Guardian 29,146 / Paul

104 comments on “Guardian 29,146 / Paul”

1. Thanks, Paul and Eileen!
   Liked SPACER (The first one to fill some spaces and open up the puzzle. If I thought it was going to be an astronaut-like launch, sorry! This puzzle was no PIECE OF CAKE)),
   SIXTY (Many unknowns (Xs) to play with. Tens(e) too. Nothing in Excess.),
   KLEPTOMANIA (Taking it one way and then the other way…took a couple of takes. Clicked finally),
   BILL AND COO (My top fave. ‘Ringed’ rang a bell early. ‘I say’ coup? The ! suppressed
   the coup and put a stop to the brief agonising period) and
   POT (Dope! A real cracker! Pot and potatoes: Weed out and root out respectively! Stay fit!).

2. BILL AND COO
   I parsed it the same way as you.
   I say as an interjection=COO
   Ringed=In BAND
   needing a vet because the pet is ILL, I guess.

3. Thanks Eileen. Enjoyable, fairly breezy crossword and I had the same ticks.
   I parsed 14d as you did, and I was quite happy with it.

4. I loved this – especially the 27d dodgy homophone. Thought 8d covertly racist if read as as a cryptic definition. V impressed with myself for deducing 13ac fairly quickly. Fabulous wit. Got same parsing as you Eileen at 14d. Thanks all round

5. I agree with you on the parsing of BILL AND COO, Eileen, but not on this being straightforward.
   Thanks for the blog, and thanks to Paul foe the puzzle

6. Thanks Paul and Eileen
   A couple I needed explaining, and I still can’t see why “opener” is SPACER.
   I generally don’t like mathematical clues, but I laughed at the eight Os.

7. muffin@6
   I was thinking of a SPACER going between two surfaces. It’s an opener that way I feel.

8. Thanks KVa @7
   That was my only thought too, but you wouldn’t call it an “opener”.

9. Challenging, but some good fun. I particularly liked SIXTY and POT. Never heard of the comedian. And the only one I didn’t parse was BOTTOM LINE — hardly surprising considering the sparsity of my knowledge of the Bard.

10. KLEPTOMANIA
    Isn’t it a Clue-as-definition? Narrowly missed being an &lit.

11. Muffin @6. I’ve seen vets use a device called a spacer for opening gaps between vertebrae.

12. muffin@8
    Agree.

13. Crispy@11
    That sounds better.

14. A bit of a jump-about puzzle from Paul today. But fortunately everything was gettable bar the parsing of BOTTOM LINE which I assumed was related to the play but is not a quote I recognised. Lots of typically clever Paulian constructions. SIXTY is possibly my favourite though pressed hard by SPEEDWAY, ARTLESSLY, FLAXEN and YEARLY. OOOOOOOO, I have seen once before but still made me smile.

    Thanks Paul and Eileen

15. Also same parsing of BILL AND COO. A nice phrase that’s been around for a few hundred years and refers to doves and pigeons.

16. Very tough puzzle, not on this setter’s wavelength as usual. I lost interest and gave up after solving about half – 13 clues, mainly the LHS.

    9ac SPACER = opener (why?)

    Favourite: YEARLY.

    New for me: STAG = speculator; Scott’s Porridge Oats (for 6d) – tbh I’m not a fan of product placement.

    Of the ones I solved, I did not parse 6d, 25/10.

    Thanks, Eileen.

17. Second day in a row I have breezed through, enjoying REICHSTAG and BOTTOM LINE, thinking it’s time to give NORMAN WISDOM a decent burial, only to fall at the final fence. Couldn’t make head nor tail of SIXTY, so dnf.

    Thanks to Paul and Eileen.

18. This seemed fairly straightforward for a Paul puzzle, but have to take my hat off to him for the two clues that came together to provide FIFTY as the solution to 13ac. Last three in were the interlocking POT and MOONSETS and BILL AND COO. As pleasure as always, Mr Halpern…

19. Everything fell into place surprisingly quickly for a Paul on a Friday. And nothing much scatalogical as far as i could see.

    Six was LOI, and very much a bung and hope. Thanks Eileen for explaining the clever word play. And the meaning of all those zeros in POT also eluded me, although the answer was obvious one the crossers were in. A bit of a hat tip/ groan mix when I saw Eileen’s explanation! Favourite was ARTLESSLY, as cunning as a Baldrick plan. Also nice to see NORMAN WISDOM remembered; worth mentioning that he was not only a very funny man but also an underrated character actor and a successful singer. Thanks Paul.

20. …oh dear, my Maths, can’t add up! SIXTY, not Fifty, but the process was fun…

21. I struggle to make sense of some of Paul’s strange surfaces, I’m afraid, and it rather detracts from my enjoyment of the effort.

    Shame, as there’s often good stuff to be had.

    Hey ho, many thanks, both.

22. me@19 SIXTY, not six. doh.

23. What cake do you have jam WITH as opposed to as an ingredient ?

24. muffin@6: Webster’s gives SPACER as “a device or piece to create or maintain a desired amount of space”. So in creating space you are opening a gap, hence spacer=opener.

25. Thanks Eileen. Needed your help with BOTTOM LINE. Despite MSND at school didn’t know the quote.
    I confess my attempts were a bit more lowbrow, while being on the lookout for Paul’s penchants with clues referring to the nether regions. I was wondering if BOTTOM LINE was a more polite term for what we know here as a plumber’s crack. ?

    Stag in REICHSTAG is a word I’ll have add to my financial (il)literacy vocab. Just getting the hang of bull and bear.

26. Sugarbutties@23: A scone?

27. Sugarbutties @23, Criceto @26: I was thinking of Victoria sponge – it’s usually sandwiched together with jam, but the jam isn’t part of the cake in the same way that the flour and eggs are.

28. I’m sad to say NORMAN WISDOM was my first in, reading through the across clues – and I realised we were being given a quirky Paul crossword. Quite a few went in early and quickly and then I spent a lot longer solving the rest. SIXTY was my last in with a realisation it was to do with the numbers, but I’m afraid, as is often the case with my LOI on a daily crossword, I come here rather than tussle with it, and I really should as the numbers are always useful for another hobby.

    I grinned when I had the crossers to get BOTTOM LINE but I studied A Midsummer’s Night Dream at school and seen various versions (and I loved Brendan’s Shakespearean offering earlier in the week, but wasn’t around at the right time to comment). We studied a play a year, so five until I dropped all the arts and concentrated on maths and the sciences, plus for the years when I did my best to live at the Globe I went to quite a few study days and covered a few more plays.

    I find the more interesting surfaces and definitions make for a more challenging crossword, more entertaining brain twisting – and I like brain-twisters.

    Thank you to Eileen and Paul

29. This from a Google search

    “The spacer is an implant designed to keep the space between your spinous processes OPEN, so that when you stand upright, the nerves in your back will not be pinched or cause pain.”

    I particularly liked YEARLY as it reminded me of this old schoolboy enigma, the requirements of which are to decode a rhyme. It’s a bit like what we would say to Paul when he sets a pig of a puzzle that we find impossible to crack.

    YYURYYUBICURYY4ME ( any takers ? )

    Paul@19: Norman Wisdom was indeed a fine singer. Here’s his most well known

    https://youtu.be/lyLBBmnVKzc

    Thank you Paul and Eileen.

30. Sorry, I also meant to say – a piece of folded cigarette packet cardboard is a rough and ready spacer to make sure the gap in a spark plug is about right – from emergency side of the road fixing of my old Ford Fiesta.

31. [Flea @29
    My grandfather told me that one 60 years ago!]

32. Sugarbutties @23, any cake you like.

33. Flea @29 – I know that one, it’s a standard in autograph books and usually spaced:

    YYUR
    YYUB
    ICUR
    YY4ME!
    to get the rhyme

34. Criceto@26: a scone is a cake? Lots of actual cakes have a jam filling, but I also queried the idea that you would add jam to A PIECE OF CAKE. Perhaps Paul does.

35. Too wise you are Flea @29

36. I read for EXECs as XC and correctly read XL-then I subtracted one from the other and came up with 50 but when I checked answers, I saw the error of my ways. Lets just say I wasnt use to Paul entering Qaos territory-and possibly Dan Quayle territory in 27 (didnt Dan add an E to the singular POTATO in a classroom-I can hardly remember which lunatic was actually in charge at the time!
    I can definitely say that this puzzle was not boring!

37. Eileen, PORRIDGE. I knew of the ill-fated association of Lawrence Oates and Scott in the Antarctic and thought it was just a simple homophone Oates>oats> synonym >porridge. I might be a bit thick but I can’t see the lift-and-separate or the need to know about Scott’s porage oats. I found it was about the simplest clue today, but then I may be the one who’s simple and clueless.

38. I think Eileen is right re 18,6 ac. I’m just as likely to have jam with old rope as cake

39. paddymelon @37… if you are simple and clueless then so am I.

40. Did anyone else think WORDSEARCH was there to suggest solvers look for words on the diagonal? (With Paul, I’m always suspicious and looking for anything I may have missed.) I think I might have overthought it – or simply drew a long bow – but I did find a few. I had hoped for a ‘secret’ message, but no…
    Thanks to Eileen and, of course, Paul.

41. In the vein of Flea@29. Seeing we’ve had this today: GG was 1 horse. 22was12. GG11race. 22112.

    (night, night , crawling off to find my cot in the nursery)

42. Disappointing lack of cricket references today but he did manage to slip in a SIX and some PACE

    Amazed Paul managed to clue PEED without going lavatorial – a double bluff perhaps

    Top marks for YEARLY, POT, and SIXTY

    Flea @29 my dad used to regale us with that riddle when he got back from after-work sales meetings 🙂

    Cheers P&E

43. I parsed WORDSEARCH a bit differently. The puzzle had, in the sense of being made up of, an anagram of “screw” (loose) and “or had” (cracked).

44. On the first pass, I only solved four, so a lot of subsequent staring at blank lights before it slowly fell into place.

    I liked the wordplay for DISTRICT ATTORNEY, KLEPTOMANIA and SIXTY, the ‘lines’ in YEARLY, and BOTTOM’s LINE.

    Thanks Paul and Eileen.

45. [Flea @29: I may have shared this before, but my father’s favourite of that genre was:

    If the B MT put: if the B. ]

46. Willbar@43
    WORDSEARCH
    I parsed it as Eileen did. In your parsing two separate anagrams are to be worked out but they are not in the same order in the SOLUTION.

47. paddymelon@37 and Tim C@39
    OATS
    A ‘lift-and-separate’, occurs without much of your effort. ‘Scott’s porridge’ would otherwise have been seen as one block.

    The Porage part: We will wait for Eileen to see what she meant.

48. “Porage” is an alternative spelling of “porridge”, but it is the spelling that the Scott’s manufacturer uses. Perhaps the clue would have been better with this spelling.

49. Eileen probably added the ‘S P Oats’ bit only as something alluded to in the surface. Adds value that way. Not essential to know for deconstructing the clue.

50. Sorry Muffin. My post@49 was a continuation of my post@47.

51. KVa @ 47 and 49
    Oh dear – perhaps I was overthinking it. ‘Scott’s porage oats’ seemed welded together in my mind since childhood, as I envisaged the fellow putting the shot on the packets. (I see that the link I gave doesn’t even have that picture!) Sorry for the confusion – and for the delay: I’m having to rewrite my draft blog of last Saturday’s Paul Prize puzzle, which I managed to delete while I was away. 🙁

52. Flea @29 and PostMark @45 – thanks for the memories! It was always a race to be the first to write one of those in a new autograph book.

53. KVa and muffin @47,48 and Tim C@39. Re OATS. I’ve snuck out to see what the adults are doing, but I’m still in the dark.
    Isn’t the apostrophe after Scott the link word , contraction of is, pointing to the answer?
    I shouldn’t underestimate Paul, or the wisdom of Eileen and yourselves, but I’m flummoxed..

54. Ohh, been away having another think. Sorry Eileen @52, we crossed, and thank you. I can really go to bed now.

55. And sympathies Eileen for having to rewrite another the Prize blog. As always, thank you for the lengths you go to for the benefit of us all.

56. Charles@24…I think the large plastic tube that my daughter connects her asthma inhalers to when she’s doing her daily puffing somehow increases the volume. Not described that very well. But, anyway, it’s called a SPACER, I believe…

57. paddymelon @54
    Sleep well! – I’m sorry again.

58. As usual with Paul, a steady solve. Second last one in was EXECS, which meant LOI was SIXTY – both vg clues. Also liked OATS – most UK solvers would get the “Scott’s porage” reference, non-Brits maybe not so much. (I don’t know why they spell “porage” that way; and as a Scot – though not a Scott – I’m not keen on these rolled oats for making porridge – oatmeal is much better IMO.) SPEEDWAY and BOTTOM LINE also good (paddymelon@25 – there are several terms here for that cleavage – including builder’s bum).
    He may have been a good musician and actor, but NORMAN WISDOM was one of a number of “comedians” of that generation – Charlie Drake, Jimmy Edwards were others – who I never found remotely funny.
    Thanks Eileen and Paul.

59. Generally straightforward as Eileen states with the usual smattering of witty clues. Thanks for parsing BOTTOM LINE and I liked ARTLESSLY, SIXTY and POT. He was definitely marmite but interestingly, NORMAN WISDOM gained celebrity status in lands as far apart as South America, Iran and many Eastern Bloc countries, particularly in Albania where his films were the only ones with Western actors permitted to be shown by dictator Enver Hoxha. Charlie Chaplin once referred to Wisdom as his “favourite clown”.

    Ta Paul & Eileen.

60. NORMAN WISDOM – I clicked from Eileen’s link above – “this funny old man” – to his first starring role – 1953 – a 70-year anniversary.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trouble_in_Store
    A celebrity ‘…in Albania where his films were the only ones with Western actors permitted to be shown by dictator Enver Hoxha.
    Charlie Chaplin once referred to Wisdom as his “favourite clown”‘
    In his films his forename was normally NORMAN. Memorable surnames for me were Pitkin and especially Puckle. It was a running gag in our house.
    Also remembered this serious role in 1981 – BBC2 Playhouse: Going Gently – won the BAFTA for Best Single Play, 1982
    Thanks Flea@29 – ‘Don’t laugh at me ’cause I’m a fool’

61. From “The meaning of liff” by Douglas Adams and John LLoyd:
    FRIMLEY (n.)
    Exaggerated carefree saunter adopted by Norman Wisdom as an immediate
    prelude to dropping down an open manhole.

62. I found this challenging, but managed to get all but three before my self imposed time limit was up. I had LINE, but in light of yesterday’s puzzle (or was it the day before…) I should have got BOTTOM. Good to see NORMAN WISDOM get a mention. Not difficult for those of us brought up in the UK and of a certain age. I loved his films as a child. The one scene I still find hilarious is where he plays two parts: one as a German General, and there is a scene with Hattie Jacques where he sings a lied by Schubert, extremely badly. (The Square Peg, 1959: it can be found on the internet I’m sure). That piece of music has been ruined for me for ever, but it is worth it. With thanks to Paul and Eileen.

63. AlanC@59 ‘”in Albania where his films were the only ones with Western actors permitted to be shown by dictator Enver Hoxha. Charlie Chaplin once referred to Wisdom as his “favourite clown” ‘- Snap! 🙂

64. Thanks Paul & Eileen. I enjoyed this although failed numerically in 13a & potatoes.

    I thought the grid had a slightly druggy flavour with
    SPEED, SPACE CAKE, POT, LINE and POP?

    but also a pc pairing of EXCEL & WORD,
    … and a cheeky conjunction of MOON and BOTTOM

65. nuntius@62
    NORMAN WISDOM The Square Peg 1958 Schubert
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byl5Dxc9IUE

66. Thanks FrankieG@65. Lovely to see this again. Hattie Jacques was also a wondeful comedy actress. She was taken far too young. Only in her late 50s I think.

67. 1ac SPEEDWAY I’ve heard the word but have never used it. I imagined it was a something like a road where they go really fast. Apparently both in the UK and the US it’s a motorcycle sport, not a place. I could have gone my whole life without learning that.

    How is an opener a SPACER?

    I doubt that I’ve ever put jam on A PIECE OF CAKE. Has anybody? Criceto @28 I wouldn’t call a scone a piece of cake.

    21ac A state in Colorado? The wordplay should at least make sense.

    22a Is a LOUNGE BAR a component of a pub like a public bar or a

    saloon bar?

    Eileen, thanks for parsing DISTRICT ATTORNEY, it was quite beyond me. Same for POT + 8 O’s.

    STAG =speculator is a TILT for me.

    Thanks to Paul and as ever Eileen.

68. Valentine@67 – a LOUNGE BAR is indeed a room in a pub – pretty much the same thing as a Saloon Bar. Nowadays many old pubs have been converted to open plan, with a single large room. Even where there are still multiple rooms, the distinctions have mostly but not entirely disappeared. When I started drinking (late ’60s/’70s) most pubs would have a public bar (pretty basic, likely a linoleum or bare wood floor, in some cases women not permitted or at least frowned on) and a lounge/saloon bar (more comfortable seating, carpets, etc.). The latter would be more expensive to discourage the riff-raff (which also meant you weren’t allowed to buy drinks in the PB and carry them through to the LB). There might also be further rooms e.g. snug, ladies’ bar etc.

69. I used to make a cake with marmalade in the mixture and checking on the web have found several recipes with jam included in the ingredients.

    Loved the clues for SIXTY ane POT!

    Thank you Paul and Eileen.

70. Didn’t like this at all. It’s the kind of crossword that makes me wish I could kick the habit and do something more useful with my time! So, while in a bad mood, I’ll just say that German nouns start with a capital, so Lied not lied. And I hate the word ‘snuck’. I’ll go now!

71. AuntRuth @70
    Are you commenting on the right puzzle? I can’t find a “lied” or a “snuck” anywhere!

72. Maybe he Lied

73. IDAHO
    State in Colorado had Iowa on the retreat (5)
    Looking at (the) state (of affairs) in Colorado, Iowa retreated.
    Is this possibly the intended surface reading?

74. Why does SPACER = opener?

    (Thanks Paul!)

75. Edit: sorry see it has already been answered

76. Another great puzzle from Paul. Loved KLEPTOMANIA but I can’t believe there have been all these comments without anyone praising the brilliant surface for DISTRICT ATTORNEY!!

77. Thanks Paul and Eileen. I had 13a as FIFTY, which sort of works – 3d is XL, then you “ex” X, leaving L. Ah well . . .

78. I lived DA especially as I am one but in the UK

79. “Loved”

80. I was once at an international meeting in Brussels where the French delegate was waxing lyrical about the good sense of the people of Normandy – “la sagesse normande”. The simultaneous translation into English turned this into norman wisdom. Cue hysterical laughter from the Brits present and bewilderment on the part of everyone else.

81. Body Cheetah @42: as you were, I was expecting a cricket reference, which made the Opener doubly hard. It had nothing to do with Geoffrey Boycott or his ilk. Plus, in agreement with so many others here, I saw no earthly reason why it should be a synonym for SPACER.

82. Tha nks Paul & Eileen.
    I usually tackle Paul with awareness that the “rules”, if there are any, have to be abandoned. Surely everyone’s last in will have been 13a! If it had said Roman conference it might have been helpful though Eureka is Greek and also came into play. Brilliant but other-worldly clueing.

83. Norman Wisdom featured in my training as a Tax Inspector back in the 1990s. He had a run in with the Revenue over some silver bullion he had bought and sold – see https://swarb.co.uk/wisdom-v-chamberlain-inspector-of-taxes-ca-8-nov-1968/

84. 27 & 28 together gives us: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potoooooooo

85. As an enthusiastic amateur tiler, I use spacers all the time. They are put in between the tiles whilst the mortar sets to ensure that an even space is maintained. They are then removed and the grout applied. If the spacers are not used, as openers, then the tiles slip down onto each other closing up the space.

86. Princess V @85
    Yes, but would you call them “openers”? Tiling is actually the field that occurred to me for “spacers”.

87. Recognised “I have had a most rare vision” but couldn’t quite recall from where; so having twigged what the answer was, wondered if it was a reference to the bottom line on an eye test chart. Being able to read that might be described as rare vision!

88. Thanks Eileen as the parsing of BILL AND eluded me entirely. This started out a bit “meh” for me but by the end (as predicted by Keith Thomas@82) i thought it was brilliant, so many inventive methods needed to make sense of it all. I’ve also enjoyed the comments, hope Flea@29 is pleased to hear that his “riddle” was still going strong in the 80s when a dinner lady wrote it in my book, and after Brendan am pleased to get another Shakespearean clue without the specific knowledge required. But most of all to see EXCEL (which has kept me employed for many years) and WORDSEARCH (which I can use in my son’s gradual cryptic training) together, thanks Paul.

89. Flea @29 and PostMark @45: remember the sequence:
    1)By hook or by crook
    I’ll be last in this book
    2)Don’t be too sure
    There’s room for one more!
    3)To outwit the other
    I’ll write on the cover…
    1 again) By hook or by crook
    I’LL BE LAST IN THIS BOOK!!!

90. 1a – “leaning over” = reversal. Wow.

    19a – what does “secured” mean in the clue?

91. Hi Steffen!
    You’ve not so many queries today – and it was quite a tough one, so that’s great!
    19ac: “As locks may be loose, bog’s secured”, which I blogged as
    “LAX (loose) in FEN (bog)”
    Read ‘bog’s’ as ‘bog has’, so it’s ‘bog’s round = ‘has secured’ LAX (loose)

92. Eileen, I could ask questions until 2028!

    I got no answers. Zero. Nada.

93. Steffen, bless you, I hope I’m still here by then!
    In the meantime, do keep on asking!

94. Mr SR and I have just done this.
    Paul very mischievous and very enjoyable.
    For once didn’t need the blog, but always enjoy reading them, thank you, Eileen.
    Just to say, as I hail from Glamorgan, I would put butter and jam on a Welsh cake.

95. Well I did it briskly but failed to parse the tricky ones.
    Thanks Paul and Eileen

96. Hello, StoneRose @94
    I’m an absolute stickler for cream (first!) + (strawberry) jam, on a ‘scone’ – but I wasn’t prepared to open those several cans of worms this morning!
    Chacun à son goût!

97. Sorry, but once again I just can’t understand how the regulars on here can constantly praise a setter who makes no attempt in about half his clues to create surfaces that are even vaguely real sentences. “Without cunning, cunningly alters as a fox?”. “State in Colorado had Iowa on the retreat” etc etc etc. And the use of ‘?’ seemingly to mean ‘this sentence is gobbledygook, but who cares?’
    It just strikes me as half-hearted, half the time: presumably allowed by the editor as he knows that whenever he has a gap Paul will produce something to fill it.

98. I’ve not followed the Wiki link in drswirly’s post #84, but I assume it’s about the 18th century racehorse Pot-8-Os, also written as Potoooooooo. Who knew that they did stuff like that with names for horses back then? He was born before the Derby at Epsom was created, but some of his progeny went on to win that race.

    I think that the way Paul has framed the clue for NORMAN WISDOM indicates that he had “la sagesse normande” in mind (as mentioned by g larsen @80).

    Steffen@90. I’m with you in querying ‘leaning over’ – I could see that the descriptive surface reading of the clue was apt for SPEEDWAY – and I had all the crossers! – so couldn’t be bothered to fathom the wordplay. Luckily we have Eileen to do that for us. 🙂

    EXECS was my penultimate one in, which meant that SIXTY went in last, with a feeling of great satisfaction. I’ll bet Qaos wishes he’d thought of that one.

    Thanks to Paul and Eileen.

99. Nolu @97
    I do agree about surfaces, which is one of the reasons why Paul is probably my least favourite compiler (though this one wasn’t as bad as some). I do know that others do like him, though.

100. Only getting to look at the blog this morning Australian time but I might as well make it the one hundredth comment. I enjoyed this one overall (especially the BOTTOM LINE at 20,24d) though only had partical solves for a couple, such as the already discussed 14d BILL AND COO and 16d REICHSTAG. Thanks to Paul and Eileen, and to other contributors who always make 15² an interesting read.

101. Nolu@97, my thoughts entirely. I used to think of him as araucaria’s understudy, but he does sometimes give the impression that he will encrypt any word regardless of the resulting surface.

102. Thanks to Paul, one of my favourite setters, for an excellent puzzle which incorporated a variety of styles and complexity.
     I particularly enjoyed the innovative approach in 26/25 and 18.
     Lots of ticks including:
     FLOWERINESS
     WASSAILERS
     SMALL INTESTINE
     EARDRUM
     FREEDOM OF CHOICE
     BANK ROBBER
     ANIMALISM
     Thx also to Eileen for the blog.

103. I found this quite difficult. I guessed an unparsed FIFTY for 13ac, so I didn’t finish it successfully, although I got everything else in the end. NHO Norman Wisdom, nor of the financial meaning of STAG. I was baffled by the parsing of 27dn (POT), but now that it’s explained I think it’s quite funny.

104. Thanks for the explanation if 13a Eileen. That was a tricky one! I parsed Reichstag differently as I’d not heard of a Stag as a successful speculator. I used Rich’s (speculator who’s) and ‘tag’ (to save in the sense of for future reference) around E

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