Guardian Cryptic 27,033 by Vlad

by

Struggled to finish this, with several clues holding me up even with full crossers, and had to Google 17dn. Lots to enjoy – favourites were 1ac, 19ac, 22ac, 25ac and 18dn. Thanks, Vlad.

Not too sure about my parsing for 20dn.

Across
1 BUILDERS BUM “Start on ugly birds!” — blue comic (male) makes unwelcome crack (8,3)
anagram/”comic” of: (U[gly], birds blue)*; plus M[ale]
9 FASCISM Soccer bosses scrapping third division — this rule isn’t democratic (7)
F[ootball] A[ssocation]=”Soccer bosses” with SC[h]ISM=”division” scrapping its “third” letter
10 QUARREL Condemned equal rights dispute (7)
(equal r r)*, where the r and r are “r[ights]”
11 SUBSTANCE Reserve position on illegal drug (9)
SUB=”Reserve”, plus STANCE=”position”
12 IDLED Guided by instinct, didn’t do much (5)
ID=”instinct”, plus LED=”Guided”
13 TALE Lie back when listening (4)
=a false story. Sounds like ‘tail’=”back when listening”
14 MONTEGO BAY It’s often full — I book a break in Caribbean resort (7,3)
a Jamaican resort. MONTY=”It’s often full”, with EGO=”I”, B[ook], and A all breaking in
16 MIDDLE NAME Handle not normally used to open or close (6,4)
cryptic definition – a NAME or “Handle”, but not the first/opening or last/closing name
19 TIED Heard Rashford’s header got ruled out for United (4)
TRIED=”Heard” a court case, with R[ashford] ruled out. Marcus Rashford is a striker for Man United
21 REALM Field in America very muddy at first (5)
REAL=”very” in America e.g. “a real good time”, plus M[uddy]
22 BARRICADE Creator of Wendy houses not a nice man — block! (9)
J.M. BARRIE wrote Peter Pan=Creator of the character Wendy Darling, around CAD=”not a nice man”
24 GNOSTIC Sign to new Catholic claiming spiritual knowledge (7)
(Sign to)* plus C[atholic]
25 OLD BILL It should have been settled … with force (3,4)
=the police force. An OLD BILL should have already been settled
26 DISPOSITION Underworld boss has standing arrangement (11)
“Underworld boss”=DIS’ POSITION, as Dis is the Roman god of the underworld.
Down
1 BASEBALL DIAMOND Ruth’s former workplace is bad — blame an old problem (8,7)
Babe Ruth played baseball [wiki]. (is bad blame an old)*
2 IDIOT Charlie returned to south of France with no money (5)
Reversal/”returned” of: TO, plus le MIDI=name for the “south of France” minus M[money]
3 DOMINGO Spaniard, one often spotted around German (7)
a DOMINO often has spots, around G[erman]
4 REQUEST Ask some more questions (7)
Hidden in moRE QUESTions
5 BEARINGS Call base, maybe without awareness of position (8)
RING=”Call”, with (base)* around it
6 MORAL OBLIGATION Worked a lot with original mob — one ought to be discharged (5,10)
(a lot original mob)*
7 OFFSET Make up for not shooting? (6)
OFF SET=not shooting e.g. a film
8 GLADLY First slice of gateau large woman’ s eating with pleasure (6)
G[ateau] plus LADY=”woman” around L[arge]
15 CLEMATIS Climber‘s claim set to collapse (8)
(claim set)*
16 MIRAGE Vision of motorway madness (6)
MI=M1=”motorway”, plus RAGE=”madness”
17 NABUCCO Islander upset army leader and king, played by 3 (7)
King Nebuchadnezzar, played by Placido Domingo [wiki]. CUBAN=”Islander”, reversed/”upset”; plus C[ommanding] O[fficer]=”army leader”
18 MARCONI Telegraph man appearing to interrupt one runner-up (7)
The inventor of the the telegraph [wiki]. ON=”appearing”; interrupting a reversal/”up” of I=”one” plus Steve CRAM=”runner” [wiki]
20 DWELLS Copper’s very likely saved lives (6)
D[etective] S[ergeant]=”Copper”, around WELL=”very likely”?
23 INDRI During third night picked up Madagascan native (5)
a Madagascan lemur. Hidden/”During” and reversed “picked up” in [th]IRD NI[ght]

52 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,033 by Vlad”

  1. Thanks Vlad and manehi

    I enjoyed this a lot more than Vlad’s previous one, though I didn’t parse MONTEGO BAY or MARCONI. Particular favourites were BASEBALL DIAMOND and BARRICADE. (I looked up the Book of Ruth to see where she worked! I’m reminded of a Peanuts cartoon, where Lucy notices her bat says “Babe Ruth” on it and muses “I wonder how I got her bat?”)

    I don’t see why SUBSTANCE is an illegal drug. An “illegal substance” might be a drug, but “substance” by itself doesn’t carry this connotation.

    I parsed DWELLS as you have, manehi.

  2. Thanks to Vlad and manehi. As usual, I had great trouble with this setter. I needed help parsing MARCONI(I missed Cram), DWELLS, MONTEGO BAY, and FASCISM, BUILDERS BUM and INDRI were new to me, I got NABUCCO without making the connection to DOMINGO, and TALE was last in. A long hard slog for me.

  3. Thank you Vlad and manehi – I thought you had been impaled.

    That was a challenge, especially the parsing – I remembered Babe Ruth but for 20 I had D for copper (the old penny)…

  4. I parsed 20d the same way as Cookie did.

    Thanks to Vlad for an enjoyable challenging solve and Manehi for the blog.

  5. Thank you, manehi, although I was rather hoping you would do better with DWELLS than I did. I thought perhaps it was the clumsy yufe-speak as in “he was well fit”, but this is hardly “very likely” is it?

    Very slow start with FOI IDLED but took ages before the last pair TALE & TIED went in.

    Muffin @1 I tried to find the dear lady’s place of work, too, and I share your misgivings about substance.

    Failed to parse FASCISM.

    Some lovely clues here; chuckled over BUILDER’S BUM, of course, and also admired the several clever anagrams.

    Not overly keen on the MIDDLE NAME clue, though. I see the gag but not totally convinced by the wordplay.

    Most enjoyable close to an excellent crossword week.

    Many thanks to The Impaler and nice weekend, all.

  8. Thanks manehi.

    In this household we have a verb ‘to vlad’ which means to get put through the mill and emerge exhilarated.

    Each time I finish one of Vlad’s puzzles, I echo the words of John Belushi in Animal House, who, having downed on camera a whole bottle of bourbon said: ‘I needed that!’

    Cheers Jim.

  13. Thanks for the blog, manehi – have to add 14ac, 1dn and 3dn/17dn to your favourites today.

    Finally parsing MONTEGO BAY [with a big ‘doh!’] prompted me to look up the origin of the title of that great film. There are several suggestions here: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/full-monty.html .

    Huge thanks to Vlad for a brilliant puzzle – I just loved it! [And thanks to Conrad @8 for adding to my vocabulary. 😉 ]

  14. I didn’t know the expression in 1a. In the US, we tend to call it “plumber’s crack”. Old Bill and Cram were also unfamiliar.

    I parsed 20d as Cookie apparently did D (copper) + WELL (very likely) + S (saved). I assume that S for saved is some sort of sports abbreviation. I never know those, but this seems like a very plausible one.

  15. Ted@14 S comes from the ‘S at the end of copper. ‘Saved’ is what tells you to put the WELL between the D and the S – ‘saved’ inside

  17. I expect a puzzle in Vlad’s style would be tricky in places, and this was true to form. I really enjoyed the experience, having a good laugh at times when the answers came into view (so to speak, with particular reference to 1a BUILDER’S BUM).

    I liked all three long anagrams, especially 1d BASEBALL DIAMOND. (I thought “Who on earth is Ruth?”, but the light dawned almost at the same time as seeing DIAMOND as a possibility for the second word.) I also liked 22a BARRICADE, 25a OLD BILL, 4d REQUEST, 8d GLADLY, 16d MIRAGE and 17d NABUCCO.

    With a few clues, though, I had to revisit the wordplay to see how it could be made to work. This happened with 9a FASCISM, 11a SUBSTANCE (illegal?), 20d DWELLS (well = very likely?) and 16a MIDDLE NAME (the definition).

    I left 13a TALE unsolved at the end. It was pretty easy, but I’m not hot on homophones.

    Since getting this far with my comment I’ve seen Cookie’s explanation of ‘well’ = ‘very likely’, and I don’t see any problem with it.

    Overall, this was a great puzzle, up to the high standard for this week (although I can’t speak for Monday’s offering as I didn’t have the time to try it).

    Many thanks to both Vlad and manehi.

  18. I normally enjoy Vlad’s puzzles, but this one didn’t speak to me, alas. Last one in was NABUCCO — like manehi (to whom thanks), I had to resort to Google.

    As for MARCONI, although as an old fart I remember what a great runner Steve Cram was, and cheering him on, he was last among the medals thirty years ago — i.e., before many potential solvers were even born. Hm.

  19. Probably my favourite Vlad so far, with some real gems such as MONTEGO BAY. Held myself up at the end by a foolish error at 20d, disproved by the BARRIE envelope at 22a.

    DOMINGO led me to NABUCCO, but it seems I’m one of the few to do this. We all have our specialisms.

  20. Thanks Vlad and manehi.

    Tough, but BUILDERS BUM also made my face crack. NABUCCO new to me and needed lots of check action.

  21. Thanks both,
    I struggled with this, especially some parsings. I think Marconi was first to achieve radio telegraphy. Wired telegraphy had been around for a long time.

  22. 26a — I read it as “Underworld Boss” (DIS), + “standing” (POSITION) = “arrangement” (DISPOSITION). Your arrangement of things here and there is your disposition of them.

    Trailman@19 — I got NABUCCO and DOMINGO separately, then re-read NABUCCO’s clue and said, “Oh, THAT Spaniard!”

    I tried to make the copper be Detective This and Detective that, but didn’t think of putting the second letter at the end of the word. Since a word can’t begin with DC or DS, it had to be DI, which didn’t help. Thanks, manehi.

    Loved 1a, of course, and 27 too.

    We’ve had M = Money before. Where does that come from?

    Thanks, Vlad and manehi.

  23. I have come to expect a titanic struggle when I see Vlad’s name, but this one gave way surprisingly smoothly, maybe because of the number of helpful crossers. As always there was plenty to enjoy. TALE was last in – obvious in retrospect. Too many favourites to list them

    Thanks to Vlad and manehi

  24. TALE and IDLED were my first in, and the only ones I got with no crossers. Whatever you got first, bh, eluded me until I had more help.

  27. I nearly gave a link to that, Eileen. I heard the overture on the radio yesterday (?), and it featured quite a lot from the chorus.

  28. After struggling with a blank page, we finally spotted the anagram in 15d. Plain sailing from then on although indri is new to us. With the crossers in,of course, it was obvious. Thanks to everyone. Great puzzle Vlad.

  29. INDRI has two previous appearances, one of them was early this year. With such helpful crossers I am surprised we don’t see it more:

    Janus 21871: Kind of lemur living in dripping forests (5)
    Chifonie 26816: A piece of one’s mind risks offending the primate (6)

  34. Enjoyed this even though I struggled in places- TIED,DWELLS and TAIL-all obvious once I’d got them. I had no idea who Rashford was and I,eventually parsed DWELLS ala Cookie. I loved BARRICADE,BASEBALL DIAMOND and,of course, BUILDERS BUM.
    One of this setter’s best.
    Thanks Vlad.

  35. It’s always good to see Vlad’s name come up. I didn’t find it as hard as is usual with his puzzles; just got a bit stuck on DWELLS, and couldn’t parse MARCONI. Like everyone else loved BUILDERS BUM; also liked MORAL OBLIGATION (‘aboriginal’ jumped out at me from the anagram, so wasted some time working out why aboriginals should be discharged) and BARRICADE. Many thanks to Vlad and manehi.

  37. xjpotter
    Yes, that makes more sense. It’s an illogical expression though – it does seem odd to label any “substance” as “illegal” and “possible to abuse”!

    though here are some worrying facts about dihydrogen monoxide
    http://www.dhmo.org/

  38. This was slow going for me but really good. Favourites were 22a and 4d, the latter beautiful in its simplicity.

    Xjpotter: well pointed out. I think in the 60s police conducting raids would say they were looking for “substances” and it became a bit of a byword for drugs.

    Which for some reason reminds me of the lines from one of the Naked Gun films:

    Drebin: “Lieutenant Frank Drebin, Police Squad. This is my captain Ed Hocken.”

    Female shop assistant: “Is this some kind of bust?”

    Drebin: “Well it’s very impressive miss, but we need to ask you a few questions.”

  43. Wow! Another first – completed this between us today – despite taking nearly an hour to get started with 24a; then a couple of hours’ hard work over a late afternoon tea. My partner liked 1a – why does he always see these first? – and I liked 6d, 9a and 8d. Last in was 20d – similar problems to others in parsing this.
    Thanks Vlad – it wasn’t as hard as we thought , though two heads are obviously better than one….

    So – first time to complete the crossword in a day and to blog as well!

  44. I quite enjoyed this VLAD who has improved mightily since his first outings (if I remember correctly)

    My parsing of 11A was as follows:

    11. Reserve position on illegal drug

    definition: drug

    wordplay: reserve (sub) + position (stance) = substance “on” illegal = illegal substance.

    Not brilliant but OK I think

  45. Thanks to manehi for his blog and to others for their comments.

    Re 11, Chambers, Collins and Oxford all confirm ‘substance/illegal drug’, often used euphemistically.

  47. Wow, that was hard.

    I think “substance abuse” and “drug abuse” are pretty much the same, enough for me anyway.

    I struggled with Marconi for ages since I was convinced it had to have MORSE in it (who was actually more to do with the telegraph than Marconi) I think.

    Struggled with BUILDER’S BUM since I live in the US where it is called “plumber’s crack” and where “bum” is only a word for a vagrant/wino.

  49. We say Builder’s Crack here in New Zealand but 1a was nevertheless an easy intro providing useful crossers. I had to come here to parse 3 or 4 clues but the grid and wordplay were both helpful throughout.

    This has been an interesting week with the themed Tuesday and Wednesday puzzles both stumping me before a return to “normal” on Thursday and Friday. Let’s hope we get as much variety next week.

  50. I think plumber’s crack is more apt than builder’s bum because the plumber is likely to be squatting in front of your sink, while a builder could be doing anything anywhere — hanging joists, running wire, whatever — that wouldn’t necessarily pull down his belt while he had his back to you.

  51. Andrew 39. The performance on the link you gave seemed very impressive, and not at all bizarre. Am I missing something?

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