The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/28772.
Definitely a tale of two halves: the upper half fell in almost as fast as I could write them, but the lower required a good deal more thought. I do not know if the IN in the middle row has anything to do with the number of envelopes in the puzzle.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1, 4 | HUGGER-MUGGER |
One embracing violent criminal in secret (6-6)
|
| Definition and literal interpretation; HUGGER (‘one embracing’) plus MUGGER (‘violent criminal’). | ||
| 4 |
See 1
|
|
| 9 | DESIGNER STUBBLE |
Bristles ’e’d begun to groom (8,7)
|
| An anagram (‘to groom’) of ‘bristles ‘e’d begun’). An amusing &lit. | ||
| 10 | CONFAB |
Talk like the Beatles to right-winger (6)
|
| A charade of CON (we’ll take that as an abbreviation for Conservative, ‘right-winger’) plus FAB (Four, the ‘Beatles’), | ||
| 11 | DIRT ROAD |
Clear going back, walked across one unmade track (4,4)
|
| A charade of DIR, a reversal (‘going back’) of RID (‘clear’) plus TROAD, an envelope (‘across’) of A (‘one’) in TROD (‘walked’). | ||
| 12 | SNUGGEST |
Extremely comfortable — advocate getting new investment (8)
|
| An envelope (‘getting … investment’) of N (‘new’) in SUGGEST (‘advocate’). | ||
| 14 | DRIVEL |
Approach large bull (6)
|
| A charade of DRIVE (‘approach’, golf) plus L (‘large’).
As pointed out by ArmchairScot @26 et al, DRIVE as a driveway give a much better fit for ‘approach’. |
||
| 15 | ORANGE |
Female singer on dope cycling in house (6)
|
| A charade of ORA (Rita, ‘female singer’) plus NGE, ‘cycling’ GEN (‘dope’), for the (originally Dutch) Royal house of William III. | ||
| 18 | MASSEUSE |
She manipulates earl during two different services (8)
|
| An envelope (during’) of E (‘earl’) in MASS plus USE (‘two different services’ – one religious, the second as in “no earthly use/service”). | ||
| 21 | TUNELESS |
Clashing with Troy, except if sweetheart intervenes (8)
|
| An envelope (‘intervenes’) of E (‘swEetheart’) in T (‘Troy’, system of weights) plus UNLESS (‘except if’). | ||
| 22 | SPHERE |
Absolute twist in tail describing Spieth’s second round (6)
|
| An envelope (‘describing’) of p (‘sPieth’s second’) in SHERE, which is SHEER (‘absolute’) with the final RE transposed (‘twist in tail’). | ||
| 24 | CHEAT THE GALLOWS |
Those legal? Watch criminal avoid serious punishment (5,3,7)
|
| An anagram (‘criminal’) of ‘those legal watch’. | ||
| 25 | YIELDS |
Returns policy is awful and ultimately needs changing — that is accepted (6)
|
| An envelope (‘accepted’) if IE (‘that is’) in YLDS, an anagram (‘needs changing’) of YSLD (‘policY iS awfuL anD ultimately’). | ||
| 26 | UNITED |
One cadet in uniform’s holding back (6)
|
| A hidden (‘holding’) reversed (‘back’) answer in ‘caDET IN Uniform’. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | HOEDOWN |
I’m surprised, upset and unhappy over Carrie’s last party (7)
|
| An envelope (‘over’) of E (‘CarriE‘s last’) in HO, a reversal (‘upset’) of OH! (‘I’m surprised’) plus DOWN (‘unhappy’). | ||
| 2 | GRIEF |
Foreign travels not on, causing trouble (5)
|
| An anagram (‘travels’) of ‘f[o]reig[n]’ minus the letters ON (‘not on’), with another surface nod to COVID. | ||
| 3 | ENNOBLE |
Posh bloke in rowing venue’s content to get honour (7)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of NOB (‘posh bloke’) in [h]ENLE[y] (‘rowing venue’) minus its outer letters (‘content’). | ||
| 5 | UTTERED |
Spoke total sense at last to Democrat (7)
|
| A charade of UTTER (‘total’) plus E (‘sensEat last’) plus D (‘Democrat’). | ||
| 6 | GABERDINE |
Mac‘s breeding a bastard? (9)
|
| An anagram (‘bastard’) of ‘breeding a’). The definition is a mackintosh coat. | ||
| 7 | RELEASE |
Deliver on contract (7)
|
| A charade of RE (‘on’) plus LEASE (‘contract’). | ||
| 8 | CREDIT |
Praise brief review journalist penned (6)
|
| An envelope (‘penned’) of ED (‘journalist’) in CRIT (‘brief review’). | ||
| 13 | GINGER ALE |
Drink? Ordered lager (English) and a mixer (6,3)
|
| A charade of GIN (‘drink’) plus GERALE, an anagram (‘ordered’) of ‘lager’ plus E (‘English’). | ||
| 16 | ROUGHLY |
Poly associate admits ‘I hated that’!Not exactly (7)
|
| An envelope (‘admits’) of UGH (‘I hated that’) in ROLY (‘poly associate’ as in pudding). | ||
| 17 | ELECTED |
In court in English city, not having succeeded (7)
|
| An envelope (‘in’, the second one) of CT (‘court’) in E (‘English’) plus LEED[s] (‘city’) minus the S (‘not having succeeded’) | ||
| 18 | MASKED |
Millions implored to be socially responsible during pandemic? (6)
|
| A charade of M (‘millions’) plus ASKED (‘implored’). | ||
| 19 | SUSTAIN |
Support country after revolution with reputational damage? (7)
|
| A charade of SU, a reversal (‘after revolution’) of US (‘country’); plus STAIN (‘reputational damage’). | ||
| 20 | SCREWED |
Number here centre banned — day completely ruined (7)
|
| A charade of SC[o]RE (‘number here’ – referring to the clue number) minus the middle letter (‘centre banned’); plus WED (‘day’). | ||
| 23 | HELOT |
Everyone in the group heading off — he wasn’t free (5)
|
| [t]HE LOT (‘the group’) minus the first letter (‘heading off’)). |
I found this to be the hardest puzzle we’ve had in a while. Maybe that’s because I don’t find nested operations that easy to spot, e.g. in YIELDS, SPHERE, SCREWED, but YMMV. I did like the unassuming “In” in ELECTED.
In a lighter vein, I noted that yesterday we had HARUM-SCARUM, today HUGGER-MUGGER and (indirectly) ROLY-POLY. Is this a cross-puzzle theme? ARGY-BARGY tomorrow?
Quite a few favourites!
HUGGER-MUGGER, DESIGNER STUBBLE, ORANGE and ELECTED to state a few.
Thanks, V & P!
Yes, the bottom half was tricky and I failed to parse ORANGE (Rita Ora…. who she??? Ah, a UK singer therefore one to remember for a UK crossword). I did toy with Grande for a while.
I liked the &lit Bristles, the nicely hidden ‘In’ for ELECTED and GABERDINE for the surface.
Nho Ora, so had no idea how the House of Orange got built. And at first I thought poly might go with tech, but you can’t put ugh in that. Yes, bottom half, SW esp, a bit of a slog, a bit of check button to get it over with. How long since anyone saw/heard of a hoedown? … decades for this old boy. Helot, otoh, while also of unlikely use, occasionally occurs in cwland. Dunno if anyone’d actually say No earthly service, PeterO, but maybe How can I be of use/service, but thanks for the blog and thanks to Vlad.
Another one defeated by the never heard of ‘Female singer’ at 15a. I opted for “grange” as the ‘house’ instead, hoping there may be a chanteuse called “Gra” but no such luck of course. Missed the parsing of SCREWED as well.
Favourites were the &lit at 9a and the “blink and you miss it” ‘In’ def for 17d.
Thanks to Vlad and PeterO
Definitely the toughest for a while. Took me quite a bit longer than usual and, ever a trend-bucker, I ran into problems in the NW, rather than the South, with CONFAB, SNUGGEST and HOEDOWN all proving really difficult.
Big ticks for DESIGNER STUBBLE, DRIVEL, SPHERE, ENNOBLE, ROUGHLY and MASKED with top honours going to GABERDINE for the surface. All very clever but I need a lie down now.
Thanks Vlad and PeterO
WP @5: For a while, I went with GRUNGE for 15a, wondering whether it might be the same as ‘house’ (no idea about these modern genres!) but couldn’t rationalise GRU with female singer (but there is a Grimes so who knows?)
I thought I had stumbled into a Prize puzzle by mistake. Solved only three clues on my first pass. Found the lower half easier than than the top half.
I enjoyed the hints of a political/critical theme in the clues. Guessed a few answers from their definitions but I could not parse:
15ac
17d
20d
Liked: TUNELESS, HOEDOWN, ENNOBLE, DESIGNER STUBBLE, GRIEF, GABERDINE, ROUGHLY.
New: HUGGER MUGGER.
Thanks, both.
Hard work. Liked DESIGNER STUBBLE. Is GABERDINE still a thing? That’s what we used to call our school coats decades ago, but I don’t think I’ve heard the word in years.
As for many above the top half seemed much easier. Decided life was too short and checked and cheated my way through the SW. And then still couldn’t parse ROUGHLY or ORANGE. I’ve heard of Rita Ora, whose name always makes think of Kia Ora – which should have led me to orange.
Ah well, can’t win ’em all.
Thanks Vlad, and PeterO for the much needed explanations.
Like Michelle @8 I solved the bottom half first, getting a foothold with CHEAT THE GALLOWS, and working from there. And with everyone else found this tougher than most recent puzzles. Came here to parse ORANGE (I actually know who Rita Ora is, but forgot her existence, as I often do), DIRT ROAD and a couple of others.
Thank you PeterO and Vlad.
Sailed through the top half, sank to the depths in the bottom.
Crossbar @9, gabardine is a fabric, good for jackets or trousers, not as waterproof as the modern technical (plastic) fabrics, so out of favour for coats.
Agree with those above. LOIs TUNELESS, ORANGE, and ROUGHLY. Also heard of Rita but didn’t click the house.
Really liked MASKED, made me smile.
Thanks Vlad and PeterO
Like many, I found the top half easier than the bottom and was a DNF in the SW failing on 15 and 21 ac. But this was a super puzzle and much enjoyed. Lots of groan producing misdirection especially 17dn. Thanks to Vlad and PeterO.
BTW shouldn’t 1 dn be Carrie’s last work event!!
I was another who found the top more accessible than the bottom. I liked the poly associate. I had heard of Rita Ora but she didn’t come to mind. Can you clue a noun (SPHERE) solely by its adjectival attribute (round)?
JerryG @14: the fact that Carrie was there would suggest that it wasn’t. 😉
Shanne@12
I think that the top half was hard for me because I was not familiar with (or had forgotten) the phrase HUGGER MUGGER. Once I solved that, the top half became easier for me but I had already solved all of the lower half at that point.
An enjoyable challenge from Vlad.
I particularly liked CONFAB (for years I thought it was ‘conflab’), SNUGGEST, TUNELESS, ROUGHLY, ELECTED and GABERDINE (see here for the interesting derivation).
Thanks to Vlad and PeterO.
Getting HUGGER MUGGER straightaway helped hugely with the top half which I managed to solve and parse quite quickly.
But although I got CHEAT THE GALLOWS immediately, like others, I really struggled with the bottom half and even when I got answers couldn’t parse some – and ended up revealing the last few.
Thanks Vlad and PeterO
Eileen@16, as a wonderful old colleague of mine used to say, never let the facts get in the way of a decent argument!! Or as Grant Shapps said last week, Boris ‘in his mind doesn’t recognise that as a party.’
Annoyingly, I guessed “elected” early on but didn’t put it in because I couldn’t parse it or find a good definition. I thought that perhaps a leader might inherit i.e. succeed to their post or be elected, but it clearly didn’t work.
The two big anagrams provided a useful start, but the rest was far from easy, and I ended up revealing ORANGE and HELOT. Didn’t spot Henley in ENNOBLE, either, and couldn’t parse SCREWED (Number here? Oh yes, very clever, Vlad).
Anyway, I liked DESIGNER STUBBLE, the poly associate and the topical surface of HOEDOWN, among others.
I have heard of Rita Ora, but she’s very far from the first female singer to come to mind. However, she provides such a useful group of letters that she’s probably going to become as ubiquitous as Cher.
18d is so Grauniad. The penny never drops for some.
HUGGER MUGGER FOI. On a roll.
I thought the female singer was Aimee Osbourne aka ARO. Wordplay could almost justify that.
I was screwed on SCREWED.
Vlad was kind on the long’uns.
17D def ‘In”, ELECTED. Loved it.
Querying the parsing of 14a. DRIVE is not an approach (shot) in golf, but it is to a house.
Petert @15 I don’t think you can give ‘sphere’ as a definition for ’round’ – it would have to be ‘spherical’.
Overall, this was way too convoluted to me. I can see that it’s very clever, but throw a couple of DNKs in (Hugger mugger, Helot) and this made for a less than fun experience here.
Enjoyed it but also never heard of Rita Ora!
Definitely a game of two halves. Loved ROUGHLY & HELOT, not so keen on SNUGGEST
I was dreaming up two-word clues while walking the dog and one of them was “little sweetheart” which came in handy today 🙂
[Shanne@12 I think I was probably vaguely aware of the fabric, but it’s the coat that sticks in my mind. The whole garment was referred to as a GABERDINE. It was bottle green, and had a hood. I quite liked it, but not the ghastly hats we were supposed to wear. ]
Miles above level, only got 2 answers.
Looking forward to reading the answers.
Thanks Vlad and Peter.
Crossbar, Shanne et al: very rare for me to paste in a quotation, and from the Bard to boot! But gaberdine does feature in one of my favourites from the Merchant of Venice:
Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my moneys and my usances:
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,
I’m with PeterO- top half a virtual write-in then hard work for the bottom half. Not helped by the grid which had only the 2 linking letters. It was like doing two puzzles.
Plenty to enjoy esp ROUGHLY, ELECTED, TUNELESS and MASKED (what a surface!)
I do know Rita Ora but it took forever for that penny to drop. Failed to parse SCREWED.
Thanks Vlad and PeterO
Re 18a, USE can mean a religious rite- the Sarum Use, for example.
In 20d, the “number here” trick is clever, but unless I’m missing something, the surface reading is gibberish.
Just finished, after revisiting several times. Very satisfying. The last to hold out was ORANGE. Wordplodder@5 – I flirted with GRANGE, but couldn’t justify GRA, so carried on. Remembered House can be a Royal House, and worked through all I could think of back to the Normans. Then just looked for words -R-NGE, came up with ORANGE, and bingo! I have heard of Rita Ora, but I couldn’t pick her out of an identity line-up. Showing my age I suspect.
ArmchairScot@26 – I also thought of Drive as an approach to a rather grand house, rather than a golf shot. But I think either works (I am not a golfer, so prepared to be corrected).
Really struggled to complete the SW corner, especially with the cluing/clueing? of ORANGE, TUNELESS and ELECTED. I do think at times that Vlad pushes the boundaries somewhat with what is and is not acceptable as crossword “convention”, if such a thing exists. Especially with some of the definitions of the words/solutions. However I did enjoy the roller coaster ride until I got to that aforementioned chewy South-Western section….
ArmchairScot @26 That was my thought too. Despite having been born in St Andrews, my knowledge of golf is rather limited and certainly not derived from ever playing it; however, I would have thought of a chip, not a drive, as an approach shot, so I am glad that someone else Scottish agrees. In solving I certainly saw the ‘approach’ as to a house, not to a green.
[PostMark@32 That’s v interesting. I hadn’t realised what an old pedigree GABERDINE has as a garment. M of V is not one of the Bard’s works I’m very familiar with. ]
Thanks for the blog, Vlad on top form today , both long anagrams very neat . TUNEFUL, ROUGHLY and SPHERE cleverly put together , in fact the whole puzzle was a welcome change for the Guardian.
Chambers 93 – Round n circle or GLOBE Sphere vt to ROUND .
Also I agree with our Scottish golf experts, I never thought about golf, just a drive as the approach to a house.
Ludicrously difficult compared with other Wednesdays
The drive to my house is about 10 yards – doubt I could manage that much with a golf club!
(That’s about 9.14 metres btw)
Roz@40 Of course I must defer to Chambers, but I am struggling to think of a context where I would use round as a noun to denote something three-dimensional, or sphere as a verb.
Petert @ 44 I would tend to agree but it does give Vlad cover.
Actually my Eastern European students have a saying in football , which I have to frown at of course.
They say – The ball is round – I think it means some teams are lucky.
Nice puzzle, got all but three last night — SCREWED (guessed it but couldn’t parse), TUNELESS and ORANGE (hadn’t a clue, struggled with “grange”)
Never heard of Rita Ora, which slowed me down some.
For 18A, I thought I was supposed to put an anagram of “earl” inside two two-letter military services. Anybody else?
Thanks, Vlad and PeterO.
PT@44 & ROZ@45 et al – Isn’t ROUND/SPHERE also what we might call a “definition by description” just as “she manipulates” describes the MASSEUSE rather than being a direct synonym?
Roz@45 You would think it would mean the opposite, with the ball being the same from every direction.
Bodycheetah@47 I think the definition would then have to be “it’s round” .
bodycheetah@47 I am quite happy with it, Chambers gives support in both directions and I have heard an example of usage.
For your description I would prefer “something ” round , as in “she” manipulates.
Personally I am glad to see setters pushing the boundaries instead of giving everything away as usual.
I used to find Vlad’s puzzles rather a challenge, but recent offerings have seemed surprisingly accessible to me. This was the Impaler back to his old form! An excellent crossword.
I started off badly, thinking that ‘criminal’ in 1,4ac was an anagrind, and nothing much around it was springing to mind, so I worked from the bottom up. A lot of clever clues and the occasional topical reference, which is customary for Vlad. The two long anagrams are splendid.
LOI for me was ORANGE, which I did manage to parse; I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the dreaded indirect anagram here (*GEN) 🙂
Thanks to Jim and PeterO
As the prime suspect for frowning at indirect anagrams I must say this one is okay, GEN is “cycled ” .
Petert perhaps something is lost in translation , I will not ask them in case they imagine I am interested in football.
As proof that Roz and Chambers are right and I was wrong (nothing new here) Paradise Lost “To the uttermost convex Of this great Round”
The full ball is round saying was The ball is round and the game lasts 90 minutes, meaning anything is possible.
Hard for all the wrong reasons, i.e. bad cluemanship.
I wasn’t happy with the part of speech for SNUGGEST either, and ow on earth is one to get ORA, even if you have heard of her?
tlp @53: Re SNUGGEST, we’ve had this quibble before. You need to interpret ‘extremely’ as ‘to the fullest extent’ (which is what it really means, after all) and not just ‘very’, in which case it works perfectly well as an indicator for a superlative. Works for me.
Well I do hope it wasn’t from me!
the last plantagenet@53. I got ORA by getting ORANGE as a House first (I had all the crossers, and had worked out NGE), then realising she is a singer. I think if I hadn’t already heard of her, my next move would have been to google Ora Singer, which would have found her. Not precisely a Jorum, but in the same family.
I put in « masses » for 18d , thinking of us millions of asses for being socially responsible while Carrie and her Bo enjoyed their 1downs.
Wow! I thought Anto’s puzzle this week was hard but that was nothing! I gave up and had to reveal almost half the answers and even then I couldn’t parse ORANGE, SPHERE or TUNELESS without PeterO’s aid. Hopefully we’ll get some mercy tomorrow.
Wholly agree with all those who found the top half OK and the bottom half maddeningly difficult. I gave up and hit the Cheat Word button for the last quarter of the puzzle. Even then I found that I couldn’t parse many of the ones I’d revealed, so came here to see what I missed. Some of the parsings are very convoluted, verging on to unfairly so in my humble opinion… (SPHERE, ELECTED, ORANGE)
Ah well, tomorrow’s a new day!
P.S. I did enjoy the topical 1d 🙂
Thanks PeterO as I didn’t get the “number here” ref – figured on score as any number (eg cricket score) but thought it a bit vague, so now all ok. I am with Moth@35, only because I finally winkled out the last complex bit of wordplay (of TUNELESS), putting to bed all the memories of the old hard Vlad puzzles that I never quite finished. And like Eileen@18 I always thought it was Conflab – but this should stick now! Thanks for a rewarding challenge Vlad.
Valentine@46 I tried all sorts of things for 18A and several others hence lateness of post.
The Last Plantagenet@53 I wonder if anyone got ORANGE from wordplay alone – Roz as the definition is at the end did you solve before you got there? Anyway I have heard of Rita Ora (but found the “female” very misleading, no doubt as intended) so didn’t need to subsequently google, but there are plenty of more classical refs where I do need to, I just accept that my GK is not all-encompassing and thank the Cryptic gods for giving us more than one way to skin a cat.
Thanks for the comments.
offspinner@34 Think the surface in 20dn is fine. Some in the group were banned by the (sports?) centre, thereby ruining the day.
captaingrimes@23 – I’m afraid the penny hasn’t dropped for me, because I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
A challenge, but worth it for the surfaces to HOEDOWN and MASKED: the best clues this week, and certainly this month.
Thanks for replying Vlad, but I can’t get “some in the group” from “number here”.
Very tough but not at all for the reason suggested in Comment 53.
I concur with the “top half not quite so hard” team.
Thanks to Vlad for keeping me on my toes; I always learn a lot from Vlad puzzles and they are well worth it for such delightful bits as the echo phrase 1,4a HUGGER-MUGGER. I also appreciate blogs like this one from PeterO, which also help me to learn and understand how the clues work.
Offspinner @ 64 – number here liked the crossword and do not care about surfaces as long as the clues are challenging.
Gazzh @ 60 I would prefer not to have heard about Rita Ora but my students like to annoy me , the key word in the clue is DOPE which is nearly always GEN in a short clue, this leaves a three letter singer, four letters would almost certainly be Cher. It must end in ENG or NGE ( not an anagram ) so not much choice really.
Re the surface of 20dn
To begin with I shared Offspinner’s discombobulation, but I now think it does make sense, albeit (and apologies for the presumption!) a slightly different kind of sense from the one suggested by Vlad @61.
It relies on two conventions/constructions common in crossword clues:
(1) the use of ‘newspaper headline style’, in which ‘a’, ‘the’, and parts of the verb ‘to be’ are omitted to save space.
MAN BITES DOG = (a) man bites (a) dog
MAN BITTEN BY DOG = (a) man (has been) bitten by (a) dog
MAJORITY IN UK ALLERGIC TO CROSSWORDS – (a) majority in (the) UK (are) allergic to crosswords
(2) the ‘man I saw’ construction
‘the man I saw’ = ‘the man that/whom I saw’
Now, if the clue had read ‘Number here banned by centre – day completely ruined’, it could indeed mean, as per Vlad @61, ‘A number (of us) here have been banned by the (eg sports) centre – thereby ruining the day’.
But it doesn’t say that, it combines headline-speak with the construction at (2) above –
i.e. ‘Number here centre banned – day completely ruined’ = ‘There are a number here whom the centre banned – day completely ruined’.
In other words, it is not the spoil-sporty action of the sports centre that has ruined our day, but the arrival (‘here’), amongst our previously well-behaved party, of a number of miscreants and renegades, whose previous shenanigans had led to their being declared personae non gratae by the sports centre, which has put the kibosh on our well-laid plans.
Ingenious, Essexboy, but too tortuous for me.
[MrEssexboy@67 , the other day I “read” through all the clues after a puzzle at the prompting of Robi, I then wished I hadn’t . They read like bad Daily Express headlines, your comment above explains why. I will never “read” them again.]
tough unenjoyable grind over a couple of days. Overly convoluted and only my sad need to complete everything got me to the end. Not the best definitions – SNUGGEST would be better as most comfortable than extremely comfortable, TUNELESS is not necessarily clashing, nor vice versa, RELEASE for deliver is not wrong, but weak I think, SUSTAIN, UNITED and GRIEF were my favourites for concise clueing. Glad to learn of HELOT my LOI and a guess based on the crossers). And my usual bug bear of using a word to clue its first letter, in today’s case succeeded = s in the clue for ELECTED. Thanks Peter O and Vlad.
Well done Paul for persevering , in the past I have been known to keep a Saturday puzzle with me all week. These blogs are wonderful but perhaps a little too tempting sometimes for people who have not finished.
I regret knowing this but RELEASE/DELIVER is used for bowlers in cricket letting go of the ball.
S=succeeded is used to label a family tree , especially for posh people, MrEssexboy will know more.
I was completely with Paul @70 until he griped about ‘succeeded’=S. This is standard fare, a bit like complaining that ‘south’=S. 🙂
Much too hard for me, with almost a quarter blank. I assume that Roz wasn’t twiddling her thumbs for any portion of her 20 minute journey. 😉
As Paul@70 TUNELESS isn’t clashing which about discord.
Struggled with the several variations on “swap” a few letters.
Thanks both
Thanks Roz@71. I was definitely in a grumpy mood when I wrote my comment! I had forgotten about the cricket (and perhaps other sports like baseball and softball?) use of release/ deliver. My gripe about s for succession (and 72@sheffield hatter) is not that it isn’t correct or allowed, or even fairly common in crosswords. It’s just my personal distaste for the trick (which is why I always preface the complaint with ‘my personal/ usual bugbear’). Just my opinion that there seem to be so many of these and it strikes me as a slightly lazy way to complete a clue when other wordplay won’t quite provide a fit. But I am well aware that my position is a minority one! And thanks to Tim@73 too. My resolution today is to wait until I am in a better mood before unleashing my prejudices on this forum!