Guardian 27,939 – Vulcan

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Unusually, no cryptic definitions from Vulcan today, but instead we have nine double defs, though a couple of them barely qualify. Mostly very straightforward clueing, but I’m unable to parse 15 across. (See comments 1 & 2 for enlightenment.) Thanks to Vulcan.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
9. LIEGE Tell story, say, about Belgian city (5)
LIE (tell story) + reverse of E.G. (say)
10. ON AVERAGE Usually working, affirm how old one is (2,7)
ON (working) + AVER AGE
11. BREAK AWAY Form splinter group for foreign holiday (5,4)
Double definition
12. RAINY Sort of day saved for, that is something of a come down (5)
Just about a double definition
13. PROPHET Support the unusual seer (7)
PROP (support) + THE*
15. ROAD HOG One away from hedge on tarmac, squashed by this inconsiderate type (4,3)
I’m afraid I can’t work this out: presumably ROAD = tarmac; do the H and G of HOG come from “hedge”? No doubt I’m missing something obvious
17. IN FUN Four regulars in pub having a joke (2,3)
Alternate letters of FoUr in INN
18. RAP Criticise rhythmic chanting (3)
Double definition
20. DEPOT Scatter round record store (5)
E.P. in DOT
22. REFUSAL Non-acceptance of absurd earfuls (7)
EARFULS*
25. TENSION Stressful feelings that may be on the surface (7)
Double definition – reference to surface tension for the second
26. STING Small ringing sound is a pain (5)
S + TING
27. MERGANSER Swimmer deploying green arms (9)
(GREEN ARMS)* – the Mergansers are a genus of ducks
30. COSTA RICA Tropical country‘s price has one fuming aloud (5,4)
COST (price) + homophone of “a reeker” (one smoking)
31. MALTA A little animal taken in island (5)
Hidden in aniMAL TAken
Down
1. FLAB Wonderful to maintain large rolls of flesh (4)
L in FAB
2. WEREWOLF Monster our team encounters upriver (8)
WE (our team) + reverse of FLOWER (i.e. an “up river”)
3. PERK Make coffee an extra benefit (4)
Double definition – short for “percolate” for coffee-making
4. HOT WATER Having trouble in this sort of bottle (3,5)
Double definition
5. LAWYER Wife in bed: she may need briefs (6)
W in LAYER
6. BEAR GARDEN Disorderly scene may come to be arranged (4,6)
(BE ARRANGED)*
7. LAVISH Like a loo to be luxurious? (6)
LAV-ISH
8. LEVY Raise tax (4)
Double definition – though really just the same word as a verb and noun
13. PRIOR Inquisitive-sounding monk (5)
Homophone of “pryer” (one who pries)
14. HAND SIGNAL Worker, striking, giving a wave (4,6)
HAND (worker) + SIGNAL (unusual, striking)
16. GET ON Advance fare to board (3,2)
Triple definition
19. PETER PAN Perpetual child‘s play (5,3)
Double definition (just about), referring to the character and the play
21. PLIMSOLL A line of footwear (8)
Double definition
23. FLIMSY Thin female, horribly slimy (6)
F + SLIMY*
24. LIMPID Awkward gait I had, it’s clear (6)
LIMP + I’D
26. SOCK Seeing old car kaput, initially one goes on foot (4)
First letters of Seeing Old Car Kaput
28. ACME Top of bill, moi! (4)
AC (account, bill) + ME
29. ROAM Phone from abroad: somewhere in Italy, say (4)
Homophone of “Rome”

43 comments on “Guardian 27,939 – Vulcan”

  1. Good morning Andrew,

    I think in 15 we are invited to separate the hedge from hog in “hedgehog” and the squashing bit is intended to paint a picture of the wretched creature post trauma. Not immediately clear to me why a road hog should be especially lethal to wildlife but there we are

  5. Thanks V&A and ta baerchen and Rick for the hedgehog which I didn’t get, neat clue. A Monday dnf is not a good start to the week, but 27 was a dnk; thought it might be a person’s name and when looking up it corrected to the duck. Should’ve sussed roam first, then might have guessed lucky. Hey ho, all in the fun.

  7. I know it’s Monday, but where is everybody? A puzzle that fits the Monday brief perfectly.

    Thanks to Vulcan and Andrew

  8. Thanks Vulcan and Andrew

    I thought the definition of “phone from abroad” for ROAM was a bit of a stretch (yes, I know the phone companies call it “roaming”), and I would have spelled the coffee-making “perc”.

    MALTA was neatly hidden.

  9. Thank you Vulcan I enjoyed this.  Thanks Andrew for showing me that GET ON is a triple definition.

    All over, as per usual for a Monday, quite quickly but fun none the less.  I did not know the duck and was searching for an obscure fish, but in the end it had to be MERGANSER: perfect clue for a piece of fairly obscure GK.  Favourites were LAVISH, RAP and the aforementioned ROAD HOG once Baerchen and Rick had pointed out the parsing, so thanks to them also.  Plenty of time even in Spain (it is an hour ahead here) to get on with other things, like cleaning out the hen and partridge house, ugh!!

  12. An interesting cruciverbal coincidence today: the same answer – ON AVERAGE – appears in both the Telegraph and Guardian cryptics.  It isn’t the first time and, if one broadens the scope to look over two or three consecutive days, it’s happened often enough to notice.  PETER PAN is another I recall vaguely from quite a recent puzzle.  Given the enormous number of potential answers in a 15×15 grid, it seems statistically unlikely and yet it happens.

    Straightforward fare today as we’ve come to expect from Vulcan.  I rather like LAVISH which made me smile and could have been a Paul clue.  I also thought WEREWOLF was nice: Vulcan must have been delighted to find the word ‘flower’ running upwards.  My only niggle I share with muffin@8: ‘roaming’ I understood to be the facility by which an overseas phone user is able to switch between signals provided by different service providers when in the UK, and vice versa.  Which is not the same as that user phoning the UK from their country of origin.

    Thanks to Vulcan and Andrew

     

     

  14. I really liked this offering from Vulcan, which gave me a lot of smiles. 5d LAWYER and 7d LAVISH were particularly amusing, I thought. Other ticks for 12a RAINY, 4d PETER PAN and 21d PLIMSOLL. I also appreciated the economy and simplicity of 1d FLAB, 3d PERK and 13d PRIOR.

    Yes MERGANSER at 27a was also U/F in my case, but gettable from the fodder and crossers.

    Some strange coincidences here, as I have Aussie friends currently travelling in both Belgium (LIEGE at 9a), and MALTA at 31a.

    Many thanks to Vulcan and Andrew.

  16. I enjoyed this but like others I found in all over too quickly. Mostly straightforward, but I am with JinA on lawyer and lavish. Thanks to both Vulcan and Andrew.

  21. Didn’t like this so much, I’m afraid – seemed more of a punfest than a crossword puzzle.

    As for 15a ROADHOG/HEDGEGOG, all the pieces are there but they don’t fit together properly.

  22. [Thanks baerchen. Latest Facebook shows one friend in Ghent. I recommended the Altarpiece. Would love to see it myself. The other friend is Belgian so I guess she knows the best of it. When I was younger, I always wanted to study in Leuven.]

  23. [I’ve seen the altarpiece, JinA – one of the highlights of our Belgian trip. The absolute top was the Plantin-Moretus printing museum in Antwerp. We turned up there just before midday and wondered whether to have lunch or go in first. We went in. When we came out at about 4 o’clock we struggled to find somewhere still serving lunch!]

  24. A dnf for me, as I didn’t know either meaning of Plimsoll. I did know MERGANSER from American crosswords, where it’s sometimes used as a definition for smee (apparently another name for the same duck). I thought that a few of the double definitions were a bit weak, but the triple definition of GET ON (which I didn’t see) was pretty neat.

    Thanks to Vulcan and Andrew.

  27. I parsed 19 as a single cryptic definition (a play about someone who is a perpetual child). Never heard of a bear garden; at first I assumed it was a mistake and the setter meant to anagram “beer garden”. A couple of half-guesses, plimsoll and merganser. Nice start to the week, thanks Vulcan and Andrew.

    How is Plimsoll a line? A surname being a family line?

  28. Robin @

    Plimsoll line
    noun

    a marking on a ship’s side showing the limit of legal submersion when loaded with cargo under various sea conditions.

    Samuel Plimsoll (1824–1898) was a member of the British Parliament who was concerned with the loss of ships and crews due to vessel overloading. In 1876, he persuaded Parliament to pass the Unseaworthy Ships Bill, which mandated marking a ship’s sides with a line that would disappear below the waterline if the ship was overloaded. The line, also known as the Plimsoll mark, is found midship on both the port and starboard hulls of cargo vessels and is still used worldwide by the shipping industry.

  30. I liked LAVISH too and ACME raised a smile but I didn’t like ROAM much. I agree with Muffin on the latter which was LOI. Pretty standard fair from this setter.
    Thanks Vulcan.

  31. If you are using your cell phone outside your assigned calling area you are “roaming,” so 29D seems perfectly okay to me.

  32. Muffin @25, the American crossword definition always seemed to lead to “smee.” I have just learned from Collins that smee is “a name given to various species of duck including the smew or wigeon.”

  33. @Tim 31

    I think everyone understands that a mobile/cell looks for a new network when away from its home and that this is called “roaming”.

    However, when I’m standing in Piazza Navona and have connected to TIM (no relation), I don’t say “I’ll just roam my missus”. So I can’t see how “phone from abroad” = roam

  34. Mergansers live in north America and Europe. In America, the Goosander of Britain is known as a Common Merganser. There is also a Red-breasted Merganser in both continents. The Smew or Smee, a compiler’s favourite, is another type of sawbill – these are ducks with serrated teeth for eating (mainly) fish. I am waiting for them to arrive from further north to winter on the small lake in a park in south Manchester.

    And I enjoyed the crossword & blog, but prefer a harder challenge.

  35. Thanks Vulcan and Andrew.

    15a ROAD HOG was certainly an unusual construction, but I think it works, along the lines suggested @1 and 2.  I put in GET ON at 16d without fully understanding it, but in retrospect the triple definition is very clever.

    I think Antwerp is the most popular Belgian city in crosswords (usually as “An idiot in Belgium” or something similar), so it was nice to see LIEGE at 9a.  (JinA, baerchen and muffin – we were in Gent/Ghent last week.  A beautiful city, and the altarpiece is wonderful.)

  36. baerchen @31  I see your point, but I can imagine a child leaving on a trip being told “You can use your phone, but please don’t roam,” meaning “… don’t phone from abroad.”

  37. Thanks for the puzzle and the explanations. I am afraid I still do not understand 15a but that is obviously a me problem. However, I parsed 1a as LIE about EG but I probably got the order wrong. ROAM also seemed a bit of a stretch but acceptable.

  39. Ronald@11 – very amusing – my loi too. I’m with JinA on this one, although I did know merganser. LAVISH is one Paul would be proud of. I didn’t understand ROAD HOG either. Many thanks to Vulcan and Andrew.

  40. Continuing Mark’s comments on coincidence, PRIOR appears in today’s Scotsman crossword clued as “Previously, he was the head of a religious community”.

  41. People are arguing about the plausibility of using roam to mean phone but I’ve never looked at a river and called it a flower! Think the point is language is pushed in ways that aren’t strictly usable. The setter is free to roam a bit!

  42. This is called the Birthday Paradox, in that it only takes a few people together in a room for it to be likely that two of them share a birthday. So equally it may take a surprisingly small number crosswords for two of them to share an answer

  43. I parsed 15a as a pure cryptic, or a odd double definition perhaps. A hedgehog away from the hedge and on the tarmac could be called a roadhog

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