A tradition that was suppressed in 2006 was for a British ambassador, quitting his post, to write a valedictory dispatch that was widely circulated to other members of the diplomatic service, to the British Government and to the Prime Minister, even.

This was an opportunity for the retiring diplomat to get some of his grudges off his chest and to tell the unvarnished truth about the people he had been living and working with for the past few years. Matthew Parris and Andrew Bryson have ferreted out some of these dispatches which are sometimes very amusing and almost invariably non p.c.

I have found it entertaining just to dip into this book, reading the dispatches of a series of ambassadors to a given country and coming up with spicy comments like that of a retiring ambassador from Tunisia who complained that ‘Even the most educated [Tunisians] are apt to be bewildered over the diffence between right and left … which means hazards on the roads.’

The comments of retiring ambassadors to Switzerland seem amusingly relevant. Way back in 1970 one diplomat commented on the Swiss getting to their offices at 7 a.m. and the rush hour not being until 6.30 in the evening, that people will wish you a pleasant Sunday and not a pleasant weekend and that while it took a week for London packers to pack his effects when he left London, it had taken the Swiss packers just three days to perform the same task. Familiar eh?

This very funny text has much more of the same.

General knowledge again this week. If you prefer to work on the interactive version or to print a pdf., click on this LINK which will take you to the Crossword Compiler webpage.

Across

    7  Any of the 50 sea nymphs who were daughters of the sea god Nereus (6)

    8  The brightest star in Gemini; close to Castor (6)

    9  Roman god of war and agriculture (4)

  10  An instrument that shows mileage traversed (8)

  11  Any of various large edible marine gastropods of the genus Haliotis having an ear-shaped shell with pearly interior (7)

  13  Citizens of the former Democratic Republic of Germany (5)

  15  Pertaining to a presbyter of the church of Alexandria, in the fourth century who held Christ to be inferior to God the Father in nature and dignity, though the first and noblest of all created beings (5)

  16   Monotheistic religion having its spiritual and ethical principles embodied chiefly in the Torah and in the Talmud (7)

  18  (Historical, India) a landowner, a collector of land revenue (8)

  19  A sparkling Italian white wine (4)

  21  A sudden jarring impact (6)

  22  A member of the Wakashan people living on Vancouver Island and in the Cape Flattery region of northwestern Washington (6)

Down

    1  Queen of the Olympian gods in ancient Greek mythology; sister and wife of Zeus remembered for her jealously of the many mortal women Zeus fell in love with; identified with Roman Juno (4)

    2  The careful juxtaposition of shapes in a pattern (13)

    3  (Mathematics) related by transposition and/or complex conjugation (7)

    4  Site of the Derby (5)

    5  Apparent inconsistency of the fact, stated in 1826 and now explained by postulating a finite expanding universe, that the sky is dark at night although, as there are an infinite number of stars, it should be uniformly bright (6,7)

    6  The study of methods of improving genetic qualities by selective breeding (especially as applied to human mating) (8)

  12   Easternmost of the West Indies about 300 miles to the north of Venezuela (8)

  14  The basic unit of money in Paraguay; equal to 100 centimos (7)

  17  Mammary gland of bovids (cows and sheep and goats) (5)

  20  Carved talisman in humanoid form, common to the cultures of the south Pacific Ocean (4)

Here is last week’s solution, wishing you a happy Easter:

I believe Alexander McCall Smith is more familiar for his The No 1 ladies’ Detective Agency series than as a writer of short stories. However, Heavenly Date and Other Flirtations is just as delightful as his series of Botswana detective stories.

I rarely laugh out loud when reading but am having to ration myself to one story a day as these are causing so may ecstatic guffaws.

Last night’s story was Far North. You might not find it very amusing to read about Bill Jameson being devoured by crocodiles when he had climbed into their pen to retrieve a crocodile skin passport holder embossed with ‘Godsown’ (This story takes place in Cairns). His date of the day didn’t find it very amusing either, when an eight-year old witness claimed he had seen her push him. She had, indeed, been thoroughly bored by her date.

All the same, the story is told in such sparkling prose that there is a laugh a minute. The end is just the sort of ending such a story should have.

Each of these tales presents an unusual date. Fat Date presents us with two rather large people who have dated through an agency. Of course, the easiest way he can offend her is to suggest that she is large – but there is a lovely denouement when Edgar becomes wedged in his chair. The last five lines of the story are a magnificent punch line.

There are nine short stories in all and all are equally enjoyable.

Should you wish to work on the interactive version or print a pdf of this cryptic crossword, click on this LINK which will take you to the Crossword Compiler website.

Across

    1  Oh dear! As dead, not oddly, poet’s put in a funeral vehicle (6)

    6  Take rodents back in coarse Scottish seaside grass (5)

  11  Mortality without degree, easy for Spenser (4)

  12  Child initially isolated in farmyard building (5)

  13  Court without delay entertaining power (5)

  14  Rotten Russian leader lacking limit primarily dishonest (5)

  15  A child’s toy in the highest place (4)

  16  Noises off! Purely intellectual perception! (6)

  18  Kea, by arrangement having a pointed bill (5)

  19  Hit at a sweet potato (6)

  20  Afrikaner organisation – no odd Berber involved (11)

  22  Religious establishments unusually ebb, say (6)

  24  Received by the ear and relating to the air (5)

  26  Ripe or sadly worse (6)

  28  Turn suddenly drunk but not completely (4)

  29  Stone the French papists hold at heart (5)

  30  Gentleman returning holding race scores in Scotland (5)

  31  Once shed light on quaint inlet (5)

  32  Bird of note in the European Union (4)

  33  Something else encircling a cardinal point (5)

  34  Unpleasant woman, a contemptible person over and over again (6)

Down

    1  Fellow on strike for headdress (5)

    2  Tentatively reseat for celebration (6)

    3  Peking hopes calamitously for maintaining trading place (11)

    4  Last bit of white, thin wood (5)

    5  Title of honour for one who has attained level of proficiency in Japanese sports (3)

    7  One who destroys business arrangements in ludicrous utter bursts (11)

    8  Essentially pedantical person in opposition (4)

    9  Suddenly refuse to move and go off in Scotland (5)

  10  Stark bananas, revolutionary and insane (3-3)

  17  Be in very large shape, ultimately excessively fat (5)

  20  Tree bird representing the soul in old religion – pretentious nonsense! (6)

  21  Whirling European sauna leading to sickening disgust (6)

  23  Support first class African barbecue party (5)

  24  Porcelain tiara in disarray (5)

  25  Ancient ghost – the French spirit rising (5)

  27  Start to operate old weir (4)

  30  Scratch in Glasgow and carve endlessly (3)

Here is last week’s solution:

Over a million copies of Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk about Kevin have been sold and a film made, and indeed, it is easy to see why.

The reader is drawn into what is, in effect, a thriller. We hear only the voice of Kevin’s mother as she writes to Franklin, her apparently estranged husband, in the period after Kevin’s high school massacre. We ask ourselves why he never replies. We are shocked by the dislike she has felt for her son, Kevin, from his birth, but the problem of of why Kevin resorts to a massacre in the gymnasium is never resolved for us.

We cannot condone Franklin’s optimistic conviction that his family life is happy and that Kevin is a normal mischievous child but is Kevin a sociopath? We rarely see even a glimmer of normal human responses in the picture of Kevin painted by Eva.

Incidents like his using drain cleaner to clean his small sister’s eye (leading to the loss of her eye) and his deliberate destruction of Eva’s studio lead us to question whether Kevin is born totally evil. Kevin’s only explanation of his ‘high school massacre’ is that he is providing the excitement that people require. This raises unpleasant questions for the reader.

Right up to the final gruesome revelation, We Need to Talk about Kevin is an extremely disturbing text.

If you prefer to work on the interactive version, click on this LINK.

Across

    7  A city in central southwestern Iran; ruins of ancient Persepolis are nearby (6)

    8  An emotional wound or shock often having long-lasting effects (6)

    9  Egyptian goddess of fertility; daughter of Geb; sister and wife of Osiris (4)

  10  A desert in southwestern Africa – largely Botswana (8)

  11  A city in southeastern Germany on the Elbe River; it was almost totally destroyed by British air raids in 1945 (7)

  13  Spiral-horned South African antelope with a fringe of white hairs along back and neck (5)

  15  Realistic Norwegian author who wrote plays on social and political themes (1828-1906) (5)

  17  English blue cheese (7)

  20  A mountainous republic in central Europe; formerly part of the Habsburg monarchy and Yugoslavia; achieved independence in 1991 (8)

  21  A landlocked republic in northwestern Africa; achieved independence from France in 1960 (4)

  23  A native or inhabitant of a country in North Africa (6)

  24  An ancient liturgical hymn (2,4)

Down

    1  An aromatic gum resin obtained from various Arabian or East African trees; formerly valued for worship and for embalming and fumigation (4)

    2  Optical devices having triangular shape and made of glass or quartz; used to deviate a beam or invert an image (6)

    3  A Hebrew prophet of the 6th century BC who was exiled to Babylon in 587 BC (7)

    4  Departing or being caused to depart from the true vertical or horizontal (5)

    5  Old name for a communist nation that covers a vast territory in eastern Asia; the most populous country in the world (6)

    6  A city in the northern panhandle of Texas (8)

  12  Author of satirical attacks on medieval scholasticism (1494-1553) (8)

  14  State capital and largest city of Georgia; chief commercial centre of the southeastern United States; was plundered and burned by Sherman’s army during the American Civil War (7)

  16  Diplomats having less authority than an ambassador (6)

  18  The 11th letter of the Greek alphabet (6)

  19  Showing a lack of intelligence or thought; stupid and silly (5)

  22  Praise, glorify, or honour (4)

Here is last week’s solution:

Aimée Bender‘s The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake reminded me of Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate. The linking of food to emotions is a very evocative way of writing.

Rose Edelstein, just before her ninth birthday, bites into a chocolate lemon cake and finds that she is reading the emotions of her mother who has made it for her birthday. Her mother’s trembling marriage relationship is revealed and, as the talent develops, Rose is able to recognise the affair with Larry that replaces the aging and desperate relationship with her husband.

The gift gives Rose no pleasure as she reads the minds of suppliers of food in stores, canteens and restaurants. We, the readers, are aware that Rose is not the only ‘different’ person in the family as we watch her almost autistic brother pursuing his scientific passion to the point where he is disappearing for long periods of time.

Only George, her brother’s generous and supportive friend, gives Rose the love and understanding that she needs to cope with her outlandish gift, but we, with Rose, sadly attend his marriage to someone else.

This is an engaging and moving novel that works towards the conclusion that the readers have been expecting.

This week all the across lights can be filled by bodies of water. Only the down clues have cryptic indications. If you prefer to work on the interactive version you should click on this LINK that will take you to the Crossword Compiler webpage.

Across

 7  Name of a body of sea water (6)

 8  Name of a body of sea water (6)

 9  Name of a body of sea water (4)

10  Name of a body of sea water (8)

11  Name of a body of sea water (7)

13  Name of a body of sea water (5)

15  Name of a body of sea water (5)

17  Name of a body of sea water (7)

20  Name of a body of sea water (8)

21  Name of a body of sea water (4)

23  Name of a body of sea water (6)

24  Name of a body of sea water (6)

Down

 1  Stare endlessly in front of a place where Huxley’s people were eyeless (4)

 2  Clouds produced by eccentric artist (6)

 3  One first class canoe in a mess in group of South Pacific islands (7)

 4  French people, female friends socially acceptable at heart (5)

 5  A weapon and sigh of complaint for an abandoned wife (6)

 6  Strangely, Armenian is female icon for France (8)

 12  People who shirk are funnily so varied (8)

 14  Peculiarly chicken to record one’s arrival at work (5,2)

 16  Sad French sitter in disarray (6)

 18  Peculiarly unhand S American bird (6)

 19  Pile up singular food of the bread kind (5)

 22  Crazy about retrogrgrade first man (4)

Here is last week’s solution:

This is the third and last of a gloomy series. Last week I talked of ‘Fear of the Collar’, an account of the misery of small boys in the Artane industrial School in Ireland in the middle of the last century. it wasn’t just the boys!

Frances Reilly was abandoned at the age of two by her mother, together with her sister Loretta and the baby Sinnead outside Nazareth House Convent, an orphanage in Belfast run by nuns, the Poor Sisters of Nazareth. Her account of the misery she suffered, beatings, hard labour, appalling food, abuse and emotional destruction, is harrowing.

In particular, she was the victim of a sadistic nun, Sister Thomas, and the treatment she received at this woman’s hands shocks the reader.

Even the farming family who claimed that they were providing a haven for the child, molested her sexually.

Frances resisted and, when she took to absconding from the convent, was ultimately placed in a remand home which was, if anything, worse than the original convent.

There was no escape for these tortured children as the police had faith in the convent and returned the escapees to yet another beating after each sortie.

Frances Reilly’s spirit never died and years later, she faced the perpetrators of the injustice in court. This is a dramatic account of the dreadful situation of thousands of children.

Click on this LINK if you prefer to solve this crossword with the help of the Crossword Compiler interactive programme.

Across

 1  A republic in southwestern Africa on the Atlantic Ocean; achieved independence from Portugal in 1975 and was the scene of civil war until 1990 (6)

 4  (Hinduism) an ancient language of India (the language of the Vedas and of Hinduism); an official language of India although it is now used only for religious purposes (8)

 9  To believe in (4,2)

10  The state capital of South Australia (8)

12  United States physicist who discovered antimatter in the form of an antielectron that is called the positron (1905-1991) (8)

13  The organic basis of bone tissue; chemically it is the same as collagen (6)

15  German commercial company (12)

18  A silver-white alloy containing copper and zinc and nickel (6,6)

21  A simple form inferred as the common basis from which related words in several languages can be derived by linguistic processes (6)

22  A roan horse (8)

24  A straw hat with a tall crown and broad brim; worn in American southwest and in Mexico (8)

25  Sequence of a eukaryotic gene’s DNA that is not translated into a protein (6)

26  The season around the 25th December (traditionally extending from Dec. 24 to Jan. 6) (8)

27  Nocturnal lemur with long bony fingers and rodent-like incisor teeth closely related to the lemurs (3-3)

Down

 1  A form of yoga (8)

 2  The particles and flakes (and sometimes small nuggets) of precious metal obtained in placer mining (4,4)

 3  Member of a political party that combines the right to individual freedom with the right to representative government (7,8)

 5  (military) an officer who acts as military assistant to a more senior officer (4)

 6  Personal independence (4-11)

 7  Destroyed physically or morally (6)

 8  [archaic] A servant that helps other servants (6)

11  Small furry Australian arboreal marsupials having long usually prehensile tails (7)

14  Teaching reading by training beginners to associate letters with their sound values (7)

16  A salutation to the Virgin Mary now used in prayers to her (3,5)

17  A rope fitted with a hook and used for towing a gun carriage (8)

19  Quick to take offence or showing courage (6)

20  A ring that can be divided into two or three rings (6)

23  Lacking sufficient water or rainfall (4)

Here is last week’s solution: