Guardian Cryptic 29,206 by Paul

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29206.

Plenty to enjoy from Paul, with some wordplays to untangle. Altogether a fine workout.

ACROSS
9 UMPTEENTH
Unknown quantity in series put me off, shocking then (9)
A charade of UMPTE, an anagram (‘off’) of ‘put me’, plus ENTH, an anagram (‘shocking’) of ‘then’.
10 TRIKE
Vehicle hit, bonnet gone? (5)
A subtraction: [s]TRIKE (‘hit’) minus its first letter (‘bonnet gone’). [s]TRUCK would fit the clue, but not the crossers.
11 LOOK-SEE
Baggy trousers king examined initially, in quick inspection (4-3)
A charade of LOOKSE, an envelope (‘trousers’) of K (‘king”) in LOOSE (‘baggy’); plus E (‘Examined initially’).
12 KEEPNET
Figure butcher’s returned fisherman’s device (7)
A reversal (‘returned’) of TEN (‘figure’) plus PEEK (‘butcher’s’ – rhyming slang “butcher’s hook” – ‘look”)
13 CAKE
Fancy bar (4)
Double definition – ‘fancy’ as a pastry, and ‘bar’ as soap.
14 TARANTELLA
A mouthful eaten by Swiss hero before a dance (10)
An envelope (‘eaten by’) of ‘a’ plus RANT (‘mouthful’; Chambers gives for mouthful “an outburst of strong language” which is near enough) in TELL (William, him of the overture, ‘Swiss hero’) plus ‘a’.
16 RETWEET
Forward touching on cute header for Tottenham (7)
A charade of RE (‘touching on’) plus TWEE (‘cute’) plus T (‘header for Tottenham’). Does one still tweet in X?
17 LOMBARD
Old actress with Clouseau actor meeting poet (7)
A charade of LOM (Herbert, ‘Clouseau actor’, played Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus in the Pink Panther films) plus BARD (‘poet’), for the film star Carole Lombard.
19 NAME THE DAY
Negative response broken by a force that man possessed – when to wed? (4,3,3)
An envelope (‘broken by’) of ‘a’ plus MET (police ‘force’) plus HE’D (he had, ‘that man possessed’) in NAY (‘negative response’).
22 BEAU
Princess married to upper-class lover (4)
A charade of BEA (‘Princess’ – probably Beatrice, Prince Andrew’s eldest) plus U (‘upper-class’).
24 PITHEAD
Good plug secures the entrance of mine (7)
An envelope (‘secures’) of ‘the’ in PI (‘good’) plus AD (‘plug’).
25
See 15 Down
26 REEVE
A little insecure even, old legal official (5)
A hidden answer (‘a little’) in ‘insecuRE EVEn’.
27 SHOWER GEL
Foul holes grew cleaner (6,3)
After rejecting an alternative, an anagram (‘foul’) of ‘holes grew’.
DOWN
1 PUBLIC TRANSPORT
Car isn’t turning left, south of local line for trains etc (6,9)
A charade of PUB (‘local’) plus L (‘line’) plus ICTRANS, an anagram (‘turning’) of ‘car isnt’ plus PORT (‘left’), with ‘south of’ indicating the order of the particles.
2 SPROCKET
Film of soup leaves set of teeth (8)
A charade of SP (‘film of SouP‘) plus ROCKET (‘leaves’ of salading).
3
See 7
4 UNDERACT
Perform weakly twirling round dancer in tutu, though skirts not required (8)
An envelope (‘in’) of NDERAC, an anagram (‘twirling round’) of ‘dancer’ in ‘[t]UT[u]’ minus its outer letters (‘skirts not required’).
5 CHUKKA
Several sporting minutes for pitcher, we hear? (6)
Sounds like (‘we hear’) CHUCKER (‘pitcher’), for a play period in polo (7 minutes) or hockey (15 minutes).
6 IT BEATS ME
I don’t know what my self-flagellation achieves (2,5,2)
I suppose you would call that a double definition.
7 LIONEL MESSI
Tree-hugging English footballer, one great player (6,5)
An envelope (-‘hugging’) of ELM (‘tree’) in LIONESS (‘English footballer’) plus I (‘one’).
8 BERTRAND RUSSELL
Intellectual leader Liz, PM with foreign money to invest: alarm about that? (8,7)
A double envelope (‘to invest’ and ‘about that’) of RAND (‘foreign money’) in ER (Queen Elizabeth, ‘leader Liz’) plus TRUSS (Another Liz, ‘PM’) in BELL (‘alarm’). If you insist that Liz should apply just to one of the ladies, it is your choice which one.
15 FEATHERED FRIENDS
Wingers fine on the wings a day before goal netted by Liverpool, say (9,7)
A charade of FE (‘FinE on the wings’) plus ‘a’ plus THEREDFRIENDS, an envelope (‘netted by’) of FRI (‘day’) plus END (‘goal’) in THE REDS (‘Liverpool, say’ – the soccer team).

Missing element added.
17 LEAPFROG
Game where goal preferred? (8)
An anagram (-‘erred’) of ‘goal pref’-.
18 ABEDNEGO
A plot has gone awry for biblical fire walker (8)
A charade of ‘a’ plus BED (‘plot’) plus NEGO, an anagram (‘awry’) of ‘gone’, for the character (along with Shadrach and Meshach) appearing in the burning fiery furnace in the book of Daniel.
20
See 23
21 EM DASH
Mashed smashed – that’s it! (2,4)
An anagram (‘smashed’) of ‘mashed’ – and there it is, in the middle of the clue (and here as well).
23 TIGER MOTHER
Pushy parent I’m not sure is supportive of high flier (5,6)
A charade of TIGER MOTH (‘high flier’ – probably the old de Havilland aircraft) plus (‘is supportive of’ in a down light) ER (‘I’m not sure’)

picture of the completed grid.

82 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,206 by Paul”

  1. I got this done quite quickly; I am tempted to say I was on the setter’s wavelength, but I don’t think that’s how it works. I often do several puzzles in a sitting (not only crosswords) and usually find I can sail through them all or struggle with them all. So to use Arthur Ashe’s phrase, I am either “in the zone” or not: nothing to do with the relation with the tennis opponent or crossword setter, it’s just me. I don’t think it’s boastful to say one’s in the zone – it happens, be grateful and enjoy! Well, that’s my conclusion from a sample of one. YMMV

    I thought LIONEL MESSI was very clever, once I found the tree.

    I was looking at the word “lover” in 22a wondering if any setters would ever do a lift-and-separate on it to make OR, when the parsing of LEAP FROG hit me. Talking of hitting, I had TRUCK first for 10a; if it wasn’t for those pesky crossers, as PeterO said!

    Liked LOMBARD, UMPTEENTH and BERTRAND RUSSELL, who was my PhD advisor’s advisor’s advisor.

    Thanks, P&P

  2. Thank you Peter O for LEAPFROG which I hadn’t parsed. Clever. Was it Cellomanic who said that “clever” is the word for when you didn’t get it? True. But I liked it. And EM-DASH.
    Like Dr. WhatsOn @1, this went in quickly for me, but I also wouldn’t say I was in the zone. I found that quite a few went in from def, e.g. the outside pillars. While I might admire the wordplay after the event, by then the thrill has gone, for me anyway.

  3. I fell for the TRUCK fallacy in 10a, as I suspect many will have, and there were a few I needed your help in parsing Peter. I keep forgetting the “pi = good’ device, which I’ve never encountered outside of Crypticland.

  4. Thanks Paul and Peter. This was one of those puzzles that I fill in fairly easily but have to work out much of the parsing as a separate task. Peter, the A is missing in your solution for FEATHERED FRIENDS.

  5. Thanks Paul. Like any Paul crossword this was a mixed bag for me — some of the clues were overwrought and convoluted and others were brilliant. I liked TARANTELLA, RETWEET, PITHEAD (amusing surface), SHOWER GEL (another amusing surface), LIONEL MESSI, and the wonderfully tricky LEAPFROG. I revealed CHUKKA (beyond my orbit) and couldn’t make sense of KEEPNET or FEATHERED FRIENDS so thanks PeterO for explaining.

  6. I was definitely not on Paul’s wavelength today, and required several uses of a crossword dictionary to finish a fairly sport-heavy puzzle.

  7. Found this tough and needed lots of help. Like gregfromoz @ 3 annoyingly I forgot pi = good – don’t think I’ve seen it for ages.

    Liked: TARANTELLA, LOMBARD,ABEDNEGO, PUBLIC TRANSPORT

    Thanks Paul and PeterO

  8. There were a few in the cqba (can’t quite be arsed) category, like feathered friends, public transport and Bertrand Russell .. just bung ’em in and carry on. My housemate chipped in by knowing Abednego from Sunday school, which the heathen ginf household didn’t go in for. And yes, leapfrog was v cute. Enjoyed it, thanks PnP.

  9. A couple of other tilts were that hockey, too, has chukkas; and Lom the actor (never watched, tho the kids were fans, saying stuff like This is Inspector Clousseau speaking on the fern, and It is nert my derg).

  10. TIGER MOTHER was new to me, but for the rest it was a slow solve today. Took a while to remember Herbert Lom was in the Clousseau films, and only when I guessed the actress from the BARD bit did I remember. Needed a bit of external help for LEAPFROG (why don’t I remember about games like that?) and then worked out the parsing. Had to google ABEDNEGO to make sure, but should have remembered the song. Thanks to Paul and PeterO

  11. Grantinfreo @8 summed it up for me. Bung in an answer and worry about the parsing later, as per usual for Paul in my case.
    Dr. Whatson @1 – YMMV?
    Thanks to Paul and PeterO

  12. Like Grantinfreo @9, today I learned that hockey had chukkas. And was reminded of an excellent CND badge from long ago which bore the slogan CLOUSEAU FANS AGAINST THE BEUMB.
    But I quite enjoyed unpicking the enormous charades and seeing how well they were put together.
    Clues of the day were LEAPFROG (one of the cleverest lift-and-separates I’ve seen for some time) and BERTRAND RUSSELL for the delightful surface, reminding us that the second most disastrous PM in history undoubtedly did see herself as an intellectual leader, and probably still does so.
    And the anagram for SHOWER GEL is an excellent spot, too.
    Thanks to Paul and PeterO

  13. I don’t mind having to puzzle over the parsing after the event. All part of the fun for me. Another really good one from Paul I thought. Thought the use of ‘film’ was stretchy and challenging and liked LEAPFROG.

  14. Thanks Paul and PeterO
    I haven’t got the paper yet, but in the printout the dash in the 21d clue looks even shorter than an en dash!

  15. Yes, I fell for the 10a trick too. Irritatingly, the incorrect TRUCK has a bonnet, but a TRIKE doesn’t.

    Re untangling the wordplay after the event: faced with marathons like BERTRAND RUSSELL (which I got) or FEATHERED FRIENDS (which I didn’t), I would usually do enough to confirm whether my guess from the def was right, but no more. On the other hand, the discovery of how LEAPFROG works was a delight.

    Didn’t know TIGER MOTHER and still don’t really get CAKE.

    Thanks Paul for allowing Carole LOMBARD to be a politically incorrect “actress”: she was hard enough to find without being in doubt about her gender as well!

  16. Very characteristic Paul puzzle, I thought. LEAPFROG was a highlight.

    I wonder how many younger solvers found ABEDNEGO? When I was growing up in the UK 50-60 years ago even those of us from resolutely secular families got exposed to so many Biblical references that our heads are cluttered with half-remembered heroes and miracles. I suspect that no longer applies.

  17. As usual with Paul’s puzzles these days, I managed to complete it but couldn’t be bothered with the parsing of the weird surfaced clues.

  18. Thanks PeterO – I needed you for several explanations , and as with some others, I had to do some revealing. I thought this was a tough Paul.

    [Dr Whatson @ 1 who was my PhD advisor’s advisor’s advisor Sounds like you are calculating your Erdos number then. Mine is 6 apparently, but no connection with Bertrand Russell

  19. Paul and DA in the SMH/Age on a Friday. “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions”. Both quirky setters but Paul defeated me today (DA was his usual ho hum) especially with the long ones.
    I’m with muffin @14. I liked the trick in EM DASH but it definitely looks like an en-dash in my copy (but then it is the Grauniad).
    I was misled by TRUCK (sorry TRIKE). Doncha hate it when a cryptic clue yields more than one possible answer? Sign of a crap clue for me (and I’m sure I’ve been guilty of that). That screwed up MESSI and RUSSELL for me.
    I did like the trick with pref/erred in LEAPFROG.
    And as an ex-Aeronautical Engineer, a Tiger Moth as a “high flyer”??? Come on, you’d die of a lack of oxygen. The “weights engineer” at my first job in Australia used to fly the company Tiger Moth (yes seriously). He’d laugh at the suggestion that it was a “high flyer”.

  20. I’m always chuffed to bits when I complete a Paul without too much effort!
    I know this only means he’s generously made things a little easier, but it’s still enormously satisfying. And since I actually spotted the neat pref-erred device in LEAPFROG – I feel doubly chuffed.
    I also enjoyed BERTRAND RUSSELL (probably the closest that la Truss will ever be to a true Intellectual), I dredged up ABEDNEGO from goodness knows where (I’m another with a non-religious upbringing) and grinned at IT BEATS ME.
    Grantinfreo @ 8: I often write “cba” next to clues I’ve given up trying to parse – but “cqba” is much more accurate: I shall use it from now on!
    Many thanks to Paul for the fun, and to PeterO for the ever-lucid explanations.

  21. Muffin is quite correct typographically. What’s shown is a hyphen. An en dash is longer and an em dash is twice the length of that. Pedantry? I love it!!!

  22. Well I’ve played hockey for 50 years and didn’t know that a game was divided into chukkas. Everyone I know, every commentator or reporter, every reference in the rule book, refers to them as quarters. But there it is in Wikipedia so it must be true.

    Is there a term for a term which apparently exists but no-one ever uses?

  23. me @14/Fretman @21
    It isn’t an em dash in the paper either. Shame to spoil an inventive clue by getting the typesetting wrong!

  24. Thanks to Paul and PeterO.
    Some unfamiliar things for me in this crossword, so unfortunately I had to depend a lot on looking things up to solve what I could.
    Sadly I ended up with it being a DNF as I couldn’t get BERTRAND RUSSELL (8d) – and am now kicking myself that I didn’t try harder to think of who might be considered “intellectual leaders”, especially as I had all the crossers except the U from BEAU at 22a, my LOI.
    But I still enjoyed most of what I solved, especially 6d “IT BEATS ME” – that could have been what I said about not getting over that final hurdle!

  25. I only had two ticks by the end but what a pair; LEAPFROG and EM DASH. It wouldn’t really be the Guardian without the EM/EN snafu

    Definitely a three cups of coffee crossword for me with a high pencil percentage

    Cheers P&P

  27. Quite a struggle, can’t say I enjoyed it but I was glad I managed to finish this.

    I’m with grantinfreo, Crispy and George Clements re the CQBA category! I did not parse 7/3; 1d apart from PUB, 4d, 15d apart from FRI + END (never heard of The Reds = Liverpool); 17d.

    New for me : KEEPNET; EM DASH; tiger mother; Herbert LOM (for 17ac); ABEDNEGO; FANCY = cake.

    Favourite: SHOWER GEL.

    This is probably the only time that Liz Truss and Bertrand Russell would be mentioned together?

    Thanks, both.

  29. (S)TRUCK made a much better clue -so much so that I didnt think to check it until i was completely stuck(!)
    Should have started with Phi which is up quicker-but I was up late
    OPart of crossword land’s rich tapestry-he put his foot out and I tripped .

  30. Came here to echo other commenters – online at least what’s shown in 21d is a hyphen, not an em dash or even an en dash (although to be fair it was still one of the few clues I got on first pass)

  31. Hard struggle with just a whiff of football in some of the clues. Favourites were IT BEATS ME, TIGER MOTHER, BERTRAND RUSSELL, ABEDNEGO (Unfortunately I was brought up on the bible), EM DASH and the wonderful LEAPFROG. Tough finish to end the week.

    Ta Paul & PeterO.

  32. I definitely wasn’t on Paul’s wavelength for this one, which took far too long to unravel.

    I thought the LIONEL MESSI tree was a lime, which made this the only one I failed to parse. I liked the wordplays in KEEPNET, PUBLIC TRANSPORT and SPROCKET, the surface for BERTRAND RUSSELL, and the mouthful in TARANTELLA. I did spot the errant length of an EM DASH.

    Thanks Paul and PeterO.

  34. I made rather heavy weather of this, but got there in the end. I was convinced that 9ac started UN- which slowed me down in the NW until I realised my mistake. And I was another TRUCKer, though the K looked suspicious. Rather a lot of solutions went in before the parsing – only to be expected with so many cleverly convoluted charades.

    I liked the deception of ‘married to’ for BEAU – adjacency rather than the expected ‘m’, MESSI and RUSSELL, and the wonderful LEAPFROG.

    Thanks to S&B

  35. Like many others, a lot of retrospective parsing and a couple that needed the blog. Pleased to find the proper names somewhere in the less used parts of my memory.

    The surface of 8D is timely, as it is exactly a year since Truss conceded victory to the lettuce.

  36. I was amazed to find TRUCK wrong. It might be the cleanest answer I’ve ever had that turned out wrong!
    Liked FEATHERED FRIENDS, ABEDNEGO made me smile. I thought LOMBARD was doubly quite obscure!

  39. 7,3 d – I went for lime too and couldn’t parse the obvious solution. It will take me forever, if ever at all, to associate footballer and lioness. I’ve been away from the UK for a while so women’s football fever has not yet clicked with me.
    Thanks Paul and PeterO.

  40. Stephen @38; from the ODE: adjective British English informal, dated pious in a sanctimonious way: an unnecessarily pi remark.

  41. Yes, I’m another one who went wrong with TRUCK and had to backtrack. I strugged with this off and on through the morning and still had four left, and a few parsings that eluded me. Some good stuff, but too many rococo parsings for my liking. With thanks to Paul and PeterO.

  42. It rather felt that for the UMPTEENTH time today I was able to insert an answer purely from the definition, and even struggled then to work out the sometimes convoluted parsing thereafter. Left staring at C something K something for my last one in, and had no real idea whether it should go CAKE or COKE. Long time since ABEDNEGO appeared in my life, was he the subject of a children’s rhyme? Perhaps I’m a bit grumpy about things today after a long walk to and fro my Covid booster in the drenching rain. Still a Paul fan, despite everything, including the deep puddles…

  43. I totally agree with Dr W@1. There’s no way I could have solved this yesterday, but this morning I completed Pangakupu fairly quickly, dug myself out of a hole in the killer sudoku and then turned to Paul. Probably my quickest Paul solve, with no false steps at all (sorry, TRUCK people).

    Agree also that the clue for 21d does not contain the correct dash. I think you have to type two hyphens which then convert into an EM, but I haven’t tried it recently, because the en dash is quite acceptable these days. In fact I was quite taken aback to read several of those longer dashes in a John Le Carre the other day. Printers could afford to splash out on the ink back in the 1980s.

    Thanks to the high muckamuck and to PeterO for the blog.

  44. I also didn’t know TIGER MOTHER, wondered for a while without the I in place as a crosser whether Queen Mother might fit the bill too…

  46. I struggled to get a grip on this, but like all good puzzles the effort was rewarded.

    Some real gems – BERTRAND RUSSELL, LIONEL MESSI and RETWEET (what a surface!)

    Didn’t spot the lift and separate though!

    Thanks Paul and PeterO

  47. Thanks for the blog, thought it could be truck or train so I left it out , glad I did once I put the Downs in and TRIKE appeared. Had to guess between NEGO and NOGE for 18D and got lucky for once, Very imaginative Playtex for LEAP FROG , do not think I have see ….erred used before.

  48. Wonderful crossword and very pleased to have finished a Friday Paul. Too many highlights to mention, so here’s some pedantry instead.

    As others have noted, EM DASH wasn’t correctly typeset, and I also wondered about ‘self-flagellation’ in IT BEATS ME (if it’s beating me am I doing it to myself?). Then there’s Herbert Lom, surely a Pink Panther actor rather than a Clouseau one (of which there is a surprising selection). But the sheer enjoyment to be had with LEAPFROG, RETWEET, UMPTEENTH, LIONEL MESSI etc makes these niggles irrelevant.

    Many thanks to Peter and Paul, a couple of FEATHERED FRIENDS if ever there were any!

  49. Where Paul shines is in giving one a fair chance, however slim, of deducing the answer, despite knowing nothing of the straight clue or of a vital element of the cryptic clue, as was my situation with today’s 7d/3d.

    Thank you, Paul!

  50. In the clue for 21 down on the iphone, at least, the dash is not an EM dash (as wide as the point size of the font) but an EN dash, which is half that width.

  53. I didn’t quite finish, as I revealed SPROCKET, which gave me the crossing letter I needed for CAKE. in my defense, rocket is on the strangely long list of vegetables that have different names on this side of the Atlantic. (It’s arugula here; both words are apparently corruptions of the original Italian name, which is something like ruccola).

    ABEDNEGO came through the wordplay; I’d never heard of the dude. That’s the nice thing about cryptics: in an American plain crossword, I’d’ve been up a creek without a paddle on that one. (Well, in American crosswords, every letter is checked, so if there’s an answer you don’t know, you just solve all the things that cross it. But what happens if two words cross that you don’t know?)

    I’m another who tried TRUCK instead of TRIKE, and another who thinks that made it a crap clue.

  54. Crispy @11: YMMV= your mileage may vary. (From a disclaimer often seen in American car ads when a claim is made about a car’s fuel efficiency, but in Internetland, it is never meant literally.)

  55. [mrpenney @53: Slight amendment to your etymology of the British English ‘rocket’: it comes from the French ‘roquette’, itself from the Italian ‘ruchetta’ and the US ‘arugula’ is from the alternative, and commoner, Italian ‘rucola’. Both Italian words are diminutives of the Latin ‘eruca’ (which is used as the scientific name for the genus to which the plant belongs)]

  57. Interesting responses above. I left TRIKE when I read through thinking I’d wait for some crossers before entering anything, but entered ABEDNEGO on sight, helped by an elderly friend of my grandmother calling my two sisters and me Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego and singing the song to us as children. (It was better than the friend of my parents who dubbed us Trouble, Double Trouble and Triple Trouble).

    I didn’t parse FEATHERED FRIENDS, but thought LEAP FROG and LIONEL MESSI were fun clues, knew CHUKKA in polo from Kipling’s stories. I found this a quicker solve than the previous two days, but as I was washing floors in the wee small hours after my daughter threw up on Wednesday morning, I was blaming lack of sleep.

    Thank you to PeterO and Paul.

  58. Loved it but it took a while. I thought leapfrog was very clever. However never heard of a tiger mother: where does Mr Halpern dig these terms up from? TA for the blog: much appreciated.

  60. Pi is short for pious – those Victorian portraits of pious looking people. Became schoolgirl slang for too nice or good – in the Angela Brazil and Enid Blyton school books and my mother’s vocabulary.

  61. Pi is a short version of pious which loosely means good.
    Possibly shortened to pi in school slang but no-one is quite sure.
    Perhaps only seen in crosswords now.

  63. The thing I love about cryptics is how they reveal one’s genius and one’s stupidity in equal measure. I got TARANTELLA in a twinkling, and smugly completed the NE corner with ne’er a check, while noting the problems people on the blog were habing with TRUCK/TRIKE. I then proceeded to the NW quadrant and spent a full thirty minutes researching English footballers for a Lionel Marsh, or perhaps Morse. Hubris.

  64. For anyone wondering, a bit of googling suggests that the term “chukka” applied to hockey (which I’d never heard before either) is mainly a South African usage. They do play polo there but it’s not immediately obvious why they alone have moved the word across sports like that.

  66. Thanks PeterO as I didn’t spot the Lioness and now realise i never fully parsed Bertrand Russell, ABEDNEGO was just about the most plausible given crossers (sunday school attendee in my youth but never heard of him, though Shadrach pops up in the title of a Silverberg novel). As usual a lot of lateral thinking required and much fun along the way – heartily endorse Clive@63’s first sentence though luckily today my stupidity helped in that TRUCK as a potential answer did not occur to me. Thanks Paul and Richard@64 for your research, odd indeed.

  67. Steffen – 9 across is a non-obvious anagram, 27 ac is easier but less useful for solving the grid. To search for an anagram – look for words that don’t fit easily into the surface (the literal reading of the clue) – foul/off/rotten/wrong/’erred’ in a lovely one today (also what’s called a ‘lift and separate’)/rubbish and so forth. Just keep your antennae quivering for that kind of word. Hope this helps.

  68. [Colin Lewis @50: correct me if I am wrong, but my memory of the full typological explanation is that the lower case letter “m” is generally square (as wide as it is high) so the “em” is known as the “square of the face” and is used not only to dictate the length of an em-dash, but also the default for the indentation to start a paragraph, unless otherwise specified. In the United States, there are huge pedantic disputes about whether an em-dash should be typeset with spaces on either side or not. In word processing, a double hyphen will only resolve to an em-dash when the spaces are added, so the barbaric practice of adding spaces creeps into formal typography as well. The letter “n” is considered to be half the width of the “m” so an en-dash is the intermediate length between a hyphen (used to denote the continuation of a word at a line break and also in compound phrases) and an em-dash, whose function is similar to an ellipsis. I use an en-dash for names, such as an F-16 fighter jet, or Interstate I-95]

  69. Abednego, Shadrach and Meshach frequently feature in the Jeeves and Wooster books because of Bertie’s sole academic achievement of winning the scripture knowledge prize in school…

  70. #failure

    @67 – thanks for advice; it made sweet FA difference.

    Roll on Sunday & Monday to try to get a few clues and confidence back.

  71. I was quite surprised to read how many solvers found this easy. It took me quite an effort, but I’m pleased to have completed it AND to have understood all the wordplay. I go to bed with a smug feeling of achievement. Thanks, Paul.

  72. erike44@71. Completing with “quite an effort” can quite often be more satisfying than finding the puzzle “easy”; at least, that’s my experience. It’s rare for me to find a cryptic easy, but as Dr W says @1 it’s a matter of being “in the zone”. Dr W obviously has more experience of being in the zone than me, so is better at identifying it and, dare I say, glorying in it. I was there today, and luckily recognised it and enjoyed it. Other days I struggle through and enjoy that too, but in a different way.

    Then there are the days when, like Steffen@65 I just struggle and really need an easy anagram (preferably with some handy crossers) to get me started.

    Enjoy what you can, and hope for more good days.

  77. Steffen @76
    As soon as the entry window for the puzzle has closed, normally the Saturday a week after publication.

  78. Only got about 2/3, and on seeing the explanations I now know why. New rhyming slang, me forgetting the dreaded PI = “good” and “local” = PUB, an obscure princess…
    Never-heard-ofs: PITHEAD, TIGER MOTHER, KEEPNET, cake = fancy
    Kicking myself over PUBLIC TRANSPORT and FEATHERED FRIENDS. Tickled by LIONEL MESSI and BERTRAND RUSSELL, who will now forever be associated in my mind.
    Not sure what the purpose is of “, say” at the end of 15 — LIverpool already = THEREDS without it. Adding “say” suggests not Liverpool specifically, but anything like Liverpool. If there other teams called “The Reds” they are much more obscure.

  80. ThemTates@78. Maybe Liverpool are the most famous team to be known as the Reds, but the fact is that “Liverpool” in a crossword clue is an example of a team known as the Reds, not a definition or equivalence, and the convention is that this should be indicated. Other examples include Nottingham Forest, Barnsley and Aberdeen, plus Salford Red Devils in rugby league, so not totally obscure.

  81. Just finished this. Loved leapfrog and em dash.
    The only crossword I’ve ever done in one go was the Brendan cats one but I think that was a Monday one so it wasn’t too demanding. Usually, as with this, it’s a Christmas buffet.
    Many thanks to the blogger and to Paul. Long may he continue to innovate!

  82. Thanks sheffield hatter @80 — good to know. I’ve watched Nottingham Forest play, but I had no idea they were “the Reds”.

    I have to agree, Forest Fan @81, that EM DASH is one of my favorite clues so far.

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