Guardian Cryptic 27,644 by Maskarade

66 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,644 by Maskarade”

1. Re 22a, on US highways tolls are collected at toll plazas.

2. I found this to be a little bit of a relief after the challenges of the last couple of days. I had to guess PLAZAS and think it’s a bit of a stretch, to be honest. Otherwise, it was fun and not too challenging even though I don’t know the real names of most of the setters in the theme,

3. Tim @ 1, that makes sense. Thanks.

4. Found this very easy, except for lazily assuming TOMSON, having never heard of John Motson. I agree with Tim @1 about toll plazas.

   Fun, anyway for this insomniac.

   Thanks to Maskerade and Teacow.

5. Didn’t get a great deal of giggle out of this, but nice to see tributes to setters. I counted 7 ‘subtract, then anagram’ clues, pretty easy, as was the puzzle overall, but not much ‘aha!’

   Dnk the football commentator of course (I recognize the voice of the one who does the big games and World Cup etc.–he’s effortlessly fluent–but even his name I don’t know without a reminder).

   Interesting usage in toll plazas, Tim; I was thinking hmm…there are bell-less plazas surely, so maybe shopping plazas that take a toll on your wallet…whatever, bung it in.

   Thanks to Tom’n’Teacow.

6. PS: also didn’t remember Brian Close, surprising given he played tests til ’76.
   PPS: can ‘mere’ be waters plural?

7. There’s also Don Manley (27ac) who has a number of aliases based around ‘Don’.

8. Thanks Teacow. Quailed for an instant to see who the setter was, but then …. of the ten people named in the clues I only recognised the last. It mattered not a whit: having them there made this the easiest puzzle in ages.

9. Thank you Teacow, especially for elucidating the theme. I think I recognised only John Halpern, so wasn’t totally sure that it was setter-related. Amazingly, I’d heard of the sporting persons in the answers though!

   Like John Carney @2, I’m still reeling from the battering by Imogen so this, and to a lesser extent, Paul yesterday, have seemed like welcome respite for me too.

10. Thanks Maskarade and Teacow

    Not to my taste. I’m not a fan of subtractive anagrams, and we had at least six of them here. Despite that it was also far too easy for a Friday – almost Quiptic in standard.

    I did like ANNEAL!

11. On the Guardian site, more than one poster has said “more fun to set than to solve”. That sums it up for me.

12. Contrary to some previous solvers, I had a whale of a time with this! I loved solving each “name” clue and then checking the Crossword Who’s Who I utilised when I did the Maskarade Bank Holiday puzzle a month or so ago, in which so many setters featured. I was lucky because I have read quite a few “Meet the Setter” columns by Alan Connor online, so in this one I recognised the “real names” of Nutmeg, Pasquale, Arachne, Boatman and Paul straight away. I was not so clever with the cricket names and had to google to check that I was right after getting them from the anagrams and crossers. I was familiar with Toll PLAZAS (22a) from books; the only unfamiliar word I encountered was 11a PASHTO, my LOI, but it was perfectly gettable from the wordplay once I had the crossers.
    Many thanks to Madjarade from this very happy puzzler, and to TeaCow for the positive blog.

13. Whoops, apologies MASKARADE. Small screen on portable device, and need to check my work!

14. On 22a, the term PLAZA appears in the UK on signage on the M6 Toll motorway. I wondered where they had got it from, so thanks, Tim@1

15. I have to agree with gratinfreo@6 and muffin@10 that this wasn’t the most exciting puzzle (and was almost a write-in apart from PLAZA), but I admire the dexterity in all the subtractive anagrams. Nevertheless, I’m pleased for Julie in Oz who got such a lot from it! My heart doesn’t leap when I see the name Maskarade on a puzzle, because for some reason I’m generally not a fan of his holiday concoctions.

16. I concur with what muffin said @10 and 11.

    Because of the answer to 10a (my FOI), I assumed all the names were footballers I didn’t know (with the exception of Halpern).

    A very unsatisfying crossword.

    Thanks to Maskarade and Teacow

     

     

17. Being a Yank and not knee-deep in the crossworld I just assumed the unfamiliar names were cricketers or rugbyers or soccerers.

18. Agree with John R @ 14 about the M6 toll road, so PLAZA was an easy one for me..
    [Endurance didn’t exactly “hit ice and sink” – it got stuck and sank 3 years later]

19. I have never been very keen on anagram subtraction clues, but I suppose this is OK as a one-off, and it wasn’t very hard to solve. I wonder whether some of these clues were left over from the last holiday prize.

    Thanks to Maskarade and Teacow

20. Tim@1 and Shirl@18 – toll booths in Ireland are called plazas, (perhaps in deference to US visitors?)

21. JohnR @14;  as it does at the Severn Bridge tolls near me.  Thanks also to Tim @1, didn’t know that.

    I was going to suggest that the same gag repeated 10 times was going it a bit until I saw Teacow’s explanation of setters’ noms de plume.  Now I think it’s a remarkable achievement.

    The puzzle itself was one of the fastest solves ever, which was a disappointment as I got up at 4am to use it as a cure for insomnia!

    Same tick as muffin for ANNEAL – lovely construction.

    Many thanks both, nice weekend, all.

22. This was a breeze after yesterday’s Paul and I’m in the “not much fun” camp (glad you enjoyed it JinA). It did feel like the quality of some of the clues was compromised by incorporating the theme and several were solved straight from the obvious definition so it was more like a GK puzzle than a cryptic. Like muffin I had a tick against ANNEAL but not much else.
    It means I’ve no excuse for not getting on with other things now – thanks to Maskarade and Teacow.

23. Many thanks to Teacow and Maskarade.

    What larks!  Laugh out loud stuff from a vrai homme serieux.

    The subtractive device was used very wittily, so I assumed anyone not knowing what was going on would not mind too much.  And two perfect anagrams! Who would have thought it?

    I don’t suppose anyone has called The Don ‘Dicky’ but it is a lovely thought.

    Thanks again.

24. Quick but fun puzzle, very clear with the little-used (by daily setters) device of the complex anagram. So quick, didn’t even bother to print it off, just filling in the grid on the screen, which normally I hate doing. It was certainly an easier puzzle than most over what has been a pretty solid two weeks of setter v solver arm-wrestling, but very enjoyable none the less. I say that, though 22a did actually flummox me. Couldn’t decide really between playas and plazas, not being over-familiar with toll plazas, but I’m grateful to the correspondents above who have elucidated this clue. My least favourite device has to be the cryptic definition- you either see ’em or you don’t. C’est la guerre.

25. “Well Brian…….”

26. Thanks both,

     

    I missed the theme, of course, and at first thought it would be a struggle but all the clues were gettable and it was over all too quickly. Now I have to get on with marking (ugh!).

27. Relieved that I could actually complete the grid quite quickly after the challenges of the last few days.  But not an enjoyable puzzle for me – far too many clues of the same type.  I don’t share Teacow’s enthusiasm – the fact that we have the names of other setter does not excuse the boredom of the clueing.  Sorry.

    LOI and only interesting clue was ANNEAL, the meaning of which was new to me.

    Thanks (nonetheless) to Maskarade and to Teacow.

28. I thought this was very clever and enjoyable.  I quailed a bit seeing the name Maskarade, but once I got started, and twigged that the themed clues all worked the same way, it flowed nicely.

    Many thanks Maskarade and Teacow.

29. I’m in the camp that is quite relieved that we didn’t have to struggle for 3 hours for a third day running with extricating obscure synonyms from over contrived clues.

30. Thanks to Maskarade and Teacow. A pretty straightforward solve for me, but nonetheless enjoyable. I had no trouble with plaza having regularly used the M6 toll, but held myself up on 8d. I carelessly wrote in pigeon for the first half without thinking. That held me up on Grasmere, but after parsing that I realised my mistake. I quite enjoyed the subtractive anagrams, but no other real stand out clues for me. Overall a generally pleasant solve and thanks again to Maskarade and Teacow.

31. This was much easier than I initially expected: I was a bit daunted seeing it was a (normal sized, admittedly) Maskarade, with so many clues containing unfamiliar names.

    Thanks to Teacow for identifying the mystery people as setters – it’s nice to know the real names of those who provide so much enjoyment and frustration on a daily basis!  Thanks to Maskarade aka Tom Johnson (aka Motty!) for an enjoyable if ultimately quite quick puzzle.

    I liked the extended anagram device. Favourite clues probably Paul losing both initials for ALPEN HORN, and ANNEAL as it’s one of those words I originally learned through crossword solving, years ago.  Least favourite: EXPENSE for mentioning the repulsive current VP.

32. In many ways more annoying than enjoyable, and a very quick solve- although I didn’t know some of the sports people eg I had COLES instead of CLOSE until it wouldn’t work with the down answer. I’ve heard of MOTSON but I didn’t know what he did and I’ve never heard of toll PLAZAS so that was a guess.
    I enjoy Maskarade’s Bank Holiday puzzles but he doesn’t excel on the daily ones. This,and his last one,is a touch Monday light!
    I may look on it more kindly next time we get an Enigmatist.
    Thanks Maskarade.

33. Most of my would-be comments have already been said; put me in the “didn’t like it much” camp for reasons stated above. Also, it does sort of irk me when setters name-drop each other in their puzzles (which we’ve seen before, of course); it feels a bit like an in-group shibboleth.

    I didn’t know the football commentator or the England captain, not being British. In both cases I guessed plausible names out of the anagram fodder, and in both cases I guessed slightly wrong. I also didn’t know of Grasmere, but the clue and the crossing letters left little room to get it wrong. Of course I know of toll plazas, but I didn’t know they were an Americanism.

    [In this area, there are fewer of them now, as Illinois has largely switched to open-road tolling, in which a transponder in your car is counted by a gantry over the road as you hurtle past at 75 miles an hour–er, ahem, as you safely stay under the 55 mph speed limit. If you don’t have a transponder, the gantry has a camera that photographs your license plate; you then have to go online to pay the toll.]

34. Thanks to MASKARADE and Teacow. I did not find this puzzle as easy as others above, for BRIAN CLOSE, JOHN MOTSON, and the PTO in PASHTO were new to me so that I had to experiment and check. Still, here is one of the few times I managed to finish one of this setter’s offerings.

35. I have read and considered all the comments so far, and I am still finding it hard to understand why other regular sovesolvers didn’t like this puzzle. Surely it was all just a bit of fun?

36. Solvers – Sorry!

37. Narcissism isn’t very edifying.

38. I’m with JinA on this one.
    Given the flak they take here and elsewhere, I’m all for
    them having their moment in the limelight.

    Good ingenious fun, as ever, from Maskarade.
    Thanks to him and Teacow.

39. JinA – for me all the puzzles are just a bit of fun but I found this one less so than others. I solved several of the clues straightaway using GK from the definition thus rendering the cryptic part superfluous. I don’t do GK crosswords because I like the cryptic element – if I want to test my GK I’ll do a quiz. Unlike some I did appreciate the reference to other setters but wasn’t happy with the price that was paid in terms of clue quality. I am happy that you and others did enjoy it.

40. I once saw a scrap of fairly thick watercolour paper in a display case
    in the Fitzwilliam museum. Ingres had used it for a pencil study of a
    woman’s hand. So intent was he on perfection that his eraser had
    worn a hole in the paper.
    I would imagine our setters often have the same experience trying to
    fill up a grid (I know I have), and that’s before they start composing the clues.

    Worth bearing in mind before launching the brickbats.

41. Julie, subtractive anagrams are never my cup of tea (they’re too convoluted to be elegant usually, and difficult for all the wrong reasons)–even when used sparingly. And this was pretty unsparing in that department. Really that’s the biggest complaint here.

    But as I said, basing a puzzle around the *real names* of writers of crossword puzzles is only extra-fun for people immersed in this particular subculture. For everyone else, “who the ‘ell’s that?” is probably the logical reaction. And it becomes an in-joke. Which I guess is harmless, but also reinforces the sense that this is a bit of a clique.

42. Easy, but very enjoyable for me. I tend to like anything that mixes things up a little. Wouldn’t want it every day, but then I think that’s highly unlikely to happen. Calling it narcissism seems a bit off – if Maskarade had used their own name then maybe, but using other setters’ names (I’m guessing without asking them first) is nothing of the sort.

43. Well..good,bad or indifferent – and there were bits of each – at least I finished a Maskarade puzzle!

44. I think Maskarade did use his own name – Tom Johnson? Agree it was easy but why not for a change.

45. Well, contrary to popular opinion, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yes, it was easy. Yes, the same device was used many times. Yes, there were some names which required GK. But does everyone moan about the Monday puzzles for the same reasons?

46. Thanks to Maskarade and Teacow. Straightforward yes,but a blessed relief after most of this week’s “fun” and a pleasure to see Maskarade’s name on a regular puzzle. I actually enjoyed the subtractive anagrams, sorry. Knowing John Halpern and Dom Manley as two of our regular setters I assumed the rest of the names were also the same without bothering to check them all, and in any case that knowledge wasn’t necessary in order to solve the clues . BRIAN CLOSE was my favourite, if only because in my school days I had a friend who used to start throwing things around the room if ever Mr. Close’s name was mentioned – I never quite found out why.

47. Thank you Maskarade and Teacow – and Tim @1 and others for explaining 22a.

    After a challenging crossword week, I was pleased to have a respite before the Prize tomorrow. Like JohnB @46, I enjoyed the subtractive anagrams and finding the crossword setters.

48. Well, this was an unusual crossword, with a blog page to match.  When I saw Maskarade’s name at the top I expected something different, and that’s what I got.

    I nearly always enjoy the alphabetical specials that this setter often produces for bank holiday weekends, but I remember his last weekday puzzle (or at least the last one I solved) felt somewhat flat.  What I enjoyed most, by far, about this puzzle was discovering the two perfect anagrams that were made of two setters’ names.  Of the other anagrams the one made from John Halpern (minus JH) was my favourite.

    I am inevitably reminded of the most remarkable subtractive anagram I have ever seen, in a puzzle by Maskarade published on the weekend of the Late Summer bank holiday (blogged here on 1 September):

    Significant other starting out unsteadily (8)

    the answer being CHIFONIE [a Guardian setter named in today’s crossword as John Dawson].  (That clue intentionally lacked a definition.)

    I didn’t enjoy this as much as Philistine’s or Paul’s puzzle this week, but it made a refreshing change, and for me it wasn’t a write-in.  I got a bit stuck in the NE corner, mainly because.I was slow to get BARROW.

    In 12a GRASMERE, I too wondered about ‘waters’, the singular word appearing to be a better fit.

    Thanks to Maskarade and Teacow.

    (Teacow, I remember Alec Robins’ name having just one ‘B’, as assumed by the setter in the clue to BRIAN CLOSE.)

49. I also thought that GRASMERE was a poor clue – “waters” seems wrong, and “Grasmere” is, in fact, the name of the lake next to the village.

50. Yet again this setter underwhelms!

51. Trivial.

52. All – managed to complete this in a couple of hours so we get to blog on the same day! Some of us like a simpler challenge from time to time- especially as last Thursday’s Nutmeg took us a week to do…we only know John Halpern as Paul so missed the theme ( other than wondering who these people were) so we’ve learned something as well. Liked the Alpenhorn (Swiss ancestry will out) and John Motson as I always appreciate a simple start.

53. Nobody will probably see this, but I really appreciate those contributors who posted their very cogent reasons for not enjoying this particular puzzle. As we often say, different strokes for different folks! It is always interesting and heartening to me that many who post on this forum manage to strike a positive, respectful tone even if they have criticisms of the day’s challenge.

54. I’m like a dog with two tails to have completed a daily Cryptic and made it here to the 15^2 blog of it “on the day”, or at least on the day where I live.  It has been over a week since I last managed to do that.  Maskarade is not as familiar a setter to me as many of the others, but I enjoyed that Bank holiday Prize puzzle from him a month and a half ago that has been mentioned several times in the comments above, and from that puzzle I recognized off the bat that the proper names in this puzzle were the “My Name is IRL” names of multiple regular Guardian setters.  But since the names in the puzzle were all used as anagram fodder, and none of them required the solver to know their setter pseudonyms, I saw no reason to object to Maskarade’s choice of theme.

    [For those who dislike the use of Guardian setter names for wordplay/fodder, I offer the following. We have:
    JAMES BRYDON (19th Century estate gardener and horticulturist from Massachusetts; developer of an eponymous variety of red water lily)
    ALEC ROBINS (Website developer and tech enthusiast)
    MARGARET IRVINE (Birth name of Margaret Fisher, spouse of a former Prime Minister of Australia)
    MICHAEL CURL (Boom operator for the movie “Bloodsucking Babes from Burbank”)
    TOM JOHNSON (former publisher of the Los Angeles Times and president of US cable channel CNN)
    SARAH HAYES (Member of the band Admiral Fallow)
    ASHLEY KNOWLES (The Merry-Go-Round Coal Man (?), whatever that is)
    JOHN DAWSON (Earl of Porlarlington)
    JOHN HALPERN (Music industry photographer)]

    Anyway, count me among those who enjoyed the theme and also enjoyed the puzzle as a whole, even if it was not as challenging to solve as several others that preceded it this week.  CotD for me was ALPEN HORN.

    Many thanks to Maskarade and Teacow and the other commenters.  Have a nice weekend, all.

55. Seeing this compilers name on a Friday, I thought I would just see if I could get a couple. As it was, I was surprised to find it an ENJOYABLE solve.

    So I’m on the side that says it was a relief and an inventive puzzle even if it was rather easy for a Friday

     

56. Re 23,9: Isn’t there a time-honoured unwritten rule that where a solution is a single word appearing as two bits in separate lights, what appears in each light must be a word? I don’t think ALPEN is a word, certainly of English.

57. etydub @56

    A good point.  There are some brand names that become so prominent that they become part of the language.  Alpen is a cereal brand in the UK (I can’t speak for elsewhere), and was so familiar to me that I didn’t notice what you pointed out.  Perhaps this was a bit naughty – I agree that part-words in separate lights should also be words, and we have had a few examples of this over the past week.

58. etydub @56 (again)

    PS.  I was slow to realise where you got your name from – it’s etymology, if you will.  I had a good laugh when I got it.

59. Sorry about my grocer’s comma in the middle of my comment @58.

60. Alan B @57 onwards – Ah, the 1st brand of muesli to hit our shores of course. Still don’t think ALPEN  should fill a light in a crossword – at least, not the sort of crossword we deign to apply our brains to. You did not use a ‘grocer’s comma’ (=?) anywhere and I humbly submit that what you are thinking of might be greengrocers’ apostrophes. ‘etydub’ is one of a number of aliases I’ve created in order to evade the Thought Police.

61. etydub @56 onwards —
    I’m not sure if anyone is still following this discussion, but I was wondering if it is correct that ALPEN cannot be considered a standalone word in English (as a term “imported” from German). I Googled it and saw that there was in fact an entry for Alpen in the 1913 edition of Webster’s dictionary (which is a US dictionary only, I believe), defined as “Of or pertaining to the Alps”. I know that Chambers is the preferred dictionary of reference here in Crosswordland, but I do not have access to a good edition of Chambers here. Perhaps you or Alan B or any other 15^2er who sees this could look into it further. ALPEN is certainly part of longer words — in addition to Alpenhorn, there are Alpenglow and Alpenstock, and perhaps others.

62. DaveMc @61

    I’ve just seen your comment.

    Neither Chambers nor Collins has alpen, but both have alpine and Alpine.  Collins makes the distinction between Alpine (of the Alps) and alpine (of high mountains).

    The Webster’s entry from 1913 is interesting.  It certainly looks like a German import.  In German, Alpen (plural of Alp) today means either mountains or the Alps.

63. DaveMc @61

    As a postscript to my comment above: I have a 1946 Funk & Wagnall’s dictionary at home (of US origin but published also by Waverley in the UK) which says ‘alpen’ is a rare form of ‘alpine’.

64. [Obliguely thanks, AlanB – that explains the recurrent comment in Rowan and Martin’s laugh in “That’s not in my Funk and Wagnells”!]

65. Dave Mc

    I have at home an 1890 edition of Webster’s International Dictionary, published by G & C Merriam Company of Springfield, Mass., and the entry for Alpen [all headwords having initial capitals] says “Of or pertaining to the Alps. [R.]” where the ‘R’ means ‘rare’.

    muffin

    That dictionary I referred to is very large, consisting of two volumes.  Its cover title is The New Standard Dictionary of the English Language, but inside, as well as carrying that important-sounding title, it says Funk and Wagnall’s.

66. Very, very late post, but just in case anybody is clocking it we enjoyed the puzzle.

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