Guardian 28,604 – Imogen

by

I found this quite a tough one, though in retrospect everything is soundly clued. A couple of bits of general knowledge might cause some trouble. Thanks to Imogen

 
Across
9 CHIPOLATA Some potato? A lot ordered with a snack in the tube (9)
CHIP (some potato) + (A LOT)* + A
10 ODEON Theatre is nothing to heartless devil (5)
O + DE[m]ON
11 TENET International computer system’s not hard, in my opinion (5)
THE NET less H
12 BOAR’S HEAD Spooner and Imogen agree where Doll Tearsheet worked (5,4)
Doll Tearsheet is a character in the second part of Henry IV. She works at the BOAR’S HEAD inn, and is a prostitute, so also works in the spoonerised “whore’s bed”
13 OILSKIN Mac to use moisturiser (7)
Double definition
14 POSTBAG All our letters after B: A goes, for a start (7)
POST (after) + B + A + G[oes]
17 FEMUR Female, inwardly modest, showing a bit of leg (5)
F + [d]EMUR[e]
19 WEE Go just over five days? (3)
WEE is 75% of a WEEK, and five days is slightly less, at about 71.4%
20 EYRIE Whiskey wanted back that is in inaccessible place (5)
Reverse of RYE + I.E. (that is)
21 MECCANO It was used for building the holy city? Wrong (7)
MECCA (holy city) + NO. Rather to my surprise I see that Meccano is still manufactured in the US and Canada, so it still is used for building
22 PRETEXT Writing on page about excuse (7)
P[age] + RE (about) + TEXT (writing)
24 SERIOUSLY I rouse fools with cunning, no joking (9)
(I ROUSE)* + SLY
26 TODOS All the Spanish make commotions (2-3)
TODOS is Spanish for “all”
28 AVOID Miss a film that wins Oscar (5)
A + O in VID (video, film)
29 AEROPLANE People carrier‘s small opening to reverse in a narrow street (9)
Reverse of PORE (small opening) in A LANE
Down
1 SCOT National leader veers off racecourse (4)
ASCOT with its “leader” removed
2 SIGNAL Remarkable Belgians performing, not live (6)
Anagram of BELGIANS less BE (to live)
3 SOUTH KOREA Abroad, a thousand separately enter coast, a part of peninsula (5,5)
OUT and K in SHORE + A
4 CARBON Vehicle engine cover half made of such steel? (6)
CAR + BON[net]
5 OAK APPLE Gall as old Greek character almost drowned in beer (3,5)
O + KAPP[a] in ALE
6 MOSS Green shade clothing brothers (4)
Double definition, referring to the tailoring business Moss Bros
7 DECEMBER Period of which the present day is near the end (8)
Cryptic definition, the “present day” being the 25th
8 ENID Woman‘s rotten idea scaled down (4)
Hidden in rottEN IDea
13 OXFAM Cunning creature tucks head down a minute: it brings relief (5)
FOX with its head moved down + A M
15 STEREOTYPE See the end of Harry Potter prepared for printing plate (10)
Anagram of SEE [harr]Y POTTER
16 GUEST Interrupting wind energy for resident temporarily (5)
E[nergy] in GUST
18 MACAROON About to tuck into brownish-red biscuit (8)
CA (circa, about) in MAROON
19 WOODSMAN New moon was spotted event­ually by outdoor worker (8)
Anagram of MOON WAS [spotte]D
22 PAYERS They may subsidise part of service, but only with one rupee (6)
PRAYERS (part of a church service) less its first R
23 ENDEAR In affection, bind daughter in embrace, finally close (6)
D in [embrac]E + NEAR (close)
24 SWAN Swimmer to show off briefly (4)
SWAN[k]
25 ODDS Miscellaneous stuff ends with these (4)
Miscellaneous stuff is “ODDS and ends”
27 SEED Origin of privileged performer (4)
Double definition

87 comments on “Guardian 28,604 – Imogen”

  1. This took quite a while, and parsing a few even longer, but how ingeniously clued.

    I think that WEE(k) is meant to be 3/4 of 7 days which is 5.25 so just over 5 days.

    SOUTH KOREA took longest to parse, I even played with separating thousand into thous and as the letters athous all appear but I was left with KORE unparsed, the final PDM was well worth the effort.

    Many thanks Imogen for a proper mental workout and Andrew for the blog.

  2. Hard to get started and tough to solve. Needed some online help for GK.

    Failed MOSS – I think I heard of Moss Brothers in the past, but did not remember it/them today.

    New for me: TODOS = everyone/all in Spanish (was guessable); SWANKER (for 24d); OILSKIN = mac; STEROTYPE = a printing plate; OAK APPLE = gall.

    Favourites ODDS, AEROPLANE, POSTBAG.

    I did not parse 3d – guessed from crossers, but I could just as easily have guessed North Korea as I could not parse either of them.

    Thanks, both.

  4. Tough, as Andrew says but worth the effort. As indirect anagrams go, I thought SOUTH KOREA was quite a stretch but no quibble. BOARS HEAD was masterful even though I didn’t know the character. I thought tearsheet might have been a hanky. I liked MOSS, MECCANO, OILSKIN, OXFAM and OAK APPLE which was new, as was the Spanish TODOS.

    Ta Imogen & Andrew

  6. Found this tough at times too…not sure whether Imogen meant to include tuck and then tucks at 13, then 18 down. Had to refer to Andrew to discover the parsing as to whether it was SOUTH or North KOREA, having the second part pretty much in place because of the crossers. Didn’t know the Shakespeare reference for Doll Tearsheet, but again the crossers came into play for that one. Used to enjoy battling with my MECCANO set in the days of yore. Last one in was SEED. Enjoyable, but several long pauses for mental clarification this morning…

  7. Thanks IMogen and Andrew
    A couple not parsed – SOUTH KOREA and TO DOS; the latter I took on trust as I know no Spanish.
    I tried SEMESTER at 7d first, but I was confusing it with TRIMESTER, approaching birthday, the other present day!
    Favourite MECCANO. I think a lot of solvers, as Michelle @2, but particularly overseas, will struggle with MOSS.

  9. Clever, quite tough in parts, and thoroughly enjoyable.
    I didn’t know TODOS, and while I suspected Doll Tearsheet was a Shakespearian who was no better than she needed to be, I didn’t know the name of her pub. Neither did I know that a STEREOTYPE was a printing plate. But the wordplay was clear enough to get me there with the aid of the crossers.
    Working out how SOUTH KOREA fitted together was fun; but of course the problem with indirect anagrams (needing to realise that you have to substitute SHORE for coast) is that while you may be able to use them to check your answer, they are little help to you in arriving at it.
    Particular favourites POSTBAG, WEE (Paul would approve!), DECEMBER (neat misdirection).
    Thanks Imogen and Andrew.

  10. Too many liberties for me to find this pleasurable. I think that it is unacceptable to use foreign words as solutions if they have not been assimilated into English. I agree with Andrew that the past tense is inappropriate in 21a. The Spoonerism is a good one, though I don’t think it’s original, and the ‘and Imogen agree’ part of the clue is rather loose. Overall, ‘meh’.

  11. A strenuous but v satisfying workout today. Many thanks. I went the wrong way to begin with with 3d but as it had to one or t’other I did get it right and assumed “separately” meant the “out” and the “thousand” split the word “shore” at different points. I feel some sympathy with solvers who find UK- specific refs an extra challenge but, really, such cases are few and far between – generally. Anyway, apart from it being completely acceptable for a UK paper and UK setters to make references to UK culture, etc, let’s celebrate the fact that this crossword is a gift (some of us pay a sub but maybe not everyone does) and a life-enhancing public good? .

  12. Hard work. Had to look up Doll Tearsheet, and put in unparsed NORTH KOREA but enjoyed the puzzle greatly, particularly MECCANO, POSTBAG and SIGNAL. Many thanks to Imogen and Andrew.

  13. AlanC @4 and NeilH @9: 3d SOUTH KOREA is not an indirect anagram, or indeed an anagram at all. As Andrew says, it’s a charade of OUT (abroad) and K (thousand) separately inserted in SHORE, followed by A.

    Nice puzzle. I liked BOAR’s HEAD and MECCANO in particular. Thanks Imogen and Andrew.

  17. Like Andrew and Terriblislow, I found this tough but / and rewarding.

    I had ticks for POSTBAG, MECCANO, PRETEXT, OAK APPLE, OXFAM, STEREOTYPE and, of course, BOAR’S HEAD – now that’s what I call a decent Spoonerism!

    Many thanks to Imogen for an enjoyable workout and Andrew for the blog.

  19. Thanks Imogen for the workout.
    And thanks Andrew – I needed a bit of help this morning, not parsing DECEMBER, ENDEAR & SEED (performer or player?), and I was confused by ‘my’ in 11ac.

  20. Great puzzle, agree with Blah@1 it was a proper mental workout but not too hard for a Tuesday. Thanks to Imogen and Andrew (I failed to parse femur!)

  21. I usually find Imogen pretty tough and this was no exception. I had no hope parsing SOUTH KOREA, going through exactly the same thought processes as Blah @1, but without the PDM as reward. The innocent looking MOSS took a bit of working out until I remembered the “Bros” bit.

    I liked the ‘Spooner and Imogen agree’ trick for BOAR’S HEAD and MECCANO, be it past, present or (hopefully) future.

    Thanks to Imogen and Andrew

  23. I expected outrage at what I saw as an tortuous and indirect anagram in SOUTH KOREA, but that was because, after many brain-wracking moments, I SERIOUSLY misparsed it. It went like this, “Beside the coast” is also “beside the SEA”, which gives the envelope “S…. …EA”. “A thousand separately” could be “THOU OR K” which is an anagram (abroad) for “OUTH KOR”. Talk about overthinking…
    Incidentally, I don’t know if he does crosswords, but I’m hoping Shakespeare will drop by to confirm whether that was a deliberate spoonerism.

  26. Can todos mean all the in Spanish? If not, I feel the “the” in 26ac is a slightly unfair misdirection. I can’t work out where the separately fits in in SOUTH KOREA. Otherwise the same favourites as Eileen.

  27. [Blaise@23 I’m extremely impressed with your tortuous mental gymnastics that actually produce a parsing. ]

    AlanC, no mini theme detected today?

    Also apologies Andrew having re read the blog (properly this time) I now see there was need for me to restate (albeit conversely) your parsing of WEE(k)

  28. PeterT@26, the separately refers to inserting OUT and K in different places in SHORE, very like Azed to indicate this sort of double insertion.

  29. Highly entertaining and imaginative puzzle from Imogen – it’s clear he is enjoying having cast off the straitjacket of the Times’s strict crossword regulations.

    Not straightforward – I found some of the four-letter entries particularly tricky. Favourites were POSTBAG, MECCANO, MOSS and of course BOAR’S HEAD (an indecent Spoonerism, surely, Eileen 🙂 ). I’ve seen ‘present day’ used like that before, but it almost caught me out and certainly provoked a smile.

    Petert @26: ‘Separately’ because OUT and K are not adjacent in the solution.

    Many thanks to Imogen and Andrew

  31. Blah @27: haha, I was looking at the BOAR’S HEAD, WOODSMAN and SWAN pubs in Stratford upon Avon but unfortunately the OAK APPLE is 45 km away in Worcester. Not much of a theme…

  34. I found this very tough but nearly got there in the end. I had to reveal MOSS, as I was thinking about monks.

    I don’t think anyone has replied to Ian @14 about the ‘Imogen agree’ in 12A. Perhaps someone can explain?

    I liked (playing with) MECCANO, OXFAM, SOUTH KOREA and DECEMBER (I got caught yet again by ‘present day’).

    Thanks Imogen and Andrew.

  35. Ian @14, Robi @34: ‘Spooner and Imogen agree’ because the solution (ie what the setter has clued directly) and its Spoonerised equivalent are both descriptions of Ms Tearsheet’s location.

  36. Imogen is so different from Vulcan, not to mention his other aliases, that I’m sure he’d make a great MI5 recruit [been bingeing Le Bureau, so espionage is sort of top of mind]. Great puzzle, thanks both.

  37. Petert@26: TODOS was a write-in for me as I speak Spanish, but it may not be familiar to most people. Although it’s risky to lay down absolute rules, I can’t think of an example in which it could translate as “all the”. It’s simply “all”, or sometimes “all of them”.

    I thought “snack in the tube” very poor as a definition in 9a (why “the”?), and didn’t like “vid”=film in 28a (I know it’s in Chambers). Other clues were much better, including OAK APPLE, OXFAM and BOARS HEAD.

  39. Thanks Imogen and Andrew. My brain was operating more at Vulcan level this morning so I found this seriously challenging, and fell short on several. SOUTH KOREA (I took a punt on the wrong one but couldn’t parse it) and SWAN completely defeated me.

    But there was still much to enjoy among the clues I was able to solve – favourites were OILSKIN, FEMUR, MECCANO, SIGNAL, DECEMBER and STEREOTYPE. Wasn’t as keen on the spoonerism as everyone else but that’s partly because I couldn’t fathom why ‘and Imogen agree’ (thanks for the explanation, Gervase – of course, makes perfect sense now I see it).

    poc @37 – yeah, ‘snack in the tube’ didn’t really work for me either.

  41. I failed on SWAN (thought of seal, shad and shag for swimmers, but didn’t get to swan, and never would have thought of swank first), SEED (performer seemed unnecessarily perverse as a definition) and BOAR’S HEAD, from ignorance.
    I liked MOSS and POSTBAG
    To answer Blaise @23, I think it likely that the Boar’s Head was knowing on Shakespeare’s part. If you google ‘boar’s head whore’s bed’ you’ll see that the same joke has been made by countless beery wags about their weary bags.
    Thanks Imogen, Andrew

  42. I’ve never much liked Imogen puzzles, but I’m not exactly sure why. Others have mentioned extra words in clues, I’ll add “wanted” in EYRIE and “made of such” in CARBON, maybe that’s it. I did really like BOARS HEAD, though.

  43. I agree with Andrew that once parsed the clues make sense. But Mr Paddington Bear and I felt like we were pulling teeth!! Fun though. Thanks to Imogen and Andrew.

  44. James @41: I’m less sure that the Spoonerism was deliberate on Shakespeare’s part. He was writing during the last phase of the Great Vowel Shift, when English vowels shifted and often diphthongalised. In Julius Caesar he puns on ‘room’ and ‘Rome’, which were pronounced similarly in his day. I’m not sure that he would have pronounced ‘boar’ and ‘whore’ or ‘head’ and ‘bed’ as rhymes. Anyone know?

  45. Appeared impenetrable at first but finally got going. Some very clever clues and some remained unparsed. Overall, a bit of a marathon – not nice during, but very satisfying after! Favourites were:
    CHIPOLATA,
    Oxfam,
    BOaR’s HEAD and MECCANO
    Thanks to Imogen and Andrew for his help in the blog.

  46. Gervase @44. I cannot from memory vouch for ‘boar’ and ‘whore’, but I can for ‘bed’ and ‘head’ – this, for example, from WS’s ‘The Rape pf Lucrece’:

    “Into the chamber wickedly he stalks,
    And gazeth on her yet unstained bed.
    The curtains being close, about he walks,
    Rolling his greedy eyeballs in his head:…”

  48. A bit of a struggle esp on the short answers today. Parsing eluded me on some even where the answer was obvious eg ENDEAR, EYRIE

    I’m with those who weren’t madly impressed by the “and Imogen agreed” device in 12a.

    I liked SOUTH KOREA, POSTBAG and OAK APPLE.

    Thanks Imogen and Andrew

  49. I loved this crossword, which had just the right mix of tricksiness and humour for me. I managed to parse all but SEED where I failed to think of tennis players. I’m still slightly puzzled why they are “privileged” but I guess that being seeded gives them a status, and therefore privileges, above that of un-seeded players – is that right?

    Like others I spent ages trying to parse North Korea before realising that South also fitted the crossers – duh! And I failed to parse SWAN correctly, having missed SWANK and thinking it was a brief version of “swan around” …

    Thanks so much to Imogen for the inventions and Andrew for the clear blogging.

  53. Following on from my last, in the closing couplet of John Ford’s play, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, ‘whore’ rhymes with ‘store’, and in WS’s ‘Venus and Adonis’, a text of the period in which a boar plays a prominent role, ‘boar’ rhymes with ‘more’. Short of further chasing up ‘more’ and ‘store’ as rhyming words, it is pretty safe to venture that ‘boar’ and ‘whore’ rhymed. All of that said, there was a Boar’s Head Inn in Eastcheap at the time Shakespeare wrote the H4 plays …

  54. AllyGally @49 The first round draws of tennis tournaments are arranged so that the seeds are as far from each other as possible, with the aim of giving them easier matches and making sure the best players get through to the latter stages (for commercial reasons, I suppose)

  55. James @54
    Although that is, of course, true, if it were not the case, there wouldn’t be any point in having seeds at all.

  56. muffin, if it were not the case, not only would there be no point in having seeds, but there would be no seeds.
    Seeds are what you get when you arrange a tournament in the way I have described. They are by definition the players given the privilege of an easy draw.

  58. Thanks Imogen. I knew this would not be a cakewalk and I failed with SWAN, MECCANO (unknown to me), BOARS HEAD (Doll Tearsheet not in my orbit), and POSTBAG (too clever for me but I liked it nonetheless). Favourites included FEMUR and AEROPLANE. Thanks Andrew for the blog.

  59. S’s c @46, 53: Thanks for that. However, as you say, there was a Boar’s Head in Eastcheap, a not uncommon tavern name anyway, and probably a haunt of sex workers. I’m not personally convinced that the Bard chose the name for transpositional titillation.

  62. Based on time taken, this was not as tough as it seemed whilst doing it. Fair clues although I needed help from Andrew to parse some.

    Liked: POSTBAG, MECCANO, FEMUR, SCOT
    New: BOAR’S HEAD, OAK APPLE

    Thanks Imogen and Andrew.

  63. Gervase @59. I concur; however, just to complete the matter of the rhymes you originally enquired about, and with my having had more time in the last 20 minutes or so to indulge my obsessiveness in such literary matters, ‘store’and ‘more’ rhyme in sonnets 11, 37, 84, 135 and 146. So if whore = store, store = more and more = boar, then whore = boar.

  64. Thanks Imogen and Andrew.

    Not for me but I see many enjoyed it. A clue like that for SOUTH KOREA is very much a biff and reverse engineer imho. As a solver (never a setter) I think that this could not be solved “cold” as in without crossers, and that is the standard I apply to clues – they should be capable of solution in their own right; in this case I don’t see how one could leap from “coast” to “shore” and thence to the answer.

    But that’s just me – there is a wide spectrum between the impenetrable and the write-in and on reflection this puzzle had a reasonable spread. I did enjoy WEE and STEREOTYPE.

  65. Muffin&james@54-7: while I agree that the seeded players get an easier draw, that is an unavoidable side-effect of the main purpose of seeding which is to maximize the chances of the best players only meeting in the later rounds (i.e numbers 1&2 won’t meet till the final, etc.) It boils down to the same thing practically speaking, but I think the principal goal is important to recognize.

  66. Thanks for the blog, the last two puzzles by Imogen I found rather tricky and well clued. This one I found rather easy and very clunky, Not even got a favourite clue today.
    Does a swan swim ? I think they float and paddle.

  69. Thanks both, failed on 6d by convincing myself that ‘shade’ was a misprint for ‘shades’, thus giving GOSS (see Bros).
    I did think ‘shore’ for ‘coast’ in 3d, but never got as far as ‘out’ for ‘abroad’ before crossers solved it.

  70. Failed on 6. MOSS, having forgotten all about Moss Bros, and couldn’t even think any way to cheat (other than revealing, of course!). Thanks to Imogen and to Andrew for the blog, which I needed to fully understand 7. DECEMBER.

  71. Late to the party today.

    So apparently MECCANO bought the rights to the toy that here is called an Erector Set, and erector sets are now sold in the US under the Meccano brand. I didn’t know this, because when it happened I was already way too old for an erector set, and I have no children to shop for. Still, the clue plus the crossing letters got me there.

    TODOS wasn’t an issue for me; you sort of absorb a decent amount of Spanish if you’re an urban American, and as I’ve said here a few times already, it’s sort of the default foreign language in schools here. (I took German instead.) Hadn’t heard of MOSS Bros., but it couldn’t be anything else.

  72. Took one look at 19across and walked away. Surely “go” is worn out by now. Please setters, leave the bodily activity to Paul.

  73. Thanks, Andrew for parsing some (for me, anyway) impenetrable clues. Might I suggest for 22A, this reading: writing = TEXT, on = RE, page = P, about = (the components in reverse order)?

  74. SWAN was holding out on me all day yesterday, so this morning I thought there’s nothing for it but an alphabet trawl. I tried each letter, starting with A, in the first unchecked space, in combination with all 26 letters for the second unchecked space, and finally got to W!

    Since AlanC by his own high standards (@31) didn’t manage to find a satisfactory theme, let me have a go.

    There’s quite a bit of CARBON in the grid – as well as the WOOD-related solutions (OAK, APPLE, CHIP, SEED, MOSS), we have OIL and the CO2-spewing AEROPLANE – and I can’t believe there’s no connection with a certain conference that has been taking place in SCOTland.

    OXFAM were among many organisations to organise protests, and here’s a suggestion for further action.

    And, coincidentally or not, there’s a message in the last four across solutions:

    SERIOUSLY, everyone, AVOID AEROPLANE!

    Thanks Imogen and Andrew.

  75. No idea about the agreement between Spooner and Imogen, despite all the erudite postings here.
    Maybe it’s because I don’t know much about Shakespeare, whores, pubs or other aspects of UKGK kulcha.

    Can anyone hit me over the head with a sledgehammer?

  76. Ah, it’s okay. I get it, the Spoonerism and the ‘straight’ clue. Whew, I can go to bed now, mine that is, without the help of a sledgehammer.

  77. MrEssexboy @74 glad to see you persevered, I am always surprised when people come on the blog in the afternoon and say they did not finish. You could have got SWAN from swank being careful to remove the correct letter. Still not convinced they swim , they are like people who go on the sea on a lilo and do not even get their hair wet.
    Impressed with your carbon theme , shame it will not get a bigger audience.

  78. Roz: “Being careful to remove the correct letter” – yes indeed 😉

    If I don’t manage to finish a puzzle on the day, I would always rather sleep on it than use aids to complete it (even a dictionary), because so often that seems to do the trick.

    I don’t know why I was foxed by the SWAN for so long – maybe it was because I’d got it into my head that the answer must be SEAL, and I just couldn’t see the parsing. Or maybe, as for you, it felt odd to think of a swan as a swimmer. To me, the W sound in ‘swim’ gives the word a sense of weight, a feeling of resistance to forward movement as one travels from the S to the M, suggestive of a body which is at least half-submerged in water. Would be interesting to see a swan trying out the butterfly or backstroke.

  79. A real toughie. Ended up revealing SWAN in desperation, having tried every other four-letter fish and aquatic mammal I could come up with. Having said that, it was all worth it for MECCANO, which made me laugh out loud. Thanks Imogen and Andrew.

  80. essexboy @74 – very good, I’ll go with that as the theme!

    Roz @77 – it has to be a really good puzzle for me to want to persevere with it much beyond an hour. Hence I will often turn to aids if I don’t get it finished inside that time – sure, it’s not as satisfying as finishing without any help, but I’m impatient, life is too short and there are too many other crosswords. It’s fine for the likes of you, who seem to find crosswords too easy, but I’m just not accomplished enough as a solver to get across the line on a puzzle like this one without a bit of a nudge. (Besides, the failing is not always mine – sometimes it’s because the clues are flawed in some way.)

    Anyway, by not spending too much time on this one from Imogen, I also had time to look at the one from Tees in the Indy yesterday, which to be frank, I found much more enjoyable (not that this information is much use to you – I know you don’t do the Indy, and respect your reasons for that).

    I’m still only 3/4 through today’s Picaroon, but he’s one setter who I will always persevere with, which is why I’m still looking at this thread rather than commenting on that one…

    (On the subject of ‘aids’ – for those not familiar with it, I recommend the Crossword Genius app, which is good at giving hints without giving away the whole answer. Is it cheating? Nah – it’s only cheating if you pretend to others that you got the answers without help. In the interests of full disclosure, I did use the app for a few clues here, including 24d. And I’m claiming fowl play by the setter on this one, because ‘swimmer’ really is not a great definition for SWAN.)

  81. widdersbel @80 I have had my years of struggle and failure with crosswords so I do know what it is like. I agree with EB that having a break is really productive. The Azed from the previous week was very tricky , first hour only got about 10, long break and forget about it, second hour everything flew in.
    I would often return to the Guardian puzzle on the next day and make a lot more progress when I was learning cryptics. I have been known to spend a whole week on a Saturday Bunthorne and still fail.

  82. Agreed – I do often find a break productive, but for me it’s really a question of whether the crossword in question deserves that much of a time investment, or whether it’s a better use of my time to get it out of the way and move on to the next one. (Or do something else entirely, like wasting my time writing inane comments here…)

    There were some very good and very enjoyable clues in this one, but mostly it was one that I didn’t feel much like lingering over. But well done essexboy for persevering – hope the reward of finishing made the effort worthwhile! (And I’m sure Imogen will appreciate it.)

  83. Roz and Essexboy: I also hesitated over the definition of SWAN as a swimmer, but then thought of Seven swans a-swimming…

  86. [In the early years of the Wimbledon tennis, the seeding was so extreme that the previous year’s winner was given an automatic place in the final.]

  87. And a late comment from those of us who see the crossword in the Guardian Weekly. Surprised that no-one saw that 24D could be SCAT, which is a fish and so clearly a swimmer, not a paddler. And “show off” could refer to an anagram of the show ‘Cats’. What do you think?

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