Guardian Cryptic 28,908 by Vulcan

104 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,908 by Vulcan”

1. Thank you PeterO
   I quite liked this and found it chewy in places, mostly due to lack of GK eg MESSIAH (Lionel), GIFT AID (the UK tax policy), and didn’t know ramp meaning swindle, but all gettable one way or another. I can’t find a justification for the definition of PEARL as a stone.

   Small things: I would have preferred the clue for GREGORIAN to be “This chant, eg, roaring out.” eg at the front looked odd, made the surface less meaningful, and drew attention to the fodder. I wondered if there were meant to be ellipses between 8 and 14.

   And perhaps DREAM TEAM “An ideal couple of rhymes” ?

   Thoroughly misdirected by the Myrtle blossoms in TERMLY. Without crossers, I thought there might be a common name/variant EMBERS (3 times a year). [Embarrassed emoji]

   Favourites SLAP-UP and TOP GEAR.

2. Harder than the Quiptic, but not greatly so. Two good Monday puzzles. I am still struggling with the bottom half of Saturday’s Prize, or maybe that should be stumped.

   PM@1; I think a pearl is considered a precious stone by jewelers.
   Thanks both.

3. Nothing too difficult, although a few oddities. I couldn’t parse 7d, only now to discover it depends on knowledge of an obscure British diarist. Hadn’t heard of Lionel Messi either, but managed to trawl him up in Google. I didn’t think much of the clues for DREAM TEAM or RUMBA.

4. I liked most of this, but had a couple of the tiniest quibbles.

   You get Na by first translating SODIUM into Latin, then contracting.

   The wordplay in TOP GEAR was built into the name of the show, so it’s not as if it’s a second meaning.

   Still, a nice job for a Monday.

   P.S. to GDU@3. I grew up in the UK and would not have called Pepys obscure; don’t know if others had the same reaction.

5. Dr. WhatsOn @ 4, I’m pretty sure that if I stopped a hundred people here in the street and asked if they’d heard of Pepys, the result would be zero or near. I’m sure he’d be better known in the UK.

   But I apologise if I’ve upset anyone, and am hunkering down for the criticism. 🙁

6. NHO Termly, and wasn’t keen on the crossing You Wait. Rather a lot of half-formed clues, I thought.

7. No he’s not the Messiah (or a naughty boy), but no doubt his fans have sung the odd hallelujah. Dnk the term gift aid, guessing it might be when you buy a voucher that pays for something in a developing country. GDU @5, it might depend which postcode you did your survey in. Haven’t seen shiftless for aeons, one of those nice old words. Thanks VnPO.

8. Like paddymelon @1 I would question rock for PEARL. Certainly a gem, but not a rock. I also found YOU WAIT to be almost a quickie.
   Favourites were SETTER, SODIUM and SLAP UP for the reversal.

9. Embarrassed that I forgot about the chemical symbol for Sodium and so failed to understand the clue. Fair play to Vulcan for a good clue. Took me longer than normal for a Monday. I’m also belong to those who don’t consider Pepys by any means obscure. The diaries are a fascinating glimpse into 17th century London, including the plague and the Great Fire, and the normal level of political corruption at that time. Thanks to PeterO and Vulcan.

10. It’s interesting to reflect on how many ‘famous diarists’ there are; I’d certainly put Pepys right at the top of the list of the more classical options alongside Anne Frank. More recent fictional competition would include Adrian Mole and Bridget Jones. But it’s fair to acknowledge he’s UK focused GK (GDU@3: amongst other things, he lived through our only execution of a reigning monarch, the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London which were all Big Things).

    As so often on a Monday, a crisp and straightforward puzzle but not without its little tasty moments. TERMLY, GOSLING and SLAP-UP were favourites with COTD shared between the delightful (well, the delightfully constructed) PENDANT and the lovely MESSIAH (I am showing my age: first Lionel I thought of was Bart followed by Blair)

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO

11. Geoff Down Under @3: No need to hunker down, you make a perfectly valid observation. I, for one would reply ‘Pepys’ to the request to name a famous diarist, although I liked PM’s list, too.

    Not too keen on Top Gear for the reason given by Doc What, and felt RUMBA needed work.

    Ashamed now at my ‘?’ to the SODIUM clue.

    I do hope our regular contributor GLADYS drops in.

    Many thanks, both.

12. Just a reminder that The Guardian is a British daily newspaper, and that the GK is aimed at them. Didn’t parse Sodium, but now that I know, I like it.

13. PostMark @ 10: I had the exact same initial thoughts with regard to Lionels: though I think Blair might have been a bit too obscure, in contrast with the musical genius that was Bart (albeit for one work). However, Handel and Messiah clearly go together, and Messi soon came to mind. PS I agree that Pepys and Frank must be the most famous diarists of all time.

14. Given that Pepys is almost certainly the most famous British diarist, it seems fair to regard the fact he was a diarist as reasonable general knowledge for English speakers. If not, you can easily see it is probably a name and look it up. Diarist would probably appear in the first line of any definition.
    If for example Goethe were used to indicate a poet, I think that would be fair general knowledge in a crossword even though probably most English speakers might regard this as obscure.

15. Pretty much what maddymelon@1 said. Also liked GLADYS. Thanks Vulcan and PeterO.

16. Crispy@6 – the Guardian may have started in Manchester but it now has editions for Australia and America. I regularly find I’ve followed stories into one or the other in the app. So I’m not sure that it’s fair to keep telling Australian and American solvers who may well be subscribers to their own country’s edition that, effectively, they shouldn’t be upset that the crossword is parochially English.

    As usual, I find Vulcan challenging, particularly the cryptic clues like YOU WAIT and RUMBA, that I find unsatisfying. PEARL was one of my last in as I discounted it as impossible as inaccurate until I had all the crosses.

    Thank you to PeterO and Vulcan.

17. Sorry Crispy @12

18. Was the placing of TRAMP, A CUT ABOVE and SETTER together a deliberate tribute? I found that sub-vocalising Lionel with an English pronunciation, slowed me down in getting Messi.

19. I didn’t know ramp=swindle, not sure that a PEARL is technically a stone, and always thought that N/A stood for Not Applicable (clever clue). And for a while the only bird beginning G_S that I could think of was a goshawk, which didn’t parse. But SETTER made me smile, and I got a namecheck describing me as a Grand Woman, so I’m happy! Thanks, Vulcan.

20. Nho “ramp” for swindle. As an erstwhile chemist, I failed to parse SODIUM: thought n/a meant “not applicable”. I have Pepys by my bed.
    Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO

21. Thanks, Vulcan – for me, this was bang in the sweet spot of what a Monday puzzle should be, both fun and accessible. A lovely penny drop moment for SODIUM made it my top favourite, also very much enjoyed MESSIAH, TERMLY and others I could mention…

    Quibbling over whether or not a pearl is a “stone” seems excessively pedantic to me.

    Thanks for the blog, PeterO.

    Petert @18 – a well-deserved tribute if so!

22. If gallstones are stones, then I reckon a PEARL must qualify too.
    (We crossed, gladys@19.)

23. Paul@15. I love maddymelon. I think I’ll change my moniker.

    @Shanne and others. Always happy to fess up to lack of UKGK. That’s what I expect when tackling British crosswords. For me it adds another dimension, an extra challenge, and I feel fortunate. I enjoy being taken out of my (hemi)sphere and learning something new from Guardian cryptics and bloggers. I did know Samuel Pepys. Went to the pub in London in the mid 70s. Learned something there as well, but that’s another story. 🙂

24. gladys@19. Congrats on your honourable mention!

25. Shanne @16 / 17. I appreciate that. I didn’t say that non-UK subscribers shouldn’t be upset, simply that there is an explanation for what you call parochialism. The crossword is set for the paper version, and I don’t think its
    unreasonable that the crossword should be aimed at that readership. Interesting that I haven’t seen too many comments about Top Gear, a UK television series.

26. GDU @3 – Pepys was probably the most important chronicler of political life in 17th century Britain. I guess you have the excuse that he predates your whole country, but I would still bet that a decent proportion of your 100 random people would have heard of him.

    William @11 – Mole, Pooter, Pepys would be my top three, in that order, if asked to name people who were most famous for writing a diary. Jones if you wanted four. Beyond that, I’d be struggling. Among those, Pepys has the virtue of being non-fictional.

27. Very Monday-ish, marginally trickier than the quiptic but only a few minutes in it.

    A few folk have commented that they thought ‘N/A’ meant ‘not applicable’ rather than ‘not available’ but in Vulcan’s defence the clue does say “could be not available”. A PEARL is a gemstone and a birthstone and so calling it a ‘stone’ is fair game I reckon. I didn’t know RAMP for ‘swindle’ but it fell into place anyway. Regarding DIREST, I’m just pleased that the discussion of whether it’s fair GK has so far distracted people from complaining about the homophone! 🙂

    Thanks both.

28. That’s because we have Televisions in Australia along with programs such as Top Gear Crispy @25

29. Pepys – I am sure that if you stopped a dozen Aussies, some of them would have heard of him, GDU @5. He would certainly have made my list of famous diarists long before I ever lived in the UK. I am surprised, though, at the lack of the homophone police turning up at the equivalence of diarist/direst, because I predicted they would. [Ducks for cover]. I doubt many in GDU’s 100 Aussies would know ramp = swindle, though. We had Bart/Blair too. Putting DRIFTLESS (which fits the clue) made BIASED our LOI. Thanks, Vulcan and PeterO.

30. Very nice indeed and I had the same thought as you Petert @18, re TRAMP and SETTER. Also pleased that GDU took the hit to deflect the homophone debate as Rob T @27 mentions. I thought PEARL was a singer rather than a stone and a nice name heck for GLADYS. I had RED FLAG instead of YOU WAIT for much too long. HOGWEED is my earworm for the day https://youtu.be/BSkgwCpuZwk

    Ta Vulcan & PeterO.

31. I’m just glad we didn’t have a homophone of Pepys.

32. Auriga @20: I have Pepys by my bed. And so … you do! (Which is probably excessively parochial knowledge but there you go 😉 )

33. Thanks Vulcan and PeterO
    I wonder why Vulcan felt the need to include “coarse” in13a? I suppose it is a coarse plant, but “coarse” doesn’t add anything useful to the clue.
    I didn’t like 22a either. “From” is out of place, and a look round isn’t necessarily casual.
    I agree that RUMBA is very loose.
    Favourite ARCHETYPE.

34. For once the homophone question isn’t rhoticism but whether your pronunciation is a careful di-a-rist or a casual die-rist. I winced a bit, but had no trouble getting the answer.

35. Tim C @28. You also have books and the internet, and, therefore , the means to know about Pepys.

36. Fairly gentle for a Monday, although I knew neither RAMP nor TRAMP. Pepys and Messi both very fair game I think.

    Thanks both.

37. I had no trouble with Pepys Crispy @35

38. With MESSI and GIFT AID arriving early I thought we might be in for a tax avoidance theme 🙂

    Ticks for SLAP UP, DREAM TEAM & DIARIST for the homophoney

    And GLADYS was pleasantly concise

    Cheers V&O

39. Re TOP GEAR – my very ordinary Skoda has 6 gears. I’ll go back to sleep now.

40. Good start to the week.

    Widdersbel @26; I’m surprised that you would struggle to name Anne Frank as PM @10 and Nuntius @13 have suggested.

    I liked TOP GEAR, it wasn’t obvious to me, SLAP UP because I like reverse clues, and SODIUM, where both Chambers and the ODE give ‘not available’ as well as not applicable.

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO.

41. Pepys didn’t cause me any trouble, though I haven’t read more than a few excerpts. I didn’t like the SODIUM clue, as Na is not a contraction but a symbol (yes, I know it comes from Natrium, but that doesn’t excuse the clueing)

42. Robi @40 – I skim read the comments and missed those mentions, but of course, I really should have thought of Anne Frank too!

    I could name others who have famously written diaries but that’s not what they’re *most* famous for – eg Capt Scott, Virginia Woolf, Kenneth Williams, Tony Benn… And not forgetting Hitler, although his diaries turned out to be written by someone else.

43. Windersbel @21: I beg to differ. If you did a World wide survey I’ve little doubt that Anne Frank would come top in the context of diaries. According to Wiki there are 270 schools named after her, and there have been several films. Children across the Globe are taught about her as a way to understand the Holocaust. That said, with a reasonably well educated (well read) person I think they might come up with Pepys before Frank.

44. Found this a little more difficult to get into than normal, though eventually enjoyed the ride. Had absolutely no idea how MOPEDS or SODIUM worked, so many thanks for the enlightenment, Peter O…

45. You can all relax. I’ve heard of Anne Frank. Might even have read it! 🙂

46. SODIUM was the only one I couldn’t parse, d’oh, so thanks PeterO.
    Up late this morning, no idea why as bed early last night, slept nearly 10 hours!
    Didn’t affect my Monday brain though. Thanks Vulcan.
    Thanks also to the other bloggers, what fun! I have even read a biography of Samuel Pepys, also great fun., written by Claire Tomalin, FYO.

47. FYI, sorry

48. Definitely UK-centric, and betraying my age, but Mrs Dale came to mind after Pepys and Evelyn as a famous diarist.

49. SinCam@46…Claire Tomalin a wonderful biographer – also of Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, H.G.Wells and Charles Dickens, not forgetting his “invisible woman” Nelly Ternan…

50. Dr. WhatSon @4 and poc @41
    You seem to be criticising chemists for their choice of Na as the symbol for sodium. I do not see what this has to do with the clue for 19D.

51. @7 Grantinfreo – gift aid is a UK tax relief scheme that encourages charitable giving. If a donor declares they have paid tax on their donation (usually through income tax) and gives the charity permission, the charity can reclaim that tax from the government. Charities then benefit from an extra 25p in every £1.

52. N@43 I think Bridget Jones might get the top spot 🙂

53. Learning that RAMP can mean swindle casts new light on the overuse of the expression “ramp up”, in the UK anyway, suggesting the spokespeople using it may be trying to fool the listener?

54. Like many Ramp meaning swindle was new to me.

    I seem to be the only person who didn’t know that “singular” indicated just the letter S?

55. Crispy @25, Top Gear was the BBC’s biggest earner in overseas sales for a long time. It’s why they tolerated Clarkson for so long. (The warm up for an edition of Any Questions where I was in the audience was someone at the business end of the BBC. He ended up talking about how sales revenue supported the BBC and how much Top Gear made. I can’t remember how we got there but someone did ask why Jeremy Clarkson wasn’t being sacked for something egregious at some point in the discussion.)

56. Jacob@54 – not one I’ve come across specifically, but it’s the sort of word that could easily have ‘s’ as an abbreviation in a recipe or something. I’ve found I’ve got quite good at thinking ‘sure, that could have a single-letter abbreviation’ even where I don’t know it already.

57. Did not finish this puzzle. Failed 18d and 24ac – never heard of the boat and did not know that RAMP = swindle.

    Liked HOGWEED (a new word for me).

    Thanks, both.

58. Good Monday fare.

    I enjoyed the anagram clues for ARCHETYPE and A CUT ABOVE, and the grisly one for PENDANT.

    The clue for SODIUM is a little odd, as poc @41 notes, though it didn’t give me any trouble – I just don’t think it needs the ‘if contracted’. We quite often see I, He and As as disguised definitions.

    I didn’t know the expression OP ED but I would always avoid the boo-word ‘obscure’ (= ‘I didn’t know it 🙂 ). The solution was what it had to be, anyway.

    Thanks to S&B

59. Is TERMLY really a word? Does anybody actually use it? It looks horrible.

    RAMP as swindle is a new ‘un on me. Apparently it’s British slang. Another new ‘un is GIFT AID, which google tells me is a tax measure, with an incomprehensible explanation. Pipit’s at 51 is help. Apparently giving to charity doesn’t lower your tax bill, as it does in the US. Here if you donate $100 you can deduct that from your taxable income, thus lowering your tax bill by some percentage of the $100.

    I’m American and I too think of Pepys is far from obscure.

    I’m another “not applicable,” not “not available.”

    Nice Monday puzzle, thanks Vulcan and PeterO.

60. PeterO@50 criticism of chemists was the furthest from my mind. Using symbols from the Latin name was done elsewhere too – K and W spring to mind. I was just pointing out that Na was not a contraction of sodium, but a contraction of Natrium.

61. Correction – Wolfram was German, not Latin. Sorry

62. [Valentine @59: In the UK donations to charity don’t offset income tax, but bequests to charity do reduce inheritance tax (estate tax) liability. BTW I agree with you about TERMLY.

    Dr WhatsOn @60: You’re quite right about chemical symbols often being derived from a Latin name – Fe, Au, Ag, Sn, Pb etc – it’s unfortunate that you quoted W, which is from the German ‘wolfram’]

63. Apologies – we crossed!

64. Gervase @ 58 I read the ‘if contracted’ as applying to ‘not available’.

65. Valentine @59 I don’t know how it works in the US but in the UK standard rate taxpayers don’t usually have to fill in any tax forms for income, it’s all handled by your employer. If you do fill in a tax form, you could offset charitable donations against your income but in any case it’s simpler to fill in a Gift Aid declaration and let the charity sort it out. Many, probably most, zoos and museums are charities and encourage you to do this when you pay.

66. Gosh! What a lot of complaints! I’m sure we’ve discussed ‘stone’=PEARL before, and I passed quickly on this time.

    Maybe Pepys would be better known if he’d spelt his name as it sounds: Peeps. 🙂 And it would have to be a particularly pedantic speaker who made a point of saying “dia-rist”.

    SODIUM is ‘contracted’ when reduced to its chemical symbol Na; there’s no need to go through a pupal stage by translating it into Latin first.

    I think YOU WAIT is in effect a contraction of “just you wait till your father gets home”, with the threat of corporal punishment to a miscreant child. And it shares a final letter with the crossing PENDANT with its (as PeterO terms it) “ghoulish” reference to a form of capital punishment. One could wish that both were completely anachronistic.

    Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO.

67. I’m sad to say that I remember this Benny Hill poem, with the “chorus” “naughty Samuel peeps”

68. Valentine @59 – yes, TERMLY is absolutely a word. In the UK the educational year is divided into terms, not semesters; therefore, termly reports and termly assessments are common currency.

69. Higher rate tax payers can indeed get a tax rebate with Gift Aid: you can claim the difference between the rate you pay and basic rate on your donation.

70. Fairly standard Monday fare although I liked the clear succinct clueing eg for TERMLY and GLADYS

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO

71. Thank to Vulcan for a excellent start ito the week. Thx also to PeterO for the blog.

72. Thanks for the blog, a great name check for Gladys, agree with Spooner’s Catflap, I use the word TERMLY frequently.
    MrPostMark@10, you forgot Nobody, although it was meant to be a secret.

73. As a foreigner I too had trouble with RAMP, GIFT AID, and even WEED (though not Pepys).

    But what fun would the Grauniad crossword be without the quaint Britishisms?

74. Muffin@33, I read “weed” in 13A as “went for the coarse” in that it is more explicit.

    Thanks to Vulcan for some Monday entertainment.

75. Postmark@10 said exactly what I would have said, so I won’t.

    Since Pepys wrote about the Great Plague, the Great Fire of London, the execution of Charles I, and being chased around the house by his wife wielding a carving knife, would you call him the direst of diarists?

76. TimSee @74
    Thanks – that explains it!

77. Among famous diarists, nobody’s mentioned Anais Nin. I haven’t read her work, but at least I’ve heard of it.

78. Couldn’t parse SODIUM but now I think it’s the best clue of the lot.
    But ‘blossoms’ as an anagram indicator?
    And though I got TRAMP (partly due to the fact that I couldn’t think of anything else once the crossers were in – I immediately hit the check button) I felt like I was looking at a clue for another answer entirely. Didn’t know of swindle/ramp or indeed the solution being a cargo boat. Yer lives an’ yer learns.

79. Steve @78. When a tree changes from being covered in buds to being covered in flowers, it ‘blossoms’, does it not?

80. Tramp steamers are quite common in the works of Joseph Conrad and the stories of Uncle Albert from OFAH.

81. A blue symbol of a coffee cup has appeared on this page… dare I risk seeing what happens….if I ….?
    Thanks both

82. [I wouldn’t risk clicking on it. I’ve mentioned it on the Site Feedback link.]

83. sheffield hatter @79. Yes, I’ll give you that, thanks. Although it still feels just a tad tenuous pour moi. Either way, between that and the solution, which is not a word I’m familiar with, it was one of my last in and only seen after the crossers were in place.
    Cheers again from someone whose first home was on the then main road between Sheff and Manc, the Woodhead Rd.

84. Two enjoyable and tractable puzzles in one day. My slightly raised eyebrow at the direst homophone was due to the pronunciation difference between -ist and -est, but I think a homophone clue is justified if it would work as a pun.

    I very much liked SODIUM. My pedantry wasn’t triggered by it.

85. Roz @80 – I initially considered TRAMP because of the tramp steamers you mention, but dismissed it on the dual grounds that I didn’t know ramp=swindle, and that tramp never (in my experience) appears without the steamer attached – until the crossers made it obvious. Monkey @84 – for me, it was both the missing ‘a’ and the ‘ist’/’est’ difference that made me wonder about the homophone.

86. Thanks muffin … read feedback and won’t click on the cup

87. Tassie Tim John Masefield “The Esmeralda, casual tramp from Hull towards the Hook Wi one of the brand of Cain for mate and a human mistake for a cook.

88. tim the toffee @86
    You are very wise not to click on a link which should not be there. However, if you are unsure about a link, you can safely right click on it; this will bring up a menu including a copy option. Click on than, and paste into any area that accepts text (such as the comment box below), and you can see what you would be letting yourself in for.

89. Well now, the coffee cup has just appeared for me. Following my own advice, it looks more like adware than anything actually malicious (unless you think that adware fall into that category).
    https://cdn.buymeacoffee.com/widget/assets/coffee%20cup.svg
    Still, there is no excuse to click on it.

90. To save time, I won’t cite the various posts where this has been discussed, just give my opinion.

    It is many, many years since The Guardian started promoting itself as an international newspaper, and promoting its crosswords to an international audience. We live in a digital age, so there are no grounds for claiming that the crossword is aimed at the print version, because it should not be.

    I consider it a failure by setters when they produce puzzles that are unfair to the wider readership that the Guardian now seeks in order to keep itself in business. They’ve had long enough to get used to this idea now, so it can only be construed as a snub.

91. PeterO @ 89. Are you saying that this is not a genuine attempt by the site to raise funds? I had already donated via the link, and would really like to know if this is fake, so I can reverse the transaction.

92. I’ve had an Email from KenMac to confirm that it is genuine. Still, I don’t want to put my credit card number out into the ether, so sorry, KenMac….

93. @Muffin 92. One thing I was happy with is that the process required two-phase authentication.

94. A little more info on Buymeacoffee:

    “Is Buy Me a Coffee safe and reliable?

    We take security seriously. Here are some measures we’ve taken to protect your and your supporter’s data.

    We don’t store credit card data on our servers. Payment processing is handled by and Stripe (PCI Compliance Level 1).

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    https://help.buymeacoffee.com/en/articles/4539170-frequently-asked-questions

    Trustpilot rates them 3/5, and there are comments there about how they have helped with security breaches.

95. Re the discussion on some UK-based clues in a paper that originated in UK and now has international editions.

    That’s a fair enough comment, but the crossword setters are predominantly from UK or UK-born and now overseas.

    They are setting based on their knowledge, and I don’t think it fair to expect that to be pan-global, especially as many of them set as a part-time hobby

    If that were the case, then none of us could complain if their clues relied on knowledge based on things that are considered GK in eg Japan, Brazil, Siberia or Vanuatu.

96. I’ve participated in similar discussions before, but briefly, I don’t think we have any right to ask that specific UK knowledge be outlawed. I don’t mind it, 8n fact I enjoy it, in small doses — which it nearly always is. I soon surrendered when there was a puzzle with a theme of boat races on the Cam a few months ago, likewise one themed on places in Kent. But by now I’ve mastered most of the common initialisms — ME, OR, HO, MOT, etc — that used to stump me. I don’t think it hurts for compilers to keep in mind that some more obscure Britishisms may put some non-UK people off, but I wouldn’t have the audacity to suggest that they should avoid them altogether. I’m forever grateful that we have access to a rich source of exercise for the grey matter. It’s a pity we don’t have more decent setters in Australia.

97. paddymelon@23 – sorry about that! fat fingers while I was correcting my earlier mistake of capitalising your p and m. Clearly typing is not for me. Yours, Maul

98. @GdU #96

    “I don’t think it hurts for compilers to keep in mind that some more obscure Britishisms may put some non-UK people off”

    My thinking precisely, but I think it is time that setters started questioning themselves along those lines routinely.

    I recall one puzzle that was heavily themed around a quote that some UK politician uttered in the course of the week. That should have rung shrieking alarm bells for any setter or editor aware that they have an international audience now. Some GK stuff is fine (who Pepys is, for example), but there are limits that should be considered, every time.

99. Pommy puzzle, so fair enough. If you read the online Guardian – in any edition – you will get plenty of exposure to Pommy stuff (as well as Aussie or whatever). Keep up the excellent work as it is, setters!

100. Paul/Maul@97. Lol.

101. Very late to the discussion as I failed on TRAMP & TOP GEAR.

     But just to say I would be very sad if UK GK stopped being part of the Guardian Crossword. Even though the Guardian is available world-wide, it is still a UK paper, and contains news from a UK perspective. So I think it is entirely appropriate for the crossword to be skewed towards UK GK. Having said that, I am also happy to have GK from other countries as well. Today for example, we needed to know that Rumba is a Cuban dance and that Messi is a Portuguese(?) footballer.

     I am constantly impressed by solvers not from the UK attempting (and succeeding) with a UK cryptic crossword. And I know that the majority of them at least tolerate, and may even like the UK GK.

     But I don’t want to be told that ‘our’ crossword shouldn’t exist, because it makes it too difficult for someone else. And it

102. Not forgetting that the balance of contributors to this site is highly unlikely to be representative of the balance of persons from around the world that enjoy the crossword. Close to 100% of those doing the crossword in the daily newspaper will be from UK. A good proportion of those from overseas who solve online contribute here. Mash the conjectural statistics and you get a very substantial majority of UK solvers. Even more so if you weight the figures by financial contribution.

103. Doing this a day late as I’ve been on vacation. I had a lot of fun with this one; the clues, I thought, were exceptionally well done and fair. My only regret is that I got stuck in the SE corner and ended up using reveal to get SETTER, which when I saw it felt like an answer I should have been able to figure out on my own. Once that was in, TOP GEAR fell into place, and then TRAMP was the only word that fit for 24A, though I was unfamiliar with both the cargo boat and swindle definitions.

     To chime in on the UK-vs-international debate, none of the Britishisms in this puzzle really tripped me up as an American. I do the Guardian puzzles because they’re fun and challenging and I usually learn new things from them, as I did today. I struggle with recent news and local geography, but things like Pepys and TERMLY are totally fair game. Thanks Vulcan (one of my favorite setters so far) and PeterO for the blog.

104. Just finished this. Some delightful clues, MESSIAH being right up there.

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