Guardian Cryptic 27,234 by Vlad

by

A tough Tuesday challenge from Vlad.

Apart from the long answer at 11,24 which was not in the least cryptic once you had the answers to 1a and 2d, this was a mostly enjoyable, if tough, challenge.  I completed the puzzle, but failed to parse 8d (comment 1 from Andrew fills the gap; thanks!).  As to the other parsings, I hope my explanations make sense, as some were not straightforward at all.

My favourite clues were 12a, 15a, 18a, 13d and 17d, but I didn’t like the aforementioned 11,24 and 3dn.

Thanks, Vlad.

Across
1 ON HOLD Working hard earlier, temporarily delayed (2,4)
ON (working) + H(ard) + OLD (earlier)
4 WEDDED Joined a day late? No answer (6)
WED(nesday) + DE(a)D (late without the A (answer))
9 SNAKE IN THE GRASS Good inside? He’s skint and an arse — run, don’t trust him! (5,2,3,5)
G(ood) “inside” *(hes skint an arse)
10 MURMUR Complaint odds have been switched (6)
<=RUM RUM (odd twice, so “odds”)
11, 24 YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US  Reassurance when 1 across, which might be 2 (4,4,2,9,2,2)
Not really very cryptic
12 HENCHMAN Heavy Wimbledon favourite once overcoming champion (8)
(Tim) HENMAN (Wimbledon favourite before Andy Murray stole his crown) “overcoming” CH(ampion)
14 EVELYN Two ladies and another, who could be a man (6)
EVE + LYN

Evelyn can be a male or female forename.
15 SPARTA Paramilitaries with role in city state (6)
SA (Paramilitaries) “with” PART (role) “in”

The Sturmabteilung (SA) was the paramilitary wing of the Nazi party in the 1920s and 1930s.
18 MISSPEAK Lie with young lady on top (8)
MISS (young lady) + PEAK (top)
21 TROLLING Are caught ringing round, looking for reaction to posting (8)
R (homophone of “are”, indicated by “caught”) with TOLLING (ringing) round
22 APERCU Illuminating point made in newspaper cutting (6)
Hidden in “newspAPER CUtting”
24   See 11
25 STYLED Called — went first to Berkshire home? (6)
STY (Berkshire home, Berkshire being a breed of domestic pig) + LED (went first)
26 CHALET Man shortened lease on holiday accommodation (6)
CHA(p) (man, “shortened”) + LET (lease)
Down
1 OF NO USE Regarding common sense, egghead’s a waste of space (2,2,3)
OF (regarding) + NOUS (common sense) + E(gg)
2 HOKUM Bull guarded by drone is fine (5)
HUM (drone) “guarding” OK (fine)
3 LEITRIM Lie about Irish town and county (7)
*(lie) + TRIM (a town in County Meath, Ireland)
5 EXECUTE Realise river’s attractive (7)
EXE (river) + CUTE (attractive)
6 DIRT CHEAP Had to cut price, unfortunately — it’s a bargain (4,5)
*(had t price), where the T is T(o) (to, “cut”)
7 DISPLAY Show policemen president, initially, did lie (7)
DIS (detective inspectors, so “policemen”) + P(resident) + LAY (did lie)
8 STAY ON “Don’t go!” — appeal that’s heartfelt finally accepted (4,2)
I couldn’t parse this one originally, but comment 1 has the parsing.
13 COR BLIMEY I’m surprised to see Green in old steel town (3, 6)
LIME (green) in CORBY (old steel town)
16 PHRASES Points after unusually sharp words (7)
E and S (points) “after” *(sharp)
17 ADIPOSE Fatty‘s ideas for exercise — drinking a lot of soda (7)
*(ideas) “drinking PO(p) (“a lot of” soda)
18 MIGHTY Little fellow — in EastEnders he sounded big (6)
Homophone of MITE + ‘E (little fellow and (h)e, indicated by “sounded”)
19 STAUNCH Stop some teachers holding one up in school (7)
<= N.U.T. (National Union of Teachers) “holding” A (one), “in” SCH(ool), so S(T(A)UN)CH
20 ACCOUNT Relation, as Dracula was said to be (7)
Homophone of A COUNT
23 EXTOL Speak highly of old lecturer to dons (5)
EX (old) + L(ecturer) “donning” TO

*anagram

34 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,234 by Vlad”

  3. For the benefit of people like me wondering why 25a is so insulting to the householders of Berkshire, it’s a breed of pig.

  4. Thanks Vlad and loonapick

    I found this difficult (not solely because I’m trying to watch the Lions at the same time as doing it!), with at least six unparsed. I assume that a “Berkshire” is a type of pig. I hadn’t heard of TRIM the town or county LEITRIM either. Very clever clueing, but not really to my taste. HOKUM was favourite.

  5. First pass only yielded PHRASES, so I knew I was in for a tough time. LOI was the cunning MURMUR. Don’t like hidden words as a rule, but lovely examples like APERCU might make me change my mind.

    Thanks, Vlad and loonapick.

  6. Following on from yesterday’s discussion here’s a crossword you’d never see in the Times! Some frilly, as opposed to tight, clueing. 26a ‘on’ should be ‘for’. 17d ‘po’ for a lot of soda is weak. 25a word order seems wrong. And others.
    I liked apercu though

  8. @6 Rewolf I agree with your comments, too many clues where getting the answer from the straight def and/or crossers was easy but trying to figure out the parsing was more of a challenge.

    I’m not sure how SA=appeal in 8d, is it an abbreviation of sex appeal (in which case it can go on the loose clueing pile)?

  9. Thanks loonapick, and Vlad does it again as far as I am concerned. Invigorating as always. I don’t think any word orders are wrong, the clues just have to be read extremely carefully, since the apparent surface meaning can misdirect.

    OTOH I have to fess up to flunking 3, but them as I have said before, I was away the day they did geography at my school.

  10. @6 Robert: SA is indeed short for sex appeal. Presumably it was once a commonly used abbreviation, now only ever found in crossword clues, I think.

  12. Thanks Brian-with-an-eye @10.

    @loonapick small point but in 23 shouldn’t TO be donning EX L rather than the other way round?

  13. Thanks, loonapick.

    This took a bit of getting into but I agree entirely with Conrad’s first paragraph @9 – great puzzle.

    Many thanks to Vlad for the workout.

  14. Thanks Vlad and loonapick.

    Not as dastardly as some of Vlad’s, I thought.

    SA for sex appeal is given as ‘dated’ in my ODE, which gives current usage. CH. for champion seems to be used in dog shows, but I’m not sure where else it appears.

    I liked the MISS PEAK clue.

  15. Parsing much harder than filling the grid!
    No problem with 3d: I’ve been to both.
    I thought MIGHTY was a homophone of the cockney “matey”, a diminutive of “mate”, meaning “small fellow”. Same result.
    It’s a rare crossword that doesn’t refer to America in either clues or answers.

    Thanks Vlad and loonapick.

  16. This took some doing, but it was worth the struggle in the end. Was held up for a while on 11, 24ac because I confidently entered “valuable” instead of “important” then realised that it didn’t fit!

    Thank you Vlad & loonapick.

  17. There was some awkward wording at times, but this was pretty much fair overall. 21a was a little confusing because I think that ‘trolling’ can mean ‘ringing’ as well, as in ‘troll the ancient yuletide carol: fa la la la la la la la la’!

  18. Thanks, Vlad, Loonapick, and Andrew for 8d which I also couldn’t deconstruct.
    Like Rewolf @6, I’m also confused by the word order in 25a, and if anyone could explain how the clue gives STY before LED I’d be grateful.
    I’m also confused by the various ons in the clues.
    In 26a: Man shortened lease on – put LET on CHA – OK, this seems normal, albeit not very natural
    In 18a: young lady on top – that would normally be put MISS on PEAK, giving peakmiss. Is it to be read as (young lady + on: top) or does on now indicate putting something before as well as after?

  19. Thank you Vlad and loonapick, and Andrew @1 for the parsing of STAY ON.

    I agree with Robert @8 and Auriga @13, parsing was much harder than filling the grid, but it was fun. TRIM and LEITRIM were new to me. APERCU was well hidden, my favourite clue.

  21. I parsed 8d as “say on” = appeal containing “t”; not very satisfying but it kind of works and is less convoluted than the suggestion above

  22. Thanks to Vlad and loonapick.

    A real toughie, and before I broke through with account and apercu I was wondering what some recent correspondents to the Guardian were thinking.

    Paul and Vlad on the same wavelength: his recent offering (27230) was “please hold the line”. Perhaps they were swapping experiences about ringing their bank.

    I think “Cor Blimey” is another of those expressions only ever uttered in crosswordland.

  23. Haven’t commented for a while but breaking cover to announce my first ever completed Vlad with no assistance – unless looking up the meaning of APERCU counts. So, as Robi@14 suggests, it can’t be as difficult as Vlad’s normal offerings! Needed loonapick to help me parse a few I’d filled in but at least I filled the grid.

    Liked MURMUR, HENCHMAN and – once I knew what it meant – APERCU.

    Thanks Vlad and loonapick

  24. Fairly tough, but not by Vlad’s usual standards. As usual some were easier to guess first and parse later.

    Thanks to Vlad and loonapick

  25. Marienkaefer @24, you may like to know that ‘Cor Blimey’ was the title given to the TV movie of Terry Johnson’s play ‘Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick’, so perhaps the phrase has a wider currency than crosswordland.

  26. Thanks to Vlad and loonapick. I’m another “guess first, parse later” solver, and not just with STAY ON (which I could not parse), but with HENCHMAN (though I did know Tim Henman), STYLE (Berkshire = pig), LEITRIM, COR BLIMEY (Corby = steel town), and MIGHTY. I thought that “inspector” in crosswords was DI, not DIS. LOI was SPARTA. I did get through eventually thanks to Google. .

  27. Conrad Cork @ 25 thanks – I should have inserted a “now” I think as in “now only ever”.

  29. It may be that this is easier than Vlad usually is but I found it extremely difficult. I also agree that the parsing was even more tricky than filling the grid. 11ac was amusing once you had ON HOLD but surely clues should stand alone? I didn’t get ON HOLD until quite late in the proceedings, needless to say!
    Not one of my favourites.
    Thanks VLAD.

  30. Way to hard for me. I gave up early on. Corby, Leitrim, N.U.T. and anything to do with Eastenders are all unfamiliar to me. I’ll try again tomorrow.

  31. Bleudot@30
    I think the reference was to east-enders – people from the east end of London, who, notoriously, drop their aitches – rather than “EastEnders”, the BBC soap opera 🙂

  33. Thanks as always to setter and blogger.

    I think all clues should be capable of solution cold: without crossers I feel HENCHMAN, MURMUR, EVELYN, SPARTA, actually that’s a good one: why would anyone equate SA in a crossword with an early manifestation of the Nazis thereby getting SPARTA. It’s late. I didn’t enjoy this. Especially the impenetrable STAUNCH.

    My loss – it seemed to go down well. Nice of Vlad to call by. I liked DIRT CHEAP….

  34. I really enjoyed this. My favourites were the brilliant DIRT CHEAP and HENCHMAN. Thanks to Vlad and loonapick.

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