Hard agree

I like this strategy - I lost interest in Wordle some time ago but this sounds like a fun approach. You’d have to be strict about using any revealed letters though otherwise it’s cheating

Suitably excruciating (as all spoonerism clues should be) 😂

Great list from someone who clearly knows his stuff. Glad to see Duck Amuck included - my all-time fave (these things are highly subjective of course but I’d have to make a place for ‘Bugs and Thugs’). Need to investigate the ones I’m not familiar with - including the one in number one spot…

At least you didn't say it's when your GP examines your prostate

*octuplets various, to put the required letters in the correct order, of course

Yes, rather clunky. Ought to be 'She's pregnant with heads of various octuplets to push' to make the cryptic grammar work but that renders the surface reading nonsensical... the best clues work on both levels equally well

Hurrah! 👏👏👏

Yeah, that or the 80s superhero action film...

Thinking that taking a day off work is "childish" is some real corporate brain-poisoned baby shit actually

"The sweat wis lashing oafay Stephen Dedaluis; he wis trembling. Ah wis jist sitting thair, focusing oan the telly, tryin no tae notice stately, plump Buck Mulliganame, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.”

Ironically the BBC stumbled on a really important story: Desperate asylum seekers being forced to turn to fraudulent fee-charging “advisors” to navigate a system that is intentionally impossibly baroque and from which all sources of free advice have been removed.

But no: they chose Fake Gay Panic.

Yeah, more Londoners *choose* not to have a car for obvious reasons. But to complicate matters, access to PT, walking & cycling is lower in areas of London with higher deprivation (33% of Londoners live in area with 'high' PT connectivity w/ higher concentrations in areas with lower deprivation)

Percival Everett: "Abstraction and Nonsense" "My search for the abstract novel has, of course, forced me to consider, appreciate, be seduced by, and employ nonsense."

"My search for the abstract novel has, of course, forced me to consider, appreciate, be seduced by, and employ nonsense." —Percival Everett

Excellent! 😂

I reckon @paulsinha.bsky.social will enjoy this one...

14d. Chapeau 👏👏👏

🚨 BREAKING 🚨 Viktor Orbán has defected to the Reform Party.

Rastas would have something to say about you wanting to distinguish between I and l

If it's so urgent, call the recipient. If they can't answer the phone at that moment, they probably can't listen to a voice note either

Al Green 'six of the best' playlist on @6music.bsky.social - perfect soul food for a grey Monday morning. Love it!

Full OED is great for historical interest/etymology but agree ODE best for current usage - and best guide to definitions that are acceptable for clue writing purposes! (That's the one I've got installed in Crossword Compiler, along with Chambers and Collins)

Btw, what sources does “Oxford dictionaries” use? They’re a bit coy about it - SOED, ODE? Obviously not the full OED, which has a lot more than 20 citations across six distinct senses…

…although in this case the word seems to have evolved to have a much narrower meaning, which is the opposite to the way meanings usually evolve (I think, although I could be wrong - I’ll tell you after I’ve finished David Crystal’s Stories of English, which is (still) on my to read pile…)

Yeah, lunacy and nonsense don’t feel different enough to count. In original meaning, there’s arrant knight/thief but no one uses those these days. Interesting reading citations in OED to see how its meaning has evolved - good example of why it’s daft to complain about meaning of words changing…

👏👏👏

Fantastic! So pleasing to know there are other Beauman fans out there - one of my very favourite current authors yet it seems hardly anyone I know has even heard of him (The Teleportation Accident is my favourite). Of course, it makes sense that those who love good wordplay would enjoy his work…

Intriguing title & this quote were enough to pique my interest so this went straight on my library hold list... became available yesterday. Downloaded and read it between breaths... Wow! It's fantastic! So unexpected. So perfect. So funny. Will re-read before returning, probs more than once...

I almost solved this without looking at the hints but fell foul of exactly the same failure to read the rules properly! 😂

Nice puzzle, thanks for sharing