Guardian 26,605 by Screw

90 comments on “Guardian 26,605 by Screw”

1. Thanks flashling and Screw

   Odd experience. A swathe from the SW to NE was virtually a write-in, but the NW and SE were quite a different matter. 10d was easy when I had a 2-letter word starting in E. 1d raised a chuckle. I liked DWARF as well, for the misleading definition.

   I don’t see how the first definition in 5d works, and I missed “date” = “on” in 7d.

   I don’t like WANNA, either as a clue or as a word.

2. thanks Flashling and Screw.

   I’d been looking forward to the blog to clear up a couple of doubts, which it has, mostly, though I’m still in the dark as to 1,18d.

   I parsed 7d differently: ONE + D(ate) + “leads” to G(ood) E(vening)

3. @muffin, just re-arrange the words a bit for 5d to make more sense

4. Oh, I see, flashling – thanks. I was misinterpreting “this”.

5. Thanks, flashling. Great fun. I agree with Stella about ON EDGE. Also, LEGATO is an exchange of the 1st and 3rd letters.

6. Oh, and I had Good Evening as well – it was the ONED that I didn’t understand.

7. I didn’t like WANNA either. I’m not familiar with W as an abbreviation for work, though I suppose I should go and check Chambers before complaining.

8. Yes, I thought LIKE for PRIZE was a bit weak. Also, ROO is used for all kangaroos, regardless of age. A young kangaroo is generally referred to as a joey.

   I wonder if “1/3 exchange” actually means “swap the first and third letters” rather than “move a third of the letters around.” I would normally expect “a third” to refer to adjacent letters in a word.

   Overall, a nice challenge though.

9. Jason
   “I’m not familiar with W as an abbreviation for work, though I suppose I should go and check Chambers before complaining.”

   It’s not in Chambers but it is in Collins as symbol used in physics.

10. I can echo Stella Heath @2. (Maybe I have a screw loose, but I just don’t see the relevance of 1/18?)

    Also, in 16d, I thought the udder came from (j)udder, which is just as valid and possibly more elegant as only one letter gets knocked off the top. Whatever, the double use of shake had me shaking with laughter (and admiration).

11. Phew! Thank you flashling, found that tough.

    What do you think the ‘in’ is doing in 1ac? Seems to be needed only for the surface.

    In WANNA, why is work = W? Chambers gives week, wife or with but not work. Do you think it was supposed to be W = Watts? But that’s power, not work.

    in ROOFTOPS, why is roo = young kangaroo? I can’t find that anywhere and thought it was just an Aussie abbreviation.

    Same misgivings as you on LANGUAGE, and being a bit dim with ‘cakes’ as the inclusion indicator.

    Don’t quite see the USA reference in AERIALIST. Is it a US spelling? I thought this was how we spelled the word, too.

    Thought LEGATO & ARENA were brilliant, and UNGRATEFULLY made me chuckle.

    Thank you, Screw, for the fun and style.

12. Gaufrid @9 Is it really? Fair enough – never seen it myself and I work in that medium.

13. I’m not really sure why, but I found the HS most difficult to complete, especially the SW corner. I failed to solve 19d (clever!) and I could not parse 26a & 1a. New phrase for me was READ EM AND WEEP.

    My favourites were 13a and 2d.

    I parsed 7d in the same way as Stella Heath @ 2.

    Stella @ 2, re 1, 18d – does this help? how’s your father Brit. informal used euphemistically to refer to sexual intercourse. / and screw = [ in sing. ] vulgar slang, an act of sexual intercourse.

14. I thought of an altogether different type of congress, flashling, I’m sorry to say.
    And I had the “w” of WANNA as short for “with”.
    When I finished this puzzle, which I enjoyed, I thought to myself : this will not be everyone’s cup of tea.
    Thanks to Screw and to flashling.

15. Technically the symbol for “work” in physics is lower case w,as it isn’t a state function. Fortunately crosswords don’t make a distinction between cases.

16. I agree with William @ 11 – I thought that the “from USA” in 14a was unnecessary – but maybe someone can explain why it is there?

    As an Australian, I agree that a roo is a kangaroo and a young kangaroo is a joey – so “newish” was unnecessary in 25a

17. Just wondering if ROO for Kangaroo, is just a relatively recent usage, hence newish?

18. Stella @2 This may give you another insight but I’m not sure I believe it!

19. Thanks Michelle @13, you’re quite right, of course! I left the UK a naive 21-year-old, and had forgotten the idioms 🙂

20. I thought the w in WANNA is simply short for “with”.
    And I had another congress in mind.
    Thanks to flashling and Screw.
    I tried to post this earlier, but my comment seems to have been swallowed- if it gets regurgitated later, sorry for the double posting

21. “Roo” has been a lot longer than I have.

22. flashling @16 To my knowledge, roo for kangaroo has been around for decades, the question is whether roo = young kangaroo has recently arrived. Perhaps an Aussie will confirm.

23. On “How’s your father”, this may be more apposite:

    http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-how1.htm

    Thanks flashling and Screw

24. I’m new(ish) here and have never stuck my head above the parapet before, but perhaps Roo refers to A A Milne’s little kangaroo in the Winnie the Pooh stories.

25. Also, thank you very much for this blog and everyone here who has helped me learn how to do cryptics. ????

26. The ????s were meant to be a smiley face. You can tell I’m new. Sorry.

27. Welcome The Dude Abides, a simple text smiley will work 🙂 but graphical ones don’t.

28. Thanks for the blog flashling – your easy starter was one of my last (plus I needed your help to parse it). So, that’s me put in my place 😉

    I failed today on WANNA and LEGATO, mainly due to not reading and parsing the clues properly, and also KIRIBATI (well, I had help from Mr Google) but as I’m rubbish at geography I’m claiming that last one. There were a good number of easy starters but it still provided enough of a challenge for me. Favourites included HOW’S YOUR FATHER, TALENT, LEGATO, newish bouncer and Daisy’s capacity (along with the double shakes). LIKE/PRIZE did seem a bit of a stretch but if you prize something then you value or like it.

    Re AERIALIST – Collins has it as a mainly US word. Along with W for work perhaps Donk/Screw prefers Collins to Chambers?

    Thanks Screw.

29. I agree with The Dude Abides @23 in thinking that Screw, being young, had Kanga and Roo in mind, for which suggestion flashling has raised the Dude to Dukedom.

    I am still struggling with parsing…

30. That was a real struggle. I did get ORANG, but couldn’t fully parse it. I hadn’t seen “cakes” as an indicator for a hidden answer before and it still doesn’t feel right. I also failed to parse the FUL in UDDERFUL or the last part of ROOFTOPS, though both seems obvious now. I’m not keen on “prize” for LIKE. I hesitated for a while over LEGATO/GELATO, though I did eventually make the right choice. I parsed ON EDGE in the same way as Stella @2.

    My favourites are UNGRATEFULLY, ARENA,HEADINESS and READ ‘EM AND WEEP.

    Thanks to Screw and flashling.

31. Thanks flashling. I regret to say I needed you for far too many solutions.

    Screws (despite showing some humour) has now succeeded in replacing Pasquale at the bottom of my favourite setter’s list

32. William @11

    I think AERIALIST referring to trapeze and rope work high in the big top is (or was originally) a US term. I’ve only heard it on US TV shows and Collins gives it as “(mainly US”).

33. This was far from the easiest of Guardian puzzles but it was an excellent challenge and I was able to complete it without resort to aids so I’ve got no quibbles about any of the cluing. It took me a while to see LIKE=prize for the last part of DREAMLIKE, and it was only after I’d entered it that I was confident enough to enter the vaguely remembered KIRIBATI as my LOI.

    ClaireS@27 – I think flashling was joking when he said 1ac was easy, hence the smiley at the end of the comment. It certainly took me a while to see it.

34. Thank you Flashling @ 26 🙂

35. Indeed Andy B 🙂

36. AndyB @32 & flashling – yes, I was teasing too 🙂

37. Andy @31 made me look again at 1ac. I think the parsing could be “dress in” = DON (to dress in your best clothes would be to don them) as otherwise, as William pointed out @11, “in” serves no purpose other than (perhaps) smoothing the surface.

38. Thanks Screw and flashling.

    Yes, I certainly had to HOLD ON for quite a while at 1a; like jennyk @37 I used ‘dress in’ = DON, but why has ‘Next’ a capital letter ?

    ARENA, LEGATO, HEADINESS, UDDERFUL and UNGRATEFULLY were really good.

39. jennyk @32 re AERIALIST, yes, I think you must be right, it doesn’t sound like a Brit word but I would have expected our Cousins to have dumped the e…they often tend to with other ‘ae’ type words. If you are a Cuz, I bow to your superior knowledge.

    Re your comment on prize = like it jarred with me too initially but then I reasoned that something highly prized must also be liked, so decided it was fair

40. A lot to enjoy. The grammar in 5 seems off… Fiddles comedian has got into would be correct but too easy. Don’t like wanna mainly because I didn’t get it 😉 I look forward to more from Screw.

41. Cookie @38 I think the capitalized ‘Next’ is to make it look like the chain store and help the surface.

42. Thanks Screw, challenging, particularly as I’ve never heard of ‘read ’em and weep’ – I obviously didn’t have enough of a misspent youth.

    Thanks flashling; I notice with 11 you have put ‘is engineered.’ I was once carpeted by a crossword editor for putting ‘schools’ as an anagrind at the end of a clue. Is (the fodder) ‘engineers’ strictly incorrect? Perhaps you or some other erudite people could advise. I took the ‘in’ in 1A as just a filler.

    I liked SHAKE A LEG and a number of others.

43. William @40, thanks, I have never heard of that chain store.

44. Found this very entertaining – tricky to get started, but with a few helpful crossers it gave way quite easily, though I didn’t check all of the parsings. The “nice gentle givaway” was last in! Liked SHAKE A LEG, TALENT and KIRIBATI

    Thanks to Screw and flashling

45. I found this puzzle very difficult. I did eventually get solutions but often without the parsing. Thanks to Screw for the challenge and flashling for the explanations.

46. Was I the only one to put in “HORNINESS” instead of “HEADINESS”? My mind…

47. Cookie @42

    Next is a clothing store, so it fits the theme of that clue.

    William @39

    I’m a lifelong Brit, so I’ve no special knowledge of the usage of the term in the US. In my youth, we saw tightrope walkers and trapeze artists, but I don’t remember anyone being called an AERIALIST. I associate the term with those big Las Vegas shows (again, seen only on TV), though Cirque du Soleil is actually Canadian in origin. As for why the AE is retained, American spelling is a mystery to me. 😉

48. I regret to say that I got about half a dozen on the first pass, and very few thereafter. When this happens, I use the cheat button to get the answers and see what I’ve missed. Today even when presented with the answers, I reaslised that I would never have got it. So I think Screw will never be my favourite setter, simply because I can’t solve his puzzles and therefore can’t appreciate his work. But others have enjoyed it, so over to them. I will keep trying, but I don’t have all day to ponder a daily cryptic.

49. I have to stop the duplication message.

50. I felt this was ridiculously difficult, the reason being it’s not very well put-together.

    9a work=w somewhere, I imagine, and the answer is not a proper word; 11a answer also dodgy, definition I don’t like much, indicator tense I don’t like either; 13a not sure about the def; 17a oh dear, farting in the laddish Guardian, also don’t like the indicator tense again; 20a ‘to’ seems dead; 21a the apostrophe must equal IS or HAS, neither works in the grammar as is for me; 25a FTOP slammed together unfairly for me; 1,18d don’t really get it; 2d don’t get it; 3d it might swing BY? Under some circumtances I guess!; 6d why ‘previously’?; 7d ‘leads to’ I don’t get. Is it the grammar that’s wrong?; 10d I don’t really know that def for the answer word; 16d I don’t feel the SH can be removed for ‘toplessly’; 19d the indication is for the birds, don’t know how you would deduce it.

    Not a good solve.

51. Like many, I found this hard (especially for a Tuesday!) and slangier than I really like. But got there in the end and mostly enjoyed the struggle. Thanks, Screw and flashling.

52. @hedgehoggy (sh)udder would be better as (j)udder, I’ll fix that.

53. hh @50

    “6d why ‘previously’?”

    Because HAS* comes before KEG*, though that interpretation might require a second anagrind?

    “7d ‘leads to’ I don’t get. Is it the grammar that’s wrong?”

    GE are the ‘leads’ to “good evening”.

    “16d I don’t feel the SH can be removed for ‘toplessly'”

    As Blaise suggested @10, and flashling now agrees, “judder” rather than “shudder” (though I originally parsed it as “shudder” too).

54. I agree with The Dude about Roo. Newish then makes perfect sense – although the character is a baby, the books are decades old.
    One very slight parsing point: I had ALE in KEG preceded by (HAS)* in 6.
    I was hoping to come here to find that there was more to 2 than a CD. Seemed a bit weak, as is. Lots of goodies more than made up for this. 10a, 13, 8 and 22 were my favourites.

    Thanks, flashling and Screw

55. That was a wild ride and I fell off near the end. Thanks Screw,and flashling for more than a few parses, eg “you shouldn’t have, ‘ which doesn’t sound like much of a thank you to me. Given the theme, LANGUAGE seemed too lame to be correct, almost a disappointment.

    I parsed ON EDGE as ‘a’=ONE plus the initial letters of Date, Good Evening with ‘leads’ moved along to smooth the surface.

    I’ve always associated ‘aerialist’ with the daredevils who strap themselves to the upper wing of a biplane in old time airshows (unique to the US, perhaps?). It might explain ‘Top’ in the clue.

56. phitonelly @53

    “I had ALE in KEG preceded by (HAS)*”

    which resolves my query @53 about a second anagrind. I think that was actually how I originally parsed it.

57. That was a hell of a workout, but almost got there.

    BarryR@46: In 23a I had SCARINESS which seemed OK, but set me back a bit.

    Some excellent but difficult clueing. Favourites were UNGRATEFULLY, ORANG, YOUNG LADY and MIDST. Thanks to Screw and flashling.

58. jennyk @56

    Sorry not to address your comment directly. I didn’t see it because I failed to refresh before posting 🙂

59. 6d ah yes I had ‘keghas’ as the anagram material.

    7d Isee it is supposed to be ‘a date’ = ONE D which is another of ‘those’ indications. The blog has it wrong at the moment.

    ‘Judder’ yes, also., but the ambiguity is confusing.

    A very bitty puzzle at best.

60. phitonelly @58

    No need to apologise. 🙂

61. Sorry, on a train, won’t be able to correct 7d or anything else for a few hours.

62. Checking in late–and apparently more than the usual number have commented.

    American tightrope walkers, trapeze artists, and so on are certainly called aerialists, but the word is not a common one here—probably it’s not appreciably more common than it is in the UK.

    We do drop, in many situations (mostly medical ones) one of the two vowels in a Latin ligature. Orthopedist, hemophilia, diarrhea, etc. The vowel dropped is the one that’s not pronounced. But if both vowels affect the pronunciation, both stay. So, in “aerialist,” both vowels are needed, since “arialist” would be pronounced with a short a.

    American spelling isn’t a mystery—we spell things closer to the way they’re pronounced. Plow rather than plough; draft rather than draught, theater rather than theatre, realize rather than realize, color rather than colour. All of these changes seem perfectly sensible to me.

    Anyway, I’m off to drink a draft beer while I wait for my husband to come back from the orthopedist. (Well, no, not really–though that really IS where he’s at right now.)

63. I wait though not with any great anticipation for the time when the talented and witty Guardian setters work through their sex and toilet obsessions. Know what I mean? Nudge,nudge,wink,wink. Its tedious, often sexist and long past its sell by date. If I were to use any of the words that they teasingly hint at in a comment, I feel sure that I would not win any approval for my amusing vulgarity.

64. I came to this quite late in the day not expecting it to take much time-HAH! I thought this rather an oddity because some of it was easy- DWARF, SHAKE A LEG,BREAKING WIND-while others seemed very difficult. I,too, had HORNINESS for 23ac before seeing the real answer and,annoyingly, this was a very good clue. Unlike WANNA which I didn’t get having opted for WANDA which, of course, doesn’t work but I couldn’t think of anything else. A lame excuse I know.
    Not a bad puzzle but not a god one either.
    Thanks SCREW-I think!

65. we spell things closer to the way they’re pronounced

    Ha ha! When is Websters going to stop having tune as an entry and have mih for mirror or tehst for terrorist?

    English in any form has no logical way of spelling it, Noah Webster probably made things worse.

66. Can someone please explain what on earth 10D is supposed to mean?

67. Re 10d, sorry didn’t think I needed to expand on that. When card players know they have their opponent beaten usually by a long way, it’s a common cry. Look at my hand any cry your heart out. Give me all your money and go home crying to mummy because the big scary man beat you senseless.

68. And not any grr, sorry can’t edit stuck in London cos some idiot has jumped in front of a train.

69. The more I look at on edge the more I prefer the other explanation, still think mine works but expect screw meant the majority decision.

70. When is Websters going to stop having tune as an entry and have mih for mirror or tehst for terrorist?

    Here in the U.S.A., “mirror” is a two-syllable word, since here in the U.S.A., we pronounce our R’s, as God and Shakespeare intended. 😛 I admit, the middle R is phonetically unnecessary.

    But anyway, I said “closer to.”

    Webster wanted to make many more changes than he did; not all of them stuck. (Notably, he wanted to replace “ph,” wherever it occurred, with “f.” Even Americans weren’t down with that.)

71. mrpenney @70

    “Mirror” is a two-syllable word in England too, just a different second syllable. 😉

72. I think ROO in 25A does refer to Roo as in Kanga and Roo in the Winnie the Pooh stories. At least, that is how I parsed it as Roo is Kanga’s offspring. Loved 17A. But do not understand the parsing for 2D. I read congress as something sexual!!! 🙂

73. I finished this but the jury is still out. On balance I think there were more minuses than plusses for me.

    Some clues were amusing but on the whole I found the cluing style very clumsy. For instance I didn’t like “contest place” or “grate fully” for “prepare all the cheese”. I’m also still not sure why 1/3 should indicate 1 and 3. (Unfair misdirection perhaps)

    I’d never heard of “Read em and weep” and I suspect I was one of many thousand! So not sure this is “fair”.

    I suspect that a bit of editorial advice could have much improved this puzzle.

    Thanks to flashling and Screw.

74. I have never read a more distasteful comment than ” some idiot has jumped in front of a train ” Shameful

75. This comment probably far too late for anybody to notice but I only settled down to this after dinner. I didn’t like it, having marked several clues with a question mark because the parsing seemed iffy. Coming here, seems I’m not the only one!

    I didn’t however find it particularly difficult. Since I often struggle on puzzles that others find a simple workout, perhaps it’s just my turn to have a good day. Didn’t stop a failure though at WANNA, which I had as WANDA = girl, parsing it as ‘w and a’ ie ‘wa’ which I presumed must be the start (short) of a word meaning ‘wish to work’. Cobblers obviously but seemed reasonable in the circumstances.

76. Late to the party but was determined to find 10d. The best I could come up with was ‘Read it and weep’, but that screwed up ‘ungratefully’ to ‘ungraciously’; wordplay didn’t work so I gave up. Good fun, though.

77. Thanks Screw and flashling

    Ilippu @ 76

    I went even more French originally, with UNMERCIFULLY, which screwed things up even more for a while!

78. I wasn’t going to bother posting today as everything has been said, but there seems to be a degree of mystery about “read ’em and weep”.

    Robi, you were right, not enough of a mis-spent youth! It comes from poker. Given that poker has been on TV channels pretty much globally for a few decades, and is nowadays fairly widely played as well, the related jargon is just as much fair game as other global but specialist interests. It’s another example of one person’s general knowledge being another person’s black hole.

79. Thanks to Screw and flashling. Have said “read ’em and weep” in a previous poker playing life.
    Was unfamiliar with KIRIBATI. Favorite was DWARF.

    Cheers…

80. A couple , commented on, I failed to parse, my shortcomings I feel. Thanks to Flashling and Screw

81. Thanks flashling and Screw. I enjoyed this, mostly. However, re 9A (WANNA), my take is that offbeat answers should have unambiguous wordplay – not the case here. But I really liked UDDERFUL!

82. DL @78

    Given that poker has been on TV channels pretty much globally for a few decades, and is nowadays fairly widely played as well,……

    That astounds me! Several decades globally on TV! There was me thinking it had only appeared on our screens in the last few years with the bizarre sudden popularity of “Stud” poker. I thought these programs were only on late night and usually on the more esoteric channels. In fact I thought this craze for a dull gambler’s game had run its course as the only person who ever mentions the game now is Victoria Coren Mitchell.

    How wrong could I be as apparently poker is now a global media phenomenon 😉

83. Thanks Screw and flashling

    Have only done one other crossword by Screw and found this one slightly easier – but that other one was tough. It was almost a theme of normal and innuendo-ish slang throughout the clue surfaces and answers.

    Took my final parsing run through to change the unparsed UNGRACIOUSLY back to my original parsed GRATEFULLY after finding the poker phrase and changing IT to ‘EM. Also was able to realise that GELATO needed to be LEGATO – I took 1/3 to be cricket parlance and therefore 3 for 1 (or the Aussie way 1 for 3) exchange.

    The gimme HOLD ON was my last in and still remained unparsed before coming here. Didn’t have issue with prize = LIKE at 21.

    Lots to like here … and look forward to more.

84. You should check your facts before you think Brendan, although I was admittedly 3 years premature with the s on decades, I was talking round numbers. Late Night Poker hit the Channel 4 screens in 1997, hardly the last few years. The game televised isn’t called Stud either. The number of players entering the big tournaments that get televised has also, far from running it’s course, has increased hugely year on year. The number of broadcast tournaments hasn’t exactly declined either.

    Still, you keep living in your dull ivory tower, and don’t bother about facts, they aren’t really relevant to ivory towers are they?

85. I thought this the best of Screw’s offerings so far – still a sense of trying too hard to be clever, mainly evidenced by a few forced surfaces – but a very enjoyable solve overall. OTOH whilst old-style crosswordiness (in surfaces) is deprecated by most people I do think that it can be used for humorous effect from time to time – but it needs to be handled carefully.

    ROO I had the same problem with as others – I can see that the Winnie the Pooh character might literally explain it but even then “newish” is rather odd.

    READ EM AND WEEP I didn’t know as such but it came to mind as a result of a comment made along time ago in an article regarding the poor quality of daily newspapers in Australia – which was partly put down to the fact that they were state-based – effectively state capital based – ie single city newspapers – ie as opposed to being national like those in the UK. Murdoch’s pride and joy The Australian, which he launched, was supposed to be the first national quality.

    “Read one and weep” I was advised by the writer. At the time I didn’t twig the allusion.

    So finally now I do.

    Many thanks to setter and blogger.

86. I am clearly in a minority but I thought this crossword was horrible.

    I didn’t like the lavatorial 17ac – an early solve – and then 24ac bothered me. Am I missing something or is it making a DWARF a butt of humour?

    I eventually realised that a two-letter word beginning with ‘e’ was going to be EM but had never heard of the phrase.

    By the time I had three clues left in the NW corner I couldn’t care less whether the solution was ‘Wanda’ or whatever, went on to the site and was amazed by the chorus of praise.

87. DL @84

    I thought “decades” seemed a little OTT!

    If my ivory towwer is “dull” I hate to think what it would be like with the introduction of poker! Mindless is the first word that occurs to me. I know you’ll probably starting spouting about how a good poker needs to know a lot about probability but in fact he/she only has to learn a few tables by rote! After all it’s only a glorified game of Cheat.

    When I lived in Belgium nearly all bars had a set of normal and poker dice with a very nice baize lined box to throw them into. I was introduced to several really entertaining and skillful games involving the numbers dice. However they did play a kind of cheat poker dice. Nobody would ever consider playing this until later on when enough “pintjes” had been consumed and people’s brains weren’t up to real games of skill!

    What’s wrong with Bridge?

    Anyway I’m back up to my garret to polish the ivory. (Don’t worry it was built before the 1940s so complies with Cites.)

88. Too much sloppy clueing and silly schoolboy smut. I’m with Tom Hutton and Jovis. Get rid of the Max Miller mindset please. This is 2015.

89. Thanks Screw: crude but effective! Wanna say I spotted them all, but I couldn’t see past Wanda for 9ac, even if I couldn’t make “work” work.

    Oddly enough, 1dn was first in for me, and as that set the tone for 17ac and others, it helped get me on Screw’s wavelength..

    Some pleasures here, including smooth ice cream, grated cheese and memories of weeping at card games in younger days.

90. Re ROO

    Pure coincidence I should think but Beachcomber mentioned this recently:

    http://www.express.co.uk/comment/beachcomber/586061/Beachcomber-98-years-old-and-still-as-trojan-as-a-horse

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