Guardian Cryptic 26,802 by Imogen

by

Struggled at several points…

particularly with my last in 2dn. Favourites 27ac and 7dn. Thanks, Imogen.

Across
1 BABY BOOM Lots more kids, but only a little noise? (4,4)
  a BABY BOOM might only be “a little noise”
5 FABRIC Material is excellent, endlessly ornate (6)
  FAB=”excellent”, plus RIC[h]=”endlessly ornate”
9 ELEVENTH What about learner at race, perhaps well down the grid? (8)
  ‘EH?’=”What?”, around all of L[earner] plus EVENT=”race, perhaps”
10 ORISON Prayer of saint to be set among the stars (6)
  S[aint] inside ORION=”stars”
12 SPIED Observed leading Scotsmen like a piper (5)
  S[costmen], plus PIED=”like a piper”
13 FEVER TREE African grower available to engage tennis champion (5,4)
  a South African tree. FREE=”available” around Chris EVERT=”tennis champion” [wiki]
14 SIGHT READING Musician’s skill rescued tarnished gig (5-7)
  (tarnished gig)*
18 BROKEN WINDED Horse so sick, tamed and patted on the back (6-6)
  BROKEN=”tamed”, plus WINDED=”patted on the back” as in burping a baby
21 CREAM SODA Drink in large amounts during music’s ending (5,4)
  REAMS=”large amounts” in CODA=”music’s ending”
23 HORDE Crowd keep listening (5)
  Sounds like ‘hoard’=”keep”
24 RAT RUN Short cut through lab maze? (3,3)
  A minor road used to avoid traffic, but could also be a type of “lab maze”
25 GOATHERD Pastoralist finds the way to part of India (8)
  THE R[oa]D=”the way”, after GOA=”part of India”
26 DECIDE Resolve unfinished plan by end of year (6)
  IDE[a]=”unfinished plan”, by DEC[ember]=”end of year”
27 ZEPPELIN Led follower to create flyer (8)
  ZEPPELIN follows “Led” to make up the name of the rock band.
Down
1 BREAST Start to read through Waugh’s daily: this once on page 3? (6)
  referring to page 3 of the Sun [wiki]. R[ead], inside the Daily BEAST, a fictional newpaper in Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop [wiki]
2 BREXIT Little to keep king leaving union (6)
  BR[itish] EXIT from the European Union. BIT=”Little” around REX=”king”
3 BREADLINE In Ireland, be awfully poor on this (9)
  (In Ireland be)*
4 OUT OF THE WOOD Safe now to serve beer so? (3,2,3,4)
  beer can be served directly OUT OF THE WOOD=cask
6 AIRER With beginnings of asthma, is reaching with hesitation for ventilator (5)
  A[sthma] I[s] R[eaching], plus ER=”hesitation”
7 RESTRAIN Part of day fine … stop! (8)
  Part of the day is fine, the REST [of the day is] RAIN
8 CONVERGE It’s cold beside the road; get closer (8)
  C[old], plus ON VERGE=”beside the road”
11 OVER AND ABOVE Sluggish, not in going under old porch but on top (4,3,5)
  BOV[in]E=”Sluggish” without in, after O[ld] VERANDA=”porch”
15 AMENHOTEP Egyptian leader with a popular record attracts people (9)
  the name of several Egyptian Pharaohs. A HOT EP=”a popular record”, around MEN=”people”
16 OBSCURED Jack, abandoning tasks, smoked behind screen (8)
  [J]OBS=”tasks”, with J[ack] leaving; plus CURED=”smoked”
17 DOMESTIC Couple rowing: I’d come running across the street (8)
  (I’d come)* around ST[reet]
19 ORDEAL Ancient method of trial, or coming to agreement (6)
  OR, plus DEAL=”agreement”
20 LEADEN Carrying burdens across back of mule that’s slow (6)
  LADEN=”Carrying burdens”, around [mul]E
22 MOUND Large hill finally converted to small one (5)
  MOUN[t]=”Large hill”, with the final t converted to D

47 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 26,802 by Imogen”

  1. Thanks for the blog, manehi.

    I struggled too, to begin with – I didn’t get a single across clue on my first run-through and thought I might have to give up until much later, as my time is very limited this morning, but 3dn gave me an entry and threw light on 1ac, which got me going.

    Most enjoyable, with lots of misdirection, raising several satisfied smiles. Favourites: SIGHT-READING, ZEPPELIN, BREXIT, AMENHOTEP and OBSCURED.

    Many thanks to Imogen [made the front page, too today! 😉 ]

  2. Thanks manehi.

    I struggled too, especially with BROKEN WINDED and had to cheat on GOATHERD as I thought I was looking for somewhere in India.

    Isn’t the expression OUT OF THE WOODS (plural)?

  4. Thanks Imogen and manehi

    I didn’t enjoy this all that much – too many obscurities. For instance FEVER TREE would only be familiar to English readers of “The elephant’s child” I would think, and the tennis player dates back several decades (as does Led Zeppelin!) BREAST was my FOI, but only because I’ve read Scoop.

    Some of the surfaces were rather clunky. Ironically one of the best ones is 3d, in which the “In” (not part of the fodder, manehi) spolis the cryptic reading.

    Favourites were BREAST, BABY BOOM and BREXIT.

  5. [Re my cryptic reference to “The elephant’s child”, this is from the Wikipedia page on the Limpopo River:

    The British author Rudyard Kipling popularized the Limpopo in his short story “The Elephant’s Child”, in the Just So Stories, in which he described “the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees,” where the “Bi-Coloured Python Rock-Snake” dwells.]

  8. Jason@6 when you are trying to bring up a baby’s wind, ie making them burp, by patting them firmly on the back.

  9. Imogen is one of my favourite setters but I found this rather unlovable, even after completion. Some of the clueing seemed lugubrious (11d,9a,18a et al) and lacked the light humorous touch I was expecting. I still prefer it to today’ other Imogen though!

  10. Thanks Imogen & manehi.

    Ground this one out, although in retrospect the clues were fine. Not helped by missing the anagram in BREADLINE for a while. FEVER-TREE is a brand of very nice ginger beer and other drink mixers, so I guessed that one for 13.

    I liked OVER AND ABOVE and LOI, BREXIT.

  11. I thought I was just being thick so it was reassuring that others also found this hard. Missed BREXIT (never heard it before), and couldn’t parse RESTRAIN or the BOV[in]E bit of 11d. Others such as BABY BOOM took me an unreasonably long time. I liked ZEPPELIN, CREAM SODA and the reference to Chris EVERT in 13a – all very 1970’s, to me anyway.

    Thank you to manehi and Imogen.

  12. I loved this ,being reminded of The Daily Beast in Scoop.I sussed the “led” quickly etc but got stumped by Brexit, living in Australia.
    But I had seen it a year or so ago. It parses perfectly but I foolishly went rootling around in Chambers which begs the question . Does the latest edition include it?

    Anyway great puzzle and thanks for blog, Manehi.

  14. Oops. Seem to have missed the explanation on first scan! Don’t think I should have got it in a month of Sundays!

  15. Thanks, manehi, needed you for BREXIT.

    It’s been a long time since I read through all clues without a single answer jumping out. Needed the BREADLINE anagram to get started.

    Plenty to enjoy here BABY BOOM, GOATHERD, ZEPPELIN to name a few, but also rather too many ‘grinders’ for my taste. The arbitrary change of a T to a D to give MOUNT/MOUND I found a bit weak, and being asked to get bovine from sluggish and then remove ‘in’ means you really have to get the answer first and then parse it – valid, of course, just not my favourite way to solve crosswords.

    Liked the Scotsmen/piper misdirect in SPIED, but agree with others that OUT OF THE WOODS (pl) is the more known form.

    The puzzle was made more difficult than usual as there were rather a lot of vague definitions such as ELEVENTH & RESTRAIN.

    Still, got there in the end and a pleasant diversion from what I really should be doing.

    Thank you, Imogen, nice week, all.

  16. I must admit to having used the Check button a few times, but I liked this a lot. BROKEN WINDED and AMENHOTEP were unfamiliar, but the latter has appeared in the Guardian before – Gordius 22733 had “Pharaoh’s approving expression on passionate record”. ORISON was last in.

    Thanks to Imogen and manehi

  17. Found this a bit hard on first sight as others have said –

    Out of the Woods for me, too

    Also beer is From the wood, isn’t it?

    Isn’t there a novel called the Fever Tree?

    Mrs southofnonorth says that 23ac is easier if you are a Geordie (no problem connecting horde with listen!)

    Thanks to Imogen and manehi

  18. [CAMRA – Campaign for real ale – started as a campaign for “beer from the wood”, but they dropped this when they realised that it doesn’t make much difference what the beer is stored in; it is how it has been treated and how it is kept and served that’s more significant.]

  19. Thanks Imogen and manehi.

    The Daily BEAST got me started, but from there it was hard going – BREXIT was unknown. I liked BABY BOOM, CREAM SODA, ZEPPELIN and AMENHOTEP among many others.

    Robi @10, the FEVER TREE brand of drinks is named for a Cinchona species originally from South America that provides quinine for tonic water, this was mixed with gin as a sundowner in the past to prevent malaria. The African FEVER TREE is an Acacia species which grows in damp places and was thought to cause malaria since people camping near one often became infected.

  21. Thanks Imogen and manehi

    Two from two with errors this week :(. Today I was done by BREXIT, just a word that is not in the Aussie vocabulary – so wouldn’t have ever guessed it. I went with BREVIS – meaning little … but couldn’t really get BEVIS to mean a ‘union’ of any sort – also was looking at ‘King’ = ELVIS with the L gone. Did look to see if BREXIS was a word at one time … so was getting close !!

    Anyway I enjoyed the rest of the puzzle. Had originally entered AKHENATON at 15d, which was what AMENHOTEP IV was known after the 5th year of his reign apparently, so that’s where I found the correct answer.

    Thought that RAT RUN and ZEPPELIN were the pick of a very good crop.

    Finished up in the NE corner with BREAST (very clever), SPIED (even more clever) and that BREXIT (which was too clever by half 🙂 )

  22. I made steady progress throughout, with ELEVENTH going more or less straight in and several others leading from it. Makes up therefore for all the days when I really struggle only to see “quite a straightforward offering from Nutmeg today” or some other such nonsense.

    In my, rather distant, experience, one needed more than a pat on the baby’s back. Maybe I was just heavy-handed. So 18a didn’t come easily, not least because the def ‘Horse so sick’ is a bit laboured. Slightly amazed there have been no ‘hadn’t heard of Led Zeppelin’ posts yet …

  23. Thanks to Imogen and manehi. I too found this one tough going. Several terms were new to me (e.g., RAT RUN, FEVER TREE) though even in the US I did know BREXIT from the headlines. I needed help parsing RESTRAIN and BROKEN-WINDED and missed the bovine-sluggish in OVER AND ABOVE. A challenge but worth the effort.

  24. Thanks manehi for the explanations. I couldn’t really parse RESTRAIN and had never heard of AMENHOTEP.

    Was I the only one to put in DECODE (last in, actually), thinking that DEC was indeed “end of year”, but couldn’t work out how ODE could be “unfinished plan”.

    Finally, I found 1d a little singular. Wouldn’t it have been a bit more cheeky, perhaps appropriately, to use: “one of a nice pair once on page 3?”? Sorry, Imogen, I hope that this doesn’t offend.

  25. Trailman @22 Re Led Zep, yes, me too. Interestingly, I found this…

    When Jimmy Page was assembling the group, Keith Moon (drummer from The Who) got word of his plans and predicted the group would go down “like a lead balloon”. Bassist and keyboardist John Entwistle thought it would be “more like a lead zeppelin.” Page took the phrase and manager Peter Grant changed the spelling to “led” in order to avoid mispronunciation.

  26. Wow – that was a hell of a struggle for me also, but that’s what I like. Great puzzle. Plenty of excellent clues, but favourites were BABY BOOM, SPIED, BREXIT, ZEPPELIN and OVER AND ABOVE. Many thanks to Imogen and manehi.

  27. I did manage this, mostly, but I’d never heard of BREXIT so that one defeated me. Also BREAST, but that was more because I was tired by that point (I did this late last night, Chicago time).

    Question: in GOATHERD, what in the clue tells you that Goa comes before The Rd. rather than after? I think the answer is “nothing,” right? And we just have to say, well, Therdgoa isn’t a word, so… (Or am I invoking the ghost of our favorite prickly forest creature a bit too much here?)

    On the other hand, the objection that Chris Evert (and Led Zeppelin, for that matter) are dated references–well, both were among the best ever at what they did. Evert still remains tied for fifth all-time in number of Grand Slam singles titles. And she’s still the color commentator on US TV for most broadcasts of women’s tennis, so it’s not like she’s out of the public eye.

    [For her commenting gig, she wears horrible print dresses that look like they’re made out of tablecloths–my husband and I love making fun of her for that–and Martina Navratiolova (whose contract is with the cable-only Tennis Channel) kicks her butt as far as being insightful on-the-air. Sorry Chrissie.]

  28. mrpenney @27
    The point that I was trying to make about Chris Evert was that the word being clued was pretty obscure too – two relative obscurities in the same clue. As a general rule of thumb I would expect clear clueing of obscure words, and possibly vice versa.

  29. I expected this to be difficult as I usually do with this setter but it yielded rather easily once I got stuck in. BREAST, BREADLINE and OUT OF THE WOOD got me started. ZEPPELIN and PIED were lovely- as was BREXIT- my LOI. I got FEVER TREE from the 60’s group- I remember nothing about them apart from the name and that John Peel used to play them- but couldn’t be bothered to Google them.
    All in all I found this surprisingly enjoyable.
    Thanks Imogen.

  30. This was a challenge for me, but satisfying in the end because, by racking my brain, I managed to complete it.

    However, I find I agree wholeheartedly with maysie @9. I put Imogen on a pedestal when I last commented on her puzzle, but this time I thought, as maysie and others did, that some definitions were not quite on the button and some wordplay was doubtful. Examples have been given already, and I don’t have any new ones.

    Most of the clues were superb, though, which made solving this puzzle a happy experience. I was stuck on a few, but not for too long. I’m still looking forward to Imogen’s next when it comes along.

    (Who made the front page today, Eileen @1? What am I missing?!)

    Many thanks to both Imogen and manehi.

  32. Me @30 and Eileen @1

    Sorry. I didn’t know I could be so thick. I have hardly felt the storm in Kent, but Storm Imogen is rightly on the front page of the Guardian today.

  35. Yes, hard work here. Some very nice clues I think, but some which were, as others say, a little obscure. In retrospect I think I am glad to have seen BREXIT, now some kind of possibility it seems, but of these I’m only familiar with GREXIT. Still a good work-out, though I too had to use ‘cheat’ on occasion.

    Thank you very much Imogen (you are a he?) and Manehi.

  37. Thanks manehi and Imogen!

    Tough one, really.

    Didn’t get many in top left corner – Brexit, Breadline, Eleventh & Spied.

    Loved many clues though, and parsed most of them correctly! That’s progress for me.
    Fav: 1a, 24a, 25a, 1d, 11d, and 16d

  38. I finished this without aids but somehow didn’t really enjoy it!

    I only got fever tree because we recently tried the Tonic Water that this new(?) company now market it. It’s very expensive and ruins a good gin (Star of Bombay in this case). Perhaps it’s meant to be drunk on its own? (Surely that would be sacrilege). Obvioulsy the parsing proved the answer.

    I’d never heard of Broken-Winded but the wordplay got me there.

    Some nice clues but a large dose of compileritis.

    Thanks to manehi and Imogen

  39. Thanks all
    Although I have seen brexit around it has not yet entered my most used vocabulary.
    I too would have used woods so the 4th element of 3down remained incomplete for a long time.
    Nevertheless I enjoyed this especially goatherd.

  40. Brendan (not that one) @38, the clue leading to FEVER TREE has nothing directly to do with the drinks company – they use quinine from another FEVER TREE introduced into Africa from South America, see my post @19.

  41. I think that I have heard “out of the wood” and “out of the woods” about equally frequently; the negative “we’re not out the wood yet” I think is actually commoner.

  43. Cookie, I didn’t actually think the clue had anything to do with the drinks company! It was through the company that I suspected that there was such a thing as a Fever Tree 🙂

  45. Thanks manehi and Imogen.

    This was a struggle for me too and I failed to complete missing out on BROKEN WINDED (I knew it was Broken something but I have never heard the expression) and the crossing OUT OF THE WOOD (like others I have only heard the expression in the plural).

    But it was a tough start too. No across clues answered on my first run and indeed my FOI was AIRER.

    I hadn’t heard of FEVER TREE either and a google only produced results for the drinks company – but a dictionary check did at least confirm and I am old enough to remember Chrissie Evert.

    Not being a classicist, I had not heard of AMENHOTEP but was at least able to work it out from the clueing.

    So hard work for me to do on the train home and into the evening on a Monday (I will catch up one day!)

    Thanks again.

  46. Zeppelin – very naughty clue. Laughed out loud. Eleventh – brilliant. Goatherd – how did I miss it. Humph! Thank you again Imogen.

  47. Imogen can hold a candle to Enigmatist – we always love her clues. As Neil often says – she is a very naughty girl.

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