Guardian Cryptic N° 26,004 by Bonxie

by

The crossword may be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/cryptic/26004.

I found this very tricky – indeed if I had not been blogging it, I would most likely have left it to fifteensquared to unravel some of the wordplay; but having the blog to write can – sometimes – concentrate the mind wonderfully, and I hope I have come up with sensible parsings. Thanks to Bonxie for the workout.

Across
1. Flower from Colorado, white one in field (7)
COWSLIP A charade of CO (‘Colorado’) plus W (‘white’) plus SLIP (‘one in field’ in cricket).
5. Insect crosses screen over swallow (7)
BELIEVE An envelope (‘crosses’) of LIEV, a reversal (‘over’) of VEIL (‘screen’) in BEE (‘insect’).
9. Old king finds duck among some swans (5)
HEROD An envelope (‘finds … among’) of O (‘duck’) in HERD (‘some swans’). Yes, HERD is listed as one of the collective nouns for swans, among many other animals, of course.
10. Shorten it — otherwise it’s most unpleasant (9)
THORNIEST An anagram (‘otherwise’) of ‘shorten it’.
11. Large bird covers one with masonry (9)
STONEWORK An envelope (‘covers’) of ‘one’ plus W (‘with’) in STORK (‘large bird’).
12. Catch criminal flicking a tree creeper (5)
LIANA A charade of LIAN, a reversal (‘flicking’) of NAIL (‘catch criminal’) plus ‘a’. A treecreeper is a bird, but taken literally, a liana creeps up trees.
13. Seal is backing a short breather (5)
SIGIL A charade of SI, a reversal (‘backing’) of ‘is’ plus GIL[l] (‘a … breather’) incomplete (‘short’).
15. They turn hummingbirds jaws without resistance (3,6)
OFF BREAKS An envelope (‘without’) of R (‘resistance’) in OFF (‘humming’ i.e. smelly, rancid) plus BEAKS (‘birds jaws’). Another cricket reference
18. Reptiles moving around end of Pompey’s colonnade (9)
PERISTYLE An envelope (‘around’) of Y (‘end of PompeY‘) in PERISTLE, an anagram (‘moving’) of ‘reptiles’.
19. Locates it among uneven steps (5)
SITES An envelope (‘among’) of ‘it’ in SES (‘uneven StEpS‘).
21. Uniform with medal and large cluster of flowers (5)
UMBEL A charade of U (‘uniform’) plus MBE (Member of the {order of the}British Empire, ‘medal’) plus L (‘large’).
23. Undressed by coffee counter, being shameless (9)
BAREFACED A charade of BARE (‘undressed’) plus FACED, a reversal (‘counter’) of DECAF (‘coffee’).
25. Grouse about main part with legend (9)
PTARMIGAN An anagram (‘about’) of ‘main part’ plus G (‘leG end’).
26. It’s self-evident — Douglas here wants a kiss first (5)
AXIOM A charade of ‘a’ plus X (‘kiss’) plus IOM (Isle of Man,’Douglas here’ the island’s capital)
27. After a little rotation, sharpen the file (4,3)
DATA SET A charade of DATA, a reversal (‘rotation’) of A TAD (‘a little’) plus SET (‘sharpen’).
28. Oriental seabird follows stormy sea (7)
EASTERN A charade of EAS, an anagram (‘stormy’) of ‘sea’ plus TERN (‘seabird’).
Down
1. Charlie shoots wildly at a pair of anchors (2-5)
CO-HOSTS A charade of C (‘Charlie’ phonetic alphabet) plus OHOSTS, an anagram (‘wildly’) of ‘shoots’.
2. Hawk is close to finding headless fish (9)
WARMONGER A charade of WARM (‘close’, either in the sense of nearby or muggy; with ‘to finding’ the former is warmer. Thanks Eileen) plus [c]ONGER (eel, ‘headless fish’).
3. Dipper left in Scottish stream (5)
LADLE An envelope (‘in’) of L (‘left’) in LADE (‘Scottish stream’, a millstream).
4. Exercise book found in ancient battlefield rocks science (9)
PETROLOGY A charade of PE (‘exercise’) plus an envelope (‘found in’) of LOG (‘book’) in TROY (‘ancient battlefield’).
5. Bear with blackbird (5)
BROOK A charade of B (‘black’) plus ROOK (‘bird’, which happens to be black). One might add ‘with’ to the definition.
6. Local bosses catch doctor propped up in Rising Sun (9)
LANDLORDS A charade of LAND (‘catch’ fish) plus an envelope (‘in’) of RD, a reversal (‘propped up’) of DR (‘doctor’) in LOS, a reversal (‘rising’ in a down light) of SOL (‘Sun’).
7. René Magritte’s behind purge (5)
ENEMA A hidden answer in ‘rENE MAgritte’. Ceci n’est pas une pipe.
8. Catches footloose spouse climbing pole (7)
ENTRAPS A charade of ENTRAP, a reversal (‘climbing’) of PARTNE[r] (‘spouse’) without its extremity (‘footloose’) plus S (‘pole’).
14. Battle to plug deficit at American research facility (3,6)
LOS ALAMOS A charade (‘to plug’) of ALAMO (‘battle’ Remember?) in LOSS (‘deficit’), for the New Mexico research lab best known for the Manhattan Project.
16. Turkey might be let out of oven (4-5)
FREE-RANGE A charade of FREE (‘let out of’) plus RANGE (‘oven’).
17. Lark calling beneath arched fold of rock (9)
ANTICLINE A charade of ANTIC (‘lark’) plus LINE (‘calling’, as in ‘What’s my line?’).
18. Chose to be decorated with feathers, parrot’s head included (7)
PLUMPED An envelope (‘included’) of P (‘Parrot’s head’) in PLUMED (‘decorated with feathers’).
20. Backing musician attaches wing on rook, say (7)
SIDEMAN A charade of SIDE (‘wing’) plus MAN (‘rook, say’ in chess).
22. Crow shot inside court (5)
BOAST Double definition; the second is a shot in squash.
23. It follows a heron out of river to breed (5)
BEGET A charade of B (‘it follows a‘) plus EG[r]ET (‘a heron’) without the R (‘out of river’).
24. Bunting runs out of energy (5)
FLAGS Double definition.

43 comments on “Guardian Cryptic N° 26,004 by Bonxie”

  1. Thanks Peter: I needed your blog to make sense out of numerous answers. All got, with a lot of head scratching, esp over the ‘faced’ in 23a, the leg-end in 25a, the footloose in 8d, the squash ref in 22d and the B=it follows in 23d. Didn’t know ‘lade’ but it had to be that in 3d. Phew.

  2. Very nice puzzle – some very nifty wordplays in there – apart from the obvious one I thought 23d very good.

    Ended up coming here for the 2nd-half parse of 23a – doh – should have known – DECAF’s been getting around quite a bit recently – prolly just needed a bit more of the real stuff myself.

    Thanks for the blog PO – despite your protestations I think you got it all. 7d comment très amusant but it may be a bit ripe for some.

  3. Thanks Bonxie and Peter. Liked this one though it kept me up half the night. Wasn’t sure about boast regarding the shot but will try to remember that information for future use.

  4. I enjoyed this puzzle a lot and I learnt some new words, all of which were solvable due to the fair wordplay in the clues. I particularly liked 2d, 14d, 8d, 23a, 26a & 17d and my favourites were 25a PTARMIGAN, 23d BEGET & 15a OFF-BREAKS.

    New words for me today were LADE = ‘stream’, PERISTYLE, SIGIL, PETROLOGY, PTARMIGAN.

    Thanks for the blog, PeterO. I needed your help to parse 22d, 27a.

    For 8d, I parsed it as reversal of PARTNE(r) + S (south pole). In 23a there is a small typo/omission where it should read “A charade of B (‘it follows a’) ……”

  5. Tern, Ptarmigan, stork, swallow, duck, bird, tree creeper, hummingbirds, grouse, seabird, hawk, dipper, blackbird, turkey, lark, parrot, rook (x2), crow, heron, egret, bunting.

  6. Thanks for the blog, PeterO, especially for the badminton shot, which, like Sylvia, I didn’t know.

    Another wonderful puzzle from Bonxie – all those birds, after an excellent puzzle based on animals a couple of months ago. By one of those strange coincidences that keep cropping up, PTARMIGAN was the first answer in Alberich’s FT puzzle yesterday.

    Favourite clues: 15ac, 23ac, 26ac and, of course, 7dn.

    Peter, in 2dn, I think WARM is ‘close to finding’, as in ‘You’re getting warm’, in a game of ‘Hunt the thimble’.

    Many thanks to Bonxie – I thoroughly enjoyed it.

  9. Loved that. Thanks Bonxie and PeterO. LOI was 5a because I couldnt tear my mind away from all the lovely birds to think of other meanings of swallow. The only other thing that held me up was that I wouldn’t call Troy a “battlefield”. Battle site maybe, but not battlefield. But then I’m not a native speaker, so what do I know? Thanks again for a super puzzle, Bonxie. With yesterday’s Paul one of my absolute favourites ever!

  11. BELIEVE was top notch. I am not convinced that ‘let out of’ = FREE; ‘let out’, yes. Is ‘of’ therefore a linking word, or should ‘of oven’ be taken together to stand for RANGE, as in ‘the range door’ > ‘the door of [the] oven’?

  12. Thanks to Bonxie and PeterO
    A couple I didn’t fully parse, then kicked myself when I read your explanation – the FACED part of 23ac and the second definition in BOAST (and I used to play a lot of squash!)
    I loved the “legend” in PTARMIGAN, and the definition for ENEMA can only be admired.
    A question – is the MBE a “medal”? (I’ve not been awarded one yet – any other contributors in this unusual position?)

  13. Oh, and I thought the “pole” in 8dn was the SPAR; hence I couldn’t parse the initial ENT (I was trying to remove an F, but “fent” didn’t really help).

  15. Not sure how I managed to (almost – save for 13a) finish this before coming on here. So many words new to me – SIGIL (which I couldn’t even find in my dictionary), PERISTYLE, UMBEL, PETROLOGY and ANTICLINE! In addition, BOAST and SIDEMAN are new meanings to me.

    Even so, with all the birds, this was great fun. Thanks to setter and unsetter.

  16. Thanks, PeterO

    Entertaining puzzle, with a couple of words just at the very edge of my vocabulary (SIGIL, PERISTYLE). Some clever clues, which took quite a bit of disentangling; I managed to work out almost all the parsings, but BOAST = ‘shot inside court’ was new to me.

    I was pleased to see ‘rocks science’ = PETROLOGY. Brummie used a similar definition in a puzzle last year for MINERALOGY, which was definitely wrong. ‘Hummingbirds jaws’ was splendid.

    I agree with ulaca @11 that the ‘of’ in 16d is extraneous: ‘let out of’ should be FREE FROM. For a while I thought that 23d was back to front: EG(R)ET looked more like ‘river out of heron’. Then I realised that ‘out of’ could stand as a deletion indicator, as in ‘We’re out of milk’. Very ingenious clue – my favourite, I think.

  17. Hi Gervase

    Re your last sentence: Bonxie did the same in the ‘animals’ puzzle which I mentioned earlier. I remembered it particularly, because it caused me initial problems when I blogged it [thus:

    “Mollusc rising with difficulty out of sea
    CLAM
    I thought I was going to have to admit defeat on the parsing of this one, searching vainly for possible reversals, but it came to me as I began to write the blog: CLAM[bering] [rising with difficulty] minus [out of – as a greengrocer might be out of {‘Yes, we have no’} bananas] BERING [sea] – a truly wonderful surface.” ]

    It’s one of my favourite clues of the year.

  18. @Gervase #16 re 16d

    I don’t think you’re really agreeing with either of the options proposed by ulaca @#11.

    I think I agree with the first option:

    Ie yes to – ” Is ‘of’ therefore a linking word,”

    So have FREE = “let out” and “of” is a link as in eg (not very good examples):

    eating of healthy food = eating healthy food
    People of Glasgow = Glasgow people

    The latter’s reversed, obviously, but surely there’s a right-way-round example somewhere to justify it.

  19. Thanks for the blog, excellent crossword, whose theme didn’t quite pass me by but the quantity is amazing. I spent a couple of minutes trying to shoehorn Optometry into 4d.

  20. Some cracking cluing from Bonxie although my lack of some of the vocabulary made this a hard struggle.

    Thanks PeterO; I needed your help with the parsing of some including DECAF rev and the hummingbirds.

    Eileen @6; I don’t think you can play this shot in badminton – it’s a squash stroke. 🙂

    Favourites were BELIEVE and OFF BREAKS.

  22. For the curious, a boast in squash is a shot that hits a side wall before it hits the (compulsory) front wall.

  23. Sdome curious wordplays, some curious WORDS to go with it!! I thinkl too manty really put in to allow the theme to be as ‘thorouhg’ as it is.

    Thak you to all.
    Rowls

  24. JollySwagman @18: I take your point that ulaca floated the idea that ‘of’ was a link word in the clue for 16d, which I hadn’t acknowledged. However, I’m rather dubious about this myself. Many prepositions can act as linkers: at, to, with, by – all of which imply addition or adjacency. ‘Of’ on the other hand, always implies some form of dependence, which makes it unsuitable. The only example I can think of where the ‘of’ is optional without changing the word order is the one you quote: ‘eating (of) healthy food’. But even this is not a straightforward as it seems. The ‘of’ is added when the gerund is preceded by a definite article: ‘Eating healthy food is beneficial’ or ‘THE eating of healthy food is beneficial’. *’Eating of healthy food is beneficial’ sounds distinctly odd.

  25. @G #24 – yes – it’s not a very good linkword in general but has that possibility where the words either side (after translation) can have the one (eg a noun used adjectivally) acting on the other. Like the Glasgow people – people of Glasgow idea – but the reversal messes that up as an example. Can’t think of a better one right now.

  27. Thanks, Bonxie for a super puzzle on my birthday – just the thing for a lazy afternoon on the Grand Union canal accompanied by a herd of swans! Thanks, too, to PeterO for the parsing. Liked your comment on ENEMA (Collins Concise French Dictionary expounds further)!

    LIANA was a super clue and took a while to fall, as I kept thinking of the treecreeper bird, which I used to watch for hours as it crept up the sycamore trunk in front of our house. Also liked LADLE for dipper, which used to visit our beck.

    Getting used to the cricket terminology and full marks to non native English speakers for coping with it.Cricket always conjures up memories of the wonderful Mr Johnston’s commentaries.

    Giovanna xx

  28. Managed to complete without assistance, but pretty slowly, and I was unable to parse ‘ladle’ as ‘lade’ was new to me, and ‘boast’ as I did not know about th squash shot. I’ve always thought that crosswords were the ideal occupation for couc potatoes like me.

  29. I found this to be more accessible than some of Bonxie’s previous puzzles, although my LOI, BOAST went in without full understanding, so thanks for the explanation. I also didn’t know LADE. I was concentrating so much on the solve that I didn’t notice the high number of birds referenced in the puzzle.

  30. Thanks PeetrO and Bonxie

    After a brief go at this this morning, I only got back to it again this evening.

    I thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle, especially 15a, 23a, 2d, 8d, and 23d, and managed all the individual parsings, but – probably partly due to the break – I did not notice the theme.

  32. Thanks, Peter O and Bonxie.

    Curiously, I didn’t find this too difficult today. Maybe it is because Friday is grand-baby sitting day, and I have to do the crossword in snatches, so the old brian has time to think about it.

    I wonder if Bonxie had squash in mind, as real tennis has such a term and would pre-date the squash one.

  33. Finished this but definitely didn’t enjoy it! My least favourite Bonxie as I usually enjoy his puzzles.

    Too many obscure words which weren’t tightly enough clued for me! e.g. PERISTYLE, PTARMIGAN, LIANA

    By the way what is the hidden indicator in Rene Magritte’s? Is it the “‘s” ? Also, am I missing something, or is “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” relevant to this clue? Of course I know it’s written on his depiction of a pipe! (Very deep 😉 )

    Thanks to PeterO and Bonxie

  34. Thanks PeterO for another fantastic blog.
    Yes, this was a very good crossword.
    In the past I was not always on Bonxie’s wavelength (read: I couldn’t make much of his puzzles) but since that marvellous “Girls Girls Girls” crossword I am definitely on his side.

    We could find (and parse!) everything without external resources except BOAST and SIGIL. Has Bonxie become easier?

    Quite an overdose of Guardianisms today (humming/birds, leg/end, black/bird) but they are of the kind I like.

    Lots of contenders for CoD – 12ac, 4d, 8d and 23d to name a few.

    Yes, this week was a good one for crosswords!

  35. Re FREE RANGE, think surface vs cryptic, and there’s no debate (unless you’re the village idiot): it ain’t a link word.

    Re ENEMA, again think cryptic: it’s nothing to do with an artist. In the cryptic reading, does the apostrophised S correctly indicate the hidden word?

  36. Usual enigmatic (or is it meaningless) comment and “village idiot”.

    Do the normal rules of the site not apply to this odious individual?

  37. @Brendan #33 – it was Magritte’s little joke. It is a double entendre in French.

    A mock naughty DT Toughie puzzle a while back had (probably unintentionally) one of the ripest clues ever to see the light of day, prolly on account of the setter’s ignorance of that.

    Of course the setter might have been having the last laugh, but I doubt it in that particular case .

  38. JS @37

    Yes I’m familiar with Magritte and I think it’s a little more than an artist’s joke. In fact some might say ..

    “Magritte examined the tension between representation and reality to the point of near-meaninglessness in order to explain how our minds perceive art and the world around us.” 😉 As I said “deep” or perhaps even pretentious.

    I was asking why PeterO thought fit to quote this in his blog. Had I missed some relevance to the solution of the cryptic clue?

  40. Let us lay this one to rest: in 7D the hidden answer is indicated by the ‘s, a contraction for has. This is a device that is used by setters every now and then; I cannot say that I like it, because the contraction is used in normal conversation only in certain contexts, not including the likes of this clue. B(NTO) – my added comment just seemed vaguely appropriate8 (particularly as I have recently blogged a puzzle in which the tag did appear). It has no relevance to the solution of this clue.

  41. Thanks PeterO. Really thought I was losing it and missing something obvious.

    In fact I think Ceci n’est-pas …… has been clued twice in the fairly recent past.

  42. Peter O @ 40 re ‘has’, I doubt it: the possessive apostrophe looks far more likely, where answer X is a part of fodder Y.

    Usual silly digression from Trolly Swagman et al, but we must live with it.

  43. Just take it from me – when talking to French plumbers the word tuyau is a lot safer and will generate less giggles.

    Sorry if this went over the heads of those whose French is schoolboy and whose art knowledge is bus tour.

Comments are closed.