Guardian 26,228 / Crucible

42 comments on “Guardian 26,228 / Crucible”

1. Thanks Crucible and Eileen.
   Lovely crossword. It took me some time to see how SWEAT GLAND worked; when the penny dropped, this became my favourite. TONNAGE, ROUSSEAU, G-FORCE and GONE TO SEED were also special.
   I wonder how many others’ first thought for “Jones the singer” was Tom?
   I tried LIED (=lay?) for 23d at first.

2. Thanks, Eileen.

   I normally approach Crucible with some trepidation when he’s doing his musical thing (which seems to be more and more often) but, even for me, there was nothing too obscure and, as you say, all the clueing has a very light touch. A little lateral thinking required but that’s always welcome!

3. Please explain “the trout?” “nag”?

   Many thanks.

4. Hi Gideon

   Chambers: ‘trout: an unpleasant, interfering old person, esp a woman’ – no comment!

5. As Eileen says, a most enjoyable puzzle from Crucible. I managed all the musical references and loved the clues for PLANCK, G FORCE and especially GONE TO SEED.

   It seems churlish to mention that I have a very minor quibble with 1d. Plants transpire through their stomata whereas we perspire via our SWEAT GLANDs. (Ladies of course just glow!) I regard transpiration as a botanical term for the release of water vapour. It does however make for a much better surface and didn’t prevent me solving the clue; I think I can grant poetic licence.

   Thanks Eileen for an excellent blog that as usual has explained so many aspects to clues and solutions that I hadn’t picked up on.

6. I raised an eyebrow at “transpires” as well, but Chambers gives “transpire – to give off as vapour; to exhale; to emit through the skin (etc. etc.)
   And Wikipedia gives it as a synonym for perspiration – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspiration

7. Two carelessness errors today. One simply failing to check that I had written in the correct letters to constitute the word I intended, and the other because I accidentally touched the ‘cheat’ button on the iPad. I do find that it’s a peril of solving crosswords on a touch screen device that one can inadvertently change letters previously inserted, or call up things you did not want, such as annoying advertisements (or crossword answers, as in this case).
   Some reservations about 9a (surely, what I did rather than what will I do) but that’s a small quibble, and the puzzle – like Eileen’s customarily excellent blog – was very enjoyable.

8. Hi George C @7

   I didn’t have a problem with the tense in 9ac: I took, ‘Describe my role’ as a request to ‘Tell me what to do / what I will / shall do’.

9. Thank you, Eileen, first rate blog to a first rate puzzle.

   Idiotically, I had BOAST for “trumpet” and couldn’t get it out of my head.

   Love the punctilious comma in clarinets’.

   George C @7; I thought this was fair enough in the sense of “describe my rôle” = “what shall I do”.

   Thank you Crucible, nice day to you.

10. Apologies, Eileen, crossing.

11. Thank you, Eileen.

    Enjoyed this (as indeed the setter’s other offering today in the Indy). The musical stuff wasn’t too obscure (although I failed on WHAT’LL I DO, which is one that you either know or you don’t, and I didn’t and couldn’t work it out from the wordplay).

    GONE TO SEED was excellent.

    Two puzzles published on the same day? The setter will be off to the shops for a bit of retail therapy this lunchtime. Thank you to him.

12. Hi Eileen

    Great blog of a first rate puzzle.

    As a big music fan I was pleased to see Gluck in there- one of the first operas I ever heard.

    I didn’t realise that Crucible set elsewhere- is there a way of getting The Independent crossword to print or do I need to go out and get the paper?

13. Thanks Eileen and Crucible

    An excellent review of an excellent puzzle.

    Favourites were 9a, 23a, 7d, and 21d.

14. djawhufc @12
    Download and install Crossword Solver from here:

    http://www.crosswordsolver.info/

    This provides a means to download and print the Indy.

15. Muffin @ 6 I didn’t fully explain my reasoning, as I felt I was being picky, but transpiration is as you say loss of water vapour. I am not sure that Wikipedia is strictly correct to give it as a synonym of perspiration. Sweat is secreted by the glands and it then travels up to the surface of the skin via the sweat ducts. The water in the sweat then normally evaporates. I marked a GCSE Biology question last year where candidates were expected to distinguish the two parts of the cooling response. It was about a race in humid conditions where the athletes overheated. Some incorrectly assumed that the runners did not sweat, rather than still produce sweat, which could not evaporate. I think as a Biology examiner of many years (also A Level) I raised an eyebrow at the use of transpires, but as I said I think it is acceptable in this context.

16. Thanks Gaufrid

17. I can only echo comments @9,12 and 13.

18. Thanks Crucible and Eileen. I enjoyed this although I didn’t know a lot of the music references. Favourite clue was PLANCK. Hadn’t seen how to parse SWEAT GLAND – very clever!

19. Thanks Eileen @8 and William @9.

20. Unless I’m missing something, I object somewhat to 7; g-force is not synonymous with the attractive force a mass experiences due to gravity.

21. It’s been a while since my Physics A-level, Jim @20, but surely G-FORCE is OK here? It’s more usually used in eg 4G to illustrate the pull as an F1 driver takes a bend, but 1G is the force we encounter all the time just by standing still on the surface on the planet. Happy to take this back if real scientists know better.

    The crossword as a whole was a delight. I’m another who would like to see more setting by Crucible and the music theme worked well. The non-musical GOLDEN EGG was my favourite, for its misdirections (though admittedly there were far better surfaces elsewhere).

    WHAT’LL I DO last in, largely due to the apparent unlikelihood of non-apostrophised words with W*A*L*

22. I enjoyed this – the first few went in very quickly but it took a while to finish, and I struggled with some of the parsings – last in was TONNAGE. Also spent too long trying to fit ROOM into 22 8 and failed to parse WHAT’LL I DO (and I’m not sure I could name any Berlin songs).

    Thanks to Eileen and Crucible

23. Eileen,

    Thanks for the clarification. I am new to UK cryptics, and will now know to search Chambers in such circumstances.

    And thanks for the blog of course.

24. Thanks, Eileen.

    Fun puzzle from Crucible. My last entry was 9a – I don’t think I had ever registered that this was a BERLIN SONG.

    Some very good surfaces here, for which reason my favourites were 2d, 6d, 7d, 15d.

    I got the ‘fabled’ allusion in GOLDEN EGG (nice construction), but why ‘downfall’?

25. I hadn’t heard of Aled Jones; in fact, I’ve never heard of the name Aled before. But “aligned” was obviously right, so it went in.

    No one’s pointed out, really, that ANNIE GET YOUR GUN is by BERLIN? So another mini-theme there for you, although it would have been better still if the song he chose at 9a was actually from that show. I guess “Anything You Can Do” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business” don’t fit in a crossword all that well.

26. And Gervase @24, when the goose lays the egg, it falls down.

27. One of my heroes, Wyndham Lewis ruined ‘What’ll I Do’ for me at the end of his gargantuan masterpiece The Apes of God. I can’t visualise it as Berlin wrote because of this:

    Whoddle ah doo
    Wen yoo
    Are far
    Away
    An I
    am bloo
    Whoddle ah doo
    Whoddlah DOOOO!

28. mrpenney @25 – I wish I’d never heard of Aled Jones – you’re lucky! He was the choirboy most famous for “Walking in the air”, the theme from “The Snowman”, which used to be played continuously in the Cumberland pencil museum in Keswick (and on rainy days in the Lake District even visiting a pencil museum sounds like a good idea).

29. Thanks to Eileen for the blog. I had SWEAT GLAND and the anagram of ‘waste’ was clear but I could not parse the rest.

    On 8d I had ?O?M and flipping plus Othello in the clue meant it had to be ROOM! I got there eventually.

    On 22a I was stuck for a while trying to force FORELLE (German for Trout) in there after Schubert’s song and quintet.

    I also tried Tom Jones first 🙁

    Eileen a small typo: in 19a you put SCENE and omitted the R.

30. Thanks, chas – amended.

31. Thanks, Crucible for the entertainment and Eileen, as ever -especially the link to Kathleen Ferrier for ORFEO. I had forgotten what a wonderful singer she was.

    I thought TONNAGE was a super clue, which really conjures up the stereotypical trout or stout party et al.

    Giovanna xx

32. Thanks all round, great puzzle. I would have pointed out that in 22a “main” equates to sea or ocean. In the clue for 14d the apostrophe would have been better before the s in “campaigners”, giving “campaigner (Greenpeace) is”.

33. Nothing to add really…just to thank Crucible for a most enjoyable crossword (a nice change of ‘voice’ for us), and Eileen for the good work as ever.

34. I agree that this was an excellent puzzle, although it took me twice as long as the setter’s offering in today’s Indy. WHAT’LL I DO was my LOI after SWEAT GLAND. It took me what seemed like an age to decipher the wordplay for the latter, and the W?A?L? checkers in the former had me puzzled before I remembered that apostrophes don’t appear in the enumeration.

    The themed clues in this puzzle don’t reference styles of music that I’m particularly au fait with, so it is a credit to the setter that my lack of knowledge of those genres didn’t stop me completing the puzzle.

    In 11ac I discounted Tom, Jack and Norah before I remembered Aled, my 85-yr old mother’s favourite, which probably tells you all you need to know about him.

    My only possible quibble is at 12ac. I’d only associate banjos with being picked rather than strummed, but I’m sure there will be experts out there who will tell me I’m wrong. However, it didn’t stop me solving the clue and it did raise a smile.

35. Shaar @ 18 yesterday (I’m playing catchup)

    When I first started visiting this site I had similar thoughts to yours. I realised that the easiest thing to do is regard them as the equivalent of the bore at the bar, and go and sit in a different part of the pub.

36. Well it appears I’m going to be in the minority. (Again)

    An OK puzzle from Crucible, nicely clued with reasonable surfaces. But a little too easy to be described as fun or “great”.

    A late start, even for me, so I thought that as there was only 45 mins to Chelsea’s kick off I’d be working late. Even had time to make a sandwich as well as get a beer before the start.

    However it was amusing to have such unlikely bedfellows as Gluck and Berlin 🙂

    Thanks to Eileen and Crucible

37. Just a thought but the big aria from Gluck’s Orfeo – sung by Kathleen Ferrier in one of the most beautiful recordings ever made – is “Che faro?” which of course translates as WHAT’LL I DO?

38. That’s brilliant, Jovis! I’m so used to thinking of it as ‘What is life?’ but, of course, you’re right. [I hope you noticed my link.]

39. I am a banjoist in the jazz world and must of us ONLY strum!

40. Thanks Crucible and Eileen

    Delightful puzzle for mine which I was able to finish on the way home after a long day in the office. An excellent way to wind down!

    Started off with GLUCK as first in after having to check that he was a composer ! :/. Really liked the theme and made all the better with Jovis@37’s observation that it was integrated between the two main composers.

    Last in was the very clever GONE TO SEED. Was originally dubious with the GOLDEN EGG clue but after seeing the comments here, am more comfortable with it now.

41. P.S. There are other versions of Ferrier’s “What’ll I do?”. Notably the Glyndburne Opera Version, far better in the original Italian. Also on U-Tube

    However IMHO this does not compare to the peerless Janet Baker, Leppard, English Chamber Orchestra version. Available on many CDs. Why not try the “Dame Janet Baker, Philips and Decca Recordings 1961-1979”. A 5 CD treat!

    Of course both and others are available on Spotify.

42. Trailman,I’m a physicist myself (though admittedly a hospital-based one whose basic mechanics are rather rusty). Saying that, the 1g acceleration a stationary object on the earth’s surface feels is due to the *repulsive* force exerted by the ground, and indeed an object in freefall feels no g-force. I realise I’m being very finicky here, but this clue just didn’t sit right with me.

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