Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Thanks, AS and Crates. I’m happy about 29a now, though I don’t think much of it as a clue. And thanks to other posters as well for clarifying many other clues. I’ve only just got all the 14 letters, though I had a complete grid some time ago.

At one stage I could see what I thought was a promising possibility. I thought I could see “Urish sea poet” which I imagined to be a Joycean form of “Irish seaport”, appropriately positioned in the grid, which would presumably be a map of Ireland, so I spent a long time searching Joycean quotes looking for one beginning with a 14-letter word!

Indeed murky - Went through D, A, U, before found R...

Thanks to everyone for the hints to finding the unclued answers in Brewer. It’s a shame that Brewer gives the answer to 23ac incorrectly, as others have pointed out, but as all the letters in 23ac are checked, there is no problem with the grid entry.

0pt0 @43 My 29d was wrong (later explanations put me on the right track).
I think I've worked out 37a now and it relates to the 14 letter word but I think that without the quote (googled energetically but no joy and have no quotes book) I'll park this until the solution comes out, even with all the clued ones done there are way too many missing letters to guess at the unclued ones.

i think hints are becoming a bit niggardly these days.

the web helped me once i'd got ?? ???? from the circled cells + the clue numbers + the first word of the 2nd line of the quote.

granama1, if you have the 14 letter word, then the key word you need is the opposite of this word - but beginning with 'd...' (not 's...') and the quote tells you that it is, '...just as bad'

...that, 's...' word is unnecessary, as it's not synonymous with the 'd...' word, but just to make sure...

''...is as bad'' (forget 'just').

I agree that the hints have become less overt recently. I think it's because of the first message that has been starting these threads for this week and the last two.

Maybe it's time to go back to two threads, with one that says "may contain answers". But as I remember that did not last long as people seemed much to prefer the more generous thread.

Although the title refers to the third line of the verse, I don't think that tnap has worked in a specific reference to the last one.
Does anyone know better?