Guardian Cryptic 28,969 by Boatman

95 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,969 by Boatman”

1. ADJOURNS:
   I took retires with everyone as the definition. JO as favourite.

2. Oh well. As usual with Boatman, a couple of obscurities ( w = weak, region, though that had to be an anagram of ignore). Like loonapick, I’ve no idea why Jo is everyone’s favourite. Well done Boatman on reaching 100, and thanks to him and loonapick.

3. Loved FIVE SCORE and ASCETIC.

   Thanks, Boatman and loonapick!

4. ADJOURNS:
   When you adjourn a meeting, you retire with everyone.
   Everyone’s-if read as ‘everyone is’, that works okay, I guess.

5. Congratulations, Boatman, and thanks for yet another splendid puzzle. Found most of it quite tractable but spent ages scratching my head over the devious FIVE SCORE, my LOI by some margin. Excellent clue.

   Thanks for the blog, Loonapick. I was also perplexed by JO, assumed it was a Little Women reference (never read the book). Forgot the Scottish meaning. KVa’s parsing sounds plausible.

6. Yep definitely Jo March. I’ve seen one or two of the movies, but the books were a favourite of a young mrs ginf, and lots of women writers seem to have been inspired by her.

7. Yes, five’s core = 4 was pretty neat. Great puzzle, congrats on the ton Boatman, and ta loonapick.

8. Still don’t see what MORE THAN is doing in 1d?

9. Well, I’m glad others seem to have sorted out who Jo is, as I couldn’t. Couldn’t parse FIVE SCORE (pretty tricky). I thought W for weak was weak, although I notice that there is some obscure explanation (which I never came across during my studies of physics). Likewise I couldn’t work out where the definition was in REGION. Read/understand is a pretty loose connection, methinks.

   Everything else fell into place with a fair smattering of smiles. Thank you Boatman.

10. NNI@8
    Is a hundred a county division in the UK?
    A region must be larger than a hundred (larger=more?).
    Can’t say for sure this was what was intended by the setter.

11. Yes, Jo March is the favourite character for readers of Little Women. Everyone loves Jo. Clue made me smile.

12. Congratulations on the century!

    Quite sure it was a coincidence but unsurprisingly my favourite clue has to be 11D.

    Thanks Boatman and loonapick.

13. What a nice puzzle with which to celebrate a century and congrats to Boatman. I sailed through the first two thirds, slowed down considerably and struggled with the last few. LOI was OH DEAR – even though it was clearly clued, I mentally dismissed the borders of ‘hundred’ – ‘I can’t see how HD is going to fit in that four letter word that must surely be preceded by ON or OF…’ Doh!

    I didn’t parse the excellent FIVE SCORE and could not make sense of REGION as a def and am still slightly at sea with that one. Being less familiar with Little Women, but having encountered JO as a Scots girlfriend in crosswords before, I had plumped for the latter parse.

    Favourites from many – I’ve always enjoyed this kind of Boatman theme so there are plenty to choose – include DROLL for the gentle self-deprecation; WELL SAID for the cryptic def; MEMORANDA for the brutal politically apt surface; ERUCTS – splendid word and what a gloriously long-winded way of cluing ST; BRAHMS for a very well executed and hidden acrostic; BLAH ‘cos he’s a pal and it’s amusing to see him associated with tripe and (given I didn’t parse FIVE SCORE) my COTD for the stunning anagram and nice self-referential surface with which to end, NODDED THROUGH.

    Thanks and congratulations to Boatman and also to loonapick

14. [Blah @12: how very timely. You posted whilst I was typing my own! Oddly, your message is shorter than mine …]

15. A really fun and challenging puzzle and congratulations to Boatman. Some creative clues and good deception – RADIO ONE, OH DEAR, MEMORANDA were satisfying to disentangle among others.

    FIVE SCORE was my LOI like many others I’m sure. A really cute and misleading clue but felt a bit rough to have only 4/9 checked given there was no way to get it from the “wordplay”. ERUCTS felt like a lot of obscurity to pack into one clue but I found it from somewhere so all’s fair I guess?

    Thanks Boatman and loonapick.

16. I found this possibly more amenable than previous Boatman’s puzzles. Maybe the obvious “hundred” theme helped.

    For all the dictionary haters on here (Why?), here are quotes from a dictionary which may help.

    jo or joe (Scot) n (pl joes) a beloved one. [an old form of joy]

    hundred n … a division of a county in England orig supposed to contain a hundred families

    W or W. abbrev : weak (phys; in particle physics a W particle or W boson ……. responsible in theory for weak interaction between particles)…..

    Favourite was the brilliant FIVE SCORE.

    Congrats for the ton Boatman ant thanks for the blog loonapick.

17. Like others, I don’t automatically link favourite and Jo. And I missed the parsing for 19 down. I might have seen it if the clue didn’t have “as” in the middle.

18. Oh, okay then, Tim C … wonder if Alcott knew that 😉

19. The Chiltern Hundreds are smaller (less) than the North-East, say. Everything else has been said.
    I thought Jo March for favourite, but the Scottish alternative seems to work just as well.
    It would have taken me a long time to spot ‘five’s core’, but I’m blaming the cold for that.

20. I had no problem with any of the so-called ‘quibbles’ mentioned so far. I thought this was Boatman at his smoothest (and possibly easiest). A creation of which to be proud, with some dashing clues already cited. NODDED THROUGH said it all : clever, apposite, brilliantly discovered – and a witty sign-off to boot.

    Well done, Boatman, hundreds more please!

    (and thanks to loonapick)

21. Thanks loonapick and my assessment similar to yours down to not knowing Jo, so thanks everyone above for clarifying (looks like there are 2 equally valid things for me to remember). Lucky eructation of inspiration got me the brilliant 9A (jt fave with 25a, hope Roz enjoyed that one, and 23d/17a) which meant 1D had to be area-related (i had made a list of all the ways “hundred” had been used and it was the only other one I could think of, well done Boatman on the variety – as well as MPs “taking the Chiltern hundreds” there is Rochford Hundred rugby club) but 26a was last as I just couldn’t see it (being no baker). Andy@17 yes that “as an” combo held me up too. Congratulations on the landmark and thanks for a suitably special puzzle Boatman.

22. Thank you loonapick for the explanation of FIVE SCORE which, being explained, is absolutely superb.
    A tough but pretty fair challenge from Boatman – only ANIMES was unknown, and gettable from the wordplay; Vincent de Paul’s a pretty obscure saint but it’s fairly clear that’s what it’s about; curé is probably something it’s fair to expect Grauniad solvers to know (I’d be less confident with the Daily Mail). I’m not convinced that “everyone’s” in 20a isn’t redundant, but it certainly doesn’t spoil anything.
    And some memorably good bits of work along the way – the surface of 25a is brutally accurate, and once you get the sub-theme, so are 27a, 6d, 19d, 21d…
    NODDED THROUGH is a brilliant spot, and Boatman manages to tuck the clue in question where it belongs, at the end of what is indeed a good hundredth puzzle. Congratulations and thanks to Boatman.

23. Thanks, Loonapick and all – glad you’ve enjoyed this little piece of self-indulgence.
    NNI @8 – My first draft of the clue was actually “Perhaps a hundred corrections to ignore”, but Hugh persuaded me that this would be unfair, because most people would intuitively think of a region as being somewhat larger than a county – the Northeast, the Home Counties and so on – any anyone who knows what a hundred was (I had to check), will appreciate that it was always a subdivision of a county, so a region must always be geographically more than a hundred.

24. Thoroughly enjoyable. Had no problem with REGION but couldn’t parse FIVE SCORE. Suspected Jo Marsh, but I shall salt away the other meaning of “jo” for future reference. Spent ages on irrelevant reading about St Vincent. LOI was KNEAD.
    Congrats to Boatman and my thanks to loonapick.

25. I thought of JO from the Burns poem John Anderson, My Joe (performed nicely by Eddie Reader) Congratulations to Boatman on the hundred fine puzzles.

26. Enjoyed the puzzle. JO March was all I could think of for ADJOURNS but does anyone still read Little Women?

    Thanks Boatman and loonapick

27. Enjoyed this, though the SE took a while to fall. My political bias was showing when I confidently answered “Fan of austerity called out as an inflexible parasite” with OSBORNE but I realised fairly quickly that this wasn’t fitting in with anything crossing… REGION and FIVE SCORE were unparsed til I got here (like a few other folk I think). ERUCTS is a new term to me but I battered it into submission then checked the dictionary. Re the parsing of JO, surely a valid dictionary word matching “favourite”, however obscure, is a more likely explanation than a literary character?

    Thanks both and congratulations to Boatman.

28. I don’t know where NielH and Auriga are located, but Saint (so called) Vincent de Paul should be fairly familiar to Australian solvers given the chain of “Vinnie’s” Op Shops

29. Yes, Boatman is an amusing setter! (8a) Thanks to him and loonapick, and congratulations on the ton.

30. I knew of both Jo March and John Anderson, my Jo, but didn’t associate either of them immediately with “favourite”, and there must be many areas bigger than a hundred (though not many that are an anagram of ignore).

    Favourites WELLS AID and FIVE’S CORE (which thank goodness turned out to have nothing to do with 4d: those two held out together for quite a while).

31. Thanks Boatman and congratulations. Favourite 9: Oi’ll give it foIVe!
    I wasted time on AT ONCE trying to equate ATON(c)E with CHAMPION before the penny dropped. And I now realise that I’ve been mispronouncing ASCETIC for the last 50 years…

32. Congrats on yr 100th Batman.

33. Crossbar@26: you don’t have to read it to be aware of Jo – there is a recent film.

34. Auriga @24, like you I spent a while googling VdP as I convinced myself I’d heard “Saint-Curé” used as a generic term for jobbing priests who’ve been beatified in that RC version of the New Years honours list. But it seems I was overthinking and the wordplay is in two parts.

35. Very accessible and delightful solve and thanks to Boatman for dropping into explain what could only have been REGION. I thought of Jo March but have seen Jo clued before in the Scottish context so plumped for that as the most likely. The only one to hold me up was ASCETIC, followed by a groan. FIVE SCORE and NODDED THROUGH were superb and I learnt about an obscure French priest who looked after those with KNEADS. Congratulations on a mighty achievement.

    Ta Boatman & loonapick.

36. Congratulations on the century, Boatman!

    After crawling through the 90s this is his joint fastest return ever (just 20 days – he hasn’t come back this quickly since his 20th puzzle in November 2011) so he has pipped Vlad to the post after all.

    Boatman is the 39th setter to reach the landmark of 100 daily puzzles in the Guardian, and the 36th slowest – only Imogen, Logodaedalus and Gemini took longer to get there from debut. Boatman #1 was puzzle 24,508 on 1st October 2008.

    His record includes 1 Monday, 22 Tuesdays, 20 Wednesdays, 29 Thursdays, 16 Fridays and 12 Saturdays; in addition he has set 5 Genius puzzles.

    I presume there will be a second book on its way…?

37. paul b @32: I did smile at your typo 🙂

38. TimC @16. I’m not a dictionary hater, but I don’t feel the need to have to go to one every time a compiler uses an obscurity, as with those you listed.

39. AlanC @35 – as TimC @28 observes, St Vincent de Paul is very well known down under – as well as the Vinnie’s Op Shops he mentions (i.e. ‘charity shops’ in Pommy), there is Vinnie’s Van that feeds the homeless. Congrats on the ton, Boatman, and thanks, loonapick.

40. [gladys@33 I was vaguely aware of the recent film. I read all 4 books in the March saga as a pre-teen, and there was a TV drama at the time too. I just can’t see why anyone would want to redo it now. I’m afraid the thought of it makes me cringe now. ]

41. Fun puzzle from a setter who isn’t usually one of my favourites (bravo for the ton, Boatman).

    ‘Obscurity’ (ie ‘I didn’t know it’) is in the mind of the solver – my FOI was ERUCTS! And I’m familiar with JO = favourite – it does pop up in crosswords occasionally. Sorry! 🙂

    Like others, my vote for COD is the beautiful FIVE SCORE.

    Thanks to S&B

42. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50357/john-anderson-my-jo-john I reckon we can forget about Little Women now.

43. Congrats Boatman on your ton-up and on this fine puzzle.

    TimC @16 has hit the nail on the head re Jo (and others). The Scots meaning does the trick.

    Favourites were SLUMPING, MEMORANDA and the brilliant NODDED THROUGH.

    Thanks Boatman and loonapick

44. NDumpling @42 – That’s the most polite version! There are others that are more earthy, such as this one.
    Mitz @36 – I couldn’t let you down after you’d kept count so well! I suppose there might just have to be another book now – that’ll keep me happily occupied for a while …

45. Boatie played mostly with a straight bat with the odd cut or glance evading the slips for four
    He made sure he hit the ground first avoiding a catch on the boundary.
    A well deserved ton.
    Chapeau!

46. I agree that FIVESCORE is excellent and JO rather obscure. “More than” in 1d is not only misleading but unnecessary. The clue would have worked better without it.

    All the same, congrats to Boatman.

47. Quite tough. Solved NW corner last but gave upon 9ac, 1d, 3d.

    Liked RADIO ONE, BLAH.

    Did anyone else try OSBORNE as fan of austerity for 19d (I had second letter as an S at the time. But I could not parse it as an answer LOL

    Thanks both and congratulations to Boatman on 100 puzzles

48. Surprised some people including me, were a little stumped by “Jo” for favourite. Then my memrory banks turned up the Scots lyric “John Anderson my JO John, when first we were aquent” etc.”

49. Congratulations on the hundred, Boatman.

    I didn’t parse FIVE SCORE but it was clear from the definition and the crossers, and now it’s been explained it was very good. DROLL was nice – the surface perhaps being a wry reference to the way his puzzles sometimes divide opinion?

    I don’t think anyone’s mentioned the traditional dual use of “Boatman” – once to mean I/me and once to mean an actual boatman – at 22a and 2d. Quite impressive to get this into every puzzle.

    Many thanks Boatman and loonapick.

50. A fine way to celebrate the ton!

    Any Scrabble player will probably know the useful jo. I would agree that FIVE SCORE is probably the COTD. I also enjoyed the splendid anagram to give NODDED THROUGH and the lovely word ERUCTS. I spent far too long thinking about a restricted anagram of water for 11, a nice clue for BLAH. I thought the surface of the clue for OBSTACLE was outstanding.

    Thanks and congratulations to Boatman, and thanks also to loonapick for a comprehensive blog. I think Boatman has confirmed his intention that the favourite was a Scottish sweetheart.

51. Delightful, and congratulations to Boatman.

    Like many others I was stumped by Jo, being neither Scottish nor a reader of Little Women.

52. This didn’t come easy. Loved the cleverly constructed COTD for me, NODDED THROUGH once that was in the bag, but had to cheat a tad by Googling Vincent de Paul to discover that he was a Cure and later a Saint. To have any chance with solving 3d. And left with all the crossers and the 6 letters for the anagram for loi at 12ac, bunged in ANIMES and prayed, as Vincent de P would have done no doubt. Wasn’t quite sure about how ASCETIC worked, but did enjoy the tussle this morning. Well done Boatman with the single THROUGH the slips perhaps and the NODDED call to your partner at the other end of the wicket that brought up your century today…

53. Great puzzle, thanks Boatman, and loonapick for a couple of parsings, though I mostly managed them.
    My understanding is that the old region was meant to be an area that could support 200 families… but whatever, it is clearly greater than a hundred!
    Congratulations on reaching 100!

54. Congrats on your ton yes a second book is a must I still look at the first having acquired it at Brighton when you, Mr Halpern and editor Hugh met some of us solvers. Memorable occasion. As to this one today enjoyed it as always.

55. Thanks for the blog, I have probably done every one of Boatman’s hundred puzzles, one of my favourite setters. I will join the praise for NODDED THROUGH ( very clever to have it at the end ) and FIVE-SCORE , third on my list was OBSTACLE which was very neat.
    St Vincent de Paul is a fairly common name for Catholic schools in the UK.

56. W for WEAK is widely used in Particle Physics when annotating different decay modes. Also the symbol for the two charged intermediate vector gauge bosons that mediate the interaction. Their charges allow weak decays to violate conservation laws such as Strangeness and Charm .

57. Got to agree with Postmark @13: MEMORANDA is my COD ‘for the brutal politically apt surface’.
    Many thanks Boatman for this brilliant effort… and the other 99!

58. Thanks both,
    Super puzzle. In the parsing for 19, the homophone should be A SET TICK. Apols if someone has already said that.

59. Thanks Boatman for the link (@44) to the earthier John Anderson. It’ll make a change from the sleekit cowrin timrous beastie at our Burns NIght supper next week.

60. Unlike loonapick, I found the right half easier than the left, where there were a half-dozen clues still unsolved last night.

    CENTURIES means hundreds of years unless you include “of runs etc” as part of the definition, so “runs etc” is doing double duty.

    I had no hope of parsing FIVE SCORE but I should have got OBSTACLE.

    “A set tick” isn’t a homophone for ASCETIC because in the former you pronounce the T twice. You could hear the difference between, say, “rub in” and “rub bin.” Try it and you’ll see.

    Never heard of NODDED THROUGH. I wonder whether other legislative bodies have similar conventions. Also new was this meaning of “hundred” — is that what the Chiltern Hundreds are? Googling Chiltern Hundreds revealed (thanks, Wikipedia) yet another quaint (now obsolete) Parliamentary practice.

    Boatman@23 I think of “region” as any area of land that doesn’t have its own name. To use mostly American examples, bigger than a city but smaller than a county (the Capitol Region), bigger than a county but smaller than a state (Western Massachusetts), bigger than a state but smaller than a country (New England), bigger than a country but smaller than a continent (Central America). I can’t think of one that’s bigger than a continent but smaller than the world. The Polar Region perhaps, which includes parts of several countries, at least the north one does.

    [I could think of only three books in the March saga — Little Women, Little Men, and Jo’s Boys — but apparently Little Women had a sequel, Good Wives, which was later incorporated into Little Women. Little Women contains my favorite proposal scene. As I remember it, Jo and her future husband are in the middle of crossing the street in the rain, both juggling umbrellas and armfuls of parcels, when The Question comes out.]

    Great puzzle for a great occasion, Boatman. Thanks to you and to loonapick.

61. Like Gervase@41, I have not in the past counted Boatman among my favourite setters. But this one was brilliant, from start (hundreds) to finish (hundredth) – I can only echo the tributes paid already. Please be like Bradman, and regard the scoreboard figure of 100 simply as a prelude to 200 and beyond.

62. V@60 Joe Root has scored 28 test hundreds/centuries for England?

    Brilliant stuff Mr B

    Cheers

63. Congratulations to Boatman, and thanks to loonapick.

    Great puzzle, but as in IT Techie, equating IOO to 100 always sends a shiver down my spine, and always will, no doubt!

64. Thanks Boatman and congratulations on your milestone. Boatman is on my “must do” list and this crossword keeps him there. It was easier than usual but just as clever as the more difficult ones. I had some problems with parsing — the definition for
    REGION, JO as favourite, FIVE SCORE, and the homophone in ASCETIC. None of this prevented getting the correct answers, however. Top choices included WELL SAID, MOODS, ERUCTS (there are St. Vincent de Paul dropboxes in the US for donated items), RADIO ONE, and OH DEAR. Thanks loonapick for the blog.

65. Not too hard but I didn’t see the parsing of FIVE SCORE.
    Well done Boatie and thanks to Loonapick

66. [Valentine@60 There is also the excellent March which came out more recently which imagines Mr. March and his experiences in the Civil War.]

67. Congratulations, Boatman.

68. Congratulations boatman. Five score and radio one my favourites. Looking forward to part II, boatmans’s second 50 puzzles.!

69. This has taken me all day so just dropping by to say congrats to Boatman and many thanks for endless hours of challenge to my ageing brain.

70. Thanks, everyone – your good wishes mean a lot to me.
    Jerry @69 – I can’t ask for more than that I could give you an entire day of entertainment – glad you got there in the end and enjoyed it!
    Dutch @68 – A second volume? Well, I’ll just have to get busy …

71. Late to the party–I started this on the morning commute but didn’t get a chance to finish it til lunchtime (US CST). Funny enough, I started it just as the train I was on was passing DePaul University’s main campus (right by the Fullerton stop on the Red Line el). From the train you can see a gigantic mural of St. Vincent wryly grinning at you from across the school’s softball field.

    My quibble, and sorry if this has already been raised: I have never, ever, ever seen ANIMES as a plural. ANIME is its own plural. Maybe the British butcher Japanese like that, but if you do, stop it!

72. Just adding my thanks and congratulations to Boatman for the hours of fun over the years. I know there will be unexpected challenges when I see his name.
    Thanks for the blog Loonapick – I did need your explanations for a couple today.

73. Yes, MrPenney @71, I was wondering about ANIMES as well – not sure how the S is justified.

74. Thanks BM, just ran aground in the SE corner and congratulations on the ton.
    Thanks LP for the REGION explanation, and the parsing of 18d.

75. Good puzzling B(o)atman. I liked all the things that everyone else liked.

    I do share Valentine’s niggle re 19d. I wonder if people would be happy with ‘end gin’ as a homophone of ‘engine’? They’re about the same distance apart, phonetically speaking, as ‘a set tick’ is from ‘ascetic’.

    Thanks also Valentine @60 for the regional ruminations. Like her I can’t think of a region that’s intermediate in size between a continent and a planet, but I can think of ones that are a lot bigger. I’m sure I’ve heard astronomers talk about regions of the solar system. Can you have a region of a galaxy, or of the universe? Roz will know.

    I can also think of regions that are a lot smaller than, say, the Rochford Hundred, but they’re anatomical, not geographical.

    Has the great Jo mystery been settled in favour of the Scots? I still hae my doubts:
    1) Boatman didn’t explicitly say so @44.
    2) I don’t think the def can be “retires with everyone”. “The court will adjourn for lunch” = “The court will retire with everyone for lunch”?? Sounds very odd.
    3) So we’re left with “everyone’s favourite” as an equivalent of Jo. A jo may well be a Scottish sweetheart/favourite, but with all respect to our friends north of the border (including our blogger I think?), the Scots aren’t everyone.

    As Roz suggests @55, many Catholics will be familiar with St Vincent, not only because churches and schools are named after him, but through the charitable work of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul (presumably the same one which operates down under and in the States). Others here, of a certain vintage, may remember his talented great-niece. Congrats and thanks to Batman and Robin respectively.

76. A highly enjoyable puzzle, which I’m glad I made time for as I knew this was an anniversary. Congratulations to Boatman on this milestone. I liked NODDED THROUGH best – an excellent and appropriate clue.

    I didn’t know ANIME had a plural, but I see this has been commented on already. W = ‘weak’ (Physics) has been aired before. Chambers indicates this, but my understanding (which Roz has added to in her comment @56) is that although the ‘weak’ characteristic shows the origin of the name W, the Z particle (from zero) is also a weak particle, and these two particles are known only by their letters. (Chambers 13th edition, I note, defines these two particles inconsistently.)

    Thanks to Boatman for this hundredth puzzle, and to loonapick for the blog.

77. Unfortunately, I had to leave the top left corner unfinished. I couldn’t get REGION or ERUCTS, and that left me without enough crossers to help me solve FIVE SCORE – a tough clue indeed.

78. bc@62 My point exactly. The word “scored” lets us know we’re talking about runs.

79. Wonderful crossword. Every clue completely baffling at first but then (slowly in my case) revealing itself. The lovely FIVE SCORE my FOI and too many other greats to list, but I will point out that 19D probably is the first time I’ve laughed out loud when reading a clue.

    Excellent work and many congratulations on the first tenx 😉

    (and thanks to Loonapick for the blog of course!)

80. If one ignores the “ignore” anagram, one might be tempted to follow the Biblical story of the Gadarene Swine, which defines “more than a hundred” literally thus: “My name is Legion: for we are many.”

81. Very late to the party but I wanted to add my congratulations to Boatman for reaching this milestone. And with such a delightful puzzle.

    I have always enjoyed the tussle with Boatman for his humour and smooth surfaces. Looking forward to the next 100.

    Thanks to loonapick for explaining some of the parsing that passed me by.

82. Andrew T@80, I thought of legion for the same reason as you but couldn’t justify the ‘l’ no matter how I tried. It had to be region. Clever Boatman.

83. “End gin” as a homophonic clue for ‘engine’ would be perfectly fine for me. The clue is in the very word ‘clue’, which is a hint towards finding an answer. The rest is up to us to figure out.

84. Alan B @76 there are two charged bosons W+ and W- , the Zo boson is neutral , should really be called the Wo for consistency. Apparently Weinberg called it Z because it was the last particle in the electro-weak theory.
    Chambers is generally poor in this area, cannot even define the positron properly. It is very easy to give a brief , simple and accurate definition .

85. MrEssexboy@75 , the Pacific region is probably larger than all the continents.
    Solar system , most would agree on three regions – four inner rocky planets, four outer gas giants , Kuiper belt and Oort cloud.
    Spiral galaxy perhaps four – nucleus , central bulge/disc, spiral arms, spherical halo. No real agreement.
    Universe depends on the scale, we have our local group of galaxies which is part of the Virgo super-cluster but on the large scale the universe is homogeneous and isotropic.

    For the actual clue I just thought local government, we used to have Hundreds, smaller than a council , we have had regional development boards, much larger than a council .

86. John Anderson my Jo, John (the clean version as linked by Norfolkdumpling@42) was my mother’s favourite audition piece whenever she was auditioning for a part in a play. Essexboy@75, the Scots may not be everyone, but they come close, according to Arthur Herman’s book “How the Scots Invented the Modern World”. I vote for that parsing, and I credit Boatman for that perspicacious clue.

    On the homophone front (ASCETIC at 19d), aside from my usual argument that these are puns, not homophones, I would suggest to the nitpickers the following test: would the clue and solution (in this case A SET TIC and ASCETIC) be acceptable rhymes in a limerick?

    I completed this puzzle – a rare accomplishment for me with Boatman – but with several inadequately parsed clues, so thanks loonapick for the much-needed help.

    Congrats Boatman on your 100th puzzle, and loonapick on your ??th blog.

87. myself@87 – I meant of course when she was auditioning for a Scottish part in a play.

88. Roz @84
    Many thanks for that enlightenment on the subject of W and Z bosons.
    You’re right about Chambers in this regard. Collins gives (what I believe are) good and consistent definitions of the two particles.

89. [Thanks Roz @85 for the astronomical regions, I knew I could rely on you!

    cellomaniac @87 – not when auditioning for the Scottish play, surely?

    John Anderson my jo, John,
    When we were first acquent,
    Your locks were like the ravin’d salt-sea shark,
    Root of hemlock, digg’d i’ th’ dark,
    Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips,
    Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
    Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
    Wool of bat, and tongue of dog…

    But blessings on your poison’d entrails throw,
    Round about the cauldron go,
    John Anderson, my jo! ]

90. Just to say that ANIMES is in the word lists of Chambers and Collins.

91. Cellomaniac@86

    To respond to the ??? in your comment:

    According to Fifteensquared, this was my 252nd Guardian blog, but I have also blogged 399 FT puzzles (my 400th tomorrow), 48 Azed (plus one still to be published), 17 Inquisitors, 2 Independents and 1 Genius. I also used to contribute to Times for the Times, but don’t have stats for the Times and Mephisto puzzles I blogged there.

    There are more prolific bloggers out there, though.

92. A strange debate about the precision of homophones given that we’re all happy to accept the vaguest hint for an anagrind. Surely, the clue says “…called out as…” not “…phonetically identical to…”, so the test is whether we might confuse them when called out – e.g. across a crowded room or football pitch – and obviously we would.

93. essexboy@89 – Fantastic poem, where did you find that?

    In fact, one of my mother’s favourite theatrical memories was getting to play one of the weird sisters in “that” play.

    Matt@92, I couldn’t agree more – very well said.

94. [Cello @93: mashups are wasted on the young, n’est-ce pas? 😉 ]

95. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

    Like most others, I was done by FIVE SCORE. I had to cheat on REDRAWS (sad, I know) and didn’t parse a few others, but once I was reminded of JO I had no problems with it. Nice misdirection on ABSENT too, using Boatman for AB rather than ‘me’ or ‘I’.

    Looking forward to the 1,000th … in 2035 or so? 😉

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