Guardian 28,373 / Brummie

115 comments on “Guardian 28,373 / Brummie”

1. 15d/25d?

2. In 10a the end of jerky is cut off.

3. At 10a Brummie might have meant jerk (y) ?

4. A fairytale end to the week with the theme only dawning on me, when I noticed SLEEPING BEAUTY was so perfectly positioned. I had to google GOOSE and barnacle but only found the feathered kind, so thanks Eileen. The actor for TOM is a particular favourite of mine but perhaps not widely known for the purpose of crossword clues. I didn’t know this definition of FROG nor the moniker for ORLANDO. I liked BAKED BEANS, RECESS and BUTTONED UP. Really enjoyable solve. Ta Brummie & Eileen for explaining GOLDEN.

5. Sorry Crossed with comment 2

6. Fun stuff from Brummie, but I have to put my lab coat on and take issue with the definition of CATALYST. It is an agent that facilitates or accelerates change in another substances or reaction, specifically without changing itself. It never causes change.

   I got close to a theme without ever quite nailing it down to specific pairs. Enjoyed OSTRICH and the extended THUMB definition.

7. I think ‘cutting off’ in JERK was for the surface only, as JERK and JERKY are synonymous.

8. Started well and ran into a brick wall. Then I spotted the theme, for once, in time for it to help me! Couldn’t parse GOLDEN.
   Thanks to Eileen and Brummie.

9. Alan@7 – are they? I always took JERK to be a verb and JERKY to be the noun.

   Anyway, I definitely read it as JERKY – Y. Assumed briefly that I was going to be looking for Steve Martin films.

10. Sorry, I still don’t understand GOLDEN. “Mean to follow this” – the “this” is GOLDEN so GOLDEN MEAN, which is a middle way? So, isn’t “middle way” the definition?

    I saw the theme quite early, but it didn’t help too much. Thanks Brummie for an interesting Xword, and Eileen for the blog

11. BrerMark @1 TAR BABY was also on my list.

    I think I’ve have had JERK BAKED BEANS at some point. I’ve definitely got Sufjan Stevens album Come On Feel the Illinoise, but haven’t played it for ages, so I rectify that today.

    Thanks Brummie and Eileen

12. Thanks, PostMark @1 – I’d forgotten him!
    And thanks to James O’Hagan @2, gsolphotog @3 and AlanC @7 re 10ac.

13. Boffo@6 – as an erstwhile chemist, I’m happy with CATALYST as an agent but not a reagent – exactly as in your definition.

14. Boffo @9: I’m referring to the meat strips Jerk/Jerky and that is my favourite Steve Martin film. The opening scene is hilarious.

15. Thanks Brummie and Eileen
    This went smoothly until the NE, where I struggled, not helped by having UGLI at 5d – either can be justified, but I think this is the more natural reading. It could have been avoided if I’d seen the theme, of course!
    I wasted some time trying for an anagram of “copies” at 23a.
    Boffo got in first with objection to the definition for CATALYST. When “catalyst” is used in everyday speech, almost always “trigger” would be more accurate.
    To me, JERK is a Caribbean spice mix, as in “jerk chicken”, and the dried meat is always “jerky”.

16. Penfold @11: I was playing that yesterday on my daily amble!

17. Alan@14 – at the risk of turning Eileen’s forum into Meat Curing 101 (sorry Eileen), my understanding still applies. JERK is the process of curing meat – JERKY or JERK BEEF is the result. So I would say very much not synonymous.

18. The agent in the surface reading of 14a is clearly intended to be a human agent. But if the answer is supposed to be a chemical CATALYST, this surely cannot be defined as “agent who changes”. So perhaps the answer is supposed to be a human catalyst, ie someone who inspires changes, which would perhaps dispose of Boffo’s objection @6.

    Thanks Brummie and Eileen.

19. A little easier than the last three, but also a little less entertaining, but they did set an impossibly high standard to maintain. Still took me a while to solve, and I only spotted the theme after finishing.

    Thanks to Brummie and Eileen

20. Boffo @17: I read this and thus made my comment ‘According to most food history authorites, like Alan Davidson, and John Mariani jerk is a Spanish word that comes via the Peruvian word charqui, a word for dried strips of meat like what we call Jerky, in much of the world. The word started as a noun and then became a verb as in “Jerking” which meant to poke holes in the meat so the spices could permeate the meat.’

    If I’m mistaken, well there you go, just trying to help.

21. I’ve completed this week’s marathon without complaint as I’m fortunate to have the time for long haul puzzles, but I confess to feeling relieved by Brummie’s offering today!

    Like other chemists here I was uncomfortable with the definition for 14ac. A Catalyst by its scientific definition does not change itself but facilitates change in something else without being the primary cause of the change.

    Lots to like here – I especially enjoyed the source of wind! Must be my Paulian streak.

22. It was enjoyable to solve this puzzle, parts of which were Quiptic-like. I needed assistance with the GK and learnt some new trivia today. Last to be solved were 8ac and 1d.

    New: Tom Bell (actor) – thank you, wikipedia. FROG = the piece into which the hair is fitted at the lower end of the bow of a stringed instrument; nickname for Orlando, the City Beautiful.

    Liked THUMB (mainly because I did not need to search wikipedia for info about regions of Northumberland).

    I did not pick up on the theme. And I got 9ac wrong – I put GROPE – I thought it had something to do with barnacle sex (the “male” gropes around with his penis until he finds a mate) – it made sense at the time but GOLDEN GROPE does not work with the theme LOL

    Thanks, Brummie & Eileen

23. This is what I was thinking of for “jerk”. I don’t know if the dried meat can just be called “jerk” too, but it certainly can be called “jerky”, so the clue works.

24. I parsed 10a in the same way as the comments at 2, 3 and 23, ie cutting end off sun-dried meat strips -> jerk(y) with definition being stupid person.

25. Chambers includes for CATALYST: “a person who causes or promotes change by their presence in a situation or their input into it (fig)”. As I said @18, the definition must refer to a human CATALYST because of the word “who”.

26. I could see lots of theme elements but wasn’t sure what exactly the theme was: pantomimes? fairy tales? Brothers Grimm? Hans Christian Andersen? Is TAR BABY part of the theme or not, as I only know it from Uncle Remus? Anyway, it was fun. Thanks Brummie, and thanks Eileen for putting FROG PRINCE the right way round. (I didn’t know that meaning of FROG, either).

    There is also the reference to the Ugly Sisters in 5d. Speaking of which, today’s quiblet is that both of the homophone clues (PRINCE/PRINTS and UGLI/UGLY) could be read in either direction until the theme or the crossers showed which value was true.

27. ENO is a catalyst
    Otherwise my least favourite of the week (the competition was stiff admittedly)

28. I seem to be in a minority in finding this quite tough. I spent ages on 3d which I couldn’t get, like Michelle @22 had ‘grope’ for GOOSE at 9a and had to enter the ‘Bow adjuster’ at 26d from wordplay alone.

    As with the pronunciation of UKASE yesterday, I’ve only ever come across UGLI in crosswords and for no good reason thought it was pronounced as ‘yew-glee’. Therefore another to hold me up for what was a very slow DNF. Still, seeing the word pairs at the end added to the enjoyment and was some compensation.

    Thanks to Brummie and Eileen

29. At last! A puzzle I could actually do this week (but no complaints on the others – I obviously just need more practice).

    Didn’t spot the theme but the mention of GOLDEN and the fairtales had me thinking about Peter Pan – when I was but a lad “Peter Pan’s Playground” by the pier in Southend-on-Sea had a replica (not a very good one) of the Golden Hind. Why, I have no idea but I remember playing in it as a small Bartok.

    [Penfold @11: I see your Jerk Baked Beans and raise you Coddled Eggs with Curried Baked Beans – a spoonful of curried baked beans in an egg coddler, put the egg on top and then place (sealed) in boiling water for 10 minutes. One my mother’s “inventions”…]

    Thanks to Brummie and Eileen.

30. Many thanks to Brummie for the fun puzzle, and Eileen for the blog. For once I gleaned the theme in time for it to be really helpful: confirming SLEEPING and FROG, and lighting my way to UGLY and GOLDEN GOOSE. But I didn’t exactly sail through this one at 3am …

31. gladys @26: I ventured TAR BABY with a query @1 because, like you, I see the others identified by Eileen as sharing a broad genre into which TB does not fit. I cannot imagine a pantomime, ballet or comic opera based on the story and all the others are primary characters whereas the Tar Baby is more of a … catalyst?

32. Postmark @31: the TAR BABY only fits if the theme is widened to include folktales: apparently it is a widespread motif in African and other folklore, which Joel Chandler Harris recycled into a Brer Rabbit story.

    Having identified the GOOSE and thinking the theme might be pantomimes, I wasted some time looking in vain for MOTHER.

33. We are truly blessed this week, Brummie after Brendan, Paul and Vlad plus the special on Tuesday. Thank you Eileen, I never spotted the theme at all. Very slight quibble , do prince and prints really sound the same ?

34. In this offering from Brummie, I greatly appreciated the setter’s skill in shaping the wordplay, the pleasing surfaces, the degree of stretch in vocabulary and semantics and the level of GK required. Really enjoyed it.
    As so often, when a word has a core scientific sense which is extended through common usage, the scientists complain that the definition component of the clue is technically incorrect:; I am sure their account of the chemistry is correct, but no appeal to the core or root sense of a word stands up in the court of crossword setting, does it?

35. pserve_p2 @34
    As I said earlier, every time you feel moved to say “catalyst”, try saying “trigger” instead…

36. PS to @34. (Of course, the humanities-trained members of the crosswording community show the same tendency to baulk at the setter’s use of word meanings which have been distorted from their “core” semantics through common usage, but which are widely recognised as part of current English language.)

37. Another enjoyable solve with something of a sting in its tail, GOLDEN as my last one in, guessed because I didn’t know the expression. Actually I wrote MEDIAN for that clue quite early on – not unreasonably I thought – and that proved to be the source of some of my difficulties later.

    I missed the theme, and wondered about bell = TOM, aware of the one at Oxford but thinking that Great Tom in St Paul’s might be a more likely candidate – not that it matters to most solvers. On reflection I think I prefer the actor idea as it doesn’t rely on the omission of ‘Great’. After all one wouldn’t expect to see bell = BEN.

    There were a couple of homophone clues that I thought could have been interpreted either way but for checkers. That rarely happens in the Times (my usual hunting ground) but being newish to the Guardian I don’t know how particular they are on such matters.

38. muffin @35: Oh? Are you suggesting that the layman should simply not be allowed to use the word “catalyst” at all, then? (Because the layman can’t be trusted to use it correctly — so use another word instead?)

39. jackkt@37: I have found, since I swapped from Times to Grauniad a year or so ago, that the latter takes a much more relaxed stance regarding such issues as the “either would work” homophone solution. The G puzzles are a lot more loose in many ways, I think.

40. pserve_p2 @38
    No, I’m saying that a trigger causes something to happen, a catalyst doesn’t. As a registered pedant (and ex-teacher), I think I’m allowed to correct misusages, and not just scientific ones! How about “aggravate”?

41. muffin@40: Well, I am a long-serving and staunch member of my local pedant association (and, coincidentally, also an ex-teacher) and I am shocked by your bald assertion that “a trigger causes something to happen, a catalyst doesn’t”. Here is my Oxford Dict of Eng definition and illustrative example for this word: “a person or thing that precipitates an event: the prime minister’s speech acted a s a catalyst for debate“.
    So, to be pedantic about it, the word ‘catalyst’ means something or someone that causes an event — whatever you might wish.
    Natural language is like that. It refuses to be tied down by rules.

42. As I finally got CATALYST I thought to myself, “Clever to use “who” rather than “which” and avoid a controversy”.
    I don’t see where “this” fits in for GOLDEN.
    At a stretch Woolf’s ORLANDO is a kind of fairy story. remember seeing a great theatrical version at the Royal Exchange in the happy days when you could go to the theatre.

43. [pserve_p2
    I’ve had this argument before. I don’t object to a word taking on a new meaning. The problem I have is with two words that have different meanings coming to be used interchangeably. viz. irritate/aggravate. centre/epicentre, or even trigger/catalyst.]

44. [muffin@40: “aggravate”? Um… I don’t know. What about it? Is there an issue there?]

45. [pserve_p2
    “Aggravate” = “make worse”. “Sprinting for the bus aggravated his leg injury” for example.]

46. I’ve just looked up the etymology of catalyst and it comes from the Greek meaning loosen down.
    As a non chemist I’ve enjoyed the debate about its exact meaning.
    And I enjoyed the crossword too but of course completely missed the theme. Putting in Grope at 9a didn’t help either.
    So you’re not alone Michelle @22!

47. Chambers has CATALYST as, among other things, “a person who causes or promotes change”

48. I’ll put on my lab coat and say that I agree with Lord Jim @18/25 that the clue refers to a person; nuff said!

    A delightful puzzle, although I didn’t see the theme, doh!

    I especially liked the clues for RECESS, CATALYST, OSTRICH and the neat little FROG (although I didn’t know that meaning).

    Thanks to Brummie for the comprehensive setting, and to Eileen for the nice links (although I think that maybe TOM Bell was intended because, as jackkt @37 says, he doesn’t need a ‘Great’.)

49. Dave Ellison @10 – I’m sorry your comment got overlooked. I did ponder the definition of 3dn – I’ve pondered again and I think you’re right. I’ll amend the blog.

    From my O Level General Science, I did remember the definition of CATALYST but, like Lord Jim @18 and Petert @42* I took it that Brummie was using it to refer to a person and so didn’t comment. I was a bit rushed this morning, because I’ve been out for a long-awaited dental appointment – now feeling much more comfortable!
    *and Robbie @38.

    Roz @33 – I did say ‘something like’. 😉

50. Roz @33: can you really pronounce ‘prince’ audibly distinguishable from ‘prints’?

    Unlike many homophones, this one seems to work across the full spectrum of regional accents in the English-speaking world.

51. I pretty much concur with everything jackkt@37 says, tried to force in Median, puzzled over the homophone at 23ac, and didn’t know GOLDEN. I suppose if I had twigged the theme things would have had a greater clarity today. Even tried Grope instead of GOOSE at 9ac

52. Dave Ellison @10/Eileen @49; not that it really matters but I don’t think ‘middle course’ is the definition because that is GOLDEN MEAN. I think the definition is ‘this’. Otherwise, the whole clue could perhaps be underlined; well, that’s my way of looking at it anyway.

53. Fun, solving helped by spotting the theme. Toyed with both median and grope before seeing the error of my ways. Fav clues were CATALYST and OSTRICH. Thanks to Brummie and Eileen

54. Like several others, I had GROPE unfortunately for 9a, and missed the theme so until I came here I hadn’t seen the error of my ways. Unlike Eileen I found this very tough for some reason (spotting the theme would have helped!). Many thanks to B & E.

55. Another MEDIAN here – forced to change later when DIRTY LINEN appeared. But it did put me in mind of the previous pedantry debate of mean/mode/median. I had PRINTS too, until the DUCKLING waddled in. I also hesitated for a long time over scales=peels (and even your Chambers quote is unconvincing, Eileen). Did not see – or even look for – the theme. But, having written extensively on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics in my PhD, GOLDEN was a doddle. Tried to get Brum into the City Beautiful. I did like MODIGLIANI. Thanks, Brummie and Eileen.

56. I’m another who wrote in ugli. Homophone clues with no way to spot which is the solution are a pet dislike for me.
    I also thought 3d a poor clue. I had median which I think works far better. Ugli and median together made 11 look very strange. I gave up and started to read the above, but once Eileen pointed out the theme it had to be golden, so thanks Eileen. I suppose needing the hint makes it a did not finish even though I didn’t need to see the answers.

57. Hi Robi @52 Oh dear – ‘I used to be indecisive but …’
    On a third pondering, I’m going back to my original thought. (Final answer!)

58. A satisfying end to the week. I didn’t spot the theme (as usual) and I didn’t know that meaning of JERK. Interesting that the BAKED BEANS anagram also gives NAKED BABES which could also produce wind! Thanks Brummie and Eileen

59. Eileen @49/57: yep, like Robi I thought you were right first time! 😉 I understood 3d’s construction as ‘If ‘mean’ follows this (= GOLDEN), you get a phrase meaning ‘middle course’. A bit like an ablative absolute – ‘Mean following, this (gives you) middle course’.

    On CATALYST, perhaps the chemists can agree that the introduction of one ensures that a change happens (in a given time frame and/or under a certain set of conditions) which otherwise would not have taken place?

    Oh, and I was another nominee for the GOLDEN GROPES.

    Many thanks Brummie and Eileen.

60. essexboy @59
    If you mean “…which otherwise would not have taken place within that time“, that would be fine. Without the added words, it directly contradicts the scientific definition.

61. Thanks essexboy and Robi. I get the point of “this” now. Where’s Old Otter when you need him?

62. Thanks essexboy @59 – you typed while I was still dithering with my amendment of the blog!

63. I was never concerned about the scientific definition of CATALYST as clearly the clue implies a person. Isn’t there a bit of double duty with ‘players’? I read the def as ‘Agent who changes players’ and of course players = cast in the wordplay. That way, the agent (cause of debate) is not necessarily changed, but the players (participants in debate) most certainly are.

    I was v pleased to get the ‘food’ theme, less pleased on coming to 15sq that it was a fairy tale etc theme

64. Essexboy@59 – your definition of ensuring that change happens (within a certain time frame or under a set of conditions) is gold dust to a spin doctor. You could claim that Boris was a catalyst for eradicating Covid, or that Piers Morgan is a catalyst for high-quality journalism. I do feel it lacks scientific precision. 🙂

65. muffin@43 I think a trigger is half way between the strict sense of catalyst and an actual cause. It’s the exploding gases that cause the bullet to fly through the air and it’s the pent-up emotions that cause the outburst; the trigger just helps release them.

66. I enjoyed this and agree with Eileen on her favourites. I did not notice the theme. My repost to the pedants is, did it stop you getting to the answer? If it did not, and in this case the wordplay was cast iron, then I’m sorry, end of debate, you do not really need to mention it! Many thanks Brummie and Eileen.

67. Thanks both,
    Although I’ve enjoyed the week’s toughies, it was good to have a puzzle I could finish. I don’t think ‘trigger’ works as a synonym for ‘catalyst’ in the figurative sense as a catalyst’s action generally extends through time whereas a trigger initiates something.

68. pserve_p2 @50 – give us a call if you want to hear someone say “prints” with a “t” in it and “prince” without. Near enough for a crossword, though, so I am not complaining. I also thought people would appreciate the speech marks in 5d to indicate what was being misheard, but apparently not.
    And Chambers does have “name for a big bell” as a definition for TOM.

69. Thanks for the blog.
    Brummie’s surfaces have got a lot better.
    Gave up on frog and golden.
    Terry Pratchchet’s Unseen University has Old Tom – which tolls silences of course. Almost everything in TP has identifiable origins in real life, suitably twisted…

70. p-serve_p2 @50, thanks for reply, sorry I have been busy. I think one of them has a t in it, think about the position of your tongue as you say both. Only a tiny quibble, I did love the crossword.

    3 down definition is this , as many have said, making the phrase golden mean. Widely used by Horace in his odes in praise of following the middle course in life.

71. Thank you Van Winkle @68, I did not see your post while I was replying and I agree it is close enough.

72. This was fun – another here who looked for ‘mother’…
    ORLANDO the Marmalade CAT might just qualify since TAR BABY seems to be included?
    Thank you Brummie and Eileen.

73. Thanks Eileen, and Brummie for a relative stroll today. I’m amazed that so many of us failed to spot the theme when I, who so rarely do, saw it almost immediately (although I agree with PostMark @41 that TAR BABY is a bit of a stretch).

    This chemist (aren’t there a lot of us?) had no problem with ‘agent who changes’ as a definition for CATALYST, even without the personal relative pronoun ‘who’, which implies a metaphorical rather than a physical allusion. The verb ‘change’ is one of many in English that can be used transitively (A changes B) or ergatively (A changes, ie becomes changed). If the clue is read with ‘changes’ in its transitive sense the objection fades. A catalyst certainly facilitates a change, which might otherwise be immeasurably slow.

74. Orlando the City Beautiful — I didn’t know either, and I’ll bet most Americans outside Florida don’t either.

    Does anybody else know the round ” Great Tom is cast, and Christ’s Church bells ring one…two-thre-four-five six and Tom comes last.” Second part comes in on “cast.”

    Nice puzzle, delightful blog, thanks Brummie and Eileen.

75. A refreshing end to the week. At last one we could complete within our allotted time.

    Had no idea on parsing of GOLDEN so thanks Eileen.

    Thought CATALYST might TRIGGER a debate but not to such an extent. The clue is ‘who’ changes, not ‘which’ or ‘that’ changes , so I don’t see the need to clarify the chemistry meaning.

76. Gervase @73 TAR BABY may be a bit of a stretch, but I think we’re stuck with it.

77. Hi Valentine @74 – we sang that in class in primary school at about age seven! I thought it was / we were so clever.
    I’ve never heard it since but it was the first thing I thought of this morning when solving the puzzle. I’ve just found this

78. I got GOLDEN by thinking of the ‘middle’ of a target as GOLD, but obviously EN cannot be a ‘course’; so ‘this’ is clearly the definition, but it’s a strange clue. Like a few others I had GROPE (though not until I’d finally got UGLY), and only realised my error when reading Eileen’s preamble – there was a theme? – whereupon GOOSE became the obvious ‘inappropriate prod’, so a DNF for me too.

    Much sympathy for CATALYST pedants – I fill up with rage every time I see bacteria or criteria used by journalists as singular nouns – but this is a crossword, not a chemistry exam, as someone else pointed out a few weeks ago. If the dictionary includes a definition which the setter has used, your complaint is a little late.

    Nice to be reminded of the actor TOM Bell, but I thought the clue was referring to big brass bells.

    Ancient joke (predating digital photography): What did Cinderella say when her photos did not show up? Someday my prints will come!

79. I had TIM instead of TOM, so technically a DNF but I think I can justify it as an alternative. Tim = Tim Bell, a Thatcher adviser from a while back, and also = the “unfinished” book of Timothy in the bible. Bit of a stretch I would admit, but so is Tom Bell IMHO and you certainly avoid the problem with “Great”! But Reveal said TOM so I guess that was the intention.

    Missed the theme, but then again I always do.

80. My first Guardian puzzle after years of doing FTs, and pleasantly easy! From previous bloggers I thought these were harder. Only needed Word Wizard a couple of times and all fell delightfully into place. I had “median” for 3D until I got ILLINOIS, and needed blog for GOOSE. Thanks, Brummie and Eileen.

81. [Andy+Smith @69: Thanks for reminding me of Old Tom: the bell has no clapper so he cannot ring, but being made of magical metal he stops conversation every midday with twelve deafening silences…]

82. Several people have mentioned MEDIAN as a possible solution for 3d, and I must admit the thought did enter my head, but only in a horrified “Oh no, he hasn’t, has he?” kind of way. We had enough kerfuffle on here when ‘average’ was used to clue MODE the other day (Anto on 4 February), but mean and median are so different from each other that such a clue would surely have been picked up by the editor, even if Brummie – no, impossible. (After writing what I did @78 I thought I’d better check in my dictionary, which fortunately doesn’t give any equivalence of mean and median, though they both come from the same Latin root, via French in the case of the former. I did find them as adjectivally synonymous in a thesaurus though.)

83. [SH @78 The same ancient joke came to my mind, but it’s Snow White rather than Cinders.]

84. Breezed through this (unlike the last couple of days…), but did not get GOOSE (both definitions were unfamiliar to me), so technically a DNF.

85. Some nice clues here, but there is a regrettable lack of precision in 23A and 5D as it is not at all clear in either clue which of the homophones is the answer until all the checked letters are in place.

86. [Penfold – of course, you’re right. That’s what I get for copying from the internet!]

87. [hatter & Penfold: whichever of them it was, they could’ve done with a Pr-Instamatic … now where’s that coat…]

88. Under lockdown, she can only meet him over Zoom, so he’s a digital Prince

89. Glad to see that I wasn’t the only groper! Totally missed the theme, of course, which would have helped me mend my ways.

90. [pserve_p2 @41: “Natural language is like that. It refuses to be tied down by rules.” Well said. Unlike French and Italian which bend over backwards to keep their languages static English is very dynamic. I highly recommend Simon Winchester’s The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary. My guess is that most on this blog have read this; if not, you’re in for a treat.]

91. [Tony Santucci @90
    I agree in principle, but having words with different meanings become interchangeable doesn’t enrich the language; it degrades it.]

92. [muffin: One of the reasons we have cryptic crosswords is because of the very fluidity of the English language that you are now decrying! Seems kinda enriching to me…]

93. Very nice puzzle, thanks to Brummie.

94. [sheffield hatter and muffin on fifteensquared we get the best of both worlds word play, imagination, fluidity commented on with precision and fine detail. For me, the real misuse of language comes more from a deliberate attempt to deceive rather than from the occasional imprecision. So, if someone says “Brexit will be a catalyst for change” I am more worried about the way it hides the deliberate attempt to attack people’s rights than whether “trigger” would have been a better word. Catalyst and facilitate are used too often to mask brute force,

95. [SH @92
    Yes, the flexibility of English makes crossword writing easier. However, if you are going to use “epicentre” to mean “absolute centre”, what word can you use for the place on the Earth’s surface directly above the focus of the earthquake? If you use “aggravate” to mean “irritate”, what single word can you use to mean “make worse”?]

96. [muffin – That’s a good point. It obviously irritates/aggravates you (sorry) that people use these terms incorrectly. But the fact that this misuse happens doesn’t actually prevent someone describing the point on the Earth’s surface above the focus of an earthquake as an epicentre. If a new word was created to describe such a place, it would only be a few years before journalists and online commentors started using it to describe the heart of a hurricane as well, and you’d be back where you started. All you can do is keep on using the word correctly and putting people right where appropriate. In the meantime, if the incorrect usage has reached dictionaries, you won’t be able to stop crossword compilers using it wrongly too. Sorry.]

97. [SH
    Indeed. I wish the “descriptive” type of dictionaries were much more to add “incorrect”.]

98. ..prepared..

99. Thanks Eileen for explaining various things and pointing out the theme which passed me by as usual, and to various people above for expanding on the golden mean ( my LOI as I only knew the mathematical term). I agree with grumbling over homophone ambiguity which held me up for a while. With all the musical knowledge in here I can’t believe nobody quoted the great Ian Dury: “I could be the catalyst that sparks a revolution” – what a waste! My favourite Ostrich, thanks Brummie.

100. [I’m with muffin @91 – here, in France, no chance of degradation of the language thanks to the Académie Française.]

101. Gazzh – but it could have been any of the others who made the same complaint – I’m going to defend Brummie from your charge of unfairness. I didn’t see a huge problem with PRINCE or PRINTS. I simply didn’t write in the last two letters until I had solved the crossing clue. At least I now knew that 19d would start D_C… or D_T…, which is slightly better than knowing it starts with a D.

     As regards UGLI/UGLY, OK I already had the last letter when I solved it, but the clue gives a pretty big hint by putting ‘fruit’ in quote marks. On top of that, the crossing clue is two five letter words, for which Y is a more likely ultimate letter than I, so I don’t see a lot of ambiguity there.

102. SH@78, Penfold@93
     Years ago around Christmas time an ad for a film processor on the back of London buses used to say, “A lad in our darkroom will make your prints charming”. It still makes me smile.

103. Tom Bell (actor) is a name I can dimly remember, but I assumed the connection to be the ringing kind. I think of the Oxford one as Old, not Great, possibly due to the pub just over the road from it.
     I only twigged Prints/Prince because I had the exact same problem with Bends/Benz a few months back. When the vowels don’t work for me, I assume it’s down to accents, but I’m pickier about consonants.

104. Postmark@1, gladys et al. – Tar baby caught my eye as well, but having grown up very near where Joel Chandler Harris grew up and considering some of the questionable aspects of those stories, I didn’t want to be the first to bring it up. I don’t think it fits the theme but I gotta say it’s a hell of a coincidence for those to show up in this particular puzzle.

     Regarding the catalyst controversy, I found the definition inaccurate but perfectly acceptable. Of course, as an engineer, I’m accustomed to scientists rolling their eyes at me. (I do the same to them, just less conspicuously).

     Finally – I wasn’t familiar with the golden mean but when I google it, I get an image of the golden ratio. Not the same thing and very irritating.

105. Why is light land (18a)?

106. Chambers: to come down, eg from a horse or vehicle or from a fall or flight

     Collins: (esp. of birds) to settle or land after flight

107. Pino at 102 reminded me of a long ago sign in the reprographics room where I worked in the days before you did your own copying which read “Someday your prints will come” . The original song “Someday my prince will come” was from the Disney film of Snow White, giving a nod to Brummie’s theme.

108. Well, who’d have thunk it? Thank you, Eileen.

109. I vaguely recalled this use of FROG, and had to check the JERK/JERKY relationship. For once I’d seen the theme soon enough to look for SLEEPING and GOLDEN. So I knew it had to be GOLDEN, but looked it up to see if there was a strange meaning and scrolled down to see GOLDEN MEAN.

110. Sheffield hatter @101: l don’t think anyone is claiming that the homophones were a major obstacle (I did exactly the same as you did). It’s an argument we have had before: should a cryptic clue, considered in isolation, have (at least in theory) a unique possible solution? Of course in practice we all take all the help we can get from crossers, and today’s examples were a very minor irritation at worst.

111. I’m behind in my crosswords so just finished this one.

     Gladys@110, my answer to your question “should a cryptic clue, considered in isolation…have a unique solution” would be a definite no. My reason: cryptic clues are not to be considered in isolation, that is what crossers are for, and that is why the puzzle is called a crossword. Where two possible solutions are unfair is where the correctness of one over the other cannot be determined from the crossers. So, for example, 5d UGLY would have been a bad clue if the crossers had been the U and L.

     I am also surprised, reading the comments here, that some people still think that homophones are incorrect if they sound similar but not exactly the same. Since regional/international accents differ so widely, it is a rare pair of words that would sound identical to everyone in crosswordland. If that were a requirement, a homophone would not be an acceptable device in a clue.

     Since no one other than Eileen and Gaufrid will read this post, I may repeat one or both of these points when the issues arise again, as they certainly will.

     Meanwhile, thanks Brummie for the excellent puzzle, and Eileen for the informative and entertaining blog. (I was not familiar with that round, and couldn’t figure out the metre without hearing it.)

112. Thanks for that, cellomaniac (if you’ve come back). I concur wholeheartedly with both your points – as you say, they’re perennial, but as we get new commenters all the time, it’s inevitable they should keep coming up.

     Since no one else, other than Gaufrid, is likely to see this, I’ll take a liberty. When I first found 15², I used to say, from time to time, ‘My late Scottish husband wouldn’t like this one’, when we had, for instance, fought and fort presented as ‘homophones’ – I can still hear his ‘Occhhh!’ when one appeared and it was something I always teased him about. Through this discussion, I learned the word ‘rhotic’.

     Shed had a bit of fun with us in one puzzle – but, of course, it did nothing to stop the arguments.
     http://www.fifteensquared.net/2009/07/09/guardian-24747-shed/
     In those days, we didn’t use to give the clues – the clue for 7dn was ‘Tenor in drunken choir fought for fort – not in this accent! (6)
     (See comment 24.)

113. Eileen, thanks for the link to the 2009 blog, and good on Shed for creating that excellent clue for you. In that blog Neil asked what the term is for someone who doesn’t pronounces their r’s, and the answer was “non-rhotic”. As a rhotic speaker, and in deference to your late husband I think the term should be “non-otic”, but that might be a bit of editorialising.

114. Thanks for your response sheffieldhatter@101, and to the other later posts above for adding to the discussion. I promise this is not just an attempt to have the last word but to clarify exactly my mild( as per gladys@110) grumble: in fact i didn’t have a problem with UGLY at all, maybe because of that helpful punctuation as sheffieldhatter mentions. My gripe about 23A is probably just that the clue could be restated to remove the ambiguity simply by swapping the last two words, with little or no damage to the surface (well it makes as much sense to me at least). cellomaniac@111, I agree that clues only need to have unique solutions once crossers are known, but for some reason had a complete mental blank on DUCKLING so was reliant on PRINxx to coax that one out, hence my frustration.

115. I will always see late posts everyone so keep them coming

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