Guardian Cryptic 27,530 by Puck

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27530.

Once I sorted out the order of the keystone clue 16, 17, 14, 15 this fell into place rather handily, with 16D and 17D providing the themes of the puzzle.

Across
7 BULLFIGHT Spooner’s busy wide bay is part of Spanish culture (9)
A Spoonerism of FULL (‘busy’) BIGHT (‘wide bay’).
8 TABBY 17 flap to purchase, we hear (5)
A charade of TAB (‘flap’) plus BY, which is intended to sound like (‘we hear’; oh no, we don’t) BUY (‘purchase’). Puck’s point is that the word BY – by itself – does sound like BUY.
9 UNREADIER Less prepared to find one immersed in a French textbook (9)
An envelope (‘immersed in’) of I (‘one’) in UN (‘a French’) plus READER (‘textbook’).
10 FURRY Like a 17 in light snowfall, when left out (5)
A subtraction: F[l]URRY (‘light snowfall’) minus the L (‘when left out’).
12 FLEECE 16 down‘s jumper, reportedly extremely cute (6)
A charade of FLEE, sounding like (‘reportedly’) FLEA (‘jumper’) plus CE (‘extremely CutE‘). The definition is 16D CON in the sense of deception.
13 APPARENT Dad is back at his job, that’s clear (8)
A charade of AP, a reversal (‘is back’) of PA (‘dad’) plus PARENT (‘his job’ i.e dad’s).
16 CYCLIST Chris Hoy? On vacation, he’s not really famous (7)
A charade of CY (‘Chris HoY on vacation’) plus C LIST (‘he’s not really famous’ – A-listers would be famous).
19 ASTRAND On The Beach, showing in a London street (7)
A charade of ‘a’ plus STRAND (‘London street’), with ‘showing in’ as connective tissue. The Nevil Shute novel, or the film from it, lie just in the surface.
22 NOTECASE Tight Scot, seen heading off without a wallet (8)
An envelope (‘without’) of ‘a’ in NOTECSE, an anagram (‘tight’) of ‘[S]cot seen’ minus the first letter (‘heading off’).
25 RIP OFF 16 down by tearaway (3,3)
A charade of RIP (‘tear’) plus OFF (‘away’).
27 BEAST Former Man U player keeping a big 17, perhaps (5)
An envelope (‘keeping’) of ‘a’ in BEST (George, ‘former Man U player’).
28 SPACE RACE One getting into awful scrape in competition between US and USSR (5,4)
An envelope (‘getting into’) of ACE (‘one’) in SPRACE, an anagram (‘awful’) of ‘scrape’.
29 MOGGY 17, male, tough guy regularly left out (5)
A charade of M (‘male’) plus OGGY (‘tOuGh GuY regularly left out’), fot the generally affectionate name for a cat.
30 PRUE LEITH Restaurateur on TV, judging pie Luther baked (4,5)
An anagram (‘baked’) of ‘pie Luther’. Fortunately an easy anagram, as I had not come across the lady, who, among other acheivements, has been a judge for The Great British Bake-off (at least I know that name).
Down
1 FUNNEL Sport new to the Spanish smoker? (6)
A charade of FUN (‘sport’) plus N (‘new’) plus EL (‘the Spanish’). Think steamships.
2 BLUEBELL Bloomer down phone (8)
A charade of BLUE (‘down’) plus BELL (‘phone’).
3 FIDDLE 16 down‘s daughters must be kept in line (6)
An envelope (‘must be kept in’) of DD (‘daughters’ – this time the double D) in FILE (‘line’).
4 CHEETAH 17 that’s a 16 down artist, say (7)
Sounds like (‘say’) CHEATER (’16 down [CON] artist’).
5 JAGUAR 17 from first half of paper? Yes for the Berliner, primarily (6)
A charade of JA (‘yes for the Berliner’) plus GUAR[dian] (‘first half of the paper’), with ‘primarily’ indicating the order of the particles.
6 OBERON My boss during October only (6)
A hidden answer (‘during’) in ‘OctOBER ONly’. The definition refers to Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
11 OPUS Work featuring duck and Manx 17 (4)
A charade of O (‘duck’, score in cricket) plus PUS[s] (’17’ CAT) minus its tail (‘Manx’).
14   See 16
15   See 16
16, 17, 14, 15 CONCATENATED Party animal, female, has male chained up? (12)
A charade of CON (Conservative, ‘party’) plus CAT (‘animal’) plus ENA (‘female’ name) plus TED (‘male’ likewise).
17   See 16
18 SCAM 16 down’s small flower (4)
A charade of S (‘small’) plus CAM (‘flower’ flowing through Cambridge).
20 REPORTER Journalist writing about beer (8)
A charade of RE (‘about’) plus PORTER (‘beer’ – perhaps a little loose description of the malt liquor).
21 LEOPARD Old man entertained by frisky older 17 (7)
An envelope (‘entertained by’) of PA (‘old man’) in LEORD, an anagram (‘frisky’) of ‘older’.
23 OCELOT 17 in another clue too, but not for anyone to see (6)
An anagram (‘another’) of ‘cl[u]e too’ minus the U (‘not for anyone to see’).
24 ENSIGN Flag officer, Geordie, given lift by Leo? (6)
A charade of EN, a reversal (‘given lift’ in a down light) of NE (‘Geordie’, pertaining to the North East of England) plus SIGN (of the zodiac, ‘Leo’, with the indication by example flagged by the question mark), with two definitions, or maybe one.
25 RACKET Dinner 50% off? It’s a 16 down (6)
The first half (‘50% off’) of ‘dinner’ is DIN.
26 FACETS Bits of info about English sides (6)
An envelope (‘about’) of E (‘English’) in FACTS (‘bits of information’).
completed grid

68 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,530 by Puck”

  1. I took a guess at 17d being CAT and made some progress before finally solving 16/17/14/15. Had to get quite a bit of help from google/wikipedia for the GK/people that I had never heard of: Prue Leith (30) George Best (27a) and Chris Hoy (16a). Other new word today was ASTRAND.
    I was unable to parse 25d and 19a.
    My favourites were 5d, 16a, 21d, 4d (loi)

    Thanks Peter and Puck.

  2. Thanks, PeterO and Puck.

    An enjoyable one today. At first it looked formidable, with so many 16 and 17s. But once I had APPARENT, and a guess at CON and with the last letter probably a D (because of the ED in CHAINED), CON…E..T.D, soon yielded. Stuart Drysdale @ 27, Imogen is certainly getting practice at these heart sinking ones this week.

    The only one I couldn’t parse was also 25d

  3. Another one who didn’t click that half of dinner=racket, doh. I’ve never come across astrand but can imagine it in a poem maybe. Can’t quite reconcile bell and phone in 2d, although bell does become a verb in bell the cat!!

    The duck and tailless puss in 11d were quite cute.

    Thanks PeterO and Puck

  4. I thoroughly enjoyed this; thanks to Puck and PeterO.

    It’s perhaps a shame that the same grid was used for a themed puzzle by Imogen, published only on Wednesday, which also used lots of cross-referencing and which amalgamated the 3-letter lights

  5. My heart sank when I saw all the references to 16 and 17. We seem to have had quite a few of these puzzles recently. But it wasn’t as painful as I expected. Unreadier isn’t a word that trips off the tongue – not off mine anyway – though I did arrive at it from the clue. And I hadn’t heard astrand before. Just one real quibble/query – I couldn’t parse 24d and I’ve always thought of Geordie as referring to a person from the NE, not to the area itself. Thanks to Puck and PeterO.

    Grantinfreo@3 it’s common in the UK to hear people say they’ll give someone a bell or maybe even bell someone so it (sort of) works.

  6. @michelle – whatever about Prue Leith and Chris Hoy, you’ve never heard of the greatest footballer of all time??!!

  7. My experience was fairly much the same as described in the first paragraph in the first post by michelle@1. [That’s not the first time we have been in sync, michelle, we must be similar solvers.] The cat and con themes were good fun.
    My COTD was 7d OBERON.
    Thank you to Puck for the enjoyment and PeterO for the explanatory solve, and to other participants for sharing your thoughts.

  8. [PS michelle, I did differ in my solve as I knew BEST the footballer for 27a – remarkable as he is probably the only UK footballer I do know, but had no idea his team was Manchester United until I read the clue and guessed BEAST as a big cat from the crossers. I also thought his first name was Pete, so humblest apologies to George, The_Big_Indian@6, and all British footie fans – and of course sorry to The Beatles’ first drummer!]

  9. Thanks Puck and PeterO

    I was so irritated by BY sounds like BUY in TABBY that I nearly threw it aside (I don’t buy the BY by itself sounds like “buy” explanation). I’m glad I didn’t, as the rest was good, and TABBY did give me CAT and hence the long one. CYCLIST was my favourite.

    I’m another who didn’t parse RACKET.

  10. I don’t think I have ever finished a Puck so quickly, but I really enjoyed this one – a lovely puzzle full of wit and ingenuity. 25 was last to be parsed, but couldn’t be anything else.

    Thanks to Puck and PeterO

  11. I loved this. The dual theme of 16d and 17d was very clever.

    Favourites however were both non-themers: 7a and 6d, the former for the (implied) use of “bight”, a lovely word.

    (I had an initial doubt about BY/buy, but decided it did work for the reason given by PeterO.)

  12. Julie @8
    Pete Best was a drummer with The Beatles before they hit the big time and Ringo Starr got the gig. You may be thinking of him.
    Not my favourite puzzle: ‘unreadier’ and ‘astrand’ struck me as very forced, but other clues were enjoyable.
    About time we had an Arachne or another Nutmeg please.

  13. Thanks Peter O and Puck I enjoyed the double theme but had to resort to fifteensquared for some parsing.

    Was ‘yes for the Berliner’ also a comment on the paper’s former format?

  14. PeterO: An anagram (‘another’) of ‘cl[u]e too’ minus the U (‘not for anyone to see’).

    Should the not be there?

    Thanks to you and Puck.

  16. I don’t normally get very far with Puck but managed to finish this one. Really enjoyed the feline fun too.

  18. The_Big_Indian@6
    Come to think of it, I have heard of the footballer BEST (and Pele) via crosswords – but I had no idea what team he played for.

    Julie@8 and The_Big_Indian @12
    I have heard of Pete Best of Beatles fame!

    [PS Julie, we might be similar solvers due to both of us being from Australia. Not sure if I must use brackets so will do just in case]

  19. Lovely puzzle, although took some time to get into. I also thought TABBY clue a wee bit odd. Favourites were CYCLIST, OCELOT and CONCATENATED. Many thanks to Puck and PeterO.

  21. Jam @14: if a U-certificate is “for anyone to see”, then the “not” removes it from “clue too”.

    Manx gave the cat theme away to me. Like others, I’ve never heard of Prue Leith and couldn’t have said which teams George Best played for.

    Not a fan of included clues, but I did like OBERON, so my thanks to his sidekick and to PeterO for the blog.

  23. Opus was my way into this. Held up by carelessly entering underdone at 9a which meant cheetah took time . Otherwise fun and pretty quick

  24. Thanks for the blog, PeterO.

    What a lovely puzzle!

    My favourite was 6dn, too: ‘my boss’ immediately called to mind Puck’s stunning clue in puzzle 25,704 in 2012, which, for me, is up there with Araucaria’s classic long allusive anagrams and is prominent in my little book of all-time top favourites, I have shown no shame in having quoted it several times before and we have a number of newer contributors who may have missed it, so I have absolutely no shame in doing so again. I know JinA, for one, will appreciate it.

    ‘As I said in 15, 27, 4, 23*: “Funny farm? The whole lot are dolts, boss!” (4,4.5,5,7,2)’   [* A Midsummer Night’s Dream]

    Many thanks, as ever, to Puck, for considerably brightening my day.

  25. Thanks Peter, especially as I, like others, was held up by 25 and needed your insight there.

    I think ‘DIN’ may be rarely used in speech these days, although it has obvious cruciverbial uses. In fact, the only person in recent yimes I’ve ever heard using it regularly is Alan Bennett, which probably says something about its currency among the hip and happening of the UK.

  27. [Thanks, Eileen, so good to be reminded of our own mortality – and foolishness! Inspired by you, I will now start my “favourite clues” list.]

  28. Thank you Puck and PaterO.

    Great fun.  Managed to solve CONCATENATED early on, then rushed in with DIDDLE at 3d, but it would not parse – had “Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle” going through my mind…

    I nearly threw my Collins dictionary in the bin the other day because it did not give D for daughter, only S for son – luckily I did not for it seems to be the only reasonably sized dictionary that gives ASTRAND.

    The clue for JAGUAR was super, thanks Bart Edmondson @13 for reminding me of the old Berliner format!

  29. Here is an extract from David Copperfield, Chapter 47 containing ASTRAND

    “There were some boats and barges astrand in the mud, and these enabled us to come within a few yards of her without being seen.”

  30. Hah! I’d assumed 25d was something to do with Raclette missing an L for 50, but obviously the spelling isn’t right and still leaves the % to deal with.

    Missed the backward Geordie in 24 as well.

  31. I was expecting more complaints today. I enjoyed this but it was done within an hour unlike yesterday which was a 3 hour struggle. I’d be interested to know how quickly the regular contributors complete a crossword which perhaps is designated ‘rather straightforward ‘ or ‘on the easy side for x’.

  32. I spent so long on 9a thinking of variations of ‘Cahier’ (French for Textbook) with one, i, a, etc that I nearly missed the more obvious Un-Read(i)er.  Top left was the last corner I completed.

     

    Damn you GCSE French …..

  33. Facts I have deduced from the Guardian cryptic crossword, #95: there exists a TV chef called Prue Leith. Loved the cat theme, just what I needed to cheer me up.

    Couldn’t parse RACKET – thanks!

  34. Thanks to Puck and PeterO. A very enjoyable solve for me which went in steadily. I do not know how I managed it but 16d etc was the last one in. After geting cyclist and a couple of other clues it became obvious that 16 was con and 17 cat. The rest fell readily and I did not bother with the long one until the end. I also liked Oberon and jaguar but the were lots of other nice clues. Thanks again to Puck and PeterO.

  35. Thanks both,

    I very much enjoyed this and its clever clues. 3d defeated me as I confused my 16 with my 17 and wrote in ‘tiddle’ as a singular version of ‘Tiddles’ for a cat with a weak thought that a tile might be considered to be some kind of line. Thanks for the parsing of 25d which also defeated me.

  36. As an American, I have naturally never heard of Prue Leith or Chris Hoy, and in fact didn’t even see the parsing of the ‘cyclist’ clue, but still managed to finish.  If you have a feel for crosswords, the ‘well, that must be it’ approach can be highly effective….if you don’t put in a wrong word and get stuck.

    It was really most clever to separate the theme word in accordance with its cryptic parsing – I’ve never seen that before,

  37. What a joyful puzzle – smiles by about half the clues as much for their fun as their construction. Like others OBERON is my stand out clue – it’s not often an embedded word has such a simple and relevant surface. It’s not worth mentioning any quibbles as they didn’t take the shine of a sparkling solve for me.
    Many thanks to Puck and PeterO, especially for the parsing of OCELOT and RACKET – both of which eluded me.

  38. Thanks to Puck and PeterO.

    Not too difficult for Puck – my entry was via 11dn. Like others I loved 6dn and the former Guardian reference at 5dn.

    Prue Leith is well known to me from numerous events I have gone to over the years where her company is the caterer.

  39. Thanks to Puck and PeterO. Lots of fun. I somehow managed to get the con and cat early on so I got off to a good start. Thanks to previous puzzles, I did know George Best and even Chris Hoy (from sports headlines), but like others not PRUE LEITH (though the anagram did eventually yield). I’m another who could not parse RACKET, and my LOI was SCAM after I ran through my mental list of all those three-letter options for a river.

  40. Stared at this for a while with only APPARENT and CYCLIST- which I couldn’t parse- going in and then I got CONCATENATED and was on a roll. Quickest solve of the week for me and,in the end, one of the most enjoyable.
    Thanks Puck.

  41. I was rather tickled by the realisation (after finishing) that CON+CAT+ENA+TED is itself a concatenation!

    I did wonder if UNREADIER and ASTRAND were real words. Even as I type, my spellchecker is querying them and suggesting UNREAD and STRAND instead. But I trust compilers to refer to those large stacks of dictionaries they are rumoured to possess.

    It must be a former life in IT, but I do like an elegant piece of self-reference (or recursion), as well as concatenation. So 6d was another good one for me. Thanks to Puck for all the fun.

    And I couldn’t parse 25d either, so thanks to PeterO for some much needed enlightenment.

  42. That was a lot of fun for me. Finished it quicker than normal (and I rarely finish). Having ‘one clue to name them all’ plus two themes could have been daunting. Like Auriga @21, Manx (plus flap) confirmed cat quickly. Add con and the key clue was solved quickly. Still needed help from the blog for some parsing but I have a smile on my face as I consider completing this one as progress, on my terms.

    Thanks to Puck for a lovely puzzle and to Peter O for a really helpful blog. His clear explanations really help those of us looking up at that steep learning curve.

  43. Oh and to Peter O, porter is definately a beer. To quote the late great Michael Jackson (of beer hunter fame, not the late popstar): “Long before I ever drank beer, let alone devoted my life to it, I knew that Porter was a mystery. No style of beer has loomed quite so large, or so long, in the history of Britain and Ireland”.

    And a nice drop it is too.

  45. I am surprised that 25d caused so much trouble – my English is a fossilised form from 55 years ago, “Stop that dreadful din” was a frequent request of teachers at school and parents, I do not remember the word racket being used much in this context.

  46. Thanks to Puck and PeterO. Puzzle of the week for me, you don’t often see twin themes with neither requiring the assistance of Wikipedia.Add for many of you, OBERON was my favourite too. My apologies to Eileen for being to lazy to look up her quotation !

  47. Well as I say ‘feast or famine’…I didn’t get the long clue straight away but I got the 17d bit and then later the 16d bit so a ‘nearly finished’ (Albeit not always parsed!) For me…which for a Friday is a miracle!

  48. Hi JohnB @46 – no apology necessary; I don’t think I blame you! it’s long enough since I mentioned it now for me to give you the answer.

    It’s an anagram [funny] of FARM THE WHOLE LOT ARE DOLTS BOSS: LORD, WHAT FOOLS THESE MORTALS BE!

  49. Great fun – all the more so for completing it in warm sunny weather on a park bench.
    It’s all been said. My favourite clue was OBERON, and my second was CYCLIST.
    Thanks to Puck and PeterO.

  50. Lots of feline fun, and I am very much pro the many CONs too. OBERON, as many have said, a lovely clue: not difficult but clever and fair. OCELOT and Chris Hoy on vacation also raised a smile. Surprised George BEST not known to some: a true football great. Thanks P and P.

  51. Great fun, thanks!

    Call me dumb – especially as no-one else has asked – but why does “not for anyone to see” mean no U in the 23d anagram?

    If I hadn’t back-formed CAT from Manx, I’d have struggled to get the long clue.

     

  52. Toneyvr

    The U classification by the British Board of Film Censors means “anyone can see it” (I forget exactly what the U stands for – Unrestricted perhaps?), so “not for anyone to see” means “take out the U”.

  53. Cleverly themed and it took me little while to work out various abstractions.  Cats, I’ve known many in my life.  Cons, I’ve had a spate of ‘Windows’ calls…

    And as my lovely doctor says to me, “ah, well. Just a slow brain day. Don’t worry.”  So I don’t.

    Good puzzle.  Take til alt.

  54. Cleverly themed and it took me little while to work out various abstractions.  Cats, I’ve known many in my life.  Cons, I’ve had a spate of ‘Windows’ calls…

    And as my lovely doctor says to me, “ah, well. Just a slow brain day. Don’t worry.”  So I don’t.

    Good puzzle.  Tak til alt.

  55. Oops, sorry.  Posted twice.  Trying to be smart and not succeeding.  ‘Tak’ simply means ‘thanks’ in my native language.  I forgot to ignore the blessed spellcheck, hence ‘take’

    Enjoy the weekend

     

  56. Thank you muffin! That would be G over The Pond here; no wonder I didn’t twig. One I’ll have to remember.

  59. I’ll start by saying I did get through this in decent time… but… am I the only one who **just groans** when they open the puzzle and see that almost all the clues are cross-referenced to one single other clue? Enough already for a while… 🙁

  60. No, you’re not. But you cannot blame the setter. Today’s did a really good job [althought the double-theme led very much to obvious words].

    About a year ago, I heard the editor say that he wasn’t that keen on themed crosswords day after day because the average solver doesn’t want that.  Now I am not fully sure that cross-referenced crosswords like this one can be called themed but probably they can.

    We enjoyed the crossword but it was almost Monday-ishly easy [for us, that is].  With joined forces it was more or less a write-in, I’m afraid, all over just a bit too quickly.

    The gateway clue was more or less the first one in thanks to my solving partner – perhaps it would have been different if it hadn’t been so.

    Therefore I am a bit ambiguous. Very well written but.

    I think I am with muffin when it comes to using a homophone in 8ac (TABBY). Technically fine, probably, but it does not completely feel right.

    Many thanks to PeterO & Puck.

     

     

  61. Muffin@52: I hope it’s not too late to thank you for your help yesterday – I was out for the rest of the day and didn’t spot it.

    As to today’s crossword I struggled a bit for a while and then it just flew in, albeit late in the day.  Thanks to many contributors for various elaborations and to Puck and PeterO for the fun.

  62. Umm, surely the parsing of 24D is a double definition and a clue. A ‘flag officer’ is an admiral. A flag is an ensign, an officer is an ensign, and the rest is the clue, no?

  63. No-one else has questioned it, so I suppose I must be stupidly missing something obvious, but how is ‘tight’ an anagram indicator?

  64. Andrew Sceats @63,  ‘tight’ can mean ‘(very) drunk’ and that’s how you should look at it here.

  65. HELP! Could someone kindly put me out of my misery: can’t figure out CY from Chris Hoy on vacation??
    Hi Andrew, I assumed it was ‘tight’ in the meaning of drunk, also us English think the Scots are ‘tight’ as in mean with their money, which makes it a very neat clue I think.

  68. For Canadians, the Guardian puzzles often have some nearly impossible answers. On average about six or seven, though the recent one about British racecourses was much worse. That’s ok, I know I’m not the target audience, but I still enjoy trying. I’m commenting so late here because the Toronto Star recently switched from a Canadian setter (Caroline Andrews) to adopt this one via syndication. This one was in this past Sunday’s edition.

    Here is my list of “British” things that no Torontonian could reasonably be expected to know:

    Geordie (NE England?)

    George Best

    Chris Hoy

    Prue Leith

    I’m glad I got “concatenation” though, since there were so many references to “cat” and “con”. But I had to look up the word-play explanation here.

    Thanks to Puck for the puzzle, PeterO for the explanations, and everyone else for their clarifications and opinions!

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