Guardian 27,668 – Vlad

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As per my usual experience with Vlad, much of this was as troublesome as I feared, though with a few rather involved constructions, and some tricky clues to provide a suitable degree of impalement. Thanks to Vlad.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
9. LEMON DROP Sweet porn model gets embarrassed (5,4)
(PORN MODEL)* – a nice easy one to get us started
10. WHEEL Nasty bloke following with revolver (5)
W[ith] + HEEL (nasty person)
11. TORCH Band beginning to hire and fire (5)
TORC (a band worn on the neck or arm) + H[ire]
12. DETONATED Set off breaking into old school (9)
ETON in DATED. We have to read this as “breaking into old [we have] school” – there’s a similar construction in 4d
13. HOLY SEE Francis’s responsibility under discussion — quite understand (4,3)
Homophone of “wholly see”, with Francis being the current pope
14. INSPECT Vet belonging to cult keeps quiet (7)
P in IN SECT
17. PETRI Dishy fellow gets some crumpet, right? (5)
Hidden in crumPET RIght – Julius Petri is credited with inventing the Petri dish
19,25. PIGEONS Gulls and other birds (7)
Double definition – gull and pigeon can both mean someone who is duped
20. CASTE Traveller’s opening bag outside station (5)
T[raveller] in CASE
21. DEEPEST Extremely rich Scottish banker — it’s annoying (7)
DEE (Scottish river or “banker”) + PEST – for rich=deep, think of singing voices
22. STILTED Son inclined to be awkward (7)
S + TILTED
24. PROVENDER Food‘s tested! Hamburger’s the … (9)
PROVEN (tested) + DER (German “the”, as a person from Hamburg would say)
26. CREAM … best — care for a trip to McDonald’s? (5)
CARE* + M (the M-shaped “golden arches” symbolising McDonald’s “restaurants”)
28. MELON Fruit and honey available (5)
MEL (honey) + ON (available)
29. WRIT LARGE Grew frustrated with trial — very clear to see (4,5)
(GREW TRIAL)*
Down
1. BLOT Losing to drunk is a disgrace (4)
BLOTTO less TO
2. AMORAL Monk upset about men lacking principle (6)
OR (Other Ranks – men) in reverse of LAMA
4. BRIDLE Check on unemployed brother (6)
BR + IDLE – another inverted construction “on unemployed [, put] brother”
5,7. SPITTING FEATHERS Showing Fury freaking out — nastiest pre-fight (8,8)
(NASTIEST PRE-FIGHT)*
6. TWIN Writer doesn’t have a double (4)
[Mark] TWAIN less A
8. CLAD See a lot of woman getting dressed (4)
C (see) + LAD[y]
13. HOPED Trusted Henry’s newspaper column (5)
H + OP-ED
15. SUCCINCTLY “Isn’t good”, tattooed actor Christopher said in short (10)
Homophone of “sucks” (isn’t good) + “inked” (tattooed) + [Christopher] “Lee”
16. TREAD Taking humour to begin with — Screw has it and Tramp (5)
THREAD (what a screw has) less H[umour], with a nod to two of Vlad’s fellow setters (though we haven’t seen Screw for a while)
18,3. THE WORLD AND HIS WIFE Strange! Half two in empty dockyard — where is everybody? (3,5,3,3,4)
Anagram of HALF TWO IN D[ockyar]D WHERE IS
19. PUTS DOWN Publicly criticises records (4,4)
Double definition
22. SORDID Rule-breaking very accomplished but shameful (6)
R[ule] in SO DID
23. THEORY View of Boris Johnson? He’s divisive (6)
HE in (“dividing”) TORY
24. PUMP Leading politician well-informed about cause of inflation (4)
Reverse of PM UP. I will refrain from political comment relating to our current PM or the divisive tory in the previous clue
27. MIEN Air base reported (4)
Homophone of “mean” (base)

52 comments on “Guardian 27,668 – Vlad”

  1. Thanks Vlad and Andrew

    I found this not as difficult as most Vlads, though I didn’t parse PROVENDER or HOPED (I still don’t see the latter – what is OP-ED?).

    SUCCINCTLY was amusing, but favourite was the relatively simple TWIN.

  3. Muffin @1 I think op-ed is “opposite editorial” – the phrase seems to have appeared quite a lot recently in newspaper articles.

    I also found this easier than usual for Vlad.

    Thanks Vlad and Andrew

  4. I had my usual battle with Vlad but feel very satisfied now I’ve finished, albeit with much muttering the application of Tippex to the piece of paper in more than one place.

    Thanks to Vlad and Andrew (and please come back soon Screw!)

  5. Thanks to Andrew and Vlad

    Enjoyable with “provender” and “holy see” my favourites, but I’m not sure about “publicly” in 19d – if anything it detracts from the accuracy of the definition. Also, I seem to have been mispronouncing “mien” all these years

  6. Dave E – thanks for the clarification of OP-ED. Although I know the word I never realised the “op” part came from “opposite”: I assumed it was from “opinion”, but Chambers confirms your version.

     

    quenbarrow – thanks, typo corrected.

  7. Thank you to Vlad and Andrew. I am always unsure with Vlad’s clues because I know that the grid will take lots of time, deep thinking and cause me occasional frustration. Best practice for me is to employ pencil and eraser, crypticsue@4.

    Dave E@3, I thought “oped” was something to do with “opinion” but that could be totally made up.

    I liked 1a LEMON DROP for the anagrind. Other ticks against 13a HOLY SEE, 29a WRIT LARGE and 19d PUTS DOWN.

    I had “wrong word order???” against 12a DETONATED and 4d BRIDLE, but am prepared to accept your “inverted construction” thoughts on this, Andrew, though not 100% convinced. Had troubles with the aforementioned 24a PROVENDER, and did not know MEL means “honey”, so 28a MELON was a guess from the crossers. I don’t pronounce MIEN (27d) that way, but then again I may have been saying it incorrectly all my life… Sorry to be a grump – but I had “terrible clue” written against 26a CREAM, but maybe because I have all sorts of objections to those golden arches. I am also not fussed on the “Boris Johnson” (23a) clue even from a distance, with some similar ideological objections, I suspect. Although it perhaps goes without saying that our recent political machinations in Oz are quite embarrassing too!

     

  8. [I think I am more on the wavelength of the solvers than the setter today – we crossed, Dansar@5 and Andrew@6.]

  9. [PS muffin@1, I liked TWIN too. Ah, I thought! The simplicity of the penny-dropping moment: Writer=TWAIN, then wordplay, ‘doesn’t have a …”. Sometimes going back to basics is best!]

  11. Looked daunting at first – especially with all the pointless Brexit interviews going on in the background – but got a toehold in the NE then once I realised I had the wrong anagram/grind for LEMON DROP everything went in smoothly.

    Really liked SUCCINCTLY, the divisive BoJo, boxer Fury freaking out and seconded/thirded the elegant TWIN.

    Many thanks to the impaler(ess) and Andrew

  13. Thanks, Andrew – especially for parsing SUCCINCTLY.

    Struggled a bit today but, like crypticsue, @4, feel duly satisfied that I [nearly – see above] got there. [I’m with her re Screw, too.]

    Like BlueCanary, I initially had the wrong fodder / indicator for 9ac – and came up with PETER SNOW.  😉

    I don’t think I’ve ever said [or heard] MIEN out loud, so never really thought about it. Collins and Chambers both give the same pronunciation as for’mean’.

    Many thanks, Vlad – I really did enjoy the challenge!

  15. Vlad is always challenging, and not really my cup of tea. The convoluted clues in which there is at least a comma missing to make the word order make sense are (to my taste) misleading for the wrong reasons. But I did get there in the end, so I am not actually complaining.

    I had read PUMP as another of those clues, thus: Leading politician (insert a comma), well-informed about, to tell you to put an upside down UP in the lead of MP. So I’m glad to see that a more straightforward reading is possible.

    I think “op-ed” originated in newspapers over here. If you open a traditional U.S. broadsheet to the opinion pages, the editorials are on the left, and the opinion columns are opposite them, on the right-hand page. The confusion expressed in comments above leads me to think that isn’t true elsewhere. But newspapers have shrunk so much that it is no longer literally true here either.

  17. One of my favourite puzzles in the last few weeks and very satisfying to eventually solve. Highlight for me was the brilliant triple homophone for SUCCINCTLY, with BLOT and the ‘Dishy fellow’ clues not far behind.

    I didn’t know the ‘gull’ sense of PIGEON(S), either as a noun or as a verb, so another new meaning to add to the list.

    A big thanks to Vlad and to Andrew.

  18. I didn’t really enjoy this, maybe due to my limited intellect. My computer and I ground it out in the end. Thanks Vlad, although I don’t like the ‘inverted constructions.’

    Thanks Andrew for a heroic blog.

    I did enjoy the rather simple TREAD.

  19. I found that rather fun – not quite as mind-boggling as some Fridays but a range of cluing techniques and some not-so-obvious devices. Succinctly was the pick of the day for me and Mrs TheZed (actually, it’s Professor but who’s counting…) spotted Holy See which might even be good enough not to have the homophone police phoning home.

    Cream then Mien were my LOsI. Thanks Andrew for parsing Pigeons which I had but did not know why. I thought Deepest was a little weak in definition – again I went for deepest pockets but I can see how there are other meanings, such as “deepest meaning” which fit, albeit somewhat allusively.

    Again, fair (almost) throughout (still not sold on the word order in Detonated) and no TILTs requiring odd searches. Glad to see no-one’s complained of Petri Dish as obscure scientific knowledge – it does annoy me that the level of scientific familiarity of the average person is expected to be at the level of Mickey Mouse’s Guide to Science compared to the literary and historical GK expected. The same is true on quiz shows. Rant over…

  20. Thanks both.
    Like others, I thought SUCCINCTLY was very good, and also THEORY. A dnf for me because I had HE’LL SEE for 13a – I managed to justify it somehow in my head. But of course the correct answer is much more obvious. Maybe senility is creeping up on me…
    thezed@19, I agree with you about expected scientific GK. I’d add ‘musical’ to your ‘literary and historical’.

  21. Much to like about this. Some very good clues, most of which have already been mentioned, but I particularly liked the combined clueing of PROVENDER & CREAM. Made a couple of wrong assumptions early on, thinking, like others, that ‘model’ was the anagrind in 9a, and that 1d was implying the ‘shlurring’ of speech by the stereotypical drunk, and looking for a synonym of ‘losing’ beginning or ending with ‘s’. I parsed HOPED as H + O (for The Observer newspaper) + PED(estal). Worked for me. Finally, Peter @16, you beat me to it. I was going to say (in my best Yorkshire accent) ‘mien all’!

    Thanks to Vlad and Andrew, most entertaining.

  22. Another bi-syllabic mi-en pronouncer, hey ho. Interrupted day, sucks inked lee too hard in the time available, but delightfully fiendish. Liked caste, provender, clad. The world and his wife were very helpful, biff from numeration and never mind the anagram slog. Thanks Vlad and Andrew.

  23. On the pronunciation of MIEN, the word always makes me think of the Pirate King’s couplet from The Pirates of Penzance:

    We yield at once, with humbled mien,
    Because, with all our faults, we love our Queen.

  24. This was very hard for me.  I got hardly any words last night and had to make liberal use of the check button this morning.  I’ve never heard of SPITTING FEATHERS, which seems to mean either very angry or very thirsty.

    How do other people pronounce “mien”?  I’ve always pronounced it “mean,” so don’t know what the comments are about.

    Is MEL an English word?  I solved it, but I thought MEL was the Greek root, not a word in English in its own right.

    Like BlueCanary @11, I had the wrong anagrind at 9.  I thought I was supposed to “model” SWEET PORN, though no combination of those letters made any sense.  Finally it occurred to me that SWEET was the definition, and I should “embarrass” PORN MODEL.

    LOI was SORDID.

     

  25. Ouch! Agree with BlueCanary – this brain-mangler with a backdrop of Brexit balderdash made for a strange morning.The convolutions seemed to mirror each other somehow! Holy See and the world and his wife lots of fun; succinctly too. Nothing like a good homophone, and here we had 3 in one. Shameful didn’t lead me to sordid nor trusted to hoped. Valid but loose. Thanks Vlad and Andrew!

  26. I enjoyed this one a lot.  It gave me a similar experience to yesterday’s Paul, with many clues giving me plenty to think about.  I was pleased to get MIEN with just the E showing, as I often get stuck on this sort of clue.

    I have seen ‘op-ed’ many times in the last few years, and until this year I’ve always thought (like JinA @7) it had something to do with opinion.  I learned the true meaning from that incendiary piece in the New York Times that got so many people worked up.  As mrpenney @15 indicated, I thought the term had its orogin in the US.

    Of many good clues I liked PROVENDER, HOPED and SPITTING FEATHERS the most.

    Thanks Vlad and Andrew.

  27. Another great puzzle from Vlad, perhaps not his most difficult but still plenty of tricky ones.

    Thanks to Vlad and Andrew

  29. For consistency’s sake with previous blogs, is no-one going to huff and puff about SUCCINCTLY?  Unless I have been saying this word wrong too, SUCKS INKED LEE isn’t right – SUCK SINK T’LEE, surely.  It doesn’t bother me, because it is clear that the clue is about “sounding like” rather than “sounding the same as”. But it is always amusing when thezed @19’s homophone police blow their whistles and wave their truncheons on this site.

  30. Thanks to Vlad and Andrew. When I saw Vlad’s name I thought it would be tough, and I was not wrong. Very little on first few passes and slow going after that. However, got there in the end with the SE last to fall. That said, needed to come here to clarify some of the parsing (e.g. hoped). Overall very satisfying to get there after the last three DNF,s and I liked succinctly, stilted and theory. Thanks again to Vlad and Andrew.

  31. Thanks to Vlad and Andrew. I fared well in several recent Vlad puzzles but not here. I had no problem with MIEN, but both SPITTING FEATHERS and THE WORLD AND HIS WIFE were new to me, and elsewhere I needed lots of help in parsing (e.g., SUCCINCTLY).

  32. Great puzzle. I thought SPITTING FEATHERS was brilliant with its reference to Tyson Fury. My favourite was THEORY.

  33. Thank you Vlad and Andrew. Have we all missed a theme ?

    Re INKED (Van Winkle), I’d argue that your second transcription is what was intended as unvoiced consonants with an ED are pronounced -T:

    egGed (egd), caKed (keikt), and thus inKed (inkt)

  34. I liked this despite having to bung a couple in.I knew SUCCINCTLY was right but I only managed to to parse it in part. With HOPED,I didn’t actually know what OP ED meant but was sure it was the answer. My LOI was THEORY having been well diverted by BORIS J. I liked SPITTING FEATHERS, CASTE and HOLY SEE. I enjoyed this more than yesterday’s Paul which I didn’t get to until late, as a result of Brexit distractions, and found extremely difficult. Indeed I’ve had difficulties with the last three Paul’s! However, this was fine.
    Thanks Vlad.

  35. I found this easier than most Vlad puzzles, and very enjoyable. I particularly liked 3d, 16d, 17d, 24d.

    I can’t find “mel” or “r” for “rule” in my dictionaries, but I shamefacedly admit that I don’t possess Chambers. (I look things up at chambers.co.uk, but the one they give you there apparently isn’t the real Chambers.)

    When I saw the discussion of the pronunciation of “mien”, I was all set to quote WS Gilbert, but Andrew @23 beat me to it. So here’s a bit of Ogden Nash, called to mind by 2d, in its place:

     

    The one-L lama, he’s a priest.

    The two-L llama, he’s a beast.

    And I will bet a silk pajama

    there isn’t any three-L lllama.

     

  36. I’m with Alan B in finding this every bit as enjoyable as yesterday’s Paul and another puzzle that really stretched me. I had lots of favourites which have all been mentioned. Many thanks to Vlad and Andrew.

  37. I am going to complain for the 100th time about a random letter being an “abbreviation” for something that is very dubious. M for McDonalds is really pushing the limits. I will admit that the sign is a giant M, but M is never actually used to refer to the chain. Never. Never. Ever.

  38. glenn @37

    I was happier about the M for “McDonalds” than R for “rule” in SORDID. I remember the Gary Larson cartoon of a cow with a nightmare “The yellow arches are coming for me!”

  39. Thanks Vlad and Andrew – very enjoyable puzzple.

    Ted @ 35: FWIW, both mel = honey and r = rule are both in my eChambers (the dowload, not the website).

  42. Unused to Vlad, I found this very testing but, in the end, very satisfying with lots of lovely penny drop (or should that be lemon drop) moments. MEL unknown but assumed and HOPED the only one I didn’t manage to parse, so thanks to Andrew (and commenters) for explaining that. I liked THEORY for its sly surface. Thanks Vlad and Andrew.

  43. What initially looked like an impenetrable crossword, turned out to be a corker that we, actually, found much easier than yesterday’s Paul.

    While I agree with everyone not liking these ‘inverted constructions’ (12ac, 4d and also 1d), I must say it’s not wrong and – after solving many of Vlad’s (and Tyrus’s) puzzles – one should be alert.

    In the past, before the Vlad-era, I didn’t do many Tyrus puzzles but all I can say now is that this setter’s style is right up my street.

    For me, as a starting setter, a huge inspiration – just like Morph’s crosswords.

    Superb, with 23d (THEORY) taking the palm.

    My crossword partner saw PUMP (24d) just like mrpenney @15 – not that it made any difference.

    Thanks Andrew (for the blog) & Vlad (for the crossie).

  45. A real struggle for Mr Paddington Bear and me (I’ve borrowed his tablet cos mine has run out of battery as crossword has taken so long). But a good sense of achievement now we have finally finished it. Mrs PB

  47. Deep colours are rich ones too. Thoroughly enjoyed this though I was foiled by SORDID and did not know MEL=honey was legitimate English (I don’t possess a copy of the all-excusing Chambers). Loved Francis and Mr. Lee. Didn’t like the way PIGEONS was split into two unrelated words, but that’s just me.

  48. Tough, but I got there in the end.

    I wasn’t keen on M for MacDonald’s either(26), though I guessed it referred to the golden M. Should really be “sign of MacD’s” or similar. Nice ellipsis otherwise.

    I didn’t know PIGEONS (19,25) for gulls, but found it in (my old) Chambers. I read them as verbs, as also given by Chambers, btw.

    No one’s mentioned the “‘s” in Henry’s (23d). It’s surplus, isnt it?

    I think the “military listing” inversions at 12a and 4d are acceptable (punctuation to be added or subtracted ad lib), but only where necessary.

    I like colourful expressions like SPITTING FEATHERS and THE WORLD AND HIS WIFE. Didn’t know the older, ‘thirsty’ meaning. Thanks for the link, Keyser.

    Great homophone ×3 for SUCCINCTLY. I agree with il principe dell’oscurità regarding pronunciation of -ed after unvoiced consonants.

    Enjoyed the ref to Screw and Tramp in 16. Quite right, too!

    I endorse JinA’s advice to crypticsue: pencil and rubber are my cruciverbal tools of choice, but I suppose Sue needs that rubber so infrequently …

  50. We did it – and this time, although last again, at least a few other peoples step on the same day….perhaps we need to get the paper earlier! It took about two hours to get two clues – breakthrough Moments were getting Pump & Melon ( I remebered MEL from ages ago). We really liked “spitting feathers” and “the world and his wife”. Thanks Vlad & Andrew – though I hope next Friday’s puzzle is easier than the previous two!

  51. Well it’s Sunday morning and have only just finished this one. One of those toughies that got to me so much, I was fooled into thinking all the clues were impossible and so missed some of the easier ones. Didn’t really enjoy that – too many overly obscure references… too many were left unparsed at the end… M for McDonalds? Etc etc.

  52. SPITTING FEATHERS to mean “angry” is a relatively recent phenomenon, apparently only being recorded since the 1970s. The meaning of “thirsty” is much earlier. Anyone remember American cartoons from the 1940s – characters (Wile E. Coyote?) crawling across the desert and literally spitting out feathers? I’m from the north and it was widely used to mean “very thirsty”. When I was at university in the south in the early 1990s, nearly all the people I knew were from London and the south. When I used the phrase, they found it amusing. They didn’t correct my use, simply none of them had ever heard the phrase before. This proves to me SPITTING FEATHERS = “angry” is a) recent, and b) based on a misunderstanding by southerners. Someone had overheard another person using the phrase to say they were very thirsty and thought they were admitting they were angry (they may also have been, they were probably waiting to get served. “Come on, barman. I’m spitting feathers here.”). Anyway, it annoys me when I hear it this way because it means people have just got it wrong but it wouldn’t be the first word/phrase whose meaning came about from a misunderstanding.

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