Guardian 27,283 / Vlad

75 comments on “Guardian 27,283 / Vlad”

1. 6d end = death gutted = deth up=hted after ALI G = pretend gangster

2. Thanks Vlad and Eileen

   I really didn’t enjoy this. To start with I hated the grid – almost four separate puzzles. Then there were several partly (or completely) unparsed – PATISSERIE, ITALIANS, ALIGHTED, and LOTHARIO. I had never heard of SISTRA, though it was an easy hidden when the crossers were in.

   I didn’t think “university” for ASTON was fair – pretty obscure ex-poly.

   I had ONIONS for 23d until AILMENTS had to go in. Much better answer than GNOSIS (which I also didn’t understand) I think – anagram of “no I son”, and intuitive knowledge as in “know ones onions”.

3. “one’s”, not “ones”!

4. Thanks a lot Eileen and congrats to Vlad on a great puzzle, made even harder by the barely connecting quadrants. I also cannot parse 6 down. “Lighted” could possibly stand for gutted (lights being innards, following the gangster) but then what to do with the rest of the clue? Then I thought “end up gutted” might be the final ed (missing an n) but that does not explain the “up”. Also could be “die” turned upside down and gutted, then “al” for the gangster, as usual, but then how to explain the rest? Stumped. But v happy with all the rest and feel all the better for a really good tussle and some good laughs.

5. Bless you, Shirl @1 – I could have stared at that all day and still not got it.

6. I found this tough and didn’t get GNOSIS. Apologies for not thanking Vlad and Eileen @1, but I was in too much of a hurry to be first with 6d!

7. Muffin, I manaed OK – but after a lot of head-scratching – with patisserie, lothario and italians. Agree though that “gnosis” is up for several interpretations and I have not yet satisfactorily sorted that. I forgot about that one, thanks for the reminder.

8. ALI G was a ‘pretend gangster’played by Sacha Baron Cohen. Followed by HTED ie ‘death’ inverted without the middle ‘A’ ie gutted.

9. You beat me to it, Shirl.

   Thanks to Vlad and Eileen.

   Given some of the General Knowledge clues recently, eg obscure biolgist yesterday, and obscure operas last week, I didn’t think Aston as a university was unfair at all.

10. dantheman @9
    Another contributor who found yesterday’s biologist obscure – I’m amazed!

11. I thought this was one of Vlad/Tyrus’s best for ages although the parsing of 6d would never have occurred to me so thank you Shirl.
    Yes, it’s a horrible grid but Vlad isn’t the grid librarian.
    Thanks to V and E

12. What’s wrong with a tough grid? Isn’t toughness rather the point? Anyway, Vlad related two quadrants in 26ac. Wonderful puzzle and a great challenge. I really enjoyed it. Much thanks to Vlad and Eileen.

13. dantheman@9: ASTON is obscure for Americans (too much so for this one), but RACHEL CARSON yesterday was not, so perhaps it evens out.

14. I don’t like that grid, but would call it ‘annoying’ rather than tough, but I guess Vlad chose to use it to be able to include 12,14.
    I thought the clue to 6dn was rather unfair, as it was necessary to go from ‘end’ to ‘death’ and thence to HTED – double indirection! (I knew of ALI G, but not that he was a ‘pretend gangster’, so failed to parse the clue anyhow.)

15. Thanks Eileen and Vlad.

    Perhaps not quite as tough for me as some of Vlad’s.

    I agree with Muffin about the quadrants. However, I don’t think Aston is really an ex-poly (an ex Technical College, certainly).

16. Thanks Vlad; I didn’t know the football chant, so that created some problems.

    Thanks Eileen and Shirl; I couldn’t parse ALIGHTED, and the NW quadrant was the last to fall.

    A lot of the clues were BIFD and then parsed later, which was a bit frustrating, although I enjoyed some of the PDM.

17. Thank you Vlad and Eileen;

    Wow, lots of tricky parsing, but fun – especially going astray with an attempt to make ALIGHTED a double definition and trying to parse OBDURATE with the French DUR for hard…

    Favourite clues were those for WHO ATE ALL THE PIES, PATISSERIE and NACHOS – almost a food mini-theme along with POT-BELLIED and ATKINS DIET.

18. For the first time I can say I have finished a Vlad. Not that I liked it: that would be going too far.

    To ease my passage with certain solvers, I have adopted certain rules. So for Pasquale I don’t fret one little bit if the grid is filled with unfamiliar, if not unknown, words. With Vlad, I just don’t worry if I can’t parse it. This doesn’t always help. At 1a I had EYE DROPS, the homophonic I being online, the whole thing causing tears, and the rest of it was just, I presumed, over my head. Only the implausibility of E*D*O* for 2d saved me.

    There’s still too much of this for me to fully ‘get’ him. My lack of skill, of course. A shame: at his best, he’s great, as with WHO ATE ALL THE PIES.

19. Cookie @17 – that’s the ‘theme’ I was hinting at in the preamble.

20. Eileen @19, apologies, just realised that after posting – not very with-it today, got up at four this morning to take a son to the airport…

21. Thanks Eileen & Vlad.

    7d: to be pedantic, “cycling” isn’t indicating the two halves of HARLOT are interchanged, but rather that the letters are cycled rightwards, with the end letters going back to the beginning. So the wordplay could equally indicate THARLO, OTHARL, …

    In this case, the end result is the same of course.

22. I didn’t enjoy this much – unusually for a Vlad – but that was mainly because there was so much that I didn’t know, both in the answers and in the clues.

    One clue, though, really stood out for me: 21d GNOSIS, which, like muffin, I confidently filled in as ONIONS at first, even though I had to sort of pretend that the word ‘intuitive’ was not in the clue. I was well and truly misled – it later had to be GNOSIS in order to fit AILMENTS in.

    Not much else to say, except that I thought some of the wordplay could have been clearer and neater without spoiling the challenge.

    Thanks to Vlad, Eileen and Shirl [6d was solvable but impossible to parse without that knowledge.]

23. Tough but very entertaining despite the unhelpful grid. SISTRA were new to me but easy enough to look up, and I should have seen ENOUGH earlier – that was last in. High class stuff as always from Vlad.

    Thanks to Vlad and Eileen

24. ‘Working girl’ for HARLOT reminded me of Shed’s recent trouble when he tried to clue DRAB as ‘Dull old tart’, but the editor said “we can’t call prostitutes tarts in the Guardian” – I wonder if Vlad had a similar problem?

25. Cookie @24
    Vlad might have courted trouble on two counts – he also had ‘tarts here’ for PATISSERIE in 18a.

26. Hi Cookie @25

    But, as Shed pointed out, Philistine had “Strange place, with pet eating tart for dessert (5,9)” cluing APPLE CHARLOTTE just a couple of days earlier. 😉

27. Thanks to Vlad and Eileen. Tough going for me (as usual with this setter) so lots of items went unparsed: ALIGHTED, LOTHARIO, ASTONISH-Aston, ITALIANS (I missed Ali as ringmaster), though with an assist from Google I did get WHO ATE ALL THE PIES that helped with PUNCHY-paunchy.

28. nice and difficult to help a long train journey pass. pies and patisserie are apt for the day that Bake-off restarts

29. Well I feel in great company when even the incomparable Eileen can’t parse a clue – along with several other esteemed contributors – thank you all for sharing your bafflement! And to Shirl for getting us out of it. I also didn’t parse 21d, although unlike 6, it was obvious enough – but like Trailman I don’t worry if I can’t parse everything in a Vlad and this probably means I sometimes give up too quickly.
    Favourite today was ODDJOB (2nd last) and then ENOUGH – LOI. The clueing for 17d did seem very parochial.
    Whilst the grid may be in four parts it does have lots of starter letters going for it – although that didn’t help me with 1d.
    Thanks Vlad and Eileen.

30. The Guardian’s stance is usually very clear that sex workers are due proper respect. You would no more expect to see in the newspaper the use of pejorative terms in relation to sex workers (not even “prostitute”) than you would pejorative terms based on skin colour, disability, sexuality, etc. These house rules are supposed to be carried over to the crossword. For some reason, though, crossword setters seem obsessed by them.

31. Nice, fairly tough from Vlad – but I have one quibble. LOTHARIO looks to me like an indirect anagram. “Cycling” is an obvious anagrind! Although it was still easy to fill in with a couple of crossers, surely that’s not strictly kosher – at least not by Ximenes’ rules.

32. Thanks to Vlad & Eileen. This was very tough for one of those non-UK solvers Eileen graciously alluded to. I needed lots of help with the top-right. ‘ALI G” is beyond my ken, and i wondered if WHO ATE ALL THE PIES is an acceptable answer then can we expect WHY AM I DOING THIS next? I cannot imagine why it would be a football chant. Throw in ASTON and BOJO and I was fully flummoxed. But I enjoyed the ones I understood, especially 1dn. I recall that ONE was recently clued as the “royal l”, but here as common “somebody”.

33. A wonderful puzzle! I always like Vlad, but in the past haven’t been able to finish some of his creations. As Eileen says, he has great surfaces and the cluing is impeccable, albeit sometimes very tricky. Favourites were PATISSERIE, ENOUGH, ODDJOB and ATKINS DIET. Many thanks to V & E.

34. HKrunner @32 – this might help to explain the football chant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Ate_All_the_Pies%3F

35. Found this really hard and only managed to fill all the blanks with the aid of the “check this” button – cheating I suppose. I had never heard of ATKINS DIET, nor the football chant, but it hasn’t escaped my notice that pies seem to be sold at lots of football matches, very calorific and “paunchy”!

    Thanks to Vlad and Eileen.

36. I’m with those who disliked LOTHARIO. Cycling doesn’t properly indicate the reordering needed and if it’s supposed to indicate a full on anagram then that’s not fair given we have to find a synonym first.

37. Thanks to Vlad, and to Eileen for her blog – every word of which I agreed with.
    I couldn’t parse 6d either, so thanks also to Shirl @1.
    Like Trailman @18, this is the first Vlad I’ve ever finished. And whenever I feel vaguely pleased with myself, I fully expect to find everyone here saying how easy it was. Thank you all for not doing so. (Dave Ellison @15 reckoned it wasn’t quite as tough as some of Vlad’s, but it was quite tough enough for me, thanks.)
    My LOI was GROUNDED. Which, with hindsight, was probably the easiest of the lot.

38. Rather full of traps today. I had ONIONS at 21, making me think that 25 was a compound anagram ([FOOD] + S + L to give complaints). I also somehow managed to convince myself that STRADI was an abbreviation for Stradivarius violins at 10. I found this tough going as a result, but rewarding nonetheless. My favourites were ODDJOB, ATKINS DIET and ALIGHTED. Would have been nice to get GNOSIS too, but I ran out of steam at the death.

    Good puzzle.
    Thanks, Eileen and Vlad.

39. LOTHARIO is not an indirect anagram. Cycling indicates a simpler and more specific permutation which is allowed and you are on pretty shaky ground questioning a setter as experienced as Vlad…

40. Super puzzle. I thought ATKINS DIET was particularly brilliant.

41. For me the gap between Everyman, Rufus, Chifonie and the setters of the last few days is far to great. The first three can be solved in about 40 minutes without resorting to check and electronic help. Yesterday and today’s puzzles were eventually beaten to death with a lot of electronic help. Guess the answer and then try to figure out the parsing which is often too clever by three quarters. Not very satisfying. Yes Rachel Carson is obscure: would never have got it without google. So are McGuffin and gnosis. Thanks again Mr Google. I would really like to see slightly more straightforward cluing that I can solve without resource to a smartphone.

42. Re-reading this blog has reminded me of the other clue that I liked (in addition to the cleverly misleading 21d GNOSIS): 7d LOTHARIO. ‘Cycling’ is a relatively rare device, and its use in making such a good surface as well made this a brilliant clue.

    Indirectly indicating the fodder for cycling, as here (‘working woman’, not HARLOT), is perfectly fair, I would say, because giving us HARLOT directly would make the answer (or this part of the answer) too obvious.

43. @Ian 43

    Fair enough. But I guess you probably accept that some solvers finish Rufus’ puzzles in well under 10 minutes where the main constraint is how quickly one can type rather than think of the answer, and that these people require a stiffer challenge. I thought the key part of your message was when you used the phrase “beaten to death” to describe your experience which suggests to me that it was not a pleasurable experience.
    In case Vlad is tuning in, I enjoyed it immensely and in the extremely unlikely even that Hugh is tuning in, please continue to mix up the deliveries.

44. Ian @41
    If Rachel Carson is obscure, she really shouldn’t be; Silent spring is arguably one of the most important books written in the last century.

45. We all think knowledge we have is not obscure:-)

46. Yes, of course, but I think she is “knowledge” we all should have.

47. Couldn’t agree more. I haven’t read it, but I do know of it and the issues it raised. Her name is constantly popping up, so a quick wiki peek will tell what a well stocked mind you really have.
    Her work has probably shaped the way you think about mankind’s influence on the environment than realise, especially if you are a Guardian reader.

48. Ian: some of the knowledge loosely rattling around inside my head is pretty darn obscure. I clearly remember the paint code for the car I drove thirty years ago. But some days I can’t find my car keys.

49. Ok Muffin

    Yes, of course, but I think she is “knowledge” we all should have.

    In the light of many posters, myself included, having declared no knowledge of this woman biologist please could you explain this bizarre comment.

    Good puzzle by the way 🙂

50. BNTO
    Many Guardian readers are concerned about the environment. Rachel Carson was the first high-profile environmentalist, highlighting the problems caused by insecticides such as DDT. The book was seminal.

51. Ian @41, the naturalist Sir David Attenborough has stated that “Silent Spring” is probably the book that has changed the scientific world the most, after “On the Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin.

52. muffin @50, I had not seen BNTO’s comment @49 when I posted that, Oh, how sad…

53. slipstream@48 I can still remember my mnemonic for my passport from 1968 (KBKKMK); unfortunately I have forgotten the numeric code that corresponds to each letter!

    Sean Dimly @37. I am always very careful to say how hard/easy I found it, never that “it was hard/easy”. I agree it is very dispiriting to come here after struggling with a crossword to find someone saying it was a breeze. It isn’t often I finish a Vlad, and I find most of his a struggle.

54. i knew gnosis straight away though didnt parse it. But then an interest in mysticism and Islamic Mysticism in particular was a big help.

55. Thanks to Eileen for a very nice blog and to others who commented.

56. I loved this crossword, and have no complaints, but if clues such as those for 18a and 7d lead people like BNTO to refer to Rachel Carson as “this woman biologist”, then I think that Van Winkle @30 has a point, it reminds me of the treatment of Rosalind Franklin, I don’t suppose BNTO has any knowledge of her either.

57. Uplifting for us all to have our crosswords driven by moral imperative.

58. I came to this very late and almost gave up on it because I did find it tough. I’m glad I didn’t though because there was a great deal to enjoy here. I particularly liked ODDJOB which was my LOI and WALLET and one or two more. I didn’t parse ASTONISH-actually, there were several more I had trouble with- because I didn’t twig the ASTON part. I was another ONIONS for 21dn and I thought it better than the actual answer- for my reasoning see Muffin.
    In the end,I thought this rather good.
    Thanks Vlad.
    ps I’m amazed that some think Rachel Carson is obscure!!

59. Dave Ellison @53: I’m sorry – my comment @37 was poorly worded. I appreciate your views.

60. Paul L@54 Yes, I also didn’t even think of onions … gnosis the backbone of Sufism (a form of Islam that seems sadly overrun by more strident ones today)

    I wonder if the Rachel Carson debate is a function of one’s age? Silent Spring came out in, I think, 1962,and I vividly recall the furore it caused but then, On the Origin of Species was published in 1859. I’ve heard of it and even I am not that old …

61. Thanks Eileen. Would never have guessed it but happy knowing about it.

62. Like others I had ONIONS initially at 21dn, but fortunately AILMENTS ruled it out pretty quickly.

    Terrific puzzle. Many thanks, Vlad.

63. This was tough!

    I failed to solve SISTRA (never heard of this) and 12/14 – although I had guessed it was “who ate all the ????”

    Of the ones I solved, I could not parse 18a, 2d, 6d, 7d, 19d, 21d

    My favourite was ENOUGH.

    Thanks Vlad and Eileen.

64. Very much a tale of two halves for me — the answers for the entire bottom half of the grid went in smoothly and swiftly for me, but then I screeched to a halt and spent quite some time with nothing entered above the “equator” except the AT of ATKINS. Finally I had the pdm for both LOTHARIO and OBDURATE which got me unstuck. LOI was 1ac. Like many others who posted above, I was unable to parse 6dn — thanks Shirl @1.

    Rachel Carson is very well known here in the USA and especially here in Maryland where she lived the last years of her life. If anyone is interested in nonfiction reading, her book The Sea Around Us, which was written about a decade before Silent Spring (by far her best known work), is also exceptional.

    Thanks Vlad for a great puzzle, and Eileen for a(nother) great blog! Now I’m going to check out the link provided by Eileen explaining why “who ate all the pies” is a Thing.

65. EYE DROPS went in quite early so stymied me! Frustratingly I actually looked up EDDJOB! Otherwise fairly straightforward and enjoyable.

66. As always, a delightful tussle with Vlad though I have to admit to spending almost as long parsing ALIGHTED as solving the whole puzzle (talk about a “thinkworm”!) – it was the difficulty of separating “gangster” from “Al {Capone}” I think.
    Great puzzle, super blog.

    [I must say it’s nice to see Tony Sever has joined us – taking refuge from TftT it seems. As one of our most respected solvers (he was the youngest winner of the Times championship – way back in 1981!) – and astonishingly quick, I attach significance to his describing this crossword as “terrific”. I hope he continues to post here. For myself, if I was forced to solve from only one paper (perish the thought) – Guardian or Times – then I’ll just say that I’d be avoiding inky fingers!]

67. A very late addition. Fell asleep trying to finish this last night. Yes I found it harder than the average Vlad. Managed to sort it this morning. Rooney’s retirement from international football confirmed today. Was this Vlad’s farewell tribute.

68. [….and always happy to give that Mr Murdoch a wide berth. I’m one who eschewed the Times for many a year after Wapping.]

69. Thank you Eileen and Vlad.

    A hard workout, but very enjoyable.

70. Muffin @50 and Cookie @52

    Many Guardian readers are concerned about lots of things but I would never be so rude as to suggest that there are subjects they should be acquainted with.

    I find your attitude rude, smug and patronising. Who are you to judge what people should or shouldn’t know?

    However a quick Google reveals that not everyone in the scientific community grants Carter’s seminal masterwork the plaudits you believe it deserves. Read about it here . Quite the opposite in fact.

    No doubt you’ll put them right! 😉

71. I knew Rachel Carson because I read Silent Spring at school many years (many, many) ago.

    In defence of Muffin and Cookie, saying that everybody should know about her is not necessarily a criticism of those who have not heard of her. It may be that they feel that the book should have received more publicity. That’s the way I took it.

    I hope we are all on the same side here.

72. [BNTO, I lived in sub-saharan Africa for several years when my husband was working as a medical officer along with those on the WHO malaria programmes. DDT was not banned in such regions, but its over-use caused mosquitoes to become immune. Now it is back in use being painted on to the inside walls of dwellings, not being used ouside so as to prevent the mosquitoes becoming immune again.]

73. After finding the last couple of puzzles pretty easy, I struggled with this one, especially on the left-hand side, eventually getting all but 12,14, which means nothing to me whatsoever, unlike Rachel Carson yesterday and gonosis today. There were some excellent clues (particularly 1, 9, 26, 7, 13), and good exmples of misdiretion such as 8, where I was convinced the definer was ‘language’. I was less keen than some on 2. One has to intuit that the reference is to Boris Johnson rathan than Trump or many other badly coiffured politicians, then one has to know a familiar name for him, so there is quite a lot of indirectness; finally, ‘screened’ appears to be surface padding to obscure the definer.

74. Andy Stewart @73
    (Not sure if you’ll see this but) “screened” in 2 refers to the fact that ODDJOB is a bodyguard on the big screen (in Goldfinger to be precise). i.e. it’s part of the definition.

75. Thanks to phitonelly @74. I missed that subtlety (or perhaps it wasn’t so subtle and I was just slow).

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