Guardian 26,732 by Vlad

by

The crossword gods seem to have it in for me this week, first the Indy, now the Guardian web sites not working.

Just what I need after a night kept awake by stormy weather, didn’t find some of this easy at all but some cracking clues and smiles when the pennies dropped. Thanks Vlad.

Across

1 Country home completed — one’s in it (9)
INDONESIA

IN (home) & DONE & 1 in S.A. (sexual attraction, IT)

6,9 Psst! Gather round — he’ll easily work without one (1,4,2,4,5-4)
A WORD IN YOUR SHELL-LIKE

1 in [ROUND HE’LL EASILY WORK]* gathered

10 Touch flesh in these shows (4)
HINT

Shown by the hidden answer -flesH IN These

11 “Look stupid!” — Posh in metal (8)
SCANDIUM

Obviously the first metal that came to mind… SCAN (look) & U (posh) in DIM (stupid)

14 When sick, agree poor Norma could be seen by one (9)
OPERA GOER

[AGREE POOR]* sickly

15 Notice nothing about her (5)
LINDA

AD (notice) & NIL (nothing) all reversed

16 Moved slowly — big end’s conked out (5)
NOSED

OS (big, over sized) inside END* conked out

18 Agreed to walk out, though highly thought of (9)
TREASURED

SURE (agreed) in TREAD (walk)

20 Complaint about essentially nude pin-ups — they’re ripped (8)
BEEFCAKE

BEEF (complaint) & C (about) & essentially (n)AKE(d)

21 Top male in pack’s one (4)
ACME

M(ale) in ACE (1 of cards)

25 Bugged car so there’s no privacy from the outset, right — with this (8,7)
SNOOPERS CHARTER

Excellent 🙂 [CAR SO  THERE’S NO P(rivacy)]* bugged & R(ight) Extended definition to near &lit

26 Sees said locations (5)
SITES

Sounds like SIGHTS

27 Like to keep close to Mike — friend’s very poorly (9)
ABYSMALLY

BY (close to) in AS (like) & M(ike) & ALLY

Down

1 Like Joyce, a woman who has no boundaries (5)
IRISH

IRIS (a woman) & a boundless (w)H(o)

2 Wish to part over leading lady (7)
DOYENNE

YEN (wish) in DONE (over)

3 Appearing around country makes sense (4)
NOUS

ON (appearing) reversed & U.S.

4 Work out cricket team’s not old (4)
SUSS

EX removed from SUSS(ex)

5 Cameron/Osborne’s last three blunders — 11, 12 and 13, of course (4,6)
AMEN CORNER

[CAMERON (osbo)RNE]* blundering. Def refers to the Augusta golf course see Amen Corner and not the clues here, thanks for that Vlad.

6 After lengthy delay, strong man carries on — extremely grateful at time (2,4,4)
AT LONG LAST

ATLAS (strong man) with [ON & G(ratefu)L ] inserted & T(ime)

7 What one thinks about super-religious head (7)
OPINION

PI (super religious) in ONION (head)

8 Paradise Lost — man dared to play around (9)
DREAMLAND

[L(ost) MAN DARED]* played with

12 Constable’s work mainly gets better with drugs (10)
LANDSCAPES

LANDS (gets) & CAPS (better) injected with E (drugged)

13 Another empty house to rent (about a thousand) — part of land divided (5,5)
SOUTH KOREA

[A(othe)R empty HOUSE TO]* rent with K inserted

14 Doctor upset writer’s taking “exercise” in people carriers (9)
OMNIBUSES

M.O. reversed, upset & NIB & USES

17 Go on date in US town during month abroad (4,3)
STEP OUT

T(own) in SEP(temember) & OUT (abroad)

19 Quote cut during actual performance (7)
RECITAL

CIT(e) in REAL

22 All but topless sooner than expected (5)
EARLY

A topless (n)EARLY

23 Head down south, be away — it’s painful! (4)
ACHY

BE removed from (be)ACHY (head), a part of the southern English coastline

24 China’s money tree (4)
PALM

PAL & M(oney). An easy one to finish at least.

62 comments on “Guardian 26,732 by Vlad”

  1. Thanks Vlad and flashling

    I found this very difficult to get into. For some time I had only AMEN CORNER and a tentative SITES (missing the chewck facility!). I then guessed 6,9 from the definition and numeration, and made steady progress thereafter, though a few went in unparsed.

    Some inventive clueing, but I didn’t like “cricket team” for SUSSEX – very loose.

    Is BEEFCAKE plural as well as singular? If not, there is a mismatch with “pin-ups – they’re ripped”.

  2. I think that beefcake, like cake itself. can be both singular and plural.

    Thanks to Flashling and to Vlad for an excellent puzzle. Fans of Andy Fairweather Low and anyone who’s ever lived in or near Tooting may have been bemused by 5 down

  6. thanks flashling, and thanks to Vlad for another great puzzle. A bonus point for having “conked” in the wp for “nosed”; what a hoot

  7. @Byronr

    if you read the comments under yesterday’s cryptic, there is mentioned in one of Hugh’s blogposts a link which takes you back to the halcyon days of the old system

  8. Thanks, flashling. Luckily for me, I was still using the old online system so didn’t have a problem obtaining the crossword. I feel sorry for those who struggled to get the puzzle and then realised it was Vlad awaiting them – that said, the top half sailed in, giving encouragement… the bottom half was another story, though!

    One little point: I think LANDSCAPES ends as CAP (better) +ES (drugs).

  11. Thanks, flashling, for the blog and Vlad for another brilliant puzzle, which certainly stretched the grey matter.

    A couple of small things: I think 12dn is LANDS (gets) + CAP (better) + ES [drugs and 14dn M.O. reversed + NIB’S round USE.

  13. For once I had to wait for this site to find if I had it correct(all I had was a pdf)
    My iffy ones(nosed and step out) turned out to be OK but somehow landed the wrong Korea.
    I would normally allow myself at least one use of check button but today I cant claim.

    I was impressed by 5 which gave a possible misdirect to three other clues- not being a golf expert, I googled and found the punch line (have met Andy on the other hand-still playing great guitar)
    Great puzzle-top slid in easier than the bottom esp SW.

  14. Thanks Vlad and Flashling.

    I got off to a flier when I spotted 6,9 immediately from the enumeration, and all in all found this to be a quicker solve than previous Vlad puzzles. Don’t mean to give the impression that it was easy – far from it, and the tricksy, convoluted word play in many of the clues was right up my street, keeping me happily entertained on the commute and while waiting for a meeting.

    LOI was BEEFCAKE, because of not being convinced it could be a plural; once KOREA fell it couldn’t bee anything else. Not sure what would have been wrong with “…pin-up – he’s ripped”

  16. 6,9 went in direct from the enumeration, and with a good part of the top half following quickly I thought this was going to be a breeze. Then I slowed down. After all, what did SCANDIUM and LANDSCAPES have in common? (I’d had a bit of a problem with yesterday’s link to clue 6 that wasn’t a link to clue 6 but to the six books of the puzzle; here we were again.) And 17d made no sense; ‘month abroad’ was so obviously AOUT (French for August), but how did A*** OUT work?

    SUSS and ACHY are both subtraction clues, one from Sussex, the other in Sussex. Just a coincidence I suppose.

  17. Thanks Vlad and flashling.

    I was rather stuck, but finished just now on the interactive version with the help of the check button.
    NOSED and SNOOPERS CHARTER were really good

  18. This wasn’t too bad, but could have been immensely improved with a little more thought. here are my thoughts:

    11a word order implies something inside the definition word; 15a I don’t like ‘her’ for the definition much; 16a this ‘conked’ for the indicator plus ‘out’ meaning around I don’t like; 18a that ‘out’ usage again; 20a I thin this is a bit indirect really, as ‘essentially nude’ would really be UD; 25a I find clumsy, and ‘bugged’ is one of those that refer to another indicator that would be better, which is ‘annoyed’ I presume; 26a lucky the two parts have different word lengths because otherwise this would have been confusing; 5d very obscure knowledge needed, who knows or cares about golf, and I thought this was a blues band anyway; 7d word order again a bit annoying; 8d I thought lost would be the indicator, L usage is obscure to me; 12d as posted this parsing is wrong. Es for ‘drugs’ is difficult because E is the plural anyway; 14 I can’t see how in works. I see the bits, but they are not described correctly as far as I can see; 17d T is town? Well if you say so; 24 M is money? Well if you say so 😀

    Thanks
    HH

  19. HH @18
    Who knows or cares about golf? I do, and AMEN CORNER was my FOI (and, as I said @1, for a long time my only confident entry). “11, 12 and 13 of course” was the giveaway, and the anagram was obvious.

  22. HH@18
    Who knows or cares about cricket, or about public school slang, or about the geography of London? Yet we constantly see clues that rely on such knowledge.

  23. A few of these were BIFD for me. For example, I couldn’t suss out where SUSS came from, knowing basically zilch about cricket teams. And OPINION, too–that stupid “pi” thing gets me every time.

    Didn’t know STEP OUT was an Americanism, so the US reference in the clue was misleading for me (I spent ages trying to think of a way to put an NY or LA in there). It’s dated slang, by the way.

    Both of the two long horizontal entries are Britishisms, neither familiar to me. I solved both by hacking at the anagrams until I got something plausible.

    I loved the AMEN CORNER clue. Not a golf guy at all, but I watch enough other sports that I’ve definitely heard of it. The Masters is an annual thing, so I think the reference is fair game.

  24. Fantastic puzzle (when it finally arrived). Quite hard work, but excellent and clever clueing. Favourites were OMNIBUSES, ABYSMALLY, AMEN CORNER and NOUS. Many thanks to Vlad and to flashling for the blog.

  26. Yes but they are not very commonly used in crosswords. I think you could have any indicator in Chambers or somewhere to indicate anything, which is a cop-out I think. The golf too is obscure, while cricket in crosswords is common. That’s my view on it.

    I saw the H puzzle in FT, which is very good 😀

  27. Another cracking challenge to follow Imogen yesterday – I found this one quite a lot harder and had to cheat the LIKE part of the long one as the expression was unfamiliar and I couldn’t quite see how the anagram worked. Plenty of variety and ingenuity, liked SCANDIUM, AMEN CORNER, DREAMLIKE and ACHY.

    Thanks to Vlad and flashling

  28. Was forced to endure a frustrating wait for the website to show this puzzle.

    Well done flashling for braving the wind and going out to buy the paper.

    22 across is now in my pantheon of all-time great clues. As I have said before, you always know where the sympathies of Tyrus lie.

    Fantastic puzzle. Jim the Great does it again.

  29. Is Vlad getting easier, despite what many say above? This is the first of his I have finished in reasonable time and without too much difficulty, despite several misdirections; for example, I was another AOUT person, and in 11ac I was looking for an anagram of UINMETAL for LOOK – it never really felt right though.

    AMEN CORNER was one of my last in, and I was really pleased I sussed it. I didn’t think its anagram was obvious, muffin.

    Thanks Vlad and flashling.

  30. Conrad Cork @ 28
    Do you mean 25a? I would agree.

    Dave Ellison @29
    Sorry, I meant that it was obvious what the anagram fodder was, confirming my guess of the solution.

  31. HH, one more time: “The golf is too obscure, while cricket in crosswords is common.”

    You only think it’s obscure because you didn’t know it. The Masters–one of the four major tournaments of the year–is held at Augusta National each spring. That means that Amen Corner has been available on your television every April since the invention of televised golf. Not the setter’s fault that you didn’t tune in!

    Meanwhile, other setters force me to do things like comb the map for obscure towns in Shropshire, or comb the list of England international cricketers, and I never complain because…well, I guess I just don’t know those things.

  32. mrp – I loved the Amen Corner clue – not a golf fan but I have found myself watching it in weaker moments. I’d be curious to know whether the phrase “a word in your shell-like” is familiar in America – it was new to me but maybe I had a sheltered education…

  33. Thanks to Vlad and flashling. As in the past I found this setter a challenge, though I did get through. I saw A WORD IN YOUR … but took a long time getting SHELL-LIKE; I knew AMEN CORNER but not SNOOPERS CHARTER; and I needed help parsing STEP OUT (I too tried to squeeze in Aout) and ACHY. A struggle, but worth the effort.

  34. 5d could have been a little more helpful for the non-golfer if it had used ordinal rather than cardinal numbers, as would normally be the case for golf holes. That would have ruined the misdirection, though.

  35. Muffin@30

    Yes, sorry, mea culpa. Trouble is that that stuff blurs your vision as well as inducing euphoria. One can’t have everything.

  37. beery @32, A WORD IN YOUR SHELL-LIKE is probably as dated in the UK now as is STEP OUT in the US. But, to devotees of Minder in the 80s, it’s indelibly associated with George Cole suggesting something on the bounds of legality.

  38. Trailman @37 – that would explain it – one of the many popular TV series I never watched – too busy reading those Booker winners…

  40. Another sport I know nothing about. I agree that AMEN CORNER was obvious but I really didn’t know why and I hoped the meaning would emerge- it didn’t! And mrpenney @31 I for one am not prepared to tune into sporting fixtures on the off chance that the content might be handy for crosswords, and I wouldn’t expect anyone else to either.
    Anyway,back to the plot, I thought the puzzle very entertaining and just the right level of difficulty to be enjoyable.
    Thanks Vlad.
    P.S. Perhaps a setter could make reference to ice hockey or pole sitting and really baffle me. Just a thought.

  41. Mitz @39 – yes, those were two more popular TV series that I never watched (I could name many many more!)

  43. Hi BilChin @42, China (plate) = mate = pal in rhyming slang, which us cockerneys speak all the time in the east end.

  47. muffin @ 30. I meant the fodder, too. AMEN CORNER popped out, but then I had to go hunting, first that it was an anagram and then for the fodder. I still half had in mind it was something to do with clues, 11, 12, 13

  50. Seems I wrote opera goer not operagoer. Hmm. Thanks for the minor corrections earlier, I quite liked the drug injection bit, pity in hindsight. I do wish the web sites wouldn’t misbehave when I’m preparing for a job interview. At least there’s less controversy than my last Guardian blog. 113 comments, good grief.

  53. I solved a couple of the more obvious clues (SITES, IRISH) while I waited for the puzzle to be available online, but I didn’t make a serious attempt until it was there. That was just as well as I needed the Check button to show me that I was on the wrong track a couple of times. I didn’t see the ON/NO in NOUS, and I spent ages trying to get NORTH KOREA to work before the penny dropped. LOI was HINT as it took me ages to see it was a hidden answer. AMEN CORNER was a clever piece of misdirection. After getting the anagram, I looked for some connection to the group at 11, 12 and 13 before I vaguely remembered the golf reference. My favourite has to be SNOOPER’S CHARTER, though.

    Thanks to Vlad and flashling.

  54. Peter Aspinwall @40: “P.S. Perhaps a setter could make reference to ice hockey or pole sitting and really baffle me.”

    I set clues just for fun sometimes. One idea I’ve had is an “all things Canadian” puzzle, which would have to include at least one or two hockey references. (Fortunately for you, the consensus greatest ice-hockey player of all time is Wayne Gretzky, whose name pretty much defies cryptic cluing as far as I can see. I dare you to come up with an elegant clue for him!)

    Pawn at beginning and end of every game (6)

    Another idea I had was a “ghost theme” in which North American sports team names, in the singular, were clued—but with their non-sports definitions used. So among hockey teams, things like Maple Leaf, Oiler (clued as a tanker ship), Hurricane, Flame, Coyote. The Brits could solve it without even knowing the clues were either American or sports-related!

  58. One man’s meat and all that… Today’s and yesterday’s were both hard, IMO, but Imogen was fun and Vlad… wasn’t. Too many went in without being able to parse them.
    It seems to me that good clues may take a while to get, but when you do, you have a forehead-slapping moment – “why didn’t I see that before? It’s obvious..” as opposed to bad clues for which an answer occurs to you quite quickly, then you spend ages wondering whether it might be right.

  60. Late again… a tough challenge which took a while to yield, but greatly rewarding for it. You don’t hear “A word in your shell-like” or “snoopers’ charter” over here in Canada but “Amen Corner” is pretty familiar, so I guess it balances out.

    Happy to see I wasn’t the only one trying to shoehorn “AOUT” into 17D!

  61. Thanks Vlad and flashling for the blog.

    I got off to a flying start seeing INDONESIA, A WORD IN YOUR SHELL-LIKE and AMEN CORNER straight off. And then got slower and slower.

    I needed your help in parsing too many to mention so thanks for the help to round off this puzzle.

    Interestingly, I parsed IRISH as I (one = a) plus (T)RISH(A). I suspect your way was the intended version.

  62. Thanks Vlad and flashling

    A backlog puzzle as are a lot by this fellow – he needs a lot of psyching up to start. Funnily enough I tend to really enjoy them once that I’m off and started and this was no exception.

    Had not heard of either of the two long across clues with SNOOPERS CHARTER being my last one in after a lot of googling to look at words that fitted the crossing letters. Also didn’t know SCANDIUM previously.

    Didn’t fully parse BEEFCAKE – by not unravelling the ‘essentially nude’ bit – quite simple in retrospect! Had IRISH from the definition of the author but needed that one explained here. Similarly for STEP OUT, where I was aware of the US term but couldn’t parse it.

    Favourite by far was the excellent AMEN CORNER from a surface reading and after it finally dawned that there was no connection between SCANDIUM, LANDSCAPES and SOUTH KOREA !!!!

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