Guardian 26,571 / Vlad

73 comments on “Guardian 26,571 / Vlad”

1. Thanks Vlad and Eileen

   An enjoyable exercise.

   My one quibble with 3d is that eggs can be sat on for a long time before they hatch. So are “sit on” and “hatch” equivalent?

2. Thanks Vlad and Eileen, I found it hard but fair. Last one in was 24a, where I had to apply internet access to substitute for general knowledge. I was both annoyed and amused that it took me three attempts to solve 1d’s four-letter anagram (HART and THAR were the first two, both demolished by later checkers).

3. I do like to smile when solving and right from the start I was given plenty of opportunities to do so. I am trying hard not to sing 1a but I think I’m losing the fight.

   My favourites would include 1/11a 10a and 13d but I could add others to the list.

   Thanks to Vlad and Eileen.

4. Thanks Vlad and Eileen

   I enjoyed this one, sure it was tough but it was very fairly clued. My only slight quibble is that google gives both TAHRS and THARS as Himalayan goats, so having guessed the wrong one first I stared at 8A for ages, until the fog slowly cleared and I checked the alternative spelling too.

5. PS I don’t think it’s my ISP, but the site does seem to take a lot longer to load since yesterday afternoon, with several timeouts (Firefox on Win7). Is there anything aawry at that end?

6. Another tough one for me – as I mentioned yesterday this has not been a successful or enjoyable week in cryptic crossword land for me! I will certainly remember the names Anto, Otterden, Vlad.

   I failed to solve 14, 4d, 15a, 21a and I am surprised that I got that far because for the most part I solved/guessed the answers and used the ‘check’ button quite a lot, and then tried to parse the answers, and this is not my preferred way to solve a cryptic crossword.

   New for me were FOEMEN and THE WHEELS ON THE BUS. Never heard of Rod Hull.

   I needed help to parse or fully parse 22d (only parsed DIE), 2d (did not know that soldiers = empty beer cans), 19a, 24a, 8a (only got CHAP).

   I still do not understand 4d

   I liked 6d USELESS.

   Thanks Vlad and Eileen.

7. Thanks Vlad and Eileen.

   Fantastic blog, however did Eileen know of Eliot Ness, I wonder if she googled after entering ESSENE ? I needed help with parsing.
   BEER MATS, WILDFOWL, DEMISE and DEAD MEN in particular made me smile; a most ejoyable crossword.

8. Thanks Eileen. I finished is and enjoyed it, but often it was like a text without vowels, still comprehensible, but odd. You have explained the missing bits mostly, so thanks – the EMUL in 15A, the NESS in 24A, the FD in27A, the (to)ME in 4D, the HT in 5D and te RE in 17D. I should labour longer maybe.

9. Kevin @1, the hen does get off her cluctch quite frequently, I guess as often as a couch potato…

10. Cookie @7

    No need for googling this time: I’m old enough to remember this TV series: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Untouchables_%281959-63_TV_series%29

11. Really struggled to start with, but perseverance paid in the end, with some nice ‘aha’ moments. Soap opera was favourite, and not keen on Diego, but thanks to both for a fun morning start.

12. Glad to see most people enjoyed it. I’m off out now until about tea time.

13. Thanks for clarification of parsing.
    I’m OK with 13d as an &lit-ish DBE, having read it as ‘I must dash …’.

14. Eileen @10, thank you. I was so busy studying four science subjects for A-levels then that I rarely found time to watch television (only O-level general science had been taught at my school).

15. Michelle @6

    It’s dead soldiers = empty bottles, however I remember it being dead marines in Australia

    Thanks Cookie @9 but is sit on a synonym for hatch?

16. Re 2d – I’m more familiar with the term ‘dead men’.

17. Kevin @15, a hen with a clutch is called a ‘sitting hen’, but perhaps you have a point, what does the couch potato hatch? Perhaps someone who sits on a committee might hatch a plan…

18. OCED hatch v. 2 tr. incubate, incubate v. 1 tr. sit on. Some thesauri give hatch = sit on.

19. Rod Hull’s getting a fair old work out lately. Isn’t this twice in as many weeks?

20. Thanks Vlad for a good but tough challenge with some super clues.

    Thanks Eileen; at one point I had solved the bottom half with the top completely blank.

    I liked EMULSION, although overseas solvers might have been flummoxed by Rod Hull & Emu (again!) I didn’t know ‘dead soldiers,’ which is not in the BRB or ODE, but is in Collins. As NNI @16 says, ‘dead men’ is a more common expression. BEER MATS was another favourite.

21. I did not know Rod Hull-Emu, did not connect Alexander with Pope, and missed die and go as two “passes,” so that, even though I saw the answers, I needed Eileen’s parsing to understand EMULSION, SOAP OPERA, and DIEGO (and my first reaction in seeing “a long-running programme” is that I’m in trouble if the solution is specific, not generic). However, I do remember Elliot Ness and correctly guessed TAHR. Thanks to Vlad and Eileen.

    “True Wit is Nature to advantage dress’d
    What oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d” (Alexander Pope)

22. Thanks to Vlad and Eileen. Got there eventually although didn’t know 24ac. Struggled in SE corner for a while having persuaded myself that ‘Passes to Maradona’ should be ‘hands’!

23. We loved this but wondered if a definition of epitome was a summary in 4d? E.g. “Aneurin Bevan was the epitome of the Labour Party” is that a summary? Only a nitpick though – thought it was a great puzzle

24. Hi Shirley
    “… but wondered if a definition of epitome was a summary in 4d?”

    I think Eileen probably intended to underline ‘brief summary’ rather than just ‘summary’. From Chambers under EPITOME:

    1. A typical example
    2. A personification
    3. An abridgement or short summary of anything, eg a book
    4. A short or concentrated expression of something

25. Not impressed, too many strained ideas or definitions, dbe here and there, word-order unsatisfactory – all for me, of course. The best clue is 13d which unfortunately also has the sour taste associated with the Guardian crossword’s sexism. I have said it before, but it sits not well in a paper of such integrity.

26. Thanks to Vlad and Eileen. Good fun. And a chuckle with DafyddT @22.

    As someone working in the insurance industry may I make an extremely pedantic point? Acts of God – floods, earthquakes etc – are compensated, though there is a prevailing myth that they are a get out clause. Act of God is actually a legal term to establish whether there is liability (ie Act of (Wo)man) or not (Act of God), which no one could foresee or prevent.

27. I found this harder than any other weekday puzzle this year, and would not have got close to finishing it without the check button. Last in was EMPTIES (annoyingly), and THE WHEELS ON THE BUS didn’t occur to me until very late on probably because the crossers weren’t helpful. Also struggled with ESSENE (at least the E NESS part) and the parsing of EPITOME (I was fixated on WAR AND PEACE just being EPI(c)). TAHRS was new, as was the spelling of CHAPATI and possibly FOEMEN, but these were fairly clued.

    On the whole I think I should have enjoyed this more but was having an off day. Liked DIEGO and THE MISSUS.

    Thanks to Vlad and Eileen.

28. Somewhat impaled on this one, having been lured into a false feeling of self-satisfaction with the week’s first three puzzles. Thanks Eileen for helping make sense of around one-third of the clues, and Vlad for a challenge I couldn’t quite meet. Can’t wait for Monday…

29. Thanks Vlad and Eileen
    When 26a was my FOI (I always do the first pass in numerical order) I thought that I might be in for a struggle. I was, though a very satisfying one, and it all came out fairly easily and entertainingly in the end.
    My favourite was BEER MATS too, Eileen!

30. Given the numbers of times I must have sung it, I can’t believe it took me so long to get 1ac.

31. AndyK @30 – I’m glad I wasn’t the only one!

    muffin @29 – I meant to include BEER MATS in my favourites too

32. I thought that most of this was pretty clever, even the parts I couldn’t get.

    The sole exception was ISAIAH. Even dropping both the H and the R from “eyes higher,” they still aren’t homophones to me. At least in the dialect I speak, the prophet has a long A sound in its second syllable (rhymes with “a player” if you drop the R like they do in hip-hop music ). So that clue was a total fail for me.

33. mrpenney @32
    Interesting – I’ve never heard him pronounced like that. Homophones are so tricky for setters – there is almost sure to be someone for whom they don’t work!

34. It was because the song is not defined properly.

35. HH @34
    What was?

36. muffin @33: Apparently, it’s indeed another trans-Atlantic thing. From the font of all true and correct knowledge, Wikipedia:

    “Isaiah (US /a??ze?.?/ or UK /a??za?.?/)….”

37. Excellent puzzle, and many thanks for blog Eileen.

    Was held up for a bit by putting HANDS in 22d!

38. mrpenney @36 – yes, this must be another example of two countries divided by a common language. I remember the American pronunciation from “The Rake” on “The Hazards of Love” by the Decemberists…

39. Giudice@37, it was the obvious answer.

40. 1a jumped of the page at me for some reason.

    Managed to do 3/4 then came unstuck. Fair and fun puzzle though.

41. Thanks Eileen and Vlad

    A testing but amusing puzzle. I particularly enjoyed 1,11 and 15. ,

42. Shirley @23

    I baulked at the definition of EPITOME, too, and was rather surprised at the Chambers definition. Thanks, Gaufrid, I did mean to underline ‘brief’ [although Collins simply has ‘summary’!].

    I love the alternative ‘hands’ for 22dn but, like muffin, I attempt the clues in numerical order, so it didn’t occur to me by the time I got there.

    I’m afraid the comments on 10ac reminded me of a dreadful joke: “I call my dog Isaiah … because one eye’s ‘igher than the other”.

    I bet those who didn’t remember the song have had an ‘all-day-long’ earworm. It leapt out at me because my grandson in Copenhagen was singing it when I visited. [My son had added a verse about what the grandmas on the bus do.]

43. Will someone please give me an example of following = F?

44. ….very hard to get, muffin.

45. jeceris @43

    You might see it used when referring to the pages of a book: see e.g. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/f.

46. Thanks Eileen and Vlad (I did not realise this was Tyrus by another name, though the style did seem pleasingly familiar).

47. I was lucky enough to test-solve this. I thought it was super. I particularly loved THE MISSUS and CHESTNUT.

48. Praise from Tramp is praise indeed. I humbly agree.

49. I thought this was great, too. Thanks Eileen and Vlad.

    I was off to an instant start with the WHEELS … BUS (pace AndyK and beery hiker @ 30, 31); but then stopped, apart from a couple of others, first time through. Steady progress to the finish thereafter.

50. Well, I’m glad so many of you enjoyed this because I hated it. I’ve enjoyed previous puzzles by this setter but I couldn’t get on with it at all. I didn’t understand TREMULOUS,HONEST and UP TO. I’ve never heard of Mourinho and only dimly remembered Maradona. If it hadn’t poured with rain today I’d have worked in the garden! Not pleased.
    Mind you NAMETAG and USELESS were rather good.

51. Eileen “The Mummies on the bus go text text text” is a recent addition. What do the grandmas do?

52. This was a real struggle for me, but I expect Friday puzzles to make me work hard. There was a lot of (more or less) educated guessing and checking – also a lot of retrospective parsing leading to “Aha!” moments. I too remember “The Untouchables”, which let me parse ESSENE. Some others were only partially parsed, though. Thanks for the elucidation, Eileen, and thanks to Vlad for the mental workout.

53. Well, that shows how befuddled this puzzle left me – it’s Thursday, of course, not Friday! Perhaps rather too hard for today, in that case.

54. jennyk @53
    I generally find Thursday’s harder than Friday’s – I suspect that the editor wants to put us in a good mood for the weekend!

55. Solutions hewn out eventually, so a very satisfying solve.
    Not sure the reversal is accurately defined in 24a, (unless the Eastern E refers to the first one?)
    Also couldn’t work out parsing of 14d because I was taking OPERA to refer to the opera Alessandro (Alexander).
    Revolutionary song was penultimate solution.
    Lots of aha moments (including tantamount namecheck of 20d)
    Thanks to Vlad & Eileen

56. Vlad is becoming a favourite. Neat clues and interesting words and phrases like The Wheels on the Bus (favourite clue) which is a really good example of using cryptic definitions in a minimal way without losing the surface or making the clue too vague.

57. marienkaefer @51
    Sorry, I’ve been out again – but I couldn’t possibly say, anyway. 😉

    nametab @ 55
    I see now that my ‘+ E’ in 24ac is ambiguous: it could be taken as indicating the last E but I meant to imply a reversal of the whole wordplay: E NESS Eastern. I also thought that ‘on’ could mean ‘after’ but, in either case, it would be the first E that was clued by ‘eastern’.

    [I thought you would like 20dn. 😉 ]

58. I quite liked this. Fairly clued for the most part.

    I hadn’t heard EPITOME in the sense of a brief summary before but once the crossers where here EPIC TOME became obvious.

    My only concern was 10A which doesn’t seem to have an indicator for the “near homophone”. (Please don’t say “told” is doing double duty!!)

    I didn’t find this as difficult as some seem to have. Probably because I’m old enough to remember Rod Hull & Emu, The Untouchables with Eliot Ness on late night TV and Diego “Hand of God” Maradona.

    Thanks to Eileen and “The Impaler”

59. Yes, I second all the compliments to Vlad The Compiler and look forward to many more.

    A thoroughly enjoyable and stimulating solve.

    Many thanks one and all.

60. Brendan @58

    I confess I dithered over how to blog 10ac and decided that it was one of those clues where the intention is obvious and left it ambiguous. I feel vindicated by the fact that there were almost exactly twelve hours and fifty seven comments before it was queried. [And it made me laugh.]

61. Eileen @60

    I wasn’t querying your blog just the clue. (I very rarely read the blogs anyway but just the reactions to the puzzle.)

    My opinion is that it does require an indicator. I guess that many solvers, like myself, saw the “told” and thought that was indicating the “near homophone”.

    However a second look made me believe that this was not the case and that the “told” is a definite part of the definition.

    I just thought I’d throw this thought in to the discussion to see what others thought.

62. Thanks all
    I rarely complain but I did write in ” thar” as given for Himalayan goat, which led to failure in the NE corner.

63. Brendan @61

    “(I very rarely read the blogs anyway but just the reactions to the puzzle.)”

    Thank you. I have no answer to that – but I’ll bear it in mind.

64. I found it easier to complete today’s Tyrus than this one.
    In fact, we couldn’t (fully) find , er, 1/11 – also failed on 24ac.
    If you’re not familiar with the song (like I am) then the second bit could only be a guess (‘the wheels of the gun’?).
    Yes, I lost the game here to Vlad but I don’t like these kind of (cd) clues anyway.
    Too much general knowledge, not sufficiently supported by something cryptic.

    That said, as a whole this was really impressive and very very enjoyable.

    One thing in particular caught the eye today.
    It’s only Vlad’s second Guardian puzzle and he gave us already a full-blooded Guardianism (in 16ac).
    This is surely not something Tyrus would have done, probably hadn’t been allowed to do in The Independent.
    One of his secret desires? 🙂

    Thanks Eileen.

65. Thanks to Eileen for the very nice blog and others for their comments.

    Not sure 10ac is a ‘near homophone’. ‘Told (to)’ is the indicator, ‘commonly’ suggests the dropped aitch.

66. Hi Vlad, thanks for dropping in.

    I only questioned the “told to” as an indicator because of it’s positioning firmly within the phrase “Commonly told to look up” perhaps making the clue a DD. I found it hard to isolate the “told” or “told to” from the “definition”.

    I always say near homophone as usually these types of clues include words like hears, sounds like, on the radio etc. This suggests what was received and not what was transmitted. It’s quite rare that a clue is a homophone of the wordplay. (Almost impossible anyway with dialects) In fact in this case “Eyes ‘igher” would almost always have an “r” sound at the end whereas this is not the case with Isaiah.

67. Hi Brendan,

    Think speakers who dropped the ‘h’ probably wouldn’t be too punctilious about pronouncing the ‘r’ at the end. Often a grey area with homophones though.
    Cheers.

68. Brendan @66, Received Pronounciation does not typically use r’s at the end of words, i.e. what used to be called BBC English, non-regional.

69. Apologies, Vlad, we crossed. Thanks again for the puzzle.

70. Vlad @67 and Cookie @66

    Last word on this but I had to respond.

    In the North of England where I hail from most people will almost completely ignore “h”s at the beginning of words but are extremely punctilious with “r”s at the end.

    That would be well over 10 million lost souls who refuse to speak a bizarre dialect that happened be adopted by the BBC! 😉

71. Brendan @70, I am pretty sure that even if it were a rhotician sergeant-major on the parade ground shouting the ‘r’ would be dropped, especially if in the past he had had a non-regional speaking sergeant major over him. Try shouting “eyes-higher” and see, but take care of your tonsils if you still have them.

72. The “Isaiah”/”Eye’s ‘igher” homophone is surely a particularly safe one as it’s already a famous joke. You can’t pretend it isn’t already in the language, whatever your own pronunciation (mine is certainly different).

73. Thanks Vlad and Eileen

    What a super puzzle … I haven’t done his first Guardian one yet, so this was my first look at him. It was certainly tough, but one where you wondered why it was on reflection.
    ASKS and DIEGO (where the first thought was trying to remember his given name – only thought of his ‘hand of god’ later) were the first couple in.

    THE WHEELS ON THE BUS (clever) and FOEMEN (hadn’t seen this before) were the last couple in. Had to google Hull and emu (again!) to reacquaint myself to the comedian. Didn’t get the homophone at all with ISAIAH which is unusual for me (think that I’d be saying it as “I say uh”) – but can see where the clue is going.

    Had gone with the Pope Alexander(s) rather than the poet – done that before I think.

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