“Thare are five mistukes im this centence”
True or False?

beermagnet’s “Did you know” section:
The volume of a pizza of thickness ‘a’ and radius ‘z’ is given by pi*z*z*a

3D reminds me of a story I heard recently:
On a friend’s son’s twenty-something birthday he went out for a drink with his friends. Next day he reappeared, wrecked. His Mum asked him if he’d he a good time ‘Oh yes, but I fell head-first into a bush’. Quick as a flash she asked ‘privet or pubic?’

Q. How many mice does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Mice: Just two of course, but it’s very tricky to get them in the light bulb.

There was a young curate of Kew
Who kept a black cat in a pew
He taught it each week
One letter from Greek
But never got further than µ

Anyway I had other things to think about. The big news for me is that I’m a grandad for the first time!  The Magnet dynasty was increased by one in the first week of this decade. A bit earlier than expected and with a nasty problem near the end, but with the wonders of modern science plus the skill of the surgeon everything is OK now. Despite the bad press Milton Keynes General do get some satisfied customers. Now expecting the little blighter to get a bit bigger than the 6lbs-ish he started with. Anyway, nice to have a good reason to raise a glass or two (except that I hadn’t got much left after Xmas and had to nip down the offy).

So what about this crossword – typically enjoyable stuff with enough to keep anyone happy for a couple of pints with groans and laughs in equal measure.

Postscript from the Xmas blog comments: Double L Rottweillers spotted in the “Annabel Goldsmith” Diary (as told to Craig Brown) section – so it’s not just Cyclops with the LL obsession. (Mind you, there is also the double T chapatti in these answers … )

Beer quotes:
He was a wise man who invented beer.
–Plato
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
–Benjamin Franklin
Beauty lies in the hands of the beer holder.
–Anonymous
(That’s enough plagiarising for cheap laughs.  Ed.)

I haven’t gone searching through the back issues to discover when or which quiz programme the Dumb answers were provided, but I can’t see that we will miss much.

With regard to the Dumb Britain section: I sometimes feel a bit uneasy about some of the answers being labelled “Dumb” – I can easily imagine failing to deal with quickfire questions myself and wildly guessing the first name that springs to mind based on the last words heard. The “Bernard Manning” and “Cheshire Cat” answers here fail into that category. Though I hope and expect I would get such answers right what might I say if I panicked?
Others are where the contestant simply does not know the answer and comes out with something hilarious.  Occasionally I detect this may be intentional for a joke, such as the wonderful “Hillary Rottweiller Clinton” below, in which case top marks for thinking of it so quickly.

I tackled this in three chunks. I carefully ignored the asterisked clues till I had as many of the normal clues in place as possible. First session (couple of pints) I had most of the normal clues in place, many of which I found on the easy side.  I remember the horizontal central third of the puzzle was pretty much full.  Second session I began to make guesses on the Dumb answers, “Kent and Essex” fell first. Third session wrapped it up after I sorted out what unchecked letters I had left to fill in the gaps. It didn’t cause as much strain as expected, then I’m probably getting better at solving these by now. It took a lot longer to do this blog than solve the puzzle! It’s all a bit of fun though isn’t it.

Somewhere in the detail are a few clues I haven’t fully understood so thank in advance for anyone helping with them.

There were 67 letters given in the preamble to use to complete the “Dumb answer” solutions, the unchecked letters:

AAAAAA C D EEEEEEEE F GGGGG H IIIII JJ K LLLL MMM NNN OOOOOO PP RRRR SSSS TTTTTTT U W X

But I found only 64 gaps to fill
I had three letters left over: E I N
Am I missing something?

Late Edit: I just understood.  Mystery solved! The preamble is not wrong, it is very precise. The 67 letters are “Letters used in these solutions (less those letters that cross with normal solutions)”. These three are not used in normal solutions. There are 3 places where one “Dumb answer” crosses another:
E: StreEt-Porter crosses HammEr
I: Rolf HarrIs crosses PIgeon
N: Jim CallaghaN crossed UgaNda

I had to have a tooth out the other day.
The dentist said it would cost £75.
“£75! for ten minutes work” I exclaimed.
He said: “I can pull it out very slowly if you prefer”

http://www.calendarpuzzles.co.uk/calendar_puzzle_2010.html

http://www.calendarpuzzles.co.uk/RNIB-2010-calendar.html

Don’t forget to book a bit of time over Christmas to tackle Cyclops’s annual giant, due out soon.  That really will be a double-size challenge.

Perhaps because that monster is on the horizon this issue’s crossword wasn’t too hard.  Still, there is one I need help with: Runny Nose at 21.  Can someone please give me a tissue.

I just got a form where they had put me in age bracket 54-499.
I was LIV-ID !

Joke ans: Kermit the fog!

After doing a lot of crosswords I tend to read clues for their cryptic meaning without noticing, or should I say savouring, the surface reading. An example of this is 13A here:
Bum, almost round isn’t wobbling – flaming criminal (8)
I did not notice the excellent surface meaning till re-reading it for this blog. That’s one of the reasons I like blogging. When solving this I ignored the punctuation and read “Bum almost” (giving ARS[e] – what else could it be in this crossword) and registered “flaming criminal” as the def. so ARSONIST leapt out, the wordplay easily put to bed, but at the time I hadn’t noticed the little vignette, and social comment(?), that Cyclops had painted.

Only brief mention of last week’s non-appearance in the letter’s page, and an apology, but anyone without internet access still hasn’t had the official answers to 402 – and worse, no tortoise in this issue! – I suspect more letters may be forthcoming.

This crossy was completed in one late-night sitting over about a half-hour. So, not as easy as some Cyclops lately but no need for more than one session and nothing to look up to check.

So this crossword 403 was only available on the Eye’s website .
I expect we can find a way to blame the postal strike.
As the webpage gave the usual entry date for submissions I presume the next crossword in the print edition will be 404, otherwise I would delay this blog.

Anyway …
This was a rare outing for a themed grid with several answers defined as (5/21) Hate Figures.
Some of these answers were very easy (I think I wrote in 1/10 Osama 4.125 milliseconds after reading the clue) while the theme helped get the answers to some others.  Help please on 3/22 wordplay.