Time taken: 10:11 but with a very silly typo in 14 down!
I am doing the puzzle a little later than I usually do, and noticed some very fast times indeed. I needed longer as a number of answers did not come quickly and needed to be pieced together from wordplay. I was nervous about a few, but in the end it was a glaring typo that did me in!
How did you get along?
| Across | |
| 1 | Plant fake diamond (8) |
| SHAMROCK – SHAM(fake), ROCK(diamond) | |
| 9 | Diverse city, large, frenzied according to an Eastender (8) |
| ECLECTIC – EC(city), L(large), then ‘ECTIC(frenzied, HECTIC, dropping the aspirant) | |
| 10 | Spot Greek character nursing temperature (6) |
| STIGMA – SIGMA(Greek character) containing T(temperature) | |
| 11 | Mesh bag carrying flask right at the bottom (10) |
| NETHERMOST – NET(mesh bag) containing THERMOS(flask) | |
| 12 | Rubbish pud (4) |
| DUFF – double definition | |
| 13 | Agent with alias deployed somewhere in England (4,6) |
| EAST ANGLIA – anagram of AGENT and ALIAS | |
| 16 | US city railway dispensing with silver leaf (7) |
| CHICORY – CHICAGO(US city) and RY(railway) minus AG(silver) | |
| 17 | Bachelor appeared, having acquired some flowers (7) |
| BLOOMED – B(bachelor), LOOMED(appeared) | |
| 20 | Chart-topping production of Paperback Writer? (4,6) |
| BEST SELLER – Cryptic definition | |
| 22 | Fish or beef? (4) |
| CARP – double definition | |
| 23 | Ban 19 pitching tent (10) |
| TABERNACLE – anagram of BAN and ELECTRA(the answer to 19 down) | |
| 25 | Reordered school uniform rather vulgar (6) |
| KITSCH – the school uniform is SCH KIT, swap the order | |
| 26 | The old King, after eating odd pastry dish, is in a worse mood (8) |
| GRUMPIER – GR(the old King), containing RUM(odd), PIE(pastry dish) | |
| 27 | Wandering, initially rambling content of Lincoln bombast (8) |
| ABERRANT – the first letter of Rambling inside ABE Lincoln, RANT(bombast) | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Feeling of warmth from renovated loft bathed in quiet (3,5) |
| HOT FLUSH – anagram of LOFT inside HUSH(quiet) | |
| 3 | I’m facing a tricky introduction to traditional canticle (10) |
| MAGNIFICAT – anagram of I’M,FACING,A, then the first letter of Traditional | |
| 4 | Crop producer phoned in “O to be in France, free at last” (6,4) |
| ORANGE TREE – RANG(phoned) inside O, ETRE(“to be” in French), and the last letter of freE | |
| 5 | Resembling Clark of Sevenoaks? (7) |
| KENTISH – double definition, the first one referencing Clark Kent, the alias of Superman | |
| 6 | Fruit regularly featuring in Psalm One (4) |
| SLOE – alternating letters in pSaLm OnE | |
| 7 | Every type of person, each topless, turned up for a walk in the park (6) |
| STROLL – every type of person is ALL SORTS. Remove the first letters of each and reverse | |
| 8 | Nation applying old tax to estate (8) |
| SCOTLAND – SCOT(old tax) and LAND(estate) | |
| 14 | City that is supportive of new UK leader (4,6) |
| AULD REEKIE – IE(that is) under an anagram of UK,LEADER | |
| 15 | Royal Duke losing double topping of cheese (10) |
| GLOUCESTER – the cheese is DOUBLE GLOUCESTER, remove DOUBLE | |
| 16 | Coastal shipping navigation has explorer arriving on time (8) |
| CABOTAGE – the exporer John CABOT, then AGE(time) | |
| 18 | Old Italian embraced by Petrus Canisius (8) |
| ETRUSCAN – hidden inside pETRUS CANisius | |
| 19 | Vote in Republican leader from Alabama who had family issues (7) |
| ELECTRA – ELECT(vote in), R(republican) and the first letter in Alabama | |
| 21 | Quiet coach from the south expected (6) |
| SUBDUE – BUS(coach) reversed, then DUE(expected) | |
| 24 | Leading motorsport article upset Green (4) |
| NAIF – F1(leading motorsport) and AN(article) all reversed | |
Thanks, George. Was your typo in 14d? If so, it’s still there in your blog.
I enjoyed this one. Like George, I was unsure of some (e.g. CABOTAGE) but trusted the wordplay and was happy to see they were all correct.
Oops – forgot when I use the script to generate the blog it pulls my answers. Yes, I had typed in AULD RREKIE. I’ll fix it.
Somehow I must know cabotage, as I put it in without hesitation. However, it took me a while to get the obvious shamrock and Electra, while I did relatively well with the anagrams for East Anglia and tabernacle.
Time: 23 minutes
I only knew CABOTAGE to do with airlines. British Airways is allowed to run a flight from LA to London stopping in New York to pick up passengers. But it is not allowed to take any passengers from LA to NY, even though it is already flying between the two cities, because that is cabotage and is illegal in the US for a foreign airline.
About 28 mins without any unknowns except I wasn’t sure TABERNACLE was a tent but it had to be. I lived in Edinburgh for years so AULD REEKIE was obvious, I wonder if everyone knows the name, especially just clued as “city”.
And I wonder how many people realise that Dunedin (in New Zealand) is Scottish Gaelic for Edinburgh?
Well, I for one, did not!
I got stuck in the bottom half until I took a break for food. LOI AULD REEKIE. NHO of Double GLOUCESTER but had heard of the duke. The CD is remarkably unimpressive.
I do not at all care for cross-referenced cluing such as 23a / 19d unless it is particularly witty, and this wasn’t.
thanks, glh, especially for the tricky parsing of Stroll
This cross reference even worse, since I could biff the across answer, and that gave me the other!
5 down is rather good since a man born west of the Medway (where Sevenoaks is) is a Kentish man, while one born east is a Man of Kent.
AULD REEKIE courtesy of Walter Scott and/or George MacDonald.
I didn’t think BEST-SELLER was that weak. The mingling of the print and audio mediums gave it some substance, I thought.
17 minutes and change.
Maybe it’s just that I’d expected something more complicated from the clue for BEST-SELLER. (Was there ever a movie or book by the same name as the song? That would justify the italics, rather than quotation marks—not a universal rule, I guess, but the most common stylization).
I see that there was a 70s novel of that name (about The Beatles). It’s not the world’s best CD, certainly, but I got a kick out of it, so there’s that!
I’m with Ulaca – Paperback Writer (in italics in the clue) was a Beatles hit, so a new cover of it could be a chart-topper; my first thought on reading the clue. Not very difficult, but had a bit of misdirection.
Bizarrely, there is a pub in Eltham called The Man of Kent, so for years I got it the wrong way round.
No particular problems en route to a 27.42 finish. Wondered what new UK leader was doing in AULD REEKIE (was it something to do with Keir?) until George pointed out that it was, ahem, an anagram.
From I Shall Be Free:
Well, ask me why I’m drunk all the time
It levels my head and eases my mind
I just walk along and STROLL and sing
I see better days and I do better things
I catch dinosaurs…make love to Elizabeth Taylor…catch hell from Richard Burton…
38 minutes. I had no idea what was going on with wordplay for STROLL, so thanks for that one, George. It’s tricky because one has to take ‘every type of person’ as one instead of lifting and separating which would lead to ALL (every), SORT (type of person). Having to avoid that, remove the ‘tops’ and then reverse everything was something of an ask, I felt. For a Brit of my generation a reference to Bertie Bassett might have been more helpful, but in any case the answer was easily biffable so I bunged it in and moved on.
There was another ‘lift and separate’ to be avoided in the wordplay of ABERRANT. As I first read it the clue seemed to indicate that R was to be contained by ABE.
I was going to say I NHO CABOTAGE but a quick reference to the TfTT archive reveals that its only previous appearance here was in a 15×15 puzzle blogged by me in June 2022 when I also didn’t know it.
I missed the reference to ‘family issues’ at 19 but went with the answer thrown up by wordplay.
Thanks for parsing STROLL George, and commiserations on the typo – usually my province. I agree with Paul regarding cross-referenced clues. NHO CABOTAGE but the surface was friendly.
FOI SHAMROCK
LOI KITSCH
COD ELECTRA
TIME 8:47
29:11. I quite enjoyed this one, a good mix of obscure and write-ins, with nothing too unfair. the wordplay for STROLL was very hard I thought but I’d managed to get [A]LL and [S]ORTS and though I couldn’t see the connection I felt it was safe enough to write in. NHO SCOT for an old tax. thanks George and setter!
It’s where “scot-free” comes from, though that tends to be used in a more general sense than specifically to do with the old tax.
I didn’t bother parsing STROLL, my LOI. Double GLOUCESTER was a write-in, although I’ve never eaten the cheese and have little idea who this minor royal is. ‘MAGNIFICAT, anima mea dominum’ is today’s earworm.
10’45”, much better than yesterday.
Thanks george and setter.
23 minutes with LOI BLOOMED. I liked this a lot, particularly the ETRUSCAN use of the previously unheard-of counter reformer, my COD. I liked AULD REEKIE too. CABOTAGE was constructed before I had the crossers. My soul doth magnify the Lord. Thank you George and setter.
47 mins, fairly straightforward but the SW took a bit time to work out. TABERNACLE gave me ELECTRA with LOI CABOTAGE dragged out othe murky gloom which passes for my memory.
BEST SELLER was a weird clue and went in with a shrug.
Thanks G and setter.
10.58. Didn’t mind BEST SELLER, although ‘production’ for a song is a bit odd.
MAGNIFICAT recalled from childhood with no idea what it means. Must have stuck in my head as it’s a funny word, at least to an 8-year-old.
Thanks both.
No official time, but I’d estimate a leisurely 30 mins between various household chores.
FOI: CARP
LOI: DUFF
All parsed, checked and correct.
Thank you, glh and the setter.
12:04. Nothing too taxing today, though there were a couple of words I was only vaguely aware of in MAGNIFICAT and CABOTAGE. The explorer sprang readily to mind for the latter as my youngest is studying in Bristol where Cabot’s name is referenced in several places, probably most prominently in the Cabot Circus shopping centre. Not knowing why this was the case, I just searched and discovered that he embarked from Bristol on one of his voyages taking several Bristolians as crew. Perhaps unsurprisingly I also discovered that like Edward Colston before him there are calls for his name to be erased everywhere because in some respects he was a bad egg if you judge him by today’s standards.
A friend of my late Bristolian grandfather was called Colston and I always thought it a very impressive name. I very much doubt that there are many Colstons knocking about there today, which I think a shame.
33m 00s
Thank you, George, particularly for ORANGE TREE and STROLL.
Re 5d, after the 1987 hurricane Sevenoaks was referred to in some quarters as ONEOAK…
16d CABOTAGE brought back memories of my early days in aviation when I learnt that London to Hong Kong, for example, is a CABOTAGE route. At least it was in 1965.
COD to both 26ac GRUMPIER and to 21d SUBDUE. In the former mention of ‘The Old…” had me looking for a word with YE in it; while in SUBDUE, ‘Quiet’ had me looking for a word starting with SH…
…And while I think of it, re 22ac CARP, Carpe Diem translates as ‘Fish of the Day’….
Liked this one, especially compared to yesterday’s poor effort.
Saying that Electra “Had family issues” is understating the case rather. Her mother killed her father and then tried to kill her brother. Later, her brother killed her mother, and was hounded by the Furies for his pains..
STROLLed this in 22 mins, fast for me. Just as well, after being beaten all ends up by yesterday’s; needed the confidence boost. Only SUBDUE held me up at all. NHO of CABOTAGE but clueing was generous.
All but 2 done in around 12 mins but I was staring at 15D and 22A for ages before giving up and returning to the crossword with a fresh pair of eyes. SHAMROCK was my FOI and CARP was the LOI, not entirely convinced by the beef/carp synonym really.
32 minutes, surprisingly I got the all sorts wordplay immediately, held myself up by putting in pilotage on the idea that a pilot was an explorer before finally getting chicory and then remembering cabotage, LOI was nethermost
Thanks setter and blogger
An easy STROLL today in 14.42 (with an interruption). No complaints, but not much excitement either. My early childhood was spent at Tabernacle Baptist Church which is where I learned to play snooker.
Lucky- I only had table tennis at Temple Baptist Church!
21:38
I enjoyed this a lot-a big improvement on yesterday.
I thought ETRUSCAN , ECLECTIC and ORANGE TREE (COD) were excellent. CABOTAGE was new to me.
MAGNIFICAT and TABERNACLE brought back memories of school R.E. lessons. I knew these would come in useful one day.
Thanks to George and the setter
17:46
No typos today thanks to a thorough proof-read prior to submission.
Nothing more to add that hasn’t already been said. CABOTAGE the only unknown but due to familial links to Bristol I am well aware of CABOT. I also liked STROLL even if it was very biffable.
Thanks to both.
Thanks glh for 7d Stroll which I biffed (as many appear to have done.)
Cabotage familiar to an ex Customs officer. Oddly we allowed Alitalia (RIP) to operate a truck from Heathrow to Manchester in breach of cabotage, although to me if the waybill was cut to MCR and they had given up flying there then what’s wrong with a truck? Too complex for a mere EO to worry about. Apparantly BA gave them the go-ahead, though it might have been either BEA or BOAC. Alitalia was the airline I forgot about last time I mumbled on about LHR.
Had forgotten what a 23a Tabernacle was, but Dad used to enjoy describing Welsh Baptist churches we passed en route to Tenby as “tin tabernacles.”
Thought 19d Electra’s “Family Issues” implied she had had her dad’s child, but no, it was the killing of her mother that was the issue, so I was totally wrong there.
About 50 minutes Fairly straightforward and enjoyable FOI SLOE LOI NAIF
I was off the pace today, got there in the end but a slow 45 minutes. Couldn’t see how STROLL worked and had to take a punt on MAGNIFICAT not knowing what a canticle did or was. Messed up with CHICAGO at first which delayed matters. Thanks George, 10 minutes was quick.
31:36
I seem to have been slower than most today, but I thought it was a cracker. So many PDM smiles for me, which the faster solvers probably saw straight away.
FOI EAST ANGLIA
LOI SUBDUE
COD ORANGE TREE
Thanks G and setter
Enjoyable puzzle, all done in about 20 minutes. A pleasant relief from the struggle with this week’s previous offerings. NHO CABOTAGE but I had heard of CABOT so that was a natural biff. NAIF seems to be word of the month.
FOI – SLOE
LOI – STIGMA
COD – GRUMPIER
Thanks to george and other contributors.
I have been doing cryptics for just a few months now, and this blog has been super useful, but I am still not very good. I also struggle with a lot of the cultural references from before 2000 as I had only just been born, and I just don’t have the dictionary knowledge yet.
If there are any others like me who are still learning the ropes I think I will start sharing my progress, starting with todays puzzles. So if you too are solving in 10x the time of the other commenters, don’t feel alone. I am doing the same on the QC.
This one was rough. DNF on like 10 words but mostly because they are just totally foreign words or used totally archaic terms which I am yet to learn. With generous use of the “reveal” button it was about 1 hour.
The (many) tricky ones:
Scotland – NHO of Scot as an old form of tax. had to reveal.
Auld Reekie – NHO so had no chance of the anagram. had to reveal.
cabotage – I have both not heard of this word and not heard of the explorer Cabot, had no chance. had to reveal.
Grumpier – got too caught up trying to take odd letters from pastry dish, and then getting very confused. The old king for George Rex also threw me, I was going way further back in history trying to think of short kings, like Hal or something.
Electra – really wanted to put a word for vote inside “r” and “a”. Also was not thinking about mythology for the definition. Naturally, without revealing I would also have not got tabernacle.
Aberrant – just a very tricky one. “content of Lincoln” really sounded like I needed “incol” somewhere. Add the BHO word “Bombast” to mix and it was too much for me, had to reveal.
Eclectic – also too tricky for me. EC for city is some real intense crossword-ese and I was baffled by the Eastender bit. had to reveal.
Naif – only got this because it came up in a crossword a couple days ago. before then this was a NHO word.
I think my COD was “East Anglia”. Just a nice simple anagram with a good surface.
Keep at it Paul. I’m about 7 years in from first having a go. Before I discovered this blog I’d only get a few of the answers, but you’ll soon build your knowledge, vocabulary, and learn the tricks of the trade by solving them on a regular basis. To use your examples above, when you see Lincoln you’ll automatically think ABE, Eastender will make you think of words missing an H at the beginning, and City will conjur up EC (or NY, LA, etc for that matter). The really good setters use these tricks against you mind!
Might I also suggest you look for the weekly Friday solve of the crossword on YouTube (Cracking the Cryptic). Both Mark and Simon solve them live and each clue is explained and broken down.
Well done & welcome!
I started doing these a couple of years ago and really recognise this! Over time, it’s really satisfying to start to successfully build even unlikely-looking words, or increasingly, find a word that fits and back-parse it.
With SCOTLAND, I needed the crossers, then I thought “Ooh, maybe it ends LAND”, and _C_TLAND only had one option. Later, I thought of the phrase ‘get off scot free’, and that gave me a bit more confidence, but I’d have entered it anyway.
I’m impressed that you’re such a newbie. You are one of the many on this blog who I always think “wow, that was quick”. It always brings me firmly back to earth after a good solve!
Thank you! It’s probably 3-4 years since I started in earnest, and I’ve had a bit of a speed burst in recent months. Still plenty of solvers I look at with awe! Stubbornness doesn’t hurt, and I remain very capable of tripping over my own shoelaces…
Well done for sticking with it and commenting. My daughter is a similar age to you. Since I got her interested in crosswords (mainly the QC) she has fumed about the many antique references. It takes a while to build up one’s crossword dictionary. It will be good to see more modern references (although it will make it harder for oldies like me.)
Crack on, Paul, and good luck. We’ve all been there when we started. My top tips would be:
1. Never despair. Even if you get nothing at all on the first pass, regroup and believe you eventually will. It’s amazing how the answers start to come with persistence and patience.
2. If whatever you’re thinking isn’t working, dump it – completely – and start again. A 10 min break is amazingly effective in getting your brain to reboot. And then the fresh thinking usually brings results.
3. Don’t be disheartened by others’ apparently towering intellect and vast knowledge of the arcane and historic. All of us have areas of weakness (some of us vast deserts of it) and I’m sure you know more than you think you do.
13:20 – nice brisk puzzle – lots of biffing while simultaneously seeing the cryptic, except in the case of STROLL, which I appreciated only on coming here.
I remember a Rolls Colston washing machine (or something) from my youth. Google tells me that there was a firm founded by ex-Hoover director Sir Charles Colston in 1955 that made compact dishwashers. Taken over by Rolls Razor, then went bust. No doubt a descendant of the Bristolian [all this prompted by Pootle and Rowlie26 above]. CABOTAGE vague but probable, and it was. I rejected STROLL before seeing how it worked. 42 minutes, a bit slowed by my entering mess at 12ac — it seemed that if Eton mess was a thing there were probably other types of mess.
Yes, I made a MESS of that one too!
Got off to a quick start with SHAMROCK and made rapid progress in the NW, but then slowed down a bit. I put STROLL in early on without parsing it, then spent around a minute musing before pressing submit, at which point the penny dropped. Needed BEST SELLER and KITSCH before AULD REEKIE hove into view. Didn’t know CABOTAGE but a few crossers made CABOT likely and GRUMPIER seemed to confirm the AGE. Childhood indoctrination allowed me to get MAGNIFICAT from a couple of crossers and supplied the required definition of TENT. ABERRANT was LOI, apart from the delayed parsing of STROLL. 20:11. Thanks setter and George.
14:11. I had MESS (as in Eton Mess) for 12A while held me up for quite a while until I saw that 2D was HOT FLUSH. Like others, NHO CABOTAGE, but it had to be. Thanks George and setter.
23.07. Lots to like . Duff, tabernacle and Electra especially. Slow start but improved as I got on the wavelength.
Not too bad, three short after 40 mins. It was not understanding the indirect algorithm for TABERNACLE that held up the SW corner.
Biffed East Riding and East Sussex first.
Content of Lincoln = ABE ?
I think it’s content of Lincoln bombast, which is better but not by much. Why did the setter bother with ‘content of’ at all?
Something is needed to indicate that the R is contained in the ABE RANT.
Of course, wasn’t thinking.
A steady solve today with LOI the NHO CABOTAGE but the explorer I recall from schooldays.
Liked ECLECTIC probably because I keep forgetting what it means. This was a useful reminder.
9:28. SHAMROCK ECLECTIC and TABERNACLE KITSCH strike me as intriguing fashion trends.
I added the word CABOTAGE to my vocabulary as a result of Brexit, who said it had no benefits? 😉
Nobody else has said so, and I didn’t notice while solving (I just biffed it), but I don’t think the clue for STROLL works. In the cryptic grammar ‘each topless’ means that [every] and [type of person] have to be treated separately. But ‘type of person’ does not mean SORTS.
Is it not simply a reference to each word in the phrase “all sorts”? Or maybe I’m just overthinking it.
That’s the way it’s supposed to work, but the cryptic instructions in the clue are “take a word meaning ‘every’ and a word meaning ‘type of person’ and remove the first letter from each of them”.
If ‘every type of person’ is a single entity (meaning ALL SORTS) then the cryptic instructions (take a letter from each of this one thing) don’t make sense.
A steady solve finishing in 39.16 with TABERNACLE my LOI. I needed to get the unheard of CABOTAGE before getting to my LOI, and before that AULD REEKIE caused me a bit of head scratching, in spite of many trips to the lovely Edinburgh.
About 25 minutes this morning (only just got round to posting).
Didn’t know TABERNACLE as a tent, but with the checkers I managed to parse the cross reference so it had to be; had no idea how STROLL worked; didn’t know that scot was a tax, but the scot-free link made me confident that SCOTLAND was right; and hadn’t heard of Cabot or CABOTAGE, but both seemed reasonable enough.
Thanks glh and setter.
FOI Sloe
LOI Cabotage
COD East Anglia
11:08
Strange how each of us finds different days in comparison with each other. I was quicker yesterday, yet the SNITCH is adamant that today’s is a lot easier.
I enjoyed this overall, though as others have alluded to, the cross-reference clue doesn’t seem particularly fitting. Paperback Writer evokes memories of listening to my parents’ cassettes (what are they?). I’ve always considered it one of the earliest proto-heavy metal songs, years before Sabbath and Purple defined the genre.
Favourite clue: GLOUCESTER. Obvious when you see it, but as I hadn’t twigged CARP this one held me up a while.
23:42
Pretty comfortable. I didn’t parse STROLL and wasn’t 100% with BLOOMED either but everything else seemed to work. Guessed CABOT from the first two checkers, but didn’t know of him.
Thanks G and setter
30:07
Done in two sittings, with the first being on my phone on a hill next to a rifle range where loud firing was in place, the second on my iPad in the quiet of my garden.
I took a while to see GRUMPIER, being stuck on thinking that “the old” would be YE. This then unlocked ELECTA and then TABERNACLE.
Thanks glh and setter
Delayed by MESS instead of DUFF. Couldn’t get SUBDUE. My return to crossword land has been a bit rocky.
23.37 with a number of excursions to other puzzle pages when I entered letters on my iPad. Time is also approximate as, once again, the clock failed to stop when I completed the puzzle. Several solutions left unparsed as, frankly, I lost interest.
24’03” but the low Snitch suggests I should have been quicker. CABOTAGE comes up a lot in EU haulage rules. Thought the REORDERED in 25 across was a clever diversion. Had 15 down beginning with G, so was held up by thoughts of GORGONZOLA. A KENTISH LAD was Frank Muir’s very amusing autobiography. Oh, where are you now Frank? We need you. Many thanks.
Fascinating to see that today’s is apparently easier than Monday’s, which I completed in practically record time, albeit the following day, so no comment. Having spent ages on this, I was determined to finish it to complete a full week of correctly solved 15s and Quickies, but it was slow progress. Liked GRUMPIER, where like Paul, I was looking for odd letters, ORANGE TREE and CHICORY. NHO CABOTAGE, but easy to work out. LOI ABERRANT.
DNF, defeated by excessive care, or timidity, or whatever. There are certainly various degrees of knowledge, from being certain of something to being vaguely familiar with something or having just a slight intuition — and that can be very slim indeed. For 12ac I put in DUFF at first, which would have been the right answer, but I decided I really had no idea about either of the meanings that were required for the clue, so in the end I changed it to PUFF, thinking cream puffs or the like would fit the “pud” better. I should have left well enough alone — but if I really had no clue about it, why did I even think of DUFF in the first place?
For my part, I enjoyed the cryptic definition. For those who raised an eyebrow at production = song, cf. record producer. Auld Reekie was top drawer (and arguably an &lit based on the recent GE result). I’m from just down the road.
34’32”
Workmanlike…
… as have been all my efforts this week; they have all taken so long that I haven’t had a minute to post anything here.
Today is the feast of the Assumption and so the canticle was very apt. All justified, but the Beatles reference escaped me; I lived in a house with a tome containing chords and lyrics for most of their works. It was more of a telephone directory than a tome, so I think we can be forgiven for being unfamiliar with some of them.
So, thanks to the bloggers and setters so far this week, I’ve very much enjoyed all of them.