Guardian Cryptic 28,048 by Imogen

by

Imogen steps up to the plate this morning.

This was enjoyable overall, with some innovative clues such as those for SHUNNED and DECIDED, which are common crossword words, so it is good to see that the setter has tried to find new ways of clueing them.

On the other hand, I think Imogen sometimes plays a little loose with clues for the sake of getting a smooth surface, for example in 3ac “close cousin” perhaps required an “our” or something, and 7dn doesn’t quite work.  Edit – I can see how 7dn works now.

Thanks, Imogen.

Across
1 WETLAND Swamp with antelope eating tons (7)
W (with) + ELAND (“antelope”) eating T (tons)
5 ELLIPSE Some tablets, another and then another to get back into shape (7)
(<=Es (“some tablets”) + <=PILL (“another” tablet) and then <=E (“another” tablet)) to get back
9 ARCHETYPE Perfect example of first car … (9)
ARCH (“first”) + E-TYPE (“car”)
10 ROLLS … another goes smoothly along (5)
ROLLS (“goes smoothly along”)

“Other” refers to a car (linked to 9ac by ellipsis)
11 KAYO Floor is fine for cycling (4)
KAY(O) (“fine” (OKAY) with the O cycled to the back) (imagine a wheel with the word OKAY on it, and “cycle it”)
12 DIVINATION With people, share prediction (10)
with NATION (“people”) DIVI(dend) (“share”)
14 SNITCH Inform of allergic reaction to tin? (6)
ITCH (“allergic reaction”) to Sn (chemical symbol for “tin”)
15 GEORDIE Late king finally coming out for princess, a northerner (7)
GEOR(g>DI)E (“late king” with [finally] (comin)G out, and [for] replaced by DI (“a princess”))
16 DOSSIER One opening homeless person’s file (7)
I (“one”) opening DOSSER (“homeless person”)
18 TIN HAT Soldier’s gear, which stays at home (3,3)
THAT (“which”) stays IN (“at home”)
20 MOUNTEBANK Charlatan, one eluding policeman at store (10)
I eluding MOUNT(i)E (“policeman”) at BANK (“store”)
21 FIRM Tree minute but unbending (4)
FIR (“tree”) + M (minute)
24 GONNA Commonly about to hear one who’s had it (5)
Homophone of [hear] GONER (“one who’s had it”)
25 EL ALAMEIN In battle with airline I get in the final word (2,7)
EL AL (Israeli “airline”) + I get in AMEN (“the final eord”)
26 DODDERY Shambling comedian’s hesitation ending in mockery (7)
(Ken) DODD (“comedian”) + ER (“hesitation”) + [ending in] (mocker)Y
27 DECIDED Chose to be made redundant as detective? (7)
If one stops being a detective in the CID, one could say one has DE-CIDed
Down
1 WRACK Seaweed beginning to wither on frame (5)
[beginning to] W(ither) on RACK (“frame”)
2 TACHYON After working on yacht, in principle it goes very fast (7)
*(on yacht) [anag:after working]

A tachyon is a theoretical particle that can travel faster than light.
3 APEX Crown close cousin with kiss (4)
APE (“close cousing” to humans, presumably) with X (“kiss”)
4 DAYLIGHT ROBBERY Extortionate price foolish brother gayly bid (8,7)
*(brother gayly bid) [anag:foolish]
5 EVENING STANDARD Getting level grade for paper (7,8)
EVENING (“getting level”) + STANDARD (“grade”)
6 LORNA DOONE Book on Leonardo reissued (5,5)
*(on leonardo) [anag:reissued]
7 PALSIED Unable to move, university housed one in flat (7)
LSE (London School of Econcomics, so “university”) + I (one) “housed in’ PAD (“flat”)
8 ESSENCE Old ascetic conceals cold heart (7)
ESSENE (“old ascetic”) conceals C (cold)
13 STRIPTEASE Band consuming drinks in cabaret performance (10)
STRIPE (“band”) consuming TEAS (“drinks”)
16 DAMAGED Injured old man calls wizard in (7)
DAD (“old man”) calls SAGE (“wizard”) in
17 SHUNNED Given call to attention, ignored (7)
In the army, ‘SHUN is short for “attention”, so if a soldier has been ‘SHUNNED, he may have been given the order to stand to attention.
19 ANISEED Imogen gets to open some bananas, not initially for flavouring (7)
I SEE (“Imogen (the compiler of the puzzle) understands”) to open (h)AND (“some bananas”, not initially)
22 MONAD One half-day, plus a day (5)
MON(day) (half-“day”) plus A D (day)
23 MARC Refuse to have gospel read out (4)
Homophone of MARK (“gospel” read out)

Marc is the skins and refuse left over in the wine-making process.

*anagram

65 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,048 by Imogen”

  1. I can only assume that Imogen is a 15sq reader and has deliberately started the antelope fanatics again.

    I thought there was some very tidy compact cluing here. Don’t see a problem with 7d if ‘housed’ is read as a transitive verb.

  2. I read “archetype” as being first=arch and car = etype with the definition as “perfect example of” – I think this works better as the clue is not an &lit because the car has nothing to do with the definition.

    Ditto “palsied” – I read it as “university housed one” ie LS(I)E inside “pad” which seemed to work. There are other ways to read it, which is the fun of the ambiguity of a clue I guess.

    Lots of innovation here, and very enjoyable – I’ve been away from puzzles for a week or so and this has woken me back up! Thanks Imogen, and Loonapick for the hard work on the blog.

  5. Thanks Loonapick and Imogen.

     

    I didn’t really care for this one. There were several words for surface only: 5a into; 14a of; 23d to have. And I still can’t understand 16d DAMAGED – there is no S in there so it can’t be SAGE for wizard? I thought it was perhaps MAGE sounding like MAGI? But isn’t the singular MAGUS? Ah! I have just looked up that MAGE is another name for a wizard.

     

    We haven’t seen ESSENE for a long time – it used to be quite common in crossword land.

  6. I smiled when I saw antelope in the clue for 1 across 🙂

    My favourites were DECIDED, PALSIED, ELLIPSE, STRIPTEASE.

    I parsed ARCH/ETYPE in the same way as TheZed, and I was fine with how PALSIED was clued.

    New for me were EL AL airline, marc, and tachyon.

    I could not parse 17d and 19d.

    Thanks B+S.

  7. Thank you to Imogen for a thoroughly enjoyable workout, and to Loonapick for the blog. I agree with the commments above about the parsings. Just one small point going back to a previous discussion about imprecise definitions and anagrams: 2d was an unknown word, given my paucity of knowledge of partical physics. The definition appeared to suggest a descriptive word, which led me to first consider ‘tochyan’. I can’t see any way to be sure of the correct answer without recourse to reference materials. Perhaps I need to enroll on a new degree course!

  8. Great fun – thanks to Imogen and Loonapick. Particularly enjoyed ELLIPSE and TIN HAT. Couldn’t parse ANISEED, but now I SEE!

  9. Similar to Norbrewer. I too am versed in particle physics so was amazed I had never heard of the imaginary particle.

  10. Normally like Imogen for the nice surfaces, but less keen on this. A couple of hopeful bungs took the gloss off. Thought marc was a drink, and assumed monad must mean ‘one’. Having read the Wikipedia definition, still none the wiser!

    Otherwise some Mage clues. Thanks.

  11. Thanks both.

    I had no problems with any of the clues (and I did smile to see the antelope).

    Somewhere in the past I’d come across TACHYON, but even if I hadn’t I might have got it, from the anagram and knowing “tachy…” indicates something fast, e.g. tachycardia=abnormally fast heartbeat.

     

  12. I should praise Imogen’s crafty misdirection at 1ac – I was trying to work GNU into the answer, I didn’t expect a real antelope…

    For some reason Ken Dodd sprang to mind as soon as I glanced at 26 ac . I’ve no idea why, as he wasn’t my favourite comedian – perhaps very few comedians have short enough names to feature in multi-part crossword clues?

    Some loose/vague clueing I thought (the “cousin” in 3dn for example, and how long would it take for a Brit to come up with “Mountie” as a synonym for “policeman” (20 ac)?) But enjoyable on the whole, thanks Imogen and loonapick

  13. From monads to tachyons – a good spread.

    Tachyons are like inverted photons. The less energy they have, the faster they go, so at zero energy they would have infinite velocity! Fun, but not real.

  14. The FTL particle relates to theories of time travel – a fun take on this is Mrs Tachyon in Terry Pratchett ‘Johnny and the Bomb’ series.

  15. Thanks Imogen, not as tough as some from this setter but still a bit of a struggle at the beginning.

    I enjoyed all the clues, particularly APEX, DAYLIGHT ROBBERY and PALSIED. I thought ‘close cousin’ was fine. Er doesn’t really mean hesitation, it’s the sound of hesitation but that’s a small quibble.

    Thanks loonapick for an informative blog.

  16. Thanks loonapick, some nice stuff here although my heart sank on reading “antelope” in the first clue!

    Fascinated by MOUNTEBANK.  The dictionary gives its root from the Italian monta in banco meaning “climbs on the bench” presumably to attract (and then dupe) an audience.

    Thought the ‘in’ in the EL ALAMEIN superfluous.

    Many thanks, Imogen, good crossword with smooth clueing.

    Nice week, all.

  18. Oofyprosser @10. Marc is [also] the drink made from the left-over skins and pips after distilling. I particularly recommend a Marc de Gewurtztraminer, which always seems to have a more delicate taste than, for example, a Marc de Bourgoyne. What niggled me in the clue, as a French resident, is that to my knowledge the final C is silent. However, Chambers does give märk first as the pronunciation.

  19. Technically a dnf for me even though all squares were filled. But I had an unparsed SPURNED for 17d. Now I see the trick in the clue.

    Along the way to being ingloriously defeated by Imogen, I liked 5a ELLIPSE, 24a GONNA and 3d APEX. I didn’t really understand DIVI in DIVINATION at 12a, thinking it was some kind of play on “DIVVY”, as in to divvy up the spoils. Wasn’t “gayly” in 4d a funny spelling, but yet there it was in my Chambers! 2d TACHYON was unfamiliar but gettable from the fodder – and a TILT for me (learning all the time)!

    Thanks to Imogen and loonapick.

    I am glad that no elks were harmed in the construction of this puzzle.

     

  20. As always with Imogen a good tussle. I don’t think divi has anything to do with dividend as to divi is used on its own to mean share. Thank you loonapick for parsing those i couldn’t although i still don’t ‘see’ aniseed!

  21. Will read back more, but surprised that physics buffs dnk tachyon. A bit of wading through glue, but that’s my head not Imogen’s. Lots of ticks for neat clues, with a bit of headscratching, eg for palsied, loi. Thanks both.

  22. JinA @19 as a child back in the ’60s, my mum was a member of the Co-Op. Each year she would get her “divi”, which was short for “dividend” and was based on how much you had spent during the year – so an early loyalty scheme. But the “divi” was the payment, not the share value (as the clue might suggest), hence another example of vague clueing (for me). But my qibblettes are minor.

  23. A nice steady workout, though I couldn’t parse a few answers. Thanks Imogen for the entertainment, and Loonapick for sorting out ANISEED AND TIN HAT for me. I liked the anagram for DAYLIGHT ROBBERY. About the pronunciation of MARC: I did a couple of working holidays grape-picking in Provence, way back when, and remember M. le Patron pointing out the steaming piles of old grape skins outside the pressoir building as being “pour faire le Marc”, with, as far as distant memory serves, the final “c” vocalised. It might have been a local pronunciation, though; M. Ott was very much of the region.
    Re. TACHYON:
    “There was a young lady named Bright,
    who travelled much faster than light:
    She set out one day,
    in a relative way,
    and arrived home the previous night!”

  24. Nitsuj@20. My recollection is that divi was specifically the refund that members received from the Co-op on their purchases in the year and of course, JiA, that presumably is where the expression “divvy up” comes from.

  26. The use of ‘divi’ for share at 12a brought back an ancient memory from my ‘fifties childhood. When shopping at the Cooperative Retail Society, you were given a receipt which measured roughly 5mm x 100mm, one end of which was postage stamp licked in order to be affixed to a foolscap sheet. When the foolscap sheet was full, I as the youngest child would be sent to present said sheet to the Co-op shop where the assistant would use a clanking comptometer to calculate the ‘divi’. The minuscule share of the Co-ops profit would then be returned to me in cash for carriage to my parents, minus the cost of a Penny Arrow, my reward for completing the task.

  27. I thought 4d DAYLIGHT ROBBERY was very good, although as Julie @19 points out, it does need the slightly unusual spelling “gayly”.  Strangely this does not seem to appear in my Chambers (10th edition) which only has “gaily”.  Some people claim that the expression DAYLIGHT ROBBERY arose from the window tax of the 18th century, though I must say this seems unlikely to me.

    Re 12a, Chambers has “divi” and “divvy” as alternatives, both as noun and verb.  As the latter it’s usually in the phrase “divvy up” which I think is rather dated slang – I associate it with my parents’ generation.

    I needed help with the parsing of 19d ANISEED.

    Thanks to Imogen and loonapick.

  28. A mixed bag for me. 24a was one of those clues where either homophone would work in the absence of the crossers, and I had GONER until the check button showed me to have zigged when I should have zagged, so a dnf. Also, like JinA, I had an unparsed SPURNED at 17d, although the clue was clever now that it’s been explained to me. On the other hand, there were several that I really enjoyed, including ELLIPSE and GEORDIE, so thanks to Imogen and to loonapick for the parsing of a few.

    Yes, Boffo @1, I think the setters have decided to have some fun with us.

  29. Rullytully @24: np, thanks for the confirmation of my vague childhood memories. I can still remember my mum’s Co-op number, which I had to quote every time that she sent me out “for the messages”. The number was recorded against your expenditure to calculate your “divi”

    But I think “divvy up” is just a colloquialism for “divide up”?

  31. Co-op divi is not only a fond memory Trismegistus. I have a numbered card and receive my divi in money-off vouchers each year.

     

  32. One of the reasons I only got a third was that I was spending time studying the idea of faster-than-light particles, so I knew that. (The other reasons relate to pubs, folk clubs, girlfriend and Anfield.) I enjoyed the challenge, and was pleased to find an antelope that is actually an antelope, for a change.

  34. A satisfying puzzle.  I used to find solving this setter’s puzzles a bit like ‘swimming through treacle’ (noting something similar that grantinfreo @21 said about this!), but I feel that much less now, if at all.

    I too had SPURNED instead of SHUNNED (as it matched the definition just as well, as Julie @19 must have found).  Fortunately, though, because that just didn’t compute I then found SHUNNED, which fitted perfectly.

    I have followed the discussion from yesterday and (briefly) today about unfamiliar words clued by an anagram.  Today it’s TACHYON.  I think it worth pointing out that in today’s clue we had a straight definition/description for the answer, whereas yesterday it was a cryptic indication (always valid, of course, in a crossword clue, but something I thought worth querying in this context).  Also, ‘tacho-‘ and tachy-‘ are reasonably well-known prefixes indicating speed, and indeed that is what reminded me of the answer today (which I know I have encountered in at least one book on particle physics).

    Many thanks to Imogen and loonapick.

  35. Thanks to Imogen and loonapick.

    I arrived with, for parsing, ELLIPSE, ARCHETYPE and EL ALAMEIN so thanks for those loonapcik.

    Had one of those interesting moments with LORNA DOONE: with a couple of crossers I stared and stared – nothing.  Two minutes later a glance led to a possibly audible click. Do we all have this?  I mean that a short sojourn away from the clue can lead to an instantaneous solve on return – it seems to me that the cogs continue to turn while the attention is directed elsewhere.

    Favourites were ELLIPSE and EVENING STANDARD (the latter evoking long ago childhood memories of the Evening Standard book of Strange Stories – that the paper still survives is remarkable, to me at any rate as I haven’t heard of it in the interim).

  36. Thanks both,

    It took me ages to get started but eventually it fell. I too had ‘goner’ rather than ‘gonna’ until 13d provided a crosser. The trip down memory lane for some clues was pleasing. I think each co-op must have had a different system. We did our purchases on account. I was set to add up the books which recorded the amounts when each book was finished and was rewarded with a share of any errors in our favour, sometimes the errors were as much as a whole ten bob. I’m sure adding up L.s.d. was much easier than adding up decimalised amounts.

  37. Thank-you loonapick, as yesterday I struggled with some parsing here (Aniseed, for example, had a guess with all crossers in and used CHECK) although I had no problem with tachyon as I am a science fiction fan and am familiar with the prefix as noted by Alan B @34 – getting this killed off the KOOK I had tentatively entered for 11A but was not happy with. Again I was helped by a clue first seen in Private Eye – this time the Essene part of 8D (Dave Ellison @8, it was a few months ago I think. Doddery also appeared not long ago although differently clued). Divination took far longer to divine than it should have (I was fixated on “ration” for share) and the discussion above brings back some very faint memories of Co-op stamps when I was young – now abroad, our local Coop offers stickers to be collected and redeemed against pots and pans etc, but no cash. Initially I was annoyed at divi=share but then twigged that a dividend is a stockholder’s share of the company profits so I have simmered down. Thanks Imogen for the fun, my favourites 15A and 7D which took a while.

  38. Yesterday’s version of the highly controversial clue came under the radar, she nitpicked – and many others nitpicked, along with her. I must confess I thought the clue, while quite solvable, to be too-clever by far – but then, I don’t view puzzles as legal contracts. Where’s the fun in that?  As for today, I only just got to this puzzle, but it was much too easy, with an erratic level of clues – and little satisfaction on completion. My eyes did light up when immediately spotting an antelope in clue 1A, but there were no elks to be found anywhere in the solution, so I knew there would be no cabaret acts among these comments, alas. But tomorrow is another day ….

  39. I liked this a lot, especially the misleading “bananas” in 19d, but I spent ages trying to see how SPURNED might work for 17d, and at first I carelessly put in GONER instead of GONNA for 24a.

  40. So glad to see that nobody on this site is having a fit of the vapours over use of the word DOSSER in 16 ac.

    Unlike the Guardian site (‘Unacceptable!’, ‘Disrespectful of the homeless!)

  41. I found this a bit of a curate’s egg, and normally I really enjoy Imogen’s work. I enjoyed TIN HAT, APEX, SNITCH and MARC, was pleased to see the inimitable Ken Dodd work his way in, and adored EL ALAMEIN. On the other hand, DECIDED felt a tad wonky – and I’m sorry but I still don’t understand KAYO: is it some kind of flooring?
    Thanks to Imogen for the challenge, to Loonapick for the ever-helpful blog, and to Troglodyte for the limerick.

  43. Wellbeck: KAYO is boxing slang for Knock-out (K.O.), i.e. a flooring of one of the contenders. Rather like the gag: “I went to B&Q and this bloke said ‘Do you want decking?’ – but I got mine in first, and that was him seen to.”
    Thanks for the thanks!

  44. Hello Roy and Troglodyte – thanks for that. And of course, now that you’ve both pointed it out, it’s blindingly obvious. Another d’oh! moment for me…. i liked the B&Q gag!

  45. My Mother,Father and maternal Grandfather all worked for the Co Op so I was familiar with the DIVI and can still remember our number – 5916 since you ask!
    I really enjoyed this and bounded through it in fine style. However, I was another unparsed SPURNED which looked so obvious at the time. I don’t suppose I’d have got TACHYON had it not been an anagram but there! KAYO was LOI because I was wrong footed by the clue.
    Thanks Imogen.

  46. Gazzh @ 37 I checked before I commented about ESSENE, and the most recent use in the Guardian was Vlad in May 2015. It feels when I first started doing the crossword in the 60s it occurred much more frequently.

  47. Oh themes themes themes themes themes – see them all over the place. Snitch and Divination got me off on a Harry Potter hunt which held me up for a while. Followed my brain, not my shoehorn in the end to end up with a 75% completed puzzle. Had to reveal the final corner as it’s 5pm and hometime beckons.

  49. Roy Blake @40 – a strange thing to be glad about.  The Guardian spent a considerable time over Christmas and the New Year telling the stories of homeless people who died on the streets, setting out with compassion how none of them were dossers. I find it disappointing that nobody has commented on the “homeless-dosser” equivalence.

  50. Lord Jim @27 – you say that “divvy up” is “rather dated slang – I associate it with my parents’ generation”.  I don’t know how old your parents are, but the expression was rather famously used in a United States Supreme Court opinion in 2006:  “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.”  That was written by Chief Justice John Roberts, who was 51 at the time.

  51. Late to the party so may already be addressed… I think divi is from divide up, as in ‘the bank robbers divi up the swag’.
    Thought the ‘in’ from in battle was misleading.

  52. Van Winkle @49

    i respect and share your compassion for the homeless.

    What irritates me is the unnecessary policing of language.

    DOSS has long been accepted as a perfectly common slang word for sleeping roughly in a bed which is not your own.

    It does NOT imply any contempt or hatred.

  53. Thanks Imogen and loonapick

    The last two Imogen puzzles have been much more enjoyable than most earlier ones.

    I was late, so I wasn’t intending to post, but some comments have moved to say that….mmmm…I was going to add that DOSSIER was my favourite clue (sorry!)

  54. As Roy @52 says “doss down” in the 70s simply meant “sleep in someone else’s place”; not derogatory at all.

  56. Roy @52 and muffin @54 – I am arguing for respect in the use of language. I have no dispute with your definitions of dossing, but in modern usage a dosser has become rather more than someone who dosses and is derogatory. A homeless person need be no more a dosser than they are an elk. And someone who dosses can have a home; they just aren’t using it tonight. So, even without the snowflakery, the clue is unthinking.

  58. I didn’t get 11ac ‘KAYO’, although I did get the hint for ‘KO’. It could have been clearer, e.g. ‘floor sounds fine for cycling’.

    On the other hand, 27ac ‘DECIDED’ made me kick myself when I got it: good clue.

    1dn ‘WRACK’ is almost what I’d call a ‘perfect clue’.

    But 2dn ‘TACHYON’ took the biscuit.

  61. Lovely puzzle, which I came to rather late. Small quibble about 3D – H. Sapiens is not a cousin to the apes, it is a species of ape.

  63. Didn’t care for the use of dosser either. I also thought the first ‘in’ of 25ac was naughty – it makes the definition interesting battle’, doesn’t it?

    Many good clues OTOH and overall fun.

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