Guardian 29,187 – Picaroon

108 comments on “Guardian 29,187 – Picaroon”

1. Forgot about Gordon Banks and forgot to return to 14 to complete the parsing, though the answer was obvious by that time. The only Banks that came to mind was the obnoxious Brexit one, unfortunately. Gordon unfortunately lost an eye in a car accident, I remember, after failing to wear a seat belt. Otherwise, I think Andrew has summed up the puzzle well. Liked 11, 25, 26 and 10 (for the surface). Thanks to Andrew and Picaroon.

2. Thank you Andrew for your blog. For once I’m not hanging out for fifteen squared as I was happy to solve this, with the help of google to confirm some of the UKGK. To Picaroon’s credit, wordplay got me there, except for INNKEEPER. BANKS down here brings to mind Joseph Banks, the naturalist.

   My favs were 1A. loved the scoffing fools, and 18 where the whole clue is totally logical.

3. Good, solid crossword with no (that I can see) themes or other gadgets, for a change.

   Had to research DESSERT SERVICE, my upbringing having been lacking in such refinements.

   Struggled a bit to equate NEEDFUL with called for but no doubt someone can come up with a sentence in which they can be substituted.

   Many thanks for the fine blog, Andrew.

4. I’ve often said here that I always look forward to Picaroon’s offerings, indeed that he’d become my favourite setter. But all good things usually come to an end and today’s was a disaster. I don’t think I’ve ever had as long an “NHO list” (never heard of) a good many of which I presume would be familiar only to Brits, namely GREEN CROSS CODE, Morrissey/Smiths, Gordon Banks, Eton wall game, EE/mobile phone company, EC/financial district and Fal river (I lie; I did remember the river). And my life experience was inadequate to be aware of VERONAL, APOLOGIA, cod/inauthentic (this might have been in a recent puzzle?), NARCO, CHARYBDIS and VEDIC. I don’t mind one or two new words in a puzzle that are easy to extrapolate from the wordplay; indeed I welcome them; but this is ridiculous.

   Why are exercises worries?

   Another one of Picaroon’s a week or two ago had a rather long list of NHOs, but I thought it was a one-off. Sadly, Picaroon moves to my “Don’t attempt” list, for a while at least. And I was so pleased that said list had been getting considerably smaller over the months. Oh well.

   By far the most enjoyable puzzle this week was Tuesday’s by Qaos, as I opined at the time.

5. GDU@4
   ‘To exercise=to worry’ as in ‘I think this problem has been exercising your mind for some time.’

6. Geoff Down Under@4: EXERCISES isn’t a plural noun here, it’s a verb: if you are exervised about something, it worries you. Not a very common meaning.

7. ETON WALL GAME
   No. I don’t see any extended def here. 🙂

8. Thanks Picaroon and Andrew
   Tricky in places, but great fun. Some clues a bit dated or parochial though – Gordon Banks from 50 or so years ago; are Polo mints known outside the UK?
   I loved NABUCCO for the “Latin American revolutionary” (not Che for once!), and ETON WALL GAME for the surface – another a bit parochial, though.
   GDU – read both as verbs.

9. INNKEEPER
   My take was marginally different
   Current=I, news=N N and KEEPER as in the blog.

10. I really enjoyed this, she types using her EE phone account. Really love the anagram for the ETON WALL GAME and MARGE was such a neat spot, plus hiding DEMONETISING.

    The slave chorus from NABUCCO is well known and the Two Gentlemen from Verona are within my ken, the Emma Rice version the only thing I’ve walked out of at the Globe.

    Thank you to Andrew and Picaroon

11. GDU@4 you have my sympathy. I did think this was pretty UK centric. Though TBF I did buy my copy of The Queen Is Dead in Sydney so The Smiths had made it down under

    I thought this was great and a worthy follow-up to yesterday’s Rodrigues.

    Top marks for the four word hidden 1d , SONGSMITH, and APOLOGIA

    As a former Tufty Club member I always thought there green cross code was a bit nouveau 🙂

    Cheers A&P

12. I usually enjoy Picaroon ( and I did), but this one is full of things likely to be unfamiliar to non Brits – already listed above. This Brit was unfamiliar with NARCOs and DESSERT SERVICEs (no such refined items in my upbringing). I liked FORBIDDEN and the artistically hidden DEMONETISING.

13. And parsed INNKEEPER the same as kva@9

14. I was held up LOI SONGSMITH as I thought Morrissey was with U2 – I tried to work EDGE in!

15. As always with Picaroon, a couple I couldn’t parse, but now that I know, i like them.
    I parsed INNKEEPER the same as KVa.
    GDU – EC for financial district / city, I’m surprised that it’s new to you.
    Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew

16. NARCO
    There are a few series based on the Mexican and Columbian Narcos on Netflix.
    The term is probably American (a short version of narcotics).

17. [Yes, muffin@8. Polo mints familiar here, but thanks to you I looked it up. Made by Nestlé in York for over 70 years.
    From their website, favourite question is what the factory does with the middle of the Polos. The answer is that there never is a middle, each Polo is made with a hole in it. 🙂
    The pressure Polo is put under when formed is 75 kilonewtons, which is equivalent to the weight of two elephants jumping on it.. I know you’d know, muffin, what a kilonewton is, but I rather like the image of 2 elephants jumping on a Polo.]

18. I spent far too much time trying to make Fidelio fit in 11A before the penny dropped for NABUCCO.

19. Worth doing a week of crosswords for ETON WALL GAME – great clue!

20. I have sympathy for non-UK solvers but, for me, this was yet another delightful puzzle from Picaroon. As always, there are too many superb clues to select an absolute favourite, but I enjoyed the one for ‘innkeeper’ especially, with its reminder of Gordon Banks: a top class goalkeeper and, I believe, a very nice man.

21. [Paddymelon @17. They were originally made by Rowntree, so Nestlé’s involvement is somewhat less than 70 years. In 1996, they marketed little round mints claiming they were the middles from Polos]

22. muffin @8 I did think perhaps Gordon Banks is rather a dated reference, but he has his place in history as a member of the 1966 world cup team.
    It would have proceeded a bit faster for me if I had been able to parse demonetising since I guessed it early but was reluctant to put it in. It was obvious in hindsight.
    The only never heard of for me was Nabucco, but the wordplay was fair.
    Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew.

23. I agree with Shirl re ETON WALL GAME, my clue of the year so far. Maybe a bit UK centric as mentioned, but the wordplay was always fair. GDU @4: I think Morrisey and the Smiths would be a tad disappointed to be unappreciated in Oz but here is my earworm of one of their UK centric songs.
    https://youtu.be/wMykYSQaG_c?si=b1_ZlP5ACg2eOtpn

    Ta Picaroon & Andrew.

24. Is it reasonable that a puzzle for a UK newspaper is UK-centric? Discuss.
    Grateful to Tomsdad @1 for the reassurance that I wasn’t the only one to think of the odious Aron rather than the brilliant Gordon in 14d.
    The &lit clue for ETON WALL GAME will keep me cheered up for some time. Brilliant.
    Thanks to Picaroon for a challenging and interesting puzzle and to Andrew particularly for filling in the couple I had difficulty parsing.

25. I thought this was a classic Picaroon with his trademark witty and cleverly misleading wordplay, including great lift-and-separates such as Holly Hunter. I know it’s a cliché but I did have too many ticks to list them all.

    (I’m not saying that Picaroon didn’t come up with the ETON WALL GAME / “low mental age” anagram independently, but it has been done before, and I recently saw it in a book of Telegraph crosswords.)

    Many thanks Picaroon and Andrew.

26. [I looked up the GREEN CROSS CODE, which being UK was unfamiliar to me. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents?! I can’t believe that was made for the safety of children crossing the road. By the time they’ve remembered it all and thought about it, what’s going on in front of them will have changed. What the GREEN CROSS CODE, and others I’m familiar with , like STOP, LOOK and LISTEN, have in common is listen.. First take earphones out and stop looking at screen. ]

27. [paddymelon @17, unfortunately a kilo Newton is not a unit of pressure but of force. I see from a Google search that the error has made its way through a lot of t’internet and probably started with a single article/press release. The kN is a unit of force and needs to be divided by area to give a pressure. The SI unit of pressure is a Pascal which is a Newton/square metre. I guess they’re talking about 75 kN divided by the cross-sectional area of the mint being equal to the weight (force) of 2 elephants divided by the area of an elephant’s footprint. I believe that the pressure under a stiletto heel is similar to the pressure under an elephant’s foot. My apologies for the pedantry but I spent 30 years as a stress engineer. 🙂 ]

28. [Crispy@ 21. Sweet!]

29. [TimC @27
    What if the stiletto heels were being worn by the elephant?]

30. [I dread to think muffin @27…. now I have an image I can’t unsee.]

31. KVa @9 – thanks, I think your parsing of INN as I + NN is better than mine.

32. [Tim C@27 and muffin@29. You two are cracking me up. Now for the physics of the ETON WALL GAME.]

33. Tim C @27, you wouldn’t’ve been anxious about desserts then … 🙂

34. Tough puzzle. It was a struggle to get started and I needed help from google for the sports GK such as goalkeeper Gordon Banks (for 14d). paddymelon@2 – I also tend to think of Joseph Banks, the naturalist.

    New for me: VERONAL, TOSS OFF = drink quickly. I also discovered it is slang for masturbate – I never heard that usage before; NABUCCO.

    Favourites: TWITS, CHARYBDIS, DECRYPT, plus ETON WALL GAME for the surface.

    Thanks, both.

35. Andrew @31
    I used your original parsing for the INN – in fact I wrote in the IN first, then constructed the rest.

36. [KVa @16, I watched Ozark sometime last year .. narco money launderers meet hillbilly heroin growers … more bodies than Peaky Blinders!]

37. Parsed INNKEEPER as KVa@9
    It’s not “marginally different”, though – just correct.

38. Today’s lift-and-separates: Boy George, Blithe Spirit, Holly Hunter, River Seine, car dealer.

39. As for pdm @2, the only Banks I know is the Beagle botanist (apart from the Lancs village my granddad came from).

40. michelle @34: I like your matter of factness about TOSS OFF. That’s the only meaning I knew 😉

41. KVa@7 – 🙂

42. APOLOGIA
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polo_(confectionery) – UK (1947), aka
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Savers – US (1912)

43. gif @33. Very clever!. And @39. That’s the one.

44. I’m in rather a rush this morning – I’ll just add to the praise for 10dn (I don’t remember having seen it before, Lord Jim) and the clutch of clever ‘lift and separates’, among many favourites.

    Many thanks, as ever, to Picaroon and Andrew.

45. [gif @33, I worked for over 4 years in a Stress Office (really) in Lancashire (it was close to whirr 😉 I whirr 😉 born), but people used to look at me a bit funny when I told em that.]

46. A stress engineer, Tim C? In whom did you engineer stress? I used to know a few people like that. 🙂

47. http://bigdave44.com/2012/11/09/dt-27019/ – 11 years ago
    18a Pursuit of public schoolboys with abnormally low mental age (4,4,4) ETON WALL GAME
    Gazza said “the sporting activity that Dave, Boy George and their chums got up to at their public school is an anagram (abnormally) of LOW MENTAL AGE. Brilliant!” – Boy George here meaning Gideon Oliver Osborne.

48. NeilH @ 24: “Is it reasonable that a puzzle for a UK newspaper is UK-centric? Discuss.”

    This has been “discussed” many, many times, but any non-Brit who raises it gets shouted down, just as you are doing.

    The Guardian is no longer just a UK paper. It markets itself to readers all over the world, and it has international editions in many countries. Guardian Australia has been going for more than ten years. For crossword setters and editors to just keep on ignoring this significant slice of their readership after all this time is pretty naff, but no Brit cares, because they are fine.

49. The fourth enjoyable crossword from this setter I’ve solved this week and I think this one was the trickiest

    Many thanks to Picaroon and Andrew

50. AlanC@40 – ditto. 🙂

51. Yeah we believe, Alan C @40.
    [The Beeb once sacked a comedian who, meeting a girl on a narrow path, wondered “Should I block her passage or toss myself off’]

52. [Tim@27 Of course, the pressure of Easter.] I, for one, enjoyed INNKEEPER as well as MARGE and SHRUB.

53. NeilH @24. As GregfromOz@48 said, it has been discussed many times, like the homophone / pun / aural wordplay. My view is that both these topics are becoming tedious, and we should live with them. Given that most setters are UK based, I think it is fair that they use their UK based general knowledge when setting.

54. I hesitated on 1a because of the hyphen, which seems entirely redundant (a quick Google search shows precisely zero hits, and many without the hyphen). Also unsure what the anagrind is in 7d (DISH is part of the fodder), unless it’s simply ‘could be’. As for the rest, enjoyable and fair.

55. poc@54. I also tossed up the idea of dish doing double duty, but settled for could be as Andrew did in his blog.

56. KVa@16 re NARCO
    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/narco
    ‘Clipping of narcotics … A South American drug baron … Acronym of narcotics control officer’
    and in Spanish: ‘Short for narcotraficante (“drug dealer”) … Short for narcotrafico (“drug trafficking”)’
    So – the drugs, the trafficking, the dealers, the barons, the police – all NARCOs.

57. Wiiliam @3: I think it is just an ugly way of saying needed, the online dictionary gave the meaning as requisite, necessary, so ” Your presence is NEEDFUL2. It was almost painful to type that.

58. [ginf @51: 🙂 ]

59. Another good one from Picaroon, although as usual I struggled with it.

    I liked the semi-&lit MARGE, the surface for FORBIDDEN, the well hidden TESLA and DEMONETISING, the wordplay of NEEDFUL, and the great anagram for ETON WALL GAME.

    Thanks Picaroon and Andrew.

60. [Geoff Down Under @46… BAe when I whirr thirr 😉 in t’Old Dart. Ones you maybe haven’t heard of in Oz ]

61. First of all, big plaudits for ETON WALL GAME, and the hidden DEMONETISING. (Could this be a record for the length of a concealed word in crosswordland?). Both had the wow factor for me. However, found the rest of this a real struggle, and a veritable litany of unparsed pencilled in entries. SYRIA, DESSERT SERVICE, EXERCISES and INNKEEPER, to name some. Wasn’t entirely sure how TWITS or SHRUB worked, and if I throw in a couple of nho in NABUCCO and VEDIC, this wasn’t my finest hour. Last to yield was the SE corner. Enjoyed most of this sparkling challenge, however…

62. Lovely puzzle – I particularly enjoyed DEMONETISING (a huge slow smile crept over my face as I realised this one), FORBIDDEN, SONGSMITH and CHARYBDIS.

    ronald @61 – Brendan / Brian Greer loves hidden word clues – the longest single word (as opposed to a multiple word answer) I’m aware of is this from him in the Sunday Telegraph:

    What’s in Latin sign, if I can translate, is of no importance (13)

    I am sure there’s longer out there though!

63. I don’t know why you find ‘needful’ ugly and painful to type, nicbach @57. It is extremely common in Shakespeare, whose quill it did not seem to trouble. Just two examples off the top of my memory …

    From Malcolm’s closing speech in Macbeth:
    “… this, and what needful else
    That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace,
    We will perform in measure, time and place:
    So, thanks to all at once and to each one,
    Whom we invite to see us crown’d at Scone.”

    And from Regan in King Lear:
    “If, till the expiration of your month,
    You will return and sojourn with my sister,
    Dismissing half your train, come then to me.
    I am now from home, and out of that provision
    Which shall be needful for your entertainment.”

64. As no-one else has queried it I presume it’s my stupidity but why does SUB = sandwich? And is this why a leading sandwich bar is called Subway?
    FrankieG@47, George Osborne is not an Old Etonian (St Pauls).

65. Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew. I enjoined solving 7d CHARYBDIS. Like other non-UK solvers, I found some of the parsing beyond me.

66. ENJOYED!

67. I was going to say, JinA, have a lie down. Cheers, ginf.

68. MikeB @64 It took me years to discover that Subway sell “subs”. I always assumed their first shop was in an underground station or something. I’m told that it comes from submarine, referring to the shape of a sandwich made with a stick of bread, but I never heard of the phrase until long after Subway shops were everywhere.

69. Volante@62…very nice, pips today’s hidden gem by one letter. There may well be others that were longer, but I’d be very surprised…

70. Found this quite thorny. Only 3 acrosses on initial run-through and thereafter a few moments where I thought “Unless I get something out of this particular clue this time I will have nothing new to work with for the rest”. To me that feels like a climber clinging on to the rockface but only just. I don’t like it when progress stops and you’re just going round and round looking at the same things that have already baffled you once. After that it’s time to give up for a bit which is always disappointing.

    Anyway sorry to ramble. Very much liked DEMONETISING and TWITS my LOI.

    Tx Picaroon and Andrew

71. Thank you very much Ravenrider, it’s not a term that I have previously encountered in my 80 years in England. Wikipedia suggests that it is only US usage.

72. Could BANKS be seens as KEEPERs of money? or if you BANK on something is it a KEEPER? Can you tell i didn’t get the old footballer parsing? 🙂

73. Damn! It wasn’t Fidelio — the opera with the “South American revolutionary” in it.

74. Very late to the plate today and it has all been said. Very enjoyable as always and a remarkable hidden in DEMONETISING. I also had big ticks for DECRYPT, TWITS, SONGSMITH, ETON WALL GAME and INNKEEPER.

    Volante @62: Another rather nice hidden was produced by amateur setter, sirdakka, on mycrossword: Pastor Min ate a cupboard’s contents: a trifle? (1, 5,2,1,6)

    Thanks Picaroon and Andrew

75. Is some kind of formal training or advanced level of expertise required to solve these puzzles?Just can’t seem to wrap my head around them!

76. NeilH@24 wrote: Is it reasonable that a puzzle for a UK newspaper is UK-centric? Discuss.

    OK, I’ll discuss. The Guardian I subscribe to is an Australian newspaper, full of Australian politics, sports, etc., written by (very good) Australian journalists. Only the crosswords at the end of the paper are by exclusively UK setters.

    So let me ask – Is it reasonable that The Guardian should exclude (very good) Australian crossword setters from contributing to the crossword section?

77. KLRunner@76 Pangakapu is from NZ so I doubt there’s a discriminatory policy in place as such. Some setters do include Ozzy terms (we had “tinny” a few days ago – and then some Aussie inevitably disowned it as I recall) as well as Americanisms from time to time. These are usually sign-posted which is only fair to the vast majority of solvers.

    A few crumbs from the table is realistically the most you’re likely to get. What can I say? You live in a Dominion! Look at it positively – a chance to learn some more about the beloved mother country!

78. KLR@76. No it’s not reasonable. Have they been excluded by the Guardian, or have they not actually submitted any? Also, although Australians subscribe, what proportion of the readership do they make up? Having said that, it would be interesting, and a challenge, to have an Australian (other nationalities ate available) setter from time to time.

79. Joe@75 There are some resources out there on the internet that attempt to give a beginning solver the “tools of the trade”. The Guardian has some either on its site or linked to it. Plus there are Quick Cryptics which are meant to be a way in. But if it’s any comfort a state of semi-permanent befuddlement is a cruciverbal occupational hazard and just keeping going is the best way. I once had a user name of “fuddle-duddy” to capture both my inept and pedantic side.

80. [FrankieG @47: why do so many people assume that Osborne went to Eton, when he didn’t? There must be just something about him…]

81. After bailing on Rodriguez in yesterday’s Indy and this crossword last night I think I’ll avoid the pirate for awhile. Thanks Andrew for the blog.

82. BJ@75 there are many books on how to crack cryptics but what worked best for me was trying the crossword and then coming to this site and working through the clues until I understood them all. It took over a year to get to the point where I could finish the crossword every day. And even now I regularly have to Google to confirm the answer e.g. NABUCCO and VERONAL today

83. LOW MENTAL AGE, referring to Boris Johnson
    How true!

84. BJ@75: As well as the excellent contributions of the bloggers here, the Guardian’s crossword blog has previously had a “crosswords for beginners” series, which explains some of the most common devices – but be warned that every setter is looking to put a clever twist on them so a comprehensive set of instructions simply doesn’t exist. As bodycheetah recommends, the best approach is to just practice. Speaking as a bear of very little brain, I started solving crosswords about five years ago and still regularly find myself stumped!

85. I feel like I’ve been assimilated a little bit–GREEN CROSS CODE needed Googling (strictly speaking, duckduckgo autocomplete) but by now EC, ER, MARGE, and even the spelling of DEMONETISING are nearly second nature, while ETON WALL GAME, POLO, and “fools” for dessert made sense once I figured them out. And I didn’t parse SHRUB even though SUB is a USism.* I bunged INNKEEPER thinking “well, a bank keeps your money.” I had the exact same thought about VERONAL, that I had only heard of it as a poison in Agatha Christie. The SMITHS were very big in the States as well, and at least Picaroon didn’t lead us down the garden path with “leader of the Cure”!

    I enjoy grumbling about the UKisms but I feel, well, it is a UK newspaper. Sometimes it gets to be too much (I had to give up on the recent Maskarade themed around UK rivers) but there’s always 15^2 and the check/reveal function! Better a UKism than some sense of a word that nobody’s ever seen outside Chambers.

    Thanks Picaroon and Andrew!

    Anyway, enjoyed this a lot, DEMONETISING was a fantastic hidden word and DESSERT-SERVICE was very well put together. I thought “to provide” might be part of the definition there? Also check marks for ILLOGIC, DECRYPT, and APOLOGIA.

    [“Sub” for “submarine sandwich” is very much the most widespread term in the US, though regionally it is also called a “hoagie,” “hero,” “grinder,” “po’ boy,” and Wikipedia has a lot of other names some of which are pretty obscure, I’ve lived in Boston and never heard the word “spuckie” in my life. There’s also probably controversy over whether these terms are exactly coextensive, I knew people who said a hoagie had to be a deli meat sandwich but a meatball sub is definitely possible.]

86. michelle@34: thanks for explaining TOSS OFF. That accounts for all the schoolboy sniggering in the Guardian thread.

87. [BJ@75, I’d add to the excellent suggestions above the Learn Cryptic Crosswords app if you are willing to go that route. The full app needs payment and I think the examples come from the Telegraph, but my daughter went from there to Everyman and is now onto Azed via the Guardian dailies.]

88. Thanks Andrew especially for explaining SHRUB as I forgot the sandwich even though I used to enjoy them (footlong with meatballs, of course) as an occasional guilty treat. I needed a few breaks to rejiggle the grey cells today, my low wattage exemplified by guessing DEMONETISED from def+crossers and thinking it a bit rubbish that MONET appeared in both clue and solution, then a long pause to try to parse, then a big “Doh”! Thanks Picaroon. [Joe@75 I can also recommend finding a friend with some experience in solving, in case that is an option, and buying them a pint/fruit based drink or two.]

89. Well I thought this was just great. MARGE is really lovely, and ETON WALL GAME is a marvellous surface.

90. Thanks for the blog, pretty tricky to cold-solve this, once I put the Downs in it became pretty easy, I think the perimeter helped. APOLOGIA was very neat wordplay , Banks well hidden as a capital at the start of the clue, I used to see Gordon Banks shopping in Longton market , he was very tall but I was very small then.

    Is the Guardian crossword in a sold print edition anywhere except the UK ?

91. Roz, I believe you mentioned that before about Gordon Banks, does that get me a point?

92. “Needful” is common in Indian English (I’m of Indian origin although I left India for the US many moons ago).
    As in “Please do the needful.” Check out this site for more interesting Indish (or Hinglish as it is sometimes called): https://storyneedle.com/getting-to-know-indian-english/

93. AlanC I think that I should get the point for knowing about a footballer, I was brought up on the famous save from Pele. You can have a point if you can give the colout shirt Banks was wearing, no cheating.

94. I guess since I probably started it, I should add my two cents’ worth (two bobs’ worth?), even though it’s late and most people will have moved on from this blog.

    I’ve never objected to having one or two distinctly UK-centric clues in each puzzle that baffle us aliens. I enjoy it. If the crossword is well constructed, one can work it out from intersecting clues and wordplay. There are plenty of puzzles on here that include only one or two, and often no such clues, and they can be very enjoyable. But when there are a great many such clues, mixed with too many ultra-obscure words, that the level of pleasure, for me at least, takes a dive. When there’s a UK-based theme (I remember a year or two ago one about boat races on the Cam), I haven’t a hope of completing it, even if i spend hours on Wikipedia and Google.

    Picaroon has always got the balance right, and has for some time been my favourite setter. This is just the second time that I thought he’d overdone it, and it surprised me.

    I will never be audacious enough to suggest that there should never be any “Britishisms” in a British crossword. That would be absurd. It’s amazing how many UK rivers I now have in my list! But as someone above said, the Guardian is an international publication and there are a lot of overseas people who are fans of these crosswords (in our case, partly due to a scarcity of good quality cryptics in Australia). I’m glad we can access them for free, and I thank those setters who recognise and cater for us on the other side of the world. It would be different in the case of the Hollow Bottom Bugle.

    You Brits have some wonderful expressions that I often enjoy throwing into conversations, much to the astonishment of my interlocutors. “Tickety-boo” is my favourite. 🙂

95. GDU@94 You Aussies have some great expressions too – years ago in a Sydney bar having ordered a couple of beers I was asked if I wanted to “toss the boss”. I said I’d prefer to pay cash 🙂

96. bodycheetah that genuinely made me lol. Roz, he wore a lovely Royal Blue shirt. I was working at my Academy t’other night and whilst driving home, I thought of you affectionately, as I found myself behind a Black Cab with a KPR suffix..

97. Thanks to GDU.
    Fair play to anyone who could complete 7, 11 & 25 without some sort of aid.

98. I have to take exception with TESLA – not that there’s anything wrong with the clue – but because of my loathing for that individual who heads up the outfit that makes the wretched things. I have an EV myself, but I wouldn’t be seen dead driving a Tesla. “Green?” indeed – humph!

    Sorry for the rant!

    I found this very tough but I got there in the end – had to guess at the SMITH part of SONGSMITH, and wasn’t quite sure of VEDIC and NABUCCO. I had heard of VERONAL: it is mentioned in Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall, so it’s obviously been around a while.

    ILLOGIC seemed a bit strange to me – a touch of Spock being caught short in one of his utterances, perhaps? But it is a word nevertheless.

    Favourites: no question, the two tops have to be DEMONETISING (one of the best ‘hidden’s I’ve ever seen) and ETON WALL GAME. I couldn’t agree with the surface more!

    Thanks lots to Pickers and Amdrew.

99. Didn’t we have needful a couple of days ago?. As per Jay@92, I’ve only ever heard it a “please do the needful,”, only ever written by our indian IT partners.

100. EM@72:
     I saw the Banks and couldn’t get Banks’s (a Wolverhampton brewery) out of my head. They’re innkeepers after a fashion, and hosts too.

     Worked for me

101. According to Victor Borge, the original title of NABUCCO was Nabucodonosor, “but nothing rhymes with that, except maybe ‘now-a-word-from-our-composer’… and even that doesn’t work out right in Italian”. He goes on to mention that nothing rhymes with Nabucco either, “but at least the singers don’t spend the whole opera trying”.

102. As non-UK solvers, we’ll just chime in with continued appreciation for Picaroon. Yes, we had to check here to explain a few parsings, or Google (where we had an amusing time trying to understand Eton Wall Game). We’ve been doing these Guardian cryptics for a long time and (like GDU with that expanding list of rivers) are happy to have learned so many UK-centric terms and places.

103. Volonte@84: as another BoLB, I agree, though I probably started more than five years ago.

104. In GREEN CROSS CODE ‘CROSS’, a posh make of fountain pen, could also be clued by ‘pens’. This would give two clues for the same word but otherwise ‘pens’ is redundant, though it could be argued to ‘write in’ the rest of the answer.
     Bodycheetah@11: 1d DEMONETISING needed five words to make it, not four! What a wonderful clue.

105. Re 14d @2 and @34 where on my wavelength on that one. Joseph Banks was also an Innkeeper after his father 🙂 Nice touch I thought.

106. Comment to the people who maintain this great 225 site: please consider adding the ability for users to like (or otherwise) a post, as Messenger and other platforms provide. Maybe?

107. @105
     Sorry s/b were not where of course. I hate typos, especially when I make them. Proof read you twit<< 🙂

108. JohnPlantWA: Thanks for your comments. There’s a Site Feedback section, which is probably a better place for your “like” suggestion (I have no idea whether this is feasible on the platform we use).

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