Guardian 28,502 / Qaos

115 comments on “Guardian 28,502 / Qaos”

1. Thanks Eileen. I suppose you could add art and paintings to that theme list. Any more?

2. In a bit of a rush this morning so a very quick post. We could probably include ART and PAINTINGS and ANGST is one of his works, Eileen. As is Love and Pain also known as the VAMPIRE. This is the most straightforward Qaos I’ve encountered – so I suspect I’m missing something.

   Thanks Qaos and Eileen.

3. Thanks Qaos and Eileen. Other Munch paintings include Starry Night, Vampire, Angst, Ashes … and doubtless a few more. He was not a happy camper.

4. Ashes is also one of his works.

5. I don’t understand where the “L” comes from in 20d.

6. Sorry PostMark@2 for the crossing.

7. Thanks, all – I should have persevered and dug a little deeper!

8. Scrap that, I just worked it out!

9. kenmac @5 – sorry, I omitted the online! I’ll fix it now.

10. Starry Night and The Dance of Life are also Munch paintings.

11. Also, from Wikipedia: “. According to Munch, he was out walking at sunset, when he ‘heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature’. The painting’s agonised face is widely identified with the angst of the modern person.” so you could maybe add sunset.

12. Nice one, with several of the trademark alphanumeric clues.

    I wasn’t sure that ‘creak’ = ‘squeal’, or that ‘play’ = DANCE, but Eileen’s suggestion for the latter is almost convincing.

    28ac was deceptive for a Qaos puzzle – I tried to incorporate 17 in some way into the solution before realising that it was the traditional reference to another clue. Ingenious construction (pity about the surface).

    Many thanks S&B

13. Very enjoyable. It took me some time to get SCREAM as I was looking for ‘It’ = SA, the old chestnut. Like Gervase @12 I was doubtful about creak = squeal, but play = dance seems fine, as in the ‘play of light on water’ (oh – I see Eileen has used exactly the same example).

    Many thanks to Qaos and Eileen.

14. 27a is a worry. A cove isn’t a creek, and a squeal isn’t a creak.

15. Many thanks to both. for creek, I was thinking along lines of ‘cry eek’ but don’t see how to get rid of the ‘y’.

16. Thanks Qaos and Eileen
    I was held up by a couple of loose definitions. I agree with Geoff above that while creeks and coves are (in British English) both coastal features, they are quite different; the defining feature of a creek is narrowness, while coves are broad and rounded.
    “Drug” for ethanol is loose too, though justifiable.
    Is “end” “terminus” rather than “terminal”?; as a noun the latter is just where you connect – wire, train, etc. – whereas as an adjective the parts of speech don’t match.
    15 could be either way without crossers, as “raising” could apply to either half.
    Lots to like, though. ENTRAPS and EVASION favourites.

17. I was more happy with “creak” = “squeal” though – think of a rusty hinge.

18. Flew through this only to be defeated by ANGSTY which ain’t in Chambers. I went with ANGSTS, but couldn’t parse the “s”. Agree with @Geoff Down Under re 27a.

19. Funny, isn’t it? I looked at the across clues last night, lying in bed, and gave up solving none at all. Then this morning, bang! Straight in! Maybe I’d overdone the Merlot intake…
    Agree on creek, just wrong.
    Thanks Eileen, but you’ve not parsed 2d vampires in the blog. Not that anyone here will need it, I’m sure!
    Nice theme Qaos.

20. Possibly coincidental, but the fifth instalment of the SCREAM franchise (featuring the return of Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox) is scheduled to be released in January by PARAMOUNT pictures.

    (You’ll have gathered I went off on a tangent when looking for the theme! 😉 )

    Sticking with the horror genre, imagine an ominous silence pierced by the creak of an opening door, and it could well sound like a squeal.*

    I see no one (yet) has suggested that the enumeration for 24d should be (1,1,1,1,1,1).

    I liked many of the surfaces, including the reputational risk from being associated with The Sky at Night, and the poor old badger’s tail (coveted for shaving brushes and love potions – who knew?).

    Thanks Qaos and Eileen.

    *(As suggested by muffin @17 – for adjectival use of ‘end’, think end point, end stage etc)

21. I put AT NINE into an anagrinder and only came up with INNATE which I could already see and googled INNATE ROBOT and got some response but no luck with the country. Another anagrinder produced a load of gobbledegook which probably included NANITE which I hadnt heard of.
    I did have MUNCH (nice clue) and SCREAM but failed to connect so I revealed NANITE
    Nice to beaten by a harmless puzzle
    But I do remember John Cleese’s piece on Norway

22. Thanks Eileen, I got my underwear in a twist over SCREAM (working backwards from that to CREAM by dropping off S = Sex = It, prefer your ‘route 1’ parsing). Also went wrong early with GRAPESHOT for 9a which typifies my muddleheadedness today, even the trademark LONELY took me ages to see but I really liked it then. Thanks muffin@17 for a good example of that equivalence and I am with you and Geoff in creek not = cove (I only got it from a thesaurus). New for me was NANITE but educatedly guessable despite being an anagram, thanks Qaos.

23. essexboy
    Thanks for the examples of adjectival “end”.

24. Fun puzzle, thanks Qaos and Eileen.

    Cotd = EVASION though LONELY comes close.

    NANITE was new to me as well.

25. essexboy @20 isn’t that because UNESCO is an acronym rather than an initialism?

    Great to see “online” used for something other than E

    And here’s a Sid Vicious earworm for y’all

26. Many thanks to Qaos and to Eileen for the helpful blog. Munch also painted Two People: The LONELY ONES, and he painted versions of SUNSET many times.

27. [PostMark @2 The VAMPIRE is the one where the woman appears to be biting the bloke’s neck. Monster MUNCH?]

    Thanks Qaos and Eileen

28. Not much to add: the unfortunate result of the ass and the high explosive made me smile, and I agree that a cove is not a creek. Is a TENT BED the inflatable kind or one of those canvas things on unstable metal legs? I would call both of those by different names and haven’t met TENT BED before. Though as a sci-fi reader I have met NANITES.

29. TimW @18 – ANGSTY is in my Chambers (Twelfth Edition).

    Thanks, Dryll @19 – done now. (It’s too hot!)

    essexboy @20 – I think UNESCO is almost as much a ‘word’ as radar. I’ve certainly never heard anyone spell out the initials. (I see bodycheetah has put it better.)

30. Thanks Eileen and Qaos.

    For 16a, I had “the answer” as part of the wordplay.

31. 2D. Parsing is missing but required, no?

32. Quite right, jvh @30 – so did I when I solved it. Not one of my better days. I’ll alter it now.

    VDS Prasad @31 – it’s there now: see me @29.

33. Biffed CREEK with a shrug, and also the unknown NANITE. I gave up on SCREAM, not helped by not knowing the film, and by failing (as always) to spot the theme. Thought DANCE was vague too. Not particularly impressed I’m afraid.

34. Very straightforward QAOS for once although the SE corner held me up. NANITE was just a guess and I agree with yesyes @24 that EVASION was cold. I spotted MUNCH and SCREAM but that’s as much as I know about Edvard.
    As much as I loved the Sex Pistols, I can assure you bodycheetah @25 that this will not remain in my ear for a nanosecond 🙂

    Ta Qaos & Eileen

35. Very enjoyable, and as others have suggested a bit easier than usual for Qaos. I actually spotted the theme (though not all the references) and it helped to get SCREAM. I thought EVASION was very clever.

    Unfortunately the key clue, for MUNCH, is a bit dodgy. For the cryptic grammar to work it would have to be “I leaves European city” which would make nonsense of the surface. As you say Eileen, it would have been easy to get round this by having “I must leave”.

    Many thanks Qaos and Eileen.

36. Enjoyed this and managed to complete most of it without help until I got to the SW corner where I got stuck.

    Liked LONELY, PHILTRES, BASALT

    Thanks to Qaos and Eileen

37. It in the clue for SCREAM is also referring to the best horror film imho.

38. No I meant the SE corner not the SW

39. I realise that it’s rather a dismissive comment to talk about write ins, but this felt very much like one for most of its short duration. Though the TENT BED then caused a halt, and the endless possible variations for an anagram that eventually produced the guess that was NANITE. TERMINAL, appropriately enough, was the LOI. ANGSTY a nice word, might start throwing it into my conversations, so that others know I’m rather concerned about the present state of things…

40. A most enjoyable puzzle, thank you Qaos and Eileen.

    The COED gives for cove “a small, esp. sheltered, bay or creek”.

41. …and in the theme of words that sound a bit like ANGSTY, I worked with a regular postman on Christmas delivery as a student many years ago. His surname was ANSTEY, but he told me that somehow his parents had it recorded on his birth certificate as ASTEY. He must have thought later on that they’d been a little too ‘ASTY…

42. Not too much Qaos ensuing here this morning with a straightforward solve. As with essexboy @20, I’d assumed we were heading in a PARAMOUNT horror-genre direction – I’d never have gone the Munch route being an oik from Southend…

    Thanks Qaos and Eileen!

43. Muffin@16, thank you for your reference to “in British English” regarding CREEK. I had to reveal the answer even though I could see creek would fit because I could not see any connection. I thought I don’t need to check definitions, I have swum, paddled, fished and splashed through hundreds of creeks. But sure enough Collins and others draw a distinction between British and US/Australia/Canada/New Zealand usage. I have never heard it used to mean a coastal feature and find it hard to understand how the meanings came to diverge so completely. That’s my TILT.

    The remainder was comparatively straightforward for a Qaos, I’m annoyed I didn’t check for a theme as I would have enjoyed seeing the Munch/Scream connection.

44. Just NANITE defeated me today. Obviously an anagram of which INNATE jumped out at me.
    Like others I was confused by The CREEK/COVE, but felt thatvthere would be a reference book somewhere that would have them as synonyms.
    I enjoyed 8a, but had no idea on the theme, art passed me by at school, I could not even draw a stick man.
    Odd sort of grid today, too.
    Thanks both.

45. Thanks for the blog. I did notice Munch and Scream but nothing else so thanks for multiple additions.
    CREEK and COVE not the same as Muffin says but Chambers gives small bay or inlet for each so just about okay. However creak is not squeal even for hinges which squeak.
    NANITE not in my Chambers 93 but may be in later editions, it is certainly an accepted technical word these days.

46. Thank you, Eileen@32.

47. HYD @ 44 agree on the grid , I do not like all the 3s and 5s .

48. Cookie@40, that’s interesting, because my OED online defines cove as “a small, sheltered bay”. No mention of a creek.

49. Roz @45 – My 12th Edition Chambers has (under ‘nano-‘) ‘nanomachine (also called nanite) a microscopically small machine or device, perhaps only a few atoms wide, manufactured using nanotechnology’.

50. OED gives both creek and cove as similar words to inlet, though not directly to each other. It also lists squeal and creak as directly similar (I’m with Muffin@17 as I had to oil a squealing/creaking hinge just a few days ago).

    Also cove gave a lovely surface.
    I always think cove should be preceded by rum which for me, conjures an image of an eccentric smuggler dextrously landing casks in an oddly shaped bay.

    Thanks Quao and Eileen.

51. Liked VAMPIRES, LONELY, EVASION, TERMINAL, PAINTINGS.
    New: NANITE.

    Did not parse ONES = my.

52. KLColin @43: Wiktionary offers this explanation:

    Early British colonists of Australia and the Americas used the term in the usual British way, to name inlets; as settlements followed the inlets upstream and inland, the names were retained and creek was reinterpreted as a general term for a small waterway.

53. The SW held me up as I couldn’t figure out how to make SCREAM work and didn’t know of a horror film SCARES which sort of works if you take IT out of SCARIEST. The COVE CREEK debate just shows that words mean different things to different people at different times. I rejected INNATE as not being a tiny robot and then came up with NANITE and remembered it from somewhere. I liked ASHES and SID for the surface reading and VAMPIRES for the Qaos trademark. I failed on the theme of course. Thank you Qaos and Eileen.

54. In case it is of interest, Chambers thesaurus lists “creek” under “cove”.
    For those who find hidden rhyming slangs of interest, blowing a raspberry comes from “raspberry tart” for you know what.

55. A gentle and easy offering from Qaos, though the theme completely eluded me.

    Was unconvinced by cove = creek, but I see our British definition apparently makes it acceptable

    Wholly unconvinced by drug = ethanol , have never heard of it being used pharmaceutically, and can’t see it fits in with the usual recreational suspects . Maybe that’s another usage that has escaped me. Would have accepted “poison”, “compound” or “chemical”.

    Thanks to Eileen and to Qaos

56. Thank you Eileen @ 49, I thought it would come in. Do you know a year for your Chambers ? Mine does not give an edition number, just 1993.

57. perhaps of interest to muffin @16, the COED gives for creek 1 Brit. a a small bay or harbour on a sea coast.

58. Ark Lark @55: Wikipedia describes ETHANOL as a psychoactive and recreational drug. I’m comfortable to describe any specific psychoactive substance as a ‘drug’, so the same goes for nicotine and caffeine.

    [Hovis @54: I’m sure many people use the term RASPBERRY without knowing its derivation. The same goes for ‘cobblers’, (meaning ‘nonsense’)]

59. Roz @56 – I’ve looked it up and it was apparently August 2011. It badly needs replacing – it has no cover! – but I remember when the 13th edition came out, in 2014, there was a fault with it (can’t remember what it was) but it seems to be the most recent available. Perhaps they reprinted it (does anyone know?) but I’ve been hanging on for a more up-to-date one. There must be one due soon but I can’t find any information.

60. Mine lost the cover years ago, fortunately the stitching on the spine is very good quality and just about holds it together. Azed is using 2014 so it must be the latest. I suspect there may never be another print edition, just updates online.

61. I wonder when Eileen will find a Chambers without a fault?

62. Ouch!

63. I leave European city worked for me as an imperative or instruction.

64. muffin @16: “…while creeks and coves are (in British English) both coastal features, they are quite different; the defining feature of a creek is narrowness, while coves are broad and rounded.”

    Robinson Crusoe might wish to contest this distinction: “At length I spied a little cove on the right shore of the creek, to which with great pain and difficulty I guided my raft, and at last got so near that, reaching ground with my oar, I could thrust her directly in.”

65. Cookie @61 no time soon I suspect. My paper copy has random missing pages – I don’t mean they’ve fallen out, they were just never there.
    I’m with trishincharente @63 on the possible imperative
    Also guilty of overthinking a few – I saw the primes and started counting the prime letters of 1d & 5d. Also went of on a tangent around imaginary numbers so serendipitous that “i” cropped up shortly after

66. trishincharente @63 – thanks, yes that works for me, too.

67. SC@64
    Could you imagine referring to “Lulworth Creek”?

68. I was going to suggest that Eileen enter the monthly Crossword Center Clue-Writing Competition (http://www.andlit.org.uk/cccwc/main.php) in order to win a new Chambers, but I see that is not the book currently on offer (I’m sure it used to be the prize and it may be again).

    In any case, I’ve been entering for a while, never coming close to winning, but I think it is a lot of fun on the one hand, but I also feel better informed about commenting on others’ clues here when I’ve “been there, done that” myself.

69. The COED gives for the second definition of creek b a narrow inlet on a sea coast or in a river bank.

    For the first definition, a, see note @57

70. Bodycheetah @65, you probably didn’t miss anything that was worthwhile – Eileen is much better off with her Collins.

71. Dr. WhatsOn, @ 68 the Azed crossword still has a monthly prize. Have to send in the grid plus a clue for a specified grid entry. Three people win based on their clues. I am hopeless at writing clues, no imagination.

72. Similar to AlanC @ 34 I thought this was very easy until it wasn’t when I got to the SE corner. At that point I had to reveal a few. I did this so I could add to the theme I had already discerned. I liked MUNCH and EVASION in particular. Not my favourite Qaos crossword but still worthwhile. Thanks to both.

73. Ach! DANCE, of course, not FARCE. I couldn’t see how Hamlet and fare clicked, but I couldn’t for the life of me come up with anything else. So a DNF for me today. Thanks to our blogger and setter, as ever.

74. Muffin@67: exactly, and to my mind the quotation from Robinson Crusoe proves the point: a creek is essentially the bit of water where a river meets the sea: a small estuary, while a cove is a little sheltered bay. There might well be a cove on the shore of a creek. The British place names containing either word usually match locations of the appropriate kind.

75. Eileen@59 Roz@60, Cookie@61 and others
    The Chambers 13th edition was revised in Feb 2016 to include some enriching words. However after the 13th edition was published they admitted that 500 words were missed out
    These were published in 2019 by a list available on
    https://chambers.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Chambers-Missing-Words-1.pdf
    Not sure if these are now acceptable in crosswords but they are in the online edition.

76. Thanks, CliveInFrance: what a splendid collection of (as you rightly say) enriching words!

77. Thanks trishincharente @63, that is a good explanation for 8a. My apologies to Qaos for calling it dodgy.

    Cliveinfrance (anywhere near Charente?) @75: very interesting! I look forward to seeing “abbot of unreason” in a crossword soon.

78. Many thanks for that, Cliveinfrance – most interesting.

    [Doctor WhatsOn @68 – We used to have a clever – delightfully eccentric – blogger here years ago, now sadly no longer with us. She invited me to her house one day and proudly showed me a sheaf of receipts, which she kept in her kitchen cupboard, for Chambers Dictionaries, which she kept winning (it could have been for the Inquisitor puzzle). She had at least a dozen of them, distributed about the house, some of which she used to support a piece of wood, which she used as a coffee table. She just couldn’t bring herself to stop submitting the puzzles.

    Years ago, too, John Halpern used to invite cryptic clues on his website and, along with others here, I submitted a few, just for fun – there were no prizes. I did win a Collins dictionary for the Guardian prize puzzle, nearly twenty years ago but that, too, is now coverless, alas. Devoted as I am to paper, I fear that Roz @60 is right that there will be no more print editions of either.]

79. Cliveinfrance @75: Thanks for that enriching set! Several of the words are relatively well known – I presume they were omitted from the relevant edition by mistake. And as for being legit, Puck used ‘bafflegab’ only last month.

80. Thank you Clive@75, very interesting . When I am back in work I will ask someone to print that list for me.
    I would imagine most are in my Chambers 93 if they are just genuine omissions. Bafflegab @79 is certainly there.
    It is pretty rare for Azed to use a word from 2014 that is not in my 93, there was one this Sunday but was easy to solve anyway.

81. Thanks for blog I’ve been at 13a for ages and just seen the answer!

    Dis for hell?

82. Mary@81
    Dante’s Divine Comedy
    Dis is the sixth through ninth circles, Lower Hell

83. Sorry, Mary – I think I usually explain it (it comes up fairly regularly). See here.

84. Or, rather, here
    Sorry for the cross, Clive.

85. Lord Jim @ 77
    PO on the Catalonia border or L/Spa in U14
    I’m waiting for
    sesquipedalians (15)
    A most appropriate word for certain setters

86. Me@85
    UK not U14

87. Cliveinfrance @85 – what a gift to drop in my lap!

    From my little book of classic clues, which I’ve quoted more than once:
    Guardian 25,968 Pasquale(!):
    21ac: ‘Pasquale, inside working, using long obscure words (14)’
    (I love it particularly because he could only have used it in the Guardian.)

88. When my students accuse me of using too many long words, I always reply – do you mean I am sesquipedalian ?

89. I enjoyed this puzzle, but I do have to say that if “sexy” can be an anagrind, I have no idea what the criteria for anagrinds are.

90. Very little to add except that my first thought for 9 was PINEAPPLE (for a grenade). The crossers soon put me right. I spotted the MUNCH, SCREAM connection and checked up to see that he was Norwegian, but went no further in the way of research. Well done to Qaos for including so many references an thanks to commenters for supplying the supporting info.
    Thanks also, Q and E.

91. Ted @89 – after trawling through synonyms, I ended up satisfied with ‘exciting’.

92. Cliveinfrance@75 et al – I’m fairly sure AZED used both ‘delope’ and ‘norsel’ in AZED 2,555 – both I believe are in the 500 word list mentioned

93. ….from 30th May this year

94. Azed has used delope and norsel recently , both are in my Chambers 93. This list seems to be a particular problem with just one edition.

95. Angsty? Tent bed?

    17a CREEK . I’ve learned from reading that in the UK a creek is a coastal feature, but I had assumed it was a stream the led into the sea rather than a narrow cove. In the US it’s a regional word for “brook.” It meant “brook” in the Hudson Valley of my early childhood, but here in neighboring Connecticut it’s brook, brook, brook.

    In 3d I didn’t see the “divided by” sign, thought it was just a dash, so the clue made no sense.

    A lot has happened on this blog since I took my nap!

    I can’t make Clive’s 500-word connection work — too bad, it sounds interesting.

    Thanks Qaos and Eileen — good to see you sitting right down in the party and joining the chat.

    Welcome back, cookie! Haven’t seen you in some time.

96. Valentine @95
    Yes, a creek is often a narrow stream emptying into the sea over here, but there are examples where it’s just a narrow arm of sea penetrating the land.
    I forgot to say earlier that I had no idea what a TENT BED was either, though I had heard ANGSTY.

97. Thanks Qaos and Eileen. My ‘revised thirteenth edition 2016’ Chambers (bought a bit more recently than that) has at least the first couple of the linked ‘missing’ words in it.

98. …or into a river near the sea – see Frenchman’s Creek emptying into the Helston River (I don’t know if this is the Daphne du Maurier one – I confess that I’ve never read it).

99. Valentine @95

    Thanks Qaos and Eileen — good to see you sitting right down in the party and joining the chat. ??

100. Valentine
     You should be able to get it on a search of ‘chambers-missing-words’
     Roz
     I think many of these were included in the 93 edition but excluded from the 2014 edition, there was an outcry and Chambers then revised in 2016 and 2019 with this internet listing.

101. Eileen — I just meant that it’s nice when the blogger joins in the conversation — some do, some don’t. You do a lot, which adds to the pleasure, since the blog is ideally a dialogue between the solvers, the bloggers and the setter (who also occasionally joins in).

102. Eileen@59, Roz@60 etc

     When I started doing cryptics I was advised to get Chambers. The latest (13th) edition was out of print at the time (May2020) but I was lucky enough to get a 12th edition (2011) second hand before the prices rocketed. – they have since come down. The original 13th edition (2014) had the middle section missing I think but the reprint has it.

     I was told by Chambers that the 14th edition will be published in 2022. I think I am happy with my 12th edition.

103. Thanks, Valentine, for some clarification.

     I do aim to keep up with comments on the blog throughout the day – and usually have to, because of my errors and omissions – but don’t want to monopolise. I do think it’s up to me to answer queries – but I’m often forestalled by others.

     I think today I scored about 14% of the comments, which I think is perhaps too high.

     I’m disappointed that there has been no response so far to the brilliant clue I’ve referenced @87 – perhaps I’ve done it to death with regulars but I hoped newcomers might appreciate it.

     I think I must have misinterpreted your comment @95 as including Qaos, which I mistakenly took as ironic – my apologies to both of you.

104. With the creek/cove debate having continued, I can say pretty confidently that any of my Australian countrymen and women would regard a creek as a small river and a cove as a small bay or inlet of the sea. Perhaps the words have different connotations elsewhere. And I still believe that creak/squeal is a bit iffy. Not often that I get to have two reservations about the one clue!

105. GDU @104. Agreed. I only know the creek/sea inlet equivalence from time in Cornwall.

106. Also got stuck up the creek but I did notice the capitalised It in the scream clue.
     Re Chambers.. I’m from a big family of Chambers lovers. My mum especially repaired and recovered many which were thoroughly used tackling Azed, Mephisto and similar. When she was bought new versions I kept the old ones and had about 4 around my house including bathroom. Couldn’t fit one in the car door though.

107. Didn’t spot theme for the record.

     Oops… thanks Qaos and Eileen

108. Eileen @104, to avert your disappointment: thanks for the reference to a classic clue from the Don and a new, interesting, if not useful, word. 🙂

109. Thank you, Ed The Ball – you’ve made my day!

110. Let me echo Ed, Eileen. Like him, I love the clue — I always enjoy a clever anagram. And like Roz, I do use the word occasionally for comic effect.

111. Thanks, Valentine.

     It’s just such a perfect clue for Pasquale! I usually find his puzzles rather humourless, so I was delighted with this piece of self-mockery – and the fact that it included his name was just brilliant.

112. Afternoon all! I didn’t get a chance to post yesterday, but many thanks for all the comments and to Eileen for the blog.

     I appreciate this particular grid isn’t universally loved, but the distribution of thematic word lengths often restricts what Guardian grids can be used. I try to counteract the “four crosswords in one” issue by making the clues easier. That way you’re unlikely to be locked out of a particular quadrant.

     Best wishes,

     Qaos.

113. Thank you Eileen and Qaos! I enjoyed this solve and other than PARAMOUNT which I got hopelessly stuck on for some reason, I was able to finish steadily without getting ANGSTY (which, in my American experience is a common word, often paired with “teen.”)

114. Hi Qaos – thanks for dropping in. Good to hear from you, as always.

115. Qaos @112 Yes, thanks for dropping in. As to the grid, one device some setters have used to overcome the four-in-one configuration is to have some two-part (or even three- or four-part) clues that go from one grid to another. Another setter, I forget who, pointed that our a few years ago.

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