Guardian 26,242 / Boatman

40 comments on “Guardian 26,242 / Boatman”

1. Thanks Boatman and Eileen
   I found this difficult from beginning to end, and didn’t parse FLAME (lovely, though!), SHELLAC (another good one) or DROPS IN. I hadn’t heard of AKITA, but the clue is clear enough.
   I loved ABUNDANCE and DIAGNOSIS.
   I wasn’t happy about “south of” in 23d – very obscure for “next in list”, I thought.
   Is it OK to include a completely superfluous word in the clue for the sake of the surface? I’m thinking of “Cochran” in 15a.

2. Thanks Eileen
   In 12ac you need to separate ‘everyone’ so that you get ALL (every) I (one).

3. CANDLE was my LOI, in fact, though I had tried TALLOW earlier on (so was in the right vicinity!)

4. Thanks, Gaufrid. I thought I’d done all the necessary lifting and separating today! [I’m not sure I like all = every, though.]

5. Thanks for the blog Eileen. This turned out to be a little easier than it looked at first, but still an enjoyable challenge, with the Spoonerism raising a laugh. I didn’t fully parse ORIENTATE or FLAME, so thanks for your help with those.

   I knew AKITA, strangely enough from the musical Rent, in which it is mentioned.

   To be picky, contrary to popular belief SUSHI refers to Japanese dishes made from rice, not (raw) fish, which is Sashimi.

6. Final point. I had to look up “pirate thatch” and discovered that Edward Thatch was an alternative name that Blackbeard used; more usually he called himself Edward TEACH.

7. Failed on 1a ( I’ve only ever known Blackbeard as Teach) and found this a joyless slog I’m afraid. I found the clues, and some of the definitions, too woolly.

8. The only dog I knew that fitted the checkers I had was the ill-starred Laika, so I came up a couple short in the NW. Despite being a Spoonerophobe, I too liked this one. Thanks, Eileen, for the a[rsing of 9 and 10 across.

   I wonder if there’s an &littish quality to the sushi clue, since rice is in fact the only mandatory ingredient. As it happens, I enjoyed excellent scallop sushi in Macau just a couple of days ago. More likely, though, that sushi has been confused with sashimi, as Andrew suggests.

   Do the Japanese have curate’s eggs? 🙂

9. Today’s Concise Times Xword has a dance theme.

10. Thanks, Eileen. “Shellac” outwitted me; I was thinking along the lines of AC (aircraftman). So, to my shame, did “Tango”, which is hardly an unusual type of crossword clue.

11. Thanks, Boatman and Eileen. Very good clueing today (with three exceptions). ‘Akita’ held me up because the word was completely new; “shellac” went in easily because of the crosses but took a while to parse – after which I loved it!

    I too had problems with “everyone” becoming all+i in 12 and with “which is” being used instead of “that is” in 9 (that held up the word for a while because I didn’t think ie was right). I also have the same question as muffin @1 about the use of Cochran in 15 – the surface reads equally well without it.

12. Thanks, Eileen.

    I agree with all the points above. This was tough but very rewarding as each set of curtains finally parted – which made CEASED`stand out as the only clue that seemed lazy by comparison with the rest. That said, Boatman is a lot easier when you are already on the look out for the “lift and separate clues” which he seems to love!

    Tiny point: you’ve left the ON out of RATIONS.

13. A typical Boatman puzzle for me, in that I was satisfied to have finally solved it but I didn’t have a lot of fun doing it. Under competition conditions I made one mistake when I invented the word N’DINDIS for 18dn, which I parsed as a hidden answer within Asia eND IN DISappointment. Ho hum. After the “check all” button showed me the error of my ways I looked at the clue again, saw the anagram fodder, and entered the correct answer. Having said that, I don’t really think a houri and a naiad are synonymous, and “in disappointment” is a poor anagrind IMHO.

14. Thanks for the blog, Eileen. I really enjoyed this. I didn’t parse all the clues, so the blog, as ever, added to the pleasure.

    I didn’t know that ‘Thatch’ was Blackbeard’s name. But having once edited a dog book, I was familiar with Akita. 🙂

15. I’m with muffin @1 and Andy B @13 on this one.

16. Re12A: “Every” man = “all” men.Thanks for the blog. Elaine and thanks for an engrossing grid, Boatman. 17A was my favorite.

17. Thanks, Eileen and all – glad you’ve been having fun …

    I’d be happy with or without the “Cochran” in 15 – I think of names (well-known ones, at least) as being equivalent to set phrases, in the sense that the whole thing stands together as part of the hidden-word fodder. Mind you, I agree that it would have worked well enough with just “Eddie” – I just liked the surface reading this way.

    Interesting to see that the lift-and-separate approach seems to have stopped raising howls of anguish – even just a couple of years ago, the discussion would have taken a different tone – showing once again that any artform will develop, given the right amount of freedom …

18. Thanks Eileen, well done! I couldn’t parse FLAME or SHELLAC and I had not heard of THATCH or AKITA, though I guessed the answers easily enough.

    In 9ac I think ‘which is’ is just an instruction to the solver:

    The definition ‘which is’ the rest of the clue…

    The only disappointment for me was 15 across. I got quite excited wondering how Boatman was going to work Eddie Cochran into a crossword clue. It turns out he didn’t. If a redundant word has to be added then don’t make it the most interesting word in the clue?

    Anyway, thanks Boatman for a super puzzle.

19. Very enjoyable puzzle, thanks Boatman and Eileen. I am annoyed that I needed you to parse Flame.

    Interestingly for me I noticed the two Japanese references early and hoped for more but it was not to be. The Akita dog breed is named after Akita prefecture in northern Honshu from which it originates.

    To be a little less picky than Andrew@5, while some sushi is not made with fish, the common, classic varieties are and it is hard to imagine a sushi meal which does not include (raw) fish. But similarly, while most sashimi is made from fish, other meats are also used. Basashi, raw horse meat, is a standard in ryokan meals in Nagano.

20. Thanks Boatman, hard going but satisfying to complete.

    Thanks Eileen, especially for recruit=call up. My Chambers Thesaurus gives every=all as in ‘have every confidence.’ I agree that the stand-out clue was for CANDLE. Other favourites were REEL IN and JOUSTED.

    I have been criticised for putting extra words in ha but I don’t really see the ha-rm. 😉

21. I must admit the lift and separate stuff I thought would cause more ripples here even if one did elude Eileen today. Tough though, very tough and the reasoning for shellac beat me.

22. Thanks to all for the comments and to Boatman for popping in – always appreciated.

    Hi Jeff @ “16Re 12A:“Every” man = “all” men.”

    Quite right: I didn’t have time to explain @4, as I was dashing out, but that’s how I would have illustrated my qualm: ‘every’ is followed by a singular and ‘all’ by a plural – they are not generally interchangeable, despite [for me!] Robi’s Chambers example.

    Hi Andy B @13

    “I don’t really think a houri and a naiad are synonymous”. I totally agree: I was uneasy about that but Chambers defines them both as ‘nymphs’ [which is not quite the same thing!] so I decided not to comment, since I was going to be out all day!

    Hi PeeDee @18

    “In 9ac I think ‘which is’ is just an instruction to the solver:
    The definition ‘which is’ the rest of the clue…”

    But we do need a clue for the IE. [I wish Boatman had commented on this one. 😉 ]

    Thanks for the tip-off re the omission, NeilW – sorted now.

23. Quite so Eileen, please ignore my last comment. Not paying enough attention.

24. Well I enjoyed this.

    Clever clues, two of which I failed to parse (FLAME and DALLIANCE) Thanks Eileen and Gaufrid. Although I too have doubts re ALL = EVERY

    Thanks to Eileen and Boatman

25. Thanks Boatman and Eileen for a most enjoyable solve.

    Eileen – you can now add sushi to the menu for your famous dinner parties – makes a change from eel, ide and ling.

    Hope Henry IV was good – going net month.

26. Thanks Boatman, Eileen and all.

    Sue and I found this solid and testing in places.

    If you’ve not heard of AKITAS you’re perhaps lucky. Here in W Yorks BNP-UKIP bandit territory they’re common, and there were five of these large fighting dogs a few doors away from us for a time.

27. Hi marienkaefer

    [All totally off-topic – but it’s late and it’s my blog. 😉

    ” …your famous dinner parties…”

    ??

    “Hope Henry IV was good – going next month.”

    We went to the understudies’ version today and I just can’t tell you how good it was. I’m still on a real high. We’re going to Part 2 next month, when the ‘real’ cast have an awful lot to live up to! – really looking forward to it.]

28. Hi Martin P [we crossed]

    Yes, I’ve seen the dogs – I just didn’t know what to call them!

29. Thanks Eileen and Boatman

    A tough puzzle but rewarding. I failed to parse ‘shellac’ and ‘flame’ (both excellent clues) though I nearly got there with the first.

    A small afterthought re 9a. I read the clue as originally parsed by Eileen. I take the point about i.e. = id est’ but ‘that’ as relative and ‘that’ as demonstrative are surely the same word with contextually distinguishable functions which are not always very far apart in actual usage. To insist on the demonstrative when i.e. is used actually leaves one with awkward syntax. If one translates i.e. slightly loosely as ‘that is to say’, one can commonly substitute ‘which is to say’ without loss of meaning.

30. I was flummoxed by 15A – convinced myself that Eddie Cochran’s appearance was ‘A TED’ and then pondered an ‘AB’ dance to support ABATED for ‘stopped’. Which meant that I didn’t get SHELLAC….

31. Nice puzzle. I thought it was a bit pedantic to object to Cochran in 15ac with all the rock and roll overtones associated with the name.

32. Another struggle on-line in the pub, like Tuesday involving copious use of the check button. We were held up by NAIADES – firstly because the synonym is loose and secondly because I’ve never seen it spelled with an E. Last in was AKITA. Enjoyed the LUMBAR REGION.

    Thanks to Eileen and Boatman

33. thoughts:

    having been on quite a roll recently, i only half finished this. i did have other things to do, mind.

    disappointment is a fine anagram indicator if you view it as dis-appointment. i.e., appoint them differently.

    every = all is fine by me. e.g. “every possible” = “all possible”.

    and, akita is a pretty well known word, no?

    i should have done better. the parsing of SHELLAC is great.

34. ‘every’ and ‘all’ are never the same.

    ‘every thing’ = ‘all things’, not ‘all thing’, which generally makes no sense. For ‘thing’ substitute anything you like. Except of course ‘one’.

    Consider also ‘everyday’ and ‘all-day’. And of course ‘everyone’ and ‘all’. Or ‘one and all’.

35. An example from the Internet – grammatical enough, I think it would be agreed – which shows that with certain nouns (of a certain type in respect of semantics and countability), ‘all’ and ‘every’ pass a reasonably strict interchangeability test:

    ‘Every sin grieves God and arouses his just wrath … All sin is equal in causing us to be separated from God.’

36. Thom@ 33. I too was on a roll of 15 completions and this stopped me in my tracks; some great clues but Spoonerisms depress me, but while several other clues were vague I really enjoyed others.

37. Worst crossword ever! Not a single good clue!

38. Sorry Boatman,

    That wasn’t me @37 It was a naughty Muffywordlet. I loved the puzzle.

39. ulaca @35

    Nicely put. And elegantly illustrated.

    I’m still a bit uneasy about ‘everyone’ for ALLI, though.

40. “In 12ac you need to separate ‘everyone’ so that you get ALL (every) I (one).”

    Ridiculous

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