Guardian 27,844 / Imogen

59 comments on “Guardian 27,844 / Imogen”

1. Thanks Imogen and Eileen

   I enjoyed most of this, with favourites PANEL BEATER, INTEGRAL, and RYDER.

   I had 11a as BUT TONED UP for “although more vigorous”.

   I didn’t bother trying to parse ANDROMACHE – I was just pleased that the name was vaguely familiar.

   “Raw” seems superfluous in 20d. Yes, you can eat them raw, but they are also frequently cooked (and much better that way, im my opinion!)

   The “In” in 8d could simply have been omitted.

2. Thanks for the blog. Needed your help with a good job – O for disc, OB for outside broadcast unfamiliar. No problem for me with trebuchet and agouti, FOIs, but Andromanche unknown, needed word search for that … Good puzzle IMO with generally smooth surfaces.

3. Not as tough as some Imogen crosswords – all fairly clued and helped by the fact that I knew 2d from nature programmes, 5d from a visit to a castle (can’t remember which one) and 13d from studying Racine for French A-Level.

   Thanks to Imogen and Eileen (we had miserably wet yesterday and are now on temporarily sunny)

4. Good parse for 11a, muffin, and ditto re the redundant raw in 20d (tho we differ in taste, straight from shell to mouth, tasting of the sea…bliss!).

   Brain gluey today, took ages to remember ide the fish and then feebly write in good Joe, lord knows why. Ditto splatter, then Ares… slow! And dnk or had forgotten cresta the ski run, and only a faint bell for Ryder and had forgotten which sport it was for. Otherwise battled through ok and sort of enjoyed, tho less than usual for this setter. Thanks Imogen and Eileen.

5. Thanks Imogene and Eileen. I really liked PANEL BEATER

   Wondered if  TOCCATA could be “piece of music radio’d to president.

6. [GinF @4

   You’ve put your finger on it – to me, raw ones just taste like thick seawater!]

7. Right up my street this one. I thought PANEL BEATER was splendid, and needed your help Eileen for the use of SOLD in 25a.

   The Cresta run is of course a bobseigh/toboggan run, skiing it would be rather frightening…

   Thanks to Imogen and Eileen

8. I recalled Andromache from a mountain in the Canadian Rockies, which we visited about 15 years ago; I must have known it earlier, since I read the Iliad over 50 years ago, but clearly forgot the name.

   I didn’t like the “has” in 21a clue, as it is unjustifiably misleading: I spent ages trying to think of a god’s name and remove T from it.

   The rest I found easier than usual for Imogen, though I needed several explanations.

    

   Thanks Eileen and Imogen

   [The uneducated spell checker suggests Andromache should be Comanche]

9. I had not heard the term PANEL BEATER for what we here call an auto body mechanic, so this was a DNF for me. Cresta as a ski run is also something I didn’t know, so I left the parsing of that one to Eileen. 🙂

   I also wanted to add that I liked the extended definition of SPLATTER, which looked like it ought to have been part of the wordplay somehow. It’s a form of misdirection that people who insist on the concisest possible clues might not appreciate, but I do.

10. Thanks, Doofs @7 – not my day today! Rushing out for a while so will amend it when I get back.

11. … and ditto Eileen re cast, haven’t heard it for aeons; kids with untreated whooping cough back then sometimes developed a cast eye. I had the cough at three and can remember the trauma of penicillin via large hypodermic, tho far preferable to a cast eye.

12. copmus, the trouble there is that Jimmy Carter pronounced both his R’s. [Pronounces, I guess–he’s not dead.] He has a bit of a drawl, but not enough to turn it all the way into Cahtah as if he were from Boston or New Orleans.

    [And, based on crypticsue’s comment there, has the entire English-speaking world been soggy lately or something? Here, we haven’t had three straight rainless days all spring.]

13. mrpenney@12 – we had a month’s worth of rain yesterday – which we did need here in the South East, but because the ground was so dry and hard, it did cause quite a lot of flooding.   Apparently the jet stream is ‘stuck’ – I just hope it un-sticks soon

14. A bit of a struggle in places here and I agree with some others about odd bits of clues not quite sitting right. I wasn’t a fan of “replaced” for a reversal either – I could not parse “troop” as a result. Lots of lovely clues here but I do find it frustrating, as David @8 did, to find a clue works the other way round but really the wording does not justify it. That happened 2 or 3 times today which just took the edge off my enjoyment. Still, “integral”, “splatter”, “and then some” and many others were fun, and also some excellent anagrams including “dreamboat” for the second time in a fortnight.

15. Compared with yesterday, this time there were much more got from the definition and working backwards. Still needed lots of help to finish the parsing so thanks Eileen.
    Sent down the wrong alley as David E @8 with the timeless God which was last one in.
    Thank you, Imogen.

16. thezed @14

    You take “replaced” as an anagram indicator instead. A reversal is also an anagram of the letters?

17. Some lovely clues but also a few niggles probably due to my own contrariness, e.g. I thought ‘flying’ in 27a was great but ‘replaced’ in 9 didn’t do it for me at all, didn’t think much of ‘oppresses’ in 2d either.

    mrpenny @12 No complaints about the clue but 18a reminded me of a very skilled acquaintance who took umbrage at being described as a ‘panel beater’- he opined that coach builders make them, panel beaters fix them.

    crypticsue @ 13 It was a bit biblical yesterday but it’s gloriously sunny today and a months worth of rain in one day beats a month of rainy days in my book.

    Thanks to Imogen and Eileen.

18. Sorry, @16 I meant to say “You could take…”

    In 23d, “one-up” is also a possible score in a Ryder Cup match.

19. Thanks Imogen and Eileen

    thezed @ 14 & muffin @ 16: if you replace a book on a shelf, say, you put it back. So I think ‘replace’ is an excellent reversal indicator, as first thoughts are normally about substitution.

20. Re “replaced: Muffin @16/18 – nice thought but as the letters to be reversed were deduced not part of the clue (OR for men) an anagram would be beyond the pale wouldn’t it?

    Simon S @19 to put something back is to place it where it once once, not to reverse it, so I would say “back” is being used in very different ways here. To go from replace to “put back ” to “back means reverse” is also a step too many for me. We can agree to differ, happily.

21. muffin @16 – I agree, that’s how I read `replaced` but re 8d I  approve of `in’ for its impact on the  surface.

    This was  such an absorbing pleasure – a favourite grid, variety in the ‘fill’ (oouff, ahh, hello again, grin, clever) with nowt obscure. I felt hopeful all the time. Thanks, Imogen, for the fun and surfaces, and Eileen for analogising that piece of 25.

    (I could take one of these a week:-)

     

     

22. Good point on the “ghost”, thezed

23. this was fun, though hard work in places. Have previously learnt trebuchet from crosswords which helped today. My Greek legends GK is not so good, so had to google to find Andromache- one of these days will get around to reading iliad perhaps. Could not parse a few today- troop, crest (never heard of Cresta Rrn) or Dodge (not being aware of Sir Ken), though the answers seemed obvious with the crossers. Favourite was Panel Beater, which brought a smile to the face. Thanks to Imogen and to Eileen

24. PS thanks thezed for your comment yesterday- bob’s your uncle and shank’s pony are indeed familiar. I have discovered that one of my mother’s phrases “skin a rabbit” said while helping us take off shirts etc is not particularly well-known.

25. Thanks to Imogen and Eileen. I started off well with this but then came to a grinding halt, particularly in the SW. Eventually nearly got them all, but Ares evaded me. I got in to the same fixation as some others (knocking a t of a god) and could not get out of it. However overall an enjoyable challenge and was another fan of panel beater. Thanks again to Imogen and Eileen.

26. I gave up on this puzzle in the SW corner when I ran out of time and energy. Had solved about 8 clues but could not parse them – 27a, 26a, 5a, 23d, 5a, 9a, 7d, 20d, 23d, 1a.

    I liked AND THEN SOME

    New for me was GAT – gun.

    Thanks B+S.

27. Definitely many more accessible clues from Imogen today but still a dnf as I didn’t know TOCCATA and would never have got it from the (loose) homonym, nor did I get ARES – another trying to take a T out of a god, and then trying to do something with ARIES but not knowing ARES as a god. The others were all familiar to me apart from ANDROMACHE which was clearly clued and very satisfying to get. Double ticks for PANEL BEATER RELIANT and INTENT. Many thanks to Imogen and Eileen.

28. What do fish and gods have in common? Far too many obscure possibilities when used in a crossword clue!

    Though to be fair Ares is one of the least obscure possible.

     

29. I didn’t know CAST for ‘squint’ and missed the parsing for BUTTONED UP, with ANDROMACHE half-guessed; AND for ‘even’ was a bit unusual.

    Like others, I enjoyed PANEL BEATER and the close to &lit DREAMBOAT. AGOUTI is a good little cryptic beastie – if we are to believe the link, apparently it really does exist outside the realm of crossword-land.

    Thanks to Imogen and Eileen.

30. Not going to quibble about reversal/replace but why OR is men escapes me. Can someone enlighten me, please?

31. Enjoyed this one. Not Imogen at his toughest, but still a few that needed some thought, and some entertaining constructions.

    Thanks to Imogen and Eileen

32. suekilp @30

    Quite common in crosswords. It stands for “other ranks” – i.e. the “men” rather than the officers in an army.

33. Hi suekilp @30

    OR is an abbreviation for Other Ranks [in the Army] and is quite often used in crosswords to clue ‘men’.

34. Good puzzle. I did not get ARES although it is now obvious. Instead I had ATEN and justified it by taking out a T from AT TEN (a break for tea). Hmmm! CODs panel beater and oyster.
    Thanks setter and bloggers.

35. I knew Andromache but had never heard of a panel beater or Cresta or Mr. Dodd.  Dodge as a city brings to mind “Get out of Dodge,” from some western or other.  I’d never heard of Reliant Robin either until a recent crossword.

    Fish are IDES?  Are they also trouts or salmons?

    mrpenney@12 — I’m not so sure about Jimmy Carter’s rhoticity.  People from Georgia generally don’t pronounce their final r’s.  So I went to YouTube and found an interview with Mr. Carter, and he doesn’t sound rhotic to me.

    robert @17 “Oppresses” means “sits on top of,” presumably, or maybe “presses down on.”  In Spanish, telephone directions like “press seven” are “opprima el numero siete.”

    Thanks to Brummie and to Eileen for a lively blog.

36. ngaiolaurenson @24 “skin the rabbit” is new to me – one of my mum’s favourites was “it’s a bit dark over by Bill’s mother’s” when it looked like rain was due. Who Bill was, or his mother, I never found out, but trying this out on numerous friends around the country suggests it was relatively unique to our corner of the Midlands.

37. Valentine @35

    Fish is an odd one:

    one fish, some fishes, lots of fish

    “Skin the rabbit” for pulling off a child’s pullover is an expression that both my mother and we used when appropriate!

     

38. For instance, I think a restaurant chef would say “Put the trouts on the plates for table 6” rather than “Put the trout on the plates for table 6”.

39. Valentine @35 there are a number of trends creeping into word use in crosswords – odd plurals seem to be the theme recently, what with ibuprofens and everything. I see you are warning us to beware the march of ides…

     

40. thezed @39

    🙂

41. OR stands for Other Ranks I think, so ordinary soldiers

42. Thanks both,

    I may just be in curmudgeonly frame of mind, but I did not warm to this. Too many crossword-only words (ides, agouti and perhaps trebuchet, although I keep meaning to build one with the grandkids), odd plurals, tortured syntax, Greek mythology, obscure gk etc. In the end only ‘ares’ defeated me, but I took little pleasure in the puzzle as a whole.

43. As always GK depends on your interests. Having had a lifelong interest in nature AGOUTI was straightforward for me (Brooke Bond tea cards probably) whereas a lifelong lack of interest in classical music meant TOCCATA was obscure to me – but not to anyone else it seems. When MrsW returned she said she’d heard of it – but couldn’t parse the clue.

44. I’m afraid I agree with Tyngewick @ 42 – except that I was defeated by almost the entire puzzle. Several of the clues I still don’t understand even after Eileen explained them: “a good job” = “just as well”? If you say so. “Rider” = “one up?” On a tall horse perhaps but not in a Mini Cooper.  Squint what now? Toboggan runs in St. Moritz are a bit too posh for me too.

    Valentine @ 35:  I was born and raised in Georgia and I can promise we Georgians are as rhotic as it gets.  What you’ll find is that southern politician will often drop their r’s to make them sound like they are in Gone with the Wind. I consider it pure affectation. They’re just pandering to their constituents who mistrust anyone who sounds educated.

45. Like Eileen, I knew 2 and 5dn from crosswords. I also knew PANEL BEATER from my time in the motor trade back in the early sixties. They were the best paid on the shop floor, some getting as much as 7/6 an hour! Such riches!
    A mixed bag: some quite easy but some rather difficult to parse. I liked BUTTONED UP and A GOOD JOB.
    Thanks Imogen.

46. A rare visit here having a lazy afternoon while the rain patters outside. Lovely stuff. I had to cross my fingers with Andromache due to my philistine ignorance, but at least I knew trebuchet and was pleased to successfully parse the tricky “a good job”. I enjoyed panel beater and the reference to the iconic car, the reliant robin. Thanks Imogen and Eileen.

47. Hi BlueDot @44

    Re 7dn: I can understand your puzzlement, considering your location. ‘A good job’ [nothing to do here with a lucrative / rewarding position] and ‘Just as well’ can be synonymous in UK talk: in view of our atrocious weather today, I could very easily say, ‘It’s a good job / just as well that we didn’t plan a barbecue for this evening’. 😉

48. johninterred @46

    Many thanks for the link to your lovely website, which I shall enjoy exploring further.

49. Thanks everyone 🙂

50. Why is AND = even?

51. lmogen has become easier of late, unlike in the past when his efforts were very difficult, IMO. FOI 10a, LOI 7d.

52. Eileen @48

    Thanks. As you can see from the blog I’m kept busy on TimesfortheTimes but I love it when I get time to join in here. Hoping to get to the S&B event in October again this year.

53. Thank you Imogen and Eileen – and a special thank you to Thezed @39 … I always enjoy your comments but “the march of ides” in a discussion of plurals had me laugh out loud in the office – which is always pleasant for I fear it is too often a place of tears. Ibuprofens the other day was, I thought, questionable until I read some of the outstandingly creative uses on fifteensquared. I had no trouble with ides as minnows clearly uses an ‘s’ in the plural despite being fishy.  It seems to me that a school of minnow would be lonely.

54. Imogen and Eileen, thanks but not one for this goldilocks hey ho.

    johninterred@52 nice to meet you and to have the opportunity to thank you for your TimesfortheTimes, to which I am an occasional, but RELIANT, visitor. Thanks for A GOOD JOB, ahem.

    Only really dropped by to praise AGNUS DEI.

55. Thanks to Imogen for a great crossword today albeit a cheater for me with Andromache and Trebuchet the latter of which is a crossword regular which I’ve not personally encountered before. AGOUTI appeared as recently as Sunday’s Speedy crossword IIRC. I also felt slightly misled with the missing T from ARES which never was.

    Very interactive blog page today. Thanks Eileen for kicking it all off with your exemplary parsing (and later entries too).

56. Thanks to Eileen and Imogen

    This was more than o.k. but 21a is simply invalid and has somehow sneaked passed the ever-vigilant editor.

    I’d like to help jeceris @ 50 but I can’t, and neither can my Collins or Chambers.

    5a I don’t think TO is part of the homonym

    16d is a DD + wordplay

57. Very late to the table as have just finished this one. A couple of pedantic niggles: 5d is my 90 year old mother’s pet hate of inanimate objects talking to one, e.g. a coffee cup ‘saying’ “careful, I may be hot!”. I hope this isn’t habitually going to creep in. And secondly 13d I spent ages trying to replace an ‘n’ with an ‘h’ whereas it wasn’t in the same place. Maybe just couldn’t get on Imogen’s wavelength ( in spite of having a Classics degree!)

58. I know it’s a while ago but I’m catching up slowly. 21 across : surely the “no” in the clue shouldn’t be there.

59. Timtimmytim @58

    Yes, it is a while! 😉  You have to take the ‘t’ [time] from A RES[t] [a break] to get the answer ‘god’. Admittedly, it does rather seem the wrong way round.

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