Guardian 26,995 – Tramp

by

Qaos commented yesterday that “you’ve a really good one to look forward to tomorrow”, and here it is.

As is often the case with Tramp, there are lots of references to a theme – in this case the BBC sitcom Porridge – but saying that is no spoiler, as no knowledge of the programme is needed to solve the puzzle. Lots of clever use of the theme, including two brilliant anagrams. Thanks to Tramp for the entertainment. (I’ve had to write the blog in rather a hurry, so please excuse any errors or omissions.)

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
8. GRUESOME Terrible Harry Grout mostly with yours truly taking drugs (8)
ES (drugs) in anagram (indicated by “Harry”) of GROU[t] + ME (yours truly)
10. USED Exploited, took drugs (4)
Double definition
11. GUARDROOMS Cells turn to fix as drug dealt externally (10)
Reverse MOOR in (AS DRUG)*
12. SNORER Welcoming back to prison, more angry one might cause disturbance at night? (6)
N (“back to prisoN”) in SORER
14. ABORTIVE Steal show outside, returning fruitless (8)
Reverse of ROB in EVITA
15. TRAGEDY Turn old when locked up for comedy? On the contrary (7)
AGED (old) in TRY (turn)
17. DIGRAPH Two characters giving one sound jab that’s hit hard (7)
DIG (a jab) + RAP H – as Chambers points out, the PH in this word is an example of a digraph
20. HORSE-BOY One tends to nag youngster on frame (5-3)
HORSE (frame, e.g. clothes-horse) + BOY. A horse-boy tends the “nags” in his stables
22. CASING Protection around grass (6)
CA (around) + SING (grass, tell on)
23. FOREORDAIN Predetermine Fed’s choice of letter? American with it (10)
F OR E OR D (choice of letters from FED) + A + IN (with it)
24. PICK Choose to sleep around, caught making penetration (4)
C in reverse of KIP
25. THETA Dry man inside with a foreign letter (5)
HE in TT (teetotaller) + A
26. TRANSFER Move back over after time without Norman Stanley Fletcher, initially (8)
T + NSF in reverse of REAR
Down
1. PRISONER Can resident regularly reveal porkies on TV show? (8)
P[o]R[k]I[e]S + ON + E.R.
2,9. HEADLAMPS Lights in HMP Slade out around one (9)
A in (HMP SLADE)*
3. BODGER One messes up Godber’s pants (6)
GODBER*
4. GETAWAY Escape? Never! (7)
GET AWAY! = never!
5. GLADIOLI Pleased to fiddle, dropping skirts and bloomers (8)
GLAD + [v]IOLI[n]
6. IMPOSTURES Cheats and rogue start to make up stories (10)
Anagram (“rogue”) of M[ake] + UP STORIES
7. ASIMOV He wrote because one needs second volume (6)
AS + I + MO + V
13,24. REGISTERED POST Noted deliveries, Porridge set twice cracked up (10,4)
(PORRIDGE SET SET)* – the first of two very nice Porridge-related anagrams
16,18. DOBERMAN PINSCHER Criminal chap beds with Mr Ronnie Barker (8,8)
(CHAP BEDS MR RONNIE)* – and another one
19. DYNASTY Line from old TV programme (7)
Double definition
21. OPORTO Content to shop or tour city (6)
Hidden in shOP OR TOur. The Portuguese call this city just PORTO – the initial O is a definite article
22. CONGAS Talk following Tory party lines? (6)
CON + GAS

35 comments on “Guardian 26,995 – Tramp”

  1. Thanks for the blog, Andrew. I enjoyed this, even though I didn’t complete. This is the first time I’ve seen the device used in FOREORDAIN – is this a novelty, or have others seen it before?

  2. Thanks for blog. I was thinking for 6d rogue=imp and anagram of stories- it had to be that answer as nothing else fit but you’ve put me out of my misery.

  3. Quite fun but another one mainly for the over-50s who will appreciate the theme. Never come across Foreordain before but I suppose it makes sense. Unlike Horse-Boy. Googling it shows up numerous links to a book and film and summer camps. I thought the term was stable boy or stable lad.

  4. As soon as I saw Ronnie Barker and picked up the prison theme, I knew I wouldn’t get it out.

    Didn’t ever watch “Porridge” though I think it was shown in Australia. Didn’t like Ronnie Barker at all. Something creepy about his humour, with all the double entendres etc., IMHO. Sorry if that upsets fans. That style of humour seems so dated now …

    A few fun moments before I gave up. I agree, Andrew, great anagrams: 16d/24d REGISTERED POST, and 16d/18d DOBERMAN PINSCHER. I also liked 1d PRISONER.

    Got some other obscure things such as 20a HORSE-BOY and 9a/2d LAMPS HEAD, though having heard of neither.

    Just not a puzzle to my taste, no criticism intended.

    Thanks to Tramp and Andrew.

  5. PS 22d CONGAS was clever. I had “confer”, thinking it was Tory = “CON”, “F” for following, and “ER” for something like English Rail (as in railway lines). This is why I like the blog: it gives me many “ah ha!” moments.

  9. Thanks Tramp and Andrew.

    Great puzzle; as Andrew says, you don’t really need knowledge of Porridge to solve, although it adds to the enjoyment. Lots to like, including SNORER, HORSE-BOY (never heard of it but it is in Chambers,) CASING, PICK, DOBERMAN PINSCHER and CONGAS (my LOI.) Perhaps some would not know DYNASTY as an old TV programme.

    Missed the parsing of IMPOSTURES as I thought the rogue might have been imp.

  10. Thanks Laurel Valerie T @ 7 and others re 2d 9a. Clearly I had the components around the wrong way. We would call them “headlights” in Australia, not “headlamps”.

  11. Thank you Tramp and Andrew.

    A really good puzzle, most enjoyable even though I knew nothing about “Porridge”. I also failed to parse IMPOSTURES, since I thought of IMP for rogue, and FOREORDAIN.

    REGISTERED POST and DOBERMAN PINSCHER were great anagrams, but DIGRAPH, ABORTIVE and CONGAS were my favourites.

  12. Cookie @8: Thanks, so I did – now fixed.

    We usually call them headlights in the UK too: I think of “headlamps” as being a more “legalistic” name, though I see the Highway Code (now) calls them headlights.

  13. Thanks to Tramp and Andrew. I too knew nothing about Porridge but that did not detract from the fun, especially the two long anagrams. I needed help parsing FOREORDAIN and took a while linking “horse” and “frame” for HORSE-BOY. The latter turns up briefly in a key scene in Marlowe’s Edward II (and I was told that the term could describe a person of any age).

  14. I thought this was a cracker, and 16/18d DOBERMAN PINSCHER just about the perfect clue. The puzzle is also a model of how to execute a themed crossword – one did not need to know anything about Fletch, Godber, Grouty or Slade (although I did, and I enjoyed, as a bonus, the clever way these names were incorporated). The other long anagram (REGISTERED POST) was also very good, and there was a lot to appreciate throughout.

    I didn’t quite ‘get’ FOREORDAIN and forgot to go back to it to work it out, so thanks to Andrew for the explanation. I haven’t heard of HORSE-BOY, but it was a confident guess based on that meaning of horse.

    I hastily wrote in GRIEVOUS (meaning ‘terrible’) at 8a without taking a moment to check it and had to change it when nothing went in at 4d (GETAWAY).

    Many thanks to Tramp.

  15. Thanks Andrew and Tramp. In regards to 1d, The Prisoner is one of my all time favorite shows though not intentionally (?) part of the clue. Of course the famous tag line from the Prisoner has an odd relevance to a crossword: “I am not a number. I am a free man!”

  16. Found this pretty tough and had to resort to the Check button a few times to finish it, but found it an absorbing and enjoyable challenge with plenty of intricate clues. GETAWAY was last in – annoyingly I needed all of the crossers to think of that. FOREORDAIN was very clever.

    Thanks to Tramp and Andrew

  17. Missed CONGAS;I had CONFAB even though I couldn’t parse the second bit.
    Most of the rest of this was both straightforward and enjoyable. I had a
    bit of trouble with the NE. DIGRAPH was LOI and IMPOSTURES took an age to
    get.
    Much of Ronnie Barker’s work is now unwatchable but the character of Fletcher
    in Porridge was a triumph and still stands up well in my opinion.
    Nice puzzle.
    Thanks Tramp.

  18. I had confab too! Like beeryhiker our last one in was getaway. Don’t like horseboy but overall a good workout. One of our favourite setters and didn’t let us down.

  19. A splendid puzzle which had a weird effect on me, getting the long anagrams quickly, but getting stuck on one or two that should have been obvious – won’t forget Foreordained in a hurry. But pace Steve at 3 there were only three clues which depended on remembering old tv shows, and they were matched by the first three which were all drug-related. Setters are sometimes a bit too 21st cent oriented for the taste of us who are in trAGEDy!

  20. Thanks Tramp and Andrew
    I didn’t spot “harry” as an anagram indicator in 9a, or see how 23a or 1d worked, but otherwise it was great fun. Favourites were ABORTIVE and, LOI, CONGAS (after a “check” showed “confab” to be wrong!)

  22. So-so puzzle. Several of the surfaces close to gibberish, e.g. 11, 12, 23, 17. And all the Porridge effort seems to have little relevance to the answers so why bother? Harrumph.

  23. I liked this a lot – just right for a long train journey today.

    Whatever your views about Ronnie Barker’s comedy act, his portrayal of Fletcher was, as Peter says @17, a triumph. He WAS Fletcher, and all memories of his other personae disappeared for that 30 minutes. That quality of acting, together with some wonderful scripts and great ensemble playing mean that Porridge remains in my view the greatest sitcom British TV has produced.

    Thanks to Tramp for a hard but very enjoyable workout; a pity only that you could not find a way of referring to ‘genial Harry Grout’, as he was ironically named by Fletcher, rather than the (more accurate but less amusing) ‘gruesome’.

  25. Yes, great puzzle, It took me a long time, but got there apart from FOREORDAIN. Lots of great clues including the long anagrams, GETAWAY, CONGAS, GLADIOLI and TRAGEDY. Many thanks to Tramp and Andrew.

  27. paddymelon @26
    “… but don’t understand the anagram indicator – ‘pants’?”

    Two of the definitions in Chambers for ‘pants’ are “nonsense” and “rubbish”, ie a mess or mixed up.

  29. Agree with Jim T @ 24 about congas. I, as muffin did, thought it ought to be confab, too. Even when I read the answer I thought congas must be a term I didn’t know for what flows through communist gas pipelines (party lines)! It reminds me again of the situation where people will deny there is a letter that will complete a word _ENY.

    Thanks Andrew and Tramp.

  31. I found this tough but entertaining, being of an age to remember Porridge with much affection. Like copmus @2, I spent a long time trying to get and anagram for 6d from IMP and stories* before the penny finally dropped. SNORER was my LOI, but FOREORDAIN was the last one to be parsed. There are too many good clues to pick favourites.

    Thanks, Tramp and Andrew.

  32. Tramp is a favourite setter for me. Though not one of his most scintillating, still pretty impressive. When a setter’s bar is set so high it is natural for our expectations to rise similarly. So great setters have a lot to live up to – themselves!
    I actually enjoyed, solving-wise, this more than his more recent works as I found it more challenging (as I prefer ‘puzzles’ to be). I thought HORSE-BOY rather weak, but my only quibble in an exemplary crossword.
    Huge thanks, Tramp, and well done Andrew.

  33. I spent ages on the top half after having entered the alternative anagram LAMPSHADE for 2, 9. Since this answer also fits the clue it is a deception worthy of Ximenes, if intentional.

  35. Thanks Tramp and Andrew

    Abnormally late for this.  Have been doing past Guardian crosswords from a couple of different time periods (2016 and 2003) when I get time.  Was lovely to pick up a Tramp puzzle again with his trademark hidden theme (which went straight past me this time) – enjoyed solving the puzzle in blissful ignorance of it though !

    DIGRAPH and BODGER were both new terms.  Like others I appreciated getting the long anagrams.  Thought that the trick used for FOREORDAIN was excellent and it was the clear clue of the day.

    Finished in the SE corner with CASING (neat and clever) and CONGAS the last couple in.

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