Guardian Cryptic 27,588 by Pasquale

by

A tough challenge despite a quick start, with favourites 10ac, 11ac, 27ac, and especially 24/25. Hadn’t heard of 14/19. Many thanks, Pasquale.

Across
1 APPLIED Directed song with a gentle piano introduction (7)
  LIED=”song”, after A + Piano=”gentle” + Piano
5 RAMESES Old king advances, one first person replacing another (7)
  RAISES=”advances”, with ME=”one first person” replacing I=”another”
9 OPPOS Colleagues work, given retrospective concession (5)
  =’opposite numbers’=counterparts, partners etc
OPus=”work”, plus reversal/”retrospective” of SOP=”concession”
10 MIDDLE AGE Time of life that’s featured in tragedy (6,3)
  the word ‘tragedy’ has MIDDLE [letters] ‘AGE‘
11 BOYS IN BLUE Officers getting negligent little sleeper to admit wickedness (4,2,4)
  =the police
“little” BOY BLUE=”negligent sleeper” from the nursery rhyme [wiki], around SIN=”wickedness”
12   See 20
 
14, 19 APPALACHIAN SPRING Alan is chap involved in energised rapping — American music (11,6)
  =composition by Aaron Copland [wiki] [youtube] 
(Alan is chap)* inside (rapping)*
18 MINCED OATHS Clue to a host offering euphemistic expressions? (6,5)
  MINCED OATHS as a crossword clue would indicate an anagram of (oaths)*, e.g. “a host”
21 TOED Report of contemptible person being kicked (4)
  homophone/”Report” of: ‘toad’=”contemptible person”
22 METACARPAL Dealt with chum needing to collect a vehicle — something in hand (10)
  =bones of the hand
MET A PAL=”dealt with chum”, around CAR=”vehicle”
25   See 24 Down
 
26 IVIES More than one climber is having inner struggle (5)
  IS, around VIE=”struggle”
27 SPOILER Returning engineer flaps about nothing — one who says too much (7)
  =as in spoiling the ending to a story by giving away a twist
reversal/”Returning” of all of: Royal Engineer; plus LIPS=”flaps” around O=”nothing”
28 ENGAGED Busy with aim to embrace something green? (7)
  END=”aim” around GAGE=green plum=”something green”
Down
1 AMOEBA One losing heart when taken in by a business graduate, low form of life (6)
  OnE without its centre letter/”heart”; inside A MBA=”a business graduate”
2 PAPAYA Old man to settle on a tree (6)
  PA=”Old man”, PAY=”settle”, plus A
3 INSTIGATES Starts small educational organisation with one rich philanthropist (10)
  abbreviated/”small” INSTitution=”educational organisation”, plus I=”one”, plus Bill GATES=”rich philanthropist”
4 DEMOB Discharge journalist that’s upset common people (5)
  =demobilise
EDitor=”journalist” reversed/”upset”; plus MOB=”common people”
5 RED MULLET Deter swimming around island for one particular swimmer (3,6)
  =a type of fish
(Deter)* around MULL= Scottish “island”
6 MULE Stubborn person making a mess, wasting day after day (4)
  MUddLE=”a mess”, losing day after day
7 SMASH HIT Two instructions to be violent to achieve great success (5,3)
  ‘SMASH‘ and ‘HIT‘ are both “instructions to be violent”
8 SWEEPING Cleaning waste water up in to-and-fro action (8)
  PEE=”waste water” reversed/”up”; inside SWING=”to-and-fro action”
13 ICE SKATING End of fine game in topping sport (3,7)
  end letter of finE plus SKAT=card “game”, all inside ICING=”topping” of a cake – also, ‘icing’/’topping’ are both slang for ‘killing’
15 PROVENDER One paid US seller for food (9)
  PROfessional=”One paid”, plus VENDER=US seller, vendor
16 SMITHIES Attempts to keep university workshops (8)
  SHIES=”Attempts” around MIT=”university”/Massachusetts Institute of Technology
17 ANGELENO Californian good guy? Individual on the up (8)
  =Los Angeles resident
ANGEL=”good guy”, plus ONE=”Individual” reversed/”on the up”
19   See 14
 
20, 12 CLOSED SHOP  Demand of union prevented trader doing business (6,4)
  double definition: a situation where only union members will be employed; or where a shop is not open for trade
23 ADDLE Bad son kicked out of seat (5)
  son kicked out of sADDLE=”seat”=”
24, 25 WELL I NEVER DID  My friend ultimately finishes on good terms with English composer (4,1,5,3)
  =’My!’, an exclamation of surprise
WELL IN=”on good terms with” + English + VERDI=”Composer”, finishing with ultimate letter of frienD

51 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,588 by Pasquale”

  2. Thanks both. I struggled with the SW quarter. Unlike manehi APPALACHIAN SPRING was the first bit of American music I thought of – it takes all sorts!

  3. Thanks Pasquale and Andrew

    Tricky, particularly in the SW, though I was also held up in the NW by having P?P?? for 2d and thinking “must be POPLAR, I’ll come back to the “lar” bit!”

    I wasn’t familiar with the phrase MINCED OATHS.

    METACARPAL was the standout for me.

    APPALACHIAN SPRING was my FOI. I would suggest that those here and on the Guardian site who haven’t heard it should give it a go – it’s great fun!

  5. I always struggle with Pasquale, and this was no exception. I thought I had managed to finish, but had IBIDS instead of IVIES. LOIs were ANGELENO and MINCED OATHS – like others, I suspect, I spent some time looking for an anagram of ‘Clue to a host’. Favourites were ENGAGED and WELL I NEVER DID. Many thanks to P & m.

  6. Just could not crack the SW of this puzzle; I had PROVIDORE for 15d and STOOLIE for 27a, and stubbornly stuck to both, so could not for the life of me see what fitted for 24d, 25a – and couldn’t work it out from the wordplay either. So I had to come here for the reveal.
    A pity as I enjoyed most of the rest, especially 11a BOYS IN BLUE (like manehi), 7d SMASH HIT and 8d SWEEPING. 14a APPALACHIAN SPRING was a great anagram, though I kept wanting to spell it without the “H”. So there were a few “MINCED OATHS” (18a) from this part of the world! Like muffin I tried POPLAR before getting PAPAYA at 2d.
    Many thanks to Pasquale and manehi.

  7. Aha! It does help with parsing SWEEPING if you have pee instead of wee as the waste water!

    Didn’t know MINCED OATHS (yes, I was looking for a bigger anagram too) or the card game skat, but less recherche than Pasquale usually is. I’ll second the recommendation for Appalachian Spring.

  8. Fooled again by “My”, but I worked 24,25 out from the wordplay. APPALACHIAN SPRING and METACARPAL were write-ins, which gave a good start. SW last corner for me, too.

    Thanks to Pasquale and manehi.

  9. Yes, the Don makes you work. A number of dnks: oppos, Angelino, skat the card game, and minced oaths (my great uncle Jimmy in Lancs, very chapel, used to say ‘flackin arry’ and ‘blocky eck’). And some dimly emerging from the neural depths, e.g. Copland’s piece and Little Boy Blue. Dredging up stuff at the hands of a great setter is a massage, a pleasure. You can feel it keeping the ameloids at bay!

    Thanks Pasquale and Manehi.

  10. Didn’t enjoy this as much as I usually do when it’s Pasquale. Can’t put a finger on it.

    I don’t know if it’s true but I heard a story about an American woman attending a concert which included Appalachian Spring. She was so impressed you wrote to Copland an asked him if he would conduct one of his pieces at concert in her home town. She often organised concerts.

    To her surprise he agreed. However the piece he conducted was completely unlike Appalachian Spring ans somewhat atonal.

    After the concert, the only words that came from the woman was “OH Mis ter Cop land.”

     

     

     

     

     

  12. I can’t see how “oppos” is indicated by “colleagues”, even with manehi’s explanation. Your “opposite number” is usually a rival from another side, and “counterpart” also suggests someone from another organisation, not a colleague.

  13. Struggled with SW, so thanks for your help manehi

    for what it’s worth, i parsed 22a as MET, PAL needing to collect ‘A CAR’

    I liked INSTIGATES, BOYS IN BLUE, ICE SKATING, MINCED OATHS

    i had to get the american music from the anagram, was desperately looking for a type of music

    many thanks pasquale and manehi

  14. Thank you Pasquale and manehi.

    Gosh, that was a hard puzzle – I managed to fill the grid but needed the blog for some of the parsing.

    Like Greg @12, I cannot see how OPPOS is indicated by ‘colleagues’, nor can I find a sentence where I can replace ‘bad’ with ADDLE.

    However, I really enjoyed the challenge even though I am well beyond MIDDLE AGE.

  16. Likewise re age, Cookie, but to my surprise my aged SOED does give ‘addle’ as adjective: ‘rotten or putrid’; ‘producing no egg’. Hey ho.

  19. Re the addle-jective debate. Anyone old enough to have read the ‘Jennings’ books as a child might recall the stock insult “addle-pated clodpoll”, vis:

    “It was clear that Darbishire was not abreast of recent developments, and Jennings lost no time in bringing him up to date. “You great, addle-pated clodpoll, Darbishire, where have you been…” (According to Jennings, page 37).

  20. DNF this as I could not get see ADDLE as bad, surely it would have to be ADDLED or am I missing something: I’m sure I am!!  Apart from that I enjoyed this immensely.  Greg @12 my Dad always referred to his war-time colleagues as OPPOS so I put this straight in, but I agree it is a bit hard to explain.  Many thanks to The Don and to manehi for explaining many word plays I was not sure of.

  21. Apparently, when ELP did a version of Copland’s Fanfare, the powers that be/were said forget it, copyright -wise so someone actually phoned the composer himself who was quite amenable. Never a great fan of ELP (preferred The Nice) but this was pretty tasty.

    Sorry, nothing to do with the puzzle which was one of the best from the Don

  22. argh, failed on “well i never did” because I had angelino, for which the wordplay is nearly as good, just a superfluous “the”.

  23. Thanks to Pasquale and manehi. My experience sounds very similar to others. Generally found it tough, but the SW must have taken longer than the rest of the puzzle put together. Last one were, unsurprisingly given the previous comments, Angeleno and minced oaths. Like S.Panza @ 20, I was also confused with the tense for addle. Nearly gave up a couple of times but got there in the end. I did like instigates and boys in blue and thanks again to Pasquale and manehi.

  24. Thanks to Pasquale and manehi.

    Not too difficult for the Don: the top half went in quickly, the bottom half less so.

    manehi – you may not have heard of Appalachian Spring, but I am sure you have heard it: it contains “Shaker Dance” which is widely known as the tune to “Lord of the Dance”.

    Copland wrote the music for a ballet of that name, not after the Appalachian Mountains, though apparently many people would come up to him and say how perfectly it evoked them.

  25. Thanks to Pasquale and manehi. I had the same difficulties already noted,, and I also did not parse MULE though I did know Mull for RED MULLET from previous puzzles.

  26. All pretty straightforward for a Pasquale. MINCED OATHS were new to me, but fairly clued and easy enough to work out once the crossers were in place. TOED was last in.

    Thanks to Pasquale and manehi

  27. “This here is me old ‘oppo” = British Slang for opposite number, your sweetheart, companion, mate in the armed forces, see marriam-webster.com,dictionary/oppo

  30. Thanks both,

    While ‘oppo’ may originally have meant ‘opposite number’ I think it is quite widely used to mean ‘friend’. (in my mind’s ear, I can hear Denis Waterman using it in Minder or New Tricks.*) OED has it also meaning ‘partner’ or ‘spouse’. A DNF for me as I did not know minced oaths and did a mistaken reveal for toed. I’m not a great fan of self-referent clues like 10 and 18 but otherwise a stimulating offering.

    *But then I blame him for ‘the full Monty’ as well.

  32. Well I never did! Glad to hear that others found this a challenge. I quite like the ‘self-referent’ clues – but only in hindsight! Not heard of minced oaths though it makes sense now and presumably is as in not mincing ones words.
    Enjoyed Little boy blue and the Appalachian Spring. We had the same addle discussion – liked your addle-jective, Bullhassocks @19.. And the Jennings quotation too.
    Thanks all.

  34. I’d never heard of skat, had heard of the others.  I tried poplar and heel too, got nowhere with them.

    I enjoyed MINCED OATHS, BOYS IN BLUE and especially WELL I NEVER.  My LOI was TOED, after I got the T from SMITHIES — after I gave up on introducing a U for University.

    Thanks, Pasquale and manehi.

     

     

  35. A struggle today.  Started off well with Ramses, Metacarpal and Middle Age, but really struggled beyond those.  Mind’s not in the game today.

  36. I enjoyed this.  I am yet another who did not know the term MINCED OATHS.  It was my LOI (I only got the “minced” part after TOED gave me the breakthrough to finally get SMITHIES, and thereby, the needed M), but it also became my CotD after I did a post-solve Wikipedia search of the term and read this great article .  Zounds!! So many TILTs (or technically, TsILT).  [I also now have a better understanding of the phrase “mince words”, as in, “I won’t mince words with you about this.”]  I recall that one of the minced oaths discussed in the Wikipedia article was the cause of great uproar here on 15^2 a few years ago.

    [I am going to have to figure out how to work “I swear by the goose . . .” (or perhaps, “I swear by Saint Chicken”) into a conversation with someone.  Haha!]

    I also enjoyed BOYS IN BLUE, MIDDLE AGE, and APPALACHIAN SPRING.

    Many thanks to Pasquale and manehi and the other commenters.

  37. DNF for me today. I cheated on a number in the southwest.
    I found the supposedly US vender a bit iffy and would have appreciated an added US in 16 to aid with MIT. I had a very slightly different parse for RAMESES – A ME (one first person) in R(I)SES.
    Seemed a bit unfair deliberately clueing ADDLE as an adjective. Couldn’t we have had, say, “Confuse” as the lead in?
    Overall, a good challenging puzzle which I failed to fully appreciate due to lack of time.
    Thanks, manehi and Pasquale.

  38. Thanks for the explanation of “vender”, RogerGS @29. I’m American, and have no memory of ever seeing this spelling.

    If Google’s NGram viewer is to be relied upon, “vender” is actually slightly more common in British English than in US English these days. Their corpus of British books has about one “vender” for every 70 “vendor”s in the last couple of decades. The American corpus has about one per 100.

    The New Yorker has (or at least had) a number of spelling idiosyncrasies. They used to insist on spelling “employe” with one E, for example. I assume, although I don’t know for sure, that they reserved the two-E spelling for specifically female employees. (Again, Google NGram suggests that the one-E spelling is more common in Britain than in the US.) They also kept the dieresis over “cooperate” long after most publications had dropped it.

  39. APPALACHIAN SPRING was my FOI as well, but I’m not only American, I’m a 17 transplanted from the southernmost area of Appalachia.

    There was a lot of fun stuff here (particularly MIDDLE AGE) but I was ultimately defeated by SMITHIES and TOED.

    (To clarify: the clue is fun, not the age).

  40. “Middle age” was superb. I agree with S Panza that the clue for “addle” is really a clue for addled.

    Nevertheless, – Loved it.

  41. Re: ADDLE:  I am *certain* that ADDLE (as opposed to addled) as an adjective has appeared in prior Guardian cryptic/prize puzzles within the reasonably recent (say, last 2 years) past.  Those commenters who excel at locating answers and clues from prior puzzles — beery hiker and featherstonehaugh come to mind, sorry if I am excluding anyone — might be able to confirm this.  I was able to solve it in today’s puzzle solely because a prior puzzle, and the discussion of it here on 15^2, enlightened me to the fact that ADDLE without the -d also is an adjective, meaning bad or spoiled.

    I propose that the following could be a Solver’s (minced) oath, or at least one of them:  “I swear by Saint Chicken that I shall not forget this in future puzzles!!”

  42. BTW, a belated thanks to manehi for providing the link to APPALACHIAN SPRING on YouTube.  I just listened to it (kinda-sorta — I had it on while I was working).  The person who uploaded that video to YouTube included extensive comments on the orchestral suite itself, as well as on the “origin story” for the piece. Nice!

    Here, for your viewing enjoyment, is a picture of a RED MULLET for anyone wanting to know what one looks like.

  43. DaveMc @41

    I too remember “addle” as an adjective in the not-too-distant past. However I’ve not been able to turn it up using the search on this site. I do hope that BH might be able to help out.

  44. muffin @ 43: I suspect ADDLE was a component rather than a solution per se, so there may be a significant number of appearances.

  45. Wow that was tough, eventually lots of reveals to get it done – never heard of Minced Oaths, Angeleno, the Copeland piece, and couldn’t make head nor tail of the parsing of “Well I Never Did” or Middle Age until coming on here. Hope for an easier (and more fun) one tomorrow!

  49. Thanks Cookie. I was remembering it as a solution rather than in a clue, though. I think it provoked the same discussion of it being an adjective as this one did.

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