Guardian Cryptic N° 25,741 by Gordius
Posted by PeterO on September 14th, 2012
The crossword was quickly solved; the blog took quite considerably longer.
The main holdup was deciding which of Gordius’ idiosyncrasies I feel to be justified and which not; then of course it is up to each of you to make your choices. I do not see any cases where this leaves the answer in any doubt, which may be justification in itself. The whole is an exercise in variations on the &lit theme, which does not make it any the easier for me to decide what to underline as the definition.
| Across | ||
| 1 | HACKS | Newspaper staff cuts? (5) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 4 | HAWTHORN | Playing what instrument is found in the wood? (8) |
| A charade of HAWT, an anagram (‘playing’) of ‘what’ + HORN (‘instrument’). | ||
| 8 | LONG ENGAGEMENT | Protracted wait may egg gentleman on to err (4,10) |
| An anagram (‘to err’) of ‘egg gentleman on‘, with a semi-&lit definition. | ||
| 10 | ENTREATY | Prayer for space agreement (8) |
| A charade of EN (‘space’) TREATY (‘agreement’). | ||
| 11 | STUPOR | Lethargy sets back squaddies (6) |
| A charade of STUP, a reversal (‘back’) of PUTS (‘sets’) + OR (Other Ranks, ‘squaddies’) | ||
| 12 | SOBERED UP | Probes due for condition the morning after? (7,2) |
| An anagram (‘for’) of ‘probes due’. Maybe ‘condition’ might be regarded as part of the anagrind. | ||
| 15 | TASKS | Time demands things to do (5) |
| A charade of T (‘time’) + ASKS (‘demands’). | ||
| 17 | ODEON | Poetic work gets no backing at place of entertainment (5) |
| A charade of ODE (‘poetic work’) + ON, a reversal (‘backing’) of ‘no’. | ||
| 18 | STAGHOUND | One whose quarry is sought and abused? (9) |
| An anagram (‘abused’) of ‘sought and’, again with a semi-&lit definition. | ||
| 19 | ELIJAH | He was involved in jailbreak in biblical times (6) |
| An envelope (the first ‘in’, but used backwards from the normal way) of LIJA, an anagram (‘break’) of ‘jail’ in (the normal way) an anagram (‘involved’) of ‘he’. I think this is the best description of the wordplay, which seem to need a little special pleading. ‘he’ would seem to be needed for a reasonable definition, but I cannot track down anything involving Elijah and a jailbreak. | ||
| 21 | CHASUBLE | Short prince adjusts blue vestment (8) |
| A charade of CHAS (a ‘short’ form of Charles, ‘prince’) + UBLE, an anagram (‘adjusts’) of ‘blue’. | ||
| 24 | MONKEY BUSINESS | King moves into cash trade involving shady dealing (6,8) |
| An envelope (‘moves into’) of K (‘king’) in MONEY (‘cash’) + BUSINESS (‘trade’). | ||
| 25 | SYNDROME | Said to have erred, Catholicism is characteristic of a problem (8) |
| A charade of SYND, a homophone (‘said’) of SINNED (‘erred’) + ROME (‘Catholicism’). | ||
| 26 | LOSER | On reflection one’s not quite resolute enough (5) |
| A reversal (‘on reflection’) of ‘resolu[te]‘ cut short (‘not quite … enough’, with ‘enough’ more for the surface) and a semi-&lit definition. Sometimes it seems more sensible to include more in the definition, sometimes not. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | HALLEYS COMET | Ye shall possibly appear on time, around 2061? (7,5) |
| A charade of HALLEYS, an anagram (‘possibly’) of ‘ye shall’ + COME (‘appear’) + T (‘time’). I think this is the best of the semi-&lits in this puzzle. | ||
| 2 | CONSTABLE | An artist has to study horses (9) |
| A charade of CON (‘study’) + STABLE (‘horses’). | ||
| 3 | SWEDE | European without married quarters (5) |
| An envelope (‘without’) of WED (‘married’) in SE (‘quarters’ of the compass). | ||
| 4 | HIGH TIDES | Eights hid from influxes of water (4,5) |
| An anagram (‘from’) of ‘eights hid’ – that is, to present the clue as leading to the answer, whereas what it says is, to paraphrase, that eights hid may be obtained from an anagram of the answer; of course, if A is an anagram of B, then B is an anagram of A. | ||
| 5 | WAGE | Contend for one’s due? (4) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 6 | HEMSTITCH | Marginal produce of sewer? (9) |
| Cryptic definition; just pronounce ‘sewer’ correctly. | ||
| 7 | RUN-UP | Hurriedly appear prior to delivery (3-2) |
| Double definition, more or less: ‘hurriedly appear’ would be RUN UP without the hyphen. | ||
| 9 | CROSS-DRESSER | Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing (5-7) |
| Cryptic definition. | ||
| 13 | RANSACKED | Plundered and did a bunk before getting dismissed (9) |
| A charade of RAN (‘did a bunk’) + SACKED (‘dismissed’). | ||
| 14 | PLAYHOUSE | Where to indulge in bingo? (9) |
| I was tempted to describe this as a cryptic definition without a definition. Actually, there is a stage play called Bingo, by Edward Bond, so, given that, we can call the clue a charade of PLAY (‘indulge in’) + HOUSE (‘bingo’). | ||
| 16 | STUMBLERS | The unsteady begin seeing with glasses (9) |
| A charade of S (‘begin Seeing’) + TUMBLERS (‘glasses’). | ||
| 20 | IRONY | Figure to press young beginner (5) |
| A charade of IRON (‘press’) + Y (‘Young beginner’). The definition is a figure of speech. | ||
| 22 | STILL | Calm for the working of the spirit? (5) |
| Double definition. The ‘spirit’ is distilled alcohol. | ||
| 23 | TYRO | Tory disaster caused by one lacking experience (4) |
| An anagram (‘disaster’) of ‘Tory’. | ||
*anagram
September 14th, 2012 at 5:17 am
Thanks PeterO. Even for Gordius, this was pretty easy stuff – the usual slightly wooly clues sometimes, I agree, but obvious enough.
Tiny point: 8. I think you need to add “on” to the fodder.
September 14th, 2012 at 7:27 am
Well, even I found this fairly straightforward. An interesting blog as ever, but I did just wonder whether Bond’s play is needed in 14D. Isnt it enough to take it as an &lit with ‘Play’ as a verb and ‘House’ as a common synonym for Bingo?
September 14th, 2012 at 8:41 am
Thanks PeterO
re 14d and 17a, perhaps there may be a stage/film mini-theme: there’s Monkey Business (at least 2 films from Marx bros to Cary Grant) and (Very) Long Engagement with Audrey Tatou.
Any others?
September 14th, 2012 at 9:21 am
Not terribly happy with 9. “Like a…” suggests an adjective, not a noun. I therefore put CROSS DRESSED (considering the adjectival sense), which of course made 26 impossible. Otherwise fairly straight going.
September 14th, 2012 at 9:46 am
Thanks Gordius and PeterO
Found this one on the easy side for Gordius as well. Did get held up in the SE corner as I also had initially written in CROSS-DRESSED, but once STILL arrived – so did the LOSER !
Only other one to cause an issue was to convince myself that FIGURE = IRONY – thought that it was a bit loose.
September 14th, 2012 at 9:54 am
Thanks, PeterO. I can’t fault any particular of the puzzle except that it took me only 7 minutes to solve, which is too easy for a Friday.
Ian
September 14th, 2012 at 10:08 am
Thanks PeterO and Gordius
I simply quite enjoyed this without, I must confess, too much analysis. Some nice whimsical ideas as in 9d (I too thought this was ‘cross-dressed’ at first but it is valid enough). I also liked 8a, 10a, 1d, and 14d.
Re 9d I’m not quite sure whether it is simply a cd, or whether ‘cross’ (bad-tempered) is also lurking there.
September 14th, 2012 at 10:59 am
I’m another who put CROSS-DRESSED for 9 – further evidence that it wasn’t a great clue. Overall, though, about the right level of difficulty for the time I had today. Thanks, PeterO.
September 14th, 2012 at 11:04 am
Pretty straightforward, although I didn’t know CHASUBLE.
Thanks PeterO; I liked HALLEYS COMET. I’m not sure I understand John @4′s point: ‘like a wolf’ could mean a coyote, Don Juan etc; I don’t think ‘like’ necessarily points to an adjective. I thought ELIJAH was OK, although as Peter says it needs double-duty of ‘he.’ Can’t see that that is a problem.
September 14th, 2012 at 11:28 am
Robi @9, it’s more what the clue suggests. “Like a wolf” to me would suggest vulpine. “One like a wolf”, or “It’s like a wolf” would be more suggestive of a noun. It perhaps fall into a similar category as the “In America”-type definitions, meaning “It’s in America”. Oddly, those don’t bother me. Maybe I’m just being grumpy because it stopped me finishing!
September 14th, 2012 at 11:32 am
Thanks all
A very disppointing effort for a Friday.
The list of sub-Everyman clues (8,17,19,21,25 ac and 23d et magnus al) was extensive.
The only slight delay was in the SE corner due to the problem explained by John A. @4.
September 14th, 2012 at 12:04 pm
I figured 19a as jailbreak in E(arly) H(istory) – “biblical times” …?
If it’s EH from “He was involved” then there’s no definition.
September 14th, 2012 at 12:23 pm
Thanks PeterO and Neil Ferguson @3 – re 19ac. The main character in the film “Prison Song” is called Elijah, and an attempted prison break is a key part of the film. Possible connection? Or too obscure?
September 14th, 2012 at 1:31 pm
I too had CROSS-DRESSED! So with a good few of us thwarted there, it must be a bad one. That CHASUBLE one I didn’t really like ‘adjusts’, maybe adjusted would have been better. And it’s a bit chestnutty, I think I’ve seen that version, kind of, quite few times. Rest okay, not too terrible.
Thanks for a nice blog, and to setter,
Cheers,
Rowly.
September 14th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
re 19ac
I think ‘involved’ and ‘….break’ are anagrinds for an anagram of he and jail.
Definition is ‘he was …. in biblical times’.
Nothing to do with jailbreaks.
September 14th, 2012 at 3:09 pm
Yes, not too keen on that, which seemed a bit of a mess. ‘Was’ is not used except for the ‘surface’ meaning, and ‘in’ has to be a verb, I guess, to ‘in’ the ‘break of jail’. Wow, not my favourite clue!
Thanks KenJ
Rowly.
September 14th, 2012 at 3:53 pm
Thanks to PeterO for the blog.
I also had CROSS-DRESSED. The number of us taking that view says to me that the clue needed better writing.
On 1d: when I see a date-like number in a clue I always check what it would look like in Roman numerals. On this occasion I got MMLXI which looked extremely unpromising!
September 14th, 2012 at 5:13 pm
MMLXI is written in my working space too!
September 14th, 2012 at 8:13 pm
cross-dressed here too. chafing. don’t know how the ladies deal with all these straps & bits of elastic…
d.
September 14th, 2012 at 8:39 pm
Got off to a very bad start when I Googled 2061 and opted to put Odyssey Three in for 1d. Fortunately, I didn’t come up with any suitable answers for a 1,8, 10, 12, 17, and 19a to aggravate the situation before I returned to Wikipedia and found there was a better answer for 1d.
September 15th, 2012 at 12:43 am
I quibbled at 1d -’around 2061′. Presumably we, or at least the astronomers among us, know that Halley’s Comet will appear in that year, not around it.
September 15th, 2012 at 1:17 am
It could be argued that the definition of 1D isn’t necessarily the whole clue, as PeterO has it, but is just ‘around [in] 2061?’. So ‘around’ in the sense of ‘present, in evidence’ rather than ‘approximately’.
September 15th, 2012 at 10:28 am
Interesting idea, Mr DNA @22, but I think it only works if your bracketed ‘in’ is included, which it wasn’t. Even then it’s not a fair definition. I’m with PeterO on this.