Guardian Cryptic 28,915 by Imogen

125 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,915 by Imogen”

1. I is for INDIA in the NATO phonetic alphabet.

2. Not one of Imogen’s THORNIEST offerings, I was happy to discover. Except possibly for KIST O’WHISTLES (nho), which was the only possible pronounceable arrangement of the letters in the anagrist that fitted with crossers.

   Needed to remind myself a couple of times, to make the crossers happy, that the answers weren’t necessarily English

   Is a LOG a report? Kind of. If you’re IRATE are you wild? Maybe some people are.

   O = “I wish” was a bit of a surprise, but makes sense.

   GIANT was cute, though.

   Tx.

3. Never heard of KIST O’ WHISTLES, but what a lovely description of a pipe organ it is.
   Took me a while to link YEAR ROUND with Dickens after it couldn’t be anything else.
   I also was unsure about O for I wish so thanks for the confirmation PeterO.
   Favourite was OSCAR.

4. @David #1.
   That would mean that “India” can represent “I”, not that “I” can represent “India”.

5. In 17d isn’t O TO I wish, not just O as in O(h) to be in England, now that April’s here?

6. Too many obscurities to be enjoyable. Where’s the definition in 18a? What’s a green card? Never heard of KIST O WHISTLE, MATERFAMILIAS, EN CLAIR, CECIL DAY LEWIS or ESTATE as a car. Couldn’t parse OSCAR, INDIA, OTOLOGIST, YEAR ROUND, ET TU BRUTE. Imogen remains on my “don’t attempt” list. I succumbed to some misplaced bravado today.

7. GDU@6. Cecil Day Lewis and Estate are both (or at least should be) straightforward for UK solvers. Got materfamilias only having previously heard of paterfamilias. Thought year round and kist o’ whistles were a bit obscure, and o for wish isn’t great either. Thanks PeterO and Imogen

8. I find Imogen tough, so was surprised when I got so much in on the first pass, and then the real tussle started.

   KIST O’ WHISTLES defeated the anagram solver (it’s regularly defeated, I find, and I’m using it less and less often) but when I had enough crossers, I worked it out. I wondered whether EN CLAIR should have had some indication of the French, as modern English usage usually renders it as “in clear”.

   Lots not properly parsed, like YEAR ROUND for Dickens, which if this was the Prize I’d look up to make sure, but know I’ll find out in the blog on a daily.

   Thank you to PeterO and Imogen.

9. Crispy @7: well here’s one UK heathen who did not find CECIL DAY LEWIS at all straightforward. Four years as poet laureate when I was still in short trousers so not exactly imprinted on my mind. Lots of obscurity today making the whole puzzle a bit of a slog tbh. Pleased to get to the end before coming here for explanation.

   PeterO – I appreciate you are in a different time zone so it’ll be a while before you see this but there is no Header for your blog on 225’s Home Page.

   Thanks both

10. For some reason, the title of the blog is not showing on the main page of Fifteen Squared on my phone. The link and read more are, but not much else.

11. Postmark @9. Apologies. I was guilty of something that irritates me when other people do it on here, i.e. assume that because I know something, everyone knows it. First laureate I remember is Betjeman.

12. The obscurities alluded to by others were at least gettable from the usual combination of def, wordplay, crossers and guesswork so I found this a bit gentler than Imogen’s usual offerings. Still, I’d never heard of KIST O’ WHISTLES and had no idea about the parsing of YEAR-ROUND. I thought SCRAPPAGE was a bit of a stretch, though I’m sure it will be in the usual sources.

    Thanks to Imogen and to PeterO for the blog, including the pic of our SEDGE WREN new feathered friend.

13. The Whistle bit of 8d rang a faint bell about the theatre organ played by that creepy guy in Lipstick On Your Collar, no idea why. Daniel D-L’s dad, otoh, rang a loud one, from at least one previous appearance somewhere. What didn’t ring was wain, so int wain was a biff, even though a gold-framed print of Constable’s Hay one hung over the mantle chez the young ginf, d’oh! All part of the fun mental tapestry in cw-land, ta POnI.

14. Well I finished it with a little help from Bradford and some guesses. I knew the laureate although I tried to do a different anagram for a while, searching for a delicacy! The pipe organ was in Bradford, luckily, and en clair must have lurked somewhere in my mind. I stupidly put paterfamilias without thinking – duh!
    But I am pleased to have got to the end without an actual reveal. Thanks Imogen and PeterO.

15. Thanks Imogen and PeterO
    A good job 8d and 16d were anagrams as I’d never heard of them. I hadn’t heard of the Dickens publication either, so that was unparsed.
    24a was a little unfair as IN CLEAR also fits, though doesn’t parse, of course.
    wretch = BRUTE?
    In the cod alphabet that starts A is for ‘orses, O for a nice cup of tea….
    Favourites SOUNDS OFF and I NEVER DID.

16. Enjoyed this – thanks for the parsing, PeterO, especially of YEAR-ROUND, and thanks to Imogen for the fun.
    Curious – what does IVR mean? (scroll up to the parsing of 7D)

17. Brought to a halt by my ignorance this morning. I’m surprised that KIST O’WHISTLES has totally passed me by. That apart, this must be the most straightforward Imogen ever – yet still so elegant. WRUNG, for example, is just superb.
    Many thanks, Imogen and Peter O

18. Kristi @16
    International Vehicle Registration (or somethin like that); i.e. the plate on the back of the vehicle telling you what country it comes from.

19. muffin, en clair was familiar, I’m sure they must’ve said it in some spy series, like Riley Ace of, or maybe a le Carre.
    Otoh, O to log ist, a wonderful groaner, surfaced via otoscope, the thing they look in your with.

20. ginf @19
    Yes, I knew EN CLAIR, but the English phrase means exactly the same, so a foreign language indication would have fairer.

21. I liked I NEVER DID though I am more familiar with “Well, I never did”. I can see that sweet little thing makes a better surface for eclair, but in my experience they are usually just too large to eat gracefully. I was convinced 9 down was going to involve a knot for a while.

22. [I expect you all know the Chambers definition of ECLAIR…]

23. Excellent, 8 down was new to me but I loved it!

24. Remarkably easy for an Imogen except for KIST O’ WHISTLES (never heard of it and couldn’t finish the anagram, even when I had WHISTLES) and not being able to parse YEAR-ROUND (never heard of Dickens’ magazine). An odd mix.

    Thanks to Imogen and PeterO.

25. In 1859 Dickens launched All The Year Round as a periodical, replacing its predecessor, Household Words, which had been carrying A Tale of Two Cities in serial form. Dickens chose, as the new serial fiction to kick-start the new magazine, The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins. I used to possess an original first-day issue, rather tattered in its blue paper covers, and would pass this round, protected in a plastic folder, and pinned open at the page where TWIW began, when we read Collins’ novel. When I retired, I gifted it to a younger Victorianist in my department.

26. Failed KIST O WHISTLES – never heard of it and I notcie that even google barely knows what it is!

    I could not parse 25ac, 5d, 9d apart from MATES, 17d.

    Liked I NEVER DID, ARCADIA.

    New: OTOLOGIST, TRADING ESTATE.

    Thanks, both.

27. Michelle @26 – Google for me had no trouble with Kist o’ whistles, but I listen to a lot of folk music. Google adapts to your usual choices.

28. Somewhat more straightforward than some of Imogen’s, apart from the whistles (and I DNK MATERFAMILIAS). I generally attack crosswords like jigsaw puzzles, so once I get a few crossers (especially starters) I dot around the grid.

    SinCam @14; I can’t find KIST O’ WHISTLES in my copy of Bradford’s (2016), it’s not under organ or musical instrument?

    Quite a bit of GK required and some of the parsing took me a while to unravel. I liked MATERFAMILIAS once I saw the replaced familiar, ET TU BRUTE and the sneaky O SCAR.

    Thanks Imogen and PeterO.

29. Been waiting all morning for your blog to appear Peter, must have been a glitch in the UK. Another fun puzzle with quite a few helpful anagrams. Worth it for the nho KIST O WHISTLES alone, with kilts pointing nicely towards a Scottish saying. All of the long clues were excellent with CDL at 1 ac my favourite. Thought along with him, TWAIN, OSCAR, GREEN, VERDI and Dickens, there might be an artsy theme going on. GIANT was cute.

    Ta Imogen & PeterO.

30. Definitely at the easier end of the Imogen scale – Imocan/Vulvogen maybe?

    Liked I NEVER DID, MATERFAMILIAS and CECIL D-L as, with the crossers, the WILES* could have gone at either end

    I could be I as in IPA – India Pale Ale – it must be days since we’ve had the debate about using parts of abbreviations 🙂

    Cheers IPO

31. Spooner’s catflap @25: thanks for that and how generous of you. I could also add WREN to my list of creative people.

32. Humph – the only definition of Kist O’Whistles I could find described it as not just Scottish but eighteenth century too. With all the crossers, whistle seemed relevant to organ, but the redundant “with” at the start meant I couldn’t decide exactly what the anagrist was, even though I could see all the letters I needed.
    Others were a little obscure but personally I thought that one went too far.

33. Quite an odd solving experience this morning, with hardly a clue in place on first pass. However, not having any idea what the anagram for 8d could possibly be – even with all the letters supplied – I then proceeded to fill in the grid purely in an anti-clockwise direction, enjoying the journey. Until I ended back at all the crossers in place for KIST O WHISTLES, which I had to look up for confirmation. Thrilled to see CECIL DAY LEWIS appear courtesy of the COTD for me. I’m lucky enough to have a couple of some of his slim first editions in my bookcase, “Word Over All” pub 1943, and “Poems 1943-1947”, pub 1948, dedicated to Laurie Lee.
    Many thanks Imogen and PeterO today…

34. A RUNG of a ladder is not at all the same as a spoke of a wheel. The setter is just flailing about wildly for any sort of vague link here: perhaps because a spoke and a rung are … ummm … er … longer than they are wide?
    O = ‘I wish’? Really? Isn’t ‘O’ (and ‘Oh’) just a written representation of an unlexicalized sigh or exclamation (analogous with ‘aaargh!’, ‘pshaw!’, ‘um’, ‘phew’, ‘tut’ and other non-lexical sounds we make in speech). Therefore, we cannot paraphrase ‘O you fool!’ as ‘I wish you fool!’
    Crosswords are fun and interesting as word puzzles: the less the setter cares about how words work, how they convey meaning, their usage and character, the less fun and interest the puzzle contains. For me, anyway.

35. “Decrypted en clair” would make rather an elegant though simple clue in my opinion.

36. Alan C @29
    The blog was up in good time – perhaps you missed it because on the home page it was missing header and byline. This seems to have been the result of an errant click of the mouse when I was preparing the blog; I needed help from our illustrious administrator to correct the omission.

    nicback @5
    I did not use the Browning as reference since, as you suggest, the first word is “Oh”, not “O”. Also, I do not think you can lift O TO from that quote as equivalent to ‘I wish’ (“I wish be in England …”?). TO comes directly from the clue.

37. pserve_p2 @ 34
    Some think otherwise – Chambers:
    rung a spoke; a crossbar or rail; a ladder round or step …
    spoke one of the radiating bars of a wheel; one of the rungs of a ladder

38. Thanks PeterO, you have explained quite a few missing details and agree with you on the curious mixture of straightforward and obscure, which for me included 18a (I know it as “well i never”, slightly shorter than Petert’s version, and I tried to make an anagram of “has died I’m” into an oddly-enumerated composer at first). Luckily knew CDL through “The Otterbury Incident” which I enjoyed at school. I think I was more relieved than satisfied at the end but have learned a few things and enjoyed plenty so thanks Imogen even though this wasn’t quite my kist o’whistles.
    [muffin@22 I like to think Imogen nodded to that def with the inclusion of “little” in the clue!]

39. Like Kristi (No 16) I would also like to know what IVR means in the parsing of 7dn. Acronyms are extremely irritating if you’re not familiar with them.

40. Smooth clueing, mostly smooth solve. I found the same things obscure as most others did, but with crossers and clear clues, they were all gettable. In 17D, I think it maybe makes more sense to translate the whole phrase “I wish to report” to “O! To log”.

    Thanks to Imogen and PeterO!

41. I enjoyed this hugely, probably because I managed to do it without external help (apart from checking that KIST O WHISTLES actually existed.
    Re 14A, I rather ungrammatically took the “rung” to be spoke in the sense of “spoke on the phone”…..
    Thanks to Imogen and PeterO.

42. PeterO@37: Of course! Chambers says that. The problem for me here is that Chambers has established itself as “the crossword dictionary” — it’s a good market niche for Chambers to have secured since Oxford and Collins clearly occupy the centre ground of reliable reference dictionaries. And so Chambers entries record not what is true about the English language, but what is evident within the closed world of cruciverbalists, setters and solvers. Oxford and Collins make considerable efforts to inform their lexicography through research, data, evidence, attested usage, and so on in order to present the lexicon: Chambers have expended efforts to distinguish their dictionary as a specialist reference work for crosswords. So, for example, you may find many, many more single letter abbreviations listed in Chambers (L=lecturer, S=society) than are generally recognised amongst writers and readers of general English — because crossword setters like to use such initialisms, so Chambers reflects that usage. Does anyone put their foot on the first spoke of a ladder? No. Does this old cart wheel have a broken rung? No.

43. Talking of IVRs (International Vehicle Registration, Jinja@39), it’s rather a shame that, on a first pass, ITALY fitted in 7d. Held me up for a while on 11a and 13a.

44. We found this pleasantly straightforward with no real obscurities. KIST O’ WHISTLES originated we think as a derogatory term among Scottish ‘puritans’ who disapproved of organs – and other instruments – in church.
    Kristi :16 & Jinja@39: IVR is International Vehicle Registration.
    Thanks, Imogen and PeterO

45. I don’t think O on its own equates to I wish, but O to for I wish gives you to twice. I think you have to read the whole of O to log as I wish to report. The lack of an h is a problem for both parsings.

46. pserve_p2 @43
    Hear hear, but we’ve both been on this site long enough to know that no clue is so obscure as to be beyond some kind of justification by someone.

47. *@42

48. pserve_p2 @42
    OED:
    rung A stout stick of a rounded form esp. one used as a rail (in a cart etc.), cross-bar or spoke.
    spoke … 2b A round or rung of a ladder.
    Collins (onlone):
    rung … in British English 3. nautical a spoke on a ship’s wheel, or a handle projecting from the periphery.
    spoke … in British English 3. a rung of a ladder.

49. pserve_p2 except that the OED also has “spoke b) the round or rung of a ladder”

50. Thanks to 43 and 44 for explaining IVR … couldn’t remember it but will do in the future I expect.

51. Finished in one sitting, so this week is looking good for me. I’d worked out WHISTLES, and googled Skit o’ Whistles which led me to the right answer.(I then got IN TWAIN as my LOI). YEAR ROUND seemed like it must be the answer, and when I googled it in conjunction with Dickens I knew it was right.
    I too tried to parse In Clear to start with, but once I was fairly sure of Whistles realised it must be the French version.
    At the end, I googled SEDGE WREN to check. It looked as if it must be, but not an American bird I have come across before.

52. I really like Imogen’s puzzles but there were quite a few obscurities/non English words thrown in here.

    Also I’m not a fan of “medical man” – I thought an OTOLOGIST could be female?

    Maybe my Chambers is out of date but it doesn’t have CR for councillor.

    I only managed to get KIST O WHISTLES from the fodder as nothing else would fit.

    My favourite was TRADING ESTATE.

    Thanks Imogen and PeterO

53. Strange puzzle, with a mixture of commonplace words and rarities, straightforward clues and knottier ones – the strangeness because some of the commoner words have some of the more transparent clues. Good fun though.

    I knew the Poet Laureate and the Dickens publication, and the two foreign expressions. However the American bird and the organ were new to me. I disagree with muffin @15: anagrams for unusual words are less accessible than charades. I managed to solve both, but only after getting all the crossers. And I’ve never seen 9d before, but I knew the male equivalent, so that caused no problem.

    Thanks to S&B

54. The Peters @48 and @49: Oh, well! the proper dictionaries agree that rung=spoke. So my objection is invalidated. Thanks for your researches.

55. Some fun clues but some that I didn’t find too amusing.
    India is weak. I actually thought it could be Iraqi – country is Iraq and I and an Iraqi represents that country !

    Thanks Imogen and PeterO.

56. PeterO — I think in 4d “dies” = “passes on,” not “passes.”

    Didn’t know CR = “councillor.” I certainly know eclairs, but didn’t think of them, so thanks, Peter. “Trading estate” is new to me — I forget what we call them this side the pond.

    I knew “I never did” (which I’ve never heard anyone say to express surprise) from British fiction of some earlier decade, spoken to show that the character is of a lower social class than the author.

    I did know about All the Year Round from an English lit class, but it seems to me almost as specialized a bit of less-than-G K as Kist o’ whistles, which I’d certainly never heard of. Never heard of my compatriot the SEDGE WREN either, but when some of the anagram made up WREN, SEDGE came out of what was left.

    2d I think of a BRUTE as more aggressive than a wretch, who is more pathetic.

    MATERFAMILIAS was a twist too far for me to parse, though I did biff it in. Same for “O” meaning “I wish.”

    Peter, I’d have thought that the GREEN CARD not so much allows you re-entry to the US as allows you to earn money once you get here.

    nicbach@5 O means “I wish” in “O/I wish to be in England.”

    Shanne@8 I had “in clear” too, till 8d made it impossible. It seemed to want to be translated it into French, so I did that, not having heard of that usage.

    Thanks, Imogen and PeterO.

57. I’d previously come across EN CLAIR enough times to make the clue fairly simple to solve, but while I recognise “in clear” as the English translation, I cannot recall either reading or hearing it (and it doesn’t fit the clue anyway, as has been pointed out 🙂 ).

    For 8d I got as far as WHISTLES before giving up. I had the same thought as some others about 7d, that it’s INDIA representing I, rather than I representing India, as the clue has it.

    MATERFAMILIAS was very good, though I had all the crossers before solving the clue! The R going from the foot to the head of FAMILIAR was a good spot by the setter, but I can’t imagine anyone getting the answer that way.

    Thanks to Imogen and PeterO.

58. Thanks both,
    I much enjoyed this, although ‘otologist’ was a guess. There’s also ‘O for the wings of a dove’ so ‘O’ = ‘I wish’ is OK with me.

59. Petert @45
    As I said @36, those are the reasons I steered away from the Browning quote; but I think that O/I wish is a very reasonable equation for the Shakespearean quote I gave in the blog (or for “O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise” – Tyngewick @58, the trick seems to be to go for quotes starting “O for”).
    Bear of little brain @43
    Your point is the reason that I mentioned IVR in the blog for 7D (although I might have realized that some are not familiar with the initialism).
    Valentine @56
    You are of course right about a GREEN CARD; but I would need one or a visa not to be refused entry to the country, and I mentioned that as in fits in with the ‘reverse a dismissal’ in the clue.

60. “En clair” to mean “not encrypted” is used by English-speaking cryptolists.

61. thanks PeterO for parsing several that I couldn’t and thanks Imogen for a very enjoyable – slow but steady – solve. Nho of 8D of course, but with the crossers and working out the anagram it was quite gettable. I enjoyed the spoke/ rung debate! But like Christa@41 I read it as a telephone call in the past.

62. PostMark@9: The (5,3,5) enumeration in the laureate clue suggested Carol Ann Duffy to me, and I thought it commendable of the setter to include a cultural reference from the current century. Alas, I was mistaken.

63. I used to enjoy tackling Imogen’s crosswords.
    I started off well, since there haven’t been that many Poets Laureate, and one with three names narrows it down still further. SOUNDS OFF, ET TU BRUTE and I NEVER DID fell into place shortly afterwards, and were also pleasing.
    Things went downhill from there.
    The various iffy words have already been mentioned at length by others – but pserve_p2, if you’re still around, I’m behind you every step of the way: ladders don’t have spokes and wheels don’t have rungs. Thank you for articulating my thoughts on this and on Chambers so well, whilst I myself was still trying to formulate them.
    A while back, there was a bit of a to-do on this site about Elks. I honestly forget how it arose – probably something was classed as one when it isn’t, or vice versa – but for a long time afterwards “elk” became the mantra I repeated to calm myself whenever some aspect of a crossword made me want to tear my hair out.
    I think, for the time being, I may replace elk with Kist O Whistles. Had I continued staring at the grid until the planet crumbled, I would never have thought of it – even though I already had the third word.
    There’s GK, and there’s K that’s not terribly G, there’s K that’s only really G for those with a certain professional or academic specialism, and then there’s K that – let’s face it – isn’t remotely G.
    Huge and heartfelt thanks to PeterO for all the explanations – and Imogen, thank you but I admit defeat.
    Elk!

64. For those objecting to O = I wish, it helps to read the whole clue and the whole answer: “O, to log 1st!” roughly means “I wish to record first!” With a nice misdirection in that “first” in these things usually means “plunk that bit at the beginning of the word.” I liked that clue.

65. Hit “post” too soon. The KIST-O-WHISTLES was new to me, and neither a trading estate nor an estate car is called that in the US (but the latter is common enough in crosswords that I’ve learned It). Cecil Day-Lewis is familiar to me from his much more famous son Daniel. Talented family, that.

66. Surprised by some of the complaints, I thought this was well-balanced and not too obscure in the main (esp. compared with Kite yesterday). KIST O WHISTLES was achievable if you spotted WHISTLES and then just experimented with the remaining letters. On GREEN CARD, green is the opposite (reverse) of red on the colour wheel, so the clue works well I think. Like others I was familiar with Cecil Day Lewis through his son. Thanks Imogen and Peter.

67. Well that was tough, and I was genuinely quite surprised to find I’d got it right first time. KIST-O-WHISTLES entirely new to me, although it was reasonably clearly clued (especially with crossers). I didn’t greatly object to ‘I wish’ = O, the greater issue was that I’d not heard of the type of doctor! The Dickens publication was also new to me.

    Thanks PeterO and Imogen.

68. mrpenney@64 That’s what I was trying to say, I think.

69. Gervase @53
    I agree in general about anagrams for unknown words, but in these two cases (as others have said), once the crossers were in, there were very few pronounceable options!

70. You can actually buy ladder spokes here

71. Thanks for the blog, Imogen has been quite tricky recently and I do prefer that, but there were some good clues and nice words.
    The O TO LOG idea is quite common but setters usually give some indication that it is (mock) poetic. MATERFAMILIAS was very good, a nice twist on the usual and the clever moving R.
    I will add ARCADIA to the artsy theme of AlanC .

72. A rare finish for me.
    CECIL DAY LEWIS went straight in, there can’t be any other Laureats that are (5,3,5).
    As a Dickins lover, I’m ashamed that it took so long for the penny to drop with YEAR ROUND, I’m currently wading my way through Little Dorrit.
    8d was complete guesswork, I see others fared no better.
    It seemed a lot easier that usual Imogen, not that I am complaining.
    Thanks both.

73. HIYD @72
    Carol Ann Duffy has already been mentioned!

74. I used to see Daniel Day Lewis at the Den, both of us being big Millwall fans, I never saw his dad there though!

75. muffin @73 – well I never, thanks.
    Would have helped if I had spelt CD’s name right!

76. hatter @57 that’s exactly how I got 9d! I’ve bounced off Imogens in the past so pleased to get the solve here – I thought the obscure downs were generously clued enough to puzzle out with good checkers. Thanks!

77. I didn’t find this especially tough, although the two long down clues had to wait a while until some checkers were in place. NHO either, but KIST O WHISTLES was clearly an anagram and eventually could be nothing else and MATERFAMILIAS was a write-in once most of the checkers were there, albeit unparsed – so thanks to our blogger for parsing that one especially and to the setter for the challenge as ever.

78. M Beak @76. Well done indeed. I knew I was tempting fate when I typed that sentence! It’s one of my (many) failings in trying to conquer cryptic crosswords that I need more than ‘often seen’ to get FAMILIAR. I only got it once I’d seen what the answer had to be, and then worked back from there.

79. I thought the Scots connection of “kist ‘o whistles” was suggested by kilt in the clue. I knew it from my misspent youth as a (not very good) organist!

80. At the tough end of achievable for me. I really enjoyed the long anagrams, especially KIST O WHISTLES which I worked out with three of the crossers, by seeing that whistles was a possibility and then playing with what was left. CECIL DAY LEWIS was a very satisfying first one in, and I largely worked clockwise from there.

    Fortunately my education included the right foreign languages for this enjoyable puzzle.

81. Coming back, late, to everyone unhappy about I for India at 7D. That’s the equivalence in the NATO phonetic alphabet, isn’t it? So we say India when we are spelling out words including the letter I and using that format to make the letters clear.

82. Shanne @81
    INDIA was one of my first ones in, in fact, but I see why posters are questioning the NATO alphabet explanation, as in that INDIA stands for I, rather than vice versa.

83. Regarding the Wrung/spoke debate. The definition made the answer pop up for me with the crossers. I assumed that ‘spoke’ was rung as a past tense of ring, on a phone. Was good enough for me.

84. muffin@82 – got to admit I thought it was extreme pedantry when I saw those comments but a few hours later I am a convert to your succinct explanation for why 7d doesn’t work

85. pserve_p2 @ 42, I’ve often wondered why Chambers is the cruciverbalists’ bible. My reference is usually Collins. I’ve saved your succinct explanation for future reference.

86. Valentine @56. – I thought CR = councillor was iffy ( it’s not in my Chambers) but I’ve just found it in Collins so I guess it’s ok

87. Sorry, still don’t understand Green Card. “Could this…” gives some warning that the setter is playing a bit fast and loose but come on! Yes you get a red card/dismissal in several sports. I’m not aware of any where the referee then produces a green card to nullify it (even in the age of VAR!). In fact I have a vague recollection of a green card being issued in one sport or other as a kind of even lesser form of warning than a yellow card.

88. apologies for ‘kind of even lesser’ but you get the gist!

89. Yep. Checked and in hockey a green card is a two minute suspension for the player ( a temporary dismissal if you like). So, isn’t this just a bad clue or am I missing something?

90. Thanks both – quite enjoyable for me with some quibbles that have already been mentioned (but if you have spoke to someone 9/10 you must have rung them….)(not a great joke..).

    muffin@22: go on then…..

91. OK, Alphalpha
    “A cake long in shape but short in duration”

92. The initial “O” in OTOLOGIST was even more difficult for me to parse because I agreed with Art Lark @52 that the profession is not gender-specific…so the “man” could not be part of the definition…so “O” would not stand for “I wish”…so it must stand for the unparsable “man I wish”. Also the hint from Muffin @15 to think of the O in ‘Ay is for ‘orses did not help my cause, since I was taught “O-ver the moon” instead of “O for a nice cuppa.”

93. Like the subject, that’s very good. 🙂

    (I wonder how they define a muffin?…)

94. Sorry AT – we crossed. (But I like your ‘O-ver the moon’)

95. shanne@8 My Chambers Dictionary app solved the anagram for 8d (maybe due to Chambers’ Scottish origins). For the record, I had already solved it myself but checked the app out of curiosity.
    allan_c@44 Your explanation of the origins of KoW sounds plausible.

96. Eric@87 I think it’s just a ‘joke’ playing on red/green traffic lights having opposite meanings and applying this logic to the red cards seen in many sports. Perhaps Imogen wasn’t aware of the hockey green card which certainly muddies the water – I wasn’t!

97. I got KIST O’ WHISTLES fairly easily; it was how my late father referred to a pipe organ, but I don’t know that I ever heard anyone else say it. I didn’t know the Dickens reference, although it couldn’t really have been anything else. Thanks Imogen and PeterO.

98. Thanks to PeterO and to Imogen of course. I must have really been on Imogen’s wavelength today as I fairly tore through this in only thirty minutes or so. I think KIST O’WHISTLES and OTOLOGIST have to be my favourites, the latter because I seem to have spent the majority of my 71 years in the hands of said medical men (and women !) I must confess to using my anagram solver for the former though – Shanne@8, try Chambers Word Wizard if your usual solver draws a blank. I also find anagram-solver.net is excellent for longer (i.e. multi-word) phrases and those proper names which don’t appear in Chambers.

99. Alphalpha @94
    My favourite is F for vescence.

    Eric @89
    On the subject of jokes, that seems to be what you are missing. To explain it away: red – stop, green – go.

100. [does anyone replace the straightforward C for Miles with the convoluted C for Thighlanders?]

101. Eric@87-9 and PeterO
     GREEN CARD: Could this identity document reverse a dismissal?
     Without knowing anything about any particular sport where a green card actually exists to reverse a dismissal, I simply read the clue as a bit of a joke, the key word being ”could” with the question mark at the end, indicating the joke/hypothetical nature of the question. It probably needs 2 question marks.

102. Ah, PeterO @99. (Sorry, we crossed. I was away too long before posting.)

103. [AT @100
     I looked it up after I posted, and there’s much more variety than I thought. Our family one did have C for Thighlanders. My favourite was E for brick, though the pair I didn’t see online – T for two and U for me – were also favourites.]

104. [Muffin @103 our family had E for Gabor (as well as I for Novello)]

105. Thanks to those who tried to explain or justify the Green Card. I think suggesting it’s a joke is stretching the definition of a joke. And the traffic lights analogy…come off it. You even say “red is stop and green is go” which is the exact opposite of what the red and green CARD was supposed to be doing. Now that is (slightly) funny.
     Each to their own though.

106. This will be buried beyond where anyone reads but:
     I took rung and spoke to both refer to a bell which could have tolled, rung, or spoke.

107. [I learned “C for Thighlanders” from my dad, along with “F for vescent”, like PeterO, and “Q for fish” (I assume this was a rationing thing)]

108. pserve_p2@42
     When I first started attempting Guardian crosswords over 60 years ago they were accompanied by a legend to the effect that all solutions apart from proper nouns were generally to be found in Chambers and if they weren’t there would be a note to say so. I think other papers said the same. I don’t know how Chambers acquired this authority. It might have been bought. Once it was established it made sense to have one work of reference and it became impractical for it to be changed. The Guardian wasn’t going to tell its solvers to go out and buy another dictionary. Over the years the convention has weakened as setters have occasionally used words that weren’t in Chambers without warning us. Personally I think it’s a pity – it’s a bit untidy- but I’m not going to lose sleep over it. These days I rarely get out of my chair to check in Chambers unless I’m going to post here.

109. muffin@103 E for brick? I must be D for dumb.

110. C for Thighlanders?

111. Mine had

     P for relief

     Q for a pee

112. Thanks Imogen and PeterO.

     Also thanks to Pserve @42 (numbering restored!) for Chambers comment. Pre internet I had Chambers in most rooms taking my Mum’s cast offs when she upgraded. As someone else said I rarely open it now…sadly.

113. Valentine@110. That intrigued me too, but I got it from saying it out loud and then checking on google.

114. [I open my Chambers almost every day, often more than once!]

115. [Valentine @110: Seaforth Highlanders, a northern Scottish regiment]

116. Pino@108 , Azed still refers to Chambers for every puzzle (2016) and will say if any particular answers is not found there.
     My Chambers 93 is so over-used it has lost the covers and now losing pages from each end. Fortunately the sprogs say they can get me a “new” 93 in mint condition for less then£5.
     I suspect the Chambers tradition started with Ximenes, in his own copy he underlined each word he used when setting puzzles.

     I will add L for leather from my parents.

117. We were
     A for horses,
     B for honey,
     C for swimming
     D for fishing
     E for brick
     F for vescent
     Then I get hazy, but L for leather, P for relief and Q for pee were there.

118. I’ve got my Chambers out now I’m trying the Azed and Genius crosswords, not always successfully.

     John @98 I’ve been using anagramsolver.net but finding I need it less and less. Usually to save putting the light on and finding pen and paper.

119. No E for lution

120. Thanks muffin, Bear of little brain, and allan_c for explaining IVR!

121. Roz@116
     I bought my first Chambers in 1965 and when we moved house in 1994 it was deemed too scruffy to be in view on the bookshelf so it was banished to a drawer in the desk upstairs and I was given a 1993 edition which is in better nick than yours.

122. paddymelon@113 Got it! Thanks. Never heard of the place, as I gather you hadn’t either.

     AT@115 I thought it was Seaforth Islanders — Seaforth Island is in the Hebrides, I now know (thanks, google).

     Shanne@117 I had B for lamb.

123. Pino@116 a 1965 edition is pretty spectacular. I have not looked after my 93, I used to use it all the time solving Azed and treat it pretty roughly, even taking it the beach on a Sunday. My “new” edition will be treated with great care.

124. [I still – occasionally – refer to my great uncle’s 1931 edition which had already lost its frontispiece when he died in 1966. It has a few – very few – thumbnail illustrations scattered throughout. I’ve used it to track down the odd selcouth word. And there’s no entry for ‘eclair’!]

125. I don’t think anyone has put Eric, Gazzh and others out of their misery re GREEN CARD. It’s a US residency permit, as the blogger was aware but perhaps didn’t explain clearly enough. The clue works both literally, and cryptically with the football reference.

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