Guardian 29,103 / Picaroon

101 comments on “Guardian 29,103 / Picaroon”

1. Full of wonderful descriptive clues with a couple of ‘playtex’ devices along the way, this is up there with my favourite puzzles. Loved CHEQUEBOOK, FRANKENSTEIN, TARMAC and VEGGIE. Sheer delight from start to finish.

   Ta Picaroon & Eileen

2. The two I struggled to parse were 4d and 16d – but as always once you have tumbled you wonder what your problem was in first place. Some very, very tricky clues in this one and it is always great delight to persevere and see the light. Thanks all round.

3. Very tough. I’m amazed and happy that I could complete this puzzle although I could not parse 12ac, 4d or 14d apart from BOA = stole + THOU? + SE = SartrE’s case.

   Favourite: UNTRUTH.

   New for me: LAPIDATION = stoning to death; ORIBI; driver Button, Jenson; LUVVIE = ham actor.

   Thanks, both.

4. Thank you for the parsing of several of these Eileen, and thank you Picaroon for a really satisfying tussle which has woken my brain up.

   Fascinating the “dilapidate” comes from a Latin word meaning explicity to throw stones at, to scatter. I had been taught in history of art lessons many years ago something I now discover to be cod etymology, to do with the “lapidation” (i.e. thin stone covering over a cheaper base material) falling off a building, leaving it looking run down. We live and we learn.

5. Finished it but:
   12ac never heard of DING,
   Didn’t like 14d – overworked.

6. I struggled to parse a few of these. So Eileen, thank you for clarifying and thanks to the setter.

7. DING rang a bell but I had to check

   Ticks for BOATHOUSE, CHEQUEBOOK and UNTRUTH

   Minor quibble: HAMS aren’t necessarily luvvies – Emma Thompson is a luvvie (I’ve met her) but I wouldn’t call her a ham

   Cheers P&E

8. This was fun, but I needed help with the parsing of some. I did know lapidation, I’ve read enough accounts of the saints to decipher stained glass (St Alban also comes with piles of stones) but didn’t remember it this morning.

   Thank you to Picaroon and Eileen.

9. bodycheetah @7 – I had the same thought about ‘luvvie’ and so I looked it up.
   Collins: an actor or other member of the entertainment industry, esp when regarded as excessively pretentious or affected
   Chambers: a person who is involved in the acting profession or the theatre, esp one with a tendency to affectation
   I suppose it depends on who’s doing the ‘regarding’. I think the ‘especiallys’ justify Picaroon’s definition.

10. I always experience a small frisson of pleasure when I see that Picaroon is the setter, but today’s was a disaster. I couldn’t parse …

    BOATHOUSE (the “thou” got me)
    RED ENSIGN (I assumed the navy was RN, which knocked out the R from the anagram)
    TRADING (I did find with a bit of googling the chess champion, but the trap/trick eluded me)
    DOWN TOOLS (never heard of down/neck)
    BUTTON (on/acceptable? Yes, I guess it’s more familiar in “not on”)
    UNTRUTH

    I’ve never heard of a vegetarian referred to as a veggie. A vegetable, yes. Nor ham/luvvie, is this a British thing? Quick/alive is a pretty loose synonym, I thought. Add the fact that I’d never heard of Jenson Button, oribi, larkspur or that Czech book, and I only have a vague recollection of Picts from another puzzle in the distant past.

    So not as many smiles and no great feeling of satisfaction to finish today. I’m sure I’ll enjoy Picaroon’s next one.

    Thanks Eileen.

11. We’ve had the luvvie=ham equivalence before recently, and I still don’t think it’s accurate, but anyway…

    Good fun, though I couldn’t parse PICTS, BOATHOUSE or DOWN TOOLS. Too many good ones to bore you with a list, but I think my favourites were TARMAC, and CHEQUEBOOK when the penny dropped.

12. Eileen@9: hams aren’t just pretentious: the point about a ham is that (s)he’s a terrible actor.

13. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen
    Very good. Favourite MOURNER for the juxtaposition of Black Sea.
    I hadn’t heard of the chess-playing DING – would the snooker player have been better known?

14. Some very cleverly constructed clues – and a very satisfying solve.

15. I thought that was very tough and I needed Eileen’s help to parse a few.
    Never heard of DING. Haven’t seen Mr Idle for a while. Also didn’t know the collective noun for Larks – I will add it to my list – always like to learn new collective nouns.

    Thanks Picaroon and Eileen

16. Very enjoyable. Needed Eileen’s help to parse DOWN TOOLS. A few words/names I didn’t know (LAPIDATION, DING) but clear enough from wordplay and in the case of the former, vague knowledge of Latin roots. I thought a MAGUS was a wise person rather than some kind of wizard. I’m not sure how much one could buy these days with a CHEQUEBOOK. All of this is comment, not criticism.
    Favourites MOURNER, UNTRUTH, TARMAC.
    Thanks Eileen and Picaroon.

17. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen.

    As somebody who gets all the cricketing references that appear in clues, I’m not going to moan about a chess player’s appearance.

18. gladys @12 – point taken 😉

19. Anyone else initially put CELTS in for 3d until it became clear it didn’t work with the crossers? (CEL = single frame of a hand-drawn animation)

    Thanks, both.

20. Quite a lot of these suggested themselves way before the clue made sense – one gets a sort of feel for what is going to fit: BOATHOUSE, UNTRUTH, CHEQUEBOOK, COWARDICE, DAMASCENE. There is such a thing as the setter being too clever – unnecessarily clever even. Yes, I know a lot of larks is an exaltation, but it was so obviously going to be a flower (in bed), even though I only had R and S at the moment of entry. Same with RED ENSIGN – with R and D in place, it had to be RED. Maybe I have got to the stage of critiquing the clues, never mind the answers. Oh dear oh dear.

21. A real pleasure to solve. Picaroon is the master of clever and witty misdirection. There are some lovely lift-and-separates, in both senses – splitting a word (riverbank, storybook) and splitting two closely linked words (Black Sea, Jack Kerouac).

    Eileen, I don’t think 1d is a definition by example – if the definition was Damascene and the answer was Syrian it would be, but it’s the other way around.

    Many thanks both.

22. I’m at an advantage in that I play chess, but I’m slightly surprised that so many haven’t heard of Ding. It’s only very recently that he won the world championship and it was widely reported.
    Very much enjoyed this, which is to be expected given that a dud crossword from Picaroon is like a hen’s tooth. Like Eileen, I was unaware of ORIBI but the clue led straight there, and I’d forgotten about Jensen BUTTON but know a New Yorker’s behind when I see one. Loi was TIER, I saw the mechanism but spent a ridiculous amount of time rummaging for rivers only to eventually alight on the best known.
    Great fun, thanks to Picaroon and Eileen.

23. Geoff Down Under@10: ‘quick’ is an archaic (often Biblical) term meaning ‘alive’. ‘The Quick and The Dead’ is a phrase I’ve seen occasionally, and was the title of a 90’s Western with Russel Crowe.

    I wasn’t convinced by Luvvie=HAM. Not at all the same thing. I did like MOURNER among others.

24. Oh and I think, for theatre people, a ham is someone who over-acts.

25. Plenty of tricks, but a real delight. I knew Hollywood is in CAL/CA, so I wasted some time trying _ _ _ U C A [l] E out for 17d, before realising there was an anagram and the penny dropping.

    LAPIDATION was new to me. DING was a nice example where you don’t need special knowledge, it’s just plausibly a surname so can go in fairly confidently once you have the rest even if you don’t know the reference.

    Tom @19 – CELTS was my first thought, although I didn’t have the parse.

    CHEQUEBOOK got an appreciative groan, and the tree-dwelling in LEMUR was nice.

    Thanks both.

26. Just to weigh in on the luvvie/ham equivalence, I think it works. They are both terms for actors, and both imply actors laying it on too thick – the ham on stage, the luvvie off it.

27. Very satisfying puzzle with ingenious constructions and surfaces.

    Favourites were the literary CHEQUEBOOK and TARMAC, also BOATHOUSE and MOURNER.

    ‘Exaltation’ is one of those ridiculous whimsical collective nouns (coined by the Victorians?) which have no long folk history but are useful for setters.

    Thanks to Picaroon and Eileen

28. BOATHOUSE clue of the week for me. M Sartre indeed.

    GDU @10 – Picts not so distant, we had Scotland being de-PICT-ed last week. And here in the UK, or at least this part of it, vegetable = veg, vegetarian = veggie, as in veggieburger.
    I gather in Australia non-meat-eaters are veggos? Come to think of it, aren’t veggies/veggos, as opposed to vegans, OK with eggs? But then I suppose the clue says ‘animal produce’.

    [Veggo ergo (dim) sum? But then you’d have to be a pescoveggo (or pesceveggio in Italian?) At least it doesn’t contain luvvies.]

    [I remember seeing a school essay in which “I love West Ham” was translated as “J’aime le Jambon de l’Ouest”.]

    Many thanks P & E.

29. Can I query why M should be abbreviated to thou?
    Is that an acceptable word?
    It certainly confused us anyway.
    But it didn’t detract from a very enjoyable puzzle with the bonus of a second blog in a week from Eileen.

30. Yes very enjoyable indeed; just lovely to do while sitting in the winter sunshine with a cup of tea. Like others I found FRANKENSTEIN at 27a a wonderful clue. Thanks to Picaroon for a great puzzle and Eileen for a helpful blog and for standing in for scchua – the locum must make this Eileen’s 902nd puzzle! [Congratulations to her on such a venerable long-term commitment to 15² and the art of crossword solving.]

31. We’ve definitely had HAM indicated by LUVVIE in a previous puzzle, but I can’t recall if it was Picaroon or someone else. I’m sure it provoked exactly the same debate. …Lots to enjoy here, though BUTTON was beyond me. With thanks to both.

32. The grazing animal went in last at 6d, with after much chewing of the cud, I realised old favourite Okapi didn’t quite fit the bill this time. And on the subject of herbivores, I was greatly helped at 18ac by River Tiber being one of the few favourites to oblige at Royal Ascot so far this week. (BOATHOUSE another good filly from the distant past). I digress hugely – loved this, though couldn’t quite parse SIMULATE…

33. Sorry, I now see Gladys@11 made same observation.

34. Oribi has appeared several times:

    Picaroon Sep 16 2014 Current writer rejected African bounder
    Oct 22 2021 Guy in Love Island is a horny bounder
    Imogen June 16 2015 Animal‘s bone found in bits
    Vlad Nov 24 2021 Animal in one pen being mounted

    (Guess who blogged the Oct 22 2021 one – [imoji with sympathetic smile])

    Thanks Eileen and Picaroon

35. Geoff Down Under@10, Veggie is a British thing.
    In my opinion it seems to have begun as a derogatory term for a vegetarian. It became more common after the famous Spitting Image sketch where Maggie Thatcher referred to her Cabinet as veg. Thus setting the idea that veg are inferior of wit. And, of course, you are what you eat.
    But nowadays “veggie” is often used as slang for “vegetarian” with no negative connotations at all.

    BTW, my problem with today’s crossword is that I’m not smart enough to complete it without cheating.

36. Splendid puzzle. No duffers or quibbles, Goldilocks difficulty level for me, and much of it truly excellent (CHEQUEBOOK is brilliantly funny, TOUCHÉ is a standing ovation surface). My favourite setter currently.

37. Shirley @29 – this was one of the couple that held me up (the other being 4dn). I just couldn’t see how THOU = M, then ‘thousand’ hit me, out of the blue and I looked it up. It’s in both Collins and Chambers (‘informal’) – the first definition in both is ‘one thousandth of an inch’.

38. Dave Ellison @34 – that’s cruel. 🙁
    And the blogger’s comment was, ‘Yet another antelope to add to my crossword collection …’) – it must have fallen out.

39. I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle – thanks to Picaroon and Eileen.
    One little query, Eileen: with reference to 18d, when was “It Hurts Me” a hit for Elvis Presley? It’s not
    listed in the Guinness book of British Hit Singles.

40. A bit of a struggle to decode Picaroon’s excellent cluing.

    M for THOU; I even looked at Eileen’s explanation for a while and wondered where the ‘sand’ had gone, doh! No problem with DING, but then I read the Guardian’s chess articles. What’s GK to some is unfathomable to others; take ‘Blue Sky’ from the Qaos Tuesday puzzle, which is an everyday phrase for me.

    I liked the fish cakes in COWARDICE, the storybook in UNTRUTH, the still = PIC, and the fashion items making SIMULATE. [The helpful CTRL Z hint given to me a few days ago saved me from having to rewrite most of this comment. I don’t know what I do when typing but I keep removing part of my screed.]

    Thanks Picaroon and Eileen.

41. vicktim @39; Elvis information here.

42. Always much preferred the term BASS FIDDLE to the more commonly used double bass.

    This was a delight, with one reservation only at BOATHOUSE. We poor old engineers only use thou for thousandth and I’ve never come across it used forthousand.

    Didn’t spoil the fun, however. Loved the New Yorker’s bottom and the cleverly used storybook .

    Many thanks, both.

43. Eileen@38 Sorry, didn’t mean to be cruel. I was trying to avoid that with the sympathetic smiling imoji (which I don’t know how to do) to indicate a little tongue in cheek as I suffer such memory lapses, too, and they are always so surprising.

44. Great fun, with a fair few elements of wordplay I was unfamiliar with, such as lapidation = stoning and Ding the chess champion. “Nearly trick Fall bassist . . . ” would have worked a lot better for me, but as Robi @40 remarked, we all have our own areas of GK.

    I also got held up for a ridiculously long time on TOUCHE by almost getting the wordplay but not quite. T Rex oddly = TE, It Hurts Me = OW, it’s = IE almost gives me TOWIE which for some unfathomable reason is a hit. That mental block firmly in place, I spent far too long googling how the extra E might work somehow, and learning far too much information I really don’t want or need. But that is just one of the many joys of crosswords.

45. Sorry M,i failed this mission too.I’ll have my Martini now,shaken not stirred.

46. I agree with William @42 that “thousand” and “thousandth” are far from equivalent!

47. Thanks, Robi @41 – in other words, it wasn’t a hit!

48. William@42 – I’m sure I remember in the last century, people would use ‘thou’ for thousand, espercially when talking about amounts of money – nowadays thay’d say ‘K’.

49. Knew lapidary was to do with stones (and there’s lapis lazuli), but not the stoning derivatative … deprivation of an atheist childhood. [Given it still happens, atheism would be the good news]. Knew right off that stole was the apparel, but aging brain needed crossers for boa to uncurl.
    [eb @28, I always mix up my Italian peaches and fish, and balli and palle too, to great hilarity]
    Great puzzle, ta PnE.

50. Fairly quickly solved but wasn’t up to date with recent chess news. DING winning on a shoot out after Carlsen didn’t defend title – boredom?
    EARNER I thought wrong grammar until I thought of “nice little earner” just now.
    Thanks Picaroon and Eileen

51. beaulieu @48: You’re probably right re thou but it’s still not familiar to me. I agree these days we would either shorten ‘thousand’ to k or grand.

52. Beaulieu@48 “in the last century…”!!
    I’m still quite likely to say “ a few thou” for thousands, though I agree that for a specific number I’d be more likely to say (eg) 15k. And I am, I’m afraid, so last century…

53. Beaulieu @48 and many others: The Stranglers first single (Get a) Grip (On Yourself) has the opening line “Didn’t have the money round to buy a Morry Thou”, meaning a Morris 1000. So I fully agree with you and all perfectly valid from my perspective 🙂

54. [I did, tho, remember “the quick and the dead”, and Ruth of course … the New and the Old …]

55. Never heard of DING or Mr. BUTTON. I don’t think I’ve heard of LAPIDATION either, but once I got DILAPIDATION from DI + crossers, “lapidary” came to mind to justify it. I had tried to work “cop” in when I had the P from PICTS — anybody else?

    Enjoyed TIER, UNTRUTH, MOURNER and TARMAC for the lifting.

    I’d forgotten about an exaltation of larks — love it!

    Biffed in the seemingly unparsable DOWN TOOLS, forgot that British meaning of “neck.”

    Fiona Anne@16 You might like the book “An Exaltation of Larks,” which is a collection of collectives for many birds and quadrupeds.

    eb@28 I think of a veggieburger as one made from veggies, not for them.

    Thanks to Picaron for the challenge and Eileen for stepping in and brightening my morning.

56. Re THOU = M, there’s a showtune for everything. Here again is Catherine Zeta-Jones as Velma Kelly, telling you that she earned a thou a week, at least.

    I had no chance with DROP TOOLS. Here, if you call someone a tool, it isn’t a compliment, but you’re not exactly calling them an idiot either. Also didn’t know “neck” in that sense, so I pretty much struck out on that one.

    Also hadn’t heard of the chess player, but that answer could hardly have been anything else. Thanks for the explanations, which were clear as always.

57. Totally charmed by this, puzzle and blog both. Nothing to add to what has been said other than that FRANKENSTEIN held out for ages and was a resounding pdm. CLERIC similar.

    [I am treating myself to some early Python just now (Series 3 – the Cycling Tour). My but they were good!]

58. Quite a few of these were fiendish to parse (eg. sea abroad” to indicate “mer”: a tad unkind given that there are so many languages to choose from!) but tbh I didn’t mind in the slightest because CHEQUEBOOK, FREE and especially FRANKENSTEIN made everything worthwhile!
    Many thanks to Eileen for the explanations and to Picaroon for the fun.

59. Thank you Eilleen for several parsings that completely eluded me. Despite that I felt quite pleased with myself for deciphering several tricky ones, especially the lift & separate trick which I am finally learning to look for.

60. The red ensign is not flown by the Royal Navy. They use a white ensign. The red is used by the merchant navy and most other boats. There is also a blue ensign which members of yacht clubs with “Royal in the name use.
    Just sayin……

61. Li zzy @60 – neither the clue nor the blog specifies the Royal Navy.

62. Yes, Eileen, you did get a good deal! Great puzzle. Thanks, Picaroon and Eileen.

63. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:English_collective_nouns
    has an extensive list but warns: ‘Don’t trust this list; many of these entries are fanciful and never found outside of word lists.’ 🙂

64. For THOUsand:
    https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/4kb3vri
    has citations from 1854 to 2020 including Hemingway, Waugh, Hammett, Runyon, Capote, Wambaugh

65. Thanks Picaroon for another stroke of genius. While I had problems parsing CHEQUEBOOK, DOWN TOOLS (both the definition and wordplay were mysteries to me), TRADING, and SIMULATE these were minor blips in a crossword full of enjoyment. Clues such as COWARDICE, TIER, BASS FIDDLE, UNTRUTH, FRANKENSTEIN, CLERIC, TOUCHE, and the superb TARMAC ensure that Picaroon remains on my “must do” list. Thanks Eileen for your always helpful blog.

66. Hi Dave Ellison @43 – if you’re still around
    I went out shortly before you posted your comment and missed it when catching up after I came back. I wasn’t being serious @38 – I’m quite used to finding I’ve forgotten more important things. 😉
    (See here https://www.fifteensquared.net/?s=emoticons for how to do emoticons.)

67. This one’s better – I’ll delete the previous one.

68. See how I forget things!
    https://www.fifteensquared.net/2009/06/19/emoticons/

69. For 26a I knew “quick” meant ALIVE but “as in the Creed: ‘the quick and the dead’” puzzled me.
    Then I realised I’d’ve learnt it in Latin first “Credo in unum deum…” – I remember the tune too – then had to learn it all over again in the vernacular, by which time it was no longer ‘quick’ but ‘living’.
    Also wondered why I’d never heard (or even heard of) Elvis’s It Hurts Me
    Maybe because it was a B side, and you normally wouldn’t hear it unless you bought the single?
    My weekly pocket money was pegged to the price of a single – 6s8d.
    The puzzle was a delight, and the blog as usual excellent.
    Thanks P&E

70. Thanks, FrankieG @69 – yes, of course it’s biblical (2 Timothy 4:1 –
    ‘I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom…’). This morning, the Creed sprang more readily to mind, because I’ve recently sung Haydn’s Nelson Mass. As you say, the modern creed has ‘the living and the dead’. Sorry for the confusion.

    I confess I hadn’t heard of the Elvis song, either. I checked to see that there was a song but didn’t read far enough to discover that it wasn’t, in fact, much of a hit!

71. My favourite puzzle of the year. The Czech book is just great.

72. I lost my head for 22 across! ?

73. For ? read smiley face!

74. All done and enjoyed, though I won’t pretend that I managed to parse everything. Thank you Picaroon and also to Eileen for untangling the knots.

75. Hi Aunt Ruth @73 – see me @68 re emoticons. 😉

76. Eileen@66 I suspected you weren’t but it is so difficult to tell with emojis. The same goes for just text in emails etc, without seeing the sender’s facial expression and demeanour.

77. Eileen@70 – No need to be sorry – the confusion was all my own. The Anglican Creed did have ‘quick’, just never for RCs like me.
    Nice to get a namecheck at 27a – Hi up there AuntRuth at 22a! 🙂

78. Valentine @55: a burger made from veggies sounds a bit Mrs Lovett to me

    untRuth @72: ongrats n he amecheck! 🙂

79. Gervase@27. I think we may have had this conversation before, but an exaltation of larks comes to us from the medieval Book of St Albans, which was printed by Caxton, a somewhat pre-Victorian printer.

    Speaking of things we’ve come across before, I was surprised to find ORIBI poking his head out of a dusty and neglected memory cell, as I usually completely forget all antelopes.

    Thanks to Fiery Jack@53 for the lyrics of the Stranglers’ Grip. I’ve been playing it off and on for almost 50 years but was never sufficiently motivated to find out what “Morry Thou” was meant to be.

    And thanks as always to Picaroon and Eileen.

80. Is there only one anagram in the entire puzzle? And even then only a partial one. How recently have we been completely anagram free?
    I enjoy the coincidence that today we are so exercised by THOU, whereas yesterday it was the ES, the French “art” in “thou art.”
    Having found the crossers in 21D — _U_T_N — I so wanted the “British driver” to be an Austin. But no luck.
    It was Thomas Cranmer, apparently, who turned the quick & the dead into a household phrase, using it in both creeds in the Book of Common Prayer, the Nicene and the Apostle’s.

81. My kindred spirit this week is Mandarin@36. 13a CHEQUEBOOK and 18d TOUCHÉ were my joint clues of the day in this superb crossword.

    [ Alphalpha@57, I continue to be amazed at how much of MPFC is just as funny today as it was 50 years ago. Pure genius. ]

    Thanks Picaroon for the fun and Eileen for the great blog.

82. I had not heard the term exaltation for a group of larks, so Pucaroon, thank you for adding to my storehouse of useless knovwledge. Really a fun puzzle, thanks to you and to Eileen.

83. Satisfyingly tough! It took some wrestling to the ground towards the end but I got there. I did an out-loud swear at CHEQUE BOOK but actually that’s turned out to be my favourite clue 🙂

    Also thought MOURNER was very clever. And FRANKENSTEIN held out for an embarrassingly long time.

    Great fun so thanks both.

84. It’s hard to believe that collective nouns were such a feature of the 11-plus exam in the ’40s – but I just loved them.

    I have to say that I’ve never actually needed any of them since (so much for the 11+) but they’re very useful and entertaining for crossword setters – murder of crows and parliament of owls to name just two of the most popular – but I confess that I’d misremembered ‘exultation of larks, until I met it in a crossword. (I still think it sounds more appropriate.)

85. {Eileen @84 My favourite is “a charm of goldfinches” – often seen on our birdfeeders.]

86. [Eileen, if you’re still around I just finished the Knut crossword in the Indy. It’s a gem, one that will impress you.]

87. Nice puzzle, thanks Picaroon and Eileen.

    With such a useful name, is Mr Ding going to become as commonplace as a certain diva/singer I wonder?

88. muffin @ 85 – yes, that’s a lovely one.

    Thanks, Tony @86 for the thought. I love Knut’s puzzles but I just haven’t had the time today, as I have a regular Thursday commitment from midday. I solved about half of it during the morning – not enough to reveal the clever Nina – and wish I’d had longer to spend on it. I should have resisted looking at the blog and revisited it tomorrow, perhaps.

89. DaveJ @87

    I’m sure you’re right – no doubt along with the three-letter boxer and golfer, et al.
    I’m going to bed now.

90. Through the reeds
    And the rushes
    A mutation
    Of thrushes.

    Picaroon is a superstar.

91. Thanks Eileen, you always respond with such charm, dignity and intelligence.

92. sheffield hatter @79: you are welcome. I have likewise been playing that song many times since its release, and it is only in the internet age that I discovered the lyrics. It always sounded like Maori Fowl to me, and I couldn’t for the life of me work out why an impecunious musician would want to buy a flightless bird from New Zealand anyway. Even had I heard the words correctly, just like you I wouldn’t have know what one was.

    Cracking tune though, either way.

93. Excellent, difficult but honourably clever crossword with a full gamut of compiler’s tricks. Homophones, pick and match, London mispronunciation, abbreviations, the odd I’ve never seen that word/animal/bird before, and even an animal collective, but wait, I don’t think there was a hidden word, but what more can one ask? Several not parsed by me, and i remain unsure about Picts despite the explanation here. I don’t envy non Brits attempting so many British cryptics. And as an expat for forty years nearly, i’m beginning to lose track of these Britishisms myself.

94. Eileen – the larks are listed as both an exaltation and an exultation – both equally appropriate.

95. John M @93: good spot about lack of hidden word. Wouldn’t it be super if that one measly anagram had been dispensed with as well?

96. essexboy@78 🙂
    ‘Now let me see – Ah, we’ve got tinker | No, no, something pinker
    Tailor? | Paler I Butler? | Subtler | Potter? | Hotter | Locksmith? | ——
    Lovely bit of clerk | Maybe for a LARK…’
    As a child I learned at home to pronounce THREE as TREE – as in “tree fellers wanted”
    Then I went to school in the East End and learned the correct pronunciation – FREE

97. Absolutely brilliant, the process of solving this was so enjoyable! Only one I didn’t get was 18 across, but can live with that! Great blog and entertaining comments as always, thanks Picaroon and all the contributors.

98. [JohnM, it ain’t mis-, jus’ different 😉
    FrankieG – glad you got your freedom… fink of all them pies!]

99. I had no time for this until late evening yesterday, but it was well worth the wait. The clues showed great imagination and ingenuity, my favourites being TRADING, FREE, MOURNER, TOUCHÉ, TARMAC, VEGGIE, and especially CHEQUE BOOK. I’m afraid I had no time to read all the comments, but I did pick up on a few points of discussion and debate here where I too had similar points or queries that came to mind while solving.

    Many thanks to Picaroon and Eileen.

100. Ah, I see I got no. 99!

101. 18 and 22ac. GRRR! Not a fan of clues like this. Very uncommon for James. In fact I can’t remember him ever using this technique before.

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