Guardian 29,258 / Qaos

109 comments on “Guardian 29,258 / Qaos”

1. Fabulous. Top ticks for WHEEDLES, PARROTS & SAVOUR

   Actually spotted the theme for once and even foiund it useful for GOLDEN DELICIOUS

   Cheers E&Q

2. Favourites: BALLOON, DELICIOUS, GOLDEN.

   I did not fully parse 2d apart from CL may* – I was unsure about the ORE bit. I also did not see what the second C was in 4d CON/C/E[n]DED.

   New for me: LES Dennis, TV presenter for 18ac; Royle family British TV sitcom for 8ac, and LAMBRUSCO.

   I saw the apple theme when I had finished the puzzle.

   Thanks, both.

3. Thanks Qaos and Eileen
   I didn’t remember even to look for a theme!
   Some oddities here. It seems to be perverse to define LAMBRUSCO as “white” when it’s a red grape used largely, though not exclusively, for making sweetish, slightly fizzy, red wine.
   Les Dennis won’t be recognised overseas, I think.
   Shouldn’t “No longer held” be UNFROZEN?
   I didn’t parse CONCEDED – I’ll be glad if someone can explain it fully.
   I took the Oscar winner as Maggie Smith, so missed the cleverness of that one.
   Favourite LADY.

4. Haven’t seen Qaos for a while. Fairly straightforward but I missed the theme. LOI was 6. No signature mathematical clue this time.
   Thanks to Qaos and Eileen.

5. For CONCERNED, I thought maybe it was C (Conservative) with CON (party, Conservative again?) before it.

6. Wondered if there was a drinks/party theme before the apples became apparent (I saw the theme for once, but it didn’t help).
   I can’t see 4d either.

7. Thanks to Qaos for the puzzle, and Eileen for the blog.

   Eileen – I think you have the wrong order for PLATFORM. surely it’s:

   A reversal (climbing, in a down clue) of ALP (mountain) + T (time)+ FOR + M (mega)

   Also, can someone explain why in 24A (PARROTS) “One’s rights” isn’t AS + RR? That clue doesn’t quite work for me.

8. Thank you Eileen.
   I wondered if this is the overarching theme, especially as SHAW is one of the solutions? There are other possible links as well, but I’ll leave it to the Shavians. I only found this by sleuthing….

   “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”
   ? George Bernard Shaw

9. Well that was fun. I actually spotted the theme after I’d finished for once. I really enjoyed the pun of ROYALTY (which I also associated with GALA which is often referred to as ROYAL GALA), and also smiled at gLADYs Knight.
   Pleased to see GRANNY SMITH in there as there is an annual festival in Eastwood a few suburbs away from me in Sydney celebrating Granny’s (Maria Ann) discovery

10. In addition to the apple varieties, I also spotted series and documetaries put out by Apple TV – BALLOON, ROYALTY, (The) GOLDEN SPOON ( although GOLDEN is primarily themed for use with DELICIOUS in the edible apple listings), (brilliant) GOALS, SUPERNOVA, CLAYMORE, (The) PLATFORM, EMPIRE and JAZZ (last two again, really there for apple eating)

    Brilliantly done, getting all those apple types into the grid.

    Thank you Qaos and Eileen
    T

11. Tom Hanks wasn’t just a big actor, he was also ther star of the film “Big”

12. “the” star of the film “Big”

13. I agree – fabulous. I suspected the theme might be wines for a little while: WINE, PINK, caRED, LAMBRUSCO… but soon saw the apples (well, I ought to, hailing from the Apple Isle). LADY was DELICIOUS – but then, so were so many others: see Eileen’s list, and more: GALA for example. And the surfaces, especially CONCEDED (can’t explain the second C, though). NHO Les Dennis, but I just assumed there must be one. Thanks, Qaos (welcome back!) and Eileen.

14. CONCEDED
    I had it like Hovis@5

    Thanks, Qaos and Eileen!

15. Wheels within wheels… if I’d remembered to look for a theme, I’d probably have noticed that New York is also known as “the big apple”

16. I agree muffin @3, LAMBRUSCO jarred with me. Never drunk a white one.

17. Muffin @3 I think you’re right about Les Dennis – I saw him on Strictly and thought he was Keith Chegwin. But apparently Cheggers popped his clogs some time ago

18. muffin @3
    Re UNFROZE – I took it as past tense, indicative, not a participle.

    Thanks, Crispy @7 – of course you’re right: a last-minute hiccup, which I’ll amend now.
    And thanks, Blaise @11 – Doh!

    paddymelon @8 – that’s interesting, many thanks. (And Shaw wrote ‘The Apple Cart’.) 😉

    Tassie Tim @13 – I included GALA.

19. Blaise@11. Yes, I didn’t know the movie Big but I figured that, whoever the actor was, which I got from wordplay, must have been in a movie called Big. Good clue with the capitalised word in first position.

20. Yes I’ve missed seeing Qaos’ name on top of my puzzles – it’s been quite a while. A fun theme – I really liked dem apples! The mention of the Pips and The Big Apple in the blog added some enjoyable extra layers as I read the blog. 9a LADY and 23d JAZZ were probably my favourites, but it was all good. Like the other Aussies I also didn’t know LES Dennis, so WHEEDLES at 18a wasn’t fully parsed. Thanks to both Qaos and Eileen.

21. Chambers has LAMBRUSCO as a white or red grape variety and a quick google confirms that there is indeed a white version of the wine

22. Eileen@18. Gotta be, shawly? Apologies for the pun to the Irish and other rhoticists. 🙂

23. Bodycheetah @21
    I didn’t say it wasn’t made into white wine, but they are red grapes (see here); as with other red grapes, white wine can be made from them by removing the skins.
    Most people would associate Lambrusco with the (rather unpleasant) sweet red frizzante wine, though. (I see that by volume it used to be the most imported Italian wine into the US, which says something about their taste in wine!)

24. 6 clues solved for me.

    I had BALLAST for 1a.

    22a ALPS.

    I have others.

    China/river had me looking for 8 letter Chinese rivers.

    20a – I was trying to find an Asian country with 5 letters.

    Question- if 12a is an anagram, how do you know to omit ANS from HITS MANS?

25. Steffen@24: ‘face’ tells you that you are only interested in the leading letter of ‘man’.

26. Thanks both and for once I got a Qaos theme (well, partially at least).

    I presumed there was a Sir Gladys among King Arthur’s retinue – silly me. And it had to be Maggie Smith as the Oscar-winner – silly silly. I agree that SPOON needs to be retired – muffin (a golfer) may be able to confirm that it would now be called (I think) a wedge.

27. Muffin@23: I agree. I’ve only ever known lambrusco as a fizzy red wine, which Chambers confirms. Clueing it as ‘white’ doesn’t seem to make any sense.

28. Steffen @24L 12a is not an anagram. It’s a reversal of N from ‘new’ and OOPS from ‘my mistake’.

    Lovely puzzle from Qaos and a theme that, as for others, became clear early enough to be of help. LADY was my out and out favourite but I’m very much aligned with Eileen’s list. Somewhat ironic to see ROYAL clued with a homophone of Royle. I have no problem with SPOON, given it’s been clued with ‘old’. My only raised eyebrow would be 50 = L used twice in intersecting clues; at least they weren’t signalling the very same L 😉

    Thanks Qaos and Eileen

29. Good puzzle, which I found rather gentle for a Qaos – consequently I didn’t find I needed to look for a theme to complete it, and forgot to look for one at the end…

    Favourites were the small but perfect SMITH and SHAW.

    I agree with muffin et al that ‘white’ is perverse to clue LAMBRUSCO. Correction, Bodycheetah @21 – there is only a red Lambrusco grape variety. The white wine is produced by pressing the grapes and fermenting the must without the skins, just as (white)champagne is often produced from the red pinot noir grape. It’s very much rarer than the red wine – there are white raspberries, but it would be odd to describe something white as raspberry coloured 🙂

    Thanks to Qaos and Eileen

30. Sorry muffin @23 – I missed your comment through my slow typing 🙂

31. Can I add Royal to Gala, and also Etas (Eaters) to the apple theme?

32. Eileen and Hovis@5. CONCEDED. Grammar might be a bit strange but could ”before Conservative” be C once ( Conservative party before) + ended, minus n, the last letter of Johnson?

33. Still curious as to why one’S rights is A + RR and not AS + RR. What am I missing? Thanks in anticipation.

34. PM @32. Doesn’t that give you CONCEEDED?

35. Thanks for the namecheck, Qaos. Once again my stamp collecting youth came in useful, remembering Swedish stamps priced in Ore (with a diacritical mark that I can’t reproduce on a phone keyboard). Not sure how well known Les Dennis is these days, even in the UK, and I didn’t spot either the Will Smith reference or the apple theme – I have a head full of cough and cold right now so I’m not at my brightest, but this kept me amused through a mostly sleepless night.

36. Very appeeling
    Thanks Qaos and Eileen

    Crispy@33 – I read that as one has rights

37. Crispy @33
    I can only suggest that it’s the fairly common linking device (a’s = one has), which does give rise to discussion from time to time.

    paddymelon @3 – sorry, I’m being dim: I don’t understand your suggestion. I’ll mull it over while I get on with several things I should be doing by now! ( I thought it was a pity that C=Conservative had also been used in 10ac, anyway.)

38. We crossed, wynsum.

39. Lots of fun from Qaos, and having solved GOLDEN DELICIOUS early on, the theme was apparent to me.

    I liked the unusual Knight in LADY, the good anagram for SUPERNOVA, the wordplay for PARROTS, and the extended definition (as Eileen pointed out) of SMITH.

    T Hanks to Qaos and Eileen.

40. Oh, you’re right Crispy@34. I concede defeat on the parsing of CONCEDED.

41. CONCEDED was my only “Huh?”, too, with its unexplained “C”. For a while I thought the clue for CLAYMORE was faulty, till I discovered it referred to an öre, not a euro.

    Only one Brit I’d never heard of, Les Dennis, and only one rhyming slang to groan at. I wasn’t sure that “tasteful” could mean “tasty”, but it’s sure to be in Chambers. Missed the theme, as usual.

    I always go through with a red pen when I begin, marking the word separations and hyphenations, and it’s very rare that I put the pen down unused.

    Favourite clue GALA. Thanks Qaos & Eileen.

42. And Eileen@ 37. I’m the one who’s dim. I have no idea how to parse CONCEDED.

43. Wynsum @36, Eileen @37. Thanks both. I didn’t think of “one has”, hence my query. I shall sleep peacefully in my bed tonight now.

44. I parsed “Conceded” as
    Before conservative party’s finished:
    CON – ‘N’ = CO
    Johnson finally: N
    Quit: CEDED
    CO+N+CEDED
    So, it was the right answer, in the wrong way 🙂

45. Bother, missed the theme yet again. Good puzzle anyway. Thanks both.

46. TPS@44. Your parsing for CONCEDED seems plausible. You weren’t stuck in the groove. So is CON an abbreviation for Conservative Party?

47. [Saw GN and the Pips in about ’73. She was gorgeous! ]

48. Shaw wrote a play called The Apple Cart.

49. Interesting as ever to read the comments. Think I am alone in not being a fan of this setter, but perhaps if we got more from them I might improve.

50. I was disappointed not to get Gladys, which, now I see it, is very good.

51. Yes, Sandman – see me @18. 😉

    I think I’m now going to CONCEDE re 4dn: I don’t understand TSP’s parsing either!

52. Sandman@48. As our esteemed blogger Eileen said@18.

53. [Too slow. Going to bed]

54. PM@46 I abbreviated conservative party as CON to fit my parsing, which was as I said probably wrong 🙂

55. Crispy @ 33, I thought that too, and also in relation to 3d.

56. Alphalpha @26
    A spoon golf club was a fairway wood. The closest modern equivalent would be a 5 wood.

57. Maybe CONCEDED is C (onservative) + O (over – cricket abbr.) + (Johnso) N + CEDED = quit?

58. Thank you Eileen for explaining LADY – very clever. Seeing the theme while doing the puzzle encouraged me to look for more. Favourites include JAZZ, MODERATE, SMITH, GALA and now I understand the parsing, LADY. Thank you Qaos and Eileen.

59. Pls ignore that daft suggestion – I think jet-washing the patio has addled my senses

60. Hello all, this is my first time posting after a long time visiting this site for help with parsing.
    I always enjoy Qaos’s puzzles and this was certainly no exception. 12d and 4d particularly made me smile from their surfaces.
    I just failed to parse 3d as I had not heard of Ned Kelly (although with hindsight I probably should have noticed the reversal of ‘log’ and worked it out from there), and was also unsure about the apparent extra ‘c’ in my parsing of 4d.
    Many thanks to Qaos and Eileen

61. Phantom Stranger at 44 – I had that too, but dismissed it as was taking awa an N an N and then adding it back in!

62. Lovely stuff from Qaos who without my realising it has become one of my favourite setters, and was welcome back after some time away.

    I never noticed themes until I discovered this site, and of course Qaos is the themester par excellence. I don’t think they necessarily help all that often, but they do definitely add to the fun of solving as well as increase my admiration for the setter’s ingenuity. This time though, I was definitely on the look out for a GOLDEN after DELICIOUS went in, so it helped a bit. I’m typing this on an Apple as well.

    I didn’t know the ORE in CLAYMORE – I’m surprised it isn’t used mORE often, as it’s such a common letter combination.

    And I had the same problems as many others with 4 down. There didn’t seem to be enough Conservatives (which is not a sentiment I ever expected to express).

    LADY was already my favourite – just for referencing the wonderful Ms Knight albeit in a slightly risqué manner – but this was reinforced when I remembered she sang with the Pips: most appealing.

    Many thanks Qaos and Eileen.

63. Didn’t spot Les Dennis, so beaten by that clue, never heard of CELERITY, but should have got it from the clue and roundly defeated by 24a.
    Thank Q, no idea about the theme.
    Thanks Eileen.

64. Sarnia Rick @60
    Welcome to the site! It’s always good to have new contributors.

65. My year is complete. Spotted a theme at last.
    Thanks Qaos and Eileen.

66. Very nice puzzle today. Good clues specially for the short words like ETAS, GALA and JAZZ. Thank you Qaos and Eileen

67. Ø ø Ö ö

    for Gladys most phone keyboards allow one to get to accented letters diacritics etc by pressing letter and holding till a little window opens with options. Obviously unimportant here but you might want in a less trivial situation. The android keyboard O key has eight letter variants including the Swedish and Norwegian/Danish version for Ore

68. DE@61 Yes, you’re right, but my reasoning was that the setter took away and then added the ‘n’ to achieve the surface.
    I forgot to thank Qaos and Eileen. My apologies, thank you both.

69. [The subdivision of the Norwegian and Danish kroner is the øre. The Swedish kronor are subdivided into öre 🙂 ]

70. Gervase @ 69

    That’s why I didn’t use use diacritics in the blog – and went for the catch-all ‘Scandinavian’. 😉

71. I found this quite tough in places and was surprised when the last clue was solved and I could look back with satisfaction. For me it was a good example of punctuated equilibrium: long periods of stasis with sudden spurts… I’m another who thought of Dame Maggie and so missed the cleverness of that particular clue… I have a hardback volume of the completed plays of Shaw which was inherited from my father. It was was gifted by Shaw to a friend and has a dedication to that effect. That said, The Apple Cart is new to me (Eileen @18) and I must look it up. WIth thanks to Qaos and Eileen.

72. The apple cart is the play with the corporation “Breakages Limited“, which has crept into everday use.

73. I never spot a theme, and today’s excellent one (or more, as others have suggested?) sailed serenely by me.
    As for 4d, I’m sorry if this is repeating something someone has previously said, but I see it as Party=Con, Conservative=c, finished=ended and Johnson finally=n. So before c is Con followed by ended without an n. Con-c-eded. It is clouded by the fact that quit, gave up, ceded and conceded are all very similar in meaning.
    [Eileen, when you resorted to a list, did you get salotto, an Italian reception room?!]
    Thanks to Qaos & Eileen as usual

74. muffin@72: Thanks. That’s interesting. I see from Wiki that he wrote it in the 1920s and set it in a future (obviously) 1962. It is highly critical of capitalism. I certainly don’t share Shaw’s outlook on political economy (the World would be much poorer today, in many ways, if everyone had adopted his admiration for the Soviet Union), but will definitely put this on my “to read” list.

75. For whatever reason, found this all rather a swift if workmanlike solve, and as I had Preceded instead of CONCEDED, a dnf with ROYALTY left adrift. Did like CELERITY. And perhaps a quibble or two that DELICIOUS might be tasty rather than tasteful, and that UNFROZE sounds a bit of a clumsy word to me. Haven’t read the numerous comments as in a rush, so I’m probably repeating that which has already been said…

76. That was enjoyable, and for once I saw the theme! Needed the blog for an explanation for 9ac LADY – I’m afraid I got stuck in a loop going round the table. Re 4dn CONCEDED I came to the same conclusion as Hovis @ 5 but with no real conviction. Maybe Qaos will drop in later to clarify.
    Thanks to Qaos for the puzzle and to Eileen for the explanations. Indeed many thanks to all the bloggers and contributors for the entertainment throughout the year- a happy Christmas to all and see you in the New Year

77. …though I do remember now reading in the early 1950’s that excellent book of short stories by Ray Bradbury, The Golden Apples Of The Sun…

78. Here’s my two penn’orth: I concluded before I came here that CONCEDE must be parsed as have Hovis and KVa, though it felt unsatisfactory, it does work and, what with Occam’s shaving equipment I settled ed on it. But dissatisfied enough to come here – just in case I’d missed something! There’s nothing wrong with it really, just rather inelegant for Qaos – it’s the sort of clue I might have come up with!

79. I had the same thoughts about tasteful = DELICIOUS but, like GDU @41, I suspected that it would be in Chambers – and it was: ‘full of taste’. (Collins, though, has only ‘a rare word for tasty’.)

80. Good fun with a relatively easy theme to spot for me. I like almost all of the varieties listed except GOLDEN DELICIOUS. caRED DELICIOUS are much nicer – juicier and with a more subtle flavour, IMHO. Empire apples (from New York, the Empire State) are available in my local supermarket at the right time of year and they too are very tasty.
    Congrats, Gladys, on your appearance!
    Thanks, Q & E. Might have to nip out for a swift cider after this.

81. Thanks Qaos and Eileen. Some lovely surfaces here. As usual I completely missed the theme even after completing the puzzle.

    I solved 17A but parsed it entirely wrongly. I guessed that the famous shirtmaker Thomas Pink might have a shop in Kensington, making it a double definition. D’oh!

82. I enjoyed this puzzle, particularly the clever 9ac (LADY), but I had to come here for help with a number of parsings. Most were due to my own ignorance or slow-wittedness, as usual. I did spot the theme, which is unusual for me.

    In 7ac, I regard banning and boycotting as quite different acts, and I would never think of a balloon as a bag.

    I didn’t know that lambrusco was any kind of wine, so it didn’t bother me that it was clued as the wrong (or at least the far less common) color of wine.

    I’d never heard of Les Dennis or the golf club. As is often the case with one-letter abbreviations, I found myself wondering under what circumstances “individual” is abbreviated to I, but I’m quite willing to believe that it is.

83. Red lambrusco is the work of the devil, but the white is acceptable. Very popular this year in France.

84. Ted @82

    Re 5dn: I was thinking of individual = one = I, rather than I as an abbreviation for individual.

85. Easy puzzle and a nice theme but loved it, especially the DELICIOUS LADY. I’m sat in my local doing this and LAMBRUSCO jarred for me as well and was surprised it was correct. I certainly won’t be ordering a glass whilst I’m here. Tom Hanks, another who keeps on giving.

    Ta Qaos & Eileen.

86. I have learned to look for a theme with Qaos, but that was no help, because I never spotted this one.

    I’ve never heard of Leslie whosis, but the rest of the word looked right so I put it in.

    Thanks to Qaos and Eileen.

87. Just for the record: I only knew of LAMBRUSCO as a white wine (so it didn’t occur to me to question it – thanks, all, for the enlightenment) which I have tasted once – and, while I’m at it, I think GOLDEN DELICIOUS is a very good example of oxymoron. 😉 . (I’m with GRANNY SMITH.)

88. Here’s GLADYS Knight & The Pips – Midnight Train To Georgia – Top Of The Pops – Thursday 29 April 1976
    The single was released in 1973 – a GOLDEN DELICIOUS anniversary – but not a hit in the UK until later.
    THANKS Q&E

89. Delightful puzzle from start to finish; loved JAZZ. So pleasant to arrive at most of the answers by actually deconvoluting the wordplay rather than thinking of the synonym and then working out how to parse it. I even remembered to look for the theme which was fun without being intrusive.

    Never posted here before but always read the blog and enjoy everyone’s thoughts and tangential observations on all the Guardian crosswords.

    Thanks to Qaos and Eileen

90. Welcome, MichaelQ @89! – good to hear from you and hope to hear more.
    I totally agree with your first paragraph.

91. Made it! My pledge to myself is never to look up anything while solving these things. So I was greatly hampered by trying to find a Q and an X to complete the alphabet. Z set me to looking, of course. Finally gave up and bunged in the NE corner correctly.

92. Oh, Eileen @84 is doubtless right. Silly of me.

93. Hi big @91 – Well done!

    I think I’m in the minority in not being interested in pangrams and so never thinking of looking for them. I don’t think it’s ever (per se) stopped me from completing a puzzle but I know that fans often find them very helpful. 😉

    Hi Ted @92 – not necessarily!

94. From overseas, I had heard of Les Dennis because of his appearance in season two of Extras. Though it was still one where I got WHEEDLES and figured it must be Les Dennis from the parsing. The real mystery was the Royle Family.

    I shared Phantom Stranger @44’s parsing of CONCEDED: “before finished” takes the N off CON and “Johnson finally” puts it back.

    A fun puzzle and enjoyed the apples! For once got the them in time to help, since DELICIOUS needed GOLDEN. Thanks Qaos and Eileen!

95. [I appear to be alone in recommending a severely chilled *RED* Lambrusco to accompany truffled eggs as a breakfast treat. The stickiness of the yolk is refreshed by the sparkle. It is so rare to find a wine that pairs well with eggs — so all you naysayers should try it for a Boxing Day hair of the dog. Cheers Muffin et al!]

96. [I don’t known where Andrew T sources his LAMBRUSCO, but I agree with most posters that the commercial (red) stuff which is widely available is execrable. However, in its defence, it is true that the best versions are good, but rarely to be found even in Italy outside its homeland of the Emilia Romagna]

97. Those of you who have slighted the GOLDEN DELICIOUS apple obviously don’t have a tree of them in their front yard. Straight off the aforementioned tree, they are truly delicious.

98. 4D’s clue is perfectly good if the answer is preceded. Was it a late change to the grid and Qaos simply forgot?

99. Wonderful puzzle – as usual, I never got the theme 🙁
    Thanks Qaos, and Eileen for the explanations – I could never have parsed SMITH or LADY even though I got both!

100. Deegee@98. With a different definition maybe?

101. A day late, I just wanted to chip in to agree with the CONCEDED parsing suggested by Hovis @5 and seconded by others – but also to clarify why I think this exact choice of words works fine.

     Yes, the CON and the C could both be inferred by ‘Conservative’ in the clue but only the CON could conceivably be inferred by ‘Party’ (albeit one could argue it’s a tad stretchy); so the ‘Before’ is playing a crucial role in word order: ‘Before C, CON…’

     Apologies if this has already been articulated like this and I’ve missed it!

102. Many thanks for all the comments. It’s been a while, but everything is fine here and I’ll be back again in Jan.

     To confirm, the intended parsing of 4 dn is:
     Before Conservative(=C) Party(=CON)’s finished(=ENDED), Johnson finally quit(minus N) and gave up
     The “Before Y X” syntax for “XY” is a bit convoluted I agree, but I thought it was worth it for the surface.

     Best wishes and Happy Xmas,

     Qaos

103. Thanks Qaos @102, for dropping in and clarifying the conundrum of CONCEDED. I think your parsing is spot on. 🙂
     And thank you for the enjoyment of your puzzles. May you be rewarded in spades over the festive season.

104. Many thanks, Qaos – relieved to hear that all is well with you.

     (I’ve only just seen your comment: bloggers do receive an email of all comments on their blog but, for some reason, mine go straight into the Trash folder and I’d stopped looking there!)

105. I think I’ve only ever commented once or twice in the past, but just wanted to say that today’s comments section has been (almost) as much fun as the wonderful Qaos puzzle itself. Thanks everyone!

106. Tom Keller @ 105 – Also being a ‘tailender’ today (though far from new to 15²!) and noting that your comment might not get past Eileen’s ‘trash’ folder (@104), may I offer a warm welcome to you, Tom, on behalf of the rest of us who seek out this gentle corner of the electronic ether and may even post their thoughts on occasion ….

107. How is balloon bag ?

108. Very, very late. I cannot, however, miss the opportunity to say: Well Cidered Qaos !

109. I have been saving Cryptics up as I swore off them over Christmas. Only got round to Qaos today. About 10 years ago I was on holiday with a bunch of architectural historians in Turin. They turned up their sophisticated noses at lambrusco, which had been provided as part of the ‘package’, so two of us drank little else and enjoyed the architecture all the more.

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