There is much in last Sunday’s blog quoting Alan Connor’s attitude to the difficulty of the Everyman crossword (see, in particular, Shanne@42). It looks as if AC is unaware of the fact that the Everyman has moved far from the entry-level crossword that it used to be. Some of the clues in this puzzle, although perfectly sound, are really quite tricky. Of course there are some which are pretty straightforward, as there should be in any broadsheet crossword, but by no means all of them. The long complete anagrams were often hard to see. By me, anyway.
There are seven complete anagrams here, so far as I can see, which is a quarter of the clues: quite an achievement. There are also the rhyming answers at 11ac and 20ac (although I can’t see any others). The ‘primarily’ clue, which had always apparently been there, has disappeared: difficulty of setting or a further disregard for the novice solver?
In a blog about a year ago I mentioned that there always seemed to be 28 clues (no criticism at all), and pointed out that the setter saved himself work that way. Someone posted and said that it was sometimes more than 28. I’ve never seen such an Everyman crossword.
Definitions underlined, in crimson. Indicators (homophone, hidden, anagram, juxtaposition, etc) in italics. Anagrams *(like this) or (like this)*. Link-words in green.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | LATE |
Departed at the last minute (4)
|
| 2 defs — dead — not ‘at the last minute’, I should have thought, but ‘after the last minute’; however, for ‘late’ Collins has ‘near the end’ | ||
| 3 | PRESCIENCE |
Clairvoyancy of the Dark Ages? (10)
|
| CD perhaps; science only really began (in modern civilisation, at any rate) after the Dark Ages, so they could be called pre-science | ||
| 9 | ROCK |
Successfully wear dress that’s not loud (4)
|
| [f]rock — frock = dress, f = loud (forte, a musical term) — the definition relies on a definition that I found in the depths of Collins: (transitive) slang, mainly US: to impress by wearing (an item of clothing), giving the example ‘not everyone can rock a tight T-shirt’ — new to me | ||
| 10 | BLOOD TYPES |
Infernal class of exercises taking time? Son, they could be positive (5,5)
|
| blood(t)y PE s — bloody = infernal, taking indicates inclusion (OK I suppose: when one takes a pill one gets round it), PE = class of exercises (Physical Education), s = son, and blood types could be positive | ||
| 11 | CONTACT SPORT |
Puts in a call to Dover? Or Rugby? (7,5)
|
| contacts port — contacts = puts in a call to, Dover is an example of a port — the question mark covers each of these, which are just examples — and rugby is an example of a contact sport, so another question mark | ||
| 15 | ESCAPES |
Ditches storage’s cap; escalates, in part (7)
|
| Hidden in storagE’S CAP; EScalates — ditches = escapes? One means ‘dumps’, the other means ‘gets away from’. That at any rate is my initial impresssion. I’ll see what Collins says: it does in fact confirm it as US slang (transitive) ‘to evade’ and gives the example ‘to ditch the police’ so we can’t pin anything on Everyman here | ||
| 16 | APPEASE |
Pacify with a k-kind of pudding (7)
|
| a p-pease — the type of pudding called ‘pease pudding‘ (looks and sounds revolting); the k-kind indicates that the first letter is repeated | ||
| 17 | LEAVENS |
Encourages rising, sets off to go around North (7)
|
| Leave(N)s — leaves = sets off, N = north — as in baking bread | ||
| 19 | MARCONI |
In Oxford at the outset, intensively study flipping electrical engineer (7)
|
| (in O[xford] cram)rev. — in = in, cram = intensively study | ||
| 20 | HEALTH RESORT |
Hotel’s rather fancy – here? (6,6)
|
| (Hotel’s rather)* | ||
| 23 | IMMODERATE |
Everyman’s … average. ‘Rank’? That’s too much (10)
|
| I’m mode rate — I’m = Everyman’s, mode = average (the mode of a set of numbers is a type of average of them), rate = rank — the ellipsis seems to me to be unnecessary | ||
| 24 | NOON |
When nothing changes if you turn back time? (4)
|
| CD relying on the fact that NOON reads the same backwards as forwards | ||
| 25 | GRAND TOTAL |
Sum like ‘125 x 8’? (5,5)
|
| CD, relying on the fact that the answer is 1000, which is a grand | ||
| 26 | ISLE |
Man, perhaps, in audition the writer’s going to (4)
|
| “I’ll” | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | LA ROCHELLE |
Clear ‘Hello!’ misread in French city (2,8)
|
| (Clear ‘Hello!’)* | ||
| 2 | TECHNOCRAT |
Government economist in battered trenchcoat (10)
|
| *(trenchcoat) — however, only some technocrats are economists, so should there not have been a ‘perhaps’ or some such? | ||
| 4 | RELATES |
Tells one that might be Des: About 1? (7)
|
| Re(LATE)s — Res as in ‘des res’, estate agent’s slang for ‘desirable residence’, and 1 is 1 across, which is LATE | ||
| 5 | SNOW PEA |
Weapon’s deployed, obtaining vegetable (4,3)
|
| (Weapon’s)* — (never heard of it, but it must be) | ||
| 6 | INTERSPERSE |
Distribute dodgy enterprises (11)
|
| *(enterprises) | ||
| 7 | NAPE |
Rear of capuchin monkey? Scruff of the neck (4)
|
| [capuchi]n ape — ape = monkey | ||
| 8 | ELSE |
Otherwise, university in London’s backing English (4)
|
| E LSE — E = English, LSE (London School of Economics) is the university in London, ‘backing’ doesn’t mean, as it usually does, ‘reversed’, but means ‘backing on to’ | ||
| 12 | APPREHENDED |
Got arrested (11)
|
| 2 defs — the first one is an equation of ‘apprehended’ with ‘comprehended’, the second refers to the sort of thing the police do when they catch a criminal | ||
| 13 | MALODOROUS |
Stinking drunk, old and amorous (10)
|
| *(old amorous) | ||
| 14 | RESISTANCE |
Struggle in unpicking ancestries (10)
|
| *(ancestries) — as in the French Resistance in WW2 | ||
| 18 | SALERNO |
Some wholesaler, nouveau-riche, somewhere on the Med (7)
|
| Hidden in wholeSALER, NOuveau-riche — a coastal city in Italy | ||
| 19 | MAHATMA |
Revered Hindu’s headgear pinched by parent (7)
|
| Ma(hat)ma — Mama = parent, hat = headgear | ||
| 21 | RING |
Go round with would-be fiancé’s offering (4)
|
| 2 defs — ring = go round, and one is going round to the would-be fiancé to make a proposal and offer a ring — is ‘with’ there just for the surface? | ||
| 22 | EMMA |
Crossword setter’s written up mother’s novel (4)
|
| (me)rev. Ma — me = the setter of this crossword, Ma = mother — Emma is a novel by Jane Austen, which has many times been adapted for film and television, but this is what it principally is |
Did you mean you haven’t heard of snow peas, John? Maybe you call them snap peas. And I, for one, would consider Aristotle a great scientist of his time, so I shrugged at PRESCIENCE. GRAND TOTAL was clever. Thanks, Everyman and John.
I was surprised to see snow peas as I thought they were called mangetout in the UK.
Yes TT @1, I did wonder what he, and Archimedes, Pythagoras and Euclid, might have thought about pre-science. Liked the battered trenchcoat. Thanks E and J.
7d ape=monkey always rankles. I don’t care what it says in the dictionaries, they are wrong.
Otherwise, slightly more straightforward than some recent Everyman puzzles. Some nice anagrams, as usual, and some clever wordplay. Top marks for 3A – I didn’t see that coming. Never heard of SNOW PEA but it was fair.
Thanks. John and Everyman.
PRESCIENCE was my last in for all the reasons others have given, but otherwise I found this less challenging than some recent Everyman crosswords have been. I thought SNOW PEA was the American name for mange tout peas – peas eaten in the pod.
Pease pudding isn’t bad: it’s an accompaniment rather than the main dish, so a blandish stodge instead of say mashed potatoes but rather higher in fibre and nutrients. Dyed green and flavoured with mint a version turns up as mushy peas in chip shops.
Thank you to John and Everyman.
Liked PRESCIENCE (tho the reservations expressed above are valid, Aristotle and co would have looked at the question mark and chuckled), BLOOD TYPES (One hell of a surface!), IMMODERATE (one may argue about average=MODE. You are in Crosswordstan-not in a Statistics class. I agree with John about the …) and GRAND TOTAL (all put together, a joy multiplier).
TECHNOCRAT
Like John, I thought a DBE indicator was needed.
RING
The ‘with’ seems to be there just for the surface as the blogger says.
ESCAPES
The blog seems fine. I thought of ESCAPES and ditches in the sense of surplus water or drainage channels.
Thanks Everyman and John!
21d RING – the 2nd def, in the old-fashioned sense, would be the would-be * fiancé going round to his would-be fiancée, offering her a ring. Only in leap years could the roles be reversed. Since 2014 in the UK (2015 Ireland, 2020 Northern Ireland) there can be two fiancés or two fiancées. And rightly so.
* ‘Usage notes – Traditionally, the spelling fiancé is used for a man who is engaged, with fiancée being the female counterpart (this is a reflection of the corresponding distinction in French). However, this distinction is not reliably followed today.’
Thanks J&E
I thought this was easier than some of the recent puzzles…no Spoonerisms or confusing homophones for starters and I got the anagrams in early…
Liked the surface of 11a.
Thought 21d was hardly cryptic at all, with or without “with”…
Couldn’t parse 4d, hadn’t heard of “des res”, but I like it.
Thank you to Everyman and to John for the blog
The initial letter clue is back this week, so presumably AC couldn’t write a decent primary surface for any of last week’s clues. I can sympathise.
Thanks for blog and crossword.
Shanne@5 Australians call them snow peas too.
I did find this hard – took all week and liberal use of Chambers Word Wizard, a thesaurus and sheer bloody mindedness to get it out. Got there in the end.
Good blog, thanks both.
Thanks for the blog , 3 single complete anagrams for Jay’s list , TECHNOCRAT, INTERSPERSE, RESISTANCE , pretty impressive length as well.
A LATE goal in water-polo could be in the last minute. ESCAPES I agree with your example but also thought of boyfriends. For Science I would agree with Tassie TIm @1 with Aristotle ,
possibly Thales.
Well done Greyhound @10 , I used to carry the Everyman around with me all week, the most important rhing is being stubborn.
Liked: BLOOD GROUPS, IMMODERATE. APPEASE, RELATES
John – Everyman’s alliterative puzzles have 27 clues if I remember rightly. They are the ones which have two long clues top and bottom and one long clue right down the middle connecting the two – all answers have more than one word and they all begin with the same letter. They are a favourite of mine and there hasn’t been one for ages.
Thanks Everyman and John
A year since No. 4,000 and we celebrate with three single word anagrams. That makes 24 so far this year.
Fiona@13, I’m also looking forward to another alliterative grid, we can but hope.
[I know I’m not supposed to comment on today’s Everyman, but for information, the clue to 2 down has now been corrected]
Well, like 4,050, I felt 4,052 was a fair test. Thank you Everyman. Thank you John. I agree there were one or two slightly questionable clues especially 15a escapes for ditches. However, it couldn’t be anything else. When I finished, I felt I had completed and understood the crossword. This was not the case with 4,051 which was completed but with question marks – why is this the answer? After reading all the comments last week, there was still the odd question I did not understand – random words stuck together. Everyman has perhaps got somewhat harder but my main problem is the inconsistency from one week to the next.
[ Crispy@15 I see no harm in this, you are not discussing the puzle just factual correction. If you could post – 2 Down is now …… – it would help me as there is no way I could find it.
You are just showing what the clue is , without comment. ]
[Roz@17 – 2d ‘Animal star sign.’ ‘Chameleon?’ ‘Not entirely.’
The quotes are as they appear in the clue]
Harder than the Saturday Prize puzzle. Not recommended for beginners.
I could not parse 4d.
I agree with others who have posted above re ‘pre-science’. I think that the wording for clue 3ac is wrong / out of date as historians no longer (or rarely) use the term ‘the Dark Ages’, and also there was certainly scientific activity during the Early Middle Ages (400 to 1000 CE) as there had been before and after it.
New for me: PEASE PUDDING (and I doubt I will be rushing to try this dish anytime soon).
Thanks, both.
[ Brilliant , thank you so much Crispy@18 }
Thanks for explaining 26A. Was my LOI but couldn’t parse. The shorter the answers, the harder Everyman clues are.
Gave this a go after reading the discussion on last Sunday’s blog, prompted by John’s opening to this blog.
Having given up doing Everyman a few months ago I’ve been doing old ones from #3,800 onwards which seems to be when Alan Connor took over in 2019. The comments on the blog then showed his style wasn’t to everyone’s liking but people got used to him. My experience having done 3800 – 3837 is that generally I complete them in around 20-30mins, sometimes up to 3-4 clues left.
I just tried this one and I found it difficult to get going. Generally the clues just don’t seem to prompt any intuitive connection to what I’m trying to get to. It’s only when I’ve got more letters on the board and I can do alphabet trawls that answers seem to become apparent. Brute force solving.
I got down to my last eight in about twenty mins and then stared blankly at the what was left for another 15mins before throwing in the towel. When I look at the answers, they all make sense and were gettable but the clueing is too ‘next level’ for someone of my ability.
My comparison is the earlier Everymans were easier. The clueing has become ever more unappealing.
Yes, ta much, Crispy @18, the earlier clue for today’s 2d made no sense at all.
Liked this very much. BLOOD TYPES was my last in, and I had to laugh about “bloody PE”. Parsed IMMODERATE as “I’m moderate”, with “moderate” = average and ‘Rank?’ as part of the definition (in the sense of “absolute”). I wouldn’t fret about the Dark Ages being pre-science – there’s a question mark after all. ISLE was there in #4,046 as well.
Thank you, Everyman and John
[ I suspect that in the paper the first line of print has gone missing . ]
[Thank you Crispy@15 – that was helpful! Roz @25 – the same truncation appeared on the Guardian newspaper app.]
After a couple of somewhat stiffer tests over the previous fortnight, I personally considered this one as being back to a lighter norm. Can’t comment on this week’s (nor would I anyway) as I’ve not yet started it.
[Grant@23. I had two possible answers, neither of which worked, unless the setter was being very cryptic]
I agree that Everyman is harder than it use to be, but not always in a good way. Surfaces are often inelegant and tortured for example.
I saw 23a as IM MODERATE, and couldn’t see where ‘rank’ fitted in. Not good clueing in my opinion.
Normal convention would dictate that the unqualified reference to ‘1’ in 4d means 1d, not 1a. Poor editing?
On “pre-science” one could justify it with the fact that the word “science” is a modern construction, not really in use until the 1800s in its current sense, although used a few centuries earlier in in the sense of “knowledge”.
On mode being average, from a mathematical viewpoint this is perfectly correct. The word “average” is a generic term and there are many types of average including the mean (arithmetic and geometric), median and mode. So this is similar to cluing “vehicle” and expecting the answer “bus” or “car”.
As ever with Everyman, some great spots of anagrams and ways to rework words.
poc@29
IMMODERATE
to rank=to RATE
RELATES (4d)
Agree with you.
Far too hard for me as a novice, only a handful in.
May I take the time though to highly recommend Peas Pudding. Far too much prejudice in this against a proud northern dish! Absolutely delicious in a ham sandwich.
Please can someone explain 26A a little further. I understand the second part but the first part “Man, perhaps, in audition” escapes me
I now know to look for a rhyming pair, which is why CONTACT SPORT and HEALTH RESORT are highlighted in green. But why is IMMODERATE highlighted in blue?
And to look for a geographical reference, LA ROCHELLE, which I liked.
I liked the three single word anagrams, as mentioned above, impressive.
My favourites were BLOOD TYPES, RELATES, GRAND TOTAL.
Enjoyed the puzzle and the blog. Thanks both.
Re: level of difficulty: I have of late more readily succumbed to online help (e.g. literally Googling “list of French cities” for LA ROCHELLE, and using an online anagram solver when I still can’t see it after using the Guardian Anagram Helper).
RELATES – I was never going to get this.
Liked: GRAND TOTAL – I just had to do some maths.
RING – got this. Didn’t like it. Don’t know why.
EMMA – liked this. Don’t know why.
MAHATMA – Ha on Monday night I had thought: “ok, I was on the wrong track thinking defn is reverend, wordplay is a Hindu headgear inside Ma or Pa. But Ma at the start and Ma at the end? Really? Should it not say parents in the plural in the wordplay?!” now I think parent is “mama” -sorry Everyman.
Liked: MARCONI and NOON
APPEASE – I get the logic of this and I can see Everyman’s sense of humour (and I think I can see his misdirection: a word for pacify containing the letter k to mean a type of pudding) but I don’t understand what type of clue it is. Maybe I just don’t like it. I think I’ve said before I don’t like clues which riff on the speech patterns of people with speech and language issues (Cockneys and Northerners are fair game, though).
This is why I like Everyman: the “ins” to get me started (rhyming pair, etc). Once I got HEALTH RESORT I went back to 11a and thought is this the rhyming pair? “Rugby – something sport”? then I got it.
This is why I don’t like Everyman: where is the Primarily clue this week?!
Morpethman@32 It’s a reference to the Isle of Man. The word “perhaps” indicates that “Man” is an example of what we’re looking for.
SueM48@33 One of Everyman’s regular features is to make a reference to themself – in this case “Everyman’s” becomes I’m or IM.
ISLE
Morpethman@32
Adding to what Judge@35 said:
The ‘in audition’ part of the clue is a homophone indicator. ISLE sounds like I’LL.
Zihuatanejo@34 – APPEASE – I guess you’re saying the clue refers to stammering which is a speech problem – but it can’t be anything to do with speech – there is a single P sound in the answer – the clue works only when written down, where the duplicated consonant is needed for the spelling. (And I can’t understand what’s wrong with the concept of pease pudding – it’s just dal with less spice).
This seemed a typical Everyman to me, with, as usual, a few niggles as already noted by others.
Thanks John and Everyman.
KVa@31: on IMMODERATE, my point is that the clue could have omitted the ‘Rank?’ and still worked perfectly well.
poc@38
IMMODERATE
Got it. Thanks.
Appease: I was going to argue that this was just an indication of the word play to double up the letter. If we think about the word play in “Friend of Caesar, J? No, the opposite” for “antonym” – the arrangement of the letters, putting the initial last, is copied in “Antony, m”. However, the latter example (a classic) is witty, relevant and natural where “k-kind” has no meaning or sense except in the case of a stammer, which then does not apply to the double p in “appease”. So it doesn’t really work.
But…”Pease pudding hot”, the rhyme, does give us the title of the magnificent film “Some like it hot” which is a roundabout route to my suggestion for an earworm today.
I guess with the new Quick Cryptic Crossword, there is scope to make the Everyman a little more difficult. I haven’t completed it in a while. I don’t mind losing the Primarily clue, but I would appreciate it if every word referred to was in common vernacular (Everyman’s speech if you will).
Jack@40: I think the wordplay rather applies to “pease” and works pretty much the same as with “k-kind” to double its initial to “p-pease”
I think a reasonable definition of the Dark Ages could be the Age of Superstition and No Science, so the clue for 3a PRESCIENCE is justifiable (with the ?). Interscience might be more accurate, but doesn’t otherwise make sense.
‘Des res’ is not a term we see in Canada, so thanks John for parsing 4d RELATES.
I too missed the traditional primarily clue, but otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle, so thanks Everyman for the fun.
John@41 isn’t me, not that I particularly wish to disown his comment. My apologies for choosing such a silly blogger’s name: if people called John who post could call themselves John P or John Q or whatever that might make things clearer.
It never occurred to me to be bothered by “pre-science”. The idea of science as a specific discipline, distinct from philosophy and other ways of knowing, is quite definitely a modern one, so although there were people such as Aristotle doing things that we know recognize as precursors to science, science qua science certainly didn’t exist in the dark ages.
I thought 12dn (APPREHENDED) was a weak double definition, as the two meanings seemed essentially the same. It didn’t occur to me to think of “got” in that metaphorical sense, but perhaps that is what Everyman had in mind.
I expected more complaints about the equation of ape with monkey, so I’ll add my voice to Judge @4.
On the other hand, I quite enjoyed some of the anagrams, especially 5dn, 6dn, 13dn, 14dn. A number of these seem like they must be chestnuts, but I don’t recall having seen them before.
I liked this week’s one a great deal. Thanks to Everyman, and to all the bloggers here for the interesting comments.
beaulieu @ 37 – i disagree
jack of few trades @ 40 – i agree. particularly ” “k-kind” has no meaning or sense except in the case of a stammer, which then does not apply to the double p in “appease”. ”
i have seen this before in Everyman.
Of course it might be that I’m particularly sensitive to stammers depicted in culture.
I’m sorry, Ted @45 – Aristotle was doing science, not “things that we [k]now recognize as precursors to science”. And I won’t even get started on the science in the Islamic world during the so-called Dark Ages.
I was thrown by 25A. I immediately noticed that 125 and 8 were both cubes – and both cubes of primes, at that. My instinct (being a “numbers person” as much as a “words person”) was to start looking for some subtle mathematical route to the answer; I was quite disappointed when I clicked what the answer was!
Re lack of definitional precision in some clues – I accept things which are common parlance (even if not strictly correct) in the context of a crossword clue [NB that last word!]. So monkey/ape – yes, of course they’re not the same, but good enough here. Similarly, mode/average: yes (as has been pointed out) mode is only one of a number of mathematical concepts which is commonly called an “average”, and it’s far from being the most common one the word’s applied to in normal speech; but fine in the context of a crossword clue.
And thanks to whoever picked up on a correction to a clue in this week’s Everyman – I was struggling with it! Looks like there’s simply a line of print missing in the paper.
Ted @45 et al – MONKEY & APE as verbs both mean to copy. No idea if that’s what the setter intended but it gets them off the hook?
I thought PRESCIENCE was just a bit of fun but clearly umbrage was taken. I’ve heard it used more colloquially when someone suggests an outdated solution at work
Between print and digital we are lucky enough to get 10 crosswords a week. The 2 Qs + Monday (mostly) means we have 30% “easy” and at the other end of the scale there’s AZED. Everyman now seems to occupy a slot between the “easy” and the weekday puzzles. Overall the balance seems about right to me although I’d like to see a more consistent level of challenge from the Prize.
Cheers J&E
First time commenter… But regularly review my answers here.
I’m still quite new to cryptics generally; I do them as a mind-soother at work. I actually found this one relatively doable – finished by Monday afternoon which was a record for me (I’m usually toiling away at clues well into Wednesday – the week before this one I got nowhere near and this week’s I’m baffled by a few) – what I didn’t know, and now do, having reviewed comments over the last two Everyman blogs, is that the Monday Cryptic is deliberately pitched quite easy which puts my surprise completion of last week’s into context, sadly for me!
Thanks for the explainers, there’s always a few I guess off the definitions so seeing them laid out is very helpful to this novice!
Sorry @John, yeah maybe it wasn’t the best choice. I have added a D in front of my name to make it sound write for those with a French accent.
TassieTim @48 — You’re quite right to bring up the scholars of the Islamic world, who provide a much stronger case for your position than Aristotle. (For instance, Aristotle did few things that could be classified as experiments.)
Anyway, I don’t think I disagree with you on anything substantive. I only wanted to make the semantic point that the idea of a thing called science that’s distinct from other disciplines comes much later. I think that fact is sufficient to justify the clue, but I understand the other point of view.
BodyCheetah @50 — I don’t think I’ve ever heard “monkey” being used to mean “copy”, but both the OED and dictionary.com list this meaning, so I concede the point.
A lot of poor cluing, especially 2 down; 9 across was too obscure; 4 down was impossible to parse; “bloody” = “infernal” (10 across) is inappropriate.
OTOH 3 across is fine. There were indeed scholars who did what we now call science (I would *NOT* count Aristotle among them!) prior to the end of the Dark Ages, but they were not referred to as scientists.
Actually this was slightly better than some others recently, but still a number of gripes. Rock = ‘successfully wear’? NOON was just silly, as was GRAND TOTAL. Def in 2D was dodgy. DES (Res) is silly.
We Kiwis obviously collectively did not like 4D and I don’t understand it at all. I know what Des Res is but there was no way the clue was gettable IMHO. Best I could do was Updates but I realised pretty soon it was unusable Relates even worse!
Very much liked Leavens, Health Resort and Contact Sport.
Very much did not like the explanation for 10ac. Way too obscure.
Boy these put on a challenge
don’t they. I Did like 9ac!
Started last night, let the subconscious work in the wee hours and finished it off this morning.
Quite liked contact sport and grand total.
Blood types is one of those clues that was too contrived – perhaps the setter should have slept on that too.
We have snow peas in NZ too. I liked prescience, contact sport, leaves. Kicked myself for not getting rock but should have concentrated on the clue…. but I thought it was a convention that there should be a simile somewhere in the clue. For La Rochelle took La out of the anagram and it jumped out at me.
Pease pudding predates the discovery of potatoes.
Let me be the first Kiwi to like BLOOD TYPES! And ROCK.
Could not get 4dn, nor 19ac.
GRAND TOTAL another goodie for me along with CONTACTSPORT. Definitely harder each week but not complaining!
Enjoyed this one and completed it relatively quickly for me. Prescience my fave. Gosh, people do like a moan don’t they…