It’s always a pleasure to seen a Brendan puzzle on a Monday morning, or any other day come to that/ Thanks to him for this one.
The theme in announced by CHESS MEN in the middle row, and we have each of the possibilities hidden in the grid.
| Across | ||||||||
| 8 | BOUTIQUE | Cut flowers arranged around it over in shop (8) Reverse of IT in BOUQUE[t] |
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| 9 | ENTRAP | Almost mate, having backed capture (6) Reverse of PARTNE[r] |
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| 10 | TSAR | Man on board eclipsing second most powerful Russian once (4) S (second) in TAR (sailor, man on board) |
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| 11 | EXPULSIONS | Penalties for pupils getting one plus six wrong (10) (ONE PLUS SIX)* |
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| 12 | BEDECK | Decorate sides of bridge and what it overlooks (6) B[ridg]E + DECK (what the bridge of a ship overlooks) |
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| 14 | NIGHTIES | Close bonds providing coverage for retirement (8) NIGH + TIES |
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| 15 | DUCHESS | Noble and outstanding saints protecting church (7) CH in DUE (outstanding, as a debt) + S S (saints) |
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| 17 | MENACED | Expert in fix put at risk (7) ACE (expert) in MEND |
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| 20 | SLOBBISH | Express sorrow about large error so unlike good worker (8) L[arge] in SOB + BISH (an error) |
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| 22 | OPENED | Can eye present case, any part of which can be this (6) A can, an eye, a present and a case can all be OPENED |
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| 23 | INSTITUTED | Began after I confused student about it (10) I + IT in STUDENT* |
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| 24 | SPIT | Contemptuously react – gratuitous advice sent back? (4) Reverse of TIPS |
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| 25 | BROOKE | Tolerate European poet, quintessentially English (6) BROOK (tolerate) + E[uropean), giving Rupert Brooke, often regarded as a quintessentially English poet, particularly for his poem The Soldier, with its lines “If I should die, think only this of me:/That there’s some corner of a foreign field/That is for ever England”. |
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| 26 | EKING OUT | Eastern family with disease barely surviving (5,3) E + KIN + GOUT |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1 | ROUSSEAU | Philosopher’s wedding preparation initially cancelled (8) A beheaded [T]ROUSSEAU, giving the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
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| 2 | STAR | Member of famous quartet proclaimed as celebrity (4) Homophone of (Ringo) Starr |
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| 3 | SQUEAK | Narrow escape from destruction of quakes (6) QUAKES* |
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| 4 | RESPOND | From bunch of letters in squares, ponder answer (7) Hidden in squaRES PONDer |
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| 5 | NEGLIGEE | Female garment, for instance, both down and up in new fiction (8) EG and its reverse GE, separately in N[ew] LIE (fiction) |
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| 6 | STRIPTEASE | Script with typo? Calm performance barely finished (10) STRIPT (“script” with a typo – rather a vague indication) + EASE (calm) |
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| 7 | PAWNEE | Part of Labrador first named in indigenous language (6) PAW (part of a Labrador dog) + NEE (first named) |
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| 13 | EXHIBITION | Jumble in the box I twice show (10) Anagram of IN THE BOX I I |
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| 16 | SHIFT KEY | It’ll transform us into superpower – some work essential (5,3) SHIFT (some work) + KEY (essential) The shift key could transform the letters of “us” into the superpower “U[nited] S[tates]”. |
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| 18 | EMERITUS | Honoured in retirement Aussie sprinters, holding flag up (8) Reverse of TIRE (to flag) in EMUS |
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| 19 | SHATTER | Demolish or rebuild the 2 or 10 (7) Anagram of THE STAR or THE TSAR |
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| 21 | LINERS | Extra material tailors put inside vessels (6) Double definition |
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| 22 | ORDAIN | Decree from old king or queen followed by uproar about article (6) O[ld] + R (king or queen) + A (indefinite article) in DIN |
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| 24 | SIGN | Little good to be found in evil omen (4) G in SIN |
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Gosh, I found this tough going with a mix of the straighforward and the frankly baffling (not Monday fare, the people will surely cry!). I completely failed to parse OPENED and also managed to miss the theme. Thanks to Andrew for putting me right and to Brendan for outwitting me.
I was initially ‘had’ by Brendan yet again. Tackling the clues in order, as usual, I was amused by the clever ‘misdirection’ of 10ac (‘For once, man on board doesn’t mean chessman’!), then laughed out loud when the theme eventually leapt out.
Apart from the theme, so many lovely clues, among them EXPULSIONS, OPENED, SHIFT KEY, SHATTER and particularly EMERITUS and BROOKE, with the delightful evocation of ‘The Soldier’, which I immediately read and enjoyed again:
https://englishverse.com/poems/the_soldier
We schoolgirls had quite a crush on Rupert Brooke!
Many thanks to Brendan for the Bank Holiday treat and Andrew for another fine blog.
Thanks Andrew.
I was lucky with EMERITUS, having been to Uni (as we Aussies say), familiar with tire =flag, and emus= fast runners.You gotta look out for them, either in a mob out in the bush on a road trip, or when you’ve pulled up for lunch and one will take your lunch out of your hand, uninvited. They can also rip your guts out with their claws if you cross them.
Surely there’s got to be more to the “typo” to convert script to stript in STRIPTEASE?
I’m afraid I was a bit underwhelmed by both the puzzle and the hidden chess pieces.
Excellent, thanks classic Brendan and Andrew.
I spotted the theme which helped with OPENED and PAWNEE, but failed to parse the us part of SHIFT KEY.
I saw early on others such as DUCHESS, TSAR, as well as QUEEN and KING and KNIGHT so wondered if they were the theme.
Thanks Brendan and Andrew
I found this hard too. I didn’t parse EMERITUS. No theme, of course.
I suppose “gratuitous” in 24 is referring to gratuities, but tips aren’t usually gratuitous.
Favourites NIGHTIES and LOI PAWNEE.
I also thought this on the tough side for a Monday. I also had Eileen’s thought at 10a, and yet still missed the theme. I realised on coming here that I had failed to revisit BROOKE, too, so a DNF. NEGLIGEE and NIGHTIES crossing: when I had the former and not yet the latter I thought “He couldn’t have identical answers crossing, could he??” Not quite, as it turned out. Thanks, Brendan and Andrew.
A good Monday workout, although I missed the theme completely. I am embarrassed to say that BROOKE was my last one in; his photograph was hung on one of the staircases at school https://cdn.britannica.com/99/115599-050-BC1B6D35/Rupert-Brooke-1915.jpg and I must have seen it every day of term for seven years.
Normal service resumed with a total theme bypass. Pretty straightforward until it wasn’t. Top ticks for SHIFT KEY & EMERITUS
Glad I didn’t spend any more time trying to parse OPENED and an eyebrow raise for the typo
Cheers A&B
I loved this, missed the theme although it’s probably my fault for not looking harder.
A propos of Rupert BROOKE, I’m knee-deep in WW1 research*, so have been reading the introduction to the Penguin Book of First World War Poetry. Brooke is discussed because The Soldier set the tone for WW1 poetry. In 1911 his poetry was described as “disgusting” and Brooke as full of “swagger and brutality”, but post 1914 he was seen as “the only English poet of any consideration who has given his life in his country’s wars” and war poetry didn’t have to express the right sentiments, but the poet had to have seen active service. (We rethought WW1 in 1964-68, the 50th anniversary, with the “Oh What a Lovely War” stage show (1963) followed by the film in 1969, and “The Great War” documentary series in 1964 looking at the generals as blundering idiots causing problems – it’s only then that Wilfred Owen and Siegried Sassoon were seen as major war poets. A collection of Wilfred Owen’s poetry was published in 1922, privately, by Sassoon and Edith Sitwell, but did not grab the public imagination until after WW2, the Cold War, Vietnam and the 50th anniversary. His poetry was seen as important in the 1968 collections.)
*For my own nefarious purposes, to build a series of Village Hall geocaches – with some actual information about what the wars were like locally.
Thank you to Brendan and Andrew
I did wonder vaguely about nighties, negligee and [t]rouseau but as usual failed to see the obvious. Emeritus was fun, and II managed to twig us>US, and the 4 things that can be opened, all Brendanly clever. Thanks to him and to Andrew.
Thanks Brendan and Andrew.
Found it on the tougher side like MOH@1. Enjoyable nonetheless. Great blog as usual by Andrew.
My top faves: BEDECK, OPENED, SHIFT KEY, EMERITUS and SHATTER.
STRIPTEASE
pdm@3
If there’s more to the ‘typo’, I can’t see it. Someone might explain it.
I did not look for a theme so totally missed that – very clever!
Favourites: SHIFT KEY, NEGLIGEE.
Shanne@9 – thanks for the info re attitudes to WW1 poets.
Held up by putting an incompletely parsed NIGHTCAP at 14a, so I ended up revealing PAWNEE (not sure I’d have got it even with the right crossers, though I like the “part of Labrador”). OPENED and SHIFT KEY were unusual and clever, but I didn’t like the “misprint” in STRIPTEASE which could be almost anything.
I saw most of the theme for once (missed the CHESS MEN) which helped with EKING OUT. I thought this meant “making a meagre supply last” rather than surviving, but I’m probably wrong.
PS: the theme would have helped with PAWNee – if I’d seen it at that stage.
Always a pleasure to see Brendan and I thought the theme was burlesque with STRIPTEASE, NIGHTIES, NEGLIGEE, SHIFT, OPENED and EXHIBITION, thereby missing the proper one. I thought OPENED, EXPULSIONS and SHIFT KEY were excellent.
Ta Brendan & ANDREW
Counter to some posters’ experience, I found this one very accessible with only OPENED going in unparsed. For some reason, I was on Brendan’s wavelength today. And I even spotted the themers. EXPULSIONS, RESPOND and SHIFT KEY my podium for today.
Thanks Brendan and Andrew
I liked the “meta” surface for RESPOND, and retirement not being an instruction to reverse the letters or a reference to sleep. DUCHESS is a variant of chess and TSAR themed chess sets exist.
Theme blind as usual… when will I ever learn to check?!? I think I’m just more interested in the clues.
OPENED went in unparsed but the rest fell pleasantly. I thought there must be more to the script/stript ruse. I felt like a batsman who’s faced to much spin!
Many thanks, both.
The “typo” in 6d elicited a groan. I’d forgotten about bish/error, which I’ve only encountered in Crossword Land — it’s a British speciality, I presume? PAWNEE was beyond me, and I’m ashamed to admit I’ve not heard of BROOKE.
I’ve never met BISH in real life, only in rather dated school stories. It’s British, but not current British, unless someone here knows otherwise.
Yes, BISH is rather “Jennings and Darbishire“!
In line with the theme, at a push, perhaps REX on the fourth row could be substituted for KING.
paddymelon @3, Emus are weird. I’ve only eaten them once and they tasted like lamb to me. Here’s how you can attract them so you can shoot ’em and eat ’em.
The theme was obvious, hahaha, including the Nina in the top row, which is the famed Russian opening by Kasparov in 1956.
BISH is not in my vocabulary, though we have seen it before. I failed on several of these and of course entirely missed the theme. I thought STRIPTEASE very poor. ”This word but with a typo’ is not a valid indication in my book. That aside, the puzzle was clever but on the hard side for a Monday.
Completed this in the early hours and have only just come to the blog to be amazed by those chessmen picked out in yellow. Had no idea of their existence and therefore the theme threaded through the grid. Struggled with PAWNEE and the last few in SLOBBISH, LINERS and BROOKE. Haven’t been to the tearooms at Grantchester for quite a while, but there used to be a small museum to Rupert B beside the carpark there. An enjoyable solve as ever with Brendan…
Lovely, enjoyable puzzle and a great blog.
I was unable to parse OPENED and completely missed the theme, so thank you Andrew for filling in the gaps.
My favourites were EMERITUS (for the emus), SHIFT KEY, PAWNEE, NIGHTIES, SHATTER.
Thank you Brendan and Andrew.
Thanks for the blog , very good but should have been on a different day , I like the Monday tradition and it is important for newer solvers . Totally missed the theme despite going through all the chess pieces for TSAR before I saw it . STRIPTEASE is very neat , interesting wordplay and clever definition , SHATTER a nice variation on the usual “anagram” with precise use of “the” .
Tim@23 has the typo spread ? I know Kasparov was a child prodigy but he was MINUS 7 in 1956?
Maybe Kasparian or a different year ?
There’s a rather interesting novel about Rupert Brooke by Jill Dawson called The Great Lover after one of his poems, however some of the reviews are negative. I found this hard for a Monday but suppose it was because of the Bank Holiday – at least we were spared one of those impossible Masquerade puzzles! (I only completed one once, by painstakingly juggling the answers like a jigsaw, never again). Thanks Andrew for the parsing. My Return Key seems to be stuck so this must make for difficult reading!
Difficult for a Monday, sure, but I wonder if that’s on purpose with it being a Bank Holiday: I and I’m sure many others having more time to spend solving.
Hard going but not a slog, I didn’t get the theme though even with a few hints over on the Guardian comments. Very satisfying to complete.
Thanks Brendan and Andrew
On the subject of chess themes, can anyone remember where was and who set the puzzle that had the abbreviations for the pieces in the correct order in the first two and last two rows of unches?
Tough going in parts. I do run my eyes over the grid to check for a theme but failed to spot it! The setters must work extra hard to put them in and so many of us completely miss them.
Thanks both.
Simon S @31 You are thinking of Kite’s Prize #29,284 in January 2024, I think on the 20th.
[Roz @28, I had my tongue firmly in cheek with the Nina, a bit like you at times when it comes to themes. 🙂 ]
I enjoyed this as a little more challenging for a Monday. It felt like an awful lot of vowel crossers (25?) to make life a little harder, a dozen of them ‘E’s. I don’t usually count this sort of thing so it may be normal. The theme went over my head as happens so often.
Thanks to Brendan and Andrew
Hi Simon @31 – I remembered it because I blogged it:
https://www.fifteensquared.net/2024/01/27/guardian-prize-29284-kite/
Sorry – crossed with Balfour!
Yet again, a beautiful and brilliant offering from Brendan with a wonderful unobtrusive theme…
By an extraordinary coincidence, I happened to solve his amazing vowel-themed puzzle (28,857 – Thursday 8th September 2022) just yesterday (I took a break from crosswords for much of 2020-2022 and am still catching up! Lucky me…) Being a Thursday puzzle, it was much ‘chewier’ than this and only goes to prove how brilliant Mr Greer is to be able to set at such varied levels of difficulty
And such a pleasant surprise to see his name on a Monday
Many thanks both and all
me@37 – for those who enjoyed today’s puzzle, I cannot recommend 28,857 too highly; you will adore it!
In case you missed it on Saturday and are looking for something else to do today, there’s a Bank Holiday Rosa Klebb (Arachne) Jumbo puzzle in the FT:
https://www.ft.com/content/52aafcc3-68c3-4244-a35b-ba96fc203e54
Eileen @36; Simon S @32. And then Kite set a complementary dartboard puzzle in the Prize slot on October 12th. That was actually how I remembered it, because Kite alluded to the previous chessboard in a comment on the dartboard puzzle, blogged on that occasion by bridgesong.
[Tim@34 , I did suspect that but you could have made it 1986 , more convincing . ]
Like m.o.h. @1 I found this very hard going and, sorry, really not much fun.
I failed to spot the theme.
The parsing of OPENED defeated me completely, and I was underwhelmed by the “typo” of SCRIPT/STRIPT.
I’m sure I’m come across ROUSSEAU before, clued in much the same way.
Thanks Andrew & Brendan
[and also Shanne for the reminder about how society changed its opinion on WW1 poetry.
Owen wrote about the horrors of war, Brooke hymned its glory. I’m with Owen.]
Thanks Balfour and Eileen.
Thx to Bredan for a tricky start to the week. Didn’t spot the theme but would not have helped, given the distribution of the words involved. Thx to Andrew for parsing a couple that I couldn’t.
I’m wondering if you’d call NEE (as defined here) an indirect synonym, or if not, what, because its literal meaning is born (as)? Just a random early morning thought, not a quibble. Tx.
Given the difficulty I had with Brendan’s recent prize & this Monday offering I’m beginning to think that I need to remove Brendan from my ‘must-do’ list. BTW I heartily second Eileen’s recommendation to do the FT Jumbo by Rosa Klebb — that was very much to my liking. Thanks Andrew for the blog.
Did no one else put in OPENER [can opener, eye opener, case opener (legal), present opener] instead of OPENED? Kind of works? Great puzzle as ever, thank you Brendan , and Andrew for the theme which I totally missed.
Hadrian @47
I had OPENER first, and was quite surprised when checking showed it to be wrong.
I did look for a theme but somehow missed it, doh! I liked the STRIPTEASE definition, the part of Labrador in PAWNEE, the superpower formed from the SHIFT KEY, and the Australian sprinters with their EMERITUS.
Thanks Brendan and Andrew.
I was trying to enthuse my son (don’t worry, we’ve done some Quick Cryptics. He’s good.) but he lost interest when I started struggling at around two thirds distance. And the struggle continued! In the end the grid was completed. I couldn’t be bothered to parse LOI, EMERITUS. In retrospect, the definition was quite clear. A tough but fair challenge. Good for a day off.
I had OPENER too to start with, and realised I had it wrong when I checked at the end.
[Wellbeck @42 – it wasn’t just the poetry – the Imperial War Museum had a number of official artists in the field, as was common practice, but didn’t feel they could hang much of what came back as it wasn’t how we were supposed to see war. Paul Nash also got into trouble with the RAF when illustrating WW2. The IWM was in discussions with CRW Nevison, serving in the ambulance corps in 1917, but only the Tate owns any of his WW1 works. Singer Sargent didn’t just paint Gassed, but also a group portrait of the Generals of WW1, in the portrait gallery. I went to a talk about the art of WW1 at the IWM during the centenary of WW1 as I was trying to teach the poetry.]
Petert@17 But in 14A retirement does refer to sleep – a nightdress or nightie is sleepwear.
[Shanne @9: I don’t know if you’ve encountered it, but Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory is a truly superb piece of literary and cultural criticism. Very readable and very insightful.]
It’s good to see Rupert Brooke’s name on our Memorial (Decoration) Day.
Geoffdownunder @19 Bish is noted as “origin obscure” in Chambers . Personally never heard of it , (68 yo UK resident) . But it sounds to me like public school argot.
Hadrian @47 yes we also had OPENER (and no check button so there it stayed).
LOI BROOKE as severely deceived by what was the meaning. [ I too was much impressed by Sassoon and Owen, and did not think much to Brooke at all. But you have to remember he never saw any actual action, and died of a mosquito bite on his way to Gallipoli – I‘m sure any later poems would have been very different indeed]
Lovely crossword, thank you Brendan and Andrew
Harry Enfield’s Tim “Nice but Dim” character, an upper class twit, once made a model of the Bismarck but called it the Bishmarck because “I made a bit of a bish of it.”
Me @56 This New Yorker has a good account Rupert Brooke
The OED has its first citation of ‘bish’ as Seaford Preparatory School ca 1925.
Hadrian@47. Me too!
Much fun…I have not come across this ‘TYPO’ technique, not sure I like it.
Is GOUT a disease??
Thanks both.
HYD @61 – from just four days ago, see 10ac here:
https://www.fifteensquared.net/2025/05/22/independent-12049-by-knut/
Thanks Eileen…
I suppose I considered (wrongly) a ‘disease’ to be consequential to bacterial/viral infection, like chickenpox…obviously it has a wider meaning.
Thanks for the correction…
An enjoyable solve. I did think the gratuitous in 24ac was, well, gratuitous…
Thanks B&A
A bit late now, but just to add to Eileen@39 re. Rosa Klebb’s Jumbo: the great jono at the crosswordsolver.org forum has created an interactive grid for the puzzle here: https://crossword.info/jono/FT_18062_May25 which is a boon if you’d prefer to solve on a screen than on a printout (especially with a 23x 23 grid!)
I found it pretty OK having two overlapping not-full-screen browser windows, one with the FT’s puzzle page and one with the grid from crossword.info. That way you can see the clues and your answers at the same time
Strip = Script with typo…Enough said.
Frogman@67
As Andrew said STRIPT is “script” with a typo.
Gee, I thought it was on the hard side for a Monday but I wasn’t concentrated and Andrew’s kind parsing makes everything appear straightforward. I loved BEDECK and EKING OUT and I’ll happily forgive the “typo” device because of the lovely surface of STRIPTEASE. (Although T is a long way from C on a standard QWERTY keyboard 🙂
Maybe we had a harder Monday because of the Bank Holiday, which was a good thing really.
I failed to get ENTRAP, PAWNEE and OPENED. But the latter couldn’t really have been anything else. Mind you, I had an interesting diversion in Wikipedia looking through the entries on both the place and the dog. The dog having been bred from the Newfoundland water-dog.
I didn’t have time for this yesterday, so only just finished and came here to find a surprising hidden theme. I was pleased to have parsed OPENED despite the tricky definition ‘can be this’. This was one of my penny drop moments, the other being SHIFT KEY, for which I needed the E to help decide between shirt, skirt, shift and swift. Doh!
Thanks to Brendan and Andrew.
Just finished.
Last one in was Shift Key which was a super clue, not only because of its cleverness, but also because I’d worked out the theme yesterday and was hoping for some sort of signpost to finish things off, CHESSMEN thus falling into place with the crossers.
Thank you both.
Thanks both,
In view of the discussion about Rupert Brooke, I asked ChatGPT to compose a poem about crosswords in his style. Not half bad in my view, but then my literary credentials are non-existant.
The Riddle Grid
In the style of Rupert Brooke
I saw the morning’s hush, a silver flame
Upon the coffee’s edge, and there it lay—
A square of ink and order, wrought to tame
The mind’s meandering with measured play.
Each box, a gate; each clue, a whispering call
From lands of thought where meanings twist and turn,
Where puns like sirens sing, and letters fall
In rhythm strange, for those who seek and yearn.
O joy of seeking!—half the truth is guessed,
The rest must rise from some interior light,
As though the soul, in playful armor dressed,
Fought dragons armed with synonyms and might.
Let others chase their glory through the sword—
Give me a pen, and let me cross the word.
Probably too late for anyone to notice, sorry, but I wanted to respond to Shanne on WWI poetry. Of the small amount I know, “Dulce et Decorum Est” stands out. Brooke’s “The Soldier” illustrates the point made at the end of “Dulce” about “the old Lie”.
D. H. Lawrence’s WWI poetry has only recently been uncensored, but I haven’t had a chance to look at it.
[Tyngewick @ 73 – Wow! Is this the end of poets?! Shockingly, worryingly good]
This was impossible compared to a normal Monday I found. Hadn’t heard of BROOKE and so I’ve just read the soldier. I’ll stick to Owens.
Got to within four — further than I expected. Not easy for a Monday. Never would have caught the theme without the blog — delightful!
Today’s victory: 16d SHIFT KEY — first time I ever caught a clue that involved a key on the keyboard!
7d had me poring over a map of Labrador