At the end of last month we had another of those instances where an expert in their field complains that a word was being incorrectly used by a setter, who should have known better. In this case [Letters, Wednesday 1 June], Keith Kirby of Monmouthshire took exception to a Brendan clue (Cryptic No 26,898 for 31 May, 5 across). It was ‘Bottle, or something a Dutchman can get from one’, with the solution COURAGE. The objection was that in cockney rhyming slang ‘bottle’ does not mean ‘courage’. If you did not see the Kirby letter, his case is worth repeating. His assertion was that true cockneys, not wishing to be vulgar, call an ‘arse’ an ‘aris’. (Chambers and Collins give support for this view.) You then move by stages from ‘aris’ to ‘Aristotle’, which rhymes with ‘bottle’, which gives you ‘bottle and glass’, which rhymes with ‘arse’ or ‘ass’ (depending on how you pronounce ‘glass’). Thus, in this version, to ‘lose one’s bottle’ means something like to shit yourself, rather than to lose one’s courage.
Brendan did not need me to spring to his defence, because Mervin Chester from Northampton did so in his letter, published the following day. It pointed out that nowhere in the clue was cockney rhyming slang even hinted at and that the Oxford English Dictionary (no less) defines ‘bottle’ as ‘courage, spirit, guts’, especially in the phrase ‘to lose one’s bottle’, which dates back at least to 1958 and probable derived from the much older term ‘no bottle’, meaning ‘no good’ or ‘useless’, which was current from 1846 at least. So I hope that Mr Kirby will understand that I am not with him on this one, firmly taking the view that what’s good enough for the OED must surely also be good enough for the Guardian.
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As those of you who do the crosswords online will already know, some of them have not been appearing on your screens on the due day, including the Quick, the Quiptic and the Observer’s Speedy. We think/hope that the problem has now been solved. To the limited extent that I understand these things, the puzzles were all present and correct on time in the paper’s database but the ‘tool’ that is designed to take stuff from there and use it to update the crossword home page [https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords] was for some reason prevented from doing so. My apologies for all this and my fingers remain firmly crossed. However, if for any reason it (or anything similar) should happen again, there is another route to the puzzles in the database. It is via the option offered at the top left-hand side of the home page to ‘Search archive’. You need to know (or to work out) the serial number of the puzzle you are after. Click there and you will be offered ‘Lookup’. Choose the type of puzzle you want and enter its serial number (without any comma) in the ID box and Bob should be your uncle.
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Our ever-thoughtful crossword blogger Alan Connor has teamed up with Boatman and some of his mates to prepare a little extra offering for you for Thursday 23 June, in case you find time hanging heavy on your hands on Referendum Day. I have been shown something of what is scheduled to appear on the website that day and it should excellently serve to keep you safely occupied until after the polls have closed.
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Despite severe problems in getting May’s Genius No 155 by Puck up and running properly, there were 28 entries on the first day and 274 by the deadline. Inevitably, the first correct entries were late in arriving but Hook T (a new name in the winners’ enclosure, I think) and Ian with Ocelot were involved in a dead heat at 10:41, with Nigel at goldhill and Geoff M both less than 50 minutes behind them. The first overseas entry was from PS in Australia at 12:00.
Congratulations to John Fowler in Japan, who won the May Genius prize.
If you have any technical problems with our crossword service, please email userhelp@theguardian.com. If you have any comments or queries about the crosswords, please email crossword.editor@theguardian.com. For Observer crosswords please email crossword.editor@observer.co.uk.
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