Yes. No single (S) to (Lady Chatterley's) lover MELLOR(S) leads to (David) MELLOR who was once an MP. He then poached Viscount Cobham's wife from the Viscount and became and continues to be Lady Cobham's lover.
Hi Plato. It takes me a long time but it's very satisfying when it works. Particularly if you can achieve a good surface reading to the clues - i.e they appear to make sense on their own independent of the cryptic wordplay and definition
Hi Plato. It takes me a long time but it's very satisfying when it works. Particularly if you can achieve a good surface reading to the clues - i.e they appear to make sense on their own independent of the cryptic wordplay and definition
It was beautifully done. Wedgiest was inspired. Thank you.
Kleptomaniac Theo, from Ipswich, first hit the headlines in 2013 for stealing Christmas decorations.
Recently he has been stealing toy food, including a pineapple and an aubergine. "We are deeply ashamed of our cat, especially as he had convinced us that he had changed his criminal ways," his owner wrote to neighbours. Rachael Drouet created a leaflet for her neighbours in a bid to reunite the stolen items with their rightful owners.
"This year has been relatively quiet, save for some Bettaware catalogues and the odd flat balloon," the leaflet read. "Until a few days ago when he started bring home toy food. "So far we have cheese, a green pepper, fish, a pineapple, an aubergine, and a felt basket to put them all in."
I really enjoyed the crossword. Thank you for that StJohn. Gave me something to think about while doing the sprouts. As Mike Smithson says, this site is run by volunteers so thanks to everyone for their efforts. Now onto the champers.
Merry Christmas to Mike, the PB team and all PBers. Following on from PfP's Kipper Tie joke.
A frog walks into a bank and approaches the teller, whose name plate says Patricia Whack.
"Hello Miss Whack, I'd like to get a $50,000 loan to take a vacation."
Patrica looks at the frog in disbelief and asks his name.
"Kermit Jagger. My father is Mick Jagger. It will be fine to authorize the loan, I know your manager."
Patricia explains that he will need to secure the loan with some collateral.
"Sure, how about this," said Kermit as he produces a tiny porcelain elephant, about an inch tall, bright pink and perfectly formed. Very confused, Patricia explains that she'll have to consult with the bank manager and disappears into a back office.
Patricia walks into the manager's office and proceeds to tell her, "There's a frog called Kermit Jagger out there who claims to know you and wants to borrow $50,000, and he wants to use this as collateral." Patriciay holds up the tiny pink elephant. "I mean, what in the world is this?"
The bank manager looks back at her and says..."It's a knick knack, Patty Whack. Give the frog a loan. His old man's a Rolling Stone."
It reminds me of a similar story:
A Hotel in London had a vacancy for an assistant dish washer, to help the principal dish washer Hans.
Gervase, the manager, was in charge of the interviews. The only application came from a lime coloured squid with a bushy moustache. The squid made the case that he was at home in the water and with ten tentacles could wash multiple dishes similtaneously. He got the job.
Sadly, it did not work out. The squid broke multiple plates and left ink stains on the others.
He had to go, but Gervase was a famously kind man and couldn't face the poor mollusc. He delegated the sacking to Hans.
Hans started the difficult conversation but soon the squid was blubbing about how he needed the job and Hans could not go through with the sacking. The squid stayed on
Thats right:
Hans that do dishes are as soft as Gervase with lime green hairy lipped squid!
Welcome foxinsoxuk to PB.com's Hall of Fame with that all time classic!
A Hotel in London had a vacancy for an assistant dish washer, to help the principal dish washer Hans.
Gervase, the manager, was in charge of the interviews. The only application came from a lime coloured squid with a bushy moustache. The squid made the case that he was at home in the water and with ten tentacles could wash multiple dishes similtaneously. He got the job.
Sadly, it did not work out. The squid broke multiple plates and left ink stains on the others.
He had to go, but Gervase was a famously kind man and couldn't face the poor mollusc. He delegated the sacking to Hans.
Hans started the difficult conversation but soon the squid was blubbing about how he needed the job and Hans could not go through with the sacking. The squid stayed on
Thats right:
Hans that do dishes are as soft as Gervase with lime green hairy lipped squid!
Welcome foxinsoxuk to PB.com's Hall of Fame with that all time classic!
I recall at the time of this story police feared that Dr Asha might have detonated his explosives on the motorway near Rugby. They were very keen to avert a bomb full of Asha on the M45...
Hi Plato. It takes me a long time but it's very satisfying when it works. Particularly if you can achieve a good surface reading to the clues - i.e they appear to make sense on their own independent of the cryptic wordplay and definition
Thanks for the Xmas xword fun @stjohn ! A pleasingly misleading (not politics) clue I wrote last week -
Dear PB friends great and small, a very happy Christmas and all best wishes for 2016. Grateful thanks to all the team and all the contributors that make PB such a success! It was very good to see some of you at the fairly recent PB event in London. Love you all!!!
Merry Christmas all. Some good but perplexing stuff on here today.
Firstly we had Mr. St. John's fiendishly difficult puzzle. In previous years I have usually managed to get at least half of the answers but this year I didn't get one. For not one single, solitary clue could I find the answer.
Then we have the Prasannan family cold. My usual prescription in such cases (i.e. a damn hot curry and lots of whisky with lemon juice and glycerine) is clearly not going to be of any use. Sunil's Mum already provides the first as a dietary staple and he don't drink.
Finally, we have the mystery of Mrs Free's Christmas lunch. Mrs Free is we know, amongst her many accomplishments, a mother and a lady. Yet she posts on here at 12:15 that she is out to walk her dog before coming back for lunch. How does that work? Who was doing the cooking/supervising the kitchen?
All in all, I think in the new year I need to start looking for a suitable nursing home.
Merry Christmas all. Some good but perplexing stuff on here today.
Firstly we had Mr. St. John's fiendishly difficult puzzle. In previous years I have usually managed to get at least half of the answers but this year I didn't get one. For not one single, solitary clue could I find the answer.
Then we have the Prasannan family cold. My usual prescription in such cases (i.e. a damn hot curry and lots of whisky with lemon juice and glycerine) is clearly not going to be of any use. Sunil's Mum already provides the first as a dietary staple and he don't drink.
Finally, we have the mystery of Mrs Free's Christmas lunch. Mrs Free is we know, amongst her many accomplishments, a mother and a lady. Yet she posts on here at 12:15 that she is out to walk her dog before coming back for lunch. How does that work? Who was doing the cooking/supervising the kitchen?
All in all, I think in the new year I need to start looking for a suitable nursing home.
I see that representatives of our national religion have got the Christmas number one.
Remarkable how few sales and sales equivalents in streams it takes to get number one. The runner up Bieber who encouraged his fans to get the NHS Choir to number one himself got less than 100k sales. So how few does the rest of the top 40 get?
Find it brilliant that the X Factor winner isn't even top 10. What a dull and boring cover of Dylan. To go with a dull and boring show that has gone on far too long.
Complete bollox in this article (comments closed a month ago?). The EU has insisted we reduce our forces to allow the EU army to replace them. And, the EU will not let British soldiers be stationed in Britain in case the populace rises against the EU. Ridiculous comments from the kipper tendency.
We continue to spend large sums on our armed forces and bearing in mind the shambles we inherited we have a realistic and properly funded equipment programme. Only recently extra funds were put towards the SAS and drones and intelligence gathering. I do not believe that the present govt take our armed forces for granted and not untypically from you that remark is an unjustified slur. I do know what a Jeremy Corbyn govt would look like in this context thank you very much and its quite likely, if I live long enough, that I will vote accordingly in 2020.
Merry Christmas everybody, I hope you've all had fun today.
Great to see StJohn and the crossword back
Codeword is my limit I am afraid. But as an antidote to Strictly on the BBC, I make a brief visit to say Merry Christmas and well done to all who make the site possible. It's always one thing to have an idea but another to carry it through and to some not inconsiderable success.
Merry Christmas all. Some good but perplexing stuff on here today.
Firstly we had Mr. St. John's fiendishly difficult puzzle. In previous years I have usually managed to get at least half of the answers but this year I didn't get one. For not one single, solitary clue could I find the answer.
Then we have the Prasannan family cold. My usual prescription in such cases (i.e. a damn hot curry and lots of whisky with lemon juice and glycerine) is clearly not going to be of any use. Sunil's Mum already provides the first as a dietary staple and he don't drink.
Finally, we have the mystery of Mrs Free's Christmas lunch. Mrs Free is we know, amongst her many accomplishments, a mother and a lady. Yet she posts on here at 12:15 that she is out to walk her dog before coming back for lunch. How does that work? Who was doing the cooking/supervising the kitchen?
All in all, I think in the new year I need to start looking for a suitable nursing home.
Perplexed and confused of Hurstpierpoint.
Mr Llama: there is no confusion. A talent for delegation is all that is needed. Lunch was being provided by another member of the extended Cyclefree clan.
And a most delicious lunch it was too! A rib of beef to die for - and now, back suitably sated and with most delightful gifts given and received, I am in front of the fire, with a tray of tea - and possibly another drink later on.
I would guess pretty much all of it has been agreed, give or take some dotting of i's and crossing of t's. This particular issue was supposed to be an impossible stumbling block as it goes against everything that is EU.
Now it is all about managed spin, in order to make it sound like Cameron done good, getting EU to give away enough, but without them losing any face.
...and after a bit of muttering everyone magically shakes hands on 3 and a half because that was the number agreed weeks ago.
Given Cam asked for four in the first place, surely that would be a pretty good result?
Yes it is a pretty good result. I'll happily accept that he has negotiated a decent result against the odds. He's done better than many naysayers have predicted and the 3 year ban (or 3.5 or 4) would be a very positive thing for the UK.
But I'm an Out, Regardless voter on purely constitutional grounds - so Cameron can come back with a 50 year ban and it it won't make the slightest difference to my vote.
...and after a bit of muttering everyone magically shakes hands on 3 and a half because that was the number agreed weeks ago.
Given Cam asked for four in the first place, surely that would be a pretty good result?
Yes it is a pretty good result. I'll happily accept that he has negotiated a decent result against the odds. He's done better than many naysayers have predicted and the 3 year ban (or 3.5 or 4) would be a very positive thing for the UK.
But I'm an Out, Regardless voter on purely constitutional grounds - so Cameron can come back with a 50 year ban and it it won't make the slightest difference to my vote.
The oddest thing about driving around today - apart from the number of Fedex trucks delivering Christmas stuff at noon on Christmas Day - was the number of cars and trucks in driveways with their hoods up and someone working on them. I counted about 6 on a 10 mile drive.
This guy sounds like a right old laugh.....I can't think why he is single and lives alone...
As a rationalist and atheist, Tony Green from Ipswich tries to avoid Christmas as much as possible.
“It’s not just the religious mumbo-jumbo I dislike but also all the associated bullshit and worship of materialism. So I do my best to make Christmas day as much like any other day as is possible. Fortunately I’m a single man living alone so at least I don’t have the pressure to conform that others might suffer. And after many years I’ve trained my friends to realise that however well-meaning their invitations are, I really don’t want to share in the compulsory but fake bonhomie of their celebrations. Obviously my normal night out at the pub isn’t possible and most radio on the day is unadulterated drivel (the totally awful rubbish people will put up with just because a record is a ‘Christmas record’ never ceases to amaze me) so I can’t have a completely normal day. But I do my best.
Wow that's a better version than I've ever seen (although I haven't looked for it in years). Last time I looked it was a very bad VHS copy, this one seems very close to the broadcast version (which was allegedly destroyed).
I would love the subtitles of Mrs Chewie and Chewie Junior. Would add so much
Comments
From the gamekeeper
A case of gamekeeper turned poacher.
Wedgiest was inspired.
Thank you.
Merry Christmas all. Try to eat and drink just a little bit too much.
No cooking for us this morning - we're off to the inlaws for dinner.
And on that pleasant thought: Merry Christmas everyone!
Merry Xmas to all PBers.
Off out for a walk with the hound and then lunch.
Yum!
'Are these kebabs turkey?'
'Turkish'
Tower rising rigid out of horrible bog (7)
While we all want "Peace and Goodwill" between the nations, it's not going to happen in any foreseeable future, and we will need an Army to defend us.
However, we in the UK have a rapidly diminishing defence force and if this article is anything to go by, we will soon be in a complete mess:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/12014337/British-soldiers-are-underpaid-overworked-and-taken-for-granted-by-our-politicians.html
Firstly we had Mr. St. John's fiendishly difficult puzzle. In previous years I have usually managed to get at least half of the answers but this year I didn't get one. For not one single, solitary clue could I find the answer.
Then we have the Prasannan family cold. My usual prescription in such cases (i.e.
a damn hot curry and lots of whisky with lemon juice and glycerine) is clearly not going to be of any use. Sunil's Mum already provides the first as a dietary staple and he don't drink.
Finally, we have the mystery of Mrs Free's Christmas lunch. Mrs Free is we know, amongst her many accomplishments, a mother and a lady. Yet she posts on here at 12:15 that she is out to walk her dog before coming back for lunch. How does that work? Who was doing the cooking/supervising the kitchen?
All in all, I think in the new year I need to start looking for a suitable nursing home.
Perplexed and confused of Hurstpierpoint.
Find it brilliant that the X Factor winner isn't even top 10. What a dull and boring cover of Dylan. To go with a dull and boring show that has gone on far too long.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/12069131/Boost-for-David-Cameron-EU-renegotiation-as-Merkel-and-Hollande-make-migrant-benefit-offer.html
Great to see StJohn and the crossword back
I do not believe that the present govt take our armed forces for granted and not untypically from you that remark is an unjustified slur.
I do know what a Jeremy Corbyn govt would look like in this context thank you very much and its quite likely, if I live long enough, that I will vote accordingly in 2020.
And a most delicious lunch it was too! A rib of beef to die for - and now, back suitably sated and with most delightful gifts given and received, I am in front of the fire, with a tray of tea - and possibly another drink later on.
See - easy, peasy.
And for some Xmas Evening entertainment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcI6FIpd0CA
French and German leaders have made a counter offer of a three year ban
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3374131/David-Cameron-DROP-demand-four-year-benefit-ban-migrants-Germany-France-offer-compromise-three-years-instead.html
Now it is all about managed spin, in order to make it sound like Cameron done good, getting EU to give away enough, but without them losing any face.
https://twitter.com/suttonnick/status/680480733371170816
https://twitter.com/suttonnick/status/680480733371170816
They will name a type of footwear after Cameron at this rate.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3374187/Queen-not-amused-hoverboards-bans-gadgets-hit-safety-fears-Windsor-Great-Park.html
But I'm an Out, Regardless voter on purely constitutional grounds - so Cameron can come back with a 50 year ban and it it won't make the slightest difference to my vote.
http://www.gizmag.com/arcaboard-hoverboard-arca-aerospace/41063/
That's a hoverboard.
Honestly Dave's renegotiation is so awesome, ABBA are going to reform and do a new song about it.
It was just like a Thread "First". Sometimes you've got to pee on the lamppost before any other dog gets there!
Perfect for Westminster I would have thought, and on that rather rude note I shall just wish you all happy xmas and help myself to another drink
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_mmWCuYS0o
Glenlivet and a Montecristo No 2.
The world is good.
As a rationalist and atheist, Tony Green from Ipswich tries to avoid Christmas as much as possible.
“It’s not just the religious mumbo-jumbo I dislike but also all the associated bullshit and worship of materialism. So I do my best to make Christmas day as much like any other day as is possible. Fortunately I’m a single man living alone so at least I don’t have the pressure to conform that others might suffer. And after many years I’ve trained my friends to realise that however well-meaning their invitations are, I really don’t want to share in the compulsory but fake bonhomie of their celebrations. Obviously my normal night out at the pub isn’t possible and most radio on the day is unadulterated drivel (the totally awful rubbish people will put up with just because a record is a ‘Christmas record’ never ceases to amaze me) so I can’t have a completely normal day. But I do my best.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/24/non-christians-at-christmas-i-love-it-as-much-as-i-love-diwali
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gettysburg
I would love the subtitles of Mrs Chewie and Chewie Junior. Would add so much