Guardian 27,391 – Screw

by

It’s a pleasure to have one of Screw’s relatively rare appearances for my last blog of the year. Good fun as always, with some slightly tricky parsings, and quite a few well-concealed definitions, but nothing too difficult. Thanks to Screw, and to all who have read and commented on my blogs in 2017. See you next year!

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. PRISSY Popular ideas, say, abandoned by centrists in particular (6)
Remove the central letters from P[opula]R I[dea]S S[a]Y
4. ESCAPEE Who’s running to announce starters of steak and kidney pie? (7)
Homophone of S K P – initial letters of Steak [and] Kidney Pie
9. AMUSEMENT Delight at me struggling with menus (9)
(AT ME MENUS)*
10. BASIS Bit of blusher, without changing foundation (5)
B[lusher] + AS-IS (without changing)
11. ON TAP Standing by waterfront, a pensioner shelters (2,3)
Hidden in (sheltered by) waterfrONT A Pensioner
12. BEEKEEPER Spooner’s important pager, one working with constant buzz? (9)
Spoonerism of “key beeper”
13. FORKING Monarchistic, seeing separation on the way (7)
A monarchist is FOR [a] KING
15. ACCENT Stress about money’s a first (6)
A + C (circa, about) + CENT
17. ESCHEW Duck last couple of punches thrown by champ (6)
[punch]ES + CHEW (to champ)
19. HEADSET These ad breaks that pilot has? (7)
(THESE AD)*
22. CORKSCREW Irish sailors that’ll take you to Bordeaux? (9)
The sailors might be CORK’S CREW
24. GAPER Fish and fruit, right to the end (5)
GRAPE with the R moved to the end. The Gaper is a rather ugly fish found off the Eastern coast of the US
26. NIECE Relative, once topped, that is buried (5)
I.E. in [o]NCE
27. IN A PICKLE Like panic disorders, making you troubled (2,1,6)
(LIKE PANIC)*
28. CATARRH Country discussed problem with hooters (7)
Homophone of ‘Qatar’. “Hooter” is old-fashioned slang for the nose (I particularly associate it with Tony Hancock and Sid James)
29. FLIRTY Likely to lead on 51 for 0 in Twenty20? (6)
Twenty20 = 20 + 20 = FORTY, and change the O in that to LI
Down
1. PLAY-OFF It might be used when you tie top of plastic sack (4-3)
P[lastic] + LAY OFF (to sack workers)
2. INUIT One night in Paris, being from colder climes (5)
I + NUIT (French ‘night’)
3. SLEEP WITH To make love, we let hips wiggle (5,4)
(WE LET HIPS)* – it should really be “make love to” to make the definition accurate, though that would spoil the (excellent) surface reading, of course
4. EXTREMA More boxing seems regularly to go to points at the end (7)
Alternate letters of [s]E[e]Ms in EXTRA (more)
5. CABLE Guy about to propose, turning down starter (5)
C (about – again!) + [t]ABLE. Table (as a verb) is a famous example of a word that has opposite meanings in UK and US usage – to propose, and to remove from consideration
6. POSTPONES Puts back mail criminal opens (9)
POST (mail) + OPENS*
7. ENSURE Guarantee criticism, whipping off top (6)
[C]ENSURE
8. TEABAG Brewer‘s brief career, with appropriate following (3,3)
TEA[R] (to go fast, career + BAG (steal, appropriate)
14. RESURGENT When raving, regret sun rising again (9)
(REGRET SUN)*
16. CHARGRILL Nearly attack over stream that’s getting blacker (9)
CHARG[E] + RILL. I think the defintion is “blacker”, as in “thing that blackens”
18. WARMISH Want to secure extension in pretty close (7)
ARM (extension) in WISH – close as in children’s games: “you’re getting warmer…”
19. HOWZAT Appeal when wicket’s taken by Aussie, caught by bowler? (6)
W in OZ, in HAT
20. TERSELY Restyle mobile without expansion (7)
RESTYLE*
21. ICONIC Legendary medic on ice packs (6)
Hidden (packed) in medIC ON ICe. Describing something as iconic has become a much-overused cliché in recent years
23. SWEAR Promise from Sunday Sport (5)
S + WEAR (to sport)
25. POKER Hands in this sticker (5)
As verbs, “poke” and “stick” can be roughly synonymous; by extension so are “poker” and “sticker”. And of course you have hands in the game of Poker

32 comments on “Guardian 27,391 – Screw”

  2. Thanks, Andrew.

    Great to see Screw back – and on top form. Some lovely clues, with witty definitions and misdirections and great surfaces throughout.

    Favourites today were ESCAPEE, CORKSCREW, CATARRH, FLIRTY and INUIT and I thought HOWZAT was pretty neat, too.

    Many thanks for the fun, Screw – please come back soon!

  3. Thanks to Screw and Andrew. Plenty to like for me here with some lovely surfaces. The 4a homophone was clever, the Spoonerism fun, and the Irish sailors amusing. 1d was well constructed and whilst I agree ICONIC is overused it was well hidden with packs as the container indicator. I didn’t parse CABLE as despite seeing C (about) in ACCENT I missed it here, and I’m not convinced that Twenty20 is ok for forty, but it was gettable from the clever definition with the crossers in.
    All in all an enjoyable start to the day.

  4. Thank you Andrew, for your gracious and generous Introduction, and your good wishes to the solving community. We really appreciate what you and all the bloggers share with us when you publish the solves. fifteensquared really enhances our individual solving experiences.

    I agree with Eileen@2 in her favourable feedback on this Screw puzzle. [Eileen, you too continue to make an invaluable contribution to this community, and your own blogs/links/contributions on the forum have taught me so much during 2017!]

    I also enjoyed this puzzle, though it was certainly no pushover!

    I really enjoyed 22a CORKSCREW the most! (I am sure I have said this before, but Cork was the original home of my great-grandfather before he migrated to Australia with two brothers and a sister because of the Potato Famine.)

    Again, this grid presented a challenge, but I always think the solve is sweeter when it takes a while and the clues can be savoured.

    Many thanks to Screw for brightening up the hiatus between the craziness of Christmas and the nearness of the New Year.

     

  6. WhiteKing@3; we crossed. Glad you also liked the Irish clue.

    [BTW: I am in sympathy with you over the Maskarade and your struggle reflected in yesterday’s blog – it is doing my head in. You so often reflect just what I am thinking. Uncanny but there it is.]

  9. JinA@4&6 – thank you. Likewise I often find you’ve posted my thoughts if you get there before me – which you usually do. Thanks for sharing your Irish heritage, and as it’s likely to be a quiet blogging day I’ll add to your thread. I’ve no Irish connection (that I know of), but in November we went to Dublin to meet the people who we will become family with when our offspring marry there in January. We stayed on a few days to do tourist stuff, including the recently opened EPIC museum, which is the best museum I’ve ever been to – informative, interesting and innovative in it’s approach and use of technology in a way which enhances the experience. The exhibition follows four strands – why they left, where they went to, what they did and the impact they had, and their current legacy. You may have done it, but if not and you want to feel your roots further then I’d highly recommend it – here’s the link to it https://epicchq.com/. I particularly liked that they have created the EPIC name from the acronym Every Person Is Connected – which I believe we all are, and that the world would be a better place if we remembered it more often.

  10. WhiteKing@9:

    Thank you so much for the strong recommendation for the EPIC museum and the link. For once I looked at the blog before I had stopped struggling with the puzzle and was happy that I gave up and instead read other solvers’ comments, particularly yours. I will certainly go to the museum if/when I ever get to Dublin.

    Thank you Screw and Andrew. Happy New Year to all.

  11. I’m fairly sure I’ve had bad experiences with Screw in the past, but if ever I’ve had a moan about him in the past, I take it all back now. Verily a (Christmas) cracker of a puzzle, with clever devices like the ESCAPEE, smart surfaces as with PLAY-OFF and ESCHEW, and even the happy accident of two cricketing clues when England have not just one but two good days in the Test! HOWZAT indeed!

  12. I really enjoyed this, and would echo everyone else’s positive comments. I thought HOWZAT was very clever, and I also enjoyed CORKSCREW and CATARRH. WhiteKing@9 has inspired me to consider a trip to Dublin – my ancestors too were from Ireland and I am fascinated by their story.
    Thanks to Screw and Andrew and to all a Happy and Peaceful New Year.

  13. Thanks to Screw and Andrew. I too much enjoyed this puzzle, though I needed help with parsing, especially FLIRTY, and didn’t catch champ = chew for ESCHEW. I came across the UK vs. US sense of “table” some years ago at a conference in London, but I had also been confused by the UK sense of “career” as “go fast” (as used here in TEA BAG) whereas the US sense is limited to the familiar noun with no such verb.

  14. I found the off-topic comments more interesting than the crossword today, but I must mention 19d HOWZAT, which I thought was an excellent clue.  I find I don’t appreciate or even agree with Screw’s cryptic grammar in places – a ‘problem’ I don’t usually have with other setters.

    I’m hoping to visit Ireland next year, and I now feel encouraged, if not persuaded, to aim for the Cork rather than, say, the Dublin area.  I have my own favourite museums in the parts of the world that I have visited (the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature in Winnipeg and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam), and the EPIC might become another.

     

  15. Not at all on Screw’s wavelength today. I think I’m still suffering burn-out after completing the Xmas Prize puzzle and the Xmas eve Times Jumbo!!

  16. Thanks Screw and Andrew

    There was a lot to enjoy in this, and some interesting clues using constructions I’ve not come across before (ESCAPEE for example). Quite a lot was quite easy for a Screw, but the last few took ages, and there were some that went in from definition only (BASIS and CABLE). I cleverly identified the “pensioner” in 11a as OAP, so was baffled by why “waterfront” gave NT! Too many favourites to list (oh, go on then – 13a, 15a, 17a, 22a and 6d).

    I didn’t like “blacker” (or “getting blacker”?) as the definition for CHARGRILL, and was a bit doubtful about “Brewer” for TEA BAG.

  17. Thanks to Screw for a great and somewhat challenging crossword. Also thanks to Andrew for clarifying some of the parsing. Got there in the end after nearly giving up, but a couple not fully parsed e.g 5. Enjoy the New Year everyone.

  18. Excellent clues here: PLAY-OFF probably had the best surface I’ve seen for quite a while (and if you’ve wrestled with those silly little tapes you use to tie up your black bin-bags with, you’ll know what I mean!)  I suppose most people will say their LOI was their most fiendish – in my case it was PRISSY and I certainly endorse that sentiment!

    I have to hang my head in shame, though, in admitting I didn’t parse ON TAP.  How can I possibly have missed a hidden word! – beats me! – but I did.  I was so convinced that it was OAP containing NT which somehow (?) equates to ‘waterfront’…  I suppose that comes of being an OAP myself…. 😮

    Best clue?  As so often, hard to say, almost all were excellent.  Toss-up between ESCAPEE, ESCHEW, BASIS, and TEABAG, maybe.  I don’t have a problem with “Brewer” = TEABAG, myself.  Something that brews.  No looser in grammar than many a Grauniad cryptic, at any rate!

    I didn’t know GAPER but the wordplay was clear.

    Thanks Screw and Andrew.

  19. ACD @13 – re “career” = “go fast”

    I can’t resist quoting one of the old Tommy Cooper jokes: you have to say it “just like that”:

    <blockquote>”So I was in my car, and I was driving along, and my boss rang up, and he said ‘You’ve been promoted.’ And I swerved. And then he rang up a second time and said “You’ve been promoted again.’ And I swerved again. He rang up a third time and said ‘You’re managing director.’ And I went into a tree. And a policeman came up and said ‘What happened to you?’ And I said ‘I careered off the road.’ </blockquote>

  20. Prompted by FirmlyDirac’s comment @18, referring to cryptic grammar, I feel I should soften the unintended negative tone of my comment @14 by making it clear that although there were five clues (10a, 13a, 29a, 3d and 25d) that I would have tried to write differently there were five that I wish I could write as well as Screw did: 4a ESCAPEE [not an elegant word but perfectly valid], 12a BEEKEEPER, 17a ESCHEW, 1d PLAY-OFF and 23d SWEAR.  As some-one who is not strong on spoonerisms or homophones, I thought 4a and 12a were excellent.

    Thanks to Screw and Andrew.

     

  21. Muffin

    A “blacker” makes something black and CHARGRILL is a noun.

    A “brewer” is something which brews. (for instance a TEABAG)

    Where is the problem?

  22. Season’s greetings all.
    I too went the OAP route with ON TAP for a while. I share the discomfort over ‘blacker’ and ‘brewer’ – a person blacks their boots or brews their tea, but *things* do neither.
    Mainly I wanted to point out that ‘close’ (18d) can mean literally ‘warm’ as in ‘this room is very close’.
    I had to wordsearch WARMISH all the same 🙁

  23. Muffin and Gonzo

    I really don’t understand your reservations. You both seem to be locked in a misunderstanding.

    There is a an intransitive form of the verb “brew” which means among other things “to undergo infusion”

    There is a transitive form of the verb “black” which means “to make black”

    But according to you things can’t do things.

    Mud can’t black clothers?

    Hammers can’t hit nails?

    Flames can’t black walls?

    ????

  24. lurkio

    Grill can be a noun, but chargrill  can only be a verb. So it cannot mean a thing which blackens.  At best it can mean “blacken”, but not “blacker”.

  25. Reading some of the above arguments, the question ought to be, what do we want from a cryptic crossword?  Why do we do them?

    I suppose everyone has their own answer to this.  Do many people insist that the grammar in every clue, both in its surface and in its definition/wordplay, has to be meticulously correct and to ‘agree’ rigidly with the solution?

    I think I’m not as strict as that – but I accept that others may be.  I do crosswords because I enjoy doing them, for whatever reason!  Sometimes I’m in the mood for a fairly easy ride, as with Rufus (who sadly won’t be gracing the Monday Guardians any more) and sometimes I like something a bit more adventurous.  In the latter, it’s the clue which took me a long time to suss out – or where I wrote in the solution quickly enough and then spent hours figuring out the parsing – that final “d’oh” moment when it clicks! – that’s the best part of it!  And when that happens, I don’t spend much time going back through the ‘grammar’ and complaining ‘wrong tense’, ‘wrong part of speech’, etc. etc.  I’m pleased enough simply to have cracked it!

    But as I said – others have different reasons.

    Oh and re CHARGRILL.  Some ambiguity here.  Couldn’t find the word at all in Chambers – have I missed something?  In Merriam-Webster it’s defined as a verb only.  I haven’t got round to the OED yet (accessing it online is quite a tortuous process for me).  But in Wiktionary it’s defined as both a verb and a noun.  Which begs the question, where is the Wiktionary entry sourced from?

  26. Rompiballe @24

    Thank you for being so authoritative.

    However the OED does have “chargrill” as a noun.

    Sorry but I’m afraid I’ll have to ignore your ruling and bow to a trust fide dictionary. 😉

  27. Sorry but I’m afraid I’ll have to ignore your ruling and trust to a bona fide dictionary. 

    Don’t know what happened there?

  28. lurkio, muffin et al: I agree with TEA BAG being OK but cannot buy the CHARGRILL.

    I think some liberties have been taken to make the ‘great surfaces’ that Eileen refers to. It may be allowed but as a layman I still find grammatical stretches irritating.

     

  30. Fantastic crossword!
    Yet again I feel compelled to comment – I had no complaint with this puzzle (other than my sorrow that this was the easiest Screw I can recall – it was the delightful tricksiness of his composing that quickly established his position in my personal list of “top favourites” (©Eileen)).
    Personally I had no quibbles whatsoever.
    So I say, with kindness, to those usual suspects who think otherwise – and I’ve had to say this before, verbatim:
    WHAT WOULD POETRY BE WITHOUT POETIC LICENCE?
    Why else do some of us prefer the Guardian crosswords?
    As to this particular puzzle, in spite of my own selfish wish that it had lasted longer (being a Screw and a Thursday, I’d kept it to savour at the weekend) there was much to enjoy. BEEKEEPER and SLEEP WITH were lovely clues and ESCAPEE was sensational I thought.
    And before others chide me for arrogance, I would mention that this was my quickest solve of the week; I’m sure others found the other three easier than I did.
    Many, many thanks to Screw…..

  31. …..and, of course, a big thank you to Andrew for another great blog.
    And thanks to all the bloggers who so unselfishly give their time to this wonderful site; I’m sure they’re responsible for helping many to learn about, and enjoy, the world of cryptics. Why aren’t the less Byzantine, and more Ximenean, puzzles (à la the Indy’s Dac) part of the ‘O’ level English syllabus (do ‘O’ levels still exist?). When I went to University it was mandatory to have a Latin ‘O’ level – even though I read mathematics! If the same applied now, but for cryptics, how great would that be……use of language both reflects and educates thought processes. (There might even be less gratuitous swearing on our streets?!).
    Finally HAPPY NEW YEAR to all who visit this site for whatever reason (even the Zoilists about whom I moaned in my previous posts!).
    And particular wishes for a great 2018 to my personal hero – our very own Gaufrid.

  32. A belated comment as I am a day or two adrift, but just a note to say how enjoyable this was, even though a relatively quick and unchallenging solve: like the best of Rufus though with fewer cryptic definitions!  I have posted a few times that I appreciate clues that subvert the cliches as it were, and ESCHEW was just what I mean, with ‘duck’ as the definition rather than the classic O, likewise ‘popular’ to give us PR rather than IN.

    I am a Spooner fan, and BEEKEEPER was a lovely example.  Two clever reveals in ICONIC and ON TAP (I was another OAP searcher).  I have no problem with Twenty20 for Forty: another that raised an appreciative smile.  ESCAPEE was another that proves a clue doesn’t have to be fiendish to stand out

    My favourite was CORKSCREW: signed by Screw the setter and featuring a clever play on different ways to get to Bordeaux: by sea or bottle.

    Thanks Screw and ditto to Andrew and all the brilliant bloggers on here.

Comments are closed.