Guardian 27,469 / Nutmeg

by

A typically elegant and witty offering from Nutmeg – my thanks to her for an enjoyable puzzle.

Definitions are underlined in the clues.

Across

9 Cut, but not polished, when suggested? (5-4)
ROUGH-HEWN
ROUGH [not polished] + an anagram [suggested?] of WHEN – I wasn’t sure how much of the clue to underline as the definition – Edit: I knew this couldn’t be right: far too sloppy for Nutmeg – see Simon S @comment 1]

10 English invading prosperous foreign state (5)
REICH
E [English] in RICH [prosperous]

11 10 caught during escape don’t count (7)
EXCLUDE
X [ten] C [caught] in ELUDE [escape]

12 Keels over, having striven in conflict (7)
INVERTS
Anagram [in conflict] of STRIVEN

13 Remarkably old theologian disheartened laity (5)
ODDLY
O [old] DD [Doctor of Divinity – theologian] + L[ait]Y

14 Brave comic ultimately loses interest in script (9)
WITHSTAND
WIT [comic] + [lose]S [interes]T in HAND [script] – a neat use of ‘brave’ as a verb and an interesting story-line

16 Recondite manoeuvres protecting two hospital departments in secure housing (9,6)
DETENTION CENTRE
Anagram [manoeuvres] of RECONDITE round ENT [hospital department] twice

19 What’s put out for famous moggy, perhaps on Yorks coast? (3,6)
RED CARPET
REDCAR [town on Yorks coast – often clued as ‘racecourse’, as in a Vlad puzzle I blogged last month] + PET [moggy, perhaps]

21 Bond‘s partner formerly occupying Students’ Union (5)
NEXUS
EX [partner formerly] in NUS [National Union of Students]

22 Person striving to keep motorways in better condition (7)
TRIMMER
TRIER [person striving] round MM [motorways]

23 Husband’s lacking in flair — a cure-all’s offered (7)
PANACEA
PANAC[h]E [flair, minus h – husband] + A – my favourite clue, I think

24 Manufacturer of cars, many with posh interior (5)
LOTUS
U [posh] in LOTS [many]

25 Tsar’s necessary after turn of century and easily dealt with (2,7)
NO TROUBLE
A reversal [turn] of TON [century] + ROUBLE [Tsar’s necessary]

Down

1 Case supporting idle property owner (10)
FREEHOLDER
A simple charade of FREE [idle] + HOLDER [case]

2 White rebel is obliged to guards (8)
MUSCADET
MUST [is obliged to] round [guards] [Jack] CADE [rebel – an old crossword favourite]

3 It’s said capacious hanky’s needed, if you’re like this (6)
RHEUMY
Sounds like roomy [capacious]

4 Had a life before wife turned up (4)
WERE
A reversal [turned up] of ERE [before] + W [wife] – this made me smile

5 Confused detective hampered by gut reaction (10)
INDISTINCT
DI [Detective Inspector] in INSTINCT [gut reaction] – I think we more often see this containment indication the other way round – but it does work

6 Cleric appearing on donkey in church causes deep division (8)
CREVASSE
REV [cleric] + ASS [donkey] in CE [Church of England] – another amusing surface

7 I stray off course in South American mountains (6)
SIERRA
I ERR [I stray off course] in SA [South American]

8 So close, having swopped ends (4)
THUS
SHUT [close] with the first and last letters swopped

14 After fancy exercises, band’s sobbing quietly (10)
WHIMPERING
WHIM [fancy] + PE [exercises] + RING [band]

15 Confirmed nickname for Edward, the ocean sailor? (4-6)
DEEP-SEATED
DEEP SEA TED – Edward, the ocean sailor

17 Complex seminars not quite hitting the mark (4,4)
NEAR MISS
Anagram [complex] of SEMINARS

18 Charge imposed on a variety of basic commercial vehicles (8)
TAXICABS
TAX [charge] + an anagram [variety] of BASIC

20 Particular Democrat isn’t first to yield (6)
DAINTY
D [Democrat] + AINT [isn’t] + Y[ield]

21 Sergeant, say, getting up one day full of himself? (3-3)
NON-COM
A reversal [getting up] of MON [one day] round NCO [another abbreviation for non-commissioned officer – himself]

22 Son’s leaving even now to work in field (4)
TILL
[s]TILL [even now]

23 Course of action at entering pub? (4)
PATH
AT in PH [public house]

57 comments on “Guardian 27,469 / Nutmeg”

  1. Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen.

    In 1A I saw the definition as ‘Cut, but not polished” with the wordplay an anagram (ROUGH) of WHEN (HEWN).

  2. Thanks NUtmeg and Eileen

    A real delight – so much to enjoy, but I must make special mention of the REDCAR PET and DEEP SEA TED.

    ROUBLE seems to have cropped up as a component several times recently.

  4. Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen, for a splendid and clever example of a setter’s bag of tricks, and a lucid blog.

  5. I’m feeling really spoilt: two of my favourite compilers on consecutive days. Enough of a challenge, but nothing obscure, and a sense of satisfaction when the answers reveal themselves. As Eileen says in her preamble, witty and elegant. Picaroon and Nutmeg will be hard acts to follow tomorrow, but I live in hope.

  6. Gentle I thought after the last couple of days. I remember being amused by the roomy/rheumy homophone when I first came across it as a school boy. Perhaps that was the budding crossword solver in me.
    I pondered over 7dn for a while trying to find an anagram of ‘I stray’

  7. A masterclass of inventiveness and with wonderful surfaces too. What a treat on a dull Thursday. Thanks to Nutmeg and to Eileen.

  8. Me too Frankie the cat @6 re 7dn. I fell into the same trap with a Boatman clue this week. Very clever, same letter count.

    Favourites ROUGH-HEWN, DEEP-SEATED, NO TROUBLE, and even the simple but enjoyable REICH. Learned a new word in MUSCADET, and a new crossword favourite CADE, as Eileen says. I must be hemispherically challenged.

  9. Thanks Nutmeg, a very enjoyable crossword that went in steadily but rather slowly.

    Thanks Eileen; I wasn’t sure about DAINTY = particular. My Oxford Thesaurus has it in the sense of ‘he was particular about what he ate,’ but I can’t see me using dainty in that context – any other context?

    I liked the RED CAR PET and DEEP SEA TED.

  10. Hi Robi @9 – I wasn’t sure I’d met DAINTY in that sense but it felt right, somehow. I checked in Chambers and it gives ‘fastidious’ for both ‘dainty’ and ‘particular’. Collins has ‘excessively genteel; fastidious’ for ‘dainty’.

  11. I agree with Eileen about this very nice crossword (and not just because I was told off in two places yesterday for agreeing with others than Eileen!)

    The RED CAR PET made me smile

     

    Thanks to both Nutmeg and Eileen

  12. A few Graun setters are deserving of a pint this week but i dont see the Meg skulling a London Pride.More like a Sancerre or Brouilly I would have thought-or even a Muscadet-loved seeing that-so glad i can get it in Oz-dont think many people here know what it is!

    Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen.

  13. Hi copmus @12 – I haven’t drunk muscadet for years, after drinking large quantities of it, together with mussels, at a fête de nuit in Brittany on Bastille Day [which is also my birthday, which is my excuse]. I didn’t feel too good the morning after.

  14. Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen. Like others found this an enjoyable solve which went in steadily. However by no means a write in. I found that the bottom half went in quite quickly but the top half took more thinking through. Last ones were rough hewn and rheumy (though now I do not know why). Lots of nice clues but particularly liked rough hewn, mucadet and of course deep sea ted. Thanks again to Nutmeg and Eileen.

  15. I guffawed so loudly at 15d that everyone in the carriage was looking at me. I said “sorry crossword clue!”. A chap 3 seats down replied “deep sea ted eh”. Solvers unite! Great puzzle and elegant blog.

    BTW are the sums before you can post getting harder?

  16. A delight of well-written clues. I actually felt that the two stand-outs, Moggy and Ted, were rather on the loose side, but then again that’s probably what makes them funny.

    Thanks to Eileen and Nutmeg.

  17. I have put in a fairly dismal showing with the other puzzles this week, but I must be in sympathy with Nutmeg today for the first three-quarters or so of this flew in. The holdouts, er, held out for quite some time but I was delighted to pick my way through to an eventual completion.

    Thanks to Nutmeg for restoring some confidence and to Eileen for the blog (I needed help with parsing RED CARPET and MUSCADET, in particular).

     

  18. Eileen @13-youre not s’posed to drink 2-3 bottles of it otherwise you start eating mussels which havent opened. I know.

  19. Lovely puzzle – I especially enjoyed the DEEP SEA TED reference to Ted Heath (whose nickname in Private Eye was Grocer Heath. I’m not sure why – maybe he looked like a grocer).

    Missed out on SIERRA – I thought it was an anagram (“off course”) of I STRAY, so presumed there was a S American mountain range called YISTRA!

  20. Frankie @6 and drofle @19 I also tried to scramble “I stray” into something that looked like Spanish.  No hope.

    8 had SHUT

    I liked DEEP-SEA TED, totally missed the parsing.  The band quietly sobbing after the fancy exercises and the sergeant full of himself also made me smile.

    I got NONCOM but couldn’t parse it.

    I liked RED CARPET, which I of course put out for my own celebrated moggy, but I think it could use and article.  “What’s put out for the famous” reads more like normal English and doesn’t harm the overall clue.

    Eileen, you share a birthday not only with the French Republic but with one of my heroes, Woody Guthrie, whose songs spoke to the conscience of his nation (and who very much enjoyed having Bastille Day as a birthday).

  21. As I have said a few times recently, Nutmeg is now established as one of my favourite setters. As always there is a nice mixture of devices and plenty of devious misdirection. Liked SIERRA and RED CARPET. RHEUMY was last in and took almost as long as the rest of the puzzle.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen

  22. A very enjoyable crossword: thanks to Nutmeg and to Eileen.  I’m normally a lurker here, but can’t resist asking whether anyone can add more detail to the following half-remembered anecdote.  A Shakespearean scholar was wandering around the countryside while pondering the literal underpinning of “There is a destiny that shapes our ends, rough-hew them though we may”.  He came across a couple of timber workers and, in donnish fashion, asked what they were about.  One replied “He does the rough-hewing and I shape the ends”.

    Enlightenment would be welcome.  Otherwise, I’ll get me coat.

     

  23. I liked this too.

    At ROUGH-HEWN though, I wonder why the past tense is used: really, as far as I know, it should be when suggests, suggested by when, or when’s suggested to be grammatically right. Opinions?

     

  24. Thanks both,

    drofle @19 – and Ted Heath was often described as a confirmed bachelor.

    jillfc @22 is that related to the anecdote of the worker from a country that supplies many to the building industry who was asked, at a job interview, to explain the meaning of the terms ‘girder’ and ‘joist’? He replied, ‘the one wrote Faust and the other wrote ‘Ulysees’.

    (Pedant point: the quote is: ‘there’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will’.)

  25. jillfc@22

    A touch of googling reveals:

    Mary Z. Maher, in ‘Actors Talk About Shakespeare’ (Limelight Editions, 2009), quotes Nicholas Pennell:

    “I knew an actor who performed with Ben Greet’s company in Stratford-upon-avon. He went out for a drive one day and got hopelessly lost and came upon two men. The actor asked the men for directions back to Stratford, and then he asked them about their work. The thick-set hedges in England were made by cutting the hazel twigs in half on a slant-cut through the stem and then bending it and winding it in with other hazel twigs. the man said, “Yessir, that’s what we do, sir, he and I work together near thirty year now. He rough-hews them, and I shapes their ends.” Here was a stage image [found in Hamlet, V.ii.10, “there’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will”] wedded directly to the earth and not available in most of the scholarly books.”

  26. Well,I enjoyed this too, especially the Ted Heath reference in 15 dn. I liked ROUGH HEWN, RHEUMY and TRIMMER too.
    Thanks Nutmeg.

  27. Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen. Delightful. I needed help parsing RED CARPET (I did not know  Red Car) and MUSCADET (I did know Jack Cade but I’m more familiar with muscadel).

    Note: yesterday I pasted in an entry on antic but forgot to mention that it came from a dictionary  devoted to stage directions from the period.

  28. Nutmeg in French is “noix de muscade”. Just thought I’d mention it in case it’s her favourite tipple.

  29. Catching up – I’ve been out all afternoon.

    Valentine @20 – I share a birthday with Tom Johnson [Maskarade], too. You may remember he celebrated his seventieth last year with a puzzle to mark the occasion.

    Tyngewick @24 – it’s often said here that it’s almost routine for a comment pointing out a typo to contain a typo: perhaps the same could be said of comments pointing out misquotations [see geof’s comment @25]. 😉

    ACD @27 – the Vlad clue I mentioned in the blog was ‘Course director dismissed sign (3,4)’: RED CARD.

    Blaise @28 – nice one 😉

  30. Another lovely puzzle. Rather like PetHay@14 the bottom half went in space and the top was much slower with 2 and 5d putting up particular resistance. CADE might be a crossword standard but it’s escaped my notice until now and it’s also the first time I’ve come across the delightful RHEUMY homonym.
    I had lots of ticks against clues that have already been mentioned and the same wondering about DAINTY being a synonym for particular, but that was just me not thinking broadly enough. I came here without having parsed WITHSTAND and it’s now my favourite, both for the use of brave as a verb as Eileen highlights and for script being hand – very obvious in hindsight = great clue in my book.
    To the late-posting DaveMc from the USA – I try and make a point of reading the previous day’s blog again in the morning and enjoy your contributions even if it seems too late to add anything, and I’m sure many other 15^ers do the same.
    Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen. 5

  31. [First post from a newbie – I’ve been following 225 for a while, to see what others made of the Guardian puzzles that now in my (partial) retirement I try to complete before the morning’s out; and for some explanations on parsing. It’s interesting  to see viewpoints on the different (and very good) setters. Fascinating site – my thanks to our hosts!]
    Only got MUSCADET by going in my head A->Z through starting letters when all crossing letters were in place, finding a word that would fit, and then slowly emerging  enlightenment on the parsing. “No prisoners taken on that one…” I said to Mrs T. Enjoyed Sailor Ted: like all good clues, great fun and witty once you’ve got it. Thank you Jill, for the Shakespearean extras on ROUGH-HEWN.

  33. I didn’t find many hold-ups with this one.  As has been said, lots of quality surfaces.

    I liked ROUGH-HEWN, MUSCADET and WERE the best.  I saw RED CARPET as a double definition, the second part being a DBE phrase – moggy, perhaps on Yorks coast? – for Redcar pet.  I can’t recall “hampered by” being used the other way round (to mean containing?).

    I wasn’t too keen on NON-COM because the wordplay piece (NCO) is essentially the same as the answer.  Doesn’t seem right somehow.

    Good fun.  Thanks, Nutmeg and Eileen.

  34. phitonelly @33

    19ac can’t be a double definition, because of the enumeration: the answer is RED CARPET, with REDCAR PET [as you say, moggy, perhaps on Yorks coast] as the wordplay.

    I think I’ve often seen ‘hampered/blocked etc by’ as a containment indicator, in the sense of ‘getting in the way of’ – but, as I said, it does work this way, too, in the sense of ‘surrounding’. thus ‘preventing the progress or free movement of’ [Collins].

    Re NON-COM: I actually really liked this clue. “…the wordplay piece (NCO) is essentially the same as the answer”. Yes, so the sergeant is ‘full of himself’  – which I thought was funny.

  35. Been out all day, so late to the party.

    Another puzzle with virtually no American influence. Like buses.

    I think the whole point about NON-COM, phitonelly @33 is that it contains NCO. Like devillish containing evil.

    Muscadet took me ages.

    Thanks Eileen and Nutmeg both.

     

  38. I’d call this fair to middling hard, from Nutmeg – a good choice for a Thursday – and reasonably fair throughout.  I know others have beefs about wordplay grammar – I’m probably on the easy-going, libertarian side of things, so I pass plenty of devices which others won’t!

    So my only gripe is – as so often – the homophone.  Try as I might (and even experimenting with whatever regional accents I can muster), I just can’t equate RHEUMY to ROOMY.  Sorry!  I still solved it, because I’m alert to this sort of thing happening!

    Is it because my underlying accent is RP – Received Pronunciation?  I’d have thought, it’s less of a handicap, more of an advantage.

    Everything else was fine – plenty of magical moments.  I’m always on the lookout for ultra-deceptive ones (as befits my pseudonym), and so I must pick out SIERRA for especial mention.  There I go seeking out anagrams of (I STRAY)!

    Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen.

  39. Laccaria @38

    A completely pointless “point”, but, although I’m often one of the first to complain about “homophones”, I can’t envisage pronouncing RHEUMY as any different from ROOMY! What difference do you hear? I suppose the double O might be slightly rounder, but…

  40. A great crossword, as others have said. I particularly liked ROUGH-HEWN, WITHSTAND, RED CARPET and SIERRA.
    Echoing WhiteKing, I too revisit previous blogs to see what has been added. I even read blogs of crosswords that I have had no time for, as interesting topics often come up. (And incidentally, I always read the day’s blog and comments before I post anything – out of respect for fellow-contributors.)

  41. Muffin @39.  Been browsing Wiktionary (which has pronunciation audios) and it seems my RP isn’t as RP as all that!

    Nevertheless, I think my pronunciation for ROOM would be represented in IPA thus: /??m/, and for RHEUM thus: /?u?m/

    – but I suspect the symbols won’t come out on this blog.  Let’s try….

  42. …and as expected, they didn’t.  The first group consists of an upside-down ‘r’, an upside-down ‘omega’, and an ‘m’.  The second group consists of an upside-down ‘r’, a ‘u’, a sort of colon, and an ‘m’.

  45. Drofle@19: I think Private Eye nicknamed Heath “Grocer” because of his role in abolishing Retail Price
    Maintenance, and his mastery of detail in the negotiations paving the way for our entry to the EEC. I was no supporter of Heath in his time, but current events and the present abject crew make him look like a Titan of political strategy and leadership

  46. Thanks, Tyngewick @44. I didn’t know it had a name – I don’t know how I’ve missed that. 😉

  47. muffin@43

    You can try https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/ and search for ‘roomy’ and ‘rheumy’ – one ‘British English’ gives the two as equivalent, however the second BrE for ‘roomy’ is different and fits Laccaria’s post.  (The site gives the pronunciation in audio as well as in international phonetic alphabet).  Can’t say as I make any distinction between the two though … .

  48. A treat indeed. Picaroon then Nutmeg. Can’t say which I enjoyed more. Favourites here Redcar pet and deepsea Ted. Also rheumy . Rough hewn eluded me till the end. Thanks for your parsing Simon S. Much clearer than mine. and I too got stuck on 7d,trying to find a mountain range from I stray. Came up with Sitrya. Sounded quite plausible but was of course non existent.

  49. Muffin@43 – I don’t want to prolong the argument – geof@47 has provided a link to a better source than what I used (Wiktionary).  Let’s just say, if you look up “roomy” on geof’s link, mine is the third pronunciation along.  And it sounds different.

    This discussion merely serves as a general caution to setters: take care with the homophone!  Inevitably it’ll work for some solvers, but won’t work for others.  With hindsight, I shouldn’t have complained.  Everyone’s different – we just have to live with it.

  51. muffin@50 – not sure what’s happening – try this – https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/roomy?q=roomy

     

  52. Gladly saved for this Holy Saturday’s morning coffee; abstinence has its rewards (even when mussels are not involved!).
    I would have described (perhaps wrongly?) ROUGH HEWN as a reverse anagram.
    Nutmeg is so precise in her clueing (‘quibble-free’) that I was surprised by the seemingly extraneous “off course” in 7dn. On coming here I’ve noted that a few solvers were tempted to seek an anagram of “I stray” by dint of this extraneity. (Perhaps I too might have been suckered were it not that I already had the crossers). Given Nutmeg’s usual precision this gives a lovely insight into the setter’s art – and generosity – as this was clearly included as intentional misdirection. So I was wrong to question the inclusion of “off course” and Nutmeg was ready to sacrifice her reputation (for precision in setting I hasten to add!) in order to add to puzzlement. My respect for this compiler is furthered.
    Great crossword, nice blog.
    Many thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen. Happy Easter.

  53. Alan B @40 – I echo your comment’s final sentence. It is irritating when folk have clearly not read other’s comments and particularly rude when they haven’t even read the blogger’s selfless explanations. Actually, I often find that reading the blog and posts here takes far longer than the solve itself! But I would never comment without reading others’ posts first. As I would never come here until I’ve solved the puzzle (excepting the odd Io/Enigmatist). Similarly, I only solve on paper to avoid the natural tendency for patient effort to lose out to the temptation of ‘cheating’. These self-imposed rules add, I feel, to the overall enjoyment of our addiction.

  55. William @53

    Thank you for reading and responding to my comment.  Because I generally post late, or late-ish, I often have plenty of reading to do before I can say what I want to say, but, as you rightly imply, I have to do it.  (And clearly you noted that I said ‘blog and comments’, not just comments.)

  57. I am working through this year’s crosswords, so am posting long after the event and no one, apart from the poor blogger, Eileen, will see this. But I wish I could have contributed to the rheum/room debate at the time, because there’s an absolute clincher in a poem said to be by James I, in praise of tobacco: “Thy searching fume Exhales the rheum” (he may not have realized that it caused the rheum in the first place). In other words, rheum rhymes with fume (rewm, as it were).

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