Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Done it, all in my own head, as is my eccentric compulsion (...actually, I only do it to annoy trevor...) - took a flyer on HAT(e)FUL , so glad to see this endorsed by jazzgirl and grandpa gruffalo - but '...to avoid the centre' would suggest removing 'h' - not 'e' - which you've both identified as the removed letter - but which isn't the central letter of 'the'.
So....sloppy parsing by the setter? Or am I being dense? Or a fiendishly clever solution that none of us have seen with an 'h' removed to give *A*FUL ?
With his/her sloppy use of 'Native' (- well, (s)he is a fan of Noel Coward, whose MDAE is one of the jewels of the English language), I rather suspect the former.

Watched 'Pointless' tonight and 'The Gruffalo' is not on the list of books that every British child should have read by age 14. Nor is 'Treasure Island', 'Alice in Wonderland' or 'Wind in the Willows- although 'The Cat in the Hat' sneaks in. Great Expectations? A la Recherche du Temps Perdu? Finnegans Wake? Maybe; maybe not.
Where's the next generation of X-word pedants gonna come from?

Not from the "C U L8R LOL" crowd.

I watched Pointless tonight and found the children's books question an odd one. 50 Shades of Grey! On the Road! War and Peace! I bet they would have all been pointless answers!

Well done, Don Qui!
You are back on song!
I've read Treasure Island and have a record of Johnny Cash singing "40 Shades of Green".

hi hotie
re 21a I did read it as removing centre of "hateful" although the clue is ambiguous, as you have pointed out, it could also be read as removing centre of "the".
A very enjoyable Jumbo I thought

jazzgirl - ah! perceptive as always - of course! - I should have trusted your judgement.

rusty - thanks- my greatest, and earliest, and most uncritical fan. (actually my only fan - apart from jazzgirl, and she's ferreted out my identity and is dazzled by my cheesy charisma).

thingummy - (can't read the original posts while writing this reply - sorry) - are those books really on the list? On The Road is certainly one of my own adolescent reads - it's got the bit about Reich's 'Orgone Accumulators' - when I was 18 I did fulfil the fantasy with a yellow bench-seat convertible, and did go on a road trip with an American friend and a Monroesque blonde, but to mid-Wales, and, alas, no riding down the A5 naked, and no hanky-panky at all - let alone threesomes. It wasn't 1963 yet.

syzygy - never use one word when ten will do.

Quixie. I'm not sure whether it is your "cheesy charisma" or your recent B &W photo....!

Interested to see so many of you members of the intelligentsia watching Pointless. I'm usually cooking the evening meal, so only half concentrating. But here's a question I'd love to know the answer to. Why does the unquestionably bright Alexander Armstrong host this show like a robot? Every show, every night ... every single phrase, intonation, gesture (turns to camera) is exactly the same. (I can say every word with him without even looking!) And, on top of that ... while it's only polite to say "thank you" from time to time, does almost every passing remark from fellow-presenter Richard warrant a double "intensifier" - "Thank you very much INDEED, Richard"?

I am sorry, DuckB, I can't give you an opnion, as I have never watched the show!
Never seen "The Simpsons" either.
You name it, I've not seen it!
I hope you and the others continue to enjoy it though!

@Quixote
This thread probably could have benefited from a different title.

“Only a generation of readers will spawn a generation of writers.”
― Steven Spielberg

“Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”
― Walter Cronkite