Guardian 28,053 / Nutmeg

73 comments on “Guardian 28,053 / Nutmeg”

1. Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen

   I found this harder than Nutmeg usually is, but well worth it. Lots of clever misdirection, and a couple of clues where I first thought “that doesn’t work”, then saw the trick (FAN DANCE, my favourite, for example – my first thought being that “hosts” was a very odd anagram indicator to get from “and” to DAN!). PUPATE was another that caught me out at first sight.

2. Another top class puzzle with a blog to match – thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen. FAN DANCE is an outstanding clue – definitely a solve then parse but not because the wordplay was contrived. The wordplay was transparently clear – once you saw it. Another example of the best clues hiding everything in plain sight. I needed Eileen’s example to understand the USE bit of 15a. The SS in 7d took me back 50 years or more as it was a frequently used device in crosswords when my dad did them but is not often seen these days. A great start to the day – and the decorating marathon still awaits.

3. Found the SW corner a little difficult to parse, particularly “use” for “good” in 15ac, and 25ac. But an enjoyable solve overall..

4. Brook is a lovely old verb, and took a bit of remembering. Yes, just the right amount of chew, with 11ac foi, then the rest of the NE, then round the grid to the NW last, except for loi 13d; being biblically illiterate doesn’t help tho I do know John Dory (nice eating). Had to think of mutate, change form, before pupate popped out. And didn’t parse p[l]ay for as In game, represent, d’oh. Enjoyable, thanks Nutmeg and Eileen.

5. Typical Nutmeg: quite a quick solve of very satisfying clues. I missed 3D. I know the herb, but not its medicinal use, and got stuck looking for  _E_ODY.

   Eileen: Do you have a reference for that 1400 poem? I’d love to read the whole thing.

    

6. Thanks to Nutmeg for the customary lovely puzzle and Eileen for the customary lovely blog.

   I spotted ROSES in row 7 but my search for other Valentine material proved fruitless

7. Lovely crossword that took some time to reveal its secrets.

   My personal favorite was PAY FOR for its smooth misdirect of finance masquerading as a verb.

   Goujeers @5:  While we wait for Eileen to undoubtedly come up with something better, I found this reference for the poem.  It’s 1 page down.

   Nice week, all.

8. …sorry forgot the link!

9. There seems to be a The Archers theme (and some farming/livestock): BROOK FIELD, VEAL, TIGERish, ARCHERY, JILL, BULL, beTONY, A[m]BRIDGE[r], CORNER SHOP, RUTHless, FETLOCK, JACK

   I might have missed some!

10. Very nice puzzle. My favourites were AMALFI, JOHN DORIES.

    Thanks B+S.

     

    [hi Eileen – can you tell me how to get in touch with site Admin. It is hard for me to access fifteensqaured the past two weeks or so. I usually use Safari, but it does not work well anymore. Now trying in Google Chrome, and it is so-so.]

11. Very enjoyable. I’ve always pronounced gill with a hard g so jack and Jill took me a while. My Favourite was pay for and I was pretty chuffed when I got Caerphilly.
    Thank you Nutmeg and Eileen

12. Michelle@10 – there is a link at the top, labelled Site Feedback, which allows you to report issues.

13. A very satisfying solve after a slow start! Some extremely clever misdirection, and l was slowed down by not realising that the fish reference was plural. Thanks Nutmeg! Thanks Eileen!

14. Enjoyable puzzle and blog, so thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen. The top half seemed to go in easily but I had to expend a lot more effort in the bottom half.

    I liked 12a DEEJAY, 14a TIGERISH and 13d JOHN DORIES a lot.

    I did have to go online to check the unfamiliar 23a CAERPHILLY (which I could only guess from the wordplay and crossers) to be sure I had finished that fiendish south-west accurately. I had to smile at 24d/24a JACK and JILL which seemed to take forever, due to the intersecting J being the common letter and having only the L and K for the crossers.

15. I echo all the praise for this elegant and enjoyable puzzle (especially after yesterday’s drab clunker). 11A was my FOI, and I more or less worked successively from that to 13D, my LOI.  The clues were consistently challenging, and caused many a smile.  Happy days are here again.

16. On first pass I thought this would be way over my head but ever so slowly the answers revealed themselves, except ‘betony’ which was very clever. Eileen i think your blog for 16d has a typo- should be ‘had’ and ‘e’. Thank you all.

17. [Pleased to get a mention in the clue for 16d SUNSHADE, of course, she said vainly…

    I agree that 20a FAN DANCE was really good – but because I started with BEE DANCE (unparsed but thinking of the bee waggle) – I laboured the solve for that one and had to change horses once I got 21d AMALFI – I had heard of FAN DANCE so stuck it in but again didn’t parse it other than “getting” the definition.

    “The Archers” theme was well spotted, Cormac@9 – well done. However. I am unfamiliar with that series so I had no idea there was a theme – therefore I guess I missed much of the enjoyment you and other “theme-spotters” would have gained from Nutmeg’s offering.]

18. A fairly quick solve, but extremely enjoyable; thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen. 25 (omitted from blog): ‘filed’, with the ‘L’ (for ‘left’) moved to produce ‘field’. Julie’s last in 16 is, of course, ‘E’, not ‘S’.

19. Betony didn’t feature anywhere in my wikisearches, so couldn’t finish. Otherwise enjoyed it, despite not knowing anything about Ambridge.

20. A tough but very enjoyable solve for me. As Eileen said, meticulous clu(e)ing, and thanks for the example of good = use.

    I just noticed that ENTHUSE is (p)ENTH(o)USE – I’ll have to keep that in mind for the future. Many good clues, I particularly liked VEAL, DEEJAY, FAN DANCE, CORNER SHOP and PAY FOR.

    Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen.

     

21. I’ve been out since shortly after posting the blog.

    Goujeers @5 – this is where I found the poem – much the same as William’s [thanks for that].

    As I’ve been listening to The Archers since they took over from Dick Barton in 1951, when I was at school, I can’t think how on earth I missed the theme! [Many thanks, Cormac.] I suppose I’m just not used to looking for one in Nutmeg’s puzzles and I was rushing to go out – but that’s no excuse.

    I’ll blame the careless errors on my haste, though – thanks to  Nitsuj and dybbuk for pointing them out.

    Julie @17 – I was delighted for you. 😉

     

22. Fan Dance – I wrote it in as a ‘must be’, but couldn’t parse it. Have read the explanation and still can’t! Can somebody explain, please?

23. Great puzzle and blog.I have to pick as my favourite 3d “back yard” completely misled me. I had ?E?O?Y and I was convinced that there was a D in there-so I tried the odd guess with the  check button BETONY was on the menu and I tried B which was not rejected

    and it was later that the tea tray hit and what a hit.Either clean bowled at off stump or a snick caught by second slip.

    And then your poetry section Eileen. Such admiration for you gals!

24. Any offers to help RH @22?

    [PS Julie @17 – I’m so sorry for making two mistakes in ‘your’  clue – fixed now. ]

25. RH @22; I thought Eileen’s explanation was clear, but to put it in another way, it’s: FAN [stimulate] that hosts [goes around] AND, plus CE.

26. RH @22 re 20a: FAN DANCE = alluring display

    AND (taken straight from the clue) is inserted into FAN (= stimulate).[hosts is the inclusion indicator]. You then add CE which comes from the word ClientelE which has had its contents removed ‘dis-content-ed’.

    Part of the confusion, maybe, is from the repeated AN. Hope this is a bit clearer.

27. Sorry Robi, we crossed.

28. Thanks, Robi and Larry – I hope that helps, RH.

29. PHIL Archer how could I have missed this theme?

30. GAH! I also missed JOHN of course.

31. And DAN!

32. I missed the Archer theme, of course, but I have some acquaintance with the show.  I lived in Britain for six weeks in 1984 and listened to the BBC.  I happened on the Archers mid-show and heard it several times without hearing its name (even I had heard of “The Archers”)l, so I called my radio discovery “Tea at the Vicarage,” which seemed to characterize the bits I’d heard.

33. The customary wonderful puzzle from Nutmeg. Failed to see the theme, but it was not necessary to solve and appreciate the puzzle.

34. I’ve been Nutmegged! – an Archers addict for more than thirty years. Beguiled by the silky surfaces and faultless cluing, I looked for ninas but not a theme.

    I feel that when one reads back the clues after completion and they read so well that I think “What was the answer to that then?”, the setter really has done a sterling job. The NW corner was particularly and satisfyingly stubborn.

    Thank you Eileen and a resounding bravissima to La Noce Moscata !

35. PAT

36. And ALF

37. Cormac @9 – if you’re going to include A[m]BRIDGE[r], how about DORI[e]S to go with DAN? 😉

38. ED

39. It’s always a pleasure to wrestle with a Nutmeg puzzle, knowing that any failure will not be due to shoddy clueing. Thanks to her usual careful work, I was able to get the unfamiliar CAERPHILLY and JOHN DORIES from the wordplay. Only the equally unfamiliar BETONY kept me from a successful completion.

    Thanks to Nutmeg, and to Eileen for the parsing of PAY FOR.

40. eileen @37, il principe dell’oscurità @ 35, 38, essexboy @ 36 Wow!

41. sUnSHAde

42. In fact the whole thing is an ARCHER-Y FAN DANCE

43. Did CHER ever make a guest appearance?

44. Are we done? For the (is it a) record, I’ve done a round-up:

    A(m)bridge, Brook-field, Dan, Dori(e)s, Phil, Jill, Jack, Ruth, Pat, Tony and John Archer, Ed, Alf, (s)U(n)sha, Tiger [aka Matt], corner shop, Bull [pub], veal, fetlock

45. That’s incredible!

46. Incredible – yes! [Makes me feel all the more stupid for not seeing it.]

    Just one demurral: I don’t think I’ve ever heard it called the CORNER SHOP – Village Shop, surely? see here .

47. Yes, that’s true – I guess ‘shop’ could count.

48. Sorry but Nutmeg is my least favourite setter. I find his surfaces really clunky and unsatisfying ( 1d, 5d, 16d,,18d etc ) and parsing involves too much fiddly surgery. I know I am in the minority ( of one today it seems) but there it is. To add insult to injury I believe there is an Archers theme. What an awful brain-rotting programme. Jonathan Miller once likened it to the insistent drip of a rusty tap. Not my day, in short!

49. Thanks William and Eileen.

    I’ll go on lookng for the original

50. MartinD @48 – and to add even more insult, Nutmeg is a woman.

    Goujeers @49 – here‘s another mediaeval poem about betony to be going on with. [Health warning: don’t try this at home!]

     

51. Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen.

    BETONY did for me – never met it before although that surprises me.  As always it’s what you don’t know you don’t know that trips you up. I wouldn’t see an “Archers” theme if the first two answers were Dan and Doris (I think I know that they are main characters – perhaps played by great old TROUPERS?)(On which is there any significance in the hidden t-REEFER-n?).

52. Eileen@50 My bad, as the kids say. I will be more circumspect in future. Definitely not my day!

53. MartinD – better luck tomorrow! 😉

54. Excellent puzzle, took a while and careful thought but finished it in the end with some help from Chambers ! I think my favourite was ENTHUSE, it took me an age to remember the relationship between ‘use’ and ‘good’. Missed the Archers theme – and I’m old enough – but as a lifelong hater of soap operas I refuse to feel inadequate! Thanks to Eileen and Nutmeg

55. I seem to be the only one not getting this but I have to ask anyone willing to help.  In PUPATE, does “up” come from “in revolt” with “blocking” indicating it should be flipped?  Or does “blocking” mean “up” with “in revolt” being a clear indication to flip it?  In either case, I’m baffled by “blocking”.  Is this yet another sports term I’ve never heard?

56. BlueDot @ 55

    The UP isn’t the initial PU ‘flipped’, it’s the 2nd and 3rd characters in the middle of P__ATE.  It’s this UP (= in revolt, as in ‘up in arms’) that’s ‘blocking’ the PATE (= head).  Think of P__ATE as a road, and the UP is ‘blocking’ it like a couple of fallen trees.

57. BlueDot @55 – sorry if it wasn’t clear: Chambers gives ‘in revolt’ as one definition of  ‘up’ [and I’ve seen it a number of times in crosswords].  UP is inserted into [is blocking] PATE [head] to give PUPATE = move to a new form.

58. Thanks, essexboy – you beat me to it!

59. BlueDot @55

    That was exactly what I referred to @1, about PUPATE catching me out at first reading.

60. NE and SW corners went in mostly fairly easily, but then I got bogged down. The clue for CAERPHILLY had me going mentally round and round the Brecon Beacons, Snowdonia, Prescelly Hills, etc, until I finally saw it; likewise the penny took an awfully long time to drop over JACK and JILL. Finally, BETONY had me stuck, so did not finish… Still, some good fun along the way.

    Thank you Nutmeg for a bit of a brain-stretch, and to Eileen for the blog, especially for the parsing of FAN DANCE,  and with various 15^2-ers for sorting out PUPATE, both of which had me baffled,.

61. TILT that the unit of measure called a gill is pronounced with a soft G. I’d always assumed it was the same pronunciation as a fish’s gills. Unfortunately, I’ll probably never have a reason to say the word aloud, so I guess this’ll just be knowledge for its own sake.

    I ran aground on 24a and 24d, but having seen the answers they’re perfectly fair clues. And like others I had to cheat a bit to get BETONY.

62. I meant 22a and 22d.

63. When I was a boy growing up in an outer suburb of Leeds Miss Gill from Gill’s farm (both with a hard g) used to bring the milk round in churns on her horse and cart and we would take our jugs out to be filled from a measure containing a pint or a half, the latter of which was called a gill with a soft g.
    I wouldn’t go quite as far as MartinD at 48 but I’m definitely nearer to him than I am to the rest of the contributors both with regard to Nutmeg and The Archers. Tony Hancock had the right idea when his Walter Gabriel character killed off the whole family.
    Thanks to Eileen and Nutmeg. It’s always nice to complete a tough one and some the clues were entertaining.

64. Yes, lovely crossword. Only one I didn’t get was pupate. The word just didn’t come!

65. I was chuffed too to get Caerphilly, and also betony

66. Interesting! I’ve never had occasion to use “gill” in conversation, but, when I read it, I always gave it a hard g. Live and learn!

67. I missed the theme but, after all our fun trying to find Ambridge characters, I thought all was going well, and I thought, for once, all of the comments might be positive. Theme or no theme it was a great crossword. I’m sorry that Martin D missed the theme and clearly thinks otherwise. “The insistent drip of a rusty tap” I might apply to Miller’s interpretations of productions of operas of his I have seen.
    If Mr Martin D can think of better clues for those he did not like I’d like to see his suggestions.
    I’m posting this late because only you and the cretin in question will be reading this. Surely we should be encouraging our setters?

68. il principe @67 – add another cretin to the list. Never been particularly enthused by a Nutmeg puzzle. They seem to be written for a very particular constituency of those that can remember a  time when milk was delivered. The crossword equivalent of tea at the vicarage, with the Archers playing in the background. The idea of heaven for some people, of course, but not all.

69. VW @68

    Our milk is still delivered!

    I don’t think personal attacks are required, il principe.

70. muffin – I will perhaps substitute “… a time when everyone went to Sunday school …”. Presumably this is not your current practice.

71. Il principe @67. How rude. This site isn’t the forum for personal abuse, only opinion. If you can’t tell the difference I pity you.

72. Strictly speaking a DNF here as BETONY came from looking the letters up in the Chambers app, and not being able to parse it.

73. The example ‘this is no good / use’ seems a weak justification to me. It suggests if you can find two similar phases then substituted words are equivalent. “Sleeps with the fishes“ and “sleeps with the worms”. Does fish=worms?
    “Get the picture” and “get the message”. Does picture=message?

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