Guardian Cryptic 29,049 by Philistine

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29049.

Perhaps the most straightforward so far this week, although I had to be careful to get some of the parsing spot on. The misprint in 1A is unfortunate, but at least it does flag itself. There seem to be plenty of Bs buzzing around.

ACROSS
1 MIASMA
Talking of setter’s wheezing heartlessly creates an pleasant atmosphere (6)
Sounds like (‘talking of’) MY(‘setters’) plus AS[th]MA (‘wheezing’) minus the middle letters (‘heartlessly’). Why the article ‘an’? Because a miasma is an unpleasant atmosphere – the UN went AWOL at some stage.
5 BUSHBABY
African native like George or Kate once? (8)
George might be either US former President; Kate Bush is not in that family.
9 ASCENDED
Rose scent mostly covered by commercial journalist (8)
An envelope (‘covered by’) of ‘scen[t]’ minus its last letter (‘mostly’) in AD (advert, ‘commercial’) plus ED (editor, ‘journalist).
10 PROLIX
Verbose in speech supporting tongue action (6)
A charade of PRO (‘supporting’) plus LIX, sounding like (‘in speech’) LICKS (‘tongue action’; ‘action can justify the plural).
11 SLOANE RANGER
Space in New Orleans for a Londoner (6,6)
An envelope (‘in’) of RANGE (‘space’) in SLOANER, an anagram (‘new’) of ‘Orleans’.
13, 18 PLANARIA
Optimal strategy with 21 skinned worms (8)
A charade of PLAN A (‘optimal strategy’) plus [bRIA[r], the answer to ’21’ across, minus the outer letters (‘skinned’).
14 BUTTRESS
Bar lock getting reinforcement (8)
A charade of BUT (‘bar’ “all the down answers bar two begin with a consonant”) plus TRESS (‘lock’ of hair).
17 FUSELAGE
Football’s premier league’s travelling in this part of the plane (8)
A charade of F (‘Football’s premier’) plus USELAGE, an anagram (‘travelling’) of ‘leagues’.
18
See 13
20 THE BEE’S KNEES
Particular flyer’s articulations being excellent (3,4,5)
Definition and literal interpretation.
23 GEMINI
Sign for one returning skirt (6)
A charade of GE, a reversal (‘returning’) of E.G. (‘for one’) plus MINI (‘skirt’).
24 A GOOD BUY
With heavy heart, said farewell into the bargain? (1,4,3)
A charade of (‘heAvy heart’) plus GOOD BUY, soundling like (‘said’) GOODBYE (‘farewell’).
25 ESURIENT
Nothing in the east of France grabs you — ultimately being greedy (8)
An envelope (‘grabs’) of U (‘yoU ultimately’) in ESRIENT, an envelope (‘in’) of RIEN (‘nothing’) in EST (‘east’), both in French (”of France’).
26 NICKEL
To begin with, Calvin Klein makes little money (6)
An anagram (‘makes’) of C (‘to begin with, Calvin’) plus ‘Klein’.
DOWN
2, 22 IPSO JURE
By law, half of epic site journals must be edited (4,4)
An anagram (‘must be edited’) of the first halves (‘half’) of ep[ic] si[te] jour[nals]. It helps to be able to drag up a little Latin from the dim and distant past.
3 SEES SENSE
Stops behaving foolishly with a series of directions (4,5)
Composed entirely of cardinal points of the compass (‘a series of directions’).
4 AND HOW
Injured hand that hurts a lot (3,3)
A charade of ANDH, an anagram (‘injured’) of ‘hand’ plus OW (‘that hurts’).
5 BED AND BREAKFAST
Fart aloud finally with baked beans cooked in guest house (3,3,9)
An anagram (‘cooked’) of ‘fart’ plus D (‘alouD finally’) plus ‘baked beans’.
6 SEPARATE
Mushy peas? Value what they’re not (8)
A charade of SEPA, an anagram (‘mushy’) of ‘peas’ plus RATE (‘value’). If the peas are mushy …
7 BROWN
Tan ruined when switching sides (5)
BLOWN (‘ruined’) with L replaced by R (‘switching sides’, left to right). The wording of the clue perhaps gives BROWN as the answer rather than BLOWN.
8 BOILERSUIT
Trouble is, I misplaced protective gear (10)
An anagram (‘misplaced’) of ‘trouble is I’.
12 SLAUGHTERS
Butchers giggling in sports clothing (10)
An envelope (‘in’) of LAUGHTER (‘giggling’) in SS (‘SportS clothing’).
15 RHAPSODIC
Enraptured dad turns up among a variety of orchids (9)
An envelope (‘among’) of AP, a reversal (‘turns up’ in a down light) of PA (‘dad’) in RHSODIC, an anagram (‘variety of’) of ‘orchids’.
16 TAKE FIVE
Have a little break for a little jazz (4,4)
Double definition; the jazz is from the Dave Brubeck Quartet.
19 BEMOAN
Lament funny Beano comic’s central character (6)
An anagram (‘funny’) of ‘Beano’ plus M (‘coMic’s central character’).
21 BRIAR
Wild Erica2,3 Arborea1,2,3 (5)
An anagram (‘wild’) of RI (‘eRIca2,3) plus ARB (‘ARBorea1,2,3), The wood of Erica arborea, tree heath, is known as briar root, and is used to make briar pipes. In the original, the figures are superscripts.
22
See 2

picture of the completed grid

89 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,049 by Philistine”

  1. I was enjoying the experience until I got completely stuck on SLOANE RANGER, which I had to reveal. A bit tough on us Antipodeans. Also my Latin wasn’t up to IPSO JURE. I agree that 7d could be taken either way.

  2. Thanks Peter O.
    Liked the surfaces in most of these. Good fun. Not so sure about the surface of the wild, superscripted eRIca and ARBorea. I could just see Philistine chuckling to himself.
    Liked the misdirections (for me anyway) with ‘trouble’ and ‘misplaced’ both potential anagrinds in BOILERSUIT, and ‘butchers’ in SLAUGHTERS. So used to the cockney rhyming slang that I didn’t even think it might be a straight synonym, well straight enough. As the daughter of a butcher who went to the butcher shop and the slaughterhouse, I think they’re different.

  3. Thanks Philistine for a most enjoyable crossword. I had a few misses and I never would have solved SLOANE RANGER but there were so many excellent clues that I can’t complain. ASCENDED, FUSELAGE, GEMINI, SEES SENSE, AND HOW, and BED AND BREAKFAST were among my favourites. Thanks Peter O for the blog.

  4. That kept me thinking for a while so not that straightforward for me especially with words like ESURIENT and IPSO JURE. I thought Philistine was careful with 7d, placing “with switching sides” at the end so I didn’t think twice about putting in BROWN.
    I really liked B&B for managing to get fart and baked beans into a single clue. The other favourite was BRIAR for the novel way of specifying the anagram fodder, made even cleverer by Erica Arborea being a briar root which I didn’t realise until coming here so thanks PeterO and Philistine.

  5. Pause for thought twice in the early stages of this: the ‘an’ was clearly odd in 1a – typo or design? and then the first six solutions I got were all anagrams which had me looking to see if that was going to be a theme. 1a eventually solved with crossers and a shrug – maybe Philistine had found a ‘nice’ but obscure def for MIASMA. There were certainly more anagrams to come but not enough to make a theme. SLOANE RANGER held me up til the very end – I was looking for a different kind of geographic definition. It helped when I identified that Orleans was another anagram.

    Favourites today: PLANARIA, GEMINI, ESURIENT and BED AND BREAKFAST.

    Thanks Philistine and PeterO

  6. 16d, nice little earworm in 5/4 time … ages since I’ve heard it … Nice puzzle, ta PnP.

  7. Did you link it gif@6, or are you still blinded by the light, or lack of it, in the west today?
    This link is so long that I’m actually going to try the hint in the FAQ. Fingers crossed.

    -V

  10. Most completed fairly straightforwardly last night, the rest polished off this morning: an easier one for me by P’s standards, with whom I usually struggle.

    I though the “an ” was just a typo for “un”. And like others, that BROWN was the favourite.

    Thanks P and P

  11. Didn’t know the Latin, though it was clearly IPSO something. Didn’t know about the BRIAR root either. BUSH BABY made me laugh (cute to look at, but they make the most appalling screeches in the middle of the night, as I discovered on a South African holiday, when my lodge was next to the local one’s favourite tree). I liked ESURIENT, FUSELAGE, AND HOW, BED AND BREAKFAST. No problem with BROWN: it’s clear which way round it goes. I think “An pleasant” is a typo.

  12. Didn’t have the foggiest what was going on with 21d until I got 13/18, then the penny dropped. A nice bit of “Philistine nonsense” as a former regular commenter here used to call it.

    Thanks for the fun, Philistine, and for the blog, PeterO.

    pdm @2 – butcher is fine as a synonym for slaughter in a figurative sense (as in eg The Butcher of Baghdad).

  13. Well I didn’t help myself by spelling NICCKEL NICKIE to start with and I was wondering how JOURNAL was split if I needed the U and then I saw the mispelling and JURE sounded like a latin name for law, I had decided some time before that it was probably latin, which left me with the letters for IPSO which I knew was latin. THe NW corner had been holding out so that helped and when I looked at 1a again I saw the typo, bloody multifocal glasses, and I was on the home straight.
    Favorite clue today was PLANARIA and now I know where Briar Pipes come from, I am thinking that was very clever. I liked SLOANE RANGER too, I managed SLOANE from the anagram and was thinking Sloane Square, er Posh Girls butnothing came until I was in the middle of working out another clue, after which I had to beat myself around the heade with a stick of celery.
    Thanks both for puzzle and blog.

  14. Really good – I don’t remember Philistine as being so witty! B&B was rather brilliant. Many thanks to him and to PeterO.

  15. Clever, and not really spoiled by the bit of Grauniad-ery in 1ac.
    I wasn’t familiar with IPSO JURE (though it could be worked out from the crossers and the clue); but then I was only a county court judge for sixteen years, and to adapt an old line “Isn’t your client familiar with the maxim Ipso Jure?” “Your Honour, in the —– County Court they talk of nothing else”.
    Given the explanation, I don’t have a problem with 7d being BROWN; though, not for the first time, I am wondering why Ximenes had a hissy fit about indirect anagrams but “find obscure synonym and swap L for R in it” appears to be acceptable.
    Thanks, both.

  17. A@16 I feel the same way about Latin this week 🙂

    PLANARIA was my LOI and Chambers says that’s Latin too

    Agree that SLOANE RANGERS was a stretch but not sure how 7d could be anything other than BROWN? Doubtless I’m missing something obvious

    Cheers P&P

  18. Liked this. Favourites B&B, PLANARIA, BUTTRESS and others cited above.
    Are SLOANE RANGERs still a thing?
    I got held up by SEPARATE – I saw it was an anagram of ‘peas’, followed by ‘rate’, but for some reason put ‘asperate’, which I looked up – it means ‘rough’ and mushy peas aren’t very rough, so it seemed to work. This delayed getting BUSHBABY and hence BOILERSUIT. Got there in the end.
    Thanks PeterO and Philistine.

  19. That was fun.

    The anagram for BED AND BREAKFAST amused me, although I didn’t check it, saw it from enumeration. New to me, ESURIENT and PLANARIA, which are flatworms, I found, not the earthworms I dissected as part of A level Biology.

    Thank you to PeterO and Philistine.

  21. beaulieu@18 I was thinking exactly that about SLOANEs. It seems such a 70s and 80s thing. I haven’t been there in decades, but I suspect that area is not what it used to be. -D

  22. For me, miasma is one of those words that I only see written and never hear so I have always thought it was “me-asma”. I couldn’t identify the anagram fodder for ipso jure and didn’t know the phrase though I guessed ipso from ipso facto. I thought 21d might be acier, though it didn’t really make sense.
    “Into the” seems superfluous in 24 and changes the meaning of the clue somewhat.
    Other than that very enjoyable.

  23. Bodycheetah @17 – I think it comes down to the subtle differences between English-English and Crossword-English. For me, reading the clue “naturally” gave me BLOWN as the answer, but I paused before writing it in – the crossword convention of putting the definition first or last in the clue made me realise it had to be BROWN.

  24. Latin, French, superscript and a long string of points of the compass — quite a mixture ! Liked it AND HOW!

    Faves were BED AND BREAKFAST and ASCENDED.

    Here’s Harry Enfield’s Tim Nice-But-Dim, the SLOANE RANGER extraordinaire :

    https://youtu.be/NC0IJQ_s7No

    Thank you Philistine and PeterO

  25. I was thinking that 1a could work with either the “my” or “me” pronunciation of MIASMA. The latter would be: “Talking of setter” = MI (sounds like “me”); has (apostrophe s) “wheezing heartlessly” = AS(th)MA. (Though arguably “creates” doesn’t work so well this way.)

    This was all good fun, especially BED AND BREAKFAST.

    Many thanks Philistine and PeterO.

  26. Thanks Philistine and PeterO
    There is now a correction for the 1a clue online.
    I wouldn’t agree about “straightforward” – for the first time in a while I drew a complete blank on first pass. I got in by way of RHAPSODIC, then it evolved into a sheer delight. I did eventually need a wordsearch for IPSO JURE.
    Lots of favourites, including ASCENDED, PROLIX, FUSELAGE, and NICKEL.
    Pedants’ corner: “arborea” should be set without a capital (as you have it, Peter), and ideally in italics.
    When we were in London in th 70s, there used to be a busker on the South Bank who played nothing but Take Five for hours on end.

  28. Another fun puzzle from Philistine. I was surprised at drofle’s comment @14: for me, he’s one of the wittiest setters around.

    Today’s ticks were for 1ac MIASMA, 5ac BUSHBABY, 13,18 PLANTARIA’, IPSO JURE (thanks for the anecdote, NeilH @15), 4dn AND HOW, 6dn MUSHY PEAS, 8dn BOILERSUIT. Like Tim C @4, I laughed at the clever combination of FART and BAKED BEANS (and ‘breakfast’) in 5dn.

    Many thanks to Philistine and PeterO.

  29. I really enjoyed this, especially as the typo had been corrected by the time I got up. FUSELAGE was my favourite for (half) disguising the first letter indicator.

  30. Like Widdersbel @23 I thought a ‘natural’ way of reading 7d would give BLOWN: ‘Tan ruined when switching sides’ can be interpreted as ‘Tan becomes ruined when R is replaced by L’. The only thing which resolves the ambiguity is knowledge of the ‘definition comes first or last’ convention.

    I hadn’t met IPSO JURE either, but I knew ipso facto, and that de facto was the opposite (kind of) of de jure, so putting the two together seemed like a good idea.

    MIASMA could almost be whole-solution homophone of ‘my asthma’, thus dispensing with the need for ‘heartlessly’, except for the voiced/voiceless S mismatch.

    Many thanks P & P, and Flea and pdm for the links (minus V for Take Five, v neat 🙂 )

  31. Managed everything except SLOANE RANGER. I think ‘Londoner’ as definition is really much too weak. The (unpardonable) typo in 1a made me think we were looking for ‘a pleasant atmosphere’ until the penny dropped. As for the rest, I enjoyed it and even remembered ESURIENT from Monty Python’s Cheese Shop sketch.

  32. Like yesterday’s this was a mixture of quite straightforward clues – particularly some of the anagrams (and what a lot there were) – to get me started then some more tricky ones which took a bit longer to finish. I needed some help from a word finder for the last few. Didn’t parse the last bit of PLANARIA.

    I always seem to forget / don’t think of *for one* or *say* as indicating e.g. and annoyingly did so again today.

    But I did enjoy this, favourites including AND HOW, SEPARATE, SLAUGHTERS, MIASMA

    Thanks to Philistine and PeterO

  33. I enjoyed this too. A lovely mix of tricky and gettable with some wit thrown in. IPSO JURE evaded me and was revealed, I should have persevered with the wordplay.
    Shanne @19 Given the chance Schoolboys may have taken much pleasure from being given planaria to dissect. They have remarkable regeneration powers including regrowing decapitated heads! http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/files/2013/07/decapitation.jpg
    Thanks to philistine and PeterO

  36. Flea @24 – I have always thought of Sloane Rangers as having been females of the species, so it would not have occurred to me to attach that tag to Tim Nice-But-Dim. Here, however, is the memorable commercial with Sylvestra Le Touzel as an archetypal Sloane Ranger from the early 1980s in a parody of Pygmalion.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKRuG4oIu_o

  37. A fun puzzle, albeit a straightforward solve.

    Smiled at BED AND BREAKFAST, AND HOW, PROLIX, THE BEES KNEES and BRIAR.

    The typo didn’t have any effect as the correct clue was obvious from the wording, as the blog points out.

    Thanks Philistine and PeterO

  38. For once a bit of a romp, all except PLANARIA which I feel like I once knew but had forgotten with age.

  39. As ever with a Philistine puzzle, enjoyed this. Apart from when I bunged in Sign Posts early on instead of SEES SENSE and held myself up in the NW quarter. Last one in, A GOOD BUY, took me ages to see it, but obviously brought a smile. Reminded of the day when the banks all became connected to a central computer system (or at least the Barclays I worked at – late 60’s, early 70’s?), when we were all gathered round the printer as it stuttered into life to send us this very first message: Agood morning. Space missing between the first two words of the breezy greeting….

  40. Enjoyed this very much. foi 5a, faves 10a, 24a, and 21d. Held up a while wondering if spearate was a word (meaning pointed not round like peas) in 6d. Paddymelon@2 I think butchers and slaughters are verbs which would definitely be synonyms on the battlefield

  41. [me @30 – I gather ‘asthma’ is pronounced with a voiced /z/ sound in America (?) – in which case MIASMA would indeed be an exact homophone of ‘my asthma’.]

  42. Like Tim C@4, Eileen and others, I found Bed and Breakfast one of the cleverest and funniest clues. I laughed out loud at that one, and smiled often, even if I didn’t quite finish this gem from Philistine.

  45. Not too difficult, though a steady rather than especially rapid solve for me. ESURIENT was nice, I thought.

    Thanks to both, as ever.

  46. Really liked this, despite the typo. Loved the ingredients of B&B.

    Re: 19d. Remember the Beano character Dennis the Menace? If you read the clue as having to take the central characters of “Lament funny Beano comic”, you get ME – N – A – then it fails, but it made my head spin a bit.

  47. A most enjoyable and witty puzzle this morning, nestling plumb in the sweet spot, slightly rare for Philistine with whom I often happily struggle for days. Personal faves were the farty guest house (for the schoolboy guffaw), and briar for the ingenuity, even more so after reading the excellent blog.

    Don’t mind dredging up bits of Latin and French from the ancient past. Good for keeping compos mentis, as it were. The Latin even helped with 25a – esurient bringing to mind an aria from Bach’s wonderful Magnificat.

    https://youtu.be/27DdYAmALDM

    Many thanks to both setter and blogger.

  48. Thanks PeterO and Philistine.

    The definition of Sloane Ranger in my 1993 Chambers is very precise:

    a young person, typically upper- or upper-middle-class and female, favouring expensively casual clothing suggestive of rural pursuits, speaking in distinctively clipped tones, evincing certain predictable enthusiasms and prejudices and resident (during the week) in the Sloane Square area of London or a comparable part.

  50. [JVH @48: being daughters of the squirearchy, wouldn’t their vehicle of choice be a Range Rover, thus justifying the Lone Ranger pun?]

  51. Some good clues in here – especially PLANARIA, BUSH BABY and ESURIENT. Spent some time looking for a theme that wasn’t there, but pleased to get to the end!

  53. havng read essexboy at 41, I am now thinking triple homophone. an pleasant for unpleasant.

  54. Was I the only one to get stuffed by cheerfully filling in CASE RULE for 2,22 (which Google confirmed was a thing)

  56. Not easy, not over-difficult, but very enjoyable. I especially liked SLAUGHTERS for the image that now exists in my mind from the clue. Thanks PeterO and Philistine.

  57. I arrived late enough for the typo to have been corrected and so missed the excitement. FOI was BED AND BREAKFAST from enumeration and definition, without even checking the anagram fodder, which gave me a lovely spine to work outwards from. I loved SEES SENSE.

    However, I am not a fan of the superscript in BRIAR… it might have passed muster if there was some cleverness going on with the definition itself but it just seems to be a way of identifying arbitrary letters for anagram fodder. And there were rather a lot of anagrams (11, including partials?). But overall, great fun.

    Thanks both.

  58. I remembered Sloane rangers from way back when… I think it was in a clue for Chelsea tractors, which caused me grie.

  60. Enjoyable solve with some good ideas; not for me as easy as PeterO.

    I liked BUSHBABY for the image of Dubya, the hilarious BED AND BREAKFAST anagram, and the giggling butchers. IPSO JURE is an indirect anagram because it’s not known at the outset which half should be used; putting ‘first half’ would clarify.

    Thanks Philistine and PeterO.

  62. As I often do, I attempted the long ones first, but as I didn’t get any of those three clues at that time I went elsewhere and got started with SEPARATES, PROLIX and IPSO JURE. There were so many inventive, neat and clever clues here, of which BED AND BREAKFAST was a favourite. BRIAR and PLANARIA were my last in.

    Thanks to Philistine and PeterO.

  63. As a beginner to this pursuit I thoroughly enjoyed this. Had to reveal PROLIX which was new to me – came here for the parsing as the “in speech” indicator was separated from “tongue action” in the clue.

    Also new to me were ESURIENT, PLANARIA, and IPSO JURE but they became clear from the clueing and crossers (and, for the latter, I knew ipso facto and de jure which helped).

    Lots of favourites, including ASCENDED, B&B, RHAPSODIC, FUSELAGE AND ESURIENT.

    Thanks to Philistins and PeterO

  65. Thanks to Philistine for a customarily good puzzle. As ever, no egregiously dodgy parsing and the personal obscurities (esurient a new one on me) remain gettable due to fair clueing.

  67. [I’m looking forward with great interest to the blog on Maskarade’s Easter special. Tomorrow? Not so much for the answers or the parsing (all teased out in the end), but just to see if there’s a single font that can reproduce all the symbols correctly.]

  69. Thanks for the blog, I did not notice the misprint for 1Ac , the word play had done all the work .
    I agree with Rob@57 for BRIAR , the superscripts seem to be a very obvious and clumsy way to give the letters. The rest was really good, ESURIENT very clever , SLOANE RANGER is neat and nice to see a reference to AlanC.

  70. Wow! If this really is the most straightforward of the week, as our blogger suggests, I’m glad I’ve had a few days off. As for this one, the towel went in after 90 minutes with about half still missing and other pressures on time. Only one unknown word – ESURIENT – so I guess I just didn’t get the wavelength. C’est la vie.

  71. 70. Agreed, it I am an increasingly disheartened novice! I wish I could “unlearn” the way my brain operates…I struggle to not read the surface of every clue.

    BOILERSUIT was the only clue I got.

  72. Rob@57 & Roz@69
    I saw 21d as – if BRIAR Root (or a root of Briar) is Erica Arborea, then Erica23 Arborea123 (to a power) is BRIAR ?

  73. But then it would have to be (EricaArborea) ^ to some power. It is a nice idea but it does not work.

  74. I’m being particularly picky, but the tree heather’s scientific name should be typeset as Erica arborea; all in italic, genus name with a capital, species name without ( as in Homo sapiens!)

  75. Oh, wyn@72. Very clever! You and Philistine! I think a lot of us missed that. (I’ll claim lack of horticultural GK and being remiss in not looking it up.)

  76. And the commas do not work either 2,3 and 1,2,3 with the power idea.
    I think there is a potential clue somewhere . If ( something ) = X root, then X could be clued as ( something ) squared.

  77. [Steffen: If you’re still around give Gurney a shot in today’s FT. It’s very “user-friendly.”]

  79. Roz@76. I (now) think the clue is very funny, because of Philistine’s playfulness. ( I suppose it’s funny to me as I’m not a mathematician. )
    [BTW Did you see any of yesterday’s ”hybrid” solar eclipse in WA? They were very lucky. There was a devastating cyclone only last week in the NW of WA. ]

  81. Eileen – mea culpa (re the wittiness of Philistine) I guess. I’ve never added his name to the list of setters I particularly enjoy, but will do so now!

  82. I was out this afternoon at a beer festival and did not start the crossword until I was on the train back to Sheffield. Finished it over dinner in one of my quickest solves of the year. I put this down to my brain cells having been sufficiently lubricated and loosened, but please don’t take this as a recommendation to overindulge in alcohol.

    I’m going to try tomorrow’s stone cold sober – wish me luck.

    Thanks to Philistine and PeterO.

  83. [Steffan: Yes, today’s FT was an easy puzzle. One of the comments read, “a good one for those new at crosswords.” ]

  87. Very belated thanks to Eileen and to Goujeers. Amazingly, I’d never seen the Brexit message, although I do the puzzle every day. Perhaps I was away in Narnia (I live in Totnes, which is twinned with the place).

  88. 25A not knowing much french I ended up with: nothing(0) in the east (the o in orient) replaced with E S U
    Franc(e) grab(s) yo(u) ultimately. HoHum:)

  89. wyn@72….well spotted! No idea why Roz thought to slap it down with such celerity (and Iam a mathematician!)

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