Guardian Cryptic 27,861 by Vulcan

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27861.

I have the feeling that the operative word for this crossword is FLAT – at least, as I see it. To some extent, this is a response to things which are clichés in crossword clues – for example, if you are not familiar with the use of ‘low’ in 16A, you may rightly think it amusing. Still, there are some decent clues – 19A struck me for its surface – and Monday is traditionally the home of a gentle start to the week.

Across
1 PROTUBERANT Proud diatribe in favour of the Underground (11)
A charade of PRO (‘in favour of’) plus TUBE (‘the Underground’) plus RANT (‘diatribe’).
9 LOW-PAID Not making enough bread for the family? (3-4)
Sorry, but I cannot recall who to credit for the term, but I think “craptic definition” applies here.
10 FORGERY Uttering this is a criminal offence (7)
A play on the archaic/legal use of ‘uttering’ as committing.
11 GERIATRIC Good criteria for treating an old person (9)
A charade of G (‘good’) plus ERIATRIC, an anagram (‘for treating’) of ‘criteria’.
12 STALL Put off deciding about place in market (5)
Double definition.
13 TOFF Upper-class type is mostly sweet (4)
TOFF[y] (‘sweet’) cut short (‘mostly’ – I chose the less common spelling, as ‘mostly’ generally indicates a single letter dropped).
14 HOODWINKED Did Robin bat an eyelid, being deceived? (10)
A charade of HOOD (‘Robin’) plus WINKED (‘did … bat an eyelid’).
16 CATTLE SHOW Exhibits here all low? (6,4)
A case where seasoned solvers are likely to feel the clue too obvious: ‘low’ gives the game away.
19 LAOS From Nigerian city, take wing finally and land in Asia (4)
A subtraction: LA[g]OS (‘Nigerian city’) minus G (‘from … take winG finally’).
21 ROOST Without hesitation cock finds place to sleep (5)
A subtraction: ROOST[er] (‘cock’) minus ER (‘without hesitation’). Since one word derives from the other, I find this falls rather flat.
22 MAIL ORDER Daily sequence used for buying from a catalogue? (4,5)
A charade of MAIL (newspaper, ‘daily’) plus ORDER (‘sequence’).
24 TANGIER Could it be Granite City? (7)
An anagram (‘could it be?’) of ‘granite’.
25 ALLOWED Let everything be on tick (7)
A charade of ALL (‘everything’) plus OWED (‘be on tick’).
26 YES MINISTER Show agreement with member of Cabinet (3,8)
Definition and literal interpretation, for the well-received television series.
Down
1 POWER OF ATTORNEY Authorising document is lawyer’s strength (5,2,8)
Definition and literal interpretation.
2 OSAKA Goes back regularly to a place in Japan (5)
A charade of OSAK (‘gOeS bAcK regularly’) plus ‘a’.
3 UNDERGO Travel not far enough, so suffer? (7)
A whimsical UNDER-GO (‘travel not far enough’).
4 EFFACED Badly fed: cafe gets deleted (7)
An anagram (‘badly’) of ‘fed cafe’.
5 ACROSTIC At initial reading this verse has extra meaning (8)
An ACROSTIC can be a verse, which would make this a cryptic definition.
6 THE FALKLANDS WAR In fighting, Lt Frank Heald was shot (3,9,3)
An anagram (‘shot’) of ‘Lt Frank Heald was’.
7 BLIGHT Disease that can follow planning (6)
Definition and cryptic indication. “Planning blight” is a common term, although the definition, as here, is not quite what I expected.
8 CYCLED Took to the road and went round and round (6)
Double definition.
15 FLATTIES Shoes in apartment with laces (8)
A charade of FLAT (‘apartment’) plus TIES (‘laces’).
16 CURATE Organise exhibition for minister (6)
Double definition.
17 SAMURAI I arm USA criminal, an old swordsman (7)
An anagram (‘criminal’) of ‘I arm USA’
18 ORIGAMI Art form that needs a folder (7)
Definition and cryptic reference.
20 STRIDE Step out of short trousers (6)
A subtraction: STRIDE[s] (‘trousers’) minus the last letter (‘short’). Another one which I think falls flat because of the common derivation.
23 OWLET Nestling in rough towel (5)
An anagram (‘rough’) of ‘towel’. This birdling seems to be nesting in a lot of cryptics recently.
completed grid

43 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,861 by Vulcan”

  2. Too many CD-style clues for my taste, but others may like it this way. Interesting that PeterO called it a Monday puzzle because for both of us (and a few others) it opens on Sunday evening, so rather than starting the week as often said it ends it!

    BTW, BOULDER (Colorado) would also work for 24a (were there no crossers).

    Thanks both.

  3. Yep, bit of a doddle. Hadn’t heard the expression planning blight, ta for the link PeterO, although the phenomenon is familiar enough. There’s a lovely cottagey street nearby that the local Tories have tried for decades to bulldoze for new roadworks; the poor residents should all get compensation, and free treatment for chronic planning blight.

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO.u

  4. I didn’t get planning BLIGHT (7d) either, gif@3. I liked 1a PROTUBERANT, 14a HOODWINKED, 16a CATTLE SHOW, 26a YES MINISTER, 1d POWER OF ATTORNEY and 15d FLATTIES. However I tend to agree with you that the last word (15d) could be a description that applies even to some of these “likes”, PeterO. You are right, 9a LOW-PAID wasn’t very cryptic at all. A suitable crossword to solve without resorting to aids or references, though, so thanks to Vulcan.

  5. [Sorry, I meant to say that I did fill in BLIGHT at 7d, but couldn’t really work out why it fitted. I did have to change it from PLAGUE, though that didn’t parse either, when I saw 13a TOFF. They were my LOIs.]

  6. A gentle start to week, with a kick in NE corner – tried for a time to construct for 5d ‘at-r-….’ with some sort of verse , before the penny dropped. Then stuck on 8d trying to find some variant of gyre that might fit, until finally stepping out of the car for more sedate travel.

    Ta for acceptance comment by PeterO, of 9a as being as weak as it appeared. Little bird’s recent outings also noted. 16a doable, but slight pause as antipodeans more used to all the stock being present at the agricultural shows. Thanks V. for the health-giving mental exercise!

  7. hmmm. A great example of how a simple crossword can go badly wrong – when CDs are as weak as this, I just don’t know if I’ve got the right answer. “low paid”? “low wage”? “low something else”? “Cattle something, could be show I suppose, I’ll stick it in”. More like doing the quick. If “uttering” is “committing” then any crime at all would fit 10A. What points to it being forgery? Looking up legal definitions of “uttering” I see it is passing forged documents and is held distinct from forgery, so in fact the definition is plain wrong.

    Not to my taste, sorry. Thank you for the blog PeterO and I agree this was ho-hum.

  8. Fairly straightforward apart from a couple of question marks at 9 & 10 across which have already been picked up on. “Not making enough bread” as an indicator for LOW PAID is obvious enough, but I can’t see how”for the family” fits in, and I agree with thezed@7 – nothing in the surface of 10a points to the answer being FORGERY specifically as a criminal offence.

  9. I had ___L_D in 8d and put ROLLED, and to be honest I stand by it. This happens rather more often than I’d like in Vulcan’s grids.

  10. Andrew @9 I did exactly the same thing and rolled it back because 10A looked unlikely to end in an “o”.

  12. I dont think the setter was in the right mood for doing a Rufus spoof.

    But I liked Hectence.

    Thanks Peter O-I am sorry to have to say I agree with you.

  14. Straightforward puzzle, except for 9a. I don’t think the setter meant what Grim and Dim said @11 – just doesn’t fit somehow. I think it was just a weak clue.

    6d was my COD. There actually is a Frank Heald who runs a laundry business in Atlanta, but I don’t think he had anything to do with the war.

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO.

  15. Not very excited by 9a or 21a as people say, but I think people are being a little unfair about 10a.  ‘Uttering’ means passing a forgery, so ‘uttering this [i.e. a forgery]’ is indeed

    ‘a criminal offence’.  It’s not great and the offence is doing double duty but it’s not completely wrong.

  16. As thezed @7 said, according to Wiki: ‘uttering is the act of knowingly passing on or using the forged document.

    I largely agree with PeterO; I did, however, like ACROSTIC and ORIGAMI.

    According to Collins the ‘toffy’ spelling is American.

  17. Thank you Vulcan and PeterO.

    thezed @7, I had no problem with 10a since “uttering” applies especially to putting forged money into circulation (COED, Collins etc.).

  18. I think 10a is ok. I’ve only ever heard “utter” in this legal sense used for forgeries. You don’t utter murder or burglary.

    I was held up by assuming, without looking it up, that PROBASEMENT was a word for a proud diatribe…

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO.

  19. Robi @16, both my Collins and COED give “toffy” as an alternative spelling, no mention of US, except for “taffy” (also still used in Scotland).

  20. I wasn’t put off by this as much as some others were, although I agree about the clunkers at 9a and 21a. In particular, I thought 1a and 5d were clever.

    Robi@16 and Cookie@18, this is the first time I’ve ever seen the variant spelling of toffee, so it doesn’t appear to be especially American.

    Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO.

  21. Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO. I also found this largely straightforward, but did get bogged down in the NE. Forgery and acrostic were the last ones. I also was not as put off as some others, and I quite like a variety of styles. Favourites for me were also protuberant and acrostic, and thanks again to Vulcan and PeterO.

  24. JinA @5 — I had PLAGUE too, had to find an upper-class type starting with E …

    To me, the shoes are FLATS.  FLATTIES aren’t anything, except maybe some of these clues.

    chinoz @6 and Andrew @9 — I had “rolled” for 8d.

    Robi @16 Collins or no Collins, I’ve never seen “toffy” anywhere.  It must be in some other part of America.

  25. Nah! Easier, despite ambiguous clues, than the entertaining Quiptic. I had to go out and buy a Smellygraph.

  26. I found this mostly straightforward but then ran into problems, mainly in the NE and ended up with at least four answers unparsed or queried. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to find LOW-PAID odd and BLIGHT went in without knowing the ‘planning’ reference.

    I did like the sense for ‘Proud’ in 1a, YES MINISTER (I wonder how Humphrey would deal with Brexit?) and HOODWINKED. I’ve heard the word before but have never really known the meaning of ACROSTIC so now ‘get’ the clever 5d.

    A bit of a CURATE(‘s) where an OWLET comes from, but I’m glad there were some at the end to make me earn my keep.

    Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO

  27. Well I suppose there were a few clunky clues but I thought this was better than some others did. I liked HOODWINKED and PROTUBERANT,and BLIGHT was obvious to me as was FORGERY.
    Thanks Vulcan.

  28. Picking up on HOODWINKED, here’s a clue I’ll have to use some day:

    “Fake Robin is a lie” (9)

  31. First comment here by me. This was. unusually straightforward. Just a point re. 10a maybe uttering indicates sounds when spoken FOR JURY i.e criminal

  32. Welcome Alex, with an inspired attempt to inject a clever cryptic reading into FORGERY, maybe more than the clue deserves.

    Other than 9 and 10 I thought this was OK, and pretty much what we expect on a Monday. I liked PROTUBERANT, CURATE and MAIL ORDER, and thought I had detected a theme with OSAKA, SAMURAI and ORIGAMI (plus LAOS, at a push), but it turned out that I hadn’t.

    Thanks to setter, blogger and fellow posters.

  35. I think that setters can be a bit like food! There’s bread and butter stuff you happily eat everyday, and stuff that can be delightful but… Yes, Vulcan wasn’t quite on form this week, but I still don’t think he’s right for a regular slot. May I suggest Shed, O Esteemed Guardian Crossword Editor? In my opinion he is just right for a regular appearance and it was such a pleasure to have him doing the Prize on Saturday.

  36. Having carelessly entered an unparsed GOODFELLOW for the Robin clue, I had even more trouble with the NE corner than others – needed a prompt from Mrs Job before I could finish.
    Poor Vulcan getting a bit of a roasting today, but thanks from me and to PeterO
    PP

  38. I came here thinking that low-paid would turn out to be some clever breadmaking pun. Oh well. We’ll not see Rufus’s like again. I did like origami and acrostic though.

  39. Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO for introducing me to new meanings for “uttering” and “strides” – neither of these felt remotely like crossword cliches. Perhaps comments aimed at the Guardian crossword editor might more profitably be sent to the Guardian directly, rather than to this site ?

  40. Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO.

    The problem here for me was not LOW-PAID, which at least had the merit of a double-meaning element, but FORGERY which, if you know the word “utter” as a legal term, is not in the least cryptic. Similarly CATTLE SHOW which relies on the the double-meaning of low to make sense of the surface – so there again is no cryptic element.  Shame because PROTUBERANT would grace any crossword.

    But I was quaffing coffee and  scoffing waffles while solving so hardly hard at it nor wanted to be.

  41. Vulcan, if you’re reading, please take heart: this solver, and I’m sure many others, enjoyed this puzzle. Constructive criticism is one thing but much of the above is needless ad hominem.

    YES MINISTER, LAOS, PROTUBERANT and OWLET were favourites. As a newer solver, 16a made me laugh. RE 9a, given that ‘bread’ was likely and, presumably, designed to misdirect towards the foodstuff, I fail to understand the uproar.

  42. Alphalpha @40: It seems to me you just described what a cryptic definition is. I agree low-paid was a miss, but the point of a clue like “cattle show” is making you find the second meaning. Most people aren’t going to read ‘low’ as the noise a cow makes, or expect that part of the clue to be a verb. These are among my favourite clues when done well – takes all kinds.

  43. Robin@42 yes, perhaps I was being a little too unkind, but it is hard to make any sense of the surface for CATTLE SHOW – though it can be done, sort of.

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