Guardian Cryptic 28594 Vlad

104 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28594 Vlad”

1. Note, in 10a “see” is a spelling for C so no homophone needed for that bit.

2. Another great crossword from Vlad, with clever constructions and smoothly deceptive surfaces. As usual with this setter I was slow to start but built up speed.

   The long anagrams are excellent, and I also starred ROUGHSHOD and PRIVILEGE (great surface).

   My only quibblet is that ‘lewd’ and the final syllable of OCCLUDE are not homophonic for me; the ‘l’ is palatalised in the former but not the latter (though doubtless they originally both were in British English).

   Many thanks to Jim and scchua.

3. Where is everyone?

   Another superb puzzle from Vlad – most satisfying to finish, with the top half, for no apparent reason, taking much longer than the bottom.

   Excellent anagrams for 9dn PETTICOAT LANE, and 16dn PRIVILEGE. I enjoyed working out HEADS WILL ROLL, MOUNTIE, PROPHETIC, NARRATION, PYGMALION, PLASTER SAINTS and LEMON SOLE.] and I thought WHELP, NICKS and ORIBI (which I first met only a couple of weeks ago, in a Picaroon puzzle and managed to remember) were little gems.

   The anagram fodder for 1ac is I WORD ALL HELLS.

   Many thanks to Vlad for the fun and ccchua for the blog.

4. Sorry, scchua! 😉

5. Well and truly impaled today. Could not get on Vlad’s wavelength at all. A miserable DNF today 🙁

   Ah well tomorrow is another day

   Thanks Vlad and scchua.

6. Lots of fun. Never heard of JOGGERS NIPPLE – tried to shoehorn in BOWLERS NIPPLE (an anagram of ELBOW round a lot of odd letters), thinking that a certain amount of friction from the bowling arm could generate it! Also hadn’t heard of PLASTER SAINTS. Many thanks to Vlad and scchua.

7. I found this tougher than a cheap steak, so it was especially satisfying to complete it without recourse to aids.

8. This was fun! ORIBI and OUSEL were totally new to me, but clued well enough to get them anyway; likewise WHELP. Failed to get PLASTER SAINTS as I’m not familiar with the expression, but it’s good to learn. Couldn’t parse JOGGERS NIPPLE and not convinced by ‘elbow possibly’ as JOGGER, but that’s my only minor gripe. Enjoyed CHIME IN, LEMON SOLE, PETTICOAT LANE and anything about Manchester Utd’s failings.

   Thanks Vlad and scchua!

9. Slow but satisfying workout for the little grey cells. What Eileen said. Thanjs to Vlad and scchua

10. It was bung then parse for the most part, but at least I’m getting to the point where I actually can parse Vlad’s most fiendish tests without help. The completing of this was a pleasure, the journey was, at times a bit of a slog. I think ROUGHSHOD was my favourite with the reverse anagram for once coming to my attention. I got JOGGERS NIPPLE by complete accident by assuming the it was an envelope of a “stake”within “joint” (elbow possibly). Once the initial J went in the error of my ways was evident.

    Anyway – thanks to Vlad and to sschua (apart from the slightly nauseating images accompanying 8d!

11. Thanks Eileen. Blog corrected.

12. I found this tough and there was extensive use of the word finder – and even then I couldn’t parse some. Still I try – and then come here.

    Favourites that I did get and parse include: PYGMALION, PLASTER SAINTS (tho’ I’ve never heard the term), ENCOUNTER, TRANSIENT, DEUCE, WHELP

    Could have done without the pictures for 8d. Saw too many of those when handing out bottles of water at station 16 of the London marathon.

    Thanks Vlad and especially scchua (needed your help)

13. drofle @6: I wondered about BOWLERS NIPPLE too! Defeated by PLASTER SAINTS which range the faintest of bells when I eventually pressed reveal and I wonder if I’ve seen it in another crossword. It doesn’t come up on a site search, though.

    We’ve had a few interesting words meaning “give birth to” in recent times. Calve not so long ago and the delightful WHELP today and I’m sure there was another that I’m missing. And, as scchua points out, another ORIBI and another nix/NICKS clue. ENCOUNTER, DHAKA and, as Eileen notes, the excellent anagram for PETTICOAT LANE were my other highlights.

    Thanks Vlad and scchua

14. The clue for 6d PRIVILEGE was very timely today considering what happened in the HoC.

    Favourites: DEUCE, LEMON SOLE.

    New for me: OUSEL, GYP = trouble (for 20ac); JOGGER’S NIPPLE, PLASTER SAINTS, ORIBI (loi).

    Thanks, both.

15. I’ve never got on with Vlad but I enjoyed this and got 90+% of it without assistance. I did start with BOWLERS instead of JOGGERS though.

16. Thanks Vlad & scchua for excellent blog.
    Quite a punchy encounter with some solutions happily falling into place but others slower to yield.
    I loved ROUGHSHOD, and DRAMATICS for its (diesel emissions?) surface.

17. It was only when I came here I discovered I had missed SOLE, having intended to return once I had th crossers, so a DNF.
    I find it quite difficult to palatise “lewd”, but homophones are often approximate and, given the breadth of our catchment, that’s fine by me.
    Parsing, as ever with Vlad, more difficult than solution.
    Thanks to him and to scchua.

18. My last two in were the similar in meaning GAUGE and DE(d)UCE. Got many of these through the sharp definitions (though not perhaps Battle = Encounter), and then the parsing afterwards. Particularly the rather sneaky OCCLUDE, and JOGGERS NIPPLE. A much more accommodating grid than yesterday’s, I thought. CHIME IN not an expression I would often use in conversation. Lots to admire and enjoy, thanks to Vlad and Scchua.

19. Not on Vlad’s wavelength at all today – a miserable DNF 🙁

    Surely PUNCHIEST means ‘the most hard-hitting’, not ‘extrememely hard-hitting? (13)

    Mother = native was a new one on me (18) as was the words ‘plaints’ (26)

20. Regarding 10a. I first thought it was pollute, from the crosses I already had, thinking “dirty” was the answer not part of the word. Then realised it was occlude. Following comments above, I feel I must point out that although I learned to say L-you-d, here in Norfolk, the locals always say L-oo-d!

21. Eileen @3: I think ‘everyone’ was still trying to avoid being impaled :-; I agree with all your ticks plus LIONISE and CHIME IN. Ultimately, I had to look up synonyms for PLASTER SAINTS, but I feel I almost conquered today.

    Ta Vlad & scchua

22. Steve69 @19: We’ve had this debate before. ‘Extreme’ means ‘at the utmost’, so ‘extremely’ can be taken to mean ‘at the furthest extent’, though it’s commonly just hyperbole for ‘very’.

23. Thanks scchua as I couldn’t get past Jog=elbow as a verb, plus snip, and had no idea what was going on for the rest of that one, having been another trying to do something with a bowler for a long time. I rarely attempt Vlad as I know it will me take an age as there are often both definitions and wordplay elements an order of magnitude tougher than most, eg MOUNTIE today, but did get there in the end and enjoyed a lot of the ENCOUNTER, particularly LEMON SOLE (gold star for anyone getting that from definition alone!), DEUCE and PRIVILEGE, thanks Vlad.

24. Held up by entering RUNNERS instead of JOGGERS at 8d. We (ex-)marathoners call ourselves runners, not joggers.

25. Steve69@19 thanks for the reminder that I had no idea about mother=native too – does it really work as an equivalence, isn’t native coming from “born of” ie at the other end of the cord?
    Nor had I heard of PLAINTS on its own but presumably this is the same root as a PLAINTive cry – I certainly let out enough of those when struggling with Vlad’s handiwork.

26. A very slow start but I eventually pieced it all together.

    Good anagram for PETTICOAT LANE. I couldn’t parse JOGGER’S NIPPLE as I had elbow=jog, so was left with a dilemma. I also liked the clues for PYGMALION and DEUCE. I do dislike the you=U unindicated text speak, although as Hovis @1 says see=C is fine as the name for the letter C.

    The purists wouldn’t like the clue for GROWL because the wordplay expands to: ‘Grumble increase has ultimately trivial’, which doesn’t make any sense.

    Thanks Vlad and scchua.

27. You wait all your life for an ORIBI and then two come along at once! Like Eileen, I learned it from Picaroon, and thought “It can’t be that again” – but it was. And just as I’ve got used to one=A, here it is being I for HEADS WILL ROLL: I had trouble sorting out the right fodder for that.

    Failed to parse PROPHETIC or JOGGERS NIPPLE (I had RUNNERS instead for a while) but enjoyed the rest, especially PETTICOAT LANE, DHAKA, MOUNTIE, LEMON SOLE. And I remembered that Messi was Lionel – a rare feat for me where footballers are concerned.

28. Wouldn’t have made much headway here if I hadn’t been able to crack a couple of the long anagrams without many crossers. Most of the clues I really liked, when I got them.

    Like Robi@26, I don’t think the ‘s works in the clue for GROWL.

    Also, in PLASTER SAINTS, I don’t think the phrase “teachers not getting money” works too well either: the word “masters” already has money (M), so no getting is required!

29. Another excellent puzzle from the Impaler, although once again I feel I should have spent more time memorising varieties of antelope and African countries. Hugely enjoyable though, with OCCLUDE, GAUGE and PROPHETIC getting ticks. Thanks Vlad and scchua.

30. Great crossword today. Thank you Vlad. I particularly loved OCCLUDE and DHAKA and DEUCE and LEMON SOLE and WHELP and …

    DNK ORIBI. How many antelopes are there?

    Thank you sschua for helping me to parse PYGMALION and JOGGER’S NIPPLE.

31. yesyes @30; according to this webpage there are 74 types of African antelop.

32. … antelope.

33. DrWhatsOn@28: yes, indeed: and ‘lacking money’ or ‘having no money’ would work instead.

34. 11a was loi, and that’s after binging a 65-episode weepy in which the hero was a mountie, d’oh … [total saccharine but I wept throughout joyously. I’d just finished “Anne with an E” (in honour of mrs ginf who loved AoGG) and so went for more of the Canuck frontier].

35. I found it pretty difficult but had some fun for a change as I usually find I am not very good at and so don’t really enjoy Vlad’s puzzles. The ones I liked included some already discussed – MOUNTIE at 11a, PYGMALION at 20a and 26a PLASTER SAINTS. Dr WhatsOn@28, I thought the “not getting money” in the latter was a subtraction indicator telling us to remove the “M” from MASTERS. Thanks to Vlad and scchua.

36. [Crossed with pserve_p2@33 re PLASTER SAINTS; still not really seeing the problem with the clue as it is and as scchua parsed it.]

37. How is ‘tea’=T in LATTE? If it’s analogous with ‘see’=C then surely the name of the letter would be ‘tee’. Or is this another Chambers silliness?

38. I wasn’t here earlier because it took me so very long to solve this clever and beautifully misleading crossword. But I managed to parse a lot of what I got, and only needed Scchua for 18a and 22d (for which I had to get help from Chambers). So thanks to you and to Vlad – previously I could always solve his Monday ones but this was quite different! Favs were roughshod and plaster saints.

39. Slow burn for me but very satisfying solve.

    Like ginf, MOUNTIE last one in due to missing the anagrind rarely.

    Usually love your colourful blogs, scchua, although perhaps a tad too much detail for JOGGER’S NIPPLE today.

    Cracker, many thanks, both.

40. The t in latter is a homophone of tea referenced by ‘pick up’ as in heard.

41. Oh, latte of course!

42. pserve_p2 @37: pick up homophone

43. Sorry SinCam, crossing.

44. Me @38 I meant 23d needed help with solving and parsing!

45. I was going very well with this until my last three – NARRRATIVE, GAUGE and finally JOGGER’S NIPPLE – took as long as all the other clues combined. Still this was a Vlad, so you can’t expect smooth sailing all the way. Learnt a new term in PLASTER SAINTS and good to see an old crossword friend in ORIBI appearing yet again, as noted by Eileen @3 and others.

    Steve69 @19 and Gazza @25, to add to scchua’s example, what about ‘mother’ tongue = NATIVE tongue?

    Thanks to Vlad and scchua

46. pserve_p2 @37: ‘pick up’ is a homophone indicator and ‘inside’ is the containment indicator – as scchua clearly explained!

47. Gazzh @25: how about mother/native tongue?

48. Glad to see that many had (and, judging by the number of contributions thus far, are still having) trouble with this. I gave up with about ten solved and resorted to the reveal button – after that I quite enjoyed it. The two long anagrams were admirable but offset by the convoluted construction of JOGGERS NIPPLE and PLASTER SAINTS (nho). Win some, lose some – thanks both for the entertainment.

49. Gervase@46, William@42: Ah! OK, OK — sorry. I hurriedly misread ‘pick up’ as a containment indicator and then forgot about the ‘inside’.
    As you say, scchua elaborated that point clearly.

50. I, too, went down the elbow = joint road, leading me to JOINER’S NIPPLE (the result of all that sawing), couldn’t make it work, pressed the Check button and finally got it, so a DNF but I enjoyed this. I think I would only palatalise lewd if speaking extra carefully.

51. My first thought for 8d was BELOW THE BELT, with the first word coming from ‘elbow’, and the rest from ‘stake’ somehow – but it wouldn’t fit, so needed to wait for checkers. LOI was 1ac, having taken the wrong D from 3d.

52. Being Vlad this was never going to be easy and so it proved. It took 3 sessions to finally get LOI 11ac. (I had the answer early on but couldn’t convince myself on the definition.) Thanks Vlad for the usual tough test of the remaining brain cells. Also, to scchua for explaining quite a few. Hoping for something more straightforward tomorrow!!

53. Robi @26: I’m not fond of the construction for GROWL but not for the reason you state! Surely it doesn’t usually matter what the surface expands to – that’s all part of the way in which a surface hides the construction of the wordplay.

    My quibble is that ‘has’ is only abbreviated to ‘apostrophe s’ when it is an auxiliary verb and not when is denotes possession – at least in most registers of English. ‘John’s got a pig’ is fine, but ‘John’s a pig’ would normally imply ‘John IS a pig’ rather than ‘John HAS a pig’. Vlad’s clue would logically expand to ‘Grumble increase IS ultimately trivial’ which doesn’t convey the intended wordplay.

    However, this construction is used so often that I’ve become inured to it.

54. Very good, Vlad, as usual. I got as far as -SNIPPLE with 8d, but could not for the life of me think what could precede it. Like many others I tried JOINER and BOWLER, before resorting to googling “sport injury nipple”. Does that make it a DNF? Don’t mind either way really, it was all really great fun!

55. One of two particularly impaling crosswords today but as usual with Vlad the enjoyment gained is well worth the exercising of the cryptic grey matter

    Many thanks to Vlad and scchua

56. JinA@36 I’ll admit it’s a bit nit-picky, but I was distinguishing between “not getting” and “losing” (which would fix the wordplay but deteriorate the surface). It’s kind of like asking “when did you get your head?” – you were never you before you got your head; you’ve always had it like masters has always had the M.

57. I’m always annoyed with myself when I’m struggling with Vlad. Because some of his synonyms are so obscure
    Battle/ encounter. Native / mother. Trouble/ gyp I tend to expect the majority of his clues to be harder than they often are. Finished but not without a little help.

58. Pleasant puzzle. I enjoyed meeting my new friend ORIBI again.

    I had a bunch of other comments, but I deleted them by mistake. Oh well —

    Thanks, Vlad and scchua.

59. Wordplodder@45, William@47, thanks, for some reason I am more comfortable with that example!

60. Verging on art
    thanks JT

61. I could have done without seeing the bloody nipples to get honest. I didn’t parse that one.
    The HAKA has been misappropriated by the All Blacks mainly into something increasingly savage. Early there were many pleasant versions used to welcome visitors etc.
    Thanks Vlad and scchua

62. Gervase @53; I think we’re essentially saying the same thing. When ‘s is used as a linker, as in 21D, it has to be ‘has’ for the wordplay. However one reads the ‘s, I can’t see the clue makes much sense anyway, but for the wordplay, it would have to be something like: ‘Grumble increase’s got ultimately trivial’, as you intimate.

63. I suppose if you put a comma in: Grumble, increase’s ultimately trivial makes sense as a surface.

64. I’ve finished growling and grumbling now.

65. Very enjoyable crossword. Not easy, and all the better for that. JOGGER’S NIPPLE was my loi, probably because jogging has never been my thing.

    Thanks to Vlad and scchua.

    [PETTICOAT LANE took me on a nostalgia trip, as I used to work about 100 metres away from it, many decades ago. I think it was known as Petticoat Lane on Sundays, but was Wentworth Street Market during the week. I spent many a happy lunch hour there. ]

66. Tough clues, clever constructions and fiendish anagrams meant it was a slow solve throughout. Just about avoided being impaled Favourites included: Heads Will Roll, LemonSole, Occlude, Privilege, Petticoat Lane and Pygmalion.
    Thanks to Vlad for tough, but enjoyable work-out and scchua for the blog and images.

67. Crossbar @65 [Same here – PETTICOAT LANE clue took me back to enjoyable 🙂 Sunday morning visits to the market along with my deceased beloved Mom and Aunties.]

68. [ ShropshireLass @67 There was a vegetable stall nearest where I worked, and the trader never stopped shouting “A big’un from Wigan” whilst brandishing, admittedly huge, cauliflowers. To this day I don’t know what Wigan had to do with caulis 😀 ]

69. A little off-topic but did anyone else spot the article in The Times about Anne Bradford. She was one of the compilers of the Crosswords Solver’s Dictionary. There have a couple of examples of her excellent cluing including this, Information given to Communist in return for sex.

    Answer GENDER which I like very much. Anne passed away recently and my thoughts go out to her many friends and family.

70. Thanks for the blog , more like Vlad the Impala for me today, I must have been on form. Many, many nice clues though apart from a frown for 1AC.
    If I may add to Hovis@1, every letter is given a spelling in Chambers to show how to pronounce it. The most famous is probably aitch .

71. Roz @70: I thought aitch was scratched.

    Delighted you had your stake and garlic with you today. I have a sneaking suspicion you’ve used Impala before… But, then, Vlad the Oribi doesn’t have much of a ring. Fortunately, as Robi points out @31, there are 74 others to choose from (75 if you include his antelop)

72. MrPostMark @71 I feel you are missing Penfold, you are unable to bask in his adulation for your puns.
    Vlad the Impala is my usual name for the genteel cousin of Vlad , the one who sets the easier crosswords.

73. Roz – sadly, he rarely adulated. Normally, he just trumped.

74. Phew! What a toughie. I had exactly three clues solved by the time I finished my morning cuppa. Worried away at it over (an extended) lunch, and managed all but one, by putting it down and then picking it up again several times. The last one ORIBI cracked with my afternoon cuppa. I knew we’d had it before recently, but couldn’t bring it to mind, and was trying to get INI at the end.

    On homophones: we don’t all speak English exactly the same (boring if we did), so my personal rule is if I can imagine anyone (well a fluent English speaker) pronouncing words the same, or nearly the same, then it counts as a homophone. No need for exact matching for everyone – which would be pretty impossible anyway.

75. Hi Moth @74

    For a relative newcomer, very well said! 😉

76. The lewd world is clearly divided into the East Anglians and others who say Loo’d and the more refained who say Li-ew’d – but if a homophone isn’t so improbable that it stops me getting the answer, I don’t complain.

77. Moth and gladys

    [It’s late in the day and it’s a while since I recalled this, so, for the benefit of more recent commenters, I’ll stick my neck out again.

    When I first discovered and started commenting on 15², I said, several times, that I would hear an exasperated ‘Ochhh!!’ from my late Scottish husband at the kind of clue that gets Scottish, Irish, West Country, Transatlantic and any other solvers with rhotic accents going and realised that this was an ongoing discussion here.

    Shed (24,747 – where is he these days?) came up with
    ‘Tenor in drunken choir fought for fort? Not in such a accent (6)’

    Twelve (!) years later, the discussion goes on. 😉

    The icing on the cake was that my husband was a tenor in our choir.

78. … an accent.

79. Moth @74 and gladys @76: Actually, neither do I really bother about it, even though I was the one to make the point!

    It was really a tongue-in-cheek comment because so many contributors get steamed up about rhotic/non-rhotic homophones. There are two strong reasons why we shouldn’t change the eccentric spelling of English to something more ‘phonetic’. The more academic one is that it would blur the etymology and the relation of English words to those In related languages. The more practical one is that none of us pronounce the words in the same way!

80. Eileen @77
    Thanks for that – I was going to make the point that, however understanding you are, homophones are consistently biased against ****** accents!
    Thanks Vlad and scchua
    I found this fun, and easier than I expected. I loved the definition for MOUNTIE. (For once I’ll let LATTE pass.)

81. Eileen and muffin: Our comments have crossed, but we seem to be speaking the same language 🙂

82. Convoluted constructions and too many snip-and-fit answers for this participant. Laborious. But if you like this sort of thing, and lots of you do, then it’s very much the sort of thing you will like.

83. Sounds quite different though Gervase 😉

84. Blah @83: Exactly – that’s everyone’s problem!

85. Couldn’t start this until this evening, and then amazingly found this very gentle for Vlad.

    Great fun along the way so very grateful for a bit of fun after today’s exertions.

    Favourites were HEADS WILL ROLL, OCCLUDE, NARRATIVE and PYGMALION.

    [Don’t start me on the All Blacks use of the HAKA. A friendly greeting/ a war dance/ violent Morris dancing? I had the pleasure of seeing and meeting many of the 1974 tour squad to England. Their haka took about 10 seconds back then and it was very quaint. Then it got re invented as it is now, with variations galore, by a certain AB captain who could see the advantage it would give his side. Ultimate gamesmanship. Yes I have plenty of NZ friends who say otherwise but it’s lost all meaning.]

    Thanks Vlad and scchua

86. Like drofle @6, I had never heard of JOGGER’S NIPPLE before, nor PLASTER SAINTS, but they didn’t detract from a super puzzle that I found quite tough. I appreciated the great variety of clues, in which there were several clever touches.

    Thanks to Vlad and scchua.

87. [Ark Lark@85 … yes, from a Maori word that simply means ‘bow-legged’ the haka is just a celebratory line dance, but I guess the more hostile rugby version is essentially unshakable 🙂 ]

88. When I was around 8 years old, over half a century ago, in a text book at school we had to pair off homophones. It still annoys me that one of the pairs was ‘one’ and ‘won’. Not to anyone I knew they weren’t.

89. Very late today – all has been said, so I’ll just add my thanks to Vlad and scchua.

    [PM @73: yes, the estimable Penfold certainly a top trumper, but I do remember his expressing appreciation for my tine hice. And the next day he seemed to be (somewhat disturbingly) familiar with my activities in the shah 😉 (sorry muffin!) ]

    [By the way, Roz: meant to say thanks yesterday for the further interesting info on Lagrange points, also that they should really be called Euler points. Sorry I can’t think of a musical contribution relating to Euler (although I do know that, according to Elvis, he spent far too much time sitting in front of the telly.)]

90. Thanks to scchua for a very nice blog and to others who commented.

91. 2d: “Encounter” and “battle” aren’t synonymous. A battle is but one type of encounter. I encountered a pleasant person in the store yesterday and we chatted a while. I certainly didn’t engage in battle with her. This sort of clueing is lazy.

92. Lovely crossword today and I seemed to be very much on Vlad’s wavelength – unlike Qaos yesterday, who is usually one of my favourites. Nice to see a friendly grid too after yesterday’s abomination ! Thanks to scchua and to Vlad.

93. [ MrEssexboy@89 I know you love your languages , I am assured by Swiss German speakers that Euler is pronounced OILER , as in Euler’s Spoilers that do actually exist in mathematics.
    MrPostMark @70 , my “bask” was a very late response to your “course it ” , sorry ]

94. Very late to this one but I’ve enjoyed reading the blog (and comments) as much as I enjoyed solving the puzzle – thanks Vlad and scchua. Only a couple of things to add to what has already been said, if anyone’s still reading…

    Gervase @53 – I know a few Irish people who use apostrophe-S for has in this way. My friend Seamus in particular often catches me out with it.

    JCW @91 – it’s quite normal (and acceptable) for the solution to be an example of a type/category of thing defined in the clue, rather than a synonym. See also 19a, 20a, 5d, 7d, 8d, 9d… a battle is a type of encounter, ergo the clue is fine.

95. This was tough and spread during the day because of travel. First time for a Vlad but doable. I learnt a lot of new conventions and PLASTER SAINT is new.

    Thanks to Vlad and scchua for lots of help parsing and the photos of joggers nipples, which brought back painful memories (until a saint told me about using plaster on them!).

96. widdersbel @94: re battle/ENCOUNTER, I think the perceived problem may be that a battle is an example of an encounter, not vice versa – in which case it should have a ‘definition by example’ indicator like ‘for one’, ‘say’, or at least a question mark.

    However, in this case Lexico lists battle as a synonym for encounter (noun, sense 2), so I think we’re OK.

    [Roz @93: I can’t believe I missed the basque! 🙂 And yes, Euler is definitely ‘OILER’ (and I’m impressed you got Swiss Germans, not just Germans, to verify how the man himself would have said it.) My ‘Elvis’ quip about Euler being a TV addict was an attempt at Dodgiest Homophone of the Year, referencing ‘Suspicious Minds’ – “Because Euler viewed too much, baby!”]

97. essexboy @96 – of course, you’re absolutely correct – I was getting the solution/definition back to front in my head. Apologies to Jackie. [Note to self: don’t post comments before you’ve properly woken up in the morning, or you’re liable to make yourself look daft.]

    As for “Euler viewed too much”… that’s a borderline red card offence.

98. xjpotter@88 if you’re still around. “Won” and “one” are homophones to everyone I know. How do you pronounce them? (Or anyone else who pronounces them differently?)

    [essexboy@89 I loved your tine hice! It got a bit of a rollick going among the commenters. I didn’t have anything to contribute to it, but I enjoyed it hugely.]

    If anyone’s still around to explain, what’s with Elvis and Euler and TV?

99. [Valentine@98, I don’t know how to do the phonetic hieroglyphs but “One” could be pronounced to rhyme with “swan” whereas “won” could rhyme with “done” for example – or maybe vice-versa?
    Essexboy is saying that Euler is a TV addict = “because Euler viewed too much, baby” sounds like “Because I love you too much baby”, from the King’s “Suspicious Minds”. I didn’t get it at first either, so was glad of his explanation, but would be handing him his coat if he hadn’t already left the building in it.]

100. Now i know that ‘jogger’s nipple’ and ‘plaster saints’ are a thing, so that’s cool

101. Or was it plaster nipple and Saint joggers?

102. 10FC – good point, nipple plasters would solve the problem of jogger’s nipple pretty well, wouldn’t they?

103. @gazzh they would, if you accept that horse had already bolted and you mitigated for such chafing the next time

104. Unfortunately, nation fitted 18a as well as native and left me with a dnf

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