Guardian Cryptic 29,239 by Paul

90 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,239 by Paul”

1. I’m pleased to learn that you thought it was tough too, loonapick. I wrote in the margin: “Is it just me or are Paul puzzles getting harder?” This one took me an age.
   I am grateful for some explanations of clues like BIG BERTHA at 1d (GIB for wedge was unfamiliar) and 4d SHELDUCKS, which I only solved from the crossers and definitions. I did like 22a TEACHES, 24a CROWBAR, 5d OFFISH and 14d HEADSTONE.
   Thanks to Paul for the brain work-out and loonapick for the mopping up of what I didn’t understand.

2. Managed to struggle through that with a lot of help, but a joyless experience on the whole.

3. [I must say I groaned loudly at DEER TWINE for “What might secure the bucks” in 12/15a DESSERT WINE. Oh Paul!]

4. Yes, phew indeed! Well worth the effort, though. I was convinced I was looking for a comedian ending in OWLS for 25A, until I worked out you can have a parliament of other birds, too. I thought all the clues were great but particularly liked 19A, which, of course, references the nursery rhyme:
   Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean,
   And so, between them both, you see, they licked the platter clean.

   Many thanks to Paul for the fun and to Loonapick for the clear explanations.

5. “Headstone” is brilliant! I fear for the remainder of the week if Degree of Difficulty escalates.

6. Isn’t 14d an &lit? Agree with loonapick that this was tough today, along with Paul’s last midweek puzzle. Perhaps Paul has decided to up the difficulty level a notch. Very few entries for me on the first pass through, but slowly chipped away. Liked BUTTERSCOTCH, DESSERT WINE and OMAR SHARIF. Thanks to Paul and loonapick.

7. I found this a bit easier than some recent Paul puzzles, and thought AFTERSHOCK, DESSERT WINE and HEADSTONE were all brilliant. Thanks to P & l. Oh, OMAR SHARIF as well.

8. Well I found this tough but not as tough as last week? I needed the blog to parse MEL BROOKS. I groaned at glower for neon and the favourite has to be HEADSTONE.

9. The thing about the tough-but-fair ones is that one does feel slightly proud of conquering them. HEADSTONE made me smile.

10. “Isn’t 14d an &lit?”. Yes it is Tomsdad @6. The blog suggests that by underlining the whole of the clue as the definition.

11. I groan whenever I see it’s a ‘Paul’, just too difficult for me., or I am on a totally different wavelength to him. Hopefully that means the rest of the week is safe?

12. After half an hour I’d solved just three clues. I decided I didn’t have the staying power today and had a quick look at the solution, which vindicated my decision.

13. So it does TimC@10. My apologies for being slow.

14. Thanks loonapick. A toughie it was. I imagined that anyone blogging this might need to go into penalty time. Well done!

    Toughies for me were OMAR SHARIF and FATS WALLER. Don’t know that they’re fair in the cryptic rule of thumb: accessible wordplay or def, not both opaque. Couldn’t parse MADEIRA. Favourite AFTERSHOCK.

    My little bit of knowledge about collective nouns today misfired. I didn’t know parliament applied to both rooks and owls. I was wondering if there was a comedian called OWL somebody. Did like the clue MEL BROOKS though.

15. I mean I couldn’t parse DESSERT WINE, and groaned as JiA did@3. With the second word being 4 letters I was fixated on safe (what secures the bucks) or port for some unknown connection between money and Madeira.

16. A bit all over the shop for me. Siegfried’s love was Brunhilde and Swann’s love was ODETTE
    \There must be millions of Seigfrieds but not in the Bundesliga-there’s a HARRY though
    I prefer Wagner to Thaikovsky any day
    I liked CROWBAR and OFFISH-and wasnt there a HEADSTONE in OMF?
    AFTERSHOCK has been round the block a bit
    \But fun aplenty-preferred Filbert.

17. No worries Tomsdad @13. It was one of the reasons it was a favourite for me.

18. Copmus@16 – Siegfried, the folk hero’s love was indeed, Brunhilde, but there is a Siegfried in Swan Lake, whose love is Odette. Perhaps, confirms your impression it is ‘a bit all over the shop’!

19. Thanks Paul and loonapick
    I liked FOI FATS WALLER, but not much else. Too many question marks to be enjoyable.
    Could someone explain ODETTE, please? I xouldn’t get BRUNHILDE to fit…

20. Larry@4. Same. My first guess was owls being at the end as well.

    And yes HEADSTONE is brilliant. ‘The clue would make a great epitaph! I think I’ll order mine now. At least my husband and son would have a laugh a) because of my love for cryptics and b) because they know I don’t usually enjoy Paul. 🙂

21. [16-18 not there went I went to type!]

22. muffin@19 me too. But google tells me it’s SWAN LAKE,

23. [oops, that’s me too too]

24. For once my ignorance of Germanic legend and ballet served me well, as I was happy to just build SIEGFRIED and ODETTE from the wordplay.

    Definitely on the tricky side, with some points where I feared I would come a cropper, but once I’d sorted out the fodder for IDLE BOAST we were there.

    Liked HEADSTONE, FATS WALLER, and BUTTERSCOTCH.

    Thanks Paul & loonapick

25. Actually, I found this easier than some of Paul’s recent efforts, with some very clever clues. Favourites included BUTTERSCOTCH, SIEGFRIED, AFTERSHOCK, FATS WALLER, HEADSTONE (like paddymelon @20 I would love it as an epitaph, but I suspect the Rector would disapprove), and the immaculately Pauline AS OFTEN AS NOT.
    Thanks to Paul and loonapick.

26. Very tough going, this, but with enough rewards to be worth it.
    Unknowns to me: sc=particularly, gib=wedge, the card game NAPOLEON (I knew NAP, but not that it was an abbreviation), that rooks as well as owls may have parliaments. And DEER TWINE? Really?

    The compensations: OFFISH (ouch), FATS WALLER (who I thought might be Fats Domino until I took a closer look), the crows in the CROW BAR. And as for the substance picked – ewww! But this is Paul, after all.

    ATLAS, surely, has a hand raised to hold up the sky? And isn’t he a Titan rather than a god?

27. Must come here today to congratulate Paul on this one. Entertaining and very challenging. I agree with Julie in Aus@1 and Tomsdad @6 that Paul is setting some tough – and really inventive – ones at the moment. I think there’s a correlation with the type of grid used. This rare 158-cell one was miraculously filled with all his proper names, dessert wines and phrases. Selecting a 137-cell grid (No.58 I think?) usually means one long phrase and then the rest is easier. This one seems to encourage meatiness. My brain was so mashed by the end that I took ages to see how ODETTE was hidden. “Making you miss hiddens and anagrams” is almost a definition of setter’s success, for me as solver. Sort of Purloined Letter trick. One question: shouldn’t AS OFTEN AS NOT logically mean 50% of the time? But what has logic to do with idiomatic English, that’s the fun of it? That wasn’t half a good puzzle.

28. The second Paul puzzle in a row that I’ve really enjoyed!

    I’m happy to go along with all of NeilH’s sentiments, just adding DESSERT WINE as a favourite – like Julie @3 I groaned.

    I’m with gladys @26 re ATLAS, on both counts.

    Many thanks to Paul and to loonapick for a splendid blog.

29. God forbid we ever had a clue with a bit of contemporary popular culture knowledge needed, but this sort of thing is fine?:

    “Omar Sharif as well as being an actor (“playing role”) was also an expert bridge player (“old wizard on bridge”)”

    How are younger people ever supposed to get invested in cryptics with that sort of niche thing seemingly taken as common knowledge that anybody could conjure up? Or is that the point?

30. In 20, “failing” is the anagrind (as indicated by loonapick) not the removal of the first two letters of “tertiary”. That is done by “all but”.

31. Gosh! I seem to be increasingly at odds with commenters here (I purposefully took a break from crosswords through a couple of years during the pandemic and, for me, there was a slight change at 15²) as I thought this was a very accessible puzzle and experienced none of the negativity or obstacles others felt they’d encountered. Lighten up, folks, stretch your brains if you have to, but enjoy the gifts we’re offered ……

    I actually came to praise, not to bury! I felt bound to utter my continued admiration for Paul’s unending creativity; I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep on saying it – how does do it?

    Wonderful, wonderful Paul!

    Many thanks, both and all

32. ODETTE would be pirouetting in Swan Lake I think!
    I agree that this was very tricky, but also very entertaining. FATS WALLER & OMAR SHARIF particularly neatly done. I would have been stuck without the check button.

33. Fru @29 – as a comparatively young solver, I tend to agree. In this case I figured it out from crossers and knowing he was an actor, and shrugged at the rest (while thinking vaguely of Gandalf and the Balrog, as I imagine Paul had hoped). Not my favourite, although at least solvable.

    I don’t think a general midweek puzzle has any special requirement to be accessible. But I’d like to see a much greater effort made in the crossworld generally to providing ‘on-ramps’ to cryptics that don’t require a rare innate knack, or a degree of time & bloody-mindedness that is in short supply in the age of smartphones and myriad other distractions. Even just printing a precis of the ‘rules’ of cryptics, at least alongside more beginner-friendly puzzle series like the Everyman or the Quiptic, would be a start! I know plenty of people who enjoy lateral thinking and wordplay of the sort cryptics provide, but they just find cryptics impenetrable, and requiring too much ‘rote learning’ (which is inevitable to a degree given the constraints on setters, but all the more reason to make the route in easier in other ways).

    Embracing more modern or – horror! – pop culture terms and abbreviations would also help. Elsewhere, I recently saw someone complain about the use of SMS as – I paraphrase – new-fangled technological nonsense, an attitude among some current solvers (who editors will understandably defer to rather than the silent set of potential future solvers) that hardly helps.

34. I’m glad everyone else found this as meaty as I did, although I concur with those who found it easier than some other recent offerings from Paul – I had a handful of clues on my first pass, both across and down, which meant I wasn’t trying to work out from a corner, as happened with the last one, but had more crossers to help.

    I also groaned when I worked out DESSERT WINE – and I had wine and island in my mental check list from the get go, so the WINE bit went in early, but I’m more used to drinking Madeira or Marsala as an aperitif, an alternative to sherry, or in various recipes, which is why the DESSERT trailed in later. I read the clue for FATS WALLER and thought that is what it has to be, but needed the blog to work out why. It needed a lot of crossers to see OMAR SHARIF, because I was misplacing the oar, around the m and not able to see why until I put it all together. Fru @29, I checked with my daughter, who’s starting out on cryptic crosswords and she knows about Sharif from Lawrence of Arabia, didn’t know about the bridge, so he’s not unknown to younger audiences.

    I like ballet better than Wagner, so didn’t blink at the pairing of SIEGFRIED and ODETTE, but also wondered about ATLAS as a god, like gladys @26 and Eileen @28, although I could see how that parsed.

    Thank you to loonapick and Paul.

35. Would someone be able to enlighten me as to the following in 1a – sc. (“particularly”)?

    Not a reference I’m familiar with.

36. [Amoeba @33, I was given a second-hand copy of Secrets of the Setters and that was what got me started on the Guardian cryptics (I could manage the Everyman and the Times, but the G is certainly the hardest in mho). Maybe you could search for one online? There must be loads around, as I always thought it strange to give that as a prize when all the people who solved the prize crossword were clearly already experts!]
    Re this one, I echo those who found it particularly hard, but at least it wasn’t a prize so if all else failed we could press the reveal button!
    One more thing – Wikipedia says Gudrun was Siegfried’s wife, Brunhilde was the cause of his death (we’re talking opera here, rather than ballet) so neither was going to fit!
    Thanks Paul and loonapick

37. [SinCam @36
    If you look up the plot of Gotterdammerung you will see that it’s a bit more complicated than that!]

38. scraggs @35
    sc is an abbreviation of the Latin scilicet, from scire licet (it is allowed to know) hence ‘to wit’, ‘namely’.

39. Eileen @38

    Thank you 🙂

40. probably a bit picky, but I don’t think of atlas as a god, just a character from greek myth who holds the sky up – but the wordplay in 23 is fine, and I see from the internet that atlas is referred to a titan god

41. Absolutely brilliant and great fun from start to finish. A very fair and enjoyable challenge.

    So many great clues but HEADSTONE wins the gold medal. Genius! Also loved SHELDUCKS, DESSERT WINE and MEL BROOKS.

    If only we could have this every day!

    Thanks Paul and loonapick

42. Wow, that was difficult for me. At least after solving BUTTERSCOTCH the top half was well-populated, although the bottom half took an age.

    I liked the wordplays of NAPOLEON, AFTERSHOCK, FATS WALLER and SHELDUCKS, and the surface of IDLE BOAST. The deer twine seemed a bit silly to me – but it is Paul!

    Thanks Paul and loonapick.

43. No pushover, certainly, but a splendid puzzle, with Paul at his most inventive – deer twine, indeed 🙂 That was a favourite, for its chutzpah, others being FATS WALLER, CROWBAR, the neat and clever LUGER and TEACHES, and COTD the beautiful &lit HEADSTONE.

    We tend to think of Greek ‘gods’ as being just Zeus and his contemporaries, but they were the just the third generation of immortals, having overthrown Cronos and the Titans, including ATLAS, who had themselves supplanted the first generation of Uranus et al. All of these surely qualify for god status.

    Cryptic crosswords do contain contemporary references – the elderly Araucaria was one of the first to spot that Lady Gaga incorporated a useful anagrind – but why should older things be considered obscure? I’m a boomer myself, but that doesn’t mean that everything prewar is terra incognita. A consequence of pervasive modern technology is not only that younger folk are less inclined to spend the time learning how to solve cryptics, but they also spend most of their time in the here and now and don’t pick up the GK of the past. I started to attempt cryptic crosswords in my late teens – but there were no online distractions then….

    Thanks to Paul and loonapick

44. Loved this- very clever (as ever) with the monumental HEADSTONE, a brace of collective nouns, and a parlement of foules.
    Thanks Paul and loonapick

45. Really glad to see loonapick’s explanations as they added extra enjoyment to some of the answers I’d put in without parsing! Great fun, but had to reveal too many answers today as short of time.

46. Thought I was going to gallop through this with most of the top half going in quite swiftly, surely not – a Paul puzzle? Then ground to a halt, with not quite the slough of despond (apologies Mr Bunyan) with clues such as 18/21 to untangle. Echoes of a clue yesterday – was it? – with TEACHES, my favourite clue today in the midst of all kinds of difficulties. RARITY particularly devious, wondered for a while if I had managed to arrive at the correct answer there. Always a bit of a feeling of AFTERSHOCK when finally arriving at the finishing line after a tussle like this with Paul….

47. As good as it gets IMHO. So many clever clues, and the usual Paul humour. Fat swallower, substance picked, sad sculpture – just brilliant. Thanks both.

48. I enjoyed this although I admit I wrote in DESSERT WINE and parsed it afterwards, the same with AFTERSHOCK.

49. Oofyprosser @ 47 – Hear, hear!

50. I really must take my own advice to not attempt Paul. I gave up on the SW corner and despite filling in the rest of the grid I enjoyed little of it. Just not my cup of tea, I’m afraid.

51. Interesting to see how this one has split the house. I think I’m on the enjoyment side though I’m often not sure if I’m enjoying it whilst doing it. Sometimes the greater pleasure comes on reflection. Going back over this, I had plenty of smiles with the FAT S WALL(ow)ER and the HEADSTONE being my favourites.

    Thanks Paul and loonapick

52. … so betwixt the two of them they licked the platter clean … always rich associations with Paul (very tattered Mother Goose), thanks both…

53. For some reason Sc. Scilicet doesn’t merit its own Wikipedia page – just treated as an adjunct of Viz. Videlicet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viz.#Scilicet
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_abbreviations (qv) has eg, ie, et al, &c.

54. Loved the crossword. The surface of TERTIARY is indeed “very sad” given this latest news
    Cop28 host UAE planned to promote oil deals during climate talks
    Thanks P&L

55. Was this ever a tough ‘un! One of those that make me grateful not to be a blogger who might have to parse all this.

    Hasn’t “tea chest” made several appearances lately?

    Never heard of “gib” or the card game NAPOLEON. Have heard of “afters” but didn’t think of them.

    Thanks, Paul and loonapick for being smarter than me.

56. Gasp! Got there in the end but not sure it was a totally enjoyable experience.

    Lots of clever constructions, but too many clues ruined by the nonsensical surface for me to enjoy.

    Excellent blog, loonapick, many thanks.

57. Loved this. Typical Paul. Like others thought headstone brilliant. Luckily I like both opera and ballet. Went straight to Wagner but then twigged Tchaikovsky. I like it when there are lots of mis-direction: makes it more fun. TA for the blog: not easy and Mr H for the challenge

58. I think Paul needs to realise that he is there for our entertainment, rather than the other way around. I think I’ve reached the point where I’m just not going to do them anymore.

59. I endorse the various opinions above that HEADSTONE was brilliant.
    Did anyone try DIANA for 23d – it sort of works.
    Same sentiment as PostMark @51; not always enjoyable while solving, but satisfying in the end.
    Thanks to Paul and Loonapick

60. Why does “sc.” mean “particularly”, please?

61. 35, 38 and 53 have enlightened me. Note to self: read ALL the other comments first. Sorry for wasting your time. Twice.

62. Challenging but satisfying once it all fell into place (or was forced into place by definitions and crossers in some cases, the proportion of unparsed shrugs was high with this one). So thanks to loonapick for the enlightenment in several cases.

    My FOI was DESSERT WINE (from the definition, parsing came a moment later with a smile), followed not long after by AFTERSHOCK – my clue of the day, magnificent.

    Thanks both.

63. Thanks for the blog , really enjoyed this , so many good clues mentioned above.
    The card game is usually called NAP but probably just a shortening of NAPOLEON, you can win the separate jackpot by going NAPOLEON.
    Jack Sprat could eat no fat , his wife could eat no lean , so between them they both died of starvation – Tommy Cooper.
    I have danced ODETTE so that bit was easy . TEACHES(TS) was in yesterday with a sort of reverse idea.

64. I enjoyed seeing the bird collective nouns and hoped that there would be more of them, but it was not to be. Thanks Paul and especially loonapick for explaining many clues that I only partially understood.

65. Thanks loonapick and Paul. After being pretty well flummoxed by last Thursday’s puzzle, I was pleased to finish this one. Some great clues: my favourite was FATS WALLER.

66. I found this and the last Paul harder than usual but after 3/4 sessions I finally cracked today’s. So many clever clues but 25ac was my favourite, although 19ac was a close second. Yes, it was tough but worth it for the many head slapping moments when the penny finally dropped. Thanks to Paul and loonapick for the blog. Jules @58, I can’t help but think that you’ll be missing out if you give Paul the swerve.

67. 26A EXALT, coming after murder and parliament, hints at another bird collective, exaltation of larks?

68. This was definitely difficult, but all the more satisfying as a result. I particularly liked the &lit / cad HEADSTONE, as well as the Pauline AS OFTEN AS NOT and the ingenious FATS WALLER.

69. Like many, it took me ages to figure anything out, but I thought this was absolutely superb. Every clue turned out to have a fair parsing in the end and most were not obvious. (Though being an academic helped a lot with sc. for scilicet–like several, I guessed that from the crossers and then worked out the parsing.) Particularly liked things like “Fat swallower” and “soften a snot” which are not old chestnuts but are fairly clued–also “neon” for “glower” which was a nice spin on the “flower” sort of thing which is very familiar by now.

    Thanks Paul and loonapick.

70. Also another tick for HEADSTONE, a very clever &lit!

71. Re: 25 ac. I thought a “Parliament” was owls? BTW, who the hell is it who determines what collective nouns are?

72. Chris@71. I think most of them are flights of fancy and are never seriously used. From a buried site: “a really excellent modern book on the subject is James Lipton’s “An Exaltation of Larks”. At the beginning of the book, he argues that knowing collective nouns of game animals was a status issue among the gentry of the time, and this may have contributed to the proliferation of these terms. Inventing new terms for different animals made the subject more difficult for the uninitiated.. … Some terms made sense at the time of formation, but the connection has been lost with changes in usage: “host” refers both to angels and armed men, but nowadays angels have lost their martial connotations and made far less fearsome than they used to be.” Lipton’s book is great fun.

73. My reaction to this puzzle is like PostMark@51, only more so. I didn’t enjoy it in the moment – too frustrating, too many clues I couldn’t get my head around, – but I thoroughly enjoyed it after the fact, on reading the blog. What seemed “too clever by half” when solving became “witty and brilliant” in hindsight. Clearly the fault was mine, not the setter’s. So hats off to Paul for beating me fair and square with such a great puzzle, and thanks loonapick for the excellent and much needed blog.

74. Roz, really? In a tutu? Adds a whole new dimension to the icebreaker physicist 😉

75. Didn’t get round to this until round 7 and it took about an hour and a half- not bad for 95. Quite a few chuckles and the usual groans.
    FAT-S WALLER (now there was a musician!) was a tick, as was AFTERS-HOCK. DEER TWINE was typical Paul. Any pop references later than the Beatles is off limits so the MELB in MEL BROOKS was unexplained.
    A lot of fun, thanks Paul and loonapick

76. Cellomsniac@73
    Well said!
    I often wonder about those who tell us that they have eventually completed a Paul but didn’t enjoy the experience. I wonder what it is that they would hsve enjoyed instead.

77. Fst fingers, it seems!

78. @nametab – yes, I was another who plopped in DIANA. ‘god’ without the ‘dess’ gave me pause, but I assumed we were following the trend whereby masters and actors can be either gender. At least I could parse that answer, which is more than I can say for the real one which I only got from all the crossers.
    I didn’t know that about Mr Sharif; I was trying to think whether he maybe played a critically acclaimed (and completely forgotten by me) role in the one over the River Kwai or Too Far, but no.

79. Superb work by Paul today, loved it from the tough start to the eventual finish. And this from a setter who a year or so back, tended to be (for me) one to be avoided… that’s definitely more about my own development than about Paul’s!

    Loved the various cultural references to Mel Brooks, Omar Sharif and Fats Waller, and I also loved yesterday’s clue about TEACHES(T) so was quite happy to see that one again today.

80. Yes, Gert @76, it is odd how enjoyable difficulty and challenge can tip over into weariness and frustration with a puzzle. With me, as in this puzzle, it’s usually caused by the sheer length of time taken over just one or two clues. This leads me to assume that it’s going to be due to an obscure answer clued very loosely/obliquely, which drains any remaining pleasure – even if one eventually solves it.

81. Is Paul is seeing how far he can push us mediocre solvers before we give up on him? I’m bored with up themselves oh so clever setters. Will not bother with him again.

82. Your loss Alastair. Personally I thought this was bloody brilliant. For every grumble about Paul’s Omar Sharif there’s an equal and opposite gripe about Fed’s Kanye West being too contemporary 🙂

83. Interesting that Wagner leaps to mind for so many when the folk hero Siegfried is mentioned, and hence Bruenhilde as his expected lover in another clue. In the original and anonymous epic mediaeval poem ‘Der Niebelungenlied’ his love and wife is Kriemhild, whom King Gunther gives him in marriage in return for securing Bruenhild for Gunther himself. After Siegfried’s death, Kriemhild goes on to marry Etzel (Atilla). Wagner took and mightily changed parts of the epic and mixed them up with legends of the gods (including the Norse tradition in which Bruenhild is a Valkyrie) to forge his own mythology, which now seems much more familiar (at least outside of Teutonic lands) than the original tradition.

    It was a toughie, Paul, but magnificent! Thanks for the cranial exercise – a real sense of satisfaction on completing it. Thanks too to our sturdy blogger, as always.

84. I thought this was easier end of Paul, but still a tricky Tuesday puzzle. Favourites were FATS WALLER and ODETTE (which I think is just lovely, though I doubt it’s a new trick to hide her in “pirouetted”). “SC” for “particularly” is new to me, I’m sure it will come in handy for solving crosswords but little else in future!

85. Togs@67 – Good spot!

86. Zero for me.

    I am so impressed that anybody can solve even one of these clues.

87. This one crushed me. Got the left side, but only about 20% of the right side. No idea how ODETTE figures into this. NHO SHELDUCKS. Should have figured out FATS WALLER and IDLE BOAST — I had the “boast” part but somehow blanked on the rest. Established my geezer cred by knowing OMAR SHARIF right off. I only drink dry Madeira, so “dessert wine” would never have occurred to me. Oh well.

88. Oh, and btw ATLAS was not a god. I saw that it fit, but… not a god.

89. We nearly gave up on this. Two evenings on it and still only about a third of the clues. But then Big Bertha came slowly to mind, and things started moving. Never fully parsed Mel Brooks – couldn’t see how BLEM was a scary woman. So much for our knowledge of popular culture!
    Thanks Paul for a rewarding challenge, and congratulations to Loonapick for managing to crack it in time to post the blog on time.

90. As well as the parliament of ROOKS, the murder of CROWs and the EXALTation of larks, at 5d we have (insert collective noun) OF FISH, which make me wonder if this was an attempt at a themed puzzle which Paul gave up on and recycled.

    Talking of giving up, I persevered until NAPOLEON finally escaped from a previously non-functional memory cell, but I never did fully parse BUTTERSCOTCH or MEL(anie) Brown, even though I have the GK, my daughters having been the right age to be into the Spice Girls.

    Thanks to Paul for the fun and loonapick for the parsings that I didn’t persevere long enough to get.

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