Enjoyable xword, thks setter.
Solving 16A the following sprung to mind……spoiler alert…..the original True 16A with the late great John Wayne https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9-cPWheNyaA
Gosh your Australian friend sounds like he was full of life at 86!
Wish we’d been able to get up further into Norway and visit more cities but no time. Something to look forward to in retirement when we don’t have to get back for work! A friend was showing us his photos of when he was there last year and the geography looked stunning too, spectacular waterfalls.
We have found the people to be very friendly with no impatience in speaking English that you sometimes encounter in France no inner eye rolling from them!
Mr H showed me a bar chart last night re the gun crime statics, a bit alarming. I read the Stig Larrson Dragon Tattoo trilogy a few years ago and a very violent Sweden was described there. Doesn’t fit with the image one has of the country.
I first thought of Cromwell’s rule as the commonwealth, but it didn’t quite fit in - fortunately. After a while the right word popped into my mind - helped by some crossers.
And now, some not-so-good news from Sweden, of a nasty gun crime perhaps involving British victims. I hadn't realized their gun-crime statistics were quite so bad. Heigh ho!
I should have gone into slightly more detail about my week-long Rome visit which I enjoyed (with an Australian friend who had legged it over from Oz as the start of a month-long Italy tour, then aged 86 (a Sydneysider, and a heat freak, which I am not!); and also, a year or two before Sweden, a 'tour' of (some of) Norway with the same friend as 'did' Stockholm with me. The Norway trip was in April, and some of it (Trondheim to Bergen) by the Hurtigruten 'fjording' post-office ferry. I think my favourite city was Bergen (Hansa merchants' houses and all, but no Troldhaugen and no Grieg (too early in the season)), runner-up Trondheim (Nidaros Cathedral shut - bad mark there), with Oslo not a bad third, including the Viking Ship and Ibsen's favourite caff as a treat on my birthday. Trondheim, where we embarked on the ferry, was the furthest north, and we were joining a lot of RSPB types who had been birding in the Arctic, and were full of it all, in a very hearty English, girt-about-with-equipment, sort of way. Voices carrying and commanding ("Er, I say, bearer, give us a hand, would you?". Well, not quite, but almost), which I don't suppose they did so much 'in the field'. Nice enough people in their way.
Lovely account William. Unfortunately we need to be heading back home now so not getting over to Stockholm but certainly looks like a place to visit in the future.
I still think Rome is one of the most fascinating cities I have visited, coincidentally also in 2016. The Roman history just blew me away then visiting Herculaneum and Pompeii last year was the icing on the cake.
We will be returning to Sweden and Norway I think, I’d like to travel up to the north. I have found it wonderfully disorientating to see the fading light in the west then turn around and see the start of the next day behind you! I remember when we flew to NZ in 1994 I went up into the cockpit with our then 4 year old and watched us chasing the sun as we flew west. Not allowed to do that now!
FYI Waterloo was the name of the song that ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest with in, I think, 1974. Very cheesy but enough people liked it! They do have lovely voices and some of their music is very good but on the whole it’s a bit poppy for me. I remember them being v uncool in my circle of friends when I was a young un :)
Good luck with the DIY, hope it all comes together and Mr M doesn’t frazzle himself. Can’t imagine decorating and wrangling children at the same time. Fair play to you.
He was lucky many times in battle and avoiding politics. Assisted General Monck in facilitating the restoration. His wheelchair is in the Civil War Museum in Newark on Trent.
Got roped in by the ship and didn’t have meat for me tea. Sack-hair far more up my street. Not.
Losing coherence and agility after a second day of decorating and minding children on my own whilst MrM messes up the fragile electrics. Oh joy as we will be doing it all again tomorrow with the company of John Lewis and IKEA.
At the top right of my computer screen at work, there are three little dots whose menu offer the option to zoom in or out, i.e. enlarge or shrink what's on the screen.
Don't know if yours is the same?
The allusion is lost on me, I'm afraid, but I have a horrible suspicion that it has something to do with the afore-mentioned pop group!
But Seriously, Folks. I loved what I saw of Sweden on my so far sole visit eight years ago, to the month. We confined ourselves to Stockholm and (on a day boat trip) Drottningholm. Here's an edited version of what I wrote to a fellow-QCer in a private email last year:
"My visit was in mid-July 2016, with a friend who has travelled with me to many other places over the years. We stayed at a hotel which was a former mill, on the waterfront: glorious weather, but much more bearable than Rome, where I had been (with another friend) a couple of weeks earlier. The Vasa museum was astonishing, and probably the highlight. Comparisons are odious, I know, but it will probably have spoilt the Mary Rose for me! On the island where the Vasa ship museum is, Djurgården, there is also a Nordic Museum, which is big, and gives a sort of panorama of Scandinavian history, with sections devoted to the Sami people and to Strindberg, a painter as well as a playwright. Well worth a visit. The Palace I remember admiring from the outside, and the building where the Nobel Committee has its deliberations. I enjoyed the Swedish History Museum, and the Modern Museum too. If you have the time, take a boat trip to Drottningholm, the 'other' royal palace, which I found enchanting, and which has what I believe is the oldest working theatre in the world. Some of the churches are worth a visit, for historical if for no other reasons. In one of them we went to an afternoon chamber concert (I think it was the one where the royal family tends to be buried, and Swedish nobility too.) The cathedral is also worth seeing. When we were there there wasn't much in the way of concerts or opera, but that may have been because it was the height of summer. Worth checking, if that's your bag. We didn't go to the ABBA Museum. One disappointment was that we didn't have time to go to Uppsala."
Nothing there about the people, I know, but the ones we met were delightful, including in particular one woman who spoke to us in the street when she saw we were looking lost. She was evidently retired, and recounted something of her past life, which had included time in one of the international agencies. Flawless English - of course.
Quick crossword No 16,909
Kommentare
Some of them were hippies!
That EPT is surprisingly emotional.
I especially like the interweaving of Talking Heads lyrics.
Thanks Jim.
Ha ha.
Too true@
I did enjoy 2D. Caught me out good and proper it did.
Some dubious clues.
I got my dates muddled up and put in restoration, which fits, and led to a bit of confusion for while, so convinced was I that I was right.
Got the lot apart from 6D, which I would never have got, I don't think. So I'm making that my word of the day.
Somehow I struggled with many of these. And had to reveal the chord. Didn't like the joke in 18d.
When is a tower not a tower, perfect homophones.
Enjoyable xword, thks setter.
Solving 16A the following sprung to mind……spoiler alert…..the original True 16A with the late great John Wayne https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9-cPWheNyaA
Blooming auto correct! I had a row with a rower!
Had a tow with a rower over 2d.
Gosh your Australian friend sounds like he was full of life at 86!
Wish we’d been able to get up further into Norway and visit more cities but no time. Something to look forward to in retirement when we don’t have to get back for work! A friend was showing us his photos of when he was there last year and the geography looked stunning too, spectacular waterfalls.
We have found the people to be very friendly with no impatience in speaking English that you sometimes encounter in France no inner eye rolling from them!
Mr H showed me a bar chart last night re the gun crime statics, a bit alarming. I read the Stig Larrson Dragon Tattoo trilogy a few years ago and a very violent Sweden was described there. Doesn’t fit with the image one has of the country.
I first thought of Cromwell’s rule as the commonwealth, but it didn’t quite fit in - fortunately. After a while the right word popped into my mind - helped by some crossers.
Turning and turning in the widening 8a
The falcon doesn’t hear the falconer;
Courtesy of WB Yeats -
Immediately came to mind.
And now, some not-so-good news from Sweden, of a nasty gun crime perhaps involving British victims. I hadn't realized their gun-crime statistics were quite so bad. Heigh ho!
No dots, but thank you very much for the suggestion.
Yay, that worked! Thank you.
Link to Wellington? It is a lovely city.
Sounds brilliant, despite poor weather. X
I should have gone into slightly more detail about my week-long Rome visit which I enjoyed (with an Australian friend who had legged it over from Oz as the start of a month-long Italy tour, then aged 86 (a Sydneysider, and a heat freak, which I am not!); and also, a year or two before Sweden, a 'tour' of (some of) Norway with the same friend as 'did' Stockholm with me. The Norway trip was in April, and some of it (Trondheim to Bergen) by the Hurtigruten 'fjording' post-office ferry. I think my favourite city was Bergen (Hansa merchants' houses and all, but no Troldhaugen and no Grieg (too early in the season)), runner-up Trondheim (Nidaros Cathedral shut - bad mark there), with Oslo not a bad third, including the Viking Ship and Ibsen's favourite caff as a treat on my birthday. Trondheim, where we embarked on the ferry, was the furthest north, and we were joining a lot of RSPB types who had been birding in the Arctic, and were full of it all, in a very hearty English, girt-about-with-equipment, sort of way. Voices carrying and commanding ("Er, I say, bearer, give us a hand, would you?". Well, not quite, but almost), which I don't suppose they did so much 'in the field'. Nice enough people in their way.
Oo, thanks for the prompt re R.H.
Pronounce it differently
It isn't. Think of a heteronym.
One of many weird...Tugboat as in Tows rather than Leaning Tower of...Pizza
There’s always a bit of something. I doubt that dap water is protein free (although I would rely on it for a balanced diet).
Yes, it’s fine, but hardly needs specialised football knowledge.
Lovely account William. Unfortunately we need to be heading back home now so not getting over to Stockholm but certainly looks like a place to visit in the future.
I still think Rome is one of the most fascinating cities I have visited, coincidentally also in 2016. The Roman history just blew me away then visiting Herculaneum and Pompeii last year was the icing on the cake.
We will be returning to Sweden and Norway I think, I’d like to travel up to the north. I have found it wonderfully disorientating to see the fading light in the west then turn around and see the start of the next day behind you! I remember when we flew to NZ in 1994 I went up into the cockpit with our then 4 year old and watched us chasing the sun as we flew west. Not allowed to do that now!
FYI Waterloo was the name of the song that ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest with in, I think, 1974. Very cheesy but enough people liked it! They do have lovely voices and some of their music is very good but on the whole it’s a bit poppy for me. I remember them being v uncool in my circle of friends when I was a young un :)
Ships tower 2d weird
Good luck with the DIY, hope it all comes together and Mr M doesn’t frazzle himself. Can’t imagine decorating and wrangling children at the same time. Fair play to you.
Sounds exhilarating. X
He was lucky many times in battle and avoiding politics. Assisted General Monck in facilitating the restoration. His wheelchair is in the Civil War Museum in Newark on Trent.
Yay. Glad it has given her a boost.
Got roped in by the ship and didn’t have meat for me tea. Sack-hair far more up my street. Not.
Losing coherence and agility after a second day of decorating and minding children on my own whilst MrM messes up the fragile electrics. Oh joy as we will be doing it all again tomorrow with the company of John Lewis and IKEA.
At the top right of my computer screen at work, there are three little dots whose menu offer the option to zoom in or out, i.e. enlarge or shrink what's on the screen.
Don't know if yours is the same?
Would you like to meet up for a coffee when they're at the cricket, or are you staying at home?
Good news, IronLung, thanks for letting us know.
I was up in the rigging as well. Never mind, there was nothing else to do.
15a is a spot on clue.
Aaaaaaaargh!
....REACH OUT AND GRAB YA !!!
A lovely account, William. I imagine it brings you many memories.
12a suddenly dropped into my head from goodness knows where, otherwise a good meaty challenge.
Similar to a certain tongue twister
I'm not a pork pie pricker
I'm a pork pie pricker's son,
And I'm busy pricking pork pies,
Until the pork pie pricking's done.
'Twas brillig, indeed!
Oh I see! Thanks, Jean.
Enjoyed that, setter, thank you - challenging but gettable when the penny's dropped. Several wry smiles.
And for Hannah.
The allusion is lost on me, I'm afraid, but I have a horrible suspicion that it has something to do with the afore-mentioned pop group!
But Seriously, Folks. I loved what I saw of Sweden on my so far sole visit eight years ago, to the month. We confined ourselves to Stockholm and (on a day boat trip) Drottningholm. Here's an edited version of what I wrote to a fellow-QCer in a private email last year:
"My visit was in mid-July 2016, with a friend who has travelled with me to many other places over the years. We stayed at a hotel which was a former mill, on the waterfront: glorious weather, but much more bearable than Rome, where I had been (with another friend) a couple of weeks earlier. The Vasa museum was astonishing, and probably the highlight. Comparisons are odious, I know, but it will probably have spoilt the Mary Rose for me! On the island where the Vasa ship museum is, Djurgården, there is also a Nordic Museum, which is big, and gives a sort of panorama of Scandinavian history, with sections devoted to the Sami people and to Strindberg, a painter as well as a playwright. Well worth a visit. The Palace I remember admiring from the outside, and the building where the Nobel Committee has its deliberations. I enjoyed the Swedish History Museum, and the Modern Museum too. If you have the time, take a boat trip to Drottningholm, the 'other' royal palace, which I found enchanting, and which has what I believe is the oldest working theatre in the world. Some of the churches are worth a visit, for historical if for no other reasons. In one of them we went to an afternoon chamber concert (I think it was the one where the royal family tends to be buried, and Swedish nobility too.) The cathedral is also worth seeing. When we were there there wasn't much in the way of concerts or opera, but that may have been because it was the height of summer. Worth checking, if that's your bag. We didn't go to the ABBA Museum. One disappointment was that we didn't have time to go to Uppsala."
Nothing there about the people, I know, but the ones we met were delightful, including in particular one woman who spoke to us in the street when she saw we were looking lost. She was evidently retired, and recounted something of her past life, which had included time in one of the international agencies. Flawless English - of course.
... as a row of tents?
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