Guardian 26,224 – Nutmeg

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It’s only just over two weeks since I blogged Nutmeg’s last cryptic puzzle (and there’s been a Quiptic in between as well)> I have no complaints about that: this puzzle is a bit easier than the previous one, but still nicely crafted and with some amusing clues. Thanks to Nutmeg.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. CANDLESTICK C-in-C’s talked about provider of light transport (11)
(C-IN-C’S TALKED)*
9. PEAHENS A chap interrupting shuts up birds (7)
A HE in PENS
10. CURACAO Old city dons a source of chocolate liqueur (7)
UR (ancient city, mentioned in Genesis) in CACAO
11. COLLEAGUE Confederate colonel with class (9)
COL[onel] + LEAGUE
12. TREAT Hold talks about blocking cheap goods (5)
RE in (“blocking”) TAT
13. SO-SO Help — nothing’s fair! (2-2)
SOS (distress)+ O. Contrary to popular belief, SOS does not stand for “Save Our Souls”, or for anything else.
14. MAISONETTE Housing team on site at fault (10)
(TEAM ON SITE)*
16. AT HALF COCK Catch folk wandering round area not fully prepared (2,4,4)
A in (CATCH FOLK)*
19. PEAR Apple not main fruit (4)
PEARMAIN less MAIN. Pearmain is used as part of name of some varieties of apples – the origin of the word is obscure, but it also used to be used to describe pears.
20. INFER Presume more discriminating fellow’s moving to the right (5)
FINER with F[ellow] moved to the right
21. TASTE BUDS With them you relish acceptable risks, backing in small amounts (5,4)
Reverse of U (acceptable, as in “U and non-U”) + BETS in TADS
23. NERVIER Queen has to struggle, cutting navy back with less assurance (7)
ER VIE in reverse of R[oyal] N[avy]
24. ALASKAN Statesman unfortunately known as “Nye”, originally (7)
ALAS + K[nown] A[s] N[ye], with “statesman” meaning “someone who lives in a state”
25. TEMPERAMENT Agency worker almost the last word in saucy humour (11)
TEM[P] + AMEN (last word) in PERT (saucy)
Down
1. CHARLES THE FIRST On leaving dance, drunken serf hit monarch (7,3,5)
CHARLEST[on] + (SERF HIT)*
2. NIECE New man on board not first family member (5)
N + [p]IECE
3. LASAGNA Obsessive nurses talk up Italian fare (7)
GAS (talk) in (“nursed by”) ANAL (obsessive), all reversed. Lasagna is the singular form of the more common “lasagne”, so perhaps strictly refers to one of the pasta sheets rather than the dish
4. SUCKERS Shoots gulls (7)
Double definition – shoots from tree roots; or fools (as a verb)
5. IRRITANT Pain in rear starts slowing down worker (8)
I[n] R[ear] + RIT (slowing down, in music) + ANT
6. KICKED THE BUCKET What the clumsy window-cleaner did on departure? (6,3,6)
Not quite a double definition, as the grammar wouldn’t work, but “kick the bucket” is slang for “die”, as well as being what a clumsy window-cleaner might do
7. SPACE STATIONS Here remote scientists work, as satanists cope badly (5,8)
(AS SATANISTS COPE)*
8. FOR THE PRESENT Currently why children write to Santa? (3,3,7)
Double definition
15. ALTRUISM Gates may display this, a Latin platitude (8)
A L[atin] TRUISM. Reference to Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his charitable foundation
17. COTERIE Scriptures give rise to anger in church faction (7)
O[ld] T[estament] + IRE< in CE
18. CASCARA Vehicle in Pedro’s house a means of restoring motion? (7)
CAR in CASA (Spanish for “house”). Cascara is used as a laxative, hence the nicely misleading if somewhat tasteless definition
22. ELATE Cheer as Chronicle leader’s cut (5)
RELATE (as a verb) less its “leader”

40 comments on “Guardian 26,224 – Nutmeg”

  1. Hi Andrew, Typo at MAISONETTE 14ac. I was really unsure of 12ac, since TREAT and hold talks seems a stretch.

  2. Thanks, Andrew. Seems almost as though this wandered over from the Quiptic section but still fun. I seem to remember that previous Nutmegs sometimes had a sting in the tail but I can’t see anything hidden.

    I particularly liked the unlikely anagram in CANDLESTICK.

    I wonder what Paul might have done with LASAGNA, as constructed and particularly with reference to 18? 😉

    You’ve a typo in MAISONETTE – might confuse someone I suppose.

  4. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew
    Very easy, though enjoyable (although I needed you to parse LASAGNA).
    I too liked CANDLESTICK and the “Pauline” CASCARA.

  5. Paul @1
    If you “treat with” someone you hold talks together. I think this just about makes it fair.

  6. Nutmeg’s becoming quite the regular, and I’m pleased, because I invariably enjoy her puzzles. Certainly on the easy side – I only really got held up on SUCKERS and CASCARA. I was another who liked CANDLESTICK and who needed the blogger to parse LASAGNA.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and to Andrew.

  7. I also found this relatively easy – I remember Nutmeg as being rather tricky. Actually finished it at one go, which is unusual for me. CHARLES THE FIRST was clever. Thanks to Andrew and Nutmeg.

  8. Thanks Andrew and Nutmeg. I also found this enjoyable and not too tricky. I had to check the meanings of GULL, PEARMAIN and CASCARA when I got home.

  9. I also thought that this puzzle had slipped,out of the Quiptic pile, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
    There is some speculation on the Grauniad site that there may be a very Pauline and scurrilous connection between two solutions, which I will not elaborate. I sincerely hope that is not the case, as I enjoy Nutmeg’s puzzles, and the Grauniad has enough edgy setters.

  10. @9 George Clements

    Oh dear – I hadn’t noticed that until you pointed it out! Even more risqué than Paul normally is, I would say.

  11. A nice piece of work, I thought. I don’t usually focus on individual clues, but Candlestick stuck out (in a good way) for me.

  12. Thanks, Andrew.

    It’s KICKED THE BUCKET at 6dn, which means the grammar works.

    Pretty straightforward today. I enjoyed CANDLESTICK. The SE corner took the most time.

  13. I’m another who’s in the happy position of not having parsed LASAGNA. Thanks Andrew.

    Delay in finishing due to inability to put I before E in NIECE leading to an unlikely set of letters for a bird.

  14. Using Charleston to get the CHARLES T in Charles the First feels a bit un-Cryptic. The dance is of course named after the city, which of course is named after Charles…the Second.

  15. Pleasant puzzle with Nutmeg’s customary smooth surfaces.

    Thanks Andrew; I particularly liked CANDLESTICK and CASCARA (a new word for me.) It’s tempting to think how Paul might have clued AT HALF COCK…… and George @9 you’ve been reading too many urban dictionaries.

  17. Hello Robi @15,
    Completely passed me by too until I happened to look at the Grauniad site. As I suggested before, I sincerely hope it’s coincidence at work.

  19. I enjoyed this a lot, and though I found it easier that the last couple of Nutmegs, I thought there was enough that required some thought, but then I don’t always find the Quiptics as easy as they should be either. Liked CANDLESTICK, CASCARA, ALASKAN and ALTRUISM (my last in).

    Thanks to Andrew and Nutmeg

  20. Really enjoyable crossword, I thought – just the right standard for a daily cryptic. I got an almost Arachnid pleasure from some of these clues, without knowing that Nutmeg shared a gender with my eight-legged hero.

    I’ve only come over to The Guardian in the last few months, so I don’t know what the feeling is on this, but…is it considered acceptable to have “Chronicle” in the middle of a sentence with a capital letter, when it is meant as a verb? I thought the whole point was that setters had to engineer the clue so that the word was at the start of a sentence if they wanted to mislead in that way.

    Anyway, thanks to both – good crossword.

  21. Limeni @20: This is perfectly acceptable. The convention is that a proper noun in a clue must always start with a capital letter, but that a common noun can be capitalised in order to mislead. The word ‘chronicle’ is not a personal or place name and therefore doesn’t have to start with a capital, but it is within ‘the rules’ for the setter to give it one to make it sound like the name of a newspaper; the fact that the word is a verb in the cryptic reading is immaterial.

    Not all the Guardian setters play strictly by the Ximenean rules, of course, but in this case Nutmeg is.

  22. Does IRRITANT mean “pain”? I would have said that as an adjective it means “causing pain”, and as a noun “that which causes pain”.

  23. peterjohn @22; my Chambers and Oxford Thesauruses have (colloq and informal) irritant=pain. Example: ‘In 1996 Vietnam was becoming an irritant to the Labour government.’

  24. Oh, OK – thanks Gervase (@21) for the explanation. I suppose it’s no worse than misleading punctuation, which we all expect as part of the pleasure. I don’t know why I thought misleading capitals had to be disguised at the beginning of sentences…hmmm, so now another thing to watch out for!

  26. Another very enjoyable Nutmeg puzzle. For me it was definitely easier than her last few Cryptics but probably a little harder than her Quiptics.

    I have no problem with Paul-style cluing, but I can understand why some people do. Having said that, if a particular setter grates one always has the option of not doing the puzzle. SUCKERS was my LOI after CANDLESTICK.

  27. Completed

    (Sorry for the plagiarism Mr Clements 😉 )

    Thanks to Andrew and Nutmeg

  28. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew

    Although on the easy side, got caught with my last one in – ERASE – had cut the leaders from [CHE]ER AS [CHRONICL]E … tenuous … just as cut=erase was … but the easier puzzles do tend to catch me sometimes with not being as diligent.

  29. Thanks all.

    This turned out easier than first appeared, though I was held up by putting the plural, LASAGNE as I thought. We don’t hear much of spaghetto after all.

    It’s nice that the time spent reading the interesting names on liqueur selections at Christmas as a child finally paid off too.

    A well made puzzle I’d say.

  31. Gervase @21

    Not sure that the fact that the word is a verb in the cryptic reading is immaterial. There simply is no such verb as Chronicle.
    ‘Chronicle leader’s cut so cheer’ has just as good surface misdirection. How would you feel about ‘Cheer as Tell’s beheaded’?

  32. Thank you all for your comments. Re supposed hidden Pauline connection between answers, I can assure you that none was intended.

  33. verb (chronicles, chronicling; past and past participle chronicled) 1. To record in or as in a chronicle.

  36. Re Chronicle as a verb (I take it the capitalisation is the issue):

    I don’t know if we should apply this to crosswords, but in the legal world my understanding is that in construing the meaning of a deed, punctuation and the case of letters can be disregarded. The wording may be arranged in parcels, and each must be capable of conveying its sense on that alone (which may often account for the apparently odd style of such writing).

  37. rhotician:you’re wrong, sorry. This is from the Google online dictionary (for ease of checking) but all the other major dictionaries agree:

    Chronicle
    ?kr?n?k(?)l
    verb
    past tense: chronicled; past participle: chronicled
    1.
    record (a series of events) in a factual and detailed way.
    “his work chronicles 20th-century migration”
    synonyms: record, put on record, write down, set down, document, register, report, enter;

  38. Re Capitalisation, the generally accepted rule is that you can capitalise a word that would normally not require one, in order to mislead or give a better surface (as with chronicle) but you must’t do the reverse, such as london for London.
    So you couldn’t clue Cheshire cat as ‘Feline for sale?’ but only as ‘Feline for Sale?’ which is a bit of a giveaway if you know your smaller English towns.

  39. john mcc – no need to be sorry. I know what chronicle means. I also know that Chronicle is a proper noun much favoured in the the newspaper industry. It is not a verb.

  40. Nutmeg – re capitalisation

    As I said you could have had an equally good surface and been just as misleading by starting the clue with ‘Chronicle’.

    In fact I think your misdirection was a bit unfair. My first thought was that the answer had to begin with C, rather than just possibly doing so.

    I don’t like speaking of “rules” but I agree that ‘sale’ to allude to Cheshire is wrong, as would be ‘nutmeg’ to indicate ME. But I also think ‘Nutmeg’ in the middle of a clue to indicate anything other is wrong.

    However I continue to associate Nutmeg and nutmeg with your outstanding ghost-themed tree puzzle.

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