Guardian 29,000 – Fed

95 comments on “Guardian 29,000 – Fed”

1. No need for the “sounds like” to apply to FORT (castle) in ROQUEFORT which avoids the problem of whether the T is pronounced, which I wouldn’t do.
   Didn’t fully parse PARTY POLITICAL but what else could it be.
   I still can’t get the hang of “inspired by” in ODALISQUE.
   Favourite was SCORCH.

2. Easy enugh to solve but left a handful unparsed.
   In 24, I think only the ROQUE is a homophone. FORT is just “castle”
   Thanks to Fed and Andrew.

3. Does the homophone in ROQUEFORT have to apply to both parts of the answer? I took it as just homophoned rock = ROQUE followed by castle = FORT so the problematic unpronounced T at the end did not arise.

   Lots of lovely constructions and nice references to popular culture as we can expect from Fed. I loved POP ARTIST, EMPORIA, ASSEMBLY LINES, PASSER BY, INGRAIN, CRESTA RUN, ODALISQUE and SCORCH. Good to see the Roald Dahl rewriters have not had a chance to amend 2d: I am sure PLUMP would be frowned upon – but not by me! My only query was ‘frayed’ which I haven’t encountered before in this way and which doesn’t indicate uneven deletions from the edges but that is ridiculous pedantry which certainly did not prevent the solve.

   Thanks Fed and Andrew

4. Tim C @ 1 “inspired by” indicates the envelope.

5. Too often I was chucking in a word that matched the definition and also fitted, and then trying to work out the (convoluted) parsing later.

6. Tim C@1: ‘inspired by’ = taken or drawn in as in breathing. O (DALI) SQUE

7. Never heard of CRESTA RUN or ODALISQUE, nor Rod Liddle, Roy Lichtenstein or L S Lowry, although for two of these it didn’t matter, as they were just part of the wordplay. I couldn’t parse CHINO, as I can never remember rhyming slang. Otherwise plain sailing and very enjoyable. My favourite probably ASTEROID. Thanks Fed & Andrew.

8. Tim C @1. Inspired seems to be a fairly regular insertion indicator, hence DALI in OSQUE.
   Liked CHIMNEY. On the whole, though, still find Fed a bit wordy in his clues.
   Thanks to Fed and Andrew.

9. Rather too many convoluted constructions and strained defs for my taste.

   Did enjoy CHIMNEY & LINCTUS though.

   I wonder why the setter bothered with his start of story ploy when the S was perfectly available in raconteur’s?

   Quick solve, slow parse.

10. Good to see ER still making an appearance. I also thought of the great film, SCUM, by Alan Clarke, which introduced Ray Winstone and Phil Daniels to the big screen. PM @3 has pretty much covered my favourites but I would also include CHIMNEY, which brought back childhood memories. I really enjoyed this one, with ODALISQUE being a TILT.

    Ta Fed & Andrew.

11. A very nice puzzle, greatly enjoyed, in particular the long anagrams and fun use of LIchtenstein, Lowry et al. Thanks to F & A.

12. I share TimC’s and PostMark’s view of “scorch” being a favourite clue (although the surface is a bit head-scratching). I don’t recall “counter” being used in that way before but no doubt someone will promptly put me right. Liked “odalisque” and “roquefort” a lot, too. Thanks for the easy-in-part and tough-elsewhere workout, Fed, and thanks for the public good your blog is, Andrew.

13. Some fine clues. Very enjoyable. I could kick myself re ODALISQUE, especially given the semi artistic theme. Paintings by Ingres, Renoir and others now spring to mind. With thanks to both.

14. Big fan of “on the counter”.

15. 22ac I don’t know if Fed was referring to this incident concerning Liddle: “He cut short their honeymoon to rush home to his young mistress. She had 10 bags of manure delivered to his office in protest at his betrayal”

    Thanks Fed and Andrew

16. Lovely stuff from Fed. Not difficult but very entertaining (for me)

    As a comic-obsessed child I remember being delighted at finding Lichtenstein’s “Whaam” in a gallery. Was it the inspiration for George Michael?

    Cheers F&A

17. Being uncultured, ODALISQUE was new to me. Many very neat clues. Liked INGRAIN and MASCOT.
    Thanks to Fed and Andrew

18. [Wouldn’t mind seeing that film, AlanC @10. First saw Winstone in Nil By Mouth, grimly gritty and good]

    Enjoyed this, thanks Fed and Andrew, tho the pop artist and cresta were new, and odalisque sounds like a thing not a person.

19. Cleverly done, especially SCORCH, POP ARTIST and the ingenious PARTY POLITICAL.
    Didn’t manage to parse ASSEMBLY LINES or INGRAIN and after reading the excellent blog am kicking myself.
    Am tempted to observe that never having heard of Rod Liddle is an advantage Geoff @7 enjoys from living Down Under.
    I wasn’t familiar with ODALISQUE but the wordplay + crossers was clear enough for that not to matter. Apparently in 2011, the Law Society of British Columbia brought a disciplinary hearing against an unnamed lawyer for referring to another lawyer’s client as living with an odalisque. The Law Society found that the word’s use, though an extremely poor choice, did not rise to the level of professional misconduct: “ … A lawyer, more than anyone, should be aware of the importance of using words carefully, alive to their nuances. Whether his failure to do so is the product of naïveté, as suggested by his counsel, stupidity or lack of care, it is at least unintelligent and certainly inexcusable.” So now you all know.
    Grateful thanks to Fed and to Andrew.

20. I really like this setter – super puzzle with some very ingenious constructions, misleading definitions and great surfaces.

    I’ll prune my list of ticks to BLOTTING PAPER, CHIMNEY, PASSER-BY, RETURN TO SENDER (hilarious), INGRAIN, PARTY POLITICAL, ODALISQUE and ASSEMBLY LINES.
    Geoff Down Under @7 and any others who have never heard of L S Lowry, see here
    https://www.wikiart.org/en/l-s-lowry for the aptness of the surface.

    Many thanks to Fed and Andrew.

21. “What a clever clue!” I said to myself several times when solving this puzzle by Fed. Thanks to Fed and Andrew. Like others I learned a few new things, though I did vaguely know that Roy Lichtenstein was a New York artist. I was musing when I cracked 14a about how many people under the age of perhaps 65 would even know what BLOTTING PAPER is – much less have it on their desktop! Favourites were 3d RETURN TO SENDER and 18d MAYPOLE, but on review, there were several more I should have ticked. [Now that I understand why 20d is SCORCH, I can see why others have nominated that one – I still think CROCS are a fashion travesty – I have never recovered fully from the mistake of wearing them to a very muddy musical festival some years ago which caused me both fashion cringe and problems trying to scrub my toenails clean for some time afterwards.]

22. [Hear hear Eileen@20 – we crossed!]

23. Thought this was largely straightforward, if intricately clued, until LOI SCORCH. Couldn’t be anything else but couldn’t parse it. Like @TerriBlislow I don’t recall seeing “counter” used like that before.

24. I’m with Shirl@5 and William@9. I’m less of a fan of clues where you come up with the answer first and then work backwards rather than the other way around. Still I appreciate the artistry and got to the end in reasonable time. Thanks Fed and Andrew.
    ( Also agree with NeilH, Rod Liddle is an awful journalist of the type the Sunday Times seems to specialise in.)

25. I don’t usually disagree with Eileen, but I completed the puzzle without parsing many of the clues because I found them just too wordy and tedious. ‘Crocs’ as plastic shoes are part of the modern world in which I have no wish to engage.

26. Some nice clues. “It’s Sooty and Sweep’s workplace” was great.

    I think muffin will approve of “plastic” as an anagram indicator 🙂

    Thanks Fed and Andrew.

27. Like several others, I had too many clues bunged in that I couldn’t be bothered to parse. Not really an enjoyable cup of tea this morning I’m afraid…

28. Yes, Auriga @4, PostMark @6 and crispy @8, I know what was intended with “inspired by”, it’s just that I’m never quite sure whether it’s a containment or insertion indicator. It doesn’t appear as either of those in Chambers Crossword Dictionary, but a list elsewhere includes it as:

    Inspired by: Insertion indicator (alternatives: inspiring/inspires)
    Inspired with: Containment indicator (alternative: inspired by)
    Inspiring: Containment indicator (alternative: inspires)

    So is it containment or insertion or both/either/neither? That was what my original comment @1 about “not getting the hang of it” was about.

29. Thanks, Fed and Andrew. I’m with Eileen @20 – I enjoy Fed’s style. CHIMNEY was a particular favourite among many splendid clues.

    AlanC @10 – did Scum come before Quadrophenia? There can’t have been much in it.

    NeilH @19 – agreed re Liddle. Awful man.

30. TimC –
    A inspired B = A contains B
    A inspired by B = A inserted in B

31. Very enjoyable puzzle.

    Liked NOTABLE, BLOTTING PAPER, RETURN TO SENDER, INGRAIN.

    New for me: CRESTA RUN, LINCTUS.

    I could not parse 20d and 1ac (got stuck trying to make P + OP ART + IST work).

    Thanks, both.

32. As others have said FORT is just plain CASTLE it’s just like forcing an extra comma into the clue in your imagination : “Dictator’s stone, castle, somewhere in France”, the homophone just acting upon ROCK.

    Seem to have had a couple of flashbacks. I’ve met CRESTA RUN in the last couple of weeks but, for the life of me, I can’t remember if it was online Grauniad, recent prize crossword, recent Everyman, Indy or other online site. Sign of old age! The other one is clear : a coincidence : it was only on Monday that FrankieG appealed for a newly invented equivalent term to GOOGLEWHACK when the setter gets to a position with crossers enforced and there’s only one single word in existence which will fill the light. Well coincidentally on this round number puzzle, 29000, it’s FED, Dave Gorman, who’s the setter and one of his most known pieces of work is “Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure”. I’ll never be FED up of Dave!
    My earworm of the day is

    https://youtu.be/PU5xxh5UX4U

    It’s from Girls!, Girls!, Girls! and MAY, GRAN and BRILL have been in the puzzle. I love 3’s and I love coincidences.

    Thank you Fed/Dave and Andrew.

33. Good fun to solve this, although I confess to bunging in from definition (BIFD) and retro parsing in a number of cases.

    I liked the POP ARTIST because of the use of Roy, ASSEMBLY LINES for both surface and wordplay, PASSER-BY, where that was also a James Nesbitt TV programme – clever, INGRAIN for the two broken hips, and MAYPOLE for the definition.

    Thanks Fed and Andrew.

34. Quite a good puzzle. One or two things that gave pause, but it was nice to see some conventions adhered to, for the benefit of the solver.

35. Typical Fed puzzle, full of ingenious constructions but at the expense of concision. Rather too many solutions went in for me from the definition and crossers, the parsing taking much longer (and in a few cases I couldn’t be bothered).

    I liked POP ARTIST, ODALISQUE, INGRAIN and the simple SCUM and HEED – all clever constructions with polished surfaces.

    Thanks to S&B

36. Fed strikes me as the sort of setter who looks for a good surface above all, and hammers away at the wordplay to make it work. And I approve. His clues (for I believe it is a “he”) are very entertaining.

37. I like the often complicated but ingenious nature of Fed’s clues. As others have mentioned, it was often a case of guessing the answer from the crossers then parsing, but this didn’t detract from my enjoyment.
    One answer reminded me of a brainteaser: Fill in the blanks to make sense of this sentence, using the same letters in the same order each time: “The ——- ping-pong player was ——- to play because there was ——-“

38. Baffling on first read through, but “asteroid” and SE corner got me started. All solved eventually, and only “scorch” unparsed, but a neat use of “counter” for reversal. Definitely my kind of puzzle, so thanks all round.

39. Generally straightforward. I also threw two or three in not fully parsed. Could have done without being reminded of Rod Liddle. LINCTUS new to me, ODALISQUE vaguely known. Liked CHIMNEY, INGRAIN, ROQUEFORT, SCORCH. Thanks to both.

40. Thanks Flea@32 for the earworm, and the information that Fed is Dave Gorman. I’m a fan. He’s the kind of man who notices that Mick Jagger’s latest child is already a Great Aunt on the day she’s born. A man who abuses jigsaw puzzles, then donates them to charity shops. I must watch his Googlewhack Adventure.
    I’ll repeat what I said on Monday in case he (or anyone else) missed it. Lately we’ve had OPAQUER, ORNATER & ESTOVER.
    Enter “O?A?U?R” at OneLook.com and OPAQUER is the only word possible.
    There should be a word for that, akin to a Googlewhack. Any suggestions?
    Nobody suggested anything, but late on William F P introduced me and others to the adjective selcouth (meaning seldom known).
    I proposed using it as a noun to mean “a word that appears in a crossword puzzle because it’s the only word that fits”.
    I like it because it’s old, cognate with COUTH/UNCOUTH, and rhymes with MAYNOOTH,
    the first selcouth I noticed in Independent 11,342 by Phi (which is a very fine puzzle, by the way – highly recommended).
    Just for good measure, it’s not in Chambers.
    (As others haved pointed out it is in Chambers, but not in the free online Chambers 21st Century Dictionary)
    “s?l?o?t?” at OneLook.com returns only “selcouth” & “sellouts”.
    Financial Times 16352 by Slormgorm – December 17, 2019 eschewed the opportunity to use “selcouth” and used “sellouts”.
    “?e?c?u?h” at OneLook.com returns only “selcouth” & “wet cough” – so almost a selcouth.
    Azed 2030 (24 April 2011) clued it as: “Clues to unravel, hard, but no longer strange (8)” – That says it all.

41. Quizzy_Bob@37: 22a

42. David Hockney wears crocs. And with suits! I was thinking of giving them a try – but not in a muddy field (which was an odd venue to form an opinion, as an earlier commenter has; like trying out a pair of slippers on a ski run!)
    I usually agree with Eileen, but not this time.
    The puzzle, I felt, was a bit like a pile of rubble from some elegant building. Here and there a piece of charm or beauty (I don’t know why – it was barely cryptic – but I adored CHIMNEY!) But also in the pile the odd misshapen brick weighed down with unwanted lumps of cement attached.
    Still, good for Mr Gorman – practice makes perfect, and familiarity may breed poesy and elegance. I can’t help thinking that his celebrity has allowed him that practice here when others would be obliged to take it elsewhere first.
    Very good in parts but too clunky in others for my taste. But he will improve I’m sure. (It takes 10,000 doesn’t it – which may explain the enjoyment I derive from Paul, and derived from Araucaria, for example)
    I look forward to following his development in the craft.

    Many thanks, both and all

43. There’s always so much popular culture (aka GK) in these puzzles that I worry that some things need to be spelled out by the blogger.
    For instance is everyone here aware of Sooty & Sweep? Is everyone old enough to remember them? Everyone outside Britain?

44. some lovely clues. i think SCUM must surely refer to a film on a liquid rather than the movie; otherwise hundreds of words could be clued by “film” which seems unfair to me

45. Can someone explain the parsing of INGRAIN to a simple soul please?

46. I really loved this, and was SO glad that I was wrong in thinking that Fed was trying to apply the homophone to FORT. Thanks to the posters who pointed out the correct parsing (and those who would have but came in too late to be needed).

    Yes some clues were long and rather convoluted, but I found it rather charming.

    Thanks F&A

47. Thanks to Willam F P @42 for the “misshapen brick weighed down with unwanted lumps of cement attached”, which adequately discribes my thoughts regarding some of these clues. As others have mentioned some were too convoluted to parse without the necessary motivation – so thanks to Andrew for doing that for us.

    I failed, contrarily, on the simplest clue, ‘exploit dwarf’, where I had SQUAT (well, a squat lift looks pretty daunting to me, so achieving one would be an exploit), but this is the closest I’ve come to completing a Fed.

48. JillD @45. A grandmother or GRAN is an older relative, but she ‘wants new’. This means she is without an N, hence GRA. ‘Hip’ is a word denoting something that is in fashion, so ‘two hips’ would be IN plus IN. SO we have GRA ‘breaking’ or separating IN and IN.

49. [Frankie G @ 40 – we crossed. I really enjoyed your extended riff on ‘selcouth’ which is, quite genuinely, a word I favour. Though not an explicit part of its meaning, I like the intrinsic connection with ‘uncouth’ as it stirs the listener, or reader, to thought. I like to drop it in here from time (I doubt that was the first time I’ve announced it on 15²) along with one or two other favourites, which are also unfairly obscure, I feel. For example, I’d hesitate to even note were the Don not to include a few abstrusities, but should he wander into unkind overindulgence then ‘selcouth’ may carry some weight…..
    Frankly Frankie – I dig your curiosity man. And generosity in sharing. One cool dude, dude!]

50. [William F P @42: whilst I entirely agree with the point you were making, a pair of slippers sounds to me to be precisely what you want to be wearing on a ski run … 😉 ]

51. Thanks both,
    I did enjoy this. Fed’s clues may sometimes be long but they are meaningful, unexpected words count and the surfaces often refer to the answer.

52. Thanks for the blog, really enjoyed this overall , I much prefer clues with a lot of word play and a largely superfluous definition, ODALISQUE is a good example. GREY AREAS is very neat and I liked INGRAIN.
    Minor quibbles, as others mentioned a few clues have too many words. Also edge/middle of words beig used/discarded is a trifle overdone.
    I would like to see more puzzles from Fed ( and Kite) .

53. Frankie@40 Azed will often use some , but not many, obscure words because of the nature of the grid. They are nearly always all in Chambers.
    If a word is listed as archaic or obselete then Azed will indicate this in the clue.
    “no longer strange” means a word for strange that is obselete.

54. In 22a what does BATON have to do with NOTABLE?

    I didn’t think of CROCS — thanks, Andrew. Actually, I’d rather not think about them.

    Never heard of Sooty or Sweep, but what else could 21a be?

    INGRAIN reminds me of a wisecracking scene in Twelfth Night, where Viola (who, disguised as a man, is wooing Olivia on behalf of a man she’d rather marry herself) expresses skepticism about whether Olivia’s beauty is for real or painted on. Olivia replies, “Tis in grain, sir, ’twill endure wind and weather.” But she doesn’t mean it’s ingrained — grain at that time was a high-quality, expensive red dye.

    Thanks so Fed/Dave and to Andrew for help when I needed it.

55. I finished it. I can’t say I enjoyed it.

56. Valentine @54 BATON = ROD recalled = NOTAB

57. I really like Fed’s style – I can see Mr Gorman’s sense of mischief in there.
    I had a wry smile with 7d, having to ignore the s in (raconteur’s)* only to add another one in again at the end. I once followed a recipe that called for the addition of a certain amount of water then the instruction to simmer for a while to reduce the mixture. [ I know it was to bring out flavours, but it seemed so counter-productive!] I can see the reason “over the start of story” is included is to help the surface.
    On the other hand, I really think the definition to14a should have been “something found on OLD desktop computer’s…etc”, as there cannot be a desktop in the land that has blotting paper on it.
    I can’t for the life of me figure out why I love some tricksy clues but get irritated by others. As someone with a mathematical/science background I rue the lack of logic or consistency in my reaction to some puzzles.
    Thanks to Fed & Andrew.

58. mp@57 perhaps you can find some comfort in the words of Aldous Huxley: “Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead”

59. Too many started with the answer and proceeded (or sometimes didn’t) to untangling the parsing. SCORCH held out: I knew what it probably was but never found the CROCS so I had no idea why, unlike PARTY POLITICAL or LINCTUS where I could see roughly what the elements of the parsing must be but didn’t take the time to labour through them.

    Took SCUM to be the liquid not the movie, liked POP ARTIST, STUNT for the neat parts of speech reversal, and CHIMNEY just made me laugh.

60. Thanks bodycheetah @58 … I think! So I’m heading for complete consistency at least!
    I also meant to mention that I questioned the “lightly” in 20d. Scorching heat wrt weather for instance does not mean its warm, it means it’s very hot. A scorched earth policy does not involve light burning. The clue works just as well without it.

61. Loved this. Sooty and Sweep an absolute highlight (I used to have a Sweep puppet – my favourite ever toy (squeak!) 😀 )

62. Roz@53: I included the Azed clue @40: “Clues to unravel, hard, but no longer strange (8)”
    because it;s such a great clue, with a surface that refers to solving crosswords, and an anagram using the word “clues”, and a scrupulously fair definition.
    On Monday I would have found this clue “hard”, but now that SELCOUTH is “no longer strange” to me, I would have solved it.
    That’s what I meant by “That says it all”.

63. Needed to reveal ODALISQUE, which was new to me, otherwise lots of guessing the answers and then trying to parse (or not bothering) afterwards. All fair clues, but something about the need to think of a homonym with some letters missing always puts me off. I don’t have the patience (or the time unfortunately) to think about all the possible words with the right meaning, and slightly lose interest once I have worked out the structure of the clue. Thanks Fed and Andrew, especially for ASSEMBLY LINES which I never would have parsed.

64. [If you like Azed clues and old words try 1Ac from 2643, should be easy to find]

65. mp@60 Chambers (consistently inconsistent with actual English usage some. might say) has “To burn slightly or superficially” for SCORCH

66. We do find Fed quite hard, but forgiven today for including the lovely word ODALISQUE. I can’t do links but would recommend googling the splendid Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema for examples.

    Thanks Fed and Andrew.

67. I would agree with Chambers for SCORCH , it can happen to clothes when ironing . Also wooden furniture from hot dishes , cups etc with no mats.

68. Loved this. Just the right level of challenge for me (hard but not impossible) and some lovely witty clueing. Fed, I am a fan.

69. Widdersbel @29: spot on sir, they both came out at about the same time in 1979.

70. grantinfreo @18: SCUM also gritty and good. Quite groundbreaking of its time.

71. Sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I know Odalisque from The Decemberists. Wonderful band. Enjoy:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSFbITxGp14

72. https://www.bing.com/search?q=odalisque+decemberists&cvid=cc0ebf750cdf49e88a6669e6292916fb&aqs=edge..69i57.8135j0j1&pglt=43&FORM=ANNTA1&PC=W145

73. Didn’t parse half of these, but still completed a Wednesday, which is always a win.

    I knew ODALISQUE from Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Patience’, in which I had to listen to the following as a Heavy Dragoon:

    If you want a receipt for this soldier-like paragon,
    Get at the wealth of the Czar (if you can) –
    The family pride of a Spaniard from Aragon –
    Force of Mephisto pronouncing a ban –
    A smack of Lord Waterford, reckless and rollicky –
    Swagger of Roderick, heading his clan –
    The keen penetration of Paddington Pollaky –
    Grace of an Odalisque on a divan …

    … and so forth.

74. Enjoyable puzzle and satisfyingly chewy. I don’t mind wordiness as long as the words are needed. I agree that the “start of story” part of 7 isn’t really, but all the rest seemed fine.
    Very slight edit suggestion for the blog: 14 is LO in (BETTING APP)* + the “terminal” letter of computeR.
    Thanks, Andrew and Fed.

75. Thanks Andrew. Thanks all.

    I wasn’t thinking of the movie, Scum, nor of the James Nesbitt TV show, Passer By – both coincidental.

    William F P @42, I don’t expect to be everyone’s cup of tea – but I hope you won’t think it prickly of me to point out that a comment that basically suggests I’m not here on merit seems just a little, um… rude, no? Might a more logical explanation be found in the comments before yours at, say, 3,7,10,11,13,16,20 etc etc whose tastes differ to yours but are equally valid. Not that I don’t want to improve, also. In all things always – as I’m sure do we all.

    Geoff Down Under @7 – if you’ve never heard of Roy Lichtenstein or LS Lowry then I hope you’ll look them both up. I enjoy them both and you’ll see why I used ‘dotty’ in one clue and referred to factories in the other. But don’t look up Rod Liddle. No good can come of it.

    Dave Ellison @15 – yes, I was aware of him leaving his wife for his mistress – but had forgotten the manure detail! I was amused today to discover that a few solvers, on first approaching that clue, went looking for something that might be hidden in a reversal of the words rOD LIDdle and got quite a surprise.

76. Fed@75 et al, have been posting up a few earworms of late but didn’t know whether to select Good Vibrations or Welcome to the Pleasuredome in response to your 75.

77. I should have added “Let’s have a heated debate” or maybe I should have left Howard to call for a choice.

78. The Beach Boys every time.
    And Hi Fed.

79. I have searched through the comments and no-one has mentioned that Return to Sender is a song by Queen T (which confused my parsing)! I had googled it because I could not remember who originally sang it, then remembered it was Elvis.

80. Thanks to blogger and setter.
    I thought I might complete my first crossword of the year by defeated bybthe SW corner, the obscure slave did for me.
    Unusually, no parsings to check.

81. 6ac works both for a grimy film and a gritty film

82. As ever great fun parsing a DG puzzle & today’s one no exception. Thoroughly enjoyed it though needed Andrew to explain a couple of my correct answers.
    Thanks both

83. Quizzy_Bob @3711:. To much for my aged brain. What’s the answer?

84. See 41

85. BATON = ROD recalled = NOTAB If we don’t allow indirect anagrams, why are indirect reversals okay?

    mp@57, bodycheetah@58 Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Of course, there’s also consistency that isn’t foolish …

86. Because synonyms are synonyms, I suppose. But an anagram of a synonym is a different kettle of tutor.

87. Yes nice one Fed and thanks Andrew. Surprisingly with this crossword I have inly just spotted the professional connection implied by puppets sweep with sooty. Still learning then….

88. Fed thank you – I enjoyed this, tricky but doable & all the clues worked for me. Lovely sense of mischief and yes, I tried to use the reverse run-through in Rod Liddle!

    Thanks Andrew & all.

89. Valentine@85 , indirect anagrams are allowed , setters use them , they just deserve a frown or severe Paddington stare in some cases. An anagram is a mixing of letters so I like to see ALL the actual letters in the clue.
    Here I think of NOTAB as a recalled rod, only one step really and definitely no mixing.

90. Coming here rather late, to compliment Fed on another meticulously clued puzzle. This style is frustrating at times but no less enjoyable for that. To me, the convergenice of setters towards some notional “correct form” would be like the consistency (in death) to which others have alluded!
    So please continue, Fed, and appreciate the occasional pompous and patronising poster for what they are.

91. Add me to the more of Fed list (and Kite).

    Fed has always been different from the other compilers (he feels more contemporary?) whilst always being fair and having good surfaces. He’s ratcheting up the difficulty. On my first pass, I got one word but I enjoyed untangling the clues.

92. Agree Alton@90 and pdp11@91. I really enjoy Fed for the reasons you’ve stated.

93. Valentine @85 I think indirect anagrams are frowned upon because they feel unfair. It’s a game of think-of-a-word and then think of the myriad ways in which its letters could be rearranged. Even a 3 letter word offers 5 alternatives when anagrammed. A reversal can only be that and so it feels fair.

    I would think it’s rare to find a crossword where something hasn’t happened to a synonym, whether it’s reversing it, removing it’s first or last letters or both or what have you.

    Brummie did it here with 29D for example and it didn’t seem to cause you any concern that day.

94. Fed@75 – You are quite right. I strayed into the “ad hominem” area of things. And that was rude of me for which I apologise. I wouldn’t wish to hurt. But my criticisms (positive and negative) were mostly with the work rather than its artist (and formed before coming here and being reminded of Fed’s identity) Because of my regard for Eileen’s opinion though I have taken another look (I sometimes solve too quickly and purposefully slow myself down to enjoy a favourite compiler). I have to say I now believe I have indeed been unfair to the puzzle. I also read my comment again and realise I was a little light on the compliments though perhaps I realised others had covered. I’m in the throes of moving home so nothing is getting attention deserved right now perhaps. It’s also why I’m only now revisiting, and responding. I could/should have drawn attention to a couple of doozies in there, as well as CHIMNEY which, for me, simply coruscated being BLOTTING PAPER and EASILY LED. There were other fine clues, I thought: STUNT, EMPORIA, RETURN TO SENDER to mention but three. It may have something to do with the speed, and order, in which I solved. I seem to recall solving HEED (the only clue which, without crossers, initially stymied), TIE CLIP and PARTY POLITICAL which may have engendered the negative side of my comment…
    But mostly I now disagree with the general tenet of my post – in places it was masterful. And I repeat my genuine apology…..
    I should have been more circumspect perhaps; but I was right to respect Eileen’s judgement.
    Sssh…secret squirrel, but you could be a future monster of the cryptic crossword. Having taken an extra interest in this one (I can see a definite Fed style evolving), I shall now look out for your puzzles – and will be pleased to see them! I shall, from time to time, continue to criticise – if I may!

95. William F P @94 thank you. It’s appreciated. Then you might want to look at today’s (soon to be yesterday’s) Indy.

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