Guardian Cryptic 27,381 by Tramp

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27381.

A pervasive theme, both in the clues and the answers, to the board game Cluedo, very well handled. I am not sure if I have ever played the game, but the characters, weapons and layout are all quite familiar to me.

Across
9 ABHOR Despise men after act of violence (5)
A charade of ABH (actual bodily harm, ‘act of violence’) plus OR (other ranks, ‘men’).
10 PARCHMENT Document principally, Candlestick, Hall, Mrs … held by dad? (9)
An envelope (‘held by’) of C H M (‘principally Candlestick, Hall, Mrs.’) in PARENT (‘dad?’ – with the question mark for the indication by example).
11 SKIPPERED Led games going after Miss Scarlet? (9)
A charade of SKIP (‘miss’) plus PE (‘games’) plus RED (‘scarlet’).
12 TREAD Plod tense – do this in library? (5)
A charade of T (‘tense’) plus READ (‘do this in library’).
13   See 25
15 ERMINES Vermin: essentially contains small mammals (7)
A hidden answer (‘contains’) in ‘vERMIN ESsentially’.
17 PAWNS Hand partners pieces on board (5)
A charade of PAW (‘hand’) plus NS (‘partners’ in eg. bridge). The ‘board’ this time is probably for chess, although in some versions, the characters in Cluedo were represented by pawn-like pieces).
18 CUE Hint: stick in billiard room (3)
Double definition.
20 TOPEE Hat in work held by peg (5)
An envelope (‘held by’) of OP (‘work’) in TEE (‘peg’).
22 PLUMAGE Peacock shows this? Best to decline (7)
A charade of PLUM (‘best’) plus AGE (‘decline’).
25, 13 COLONEL MUSTARD Last Cluedo room’s empty? No suspect (7,7)
An anagram (‘suspect’, doing double duty) of ‘last Cluedo’ plus RM (‘RooM‘s empty’) plus ‘no’.
26 BASIN Bowl balls without line and length at crease? (5)
A charade of ‘ba[ll]s’ minus L L (‘without line and length’) plus IN (‘at crease’).
27 BULLETINS Reports of things fired around home (9)
An envelope (‘around’) of IN (‘home’) in BULLETS (‘things fired’).
30 FLOOR PLAN Cook, Prof … all on form for the Cluedo board? (5,4)
A anagram (‘cook’) of ‘prof all on’.
31 BINGO That’s it! Lose board game (5)
A charade of BIN (‘lose’) plus GO (‘board game’).
Down
1 LASS Miss rope that’s cut (4)
LASS[o] (‘rope’) minus its last letter (‘cut’).
2 CHAINSAW Feller was upset after row (8)
A charade of CHAIN (‘row’) plus SAW, an anagram (‘upset’) of ‘was’.
3 PROP Stay in favour of suspect in the middle (4)
A charade of PRO (‘in favour of’) plus P (‘susPect in the middle’).
4 SPORADIC Random policemen turning up to house heading to room with a detective (8)
An envelope (‘to house’) of R (‘heading to Room’) plus ‘a’ plus DI (‘detective’ inspector) in SPOC, a reversal (‘turning up’ in a down light) of COPS (‘policemen’). I arrived at the answer on the basis of CID (‘policemen turning up’), which turned out to be totally spurious.
5   See 7
6 WHITE METAL Does it feature lead suspect, maiden and others? (5,5)
A charade of WHITE (‘suspect’, Mrs. White in Cluedo) plus M (‘maiden’) plus ET AL (‘and others’). WHITE METAL is any of various light-coloured alloys, some of which may contain lead.
7, 5 SEVERN BRIDGE Is Rev Green bad, having taken a bent spanner? (6,6)
An anagram (‘bent’) of ‘is rev green b[a]d’ minus the A (‘having taken a’).
8 STUD Place on board mostly for boss (4)
STUD[y] (‘place on board’ – the Cluedo board, that is) minus its last letter (‘mostly’).
13 MOP UP Complete shock: winning (3,2)
A charade of MOP (‘shock’ of hair) plus UP (‘winning’).
14 ABSTAINERS They don’t put crosses on papers? Two good grades by markers? (10)
A charade of A B (‘two good grades’) plus STAINERS (‘markers’).
16 SHELL Woman will fire shots from large gun (5)
SHE’LL (‘woman will’).
19 ESCULENT Fit to take in ten clues to be solved (8)
An anagram (‘to be solved’) of ‘ten clues’.
21 PENSIONS Pounds to cover lives in retirement? Supported by these? (8)
An envelope (‘to cover’) of SI, a reversal (‘in retirement’) of IS (‘lives’) plus ON (‘supported by’) in PENS (‘pounds’), with an extended definition.
23 UPSHOT Result of competitions having missed lead piping (6)
A charade of [c]UPS (‘competitions’) minus its first letter (‘having missed lead’) plus HOT (‘piping’). Another clever reference to the Cluedo weapon.
24 EMBALM Preserve degree in wood frame (6)
An envelope (‘in’) of MBA (Master of Business Administration, ‘degree’) in ELM (‘wood’).
26 BUFF Muscular admirer (4)
Double definition.
28 EBBS Goes out with European babes regularly (4)
A charade of E (‘European’) plus BBS (‘BaBeS regularly’).
29 SPOT Scene of murders in retreat (4)
A reversal (‘in retreat’) of TOPS (‘murders’).
completed grid

43 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,381 by Tramp”

  1. I hadn’t done a double for a while, and this was a very nice second puzzle, amusing but not too difficult. I have to admit that I just biffed ‘white metal’ and ‘study’ without noticing the Cluedo allusions at all. ‘Skippered’, on the other hand, required careful parsing of the clue.

    Hats off to Tramp, and greetings to the blogger from one who seldom stops by nowadays. TffT keeps me pretty busy.

  2. This was fun, with all of the suspects and weapons, and most of the rooms, represented at least once.

    (Anyone else catch Prof. Plum’s stealth appearance in the PLUMAGE clue?)

    Of course, it’s my duty to point out British/American cultural/linguistic differences, and there’s a big one here. The first American publisher of this game thought the British name Cluedo wouldn’t play over here, so Americans know the game as Clue.

    The film based on it is a cult classic by now.

  3. Thank you Tramp and PeterO

    I enjoyed this puzzle with its Cluedo theme. My favourites were COLONEL MUSTARD + BASIN.

    New for me was ABH = actual bodily harm and esculent.

    I needed help to fully parse 4d (I also had tried CID), 8d, 13d, 21.

  4. Great puzzle. Like @Mrpenney, I saw Prof Plum sneak in and wondered if that was as intended.
    Thanks to Tramp & PeterO

  5. I wonder if 2d is an extra weapon peculiar to the local Texas version of the game (and for players in a hurry to finish!)

    Fun puzzle, fond memories.

    Many thanks to Tramp and PeterO.

  6. Thanks Tramp, PeterO
    So clever – I loved lead piping and the bent spanner. Had to look up ESCULENT and didn’t parse PENSIONS.
    Isn’t it a bit unusual to have to know stuff (WHITE and COLONEL MUSTARD) in a Tramp puzzle? Maybe Cluedo is universal.

  7. Bit of a re-run this, as Paul did the same thing (very well, as you might imagine) some years ago.

    Generally speaking I found this to be sound, and possibly a bit of a lesson for yesterday’s compiler, in that things here work simply. A nice piece of work.

    Honour is due to Tramp and PeterO.

  9. Thanks to Tramp and PeterO for a clever puzzle which opened up relatively easily with knowledge of the game. What a pity that the grid didn’t allow the “Severn Bridge” to occupy 7a instead of 7d.

  12. Scene of murders in retreat.

    MOOR

    Room being the scene of murders in Cluedo.
    And MOOR being the scene of murders in history.

    Well, we all make mistakes, and it did fit in with BINGO.

  13. Thanks, PeterO, well sorted out.

    Not my favourite sort of crossword but pretty ingenious nonetheless.

    A shame ERMINE and ‘vermin’ are so close.

    Loved looking up ESCULENT. Is succulent linked I wonder?

    Frank @9: Haha! Nice spot.

    Still being a bit thick re BUFF. How is this ‘muscular’ please? I see the reference to skin but is that it?

  15. @William

    BUFF is a slang term for muscular.
    If you Google it and click on “images” I’m the third from the left

  17. Nothing to add except to say how much I enjoyed this. Thanks Tramp. And thanks PeterO. I needed the blog particularly for 21ac, the subtlety of which clue I had missed.

  18. Nice one: played the game for years. However I am sure I read somewhere that changes would be made to some of the characters/weapons/locations. That is “bringing it up to date”. If so a pity!

  19. Aaargh . . . I had UPSETS for 23d, which is (C)UPSETS (slang for upsets in the FA Cup or elsewhere), as apparently UPSETS are indeed a form of piping, so this messed things up for me in the SW corner. I liked PARCHMENT and SPORADIC. Thanks to Tramp & PeterO.

  20. Probably not Tramp’s trickiest puzzle but both ESCULENT and TOPEE were new to me, and it was an entertaining solve.

    Thanks to Tramp and PeterO

  21. Thanks to Tramp and PeterO. Nothing to add to the comments above, except that I did not parse “bin” = “lose” for BINGO and did not know SEVERN BRIDGE.

  22. Couldn’t quite “polish” this excellent puzzle off as I’d not heard of muscular being “buff” before, for 26 Down…

  23. I remember this game from childhood, though when I looked it up in Wikipedia to see what the elements were I found some very sophisticated note-taking schemes that were well beyond us. In the US it was called Clue, and I remember one of the characters as Mrs, White, who was a nurse, and who doesn’t seem to be listed in the wikipedia article.

  24. Thank you Tramp and PeterO.

    I am clueless about Cluedo, never having played it, but I enjoyed the crossword even though I therefore failed to parse some answers. I thought the ‘theme’ might have been games, as well as Cluedo there are ‘references’ to chess, billiards, BRIDGE, GO, BINGO and, indirectly, cricket.

    At first the hat puzzled me, then the ‘solar’ TOPEE (sola topi) came to my mind. ESCULENT was a new, or forgotten, word.

  25. Valentine @23

    It seems that there have been various tweaks made to Cluedo over the years, including characters that come and go. Perhaps not the greatest shortcoming in Wikipedia, but, as you say, Mrs White (sometimes Nurse) is not mentioned in the Cluedo article, but is in the “List of Cluedo characters”.

    Cookie @24

    The hat is often called a solar topee, but, even though it does provide some protection from the midday sun, the term should be sola topee, named for the sola tree which provides the lightweight pith from which they were made (although if they are still around they will probably be made from some plastic now).

  26. What I forgot to say is — what a delightful idea for puzzle theme! Thank you for that, Tramp, and for an enjoyable blog, PeterO.

  28. I enjoyed this very much. I remember playing Clued when I was a child but the only character I could recall was COLONEL MUSTARD and I couldn’t be bothered to look the game up. The theme was like a ghostly presence in the puzzle. I didn’t know ESCULENT but it had to be right. NOW I’ll look up the game!
    Thanks Tramp.

  29. Sorry to break the spell but this wasn’t one for me alas. Defeated in the SW though I can see now I should not have been.

  30. I suspect the office cleaner of the so-called “Guardian crossword editor” must be taking the proverbial you-know-what this week. Chifonie is a poor man’s Rufus and should only appear when the old master is on holiday. Publishing Boatman and Tramp in such close proximity is also an insult to anyone who respects the good old Ximenean traditions. To have all three of these third-rate setters appear within the space of five days is a bit much – especially when there are so many other outstanding compilers on the Guardian roster.

    Let’s hope next week will be better.

  31. This was fun and fairly tough but at first sight extremely annoying for me. Though Tramp isn’t to blame!

    Why? Well, I’ve just been putting the finishing touches to my current ‘work in progress’ (a few clues still to be written) and – you guessed it! – exactly the same theme as today’s puzzle. 🙁

    The difference is that I prefer to ‘hide’ the theme in the solution, rather than make it obvious in the clues. Ah well! Perhaps I’d better mothball mine and go back to square 1, on a different theme. Or should I? Still not decided how or when to go public – had a rather shaky start at setting….

    Back to Tramp. Reasonably fair – knowledge of Cluedo was probably only necessary to solve 25/13 and possibly 8d. Two initial letters (sans indicators) I’m not keen on: B in SEVERN BRIDGE and T in TREAD. But the rule nowadays seems to be ‘anything goes’. Do others think this somewhat debases the art of setting?

    BUFF = ‘muscular’ isn’t in Chambers (at least not in my elderly copy) – the OED says ‘American’. I suppose we have to accept Americanisms now – should they be indicated? Certainly de rigeur if it’s an American spelling variant.

    I failed to parse COLONEL MUSTARD (or, more accurately, I parsed it wrong). Ho-hum.

    Otherwise, fine work and quite a challenge. Thanks Tramp (but watch those initial letters please!) and Peter.

  32. Jojohooligun @ 12. Just to let you know you weren’t alone; I was delayed some time by ROOM MOOR, though I suspected 27ac had to end in S

    Thanks Tramp and PeterO

  33. Re SEVERN BRIDGE – just realised I got the parsing wrong! So I take back what I said! My comment about TREAD still stands though.

  34. Excellent puzzle – superb exploitation of a theme, as is usual with Tramp. Thought COLONEL MUSTARD was brilliant.

  36. Thank you Tramp (TREAD), most entertaining for the clued-in. It looks as though FirmlyDirac is planning something similar so you don’t have the Monopoly.

    I didn’t know about white metals as such before today, but the clue was straightforward, and now I do: crosswords have taught me so much over the years.

    A fun and fair puzzle with the theme worked into almost every clue: top work. Thanks also to PeterO

  37. I have never played the game of Cluedo and could finish this crossword without making any mistakes.
    My solving partner was (somewhat) familiar with today’s theme and therefore she got COLONEL MUSTARD (25,15) a lot quicker than yours truly who needed a few crossers in the first part.
    We both failed on understanding the ‘White’ = ‘suspect’ reference in 6d but a fellow solver who was nearby made it all clear.

    I thought this was the best puzzle of this uneven Guardian week.
    Tramp won, not by a mile but let’s say with 309 to 305, over Puck on Tuesday.
    But where Government and Parliament (catalysed by so-called ‘newspapers’ like The Daily Mail) cross swords in a, to me, incomprehensible Us & Them atmosphere, The Guardian delivers crosswords in a world of ‘win-win’.
    I liked Puck’s puzzle very much.
    And I liked today’s Tramp too.

    Some above said it was perhaps one of his best.
    Well, I think it came close.

    Thanks, PeterO for another comprehensive blog.

  38. FirmlyDirac

    So sorry your theme was unwittingly ‘stolen’ by a Guardian setter! However, I’m sure it’s not bad form for you to seek an outlet for your work without having first to wait an arbitrary amount of time.
    [I recently went public with my first four crosswords. I handed out my first three at Sloggers & Betters events, where they were well received (and blogged on this site!), although the best of these (No. 3) unfortunately had the smallest audience. For No. 4, I put my puzzle up for publication in the so-called Rookie Corner of Big Dave’s Crossword Blog, and I have to say that was a good experience. Several worthwhile comments were made by way of encouragement and criticism (both faults in my puzzle were exposed!), and I’d like to suggest that you give this site your consideration.]

  39. I’m not a great fan of Cluedo but enjoyed the puzzle. Spent a long time on NE corner having been misled by the reference to (Iron?) Maiden in 6d and assumed the answer was ‘Heavy Metal’.

  40. Beautifully constructed, as ever, with many superb surfaces. However, we all have differing tastes and, as a proudly confessed Trampeter (Superfan?) I feel I’ve the right to have a little moan. Unlike other stalwarts here, who value a good surface, I’m one who would gladly welcome this terrific compiler caring a little less about appearance and a little more about being ‘puzzling’. I really found some of the clues much too easy. I’d saved this to relish at weekend only to find it all over before I’d had a chance to lick my lips!
    I know we are all different and, for some, this would have been a pitch perfect piece. I’m just being selfish really; to maintain my future pleasure I want to ensure that Tramp sees a variety of opinions.
    It was still a cut above in my view and worthy of many thanks, some of which being due to PeterO for his kind efforts in supplying the blog.

  41. AlanB @38 – thanks for your comments. I did indeed submit my first-ever effort (a not very good one) to BigDave’s ‘rookies corner’ and it appeared there, some months ago – attracting plenty of comments, both favourable and not. I’ve done a few puzzles since then: some public, most not; but I’m still on a learning curve!

    Incidentally, I’m adopting a different pseudonym for my ‘setter’s persona. “FirmlyDirac” as a punning allusion to a topic in Physics, is fine as a nom-de-plume for Grauniad comments, but it makes no sense as a setter’s handle.

  43. It’s a bit silly really – a pun on “Fermi-Dirac” statistics.  I’m not proposing to deliver an in-depth lecture on quantum mechanic!  If you really want to read more, see here – or just google it.  In short – it’s the name for a set of rules describing the behaviour of fundamental particles that don’t like ‘sharing the same space’.  The opposite is “Bose-Einstein” statistics which describes different kinds of particles that are more sociable!

    I see that the comment-box on this site has just got a lot more WYSIWYG – and easier to post links etc!  Thanks to the Admins for that!

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