An alphabetical jigsaw from Paul this week.
Clues are in alphabetical order of their solutions, which should be fitted in the grid jigsaw-wise, however they will go.
An alphabetical jigsaw for this Bank Holiday weekend puzzle, which certainly required Timon and I to devote an additional session in order to complete it. These sort of puzzles do require you to solve a certain number of clues cold before attempting to enter any into the grid. Our route in was by way of solving the two 5-letter words, and noting that one of them, IF NOT, would give an F as either the second or penultimate letter of one of the four 15-letter answers. It seemed more likely to be the latter and that proved to be the case with BORE THE PANTS OFF having an F in the right place. Having provisionally (in pencil!) inserted those two answers we were able to add ARAPAHO and LOVINGLY, which handily gave us a V at the head of a 4-letter answer, so enabling us to insert VEEP and confirm that we were on the right track.
The two horizontal 15-letter answers took rather longer to yield, but eventually we got there with the help of several crossers. As indicated in the blog, there are a couple of answers about whose parsing I am not entirely confident, so I look forward to your comments as usual.
| ACROSS | ||
| A | ARAPAHO |
I see a soldier rolling over tongue (7)
|
| OH (I see!) A PARA (soldier) (all rev). It’s a Native American language. | ||
| B | BORE THE PANTS OFF |
Leave cold water moving upstream, path set on swimming, very strong (4,3,5,3)
|
| BORE (water moving upstream, as in the Severn Bore), *(PATH SET ON), FF (very loud). | ||
| C | CLEF |
Score mark, split when failing to finish (4)
|
| CLEF(t) (split). | ||
| D | DURAMEN |
Anyone can watch sheep entering home of fox in middle of wood (7)
|
| U (film classification: anyone can watch) RAM (sheep) in DEN (fox’s home). It means heartwood. | ||
| E | EURYDICE |
Character poisoned by viper in myth, lament arising over unknown bones (8)
|
| RUE (lament, rev), Y (unknown character in algebra), DICE (“bones”). | ||
| F | FLANNEL |
Flatter cloth (7)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| G | GORAN IVANISEVIC |
Split personality, queen in Glasgow district is put out, briefly (5,10)
|
| RANI (Queen) in GOVAN (Glasgow district), IS EVIC(ted) (put out briefly). One of our last ones in: of course the Croatian tennis player was born in Split. | ||
| H | HALF A TON |
First of nails under light ring holding large amount of weight (4,1,3)
|
| FAT (large amount) inside HALO (light ring) N(ails). | ||
| I | IF NOT |
Infant out, given the odds, possibly even (2,3)
|
| Odd letters in InFaNt OuT. | ||
| J | JOVIAN |
Alien emperor (6)
|
| A Jovian might come from the planet Jupiter, so would be an alien; the Roman Emperor Jovian was only on the imperial throne for around seven months, during which time he never reached Rome. | ||
| K | KAHUNA |
Big gun: I’ve got it in European currency (6)
|
| AH (I’ve got it!) inside KUNA (European currency). In Hawaii it means a wise man or shaman. | ||
| L | LOVINGLY |
Book on the counter majestic, cover ripped off with some passion (8)
|
| VOL (book, rev), (k)INGLY. | ||
| M | MONICKER |
Might one take a second to find different handle? (8)
|
| We found this one difficult to parse, but Timon has come up with a plausible suggestion: ER (“one” as famously used by the late Queen); NICK (take) and MO (a second). Perhaps “different” indicates the change in the order of the three elements. But if anyone has a better suggestion, we’d love to hear it! Thanks to iroquois @1 and others for pointing out the correct parsing. | ||
| M | NON-U |
Ncltivated? (3-1).
|
| UNCULTIVATED with the letter U omitted. | ||
| O | OBOL |
Charon’s fee of bronze, often licked originally (4)
|
| Initial letters of “Of Bronze Often Licked”. It’s an ancient Greek currency unit. | ||
| P | PARAGON OF VIRTUE |
Angel in favour operating diabolically (7,2,6)
|
| *(FAVOUR OPERATING). | ||
| Q | QUIVER |
Slight movement in long case? (6)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| R | RELAX |
Real panicky? That’s wrong, calm down (5)
|
| *REAL, X (that’s wrong). | ||
| S | SCHRODINGERS CAT |
Model scratching sore back on washboard, beastly poser? (12,3)
|
| *(SCRATCHING SORE + (washboar)D). It’s a concept from quantum physics, relating to the impossibility of observing both the position and the direction of a particle simultaneously. | ||
| T | TIN OXIDE |
Turner has gathered in neat powder that’s black or white (3,5)
|
| Another one where I’m not entirely confident about the parsing. I think it’s IN OX (neat can mean an ox) inside TIDE (meaning something that turns). I was originally looking for something involving Tina Turner, but can’t make it work. Apparently tin oxide, or stannous oxide, is colourless, hence “black or white” as a definition (which is more than a bit cryptic). It’s also often sold in powder form. I had wondered about the washing powder brand… | ||
| U | UNCOOL |
By inference, hot and cheesy? (6)
|
| Cryptic definition + definition. | ||
| V | VEEP |
Kamala Harris upset, not quite climbing to the summit? (4)
|
| PEEV(e) (upset, rev). The Vice-President is often referred to as the Veep. | ||
| W | WHOOPEE |
Miniature round band that’s fabulous! (7)
|
| HOOP (band) inside WEE (miniature). | ||
| X | XENOLITH |
Internal fragment of rock, when curse lifted, certainly not glowing inside (8)
|
| NO LIT (certainly not glowing) inside HEX (curse, rev). | ||
| Y | YUGO |
Old car old fellow put in reverse (4)
|
| O GUY (rev). | ||
| Z | ZITI |
Spot last of macaroni pasta (4)
|
| ZIT (macaron)I. | ||
| DOWN |
I parsed MONICKER as a MO NICKER (someone who takes a second). Thanks for explaining TIN OXIDE.
Yes, I had MO-NICKER as well; I don’t think there’s any need to involve the late queen. 🙂
And I agree with IN OX inside the “turner” TIDE.
I had no chance with KAHUNA, as I didn’t know the old Croatian currency; Hawaiian shaman are also a mystery to me. Everything else arrived in due course, though GORAN IVANISEVIC took a long time to arrive.
The Roman emperor was pretty obscure, as was the pasta, but both were fairly clued.
I think the difficulty of measuring both the position and velocity of a particle is Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, rather than SCHRODINGER’S CAT, which is an illustrative example of quantum theory. I tried to look it up but when I opened the box, it wasn’t there any more.
Thanks to Paul and bridgesong.
TIN OXIDE
Wiki: Tin oxide may refer to:
Tin(II) oxide (stannous oxide), a black powder with the formula SnO
Tin(IV) oxide (tin dioxide, stannic oxide), a white powder with the formula SnO2
The def is not convincing.
MO-NICKER particles swapped (different): Agree with Iroquois@1 and sheffield hatter@2
Thanks Paul and bridgesong.
NON-U
Uncultivated=NON-U, Nclivated becomes NON-U NON-U! Right? Does the clue work all right?
GORAN IVANISEVIC
put out=EVIC(t) -tense deception.
Splendid clue.
TIN OXIDE
Had the same parse.
TIN OXIDE
Sorry. The def is ‘powder that’s black or white.’ It seems ok. Apologies to Paul and others.
I agree with the parsings as supplemented by the foregoing comments. Neat little puzzle. My strategy was to solve the 15-letter clues to lock in the other letters (thinking that they would fit only one way), but it turned out that the 15-letter clues were the very last ones that I solved. My way in was guessing correctly where the two 5-letter solutions fit, and the rest flowed pretty smoothly from there. I was relieved finally to see SCHRODINGER’S CAT and GORAN IVANISEVIC, neither of which popped readily to mind. There were hardly any clues/solutions that I would consider very obscure, which often is an unfortunate feature of an alphabetic jigsaw, so well done, Paul.
MONICKER
Looks like the ‘different’ goes with the def.
‘Different handle’ to mean a nickname or an alternative spelling for the more usual MONIKER?
MO NICKER (no need to swap the particles/elements).
Re KAHUNA: Hawaii having been part of the US for quite some time now, some Hawaiian words have found their way into American English. The phrase “the big kahuna” means “the high muckety-muck”, or as the clue puts it, the big gun. As in, “John over there is the big kahuna around here–don’t go throwing a drink in his face or anything.” So there’s no need to resort to the actual Hawaiian definition to get there–especially since shamans don’t make sense here in any case. Oddly, I don’t think I’ve ever heard or seen the word (in English as opposed to Hawaiian) outside the set phrase “the big kahuna,” so “big gun” is kinda redundant as a definition.
A few years ago, Paul wrote the clue “Go ran Ivan isevic? (5,11)” for SPLIT PERSONALITY. That was memorable enough that this week’s reversal of it was a write-in for me. I’m not complaining–it was clever enough to reuse.
Me @8: Er…pencil-in, not write-in. I put Goran in the wrong part of the grid at first. I was set straight when I realized I had nowhere to put a couple of the six-letter answers.
I really enjoy alphabeticals, and while I found this at the difficult end of the spectrum, I greatly enjoyed this one too.
I tried the same strategy asCineraria@6- to solve the 15 letter clues first – and I too was forced into an ignominious retreat, with GORAN I and S’s CAT not yielding until I had most of the grid filled.
I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to solve most of the clues before I started on the grid (rather bravely in pen). I did not have any clues that stood out as favourites.
I did wonder about neat meaning AN OX. My dictionary says it means cattle. And the Kuna is not really a European currency. Croatia uses the Euro and the Kuna is no longer a currency. i agree with the blog on TIN OXIDE and the parsing of ZITI in the blog is incomplete – probably an editing error.
I agree again with Cineraria@6. While I thought there were some difficult clues, Paul managed to avoid obscurities which must be difficult to do
Sorry this is getting long. So, thank-you Paul for a splendid puzzle and thanks bridgesong for a great blog.
Well I did something I “never” do with alphabeticals. I have a book with lots of Araucaria’s offerings so I’ve had quite a bit of practice. I wait till I have enough solved clues that there is one and only one way of entering at least some, and proceed from there. I found this puzzle was tricky enough to get going that I didn’t have enough solutions for that. So I used a statistical approach, and although it wasn’t guaranteed to work, it did.
I was wondering if GORAN IVANISEVIC was too niche for most solvers, but he was all over the news a few weeks ago when Novak Djokovic dropped him as coach, so maybe he’s fair game.
Thanks for the blog , glad to see one of these , my favourite really, a lot of cold solving but I find knowing the first letter helps a lot. The 6s were the the way in, QUIVER and UNCOOL had to cross in the bottom left, this put in the long S, P , B, G and your auntie’s husband is called Robert.
I hope to see more of these, Julius used to do them in the FT but said he had to stop because the APP thing would not allow them , the Guardian must have found a way round this.
[ Quantum correction, SH@2 almost right but the Uncertainty Principle means you cannot simultaneously measure position and MOMENTUM exactly. Schrodinger’s cat is a test of quantum superposition , the cat in the box is 50% alive and 50% dead until you open the box. ]
Down with this sort of thing
Like others already, I did not know KAHUNA, and needed the dictionary, That same Saturday afternoon, I followed the Guardian’s over-by-over live coverage of the T20 cricket between England and Pakistan, (Twenty-twenty; twenty overs a side – no-one needs reminding that not all solvers follow cricket). When Pakistan’s star batter (standard term now rather than batsman) Babar Azam was out for 34, the text told us “the big kahuna is gone! Moeen brings an end to the 53-run partnership”. Is this an instance of a word one might have read or heard a few times in passing, without it registering, suddenly registering when met twice in quick succession? – not an uncommon syndrome. Or – much better – might the OBO commentator, James Wallace, have solved the Alphabetical in the morning and had fun using the word a few hours later? Please drop and say if so!
sorry, @15, last sentence, please drop IN if so.
(or is that term exclusive to setters who ‘drop in’?)
Brilliant stuff. Many thanks, Paul.
And to bridgesong for parsing TIN OXIDE for me. I too had obsessed that the reference was to Tina Turner.
ARAPAHO and the Split personality were my absolute favourites. A fine bank holiday challenge, if you know what fine is qualifying.
It was great to see the alphabetical jigsaw.
I particularly like the slightly different challenge posed by an alphabetical, but I did find this quite a challenge. A number of clever definitions – Goran’s personality, ‘leave cold’, ‘beastly poser’, and a couple like ‘Mo-nicker’ that felt maybe stretched a bit too far. Add in quite a range of GK – TIN OXIDE, for example, which also needed you to know that ‘neat’ was an ox (I didn’t), and it does start to feel like a prize puzzle. NON-U was clever, but I’m not a fan of invented words. I got a number of the shorter answers on a first pass, and was reasonably confident about locating QUIVER and UNCOOL, like Roz@12. Ii’ve always been prepared to take a punt with filling in alphabeticals, and I’ve come to the conclusion that if a couple fit in a non-trivial way, the odds of them being wrong are very small. I feel I could probably quantify that, but I’ve never bothered. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had to backtrack. So, thanks, Paul, tricky but fun, and thanks bridgestone for explaining the couple I couldn’t parse.
Too tough for me. I only solved nine of the clues on the first pass and then decided I was on a hiding to nothing. Now I can see it was a clever puzzle and the blog made for some interesting reading. Thinking though that jigsaws are not really my cup of tea. Perhaps it’s a memory of having been battered and bruised by many Maskarade holiday specials over the years.
Nevertheless, thanks to Paul for this Prize puzzle as well as to bridgesong and Timon (and contributors) for the explanatory blog.
Struggled at first because I misinterpreted the instructions. Somehow I read “the clues are in alphabetical order of their solutions” meant that that we might eg have had the first three solutions beginning with A etc. Therefore not being so helpful. The penny dropped after a while.
I`ll know next time.
Keith@18 the 6’s were the weak point, even if you had not solved J and K they could only cross in the bottom left with a word starting JK or KJ going across , pretty unlikely , QUIVER and UNCOOL also gave all the 15 entries their location.
Wellcidered@20 , in the paper the clues have A , B , C etc next to them. is this the same online ?
Roz@22
I usually buy the paper version, but was unable to last Saturday, so I went online.
This Prize, being an unusual format, wasn`t available online, and I was directed to download a pdf version. This version did not have A etc next to the clue.
Smart work by the G. I`ll try harder next time to buy the real thing.
Roz@21, I didn’t have J or K, but I did have all the 4-long answers, and it was very satisfying to slot NON-U in place with QUIVER and UNCOOL and realise I now had V—-U- for the end of a 15-long which immediately gave PARAGON OF VIRTUE. It’s when things like that come together that you feel the real fun of this sort of puzzle..
Keith@24 totally agree , hope we get more of these.
Wellcidered @23 I like them even more now I know they are not available online, the FT used to do them but had to stop once they had a crossword app .
Thank you Paul and bridgesong. An enjoyable challenge which I unlocked via the IF NOT / OFF intersection.
However, I was defeated by tennis ace GORAN.
When the Rev did these he would give us 2 “double” clues, e.g. S would have two clues, one say length 5 and the other 6. This would give an idea as to the layout. Often the clues would hint at orientation (as Paul did with the X clue)
I fear I may have misled Bridgesong in his comment about Schrodinger’s cat.The solution is obviously correct but the famous “poser” is about quantum superposition, whereas I was thinking about Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. The concepts are related but, Its a very long time since I had to wrestle with quantum physics and I didnt want the attribution to be misdirected. I really dont want to start a long discussion here – i know there are several scientists who contribute to the blog – wikipedia is where to go.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat?searchToken=5n7efkzndo87bgiqksrledrt
Shirl@27 yes I remember , 28 entries in the grid so two doubles although one would often be 4 and 4.
He once did a grid where all the Across and Downs could be swapped over . To get it totally right there were words spelt out at the top and bottom, something like zenith and nadir , it was a sticklebrick grid.
Echoing the appreciative comments here, this was my first Grauniad prize in a while, and thoroughly enjoyed.
I actually got most of the 15-letters to start, including working out that Goran Iv… was the Split Personality, loved that one. And Schrodinger’s feline emerged from distant memories of Quantum Physics lectures of the 1980s. I also had the long ‘B’ pretty easily. Having these 3 of 4 meant I could try entering them, only to find – e.g. both the B and the G have ‘O’ as second letter and both ‘B’ and ‘S’ have ‘S’ as 4th last letter. Quite cleverly this means there are 2 ways of entering these 3, and of course I chose the wrong one. As others have pointed out, the 5-letter pair ‘I’ and R’ are needed to point out the correct orientation.
Like KeithS I @24 the V crosser then open up Paragon of Virtue.
Excellent fun, thanks Paul for providing it, and to bridgesong/Timon for explaining it and to all learned contributors on here for adding to the enjoyment.
E
I really enjoyed this one. I find it helps to write out the solutions grouped by length, so it’s easier to select the right one when you have a crosser.
As well as being born in Split, Goran was known for describing his internal monologues on court, which he described as being between “good Goran, bad Goran and emergency Goran”. So a split personality in two ways!
My pseudo-scientific approach to alphabeticals is to get some squared paper and make a table, with all the first letters in ascending order of length. So here it would have been:
C _ _ _
N _ _ _
O _ _ _
R _ _ _
V _ _ _
Y _ _ _
Z _ _ _
then two empty lines, then
C _ _ _ _
I _ _ _ _
etc
I then make columns next to these entries with the clue numbers at the top.
As I start to feel confident about the answers, I cross off the “impossible” combinations (for example, MONICKER can’t be in 1D because the O doesn’t fit ‘rElax’ or ‘iF not’. I find that this approach quickly eliminates a lot of guesswork in placing the answers. The hard part is writing the clue numbers in the grid. I usually miss at least one down light and have to start over again.
I do like the alphabet puzzles. This is the third one I have seen – the second being that wonderful jumbo puzzle with all the place names.
I realise looking at this I forgot to go back and finish it – but I got most of it and had placed the answers I had got in the right places.
Here’s hoping for some more alphabet puzzles.
Thanks Paul and bridgesong
Very tough, but I got there in the end. I took a punt at putting in BORE THE PANTS OFF after getting a few clues and, luckily, it was in the right position.
I think for SCHRODINGER’S CAT, the beastly is the anagrind, with poser as the definition. I particularly liked the Split personality, although at first I thought the Glasgow district was the Gorbals, which led me down a blind alley.
Thanks Paul and bridgesong
SCHRODINGER’S CAT
Robi@34
The ‘model’ is the anagrind. Without the ‘beastly’ the def becomes even more vague!
It was enjoyable to have a different format for the bank holiday. This was challenging but, as always with Paul, you know you can get there eventually. I was surprised at the less conventional spelling used for moniker (Chambers online doesn’t have monicker as an alternative, although other dictionaries do). I agree with KVa@7 that ‘different’ is part of the definition. Like Shirl@27, I looked for hints within clues for orientation and one can also be found in HALF A TON, where the ‘under’ indicates it should be a down clue. Thanks Paul and bridgesong.
I do enjoy an alphabetical, and this was great fun. Araucaria’s always (I think) employed grids with two pairs of across/down solutions sharing an initial letter, which served to give a toehold. Not here, which made it trickier, especially as none of the four long solutions were immediately apparent.
My way in was via the 5-letter words and QUIVER/UNCOOL, and the 4-letter words helped to assemble the rest.
Many good clues – I particularly liked all the long ones, plus MO-NICKER, T(IN OX)IDE (sic), NON-U and KAHUNA.
Thanks to Paul and bridgesong
Well worth the struggle. A, D, J (except as meaning like the Greek god Jove or Jupiter), K and X were all new to me. I filled this in in pencil and thought I might have to rub it out and start the jigsaw filling again with 3 to go and JULIAN wouidn’t fit. I was pretty sure of this as I had heard of the Emperor Julian and Google said there was a series of books called Julian the Alien. Having checked that the rest of the grid only worked the way I entered it I returned to J and guessed JOVIAN which was pretty obscure.
Thanks to Paul and bridgesong.
Re MONI(C)KER, Chambers gives the origin as Shelta (Irish Travellers’ language) ‘monik’ (name), but other etymologies have been suggested, including backslang for ‘ekename’ (‘eke’ meaning ‘likewise’ or ‘also’; the original ‘an ekename’ transmuted to the modern ‘a nickname’).
KVa @35; of course, thanks! 🙂
Having enjoyed Maskarade’s holiday alphabeticals thought we would give this a go. But despite getting 3 of the fifteen letter solutions still found two ways they could fit. Tried both as we had more than half the answers but still couldn’t get far. So a DNF for us! Looking at some of the solutions we’re not too surprised. Too many tricky/iffy parsing for an alphabetical puzzle IMHO.
[Shirl @27 and following comments]
My notes as I wrote in my ‘cold solves’ show both E and V had indications that they were Down clues; an ‘arising’ and a ‘climbing’. Not that I could complete either the grid-fill or the solutions, but I had fun getting as far as I did.
No help from Vic either, who won’t touch these jigsaws.
I was aware of KAHUNA as popularised in the UK by Quentin Tarantino’s films, but it took me a long time because I don’t think I’ve ever seen “big gun” used this way.
I would normally spell the cat owner as
Schroedinger, if the umlaut is not available. But I looked it up and see that Schrodinger is also an acceptable transliteration to English.
Knew the Emperor from
How the Emperor Jovian
Would have revelled in the The Harovian!
And can’t you see Diocletian
Roaring over The Fettesian?
We had great fun with this, getting and fitting the long ones first. Thought Split personality for GORAN was great – had not seen the previous version. And nice to see an outing for that unfortunate cat.
Many thanks both.
My comment @27 was largely to bemoan the loss of the Rev’s “double” clues, that helped in starting to fill the grid – if you could solve them!
Bodycheetah @14 Careful now.
Many thanks Paul and Bridgesong.
I generally dislike crossword jigsaws as I find that I am not much good at them. I decided to give this one a go anyway when I had some time for it during the week to start it, and I solved 13 clues without much trouble. Unfortunately, though, I had only one long answer, the one beginning with P. Thinking that I needed at least three of those long answers to get started, I gave up. When I returned to the puzzle late yesterday, I managed to get two more of the long answers, making three (but not the Split personality!), and saw then that OBOL would force the positions of SCHRODINGER’S CAT and BORE THE PANTS OFF. I really should have made full use of my answers RELAX and IF NOT in the first place.
The clues were noteworthy for their generally high pitch and the many economical and/or tricky definitions. The Split personality was perhaps the hardest – it yielded only when I thought of RANI for ‘queen’, having already guessed GOVAN. I’d forgotten about that (famous) tennis player!
Thanks to Paul and bridgesong, and to other commenters, especially for their accounts of how they cracked the jigsaw.
I think the Goran Ivanisevic clue might be my favourite this year. ‘Split personality’ is such a crafty definition. Brilliant
In the Croatian version of Scrabble, Š and Ć are letters separate from S and C. I don’t know whether the same distinction applies to their crosswords, but if so, GORAN IVANIŠEVIĆ would be harder to accommodate 🙂
Came here a day late to post the same as Gallus @49: “Split personality” is a great definition for the Croatian star who certainly had his moments on the tennis court, whether good or bad.
Thanks to Paul and bridgesong.
Best crossword this year! Always delighted to see an alphabetical jigsaw, miss Auracaria’s a lot. We generally use the 4 x 7 letter clues as the way in, helped in this case by the 2 X 5 letter and the indicator of downness in HALF A TON.
Such a lovely set of clues, hard to pick a favourite but probably the Split personality which was our last one in. Printing out needed us to be home, hence the late posting
My experience was a blend of previous comments. I usually like alphabeticals, but I found this one hard. I got 22 out of 26 clues in the end, so not too bad. I was defeated by misplacing XENOLITH in top left quadrant across position, failing to recognise that SPLIT was the town and GORAN was the first name of a tennis player, and failing to connect the words BORE and PANTS to make the expression. I have never heard of OX for NEAT. Seems very obscure, but I’ve just found it in the SOED. So, a good puzzle overall, but hard.
Coming very late to the blog to express my appreciation of an excellent alphabetical jigsaw – more please! Like Panthes @52, I miss Araucaria’s, but this was worthy of him. And like others above my way in was through QUIVER and UNCOOL, after which it began to fall nicely into place. Thanks, Paul (and bridgesong).
Another latecomer. Very briefly, thank you for the parsing of TIN OXIDE Bridgesong and Timon. I got the answer but in a former life I was a Chemistry graduate. This leads me to a quiblet of the minor kind. Surely, given the vague definition, TIN(A) plus OX plus I(K)E with a D substituted for K may have been kinder and probably funnier. Since I am still aspiring to be competent at solving, I’m a long way off setting clues but I imagine someone could.
Loved SCHRÖDINGER’S CAT and GORAN IVANISEVIC, just brilliant. Many thanks Paul.
I love the alphabetical jigsaws and I so nearly finished this, but was stumped by Goran (‘Split personality’ was not enough of a definition for me!) and TIN OXIDE I still don’t really get. Enjoyed it nevertheless.
I really enjoyed this, despite being stumped by KAHUNA. I even looked up ‘European currencies’, but didn’t add ‘historical’ in the search box.
Tin oxide was my LOI, even though, for me, ‘Neat’ is an old faithful for cattle/oxen in crosswords. Once I’d got it, I was too mentally lazy to look on wikipedia or similar, so thanks KVa@3 for chemical explanation.
A physicist friend used to have a cat called Schrodinger – probably a common name for boffins’ cats.
Favourite clue was Goran Ivanisevic – pure Paul! The mercurial Croatian’s era was probably the last time I watched tennis.
Thoroughly enjoyed this alphabetical. Got all except 3 of the long ones and never did get the tennis player/coach despite following the sport. A brilliant clue!