Guardian 28,162 – Matilda

120 comments on “Guardian 28,162 – Matilda”

1. Maybe more appropriate for a Monday

2. A lot of very straightforward clues, but the Nina probably justifies it. A good Monday puzzle.

   Thanks to Matilda and Andrew

3. I really enjoyed this one. For once one that I could finish and parse without help. And some of the ways the solutions revealed themselves were very nice. CARELESS, OCEANS and LOLITA my favourite. Thanks Matilda. And Andrew.

   Someone is going to have to say what the Nina is though. Dense of me but I can’t see it.

4. Totally enjoyable despite the breezing through.  Struck me as very Arachne-esque in places.

   Thank you Mathilda and Andrew.

5. Now I see the Nina. Timely indeed, and increases my appreciation to Matilda even further.

6. Thanks Matilda and Andrew

   Well, I enjoyed it, but I did think it was another Grauniad error and this was intended as next Mondays Quiptic (though I didn’t know the “oceans” reference).

   Favourite was LEGISLATE.

7. Agree, rohanm, over in no time but yes nice succinct clues (and I do hope the spider lady’s ok, it’s been ages!). Thanks B and S.

8. Like others I found it Mondayish to start, but then got a wee bit bogged down. Had no idea about OCEANS; saw the timely nina, for a change. Thanks to M & A.

9. A very neat puzzle. I failed to see the nina, though I’m not good at seeking for themes or ninas so no surprise there.

   My only gripe is the lack of an inclusion indicator in 25a, but that’s a minor quibble.

10. Me @9

    I should have said that I don’t understand how the apostrophe in 25a acts as an inclusion indicator.

11. George @10: the apostrophe-s in 25a indiciates the possessive, so you’re looking at “Drop Arab leader” possessing something.

12. Really enjoyed this puzzle – a variety of imaginative constructions. Some of the “easy” constructions were well hidden beneath smooth surfaces. More than once, I came up with an answer and looked at the clue blankly to work out why, only to kick myself for not seeing the “obvious” contruction straight away!

13. A pleasurable straightforward cryptic with some lovely clues. Liked BERMUDA TRIANGLE amongst others. Not sure that laicised means without religion as the laity, ie the people, make up the vast majority of a religious group, though I do note the question mark. My chambers states it means to make laical ie of the people. Still a minor quibble.
    Spotted the nina, yay, and yes very timely.
    Thanks to Matilda and to Andrew

14. When I saw the grid I was alerted to the possibility of a nina and after a few entries on the top line it struck me.  Very timely!  Perhaps Marilda was the first to submit a crossword on this sad theme.  Anyway I entered all the letters for the nina and it was very plain sailing from there on.  Favourites were NEAPOLITAN, for the lovely succinct surface reading, KEEP UP – such a lovely sounding clue, and VIRGINIA CREEPER.  Many thanks Matilda, looking forward to many more from you and to Andrew for the interesting and early blog!!

15. Thanks for alerting me to the nina Andrew as I hadn’t spotted it. Timely indeed.
    Although not difficult it was harder than Matilda’s last appearance. It took me a while to parse INDICT for instance. Whilst not having seen any of the relevant films for 20d I had at least heard of the 11 version. An enjoyable solve.
    Thanks Matilda.

16. Everything went in pretty smoothly until I got to 20d. I spotted the anagram fodder, and hence got the answer, but the numbers made no sense at all until I got here. Not the sorts of films I would ever watch in a million years of lockdown. I have also realised that I rushed through some answers without realising I had not paused to properly parse them (14a, 16a, 8d). Is assonance the same as rhyme? No doubt some student of literature will inform us. Missed the wonderful nina. Thanks, Matilda and Andrew.

17. @ ngaiolaurenson

    I don’t know what the dictionaries say, but laicised feels correct as a synonym of secular (or secularised). I believe “lay” has the separate meaning of non-religious, in addition to “religious but not occupying religious office”. Think of the French principle of laïcité, the secular state.

18. Really enjoyed this. Especially after spotting the Nina once I got 1d Bermuda Triangle to complete the NW. the Nina helped a lot with the bottom half where I was having a problem getting going. LOI was 12a priming. i still couldn’t parse it. Trying to make it ‘sound like’ soft. duh!
    Congratulations to Matilda for a fun puzzle with a good level of difficulty from my point of view. Also to Andrew for a great and explanatory blog.

19. Plus extra congratulations to Matilda for a wonderful Nina!

20. A great puzzle any day of the week. It’s not the difficulty but the enjoyment that matters and spotting the Nina brought a tear to my eye. WELL SAID MATILDA.

21. Still can’t see the Nina. It would help if I knew what it means.

22. Two days behind schedule.

23. Very much enjoyed that, and could parse it all except the Oceans, which I had never come across, and ERADICATE which I did not see, but should have. Forgot to look for a Nina but this is very good. As usual when I find a puzzle nicely doable others find it too easy. (I am still a beginner!) I was about to write the same as David on LAICISED. Thanks to Matilda and Andrew.

24. A really nice if gentle solve. My hunch is the topicality and desire to publish this as soon as possible is why it ended up in the Cryptic rather than Quiptic series.

    I was also helped by looking at the blank grid and thinking this is the perfect nina grid so once I had B L A . . . . V along the top, with a E and and R in the bottom corners, I felt confident enough to fill in the other border squares which only served to speed things along even more. But I’m a fan of a nina to say something that needs saying (see Philistine No 27,924) and for me it humanises the whole endeavour (which can on occasion feel a little esoteric) to feel a setter is just as angry about what’s going on in the world as anyone else.

    OCEANS (or OCEAN’S) is probably the best bit of diversion here, but, either way, all fair and enjoyable if over too soon.

    Thanks Matilda and Andrew

25. PARABLE was cute and I enjoyed CARELESS. Most of the anagrams fell on the first pass and the helpful grid led to some “I wonder how she’s clued LOLITA” moments. On the downside, I’m now trying to ERADICATE Barry Manilow’s BERMUDA TRIANGLE from my head. Cheers all

26. Fun puzzle.

    I had not noticed the nina – that is excellent!

    Thanks Matilda and Andrew

27. Thanks, Andrew, for pointing out the correct parsing of ERADICATE. I’d 4downly assumed it was IC (In Charge = of command) inside DATE after ERA, but was at a loss to explain the “lost”.

28. Went through this fairly rapidly but then the hear sank as the LOI was _ I _ E _ which probably could be filled with about 300 words.

    Otherwise, an enjoyable solve, smoothly clued with a lone tick at LUNAR.

    Many thanks, Matilda, for the puzzle and the sentiment in the Nina.

29. …heart…can’t type.

30. Although a tad easier than Brummie yesterday, this had a much more polished feel to it and the nina was the icing on the cake.

    thank you Matilda and Andrew

31. Very pleasant.  I liked 27a TURPITUDE, a word that I first came across in Malcolm Bradbury’s The History Man in the lovely phrase “gross moral turpitude”.  Also liked 11a MACHETE, the surface of which brought back memories of Michael Heseltine brandishing the mace in the House of Commons.

    (Did anyone else think that every third letter of “Etonian studying” would give us OATYG in 10a?)

    Many thanks Matilda and Andrew.

32. What copmus said – many thanks to Matilda and Andrew.

33. Thanks, Andrew, for a helpful blog which helped me to see what I had missed. The Nina escaped me totally, unfortunately. Also, I was a DNF as I just couldn’t see 20d OCEANS (such an easy anagram, though I see I had company in not “getting it”). None so blind as she who cannot see and all that. In the latter case, I was looking for some kind of link between the four clues with those numbers – a total dry gully. Another distraction was when I filled in ON THE RISE at 20d which I managed to parse at the time but now can’t recall how – and of course I had to re-think when the crossers just didn’t work, and I got IN TOP FORM, .

    I liked the two long ones and had ticks for 10a ENNUI, 19a ICONOCLAST and 24a NEEDFUL as well.

    Thank you to Matilda for a puzzle in which I found a lot to like, and for picking up on the current very important international campaign for greater racial equality. [To our shame, here in Australia, deaths in custody number 25% of the total, while our first nations people represent only 2-3% of the population. There is a huge gap still in terms of health, education and opportunities for the first Australians.

34. @4, apologies for misspelling Matilda.

35. Thanks Matilda and Andrew.  I’m another who felt it was Monday again – which, in this Groundhog Day environment, was quite possible!  KEEP UP  made me smile and, yes, OCEANS is clever and did have me desperately trying to shoehorn the answers to those numbered clues into one solution for a while!

    howard @21 I don’t think anyone’s answered your question yet.  a Nina is a word or phrase hidden in the completed grid and, if you look at the letter in rows 1 and 15 all should become clear.

    TassieTim @16 I’m no student of literature but I believe rhyme is a subset or special case of assonance.  Assonance is the general resemblance of word sounds, whereas rhyme is the exact resemblance.

    I may be splitting hairs but I’m not sure every third letter of Etonian studying gives ENNUI.  It seems to me it’s the first, fourth, seventh etc whereas I’d have thought the instructions suggest third, sixth, ninth etc

    One real dislike for me: I’m OK with splitting solutions between more than one position on the grid when there is an acknowledged break in the answer but less happy when a word like DISCOVER is simply split in half.

36. Lord Jim @31 we crossed regarding every third letter.  Glad I wasn’t alone – though we may yet turn out to be the only two, you and I.

37. [TassieTim@16, the old English teacher in me says that assonance is a type of rhyme as it involves repetition of vowel sounds, while consonance involves the repetition of consonants (as its name implies). True rhyme involves both, as in PRIMING and RHYMING. But I guess one could say assonance is a form of rhyme. Not sure what you would say, Eileen@32?]

38. Great nina (had read the G thread earlier, post-solve, so knew to look for it).

    Had forgotten about the Oceans becoming a sequel thing…saw the original as a teen, with Frankie, Deano, SD Junior et al.

39. [We crossed re assonance, Mark@35. I don’t think I had it quite right – this is what it says online:

    assonance: resemblance of sound between syllables of nearby words, arising particularly from the rhyming of two or more stressed vowels, but not consonants (e.g. sonnet, porridge), but also from the use of identical consonants with different vowels (e.g. killed, cold, culled).

    consonance: the recurrence of similar-sounding consonants in close proximity, especially in prosody.
    “the abrupt quality of the sound is echoed in the final ‘t’ consonance of ‘discreet’ and ‘shut’”]

    [Meanwhile, part of the Chambers definition simply says that assonance is “vowel-rhyme”]

40. Thanks for your blog Andrew. I thought this would be plain sailing but ran into trouble on the RHS as I went for the biggie straight away, thinking Snake = Creep so it must be CREEPING something, but got no further and then crossers forced a rethink. The Nina eventually came to my rescue, as it did for AIRED where I had been dreading a trawl through homophones of obscure old commies. I enjoyed lots of surfaces eg 27A, 21D, 23D, never heard of LAICISED but clear from wordplay (and thanks for discussion above David@17,ngaoilaurenson@13). Thanks Matilda for an enjoyable and varied puzzle and for sticking your neck out to make a statement.

    Howard@21 maybe someone has answered by now but a Nina is some sort of hidden message, often buried in the grid somewhere but occasionally in the clues (there was a memorable acrostic from Qaos not long ago). I think it comes from a setter in the early days who smuggled a reference to his wife into his puzzles, but there will be plenty of people here who will know this better than me. I generally miss them (as with themes) but on completion sometimes have a quick look to see if anything pops out. Today luckily it was spotted just before the end. Sorry if my comment has given it away!

41. @David
    Thanks for that, although I remain unconvinced but maybe that is because I have only heard the word used in distinguishing the people from the clergy and it also may be that my dictionary is a little old- published in 2003.

42. JinA @37 & 39 Thanks for that.  I think we’re aligned!  I think my clarification that rhyme is a subset of assonance is correct.  [Is there an adjective associated with assonance?  I can’t think of one.]  Words that share assonance (?) might not rhyme with each other (ream/reed) but all words that rhyme will share the quality of assonance (reem/seam, reed/seed).  That doesn’t sound particularly elegant English to me but I hope it makes sense!

43. ..and ditto your sentiments JinA about our own shameful treatment of aboriginal people, and other non-whites (esp just now, eg those who chant ‘corona’ at anyone Asian-looking…makes me feel ill)

44. Don’t often comment on the Guardian thread but I would just like to say that I thought this was a brilliant crossword. Superb clueing throughout and a marvellous nina. Brava Matilda.

45. Didn’t see the Nina until coming here, but applause for Matilda for including it.

    Somewhere between a Quiptic and a Cryptic, I’d say. Needs a stand-out clue or two to really be memorable, although ERADICATE was cleverly constructed and I missed the subtractive anagram in NAVY BLUE and had to assemble it from the crossers.

    I’d like to see more Cryptics from Matilda, most definitely.

46. I very much enjoyed this puzzle because even though there were a few new words in there, I was able to confidently parse and put them in.

    ERADICATE and PASSPORT were my favourites.

    I also learned about what a Nina is, great stuff!

    Thanks Matilda and Andrew!

47. As I started reading the comments I thought people were being a little harsh – it may have been straightforward but the quality of a puzzle is not just in how puzzling it is! However, the discussion seems to have picked up and reflected accurately my feelings about this – a very fine set of clues, some lovely constructions and clever anagrams, or part anagrams and I think the hallmarks of a setter who pays close attention to both the grid and the surfaces such that we can expect many more good things in the future.

    I too have not seen the Oceans films, though I am told they are actually pretty good. Not having seen them didn’t mean I’d not heard of them though. I’ve not seen a tenth of the operas whose titles I know, or read even 5% of the poetry which I can quote odd lines of. Isn’t all GK a bit like that?

    Thanks to all and especially for the elucidation on assonance and rhyme.

48. TheZed@47

    Watch Oceans Eleven and skip the rest would be my recommendation

49. A class puzzle that once again shows that they don’t have to be hard to be enjoyable. With the smooth surfaces this to me is a lesson in unambiguous setting using the full range of devices. I didn’t spot the contemporary nina and that lifts the puzzle to another level. BERMUDA TRIANGLE (which was my third last in!) INDICT, ON TOP FORM and TRAIT were my favourites.
    Thanks to Matilda for the puzzle, to Andrew for the blog and intro which indicated but didn’t reveal the nina, and to contributors who answered my LAICISED and assonance queries.

50. [Hi JinA @37 – sorry, I’ve only just seen your comment: I went out into the garden after posting. You seem to have sorted it out now. 😉 ]

51. I know a number of contributors above find matilda’s puzzle today a bit easier than they would prefer, but I think she deserves a lot of credit for introducing assonance into a clue and hence stimulating a great deal of erudite discussion which I have enjoyed reading.

52. Nice puzzle. Great Nina, although at first I thought it was ‘eradicate ennui’ also appropriate for some of us these days.

53. I didn’t mind this being easy-ish on a busy day. As usual, I was one of those who didn’t see the nina. Agree with the sentiment. Just one query: I did find ennui in 10 a but doesn’t every 3rd letter result in OATYG?
    Thanks Matilda and Andrew.

54. There is an explanation of NINA in FAQ at the top of this page. I didn’t see it, but brava to Matilda.

    Good crossword with pleasing surfaces – it would be nice to see this quality of surfaces in some of the other ‘harder’ setters. I liked NAVY BLUE, where at the beginning I shoved in nile blue as I was determined that there was to be an anagram of bile.

    Thanks Matilda and Andrew.

55. Thanks for the help on assonance/rhyme, everyone. The internet just confused me: here, assonance is internal rhyme; there, rhyme is the same sound at the end of a word. I have now learned a new word: consonance. I was another that (at first) counted every third letter starting with number 3, but I woke up. I have to echo JinA and GinF concerning our poor showing with regard to our first peoples (an especially sore point here in Tasmania). TheZed @47: yes, I have heard of various Ocean films, but have never committed the numbers to memory, so no bells rang until I read the blog. I suppose I should have paid more attention to the word ‘film’. I agree with many that this was a top class crossie.

56. I agree with White King @49 that crosswords don’t have to be hard to be enjoyable. Most of the minor quibbles appear to have been dealt with, but I just wanted to say that I credit Matilda with a bit of deviousness in the clue for ENNUI. Like others, I followed the instructions and found myself looking at OATYG. Immediateley moved on to something else, and only came back when a crosser or two appeared, when the penny dropped.

    Like Robi @54 I wanted bile to be anagramised, and it was only when finally convinced that it couldn’t possibly be that I spotted the excellent subtractive fodder.

    As others have commented, the combination of well constructed surfaces and inventive devices made for a pleasurable solve. (I don’t think I have ever spotted a nina, and this was no exception.)

57. For the origins of the word ‘nina’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Hirschfeld#Nina

58. A steady, quite quick solve for me today, completed anti-clockwise from the NW to the NE.
    As one of my last in, ENNUI foxed me by the third letter trick, but having the I from 8d, I worked back and felt disappointed with the clueing, as mentioned by several others.
    Still, another day where the household chores get completed a bit earlier!
    Thanks to Andrew for confirming all my parsing, but especially to Matilda for a nice puzzle and the sentiment of the Nina, which all of us wholeheartedly agree with.

59. Many thanks to Matilda and of course Andrew, whose help I needed. Some great surfaces and misdirections – I didn’t think it an “easy” puzzle at all, but an excellent cryptic.

    I thought I was becoming better at dealing with “subtractive anagrams” (are they a developing trend?) but I failed completely on 18d. Duh…

    At last I spotted a Nina! Thanks again, Matilda…

60. I loved the NINA, but wanted more of a challenge, like in many of the recent puzzles. A runner, some easily found patterns and 11 relatively easy anagrams meant that more then half the answers were shoe-ins.

61. Every third Etonian kind of breaks up the ennui. Very enjoyable.
    Thanks Matilda and Andrew

62. Ta for that link, poc@57 [Hirschfeld’s Lisa Minelli caricature is just genius]

63. @20 Well said, for me the quality of a meal is not judged by how long it takes to chew, but how well it tastes. Minor quibble on Ennui aside, a lovely set of clues – particularly liked 20 when the panny dropped after spending ages trying to figure out whether Machete, Disc, Priming and Virginia Creeper were slang names for oceans somewhere… 2 was new to me but easy to fit, and made for a lovely nina. Many thanks to Matilda and Andrew.

64. Being convinced that there was such a colour as NILE BLUE, with bile* stuck inside it, did not help, but once DISCOVER got slotted in things moved quickly to a finish. I’m yet another who failed to look for a nina, more fool me.

65. Penfold @61 was that a sneaky HMHB reference?

66. Lord Jim @31 that’s exactly where I remembered TURPITUDE from too – albeit the TV adaptation with Antony Sher

67. Thanks to Matilda for a great puzzle.  I’m sorry I missed the Nina, and sorry to the world for my countrymen and our inability to be decent human beings the way we should.

    I too did raise an eyebrow at equating assonance and rhyme, until it occurred to me that the latter was just a special case of the former–rhyming words are always necessarily assonant.

    This poem (which is short and seemingly simple, but has MUCH more going on than first meets the eye) is the one I used to teach the difference between assonance, consonance, alliteration, and rhyme.  All four are present:  assonance (“sing sin”); consonance (“lurk / strike”) alliteration (“jazz June”) and…well, the rhymes are easy to spot.  I also use the poem to talk about rhythm and meter.  And all that before I start a discussion about what the thing is actually about.  My classes typically spend a half-hour talking about these 32 words!

68. mrpenny @67. Thank you! What a great poem to illustrate these features.

69. The thing about ENNUI is, does “every third” stipulate where you start from. Don’t usually get into arguing cw technicalities, but…interesting question..

70. ..or indeed “every second” or “every other”…might be wrong, but I’m sure there are cases where the starting point varies..

71. bodycheetah @65 well I didn’t want to upset anybody with ‘please cease the trait’.

72. All regarding the puzzle appears to have been said. This isn’t the first time Matilda has made a bold statement about current affairs. I recall her expertly skewering our President in one of her clues, probably in a Quiptic.

    I did think the lack of a hidden word indicator in the clue for PARABLE was uncharacteristic of this meticulous setter, so thanks, Andrew, for setting me straight about that, and of course thanks to Matilda for an excellent puzzle.

73. Also thanks to Mark, JinA and mrpenney for the discussion on the nuances of assonance, consonance, alliteration, etc.

74. Thanks, Andrew.

    Was anyone else reminded of Educating Rita? A very drunk Frank (Michael Caine) tells a roomful of students:

    “Assonance … is getting the rhyme wrong. Not many people know that.”

75. grantinfreo @69 I have a glitch in my head when the more usual “odd” indicator is used. As a mathematician, I still have a tendency to count from 0, so I tend to see the second letter as the first odd one.

76. Thanks to those who explained Nina to me. I’ve seen it now. I also found it is in the FAQ section on this very site. I always assumed it was an acronym.

77. Ditto TassieTim re thanks for your link, mrpenney@67. And Gwendolyn Brooks…wow, what a tower, and a discovery. (My ignorance of her reminded me immediately of an interview on Oz TV with Toni Morrison: search “Toni Morrison Jana Wendt” for the short youtube).

78. Thanks both,
    As others have said, there were some lovely clues. Machetes, to me, are primarily agricultural implements for clearing bush cutting cane etc. But I see oed defines them as an implement or a weapon.

79. Very elegant (though I prefer a meal I can relish to a quick snack – no matter how tasty, Tan Coul@63! ?) A trickier puzzle from this capable setter could be interesting…?
    Any lack of challenge, however, more than justified by the brilliant Nina.
    Many thanks, Matilda and to Andrew

80. lordjim@31, mark@35 et al: there have previously been several discussions on “every third letter”. For example, Boatman Sep13 2017, Nutmeg Dec 5 2017 though the clues there were just “regularly” rather than “every third”. Boatman had the regular starting on the 1st letter, and Nutmeg on the third.

     

    Thanks Andrew and Matilda for a lovely crossword

81. I’d been waiting all week for that Nina. Great puzzle – thanks Matilda and Andrew.

82. Great crossword. Re ENNUI, if you start counting from the right hand end it work! OCEANS meant nothing to me in this context but it was still gettable. Didn’t spot the Nina as usual but how great.
    Thanks Matilda and Andrew

83. Julie @33  I wanted to put in IN THE PINK for 15d, though the parsing had no connection with it at all.  Got it eventually.

    Mark @35 By me splitting an otherwise unsplit answer into two places is fine and part of the clever misdirection, as long as both parts are real words, which these certainly are.

    What’s HMHB?  (I’m sure references to it would escape me, whatever it is.)

    And thank you to Andrew for a fine blog and to Matilda for a very well-made puzzle and especially for the magnificent nina.

84. Valentine @83 – HMHB = rock band Half Man Half Biscuit (a band I need to listen to much more of – the few bits I’ve heard are very funny, and they have some of the best song titles ever).

    A really enjoyable crossword. I don’t mind it being a tad on the easy side. Really liked the sweet Keep up, and loved the penny drop when I got Oceans. (I agree with Boffo @48 – watch 11, then move on).

85. I am a first time poster and I am trying to get into the guardian so this was just right for me, I liked 13 & 22 but COTD was 1 down, thank you Matilda and Abdrew

86. Canthusus @11

    Many thanks for the elucidation and apologies for the delay in responding. The use of the apostrophe in this way is a trick I do not remember encountering before in many years of crossword solving, so I will add it to my mental armoury.

    Apologies also to Matilda for writing that there was no inclusion indicator. Mea culpa.

87. After completing the satisfyingly challenging Monk crossword in the FT, this was a relaxing solve. For once I spotted the Nina — it would be impossible to miss for a resident of Washington, DC. like myself. Thanks to Matilda, and to Andrew for the blog.

88. worworcrossol @85, welcome to the forum. I don’t know whether you’re familiar with Matilda’s Quiptics, but I’d recommend them highly. They’re always meticulously clued and if anything, a bit easier than this one.

89. Valentine @83 It’s a personal preference, I accept.  No problem if a compound noun – say, toothbrush – is separated on the grid.  Or a word such as drawback or moreover.  There is a natural split in the word which fits with separating it on the grid.  There’s no natural split in discover – or, if there is, it’s between dis and cover.  I’m fine with the clueing treating discover as the combination of two words but don’t like the grid separation.  I’d have the same issue with, say, bowling if it were split into bow and ling.  I know it rather leapt out at me which makes me think I haven’t encountered the practice that often.  I wonder if that means there’s an informal convention regarding its use.

90. Thanks Matilda, my only complaint would be that the fun ran out too quickly. Pleased to see the tenor of the comments above changing, from initial disparaging references to a supposed Monday-level puzzle, towards an appreciation of the variety, inventiveness and smooth surfaces (plus the Nina).

91. Forgot to thank Andrew for the usual excellent blog. Sorry and thanks!

92. Mark @89

    I think you’ve got a blind spot on this one (a problem that I’ve had in the past!). I think it’s fair to split a word as long as each grid entry is a word in its own right – as DISC and OVER certainly are 🙂

93. But Mark check the blog again:record/disc + over/at an end

94. …beat me to it, muffin..

95. Regarding the DISC OVER question, I must admit it’s a trick I like. I seem to recall seeing Araucaria or Paul using it (though there’s no chance I could supply any examples!), and it keeps one on one’s toes.

96. gif @93 and muffin @92 Thanks.  I think I’ll live with my blind spot and grumble occasionally – though not here.  gif – I had understood and appreciated the parsing and, as I said, have no issue with it whatsoever.  It’s the spacing on the grid.  But nuff said.

97. Mark – I see where you’re coming from. The word play makes it clear that the answer is made up of two (four letter) words, but DISCOVER itself is not splittable into two real words. Subtle difference.

    Having said which, I don’t think it bothers me at all.

98. Well, howard@75, that’s a professional complication. I was going to add “…whereas of course the more usual odd/ly or even/ly DO stipulate the starting point..”, but didn’t want to bang on; hey ho ?

99. That ? is supposed to be a smiley; for some reason they’re not happening recently (maybe it was the same lightning bolt that recently fried my modem?

100. I wasn’t going to bother with this because air thought it was probably another repositioned quiptic but,as nothing else emerged,I thought I’d give it a go. Turned out to be quite enjoyable and not quite as easy as I’d expected. I was held up by putting PROP UP for 5dn but ERADICATE had to be right and KEEP UP was so much better. OCEANS had to be right but I had to check there were films with the quoted numbers. I think I saw the original years ago but I haven’t seen the remake or the sequels. Frankly I don’t think I’ll bother.
     Thanks Matilda.

101. Hey,I was number 100!

102. grantinfreo @77 and TassieTim @ 68:  You’re welcome!  Other favorite Brooks poems of mine:  this one, which is a slant-rhymed sonnet (and a war poem–an unusual genre for a woman, to be sure); and this one, which is just tremendous.

103. …hmmm, the issue, sh@97, seems to concern relatedness rather than realness or splitability. In the examples–tooth brush; more over; bow ling, and disc over–all the particles are real, but differ in semantic relatedness, both between the particle-pairs and between each pair member and its compound…

104. Peter Aspinwall @100 Take a fresh guard.

105. grantinfreo ‘103. Disc & over make discover only in the crossword sense, ie the wordplay; whereas tooth & brush do make toothbrush in the real world. So you can start with toothbrush and make tooth, and brush. But you can’t start with discover and make disc, and over, because (as I think Mark said when he originally raised this) discover is made up of dis- and cover, not disc and over. I think this is what you mean by “relatedness, both between the particle-pairs and between each pair member and its compound” (except that the pair of disc and over only make a compound in crossword land).

     [This reminds me of the error I’ve seen or heard from time to time, when people say they are going through something with a fine tooth-comb, when of course they should be using a fine-tooth comb.]

106. Surprised to see Matilda on a Wednesday but can’t complain about the good quality of her effort. The Nina is spot on for its topicality. I’ll go for 7d as my COD.

107. Tims & Mark – you weren’t the only ones. I spent quite a while trying to shoehorn OATYG into the grid…..

      

108. Tims = Tim. Apologies!

109. I now (belatedly!) get Mark’s point, that splitting is ok for semantically functional parts but ad hoc splitting (regardless of clear wordplay, etc) is not. Many thanks for taking the trouble to, er, spell it out, sheffield hatter @105.

110. So apt for today, and for today, mrpenney@102:

     “The very very worthy and beautiful poor. Perhaps just not too swarthy? …nor passionate.”

111. [Thanks to mrpenny & GinF for bringing attention to “Gwendolyn Brooks…wow“. Eye-opening stuff.]

112. GinF @109. You’re welcome. But I was only explaining what I saw as Mark’s point. For me, splitting discover into disc & over IS acceptable, because this, after all, is crosswordland!

113. @ AC87
     Thanks for the reference to Philistine No 27,924. I followed it, very quickly worked out what the Nina in it must be (a first for me, I wouldnt have even noticed it without you flagging there was one) and had an enjoyable time completing the crossword. Some bits I found tricky. Good fun, thank you.

114. Thanks to Andrew and Matilda

     I’m sure it’s not the intention but it’s arguable that  “find” is the wordplay in a clue like 13,22

     14a I can’t see how “not totally” extends beyond “and”

     1a I can’t see how “starting” means “the first letter of” never mind “the first letter of the next seven words”

     “News at 10 ….. ends”

     25a I don’t agree that there is a valid containment indicator. There is a substantive difference between “Drop Arab leader’s story” and “Top Arab leader’s story”

     26a “una” secures

     27a Not an &lit

     2d and 18d

     There is a convention in some quarters that the subtrahend in a subtractive anagram should be indicated as jumbled if applicable. I’m not sure I agree but that does afford the opportunity for further surface story telling.

     I liked most of it

115. Ngaiolaurenson@13 and David@17
     I remember objecting before on this site to the use of “lay” to indicate “lacking religion” when, in English at least, it doesn’t. I would think that the most common usage of the word is in a religious context in which, as Ngaio says, it refers to members of the church who are not clergy but clearly have a religion. It’s also legal terminology. Magistrates are mostly lay justices, meaning “not professional lawyers” but they can still fine you for an offence.

116. Thoroughly enjoyed it, as always do Matilda’s puzzles

117. Far too late I realise, but we just wanted to say congratulations fit the Nina. Charles has only just spotted it.

118. I must stop reading this blog. When you’ve really enjoyed solving a puzzle, as with Brummie’s yesterday and Matilda’s today, then you read all the nitpicking comments and that it was “too easy”, it spoils it.

119. I think it’s a lot funnier when Rita explains assonance. The Yeats quote is even better.

120. (Doing this puzzle from the archive) The letter positions spelling ENNUI are 1,4,7,10,13. We say that these are ‘congruent to 1 (modulo 3)’ i.e. they leave a remainder of 1 on dividing by 3; just as odd numbers are congruent to 1 modulo 2 (they leave a remainder of 1 on dividing by 2). So technically, Matilda is incorrect here. But still an enjoyable puzzle from the archive. For the record I had E-N– from the crossers and guessed ENNUI from the definition; I tried every third and could not make sense of it …

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