Guardian 27,987 / Vulcan

48 comments on “Guardian 27,987 / Vulcan”

1. Thanks Vulcan and Eileen

   Back to “easy Mondays” (though why it is assumed that people have more time to devote to the crossword on a Monday is beyond me).

   I liked DETACHED and WATERTIGHT most. No question marks. I don’t think 9a makes sense except with the idea of “turn up for the books”.

2. Thanks to Vulcan and Eileen. I failed to get en fete, not having come across the phrase. At least we all know prorogue now!

3. I thought this had some super clues, with a number of very neat anagrams. On the other hand there were horrors such as “professional = pro” (so obvious I thought it could not be), “tinier”, “en fete” which is impossible unless you know the expression as there was zero wordplay, and the unfortunate overlap of 4dn with a similar clue in the Quiptic.

   20dn is a great example of a near-miss. Could be a lovely surface but the grammar is just wrong. “Wife a devil? That’s feeble! (4)” or some such might work better. Ditto “back to front” which has a lovely idea but I am sure could be tightened up.

   Many thanks Vulcan, and Eileen for blogging it.

4. I don’t understand tears rhyming with bears in 14dn. I just parsed it as tears as in rips or rents.

5. Doh yes I do. You were just distinguishing from things that you cry

6. Thought that MIT was a rather obscure component of 4 down, though the answer simply had to be MITIGATE. This and the slightly unsatisfactory TURN UP were the last two in. Otherwise, apart from perhaps REPAIRER, some nice clues for a Monday.

7. Ronald: To be fair, MIT comes up quite a lot in crosswords.

   Happy to be back to a ‘normal’ Monday.

8. En fete is one of those expressions one’s sure one must know but can’t remember. I found this took longer than a write-in, but it’s aging brain syndrome; I mean, pondering over 6-letter capital starting with medical orderly can’t be anything else, ditto 17ac being foi. Well that’s life as Ned Kelly said, or wtte. Thanks both.

9. Very straightforward with the majority of clues solved on a first pass through. Only EN FETE gave me any pause for thought. I came here to find out the wordplay only to see there isn’t any. Very strange. I liked SARDONIC and WATERTIGHT. Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

10. Thanks for the excellent blog Eileen – as always, much appreciated!

    I generally enjoyed the puzzle (so thanks to Vulcan!) though I felt there were some minor weaknesses (as other have pointed out). I’m a little puzzled by 16d however. A “baby boom” is a marked increase in the birth rate and so “Not very big explosion in births?” doesn’t work (for me) as a cryptic definition if taken altogether. I parsed it as “Not very big” giving “baby”, “explosion” giving “boom”, and then “explosion in births” giving “baby boom”, so a sort of cryptic-followed-by-definition type of clue; however “explosion” is then used in both the definition and the cryptic parts. I’m probably missing something as usual (or over-thinking this or whatever).

11. Very enjoyable. My favourites were BACK TO FRONT, REPAIRER, DETACHED, RENT-FREE.

    I could not parse TURN UP.

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

12. I suppose one person’s TILT is another’s “blindingly obvious” (er, BO? I’m still a relative newcomer to the Cruciverse, and far from confident about the range of acronyms). For me, EN FETE was a BO – but then I live in France for much of each year so it would be. However, at the other end of the scale, I have a sneaking suspicion that PROROGUE is the kind of word that experienced FS bods have known about for simply yonks! My own faves today were DETACHED and SARDONIC, and REPAIRER made me smile. As did the whole crossword tbh, largely because I completed it in record time – which isn’t saying much, for I know I’m way slower than regular FS folk. A bittersweet blessing, for it meant the fun was over sooner. Still, now that I’ve conquered my terror of Enigmatist, I can always rely on him/her for a long, slow struggle….. Thanks to Vulcan for a classy crossword, and to Eileen for the blog!

13. 18a reminded me of ambiguous newspaper headlines : “General flies back to front” and “French push bottles up Germans”.

14. Is it possible to have a ‘twin bed’, surely it’s just a bed?

    With ‘treachery’ a fortnight ago and ‘en-fete’ today ‘easy Monday’ is becoming ‘almost done setting, stick any old rubbish in at the end Monday’.

    Rick @ 10 ‘Not very big explosion’ as the wordplay, ‘in births?’ as the qualified definition (but no, it’s not a great clue).

    Thanks Vulcan (some very good clues but working down doesn’t seem to agree with you) and Eileen.

15. Chuckles, thanks mij.

16. Thanks, Eileen.

    I can’t see anything cryptic in 25a. I hope “Here’s a definition: translate it into French” doesn’t become a regular part of the setters’ toolkit.

    Robert @14: I’ve heard USians refer to a single bed as “a twin.” Don’t think I’ve come across it in UK speech or writing.

17. Contra TheZed, I didn’t mind ‘wife a devil’ for wimp, a) because it was better than using ‘s as has, and b) because it reminded me of the old French rule ‘omit article for state, trade and profession, as in “je suis charpentier” ‘, but in reverse. Yes, a bit curly, but it’s well past shirazo’clock here.

18. Robert@14: Thanks for the explanation for 16d. You’re probably right but, if so, then (like you) I don’t think “in births” is very good as the qualified definition.

    I take your point about “Twin bed”; I guess that, if you had two twin beds, then one of them could be considered to be a twin bed? If so, then it would really be a property of the location of the bed (next to another one) as opposed to something concerning the bed itself.

    For some reason this reminds me of a (in my opinion) fine joke by Sara Pascoe (You can’t lose a homing pigeon; if your homing pigeon doesn’t come back, then what you’ve lost is a pigeon).

    I’ll get my coat . . .

19. Robert @14; TWIN BED is in all the major dictionaries as: ‘one of a pair of single beds.’ I thought BACK-T0-FRONT was more of a dd, rather than a cd, but that’s a moot point.

    What a ghastly grid but a reasonably enjoyable solve. I liked the very fragrant plant.

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

20. I liked 4a MOSCOW, 11a GHOSTWRITER, 18a BACK TO FRONT, 22a IMMOBILE, 24a PROROGUE and 13d GASOLINE. Thanks to Vulcan and Eileen.

21. The NW corner was less Monday-ish than the rest of it, but an enjoyable time was had while solving so thank you to Vulcan and Eileen

22. Quick to solve and mainly fun. DNF because I did not know En Fete and, as one or two have pointed out, it seems impossible to solve without foreknowledge of the phrase. Agree with Eileen and others about the small handful of weaknesses. But overall, enjoyable.

23. Robi @ 19 Thanks but I wasn’t querying the validity of the clue, I was cogitating on the existence of a singular noun for something that cannot exist singularly.

    Rick @ 18 It is a fine joke from a very funny comedian (and I wish she was my sister)!

24. A dnf due to EN FETE. As others have pointed out, either you know it or you don’t. That, along with TINIER (it couldn’t be that straightforward, could it?), were the weakest clues in what was otherwise enjoyable and largely easy. REPAIRER and GHOSTWRITER were much better cryptic definitions. Thanks to Vulcan and Eileen.

25. Muffin, surely the assumption is that people have LESS time on a Monday! Though that too is open to debate…. Praps its to allow for that ‘Monday morning feeling’ when all energy is taken up just getting to work

26. Thanks to Vulcan and Eileen.

    robert @23 — there are singular nouns for something that cannot exist singularly.  “Bob is a twin.”  The law firm made Sarah a partner.”  “That was my duty as a spouse.”

27. Typical Monday stuff really.

    I thought the same as others about twin bed, but reasoned that it could be shorthand for a twin bed hotel room – “Could I book a twin bed?” works as a phrase. “En Fete” rang a bell (very quietly) but with the crossers and French hint it seemed easy enough. A slight pause before Ghostwriter let me complete most of the top, then another pause while I had to think of a four letter children’s writer as a surname before the top right fell into place. There are probably a few other than Dahl, but he was the first to come to mind. I always forget Edward=Ted.

28. Phyllida White @25

    Indeed – I don’t know what I was thinking!

29. Valentine @ 26 Not sure that you’ll find many single spouses or partners in the world, plenty of single beds.

30. Thanks both,
    I thought ‘more’ time on a Monday plausible. If the object is to recruit solvers who are put off by the length of time needed to solve hard cryptics then a relatively easier one might attract. In my own solving history I needed the encouragement of solving the Monday one to keep me going for the rest of the week.

31. EN FETE was a guess once I had the crossers. I don’t think I’ve heard the expression before. I thought LAVENDER was a bit desperate and I can’t say I cared for FRIEND much but that’s just me. I quite liked BABY BOOM and MITIGATE.
    Thanks Vulcan

32. I thought there may be wordplay in 25, namely France (F) being in summer (EN ETE, in French) could possibly be France on holiday.  Not entirely convinced though.

    Otherwise, quite straightforward, although I didn’t see PROROGUE.  (ROGUE = prankster seems a little iffy to me).

    Thanks, Vulcan and Eileen.

33. phitonelly @32 – I had similar thoughts about ‘prankster’ but Collins gave ‘a mischievous or wayward person, often a child’, which satisfied me. I’ve just looked in Chambers: you may not be surprised to hear that I found ‘prankster’.

34. LOI EN FETE, which I guessed from crossers then googled to confirm.

35. Enjoyed this, thanks V and E.  I too thought EN FETE a little unfair as it’s not one of those French expressions that are familiar to most English speakers.  However all is forgiven, as it brought to mind “Je revois la ville en fête et en délire…” from Piaf’s La foule.

36. EN FETE reminded me of one of my favourite films, Jacques Tati’s Jour de fete.

37. robert @29  Of course there are no single spouses or partners, but you can still speak of any one of them in the singular.

38. Thanks to both. It all filled in reasonably well except I had to go French phrasing.
    However, I am amused only one person has mentioned the grid. It is a most extraordinary one and I cannot recall seeing one like it before. No doubt someone will tell me there have been a few more.

39. Re: twin bed … in America (and Canada … and now even at IKEA here) it is just a size of bed, like King or Queen …

    https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/27810/why-do-americans-call-single-beds-twin-beds

    Though this might have meant that some indication that it was an Americanism should have been included in the clue.

40. When we stayed in Cosat Rica, the rooms usually had two double beds, to cope with the size of typical American tourists!

41. Costa, of course…

42. I expected some significance to rwr and msd from the exposed lights at the top and bottom.   Perhaps a wedding present for Richard W Rodgers and Marlene S Dietrich  (two imaginary friends of Vulcan).

43. Thank you Vulcan for a fun puzzle and Eileen for a helpful blog (especially for the link at 9a).

     

    I live in France but have never heard en fete to mean ‘dressed for holiday’, only endimanché, but I see that Collins gives this meaning…

44. Cookie @ 43

    Like you, never heard ‘en fête’ used by a French person to refer to a person dressed in their glad rags.  However, I’ve often seen it after the name of a place, eg Paris en fête, or even une maison en fête, where the meaning seems to imply that the decorations are up, hence ‘dressed for a holiday’ in that sense?

45. Cookie @43 — Collins says its definition relates to “en fête in British English”.  Maybe a British author was the first to give this sense to the phrase?

46. essexboy @44, yes, I had thought of that, but Larousse only gives “En fête, gai, dans une joyeuse animation : La nature semble en fête.”  The clue, I suppose, is all right because of the Collins entry, but it is not really French or Franglais – perhaps the question mark helps, and, as John E @45 points out, Collins does say it is “British English”.

47. Could 9 have been a triple shot?

48. Easier than the quiptic and very enjoyable for a begi ner like me, thank you.

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