Guardian Cryptic 27,589 by Crucible

73 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,589 by Crucible”

1. Fun and not too taxing, by Crucible’s standards. But I needed the excellent blog – thanks, TC.

   On 5d – If A and B have been talking about C, out of earshot, A or B might later ask C “Are your ears burning?” i.e EARS HOT. Yes?

    

2. Mr Slow here took SCUBA as being CUB in SA with SA representing the Salvation Army…

   All good fun.

3. Loved this, especially Humble Pie and all the musical references. Needed help with triodes and why chamber (in a gun). Liked the fact that we could get the musicals from the clues rather than just guessing once the first one was in.
   Thanks Crucible and Teacow.

4. Thanks Crucible and Teacow, and JohnR for ears hot which went straight over my head (cue the tea tray). Yes not too hard to fill in but plenty to learn; dnk either of the down musicals, or the s…a in scuba, or the 22d star. Loved humble pie and liked the [tu] es for art in Marseilles.

   Thanks again C and T.

5. Nice puzzle. I parsed SCUBA like chargehand@2. I hadn’t read the Special Instructions until at least half way through, then realised what was going on. I hadn’t heard of HALF A SIXPENCE, but the long anagrams were gettable with a few crossers. Many thanks to Crucible and Teacow.

6. I loved the musicals around the edges and knew three out of four – hadn’t heard of 8d BLOOD BROTHERS, but the crossers and word play helped with the latter. It was fun to work out the rest from the clues. 14a BATISTE and 16a TRIODES were TILTs for me. Somehow I knew about the SA, the militia arm of the Nazis (while SS was the secret police/special forces arm), so I managed to parse 11a SCUBA. Yes, I agree with others re HUMBLE PIE 21a – it was my favourite, Steve Marriott being one of my teenage music crushes, although I must say I preferred the reincarnation of the band as The Small Faces (my earworms today have been “Tin Soldier” and “Itchycoo Park”).

   Thanks to Crucible for a great puzzle with a theme I relished, and to Teacow for a very helpful blog.

7. Enjoyable and not too hard. After getting 1a we guessed the theme and tried the periphery first.

   We didn’t get the subtle depth of HUMBLE PIE either.

   Only grumble is 7d which I can’t see as a definition let alone a double definition.

    

    

8. I read EARSHOT as JohnR did @1. EARS HOT?/EARSHOT

   Needed Teacow’s help for FIERCER. Didn’t know DENEB, or TRIODES  but both solved from wordplay and crossers, so a fair crossie, framed by the surround sounds.

   HUMBLE PIE and LES MISERABLES’ art were delightful.

9. P.S. Also thought 5d EARSHOT was great – I guessed it from “range” as in “within earshot”, but like grantinfreo@4, I had to come here to get the smile evoked when John (the old one)@1 explained the Cryptic Definition further. I really appreciate the way 15² enlarges my enjoyment of solving “The Guardian” cryptics. Thanks to bloggers and commentators for the extra dimensions you provide.

10. [We crossed or I would have acknowledged your post too, paddymelon@8.]

11. Thanks Crucible and Teacow

    Fun, but not very difficult. I hadn’t heard of BLOOD BROTHERS either, but it (and the other undefined ones) was well clued.

    Favourite was EARSHOT, where I did see the double meaning; however I missed “abasement”. I also liked LOOK AFTER as I  built it up from its parts.

    Not keen on “modern” for IN in TWAIN – “in” in this sense means fashionable, not necessarily “modern”.

    pex: a ROUND is a bullet in the chamber of a gun; it’s also a song sung with parts repeating, coming in at intervals ( like Frere Jacques).

12. @pex@7.Round in a chamber as ammunition in a gun. Round as the kind of song like Row row row your boat, where voices (parts) come in at different intervals and can go on forever (not very technical explanation but hope it comes across)

13. @muffin  Snap! Like the way you’re keeping up the French connection with Frere Jacques.

14. paddymelon @13

    Wish I could do accents, though!

15. Humble pie – clue of the month. Thanks Crucible.

     

     

16. And a postscript, while the doubt about IF  in FIERCER didn’t occur to me at the time, it’s a novel (to me) way to clue those 2 letters, much better than the usual ‘provided’.

17. @muffin @14. Moi aussi.  🙂 I do, but just too lazy to cut and paste.

18. Thanks for sorting out OLD TIME which I guessed correctly but didn’t understand either def or wordplay. I didn’t know BATISTE or the abbreviation in SCUBA either, or that diodes had a tri-version, or that BLOOD BROTHERS was a musical. But I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

    I think the Small Faces came before Steve Marriott left to join Humble Pie, then Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood joined, and the not-so-small Faces were born. Great bands, all of them.

19. My 20d was a biff, vaguely thinking Fie! = doubt and c between regina and Elizabeth R. Needed a second look!

20. muffin@14 – I find that the AltGr key puts an acute accent on a vowel, but can’t see an easy way for anything else.

21. Thanks pétérM !

22. Great puzzle so many thanks Crucible.

    Loved the Pie – Stevie m a little fellah with a big big voice. Another tragic rock-‘n’-roll death too young.

    BTW I volunteer doing the vinyl at my local Oxfam shop and just had not one but two copies of their first album in – one near mint and going on eBay soon so watch out pop-pickers!

23. I know there’s still Friday to go but I’d say this must be top contender for puzzle of the week. Doh moments followed by big smiles galore.

24. I made a list of minor irritations. I should have known better. Thanks to John R for seeing the twist in 5d. Only now after reading the blog do I see how clever 7d is. And so on. One of the many reasons why I love crosswords is the daily hope of besting the compiler, in the end only to be bested by them, as indeed I was today. Crucible, I submit. Many thanks to you and to Teacow. I blush to think of what I have undoubtedly missed all those years before there was 15*2. A very strong week so far. My fave today was 25 ac. Unlike many here, I like a tortured surface. My only remaining and minor quibble is the weakness of the second definition in 15d, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I’m missing something.

     

25. A good week in the Graun. even Chifonie was on form.

    Btw I didnt find this easy. But I loved it.

    Thanks for blog.

26. Agree BlueCanary and JinA; just watched the Itchycoo youtube, so fresh-faced and beautiful, all too tragic (along with Jimmy, Jim, Janis et al, and John L, imagine what he’d be singing just now!)

27. Thanks Crucible and Teacow

    Re accents, if you’re using a phone or tablet with an on-screen keyboard, holding down the key for the relevant letter usually brings a pop-up showing more options.

    On a PC using a keyboard with a numeric keypad, ALT+ any number of letter combinations generates accented characters (it doesn’t work with the linear number keys at the top of the board). Google ‘ASCII accented letters’ for a list.

    hth

28. [Thanks Simon S. I’ve bookmarked it.]

29. I’m not a great lover of themed crosswords, but these days every other one is themed, it seems so I just have to get on with it.  But I very much enjoyed this by another of the very talented and witty G setters.  Not that easy for me as I did not know BATISTE and DENEB.  Also after 30 years distilling essential oils I associate a STILL ROOM as a place where one distills, not a pantry.  Abasement was very clever and also held me up.  However, I managed to fill everything in correctly, which is more due to the skill of the setter than any ability on my part.  Getting the 4 long musicals helped a lot, although I had to drag BLOOD BROTHERS up from the recesses: I originally tried to write in Blood Wedding, but had a space left over and then realised that it was not musical theatre anyway.  So many thanks to Crucible for a cracker and Teacow for a lot of help to explain that which I could not!

30. Good fun, easier than some of Crucible’s. Many went in half parsed, so thanks Teacow for the blog. Triodes were part of the make-up of computers when I first met them. And we saw the first production of Blood Brothers in Liverpool (pre-London). The other shows more familiar from school productions (with a grandson involved in music for Les Mis).

31. Thank you Teacow and Crucible. ‘Hair’ in the clue of 22 could be another musical reference, if it hasn’t been pointed out already (and also if it has).

32. Once again I apologise for obtuseness, but why is 21a a cryptic definition? I’m familiar with the group, and the idiomatic expression, but where do basements come into it?

33. Hi poc

    As Teacow indicates in the blog, if you put “a basement” together you get “abasement”, which, colloquially, is HUMBLE PIE

34. poc @32: as Teacow points out in the blog; a basement taken together = abasement meaning to be humbled.

35. You type faster than me muffin!!

36. Thanks to Crucible and Teacow. Great fun. I had trouble with the “still” in STILL ROOM (a term new to me) but otherwise  managed to parse the rest.

37. Thank you Crucible and Teacow.

    Great fun,  especially the clue for EARSHOT after seeing the comment of JohnR (the old one) @1 !

     

38. Thanks to Crucible and Teacow. As others have said good fun all round and not overly easy. I was unsure of round, but another fan of humble pie. Triodes brought back memories because many, many, years ago I used to work on equipment with them and the many other odes. Thanks again to Crucible and Teacow.

39. I’ve never heard of a still room and chill room seemed to fit the clue, consequently didn’t get batiste, which I might have spotted and corrected my mistake except that’s a new one to me too.

40. muffin@32 and S. Panza@33: thanks. I somehow overlooked Teacow’s explanation.

    All in all an excellent puzzle, though I was unfamiliar with STILL ROOM (Chambers has it as one word, which in any case I had never come across) and the BLOOD BROTHERS musical.

41. Thanks JohnR (the old one) @1 for the explanation of 5d – much more satisfactory!

42. Enjoyed this one – HALF A SIXPENCE was first in, but since I couldn’t remember why I knew the title, it took WEST SIDE STORY to see what was going on. BLOOD BROTHERS was the last themer to go, after which the rest fell pretty quickly. BATISTE was familiar (I think from Lady Chatterley!) but STILL ROOM was new to me, easy enough to guess and check. An entertaining puzzle at a nice medium level of difficulty.

    Thanks to Crucible and Teacow

43. Thanks both,

    A real cracker. Anyone else toy with ‘Blues Brothers’ for 8d? There are quite a lot of songs in the film. 12ac scotched that thought. ‘it’s organ, organ all the time with Organ Morgan’.

44. Thanks Crucible and Teacow. I didn’t find this easy either, but I got there in the end. I actually knew DENEB – my brief fascination with astronomy paid off there. Still not sure about ES for “art” in the clue for LES MISERABLES but I guess all’s fair in love and crosswords. Julie in Australia – surely The Small Faces were a precursor to Humble Pie, not a reincarnation ?

45. JohnB @44 If you think of the old English conjugation: I am, thou ART and translate to French (“there”/in Marseilles, as per the clue) this would become je suis, tu ES. Hope that helps. (Also mentioned by grantinfreo @4)

46. Thanks to Crucible and Teacow.

    As usual I blanched at the appearance of a rubric (I think that’s what it’s called) especially mid-week but in the end I found this to be a very Goldilocks offering.  I came over inclined to quibble with the low level of crypsis in EARSHOT only to find (thanks JohnR (the old one)@1) that a warm glow of appreciation was more in order.  Nothing to add to previous offerings but yes, Tyngewick@43, I considered Blues Brothers for a short while (Organ Morgan – don’t get that).

    On a parting note I would rather undergo an unanaesthetised procedure involving an ocular scalpel (that would be a knife for an eye) than sit through LES MISERABLES – I appreciate that I am alone in this.

47. It seemed difficult on the first pass but became easier once I’d got HALF A SIXPENCE – anyone remember the film with Tommy Steele? And then WSS and LM went in straight away. BLOOD BROTHERS took longer. There were other guesses I have to admit so I was grateful for the blog and fancy my missing EARS HOT! I liked LOOK AFTER and FAIR SEX, and HUMBLE PIE was brilliant.
    Thanks Crucible.
    ps Wasnt on parade yesterday thanks to my dog escaping into the fields behind our garden and only returning hours later having terrorised the local rabbits and almost giving me heart failure!
    Did the puzzle in the evening.

48. Alphalpha @ 46. You are not alone !

49. Organ Morgan is a character in Under Milk Wood. (Dylan Thomas)

50. Muffin@46

    Thanks for that.

51. Belated thank to muffin & paddymelon (11 & 12).

    Alphalpha @ 46. As Peter A says ..You are not alone.

    I once watched a film of it on TV to try and understand its popularity and longevity. Alas, I found it torturous.

52. muffin: If you really want to go to town using alt codes visit this site. The compiler obviously didn’t fill his time doing crosswords.

    http://www.mvdmoosdijk.nl/Misc/Altcodes/Alt-codes_for_characters.htm

     

     

     

53. Thanks for that, trenodia. However (after I replied to Simon S) I noticed (remembererd?) that the laptop I use nearly all the time doesn’t have a numeric keypad!

54. Alphalpha @46 No not alone at all!!  In fact I’ll see your Les Mis and raise you The Sound of Music.  Oh dear now I have said it!!

55. Alphalpha @46 No not alone at all!!!  In fact I’ll see your Les Mis and raise you The Sound of Music.  Oh dear now I have said it!!

56. Alphalpha.  In the part of southern Spain where I live, Alfalfa is widely grown to feed Rabbits reared for the traditional Sunday Paella (known around here as simply arroz – rice).

57. muffin @ 53. Are you sure your laptop doesn’t have a “Num Lock” key so that 7, 8 9, U, I, O, J, K, l, M act as a Numeric KeyPad?

58. Mmmm – can’t see a NumLock key, trenodia.

    I was trying to think of a musical that I’ve enjoyed. Difficult, though I did quite enjoy Guys and Dolls (but I love Damon Runyon’s writing!)

59. This became a lot more fun once I finally noticed the special instructions.  Thanks to Teacow for explaining LES MIS and DISCOURSE. I still don’t really get the blood = initiate equivalence although I recognize they are related.

    I did look askance at OLD-TIME which I’m not sure I’m familiar with although I am sure I’ve never heard it used to describe people. I would be much more likely to say “old-timey” but that is generally reserved to describe quaint customs or vintage contraptions of some ilk.

60. If the keys I quoted have numbers in blue against them then you can use them with the alt key.

    If they do have the numbers perhaps seek advice as to how to activate them.

61. Thanks again trenodia – but they don’t!

62. What a pity WEST SIDE STORY wasn’t at 8d, the sort of clue Brendan (remember him?) would have written. I wondered if there were any connection between the chosen musicals – I couldn’t spot one.

     

    Thanks Crucible for an enjoyable Xword and Teacow for the blog.

63. Sorry, my full name disappeared for some reason

64. [S. Panza@55

    I wish you hadn’t said it: now I’ll be plagued by earworms for the rest of the week……

    I think we share a view of what is musical schlock.  Bob Dylan anyone? Or is that a cat+pigeons arroz?]

65. BlueDot@59: ‘to blood’ is a foxhunting term for an initiation ceremony I believe.
    Great crossword, thanks to setter and blogger.

66. Oh, and I think ‘old time music’ is American for what is known as ‘folk’ music in Britain.

67. Happy to be finally getting here late in the day here.  I enjoyed the puzzle, but I did not know the musicals BLOOD BROTHERS or HALF A SIXPENCE, so solving these otherwise undefined clues did not bring the same level of amusement that they might have done otherwise.   LES MISERABLES and WEST SIDE STORY were great, though, and I also really liked ROUND, UNHEARD OF, HUMBLE PIE and ORGAN.  Speaking of which, I did not know Organ Morgan as first mentioned by Tyngewick @43, but Glenn Miller had a song called When Icky Morgan Plays the Organ, if anyone cares to listen to it.

    Julie in Australia @6, thanks for starting the discussion of HUMBLE PIE, the Small Faces, etc.  I always enjoy the “synaptic connections” these puzzles and their discussion here on 15^2 bring to other cultural, historic, scientific, etc. touchpoints.

    Tyngewick @43, I also briefly considered whether Blues Brothers might work for 8d.  It was interesting to me because only just this morning that movie had come up in conversation with my daughter, after we heard the sad news of the passing of the great Aretha Franklin.

    I spotted what appeared to be a possible Nina, “DENICE”, running down the middle (uncrossed) column.  I’m not seeing any connection that name would have to musicals (the four named or otherwise), so it’s probably one of those random things.  A number much smaller than a million — lets say, 6,420 — monkeys on typewriters would presumably come up with it in a jif.

    Many thanks to Crucible and Teacow and the other commenters.

68. [Thanks gladys@18 and JohnB@44 – failure of synapses here, as of course you are right with the chronology, The Small Faces being the first incarnation.
    I concur with the RIP Little Stevie Marriott comments from Blue Canary@22 and grantinfreo@26.
    Thanks also to DaveMc@67; glad you are another who remembers and appreciates a great band and its spin-offs. Thank you for reminding us too of the wonderful role Aretha played in the Blues Brothers, and I am so very upset to learn of the passing of the Queen of Soul who taught us all so much about R-E-S-P-E-C-T!]

69. PeterM @20 What is the AltGr key?

    Never having heard of a stillroom, I googled it, and found that three of the four quotes using the word were about the “stillroom maid.”  Perhaps she was a particularly lowly servant.  I googled her and “servants in a great house” and learned a bit more.

    Gonzo @66 “Old time” is a subset of what is known as “folk music” over here.  It is music, especially instrumental, from Appalachia or the south, often harking back to the 20’s.  It’s an ancestor of bluegrass.

70. Valentine @69

    On my laptop keyboard there is an alt key just left of the space bar; just right of the space bar is a key labelled alt gr. Putting the accents in PétérM was the first time I’d ever pressed it!

71. Valentine @69 – Thanks for that info.  “American folk” is a very apt clue then.  I mentioned earlier this week that I am a child of southern Appalachia but, while I admire the skill that bluegrass requires, I am definitely not a fan, so I doubt I will seek out any old time performances.

72. BlueDot@71

    Don’t make the mistake of confusing old-timey music with bluegrass – the latter is a bore, but the former is charming, usually. Do check out some old-timey stuff, you’re bound to find something to your taste.

73. BlueDot, you probably won’t read this, but just in case — I echo Alphalpha @72.  Old-time music is traditional music, some of it centuries old and some of it newer but faithful to the style.  It’s the music of the people we used to sneer at as “hillbillies”, the music their ancestors brought over from Scotland and England with centuries of hard living added on.  You will find old ballads, plus more ballads about events of the times, and intricate instrumental music on banjo, guitar and fiddle.  It’s well worth a listen.

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