Guardian 26,833 / Boatman

104 comments on “Guardian 26,833 / Boatman”

1. Hi Eileen. I think groups loses ‘up’ and spy gains an ‘a’.

2. I couldn’t finish this, and came here to find that Eileen has the same impasses as I have. All the film-specific clues seem to relate only to Goldfinger, insofar as I can tell, and this is a film I’ve seen a fair few times so this wasn’t the problem. As the sentence “No Mister Bond, I expect you to die” is nonsense in its own right, quite how anyone who hasn’t seen the film is supposed to get it is beyond me. So this is either a write-in or a DNF, I think.
   I appear to be at one with Eileen here, since I also enjoyed the clues for SPERM BANK and WORK.
   Boatman continues to push the boundaries even for the Graun, seemingly unfettered, and this must be a happy set of circs for him.

3. Sorry, Eileen. Must have pressed ‘publish’ accidentally too soon. I meant to thank you for enlightening me on 22d, and for a fine, courageous blog. Brava!

4. Thanks, Maysie!

5. Thanks both. I agree with Maysie @1
   It seems to be a crossword constructed around the clever 18d, with variable quality. I hated 6d (unless someone provides a good parsing here!)

6. …and my sympathies, Eileen, for your being lumbered with this one!

7. Bd appears to be a legitimate abbreviation for Bond, so that means 5D just about works. But I share the doubts about this one, which seems to be trying too hard on the theme front, at the expense of some of the clues. I liked 11D though.

8. Thanks Eileen,

   I had the I in CASTIGATE as resulting from the ‘a’ and various compilers’ usage of loose connections between ‘a’, the digit ‘1’ and the letter ‘I’.

   could be barking up the wrong tree of course…

9. Thanks Boatman and Eileen. I like Bond so I found the theme manageable, but this grid always makes things worse, and it all came out much too difficult for me.

   Is it time for some pedantry? Wait, don’t tell me, of course it is!
   7a – Is MAN OF IRON a thing? All Google gives me is the translated title of a Polish film.
   8a – Is the DBS “Bond’s car, apparently”? He’s had a lot of different cars, I’m not sure why this one is apparent.
   5d – The only laser in the film was some sort of cutting machinery. His weapons of choice would surely be guns, gas and nukes.

10. Only completed this with frequent use of ‘check’ button, so thanks Eileen (& Maysie) for explanations. I agree the clue to 6dn could have been put better – also at 9ac iGate is how a scandal relating to the i newspaper might be referred to.

11. Thanks, Eileen. Sorry I don’t get here very often anymore.

    I couldn’t do any better than Jason@7 for OBDURATE – I think his parsing nails it.

    On Cyborg’s “pedantry”: I agree that MAN OF IRON did seem a bit silly; in GOLDFINGER, Bond’s car is a DB5 not DBS – thus “apparently”; the quotation relates to when Goldfinger is leaving Bond to be sliced in half by a Laser so it seems to be reasonable to call it his weapon of choice in this puzzle.

12. hi Neil @11

    It’s good to hear from you – I’ve missed you.

    I don’t understand about the car; the link I gave has it as DBS and later: ‘The DBS was first seen in the 2006 James Bond film Casino Royale, the first film in which Bond was played by Daniel Craig, as a result of a product placement deal with Aston Martin’s parent company at the time, Ford.’
    And my film clip shows the laser!

13. Thanks Eileen,

    The Aston Martin in Goldfinger was a DB5.

14. Sorry, NeilW, hadn’t noticed @11. Because it’s easy to misread, let me write it as DB five, not DBS.

15. The only positive thing about this puzzle is that it was clever. However, I thought it ‘too clever by half’, as my mum used to say. I agree with Eileen that Boatman probably had fun writing it, but I didn’t enjoy trying to solve it. Coming to a halt after completing about a quarter, I was irritated by the theme and just couldn’t be bothered to give it another go later. Using the ‘check’ button and unsuccessfully parsing several clues only revived my irritation. It seems I wasn’t alone in repeatedly failing to understand Boatman.

    Methinks this was one of those occasions when the editor should have intervened more – perhaps by simply saying ‘No, thanks’ at the outset – to protect the punters.

16. 6 Implacable Bond, with one outer failing on the surface (8)
    B(on)d a outer failing o n rearranged seems to generate Obdurate though not what the surface is doing there. Maybe Failing ‘seems’ to be serving as anagram indicator and removal of on. Couldn’t have finished without coming here and generally share views expressed.

17. *sure

18. Ah, Eileen, I wish I could be everyone’s favourite, and I’m sorry that I’m not yours, but it would be an anodyn thing that pleased everyone every time, wouldn’t it? I’m glad you found a few things in it to make you smile, though … and at least there were no Spoonerisms for you this time!

    Neil – I’m glad that you explained the “apparently” in the DB5 reference – the fifth in David Brown’s iconic series, and hence DB5. The Corgi version of Bond’s trick Aston Martin (price guide now £389, it seems) became I think the best-selling toy in 1965. Our neighbour’s boy – another Neil, curiously enough – had one, and I coveted it.

    The BD indication in the parsing for OBDURATE is more direct than everyone seems to think: you have to read BOND as “B on D” – it’s a down clue, so you put B on D and fit the rest of the fodder around that – “on the surface” being the container indicator. Happier? Ok, it’s still on the evil end of fiendish but, given the theme, you were expecting that, weren’t you?

19. Can someone please explain the article in my link re the car? I know that Wikipedia is not infallible but it’s not the only link to refer to a DBS. [I know almost as much about cars as I did about James Bond!]

20. NeilW @11, good call on the DB5, the pedantry society is threatening to revoke my membership for that one.

21. Eileen @19, this might help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_James_Bond_vehicles

22. Eileen, see this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_James_Bond_vehicles, there seem to be both DB5 and DBS Aston Martins.

23. @Boatman

    so in 6d, the solver is supposed to look at the word “Bond” (a word featured several times in the puzzle), clock that it is in a down clue, and derive that the setter means B on d? Out of curiosity, did the editor say “yup; that’s cool”?

24. Thanks, Cyborg and Cookie – so Wikipedia actually disagrees with itself: see my quote @12 from the link I gave.

    [I’m not really interested enough to take this any further. 😉 ]

25. Since bd is an accepted abbreviation for bond, I can’t see any real need to go down the ‘B on d’ route at 6d, whether as setter or solver.

    And sorry Boatman, I didn’t really enjoy this one much – partly because I’ve no interest in Bond, but also because it felt like some of the devices were trying too hard.

    Thanks to Eileen for the excellent blog in the circumstances.

26. Thanks Boatman and Eileen – and Maysie @1.

    I thought, it being Boatman, that MAN OF IRON was play on the old saying “Wooden ships and iron men”, referring to the men in warships.

    I particularly liked SPERM BANK, MONTAGE, TRADER, UNDERLIE, SKINNED and SCROUNGER.

27. @Pandean 25

    well, the setter himself in comment 18 has posted that his intended parsing of “BD” was to read BOND in a down clue as B on D. I wouldn’t mind knowing whether the editor read that in the parsing field and gave it the thumbs up. I’m just trying to keep up to speed with the pace of innovation

28. I enjoyed the struggle in this eccentric puzzle. A mate of mine had a 1967 DB5 and was somehow able to get his double bass in it.I think his Fender bass fit better.Finished the evening watching Skyfall again. I like it and will try and watch again without dozing.
    I confess to using anagram solver for the two long ones.Thanks Skipper.

29. baerchen @27

    I’d also be interested in knowing whether the editor thought Boatman’s parsing to be OK. All I was meaning is that the editor could have accepted the clue anyway without challenging it, since it works fine using the bd abbreviation. In which case Boatman wouldn’t necessarily know whether the editor liked the B-on-d parsing or not.

30. Phew, that was hard! 1A (MAN OF IRON) was my last in because I was slow to see the ‘Fe Male’ in the clue.

    I failed to parse 6D (OBDURATE), but I see Boatman has explained that.
    I think 9A (CASTIGATE) has also been explained now: ‘I’ was clued by ‘a’, leaving CAST and GATE which were the easier bits.
    In 13A (GROSS PAY) I think it’s GROUPS minus UP for GROS, then A in SPY, although ‘receive’ instead of ‘receives’ is a doubt.
    I naturally failed to see the sound-alike in 1D (BAZAAR) – I never see these.

    I wasn’t pleased to see the theme when I saw how much of it there was. I know nothing about Bond, but it turns out that this topic (cult?) must have been so much in our faces for so many years that I actually recognised the quote “No, Mr Bond …”. I’ve also heard of GOLDFINGER but couldn’t remember the AURIC – it didn’t matter because I had the letters. I even managed DBS in 8A, not realising it was really a DB5. In the end I was pleased to have conquered the little misdirections here and there and the theme itself.

    The theme was woven very well into this puzzle. Although some clues could have been clearer, many were brilliant, and like Eileen I liked the clever use of ‘Oddjob’ and ‘evil genius’. I enjoyed this puzzle, having probably learned a couple of things from this setter the hard way when solving a recent puzzle on a different theme.

    Many thanks to both Boatman and Eileen

31. baerchen et al, Mark Kelmanson uses that device for his pseudonym MONK, M on K, so an editor would probably not baulk at BonD.

32. copmus @28

    I too had a friend who justified his Aston Martin by its ability to hold a double bass – as I recall, it was a DB3 (in the early 60s) and he claimed that DB indicated the car’s proper purpose and didn’t really stand for David Brown. He had good cause to regret trading it in for an Alfa Romeo which would only take the db if he removed its soft top (this in Manchester, known for rain).

    All this apart, while I share Eileen’s views on Bond, I rather enjoyed the puzzle. Thanks to Boatman and Eileen both.

33. I didn’t see the parsing in 6 either, but I can accept the B on D device or the legitimate abbreviation of bd for bond (apparently used in finance). What worries me more is the use of the indirect anagram of “one outer failing” to give OURATE. Seems like a bridge too far in terms of complexity when there’s already an unusual abbreviation/device and an unusual containment indicator. I biffed the answer, but it’s unsatisfying not to be able to nail the parse.
    I quite liked the long anagram in the end, although I couldn’t see it from the fodder. Is MO used mainly in reference to criminal activity? This was an additional layer of detail that didn’t help.
    Tough one which got the better of this solver, but thanks anyway, Boatman. Thanks also to Eileen for blogging.

34. Thanks Boatman and Eileen
    Boatman at his most self-indulgent, I thought. It did require too much knowledge of a specific genre; knowledge that I don’t possess. I have seen only one movie – Dr. No – and read two books – OHMSS and Moonraker – and didn’t like any of it, except for the bridge game in the latter. I solved a few, guessed AURIC GOLDFINGER from the theme and enumeration, then, seeing how many other clues referred to this, put the crossword aside. I did pick it up a couple of times more, but gave up with only just over half completed; the most left blank for years.

35. @Cookie
    yes, I know. But is clueing BD in a down clue simply by using the word BOND either a)fair or b) soluble?
    If you saw, say,in a down clue “A bounder’s sanction (4)” for ASBO (A+ S under BO, ignoring the punctuation a la Boatman), would you be able to solve it?

36. I’m generally a fan of Boatman but agree with others that this was rather hard work and probably more fun for him than for us! However, there were some nice clues: DEBUG, SPERM BANK, MONTAGE (but couldn’t parse – thanks Eileen) and WORK.

37. Thank you, AB – we’re on the same wavelength. I was fairly confident that the quote (“best-known Bond quote”, according to a recent survey, apparently) would ring a bell loudly enough for most people to be able to complete it with a little help from the anagram, letter-count and crossers. I wonder how many of the people who didn’t enjoy the puzzle would have been pleasantly surprised if they’d had the confidence to keep trying … but of course, as you imply, you have to learn something about my style before you can do that. I’m still a little puzzled that a fair number of people who do understand my approach seem to have been so put off by the theme … interesting.

38. Thanks to Boatman and Eileen. I eventually did get through this puzzle though often without parsing (e.g., with MAN OF IRON) – and JERBOA was new to me. Definitely out of my comfort zone.

39. I did neglect to say that although it was self-indulgent, it was also very clever!

40. baerchen @35, I read that as A + S with BO underneath, I might spot that trick from now on, but I doubt I will remember it.

    It would be better if Boatman had intended BD as an abbreviation for the financial term “bond” as phitonelly @33 points out.

41. Boatman @37

    ‘put off’ might be a bit strong in my case, even though I admit saying “I wasn’t pleased to see the theme…”. This is only because I have zero interest in Bond, the girls or the villains, and very little knowledge, but, as I also admit, some things have been impossible to shut out entirely, like the quote in your crossword, “Bond, James Bond” and “shaken and not shtirred”.

42. Kack

43. Well, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. I quite liked the ingenuity displayed here (and OK – I’ve always enjoyed the 007 films even though they’re silly). FE MALE = MAN OF IRON was clever. It reminded me of the most famous metal man of all (after the one in Wizard of Oz, maybe) –

    Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili .

    BYTW, as some of you will know, MR SOLO(23 dn) was a minor character in Goldfinger. He was the one in the car crushed by Oddjob.

    Thanks to Eileen and Boatman

44. This is my first time here and I arrived thoroughly cheesed-off having spent an hour or more completing a miserly 4 clues in today’s crossword.

    My standard completion percentage is probably 75% (given the time for several sessions over a day). I never complain when we’re set a very easy crossword, like Monday’s!

    Anyway, what a great resource you’re providing here. I’ll be back…. wrong film, I know.

45. When I saw “Mr. Solo”, I thought Boatman had possibly mixed up his Bonds with his Men from UNCLE!

46. Thank you Eileen and Boatman.

    Late on parade so must agree with most others that this was probably a lot more fun to compile than to decipher.

    It was not helped by the awkward grid which yields so few starting letters and effectively means one has to solve 4 little isolated puzzles.

    “No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die” is such good quote that it is worthy of inclusion, and EXISTS, BAZAAR, WORK, SPERM BANK, MAN OF IRON & CASTIGATE I thought nicely constructed.

    Alas, much of the theme-related rest had that ‘shoehorned’ feel that is all too often a result of heavily theme-DOMINATED crossword.

    When it came to my LOI – MONTAGE, I’d rather lost confidence through being unable to parse quite a few, and entered FOOTAGE which fits and made an equal amount of sense.

    Clever stuff, Boatman, but I have preferred most of your previous offerings to this one.

    Nice week, all.

47. cholecyst @43

    Sorry to be thick, only just got your reference to Stalin and didn’t realise the translation from the Russian.

    I also didn’t know about Mr Solo in Goldfinger played by the excellent Martin Benson. It’s worth pasting his name into Google Images – it makes one realize what an astonishing arc of work he produced.

    Thanks.

48. I side with you Eileen – I’m another who has never watched a Bond film all the way through, and I’m afraid it is one of those themes that makes my heart sink. I really couldn’t face doing this one and ended up using online cheats to finish it, and I didn’t think it was possible to solve it without knowledge of the theme. Never mind, it has been another glorious day here in the Highlands – today’s highlight was emerging from the mist to see all of the mountains overlooking a sea of morning mist.

    Thanks to Eileen and (grudgingly) to Boatman

49. Stalin was the man of steel,surely?
    I thought this was a dreadful, self indulgent puzzle and,although I managed to complete it,the least enjoyable that I’ve wasted an afternoon on. The setters assertion that the puzzle would be enjoyable if only solvers would stick at it is both patronising and wrong– and as for OBDURATE–!
    Oh well,tomorrow is another day.

50. It’s intriguing how many regular contributors here – competent solvers all – have no interest in James Bond!

51. I did like WORK – should have mentioned that

52. Yeah. Way too hard for me. I got about three clues and then: straight under the parrot cage.

53. Even though I have no interest in the theme I found this to be an excellent puzzle – obviously a long way above the pay grade of many above – that’s no the setter’s fault.

    I suppose blogging gets dished out as daily slots but one which starts “Boatman is not on my long list of top favourite setters ” would surely have been better to have been passed to someone else. I don’t expect a review of a recital at Wigmore Hall to start “I don’t really care for chamber music myself so …”

    Re editors baulking. In the world of newspapers “editor” is just a rank. They don’t necessarily edit any more than police inspectors do more inspecting than sergeants or superintendents. It’s just a rank – they manage, hire, fire etc. The notion that crossword editors should audit puzzles according to some pre-determined notion of what’s right and wrong in the cluing (least of all one gained from texts such as the ludicrous so-called Chambers Manual) is a recent one and may well be connected with the desire to avoid flak on blogs such as this.

    The Guardian became the pre-eminent home of crosswords precisely through the light-touch editing approach of its original puzzle editor John Perkin (having Araucaria as its lead setter helped too obviously) and it is good to see that the present editor (as far as I can see) continues that approach.

54. Thanks Eileen and Boatman.
    The theme made me groan but I still enjoyed the puzzle immensely.
    Surprisingly to myself, I got DB5 apparently, and GROSS PAY.
    Liked SPERM BANK, WORK, MONTAGE, ASPERGE and BAZAAR.

55. muffin @50

    Yes – I was amazed. I really thought I would be in the minority not caring about James Bond or any of the films/villains/girls.

56. JollySwagman

    You make some very good points in your comment @53. I liked what you said about light-touch editing. You might be interested in a comment I posted this morning on the General Discussion page (@85).

57. As usual with Boatman, I struggled with this. I did complete the grid, but only with quite a lot of guesswork and use of the Check button. I couldn’t parse 7a or 6d, and I still don’t think they really work after reading Eileen’s and Boatman’s explanations. The surface grammar seems wrong in some of the clues. For ASPERGE, shouldn’t the clue say “firsts”, as P and G are the first letters of two separate words? That would rather a giveaway, though. I agree with Eileen that “agent receive a” doesn’t work either. I also agree with Cyborg @9 that the LASERS (or was that just a single LASER?) in the Goldfinger film were instrument of torture or means of execution which just happened to be on hand, not “weapons of choice”. I wasted a lot of time trying to make nerve gas or atomic bombs fit somehow.

    There were nice clues too, of course. I liked the apposite long anagram. Other favourites included DEBUG, TRADER, UNDERLIE and SANGUINE as well as the two different uses of Oddjob in the clues for WORK and JERBOA.

    Thanks, Boatman and Eileen.

58. @Boatman. Thanks for dropping in and explaining the one I couldn’t parse. Above all, thanks for an excellent puzzle that I found extremely difficult, but quirky and interesting enough to persevere to the end. Fortunately I saved my largest teatray for the well-known four-letter word that is the curse of the drinking classes. I really should have got it sooner, seeing that I explored the same mechanism for Oddjob’s other cameo role.

59. @Jolly Swagman
    I can’t agree with your comments about the levels of intervention during the editing process. What seems clear and unarguable though is that the crossword editor of The Guardian has a much more liberal and some might say free-style approach to what is acceptable than, say, his counterparts at the Indy, Times or Telegraph.
    Which is why people like me are desperate to get taken on by The Graun

60. JollySwagman @52
    I take your point that “Crossword Editor” is a job title rather than a literal job description, but shouldn’t someone be checking puzzles before publication – perhaps a panel of test solvers?

    It’s clear from the comments of the setters that sometimes clues are altered for one reason or another. Usually that is mentioned because the clue no longer works and the setter posts here or to the Guardian blog to explain his/her original intention. That suggests someone actually is vetting at least the surfaces of the clues. If that can happen, other obvious problems should be found before publication too. Alan Browne gives an example in his General Discussions post @85 in which an edit actually ruined a clue completely by including the answer. I do get irritated by the repetitive sniping at the Editor, but I get irritated by the errors too.

61. Oops, that should have been JollySwagman @53.

62. Same as most of above really.

    When I wanted to go and see a Bond movie I wasn’t old enough. When I was old enough I didn’t want to waste my time watching puerile nonsense.

    I had heard of Goldfinger so that got me a leg up with 3d and 16d. I finally ground out the quotation as DIE was a strong favourite for one of the 3 letters and MR BOND rung a bell as part of a quote.

    I guessed that the rest of the puzzle wouldn’t require much more Bond knowledge so I persevered.

    Not much fun really but I finished it.

    Another puzzle in dire need of an editor.

    Thanks to Eileen and Boatman

    P.S. I’m surprised no-one has come up with the odl chestnut “The books are much superior to the films”. I was once stuck somewhere with a lot of time to kill and only pulp fiction available. Among this was a copy of Casino Royale. I did try for a good hour but then decided that counting the flowers on the wallpaper was more interesting and certainly less annoying.

63. BNTO @62
    We agree for once (except that I didn’t get around to finishing it).

64. Thanks Boatman for a hugely enjoyable puzzle and Eileen for the blog.

    Ed @ 42: thanks for your constructive comment which has clearly followed Site Policy item 2.

    Or maybe you are describing yourself?

65. Simon S @64
    I did think about commenting myself, but decided it was better not to feed a troll.

66. I generally find myself on Boatman’s wavelength, but not this time. I did, however, enjoy the three-quarters that I could finish, so thanks, Boatman.

    And thanks to Eileen for the blog.

67. muffin @ 65

    heated agreement again, but sometimes it’s irresistible 😉

68. Jolly Swagman @53

    I’ve given some thought as to whether to respond to your observation and decided, perhaps against my better judgment at this time of night, to do so, as briefly as I can – but I may regret it in the morning.

    As an occasional visitor here, you’re probably not aware that my last five blogs – and, you’re right, they are allocated randomly, according to a rota, totally independent of the Guardian’s schedule, so not able to be reallocated on publication day – have, increasingly embarrassingly, been of puzzles by Picaroon, one of my top favourite setters. As the weeks went by, it became increasingly difficult to write a preamble without sounding sickeningly sycophantic and so I resorted to saying I had nothing left to say.

    I think I’ve at least hinted in the past that I’m not a great fan of Boatman’s puzzles and this morning I thought it only fair, in view of my most recent blogs, to make that plain, and, correspondingly, not to comment on every single niggle. The fact that the theme was not up my street was coincidental and I think I made clear that I thought it was cleverly exploited. As for the puzzle being above my and others’ pay grade, it wasn’t that I found the clues ‘difficult’ but that I thought that some of them were actually not very good. I’m reassured by the fact that several others whose opinions I respect had the same reservations about some of the parsing as I did – and I haven’t been convinced by some of the explanations.

    We all have our own favourites – and, as we so often say, it’s a good job we’re all different – and we bloggers blog whatever comes along, as fairly as we can.

69. Eileen @68

    As my own night-time beckons I’ll chip in now and be brief, recognising that your post was addressed primarily to JollySwagman.

    As a regular and enthusiastic visitor and contributor, I’m pleased that such differing views can co-exist on these pages (my overall view of the crossword being somewhat different from yours today), and I respect all the views you have expressed both at the beginning of this blog and just now.

    I look forward to your blogs and the explanatory comments you often add while monitoring a day’s output. Thank you for today’s contributions.

70. Alan Browne @69

    Many thanks for the reassurance – time for bed, 😉

71. “Boatman is not on my long list of top favourite setters and early spotting of the theme did not cause my heart to leap” (Eileen)

    When Boatman started compiling for The Guardian I actually really liked what he did.
    Fresh wind blowing.
    And that’s perhaps why Jolly Swagman likes his puzzles so very much.
    However, in recent years Boatman has become more and more what I call idiosyncratic.
    Pushing the boundaries of Crosswordland and going beyond on occasions.
    That’s all fine by me (in a way) – Philistine does similar things and gets credits for it.
    Today it wasn’t that bad, actually.
    ‘Bond’ meaning ‘B on D’ could have been used by the latter too.
    Just like having to split up ‘oddjob’ – fine (although I am not keen on using it myself if I can avoid it).

    This was a themed puzzle that did require some knowledge of the theme.
    The long one at 18,19,2 was entered without bothering about the apparent anagram.
    We had never heard of DB5 and therefore were happy with accepting DBS (without understanding what it might mean).

    There is not too much wrong with this crossword but I must admit that after an hour I wanted to bin it.
    I don’t like puzzles with too many ‘See …’ clues.
    I almost fell asleep but we managed to complete it faultlessly without asking Mrs Chambers or anyone else.
    So, Boatman won?

    I am very much on baerchen’s side today.
    Most of this puzzle is OK, but what doesn’t feel right doesn’t feel right.

    9ac: ‘a’ = I? Setters do it, I don’t like it.
    14ac: ‘Pussy Galore’s first’ : I do not like a multiple letter selection indicated by just ‘first’.
    26ac: if ‘in’ is the hidden indicator there’s a lot of padding going on.

    By the way, MAN OF IRON was a song by my favourite English (female) singer Sandy Denny who sadly passed away in 1978.
    Recorded in 1972 for the film ‘Pass Of Arms’.
    [I remember Kathryn’s Dad singing Sandy’s wonderful ‘White Dress’ at Arachne’s wedding party in Manchester]

72. Bless you, Sil, for further reassurance, because I knew you were a firm fan.

    “[I remember Kathryn’s Dad singing Sandy’s wonderful ‘White Dress’ at Arachne’s wedding party in Manchester]”
    Ah, yes, wonderful! – I wish there were a You Tube link!

73. It’s the usual Swagman ‘I don’t care for those silly old Ximeneans’ line. So no need to worry.

    This was a typically boundary-pushing, i.e. (in reality) ignorant collection of clues from Boatman, among which I care for pretty much none. That’s right, no ‘new and trendy’ idea appealed. Really poor and unsolveable stuff from someone who simply doesn’t understand cryptic grammar.

74. Just too difficult for me. But fascinating range of opinions on the blog. However much preferred to read the ones containing healthy and intelligent criticisms and positive well-defended affirmations…

75. Good puzzle, I thought, even though (for the first time in ages) I didn’t complete it – beaten by 1ac! It had to be “man of iron” but I couldn’t wriggle it. Missed the fe male break completely. Two blank squares on my grid. “No Mr Solver, I expect you to try!”

76. Relieved to see it wasn’t just us who had problems with this. Median @15 just about encapsulates what I wanted to say.

77. Comment 77

    13 across

    Are factions = organisations= orgs. blowing up = gros +s+pay

    Apologies if this is contained in the 76 comments above don’t have time to read all.

78. Colin, you need read only the first comment. 😉

79. Comment 30 by Alan Browne is a better explanation of 13A than the one I provided in 77 above

80. Yes – but it’s the same as maysie’s @1.

81. Colin @77

    I understand: 76 (now 80 or 80+) is a lot to read through. I always try to read all preceding comments when posting an idea that I believe is new to the blog, but when parsing 13A (GROSS PAY), supposedly for the benefit of all (@30), I had obviously missed Maysie’s post at, er, no. 1. I apologise to Maysie for appearing to ignore her – it’s thanks to Eileen (@78) that I have now seen it.

82. Just a thought. If the scheduled blogger was not a fan of the puzzles of a particular setter who then appeared, perhaps a swap with another blogger could be made on the day.

83. I don’t see how that could work, nmsindy, since, for one thing, bloggers live in totally different time zones [PeterO posted at 2.34am today, for instance].

    in any case, I think swaps should be kept to the necessary ones to cover holidays and other commitments.

    I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t said anything in my preamble yesterday – I explained why I did in my comment @ 68. I’ve tried to be as fair as I can in my blogs, regardless of my own preferences. I think maybe the fact that Boatman is not one of my top favourites meant that I was less critical of the puzzle than I might have been!

    [I hope no one’s aiming for a century on this blog. I really would like to put it to bed now. 😉 ]

84. “obviously a long way above the pay grade of many above – that’s no the setter’s fault.”

    In my opinion it IS the setter’s fault. And it is awfully insulting to the solvers to claim that they are somehow not worthy of puzzles like this, some of which was good – but large parts of it frankly were dross

    The problem I have with “libertarianism” is that it means “freedom for the setter” – but actually shows scant respect for the poor old solver trying to make sense of “BOND”/ “B on D, “ODDJOB” etc etc

85. See site policy #2 – “The reason for any dissatisfaction should be clearly indicated.”

    “not to comment on every single niggle”

    inferring that there were others without identifying them.

    likewise

    “large parts of it frankly were dross”

    Libertarian is a silly term, invented by certain ximeneans (so they think themselves) to further the ludicrous proposition that the only valid way of cluing cryptic puzzles is to comply with the various somewhat arbitrary “rules” either written by Ximenes or which can be reverse engineered from his comments. The intention is to create the view that there is only a binary choice our (grammatical) way – or chaos. Complete nonsense of course.

    OTOH for one to do Guardian puzzles and complain that one doesn’t like libertarianism is like turning up at Twickenham and announcing that one doesn’t like Rugby.

    Ximenes’s comments to his cluing competitions are now freely available and searchable online -so are some of his puzzles. His 1966 book, which some hold as a sacred text, is little more than a copy/paste boilerplate of those comments. Those who consider that to be a model to follow might like to try solving them and see what pay grade they then reckon themselves to be on.

    Boatman deserves better than this for what he has managed to cram into this brilliant puzzle which (like it or loath it) has obviously taken a lot more work to produce than some of the routine puzzles (even in some The Guardian)_ which amount to no more than a tedious clerical word-swapping process but which score accolades such as “impeccably clued”.

    The only attempt at a niggle which hasn’t been resolved is Eileen’s “but the grammar doesn’t work” in 13a, which she couldn’t fully parse anyway. It’s easy to find a grammatical reading for that but I won’t bore you with what it is.

    Many things have many readings – my comment about “pay grade” were intended to apply not to the blogger but to those other commenters who failed to solve the puzzle – and deduced that there must therefore be something wrong with it.

    @Eileen – You say that I am only “an occasional visitor” here. That’s partly because of the time difference – normally I am solving puzzles not long after they go up (at midnight UK time) – blogs frequently don’t appear until much later – but also because I only solve puzzles I think I am going to like – as indicated by the setter’s byline – or occasionally by the preamble to the blog here.

    Others here clearly don’t share that approach. Perhaps they failed to notice that this is indeed The Guardian and that the setter is Boatman, whose approach is surely well-known to regular solvers – or maybe they did notice that and thought it would be fun to do something they knew they wouldn’t like so that they could write spiteful comments about it later.

86. So hurt, so verbose.

87. Well said, the bloke by the billabong!

88. It’s been some time since your challenging post @85 appeared.

    This puzzle more than most has attracted opinions that are polarised: ‘like it or loathe it’. I liked it, and my views on the quality of several of the clues are, I have noted, clearly different from others’ views.

    Passing over your comments on Ximenean vs. libertarian (on which I have no comment), I come to what you say about what the blogger and some commenters have said.

    13A was never an issue. Eileen needed help with that one and got it as the first comment of the day.

    By ‘pay grade’ you obviously meant skill level, but the associations of pay grade with rank and status might have made your figurative use of the term somewhat inflammatory. You would still have been challenged, though!

    With this puzzle, there has been much more debate than usual on the rights and wrongs of the clues, and unfortunately not all of it has been constructive or even polite. I have enjoyed all the valid (polite and constructive) criticism on this blog and hope you have also.

    I personally think many, probably most, solvers don’t look at the name of the setter and then decide whether to make the attempt. Experienced solvers will expect a certain style as well as a level of difficulty, but they still hope it will be fun.

    Finally, referring more to your earlier comment, I would like to speak up for what I believe to be the blogger’s objectivity, which I believe you questioned – certainly by implication if not directly. Eileen could have introduced the puzzle with the bland “The puzzle can be found here” (a style I also like, but it’s not hers), but she gave her usual personal overview of the crossword and the setter, and I got the message that this puzzle wasn’t the pleasure in solving and blogging that most others are for her. I am absolutely convinced that Eileen remained objective throughout her analysis, and I’m only surprised that the wordplay of CASTIGATE and GROSS PAY didn’t come to her (one of the supersolvers that make up the fifteensquared team) in time for her blog.

89. My post @88 is addresed primarily to JollySwagman. Sorry I forgot to indicate that.

90. Point at #83 noted, Eileen, but it should be possible, one would think, to find in the UK time zone a blogger who’s a Boatman fan.

91. Nmsindy this would become a horribly boring site if only fans were permitted to blog. It’s great just as it is. Btw I’m a big fan of the bloggers and of Eileen in particular. I visit as much to see what experience the blogger had as much as for the parsings. As it happens Eileen had much the same experience as I had with this Boatman and explained why as elegantly as always. It’s because Eileen so rarely turns to negative criticism that it has riled some. And unwarrantedly.

92. Re #91. as a blogger myself I’d certainly agree “to see what experience the blogger had” is at the centre of it. No point in it otherwise.

    The debate did remind me however of – and this was decades ago – a period when the BBC became concerned that on “requests” programmes disc jockeys (DJs) were “plugging” certain records. The BBC then decided they would take control of selection of records to be played.

    I think I remember a cartoon soon after with the DJ saying – “I don’t particularly like your request, Ms G, but here it is anyway”.

    Eileen’s blogs are excellent.

93. Quote nmsindy: “Eileen’s blogs are excellent.”

    Seconded, thirded and fourthed.

94. Well, we have Swagman’s deliberately comment about pay grades, with all its pejorative associations, just before his next para about bloggers, and so some kind of lead-on is clearly intended.

    Thank God for time differences.

95. @AB #88 re pay grade

    That’s rather a long bow to draw, although I should have remembered we’re in Guardian-land here – where Thomas the Tank Engine is deemed to be racist.

    The term “pay grade”for difficulty of a puzzle (not social status etc of a solver) is commonplace in another place where you’ll frequently read (when a tough puzzle appears):

    DNF – well above my pay grade.

    Simple as that – not a long drawn-out moan about how it should have been. Personal attacks on setters are not possible there since their identities are not revealed – at least not Mon-Sat – same place that gave us the useful term biff – as a corruption of BIFD – bunged in from definition.

    OTOH maybe it’s one of those semi-PC terms – you can say it of yourself – but not of others.

    Not sure why people want to make such a fuss about a simple comment (#53 2nd para) which was of a general nature and had no direct bearing on the rest of the instant blog.

96. JollySwagman @95
    “OTOH maybe it’s one of those semi-PC terms – you can say it of yourself – but not of others.”

    That’s exactly the point. There’s a big difference between saying self-deprecatingly of oneself “I’m not clever/experienced enough to complete this puzzle or to solve specified clues” and someone else coming along and saying that about “many above”.

    In this context, the implication seemed to be that all or most of the people who had complained about aspects of the puzzle (the theme in general and/or specific clues) were just too thick to appreciate it, unlike enlightened beings such as yourself. It came across (to me at least) as sneering. I freely admit that I often struggle with some of the Guardian setters, including Boatman, but much better solvers than me were pointing out problems they saw with this puzzle and to dismiss their complaints by saying it was “a long way above the pay grade “ was rude. People can have differences of opinion about the validity of clues without any of them being stupid, and dismissing those who disagree with you in that way reflects badly on you, not them.

    You may not have intended your comment to create a fuss, but perhaps you should have considered how the wording might come across to others. You made some good points in that comment, a useful contribution to the discussion, but why include a gratuitous insult?

97. JollySwagman @95

    I would never have commented at all on your use of a phrase like “above one’s pay grade” if you had merely said

    “DNF – well above my pay grade.”

    as you did in order to give me an example of a typical use of that phrase. (It was an instructive example because I have never seen it used before.)

    However, I felt, at the time, that the phrase “obviously a long way above the pay grade of many above” was gratuitously uncomplimentary about other solvers. I was surprised at your reaction, and I’m very grateful to jennyk for taking issue with you on this matter. (I would have done so had I not been away today.)

    I would like to close by saying that I have appreciated some of the fresh points of view that you have brought here, for example on the subject of crossword editing. I hope we can have some lively debate on this forum in future.

98. Thanks Boatman and Eileen.

    Too late to add much and I don’t pretend to have read the voluninous comments.

    I enjoyed this more than I usually enjoy Boatman’s offerings. Notwithstanding the theme, I found this accessible and readily solvable – with just a little work to check the quote.

    It took time to get there – which is no bad thing for those of us that like a challenge – and I parsed all successfully. Except…..

    I have to admit failing in 25ac. I was fixated on SUNK instead of SANK and ended up with SPARE BUNK. PARE or wave was weak I know but it sort of made sense.

    Oh well, I live and learn.

99. I do not think anyone has mentioned this yet:

    14 Across, Asperge, seems to be incorrect.
    I think that in English the word only occurs as Asperges.
    Without the s, it is the Latin imperative form of “sprinkle”.
    In English, from a Latin rite, it is Asperges.

    I hope somebody reads this, the thread is old.
    Maybe such a dire mistake could be avoided in the future. 🙂

100. Nregan @99

     The blogger sees all comments on his / her blog, however late.

     I nearly mentioned in the blog that I had come across asperge [in English] only as a verb – SOED has only that and Collins no entry at all – and then looked up Chambers – ‘asperge: vt to sprinkle; n a sprinkler for holy water.

     [The spell-checker doesn’t like it 😉 ]

101. Eileen,

     Thank you.

     If it is in Chambers, then I suppose it is acceptable.
     But I suspect that maybe they have made a mistake.
     I wonder if they could cite any examples ?

     Cheers.

102. Very late, having bought Guardian Weekly in Sydney just 2 days ago. I am surprised at the heat engendered by both the puzzle and the blog. Didn’t like the theme much and found a few of the clues clumsy. I nearly always need some parsing help from fifteensquared and I enjoyed Eileen’s blog. I found swagman’ s comment about pay grade pretty rude. Sorry to prolong the agony, Eileen. Time for me to get on with life!

103. Thanks, Gillian. 😉

104. Thanks Boatman and Eileen

     A thankless job sometimes, eh !!

     I’m one of the ones who does like the boundary pushing setters … in fact there’s not too many who’s style that I dislike. Anyway, having only done it this week, I thought that the puzzle was entertaining and the blog was of the normal high quality notwithstanding the non-appeal of both the themed subject or the setter’s style.

     As it was, there were several answers that I had that were unparsed – the GRO[UP]S part of 13a (which was my last in), all of BAZAAR, all of MONTAGE and all but the ‘outer’ part of OBDURATE (liked the B on D trick, as hard as it was and after it was explained).

Comments are closed.