Guardian 27,235 – Boatman

61 comments on “Guardian 27,235 – Boatman”

1. Clever stuff as you’d expect from Boatman. Managed to finish which is unusual for me – I guess this is a bit easier than his norm. Pleased when LARBOARD and YOGHURT were solved. Had to look up Katharine Viner, which then led to solving 21a. Thanks to Boatman for the workout and to Andrew for the blog.

2. Thanks Boatman and Andrew

   Classic example of a puzzle that was more fun to set than solve. EULOGISE, CLAMOURED, and EVER AFTER entered unparsed. Fortunately there were some delightful clues – IRON, YOGHURT, EGG YOLKS, BORING, and LARBOARD were my favourites.

3. Completed this on paper but I had to come here for confirmation and parsing for a few. Like Andrew, the SW corner held me up. Once I’d twigged that “Boatman’s left no longer” was the definition for 16d, and that Katherine Viner was “our ed” and not just “ed” in 21a it finally all fell into place, with YOGHURT my LOI.

   Thanks, Boatman and Andrew.

4. I think that there may be two indicators in play at 12d. While I’m sure that crossword grids were uppermost in the setter’s mind, the clue could equally well allude to the lights on the grid of a motor racing circuit.
   A very enjoyable ouzzle.

5. A tricky pizzle. Quite a lot of guesswork needed to get done. Still don’t get ‘I say’ but couldn’t think of another answer.

6. I don’t think 5D works. “To lack interest” doesn’t mean “boring”, it means “to be boring”. I can’t make the parts of speech match.

7. I have also just noticed that although the answer to 8A is clearly IGNORES, if you press “Check all” you will find you are marked wrong unless your answer is IGNORED.

8. Thanks Boatman, Andrew
   Enjoyable solve, but great difficulty in understanding several, I SAY particularly, even now.
   Scratching – it’s first ????

9. James @8
   Boatman “pushing the envelope” again. It has to be “it’s” for the surface. We are told to ignore punctuation, but it does seem a bit illiterate to have to read it as “its” for the wordplay.

10. To reply to Jason@6, I think BORING works if you take the definition as ‘lack interest’ (these books are boring- these books lack interest), with ‘said to’ as the homonym indicator. I had similar misgivings to Rewolf@5. In pig Latin, sigh becomes IGHSAY, pronounced ‘I Say’. There is no homonym indicator, except possibly the solution itself. Boatman is known to stretch rules a little, so I was OK with this.

11. Hovis @10
    Yes, I thought “I SAY” was its own homophone indicator.

12. Thank you Boatman and Andrew.

    Quite a challenge with some really good clues, I especially liked those for CLAMOURED, IRON, YOGHURT, SPOILING and EGG YOLKS. Pig Latin was new to me, though I do know Eggy-Peggy which is similar.

13. Thanks all. But can someone please explain 22a step by step to me. I think I understand the pig Latin side of things after reading Wiki but then I don’t see how it matches the marked definition of “gracious”.

14. I also found the SW difficult. Finally saw CHOP (and not my impetuous HOCK) at 21d, though I didn’t really understand 21a CLAMOURED until I came here. My LOI, YOGHURT at 24a, was a pleasing finale.

    I liked the theme, despite total bafflement in terms of the Pig Latin in 22a I SAY.

    Thanks to the Master Mariner as well as to Andrew.

15. Thanks Boatman and Andrew for a fun start to a damp Wednesday.

    All done fairly quickly, despite not understanding some of the parsing, so my early worry about making a bit of a pig’s ear of it receded.

    Nice to see “trotter” clued without reference to “Only Fools and Horses”. And a tent being a yurt is just so very Guardian.

16. Eric @13
    “Gracious” as in “goodness me!” = “I say!”

17. Thanks Boatman and Andrew.

    The first few went in easily but then things got a lot more difficult. I did try to put ‘port’ into 16d at the beginning, but of course it didn’t work.

    Boatman’s normal rule breaking. It’s first would normally indicate ‘i.’ I don’t know what the ‘one’ is doing in 21d; if it had said ‘pigs’ I could understand it (?) The surface seems to me to be improved if the ‘one’ is deleted.

    Entertaining solve – I didn’t get pig sick of it.

18. Robi @17
    I think that without the “one” in 21d, “pig” would have to be doing double duty – as the location of the CHOP and also as the slang for “cop”.

19. Boatman is always tricky, so I was pleased to finish this, albeit with question marks by a few – thanks for the explanations, Andrew.

    The apostrophe in 16a did jar a bit. Whether it’s reasonable to “ignore punctuation” (muffin @9) to this extent is I suppose a matter of opinion.

    It was good to see the traditional dual use of “Boatman”: once to refer to himself (9a) and once to mean “sailor” (16d).

20. Thanks, Andrew … I like the idea of “Boarman” very much – will have to remember it for the next time I need a different pseudonym.

    GC – I hadn’t thought of that, but it works! I do enjoy seeing an alternative reading of a definition or parsing.

    JimS and others – Yes, you have to be prepared to ignore the apostrophe: see it as “it’s first” = “it is first” in the surface reading, but “scratching, its first” = “scratching’s first” for the wordplay. On the face of it, that’s no different from ignoring any other punctuation when parsing, but I agree that it feels less comfortable than other usages, perhaps not least because many of us have been made sensitive to unwittingly misplaced apostrophes in recent years.

21. Great stuff – Boatman on top Boatmanesque form.

22. There’s another example of a disappearing apostrophe in 17a
    Might be in pigs’ club (4)
    The apostrophe is needed for the surface (club for more than one pig), but the wordplay is “Might be in pigs/club”.
    This one doesn’t jar anything like as much as 16a, probably for the reason that Boatman suggests @20.

23. SPOILING’s def is ‘out’ as far as I can make, um, out in this mess.

    This was an awful puzzle, I felt. I have seven clues marked as okay, so 23 with faults of one sort or another. People above say this is ‘difficult’ or ‘tricky’, and I agree! But had it been written properly, i.e. carefully and fairly, it would have been a great deal easier, and the more enjoyable, I’d guess.

24. …I mean ‘written carefully and fairly’ using the SAME ideas, of course.

25. Muffin@22
    Good point. I’d suggest that the reason the ‘it’s’ jars is because the punctuation to be ignored is in the middle of a word, and changes the word.
    Charles can’t wash up (5)
    C + lean = Clean

26. James @25
    I think I like your example, in fact, though I can see that some solvers wouldn’t.

    [If I seen to be taking an obsessive interest in the blog today, it’s because I’m trapped indoors by incessant heavy rain!]

27. Mr Bayleaf and I enjoyed this,though the apostrophe at 16a,along with the back to front syntax of “scratching -it’s first” felt unsatisfactory. But overall we loved the puzzle and especially the misdirections with words like “hock” in 1d and “sow” in 3d when we were fully into the pig mindset!

28. Pedant alert: larboard and port are not the same as left. (If you are facing aft, left is starboard).
    As an aside, I wish car mechanics would use port and starboard. Offside and nearside always confuse me because the nearside is furthest from the driver.

29. crimper@23-surely you mean awfully GOOD puzzle.

30. I surely meant what I said, copmus!

31. Thanks to Boatman and Andrew. I had my usual difficulty with this setter – and not just with I SAY. I could not parse CLAMOURED and had trouble with GRIND and WING (I missed the “swine” connection).

32. This one was at the more accessible end of Boatman’s scale, but none the worse for that.

    Thanks to Boatman and Andrew

33. I remembered LARBOARD which was a help! The word was dropped by the Navy in favour of “PORT” because of possible confusion with “STARBOARD”. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps the ‘wrong’ order was shouted on Titanic, in the instant after the iceberg was spotted!

    Had some difficulty with the parsing. This obscure meaning of FLY (in 19) escaped me, had to look it up. And in 12d I never made the connection between GRID and LIGHT. Write-ins for both of those!

34. Ooooooohhhhhh. Pig iron. Right you are.
    With thanks from the slow readers’ corner to Andrew and Boatman – what fun!

35. Not for the first time I was defeated by GRIDS. I remembered the crossword association but only once I came here. The rest of this went in rather easily. I liked YOGHURT.
    Thanks Boatman.

36. Very enjoyable, with a well-sustained theme and several little tricks to savour among the clues.

    I couldn’t parse 21d CHOP or 22a I SAY, but I was sure they were right. I have heard of ‘pig Latin’ but never known what it was. Having looked it up I can now see how you get I SAY from SIGH. 21a CLAMOURED was more straightforward because I knew the name of the Guardian’s Editor.

    Among many great clues 16d LARBOARD was my favourite.

    Thanks Boatman and Andrew.

37. @28 Howard March – I recall a nautical relative of mine getting uppity watching a historical drama when the Captain called for ‘hard a larboard’, he maintained that port was used as a direction indicator and larboard to indicate the left hand side of the ship (until the navy switched to using port to mean both apparently)!

38. I agree with crimper @23. This puzzle is just so bad in so many ways; one can only speculate as to whether the crossword editor has made it worse than it need have been.

    I won’t repeat the criticisms made by previous commenters other than to say punctuation of course may mislead – that, after all, is the general aim of a cryptic clue; but that doesn’t mean it can completely foul up the grammar of the English language.

    One point that maybe hasn’t been mentioned concerns 24a. The abomination of “intent” forces the setter into using “on” even though it has no justification in the cryptic reading. Which brings us nicely back to crimper @23 and 24: why not simply “Horrible hog in tent procures food”?

39. Boatman is more divisive than other compilers! Rufus and Imogen divide opinion, but not to this degree.

    I think his innovations are worthwhile, though I do raise an eyebrow at times. My slightly lukewarm response to this one was due to my aversion to puzzles that repeat the same word in lots of clues, though the variety of meaning of “pig” here was more entertaining than some.

40. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that it’s more fun to discover a theme hidden in the answers, rather than being evident in the clues right from the start. Having said that, I’m sure it’s an order of magnitude harder to construct a themed crossword of either sort, than an ordinary one. Not something I plan to attempt any time soon!

41. My hope is that mthose who consistently criticise innovation in crossword setting would give us multiple examples of their own perfect puzzles so that we can judge for ourselves how fair their criticisms are.

    There are no rules in crossword setting, though there are conventions, which are there to be flexed and broken. In my view, expecting crosswords to comply with a set of undefined restrictions just indicates a narrow mindset, in the same way that “too obscure” really just means “I didn’t know it / I couldn’t solve it”.

    Vive la différence!!

42. FirmlyDirac @40
    You’ve put your finger on it. When the “theme” is in the clues rather than the solutions, it gets a bit repetitive.

43. @37 Robert: as I said earlier, I’ve been thinking about the fate of the Titanic. I checked out the relevant snippets of two well-known movies: A Night to Remember (1958), and another film made about 40 years later, on the same topic (whose title escapes me just at the moment 🙂 ).

    In both of these films, the officer yells “hard-a-starboard!” – ordering the ship to be steered to the left. Now, if the helmsman had, perchance, misheard the order and turned the wheel the other way, i.e. steering the ship to the right, it might just possibly have missed the ‘berg.

    Just a thought.

44. [btw still pouring with rain here!]

45. Simon S @41

    I agree with what you say about rules and conventions. I would just add that defying a convention is not necessarily something that a setter can do without risk of weakening the clue, and if he/she keeps doing it the crossword will fail – not in the sense of failing an exam based on rules but of failing to give solvers something that they can solve and enjoy solving.

    In the middle of last week, a setter defied convention more than Boatman did today but got criticised less for it (if memory serves). I enjoyed that one, incidentally, as much as I did today’s.

    Almost all setters we see here consistently show good judgement in taking a few liberties with rules or conventions, and if they push it too far they are sure to attract comment and/or debate on these pages.

46. Alan @ 45

    Fundamentally I’m in heated agreement with you. Where I’m coming from is that if a setter has a clue that works in their view, which is of course objective, then the rules can go out of the window.

    My basic objection is to criticism of clues that are, to paraphrase, ‘poor’, ‘badly written’ etc, without th critic giving any substantive justification for their statement or indicating how they might be improved.

    Hence my invitation to the carpers to provide examples of their own setting skills. Put up or shut up.

47. Simon S

    Your point is well made and well taken. I believe only in constructive criticism, or none at all, and your ‘put up and shut up’ principle is right.

    (I didn’t intend to dilute the first point you made in your earlier comment by addressing the second.)

48. FirmlyDirac: Nice suggestion about the Titanic, but according to Wikipedia “In the Royal Navy it was not until 1844 that larboard was abandoned for port in reference to that side of the ship. The term port however had always been used when referring to the helm (ie. sailing direction), in order to avoid any confusion between starboard and larboard in such an important matter”.

49. I think that what we must agree about is that the English language, albeit with its somewhat peculiar grammar, is what’s used in crosswords: there’s no metalanguage, even if Boatman & Co would like to invent one. And so B&Cos efforts at being original just end up looking like the work of the most abject amateurs. So here, in this great original work, we have a clue-based pig theme and a lot of grammatical and other errors.

    Well done. I’d stop pushing the envelope if I were you, and instead pop a letter of apology in it, and send off to the good old English language, and hope she forgives you.

50. Perhaps nobody is still reading this thread at this point — it’s just me and the crickets — but I thought I would add my 2 cents (perhaps a giveaway that I am a solver from the U.S.A.). I don’t understand the complaints about setters who don’t follow “rules”. In the game of crosswords, while some may view the setter as trying to stump the solver, I prefer to see the setter as being akin to a charades partner who is really trying to lead the solver to the correct answers, albeit in a variety of interesting, clever, often humorous, and sometimes, yes, inventive (but hopefully never obvious or dull) ways. If you manage to get on the setter’s wavelength and understand the parsing of a clue, even if you needed to work back to the parsing from the definition and/or the crossers to do it, then “Job Done” by the setter — regardless of whether s/he followed “rules” or not. I don’t understand how one can successfully solve a clue (or all of them as the case may be) and then turn around and complain that the setter was not playing fair. If you got the right answer, including of course the parsing (even if you thought it was a bit strained), then clearly the setter did enough to get you there. Nothing is unfair. It’s all in good fun.

51. Thank you Boatman and Andrew.

    We needed help with I SAY, Andrew’s explanation of Pig Latin helped us out and gave us a few laughs at first. Not a game we have come across before.

52. I thought one of the aims of this website was to allow enthusiasts the opportunity to exchange view on crosswords. Reading Simon S @46, however, one gains the impression – and not for the first time – that commenters should merely pat all the setters on the back and tell them how much we admire their brilliance. Frankly, all this “If you’re not a professional setter yourself, you’ve no right to criticise” stuff is very tedious. It’s a bit like a Premier League footballer putting in a dismal performance, then telling disgruntled fans to eff off because they’ve never played at his level.

    To Dave Mc @50 – and forgive my persisting with soccer analogies but parallels with American football wouldn’t work when controversial plays in the NFL can be reviewed and decisions reversed: Imagine a striker volleying in a superb 30-yard goal … but subsequent replays show that, unnoticed by the referee, he had first controlled the ball with his hand. The goal will still count but, for me, it was achieved by cheating and is therefore tainted; however, libertarian commenters would probably say that doesn’t matter: the only important thing is that the ball ended up in the back of the net.

53. Simon S @46 – presumably your “put up or shut up” argument means that you are (for instance) never critical of telephonic customer services as you do not operate your own effective and efficient call centre. I think it is perfectly valid for anyone to make a judgement against a clue because they personally could not solve it, and for others then to disagree with them rather than deem their criticism invalid because they do not share their lofty ambitions. There are plenty of us for whom the Guardian crossword comes as part of a package and feel as entitled to get the hump if it is not an approachable diversion as we would if the home news pages were written in Korean, and feel justified in having a relatively narrow mind.

    The argument that only those capable of writing perfect clues are entitled to be critical should also work the other way. Unless you have written perfect clues, an apparent appreciation of perfection in others is equally unreliable. What different level of authenticity does a happy solver have over an unhappy solver if they have also yet to prove their credentials as a master setter?

54. gofirstmate @52 — Thanks for your reply. I enjoyed your soccer analogy (notwithstanding that, as I mentioned in my prior post, I see the setter not as my opponent, but rather as a partner of sorts). But running with your analogy, I would liken the situation more to a hand ball (or perhaps a foul away from the ball) that the referee misses, giving that player’s side a clear advantage, yet the other side withstands the added challenge of that moment, takes possession of the ball, and successfully plays it down the field, and they are the side that scores the superb goal. If I am on the team that successfully countered and scored, I’m not going to continue complaining that that entire sequence of play was unfair! Rather, I will be looking at the other squad thinking, exultantly, “You may have thought you had us there, but we were ready for you. Go ahead and challenge us again, give it your best. We are still ready.” Of course, that would not be verbalized (or verbalised if I was playing on your side of the Atlantic). The outward expression of those thoughts would probably be more like a fist-pumping “YAHHH!” Or maybe just a moment of laughter, as occurs at the PDM when I as a crossword solver catch onto the setter’s game and solve a particularly tough (and possibly even rule-defying) clue. Game on!!

55. VW, Simon, Alan and others – From my point of view, I’m happy to read the views of all solvers, whatever their standpoint. Obviously, I’d prefer to hear nothing but praise – that’s human nature – but constructive criticism is essential for progress.

    Simon & Alan – Having said that, clearly I’m on your wavelength when it comes to deciding what devices are and are not going to work in a puzzle: we need to stay close to current conventions, or the solver is likely to give up, but those conventions change as language itself changes, and the end result is … well, Dave Mc put it rather well @50.

    VW – I rather like your analogy of being unable to enjoy a news page written in an unfamiliar language: the Guardian is marketed as an English language publication, so to expect its readers to understand Korean would certainly be unfair – but even so, you wouldn’t complain that the writing was bad, just that it you were unable to enjoy it. I feel the same thing when I look at the sports section on Saturday: I’d prefer it to be 100% cycling rather than 90% football, but that’s my choice and I accept that I’m part of a minority in that respect.

    I’ve been wondering whether either or both of crimper and gofirstmate are reincarnations of hedeghoggy – I do hope so, as I miss HH greatly. When reading HH’s oeuvre, I found that if I mentally edited out every “This puzzle is bad because …” and replaced it with “I personally didn’t enjoy this puzzle because …” then we could agree on where our differences lay and enjoy some good-natured discussion. It’s an approach I feel confident in recommending more widely …

56. Dave Mc – Thank you! Your comment @54 crossed with mine, or I would have cited it as further clarification of my standpoint.

    When I discuss these points with hardline Ximeneans (some of whom, to their great credit, have turned up at my masterclasses, knowing that we would disagree on some of the things that I would have to say) they explain that they feel that my puzzles don’t so much play with what’s acceptable within the rulebook as create entirely new rules – which is fine in my view of the world, but they say that to them a crossword is like a game of chess, and solving one of my puzzles is like facing an opponent who wins by inventing the “sideways flying bishop” or some such. That’s not at all how I see it – I wouldn’t use the word “rule” in the first place, and you’re exactly right in your description of the teasing relationship between setter and solver – but there are definitely solvers who are wired to enjoy puzzles in a slightly different way, and I find that interesting.

57. Boatman @55 & 56 — Perhaps by now (half past noon on Thursday where I am) I really am talking only to the crickets on this discussion of the Wednesday puzzle, but I wanted to thank you for (re)joining the thread and sharing your perspectives. I don’t always manage to come here to fifteensquared, and usually when I do it is only as a reader and not as a poster, but I really love reading all of the different perspectives on the puzzle of the day, and it is always a special treat to hear from the compiler. Like you, I find it fascinating to be among (in cyberspace, at least) so many who clearly share my passion for crosswords, yet who may, and often do, have approaches to solving, or opinions as to a particular clue or puzzle or setter, that may differ greatly from my own (and the approaches and opinions of each other). A big thanks to all who take time out of their day to post here.

58. I thought this was a fantastic crossword. It was great fun to solve (and that really counts) with some smashing clues. EVER AFTER was, for me, the stand out clue – and I ticked four others! Boatman seems to be getting smoother too; this was definitely at his more elegant – and easier – end, as beery also notes.
    Thankyou Mr B!

59. This is a Boatman with sour grapes some here say (4,3)

    Not me though

    Thanks to Andrew and Boatman

     

60. Pierres capital for one convoluted mess…. (4,3)

    …Less so I grasp every available help on flight (4,3)

61. Must go, nurse is coming

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