Good morning, and we have another puzzle from Cheeko this morning – and after he seemed to relent a little last time out, this one I found back to his more chewy style. The actual completion of the grid took me 14:36, but working out the parsing for some of the more convoluted clues took considerably longer.
I was not helped by being royally misled by a part of speech in 13D – there are two good answers to this clue in my view, and naturally I picked the wrong one at first before other clues forced a change of mind.
Despite my struggles, it is hard not to admire and enjoy the smoothness of many of the surfaces in this puzzle. I’ve picked out 18A as my COD, but several others are first class too.
So ends a tough week – my slowest aggregate time on record for the week since the start of Saturday QCs. How did everyone else get on?
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (abc)* indicates an anagram of abc, and strike-through-text shows deletions.
| Across | |
| 7 | Collection of entertaining posers? (4,4) |
| QUIZ SHOW – An all-in-one clue, and one of my later entries as I needed all the checkers. The “entertaining posers” are the questions that collectively form the quiz – for once nothing to do models sitting. | |
| 8 | Nothing in Yorkshire at present time (4) |
| NOWT – NOW (present) + T (time). A Yorkshire dialect word. | |
| 9 | Guard regularly arrests confident moneylender (6) |
| USURER – UR (gUaRd “regularly”) surrounding (“arrests”) SURE (confident).
Arrests as an inclusion indicator was new to me, but it was not too difficult to work out what was going on. |
|
| 10 | Foul water closet finally fixed in work done by you (5) |
| DIRTY – RT (wateR closeT “finally”, ie last letters of) in DIY (work done by you).
There seems to be no easy way for setters to indicate how many of the preceding words one is to take the last letter of, and I read the clue at first as Foul water – definition / closet finally – take the T. But the proper parsing emerged fairly quickly. |
|
| 11 | Female sightseer visited periodically (3) |
| SHE – The 1st, 4th and 7th letter of SigHtsEer.
Again, some lateral thinking required here: “periodically” and its twin “regularly” usually mean “take every other letter”, but here Cheeko wants us to take every third one. |
|
| 12 | Bee perhaps caught in little illustration (6) |
| INSECT – C (caught) in INSET (little illustration). | |
| 14 | Section of Bologna police in another Italian city (6) |
| NAPOLI – A hidden, in BologNA POLIce, with the hidden indicator being “section of”.
Unusual perhaps to see an answer using the native word for a foreign city not the standard English version, but Napoli is I think familiar enough, especially to anyone who follows Italian football. |
|
| 16 | Bond formed by chaps in cycling etc (6) |
| CEMENT – MEN (chaps) in CET (anagram of etc, with the C moving from back to front, ie “cycling”). | |
| 18 | Every so often, lads’ round in bar causes pandemonium (6) |
| BEDLAM – DL (LaDs “every so often”, ie every other letter, and then reversed, indicated by “round”) in BEAM (bar). This clue gets my “surface of the day” award for the picture of a chaotic drinking session it brings to mind.
“Round” as a reversal indicator was another that I needed to think twice about, but the connection via eg “turn round” is clear enough. |
|
| 19 | Millions in international alliance, one that will never take off (3) |
| EMU – M (millions) in EU (international alliance).
Is Cheeko making a veiled political statement here about the future of the European Union? |
|
| 20 | Giant bird starts to annoy neighbours (5) |
| TITAN – TIT (bird) + A N (starts to, ie first letters of, Annoy Neighbours).
A very nice lift-and-separate at the start of the clue, as we are not looking for a large bird here – in fact a tit is the very opposite. |
|
| 21 | Conflict prevalent on street (6) |
| STRIFE – RIFE (prevalent) following (“on”) ST (street).
As this is an across clue, “on” can mean following. If it was a down clue, “on” more usually means preceding, ie visually on top of. I found this very confusing when I was starting my crossword-solving career. |
|
| 23 | Withdrawn uncouth sort holds beginning of Low Mass (4) |
| KILO – KIO (oik, ie uncouth sort, all reversed, ie “withdrawn”) containing L (beginning of Low).
This clue held me up for a long time as I had an erroneous N as its second checker (see the entry for 13D). Eventually I saw how the clue worked, and this enabled me also to correct 13D. |
|
| 24 | Brandy ad enlivened with vocals (8) |
| CALVADOS – (ad vocals)*, with the anagram indicator being “enlivened”.
At least, that is how I chose to parse it, though the anagrind is working quite hard here to apply to both ad and vocals – the surface is a bit loose. A possible alternative parsing which I saw later was “ad surrounded by an anagram of vocals”, but I think the wordplay is even more struggling to encompass that. Whatever, there is little doubt about what Cheeko wants as the answer – and very nice apple brandy it is too. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Pest’s vacuous ideas blocking subtlety (8) |
| NUISANCE – IS (“vacuous” IdeaS, ie without the middle letters) inserted into (“blocking”) NUANCE (subtlety). | |
| 2 | Estate perhaps divided by unknown despot (4) |
| CZAR – CAR (estate, perhaps – ie estate car / station wagon) including Z (unknown). | |
| 3 | Craving son sent down in casual clothing (6) |
| THIRST – T-SHIRT (casual clothing) with the S (son) moved back three letters (“sent down”).
One of several clues I biffed and then spent a long time working out the parsing. |
|
| 4 | Unbounded lewdness corrupted country (6) |
| SWEDEN – (ewdnes)*, the anagrist being formed from the inner letters of |
|
| 5 | Fearless Pinter forged documents (8) |
| INTREPID – INTREP (anagram of Pinter, the anagram indicator being “forged”) + ID (documents). | |
| 6 | Entrance to athletics track at opponent’s ground (4) |
| AWAY – A (entrance to, ie first letter of, Athletics) + WAY (track). Another excellent surface. | |
| 13 | Choosing building that’s changed hands (8) |
| ELECTION – ERECTION (building) with the R changed for an L (changed hands).
This one caused me no end of trouble, as on the first pass I confidently put in ELECTIng, reasoning that if one is building something one is erecting it, and in a democracy, if one is choosing someone, one is electing them. As a standalone piece of parsing, I think that works well, and if anything rather better than what Cheeko has in mind, which requires one to realise that choosing, although more commonly a verbal form, can also be used as a noun. But Electing made 23A impossible, so I had to think again and eventually found what Cheeko intended. |
|
| 15 | Advance in stages by putting pressure on bent friends? (8) |
| LEAPFROG – An all-in-one clue, which I biffed once I had all the checkers, and then spent an age trying to work out the wordplay – I was well misled by “bent friends” into looking for an anagram. But an anagram of what was not clear, and eventually I realised that the clue simply describes the children’s game of leapfrog where friends bend over so that you can jump over them, with your hand on their back pressing down on them. A real PDM moment when I saw that, and my LOI and LOP (last one parsed). | |
| 17 | Pair of cards (6) |
| TENACE – TEN + ACE (two suit cards).
A very neat clue – just 3 words long – but quite specialist GK perhaps: a tenace is a term from bridge, whist and similar card games for a pair of cards in one hand which rank immediately above and below a card held by an opponent, eg the Ace and Queen in a suit of which an opponent holds the King. (Note though that an Ace/10 pair would not usually be considered a tenace!) |
|
| 18 | Hurry about using broken leg — not quite (6) |
| BUSTLE – BUST (broken) + LE (leg, with the last letter deleted, given by “not quite”) | |
| 20 | Small branch starts to thrive within investment groups (4) |
| TWIG – Formed from the first letters (“starts to”) Thrive Within Investment Groups. | |
| 22 | Study Thatcher’s material for auditors (4) |
| READ – Sounds like (ie “for auditors”) REED (material for thatchers). | |
There’s a Nina here if you look down the columns, not that I agree with Cheeko’s sentiment—surely they must know that their QCs have been anything but?
Well spotted.
I should have made it clear I didn’t spot the Nina, just passing the message on!
Difficult puzzles this week.
Can’t see the Nina today.
Extreme right and left edges reading down.
I found this harder than normal too, although looking at it I can’t really see why. I was also watching “Drive to Survive” which just went live today, so not completely focused on the. crossword. LOI was LEAPFROG.
22:33. NHO TENACE and had lots of trouble parsing BEDLAM. I wanted UNREST first for STRIFE. Very difficult!
Made exactly the same mistake and bunged in ELECTING. Never did get the parsing for LEAPFROG so thank you for the explanation, makes perfect sense. QUIZ SHOW was very clever but twigged when I remembered posers could be questions. NHO TENACE. Didn’t see the NINA and think it’s quite clever and assume it’s just to reflect the title of the crossword and not its level of difficulty.
Thanks Cedric, great blog as usual.
An end to a difficult and very unsatisfying week. Just occasionally give us newbies a chance not a whole week of puzzles that are a challenge for the experienced. I know each puzzle is a learning experience but too many unsolvable and we start to give up. Hardly what Ithink the purpose of the QC is. Thanks to the blogger but I think Cheeko should stick to 15*15.
On to next week 🤞
Yes, the sort of week that makes me wonder whether I’ve made any progress at all in the six months I’ve been doing them.
Many thanks to Cedric for taking the time to puzzle out the parsing, I’d have been here all morning trying to do it myself!
Totally agree. I would not even consider myself a newbie but my appetite for tackling the QC as a nice way to unwind after a busy day is becoming increasingly a frustrating and joyless exercise with little satisfaction as a lot of the newer setters seem not to have grasped the Q in the name. If I wished to spend 45 minutes scratching around a grid occasionally ticking one in I’d tackle the 15×15 but surely that doesn’t seem right for the easier version?
Hear hear .. a difficult and dispiriting week.
17 minutes.
The ‘periodically’ device leading to SHE is perfectly valid but still unusual enough to raise an eyebrow especially in a QC, although it’d be reasonable to argue that those hoping to upgrade to the 15×15 need to be exposed to such tricks.
However I don’t think the same case can be made for 13dn where defining a noun ending -ION by means of two verbal forms ending -ING is just plain devious. I’d suggest that even the most experienced solver taking that clue in isolation would put ELECTING, and if they realised the possibility of the alternative ELECTION would still choose ELECTING in preference because of the syntax of the clue. Of course this being a crossword puzzle ELECTION has to be the correct answer, but I’m just saying that at QC level I think the clue as written was a bit much.
NHO TENACE despite having been a keen card player all my life. Never bridge though.
One point of terminology used here (at least as I understand it) we tend to use ‘all in one’ for ‘&lit’ clues that contain both definition and wordplay whereas both 7ac and 15dn are classed as cryptic definitions since no other wordplay is involved.
Oof, that was tough. 24:52 with one error: userer for usurer. No excuses: I know the word, just plain got it wrong – and then convinced myself that SERE meant “confident”. Dear oh dear. My favourite clue today was CEMENT, simply because it is the first time I’ve ever spotted the “cycling” trick of changing ETC to CET.
Thanks to Cheeko for a fun puzzle & to Cedric for the blog.
Tough-going, but I would have completed it in a respectable-for-me time had it not been for 2 NHOs, KIO and TENACE. Needed the blog, for sure. Thanks CS.
Pi ❤️
Oik is the uncouth person Pi (with the L inside to make mass KG)
How silly of me. I should have read the blog more carefully, rather than skim-reading! 🤦🏼
And of course, I know the word OIK, just never saw it. Dang.
A somewhat ironic nina today but, with the exception of ELECTION (I’m another who went down the ‘ing’ route), a high quality puzzle.
TENACE was NHO and I submitted with fingers crossed that a DPS wouldn’t appear.
Started with INSECT and finished with KILO in 11.29.
Thanks to Cedric for a top quality blog.
After previously stating that I usually get there in the end, I didn’t today. Like my daily drive, I hit too many pot holes on the way and ended up much deflated.
Abandoned after 45+ minutes with too many blanks to list. If the aim was to show superlative setter skills by including a NINA, pat yourself on the back but there was not much Q in this QCC.
Thanks Cedric for unravelling much to be clarified.
Agree.
A DNF for me too. I can usually bludgeon them out, but not this one.
40:39 for the solve. At 7:15am when I saw this was a Cheeko and a portcullis grid, I set it aside and went off to do other stuff. An hour or so later, I was ready and had done all but the SE in 15mins. From there it became a drudge.
NHO TENACE, vaguely recall CALVADOS is alcoholic from when I was a child in the 70s/80s – didn’t know it was a brandy. BEDLAM maybe should have got quicker. LEAPFROG I eventually got from my original thought of LEG=stages even though it’s just a pure cryptic.
Overall criticism of the puzzle – too much going on in the clues – too often multiple steps required to get to the answer – fine for the 15×15 but not QC. For example BEDLAM – take alternate letters of LADS, turn them around, put them in a synonym for bar. On the other hand the INSECT clue is what I expect for a QC.
Thanks to Cedric for a detailed blog as ever. Likewise I was held up on KILO by ELECTING – I personally can’t see ELECTION=CHOOSING as valid synonyms. Everything parsed.
Sounds like you had to mentally prepare yourself New Driver for the challenge ahead 😀
Well done on completing though.
Thanks mate. Another successful solve is the bright spot – 12 in a row now. About 85% for the year so far which is up on last year’s 71%
Kudos to you for patience and perseverance. If only I had done the same.
Thank-you. It’s only the 4th time I’ve been dragged past 30mins this year – I guess it’s easier to find some persistence when it’s not too frequent
Good perseverance, ND, I always knew you were a persistent, never-say-die son of a gun!
Thank-you – what I lack in talent I’ve always made up for with persistent. It’s a blessing and a curse
DNF++. Had to reveal some in SE , despite early solve of CALVADOS. Only biffed LEAPFROG (good clue) thanks to revealing others.
Liked TENACE, NOWT, CEMENT, NUISANCE, INTREPID. Failed KILO due to ELECTing.
FOI NAPOLI.
Not enjoyable as too difficult for a QC, imo. Many above agree.
Thanks for much needed blog, Cedric.
9.18 with a typo
Hard but high quality with some fine clues.
TENACE very good as was TITAN and a few others.
Thanks Cheeko and Cedric – toughish blogging day!
A nice puzzle. I just found myself logged off and didn’t save my post before I signed in again so I will try to remember what I wrote.
Most of the grid took shape smoothly but with hiccups over QUIZ, TENACE (NHO), NUISANCE (a nice clue when I had the U). I had to see that ELECTING was actually ELECTION before I could get KILO.
I liked NOWT and LEAPFROG.
All this took me to 22 mins. Glad that some of my problems were shared by others and that I am not alone in taking so long.
Thanks to Cheeko and Cedric. I hope to recover some composure next week after a tough week of puzzles this week. In the meantime, I can depress myself by reading the paper.
The QC features in the Puzzle Editor’s Clues of the Week.
I found this difficult. NOWT was FOI. I put ELECTING at 13d until KILO made ELECTION the only option. As Jack says, in isolation this clue would have to lead to the former answer. NHO TENACE. 14:35. Thanks Cheeko and Cedric.
Tricky but fair, and I thought it was superb crossword. 14:35 for me, which reflects said trickiness! Really enjoyed this one.
Thanks C and C.
Really struggled today. TENACE not a problem as a bridge player, but fell into the trap of ELECTING so never got KILO. Not a QC IMO. Thanks Cedric for clarifying the ones I biffed in hope!
Dnf…
After 18 mins had everything apart from 24ac “Calvados” (I put “Valdasoc”) and 17dn “Tenace”. I dkn the latter, and it became unobtainable with my lack of brandy knowledge.
When I saw it was Cheeko I sucked in some air based on my first experience with them last year – but I actually enjoyed it, even some of the clues that required a bit more thinking. A shame about the last two that stumped me.
FOI – 2dn “Czar” (were they all despots?)
LOI – 17dn “Tenave” – (incorrect)
COD – 16ac “Cement”
Thanks as usual!
I had a slight advantage there, as Calvados is my favourite tipple 🙂
Indeed, a good CALVADOS is a thing of beauty.
Seconded.
9:59
Enjoyable puzzle – so much so that I didn’t realise that nearly ten minutes had passed when I entered LOI NHO TENACE (only ever played bridge once and this unsurprisingly didn’t come up) – an educated punt on the only possibly card (ACE) that would fit. I didn’t demur for too long over ELECTION as I took ‘building’ as a noun and assumed ‘erection’. LEAPFROG was a nice PDM.
Many thanks Cedric for the usual high quality commentary, and to Cheeko for the puzzle
Well done Cedric, I needed your help to find out why several answers were correct!
COD to LEAPFROG for taking me – and others, I see – around the houses when it is a barely cryptic definition. Clever.
I took some time to find enough material to build on, then worked my way through with some biffing, and hoping I’d understood the clue for NHO TENACE; fair clue for a non QC word. SCC coffee time now. Thanks to Cheeko.
I’m a bridge player and I missed it too. I was thinking along the lines of a couple of sharp characters…
I confess that I groaned when I saw who the setter was, and made a fresh cup of coffee in preparation. Foi was 11ac She, so I knew straight away that this was going to be another tricky one. After that it was a case of hopping around the grid, picking off the odd (in more than one sense) clue here and there. At the end, I gave up trying to parse loi Leapfrog (thanks, Cedric, for admitting to the same difficulty) in order to preserve a sub-30.
Pleased to finish, and good practice for the 15×15 and all that, but a QC in name only. CoD to 8ac, Nowt, for the smile. Invariant
I was a bit more patient this morning which is a generous way of saying I took 50 minutes to parse ten clues with no biffs.
I’m not in total agreement that Z is the primary algebraic unknown. That is surely X.
I missed “in cycling” as a rearrange indicator for etc., probably because I was a cyclists.
X, Y and Z are considered to be the unknowns in Crosswordland.
Gosh. What is the alleyway past the SCC? You’ll find us there, heading out to ‘back of beyond’ (BOB)
The blog was embraced. Good man, Mr Cedric. Thank you.
10a – comment re last letter location, does this mean it is always in PRECEDING word(s)?
23 – OIK NHO..perhaps we hang out with couth and shevelled folk (and have blanked rearing teenagers from our memories).
18 – BROKEN to BUST – another ‘cousin once removed’ clue, more of 15 x15 than QC IOHO.
So – tough for us. That said, on review, thanks to the blog we now understand all, so accept it was therefore all possible and take hints away (whether we remember them remains to be seen).
Now to John’s weekend offering. Have a good one, all.
55mins, but finally got there with CZAR as last one in.
Whizzed through all of north-east corner and then slowed down. Clues were fair and I was able to fully parse all but two.
Nho tenace despite two years of bridge lessons.
I felt much more on the setter’s wavelength than yesterday’s QC.
This was enjoyable ( although I missed the Nina) although very tough for a QC
FOI nowt. COD Titan
Thanks to Cheeko and Cedric.
Another four-clue DNF! Just too many these days. Dispiriting!
I made very good progress early on with at least 50% of the clues going in at first reading. I slowed a little after that, but still confidently expected a faster-than-average completion as I entered the SCC with maybe six clues remaining. Unfortunately, that was almost that for me and I threw in the towel nearly half an hour later with three clues still unsolved and one solved incorrectly.
My error was ELECTIng and my unsolved clues were KILO (obviously), QUIZ SHOW (where, despite extensive alphabet trawling, QUIZ never came to mind) and NUISANCE (where the only bit I found was IS).
It should not be possible (at QC level) for a clue to have two or more perfectly acceptable solutions, but both Mrs R and I came to grief with ELECTIng. So, Cheeko is (yet again) not very popular in the Random household.
Many thanks to Cedric for the blog.
..like you – we added ‘ing’ to elect (ChoosING).. missed KILO and relieved to read we were not the only ones that tried buzz, fuzz, all sorts of words -just not QUIZ.
Similarly, IS appeared – but did not fit in ‘ANNOYANCE’ – which was a nuisance… and in that way, we happened upon it.
Day of rest tomorrow…
14:06 (James Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron Renfrew, Prince and Great Steward of Scotland taken prisoner in English Channel and kept captive in London for next 18 years)
I missed the Nina, and certainly did not live up to it. LOI was the unknown TENACE.
Thanks Cedric and Cheeko
26:04 but one typo (STRIFR) which was frustrating. Being a Yorkshireman made NOWT a write-in and being a bridge player made TENACE another write-in, but I agree that it could be considered specialist knowledge, and wouldn’t expect a non-bridge player to have heard of the term. Like most I had ELECTING for 13d but could then make no sense of 23a so eventually tried ELECTION instead and then KILO became obvious.
FOI – NOWT, LOI – CALVADOS, COD – LEAPFROG but I also liked EMU and SWEDEN. Thanks Cheeko and Cedric.
I did all of the QCs from 1 up to about 2300, having never done a cryptic crossword before. I have recently returned to them. My impression is that they have got MUCH harder. Hopefully that is just this week’s crop. I used to time them then with a pb of 7:50. My best this week has been about an hour with only one missing over several sessions. It is not lack of practice, I do the weekend ones and have been working my way through the books, and have had some respectable times on those.
I admire your dedication!
Graham, my experience is very similar to yours as I said in a much earlier blog when I (temporarily, as it turns out) withdrew from TFT. From QC number 1 onwards, the level of difficulty was remarkably consistent for me until sometime in 2023, as I seem to remember, after which the change became clearer.
I have seen no reason more recently to believe that the situation has changed fundamentally, although the occasional ‘true’ QC does appear.
The puzzles always contain clever, imaginative clues but the average difficulty has become closer to that of the ‘big’ puzzle.
My average times have risen from 8 – 12 minutes (+/-) in the early years to ca. 20 – 25 mins (+ / -) now. I still do other cryptic puzzles (including the Telegraph and Private Eye in particular) and, whilst they vary in difficulty from day to day and week to week, they show much greater consistency and my times remain approximately the same as ever.
The QC is no longer a consistent ‘training ground’ for the biggie (as many newer solvers have said). It is a shame; there is room for 2 cryptic puzzles of consistently different difficulty.
Never saw the Nina, though I did consider the possibility of a pangram when I saw QUIZ SHOW. It was a tricky offering, and I was another “electing”, though I wavered over it, and it therefore took me a fair while to spot “oik” and correct it carefully. I’ve had an alarming number of typos this week, and backing stuff out is a contributory factor.
FOI NOWT
LOI THIRST
COD CEMENT
TIME 6:15
Question for any/all. Education and guidance welcomed
CS comments re last letter location (10A) does this mean it is always in PRECEDING word(s)?
We have been looking at words both before and after – if a convention, useful to know.
Thankyou!
I’d be tempted to say ‘somewhere in the vicinity of’ and leave it at that.
I very stupidly knocked in BUSILY instead of BUSTLE, after a minute or so looking I found my mistake (I remembered busily as a biff so found it quickly) but still “finished” in 10:50 so honestly I didn’t find this especially hard. I think it’s sometimes “horses for courses” with these puzzles.
This was a really good one that I wasn’t able to finish, not being able to guess that “oik” is a word. British slang is….. It’s mysterious and has a lot of ungainly sounds that I would never think could make words. Yes, I could have tried harder and been smarter and seen KILO anyway. But I didn’t.
So many entertaining clues–I especially liked DIRTY, QUIZ SHOW, and TITAN. I also enjoyed THIRST simply because, for once(!), I saw the “sent down” directive immediately and worked it out from the wordplay.
Thanks to Cheeko and Cedric.
17.32 That was hard. I consciously chose ELECTING over ELECTION, which held up KILO for several minutes at the end. The NHO TENACE was a guess. Thanks Cedric and Cheeko.
9.57.
DNF, with BEDLAM, BUSTLE and LEAPFROG defeating me after 25 mins. Wasted a lot of time on ELECTING. TENACE is pretty obscure GK, it’s not even that common for casual bridge players.
I quite enjoyed the first ten minutes of this, but the next fifteen were a grim slog. While I accept the authority of the Ed to set the difficulty level where he sees fit, it’s been getting a bit too hard for me to enjoy lately and I think I need to start looking for other options.
Thank you for the blog!
Cedric deserves a stiff drink for persevering! IMHO this wasn’t a QC. NHO Tenace but really struggled this evening and needed checkers.
First completion for a few days so happy with that. Although I’m being lenient with myself as did Google types of Brandy as wasn’t going to work out the Anagram without it.
DNF
Nope, too hard. LEAPFROG, STRIFE and READ all eluded me. And that’s the was after over 30 minutes struggling, including the ELECTING mistake.
DNF TENACE and ELECTION. Doing this a day late but just wanted to say thanks to Cedric for sorting out BEDLAM which I never did parse and for explaining the NHO TENACE. Very, very tricky but nothing unfair in retrospect. LEAPFROG was biffed but made me smile when the penny dropped. Definitely COD 😆 Got QUIZ fairly early on but needed SWEDEN before SHOW came to mind. Revealed ELECTION which made KILO somewhat easier! I thought this was tough but rather brilliant. Now, to remember tenace… many thanks Cedric and Cheeko.
Suitable only for those who have spent their entire lives honing their craft on this bizarre avocation or they who are in their golden years waiting to meet their maker!