Guardian 26,851 / Vlad

64 comments on “Guardian 26,851 / Vlad”

1. Thanks Vlad and Gaufrid

   I found this easier to finish than previous vlad’s though the NW took me some time. I liked very much SLEIGHT, EDEN (I knew the footballer only from a previous crossword), TOKENISM, SUBEDITING and the wonderful NIGEL FARAGE (I mean the clue, of course!)

   However several I didn’t parse – SIGNORINA, ETTY, GDANSK (didn’t see the I for D trick), and FRIENDLESS, and I still don’t see how the latter works; if FRIENDLESS is “alone”, where does FRI (for FRIDAY, presumably) fit in?

   Is “Pep” OK to indicate a Spaniard? I know it makes the surface work, but I wouldn’t think that Pepe would appreciate the shortening.

   I’m not entirely clear that AGONISED and PAINFUL are the same parts of speech. Could someone give an example where they are interchangeable?

   I was a bit surprised to find EMIN in 16d, as I had tried her for ETTY!

2. Hi muffin
   “if FRIENDLESS is “alone”, where does FRI (for FRIDAY, presumably) fit in?”

   ‘Day spent’ indicates the removal of a day from a word meaning ‘alone’.

   “I’m not entirely clear that AGONISED and PAINFUL are the same parts of speech. Could someone give an example where they are interchangeable?”

   How about ‘he had a painful/agonised look on his face’.

3. D for I, not I for D in GDANSK.

   I meant Vlads in the second paragraph, of course.

4. Thanks Gaufrid for that. I see the first one now, but I don’t think your second one works – it would surely be pained expression rather than painful?

5. Many thanks to Vlad & Gaufrid. Found this quite tough in places, but got there in the end. I had a slightly different parsing of 16d with EMIN as “bed artist” about “TO” reversed.

6. Thanks, Gaufrid.

   I certainly found this more straightforward than previous Vlads and very enjoyable indeed.

   I was misled for a minute or two trying to parse ISLE as [m]ISLE[d] [confused] but the grammar wouldn’t quite work.

   Like muffin, I remembered EDEN Hazard from a previous crossword.

   Favourite clues: NIGEL FARAGE, OWNS, IBSEN and GDANSK.

   Many thanks to Vlad for a lot of fun.

7. Muffin @4
   From Collins:
   agonised: showing that acute mental or physical pain is felt – the agonized screams of other prisoners under torture, – The agonized look on his face said he wouldn’t be staying in the game much longer

   I think ‘painful’ can be substituted for ‘agonised’ in these two examples.

8. jkb_ing @5
   You are of course correct about 16dn. That is how I parsed it when solving but then had a senior moment whilst writing my post.

9. Gaufrid @7
   Not convinced. Chambers gives:
   pained – showing or expressing pain, suffering pain, distressed
   painful – full of pain, causing pain, requiring labour pain or care, laborious, painstaking, distressing, irksome, (of a performance) embarrassingly or irritatingly bad

   I think “pained” matches “agonised” better than “painful” does, though the “full of pain” meaning is closest to being there, and I suppose justifies it. The “causing pain” meaning is more frequently used, though.

10. Thanks, Gaufrid, and Vlad. I see the rationale for “(pr)etty” in 6d – I had “(j)etty”, which is a kind of promotion.

11. Using “to get into wrecked car” to mean “get car into wrecked” requires a Yoda-like contortion of grammar!

12. Thanks to Vlad and Gaufrid.

    I didn’t finish but had fun trying. I was stuck on a few, mainly NW corner but also 19d – I fixed on safaris etc. for expedition and couldn’t see beyond that interpretation.

    Not sure if new solvers are allowed to quibble, but here goes … I agree with muffin, didn’t like agonised for painful. I think a painful expression would be one that hurt your face. And I’m with peterM re 22a. Anyway, signing off now I am.

13. Great puzzle and thanks for the blog.

    Muffin @ 1: I don’t think Pep Guardiola (one of the most famous football coaches in the world, and Spanish to boot) would mind too much 😉

14. Pep is specifically Catalan (for Josep), as Pepe is used in the rest of Spain for José.

15. Aoxomoxoa
    Ah, football (again……)

16. Thanks Vlad and Gaufrid.

    So many words in French end in ETTE, none in English would come to mind, so I first entered COUETTE (duvet) at 1a which led to CODDLE at 1d, but these would not parse – it had to be SWERVE at 2d, so that set me straight.

    Some fun clues, SLEIGHT, INSISTENT, RAG WEEK and CHASTE among others.

17. muffin@1: I think ‘Pep’ in 9a is a reference to Pep Guardiola – much in the football news as he’s to be the new manager of Manchester City. He’s from Barcelona, and Pep is short for Josep.
    Thanks to Vlad for a hard crossword, and to Gaufrid because it was much too hard for me!

18. Aoxomoxoa @13 and poc@14: Sorry! I’m too slow a typist.

19. Vlad is never entirely straightforward, but this was not too difficult by his standards, though ETTY and THORN APPLE were unfamiliar. Plenty to like, especially TOKENISM and NIGEL FARAGE

    Thanks to Vlad and Gaufrid

20. A puzzle of two parts. Forty minutes or so looking blankly at the page, almost nothing at the top and not much on the bottom, followed lunch, then a frenzied quarter-hour in which everything fell rapidly into place. Quite a few though were biffed in, eg LIVINGSTON and GDANSK. But I got fixated on the relation being just GRAN and ended up without the MAL, before rushing to do the blog and go out for the afternoon.

21. Finished this with the help of the check button – Didn’t much enjoy it – too much of the time I was just searching for the definition and then solving it as a non-cryptic puzzle. I would be interested to know how many people actually solved this forwards rather than backwards!

    Thanks to messrs V & G

22. southofnorth @21

    Interesting question. I often complain about an excess of clues that need to be solved “backwards”, as you say, but I didn’t particularly find that with this puzzle.

    For the record, the ones that I solved “forwards” (or “bottom up”, as I term it) were:
    Across: 1, 10, 14, 21, 25, 26, 28
    Down: 4, 8, 15, 24

23. Vlad’s puzzle are very variable. I thought this relatively easy by his standards even though ETTY eluded me and I had to guess EDEN-football, you see. Anyway, I quite enjoyed this. I liked OWNS, PARTICULARS and NIGEL FARAGE- and that’s something I never thought I’d write!
    Thanks Vlad.

24. Thanks to Vlad and Gaufrid. I had my usual problems with this setter and yes, since several terms were new to me (e.g., RAG WEEK, LIVINGSTON, ETTY, EDEN as footballer), I did sometimes work backwards and needed help with parsing (e.g., with the “dished” as “wrecked” in DIMINISHED)- though even in the US I did know NIGEL FARAGE. Overall, an enjoyable exercise.

25. Thank you for the blog, Gaufrid. I started this with some trepidation having seen the setter’s name and was surprised to find it quite easy to begin with. However, the more I did the harder it became, so my fears were justified! That said, I enjoyed it & there were some really good clues, Nigel Farage being my favourite (tongue firmly in cheek!).

    As usual, the football references went over my head (no pun intended!), so thanks for all the helpful comments. Thanks to Vlad too, of course, for the challenge.

26. Thanks Vlad and Gaufrid. A lot of fun. I came at this the other way round to Gaufrid. Filled in bottom half, eventually; and then stared at top half. It didn’t help that I got 12 ac as ‘dare’, the middle letters of garden.

27. I thought this was a super puzzle. I didn’t find it as easy as some of you did, but I never got stuck, and I managed to ‘see’ most of the little tricks that Vlad put in, like ‘for ID’ in 20D (GDANSK). There were just a few, like 27A (ENDLESS), where I didn’t waste too much time trying to work out how he did it, so thanks to Gaufrid for explaining everything.

    I wasn’t convinced by the wordplay in 16D (IN NO TIME) or in 26A (IBSEN), but I understand the device being used in these – one that I am slowly getting used to. At least I solved them without any problem.

    Like Xjpotter @26, I completed the bottom half first, then the top.

    I liked beery hiker’s comment ‘Vlad is never entirely straightforward.’ My observation based on this puzzle alone (I haven’t kept a mental note of what his puzzles are usually like) is that he likes to be tricky and loves to incorporate subtractions and first and last letters or words in his wordplay – perhaps too much!

    Anyway, this was a great puzzle and very rewarding to solve.

    Many thanks to Vlad and to Gaufrid for the blog.

28. I think 5 ac refers to “slate” (that’s how I pronounce sleight, anyway) – as in cricket (unfortunately!)

29. If Pep is Pep Guardiola, does anyone know who Diego is? I hope not a random Spanish name.

    I enjoyed the puzzle (especially GDANSK), but I found that clue a little troubling.

30. Blue Dot @ 29. I know very little about football, but DIEGO suggested Maradona, who is Argentinian – not a fellowcountryman of Pep’s. So I got a bit confused until the crossers made the solution inevitable.Something about ‘hand of God’ comes to mind too….

31. BlueDot 11 – I immediately thought Diego Costa (Chelsea and Spain). But there may be others.

    Thanks Vlad and Gaufrid – I enjoyed this. As others have said, not as fiendish as previous ones (either that or I am getting better).

32. Don’t know where the “11” came from – sorry.

33. BlueDot: I don’t think that Pep in this crossword refers specifically to Guardiola (of whom I knew nothing until I read the comments!), it’s just a short form of Pepe (Joseph). Diego (see Gaufrid’s parsing) is Spanish for James, so that makes he & Pep fellow countrymen. Hope this helps.

34. I find the examples mentioned above of the twisting of cryptic grammar to accommodate the surface meaning quite annoying.
    Examples:
    “to get into wrecked – car” doesn’t mean insert “CAR” into “WRECKED”
    “about British – Isles” doesn’t mean put “IS” around “B”.
    And Gaufrid’s explanation of 27ac should be clued as “Alone day spent” if anything. Like others I still don’t understand this clue or the suggested parsing.
    I also get irritated by “approximate” synonyms such as “bed” for SLEEP and “ago” for BACK.
    So all in all it’s not been a good day for me.
    But thanks anyway to both V and G.

35. jeceris @34

    Your two examples are what I meant (@27) by ‘device used’ in 26D (IN NO TIME) and 16A (IBSEN). Your ‘twisting of cryptic grammar to accommodate the surface’ describes exactly what is going on.

    As I said, I’m slowly getting used to it, and I think it’s here to stay. It’s like in vino veritas, but that has the excuse of being Latin. Possibly its use in wordplay in crosswords is justified by reference to some real or imagined classical or poetic use of English. I understand what’s going on, and I accept it now, even though it’s probably something I would avoid.

36. jaceris @34 and Alan @35

    The examples you give would could perfect sense by judicious inclusion of commas – for instance:
    He wrote, about British, Isles, in French.
    Declined, to get into wrecked, car.

    …and we are always told to ignore punctuation in clues!

37. OK folks…time for a football enthusiast…Pep is indeed Guardiola (Barcelona manager),and Diego is his countryman Diego Simeone (Atletico Madrid manager)….exciting match between their teams in Euro Champions League yesterday !

38. Well…guess I tried too hard there..(or Vlad didn’t check either)! Simeone is actually Argentine…..my apologies…

39. muffin @36

    Your reworked examples may make perfect sense, but you will admit that the surfaces, even if they get through the rigorous editing process, will not appeal to anyone here!

    And yes, we have learned to treat all punctuation with suspicion.

40. Alan @39
    It depends if you can separate the “surface” from the “punctuation”. I think the surfaces of both the examples I gave are fine as printed; whether you think that the invisible commas can justify the cryptic grammar is up to you 🙂

41. Thanks Crosswise! I too pronounce ‘sleight’ to rhyme with ‘slate’ and thought that was normal till I asked around recently and found nearly everyone rhymes it with ‘slight’. Still, luckily both work in this case!

42. dereks @37 and 38: I think Marienkaefer @31 is right. A setter who nods to Eden Hazard of Chelsea might well also nod to Diego Costa of Chelsea.
    Like Alan Browne @35, I admire the description used by jeceris @34 – ‘twisting of cryptic grammar to accommodate the surface’. And like them both, I’m not very keen on the device. A bit Yoda-esque?

43. Thanks SeanDimly. A challenge for me, a Gooner, to comment though!

44. dereks @37 and 38. Actually Pep Guardiola used to manage Barcelona but is now in charge of Bayern Munich. So yesterday Pep’s team played Benfica and indeed there was also an exciting match between Barcelona, now managed by Luis Enrique, and Atletico Madrid, managed as you correctly state by the Argentinian Diego Simeone!! As a Chelsea supporter I’m convinced Vlad was referring to Diego Costa, who indeed plays for Spain but was born in Brazil!! Confusing no!!

45. Marienkaefer @43: 🙂

46. Many thanks to Gaufrid for the blog and to others for their comments.

    DIEGO in 9ac was intended as a generic Spanish name.

    Think Gaufrid @7 explained AGONISED/PAINFUL.

47. I amazed myself by filling the grid of a Vlad puzzle, though there was a lot of entering and only then parsing, and I couldn’t complete the parsing of EDEN at all as I hadn’t heard of the footballer player. I was puzzled by “Pep”, though obviously Pepe wouldn’t have worked for the construction. I am pleased that has been explained here. However, I’m another who still feels AGONISED equates to “pained”, not “painful”.

    Favourites included NIGEL FARAGE (I never thought I’d write that anywhere!), OWNS and TOKENISM.

    Thanks, Vlad and Gaufrid.

48. This was, I think, easy for a Vlad.
    Even the bottom half was (sorry Gaufrid, and thanks).

    Now, Vlad is an excellent setter in all his guises and surely far more knowledgeable about the cryptic game than I am.
    However, I did not find this Vlad at his very best.
    Some definitions were, even after discussing them with my British PinC, a bit dubious or at least minimal.
    ROSETTE = a favour? STONY = broke? HASTE = expedition? AGONISED = painful? READINESS = be prepared for this (or: this)?

    On the other hand, very good: 18ac, 21ac and 20d – all about Nigel Farage and the foreigners he doesn’t want to be in here.

    Vlad is one of those setters who does what jeceris @34 doesn’t like very much.
    While I do agree with this poster, I am also more than aware of the fact that today’s setter does it (just like Nimrod/Enigmatist/Elgar/IO).
    Personally, I would avoid this construction wherever I can (sometimes one cannot) but there is nothing wrong with it.
    As muffin says @40, it is a matter of putting a comma somewhere in between.

    The double duty of Lewis (in 24d) makes this clue not one of my favourites.
    Meanwhile, EDEN, INTER and DIEGO were competing for being the first one in!
    It’s all about what you know or where your interests lie but I think 12ac was a giveaway.
    Picaroon was the one who used his full name in a marvellous clue that I could not find in Fifteensqaured’s archive tonight (nor could I remember it).
    But it will surely be in there.

    So.
    Easy (in my/our opinion).
    A bit loose, perhaps.
    Still enjoyable.

49. Nice crossword which, apart from Etty, I managed to finish, although there were a couple that I couldn’t parse and shoved in with fingers crossed. Never heard of Etty, which, considering I’m an artist, is rather disgraceful.

50. One quibble from a American… British items are naturally more elusive for us to solve due to unfamiliarity with British terms/customs (but yay for Google!). So for me, rag week was a stretch to solve as is, but was made harder by the construction of the clue. For me, the use of “a thousand” and “a thousand” again implies that “a” will be used (twice), making the answer basically impossible. For me, clues should not include any superfluous words or letters that custom would dictate figure in the solution somehow.

    But I love the challenges nonetheless! I enjoy the clues I solve and pooh-pooh the ones I don’t 🙂

51. Hi Sil @48

    “ROSETTE = a favour?
    HASTE = expedition?
    STONY = broke?
    Where is your problem? All perfectly acceptable synonyms for me – and borne out by Collins and /or Chambers.
    AGONISED has been addressed and dealt with, I think.

    This is the puzzle you were looking for: http://www.fifteensquared.net/2014/02/07/guardian-cryptic-n-26177-by-picaroon/ 😉

52. Meg@49
    No need to be ashamed. ETTY is to art what NOYES is to poetry – a name known almost exclusively to crossword setters and solvers.
    I am, as usual, with Muffin on painful/pained.

53. I agree on pained vs painful.

    I don’t get why ‘a favour’ = (a) rosette. The clue suggests the noun.

54. Well, according to Collins, STONY is short for ‘stony-broke’ – and that may be seen as ‘gone broke’? Fair enough.
    ‘To expedite’ is ‘to hasten’, but does that mean ‘expedition’ = HASTE?
    ‘Expedition’ can equal ‘speed’.
    However, ‘speed’ is not HASTE, in my opinion.
    As for ROSETTE, I have some support it seems.

55. Have to agree. Too hard for me too. Almost one that has me reaching for sudoku but not quite.

56. Sil, sometimes your opinions on English vocabulary are odd!

    SOED has

    haste heist ? noun. ME.
    1 Quickness or speed of motion or action, esp. as prompted by urgency or pressure. ME.

    and

    expedition ?kspi?di?(?)n ? noun. lME.

    …

    4 Quick movement; promptness, speed; dispatch. l16.

    Where is the problem?

57. Sil @54, don’t football team supporters still wear rosettes as “favours”? I know my mother and her sisters wore dark blue or light blue rosettes according to which rowing team they favoured, Oxford or Cambridge, on Boat Race days.

    As Eileen @51 points out, Collins gives favour n. 6 badge or knot of ribbons : rosette n. 1 rose shaped bunch of ribbon.

58. Pino. Thanks for that, I must try and remember. Etty not Emin. Having just looked him up I’m not surprised he’s not better known. He did like his writhing nudes didn’t he. I mean, good grief.

59. Brendan @56, yes, my opinions may sometimes be odd – because I am not a Brit.

    You mention ‘definitions’ for ‘haste’ and ‘expedition’.
    My point is that ‘haste’ is prompted by urgency, leading to quick movement.
    There is an extra factor, it’s not just the speed itself.
    ‘Expedition’ is just ‘speed’ and is a more neutral word.
    Well, that is what Beth (who is English!) and I concluded.
    If you go to Chambers you will find under ‘expedition’: ‘speed’ and ‘promptness’ (but no ‘haste’).
    Under ‘haste’ there are: ‘urgency calling for speed’, ‘hurry’ and ‘inconsiderate or undue speed’.
    The Thesaurus throws them on one heap, true – which is alright for a crossword definition.

    I am happy to leave it there, it’s not important enough to make a fuss about.
    Meanwhile, that particular meaning of ‘a favour’ was unknown to me.
    As I said before Collins apparently supports ‘stony’ (but the other dictionaries do not) but it felt incomplete to us.
    Still, not 100% convinced about ‘agonised’ (despite the examples given – stubborn me) nor about ‘readiness’.
    But then, I am odd. 🙂
    [by the way, I am also happy to learn]

60. Sil, I didn’t make a fuss, I thought that was you 😉

    Even more bizarrely the SOED has

    expedite ??kspid?it ? verb trans. l15.

    ……………..

    2 Help forward, hasten the progress of. e17.

    The moral of this story is never trust Chambers (as it’s crap) or English assistants.

    Of course both Chambers and the SOED only document what they consider to be current usage so neither are infallible!

    I personally see the nouns “haste” and “expedition” as almost synonymous but as non-attenders of S&B both the SOED’s and my own opinion are of course worthless! 🙂

    Bye

61. It took three of us to solve this one (on paper, no help from a “check” button).
    Only got stuck on “Etty”, whom none of us had ever heard of.
    I agree with all those who objected to “painful” instead of “pained” as a synonym for “AGONISED”, and about “Pep/Diego” (Pep is specifically Catalan, while Diego is generically Spanish – from which “Dago” for a Spaniard). But I was surprised to find no one querying “avoid” (transitive verb) as a definition of “SWERVE” (intransitive). You swerve to avoid an obstacle, you don’t swerve the obstacle.
    Apart from this it was mainly fair, though we couldn’t parse ENDLESS and thought the “for ID” trick in GDANSK was over the top.

62. Thanks Gaufrid and Vlad.

    Like many I failed to get ETTY – not enough help from the wordplay for my simple brain.

    Otherwise impaled by the parsing of DIMINISHED, IBSEN and EDEN – never having heard of the footballer, I mused whether Vlad was offering NEED (anagram of EDEN – “playing”) as a synonym for HAZARD – tenuous I know ( and wrong) but it’s all I had.

    Entertaining all the same and ultimately that’s what I hope we all hope for.

63. Thanks Vlad and Gaufrid

    Dodged this one for a month and although I finished it within the day (earlier this week), I still found it a bit of a struggle ! Failed on my last one in – ETTY where I’d found ERTE (the Russian-born French illustrator – and as it seems completely unparsed).

    I do like Vlad’s ‘twisted cryptic logic’ with the ‘for ID’ trick that one gives a nod of appreciation to when it eventually becomes clear as to what was going on – similarly for RAG WEEK. That said, I had no idea what was going on with ENDLESS or AGONISED and came here quite hopeful that they were right, but without oozing confidence. They were my next to last couple in.

    Overall a tough but pleasant solve as is normal with this setter.

64. @26: Xjpotter says:”I got 12 ac as ‘dare’, the middle letters of garden”
    So did I. “Hazard playing in garden = DARE” IMO is a much better clue.

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