Guardian 26,360 – Nutmeg

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This was another of those looks-hard-at-first-but-comes-out-nicely-once-you-get-going puzzles, which is just the kind I like, so thanks to Nutmeg for the entertainment.

For those who missed it, Nutmeg (Margaret Irvine) appeared on Woman’s Hour on Radio 4 last week (with John Halpern, aka Paul), talking about the relative lack of female setters, and about crosswords generally. You can hear the programme here: the item starts at 35′ 24”. (It may not be available outside the UK.)

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. REJOICE Extremely reclusive Irish writer expresses delight (7)
R[eclusiv]E + homophone of [James] Joyce. Nutmeg has already commented on the Guardian site that “expresses” here should be “expressed”. I was worried about rejoice=delight, but I think it works as a verb – “delight in” = “rejoice in”
5. DEHISCE Pop chides unruly issue at last (7)
CHIDES* + [issu]E. A clear clue for a rather obscure word; its main meaning is botanilca, referring to the bursting of seed pods
10,19,9. BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH Announcement of 3.15 warning for statesman? (6,3,4,2,5)
Double definition – 3.15 (in the American style) is the 15th or Ides of March, the day Julius Caesar was warned about by the soothsayer. I got this answer early on, which helped with the clues linked to MARCH at 9, but didn’t make them complete write-ins.
11. SHOUTS DOWN Goes off air across Ohio and stops speaker being heard (6,4)
O in SHUTS DOWN. Ohio is more usually OH, but Chambers gives O as another abbreviation for it
12. FROG Creature that hops and runs in state of uncertainty (4)
R in FOG
14. ALDERMASTON Worthy at one time to go round square to 9 with banners (11)
S TO in ALDERMAN – a worthy “at one time” because, as I didn’t realise, this office was abolished in 1974 (or 1978 in London). The marchers at Aldermaston not only carried actual banners, but wanted to Ban the Bomb.
18. OVEREXPOSED Getting too much coverage or too little? (11)
A double definition wrapped up into one
21. LONG Tedious section of reading no listener recalled (4)
Hidden in reverse of readinG NO Listerner
22. ALL-ROUNDER Result of everyone constantly indulging versatile player? (3-7)
Double definition – if everyone indulges (in food and drink) then ALL will be ROUNDER
25. GOOSESTEP Sulks, going back on silly person’s 9 (9)
GOOSE + STEP
26. BASED Dishonourable duke put in a permanent place (5)
BASE (dishonourable) + D[uke]
27. SLENDER Very small transmitter left inside (7)
L in SENDER
28. DIREFUL Case of failure in sensational comeback calamitous for poet (7)
“Case”, i.e. outside letters, of F[ailur]E in LURID, all reversed. Again a slightly obscure word (labelled “poetic” in Chambers), but easily gettable
Down
1. REMISS Sloppy, rather emotional leaders current in papers (6)
R[ather] E[motional] + I (symbol for electric current) in MSS (manuscripts, papers)
2. JARROW Disagree and dispute origin of 9 (6)
JAR (disagree) + ROW (dispute) for the starting point of a famous march
3. IN HOT WATER Another wait without a ground for it? (2,3,5)
(ANOTHER WAIT)* less A
4. EMBED Setter pulled up part of garden plant (5)
Reverse of ME (setter) + BED
5. DOWNWARDS Lower Guardian’s charges after declining (9)
DOWN (lower) + WARDS (people in the charge of guardians)
6. HARE One 16 stopping another in race (4)
A pair of noble gases: AR (Argon) in HE (Helium)
7. SATURATE Steep charge settled by university at the top (8)
SAT (settled) + U + RATE
8. EMERGENT Budding servicemen put up with toff (8)
Reverse of REME + GENT
13. LANDLUBBER No sailor‘s secure, with late reveller losing head (10)
LAND (secure) + L (late) + [P]UBBER
15. DEPILATOR New politer ad needed for cosmetic cream (9)
(POLITER AD)*
16. NOBLE GAS Unresponsive element of conversation among peers? (5,3)
Double definition
17. BEANPOLE Head getting European support for runner, maybe (8)
BEAN + POLE
20. BRIDAL 9 fit for service? Check sound (6)
Homophone of “bridle” (to check or restrain, as with a horse’s bridle), and a Bridal March is played at a wedding service
23. RAPID Stern of ship blocking invasion fleet (5)
[shi]P in RAID
24. DEAD Challenged right away, turning up late (4)
Reverse of DARED, less R

52 comments on “Guardian 26,360 – Nutmeg”

  1. The ‘march’ theme is extended beyond the clued items. Agree about 1 ac, works fine the way you suggested. Nice work.

  3. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew
    I got GOOSESTEP fairly early on – this gave me MARCH and hence BEWARE THE IDES OF.

    I wasted some time trying to fit OH into 11a – why use something that has an accepted abbreviation that is different from what’s needed? If “first letter” will do, how about “Okinawa” or “Outer Mongolia” (that would have added to the misdirection!)

    I was a little unhappy about 18a. I think the “getting” in the clue more correctly gives “overexposing” or “overexposure” – yes, I know that neither fits – but I suppose the answer is just about OK.

    DEHISCE was my favourite.

  4. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew – I think 13D is Clubber without its first letter rather than pubber which is not a word (I think)!

  5. Thanks Andrew, including for explaining 22A, which was one of several that jumped out but had odd elements – also the Ohio one, and 3D (which had a lovely anagram, but a mysterious “it”). The NW was tricky until I remembered (Paul. last November) DEHISCE. Took about an hour, all pleasurable so thanks Nutmeg.

  6. Yes, I meant to mention that I took “late reveller” to be “clubber”, though yours works as well, Andrew.

  7. [24d reminded me of when Arthur Dent landed on the planet Magrathea. He is met by Slartibartfast, and introduces himself as “Dent, Arthur Dent”. Slartibartfast urges him to come along “or you will be late”. “Late for what?” “Late, as in ‘the late Dent Arthur Dent'”.

    My apologies if this means nothing to anyone else!]

  8. Thanks, Andrew, for the blog and Nutmeg for another great puzzle.

    1ac jumped out at me, too, initially, then I realised that of course it works in the way you suggest.

    Like you, I got THE IDES OF MARCH very early, from the ?D?S in 19dn but it took a little longer to realise that it had nothing to do with hot water depilators!

    I read 13dn as ‘clubber’, too – though I’m more of a pubber myself. 😉

    Lovely surfaces throughout, as usual. Favourite clues: DEHISCE, ALDERMASTON, OVEREXPOSED [I don’t understand muffin’s objection to ‘getting’] and SATURATE.

  9. Eileen @8
    I thought that the “getting” was present tense while “overexposed” was past tense, but I agree that it is perfectly OK to say “X IS overexposed”, so the answer does work.

  10. Thanks, muffin. I was tempted to use your illustration in my comment but I couldn’t decide who to use for ‘X’ – there are plenty of candidates!

  11. muffin @3
    Nutmeg is using a standard abbreviation for Ohio (see Chambers – and fifteensquared blogs passim), not your comical “first letter” system. The answer to the question “why use something that has [another] accepted abbreviation that is different from what’s needed?” is, fairly self-evidently, to make the clue less obvious and if possible mislead a few solvers who can’t see past “OH”. It clearly worked with you, for a while at least.

  12. Apart from the typo in 1ac, Nutmeg is, as usual, entertaining without being what some might call loose or incorrect. (Note ‘servicemen’ for REME.)

    muffin @7 – 24dn reminded me of the expression “She/he would be late for her/his own funeral” One would be very unfortunate not be late at one’s own funeral.

  15. Thanks Nutmeg, a bit tricky in parts even though I got IDES OF MARCH early on.

    Thanks Andrew; I’m another clubber – I can’t find l=late in Collins, Chambers or Oxford, and as Shirley @4 says pubber is not really a kosher word. The ‘sulks’ in 25 is presumably PETS backwards.

    I suppose as O=Ohio is in the BRB it’s allowable although I can’t see when it would be used. OSU, for example, might be Ohio State University but it also might be Oklahoma or Oregon, OH dear! 😉

    Lots of great clues and I especially liked ALL-ROUNDER and DIREFUL for the misdirections.

  16. Thanks, Andrew.

    Another entertaining Nutmeg puzzle. I hadn’t picked up the ‘hidden’ MARCHes, which make the crossword more ingenious that I appreciated.

    I’m with muffin et al on 13d: [C]LUBBER for ‘late reveller’. L = ‘late’ isn’t listed in Chambers as a standard abbreviation on its own. although LL = ‘Late Latin’ does appear. But I disagree that ‘getting’ is ‘present tense’. It isn’t a tense at all – it’s a participle (albeit usually described as ‘present participle’), one of the main functions of which is to form the ‘continuous’ or ‘progressive’ aspect in English. This suggests something which is still happening (there it is!), rather than something which has just started, so someone who is ‘getting too much coverage’ can easily be already OVEREXPOSED.

    Some nice clues here – my favourite was 3d, for its cleverly disguised definition (‘for it’).

    DEHISCE is a lovely word, as far as I know only ever used in a botanical context, and even there is far more often encountered in the form of the adjective ‘dehiscent’. This describes fruits which dry and split open to release the seeds, though not necessarily with a ‘pop’, but some plants, such as the Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera), have fruits which are described as ‘explosively dehiscent’.

  18. Gervase @16
    I agree – I (sort of) retracted at @10

    P.S. what is this odd font that appears when typing a post? (The post, when posted, appears normal – has anyone else seen this difference?)

  19. muffin @18
    Re your P.S. I updated the site software on Sunday evening which might have caused a change. I don’t see any difference so would you please describe the odd font (or better still send me a screenshot) and also let me know which browser you are using when it appears.

  20. muffin @18 This font looks like what an old typewriter would produce. Perhaps it is used on purpose so one does not confuse what one has typed with the Preview Comment?

  21. Took a while to get going but then it all fell into place. Lovely themed puzzle, thank you Nutmeg. Thanks to Andrew too.

  24. Gervase is totally correct about 18ac, although I’m suspicious that given the first sense the clue is a cd plus d, rather than a straight dd.

    An enjoyable solve, and Nutmeg seems very competent.

  25. No one else has mentioned it so I assume I’m just being dim. Why is RATE “at the top” in 7D?

    A fun, clever puzzle that was a little harder for me than normal, but definitely possible to get there in the end. Thanks Nutmeg!

  27. muffin & Cookie
    The text display in the comment box would appear to be browser dependent. In IE11 I get Courier New (with no zero strike-through) whereas in Chrome it is a sans-serif font similar to Verdana/Tahoma/Arial with the modified zero.

    So far as I can remember, I have always seen Courier New in the comment box when using IE.

    If this issue is causing a significant problem please let me know (via the site feedback page rather than this puzzle-related post) and I will investigate further.

  28. For what it is worth I listened to the Woman’s Hour clip. John and Margaret were as good as it was possible to be, given that Ms Murray was clearly working from a script and not listening.

    For example, John gave her an anagram clue (Tutor cut up fish (5)) and then Murray went on to say ‘Now what about anagrams’.

  29. Herewith a grumble.

    I find few cryptics easy and find Nutmeg’s difficult so I don’t join the general chorus of approval when the name appears below a crossword. However, with the help of 15×15 I can usually see the basis of the clue.

    Today’s was different and I gave up about a quarter of the way through. I was unhappy about LONG which, to my mind, does not equate with “tedious” and then came SLENDER which has a different meaning from “very small” and that was it. Yesterday we had CAST as an apparent synonym for “company” and, again, the two words do not equate.

    No doubt, people will rush to Chambers, or whatever, but I find it disturbing when an obscure shade of meaning or an unusual abbreviation is produced from a dictionary as if it was Holy Writ or Das Kapital.

    Perhaps I am missing something but the three words are similar to a deviation on”Just a Minute” and would be dismissed by Nicholas Parsons as “a deviation from English as we generally understand it”.

    I have no objection whatsoever to obscure or specialist words and phrases as long as they are fairly clued; the above examples strike me as meretricious.

    That’s it.

    Light blue touch paper and withdraw…

  31. I would have said the cast is the players and the company is everybody involved in the production but perhaps Chambers says otherwise.

  32. Great puzzle – quite hard for me but almost finished it. Loved IN HOT WATER and LANDLUBBER. Eventually got DEHISCE after much pondering.

  33. I have always taken ‘a slender lead/majority’ to mean a very small one, but then perhaps I (and Collins) have been looking for obscure meanings, deviating from English as we generally understand it.

  34. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew

    A clever multi-dimensional themed puzzle (the unclued ones which passed me by!). Got the 10,19,9 clue quite early too – would have been earlier if I had seen the . instead of a , in between 3 and 15! Impressive that the referred clues were still not gimmes.

    Thanks Gervase for pointing out ‘for it’ in 3d – makes that clue quite ingenious.

    At 16d I had parsed it as GA (General Assembly) in NOBLES – sort of works with the deliberative body described as – an assembly of people for the purpose of unhurried consideration and discussion.

    LANDLUBBER was my last in – and had it as a headless CLUBBER.

  36. If you are “for it” you might be “in hot water” (that’s not “for it” in the sense of “in favour of”!)

  37. Hi Jovis,

    I think context is everything, and setters deliberately, and creatively, encourage our misreading of the context. So, “slender” may not mean “very small” when applied to a person, but what about when qualifying one’s chances or means? Similarly, in certain circumstances, the RSC as an organisation might include the Estates Manager or a secretary in Human Resources, but would these people be comfortable about describing themselves as “Members of the RSC”, as actors do? These ambiguities may mislead us, but it doesn’t mean they’re unfair.

  38. Well I managed it but I admit to finding it rather difficult. I couldn’t get the theme until stumbling on GOOSESTEP and worked backwards from there. The top corner took me some time too and I guessed both SHOUTS DOWN and INHOTWATER-still not happy with the latter. I liked DEHISCE though. So not the most enjoyable puzzle I’ve ever done but perhaps I’m having a bad day!

  41. I think that this is another enjoyable Nutmeg puzzle and it is fairly clued. I missed the additional MARCHes such as FROG, but no surprise there. JARROW was my LOI after REJOICE, and both took me longer than they should have done.

  42. Like some other posters, I missed the ingenious extensions to the March theme. Also the ‘banner’ pun in14a. A delightful puzzle, wittily clued – though I had to rummage around to find dehisce, despite the reasonably obvious parsing thereof!

  43. Thanks all
    Based on my limited experience of Nutmeg I was expecting something tricky but I found this vey easy except for 20d and 28 ac which for some weird reason held me up.
    Was Nutmeg the lady I half heard on Radio 4 recently?

  44. Nutmeg is clearly a masterly setter, as shown by this lovely crossword. I would say that one of the signs of that is that when the ‘secondary definition’ is really easy, she allows herself to have a bit of fun with the definition section – examples being the clues already mentioned for LONG and SLENDER; the clues are so easy that she can stretch the definitions just to the edge of synonymity…which makes the clue more appealing.

    And I loved ‘for it’ = IN HOT WATER, and ‘[garden] plant’ = EMBED.

  45. O for Ohio was common enough in not-so-long-ago times–generally, before the advent of ZIP codes. I grew up in Indiana in the mid-70s through early 90s; the road signs in Indianapolis always told you that eastbound I-70 went to “Columbus, O.” (As distinct from the less well known but far more interesting Columbus, Ind., which is where you wind up if you take I-65 south.)

    OSU is almost certainly going to be Ohio State. While Okie State is also OSU, who the heck calls it that outside Oklahoma? It’s Okie State. As for the Beavers of Oregon State–whatever. If you don’t follow college baseball (and who does?) they don’t matter.

    It’s nice to see a selection of famous marches without Selma being mentioned.

    Incidentally, we do very much still have aldermen here. I live in Chicago; here, “alderman” is the title for a city council member. (Interestingly, they’re aldermen even if they’re women.) So I was a bit surprised to find them listed as no longer extant.

  46. An enjoyable and clever puzzle from Nutmeg.

    I haven’t really enjoyed her earlier puzzles but this was a gem. (Perhaps I’m growing up!)

    Thanks to Andrew and Nutmeg

  48. The clues for LONG and SLENDER are but def plus reversal and def plus container are they not? Or I’m missing something only Limeni seems to spot!

  52. @Paul B – that was exactly my point. They were very simple clues, so the slight obscurity of the definitions which Jovis was objecting to seemed perfectly fair in that context. I was just saying ‘give Nutmeg credit for matching those slightly harder definitions with a very much easier subsidiary def’.     It was a very minor observation. 🙂

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