Guardian Cryptic 27,301 by Boatman

by

This puzzle can be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27301

I’ve been on holiday for two weeks, so was hoping for a gentle return to the blogging world, but I didn’t get it.  Boatman is one of those setters who pushes the envelope a bit, and this puzzle was a prime example of this.  Some of his clues were excellent, such as my favourite 8ac, but there were a few other clues that I didn’t like.  For example, I found 11d to be too verbose, and “grown” and “reach(ing) full potential” are not different enough for me in 13ac.  I can’t fully parse 24 ac either.

The crossword makes several nods to the TV quiz show, COUNTDOWN, (15, 16, 17), including the numbers game, the letters game, Susie Dent and Jimmy Carr who hosts the spin off, 8 OUT (ATE OUT) OF TEN CATS DOES COUNTDOWN.

Thanks Boatman

Across
7 TIDEWAY Channel in Spooner’s broad river (7)
WIDE (“broad”) + TAY (“river”), but of course, the Rev. Spooner would have said TIDEWAY rather than WIDE TAY
8 FLOTSAM Fish head almost blended, some pieces left on the surface (7)
F(ish) + *(almost)
9 IKAT Effect visible in batik, a tie-dyeing process (4)
Hidden in “batIK A Tie-dyeing”, so this is actually a very clever &lit. as well.
10 REEFKNOTS Folk songs used regularly in remixed stereo links (4,5)
FolKsoNgs (regularly, ie every third letter) in *(stereo)

I’m not keen on this clue, as, in my opinion, “regularly” is OK for every second letter, but it’s beginning to stretch the boundaries a bit to use every third letter.
12 STRUT Support for stone channel (5)
St.(one) + RUT (“channel”)
13 IMMATURE Boatman’s grown but yet to reach full potential (8)
I’M (“Boatman’s”) + MATURE (“grown”)
15 DOES Bucks’ consorts spoil poodles: lop pieces off (4)
*(odes), being “poodles” without “lop”
16 COUNT An equal to Earl Peel, the last of the shire (5)
COUNT(y), ie “shire” with its last (letter) “peel”ed (removed)
17 DOWN Blue feathers (4)
Double definition
18 MEA CULPA Apology for metal found in food every year (3,5)
Cu (copper, so “metal”) found in MEAL (“food”) + P.A. (per annum, so ” every year”)
20 OFTEN Regularly amounting to a two-digit figure (5)
OF (“amounting to”) + TEN (“a two-digit figure”)
21 APROPOS OF Re-arrange ops for OAP (7,2)
*(ops for oap)
22, 23 BEARABLE  Sustainable kind of approach to farming? (8)
BE ARABLE may be the response to “What approach to farming should I adopt?”
24 ARREARS Accounts really starting to rise alarmingly — they need settling first! (7)
Accounts Rearing + REAR (“to rise alarmingly”) + S (cant’ see that indicated?)

Am I missing something?  Has the S been indicated in the clue?  See comment 1 for a possible parsing.
25 TRESTLE Stand for letters game (7)
*(letters)
Down
1 DICK Little Richard didn’t intend covering “Kiss” — only Number Ones (4)
First letters (ie “Number Ones”) of Didn’t Intend Covering Kiss
2 DENTURES Lexicographer, sure to get excited by word for new teeth (8)
(Susie) DENT (the “lexicographer” on “Countdown”, the TV game show) + *(sure)
3 CARROT Incentive for panel game host to do send-up (6)
(Jimmy) CARR (“panel game host”) + <=TO
4 ILL-KEMPT Scruffy type, reportedly vacant, a ponytail, short (3-5)
Homophone of ILK + EMPT(y) (“vacant”, short of (pon)Y)
5 ATE OUT Went to a restaurant for tea (that’s a clue) (3,3)
If “ate out” were the clue, the answer could be “TEA”
6 CATS Musical jazz singing star initially held back (4)
SCAT is a form of “jazz singing”, but if hold back the S until the end, you get CATS
11 EPIDURALS Numbers game played with iPad, rules added (9)
*(ipad rules)

Nearly a clever clue, but to (mis)quote the movie Amadeus, there are “too many words”
12 SHONE Stood out as a nail head in a brogue? (5)
N(ail) in SHOE (“brogue”)
14 ROWAN Tree found where rock is extracted from mountain ashore (5)
If you remove ORE (“rock”) from “mountain ashore”, you’re left with “mountain ash”, another name for the ROWAN.
16 CALIPERS Tools for measuring moulded replicas (8)
*(calipers)
17 DATABASE Boatman takes a second in meeting to get the information organised (8)
A.B. (short for “able bodied” seaman, therefore “boatman”) + A S(econd) in DATE (“meeting”)
19 CORNER Trap large bird in flight; inert, remove skin (6)
<=ROC (“large bird”) + (i)NER(t)
20 ON FIRE Wood consumed by one going up in flames (2,4)
FIR (“wood”) consumed by ONE
21 AIRY Fresh milk etc? Not initially (4)
(d)AIRY (“milk, etc”)
23   See 22

*anagram

47 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,301 by Boatman”

  1. I read 24a as an &Lit / All-in-One, with the ARREAR needing the addition of the first (of) S(ettling). I may of course be wrong – I often am!

  2. Thanks Boatman and Ioonapick.
    I parsed 24a ‘arrears’ as A R being the starters of accounts really + REARS for to rise alarmingly.
    Didn’t manage to parse ROWAN so thanks for that. A clever clue once the parsing was revealed.

  3. As Loonapick points out the Theme above – I loved the “5d 20a 6d 15a 16a 17a”, combined with the 2d and 3d references too, plus the 11d extension & 25a 🙂 And maybe others I have missed. e.g. 1/12/21/19 – ho ho! Thanks Boatman 🙂

  4. Encore@1 and 3

    I think you may be right with your parsing of ARREARS, but if you are, I find the clue a bit unwieldy.

    And well done for spotting 1/12/21/19.

    In reflection, and with the benefit of now having had my morning coffee, I think, given the clever way he has managed to intertwine the Countdown elements into the puzzle, Boatman can be forgiven for the awkwardness of some of his clues in this instance.

  5. Thanks Boatman, Loonapick
    I enjoyed this a lot.
    @Encota, nice spot. I looked for it, but unsuccessfully. I thought 1d was just referring to the late great Whiteley.

  6. As Encota@3, very amusing. A similar parsing for ARREARS as pvb@2, but had REAR for ‘rise alarmingly’ with S from ‘settling first’ – with an &lit def.

  7. Enjoyed this one – a nice variety of clues. Spotted (some of) the theme about halfway through but it didn’t help much – BEARABLE was last in.

    Thanks to Boatman and loonapick

  8. Thanks Boatman and loonapick

    Not quite my first one back – I saw that yesterday’s was Arachne, so I did that lovely puzzle first. This is a contrast! The theme meant nothing at all to me, so I wasn’t able to forgive the awkwardnesses. I’ve highlighted 15 clues that I either didn’t understand or didn’t like for various reasons – surely a record. I won’t go though them all, but for one example, OFTEN isn’t the same as “regularly” – Christmas happens regularly but not often, for example.

    I did like APROPOS OF and FLOTSAM.

  9. Thanks for parsing of ROWAN- I would have been all day on that. And thanks for the extra bits.
    As for me, I just solved it and enjoyed it but i’ve always been Boatist.
    Thanks loonapick and Boatman.

  10. I don’t know why, but I always seem to struggle with clues that have only 4 letter solutions, in effect eight of them here. Happy to have completed this in the end…

  11. Thanks Boatman; nice setting to get all the theme words shoehorned in.

    Thanks loonapick et al. DICK SHONE AIRY is worthy of a Paul pun – I didn’t see it of course. I think this will mystify some of our overseas solvers.

    Maybe we have had this conversation before, but I was told recently that spoonerisms have to have at least two words; for example, Collins says: ‘A spoonerism is a mistake made by a speaker in which the first sounds of two words are changed over.

  12. Thank you Boatman and loonapick.

    I enjoyed this puzzle even though I could not complete some of the parsing since I know nothing about TV quiz shows. Favourite clues were those for ROWAN and IKAT, a new word for me.

  13. Completely missed the Countdown theme. I’ve heard of the show but never seen it so 3d for example meant nothing to me. Also, ILL-KEMPT is not in Chambers. Hadn’t heard of IKAT either but it couldn’t be anything else. For the rest, some clever clueing but a lot of the time the answer was obvious and the parsing obscure, which is never a good sign.

  14. Thanks Boatman and Loonapick. And additional thanks to Encota. That’s amazing. I would never have spotted these phrases from 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. Any little clunkiness is forgiven. I was going to add to Loonapick’s criticisms the redundant ‘do’ in 3D but now I see what I’ve missed I want only to pay homage to a master.

  16. Not my cup of tea, I’m sorry to say.

    I am with muffin@8 in feeling this was such a contrast with the Arachne puzzle yesterday, as well as the comment that “The theme meant nothing to me at all.” As Robi@11 said, I am one of the mystified “overseas solvers”.

    Glad others liked and appreciated it.

    I did enjoy solving a couple of nautical references in the grid. Thanks to Boatman for those, and to loonapick for your efforts.

  17. All shades of full, partial and non- theme-spotters, I see … If you were one of the partial or non-spotters, I hope that made reading the blog even more fun than usual. If you’re among the “mystified overseas”, I can only shrug winsomely and encourage you to watch some footage of the show, which is a fine example of a parody that has developed as vital a presence as the original … though, to be fair, it may leave you equally mystified, for other reasons.

    Loona – Thank you for bravely tackling the blog on your first day back, and for your magnanimous reappraisal @4.

    Encota @1 and Hovis @6 – You’re on the nose with your parsing.

    XJP @14 – You’re welcome! And the same to Copmus and all other self-confessed Boatists …

  18. Great puzzle – loved REEF-KNOTS, ILL-KEMPT, APROPOS OF and EPIDURALS. LOI was BEARABLE after a long think, but it was satisfying when I got it. Many thanks to Boatman and loonapick.

  19. With a Countdown theme, an anaesthetic meaning for NUMBERS was probably inevitable, and EPIDURAL didn’t disappoint.

    Thanks Boatman and loonapick.

  20. @11 add 19d “Corner” to “Dick Shone Airy” to get “Dictionary Corner” – another Countdown feature!

    Anyone else disappointed by the lack of a Richard Whiteley reference?

  21. Barry R @ 20 – No

    IMHO the “clever way he has managed to intertwine the Countdown elements into the puzzle” is what causes the “awkwardness of some of his clues in this instance.” It’s supposed to be a crossword, not a themeword.

    Thanks anyway to S & B.

  23. Barry R @ 20

    I was more surprised that Rachel Riley didn’t get mentioned anywhere.

    jeceris @ 21

    Heartily disagree: I don’t think in this instance the theme can be blamed for any perceived awkwardness in the clues.

  24. Don’t watch Countdown, so there goes the theme, not that I commonly spot them. I assumed that Dent was someone to do with the publishers of that name. Enjoyed it even so.

    Thanks to Mrs Trailman on our anniversary day out for her forbearance in letting me solve and post. Thankfully, mostly done on the tube!

  25. Well, this was a puzzle and a half, and, as a couple of other commenters have said, a very different experience from yesterday’s Arachne. Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy this one as much.

    However, I very much enjoyed having to decrypt of clues like 10a REEF KNOTS (I think ‘regularly’ is valid in this clue), 18a MEA CULPA, 21a APROPOS OF, 14d ROWAN, 17d DATABASE (although ‘the’ seems to be redundant) and 19d CORNER – others too, but these six were my favourites.

    I thought some clues were clunky or loose: 13a IMMATURE, 20a OFTEN (regularly?), 22/23d BEARABLE, 24a ARREARS (or does ‘need settling first’ do double duty?), 2d DENTURES (which requires knowledge of the lexicographer) and 3d CARROT (which requires knowledge of the game show host – I thought it was a mis-spelling of CARROTT at first!).

    I didn’t see COUNT + DOWN = Countdown! I never spot themes, and today I really should have looked because I know that Boatman invariably incorporates one. Although I used to watch Countdown, I’ve never watched the parody show.

    Thanks anyway to Boatman and loonapick.

  26. Thanks loonapick and Boatman.

    I must admit I am “Boastman” today, as not only did I finish but spotted all of the theme, too. It took me a while, as I though at first the theme was some awkwardly constructed “phrases”, such as “MEA CULPA OFTEN” and “TIDEWAY FLOTSAM”. As a consequence, I was looking for “APROPOS OF WHAT”, but then I managed to get the COUNT to fit with DOES and DOWN, and the rest followed.

    muffin@8 “Christmas happens regularly but not often, for example”. Well, it depends how you look at it: Once a year is often compared to, say, blue moons, and is (not quite) regular because of leap years 🙂 . But I understand what you mean and agree with your ‘OFTEN isn’t the same as “regularly”’

  28. I’m one of the overseas tideway flotsam who’ve never heard of either Countdown or its spinoff cats. (I’ve now watched bits of them on YouTube.) So I assumed that Carr and Dent were just names of some people I’d never heard of. It seems an awfully in-groupish theme, though the clues were gettable without knowledge of it.

    I may adopt one or another approach to farming, but how can I be arable? Land is arable, not people.

    The old “number” trick again! So soon!

    What does the DO in 3d do?

    Thanks, PeterO.

  29. Thanks to Boatman and loonapick. I know nothing about Countdown, could not parse ROWAN, and was surprised by the 3-letter regularity in REEFKNOTS, so I made much use of Google to stagger to the finish. Yes, a big difference from yesterday’s Arachne.

  30. I haven’t completed the puzzle but came here to protest the description of the clue for 9ac IKAT as “&lit”. That much-sought classification requires that the entire clue functions as a description of the answer. While batik and ikat are both Indonesian textile techniques they are completely different. In batik, wax is used to prevent the dye from colouring portions of the cloth on related dying steps, while ikat generates the characteristic patterns from dying the colours into the weft thread prior to weaving the cloth.

    I have a small collection of both ikat and batik and to equate them in any way is comparable to equating cross-stitch and tapestry, or sculpture and pottery.

    Pedantry to some I suppose but it is a nonsense to debate often and regularly and let this slide.

  33. Mitz @23 – Yes, a mention would have been more than deserved, of course! The trouble is that I’d tied my own hands by wanting only passing references to theme names in the clues. While DENT suggested several entertaining possibilities for hiding a reference, including IDENTIKIT (which could have slotted in at 11 Dn) or BEHOLDEN TO (which worked in one of the alternative grids that I looked at) and CARR led to CARROT (there are other possibilities, but I was aware that the solution would have to be easy to guess for anyone who didn’t know the show), you won’t find the letters of RILEY inside any dictionary words or common phrases (other than LIFE OF RILEY, but that doesn’t really work). I could have had RILEY as a solution in itself, but that would have been even more frustrating for overseas solvers, and anything else would have given the game away too quickly. Perhaps I’ll find a way to redress the balance in a future puzzle …

  34. I found this blog much more enjoyable than the puzzle – which I failed to complete. I did get half of the theme but that didn’t redeem it much in the moment. There is much more to appreciate than I was able to see at the time. My favourite (unsolved) clue was BEARABLE and my favourite solved clue was EPIDURALS because grandson Arthur arrived in the world at about the time I solved it ?. And whilst the juxtaposition with yesterday could be queried it did mean that those who had only just come across the device would have a chance to spot it again whilst it is top of mind.
    Thanks to Boatman for the workout and for joining the blog and bravo loonapick for getting it going.

  35. Well, we’ve never watched Countdown, so completely missed the theme,but that didn’t stop us enjoying the clever clueing. For us, this was a satisfying puzzle, with eminently solvable clues. Thank you.

  36. muffin @32 — Halley’s comet passes quite often, compared with the time between ice ages. It’s all a question of what you choose to compare to. I often think of this when setters use “a short distance” to clue “mm” or something like that. As a physicist, I regularly think about situations in which a millimeter is an enormously large distance!

    But I’m mostly just playing around here: your point is well-taken.

    I’ll defend “often” = “regularly” on completely different grounds, though. It seems to me that people often use (or misuse, if you prefer) “regularly” to mean “frequently”. I did it without even noticing it in the last sentence of the first paragraph of this comment. Another example:

    Ted regularly finds himself becoming irritated when setters think they can use any old word they please as an anagram indicator.

    On the other “regularly” question: I liked the use of the word to indicate “every third letter” in 10a. Ever since I first saw the word used to mean “every second letter,” I’ve wondered if it was ever used in this way. Since it almost never is used in this way, this usage seems to me to be an ingenious bit of misdirection, which fooled me and for which I congratulate Boatman.

    I can’t see any principled reason one would accept the usage in one case but not the other. After all, “every third” is every bit as regular as “every second”.

  37. Ted @35

    Boatman could have used “frequently” without seriously spoiling the clue – I wonder why he didn’t?

    I agree about “regularly” being just as valid for every third letter as every second, though.

  39. Ah, a lot more to this puzzle than meets the eye at first – very clever. I’m a fan of both countdown and the 8/10 version.

    I didn’t know you can say ‘apropos of’, which sounds weird to me, i thought it was just apropos. collins has both.

    i’m not keen on split clues that intersect (22,23), feels like that robs you of a checker somehow, though of course here there is the extra help knowing 2×4-letter words combine to make an 8-letter word.

    I liked some clues a lot and others less, personally not so keen on extra words and extra liberties, but hey, this is boatman.

    all very entertaining, many thanks boatman and loonapick

  40. I found this a joy all the way through, except BEARABLE which I just couldn’t get at all. All the theme clues made me smile. I think a UK crossword setter would feel they were on safe ground referencing Countdown.

    I’ve seen “regularly” or something like it to mean every third letter at some point in the last few months in the Grauniad. Crossers and the wordplay gave me REE_/__OTS and there’s only so many letters in the clue.

    Thanks Boatman and loonapick.

  41. The ‘symptom’ of being Boatman is to go against whichever convention may exist for the convenience of the solver, regardless of whether this is clever (very rarely in Boatman’s case) or just wilfully obtuse, it seems to me. So while every third letter is indeed just as regular as every second — and why do we tolerate ‘regularly’ anyway! — it is typical that we should find the ‘different’ version here.

    I never like B’s puzzles, I always find them puerile, so perhaps I should stay out of their blogs. OTOH, I like to get my ‘oar’ in. Get me?

  43. I enjoyed it. I BIF’D ROWAN at 14d and stared at it for ages without understanding the parsing, then looked up Rowan on Wikipedia and saw its alternate name was mountain ash, and that was my PDM. Perhaps because I was so hung up on trying to parse ROWAN, I remained stumped for the longest time on solving 25 and 22/23 (my LOI), which turned out to be relatively simple clues in retrospect. I thought APROPOS OF was great. I completely missed the themed answers, but seeing them explained above has provided an extra measure of enjoyment. Many thanks to Boatman and Loonapick.

  44. Boatman @ 33:
    I think some have been rather greedy in wanting you to somehow include another name (or 2) into this theme-packed grid. Hats off to you for explaining but really there is no need to.

    BTW, I’m not normally a fan of your puzzles as per some later comments. Nor do I watch countdown. However having worked my way through this blog I think it was brilliant and look forward to showing the completed grid to my partner who does watch countdown.

    I’m not sure whether I often go for a pint or regularly go. Probably too often.

  45. I really enjoyed this. Missed the dictionary corner though…..superb. All in all a very rich puzzle and, in a very low whisper (don’t tell anyone) I enjoyed the solve more than the Arachne.
    Nice one, Boatman! Thanks.
    And a great blog.

  46. A mix of excellent and awful clues. A few comments:
    (1) As a French speaker, I loathed the franglais in 21a (“apropos of”). The anagram made it obvious.
    (2) “Does” in 15a are female deer.
    (3) I didn’t understand the Countdown references or the “large bird in flight” in 19d – thanks for explaining them. I haven’t watched Countdown for years and put “carrot” because I have seen Jasper Carrot host a quiz show!

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