Guardian 25,944 – Gordius

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Gordius is appearing at strange intervals these days – he used to be fairly predictably every other week, but then we saw him on a Friday and the following Tuesday, and now today as well as last Tuesday. Regular readers will know I am not his greatest fan: I found this a little harder than some of his recent puzzles, though with no major hold-ups, and with the usual smattering of niggles.

 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. BOW WINDOW DIN* in BOW-WOW
6. KURD Hidden in speaK URDu, with some superfluous words for the surface reading. The clue seems to be trying to be an &lit, but as far as I can tell Urdu is not used by any group of Kurds.
10. HEGEL HE + reverse of LEG
11. LATTER-DAY The Mormons are “Latter-day Saints”. Perhaps there was Mr Day who was once (“latterly”) a presidential candidate, but I can’t find any. As JohnR points out, Mitt Romney is famously a Mormon – I knew this but failed to make the connection. Still rather a weak clue: basically two (vague) definitions that are the same
12. MODICUM MOD (60s teenager) + I + CUM (Latin “with”)
13. HOTHEAD OTHE[r] in HAD
14. TROOP CARRIERS Cryptic definition
17. SERIOUS MINDED (DIES IS MOURNED)*
21. CORONET O in CORNET
22. GASTRIC GA (abbreviation of Georgia) + STRIC[t]
24. BRAZIL NUT BRA (garment – not “supporter” for once!) + reverse of LIZ + NUT (head)
25. NIGHT NIGH + T
26. SITE IT in S.E (home counties)
27. RED-LETTER RED (left-wing) + LETTER (landlord)
Down
1. BEHEMOTH Reverse of ME + HE in BOTH
2. WAGED W[ork] + AGED
3. IN LOCO PARENTIS (PERILS NO ACTION)* – definition “[when] dealing with minors”)
4. DILEMMA Reverse of LID + EMMA
5. WATCHER Homophone of the slang greeting “wotcher” or “wotcha”. I didn’t realise this is a corruption of “what cheer” – I always assumed it came from “watch yourself” or some such phrase.
7. UNDRESSED DRESS (something to put on) in NUDE*, &lit
8. DRYADS DRY ADS – dryads are wood nymphs
9. AESTHETIC SENSE (TASTES IN CHEESE)* – perhaps another attempt at an &lit that doesn’t really work for me – much as I love cheese I don’t think eating it is an aesthetic experience
15. OBSERVANT OB (died) + SERVANT
16. EDUCATOR CATO (Roman censor) in reverse of RUDE
18. OFTENER OF TEN (like decimal) + ER (the Queen – ruler)
19. SIGHTED (GETS HID)* – a nice “anti-anagram”
20. SCUBAS CUBA (island) in SS. I’m surprised to see a plural form of Scuba (which is an acronym for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) but it seems to be just about possible
23. RIGHT Double definition

36 comments on “Guardian 25,944 – Gordius”

  1. Thanks, Andrew.

    I thought this was easier than the usual Gordius – 19′ today.

    I couldn’t explain LATTER-DAY either.

  2. Many thanks Andrew & Gordius, this was a great puzzle.

    However, I am still puzzled by the Presidential Candidate reference in 11a.

  5. Thanks Gordius and Andrew
    Easy, but quite fun. BOW WINDOW was my favourite.

    I thought 5dn was a little unsatisfactory, as it was just about possible for the answer to be WOTCHER rather than WATCHER (although I agree that the latter is more clearly suggested); the problem being that the contentious letter isn’t a crosser.

  6. The long anagrams (3d, 17a & 9d) helped me tremendously in this puzzle. My favourite clues were 8d, 27a & 1d.

    I could not parse 16d.

    Thanks for the blog, Andrew. You have a typo in 25a it should be NIGH + T.

  7. Thanks Gordius and to Andrew for the blog. I enjoyed this too with 8D my favourite.

    I couldn’t have parsed 11A without JohnR, so thanks there as well.

  8. Thanks Gordius and Andrew.

    I thought there was some nice stuff here, although nothing particularly challenging. I certainly didn’t grit my teeth and hold my nose as I wrote any answers in. HOTHEAD was particularly deft. I did pause for a second for the same reason as muffin @5.

    Glad to see that Mitt Romney has already been consigned to the dustbin of history by many!

  9. 5d

    Watcha (or better Wotcha) essentially is a London slang contraction of “What Are You Doing” (say it). A version of “How Do You Do” in a way. I doubt it has anything to do with “What Cheer” and/or Mallory.

  10. Thanks Gordius and Andrew

    Good to get back on the board after having not yet finished the previous two days! Found this one very straightfoward especially for a Friday, although I too did not find the presidential candidate until coming here (still think it is rather tenuous).

    Last in was IN LOCO PARENTIS which I had to look up.

  11. Re 11a, the way I managed parse it was when I did a google search on “latterday presidential candidate” thinking that there may have been a Mr Latterday (!) who had run for president once. References to Mitt Romney came up second or third in the search.

  12. Thanks to Gordius and Andrew.

    I thought this was an enjoyable crossword. As comments for Andrew 🙂 : Kurdish is allegedly quite similar to Urdu. The plural of scuba as scubas is given here. I think the ‘cheese’ in 9 refers to [Chambers]: ‘anything of excellent quality.’ So, 9 may be an &lit (?)

    I particularly enjoyed BOW WINDOW and OFTENER (nice ‘decimal ruler.’)

  13. I think the cheese refered to in 9d isn’t fromage, it’s cheese in the sense of naffness in the arts – the detached, post-modern ironic observer will often refer to (say) music that has popular appeal as being “cheesy” – more or less anything by Andy Williams was labelled thus by the self-consciously cool in the nineties. This would certainly be consistent with aesthetic sensibility. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to listen to Music to Watch Girls By on YouTube…

  14. Got on the tube at East Ham and had it solved when I got off at Aldgate East: nine stops. And that despite a slow start, my scan of the acrosses yielding blanks till I reached 25. Steadily worked in the bottom half and the top soon followed. 12a, 21a favourites but undoubtedly some loose stuff in there too.

    BOW WINDOW was good too. Anybody remember the novelty song ‘There once was a doggy in the window’?

  16. Trailman@14, I recall that song was “How much is that doggy in the window…” ? Thanks, Andrew. My COD was 3D

  17. Thanks to Andrew for the blog. I had forgotten that Romney was a mormon so I was left somewhat dissatisfied by 11.

    I’m with muffin @5: 5d could just as well have been WOTCHER.

    On 20d I was fixated on I=island and failed to make progress until all the crossers were in – then I saw it 🙁

  18. I’m sure you’ll all be interested to know that the first few notes of “How much is that doggy” precede all the announcements made at Geneva Airport.

  19. I enjoyed this, but like many of you was surprised to find it a little easier than expected! Hopefully something devilish tomorrow to finish an easy-ish week…

    Just my tuppence as to 9d – ‘aesthetics’ includes the study of the five senses literally as well as emotional response (i.e. taste in music) so to me cheese tasting happily falls into that category.

  20. Steve mac is wrong, I thinkk — ‘what cheer’ is bang on. But it always sounds like ‘I waytch you’, or ‘I see you’, to add ooomphp to the menaing of ‘hello’. I like it!, but not this drear y puzzle.

    Rowly.

  21. Muffin @5 – I noticed that too; thankfully the correct answer was the one that seemed more likely.

    Had a similar problem with UNDRESSED, for which I’d originally put UNCLOTHED. It works to some extent, until you try to solve the rest of that corner, but again, the correct answer is the better.

    I do sometimes complain about Gordius’s puzzles, but I thought this was a good, fun and fair crossword.

  22. Greetings all and thanks Andrew for the clenched-teeth blog. (Tiny typo at 25a NIGH + T)

    This was a fairly quick romp but rather more fun than Gordius’s regular fare which I’m not a great fan of.

    NormanLinFrance @18 – you get this week’s prize for the most abstruse nugget of trivia! Made me laugh.

    Nice weekend, all.

  23. Thanks Mitz and Jeff @15/16 for correcting me on the title. Trying to remember the doggy noise. Ruff ruff I think, not bow wow.

  24. The chorus has arf,arf and the bank robber verse has roof,roof.
    Not to be confused with Tim Rice’s Window the in doggy that is much how?, in which the noises are fra,fra and roof,roof.

  26. I saw the Mitt Romney connection in 11ac almost immediately so it didn’t hold me up, although I agree that it isn’t the best of clues. I found this a decent Gordius puzzle.

  27. Thanks Andrew
    My 9d found it straightforward and slightly bland, but hey ho, I’m a solver not a compiler.

  29. I enjoyed this offering and finished it in record time for me – just over the half hour!! I needed help to parse 11a (how soon we forget) and 16d, I also wasn’t aware of ‘puffs’ in the advertising sense, so thanks Andrew.

  30. I must agree with the reservations already mentioned here about some of the clues. ( Especially 9D )

    Overall a pleasant enough work out BUT far too easy for a Friday!

    (Why is it that the old chestnut of “Monday’s are easy due to editorial policy” is always rolled in response to our complaints but it seems OK to have this “Mondayish” offering on a Friday!)

    Obviously today I’m a grumpy old Hector 🙂

  31. I thought this was perfectly OK.

    When I compare the puzzles of those on whom is heaped near-unanimous praise, with those subject to similar criticism, I often don’t find much contrast worth lengthy comment.

    Didn’t someone write of “the vanity of small differences”?

  32. @Martin P #31. Exactly right.

    Re 9d AESTHETIC OED explains

    Late 18th century (in the sense ‘relating to perception by the senses’): from Greek aisth?tikos, from aisth?ta ‘perceptible things’, from aisthesthai ‘perceive’. The sense ‘concerned with beauty’ was coined in German in the mid 18th century and adopted into English in the early 19th century, but its use was controversial until much later in the century.

    which applies perfectly to the appreciation of cheese (a serious business at my place) – making it rather a fine clue – the word literally referring etymologically to perception and only by inference beauty, as given by most dictionaries.

    When you look at some of the wild synonym translations used by some of those you refer to who receive universal acclaim you really have to conclude that it’s a gang mentality.

    I can understand why ximenean dweebs don’t like Gordius’s puzzles so I don’t know why they solve them but I thought this was one which should have been rather acceptable across the board.

    I don’t see the “smattering of niggles” referred to in the preamble in the body of the blog.

    Surely “Urdu is not used by any group of Kurds” isn’t a niggle – it’s a perfectly normal embed with misdirection in the surface.

  33. There’s no definition for your KURD Swaggers. While it might be similar, Urdu isn’t Kurdish, so there’s no &lit: the extraneous words are that and nothing more, so it’s a definitionless and untidy clue.

    Re AESTHETIC SENSE, it’s a phrase that can’t be found in any dictionary, and so should not really be in any crossword unless it’s unavoidable, e.g. in some themed classic. As has been said very wisely up the thread, there’s no anag-ind here, just a string of letters and a definition, such as it is, and again it’s hard to see how this would pass muster as an &lit.

    If you don’t like ‘Ximenean dweebs’ that’s your affair, but it really sounds like you’re just annoyed rather than miffed in some genuine way, as your response clearly demonstrates. You prefer sloppy crosswords? Great. But just say that. Don’t sling mud at the professionals, you clown.

  35. Oh – what’s gone wrong – no riposte – no sockpuppets.

    Just to resolve any confusion re 6a – Mr Google will easily dig up advice for beginner cryptic solvers.

    eg

    “Ignore the surface reading, how you would read the clue if you weren’t doing a crossword. It is irrelevant to the clue, and may even be deliberately misleading.”

    But I suppose that’s all second nature to professional (sic) setters.

    The clue for 6a was:

    He may be among those who speak Urdu (4)

    A stock standard clearly indicated embed clue with (business as usual) a deceptive surface.

    Definition: He – you’re looking for a person
    Embed indication: may be among
    Fodder to search: those who speaK URDu

    Superfluous (sic) words in embeds are not an issue in conventional setting – only ximenean. Why should they be? It was just an arbitrary preference by Ximenes. So, as is sadly rather common, we get a ximtroll pushing the line that non-ximenean equals sloppy.

    You do get the impression that some (not all) in the ximenean fraternity (or whatever particular schisms like to call themselves) think that by understanding that simple recipe book for cluing they’ve achieved some extraordinary intellectual feat which the rest of us aren’t capable of.

    Anyway – great – doubled my enjoyment of the puzzle. I’ll be dining out on this for while.

  36. RCW – fantastic to see you back again.
    As you can see, not much has changed.

    I trust you’re well.

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