QC 3119 by Izetti

Author   MerlinPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Usual tricks from Izetti, 16:64 for me after a blazing 4 minutes yesterday, I reverted to my mean time. I’m at The Times Cheltenham literature festival at the moment, and there are copies of the paper everywhere, so this week I’m using paper to solve puzzles.

Experimenting with the “^” to indicate a containment. Other setters are trying the (easier to type) “~”. What do readers think: caret, tilde or nothing?

Across

1 “Hard work”: a new phrase to promote product? (6)
SLOGAN – SLOG (Hard Work) + A + N{ew}
4 Examined pupil, initially dressed up? (6)
PROBED – P{upil} + ROBED (dressed up)
8 Shock a street with headless dog (7)
ASTOUND – A + ST+ {h}OUND (dog)

Strictly speaking, not all dogs are hounds, that term should be reserved for those that hunt game.
10 Male swimmer who was a national hero (5)
DRAKE – Double def

Sir Francis Drake, ruthless pirate, national hero
11 One US soldier in middle of road standing firm? (5)
RIGID – I(one) + GI (US soldier) inside R^D
12 Immoral leader of Conservatives cheated (7)
CROOKED – C{onservatives} + ROOKED (cheated)

“Rooked” is pretty old fashioned these days, bur crops up a lot in these puzzles. I had both Clocked and Crocked as possibles before I remembered.
13 Story being told of country bordering a couple of rivers (9)
NARRATION – N^ATION (country) contains A + RR [couple of Rivers]
17 A class act (7)
PERFORM – PER(a, as in “seven days a week”) + FORM (class, at school)
19 Pulled along to get married (5)
TOWED – TO + WED (get married)

My first attempt of HITCH derailed my efforts in the SE, and yes I didn’t see that little “-ed” in the clue which makes it wrong.
20 Traditional Sunday lunch? A sort that’s cooked (5)
ROAST – (A SORT)* [cooked]
21 Cavity is source of trouble? I may say that (7)
DENTIST – DENT (cavity) + IS + T{rouble}

“I may say that” is a way of making this a semi &Lit clue, in that a DENTIST may say “Cavity is source of trouble”. Very nice, and the clue defies easy classification, always a sign of a good one. It’s these types of clues that defeat crossword AIs, but give it one more year: I predict that this will be the last year humans win The Times championship.
22 Judge fools with harshness ultimately (6)
ASSESS – ASSES (fools) + {harshnes}S

Judge female donkey?(6)

My alternative clue.
23 Try to stop goal? Brill finish (6)
DEFEND – DEF = Brill?? + END (finish)

I think this is teen slang? But “brill” is British, and “def” is primarily American

Down

1 Domestic flight? (6)
STAIRS – Cryptic definition

As in a flight of stairs. I was over-thinking this into a Double definition (as two word clues usually are). But I couldn’t make stairs=domestic. So this was my LOI. Stairs are found in lots of airports, offices, theatres etc, so not sure that “domestic” works well as a qualifier.
2 Coo at grannies, funny old folk (13)
OCTOGENARIANS – (COO AT GRANNIES)* [funny]

Struggled with this until checkers started to appear. Tried Geriatricians, Geront- and the like. Tricky one to spell, with the O E and A all unchecked.
3 A northern city giving up land in pieces (7)
ASUNDER – A + SUNDER{land}

The Northern city of Not-Newcastle. It’s not on the Tyne, and they are not Geordies (Wear and “Mackem”, respectively)

I tried FOUNDER, when a ship breaks up into pieces.
5 Went on horseback maybe round cowboy event (5)
RODEO – RODE(went on horseback maybe) + O [round]
6 Unqualified chess players (5-3-5)
BLACK AND WHITE – Double definition

This is an odd one, but the sense is as in an “unqualified success”, meaning the success is not in doubt, it is Black and White.
7 Greatly fears sadder changes (6)
DREADS – (SADDER)* [changes]
9 Gave a speech — assertion in legal document (9)
DECLAIMED – DE^ED (legal document) contains CLAIM (assertion)

I went with DELIVERED first, because LIVER is one of the words (like ROOK) that I know crossword setters use in odd ways.
14 Great home with past perhaps put behind (7)
INTENSE – IN (home) + TENSE (“past”, perhaps)

“Past” is an example of a tense.
15 A trick’s upset old city (6)
SPARTA – A + TRAPS (trick’s) all reversed [upset]

“upset” can also indicate an anagram, and with checkers of A and R, an anagram of (ATRICK) looked likely until I actually tried to slot the letters in.
16 Changed Edward? Changed diet! (6)
EDITED – ED + (DIET)* [changed]

I though 16d EDITED was usually written EDITTED, but the rule is you double the final consonant when adding -ed or -ing only if the stress falls on the final syllable. For example, “regret” becomes “regretted” but “edit” becomes “edited” (not “editted”) because the stress is on the first syllable (ED-it). The one major exception is the letter L, which British English always doubles regardless of stress position (like “travelled” and “cancelled”), whereas American English follows the stress rule for L as well, writing “traveled” and “canceled.”
18 Some loathsome swear words (5)
OATHS – Hidden in “loathsome”

72 comments on “QC 3119 by Izetti”

  1. Still don’t get STAIRS for domestic flight. Surely a flight of stairs can be anywhere, not just domestic. Maybe I’m missing something. NHO of ‘rooked’ for cheated but it sounded right so in it went. DENTIST was late coming as I couldn’t see ‘dent’ as cavity. I think the ‘claim’ in DECLAIMED is the assertion and ‘deed’ the legal document.
    Thanks M and setter.

      1. …and in my far past, a Statement of Claim was part of a Claim…
        BTW chuckled at your Drake comment/deletion : )
        Saw a poster the other day that read ‘ Dress like a Captain Act Like a Pirate’… thought of getting it for one of the various grandchildren currently set on being a pilot, though spending much of his visits to Cornwall decked out with tricorn (too highly ranked for a bandana apparently) and sword.

    2. Stairs can be anywhere – but they’re often at home, so in that regards it’s a true statement. You could argue that “Business flight?” might also work – if not that obvious.

  2. 6:10
    Put in STAIRS worrying that I’d missed something in the clue. I’m old enough that ROOKED didn’t raise any of my eyebrows. Caret or tilde, whatever is easier for you, Merlin.

  3. 4:13. Also hadn’t heard of ROOKED.

    I’m wondering about the ‘domestic flight’ being objectionable to some. Of course many American houses have stairs but I’ve also been in a fair few that don’t (or only small flights, or flights down to the basement), regardless of splendour. On the other hand, the stairs (especially in smaller houses, council houses, two up two down, terraced houses, whatever) seem quite a fundamental part of domestic life to many Brits growing up. The stairs are right in front of you when you enter the house, you spend endless hours playing on them as a young child before you ever set foot in a school. That’s why I think the immediate association with ‘domestic’ is there.

    The AI speculation is also interesting. I would like to know the amount of context from other clues that the AI solvers take into account. Solving the DENTIST-type clues with crossers is one thing; without, another. It boggles the mind to think about how the 2D grid is even represented internally by the AI, relative to the clues. The fact that AI chatbots can (or at least did when I tried it a year ago) give you clever answers, but with the wrong number of letters, shows that there can’t be hard constraints like grid size specified.

    Thanks Merlin and Izetti.

    1. Take a look at Crossword Genius which is very good. I have been watching its improvement over the last year. My theory is that this very blog is its main source of training material. Its “party piece” of letting you take a picture of a puzzle and watch it hopping around the grid solving it is definitely worth watching,

      1. I’ll look into it, thank you! So far I only use Dan Word which I use to check [suspected] incorrect answers after submitting puzzles on a Sat/Sun (when answers aren’t here on the blog!)

  4. 7.26, with a bit of time nutting out SLOGAN at the end. Not at all sure about def/brill etc. Thank you Merlin for the interesting info on double T/double L, I just assumed Americans spelt it Traveling Wilburys because they generally tend to use fewer letters. My vote goes to the tilde.

  5. Started and ended slowly but raced through the middle. Just SLOGAN, RIGID and ROAST on the first pass but then followed by an awful lot of downs. NHO ‘def’ but whacked in the unchecked D and F to fit the definition and struggled for ages with STAIRS – obviously right with a clunk once I alpha traweled to it but I had been expecting a double definition. Previously held up trying to anagram ‘a trick’ until PERFORM let SPARTA jump out. All green in 13.12.

  6. 9 minutes. The usual slow start; my excuse is that these days I can’t hear the starter’s pistol due to age-related hearing loss. Motored through the rest quite comfortably with the main cause for doubt being whether 13a ended in -ION or -IVE until I had the final -N as a checked letter. I managed to avoid the OCTAGENARIAN spelling trap which has nabbed me before. I liked DENTIST; anything that keeps AI out of crosswords has to be good.

    Thanks to Izetti for an enjoyable QC and to Merlin for the blog, including the spelling lesson which (seriously) is something I’ve learnt today

    1. The same goes for me re spelling. I now at last understand why we write “fitted” but not “benefitted”. Thank you Merlin and Izetti.

  7. Thanks M and I.
    I initially had NARRATIVE for 13ac with “of country” giving me NATIVE.
    Luckily there was no doubt about BLACK AND WHITE which saved the day!

  8. 9 minutes with DEFEND as my LOI.

    I originally put NARRATIVE at 13ac – NATIVE (of country) – and was quite happy with it until it blocked BLACK AND WHITE.

    Not that it bothers me, but given the adverse comments that often appear when the suffix ‘-ess’ is used to indicate female (notably we had one such only last week) I don’t think your alternative clue to ASSESS passes muster, Merlin. Unless donkeys don’t count…

    1. We’ve had a similar definition with ‘female donkey’ or ‘Jenny’ before. But, particularly since it’s meant to be a humorous definition and donkeys of whatever sex are unlikely to be offended, I think it does pass muster.

  9. I thought this was very approachable with my only real hold up being my LOI. I think I’ve seen ‘domestic flight’ (or something very similar) for STAIRS before so it went in with eyebrows unmoved.

    Started with DREADS and finished with an unparsed DEFEND in 6.36 with COD to PERFORM.
    Thanks to Merlin and Izetti

  10. Merlin is that s crafty way if telling us your time was 17:04? I was 17:17 btw.
    Sparta stairs were hard work but got the better of them and Drake in the end.
    I liked domestic flight as a dad joke cryptic clue although I agree fully that flights of stairs are not found solely in domestic settings… but international or long haul flights wouldn’t necessarily describe a setting for stairs… unless they were steps between countries or very big ones like you find on the pyramids? But what do I know😂
    TaMAI

  11. 6.41 WOE

    Thought this was quite tricky and had to jump around a bit. Can’t spell OCTOGENARIANS. Liked PERFORM.

    Thanks Merlin/Izetti

  12. Another enjoyable QC from Izetti. I started slowly and didn’t get very far in the NW corner but gained traction as crossers went in. I returned to the NW for my LOsI, 1a and 1d, and finished in 17.58 which is at the top of my normal Izetti range these days. We seem to have had a series of fair, but quite challenging, proper QCs recently.
    I think I parsed them all except SPARTA (and didn’t understand DEF); I will now check the blog. Thanks to Izetti and Merlin.

  13. 12:00 which I’ll take for a puzzle by Izetti, and all parsed except DEFEND, which I biffed as my LOI and where even after reading Merlin’s explanation I am still scratching my head. But then the amount of American teen slang I know or have even heard of is probably approaching zero, and I’m not much better informed on British teen-speak either.

    Very much liked SPARTA when I had worked out it was not an anagram of A trick, and STAIRS when I realised that this was a rare example of an exception to the rule of thumb that two word clues are usually DDs.

    Many thanks Merlin for the blog.

  14. Just under 10 minutes, which suggests this is at the more straightforward end of the Izetti spectrum. I liked unqualified as a definition for BLACK AND WHITE: I knew that had to be the solution but couldn’t immediately work out why.

  15. Oh for Pete’s sake. Fat-fingered OCTOGENRRIAN for a DPS in 07:02 but.

    I don’t think that any of the shorthand for bloggers (for example indicating anagrams with brackets and asterisks) is very helpful for new solvers dipping their toe in the water and coming here for explanations. If they can’t follow the explanations without looking up a key to the symbols being used, it just makes the blog look confusing and for insiders only.

    I thought that the question-mark in Domestic flight? covered Izetti against the point that stairs can be commercial as well as domestic, since it indicates a definition by example.

    Many thanks Izetti and Merlin.

    1. We’ve come a long way with the shorthand, Templar. Some of the earliest blogs looked more like an algebra exam paper! I don’t use the (ragnama)* one myself though.

  16. 9:36 My last three in were SPARTA (after failing to find an anagram for ‘a trick’), STAIRS (entered with a shrug) and SLOGAN.

    Thanks Merlin and Izetti

  17. One of those crosswords in which the hardest clue (and LOI) is 1 across, but got there eventually. Found great = INTENSE weak, and agree with Merlin (thanks) that BLACK AND WHITE is “odd”, otherwise all straightforward and enjoyable, thanks to the good Don.

  18. I found this harder than usual, possibly because my son was clambering all over me rather than being a good boy and getting ready for nursery. It took me 15:26, although a lot of that was on the last four clues, DENTIST, INTENSE, PERFORM and SPARTA, none of which, on reflection, should have detained me too long (although I often miss the A = PER device, as I did here).

    Re: the AI prediction, I think it is definitely true to predict that clues such as 21ac will be vulnerable to AI attack pretty soon. They do follow a reasonably consistent structure that is learnable by an LLM. I’d say that specialising an AI to crosswords, maybe even to a specific newspaper’s crosswords, would make most style of clue that follows some kind of pattern, tractable.

    Clues such as 1dn (itself a very simple cryptic clue, there are obviously much more complex examples) seem a bit harder I’d have said, the only real indication that it is of the cryptic type being the question mark (which can also mean different things to different setters and different settings). The lateral thinking aspect of even such a simple cryptic seems difficult for an AI. I work in Cyber Security, what we are seeing with AI based attacks is an ability to scale very quickly repeatable, labour intensive tasks, such as spotting and exploiting known vulnerabilities, but stuff that requires lateral thought, such as finding new vulnerabilities in a system, are less suited to an AI.

    My prediction would be that innovation will always keep the setters (very slightly) ahead. I’m not sure how long it would take an AI to be trained to spot new devices, recent examples being the (some would say controversial) cycle device and the prime thing – but I’m pretty certain they would have to be trained, they couldn’t “just work it out”. I guess the owner of a solver program could code some non-Ai based decisioning to cover innovations, but then that solver would struggle if the championship puzzles contained any innovation.

    So I’m holding out hope that there will be at least a handful more of human winners – we’ll see!

  19. 5:02. LOI ASUNDER where I took a while to spot the obvious SUNDERLAND. Of course to a Geordie it’s not a Northern city as the south starts at Gateshead. Thanks Izetti and Merlin.

  20. AI can use multi-dimensional tensors to represent crystal structures so 2D grids should be a walk in the park.

    Seven parsed on first pass. I found around fifty percent of the clues to advanced for me but I did get 2d immediately.

    Thanks Merlin and Izetti

  21. Took a while, but no accurate time as interrupted twice – about 30 minutes I would say as I found this very much on the hard side. Only a few across clues solved at first pass, but more success withthe downs and getting the long words helped too. NHO ROOKED, so CROOKED a guess.

  22. 16:20 (average: 35, target: 31)

    I found this puzzle very light for Izetti. Izetti is the setter who I’ve always felt most in touch with and has helped the most to get into the QCs and cryptics in general. I always very much enjoy Izetti puzzles. Normally they take me a lot longer but this one was full of QC chestnuts.

    I really liked the caret for insertion. It’s a strong visual indicator and also has a familiarity from editing marks. Personally I find the caret slightly easier to type than the tilde being as it is a small reach forward with the index finger rather than a wrist rotation and a slight stretch with the weaker little finger.

    Thanks Merlin and Izetti

  23. Tried 21A on Copilot and ChatGPT.

    Copilot really struggled and went through a number of answers finally resting on “teethes” with quite an unsatisfactory explanation. Even when given the answer it didn’t really get why.

    ChatGPT on the other hand did get the answer with a very self assured response however it is possible that it reached out for some extra Web based help given that it is not isolated. I did also ask it for references afterwards, but it only referenced the dictionary and indicated that it probably came from The Times because of it’s well-formed nature. I also subsequently asked it if it had scraped and it said no it was just the highly structured nature of the clue that made it possible to answer: https://chatgpt.com/share/68ee0e2d-d14c-8013-a382-e95efbe517bf

    1. Thanks for sharing the series of prompts. Very interesting. The more we test it, the better it gets.

      I suspect that the Crossword Genius people (who charge for usage) are monetising the good work bloggers have done for years on this site. You couldn’t ask for a better training set.

      1. This blog site is an amazing resource for humans and computers alike. I completely agree that it is a perfect source of training data. It would be a joy to scrape compared to most sites given its carefully structured posts and comments. I had wondered if the 500s we were seeing so often on the old hosting site were because people were doing that. I have to say that it wouldn’t feel great to have the generously given time and enormous intellect of the kind bloggers and commenters here taken in that way.

        I also note that at 38s for ChatGPT to solve that clue it would be hard pushed to challenge cmjhutton’s 90s for the whole grid!

  24. Izetti being my favourite setter is something of a handicap! The moment I see his name I get so giddy with excitement that it takes a while to settle to the task in hand. My middle age crush on the Don’s skills led to an over-target 15:50.
    CoD to OCTOGENARIANS, I laughed a lot.

  25. Apart from RIGID, it took me several clues to get started and I was beginning to fear the worst. However, the bottom of the grid was more to my liking and I built back up from there to finish in 22 minutes (jolly good for me, esp. with Izetti).

    I didn’t fully understand STAIRS or DEFEND. DECLAIMED, PERFORM and SPARTA were my L3I.

    Many thanks to Merlin and Izetti.

  26. Not as quick as yesterday but a respectable 8.52 to finish. It would have been nearer seven minutes except that my last three took the best part of two minutes. They were in order of solving DECLAIMED, SPARTA and finally PERFORM.
    To enter the debate about STAIRS, in my previous life as an architect I may have referred to the aforesaid in a domestic situation, but when designing any sort of commercial building a formal STAIRCASE or in larger buildings STAIRWELL may have been referred to.
    In passing I should mention that I attempted the contest final puzzle in yesterday’s paper, only completing about 60% of the clues before giving up. I was intrigued however by the comment in the write up stating that AI failed to solve one of the clues. Curiosity led me to attempt this one first, and I solved it in five seconds. In the sure knowledge that I’m far from the smartest solver around, why did AI find this unsolvable I wonder?

  27. No problems with this, finishing in 7 minutes.
    I did need several looks at LOI ASUNDER but the checkers got me there and then I saw SUNDERLAND-nice clue.
    Also liked BLACK-AND-WHITE.
    Excellent QC I thought.
    David

  28. DNF

    Really struggled with this one and threw in the towel at 30 mins with STAIRS, SPARTA and PERFORM unanswered. Also failed to get brill = def. All in all best forgotten, except A = PER which keeps coming up and I keep forgetting it.

  29. No real problems with this, finishing in 16 minutes. Didn’t understand DEFEND – still don’t despite Merlin’s excellent blog. No preference between caret and tilde.

    FOI – 8ac ASTOUND
    LOI – 1dn STAIRS
    COD – 21ac DENTIST

    Thanks to Izetti and Merlin

    1. According to Izetti, you might equally say ‘Brill(iant) finish’ or ‘Def(inite) end’. Both brill and def are kids’ slang for excellent, though the former hails from the 70s and I doubt is still used and the latter from around the 2010s, I would guess, though I’m sure parents of teenagers would be able to date it more accurately.

      1. No, DEF was a 1980s term, with its roots in US hip-hop culture, and had fallen out of use by around 2000.

        1. Ha, well that dates me, pretty well! We tend to get familiar with these terms well outside their use-by date, by hearing them used ironically or by journalists who think they’re in touch with youth culture.

  30. 15:01, failing to understand STAIRS and DEFEND. I did wonder whether “stairs” was some sort of slang for a domestic servant of some kind, but Chambers doesn’t appear to have anything in support of that idea.

    Thank you for the blog!

  31. Had to look up flight to see STAIRS. Doh! POI SLOGAN.
    CNP BLACK AND WHITE but it had to be. Ditto SPARTA and DEFEND.
    Not v quick today.
    Liked PERFORM, ASTOUND, DRAKE, TOWED, among others. COD ASUNDER.
    Thanks vm, Merlin.

  33. Couldn’t see either Slogan or Stairs to start with, but Probed gave me a foothold in the NE. I then foolishly completly ignored the two long down answers, deciding to wait for crossers, only to find that they would have been write-ins. In other words a poor performance on my part, capped by forgetting the A/Per trick yet again. And talking of tricks, I was another who tried (atrick)* for 15d.
    Given all the above, I was thankful to secure a (non-window) seat in the SCC, albeit it should have been a lot closer to a sub-20. CoD was always going to be Edited, but doubly so given it prompted Merlin’s useful spelling tip 🙂 Invariant

  34. Whilst obviously trickier than yesterday’s Trelawney, I thought this was Izetti in full QC mode, and shot through in 2 straight passes.

    FOI SLOGAN
    LOI INTENSE
    COD DRAKE
    TIME 3:17

  36. 17.06 for us – held up for several minutes by SLOGAN and SPARTA. NHO DECLAIMED as a word – though parsed it, so in it went. OCTOGENARIANS leapt in (though not something they often do…) hesitated on the spelling until himself saved me. Like others, appreciated the spelling lesson. Well, there we are we thought… not something we had much wondered about before, however, a matter we have now contemplated. : ) As the saying goes, ‘better informed, if none the wiser’.
    Thank you Izetti and Merlin.

  37. My FOI was a tentative STAIRS and SLOGAN brought up the rear. I had a few wobbles with CROOKED, DECLAIMED and DEFEND but still managed to cross the line in 7:16 Thanks Merlin

  38. Hard work but pleased to battle through in 17 minutes. Stuck on stairs and the bottom right corner.

  40. 7.24 I misspelled OCTOGENARIANS before carefully checking the anagrist for once. SPARTA, PERFORM and DEFEND took two minutes at the end. Thanks Merlin and Izetti.

    P.S. I think I prefer the tilde to the caret but it’s all much of a muchness.

  41. I wandered all over the place to try and get a foothold, and finally kicked off with 5d! But things went fairly smoothly after that, and I finished in under 10 minutes. I liked PERFORM and CROOKED. The ‘rooked’ part wasn’t so familiar. It sounds like something Bertie Wooster would say!
    My initial reaction to the insertion device was that I prefer the tilde – it’s more obvious on screen, but on reading andybry’s comments, I can see that the caret works rather well in context. So no help there, I’m afraid! Perhaps the answer to Templar’s comments about our shorthand being confusing to new solvers is to follow Jack’s lead, and put a brief summary in the intros.
    8:49 FOI Rodeo LOI Defend COD Octogenarian
    Thanks Izetti and Merlin

  42. 25 mins…

    The hardest for a while I think, but this might be my longest completion streak. I will have to check. Difficult clues included 1dn “Stairs”, 12ac “Crooked”, 14dn “Intense” and my COD 21ac “Dentist” – although I did wonder why the dentist would be the source of a cavity – surely they’re there to sort it out?

    23ac “Defend” was completed with my fingers crossed – although the “Brill” = “Def” now makes a bit more sense.

    FOI – 1ac “Slogan”
    LOI – 23ac “Defend”
    COD – 21ac “Dentist”

    Thanks as usual!

  43. We did OK with this, finishing in 10:17 with LOI DEFEND. Not qualified to comment on the transatlantic aspect of DEF but I do recall that meaning coming up here before. It’s still not a word I can imagine using any time soon. COD DRAKE. Thank you, Merlin, for the usual entertaining and informative blog and thanks, Izetti.

  44. 15:16
    Six in on the first across pass and for some strange reason, I veritably flew through this, enjoying the solves more than Trelawney’s QC yesterday.
    However, 6 mins in and it all came to a grinding halt with STAIRS, SPARTA and PERFORM left unsolved.
    Cannot remember whether the PDM with STAIRS solicited a sigh or a chuckle but I thought it was a fair clue as I couldn’t think of anything else that would qualify as a ‘domestic flight’.
    FOI: ASTOUND
    LOI: SPARTA
    COD: DENTIST

    Thanks to Izetti and Merlin

  45. A bit of a slog for me but I probed away and got there in the end, with help on loi PERFORM from my wife, who looked over my shoulder and got it at once! I don’t think I’ve come across per=a before: neat now I’ve got it! Enjoyed TO WED but my cod was BLACK AND WHITE for its unqualified simplicity. SCC again, thanks Izetti and Merlin

  46. 7:19. Fair amount of biffing but mostly went in smoothly. Slow at the end with SPARTA and ASSESS to finish up. thanks both

  48. This resident of the SCC failed on two, SLOGAN and STAIRS. For STAIRS I really should have taken note of the question mark and thought about “definition by example”. I was thinking two words = double definition. Grr (to self).

    Really expected 15d to be an anagram of “A trick”, that would be normal but . . . Let’s go for “A learning opportunity”.

  49. Not a quick Izetti for me but all done. STAIRS was last, silly really we’ve had it before or at least ‘Stair’, I think. Seems rather clever to me, and I’m still climbing them.

  50. 44 minutes in total either side of cutting the grass -don’t think I’ve ever done it so late in the year! An enjoyable testing ( for me) puzzle. First one in OCTOGENARIAN
    LOI. SLOGAN
    Thank you Izetti and Merlin

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