed 12ac and I did not parse 18d.

   New for me: ARMBAND = float.

   Thanks, both.

8. Thanks Tramp for a superb crossword. I particularly liked APPROPRIATE, BLUE RINSE, RESOLVE (great surface), AQUARIUM, and NEBRASKA but there wasn’t a bad clue in the bunch. Thanks mc_rapper for filling in my parsing gaps; I never could figure out RAINS; I guess my brain was missing something as well.

9. My last one in was also RAINS and I just bunged it in to finish.

   Enjoyed this – my favourites were mostly down clues: NEBRASKA, AQUARIUM, PUTSCH, TIMER and liked the surfaces for VIBRATE and RHUBARB.

   Thanks Tramp and mc_rapper67

10. Very enjoyable. Thanks for the blog mc_rapper67.
    I thought there might have been something going on with MASCOT and AIRPORT TERMINAL, but that was just me being Ozcentric.
    I see lots blue hair colour on the young’uns these days. Don’t know if the grannies do them much any more.

    I liked APPROPRIATE, both for the concise cluing, and the topicality of dating apps (not that I know much about them) where you swipe right to like someone.

11. 12ac was also my uncertain LOI, and crossed with 5dn which I was 90% sure was AQUARIUM rather than AQUARIUS, made me glad that I wasn’t after an actual prize.

12. A very clear and enthusiastic blog – welcome and thanks to mc_rapper67. A most likeable puzzle from Tramp, to whom much thanks also. I needed help to parse fully 14a VEGEBURGER and 18d RHUBARB, which I solved via the definitions and crossers. I also missed that meaning of ARMBAND at 25a, michelle@7. Lots of the clues I liked were in common with mc_rapper and several contributors above, and I had a tick as well for 10a SHUT-EYE.
    [BTW, thanks for spotting the link between the parochial Aussie references, paddymelon@10, and like you I thought the “swipe right” reference to Tinder etc in 1a APPROPRIATE was clever.]

13. Great thanks to Tramp and to mc_rapper67. Such wit and clarity. Thanks for explaining the parsing of TOTS and the full parsing of VEGEBURGER. Might there somehow be two homophones involved in 12a: TEEMS/TEAMS and RAINS/REINS?

14. Forget my mis-post. The (B)RAINS ruled out REINS being involved in 12a.

15. mc_rapper, welcome to the Saturday blog, and many thanks. You have heard from some of our US, OZ and NZ friends first, and will now be joined by the UK as we wake up. I am on a Paris trip, so am an hour early.
    Thanks also to Tramp for a challenging but eventually clear puzzle. At first run through of each clue I solved only one and thought I might end up defeated, but by Sunday evening I was there. Just the right level of difficulty.
    I agree with Roz@6 about the link between 5 and 6D. Can anyone see one? My LOI was RAINS, which I considered early on, but I felt uncomfortable it has two cryptic elements but no real definition.

    I much liked ABRIDGE, LEADER BOARD and AIRPORT TERMINAL.

16. [ I have just noticed you put rag next to paper for the Evening Standard, this is still too complimentary.
    Propaganda sheet from Lord Lebedev of Perugia for his Tory chums would be a better definition but not really concise enough ]

17. Thanks Tramp and mc_rapper67. I enjoyed this one thoroughly, so many fun clues. I absolutely loved ‘swipe right’ for APPROPRIATE – simple but genius. Also enjoyed BLUE RINSE, PRESERVERS, PUTSCH, NEBRASKA among others.

    I agree with your parsing on 12a and like sjshart @15 raised an eyebrow at the double wordplay and no definition. But it was gettable so fair enough in my book. Tramp did admit in the comments on the Guardian website that it was ‘a bit naughty’ but I’m happy to let him off.

    Like you, I initially put AQUARIUS for 5d but couldn’t parse it beyond ‘septic tank’ maybe accounting for US at the end… kicked myself hard when the penny dropped. That was a brilliant trap, with the actual definition very well disguised. Sign pointing the wrong way… Fair play Tramp.

    Took me a long time to understand TOTS, since I couldn’t dig that definition for ’fingers’ out of the memory bank and needed the dictionary to help in the end. And then it came up again in yesterday’s Picaroon – luckily still fresh in the memory this time.

    Roz @16 – also the crossword is dreadful.

18. Surely, sjshart @15, the link between 5D and 6D is lavatorial. The septic tank in 6’s surface receives the solid contents of the flush in 6’s surface accompanied by the usual (toilet) paper. Rather Paul-ine, I thought at the time.

19. Me @18 – the septic tank in 5’s surface, of course. Lesson: do not attempt to type anything while still in bed in semi-darkness with the laptop propped up on your chest!

20. Indeed, as the globe slowly turns, more of us surface to add to the chorus of welcome for mc_rapper, though I am familiar with our blogger from the Indy pages.

    I’m with paddymelon, JinA and widdersbell, and indeed our blogger, in loving APPROPRIATE. First one in and, tbh, and this is not a criticism of any of the rest of the puzzle, but I don’t think any other clue gave me quite the same buzz. Simply splendid.

    I tend to agree with Roz @6: that Harry Kane has had a lot of exposure in recent times. I even vaguely recall encountering the device for the first time and being delighted but now Harry has me looking for an anagram about as fast as priest has me searching for an ELI.

    Thanks Tramp and mc

21. [Familiar with mc_rapper, I might be, but it strikes me I don’t know whether the ‘mc’ is a Scottish/Irish Mac or an abbreviation of master of ceremonies – often associated with rap. So I know which way I should be pronouncing it in my head, could you kindly advise?]

22. 5 Down. I meant to say that last week there was some discussion about the definition nearly always coming at the start or end of the clue. Wish I’d remembered that this time.

23. Thanks Tramp and mc_rapper67
    I read elsewhere that Tramp posted that he regretted his clue for 12a and thought that he should have re-written it.

24. Like PM I’ve seen mc_rapper’s thorough but concise blogging on the Indy and I’ll echo others’ welcomes to the dark side.

    There’s a far more interesting ting explanation for the name PM but I’ll let our blogger reveal his own secrets

    I thought this was a joy for a Saturday, with the possible exception of rains which is definitely marmitey

25. Also thanks Tramp and mc.

26. A very nice puzzle from Tramp, very eruditely blogged. I’m another who put in both Aquarius and Pretenders early on and only fixed Aquarius at the very end when I felt I must have missed even more than usual in the parsing and had a more careful look. And I missed the significance of ‘fingers’ and (oh dear) didn’t think of Ascot as a meeting. I did at least think of ‘teems’.

    I too raised an eyebrow at a couple of the clues, but they were fun. Maybe crosswords should have classifications like ‘may contain risqué innuendo’ – I imagine that would pull in some younger solvers!

    Thanks, Tramp. Thanks and welcome, mc_rapper.

27. Fun crossword.
    Another AQUARIUS here, but my fault as the clue is fair.
    Regarding RAINS, I see the purpose of the clue as being merely to direct one to the correct solution, and I don’t much care about the various “rules”, e.g. indirect anagrams are fine by me; so I had no problem with what widdersbel@15 calls “double wordplay and no definition”.
    I agree with Sc@18 about the lavatorial link between 5d and 6d.
    Like many, I thought APPROPRIATE was excellent; other favourites included LEADER BOARD and BLUE RINSE.
    Unlike several, I didn’t much care for NEBRASKA (my LOI) – “cups” are not what is held by a bra (trivial fact – the Nowegian for “bra” is the eminently descriptive “brystholder”).
    Thanks mc_rapper67 and Tramp.

28. Why is “endless sex” e, not “se”?

29. Looking at it again I suppose it’s just taking both ends off, not just “the end”. This put us off believing resolve for a while.

30. When you solve as many crosswords as I do, it is always a good plan to write what you thought of a particular Saturday crossword as by the time a week has elapsed, there isn’t a hope of remembering how you found the solving experience. My piece of paper this time says ‘not too hard’ and ‘brill’ – my favourite clue was 22a

    So thank you to Tramp for the crossword and mc_rapper67 for the blog

31. Another lazy AQUARIUS here and summed up nicely by Widdersbell @17. I thought there might be a THFC theme with Kane, Bale and ARMBAND but then LEADER BOARD put me off this theory 😉 I think a setter recently apologised for inadvertently predicting a savaging by their North London rivals. Superb puzzle.

    Ta Tramp & mc_rapper for the

32. …excellent blog

33. I see what you did there mc_rapper67 with Tottingham Hotspur, very subtle.

34. Thanks for all the welcoming comments and feedback – nice to see many familiar names from my Indy and Cyclops gigs, and to meet so many new ones! I’m also part of the teams doing the Grauniad Genius and the Sunday Telegraph EV – two other ‘dark sides’ that I would encourage crossword fans to have a go at…
    To answer a few specific points:
    – Biggles A at #2 – I’m not sure I deserve ‘respect’ for winning the prize, as it is just a lottery once you are in the hat, but thanks anyway!
    – I’m not sure I get the ‘Aussie references’ linking MASCOT and AIRPORT TERMINAL?
    – the annotated notes on the Grauniad website confirm the homophonic definition at 12A. I haven’t seen the comments by Tramp on this, but I don’t think there is any need for ‘regret’ or apology for stretching the ‘rules’ and challenging us to think outside the box a little.
    – I’m relieved to see so many others fell into the AQUARIUS/AQUARIUM trap…great minds think alike…and fools seldom differ!
    – beaulieu at #27 – I did pause to think about the ‘cups’ in 15D – I’m no expert here, so I am fumbling around in the dark, metaphorically speaking, but I took it to mean that the cups are an integral/built-in part of the bra, so they could be said to be held by it…as well as doing some, ahem, ‘holding’ themselves.
    – Arnie McDowell at #28 – again, I’m no expert on ‘endless’ sex(!), but I could have indicated that a bit more clearly – I will update the parsing.
    – as for the ellipsis/’link’ between 5D and 6D – as with the comment from Spooner’s catflap at #19, let’s just say that there is a reason why it is always a good idea to have a copy of the Evening Standard in the ‘smallest room’ (and it is not for the challenge of the crossword!)

35. Excellent blog, written in good English.
    No ‘charades’ or other such nonsense, which we so often get foisted onto us.
    Please keep it up.

36. 5D and 6D are of course linked as sentences but not as clues. Each clue works completely independently of the other so the link is redundant.
    [widdersbel @17 I am glad to hear the crossword is rubbish , unfortunately the Independent has many fine setters but I have to boycott it because of ownership issues. ]
    [ MrPostMark @20, good point about ELI and there are many others, a couple per puzzle is fine, always new solvers. I remember WICKED ( linked to candles ) being used frequently in the past. It returned recently and people thought it was marvellous. ]

37. Roz @16 I believe rag stands for really awful gibberish
    RAINS was my LOI too and the cherry on the icing of the cake
    Wonderful stuff Tramp and great blog

38. [ I agree Bodycheetah but it still over-estimates the output of the Evening Standard . ]

39. [Bodycheetah @37: I’m about to post a clue for you over on GD]

40. Big tick for Nebraska-it was only released on cassette as I remember

41. mc_rapper67@34. Getting in ahead of my trans Tasman colleagues Mascot is the suburb of Sydney where the international airport is located. The airfield was retitled Kingsford Smith in honour of the aviator but the original name still lingers.

42. swipe right
    Thanks to Tramp & mc

43. A very entertaining crossword with lots of good clues.

    I managed to get AQUARIUM, but I put in REINS for 12A, not understanding the second part of the clue. I was once told by an experienced setter never to use a homophone as a definition. I particularly enjoyed NEBRASKA and PUTSCH.

    Thanks Tramp and mc_rapper67.

44. I see I wasn’t the only one to get started with APPROPRIATE. After that, I got the other three long ones – not quickly, I should add, but I wanted to tackle the puzzle in that way.
    It was a very satisfying puzzle to solve as it had several neat and clever clues. My favourites were VEGEBURGER, LEADERBOARD, NEBRASKA and RUMBA.
    Thanks to Tramp and mc_rapper67.

45. My last one in was TOTS and I had to search mentally through all words that would fit before getting it. My problem is that, yes, a finger of scotch would be a tot, but Chambers defines the latter as something small, such as a dram, so two fingers would also be a dram and therefore a tot. Three fingers, you’re getting into slosh territory, not just a tot. But even stretching your idea of a small whisky to the limits, no matter how many fingers it will always be just one tot. Not TOTS.

    And I tried it with numerous drinkers: “Two fingers of scotch all round – so we all had tots of whisky” is the best I can do. Still not convinced.

    Nevertheless, a very enjoyable puzzle from Tramp. Like several others I wrote AQUARIUS but immediately changed the S to M – in retrospect I should have got a piece of sticky label, written M on it and then stuck it down ‘over’ the S.

    Thanks to Tramp, and thanks and welcome to our new blogger.

46. Thanks Tramp.
    I suppose this is a DNF for me. I thought there must have been misprints in 12A and 6D, because I didn’t know teems was spelt like that, and I thought there should have been just one kinky lover. Now I know better thanks to mcrapper. Also had to cheat for MASCOT and PUTSCH. And TOTS was unexplained until I came here.

47. mc_rapper67 @ 34

    beaulieu @ 27

    When you buy a bra you choose the chest size (34″, 36″ etc) and also the cup size (A, B, C etc)

    So I think a bra is a cup holder – it has cups.

48. A warm welcome to our new blogger – even if his layout is difficult to read on my vertical mobile screen!

    It’s hard to remember as far back as a week ago, but I did manage to avoid the AQUARIUS and PRETENDERS bear traps, though I couldn’t see past the counting on the fingers meaning of TOTS. I obviously don’t drink enough of the hard stuff.

    I did manage to spot the homophone as definition – and there’s an even worse one in this week’s Prize, though of course I can’t say where.

    I sometimes get rather tired of Tramp’s oo-er-missus clues, (could “cup holders” in NEBRASKA be anything else, given the setter?) but I did smile at RUMBA.

    Postmark@20: Harry Kane has now taken over from Harry Potter as the inevitable subject of that particular device, and no doubt will have successors for as long as famous people are called Harry.

49. Top notch Tramp puzzle. NEBRASKA was pick of the bunch for me.
    Thanks all.

50. Rains was one of my last in and I would argue it’s a “double wordplay” as there is no direct definition.

51. PostMark @20/Roz @6 – agreed, we need a moratorium on Harry Kane. I also remember being impressed first time I saw it but the novelty value has well and truly worn off (as has the cryptic value). I’ve also seen Harry Potter and Harry Enfield recently. But not yet Harry Styles or Harry and Meghan…

52. Thanks, again, for the continuing comments – especially Anna at #35 for your kind words.

    (NB. I should really have clarified – this wasn’t so much a ‘debut’ as a cameo appearance off the bench – à la Gareth Bale, perhaps!)

    Just to address a few more points:
    – AlanC at #33 – glad someone spotted the ‘Tottingham’ Hotspur reference – I’m no THFC fan, but I do have memories of those heady early 80s days, with Ossie Ardiles/Ricardo Villa and the Chaz-n-Dave’s FA Cup final songs…
    – thanks to Biggles A at #41 for the Antipodean explanation on MASCOT/Sydney airport location
    – Roz at #36 – you don’t have to give Lebvedev any of your hard-earned to access the Indy crosswords, just a couple of clicks – they are freely accessible on the website, albeit the software is a bit clunky and you have to watch an ad before getting access to each puzzle… I have to admit I hold a peg to my nose and pay Murdoch to get through his firewall to the Times puzzles, for my Listener and Mephisto fix, among others
    – copmus at #40 – if you are referring to the Springsteen album, I am the proud owner of a much played vinyl copy of ‘Nebraska’, and the CD…for when I get tired of the clicks and jumps!
    – gladys at #48 – apologies for the layout – it may be something to do with the HTML tables I use…hopefully you can still get the gist
    – Postmark at #21 – it is very much emcee-rapper, not a hint of the Caledonian in my genes! And no talent either as an mc or a rapper. The monicker was coined in the early 80s when an elderly Latin teacher couldn’t bring himself to say my surname (move the underscore back one letter), so he anointed me as mc_rapper…long before I’d heard of rap or emcees!
    – Fiona Anne at #47 – thanks for your ‘support’ on the bras/cups point!
    – sheffield hatter at #45 – I see your point on TOT/TOTs (just thought – another Tottenham link there, perhaps?). As you say, as long as there are two drinkers, each having a finger or two in their glass, then you would have TOTS.

53. [copmus @40: the legend about Nebraska is that Springsteen recorded demos of the songs at home, then carried the cassette around in his back pocket for weeks. He intended the band to produce finished versions in the studio, but it was eventually decided that they couldn’t improve on the originals, which were released as the album. Is that what you were thinking of?]

54. mc_ @52: thanks for the explanation. A fine nominative pedigree. Although, whilst I did have the right pronunciation in my inner ear, I can’t say the same for my inner vision. I did have a mental picture of someone like Snoop Dogg diligently parsing crosswords in the odd quiet moment back stage! 😀

55. mc_rapper67. Thanks for responding to my small quibblet. I wasn’t really criticising the clue, just pointing out why I struggled to solve it.

    I’m glad you got something from your “elderly Latin teacher”. When I first moved to Sheffield my landlords used the firm of [your surname] & Haigh as their agents, and of course it is also the name of the man who improved (if not invented) the flush toilet or water closet.

56. mc@52 , praise from Anna for use of language is very high praise indeed, well done.
    Thanks for the advice , very kind, but I am strictly pen and paper only. Guardian , some FT , Azed and Cyclops quite enough really.

57. …and I appreciate the effort Tramp made to link the surfaces of 5d and 6d (though ‘put over’ for replacement in a down clue is very tricky).

58. I’ve been out since quite early this morning and, as so often, my copy of the paper accidentally went for recycling on Tuesday so I have nothing really to say, except to echo the thanks to Tramp for a super puzzle and to mc_rapper67 for an equally super blog. I hope we’ll see you back on this side again some time. 😉

59. Thanks for a super blog and thanks for the comments. I only wrote this puzzle the other month. One of the clues which gave me most pleasure was the one for RHUBARB. I stared at that word for hours before coming up with the clue.

    APPROPRIATE was one of those words I committed to the grid with no idea how to clue it. I was so excited when I had the brainwave thst I posted it on twitter.

    Neil

60. Many thanks for the fun Tramp as it really was this time. Welcome mc_rapper67 as well – it didn’t occur to me you had not blogged these before.
    No one else seems to have mentioned equating BLENDS with matches and the only way I can account for it is by thinking of mixing paints. What have I missed?
    Especially thanks for VEGEBURGER as the parsing there had me stumped.

61. I, too, thought APPROPRIATE was superb. “Wrong nebuliser” was a neat anagram.

    I had the same reservations as SH@45 about fingers and TOTS, but, like him, I didn’t think it was fatal.

    I hadn’t seen “Harry Kane” as a device to get an anagram of KANE before, but I don’t think the cryptic grammar works in this particular clue.

    I have seen homophone definitions before — from Paul, in particular. Can’t say I’m find of them. Funnily enough, someone on Paul’s Zoom meeting last week was asking if such a clue was reasonable and I pointed out that Paul himself had done it in the past (with ‘mor(e?)ish’ used for Moorish, for example). That was the day before this puzzle came out.

    One for Beaulieu@27 (anyone who, like me, thinks indirect anagrams are unfair shouldn’t waste their time on this):

    Tease fellow with a stupid cryptic device (7)

62. Tramp@59, we crossed, but you mentioning RHUBARB reminds me I was going to say I don’t think “bullshit” is a very good definition. I don’t think you could condemn someone’s words by calling them “rhubarb”, could you? And actors wouldn’t mutter “bullshit, bullshit” to make a general hubbub, would they? Maybe there’s a context where they’re interchangeable that I haven’t thought of? I agree it’s no picnic to clue, though.

    Mc, I don’t get the “Tottingham” ref. I actually thought you’d made a silly mistake. What’s it all about?

63. Anna@35, what’s wrong with charades?

64. Tony@62, I think you’re talking utter rhubarb there!

65. Tony @ 62

    But the definition isn’t “bullshit”, it’s “bull”. OK, the latter is often seen as a polite abbreviation for the former, but in its own right it’s come to mean meaningless verbiage or waffle, so the clue is fine.

66. TC @62: Argentinian Ossis Ardiles pronounced Tottenham in this way when interviewed, much to the amusement of all fans

67. Gobbo@64, I’ve never seen ‘rhubarb’ used in quite that way, but bull (yes, sorry, Simon@65, not bullshit) would work in the sentence to me, so if it seems normal to you, then it’s probably fine.

    Now I think about it, I recall I did find something at the time saying ‘bull’ in that meaning is not actually derived from ‘bullshit’ but is often regarded as being so. Can’t remember now where that was.

    Personally, I wouldn’t use either of those words. I’d just say ‘shit’, speaking informally and probably ‘nonsense’ in a context where the former would be unacceptable.

68. Alan@66, thanks for the explanation.

69. Tony C @67 – it comes from the phrase ‘Irish bull‘, though I guess most people these days use it as a contraction of bullshit. This definition of RHUBARB is supported by the usual sources.

    Mystogre @60 – yes, I assumed BLENDS was in the sense of colour-matching paints.

70. Just to close out…before we all move on with our lives…

    Thanks to Tramp for popping by at #59 – as it happens, I did see your ‘SWIPE RIGHT’ tweet – like a proud father announcing the birth of a new child!

    It was my parsing that added the ‘sh1t’ to the ‘bull’ in RHUBARB, so apologies for triggering that burst of comments. Chambers does have a simple ‘nonsense’ as one of the definitions for rhubarb, so that probably better matches the gentler ‘bull’ than BS. Anyway correspondence closed!

    And finally, AlanC and Tony Collman – between #62 and #68 – Ossie Ardiles’ mispronunciation was enshrined in the Chas’n’Dave lyrics for the Spurs 1981 FA Cup Final song – ‘Ossie’s Dream (Spurs Are on Their Way to Wembley)’
    “Ossie we’re gonna be behind, you,
    Altogether man for man,
    We know you’re gonna play a blinder
    In de cup for Totting-ham”
    If memory serves me right, Ardiles may even have sung that last line, in self-parody – I’m sure the video will be on U-bend somewhere…
    (Not sure they’d get away with that kind of stereotyping/mocking of accents these days, but it was of its time, and I’m just putting it out there.)

71. crypticsue @30. I have the same problem, remembering my thought processes a week after completing a Saturday “prize” crossword. I like the idea of putting thoughts down on paper, but I’m sure I’d mislay the paper by the end of the week. Thanks to setter and blogger.

72. Mc@70,
    “Ardiles may even have sung that last line”
    Indeed.

73. Widdersbel@69,

    Etymonline is not quite so sure that there’s a straight line between bull and Irish bull (see under n.3):

    “Also of uncertain connection with the bull that means “a gross inconsistency in language, a ludicrous blunder involving a contradiction in terms” (1630s), said by the English to be characteristic of the Irish, and thus often called an Irish bull.”

    To be pedantic, afaik, there’s no dictionary which gives the word ‘bull’ as a definition of RHUBARB, or vice versa, although you can find each of those words defined as “nonsense”.

74. Tony @ 73

    The current Chambers Thesaurus app gives both rhubarb and bull as synonyms for balderdash, with bull indicated as slang.

75. Simon, setters don’t usually use a thesaurus to get synonyms like that. This is because, although two words may have meanings in common with a third term, their individual meanings don’t necessarily overlap.

    However, If A is in the thesaurus under B and B is there under A, that is reasonably good authority to use one for the other. This is not the case with ‘bull’ and RHUBARB (not in Collins or thesaurus.com, anyway). In fact, under RHUBARB, Collins has no synonyms at all, while thesaurus.com has none which are also synonyms of ‘nonsense’ (although it does have argument, controversy, dispute and fight — shall we end this rhubarb now?).

76. No thesaurus needed: my Chambers dictionary gives “nonsense” under “bull” and “rhubarb”, although it does say that the bull one is slang. I can think of a sentence in which they are interchangeable.

    Neil

77. Neil, thanks for showing your working. Sorry if you felt needled into doing so. I guess your sentence might be a bit like Gobbo’s@64.
    Tony

78. Neil, thanks for showing your working. Sorry if you felt needled into doing so. I guess your sentence might be a bit like Gobbo’s@64.

    I was quite confident of the answer when I got it because of the wordplay; I just wasn’t personally familiar with RHUBARB in that meaning.
    I did see ‘nonsense’ in my old BRB, just as you say, so I was never in any doubt about the answer. I’ve enjoyed diversions such as the Irish bull while discussing your clue, so I have you to thank for that, too.

    Cheers
    Tony

79. Thanks Tramp and Mr Rapper though I found it hard to read the parsings in your format.

80. Beaulieu@27, how did you get on with my indirect anagram clue?

    Tease fellow with a stupid cryptic device (7)

    The answer is ANAGRAM. The def is “cryptic device” and the (totally unfair) wordplay is anagram (stupid) of RAG (tease) MAN (fellow) with A.

    Still think indirect anagrams are ok?

81. surprised no objections to 26A LEADERBOARD as 2 words…no Chambers at hand but rolls off the tongue as one word

82. And the last word!…

    tim at #79 – not sure if you mean the tabular format not being very readable on some screens, or my ‘distinctive’ parsing style – either way, I trust you got the gist of most of it

    Siputih at #81 – a bit late to the party, but a valid point – it is one word in the eChambers and eCollins I have access to…

83. Mc, there have been posts formatted as tables which couldn’t be contained within a smartphone (and possibly tablet?) screen and had to be modified somehow by Gaufrid (perhaps he can advise you about that). This is not such a post but in portrait format, the print size has to be reduced to what may not be a comfortable reading size to fit everything on the page. In landscape that’s not a problem, but once you bring up a keyboard to comment, you can’t see what you’re writing that way (on my phone, anyway).

84. Tony Collman@83. You couldn’t have known this at the time, but Gaufrid’s been in hospital incommunicado,

    http://www.fifteensquared.net/2021/10/19/apologies-and-an-explanation/

    We all hope he doesn’t do anything for a while except focus on his recovery.

85. paddymelon, thanks for pointing that out to me. I was aware there was some issue with Gaufrid, but didn’t know what. Hopefully he will be restored to full health soon.

86. @siputh 81 reminds me of my ghastly start to solving – not the AQUARIUS trap for me. Instead I was stubbornly insisting on SCHOOL BOARD for 26a for much longer than was healthy.
    Live, and (occasionally) learn..

87. Very late thanks mc_rapper67, but I always post if the blog has been of significant help and yours certainly was, as I tried this on paper away from internet and failed the fishy tank and MASCOT where I had FATCAT (F = female=maiden, at = meeting as in US streets, cat being lucky in some cultures, and some dubious &Littish def). I agree that your history with Cyclops made this an ideal Saturday G debut! Great crossword which kept me frustrated and delighted for a good while, thanks Tramp.

88. Thanks, Gazzh at #87 – better late than never, and glad to have been of assistance!

    Also thanks to other posters since my ‘last word’: Tony Collman – I’ll see if I can do anything about my table formatting – and TimC…

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