Guardian 28,984 – Vlad

Vlad’s name on a puzzle is usually a sign of a tough puzzle ahead, and so it was here, though with a few gentler clues to get us going. I think one clue (or its answer in the online version) is faulty. Thanks to Vlad.

 
Across
1 DASTARD Ungentlemanly type, even worse with a different leader (7)
Changing the “leader” (first letter) would give BASTARD, a worse description than dastard
5 DEPOSED Stopped working as a model, you could say, getting thrown out (7)
A model poses, so an ex-model might have DE-POSED
9 SCANT Very little time to look (5)
SCAN (look) + T
10 OBNOXIOUS Clear Number 10 not against being offensive (9)
OBVIOUS (clear) with V (against) replaced by NO X
11 WHAT AN IDEA I want a head sacked! Preposterous (4,2,4)
(I WANT A HEAD)*
12 EPIC Grand piano, one in church, returned (4)
P[iano] I in reverse of CE
14 BORIS BECKER Supporter of ex-PM (English not American), one who was recently deported (5,6)
BORIS [Johnson] BACKER with the A changed to E. Becker was recently deported from the UK after serving eight months of a 2½-year sentence for tax evasion
18 BUILDERS’ TEA Strong drink: another litre abused (8,3)
Anagram of LITRE ABUSED, with “another” as in indicator; very strong tea is stereotypically favoured by builders etc (at least in the UK)
21 RAIN Means for controlling weather, say? (4)
I thought this should be REIN, as a homophone of “rain”, but the online solution insists that RAIN is the answer, so we seem to be lacking a homophone indicator
22 IDEOLOGUES Dogmatic believers do eulogise insanely (10)
(DO EULOGISE)*
25 EXTRINSIC Criminal cross — it’s nicer outside (9)
Anagram of X IT’S NICER
26 EDGAR Man recalled daughter featuring in Vogue (5)
Reverse of D in RAGE (fashion, vogue)
27 KOREANS People divided opinion at the end — are maybe right about society (7)
Reverse of OK (right) + ARE* + [opinio]N + S[ociety] – rather a fiddly construction, but I think the order of the elements is indicated correctly if you read the clue carefully
28 RANGERS Forest keepers who play in Scotland (7)
Double definition – Glasgow RANGERS (football team) are the Scottish players
Down
1 DISOWN Renounce, as police personnel have (6)
DIS (Detective Inspectors) + OWN (have)
2 SHAMAN Spiritual healer‘s not a proper one (6)
SHAM AN
3 ASTRAL BODY Philosophical concept analysed as rot, badly (6,4)
(AS ROT BADLY)*
4 DHOTI Sad it’s gone? Not cool, Vlad’s loincloth (5)
SAD less SA (sex appeal. “it”) + HOT (not cool) + I (Vlad)
5 DINNER SET Germany’s elitist group in China? (6,3)
D (Germany) + INNER SET, with China referring to porcelain for the definition
6 POXY Producer of Bond cutting introduction: it’s rotten (4)
[E]POXY
7 SLOWPOKE Talked about cheap American trailer (8)
LOW (cheap) in SPOKE (talked) – a slowpoke might be one who trails [behind], a trail-er
8 DUSTCART Collectors’ vehicle (8)
Cryptic definition of the vehicle used by those who collect household rubbish
13 GET A MOVE ON Tory minister working over rising colleague in hurry (3,1,4,2)
Reverse of MATE (colleague) in [Michael] GOVE (UK politician who seems to have cropped up a lot lately) + ON (working)
15 REREDOSES See orders for repairing screens (9)
(SEE ORDERS)*
16 UBERGEEK Extreme nerd — one might pick you up on grammar at first, I’m afraid! (8)
UBER (a hired vehicle that might pick you up) + G[rammar] + EEK (I’m afraid!)
17 SINISTER Previously left at home in care of nurse (8)
IN in SISTER, with “previously” meaning that sinister is an old word for left (who else is reminded of the Roman soldiers in Carry On, Cleo chanting “Sinister, Dexter, Sinister, Dexter” as they march?)
19 BURGLE Rob Lowe gutted after fare goes up (6)
Reverse of GRUB (food, fare) + L[ow]E
20 OSIRIS Teacher is following — O God! (6)
O + SIR IS
23 OSCAR Big around end of November and what follows it (5)
OS (outsize) + CA (circa, around) + [novembe]R – Oscar follows November in the NATO phonetic alphabet
24 DIVA Mounted enthusiastic female singer (4)
Reverse of AVID

101 comments on “Guardian 28,984 – Vlad”

  1. I wondered about REIN/RAIN too, but the Guardian app (paper not puzzle) also insists on RAIN. I needed the parsing of KOREANS but found I was morevon the wavelength of this Vlad than I usually am.

    Thank you Andrew and Vlad.

  2. I agree with Andrew that 21a should be rein given the wording of the clue. Overall, I found this a good challenge. Thanks Vlad and Andrew

  3. I had REIN rather than RAIN as well, agreeing with Andrew that the clue as written implies the definition is ‘Means of Controlling’ with ‘Weather, say?’ indicating a homophone for weather. At best it’s ambiguous. The definition for 8d DUSTCART seemed a mite loose as well, but the crossers made the answer clear. Familiar with ‘slowcoach’ rather than SLOWPOKE, but the clue was clear enough. Liked 18 and 22 and 17d when I eventually saw it. Thanks Andrew and Vlad

  4. KOREANS:
    The order of various elements confuses me still. The reversal indicator ‘about’ is just before society.
    S at the end is settled. The rest should be ‘reverse of N A ER OK’.

    Will A for ‘are’ and ER for ‘maybe’ work? N+A+ER+OK reversed and S.

    It’s possible that I haven’t read the clue properly to get the order right.

  5. It’s Vladish to be a bit contrary, like how the ‘to’ in 9ac has to do a lot of work to get ‘t’ to come after ‘scan’. But yes agree, Andrew and Shanne, can’t see how the ‘say’ in 21ac could possibly be acting on the ‘means for controlling’ bit. Hey ho, liked the surface and v-nox substitution in obnoxious, and the dis own and the sham an were neat, and the philosophicalness or otherwise of astral body sparked a deep and meaningful here chez ginf. All good fun, thanks both.

  6. I managed to finish this in the witching hour, so very pleased with myself. Another bemused by which rain/rein should go in and I took the homophone indicator to be ‘say’. I think in RANGERS, the ‘Forest Keepers’ are also referring to Nottingham Forest goalkeepers. Favourites were OBNOXIOUS and BUILDERS’ TEA. I liked your reference to Carry On Cleo.

    Ta Vlad & Andrew

  7. It’s always nice to get to the end of a Vlad – albeit with the same ‘wrong’ ‘un as everybody else thus far. Some tricky construction with hard to recognise anagrinds and the odd instruction appearing in an unexpected place but it was all parsable. On occasions it almost felt as if Vlad was trying to make things tricky! ‘Sad it’s gone’ to indicate a D: phew!

    Favourites include BORIS BECKER, BUILDER’S TEA, SINISTER and BURGLE.

    Thanks Vlad and Andrew

  8. 9a the items seem in the wrong order?
    21a REIN is definitely the correct answer to the clue as written
    27a I still can’t make the parsing work, it’s too fiddly even if it can be made sense of
    Despite quibbles an enjoyable puzzle, liked UBERGEEK and BORIS BECKER

  9. grantinfreo@10
    I first thought along the same lines. I am not comfortable with reversing an anagram (sounds odd) together
    with the other elements.
    In my alternative parsing, you may feel uncomfortable about ‘er’ for ‘maybe’, I think.

  10. Okay, I see that 27a can work if the ‘about’ refers to the three parts before it, still don’t like it though

  11. Thanks Vlad and Andrew
    I had REIN too. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered DASTARD without the LY!
    Difficult, so pleased to have (nearly!) completed it.

  12. Hmm yes, nice technicality, KVa. You have to do the are* in correct anticipation of the reversal, for which you need to know the answer already!

  13. The answer was not difficult to arrive at. I did parse it (at first) the way Andrew and you did, but I was not (and am still not) feeling comfortable with it. That’s why I attempted an alternative parsing @6. Maybe…er…someone will agree with me. 🙂

  14. Mike @11 and 13
    As Andrew and grant say, you do have to read Vlad’s clues carefully and think laterally – and I’m all for a bit of that when solving.
    9ac: you have to read ‘to’ as meaning ‘beside’ (Chambers) or ‘against’ Collins – which gives the example put your ear to the wall.
    27ac: I’ll go with Andrew and grant’s parsing, rather than KVa’s: I quite enjoyed the mental gymnastics.
    I can’t find any justification for RAIN, though. There’s usually a crosser to clear up any ambiguity – good job this is not a Prize crossword!

  15. I agree with ginf about SCANT and many others about REIN/RAIN. [We’ve seen the homophone before and doubtless will again, so REIN/RAIN go away, come again another day.] It’s sad that I could think of two other divided peoples beginning with K before KOREANS. (KURDS and KOSSOVANS)

  16. Another witty and enjoyable puzzle from Vlad.

    I particularly liked, for the construction, OBNOXIOUS (I like the word, too) BORIS BECKER and GET A MOVE ON and smiled at BUILDERS’ TEA (I’ve mashed a fair bit of that in my time, for all kinds of tradesmen) and UBERGEEK (I always love to see EEK = I’m afraid.

    I’ve never heard of a SLOWPOKE – like Tomsdad, only a slowcoach – and I’ve never met the plural of REREDOS before.

    Many thanks for the fun, Vlad and Andrew for the blog (and the Cleo reference 😉 )

  17. Vlad is the 40th setter to reach the landmark of 100 daily Guardian crosswords (hot on the heels of Boatman who got there a couple of weeks ago). His debut was on 11th March 2015 – this period of nearly 8 years puts him mid-table (19th to be precise) in terms of time taken to get there.

    His record includes 24 Tuesdays, 22 Wednesdays, 22 Thursdays, 20 Fridays and 12 Saturdays. He has also set 7 Genius puzzles.

    Well played, Jim!

  18. Wonderful puzzle . . .definitely REIN, nor RAIN, methinks. Like Mike@11, loved UBERGEEK and BORIS BECKER in particular. Many thanks to V & A.

  19. Ta for that Eileen. I normally keep away from technicalities, but I do quite like KVa’s implied question, viz whether it’s entirely legit that in order to correctly do (are)*, you already need to know the word you’re aiming at.

  20. Never knew UBERGEEK was a word and I’m always slightly wrong-footed by missing umlauts. Nothing to add to RAIN/REIN. SLOWPOKE I knew from the Peanuts cartoons.
    Thanks to Vlad and Andrew.

  21. Well that took a while. But (almost) got there in the end. I think some of Vlad’s surfaces can be very misleading – several definite tea tray moments today.

    My favourites include OSIRIS, UBERGEEK, SINISTER, DHOTI

    Thanks Vlad and Andrew (needed your help parsing a few)

  22. Liked OBNOXIOUS, SLOWPOKE, OSCAR (loi).

    21ac I entered REIN.
    27ac anagram of ARE OK N S – I agree it was fiddly

    I did not parse the D in 4d / only got as far as D HOT I

    Thanks, both.

  23. Finished it but only with check button. Too many “really?” moments and not enough “aha!” moments for me. Agree with most about 27a being beyond ‘fiddly’ and as for rain/rein please can someone from Grauniad confirm it’s their error and not Vlad being impossible.

  24. I’m confused by loincloth=dhoti. I vaguely recalled the definition but wasn’t certain, couldn’t parse the clue and only had one crosser at that point so I checked in Wikipedia. The definition I found there seems to be more like loose trousers than a loincloth. Can anybody explain?

  25. A strange puzzle, mostly good, spoiled by the two or three failings as described either in the blog or by others (RAIN is clearly the wrong way around). I’m not as upset about DHOTI being a loincloth however, as Collins says it is one, albeit one that Tarzan would eschew possibly.

  26. Nicely knotty puzzle from Vlad with, as Andrew says, a sprinkling of gentler clues to give the solver a bit of a purchase. It took me a while to parse DHOTI and OBNOXIOUS (both great clues) and I gave up trying to parse KOREANS, though I could identify the fragments 🙁

    Favourites were OSCAR and UBERGEEK though many others were contenders.

    REIN for me also, natch…

    Many thanks to Jim and Andrew

  27. Sorry I meant to say rain. Confused!
    If ‘weather, say’ isn’t a homophone indicator, what’s going on?

  28. The reasonable interpretation of 21a is REIN, but this is the Grauniad so one can’t discount a misprint. Annoying if so.

    I think the cluing of SCANT requires too much leeway in parsing. I did get it, but with a grimace and only after checking.

  29. Vlad’s puzzle was quite tricky in places. Think “American” was put into the clueing of 7 dn as a sop to those not North American resident as SLOWPOKE is seemingly only used there. It’s also a Pokemon character ( a subject I typed up on Wednesday in conjunction with the debate of “Clair, dropping the ‘e’ for a girl)”.

    “Sad it’s gone” ( as PM @ 9 said ) what a malarkey for a D ! but I was sad to see no Information Technology references and sad to see no music ( unless you count “diva” ). So earworms are going to be rare I feel. EXTRINSIC does have a mathematical connotation and “epoxy resin” a scientific bent so those perked me up.

    I’m a big tennis fan, so Vlad definitely served an ace with Boris Becker ( saw him in the Rotterdam open in 1985 before he was really heard of and was mighty impressed ; he went on to win Wimbledon in July that year ). B.B. then went on to score other hits, particularly in the Nobu ( how apt ) restaurant.

    Loved OBNOXIOUS and UBERGEEK, but didn’t think DUSTCART was very cryptic.

    Thank you Vlad and Andrew.

    .

  30. Most definitely the toughest for a few days. I got all but three; but it has taken me a couple of hours. Much to enjoy and admire. I did in fact write in RAIN, but now see the issue raised above. ..Apologies for being pedantic (if not here then where?), and I know they are used interchangeably, but strictly speaking ROB and BURGLE at 19 D mean different things.

  31. Thank you Vlad for your comment at 35, although until I read it I was feeling slightly chuffed: having dithered for an eternity, I ended up tossing a coin – heads for E, tails for A – and plonked down RAIN.
    Hey ho
    A pleasingly-chewy puzzle, nevertheless: thanks very much!
    Ravenrider at 29: a DHOTI is somewhere between a loincloth and loose trousers. My mother was born in India and used to joke that her early years were spent toddling about in a dirty dhoti.
    Thank you also to Andrew for the blog.

  32. Thanks, Vlad, for a nicely challenging but not excessively devious puzzle – nicely knotty, as Gervase says. Thanks also for clarifying the REIN/RAIN confusion – an unfortunate glitch but never mind, not worth fussing over. It was clear what the correct answer had to be, regardless of the app telling me it was wrong. And congratulations on reaching the landmark (thanks for the info, Mitz).

    And thanks for the blog, Andrew!

    DHOTI was one of my last in – but only because it’s a fairly tricksy clue, not because I had any issue with the definition. KOREANS is fiddly, perhaps, but sound – I parsed it the same as Andrew and agree with him and others that the clue repays careful reading.

  33. Vlad makes you tear the clue elements apart and then whack them into place, stepping over the landmines of misdirections and grammar going every which way. That’s his shtick and the masochists amongst us get a kick out of it, or enjoy the quibbles. For mine, I didn’t mind the SCAN +T positioning, or the mishmash in the middle and reverse-all in KOREANS. He was very kind with REREDOSES, being an anagram. Spoilt my fun, as I knew that one from cryptics.

    I liked Vlad’s post @35. Gremlins (knew the word of course but looked it up)… ”imaginary” , ”mischievous” . That’s Vlad-lite. Big ticks (but don’t tell Vlad) for DINNER SET, POXY, UBERGEEK, SHAMAN, DUSTCART, BUILDERS’ TEA, OBNOXIOUS, SLOWPOKE, SINISTER, OSCAR, and finally DIVA for the the risqué cluing of a crossword frequent flyer.

  34. I was enjoying this until all the wheels came off in the SW corner. I parsed RAIN as Willbar@2 did, but it appears I’m wrong, even if the Check button likes my answer. Revealed UBERGEEK and then couldn’t parse KOREANS.

    1a depends on whether you agree that a bastard is worse than a DASTARD… DISOWN settled it. DUSTCART was a write-in. Loved strong drink= BUILDERS TEA among many others.

  35. Good workout, many thanks to The Impaler.

    Thinking of BORIS BECKER, I recall that when he lost in the Wimbledon final (1989, I think) Pindisports in High Holborn put a big sign in their window; “Bad luck, Boris, 50% off all Becker goods”.

    Shame about his fall from grace, I rather warmed to him in the commentary box.

  36. Did nobody else wildly imagine that 21 ac might be Ways, as in Means, using W for Weather and then an anagram of Say? Thought not. At first found this rather impenetrable, but the fairly long anagrams – WHAT AN IDEA, BUILDERS TEA, IDEOLOGUES, EXTRINSIC and ASTRAL BODY were a gift to this plodder this morning. 14 ac and the mention of supporter and Ex-PM had me wondering for a while whether Truss was rearing her head again. Couldn’t parse DHOTI or DUSTCART. Because of the error of my Ways, didn’t quite polish off the SW corner. But enjoyed the journey that far…

  37. Great puzzle! Another vote for REIN.

    Other favourites BORIS BECKER, POXY, UBERGEEK and ASTRAL BODY

    Thanks Vlad and Andrew

  38. Tricky dicky, at least Vlad @35 has straightened out the REIN issue.

    I guess Eileen @17 has explained the SCAN T placing, although it seemed incorrect at the time. I liked the B/D/ASTARD, OBNOXIOUS for the timely surface, DINNER SET for the German elitist group, and UBERGEEK, where I spent too long thinking REB/U must mean something before the obvious TTM.

    Thanks Vlad for the challenge and Andrew for the clear explanations.

  39. Nuntius @39: I agree with you re Rob and BURGLE, as they come under different Sections of the Theft Act 1968. However, people informally use the two terms interchangeably, so I think it still works at that level.

  40. Thanks both,
    An enjoyable workout. I had ‘minister’ for 17d, only partially parsed.

    9a ‘scant’ usually means ‘just short of’ or ‘not quite enough’ although OED does concede it can mean ‘very little’. OED also marks it as obsolete or literary. Obviously they don’t read many recipe in Oxford.

  41. I put REIN in and didn’t bother sorting out KOREANS…I could see the bits. SA for “it” eluded me as it often deer (wink).
    Thanks bothering

  42. [Yr diva entry reminds me , pdm @43, of my most fun cazh job, backstage hand Oz Opera, ’72. High up in the flies (whence the huge scene backdrops are lowered) looking down; crescendo, the diva falls mortally, face up, I cheekily spread arms, she grins. Moment over, no mounting ensues. Sigh, worth a try]

  43. I thought I’d spend a couple of minutes seeing what dictionaries said regarding Rob vs. BURGLE. I started off thinking that the distinction was that the former involved violence or threat of it, while the latter didn’t. The dictionary consensus was that people are robbed, buildings are burgled. It pretty much amounts to the same thing, but is a different way of looking at it.

  44. Last night I filled in most of the bottom half and absolutely none of the top. Took the judicious application of the check button this morning to fill the rest in.

    Eileen@19 SLOWPOKE is quite familiar to me, it really is American. It’s “slowcoach” that sounds foreign — I learned it from British fiction, as I have any number of other words and phrases.

    TomH@47 I think “sinister” in the sense of “left” occurs nowadays only in discussions of heraldry, not a topic that comes up often.

    Do people actually say “UBERGEEK”? I could work it out but have never met it.

    Thanks, Vlad and Andrew, we had a nice morning.

  45. Dr. WhatsOn @59
    I seem to remember that there’s a further distinction between burglary and housebreaking – the latter happens during daylight hours. Not sure if this distinction stll applies.

  46. Muffin@61 I would have guessed that housebreaking was just the first stage of burglary, but Collins says this, under the Criminal Law subhead: “Assimilated with burglary, 1968”. So you are absolutely right.

  47. KateE @55/Valentine @60 – not a term I’d use myself but I’m familiar with it. The OED’s citation is an article in the Face magazine from October 1994, so it’s been around for about 30 years (probably longer):
    “With Hollywood at his feet and Pulp Fiction winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes, what does the charismatic übergeek choose to do?”

  48. Dr WhatsOn @59: In a former life I was a lecturer at a University covering English criminal law. Very broadly : burglary involves a trespass and the intent to take or actual taking of goods etc…robbery always involves an assault or attempted assault on a.person. So they are different, though I accept in common usage people don’t always make the distinction.

  49. Thanks for the blog , why all the fuss about REIN ? Surely tomorrow’s paper has not been printed yet? Reins also used to control young children.
    A lot of neat intricate clues today, only 25Ac deserved a severe Paddington stare.
    I remember the Carry on Cleo, sprog3 once came back from a Primary school trip to Chester where they had a marching lesson to ” Sinister , dexter .. ”
    Rob/burgle also used in a sporting sense.
    KPR almost get a mention, appropriately right at the bottom.

  50. Roz @66
    You probably don’t use it, but if you go to the online puzzle you can check/reveal answers (not for the Prize puzzles, of course). Today this gives 21a as RAIN.

  51. Thanks Andrew, this needed a few mugs of 18a but happy to have ground it out. Tyngewick@53 commiserations as a nurse could easily be a Mister and your post reminded me of a fun evening at the Mister Sister “cabaret” bar in Tenerife, so thank you! And thanks to Vlad for the challenge, clearing up 21a ( we wuz burgled) and congratulations on the ton up.

  52. Thanks Muffin but as you probably know I completely avoid surveillance capitalism.
    I will wait to see the answer grid in the paper tomorrow.

  53. On the subject of 1-across, I give you Cole Porter.

    I agree with the sentiment that Vlad gives you precious little to tell the order of the various components in a couple of these, rather than the sentiment that that’s part of the fun. Also, turning “cross” into an X before anagramming it into EXTRINSIC is shading on the wrong side of the indirect-anagram line for me. All the same, fun puzzle.

    At American common law (inherited from British common law, and the two didn’t diverge much until the 20th century), burglary is/was the breaking and entering of a dwelling for the purposes of committing a crime while within. That’s a definition with many odd wrinkles that aren’t worth sussing out in this context, and it’s been changed by statute almost everywhere to remove some of the wrinkles. [But notice that it’s possible to commit burglary without even stealing anything.] Robbery is theft by force or threat of force against a person, a definition that survives basically unchanged in most statute books.

  54. [Roz @71: of course, as you know, Park is the third most popular Korean surname, so I think you’re on to something there. As close as KPR will ever get to a Guardian puzzle, I suspect].

  55. Roz@70 maybe not completely avoid. If I could be bothered (which I’m not) I could write some code to figure out for frequent posters here their likely level of education, political and religious leanings, place of domicile/upbringing, etc, even if these are not explicitly stated.

  56. Valentine @78: Obviously this:

    K-P-R is a Semitic root, in Arabic and Hebrew rendered as K-F-R. The basic meaning of the root is “to cover”, but it is used in the sense “to conceal” and hence “to deny”, and its notability derives from its use for religious heresy or apostasy (as it were describing the “concealment” of religious truth) in both Islam and Judaism.

    🙂

  57. Valentine @78, I think “KPR” is probably a misremembered version of “DPRK” = “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” = North Korea — as opposed to “ROK”, “Republic of Korea” = South Korea. A useful mnemonic as to which is which is, countries with “Democratic” in their names usually aren’t.

    Talk of DHOTIs casts my mind back to 1959.

    Enjoyable puzzle, though Vlad impaled me on a few. Thanks to him and Andrew.

  58. Unlike some solvers I don’t have a do-not-attempt list, but I do have an ‘approach with trepidation and expect a tough puzzle’ list, and there’s only one name on it so far…

    Had to check or reveal quite a few, and some of the parsings are a tad knotty for this brain, but it’s all good practice, eh?

    And thanks to Vlad for popping in to confirm that the Graun’s reputation is well deserved 🙂

  59. I thought KPR was someone renaming Queen’s Park Rangers as King’s ditto after the death of/ the previous queen.

  60. Congratulations on 100 Vlad. I always know I am in for an enjoyable hour or so when I see the name.
    Everything else has been said.
    Thanks for the blog Andrew – well done on parsing KOREANS.

  61. 21 ac seems to be contentious? I had WAYS for it! W for Weather since any letter seems to be allowed as an abbreviation and so “controlling” W and “say” gives WAYS and WAYS = Means. Obvious!

  62. Great(?) minds thinking alike perhaps, Jellyroll, separated by nearly 9 hours of blog discussion. I often rather whizz impatiently though the previous posts in my haste to put my own comments on…

  63. I’m not a regular here, so I expect this has been said many times before – but are crossword setters the only people who still use the expression “SA” and its synonym “it”? I’m not sure I’ve heard at least the first one for fifty years.

  64. Catchy @90. My take is that it’s something we need to put up with – it’s so convenient for the setters … noblesse oblige and all that. Ditto with you on not hearing either really for the longest time … it all seems a bit unfair to those unversed in Rita Tushingham’s knack … and how to get it.

  65. Am I the only one who agrees with KVa’s parsing of 27a @6? I did think of ‘are’=A, but then ‘maybe’ made it look like a possible anagram of ARE. The crux of the matter seems to be, as has been pointed out by KVa @12, how can you be expected to rearrange the letters of ARE=>AER and then reverse them to insert REA into KO___NS? It would be grossly unfair. If the setter is being reasonable, as we all hope, then it must be ‘are’=A and ‘maybe’=ER.

    Like ‘sad it’s gone?’=D in 4d, it’s an awful lot of work to get to a fairly simple answer.

    Thanks to Vlad and Andrew.

  66. Thanks to Andrew for his blog and to others for their comments and congratulations.

    Jellyroll: abbreviations must be supported by Chambers, Collins or Oxford.

    KVa and sheffield hatter: think that might be a better parsing for KOREANS than what was intended. The AER reversal was a bit naughty.

    Thanks also to Mitz for the impeccable stats.

  67. It was (is?) very sinister how the (mostly, in my experience) Catholic nuns and teachers used to whack left-handed students if they attempted to write with their dominant hand, in the belief they were saving the unfortunate pupils from sin.

    It may also have occurred to them, although the science came later, that right-brain dominant people (ie left-handers) are disproportionately (over-) represented in the arts, sports, and gaol populations.

  68. While we’re on the subject, I recall a rather neat headline from The Economist some years ago:

    The Left in Canada is more Gauche than Sinister

  69. Always delighted to see my beloved Glasgow Rangers in a crossword. Liked the allusion to Nottingham Forest in the clue.

    Oscar was loi for me – got it this morning after sleeping on it. On reflection an ingenious clue.

  70. The solution in today’s paper has RAIN at 21a. You have thought that they would have managed to correct it, in line with Vlad’s intentions.

  71. Muffin: Guardian’s still recovering from the cyber attack just before Christmas. Takes longer to make changes unfortunately.

  72. Great fun. Thanks both and congrats to Vlad for hitting the century.

    Defeated by UBERGEEK (Eek!) and thence KOREANS but no gripes.

    Tom Hutton@47: I think what is intended is that it’s an old (previously) version of ‘left’ – I doubt many today on hearing ‘sinister’ would think ‘left’ although in e.g. heraldry that is exactly what it means.

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