Guardian 28,180 / Brendan

93 comments on “Guardian 28,180 / Brendan”

1. Terrific puzzle – wish I could say the answers went in like clockwork! I make 28a a triple definition…
   Thanks Brendan & Eileen

2. Well, for me this was a masterpiece.� For once, the theme became apparent as I worked through the puzzle and the interconnectedness of so many clues began to make sense.� Dare I say it solved like clockwork?� Working round the clock to arrive at SEVENTY-EIGHT is superb and had me misdirected for a while when I summed the totals of the clues, rather than the clock face, after I�d initially racked my brains for song titles (Rock Around The Clock, 24 Hours From Tulsa etc).� I loved the double anagram for RETENTION and the definitions for SECOND HAND.� The anagrams for INCESSANT and MONTHLY were not at all obvious.� BESTRIDDEN and FORGOTTEN were beautifully constructed and, for once, two related crossers � HOURS and HOURIS � will be celebrated rather than seen as a flaw.� Nothing not to like here, as far as I�m concerned.

   Thanks Brendan for a classy challenge and Eileen for the blog.

3. Canthsus @1: Ha!� We posted at roughly the same time and we’ve both snaffled the obvious pun!� Which sets following posters the challenge of finding other – hopefully worse – time-related puns…

4. Loved this to bits. With HOURS and DAYS going in early, a chronological theme was easy to pick out. Riddled with clever clues: INSPECT, REACTIVE, SECOND HAND and SEVENTY EIGHT all played with my brain in the right way. OOPS was a weird one because I worked out OO=’hoops’ and totally failed to parse it the correct way; I’m sure Eileen has it right.

   A shout out to RETENTION for including a second set of anagram fodder, like that’s supposed to help! 🙂

5. Canthusus @1 – of course it is! [I practically said it was� – just didn’t spell it out: I’ll amend the blog now.]

6. Canthusus @1: Meant to say, I agree with you on the triple definition.� Spoiler alert for anyone yet to do the Telegraph but I occasionally note coincidences with their offering where, today, Clean Sweep appears as a solution.

7. Ha indeed Mark – if I’d taken the time to write a detailed analysis as you did, you’d’ve been first! An excellent puzzle, and Eileen’s ever-helpful blog clarified the workmanship involved – eg I hadn’t spotted the double anagram. SEVENTY EIGHT must be cotd for me.

8. Lots of fun. Favourites were FORGOTTEN, TRYSTERS and SAND. Bravo Brendan, and thanks to Eileen as ever.

9. Great fun. I enjoyed the clues’ convolutions.

   As an aside, f

   ours on clock faces are usually IIII rather than IV, but I’ve seen both.

   Thanks to Brendan and Eileen.

10. Interesting irony arising from 8d.� That Time is referred to – frequently in crosswords – as both The Great Healer and The Enemy.

11. Brendan at his best – if only he’d turn up more regularly

    Too hard to pick one favourite so I’ll just say a big thank you to Brendan and Lucky Eileen

12. Loved the theme, probably because we spotted it early on, which usually doesn’t happen!

    Today’s favourites were INSPECT, REACTIVE and HABANERO. HOURIS was unknown but easily parsed.

    Thanks Brendan and Eileen!

13. A round of sandwiches or toast is an odd expression, haven’t heard it for years, unlike round of drinks. And looked at the wrong grid-row trying to parse second hand…dumb! A bit of a syndrome…parsed tokay as thou minus hou (little time) plus okay…talk about looking for trouble! But yes, a Brendan masterpiece today, with the usually irksome cross-refs being pretty smooth. So, filled the grid, but with a couple of lumps. The X opposite IV, alar the adjective, the sum of 1 to 12, clock bean nut all being hits and the Cockney ‘oops all adding to the fun. Thanks Brendan and Eileen.

14. Agreed – lots of fun. Only now, though, do I realise that I entered some answers so confidently that I didn’t parse them� fully, so thanks for the reminder – and the help – Eileen. When I had THE and CLOCK and saw 21a, I immediately wanted to put ROCK AROUND in for 13a and 17a – but they wouldn’t fit. Had I misremembered the song? So in went ROCKING ROUND, and a glance at 17a confirmed that one as correct. But it also left all sorts of problems with 2d and 13d – until I eventually looked closer at the actual clue for 13a. I also added the clue numbers for 21/11 to get 69, and was puzzled why that gave 78 – until I twigged to the sum around the clockface. Thanks for the entertainment, Brendan.

15. A real treat. After struggling to get on Imogen�s wavelength yesterday, this was the opposite. And one where the theme really helped keep things moving so I never got to the put it down and come back later stage. I couldn�t quite fully parse ALARM (hadn�t come across ALAR and got stuck on it being �a la� for �like�) but with the theme what else could it be?! TRYSTERS was fun and tricky since I initially wanted TRYST to be the meeting between lovers as part of the wordplay, rather than the lovers who are meeting being the definition.

    Thanks Brendan for a very enjoyable puzzle and for the blog.

16. Great puzzle with flawless clueing, with a theme spotted early on which in no way made it any easier to solve.
    I failed to parse OOPS, so thanks for that Eileen.
    Loved the double anagram in RETENTION, and the simple but very clever SAND.
    Had to check on HOURIS, but it had to be that, and didn�t know the alternative name for Scotch Bonnet, but again it was elegantly clued.
    All round a cracker of a crossword!
    Thanks Brendan and Eileen for the lovely blog. Stay safe!

17. Great link for old rockers, Eileen. Mrs ginf saw him in ’56, Melbourne Town Hall (‘Mr’ ginf was just 8 at the time!). The crowd went absolutely wild, she said, and the punditry were aghast of course.

18. A great puzzle that was indeed not spoiled at all by too much cross-referencing, the topic being something that everyone knows something about. I agree with Eileen’s summing up and Mark’s run through the highlights of the puzzle. SEVENTY-EIGHT was my favourite among many good and clever clues.
    Thanks to Brendan and Eileen.

19. Was beginning to get a bit irritated by all the cross-referencing, with the obvious time theme. But when I realised that I had been subtly led to the quite brilliant 21 11 solution, that drew things perfectly together, it almost made me gasp with pleasure. Wonderful, Brendan, take a bow…

20. Another lovely puzzle – I can’t believe I missed the parsing of 78!

    Thanks to Brendan and Eileen.

21. Can someone explain the working round the clock/seventy eight in even more basic terms please?!

22. Hi Patrick @21 – the numbers on a clock face – I+2+3+4+5 … 12 add up to 78.

23. TassieTim @14: You’re definitely not the only one to have experimented with totting up the clue numbers for 21,11.� To make matters worse, having arrived at the unparsed solution, I was walking the dogs when it came to me that 78 might be the total of the clue numbers and, of course, I didn’t have the crossword to hand.� Cue a quicker return route and a stare at the clue again, only to find that, yes, they came to 69.� Then I went searching for the missing 9.� And only then did I think to add up the dial: what a delightful coincidence that the result is precisely what the setter needed.

24. Patrick @ 21. We have 1+2+…+12 =78. There is also a well-known formula for this:� �1+2+…+n=n(n+1)/2. So for n=12, we get 6 x 13=78. Discovered by the pre-eminent mathematician Gauss as a schoolboy when asked to sum the numbers 1 to 100 as a class exercise. His teacher could not believe he had the right answer so quickly.

25. This was hard work! I was slow to start especially with the various cross-references of clues.

    Like SEVENTY EIGHT, UNVERSED
    Did not parse: CLOCK (bean or nut), 15d SECOND HAND, and ROUND = some toast – never heard that before.
    Failed SAND
    New (or a forgotten word): Habanero, alar = wings

    Thanks B+S

26. Oh, that one was satisfying.

    The theme led to some good misdirection, too — I assumed TIME for 24d, and only realised my mistake when struggling with the crossers.

27. What a great puzzle! Time to reflect …

    I especially liked SEVENTY-EIGHT and SAND (LOI).

    Thanks Brendan and Eileen.

28. Nice point about the paradox of Time, Mark@10. I’d love to riff on intensity and duration in languages, but it’d be amateurish and self-indulgent (I do miss Anna!).

29. patrick@21 :� Hi, fellow sufferer here: I couldn’t work out why people kept saying it added up to 78 either.� :-)� Until I got to TassieTim@14, who explained that you have to work your way round the clockface adding up those numbers.� Duh!� I did SO enjoy this puzzle!� Thanks to Brendan, to Eileen for the excellent blog and to all the other commenters for your help.� Respect.

30. I was put off this crossword from the start by all the cross references, even though the theme was obvious. I eventually completed it, missing a few parses. FIST was last one in, guessing that it was in the banner of a UK daily paper. New words were ALAR, HOURIS and HABANERO.

31. What a fab puzzle today – really enjoyed that; quickest one yet (a “2 coffee-ier” and 4 digestives).� Thanks!

32. Ah so… It was a waste of time trying to shoehorn like=a la into 10a, wasn’t it (not that I knew ALAR anyway). Likewise a waste of time adding up 13+19+19+20 and not arriving at 78. As for working out the opposite of X, or the full complications of SECOND HAND…
    Brendan 4, Gladys 0. Too clever by half for me.

33. Loved this from start to finish. The linking clues just helped things slip into place. Loi was reactive. Don�t know why I made such heavy weather of that one. Favourites were Bestridden and sand.
    Thank you Brendan. Thanks Eileen for the blog, especially for pointing out the meaning of alar, a new word for me.

34. Sometimes I come across a puzzle like this that reminds me of why I’ve loved cryptic crosswords so much and for so many years. It was a pleasure from start to finish, with too many clever clues for me to single any out. The effort and ingenuity that must have been needed to compile such a puzzle is admirable. Thanks, Brendan, for providing such a fine diversion while I wait for it to stop raining at the test match.

35. To encounter Tokay outside crosswords, can I thoroughly recommend the film “Dean Spanley”, a forgotten gem with Sam Neill and Peter O’Toole. It’ll tell you everything you want to know about the wine.

    And the dirty sweeps in 28 across happily evoked Cymbeline. “Golden lads and girls all must / as chimney-sweepers, come to dust”

36. Clearly I’m in a minority – I didn’t enjoy this much. I like a theme that I can totally fail to spot until the grid is filled but no chance of that here. Faves were TRYSTERS &� BESTRIDDEN. WORDS felt very familiar – have we had something similar recently? And the less said about SAND the better. Cheers all

37. JeremyR @35 – I remember singing that song at school – but it was Dick Van Dyke who immediately sprang to mind when I did the puzzle. 😉

38. My goodness this was clever. I’m rather disappointed with myself for not getting the 78, as I’m quite good at sums, but that is a small price to pay. High quality stuff from a setter who sometimes gives me trouble.

39. Thank you Eileen, you are sharp as a tack. Needed you for 4 parsings …

40. The “78” clue was excellent as others have said; and the theme helped of course. I’m one who didn’t parse ALARM (never come across alar, and I’m sure Brendan intended the “a la”=”like” sidetrack. I thought “wings, 22 down” might be a clumsy reference to the first and last letters of 22 down, until I solved the latter). A dnf as I had JALAPENO at 7d (unparsed of course).

    It was all great until the last two down clues, neither of which I much liked; I see OOPS as something said when someone makes a minor error, rather than when alarmed; and I just thought the definition of SAND a bit convoluted – a matter of taste of course, as I see others liked that one.

    Thanks both

41. Very nice. Some difficult parsing, particularly with TRYSTERS I thought, which was fair given that several clues became much easier as the theme became obvious.

    My favourites were the clues that fitted the theme even if the solution didn’t necessarily seem to on the face of it. SAND was nice (spent way too long trying to use SUN as in a sundial before the penny dropped), SEVENTY-EIGHT was ingenious, but I really liked REACTIVE and the use of IV as X’s opposite number. I have a feeling I’ve seen something like this before – maybe a Paul? – where it was a bit of a stretch. Here, I think the theme put it just in the sweet spot.

    A pleasure from start to finish.

42. Re the philosophical digression, try typing �time is�/time is a�/time is the…� into google, followed by various letters of the alphabet.� I reckon there�s plenty there for one of Qaos�s ghost themes.

    [Hint:� it might be better to avoid �time is b�� – you�ll be given a choice between �(What) time is Britain�s Got Talent on� and �(What) time is Boris speaking tonight�.]

    Hmmm in Oz @24: thanks for including the formula, and the Gauss story.� At the risk of treading on the toes of the real mathematicians here, I�ve always liked n(n+1)/2, and even more so because you can demonstrate how it works so simply.� In the case of 12, just write 1,2,3,4,5,6 along one row, then 12,11,10,9,8,7 underneath.� Then do the addition sums, and there you have it: 6 (half of 12) lots of 13.

    Back to the crossword: nothing but praise, except I was another who fell into the jalape�o trap.

    Many thanks Brendan and Eileen.

43. After reading (regular!) commemts comparing quiptic & cryptic I decided to have a try at this today. What fun! Thanks to clear 15^2 explanations and your comments I am on a steep learning curve. Thanks to all.

44. The obvious theme and the helpful interconnected clues made for a quick solve, so a lot of the entertainment was in the parsing. Nothing wrong with that, fun is fun. I failed to parse ALARM and OOPS, so thanks to Eileen for those, and thanks to Canthusus @1 for pointing out the triple definition, which I missed. [After the quadruple definition we had here recently, I recalled a quintuple from Arachne some time ago and wondered if that had ever been equaled. Does anyone know?]

    I’m with beaulieu @40 regarding OOPS, which I don’t think of as an expression of alarm. [A man installing carpeting at our house once remarked that in cutting wall-to-wall cerpeting there were just two types of mistakes: ‘oops’ and ‘oh my God!’] Not much of a quibble in what was for me the most enjoyable puzzle in at least the last few weeks. Thanks, Brendan.

45. Brendans clues are like the jewels are (I would imagine)in a Rolex.

    But what would I know, not having worn a watch for 40 years.

    Thanks Brendan and Eileen

46. About those cross-references … Years ago, in the 70’s and 80’s, the only access I had to Guardian puzzles was to the one in the print weekly, which I bought at my local second-hand bookstore, Charing Cross Road.� (And if you don’t know the lovely book 84 Charing Cross Road, by Helene Hanff, about her decades-long relationship with a second-hand bookshop at that address, find it immediately! It also became a film, which did a better job with the book than most.)� The puzzles were always Araucaria’s, and they often include tangled webs of cross-references, as well as long quotations that took up many entries.� I haven’t seen any of that since I discovered the onllne puzzles, even those by� Araucaria — anyone else remember them?

    AC87 @15 — i followed both your wrong paths for ALARM and TRYSTERS — thought they were about “a la” and the meeting rather than the meeters.� I also added the clue numbers in 21, 11.

    Mark @23 I would have thought the walk was precisely what the setter needed, if your dog is a setter!

    Delightful puzzle, I agree.� Thanks for the elucidations, Eileen.

47. I am still in the dark about how ROUND = toast. Is it a British thing?

48. Thanks for Alar, Eileen, and for bringing to mind childhood times at my grandad’s house listening to dad’s old 78s including the Bill Haley classic. Sadly this puzzle also brought to mind the time I was dared to eat a whole raw habanero, having never seen one before. 2 hours of sweat and tears followed.

    I really enjoy the way Brendan uses what may or may not be cross-references so cleverly – also that he gives you just enough hope, in terms of varying difficulty levels, to keep plugging away and making progress.� Today the theme/linking helped me to get some eg ALARM CLOCK without really understanding the wordplay. I always thought nut meant headbutt vs clock meaning punch (or notice) but happy to defer to those of you with more experience of these things. Anyway this was a wonderful escape(ment) from the daily grind, so thanks Brendan.

49. Iroquoi@ 47, maybe someone will beat me to it – but basically yes, a round of bread is one slice from a loaf (if you ask me) or two slices (if you ask my wife) because I think in terms of toast and she thinks in terms of sandwiches. Maybe that’s not too clear – not even to us as we had a mild disagreement over it just the other day (cf Grantinfreo@13 not having heard the term for years). We are both British (my wife and I, not speaking for ginf). I would imagine that a round being one slice off a loaf is similar to a round of ammo being one bullet from a magazine or whatever. I expect someone out there has the full story!

50. Valentine @46: ? Very droll.� Actually, one is a terrier which is certainly the spirit I need for some setters.� Actually, come to think of it, spirits help with nearly all!

51. Now that’s odd: I copied and pasted an emoji (crying with laughter, if anyone’s interested) and it’s turned out as a ?� What weird computer software protocol delivers that?

52. Gazzh @49 – I’ve always been confused by this. To me, a round of bread (or toast) is one slice of bread but I know other people call two slices of bread made into a sandwich a round. I’ve learned to be careful when making sandwiches for other people and asking how many rounds they’d like.

53. Mark @51 – this might help. 😉

54. Eileen @53 (I assume it’s you): Many thanks.� I’m not that big a user so doubt I’ll ever get around to using some of them.� And there’s an interesting – albeit probably rather predictable – debate about their use dating from 2009 in the link.

55. Not ashamed to admit there was a bit of poking about at some of these, but hey ho – it’s how you learn. First time I’ve spotted a theme, although as everyone else has noted it was rather unmissable! Thanks Eileen for the parsing of those I didn’t get off my own bat – I got HABANERO in but didn’t spot BAR = BAN, and unware that of bean in the sense of hitting something.

     

    Pretty sure TOKAY is the spelling used in Pullman’s Dark Materials, btw, though I wouldn’t swear to it without checking.

56. Nice puzzle, thanks Eileen and Brendan. Another one here who’d never heard of alar and thought ALARM was parsed via “a la” and R for wings must be yet another bloody cricket thing.

57. Thanks, Gazzh and Eileen, for the explanation on rounds of bread. In the US, most bread is not round, so calling a slice a round would be odd. I can see using it if one were slicing from a boule or baguette, though…

58. Most of our loaves are not round, either, Iroquois – which adds to the confusion!

59. Gazah @49 -“because I think in terms of toast and she thinks in terms of sandwiches”� Isn’t this more dependent on the time of day?� Breakfast would be toast; either lunch or tea (depending on your poshness/Northerness) would be sandwiches IMvHO.

60. Iroquois @57 and Eileen @58: and some of those that are round are sliced crosswise i.e. not resulting in round slices.� I’m not convinced the shape of the loaf gave it’s name to the ’round’.� More inclined to think it’s the idea of being part of a sequence, which slices taken from a loaf (or carved from a joint, resulting in a round of beef) tend to be.

    During one or other of the food crises we experienced growing up in the 60’s and 70’s my mother started baking loaves of bread, for some reason, in large terracotta flower pots.� Which did result in round loaves.� Well, OK, truncated cones which the mathematicians on here will be able to name.� And those we did slice into rounds.� There was generally a battle over who got the crust with the nobble on the end where the hole in the base of the pot was.

61. Virtuosic! Clever, but solvable too.

62. MaidenBartok@59 that could be it, or maybe it is that I am a midlander and she is from the heart of the stockbroker belt? So many possibilities!

    In any case, over here most bread is some sort of elliptoid/lozenge shape from which it is almost impossible to produce a decent sandwich (maybe only a round or two from the very centre of the loaf), with only “toast bread” being perfectly square, without even the crusty ends, and sold wrapped in plastic.

    While I am digressing(sorry everyone), essexboy@42, while I was never a real mathematician I remember a generalisation of your method, along with mathematical induction, being the two used in proving the formula when we were introduced to the concept of formal mathematical proof early in A level further maths (I think).

    Back to the crossword – no one has popped up complaining that OURS and HOURS sound different to them, or am I tempting fate?

63. Thanks Brendan for a beauty — I thought this was an exquisitely clued crossword that provided many satisfying answers — favorites included FORGOTTEN, UNVERSED, MINUTE, and FIST. I enjoyed INSPECT — for once “cricket” referred to an insect and not the game I know nothing about. Thanks Eileen for the blog — I couldn’t parse OOPS but I figured out the rest, a testament to the clarity of the clueing.

64. In my experience, a round of toast is enough triangles to fill the toast rack, the size of which would then be the limiting factor. A round of sandwiches is enough for everybody. The clue was definitely well advised to leave it as “some”.

65. Got everything but SAND – just couldn’t figure that out! And I admit I’ve never heard of “round” toast – is this common British usage?
    Some lovely surfaces here – INSPECT, TOKAY, AT ONE TIME…
    Thanks Brendan and Eileen

     

66. On the ’round’ debate – eg Gazzh @49, Eileen @52 – I’m surprised nobody has yet cited Chambers. It says a round is …”a whole slice of bread or toast; a sandwich made of two complete slices of bread.”

67. I agree with Eileen that too much cross-referencing in a puzzle can be irritating (to say the least), but when it’s done as skilfully as this it’s another matter altogether. The way it all fits together is sublime, not least the nice touch of the crossing HOURS/HOURIS. It took me a while to understand SEVENTY EIGHT (13 + 17 + 19 + 20 stubbornly refused to add up to anything other than 69) – and the pay-off was more than worth it when the penny dropped.

    I hesitate to call a crossword puzzle a masterpiece as it seems a bit hyperbolic, but if any puzzle in recent times deserves that accolade, this is it.

68. cruciverpophile @67: “I hesitate to call a crossword puzzle a masterpiece as it seems a bit hyperbolic…”� Looking back at my early comment @2 I’m afraid I piled straight on in there with the m word in my first sentence!� Thank Goodness this proved to be the exception to the rule!

69. Hi cruciverbophile @67 and Mark @68 – I’m totally with you. I’ve only fully appreciated this puzzle as the day went on, after being in a rush to post the blog this morning.

    I’ve said more than once about a puzzle I’ve blogged that the whole is more than the sum of its parts and that’s certainly true of this one. Brendan is an absolute master of grid-filling and this is another fine example. I’m so glad that it was well received.

    Median @66 – the discussion here (and if you google ’round(s) of bread / toast’, you’ll find pages more) proves that, pace Chambers, we all know what we mean by a round of bread!

     

70. Mark @68 – I wasn’t having a dig at your post, and hope I didn’t give that impression. You were quite right to call this one a masterpiece without any of my mealy-mouthed qualification 🙂

     

71. Thanks Eileen, great blog for a great puzzle.

    Not being familiar with the song you refer to, I just took 78 to mean simply the old 78 rpm record(s).

    (Then came the 45 rpm and the 33 rpm)

72. I am glad most of you liked this:I thought it was like pulling teeth and I’m surprised I persisted with it. Still,I did. SEVENTY EIGHT was FOI without working anything out. I’ve still got some of mine but alas not the Bill Haley which was the first record I ever possessed.
    I usually enjoy Brendan but I didn’t enjoy this much or his previous offering come to that!
    Tomorrow is another day!

73. Hi ilippu @71 – sorry if I misled you: of course the answer is, simply, ‘old record’, as indicated, but, for us olds, the context inevitably evoked ‘Rock around the clock’, so I couldn’t not mention it. [Have you really never heard of it?]

    Peter Aspinwall @72 – all I can say is, ‘Better luck tomorrow’.

74. I had a merry time with 24a, having neglected to solve 24d first: “eschew tea, as we hear” looked like a homophone to me. It had to be S+CHOO+T. What kind of word was that? And “left behind”? Behind what? SCHOOLT__? Something to do with going to bed early on a school night, perhaps. Even when the penny finally dropped, it didn’t help that I could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve been in bed by 10pm since I exited childhood. Ah well. I felt better after taking a couple of ibuprofen.

    Thanks Brendan for the pain in my head, and Eileen for disabusing me about the (obvious but unparsed) JALAPENO at 7d.

75. Cruciverbophile @70: no offence was taken in the slightest. I was pulling my own leg! Your comment just made me smile when I reflected on my own, earlier, contribution.

76. Thanks bodycheetah for making me feel better about being alone in not enjoying this. It took me ages to get the theme and even with Eileen�s blog I didn�t get how SEVENTY EIGHT could be got from those numbers. Thanks to later posters I now do. Far too abstruse for me. I enjoyed BESTRIDDEN once I eventually saw it. I don�t seem to be on Brendan�s wavelength.

77. Thanks to Eileen and Brendan

    In 12a I think the def includes “happening”.

    21,11 At first I thought there was a misprint and “9” had been omitted. Very nice.

    24a I don’t understand why “bedtime”, or “before bedtime”, means “ten”.

    13d I saw as “second” = “s”, and “initially” as indicating which “s” is “pulled out”.

    19d A bugbear, but I can’t see how “finally” extends back beyond “this”.

    All in all a classic.

78. Dansar @77

    12ac – I agree – careless error: for the sake of the archive, I’ll amend the blog.

    24ac: I think 10.00 pm might be traditionally considered ‘bedtime’. We have ‘one’ for lunchtime and ‘four’ for teatime fairly often, I think. Admittedly, ancient as I am, I usually go to bed nearer 11.00 – but Brendan did add a question mark. I didn’t give it a thought.

    13dn: it did strike me that we see S for second pretty frequently but I decided not to comment on the additional wordplay.

    19dn: I don’t see the problem: �’Lovers meeting check out half past nine for this, finally’: the wordplay splits into three elements: check out / half past / nine for this finally – TRY (check out) + half of [pa]ST + last letters (finally) of [nin]E [fo]R [thi]S – as in the blog.

    .

79. Eileen, do not worry too much about Dansar�s objection to 19d.
    It�s that multiple fodder thing again.
    Dansar often says he doesn�t understand it but he actually does – however does not fully accept it.

    Philistine for one uses it all the time – perhaps he�s the one who introduced it, who knows? Sometimes it feels like that.
    I even seen it in Times crosswords, if I remember well.
    The Times They Are A-Changing.
    As it should, also in Crosswordland.

80. Thanks, Sil @79 -� with so much appreciation all day, I’m not in the least worried about Dansar’s objection. It wouldn’t be 15� if we didn’t have some objections, however late in the day.

    Must go now – it’s near my bedtime. :-)� Good night all.

81. Masterful. And hugely enjoyable – especially 15d, 18d, 5d and the delightful 78!
    Many thanks to Brendan and Eileen.

82. Lovely puzzle, thanks Eileen and Brendan.
    Re the multiple fodder thing: ” We open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 10a.m. to 4 p.m.”

83. Eileen@78
    There was I thinking that you would be awake at midnight or whenever the day’s puzzle becomes available, eager to start your blog. Anyway, thanks for this one, especially 7d where I too had an unparsed jalapeno. Thanks to Brendan also.

84. Pino @83 – you’re not wrong.

85. Mark @60 — the chopped-off cone you’re looking for is a frustum, sometimes misspelled as a frustrum.

    Van Winkle @64 toast racks are one of the British customs most baffling to me.� Given that most of us (I assume) like toast to be hot, so the butter melts and just for general yumminess, why devise something that insures it will get cold as fast as possible?

86. Sil @79

    No, I don’t understand it. I know that it is a common device accepted by most setters and solvers, but that in itself does not explain how, in English, “finally” extends back beyond “this”.

    Gonzo @82’s example works but of course that employs a crucial “and”.

87. I know what you mean, don’t worry, and when I set puzzles myself I am always thinking of ways to avoid this.

    But it is nowadays a device that seems to be fully accepted and so, I would say, go with it … or not, of course.

     

88. Only just started the puzzle today. Lots of head scratching but very enjoyable. Thanks to Eileen and Brendan.

89. Love Brendan�s puzzles. Very glad of Eileen�s explanations for a couple that I wasn�t sure of.

    I do agree with Dansar though that for �finally� to mean taking the last letter of several words there should be an �and� in the list of words.

    Valentine – the point of a toast rack is to keep the toast from getting soggy as it cools.

90. SAND was one of my favourite clues ever. One quibble: I think for 17 “drinks some toast” would have been better.

91. I had SMUT for 8d. A smut is an emission or discharge so an issue. Tums is an antacid and, in my view, a great healer so when it is raised you get SMUT. Shame no one will read this to realise that you all got it wrong with EMIT. Ha ha

92. Help. I got 15d through inspiration rather than reason & still don’t understand the parsing other than the theme link.

93. Oh damn, just seen how it works 🙂

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