Guardian 28,654 – Philistine

by

Good stuff from the Doctor, though I think without any of his trademark “lift and separate” clues. Thanks to Philistine,

 
Across
1 TAILBACK Jam? In tagliatelle? (8)
TAIL is hidden BACKwards in tagLIATelle
5 TROJAN Old citizen is a hard worker (6)
Double definition
9 EMULSION Paint nudism au naturel, finally implicated in recurrent commotion (8)
Last letters of nudisM aU natureL in reverse of NOISE
10 DISOWN Refuse to acknowledge one’s outwardly depressed (6)
I’S (one’s) in DOWN (depressed)
12 VENUE Street’s not a place for events and functions (5)
AVENUE less A
13 KICKSTART Old motorbikes feature thrills with skill rounding junction (9)
T in KICKS (thrills) + ART
14 FIT AS A FIDDLE Very well and appropriate baffle, as if playing inside (3,2,1,6)
FIT (appropriate) + (AS IF)* in ADDLE (to confuse, baffle)
18 PACIFIC COAST You’ll find that to the west of Mexico father cooks first, provided with tiny capacity oven (7,5)
A charade of many parts: PA (father) + C[ooks] + IF (provided) + 1 CC (small volume, tiny capacity) + OAST (oven)
21 SMALL BEER Piddling half-pint? (5,4)
Double definition
23 AMISH Primarily austere, mostly illiberal, quiet sect (5)
First letters of Austere, Mostly Illiberal + SH, with an extended definition
24 LABILE Liable to change (6)
A very economical &lit (aka “clue as definition”) – anagram of LIABLE, and the whole clue also defines LABILE
25 OPERATOR Driver for pointless proportionate representation (8)
Anagram of PROPORTIONATE less POINT
26 SKETCH Hokusai’s fifth boat illustration (6)
Fifth letter of hokuSai + KETCH
27 SYMMETRY Yet my Mrs may be fearful of Tyger’s appearance (8)
(YET MY MRS)* – a reference to Blake’s “The Tyger”: “What immortal hand or eye,/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”
Down
1 TWELVE APOSTLES Where you can find venue with beers to store letters of faithful followers (6,8)
“Venue” is to be found at TWELVE across, + POST in ALES
2 IGUANA They say you again got entangled with an American native (6)
Anagram of U + AGAIN
3 BAS RELIEF Doctrine about Caesar, oddly not shown in sculptor’s work (3,6)
cAeSaR less its odd letters in BELIEF
4 CLOCKWATCHER Timekeepers extremely eager, but not this one (12)
CLOCK + WATCH (two “timekeepers”) + E[age]R – typically a clockwatcher is not an eager worker
6 REIMS In Singapore, I’m searching for a source of fizz (5)
Hidden in singapoRE I’M Searching. Reims “lies on the northern edge of the Champagne wine region and is linked to its production and export.”
7 JEOPARDY Risk of standard diet originally eaten by kangaroo, after a change of heart (8)
PAR (standard) D[iet] in JOEY with its inner letters swapped
8 NINETEEN-THIRTY Half past seven in the evening is a time of depression (8-6)
Double definition; 1930 was during the Great Depression of the 1930s, generally taken to start in 1929
11 OCEANOGRAPHY Coy orphan, age uncertain, a subject for deep study (12)
(COY ORPHAN AGE)*
15 INSTAGRAM Where to share pictures of fashionable males (9)
IN (fashionable) + STAG + RAM (two males)
17 SCRABBLE Bravo for Mike in rush for game (8)
SCRAMBLE with M changed to B
19 DIKTAT Order giving rise to rubbish joke (6)
Reverse of TAT (rubbish) + KID (to joke)
22 LILAC Return visit to wrap one’s flower (5)
I in reverse of CALL

79 comments on “Guardian 28,654 – Philistine”

  1. thanks! lots of cleverness to celebrate — especially 19:30/1930. 1a made me (quite unnecessarily) read the wiki page for tagliatelle.

  2. Is the first clue – or answer – not a lift and separate? I enjoyed this, though it was odd having venue in a clue so close to VENUE as a solution. DIKTAT was also in the quick (yesterday LORRY was in both); I might not have got it so fast otherwise. Many thanks both!

  3. I parsed SMALL BEER slightly differently – Piddling = SMALL, half = BEER and definition = pint (was it Eton where scholars were allotted a pint of small beer – watered down ale – with their dinner?) I also smiled at encountering DISOWN the day after Prince(?) Andrew had his titles removed. And, with YouTube appearing in a puzzle the other day, I think this might be the first time I’ve encountered INSTAGRAM amongst the solutions. The march of progress.

    I found this intimidating at first; lots of long answers but NINETEEN THIRTY leaped off the page and, tbh, TWELVE APOSTLES was an early guess but needed some crossers before I felt comfortable with the parsing. It did help me get VENUE. But the puzzle unwound at a steady pace, thereafter, with too many ticks to list them all which makes for a great Friday tussle in my book. A few highlights, therefore: KICKSTART, PACIFIC COAST, SYMMETRY, CLOCKWATCHER, OCEANOGRAPHY and, probably COTD for its economy, LABILE. Splendid effort.

    Thanks Philistine and Andrew (not the prince)

  4. Very enjoyable: thanks Philistine. Favourites IN STAG RAM, SCRABBLE, TAILBACK, NINETEEN THIRTY and the sibject for deep study. Just as well I got OCEANOGRAPHY before I was tempted to put PACIFIC OCEAN at 18a: it took me a while to work out COAST. Didn’t know the “reverse” (medical?) meaning of recurrent for EMULSION, and was baffled by the source of TWELVE.

  5. Enjoyable puzzle. No lift-and-separate clues, as Andrew points out – and an uncharacteristic lack of medical references in this iatrogenic crossword. But a nice subtractive anagram for OPERATOR and a self-referential clue for TWELVE APOSTLES.

    LIABLE is neat – I’m surprised I haven’t seen this before. Ticks also for TAILBACK and SKETCH – good allusion to ukiyo-e here.

    Thanks to Philistine and Andrew

  6. It was a while before the penny dropped for me with tagliatelle too. But I really enjoyed this one, a good mix of clues.

  7. Shoudn’t have posted so quickly. I get the double appearance of VENUE now. Very clever really. Thank you for explaining Andrew!

  8. Eleven apostles makes more sense because Judas was unfaithful. I was unable to choose between eleven and twelve until crossers confirmed it, having not got 12 till later; I didn’t spot the link even then.

  12. Thanks Philistine and Andrew.

    Really enjoyed this too many good clues to list them all.

    Still chuckling over tailback, and suspect I will be all day.

  13. Great puzzle. I join in the praise for 8,20d NINETEEN-THIRTY. Other excellent clues were 21a SMALL BEER, the misleading reference to the Wave painter (as I call Hokusai) in 26a SKETCH, 15d INSTAGRAM and 17d SCRABBLE. I seem to be on the same wavelength as PostMark@3 and others in my choice of favourites. The count for the TWELVE APOSTLES at 1,16d was fine with me and I concur with Tim C’s opinion @12 regarding the crossover with VENUE at 12a. The Yeats reference at 27a was just icing on the cake, as I love a good literary clue and that is a quote that has stayed with me since I was 16, a very long time ago! Thanks very much to Philistine and Andrew.

  14. P.S. Oh and I did like the “Joey” reference in the construction of 7d JEOPARDY (being very parochial I know).

  15. Great fun this morning. I also wondered about the use of venue in clue and solution until the penny finally dropped. Also loved 8/20. Thanks to P and A.

  16. Gladys @4 Chambers gives ‘revert’ as an archaic definition for recurrent. Not sure I’m happy with that.

    Thanks for the workout Philistine and thanks for the help with the parsing Andrew

  17. This was good fun – I especially liked the plurals in 4D and 15D. LABILE was new to me, and I only knew OAST from the Alan Partridge podcast, From The Oasthouse.

    Thanks Andrew & Philistine.

  18. yesyes@16, Chambers also gives recurrent as “running back in the opposite direction or toward the place of origin (anat.)” which I think was what gladys@4 was alluding to. It seemed fair enough to me.

  19. As JerryG @15 says, great fun! Re 16d: having all the crossers, I toyed with EPISTLES for letters before realising it was APOSTLES, and then took some time to work out the TWELVE. Plenty more excellent clues as always from Philistine. Thanks to him and to Andrew.

  20. Clever stuff, especially TWELVE APOSTLES, NINETEEN-THIRTY, OCEANOGRAPHY and the very neat subtraction for OPERATOR.
    Yes, Gervase @5, no medicine; but manages to say something original about Blake’s beast:
    Tyger, Tyger, both mis-spelt/ With your bright and gleaming pelt/ Living in the London Zoo/ People come and stare at you…
    Seriously, one commentator has written: Just like Blake brings the beauty out of the fierceness of the tiger, he brings the fierceness amongst the beauty of the Creator. Perhaps behind the loving and caring nature of the beautiful God, there lies another side to it, a side that is fearless, thunderous, strength so immense that could forge a creature like a tiger and not tremble.
    So curiously, we start with the Apostles and end with the Creator, going via “rendering unto Caesar” in 3d and the devout AMISH of 23a. The Rev. John Graham would have approved.
    Thanks to Philistine and Andrew.

  21. A lovely puzzle and a great start to the day.

    I see I have eleven ticks, so I won’t list them all, especially as they’ve all been mentioned by others, between them.

    I particularly enjoyed reading Neil H’s post @20 – many thanks for that, Neil.

    And, of course, as always, many thanks to Philistine and to Andrew.

  22. I found this very difficult but as it unfolded, there were so many PDMs like TAILGATE, CLOCKWATCHER, TWELVE APOSTLES, INSTAGRAM and NINETEEN THIRTY, that I sat back in awe. Thanks for explaining SYMMETRY. Brilliant puzzle.

    Ta Philistine and Andrew

  23. Thank you Andrew, and contributors for the justification of “recurrent”. Another trip down TV memory lane with KICKSTART but the highlight for me was the SYMMETRY of the constructions of CLOCKWATCHER and INSTAGRAM (not quite symmetrical in the grid but close), thanks Philistine.

  24. An enjoyable brain workout, so thanks Philistine. I, too, had EPISTLES for 16 down originally, having been distracted by “letters” in the clue, but once I got 1 down I put myself right (admittedly without reaching for my nearest Bible to check how many epistles there are in the New Testament!)

  25. Was short of time today. Failed to solve 18ac, 7d, 19d.
    Liked NINETEEN THIRTY.

    New SMALL BEER = piddling, TAILBACK.

    I could not parse 25AC, 27ac, 1/16 apart from POST = letters in ALES.

    Thanks, both

  26. I concur with the approving comments made thus far, with especial praise for LABILE. Several of the surfaces were prolix and gnarly, I thought, but these could be overlooked in the face of such witty and engaging clueing.

  27. … and indeed I overlooked the extraneous “an” in the definition for IGUANA at 2d. Some will defend this on the grounds that it provides an interesting distractor, but for noun solutions I think the definition should be cleanly aligned with its target word.

  29. pserve_p2 @27: I don’t object to the extraneous ‘an’ – I don’t expect all cryptic clues to be written in newspaper headline style. In fact it did distract me, so it served its purpose because I first thought that ‘an’ was part of a charade and consequently IGUANA was my LOI.

    NeilH @ 20: Beautiful gloss!

  30. Great crossword; this unfolded nicely bit by bit.

    I’m ashamed to say that I hadn’t realised the tiger was a tyger, although I knew the reference. I ticked TWELVE APOSTLES, TAILBACK, CLOCKWATCHER and INSTAGRAM (my favourite).

    Thanks Philistine and Andrew.

  32. Robi @31: Only for an instant in my case, because I had the J and the O, so the answer had to be JEOPARDY, and ROO clearly didn’t fit.

    To be really pedantic, the word joey is used for the infant of any marsupial, so ‘kangaroo’ is strictly a definition by example and therefore the clue should have a “?”, but wotthehell 🙂

  33. Very enjoyable puzzle; a steady solve. 1st in 11d which gave lots of crosses. Favs among lots of good ones 27a and 3d (spent ages trying to think of a title “The ??” until got 1a)

  34. A very unpretentious and well clued puzzle.
    Classy and enjoyable without being too difficult which is just as well as Elgar’s latest TT is lurking
    Great blog too by Andrew
    (Much easier to pronounce Reims in the local fashion after several glasses of their produce)

  35. Not the easiest of puzzles, but a lot of great clues, all faves already mentioned.

    The one dubious point for me was the ‘s in 12a. It doesn’t seem to work, except in the surface. Take a look at Andrew’s explanation neatly aligned below the clue and you’ll see what I mean.

  36. Thanks to Philistine and Andrew.

    All has been said. I couldn’t get the Tyger reference so thanks to Andrew for untying that knot. And I was left with an un-parsed ‘esion’ in EMULSION (as I think many may have been).

    TWELVE – the more you say it the more unlikely it seems. I can see that the TW- derives from ‘two’ but then whence that silent ‘w’? I can leap from ‘duo’ to ‘two’ but then it seems that the ‘w’ is perhaps a fossil of extinct pronunciation. (It seems slightly easier to leap from ‘tres’ to ‘three’).

    DrWO@35: I see what you mean.

  37. When I tried Googling “recurrent”, I got (1) the more usual meaning of occurring repeatedly
    (2) (of a nerve or blood vessel) turning back so as to reverse direction.
    “the recurrent nerve leaves the hypocerebral ganglion”

    Given Philistine’s medical background, this may be the more familiar meaning for him. I’m not complaining, just haven’t met it before.

    I was interested to find that although SMALL BEER is no longer produced commercially in the UK, low-alcohol “table beer” is still a thing in some Continental countries.

  39. Alphalpha @36: The w in two was almost certainly originally pronounced – Old English had a second variant ‘twa’ where it certainly was. The reconstructed PIE word is *duah- and many modern IE languages have u or v after the d – due in Italian, zwei in German, dva in Russian.

    The words for the cardinal numbers 1-10 are highly conserved in Indo-European languages. I like Alastair Reid’s parody: ounce, dice, trice, quartz, quince, sago, serpent, oxygen, nitrogen, denim.

  43. Struggled at first to make any inroads, but the J in my first one in, TROJAN opened the way for JEOPARDY. Not stuck in any TAILBACK’s after that. Some excellent clues, particularly liked the classy NINETEEN THIRTY, and OPERATOR and INSTAGRAM, and the aforementioned TAILBACK too. Didn’t know AMISH, but the precise cluing meant it couldn’t be anything else. A very satisfying, pleasurable solve throughout today. Thanks to Philistine and Andrew…

  44. For 3d, when I got ASR I thought the sculpture might be a German one called “Das R(something). Anybody else? Of course further developments put me right.

    Easier than usual for me, I finished it last nght, while I usually have a few more to fill in in the morning. Loads of fun, thans to Philistine and to Andrew.

  46. Thanks Gervase@39 and Gazzh@41. How intesting. Time for an overhaul of these numbers I think. One-teen and two-teen would make more sense.

  47. In French, it isn’t just onze and douze, but treize, quatorze, quinze and seize; ten doesn’t come into the picture until dix-sept.

  48. Great crossword. Surprisingly straightforward too. So much to like and admire.

    Praise indeed for TWELVE APOSTLES and VENUE link, CLOCKWATCHER, OPERATOR and SYMMETRY. And many more too numerous to mention.

    Thanks to Philistine and Andrew

  49. [Re recurrent in biology:
    The recurrent laryngeal nerve is famous in biology for taking a course from the brain down and round some major vessels near the heart then back up to the larynx (very roughly speaking).
    This is especially spectacular in giraffes as the nerve can be up to 5 metres long. This is held to be an example of “unintelligent design” in evolution i.e. no-one would have designed it this way, it just happened in the course of evolution.]

  50. Thanks Philistine for an excellent crossword. Like copmus @34 said “very unpretentious and well clued.” Like Eileen said there were too many ticks to mention. I will give a shout-out for the most economical &lit LABILE, INSTAGRAM (I use it daily and never saw the “males” until this puzzle), and the oft mentioned 19:30. Thanks Andrew for parsing — I didn’t see the cleverness of TWELVE APOSTLES and I missed DIKTAT entirely.

  52. ravenrider @8: I think that Judas is really hard done by – he was a pawn in the whole game. If he hadn’t betrayed Jesus, we wouldn’t have Easter, which was the ultimate point of it all. Someone had to do it.

  54. Thanks for the blog, some elegant and neat constructions here, but I did prefer Philistine when he used to challenge us a lot more. Do we want our crosswords to entertain us or make us think ? Perhaps I am in a minority of one.

  56. Clearly this blog is primarily for skilled solvers, and it must be frustrating to feel shortchanged sometimes. But I can’t be the only relative beginner to find tiresome the humblebragging and the regular complaints that the puzzles are too easy.
    It took me a full hour to solve this one. But then I can sometimes be a bit of a thickie. Or perhaps I’m just jealous.

  57. [Tyngewick@45 Thanks for that, I’ll defer to you. I was there a couple of years later, and the novelty had probably worn off by then, so I’ll regrade my “absence of evidence” as insignificant!]

  58. “Liable to change (6)” is a great clue – definition straight from Chambers. I’m flattered Philistine liked it too, and equally flattered that Hovis remembers seeing it in my puzzle (Independent 10,575). When I used it, it was suggested by a friend, and i remember thinking I was surprised it hadn’t been used before – but a check found nothing. Great minds etc, well done Philistine. I also really liked 10a, 8/20d and 15d. Great puzzle.

  59. Hi Podule @56 – I don’t recognise your name, so welcome here if you’re a new commenter and my apologies if you are not.

    “Clearly this blog is primarily for experienced solvers” … absolutely not so!!

    From ‘About Fifteen Squared’, above: “The purpose of this site is to provide a daily analysis of, and commentary on, the cryptic puzzles published in the Financial Times, Guardian and Independent (Inquisitor in the i, Enigmatic Variations in the Sunday Telegraph and Cyclops in Private Eye are covered as well …
    … We want to appeal to all types of solvers, those new to cryptic puzzles and those with more experience, and we welcome your comments and feedback.”

    If you’ve been ‘lurking’ for a while, I hope you’ve seen numerous comments from beginners who have found this site valuable on their journey into the fascinating world of cryptic crosswords and it has been really good to see how their confidence has increased in both solving and commenting.

    Please don’t be put off by the ‘humblebragging’ – lovely word!. If you finished this one in an hour, you have absolutely no need to feel thick or jealous.

    I hope we’ll hear more from you. ;- )

  60. [Roz @54: I know that you’re anti-Indy but I hear that’s yesterday’s crossword by Tyrus (Vlad) was a quite a challenge to some of its bloggers.]

  61. Eileen @59 Thank you. I certainly wouldn’t have made even the limited progress that I have made without my daily visits to this blog. And yes, I do occasionally see posts from other beginners.
    Unfortunately, my comment about solving this in an hour was an attempt at humour. It was almost a direct quote of a comment that I saw here a week or two ago (I think the time stated in that was 2hrs). Sadly, this was a particularly bad day, which perhaps explains my post. I did finish this after an hour, but only by giving up, with only two clues solved.

  62. Finished 1 hour before my deadline but started earlier. In the hope of starting yet another discussion on homophones, today’s Scotsman cryptic had incise = inches!

  64. Many thanks Philistine for the entertainment, and Andrew for the blog. TWELVE APOSTLES was my LOI – like others I had got the idea of letters=EPISTLES stuck in my head and it prevented me seeing any further, and even when the correct solution became apparent, I couldn’t see why “TWELVE” so thanks for putting me straight.

    Roz @54 – you might be in a minority in finding this easy. There were one or two write-ins (TROJAN is barely even cryptic) but overall this was far from easy for me. You say you long for a time when Philistine used to challenge you a lot more. Maybe the problem is not that he’s got easier but that you’ve got too good? (Or perhaps that you’ve got too used to his style?)

    Podule @56 – One of the upsides of being not very good at solving crosswords is that you never find yourself complaining that they’re too easy – I did eventually complete this one, in a little over the hour, which means I reckon I got very good value for money out of it, in terms of both entertainment and challenge.

    [gladys @37 – London’s superb Kernel brewery revived table beer as part of its range several years ago – the brewer specialises in bringing back old styles and recipes, but they’re normally towards the Very Strong end of the spectrum, so their table beer is an especial oddity.]

  65. PS, Podule, when I was a beginner, there was no such thing as fifteensquared, and if you failed to solve a clue you had to wait until the next day to see the solution (or the following week for Saturday prize crosswords). And if you couldn’t work out the parsing even when you saw the solution, tough luck – you had to remain in ignorance. Most days, my copy of the Guardian would be going in the bin with less than half the grid filled in.

  67. Podule @61 – please take careful note of widdersbel @ 64/5.

    Please keep persevering – and keep in touch! 😉

  68. A satisfying steady-paced solve for me. I enjoyed the CLOCKWATCHER and the deep study very much. LABILE was nice. Seems like an excellent mnemonic for the word.
    Dr WhatsOn @35. This “s” seems to be one of those that can be explained as short for “has”. So AVENUE has not “a” (in poetical speak) to give the definition. The “s” in motorbikes in 13 seems to me more of a problem. The definition ought to lead to KICKSTARTS and if motorbike (singular) is used, the surface grammar doesn’t work. Leaves the more awkward definition that begs for an apostrophe: old motorbike’s feature.
    Good fun for Friday. Thanks, Phil and Andrew.

  69. Roz@54: If I understand you correctly the options are either to be entertained or made to think. I want both and I got it in this puzzle. But if forced to I would choose being entertained over a dreary mental slog. That is one of the reasons I eschew barred puzzles (and Sudoku for that matter along with many other puzzle formats) – even if I finish them they take a lot of time and don’t entertain me.

    Podule@: I was first drawn into these fabulous circles by reports that the Guardian crosswords were becoming too difficult. Without much experience (although having a weekly cryptic in my life for yonks past) I found that reports were true, with convoluted arcana being the order of the day. Contributors to 15^2 were kind enough to tolerate my preternatural squawking until such time as matters settled down and I’m not sure if the crosswords became less impenetrable or my understanding developed (this latter was certainly a factor) but now I have a daily source of challenge (and entertainment) to check if I am on my mental toes. I regularly meet a crossword that I count as easy but mostly it’s a fair draw with persistence (not always) gaining the reward. A very small minority may assert that it’s all too easy – whether you take them seriously or not is up to you. Our esteemed bloggers seem to find it easier than the average and I have never noticed one of them complaining that the puzzle was too easy and therefore without merit.

  70. Alpha Alpha – see Ros @ 52 yesterday. It’s not infrequent and puts beginners like me off reading the comments. Most grateful however to the bloggers who explain the parsing and have helped my confidence.

  72. Roz@54
    I think that you just may have got better. I didn’t find this any easier or harder than Philistine’s earlier puzzles.
    6d reminded me of a splendid day trip to Moet & Chandon in the late Sixties. I still have the menu for the lunch. It ended with a half-hour in Reims – 15 mins in the cathedral and 15 mins in a bar drinking pression, all that champagne having made us very thirsty.
    Thanks to Philistine and Andrew

  73. Tyro and Podule, don’t be put off by Roz’s occasional (dare I say grumpy) complaints about too-easy puzzles. Once in a while she gets frustrated and has to vent, but most of the time she comments with wit, insight and friendliness, and she is a valued contributor to these pages.

    As Eileen noted above this site is intended for beginners like you, experts like Roz, and in-betweens like most of us. So ignore the humblebragging and enjoy participating in a community of such engaging but differing personalities.

    P.S. I loved this puzzle – Philistine is one of my favourite setters – and I finished/failed to complete it in xx minutes/hours. Thanks P&A, and everyone else, for the fun.

  74. I think if beginners are allowed to vent their frustration when puzzles are too hard, so should the more accomplished solvers be allowed to vent theirs when their fun is over too soon. The problem is that the daily cryptics have to cater for such a broad range of abilities that it’s impossible to keep everyone happy. Roz is always generous with her praise when it is merited, and I wouldn’t call her comments humblebragging, or indeed any other kind of bragging.

    Fortunately for me, I’m very much in the Goldilocks zone as a solver – they’re rarely too easy, sometimes too hard, but I can usually complete them.

  75. Re Roz Podule et al. An hour is a good solving time and could be my average. It’s usually more fun, I think, to take an hour or more than to solve quickly. It’s mostly remembering the “usual” tricks/hints that some people have seen hundreds of times so it’s no surprise they finish quickly.

  76. I’m a relative newbie to the Graun crosswords – I first started in earnest during lockdown when there wasn’t a lot else to do, after having dabbled at the odd one over the years. But I’ve improved to the extent that it took me about 45 minutes last night, and another 30 this morning, to complete this puzzle, which doesn’t happen every day. I allow myself a look in the dictionary, but not electronic assistance except in the most extreme circs, and the only one I had to check was whether LABILE (a) was a word, and (b) meant something to do with change! The parsing of TAILBACK escaped me; I had settled on some vague Spaghetti Junction-type allusion, so I’m glad to have resolved that.

    I certainly am not deterred by the ‘it’s all too easy these days’ type of posts; everyone’s at a different level, and let’s be honest, 90% of people in my local wouldn’t have the faintest notion of how to solve this, so any progress is good!

    One question – I got the Joey in JEOPARDY, but that left me wondering what PARD meant. Then I realised that it was PAR + D(iet). But when is single “D” used as an abbreviation for diet? I’ve never come across that, hence my ‘PARD’ problem.

    Thanks Phliistine and Andrew and all for the fun.

  77. Ken@76 it is diet ORIGINALLY so the first letter D, keep a look out for this , INITIALLY is also used in this way.
    Tony @60 thanks for the tip , very thoughtful. Unfortunately I can only do puzzles with pen and paper, also as you suspect I do completely boycott the Independent.

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