The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29378.
Imogen definitely distinguished himself from his alter ego Vulcan of two days ago, with some tricky clues, but enough more straightforward to provide a reasonable entry.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | FISHTAIL |
Fail this manoeuvring, causing skid (8)
|
| An anagram (‘manoeuvring’) of ‘fail this’. | ||
| 5 | EVOKES |
Summons late in the day succeeded securing approval (6)
|
| An envelope (‘securing’) of OK (‘approval’) in EVE (‘late in the day’) plus S (‘succeeded’). | ||
| 9 | LONG LIFE |
Such milk for your health (4-4)
|
| LONG-LIFE is a kind oultra-pasteurised milk, and a possoble toast. Take your choice of which is the definition, or if they both are. | ||
| 10 | ANKARA |
In hearing, one safely securing capital (6)
|
| A pun (‘in hearing’) of ANCHORER (‘one safely securing’), for the capital city of Turkey. | ||
| 11 | INEXPERT |
One following round for each amateur (8)
|
| An envelope (’round’) of PER (‘for each’) in I (‘one’) plus NEXT (‘following’). | ||
| 12 | FLUKED |
Chanced to get fine gospel record eventually (6)
|
| A charade of F (‘fine’) plus LUKE (‘gospel’) plus D (‘recorD eventually’). Perhaps ‘to get’ may be included in the definition. | ||
| 14 | DAY RETURNS |
Train tickets found when darkness lifts? (3,7)
|
| Definition and literal interpretation. | ||
| 18 | UNFAMILIAR |
Rare animal fur I flaunted (10)
|
| An anagram (‘flaunted’) of ‘animal fur I’. | ||
| 22 | RUSSET |
Fungal disease coats small English apple (6)
|
| An envelope (‘coats’) of S (‘small’) plus E (‘English’) in RUST (‘fungal disease’). | ||
| 23 | PSYCH OUT |
Horror film must occasionally intimidate (5,3)
|
| A charade of PSYCHO (Hitchcock’s ‘horror film’) plus UT (‘mUsT occasionally’). | ||
| 24 | ELOHIM |
God Michelangelo himself captures (6)
|
| A hidden answer (‘captures’) in ‘MichelangELO HIMself’. Although the word is grammatically plural, it is often used in the Hebrew Bible as a singular, referring to either the God of Israel or another. | ||
| 25 | COAUTHOR |
One sharing a spine with me? (8)
|
| Cryptic definition, the ‘spine’ being that of a book. The word is often hyphenated. | ||
| 26 | SETTEE |
For whom Imogen compiles, ensconced here? (6)
|
| A double nearly definition: a SETTEE is whimsically at the receiving end of a setter, and perhaps Imogen compiles while sitting on a sofa (with a sister or two), as I do with this blog (without the sister). | ||
| 27 | AS OF LATE |
Very boring in hospital department recently (2,2,4)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of SO FLAT (‘very boring’) in AE (Accident and Emergency, ‘hospital department’, better known as ER this side of the pond). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FALL IN |
Join parade and collapse (4,2)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 2 | SUNDEW |
Insect trapper upset married students once (6)
|
| A reversal (‘upset’) of WED (‘married’) plus NUS (National Union of ‘Students’), for an insect-trapping plant. | ||
| 3 | TULIPS |
In plants uranium has leaked across – it’s all over! (6)
|
| A reversal (‘its all over’) of SPILUT, an envelope (‘has … across’) of U (‘chemical symbol, ‘uranium’) in SPILT (‘leaked’). | ||
| 4 | INFERNALLY |
Conclude New York is full? Like hell (10)
|
| A charade of INFER (‘conclude’) plus NALLY, an implied envelope of NY has ALL in it (‘New York is full?’). | ||
| 6 | VENALITY |
I let navy collapse into sleaze (8)
|
| An anagram (‘collapse’) of ‘I let navy’ | ||
| 7 | KNACKERS |
Extremely keen on money for workers in yard (8)
|
| Some UK slang here: a charade od KN (‘extremely KeeN‘) plus ACKERS (‘money’ – Wictionary suggests the word probably is allied with piastre); for the definition, the ‘yard’ might be a slaughterhouse or a breakers’ yard. | ||
| 8 | STARDUST |
Truss at last out of mind playing a blinder (8)
|
| Tricky. An anagram (‘playing) of ‘truss at’ plus D (‘last out of minD‘), for a magic powder that is supposed to blind one to faults. | ||
| 13 | BROAD SCOTS |
Parts of Norfolk and Beds may not understand this speech? (5,5)
|
| A charade of BROADS (‘parts of Norfolk’) plus COTS (‘beds’), with an extended definition. | ||
| 15 | QUARTERS |
Systematically searches for coins abroad (8)
|
| Double definition, the first applied particularly to dogs. | ||
| 16 | OFFSHOOT |
Branch kills American comic (8)
|
| A charade of OFFS (‘kills American’) plus HOOT (‘comic’). | ||
| 17 | EMMELINE |
Suffragette and me twice going head to head over policy (8)
|
| A charade of EM ME (‘me twice going head to head’) plus LINE (‘policy’). She is better known by her last name, Pankhurst. | ||
| 19 | SCRUFF |
An unkempt person, namely Trump (6)
|
| A charade of SC (Latin scilicet, ‘namely’) plus RUFF (‘trump’, in card games such as bridge). | ||
| 20 | JOSHUA |
Judges predecessor a heavyweight (6)
|
| Double definition; in the Old Testament and Hebrew Bible, the book of Joshua preceeds Judges, and the heavyweight is Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joshua. | ||
| 21 | STARVE |
Run into bar but eat nothing (6)
|
| An envelope (‘into’) of R (‘run’) in STAVE (‘bar’ – not quite the same musically, but OK eg. as a rung of a ladder). |
With [I wish you] long life and then Elohim, then Joshua, thought there might be a themette, but then there’s Luke, who’s NT.
Some nice slippery surfaces from Im, like i next around per, and the one for (truss at +d)*.
[The hell/inferno combo always reminds me of an talian lesson on tv, in which a cartoon devil says Tutti vii vanno al’Inferno and chuckles demonically].
So, lots to enjoy, ta Peter.and Im.
Thanks Peter
I’m pleased to note I wasn’t missing anything obvious in 19, which – as I note in the G comments – I was quite satisfied with only because it was an answer in one of this week’s Quicks. I’ve certainly never come across SC or RUFF in those contexts.
I can’t decide if the setters are just playing some sort of game, or if they’re using a poorly designed grid-filler and a certain editor is just blithe to the repeats.
No hope of the second JOSHUA and had to check what “ackers” were in KNACKERS. Favourites ELOHIM and BROAD SCOTS for the counties.
Chewier than the earlier crosswords this week, but all in and parsed. Winced at Ankara, but liked the other cryptic definitions.
ozof @2 I’m not sure how big the crossover is with people who do both the Quick and Cryptic crosswords. I know not everyone is into cryptic crosswords and I, for one, never look at the Quick.
Thank you to Imogen and PeterO.
Well Imogen certainly refreshes the parts that Vulcan doesn’t reach! The NW corner held out for ages until a late series of penny drops. I cannot complain about obscurities – everything here is a word I know – but, my goodness, some of them were well disguised. EVOKES, INEXPERT, DAY RETURNS, PSYCH OUT, CO-AUTHOR (absolutely brilliant – but I do feel it should be hyphenated), INFERNALLY, BROAD SCOTS, SCRUFF and STARVE were my favourites.
Any ideas from anyone as to why Imogen uses ‘students once’ for NUS in 2d? I am not aware of the union having changed its name which is what that might typically mean.
Thanks Imogen and PeterO
A very enjoyable morning workout.
Thank you Peter O. I needed your help with TULIPS. STARDUST was tricky, as you say, but a brilliant clue.
I was chuffed to parse SCRUFF, thanks to encountering SC and RUFF in previous cryptics.
Favourite was EMMELINE. Very gettable from the def, but she is worthy of such a clever clue.
PostMark@5 I was also going to query the ‘once’ which is either superfluous or erroneous. Has Imogen conflated the NUT and the NUS?
According to the Google gods TULIPS are fashionable which might explain the “in”?
Top ticks for INFERNALLY, STARDUST & the fabulously awful ANKARA
Tim c @3 I had the opposite problem knowing the boxer but not the book
Cheers P&I
26ac That’ll be Lovely Rita, then?
Thanks, PeterO and Imogen
Shanne @4
The extent of any crossover is kind of irrelevant though, isn’t it.
I do them both, so I notice the repeated words across the Cryptic, Quiptic, Prize and Quick, which repetition has become a lot more frequent as of late, especially between Cryptics.
Bodycheetah@9. What’s so awful about ANKARA? I get that it might not be the Turkish pronunciation, and it’s always preferable to get right the locals’ pronunciation, as not doing so is disrespectful. I’m a homophone purist, but it works for me in terms of common mispronunciation.
Tricky, with one of those unhelpful four-quarters grids to make it more so. I failed to fully parse INEXPERT, INFERNALLY or STARDUST, and ended up revealing QUARTERS and SUNDEW. I knew the Biblical JOSHUA but not the other one. Liked BROAD SCOTS and COAUTHOR.
This is only one Z short of a pangram.
Shanne@4: I often do the Quick: most of the clues may be obvious, but with no wordplay to resolve the issue when the answer might be one of several possibilities, the thing can become more like a jigsaw and different skills are required.
Thanks Imogen and PeterO
No idea on STARDUST, or the parsings for INEXPERT, or the ACKERS part of 7d.
Several great clues made up for this, with favourites COAUTHOR, SETTEE, and BROAD SCOTS.
I had no idea that Vulcan and Imogen are the same setter!
Mostly did this corner by corner with NE corner last.
I could not parse the Trump bit of 19d – oh I see now, very clever.
New for me: ACKERS = money; HOOT = comic; ELOHIM = god; RUST = fungal disease (for 22ac); SUNDEW plant. I needed to google order of books in Hebrew bible for JOSHUA in 20d and had a vague idea that there is a British boxer named Joshua.
Favourites: SETTEE, DAY RETURNS; BROAD SCOTS, PSYCH OUT.
Thanks, both.
Shanne @4 for several years I used to do the quick crossword as a warmup exercise before tackling the cryptic.
[ozof @11 and gladys@13 – having set crosswords it’s not always that easy to avoid similar words unless you’re choosing really obscure words deliberately, which doesn’t usually go down well. Secondly, coincidences are more common than we realise – see the birthday paradox. And thirdly, from what I understand from the posts from those who set for the papers, it requires use of specific software that might be limiting word choice.
I think checking repetition of words used would be incredibly time consuming and not necessarily beneficial to the crosswords we see if we put another constraint on them.
gladys@13 – I do know the quick crossword is like Sudoku, jigsaw fitting together with logic, but it’s not a priority for procrastination when I have other things I should be doing.]
I found this a hard slog today. Probably down to me rather than the setter. LOI SCRUFF. Only got it once I had the final F. Was then not able to parse it because I did not know Sc or the Bridge term. I’m surprised RUFF isn’t used more given the fact DT is a permanent feature in the news these days. Thanks to PeterO for explaining and to Imogen for the challenge. Favourite PSYCH OUT.
[Earworm for today. Love the book and like the film. ⭐] https://youtu.be/A8ClzqUq9kg?si=i_9Kpc6ltmPc7mV-%5D
Re the repetition of solutions in crosswords. I read on this site, I think, from one of the setters, I think, that the crossword-compiling software is throwing up more limited, and therefore more repetitions of, words that fit the grid….
as Shanne said @ 17.
Soundly beaten today with too many reveals. I was on the right track with spine but…so grumpy, I thought I would have a laugh with this heavyweight tune. Not a patch on yours PinB @18😉
https://youtu.be/b0ZqNBd_orI
Ta Imogen & PeterO for unraveling the trickiest puzzle I’ve seen in months.
Hmmm… some typically elegant clues but a few eyebrow raisers too.
Failed on SUNDEW mainly because nho but also thrown by the erroneous once for the NUS.
Felt that STARDUST strayed perilously close to the reef of unfairness.
SETTEE is brilliant as is the excellent Ms Pankhurst clue.
Many thanks, both.
Some very good clues here, though I’ve nho ACKERS. ANKARA was simply appalling, but what can you do? When I suspect non-rhoticism is required I sometimes just reveal the answer.
Ah, poc@22, and bodycheetah@9 ANKARA, ”appalling” and ”awful”. So is it the rhoticism?
Great puzzle with some clever parsings and interesting words.
Nothing UNFAMILIAR for me, fortunately, apart from the meaning ‘skid’ for FISHTAIL, but I failed to parse STARDUST, which was my LOI. Ackers is a slang term now more or less obsolete, but I remember my father using it. I was also perplexed by the ‘once’ in the clue for SUNDEW.
Too many good clues to pick favourites.
Parts of the Old Testament are known as Elohist because ELOHIM is the word always used for ‘God’ in these; some other parts are Yahwist, where Yahweh is used instead (YHWH in Biblical Hebrew, where vowels are not represented – a word considered so holy that it was often taboo, and sometimes rendered as ‘tetragrammaton’, the four letter word).
Thanks to S&B
The idea that a settee could be a person at the receiving end of something set, even ‘whimsically’, fills me with revulsion. Just yuk. I speak with Sheldon-like authority.
By the way, I’ve been doing my Māori homework; when is Pangakapu coming back?
paddymelon@23, for me at least, it’s partly the rhoticism but I pronounce all the vowels as they are written in both ‘anchorer’ and ANKARA. Having said that, I don’t think the clue is unfair – I’m not worried by approximate homophones.
I almost didn’t bother at all with this because of the four separate crosswords in one grid. Sure enough I was stymied in three of the four corners by a solution that made no sense to me. I was hoping there’d be a good reason for the unhelpful layout, but it seems not.
Ditto Anna@25 re SETTEE. Could barely believe it when I revealed.
[ozof@2. Yes, I do the Quick too. I started out many years ago with the quick crossword in the Daily Mirror, which I used to call the vocabulary test. I still have a look at the G Quick, just to see how vague some of the synonyms are.]
Thanks Imogen (I did get a smile from DAY RETURNS) & PeterO.
Oh, I see. Thanks beaulieu@26. My dialect has the vowel for the ”chor” part of anchorer as a schwa/unstressed syllable. So, angkuhruh for anchorer. Most here say an(g)kuhruh for ANKARA.
AlanC@20 – My Coo Ca Choo 😉 – Choon!…
You may be unaware – I certainly was – that Alvin STARDUST (Bernard William Jewry, previously known as Shane Fenton) didn’t sing that 1973 No. 2 hit – a TTLi…
…But he did sing Jealous Mind – a No. 1 in 1974 – celebrating a 50th (Golden) anniversary.
Very smooth setting as ever with Imogen, though there were one or two I struggled to parse. But particularly liked JOSHUA, PSYCH OUT and DAY RETURNS (don’t know why, made me smile). Loi AS OF LATE.
Reminiscence time…had fun on school field trips on the Isle of Gt Cumbrae, in the Clyde Estuary, identifying the carnivorous Butterwort and SUNDEW…BROAD SCOTS reminding me being amused when I saw Dad’s application form to join The London Scottish with his mother putting down her nationality as “Scotch” (she was actually Englisch)…and RUSSET apples have always been my favourite, when in season.
Oh, and unexpectedly came across EMMELINE Pankhurst’s grave once when looking for headstones of my own ancestors in the quite small Brompton Cemetery in London.
Now, back to the present and the glorious sunshine today in my back garden…
Bozo Johnson’s most controversial foreign insults:
‘he won a £1,000 poetry prize’ – the other entries must have been truly awful – ‘for this Limerick about Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan…
“There was a young fellow from ANKARA, Who was a terrific wankerer. Till he sowed his wild oats, With the help of a goat, But he didn’t even stop to thankera.”‘
And May made him Foreign Secretary – What The actual Flip!
Thanks I&PO
As Gladys@13 and PeteHA3@27 said, it’s the grid, the grid. This is my least favourite, which is a shame as Imogen is a favourite setter. (And I’m quite happy to be called a Settee. 🙂 ) The four clues-in-common were quick but the rest was a bit uphill. I liked Day Returns, altho good luck buying one easily in this d&a. Also Fluked (Fluke is such a nice word) and Ankara! (little things…) I’m always pleased to have an “oh good, all that intensive religious upbringing WASN’T a waste of time” moment, so to have that doubled has really made my day. Thanks all round.
[ronald@32 – my father used to take us to Gt. Cumbrae in his small yacht in the 1960s. I remember the Marine Biology Station near Millport, which I think was/is connected to Glasgow University. It had an aquarium open to the public with creatures, all from the local Scottish waters, including sea horses, octopuses, big brilliantly-coloured starfish etc – which might be expected more in the Mediterranean. I revisited for old times’ sake a few years ago and it seemed sadly run down.]
Surely with the hyphen the definition for 9A must be ‘Such milk’ not ‘your health’?
I had no issue with 8D, unlike some who considered it tricky. However I failed on 2D. Also NHO SC for ‘namely’, but with RUFF and the crossing C the answer was inevitable.
Thank you Imogen and PeterO
Beaulieu@35…ah, yes, our school group were just up the road from that Marine Biology Station in a very large B and B. I went in 1963 and 1964. I remember a drifter fishing boat used to disgorge the contents of a large net on the pier there to reveal all sorts of writhing marine life, enormous starfish, all felt a bit scary what the ocean floor could produce…
Gervase@24 FISHTAIL is very apt, describing the kind of skid, flapping side to side like the tail of a fish. [The word is common in Oz, but it’s etched in my memory as I had a car accident in Germany in the mid 70s, catapulted down a ravine, lost consciousness, and woke up briefly to an American soldier in fatigues outside my smashed up vehicle . (The US forces were still based there then). So I asked in English “What happened?”‘ As cool as a cucumber, (the local press reported me as critically injured), he said “You fish-tailed”, before I passed out again. I totally understood. that. No idea if there is a German cognate of FISHTAIL in terms of driving, if I had asked the same question of a German rescuer, but glad to have the explanation of that near-death experience.]
Jacob @36: sc (abbreviation of scilicet) for ‘namely’ does pop up in cryptics now and then, but I don’t recall ever seeing it in the wild. Unlike ‘viz’ (abbreviation of videlicet, confusingly) which is more commonly seen but less useful for setters.
paddymelon @38: Thanks for that. I drive too carefully to have recourse to the word 🙂
[Alan C @20, thank you for the link. Had completely forgotten that song but it made me smile to see and hear it 😎. FrankieG @33, sorry to say I do recall Bojo’s foray into diplomacy… Perhaps there should be a Bridge term associated with him. Come to think of it, perhaps there is? 🤣]
Shanne @17
I’ve been solving and setting cryptics for 30 years or so myself, so I know an uptick in the frequency of repetitions when I sense one, (I don’t think the birthday paradox really applies here, btw), and it is, in fact, very easy to avoid repeating words: there are quite a few to choose from.
I’m also sure that it used to be the case, that crossword editors – especially for cryptics as august as the Guardian’s – would have alerted setters to recent repetition.
And the problem of repetition, as exemplified by SCRUFF, is that any echo of the sense of a word recently discovered, becomes something of a spoiler. If the idea of SCRUFF hadn’t been floating around in my brain from a couple of days prior, the word may not have been so quick to occur to me as I read Imogen’s clue.
So it was with ROMAN and NUMERAL in Carpo’s puzzle yesterday. ROMAN appearing in Anto’s the day before and NUMERAL in Vulcan’s the day before that. So it was with ON AIR in Vulcan’s cryptic and the Quick from the same day!
I can’t help feeling it’s deliberate, like the setters are teasing. But it could also just be a crappy grid-filler and insouciant editing. After all, the numbers of errors have also increased markedly over the last year, too.
[Gervase@40. Long story but it wasn’t really all my fault. However, the effects linger. Still can’t go around long bends over steep ravines without a subliminal memory and brief panic. It’s really ”kerbed” my driving. 🙂 ]
ozof @42: From comments made by setters it seems that the puzzles they submit often hang around for months before being published. It should be the editor’s job to avoid close repetitions.
Gervase @44
Yep. That would seem to be the suggestion. 🙂
It’s always encouraging to get the first Across clue, so I was happy to find FISHTAIL. Pieced together the rest after a late start and thought this one was a bit more straightforward than some of Imogen’s previous ones.
After reading the clue for 25, I thought bookmate fitted in nicely – that’s the trouble with cds, but it is a crossword. I liked the wordplays of INEXPERT and INFERNALLY, and the surface for SCRUFF, although I’m getting a bit fed up with seeing Trump’s glaring face on the news nearly every day. I DNK ELOHIM and ACKERS, and failed to parse STARDUST and JOSHUA.
Thanks Imogen and PeterO.
Re-reiterating the repeated repetitions. Maybe we’re just novelty junkies and want a different fix each time? What should be the standard, no word that has appeared previously in 1 week, 1 month …. ? As Gervase said@44, setters can submit their work months in advance, and may have compiled the crossword a couple of years ago. Also some solvers have great memories and/or search on 15sq for previous occurrences.
Personally, I don’t mind being reminded. There’s another ”aha” experience in that alone, which is apparently the thing that provides the pleasure in doing cryptics and keeps us coming back for more. I couldn’t have parsed SCRUFF without previous crosswords, even though I’m never likely to use SC or RUFF in the real world. It’s kind of fun to learn or recognise words, including G(?)K, which I may never need to know again. Often the quest to parse a solution leads to other interesting things along the way, and, not least of all, very lively discussions here.
Hard work today, but very enjoyable. I was defeated by SUNDEW, and still don’t understand why the clue is ‘students once’. And could not parse SCRUFF or STARDUST. Also puzzled by the ‘In’ before TULIPS, but that one was very guessable from the crossers. My favourites were FLUKED, PSYCH OUT and JOSHUA. Many thanks Peter O for making everything clear and thanks Imogen for a fun work out.
Me@47 cont. I don’t know what the Editor can do, without a computer program scanning each crossword scheduled for publishing in a given week. Then what? Send it back at the last minute because another setter clued that word in a recently published crossword.?
I think the most glaring example of repetition was in a crossword by Paul not so long ago where he recycled several of his own solutions from one last year, some in similar positions on the grid. Frankly, I thought that was poor form, but then it may have been a joke to see if we were awake.
Or the Kite crossword published two days running. It’s how I know how long it takes me to write in a puzzle on the newspaper app.
[If you want to see comments on crossword editing, the FT from Gozo today has a few.]
The ‘once’ in 2d had and has me puzzled so I’m claiming a very weak excuse for a reveal..
Decent mix of clues in this one. Enjoyable and almost complete solve, spoiled by just 2d.
(The Guardian Puzzle App is still chugging along).
Gervase @39
A curiosity: in Chambers, under scilicet abbreviations scil and sciz are given, but not sc, which has its own entry.
DNF – 9 left, not for me this one. Scilicet would never spring to my mind unfortunately and no knowledge of bridge plus coauthor fails to register in my mind as one word. I lament the gradual passing of the hyphen. My non-university education (or should that be nonuniversity) hobbles me at times and this was one of those occasions. Thank you very much PeterO for some much needed enlightenment
Meant to say, l didn’t get knackers and was very pleased not to as the word always reminds me of poor Boxer. Teenage heartbreak 😭 still not healed
Sorry to be late to the discussion of repeated words (you know, life) but I reported an analysis in the comments on #29,348 by Paul last month. The conclusion was that the editor did intervene, since the number of actual consecutive repeats was less than predicted statistically. He would not have to send an “offending” puzzle back to the setter: as I understand it he has an in-tray of quite a few to choose from on any day, so can easily move them around.
For 16D, I assumed that “American” applied to HOOT rather than OFFS. Shows how much I know.
I was familiar with boxer Anthony – because let’s face it, you’re not going to forget a man who’s that gorgeous – but I never realized his last name was JOSHUA.
Anna @25 New to cryptics — what’s the lore behind Pangakapu and Māori?
[meowie @57
In case Anna doesn’t see your query, Pangakapu is an occasional Guardian setter. He’s from New Zealand, and usually includes a nina (hidden message in the grid), but it’s in Maori!]
Lovely crossword, though I could not parse STARDUST.
Currently happy in my first sighting of a Great Northern Diver off the coast from John O’Groats.
Thanks both.
Just finished but had to reveal SUNDEW as never heard of it or NUS. Only guessed at SETTEE. Never heard of Joshua the boxer but thought JOSHUA must be a heavyweight as he fought the battle of Jericho. My favourites were BROAD SCOTS, EMMELINE and STARDUST. So far I haven’t completed an Imogen puzzle but thanks for this and thanks PeterO for the excellent parsing.
FrankieG @29: well I never😮
Gervase @39 – the ‘z’ in contractions like viz and oz represents a written squiggle rather than a letter.
Still a bit confused by ‘in plants’ and ‘students once’.
Thanks PeterO and Imogen!
There is a list of abbreviations of SC, and it’s about a hundred or more entries I’ve never heard of SC for “namely” and Googling didn’t help. And although I am originally Anglo Scot, now in NZ, I’ve never heard “ackers” for money – it made the clue very abstruse and only parsed by Googling LOI the hardest clue – “stardust”, I didn’t fully parse this. And “coauthor” was originally filled in as “bookworm” (though of course it is an invertebrate) Thanks for the illumination, Peter.
Some very enjoyable clues of which SETTEE at 26a was definitely my pick, but some of the others were very tough which slowed my solve down a great deal.
Thank you to Imogen for the challenge and to PeterO for the blog.
So, I got all of the ones that I might reasonably be expected to get. Which was not all that many — six unguessed, and a few more unparsed. No, it is never going to occur to me that someone might think Ankara sounds like “anchorer”. Even after all these years.