Generalist In Prospect Magazine

[08012006]

42a Loose gowns worn open at the front to show the underskirt (7);
M?A?U?S ( the M could be wrong however)

[donny48]

mantuas

[dannyk13]

Mantuas

[dannyk13]

http://www.nms.ac.uk/courtmantua

[Tilly2]

Morning chaps! How did you find that answer?

[donny48]

Good morning Danny.

[donny48]

Good morning Tilly, I googled the whole clue.

[Tilly2]

Thanks, Donny. I have never thought of doing that.

[dannyk13]

Good morning Tilly & Donny. Like Donny I googled it.

[Tilly2]

Thank you too, Danny.

[donny48]

With it not being cryptic there is no way, of course, to work it out. I suppose you could do it all the time but it would remove the point of doing a crossword.

[dannyk13]

A wise man once told me that the secret of being a good cruciverbalist was not always knowing the answer, but knowing where to look for it.

[Tilly2]

Well, Donny, you either know it or you don't.

I had just never thought about googling the whole clue.

[donny48]

I often find that I realise what the answer is then work out the parsing etc.

[dannyk13]

I was referring to GK crosswords.

[1ozzy]

Hello Donny, Tilly and Danny.

Google is also a good friend of mine.

Not just for crosswords either.

[Tilly2]

Danny, I tend to take the tortuous route but I get there in the end. behind everyone else :-)

[08012006]

Thanks dannyk13 and donny48; I got 30d wrong - A reddish-orange colouring substance found in the root of an East Indian madder (9) - I had MANJISTHA, but, having googled the whole clue, it is munjistin !

[Tilly2]

Morning, ozzy.
I thought Google was just for shopping. ;-)

[donny48]

Yes Danny, it's a different thing with a cryptic. I do a lot of Times crossword books and there would be precious little point in looking in the answers every time I got stuck. I do have to look sometimes but then have to work out how the answer was derived from the clue, no point otherwise.

[1ozzy]

You sound like my wife and daughter Tilly ;-/