Guardian Cryptic 27,132 by Sphinx

by

The first Sphinx puzzle I’ve seen, and a bit of a mixed bag. Mostly clever with some obscure words and some awkward parsing. Favourites were 20ac and 8dn. Thanks, Sphinx

Edit: since blogging, the online version of the puzzle has added [italics mine]:

“Special instructions: Having solved this puzzle, tonight’s episode of ‘Inside No 9’ on BBC2 at 10pm would interest you”

The episode is titled ‘The Riddle of the Sphinx’, and involves a cryptic setter and a woman named Nina… [BBC link] [Fifteensquared post]

Second Edit: [Link to a separate post with spoilers for the TV episode]

Across
1 DOWN AND OUT To wound and wander, destitute (4,3,3)
(To wound and)* – a little awkward to have ‘and’ in both fodder and solution
6 SPAS Springs soldiers quietly within (4)
SAS=Special Air Service=”soldiers”, with P[iano]=”quietly” inside
9 SWAMPLANDS Degas evacuated and bathed before putting big picture in bog (10)
D[ega]S with the inner letters evacuated; SWAM=”bathed” going before; and PLAN=”big picture” put in the middle
10 AFRO Untangle for a natural hairdo (4)
(for a)*
12 MYSTERY GUEST I hear an American poet solved the riddle of the pseudo hotel patron … (7,5)
=similar to a ‘mystery shopper’, someone who stays at a hotel in order to review the experience.
Homophone/”I hear” of: ‘Mister E. Guest’=Edgar Guest=”American poet” [wiki];
Also a Homophone of: ‘mystery guessed’=”solved the riddle”
15 KNOW IT ALL … some smart aleck, no wit allegedly (4-2-3)
Hidden in [alec]K NO WIT ALL[egedly]
17 SO FAR Hitherto, two notes are joined (2,3)
SO and FA=”two [musical] notes”, plus R=”are”
18 TRENT Tory leader on board for English flower (5)
T[ory] plus RENT=”board”=live as a boarder in lodgings
19 DEPRESSES Gets and holds down (9)
double definition: “Gets… down” and “holds down”
20 BOB FOR APPLES You might at Halloween see Robert on top of slapper, drunk (3,3,6)
BOB=”Robert”, plus (of slapper)*
24 ACRE Land is endlessly sacred (4)
[s]acre[d] with its end letters removed
25 STURDINESS Strength of support arranged inside unopened truss (10)
anagram of (nside truss)*, where ‘nside‘=”inside unopened”, without its opening letter
26 DAYS Periods where Fry’s sons choose SATS, some say (4)
referring to ‘Fry’-days=Fridays, ‘son’-days=Sundays, ‘choose’-days=Tuesdays, ‘SAT’-days=Saturdays
27 ASSISTANTS Associates fool with first workers (10)
ASS=”fool”, plus I-ST=1st=”first”, plus ANTS=”workers”
Down
1 DESI Indian product of French-Italian agreement (4)
DE=”of [in] French” and SI=”Italian [word for ‘yes’ or] agreement”
2 WRAP Cover sound like a 50 cent song (4)
WRAP sounds like ‘rap’=”a 50 cent song”
3 ASPHYXIATION Why, say, a setter here is disturbed about a Spanish uncle — it’s enough to take one’s breath away (12)
anagram of (y a Sphinx)*, where y=”Why, say” and Sphinx=”setter here”; around A plus TIO=”Spanish [for] uncle”
4 DRAFT Preliminary drawing of drink from the barrel, say (5)
Sounds like ‘draught’=”drink from the barrel”
5 UNDERSLIP Knocked back beer and wine, then put on a French undergarment (9)
PILS=”beer” plus RED=”wine”, reversed or “Knocked back”; put after UN=”a [in] French”.
Again, an awkward repetition – of ‘under’ in both definition and solution
7 PUFFERFISH Catch a train before poisonous bite (10)
FISH=”Catch”, with PUFFER=steam engine=”train” before it
8 SHORT GRASS Little pot, good for putting on (5,5)
definition referring to “putting on” a golfing green. SHORT=”Little” and GRASS=marijuana=”pot”
11 EGGS BENEDICT Could George first digest bananas, before eating good Italian breakfast dish (4,8)
anagram of (C G digest)* using the first letters of C[ould] G[eorge]; around BENE=”good [in] Italian”
13 SKATEBOARD Hawk’s equipment has a double catch (10)
definition refers to skateboarder Tony Hawk [wiki].
SKATE=a fish=”catch”, and also BOARD=”catch” e.g. a bus or train… so “double catch”
14 SOWERBERRY Dickens character who undertakes to be a coffin maker (10)
cryptic[?] definition – a Dickens character who is an undertaker and coffin maker [wiki]
16 AND PASTES Upset, as pedants often follow cuts (3,6)
referring to ‘cutting-and-pasting’. (as pedants)*
21 PERAI Malaysian township, whence traveller returns to capital (5)
REP[resentative]=travelling salesperson/”traveller”, reversed/”returns”; plus AI=A1=first-rate=”capital”
22 NEUN Frankfurter’s number one bun? Don’t start! (4)
=the number nine in German. [o]NE [b]UN, without their starting letters
23 ASPS The Origins of a Species popularised savage serpents (4)
the first letters or “Origins” of A S[pecies] P[opularised] S[avage]

109 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,132 by Sphinx”

  1. Thanks manehi and Sphinx.

    Needed parsing for Spanish uncle, American poet, and good Italian…though one could get these from most of wordplay and crossers.

    Didn’t realize ‘Desi’ has become a common-enough word to be included in a puzzle. Literally, it just means ‘countryman’ when Indians refer to one another…

    5d ‘under’, threw me off; didn’t even notice 1a ‘and’.

    Thought 16d and 22d were neat.

    I think I can get used to Sphinx.

  2. Oh dear. Not for me, I’m afraid. I wish I could offer some constructive criticism but I will have to leave it to others.

  3. Welcome Sphinx and thank you for a puzzle I enjoyed!! And as always thanks to manehi for throwing light on some wordplay!! I finished this quite quickly but it was still, for me. a challenge!! I particularly like SHORT GRASS for the fun misdirection of ‘putting on’ and Frankfurter number NEUN!! Like ilippu @1 this looks like the emergence of a setter who will woo us in the future1!!

  4. Agree with S Panza @3. I like the way Sphinx ‘signs in’ at 3d.

    Few could object to golf references (the brilliant 8d) or to cricket ones (e.g. SNICK, the other day) but it’s a bit much to expect knowledge of the skateboarding scene! (13d)

    Thanks to manehi for thoughtful comments, including on the minor issue of awkwardness at 1ac and 5d.

  6. I liked most of this – the txt speak R for are, and the reference to Tony Hawk. But not so much other parts such as the extraneous “top” in BOB FOR APPLES and the repetition in UNDERSLIP. I also wasn’t totally convinced by DAYS – clever idea but choose-day doesn’t sound like Tuesday to me. Those quibbles aside this was a mostly enjoyable puzzle, so thank you Sphinx and Manehi.

  8. Thanks Sphinx and manehi

    Some good and original ideas – I liked SHORT GRASS and AND PASTE – but far too much awkwardness and obscurity to make it thoroughly enjoyable. Manehi has referred to the unfortunate clues which repeat a word in the answer; I could add AsSISTANTS as a less serious third example.Some obscure words not clued fairly (though DESI was); SOWERBERRY in particular, as there is no wordplay to help if you don’t know the character. I gave up on this, and on NEUN.

    What would you call 15a, in which the definition overlaps the wordplay?

    Why is “rap” a “50 cent song”? I know the C is silent, but…

  9. I’ve managed to solve the puzzle – better in some parts than others – but wondered, having read the post about Inside No 9 and the woman called Nina, whether someone who is better than me at spotting such things, can tell us if there is a Nina in this one?

    Thanks to Sphinx and Manehi

  10. [crypticsue @9
    SEDNA (a dwarf planet) appears 4th row up, RHS; ONE LEPUS (hare) is written down the middle – possibly a reference to the constellation rather than the animal? -and of course there is the little-known country AWANIBIA across the middle.

    I’m not being serious – all within the bounds of coincidence, I would think!]

  11. Me @8
    Apparently “smart alec” is a valid alternative to “smart aleck” (though I don’t think I’ve seen it used), so the definition and wordplay aren’t overlapping if you do a “lift and separate” – clever!

  14. I liked this because it was refreshing to have some references to my own generation (I was born in the 80s) for a change, like 50 Cent and Tony Hawk. I love the classic references too (Dickens etc.), but we can meet in the middle and have both.

  15. Agree with muffin @8 and to some extent with Old Tom @2. Nevertheless, welcome to the party Sphinx.

    Well done manehi for unravelling some rather awkward clues.

  16. The clues for SOWERBERRY and DAYS elude me totally. Since when is a bite a fish? And ‘are’ a spelling for letter ‘r’? ‘Bene’ is the Italian for the adverb ‘well’ not the adjective ‘good’. ‘Short grass’ isn’t much of a collocation.

  17. I didn’t find this difficult, but it was certainly baffling.
    Nice work, Manehi. Glad it wasn’t me having to figure some of this stuff out.
    There’s also an ‘ACORN’ growing in the bottom left (ninas)
    My guess is that the four letter ones must have some significance. Desi and neun are so odd and contrived.

  18. In 13, I’d never heard of Tony Hawk, but did remember Bruce Willis, as Hudson Hawk in the film of the same name, using a skateboard when robbing the art museum.

  19. Bravo, manehi, for unravelling some of these.

    Too convoluted for me to really enjoy, I’m afraid.

    I admired DEPRESSES & AND PASTES, and SHORT GRASS was neat but it left rather too many where things felt too strained.

    DAYS, Mr E Guest,, SKATEBOARD & PERAI needed help to parse. Often, when a mechanism reveals itself there’s a nice “ah!” moment but that was lacking here for me.

    Having said that, plenty to admire and I heartily welcome this new setter.

    Nice week, all.

  20. I enjoyed this challenge from Sphinx.

    I failed to solve 2d, 21d, 22d. I thought of Perak for 21d but that is a state not a town – I never heard of Perai before. 22d NEUN is very clever – I should have been able to solve that. I think that I should also have been able to solve 2d WRAP also, but I had no idea.

    I parsed all of ASPHYXIATION except the Y bit of it, and I needed help to parse 13d (never heard of Tony Hawk, obviously), 12a (got as far as Mister E Guest but could not make sense of it), 25a, 8d – I never ever would have been able to parse this.

    @Logomachist – R=are is very common in sms/text “shorthand” as in “how r u?” or “r u well?” etc. I don’t know the origins of it, but I think that the singer Prince was one of the first to use this type of shorthand – I know that he wrote some of his lyrics that way, eg the song “I would die 4 u” – way back in 1984 from his album, Purple Rain.

    Thank you Sphinx and manehi.

  21. Thanks Sphinx and manehi.

    It’s always good to see a new setter with fresh ideas but I found this one wanting for many of the reasons given above. I would also add that AND PASTES is surely not a kosher phrase by itself.

    There’s obviously more going on here. The Inside No. 9 episode is ‘The Riddle of the Sphinx’ (see Hamish/Soup comment on the announcement here.) It does say RIP NHS in row 10.

    I did enjoy KNOW-IT-ALL, especially after muffin @11’s comment.

  22. On second thoughts, isn’t the “some” in 15a in the wrong place as an inclusion indicator? It would be difficult to change it, but logically it should come before the “aleck”, as the “smart” doesn’t contain any part of the answer.

  23. As others have surmised, there is definitely something going on here.

    Is Sphinx actually a new setter – or an alias or a composite, I wonder?

    Also,I’ve been trying to find the answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx(=man) somewhere in the puzzle but with no success.

    I’ve also looked inside No 9 (or NEUN) for enlightenment but can only find a Member of Parliament. What do you clever folk think?

  24. P.S. In case anyone hasn’t seen it, tonight’s episode of ‘Inside No 9’ is described as:

    Nina thinks Professor Squires has all the answers when actually, neither has a clue what the future holds. With deadly intent, they commence a battle of wits to solve the puzzle and reveal the guardian of their fate.

  25. I lived in Malaysia for several years and I had not come across Perai. It seems to be a village in a northern state, not the generic Malaysian term for a “township”, and this is really a stretch too far for me.

  26. No problems with 50 Cent or Tony Hawk, but the Dickens character, DESI and PERAI all seemed a tad obscure. All forgiveable if it is a one-off, shame the special instruction didn’t appear in the printed paper, because there are still some paper solvers who are not capable of using the web…

    Thanks to manehi and to Sphinx (whoever that pseudonym may be masking!)

  29. Some too easy – 1a 6 10 (the ubiquitous AFRO) and some too obscure (PERAI) or convoluted, but I am looking forward to the return of the Sphinx

  30. Thanks Sphinx and manehi.

    Enjoyed this, and it seemed fair to me. I got it all apart from NEUN, because I was trying to force EIN in there for “Frankfurter’s number one”.

  31. Logomachist @16 : Pufferfish is famously poisonous if eaten when prepared incorrectly (there’s a classic episode of Columbo with this as the means of murder). So I parsed it as a poisonous bite to eat.

    I have no problem with Tony Hawk either, you don’t just need to be a skating enthusiast – his name has been on same brilliant (and also awful) video games. His name is almost certainly much more widely known because of the games than the skating.

    Couldn’t get Sowerberry.

    Really looking forward to Inside No. 9 tonight now. It was already one of my favourite programs, so having a crossword theme is icing on the cake.

  32. Thank you Sphinx and manehi.

    Rather a fishy crossword, but I found it enjoyable, not too hard to solve (but needed manehi for Edgar GUEST and ‘Tony Hawk’ and crypticsue @12 for the ’50 cent’). PERAI is intriguing, it is another name for the piranha fish, strange to include an obscure Malaysian town when Parsi would have fitted.

    I understand on googling that tonight’s episode of “Inside No 9” will be available later on the internet, do hope so!

  33. Slightly clunky in the way themed puzzles usually are (could have done without the “Malaysian township” – what was wrong with the less obscure PARSI?), but a lot of fun and as a couple of commenters have said, it was nice to see a couple of modern pop culture references mixed in with the classics.

    I strongly suspect there’s a nina hidden in here, given the Inside No 9 episode has a character called Nina, but I don’t see anything definitive. The central column spells ONE LEPUS – will there be a hare involved somehow? Also, if you read the black crosses as letter Ts, the bottom line spells TEACUP (which, if it’s deliberate, explains the appearance of PERAI).

    As a side note, the appearance of ASPHYXIATION definitely relates to the theme – the Sphinx strangled those who failed to guess the riddle, which is mentioned in the trailer for the episode.

  34. Thanks to Manehi and modified thanks to Sphinx who probably had more fun than me. I was glad to see some more relatively up to date references than usual but 10d was a very dull clue.

    To beeryhiker I say that some of us like to support the Guardian by buying the paper. Sorry to be so stick in the mud.

  35. Thanks to Sphinx and manehi. I’ve come across Tony Hawk in a previous puzzle but DESI, SOWERBERRY, and PERAI were new to me, and I needed help parsing DAYS and MYSTERY GUEST. In the US “draught” is spelled and pronounced “draft” (e.g., “draft beer”). As to the ubiquitous ASPS in crosswords, I just heard an informative talk on the historical Cleopatra and was surprised to learn that she would not have chosen a bite from that particular snake for her suicide. Rather, we were told that the bite or bites would have been very painful and not quick to take effect and would leave visible results, as opposed to a cobra (and the latter was part of the Egyptian regal iconography).

  36. Also, PUFFERFISH venom causes ASPHYXIATION, as do some types of ASP. Given the hidden TEACUP, I think I might be starting to guess the plot of this episode…

  37. ACD @ 35 – Apparently, this is partly a translation issue. W hen Plutarch wrote about Cleopatra he wrote that she was killed by an aspis, which at the time referred to many poisonous snakes, including the Egyptian cobra. It was only later that “asp” came to refer to Vipera aspis specifically.

  38. Logomachist @16. While it is true that bene as an adverb does mean “well”, it is also a noun “il bene” meaning good, as in “for the good of the country” or “for your own good”. We had the same complaint some time ago when “bien” in French was criticised for being equated to “good” but it too can serve as a noun. So while I didn’t get everything in this crossword, Sphinx did not wrongfoot us using bene as good!

  39. 12 Across was Lucy Terry (see wikipedia), I think, as in ‘Miss Terry Guessed’. I think that this uses up all clue properly.

    Overall too hard for me, though.

  40. I really enjoyed this despite finding several clues a bit odd e.g. 19A, 7D and SOWERBERRY was crying out for a proper cryptic clue. I can’t find UNDERSLIP in either of my Chambers dictionaries. Tony Hawks was very familiar to me having spent eye-watering sums of money over the years on his video games for my offspring. AFRO seems to crop up a lot in crosswords- maybe time for some new hairdos?

  41. After a string of poor efforts from me, I really enjoyed this workout, with only a handful left pencilled in unparsed (days) or not known at all (Perai).

    The anagram of 16D had me stumped for far too long and delighted once finally solved.

    Muffin @10 – this might be stretching it, or too geeky a reference, but the creators of Inside No.9 put a silver hare ornament into every episode as a little extra thing for fans to spot. This could be a sly nod to it.

    Having seen a preview of this episode (which is excellent but requires a strong stomach), some of the clues fit into its themes and characters too. The setter is called the Sphinx, for starters.

  43. Maybe, but not from me. Name taken from TV show Arrested Development (a lawyer character who writes Bob Loblaw’s Law Blog)

  44. @bobloblaw
    ta. Well done for cracking the lepus nina. Over on the Graun site everyone’s too cross to take it seriously.

  45. Well, this is all very intriguing. I’ve never seen inside no 9 but hope to tune in tonight.

    Many thanks Sphinx and manehi ( I needed your help for my last few)

  46. also I’m pretty sure from the Q&A I attended that Reece & Steve had a crossword compiler as a consultant on the episode, pretty sure it was someone from the Guardian. So they presumably re-used it for print.

  47. Muffin@8 said most of it for me, although I did get the 50c wrap connection. I really like the way setters bring in contemporary references (other than to DT – best ignored rather than lampooned in my view). The 3d anagram was a favourite bringing in the setter’s name – my first thought was “there can’t be an anagram with sphynx in it”. I didn’t get neun but now see it as much cleverer once all the Inside No 9 thread is incorporated. Apart from Sowerberry everything could be got from the clue, so that seems fair enough to me. Will Sphynx be unmasked? Takes me back to Kendo Nagasaki and Saturday afternoons with Kent Walton!

  49. We too had nein instead of noun. And we’d never heard of Perai. Apart from that, a good first puzzle from Sphinx. Thanks to everyone.

  50. Richie @39, well spotted, “Miss Terry guessed” does seem to fit the clue better.

    I do hope Rufus knows about the episode being broadcast tonight, the lead character is a cryptic setter called Professor Squires. I put the details under yesterday’s blog, but I believe he rarely looks at it, hopefully Alan Connor or someone else has contacted him.

  51. I was excited to see a new setter’s name, but agree with the comments about this being rather too convoluted, with some obscure words (NEUN and PERAI), and a non-cryptic clue (SOWERBERRY); and the doubling up of undergarment and underslip wasn’t great. (I must admit that I got a bit grumpy because it took me so long to get going – at one stage I thought I would never get close to finishing.) On the plus side I liked SHORT GRASS and ASPHYXIATION. So thanks to Sphinx and manehi.

  52. Tom @34, speaking as somebody who does buy the paper and normally does the crossword with pen and ink, I don’t follow what you are trying to tell me. I only looked at the online version because I was struggling a little and had limited time, and because I normally follow the comments there too. I wouldn’t have known that the special instruction wasn’t in the paper if I didn’t have a copy…

  53. Much too hard work for me in the limited time I had available today. Resorted to my letter-guessing app after a while, and for the first time ever used the reveal function to get an answer. Googled the obscure Dickensian. Many ? signs beside clues owing to my inability to parse. Had NEIN at 22d – seemed feasible, and my German only goes up to funf. Quite liked the SHORT GRASS. Hope the TV programme (a) hinges on a nina that actually exists in the puzzle (b) is more fun than this.

  54. All a bit tricksy for me – a few to many ‘Bank Holiday’ words for me (i.e. ones which I don’t know and have to go and find on Mr Google)… But maybe things will become clearer tonight. A warning for those who haven’t seen it: ‘black comedy’ doesn’t really begin to cover it, and it’s often extremely dark. Viewer, beware!

  55. beeryhiker@52 – I imagine was irked by your (presumably unintended) suggestion in @26 that only the technologically incompetent fill in the paper version.

    I would reiterate the warnings by bobloblaw @41 and Hamish/Soup @54 – for those for whom Tony Hawk and 50 Cent are dangerously modern concepts, Inside No 9 may not be your bag. On past experience there will be plenty of blood and swearing.

  56. Thanks, manehi for a super blog – rather you than me!

    Well, I’m glad I didn’t weigh in this morning with my reaction to this ‘new’ setter. I had all the reservations mentioned above but that was before I had seen manehi’s parsings and others’ reactions and, more significantly, the ‘special instructions’, which, since, like beery hiker, I buy the paper, I hadn’t seen before.

    I’ll admit to feeling rather disgruntled and will not make any more comment until after I’ve seen the programme – I do hope it’s worth it!

  57. Special instructions did not appear in the paper or the kindle version so they were of no help to me. When I turned to the net, I had finished the puzzle with the exception of PERAI and NEUN. I managed to get the former- with electronic aid- but gave up on the latter.
    Anyway,I found this rather inconsistent. I looked at it first thing, did about a quarter of it,assumed the rest would be as straightforward and set it aside until later. When I resumed the puzzle, I found the balance rather difficult and sometimes rather clumsy, as others have pointed out. Rather unsatisfactory on the whole.
    Coincidentally, I watched the last episode of INSIDE NUMBER NINE last night and that was very entertaining so I’ve high hopes for tonight!

  58. I was unimpressed by the puzzle, I’m afraid — for example, SHORT GRASS isn’t exactly a phrase; ‘undergarment’ to define UNDERSLIP is poor; 13d isn’t really a cryptic clue. I am looking forward to the programme, but wish it had justified a better quality crossword. Although, to be fair, I should keep an open mind and be prepared to revise my opinion of the puzzle once I have seen the programme.

  59. jetdoc @58
    You will hear golf commentators saying “keep it on the short grass” all the time, though admittedly more often referring to the fairways than the greens (the latter where the putting generally takes place).

  60. Eileen @56 I’m surprised you are shirking this one. Were you to have had to blog this you would have had to come off the fence!! If Sphinx is not a new setter then he must be a combination of other regular setters. Come on I dare you to tell us what you really think!!

  61. I didn’t enjoy this, I fear. Like many others have said, at the very least, PERAI and NEUN seem out of place and I had to press REVEAL to get them, having wasted a good deal of time trying to parse them. I don’t believe it’s a new setter.

  62. Van Winkle. I should probably stop digging and I realise my comment was ambiguously phrased but my intention was to say something on behalf of paper solvers precisely because I would not have known anything about the context if the paper had been my only source of information and I was genuinely baffled by Tom’s reaction…

  63. Had to cheat on a few of these, and once I was done I had a record-breaking 14 clues whose parsing I wasn’t sure about. After coming here, I see that many of them were my own fault, but by no means all of them.

    SOWEBERRY is a non-cryptic general-knowledge clue, as far as I can tell.

    DAYS still makes no sense to me: the parsing proposed here seems to fall down when you get to SATS, which ought to be a homophone for “Satur-“.

    I can’t make CATCH = FISH (either as noun or verb), and CATCH = BOARD doesn’t seem quite right either.

    Re muffin @8 and @11: I thought of 15A as &lit, which avoids any problem with the word “aleck” doing double duty. It does mean that “smart” isn’t necessary in the cryptic reading, but that level of license in an &lit seems acceptable to me. With that reading, I thought this was quite a clever clue.

  64. Normally I don’t like to be cruel but this was a truly awful puzzle and one can only wonder what motivated the crossword editor to publish it.

  65. S Panza @60

    Shirking?? I was not on duty today, ‘for much, relief, much thanks’, as I implied – and bravo, again, minehi. As ever, on any ‘dodgy’ clues, I’d have said, ‘Over to you’.

    I’m totally with jetdoc 58. [And I’d add 27ac.]

    I’m hoping I can stay awake through the programme. 😉

  66. I can’t wait until people have watched the episode and reveal all.
    I’m wondering from comments above about the ninas, eg lepus and acorn, where you’ll find them. Maybe they’re in the TEACUP as mentioned (well-spotted) or UNDER SLIPPER AI? (As there were a few problems with 5/21 I thought they might be a sign.) And why is it a German No 9? Inside NEUN is EU.
    As for the little known country AWANIBIA … in this part of the world that’s a homophone for I WANNA BEER 🙂

  67. Bit disappointed to be marooned in Lisbon without a telly since it would be interesting to watch the programme.
    The puzzle is a rum do. The special instructions aren’t instructions at all.
    If one can have “AND PASTE” as a grid entry, then I don’t see why we can’t have AND BONE MAN.

  68. baerchen @67
    I rather liked AND PASTE! Surely it’s as valid as the “absent opposites” one (from Philistine?) that we had a while back that most people liked so much? Entries included words such as EPT and ERT, as I recall.

  69. baerchen @67: Absolutely. That has to be the worst grid entry I’ve ever seen. I won’t be watching said programme but, for those who are planning to do so, I hope it’s worth it.

  70. baerchen 67@

    ‘Bit disappointed to be marooned in Lisbon’: sincere condolences – but I’m sure you’ll easily get over it, 😉

  71. Eileen @ 69: shirking only in the sense that many of us rely upon you, whether blogging or discussing to elucidate things correctly, intelligently and fairly. No disrespect was intended; quite the opposite, I am a fan!!

  72. S Panza @71
    Bless you – no offence at all taken! That was a difficult comment to make – hence the delay. [I usually follow the Thumper principle, 😉 ]

  73. @Eileen
    Sorry that was a bit of an unnecessary gloat.
    Is the Graun live-blogging this programme? (they do pretty much everything else)

  74. Yes, it seems as though the dreadful PERAI and NEUN have been shoehorned in to make the ‘teacup’ nina. I’d better stay up and watch the programme, I suppose.

  75. Thanks all for the comments – I won’t be able to catch the show live but will also be interested to see if the TEACUP or the UNDER SLIPPER AI make appearances…

  77. The preamble can’t have been “special instructions” for many can it? Even I attempted the puzzle before the programme began. I haven’t seen any others in the series and, as is clear from the timing of this entry, I’m not watching this one. No criticism of those who like it- just not my TEACUP. I’ll be interested to read how it matched the puzzle at some stage.

  78. Tricksy is OK but only if confidence can be offered. After the repetition of under in 5 d and the non phrase at 8 d I lost heart. Where was the editor? Sorry but I thought this was very substandard.

  79. (Programme spoiler alert!) I watched it up to near to the end when it got extremely gruesome. Quite fun up to that point. We missed one of the ninas (a diagonal one).

  80. Well….not justified, I think (nor the description “comedy”). UNDERSLIP remains terrible. None of us spotted that NINA (not a fair one, either), and I stll can’t see HECTOR.

  88. I’m wondering if this was indeed set by the writers of the show… Maybe with help from somewhere?

    Before we criticise their work too much – and there were some crackers in there lets not forget – all of us who love crosswords should be dancing a jig at this fantastic exposure – a million odd viewers – for our hobby.

    Personally I loved the show – even if it did make me squirm near the end!

  91. Well, I’m a regular Guardian cryptic solver who often calls in here for occasional help with parsing, and often just to gauge the views of others on each day’s offering. I wouldn’t usually have watched Inside Number 9, but I was intrigued by today’s puzzle, so I did. I must say, I was impressed. Nice to see cruciverbalism taken to a different level, and hopefully it may lead to interest in the Guardian cryptic from a new audience. As a novelty – excellent. But I’m assuming (and hoping) we’ve seen the end of Sphinx! I don’t usually comment on the thread either, but thought I’d take the chance to thank all of the contributors and setters for the daily mental work out, and for regularly putting me out of my misery. Not in that order!

  92. This was just a bit of fun and l don’t think Sphinx will be setting again. I spent my two quid on a hard copy so enjoyed what I could solve, how many of the gainsayers actually bought the paper?

  93. The ‘special instructions’ which have been added since I attempted the puzzle start with a dangling participle!

  94. Alan @87 – thanks for sharing the link. It makes so much more sense having seen the program, but the special instruction should have been there from the start, and should have been in the printed paper. Congratulations to Sphinx – not a bad effort for a talented amateur…

  95. Far too many people have taken this one-off crossword too seriously. It was clearly written for the TV programme and was meant to be a bit of fun. Sphinx has come and gone. It’s a shame that the special instructions could not have been visible to all. Moving on……

  96. It’s the day after, but I guess this page may still get some attention because of the special status of the Sphinx puzzle. To add to the riddles, something odd is happening on the site. The main page gives access to this Sphinx page, but says there are still only 2 comments. Click on ‘The Guardian’ on the menu on the left, and Sphinx is not there, the latest one still (as I write) being Rufus/Monday (still waiting for Picaroon/Wednesday). Is this elusiveness obscurely linked to last night’s TV programme? (which I had to miss).

  97. quenbarrow @96 – I think this is related to the site issue Gaufrid posted about. The effect seems to be that if you view a cached page, it does not refresh automatically. The F5 refresh will reveal the missing comments. Unfortunately you probably won’t see this if you haven’t worked that out for yourself…

  98. beery @ 97 – Yes I’ve noticed something very odd about the refresh issue, but hadn’t seen Gaufrid’s comment. I’m on a Mac and have to reload the page to get missing comments.

  99. Thank you @97 beery hiker. I do regularly use the F5 refresh. But it was certainly true, up to half an hours or so ago, that the ‘menu’ announced, every time one logged on, that there were only 2 comments, and likewise the Sphinx puzzle was absent from the Guardian sub-menu. Two aberrations from normal practice. (Of course by simply clicking on to the Sphinx link one was led to the multiplicity of comments, hence my own two contributions, early and late.)

    And now it has all been put right! Maybe it will be 100 up soon, if not already…

  101. The Inside No 9 broadcast was great fun of course, being involved in a crossword so intimately, and I’m delighted our quirky hobby got such an airing, but I confess to not understanding the piece. Who planned the crime? It rather had to be the Professor as he had prepared the crossword so meticulously as a backdrop, but how did he know she would come that evening and lace his tea with that particular poison. Perhaps someone can explain it to me, or perhaps (as my wife constantly reminds me) I’m taking a bit of fun far too seriously.

  102. Gutted to find someone has “stolen” the pseudonym I adopted at the end of last year for my first-ever cryptic crossword. Not only that, but he’s got straight into the Guardian with his own first! If I hadn’t read the Guardian Crrossword blog I’d never even have known (only do the Saturday Prize).

  103. Much is being made of changing 3d between the programme and the newspaper crossword – but surely both are indirect anagrams?

  104. After someone suggested to me a while back that Imogen = “I’m 0 gen” = I’m no information, I was wondering if Sphinx was a Stephen seeing as its (almost, give or take an E) “S, PH in TEN” = ST(e)PHen. Turns out I was almost right.

  105. I have only skim read this long blog (from which I was shut off for most of yesterday evening), but it seems pretty clear that this puzzle engendered a whole range of views.

    I found I was on the setter’s wavelength after the first few clues (1a, 9a and the first three down clues), and that helped with some clues that I thought could have been improved. As soon as I could see what the setter was getting at I found I could make headway even where I thought some better indications were needed.

    I hope I am not out of order in saying that the editor should have taken an active part in reviewing, and revising where necessary, some aspects of the clueing and even of the choice of answer-words. There were many good clues here, with flashes of originality and ingenuity.

    I wasn’t encouraged enough by the crossword’s ‘special instructions’ (?) to watch Inside No. 9 last night, and I already knew it was not the sort of production that I like very much (this one was episode 2 of 5).

    The first five clues I tried and solved were just the sort of clues that I write (or try to!), but I woudn’t have been happy with some of those that followed.

    Thanks anyway to Sphinx, and to manehi for the excellent blog.

  107. Me too. 14 years and nobody ever used the word. I think Sphinx spends too much time at the Scrabbleboard.

  109. Evening all.

    Busy so only got to view the Inside NO 9 programme this evening having recorded it. What do you know, it hit “end of recording” before the finish – just as the second prof was explaining (I think) that the girl Nina was not his biological daughter (am I right? Nobody else to ask). All well short of Colombo standard anyway.

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