DT 30135 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog
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DT 30135

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30135

Hints and tips by Mr K

+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - +

BD Rating  -  Difficulty *** Enjoyment ****

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Thursday. I found this a puzzle of two halves. On the first pass through the grid, I got nothing in the top half but filled most of the bottom half. That was followed by bouncing around the grid gradually getting every clue answered and parsed, finishing with the devious 4d. There’s a lot of clever wordplay and smooth surfaces in this one, making for a most enjoyable solve. I hope its compiler will take a bow later today.

I want to acknowledge the many lurkers out there reading the blog today. Knowing that several thousand visitors will read and benefit from each blog we produce makes writing them especially rewarding. So, thank you to everyone who visits the site. And if you’re a visitor who hasn’t commented before, we’d love to meet you below and hear how you were introduced to cryptics.

In the hints below most indicators are italicized, and underlining identifies precise definitions and cryptic definitions. Clicking on the answer buttons will reveal the answers. In some hints hyperlinks provide additional explanation or background. Clicking on a picture will enlarge it. Please leave a comment telling us how you got on.

 

Across

1a    People like Sir Walter Raleigh -- knight in ridiculously sizeable hat (12)
ELIZABETHANS:  The chess abbreviation for knight inserted in an anagram (ridiculously) of SIZEABLE HAT 

9a    Spear fishes beside Welsh river (9)
PIKESTAFF:  Some predatory fish are followed by a Welsh river 

10a   Hazard scrubbing hot handle (5)
TREAT:  A hazard or danger minus (scrubbing) the abbreviation for hot 

11a   Plenty backing person that's unpleasant (6)
ENOUGH:  The reversal (backing) of a noun for a single person followed by a sound indicating that something’s unpleasant 

12a   Way lad breaks into grand musical sound (8)
BIRDSONG:  The fusion of the abbreviation for a way or street and another word for lad is inserted in (breaks into) grand or large 

13a   Interrupt idiots holding exercise class back (4,2)
STEP IN:  The letter sequence formed by some idiots containing (holding) the usual abbreviation for an exercise class is reversed (back

14a   Runners from Spain with headwear covered in spots (8)
ESCAPEES:  The IVR code for Spain with a simple form of headwear that’s contained by (covered in) spots or notices

17a   Struggles of girl disheartened having entered wrong answer (8)
WRANGLES:  The outer letters (disheartened) of GIRL inserted in (having entered) an anagram (wrong) of ANSWER 

19a   Did without resort wine (6)
SPARED:  A resort with a generic wine 

22a   Lack of fairness some strain, I quit yesterday (8)
INIQUITY:  The answer is hidden as some of the remainder of the clue 

24a   Good-luck charm mother's put by bed (6)
MASCOT:  An informal word for mother with her ‘S from the clue is followed by a small bed 

26a   Lovely set of furniture picked up (5)
SWEET:  A homophone (picked up) of a set of furniture 

27a   Start to save our money for bread (9)
SOURDOUGH:  Concatenate the starting letter of SAVE, OUR from the clue, and a slang word for money 

28a   Sausages free -- oddly rotten encased in hairy skins (12)
FRANKFURTERS:  Free or open followed by the odd letters of ROTTEN inserted in (encased in) hairy skins of animals such as mink 

 

Down

1d    Ruler time and time again abandoning femme fatale (7)
EMPRESS:  A femme fatale or siren minus two copies of the physics symbol for time (time and time again abandoning …

2d    Vexing one, pranksters at centre in capital city (7)
IRKSOME:  The Roman one followed by the letters at the centre of PRANKSTERS inserted in a European capital city 

3d    Giving tips for actors using gestures to communicate (9)
ASSIGNING:  The outer letters of (tips for) ACTORS followed by using gestures to communicate with people who cannot hear 

4d    Docked 7 times (4)
ERAS:  All but the last letter (docked) of a synonym of the answer to 7d 

5d    Most robust force used in breaking the ties (8)
HEFTIEST:  The physics symbol for force inserted in (used in) an anagram (breaking) of THE TIES 

6d    Famous piece of scripture incorporated in new edition (5)
NOTED:  A usual piece of scripture inserted between (incorporated in) the abbreviations for new and for edition 

7d    Withdraw from ramble around outside space (6)
REMOVE:  A verb meaning “ramble around” containing (outside) one of the usual printer’s spaces 

8d    Long time following stone steps (6)
STAGES:  A long time following the abbreviation for stone 

15d   Read a pulp novel; one that's cheering (9)
APPLAUDER:  An anagram (novel) of READ A PULP 

16d   Junk aircraft model set up and working (8)
JETTISON:  Link together a fast aircraft, the reversal (set up, in a down clue) of model or pose, and working or operating 

17d   At same time as card game, hosting introduction to ludo (6)
WHILST:  A card game containing (holding) the first letter of (introduction to) LUDO 

18d   Emerged from parish, Kent, where all outsiders are ignored (6)
ARISEN:  PARISH KENT with the outer letters of each word deleted (… where all outsiders are ignored

20d   Ulcers troubled English hermit (7)
RECLUSE:  An anagram (troubled) of ULCERS with the single letter for English 

21d   Abandons desires to have Democrat leading (7)
DITCHES:  The single letter for Democrat placed before (to have Democrat leading) desires or urges 

23d   Part of drainage system not good state (5)
UTTER:  Part of a drainage system minus the single letter for good (not good) 

25d   Very loudly going after game bird (4)
RUFF:  The musical abbreviation for very loudly following (going after) the abbreviation for a game at which New Zealand is quite good 

 

Thanks to today’s setter for this fine puzzle which uses every letter except X. Top clue for me was 4d. Which clues did you like best?


The Quick Crossword pun:  LAZE + SAFE + AIR = LAISSEZ-FAIRE


101 comments on “DT 30135

  1. I echo our blogger’s travails with this puzzle, suffering from the same north/south divide and the pesky 4d being the last to fall and subsequently parse. Inevitably that became my favourite – very devious. Overall this was an excellent puzzle, good clue mix and plenty of cunning misdirection.

    My thanks to both Misters involved.

  2. An echo on the echo of North and South and 4d! ***/****

    Interestingly, differently clued, 25d appeared in DT 30118 on October 14th.

    Candidates for favourite – 19a, 24a, 27a, 3d, and 21d – and the winner is 19a.

    Thanks to the setter, the multiple word clues in the Quickie would suggest not Mr T, and Mr K.

  3. Very enjoyable with clever wordplay throughout and nice PDMs.
    I had a similar experience to our blogger as I started in the South and worked up, making for a reasonably swift solve.
    I particularly liked 11a plus 2,4(7)&21d but my standout favourite was 1d. Great pun too. Good stuff indeed.
    Many thanks to the setter (The Don?) and Mr K.

  4. I didn’t share Mr K’s travails at all – just worked steadily down the clues ending up in a fairly friendly time for a Thursday. Interestingly I got 4d from the checking letters and definition which actually helped me work out what was going on in 7d

    Thanks to the setter and Mr K

  5. Agree. Bottom half ok , top less so. Didn’t really like 12a, 3d in terms of parsing and 4d impossible. The latter clue should surely read ” Dock ‘, not” Docked ”?

    1. I have to say that was my first thought re 4d but I think it works equally well with both but has a better surface read with docked.

  6. A game of 2 halves for sure. Went straight down south & worked upwards. In the event it wasn’t quite as tricky as I’d feared but thought the wordplay t’up north ventured into Toughie territory. 4d my last in too but unlike YS yet to parse it & see it’s our reviewer’s pick so will continue to scratch the bonce. A thoroughly enjoyable puzzle. COTD for me was 1d as I’m a real sucker for film noir. Didn’t notice it was an X-less pangram until completion.
    Thanks to the setter (ProXimal presumably) & Mr K.
    Ps making such hard work of Kcit in the Toughie slot I switched to Dada over in the Graun – much gentler

  7. What a great puzzle today – I too whizzed through the south and came to a jolting holt in the north which bit by bit gave way. Wasn’t helped by the other half reading out loads of Welsh rivers but when I got the first half of that clue, the second bit was obvious. I was stuck on 4d and most unfortunately accidentally hit the ‘reveal all’ button but hand on heart think I would have struggled to get it. Thanks to the setter (please take a bow) and Mr K.

  8. Wrong day of the week for an Xless pangra!

    Like others I found the bottom half much easier than the top, and needed the hint to solve 4d. We had two possible answers for 12a.

    Thanks to setter & Mr K

    1. You may have uncovered the setter! (Particularly as one of our other Friday compilers appeared in the last Thursday “non Ray T” spot)

  9. Beaten by the aforesaid pesky 4d and 12a.The rest went in pretty speedily and I even got 28a by just looking at the placement, at that time, of the solitary letter “r”. The parsing came later.
    COTD 1a
    I’m still having to manually enter my name and email. Anyone else?

      1. Thanks, I’m in, I’ve been had this way before when I access a puzzle and don’t check the site before moving forward. Infuriating!

    1. Yes I continue to have the same problem these days. I Google bigdave44+crossword number which hadn’t presented problems in the past. 😠.

      1. Nothing has changed at this end. I believe that the reason for this new behaviour is that browsers are becoming more and more fussy about security, and some now won’t allow cookies to be saved unless the site is accessed from a secure https connection. Eventually this site will use only https, with http connections being upgraded automatically, but we’re not quite there yet.

        If your browser has a setting to automatically use a secure https connection, turning that on that might fix the issue.

  10. Having failed to see 1a, even though I knew it was an anagram I too couldn’t get a foothold in the top half but made good progress by starting in the SE corner and working my way round. After the penny drop moment for 1a the rest fell easily enough apart from the pesky 4d for which I needed the hints and 1d which I needed help to parse. Favourites today were 12a and 14a amongst a lot of clever clues. Thoroughly enjoyable Thursday x-less. Thanks to the compiler and Mr K.

  11. A very enjoyable puzzle – thanks to proXimal and Mr K.
    The clues I liked best were 14a, 27a (a comment on the way bread prices are currently rising?) and 1d.

  12. Agree with the bloggers comments in respect of the NW quadrant, like pulling teeth!
    Going for a ****/***.
    Favourite was 12a and liked the surface of 27a.
    Thanks to Mr K’s pic for 5d-some cat.

  13. Likewise here: south (though 1a fell immediately, my first one in), then middle, then the rest of north. 4d fell before 1d, but those two were my last ones in. However, this was an absolute charm of a puzzle, the best of the backpagers this week for me. So much to admire, with 1d, 12a, 7d. 21d, 11a, & 4d taking the topmost honours (i.e., parallel podia!). Thanks to Mr K and the X-less compiler (proXimal, I gather). ** / *****

  14. Steady solve with this one but I admit 4d was a bung in which I couldn’t parse, I also struggled to parse 27a until the synonym for free popped into my noggin!

  15. Completed unaided but it took a long time.
    Lower half, no problem.
    Above, struggled considerably.
    Kept wanting, stupidly, to put in trailblazer in 1a.
    But, of course, no H.
    Absolutely brilliant clueing eg 12 and 14a and 1 and 7d.
    14a my COTD,
    Thanks to the setter for the enjoyable tussle and to Mr K.

  16. Add me to the South before North and 4d last one in club. 27a gets my vote for a great surface.

    Thanks to today’s setter and Mr. K.

  17. The NW corner was the main hold-up for me. I stared at 1A for far too long before the penny clanged to the floor. Final acts were the parsing of 11A and 23A, which was also my last one in. I confess, though, that I completely (though not deliberately) skipped over parsing 4D! No real favorites. Thanks to Mr. K and ProXimal.

  18. Good morning Mr K. My mother used to do the cryptic crossword in the Sydney Morning Herald, so I knew about it but didn’t know how do do the puzzles. Then when I was teaching in England, my fellow teachers taught me how to do them during the lunch break. I have since been a cryptic puzzler on and off for years until the last 5 or so when I discovered I could download and print the Telegraph puzzles and they are now my morning ritual with my coffee here in sunny Florida! Thank you for all your hints and help.

    1. Welcome from me as well, Anne Elizabeth, and thanks for sharing your history with cryptics. The site has a large number of readers in North America, including quite a few who live in Florida. Glad to hear that you find the hints useful.

  19. Like Mr K, I started in the South and worked northwards. As rhe checkers went in it got easier t guess the answer. I reverse engineered the parsing after guessing the answer for many of the clues (as I usually need to do with this compiler). Thanks to Mr K for the hints as there were still a few I couldn’t parse. The best of the clues were 9a, 17d and 16d, all lego clues, which the compiler seems to like. Some of the ckues in the North were rather over complicated for my taste. Thanks to the compiler for a challenging puzzle.

  20. A really nice puzzle I thought.

    It went pretty smoothly for me (if there was a 50/50 split I didn’t notice) but my last in, 14a, took a little pondering. I will admit spending a non-negligible amount of time staring at “eshatees” … luckily, it seemed implausible enough that I put my thinking cap on – and it fitted!

    Likes include 17a (fortunately avoided today), 11a (which has a surface sadly apt in too many circumstances), 4d (solved before, or more correctly, concurrently with 7d) and 1d.

    Mildly surprised not to see a picture of homemade 27a, but it’s good not to be too predictable. :)

    Many thanks to Messers X and K.

  21. Tricky one for me today – I don’t often post but love the site… anyway, I don’t get the parsing of 14a – any help?

    1. E (IVR code for Spain, as Mr K points out above), CAP (headwear) inserted into (covered by) SEES (synonym for spots) = ESCAPEES

      1. Thanks for that – for some reason I had ES in my head for Spain so it didn’t fit after that!

  22. I found this a curate’s egg with, as others have mentioned, the North providing a much stiffer challenge than the South. On the one hand there were some very clever clues (1d, 3d for example) and good surfaces (e.g. 14a, 28a) but, for me, it lacked some of the sparkle usually seen from this setter. Many thanks to proXimal and Mr K for the blog.

  23. Started cryptic crossword 3 years ago when gale bound on a yacht in Salcombe Harbour for two days. Thanks to Big Dave for getting me hooked. Every time I think “I’ve cracked crosswords” I need help. All but 4d fell easily because I got fixated on removing “Ts” from a synonym of remove to get to docked.

  24. Managed the top left 1/4 then gave up. 4d is without a doubt the stupidest clue I have ever encountered.
    *****/*
    Thx for the hints

        1. We were convinced it was even (docked seven and docked events) and that making something even could relate to having been trimmed or docked.

          But a great puzzle. Thank you all.

          Mr & Mrs T

  25. 4/4. I also did the north south divide. It took much longer to complete the former and glad to have an explanation for my bung in for 7d. Very clever particularly when combined with 4d. My favourites were 19a and 1d. Thanks to the setter and Mr K.

  26. 2.5*/5*. What an absolute cracker of a puzzle with my only real hold-up being 4d which was my last one in. The smooth surfaces and great clueing coupled with it being an x-less pangram tells us the identity of the setter.

    I’m not even going to try to pick a favourite or podium selection from such an excellent set of clues.

    Many thanks to proXimal and to Mr. K.

  27. Interestingly my divide was east west, with the east last to fall with the SE being the last other than 4d. Found it very difficult to parse many of the clues.
    3.5*/2.5* today.
    Not my favourite puzzle of the week.

    Did not know the bird in 25d

    Favourites were 1a, 13a, 22a, 2d & 23d with 1a my winner

    Thanks to setter and Mr K

  28. I thought I should leave this rather fraudulent post late in the day as it is only to explain my lack of presence of late due to house move operations. I can see everyone is well and look forward to having time to battle with next week’s setters.

  29. Mr K, I am normally an invisible lurker, but I am stepping out of the shadows today to say hello and thank you to you and all your blogging colleagues for the illuminating comments and repartee!

    Thanks also to proXimal for a challenging, but immensely enjoyable puzzle.

    Re my interest in crosswords: my old boss many years ago would encourage us junior docs (as we were in 1988!) to sit down and ‘do the crossword’ together after his ward round (before getting anything but the most urgent jobs done.) He of course would be in charge of the pencil. It really was a great team building exercise.

    Nowadays, I do it after I’ve taken the dog for a walk!

    1. Welcome to the site, marks, and thanks for sharing your story and your thoughts on this puzzle. I do hope that you’ll keep commenting.

    2. I used to try the DT cryptic during dull biochemistry lectures at medical school in the 1970s. I thought I was getting away with it until Professor Young asked if I’d solved 1a in a viva vice examination. As I had, he passed me.

          1. Your comment went into moderation because you added your honorific to your name – both should work from now on.

        1. I got into cryptics in 1970, fuelled by sibling rivalry. My brother (2.5 years older) was considered something of a genius by our family and the neighbours because he could always solve/finish the cryptic crossword in the Manchester Evening News, whereas everyone else couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Things were very different in those days. I was determined to emulate and, eventually, better him. That year, I remember the first time I got a clue that was stumping him:

          And yet people sit in them! (11)

          With hindsight and over 52 years of solving later, it seems a pretty easy clue now.

  30. Managed all but five in the NE corner which Mr K explained well but I was still not enamoured of them especially 4d which I found as gnomic as the poetry of J H Prynne the others as forthcoming as most of the poetry of Geoffrey Hill.

    Thanks to Mr K for unravelling the obscurities and Proximal for producing them.

  31. Nearly did it but could not get 7d and that meant 4d was impossible – seems so unfair when one clue depends on another! Great challenge though, thank you proXimal and Mr K
    ps how many ‘hits’ does this blog get (roughly) each day?

    1. The site typically gets 15,000 to 20,000 page views per day.

      This particular blog has now been viewed almost 7,000 times.

  32. I found this puzzle very difficult, the south went it straight away but I found the north very unfriendly 😟 ****/** Favourites were 9 & 23a and 25d Thanks to Mr K for his help and to ProXimal 😬

  33. A nice puzzle, about average difficulty and enjoyable to solve. No stand-out favourite today. 3*/3*.

    *4d doesn’t work for me with Docked, but it would with Dock – I can’t reconcile the apparent “tense” dichotomy. I could be missing something, though. Could you please explain Mr K, or anyone?

    1. I may be misunderstanding the issue here, but I read “docked X” as “X after it has been docked”.

        1. Probably being thick but I don’t understand Mr K’s reply. I thought it was docking the E from erase (synonym of remove) giving a definition synonym. Surely the wordplay instruction should be dock therefore. What am I missing ?

          1. Just to be sure that we’re all on the same page: substituting the 7d answer for the 7, the clue reads “Docked remove times”. Read cryptically, that directs us to the answer as all but the last letter (docked) of a synonym of remove, as you say.

            In wordplay “dock X” and “docked X” both mean X minus its last letter, so “Dock 7 times” would also work. Presumably our setter chose “docked” over “dock” here because he preferred the surface reading.

              1. There must be something uncanny about 4d because, for some reason, it has genuinely confused a few people on here and my goddaughter has just rung me about it. She always insists on an emailed explanation in the most rudimentary/simplistic form possible. This is what I sent her:

                7d. REMOVE = ERASE.

                4d. Docked (de-tailed) ERASE = ERAS[E]. Or, Dock (de-tail) ERASE and you get (=) ERAS[E].

                So, the tense doesn’t matter and Docked or Dock both work, but Docked is better for the surface read.

                Hope that’s right!

                1. Looks OK to me, Jose.

                  Does your goddaughter find the hints presented in this site’s daily blogs useful? Or is she seeking full explanations rather than hints?

                  1. Rosina is 29 and has been tackling the DT back-pager for several years now, but more as a casual/fun pastime rather than a serious/academic hobby like most of the regulars on this blog. She does use this blog regularly to get H&Ts or just look at the answer. I don’t think she’s seeking full explanations on here (though others could well be) because she has her own personal source of clarification – me! She does quite often get stuck with a clue (as with Docked/Dock? in 4d here) and over the years we have developed a system where I get a very short text like: 10a? Then, I send her an email with a very fundamental/schematic explanation, as algebraic equation-looking as possible.
                    *We have discussed this blog over the years and she did once suggest that a detailed explanation for the more difficult clues could be hidden under a further spoiler, like the answer is now. But that would mean much extra work for you guys and it can be hard to predict exactly which clues are going to cause confusion. But, of course, anyone can request a full explantion for a back-page clue on the blog itself – maybe some readers aren’t aware of that? Keep up the good work!

                    1. Yes, full explanations would be a lot of work. But, as you say, on non-prize puzzles readers are welcome to ask for a more complete explanation of a clue.

          2. I read it as ‘something has been docked from (a synonym of) 7d’, with the past participle form becoming an adjective, as it were. I.e.: ‘We docked the thing and itis now a ‘docked thing’.

      1. Thank you, Mr K. I’ve just returned to this some 3 hours later and now see it immediately. I must have had a complete brain-freeze before (as a few others, apparently). The only problem I had was with the tense of Docked but now it’s obvious that the tense isn’t really relevant. No idea why I thought it was!

  34. I will add my name to the lengthy list of those finding the North a completely different kettle of fish from the easy-going South. 1d was a bung-in as was the case with 7d as I always overlook the printer’s space. Liked the surface of 27a. Thank you proXimal for a curate’s egg puzzle and for saving me having to ponder the setter’s identity. Thanks also to MrK for your usual feline inclined hints.

  35. Got there today after a long struggle and like others found the south easy and the north near impossible.
    My digital Telegraph subscription was renewed today at the new higher annual price. I have now lost access to the new puzzle site – it asks me to sign in and then fails. But I can still access via the old site at https://puzzles.telegraph.co.uk logged in with my normal Telegraph details. Checking it seems that puzzles is only included in a digital+ subscription (extra cost about the same as a separate sub to the puzzles site). Have others experienced this? I am OK until the old site disappears which I guess will be sometime fairly soon and it I were to complain it may well accelerate its demise!

  36. I still have 4D 7D and 12A to complete, and I’ve just worked out the parsing for 28A. Going to give it one more try then give in and read the comments and hints. I’m assuming I’ve got a V to put in one of my blank spaces…
    Have enjoyed it despite not finishing……..yet……..

  37. I don’t comment that often, but really appreciate the work you all do when I need help.
    I was introduced to the DT cryptic by my girlfriend’s dad and future father in law, about 50 years ago.

  38. When I try posting, I have been getting a duplicate post message.
    I’ve noticed a + sign appeared in my name. This post is a test to see if removing it, fixes the problem.

    1. I don’t know yet why or how that mystery plus sign appears.

      Here I see this message, with no space in your name, and two copies of your original message. One has the name with the plus sign, one has no space. If you posted three times in total, that’s consistent with what I see at this end. I’ll delete the duplicate.

  39. I found this really hard work in places and nodded off three quarters of the way through. I had the same problems as everyone else. Did it though. Favourite was 1d when I finally got it. Thanks to ProXimal and Mr. K.

  40. I’m a lurker but visit the site almost daily and really appreciate the hints and enjoy the comments. I got into crosswords through doing them with my mother many years ago. Big Dave’s blog must be a godsend to those who want to do cryptic crosswords but have no-one to explain the conventions. Thanks to all those who contribute.

    1. Welcome to the site, Anna, and thanks for sharing your history with cryptic crosswords. It does seem like many of today’s solvers were introduced to cryptics by a parent.

      And thanks for the kind words about the site.

  41. I was a did not finish which is unusual for me (even if I take a long time). Having accessed some of Mr K’s excellent hints, I have to admit that I would never have got some of those answers « all by my own self ». This is despite finding myself on an EMR train at Corby which is not on the route. It turned out that we were diverted due to a body on the line and traversed the Leicestershire countryside at a steady pace. C’est la vie or la mort for the chap en route.

  42. Did no-one else query 22ac? I hope this isn’t a spoiler, given that we are doing yesterday’s puzzle today (Friday), but I thought ‘iniquity’ meant immoral or grossly unfair behaviour. Shouldn’t the solution be ‘inequity’, which does mean lack of fairness?

    1. I think you’ve given the answer in your comment – iniquity means unFAIR behaviour, i.e. lack of fairness.

      1. I’ve just looked it up in the BRB and it does indeed give “lack of fairness” as the first definition for iniquity, so I stand corrected.

  43. I used to comment on this site regularly but then I changed jobs and now I rarely do the crossword the same day it comes out. I still visit and really appreciate the work put in by the bloggers – not being able to parse a clue is frustrating and you’ve put me out of my misery many times!
    Mr K, I love your stats & especially love all your cat pictures – they always raise a smile. I’ve got a cat on my lap as I type and two others in the house. There does seem to be a high percentage of cat lovers on the blog. I wonder if there’s a quantifiable link between loving cats and crosswords…! 😼
    I started doing cryptic crosswords in my 30s in the early 2000s when the DT crosswords were available free online. It was a bit before Kate Fassett became the crossword editor – I had a few friendly email exchanges with her over clue queries before finding Big Dave’s site. Don’t know what I’d do without it, so thank you all, once again.

    1. Welcome back to the site, PurpleAli, and thanks for sharing that and for the kind words about the site.

      Interesting question about a correlation between loving both cats and crosswords. Might be time for another survey.

  44. 4*/4*….
    liked 1D “Ruler time and time again abandoning femme fatale (7)”
    I found 4d (“Docked 7 times (4)”) good value for money….took so long puzzling over it until looking at the hint !

  45. I don’t class myself as a lurker, as I do comment when we do the crossword on the day it’s published, but that has only occurred for one short spate (earlier this year) since we found this site in 2017. As you can see (or no one will see, because why would anyone be reading this two weeks after the event?) we’ve fallen behind again, but we still pop by every day to read the bloggers introductory remarks and the solvers’ comments on the puzzle we’ve just done.

    1. It doesn’t matter how long after a puzzle is published/reviewed, the person who provided the Hints and Tips will get an email with your comment, not to mention the fact that nosy people like me will take a look to see what you’ve said when your name appears in the Recent Comments list at the side of the blog

    2. Thanks for that, Gayle.

      As CS says, blog authors get email notification of every comment posted on one of their blogs, so they will definitely read and appreciate your comments no matter when they’re made.

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