Guardian 27,168 – Nutmeg

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Another well-judged puzzle from Nutmeg (who you can read about here), with elegant surfaces that reveal a perfectly sound and straightforward construction once you see through the misdirection. For those who care about such things, it’s also a pangram. Thanks to Nutmeg.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. TIP-OFF Depression over rotten clue (3-3)
Reverse of PIT (depression) + OFF
4. OBJECTOR She opposes men on purpose (8)
OBJECT (purpose) + OR (‘other ranks’, men), with an Arachne-style non-sexist “she”
9. SURTAX Charge almost certain to prove trying (6)
SUR[E] + TAX
10. AMPUTEES People like Nelson meet up as arranged (8)
(MEET UP AS)*
11. COPPER-BOTTOMED Proceed unsteadily round bed, muffling soft sound (6-8)
P and BOTTOM (bed – as in sea-bed) in PROCEED*
13. POST-CHAISE Old coach is last to leave, following after tea (4-6)
POST (after) + CHA (tea) +IS + [leav]E
14. FLAN Manx side filled case (4)
FLAN[K] – a side with no tail
16. INCH This is not Long Island (4)
Double definition
18. FAR AND AWAY Note: wife’s ignoring country custom to a great extent (3,3,4)
FA (note) + R[W]ANDA + WAY (custom)
21. TRAPDOOR SPIDER Proprietor adds rent for skilled weaver (8,6)
(PROPRIETOR ADDS)*
23. BRASILIA Intimate clothing troubles holding one back in capital (8)
BRA + I in reverse of AILS
24. FIZZLE They say pop will die, having promised much (6)
Homophone of “fizz’ll”, where pop = fizz = fizzy drink
25. ENERGISE Motivate soldier in deceptively serene setting (8)
GI in SERENE*
26. TEASEL Pull gently on large plant (6)
TEASE + L
Down
1. TOSH Shot hit bull (4)
SHOT* – bull and tosh both mean nonsense
2. PARLOUS Dangerous source of infestation, briefly substandard? (7)
PAR (standard) + LOUS[E]
3. FLAT-PACK Off-key band to assemble at home (4-4)
FLAT (off-key) + PACK (a group, band) – the definition needs to be read as an adjectival phrase
5. BUMS ON SEATS Scrounge child’s food for theatre audiences (4,2,5)
BUM (scrounge) + SON’S EATS
6. EQUATE Essex opener run out twice in fourth match (6)
E[ssex] + QUARTER (a fourth) less both its Rs
7. THERMAL Current actor finally stops playing Hamlet (7)
R in (“stopping”) HAMLET*
8. RESIDENCY Official seat DIY centres supply, when temperature’s dropped (9)
(DIY CENTRES)* less T
12. REAGANOMICS Policy Americans go wild for (11)
(AMERICANS GO)* – not quite &lit, but close
13. PAINTABLE Record of suffering that can be glossed over? (9)
The record is a PAIN TABLE
15. ADDITIVE Special ingredient‘s moreish, but calorie-free! (8)
ADDICTIVE less C
17. CHARADE Announcement in Daily Express leader elicits mockery (7)
AD in CHAR (‘daily woman’) + E
19. WHEEZES Cunning plans asthmatics produce? (7)
Double definition
20. EDGING Neatening piece of frayed gingham? (6)
Hidden in frayED GINGham
22. PEEL Conservative PM to go Liberal? (4)
PEE (to go) + L

46 comments on “Guardian 27,168 – Nutmeg”

  1. Thanks for the blog, Andrew. I couldn’t parse FLAN and now that I see the trick, I like it very much! BTW I think that INCH is a cryptic definition, not a dd? Thanks for the very enjoying (and challenging) puzzle, Nutmeg.

  2. an outstanding puzzle, I thought; the two anagrams for TRAPDOOR SPIDER and REAGANOMICS were beatifully concealed- up there with Murali’s doosra.
    Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew

  4. Re 2d which I wasn’t happy with the parsing. I was thinking of PAR + LOUS(Y) but I still don’t like it.

  5. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew

    I might be off form, but I found this the hardest for ages. All perfectly fair, though; PAINTABLE, EDGING and REAGANOMICS were my favourites, though the latter is hardly topical – is there a Trump equivalent?

    Some of the parses were a bit tricky, and I never did parse LOI EQUATE; I would have solved it sooner if I had noticed the potential pangram.

  7. Not an easy solve by any means, but none the worse for that. Liked 10 & 11ac particularly. As usual, I missed the pangram!

    Thanks to Nutmeg & Andrew.

  8. @muffin
    LOUS(E) is situated underneath PAR=standard, so substandard in the wordplay needs to be broken into sub=below standard=par

  10. Great clues and great blog.Particularly liked PainTable.I think it was a K and a V short of a Pangram but no cigars given for those anyway-they just help sometimes if youre stuck towards the end.

  13. @10 copmus: no doubt others will be pointing out the K in FLAT-PACK and the V in ADDITIVE. Not that I noticed the pangram when solving. Great puzzle anyway, and thanks to Andrew for the link to the Nutmeg interview, as well as the blog itself.

  14. @ myself – I’ve just looked up and found there is an INCH island in Ireland … i stand corrected, what I thought was a weak cd was actually a great dd!

  15. Wonderful puzzle (and I enjoyed the Guardian piece about Nutmeg). Missed out on FLAN. Too many favourites, but here goes: the long anagrams as mentioned, PAINTABLE, AMPUTEES, SURTAX and PEEL. Many thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew.

  16. matrixmania@14: There are several Inch islands in Ireland. “Inis” is Irish for island (“innis” in Scots Gaelic I think) and it forms a part of many placenames, e.g. Yeats’ Lake Isle of Inisfree, the town of Ballynahinch (“town of the island”) and others. I live not far from one Inch island so this one made me smile.

  17. Thank you Nutmeg and Andrew.

    Fantastic puzzle. Thought at first that I would get nowhere, having started by trying to fill in the NW corner, but the rest of the clues slowly gave way and on returning immediately saw TOSH which led to the other answers. I could not parse FLAN.

    The clues for TOSH, EQUATE and FLAN, now that I get it, are my favourites.

  18. I had TEARDROP SPIDER – which seems to exist, and fits with all the crossers – for ages. Note to self: check anagrams thoroughly.

    Not seen men = other ranks = OR before.

    Thanks, Nutmeg and Andrew

  19. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew.

    I enjoyed this, in spite of fails with flan, tosh and surtax, these last two unforgiveable – especially in light of the pangram. Favourite was WHEEZES, which might be a cd rather than a dd (and screams pangram when I think of it – just not in form after a short break). I haven’t heard “wheeze” as “scheme” since my Billy Bunter-reading days. Happy days; I suppose Billy can’t pass the “politically correct” litmus test and will never make it into modern life as a film/tv series.

  20. Many thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew

    Tough but fair. Favourite clue was 10ac.

    There are Inches in the Firth of Forth: Inchcolm an Inchkeith are the better known ones.

  21. Thanks, Andrew.

    Lovely puzzle with some beautiful surfaces – top marks to ADDICTIVE but I also particularly liked EQUATE, THERMAL, CHARADE and REAGANOMICS – and PAINTABLE made me smile.

    Thank you, Vigo – most enjoyable.

  23. Delightful puzzle. I filled the whole bottom half last night and the whole top half was still empty. This morning more pennies dropped and I used the check button a bit. Totally missed the pangram.

    I loved FIZZLE and once it was explained BUMS ON SEATS. And the long anagrams of course.

    There’s a typo in the blog, REAGANOMICS is misspelled.

    Why is a flan a filled case? Does a UK one have a crust like a pie? It doesn’t over here, we have the Latin American version, a caramel-bottomed custard.

  24. Valentine @23

    Our flans are open-topped too; however filling a case doesn’t necessarily imply putting a top on it. Think “fill a glass with water” perhaps?

  25. [P.S. I know the Hispanic “pudim flan” – it’s like creme caramel, but with added orange juice and, often, zest. Someone I’ve been on holiday with a few times is a connoisseur, always in search of the perfect “flan”.]

  26. My verdict is “challenging but fair” – and so very enjoyable. For a while I thought I might have to concede relatively early defeat but I plugged away and things finally slotted into place. That said I needed Andrew’s input to parse TIP OFF, FAR AND AWAY and OBJECTOR (like others I have never heard of “other ranks” meaning “men”). My favourite clues were EQUATE and FLANK. Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew.

  27. Excellent stuff although I wasn’t convinced by PAINTABLE which seemed a bit contrived. There’s not really any such thing as a pain table (except in Star Wars apparently). Not a bad clue by any means. Unlike Yesterday’s GIANTS

  28. Unusually i completedbottom half, took a break then top half suddenly went in quite quickly. Excellent game of 2 halves!

  29. Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew. I found this puzzle difficult but eventually solvable. I did not know WHEEZE as scheme, FLAN as filled case, or COPPER-BOTTOMED as sound and needed help parsing FIZZLE. Still, lots of fun as usual with this setter.

  30. On the first pass, precisely nothing; on the second, three clues on the perimeter, none of them particularly helpful. Then I was cast into a meeting all morning, and lunch. I started again, without much expectation, and slowly at first, faster later, made progress, culminating in ADDITIVE.

    My this was rewarding. Nothing remotely unfair, in my book, and plenty of great surfaces to boot. Many favourites, of which REAGANOMICS was one – it might as well be a current term, for that phony brand of neo-liberal monetarism has blighted all our futures ever since.

  31. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew, I found this more difficult than most, a few definitions that are new or unusual for me, eg INCH/island, FLAN/filled case, FIZZ/pop.

    But to go back to Muffin@5 and @9 and baerchen@8 – I think there is a distinction between your two parsings. For baerchen, substandard is broken/separated into two constituent words which mean respectively below and par. But I think (hope) Muffin interepreted substandard in its entirety to mean “below par” with the separation into the parsing construction following the replacement by its synonym. While not strictly correct, an alternative such as ‘mediocre’ or ‘failing’ might also have been possible in Muffin’s version. This parsing appeals to me more than the more prosaic sub=below, standard=par but I no longer recall what my initial thoughts were when solving.

  32. HKRunner @31
    Clever analysis! Yes, I took “substandard” in its entirety to mean “below PAR”. I didn’t see at the time that baerchen’s take was slightly different.

  33. I did this in between several household tasks that I’ve been attempting to avoid. I have to say that I fell for all the misdirection and stared for quite a long time at both CHARADE and ADDITIVE- both obvious now! Liked BUMS ON SEATS and FLAT PACK.
    Thanks Nutmeg.

  34. I found this hard (in contrast to the other 3 printable cryptics today) but with some beautiful clueing.
    My only reservarion was 21: trapdoor spiders build burrows. They do not weave webs, so “skilled weaver” will not do as a definition.

  35. A top class puzzle, as Nutmeg’s usually are. I found this pretty tricky, particularly TRAPDOOR SPIDER which was last in. Too many favourites to list.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew

  36. PAIN TABLE indeed, but I think it’s all right!

    This person is a very disciplined setter.

  38. This is a brilliant puzzle: elegant, witty, grammatically sound at both levels and not a word out of place. Libertarians should take note: if you’re a setter of the highest order, there’s really no need to cheat in order to achieve neat surface readings.

    Many thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew.

  40. Goujeers @ 34: thanks for the education re trapdoor spiders. Through a bit of googling I see that only about half of spiders actually weave webs – amazing!

  41. Thanks Andrew for blog and sorting out 11A and 16A for me. Your typo in 12D REAGONOMICS caught my eye as I did exactly the same thing, which made it difficult to get the relatively easy 18A.

    TRAPDOOR SPIDER is very familiar around these parts, but GK (or lack of) let me down for INCH and TEASEL. Didn’t know the cunning plans , and wasn’t looking for a pangram. Chuckles at 5 and 22. Favourites were ADDITIVE amd FIZZLE.

  43. I’d like to add our name to the list of admirers for a tough and totally fair puzzle from a setter at the top of their game. I was delighted that after failing to see it several times over the last year I got men as OR before I got here – progress! And no one has mentioned that Nutmeg and Arachne seem to have joined forces and used a feminine pronoun (4ac) when referring to a neutral noun which more often than not would be clued with a masculine pronoun. My big smile was for BUMS ON SEATS and I didn’t get the parsing for FLAN even after seeing it here – and then the pd’d – another device to remember. Thank you Nutmeg and Andrew.

  44. I’ll add my voice belatedly to the general welter of approbation. Lovely puzzle!

    There’s a very nice interview with this setter over on the Guardian site.

  45. muffin @24 & 25
    It’s the pudim (Portuguese) or pudin (Spanish) flan that is common here. I wasn’t talking about an open-topped versus covered pie, but rather about one that has no pastry at all. It’s news to me that flan has anything to fill. My compatriot ACD @29 hadn’t known about a flan as a filled case either.

  46. I suggest that some(many) of you should read nutmeg’s last para in the reference given by Andrew, and act on it!

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