Guardian 27,009 – Vlad

70 comments on “Guardian 27,009 – Vlad”

1. Thanks (!) Vlad and Andrew
   Sorry, I thought this was awful. I’ve highlighted 18 clues, and none of them for commendation. I’m not about to do a hedgehoggy and list them all, but here’s a few
   1a RALEIGH (the explorer, not the bike) is pronounced RAWLEY.
   10a car = OPEL? Really? (and to be ultra-pedantic, OPEL is a car manufacturer, not a car anyway)
   16a this clue has no place in a Guardian crossowrd – 19d dubious too
   I could go on!

2. In contrast to muffin, I thought this was wonderful! IMBROGLIO was brilliant, I liked HUE AND CRY and IN REALITY, and I didn’t any complaints about the rest. Vlad is one of my favourite setters. It went in rather quickly for me, although I got stuck on the NW corner with RALEIGH and RANIERI. Couldn’t parse UTENSIL (thank you Andrew). Many thanks to Vlad.

3. Thanks to Vladimir and especially to Andrew for the parsing of 15d. That seems to be quite a big leap! 22a surely has to be an anagram of ‘I slapped Alice’. I spent some time trying to remove ‘a’ from what was suggested in the blog.

4. Definition incorrect for HUE AND CRY, drofle.

5. Sorry Vlad. My spellchecker is rather too picky!

6. I’m with Drofle all the way. Yet another exhilarating romp from Jim the Great.

   And for what it’s worth, where I come from, the homophone at 1 across works. (And never heard it pronounced ‘Rawley’ – although most folks these days seem to say ‘Rah-Lee’.

7. Another fine puzzle that does not deserve mean spirited nitpicking. By Vlad’s standards this was quite accessible though not without a few tricky parses. Atilt was last in
   Thanks to Vlad and Andrew.

8. muffin – IRe HUE AND CRY: I’m a rather loose construer as regards definitions, but I can see where you’re coming from (as with your comment about RALEIGH). I think OPEL is fair enough.

9. . . . and muffin, if you don’t approve of 16a and 19d, what about Paul’s puzzles?

10. Hi drofle
    I think it’s fairly well-known that I generally don’t like Paul’s puzzles!

11. Norbrewer – thanks for pointing out my dodgy anagram fodder; now fixed.

12. Thank you to setter and blogger, but I’m afraid I didn’t like this much today. I found too often that the clueing was overly complicated; I either found the answer from the definition but couldn’t parse it, or couldn’t see the synonym and had no chance of constructing the solution from the wordplay.
    Still, that’s just my taste/ability level and others clearly loved it, so happily there’s room for all sorts in the Guardian

13. I thought this was a great puzzle-the only misgivings I have are with my own brain. that was the parsing of 18 and 15 down-thanksAndrew.

    muffin@1-you are sounding like a hh understudy-but maybe filling a gap in this thread.

14. A fun challenge i thought. Got all but 16a as i had Francis de assisi in. But now i see the answer i think it’s a great clue!

15. In the North, Raleigh, the bike and the explorer always rhymed with rally as in car or buck up

16. Couldn’t get on with this at all and gave up halfway. I sxee nothing wrong with Raleigh being pronounced rally though, that’s the way I always say it.

17. The first definition of hue and cry in the online version of Chambers dictionary is “loud public protest or uproar”. So how is the definition incorrect?

18. Thanks for another great blog, Andrew.

    I’m [as so often] entirely with Conrad @6. [And it’s nice to see our local hero at 1dn.]

    Many thanks to Jim the Great – most enjoyable [loved 13dn especially].

19. Great crossword which I found hard but which I very much enjoyed!! Thanks Vlad!! And thank you Andrew for much help to elucidate wordplay I could not figure out.
    I disagree with all of muffin’s criticisms. Where I come from he is pronounced ‘rahlee’ more or less, now where you come from muffin it may be ‘rawley’, but you make it sound as though that is definitive which I can’t find any corroboration for. I was breastfed, you might have been breastfed, probably a majority of Guardian readers were breastfed so why oh why does the word have no place in the paper. I once owned an Opel, yes strictly it is the name of the manufacturer, but when people asked me what car I had, I said an Opel in the same way as now I own a Citroen C5 I tell people I have a Citroen and not a C5!!
    My favourites were RANIERI and SPARE TYRE. Could not get three including INCULCATE which once I came here was obvious!!

20. I found this easier to solve than to parse. It was easy enough to guess the answers from the definition, but I always feel more satisfied if I can parse my answers too.

    The ones I solved but could not parse were 6 9 12 18 across, and 2 7 8 15 down.

    Thanks Vlad and Andrew.

21. Thank you Vlad and Andrew.

    I enjoyed the crossword, but had to google RANIERI and ENDEAVOUR and could not parse UTENSIL.

    The clue for IMBROGLIO was great, and I also liked those for INCULCATE, UNTIE and MISCREANT.

22. S Panza @19, I am sure it is “jugs”, a slang word for “breasts”, that muffin @1 objects to…

23. I was going to say that 20D ruler = queen made up for 16A, even though I quite liked the cryptic definition. But ‘I slapped Alice’s bum’ was a bit OTT. Not funny Vlad. Appreciate the novel indicator ‘bum’, but just too many for comfort. I know it’s only a crossie, but it hurts.

24. Cookie @22, if that is so I stand corrected!! I was more concerned that “drinking” should have suggested BREASTFEEDING, but in either case I wrote it straight in without a qualm!!

25. Thanks Vlad and Andrew.

    A very enjoyable puzzle, I thought. I’m another ‘rally’ for RALEIGH. I nearly fell off my chair when I solved BREASTFED, great and humorous clue.

    I couldn’t parse 15d as I didn’t know ‘ENS.’ I own a Toyota but it could be an Opel as S Panza @19 points out. I can’t say that I am very fond of M = money. I suppose it is to do with money supply – M0, M1 etc, or is there some other use? ‘Jugs’ is in my ODE, although it does say ‘vulgar slang’ – however, are we getting a bit too oversensitive here? The f and c words are routinely printed in the Guardian.

26. Robi, who is the ‘we’ who are getting oversensitive? You may may be big and bold enough not to be feel like an objec. It’s not about ‘f’ and ‘c’. 16 was ‘humorous’ and clever , and i do like cryptic definitions, but ……. it’s just not funny, or in genteel, blokey terms, it’s just not cricket.

27. Hear Hear Robi @ 25, I’m with you on oversensitivity and of late Vlad seems to be rivalling Paul in the ‘bike sheds’ humour stakes. My wife (a staunch catholic) and I have a very close friend who is a catholic priest, and many years a missionary in Africa and he assures us that in priestly circles the Virgin Mary is known as Mary with the cherry!! He says he does not think anyone should be offended by this; so the term jugs is mild!!

28. I thought 18a (ENDEAVOUR) was a great clue. The surface clearly refers to an element in the TV series Endeavour which, if you haven’t seen it, is about the early career of Morse. He is indeed a somewhat repressed policeman, and the love interest is his neighbour who is a nurse.

29. Thanks to Vlad and Andrew. I had great difficulty (as usual) with this setter (as with Screw yesterday), though I did make headway after getting HUE AND CRY, MISCREANT, SPECIAL PLEADING, and NEW SCOTLAND YARD. I could not parse UTENSIL (ENS for “being” was new to me), did not know RANIERI, and SPARE TYRE and LOW-SPIRITNESS (even with all the crossers) were last in. For the record, the US city Raleigh (my state capital not far away) is pronounced “rawly.”

30. I had surprisingly little difficulty until I got back around to the upper left. Normally I struggle with Vlad. I had never heard of RANIERI, which is not a surprise since I’m one of those people who watches soccer only when the World Cup is on. And RALEIGH eluded me too; yes, I too raised an eyebrow at it being pronounced “rally,” but I chalked that up to my American flat A. Good to know it wasn’t just me.

    And of course I didn’t parse UTENSIL. Who the heck could? Any sane setter would look at that clue and say, what kind of person would get this? and come up with the answer, “um, there is no such person. Let’s try again.”

31. Muffin. To be pedantic, Opel is a car manufactured by General Motors.

32. Much as it may offend some of the po-faced commenters, English is spoken by the vulgar as well as the genteel. As for Raleigh, I’ve always pronounced it just as I should pronounce rally, but then I haven’t had the privilege of knowing the family personally.

33. S Panza @27 Mary-with-the-cherry is wonderful! Many thanks.

    I’m somewhere between the 2 camps on this one. Rather too many clues that I simply couldn’t parse but BIFD in anyway rather spoilt the experience.

    Having said that, there was much to be admired and fun to be had.

    Muffin makes some valid points but I don’t share the Rawley argument; the rally homophone works fine where I live.

    Still don’t really understand lit = settled, and I’ve just looked up ens in Chambers and I’m none the wiser. I can’t imagine how to use it in a sentence.

    Hey-ho, it’s the rich variance of The Graun crossword diet that I savour.

    Many thanks, Vlad.

    Nice weekend, all.

34. @Ed
    To be pedantic, Opel is a German car manufacturer, part of the GM corporate structure.
    When I build my car plant, my first model with be called the hard bargain

35. Hi William @33 – re ‘lit’:
    Collins: ‘light: [esp. of birds] to settle or land after flight’

36. @34
    *will* be called
    sorry for typo

37. Well, I certainly pronounce RALEIGH as “rally”. And I was amused by BREASTFED and ATILT although I was expecting somebody to be offended!
    I thought this was the most enjoyable puzzle of the week. I couldn’t parse UTENSIL, it’s true and I had no idea who RANIERI was. Fortunately the latter was easy to parse and with Google power—-. It was my LOI,though. Good fun!
    Thanks Vlad.

38. I’m a humble beginner, so really struggled, but enjoyed bits and pieces.
    Is there a spare F in the parsing of 7d, by the by?

39. Unless someone can pop back in time and ask Walter how he pronounced his own name, the arguments are a bit redundant. Perhaps Vlad and his vampiric acquaintances were able to hold a seance and contact him in the spirit world. I say “Rah-lee” myself. But then I say “Fran-sis” and not “France-is” re 7d.

    Funny thing – I stared at the paper version for a long time before finally working out what one of the clues might be. I went electronic to check it and thought I might as well carry on with the web version, upon which solutions tumbled out. Is the crossword always easier on the internet?

40. Van Winkle @ 30, well it is if you use the (check this) button!!

41. Ben J @ 38

    Keep plugging away, we all had to start somewhere.

    The second F comes from IF (=providing, as in I’ll do that if/providing you agree), reversed (lifts) and surrounding (outside) ASS (beast) IS.

    hth

42. Pronunciation of Raleigh. Sir Walter Raleigh (or Ralegh) was badly treated by Elizabeth I and John Aubrey put into James I’s mouth the expression “Raleigh was treated rawly”. There certainly have been other Raleighs in succeeding centuries who would have pronounced their name in a variety of fashions.

43. trenodia @42: Raleigh was rather more badly treated by James I himself, who had him executed. (Personally I’ve always pronounced it to rhyme with barley.)

44. JimS: I, of course, knew that but in these uncertain times I did not want to offend the Scots. I still think though that Aubrey living closer to that time and in his punning fashion would have got the pronunciation of his name right.

45. Superb. The long ones are especially good (and UNTIE). I don’t see what’s wrong with Opel: if you can use “car” to define “Ford” (which you can) then you can use “Opel” to do the same: Hans was driving a white Opel.

46. Thanks Vlad and Andrew – great crossword – romped through three-quarters of it then spent ages on bottom left corner and 1D (LOI which eventually got from wordplay – had to google as had never heard of him) – patted myself on back for getting 18A having dredged definition out from some distant memory (TV programme sent me to sleep – “morose” anyone :-)) Had to rely on Andrew to parse 15D – (thanks!) – no complaints with 1A homophone (FOI) – who cares whether Opel is a car or a manufacturer (lots of people clearly :-)) – it does the job in the clue – hmmm favourite – well I quite liked 13D and 23A…

47. A lot of subsequent commenters seem to have misunderstood the points I was making (probably my fault for not making them more clearly).

    Yes RALEIGH can be pronounced “rally”. However Sir Walter didn’t pronounce it like that (thanks Trenodia for the supporting evidence). As “explorer” is the definition, the homophone is incorrect.

    My principal complaint about OPEL = “car” is that it means that there is no way the clue could be solved bottom up – did anyone say “Car? That must be OPEL; take off the first letter to give PEL.”? I didn’t think so.

    Yes, it was “jugs” = “breasts” that I objected to. I’m surprised that there wasn’t more agreement on this.

48. Who says clues have to be solvable “bottom up”? It’s a cryptic crossword; you get help from checking letters and the definition. You see a possible definition of “Get rid of”. You then see “old” and you think “expel” then you think of Opel and confidently write it in. Then you might go back and admire the smooth surface and the faultless cryptic grammar.

49. Tramp @49
    Would you agree that a clue that could be solved in either direction is superior to one that can only be solved one way? I certainly think so.

50. Thanks to Andrew for the blog and to others for their comments.

    Wikipedia gives three alternative pronunciations for the explorer RALEIGH. Think RALLY is the one most commonly used today which is surely more relevant than what was said 400 years ago.

51. Sorry, Vlad, I can’t agree with that. If he called himslef “Rawley”, surely that is more significant.

    btw Wikipedia also says that he only spelled his name Raleigh once that is recorded – Ralegh, Rawley and others were more common:

    ” Many alternative spellings of his surname exist, including Rawley, Ralegh, Ralagh, and Rawleigh. “Raleigh” appears most commonly today, though he used that spelling only once, as far as is known. His most consistent preference was for “Ralegh”. His full name is /?w??lt?r ?r??li/, though in practice /?ræli/, ral-ee, or even /?r??li/ rah-lee are the usual modern pronunciations in England.”

52. [And I might add that in RP English Raleigh and rally aren’t homophones either! (rah-lee and ra-lee), though this point others seem to be happy with.]

53. FWIW and IMHO Tramp has articulated it perfectly – and indeed that was exactly the process I went through for EXPEL – if you want Ximenean precision then do AZED which I do occasionally but they are dry as dust and without humour – I don’t care if there is some free flowing (liberties taken with definitions / wordplay) clueing – RIP Araucaria…

54. I liked this crossword very much.

    Objections to OPEL for ‘car’ are a bit pathetic.
    What about ‘Ford’, ‘Merc’, ‘RR’ and ‘Audi’?
    They are parts of the setter’s vocabulary, just like L for ‘left’ and M for ‘money’ (yes!).

    Where muffin has a point is the use of language that may be seen as offensive, in 16ac and 19d.
    I myself am not overly sensitive to these kind of things but it does not evoke a LOL moment either.
    I wouldn’t want to do this if I were a professional setter.
    My (female) PinC was indeed somewhat offended, so there we are.
    A matter of taste, I guess.

    The RALEIGH homophone wasn’t an issue at all to me because this bike manifacturer (!) is in Holland pronounced as ‘rally’.
    Once more, my (English) PinC objected for the same reason as muffin.
    I think, if there is an accepted pronunciation that leads to ‘rally’ (as there seems to be) then it’s absolutely fine.

    At least two of the long ones were exceptionally good, 22ac and 2d in particular.

    Thanks Andrew fo explaining UTENSIL (15d) – the only that was left unparsed.
    Thanks to Vlad too for a crossword with a style of cluing that was right up my street (despite one or two niggles).

55. Sil @54
    Again I think you are misunderstanding my objection to OPEL. Yes, it’s a car (arguably), but it isn’t one that would spring to mind and allow you to solve the clue “bottom up”. It’s far from the most significant of my objections, though – this sort of thing happens all the time.

56. I agree with the points Muffin has made. Ranieri was a tough clue for those who don’t follow football.

57. OK, muffin, point taken.

    I must admit that after going along the ways of “O+’car'” and “old car”, I found EXPEL only after looking at it as “EX + something”.
    And yes, OPEL came after PEL.
    But, as you say, this ‘bottoms up’ thing happens all the time.
    And I don’t think I am annoyed by it.
    Meanwhile, I can see that OPEL is less familiar to British solves than one like me (from the NL) where Opel is seen as the most common of cars.
    For Brits, Opel = Vauxhall, though.

    RANIERI was our LOI.
    I know who he is – most of those living in the UK, I think, know by now.
    Still, the penny dropped very very late.
    Excellent clue, we thought.

58. A good puzzle from Vlad which I enjoyed.

    Fortunately I was not offended at any point nor did I (or the SOED) find the definition for HUE AND CRY incorrect.

    It’s interesting to note that the more certain people seem to post the less they seem to say. 😉

59. I finished this more quickly than Monday’s Rufus but can’t say that I enjoyed it. Too many solve first and parse or fail to parse later of which 15d is, as MrPenney points out @ 30, a prime example. 18a EN is no longer current in the NHS (and I had never heard of it until another setter used it earlier this year). Perhaps Vlad lives in Australia or NZ? For me my previous bike was a Rally, the explorer is Rahley, and the only person I knew who was actually called it, as a first name, pronounced it Rawly. So, for me, easily solvable but wrong.

60. BNTO @ 58. I wish I could be as pertinent and succinct as Muffin.

61. Gosh, a lot of pretentious PC garbage among the comments today (well, yesterday now) with only one referring to the only real problem with this puzzle, which is UTENSIL. Futile isn’t in the clue so here in crossword-land this is the biggest (and only) sin while others get tied up with commonly-used and inoffensive slang.

    How can anybody have a problem with any of the rest of it, given that it is a crossword puzzle, not a newspaper article, political speech or whatever?

    It’s a bleedin’ puzzle, not a polemic!

62. I’m glad I found the time, at the end of the day, to do this – I thought it was a great puzzle, reminiscent of a similarly challenging puzzle by Vlad about two weeks ago.

    I couldn’t parse three clues (23a, 7d and 15d) at the time – so thanks to Andrew for supplying the missing information.

    Of a number of clues that gave me particular pleasure I would highlight all the long answers, 11a HUE AND CRY, 16a BREASTFED, 13d IMBROGLIO and 14d MISCREANT.

    I can understand comments made about clues being solvable both ways (top-down and bottom-up), but the only concern I would have is if the setter has failed to provide a fair balance. I can empathise with MrsH @12 when she talks about clueing that is overly complicated: some clues in this puzzle were indeed complicated. For me, though, and evidently for many solvers, the balance was right, and having to find some of the answers by looking at crossers and thinking of synonyms was fair game.

    Thanks to Vlad for an excellent puzzle.

63. Pino @60

    BNTO @ 58. I wish I could be as pertinent and succinct as Muffin.

    Well it appears that you have succeeded on the succinctness in this case. However I’m not sure about your pertinence? 🙂

64. re @42 … but how do we know that “rawly” was not pronounced “rally” back in those days?

65. Yet again, a fantastic puzzle from Mr V. Perhaps my favourite of the week, I derived a great deal of fun from it – and absolutely no offence.
    Please keep them coming, Vlad!
    Andrew – nicely blogged.

66. …..not that the use of “jugs” didn’t raise an eyebrow (or two) but it certainly raised a smile – and that’s what counts for me.
    Yup – all good stuff.

67. Futile = useless

68. I’m with muffin and the naysayers. What gives anyone the right to refer to criticism as “mean spirited nitpicking”? It is a constant source of irritation to me that perfectly valid points give rise to a ganging up on the poster from those for whom the setter can do no wrong.
    Those who did not like this, and I feel perfectly within my rights in being one of them, are entitled to be treated civilly.

69. Sorry if I upset you jeceris – my comment was probably a slight overreaction (and it was also written on the phone, which creates additional frustrations) but you can’t seriously agree with comment @1 that “this puzzle was awful” – for me that also went far beyond fair comment, and it is not the first time Vlad has been subjected to such groundless abuse. I am not part of any ganging up – I only ever speak for myself. Some of us appreciate being challenged…

70. I was glad to get to the end of this puzzle!

    Re the use of vulgar language, I am not offended by it but I do think that this has just crossed a line. My impression is that Paul (as he’s mentioned above) stays on the “saucy” side, perhaps, without erring into “rudeness”?

    I didn’t find muffin mean-spirited at all. I do disagree about 1ac, though – the Elizabethan pronunciation is of historical interest but it’s common usage that I recognised here.

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