Guardian 27,430 – Nutmeg

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I thought this was relatively easy by Nutmeg’s standards (for cryptics – she can of course do a well-judged Quiptic too), but a bit harder than usual for a Monday. Nice anagrams for some of the longer answers were helpful in getting me started, so I had plenty of crossnig letters for the trickier clues. Thanks to Nutmeg.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. LOCATE Position at end of battle after officer’s retreat (6)
Reverse of COL[onel] + AT + [battl]E
4. SCEPTRED Radical replacing agnostic’s in charge, having an official staff (8)
SCEPTIC (agnostic) with IC replaced by RED (a radical)
9. SHOVEL Second home of modest form, such as stoker uses (6)
S + HOVEL
10. MARQUESS Noble short crusade given God’s protection (8)
QUES[T] in MARS
11. AIR-RAID SHELTER Wartime provision made by Disraeli — rather unorthodox (3-4,7)
(DISRAELI RATHER)*
13. WORSHIPFUL Pious argument repelled all on aboard, you might say (10)
Reverse of ROW (argumen) + SHIPFUL (all [on] aboard) – I think this would read better without the “on”, so I suspect a typo or faulty editing
14. GRUB Larva eats root (4)
Triple defintion – I initially thought “eats” was redundant, but of course it’s a slightly slangy word for “food”
16. RILL River — harmful water source (4)
R + ILL
18. CARTOUCHES Decorative scrollwork details on limo (10)
CAR (limo) + TOUCHES (details)
21. MAKING THE GRADE Finding success, mother and knight agreed to differ (6,3,5)
MA + (KNIGHT AGREED)*
23. TENDENCY Leading couples refused to attend agency course (8)
[at]TEND [ag]ENCY
24. VIGOUR Very game old soldier returning punch (6)
V + reverse of RU (Rugby Unon – game) +O + GI (soldier)
25. SEDATELY Deliberately furtive about online meeting? (8)
E-DATE in SLY
26. UNISEX Colleges of yore catering for all (6)
UNIS + EX (former, “of yore”)
Down
1. LOST Many turning tail never to be found (4)
LOTS with the last two letters (“tail”) reversed
2. CROZIER Episcopal staff from down under featured in Herald (7)
OZ in CRIER
3. THEARCHY Divine government chief welcomed by people in general (8)
ARCH (chief) in THEY (people in general)
5. COAL SCUTTLE Fireside repository of weird occult tales? (4,7)
(OCCULT TALES)*
6. PIQUES Sound made by little dogs is irritating (6)
Homophone of “pekes”
7. RE-ENTER Tenant clutching bottle’s last to come in again (2-5)
[bottl]E in RENTER (tenant)
8. DESCRIBES Extremely desperate copyists giving marks out (9)
D[esperat]E + SCRIBES
12. IMPRACTICAL Overlooking the very last pair, Nutmeg’s almost useless (11)
I’M (Nutmeg is) + PRACTICAL[LY] (almost)
13. WORKMATES Collaborators make worst bombs (9)
(MAKE WORST)*
15. GUARDIAN Protective paper (8)
Double definition
17. LIKENED Compared with acquaintance in song (foreign) (7)
KEN (acquaintance) in LIED (German for “song”)
19. HIDEOUS Ghastly appeal for sanctuary has nothing in it (7)
O in HIDE US (as people might say when appealing for sanctuary)
20. INJECT Introduce trendy judge without filling court (6)
IN + J[udg]E + CT
22. CRUX Nonconformist church raised cross — what’s the point? (4)
Reverse of U[nited] R[eformed] C[hurch] + X (cross)

46 comments on “Guardian 27,430 – Nutmeg”

  1. Challenging enough but reasonably benign as a indoor activity after going out in the midday sun in 33 degrees C to do some gardening – what was I thinking? Retreated into the aircon to enjoy such clues as 14a GRUB (gotta love a triple definition), 7d PIQUES (which made me think – mmm – a pangram?) and 20d INJECTS.

    But my favourite clue of the day was the dear old “protective paper” at 15d GUARDIAN. [I am so glad I am on The Guardian Australia feed for my news source, as well as my crossword. The Murdoch press is enough to drive me crazy – and it’s not a long drive, having been fed so much tripe for so long from so many outlets.]

    I thought there was going to be a “staff” theme given both 4a SCEPTRED and 2d CROZIER, but they were just clever distractors.

    Many thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew.

    It gave my tiny mind some satisfaction to tick off those pangram letters.

     

  2. The pangram helped, but not much!

    Is “overlooking” doing double duty in 12d – one to describe the order of particles (IM over PRACTICAL) and once to describe the loss of the final two letters of “practically”?

    Thanks to Nutmeg for a slightly-more-challenging-than-usual Monday offering, and to Andrew for a couple of much needed parsings.

  3. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew

    I particularly liked SEDATELY and HIDEOUS. I didn’t like RILL, as I thought both the wordplay and definition rather loose.

  4. OK I understand how 12d works now – the order is as in the clue. I’ll have another cup of coffee and wake up.

  5. Too hard for the limited time we have on a Monday (which is usually enough to complete).

    Gaufrid: Thanks for Friday’s correction.

  6. Thanks Andrew, and Nutmeg. Certainly much harder that the old Rufus standard, but an enjoyable Monday challenge. Was there a religious theme going on here?

  7. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew for a slightly tougher Monday than usual.

    Rather appropriately given the number of religius references I completed this over breakfast in the crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields.

    I should have thought “Lied” was well enough known not to specify “foreign” in 17dn.

  9. Hmm…sorry to cast a sour note but I didn’t enjoy this much.

    Nothing particularly wrong with it, more a combination of things: just not wild about strained synonyms like TENDENCY for course and SEDATELY for deliberately  to name a couple.

    Also the surfaces I found a little clunky.  I admit the ‘on aboard’ at 13a may be a mistake, but, “ghastly appeal for sanctuary has nothing in it”, and “decorative scrollwork details on limo”.  ?? Wot?

    I wouldn’t agree with the sentiment at 12d but we’ve had much better from this setter.

    Nice week, all.

  15. Thanks Nutmeg; more challenging than most Monday puzzles.

    Thanks Andrew; I suppose the guardian = protective is as a nounal adjective in, say, guardian angel? William @9, perhaps ‘panels’ would have been better than scrollwork in the definition of CARTOUCHES.

    Overall, entertaining crossword; I liked the long anagrams, which got me started.

  16. That was very enjoyable.

    I had a bit of a hiccup in 3d as without much thought given to parsing or enumration I tried to write in THEOCRACY instead of THEARCHY. And having realised my mistake I had to reach for the Chambers to find out the precise difference in meaning.

    1d was one of those clues where I can’t always tell whether to put in LOST or LOTS without the crossers. This was fairly clear, but often they are not. Or is that just me?

    Also, as ever, didn’t notice it was a pangram, despite taking note of the Z in CROZIER, though my first spelling choice would have been crosier.

    I too wasn’t too keen on deliberately for SEDATELY, but otherwise I thought it was a good Monday puzzle.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew.

  17. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew

    I enjoyed this, despite not seeing the pangram until after I’d finished.

    Ref DELIBERATELY vs SEDATELY, for me it works if you ignore intention and focus on pace, where a deliberate one is likely to be slow and steady, or sedate. It’s also supported in one direction by Chambers eThesaurus.

  18. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew.

    Last night’s Endeavour episode was entitled Cartouche, so that was fresh in my mind.

    Can someone explain how sedately = deliberately?

    Are these pangrams deliberate or fortuitous?

    [My spell checker recognises neither pangram nor cartouche!]

  19. Thanks for the blog.

    William@9 – I concur, I also thought that “sceptic” was a stretch for “agnostic”, not at all the same thing IMO; “guardian=protective ?”.

     

     

  20. I thought it was a pretty good puzzle. Got held up in ne corner for no particular reason but got there. 11 13 and 21 were good anagrams. And i see nothing wrong with the cartouches clue.

  21. Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew. A bit of shock to the system for a Monday for me. Plenty went in on first couple of passes, but the rest needed grinding out. I also found some of the synonyms and definitions a bit tenuous, but got there in the end and do like a challenge. I did of course miss the pangram until the end. Last one in for me was impractical, it had to be that but I could not fully parse it. Therefore thanks again Andrew and of course Nutmeg.

  22. Pretty tough for a Monday, but not as tough as Nutmeg sometimes can be. Quite a pleasant solve.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew

  24. I agree, pretty loose on some of the definitions, but a good solve, hopefully not too difficult to put off ‘only on Monday’ solvers. And I like pangrams, though by the time it was spotted it was of little use.

    Now time for the big admission. GUARDIAN was last in. Honestly.

  25. Much to like here.  Didn’t quite parse VIGOUR – I was persuading myself that the ‘game’ therein had to be ‘GO’ and couldn’t work around that.  But there’s always one you have to write-in.

    Liked a lot, like SCEPTRED, WORSHIPFUL (I think the superfluous bit is the ‘a’ of ‘aboard’), CARTOUCHES ( must swat up on my hieroglyphics 🙂 ), TENDENCY, SEDATELY – and that’s just picking out the across’s!

    Once SCEPTRED went down I was wondering whether a Richard II theme might be cropping up, so I was looking out for e.g. ROYAL, THRONE, KINGS, ISLE, EDEN, PARADISE, HAPPY, BREED, etc. etc. – alas! none of them there, I suppose the nearest is MARS which forms part of 10a.  Perhaps I expect too much!  I know a number of quotes from the Bard, but some say it’s unfair to use them.

    Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew.  Quite a challenge for Monday.

  26. Good crossword for a Monday! Not too hard but more challenging than the usual ‘read clue, write in answer’ that is sometimes the norm for the first one of the week. Nicely done.

  27. Dave E @18 – Chambers gives one meaning of DELIBERATE as “slow and careful”, and for SEDATE it has “slow in a boring or dignified way”.  Not quite synonyms, but close enough for my liking.

  28. Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew. Very enjoyable, as usual for this setter. I misread “leading couples”  so took a while parsing TENDENCY and needed all the crossers to get UNISEX, my LOI.

  29. I’d pick at one or two of these synonyms, agnostic and deliberately, but overall a pretty good puzzle. I find this setter quite Timesy, if that is a word, though The Guardian’s panel certainly needs some of that in my view 🙂

  30. Took a while to engage brain so this took longer than it should – although I agree that this was probably a little harder than the average Grauniad Monday.  I was so not-with-it that I failed to spot that Nutmeg was the compiler and was looking for some clever reference to scoring through the goalkeeper’s legs for a while. My fuzziness may have been induced by sampling the gin that Mr and Mrs Paddington Bear (occasionally of this parish) left here at Christmas.

  31. Glad the gin didn’t fog up the brain too much Frankie the cat @ 30. Mr Paddington Bear finished in an hour and a quarter with small input from me as I’ve been busy today. I did enjoy the anagrams, thank you to Nutmeg and Andrew. 8

  32. Ok, but share some doubts with others, notably sedately and tendency, neither of which seem accurate synonyms. I fact didn’t get either

  33. I didn’t like this much. Perhaps I was in Monday mode and found it a touch too difficult but it seemed a bit sloppier than is usual for this setter. I must admit I’m not a particular fan of Nutmeg’s puzzles so maybe it’s me!

  34. Got bored with this quite quickly and came here for enlightenment and relief. Didn’t feel “right” for a Monday – sorry.

  36. As someone who only expects to get close to a solve on a Monday, I found this too tough and gave up with only half a dozen in (including a couple of the long Anagrams which should’ve set me up) …the number of religious references didn’t help and there’s a couple in retrospect I should’ve got (were I not a bit annoyed by some of the wording, so my fault there)…but if this is the new Monday benchmark I fear the guardian cryptic is no longer for me…I fear cryptics may become a niche activity of the long term faithful

  38. Muffin @37 thanks I should try it sometime … I’m generally a ‘physical copy’ guy so would involve firing up the Home pc in the morning and printing off to read on the tube but not beyond me … might be one to print off to try on later days in the week…

  39. I subscribe to the Guardian, but I always print off the crosswords (generally on the back of used paper) so that I’m not hogging it; on Mondays I print the cryptic and the quiptic on either side of a clean sheet!

    Do have a go at today’s – there’s a hidden surprise.

  40. I think this was the first time I ever noticed that a puzzle was a pangram in time for it to help with the solution. 10a and 6d were my last two, and the confidence that a Q had to find its way in was a big help.

    I found this puzzle very enjoyable. Certainly harder than the Rufuses of yore, but still manageable. I don’t remember seeing a construction like “turning tail” in 1D, and it was quite satisfylng when the penny dropped.

    thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew!

     

  41. It’s Monday, and I just about finished in time to post here! That said, I had to use the check button on a fair few. As a relative tyro (yes, I did learn that word from this pastime!) I agree with the consensus that this was harder than most Mondays. I was feeling elated after completing last Monday’s puzzle but everything since has reconciled me to my lowly status: apprentice to a most cruel craft. FWIW, I would not argue for making any puzzles easier, I’m prepared to struggle, cheat and curse and maybe one day the check button will be behind me!

  43. I have been so busy with work lately that it took me until this weekend to get to last Thursday’s and Friday’s puzzles, and then I had a real struggle with today’s, which I was able to do only in occasional stolen moments throughout the day.  I think Nutmeg did a very nice job with this — including clever and varied clueing and many elegant surfaces, and a pangram to boot — but for me, unfortunately (and undoubtedly due in large measure to my external stresses of the day), my admiration for her work came more at the end, looking back after completing the puzzle, than during the solving experience itself.  Favorites for me today were, I think, HIDEOUS and the triple def GRUB.

    Many thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew and other commenters.

  46. Marienkaefer @7

    I agree with what you say about ‘Lied’ being familiar enough not to need a ‘foreign’ indication.

    I would just add that I think the setter put ‘foreign’ there for fairness, considered relative to the intended audience – and the day of the week, perhaps.  Good setters are aware of the ‘pitch’ of their puzzles, and of individual clues.  (I nearly said all setters.)

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