The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/28938.
A splendid crossword to find on a Monday (even if it is still Sunday here), or any other day for that matter, and a chance for all you Breton speakers to show off.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | CUBISTS |
Artists first impressed by youngsters (7)
|
| An envelope (‘impressed by’) of IST (‘first’) in CUBS (‘youngsters’). | ||
| 5 | ROUGHER |
Dishevelled engineers put back more grating (7)
|
| A charade of ROUGH (‘dishevelled’) plus ER, a reversal (‘put back’) of RE (Royal ‘engineers’). | ||
| 9 | PRIME |
Brief top (5)
|
| Double definition, the first being the verb, to inform. | ||
| 10 | RIGMAROLE |
A grim tortuous character performance (9)
|
| A charade of RIGMA, an anagram (‘tortuous’) of ‘a grim’; plus ROLE (‘character’). | ||
| 11 | COLLECTOR |
Prayer leads to our redemption, I gather (9)
|
| A charade of COLLECT (‘prayer’) plus OR (‘leads to Our Redemption’). | ||
| 12 | OMBRE |
Spades cut in dull card game (5)
|
| A subtraction: [s]OMBRE (‘dull’) minus the S (‘spades cut’). | ||
| 13 | DRAWL |
Physician left after a woman’s protracted delivery (5)
|
| A charade of DR (‘physician’) plus ‘a’ plus W (‘woman’) plus L (‘left’). | ||
| 15 | HABANERAS |
Music for dancing bears spanning prohibition era (9)
|
| An envelope (‘spanning’) of BAN (‘prohibition’) plus ‘era’ in HAS (‘bears’). Who else was confused by the dancing bears? | ||
| 18 | CATAMARAN |
Mum stops a sailor boarding container vessel (9)
|
| A double envelope (‘stops’ and ‘boarding’) of MA (‘mum’) in ‘a’ plus TAR (‘sailor’) in CAN (‘container’). | ||
| 19 | DENIM |
Study setter’s material (5)
|
| A charade of DEN (‘study’) plus I’M (‘setter’s’). | ||
| 21 | CABIN |
Sailor in action regularly dropped off here? (5)
|
| An envelope (in’) of AB (able bodied ‘sailor’) in CIN, alternate letters (‘regularly’) of ‘aCtIoN‘, with an extended definition. | ||
| 23 | PHILATELY |
Hip fractured recently in pursuit (9)
|
| A charade of PHI, an anagram (fractured’) of ‘hip’ plus LATELY (‘recently’). | ||
| 25 | DESERT RAT |
WWII fighter to make unauthorised flight, returning seaman (6,3)
|
| A charade of DESERT (‘make an unauthorised flight’) plus RAT, a reversal (‘returning’) of TAR (‘seaman’). For the definition, see here. | ||
| 26 | PESTO |
Sauce recipes, tomato included (5)
|
| A hidden answer (‘included’) in ‘reciPES TOmato’.I have come across a version including tomatoes. | ||
| 27 | SICK PAY |
Below par wage? (4,3)
|
| Cryptic definition. | ||
| 28 | RELAPSE |
Degenerate Republican’s falling asleep (7)
|
| A charade of R (‘Republican’) plus ELAPSE |
||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | CAPE COD |
English medic turned up with hat on, first landing here? (4,3)
|
| A charade of CAP (‘hat’) plus E (‘English’) plus COD, a reversal (‘turned up’ in a down light) of DOC (‘medic’); with reference to the Puritan colonists in North America. | ||
| 2 | BRILLIANT |
Outstanding lakes in Britain polluted (9)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of LL (‘lakes’) in BRIIANT, an anagram (‘polluted’) of ‘Britain’. | ||
| 3 | SIEVE |
School’s top people finally cracking Nutmeg’s riddle (5)
|
| A charade of S (‘School’s’) plus IEVE, an envelope (‘cracking’) of E (‘peoplE finally’) in I’VE (‘Nutmeg’s’ i.e. Nutmeg has). Here I had a nudge from 3D in Bluth’s recent Independant crossword 11,283. | ||
| 4, 23 | STRETCHER PARTY |
Those with orders to carry out on battlefield? (9,5)
|
| Cryptic definition. | ||
| 5, 16 | ROGER BANNISTER |
Renowned athlete bearing name initially misprinted in schedule (5,9)
|
| An envelope (in’) of GERBANNI, an anagram (‘misprinted’) of ‘bearing’ plus N (‘Name initially’) in ROSTER (‘schedule’). | ||
| 6 | UNADORNED |
Bare northern parts a Breton loved (9)
|
| An envelope (‘parts’) of N (‘northern’) in UN (‘a Breton’; the indefinite article in Breton, with feminine una. So now you know) plus ADORED (‘loved’). | ||
| 7 | H-BOMB |
Little Boy’s younger and nastier cousin admitting personal problem to hospital doctor (1-4)
|
| An envelope (‘admitting’) of BO (‘personal problem’) in H (‘hospital’) plus MB (Medecinae Baccalaureus, ‘doctor’). Little Boy was the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima. | ||
| 8 | REEFERS |
Touring East, passes on hand-rolled ciggies (7)
|
| An envelope (‘touring’) of E (‘East’) in REFERS (‘passes on’). | ||
| 14 | LEMON DROP |
Tart flavouring a little bit sweet (5,4)
|
| A charade of LEMON (‘tart flavouring’) plus DROP (‘a little bit’). | ||
| 16 |
See 5
|
|
| 17 | RUNNERS-UP |
Not the best variety of bean to eat? (7-2)
|
| A charade of RUNNER (‘variety of bean’) plus SUP (‘eat’). | ||
| 18 | CICADAS |
Scoundrel blocking intelligence agency’s bugs (7)
|
| An envelope (‘blocking’) of CAD (‘scoundrel’) in CIA’S (‘intelligence agency’s’). | ||
| 20 | MAYPOLE |
Seasonal post with strings attached? (7)
|
| A charade of MAY (‘seasonal’) plus POLE (‘post’), with an extended definition. | ||
| 22 | BASIC |
Modern language degree, so it appears (5)
|
| A charade of BA (‘degree’) plus SIC (‘so it appears’), for the computer ‘language’, which may or may not be ‘modern’, depending on your view. | ||
| 23 |
See 4
|
|
| 24 | APPAL |
Outrage as a Guardian setter’s reported (5)
|
| Sounds like (‘reported’) A PAUL (‘a Guardian setter’). |
Yes, Nutmeg on a Monday, a nice pre-Chrissy treat. Her clues are succinct, so when you get a 12-worder cluing a (1-4) answer like 7d, you know to go lateral. Otoh, being a total heathen, have to plough the mental lexicon for prayer words (orison, prime, matins etc), so collector needed crossers. The card game too rang only the faintest. Did an intro unit of Basic, mid-late ’80s, so yes, Peter, ‘modern’ is relative. All good fun, many thanks PnN.
Thank you Peter O.
I parsed the elapse in RELAPSE as an anagram (falling) of ‘asleep’.
As a lapsed High Anglican who went to Sunday school and sang in the choir and all that, I didn’t know ”collect”. Nothing to do with the collection plate that went round. And then when I looked it up, I had to learn another new word ”doxology” as one of the parts of the collect. TILT
Lovely puzzle, I thought RELAPSE was R + anagram (falling) of ASLEEP.
I don’t speak Breton, but it is very similar to Welsh, Welsh and Breton speakers can converse with a little difficulty, and UN is ONE in Welsh, so that seemed close enough.
Thanks both
PM@2 You took advantage of my extremely slow typing.
Thoroughly misdirected by the ‘seasonal post’ in MAYPOLE and laughed out loud when I got it.
MAYPOLE is not such a tradition here, but as we are now in Advent, (I remembered that one!) I could not get past the image of Christmas prezzies sent in the mail all tied up with string.
I have only heard of REEFERS as containing marijuana, so took a while for that to penetrate. DURRIES wouldn’t fit.
SICK PAY, DRAWL, RELAPSE, CABIN best funnies. STRETCHER PARTY clever.
What a treat to have Nutmeg on a Monday. This took a bit longer than I expected — 4d and 5d were slow to yield — but everything came into focus eventually. As usual, splendid surfaces were plentiful with my favourites being COLLECTOR, DRAWL, CICADAS, and APPAL. What a coincidence that SIEVE, with riddle as its definition, was in Bluth’s crossword on Saturday. Thanks to both.
Very good one for a Monday. Some not so difficult ones but several clues like HABANERAS and SIEVE to make you think. Favourites were the defs for DRAWL, CABIN and H-BOMB. Had no idea about the indefinite article in ‘Breton’!
Thanks to Nutmeg and PeterO
I had to come here for the parsing of Habaneras; thank you for that. I LOLd wondering how you could break a hip while stamp collecting!
I sometimes think twice about the Monday puzzles but seeing that it’s a Nutmeg, leapt in and really enjoyed it.
I’m not sure why you need to know Breton for 6d. Modern Bretons almost certainly speak French (and maybe Breton as well), and UN can come from that. We found this a bit chewy, especially the top. A few NHOs – OMBRE, HABANERAS – and COLLECT took a while to seep through. Both SIEVE and H-BOMB were pretty convoluted. Thanks, Nutmeg and PeterO.
I spent a little time wondering if Nutmeg was just being imprecise assuming a Breton would speak French in 6d, but then as a Welsh speaker I assumed the Breton would be un just as in Welsh (pronounced ‘een’ in Cymraeg, and probably Breton, as opposed to the French ‘un’). Lots of history nuggets in here with CAPE COD, H-BOMB (referring to Little Boy), Roger Bannister now, and DESERT RAT. I suppose they still have stretcher parties, though. Thanks to PeterO, particularly for checking out the Llydaweg, and to Nutmeg.
grantinfreo@1
BASIC, COBOL, FORTRAN, C etc can be considered as modern computer languages as opposed to the traditional human ones, perhaps?
Much to like DRAWL being the top fav.
Thanks PeterO and Nutmeg.
Just checking – it is Monday, isn’t it? All nicely clued. Like many, I suspect, I assumed Breton was simply pointing us at French. I also seem to remember that Breton has similarities to Cornish. Thanks to N and P.
paddymelon @5, I’d never heard of Durries until I came to Oz. REEFERS is much more common globally. I’m surprised that durry isn’t in Chambers. A sad omission.
Lovely puzzle but I think I am being more dim than usual this morning. Do we really need to know that a is UN in the Breton language as opposed to French and isn’t that just overcomplicating things? Particularly if we’re drawing in other Celtic languages like Cornish and Welsh. I’d be more inclined to go with the idea that a Breton is one of many who speak French and for whom a/one is therefore UN.
PHILATELY my favourite today and MAYPOLE the oddest to solve when yesterday’s snow is still thick on the ground.
Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO
Well that was mostly quite approachable but with a handful of toughies thrown in! I needed external help to nail down the last few, and some were NHO or at the very outer limits of my vocabulary / GK (HABANERAS, OMBRE, that meaning of COLLECT, that meaning of SIEVE…).
Impressed at myself for getting H-BOMB and ROGER BANNISTER though 🙂
Thanks both.
Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO
Lovely to see a Nutmeg on a Monday, even if it was harder than traditional.
Nicbach @3: my Welsh Grandmother was convinced that she could speak French, as she was able to converse with the itinerant “French” onion-sellers; not realising that they were actually Bretons!
I love the word RIGMAROLE and it took me an age to spot it. I haven’t used BASIC for twenty years but it’s worth it for the misdirection. Very much enjoyed the dancing bears
Cheers P&N
Absolutely brilliant – Nutmeg’s surfaces are sans pareil (as Bretons might say), and there’s always great misdirection. Loved every moment of it, particularly SIEVE, PHILATELY and MAYPOLE. Many thanks to N & P.
Yep, ilippu @11, a bit more modern than proto-indo-european 🙂 [speaking of languages, your moniker looks non -PIE, more like Finnish …?]
About durry, didn’t meet that word at all until adulthood, maybe it didn’t cross the Nullarbor…
[And about snow, PM @14, my sister sent pics of it covering their Crouch End garden, so I told her of it falling on the sea during Roz’s morning swim … brrr]
Delightful puzzle, a tad more challenging than the Monday norm. Great constructions and surfaces here – I enjoyed the dancing bears, not the best variety of bean, and the pursuit, but there are many other worthy clues.
A Breton? Brittany is one of the northernmost regions of France, so this fits the surface well, and it is a happy coincidence (although no coincidence etymologically, of course) that ‘un’ is ‘one’ in both French and Breton.
[PeterO: The more familiar PESTO genovese contains no tomato but the Sicilian pesto trapanese certainly does]
Thanks to S&B
PHILATELY will get you nowhere but makes a fine crossword clue. I confidently entered SARABANDE for HABANERAS. Given that my history books describe the Early Modern period as starting at about 1450, I think mpdern is ok for BASIC
As always, I really enjoyed Nutmeg’s puzzle. My only reservation is the clue for 3d, which I found a little uncharacteristically clumsy.
My only complaint about Nutmeg is that I can’t find a way to fit her name into a limerick. But 24 down did remind me of one I managed…
If you can’t stomach humour that’s bald,
And smut doesn’t hold you enthralled,
I think you had better
Keep away from this setter:
You might very well be appauled.
(August 7, 2021)
A few nuggets of history to remember here, with the DESERT RAT, H BOMB, CAPE COD and ROGER BANNISTER (and does anybody still play OMBRE?) Liked the definition for STRETCHER PARTY, the second best beans and the dancing bears.
Got off to a grumpy start with 1a: “first impressed by youngsters”? No! It’s youngsters impressed by first. Aaaargh!
Excellent puzzle, though I agree with the comments on the unnecessary Breton.
PHILATELY will get you nowhere as they say.
A lovely puzzle. The top half was tougher for me than the bottom, which went in smoothly. Never heard of ‘collect’ as a kind of prayer so will have to look that one up. Totally misdirected by ‘bears’ as intended I’m sure, but then a bit disappointed to see ‘era’ in both the clue and the answer. OMBRE LOI, and thanks PeterO for parsing that one for me, and the extended definition in CABIN which confused me. Thanks Nutmeg for a very enjoyable crossword.
Er… isn’t unnecessariness an essential element of writing crossword clues? “Little Boy’s younger and nastier cousin” is unnecessarily convoluted — she could have just written “nuclear weapon”.
Very enjoyable solve, I do love Nutmeg’s surfaces.
Talking about surfaces, I did admire DRAWL and BRILLIANT. I also particularly liked the dancing bears, the flight in DESERT RAT, and the ‘carry out’ in STRETCHER PARTY. I also liked the Little Boy and the strings attached to MAYPOLE. Of course, DNK COLLECT as a prayer.
Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO.
A great puzzle, with quality written all over it. My favourites were SICK PAY, DRAWL, SIEVE, PHILATELY and APPAL.
I appreciate also what Gervase @20 said about ‘un’ in Breton and French and, in an entirely different vein, the limerick posted by Blaise @23.
Thanks to both Nutmeg and PeterO.
Nice puzzle for a Monday.
My Welsh speaking father in law conversed happily with the local Bretons we were playing boules with, leaving me as the only French/English speaker in the game.
I’m fairly sure the clue was directing us to the French language though.
Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO
Like Petert@21 I confidently entered SARABANDE for the dancing bears spanning the a(lcohol) ban. Otherwise an excellent Monday puzzle – all gettable, but far from a write-in.
Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO.
pserve_2@25, I think “impress” in 1A is intended in its other sense, as “force into service” (as in ‘pressgang’).
Always good to see Nutmeg – and thanks to PeterO for the blog.
Very tough for a Monday but otherwise good. Thanks both.
Can’t beat blaise@23 but to assemble the odd couplet
Our setter named after a spice
Barmpot and Margaret did splice.
Her cute misdirection
Reached idyllic perfection;
Forums raved “her aesthetics are nice” !
APPAL my fave — a topical CRISP clue.
Ta Nutmeg and PeterO
In Breton, UNAN is one. The indefinite article, a in English, is not used in Celtic languages. In Cymraeg (“Welsh”), BRYN can either be HILL or A HILL, for example. I’m sure Nutmeg meant French, in which case she should have chosen a region which doesn’t share its name with a Brythonic language. Diolch, beth bynnach, i’r ddau. (Thanks anyway to both.)
I found this a lot easier than the usual Nutmeg, and I even had time to enjoy the surfaces as I solved. Pace George @22, I don’t see anything clumsy about the clue for 3d, and I even enjoyed the cryptic clues for STRETCHER PARTY and MAYPOLE. Favourite, for the delayed realisation of how the clue works, was CABIN.
Thanks to Nutmeg and PeterO.
I haven’t done today’s Nutmeg yet, but have a puzzle about a puzzle book. I entered the last 3 Saturday prize cryptics with no expectation of winning but last week the Language Lover’s Puzzle arrived in the post. The wrapping was all discarded and recycled by the very efficient Mr E and all I can remember the address was hand written. Does any one know how to access past Monday Guardian prize winners info….. I didn’t appear this week, and think I did check last week, it would be the last couple of Mondays. All long since in the blue bin. Thank you!
c+s @36: In Cornish, the ancestor of Breton (at least in its older form) ‘one’ as a standalone numeral is ‘onen’ but becomes ‘unn’ as a dependent form with a noun. I imagine the same may be the case with Breton. Can anybody confirm this?
As so often I struggled where others found it easy. I was not at all on Nutmeg’s wavelength this morning. I got there in the end but I cannot say I enjoyed the journey (which is all on me, not at all a criticism of Nutmeg).
JaneE @38. I’m not as up to date with my recycling as you and Mr E, so I can tell you it looks like your prize was for the Tramp puzzle 28,919 which appeared on November 19th.
Congratulations!
paddymelon @2 and nicback @3
I was truly nutmegged by 28A; now corrected.
copland+smith @36
I would hazard a guess that more than 99% of solvers assumed that Bretons, like all nice people, speak French (particularly in crosswords, and would be right in so doing). However, nicback @3 and Tomsdad @10 seem happy with un for the indefinite article in Welsh, at least. Not surprisingly, I was going by wictionary, which lists unan as Breton for numeral one, and un (and forms; I misread the feminine) as the indefinite article.
me @42
The observation by Gervase @39 about Cornish corroborate.
Thanks, copland+smith @36, for your explanation that the indefinite article is not used in Breton or Welsh – I speak only a little Welsh (tippin bach!!) but just enough to know it didn’t seem right to translate UN as A/AN in either language.
The H-bomb dropped on Nagasaki three days after the A-Bomb on Hiroshima was of course called Fat Man. (I would put a link to Doctor Strangelove or: How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, if I knew how)
Sorry Harpo , Nagasaki was a Plutonium fission bomb. The H-bomb uses nuclear fusion of hydrogen isotopes , much more destructive but quite a bit later. 1951 was the first test I think from memory, I will check later.
Thanks for the blog, another ideal Monday puzzle, we seem to be having a good Monday run at the moment. RIGMAROLE is a lovely word well clued, I will add to much praise for HABANERAS and PHILATELY. Quite a few sailor/soldier/military clues.
Geminid meteors tonight and even better tomorrow night, beautiful slow , yellowish meteors.
Good to have the Cryptic as my companion to and fro my visit to the dentist this afternoon, with the bus timetabling in chaos in Cambridge in the snowy conditions. But didn’t know OMBRE, and couldn’t for the life of me get PRIDE. Thought HABANERAS was something spicy you ate. Really liked PHILATELY, one of my favourite hobbies as boy. Many thanks Nutmeg and PeterO…
…PRIME, even…
Ronald@48 can’t tell if you’re joking. Sorry if you are. If not the chilli is habanero, I believe.
I looked up OMBRE – nothing to do with shadows, but from the Spanish “hombre” – and if you want to know who the hombre is and how they git into the game, here are the rules: nearly as easy as Mornington Cr escent..
…fit, of course.
OMBRE is quite unusual being a game for three players in the classic form , our French students play Tarot which has some links but is for four players and uses a very large deck.
grantinfreo@19
Not Finnish, far from there. 🙂
…from another continent
HABANERAS the only real head scratch in a nice gentle start to the week & very enjoyable too.
Sourdough@50…yup! Simply demonstrating my ignorance of some things musical or culinary…
Hi there. Long-time lurker, first-time commenter. Am I the only one who saw a mini-theme of staircases, with “stretcher”, “ban[n]ister” and “runner”?
Copland Smith/Gervase/GrannyJ/PeterO (and possibly others I’ve missed!)
I don’t speak Breton, but wiki says:
In Breton, the article has both definite and indefinite forms. This is unlike other Celtic languages, which have only definite articles…. The indefinite article, derived from the number un “one”, follows the same pattern of final consonants: un tan “a fire”, ul logodenn “a mouse”, ur gador “a chair”,
The number ‘one’ is unan on its own, but un/ul/ur before a noun.
Well done Eleanor@58 , there is also NEWEL , in the quick crossword, cross-pollination , someone could check the quiptic.
Tough puzzle. Failed 3d.
I could not parse 5d apart from ROSTER = schedule.
New for me: COLLECT = prayer; Little Boy – atomic bomb.
Liked DRAWL, UNADORNED.
Thanks, both.
paddymelon@2 – same as you re Elapse = *asleep and the prayer (I was raised as an Anglican too)
Like EleanorK@57, daily visitor, vanishingly rare contributor here. Lovely puzzle on a miserable day (day 4 of covid to boot). RIDDLE unlocked a long-lost memory from metallurgy studies in a previous millennium, along with shaking tables, screens and differential settling. Thanks, N and P.
Fine start to the week. I see I’m not alone in liking the sparkling HABANERAS and H-BOMB clues. I wondered if 5/16 might be one of those clues that turns out to be literally true, but the race programme I found online for the first 4-minute mile has Roger B’s name spelled correctly, so it wasn’t to be.
The CATAMARAN clue was interesting in that the other commonly used synonym For MA, namely master, would fit the surface here very well. The only clue I didn’t really like was 5a – seemed a little cheesy cluing ROUGHER with a rough synonym + ER.
Thanks, Nutmeg and PeterO.
Welcome, Eleanor @57. There’s also RAIL as a Nina in column 14, but I’m not quite convinced yet.
Great puzzle, although it took 2 sittings, so although I started it last night I can join with the UK folks in calling it a Monday puzzle.
I took Breton to mean an inhabitant of Brittany who I just assumed would speak French (as well as Breton) and moved on.
If we rank languages (other than English) that setters implicitly assume solvers have some small famiiarity with, via the frequency of non-E words in these puzzles, French will surely top the list. Probably followed by German, and then Italian and Spanish in some order. Don’t remember Portuguese, Dutch or the Scandinavian languages ever making a showing (let alone any East European or non-European ones). So Breton would be very unlikely. Oh I forgot, we do get the occasional Scottish word and I think I remember seeing Welsh once, but that’s about it. Irish Gaelic – nah, I don’t think so.
DrW We get the occasional Japanese word, though it’s generally for something that has no English equivalent, like sushi or samurai or bonsai. Actually, I think food words don’t count as foreign, since we’ve often read them on menus for cuisines whose languages we don’t speak. Goulash, anyone?
Valentine@64, yes of course; I was thinking of them as imports rather than translations. We have a few such words from India and thereabouts too. And a lot of other places, come to think if it!
Nutmeg on form. Thought 11 had to be collector but couldn’t parse it. On and off I’ve been a regular solver for the past 50 years but that meaning was new to me – mind you it’s even longer since I last endured a church service.
Late to this today and can’t believe that of all the commenters so far, no one has mentioned the obvious earworm – everyone seems to be too hung up on the Breton/French conundrum…
Simon Smith and his amazing dancing bear
Thanks for the cracking crossword, Nutneg, and the super blog, PeterO.
Loved RUNNERS-UP inter alia (Plant garlics, among others? (5,4))(Sorry). And BASIC was the best pdm for a while.
Roz@: Thanks for the heads up about the meteor shower.
Dr. WhatsOn@63: Irish Gaelic – nah, I don’t think so. But JORUM?
(Widdersbel and )Bodycheetah@17: Thanks for the earworm.
Alphalpha@68 I’ve seen the subsequent discussions of that word, but not its original appearance. Were we asked to translate into Irish?
gladys@51 I think I’ll just take up Mornington Crescent.
Dr. WhatsOn @63
We have had Taoiseach a few times recently (Phi’s Indy 11,240 etc).
That was fun. I jumped to several solutions which turned out to be correct… luckily? for me.
Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO
Having been to boarding school and to church every Sunday while there, I was very familiar with the concept of the Collect for the day (and Epistle and Gospel) even though this is in the deep and distant past.
Alphalpa @68 – ah! I somehow missed bodycheetah’s earlier link, thanks for the pointer.
didn’t get the H-bomb or in pursuit…Could have Nuts every day of the week…lovely stuff
I always find Nutmeg chewy but satisfying, and this was no exception.
Roz, the Quiptic had a Christmas theme, no stairs.
I find the general lack of knowledge of collects as prayers interesting. It’s a prayer that changes service to service, season to season, with lists of them that need looking up for service sheets (having done this for a living at one stage). The prayer comes at the beginning of the service and traditionally collected the theme of the service together. At this time of year, Stir Up Sunday, this year 20 November, traditionally called because the Book of Common Prayer collect for the day starts “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people”, reminded people to start cooking the Christmas pudding and cake.
Very enjoyable and especially liked RUN OUT OF STEAM, GIFT OF TONGUES, IMMORTAL and GO DOWN THE PAN. Guessed the German composer and couldn’t parse OCEANOLOGY.
Ta Pangakupu & loonapick.
Hawa@73 I’m another who endured boarding school as a little boy, and every Sunday afternoon we had to learn that week’s Collect by heart and recite it aloud before we were allowed things like sweets from our own tuck boxes…
Dr. WhatsOn@69: Jorum comes (I’m fairly sure) from the Gaelic/Irish/Gaeilge for “I drink” (in the continuous present tense) ‘deoirim’.
AlanC@77: I think you’ve got the wrong crossword?
Ronald@78: How very cruel.
[Ronald@78. You were lucky to have your ‘own’ tuck boxes. At least learning the Collect has come in handy for such an enjoyable pastime as cryptic crosswords and you have finally been rewarded.
As a girl at boarding school we had to walk about 5 miles in the heat and up hills in our nylon dresses, stockings and patent leather shoes to Church, our only escape from the prison, maybe catch a glimpse of the boys, and then walk home again to the lightest breakfast of the week, because that’s what you did after ‘Holy Communion’.]
[ PDM , Ronald et al . You were lucky. When I was a lass we had to get up at 10.30 pm half an hour before we went to bed, walk 20 miles through the snow in bare feet, pay t’mill owner a shilling a day to work a 28 hour shift and when we got home our Dads would murder us in cold blood and dance on our graves singing Hallelujah . ]
Paddymelon@80 and Roz@81…at least the three of us were not too ruined early in life by those experiences, hopefully!
And a final less traumatic tale is the one about my father who was adjutant at an army base in Wiltshire in the 1950’s and who was tasked with organising a church service. While this was in progress he suddenly spotted the word Collect in the order of service and then began rushing around frantically to find something suitable for what he imagined was a money collection towards the end. He certainly wasn’t a regular church goer, nor had he come across the Collect before…
I suppose collect is a strange word for a prayer unless you know it.
My parents were actually very “Sixties” and liberal.
My little piece was prompted by PDM saying – you were lucky.
Monty Python has a ” Four Yorkshiremen ” sketch where every complaint of childhood hardship is met by – you were lucky , and then a more extreme tale.
[Haha Roz@81, 83 and Ronald@82. . The comment about being lucky was ironic, as I don’t believe it was Ronald’s ‘own’ lunchbox. And loved your more extreme tale, Roz. You were lucky, I ………. 🙂