Guardian 25,973 – Qaos

50 comments on “Guardian 25,973 – Qaos”

1. 28 ac makes no sense at all to me.
   listeria is the pathogen that causes the disease known listeriosis

2. I found this puzzle tough but fair, and I was very pleased to actually finish it.

   I liked a lot of the clues such as 10a, 22d, 26a, 19a, 20d & 30a and my favourites were 8d ALICANT, 17d GRADUATED & 9d HIDDEN AGENDAS. For once I spotted the ninas “schedule” and “calendar” which were necessary to parse this clue.

   New words for me were DIES IRAE, ALICANT, COELIAC, INTARSIA, ANTLIA.

   Thanks for the blog, Andrew. I needed your help to parse 4d (the DS part) & 24a which I solved without realising that it was an anagram!

   I think that your parsing of 5a is correct. I parsed it as CO + ELIA (Aboumrad, a competitor on Top Chef Season Two who I discovered via google) + C.

   There is a typo in 2d which should read A + anagram of MEAT + (c)UR(e).

3. Mike@1, Chambers has under listeria “… the very young and elderly; the disease caused by such bacteria (also called listeriosis)” I had the same doubt too.

   This puzzle is extremely tough, not helped by obscure words all over (when I have to look up Chambers about ten times) and some convoluted devices. Would have thought it would be more suitable for a Saturday prize.

   Andrew, I also drew a tough one at Times today 🙂

4. don’t often offer comments but this was so sloppy…

   14 – diagonals are not crooked- they are straight, albeit at an angle.
   31 solder does not combine, it sticks together
   2d ‘ham’ surely is not an amateur actor but a bad actor. An amateur potentially could be really good
   8d is not clued

   I could go on

5. As someone on the Guardian site pointed out, there’s a riff on 9d which meant that most of the acrosses were constrained to fit two nina bookends, which explains the obscurities.

   Thanks for the blog. I couldn’t untangle UNREASON or ELUDED. INTARSIA likewise.

   Toughie.

6. Steve @ 4

   The ham isn’t an actor. It’s the old term for a CB radio buff. Although Hancock was a bit hammy in The Radio Ham

7. Thanks, Andrew. I really enjoyed this. Yes, I had to check a couple of obscurities but they were fairly clued. Since I’d guessed the Nina early on, I was able to use the two “laterals” as aids to get things finished up which was a bonus.

   Steve @4, apart from azto’s point, I think your other objections are equally defensible.

8. Steve mcintyre @4

   14a – I sympathize with this comment, but I think Qaos’s use is defensible – if something (the stalk of a plant) is growing crookedly instead of straight, often this just means it’s growing at an angle, not that it doesn’t form a straight line at all. But there is certainly something contrary about this as it’s so far from the other usages of “crooked”, and I’m not sure I like it. (Chambers has “slantwise” for diagonal, though, and for slant they have “divergence from a direct line” – it’s close.)

   31a Combine = “to join together” (first definition in Chambers), so by your own definition of solder, the clue is fine.

   2d See 6 above. Also consider the other meaning of amateur (a “rank amateur” is not someone who is very unpaid; it’s someone who’s very bad).

   8d, obviously, is clued. I can’t see any point, or any meaning, in saying it isn’t.

   You say you could go on. What are the other clues you think are “sloppy”?

9. Mike@1

   Re Listeria the (rather famous) synonym of listeriosis. Why not look in Chambers first? You can’t just assume a definition doesn’t exist without checking. You can never simply argue “X means Y therefore it can’t mean Z”. It’s nonsense.

10. Thanks, Andrew

    A tough one from Qaos. I only got a couple of answers on first pass and I had recourse to the word search function on my Chambers iPhone app several times in order to come up with some possibilities. However, the lateral Ninas did help a lot (and explain the unusual vocabulary, of course).

    Some very ingenious clueing here, which made for some tricky parsings. 1,27 had to be some sort of DOG but I was reluctant to put in SAUSAGE for a long time, as I couldn’t see why until near the end. I read the ‘doctor’ in 28a as (Joseph) LISTER, so the reasoning totally escaped me there.

    Favourite clues: 16a, 24a, 7d, 17d (8d!).

11. Thanks for the blog, Andrew, especially the Nintendo console, which passed me by.

    I went online at midnight, being still on a high after a theatre visit, just to see whose puzzle I would be tackling this morning. When I saw it was Quaos, I thought I would just try a couple of clues – and you can guess the rest: I became totally absorbed and couldn’t go to bed until I’d finished it.

    I raised an eyebrow at DIAGONAL but Chambers’ ‘bent at an angle’ for ‘crooked’ reassured me.

    I thought the &lit 29ac was a super clue. It works without any reference to the constellation, which isn’t, in fact, defined. I see it also means ‘the suctorial proboscis of insects of the Lepidoptera order’, so it should be fairly easy to drop this new word into conversation in one or other of its guises.

    Very deft cluing all round, in fact, other favourites being 12,21,ac, 19ac, 24ac, 31ac, 6dn, 8dn, 18dn and 22dn.

    9dn reminded me of a Tramp clue from a while ago: Ulterior motive of Häagen-Dazs? [6]

    Many thanks, Qaos, for the early-hours entertainment. I really enjoyed it.

12. Eileen @11 – I was reminded of that Tramp clue, too. One of my faves.

    It was indeed a tough puzzle, if it was meant to balance out yesterday’s then it did the job. Only got abaout half finished.

13. John @12 – the enumeration should, of course, be 6,6: sorry, Tramp! 😉

14. Thanks to Andrew for the blog. I had totally failed to spot SCHEDULE and CALENDAR so 9d left me thinking it must be HIDDEN AGENDAS but why? 🙁

15. Thanks for the blog, Andrew.

    This was a tough one! Especially compared to yesterday’s walk in the park.

    I made very slow progress indeed and had to resort to my Chambers app to get 24ac, which was my last one.

    CATENA was a new word for me and I only knew ANTLIA from crosswords.

    I raised an eyebrow at ‘crooked’ defining ‘diagonal’ and I’m afraid it remains raised…

    When I solved 9dn, I reminded myself to look for ninas, then promptly forgot, so these passed me by 🙁

    Quite a workout. Thanks Qaos.

16. Thanks, Andrew.

    I started off okay with this one but gave up towards the end. There was some good clueing in here, but also some loose stuff as well, as others have mentioned. ‘Crooked’ is not DIAGONAL, whatever any dictionary says.

    And if you’re going to give me a tough crossword like this with a number of obscure words, then for Frith’s sake – as Bigwig would have said – don’t use this stupid Grauniad grid where you’re solving four different puzzles in one and making progress in one quarter gives you chuff all help with the other quarters.

    I am in a grump today anyway, so perhaps was not in the best of moods for this puzzle from Qaos. Thank you to him/her anyway.

17. Does noyt ”explain’ obscurities at all!!! Therte is ALWAYSs a way around, and rthis setter did not trty hard enough I think. This isa how NOT to do Nina!

18. Rowly @ 17

    It does. If you have to end your across entries with a C, an A, an L, etc it does explain why they may become obscurities. You’re confusing “explains” with “justifies”. If you want to embed “The moon’s syzygy will fall in April this year”, it will explain why you may end up with some obscurities. It may not justify your nina, however.

19. Thanks Qaos and Andrew

    Thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle today and for once spotted the nina quite early on which did help a lot in the NE corner. Think the only thing that I missed was the headless DELIA in 5a although I did find COELIAC.

    Really enjoyed the wit of 8d … and nearly as much the misdirection of 8d in 17!

    Have admired this setters offerings from his initial one last year – brings a fresh approach and usually a clever, unobtrusive theme or nina into his work. I found this to be easier than the Paul earlier in the week.

    Thanks again.

20. BTW – I’m not sure you tried hard enough to understand me. This is NOT how to post comment.

21. Although I barely registered the objection at the time (the clue is straightforward and I was too busy struggling with unfamiliar words and more tortuous clues), I’m firmly with the ‘crooked’ does NOT equal DIAGONAL camp. None of the dictionaries give it – not even Chambers, which I suspect of having made up some of its odder subsidiary definitions for the edification of crossword setters. The only way you can get there is very indirectly (like Thomas99 @8), but this just introduces semantic drift. ‘Blue’ can mean ‘down’ and ‘down’ can mean ‘feathers’; this doesn’t imply that ‘blue’ can mean ‘feathers’!

22. ANTLIA is one of the French astronomer Lacaille’s sillier innovations: he devised a load of small faint constellations in the southern sky to fill in the spandrels between the classically recognised asterisms. According to Wikipedia, the name was originally ‘Antlia pneumatica’ and commemorated the air pump invented by Papin. ‘Antlia’ means ‘pump’ in Latin, not specifically ‘air pump’ (a device unknown to the ancients), so the clue only works with direct reference to the constellation.

23. The debate about ‘crooked’  = / ? ‘diagonal’ has been gnawing at the back of my mind and I’m pretty sure I’ve read it somewhere in chess (Fischer ?) ‘an attack along the crook’ – a ‘crooked attack’ [krukt] (along the bishop’s diagonal (?).  Fischer was as inventive with his language as his chess – but the point is there’s some justifiable link between the idea of a diagonal and crooked, else it would hardly have occurred to him.  It’s definitely not a normal chess term.

24. Ah, that ? was an ‘unequal’ sign that the software didn’t read.

25. Following yesterday’s easiest to date, this was the hardest! I managed most of the right half but couldn’t convince myself of SAUSAGE DOG on the left.

    In spite of having never heard of (in this context) Nina and Laterals, I managed to get HIDDEN AGENDAS, at least.

    I think I tried every possible combination for 10a except writing A for 1!

    (As a mathematician, I had a problem with DIAGONAL too, but assumed some crossword licence was allowed in the same way that oval is allowed for egg-shaped. Still grates though!)

26. Yup, seriously hard. Gadgets were mandatory and heavily used!

    Thomas99 @9

    I think the answer to your question is

    1) You go to medical references for medical definitions
    2) Chambers is notorious for its inaccuracies with any form of technical definition and is best avoided.

    Which does not mean I’m saying they are wrong this time. They may well be right, but that wasn’t your question.

27. Yesterday’s long train journey had a short solve. Today’s much shorter York-to-London trip was pretty much fully occupied. Indeed a few – 5a, 7d, 24a – had to wait till I got home for checking. Undoubtedly an averaging out over the two days.

    Not thinking to look for the nina didn’t help, plus the new-to-me words (INTARSIA, ANTLIA, ALICANT – loved the clue though; didn’t know CATENA but guessed it from CATENARY, under which my train happened to be travelling). But a highly rewarding puzzle overall, with RED BARON, OUTCASTS and ERNIE among favourites.

28. Thanks Qaos and Andrew: couldn’t finish today and needed the cheat button. Didn’t get the nina at all. I side with those who remain unconvinced by ‘diagonal’, but presumably the mathematicians amongst us will be the last to come round? Lots of lovely stuff as well, though.

29. Hi. One more thing. Am I the only one who is beginning to get fed up of Rowland?

30. You may well be, dunscotus at #29, because I’m certainly not (fed up of Rowland).

31. Gatacre @25: ‘Oval’ DOES mean ‘egg-shaped’, both etymologically and in proper usage. As Chambers puts it (and I do agree with the tome on this occasion!): ‘strictly, egg-shaped, like an egg in the round or in section, rounded, longer than broad, broadest near one end; loosely, elliptical or ellipsoidal, or nearly so…’.

32. Looks to me as though entries that start or end with letters dictated by the two lateral unchwords also end or start with letters from the reveal phrase at 9D. That would make for a tough set, and I certainly can’t be bothered to test Rowland’s theory for myself (especially now he is dread foe of fierce, fearsome dunsscotus, even where NMS is wisest here). Grid was also a bit of a sod until you got the three related bits to help you out, which did not occur for me until quite late on in the solve. Nevertheless, I felt this to be a really nice idea, in which there were no Haagen-Dazs clues.

33. Thanks Andrew and Qaos

    I have mixed feelings about this one which might have been better as a weekender. Some nice clues and some not so nice in a clever puzzle. ‘Unreason’ was my last in and I missed the post-deduction anagram.

    I liked the ninas which, once seen, were a help.

    I ticked 5a, 26a, 30a, 3d and 7d.

34. azto @23: In chess an attack along a diagonal, by means of queen or bishop, would never be described as crooked. Fischer may well have described a knight as making a crooked attack. There are many lines of attack against the Sicilian in which a knight on d4 combines with a bishop to attack a pawn on e6. (Often the knight is sacrificed.) One such line is known as the Fischer-Sozin Attack.

    Diagonal does not mean crooked in any context.

35. Derek @26: I wonder if Mike @1 would answer T99’s question in the same way as you. It would certainly explain how he made a fool of himself.

36. rhotician @ 34

    I’d forgotten how utterly assured of themselves people here can come across. But you’re clearly not acquainted with the slang style Fischer used in his glossaries — a taster —

    “He won’t get a chance to snap off the bishop! I felt the game was in the basket if I didn’t botch it… I’d won dozens of games in analagous skittles… and had it down as a science… Pry open the KR file, sac, sac, sac. . . mate!”. I can’t find it but I’m damn certain he could have used an expression like ‘along the crook’ – his prose style was immediate and Dylanesque. He wasn’t Korchnoi.

    Do you have to speak as if you wrote the book? Is that your final fiat?

    You say potato, son and I’ll stick to my potahto.

37. I needed aids to get my last two, INTARSIA and ANTLIA, because the anagram fodder presented a few options and I didn’t know either word.

    CATENA and ALICANT were also new to me but straightforward enough from the wordplay. From the definition I was certain catena was correct because I remember Inter Milan’s ‘catenaccio’ defense from the 1960s , which I always thought meant ‘big chain’, although Wiki is telling me it means ‘door-bolt’. You live and learn.

    As far as the crooked/diagonal debate is concerned, I translated the anagram fodder, shrugged my shoulders, and thought “crosswordland”.

38. I had too many interruptions to tell whether it took longer overall than usual, but it all seemed eminiently fair and didn’t require any aids — though the anagrams antlia and intarsia were guesses that might have been wrong. I remember a fleeting thought that crooked for diagonal was a bit of a stretch, but I was mainly relieved to find a plausible answer and did’t give it another thought. Thanks, Qaos and Andrew.

39. @rhotician (34)

    Don’t want to throw another spanner in the works, but would you say the same about crooked ever meaning diagonal? That’s what the clue actually requires. I realise you’re mainly dealing in yes/no answers today rather than extended meditations, but still… My point (or the first one anyway) way back at 10.36 was that “crooked” could just mean not going in the required direction – off at an angle (my example was a plant growing crookedly, i.e. not ‘straight’, i.e. not vertically). As I said, I’m a little doubtful myself, but I think there’s more leeway re crooked meaning diagonal than the other way round. (I think it’s practically always the case that the likelihood of a meaning b is NOT the same as that of b meaning a, since everything has a range of meaning that alters with time and usage.)

40. You’re right, azto, I’m not acquainted with Fischer’s glossaries, whatever they may be. And even if you could cite from, say, My 60 Memorable Games I wouldn’t be persuaded that crook is now slang for diagonal even among chess players. And I don’t see how prose style has anything to do with it. And Dylanesque hasn’t made it to Chambers yet, although I think I know what you mean, sort of.

    You can be very touchy.

41. Rotician @ 40

    Touchy? Rather the opposite reputation.

    I just don’t like the Because I Say So argument.

    There’s little point in continuing the discussion since everything I’ve posted so far seems to have been misinterpreted or just not read with any care (who on earth suggested that crook is slang for diagonal among chess players? I specifically said it was a coinage of Fischer and speculated where he got it from). Fischer was a native of NYC and lived through the 60s and may well have known Bob Dylan – it’s pretty obvious what I meant by the adjective. What Fischer’s prose style had to do with it was that I thought he’d used the phrase in free association, so floated the possibility that he mist have got crook / diagonal from somewhere.

    I personally don’t actually much care is the irony — one of the reasons I do crosswords is because I delight in semantic shift and crook to diagonal was the work of a lazy synapse. I wish I’d left it at that…

42. Collins gives slanting as a synonym for diagonal and vice versa. It also gives slanting for crooked but not vice versa.
    Of course slanting in the clue would spoil the surface.
    So there ya go.

43. Evening folks,

    Sorry it’s a bit late in the day, but thanks for all the comments. I knew the puzzle was a bit tougher than usual, but it’s good to have a bit of variety in difficulty.

    The “hidden agendas” from 9d wasn’t really intended as a Nina as such, since the clue does tell you how they’re located in the grid. Unlike most of my ghost themes, where you can complete the whole puzzle without having to spot the extra connections.

    Eileen@11: Nice clue from Tramp! Someone else on the Guardian site pointed out Brendan has also used “hidden agendas” before, so it’s clearly not as original as I first thought.

    Anyway, I hope the workout was enjoyable, as that’s always the main aim.

    Best wishes,

    Qaos.

44. Great puzzle – thanks both.

    Qaos in the byline now makes me think “ah good” of a morning.

    Have to admit that DIAGONAL isn’t my first thought for CROOKED – I’m thinking more of curves etc – but Collins gives:

    1: bent, angled or winding
    2: set at an angle; not straight

    which seems supportive if you want a dictionary to be the arbiter of otherwise endlessly unresolvable debates.

    OTOH OED gives (inter alia) for CROOKED:

    3 (usually crooked on) Australian/NZ informal annoyed; exasperated:‘It’s not you I’m crooked on,’ he assured Vivien.

    a usage I’ve never come across in many long years, even though CROOK itself is a great antipodean word meaning both ill or angry.

    @dunsscotus #29 – you are most definitely not alone. the “joke” wore thin a long time ago.

45. Welll there’s two of you then , very unreasonable. I don”t like what you comntribute much as it happems, which always seemsa angtry or trying to score ponits, but I’ve not aid so until now.

46. Gosh, what a toughie. I’m almost afraid to comment for fear of the replies! I couldn’t fully solve, had to check google for antlia and intarsia and still have a raised eyebrow (with Liz @15) over diagonal = crooked, but I appreciate the banter as to the explanations thereof. I was pleased to get catena from my days as a software engineer using string concatenation in programme and database design. I also missed the nina’s but got hidden agenda anyway. Look forward to more Qaos.

47. Coined by Ralph Betza in 1996, the term “crooked bishop”, aka “boyscout”, comes from Fairy Chess and refers to a piece making one or more successive diagonal steps, in a zigzagging motion.

    http://www.chessvariants.org/piececlopedia.dir/crookedbishop.html

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_chess#Types_of_fairy_chess_problems

48. A Magic Wand come from Fairy Chess to placate the Furies, I see. Prefer the real thing myself.

49. It come from there, shure.

50. Re 26a The head over heels refers to moving a “d” from the front to the back

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