Guardian 28,424 – Nutmeg

102 comments on “Guardian 28,424 – Nutmeg”

1. Wow, this was difficult! I am usually quite good at solving Nutmeg’s puzzles but it took me a while to get started today.

   Favourite: IMBROGLIO which works for me as I + rev of GO R in LIMBO*
   New: B&Q company, BELAY.

   Did not parse FOG LAMP (and still do not really understand this after reading the blog), SOTTO VOCE apart from SOT TO bits, FLAKY.

2. A theme that was well above my pay grade if Andrew’s right – and it seems too much of a coincidence for it not to be. But, as with such themes, that didn’t detract from the solving experience which was as smooth as ever – though I did encounter the same imbroglio with IMBROGLIO. Some very witty and occasionally cheeky clueing with plenty of Aha moments. It was almost as if Alan Partridge was right alongside me.

   Quite a few to unashamedly list as having tickled me today: LOG CABINS is a beautiful misdirect with the remote connections, the surface of BOHEMIANS conjured up an amusing picture, FOG LAMP is cleverly constructed with another nice surface, COAL FIRED is naughty but gorgeous, ANOMALOUS produces another cheeky scenario, both BEGUN and BELAY are succinct with unexpected definitions and I adored the whispering wino in SOTTO VOCE. My COTD is AMPERSAND: staring me in the face but it took a while before I could clear both the B and the Q from my mind and see what remained.

   Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew

3. 25 works if you take the first I as separate

4. … as per michelle @1.. 🙂

5. Michelle @1: glamping is luxury camping for the one-percenters: $200/night yurts and all that. So to glamp is to “stay under canvas, deluxe style.” Another favorite clue.

   I concur on the parsing of IMBROGLIO–the I needs to be treated as a separate thing at the beginning, and if so, it works.

6. mrpenney@5
   thanks for explaining! I had never heard of glamping – but that might be the only type of camping that would appeal to me 😉

7. This was a mixture of easy and tough. PostMark @2 covers the best ones again. I did notice RICARDUS and LOYAULTE, so I’m delighted Andrew has explained the significance. I also scratched my head over the parsing of IMBROGLIO. Loved AMPERSAND.

   Ta Nutmeg & Andrew

8. Didn’t spot the Ninas. Comme toujours.

   Favourites: AMPERSAND and IMBROGLIO.

   Nitpick: Speaking SOTTO VOCE is not the same as whispering.

9. That was fun, Nutmeg’s surfaces being as smooth as ever. Loved moseyed and sotto voce. Didn’t check for ninas, and probably wouldn’t have seen them. [Not sure what PostMark means by naughty, but firing with coal sure is contentious here… we burn and export mountains of the stuff.] Enjoyable, thanks both.

10. Another absolute joy from Nutmeg. A little more demanding than most of her puzzles, but immaculately constructed as ever and solvable.
    I had no inkling of the nina, and confused myself for a while by confidently entering ‘begat’ at 5d, which I thought was a very clever clue: a typical case of leading oneself up the garden path by over-thinking.

11. gif @9: naughty in the drug allusion rather than suggesting anything salacious. Calling coal ‘unrefined coke’ is a masterstroke.

    BTW, I’m with you in enjoying MOSEYED and think it’s probably the first time I’ve every seen it written down. For some reason, inexplicably linked with cowboys in my mind. I’m sure plenty of others mosey.

12. I got AMPERSAND eventually (tea tray moment) but had no idea what B&Q was. I spent ages misdirecting myself because I kept reading it as “BBQ”.

13. Completely missed the Nina as usual, but a solid Nutmeg as ever, although I would question whether KNOSSOS is a ‘Greek’ city? I was led to understand that the Minoans and the Ancient Greeks were not at all fond of each other.

    AMPERSAND was hilarious – definitely not par for the course for Nutmeg. I also enjoyed POSSESS, COAL FIRED and ACCESSION – the latter was one of those rare clues where I was able to parse it step by step, and realise to my happy surprise that I had created a word that matched the definition.

    Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew

14. Yay Nutmeg. A slow start but a pleasure, so much to like.. Agree w Michells @1 and others re parsing of IMBROGLIO. Noticed what I thought were almost ninas eg loyaulte without recognizing they were in fact ninas, thanks Andrew for the enlightenment. Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew

15. [Michelle @1 and mrpenney @5 Just to say that glamping needn’t be so expensive if you’re willing to go out of season:
    ‘Now is the winter of our discount tents’]

    AMPERSAND was also my favourite. Can’t decide about the parsing of IMBROGLIO. I’m torn.

    Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew

16. Surely misdo is not a real word! My two LOIs left me feeling a bit disappointed in what was otherwise a great crossword. The other one was score, which is only just about OK, but I think there could be lots of better clues for that word. And I agree about glamping out of season!

17. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew
    Great fun. I loved LOG CABINS and FLAKY. I didn’t parse ACCESSION as I didn’t know ACC for accompanied.
    Why are POSSES “backup” groups?

18. muffin @17: isn’t the idea of a posse to back up the sheriff? The sheriff was the official law enforcer but, when numbers were needed, a posse would be assembled to support? I think that’s also translated into modern vernacular where a posse can be an entourage of a celeb or gang of followers of a stronger character.

19. Odd what clicks and what doesn’t. I have never had as many write-ins in a Nutmeg before and it all flowed easily. I didn’t see – or seek – the very clever ninas and I still have no idea what the theme is!
    Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew.

20. Thanks Andrew, i guessed patio but couldn’t see the why even though it was staring me in the face, missed the Latin of course and look forward to future topical expansion by the scholars.
    Thanks also Michelle@1 as I got tangled up in IMBROGLIO [sadly not in the sense you are thinking about, Penfold@15] – don’t let me put you off but while the tents themselves can be fantastically kitted out, you may still be faced with a trek to the Ladies through long wet grass first thing in the morning, so take your wellies.
    I joined the overthinker brigade by trying to concoct indirect anagrams for TIBIA and MISDO, should have known better of course. (Is MISDO ever seen in that form or only the results of such action, a MISDEED?)
    Anyway i certainly I don’t see MOSEYED often enough these days so that is my favourite, thanks Nutmeg.

21. Boffo @13. (Warning, spoiler for yesterday’s Vulcan!) There’s a corny joke that goes “Waiter, what’s this?” “It’s bean soup, sir.” “Yes, but what is it now?” Although KNOSSOS was originally Minoan, it’s Greek now…

22. Excellent puzzle, with a lot of nice words and clever and amusing clues. As someone who rarely spots even a glaringly obvious theme, I stand no chance whatsoever of recognising a Nina…. (Am I missing anything topical about Richard III? It isn’t the anniversary of Bosworth).

    Favourites were FLAKY, AMPERSAND and COAL-FIRED. I share the doubts of Boffo @13 that KNOSSOS was Greek (although the Mycenaeans did take it over eventually) but wotthehell. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew.

23. Andrew, you flatter me: to my shame, I didn’t even see the brilliant Nina.
    I’ll admit to being a Richard enthusiast but can’t claim to be an expert. I am enormously proud that he was finally given a proper interment in our cathedral here in Leicester and I’ve just spent a pleasant while browsing the book of photographs published soon after the event, including a close-up of the beautiful coffin crafted by his descendant, Michael Ibsen, with the motto carved on the inside of the lid.

    I can’t add anything to what Andrew discovered but Penfold @15 has truly excelled himself today. At risk of seeming patronising, I’ll spell it out for those who may have missed it: the opening lines of Shakespeare’s ‘Richard III are
    ‘Now is the winter of our discontent
    Made glorious summer by this sun of York…’
    Chapeau, Penfold!

    Many thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew.

24. I struggled a little with the bottom three lines but overall very enjoyable. I’m another who couldn’t sort out IMBROGLIO so thanks Michelle. 7d RAITA was a Jorum(?) for me. 15a reminds me of the occasion where someone asked for further identification in US 30 years ago produced his B&Q loyalty card. Asked what it stood for he replied Bush and Quail and that sufficed. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew

25. Mrs ginf of blessed memory, something of a polyglot (Fr, Ger, It), wondered how you could translate that son/sun pun…

26. That was straightforward but fun. Favourites already mentioned by others. I took SCORE as a triple definition “Nick” / “get off” (with someone, for purposes of what crosswords call ‘it’) / “mark” – although the grammar doesn’t completely work.
    Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew.

27. blaise @21: Nice try to excuse Nutmeg, but calling Knossos an old Greek city is like calling Istanbul an old Turkish city – it doesn’t really work. But this doesn’t detract from a great puzzle – there is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion.

28. Held myself up a couple of times with this as usual excellent Nutmeg puzzle. Had the enveloping Glamp in the wrong place for 1d, and was therefore trying to force in Gas Lamp there for a while. And had Delay in too quickly and that did cause another delay with BELAY. Many thanks Nutmeg and Andrew…

29. Thank you very much Andrew – a name I find difficult to type with a straight face, since it is also the name of Mrs K’s hot water bottle – for drawing attention to the nina. Can’t say I’m a R III supporter myself – though I admit that H VII seems to have been at least equally bad. 15th C not this country’s finest hour. As a matter of self-indulgent interest, Richard is the third child of my parents (I am the fourth) and it is his birthday (as it is mine) today. Incorporating the nina will account for the slightly amyristical gridfill – though the clues made it as enjoyable as ever from a setter who must be approaching National Treasure status.

30. [grantinfreo @25: few puns are easily translatable, but at least that one still works in contemporary English. The dying embers of the Great Vowel Shift have trashed some of Shakespeare’s puns, eg:
    ‘Now it is Rome indeed and room enough,
    When there is in it but one only man.’]

31. [Hi Gervase, so was Rome pronounced oo or room oh?]

32. Kudos to Andrew for spotting the nina.

    Re Richard III, I’m sure someone posted this a while back, but I can’t resist doing so again:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RwyPDPlFA8

    Many thanks both.

33. Komornik @ 29:

    What does “amyristical” mean please? Google is defeated by it.

34. Well, that was a strange one. Half of it just fell in place – FOG LAMP, LOG CABINS, AMPERSAND and KNOSSOS but fell at so many of the other fences not helped by being on (shock, horror) a train heading to London for the first time for (bigger shock horror) 5 months.

    COTD has to be SOTTO VOCE – a gorgeous surface with an out-loud snigger.

    As for the Nina that just goes to prove after missing the Handel reference yesterday that I am as thick as a brick.

    I’m suprised that B&Q’s cousin, Screwfix, has not appeared in a Paul… yet.

    Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew.

35. Offspinner @34: myristic refers to nutmeg so amyristic is non-nutmeg-like?

36. [Penfold@15
    haha – I just saw your post – very funny!
    Michelle @1 and mrpenney @5 Just to say that glamping needn’t be so expensive if you’re willing to go out of season:
    ‘Now is the winter of our discount tents’]

37. [grantinfreo @31: both ‘oh’, but as a long vowel and not a diphthong]

38. [Michelle @36, Penfold @15: I tried glamping once but didn’t like the atmosphere; it was too in tents]

39. roughtrade@35:

    Thanks. So Komornic made it up!

40. A lovely crossword. My clue of the day was the brilliant AMPERSAND which is going into my hall of fame. Plenty of other ticks including 5a for its reminder of Falstaff’s “rogues in BUCKRAM suits”.

    (A friend of ours went glamping and said it was like staying in someone’s garden shed.)

    Many thanks Nutmeg and Andrew.

41. [MB @38 “Ooh yes, they do everything intense ‘ere” … Williams in Carry On, er, Cleo or, er, Up The Khyber?]

42. Carry on Glamping!

43. 6d caused a double-take since calling COAL unrefined coke is like calling wood unburned embers. It’s sort of true, sort of brilliant and sort of weird at the same time. Hence the question-mark, I suppose.

44. Couldn’t finish this off, with FLAKY unparsed and hence not written in, and I’d never seen MOSEYED written down and had assumed it was MOSIED. So never saw the nina either, though loyaulté me lie was very familiar to me. “Loyalty binds me” is an ironic motto for a man who was ultimately betrayed by William Stanley, who had promised to support him at Bosworth but in fact intervened on the side of the Tudor rebels, which led to Richard’s death. (Fittingly, a decade later Stanley also betrayed Henry VII by supporting Perkin Warbeck and was beheaded.)

    Richard seems to have had a policy of trying to reconcile the warring factions in England, while Henry spent most of his reign killing the remains of the House of York; and of course traducing Richard’s memory, something that was still going on during the reign of his granddaughter, to the extent that most people these days “know” about Richard from Shakespeare, who got most of it from Thomas More. Of course, the winners get to write the history, but the Tudors were up there with Fox News and the Daily Mail when it comes to disseminating lies.

    OK, I’ll stop now. Thanks to Nutmeg for lending me your soap box. (And thanks to Penfold for the winter of our discount tent. 🙂 )

45. Andrew: for AMPERSAND, I don’t get “Cryptic definition; alternatively the ampersand is hidden in B&Q” Where are the alternatives? I see that it refers to the symbol between the two letters, but is there something beyond that? I looked up B&Q this morning and find it looks like our Home Depot, but I’m none the wiser for that. And thanks for parsing DALAI LAMA.

    Eileen @23 When I lived in San Francisco I kept hoping that the Richard III Society (there is one, isn’t there?) would open a chapter that had its headquarters on Bosworth St. They never did, though.

    SCORE — how does it mean “get off the mark”?

    Penfold @15 Great line, and it might help me get over my prejudice against glam activities. But it reminds me that people are fond of quoting Richard’s first line as a way of saying “It’s (metaphorical) winter now”, when if your read Richard’s first and second line you see that he’s sarcastically saying, “Winter is over, it’s summer now.”

    Gazzh@20 It isn’t Latin, it’s medieval French.

    And let me recommend to everybody who hasn’t read it Josephine Tey’s wonderful novel, Daughter of Time, in which Inspector Grant is laid up in hospital with a broken leg and occupies his mind with historical research on Richard, with stunning results. The book is a joy, and maybe I’ll reread it now, since I haven’t in some time.

46. As an RIII fan MrsW will be delighted when I point out the nina to her – and I think I’ll have to own up to not spotting it myself – well done Andrew. Like others AMPERSAND was my top clue and other favourites have been mentioned. Some of our offspring are glamping fans and one of them would give Postmark a run for his money in the pun stakes. Great fun to solve and even more fun to come here and read the comments – thanks to setter, blogger and commenters.

47. Valentine @45. To ‘get off the mark’ is to make your first run in cricket, also known as SCORE.

48. Valentine @45 – SCORE = get off the mark as in a batsman or football team scoring for the first time.

    I enjoyed this muchly. No chance of seeing the nina; amazed by those who did, and amused by Penfold’s “Now is the winter of our discount tents”. Loved IMBROGLIO, SOTTO VOCE and FLAKY. Many thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew

49. Valentine @45. I don’t think 15a is a cryptic definition. ‘Joiner’ simply refers to the function of the logogram &, representing the conjunction “and”; ’employed’ simply refers to it again in the name of the DIY store B&Q. The surface wants you to think of a joiner (or carpenter) employed by the store, but in my experience the people employed at B&Q are either warehousemen or customer service assistants, so I find the clue a bit weak. A joiner encountered in B&Q is more likely to be shopping for some nails.

50. Snap re Tey’s novel, Valentine @45, a favourite of Mrs ginf. Must scan the shelves and reread.

51. hatter @49: perhaps joiner visiting B&Q? It’s still my fave from today, though.

52. Mark @51. Yeah, I was probably a bit rude to call the clue weak. I didn’t get it straight away – I looked again when I had the two crossing As and the penny then dropped, so it’s not a bad clue; just a little inaccurate! I’m not sure your version addresses this, because Nutmeg wants the ampersand to be doing its job in joining the B and the Q, which a visitor would not do. Sorry for dissing your fave. Mine was the ‘unrefined coke’, which only got better when Dr. WhatsOn @43 compared it to calling wood unburned embers: “sort of true, sort of brilliant and sort of weird at the same time“. Nicely put, Doc.

53. Good puzzle. Took me a while and needed help from the check button and dictionaries but just about got there in the end.

    Like others loved AMPERSAND.

    And, like Valentine @45, Daughter of Time – a great book.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew

54. hatter @52: absolutely. As I said to gif in my post @11, ‘unrefined coke’ is brilliant and I liked Dr W’s comparison. My mind went down a different fossil fuel route when the coke penny dropped as I equated Carboniferous forests with unrefined oil which is not as good but on similar lines.

55. Thanks for the blog. Good clues as always, nice to see a word like IMBROGLIO and MOSEYED.

    [ Anyone not yet bored into submission by the GALATEA myth, I have put a comment on General Discussion . There are no links. ]

56. Just a quick note about the parsing of 28a, I had it as King=k, rejected=no, by child=s (for son), urgent appeal=sos. The way it has been parsed above leaves ‘rejected’ as unused.

57. [Thanks sheffield hatter@44 for the extra background and Valentine@45 for pointing that out, it’s all Greek to me really! I also enjoyed Daughter of Time a while ago: despite never having seen/studied Richard III, I was aware of his generally low reputation, so some sort of rehabilitation, however late, was probably fair.]

58. I agree abou the Jospehine Tey book. The title is from a Franics Bacon quote: “truth is the daughter of time, not authority.”
    I first came across the controversy in the splendid Hugh Ross Williamson book “Historical enigmas”. He starts his chapter on the Princes by saying something like “serious scholars no longer wonder if Richard killed the Princes in the tower; instead, when Henry VII did.”
    (I could find the eact quote, but I’m dashing out!)

59. Sheffield Hatter@47 and drofle@48 Thank you. Cricket once again defeats me, this time along with soccer.

60. Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew.

    I agree – a cracker of a puzzle for the most part with perhaps some curlicues (coke=coal, MISDO as a word (but no doubt in some lexicographers treasury)). I liked the elegant BELAY best of all and also the clang from the AMPERSAND pdm.

    Hile Troy@56: I think Andrew’s parsing of KNOSSOS parses mustard if you take “rejected” to be a reversal indicator (rot a kidney?) (as he does).

61. HT@56
    The rejected is used, by the reversal of sos son.
    Many, many thanks to Nutmeg for a really good puzzle, and to Andrew for the blog.

62. [I find all this sanctification of Richard III quite mystifying. He seems not to have been a bad king but his seizure of the throne upset many of his fellow Yorkists, some of whom supported the Buckingham rebellion. And even if he didn’t sanction the removal of his nephews (and most academic historians still do think he probably did – Tey and Ross Williamson were amateur romancers) he certainly made sure they were kept under house arrest. Henry Tudor was no saint, but he didn’t “spend most of his reign killing the remains of the House of York” and was much more successful in pacifying the country than his predecessor, by curtailing the power of the nobles through the outlawing of private armies and punitive taxation. He was a mean old skinflint, but he promoted trade and restored England’s finances. R3 wasn’t as black as the Tudors painted him, but there’s no justification in doing the same to H7. Both products of their age]

63. [Gervase @62
    Richard didn’t believe that the princes had a claim to the throne, as he considered them to be illegitimate. Henry, on the other hand, needed them to be legitimate, as he had married their sister in an attempt to give more legitimacy to his distant claim to the throne. However if Elizabeth of York was legitimate, the princes had a far better claim to the throne than he did.]

64. [muffin @63: If Richard genuinely believed in the illegitimacy there was no reason to lock them up. There were supposedly rumours at the time that he had done away with his nephews, but he didn’t counter them by showing that they were still alive. Eleanor Butler’s family didn’t confirm the existence of the marriage precontract and neither was it produced and properly verified in court. It was probably a fabrication]

65. Gervase @62. I don’t believe anyone is attempting to sanctify Richard! He was a man of his time, a politician with the added burden of believing he had a duty to serve even though he was reluctant to be thrust into the limelight. The death of his brother (Edward IV) was totally unexpected, and until he was shown evidence of the illegitimacy of his nephews he was apparently preparing to crown one of them king and act as his regent during his minority. Having publicly declared them illegitimate, he had no particular reason to kill them, whereas, as muffin has pointed out, Henry did.

    Clearly, with 21st century hindsight, Henry was a more effective politician than Richard. (Killing people rather than trusting them seems like good policy! And “pacifying the country” – it worked for Joe Stalin too.) I think Josephine Tey quotes a historian in her novel, saying that Henry’s “settled policy” was the elimination of the Yorkist claimants. This was said admiringly rather than with any thought of accusing him of murder. (I know it’s fiction, but it certainly rings true.) I think many people who have read The Daughter of Time and maybe other books about this period have a deal of sympathy for Richard, and not just because portraits of Henry make him look like a cross between Ebenezer Scrooge and the chief executive of Manchester United FC. Tey again, and from memory: “Richard was spared the knowledge that his name would become a hissing and a by-word through the centuries.”

    I don’t apologise for not putting square brackets around this post, as it is clear that Nutmeg was looking to provoke this sort of discussion by the use of her nina today.

66. [To further muddy the waters, there is a theory that Edward IV himself was illegitimate – he may well have been conceived while his father, another Richard, was out of the country. Henry VIII went to great lengths to squash this rumour, as it would have put Elizabeth of York – his mother – out of the line of succession.]

67. Actually saw “Now is the discount of our winter tents”in camping specialist window one December …

68. sheffield hatter @65: Certainly not by your good self, but the R3 Society is very hagiographic, to the point of having suggested that his supposed physical deformity was simply Tudor slander (now disproved!) I am not aware of anyone having proof that Richard was actually shown physical evidence of the illegitimacy of his nephews – it seems to have been more suggestion than hard documentation, but it was certainly convenient for him. And comparing Henry VII to Stalin is more mudslinging in the opposite direction, however jokingly intended!

    My point is essentially that to claim that H7 was either a paragon of virtue or utterly wicked is as fatuous as claiming the same for R3.

69. And as for illegitimacy, they all enthusiastically claimed descent from William the Bastard!

70. Gervase – well, indeed! It’s all b*ll*cks isn’t it. The royal family today claims decent from a bunch of hoodlums who would nowadays correctly be described on Line of Duty as organised crime gangs. Luckily our politicians today are cut from a different cloth.

71. Didn’t WDYTYA reveal that Boris descends from ….? via the obverse side of the blanket..?
    I thought Tey etc might open the worm-tin, all the way back to Thales it seems… ah the rich tapestry!

72. [Gervase @68: ” I am not aware of anyone having proof that Richard was actually shown physical evidence of the illegitimacy of his nephews – it seems to have been more suggestion than hard documentation, but it was certainly convenient for him.”

    Indeed, what was he supposed to do – go on the Jeremy Kyle Show and demand a DNA test? I take no sides in this and have no fresh evidence to bring to the table – but as long as the princes’ illegitimacy was ‘a suggestion’ in which he was inclined to believe, it is beside the point to claim that this absolved R of any motive for ‘disappearing them’, as some on here are suggesting. As long as enough people of influence or motivated by self-interest believed and were prepared to claim the opposite – i.e. that the princes were legitimate, equally impervious to firm proof – R’s possession of the crown could not be securely established within the Establishment, as it then was.

    Compare what happened in June, 1688, when James II and VII’s wife, Mary of Modena, produced (allegedly) a male heir who would supersede James’s Protestant daughters, Mary and Anne and secure a Catholic succession. Whigs quickly circulated a ‘suggestion’ that the boy-child had been born to a downstairs servant-girl and smuggled into the queen’s bedroom in a warming pan. Reassuring if true; constitutionally eruptive if false. Unprovable either way, but insufficient to prevent James from being (ahem) displaced and succeeded by Mary and her husband, William of Orange. Again, where was Jeremy Kyle when you needed him?]

73. [Spooner’s Catflap @72
    I was moved to check that the “baby in the warming pan” eventually became the Old Pretender. What I was surprised to discover, though, is that when Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender, launched his rebellion in 1745, his father was still very much alive – indeed the Old Pretender didn’t die until 1766.]

74. S’s c @72: DNA testing would certainly have resolved the warming pan affair, but the issue with the Yorkist princes was not paternity, but whether their father and mother were bigamously married. A document verified by the courts would have been useful (though it wouldn’t have stopped conspiracy theorists) but it seems that none was forthcoming.

    However, nothing will stop speculation.

    “But scientists, who ought to know
    Assure us that it must be so.
    Oh, let us never, never doubt
    What nobody is sure about !”
    (Hilaire Belloc – like Ross Williamson, a Catholic apologist with some rum views. But he did write some funny verses).

75. [Gervase @ 74 (& hatter @70): Gervase – well, indeed! It’s all B*l*oc’s isn’t it.]

76. Gervase. Very good from Belloc.

    As I recall, though cannot claim to be “sure about”, Edward was a randy sod and was being refused by this lass who said she would only go to bed with him if they were married. So they did a sort of pre-wedding agreement, with a priest to solemnise it, but I imagine Edward had his fingers crossed, because he subsequently also did a dynastically approved marriage with another woman and sired the three children, Elizabeth, Edward and Richard. After his death, while preparations for Edward V’s coronation were going on, the priest came forward with the info that the later marriage was bigamous and the children therefore illegit, which put the cat among the pigeons. The two boys were separated from their mother and sent to live in the Tower of London, and were never seen in public again; their sister suffered arguably the worse fate of being married to Henry Tudor after her uncle Richard III died at Bosworth.

77. [PM @75: 🙂 ]

78. Elizabeth Woodville seems to have been a calculating minx too, and she got several of her brothers in to positions of great influence.
    Henry VII has the most unappealing character of any king of England that comes to mind (though Henry VIII was a close rival). Morton’s Fork, anyone? Of course, there were the Georges, each of which hated their son (and grandson, in the case of George II/George III?)

79. Me @78
    Richard II didn’t have a lot going for him either. Richard I spent only about 100 days in England during his entire reign (I forget the exact number). Henry III was bailed out by William the Marshal, Earl of Pembroke (a fascinating character!) In fact. we’ve had quite a few dubious monarchs.

80. You’ll be telling me next that he didn’t give battle in vain, but was attempting to negotiate a quiet retirement to a pretty town in North Yorkshire crying Hawes, Hawes my kingdom for Hawes

81. Petert @80
    🙂
    His “home castle” was not far from Hawes, in fact, at Middleham.

82. muffin @79, re Richard I: I’m sure you know that ‘whenever he returned to England he always set out again immediately for the Mediterranean and was therefore known as Richard Gare de Lyon.’

    Petert: was R3 the first non-rhoticist?

83. essexboy@82
    🙂 🙂

84. Can anybody explain what the RICARDUS and LOYAULTE thing is all about and what is a ‘nina’?

85. essexboy@82 Indeed. Punishment for a dodgy homophone was much stricter in those days.

86. tony @84: have a look along the 4th row – in between GENRE/LOG CABINS and ACCESSION/FLAKY – that’s a nina! I’ll leave you to find RICARDUS.

87. Essexboy @86 Thanks, I can’t get my head round it now but will try again tomorrow with a clearer mind.

88. Essexboy @86 Hallelujah now I see it!

89. Muffin, Gervase, Sheffield Hatter et al

    Enough! No more off-topic, ie non-blog related comments. We, or at least I, have had enough of the history lesson. This isn’t relevant to the puzzle under discussion, despite the Nina.

    This site is not your public playground where you can exchange puns and esoteric knowledge (I am sure there are other sites more suitable elsewhere). Here the primary focus should be on the puzzle under discussion.

    I have been patient during lock-down regarding off-topic comments, for reasons I have explained in the past, but please desist from going too far.

90. I won’t add to the monarchs discussion (although I do have some fairly strong opinions on the subject). But sheffield hatter, I would like to respond to your comments on 15a AMPERSAND. I don’t claim to know a lot about the workings of B&Q, but given that they are a “multinational DIY and home improvement retailing company” (Wikipedia), I think it is pretty certain that joiners are employed somewhere in their operations. The fact that you haven’t bumped into any on your visits to their stores doesn’t seem any justification for calling the clue “weak” (@49), or even “inaccurate” (in your semi-retraction @52). As I said @40, I think it’s brilliant.

91. Thanks Nutmeg for the fun. And Andrew for the explanations.
    But I must disagree with one. I think, like SH@49, that in 15a, “Joiner” is the definition and the rest the word play so it is a straight cryptic clue. I must admit I also read it first as BBQ which made it more difficult than it needed to be.

92. Thanks Gaufrid @ 89

93. Nobody’s mentioned Penfold@15’s nod to the Natalie Imbruglia song. Nice one Penfold.

94. Strange Nina in medieval French known to only a few. The tents and Torn joke undoubtedly the highlights of blog in my humble view. I must check wiki article on B&Q as some of you seem baffled that joiners wouldn’t be found there.
    Thanks Nutmeg and all

95. Simon S @92 – seconded.

96. Thirded

97. What’s WDYTYA?

98. Who Do You Think You Are?

99. Apologies – got carried away.

100. Whoops. Re @94. Wiki B&Q entry undisturbed by its more folkloric idiosyncrasies so left in peace. Joiners NOT likely to be even buying nails there.

101. Just got round to this and glad I persevered with the blog albeit ignoring the long posts.

     Hear hear Admin

     Thank you.

102. Gaufrid – a belated thanks. Oddly, these voluminous irrelevancies were not as trivial, repetitive or boring as usually; not as wasteful of one’s stolen time. But, as you say, there are surely more apposite fora for such indulgence. This is 15² after all – not Pun-u-like!!

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