Guardian 27,626 / Tramp

68 comments on “Guardian 27,626 / Tramp”

1. Thanks Tramp and Eileen. A fine end to an excellent set of cruciverbal weekdays.

   Just one minor amendment Eileen, you need the “a” from ‘up a shot’ for the anagram fodder in 19,5.

2. Had Settle for 26 across, so couldn’t fathom 20d. Interesting too that although this is a Ryder Cup theme, none of the answers in the grid would tell you that. Wedge could refer to cheese, and as for Bogy…

3. I think the A is missing from PRIMARY COLOUR.

   Golf not my strong point, but clues were fair.

   Thanks Tramp and Eileen.

4. Thanks, KLColin @1 – fixed now.

5. Thanks Tramp and Eileen

   This should have been right up my street, but in fact I didn’t enjoy it all that much. To start with, the grid was unfriendly, with only three squares linking the top and the bottom of the puzzle.

   ABUTMENT was the only word a wordsearch turned up for 12a, but I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t see “rest” = LEAN in 7d, “hole” = SPOT in 14d, or the “bear” in 16d.

   I had SETTLE for 26a. Works nearly as well (it’s a town in Yorkshire that some American friends insisted on calling “Seattle”).  I eventually changed it as I couldn’t find anything for 20d.

   Favourite was CHALLENGES.

6. (We crossed, Ronald @2)

7. Sorry, Eileen. The field was blank when I started typing!

8. Auriga @7 – I crossed with you, too!

9. Yep, couldn’t agree more, Eileen, superb puzzle. Got held up on a few, particularly 10, 17a and 3, 14, 16d, but all the more satisfying when the pennies dropped.

   Thanks very much Tramp and Eileen, enjoy the weekend.

10. Many thanks for the superb blog, Eileen, and the very kind words. I don’t think I’m a master at anything. I think “meeting” is part of the definition at 12

    muffin: There are only three cells linking the top and bottom halves of the grid, but, as you will have spotted, there are two solutions that are split across both halves; I think that’s reasonably generous.

    Neil

11. “SYZYGY” is a lovely word, and one I have dreamed for years of being able to put down on a Scrabble board (but it needs a blank for one of the “Y”s). I’ve often wondered how it would be clued in a crossword – and now I know how an expert does it!

    DNF for me as, not being a fan of the theme, 9a was right over my head. The rest was a pleasant solve.

    Thanks, Tramp and Eileen

12. I was another who had SETTLE FOR 26ac (the Alan Bennett influence), and therefore SETTEE and CRUISE were last ones in. Brilliant article today by Andy Bull on the WAGS dimension of the event. Brilliant puzzle too.

13. Thinking about things further, perhaps this puzzle could have been made more Ryder Cup richly themed, with Bogey being the starting point for the cluing of 16 ac, and something more made out of TEE in the formulation of 26 ac, that might have set it apart from Settle being a valid answer

14. I agree with everything you say, Eileen, about the clever way Tramp weaves his themed names into clues and manages to find the right words and phrases that give him those opportunites in the first place. CURRY POWDER, PRIMARY COLOUR and ERUPTIONAL are the clues I am particularly referring to. FOREST was brilliant too.

    I liked also some of the short but tricky definitions given for some of the answers: ‘taxes’ for CHALLENGES, ‘cut’ for REAP and ‘up’ for EXCITED.

    I once heard a setter say that SYZYGY is the hardest word to write a clue for. Well, we have a good clue here!

    Like so many others, I first had SETTLE at 26a SETTEE, but of course (1) you have to know Settle as a place (a small town in North Yorkshire) and (2) it doesn’t cross CRUISE going down!

    Another excellent crossword in a great week.

    Many thanks to Tramp and Eileen.

15. Yet another of those themed crosswords where you don’t realise how much you know on a particular subject until someone clever writes a whole lot of clues on it and all sorts of things emerge from your memory banks

    Thanks to Tramp and to Eileen

16. Thanks both.
    I think that “spot” should be in capitals in 14d, not “hole”

17. Oh dear, more careless errors. Thanks and apologies, Tramp @10 [I love the ‘I think’ 😉 ] and Shirl @16.

18. Tramp @10

    Valid point!

19. Fantastic use of theme and great surfaces.

20. Solved scenic while the printer was cranking (yes, paper and pen) and thought ‘canter’, but not so fast. Like Eileen, I then groaned at the golf references. And I have ‘slow!’ written next to 3, 6 and 19/5, ‘dnk’ next to 9, and ? next to LOI 17, at which I stared for as long as the entire rest of the puzzle took, and still didn’t parse after the p sort of d’ed (thanks Eileen).

    I knew syzygy, having noticed this wonderfully weird last ‘ess’ word in my Collins before. And I thought eruptional was even more erk! than yesterday’s abettal, but hey ho, forgiveable amid such creativity.

    Solved 21a pretty much at a glance, but felt too shy to write it in until all crossers in and so inescapable; not out of prudery–and I know sex (‘it’, ‘sa’, FA, etc) and man bits (ball, nut, gonad, etc) are fair game– but nevetheless it felt so fraffly intime.

    All in all lots of stimulation and enjoyment. Thanks Tramp and Eileen.

21. muffin @5

    Sorry you didn’t like this so much.  I just wanted to comment on ABUTMENT.  It was one that I got purely from the wordplay because I couldn’t think of any word that would go in there that would match any possible indication in the clue.  I had the U and M to help me, and the four component parts came readily to me.  I mention this partly because we were discussing the various possible approaches to solving a clue and which of them worked best for us individually.

    (Eileen, the definition of ABUTMENT is ‘meeting at the end’ [where ‘meeting’ is a noun].)

22. Unusually for Tramp a little subject knowledge was required here, but although golf is not my favourite sport it was all familiar. An odd mixture of the brilliant and a few odd words dictated by awkward crossers. Fortunately I had all the crossers before thinking of SETTLE so didn’t fall into that trap.

    Thanks to Tramp and Eileen

23. Alan B – already corrected, after Tramp’s gentle comment @10. 😉

24. Further to Abutment @21 is “T” a standard definition for “tense” – don’t remember seeing it before

25. Eileen @23

    Oops – sorry.  Somehow I missed that bit of Tramp’s comment, and ‘meeting’ wasn’t underlined when I looked!

26. Meant to add: liked the topical theme even though you have to have Pay TV to get the Ryder Cup in Oz

27. Coincidence of the day: my FOI was Granddads. Got it at almost exactly the same time that I became one!

28. Congratulations, Blaise! Not so sad, then?

29. Thanks Tramp; really great use of all the names to produce a very fine crossword.

    Thanks to Eileen for a very good blog. I failed to properly parse BELARUS, so thanks for that.

    Shame about FRED Couples, although luckily I knew him anyway. I really loved the misdirection with Tom CRUISE, and I particularly liked GRANDDADS and EXCITED. I spent ages on the latter trying to parse something going up, doh!

30. Tramp is an accomplished setter and there are some great clues here but what is going on at the bottom? 26 seems to be an unfinished clue and both the definition and wordplay for 27 are poor (that it’s a hard word to clue is no excuse).

    Lots to like about the rest though, thanks to Tramp and Eileen.

     

31. If I can work out how to pronounce it syzygy will be used in conversation today. I hereby challenge Tramp to get a previous favourite ‘zugzwang’ into his next offering.

    Thanks for an inventive and timely puzzle.

32. I am no fan of golf, but as Eileen and others have already said, specialist knowledge was not necessary to enjoy this a great deal (except, as noted, perhaps for 9a FRED). I had many favourites most of which have been highlighted by others, but I would like to add 17a REATTEMPT, 1d PARLOUR and 8d SALAD DRESSING.

    I’d like to echo Eileen’s congratulations to Blaise@27, and to add that most GRANDDADS I know are happy not sad and many are not so old either.

    Despite your reported reluctance to write in 21a CLITORIS, grantinfreo@20, I did have to smile at your choice of words of approval immediately after that comment: “All in all lots of stimulation and enjoyment”.

    Thanks to Tramp for an excellent challenge and for coming on board to comment, and to Eileen for her usual high-quality blog.

33. Ta JinA, yes sensitivity (cultural of course!) and counterpoint.

34. Meant to say Well spotted JinA: cultural versus sensory sensitivity. Too many shirazes, will shut up now, Gx.

35. Robi@29  I’ve never heard of Fred Couples, but the answer had to be FRED (I assumed that it was some arcane golf terminology for mixed couples).

    Trismegistus@11 Syzygy has been my favourite word since I first came across.  Lovely to see it clued here.

    I think I found this the easiest crossword of the week, which is unusual for a Friday.  Eastern side went in quickly, and was then helped across to the west be 23,1a, which would support Tramp@10.

    I was another SETTTLEr, which held me up in the SW, so it took me far to long to get CRUISE.

    A very enjoyable crossword.  Many thanks to Tramp and Eilieen.

36. I was another who confidently wrote(in pen)  SETTLE as it is a wooden bench AND a place in Yorkshire

    So when it came to CRUISE-plan B

    Thanks for great puzzle Tramp and for great blog, Eileen.

37. Robert @30 – I (as did Eileen) took the definition in 26 to be ‘Place to rest.’ Collins gives this definition for SYZYGY: ‘either of the two positions (conjunction or opposition) of a celestial body when sun, earth, and the body lie in a straight line.’ 

38. Thanks to Tramp and Eileen. Great fun. I wasn’t confident about the terms ABUTMENT and especially ERUPTIONAL but had no trouble parsing them.

39. Thanks to Tramp and Eileen. I was not on Tramps wavelength today and a DNF for me. Three quarters went in fine but I got completely bogged down in the SW. This was not helped by convincing myself that Settle must be correct. Apart from nightspot, bogy and the incorrect Settle, the others remained unsolved. I do not know why I struggled in retrospect, maybe just an off day. I thought the anagram for curry powder was great and thanks again to Tramp and Eileen.

40. Robi @30 Re 26 Eileen wrote ‘&lit?’ so clearly wasn’t sure about it either. You have given the definition for opposition as a qualifier for syzygy rather than as a synonym of it (i.e. opposition describes the relative position of two of the bodies, not the fact of three of them being aligned)

41. A top class puzzle as always from Tramp and my favourites and sensitive clues have been mentioned. I also ticked ORCHID. I avoided the SETTLE trap because of the golf theme suggesting TEE. My loi was REATTEMPTS – did no one else hold themselves up by having NANOMETER rather than -RE? Many thanks to Tramp and Eileen.

42. WhiteKing @41

    I wondered when NANOMETRE might be mentioned.  It was one of my first solutions, but I stopped writing it in after the ‘T’ in case the setter was naughty and not using the British English word for this measure.  So for me REATTEMPTS served to confirm what I hoped was the correct answer.

43. Chambers also gives “Conjubction or opposition”, without qualification, as the definition of syzygy.

    My 1976 SOED says “now extended to include opposition”, so I think Tramp’s home and dry.

    Thanks Tramp and Eileen

44. Simon S @43 The fact that opposition is a form of syzygy is not in question and will be supported by any dictionary, I wrote that it was poor (not wrong) and any number of proofs that it is an un-indicated definition by example are unlikely to change that view.

45. Not a golfer, not a problem – no unheard-of golf clubs or funny birds. I didn’t get FRED though.

    I loved all the greens, and enjoyed the thematic &lit @26a.  I thought aha pangram! with syzygy, but no.

     

    Many thanks Tramp and thanks Eileen

46. Despite my almost complete ignorance of golf, I loved this puzzle. Interestingly, my two favorite clues, 26a and 27a, seem to be coming under question by others here. No accounting for tastes, I guess!

    “Opposition” is definitely a valid definition for “syzygy”. The latter word isn’t in common use in astronomy anymore, but the former is, with the same meaning as one of the forms of syzygy. An astronomer would say “Mars is in opposition”, meaning that Mars is in one of the positions denoted by the noun “syzygy”.

    I don’t see the need for a question mark after &lit for 27a. It seems like a perfect &lit to me.

    I also ticked 11a as particularly cleverly constructed.

    My only puzzlement is the definition in 18d. There must be some meaning of either “fairway” or “trolley” that I’m not familiar with, as I can’t see the connection.

47. Thanks to Tramp and to Eileen. Ted, A TROLLEY is likely to be seen on a fairway as a popular alternative to carrying a heavy bag of clubs around the course. Anyway I thoroughly enjoyed this one and learned a couple of new quotes in the process. I was yet another who went for SETTLE rather than SETTEE so I had to come here to find what 20d should be. I never thought I’d find a clitoris in a crossword – cynics would say a man would be unlikely you find one anywhere else either, but I couldn’t possibly comment…..

48. Ted @46: as others are probably even now hastening to point out, most golfers wheel their clubs-filled bag around the course on a trolley. Or their caddies do so for them. Mostly on the fairway rather than in the rough (too rough) or on the greens (too vulnerably smooth). But many in America go round the course, complete with clubs, on motorised buggies, thus nullifying the fitness benefits; indeed some courses ban you from playing if you go on foot – perverse indeed.

49. .. a couple of new WORDS in the process ! Bloomin’ autocorrect !

50. Thanks, JohnB and quenbarrow. Although I’m not a golfer, I know precisely the thing you mean. I’m in the US, and I don’t think we’d call it a trolley here, although I don’t know what we would call it.

51. Never heard of FRED Couples,and I’m afraid I’ve never heard of Ian Poulter either. I managed ERUPTIONAL from the latter but FRED was a guess. Needless to say,I have no knowledge of golf but,mostly, this didn’t matter – although you’d need some for FRED!
    I didn’t enjoy this as much as most of you seem to have done but the puzzle was mostly Ok.
    Thanks Tramp.

52. Ted @46 Flogging a dead horse I know but…you write that it’s definitely a definition then qualify that by explaining how it’s just an example.

53. Typically super puzzle, I thought.

    Did anyone else spot the rather elegant gender balance, with CLITORIS (Greek for “key”) and ORCHID (Greek for “testicle”)?

    I live in the South Downs, great orchid country, and I love the writing of Rabelais.  I like to English the list of the various flowers I look out for between May and July:

    Common spotted ballocks

    Early purple ballocks

    Pyramidal ballocks

    Fragrant ballocks

    and so forth about another dozen times.

54. Goujeers @53,

    Sadly I never studied Greek.  Neither Greek nor Latin were compulsory at my school, thank goodness, and after the knots I tied myself in when learning Deutsch I decided that adding a third language when the opportunity arose would probably be an unwise move.   Shame really, ‘cos I could have studied Russian for a couple of years if I had been bolder !

55. Concerning SYZYGY: I commented that it was a good clue despite the shortage of opportunities this word offers to the setter.  I overlooked that ‘opposition’ is clearly a definition by example, and cryptic grammar conventions require an indication of it.  If a ‘?’ is to be the indicator, it is best placed after “guys” in place of the colon.

    But whether one cares much about this technicality is another matter.  My attention was drawn to the excellent surface of this clue, with “guys” and ‘Yankee’ combining to give it a transatlantic flavour.

56. JohnB@54: neither did I, though I’m attempting Greek in my retirement as I enjoy the dramas in translation. I worked in medical research and public health statistics for years, and I love the plants and wildlife in this country. I learnt tthe meaning of  “orchid” from the operation “orchidectomy”, and “clitoris” from a normal interest in sex. As a crossworder I’m interested in everything about words.

57. Goujeers @53 Yes, I was going to comment on the connection CLITORIS snuggling up with ORCHID on the same line, wondering if it was a coincidence, but as I have been out all day, you got there before me. Perhaps Tramp could have brought “private part for man” into it.

    LOI for me was also REATTEMPT. I was trying to fit something into RT, but I couldn’t parse it

    Thanks Tramp and Eileen

58. Bear of little brain @35 yep loved SYZYGY since about the age of 11-12 when I was an astronomy nerd…

    Forgot to mention I too was a SETTLE person – thought it was a dd with the 2nd definition being an &lit – a settle is not just a place in Yorkshire, but also a wooden bench with a high back (so settle = “A place to rest”, and settle = to rest”)

59. [Ted@ 50. Thanks for the comment about binaries in Arachne’s crossword two days ago. ‘As an astrophysicist, I can attest that “binaries” to mean “binary star systems” is common usage in astronomy. It’s true that this usage wouldn’t be known to lots of people, but that’s OK’.

    That’s interesting. I can’t really claim to be an astrophysicist, though I have an MSc in Radio Astronomy, and I completed a module on Astrophysics (Stellar Evolution and Exoplanets) with the Open University a couple of years ago. I checked that text, and another book The Cosmic Perspective by Bennet et al, and, of course, Google, before making my comment, without finding any mention of “binaries” to mean “binary star systems”, so I though I was on fairly safe grounds. The only thing I found was a reference to the term being historical

     

    ]

     

60. Fabulous Friday fun from Framp! . . . er, Tramp!!  I had tick marks all over the place, including for CURRY POWDER, PRIMARY COLOUR, SALAD DRESSING, FOREST, WEDGE, FRED, and BOGY.  I also loved NANOMETRE, but because I carelessly wrote the answer in using the US spelling, it took me ages to spot my error so I could solve REATTEMPT, my LOI (exactly as mentioned by WhiteKing @41).

    SYZYGY always and immediately evokes a comical television-viewing memory for me.  About 20 years ago — before “9/11” happened, and long before he became the disgrace to the American legal profession that he is today — Rudy Giuliani, who was then Mayor of New York City, was the host one week on Saturday Night Live.  One of the skits he appeared in was about a spelling bee, in which he played the contest judge.  When one of the contestants was given the word Syzygy to spell, she asked, as spelling bee contestants often do, if she could please hear the word used in a sentence.  Giuliani, as the judge, replied: “Yes.  The word you need to spell is ‘syzygy’.”  (Or something to that effect.)

    grantinfreo @20:  “fraffly intime” looked to me at first to be a typo.  But I Googled both words, and now fraffly is my favorite TILT.

    Many thanks to Tramp and Eileen and the other commenters.  I agree with Eileen et al. that it has been a great week for solvers.  Have a nice weekend, all.

61. robert @52 — I don’t understand your objection. This is how definitions in crosswords work. You can use “dog” in a clue to indicate “labrador”, even though a labrador is merely one instance of a dog. You can use “syzygy” in a clue to indicate “opposition” for the same reason.

62. Never mind — after I wrote that, I saw my mistake. The parallel is the wrong way around. I guess you do need a definition-by-example indicator. I withdraw my comment.

     

63. Thanks Tramp, Eileen
    Lovely puzzle. I am amused to think that ERUPTIONAL must have been one of the starters when filling the grid, rather than last one in as absurd words usually are

64. SYZYGY is a beautiful word however clued. ERUPTIONAL looks a little ugly but is a word nonetheless.

65. Goujeers @53, thank you for the Greek info. I’ll retain that for idle chatter in the pub sometime.

66. A new category of clue with 21a: The &clit. I thought I dealt with it quite sensitively by entering CLEMATIS, with its anagram of MALE, but then it all fell apart

67. Why is “bar” “but” in 12ac?

68. Liz @ 67

    “All bar/but Fred went to the party”, for instance.

    hth

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