Guardian Cryptic 26,865 by Enigmatist

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At last the Guardian has realised the change to daylight savings time (more or less; I suspect that the solution is still late arriving). The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26865.

One expects a struggle with Enigmatist’s puzzles, and this one is no exception, but perhaps not such hard work as some of his. I was very happy to get the puzzle an hour earlier than those in the past few weeks, which enabled me to put the blog and myself to bed at a reasonable hour.

Across
8 IMPOTENT Dispensing with loving gestures, thugs pin me to ground, helpless (8)
An anagram (‘ground’) of ‘t[hugs] pin me to’ without HUGS (‘dispensing with loving gestures’).
9 TROPHY Cup replay’s final touch by Hearts left back (6)
A reversal (‘back’) of Y (‘replaY‘s final touch’) plus H (‘Hearts’ in bridge, for example) plus PORT (‘left’).
10 STASIS Secret police force’s arrest (6)
A reference to Stasi, the former East German secret police.
11 TIME BOMB Mob wants me to go off in a while, having retreated? (4,4)
An envelope (‘in’) of MEBOM, an anagram (‘to go off’) of ‘mob’ plus ‘me’ in TIB, a reversal (‘having retreated’) of BIT (‘while’ “I’ll get round to it in a bit”), with an extended definition, if not a very accurate one.
12 WINO Down-and-out, like team with such a record? (4)
A reference to WIN O (no win, ‘like team with such a record’).
13 DELHI BELLY Hotel defamation cases during stay not a result of contaminated food (5,5)
An envelope (‘during’) of LHIBEL, another envelope (‘cases’)  of H (‘hotel’) in LIBEL (‘defamation’) in DEL[a]Y (‘stay’) minus the A (‘not a’).
15 REALITY Got off just over halfway through dismal government-free existence (7)
An envelope (‘through’; ‘just over halfway’ indicates the placing of the inclusion) of ALIT (‘got off’) in [g]REY (‘dismal’) minut the G (‘govenment-free’).
16 CAPTCHA Letters you see to be typed, for example S-K-I-P T-E-A (7)
A charade of CAPT (captain, ‘skip’) plus CHA (‘tea’).
18 ODD NUMBERS They’re not even occasional painkillers! (3,7)
A charade of ODD (‘occasional’) plus NUMBERS (‘painkillers’).
19 GAGA Grand military official’s losing it (4)
A charade of G (‘grand’) plus AGA (‘military official’).
20 ALPHABET Lincoln pub given the go-ahead in key letters (8)
An envelope (‘in’) of PH (public house, ‘pub’) plus ABE (‘Lincoln’) – with ‘given the go-ahead’ indicating the order of the particle – in ALT (‘key’ on a computer keypad).
22 NOTICE Time allowed for preparation once varied with it (6)
An anagram (‘varied’) of ‘once’ plus ‘it’
23 JEEVES Literary man’s endless fun, hosting evening of poetry (6)
An envelope (‘hosting’) of EVE (‘evening of poetry’) in JES[t] (‘fun’) minus its last letter (‘endless’). ‘Man’ is in the sense of servant, for the valet to Bertie Wooster in P.G. Wodehouse’s stories.
24 WHITE-OUT The reason solicitor’s reported heavy blizzard (5-3)
Sounds like (‘reported’) WHY TOUT (‘the reason solicitor’).
Down
1 DMITRI MENDELEEV Element divider flexibly accommodating ununoctium (the last) (6,9)
An envelope (‘accommodating’) of M (‘ununoctiuM (the last)’) in DMITRIENDELEEV, an anagram (‘flexibly’) of ‘element divider’. Mendeleev developed the Periodic Table of elements; ununoctium is currently the last known element in the table, so the clue has an extended definition.
2 YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE Cheers solvers are barred from getting (3,8,4)
A charade of YOU (‘solvers’) plus SHOULDN’T HAVE (‘barred from getting’).
3 SENSE DATUM Redevelopment of East End integral to total object of perception (5,5)
An envelope (‘integral to’) of ENSEDAT, an anagram (‘redevelopment’) of ‘east end’ in SUM (‘total’).
4 STATELY Very impressive visit without telephone (7)
An envelope (‘without’) of TEL (‘telephone’) in STAY (‘visit’).
5 ITEM A couple one bumped into on the rebound? (4)
A charade of I (‘one’) plus TEM, a reversal (‘on the rebound’) of MET (‘bumped into’).
6 COBBLED TOGETHER So makeshift team did it at last? (7,8)
A rather Rufus-like cryptic definition, with the connection of ‘last’ with shoemaking.
7 THE MILE-HIGH CLUB Its members say they’ve made it up (3,4-4,4)
Cryptic definition.
14 IN ABSENTIA Making merry a bit insane while away! (2,8)
An anagram (‘making merry’) of ‘a bit insane’.
17 NEW TOWN Dissident went and won Hemel Hempstead? (3,4)
An anagram (‘dissident’) of ‘went’ plus ‘won’. The question mark justifies the indication by example.
21 BUSH Vehicle heading for Hertfordshire wilderness (4)
A charade of BUS (‘vehicle’) plus H (‘heading for Hertfordshire’).
completed grid

42 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 26,865 by Enigmatist”

  1. I found this puzzle very difficult, and I gave up on solving 1d and 12a. Also failed to solve YOU in 2d.

    I was unable to parse 6d, 8a, 15a, 19a.

    My favourite was ODD NUMBERS, and I think I groaned a bit when I solved CAPTCHA & THE MILE HIGH CLUB.

    Thanks PeterO and Enigmatist.

  2. Thanks PeterO and Enigmatist.

    Got stuck at NW corner without 1d and 15a. No amount of staring was going to get me the answers, so I came up here.

    Still feel good solving all else, though needed parsing for CAPTCHA. Liked the different ‘it’ clues!

  3. I was bogged down for a while at 18A, having inked in ODD FELLOWS – to kill pain is to fell ow’s! Very convoluted and extremely difficult. Well done, PeterO for having solved and parsed this so quickly. I took more than an hour. John, thank you for the torture.

  4. Well I was hopeless at this, so thanks to PeterO for the blog. Of the ones I did solve, like Michelle @1, I enjoyed 18a ODD NUMBERS. Solving the anagram in 14d, IN ABSENTIA, pleased me too. When I finally got “it”, I had to smile at 7d THE MILE HIGH CLUB. Other clever ones IMHO were 13a DELHI BELLY and 6d COBBLED TOGETHER. I did get 1d DMITRI MENDELEEV but only via Anagram Solver – a guilty admission. Thanks to Enigmatist – it was a very clever puzzle, but served to show I have a lot to learn still despite reasonable success on the other four puzzles this week.
    I want to add my condolences on the death of Otterden – I enjoyed his puzzles when they appeared. My sympathy to his family and his crossword community. Clearly his legacy has been remembered well.

  5. Cracking puzzle – long overdue.

    Got all the toughies – eventually (how long is between me and my cruciverbal confessor) – then spent nearly as long staring at 12a.

    Many thanks S&B both.

  6. Thanks Enigmatist and PeterO

    There were too many I could only partially parse – I was thrown by all the inclusions – for this to have been a great experience, but it was worth it for several wonderful clues. 1d is one of the best, and 6 and 7 down were pretty good too.

    I didn’t parse IMPOTENT as I read the definition as “dispensing with loving gestures”. Oh dear!

  7. Wow – this was the first puzzle I’ve failed to complete in quite a long time (couldn’t get 9a, 11a, 16a, 19a, 5d and 6d). But I enjoyed the tussle, particularly JEEVES, DMITRI MENDELEEV, ALPHABET and ODD NUMBERS. Thanks to Enigmatist and PeterO.

  8. Thanks to Enigmatist and PeterO. I never do well with this setter and this time I almost gave up after my first pass, but I finally got started with a few clues (ITEM, IN ABSENTIA, NEW TOWN, STATELY, WHITEOUT). DELHI BELLY was new to me (the US version is “Montezuma’s revenge” from Mexico rather than India). I took a long time before seeing COBBLED TOGETHER and THE MILE-HIGH CLUB and even longer linking “Cheers” to YOU SHOULDNT HAVE and at last spotted MENDELEEV. WINO was last in.

  9. Thanks Enigmatist & PeterO.

    Yes, quite a tussle but worth the effort although the Check button was liberally used. Two long cds made the solving difficult; nice answers though.

    REALITY was my LOI because I failed to notice/parse ‘alit;’ which is a bit of a strange word. Did anyone know SENSE DATUM before today?

    I had to laugh at the CAPTCHA. I liked DELHI BELLY among others.

  10. Needed to cheat on the elementary Ruskie – despite currently watching the fabulous Breaking Bad – but really enjoyed doing this over lunch. The sex in the sky clue nearly made me scream out loud…

  11. A fittingly tremendous end to a vintage week. A wide range of devices meant that this one yielded slowly but very satisfyingly, with so many excellent clues that it would be invidious to single any out. Thanks to Enigmatist and thanks and congratulations to PeterO on a job well and speedily done.

  12. Thank you Enigmatist and PeterO.

    This took me a long time, but was enjoyable. It did not help having lived in Egypt since I entered GIPPY TUMMY at 13a, even though it would not parse, crossers later put things right along with memories of a visit to India. THE MILE-HIGH CLUB was the last in, new to me so googled. I needed help to parse REALITY

    Favourites were ODD NUMBERS, ALPHABET and CAPTCHA.

  13. Found this very difficult,especially 1d & 16a both of which took a lot of use of Google. [Proud to say that I was able to tell my husband, a retired Senior Lecturer in Chemistry, something he didn’t know – the meaning of “ununoctium”!]

    That said, it was a very enjoyable challenge. Favourite clues were 13 & 23a, 7d.

    Thank you very much Enigmatist & PeterO.

  14. This was TOUGH! I failed on 1down, 23across and 16 across. Thanks very much to Peter O for the explanatory blog.

    I still don’t fully understand “Captcha.” I see “skip” and “tea” but what does “captcha” mean and why are these “letters you see to be typed?”

    David S

  16. Tough but so enjoyable – lovely to have an Enigmatist to hide under my work and peep at every so often.

    thank you to him and PeterO too.

  18. I wish Enigmatist appeared more often in the Guardian, as this puzzle shows us what we have been missing. This was quite accessible for the most part – THE MILE-HIGH CLUB was first in and I had several more on first reading. As always this is full of wit and invention – loved DMITRI MENDELEEV and CAPTCHA. REALITY was last in.

    Thanks to Enigmatist and PeterO

  19. Too tough for me, I’m afraid. I gave up with only about half done. That said, there were some neat clues. After using an anagram solver I particularly appreciated DMITRI MENDELEEV, which went a little way to countering the arts bias I tend to grumble about. COBBLED TOGETHER and THE MILE-HIGH CLUB were clever too.

    Thanks, PeterO and Enigmatist.

  20. Thank you Enigmatist and PeterO.

    I found this tough but admired its wit and ingenuity.

    I never got near to solving 1dn. UNUNOCTIUM isn’t in my dog-eared copy of the BRB (nor in my spell-checker, I see). I now understand it’s only a temporary name (meaning obviously 118) and was originally discovered in 2002 but only officially acknowledged in 2006.

  21. Cookie @ 15

    Thanks very much for enlightening me. I knew the object/device but didn’t know that was what it was called.

    Sometimes I find I fail the computer/human test on these when the letters/numbers are so distorted I can’t work out what they are!

    Best wishes David

  22. Very difficult but mostly well crafted. I’m afraid I had to look up DIMITRI MENDELEEV,of whom I’ve never heard,and there were a couple I couldn’t parse- REALITY and JEEVES- but I quite enjoyed doing battle with the rest. I liked COBBLED TOGETHER and THE MILE HIGH CLUB- the juxtaposition of which sounds quite rude-and WINO. LOI REALITY.
    Thanks Enigmatist.

  23. I got roughly the right-hand half of this without too much trouble, but the left-hand half defeated me. I always have severe difficulty with the Enigmatist. My least favorite type of clue is where you have to subtract stuff (either in general or before anagramming the rest), and a close second-least is what I’ll call the turducken type clue: Stuff A inside B, and put C around it. The grammar in those is usually so tortured that there are several possibilities about what goes inside what. The example here was DELHI BELLY, which took forever to figure out. Anyway, Enigmatist does a lot of both of those things.

  24. This puzzle was far too challenging for me. I cheated the entire way through. But I now know about new towns – an interesting tidbit. I also looked to see what a sense datum was and then regretted it!

  25. Enjoyed the RHS of this, including the reference to (for me) the long forgotten fantasy of 7d but hated the LHS,

    1d revealed my hitherto unsuspected lack of interest in matters scientific, especially those involving knowledge of Russian names and the upper end of the Periodic Table!

    I was also baffled by 3d (what is it?) and 16a, which, as Cookie@15 has pointed out, I require to submit this comment, but I don”t think this entitles to the status of a real word,.

  26. Too hard for me. Even some of the non-scientific and computerese clues with which I would expect to struggle used English phrases in a meaning I didn’t know. YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE = Cheers? MADE IT = had sex? It could refer to achieving any goal. STAY = visit without “at”,”with” or “in”?
    15a Having failed to parse ANARCHY (government-free existence) I found ALIT but REY was beyond me. Is G a common abbreviation for government? I do dislike clues that require us to dredge up synonyms then do something to one of them to solve part of a clue.

  27. Pino @26

    How about as nouns: “Enjoy your stay/visit”? G for Government is in Chambers, which references in particular G-man for an FBI agent.
    Two or three people said that they filled the right hand half first, which was also my experience. My first in, 10A STASIS, was lonely for quite a time.

  29. Misled at 16a: Completely overlooked that we read ‘Captcha’ at the foot of this page every time we contribute; then misread ‘Letters you see to be typed’, as letters U/C (upper case). I wonder if any others were likewise fooled. Thus ‘CAPITAL’ ruined the west side for me.

    Enjoyed doing as much as I managed. Thanks for a real challenge.

  30. I’m another who solved the RHS first. (muffin, I don’t know how you did it!)

    I found the puzzle tough, which I normally welcome, but with this one there was not too much to enjoy. 4 clues were brilliant, but I listed 8 (a quarter of all the clues!) that were too contrived, or at least in need of improvement.

    1D was amazing: just the fact that ‘element divider’ is almost an anagram of the name – needing only an ‘M’. My other favourites were 16A (CAPTCHA), 18A (ODD NUMBERS) and 19A (GAGA).

    I remember the last Enigmatist puzzle I tried (some time ago) was a bit of a slog. I might have to conclude that there is something about this setter’s style that doesn’t agree with me.

    Nevertheless, thanks to Enigmatist and to PeterO.

  32. PeterO @ 27
    Thank you for that. Of course. Even I worked it out but only in bed, too late to blog.
    I still don’t get the other two6

  34. Alan @30
    Well, DMITRI MENDELEEV was my FOI (I always look at 15 letter ones first) – I used to teach chemistry 🙂

  35. muffin (@34)
    That explains it! I only got it when I had –M–T–– for the first word. Nothing fitted that except SMITHY (note ‘the last’ in the clue!) and DMITRI. DMITRI is a name – and the rest is history. I got both long words going down on the right early on but not on the left.

  36. Smithy? Last? Cobblers!
    Rock hard puzzle this one, I had to Check two or three – COUPLES TOGETHER for COBBLES, EGALITY for REALITY. So many &lits/cryptic definitions. Favourite and loi CAPTCHA – that had me puzzling about dieting, skipping letters and what not. Thanks Enigmatist and PeterO.

  37. This was probably my best attempt at an Enigmatist puzzle so far, even though I only got 3 on my first pass (all down clues). I nearly gave up last night with quite a few still to do, but I did eventually finish it today. Some answers were (semi-)educated guesses followed by use of the Check button, then the parsing completed if they turned out to be correct (some didn’t). I had to google “ununoctium”. Once I’d confirmed that it was an element, Mendeleev was obvious, but then I had to google again to get his first name (I kept thinking Gregor, confusing him with Mendel, the founder of modern genetics). I agree with Alan Browne @30 that some clues were rather too contrived to be totally enjoyable, but also that others were very satisfying to solve.

    Caesario @29
    I too tried very hard to make CAPital work for 16a, then kicked myself when the penny finally dropped.

    Thanks, Enigmatist and PeterO.

  38. Sorry, very late in posting, but I was so chuffed that I finally managed to solve this after a really hard slog and I felt I had to figuratively put pen to paper. It’s all very well to say this now it’s finished but I thought this was a fantastic puzzle with lots of memorable clues such as THE MILE-HIGH CLUB, CAPTCHA, WINO, JEEVES and REALITY. My LOI was DMITRI MENDELEEV – one of those ‘tip of the tongue’ moments (or in my case, er… hours) and I kept thinking of Gregor Mendel, the ‘founder’ of modern genetics, understandably as it turned out.

    A big thanks to PeterO and especially to Enigmatist.

  39. Just thought I post to say what a fantastic puzzle this was.

    As this was an Enigmatist I decided to complete and fully parse it without any reference whatsoever. Very worthwhile with some setters. So as you can see it only took me 3 and a half days!

    LOI was 1D when I finally had a breakthrough in seeing that DMITRI was a possibility with the crossers. I’ve never heard of the chap but I had heard of MENDEL so I guessed this root would lead to a valid name. (In my defense I did stop studying Chemistry as soon as was possible as I hated the subject!)

    Thanks to PeterO and the supreme Enigmatist for this puzzle.

  40. Thanks PeterO and Enigmatist.

    I finished this and parsed all correctly – including the two extended definitions at 11ac and 1dn.

    But I have to say I feel shaken up by the experience – more of a ‘thank heavens it’s over’ rather than a feeling of elation.

    This must be down to personal mood.

    The only easy ones for me were ODD NUMBERS and BUSH. I feel like I had to fight tooth and nail for the rest.

    So PeterO, I congratulate you on what looks to be a terrific achievement before bedtime.

  41. Thanks Enigmatist and PeterO

    My congratulations also Peter, on being able to finish this so quickly – it took me a full three days to get it out. Am another who completed the RHS first, starting off with WHITE OUT as my first one in. COBBLED TOGETHER was the first of the long ones to fall after about 7-8 clues were in with the clever THE MILE-HIGH CLUB next.

    Ended up faltering on JEEVES (had REEVES – REST is also a synonym for fun and by having not read any of Wodehouse’s work, that valet never comes easy!). Was eventually able to see YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE but am afraid that DMITRI MENDELEEV was only entered after a googling exercise with dividing elements – was another who escaped Chemistry as soon as I could.

    Finished in the NW corner with the Russian scientist and eventually REALITY as the last one in. An excellent challenge as always from this setter – a scary assignment to start with but an enjoyable feeling after one has completed it. – even 5-6 months on.

  42. Just thought we’d see if we could post a very late comment! Finished yesterday – took a few days rather than nine months ) and had to resort to the anagram finder for Dmitri…… RH side fairly straight forward – the rest gave trouble and we need help. Thanks Enigmatist and PeterO – might be a while before we try an Engimatist again….

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