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MatydaLover | 18:28 Sun 06th Sep 2009 | Crosswords
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Scandalously close to a real smoothie ... "Won't you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you".

Right up there with Chandler's "Pull up a cloud and sit down, Angel."
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............. now why not take a look at this week's Azed Competition puzzle ?

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2009/08/29/1945sept6.pdf
Question Author
OK, done that. My clue to 10A is "Can I get image before boy?." *

Once I started I found it easier than EV. I prefer the thematic nature of EV though.

* PR-I-SON
Hello Matydalover,
Have been away for a few days, in the back of beyond, 5 miles from anywhere to buy Sunday Telegraph, and too occupied, regretably to even peek at EV!! Found your post last night on getting home. Set about EV today, quickly populated the grid, although it took a while to get my head around the anagrams and homonyms. I don't have the appropriate ODQ, but hopefully given a leap of faith for the surname of the author, and a visit to the library will resolve the unchecked perimeter squares!
Just wondering where the other EV & NCing Wine Clubbers are! Hope they are OK with this new AB format!
Hi All
Am having problems accessing and reading answerbank at the mo - I hope they iron out all the gremlins quickly. Managed to populate most of the grid, and am confident I've got the quotation, but haven't as yet cracked 26A and 27D. Am assuming at least one of these clues contains as anagram, or have I counted incorrectly? Extremely busy at the weekend so I didn't get time to sample any culinary delights. Was in the audience for Radio 2 Live at Blackpool on Saturday evening with Will Young and Mika amongst others in concert - absolutely brilliant.
Hello Doc HH. Nice to have you back. I'm not sure even if this is the right thread, as my search facility is not working along, intermittently, with much else on our new and improved site. Hello Ringer. Been too busy to concentrate overmuch on EV but have populated about two thirds of grid so far but like you not yet got 26a and 27d Where is Devadolly. Lost in cyberspace somewhere, busy posting on another thread and wondering where we are, or just very busy?
Ringer, have just got 27d - try Wikipedia Windwood Islands. This led me to 26a which is one of the homograms.
Thanks Christiana - had looked there before but obviously with tired eyes. Now happy with 26A but not completely sure of the word play for 27D. Will perhaps look again tomorrow when I'm less tired!
Question Author
I too pondered awhile on 27D until I realised the IVR for Sao Tome and Principe.

On Sunday morning we cycled a few miles to go blackberrying, then with a beer or two at lunch time and then the warm afternoon spent dozing and solving in the summerhouse ... I guess I was dreamier than usual. Maybe my opening comments were a little vague! They include a reference to the source of the quotation, and my eye was caught by the "smoothie" a little below it. Yes, I was definitely dreamier than usual!
Hello Everyone - got totally mixed up with the EV No - old age and decrepitude! Thanks for re-tracking me Matydalover. Am doing quite nicely but very strapped for time this week, a dreaded deadline, THE wedding on Sat (have just finished the "Oh I don't like fruit cake!" offering) and then there is Westmoreland Show on Thursday - that can't be missed, if anyone is in the Kendal area 2nd Thursday in Sept, that is the place to be!
Had trouble getting answerbank until today and it is all a bit confusing..............................................
Am getting what must be the answers as they all hold together with the definition, but it's all 'out of the ether and not logical so am not as far on with A's & H's as I should be...........will plod on.
Hello Everyone,
In the end I didn't revert to the Library, had got the author , sneaky with the middle name, but done before! Looked at the grammatic possibilties from north east corner to nearly due south, (would it be sssw?). Then Yahoo searched, Scandalous that I didn't see it before now! My schooling must have been woefully inadequate!
Christiana, my absence was only short term, but nice to be missed! Herself made the most of my absence and went travelling to continue her genealogy stuff on her and my family!
Ringer, we have all had problems accessing the new improved site! Apparently at some stage in the future we will be able replace the "jelly babies" with an image of how we would like to be envisaged! Is it possible to hear you clapping on the replay of the concert?
Matydalover, I regret your hint went zipping over my head,but got there eventually! I knew instinctively that as it was off the wall it had to be hint, but didn't follow it up!
Devadolly, I am sure all will go well with the EVENT of the year! Sorry, but Kendal is just too far North for me! And as for you having trouble solving EV as aresult of old age and decrepitude, I guess that's me next year!
Where is Physicsgirl, we need updates on her return to work and also minipg's progress! Looks like Novalis has become bored with us, or perhaps gone TT.
Prices at the Conference were horrendous, £7.10 for a 250ml glass of Chilean Merlot, £3.60 for a pint of Grolsch, and £7.15 for a large "ding-a-ling". Someone who ordered a larger Glenmorangie was charged "£27.00!!
Hello Everyone again,
I forgot to mention that dr b is also missing! Hope the new improved site isn't xenophobic! dr b is a valued contibutor to our ramblings!
Au revoir, encore une fois
Hello all
Good to see that the N&C is picking up again. Thank you MatydaLover for your explanation of your opening comments - I must admit that when I first read it I wondered if I was on the right page. All (well, nearly all) is clear now! DocHH - yes, I was cheering, and you can probably get a glimpse of me if you press the "red button". Funny that education was connected, albeit loosely, this week after our return to the interactive whiteboard face. Why did I think that my year 10s going into 11s might have decided to work this year. Ah well - only 7 weeks to half term!
Hello Ringer
The red button you refer to is non-existent here, don't have TV , but do have DAB radio. Herself has a TV at the flat in the Metropolis, the TV is even ready for the change-over!, but not sure about the red button! Herself is a technophobe so no idea about red buttons!
I dare not comment on the wonderfully sunny weather we have been enjoying here on the South Coast, in case I incur the wrath of Devadolly!
BTW we are also looking at booking a holiday Novemberish, but will avoid "half-term"
Take care and look after those lovely well behaved hard working year 11s! There is a remote possibility they may even morph into hard wotking year 12s
Where is Copelander?!
You mention xenophobic DocHH.........................................and this is a person who gives the impression that the world ends at Watford (not even Gap you notice)! Have you never visited the Lake District/Yorkshire Dales/Cheviots? Not to mention the Cheshire Plain or the Marches, Cathedral cities of Durham, York, Lincoln, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Ripon + of course the other cities that are as vibrant as London!
Yes the sun is shining today and all our fingers and toes are crossed that it stays for the next 4 days, well, at least doesn't rain, not that that is much solace to a farmer who has lost approx 450 tonnes of milling wheat that has been underwater too long and will now be ploughed in, only 450 x £120 per acre of his annual income lost. We have already been asked about selling some of the bales we have got - if of course we ever manage to get them off the field into the barn............................................of course we love to hear about the S sunburn at great length! Don't begrudge you at all DocHH, just very worried.
EV almost done but am still going into DC to chill!
Am now all finished - I think. Can anyone confirm if the one light in 4d with no across confirmation is an 'e', which works out cryptically, but the word is not in my Chambers 10th edition.
I don't blame you for going to DC Devadolly. It certainly sounds as though R and R is needed. I have had a very fraught day one way and another and may well join you thee.
Question Author
The "E" is certainly correct and the word is not in the 11th edition either ... I found that surprising, but the introduction does say "... apart from one proper noun and two simple inflections ...".

So I checked on some other adjectives and sure enough, words like charier, woodier, woollier, lovelier, happier and greyer (and their superlatives) do not expressly appear in Chambers!

The instructions for using the dictionary say that comparative and superlative inflections are only shown if they are irregular in formation ... and 4D is normal enough by changing a "Y" to "IER".

I guess I shouldn't be surprised because Channel 4's Countdown follows the same rules for the Oxford Dictionaries.

But the words do appear in my home-made dictionary search ... about 12 years ago I came across an internet file of all the words in Chambers and I have used it regularly ever since. I guess whoever assembled it must have constructed all the standard inflections. I wish I could thank them now!

Thanks for pointing that one out Christina, I have six editions of Chambers and I never knew that! A demonstration that all learning is valuable however trivial it might seem!
An elegantly phrased answer for Christiana, MatydaLover. I'd have just said I relied on the cryptic element of the clue, and that it doesn't appear in the 2003 version of the Big Red Book!
Devadolly, I am a less xenophobic person than you would ever meet! Of all the places and regions you mention the only one I haven't visited is Durham. As for vibrant Cities, having moved to a semi rural South Coast area nearly 20 years ago, from a workplace in the NW area of the Metropolis, which was even then ethnic and lively I try and avoid cities! Herself, however loves the buzz of the Metropolis, she chortles whenever I have to go there! Fully understand the problems farmers face, but us Investors, who rely investments for income haven't had a good time either recently!
Thanks Matydalover for the constructive and reassuring answer to my query. I wonder, Doc H H, if anyone's income is secure nowadays. I used to rely on investments alongside a small pension but neither investments nor pensions seem to be adequate nowadays. It was also much cheaper to live in the Algarve at one time, but now, under the deadly combination of the 'gentle' ministrations of the EEC and the Portuguese tendency to self-destruct, it aint necessarly so.
Christiana, by moving to the Algarve, with probably UK pension and investment arrangements you also became a currrency speculator! I hope it turns round to your benefit, but any of these things are a gamble! Who knows what on earth the "Eurocrats" will do, other than ensure they benefit theirselves"!, or should that be "themselves"?
Not too many in DC this week, just Devadooly for respite care at last notice!, hope she soon emerges with arms raised in triumph! Perhaps even heraldic! Did you do Speccie this week?
Well, here you all are. The search function in the newfangled AB was not finding the thread, and then I sort of got busy. Didn't find EV or Spec much of a challenge this week, I have to say.

The discussion of 4d is somewhat amusing to me, as it involves a word that no human being has ever used in a conversation before. "Look, this spot is so elmy." "Yes, but it's elmier over there." "Gosh, who knew there could be so many degrees of elminess in the world?" Or would it be elminosity? Elmitude? Elmaciousness?

My teaching semester has begun in earnest; I teach a night class from 6-9 PM on Wednesday nights and then a Thursday morning class as well. So after that class I am ready for a long nap. Instead I went running, so now I am really ready for a long nap. But, the (American) football season starts tonight, so like all red-blooded American males I will be parked in from of the tube watching Pittsburgh v Tennessee. And dozing off, probably.

Does anyone here work the Crossword Centre's monthly prize puzzle? Normally I do pretty well on those but am at a complete loss on this month's. Trading some gentle hints might get me going. OK, that's a week's worth of N&C from me.

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