214. ✒️ A letter to Terry: #25-07
Cryptic.
In which Rebecca reminds herself that silence is golden and heeds the warning on an advert for detergent pods.
✒️
This is the latest letter in my regular, informal correspondence with Substacker and fellow Brit Terry Freedman, in which we take it in turns to delve into the things that British people talk about the most. We’re inviting you to read our letters over our shoulders!
Dear Terry,
Many thanks for your latest letter, which, as always, I enjoyed immensely. Please forgive my shrieks of silence in response until now – and thank you for not kicking up a fuss about this delayed reply.
Speaking of silence, I read with sympathy your account of coming up against some disruptive audience members at that screening of the Metropolitan Opera’s production of The Marriage of Figaro you’d attended recently, so I know you’ll appreciate this:
🔙 Driving in the wrong direction
Actually, quite a lot has been catching my eye in the newspaper recently – in fact, what a great resource for silly things to tell you about in my letters. 🤣 Last weekend, for instance, I laughed out loud when I read these words at the start of an article about safe driving:
It’s only 9.30am, but I’ve already spent more than an hour behind the wheel today, doing the school run. Later this afternoon, I will do it again in reverse.
🤣 Okay, I know what the author has written here isn’t exactly wrong, but given that the topic being discussed is driving a vehicle, the word reverse is rather too open to interpretation! How might you have phrased it better, I wonder? You know what, if I had been editing the piece I’d have been tempted to let this word choice stand, as it gave me such a giggle imagining the author driving backwards on her afternoon trip to pick up her children from school.
🤡 Mischievous misinterpretation
But hey, we see plenty of words around which are just begging to be misunderstood. In your last letter, in fact, you told me this:
Today in the supermarket, I came across this emblazoned on a packet of pizza-flavoured crisps:
‘Product should only be fed to seated, supervised young children.’
No pizza crisps for you then, Terry, given that you claim to be a grown-up.
There’s a super advert for washing pods on commercial TV at the moment which concludes, after a long pause, with this line, which you’ll notice omits any kind of reference to detergent whatsoever:
Always keep away from children.
Well, I’ve been keeping away from children ever since I stopped being one, so it seems I need no such instruction. 😉
🙇♂️ The cryptic corner
You’d piled on the challenges when you wrote last, Terry!
First, you’d given me two crossword clues to solve:
From the Literary Review:
Praying mantis disturbed (6)
Disturbed indicates an anagram. The solution is six letters, and helpfully there’s only one six-letter word in the clue. An anagram of mantis is matins, which is the name for a Christian service of morning prayer.
From the Times Cryptic:
Bishop moved to Lyme Regis to find romance (3,5,4)
Moved indicates an anagram, and we know that twelve letters are needed in total.
Bishop generally means that a B is sought, so B + to Lyme Regis = boy meets girl.
This one was not only elegant but delightful. Made me smile, you ol’ softy!
Here’s one for you, which is taken from the Saturday Telegraph’s Cross Atlantic crossword. It typically has a mixture of both simple and cryptic clues, the latter generally indicated by a question mark. A feature of this puzzle is that we’re not told how many letters (or indeed words) the solutions are made up of. But heck, I can count: and can reveal that a total of seven boxes in the grid were reserved for the solution(s) to the following clue:
Plant problem; marsupial march?
I’ll say again: there is a total of seven boxes available for the answer(s).
Any ideas?
As you know I like to tackle the cryptic crossword in the weekend paper, and I’m ashamed to admit that it is only very infrequently that I ever manage to solve more than a couple of clues. Admittedly it did take me days to get this far, but look at this:
For health reasons (oh gosh, I’m so frustrated by the situation!) I am really struggling to concentrate on any one thing for more than a few minutes, which is why some of the lovely people reading this missive over your shoulder might have noticed that Dear Reader, I’m lost is rather, well, lost right now, but dipping into tasks little and often does seem to be working for me in terms of crossword solving!
(Oh, and please feel free to fill in any of the gaps!)
In addition to your crossword clues you’d invited me to solve the following conundrum:
When someone offers me work or some other ‘opportunity’ that does not appeal, my standard response tends to be “Thank you but I’d prefer not to.” Which character in literature inspired this reply?
My answer: dunno.
Google’s answer: Bartleby.
Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street is a short story by American writer Herman Melville. In the story, a Wall Street lawyer hires a new clerk, who after an initial bout of hard work, refuses to make copies or do any other task required of him, responding to any request with the words “I would prefer not to.”
Taken from Wikipedia
In the dim and distant past – and for nine years, no less – I was the secretary for a local village committee. When a fellow member was asked at the Annual General Meeting to continue to serve in her existing role she replied ‘No thank you.’ Surprised, the asker repeated the question and got precisely the same response.
Terry, I was staggered – and not by her decision to step down, for that was of course totally acceptable, but by the concise elegance with which she had done so. Ever since then I have tried to remind myself that those three words alone are a valid, satisfactory and extremely liberating response to many – indeed most! – requests. I learned a lot from the retiring committee member at that meeting, and am still grateful to her.
👎 🟰 👍
🥣 Please sir, can I have some more?
Here’s someone who answers ‘yes please!’ to whatever’s being offered to him at the back door. This dapper chap – our tame(ish), temporarily tailless blackbird – has recently introduced us to his two fresh-from-the-nest offspring, who are so cute that we don’t (much) mind the outrageous demands for food being made on the back doormat ever five minutes. Here he is scooting up to fetch a beakful of mealworms for his babies:
🗺️ Not getting out much, but definitely still getting lost
Every day I like to play Upwords with family members. Do you know the game? It’s great fun! Here’s the start of a recent game with my mum, and I think we’re both still laughing at how very much this combination of words applies to me:
Happy days! 🤣
All the very best, as ever,
Rebecca
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‘No thank you’ Is a most wonderful phrase. I too have used it to great effect.
Hoping your health improves soon. Long COVID perhaps? I follow another writer who has been living in a fog for two years now following a bout of COVID. A dreadful ailment. She, thankfully, has started to find ways around the dead ends in her brain. Sigh….
And love the blackbird. We have magpies and currawongs taking treats from our hands, and cockatoos and crows taking them from the fence. They really brighten up the day.
Sending heaps of hugs and best wishes dear Rebecca. Take care dear soul.
" I am really struggling to concentrate on any one thing for more than a few minutes" - Ditto, Rebecca! I'm also with Bartleby and the woman who chose not to continue scribing. I like to add that when one says a simple "No thank you", one does not need to defend nor explain. Powerful! Love the video of your avian friend; I took a few screen shots with the hopes that it would be okay with you if I sketched him in action. 😄. All the best, RH, all the best. 🤗