Cryptic crossword No 29,735 by Brockwell

95 comments on “Cryptic crossword No 29,735 by Brockwell”

1. Another enjoyable puzzle from one of my favourite setters with a theme that was apparent early on. I listed the keyword SPIDER plus TICK, TRAPDOOR, CAMERA, REDBACKS, TARANTULAS, MITES, MONEY, WOLF, BLACK WIDOW, WEBSITE, and the (SPIDER) REST at the Crucible. Full of wit, I also liked DIGRAPH, DETERGENT, COUSTEAU, MANTIS for little prayer (there seem to be various online videos of them fighting spiders) and BLACK PAWN. I struggled to parse WORT but eventually twigged it. Excellent offering all round.

   Ta Brockwell & manehi.

2. Thanks Brockwell and manehi
   I filled in the grid easily, but was baffled by some of the parsing – SPIDER (I saw the Crucible reference, but the soundalike doesn’t work for me), AMOUR (Mourinho – who he?), COUSTEAU (if I ever knew the French for knife, I had forgotten it), WATERLOO (very loose definition), and MANTIS (manta ray?).
   Again the “in” in 6d looks wrong.
   Favourite PARAGON for the neat definition.

3. I wouldn’t think many folk remember Jacques Cousteau or the Kodak Brownie.

4. I got WORT but couldn’t parse it, so thanks manehi.

   I wondered if TICK (I know it isn’t one) should be included in the list of spidery things.

   Thanks Brockwell too.

5. I think a tick has 8 legs, though.

6. Lizzie @3
   My first camera was a box Brownie! Fond memories.
   Yes, ticks are arachnids, so spider-relatives.

7. Just checked, a tick is an arachnid.

8. I got to MANTIS from Man Ray, then wasn’t sure about the tis.

9. Ah. Best I could do for 12 was A + half of paraMOUR (special one). Seemed clumsy, but it’s better than having to know anything about football orbits perpetrators!

10. All hunky dory till I got to the last two. WORT took a while to understand, and then finally BLACK PAWN. Slightly confused over this one as I thought BP stood for Bishop’s Pawn in chess notation. Though I might be completely out of date – it took me a while to catch up with N signifying Knight, having been brought up on Kt representing that piece. Liked the various uncomplicated connecting clues today…

11. I’m old enough to have possessed a Kodak Brownie and to remember Jaques Cousteau, but I don’t know why I should be expected to know the French for “knife” or that a football manager once called himself “a special one” in a press interview.
    My thanks nonetheless to Brockwell and of course to manehi for the parsings.

12. Despite SPIDER being principally a type of rest in snooker, in conjunction with 5D, I found myself thinking about those SPIDER CAMERAs that zoom all over the place in sports filming.
    My first camera was a Kodak Brownie 127 so I well remember the product line.
    Thank you Brockwell and manehi

13. Liked DIGRAPH, TIER, WEBSITE, SPIDER and MANTIS.

    muffin@2
    WORT
    Why is ‘in’ in the clue wrong?
    W for S in SORT …reads ok. No?

    Thanks Brockwell & manehi.

14. Lizzie @3 very few will remember a box brownie as a current item, and you have to be a certain age to remember Jacques Cousteau, but both are iconic in their fields so they seem fair general knowledge to me.

15. KVa @13
    I suppose so, but “in” for me implies “contained”.

16. Antony SHER was also notable for playing Richard III as a giant SPIDER.

17. muffin @15: the S is certainly in the word SORT and it is being replaced by W. I don’t see your problem.

    Lovely puzzle as we’ve come to expect from this setter. Same faves as KVa and I would add WATERLOO for the timeliness of the surface.

    Thanks both

18. Tough puzzle but the theme was sometimes helpful. Gave up on 21ac and 20d.

    I did not parse 12ac – I was thinking along the same lines as Ian SW3 for 12. I have vaguely heard of Mourinho but I did not know the ‘special one’ reference – wow, he sounds like an ego tripper!

    Was totally in the dark on how to parse 3d apart from thinking it was a homonym of psy = SPI + DER – obviously I know zilch about snooker.

    New for me : WORT = malt.

19. Great fun. Top ticks for PARAGON, WATERLOO (I’ll spare you the earworm) and MANTIS for this infinitely superior earworm from Aretha Franklin I say a little prayer

    Cheers B&M

20. PostMark @17
    I have an idiosyncratic interpretation of “in”. For me the S isn’t “in” SORT, as it’s at the edge (beginning). I don’t expect that many will agree with me!

    btw the WORT is the liquor made from soaking malted barley (partially germinated) in warm water. The malt sugar produced is then fermented to make beer, etc.

21. I’m afraid I had a different definition for 17d: No.1 = water loo. Forgive me.

22. Another highly enjoyable theme-packed puzzle from Brockwell.

    I totally agree with KVa @13 and PM @17 re 6dn and with Ravenrider’s comment @14.

    My favourites today were DIGRAPH, TIER, COUSTEAU, WIDOWER, WATERLOO, the amusing SPARSE and topical WATERLOO plus SHER, for the reminder of a memorable Falstaff at Stratford.

    It would be great if some folk who’d never heard of our community were enticed by 24ac to drop in and maybe leave a comment!

    Many thanks to Brockwell for the fun and manehi for the blog.

23. pigeon @16 – True; I did see that memorable performance back in 1984. The hint came from the text, where Richard is twice referred to as a ‘bottled spider’.

24. I thought this was quite gentle for Brockwell as I usually struggle with his puzzles. Spotted the theme, but it didn’t help with the solving particularly. I didn’t mind the homophone for SPIDER. I thought there might be more objection to the misdirecting ‘pH’ in the clue for DIGRAPH, but I liked the surface. Old enough to have no problems with a Brownie CAMERA, though not sure if I had one, nor with COUSTEAU, but forgot that WATERLOO was an Abba song. Mourinho as ‘the special one’ for AMOUR was surely well enough known outside the realms of football to be fair. Thanks to Brockwell and manehi

25. I spotted COUSTEAU immediately and liked it. Couldn’t parse AMOUR and never heard of REDBACKS. Gritted my teeth at the non soundalike SPIDER, which to add insult to injury is a key clue. Aside from those quibbles, this was pretty good.

26. TonyM @21, forgiven as yours is far better!
    I don’t think CAME means ADVANCED, but that doesn’t spoil my enjoyment of the puzzle.

27. Brilliant puzzle, lots of fun. Loved MANTIS (excellent surface referencing Raye the singer) and WATERLOO (for the superb and timely surface) especially. Thanks to both.

28. muffin @20 – would you not say that in a proper noun, the first letter is capitalised? (if not, fair enough, but that does feel very idiosyncratic!)

    I’m often amused by people complaining about homophones. The point is that (without a ‘regional’ or ‘US’ etc indicator) it needs to work for standard (British) English. If your own accent varies, more power to you, but you’re surely aware of the ‘standard’ pronunciation, and that this is what a setter relies on, regardless of their own accent.

    Jacques Cousteau is rather before my time, but I am old enough to remember the 2004 film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which was heavily based on him, and he must have stuck in my mind from the media coverage at the time.

29. Sometimes you get to the right answer with a wrong parsing that still makes sense, sort of. Like Ian@3, I got to MOUR in 12a AMOUR from paramour, not knowing Mourhino’s egonym.

    And, not knowing of ABBA’s hit song title, I took 17d WATERLOO to be a humorous synonym for pee, I.e. No. 1. (Tony@21, we crossed, and I agree.)

    I also was unable to fully parse 3d SPIDER, knowing nothing about snooker venues, although I had no difficulty with the aural wordplay component, even though I am a rhotic speaker. (My experience was the exact opposite of muffin’s @2.)

    Re 9a, SKIP can stand alone as a synonym for captain, as it does in curling.

    18a COUSTEAU was a favourite, for the subtle way of signaling the French word for knife. Other ticks included 23a SHER for one of my favourite actors, and of course how could I not tick 1d.

    Thanks, Brockwell for the witty puzzle, and manehi for the very helpful blog.

30. Got 7a) but had to convince myself it was the correct spelling/answer. Looked in Chambers, church and its not spelt thus…. I did however recognise the significance of the surface and went along with it!

31. [ Me@29, and I forgot to say Happy Canada Day to all my fellow Canucks in this community. ]

32. I quite enjoyed that and even spotted the theme. Didn’t know a Brownie could be a CAMERA. Forgot the reference of spare for Prince Harry. The BLACK PAWN, MANTIS, WATERLOO and PARAGON also held out.

    Liked the reference to this place. We have not seen Arachne since February although my brain is probably appreciating the rest.

    Great puzzle. Thanks Brockwell and Manehi.

33. Nice puzzle from Brockwell: lots of GK today. How many knew SHER, whose performance as Richard III was famously compared to a SPIDER? I wouldn’t have remembered Mourinho if I didn’t know someone who once worked with the Special One, and the BLACK PAWN doesn’t spring immediately to mind for BP. I’m old enough to remember Jacques COUSTEAU and my first camera was a box Brownie, so no problems there, but I didn’t sort out WORT, or think of WATERLOO being a No.1, along with thousands of other songs.

    Oh well, I think I’m either out of practice after a week away in Cumbria, or my brain is getting fried by the heatwave.

    Staticman@32: there was a Rosa Klebb (Arachne) in the FT last weekend.

34. You can find a BLACK WIDOW spider in 21a and 25a.

35. Really enjoyed the wit in this puzzle, although AMOUR went in unparsed and, now that I read the blog, I feel it strays rather close to the unfair boundary. I’d have thought one would need to be quite a soccerphile to get this reference.

    More than compensated for by the superb SPIDER clue and its several derivatives, however.

    Many thanks, both.

36. An excellent puzzle. Plenty of ticks, but I think I’ll single out TIER for the very clever Bond surface. I agree with Eileen @22 that it was great to see fifteensquared get a mention!

    ronald @10 and gladys @33: the clue isn’t suggesting that BP is chess notation for BLACK PAWN — it’s B for black (Chambers: “on lead pencils to indicate softness”), then P for pawn (chess notation).

    Many thanks Brockwell and manehi.

37. I liked this puzzle. Some of the knowledge required was a little esoteric or maybe insufficiently defined, or maybe not – let’s just say borderline. If I didn’t know French I’d definitely learn it in the next lockdown.

    I was thinking when solving that the clue for CAMERA wouldn’t lose anything but would be more accurate if it started “Brownie was one…”. I just now followed the wiki link in the blog and was amused to see the 3rd word in the article was “was”.

38. For me, the easiest ever Brockwell. Possibly because the GK was right up my street, but also because I’m starting to get used to his style. Even so, WORT was my last one in, once I’d convinced myself that ‘in’ wasn’t a containment indicator.

    The thing about themed crosswords is that it’s sometimes possible to get the answer without solving the clue. I saw that TARANTULA had to be the answer to 11d’s anagram, and immediately wrote in SPIDER at 3d without even reading the clue!

    The last time we saw Brockwell I expressed the wish that I would one day be able to solve one before breakfast. Not quite – I had to go away and do the killer sudoku before coming back to do the last four – but I’m getting there. (Watch me get thrashed next time. 😢 )

    Thanks to Brockwell and manehi.

39. Really enjoyed this one. I think the comments about ‘The Special One’ are a little unfair. I just asked my wife (whose interest in football is probably less than zero) if she knew. She replied “Isn’t he that Mourinho chap?” There are times when I feel I need to be, say, an operaphile to solve a clue (I only know the more obvious ones). There will always be areas of GK that are slightly outside our own experience.

40. William @35 – I doubt if I could sit through even half of a football (soccer) match without losing the will to live, albeit I retain a pitiable interest in the (mis)fortunes of the Scotland national side; but if you have hovered around sports journalism at all for the last few years it would be difficult not to have seen references to Mourinjo’s famous self-aggrandizement.

41. Many thanks to Brockwell for this delightful puzzle. Lovely clues, great theme. 🕷️ 🕷️
    And thank you to manehi for all the parsing details I missed, including the definition for DIGRAPH, the parsing of SPIDER (no knowledge of snooker, crucibles and spider rests) and the ‘special one’ in AMOUR (I went with the less satisfactory A paraMOUR).
    I didn’t know about Antony SHER playing Richard III as a spider, but that next-level GK from commenters has provided icing on this spider cake.
    I’m old enough to remember the Kodak Brownie, Jacques COUSTEAU (and Couteau) and WATERLOO at #1. And it was good for once to have some Aus GK included, in RED-BACKS.
    Favourites included WORT, TIER, RED-BACKS, COUSTEAU, WEBSITE and MANTIS (for the pray-er).

42. Enjoyably at just my level of difficulty, with lots of nice surfaces, although the parsing of 6D eluded me. I need to add the formula “X for Y in Z” to my bag of tricks.

    I had all of the necessary GK for once, which I suppose makes me “of a certain age”, although I knew none of the spiders except for the TARANTULA.

43. I misread Ray in 20D as Roy, and confidently inserted ORISON (well, it was in the Ophthalmology waiting room). Result hold-up in SE until I checked 20D and re-solved.

44. I have to leave and don’t have time to read all the comments, so I apologize if I miss something important.

    I remember Brownie cameras (I think I used to have one) and M Cousteau and do know the French for knife, but I agree with whoever thought knowing about the special person was a reference too far. Never heard of the Crucible — my ignorance of snooker surpasses even my encyclopedic ignorance of cricket. Never heard of the ABBA hit.

    “Is that an adverb that anybody actually uses?” asked Tom sacredly.

    Thanks to Brockwell and manehi.

45. I thought the clueing unfair in many places. It’s a French knife, not just a knife; if you’re going to clue in foreign languages without indicating it then crosswords will become impossible. Wort for malt appears in none of my dictionaries or thesauruses. It’s simply too convoluted for a Tuesday back page and, frankly, I didn’t like it one bit. I despair of the Graun’s apparent move to the exceedingly difficult end of the spectrum thereby excluding solvers like me. I’ll know better next time to just skip Brockwell and buy a Telegraph.

46. [To expand on what I said @20:
    Wort isn’t actually the same as malt. Barley grains store potential energy for their germination as starch, a polymer of glucose. This isn’t directly usable; it must be broken down into smaller units – two glucose parts that make a sugar called maltose (malt sugar). As it germinates, the grain produces an enzyme that catalyses this breakdown. The barley grains are put in a warm humid environment in a “malthouse” to start the germination process, but so as the sugar doesn’t get used, they are heat-killed. This partially germinated heat-killed barley is the malt. (The sticky brown stuff you might think of as malt is actually “malt extract”.)
    When the malt grains are soaked in warm water, the enzymes get to work and produce a solution of maltose. This is the WORT.]

47. JohnH, I don’t know what dictionaries you have, but COUTEAU appears in at least Collins (French derivation, but it’s in an English dictionary), and Chambers defines ‘wort’ as, among other things “Malt unfermented or in the process of fermentation”.

    You don’t have to like either clue or the puzzle as a whole, of course – but I think you’ve done Brockwell a disservice there.

    Mourinho’s quote is probably the most famous football quote of the past 25 years, while if setters have to account for people never having heard of one of the most famous pop songs of all time, then we might as well all go and do a sudoku.

48. Tough but doable, although I am not alone it seems in getting COUSTEAU from the crossers and coming here for an explanation. That aside, I didn’t think anything was unfair. But I would describe 1D, which could have been nick rather than TICK (in the nick of time; I’ll be there in a nick) as unfortunate. I am not a fan of interlinked clues, but liked SPIDER falling into place after I had got REST, although I appreciate that it might have meant little to non-snooker followers. Thanks Brockwell for the fun and thanks Manehi for adding to my French lexicon.

49. JohnH @45. But it is clued as French knife. ‘His’ meaning what Cousteau would call a knife. Clever I thought. The entire crossword in fact.

50. @45
    Well, at least that will spare us having to read your negative comments.

51. Isn’t it a fundamental axiom of this forum that any GK you don’t know is unfair 🙂

52. JohnH @45: Buy a Telegraph?

    You surely don’t mean that!

53. It’s always interesting what is general knowledge and what isn’t. I knew both the French for knife and Jacques Cousteau, more from Les Barker’s singing (it’s on Dogmatic) the Underwater World of Jacques Cousteau than the TV series.

    We used to watch the snooker at the Crucible as students, and it’s often in the background for yoof work during the World Championships, on a screen behind the pool table, which we also set up with snooker balls for the lads who’d enjoy it. Although there was a suggestion that the Championships had outgrown the Crucible and should move this year.

    I didn’t need to do it, but googling that phrase, “the special one”, gave me Mourinho. I don’t remember him saying it, but I do remember all the jokes and cartoons, spin off programs …

    Entertaining puzzle, thank you Brockwell and manehi.

54. As a newb to the grown-up cryptics, I have a question about clue structure. Eg, In “small man from BP”, if you don’t happen to know chess notation, there’s no way to arrive at the word “black”. I would’ve thought that all the components of the definition would be covered in the wordplay. Is that not normally the case?

55. DarkWillow@54 – Black is usually b from pencil gradation – BB, HB, etc, or B&W as in black and white, so B for black is pretty standard (or B for book, bishop, British/Britain, but the list of abbreviations in Chambers goes on some).

    Chess notation is worth knowing as K (king), Q(u) (queen), B (bishop), N (knight) and R (rook) are used a lot. I put it in the list of abbreviations from the first 6 months of the Quick Cryptic puzzles.

56. Many thanks to manehi for the excellent blog and to everyone else for the comments. I’m very pleased that most of you enjoyed the puzzle. I think bodycheetah @51 is spot on about GK 😂. I accept that I probably should have come up with an easier clue for WORT -it’s frustrating being left with one 4-letter clue to solve. However, I think my definition is supported by Chambers, with “malt unfermented or in the process of fermentation” as the first definition. I did also clear this one with a brewer.
    Not sure if MONEY spider, WATER spider, spiderCAM and spiderMAN were spotted, but I’m pleased that Antony SHER was picked up on.
    All the best, B

57. I enjoyed the puzzle, but did not finish, amoung other reasons being that I had never heard of M Cousteau. My personal rule with general knowledge is that a web search should be possible. Mourhino is findable once you identify that ‘special one’ is picking out an individual. Perhaps ‘diver’ is sufficient to find le monsieur. I had become convinced it would be some obscure sea bird and went to wikipedia. Perhaps a deeper issue with the clue is that ‘opening’ is doing double duty. That is a problem because it obscures the fact the ‘his’ is indicating French.

    I certainly had fun and I found an abnormally high percentage, for me, from the word play, suggesting fair clues.

    Importantly, thanks all

58. Roberto @57: how is ‘opening’ doing double duty in COUSTEAU? It is just the insertion indicator advising the solver to insert S (succeeded) into COUTEAU.

59. Loiner@50. People are perfectly entitled to make negative comments, and frequently do.

60. In that case, PostMark @57 where are we getting the ‘s’ from? I suspect that I am about to find out that Chambers gives it as an abbreviation of ‘succeeded’.

61. @59
    I didn’t suggest otherwise. Personally, I just don’t like reading them, especially when they are unfounded and simply reflect the poster’s lack of GK .

62. Roberto@60. S for succeeded is mentioned by manehi in his blog.

    And by Chambers! 🙂

63. Roberto @60- yep s is succeeded in genealogy abbreviations

64. Roberto @ 60

    As stated clearly in the blog: “S (abbreviation for succeeded e.g. in a family tree)”.

65. Roberto @60: it is, indeed, an abbreviation for succeeded and comes from genealogy along with, I believe, m(arried), h(usband), w(ife), d(aughter), s(on) and others.

    Overtaken by others – I spent time mid-post trying to find a listing of genealogical abbreviations. I’m sure there must be one but Google kept trying to flog me genealogical research services!

66. Ahhh youth, I should learn to read. Apologies Manehi. Thank you all

67. Bodycheetah @51: 🤩I will in future think of your comment and smile, rather than comment on the petty moans of ‘how am I expected to know….?’ Hacks me off every time.
    Grecian, I did mention MONEY SPIDER @1 but didn’t spot the others you list. Thanks for always popping along to clear things up.

68. So you did, AlanC @67. It so tiny that I must have missed it 😉. Appreciate your support, as always. B

69. …oh and CAMERA (spiderCAM, if they’re the same thing)? Tiny 🤦‍♂️

70. The SPARE book is trivia that will be soon forgotten. BROWNIE or COUSTEAU are not.

71. Brockwell goes from strength to strength. Being a metalhead, sheer perfection could have been achieved for me had SACREDLY been clued as “Slayer CD remixed in a divine manner”. This would have achieved an even better surface given the unholy nature of Slayer’s wonderful brand of extreme metal. And an improved selection of earworms. Otherwise, no complaints about this excellent puzzle. DETERGENT raised a smile and TIER is a superb surface.

72. Some days, for instance much of last week, I find that my general knowledge hardly chimes at all with that of the setter. Not remotely interested in the names of any skaters and so on. But today I knew all about Jose and Jacques. Didn’t help me parse Wort, however. Last one in was Black Pawn. Obvious when you eventually see it.

73. Enjoyed the bug collecting. I picked up on most of them, but missed the Man and the Cam. MANTIS was timely for me as I found one on my car last Saturday.
    Add me to the AMOUR as A paraMOUR parsing camp. Can’t imagine how I missed hearing about the Mourinho line.
    Thanks, m and B.

74. [philotelly @73 – MANTIS was timely for me for a thankfully entirely different reason. Just yesterday I finished watching a French mini-series, La Mante, from 2017, with Carole Bouquet as the predator in question.]

75. Muffin@2 I’m so impressed (and jealous!) you can fill in a grid like this easily without fully parsing, I get stuck without wordplay, meaning quick crosswords are more challenging than cryptics. This one survived breakfast and lunch, BLACK PAWN the last to fall, a brilliant composition as usual from Brockwell

76. Thanks Brockwell and manehi. I join those who blanked on the defn for SPIDER (SH@38: up your street indeed!), but the homophone clicked as soon as I recalled Woody playing the gallant for Diane Keaton, although he switches maddeningly between rhotic and non-.

77. Really enjoyed this. Cousteau was nice when I got it, but then I am getting on a bit.

    muffin@2: I will admit that I did go looking for an S in the middle at first, but then realised my mistake. There are 4 letters in the word “sort” and S is most definitely one of them.

78. I parsed 19d somewhat differently. S (royalties ultimately) P (prince) ARSE = Harry

79. I breezed through 90% and then struggled (successfully) to finish. PARAGON, BLACK PAWN, WORT and MANTIS were the last few. I remember watching Cousteau as a kid and my French was well up to this one. As a practising arachnophobe, I know my nemeses, so the theme was genuinely helpful. Good fun, some very clever clues. Thanks all.

80. Much fun.
    I knew Monsieur Cousteau being of a certain age.
    The WATERLOO reference to ABBA wooshed over my loaf, but it had to be that.
    I have struggled with Brockwell in the past by not today.
    I love spiders, though the female members of the household are terrified. Much fun when one of the biggies comes in from the garden.
    Thanks both.

81. Hadrian @75
    I too find Quicks harder than cryptics.
    HIYD @80
    I’m told that the autumn spiders in the house are in fact house spiders, and you aren’t doing them a favour by putting them outside.

82. Me too, at first, Roadhog@78😀

83. Gnash! Well I don’t suppose anyone-else got HOST for WORT? The thing is, HOST is a malt whisky (albeit not with an E) and HOT could at a bit of a stretch be ‘class’ as in ‘class act’. Nice puzzle, thank you Brockwell and Manehi!

84. Grecian! Just twigged you are the setter. Many congratulations and it was indeed a breakfast, lunch AND dinner clue for us. Thank you.

85. [Balfour@74,
    It sounds pretty good. I’ll look out for it!]

86. I knew I had seen the AMOUR clue before – finally found it. Vlad 28641 on Dec 30, 2021
    Romance a special one? Not half! (5)

87. [philotelly @85 – If you are in the UK, Channel 4 streaming service; free, but you have to tolerate the commercials.]

88. as others have suggested, I thought the “special one” was a call back to the definition, as with 18A
    so, A+ {-PARA}MOUR
    in which case, Mourinho would be quite the coincidence, eh.
    I wonder if Brockwell might weigh in on this one, (if he reads this blog)
    🙂

89. ozof @88 – Brockwell has commented, as Grecian (his nom-de-guerre in the Independent), and said he meant Mourinho.

90. Wonderful crossword. On my first rough sweep it looked as though I wouldn’t be able to solve any of it, but each one turned out to be fairly clued. The parsing of several of the clues was well-disguised.

    For 12a, I didn’t know Mourinho’s description of himself (Cellomaniac @29: “egonym” is brilliant!!!) but I find the clue perfectly fair. I have spent decades failing to solve thousands of cryptic clues that depended on general knowledge that I lacked, and have never blamed the clues for my failure. I very much welcome contemporary general knowledge being admitted as fair game. When I first started trying to solve crosswords, my sense was that the domain of expected general knowledge was roughly on a par with what prep school boys would have acquired for their elite public school entrance examinations. It’s good that it hasn’t stayed that way. I did have a pang of anxiety that I would need to know the name of some chosen supermodel to solve 8a, but it turned out I didn’t.

    In 21a, I interpreted the smallness of the black pawn as referring to physical size (rather than point value).

    Frogman @70: The title of Prince Harry’s autobiography comes from the phrase “an heir and a spare” which goes back to the late 19th century. The clue does not depend on any knowledge of the book (although the surface reading plays on it, and nudges the solver in the right direction) only on Prince Harry’s status as the back-up heir.

    Many thanks to Brockwell for the excellent crossword.

    And many thanks to manehi for truly superb explanations of each clue: for going the extra distance to make clear how each answer corresponds to the definition and how all the bits of wordplay function and fit together. Some bloggers blog much more compactly, which can mean that the struggle to understand the clue continues well past the reading of the blog post. I always look forward to manehi’s work.

91. Late to the party, but to echo Girabra @90, I loved this crossword. I don’t normally finish the midweek cryptics but did this one, with a lot of fun along the way.

    As with others I didn’t always parse correctly (another paramour here, and despite being a snooker nut I only got spider from the homophone) but I feel Cousteau is almost as famous as Attenborough, surely.

    I sorely miss Nutmeg, but Brockwell & Fed provide wonderfully satisfying clues these days: long may they continue.

    (And thanks manehi for such a clear blog.)

92. It took me ages to spot the additional ‘e’ in ‘malt whiskey’. Once I did the NATO letter immediately sprang to mind and W for S in SORT fell out. As an aside the PH digraph isn’t used in NATO ALFA as it’s not international.

93. I really enjoyed this one with its clever spider theme (saw some references but not all, so blog made for good reading). I very much appreciated manehi’s blog as well. Done well after the blog was published due to circumstances beyond my control, but I just wanted to thank Brockwell/Grecian and manehi.

94. DarkWillow @54, first of all welcome to the grownups cryptics. They will grow on you. I’ve been doing cryptics for years, but I still don’t always get them out fully, including this one. Things can be made difficult being Australian and missing things better known to Brits, for example Mourhino, and The Crucible as a snooker hall. General knowledge has to be acquired, and it’s an ongoing process. I didn’t get Black Pawn either, but in retrospect, I know that ‘man’ is often used to refer to a playing piece, and B is short for black (as in pencil lead etc.) I once had to ask on this site why the word recipe in a clue turned out to indicate R. That R you see on prescriptions refers to recipe apparently. As you go further down the rabbit hole of cryptics, it’s worth keeping a list. Tense indicating T is another one that can pop up now and again. Our most difficult cryptic compiler here in Oz recommends working back from the answers whenever necessary as a way of building up proficiency.

95. Five short of completion. Liked 9a SKIP, 15a TIER, 16a MONEY, and of course 24d WEBSITE for the fifteensquared shout out!

    10a DETERGENT is a variation on a classic

    I agree with DarkWillow@54 that for 21a BLACK PAWN, “small man” may not be a sufficient definition — nothing to indicate black. One I didn’t get, so grumble!

    3d SPIDER, annoying non-rhotic soundalike. Couldn’t parse this one, so grumble grumble!

    Like TonyM@21 and others, for 17d WATERLOO, I thought the “No.1” definition was a whimsical reference perhaps to a urinal

Comments are closed.