The_Spectator_April_15_2017

LIFE

Across

11 Maigret’s sidekick has

read case in French (5)

12 Those in the band that

take some beating (5)

15 The military can stand

this (6, two words)

16 Is he blotto permanently?

Only partly (5)

17 It’s about time, note, for

repeats (8)

18 Larks start to sing after

peace’s shattered around

outskirts of Ashtead (9)

20 Pierrepoint’s letter game

(7)

23 Additional luxurious fabric

is cut (4)

25 Stupid person lacking

emotion, twisted inside (4)

26 Principles suggest ‘ring after

eleven in the mornings’ (6)

28 Ledge bearing mothball (6)

29 Collaborator’s friendly, but

wanting power (4)

31 Roll up from some distance

(4)

33 Country article left Spice

Girl slightly abashed (7)

34 Choice about time for

surgery (9)

37 The Spectator is forward

with beautiful woman (8)

39 Basket case’s beginning to

stagger (5)

42 Antique fellows you may

see on the coast (5)

43 Relatives like holding posh

books (5)

44 Steadfast belief, whichever

way you look at it (5)

45 Freelances — as a char? (6)

46 Criminal’s offspring is going

into painting (8)

Down

1 Discolorations or blemish

over half the county (8)

2 Luminous phenomena —

distinctive characters

containing gold (7)

3 Slow to get a kiss, the sap!

(5)

4 Evens? Maybe. Maybe not

(4)

7 Like carrier, off course (6)

8 Said ‘Super’ which does jar!

(5)

9 Some licensees’ measures

(3)

10 This factor’s macaque (6)

19 Where some, oddly, imbibe

alcohol in Massachusetts?

(5)

21 Old vessels having much

capacity out east (8)

22 Greeting everyone in house

(5)

24 Look at the posh car that’s

going after other vehicles

(7)

29 Feeler, as before, to which

the woman rises (7)

30 Invest in lots of paper, it’s

said, for ancient craft (7)

31 French police stripped for

some entertainment (6)

32 Sinking right into marsh, an

outdoor shoe (6)

35 Wisp of smoke from

chimney in Peterborough

(5)

38 Bully makes withdrawn son

cry (4)

41 Hooter from crumpled front

of Wolseley (3)

A first prize of £30 for the first

correct solution opened on

1 May. There are two runners-up

prizes of £20. (UK solvers can

choose to receive the latest

edition of the Chambers

dictionary instead of cash — ring

the word ‘dictionary’.) Entries to:

Crossword 2305, The Spectator,

22 Old Queen Street, London

SW1H 9HP. Please allow six

weeks for prize delivery.

Crossword

2305:

Whodunnit?

by Doc

encumbrance my attentions have laid upon you;

and to wish that we might long be linked by

bonds of amity.

Humbly yours

W.J. Webster/Henry James

‘Come live with me and be my love —’

Whatever was I thinking of?

Those pleasures that my sheep provide

Would be, I hoped, much amplified

With you, but it was not to be —

A headache was your nightly plea.

And footwear frays when tending flocks;

I thought at least you’d darn my socks.

Your taste in music? It appals;

You drown the birds’ sweet madrigals,

So soothing to the shepherd’s soul,

With ghetto-blasting Rock’n’Roll.

But worst of all — my jaw still drops —

The day you cooked me mutton chops!

So now I’m giving you the shove;

It’s back to sheep for me, my love.

Brian Allgar/Christopher Marlowe

Dear John, Shy by both nature and nurture, I’ve

always been inclined to accept Mam’s favourite

proverb — least said, soonest mended — as my

own. Only I’ve been saying, often and with

increasing frequency, absolutely nothing about our

relationship for some time and you’ve failed to

catch my drift. Were you still the sensitive boy who

first paused to adjust my bicycle clips in the

Gloucester Road in 1972, you’d surely have

noticed. Noticed, for example, our diverging

literary tastes, Andy McNab as incomprehensible

to me as Ivy Compton Burnett evidently is to you.

Once, I imagined you were as excited as I

inspecting an unfamiliar rood loft. Now, I know

you’re merely impatient to be home for Top Gear.

When I return from Marks & Spencer — picking

up eavesdroppings for the diary and, inevitably, a

meal for one — I expect to find you, though not

this letter, gone.

Adrian Fry/Alan Bennett

The art of leaving isn’t hard to master.

When you’ve been left yourself, it’s hard to care

that someone else might think it’s a disaster.

Leave someone every day. Put out to pasture

the flustered girl, the cultured millionaire.

The art of leaving isn’t hard to master.

Then practise leaving colder, leaving faster.

Ignore the tears, the pleas, the parting glare,

the death threats. None of these will bring disaster.

I left my first, then dozens more. My last, or

next-to-last, will soon play solitaire.

The art of leaving isn’t hard to master.

— Even leaving you, regret is hard to muster.

The bottle’s the one lover I can’t spare.

To leave it would be (Write it!) a disaster,

but leaving you is not too hard to master.

Susan McLean/Elizabeth Bishop

NO. 2996: ACROSTIC SPECTATOR

You are invited to submit an acrostic sonnet
of which the first letters of each line spell AT
THE SPECTATOR. Please email entries to
[email protected] by midday on 26 April.

SOLUTION TO 2302: URBANE TURBAN

The twelve undefined solutions become one Scottish and

eleven English towns, if the final letter is omitted or a

letter is added at the start.

First prize Pamela Moorey, London EC1

Runners-up Glyn Watkins, Portishead, Bristol

Lowri Williams, Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent

Name

Address

The unclued lights (one of two

words) can be resolved into

three associated trios which are

not the solution to the problem.

Solvers have to search the com-

pleted grid and then highlight

the trio which does so.