Guardian Cryptic 29499 Enigmatist

by

Thank you to Enigmatist. Definitions are underlined in the clues.  Apologies again for the late posting.

The crossword has a little of this:

Across
1. Coo! Perhaps it is time to put on ring (8)
BIRDCALL : BIRD(slang for time/prison sentence) plus(to put on) CALL(ring someone up on the phone).

5. Minority backing a little Conservative chap following probes (3,3)
THE FEW : Reversal of(backing) [ WEE(little/small) + HT(Conservative chap?) ] containing(… probes) F(abbrev. for “following”).

9. Female we bet I will spoil with love (4-2-2)
WIFE-TO-BE : Anagram of(… will spoil …) [ F(abbrev. for “female”) + WE BET I plus(with) O(letter representing 0/love in tennis scores) ].

10. Substance secreted by oleasters, side by side (6)
STEROL : Hidden in(secreted by) “oleaster oleaster” (oleasters side by side)

11. Cycle around Herts town in the direction of Iron Age settlement (4,4)
RING FORT : 1st letter moved to last position(Cycle around) of [ TRING(town in Hertfordshire) FOR(in the direction of, as in “I’m heading for London” ].

12. Writing on edge of pot (6)
HEMPEN : PEN(writing as a profession) placed after(on) HEM(edge/rim).
Defn: …/of the hemp plant/cannabis/pot.

14. Start of briefing is not as in agenda: answer party with opening issue at table (3-7)
BIG-ENDIANS : 1st letter of(Start of) “briefing” + II(2 x the letter “i”/is) replacing(… not … in) “aa”(2 x letter “a”/as) in “agenda” + ANS(abbrev. for “answer”).
Answer: In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, the group/party of people in Lilliput who believed that boiled eggs should be broken at the big end, rather than the small, as commanded by the Emperor of Lilliput. This could thus be described as an opening issue at the dining table.

18. After heated clashes with many, agree fixture for big match (4,3,3)
NAME THE DAY : Anagram of(… clashes) HEATED plus(After … with) MANY ].

22. Say to a person (3,3)
FOR ONE : FOR(to/inn the direction of) + ONE(pronoun refering to a person).
Defn: …/for example.

23. Drunken evolutionary bar rant expressed heartfelt feelings (1,4,3)
I LOVE YOU : Anagram of(Drunken) [ “evolutionary” minus(bar/excluding) “rant” ].

24. Maybe excel with muscle, rippling amount! (6)
OUTMAN : Anagram of(rippling) AMOUNT.
Defn: …/surpass in manliness.

25. Such eliciting notice from potential addressees? (3,5)
DES-RESES : “ad”(short for “advertisement”, promotional notice) deleted from(eliciting … from) anagram of(potential) “addressees”.
Answer: Plural of “des-res”/short for “desirable residence”, which potential house owners/tenants will take not of.

26. One’s first moved to travel on e.g. bus with three conductors? (6)
TRIODE : 1st letter of(…’s first) “One” shifted(moved) in [TO RIDE](to travel say, on a bus).
Defn: An electronic valve having 3 electrodes/electrical conductors.

27. Poor school rings out each time for a progress-checker (5,3)
BRAKE PAD : [ “broke”(poor/having run out of money) + “pod”(a school/herd of marine animals such as whales) ] replacing(… out each … for …) “o”(letter shaped like a ring) with “A”.
Defn: That which checks/slows down the progress/movement of a vehicle

Down
1. Gathering with hostility in cave (6)
BEWARE : BEE(a gathering/meeting for communal work or amusement) containing(with … in) WAR(hostility/conflict).
Defn: …/term for “look out!”

2. Deliver clarification on penalty (6)
REFINE : RE(on/with reference to) FINE(a form of penalty/punishment).

3. Isolate copper, in contact with fluorine repeatedly (3,3)
CUT OFF : CU(symbol for the chemical element, copper) + TO(in contact with/attached) F,F(twice/repeatedly, symbol for the chemical element, fluorine).

4. At Centre, valet is catching Wooster purloining last of garden rakes (10)
LIBERTINES : [Middle letter of(At Centre) “valet” + IS ] containing(catching) BERTIE(Wooster, character in the Jeeves stories by P.G. Wodehouse) containing(purloining) last letter of(last of) “garden”.

6. Impetuous folk stop TV show’s interruptive material (8)
HOTHEADS : HO(abbrev./stop for “House”, a TV series/show) + THE ADS(short for “advertisements”/promotional material shown during/interrupting a TV show, say).

7. American university academic merging upcoming pre-Congress activities (8)
FOREPLAY : Reversal of(… upcoming, in a down clue) [ YALE(an American university) slotted with(merging) PROF(short for “professor”/academic) ].
Defn: …, “congress” as in sexual intercourse.

8. Good health points effecting switch in what paper shops do (8)
WELLNESS : “s” and “w”(abbrev. for “south” and “west”, compass points) exchanging positions in(effecting switch in) “sell news”(what paper shops do).

13. Was sorry about adopting writing system with no ‘B’ mechanism (10)
DERAILLEUR : Reversal of(… about) RUED(was sorry/regretted) containing(adopting) “braille”(writing system for the blind) minus(with no) “B”.
Defn: Gear … on a bike.

15. Reason a trip to the tobacconist is on and off? (5,3)
SNUFF OUT : Double defn: 1st: A reason to make a trip to the tobacconist could be that you’ve run out of snuff; and 2nd: To put a sudden end to.

16. Lovers – bonkers – at it again indoors (8)
AMORETTI : Anagram of(bonkers) AT IT containing(… indoors) MORE(again/repeat).
Defn: Representations of Cupid/symbol of love, in a work of art.

17. Ways to engage with a model (8)
STANDARD : [ ST(abbrev. for “street”) + RD(abbrev. for “road”) ]/two ways/thoroughfares containing[AND A](to engage with a) .

19. Admitting Arts Academy deserted very fine composer (6)
DVORAK : RA(abbrev. for the Royal Academy of Arts) contained in(Admitting …) [ D(abbrev. for “deserted” + V(abbrev. for “very”) + OK(okay/fine) ].

20. Plant U-turning keeps of course wasting energy (6)
HYSSOP : Reversal of(…-turning) POSH(upper class represented by “U”) containing(keeps) “yes”(of course/agreed) minus(wasting) “e”(symbol for “energy” in physics).

21. Planted smackers on breasts, so reported (6)
BUSSED : Homophone of(…, so reported) “bust”(a woman’s breasts).

93 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29499 Enigmatist”

  1. Thanks Enigmatist and scchua.
    Found it quite tough but satisfying. Nice blog.

    THE FEW
    a little conservative=WET, chap=HE
    HE+F in WET<

  2. What a great challenge. I was lulled into a false sense, when the NW went in quickly but then I slowed down dramatically. I guessed the amorous theme with WIFE TO BE, NAME THE DAY, FOR ONE I LOVE YOU on the same line, LIBERTINES, FOREPLAY, AMORETTI and ‘time to put on ring’ in BIRDCALL. I therefore put in the obvious RED ROSES instead of DES RESES, only to be disabused by the check button. Some like BIG-ENDIANS, HYSSOP and BUSSED were nhos but gettable. Favourites were RING FORT, HEMPEN, CUT OUT, HOTHEADS, WELLNESS, SNUFF OUT, DES RESES and STANDARD. Mot a Scooby about the parsing of FOREPLAY.

    Ta Enigmatist & scchua.

  5. When I had tentatively pencilled in THE FEW, WIFE-TO-BE and FOREPLAY based purely on the possible definition, but had little or no idea about the parsing, I realized I was in for a struggle this morning. Which is how things turned out, pretty much. A DNF, but this was a classy challenge, though a bit too fierce for me. Many thanks Enigmatist and Scchua, with your illustrations glowing with glorious colour…

  7. Thanks, scchua – a tough blog, I imagine, as it was a tough solve.

    Like AlanC, I took HT in 5a, after some head-scratching, to be an abbreviation of ‘High Tory’, but I have never come across it before. I don’t find KVa’s alternative entirely persuasive In 12a, I think the definition is ‘of pot’ – HEMPEN = made of hemp, not hemp itself.

  8. Thanks Scchua, but I still don’t get HOTHEADS. Why is house a TV program, and why is stop the same as abbreviate? This puzzle just reminds me why I’m glad Enigmatist doesn’t appear very often.

  9. Surprised myself by finishing this puzzle. I didn’t think I would finding E’s works often a grade too high for comfort. Spotted the theme too late for it to be of use. Interesting. Thank you E for stretching my brain and scchua for an illuminating blog. Have a good weekend.

  10. Crispy @8: I parsed it as HO as in stop a horse and then THE ADS. Can’t believe I didn’t parse FOREPLAY, now it’s been explained. Ta.

  11. Alan C@10
    HOTHEADS
    I had the same parse.
    stop=HO (as an interjection) —-edited for clarity.
    TV show’s interruptive material=THE ADS

  12. Thanks scchua, another supreme effort from the blogging team this week, though I got on to the theme fairly early and this helped quite a lot. Congratulations presumably in order to Neil and Debra! (other Ninas dotted around too.) I found this more accessible than many of Enigmatist’s previous puzzles but still very tricky with huge misdirection and devilishly detailed parsing. eg I didn’t like the “a” in 5A (we don’t need redundancy on top of the tortuous wording of these clues!) but appreciated a lot of superbly efficient yet fiendish clues, thanks Enigmatist.

  13. Looks like someone’s getting married today. This was above my pay grade but my computer and I solved most of it. Are BIG-ENDIANS tall Apaches? I still don’t understand HT for conservative, even with Alan C@4’s explanation (H can be for height but I haven’t seen it for high).

    Thanks Enigmatist for the masochism and scchua for sorting it all out.

  15. Very tough and not very enjoyable for me with 6 of my answers unparsed. Also, somehow it felt more 20th than 21st century.

    I did the puzzle corner by corner, NW, SW, SE and finally NE.

    New for me: cave = BEWARE; TRIODE; BUSSED = kissed; DERAILLEUR; DES RESES; HEMPEN; STEROL, BIG-ENDIANS.

    I did not parse:
    5ac apart from rev of F in WEE // – could not work out what the HT is – thanks KVa
    9ac (I guessed it was mainly an anagram)
    10ac
    11ac – ironically, I stayed in Tring last year but was not aware it is in Hertfordshire. The counties are not very important to me but now that I look at a map of counties, I see that over the past 3 years I have stayed in most of them in southern England as well as Cheshire, Nottinghamshire, and the Lake District / Cumbria.
    25ac
    6d apart from THE ADS = interruptive material (never heard of a TV show called House!).

    Thanks, both.

    I parsed STANDARD in th same way as KVa@3.

  16. Great fun and challenge, with typically Enigmatic parsings and some cleverly disguised definitions.

    In strict terms a DNF for me as, like AlanC, I put in RED ROSES instead of DES RESES without checking the anagrist – at a quick glance the right letters seemed to be there.

    I parsed THE FEW and STANDARD as KVa. I liked the clever letter substitutions and partial anagrams amongst many other ingenious constructions.

    Too many favourites to list them all, but first prize to BIG ENDIANS for the construction and definition. Great clue.

    Thanks to JH (not Paul!) and scchua

  17. For those who like this sort of thing, well, this is the sort of thing they like. AFAIC, life’s too damn short. Nonetheless, thanks to scchua for the untangling job, and (presumably) congrats to Enigmatist

  18. Thanks scchua. Great blog. But I’d rather not have had the earworm. Old enough to remember that.
    Somebody’s probably going to post this before I can finish mine but 14 is a computing term, tables, with a derivative in Gullivers Travels. I’m not familiar with either. Had to look it up.

  19. I got the theme early and the NW corner went in, if not entirely parsed and… that was about it. I will accept my defeat gracefully and leave the field to those more talented than I.

  20. Not being a Latin scholar I was able to solve BEWARE from wordplay and thought of the phrase caveat emptor. Turns out cave means beware.

  22. A puzzling comment by copster on the G comments thread said that BIG-ENDIANS was ‘a bit naughty because they weren’t quite called that in the book’, But they were: e.g.,

    “It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death, rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end. Many hundred large volumes have been published upon this controversy: but the books of the Big-endians have been long forbidden, and the whole party rendered incapable by law of holding employments.”

  23. As AlanC@10 and KVa@11, in 6d HOTHEADS the HO! is just Stop! — (I never thought I’d say this, but…) “It’s in Chambers”, as an ‘interj‘ (sc. ‘ection‘).
    [Can’f find it at oed.com, though]. Couldn’t disagree more with peter@14 and Mrs Paddington Bear@24.

  27. Certainly tough but everything did eventually fall into place bar the nho BIG-ENDIANS and the CAD DES-RESSES. ‘Mechanism’ is one heck of a broad definition for DERAILLEUR so I was grateful that the component ‘rued’ is so tricky to define other than by some version of ‘regretted’/’was sorry about’.

    I am sure Roz will be happy today.

    Thanks Enigmatist and scchua

  31. paddymelon@29 thanks and nice one! that removes my objection, another great clue therefore. (I looked up 14A to discover the same things as you – I would never have got it from wordplay without the similar device used in BRAKE PAD, though BIG does go with the DAY at end of 18a.)

  32. Nice for the experts to have something to get their teeth into, but I was out of my league this morning: I got about two thirds, parsed about half, and gave up. That nasty four-quarters grid didn’t help.

    I did like BEWARE, NAME THE DAY, WIFE-TO-BE, LIBERTINES and WELLNESS.

    Incidentally, Dr. House in the TV series (from 6d) was played by Hugh Laurie, who also played Bertie Wooster (from 5d). I bet Enigmatist knew that.

  35. Ed @34: The general rule for single letter abbreviations is that they have to be listed in Chambers to be allowable. Nevertheless there are frequent complaints about rare usages. This is the entry under D:
    Date
    Daughter
    Day
    Dead
    Deci-
    Degree
    Dele (Latin), delete
    Denarius or denarii (Latin), a penny or pence (before 1971)
    Departs
    Depth
    Deserted
    Diameter
    Died
    Duke

    ‘Deserted’ is probably one of the least familiar here – it is used in military records

  36. Reading down the central part of the grid is the message: ALL THE BEST FOR THE BIG DAY NEIL AND DEBRA.

    So congrats to them, and thanks to Enigmatist and scchua

  39. Paddymelon@18 I too thought of the computer meaning of BIG-ENDIAN: Endianness refers to the order in which bytes are arranged in memory. I didn’t quite understand your reference to tables -do you mean FAT?

    Thanks schuua – really needed you today. Thanks also to Enigmatist – still hoping to finish a second one of yours one day.

  41. 20d HYSSOP: Normally a 'lift and separate' is of two words already (confusingly) separated by a space. Occasionally they're separated by a hyphen.
    This one's a very unusual L&S of a letter and a word separated by a hyphen "U-turning", to get a word and a reversal indicator POSH<. ["tedious",eh?]
    Enigmatist got married on July 23rd 2010. On that day ‘his puzzles appeared in each of the Guardian, Times, Independent, FT and Telegraph Toughie
    (and on the following day in the Inquisitor), all with an overt or covert wedding slant.’
    Thanks E&S

  42. @37, Most of these puzzles are beyond me. This one was particularly hard as it took me ages to get my first answer.
    But others are better at this than me and probably yawn through Monday. My fun day.
    It’s horses for courses.

  43. Thanks both and when I don’t have much time I often use another contributor to assess the temperature so (rather lazily (but as is often the case)) I agree with gladys@32.

  44. Re the clue for BEWARE, I vaguely remember old TV/Film? scenes where a group of boys would be up to no good at their posh school, then the lookout would shout “Cave!” (As in Kay-Vee!) as a member of staff approached, warning all that the naughty behaviour should cease immediately…

  45. Tough as you would expect when the words ‘set by Enigmatist’ appear at the top of the page.

    I solved this over four separate sessions, corner by corner NW, SE, NE and SW. I realised fairly quickly that someone was getting married but didn’t spot the Nina until nearly the end

    Thanks to Enigmatist and scchua and many congratulations to Neil and Debra

  46. I’m surprised that so many are unfamiliar with Gulliver’s Travels, especially the Lilliput section, which has long been enjoyed on several levels – both as a children’s book and a satire on England in the 18th century (the BIG-ENDIANS are the Roman Catholics, suppressed by the LITTLE-ENDIAN Anglican establishment).

    The term was adopted for its use in IT by Danny Cohen in a 1980 publication – one of many whimsical usages by scientists, like quark and Sonic hedgehog protein.

  50. Thanks for the explanations scchua and others. I was so pleased/relieved to finish this puzzle that I didn’t fret about a few clues not parsed.
    I had completely forgotten about BIG-ENDIANS, despite studying the book in English in about 1966(!); obviously not memorable enough to stick. But even with the explanation, I find the word play in this clue to be very confusing.
    I didn’t fully parse THE FEW, HOTHEADS, RING FORT or HYSSOP.
    New terms were TRIODE, BUSSED=kissed, BEWARE=cave, the town TRING.
    I loved the letter switches in WELLNESS and BRAKE PAD, my two favourite clues. Ticks also for FOREPLAY, DERAILLEUR, DVORAK and I LOVE YOU.
    Thanks to Enigmatist and scchua.

  51. Well, I just couldn’t get into this one and, having come here, I’m not at all surprised. Mental note made to add this setter to my (not very long) list of those for whom I just don’t have the time or will.

  52. Sheer delight! Worth the effort, like all good puzzles should be.

    The theme emerged slowly but surely. So congratulations to the happy couple.

    Many thanks Enigmatist and scchua

  55. Failed at the final two hurdles of BIG-ENDIANS and DES RESES. (I too went for RED ROSES but once I fail a check I stop. That said I wouldn’t have got BIG ENDIANS anyway.

  57. I biffed a lot of this, so grateful for many of you for parsing. This was a particularly unhelpful grid, needing one to solve four separate puzzles – I did NW, SW, NE and finally SE.

  58. Complaining about Enigmatist reminds me of the story about the frog and the scorpion crossing the river. Personally I enjoy the challenge but I do think he’s a setter who’s happy to sacrifice clue quality at the altar of difficulty

    That said, I liked STANDARD, I haven’t seen the STEROL trick before and DVORAK being assembled entirely from abbreviations brought a rare smile

    Ear-worm? Billy Bragg’s THE FEW or maybe the LIBERTINES

    Cheers S&E

  59. Like Gervase @38, having spotted the romantic theme, I entered ‘red roses’ at 25a (even though I couldn’t parse it). I would like to think that Enigmatist failed to see that possibility, but I suspect that it was one of his bear traps.

  60. Roger Marler @48: HEMP is most definitely Cannabis sativa, though the varieties grown for fibre or food use have low (but not zero) THC content, hence unsuitable as ‘pot’.

  62. Why are we talking about “deserted”@34? The “des” in question in adspeak for “desirable.” May or may not be in Chambers.

    paddymelon@20 Think of “cave canem,” for “beware of the dog.” I think it was in a mosaic in a Pompeii doorway.

    I’ve never seen either House or Jeeves on TV, but I gather that Dr House was an irascible curmudgeon, and it’s hard to imagine the same actor playing both him an Bertie Wooster.

    I needed help this morning. Thanks, Enigmatist and scchua.

  66. Great fun! Lots of chewy parsing, but all makes sense now. I too went for an unparsed Red Roses. That’ll learn me!
    I think a Friday puzzle like this is the perfect complement to the Monday version.
    Thanks, Enigmatist and scchua.
    No thanks, Pip.

  67. Thanks for the blog , pretty good but I do wish Enigmatist would not dumb-down for the Guardian and we have not had IO Wednesday in the FT this month . FOREPLAY , BIG-ENDIAN and BRAKE PAD were very neat .
    Not convinced by THE FEW , HT very dubious but uses little , the WET version ignores “little” .The Wets were never little , just slightly less insane than the Thatcherites. .

  68. Roz @67 – the “Conservative” in THE FEW is adjectival – “wet” is “a little [moderately] conservative” (as Chambers confirms)

    Fabulous puzzle, many thanks Enigmatist & scchua

  70. My comment isn’t specific to this particular puzzle, but rather to the Guardian crosswords in general, which I’ve been working fora few years now and describe to myself as Parse Porn!

  71. I think the idea in 5a is that wet (adjective) means/meant “a little Conservative” whereas dry meant “very Conservative”, ie Thatcherite. It’s complicated, because as many have pointed out, the Thatcherites were very Conservative but not very conservative (they didn’t want to conserve anything).

    A great treat to have Enigmatist in the Guardian. I hope we see more of him – it’s been too long.

  73. Valentine @62: Dr House was played by Hugh Laurie, a talented British actor with a fair range–he started his career in comedy–so it’s just about conceivable that he could have pulled off Bertie Wooster in his youth. Edit to add: he did, in fact.

    I once wrote this clue:
    Actor Hugh’s British semi? (11,5)
    …which I was told only works in American dialects.

  76. When I saw the analysis for big endians I thought, I’m glad I gave up on this. When people can’t even agree on how some of the other clues are parsed you think it’s time to give up

  77. Congratulations (very belated I suppose per FrankieG@41) to Enigmatist. As has been observed, I knew what I was getting into, the usual combination of brilliance and frustration, with a couple revealed, many got through check, and several bunged. I liked the “is for as” in BIG-ENDIANS but was baffled by the definition, because I’d only heard of the computer science version. The two I revealed were STEROL and HEMPEN, and I don’t feel bad about that; IMO STEROL is an obscure word with an obscure construction, while PEN for writing is very marginal, though I expect it’s in Chambers.

    I did like the unusual constructions as in FOREPLAY and WELLNESS, which were at least possible to bung and then appreciate the parsing. LIBERTINES and DERAILLEUR were also fun to work out, and, well, as I said a lot of brilliance mixed in with the frustration.

    Today’s local (to me) town of the same size as the geographical reference is Brattleboro, Vermont, which admittedly is about 300 people short of Tring.

    Thanks Enigmatist and thanks for some yeopersonly work from sschua and the commenters!

  80. Managed to complete and parse just 6 – got the theme, even got the starting point in some (sell news, dressees) but completely failed to work out convoluted clueing to get to answers. Too hard for me!

  81. I think bodycheetah @58 hits the nail on the head. Far too much difficulty for its own sake. And like PeterM @57 I’d be very happy never to see this particular grid again
    There were admittedly some very fine bits of clueing. I too liked FOREPLAY – but why is this acceptable when we all (even the non-Ximeneans) have the vapours about an indirect anagram?

  82. Quite a few of The Guardian’s grids are appalling, although other papers seem to suffer from the same malaise. As to ‘merging’, the indicators for doing this sort of thing haven’t really bedded in as well as some of the other, perhaps less cryptic instructions to solvers, so we need some that do the trick.

    I loved this great puzzle, but then I’m a sucker for the intricacies within intricacies of an enigma wrapped up in a …

  83. Neil@81 I am a harsh critic of indirect anagrams but I will defend foreplay . The two parts PROF and YALE are clearly defined plus the reversal . As Paul@82 mentions, “merging” is not great , overlapping would be better , but both parts stay completely in order so no real mixing up .
    I think the grid added to the difficulty here , this setter often has several long answers , usually anagrams , often easier to get even just from enumeration sometimes. This gives lots of letters to help with other entries. For this I cold-solved about a third but when I put them in I found two of the corners were nearly empty so still a lot of head scratching needed.

  84. Got five or six answers yesterday morning, a couple last night, and – with much help – several more today. I ended up revealing six, all in the NE corner. Definitely Friday fare, and way above my level, so there was some satisfaction in playing a longer game and getting as far as I did.

    I could feel frustrated at the number of obscurities both in terms of clueing and answers, but I should remind myself that it’s a cryptic crossword, and I didn’t do too badly for the level that this one is at.

  85. Gave up with about 50% unsolved after a struggle. Really not my cup of tea with the very recondite wordplay. I’ll just note that BIG-ENDIAN is also used in computing to refer to a type of CPU architecture (LITTLE-ENDIAN being the other type). The term was coined by Danny Cohen in 1981 and refers explicitly to Gulliver’s Travels.

  86. Yeah. Just finished. LOI HEMPEN.
    ShowJumper (the missus) refused to play so we did Paul’s Prize first.
    I worked out the fodder for DES-RESES but couldn’t see the anagram so shrugged and entered RED ROSES as per others, having a gut feeling for a theme. But the rest yielded after some torture.
    Congratulations to the happy couple.

  88. Been struggling with this on & off since yesterday morning, only getting 7 done. And now I’ve seen the results I’m not ashamed of that. Some very convoluted parsing which I might have got if I had worked out the definitions. For which I needed the crossers I didn’t have! My admiration for those who could do it.

  89. Just coming here to vent a bit after struggling for ages, which I don’t normally have a problem with, but when a crossword includes non-words such as ENDIANS and RESES, I have to cry foul.

  90. My tenacity (if only it were my IQ) matches Enigmatist’s sadism, I finished this Friday crossword at midday Sunday, LOI BIG-ENDIANS which dropped at Green Park tube after hours of bafflement. If this made even Roz’s brain itch then I don’t feel too bad. Happy marriage Neil and Debra!!

  91. Adrian@90 – snap!

    And strictly a DNF as Yorkshire Lass and I were of the unparsed RED ROSES persuasion. We both thought this was like Bunthorne back in the Stone Age – excruciatingly difficult.

    The posts about Cave (kay-vee) in a school context reminded me of the lovely book The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren by Iona and Peter Opie. Barley to stop a fight at my primary school, pax at secondary I recall.

    I cannot honestly bring myself to thank the setter for that experience, but many thanks to scchua for the excellent blog.

  92. Was at the cricket on Friday, so a fleeting glimpse on the train left me with zilch, not that I applied myself. Then tackled a lot of wonderful diversions over the weekend, Prize, Quicks, Weekend, Everyman, Q and QC. I knew of the setter and that it would be a challenge. Read all the G comments and decided that on merit it deserved a punt. Glad that I did. Got the theme very quickly which helped when fixing on the definitions that matched, like the brilliant Pre-Congress/FOREPLAY. Got the YALE bit, then the PROF and a write in. Much else to enjoy too. 1D was a bit naughty. If one uses Latin as a def, shouldn’t there be something to hint that cave is not English? The only one that hit a nerve was BIG ENDIANS. The B was a given, the I a crosser, agenda looked to be in the mix so bunged and checked the G. The rest I’d never have worked out. Like with ALTAR previously, I don’t like obscurities clued obscurely. All for clear JORUMS, don’t mind clever clues for commonplace words.
    That said, I look forward to seeing another of his puzzles and thank the setter for this.

    Cheers scchua and Enigmatist.

    P.S. Assume there’s nothing in the Nina…FED LOSS? Checked Dave Gorman out, seems happily married to Beth.

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