Guardian 26,793 – Qaos

59 comments on “Guardian 26,793 – Qaos”

1. Yes – perfect for a midweek puzzle.

   Many thanks both.

2. Thanks manehi and Qaos. Good fun.

   Got Wentworth without knowing its connection to clubs and gear without knowing the TV show.

   As usual the theme escaped me 🙁 in spite of having pills, grass, hash etc early on.

3. Thanks to Qaos and manehi. Usually I have difficulty with this setter, but this time things fell into place. I got BLOW but did not know BL for “bale,” but, given the recent controversy, even in the US we’ve heard of TOP GEAR. I had trouble deciding whether CARAMEL or CARAVEL was the answer, and my last in was AURIGA (new to me) after I tried and failed to squeeze in “Athens.” Very enjoyable and not at all qaotic.

4. GEAR is also heroin; LSD is consumed in MICRODOTs; GROOVED is (was) also a tripper’s term. (No doubt the narcotics agencies will now be tracking me.)

5. Re 28d: Since when does DE stand for Germany? The country’s IVR is just D.

6. Marijuana is often baked into BROWNIES, and in Australia at least, GEAR is used more broadly than just heroin.

   Or so I’ve heard.

7. A recreational puzzle indeed!

8. A nice, gentle solve which would have been even more enjoyable had I not, as usual, missed the theme! Thank you Qaos & manehi.

   Epeolater @5: I shared your doubt about 28d but have googled it and find that .de is the “country code top-level domain” for Germany. [Most computer language is foreign to me!]

9. Thanks Qaos and manehi; great fun. My first two in were SNOW and GRASS and I thought that I had uncovered a literary theme in double-quick time. Of course I feel a proper Charlie now. Boom boom.

10. Thanks Qaos and manehi

    Is it Monday already? The only hiccoughs I had were entering CARAMELS rather than CARAVELS and INWARDS (unparsed) rather than ONWARDS initially. LEARN was my favourite.

    I didn’t like “track” as the definition for STADIUM – many stadiaums (stadia?) don’t have tracks, and vice versa.

    btw what has happened to the Guardian’s crossword site? Lots of broken links recently. Today’s direct link to this puzzle gives the date as 15th February 2016, but linkes to a Paul puzzle from last week.

11. JuneG@8 – Ah, thanks! One might, therefore, say that the dope incorporates another microdot!

12. That was fun. Thanks Qaos and Manehi. I like a puzzle that looks impenetrable at first but then unfolds. Even the long clunky 2d yielded eventually. Is hamper a synonym of interfere? Surely interfere with? I thought it must be interrupt at first. Small quibbles and I expect someone will put me right about interfere.

13. Thank you, manehi.

    Plenty of fun and a rather rapid solve although got in a tangle with INWARDS/ONWARDS & CARAVEL/CARAMEL.

    Like others, not wild about “stadium = track” or de = Germany but both were getable from the clues so perhaps fair enough.

    My main grip was “shirt “worn” by sailor”. I suppose if you wear something you have it ‘on’ – is that it? Think I’ve just answered my own gripe.

    I’ll get my coat.

    Nice weekend, all.

    PS Missed the theme (as often).

14. Xjpotter @12 Yes, I’m rather with you on this, although I suppose you could construct a sentence such as, “John is just a meddler, he adds nothing to the meeting and all he does is hamper/interfere.” Bit of a stretch though isn’t it?

15. Thanks Qaos and manehi.

    That was fun, the only unknown was WENTWORTH (all I could think of was Captain W. in “Persuasion”, but a Jane Austen theme did not look likely).

    muffin @10, I started the Paul puzzle, congratulating myself that I was not fooled into entering PARQUET at 1a, it took a while for the penny to drop – by the way, have you got your £120,000 ready to join the Wentworth Golf Club?

16. June @8: I agree about STADIUM, however DE for Germany is well-established. In fact I tend to think of it before D (but then I am a computer person).

    Muffin @10: you’re right about the site. I complained to the editor but the time he replied it had been fixed. I suppose the Grauniad’s tradition lives on in the digital age.

17. Nice puzzle as usual from Qaos. Lots of good clues, including GRASS, GROUND CREW, ITCHES and VAMPIRE BAT. Missed the theme as usual. Thanks to Q and m.

18. Re the stadium/track debate. Continuing the druggy theme, those who inject for a prolonged period end up with damaged veins
    which show up on the skin as blue/black lines, known colloquially as trackmarks, or tracks.

19. RH @18 You know waaaay too much about the subject.

    On the stadium/track debate, and venturing into dangerous uncharted waters of English, I suppose it’s fair enough if you consider ‘track’ as a synecdoche of stadium.

20. I found this easier than most Qaos puzzles, though I missed the theme as usual. I didn’t know “bl” as an abbreviation for “bale”, but it had to be that. I also initially entered INWARDS instead of ONWARDS. Otherwise it was straightforward, including CARAVELS as I already had the V from KING DAVID.

    Favourites include MICRODOT, TEAPOT and VAMPIRE BAT.

    Thanks, Qaos and manehi.

21. All very pleasant and pretty straightforward once a few easy starters provided some helpful crossers. Spotted the theme quite late so that didn’t help. AURIGA was last in and only vaguely familiar but quite gettable from the wordplay.

    Thanks to Qaos and manehi

22. Didn’t know the Formula 1 driver and bl for bale is a new one to me, but in both cases “it had to be that”. As usual I didn’t see the theme until I was told about it.

23. Hopefully this puzzle was ironic comment on the obsession of many compilers with naughty drugs that will put an end to the addiction. You can hardly complete a crossword these days without coming across references to E, horse, etc. If it is an attempt to show how hip and daringly transgressive the setter is, it’s not particularly convincing and (for me) getting somewhat tired. Apologies to Qaos if he was actually purring on meow meow whilst compiling.

24. Thanks Qaos and manehi.

    DE is the ISO 3166 code for Germany – all countries have a two letter code, and, with the exception of the Eurozone a single character is appended to denote currencies, so GB > GBP, US > USD etc.

    hth

25. I’m much too innocent to have got the theme but didn’t need it – found this pretty straightforward, though I needed to check bl for bale in an old-fashioned paper dictionary.

    (Gareth) Bale is, by the way, the star of the Welsh football team, responsible almost single-handedly for making them a genuine force at European level. So 1d is a very neat surface from Qaos. And he follows it at 2d with a (rather more forced) surface alluding to early IT entrepreneur Clive Sinclair.

26. Afternoon all! Many thanks for the comments and to manehi for the blog. I’m glad you’ve enjoying today’s trip through crosswordland. Although seeing the Guardian’s crossword homepage tell me today was Feb 15th did make me wonder if the ghost theme had somehow slipped into my Special K this morning …

    Best wishes,

    Qaos

27. There’s an anagram of “Reefer Tin” at 10 across too!

28. I didn’t see the theme; I’m more of an alcohol man. Most of this went in very quickly but I got stuck in the NW corner. I had no idea what WENTWORTH was but eventually realised it was an anagram so had to be right. I didn’t know AURIGA either.
    All very pleasant and,er,groovy!
    Thanks Qaos.

29. Spliffing !

30. Suitable theme for the day we learn of the death of Paul Kantner, Rider of the 2 Down.

31. I missed the theme as well, but then again, I am exceedingly virtuous. Never mind that I’m far too obtuse to notice a theme ever ever.

    I have a question for more experienced solvers regarding clues like 21 down. I find it mildly irritating when it seems both words are equally likely. Is there a rule to determine which is correct, e.g. is the definition always first as it was here? Or is it simply the responsibility of the setter to make sure there is an intersecting clue to indicate the correct word?

32. BlueDot@31: Good question, and I also don’t always know which is the answer. It seems to me that the natural reading is pointing towards ‘ships’ as the definition, but I think it really could be read either way – and I don’t think the definition always comes first by any means. Maybe someone with 50 years’ solving under their belt will come forward and give us some clarification.

33. BlueDot @31
    I’ve been doing crosswords for years, but, as I said earlier, one of the few problems I had with this was entering CARAMELS first!

34. This was very easy! Almost too easy (I too thought I’d missed the weekend somehow and it was Monday)!

    Of course I didn’t see the theme as I never look for or notice them.

    I remember Qaos when he was always challenging. Why the easy puzzles nowadays?

    I only had one hour to tackle this before the footie started. I needn’t have worried as I now have plenty of time to check emails and make a meal. I’ll even see some of the build up. 🙂

    Thanks to manehi and Qaos

35. You missed tab=acid, rocky=Moroccan hash

    And no, I’m not a cop

36. Thanks all
    Good fun tonight…..I didn’t start until 8pm.
    Favourites were 17,31 across and 2,7down. Last in was rainbows.
    The discussion re 21 down, I just take it as another “puzzling” aspect of the whole.

37. Brendan @35, you did well to find this easy. I managed to complete the puzzle, but with some clues it took me a long time to eliminate various different ways of reading the clue before hitting upon the right one. It was a bit of a challenge for me.

    I enjoyed this puzzle nevertheless, and the variety of types of clue made it entertaining.

    Among several neat and clever clues, there were two that I found less satisfying.

    BlueDot @32 is one of a number of you who have highlighted 21D, and in my opinion the right answer is CARAMELS, not CARAVELS. The clue says, in effect, ‘trading V for M’, and the only way I interpret that is that you trade in V and receive M in return – hence you get CARAMELS. KING DAMID was wrong going across, so the word had to be CARAVELS after all.

    For 25A, ‘inwards’ seems to me to be just as good an answer as ONWARDS, as muffin and others have noted; so, as with 21D, we do not have a unique answer. I consider this to be a blemish, but I know others would not and are quite happy with ambiguous clues giving more than one answer and be left to decide the right one using the crossers.

38. I must also thank both Qaos and manehi.

39. Alan Browne @ 37

    Thanks for your support on INWARDS but (as I said), I don’t think it parses; “ahead” matches ONWARDS much better.

    I do agree about CARAMELS, though. (Well, I would have to, wouldn’t I!)

40. William @20

    Thank you for coming up with the word ‘synecdoche’ – I was trying to think of this word the other day.

    Like you, as far as I can see, the setter’s use of a synecdoche in 22A is the only way to explain the answer from the clue. It is hard to find a synonym that doesn’t give the answer away – perhaps a phrase might have been better, but it takes time to come up with a good one that tricks and/or entertains the solver.

41. Re caramels/caravels: without wishing to generate too much hot air, my reading was “If you have ships and trade V for M you get sweets”, so fine. And, as others have noted before,it’s a crossword not a quiz, so if there are two possibilities, wait till you get the crosser.

    The ones that I do find infuriating are those where, even with all the crossers, there seems to be more than one parsable answer.

    As I said, just my view. And qaos is by no means a strict Ximenean, after all. His rules – your/my rules: they overlap, but it doesn’t have to be a perfect match.

42. Alan Browne @37
    For 21d, you paraphrased the clue as “you trade in V and receive M in return”, but I suggest an equally valid paraphrase could be “ships, obtained by trading a V for the M in caramels”. I agree that choosing between those alternatives would be impossible without the crossers, but that brings up the same issue that you did in your final paragraph. Some solvers (and setters) believe that solutions should be unique and not need the crossers, whereas others feel that is not a problem because this is a crossword, not a quiz.

    However, for 25a, I disagree that “inwards” would be an equally valid answer. I did initially enter “inwards”, but I wasn’t happy with it because I didn’t feel that it really meant “ahead”. Once the crosser showed the solution was ONWARDS, it seemed obvious that it was a much better answer, both because going ONWARDS does mean going “ahead” and because nurses refer to being ON a ward, not “in” a ward.

43. Simon @41
    We had a similar discussion earlier this week (DECORATORS/PLASTERERS). Some of us think that a clue should have a unique solution without resorting to crossers; others disagree. A matter of taste, I suppose.

44. [We crossed, jennyk – but we seem to be in heated agreement (as Simon S might say).]

45. muffin @ 43: heated agreement 😉

46. Drofle@32. I’ve been doing crosswords for over 50 years but I don’t know the answer. Any way rules in place 50 years ago are ignored today. I seem to remember the first time that I came across a clue in which “short” or ” cut” meant that a word was missing the last letter and thinking that it was cop out by a setter too lazy to find a proper anagram. Now examples are all over the place and whereas “short cut” could once safely be entered as SHOR or CU there are now dozens of possibilities as synonyms of the shortened word are accepted. For example “Italian woman cut short in attraction” (7). This contains another of my betes noires – SA – which must have ceased to be current slang for S(ex) A(ppeal) about 50 years ago but still crops up occasionally.

47. muffin @44 and Simon S @45
    It was a triple cross, really, as Simon made the same point about crossers @41 while I was typing.

    I’ll repeat my other point about 25a, though, in case it got lost among the “crossers” arguments – that nurses (and doctors) saying ON WARDS, not IN WARDS.

48. jennyk @42

    Thank you for your well-thought-out response to my post @37.

    It was quite a long time after solving the crossword that I carelessly suggested ‘inwards’ was as good as ‘outwards’, completely overlooking the word ‘ahead’ which I saw and duly noted at the time I solved the clue. No wonder I filled in ONWARDS – it was unique! I’m sorry to have been so careless with this.

    As for ‘trading V for M’, I still prefer ‘trading in V to receive M’ as the more natural interpretation of the wording Qaos used in the clue, but I accept that it is ambiguous, and one has to use a crosser to force the answer.

    As you know, I think a clue should have a unique solution, but I respect the position of those who think otherwise. To me, the beauty of cryptic crosswords is that the crossers help you to get other words – not to decide which of 2, 3, … possible answers is the correct one.

49. I always feel my efforts are diminished when commentators say a crossword was very easy when I found it a struggle and have to come here to find the last answers that eluded me. Again can I say that I like Monday crosswords because At least I know I have a better chance of completion. Everyone has to start somewhere and of course such answers as Wentworth for a “place of clubs” does not spring readily to mind if the solver lives overseas and does not follow golf. This drug-themed puzzle was very clever indeed, Qaos. Thank you from Down Under for the pleasure I felt in getting it three-quarters solved, and gratitude to Manehi for assisting with the ones I missed.

50. Julie, please try not to let those comments make you feel that way. “Easier” or “harder” tend to be very personal judgements.

    A lot of it has to do with being on that particular setter or puzzles’ wavelength. Almost every time someone says they found a puzzle easy, someone else will say they found it harder than usual. I try to say “I found this easier than X’s usual” because that’s usually the comparison I’m making, but however I phrase it, it is only ever about my personal experience. Some setters have very individual styles which don’t suit everyone. Themed puzzles are another issue – they shouldn’t rely on expert knowledge of that theme, but sometimes they do, so again easier for some people than others.

51. I’m probably being utterly dim, but in what context is BL = Bale?

52. My last word on the “unique solutions” argument. (Has anyone a recognised source which suggests this “uniqueness” rule?)

    If all clues are required to have a unique solution then surely the logical result of this would be to dispense with the grid! I believe that the plain grid/definition came first before we had cryptic puzzles. The name crossword describes the grid as well as indicating the fact as words are entered the task becomes easier. The crossers are there to help find the words. (This also includes deciding bewteen multiple possible answers)

    If every clue must have unique solution we can invent the “Cryptic Clue Puzzle” which has no grid. (The only benefit I can see would be that it would mean a NINA was impossible.)

53. Brendan @52

    I was very interested to read your comment. I couldn’t disagree more! @48 I said “To me, the beauty of cryptic crosswords is that the crossers help you to get other words – not to decide which of 2, 3, … possible answers is the correct one.”

    Dispensing with the grid and having a list of cryptic clues to solve would be like purgatory. I wouldn’t touch it and cannot see anything like that finding favour with anybody on my side of the fence, let alone yours.

    And that is my last word on this subject.

54. John @51

    I see nobody has answered you yet, but I think I can do so.

    ‘bl’ is just an abbreviation ‘bale’, which as well being a bundle is also a measure of weight: in Chambers it says “esp (US) 500 lb of cotton”.

    Collins has ‘bl’ as an abbreviation only for ‘barrel’, not bale as well.

    So this clue only just works! But of course the setter had to put ‘Bale’ in the clue with ‘Wales’.

55. Julie @49

    I’m used to having that feeling! Brendan (@35) said “This was very easy! Almost too easy”, and I duly complimented him (@37). I found this one a challenge. I get the impression that Brendan is one of those supersolvers like manehi today and the rest of the team of bloggers on this site.

    I have found that with experience of solving Guardian cryptic crosswords about 4 times a week (that’s usually how my week goes) for more than a year I have not only got accustomed to the devices and tricks that setters use on us but also become steadily more successful in completing them, and it is not often that I fail. That is a far cry from a year ago.

    It’s late, but I hope you see this. Good luck and keep solving.

56. Thinking further with VOTE WITH ONES FEET, I remember from medical school in London, over 50 years ago, that whenever the lecturer said something the students agreed with, they would stamp with their feet in appreciation – is this a public school thing? This meaning is quite the opposite to the usual one.

57. Alan @53

    And this really is my last word 🙂

    You had said “To me, the beauty of cryptic crosswords is that the crossers help you to get other words – not to decide which of 2, 3, … possible answers is the correct one.”

    Surely saying the crossers help you to get words is the same thing as saying the crossers help you to decide which of many possible answers can be inserted.

    I think what you, and others, are saying is that you think that the word play should lead to a unique answer. I’m afraid you are going to have to be selective in the application of this rule. There are at least two types of clue to which this often doesn’t apply. The Double Definition and the Cryptic Definition. These often aren’t resolvable without the aid of crossers!

58. Thanks Qaos and manehi

    Didn’t find this easy, maybe a tad easier than what he can deliver, but still taking well over an hour in two sessions this afternoon – the first over a very late brunch (still wonder at having brunch at 3:00 in the afternoon!).

    Always appreciate the innovation and misdirection found in Qaos clues – today’s highlights would be ITCHES, where I initially went off looking for —USE words for a companion and KING DAVID where I was looking for an Israelite family, rather than a particular Israelite (admittedly forgot to take note of the enumeration).

    Was another who initially entered INWARDS and CARAMEL. I certainly come down on the side of being able to check the ‘correct’ option from crossers as a valid ask from the setter.

    Went looking for a theme after completion, but embarrassingly couldn’t spot the obvious – or maybe I haven’t lived life to the fullest either !!

59. Thanks Qaos and manehi.

    Got ONWARDS only because I had BROWNIES first but was another that had to change the M of CARAMELS to a V once KING DAVID emerged.

    Completely missed the drugs theme – oh what a sheltered life etc (honest).

    At least this didn’t leave me on my uppers (oh – what a giveaway!)

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