Guardian 29,154 / Brendan

117 comments on “Guardian 29,154 / Brendan”

1. Thanks, Brendan and Eileen!

   ULTERIOR (my take)
   (OUTLIER)* *upset, second conclusion he (outlieR) reaches: second/another R.

2. Thanks Brendan and Eileen
   I couldn’t see where the extra R in ULTERIOR came from either.
   No theme for me, of course.

3. Brendan being gentle and kind to us on a Monday, though held up at the very end by the interlocking FLEECE, ULTERIOR and ELEVEN. Nice stuff…

4. KVa @1
   Ingenious, but it’s a rotten clue if that’s it!

5. I think HAW-HAW is meant to be HAWK-HAWK (mostly echoed).

6. That’s how I saw it too, Hovis.

7. DOUBLE-CROSS
   Can ‘to do’ be another def? I admit it is somewhat loose.

8. I wondered whether the warmonger might be HAWk.

9. Me too…

10. I knew I’d kick myself when I saw the parsing of ELEVEN. Spent ages trying to think of expressions for anxiety involving it and never saw the roman numeral, so thanks for the spot, Eileen. I couldn’t account for the ‘second…he reaches’ in the clue for ULTERIOR either, the clue seems to work fine without them. But at least the theme was obvious even to me. I’d never heard of AGAG, but the answer was obvious from the theme. Agree that the puzzle was a nice treat for a Monday morning. Thanks to Brendan and to Eileen for the blog.

11. Yes, I’m sure you’re all right re HAW-HAW – I was overthinking it.

12. A really lovely puzzle for a Monday. Some slightly unusual constructions I thought, including my favourite ELEVEN. But the theme of doubles helped me along. Many thanks Brendan and Eileen.

13. muffin@4
    ULTERIOR
    The thematic ‘second’ had to be accommodated. 🙂

14. Re ULTERIOR: second conclusion (of outlier – it’s his second conclusion). Don’t see a problem there. Definition of that one seems to me – very hesitant to criticise a Brendan clue and willing to be corrected by a sentence in which for no apparent reason replaces ULTERIOR – the only slight blemish on a wonderful puzzle. From the two eleven-letter central ones to the doubles in other places, it’s a brilliant conception.

15. “Double double, toil and trouble…” – except it was of course no toil or trouble to do this puzzle. Very clever as always from Brendan, especially having the two DOUBLEs crossing.

    I thought of Lord HAW-HAW as you did Eileen, but Hovis’s HAW(k) interpretation perhaps works better.

    I wasn’t quite so keen on ELEVEN which has no real definition but just double wordplay. (Though on reflection could this possibly be yet another part of the theme?!)

    Many thanks Brendan and Eileen.

16. There’s quite a well known folk song about the original Admiral Benbow. Here is a version.

17. Komornik @14
    Re ULTERIOR – Collins: ‘lying beneath or beyond what is revealed, evident or supposed’; Chambers: ‘beyond what is revealed, evident or supposed’. Applying either of those to ‘motive’, the usual context for ‘ulterior’, works for me.

18. Thanks Brendan and Eileen

    I’m not sure if this is exactly what you were alluding to with “the DOUBLES crossing at the centre of the grid”, Eileen, but I thought it especially neat that DOUBLE-CROSS was horizontal and DOUBLES DOWN was vertical.

19. Lord Jim @15
    I rewrote my parsing of ELEVEN half a dozen times and still wasn’t satisfied with it – I think you may be onto it with the double wordplay. I still think it’s a great clue!

20. A great start to the week. I began slowly but gradually sped up. I was defeated by only one clue: 7 D. Very clever..…With thanks to Brendan and Eileen.

21. Yes, the parsing of ULTERIOR stumped me too. Weird clue, methinks. All else very enjoyable — double the fun. (I seldom twig to themes but it would be hard to miss this one.)

    Thanks Brendan & Eileen.

22. Simon S @18
    I’ll come clean and confess it wasn’t exactly what I was alluding to.
    Grrh!! – he’s done it again! Many thanks. 😉

23. Loved this playful snap, thank you Brendan and Eileen.

    Apart from the central aCROSS/DOWN pairing
    I liked that CROSS is just below HYBRID
    NETTED/TENNIS and SPITTING/RINGER are in the SE
    while the word repetitions are in the SW

24. Thank you Eileen. Liked ELEVEN.
    Is there something to do with ULTERIOR mo (second) tive? ( I get the second R bit.) Can one of you clever clogs explain the def please?

25. Remarkable puzzle for a Monday. Many layers of depth. I like the way Brendan was able to bend pretty much every clue to his surface theme of doubles but the grid filling that underlies it is stupendous. So many of the solutions appear to have been artfully inserted, knowing they would fit and relatively few are just the words that end up fitting the crossers and which have to be pulled into the theme whether they like it or not.

    NICENE, HYBRIDISED, WITHHOLDER, NETTED, BRIDGE and SPITTING were my favourites today and I’m another for whom HAW(k) was the parse – though it did feel as if the surface might have been a nod to the propagandist.

    Thanks Brendan and Eileen

26. Hovis@5
    HAWK-HAWK
    HAWk mostly. HAW echoed.
    That’s what you meant. I had the same parsing.
    Eileen! The ‘echoed’ seems key considering the theme today. 🙂

27. So many posts in quick succession. I’m with Simon S @18 about the positions on the grid, very clever.

28. Simon S @18 …. that adds to the cleverness

29. paddymelon@24
    ULTERIOR
    While you are waiting for a clever clog to explain the def, I wish to draw your attention to what Eileen said @17.
    For no apparent reason: For a hidden reason.

30. [Me @16 – very sorry, wrong thread]

31. Simon S@18
    Great spot!
    wynsum@23!
    Great spot again!

32. Thanks KVa@29. I now see you don’t need anything other than ULTERIOR, but I don’t get ‘he reaches’.

33. paddymelon @24
    Have you seen my comment @17 re the definition of ULTERIOR?
    How about “I think he has a motive ‘lying beneath or beyond what is revealed, evident or supposed’” (= an ulterior motive)?

    (I see I’ve just crossed with KVa @29.)

34. paddymelon@32
    he=outlier. Outlier reaches (a) second/another conclusion i.e. he reaches R again. OUTLIER*+R
    OUTLIER* over R could be around R or just above R.

35. Ta Eileen@33

36. paddymelon@32
    my explanation@34 has still not been approved by our blogger.
    So consider this provisional.

37. KVa@34. Thank you, but this is doing my head in, and it’s only Monday. Think I’d better go beddie-byes and have another look in the morning.

38. An excellent, entertaining puzzle with a brilliantly executed theme that in no way drowned or spoiled it. I missed the XI in the clue for ELEVEN (no shame in that, I’m claiming), but I think I got everything else – which was quite a lot!

    Many thanks to Brendan and Eileen.

39. 😉

40. Sparkling

    Ta both

41. Superb puzzle – especially for a Monday. One minor quibble: like others, I was held-up by (and unable to parse) ULTERIOR. For me the problem was not only the ‘second r’ but also the redundant ‘he reaches’. Could the clue not simply have read ‘For no apparent reason, outlier upset over conclusion’?
    Thanks to Brendan and Eileen.

42. Simon @18-well spotted
    Lucky Eileen getting this to blog
    Thanks to her and Brendan

43. Alan B @38, if you got everything else, can you explain what “he reaches” means in ULTERIOR. (see Grizzlebeard @41 and paddymelon @32)

44. A wonderful concept, just right for a Monday. A long time since I heard the NICENE Creed!

45. What a clever puzzle to start the week. The Guardian has such a variety of excellent compilers.

46. KVa @36

    “My explanation@34 has still not been approved by our blogger…”
    With respect, it isn’t the blogger’s place to ‘approve’ anyone’s suggestion, but simply to offer their own!
    Like paddymelon (and several others) I’m still trying to get my head completely round 3dn.

47. Eileen@46
    I was not being serious Eileen! I should have added an emoji.
    Sorry.

48. KVa @47
    Thanks for that. Several years ago, I found myself from time to time having to remind a certain commenter, who frequently referred, rather disparagingly, to ‘the experts’, that the blogger was simply the person who was prepared to be in the chair for the day, to offer their own explanations and await possible different interpretations – or, when necessary, to ask for help themselves (as I quite often have to!).

49. I echo the praise for this far from so-so puzzle.

50. Great crossword; usually I don’t spot themes and clever trickery and they leave me cold when pointed out, but I thought this one was fun.
    The only flaw was ULTERIOR. The parsing doesn’t seem to work – I get the second R as a repeat of the conclusion of outlieR, but what is ‘he reaches’ doing – at best it’s unnecessary and clumsy? And as mentioned by Komornik@14 the definition just doesn’t work – the word is an adjective and means ‘not apparent’. The wording ‘for no apparent reason’ defines ‘with an ULTERIOR motive’ or similar phrase. IMO the whole clue seems so unsatsfactory in the context of this otherwise excellent puzzle, that I wonder if I and everyone else are missing something.
    Thanks Brendan and Eileen.

51. “Monday Monday, so good to me…” What a double delight on a Monday morning: a themed puzzle from Brendan, with a blog from Eileen.

    As always with Brendan, everything was clever, entertaining, fair and solvable; no need to use the theme in order to solve the puzzle, but once spotted, it added to the enjoyment and reinforced my admiration of a top setter.

    As a devout religion-avoider, I’d never heard of AGAG though it couldn’t be anything else from the wordplay, and supported the theme where the more obvious AGOG would not have done.

    I can’t quite see the second R in ULTERIOR, and LITHIC required a google confirmation.

    Big ticks for CHA CHA (mainly for the “taps”, C and H), and for ELEVEN (the “xi” hiding in anxiety, plus “one reproduced”, a brilliant definition).

    Thanks to both, what a great start to the week’s puzzles.

52. Eileen@48
    I feel that all of you bloggers are doing a great service. I have learnt a lot from these blogs.
    I will always be thankful to the bloggers and the admin/the people managing this site.

53. I failed to solve 7d (ah, very clever!) and I could not parse 3d though it looked like an anagram of OUTLIER+

    Favourites: CHA-CHA, DOUBLE-CROSS.

    New for me AGAG biblical king; LITHIC.

    Thanks, both.

    For 19d, I am in the HAW[k] camp 😉

54. Eileen@17, thank you. Yes, I suppose that’s just OK. Clueing adjectives is always the hardest. To answer one bit of beaulieu@54: a word ‘reaches’ its end, so I don’t have a problem with that, or with the parsing of the clue at all: and as for the definition, if ever disposed to be critical of Brendan I do feel rather as if I were craning up to blue-pencil on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He’s a creative artist, seeing the witty figure ready-carved in the ‘double’ marble of grid and lexis.

55. With just OUTLIER and ELEVEN to go I thought to myself there’ll be grumbles about the repeated use of “double”. And then the penny finally dropped 🙂

    Cheers B&E

56. beaulieu@50
    ULTERIOR
    Many commenters have said this but only now I see the point.
    ‘for no apparent reason’ is an adverbial phrase. Missed it totally.
    Was busy making the ‘second conclusion he reaches’ bit work.

57. Komornik@54
    That was poetic!

58. You know that with Brendan you won’t always get the same old devices, but will need to think round a corner or two – look at ELEVEN and NICENE. I liked the taps on CHA CHA, but apart from registering that there were rather a lot of repeated syllables, the theme sailed over my head with a resounding Whoosh, as the more advanced bits of Brendan’s cleverness usually do. Not sure about the def for ULTERIOR (or the parsing for the second R) but that was obviously what it was…. Ah, yes, there’s a motive which is not apparent – not what is usually meant by “no apparent motive”, but crosswords are all about misdirection!
    Yes, I did enjoy it – but ULTERIOR was just too complicated for me.

59. KVa@52

    I echo your comment (echoing seems appropriate given the repetitions, doubles etc in today’s puzzle). I’ve been doing these things since the 1970s, but this site has improved my solving and enjoyment no end since those early struggles. If I refer to Eileen and the rest as “experts” I do so in an unambiguously positive way. I am so grateful for them regularly taking the trouble to strain their brains in our service, as it were.

    I don’t post that frequently (I don’t always tackle the crossword on the day, often solving a few days’ worth in a binge, by which time it has become too late to post) but I do read every blog and comment eventually, and fifteensquared has become a real internet favourite.

    Regarding today’s double-plus-good effort, I spotted DOUBLE CROSS and DOUBLES DOWN forming a cross in the centre, plus the fact that DOUBLES DOWN formed the north south (up/DOWN) axis of that cross, but still missed the fact that the two axes contained the words DOWN and aCROSS. In a crossword of all things: you’d think Brendan had an ULTERIOR motive (still don’t quite get that one).

60. Thanks, Eileen and Brendan. Lovely puzzle, I completely agree with your summary, Eileen, and your favourites.

    Tim C @43 – “he” is a pronoun standing for outlier, so that extra R you need is a second instance of the conclusion outlier reaches.

    Eileen @48 – I tend towards the view that the blogger’s role is simply to explain how the clues work (or at least offer their best guess of the setter’s intentions), no more, no less, and you always do a splendid job as far as I’m concerned.

    beaulieu @50 – I had similar doubts about the definition for ULTERIOR – a motive for an action can be ulterior but can the action itself be ulterior? Well, the answer is yes – the OED offers plenty of citations to support this usage. So I’m now totally happy with the clue.
    “The attitude and disposition of those Powers, as bearing upon their ulterior action, necessarily enter into the question.”

61. I suppose it’s fitting that there’s a double issue with 3dn. 😉

    I’m happy with the definition – glad to see, Komornik @54, KVa @56 and gladys @58 that you saw what I was getting at @17 – but I’ve still not quite made it as to the ‘he reaches’. (Perhaps Brendan will drop in …)

    Komornik, I loved your Sistine chapel analogy!

    [1961 Blanchflower – it wasn’t you!!]

62. Komornik @ 54 – I myself have no problem with the parsing of ULTERIOR, but had to say how much I agree with your thinking. (Eileen’s in-thread explanation of the definition is very useful, and exactly as I see it)
    Knowing there would be a theme, and that I shouldn’t forget to have a look at completed grid, I was a little surprised when it was so blatant from the get go. But I did still look at completed grid, and (like Simon@18) couldn’t help seeing the, also blatant, DOUBLE (a)CROSS and DOUBLE DOWN which took the use of theme to another level of Brendan brilliance….

    I do enjoy these Monday surprises…..

    Many thanks, both and all

63. Parsed ULTERIOR as KVa@1

64. Great crossword from Brendan, although I struggled as usual with the double definitions.

    I liked the taps in CHA-CHA and ELEVEN, once Eileen had explained it all. Nice double doubles and clever use of the theme in the clues.

    Thanks Brendan and Eileen.

65. [typos – “I had ticks for 9ac NICENE, 12ac HYBRYDISED<, 18ac WITHHOLDER, 25ac TENNIS, 1dn ARPEGGIO, 4dn GEMINII, 7dn ELEVEN, 8dn DOUBLES DOWN and 15dn SPITTING>“]

66. Enjoyed this double cross. Can someone please help me to understand the function of “in a way” in 15d?

67. Nice spot Simon S@18 🙂

68. SwissSteve @66
    I took it as meaning that spitting is just one way of being rude – but now you’re making me wonder if it’s referring to spitting in the street as being particularly rude!

69. Thanks Eileen. I thought it was probably the street thing, but then where isn’t it rude?

70. Exactly!

71. I am SOOO glad I’m not alone. When I did this last night I think I spent as much time trying (and failing) to come up with a satisfactory explanation for ULTERIOR as the whole rest of the puzzle. Now in the bright light of day I see I wasn’t alone in befuddlement.

    This does not take away from Brendan’s achievement here. A fun start to the week.

    Thanks, B&E

72. I really enjoyed this. I had the same issues as others with ULTERIOR and I found the lack of a clear definition in 7D ELEVEN unsatisfactory, despite the cleverness of the clue.

73. Widdersbel@60 and Eileen@61
    ULTERIOR
    ‘For no apparent reason’ seems to be equivalent to ‘ulteriorly’ rather than ‘ulterior’.
    (I haven’t seen ‘ulteriorly’ used in a sentence but am able to guess how it should be used).

    Is this interpretation flawed?

74. Lovely puzzle. Thanks to Brendan and Eileen.

75. Despite being mostly easy, I didn’t get the linked block of ULTERIOR, FLEECE and ELEVEN. I’d put that down to a combination of narrow-mindedness and an obstacle in each of those clues: ULTERIOR as covered above (Widdersbel @60, I don’t see how your citation helps, it’s still being used as an adjective and we can’t even tell what sense it is being used in), ELEVEN for lack of a definition (not quite a lack, as xi is a definition, but one I couldn’t spot), and FLEECE because fleece is transitive and ‘act duplicitously when selling’ is not (even so, should have been easy). I like the overelaborateness of ‘second conclusion he reaches’, which I didn’t understand, failing to connect ‘he’ with ‘outlier’.

76. KVa @73
    I’m about ready to give up on this now. I can only refer you again to my comment @33, (which is what I should have cited, rather than 17, @61), which, I think, shows the equivalence of the adjectival phrase ‘lying beneath or beyond what is revealed, evident or supposed’ and ULTERIOR.

77. I liked ULTERIOR a lot – the surface alluding to doublethink and second thoughts – which can be upsetting when you realise your first ones were erroneous. That’s why “second conclusion he reaches” is there. The meaning is clear: there is a reason/motive – it’s just not apparent. It’s beyond any obvious one.

78. Thoroughly enjoyable start to the week. I wrote in ELEVEN for 7D from the latter wordplay but missed entirely the xi in anxiety, so thank you Eileen.

79. I nearly gave up with the same gaps as James@75, but gave it one more go and they finally fell. ELEVEN was definitely a hitting oneself over the head with a tea tray moment.

    I think the problem with 3d is that Brendan wanted to get a double/echo/again/repeat type reference into the clue, but the one he chose involves assigning a pronoun to ‘outlier’, which most of us are somewhat resistant to. I hope Brendan/Brian turns up later to put our minds to rest on this point!

    For the most part this puzzle perfectly illustrated the point that crosswords don’t have to be fiendishly difficult to be enjoyable.

    Thanks to Brendan and Eileen.

80. Eileen@76
    ULTERIOR
    True that we have discussed this a lot. I will not stretch it any further.

81. KVa @73 / James @75 – yes, I see what you mean with the adjective/adverb mismatch, I hadn’t picked up on that aspect of it, not reading properly…

82. Why all the angst over whether ULTERIOR is directly substitutable for the definition? It doesn’t have to be – it can just be a description of the word ULTERIOR. There are numerous other clues here that aren’t direct synonyms

83. Thanks both.
    My main problem with ‘outlier’ is that I don’t think of it as applying to a person. OED online doesn’t seem to contemplate it. The usage I’m most familiar with is in statistics.
    [The new OED website is dreadful. Does anyone know if it is possible to get back to the old one?]

84. Outlier is also a term in geology. Using “he” to refer to one seems very odd.

85. bodycheetah @82. I don’t mean to be argumentative, but in my mind the definition should always match the solution in terms of part of speech, tense and conjugation. Could you give some examples of the numerous other clues? I don’t have a for-no-apparent-reason motive here, it’s just that I don’t really agree.

86. Brendan’s always a welcome sight regardless of the day of the week. I thoroughly enjoyed this despite using a word finder to solve ELEVEN. All else slipped in quite nicely. My top picks were NICENE, CHA-CHA, SHEESH (great surface), and GEMINI. I wondered about the parsing of ULTERIOR and eventually saw it as KVa @1 did. (I believe Brendan will sometimes include words in a clue that some find unnecessary in order to create a better surface reading. That’s fine by me.) Thanks Brendan, and to Eileen for the blog.

87. As always, thanks Eileen and everyone. With ULTERIOR I should have persevered longer and I erred. Fair and accurate criticism always appreciated. Tony Santucci @86, that’s exactly how I feel about redundancy.

88. Thanks for dropping in and explaining, Brian @87, but isn’t it the crossword editor’s job to check the clues? It’s always more difficult to see slip-ups in things you have written yourself (I speak from having done quite a lot of text editing, though not crosswords!)

89. For those who, like me, don’t generally remember the setters’ real names, let me point out that Brian Greer @87 is Brendan. I always appreciate it when setters comment here.

    It took me ages to spot the definition in 3dn (ULTERIOR), but once I saw it I loved it. It’s exactly the sort of deception that cryptic clues at their best provide.

    I usually fail to spot themes, but this one jumped out at me. Even so, before coming here I hadn’t realized that the theme was incorporated, in different ways, into every clue, a remarkable achievement.

90. I’m sorry if this has already been said but I parsed ULTERIOR as anagram of OUTLIER making ULTEIOR, with the R at the end of this ( the second conclusion he reaches) being included. (Over). This worked fine to me. It was my next to last one in, only ELEVEN took me longer.
    Thanks for all the chat, the blog (Eileen) and the puzzle (Brendan)

91. Ss@25 have a look at 25a

92. The story of the phrase “sell down the river” may not be familiar to non-US sslvers. These days it means “betray,” but originally it meant something much worse. Although slavery was brutal everywhere it was practised, it grew even worse the farther south you went, worst of all in the Deep South of Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi — the latter sometimes called “the Deep South of the Deep South.” To be sold into that culture was known to be so horrific that some slaves might kill themselves rather than submit to it. There’s more history, and I recommend it, here:
    https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/01/27/265421504/what-does-sold-down-the-river-really-mean-the-answer-isnt-pretty
    (Sorry about the long link, but I couldn’t find the “lilnk” button to shrink it.)

    What a rollicking blog, Eileen — I loved the Spitting Image clip. I’ve long known about the show but never seen any of it.

    Thanks for the song, muffin. I will say that the singer presents it as a “shanty,” which it is not. Not every song that happens to be about a ship or a sea voyage is a shanty: those are only songs which a shantyman led and sailors sang while they were doing a strenuous job where the shanty coordinated their efforts. The Admiral Benbow is also the inn where the action of Treasure Island begins.

    First-rate puzzle and magnificent blog. Thanks to Brendan and Eileen.

93. Thanks for that, Valentine @92. I was aware of the original meaning of the expression but not all the dreadful details.

94. What an enjoyable puzzle, I did it in two sessions as I had to sleep, I may have learned my lesson never try a crossword when you are tired.

95. bodycheetah and SwissSteve @82, 85 and 91: does a definition need to be a synonym of the word defined, or substitutable for it in a sentence? A fascinating question. (Well fascinating to me anyway. Maybe I need to get out more.) I’ve just put some thoughts on General Discussion about it.

96. Thankyou for origin of “sell down the river”, Valentine @92. I will check it out.

97. 12a ODDLY -I was looking for an answer containing alternate letters.

    I found this incredibly hard for a Monday.

    I will buy every person on this blog a bottle of champagne if I ever complete a cryptic crossword.

98. Oh be very careful, Steffen, because you definitely will complete one one day!

99. 12A – yes I was looking for alternate letters too. Oh, they’re cunning devils sometimes, these setters!
    Many thanks to Brendan for the fun and Eileen for untangling everything.

100. So good to see BICEPS as being defined as a single muscle. It’s a pet bugbear of mine that that S at the end is in danger of being lost in the singular…
     I need to get out more!

101. James G @00
     This is nice
     https://dragonflyeditorial.com/biceps-and-the-role-of-the-copyeditor/#:~:text=It%20should%20be%20right%20biceps,%2C%20less%20commonly%2C%20bicepses).

102. The fact that DOUBLES DOWN is in neither Collins nor Chambers is a failure on both their parts. I consider it a very common expression, e.g. “DeSantis continues to double down on his hateful policies”.

     I’m very happy with the clue for ULTERIOR. I think that the “for” might be adding some confusion. I thought of it as “for” meaning “in place of” and since there is no apparent reason, there must be an ulterior one.

103. muffin@16 Benbow is in the Quiptic, as I failed to notice when I posted about it.

104. Valentine @103
     Yes – I apologised @30.

105. What a lovely crossword for a Monday. Stick with it Steffen @97 – we were in the same boat until recently but now often manage to complete Monday puzzles on the day. We were also misled by the “oddly” in 12a until the crossers ruled it out – you’re obviously building up your toolkit just like we did. We particularly liked 13a and 2d. Thanks Eileen and Brendan

106. Yes a fine puzzle and a very perceptive blog as usual.

     I rise from my haunches and harrumph gently to address the notion of ‘hawk’ being a contributing factor to HAW-HAW. I (but I know nothing) can’t imagine that the hyphenated HAW-HAW has an existence outside of the warmongering Lord (of that ilk?). Now that I have risen I may have to stand corrected; but nonetheless in my life and times HAW-HAW cannot stand alone unless conjoined with e.g. hee-hee, hoo-hoo, and ha-ha so any dictionary that offers the one must perforce offer the others.

     My point (I’m getting there m’lud) is that you were right Eileen.

107. Doublegood!

     Thanks and thanks 🙂

108. What a fabulous treat this was. We felt a bit smug at having waited to get 7d before looking at the blog (the tu’penny drop moment 10 minutes after the rest was joyous). Huge thanks to Brendan and Eileen for such an enjoyable, tip-top criss-cross double-diamond puzzle and commentary. Doubles all round.

109. Muffin@2, surely you jest ? The theme jumps up, yells at you and slaps you around the face with a wet fish. But anyway, excellent puzzle and thank you to Brendan and Eileen. I was defeated by FLEECE, sadly. Steffen@97, look out for the next Vulcan !

110. JohnB
     No really. I am generally theme-blind. It’s because once I have solved a clue and written in the answer, I promptly forget it.

111. Eileen – Among other typos (see @65) – In your preamble you’re still spelling GEMINII with two Is at the end – is this in honour of the doubles/twins theme? 🙂

112. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/outlier
     ‘Noun – outlier (plural outliers)
     1 A person or thing situated away from the main body or outside its proper place.
     2 An exception.
     3 (geology) A part of a formation separated from the rest of the formation by erosion.
     4 (statistics) A value in a statistical sample which does not fit a pattern that describes most other data points; specifically, a value that lies 1.5 IQR beyond the upper or lower quartile.’

113. BlueDot@102
     https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/double-down

114. FrankieG
     For the sake of the archive, the minor typos in my preamble have now been corrected.

115. Here’s an EarWorm for NICENE – with karaoke subtitles, so that we can all sing along. And it’s not even from a 50-year-old LP…
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDortyyp228
     …It’s much older than that – “Credo in unum deum | Patrem omnipotentem…”

116. Late thanks Eileen, for links to aid my GK as well as stimulating the discussion on ULTERIOR (i may be an outlier but my only bugbear was “second”, and now I suppose in crypticese the first conclusion of outlier might be considered to be O!). I wasn’t going to post but after Steffen@97 i really don’t want to miss out on free (contingent) booze, and have enjoyed the usual debate and enlightenment from the throng, so thanks Brendan for bringing all that about.

117. I gather the Spitting Image clip (except wanting the steak “raw”) portrays something that actually happened!

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