Guardian 27,140 / Puck

76 comments on “Guardian 27,140 / Puck”

1. I really enjoyed this puzzle from Puck; such a great idea, so well worked.
   I couldn’t see the answer to the cd at 21 so had to cheat on that.
   For LAMMIE, I assumed that the “hand” must refer to a naval bod and I sort of see Jack Hawkins on the bridge of the Compass Rose wearing a lammie and duffelcoat but I can’t find it anywhere.
   Thanks to Puck and Eileen

2. Re 20d: A Lammie is an open-palmed shooting glove – thus a hand goes in it. The only way I can think of it being a “jumper” though is that is also sounds like a glove puppet (possibly). There is Lamb-Chop of course but I vaguely recall something called Lamby??

3. Thanks Eileen

   I think the parsing for 15ac is N (gas {nitrogen}) ETHER (number) because there is no indicator to put N (number) before a gas.

   For 20dn, Chambers has: “lammy or lammie – a thick quilted jumper or coat of blanket-like material worn in cold weather by sailors”.

4. Great puzzle, as usual, from Puck
   Thanks Eileen
   Horse, top bananas and essayist my favourites, among many great clues.
   Slight air of an academic exercise about it, but in a fun way
   For once, my dictionary has trumped Google et al
   lammie is a thick quilted sailors’ overgarment (SOED)

5. I found this tricky, or do I mean tricksy?

   I can’t parse LAMMIE either.

   HORSE defeated me altogether – couldn’t get LOUSE out of my head (though do lice even jump?). My partner (looking at the answers) told me LOUSE was wrong but then gave me a hefty clue to the right answer. Tsk!

   Thanks, Puck (and Eileen).

6. @Gaufrid 3
   Aarggh! I looked it up in Chambers earlier and missed it because in my edition it is one of those “unusual” words highlighted in a black box which for some reason caused me to overlook it

7. Hi baerchen @6

   Snap! How did I do that? However, I think Terriblyslow @2 is also right with the hand in glove: googling ‘lammie’ produced nothing but now, trying ‘lammie, glove’, I get a number of entries – so it seems you have to know the answer before asking the question! I think we have a double definition, then, a glove and a jumper.

   Thanks, Gaufrid, for 15ac – I nearly commented on the order.

8. OED has….

   lammie | lammy, n.

   Pronunciation: /?lami/
   Forms: Also lamby.
   Frequency (in current use):
   Etymology: Perhaps a particular use of lammie, lambie n.

   A thick quilted woollen over-garment worn by sailors in cold weather. Also lammy coat, lammy suit.

   (Same is in SOED as well)

9. Thanks Eileen.

   I liked the ambiguity of N being ‘number’ or a ‘gas’ and ETHER also being a ‘number’ or a ‘gas’… luckily it dawned that ETHER is of course a liquid, so the word order of the solution made sense.

   I know this is almost definitely a really stupid question (which I will regret asking), but is there a connection between the words ‘hand’ and ‘jumper’? ie (apart from the opportunity for the ‘oo-er missus’ ‘hands up jumper’ schtick), why on earth has he based a whole crossword around the combination of these seemingly unconnected words?

   By the way Eileen, FLEADH is in my Chambers.

10. Thanks to Puck and Eileen.

    I can’t really say I solved this as I had FREDDO for 5d (unparsed, though I thought that it was something to do with a frog being a jumper!).

    I failed to parse quite a few of my other answers, so I am very grateful for the blog, Eileen.

    Only got 20d LAMMIE because of “stripping” the word “clammier”. So thanks to various contributors and Eileen for the elucidation on this one.

    I really liked 11a SKINHEADS, especially for the misdirection in the clue – “those not shocked”.

11. PS Was the cross of LAMMIE (alternative spellings lambie/lamby) with the 29a ESSAYIST, Lamb, deliberate clueing on Puck’s part?

12. Great puzzle. Got stuck on TOADSTOOL; didn’t think LAMMIE could be right as it was so straightforward; and parsed HORSE incorrectly as H (hand) OR S and E (bridge hands). Favourites were ON THE LEVEL, SKINHEADS, NETHER and FROGSPAWN. Many thanks to Puck and Eileen.

13. PPS Can anyone please explain in which sense ETHER, in NETHER 15a, is a number? Sorry to be a bear of little brain.

14. PPPS I loved the fun homophone providing “fungi” for TOADSTOOL at 16d.

15. It numbs the patient Julie

16. Thanks to Puck and Eileen.

    At first glance this looked like a stinker, but I got most of it. Missed THIRD PERSON, LAMMIE, HORACE, and ESSAYIST. Good fun though, and there were a couple of words I’d never heard before (EPOPOEIA and FLEADH) which were solvable from the clues, which was enjoyable.

17. Thank you Puck and Eileen.

    At first I thought this was going to be difficult, but everything was clearly clued. I only knew 10a as ‘epopee’, and on checking online found this seemed to be the more usual spelling.

    I like the explanation of Terriblyslow @2 for LAMMIE, a Scottish term for a lamb, and a hand is often clammy after taking a glove off.

    SKINHEADS and TOADSTOOL were my favourites.

18. In the ‘Latin pronunciation’ entry in Quine’s ‘Quiddities’, he describes ‘fun guy’ as ‘an intolerable hybrid of two styles’. I.e. you have a hard g, as it would be in Latin, but the English vowel (rather than the Latin ‘ee’). Also intolerable is ‘fun jee’ with a soft English consonant but Latin vowel. Fun ghee is apparently OK, though I suppose the u in fun should be short, as in put. If you want to be totally English about it, you’d have to say fun jy, which sounds really horrible.

19. A great solve with too many favourites to list. We had to google to confirm a few answers, but the clueing was great. Thanks Puck and Eileen. One of the best.

20. Eileen, FLEADH is in Chambers, at least in my copy. I don’t get the connection between hand and bananas. Is this a slang term for hand? Aside from that, good fun, though I too am mystified by the apparent double theme.

21. Julie in Oz @13 It’s an old gag using the verb to numb using, say, ether, which becomes a number.

    Loved this but failed on HORSE.

    Brilliant and witty with some obscure words that were soluble – always a hallmark of a great setter, for me.

    Hand in answer papers has to be a candidate for clue of the year don’t you think?

    Gaufrid @3 Thank you, failed to spot that in my Chambers but it is there as you say.

    Nice week, all.

22. poc @20, a ‘hand of bananas’ is just what it says, I remember as a girl staying in France with a family where the father was rather plump, his hands looked like little bunches of bananas and his children nicknamed him Gros-gros after the banana variety Gros Michel.

23. Thanks Gaufrid for NETHER-I was wondering as ether is a liquid but of course it is numb-er.Very nice clue.
    Good fun.I really liked HORSE (LOI)a

24. Lots of stuff I didn’t know here – FLEADH, LAMMIE, EPOPOEIA, KANGAROO PAW, NONAGE – but all gettable from the wordplay, except, like poc, the bananas/hand synonymy.
    I loved “those not shocked” for SKINHEADS. Briefly toyed with RENETS for 6a (STE(R)NER reversed) – trawlerman’s job?
    Great fun but surely more a prize than a daily.

    Thanks, Puck and Eileen.

25. As regards Terriblyslow’s comment @2, LAMMIE gloves apparently are often made of sheepskin, and lambs, ‘lammies’, are certainly ‘jumpers’.

26. Re 16 down. I thought it was only frogs that hopped, and that toads walked….

27. I struggled with this puzzle after being unable to fit TEDIOUSLY PUERILE into 3d. This sort of thing may be fine for the Carry On generation but I am bemused as to why the promotion of sexual harassment should be regarded as “fun” after all that has come to the surface in recent years. 5d 6d 8d 14d.

28. Thank you Eileen, great blog as always. I am one of those who tends to focus on each clue in isolation and so overlook themes and pangrams. But today it was impossible not to notice the repeated references to hands and jumpers. As I read through the comments, Limeni@9’s question resonated as I had also wondered what the relevance was, although without understanding what he/she meant by “‘oo-er missus’, ‘hands up jumper’ schtick”.

    But Van Winkle@27 appears to have assumed an answer to Limeni’s question and reacted accordingly. That helps me understand what Limeni was referring to. While I wore a “jumper” to school in winter 50 years ago I haven’t worn the garment or used the term since so didn’t make the connection immediately.

    If Van Winkle is correct I share his distaste. If there is another reason to build a theme around those two words, I hope someone will enlighten us.

29. I must admit I used the check button a few times here – plenty of obscure words (all fairly clued) and a few tricky parsings. All very impressively constructed.

    Thanks to Puck and Eileen

30. Thanks to Puck and Eileen. Like others I had trouble with some unusual words and had trouble parsing HORSE and also DWELLS (I did not know Wells as a city) but I did get NETHER and spotted LAMMIE. Very clever.

31. Excellent. All clever and very solveable. Had to check on Epopoeia though.
    Blimey Van Winkle (saucy!) above is a killjoy. Why is a hand up a jumper necessarily harassment? It’s the sort of thing those youngsters do. You’ve been asleep too long

32. Great fun, my favourite puzzle for a while. Thanks to Puck and Eileen

33. We found this steady going with great surfaces and, being of the Carry On generation, took no offence at any suggestion of bawdiness. Never heard of epopoeia and neither has autocorrect! Thanks to everyone.

34. Really enjoyed this but have to agree with Van Winkle about the sense of sexual harassment. It had a whiff of Dave Lee Travis in places. Still, it was original and well realised.

    8d was my favourite but like others above didn’t get HORSE, although it is obvious when known.

    Thank you to Eileen and Puck.

35. What a fantastic puzzle. Thank you Puck and Eileen.

    Charles spent some time looking for FOSBURY as a jumper. That didn’t lead us anywhere.

36. One of the most enjoyable puzzles I’ve encountered – with TOADSTOOL being quite wonderful. I got LAMMIE the way Julie did but then found it in Chambers. 3dn was obviously DROWN, but I parsed it differently with the ‘r’ being short for ‘rating’. This seemed to fit with the naval theme in the clue.
    Best of the week so far.
    Thanks Puck.

37. Thanks Puck and Eileen

    I appreciated the cleverness of the puzzle, but these with repeated words in lots of clues are not to my taste at all. I was going to say that it seems more fun to set than to solve, but I see that lots of others really enjoyed it.

    One quick question: what’s the justification for Dutch = D in DWELLS? I associate D with the symbol for Germany.

38. muffin @37 – Collins and Chambers both have D as the abbreviation for Dutch and G for German.

    Thanks to all for the intervening comments – I’ve been out since mid-morning.

    I did find FLEADH in Chambers when I looked as I was solving but was confused when I came to write up the blog – apologies.

39. Thanks Eileen – that’s a bit confusing!

40. I might be too innocent (though I did briefly consider GOOSE for 21a), but I am baffled at the comments on “sexual harassment” in the crossword. Could someone enlighten me? (Or maybe perhaps not.)

    I struggle to keep my hair from going where it wants to, so usually use a conditioner. My current one contains Kangaroo Paw, so that one wasn’t too difficult.

    I’d worked out exactly how the clue for EPOPOEIA worked quite early on, but didn’t write the answer in until I had all the crossers as I couldn’t make myself believe that it was worth checking to see if it was really a word!

41. Is Van Winkle serious? If so, what a constipated outlook! Two frequently occurring words in crossword clues, because of their wide range of meanings, are “hand” and “jumper”, and Puck’s clever idea of using them jointly in a theme led naturally to some clues putting one “inside” or “under” the other. If anything it is a tip of the hat, shared with the solvers, to cruciverbalism itself. To get from there to a claim of promotion of sexual harassment is a very long jump indeed, and bespeaks not so much social consciousness as unhealthy erotic preoccupations on the part of the objector. As for the reference to the Carry On generation, to which I happily belong, the only connection I can see between the films and the theme is the phrase “Oompah, oompah, shove it up your joompah” uttered in one of the films by, I think, the immortal Sid James. And that phrase has no connotation of sexual harassment. “Shove it up your…” in the argot of the period is a crude form of abuse, but it has nothing sexual in it.

42. I’m with muffin @37 all the way.

    This puzzle was quite brilliantly done, with so many references to the two theme words in the clues and with some ingenuity to admire here and there.

    However, and having read the blog up to this point, I’m at a loss to know why ‘hand’ and ‘jumper’ were chosen as two theme words together. ‘jumper’ worked well, because it has a few different meanings (including one that was not used here), but ‘hand’ generally worked not so well because it can mean too many things. I would have appreciated different clues and even different words in place of some entries here (FLEADH, HORSE and LAMMIE).

    My favourites were all clues that did not have ‘hand’ in either the clue or the answer – that’s fewer than half of them but still quite a lot (14 out of 30). I also liked a few where ‘hand’ was used: 11a SKINHEADS, 3d DROWN, 7d FROGSPAWN and 14d TOP BANANAS.

    I couldn’t find D for Dutch in Collins (the big book), although I see it’s in Chambers. It would be interesting to know who uses D for Dutch and what real authority there is for it.

    Thanks to Eileen for an interesting blog, and hats off to Puck for his eccentric theme and clever clueing.

43. Having now read Rompiballe @41 (we crossed), I’m still “at a loss to know why ‘hand’ and ‘jumper’ were chosen as two theme words together.” [‘hand’ in particular made this a pervasive theme.]

44. I share others’ admiration for the virtuosity on display here, but why do some setters get away without comment for looseness/clumsiness that others are taken to task for?
    E.G.
    meaningless anagrinds e.g.”set” and “acting”?
    use of the same words in clues and answers – PAW PAW?
    loose homophones – fun guy and funghi?

    William @21-how can 2dn be “clue of the year” when “hand” is not interchangeable with AID?

45. Incidentally I was familiar with FLEADH from a Christy Moore song that rhymed it with the Gulf of Aqaba…

46. When I googled lammie I got this from Scrabble solver:

    Scrabble Solver word definintion for LAMMIE – a thin jumper or coat, also LAMMY [n -S],

    I’d never heard of it but knew it was right – but because there was no mention of a sailor what the hand had to do with escaped me until reading this blog, so thanks to Eileen, and to Puck for a challenging puzzle

47. jeceris @44

    I was thinking that about AID = HAND at first, but I see one of the definitions of AID as a noun is “a helper” – so perhaps what Puck was intending was: a [hired] hand = a helper = an AID. Maybe.

48. I really enjoyed this puzzle. I thought it was going to be a struggle but it just got better and better as I deciphered the flawless cluing – none of the queries mentioned bothered me as we are in crossword land, not the real world. I had loads of smileys as I went through it – 11,15,21a and 3,7,16d were among my favourites.
    I did however come unstuck by being too clever and missing the obvious. I parsed 6d as Roo + D (for dexter) and expected S for sinister to appear somewhere. I took this flawed thinking into 24d which meant I’d got DISS rather than HISS, and again missed the obvious.
    As for Carry On connotations I have a different view. In my work I spend much of my time getting people to separate the evidence (usually what they see or hear) from their inference (the meaning they attach to that evidence) and recognise that this is the story they make up, and is just one of many possible interpretations. This is at the heart of a great crossword setting (and solving) – look at the evidence (the words) and strip them of any preconceived or conventional meaning i.e. don’t tell ourselves a story that misleads us. The hands up jumpers interpretation is entirely of our own making – nothing in the clue tells us to impute a Carry On meaning to it.
    Thank you for a great blog Eileen and to Puck for a great puzzle.

49. WhiteKing @48
    Well said. I agree with what you say about what we make of the two theme words where they were used together. We happen to differ on the way the theme has been incorporated – it is certainly very clever, but I thought the ‘hand’ theme was too pervasive and spoilt my enjoyment of some clues where other constructions and wordplays were possible (echoing muffin’s point @37 and a couple of others).

50. WhiteKing @48 Your argument is not particularly relevant as no-one has managed to come up with any other interpretation of why the setter is putting so many hands up so many jumpers other than to fondle breasts, with at least three instances of it being suggested in the clues as unwelcome. And in this particular area, the potential impact of an interpretation (no matter how apparently invalid) for someone who has experienced inappropriate sexual behaviour is such that there is some duty on the part of the author to minimise the possibility of an interpretation that it is a frivolous matter.

51. Van Winkle @50
    Surely you’re not being serious? Why does “hands up jumpers” mean “fondle breasts”?

52. jamesg @26

    I think it depends on the toad, e.g. cane toads hopping/jumping.

53. I really didn’t enjoy this puzzle and at the time I blamed the setter for being too contrived. I gave up halfway through and got on with my day – after all theee puzzles are free and no one forces us to solve them!

    Coming to this blog, however, I can see why other people enjoyed the puzzle so much and that, rather than blaming the setter, the real problem was that some of the clues were just a bit too difficult for me – mainly the numerous synonyms for hand and jumper.

    A healthy reminder that you can’t please all the people all of the time. Congratulations to Puck for a very clever puzzle and thanks to Eileen for explaining the clues that I couldn’t solve or parse!

54. Don’t you think it’s maybe a deck hand that wears the jumper in 20 down given the jumper definition of lammie? What a to do!

    Thanks Puvk and as ever Eileen

55. I found both fleadh and lammie in Chambers. Lammie is a jumper/jersey worn by sailors. I too really enjoyed this crossword. Clever and great fun. Thanks to Puck for his wit and entertainment

56. matrixmania @53
    I’d just like to say that I liked your positive comments towards the puzzle (and the setter) despite not having enjoyed it yourself. I had a good chuckle at your second paragraph, in which you refer to ‘blaming the setter’ and ‘numerous synonyms for hand’. The setter actually chose to use ‘hand’ (a word with many sysnonyms) in half the clues, and, predictably, that spoiled the enjoyment of a few solvers.

57. I thoroughly enjoyed this impressive, if mostly straightforward, puzzle. I thought the “hand” in the LAMMIE clue was to steer us in the direction of a ship’s crew. Though TOADSTOOL was a nice idea I was unhappy to see it described as a type of fungi when, for me, it’s a type of fungUS. Perhaps I’m wrong – nobody else had issue – but one wouldn’t describe a daisy as a type of flowers – it’s a type of flower. Surely?
    Thoroughly enjoyed HORSE (the only one I ticked).
    Many thanks to Puck and Eileen (as an in-house classical grammarian, perhaps she can explain why my dissatisfaction with the TOADSTOOL clue is ill-founded?)

58. Lammie: a young sheep, according to Scottish dictionary

59. I had exactly the same experience as matrixmania @53. But, after reading all the comments here, I can agree that it was a tour de force.

    Thanks to Eileen for the much needed parsings and to Puck for his inventiveness.

    But I’m still at a loss with SKINHEAD. Why is a Skinhead someone who’s unshockable?

60. Frances @59
    I don’t know if you’ll see this now, but “shock” as in “shock of hair” – a skinhead doesn’t have one, so (with artistic licence) is “unshockable”.

61. It was ‘not shocked’ in the clue, which makes it clearer, I think.

62. Amazed to see the Fleadh mentioned in the Guardian crossword. There is no English (language) equivalent for the event to which Eileen has provided a link, but I can guarantee that – in Ennis, Co Clare, at least – it is a wonderful experience and a great time guaranteed for one and all. So: come one, come all Aug 13-20.

63. Does VW have a point? On the other hand he/she maybe jumping to the wrong conclusion.

64. pex @63
    Well, here is one person who has seen your late comment, but I wonder whether anybody at all will see this reply!
    Van Winkle clearly does have a point of view in the preceding discussion, and WhiteKing clearly has another.
    The combination of two words that Puck chose for his ‘theme’ harks back, I presume intentionally, to an outdated kind of humour that has been cannily called ‘Carry On’ in the course of this blog.
    You may agree with me that the discussion played out here along these lines, which has attracted at least one immoderate comment, is much ado about nothing. I thought both WhiteKing’s and Van Winkle’s comments, though, along with some others, were eloquently put.

65. The technical term for a bunch of bananas is a hand. Banana derives from the Arabic ‘finger’.

66. Alan @ 64. Yes I couldn’t resist commenting using the words in question but thought it best to wait till most commenters had moved on.

    Personally I put my hands up my jumper to keep them warm and ‘stick it up your jumper’ is (at least around here) a well used phrase so why not hand up … I found the discussion quite amusing in itself.

    Having said that I quite agree with your last sentence.

67. Eileen – I am at a loss as to why you’ve responded to Frances@59 but not mine@57. To my mind the TOADSTOOL clue is wrong as it is a type of fungus not a type of fungi. I don’t recall Puck being one for mistakes which is why I’m seeking enlightenment. Is there a reason I’m being ignored?

68. ….in case you did not read my earlier post, a daisy is not a type of flowerS! Why is this clue correct? Thank you.

69. William F P @57 and 67

    Of course you are not wrong and I admit that, in other circumstances, I might well have made a comment on an ungrammatical clue, particularly if it was misleading, but this was a, er, fun clue, which seems to have led everyone to the correct answer and, in fact, several people said that it was one of their favourites.

    Interestingly, yours was not the only quibble with this clue: James @18 made an equally valid point about ‘fungi’ [to which I didn’t reply, since I was out for most of the day on Thursday, so my apologies to him, too] and others raised queries about whether or not toads jump!

70. Many thanks Muffin and Eileen. I see now.

71. Very very late post as this thread seems to be continuing, so you may see this, Eileen. The kangaroo paw is the flower emblem of the state of Western Australia. A hardy but attractive desert wildflower.

72. Thanks for that, Julie. You’ve inspired me to google a picture – it’s a very impressive-looking plant.

    [Bloggers get emails of all comments on their blog, so it’s never really too late.]

73. Hi Eileen – Thank you for taking the trouble to reply. To me, it certainly wasn’t a quibble as it jarred so harshly on solving. I read here many scant, if not vacuous, complaints over clue constructions yet no-one had mentioned this serious error. I found this bizarre and genuinely wondered if I was wrong somehow. So thank you for reassuring me – even if we disagree, in this instance, on what constitutes a “quibble”!

    [Interesting that comments are still arriving; says much for the crossword. I wonder if I should revisit this in ten years’ time (Puck is one of my favourites) whether I’d be tempted to return here….! Or whether I’d even notice the plurality of fungi on another occasion….!]

74. 16 down: Toads are not really ‘jumpers’.
    See, e.g., http://www.scienceterrific.com/frogs.php:
    “They are dry and warty and somewhat laid-back, often walking rather than leaping or jumping.”

75. 15a still looks back to front to me – shouldn’t there have been an indicator to put the number in front of the gas for ‘nether’?

76. Stefano @75 – please note my amendment to the blog, following Gaufrid’s comment @3

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