Guardian Cryptic 28,616 by Paul

102 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,616 by Paul”

1. PeterO echoed my thoughts exactly (except it’s OFFEN in the explanation for 1d).

2. 1 down is a okay on Offenbach, another composer

3. Play

4. Luckily, I solved 2d quickly which opened up the themed clues. Solved the SE corner last.

   Favourites CRIBBAGE, OPEN VERDICT (loi).

   Thanks, both.

   * typo in blog for 20ac – it is a reversal of RONIM (not romin)

5. I took a while to get the gateway clue so this was a bit of a slog, though worth it in the end. I remember another COMPOSER themed puzzle by Gozo in the FT a few years ago which was even harder, with lots of obscure names. Still, good to see a few not so obvious ones here too.

   Of the thematic clues, my favourite was (OFFEN)BACH and of the non-thematic clues I liked AYATOLLAH and the not so simple NOVEMBER.

   Thanks to Paul and PeterO

6. Thanks to PeterO for the early blog. I loved finding all the composers: my memory was helped along with a few of the names by Anne Bradford’s blue book of lists (may she rest in peace). The “treasure hunt” for the names reminded me of why I like a themed crossword so much – not necessarily every day, but I do like a good one. Others have already cited some of my favourite clues above. I also ticked 8a VIVALDI, but actually I really liked it all! Very many thanks to Paul for the fun.

7. Indian would have been more apt than Hindu for Raga. But otherwise a lovely puzzle early in the week. Really liked Bach and Ayatollah. Thanks Paul and PeterO.

8. Fun fun fun, lots of smiles and some laugh out loud moments (HALLO TAY and the composer getting checked out in ALDI). I wonder if the clue for 22/25 is a glitch? It would have been neater to substitute ‘2’ for ‘composer’, as the blog kind-of suggests. It doesn’t quite give the game away, but it’s unusual to have the key to the puzzle sitting there unencryptedly in one of the clues.

   Thank you for the music, Paul and PeterO.

9. EB above beat me to it. I wonder why Paul didn’t use his key device in the OPEN VERDICT clue, and thought it was untypical of him to use the Brahms & Liszt gag twice.

   I felt take one back and RING A BELL a bit of a stretch but all’s fair in love and war and crosswords, I suppose.

   Good fun but over too quickly. Many thanks, both.

10. Rather like our blogger, my heart tends to sink a little when I first view a Paul with loads of references to a particular clue. But, as so often with this setter, as it began to unwind, so things became progressively clearer. LISZT was my first themed answer – breaking my normal habit of tackling the clues in strict numerical order, I’d already seen the 14/19 pairing and Brahms and Liszt came to mind. A check that 19 had 6 letters got my on my way and then I twigged COMPOSER, after which it was all fairly plain sailing with BACH resisting until last when ‘often’ suddenly made sense.

    I’m with JinA in ticking VIVALDI, with WordPlodder on NOVEMBER and with michelle on OPEN VERDICT and CRIBBAGE. I’d add RING A BELL to that list. My only slight ‘meh’ today being ANY MORE defined as ‘from now on’ which I thought was a bit loose, even with PeterO’s suggested example.

    As an alternative to the many obvious earworms offered by the theme, I give any prog fans out there Vivaldi by Curved Air from 1970.

    Thanks Paul and PeterO

11. I got COMPOSER quickly, which helped a lot. Plenty of inventive fun as ever with Paul – loved VIVALDI and HARLEM in particular. Couldn’t parse ANY MORE, but now see it thanks to PeterO. Thanks to both.

12. Assuming Paul’s doing his usual post-gig zoom tonight, could someone ask him why he didn’t substitute “2” for “composer” in the clue for open verdict. (I can’t make it because of a prior engagement.)

13. This is why I enjoy Paul. First pass leaves you thinking that you might as well give up straight away. Then one or two solutions emerge and slowly but surely you work your way to the end feeling entertained but challenged. I got the theme reasonably quickly but this didn’t make the rest a write in. LAst ones in were Harlem and Lager as I missed the significance of Brahms and Liszt. Stupid me. Thanks Paul for a great start to the day and to PeterO for the blog.

14. I would have thought that a cone IS a solid.

15. Nice straightforward fun. I thought the same as you essexboy @8 about OPEN VERDICT. My fave was HARLEM.

    Ta Paul & PeterO

16. I used to teach Maths, and would agree that a cone can be a solid. It does have a surface (also called a cone), but then so do the regular Platonic solids, in fact all solids. Of course there may be a word I don’t know which describes the solid (in the same way that circle and disc are related). I would be delighted to know of it.

17. I think Paul is my favourite setter. As so often with his crosswords, I start by getting a very few answers, then think I am never going to solve this one. But with a bit of persistence, and a few leaps of the imagination, there I am finished.
    I was lucky in guessing Magic for the flute on my first working through, so I was already expecting Mozart for 2d. Which led easily to COMPOSER. It became clear to me quite quickly that Magic was wrong, but by then I had the key.

18. Started with 6d, lurker, and 3d with an older meaning of garage.
    16a flute gave way into 2d and rest followed.
    19d 12a not encountered before, in this antipodean location, so a learning today. 7a last in, dutch’s fave 2, so a laugh there.
    Thanks PeterO + Paul

19. The slang that is. Brahms & Liszt otherwise well known downunder!

20. Wag[o]ner gave the theme early-ish, but still laboured a bit on the right hand side although, oddly, guessed the nho port salut immediately. Not great on Brit composers, so Arne and Ives have to be dredged up, unlike the Europeans, including the CRS Brahms and Liszt. Agreed all good fun, ta PnP.

21. Moth @ 16

    Thank you for shedding light on the cone topic.
    How do you draw a cone that isn’t a solid. Is it not just a triangle?
    Excuse my ignorance, I’m not a mathematician.
    Anna

22. My experience was similar to PeterO’s – heart sink at all the 2s, no acrosses on first pass, a few downs, giving G_A_ _ at 16a, hence GLASS and on to COMPOSER (which I resisted, like EB @8, because it was in another clue). From there, it gradually gave way. Like Chinoz @18, NHO 19d 12a as rhyming slang, though I did get both ELGAR/LAGER and MAHLER/HARLEM and knew I was looking for some sort of anagram indicator (LISZT came early for me, BRAHMS late). My favorite? VIVALDI by a long way. Thanks, PeterO and Paul.

23. Having generally skipped Paul crosswords, I have found the last few doable and even enjoyable. This went from horrific to beatific fairly quickly.

    Lots of good ones and PDMs but nice to see CONCORDE make an appearance.

    Thanks Paul and PeterO.

24. Anna @21 – a cone is a three dimensional surface. To draw it as a triangle, you are projecting it onto a two dimensional plane.

25. I simply can’t remember when I enjoyed a Paul puzzle so much – I absolutely loved it, from start to reluctant early finish.

    Like PostMark @10, I abandoned my habit of working through the clues in order, as my first entry was 8ac VIVALDI, to which I gave a big tick and which drew me immediately to 2dn and then it was sheer fun all the way – so many lovely clues, both themed and unthemed. I loved the 19/12 device and CRIBBAGE took me back to childhood days, pegging out with my grandpa on his already ancient board.

    Unlike Postmark, I gave a big tick immediately to ANY MORE, simply for being clued as two words. The present ubiquitous spelling is one of my bêtes noires and I despaired just now when I saw it as an alternative in my go-to dictionary Collins (albeit ‘esp US’ – and it does give ‘from now on’ as a definition). No doubt it will be in the next edition of Chambers.

    I couldn’t possibly list all my favourites – this puzzle is more than a sum of its parts, anyway.

    Huge thanks to Paul for a great start to the day and to PeterO for the blog.

26. Thanks Paul and PeterO
    I had an odd start to this one. I guessed that 16a was MAGIC, hence 2d was COMPOSER (as Mozart wouldn’t fit). I then doubted COMPOSER when I read the 22,25 clue – why hadn’t he used “2” there?
    GO ABOARD disproved MAGIC, and it all then went smoothly.

27. Tassie Tim @ 24

    This is precisely what is confusing me. I always thought that a cone was a solid and only a solid. I am having trouble visualising what a ‘three-dimensional surface’ is. Is it even possible to draw it?

    Sorry Tim, you can tell I’m not a mathematician, can’t you?

28. PS – my “strategy” was to ignore clues with numbers in them (having blankly looked at 2D). NOVEMBER, RING A BELL, CRIBBAGE, and GO ABOARD were generously clued. Then I saw “composer” in a clue and wondered if that was 2D – which parsed fine! The rest came pleasingly.

    So although including the 2D answer in another clue may have been an oversight (as some have suggested), Paul may have wanted more people to enjoy what otherwise would have been, for some, a non-starter, which would have been a shame.

29. Thanks Paul and PeterO. This was fun.

    15a reminds me of the episode of Blackadder where they accidentally burn Johnson’s dictionary and try to rewrite it. For C, Baldrick comes up with the definition “big blue wobbly thing”.

30. Very nice, though rhyming slang always seems rather unfair to me. I would have put two Gs in waggoner, but no doubt one is sufficient. It was my loi.

    Classical composers really aren’t my thing but at least they were well known. Vivaldi’s best known work is possibly The Four Seasons, so there’s another quartet involved.

    Ives was the only composer unknown to me. Wikipedia lists two of that name, both male (almost inevitably), which is a shame because I rather liked the thought of “Miss Ives”.

    I couldn’t quite parse 21 because I couldn’t unsee “Hallo Ta Ya”.

31. Anna @27 – think of a traffic cone. It’s hollow ie not filled and therefore not solid. If you fill it, it’s solid. Both are 3D objects if you’re looking at them in front of you (not on paper or screen).

32. ravenrider @ 30 – same here on 21ac

    Took a while to get going on this but really enjoyed some of the answers – all already mentioned. Needed help parsing a few including aforementioned 21ac

    Thanks Paul and PeterO

33. Found my way in eventually through (e)ARNE(r) at 21d, which indicated the Composer theme. Lots of clever Paul interconnections between several of the clues. Liked the double take on BRAHMS and LISZT. Couldn’t fathom out the parsing for BACH, so thanks to PeterO for that. Thought MINOR a particularly tricky one. Loved the clue for CHOP. Thoroughly enjoyed the fun and games this morning. Last one in OPEN VERDICT, with the right half of the puzzle proving harder to solve than the left half…

34. anna @24 I’m not certain exactly how a cone as a surface would be defined mathematically, but it would probably extend to infinity like a line does. A cone with finite length could be drawn easily and would look like an ice cream cone, though like a drawing of a line it would be an approximation because as a mathematical object it has zero width. A solid finite cone would include the flat end and I don’t think it could be drawn in such a way as to distinguish the 2d surface from the 3d solid. It might even be regarded as two surfaces since the end and the cone can’t be described by a single equation.

35. pdp11 @ 31
    ravenrider @ 34

    Thank you for your comments.
    It all makes a bit more sense now. More than before, anyway!

36. Anna @27 – wot pdp11@31 said.

    The analogy I gave was in two dimensions – technically/mathematically a circle is just the line round the outside of a disc. They are both 2-dimensional, but only the disc is filled in. Of course in everyday speech (and thus crossword-land) they can be used interchangeably.

    I’m now wondering if there is a technical name for the surface of a sphere? Or if the word sphere is technically only the surface too.

37. I couldn’t parse MINOR post-solve: yes, tricky one.
    The “cone as solid” discussion is interesting: like Anna, I can’t see how a cone could *not* be 3-dimensional — clearly a cone which is reduce to two dimensions will be a triangle. And if a cone must be 3-dimensional, then ergo it must be a solid, because any 3-dimensional space must define a volume.
    I really enjoyed this Paul puzzle.

38. I have to confess I thought it was Burl IVES – I’m sure he must have penned a tune or two

39. From despair to elation. All the references to 2 meant that I approached this feeling I would get nowhere. But Vivaldi was very clearly clued, giving me a somewhat bunged in 2 down straight away. I then had a very enjoyable quest for composers, and probably my most straightforward Paul puzzle ever!
    Thanks to Paul and PeterO

40. Surely neither traffic nor ice cream cones are solid? (Apologies if this has already been mentioned, I’ve only skimmed the comments.)

41. [At the risk of encroaching upon Roz’s (and possibly others’) territory, there’s an interesting article here (with diagrams) about light cones.]

42. I wonder why Paul used the word “composer” in the clue for 22, 25 instead of the number 2 he used elsewhere.

43. pserve_pt @37 Mathematically, any surface is two dimensional because any point on the surface can be defined with two numbers. In the same way, we can define any point on the surface of the earth with two numbers, the latitude and longitude.

    If that doesn’t help, think of the analogy of a curved line drawn on a flat piece of paper. It’s a 1d object existing in a 2d space. Any point on the curve can be defined by it’s distance from a chosen point. You could also imagine it as a piece of string that could be straightened.

44. Like some others, I got very frustrated at the beginning, but I enjoyed it once I got going.

    My guess is that the clue for OPEN VERDICT was written by Paul previously, and having composer in the clue was just an oversight. Perhaps Paul might pop in to explain.

    Excellent setting to get in all the composers. I liked the HARLEM/MAHLER pair and the BRAHMS & LISZT references.

    Thanks Paul for the brain stretching and to PeterO for nicely explaining it all.

45. Handel with care!

46. Chambers primary definition says a cone is “a solid object bounded by a plane base in the shape of a circle or ellipse tapering to a fixed point (the vertex) (geom)” (my bold, dictionary’s italics). And if anyone doubts that a traffic cone is solid, try bashing yourself on the head with one.

47. … oh, and “not hollow” is only one of the secondary definitions for “solid”

48. … me @20, oops, forgot Ives is American …

49. Wot others have said, I’m usually very scared of Paul especially when clues refer to other answers, but I got 2d as FOI (a pure guess based on the writing scores bit) and that helped so much that I ended up really enjoying it. Thank you Paul! And PeterO for parsing the couple I couldn’t, and bloggers, especially for the fun discussion about solid cones!

50. I had parsed 1d as a homophone of BACK, so that back-to-back (‘as another’, there being more than one composer called BACH) = ‘succeeding often’. But (offen)BACH is better.

51. PeterO, you got your clues jumbled in your explanation of LAGER. All these pedants, and nobody noticed!

52. Anna@35, a cone can be a solid of uniform density throughout, I have some solid glass cones for use in optics, just think of a glass paperweight in the shape of a cone.
    A cone can be a solid surface but hollow, good examples already given such as traffic cone or ice cream cone.
    A cone can be a hypothetical 2 dimensional surface governed by equations, harder to picture.

    A cone can also be a 3-D surface In 4 dimensional Minkowski space-time but best not to even think about it. EB@41 has put a link which I have not seen but could have some nice diagrams.

53. Thanks for the blog, super crossword. 9Ac actually got me in thinking of meat with an IN added but I did not look at 2 until I did the Downs.
    I think the John Cage piece was for piano, the pianist would open the lid but not play a note and sit there for 4 minutes 33 seconds. Maybe a link to Absolute Zero.

54. I’m another who got 2 down via ‘Magic’. I wonder if Paul planned this misdirection to give us a way in?

    [We tend to think of a cone as a finite object, which might be hollow like an ice cream cone or solid like a candle. Mathematicians also study infinite cones. Think of an infinite vertical line with another diagonal line cutting across it. Treating the first line as an axle, spin the second line around it. You’ll trace out two cones, one upside down that extend to infinity. This is a surface, not a solid. You can specify any point on it by giving the distance from the pivot point (where the lines crossed) and the angle turned from the starting point – 2 dimensions (similar to latitude and longitude when we consider the surface of the earth).
    Taking things further, if you take a slice through the cone you’ll get a parabola, ellipse, or hyperbola, depending on the angle of the slice. To bring things back to lexical matters – there is indeed a link btween the names of these conic sections and ‘parable’, ‘ellipsis’, and ‘hyperbole’.]

55. Lovely stuff – thanks Paul and PeterO.
    I failed to understand the ’19 and 12ac’ significance (despite seeing the anagrams) due to a lack of ‘rhyming slang’ knowledge.
    I enjoyed VIVALDI, which follows in the footsteps of a recent superstore ghost theme.
    Great to see so many composers including ORD lurking in the plane.

56. A wonderful themed puzzle, and, typical of Paul, so rewarding once finished! Lots of clever wordplay with a number of favourites especially CRIBBAGE, OPEN VERDICT, HARLEM, and BRAHMS.
    Loved the cheekiness of including ALDI alongside a highbrow theme.
    Thanks to Paul for a very enjoyable puzzle and PeterO for his blog.

57. I struggled a little at first as I had an incorrect ENDO (Mikio Endo, Japanese composer) instead of ARNE: [v]ENDO[r] (‘one being paid’) minus its outer letters (‘without limits’). This disagreed with another early answer ANY MORE and so I knew it had to be wrong. Once the theme had been ascertained, it was mostly a question fitting composers in where appropriate (and where they would fit!). BRAHMS and LISZT was a lightbulb moment, which opened up the rest of the puzzle. I don’t always like Paul’s clueing as it’s often too obscure for me, but this was just about right. Thanks PeterO and Paul.

58. I also like the juxtaposition of RING A BELL & ayaTOLLah, and GLASS CAGE

59. Katherine @54 Thx for sharing. ?

60. After the usual gasp of dismay at all those Pauline cross-references, I also started with a possible MAGIC for the flute (rapidly disproved by getting GO ABOARD) but that made me take a good hard stare at 2d, which wasn’t that difficult, and obviously not Mozart, and from then on it was plain and very enjoyable sailing. RING A BELL was a bit of a stretch, but my last in was VIVALDI, which is also my favourite. I am not going to try and get my head round the mathematical definition of a cone: anything above O level maths makes my mind stick its fingers in its ears and go wibble wibble.

    Surprised that none of the pronunciation police are complaining about ofTen (for the avoidance of doubt, I’m not).

61. I was able to briefly comment earlier (me@1) because PeterO and I are in the same timezone, but now I’d like to add a few thoughts about Brahms and Liszt. I think what Paul did was just about right, at least for someone who might have heard of the rhyming slang years ago but had forgotten it, but was at the same time familiar with the general practice of using the device in cryptics.
    At first, for 5 and 12d it looks like you have to find something in common between 3 composers, but on closer inspection you see 2 of the 3 are repeated, and then you see the anagrams, and then the PDM. I think this whole construction was perfectly crafted.

62. I’m out of my league with the cone chat, but I’m reminded of a clue I saw elsewhere recently (guest puzzle on Alberich’s website by Gonzo):

    Merge 2-dimensional into 3-dimensional object (8)

63. My heart sank a little at seeing it was Paul with a theme, and considerably more when I twigged the theme (I know nothing about classical music – and was another one who reached 2D via MAGIC).

    Having said that, I rather enjoyed this. I’d never heard of the rhyming slang, so couldn’t parse 5D, and ARNE, IVES, and OFFENBACH are complete NHOs. VIVALDI was marvellous, and I rather liked OPEN VERDICT as well.

    WAGONER simply refused to go in at the death, so a DNF, but pretty happy with that effort all the same.

    Thanks Paul and PeterO

64. I got a lot of solutions the wrong way round – BRAHMS from seeing the structure of the BRAHMS and LISZT anagrams, ELGAR and MAHLER after LAGER and HARLEM. I think the New York Harlem, though named after Haarlem, was the Dutch village originally, though you could possible make a case for either. Haarlem has been a city since 1245

65. Looked daunting but surprisingly straightforward fun. Theme at 2 was my starting point and after that I seemed to be Paul’s wavelength.

    ELGAR was a stroke of genius, also loved FLUTE, the use of BRAHMS and LISZT, MAHLER/HARLEM and VIVALDI

    A complete delight. Thanks to Paul and to PeterO for parsing MINOR.

66. Katherine @54
    Thank you; I think you have got to the heart of the matter over cones. A “cone” in the sense that most commenters seem to think of it, as an object with a flat base and coming to a point, is not a particularly interesting thing in standard mathematics, but as a surface it is, in good part because of conic sections. For this, the normal mathematical use of the word “cone” (perhaps my blog was putting it a bit too strongly to say baldly that it is a surface) is a surface which extends indefinitely, not only at the flared end, but in a similar counterpart on the other side of the point, oriented point to point. Thus if pserve_p2 @37 thinks of a cone as having as two-dimensional counterpart a triangle, most mathematicians would think of one as having as counterpart an X, but with all four arms extended indefinitely. Such a surface does not enclose a volume, just as the two-dimensional X (with or without extensions) does not enclose an area.

    End of maths lesson. Wibble wibble.

67. Roz @53
    I have written an arrangement for four serpents and a swanee whistle. I think that Cage did not specify the instrumentation.

68. Verdi was Giuseppe, not Giuseppi

69. This was brilliant. As others have said, one of those of Paul’s where on first pass you get very little, but it’s just enough to get you “in”, and after that you pick it apart bit by bit in a really satisfying manner. Lovely stuff.

    As to the cone question – I work in 3D graphics a lot, and when I create a cone it is always a solid (like the plug of chocolate at the bottom of a Cornetto).

    The surface version being 2-dimensional seems to make no sense. But it’s 2-dimensional in 3D space. Imagine a sheet of paper, on a table. It’s 3-dimensional if very thin. Now imagine it has no thickness at all – it’s 2-dimensional, but sitting on the table in 3D space. What you now have is a surface called a plane. Now wrap that plane into the shape of an ice-cream cornet. That’s a cone. It’s 2-dimensional because it’s a surface and therefore has no thickness, but like the plane it exists in 3-dimensional space. Obviously the shape it forms has a depth to it, but the cone is just the surface of the shape.

    I’m not sure that’s helped any…

70. I get cranky about theme answers where the crossers depend on the theme, but fortunately I started with the one unthemed crosser AGAR and got 2d pretty quickly after, so that kept it from being a slog. 8d was very nice and also LOI, Aldi being pretty far down my mental list of supermarkets (nobody will ever put the Giant Eagle in a crossword). NHO Arne (had to reveal that) or the “drunk” meaning of Brahms and Liszt, so though I figured out pretty quickly that 19/12 was an anagrind I didn’t know why… and couldn’t parse 19d though BRAHMS clearly fit the pattern (kept trying to fit “Bahms” around R).

    Thanks Paul and PeterO!

71. Moth @36
    In mathematics, a sphere is the surface of a ball. So a sphere is a two-dimensional surface in three-dimensional space. A ball is a three-dimensional solid in three-dimensional space.

72. A very good puzzle. It helped that COMPOSER was my first solution. I admire the ingenuity that that went into so many clues using a variety of cryptic devices, with added humour. My favourites have of course been listed already. The one that I liked best was the funniest: HARLEM.

    Thanks to Paul and PeterO.

73. It’s just struck me that one of CONCORDE’s most distinctive features was its adjustable nose-cone. I rather think that must have been conscious on Paul’s part – in fact, since the purpose of the cone was to make it aerodynamically streamLINEd, the ‘line in solid design’ makes the clue &littish, if not an actual &lit.

    True, the nose-cone was not an infinite mathematical cone, neither was it solid like the chocolate in a Cornetto (the visor had to be retracted into the nose prior to its being lowered for take-off and landing, so the chocolate would have got in the way).

    [Roz @52: “best not to even think about it” – too late! 🙂 The sentence which tickled my interest in the ‘light cone’ article was “In reality, there are three space dimensions, so the light would actually form an expanding or contracting sphere in three-dimensional (3D) space rather than a circle in 2D, and the light cone would actually be a four-dimensional version of a cone whose cross-sections form 3D spheres (analogous to a normal three-dimensional cone whose cross-sections form 2D circles)”. Beautiful if mind-boggling.]

74. I thought this was a brilliant crossword. Like so many others I started out putting MAGIC in 16a – and I’m rather taken with Katherine @ 54’s hypothesis.
    A plethora of satisfying clues, way too many to mention – but VIVALDI was a corker. A lovely mental image of the great man waiting patiently in the check-out queue…
    Huge thanks to Paul, and also to Peter O for the parsing of AYATOLLAH (a wild and lucky guess on my part).

75. Superb.

76. [ MrEssexboy@73 , very difficult to visualise higher dimensions but very easy to write down the equations in special relativity. It is customary to suppress the Z direction and just consider motion in the x,y plane.
    There is a very interesting story called Flatland by Edwin Abott, a Victorian satire involving points, lines and polygons. It then introduces the third dimension and even considers the fourth. ]

77. [Thanks Roz, that does actually RING A BELL. It’ll be next on my reading LISZT.]

78. Great fun and well clued.
    I read 17d as Line (CORD) in solid design (CONE) = aero­nautical engineering triumph (CONCORDE), so I’m not sure the above discussion is necessary, as the phrase “solid design” would seem to describe either a solid or a surface in 3-D.
    I didn’t even notice “composer” appearing in 22/25 as opposed to “2”. Surely just a Grauniadism.
    Lots of fun, if hard to start (FOI = CRIBBAGE, doing the clues in order!).
    Thanks, Saints

79. Even when corrected you spell GIUSEPPE as GUISEPPE which seems to be a common error among English speakers. Just remember that Giuseppe is the Italian version of Joseph and that if you put a “u” after a “g” in Italian the “g” is pronounced hard as in “gutter” so you would have to pronounce it as “gooey” “seppay” which is obviously ridiculous.

80. GLASS was my third entry in the grid – I’m amazed at how many have owned up to MAGIC at 16a. What funtion would ‘perhaps’ have in the clue if that was the answer?

    Everything was going so smoothly, but I hadn’t noticed that my pen hand had written MINER instead of MINOR at 20a (probably while I was already looking at the next clue), so I have to award myself a DNF gong. Or perhaps a cabbage, like they used to do in Crackerjack.

    Thanks to Paul, and to PeterO for pointing out a couple of parsings for solutions that I had bunged-and-shrugged. Wibble wibble, indeed. 🙂

81. Sorry, PeterO – another couple of slips in 21d. It’s “Rule Britannia”, not “Brittania”, and The Beggar’s Opera was by John Gay (from my home town), with musical assistance from Pepusch.

82. Much fun, even though, as a newbie from across the pond, my rhyming slang is still not good enough to be able to parse HARLEM. Thought it must be that, but couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. I suspect that’s going to take a while.

83. [sh @80
    You have sort of reminded me of one of my favourite Alex cartoons. He’s taking Vince, one of the cockney money men, to the opera. Vince asks Alex what they are seeing. “Die zauberflote”. Vince looks puzzled. “Magic flute, Vince.” “Thanks, Alex, I got it specially for this”]

84. muffin @81
    I will not change the blog at this stage, because of Muphry’s Law. I am not sure how the mangled Britannia crept in, and I should have known about The Beggar’s Opera; Arne merely added a few new songs and changes to Gay’s work.

85. Thankfully I got the COMPOSER key word very quickly and enjoyed a slow but steady solve. Very good indeed.
    [Our cats are named after composers, currently Vivaldi, Chopin and Schubert. Bach the first (Batch to the vet’s nurse!).]
    I’d like to mention ‘discontented’ as the Instruction of the Day. Never seen that before, genius.
    Thanks Paul and PeterO

86. All been said, with mathematical footnotes of interest, so thanks both and thanks Widdersbel for the plug.

87. Thanks PeterO as I had no idea what was going on with Brahms which I backsolved from the slang, feeling smug because I got GLASS first up although not so smug as BACH took a very long time to justify and enter (sadly not because I insist on pronouncing the t in often!). Lots of great clues but CRIBBAGE wins for the bittersweet surface and great definition, thanks Paul (and thanks various above for prog rock, mathematical clarity, Alex etc).

88. yes, burl ives surely. 22/25 presumably an oversight, hard to imagine otherwise.

    I enjoyed unravelling this, and i can see the cleverness, but the problem with this kind of puzzle is that the surface readings go to pot – the art of setting is lost – it becomes mechanical. “2 shut up” is not a good surface, etc. If you’re going to do this, you need to figure out how to work the clue numbers into the surface. I may have said this previously, obviously it is only an opinion. So you’d think clues that did not cross-reference would be opportunities for good surfaces? but I struggle with the surreal 15a , 21a, and more. I also struggle with V=quintet, dutch village once (i have relatives in Haarlem – was it once spelled Harlem? news to me, guess i’m missing something – if we are talking about city/village status of overseas towns, i’m going to suggest that is a stretch), and i’m confused by ring a bell = take one back, again, just me no doubt.

    Many thanks PeterO and Paul – like I said, I did enjoy unravelling this.

89. Dutch@88 As I pointed out @64 it was the New York Harlem that was once a Dutch village.

90. Great crossword, terrific blog – I just wish it could have been a prize so that I could have given it the time it deserved. As it was, a busy day meant that I got as far as COMPOSER, carried on for a while but ended up revealing a lot of potential fun before dashing out the door. (In my defense (to my own accusations) themed puzzles are often just not worth the candle.)

    I think I would have enjoyed (offen)BACH most if I had persevered. On the question of pronunciation Gazzh@87 might agree with me that the “t” in “often” has been eroded over time to the extent that it is rarely articulated in normal speech? (Some may have regional insight.)

91. dutch @ 88
    As you probably know, New York (city) was once know as New Amsterdam, and was part of a Dutch colony.
    This is from the Wikipedia entry for Harlem (now a district of New York): “Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658,[4] it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands.”
    Paul’s definition is spot on.

    I get your point about the surfaces, but for me this more than compensated for by the other qualities of what I thought was a great crossword.

    Many thanks to Paul, and to PeterO (especially for some of the extra information about the composers.

92. … and with sort of thanks to the mathematicians for giving me brain ache on the subject of cones.

    But I read CONE as being clued by “solid design”. A building could be designed as a cylinder, cube, cone or gherkin. That might perhaps (loosely) be described as its “solid design”.
    To treat “design” as part of the Definition doesn’t work for me.

93. dutch @ 88: if something “rings a bell” it basically means the thing tells your brain that you already know about it even though you don’t quite remember it. So if someone asks about a person you’ve not thought about in years, you might say the name “rings a bell”, because clearly you’ve not quite forgotten, it’s just you’ve not remembered either. It’s usually followed by lots of head-scratching, and then hopefully some happy memories. Basically, it takes you back.

94. [@93 MarkN: the same notion — of something being impossible to erase from one’s memory — is also to be found in the phrase “…you cannot unring a bell…”]

95. The main point in dutch‘s comment @88 is that a crossword like this (with a lot of cross-references) generates many surfaces that are sub-par.
    I said a similar thing to my solving partner tonight about 12dn (“14, 19 and 12 across drink” – what’s that?).
    Paul is not well-known for his outstanding surfaces, and certainly not in (the increasing number of) his cross-referential puzzles, but as anotherAndrew @91 says that was compensated by other things.
    The same actually with my solving partner – she enjoyed it immensely.
    While – don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed it too, I don’t think this was top-notch Paul – but the comments so far are in disagreement with that.
    I got the gateway clue 2dn almost straightaway after which it was more or less “looking for Elgar etc”, parsing many of them afterwards (or very afterwards).
    Last one in was WAGONER, mainly because I wasn’t sure whether the second ‘old’ was part of the construction or the definition.
    No real challenge for me, done and dusted too quickly.
    And then, yes, these unsatisfactory surfaces start to lead to this solver shrugging his shoulders.
    This crossword clearly provided a lot of fun for nearly everyone, so who am I to take that away.
    Yet, I am still with dutch when he says “the art of setting is lost”.

    Thanks PeterO (for the blog) & as ever Paul for the puzzle.

96. I was lucky in that 2d leapt out at me straight away – I saw OMP on my first reading of the clue and quickly thought to embed that in an anagram of SCORE, then said to myself “that works !” That led to (Offen)BACH and the top left went in quite easily. Excellent and enjoyable crossword. I particularly liked CONCORDE, LAGER/ELGAR and CRIBBAGE. Many thanks to PeterO and of course to Paul.

97. Paul is not known for smooth surfaces, and the one for PORT SALUT (one of my earliest in, though I haven’t been able to find the cheese for some time) makes the point. What is “cheese left, salute unfinished” supposed to be saying?

    Thanks, PeterO, for parsing MINOR, which was beyond me.

    22, 25 I think the clue reads “Reason for being dead is still unknown.” “Remains” doesn’t refer to a corpse.

98. Loved this. One quibble/query. Isn’t the ‘Dutch village once’ spelt HAARLEM?

99. Yogdaws @98: see Petert’s posts @64/89 and anotherAndrew @91

    (I’m not blaming you for not having read every post – it’s a very long thread!
    And welcome to the site, if you haven’t commented before.)

100. This themed puzzle went well for me with just one answer left. I looked up to see if BAROBER was an old word for driver, and I had to go right through the alphabet before I got to Wagner!

101. [On the General Discussion page I have further commented on a general point made by Dutch @88, which Sil commented on @95.]

102. I really don’t like this type of puzzle, it relies so much on getting one clue, which I didn’t without checking – and even then I still had about half unsolved.

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