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I’m standing in for SCCHUA as part of the holiday covers so bear with me – not done a Guardian blog for a while
I find Paul a tricky customer for blogging, he doesn’t quite stick to the so called rules at times
Def & Cryptic def all in one
Sable is black in heraldry & first of T(hree) removed from S(t)ABLE
TICK – second & TACK to (change) course – the signals on course bookmakers make to each other
PIG – for pork eaten by a reversed MARE for horse. Iffy def but as I’ve said Paul has previous
The margins of B(ette)R inside a (h)OME – house
Some fuMES ENTER All – new word on me, glad it was a hidden answer
AM – morning & a harassed EDITORS*
Double def, pitch is also tar
ROO inside TEAM, again Paul seems to be breaking the crosswording “rules” here
Well cats do – ME – PAUL the setter & OWING in debt
MURDER – hellish & ON – working & THE ORIENT – chinese & EXPRESS – “newspaper”
LAIR – hide, den & D(aughter)
IE removed from a quirky [ARMOIRE ADM(i)R(e)D]*
Double duty time I suspect but Paul has a lot of previous on that. FART for trump under MA – masters & O – love. Wordplay doesn’t quite work for me but I see where he’s coming from
An endless RABBI(t) – gossip
A knitted TOP* & I for one & MUM – shhh – button it!
Double defs
OK you’ll have to help me here, I see it’s an overturned PUT ON but I really don’t get the definition
EX – old & the heel of (loafe)R inside CEMENT – stick
A SWAN & HIGH – soaring & A reversed MAD – barking
I removed from WA(i)F inside BLOUSE
MEL B – “scary spice” & OR & most of PON(g) all reversed. Took me a few seconds to see the scary girl – must be getting old
I & ARUM – a plant & AS – while going up – ie not going down
M(icrophone) in DOING O – nothing – idle
A topless (b)ORDER for to skirt
Leader of E(xpedition) inside (L)IVID – furious
Thanks flashling and Paul.
27a fodder requires ‘AS’, too.
Quite entertaining puzzle.
So it does. Serves me right for trying to blog at 2 in the morning. Ho hum.
Thanks flashling! I couldn’t parse a few either but now I think I’m happy:
TEA ROOM is fine – you just have to separate “inside” as “in side”, which is common in Guardian-land
MASTER OF ARTS (graduate) = MAST (post) + EROS (love) containing FART (trump)
NOT UP is, according to Google, the tennis term for a ball which has bounced twice before being hit.
Thanks Paul for an entertaining puzzle.
Suggest MASTER OF ARTS is parsed MAST (post) FART in EROS (love)
Thanks Justin never heard that term ever used in tennis.
In 1a, I wondered if ‘once’ is a typo for ‘one’…athlete being the definition.
It is’ Marathon’ that was once (no longer) the name of Snickers.
Thanks Paul, that was entertaining. I didn’t find this as tricky as Paul can sometimes be. I didn’t know TICK-TACK and couldn’t fully parse 1d or TEA ROOM but most else made sense to me. I had many favourites including EPIGRAM, MEOWING, OPTIMUM, NOT UP, BLOW A FUSE, and IVIED. Thanks flashling for the blog.
Thank you flashling for your early blog, for you and for us.
And thanks Justin and David for MASTER OF ARTS. I only half parsed it, but I couldn’t be parsed minus p to do so, as I could see where it was heading, both surface and wordplay. Paul back in form with his obsession with nether regions and their functions.
Quite liked ASWAN HIGH DAM, DEAR SIR OR MADAM, and MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS for their surfaces, but very easy to get from the letter count and def.
I still don’t understand MARATHON RUNNER.
paddymelon: A MARATHON RUNNER would be a person who smuggles (runner) Marathon candy bars, a bygone (once) confection.
I took “athlete once” in 1 across to refer to the origin of the race and Philippides’ run, paddymelon @8. Marathon (Snickers to you and other Aussies) chocolate bars would be smuggled by a MARATHON RUNNER. I believe that in the UK Marathon bars were rebranded as Snickers in 1990 but have now reverted to the Marathon brand in the last year.
I wasn’t quite sure what ‘seen’ was doing in LAIRD and didn’t fully parse MASTER OF ARTS but I like it so thanks Justin@3 and David @4.
Favourite was the lovely Pauline EXCREMENT for the disguised definition.
Thanks for standing in flashling.
Never knew Snickers were once Marathons, tick-tack rang only the faintest of bells, as did Mel B … decades since my London nieces were into the Spices. So a bit of biffing here and there, all part of the fun, thanks both. Interesting to see Domingo make an appearance as he’s non-grata in some circles these days.
[I play a lot of very amateur tennis and I’d guess I hear the call “not up/double bounce” almost weekly, even by the perpetrator (“your point, I didn’t make it”). However I don’t remember the last time I heard it in any of the professional tournaments, so for those whose only familiarity with tennis is watching the occasional Wimbledon or other Grand Slam match, you are off the hook for not knowing the term. I’m wondering now why there is this difference – maybe good players are just better at judging whether they can get to the ball or not, or can pull out of the stroke if the ball hits the ground a second time.]
Thanks to ilippu and Tony Santucci and Tim C I’m now closer to understanding MARATHON RUNNER. I knew Mars bars and was stuck on that, but didn’t know Marathon. Still not sure where the ‘once’ should be unless it’s doing double duty.
S-nickers, is there something else going on there?
Like TimC@10, I also couldn’t see what ‘seen’ was doing.
Tim C@10 ‘lovely Pauline EXCREMENT’ ??!!
Thank you, flashling, for doing the locum for scchua. I enjoyed this. Couldn’t quite fathom 1a MARATHON RUNNER which I got from the definition – but like the suggestion above just assumed it was something to do with Mars Bars. Like paddymelon@ I ticked 25,3,12 MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (it was a fun clue and I have fond memories of the old Christie novel as well as appreciating the most recent film version with Kenneth Branagh). I was also pleased that despite my age I still I spotted Mel B in the Scary clue (16d NO PROBLEM).
Many thanks to Paul.
P.S. That use of TICK-TACK re betting (9a) was also a question mark for me. I seem to learn something new every day from this hobby.
https://www.candyfavorites.com/discontinued-marathon-bar-1981
For those who care here’s some background on the Marathon candy bar. It was not related to Snickers but both were made by Mars.
P.P.S. The anatomical MESENTERA clue at 15a made me wonder why we haven’t seen Philistine for a while – although with the holidays I might have missed something from him?
[Julie in Australia: Goliath (Philistine) had a crossword in the FT on 12/17. It wasn’t easy but I found it worthwhile.]
Tony Santucci @16, that Marathon candy is US specific I think (and equivalent to Curly Wurly in the UK). The Marathon bar in the UK is/was different and is/was identical to Snickers see here.
Tim C: Thanks for the info. I’m sure Paul was thinking of the bygone UK version of Snickers and not the bygone US Marathon Bar otherwise he would have indicated that in his clue.
On the more accessible side of Paul for me. The long ones helped, although the clue for MURDER… is quite the spoiler if you haven’t read/seen it!
Thanks to both setter and blogger.
Tim C @19, Tony Santucci @18:
If we accept Marathon ‘once’ (no longer) was a chocolate bar, can we explain the placement of ‘once’ in the clue? Is ‘athlete’ the definition? How does the word play work?
‘Athlete’ seems to be the definition as the marathon is still there.
TICK TACK:
I took TACK as a noun in the sense of ‘a way of dealing with a particular situation’. Does it work?
Thanks for the fun, Paul. Like Rob T @21, I found this quite accessible for Paul, and very enjoyable. Needed most of the crossing letters before I could get MURDER etc though. NO PROBLEM and MEOWING were my faves.
And thanks for the blog, flashling. I get the impression Paul has tried your patience a bit today! Good job none the less.
KVa – TACK in this sense is a sailing term, referring to your course/direction in relation to the wind direction.
Thanks, Widdersbel@25. I see that flashling has used that sense in his blog.
Tack: the direction or distance that a boat moves at an angle to the direction of the wind, so that the boat receives the wind on its sails (Cambridge Dictionary online). In this sense, ‘course’ should be considered a noun.
Or ‘to tack’ means ‘to course’ in some sense (I haven’t searched enough).
I parsed MASTER OF ARTS as FART in EROS under MAST – which leaves “post” doing double duty, but an MA is a graduate too. Didn’t know NOT UP as I don’t play tennis, or MESENTERA, but luckily neither clue was difficult.
Pleased to see Paul in witty, rather than dour and tough, form today (and not too many See so-and-so’s) – smiled at the cat MEOWING for a stroke and the poor journalists finding that it’s MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS.
I suspect, like me, Paul was unaware the Marathon has been reintroduced. Hence the ‘once’. The definition is just athlete. Still don’t get the need for seen in 26 as has been asked above. Anyone? BTW I can confidently state that is the debut of me entering mesentera as the FOI!
Seem to be back on form today – or this was easier than recent crossies. Really enjoyed this. Thanks Paul and flashing. No quibbles from me, except 26a, I agree that ‘seen’ seems to be superfluous.
Ilippu @22, KVa @23 and Deegee @28, I originally thought that “once” referred to the original Marathon runner (the one dying in this painting) but now I’m not sure. It could equally refer to “once” being the pre 1990 chocolate bar and Paul was just unaware of its revival in the UK. It works both ways and you pays yer money and takes yer choice.
Well Paul often provides a snicker, and doubly so today. I thought there was a link word missing in LAIRD – Landowner seen in hide, daughter for example.
I’m sure the definition for MASTER OF ARTS is just ‘graduate’ (i.e. it’s a lift-and-separate clue).
– Postgrad students may not have got their MA yet
– Oxbridge and Dublin MAs haven’t done any postgrad study
The wordplay then works fine, with MAST = post, and there’s no double duty.
I thought ‘on the Orient Express’ (understood as a whole phrase) was Paul’s whimsical equivalent for ‘working for a Chinese newspaper?’
A Roz-like frown for the indirect indication of the anagram fodder in DEAR SIR OR MADAM, but otherwise all smiles today.
Ta Paul and flashing (by the way, glad to see your post on the Everyman blog about Sil – very best wishes to him if he’s reading this).
Thanks Paul and flashling
Fun, but I’m another who doesn’t see how “seen” fits in 26.
I discovered from Michael Portillo yesterday that Mars Bars were named after their inventor, Forrest Mars.
Tim C – according to your link @12, the revival of the old Marathon name for Snickers was just for three months in 2020, and only at Morrisons.
pdm @13 – in the same link, it says Snickers was the Mars family’s favourite horse 🙂
Essexboy@34. You read the link the rest of us couldn’t be bothered to do! But you’re right…and therefore, so is Paul. The word once fits perfectly.
essexboy @34 They may still be Snickers there then. I tried to get over there in 2020 but then the Lurgi got in the way. Hopefully next year.
It’s true I believe that Snickers was the Mars’ favourite horse. Also, Frank and Ethel’s farm was called “the Milky Way Farm”. As Peter Kay says “I don’t waste my evenings. 🙂
Only Paul could get FART next to the clue for fumes in the gut – masterful 🙂
Livid reminded me of the classic Gerald the Gorilla sketch
Cheers F&P
I struggled with NE until the pdm with MESENTRA. I thought this was superb and especially liked BLOW A FUSE. Smiled at how candy bars on the blog gradually morphed into chocolate bars as the UK got out of their scratchers.
Ta Paul & flashling.
I was lucky today, finding myself bang on Paul’s wavelength – by the time I went through the grid a second time. Nothing seemed to drop til I was about half way through, then the bottom half came together and that awkward top half just unravelled on revisiting. And everything parsed – even the L&S’s which I rarely spot. I parsed MA as did eb and, being completely unaware of any recent rebranding, just took the ‘once’ in MARATHON RUNNER to refer to the original Philippides. MESENTERA fell because I could work back from the A in ASWAN and I agree with eb (again) on the ORIENT EXPRESS interpretation.
Favourites include SABLE, OMBRE, TEA ROOM, OPTIMUM, EXCREMENT, BLOW A FUSE and IVIED – though the last gives me my only teeny weeny nitpick: whilst Paul may well break the odd rule, it would have been so easy to insert an apostrophe-s after ‘expedition’ and before ‘leader’ to indicate the E.
Thanks Paul and flashling for burning the 2am oil
This was fun, lots of entertaining clues and answers. As someone who only really likes Bounty and Snickers bars of the Mars offerings in the Celebration boxes (I got given one for Christmas and shared it with youthwork), Marathon/Snickers made sense.
Thank you flashling and Paul.
I think MARATHON RUNNER is a sadist, hard-working, athlete. 🙂
[Groan. Forget punctuation and grammar. You people say ‘I’ll get my coat’. I’m just going to hide under the doona as the heat wave has lessened here today. Don’t have any excuse any more for brain fades.]
[pdm @41, early bath for you 😀 ]
The sweets in the UK Celebrations assortment are still called Snickers – I don’t think the return of “Marathon” as a name for those bars is widespread or well known.
Thanks Paul for an excellent puzzle. I really enjoyed it.
My children used to delight in shouting “Ma’s knickers are on the table!”
Eb@32 – is it still an indirect anagram when all the letters are given – albeit after taking two away? I thought it was only when you had to find a synonym for the fodder first, and then anagramise it. Either way, I really like them 🙂
I smiled a lot through this. Paul back to his amusingly lavatorial self. No double duties here if the parsing is as the setter presumably intended: ‘in side’ and ‘graduate’ as def. I took the ‘once’ to refer to the fact that the erstwhile MARATHON is now Snickers (in the UK); the def is ‘athlete’.
I liked the scary girl, the idle singer, and the letter opener. I knew the word ‘mesentery’ but not MESENTERA, which is presumably the plural of ‘mesenteron’, the mid-gut, which is a bit odd as we only have one each.
Thanks to S&B
Thanks for the blog , I have lost track in the comments for 1 AC.
My take . Athlete = MARATHON RUNNER .
Wordplay – someone trying to smuggle chocolate bars in the past ( once) could have been a Marathon runner .
At least it was not Nestles Ripple or we could have had a Spoonerism .
As MrEssexboy@32 says, a severe Paddington stare for 27Ac but the rest of the clues were great. TEAROOM was a typical Paul Playtex, he often uses indeed as well. I will join in with the praise from AlanC for BLOW A FUSE . MESENTERA was very fair being hidden.
Lovely stuff, Paul, especially as it took a panicky while to get going. With AMORTISED not a very auspicious start. Thought DEAR SIR OR MADAM a classic of setting. On racecourses nowadays we rather mourn the disappearance of the white gloved TICK TACK men, relaying the shifting odds. In a rush, haven’t had a chance to read through today’s comments, sorry if I’ve repeated what’s already been said…
I saw MURDER … as a straightforward double definition, the second part whimsical, as “it’s murder working on the [eastern newspaper]”. Some of us seem to be making it slightly more complicated than necessary.
Overall, an entertaining puzzle, not too easy, not too hard. I enjoyed spotting the misleading definition for DEAR SIR …
Roz@50 I hope you are not too miffed about the card game at 14A.
Petert I love card games just not endless themes. Four lunchtimes a week when I am working I play cards with the students. I teach them bridge they teach me games from their own countries. The Spanish students play Ombre.
Ha! A completed(ish) Paul grid. Always satisfying, especially after a horror yesterday.
Thanks for resolving the parsing of 1d, Paul managed to get lavatorial humour into the crossword there.
Nice to be reminded of MOTOE and the wonderful performance by Albert Finney as HP.
As one who was very partial, I can confirm that, in the UK, MARATHON = SNICKERS, though quite what the marketing people at Mars were thinking when they decided on the name change is beyond me.
Thanks both.
[Parenthetically to MOTOE I have been binge watching David Suchet Poirots on Amazon Prime, here in Rome, dubbed into Italian. Surreal 🙂 ]
Like others this took me a while to get started but once I had, the solutions came thick and fast – many making me grin.
It’s funny, yesterday’s Boatman included quite a few clues that the blogger described as experimental and, although I did finally manage to complete it, I really didn’t find it much fun. Today’s Paul-oeuvre plays with the rules too, yet figuring out the answers was a delight. I wonder why? I’m quite sure both setters are equally likeable, creative and erudite. Perhaps it’s just that I was more on Paul’s wavelength?
Thank you Paul for the fun, and flashling for the blog – written at 2am, ye gods!!
Great fun, this, and pretty easy for a Paul crossword.
Essexboy @32: all Scottish UG arts degrees at the four ancient universities are MA too.
Welcome back, flashling.
TACK not quite legit, I think. The racing meaning totally new to me.
23a MEOWING If Paul’s cat meows as a way of asking to be petted, he or she is an odd ‘un.
THE ORIENT stands for “Chinese”? Here’s the parts of speech problem from yesterday again.
flashling I followed eb’s link to your Everyman blog. What and where are Ken’s Christmas wishes and can I see them? I’d like to read the update on Sil.
essexboy@32 Your comments are so fascinating. Now I know you can get an MA from Oxford or Cambridge or Trinity (Dublin) if you have a BA from there and are “in residence” for a certain amount of time. But the Wikipedia article doesn’t say how you can do that — what does it mean?
eb What is Tim C’s “link @12?” 12 is somebody else’s post and I couldn’t find a link in any of Tim’s.
Shanne@40 Never heard of a celebration box or of a collection of sample bars. I don’t think we have them in the US.
Fun puzzle, Paul, thanks for it. And flashling, thanks for your gallant contribution i the wee hours! You’ve earned a very happy New Year.
No crossword rules were harmed in the solving of this puzzle!
Great fun, and not as difficult as Paul can be.
Some masterful touches eg MASTER OF ARTS, NO PROBLEM, DOMINGO, TEA ROOM, MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
Thanks to Paul and flashling for standing in on the blog
Ilippu@22: In answer to your question about 1a see Roz@49.
Valentine , the MA at Oxford is strictly nominal and requires no further study. You are entitled to it seven years from starting your first degree provided you pass your BA, or when you complete your D.Phil . I got a double MA at the same time even though I did not want it.
[paddymelon @41: I would call a MARATHON RUNNER a masochist, not a sadist. Sadists are those who watch marathons, particularly in the final miles.]
Valentine for 25.3,12 Paul is asking us to imagine there is a Chinese newspaper called the Orient Express. In the UK we have several newspapers called ….. Express. It is hellish working there so a journalist could complain – ( it is) Murder on the Orient Express.
Valentine @59: No grammatical problem with MOTOE – flashling has over-fragmented the parsing. The ‘Chinese newspaper’ is THE ORIENT EXPRESS.
Tony@61 you and Tim had very similar thoughts to me. I just thought I could clarify things later in the blog.
[Tony @63
You remind me of an old David Frost line about a masochist who liked a cold shower every morning …… so he took a hot one.]
Sorry Valentine @59, my bad. (I was trying to post quickly, and ended up tripping over my shoelaces.) Tim C’s link was @19 – also here for ease of reference.
I also now realise I repeated a point already made by Justin @3 and David @4 without acknowledging them – apologies to both.
Roz @62 has responded to your MA query – thanks also to CalMac @58 for pointing out the Scottish situation.
Re the update from Sil, the “Ken’s Christmas wishes” page is here. Sil’s post is @30.
[Tony @63 / muffin @67 – you may have realised this already, but in case you didn’t…
The first part of pdm’s proto-clue @41 for MARATHON RUNNER was an allusion to Marat/Sade – hence my not-in-the-best-possible-taste ‘bath’ comment!]
Very tough. As usual, I was not on Paul’s wavelength.
I did not parse
1ac – thanks Tony@9
26ac what is the word ‘seen’ there for?
1d thanks David@4
New: MESENTERA; TICK-TACK = (in the UK) a kind of manual semaphore used by racecourse bookmakers to exchange information; NOT UP = Call given by the umpire when a player plays a ball that has already bounced twice, i.e. the ball was out of play when the player played it.
Liked TEA ROOM, OMBRE.
Thanks, both.
[essexboy@69: Thanks, I didn’t realize that the comment made by pdm@41 was a clue and a good one at that.]
Better should be bettor, surely.
A fast start with MARATHON RUNNER and NOT UP (a common enough umpire’s call, I would have thought) turning into a slow burner with a great many delights along the way. Loved MEOWING, BLOW A FUSE, the Chinese newspaper, the letter-opener and the sprinkling of Paul’s vulgarities. Almost completed but failed to deliver EXCREMENT.
Wow! Finished a Paul for the first time! Normally I’m simply not on his wavelength.
The best method for me is to laser in on the definition and work backwards to the clue elements. I still find it difficult to parse the answers, but hey, one step at a time!
A good day for this solver.
Blindcavefish@74 when I was learning cryptics and stuck I would often treat it as a quick crossword and look for definitions, they are nearly always at the start or end. This would give some answers and some valuable letters for the grid. Sometimes we need to get started in order to get started .
I remember seeing tic-tacking on one of the rare occasions when I visited a British race track: Doncaster, way back when… (My father-in-law’s neighbour’s wife won a packet and treated us all to a celebratory Chinese meal on her winnings; that’s Northern hospitality). Anyway, the wikipedia article on tic-tac signals is fascinating, although I’m dreading the day when they eventually (?) turn up in a theme.
Roz@75, precisely. I also try and guess-fit words into partial answers, sometimes I get lucky. So I guessed EXPRESS at 12ac and the whole solution tumbled into the grid. Very satisfying
Peter T @31 seems to have the best explanation for the otherwise inexplicable “seen”: it’s a typo in a clue that should have read “…seen in hide…” What do you think: Tim C @10 & Paddy Melon @13 & Dee Gee @28 & Trish in Charante @29 & Muffin @33 & Michelle @70 et al?
John P @72 is, I assume, writing from the United States, where “bettor” and “better” are clearly different words. But if we enforced that distinction, John, a multitude of clues using that timeworn misdirection would go up in smoke, not just 9a. I would even argue today that 13a was deploying the same misdirection, falsely luring us into contemplating gambling
Yes, I’ll go with that.
I am puzzled by the widespread concern about the LAIRD clue. The “seen” is there to make the surface work better – the surface would be nonsensical without it – and the clue simply tells us that when LAIR and D(aughter) are combined then the word LAIRD is produced and can therefore be seen. There’s no need to postulate a missing word, which would just make the clue longer. While I’d agree that in the very best clues each word is doing active work, it’s far from unusual for a compiler to add in words to make the surface more convincing – for instance in this crossword “seen” also turns up in 10A doing much the same job as it does in 26A, and nobody seems bothered by that one.
Sagittarius @80: but in 10d, the “seen” is not alone as it is in 26a and does have the extra word, namely a “by”. Surely Peter T’s suggested extra “in” is what’s needed, as an equivalent to the “by”
Thanks flashling, certainly not the easiest to blog I would have thought, kept me guessing for a while anyway – eg i got the hang of 6d fairly quickly it took a while longer for crossers to determine which way it had to be entered. I share a couple of minor quibbles but for some reason only the point made by JohnP@72 held me up significantly, I am sure we have had a debate a while ago on whether betters can sit either side of the table and presumably that is partly the point made by Andrew Tyndall@78. Thanks also for the link blaise@76, I am just old enough to recall some tictac at the races along with old fashioned ‘spreadsheet’ style books to adjust the odds. More entertaining food for thought from Paul, thanks and top marks for an evocative surface in 24d.
PeterT@31 and Andrew Tyndall@78. re LAIRD I think the humour in Paul’s clue “Landowner seen, hide daughter.” would be lost if there’s something else added. We do often have ‘seen in’ as an indicator, but not ‘seen’ alone, or as a link word.
I think here it’s just a bit of quirky Paul cluing.
eb@43, 69 Tony Santucci@63,71 and muffin@67 LOL Thanks, you’ve given me an idea for improving my ‘proto-clue’, if they ever let me out of the asylum.
Tend to agree with Sagittarius too @80 and not just because that’s also my zodiac sign.
Roz@62 I get the “no further study” part. What I don’t get is (in essexboy’s Wiki article @32) the “in residence” part.
Happy New Year to all!
Roz@62
I qualified for an Oxford MA in 1963 but didn’t take it because, apart from getting me my first job interview in advertising, it was never relevant. Besides it cost £10 which would have bought more than 50 pints. My elder son didn’t bother either and the younger one didn’t qualify in spite of being a DPhil as he skipped a BA for an MPhys. He does qualify for all the privileges of an MA though, such as voting for the Professor of Poetry?
[Valentine @85, I know Roz prefers not to click on links, so I’ll quote from the article:
“At Cambridge, the MA degree may be conferred six years after the end of the first term in residence to a person holding a Cambridge Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree, provided they have held it for at least two years.”
“First term in residence” just means when they started studying at the university. Slightly different timing at Oxford, but essentially the same system.]
[Much later, but interested in Pino’s price per pint. Unless my memory’s confused, in ’67 a pint was about 2 bob, like 1/10 in the suburbs and a few pence more in Oxford St. That gets you 100 pints for your £10!!]
[ Valentine and MrEssexboy , yes first term in residence at Oxford basically means start of your first degree. Oxford used to be seven years until the MA , OR when you finish a D.Phil if earlier . For me the two coincided but I did not actually “take” my MA , qualifications should be earned. ]
[ Pino@86, yes most of our students now do the MPhys , same for MMath and MEng, a normal but FOUR year first degree. Not quite sure for the arts subjects , I will ask next week. }
[ Grant @ 88 my first week as a student , college bar, heavily subsidised , 26p per pint, just over 5 bob, 38+12/26 pints for Pino’s 10 pound]
PDM@83 etc , your clue is a brilliant idea and a potential &Lit , I am just not totally happy with Sadist=Marat , the rest is perfect. Work on it.
You may like a recent Azed clue. – French mister artist framed in middle of bath? Lifeless one! (5)
[ Hi Roz. Thanks. So that’s MARAT. Lifeless one? I know he was executed, don’t get that bit.
Glad you popped in, there’s something I heard on the radio this week that made me think of you and that I’d like to pass on. Fascinating, especially seeing meaning in the dark sky, and its changes, not only in the stars that others focus on. You’ve said how you do cross-cultural exchanges with your students. These women would be wonderful to invite over, if your faculty could afford it. But there is the book.
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/sky-country:-knowledge-from-the-worlds-first-astronomers/101761298
Karlie Noon and Krystal De Napoli, Gamilaraay astrophysicists and science communicators, co-authors of Astronomy: Sky Knowledge, part of the First Knowledges series edited by Margo Neale and published by Thames & Hudson.
https://www.torquaybooks.com.au/p/astronomy-sky-country-first-knowledges-4 ]
[pdm @91, re MARAT – this may help]
[Pieta? Death of Marat? 5 letters, that’s my best guess.]
[Or David? Please let me out of my misery.]
M[onsieur] + RA (artist) + [b]AT[h]
Presume “lifeless one” is a reference to David’s picture, but it is a tad oblique.
[W/pdm – “lifeless one” by itself would be oblique, but I’d see it as an extended definition, not &lit exactly, but &littish.
On that reading, as well as contributing to the wordplay, the ‘French mister’ is Marat, who was indeed ‘framed’ by an artist (David) at the moment when his bath was so rudely interrupted.]
Ah yes, of course – I was forgetting that detail, him being in the bath. Makes much more sense now. Thanks.
[Thank you for your mercy eb. Nighty night.]
I think it would be better without the second part , perfect &Lit.
PDM@91 many thanks for the links , I will get someone to sort these out for me later. The radio link can be emailed to all my students ( not by me ha ha ) .
Not sure if I’m the first to answer this, flashling, but “don” also means “put on” in the sense of donning a coat or one’s armor for example. I didn’t see it either at first.
grantinfreo@88
Of course you’re right – and mental arithmetic used to be my best subject.
Roz@89
I started with Classics where Mods, the first public exam, was taken after 5 terms which meant that whatever you did afterwards (I switched to Law) your degree took 4 years but you still only got a BA at the end. Son got his MPhys in 1997, so the practice has been going for a while. Not all of his contemporaries did. I remember one of them saying that once he had his First he was heading to the City to earn real money
Took me a while to get going on this then I’m but didn’t see Mel B as the scary girl.
Thanks Paul and flashing
It’s taken me a good while to solve this and I was still baffled by a few solutions. Delighted to have discovered Fifteensquared. Thanks all for the explanations and entertainment.