Guardian Cryptic 26757 by Vlad

104 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 26757 by Vlad”

1. Thanks manehi. Re your doubt at 26A, I had ??? also for 1, 10 and 17A plus 3, 14 and 20D. Some are slang and parochial so I shouldn’t complain. I did a “reveal” on each one when I felt it had to be that, and stunned myself by being right every time. But ended up unsatisfied.

2. Thanks manehi and Vlad.

   I took ‘repressed’ as abbreviation, but I see your point.

   8,23 appears to be a letter ‘a’ missing in the fodder.

   Settled is ‘lit’ and ‘eh’ “about”.

   Vlad always a pleasure.

3. I think 27a is B(ashful), lit (settled), he (eh? reversed).

4. For 26a, I assumed the “no-no” was around “w(ith)”, and that “repressed” is the container indicator. Then the final w is from “w(omen)”.
   But there were several others I couldn’t parse so I wouldn’t swear I was right on this one!

5. Thanks for parsing of 10 but I agree with @morph 2 re the long one.Can anyone explain the stray letter?

6. The parsing of 27 down is as follows: B (bashful originally) plus LIT (settled) plus HE, a reversal of eh (what?)

7. Sorry, 2 and 4 have only appeared now!

8. It may be that in 8, 23 the anagram fodder is ARE FIONA FATHER FATH. FATH is the commonly used abbreviation in genealogy for father, hence “father twice”

9. A=Are (the unit of measurement) for the long one.

10. On 8, 23 isn’t it more likely that “A” is an abbreviation for “Are” (a measure of area), and that the anagram bit then follows?

    I have never heard of BANGALORED, nor could I quite crack the anagram, but it seemed more likely than BUNGALOWED.

    Some of the anagram indicators are starting to seem a bit far-fetched recently. Digging? (14D) I had heard of KEN BARLOW but didn’t know who he was.

11. Thanks Vlad and manehi.

    I found this hard and wrote in several answers not knowing why, checked, and was surprised to find them correct, parsing after where I could. KEN BARLOW was beyond me, but I did like BANGALORED, BELLYACHER and BURGEON.

12. Thanks, manehi.

    Lots of clever tricks, certainly. BANGALORED too clever for me [never heard the word, anyway] and I just couldn’t see the AM of AMANDA but I’m quite happy with it now.

    I had ticks against STOPES, TROLLEYED, PROACTIVE and KEN BARLOW.

    It was obvious that ‘Are’ was an intrinsic part of the wordplay in 8,23 – otherwise it’s redundant – so thanks to Herb and Jason fore teasing it out. I’ve been caught by that measure more than once before.

    Many thanks to Vlad for another excellent puzzle – challenging and fun.

13. Another Guardian exercise in compileritis and bad technique.

    1a ‘am’ is extremely difficult to get from the clue; 4a E is already plural, so Es is hard to get; 10a a very hard two-part &lit anag of a very obscure word. I certainly did not know it; 11a you can nod IN agreement but this verb form is unsupported as far as I can tell, perhaps you know different; 13a again I don’t really buy the form of POKE; 16a an opinion; 21a again form, this time of OFF; 26a a real mess, and ‘no-no’ does not equal the form given as far as I can see; 1d ‘padded-up’ is quite obscure; 2d ‘pack one’ for ace is ridiculous. Would you ever say ‘I have a pack one in my hand’? I would certainly not; 3d ‘male totty’ together with the ‘rough’, which I take to mean ‘drop the aitch’ is totally ungettable standalone; 8 23d does not work. The anagram is simply wrong. How would anyone know to use FATH. for the last part of the anagram? It’s total compileritis; 14d ‘digging’ and how is that an anagram indicator can someone please say? 20d ‘may’ does not equal ‘can’ at all.

    Very poor indeed.

    HH

14. I never thought I’d say this but today I’m with hedgehoggy. I applaud Vlad’s cleverness as I might that of, say, Michael Gove – with admiration but little liking.

15. @13: I really can’ t understand your problem with 4ac – one of my favourite clues in a very enjoyable, if challenging, crossword. As to your other quibbles, I disagree with most of them, but don’t have time to respond to them all. I do agree that 10ac is “very obscure” but I always take pleasure in learning new words. Speaking of which, “compileritis” gives me no pleasure at all; in fact, it sounds very painful!

    Many thanks to Vlad & manehi.

16. Hoggy @13, the missing A in 23d was explained while you were busy typing, it is from ‘are’ – see Herb @9.

17. I got three-quarters through this, enjoying it, then came to a block. Once I’d seen it, I remembered “trolleyed” but hadn’t managed to bring it to mind. “Bangalored” stumped me. The Oxford English Spellchecker (cheating and not always reliable, I know!) told me there were no words with those cross letters. Even when I’d seen the word, I found it wasn’t in Chambers English Dictionary. “Amanda” grated a bit. “Am and “happen” are hard to equate, I think. Everything else was fair but a few of them just too clever for me today.
    Good exercise on the whole with a few little niggles in places.
    Thanks, Vlad and Manehi

18. Thanks Vlad & manehi. Not very entertaining for me. 🙁

    I gave up on this one once I revealed BANGALORED, which doesn’t seem to be in at least my version of the BRB. I assumed the missing ‘a’ in the fodder for 8,23 was a mistake but accept now Herb @9 is correct.

    I don’t understand how ‘takes’ in 5d can be used as a containment indicator (I thought that was ‘takes in.’) It is used in 20 as a juxtaposition indicator, I think, which is how I always thought it was used.

19. http://flickrhivemind.net/blackmagic.cgi?id=494164844&url=http%3A%2F%2Fflickrhivemind.net%2FTags%2Fclementine%252Chedgehog%2FInteresting%3Fsearch_type%3DTags%3Btextinput%3Dclementine%252Chedgehog%3Bphoto_type%3D250%3Bmethod%3DGET%3Bnoform%3Dt%3Bsort%3DInterestingness%23pic494164844&user=&flickrurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/32375575@N00/494164844

    this is why it took Hoggy a long time to type @13, the keyboard ran away with him…

20. P.S. Surely in 14d ‘street’ should be capitalised?

21. Cookie @19; ha ha. 🙂 At least I’ve now got some humour out of this puzzle. If you look at the FAQs they show how to put long URLs into a text link.

22. @18
    It says “takes direction in”.

23. Thanks Vlad and manehi

    A slow start for me, but perseverance paid off and I got there in the end, though thought some of the parsing a bit tenuous.

    Robi @ 18: for me, 5D works as TRACE (mark) “takes N in”, so there is a containment indicator.

    Interesting comment that 16A is an opinion from someone who is forever insisting that he’s just giving us his own opinion. Pots & kettles, eh?

24. [Robi @21, I looked at FAQs, but it seemed rather complicated – I am going to practise… oh dear, captcha 6 – ? = zero, wonder how long it would take to get a 9 x ? = 81 with Gaufrid’s little whirly device?]

25. Thanks Herb & Simon S; mea culpa.

26. Putting Street for street would give the game away.
    And I still dont buy the parsing suggestions for 8/23-especially when Philistine did a similar thing a week ago.We shall see.

27. copmus @26; I thought the convention was that one could falsely capitalise but not (normally) leave out capitals in proper nouns. Maybe it would have been useful to give the game away as I don’t think I would have ever got KEN BARLOW (but then I’ve never watched Corrie, although I have to admit to having heard of this one.)

28. copmus @26 (again); as pointed out above, what is ‘Are’ doing in the clue if not to indicate the ‘a?’ Are(s) = a is in Collins, so I guess it’s a kosher abbreviation.

29. [Thanks Robi, hoggy, bingo, captcha now nine x ? = 54 ! ]

30. Thanks Cookie @29; ‘”A picture is worth a thousand words’ [6-?=2]

31. @17
    1a – not am=happen! It’s am=”happen to be” – a nice touch. I thought I posted this earlier but it doesn’t seem to have appeared.

32. With Gaufrid’s indulgence and because I haven’t done one of these for a long time and have wasted so much time already, I’ll post below my long-version understanding of this crossword.

    AMANDA STOPES and KEN BARLOW (the LIBERAL BELLYACHER) “SHEARED” an EN-SUITE and “DE BUNKS” as part of their AFFAIR OF THE HEART. “NOW-NOW” said the SPOKESMAN, you’ve been BANGALORED at the BEHEST of the BANK for being TROLLEYED and in a TRANCE. You’ve got to BREAK it OFF. You’ve had ACRES in MONACO, which ADDED UP to an ODDS-ON reward. You’re known to be an AVID Bridge player BURGEONING with PROACTIVE use of your FACE CARDs but youR IN Denial, BLITHEly assuming that you can do one thing or anODER.

    I’ll get me coat…….

33. Whatever our prickly friend thinks, I found this a magnificent crossword.

    Made a slow start, mainly in the SE, but even finding the long a-anagram early on didn’t help very much.
    I got there in the end, finishing with the NW: 1d (the solution was clear enough but the blog was needed for the explanation), the magnificent 1ac (AMANDA) and my LOI (3d).
    I would be happy if someone could explain how the latter really works.
    Apart from DEB/BED I cannot make much sense of it.

    Thanks to manehi for the blog.
    And to Vlad for another inspirational brainteaser!

34. Blimey, that was quite a tough workout. The first two thirds seemed pretty gentle by Vlad’s exacting standards but the rest more than made up for that, with TROLLEYED last in – liked that, BELLYACHER, ADDED UP and BURGEON. BANGALORED was vaguely familiar (and certainly should have been given that I work for an IT company) but I needed all of the crossers to see it.

    Thanks to Vlad and manehi

35. Well, for me this was a disaster. For a relative novice (but one who usually completes the Prize crossword) this was dreadfully difficult and the few I managed to get were not satisfying solves. Really not enjoyable at all. Thanks for the parsing manehi.

36. @26/27
    I don’t think street needs that capital – Coronation Street is a street, as well as The Street, surely. (And KB’s a fixture in both, presumably.)

37. hh @13 – I’ve been ignoring most of your nonsense for months, but can you really justify attacking one of the most respected and innovative setters we have in such terms? I agree that 10 is a little unfair but the rest of your comments say far more about your limited mindset than they do about the crossword…

38. re#37, you’d think hh would be happy as being mentioned in the cryptic build-up to 17A…

39. bh @ 37, nms @ 38: -)

40. Thanks Vlad and manehi

    I found this difficult and didn’t really enjoy it much. I failed on BANGALORED (never heard the expression, and couldn’t find the right anagram), KEN BARLOW (who he? ed.) and hence BANK. Never heard TROLLEYED for “drunk”. BREAK OFF doesn’t mean “finish” for me – it’s leaving something unfinished that you intend to return to – in fact I thought it was a DD of “finish holiday” and “leave”. I couldn’t see why it was AMANDA either, and am still not convinced that “happen to be” = AM.

    Favourite was FOI, STOPES.

41. Thanks to Vlad and manehi. I found this puzzle very difficult (as is often the case with this setter), partly because more than the usual number of items were new to me (e.g., BANGALORED, TROLLEYED, KEN BARLOW, STOPES). I correctly guessed ADDED but only belatedly got the [p]added-cricket link and for BANK I was late seeing blank=ignore.

42. I found the crossword challenging, but not in the sense of inspiring me to persevere with it. But I am sure that I am getting somewhere with 24a. “Ring” = “hedge” in the sense of an enclosure is fairly obvious. But in what part of the world is a sailor a “thoggy”?

43. Sil @33; I think the idea in 3d was, as it intimates in the blog, that a ‘rough’ person might pronounce hunks as ‘unks.

44. [Robi @43, glad to see you are still alive, thought Vlad might have taken his lunch out of you…]

45. Wow – this was a bit too much for me: couldn’t get BURGEON, BELLYACHER, TROLLEYED or BANK. But despite HH’s comments it was pretty fair. Vlad is always a challenge but he got the better of me this time around. Thanks to him and manehi.

46. @40 (re BREAK OFF)
    E.g. “There was a lot of excited chattering, which broke off when the headmaster entered”. See Chambers, and other dictionaries. I had this as a triple definition (it was by some distance my LOI, in fact). I thought it was very cunning at the time.

47. Herb @46
    I think you make my point – the chatter would no doubt resume as soon as the Headmaster leaves.

48. Well beery hiker @ 37 I would never characterise someone’s post as ‘nonsense’ because that’s just plain disrespectful and troll-like. I say what I think, and if you disagree fine but say why. As herb cookie and robi did on the anag. I still think that is a poor clue btw, as ARE = A is so obscure, how would you get it? And the ‘father repeatedly’ is another added stretch. But it is parsed correctly ‘A plus anag’. You still have to guess it, I say.

    Cookie that is a photograph of my Uncle George of course, where did you get it? 😀

    Hoggy Xmas to everyone.

49. @47
    The relevant definition in Chambers is “stop abruptly”. Imagining a scenario in which something might restart after stopping does not seem to me to have any persuasive power. You seem to be blurring two distinct definitions.

50. Herb@21

    Thanks for that explanation. “Am” and “happen to be” still don’t immediately strike me as synonyms but I can see the context in which you might use either. That’s fair enough, I agree.

    Bet wishes David

51. Herb @49
    I had to break off reading (New Scientist, in fact) a few minutes ago when the telephone rang; I have now resumed reading it, as I hadn’t finished it.

52. As to be expected I thought this was too difficult and I agree with hh. I don’t always agree with him but find some of the responses to him to be offensive an troll-like. I use this blog to understand clues I did not get but do not particularly like many of the posts.

53. @51
    If there is one rule that is utterly indispensable in crosswords – or any analysis of the meanings of words, it is this:

    The argument “A means B therefore A cannot mean C” is always false.

    Without this rule there can be no wordplay – no puns, no double definitions, no metaphors.

    Some expressions have many meanings and usages, some far fewer, perhaps some only one. But the discovery of one meaning cannot disprove the existence of another. I think therefore that the presence of Vlad’s meaning in Chambers cannot be negated by the existence of another in your example.

    In your example the phrase “break off” isn’t even intransitive. It has a completely different meaning, defined accordingly in the dictionaries.

54. Can’t say I enjoyed this much. There is something in HH’s view of this puzzle. The phrase “too clever by half” comes to mind. I found parsing this difficult-well impossible in some cases-so I was glad of the blog and the contributions.
    I do find Vlad’s puzzles extremely variable.
    Still,thanks etc.

55. Herb @53
    I take your general point. To convince me, can you give me an example where “break off” unequivocally means “finish”?

56. @55
    “And with that the discussion broke off – for good.”

57. I have often heard people say when they are doing something “I am going to break off now for lunch”.

58. ……..but you had to add “for good” to counter the implication that it wasn’t terminal. Still not convinced! Anyway, let’s let it lie (or break off the discussion 🙂 ).

59. Vlad’s clue @27a is enlightening, it seems he likes dwarfs, what has happened to the other five? One of my sons when on a school trip from Vienna stayed at a hotel in the Carpathian Mountains run by little people who had a mine which no longer paid.

60. [muffin, just a final word, what about “they are going to break off their engagement” ?]

61. Cookie @60
    Yes, that is convincing.

62. @59
    No, it was to counter your unfounded assumption that “break off” always implies restarting. I gave an example that proves it doesn’t. My example @46 is surely enough. I don’t see how you could accept my general point and still think otherwise.

63. Herb @62
    Cookie @60 has convinced me; yours @46 did not – you obviously don’t know schoolchildren very well!

64. hh @48 – Merry Christmas to you too, and to all the other regulars!

    I’d like to say that I’m only being disrespectful to the tone of your comments – nothing personal, but I couldn’t help wondering how you much respect you think most of your comments show to the poor compilers, most of whom are very nice people.

65. @63
    I’ll assume that is a joke. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about. We’d be here all night.

66. I learned from last time not to even try to solve a Vlad puzzle. After one run-through, I just repeatedly hit the reveal button and tried to parse the results, with about a 70% success rate.
    Vlad employs more than the average number of Britannocentric words and phrases, which I enjoy because it’s educational, but I find the definitions to be far too generic, and all that cricket talk! It seems like any random word can be considered a cricketing term.

    And not to be a 24ac, but I have to agree with the hedgemeister that digging = anagrind and rough = “minus h” are a bit unfair.

67. Does Herb know how OFF equals LEAVE in the clue under scrutiny?

68. I’m with Sil. Bits were difficult (are = a is used in barred-grid puzzles; it might have been less controversial to use “Fiona and a father”) but the clueing is faultless. LIBERAL, TROLLEYED, BANGALORED, KEN BARLOW … are Ingenius. Great crossword.

69. Re BREAK OFF passim

    If you’re OFF WORK you’re ON LEAVE

    I actually saw the parsing slightly differently:

    FINISH = BREAK (I’m going to take a break, ie finish [for now,anyway])

    On HOLIDAY I’m OFF (a standard expression, I would say

    So BREAK OFF = LEAVE (at least for now, leaving open the possibility of resuming).

    Any takers?

70. Simon @69
    Better than the established parsing, I agree. However I still lean towards the double definition of “finish holiday” and “leave”.

71. I’m not sure that I should enter the fray but to try to be fair, I’ll give my take on HH’s comments:

    1a ‘am’ is extremely difficult to get from the clue , I think if you substitute in the clue one gets ‘Am with a woman,’ which seems OK to me ; 4a E is already plural, so Es is hard to get I don’t understand this as E can equal an Ecstasy tablet, which is singular ; 10a a very hard two-part &lit anag of a very obscure word. I certainly did not know it I tend to agree; could have used KANGAROOED, DIKTATS & ODESSA or some such ; 11a you can nod IN agreement but this verb form is unsupported as far as I can tell, perhaps you know different ‘he nodded his assent’ ; 13a again I don’t really buy the form of POKE I don’t understand this, what is wrong with pokes=incites?; 16a an opinion Yes, but I think most people are not very enchanted with banks these days ; 21a again form, this time of OFF I think Cookie has provided a nice example, viz: “they are going to break off their engagement” ; 26a a real mess, and ‘no-no’ does not equal the form given as far as I can see I’m not very enamoured with this clue either, although maybe it is NO(W) with NO ‘repressed’ (W?); 1d ‘padded-up’ is quite obscure I’m no great fan of cricket but I think it is a necessary part of the solver’s armoury ; 2d ‘pack one’ for ace is ridiculous. Would you ever say ‘I have a pack one in my hand’? I would certainly not I tend to agree this is not very good ; 3d ‘male totty’ together with the ‘rough’, which I take to mean ‘drop the aitch’ is totally ungettable standalone I didn’t much like this either ; 8 23d does not work. The anagram is simply wrong. How would anyone know to use FATH. for the last part of the anagram? It’s total compileritis But it’s now been explained, ARE=a is in Collins, so fair game, I would say ; 14d ‘digging’ and how is that an anagram indicator can someone please say It is a bit unusual but I think it’s in the sense of ‘turning over’ ? 20d ‘may’ does not equal ‘can’ at all It’s in common usage, viz: ‘Can/May I have a drink .

    ‘In vino, veritas’ or some such

72. That’s not too bad, Robi!

    By the way 1, I am a bit surprised to see so many solvers stumbling over ‘A = are’.
    Obscure? Perhaps.
    But if you regularly solve Alberich / Klingsor puzzles [and why not? – he’s another giant], you should be familiar with it.
    One of these invaluable little building stones for a setter.

    By the way 2, since taking up teaching again I’m slightly behind with solving Indy puzzles.
    Tonight I did the most recent Tyrus – took me just as long as this one.
    Same style (of course, same setter!), same ‘hard to get in to’ feeling, same brilliance in places.

    Highly enjoyable.

    By the way 3, and this is something that I said before, at another occasion.
    I always solve crosswords from a print-out, I never do them sitting behind a screen.
    I can imagine that, especially with demanding puzzles like this one, an online solver may use the ‘check’/’cheat’ button very often and/or perhaps too quickly.
    Could it be that this is also one of the reasons why for some solvers it wasn’t much fun today?

73. What fun, thanks again Vlad for a super crossword!

74. Sil @72
    Not the case for me today. Although I usually do the crossowrd on a printout (so that the rest of the family can read the paper), today I got to it so late that I actually wrote the answers into the paper.

75. I’m in the “not much fun” camp.

    This setter needs an editor. Unfortunately we don’t appear to have an active one.

    Thanks to manehi and Vlad

76. @67
    That’s not how I parsed it, as I said. I don’t really see it. I saw it as a triple def. I guess you didn’t mean me.

77. Brendan @75, spot on. I was going to post exactly rthe same sentiments but couldn’t have put them as succinctly.

    So thanks Vlad, manehi and Brendan.

78. There is a poem by John Donne, which perhaps gives classic justification, should it be needed, for the use of ‘break off’ as ‘finish’:

    So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss,
    Which sucks two souls, and vapours both away,
    Turn thou ghost that way, and let me turn this,
    And let ourselves benight our happiest day,
    We asked none leave to love; nor will we owe
    Any, so cheap a death, as saying, Go;

    etc.

79. Robi @32

    Made me laugh, thanks!

    Encores please

80. Thanks for the blog and to those who took the trouble to comment (even when I disagree).

    Season’s greetings to all.

81. This was too difficult for me. I’d struggled with many of the clues, and as bedtime approached I had to persuade my DH to look at the blog and let me bounce some ideas off him for AMANDA and DEBUNKED to confirm when I was on the right track. We ground to a halt for a while with BANGALORED as he couldn’t understand the blog explanation well enough to help, but I did eventually realise that the “and” had to be removed from “England” to complete the anagram fodder. Ironically, when DH was made redundant a couple of years ago, it was because his IT job had been transferred to China, not to India. I didn’t get the word play of (p)ADDED UP until I read the blog myself, though.

    It was rather too much of a slog to be really enjoyable, but I don’t begrudge better solvers than me getting puzzles which stretch them.

    Thanks to Vlad and manehi.

82. ingenious

83. But some of us don’t particularly want ingenuity. We want a crossword to divert us after we have finished reading our newspaper. Some want to be diverted more than most, so there will almost always be disagreement on this blog. The fact that this one pleased the few very much means that there are many who are left short.
    My experience was that this was not a particularly successful crossword as it didn’t have the momentum that the best do – a fairly empty grid on first pass, with curiosity piqued as to what the answers could be, but as the crossers start to go in the pace quickens as hints to the structure of the clues are revealed, until there are just a couple of harder nuts to crack. For me, this synergy is as important a part of the crossword setters art as the ingenuity of individual clues.

84. @83
    Count the critical contributors. There are about ten of them, hardly “the many”.

    I accept that your experience was totally different to mine – that bit about momentum and synergy uncannily recalled mine, in fact, right down to the stubborn LOI. But this is a good example of how misleading a site like this can be – a small number of people, some of whom, not all, are badly misrepresenting the clues, claim to speak for the majority. Generalised negative comments are discouraged by the site rules and it’s easy to see why.

    I hope the Guardian won’t be unhealthily influenced by this faction. I found it an unusually satisfying and enjoyable puzzle and I’m very pleased one of the Independent’s best setters is now setting for them too. But now I want an Anax!

85. Herb @ 84

    I’m with you!

86. This time I admit to having made a ‘generalised comment’, but it was a late post and all the detail had been provided by others. In effect I called for some editing, which I would not normally call for, but today I thought it was an appropriate observation to make.

    Aside from all the subjective comments about enjoying the puzzle or not and about whether one liked this or that clue, which I think are part and parcel of the excellent blogging on this site, there was enough objective observation and constructive criticism to bring out certain weaknesses in some clues today.

    None of what I am saying has anything to do with how difficult today’s puzzle was (it was more so than most) or how much enjoyment one had from it (this varied a lot). It is more to do with the standards of clueing. There is no written, formal set of standards, as far as I know (and nor do I need one), but I am sure that some standards are implied, understood and normally adhered to.

    One can see that a lot of attention and effort have, understandably, been devoted to trying to justify the wordplay in certain clues, especially 8/23D (AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART), and I maintain that 8/23D, above others I could pick out, is below standard. To explain briefly: one doesn’t know initially where all the anagram fodder comes from, but the answer is easy for most (all?) of us to work out from a few crossers, the definition and the parts of the anagram that may be direct (FIONA, FATHER); then the only analytical effort required is to discover where on earth the other letters come from. For the solver’s skill and effort to be focused on finding the remaining letters of the anagram after the event (i.e. trying to justify the clue) I think is a weakness. (I actually didn’t bother because I wanted to move on, but after reading this blog I could see how contrived the anagram was – indirection gone mad through the use of the word ‘repeatedly’.)

    Fair criticism should not be put down. We are not a faction, we don’t misrepresent clues (do we?) and we don’t claim to speak for the majority.

    Subjectively, I am with Van Winkle on this one.

    Sorry this post is so late. It may well be past its date (nobody will see it!), but I had no time before now. I’m just about to get stuck into Paul’s effort today.)

87. Sorry about the bad punctuation in the last para of 86 – I rushed that post.

88. If you want an Anax Herb then you like the better class of clues. The Indy has a superior set of compilers these days in my view, and if I could become happy with their site I would do it more than I do now. I still like the ease of the Guardian site.

    Break off clearly means ‘to interrupt’ except in rare instances (not in the Donne poem quoted). It would be better to use the snooker definition I think, there is no equivocation there.

    I very much agree with Brendan @ 75.

89. BREAK OFF
    Collins has “to end (a relationship, association etc)” – among other meanings: The Concise Oxford has “abruptly end or discontinue something”.

90. Thanks Vlad and manehi

    Tough, but very good in my opinion – it took me on and off right through to the train ride home yesterday to finally get this one done. Ended up getting all of the correct answers but had three where the parsing wasn’t quite right – 10a got the fodder wrong and took the ON from ‘longer’ rather than thed AND from ‘England’, 26a had 2 NOs and 2 Ws, but not the way it was supposed to be and 8d-23d had the right fodder but didn’t connect the A as an abbrev of ‘are’.

    Plenty of new learning today with STOPES, BANGALORED (last one in), TROLLEYED and KEN BARLOW.

    A wide variety of clue devices, enough obscurity to make one work hard for some of the answers and a sense of fairness across the whole puzzle.

    Bluedot@66 did make me laugh …

91. Herb @84: But now I want an Anax!
    Anax has tried to get in to the Guardian but was turned down.
    I know the reason given to him but I am not going to say anything about it (as it may be embarrassing for today’s setter).

    Hedgehoggy @88 wouldn’t be against it either but – although I am a great admirer of Anax – I am not sure whether his style suits The Guardian.
    I think there might be quite a few of those who didn’t like this puzzle today that would stumble over an Anax puzzle.
    Anax is reportedly the second hardest setter in the country (after Nimrod/Enigmatist/Elgar/IO).
    Personally, I would welcome him at The Guardian (as he does himself) but I am not 100% sure whether the Hedgehoggies of the World would leave out the word ‘compileritis’.

    Hedgehoggy @88: The Indy has a superior set of compilers these days in my view
    Yes, they have very good setters there (with an overlap with The Guardian – Vlad, Screw, Enigmatist, Pasquale, Tramp, Crucible etc) and their puzzles are strictly speaking more Ximenean. Yet, there is something different about The Guardian where there is more possible and where rules aren’t always rules.
    Technically speaking, perhaps, The Indy is superior but I do like the Guardian puzzles too as they are more playful or provocative, in the end.
    Take them as they are, don’t always try to fit them into your Book of Crosswords.

    In my opinion, Vlad is ‘one level up’ compared to many other setters.
    Imaginative, ingenious (indeed, Tramp) and challenging.
    That’s why I like his puzzles, despite minor quibbles (no crossword is perfect, there’s always something to quibble about).

92. Everyone has tried to get into The Guardian. I was refused, along with one other (an extremely able setter and now much lauded solver … and also now trans person), for not being female. All our hard work, and that was the considered response. Pshaw we all said. And pah.

    Howevs I considered surgery as you may imagine, in-deed I hope you can, as in-deed did in-deed my in-deed erstwhile companion, but in the end, in-deede, as we say in the trade, I decided to hold on to what I had, onto which even now I am here holding unless someone else very altruistic is holding it. Numbly. Occasionally indeed. If indeed. I explained to the editor that full oft it was that I had been referred to as a complete Berkshire, but even that was deemed unconvincing. Months of wig-wearing and super-sensual stockinged Farringdonesque struttings ensued, tho’ all to NO AVAIL (2,5). O me alas I well-a-way a-waymentinge. And what the hell are we wasting our time on here then lads Puck’s sake.

    Still, fair enough, bloody hells, as we now see and enjoy the myriad female stars in the Aidanurg firmament, all twinkly two of them out of bloody loads. Occasionally. And Shed’s mum. Very occasionally. And Paula, and She(d), and Imogen … er, well, it got YOU in, you clever old stick! … and that Tramp or Trans, whatevs, and Philistina and well Screw just gives us the sacred androgyne just where we want it.

    Full wel ydronkelewe am I, as ye may surmise, and gooooooode nightie. I recommend The Aristocrats.

93. Hahahaha PaulB … you made me laugh out loud mid afternoon on a stinking 41 degree day in olde Melbourne town !!!

    I certainly enjoy your FT offerings … and would welcome you and all of your dress-up friends joining the Grauniad stable !!!

94. Never thought I’d say this, but I’m on hedgehoggy’s side in this. “Bangalored”? How many times has that actually been used in real life? It’s a nonsense.

95. Sil @91

    You may not see this as it is so, so late, but here goes.

    I was very interested in your post. A few days ago I wrote a post comparing Guardian with Times cryptic crosswords, noting:

    (1) the general level of difficulty being pretty much the same in both;

    (2) the absence of typos and technical errors in The Times (I found just 1 in 12 crosswords that I completed while in Australia);

    (3) the superiority of the Guardian in terms of more creativity, more variety, more themes and more humour.

    Of these, (3) is very telling, in my view. Give me The Guardian any day.

    I always distinguish between the quality of the clueing and the level of difficulty. You put ‘Vlad’ one level up’ on other setters, and if you mean degree of difficulty I would agree, but if you mean quality I couldn’t disagree more! Quality covers many things, of course, in a cryptic crossword, one of which may be a minimum degree of difficulty (but try measuring that!). Other things are clarity, accuracy and one that is harder to express: the clever (misleading, even) but always defensible use of as many cryptic devices as is reasonably possible. I could go on (new twists on old tricks, or new tricks, even, but always defensible).

    Judging by this crossword and just one other that I have knowingly completed that was by Vlad, I find him/her ‘one level down’ on quality.

    My use of the term ‘defensible’ is self-explanatory, even though it is a somewhat subjective criterion, but sometimes on this site I see some excruciatingly creative attempts to justify lazy clueing (or worse). I don’t have any examples to hand, apart from today, but I’m sure you’ve seen some yourself – dodgy anagram indicators, for example.

96. Sorry, punctuation went haywire in the middle of 95.

    It should read

    … You put Vlad ‘one level up’ …

97. Alan (if you are still there), I am happy to give my view on this.
    I would like to follow up your posts but will do this in the ‘General Discussion’ section of Fifteensquared.
    Not today, perhaps tomorrow, certainly before I leave the UK to see my mum (which is on Tue 22 Dec).

98. It should be pointed out that The Times does not allow themes, so Alan Browne is absolutely correct on one point at least. As to variety I’m not quite sure what he means, but certainly The Times demands a continuity across its submissions. As to creativity, that’s down to personal preference I would guess, but notwithstanding grammatical exigencies perhaps AB could be more specific about which clues he himself finds delightful. I would be happy to supply three or four Times clues in answer to any that he can bring from The Guardian to the table.

99. Paul B (@98)

    I’m pleased and surprised that this day’s blog is still alive. Thank you for your post in answer to mine. You know some things that I don’t, and what you told me about The Times not allowing themes and demanding ‘a continuity across its submissions’ explains quite a lot of what I observed from my break (the month of November this year) into Times crosswords when it was less convenient to do the Guardian (I was in Australia).

    For example, one aspect of variety is difficulty level, and the gap between a typical Rufus and a typical Vlad (say) is far greater than what I found with the Times crosswords that I tried. (By the way, the Times crosswords were the UK ones, 30 days behind.) This, surely, reflects a policy (and an editor) at The Times that The Guardian lacks – or the Guardian policy consciously grants more freedom in this respect and others. Rufus apart, I still found the general level of difficulty (the mean or average, if you like) pretty much the same, and my skill level is suited to both providers.

    My comments about creativity and humour, or about other aspects of variety, I cannot explain further without live examples, none of which I have to hand (and it would be too time-consuming to go back over completed crosswords to achieve this). The Times crosswords nevertheless left me with strong impressions on these points of comparison, and I will try to note down, in the near future, some Guardian clues that I think bring out the qualities I have written about, and highlight them to you, probably in the General Discussion.

    I enjoyed solving Times crosswords, for a change, with my daughter in Australia, but it’s nice to come back to The Guardian. Thanks again for your comments.

100. FWIW, this writer did a solving survey for this site in 2012. Based purely on the experience of one solver, it suggested the Times and Guardian puzzles were broadly similar in difficulty (time taken to solve) with a somewhat greater variation from one puzzle to another in the case of the Guardian.

101. Thanks nmsindy (@100). Your input is of interest, because I came to the same conclusion – although I didn’t go quite as far as saying that in my previous post. I said I found “the general level of difficulty (the mean or average, if you like) pretty much the same” in both papers, but what I neglected to say was that the range of difficulty levels (or times to solve) is greater in The Guardian than in The Times, echoing your conclusion. In The Guardian, puzzles by Rufus tend to keep the lower end up, so to speak, but the higher end is less well defined, most compilers varying their level of difficulty anyway, intentionally or otherwise.

     By the way, Paul B (@98) informed me that The Times does not allow themes (which explains why I never saw any!), but what I did find in my dalliance with Times crosswords last month was one example of a nina and one of a pangram. Of course, there is no reason to disallow these types of puzzle (unless a nina is obscene, for example), whereas a theme, if allowed, can, unless it is very well implemented, ruin a solver’s enjoyment of the puzzle if he/she cannot find it.

     Thanks again to Paul B and nmsindy for their inputs.

102. Alan, I wanted to give your post a follow-up but, unfortunately, time is not on my side.

103. Thanks manehi and Vlad.

     I’m far too late to make a meaningful contribution to the debate but wanted to say:

     WOW – that was tough but ultimately rewarding.

     I needed 3 visits to get there.

     All very creative and needed a huge level of lateral thinking. Nothing was straightforward and I’m still not 100% convinced about the anagram fodder in 8/23.

     But the answers – in the end – could only be what they were so respect to Vlad!

104. Sil @102.

     No worries. Noted and Understood.

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