Guardian 26,112 – Tramp

82 comments on “Guardian 26,112 – Tramp”

1. Great fun, Tramp on top form.

   [quite possibly returning from Cubs too]

2. Solved it with ?? against 9A, 12A, 3D, 15D, 19d: thanks Andrew for explaining all these. I agree lef’ tenant is a bit off. Arachne had 22A a few weeks ago. Still, smart work, Tramp.

3. Thanks to Tramp and Andrew for a fine puzzle and blog. So much packed into one puzzle. For
   12ac I had [Ston]E + PIC. For 6/28 I was going for LINCOLN being assasinated in FORD theatre.
   Since you asked, I was going to my Business Law as a Junior at Western Washington in Bellingham.

   Cheers…

4. Bit disappointed to find there was no ‘grassy knoll’ or ‘book depository’ (we’ll allow ‘repository’ and ‘suppository’ as well, as we hear them so often in this connection). Too young to remember where I was when John died, but was just coming off the Sunningdale public tennis courts when I heard his brother had met a similar fate.

   Challenge to setters of next couple of 22 November puzzles – tributes to two of our own greats (Aldous Huxley and CS Lewis)?

   Thanks for sorting out the JR bit for me. Now I DO remember where I was when he was shot – sitting in a Portakabin in the Lowfield Heath Industrial Estate outside Crawley. How much further could one have fallen?

5. Thanks for the great blog, Andrew. Your preamble says it all.

   I can’t see a single dud clue in this and couldn’t begin to list favourite ones. Huge thanks – and admiration, as ever, to Tramp.

   ulaca @4 – 21ac?

   [I’m afraid I was way past the brownie stage. 🙁 ]

6. [PS: 19dn made me laugh. I wonder if Tramp saw the edition of ‘Pointless’ in which a hapless contestant answered, ‘JR’, to ‘Who was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas in November 1963?’?]

7. Thanks Tramp and Andrew
   A stimulating challenge. Needed Andrew for parsing of 15 and 16. Had RIOT around FLESH for 5dn. Very enjoyable and compelling

8. Thanks Andrew
   Although the crossword was very clever, I think it is in poor taste to make an entertainment out of an assassination.

9. Muffin @8 – yes I was a little uneasy but wasn’t too sure why. Would I have felt the same about a puzzle themed on Lincoln’s assassination? I don’t think so. (Thanks to Tramp & Andrew)

10. ulaca, re the “other greats”, I won’t say too much, but you might want to check out some of today’s other puzzles.

    It seems to be quite a day for anniversaries, good and bad: Google have gone with Doctor Who for today’s Google Doodle.

11. Brilliantly clever – many thanks to Tramp, and Andrew for his blog. Loads of wonderful clues: I thought DEMOCRAT and SCREWTOP were particularly good.

12. muffin@8 and cholecyst@9 – I was very uneasy. When I heard (during an episode of emergency ward 10), I came flying downstairs to tell my mum. We shed quite a few tears.

13. 1 error at 24d of all places, having thought that I would really struggle with others. I must be one of the few who can’t remember where I was when I heard the news. Thought the misdirection at 19d was very clever. I’m with Hillbilly at #7. Re. ulaca at #7, I suspect that the problem with the other worthies you mention is that too few of us would get past ‘Brave New World’ and Narnia.

14. Sorry, should be ulaca at #4.

15. Thanks for the blog Andrew.

    Even when I think I’ve parsed everything – turns out, though, that I’d missed 21d – it’s always worth visiting here to see what I’ve missed. Today, the relevance of Zapruder had passed me by.

    Another tough and very satisfying puzzle from Tramp where knowledge of the theme adds to appreciation of the surfaces but isn’t required to solve it. I particularly liked the misdirection in 12a and 19d did make me laugh. I, too, parsed 5d as Hillbilly @7.

    Thanks Tramp.

    PS – I hadn’t been born but learnt about the theme at school (O-level 20th century world history, one of my favourite subjects).

16. Thanks for pointing that out, Eileen. I had a quick look through the answers, but failed to check the clues again. Good to know I was paying so little attention to the surfaces, anyway.

    Andrew, someone at the Guardian puzzle page mentioned the FT. I will check it out later. Thanks again.

    George, they should let me collaborate on the Lewis one! I reckon quite a few will be familiar with Screwtape – possibly Mere Christianity too – then there are the ‘Shadowlands’ pieces, however fictional they might be. Given the boost he gave to their work, Edmund Spenser and Charles Williams merit mentions. And then there’s Tolkien, of course, and Nevill Coghill of Canterbury Tales fame, among the Inklings…

17. Thanks for the blog, Andrew. As muffin says @8 (along with others) this puzzle made me uneasy. It was clever — and I completed it even when I saw what it was doing with the theme — but I can’t say I enjoyed it.

    This is not a slap on the wrist for Tramp, who is an excellent setter, or a comment on the taste of the Guardian editor. Just a reflection of how different solvers may have different sensibilities.

    [Since you ask, I was 10 — do the maths! — and I heard about it in the school changing room after gym. Although I’ve lived in the UK for many years, I’m American and we were living in Canada at the time. We were all devastated. School was cancelled, TV programming ditto and grownups didn’t bother to hide how upset and shocked they were.]

18. I should also say I’m not having a go at anyone who approached the puzzle with a lighter heart!

19. Great setting, thanks Tramp for a very clever puzzle.

    Thanks Andrew; especially for the JR Ewing, which I missed.

    For muffin @8 and others of a sensitive disposition, why not see this as a commemoration rather than entertainment? Anyway, since when has doing crosswords been entertainment? Seems more like masochism to me! 😉

    As Eileen says, so many good clues, but I particularly liked FORD LINCOLN and ATKINS DIET.

20. ulaca @ 16, I believe The Listener will consider puzzles from all-comers 😉

21. A clever tour de force, though a few clues seemed a bt grim.

    Re 6/28, I’ve never heard of a Ford Lincoln. Lincoln is a division of Ford, so in a sense a Lincoln is a Ford, but Lincoln is not a model name. I believe the car in question was a modified Lincoln Continental.

    [In a pram, so I was told.]

22. Ian @21; yep, but it could still be called a FORD LINCOLN Continental:

    ‘They took a Ford Lincoln Continental to specialist coachbuilders Hess & Eisenhardt in Cincinnati, Ohio who stretched the 17ft car by nearly 4ft.’

23. I thought this was a thoughtful puzzle, so wasn’t uneasy with it at all. Cleverly put together with many elements of the fateful day woven in. Like many of the TV and radio programmes going out on this subject at the moment, it caused me to reflect on the event.

    [I remember our primary school teacher trying to explain – without much success – the goings-on the next day.]

    Thanks to Tramp and Andrew.

24. Thanks Andrew for the excellent blog and your kind words.

    I wrote this puzzle in January 2013. I’d got a few JFK-themed clues kicking around (years ago I used the idea for DEMOCRAT in a clue for John Halpern’s weekly clue-writing competition) and I realised that 2013 was the anniversary of the assassination. Tyrus checked my initial effort and gave me some useful feedback. Hugh kindly agreed to let me have the slot for today’s puzzle.

    The original clue for DISARMER was slightly more convoluted and Hugh asked me to change it; I wanted to keep the Zapruder reference in there so agreed to make it slightly easier, but as a compromise, I agreed to write a simpler clue for LIEUTENANT. My original clue for IDEAL contained a reference to Dealey Plaza but I decided, having taken some stick for a few contrived clues in my Wagner puzzle (or Wagnergate as I call it), to ditch the shoe-horned reference and go with something straightforward.

    I’m sorry if people think that this is in bad taste: I disagree. When I see footage from the Zapruder film on the TV or when I see Oswald’s assassination, I don’t think the broadcasters are acting in poor taste.

    Thanks for the comments.

    Neil/Tramp

    Ps I was -10.5 years old

25. Clever, but I’m relieved that Google’s Doodle went with a Dr Who animation rather than the alternative……….

26. Clever crossword but reaching new heights of tastelessness for someone of my age at least. Whatever his merits or demerits as a person and a politician, making an entertainment out of a bullet in his head seems rather low.

27. Thhanks all
    What a bunch of sanctimonious folk. The person concerned hesitated not a jot to lie and deceive those who loved him.
    I was on the road between Swindon and Manchester. On arrival I went alone to a cinema and after a while the projectionist scratched the news onto the film!

28. Robi @22, perhaps it could be called a Ford Lincoln, but it never is. A Google search for “Ford Lincoln” does not seem to pull up any relevant hits.

29. By the way, in 5a, ‘subject’ = RE: not ‘subject to’.

    As others have said above, 5d is RI(FLESH)OT: according to Chambers “flesh” = “one’s own family”.

    Sorry about the confusion about Ford Lincoln: I naively thought it was a Ford model.

    Eileen@6: that’s funny. I didn’t see Pointless though.

    Tramp

30. Thanks Tramp and Andrew,

    Gorgeous puzzle, beautifully constructed and faultlessly clued. Bad taste? Not in the slightest.

31. Hi Tramp

    It’s here:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01bv8gs

    It’s worth watching, for Alexander and Richard’s reaction.

    [Totally agree with Mitz @30.]

32. Eileen@31: superb — thanks for that. Mind you, we shouldn’t be getting entertainment out of such a tragic event

33. Nice one, Tramp! [Actually, I did wonder if I was being a bit cruel but it’s been pretty widely publicised already.]

34. A touch� moment from Tramp @32. Very nice. It’s not as if the assassination was being made fun of. Setters use historical events all the time; they can hardly eschew eg all the battles – people died in them too.

    [Making a weather station on the back room table. My father came in and told me.]

35. Trailman @ 34 – the problem for me and I suspect for others of my generation is that the assassination of Kennedy does not feel like an historical event – though I accept that younger solvers (and setters)might see things differently. Personally, I gave up on the crossword after solving 5d [… one of several that got JFK: answer ‘Rifle Shot]because I was distracted by mental images of bits of Kennedy’s brain and fragments of his skull scattered around the car after one of said rifle shots blew off the back of his head. In my view horrific crimes are best avoided as themes for crosswords and I hope not to see significant anniversaries of other notorious murders commemorated in future Guardian crosswords.

36. Xword worked for me. Thanks Tramp and Andrew.

    [As with many other events, it never occured to me to commit to memory where I was. I’m not even sure what the point of doing that is.]

37. We’re the same generation Wolfie, just see things differently. At root, I’m with Donne – “Any man’s death diminishes me”.

38. I’m with Wolfie and Trailman. Turning to the puzzle after reading the coverage of the anniversary in the rest of the paper did not make for an enjoyable solve.

39. Can’t see what all the fuss is about. We have had lots of puzzles that commemorate deaths before, for example the procrustean bed in mythology where everyone had their heads and feet chopped off. We’ve had them about Jean-Paul Marat who was stabbed in his bath.

    If this puzzle ios in bad taste then every programme on the TV today is in poor taste.

40. @RCW comment 27

    “the person concerned hesitated not a jot to lie”

    Oh well that’s fine then.
    A brilliant construction from the setter with ingenious multiple uses of “gun” “shot” “rifle” “head” “JFK”. My personal favourite was the lovely device of using “flesh” to indicate “family”. For me, all that was missing was a perimeter nina reading HOW DO I GET THE BONE FRAGMENTS AND BRAIN TISSUE OUT OF MY TWO PIECE
    Tramp seems a bright guy, but pitifully insensitive. Stop playing Call of Duty would be my advice.
    Why create such opinion-polarising theme puzzles? Next time, try something about the Flopsy Bunnies.

41. Edwin@40 Don’t make assumptions about me: I have never played a computer game in my life.

42. Guardian doing tasteless again, at least for me. It’s a shame because it’s a tremendous effort from the setter, but always nagging at me were those terrible images, that still haunt those of us especially who believe, perhaps foolishly, that JFK might have made a real difference to the way America would move forward. Difficult stuff indeed.

43. @tramp 41

    I apologize for the “Call of Duty” remark; it seemed to me a rational explanation for a, to my mind, wholly inappropriate puzzle and a gross lapse of judgement on your part and that of the editor.
    I think the idea of a Kennedy themed puzzle is at best dodgy, but to have gone to the lengths of your extraordinary ability to find ways of using the banalities of the assassination and feel happy to submit it as a piece of work is utterly bizarre

44. Lord almighty, you sensitive folk. Get a grip, this is History now even if you remember it well, which I do. I was 17years old and getting ready for a date, if I remember rightly. Yes it was shocking, but at my age I have come across much worse. This was a very very good puzzle. Thanks Tramp.

45. @Regalize 44

    History, you say?
    So how would you feel about a theme puzzle based around the death of the poor guy in Woolwich which is also history (albeit more recent history)

46. You seem a bright guy, Edwin, but that comment about Call of Duty was a gross lapse of judgement on your part and wholly inappropriate — I’m surprised it got past the moderator. To take my mind off the insensitivity of the comment I will think of how “flesh” might be construed as being offensive, how one might get a 54-letter perimetrical Nina into a 15×15 grid and, if there’s time, I’ll do a bit of research on the Flopsy Bunnies; watch this space.

47. It’s the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Moors Murders this year. Any chance of a themed crossword to commemorate the event? After all, it’s just another historical event.

48. I thought this was an excellent puzzle and I have no qualms about the suitability of the theme. URNS was my LOI after MOTORCADE.

    I was too young for Jack’s assassination to have made an impact on me, but 5 years later I was in my dad’s car being driven out of Llandudno after a short holiday when the news about Bobby being shot came through on the radio, and later in the year I was on holiday in Tenby when what few TV channels there were back then took the almost unprecedented decision to replace the Test Card during the afternoon with the news that the Soviet Union had invaded Czechoslovakia. Probably just as well that we didn’t have any more holidays in Wales after that.

49. I was four and a half and were were having our tea (smoked or ‘finny’ haddock, it being a Friday). It was the first time I saw my mum cry. Quite devastating. Even though I was so young I got quite absorbed in the aftermath – Oswald and Ruby and all. Probably the first news story I ever registered.

    I really don’t understand those who are offended by the puzzle – crosswords are not the equivalent of a laugh and a joke. No different from all the media outlets hoping to attract viewers/readers with a plethora of anniversary programmes/articles.

    Having said that, when (if ever) might it be permissible to have a puzzle centred on the anniversary of 31st August 1997?

50. Bad taste? Radio 4 are currently tweeting this: The Assassination of #JFK, Minute by Minute – follow live commentary, music, discussion and analysis on @BBCRadio2

    If a crossword which passes no judgment at all is in bad taste, where does that leave the likes of 1066 And All That and Horrible Histories?

    Stick with it Tramp, this was a masterpiece.

51. I think that the defenders of this puzzle are perhaps missing the point. It isn’t the airing of the anniversary of the assassination that is inappropriate, it is the trivialising of it into entertainment (whatever Robi might think of crosswords). What would the opinion be of a “Kennedy assassination” video game? (Please don’t tell me that one exists!)

52. As someone who often sets anniversary puzzles (eg today’s FT), the debate about the subject matter of Tramp’s excellent puzzle gives me pause for thought. I wonder if the difference between this and other such puzzles is that rather than celebrating the life of the man, it marks his death, a violent death that affected a generation in a way that probably didn’t happen again until, as louise points out, 31/8/97.

    I should like to be able to say that I avoided this topic through an uncanny prescience that it might offend, but actually I just thought that someone else would certainly do it, and also that it would be good if ulaca’s ‘our own greats’ weren’t forgotten again as they were 50 years ago (not they minded, presumably)

    For the record, I thought this an excellent puzzle and I wasn’t offended and..

    […a teacher broke the news to us in a school corridor]

53. This has been a remarkable day, with so many anniversaries to commemorate.

    Warning of spoilers here:

    I didn’t do the Indy Phi puzzle, but see from the blog that he went for the 100th anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Britten.

    I did do Gaff’s FT ‘alternative anniversaries’ puzzle, in which he quite brilliantly combined Britten, C S Lewis [anniversary of his death], Aldous Huxley [ditto] and Jonny Wilkinson [10th anniversary of this glorious moment
    https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Jonny+Wilkinson+drop+goal&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&gws_rd=cr&ei=mLOPUrT7J4iAhQfHlYCYCw
    which I occasionally watch when I’m feeling down.

    It would have been extraordinary if no one had taken on the most obvious topic for the day. Only Tramp was brave enough to bite the bullet [sorry]: I’m not sure how the subject could have been dealt with more sensitively but I think folk would have felt it odd if it alone hadn’t been dealt with at all.

54. In my opinion, there’s nothing insensitive about a puzzle themed on the assassination of John Kennedy.

    I saw a programme on the telly the other night about it. Although there have been a myriad of conspiracy theories, this one presented reasonable evidence suggesting that the fatal shot might have been accidentally fired by one of the secret service agents in a following car. Of course, it is unlikely that the truth will out. In the meantime, thanks to Tramp for producing a clever puzzle that was not in any way tasteless.

55. Excellent puzzle, Tramp! It was tough but, unlike some other toughies, I kept coming back to it because it was so clever and intriguing. Thanks a lot.

    [On my bed, listening to Radio Luxembourg on my beloved transistor radio.]

56. Gaff

    We crossed by a whisker. Many thanks for your comment and for your puzzle!

57. OK, muffin @51, take a deep breath and look at this.

58. Robi @ 57
    In the immortal words of Charlie Brown, “Good grief!”

59. I’ve never seen beer in a screwtop bottle but Wiki tells me that many larger (sic) beers, including most forties and some growlers use screw caps for closure. This lightened my mood.

60. [Re the remarkable day: as a huge admirer of C S Lewis, in every one one of his guises, I’d like to commend a lovely play on Radio 4 extra: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007jw8w ]

61. In my opinion, a well constructed, excellent puzzle from Tramp and blog from Andrew, thanks to both.

    As for the comments about the theme, I hope I am not sensing a campaign starting over the irreverence of a crossword puzzle…….what next?….cartoons?

    [in my cot, oblivious to the world outside]

62. Sue and I found this a well-crafted and challenging puzzle.

    It did require me to put aside the reality, of to what some clues related, in order to enjoy it properly though.

    However, that’s sometimes necessary in many crosswords, where e.g. medical conditions, notorious historic events, natural disasters etc. arise.

    I missed quite a bit of the cleverness of several clues, owing to parallel direction, helpful crossings and so on.

    Thanks setter, blogger and all: I can see both sides of the taste debate, and although in this case I think Tramp’s in the clear, that’s just my opinion.

    [In my parents’ living room, in front of the black-and-white TV, with its smell of warm, beeswax-insulated components]

63. Oh I wish this that those of us who found the puzzle a little hard to take weren’t labelled ‘sanctimonious’.

    Surely we can all agree that crosswords give us enjoyment — aha moments, smiles, call them what you like. I simply wanted to point out that the pleasure one might gain in solving some of these clues today was at odds with the memories and images they evoked. (I would single out 5dn and 7dn in that respect.) And I would also like to confess that some of my own uneasiness lay in my determination to keep on solving despite that feeling.

    Sometimes clever is not enough.

    I remember that TERMINAL CANCER, the answer to one of Gordius’s clues, was widely viewed as inappropriate and upsetting, whereas the way Araucaria chose to announce his own cancer cryptically was incredibly moving and brave.

    Tone and context are important. I’m an old fart, admittedly, but this still felt too soon.

    And I’m afraid I don’t buy the ‘commemorative’ line. A mixed metaphor if there every was one.

64. Personally, I feel that the event has gone so far into the past that it really can’t count as insensitive to make a crossword puzzle about it. Especially when you consider all the mythologizing, conspiracy theories, dissecting of footage, government reports, and six zillion TV specials since then, which have all kind of reduced the gravitas of the whole thing. (Of course, as an American, I find the subject wildly overexposed, and due for being knocked down a peg.)

    True, I was born in 1974, so missed it by quite a wide margin. My mom won’t shut up about it, though.

    And it’s such a rich topic–with all the references shoehorned into this puzzle, there are still many that could have been put there but weren’t.

    As for the puzzle itself–on several occasions, I found myself (once I’d cottoned on to the theme) filling in answers and only then figuring out what the wordplay was supposed to be. Hooray–finally a theme drawn from American culture!

65. mrpenney @ 64
    Dearie me! Do you really mean that assassination is a part of American “culture”? Remind me not to visit.

66. @ muffin…..Remind me not to visit the Tower of London or the London Dungeon……

67. Re Diana’s death (I was on a plane from England to Hong Kong), I am tempted to say the tastelessness bar has already been lowered considerably by Elton John. I marvel at Clare’s memory. I was a few months older (still am, I suppose) but can remember nothing from before the age of 6, and those are probably indirect memories mediated by old cine films.

    Thanks to Eileen for the link to the CSL radio play.

68. A veritable tour de force. Loved SOD’S LAW and STONE.

    Thanks to Tramp and Andrew.

69. I recall the news being called down from the third floor by my flatmate in Glasgow as I was coming back from giving an art history lecture as a junior lecturer at the university. I have since moved to America and realize at first hand the damage stemming from this first rent in the national fabric. I also admire Tramp’s cleverness, but gave up about a third of the way through, not because I would have objected to the subject if treated responsibly, but because I hated to see tragic events being converted into trivia.

70. Well I found myself more intrigued by the discussion then the puzzle. Don’t we hold a wide range of views and isn’t that as it should be? As a bright 17 year old sat in front the TV I remember being absolutely stunned by the news but I felt no revulsion completing the puzzle; rather a sorrow for what might have been.

71. Finished Tramp and it was an interesting exercise.

    I have never tried to correlate this, but I was 8 watching television in a small Irish town. It was a Friday evening, maybe around 7, and the programme � involving a small white dog and Peter Lawton (maybe this is made up, because Lawton had some Kennedy connection I think) � was interrupted with the news from Dallas. Then the whole remainder of the evening was still pictures and music. The national television station Telef�s Eireann had only came into existence a few years previously and it was long before the social media! It may have been possible in Dublin to receive the BBC but the rest of the country was one channel black and white land.

72. So we’re meant to commemorate the tragic death of a legend without remembering anything of the particularities of it? You want a bland tribute to a guy who, had he died in the Washington home for retired Presidents, we wouldn’t be commemorating in the same way? You’re hoist on your own petard if you think that – you’re essentially saying this man is too worthy to be commemorated…what does that even mean?

    Great puzzle old chap! Loved it! Thanks for the blog.

    I was twenty two years unborn at the time and yet remain fascinated by JFK as do many in my generation.

73. Re Brendan at #71, that tallies exactly with my own recollection, though the dog and Lawton I do not recall. An announcement was made shortly after 7 PM – it then took about thirty minutes for them to ‘cop on’ to the bad taste of continuing with the normal programmes and they were pulled. The tragedy had an extra resonance as he’d visited the country for an extensive tour just five months earlier on the visit to Europe on which he made the “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech by the Berlin Wall, which was just two years old then. I saw him when he visited my home town on that trip.

74. Muffin @65:

    Of course assassination itself isn’t part of the culture, but the Kennedy assassination in particular certainly is. Conspiracy theories, in particular, are a favorite American pastime, and JFK conspiracy theories are the mother of them all. So the whole thing is now much less a tragedy than it is a puzzle.

    Warren report! Jack Ruby! The mafia! Castro! J. Edgar Hoover! Lone gunman! Grassy knoll! Book depository! Johnson! You could go on and on.

    On this side of the pond, anyway, all of this is a public property, and has long since become part of our (yes) cultural equipment. Anyway, the point of my comment was supposed to be that for me it makes a wonderful change from all those baffling references to Labour leaders and cricketers and whatnot.

75. As perhaps implied earlier, I suppose it’s hard, for a people who generally celebrate Guy Fawkes Night, to proclaim any position, as to good taste or otherwise…

76. We are wrong and bad?

77. Well, let’s see how many are offended by 21ac in today’s Paul (“One’s dying to execute politician”).
    Wrong? Bad?

78. What a fine puzzle – thank you for the tremendous effort, Tramp, and for stopping by. Thanks Andrew for setting up the blog, too.

    I have just a couple of comments. One is that I was surprised to be able to completely finish this (eventually) without aids and with every clue (eventually) fully parsed.

    Another is the 6/28 clue, in which my analysis puts the “libertarianism” in a different place. There is no such thing as a “Ford Lincoln”. Yes, Ford owns Lincoln, but compare to these phrases: “Volkswagen Audi”, “Honda Acura”, “Chrysler Dodge”, etc. etc.

    My parsing is that the answer is not “Ford Lincoln”, it is “Ford” [and] “Lincoln” – definition “two presidents”. And “in *one*” of them – a Lincoln – Kennedy was assassinated. So my take is that there is not confusion over the name of the car, but that Tramp has taken the liberty of breaking the “multi-word answers must be real phrases” rule. And I think it works well, since cluing them separately might not have.

    Now on to the controversy about the theme. It didn’t occur to me once until I came here – I knew it was the anniversary yesterday, noticed the theme sprinkled through the clues early on, and thought to myself “well this is a nice way to combine my hobby with some thoughts of that tragic day”.

    But then my sensibilities – perhaps shaped by the world I grew up in as a partial result of this event – can lean towards the macabre. One way we deal with the horrors in the world is to confront them square on. I must confess to having written a song, over a several year period, that ended up with the title “Exit Wound”. Late in production I really wanted to drop in a JFK (not the movie or airport) reference, hoping to perhaps find some audio on the internet, but to no avail. What I ended up doing was intoning a phrase overhead on the police radio in the fade of the last chord: “Keep everything secure”. No one will ever get that reference, of course. You know what’s creepier? I wrote the couplet “bodies piled up all over each other/even people you thought were blessed” the week Princess Diana and Mother Theresa died. *Before* they died.

    Scanning the finished puzzle results in an interesting observation, too. Ignore the clues for a moment. There doesn’t appear to be a theme at all. The closest answers to the theme are “motorcade”, “stone”, and “Lincoln”, and, suppose, “Democrat”. To my eye, the end results really belie no theme, it’s all in the clues. I find that tasteful and skillful.

    One of my favorite themed puzzles, which was, I think, a couple of years ago, was based around Nelson’s last battle, and to an extent his life. It forced me to read the entire Wikipedia articles on the man and the battle, while keeping what I thought were the themed clues in my mind the whole time. Of course the circumstances of the Admiral’s death were heroic, unlike the President’s, but in the end he died.

    [I was two weeks younger than 4 years old, no memory of the occasion. Also, I have never been told where I was at the time. I do remember where I was about 11 years later when the Viet Nam War “ended” (in a church vestry joining in with ringing the bell). I also remember where I was when we landed on the Moon – staying in a borrowed house on our way from the port in NYC to our newly-adopted home in NH.

    I also own a very good book – which tragically has no “final draft” – written by Bobby about the Cuban Missile Crisis.]

    Sometimes it saddens me that I tend to solve these things a bit late (and slowly) so I miss the obvious pleasure of being in the middle of the conversations on these blogs, and today’s is certainly one of those.

79. Brendan @71 That TV show you were watching must have been The Thin Man, starring Peter Lawford as Nick Charles. Lawford was JFK’s brother-in-law. The small white dog was Aster.

    I too was watching TV. In the 7pm BBC news summary Richard Baker (or it may have been Kenneth Kendall) said shots had been fired near the motorcade, and the Beeb would keep us informed of any further details. Then Tonight started, and after a few minutes the phone on Cliff Mitchelmore’s desk rang, he answered it, then said ‘We’re now returning to the news studio’. The news reader said ‘We regret to announce that President Kennedy is dead’ and the screen went blank for about 30 minutes while the BBC wondered what to do.

80. I only got round to doing this yesterday (Saturday). Just declaring myself very much in the �pro� camp � fine puzzle, and certainly not offensive to me!

81. An American point of view.

    Very enjoyable puzzle on a sad day. I am one of those who can say where he was when he learned the news, touring a U.S Navy destroyer with my mother in Pearl Harbor.

    Particularly like the irreverent 14AC – nymphomania

    Also enjoyed 25a – motorcade v 8D – democrat.

    1A Sods law for Oswald calls him what he was.

82. I found nothing tasteless about the puzzle, but Edwin @40 is revolting. Anyone who can write that – and in capitals so nobody would miss it – clearly thinks you can say anything you like about JFK’s death so his complaint against Tramp is either an unfunny, tasteless joke or simple idiocy.

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