Guardian Cryptic 29,042 by Qaos

110 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,042 by Qaos”

1. Very enjoyable, thanks Qaos. I didn’t get the Nam bit of 15d, nor the wags bit of 17d, but all else was tickety-boo. “Tackles” & “inspire” only just qualify as inclusion indicators in my book, but that’s the nearest I can come to a grumble.

   And thanks PeterO.

2. Theme?

   Drinks?: CHAI, MANHATTAN, COSMOPOLITAN, ON ICE, BLOODY (hail) MARY, SCREW DRIVER, RUSSIANS (black and white), (T)RUSTY NAIL. maybe more.

   Best I can think of.

3. I didn’t bother to decode MORSE, but it had to be. Favourite was LENT.
   Picked out the cocktails after I’d finished. I couldn’t see the black for Russian GregfromOz @2. The WHITE is in Eggwhite and I was looking for a nog to go with the egg. I gues they can all be ON ICE.
   Cheers PeterO and ta Qaos.

4. Tim C @3, I was just mulling on RUSSIANS (plural) including Black and White. TBH, I didn’t even twig the connection with EGG WHITE.

5. Apparently, there is also a cocktail called a WISEGUY.

6. I started in the NW corner and did not get a single clue, but then rhe NE started to fall into place, and I went round ,returning in the end to the NW and while I would hardly say it was easy’, after I got BEDROOM. wondering why I had not seen it first time around. all fell into plac. LOI was NAIL, I failed to parse AI as 11. I trasnscribed bthe MORSE as INSPEKOR, but I put that down to these new multifocal specs!
   Enjoyed this once I got going Thanks Qaos and PeterO.

7. Cocktails leave me unshaken and definitely not stirred, so I looked for, but failed to see a theme, but didn’t look very hard.

8. Don’t feel bad, nicbach, I didn’t look for a theme at all. I never do.

9. Periodically looked for a theme (Qaos always has a theme) but didn’t look hard till I’d finished. Not sure it would have helped much if I found it earlier, but ok, probably would have speeded things up a bit. Anyway, nice puzzle. Had to check the informal meaning of WAGS, not sure I’d ever heard of it before.

   Thanks Q&P

10. Truss didn’t just ignore the Treasury chief, she sacked him. Clever clue.

    Greg @2/5, thanks for all the drinks. I found WISE GUY too (not to be confused with Three Wise Men, apparently). Also a MORSE martini (not to be confused with Three Dots and a Dash!), and CHI CHI (half of which is in CHINWAGS – but which half?), and plenty of cocktails featuring CHAI.

    I did wonder if Qaos chose the BEDROOM because he felt a bit exposed on the beach.

    Unusual spelling of upsilon – though not in German of course, where Ypsilon is the name for the letter Y.

    Fun puzzle, cheers Q & P.

11. A nice cocktail of BLOODY MARY, WHITE RUSSIAN, COSMOPOLITAN, MANHATTAN, SCREWDRIVER, RUSTY NAIL, WISE GUY, ALABASTER (Death & Co, Denver) and CHAI. Lovely ON ICE or not depending on your preference.

    Ta Qaos & PeterO.

12. AlanC @11, that cocktail sounds lethal.

13. Got the theme early, not that it helped. I probably missed a couple…
    Approachable puzzle for a Wednesday, all parsed ( I think), I even twigged the ‘NAM’ reference.
    As ever, I had to reveal the Spooner clue, I just don’t get them. I don’t even bother to try and solve them, just leave them until last.
    Looking forward to reading the blog.
    Thanks Peter and Qaos.

14. Much preferred this to yesterday. Didn’t spot a theme, and didn’t need to. Still found it tough, and completed it with several unparsed, so thanks PeterO for filling me in. Ta to Qaos as well.

15. Plenty to like – including the coded clues – though, as with Tim C, MORSE had to be MORSE surely? Anything else would have been truly evil – especially as I can barely read the dots even with my glasses on!

    ROAD SIGNS, DRESS SENSE, ALABASTER, TRUSTY and SCREW were my favourites. ENDING feels like it has something missing from the clue – a ‘by’, an ‘in’? And interesting to see down = D out in the wild. We use it all the time in crosswords but neither A or D are in Chambers as abbreviations.

    Thanks Qaos and PeterO

16. Postmark @15 – I agree, the MORSE clue was a bit odd, what else could it be? I did decode the first four letters INSP…

17. As is becoming routine for me, I didn’t see the theme until I’d finished. Didn’t parse NAIL which was last in, and didn’t bother to decode 4D – like PeterO, I expected it to turn out to be Endeavour. Quite a quick solve.

18. Great fun, thanks, Qaos. And because it’s Qaos, I knew to look for a theme… When I saw WHITE RUSSIANS, I wondered if it was going to be The Big Lebowski – which is on my mind because I went to a 25th anniversary screening last week. But it was COSMOPOLITAN and MANHATTAN that really gave the game away.

    Thanks for the blog, PeterO – especially for explaining “triple sec” as I was struggling to think how sec=S. Seems blindingly obvious now!

19. This was a welcome wind-down after Io in the FT, even if I didn’t spot the cocktail theme (Grr!) and I just bunged in MORSE without thinking beyond the dots and dashes. I liked working out the parsing of DRESS SENSE, MANHATTAN and EGG WHITE among others .

    Thanks to Qaos and PeterO

20. I was on Qaos’s wavelength this morning. Theme no help to me, preferring wine and real ales. Loved “–/—/.-./…/.”.
    Thanks to Qaos and PeterO.

21. Weatherspoons is much cheaper than all the other pubs in London, hence the 20% off reference.

22. …and elsewhere in the UK of course.

23. Enjoyable, I agree. Early on, I was dreading an oik Clarkson theme (TOP GEAR, ROAD SIGNS, DRIVER), but the BLOODY MARY and SCREW DRIVER straightened me out. I was expecting Endeavour as well, but the ‘e’s wouldn’t match. BTW, rust isn’t FeO – it is a complex compound of iron, water and oxygen. The ASH WEDNESDAY/LENT connection was rather neat, too. Thanks, Qaos and PeterO.

24. It looks like the theme was cocktails as many have said, but there was also Ash Wednesday, Lent and Whit, so maybe the theme changed.

    Could somebody explain why Wise Guy = member of the mafia please?

25. Very enjoyable puzzle. I looked for a theme when I had completed the puzzle and guessed it was drinks, cocktails? I could see bloody mary, screwdriver, manhattan, cosmopolitan, rusty nail, white russian.

    Favourites: YPSILON, CLEARANCES, NAIL, SCREW, TRUSTY, ON ICE.

    I was not sure how to parse 19d.

    Thanks, both.

26. I read 1d as def GORED, with BLOODY HELL as the wordplay.

27. ravenrider @24
    wise guy is US slang for someone who works with the Italian mafia but I don’t know the history of the phrase. Seems it started in the 1970s. My knowledge comes from watching Martin Scorsese movies.
    Made man and goodfella are also common terms but there are distinctions between fully initiated members and those who work on the sidelines – see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_man

28. ravenrider @24 – I suppose the ? at the end is indicative of gangsters.
    A ‘wise guy’ featured a lot in the Jimmy Cagney/George Raft era of gangster movies? I suppose the equivalent would be ‘smart alec’.

29. Even after looking for a theme when I’d finished I failed to see it!

    I’m not sure I’d call 1d a double definition Peter. Slightly differently from Jack @26 I saw it as “curse” = bloody hell, “he’ll go” meaning the hell goes, with “red” as the definition.

    Thanks Qaos and PeterO.

30. Nice puzzle. I missed the cocktails theme (avoid the things – an excuse for exorbitant prices) – and just thought that Easter was a mini-theme.

31. Ravenrider@24: I didn’t know about WISE GUYs being members of the Mafia either (and nho the cocktail) – I was trying to think of something with DON in it. A=1 gets me every time, so I didn’t see why 11=AI, or why triple sec=SSS (clever). However, good fun with Qaos’s quirky clues. I’ve seen YPSILON spelt with an E and a U as well as Y – it must be pronounced with one of those indeterminate vowels. Isn’t NAM for war getting a bit past its clue-by date?

32. Thought the theme would be something to do with drinks but didn’t work out what.

    Needed help to parse a few and then wondered why I hadn’t worked them out.

    Liked TRUSTY, DRESS SENSE, CLEARANCES, CHINWAGS

    Thanks Qaos and PeterO

33. A slow comfortable solve in the conservatory for me. Perhaps Qaos is giving up cocktails for Lent?

34. Me@20. Without computer “correction”:
    – -/- – -/. – ./. . ./.

35. I enjoyed that. Favourite clue was DRESS SENSE for its clever construction. MORSE was too obvious. I’m not a fan of ‘essentially’ meaning ‘remove the first two and last two letters’ for LENT — I’m used to that indicator word either meaning the middle one / two letters, or all except the outer letters, but the middle four letters from eight seems somewhat arbitrary.

    Thanks both.

36. I recognised enough cocktails to realise that was the theme (after I’d finished the solve) but don’t know enough to get them all.

    I parsed 1dn as Lord Jim @29.

    My favourites today were 12ac CHAI, 18ac ASH WEDNESDAY, 27ac YPSILON, 4dn MORSE, 7dn EGG WHITE, and top of the tree, 8dn RUSSIANS and 20dn TRUSTY.

    gladys @31 epsilon (e) and ypsilon/upsilon (u) are different letters – see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet

    Thanks to Qaos and PeterO.

37. Isn’t 1d Curse = ‘Bloody hell’ with the ‘he’ll’ subtracted (‘he’ll go’) giving ‘Bloody’ as the definition?

    Missed the theme as I so often do.

38. Ignore me @ 37. Got distracted mid-typing. Doh!

39. Geoff @1 – I was initially unimpressed with ‘inspire’ as an inclusion indicator, but thinking about it, it literally means “to blow into” so I think it is fair enough.

40. Lots of Qaos to enjoy. I looked for the theme but failed to find it.

    I liked the simple ON ICE, DRESS SENSE and BLOODY (LOI), which I think Lord Jim @29 has nailed.

    Thanks Qaos and PeterO.

41. Eileen@36 Your link does not include Ypsilon. I did not know this as an alternative to upsilon (it wasn’t taught in my third form Greek), and it takes a bit of google searching to come up with a reasonable explanation. It seems Ypsilon is used mostly in languages other than English? I did find this, however.

    Enjoyed the crossword, thanks Qaos, but couldn’t spot the theme at any stage including the finish. Thanks also to PeterO.

42. Thank you for the parsing of 24D. I had to reveal it and even then still didn’t get it, although I was pretty sure roman numerals had to be involved.

43. Completed quickly bar parsing of TRANSEPTS. Is ‘i’ a common abbreviation of independence?

44. DE @41, if you click on the letter ‘upsilon’ in Eileen’s link, it will take you to this, which gives both spellings.

    As you’ll probably remember, the Greek letter is written Y (upper case) and υ (lower case) – hence the confusion over how to transliterate it into the Latin alphabet.

    In fact four of our letters are derived from upsilon/ypsilon – U, V, W, and Y.

45. [Pronunciation-wise, it was like a German ü in Classical Greek, but is like the ‘i’ in ‘machine’ in Modern Greek.[

46. [The Germans pronounce ‘typisch’ as if it were spelt ‘tüpisch’.]

47. As it’s Qaos, I knew there would be a theme, but on a post-solve look through I didn’t recognise enough cocktails to get it. I parsed 24dn differently: Na=11 (at. no.) I=1 L=50, without seeing the axtra 1.

48. Nice puzzle, spotted the theme after I’d finished.

    RUSSIANS was my favourite for the surface.

    Thanks Qaos and PeterO

49. MANHATTAN my favourite. It reminded me of two protest songs: Country Joe (Mc Donald) and the Fish Fixin to Die Rag (Way down yonder in Vietnam) and Leonard Cohen’s First we take Manhattan (then we take Berlin).

    No-one’s mentioned it but I remember a similar clue for HAIL MARY. Doesn’t matter, I’m not against recycling.
    Strange bedfellows in the bottom sector. Christians to the left and Tories, Royals and the Mafia to the right.
    And the unifying element is ….. cocktails??!!

50. Thanks Eileen@36 – like many other subjects, I learned much of what I know (not enough) about the Greek alphabet from crosswords and didn’t realise there were two similarly named letters.

51. essexboy@46. And psycho is pronounced “ps-oo-ch-o”. Doesn’t quite send the shivers up the spine.

52. For once spotting the theme helped me by confirming NAIL which I couldn’t parse fully.
    Who knew there’s a cocktail called an Ash Wednesday?

    Ash Wednesday
    2 oz Gin.
    3?4 oz Heavy cream.
    3?4 oz Honey syrup (2:1)
    3 Blackberry.

    Sounds well worth a miss…

53. DE@41 YPSILON is in Chambers.

54. Thought there might be a MORSE theme with that the first clue solved – 4d must have been a nightmare to editorially check if it had been correctly set. Then when I got MANHATTAN realised that the cocktails might feature more widely than perhaps Inspector THURSDAY. Wondered whether my Epsilon was perhaps not the correct version of YPSILON for a while, and had WISE Man briefly inserted instead of GUY. Halting my progress.
    This seemed gentler than normal for a Qaos, but perhaps I’m/we’re becoming more familiar with the ways and devices of our regular setters…

55. Thanks for the blog, good puzzle and I missed the theme as usual. The only cocktail I know is SCREWDRIVER from Fawlty Towers, I make my own on student dance nights. TRUSTY was a clever clue , the only MORSE code I know is for SOS and it was enough to get the obvious.

    Not seen YPSILON spelling but the clue was obvious, the Upsilon particle ( b – bbar) is very important in possible CPT invariance violations .

    If anyone fancies a challenge there is an IO puzzle in the FT today.

56. [ AlanC I did register your Number One yesterday , it is now 18 – 7 . ]

57. Good fun. Although I don’t usually spot (or look for) themes, the cocktails poured out for me after I solved RUSSIANS, CHAI and COSMOPOLITAN in rapid succession. That helped me to get NAIL, SCREW and (HAIL) MARY and the whole thing was over too quickly.

    MORSE was a write-in without my bothering to decode it. Ingenious, but too obvious. NAIL, however, I enjoyed a lot.

    YPSILON is the rarer spelling, but makes more sense than ‘upsilon’ in modern English (essexboy passim) as it is transliterated as ‘y’ in words of Greek origin and pronounced like iota in modern Greek. [In Italian it is used as the name of the (Roman) letter ‘y’ – which is not found in native words – but spelt perversely as ‘ipsilon’].

    Thanks to S&B

58. We romped through that – very enjoyable. Favourites are MORSE (even though obvious), DRESS SENSE, and the Spoonerism HAIL MARY made us chuckle. Thanks Qaos, and PeterO for the blog.

59. Question for you experts. As we have now progressed beyond beginner level (we now parse 95% plus), we’re trying to work on our solving speed. Any tips please?

60. Kandy, if you do them faster you don’t enjoy them for as long. What’s the hurry?

61. I parsed 1D BLOODY as a triple definition: ‘curse’, ‘hell’ and ‘gored’ but ‘hell’ doesn’t really work unless it’s a nun stubbing her toe and saying ‘bloody…’ while meaning ‘hell’…
    I had a cocktail the other night – first for 40 years. Agree with George Clements@30.

62. Kandy@: I agree with GDU@60. The day will come when it will all be over too soon. That’s not going to be a good day.

63. Thanks Qaos and PeterO
    Worth it for “triple sec” alone – Pity he couldn’t bring himself to write Triple Sec, a common cocktail ingredient.

64. CATSCANNER is another cocktail. It was invented by Karl Kan, self-proclaimed king of the “cats canners”. Kan was the founder of Whiskers cat food, in California in the prohibition 1930s. It is equal parts Vermouth, Sherry and bitters and was intended to be drunk alongside a small plate of Kan’s tinned cat meat. The drink “cats-canner” predates computed tomography by some 40 years. But in an ironic twist of fate, Kan died from a brain tumour which the procedure would have detected.

65. Like many others, I was expecting 4 to spell Endeavour, especially given Barrington Pheloung’s theme music incorporating the Morse code for it.

66. Lovely stuff as usual from Qaos: everything fair, entertaining and suitably encoded in one case. I didn’t spot the customary Qaos theme while solving, but it was fun to track down after the event (I don’t usually find them any help in the solving process, but they generally add to the fun, and in many cases to my admiration for the ingenious setting; this was no exception. I raise a glass to Qaos).

    Lots of good clues, but the Male Hairy Spooner did raise an extra smile (some don’t like Spooners; I do). “PIN number” is of course a no-no (no pun intended), but the clue was fun.

    Regarding comments above from Kandy@59 about solving speed, I agree with the responses from Geoff and Alpha. Times Crossword solvers are more hung up on speed, and of course competitions are won by the fastest correct solver, but personally I enjoy a steady solve; spending a bit of time reflecting on what the setter is up to, rather than blasting through until the fun is over. Sometimes inspiration comes after a break, too. And sometimes a very quick solve (the Monday Guardian on occasion, or the Telegraph most days) is less satisfying. No disrespect at all to the likes of Rufus, Vulcan or Everyman, but seeing the setter is Paul or Brendan or Picaroon generally increases the anticipation, even if I know it will take longer.

    Thanks to P&Q.

67. I knew the Morse code wasn’t ENDEAVOUR as E (.) was one of the three codes I knew. I used a list to get as far as INSP, then the solution was obvious.

68. Got the theme early, which helped with a couple items–once I saw the “rusty” in TRUSTY, I knew to look for a NAIL, and HAIL MARY demanded there be a BLOODY. [I’ll have an occasional Manhattan, and I like a good Bloody Mary on a Sunday afternoon. Not much of a Cosmo guy, and screwdrivers are best left to one’s college years (when a giant bottle of vodka and a jug of orange juice was considered a well-catered party). I have never to my knowledge seen a rusty nail, let alone tasted one.]

69. Pretty good crossword. White Russian is also a cocktail for the person who was looking for ‘black’.

70. Oh, and the latest issue of Games has a fiendish cryptic that is solved entirely in Morse code–with one dot or dash per square, so that the crossing letters don’t help much–so I was actually up on my Morse enough to decode the Inspector.

71. Dave Ellison @41 – I went out shortly after posting my comment and have only just arrived home, so thanks to essexboy and others for further contributions.

72. Kandy@59 You’ll continue to speed up with practice. For me, the ideal level of complexity is one which takes me around an hour – chewy enough to cause me problems but not so obscure that they defeat me utterly. Life’s too short to spend much more than an hour on a crossword, but those I can race through in half that time are unsatisfying. So as your solving speed increases, if you’re like me you’ll just come to value the subtler compilers more highly.

73. [Roz @54: I finished this at 12.30 a.m. and got up especially early to comment, but when I saw it was PeterO blogging, I knew I was on a hiding to nothing, like a certain team we both follow].

74. Kandy @59: Most of the lightning solvers are not distracted by the surface – in fact they may not even register it – but treat the clue like an algebraic formula. Each to their own, but I delight in a good surface reading, particularly if it sends me up the garden path until I spot how the word play reads. Though I am a scientist by training, I am a reasonably literary one, with a love of language and a good turn of phrase. Hence, though I am a pretty ‘good’ solver, I shall never win the Times competition.

75. Thanks for the shaggy dog story @64, whoever you are! A plate of pet food sounds like the perfect snack to go with a cocktail. Anyway, isn’t it the case that almost any word can be the name of a cocktail, just like the names of rock bands.

    I found this easier than most Mondays, with the only tea tray moment being when I saw what ‘he’ll go’ was doing in 1d, causing me to emit an appropriate “bloody hell!”

    Thanks to Qaos and PeterO

76. Thanks Qaos for the fun. I spotted the theme after I filled in the grid and recognized the common cocktails. Favourites included ON ICE, DRIVER, TRANSEPTS, HAIL MARY, and NAIL. I needed a word finder for YPSILON (not a spelling I knew) and I was not aware of SCREW being a guard. Thanks PeterO for the blog.
    [Kandy @ 59: I’m no expert but I approach cryptics like a fine meal i.e. savouring each bite is better than wolfing it down.]
    [1961Blanchflower @66: PIN number is a no-no? Then what do you use at the ATM machine?!]

77. Tony @76
    …because the N in PIN stands for “number”, so PIN number means “personal identification number number”.

78. [muffin @77 – and the M in ATM? 😉 ]

79. But then, if we all started using PI numbers, that would be irrational too, and there would be no end to it.

80. [Btw – I was trying to remember Goujeers’ CAT SCANNER story – here it is]

81. [AlanC@73 I see what you mean, different time zones I presume. None of the bloggers match my time zone. For KPR you could turn the league table upside down and watch them improve every week, or stand on your head , but not both at the same time. On the subject of parity perhaps the players could wear numbers on the front of their shirts so the crowd will think they are attacking. ]

82. Kandy @59. The late and lamented Gaufrid tended to feel that display of, and fretting about, solving times was inappropriate on this forum, with which I always agreed. Solving times are for competitive obsessives who sit down determined to complete the crossword at a single sitting. Just solve a few, walk away, pour yourself a glass of wine or make a cup of tea, come back, solve a few more, then go and do the washing up or the ironing, then come back …

83. [PeterT @79 and EB @80
    🙂 ]

84. [Roz@81: you always make me smile].

85. PeterT & eb, those also made me smile.

86. Kandy@59: When people comment that they finished today’s crossword before their tea had time to cool down, they don’t usually mean that they enjoyed it. Just keep doing them, and the speed will come of its own accord.

87. Peter@79 having PI numbers in base pi would solve the problem.

88. Roz @87 if we’re counting our numerals as multiples of Pi then pi=1 etc then the circumference of a circle = D. So much easier.
    Missed theme and only see BLOODY after the several suggestions
    Thanks both

89. Troops, I found this extremely difficult.

    Questions:

    1a ED = little boy? I don’t understand this.

    YPSILON was new for me.

    OVERSCORES beat me…I thought “corrupted” meant an anagram of old server’s

    TRANSEPTS is a new word.

    I still have no idea how to spot a ‘charade’.

    20d – I thought gold was AU.

90. Kandy@59, gladys@86: I agree that speed isn’t everything. I’m looking for 30-60 minutes of exercise for the brain when I pick up the crossword, as I do most days from The Guardian and The Times. If I get through either of them in anything under 20 minutes, which is not often, I feel rather cheated. And I wonder what to do while taking the second cup from the teapot.

91. Steffen@89
    Ed is short for Edward, hence a “little” version of a boy’s name.
    You weren’t far off track with OVERSCORES. If something looks like an anagram but the obvious candidates don’t quite work, look again to seeif there’s another variant, as was the case here.
    Gold is often clued as AU or OR. Try both.
    As for spotting a charade, it comes with practice. Treat each element of the clue separately, looking for how each word might be represented in the solution. Often, as in ON ICE, you find you can run a number of elements together to fit the definition.

92. Steffen
    ED as in short for Edward, as you might address a small (or larger) boy. I don’t like this usage.
    I didn’t know OVERSCORES, but was familiar with “underscores”, so it was an easy guess.
    Au is the chemical symbol for gold, but look out for “or”, as used in heraldry and related fi

93. I clearly parsed 21 all wrong – and indeed I got it by solving 18 immediately beforehand – by thinking of all the things I’ve lent out, never to see again, thus essentially gifted.

94. [muffin @77: you missed my joke but it looks like essexboy @80 caught it..]

95. Sorry Tony. In my defence, I have never used the term ATM, and am not sure what the initials stand for. We call the places where you put a card in to get money “cash machines”, or, more usually, “holes in the wall”.

96. I started to think the theme might be seasonal with LENT ASH WEDNESDAY and EGGnog but then the cocktails started leaping out at me

97. [muffin @95: In the U.S. cash machines are often called ATM’s — Automated (or Automatic) Teller Machines. People will often call them ATM machines, equally as incorrect as PIN number.]

98. Fine crossword by Qaos . My fave was DRESS SENSE. BTW, I was watching an EPL match recently and in the 87th minute, the commentator said ‘it’s hail Mary time’, what does that mean?

99. Ong’ara @98: There’s a Hail Mary pass in American football – perhaps it’s now crossing genres?

    [Tony S/muffin – this is top of my list of ATM-related comedy moments.]

100. Thanks essexboy

101. [essexboy @99: That is very funny.]

102. I had to read all 100 comments to prove I’m the only one who confidently wrote in King Pin at 28a.
     King (Solomon) + member/leg = pin.

103. Perhaps the Hail Mary is just a simple prayer hoping for the match to end ? Personally I find the atheists far too religious but if I was forced to sit through 87 minutes of football then I would have hands clasped and be praying – please end , please end ..
     It is a bit like when I had to take sprog3 to see the Star Wars films.

104. I’v read a book by Andy Weir (author of The Martian) called Project Hail Mary – partly good, partly scientifically highly implausible (I don’t recommend that you read it, Roz!). The “Hail Mary” refers to a last desperate, unlikely to succeed, attempt to solve a problem when all else has failed.

105. Me @ 102. Yes I know there’s no DBE for Solomon, and member would be doing double duty, but hey, it’s the Guardian. Fortunately the down crossers put me right.

106. Love a Qaos! Always a pleasant solve. Theme- cocktails even if we’ll hidden at times. MANHATTAN COSMOPOLITAN SCREWDRIVER BLOODY MARY WHITE RUSSIAN

107. For RUSSIANS, I was trying to think of prime ministers with a T in their name that I could then ignore. I succeeded in ignoring the entire PM and only remembered Truss once I’d seen that the answer was RUSSIANS. That’s how much impact she made. Except on everyone’s mortgages.

108. Ong’ara@98 + others: here’s the Wikipedia link for the Hail Mary pass:-
     https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail_Mary_pass.
     Many thanks to Qaos and PeterO.
     ‘Struth, I enjoyed the three-day slow climax of solving this.
     Don’t understand the proud speed-merchants. I can think of another leisure activity [long past – sigh] where it’s distinctly counter-indicated.
     (Not comparing it to crossword-solving, of course, even for insomnia).

109. Very obvious theme, no idea how so many people missed it. And I don’t even drink.

110. Sailed through this then was completely defeated by 15 down. Would have helped if I had remembered to look for a theme.

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