Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Help please!
1. A b- sounding retirement role for a great detective Ans Apiculturist
2. The city of Paris with its topless towers Ans Ilium
3. Fresh filling for pipes in the Isle of Wight Ans Newport.
4. Wherewith an author may get rid of some of his characters Ans India rubber

2 Re Helen's abduction by Paris.

"Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships / And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_of_Troy

Sherlock Holmes kept bees in his retirement - "a bee sounding retirement role ..." so he was an APICULTURIST

4 An author may use his India rubber to erase letters/characters

Explains 3.
Pipe
Today a pipe is simply a unit of liquid volume equivalent to 550 litres. Port prodution is generally expressed in 'pipes'. Today all Port is shipped in bottle but in former times it was also shipped in bulk, in other words in a barrel or container. The barrels used to ship Port were known as pipes and their capacity was 534 litres.

I don't know which crossword this is but Rossims pipe info very interesting!

Up at the top - Times cryptic.

I saw "Times Cryptic" but there are 26,250 of them!

Sorry, good point.
I assumed it was the latest .....and you know what they say about assumption!

Valroland s times cryptic offerings I assume come from the crossword books the Times publish?

But then you know what they say about assumption!

Cheers