Guardian 26,337 – Crucible

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An enjoyable puzzle from Crucible that wasn’t too hard once I spotted the theme (even though I didn’t get the linking word at 9d until quite late on). A couple of slightly obscure words and tricky constructions, but all clearly and fairly clued. Thanks to Crucible.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. HANDOUT A new party shed clothes charity (7)
A N DO in (clothed by) HUT
5. STUD FEE Podiatrists do it, scrubbing heels for service charge (4,3)
STUDY FEET (what podiatrists do) minus the last letters (“heels”)
10. AUNT Fair Sally worked with her in 4 (4)
A composite anagram (as often found in Azed), with the extra complication of a cross reference. UNEARTH (4d) is an anagram (worked with) of HER + AUNT. Aunt Sally is a traditional fairground game
11. ELEVEN-PLUS Test French pupil with puzzle? It’s not on (6-4)
ELEVE (French for “pupil”) + NONPLUS less ON
12. FATHER Plump lady’s architect (6)
FAT HER – one of several relationships that are not cross-referenced to 9d
13. AFFINITY A very loud one upset tiny singular 9 (8)
A FF I + TINY*
14. DECKCHAIR Floor cleaner preserves one framed canvas (9)
DECK (to floor, knock out) + I in CHAR (cleaner)
16. BAIRN Irish veto banking issue in Glasgow (5)
IR in (“banked by”) BAN
17. NANNY Kid’s mum’s nurse (5)
Double definition, the kid’s mum being a nanny goat
19. ANCESTORS 10 across represented forebears (9)
(TEN ACROSS)* – nice anagram, nice misdirection
23. OUTWEIGH Public path said to be superior (8)
OUT (public) + homophone of “way”
24. COUSIN Firm briefly employing 1 of 9 (6)
CO USIN[g]
26. ADAM’S APPLE Man’s bulge gets very soft in water (5,5)
PP in ADAM’S ALE (water)
27. CLAN John gathers large group with 9 (4)
L in CAN (slang for toilet, as is “john”)
28. GRANDMA King George with his mother and her mother (7)
GR AND MA
29. ST LEGER Classic Stones on stage were stripped (2,5)
ST[ones] + LEG (stage) + [w]ER[e]
Down
2. ADULATE Essentially, pulp in a fruit gets flatter (7)
[p]UL[p] in DATE
3. DUTCH Wife‘s job finishes early at church (5)
DUT[y] + CH
4. UNEARTH Find caribou near these borders (7)
Hidden in cariboU NEAR THese
6. TEE OFF Drive opponent over into grass (3,3)
Reverse of FOE in TEF, an Ethiopian grass, which I hadn’t heard of, but “it had to be that”
7. DEPENDANT Minor secretary kept goal during depression (9)
END in PA in DENT
8. EQUATOR English paper’s redhead dropped? No latitude there! (7)
E + QUARTO with the R moved to the bottom (“dropped”)
9. RELATIONSHIPS Loves displaying oriental craft (13)
ORIENTAL* + SHIPS (craft), and there are several examples of relationships in other answers
15. KINSWOMAN Perhaps 10 winks stirred old chap (9)
WINKS* + O MAN. An aunt is an example of a kinswoman
18. ASUNDER Split a tabloid’s article for Berliner (7)
A + SUN (tabloid newspaper) + DER (German “the” – definite article)
20. ESCHEAT Renew the case for old reversion of property (7)
(THE CASE)*. Escheat is “a common law doctrine which transfers the property of a person who dies without heirs to the crown or state.”
21. REIGATE Rule doesn’t end at entrance to Esher (Surrey town) (7)
REIG[n] + AT + E[sher]
22. DISARM Win over Germany is a romp, oddly (6)
D (Germany) + IS + A + odd letters of RoMp
25. UNCLE Obscure Arab ignored 1 of 9 (5)
UNCLEAR less AR

45 comments on “Guardian 26,337 – Crucible”

  1. Thanks Andrew. Agree with all your comments, at the top and for 19A and 6D. Lots of nice clues including for ST LEGER , last in.

  2. Finished but can’t say it was the most enjoyable solve ever. A bit slow to get going. Enjoyed 15d. Not so keen on clues like 5ac and 3d where you have to chop bits off.

    Thx

  3. Enjoyed this (especially 1, 5 and 17 – not forgetting the ‘man’s bulge’), but don’t go a bundle on ‘borders’ as a containment indicator.

    Élève est un peu flash, n’est ce pas?

  4. Not my favourite puzzle today. Personally, I do not like clues that rely on foreign words that have not been adopted into English (11a), and I do not like St (Saint) clued as (2), even if the Grauniad’s crossword editor has deemed it acceptable (29a). I also think that defining ‘father’ as ‘architect’ is stretching things a bit too far. Not all dependants are minors (7d),and I agree with ulaca that ‘borders’ in 4d doesn’t really work.
    A pity in my view as there were also some very good clues, including the ones already identified by ulaca.

  5. Georeg @ 5 Points well made, but, to be fair to the setter and editor, England’s oldest classic is named after Anthony St Leger.

  6. Thanks Andrew and Crucible. I enjoyed completed this. But (16 ac),I’d always thought that Glaswegians referred to their kids as “weens” – they’re called “bairns” in the E of Scotland (and Northumberland, of course). Any Glaswegians out there?

  7. It took me a long time to discover the theme of this puzzle, and I spent a lot more time on it than I intended. New words for me were ELEVEN-PLUS, REIGATE and ESCHEAT. I failed to solve 5a, and I could not parse 6d, 10a, 17a.

    My favourites were 28a and 2d.

    Thanks Crucible and Andrew.

  8. Thanks, Andrew, for the blog

    Re comments 3 and 4, I can’t see any real difference between ‘borders’ as a containment indicator and ‘clothes’ in 1ac. They both work fine for me.

    And I can’t see how you could clue ST as anything other than ‘2’.

    As for the French pupil, it was clearly clued as such, so less obscure than ‘Nice [or Nancy’s] friends’, for instance – the kind of thing that we see quite often – or ‘Man in France I see regularly in Verviers’ for JEEVES that we had on Friday. [You didn’t mention the ‘article for Berliner’, George. 😉 ]

    ELEVEN-PLUS was actually one of my favourites, along with ADAM’S APPLE and GRANDMA and I thought ANCESTORS was really clever misdirection, as 10ac actually was referenced in 15dn.

    Many thanks to Crucible for another great puzzle, which I enjoyed, as always.

  9. I refer to the comment @ 5. Not all dependants are minors(7d) – fair comment, but a minor is a dependant which is surely what the clue implied.

  10. George@5 -Have you heard of the Great Architect of the Universe? A good solve generally. Thanks Andrew and Crucible.

  11. Hello Eileen @8
    I thought that I had been quite grumpy enough, but there were other clues I did not like, in addition the ones I mentioned. I can live with ‘Der’ as ‘article for Berliner’ as the word is quite familiar in England from, for example, the newspaper title ‘Der Spiegel’ but, personally, I think that the word for pupil is less likely to be known to those who have not learnt French. Berliner was also a clever misdirection for the format of the Grauniad. Speaking of paper sizes, I would also define ‘quarto’ as one of those, or as a book size, rather than as simply ‘paper’ (8d). And ‘tef’ in 6d?: a bit obscure for a daily cryptic even if, as Andrew says,”it had to be that”.
    In 1a, ‘hut’ encloses, or ‘clothes’ ‘and o’, but, in 4d, ‘near these’ doesn’t ‘border’ ‘unearth’.
    As far as ‘St’ is concerned, it’s just a personal bugbear of mine concerning abbreviations and acronyms being cited as words.
    As always, I am just airing my own opinions, and I do recognise the difficulty in setting clues that will appeal to everyone (as my amateur efforts elsewhere on the site will evidence).
    I’m very sorry that you will be unable to make the suggested Sloggers and Bloggers in York, but I hope that your holiday will be ample compensation.
    Best wishes, as always.

  12. Hi George @11

    In 1a, ‘hut’ encloses, or ‘clothes’ ‘and o’, but, in 4d, ‘near these’ doesn’t ‘border’ ‘unearth’.

    Quite right – false analogy. My apologies.

    Thank you for your kind words. You’re not nearly as sorry as I am! [I suppose it was a forlorn hope of mine that those dates would be quite impossible for absolutely everyone else, too. 😉 ]

  13. Thank you Andrew and Crucible

    Re 14a, I saw “deck” = “floor” as the naval meaning for a floor (and one of those wooden constructions popular as garden patios a few years ago) rather than the boxing variety.

  14. Hello again Eileen,
    No need for apologies of course, and I do concede that ‘caribou near these’ does enclose ‘unearth’ (i.e. ‘unearth’ is within the borders of that phrase). I just didn’t like the clue very much

    ceva @9
    I know that I’m being pedantic (one of my many failings) but definitions by example can be made much better, in my view, by including qualifying terms, like ‘perhaps’ or ‘maybe’. Do you not think that the surface of 7d is rather weird anyway?

    Jeff @10
    Yes, but I think it’s a stretched allusion myself.

    Regards to all I’ll shut up now, but thanks to Crucible despite my gripes.

  15. Thanks Andrew and Crucible

    I thought this was clever and enjoyable. I got held up on ‘bairn’ (my loi) because I had carelessly written in ‘dependent’ which was also difficult to parse, and I was hesitant over 8d because I got confused at first about latitude and longitude! I was irriated by ‘tef’ but as Andrew says ‘it had to be’.

    I liked several clues inc. 5a, 19a, 29a, 9d, 22d.

  16. I really liked the theme, although it’s a shame this seems to have forced so many somewhat obscure words elsewhere in the puzzle, as the other commentors have said (surely, surely there had to be a better way of cluing TEE OFF).

    I know that (TEN ACROSS)* = ANCESTORS is an old chestnut, but it always gets a smile out of me, and here it fit the theme nicely as well!

  17. Fairly tricky I thought, though getting the link fairly early helped. A fair few I couldn’t parse, including 6d and 29a.

  18. Thanks, Andrew.

    I found this quite tricky to break into, but once I had a bit of a purchase it fell out steadily. Unlike some other correspondents, I enjoyed it enormously. A lot of ingenious clueing, albeit with much docking of words. ‘Tef’ was in a dusty corner of the mental attic, and I had no trouble with the rest of the vocabulary, be it English, French or German!

    Favourites were STUD FEE (good surface and cryptic definition), ANCESTORS (nice misdirection), DISARM (great surface), ADAMS APPLE (snigger). I wondered for a while if ’10 winks’ in 15d was a quarter of a nap….

    Although no Glaswegian myself, I did live in Scotland for many years and I agree with cholecyst @6 that the more usual word for ‘child’ in Glasgow is ‘wean’ (pronounced ‘Wayne – a contraction of ‘wee ain’, i.e. ‘small one’) rather than the Norse word BAIRN (‘barn’ in modern Scandiwegian).

  19. Thanks Crucible and Andrew

    Enjoyed this and it took quite a while on and off during the day to get it completed.

    Spent a long time to arrive at STUD FEE and even though I saw the FEE(T) bit, it took about the same time to finally twig to STUD(Y). STUD FEET led to a whole world full of Google that I could have done without !!! Really liked the clue when I finally got it.

    I can remember coming up against TEF before in crosswordland, so it wasn’t a great mystery to parse TEE OFF when I finally gave up on it being ‘run off’.

    The rest of it was less painful and I counted 12 relation type solutions other than 9d which was a fair effort.

    Nice puzzle.

  20. Not St Peter at 29ac, then; the only one I failed on. The stone reference deflected me.

    Thanks Andrew.

  21. Good puzzle overall but marred I thought by some poor clueing. Loose definitions – ‘framed canvas’ for deck chair, ‘loves’ for relationships. Cousin is a relation, not necessarily a relationship, similarly uncle. And since when does ‘displaying’ indicate an anagram? I suspect this started out as a family-themed puzzle until it was realized it didn’t really work with 9dn at the core.

  22. It was good to have a proper challenge for the first time this week, and I enjoyed this one. Found it quite difficult to get started, but I was fairly sure AFFINITY was right so once that led to RELATIONSHIPS the rest started to drop out fairly easily. ELEVEN PLUS was one of my first in (nice to know I remember something from French O level – I can’t follow spoken French at all these days). Last in was ESCHEAT, which was new to me, but it had to be right from the anagram and the crossers. TEF was another new word. Liked STUD FEE, ANCESTORS, GRANDMA, ADAMS APPLE and KINSWOMAN.

    Thanks to Crucible and Andrew

  23. Did one of the early comments get deleted? There are several references above to @5 that seem to refer to the comment @4. I suppose there’s no easy way to fix that…

  24. Very enjoyable, as ever from this setter.

    I never expected to see this many quibbles.

    I don’t think religion is needed to link ARCHITECT with FATHER. They can both mean an instigator or one who originates something.

  25. Thanks Crucible and Andrew
    Late to this today, so most has been said.
    I mentioned yesterday about clues directed to solvers “of a certain age” – ELEVEN PLUS is another example. Although it hangs on in some areas that have retained grammar schools, in most of the country it hasn’t been used for about 40 years.

  26. Hi muffin @25

    “Although it hangs on in some areas that have retained grammar schools, in most of the country it hasn’t been used for about 40 years.”

    That’s one of the things I liked about this clue – ‘it’s not on’!

  27. muffin, I guess that means I’m not quite “of a certain age” yet – my brother (who is 15 months or two school years older) did the Eleven Plus but I missed out!

  28. Hi Muffin @25

    I’m sure you are on to something about ‘a certain age’ and it may be related to the average age of sovers which is I suspect fairly high. Also it probably takes some time for a sportsman to move into the status of ‘legend’ which gives a large number of solvers a better chance of knowing them. At the other pole, many would have been celebrated that bit too long ago to be known to a large proportion of us today.

    One further fact also seems relevant – the names are all short! However I’m sure this is true of several more recent if currently less widely memorable sportsmen.

  29. Nice resource this, thanks to those who run it.

    Re 29 St accepted as an abbreviation for stones? Isn’t that stretching it a bit?

    Personally not a great fan of puzzles where you need to solve one clue to feed into another, but especially when it doubles up i.e. 19 needs 10 which needs 4.

  30. Sillyhat @ 29

    St is an acceptable abbreviation for stones in the imperial weight system 1 st = 14 lb, 1 lb = 16 oz etc

    hth

  32. Well, I finally finished after abandoning it having got about halfway through. I found myself taking stabs at the answers and then working back to the clues which is a bit unsatisfactory. I can’t say I enjoyed it very much but,as I said yesterday we were probably due a stinker after the last two days!

  33. I found this quite straightforward and don’t have any quibbles. I had the most trouble in the NW and it took me a while to get the HANDOUT/UNEARTH crossers. Once I had them I finally got DECKCHAIR, and I thought its cryptic definition of “framed canvas” was excellent.

  34. Thanks all
    I found this very enjoyable and a perfect accompaniment to the athletics.
    I liked 5a,10a,and the lovely distraction in 4d and misdirection in 25 d.
    I was not entirely convinced by ‘essential’ in 2d.
    In 11 can George really justify that more English speakers are aware of Der Spiegel than ‘eleve’, a very early word for all who even started a Frnch course.

  35. RCW @ 34

    If ‘essentially’ in 2D isn’t essential there’s no indicator that you have to take the ‘essence’ of pULp, is there?

  36. Well SS of course somethimg is needed to indicate p(ul)p but I thought essentia;;y was not a good choice. There are several alternatives,

  37. Finished this but somehow found it unsatisfying. Perhaps some of the cluing was a little loose?

    I couldn’t parse ELEVEN PLUS. I did study French up to O’Level and worked on a project for 6 months involving Paris and Poole. This involved a two week immersion French refresher course and 2 months working in Paris. I have also holidayed extensively in France. Yet I managed to never come across ELEVE????

    However 26A is a very fine clue. I bet Paul is furious he didn’t think of it first. 😉

    Thanks to Andrew and Crucible

  38. I am a bit surprised by the many underwhelming comments so far.
    I can see the criticasters’ points, however I cannot see too much wrong with this crossword.

    But what I actually wanted to say is this.
    Andrew says in the blog about 10 ac (AUNT): “A composite anagram (as often found in Azed)”.
    I can tell you, referring to Azed nearly always happens in blogs of this setter’s crosswords.
    Why?
    Because Crucible uses this device in every single one of his puzzles [check out Radian and Redshank too]. In fact, it’s one of his trademarks – so I think we should leave Azed’s name out next time!

  39. Thanks Andrew and Crucible. I’m late to the party, I know, but I’d like to add myself (like Sil) to the pros rather than antis. I thought this was enjoyable and well constructed.

  41. Re 16 across- as a Glasgow born & bred Scot may I point that we do not call our children “bairns”.We refer to them as “Wains”

  42. Lived in Glasgow for 20 years and absolutely no one says bairn. Wean is the word for a young child. Found that spoiled this one for me

  44. Just back from travelling and time for a final word about ‘borders’ as a containment indicator.

    While ‘houses’ (or ‘clothes’) entails a surrounding, ‘borders’ (as a verb) suggests contact on one side only. More like a pat on the head than a hug, if you like.

  45. As one may know I am not a Brit and often mainly relying on dictionaries rather than what people say in everyday life, but, ulaca, my version of Antony Lewis’ WordWeb gives as a possibility: “Enclose in or as if in a frame” , ‘Border a picture’. Moreover, the Chambers Thesaurus gives as possible alternatives for the verb “border’: surround, enclose.
    Even if I see where you (and others) come from, this might perhaps justify Crucible’s choice.

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