Guardian 27,369 – Qaos

45 comments on “Guardian 27,369 – Qaos”

1. Thanks Qaos and Andrew

   Not too difficult as Qaos puzzles go, though I didn’t see the theme, of course. Favourites were PENGUIN and AYATOLLAHS.

   I was puzzled by the “lunchtime” giving an I in 18a. I didn’t know the Kate Bush song, but I did know BABUSHKA. CALYCIFORM was a bit obvious from the clumsy surface. I thought UNHEALTHY was just a simple definition, and so rather weak.

2. Yes, lots of fun. I hadn’t heard of PARCHEESI; AYATOLLAHS, REGGAE and YOYOS were my favourites. Many thanks to Qaos and Andrew.

3. Thank you, Andrew, for a tolerant blog.

   Sorry to put a slight dampener to an otherwise excellent week but I didn’t care for this at all.

   Earlier, I blogged that, “…some themed crosswords have a ‘shoe-horned’ feel…” well, here’s a prime example.

   I think CALYCIFORM, UNHEALTHY, & ANNUL ARE strong candidates for worst clue of the year.

   The rest were OK-ish and I liked PENGUIN & YOYOS.

   Hey-ho, can’t win them all.

   Nice weekend, all.

4. I think this puzzle takes the biscuit and should be right up Cookie’s street!

   I get the same 10 as you,Andrew, so I don’t think you have missed any. Thanks to you for the blog and to Qaos for a fairly gentle puzzle.

5. [I’ve read your link to Babooshka now, Andrew. It seems that, at the time (and rather surprisingly), Bush didn’t know that “babushka” was Russian for “grandmother”, so, as far as she was concerned at least, they weren’t different spellings of the same word!]

6. A difficult (for me) but enjoyable puzzle.

   I did not know about JAFFAS being “great cricket deliveries” and could not parse 13d. I also wondered if second page = A in 26a

   Thanks Qaos and Andrew

7. Missed the theme, but even when it was revealed in the blog it was not a fun theme for me, as those varieties of biscuit are mostly unfamiliar. So it’s not surprising that I didn’t get it. (We do have Nice biscuits here and I know of Jaffa cakes, but that’s about it.)

   Thanks for the illumination, Andrew.

   I took far too long to solve this, having put SACRED RIVER in as 14a, thinking the “flower” was the Ganges, but hey, it was actually the LOTUS flower and not the geographucal feature that flows!

   Some parsings eluded me, such as 25a HEALTHIER (there must surely be more to this than meets the eye). I also didn’t get the JAFFAS reference to deliveries at 1d, the quiche bit in 7d UPSTART, or the whole BABUSHKA thing in 17d (the latter barely cryptic I thought).

   I quite liked the hidden for PENGUIN at 5a, and the answers REGGAE AT 2d, CENSORSHIP at 3D, NASTIEST at 8d, and HOBNOB at 19d.

   Thanks to Qaos and Andrew.

8. Thanks Qaos, Andrew
   I didn’t enjoy this much. Apart from the points already noted, there seem to be a lot of odd words that jar: eg ‘on’ in ‘on blown-up air-beds’, ‘by’ in ‘by car’. I expect Alberich will cheer me up.

9. thanks to Qaos and Andrew.
   In the clue for Fagin, we are required to remove the letters “ct” from “act” to leave “a” by the instruction “act caught out”.
   Unfortunately, c=caught but ct=court.
   Nice weekend everyone

10. Sorry, but 18 should be …(GAVE A MINT)*

    not so enjoyable but thanks all the same to Qaos and andrew.

11. Thanks, a bit Qaotic today.

    Yes, the theme words led to fitting in CALYCIFORM and PARACHEESI, but if this were Pasquale we might expect words like this. Thanks Andrew, I didn’t spot the theme. I share your reservations about the clues for UNHEALTHY and ANNUL. There was still plenty to enjoy here and I learned a new cricket term. Fancy ‘flower’ meaning something with buds that open – whatever next!

    I quite liked the AYATOLLAHS with their onions and CHARACTER, although I didn’t appreciate lunchtime = I.

12. Enjoyable puzzle, thanks to Andrew and Qaos. Not much to add, except 28a has a number of anagrams, unusually:

    SIDEBAR
    AIR-BEDS
    SEABIRD
    BRAISED
    DARBIES

13. Thought PENGUIN was well hidden. Defeated by YOYOS but fair play. UNHEALTHY still baffles….hmmm.

14. @9 baerchen: the c/ct issue. Chambers does fail to acknowledge ct as an abbreviation for ‘caught’ – I don’t know about other dictionaries. And in cricket scorecards, the regular usage is indeed c, as in ‘c Bairstow b Anderson’, which we hope happens soon repeatedly in Adelaide (with apologies to Julie). But in cricket statistics, ct is the regular usage: Wisden, the “cricketers’ bible”, uses ct/st (caught/stumped) in listing players’ career records. So I think Qaos’s use of ct today is legitimate, and maybe Chambers should adjust.

15. [me @5
    ….though, as Andrew’s link points out, they aren’t homophones anyway, as “babushka” is stressed on the first syllable.]

16. @quenbarrow
    I agree that ct is commonly used in cricket publications for “caught” but I’m not sure that means that the Chambers dictionary (which I assume to be the “chosen one” for daily cryptics) needs amending.
    As a setter myself, it’s obviously in my interest to have access to the full 10,000 colour Dulux palette, but some abbreviation standards somewhere need to be agreed and adhered to.
    For example, we all know MTWTFSS but to use SS as “the weekend” isn’t really supported.
    I’m trying to be as clear as possible and constructive. I have the highest regard for Qaos’ puzzles. I’m just trying to avoid being described as a troll again….

17. I think Andrew’s blog preamble is spot on. At the risk of reopening old controversies, does anyone dunk chocolate biscuits? This is a step too far even for a serious dunker like me.

18. Thank you Qaos and Andrew.

    I knew three of the biscuits, but, being only half-baked myself, failed to spot the theme – with JAFFA(S) and JERICHO first in I thought there might be another…

    However, I resisted going over to the chess site on reading the clues for 3, 5d and 19, a sign of an enjoyable puzzle.

19. I really liked the SS for “weekend” ploy and that’s speakibg as someone who hates obscure unindicated one-letter abbreviations.

20. PS I also hate keyboards with the keys too close together and people who don’t check their spelling before submission.

21. Another theme passes me by. Crumbs.

    Does FAGIN count, in view of his associate the (Artful rather than Jammy) Dodger?

    This wasn’t a cracker, but mostly fun. Agree that the clue for UNHEALTHY was a bit soggy; and BABUSHKA could have been more IMAGINATIVE, especially as the answer includes the name of the singer. Guess that’s the way the cookie — oh stop it.

    PENGUIN was my favourite: cleverly hiding in plain sight. And who doesn’t like penguins? I also liked the weekend as S…S trick.

    You learn something every day; today it was two things: PARCHEESI and CALYCIFORM. Thanks Qaos and Andrew.

22. 1981Blanchflower 21, thank you…

23. An interesting puzzle with some great clues and some that seemed slightly iffy.

    On the plus side, I really liked 3d. And I enjoyed seeing “flower” actually meaning a flower for the third time in the last week or so (14a). It’s an odd thing when it almost amounts to a double bluff to use a word in its normal sense!

    On the less good side, I agree with others’ comments about UNHEALTHY – I was sure there must be something more going on, but nobody seems to have found it. I was equally puzzled by BABUSHKA, though I now see (Muffin @5) that, strangely, Kate Bush did not in fact know that it meant “grandmother”. (Which reminds me of the Elton John song “Nikita” which, at least on the evidence of the video, he seemed to think was a Russian girl’s name.)

    [baerchen @16: I saw the “troll” comment the other day, but did not think it was intended to refer to you but rather to another contributor on the day of the hostilities last week. I certainly hope it wasn’t referring to you.]

24. “Parcheesi” was lurking somewhere in the murky depths of memory, but I somehow thought it had only one “E”.

    Overall, I enjoyed this as I nearly finished it – only a refusal to believe that “UNHEALTHY” was actually the answer to 25 led me to use the “reveal” button, but apart from that, thanks to Qaos. And I didn’t parse 5a, as I kept thinking “PEN” = “BOTTLE”, so why isn’t it GUINPEN? So thanks to Andrew for setting me straight on that (and a couple of others) – after seeing the light, it became a good clue.

    @21 1961Blanchflower – I am informed that elephants don’t like penguins, as they can’t get the wrappers off.

25. Thanks Trismegistus @24 for sharing your elephantine wisdom. And of course once an elephant takes against you, it never forgets.

26. I missed the theme even though I’m pretty sure I’ve eaten them all at one time or another. I’m not sure if it’s intentional, but the beginning of 22 + 24 gives, somewhat Puckishly, CLARK (bar), a U.S. themer.
    Not all the clues were to my taste. I agree that UNHEALTHY and BABUSHKA were both a bit weak.
    I quite liked “during the weekend” in 7. It seems like a logical extension from the accepted abbreviations for Saturday and Sunday and I get tired of the ubiquitous alternative “on board”.
    I assumed “ct” for “caught” was OK. Interestingly, using “court” instead would work quite well here too, vis-a-vis the surface. E.g. “Criminal act court dismissed after strong drink”.

    Overall, rather sweet 😉 (Fingers crossed re the emoji attempt!). Thanks, Qaos and Andrew.

27. A bit like Robi @11, I eventually decided that this was in essence Pasquale by another name, given the obscurities. Except of course that it isn’t, since there’s a theme. (Even I realised that there were biscuits here, but I didn’t get beyond that mild observation and do not claim theme-spotting.) And it also isn’t Pasquale because Pasquale surely would not drop to the weakness of UNHEALTHY, though Rufus might.

    PARCHEESI btw seems to be a US trademark unknown over here. I’m OK with UK trademarks in puzzles but not so sure about US. It’s strange – I have no qualms about the ‘US labour leader’, the sort of general knowledge of a significant if notorious figure that one might be expected to have, but the trademark troubles me.

28. Thanks Andrew for an excellent blog. There were plenty of excellent and inventive clues here but also plenty of misfires. My list entirely coincides with Andrew’s except that I added 21ac. Surely the suit is clubs not club. A card from that suit could be called a club but that’s different. And is pirouette a suitable indication of a reversal. Surely to pirouette is to repeatedly return to the starting position. A very frustrating solve. A strong editorial hand could have transformed this offering. Even so, I had a lot of fun. Many thanks Qaos.

29. Thanks to Qaos and Andrew. I had the same reaction to UNHEALTHY, missed JAFFA as a cricket term, and had no chance at seeing the theme (the biscuits cited were new to me), but for once US terms were an advantage (the board games of my youth were Monopoly and PARCHEESI).

30. Trismegistus @24 – I always thought it was polar bears, not elephants. The joke being “why don’t polar bears eat penguins?”, and the answer being about the inability to remove the wrappers (rather than because polar bears live in the arctic, and penguins live in the Antarctic).

31. CALYCIFORM and PARCHEESI were new to me too, but I thought both were fine. The whole thing was fun to solve if by no means straightforward, and the ghost theme was apparent pretty early.

    Thanks to Qaos and Andrew

32. Thanks both Qaos and Andrew. I am just happy to get a puzzle to solve so do not like to be too critical of either setter or Editor, and this has been a cracking week. However, this was a bit of a curate’s egg for me and I usually reserve my criticisms for nugatory themes and this, well biscuits is nugatory in spades. My favourites today were 11a and 1d. Looking forward to tomorrows Prize!!

33. I missed the theme, which is impressive – I’m always impressed by especially ghost themes.

    I neede Andrew to tell me the parsing of ANNUL, which eluded me.

    I also noticed CLUB VS clubs @28, and I wasn’t keen on “on” and “by” like @8, but I struggled most with 13d BLUE RIBAND – doesn’t the grammar require “gets”?

    Still, an enjoyable solve and particularly liked PENGUIN, my last one in because I’d stupidly entered MUSTINESS for 8d, worrying where the I came from.

    Many thanks Qaos and Andrew

34. @30 MarkN – that works too, but the version I recall used elephants. Possibly because elephant jokes were all the rage back then.

    For example, “Q: How do you get an elephant out of the theatre? A: You can’t. It’s in his blood.” That could easily have been a polar bear too….

    But I digress. I forgot to mention that I had learned a new cricketing term – JAFFA – and a good stock of cricketing terms is always useful for solving crosswords.

35. coming back to @16 baerchen’s thoughtful reply to mine @14. With apologies for delay – have been out at the cinema watching Battle of the Sexes (recommended).

    I take the point about Chambers as default authority, even though this is not spelled out by the Guardian, as opposed to by Azed. But I don’t see why two common-enough abbreviations should not, sometimes, be acceptable as alternatives. c OR ca, short for circa, ‘about’. b OR (I think) br for British. And, stretching it further, b OR rr for ‘bishop’. I’m sure there are others, close to c/ct, that we take for granted. I am not a setter, but am happy, as solver, with such flexibilities, and will still have no problem with ct as alternative to c, for caught. This one could run and run!

36. quenbarrow@35
    As it happens, L for large isn’t in Chambers, though nobody ever minds that.
    r and rt are both used for right

    I never knew babushka should be pronounced BAbushka. Russian mispronunciations are so ingrained that the correct versions often seem most unlikely, particularly of names. There’s a weird bit of dialogue in Goldeneye, when Izabella Scorupco’s character corrects Bond on her name:

    – Who’s that?
    – Natalya Simonova.
    – Sim-yo-nova.
    – Russian minister of transportation
    Did you check her out?
    – Head to toe.
    – Right…

    Why put the mistake in, if only to correct it? There must have been an irritated Russian on the scriptwriting team, unless there’s a double entendre I’m missing. Anyway, I seem to have misplaced my coat

37. I am ventured to de-lurk as I seem to be the only one happy with 25A. In the heat of battle, with bullets and bombs flying around, one soldier might say to the other, “This is getting rather unhealthy.” In that sense, the clue seems to me to be a reasonable double definition.

38. @James/quenbarrow

    The thing about “L” and clothing is that it can either stand for long or large, as “S” can be short or small.
    I sometimes see “s” for small, though.
    I suppose the crossword world has gone a bit like the labyrinthine world of professional boxing with its various IBF/WBA etc belts represented by Collins/Chambers and all manner of online bits and pieces

39. Baerchen@38: I’m afraid in my world it has to be 3XL or XXXL and it definitely means LARGE.

40. Hmmm… bit of a mixed bag here.

    Am not keen on CLUB for reasons given above. The suit is always called “Clubs”, a “Club” can be one card of that suit but not the suit itself. I’m a bridge-player, so I ought to know! Moreover plenty of ‘club’s in the other sense are not discos – so ‘disco’ is really a definition by example, and should have been indicated as such.

    “One to suit disco perhaps? (4)” Does this work albeit rather clumsyn surface?

    As to BABUSHKA – pure guess – are other solvers so much more pop-aware than I am?

    Never heard of PARCHEESI needless to say. Another Wiki look-up.

    And FAGIN looks dubious to me, too. Plenty of people are called Fagin and are not criminals. Moreover there are many who have reasons for preferring allusions to that particular Dickens character to be avoided. I’ll say no more on this.

    Apart from these, lots of challenging work from Qaos. Thanks to him and Andrew

41. I enjoyed this, albeit not as much as I usually enjoy Qaos’s puzzles. I always look forward to trying to spot his ghost theme, but today’s theme eluded me completely. The named chocolate biscuit brands (?) are as unknown to me as PARCHEESI is to many commenters above. (To be clear, I am not complaining about the theme! I agree with Trailman @27, that in a UK newspaper puzzle, UK trademarks are reasonable and fair, but US or other non-UK trademarks are much less so.) There were also a few clues (UNHEALTHY, BABUSHKA, ANNUL) that fell a bit flat with me (as well as with Andrew and other commenters above, I see), and I think that “Like a cup, Mr, of icy lacquer? Some sent back” is one of the more awkward surfaces I have seen in recent memory. All of the above whining (or whinging, many of you would prefer to say) aside, there were also many bright spots for me in this puzzle. I really enjoyed AYATOLLAHS and pretty much every clue in the NE quadrant (including the SS = weekend wordplay), and the flower in 14ac that was really a flower, and a number of other clues besides. Many thanks to Qaos and Andrew and other commenters. Have a nice weekend, all!

42. Late in the day but for those with an interest in cricket: a Jaffa isn’t any well bowled ball. It is one that swings late and misses (or just touches but usually misses) the outside edge of the hapless batsman’s bat. Its shape, curving, gives it its name from the old trade name for a banana – Jaffa. More than any sensible person needs to know

43. “Jaffa” is perfectly OK as an example from the definition – i.e. an example (amongst others) of a well-bowled ball. A very different kettle of fish from a ‘definition by example’ which generally needs an indicator as such.

44. it’s a bit late to be saying this:
    but @36 James: thank you, the alternatives of r/rt for ‘right’ do seem precisely to correspond with the alternatives of c/ct for ‘caught’.
    Chambers acknowledges rt, but not ct, but it surely has no reason not to make the change, next time round.

45. Shame about the unnecessary indefinite article in 15dn.
    That apart, I had no particular quibbles. I agree that one or two clues might not have been the most elegant, particularly by Q’s usual standards, but I enjoyed this puzzle – and that’s what counts!
    Many thanks to Qaos and Andrew, of course.

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