Guardian Cryptic 28,216 by Imogen

105 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,216 by Imogen”

1. Thanks for the explanations, especially of VISCOSITY, manehi. I agree it was a mixture of difficulties, particularly as I had to solicit help with TOERAG (a hard anagram for me), ZEALOT and MRNA – I wonder why Imogen chose that rather than several easier alternatives that would fit – maybe that is the answer.

   APRIL fooled me for a while – I was trying to fit a D in there for some time.

   Thanks also Imogen

2. Tough but fair, I think sums it up.

   I never know whether “extremely” (18a) means one end or both.  As it happens, with this clue it works both ways (on sensibly) since you can describe Midas as having either donkey ears or donkeys ears.

3. Delightful puzzle, slightly easier than of late, but a string of chuckle-making clues made up for that.  I knew I was going to enjoy it when 1A (MUGSHOT) was, appropriately, my first-one-in.

4. Plenty to enjoy here, and I learnt some new words/terms.

   Liked: GO BANANAS, MUGSHOT, GENIUS, APRIL, SPORTS CARS, ON SIGHT.

   New for me: mRNA; V1 = a small flying bomb powered by a simple jet engine, used by the Germans in the Second World War; zloty = Polish currency.

   Was gratified that all the hours of watching PMQs and https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Commons helped me to solved 9a BENIN.

   Did not parse 23d CONGO.

   Thanks B+S.

5. Thank you for the parsings Manehi: I needed help for several including VISCOSITY and ZEALOT. THREADY was new to me. Like Dave I was initially trying to get a D into APRIL. I thought the clue for ON SIGHT was clever; I had the definition as ‘as soon as’ but your idea of ‘as soon as clocked’ and then zhe homophone of ‘as soon as clocked in’ makes more sebse. Good fun and many thanks to Imogen also.

6. Amusing puzzle, and pleased to see that others also found it tricky in parts. SVP was a write-in, quickly followed by ON SIGHT, AWE and VISCOSITY. Then I hit a brick wall, not helped by being a bit pressed for time. It took an age to do the top half. I was fooled by APRIL, thinking that a lira was worth more than a penny. THREADY (I would have said threadbare) and the Audrey connection were new, but I found it without Shakespeare.

   I liked BENIN, BEL, SPORTSCAR and TOE RAG.

   Many thanks Imogen and manehi for the explanations of those I could not parse.

7. Self @ 6. Has to be easier using pencil and paper. Must start doing this!

8. Qua as ‘as’ quite familiar from reading bits of philosophy but didn’t come to mind, vaguely thinking aqua/water marine…a bit wet! Don’t know AYLI well, so Touchstone was a shrug. Never mind, nice sunny day, pottered happily along, but then finished up staring dumbly at the last 4 in the SE corner. In the end, looked up a list of currencies…oh yes of course, the zloty, then the last 3 were easy. Hey ho, can’t win ’em all. Pretty smooth puzzle though, thanks Imogen and Manehi.

   Oh yes and I missed how Mr Bean missed a bean..der. (He was good playing the Chariots of Fire theme at the Olympics…)

9. …and oh yes again, didn’t remember the proper Midas myth, only the kiddies’ version vaguely..didn’t he starve because you can’t eat gold?…so another shrug for donkeys ears..

10. A likeable puzzle from Imogen, and I agree with manehi and others above about MUGSHOT at 1a and SPORTS CARS at 13d being good clues. CONGO at 23d also got a tick from me. I also really liked TOUCHSTONE at 22a but then I am a Shakespearean tragic (but in this case not a tragedy but a comedy!). Much appreciated, Imogen and manehi.

11. Thanks Imogen and Manehi
    Mr Lowbrow here thought that Audrey’s husband was Alf Roberts. I’m off to listen to the Congos. Row fisherman row.

12. Thanks Imogen and manehi

    I didn’t parse DOUBLED or VISCOSITY, but found the rest fairly straightforward. Favorites MUGSHOT and ON SIGHT.

13. Some discussion “over there” about Audrey’s husband, My first thought was Forbes-Hamilton or De Vere, but ineither would fit…

14. Completed but missed a few parsings.

    DEBENTURE and MRNA were new to us. TOUCHSTONE was LOI because, like Penfold @11, we are lowbrow.

    Favourites were MUGSHOT and DONKEYSYEARS.

    Thanks Imogen and manehi!

15. Thumbs up here and thanks for blog, manehi

16. I thought the pro-Labour slogan might have been “Benn in!” Right country, wrong place…

17. Ah, I got fixated on “late” in “desolate” (8d) so couldn’t parse the rest of it. Thanks for unpacking that (and Mr Bean, Doubled and On Sight, which also eluded me).

18. Like rodshaw @3 and JinA @10, I ticked MUGSHOT and CONGO which use a similar device.  And I enjoyed AQUAMARINE, LONGBOAT and the excellent GO BANANAS, though I have a feeling I might have seen that construction before.  ON SIGHT has already been mentioned in despatches, along with VISCOSITY which is very clever.

    TOUCHSTONE was a dnk from the Audrey reference.  I’ve seen the play but didn’t recall the lady.  Like muffin @13, my first thought was To The Manor Born and then I looked up Hepburn who was married twice but not to a helpful surname.

    I have a very distant recollection of Tigger describing himself as “very, very good” at some point in the books but I can’t find reference to it online.  I may well be mistaken.  But, if it is there, it would make the clue even better than it already is.

    After the appearance of at least part of HarpoSpeaks yesterday, I see Sil pops up today.  I’m sure he’ll be gratified if he looks in later!

    Thanks Imogen for an entertaining puzzle and manehi for parsing MR BEAN which I’d answered but not solved.

19. 9a BENIN went in straight away, partly helped by the fact that Hilary Benn had appeared in last week’s Quiptic.  1a MUGSHOT was very good and raised a smile.  I also liked the Vikings’ club with a hole in it at 7d.

    I’m not sure that DONKEYS YEARS (18a) means “long ago” or “so long ago” – doesn’t it just mean a long time, as in “I’ve been doing this job for donkeys’ years”?

    Thanks Imogen and manehi.

20. An enjoyable puzzle – my favourites were MUGSHOT, DONKEY’S YEARS and TOUCHSTONE.

    I didn’t know the last one, MRNA, but it couldn’t have been more fairly clued.

    Many thanks to Imogen and manehi.

21. Didn’t parse 23d – for ages I had the answer to 9ac in written in as I had the N crossing – (Benn in … either Tony, or Hilary).

    Over a little quickly today.

22. Fairly flew through this, with one or two misgivings as mentioned above, but then came to a shuddering halt with DOUBLED, as I’m not a Bridge player. URNS last one in, therefore, after that. Very much liked the diverting scent of 14 Across…

23. I’m afraid I disagree with most of the comments so far – I thought this really difficult and mainly because it was badly clued!

    “doubled”: the bid is “double” and it’s not really tendentious, that means something else. “led” = “put forward”? ish..
    “touchstone”: I’d feel very differently about putting on “a few pounds” and “a stone”! 14 is rather more than a few…
    “tiger”: I thought this really weak and lacking any sort of definition. I tried “grade” at first, or “first” as Milne’s first (A as in AA Milne) is doubly a good grade. Is tigger a tiger? I think he’s something else (whereas Pooh is explicitly a bear and ditto some of the others)
    “sports cars” I don’t see what indicates a plural in the definition which caused me to hesitate
    “viscosity” does not mean stickiness. Oil can be highly viscous and is famous for not sticking to things. Sigh.
    “mRNA” – we’ve been here before but I’ll say it again. Initialisms are neither words nor acronyms.

    Maybe I’m just in a bad mood but I usually really enjoy Imogen and I found this one to be hard for all the wrong reasons, and a shadow of Vlad’s excellent puzzle yesterday. Many thanks manehi for puzzling out several I could not parse, including “Mr Bean” and “aquamarine”.

24. Very sorry to hear you’re having such a bad morning, TheZed! I loved it – a quick solve with a few head scratchers on the way. FYI, Tigger is definitely a tiger, and if buses and trains are forms of transport then so are cars… Thanks to both for the entertainment.

25. TheZed @23

    I’m happy enough with mRNA as a solution, but I don’t like the clue, as the surface is pretty meaningless. Why should Miranda be interested in passing information to a cell; prison, monkish, or biological?

    Tigger obviously isn’t a tiger, any more than Pooh is a bear, but they are both soft toys based on those animals.

26. Good thought, blaise @16, (and I used to enjoy it whenever his dad was interviewed by my fave Oz journo, Phillip Adams).

27. Thinking further about 18a (me @19).  On second thoughts I think “so long ago” – in the sense of “this long ago” rather than “very long ago” – does make sense as the definition.  “How long ago?” – “This long ago” – “Donkeys’ years ago”.  Anyway I seem to be the only one who was bothered by it in the first place!

28. Very enjoyable indeed many thanks Imogen.  Lots I could not fully parse so thank you manehi for a very instructive blog.  Two stand out clues for me MUGSHOT and GO BANANAS and I also enjoyed TOUCHSTONE.  TheZed, I could not agree less with your criticisms I do not think this was badly clued at all, I suspect you are just having a bad day!!  Oh and Tigger is definitely a tiger see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigger

29. We got stuck on the SE corner, so DNF although cursing myself for not spotting the anagram for TOERAG or seeing ON SIGHT. I liked DONKEYS YEARS, and seem to remember something similar from a while back but no idea when, or who the setter was.
    Mark – yes I’ve only commented here very recently but have been lurking for a while before dipping my toe in the water. Everyone is so erudite it can be a bit intimidating.

30. What Eileen said, although I did know MRNA – and yes Tigger is definitely a tiger

    Thanks to Imogen and Manehi

31. A tendentious bid may be doubled; doesn’t that work, TheZed @23?

32. SPanza @28 the link you give seems to confirm my point – Tigger is never explicitly described as a tiger, and indeed is a unique thing – a tigger. Reading past the first line of the article contradicts the claim that he is a tiger! By contrast, Pooh is definitively described as a bear (“…of very little brain” – as I felt this morning!).  Some of the animals in the Pooh books are invented, derived creatures (“heffalumps” for example) and some are explicit. Tigger is derived, hence my nitpick.

33. Mrs H (who doesn’t speak here) thought KENYA might work for 23 down. We decided maybe 30 years ago, but not now.

34. [HarpoSpeaks @29: it tickled me to see that, with the several references to your namesake in yesterday’s comments, at least one poster claimed Harpo, rather than Oprah, as a favourite clue!]

    TheZed @23: I think you’ve correctly self-diagnosed.  Definitely a wrong side of bed morning, I’m afraid.  I can’t agree with your overall criticism and, with regard to the specifics, whilst I can’t comment on bridge and acknowledge your – perfectly fair – personal dislike for initials,

    I’m happy to let Imogen get away with a stone meaning a few pounds for the smoothness of the clue – ‘few’ is wonderfully imprecise and ‘some but not many’ can just about stretch to 14 in my book

    Tigger is certainly a tiger as SPanza has already confirmed.  I had one of my own as a child, albeit with the rather less inspiring name of Sleepy Tiger

    Transport is often used to refer to vehicles in the plural – “freight transport” often appears as a description of lots of lorries, for example.

    The first definition of ‘viscosity’ I find is “the state of being thick, sticky, and semi-fluid in consistency, due to internal friction”

35. ..me@31, in fact if I was going to quibble it would be over quite how to substitute ‘led’ and ‘put forward’…

36. gif @35: I took it in the card playing sense, even though I’d guessed it was associated with a game and didn’t know it was bridge.  But “she led the Queen of Clubs” seems to equate to “she put forward the Queen of Clubs”

37. Well, it was easier than yesterday’s which only fell into place when my friend helped with the last few. He’s not here today and I was stuck in the NE corner with DOUBLED and URNS. I enjoyed it more than TheZed@23 and have to tell him that the abbreviation issue was dealt with by the crossword editor some years ago. Marking them as (1,1,1,1) would make things too easy so the practice was abandoned. That is the house style. Mug’s hot! was very nice.

38. Yep, that’ll do it Mark @36, happy now.

    Is that ‘as in Livingston’ + ‘ya!’, HarpoSpeaks @33? If so, congratulate Mrs H.

39. ..LivingstonE..

40. Muffin @25. The only link I can see with Miranda is that in a (prison) cell information exchange is governed by the Miranda Rights in the USA

41. imatfaal @40

    Thanks for that. It gives the surface a bit more context.

42. Mark @36 that does seem to solve the “led” issue which I shared – thanks, and ditto @34 re viscosity – I find my Chambers has “sticky” as one of the last definitions which is horribly unscientific but authoritative. Much more interesting is its etymology from Latin and Greek meaning “mistletoe”! TILT. However, just asserting that Tigger is a tiger does not make it so, and as I said, Spanza’s link actually proves the point the other way so I’m going to maintain my opposition to that clue!

    Copland Smith @37 the argument was never about whether a set of initials should be clued as (4) or (1,1,1,1) it is that sets of initials are not words though some subset of them appear in some editions of some dictionaries. One obvious line to draw is with acronyms, so NASA passes the test, as do NATO and OPEC but RNA, RHS, RSPCA would not. However, just occasionally these initialisms slip in. To be honest, my main objection is when people call them acronyms, which they are not, but their inclusion in a dictionary is very edition and publisher specific, and that makes life awkward for casual solvers (Prize solvers accept that specific dictionaries are used, for fairness). I hope that clarifies my position!

43. As for others, the SE corner held out longest.

    As a one-time adhesives chemist, I must agree with the Zed that viscosity and stickiness are entirely different properties.

    Nonetheless an enjoyable crossword apart from the unfortunate lapse into French.

    Thanks to Imogen and to manehi for the parsing.

44. If we accept that Pooh is a bear (and it’s specified he is one in the books), then I think it’s reasonable to say that Tigger is a tiger, even if he never calls himself one. My thinking here is that the book is basically about a child’s adventures with his toys. Both characters were inspired by toys that actually exist, and Tigger’s toy is a tiger. The fact that he calls himself a tigger is part of his personality (and ties in with the fact he frequently mangles the language when he speaks).

    Regardless, I really enjoyed this, but needed help with parsing a few (Mr Bean, viscosity, zealot and touchstone). Thanks setter and blogger.

45. TheZed @ 42, are you suggesting that you did not enter TIGER as the answer to 4d because you consider Tigger not to be a ‘real’ tiger but a stuffed toy?  Wow!!  By the way the first line of the link I sent you is ‘Tigger is a fictional tiger character originally introduced in the 1928 story collection The House at Pooh Corner,’  How does that support your contention that Tigger is NOT a tiger?

46. Yes, Harpospeaks and Grantinfreo. I, too, thought it might be Kenya with a reference to Red Ken Livingstone. Shows my age…

47. What a gem. We loved it.

48. Milne bought Christopher Robin a soft Kanga and Roo specifically to expand story possibilities.

49. Pretty difficult for me; I’m very annoyed at not seeing the fairly obvious anagram for TOERAG until near the end.

    I didn’t know Audrey but then I guess some wouldn’t have known mRNA.

    Thanks Imogen for the entertaining torture and to manehi for explaining it all.

     

50. Finished fairly briskly (albeit by my slow standards). However, I don’t know bridge or Latin and missed the (now) obvious buzzbomb, so didn’t parse those three. I thought AWE was weak, as you have to ignore ‘and’ to make it work. But that’s a minor quiblet, in what I thought was a fun, challenging and enjoyable solve.

    Thanks to both Imogen and maneh.

51. TheZed @42 and others: musing on Tigger, existentialism and self-awareness, as one does, it strikes me that reconciliation may lie in the fact that, as highlighted in the Wiki article, a lot of what we know about Tigger is related by Tigger himself.  Often enigmatically.  He considers himself to be the only Tigger in existence.  Rather like our Jack Russell considers himself to be the biggest animal in the town.  We know he isn’t but, in his world, it’s hard fact.  Just as we know Tigger is a tiger!

52. SPanza @45 I think I’ll join Anna and just give up on this place. People ignore her and it seems people do not actually read what I write and then launch in with criticism. Let me be clear (again). I entered “tiger” eventually after playing round with things to with with Milne’s initials which are “doubly good” in the sense of grades (“AA”) – perhaps a clever misdirection. I entered “tiger” only once it could be nothing else absolutely because Tigger is not a tiger in my view so yes it held me up. I, at no point, said he was a stuffed toy, not a tiger, and I explicitly said Pooh is a bear (when he is also a stuffed toy) so it would require be to be remarkably self-contradictory to advance that viewpoint. Please credit me with a little more intelligence, as I am trying to do for you.

    Again, at the risk of repeating myself, read beyond the first line of the Wikipedia article. If one of my students had provided as their evidence both only a wikipedia link and no evidence of reading more than its opening line, I would not have been impressed by their research. Further down we find, for example, “However, the word “tiger” is never actually used in the book. The term “Tigger” is used instead, both as the character’s name and as a description of his type of animal”. Hence my comment that the article contradicts itself. He calls himself “a Tigger”. I find this distinction significant rather than a mere vocal quirk as he also displays none of the traits of a tiger, unlike the other anthropomorphic characters who act according to certain stereotypes.

    I quite understand that others may choose to believe Tigger is a tiger and he is clearly based on a tiger toy. I was advancing the point that I had never thought of him as such, that this had held up my solving the clue, and provided a reasoned argument as to why I felt that and how he differed from other characters apart from the (unseen) heffalump. To dismiss it with either assertion, as one person here did, or a wave of an article which you had not read was, to be quite honest, rather insulting. Your “Wow!!” was especially patronising as your argument which preceded it owed more to straw men than stuffed children’s toys.

53. Lots to like in this one, lots that had me haring off in the wrong direction. As soon as I saw “Milne” & “doubly good” I got stuck on A.A – and couldn’t get any further till the T in mugshot put me straight. (And what a glorious selection of comments regarding the tiger-ness or otherwise of Tigger. The FS crowd really are a constant source of information, wonder and delight!) Like Harpospeaks I started off with KEN-YA, then felt that was too many decades back to be plausible. It took an eternity for me to see MR BEAN, but that’s perhaps because I’ve never found him funny (watered-down Tati, imho; for my money, Rowan Atkinson’s greatest role is Blackadder). I got bogged down googling Audrey Hepburn’s marital history – till the penny dropped regarding the suddenly-obvious five letters to stick after TOUCH. Speaking of pennies, I’m another who kept trying to fit a D into 26A. Then again, the faults were all mine: I fell into Imogen’s heffalump-traps.
    And there were so many gems amongst the rest, including GO BANANAS, AQUAMARINE and CONGO which were smashing, & MUGSHOT made me giggle. Thanks to Manehi for help completing some parsing, and thanks to Imogen for a worthy duel

54. TheZed, we crossed. I can’t speak for the others, but for myself, the range and erudition of the comments on this site are my second reason for checking into it. (Untangling pesky parsings etc etc being the first, natch!)
    Please don’t take anything I may have written as a personal criticism, for that couldn’t be further from my mind. I happen to think your comments are consistently interesting and pertinent.

55. I enjoyed this and agree with your selection of favourites, manehi, except for MRNA, and would put two in its place: ZEALOT and APRIL. I had doubts, though, about the definitions of VISCOSITY and DOUBLED.
    Thanks to Imogen and manehi.

56. Great to see Imogen back and I really liked most of this but did share many of TheZed’s concerns about some of the clueing. Not Tigger though. My mum wanted to call me Christopher Robin but fortunately my father, in a rare moment of decisiveness, vetoed the idea. For which, I remain grateful to this day

    I think we’ve had zealot/fan before and it hasn’t grown on me

    Cheers all

57. Sorry theZed@ 52 I think it is me who should “give up on this place” I thought we were amicably discussing a crossword, not doing homework to have marked, my student days were 50 years ago so to be treated like a student means I am in the wrong place.

58. TheZed and SPanza

    I for one would miss both of your contributions. Please reconsider 🙂

59. I tried a couple of times to make BENIN work, but didn’t like the lack of a 3rd N, before getting CONGO.  I giggled like a child when I got 9a much later.

60. I normally struggle with Imogen’s puzzles, but enjoyed this one, although she is still a bit free with the verbiage. MUGSHOT and TOERAG were fun, and ON SIGHT was cleverly put together.

    Strictly speaking, CONGO is no longer a country and I thought the wordplay was a bit of a stretch. Equally, THREADY didn’t appeal (didn’t even know THE READY was the correct phrase), although the answers were obvious enough from the crossers.

61. HarpoSpeaks @33 I love the idea of “Ken! Ya!” especially because it seems like it would have to be shouted by some sort of Hooray Henry who’d be the last person in the world to vote for Ken Livingstone! Like others I toyed with this being “Benin” as well and wondered if there’s ever been a puzzle where the same answer appears multiple times, clued differently. Boy would that be off-putting and sort of a reversal of the thing Boatman does where “boatman” is used to mean many different things.

62. Boffo @ 60

    Imogen is a he, in fact. See Richard Browne here.

    “The readies” is more usual, I think.

63. TheZed @61: snap!  I, too, wondered whether the same solution has (or could) occur more than once.  And prompted by Benin.  Commenters here often refer to ‘the rules’ of crosswords and clueing.  I’ve never seen a definitive set of rules so don’t know whether a repeat solution is specifically prohibited.  (I suspect, if it was allowed, the word in question would need to have separate meanings as well as definitions and that would rule out Benin.  But who knows?)

64. I’ve seen puzzles where the same word in different compounds recurred. I think I even saw WATER- crossing with each other recently.

65. TheZed @ 61

    In 2016 there was a puzzle celebrating the 50th anniversary of England’s World Cup win where CHARLTON appeared twice, as the grid contained all 11 of the team’s names. (Pasquale 26950)

66. Don’t comment very often, but sometimes I enjoy the comments more than the crossword itself. Today was one of those days!

67. Mark @63. I have vague memories of a crossword (possibly a prize) which had the family names of an entire football (or cricket?) team. There were indeed two duplicates (but with separate given names…).

68. Verily, ask and ye shall receive! Many thanks blaise, Simon S, muffin for the speedy answers. Mark @63 Good point about different meanings. If there are rules which forbid such a grid I can think of several setters who would delight in breaking them for our entertainment and frustration. I think most of us here enjoy the Grauniad puzzles precisely because they allow that little bit more leeway (like the two cats the other day)…a little more Miles Davis and a little less CPE Bach. Or perhaps a little more PDQ Bach in some cases.

69. Are you a PDQ Bach fan, TheZed? Brilliantly funny!

70. [Muffin @69 I worry sometimes about what fraction of my so-called cultural knowledge is derived from the likes of PDQ Bach, Tom Lehrer, and Flanders and Swann (though I learned my use of the Oxford comma elsewhere…). Perhaps time to fight back against the HMHB references with some bargain-counter tenor arias from Iphigenia in Brooklyn…]

71. [PDQ and Lehrer’s Lobachevsky would have much in common!]

72. Regarding repeated answers, people might like to know that the very first crossword ever, created by Englishman Arthur Wynne for the New York World in 1913, contained a repeated answer – DOVE.

73. Fabulous snippet DrW.

74. Blaise @67
    I can remember that puzzle – it was the 1966 England football team, and the duplicated answer was CHARLTON. I cannot remember when or where the crossword appeared – or who set it.

75. see Simon S @65

76. TheZed @70.  Tom Lehrer is a voice of our time – “I Got if from Agnes” seems strangely COVID-insecure…

    Found today to be a bit on the difficult side mostly because I was concentrating on a lab that was falling apart around me instead of on the clues.  Also, I’ve noticed I rarely get on Imogen’s wavelength.   FOI was S’IL VOUS PLAIT followed by BEL – LOI was the entire SE.

    Thanks Imogen and manehi – I promise to concentrate less on work and more on the crossword tomorrow 🙂

77. [TheZed @70

    I forgot to say – a good example of the usefulness of the Oxford comma!]

78. I just did a sudoku.  Multiple answers all over the place!

79. My apologies to Simon S (@65) for missing his comment which gave the full information blaise (@67) was seeking. (I was out and battling against an unreliable WiFi connection at the time.)

80. Just for a change, my first Audrey was the ‘strange and interesting plant’ from Little Shop of Horrors.  Not that it worried (or ate) me.

    And when I saw the now-notorious TIG(g)ER clue, the first Milne I thought of was Seumas – possibly because 9a/1d had put a picture in my head of an unfortunate BENN the Younger getting BEANed.  😉

    Many thanks Imogen and manehi, and to all contributors here who continue to probe unexpected corners of the universe.

81. The Zed @61 Simon S @65 Blaise @67 and Alan B @79: I have time on my hands today so have just had a go at the Pasquale mentioned by Simon S.  I can thoroughly recommend it( for the cunning ways the names are clued alone, though the remainder is good too).  Even if it’s made far easier, knowing the theme before one starts.  The Charltons are both delightful.

82. Mark @81
    Glad you enjoyed it as much as I did – that’s why I remembered it so well (except where and when it appeared).

83. Such an enjoyable cryptic for me. Favourite by miles was DONKEYS YEARS. also liked INVERSION and ONCE OVER.

    Have only posted five times and I am sad to see the falling out between SPanza and TheZed – please don’t stop posting and do make friends.

    Really grateful to Manehi for parsing DOUBLED, TOERAG and MR BEAN.

    Thank you also to Imogen for a great cryptic which has sparked much debate.

    Finally, thanks to Muffin for explaining NAILSET to me yesterday.

84. Welcome, Pauline, and I’m glad you saw the explanation!

85. Thank you so much Muffin@84. I do feel welcome, if diffident. Bad on tools and cricket! Have a lovely rest of the day. Pauline

86. Mark@18 (since this is where you raised the query).  Your memory is right.  According to Tigger himself (to Roo, whom he was taking for a walk), Tiggers are very very good at many things, including swimming, flying and climbing trees.  When egged on by Roo to demonstrate, Tigger realises that the only one of these he feels truly confident about is climbing trees, and he duly climbs one, with Roo on his back.  Unfortunately, he finds Tiggers are less good at coming down from trees, and the two of them have to be rescued from sitting on a high branch, by jumping into a makeshift fire blanket constructed from Christopher Robin’s jacket, and held at corners by him and the other animals.  Picking up the subsequent conversational thread, this arguably shows Tigger exhibiting at least some traits of tigers, who can climb up trees, but don’t descend them very gracefully (I have seen this personally).

87. Pauline @85 welcome. Bad on tools is not too much of a problem though I am pretty sure we’ve had “nailset” twice this year, and occasional saws (jigsaw, fretsaw etc) make their way in, presumably forced by certain crossers. Bad on cricket could leave you on a sticky wicket and you might find yourself slipping up without a leg to stand on, caught out by all sorts of daft terminology we cricket lovers absorb and the rest of the world simply gapes at in confusion. Good luck – I am sure this website will gradually teach you all the cricket terms you never wanted to know.

88. Pauline in Brum @83: I’d noted your arrival on these pages and a belated welcome to you.  As one who lives within striking distance of that fair city (!) and was actually born on the fringes of the Black Country, I had admired your pseudonym.  Spats are reasonably regular events and rarely seem to leave hard feeling.  I’m sure our two co-posters will soon be back in harness (and, indeed, TheZed has commented since).  I suspect they’ll end up in owerful agreement on something before too long.  At the risk of boring those who saw it before, I’ve taken the liberty of cutting and pasting my comment of around two weeks ago:

    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.

89. Thank you all so much for making me feel welcome and part of your disparate, but lovely, community, Saddened to say the cricket terminology is becoming more familiar by the day… Now know what a silly mid-off and silly mid-on are. Think the pavilion is the best place I could be. Not too bad on bridge though and really liked the clue for  DOUBLING. So pleased that one positive out of the current situationis I get to do the cryptic on the right day.

90. There you go!  Told you he’d pop up again in no time.  TheZed – we crossed and I love your cricketing advice to Pauline.

    Sagittarius @86: thanks so much for that.  I still have the four Winnie the Pooh books (though not the aforementioned Sleepy Tiger) but haven’t read them since my two student sons were very young so it’s nice to know I recalled aright.

91. Thoroughly enjoyed the crossword.  Nothing much to add, but GENIUS seemed to rely a little too much on inside knowledge.  TOUCHSTONE was new to me.

    Tempted to suggest TheZed obey the late Dennis Healey’s first law of holes.

    Thanks, Imogen and manehi.

92. Mark @90

    Four Winnie-the-Pooh books? I thought there were only two. Are you including the poems?

93. Late in the day I finally got round to attempting this having been bloodied and totally defeated by yesterday’s puzzle. Thankfully my confidence has returned as I was able to finish this reasonably swiftly. A few parsings needed help: MR BEAN for instance. I didn’t know MRNA or THREADY but they were gettable from the clues.
    As a relative newcomer to this site I am keeping my head below the parapet regarding TIGGERs………

94. Sorry should have said thanks to Manehi and Imogen

95. muffin @92: definitely four.  Hardbacks with (now) very faded blue covers.  I can’t lay my hands on them as they’re in temporary storage but I think they were Winnie the Pooh, The House at Pooh Corner, When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six.  Two volumes of Stories and two, as you correctly say, of poems.  I have to confess, I think of the quartet as Winnie the Pooh having listened “at my mother’s (and grandmother’s) knee” and the young me wouldn’t have particularly distinguished between them.  Shephard illustrated them all and both Christopher Robin and Pooh certainly appear in all four, as protagonists in two, pictures in all and in quite a number of the poems.

96. Thanks for confirming, Mark. I wonder if Covid19 is like Alice – Christopher Robin went down with the latter!

97. My mistake might have been solving (well almost) Monk’s gem in the FT today — the clueing was brilliant but nonetheless draining and I stumbled through this crossword half-heartedly with many guesses and just one tick, MUGSHOT. Thanks Manehi for unraveling some of the baffling wordplay.

98. Thanks to manehi and Imogen

    I’m more of a tea lady person but I still enjoyed 1a

    Still don’t get 5a or 18a

    or 15d: V1s os city all round.

    What tells me to put “city” around “os”?

    Is “that” doubling up?

99. Dansar @98

    I read 15d as:  V1s then OS with CITY all around that  = VIS C OS ITY. Definition simply “makes thing sticky”, i.e. what (high) viscosity does.

    I think 18 would be better as “What Midas was given, extremely sensibly hidden for a long time”.  I reckon DONKEYS YEARS simply means a long time, not a long time ago.

100. mogen is one of my faves-Difficult but doable – and this one was both. I was happy to see several gimmes to get going;AWE,BEL,SVP , .even TIGER, where ‘good’ usually decodes as G except when it means PI, which in IMOshould be retired.

     My favorite was VISCISITY,the initial V from VOUS providing ahandy kick start  “making things sticky”  could have been misleading had the fragments not been so clear. Viscosity is a measure of the internal frictionof a liquid, or the degree to which a liquid sticks to itself, not other things.

     Many thanks to Imogen and manehi

101. phitonelly @99

     I agree (and not just so I could be the 100th)

102. Damn!

103. Phew, this one was a struggle, only completed after several unsatisfying “shrug and write” (DOUBLED, VISCOSITY, AQUAMARINE); but the longest diversion was the anag for 19, where I first had to rule out TAGORE (by all accounts, not a rotter) and ORGEAT (possibly a tooth-rotter).

104. New commenter on here – been lurking for a while after (re-) discovering the printed paper and crossword during lockdown.

     Good crossword, but with my non-unusual mild West of Scotland accent, I’d never get 4d “urns” as a homonym of “earns” – they’re no more homonyms than “puns” and “pens” are. 1d isn’t a homophone either, but I got that one although didn’t parse it.

105. I was held up for donkeys years at 4d by thinking that doubly good was something about piglet because PI = good and G = good and that gives PIG and then I got stuck

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