Guardian Cryptic 28,202 by Pan

by

A pleasant and nicely-clued start to the week – my favourites were 13ac, 17ac, 2dn, and 14dn. Thanks to Pan

 

ACROSS
1 HOT-WATER BOTTLE Misguided betrothal to wet bedfellow? (3-5,6)
(betrothal to wet)*
8 LEAPT Jumped in meadow for exercises (5)
LEA=”meadow” + PT (physical training)=”exercises”
9 APOSTASY Defection by saint who gets answer in a bunch of flowers (8)
ST (saint) + A (answer); inside A POSY=”a bunch of flowers”
11 MONGREL Strange Greek lemon’s a hybrid (7)
(Gr lemon)*; using Gr. as an abbreviation for “Greek”
12 MARTINI Chap beginning to imbibe cocktail (7)
MARTIN=male name=”Chap” + the beginning letter of I[mbibe]
13 RIGHT Proper outfit to go with odd hats? (5)
RIG=”outfit” + odd letters from H[a]T[s]
15 TURNROUND Volte-face occasioned by spell of dizziness linked to drinks ordered from the bar (9)
TURN=”spell of dizziness” + ROUND=”drinks ordered from the bar”
17 TAOISEACH Truth and openness initially is displayed by every Irish prime minister (9)
initials of T[ruth] A[nd] O[penness] + IS + EACH=”every”
20 GREER Complaining re Erica’s inclusion as a feminist writer (5)
Germaine Greer is the writer [wiki]
hidden in [Complainin]G RE ER[ica]
21 OMNIBUS Old Frenchman to chuck out retro American vehicle (7)
O (old) + M (monsieur, Frenchman) + BIN=”chuck out” reversed/”retro” + US=”American”
23 LASAGNA Lecturer going to a talk about new Australian food (7)
L (lecturer) + A + GAS=”talk” reversed/”about” + N (new) + A (Australian)
25 ESCARGOT Scare cook contracted to produce snail on the menu (8)
(Scare)* + GOT [e.g as in caught a disease]=”contracted”
26 ROAST Recipe with stirred oats for lunch on Sunday? (5)
R (recipe) + (oats)*
27 PLASTIC SURGEON Doctor stupidly cuts organ with piles (7,7)
(cuts organ piles)*
DOWN
1 HALF-MARATHON Somehow halt Mo Farah before end of modern running event (4-8)
(halt Mo Farah)* + end letter of [moder]N
2 TRAIN Sequence observed in perfect rainbow (5)
hidden in [perfec]T RAIN[bow]
3 ARTHRITIS Complaint about Iris Murdoch’s last tart (9)
(Iris h tart)*, where the h is the last letter of [Murdoc]h
4 EPAULET Finally solve Paul’s ‘Alien with an American shoulder piece‘ (7)
US spelling of ‘epaulette’
final letter from [solv]E + PAUL + ET (extraterrestrial)=”Alien”
5 BLOOMER Mistake involving a flower (7)
double definition
6 TATAR Mongolian warrior giving thanks to sailor (5)
TA=”thanks” + TAR=”sailor”
7 LASSITUDE Languor shown as female setter ruined duet (9)
LASS=”female” + I=”setter” + (duet)*
10 KINDERGARTEN Nicer information about pictures of childcare facility (12)
KINDER=”Nicer” + GEN=”information” around ART=”pictures”
14 GROUNDSEL Plant found in bog round Sellafield (9)
hidden in [bo]G ROUND SEL[lafield]
16 REGISTRAR Hospital doctor‘s a record holder (9)
double definition
18 ASSAGAI Spear featuring in Anglo-Saxon epic given to Icelandic leader (7)
AS (Anglo-Saxon) + SAGA=”epic” + I[celandic]
19 HALITUS Breath exhaled from a lush, drunk after swallowing vermouth (7)
(a lush)*; around IT=”vermouth” as in ‘gin and it’
22 BEARS Watering holes draw in European animals (5)
BARS=”Watering holes” around E (European)
24 GRAVE Serious consequence of snog at last party (5)
last of [sno]G + RAVE=”party”

 

81 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,202 by Pan”

  1. Oooh!  I’m first up!   Loved this today – very quick solve which makes this newbie happy.  FOI 17ac TAOISEACH. LOI was 24d but down to the effect of coffee number wearging off.

    Week 5 of my new-found love of cryptics so thank-you Pan and manehi for the lovely start to the week.

  2. Fun and gentle start to the week, leaving time for the Genius today! I thought Pan missed a trick in “epaulet” as “Paul” is also an alien in a movie. Not as well known as the Spielberg one perhaps, but hey it has Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in it.

    Thanks Pan and manehi.

  3. I thought this was a bit too straightforward – took me less time than either yesterday’s Everyman or the Quiptic this morning which, given the remit if those puzzles, seems like this could have been a little tougher (or indeed swapped with the Quiptic). Having said that it was well clued with my only real dislike being “Paul’s” in 4d which leads to EPAULSET unless I’m missing something.

    Thanks Pan and manehi

  4. Thanks Pan and manehi.

    A quick solve, as MaidenBartok said.

     

    6 years since we saw assegai in a Guardian crossword – used to see it much more frequently.

  5. A few new words for me today; 9a, 14d, 18d & 19d but all fairly clued so easily solvable.
    Liked that ‘wet’ was on double duty in 1a!
    Nice and quick Monday offering from Pan. And thanks Manehi, too!

  6. Thanks both. And thanks to Pan for the easy guide to spelling TAOISEACH, which I always struggle with.

  7. I liked HOT WATER BOTTLE (1a) which made me smile! Winter here in Oz and I now live in a warm house, but I well remember cold country town winters as a child, when water bottles were wonderful!

    Germaine GREER (20a) certainly influenced me a lot when I was a younger woman.

    The nonsensical surface didn’t make any sense at all, but I have still sent the clue to my brother the PLASTIC SURGEON (27a) for a cold solve. Poor guy has been operating all day – I know this because he had trouble when earlier on, I sent him the clue for 16d REGISTRAR (he tried to make it INTERNIST but it didn’t work).

    ARTHRITIS (3d) was fun (though the beginnings of it in my right knee and hip are not!), given that it was clued using the name of one of my favourite authors.

    Thanks to Pan and manehi.

  8. [P.S. Shirl@6, I agree re the spelling of TEOISEACH. Maybe if I break it down as Pan has in this clue, I will now remember it when I have to attempt it again.

    I liked that clue, but was nevertheless hoping that the answer was something to do with a candle, as I recall that when I toured Ireland in 2002 – my Mum’s one and only overseas trip in her entire 92 years – we saw that candle lit by Mary Robinson in the window of the PM’s residence in Dublin.]

  9. I enjoyed ARTHRITIS and that’s probably the only time I’ll say ever that 🙂

    I only recently discovered, via this forum, the joys of Iris Murdoch

    I thought there were some very classy surfaces and this would have made an excellent quiptic

    EPAULET seemed so out of kilter with the rest of the setting that i thought I must have missed something

    Musically we have post-grunge dad-rockers TRAIN to delight you with their Drops of Jupiter

    Cheers all

  11. Thought APOSTASY was nicely put together, and this was also my last one in this morning. A decent challenge for a Monday, I thought.

  13. …and for once, because of the very clear cluing at 17ac there could be no scratching of the head about how exactly to spell TAOISEACH…

  14. Nice but one or two things i did not like. What is “for” doing in 8 ac? 11 ac looks like the dreaded

    indirect anagram. I too learned to spell TAOISEACH from a crossword clue. In that case the TAO

    referred to the way in Eastern philosophy.

  15. Last one in – GROUNDSEL. I was shying away from that clue, thinking “that’s going to be a hard one to put together” – a GLOW from Sellafield? I don’t like ‘plant’ definitions, as there are so many to choose from and I don’t have a lot of interest in them. And then the inclusion jumped out at me. Very nice. Lots of good, solid clues in this – very enjoyable. Thanks, Pan and manehi.

  16. Both 1a HOT-WATER BOTTLE and 1d HALF MARATHON had very nice surfaces and clever anagrams, and it all flowed smoothly from there.

    I thought ASSAGAI (18d) was spelt assegai (as indeed Dave Ellison spells it @4), but on checking I see that both are ok.

    mij @14: I think it’s generally accepted that if all the letters are in the clue, as they are in 11a, then it’s ok to use a recognised abbreviation as here.

    Many thanks Pan and manehi.

  17. As others have already said, this was a gentle start to the week and we enjoyed it very much.

    Liked BEARS and LASAGNA.

    I feel confident spelling TAOISEACH now…. saying it is another story.

    Thanks to Pan and manehi.

  18. Well it was plain sailing for this newbie, with six in a first reading and then a personal record. I always thought that ASSAGAI was Zulu for a short stabbing spear. GRAVE was last. I liked HOT-WATER BOTTLE. HALITUS was new.

    Thanks Pan and manehi.

  19. ThAnks Pan. I enjoyed this. My LOI was apostasy only solved after I finally cracked and thesaurused ‘defection’ after failing to think of posy.

    Thanks manehi for your useful blog. I laughed at 24d GRAVe for its surface. And enjoyed 19d HALITus for a new word which was gettable from knowing halitosis. And it taught me IT for Vermouth. Only question is whether TUrNROUNd is a word? also is ASSEGAI an allowed spelling for aSSEGai which I put in and then puzzled about the epic element.

  20. Dave Ellison @4 What you say is true about assegai, but today’s answer was ASSAGAI, which has not appeared since Gordius clued it in 2012, if the search I did was accurate. (Both spellings are allowed, but the wordplay today gives the A spelling, not E.)

    Dryll @5 I would hope that a hot water bottle would not be wet!

    mij @14 Surely Gr is a common enough abbreviation for Greek to make the anagram fodder quite clear.

  23. Brojo@17. For the pronunciation of Taoiseach, which I now know how to spell, I always think Teashop first. Many thanks to Pan and Manehi.

  24. MaidenBartok@1

    I too am a lockdown cryptic crosswords newbie. I really enjoyed this one and for the first time (with help from the crossword dictionary) I managed to complete the puzzle without using the reveal or consulting fifteen squared. Thanks a lot Pan – a lovely puzzle for a newbie on a Monday. It will be all downhiil from now on….

  25. I think I’ve tackled tougher puzzles from Pan in the past, though he is one of those who occasionally pick up the Monday slot as an alternative to Vulcan.  Interesting to see that, whilst a relatively straightforward solve, this hasn’t attracted anything like the criticism normally levelled on a Monday.  Pan is clearly doing something Vulcan doesn’t – but I can’t quite see what it is, apart from a general lack of double/cryptic definitions.  My only trouble was self-inflicted, having bunged in ‘turnaround’ without noticing that it was a letter too long (I wonder if that’s the alternative CanberraGirl @19 has in mind?) and then trying to find an alternative to registrar beginning with an A!

    I liked the three long anagrams and HOT WATER BOTTLE raised the same smile with me as with others.  And so did PLASTIC SURGEON.  Likewise, I found myself thinking as I solved TAOISEACH, I wouldn’t have been confident spelling it without the helpful guide in the clue.  HALITUS was unknown to me but must come from the same root as halitosis so was a confident bung (and nice to see ‘it’ clued differently, though it’s another dated usage.  What would you get if you ordered a gin and it in a bar today, I wonder?).  I think my COTD is GROUNDSEL: I share the general concern with obvious plant answers highlighted by TassieTim @15.  If it’s not rose, iris or celandine, I start to worry.  It was beautifully hidden.

    Thanks Pan and manahi for the blog

  27. Like others I enjoyed TAOISEACH, but my favourite aide-mémoire as regards spelling it is a clue from a few weeks ago (Philistine?) which was something to do with a short French bird being eaten by an equally Gallic upside-down cat.  Now I think of it I can’t make it parse properly.

    Anyway, fun puzzle, thanks Pan and manehi.

  28. Very enjoyable Quiptic-style puzzle. Just right for me on a Monday when I do two puzzles so cannot linger too long.

    Liked; BEARS, OMNIBUS (loi)

    NEW: ASSAGAI which was very fairly clued.

    Thanks Pan and manehi.

  29. @Mark, 25

    I’m not sure Pan is a he. I accept that the Guardian has a tendency to run an easy end puzzle on Mondays and this topic has been beaten to death on these threads. I am a little disappointed that the editor continues to publish puzzles aimed at beginners (some of whom have already commented today about how much they enjoyed this puzzle) which contain very loose elements. I won’t bother to list all of them but quite how “odd hats” gives us h,t is a mystery.

  30. This was straightforward, my only delay caused by stopping for 15 minutes to watch Ronnie polish off his match at The Crucible. His break-building has a fluent, almost poetic beauty which I felt was somewhat lacking from many of today’s clues. Three that contain the answer hidden is at least one too many for a single puzzle. I agree with mij @14 re “for” and also am troubled by “involving a” in 5dn. This, to me, implies that “a” should be inserted into another word; since this isn’t so, the phrase is redundant. AC87 @3, I also grimace at “Paul’s” in EPAULET, not just for the reason you give but more because (and I know I’ve moaned about this before) a word shouldn’t be used to clue itself, i.e. appear in both clue and answer, unless it’s a very short, simple word (e.g. the “is” in TAOISEACH is OK by me).

    Enough grumpy griping: I enjoyed RIGHT, PLASTIC SURGEON, HALF-MARATHON and the crafty definition in HOT-WATER BOTTLE. And thanks, Pan, for including four clues (12 & 15A, 19 & 22D) in recognition of the delayed re-opening of my local pub today.

  32. Quick, straightforward, nicely clued and fun. I enjoyed it.

    baerchen @ 29: I took it to mean the odd (not even) letters of HATS and don’t see anything wrong with that? But perhaps I’m missing something?

  35. @keyser soze

    Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. Of course I know that we are supposed to use the odd letters contained in the word “hats” to bung on the end of “rig” to give us RIGHT. My point is that “odd hats” does not instruct the solver to take only the odd letters. It is – in my opinion – way too loose and if puzzles like this are aimed at beginners then I think it is unfortunate to introduce bad habits. Other examples which have crept into G cryptics recently are first dog=d or something similar and (eg) in France = Rouen. There aren’t many moans about stuff like this any more because neither the editor nor enough solvers care, and that is a shame I think

  36. baerchen @29, the odd letters of hats ie the first and third are h and t.

    Good, classical clueing from Pan that clearly works well for new solvers and keeps older hands happy too. Didn’t know HALITUS but fairly clued and evidently shares a root with halitosis. And after two instances of TAOISEACH in a month, I think I can spell it now.

  40. Julie in Oz @7:  I had the same thought about the nonsensical surface at PLASTIC SURGEON.  Having come up with the perfectly good anagram fodder, I wonder why the setter didn’t go for something simple like Doctor treating piles, cuts organ  Easy when you’re half way there, isn’t it?

    I wonder how many times TAOISEACH will come up in crosswords before I learn how to spell it!

    Rapid but pleasant solve this Monday morning, many thanks, both.

  41. baerchen @35 (and Simon S @ 39) – I see what you mean now, as it is a little loose. I’m OK with it but fully respect your desire to see something with more structural rigour.

  42. Great crossword and blog; thanks Pan and manehi.  I had exactly the same experience as TassieTim @15 except GROUNDSEL was my favourite not my LOI, because to get a 9 letter word so well hidden brought a big smile and much respect.

    In general I found last week a bit of a slog so I am looking forward to a somewhat less intense week and one with a few more smiles from the likes of Arachne, Picaroon and/or Philistine.  Well we shall see!!

  43. baerchen@29: dunno why you’re mystified  – as manehi says -  h, t are the odd-numbered letters of ‘hats’

  44. @PeterM
    Had the wordplay read, for example, “odd characters in hats” I wouldn’t have posted my comment. Fortunately, we are all different as solvers…it’s just that I can’t enjoy a puzzle which contains such looseness.

  45. baerchen @29: thanks for the heads up.  My apologies to Pan if I unknowingly used the incorrect gender.

    [Having mused earlier as to the reaction one might receive if asking for a Gin and It, I’m reminded of a joyous occasion in my local pub when the landlord’s father was doing a stint behind the bar.  Two ladies who’d dined together approached the bar to order creme brulee for dessert.  The chap carefully wrote it down on a pad, put on his reading glasses ….. and then turned to scan the range of optics and liqueurs behind the bar in quest of it 😀 ]

  46. PeterM @43 and others re baerchen @29: It’s not that the odd letters of “hats” (or, indeed “hat”) are not “h” and “t” but that “odd hats” is not the same as “(the) odd (letters of) hats” where the missing “of” is the most critical. I think baerchen was slightly tongue-in-cheek with the question as this comes up regularly. A similar issue is when setters use forms such as “first time” to indicate “t” or “last night” similarly, as opposed to the more accurate “First of May” or “Last of all” for “m” and “l”. The missing “of” means that one has to accept a new form of grammar just for cryptic crosswords in order to make this work. Some people are not bothered by this but many are. The objection is, to my mind, absolutely valid, but somehow it does not bother me as much as it should!

  47. Gonzo @37: Thanks for the link! Must have taken a while to compile. I enjoyed it but can’t parse 23Ac.

  48. [2scotcheggs: follow the review/comment link and annotated solutions will appear tomorrow. Thanks for playing ]

  49. No real head-scratchers today, with the less familiar words all clearly clued. I had a couple of passing questions as I filled in TURNROUND and BLOOMER (Shouldn’t it be ‘turnaround’ and isn’t a mistake a blooper?), but in hindsight both work as written. Like TassieTim @15, I thought I’d have to go to google for the name of the plant until I finally noticed the inclusion. Like TheZed @46, I’m not bothered by instructions like ‘odd hats,’ even though I recognize that they don’t really work grammatically.

    Thanks to Pan and manehi.

  50. If how “odd hats” gives H T is a mystery I can’t imagine it would have kept Inspector Morse busy for long. Personally I was hoping that VERMOUTH was going to yield V

  53. I thought this was all fair and pretty straight forward, but just couldn’t see APOSTASY, so frustratingly it was a DNF.
    If some of the clueing is slightly loose (e.g h&t) it seems to me that goes with the territory in the Guardian; I’m all for it myself as it means the setters get a bit more leeway to have fun.

  54. Thanks Pan and manehi

    A rapid solve, but strictly a DNF as I had carelessly put assEgai. Interested in all the discussion on “odd hats” as it was my favourite, for the mental image it suggested!

    DaveinC – I would alwys say TURNAROUND as well.

    I agree with mij about the “for” in 8a, and the “in” is just as nonsensical!

  55. Interesting debate about crossword grammar. I can sympathise with baerchen’s position: that accepting “odd hats” when it should be something like “odd characters in hats” is some sort of slippery slope leading to total anarchy (apologies for the exaggeration). Others applaud the opportunity given by the Guardian’s apparent acceptance of looseness as an opportunity for the setters to have fun. Despite my sympathy I find myself more drawn to the latter camp, as it seems to me that if the setter is having fun (by stretching conventions and introducing heretical short cuts), there’s more scope for solvers to have fun too.

  56. muffin @54: My edition of Chambers has both TURNROUND and TURNAROUND, with no distinction as to meaning or use. The crucial difference in crossword land, of course, is that the latter has the wrong number of letters!

  57. I don’t want to bang on too much about this, but the suggestion that what I perceive to be “looseness” allows the setter to “have more fun” as suggested by HarpoSpeaks and SheffieldHatter grates with me a bit. In the interest of full disclosure, I set puzzles for the Indy (Knut), the FT (Julius) and the Telegraph Toughie (Hudson). I also have a weekly puzzle on TES magazine (Magnus) and I have a fair amount of fun setting them. There is something of a code of omerta in which compilers don’t comment on each others’ puzzles and perhaps I should join it, but I have been solving the G cryptic for 35 years and consider myself first and foremost a solver. Obviously, there is a body of opinion which is OK with the “as long as I get the answer, where’s the problem?” approach – but that’s never going to work for me.

  58. I count myself fortunate to have lived in Ireland for nearly 6 years, and would have qualified for an Irish passport at the time. If only I’d known what I know now.  TAOISEACH & tánaiste became fixed in my memory, along with other phrases learnt from RTE News like “Áras an Uachtaráin”, presumably where Julie (@8) and her mother saw a candle.  One learns to have a guess at Irish pronunciation after a while, and with practice I didn’t end up too bad at it. Cuímhe (keever, or kweever depending on the province) was my favourite name I came across.

  59. For me it’s not a case of “as long as I get the answer, where’s the problem?”, it’s recognising that “odd hats” is a concise contraction of “take the odd letters of hats”. I hope the Guardian continues to innovate and evolve – there are plenty of more conventional crosswords available for people who prefer them

  60. @bearchen & all those that followed, strangely for me the more I’ve done crosswords the more Ximinean my tastes have become – there’s something far cleverer about a clue that (to paraphrase) says exactly what it means while not meaning what it says, than a clue that says sort of what it means enough for a sensible solver to disregard the odd superfluous letter/word or fill in a blank.

    I think one issue is that obviously the extra small leap of logic required for a sloppier clue is easier to get away with as “fair” when the clue/puzzle itself is easier and the words and synonyms are generally more familiar. So while II doubt anyone was confused for long by “odd hats” to give HT or (my personal bugbear today) “Paul’s alien” to give PAULET, it does mean that these things appear more frequently in crosswords aimed at novice solvers who may never understand why (in certain opinions including mine) these clues are a bit of a cheat to get a smooth surface. A tough solve should be tough because the setter has outwitted you, not because s/he has played fast and loose with English grammar so you could never read the clue to say what it means.

  61. @59

    so if you saw “even though” you’d bung in “huh” would you? Incidentally, your earlier comment referencing Inspector Morse registered rather high on the patronising scale and does you no credit. Neither does your implied suggestion that I should sling my hook to another paper’s puzzles if I don’t approve of what you describe as “innovation and evolution”

  62. Sorry baerchen, I now realise my reply @31 was unintentionally patronising; I thought you might be a beginner who didn’t get the cryptic technique. Clearly (@57) this couldn’t be further from the truth! I admire your high standards regarding the purity of clueing, but I suppose we all have different ideas as to when a clue becomes unacceptably sloppy. I can accept “odd hats”, albeit somewhat grudgingly. I take bodycheetah’s (@59) point about the crossword evolving; after all, language itself does the same.

  63. Well, I thought I’d come in here as it seems to be turning a bit ugly. I thought this was very pleasant and the controversy about Hats seem a bit superfluous.
    Thanks Pan

  64. baerchen @57 I appreciate your comments and I especially appreciate your crosswords, particularly the prize in the FT on 7/24 — an impressive level of skill and wit — great work!

  65. Peter Aspinwall @63: the picture that often comes to my mind is that of a beach full of seals – or, better, sealions.  Occasionally some of the scarred old brutes (not to imply that any commenters here are elderly, brutish or physically flawed) get to grips with each other.  Noise, torn fur, a bit of blood and others in the vicinity scattering out of the way.  Then all turns calm again.  Occasionally a youngster tries itself out for size. Sometimes wins.  Often gets a bit of a mauling.  And, in the meantime, everyone else gets on with happily eating fish.

  66. @61 no, I wouldn’t just bung in … oh wait, are you being patronising for rhetorical effect perhaps? What’s sauce for the goose …

  67. Maybe if I write out TAOISEACH and GROUNDSEL one more time I’ll remember these apparent crossword staples next time and I can avoid the dreaded reveal button. Otherwise I had fun with this, favorites being HOT-WATER BOTTLE and LASSITUDE. Two new words, ASSAGAI and HALITUS were gratifyingly derived from the wordplay. Thanks to both.

  68. sheffield hatter@ 20

     

    Quite right! I hadn’t noticed the spelling with A instead of E – I did the crossword on line, and just pressed Reveal when I saw the answer was “assegai/assagai” from the crossers and the word “spear”, so didn’t check the rest of the clue.

    [Trouble writing that last sentence: it’s almost in the category of sentences impossible to write such as “there are three ways to spell  —–: two, to and too”.]

  69. Gonzo @37: Thanks for pointing us in the direction of your puzzle. I haven’t had time to tackle it yet, but I think that I spot a certain entertaining theme.

  70. I’m a little bothered by the looseness too. One that’s not been mentioned is the inclusion of “consequence” in 24. Perhaps it can be argued that it means “results from” and acts as a harmless linker, but I wasn’t fond of the clue.
    I erroneously associated “female setter” with Lassie in 7, so wondered where the last E had gone. I forget she was a collie anyway.
    Thanks, Pan and manehi

  71. [phitonelly @70

    Although Lassie was obviously intended as female, I have heard that “she” was always played by male dogs – more biddable, apparently!]

  73. Pulling the Mo Farah reference out of HALF MARATHON was the highlight for me. Also enjoyed the reference to feminist Erica (Jong).

    Still can’t spell TAOISEACH when confronted with a blank grid.

  74. phitonelly @70: surely in 24d, the answer, GRAVE, is the consequence or result of the wordplay?  That seems to work fine to me.

  75. [I’ve just done baerchen’s random alphabetical as Julius (16538 in FT) and don’t understand one of the clues – although the answer is clear from definition and crossers. “Putting down sodium, finish off household pest (7)”

    Everything else is ok, though it took me 16 out of 28 written on a scrap of paper before I could enter anything in the grid! Had to look up a couple of obscurities, which anyone who’s read my posts on here will know means a dnf in my book, but hey ho. The puzzle was set on 25th July, but there is no blog on this site yet. (If we’re not allowed to discuss it until it is blogged, apologies etc, and please don’t answer my query.)

    Has anyone done it? Good fun – I found it quite challenging but plenty of smiles and ahas to keep you going, and once I got into the grid it finished off nicely.]

  76. hi Sheffield Hatter

    The FT Saturday puzzles are blogged on here by Pete Maclean on the second Thursday after publication (although none of the papers is currently distributing prizes due to WFH issues, Fifteensquared has maintained the blogging cycles)

  77. sh @ 75

    FT Prize crosswords had an approx 10-day entry window, so the blog was published here on the second Thursday after publication.

    Even though they are not Prize puzzles at the moment the same rules apply and the FT waits the same length of time before publishing the solution.

    So discussion of the Julius is in purdah for another few days.

  78. Thanks baerchen and Simon S. I saw the puzzle was dated a week ago Saturday, so I’ll look for the blog this coming Thursday. Thanks.

  81. A gentle return after a summer break for me – almost too easy. “Assagai” had me puzzled for a few seconds as it’s a less common spelling than “assegai”, I think. “Halitus” is a new word to me, but easily guessed as I knew “halitosis”. And I’d rather forgotten the English spelling of “lasagna” after too many years in forn’ parts.

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