Guardian 26,703 – Imogen

by

Good-quality stuff from Imogen. In the reverse of my usual pattern I started off quite quickly, with the help 1a and 1d coming early, but had a few problems later on, especially in the SW corner. A couple of quibbles I thought I had when solving turned out to be unjustified after a look at Chambers. Thanks to Imogen.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. JOINED-UP WRITING Went for private piece by author that is not printed (6-2,7)
JOINED UP (i.e. joined the army, so “went for private”, as in the expression “he went for a soldier”) + WRITING (piece by author)
9. ROSEHIP Replaced gold vessel filled with English fruit (7)
OR “re-placed” + E in SHIP
10. IMPLORE Devilish traditions appeal (7)
IMP + LORE
11. SOL Very large note (3)
SO L[arge] – Sol or Soh is the fifth note in the tonic sol-fa scale
12. REGULATIONS Goalie turns out to make the rules (11)
(GOALIE TURNS)*
13. LANCASHIRE An available sum in foreign money no use here? (10)
AN + CASH in LIRE – the definition is perhaps a bit weak
15. SEAM Join the main mass (4)
SEA + M
18. MYTH Story young girl lisped (4)
A lisped version of “miss”
20. FREE PARDON Divorced, eh? Good news for one in for the long term (4,6)
FREE (divorced) + PARDON (eh?) – someone serving a long prison term would be glad of it
23. FIN DE SIECLE Elegantly decadent discovery: unnamed licensee has been sacked (3,2,6)
FIND + LICENSEE* less N
25. FEE Charge less than the whole meal allowance (3)
FEE[D] – again, I was worried about how “feed” was defined, but Chambers gives “an amount or allowance of food given eg to babies or to cattle”
26. AGELONG Ancient European expelled from a Victorian city (7)
A + GEELONG minus one of its Es – I was a bit sceptical of the definition, but Chambers defines age-long (with a hyphen) as “having been in existence a long time”, so fair enough
27. ANDANTE A daughter in French port finally off? Not so fast! (7)
A + D in NANTE[S] – Italian term used in music to indicate a slowish tempo: it literally means just “going” (from andare), but is often translated by music teachers as “at a walking pace”
28. STOCKBROKER BELT Farm animals doing less well — a blow in expensive area (11,4)
STOCK (farm animals) + BROKER (more broke – doing less well) + BELT (a blow)
Down
1. JERUSALEM City judge putting line through revoked law (9)
J + L in reverse of MEASURE
2. INSULIN Sugar controller‘s rude remark cut short: it starts again (7)
INSUL[T] + IN[SULT]
3. ETHEREAL Airy, last to believe what actually exists? (8)
[believ]E + THE REAL (what exists)
4. UNPEG Release record, Savanna Herd Rounded Up (5)
EP in GNU (regarded as a plural, as in a herd of gnu), reversed
5. WRIT LARGE Trail grew doubtful, however magnified (4,5)
(TRAIL GREW)*
6. IMPUTE Charge one: being unable to speak, keeping quiet (6)
I + P in MUTE
7. ISOTOPE Imogen’s confession of alcoholism, in one of several forms (7)
“I SO TOPE” is the confession
8. GUESS Argues strenuously, displaying poor judgment (5)
Hidden in arGUES Strenuously – a guess doesnt have to be poor judgement, though I suppose it can be
14. HARBINGER Not unknown for prince to hold drinking bout — a sign of the future? (9)
BINGE (drinking bout) in HARRY less Y
16. MINCEMEAT One way to get team something in a pie (9)
If you MINCE [the letters of] MEAT you get TEAM
17. LAVENDER Pike played by him — a victory, when reeled into the bank (8)
A V in LENDER (bank) – today’s UK general knowledge clue: the actor Ian Lavender played Private Frank Pike in the TV series Dad’s Army
19. TANGELO Cross with bell regularly interrupting dance (7)
[B]E[L]L in TANGO – a cross between a tangerine and a grapefruit
21. DEFENCE Ministry to abolish border posts? (7)
To abolish border posts might be to DE-FENCE
22. REBOOK Be about to visit castle, having to change tickets (6)
Reverse of BE in ROOK (castle – chess piece)
23. FRAYS Saying a few words, starts to come apart (5)
Homophone of “phrase” (a few words)
24. CRACK Decipher joke (5)
Double definition

41 comments on “Guardian 26,703 – Imogen”

  1. Thanks Imogen and Andrew
    Too many went in unparsed for me to have enjoyed this. I did like IMPLORE and FRAYS. I questioned GUESS as equalling “poor judgement” too, and I didn’t like “divorced” = FREE – some value judgement there?

    Andrew – currently this is “Uncategorised”.

  4. Thanks Andrew. Only problem was with LOI making a connection between Pike and LAVENDER, then Google explained it. Picaroon had the twin of the ISOTOPE clue in July.

  5. Thanks to Imogen and Andrew

    I found this a mixed bag, some easy and some quite difficult. But I suppose that is what a cryptic crossword is all about.

    1a fell due to the crossing letters. When I was in primary school we called it running writing. Due to the illegibility of my “running writing” I resort to (almost) printing when I cannot use a computer. The nuns gave up on trying to improve my writing- not quite six of the best but several cuts. That was what it was like back then. Can we sue them?

    For 2a did anyone else try rosella? Don’t ask me why. It worked until I eventually parsed it.

    I thought that 26a had something to do with Geelong but struggled for a while.

    For 1d I needed help with parsing Thanks Andrew.

    Despite being a regular watcher of Dad’s Army, I had a lot of trouble with 17d and it was my LOI.

    Overall, an enjoyable exercise.

  6. Muffin @1

    I liked divorced = free but that could be due to experience. I remember that on the day that ex-PM of Australia Bob Hawke married his second wife, his ex-wife hosted a “freedom party”. Apparently, it is a popular trend.

  7. Thanks Imogen and Andrew.

    LAVENDER was my last one in too, a good clue for those who watched “Dad’s Army”. Several clues went in unparsed.

    JOINED-UP WRITING, AGELONG, STOCKBROKER BELT, JERUSALEM, WRIT LARGE and HARBINGER, among others, pleased me.

  8. This was quite a challenge, but an entertaining one. I find with Imogen you can stare at a clue for a while and the solution comes before rather than because of the wordplay, but they are always fair. Last in was ROSEHIP.

    Thanks to Imogen and Andrew

  9. The term ‘joined-up writing’ is new for me. In our country the often-heard term for this is ‘cursive writing’ or ‘running hand’.

    In US forms PRINT, they say. I thought it meant ‘write in capital letters’. (That’s how I wrote!) Now I think ‘print’ might simply mean ‘write leaving spaces between characters’. Is it so?

    BTW, my elder brother has the habit of writing in all caps. (Now online it’s called ‘shouting’.) British and American organisations where he worked did not seem to have objected to his habit.

  10. Most rewarding of the week so far, I think. SW corner took longest for me too despite the two long across clues being in relatively early. I didn’t know TANGELO, and REBOOK and AGELONG were ingenious.

  11. Thanks Imogen & Andrew.

    Rishi, I would recommend the Oxford Dictionary of English (ODE) as a good guide to current English (and the Guardian crossword editor likes it.) For PRINT, it gives: ‘write (text) clearly without joining the letters.’

    I got LAVENDER, but had to Google to get the connection. I also didn’t know GEELONG, although as it is the second largest Victorian city, it is my failing.

    Like Andrew, I was fairly unimpressed with the definition of LANCASHIRE but I did enjoy FRAYS, JERUSALEM, ISOTOPE and MINCEMEAT. Anyone know why there are all the capitals in 4d clue? I just assume it is a Grauniadism.

  12. @Robi
    Re 4d: Perhaps “Savanna Herd Rounded Up” is supposed to be the title of the ‘record’ and is u.c and l.c. as in newspaper headings.

  15. Thanks Andrew for the review esp enlightenment re 17d LAVENDER, was lost on me I’m afraid and missed the crossing 20a as well.

    I liked GUESS (8d) and MINCEMEAT (16d) – I thought the latter was a nice and clear indication of a reverse clue.

    12a I thought “Goalies turn out to make the rules” might be a more interesting surface

  16. AGELONG was my LOI and the one I couldn’t parse. Otherwise I thought this was lovely -and I don’t often say that about puzzles from this setter! Lots to enjoy- MYTH, HARBINGER, FRAYS and many more.
    Thanks Imogen.

  17. The capitals in 4d were presumably to sucker fools like me into imagining wildebeest roaming the plains of Georgia – Ga gnu reversed, for UNGAG. But that Savannah has an “h” on the end.

  18. Like Peter A @ 16, AGELONG was my LOI and I couldn’t parse it, but I loved the puzzle as a whole although it took quite a time. Favourites were MINCEMEAT, STOCKBROKER BELT, FRAYS and HARBINGER. Many thanks to Imogen and Andrew.

  19. Thanks to Imogen and Andrew. New to me were the Gelong of AGELONG, STOCKBROKER BELT, JOINED-UP (as opposed to “cursive”) writing, and LAVENDER of Dad’s Army, and the “free” in FREE PARDON was my last in, but I did manage to get through. Very enjoyable.

  20. I have several British friends, otherwise I too would not have seen JOINED-UP WRITING before. It’s called cursive, dammit!

    I do not understand the definition of LANCASHIRE–can someone elucidate?

    And of course, I didn’t understand the definition of LAVENDER either. But both words were solvable.

  21. @Van Winkle
    I too have known it as savannah (hot, seasonally dry grassland) and spell it as such.
    However, you may be surprised to know that Chambers and other dictionaries have “savanna or savannah”.

  23. mrp@20 My take on 13 across is that the definition is “here”, with the question mark signifying that the answer is an example of “here”. I think the phrase “no use” attaches to lire, signifying that they are no longer in use in Italy, which is the place most people associate lire with. They still use (different) lire in Turkey, though.

  24. mrp@20: I would say that the definition is really ‘foreign money no use here’. As regards the solution, I was looking for somewhere where foreign currency couldn’t be used, and I suppose that Lancashire is as good a place as any.

  26. I enjoyed this but didn’t get 26a.

    Regarding muffin @1 and value judgement. I have always used divorce (as well as anulling marriage) to mean separate or free. One can consider a fact divorced from certain other facts.

  27. Thanks Imogen and Andrew.

    I enjoyed this a lot more than some of Imogen’s previous offerings, which is no reflection on the setter.

    drofle @ 20: if you see 13 as an extended definition (possibly with an implied ‘is’ between ‘money’ and ‘no’) there’s no double duty problem.

  28. But foreign money is no use anywhere! (Except at banks or numismatists everywhere!) That’s just dumb. How do I know it’s Lancashire as opposed to Lincolnshire or Illinois or Chihuahua or the moon?

  29. Simon @ 27: Yes, I agree. But I don’t mind words doing double duty – all part of the rich tapestry available to setters.

  30. Re my comment at 28: Okay, to be fair, the answer to my question is, “the wordplay tells you.” But I’m complaining about the fact that “here” as a definition for a place is unconscionably loose, and “foreign money no use here” adds no information. So now I’m not questioning, but kvetching.

  31. I add my objection to LANCASHIRE. This is a clue that to all intents and purposes has no definition. I got it on crosses and spent ages wondering if it was some arcane cricketing term, or public school argot, or cockney rhyming slang. It didn’t occur to me that it’s simply meaningless. Very poor crossword editing I’m afraid.

  32. I thought LANCASHIRE might be a joke, a homophone of ” — cash ‘ere”, but cannot find any dialect where “lan” means “no” or “not”.

  33. Cursive? I’m so old that when I first heard of cursive I had to ask what it meant. When I was in grade school we were first taught printing, then a couple year later we graduated to “script.”

  34. Oh dear! Another bathetic Thursday. Don’t get me wrong; another great crossword from Imogen but definitely one of his most straightforward offerings. Even Arachne’s most recent puzzle – on a Thursday – was one of her easiest of recent times. I’ve learnt to look forward to some real meat on a Thursday (for me, something for the weekend?!) but a quick glance showed otherwise….and it was solved and fully parsed in first half of Channel 4 news….. [finding the Camilagate: the Batwoman and Botney years rather fascinating]. Never mind – probably just me? Who knows what next week or today’s Knut on the other side might bring? (Perhaps I should be careful what I wish for!)
    In any event, this was good puzzle and fun to do. Many thanks to Imogen and Andrew too.
    With love to any our regular readers who may feel the want of some, Wx.

  35. I’ve been a lurker for a while here, and a relative crossword novitiate, but being of the right age and experience, and having no interest in fishing, “Pike played by him” was practically a write-in for Lavender, which just goes to show how clues can play to different solvers. I found this hard in comparison to most recent offerings, and somehow less satisfying, but as I say, I’m still a-learning the craft and I enjoyed the challenge.

  38. After entering only three words on the first pass, I quickly gave up and cheated on almost a third of the clues. It didn’t help that I’d never heard of three of the four longest clues: free pardon, joined-up writing and stockbroker belt. Oh well, better luck to me next time!

  39. Thanks Andrew and Imogen.

    Enjoyed this. Fairly tough for but got there in the end. Favourite was MINCEMEAT.

    Bruce should be happy with 26.

  40. Thanks Imogen and Andrew

    Didn’t get to this one until earlier this week and found it a good fun challenge with lots of variety in the clue devices. Like most others I finished up in the SW corner with AGE-LONG (having Geelong as a city actually worked in reverse for me, as was not expecting a non-capital Australian city to feature defined only by its state – happy to see it appear nonetheless), LAVENDER (had no clues until googling lavender and pike to see the connection) and FIN DE SIECLE (was sort of aware of the phrase after I got it, but not of it’s full meaning) as the last one in.

    Didn’t parse the second part of INSULIN and now see how clever it was. Also didn’t pick up the PHRASE homophone although FRAYS had to be the answer.

    Don’t have problems with loose definitional clues such as LANCASHIRE when they are as clearly derived from the word play.

Comments are closed.