Guardian 26,288 / Qaos

50 comments on “Guardian 26,288 / Qaos”

1. Thanks Eileen and Qaos
   After 20 minutes I had a complete RHS, but only SPHINX (and RONALD, of course) on the left.

   I thin the officer is COP, not CO.

   Thanks for parsing HOME RUNS (I didn’t see where the OME came from) and VADTLY for me, Eileen.

2. Doh – thinK and vaStly!

3. Thanks Eileen
   I had the same thoughts as you regarding 8dn but it’s:

   VASSAL (slave) reversed (uprising) around FE (iron) [f]E[a]R[s]

   Like muffin, I too wondered about COP (officer) in 3dn but then I couldn’t find any verification for Y being an abbreviation for yes (correct).

4. “Jewel in the crown” refers to India under Victoria, hence the title of the Paul Scott quartet.

   I didn’t notice that the anagram for LASSA FEVER didn’t work – compiler error?

   Can’t throw any light on WORKING CLASS either.

5. Gaufrid @ 3
   Y and N are frequently used in computer databases for “yes” and “no”.

6. I’d parse “Jewel in the crown” as a double definition – India being (once – certainly not any more!) the “Jewel in the Crown” (as in the famous book/TV series etc.), and the Koh-i-noor being literally in the crown. I think the problem is that the Koh-i-noor really is Indian (or was, anyway…) It would be more of a DD if it wasn’t. As there has been some Elgin-marbles-style controversy over whether the diamond should really belong to the UK, I suppose that stops the surface being a straightforward definition.

   I’d forgotten what “rickrolling” was but got there eventually – possibly my favourite clue in the end. Thanks Qaos and Eileen.

7. Thanks, Gaufrid [so glad it’s not just me!] – more straightforward than we [first] made it, then – and muffin: yes, I see it now [I have read the books!] so it’s a double definition, then. Sorry, Qaos. 🙁

8. And thanks to Herb – you posted while I was typing.

9. Hi muffin @5
   I have seen Y used for yes on forms etc (eg a Y/N option) but the point I was making is that this abbreviation does not appear in any of the usual references (Collins, Chambers, COED).

10. I’m not clicking that link…

11. Thanks, Eileen. Good fun but over too quickly.

    We were obviously on different wavelengths as the ones you struggled with went straight in. Also, I found spotting the pangram of some use as it nudged me accross the line on my last which was, embarassingly for me, QUACKS!

    Owen, that’s a very clever comment. 😉

12. Thanks for the blog, Eileen. I thought this was good fun, though some of the parsing escaped me — rickrolling, in particular.

    I do quite like a pangram, especially when it is achieved as elegantly as it is here — and especially when I manage to spot it 🙂

    re WORKING CLASS Could ‘Those’ be referring to ‘Us and Them’?

13. Thanks Qaos and Eileen

    I think the ghost theme is the eighties: 5A (a 1987 song by Sting), 11, 14 (a 1985 hit by Paul Hardcastle), 18 (they go back longer, but were in films in the 80s), 23 (Reagan & Grenada), 5D (1984 TV series), 6 (first part of clue), 19, 22 (wasn’t there some major unrest in Belize in the 80s?).

    Any more, however tenuous?

14. I loved 1ac. Knew the answer but couldn’t see why for ages, as too hung up on AC for bill. Delighted with it when the penny finally dropped. I love the ones that do that!

    Am not entering in the singular letter debate today! Suffice to say I worked everything out correctly.

    Another one enjoyed! Thank you

15. Hi Liz @12

    I did wonder about that – but then why not say ‘them’?

    Many thanks and well done, Simon @13- I’m sure you’re right. [I don’t mind so much if it’s something I know I wouldn’t have seen anyway. 😉 ]

16. Surely Working Class is working=on and class=form.

    (I’m a regular visitor but first posting for me. I always come here if I can’t work out any clues.)

17. Should just have kept quiet – I see that part of the clue was explained. I’m assuming there’s no way of deleting stupid comments!

18. Welcome, Wayne – please keep commenting! 😉

19. There is a post in American libraries called a copyright officer. I think this may be the officer referred to and the doubly correct is’copy’ which Americans use when checking items off a list and ‘right’.

20. SOS is a fairly gloomy concept, I suppose 😉

21. Good puzzle with clever clues, especially for QUACKS – I wondered towards the end how to parse ‘juices.’ 🙁

    Thanks Eileen/Irene – I didn’t notice the Morse code. I have to mention the Two Ronnie’s ‘class’ sketch.

22. My first ever comment. I thought the ghost theme was that every clue started with a different letter of the alphabet (26 clues given) but have been thoroughly stuck by no “D” and two “Bs” Anyone help? Or is it just QAOs’s mistake – unlikely!!

23. Very nice puzzle all round – the &littish Reagan clue was brilliant.

    24 across seemed a little silly – you start off with the word CAKE, cut it short, insert it into another word, and get… CAKES. But that’s a minor quibble in a fun puzzle.

24. Joy @22 – welcome and do keep commenting. There are at least 2 Ds – 12d and 15d.

25. Lovely thank you Qaos and Eileen. I loved the brilliant 1a.

26. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with 6d, as a ‘strike’ in baseball is a failure to hit the ball into play (three strikes and you’re out), and so will not ever be a home run. Perhaps I’m being a bit pedantic though.

27. crypticsue @23, are you looking at the right puzzle. Joy is refering to what I would call the answers to the clues but either way there are no Ds in 12d and 15d.

    Joy’s observation is astute. It was no coincidence that this was a pangram. But why go so close and not all the way? I can’t see any easy way to fix the 2 Bs, no D problem so suspect Qaos gave up and submitted an almost alphabetical, but that doesn’t really seem likely for someone with his mastery of the art.

28. Colin@27 I see what you both mean now.

29. Afternoon all! Thanks for all the comments and to Eileen for blog. Glad to have added to your sunny day!

    For once, there’s no ghost theme, so any connections are purely coincidental. It’s interesting there’s a lot of 80s references, but I guess that says more about my age than anything else.

    Gaufrid@9: I’m always amazed Y/N aren’t in Chambers, since they’re commonly used abbreviations. E.g. questionnaire forms.

    Joy@22 et al: Well spotted! This puzzle did start out as a pangram of starting letters. A couple of the more obscure answers were changed late on to maximise the “fun” element of the puzzle. DELL to ZEAL kept the pangram.

    Best wishes,

    Qaos.

30. I enjoyed the puzzle, and. for once, spotted the pangram.
    Thanks to Eileen for the blog.

31. I found this unusually straightforward for Qaos, though none the less enjoyable for that. Spotted the possible pangram very early since J, Q X and Z were in the first six or seven I got – I was also wondering about the initial letters being significant so thanks to Qaos for confirming that theory. Did anybody else wonder about the S in ASTLEY being retained? I suppose there’s one point fewer (“less”?) even if it’s not pointless. Enjoyed QUACKS, MOROSE and RONALD REAGAN.

    Thanks to Qaos and Eileen

32. Thanks to Eileen for the blog. You explained a couple where I had the answer but not the parsing. Rickrolling beat me completely and I am not much better off now I have seen the explanation here.

    I failed to spot the pangram.

    I gazed at 10a for a long time before I spotted that the dots could be read as MORSE.

33. chas @32, yes, the ellipsis was particularly clever because the final word of the preceeding clue was “some” – had me completely bamboozled for a moment, wondering where to find the R to cobble together with an anagram of SOME around O. [I hope I wasn’t the only one… 🙂 ]

34. Thanks Eileen. And Qaos. You could have had DOWNLESS instead of BOUNCERS at 16d, but it’s hardly a much-used word.

    I agree about Y/N. I feel the same about W/D/L, in common use in the sports pages. Chambers has far more abbreviations that I can’t recall having seen in print, than it has omissions. n for navy, for example, as used in 23a. It does however have the sporting v, as used in 23a.

    Congratulations on 1a. It’s not only funny but so many of us, here and elsewhere, were initially baffled/misled/deceived.

35. NeilW @33, you weren’t.

36. Hi NeilW

    “[I hope I wasn’t the only one… 🙂 ]”

    No, of course you weren’t – but I had admitted to enough failings!

    Hi Schroduck @23

    That thought struck me but, since I was having other problems, I didn’t comment. As you say, “that’s a minor quibble in a fun puzzle.”.

    Many thanks to Qaos for dropping in in my absence [I’ve been out for a convivial lunch with 15² chums] – it’s always very much appreciated. I’m sorry I didn’t do your fine puzzle full justice on this occasion but, thankfully, there are always people here able and ready to fill in the gaps. It’s amusing that ghost themes creep in without even the setter noticing. 😉

37. HI rhotician

    We crossed!

38. Thanks for dropping by Qaos.

    Interesting that the ‘theme’ is so much a ghost that the setter wasn’t aware of it 😉

    Only way I can see to make a full pangram of initials, leaving the rest of the grid unchanged, would be to have 16 as DORNIERS – well known to aviation historians, but sadly I can’t find it in any dictionary…

39. N = Navy? Yes, RN = Royal Navy, so by extension it’s OK, and no doubt it’s in the dictionaries, but it feels like another example of ‘think of a first letter’ as commented on yesterday. Will now add it into my solving practices.

    Blaming myself though for not working out which CLASS it was till the very end. Not as if there are that many classes to choose from. Now in the 80s, it would have been first on my lips …

40. Trailman – No. You can’t do things like that. For one thing your example is Navy, not navy. For another Chambers does not give R or r for either Royal or royal. I suggest you abandon this argument pdq.

41. Just to add a little info… As Esmond says, COPY started life in the US, but due to another thing that started life in the US and spread around the world, to whit, CB Radio, it is now a pretty universal term meaning OK. There are many film and TV buffs on here, and there are several films and TV proggies in which CB is utilised, plus all the US military and police radio scenes. So even if you never had the fun of using CB, I would have thought the usage may have registered more widely.

    Sadly, saying this made me remember The Dukes of Hazzard, which I would really rather not remember!

42. Re 10a and julie paradox’s comment @ 20, I don’t think there is any significance in the use of … which happens to be S, to indicate the MORSE code – most letters are a combination of dots and dashes, which would make it too obvious, and three dots is the conventional way of indicating an ellipsis

43. @DerekL why was that a horse you lost a pony on recently? Actually I remember quite a a fine young filly Bach then 🙂

44. More seriously, I enjoyed it but like the FT and Indy it was all over too quickly with no parsing problems at all (wish that could happen when I’m blogging)
    I thought there was a ghost theme of the 80s but I suppose the grid fill comes from somewhere.
    Hugs and thanks to my favourite blogger, ok hugs next time we meet Eileen 😉

45. It would be less sad if it were! Though it would be more likely to have been at the 12d than at the nags.

46. I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle, although my LOI, VASTLY, went in from definition alone. I thought the clues for QUACKS and RONALD REAGAN were excellent.

    dtd@26 – on the basis that “strike” has more than one meaning, and one of them is “the act of hitting something with force” per the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, then Qaos isn’t incorrect to have defined a HOME RUN the way he did.

47. Andy B @46 and dtd @26

    … and it is an oddity of shifting meanings that one way to get a strike in baseball is to fail to hit the ball, and another to make no attempt to do so (if the ball is judged to pass through the strike zone). Also, Andy B, a strike in your sense does not necessarily produce a home run so the definition is still dodgy.

48. Oh dear, and there was I thinking I knew this, from having seen Orlando’s clue ‘hit in baseball stadium’ for HOME RUN.

    [Au revoir flashling. 😉 ]

49. Nice puzzle which I enjoyed.

    There seems to be a lot of discussion about things which Qaos has confirmed to be irrelevant but it’s all fun.

    And yet more Pangram nonsense. Don’t you all realise that looking for the likely/unlikely pangram wastes more of your time than it saves. Just think of all those puzzles where you’ve wasted lots of time looking for the Z,Q,…. and it wasn’t a pangram after all. (This applies to the majority of puzzles)

    Why not also look for a puzzle where each vowel is used an equal number of times? It does happen 😉

    Thanks to Eileen and Qaos

50. Hugely entertaining crossword but I had a strange kind of feeling about it.
    This was really top-notch cluing.
    However, the funny thing is that such quality is 9 out of 10 times matched by a level of difficulty that’s higher than that of today’s puzzle.
    Really good crossword but (relatively) easy too – yes, easy too, not: too easy.

    That said, I know how hard it is to predict whether solvers find it difficult or not when, as a setter, you’re so familiar with the end product.

    No ghost theme?
    Well, it was just as much ‘Americana’ as it was the 80s.
    Perhaps, Ronald Reagan et al ruled the world in those days.

    I am with Schroduck that OATCAKES was a weak clue (for the reasons given by him/her) and I wondered why nobody said something about the X-MEN at 18ac from a cryptic point of view. I think it is not that obvious and I was hoping to find some support for the idea that MEN was coming from [xi]MEN[es].

    But all in all, as I said, great stuff.
    There’s something quite right about the Guardian crosswords in the last few months anyway. Wonder, however, where Bonxie is nowadays.

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