Times 27,917: Taken Down A Peg Or Two

I made a 15-minute meal of this, a lot of that due to having an alternative answer in at 4dn, which made the NHO 11ac much too hard to spot. There were some easy clues but also some tricksterish ploys: not sure how much I liked “the scoundrel” in 1dn and “a street” in 3dn, both of which upped the difficulty level by giving extraneous stuff to try to account for. But I did very much like the “playground rumour” and the multiple definition at 17dn, which made what seems with hindsight like a straightforward clue (albeit with incredibly well concealed anagrist/grind!) my LOI. 26ac was also really rather nice, as was the quality of word manipulation and contortion in general. So while I may have ended 2 pegs down, I still give this Friday puzzle two thumbs up: many thanks, your settership!

ACROSS
1 Can it split? Confess (6)
SHRIVE – SH [can it!] + RIVE [split]

4 Piled in heap, dogs off lead showed visible distress (7)
UPSWEPT – {p}UPS WEPT

9 Totalled up at last, with no case (2,3)
IN ALL – {f}INALL{y} – FOI

10 Understand program, run with what purpose? (9)
APPREHEND – APP R + EH END [program | run | what? | purpose]

11 Feasting greedily in club, liable to waste days (9)
BATTENING – BAT + TEN{d}ING

12 Resin you once put back to inhibit disease (5)
EPOXY – reversed YE [you, once] “inhibiting” POX

13 Try again to get out of fire door (4)
REDO – hidden in {fi}RE DO{or}

14 One curate I trained who has lots to deal with (10)
AUCTIONEER – (ONE CURATE I*). “Lots” in the technical sense

18 Spring flowers I left out in winds (10)
EASTERLIES – EASTER L{il}IES

20 Style of greeting in cricket club (4)
CHIC – HI in CC

23 Better to make this payment with rupees (5)
WAGER – WAGE [payment] + R. As in, something a better makes

24 Church official has wrapped silks, brown, for chapter to wear (9)
SACRISTAN – SARIS TAN [wrapped silks | brown], “worn” by C

25 Some northerners grasp tons I have not taught (9)
INTUITIVE – INUIT “grasp” T, plus I’VE

26 Excuse one replacing a graduate in panto role (5)
ALIBI – take ALI BABA, and replace A B.A. [a graduate] with I [one]: ALI B{aba->I}

27 Disorder puts part of US hospital in no end of peril (7)
DERANGE – E.R. in DANGE{r}

28 Show great respect for son escaping misfortune (6)
REVERE – REVER{s}E

DOWN
1 Poet, the scoundrel, pinching almost all of another (9)
SWINBURNE – SWINE [the scoundrel] “pinching” BURN{s} [almost all of another (poet). I spent way, way too long wondering how BURN{x} could be a type of scoundrel, but obviously the answer was always going to be dear old Algernon

2 Pushed back, gave another performance? (7)
REACTED – or re-acted. Every action has an equal and opposite Newtonian reaction

3 See a street in depression (6)
VALLEY – V ALLEY [see | a street]

4 To set free, amputate limb? (5)
UNPEG – or remove a peg, as in a leg. I had UNPIN in here for a very long time which made things difficult. Given that after you amputate a pirate’s real leg you actually ADD a peg, isn’t unpin the better answer, in some ways? 😛

5 Sort of bob, remarkably sleek fashion (8)
SKELETON – (SLEEK*) + TON. The skeleton bob is an event very familiar to quizzers, but not to be confused with the luge

6 What spoils the view at heart of storm is very concerning (7)
EYESORE – EYE [heart of storm] + SO RE [very | concerning]. Genius which I did not initially spot, thanks KG!

7 Now daughter comes in for a hot drink (5)
TODDY – take TOD{a}Y now and put a D(aughter) in for the A: TOD{a->D}Y

8 Roughly haul about somewhat, as usual (8)
HABITUAL – (HAUL*) “about” A BIT

15 English avoiding wooden ware getting expensive French plate (8)
TRENCHER – TRE{e}N + CHER [expensive, in French]

16 Obscure playground rumour finally true (9)
RECONDITE – REC [playground] + ON DIT [rumour] + {tru}E

17 East European and American statesman are going out (8)
GEORGIAN – (ARE GOING*), with two possible definitions offered. LOI

19 Show exasperation after missing a fine practice shot (7)
SIGHTER – SIGH [show exasperation] + {af}TER

21 Emergency provision in hotel out of order (7)
HOTLINE – (IN HOTEL*)

22 Green plant round field regularly makes fodder (6)
SILAGE – SAGE “round” {f}I{e}L{d}. I’ve been fond of this word ever since I was an audio typist at an insurance firm as a very young man and tried to get this word into a letter in place of “signage”, sadly they spotted my larks.

23 Strange hold-up in river delta (5)
WEIRD – WEIR [hold-up in river] + D

24 Nick’s small cloth (5)
SWIPE – S WIPE. Swiper, stop swiping!

70 comments on “Times 27,917: Taken Down A Peg Or Two”

  1. I slowed an already slow myself down by bunging in RECHERCHE at 16d, and, much more significantly, UNPIN. After wasting heaps of time playing with the alphabet, I finally thought maybe 4d was wrong and immediately got UNPEG, and LOI BATTENING. Like V, I thought UNPIN was a better solution. Didn’t know ER was specifically US. DNK the bob; wondered if it was some ghastly hairstyle. DNK SIGHTER. Biffed SACRISTAN from TAN, parsed post-submission. The ‘a’ in ‘a street’ looks like one of Myrtilus’s pet peeves. I liked SHRIVE & APPREHEND, but COD to RECONDITE.
    1. ERs in the UK are A&E, probably still useful for crosswords but a little less so. Yes, I didn’t see the whole nine yards of the SARIS until afterwards either.
  2. I was undone by the upper left corner. I was another in the UNPIN group, thinking we were going to have a gerund for 11 Across. I also had SHRIFT for awhile, not having read the clue carefully.

    I think the ‘the’ in ‘the scoundrel’ is quite bad, because it very clearly indicates that the word to put inside should be another synonym of ‘scoundrel’, not another poet. In any case I didn’t know SWINBURNE.

    My true undoing was EASTERLIES. I was convinced we needed an anagram of I LEFT inside a word meaning ‘winds’ to get some spring flowers. Unfortunately this theory was greatly supported by the crossing letters. TRENCHER was another — I had T _ _ _ CHER and couldn’t go farther.

    The trouble with these really tough puzzles is they only come around every so often…. I want another crack at one!

    1. But we do have a gerund at 11ac.
      As for the ‘the’, I didn’t notice at the time, but I think it’s rather like the ‘a’ in ‘a street’, i.e. otiose. But I don’t see how it indicates inclusion one way or the other. The commas, on the other hand, make it ambiguous who’s doing the pinching, the poet or the scoundrel.
      1. Yes sorry I was being too terse. By ‘gerund’ I meant where we get a gerund in the clue but the answer ends in -TION. (Or vice versa.)

        Actually, now that I read the surface of 2 Down, the required reading does actually work. I was so in “wordplay mode” that ignored that, grammatically, ‘another’ refers back to the grammatical subject, not the embedded clause. (I had ignored the commas!)

    2. My performance today was quite dour
      It took me five sixths of an hour
      Seventeen’s COD
      And the last one for me
      EASTERLIES, which wasn’t a flower
  3. Grrr… Dangling articles, random French (knew cher meant dear romantically, but not expensively), unknown trencher plates and treen, Easter as spring, battening. Not to my liking, even with the usual tranche of excellent clues in there. Ultimately failed, guessing TRESCHER as some sort of electroplating. Also carelessly put unswept from the crossers without rereading the clue, but that one’s down to me. As is the first guess at UNPIN, which I managed to correct.

    Edited at 2021-03-05 03:12 am (UTC)

    1. To be fair, Easter Lilies are a thing, to be seen at any Church, at great expense to the ladies of the flower guild, on Easter Sunday. And that’s generally springtime.
      1. Apologies to the setter. I’d lifted and separated spring flowers, never heard of Easter lilies. Grumpy mood is probably exacerbated by now two days in a row with puzzles that weren’t superb (IMO), which is unusual.
  4. I did fine until the end. But I had SHRIFT at 1A instead of SHRIVE, which made 3D FALLEN as the only reasonable choice, although I couldn’t see the wordplay. And I’d never heard of BATTENING either. I also had UNPIN until I could only fit BATALLION for 11A, so I thought I should try for an -ING ending and then saw UNPEG (although I agree that PEG is not slang for a leg, as far as I know, so UNPIN seems a better fit for amputation). SWINBURNE took a long time since I thought I was trying to insert another scoundrel, not another poet, and I could only half remember his name anyway (SWIMBORNE? SWINBORNE?)
    1. ‘Peg’ is a word for leg, in both Collins and Lexico. I agree that UNPIN is the better answer though!
  5. Had never heard of a SIGHTER, in that sense, but was also held up a long time by having UNPIN for UNPEG. Wasn’t sure of TREEN without looking it up. Of course, it’s probably been around here before.
    1. I knew “Treen” from watching “Bargain Hunt” — how desperate is that?
  6. I ended up feeling a bit cheated by this as I battled through most of it remembering some less than common vocabulary acquired from previous puzzles (EPOXY, SACRISTAN, TRENCHER and SKELETON bob which was in a ST puzzle last December), only to be utterly scuppered in the NW corner.

    I filled the grid eventually after resorting to aids but never stood a chance as SHRIVE ‘confess’ and BATTENING ‘feasting greedily’ were completely unknown to me, and even though I got near to considering both via wordplay I didn’t recognise them as possibly fitting the definitions. And finally I was put off finding what should have been an easy answer at 4dn by the redundant ‘a’ and as a result I am now fully signed up to Myrtilus’s school of thought.

    Never got near SWINBURNE either as I was missing the two most important checkers, but I did at least know him.

    Edited at 2021-03-05 05:48 am (UTC)

    1. I have the feeling we’ve had this before, because I had a déja MER feeling this time, since for me it is the priest who shrives, not the confessor. But I see that ODE also has ‘shrive oneself’ for the confessor; which perhaps isn’t quite as near as dammit for ‘confess’.
      1. SOED has: 3a verb refl. & intrans. Confess one’s sins, go to confession.

        Collins has similar also at 3. Your definition is at 1 in both.

      2. I’ve got an idea it was very recent, the past week or two, but it might have been in connection with Shrove Tuesday.
    2. Do you mean ‘a’ street at 3dn? Glad to see you calling out the danglers.
  7. …Battening upon huge sea worms in his sleep,

    After 35 mins I gave up on Shrive/Swinburne even though I was sure ‘can it’ would be Sh. Go figure.
    Also Battening, unhelped by having Unpin at 4dn, which is a shame as I have loved the word ever since reading The Kraken as a youth. Imagine lying at the bottom of the sea for years battening upon huge sea worms in your sleep. Heaven.
    Thanks setter and V.

  8. I thought b******s, then, MERde (minor eyebrow raise with gallic shrug). COD to RECONDITE (as they say).
  9. Finished in 57 minutes. I thought it would be a DNF all the way through. LOI was SWIPE, after DERANGE was ventured as a possibility. The only BATTENING I’ve heard of concerns hatches but the crossers were kind, as eventually they were for UPSWEPT. I’m giving COD to RECONDITE, as I guessed ON DIT must mean rumour. I liked INTUITIVE too. The daffodils seem to come out earlier each year and are dying back by Easter. Global warming? Tough puzzle. Thank you V and setter.
  10. My longest solve in a long time, mostly because, like verlaine I couldn’t make sense of 11ac with a wrong answer in 4d. Like others I had UNPIN there but eventually saw the light.
    NHO BATTENING, SHRIVE or TRE(e)N in TRENCHER.
    LOI SHRIVE/BATTENING.
    Marginally more enjoyable than yesterday but only marginally.
  11. Tough puzzle not helped by slight sloppiness of the dangling articles. Enjoyed much of it, however, even if I had to biff BATTENING. Perhaps too much of a good thing with the multiple substitution clues and I ummed and aahed too long over SHRIVE / SHROVE at 1ac, wasting a couple of minutes at the end, not really knowing what either of them meant other than the wrong one being recently related to crêpes…
  12. 16:44. Another member of the UNPIN club. One of those puzzles that felt hard by dint of obscurity and/or loose definitions rather than cleverness, and like others I found these danglers (which I often don’t notice) quite obtrusive. Some good stuff too, though. I liked ‘with what purpose?’
  13. 38:36. Rather heavy going and stuck for ages at the end in the NW corner, but at least I got there in the end. I had a lot of missing vocabulary which didn’t help… and writing INTUITIVE in the space for 24A rather than 25A made a mess of the grid. SACRISTAN took a while to see (and then parse). DNK TREEN for wooden ware, RIVE for split or BATTENING for feasting greedily. FOI IN ALL. LOI SHRIVE after I eventually remembered V for see. I liked GEORGIAN (which I failed to see as an anagram for too long) and SIGHTER best, but there was plenty more to enjoy. Thank-you V and setter.

    Edited at 2021-03-05 08:47 am (UTC)

  14. A most unsatisfying feeling when I learned that BATTENING was an old Norse eating disorder.

    I further note the American Gerund Club is back in town!

    FOI 20ac CHIC

    (LOI) 3dn VALLEY – I once went to Chad Valley!

    COD 1dn SWINBURNE – a poet associated with ‘indecent themes’, no less!

    WOD 4dn -“UNPEG the basket on the house’s top.
    Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape,
    To try conclusions, in the basket creep
    And break your own neck down.”

    Edited at 2021-03-05 09:15 am (UTC)

  15. Completely foxed by the NW corner so gave up after 57 mins, another three were not going to make a difference!
    Undone by shrive and valley. I would have got valley if I’d known V was a clue to see but shrive would still have been a mystery, NHO that as an alternative for confess.

    Despite not finishing, I really enjoyed the challenge . Lots of tough clues as far as I was concerned and I was especially pleased with myself for getting Swinburne.

    Thanks setter and blogger for explaining the gaps in my workings out.

  16. Half an hour on this, watching cricket, it seemed a pleasant one not as hard as a usual Friday. Then came to a halt with 4d and 11a to fill in. UNPEG and 11a ending in G looked more likely, but never heard of BATTENING, so wavered between BUTTERING and BATTERING (as in battered fried Mars bars?) for feasting greedily. Both were wrong.
    Liked INTUITIVE and TRENCHER which were well constructed.
  17. Decent progress until the last half dozen or so.

    EASTERLIES preferred over westerlies, but then much thought before SWINBURNE. Thinking 11ac might end in ING had me pencil in UNPEG, but had to work through the cryptic for the unheard of (in this sense) BATTENING.

    Down in the SE corner, pencilled in the not-quite-sure-of-its-meaning RECONDITE — also never heard of ON DIT but then I was never very good at French – which helped with REVERE, and finally last in HOTLINE which on the laptop was an anagram over two lines so perhaps a shade harder to spot.

  18. My 17.42, which I thought to be an average sort of time, appears to be quite good really, and I was untroubled by the many issues enumerated above.

    It helped that I got the NW corner pretty smoothly, not giving the proverbial about the dangling A in 3d and processing BATTENING without blinking. That meant UNPEG couldn’t be anything else. Pace everyone else it seems, I would venture that in this case it IS the better answer.

    Now then, that dangling A. It’s difficult to equate ALLEY with street, except in a particular case (two cases if you count the US version). Put Tin Pan in front and it’s Denmark Street. A street gives ALLEY, while any street does not. (A) Small point, perhaps, but I think it smudges the issue beyond an automatic tut, tut.

    My last in was GEORGIAN with its clever suggestion that you had to remove something from an American to get a European, and one of the best disguised anagrams you could hope to see.

    I liked this one.

  19. Didn’t parse SHRIVE and LOI GEORGIAN – great clue.

    Thanks setter and Verlaine

  20. Pushed for time, so I had to give in grumpily, with the SW still to clear up. Sighter was new to me, and I was far from Intuitive. Oh well, Recondite, Apprehend and Skeleton made it worth.
    Thank you setter and blogger.
  21. Ground to a lengthy halt with the sneaky GEORGIAN — can’t recall seeing a double definition and cryptic before, but presumably I have. Lots of very slick cluing here. 26m 32s
  22. After REACTED and REDO, my first 2 in, the N”W refused to yield and I moved on. On my return, some 45 minutes later, I hunkered down for the long haul. I still hadn’t figured out the spring flowers either, but they came along eventually. My first breakthrough was 9a, which went in originally on definition, but was eventually parsed. Then I arrived at V for see at 3d and saw VALLEY. That gave me the vaguely remembered SHRIVE and then I worked out the unknown SWINBURNE. That left me with 11a which was an unknown meaning and I had to revise UNPIN to UNPEG before finally seeing the wordplay. A bit of a beast! 80:32. Thanks setter(I think) and V. I was amazed to find I was at 40 out of 77 on the Leaderboard with that time. Will have a look at the SNITCH now!
  23. Hard one.

    I didn’t consider UNPIN but I did go up, down, and back up again every other blind alley going:

    18a EASTERLIES – tried to put I L or (I left)* in a word for winds to get some flowers.

    1d SWINBURNE – convinced myself that the truncated inner poet could only be BAR{d} and the whole would be some bleeding Roman or Greek poet I’d never heard of ending -BARUS or summat like.

    17d GEORGIAN, – thought I had to remove ARE from an American statesman to get the E. European. Went through many instances of both, to no avail obviously.

  24. I seem to be more in Z’s party on this one, albeit several minutes slower. Rather a paschal feel to this with the lilies and SHRIVE. I’d always thought that being shriven meant being given absolution after confession but I can’t say I’d given it a lot of consideration. Took a very long time to parse SACRISTAN – no doubt he has his special duties at Easter. It’s a bit dismissive to describe an UPSWEPT hairdo as “piled in a heap”. When I was going to dances in my late teens I’d spend literally hours at the hairdresser getting it done right. 22.48
  25. Another to put in ‘unpin’ before I worked out the unknown BATTENING from the wordplay. I liked the ‘Sort of bob’ at 5d and spent a while thinking of various hairdos after PERM yesterday and UPSWEPT today, before the Winter Olympics came to mind.

    Happy to finish with all correct and to come in under the hour at 57 minutes.

    Thanks to setter and blogger (and to “Bargain Hunt” for teaching me what TREEN is).

      1. Definitely “Bargain Hunt” – “Antiques Roadshow” is a bit too high rent for me I’m afraid!
  26. I found this off the scale hard, hence I have only just finished when I’m normally done by 7am. My big problem was four in the NW corner — SWINBURNE, SHRIVE, VALLEY and BATTENING, and I was another UNPIN.

    After yesterday I was a little disappointed that the scoundrel in 1D was not a Greek, or maybe a Turk or a Cypriot for balance 😉

  27. I really liked this one, even though it had a couple of esotericisms..
    I have fired literally hundreds of sighters in my time, so no trouble there. Shrive a bit of a stretch, it has a religious feel to it .. what the Inquisition insisted on, no doubt. And then executed you anyway.
    As for the dangler at 3dn, its intended function is obvious and I will continue treat antidanglers with the utter contempt they deserve.. 🙂
    17dn is a very fine clue indeed, worth the price of admission all on its own..
  28. Completely beaten by the NW corner. No chance of getting SHRIVE, had REACTED, but couldn’t see why that was pushed back, NHO BATTENING nor SWINBORNE. Didn’t get GEORGIAN either. Oh well. Thanks V.
  29. Excellent puzzle but a DNF for me today.

    While NW corner was beset with trouble for me — did not know shrive or Swinburne, I knew we were in for a —-ten(d)ing at 11a but could only get fattening somehow missed bat as club which would have got me the NHO battening.

    Another careless unswept and another looking for a flower instead of a wind.

    Excellent puzzle though — some superb clues — loved wager recondite weird alibi.

    Thx V and setter

  30. Had UNPIN and UNSWEPT. Fooled by the dangler in 3d but still got VALLEY; thought a LLEY might be a Welsh street.
    Thought RECONDITE good.
    Did not get SHRIVE but remember the clue in 27,906 which caused a few problems:”18-Did well sorting out what comes next, having time for son (7)
    THRIVED – I guess we change the S in SHRIVED to a T. Being shriven would get you right with God, so I suppose that gets you ready for what comes next. On edit: thanks to the anonymous comment below for pointing out that this answer, THRIVED, is an anagram of the next answer, DERVISH, if you replace the S with a T. Indeed, as corymbia points out, it’s a WHIRLING DERVISH. Very clever!”
    David
  31. but had to come here to finish. Utterly convinced that 1a was SHRIFT, which as above left me with FALLEN, obviously wrong. So, utterly stuck, I came here.
    The rest was a nice steady solve.
  32. Well I looked at the Snitch and thought shall I bother? But then I had finished the other four this week so decided to have a shot. After 55 mins had done three-quarters of it and I thought it was going well, but then got slower and slower, finally grinding the NW out after 2 hrs 15 mins! But I did finish and got them all right.
    I had unarm at 4d, before deciding 11ac had to end with “ing” and then had to decide between unpeg and depeg (neither were known).
    COD definitely Georgian. LOI Valley- can anybody explain why See is “v” in 3d, and why Fashion is “ton” in 5d ? Probably obvious but brain is now scrambled.
    1. v = vide = see (like in qv)
      ton just means “fashion” or “people of fashion”. Google suggest to me that ‘”The ton” was Britain’s high society during the late Regency and the reign of George IV, and later. The word means, in this context, “manners” or “style” and is pronounced as in French. The full phrase is le bon ton meaning etiquette, “good manners” or “good form” – characteristics held as ideal by the British beau monde.’
      1. Ah, thank you. Not come across either of those, although it now transpires that my good wife knows all about “the ton” from Georgette Heyer.
  33. I suppose I can take some comfort from knowing that I am unlikely to get bored with rattling these off any time soon… Needed help with unknowns like Treen, Ondit and Swinburne, and only knew Shrive from a recent discussion about people dying unshriven because of Covid. Strangely, I worked out Unpeg quite early on, but subsequently struggled with the more straightforward Easterlies and Wager. Really liked 14ac, Auctioneer, for the surface. Invariant
  34. Started brightly but ran out of time at breakfast. Came back at lunch, saw the snitch rating and was initially put off but then rallied since I already had a few in.
    Came back this evening with multiple resources and got it out by hook or crook. Thanks verlaine for supplying the missing parsing and the setter for excellent entertainment throughout the day!
  35. Toughie, but I forced myself to persevere and finally finished correctly in about one hour and a half — felt good.
    Not being up on poets, I thought I had heard of a Walter Swinburne — but it turns out he’s a jockey and spelled Swinburn — never mind, the end justifies the means.
    Also, had to look up the meaning of Shrive and also failed to spot the Sh/Rive parsing so I was lucky there.
    Now I can enjoy the weekend.
  36. …. as no-one will ever read it but, for the record, let me thank all the commenters. I finished the RHS of this plus a few on the left but was left completely flummoxed by many clues. My first reaction was depression that I had slipped back months, if not years, to a level of constant frustration.
    Having read the comments, I see that this was a genuinely difficult puzzle. I still aspire to be able to finish such a puzzle, as many have done, but feel less bad about my failure. Sorry, my learning experience.
    Grudgingly sending my thanks to the setter and wholeheartedly to Verlaine and the commenters.
    1. Don’t worry about posting late, Joe, as late comments will always be seen at least by the blogger on duty as they are notified by email.
  37. Came late to this and enjoyed it over my early evening livener, which is always a nice way to tackle the puzzle. Perhaps fortunate to have been cautious and not taken the plunge on some of the more inviting answers listed by various people above; had to take some things on trust, such as what BATTENING might be, but all entertaining and / or educational, as Fridays should be.

    Mostly astonished, of course, to have to look down, not up, on the scoreboard to find our distinguished blogger – as this is the sort of thing which happens about once every two or three years, I shall open the good port tonight 🙂

  38. 43.28. Difficult. There were some moments when I did not think I would finish and it took some rolling up of the sleeves and persistence to get there. The crossing easterlies and Georgian took ages but it was the NW where I tied myself up in knots having entered both shrift and unpin, was working with fallow, follow, fallen etc, wondering if I was looking for a bishopric sort of a see for the definition in 4dn valley until I finally revised unpin to get unpeg and then battening, looked harder at shrift and wondered if shrive was better and only then seeing valley.
  39. went initially for UNPEG, then changed it to UNPIN as it seemed better, then back again when 11a couldn’t be gerunded into place. BATTENING was last in because it parsed. NHO of it as feasting greedily, and thought it might be English public school slang – the sort of thing Billy Bunter might get up to after lights out.
    39’06”
  40. Red Letter Day — my son passed his probation for his first job whilst I came here expecting everyone to say it was an easy one only to find I was in (and above) company I can normally only see far off in the distance

    Not quite sure why I had such a (comparatively) good time for me. BAT and TEN(D)ING kind of jumped out which helped with the BURNS and the SWINE. As another contributor mentioned SHRIVE came up in a recent clue.

    Certainly helped by never considering UNPIN

    FOI DERANGE
    LOI UPSWEPT
    COD GEORGIAN

    Thanks setter and the ever excellent and enjoyable blog

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