Good morning,
As of 6:55 this morning, I have been unable to load the Guardian puzzle into the blogging tool that I use to download the puzzle. I want to avoid having to do the blog longhand, so will try again in an hour or so. If the puzzle hasn’t loaded by then, I’ll have to do it longhand, which may take a while and will look markedly different from a normal blog post.
Apologies,
Loonapick
This is the first time that I have ever been unable to solve even one measly clue. Either I‘m not on Pangakupu‘s wavelength at all or I‘m especially dim today. Eagerly awaiting Loonapick‘s efforts to help me decide which.
I found it tough going first time through, but worth persevering. There’s one clue on which I await loonapick’s guidance as to how on earth it parses, though
I had ‘Ran out of Steam’, which I think parses o.k. if not quite as well as the correct answer. I cannot parse ‘eros’, so I bunged it in from the definition.
Another one interested to see the blog. First read through on the across clues, I didn’t get anything until DRIVE, then one other. The down clues were slightly less opaque. But with some crossers I did complete the grid with a few unparsed, including EROS.
“Score” is slang for “to have sex” Subtract the C, ( Latin circa = about ) for SORE. Do the “retreating mechanism” for EROS which many a dictionary will validate as EROS being equivalent to “love”.
Thanks Flea. I don’t think that I would have worked that one out if I’d tried all day.
Tough to get a foot-hold but all done now and in retrospect nothing too tricky. Nonetheless I found I got answers by spotting the definition and the parsing followed. A very satisfactory solve.
I managed to fill in the top half plus 18A and 19A, though not entirely happy with all the parsings. I am awaiting the blog, although I’m not sure I am doing so with any eagerness!
Sorry; I should have come in here earlier. The blog was finally posted around 9am.