Guardian 25977 by Shed

46 comments on “Guardian 25977 by Shed”

1. Thanks, UY.

   Chambers: STEW (usu in pl) a brothel or prostitutes quarter.

   I’m not sure you’ve got the point of STRING VEST: “Art endeavouring” as in “Thou art…” so “Thou strivest.”

2. UY, Am I imagining it, or did my first look here contain more than one acknowledgement to NeilW?
   STEWS is archaic in Collins and obsolete in Chambers.
   I think Sri Lankan is OK for TAMIL because, perhaps regrettably, the English-speaking world does associate the two, even if they are a minority there. Presumably there are more of them in South India than Sri Lanka. But what’s South India? Is everyone there Tamil?

   Ah, was the other acknowledgement to do with the vests? Incidentally,why the ? in that clue?
   I’ve been waiting for years for Brendan to do something based on words for more or less intoxicated.

   I am glad it’s you today so I can draw your attention the post @22 yesterday. Not that I’m not pleased anyway. Thanks.

3. Didn’t there use to be an old song which ran something like this –
   “Nellie the elephant packed her trunk; and sailed away from the circus”. ?
   There’s a reference to this here, I think, in 14ac.

4. Nice puzzle – a couple of chewy wordplays – thanks both.

   UY – I’m not sure about Tamil. I tried to explain it away on the basis that it doesn’t matter that they’re a minority – so eg English could give Cornish – but the difference there is that all of Cornwall is in England whereas Tamils are the people (or their descendants etc) from southern India who now inhabit both that area and parts of Sri Lanka.

   But the ones in Sri Lanka have been there for 1000 years or more – the same order of magnitude as most of us in England. So on that basis “South Indian” is no better since, in current terminology at least, it excludes the other group. That’s unless it can be interpreted geographically to mean the souther part of the Indian subcontinent (including islands etc). It’s a tricky one. If I could think of a parallel example it would help – but I can’t.

   It’s one of those ones which springs to mind straight away (because of the conflict etc) but then second thoughts arrive.

5. @rho #2 re 13d

   I presume the QM is there to help us over “art endeavouring” as it’s not an exact match (well I haven’t thought of one yet) – not sure why “artistic endeavour” couldn’t have been used instead.

   I’m reading -est as the archaic suffix for 2nd person singular. Is that right? “Whither thou goest…” etc. Not very good at archaic and prolly Shed is so wouldn’t want to pick a fight.

6. JS, see my comment on the est bit @1.

7. Nice to see 5D turn up here. I thought that the clue to 17 might be a nod in the same direction.

   Thanks Shed and UY.

8. Thanks Uncle Yap. Struggled with STRING VEST: must remember (we had it recently) this trick with art in thou-style. Glad to see the Grateful Dead reappear: saw them once alive in son et lumiere at the Giza pyramids. Liked COURGETTE.

9. Aoxomoxoa – we crossed. Go, Dead.

10. I failed to get onto Shed’s wavelength for this puzzle. I gave up on solving 22d, 3d & 9a, and I solved but could not parse 4d, 20d, 13d, 22d.

    New words for me were TUSHERY, TAPSTER, LAYETTE, and LIT = drunk.

    I liked 16d, 25a, 27a, 12, 2d.

    Thanks for the blog, Uncle Yap.

11. Isn’t the wordplay for 13d a fine example of 15a?

12. 13d; I think the ? is OK. Art reads well enough as art thou?

13. @NeilW #6 – ah yes – thanks – penny dropped this time.

14. @rho #12 – same thing. Just a natural one. Was reading it wrongly.

15. Thanks UY – needed for explanations to 2 and 4d.

    Some hard words for me today: TAPSTER, TUSHERY, FESTE, TERENCE.

    I was thinking 4d METHAMPHETAMINE (aka SPEED) was a bit uninteresting and difficult as a clue (had to cheat to get the answer), until I recognised this was hinted at in the clue.

16. @2. Looking again I see there are two nods to NeilW. Only one’s highlighted. So I wasn’t hallucinating.
    I also note that 25 is &litish. Or an extended definition if you prefer. And now it strikes me that you could say it’s LITish. No?

17. Re 2d
    If a Tamil can be described as a type of Sri Lankan – and he/she can – then the clue works in a perfectly conventional way (hence also Englishman yields Yorkshireman, but not the other way round, etc.). Shed’s preference for Sri Lanka over South India is obviously because SL was more famously associated with the Tsunami. The suggestion that Tamil cannot be clued by “Sri Lankan” because they’re a minority, have origins/connections elsewhere etc, or that “South Indian” would be better because that’s where they originally came from, only makes sense to me as a political assertion, and a nasty one at that. I don’t see how it’s different from saying Jews or Jamaicans can’t really be described as British. Dreadful – particularly given the recent history of Sri Lanka.

18. rhotician, nice turn of language – LITish indeed for 25! Can’t remember that ICICLES clue from way back in 2008 … see how time flies when you are having a good time 🙂

    NeilW is a very helpful neighbour in the adjacent time zone and so has become a most useful source whenever I’m in trouble while blogging.

    Okay, off to my weekly hash run now. On! On!

19. Thanks Uncle, needed you for the LUCCA part of ACCUSAL.

    Most enjoyable puzzle with one exception – surely a setter of this calibre could have avoided the tasteless reference to a ‘dead baby’ when clueing LAYETTE? I’m no prude, but this word is so fecund with options I’m surprised he didn’t steer clear of this unhappy reference.

    Thanks all.

20. I always enjoy Shed and there was some good clueing here, 13d and 20a being favourites.

    Last in, diffidently entered, was STEWS. Guessed it was a dd bit didn’t know the archaism. Entered ‘brothel’ into my online dictionary to check, hoping Mrs Trailman wouldn’t find out.

21. Thanks Uncle Yap. I usually struggle with Shed, but I found myself more on his wavelength today. Still couldn’t parse a few, including 4dn, which I eventually got from crossing letters and a bit of checking.

    I enjoyed this. Thanks Shed.

22. ‘Italian province’? (Now I’m in trouble) And then “Eh bien, mon prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now no more than private estates of the Bonaparte family”. Odd what gets you there with these things.

    Thanks for the blog. I had to come here to check on STEWS. I thought the plural was the quarter and a single house was, well, singular. Is this the latest favourite word of setters? You don’t see one since your A-levels and then six of them come at once.

23. Thanks UY and Shed

    Some clever cluing in a mainly thoroughly enjoyable puzzle. I too was a little put off by the clue for 26a (I know there are strong logical reasons not to be but…) and I had to check some words e.g tushery, and Feste(r) to be quite sure about them.

    I enjoyed the rather dated 20a, and I ticked several – 9a, 12a, 24a, 27a, and 13d (my COD).

24. Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus / Off she went with a trumpety trunp, trump trump trump.
    Sung by Mandie Miller, who now lives in Brighton. Not many people know that.

25. Thanks UY and Shed; some good clues but not as entertaining as some of Shed’s puzzles, I thought.

    STEWS for brothel doesn’t seem to be in current usage and my ODE gives TAPSTER as archaic.

    Chambers, Collins and ODE all include Sri Lankans in their definition of Tamils, so I agree with those above that it was fair cluing.

    INTERIM raised a smile.

26. An enjoyable crossword, including the chance to sing Nellie the Elephant again which I don’t think I have ever done before while solving a crossword. Several dots by clues I like but I agree with William about 26a, not just because I came to this crossword following an email ‘conversation’ with eldest son about names for grandchild due in just under two weeks.

    Thanks to Shed for everything apart from 26a and UY for the blog.

27. Agree Not so ghood from S hed whi is usuallu very good. 25 is wrong for me…. greammar is whromng.

    Rowl uuy

28. Thanks all
    Very enjoyable: enough meat to satisfy.

29. ‘innebriate’ is both a transitive verb and an adjective.

30. Not what I meanty at alll!!

31. Inebriate is also a noun, as well a verb and an adjective.. In the North a ‘get’ is the equivalent of a Southern ‘git’, a not very likeable person, so a ‘legless get’ also works, given that punctuation is discounted in cryptic reading.

32. Sti ll you miss the poijnt.

33. Rowly @ 30 and 32

    Perhaps it would save a lot of time if you just said what your point was?

34. This was tough: especially NW corner, where I needed aids to complete from checkers. and still couldn’t work out wordplay for 1ac 4dn & 9ac – ‘cop’ as definition in 1dn didn’t help much either !

    25ac – dunno why everyone’s focusing on ‘inebriate’: the clue is clearly missing a verb, as the ‘be’ is needed for the anagram fodder.

35. PeterM @34

    Ah… I see…

    But I thought ‘result’ was a verb?

36. Ans if it is??

37. Thanks to UY for the blog.
    I had managed to fill in everything but was short of several explanations – you provided what I had missed.

    I know that the Tamils are a minority people in Sri Lanka so I think that was a bit of a weak clue for 2d.

38. PeterM @34; as RCW @29 said ‘inebriate’ is a verb: [Chambers] ‘to make drunk, to intoxicate.’

39. P.S. 26a could have been more PC by just: ‘Still wearing old baby’s outfit.’

40. Re: 6 down I first came across ‘Palimpsest’ more years ago than I care to remember in a crossword by…Shed. I couldn’t solve it at the time and had to look it up (pre electronic word checks etc). Funnily enough, I’ve never forgotten the word, nor its meaning, to this day, which was only the second time I’d ever encountered it in use…in a Shed crossword.

    I’ve no idea what this signifies.

    Great crossword – thanks to all.

41. This was another puzzle that I really enjoyed, and I wish we saw more of Shed. Even though he often uses archaic or obscure words I find that he usually clues them clearly enough. TUSHERY is a very good example of this.

    BIG TOP and STRING VEST both made me smile as I entered them. I have to confess that sometimes I completely ignore surface readings, especially in the Guardian where they sometimes lack the elegance of, say, The Times, so I didn’t even notice how 26ac read. I had no issue at all with Tamil for Sri Lankan in the context of the clue.

    Finally, if INEBRIATE had been clued that way in The Times I would have had a problem with it, but with the Guardian’s more libertarian style I don’t have a problem with it. It’s not like the clue wasn’t solvable.

42. Solved 2d and thought this clue totally out of order and refused to do any more. To link the answer tsunami witth sri lanka is so bad taste I am really pissed. If shed had ever bothered to visit the orphanage as I have done and seen how the children are coping then I am sure he would never have written this clue and he should be ashamed to have done so. As for hugh allOwing this I really do wonder

43. Apart from the odd bit of tushery, and the distasteful 26a no grumbles.

    I liked 13d too.

    Thanks all.

44. Really enjoyable and testing puzzle from Shed.

    But not quite as enjoyable as the discussions on here of “bad taste” and Tamils.

    25A seems just about OK with “result” as a verb and “?” as anagrind.

    Thanks to UY and Shed. (Shouldn’t we have had Audreus yesterday?)

    Also nice to see there are still some “deadheads” around. (I suppose we’re all old gits now 🙂 )

45. Thanks all.

    I’d never heard of TUSHERY either until I started searching for something to get me out of the corner I’d boxed myself into when filling in the grid, but I thought it was a nice word that I’d like to share.

    I do rather regret 2dn, on reflection. Tamils are not necessarily Sri Lankan and Sri Lankans are not necessarily Tamil, so it’s a bit sloppy. ‘Sri Lankan, perhaps’ or ‘maybe Sri Lankan’ would be OK but would make a mess of the surface reading. I probably should have reworked it entirely.

    But I do feel some people are getting unduly strung-up about the surface readings of clues like 26a and 2d. If things go on like this, Lewis Carroll will be banned on the grounds of his light-hearted account of cruelty to children in the Pig and Pepper chapter of Alice in Wonderland.

46. ‘Art lecturer’ for Araucaria = TEACHEST and ‘art endeavouring’ for Shed = STRIVEST. I can see no problem here, only excellence.

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