Guardian 26,321 – Tramp

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It’s always a pleasure to see Tramp’s name on a puzzle, but I was worried when I found it took me a while to make any progress. Fortunately I managed it in the end, albeit at a rather slow pace.

There’s usually some kind of theme in a Tramp puzzle, and here 10a and 15a, together with the form of the grid, were a hint. Amazingly, this is the third day in a row where there’s a Nina around the outer squares (this grid is almost but not quite identical to the one used by Qaos on Wednesday). Here we have the names (or parts of the names) of Pixar films, with some overlapping letters: [Finding] NEMO, MONSTERS INC, [The] INCREDIBLES, and WALL-E. Thanks to Tramp for the entertaining challenge.

 
Across
8. EARDROPS These might help one pick up jewellery? (8)
Double definition: ear drops might help you to hear (“pick up”) if you’re suffering from ear problems; and they’re also a type of earring
9. ENTER Go into two hospital departments (5)
ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) + ER (Emergency Room – American version of Casualty or A&E)
10. LEGO Toy Story’s central character on stage (4)
LEG (stage) + [st]O[ry]
11. TROPHY WIFE Hef row — Playboy gutted it affected his partner? (6,4)
Anagram of HEF ROW P[laybo]Y IT – “Hef” is the nickname of Hugh Hefner, who married a Playboy “Playmate of the month”, who probably counts as a trophy wife
12. LAWFUL Right, left rubbish (6)
L + AWFUL
14. INVERTER One could upset retiring vicar — lay to rest outside (8)
Reverse of REV in INTER
15. ASPERSE Slander in A Bug’s Life? Pixar films’ executive ultimately seizing power (7)
P[ower] in last letters of A bugS lifE pixaR filmS executivE. The mention of Pixar here, and “Toy Story” in 10a, gave me a hint that they might be part of a theme
17. INTENDS Plans where PM lives without owning — tense? (7)
The PM lives IN TEN DOWNING ST – remove OWNING and T[ense] to get the answer
20. WINDBAGS At home, David Beckham primarily surrounded by footballers’ wives — they talk a lot (8)
IN D[avid] B[eckham] in WAGS (“wives and girlfriends”, so not exactly “wives”)
22. WASABI Plant used to be a bit short (6)
WAS A BI[t]
23. SCARCENESS State that’s rarely encountered scenes with cars crashing (10)
(SCENES CARS)*
24. FINN Loud bar for Sibelius? (4)
F + INN – the composer Sibelius was Finnish
25. MIAMI One goal pulled back includes header from Manchester City (5)
M[anchester] in reverse of I AIM
26. ACENTRIC Playing concertina not on without core piece (8)
CONCERTINA* less ON
Down
1. NAME TAGS Identifiers close to brave volunteers, guns heartlessly support war (4,4)
NAM (slang for the Vietnam war) + [brav]E + TA (Territorial Army) + G[un]S
2. EDDO Earth not even, pulled up tuber (4)
E + reverse of ODD
3. MORTAL Deadly weapon changing hands in the end (6)
MORTAR with the final (“in the end”) R changed to L
4. OSMOSIS Gradual acceptance to mind big, second sister (7)
OS (outsize – big) + MO (second) + SIS; “to mind” seems redundant, unless perhaps it’s part of the definition
5. NEW HAVEN Partners own casing for nineteen locks: Yale set here (3,5)
EW (partners in Bridge) HAVE in (“locked by”) the “casing” of N[inetee]N. Yale University is in New Haven, Connecticut
6. STEWARDESS One serving on board‘s ratatouille? Dear dished out seconds (10)
STEW + DEAR* + S
7. TRIFLE Toy model gun (6)
T + RIFLE – the second time “toy” has been used as the definition, though as a verb this time; perhaps another nod at the theme?
13. FIELD TRIAL All runners suffering in performance test (5,5)
FIELD (all runners, in a race etc) + TRIAL (suffering)
16. SPARE RIB “Porky” cut over tease (5,3)
SPARE (over) + RIB (tease)
18. DEBONAIR Suave Bond — middle of sea, Craig’s stripped off (8)
Anagram of BOND + [s]E[a] + [c]RAI[g] – reference to Daniel Craig, the latest actor to play James Bond
19. ASSEGAI Uprising of South Africa and one gets old spear (7)
Reverse of SA + reverse of I AGES
21. INCOME Revenue work out economics: detailed cost hidden (6)
Anagram of ECONOMICS less COS[t]
22. WASTED Drunk rocker in the ’50s? (6)
The 50s rocker (maybe) WAS a TED[dy boy]
24. FATE Cup to drink, not a lot (4)
FA [cup] + TE[a]. This took me a while to work out: I was trying to use “cup” as the definition (as in “let this cup pass fom me..”), and missed the significance of the unassuming “lot” at the other end of the clue

44 comments on “Guardian 26,321 – Tramp”

  1. A slow solve for me too, but I enjoyed it rather more than some of Tramp’s puzzles. I wasn’t really convinced by the clue for 24d, but some others were excellent.

  4. Very nice. The initial scare that knowledge of Toy Story was going to be necessary turned out to be unfounded, although it appears to have been used in the Nina, which (as ever) I missed.

    Even having been prompted to find it by a comment over yonder I could still only make sense of the more obvious words. Clearly I need to get out more often – or maybe stay in with the Pixar DVD boxed set.

    When Roger Scruton wrote a tongue-in-cheek article in the Guardian (some years ago) describing how he intended to raise his young son Samuel on a cultural diet of Shakespeare and the Classics (and no TV) the same paper’s diarist launched the Samuel Scruton Playstation appeal. Perhaps we should have a whipround here to get a second boxed set of DVDs for the Tramp household; the Pixar one seems to be, at present, their only one.

    Many thanks both for the fun (and the illumination).

  5. George @2 – yes, there are two overlaps in the Nina: MONSTERS INC overlaps with NEMO and INCREDIBLES (as I implied in my preamble: “with some overlapping letters”).

  6. Great bog Andrew.

    I wrote this puzzle in March 2013. I tried to include references to all Pixar films that had been released at that time, ignoring sequels (Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, WALL-E , Up and Brave). Sometimes this was done using a large shoehorn. I admit that 24down is weak. Cup and FA are not really synonymous and I probably won’t use that again. If I were to write the clue now I’d do something like:

    Nothing? The heartless lot (4) I might use that.

    Swagman @4: you are quite near to the truth. We have a Pixar box set that my brother bought for my girls for Christmas. In addition, I have a Fawlty Towers box set; a Mahler box set and three Ring cycles. I don’t get much time for reading, watching telly etc.

    Amazing how Anax included EDDO the other day!

    Thanks

    Neil

  8. Thanks Tramp and Andrew
    I found this difficult and failed on SPARE RIB. Also I didn’t see where the NAM came from in 1d, and didn’t parse FATE.

    I think that “to mind” is part of the definition for 4d – if you learn something by gradually picking it up rather than by an intentional effort, this is often termed “learned by osmosis” (though it’s another term with a precise scientific meaning being used incorrectly!)

    WINDBAGS was my favourite.

  9. Thanks Tramp and Andrew.

    I didn’t notice the nina at all!

    I haven’t done a cryptic crossword for quite a long time and although I found any skills I once had rather “rusty”, I enjoyed this one although I did give up on 24a and 24d.

    My favourites were 3d, 12a, 10a, 22a, 19d.

    I needed help with parsing 1d, 5d, 17a, 15a, 21d, 20a and 22d.

    New word for me was EDDO.

  10. I’ve cooked eddoes. A warning – some people have a severe skin reaction after handling peeled eddoes.
    (P.S. not really worth the effort.)

  11. Thanks, Andrew, for the blog, and Tramp for another very enjoyable puzzle.

    I didn’t fully get the Nina but that’s no surprise.

    Favourite clues: TROPHY WIFE, WINDBAGS, FINN [easy but it made me smile] and DEBONAIR. [And I loved Tramp’s typo. 😉 ]

  12. Andrew @5. My apologies, I had not read your preamble of course.
    I prefer Tramp’s alternative offering for 24d: I had thought of ‘ Sweet nothing for afternoon meal? Not a chance (4)’ (Fanny Adams, naturally, for people like me with delicate sensibilities).

  13. I actually thought 24 was rather good – the cup is certainly a bit elliptical but it made me smile. (“Nothing” is even better)

  14. I recall from somewhere – Ascetic has nothing sweet to drink(5). This is all a bit off-topic but Tramp started started it.

  15. Thanks Tramp – nice setting, first time I’ve seen overlaps in a NINA.

    Thanks Andrew; I suppose a ? at the end of 24d would have sufficed for FA=cup.

    I particularly liked TROPHY WIFE and WINDBAGS (even though the girlfriends were missing.)

  16. I enjoyed this without realising its full cleverness, so thanks to Tramp and Andrew. There was no doubt my favourite clue; it’s already been mentioned by some others, but I chose it for an unusual reason. I’ll explain by a roundabout route, so please bear with me.

    For this last couple of days we’ve had a house guest, a friend of my wife from student days. Over the years I have found her company progressively more wearing. The main irritants are her loud voice and non-stop telling of trivial stories packed with irrelevance. It’s dangerous for me to open my mouth because it’s guaranteed to set her off with another ten minutes of excruciating tedium.

    Have you realised where this is going? When I sat down to Tramp’s puzzle today, the first clue I got was WINDBAGS. It cracked me up! Fortunately, I was alone at the time.

  17. muffin @8 – I think you are right about ‘in mind’ in 4d. It is needed to properly define OSMOSIS as used in common parlance, as opposed to its scientific sense. And it makes for a nice surface. Good clue I thought.

    But it is not true to say that such a use is “incorrect”. There are lots of words, such as power, force, energy, weight etc, with precise scientific meanings, distinct from each other and from their common meanings which can indeed often be synonymous.

    A “correct” definition of osmosis would be out of place in a crossword. That’s why scientific terms are rare and obscurities such as ‘eigenvector/acyl’ have to be clued as “term in mathematics/chemistry”.

  19. Thanks for the blog, Andrew. And thanks to Tramp for a very enjoyable puzzle and for dropping by.

    I missed some of the parsing and almost all of the Nina — managed to spot Nemo and Monsters but the overlapping stopped me working it out fully. (I only looked for a Nina because we’ve had a couple already this week.)

    One of my favourites was WINDBAGS!

  20. Thanks to Andrew for the blog. I found this hard work and needed your help for a couple of parsings.

    On 24a I spent some time searching for a piece of Sibelius’s music in four letters starting with F. I got nowhere! 🙁 Then I remembered his nationality. 🙂

  21. Very nice end to the week thank you Tramp and Andrew too.

    Delighted to spot the Nina as I was beginning to regret that I had said that my New Year’s Resolution was to spot Ninas.

  22. I enjoyed this puzzle, thanks to Tramp, and to Andrew for the blog.

    In 5d, Yale is a company that manufactures locksets.

  24. That’s put my weekly nina-spotting ratio down to one in three. A shame: LAWFUL and EARDROPS (never knew these were jewellery) would have come more quickly if I had. Indeed unlike Andrew, this puzzle was a swift start but a slow finish.

    TROPHY WIFE was very clever, WINDBAGS would have been if the girlfriends could have been worked in.

    I’ve really enjoyed this week – more than last, when I seemed to struggle here and there.

  25. Thanks, Andrew – and to Tramp for dropping in and telling us about the genesis of the puzzle (Pixar and THREE Ring cycles? I imagine his daughters rushing round the house dressed as Merida from Brave, singing ‘Ho jo to ho’ at the tops of their voices).

    A fun puzzle, with several of Tramp’s characteristic narrative clues containing several related references – TROPHY WIFE and DEBONAIR stand out, but NEW HAVEN was my favourite. WINDBAGS is another similarly ingenious clue, but misses out the girlfriends, as Robi points out @ 15; “…footballers’ partners” would have been more strictly accurate. I also liked the clever simplicity of LEGO,

    As for the Nina, I spotted INCREDIBLE when I was half way through, which helped with one or two solutions – but then forgot all about it…..

  26. I respectfully agree with Tramp that FA=cup is weak, and with muffin that eddoes are an overrated pastime. That said, I enjoyed today’s exercise more than yesterday’s. Saturday tomorrow!

  27. The trickiest of our nina-fest, I felt. I’d never heard of an EDDO, so that was last in (anyone else pulling their hair out trying to remove the odd letters from something?), but thinking that EARLOOPS might have been the solution to 8, in the sense of an induction loop to aid deaf people or hooped earrings, it was always going to hold me up unduly.

    Having said that, a well constructed crossword – a clever nina, nice theme and not too many obscure words just to help it fit. Plus Tramp’s usual humour – particularly DEBONAIR.

  28. Thanks Andrew and Tramp

    Was able to finish most of this over a short lunch break, but spent nearly as much time again trying to finish off the two pairs of 4-letter ones. And yes John, I did waste a lot of time looking for odd letters!

    EDDO and LEGO were my last two in … finally.

    Liked many of the clues mentioned by others. Learnt about WASABI being a plant for the first time – just thought that it was the name of the paste that was made from … well I’d just never thought what from. 🙂

  29. Thanks for all the comments. I agree about the missing girlfriends; it never entered my head. Using ‘partners’ would work but spoils the surface since ‘footballers’ wives’ is a term that’s often used. A question mark after ‘wives’ would be my preferable correction.

    Neil

  30. I had SETO for 10ac. SETO is a Japanese doll (available from Amazon) and fits (SET+0), so disambiguation would have been welcome if only LEGO was intended.

  32. I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle. When I saw the grid I suspected there was a nina, and looking for it certainly helped me get to the finishing line. Count me as another who had never seen overlapping entries in a nina before and I thought it was very clever. The only answer I put in from definition alone was FATE, FA=cup didn’t occur to me at all, and I’m pleased that Neil said he probably wouldn’t use it again. LEGO was my LOI. I had the L from the nina but despite having LE?O it took a while for the penny to drop that I was looking for a toy rather than the name of an obscure Shakespearean character. After I entered it I was wondering if LEGO was related to the nina, but The Lego Movie was made by Warner Bros rather than Pixar, and Neil’s comment that he wrote the puzzle in March 2013 scotched the idea completely.

  34. Crossbencher@30 – I was intrigued by your comment so I did a little googling. SETO is the name of a Japanese company that makes ceramic novelties, some of which are dolls. They certainly don’t appear to be that popular in this part of the world, and the most common Google searches by a mile if you type in “Seto doll” on its own are for either a Seto Jukaya doll or a Seto Kaiba doll. Although SETO fits both the wordplay and the definition LEGO is by far the more obvious answer (despite it being my LOI) and I wouldn’t have thought any disambiguation was necessary, especially as the WALL-E element of the nina wouldn’t work without the L from LEGO. Did you know about SETO before today?

  35. muffin @23 – I took your gratuitous assertion @8 that ‘osmosis’ is “being used incorrectly” to be you starting “all that again”. I think this metaphorical use is apt and concise. I dislike ‘epicentre’ used, mostly in journalism, as mere hyperbole. I do not presume to say it is “incorrect”.

  37. I did this on the train this morning so no aids, and found it challenging but entertaining. This time the nina definitely helped – particularly the INCREDIBLES part and the WALL-E at the end (which was the last part of it I understood – the NW corner was quite tough and EARDROPS was/were last in (I wasn’t familiar with the jewellery so I needed the crossers and the E from the nina). Liked WINDBAGS and WASTED.

    Thanks to Tramp and Andrew

  38. rhotician @35

    After posting, it did occur to me that “metaphorical” was quite a good description for that use of “osmosis” – please accept my apology.

    As for “epicentre” though – it must be a fear of being thought of as lowbrow for using the shorter (and more correct) “centre”.

  39. Very enjoyable – when I saw the grid I thought there might be a Nina – then forgot to check – d’oh! It would have helped as I had PETO at 10A (toy = pet? and good old Shakespeare! Henry IV Part 1) – foi ENTER – loi PETO (oh dear) – never heard of EDDO and spent ages removing even-numbered letters from various word – wanted to put SNAKE OIL in 16D for no good reason – hmmm 15A take the last letters and then insert a letter – all very fair – my Mum wouldn’t have approved 🙂

  42. Didn’t get a chance to do this one yesterday, so it has been this morning’s entertainment. And entertaining it was. I spotted some words around the perimeter, but couldn’t really see the relevance to the movies (my kids are a bit old for them now).

    Fine puzzle; bravo Tramp. Not a bog-standard crossword by any means.

    RCW, NAM in NAME TAGS is a common abbreviation among US ex-servicemen for VIETNAM.

  43. hi nametab – I’m glad to be back – I’ve got to get the (old) brain working again! It has been 10 months since I did a cryptic crossword and I really missed them and all of you too.

  44. Just finished the last 4 clues on this due to other commitments.

    Quite a pleasant solve and of course I didn’t spot the NINA. (I never look for them so that’s probably why)

    Amazing that recognising the NINA seems to require knowledge of children’s films???? Are we really so “dumbed down”?

    Thanks to Andrew and Tramp

    P.S.Nobody has mentioned a pangram for many a week. Or have I missed this treat? 😉

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