Guardian 26,979 / Crucible

41 comments on “Guardian 26,979 / Crucible”

1. Thanks Crucible and Gaufrid

   I decided straight away that 1a should be SURPASS, but I still “checked” it, as I don’t see that pass and go are equivalent (even if you do “pass Go” in Monopoly!). GREAT FIRE was an easy anagram, so that theme sprang out, leading to unparsed entries of MONUMENT and PUDDING. I didn’t parse OGLE either.

   I didn’t think the “in” reference to Paul was fair – it wouldn’t have meant anything to non-regular Guardian solvers.

   CONFLAGRATION and LESSON were my favourites.

2. Thanks, Gaufrid.

   I loved this puzzle! Having read about all the ingenious events being staged in London to commemorate the anniversary, I was very pleased to see it marked here by one of my favourite setters.

   I was held up in parsing 8dn, too, but, when I saw it, it became one of my favourite clues. My other sticking point was 23ac: I’m so used to seeing second = MO that it took a few, er, moments before MOMENT leapt out.

   Other favourites were SURPASS, CORRUPT, FOUNTAIN, OGLE and CONFLAGRATION – and I liked 2dn for referencing my favourite poet.

   Many thanks, as ever, to Crucible for a very interesting and entertaining puzzle.

3. Bottom half almost a write-in, top half normal. LOI 16. What a beaut 5 is!
   After Maskerade’s wonderfully constructed Bank Holiday poser, almost anything seems easy.

   Thanks for parsing 3 and 8, Gaufrid and thanks to the Melting Pot.

4. Like Eileen I thought this was a great puzzle. Lovely clean surfaces and lots of deviousness. The only one that stumped me was PUDDING. Favourites were MOMUMENT (which took some time to parse), AD NAUSEAM, NASSAU and CORRUPT. Many thanks to Crucible and Gaufrid.

5. Way too difficult for me – maybe I have too much on my mind today – I could not sit still long enough to finish this. I only managed to solve 10 clues, and gave up when I had solved EVELYN but had no idea what was going on with it, even though I had solved GREAT FIRE and CONFLAGRATION.

   No, I don’t know anything about Pudding Lane!

   Thanks s&b.

6. Hi michelle @5 – the Great Fire started in a baker’s SHOP in PUDDING Lane.

7. Indeed an enjoyable puzzle, though I had to overwork the check button even by my standards because it was a great deal easier to find solutions than to parse many of them, so particular thanks to Gaufrid as well as to Crucible.

8. Found this much easier than I was expecting, partly because the style is very precise, and I got the theme pretty early. The only ones that I got slightly stuck on were ACCOUNTRED and my last in EDICT, which in retrospect is probably my favourite. A high class puzzle.

   Thanks to Crucible and Gaufrid

9. Many thanks to Crucible and Gaufrid.

   Two further possible 19 Across links:

   18D After a long, dry summer in 1666, London was suffering a *drought*.
   21D Pepys recorded in his diary that *Charles* II was seen helping to put out the fire.

10. Thank you Crucible and Gaufrid.

    Quite a hard solve for me, and I failed to parse PUDDING and OGLE, most annoying since I googled a few times.

    To add to judygs @9 possible further links, the GREAT FIRE was a LESSON which lead to the EDICT banning thatched roofs in London, and I have heard it said also outside wooden shutters, and that it was thought to have lead to the ASEPSIS of the city after the plague of 1665-1666.

11. Very enjoyable overall. If you’re going to break with convention as in 22d, shouldn’t there be some indication that the setter is doing something unusual?

12. I enjoyed this very much, and although I knew 8d had to be PUDDING it took me a while to figure out why.
    I’m not sure I’m happy with DD as a definition for a “large supporter.”
    If I was going out to buy myself a new flat cap, I’m not sure Frau Bärchen would understand if I said “I’m just nipping over to Dunn&Co for a 6 7/8 darling”

13. PS @10, apparently building with wood and roofing with thatch had been banned for several centuries before the GREAT FIRE, and Charles II had only recently brought in new building laws, but only afterwards were these laws enforced.

    AGRESSORS could also be part of the theme, Londoners thought foreigners had started the fire and helped it spread, so they attacked them.

14. PPS, @10 that should be “led”, not “lead”, I must have had the metal lead on my brain just having read about lead roofs melting in the fire, 327.5°C, and apparently within the firestorm iron chains melted, 1538°C.

15. A very enjoyable puzzle. Like Auriga @3, I found that the bottom half slipped in easily.

    muffin @1

    How about “This too shall pass”?

16. Fun, and pretty straightforward when the theme fell into place. While I got Evelyn I had no idea why – so thanks. As for 8 – surely a lane could have been smuggled in somewhere!

17. Thanks to Crucible and Gaufrid. I do have some knowledge of 1666, so, after spotting CONFLAGRATION early on, I got EVELYN quickly though I could not parse PEPYS or the DD in PUDDING. ASH KEYS was new to me, and like Eileen I especially enjoyed UNHEARD. Very enjoyable.

18. For me this was the hardest of the week so far, but very enjoyable with some great clues. 17a and 9d were really good.

    I put in PEPYS but couldn’t parse it. Still not sure I totally understand. Are there two anagram indicators (“it could be” and “hiccuping”)?

    I wondered if there might be some moans on here about an indirect anagram in 12a. As with yesterday’s CHARITABLE, I thought it was fair and gettable. It seems to me that something short of a “full” anagram, eg just moving one letter, or swapping the two halves of a word, is ok in this sort of clue.

19. Thanks both,

    Some of my favourite clues for a long time in this one. Especially 5a, 9d,13a, 20d and 29a.

    I couldn’t parse 8 down so havered between pudding and padding.

20. I found this hard but enjoyable, mostly. I thought at first that there was a mini-theme on fires in general until ST PAULS made it clear it was “the” not “a” GREAT FIRE. But I didn’t know enough about it to help with the last few. Did not understand MONUMENT until coming here and similarly struggled to understand why 8dn should be PUDDING. I saw the DD connection and G=golf but not the rest of it. I now recall references to pudding as a “course” but it always seemed nonsensical to me. Having ice cream for pudding is like having cornflakes for porridge, or vice versa. But others like OGLE, CORRUPT, LESSON were very good. Thanks Gaufrid and Crucible.

21. Very enjoyable. I knew that the Great Fire is being commemorated at the moment and I knew enough about it for most of the themed clues to be fairly easy. However, PEPYS was entered as a guess because I saw the letters in “dyspepsia” and, given the theme, that had to be the answer, but the parsing only came after much thought. PUDDING was based on the crossers and knowing where the fire started, but I couldn’t fully parse it. I got -UDD- but tried unsuccessfully to get PING from “leg on golf course”, without even noticing that I needed “course” for the definition, probably because I had come to it through “Pudding Lane”, not the food.

    CONFLAGRATION was my favourite.

    Thanks, Crucible and Gaufrid.

22. Perhaps of interest, the FOUNTAIN Inn, a tavern sitting above the entrance to Inner Temple Lane, survived the fire, the only timber-framed Jacobean townhouse in the City to do so. PEPYS mentions it in his diary several times, e.g. in 1661 he wrote “to the Fountain tavern and there stayed till 12 at night, drinking and singing”.

    It is now named Prince Henry’s Room and is a museum housing an exhibition of artefacts on loan from the Pepys Society.

23. PS Wikipedia informs us that the Samuel PEPYS exhibition is now closed and that the “room” is empty except for a large table…

24. Stumbled a bit after a string of clean solves (apart from Ernie) this week.

    Had to google Keats’ melodies to unlock some of the NW corner. Got PUDDING eventually but took an age to get past thinking of PINS as “legs on a golf course” (holes pins) instead of legs, on G, course (getting WEDGE first would have given it to me via the theme but that came after).

    Got LESSON but was confused by the clueing – I always expect the def. to be either at the start or end, not in the middle.

    Ash Keys and Accoutred are new to me.

    Enjoyable but challenging – and a reminder I am no master at this lark yet – I think after whizzing through Paul this week, I was beginning to over-estimate my abilities.

25. Thanks Crucible and Gaufrid

    Colin N @ 24: I think that one way of looking at 22 is as two definitions followed by wordplay, the first being a reverse of lift-&-separate (lift-&-concatenate?). That avoids there being a breach of the ‘rules’, if such there be.

26. Most enjoyable although a bit tricky in places- I couldn’t parse PUDDING and I had to guess WEDGE(LOI). I got the theme rather quickly- CONFLAGRATION was FOI and GREAT FIRE followed almost immediately. ASH KEYS was new to me but, like the aforesaid PUDDING had to be right. I liked PEPYS,EVELYN, NASSAU and SURPASS. This has proved to be rather a good week!
    Thanks Crucible.

27. Top half needed a lot of perseverance today, and that despite twigging the theme. Devices like those used in PEPYS are just a bit out of my comfort zone.

28. muffin @1: re “pass” = “go”, I thought this was fine, as in “pass by” and “go by”. Also both can be euphemisms for “die”.

29. Another great puzzle this week (after the last three that are still fresh in my mind). There were some neat, witty clues, and I particularly liked 9d CONFLAGRATION and 27a OGLE. 9d was my first in because I was determined to get the long word to help with the rest of the grid. I also liked the two uses of Ben in 13a and 17a: of these 17a EDICT should have been easier, but it took me longer to solve than 13a FOUNTAIN for some reason.

    I was pleased to learn 29a ASH KEYS – new to me but readily gettable. The theme was obvious from GREAT FIRE, as muffin said, and it was good to see how it was worked into the puzzle.

    Thanks to Crucible and Gaufrid.

30. Being only vaguely versed in 1666 and All That, I kept thinking that 8d really looked as if it ought be “pudding,” but why? On the other hand, once I saw the theme (BBC talked about the anniversary late at night, which is when I start the puzzle) I immediately looked for a place to put “Pepys.” Having found it, though, I couldn’t work out the parsing beyond that the letters I needed were in “dyspepsia”, so thank you, Gaufrid.

    I couldn’t think how a stone cathedral could burn, but apparently the stones shattered.

    I really tried to jam “bucklered” into 15d (trying to make something of “uncle” without the n) till a crosser or two set me straight.

    I’d never heard of ash keys, and refused to believe any fruit had such a name. Googled it when I got up.

    Is a wedge an iron?

31. I almost finished this one without help, and greatly enjoyed doing so. Thanks to Crucible and Gaufrid.

    Could someone please explain why ‘n’ = Knight in 15dn? I spent ages trying to figure out where [k]in would fit in…..

32. Christa @31

    Yes – in standard chess notation N stands for Knight. (It used to be Kt many years ago, but the single-letter abbreviation took over from it. K = King, by the way.)

33. Thank you, Alan – of course, K is King!

34. Thx Crucible & Gaufrid. Enjoyed this – 45 mins in I mentioned to Suzee in email that I had five to go – goodness those five took a while! Did top left and bottom right quite easily but struggled with other corners – PUDDING was second to last in – knew it had to be but took ages to parse – didn’t know EVELYN reference and for that matter UNHEARD although I think I should have done – TBH thought “column marking start of 9” deserved more for an answer than MONUMENT which is pretty generic – ooo have to admit that I’ve gone through life thinking 14A is spelt “Ad Nauseum” – took me a while then to get 9d although the answer was crying out – was completely oblivious to anniversary – FOI SURPASS LOI WEDGE (actually never did parse this – thought it was some kind of cryptic definition) favourite PUDDING with CORRUPT close second…

35. Fun puzzle. Was able to solve despite being an ignorant Yank. Thank you Crucible and Gaufrid.

    I apologize if someone else mentioned this but I have to point out that Saunas are not steam baths. Saunas produce dry heat. Unless you use the term differently in Europe.

36. I didn’t fully understand MONUMENT until I looked into where Pudding Lane was – which leads to the question: does the Monument merit a visit from this soon-to-be tourist and fan of the Royal Society?

37. Well I never knew that Monument was for the Great Fire of London – I apologise..

38. Lovely puzzle. Finished but needed the splendid blog to parse MONUMENT.

    Dewey, saunas are indeed dry heat but routinely involve cycles of steam, effected by intermittent pouring of water onto the hot stones. Most Europeans would recognise saunas as involving steam, I think, as that’s how it goes though of course there also such things as steam rooms which (as you suggest) are not saunas.

    Confusing. And that’s before you get into whether bathers are clothed or naked, segregated or mixed, etc etc etc.

39. @BlueDot 36
    In short, I would say, yes, the Monument is worth climbing. However, it has become somewhat overshadowed since my first climb in the 70s. One alternative I could heartily recommend is to visit the Sky Garden in the Walkie-Talkie building in Leadenhall St, which is free, has an elevator, and affords a fantastic view of the whole of London and of the Monument itself(from a significantly higher vantage point)
    Tickets have to be booked online in advance.
    Search “free visit Sky Garden”

40. @BlueDot (again)
    correction: Fenchurch Street, not Leadenhall St (that’s the Cheesegrater)

41. Thanks Crucible and Gaufrid

    Did this one earlier in the week but have now just finished checking it off. Got the theme quite early on when GREAT FIRE went in closely followed by CHARLES and EVELYN (who I previously had not heard of).

    Full of his elegant clueing and surface readings (thought that 1a and 5a were brilliant). Being a bit careless, I thought that PEPYS was just a reverse hidden clue, not one of his trademark subtraction anagrams.

    Finished with MONUMENT, WEDGE and PUDDING (which took ages to understand the wordplay and then thought that it was excellent).

    It is one of the extra joys from doing this pastime, the chance to better understand either new things or stuff one thought one knew – but really didn’t. Have always known of the GREAT FIRE of course, but only having done this puzzle and some of the extra reading on it, do you start finding out things like the MONUMENT, PUDDING LANE and the diarist, John EVELYN.

Comments are closed.