Guardian Cryptic 28,842 by Qaos

99 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,842 by Qaos”

1. I don’t know much about the series, but I think MELANGE (a valuable SPICE) is another theme word.

2. ALIA was PAUL’s sister

3. Good Monday crossword. I didn’t spot the theme, although I read Dune and some of the sequels in my youth. STAR RUBY could be a reference to the Beatles film Help, where Ringo has a ruby ring (I can’t remember if he bought it) that lands them in trouble.

4. I guessed there was probably a DUNE theme going on but I’m not familiar exit the book or film to get all the references so we’ll done loonapick. I also like your description of the trademark COMMITTED. Nothing too tricky for a Monday.

   Ta Qaos & loonapick

5. Looked for the theme once I’d finished the crossword after being alerted by comments on the Guardian page, but not familiar with FH’s work, though have heard of DUNE, so I didn’t get far. Must be tricky for Qaos to pitch the crossword to a Monday standard, but he managed pretty well, I thought. I did think 11d was a bit clunky though. And don’t you have to be a certain age to remember Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass? Thanks to Loonapick for the clear blog and, of course, to Qaos for the puzzle.

6. Andrew is right – MELANGE was the name of the drug familiarly known as SPICE in the book.

   Commenters on the G thread maintain this is easy for a Monday. I didn’t find it so and needed loonapick’s parsing for few including COMMITTED which had me thoroughly beaten. FORGET, DISAGREE, MINSK, SKELETON and MARITIME my favourites.

   Thanks Qaos and loonapick

7. Spellcheck truly did me there!

8. While I’d read Dune many years ago, I missed the theme, not, I think, that it would have helped greatly.
   This felt like hard work, and a lot tougher than one expects for a Monday morning, though there were some nice ones – LITHIUM DISAGREE and THRIFT particularly appealed. COMMITTED didn’t. It feels like one of those that is a lot more fun for the setter than the solver.
   I didn’t know that STAR RUBY was a thing and I did wonder whether Herb Alpert was GK it was reasonable to expect of people less ancient than myself.
   Thanks to Qaos and loonapick.

9. Agree with the comments above. I only parsed 25 by googling Herbert Trumpeter. All good though. Thanks loonapick and Qaos.

10. For once I saw the theme and this helped with DUNE and HERBERT.
    [I saw the new film recently, unfortunately without subtitles. One actress mumbled incoherently throughout, and in the same scenes Charlotte Rampling whispered with absolute clarity.]

11. ALIA was PAUL’s sister.
    Didn’t know Qaos could compose Monday crosswords!
    Great fun.
    Thanks, both.

12. Bother! Just seen Claire @ 2.

13. Fortunately I didn’t need to know anything about the theme. Never read it, never will. Agree with NeilH about Herb Alpert. I have heard of him, but still had to reveal the answer, then groaned.

14. Thanks Qaos and loonapick
    Some pretty obscure stuff here. BEAMER will mean nothing to non-cricketers, I expect. I’m old enough to remember Herb Alpert, but I would have thought that many here aren’t. PAUL is parochial to Guardian solvers.
    I didn’t see the theme. I have read it, but probably 50 years ago.

15. Never read the book, therefore didn’t catch on to the theme. So HERBERT was beyond me, though probably takes the plaudits for the cleverest/most devious clue today. Liked the tricky interlocking IDAHO and YARN. Dashed Luckier in at first before I realised it had to be FLUKIER…

16. I agree with muffin’s gripes @14, and I’ll add a few of my own:
    – How does HOLD FAST = stop? Lexico has “remain tightly secured” or “continue to believe in a principle”, and Wiktionary has it as an equivalent to hold firm/stand firm/stand one’s ground. I suppose you could hold (something) fast, but that would mean to grip it tightly, not to stop it.
    – SPACE-AGE: the cryptic grammar doesn’t work. If you said “Pour yoghurt on chopped cabbage”, that’s fine. But “Pour yoghurt on chop cabbage” is gibberish.
    – FORGET: ‘Starting tragedy’ for T is a bit like ‘first X’ for ‘take the first letter of X’. I know Qaos does it frequently, but for me it simply doesn’t mean that in English.

    I did like Euripides’ epic novel. Thanks Qaos and loonapick.

17. I think Qaos always has a theme, so that was no surprise, though it totally passed me by, of course. However as it was unnecessary for the solve I can’t complain.

    muffin@14 I completely agree with your comments about BEAMER, TRUMPETER and PAUL. I particularly find the clues that only regular Guardian solvers would fully understand really annoying.

    I enjoyed MELANGE, as it reminded me of a lovely week in Vienna, where a melange was my coffee of choice in the cafés. And now I want a cake.

    Thanks Qaos and loonapick.

18. essexboy @ 16 – I’m sure I’ve seen some pirate films where someone says “Hold fast, me hearties!” meaning stop.

19. Saw the Frank Herbert / Dune theme but as I have not read the novel or seen the film, that is all I could see apart from the SANDWORM and PAUL Atreides which I read about in the news somewhere.

    Liked WORM, COMMITTED, IDAHO, HOLD FAST (loi).

    New: STAR RUBY.

    Thanks, both.

    I am old enough to remember Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass music on the radio but my parents did not have his records. I presumed his name was Herb Albert (not Alpert). I never needed to write his name before today.

20. HOLD FAST as stop isn’t supported by C2014 as far as I can tell. Maybe Qaos was thinking of hold hard which does mean stop. Theme was irrelevant to me until I finished and had a look. Not read the book but have seen the (older) film.
    Favourites were COMMITTED (yes I know it’s not a great surface but I love a bit of maths (math for our US friends) in a puzzle), and ROWS for a bit of a different wordplay.

21. I thought COMMITTED was delightful.

22. I’m another who hasn’t read the book or seen the film but I’m well used to not being familiar with Qaos’ themes, although I know he always has one.

    MELANGE is among the first French words I learned as a small child, studying the HP sauce bottle at the table: ‘Cette sauce de haute qualité est un mélange de fruits orientaux, d’épices et de vinaigre.’

    My cryptic grammar gripe is 19dn: ‘horse is able …’

    Apart from that, I liked INTER ALIA, SPICE, SKELETON and HERBERT. Just a couple of weeks ago, Knut in the Independent gave us ‘Tijuana brass player downing a starter of empanadas and a refreshing drink (6,3)’.

    Thanks to Qaos – nice to see you on a Monday – and loonapick.

23. Essexboy@16 at the risk of awakening David again with an archery theme, I would point out that archers use the term FAST (from hold fast, probably) as an urgent signal to stop shooting.

24. [MarkB @23 – do you mean they hold fire? 😉 ]

25. I didn’t find it easy for a Monday, like some others did, but did find it somewhat easy for a Qaos, if that makes sense. After seeing FRANK and MELANGE amongst the first few entries, it was a matter of looking for the locations of the theme’s “usual suspects”. Because the book featured a number of unusual/non-English names, that left rather few mainline terms that could be clued here.

    Agree with muffin@14 that PAUL was parochial, but didn’t the “our” admit as much?

26. I saw the theme for once, but read the book so long ago it wasn’t that helpful.

    Thanks to loonapick and Qaos

27. EB@16 and others – If a boat runs aground and holds fast in the mud, it will become stationary and therefore stop?
    I agree that “in” crossword references like the “our” in 9A are irritating- crosswords are obscure enough to non-crossword folk without adding cosy Guardian-only nudges. And the clue would work fine (ie better) as a simple “Man of letters?”, and was probably clued like that by Rufus at some point.
    But it’s good to have my horizons broadened by learning a bil about Dune, so thanks to Qaos and loonapick.

28. [EB@24 Precisely]

29. I wondered if Euripides was also meant to make us think if the original Greek Atreides?

30. Sagittarius @27 – interesting idea, but isn’t it the running aground that makes the boat stop, and the holding fast that keeps it from moving again, once already stopped?
    Shirl’s pirate-speak @18 rings a faint bell… it’s a long time since I’ve been on the high seas.

31. Raced through this, didn’t see the theme despite knowing the book. Re Herbert, a lot of us seem to have said “people younger than me…”

32. I looked for, but didn’t see, the theme until nearly the end, but it helped me to get HERBERT (unparsed) and DUNE.

    I saw the film, also without subtitles (Shirl @10, most on-demand films on TV do not have subtitles, although there is never a warning about this).

    Good setting to get all the themers in without obscurities, although I only knew BEAMER as a BMW.

    Thanks Qaos and loonapick.

33. Never heard of Herbert Dune and as those answers were 2 of the 4 answers I didn’t get hardly surprising I missed the theme.
    MELANGE was a new word for me and didn’t understand the wordplay. LITHIUM was the other unfinished clue.
    Thanks both.

34. ‘Hold fast’ can also mean stop immediately in rowing, fwiw; I don’t intend to even hint that there is a mini-theme between this and 22ac though. I haven’t read Dune for a while but I don’t remember any sand rowing, although I imagine that could have made for some intriguing plot points.

35. The OED supports HOLD FAST as “to keep from getting away”, which aligns with the Chambers definition of STOP as including “to restrain”.
    [Shirl @10 – as the film won the Oscar for best sound, you need to take this up with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.]

36. Thought SAND was weak, COMMITTED is what the setter should be for a clue like that and HERBERT would have been easier for my late father than it was for me, a young lad of just 61. Liked LITHIUM and failed to parse SKELETON which was a write-in as soon as the K and T checkers appeared. Thanks to blogger and setter as ever.

37. Pleasant surprise to see Qaos on a Monday. Missed the theme but enjoyed the puzzle.
    However I was so far “off beam” I had MAIL for 9a as in the British word for “postie” – MAIL(MAN) – so a DNF for me on top of my inability to spot a theme. [Sorry to “our” PAUL.]
    Nevertheless, thanks to Qaos and loonapick.
    [essexboy@ 16 – I really didn’t understand your references to yoghurt and chop(ped) cabbage, but then I think I am particularly muddle-headed today]

38. Why is MECHANISE defined as ‘to equip with armoured vehicles’?

39. Thanks Qaos and loonapick

    pm @ 38: When tanks and the like supplanted cavalry it was called ‘mechanised warfare’.

40. Thanks Simon@39. I thought it was a more general term. (no pun intended)

41. I read Dune 30 years ago but missed the theme. Hence didn’t get HERBERT. Not a great puzzle.

42. Needed a list of trumpeters to confirm HERBERT – he was born a solid half-century before me, so a rather tough ask there.

    Didn’t love COMMITTED, but it’s fine.

    13A perhaps my favourite, but did it need ‘living’?

    Thanks Qaos and loonapick

43. Thanks Qaos. I found this quite enjoyable despite missing PAUL, guessing BEAMER from the wordplay, and searching in vain for the theme. I thought there were many clues with clever surfaces such as LITHIUM, MARITIME, FRANK, HERBERT, STAR RUBY, WORM, and my top choice THRIFT. Thanks loonapick for the blog.

44. In the US, flukier (7A) is not necessarily good. Is this a UK meaning?

45. pianola @44
    In the UK a fluke is almost always a lucky (and possibly undeserved) outcome. I have occasionally heard it used to descibe something unreliable, such as a flukey wind when sailing.
    What is the US sense?

46. Thanks both,
    I spotted the theme just in time to give me my loi ‘Herbert’. A quibble about 20d, casting is done in a foundry with molten metal while forging is done by bashing hot metal with big hammers. Not the same things at all.

47. Gustav Holst was born 81 years before me, does that qualify him as a tough ask?

48. No, but that’s because Holst is far better-known. Hope that helps!

49. Mrs C and I enjoyed that very much. Thank you Qaos and loonapick.

50. Standard Monday fare with a theme that completely passed me by.

    I agree with Tomsdad @5 and NeilH @8 that reference to Herb Alpert is unfair on less ancient solvers.

    Thanks Qaos and loonapick

51. I would really like to hear Qaos give some justification for the nonsense in 11d.

    Essexboy @16 I wonder if the problem is simply in our expectations? We see ‘fashion pages’ and expect fashion is being used as an imperative, so have trouble with the surrounding words. But in the clue for INTER ALIA, we have ‘I learnt design’, which is fodder + signpost. If we take ‘fashion pages’ simply as signpost + fodder in the same way but with order (which seems not to matter) reversed then the problem disappears. It still doesn’t make sense read as English but Qaos has admitted previously that he thinks a sort of coder’s juxtaposition will do just as well as actual English.
    Take 12 and 14 down, the clues for IDAHO and MINSK. In the first, we have ‘Number 10 cover’ with cover being plural with a singular subject, and in the second ‘head of school wears’ with wears being singular with a singular subject. It seems to me that there’s no actual intent to make cryptic sense, it’s just a matter of chance what is plucked out of the signpost barrel; a clue that I might admire in another puzzle, such as 4 down, I treat as a lucky strike. That way I find I can enjoy the puzzle almost as much as I used to before getting interested in how cryptic clues work.

    What is Number doing in 12d?

52. I’ve heard of Alexander the Great, who was born a bit before me. ‘Before my time’ is a poor excuse. I know lots of trumpeters of much older vintage than Herb Alpert. However, I had to reveal HERBERT as I don’t know who he is or what Dune is! So the theme passed me by completely.

53. What a lot of meanings FLUKE has that seem to be unrelated to luck. Chambers has a fish, a nasty parasitic worm, the barb of an anchor, or the lobe of a whale’s tail.

54. Is it Qaos that regularly has number based clues like 11d for COMMITTED? I have to say that once I saw the answer from the definition I lost interest. Sorry.

55. [Van Winkle@35 – I noticed the award, but I think the fault lies with the mumbling actress rather than the sound department]

56. Thanks for the blog.

    Since no one else has asked, I suppose this is so obvious that I’ll kick myself, but can someone explain why ‘directly’ gives ‘due’ please?

57. Mike @56, I couldn’t see it either, but it’s eg due west

58. I have grown to expect – and really like – Qaos’ trademark numerical clues, despite the fact that Mr SR is much better at them than I. Thought CO for 1000 especially devious (in a good way).
    AuntRuth @ 52
    I’m a fan of Pointless and one of the things I particularly like about it is the cry of “Yellow card!” when some whippersnapper says something is “before my time”. Both Mr SR and I have heard of Herb Alpert but, at 60 something and 50 something, are delighted to find he’s someone we could have said was before our time.
    Not much is, these days
    I’m also feeling chipper about spotting the theme, having seen the first film on its release.
    Many thanks, Qaos and loonapick.

59. Spotted the theme early, which helped, though I agree Herb Alpert is a little obscure. However, I am with JinA @37 in entering MAIL for PAUL, which I think is at least as good an answer to that clue – and this despite looking for Paul Atreides. Thanks, Qaos and loonapick.

60. I too had MAIL in mind on my first pass, but didn’t enter it because I wasn’t 100% convinced.

    [Regarding the theme, I don’t have any numbers to back this up, but I think today’s was more mainstream than some of Qaos’s previous choices, but that may just reflect my bias. If anyone is interested in giving Dune a try, personal opinion is that the book was better than either film, despite the fact that the most recent film won 6 Oscars (for non-acting categories).]

61. Like a few others I had MAIL for PAUL (although with hindsight I conveniently overlooked the ‘our’ part). I needed some e-help to complete the SW corner, although looking at it now, I can’t fault the clueing so it must have been a decoding problem at my end.

    COMMITTED I got from the latter part of the clue plus the crossing C but couldn’t parse the first ‘1000’ as CO. Now I’ve read the explanation! So now we need to lift and separate numbers?! Red card, that.

    But loonapick’s “Nonsense clue.” ‘explanation’ made me chortle so it’s not all bad…

62. Thanks loonapick, and commiserations to those blindsided by the theme.
    I have not seen either film and somehow never read the book despite many years of SF fandom so will take Dr Whatson’s advice. I was probably put off by the approx 1000 1000 1000 1 times 500 sequels.
    I thought the programming grammar was more prevalent than usual today and it slowed me down a lot, liked picking apart the very Qaotic 11A and the Tijuana brassman’s appearance – as an under 50 I probably shouldn’t admit to knowing him, but the soundtrack to the original Casino Royale hopefully gives me a pass.
    Thanks Qaos.

63. Gosh, some of the comments in here today… well, I enjoyed it at least. Read the books when I was a teen, a long time ago, but spotted the theme quite quickly and it certainly helped me spot a couple of answers quicker than I might have done otherwise.

    I’m the right side of 50 (just) and had no problem getting the Herb Alpert reference, so does that make me ancient? Pah! Anyway, that clue was one of my faves.

    Thanks Qaos, and of course loonapick for the blog.

64. PAUL, SPICE and meCHANIse were my first three in today, so I guessed the theme very quickly, which is always a big help with Qaos. After that I spent a few minutes thinking of likely answers, e.g. DUNCAN IDAHO. I’m still not sure if I’m a fan of themes or not, as they can give shortcuts to answers that may otherwise have been tougher to parse. Is that good or bad. Happy enough with today’s puzzle though. Thanks all.

65. Fortunately, not many people comment on Indy puzzles so I dodged a bit of a bullet with “Tijuana brass player downing a starter of empanadas and a refreshing drink (6,3)” on 8th August

66. Crossbar @53: get hit around the ear by any of those and you’d certainly consider it bad luck … 😉

67. Knut @65
    “Tijuana brass player” is considerably fairer than “trumpeter” for a minor band leader from 50 odd years ago!

68. [ 😀 i must have been thinking only of good luck, PM@66 ]

69. Damn it, I had ‘mail’ instead of PAUL (man of letters – geddit?). Didn’t see the theme, which explains why HERBERT was one of my LOI, although I was made up to get the clue.

70. Thanks both. I very rarely take on the Guardian cryptic so I am another who had an issue with PAUL – I did manage to solve it, but the issue became that I could not fully parse it, so spent additional time on it needlessly. To a point I accept GK comes into it (even knowing that GK stands for general knowledge!) and I was okay with HERBERT and BEAMER, but this one did seem very insular

71. Hi Rob @65 – see me @22. 😉

    I solved your puzzle but was away from home and didn’t have time to comment but gave that clue two ticks. Glad to see that Mr Alpert – I was a great fan – didn’t cause consternation over that side. He must be dead chuffed (being so ancient, like me) to have been name-checked twice in two weeks!

72. Hi dear Eileen, sorry I missed your comment, not sure how that happened. Much love from the Black Forest x

73. @muffin (67)
    Yes, I see what you mean

74. I saw the theme after completion, having read the book many moons ago. But, Didn’t get PAUL, having unhappily entered MAIL. I am so glad I’m not alone – I did wonder about “our” which usually means guardian. I also missed Herbert, though I remember Tijuana brass and if I’d noticed the theme earlier I would have got it.

    I agree completely with essexboy@16. In addition, as far as I know, W is not an abbreviation for woman, though it is for women. I also agree the cryptic grammar is wrong for 16d, as mentioned above. You can’t use an imperative following an inert ion indicator. I disagree with eileen@22, there is nothing wrong cryptically with “horse able”, though I would be tempted to insert a verb for surface smoothness. I like clues with a verb, makes it more of a sentence.

75. Oops. Inert ion? Cute. Insertion

    And I forgot: thank you qaos ( who openly admits he’s a bit “loose” by the way, and he’s a wonderful person who derives joy from the ghost themes – he’s not to be blamed, the crossword editor perhaps?) and thank you loonapick

76. ‘Wife with gold …. ‘ works. Simple editing.

77. JinA @37 – you’re probably (hopefully?) tucked up in bed now, but if you look in again in the morning, sorry to have confused you with the yoghurt and cabbage!

    I was trying to illustrate why I think the syntax in 16d doesn’t work. It’s fine as far as the surface meaning goes, but, IMHO, the cryptic instructions in a clue should also make sense in English – otherwise you end up with the situation described by James @51, where “a sort of coder’s juxtaposition will do just as well as actual English”.

    To me, that’s (a) jarring to read, and (b) risks straying into ‘unfair to the solver’ territory – since if the instructions are not written according to the rules of the solver’s native language, he/she might justifiably feel that ‘all bets are off’, and the whole thing becomes an exercise in guesswork.

    In the case of SPACE-AGE, the ‘fashion pages’ has to be understood (on the cryptic meaning level) as an instruction – “Solver, fashion those pages!”. (Just as a food-preparer might be instructed to “Chop that cabbage!”)

    But then the “One in” doesn’t fit in front. “One in” needs to be followed by a noun phrase (just as ‘Pour yoghurt on’ needs a noun phrase to follow).

    Now, ‘fashionED pages’ is a noun phrase (like ‘chopped cabbage’) – but of course it wouldn’t work in the surface reading of the clue. So what we’re left with is ‘fashion pages’ – and a clue which is the equivalent of the nonsensical ‘Pour yoghurt on chop cabbage’.

    Sorry if I’ve spoilt your morning cuppa!

78. [Just seen the same point has been made more succinctly by ditch/Dutch 😉 ]

79. James @51, thanks for your perspective, and particularly for the comparison with the clues for INTER ALIA and IDAHO. To be honest I was uncomfortable with those too, but managed to resolve them in a way which made me feel better:

    For INTER ALIA, I saw ‘design’ not as a verb in the imperative, but as a noun. Since we know to ignore spaces and punctuation, an ‘I L E A R N T design’ might be a way of arranging those letters, just as a ‘circles and triangles design’ might be a design involving various ways of arranging circles and triangles.

    For IDAHO, my idea was this – the clue-writer is addressing ‘the number 10’ – suppose there were a great big 10 in the sky. The clue-writer tells the big 10, “Cover a word meaning ‘deceived’!” And what’s more, don’t just cover it (i.e. put the two halves of you around it), but do so after the ‘deceived’ word (i.e. HAD) has been oriented in an ‘up’ direction.

    [At which point, if Gervase were here, I’m sure he’d respond with another ‘Santo cielo!’]

80. I noted MELANGE as a word I had only encountered in English in Dune, but still managed to stay unaware of the number of related words. If anyone is inspired to go to the books, I suggest stopping where Frank Herbert Sr did.
    As Roman and Arabic are distinct numeric notations, and Roman is not a number base system, C0 = M seems a stretch of the terms of the setters’ licence. DD = M would be less so.

81. Three tiny things: Mark me down as yet another “mail” for PAUL in 9A: it sounded like such a plausible homophone. My other misparsing was 17A, where I wanted SAND to mean “rub” and to be formed by DN (for “down”) plus A plus S (for “bit of spit”) but I could not make it all be spelled backwards. I was not aware that DUNE referred to the line of sand at the top of the dune (its “ridge”) as well as the underlying sand dune on which the ridge formation sits.

82. TimSee @ 80

    C0 doesn’t generate M. As per the blog:

    C (100) + O (0) + M (1000) + M (1000) + I (1) + T+T (times) + D (500) takes E (energy)

83. Essexboy, James, Dutch and anyone I have missed, thanks for a typically informative discussion.

84. SimonS#82 – you (and loonapick) are right, of course, that the clue says 1000, not M as I had misremembered, and this is a lift and separate into two different notations. That, I agree, is legitimate, if devious (not a criticism).

85. When I go out to our mailbox, I might think “Who is our man of letters? Why, the MAILman!”. But a crossie compiler is a person of words and clues, not just a person shoving letters together willy-nilly. So, MAIL is a better answer than PAUL.

86. The usual smattering of grammatical abuses we see with Qaos/ Everyman, for surely they are never seen in public together. I agree with whoever it was who said that there are two more themed words in the grid than thus far coloured in by our illustrious blogger. The theme was in a sense unobtrusive, whilst introducing an element of inevitability at the same time.

    I did like ‘I greased wheels’, which would have encouraged me to believe in this compiler, but for the fact that we do see these flashes occasionally, but no general improvement over time.

87. FLUKE was also a novel by James Herbert. I think it’s the only one of his that I’ve read.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluke_(novel)?wprov=sfti1

88. Thanks to Qaos and to loonapick.Well now, after solving about half of the puzzle that theme could not have been much more obvious had it it been presented as a flashing neon sign. Very welcome indeed after some of Qaos’s recent obscurantism, and as another poster said above rather more mainstream. Yes, it did help that I had read the entire DUNE saga starting with the original novel which I came across around 1970 or so. I got almost all of the themed entries but failed to spot meCHANIse until scutter@64 pointed it out ! I did manage to remember St.Alia-of-the-knife though, and I even managed to parse HERBERT. Whether I would have thought of he of Spanish Flea fame if I had not been looking for some way to make HERBERT fit the clue is course debatable !

89. For once, I got the theme while solving the puzzle. SPICE plus MELANGE did it, especially when I looked back and found FRANK. (Didn’t have HERBERT yet, but started looking.)

    I’ve read the book, but not recently. What do DUNCAN and IDAHO have to do with Dune?

    Thanks to Qaos, loonapick and all the informative commenters.

90. King Duncan was born more than 1000 years ago. How was I supposed to have heard of him?

91. Valentine @89
    Duncan Idaho (and Gurney Halleck, sadly missing) are mentors to the young Paul Atreides, as I recall (from 50-odd years ago!)

92. Hi. Did no one but me think at first that the answer to 19D was HAMLET? I only realised it was wrong when I got HOLD FAST

93. After see Qaos I thought “theme” then forgot about it!
    Nice one Qaos

94. Duncan was my LOI and it is my name! Even then I didn’t get it straight away. I don’t mind slightly loose grammar if it helps the surface, I like the number clues, the theme passed me by, wasn’t sure about Dun = horse tbh and no idea why tele = box unless it is a partial reference to a telephone box? Overall, I did enjoy the puzzle, especially for the namecheck.

95. Duncan
    Television set – “telly” is possibly more common?
    Dun is a colour of horse, so “a dun” is most likely to be a horse, I think.

96. Just twigged it is tele like the tv although in my defence when I think of the box in that way it is the telly not the tele…

97. Thanks muffin, we crossed.

    I found the remember me button when posting amusing as I clearly didn’t when doing the puzzle!

    I’ll stop now.

98. The discussion about whether Herb Alpert is legitimate GK reminded me of an outraged Twitter storm following an episode of University Challenge when a team couldn’t answer any of the questions about Pink Floyd. My favourite comment was “.. and don’t give me any of that ‘before my time’ nonsense: you knew about Caravaggio! “

99. Late to the party – I’m still somewhat of a novice at cryptics, despite being in my fifties – and wasn’t aware that Qaos has a theme to his puzzles. I’ve read the book twice and seen the Sting film, but it all passed me by!

    11D seemed a little unfair in my eyes, especially the need to split 1000 to get a C and an O. 17D a new term to me, but a perfectly fair clue allowed the solution to emerge from the mists.

    19D probably my favourite clue.

    This did seem tougher than Monday’s puzzles usually are. Many thanks to loonapick for much enlightenment!

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