Guardian Cryptic 28,108 by Crucible

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Day 24 in the Lockdown House, and your blogger is trying to keep his spirits up…

…aided by a fun crossword from Crucible.

There was a mini-theme going on here with many references to ancient Greece (AGAPE, PLATO, PARTHENON, APHRODITE, TAU, MINOTAUR, ETA, FETA (at a push), HESPERIDES, DAPHNE and ECHO) and a couple to Roman mythology (NEPTUNE and HERCULES) and one to Abrahamic mythology (NOAH).

I’m not sure about the parsing of 6dn, but otherwise I think I have managed to explain everything, at least to my own satisfaction.  I did wonder about 8dn, as I don’t know that FETA is the kind of cheese that one would normally put on a cheeseboard, but that may just be my personal taste.

Thanks, Crucible

PS I hope everyone in Crosswordland is keeping safe.

 

Across
9 CHIPOLATA Sausage and tea to keep a pilot refreshed (9)
CHA (“tea”) to keep *(a pilot) [anag:refreshed]
10 AGAPE Love break in hospital department (5)
GAP (“break”) in A+E (accident and emergency, so “hospital department”)

Agape is a Greco-Christian term referring to pure “love”
11 AVOCADO Green Party pursues a singer releasing record (7)
DO (“party”) pursues A VOCA(list) (“singer”, releasing LIST (“record”))
12 ECHIDNA English companion with writer recalled Oz native (7)
E (English) + CH (“companion” of honour) + <=AND I (“with writer”, recalled)

An echidna is a spiny anteater, native to Australia.
13 PLATO Republic’s author about to abandon army group (5)
ON (“about”) to abandon PLATO(on) (“army group”)

Plato wrote The Republic, a treatise on justice.
14 PATRIARCH Family boss, a Dubliner briefly stabling Arab horse (9)
PATRIC(k) (“a Dubliner”, briefly) stabling Ar. (Arab) + H (horse)
16 PARTHENOGENESIS Way to reproduce endless Greek temple and first book (15)
[endless] PARTHENO(n) (“Greek temple”) and GENESIS (“first book” of the Old Testament)

Parthenogenesis is reproduction from an egg without fertilization, which occurs in some invertebrates and plants.
19 REDBREAST Robin runs into ruddy animal (9)
R (runs, in cricket) into RED (“ruddy”) + BEAST (“animal”)
21 TULLE Material uni students gathered during half-term (5)
U (uni) + L+L (learners, so “students”) gathered during [half-] TE(rm)
22 NEPTUNE New song about Disc World (7)
N (new) + TUNE (“song”) about EP (extended play record or “disc’)
23 EFFENDI Eastern females target one respected Turk (7)
E (eastern) + F+F (females) + END (“target”) + 1
24 ANNIE Berlin sharpshooter’s orphan (5)
Refers to two different Annies from musicals, Annie Get Your Gun (about “sharpshooter” Annie Oakley, lyrics and music by Irving “Berlin”) and Annie (about a little “orphan” of that name).
25 APHRODITE Shell supports her in painting atrophied bananas (9)
*(atrophied) [anag:bananas]

The famous Botticelli painting in which the goddess Venus appears standing nude in a scallop shell is called The Birth of Venus, but Venus and Aphrodite are the Roman and Greek names for the same goddess, so I suppose this is OK.
Down
1 SCRAP PAPER One who fights over secretary’s shredder output (5,5)
SCRAPPER (“one who fights”) over PA (personal assistant, or “secretary”)
2 MINOTAUR Greek character breaks petty Cretan cross (8)
TAU (“Greek character”) breaks MINOR (“petty”)

The minotaur was a cross between a bull and a human and lived in the labyrinth at Knossos on the island of Crete.
3 POTATO Priest loves storing shabby clothes for Murphy (6)
P (priest) + O+O (zeroes, so “loves” in tennis) storing TAT (“shabby clothes”)
4 HALO Hot singer’s timeless gold disc (4)
H (hot) + AL(t)O (“singer” without T (time), so timeless)
5 WATERTIGHT Two sorts of hose, almost flawless (10)
WATER and TIGHT(s) are “two sorts of hose”), the second being incomplete, hence the almost
6 HASH SIGN Police dogs are trained to detect this number tag (4,4)
“Police dogs are trained to detect” SIGNs of HASH

Not sure I have this parsing right?
7 GANDER Look, there’s George with his daughter! (6)
G (George) +AND (“with”) + ER (Queen Elizabeth, George’s “daughter”)
8 FETA Fine letter from 13 that’s brought on board? (4)
F (fine) + ETA (Greek letter, so would have been found in (“from”) Plato (the answer to 13ac)’s writings.

The board referred to in the clue is of course a cheeseboard.
14 PANCAKE DAY What precedes fast time for tossers? (7,3)
Cryptic definition of Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day, when many pancakes are tossed, the day before Lent (a time of fasting) begins.
15 HESPERIDES Chap’s working out trips for guardians of apples (10)
HE’S (“chap’s”) + PE (physical exercise, so “working out”) + RIDES (“trips”)

The Hesperides were Greek nymphs who guarded a grove of golden apples, which appear in the stories of Aphrodite and Hercules
17 HERCULES Poirot’s strongman (8)
HERCULE (Poirot)’S
18 SPLENDID Great to pass one day swigging litres (8)
SPEND (“to pass”) + 1 + D (day) swigging L (litres)
20 DAPHNE Lawyer to call, wanting old plant (6)
DA (district attorney, so “lawyer”) + PH(o)NE (“to call”, wanting O (old))

A daphne is any of several species of heavily scented bright-coloured plants native to Europe, Asia and North Africa.
21 TEFLON Engineer left broadcasting, managing to dodge scandal? (6)
*(left) [anag:engineer] + ON (“broadcasting”)

Teflon is a non-stick surface which has come into the language to indicate that nothing sticks, so, for example, a politician described as “teflon” is one who courts scandal, but whose reputation tends to come out unscathed.
22 NOAH Drama about a zoo keeper? (4)
NOH (Japanese “drama”) about A
23 ECHO Part of the chorus that’s followed by foxtrot (4)
Hidden in [part of] “thE CHOrus”

Echo (E) is followed by Foxtrot (F) in the NATO phonetic alphabet.

*anagram

69 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,108 by Crucible”

  3. Nice puzzle and analysis, thanks! 6D… Police dogs are trained to detect hash, and number must be a sign, so that ‘hash sign’ is a tag?

  4. Hard for me but very enjoyable in the end.  Favourites GANDER, ECHO and PANCAKE DAY.  Does anyone really toss a pancake? I can’t usually get them to leave the pan with a spatula let alone a toss.  Many thanks Crucible for a good examination and loonapick for all sorts of help with the parsing.

  5. what is now called the hash sign (or tag) used to be called the number sign. # was used as an abbreviation for number.

  7. Also ECHO is another ancient Greek reference.

    Thanks for the parsing – there were a couple that I hadn’t managed to parse.

    I did enjoy the puzzle although there were some write-ins

  10. Yes, the fun began with 1a, which I found amusing. A bit of a write-in to start, but slowed down as the Greeks appeared. I also wondered about the parsing of HASH SIGN and the FETA cheese on a board. Many thanks to Crucible and loonapick.

  11. A lovely crossword.  I really enjoyed the Greek / Roman theme.  (loonapick, I think HERCULES belongs in the Roman camp, the Greek name being Heracles.)  I liked the surface of 25a with the artist being sponsored by Shell to paint the disgusting bananas.  And “Cretan cross” was a brilliant definition for MINOTAUR!

    Many thanks Crucible and loonapick.

  12. I know that in Official Crosswordese all birds are “singers”, but the avocet as a singer is about the same as the ostrich or the penguin as a “winger”.
    Anyway, a very happy hour spent decoding this. And yes, I can toss a pancake.

  15. Crucible does love his classical references. I found this pretty straightforward, but AGAPE took a bit longer – the word was only very distantly familiar, so that was last in.

    Thanks to Crucible and loonapick

  17. Thanks for the blog, loonapick.

    A lovely puzzle – right up my street! [I did have a bit of a problem with HASH SIGN.]

    Lord Jim beat me to it  re HERCULES and I share his favourites.

    SPanza @4 – pancakes are always tossed in our house. 😉

    Huge thanks to Crucible – I loved it!

  19. @bodycheetah
    Not a fan of Crucible’s obsession, but I assume that you were happy to have possession over 14D.

  20. I look forward to the puzzle when I see Crucible is the setter. I enjoyed it, but to me this one was looser than usual for him and had some lacklustre clues/solutions – REDBREAST for example. Despite my carping I had plenty of ticks – GANDER SPLENDID TEFLON ECHO. SPLENDID was one of those where I had all the crossers but only got the (obvious) answer by following the instructions in the wordplay – very satisfactory. I had an incorrect AMARE (it would work if it was a word!) for AGAPE as I didn’t know that meaning of it. I also liked the classical theme as they are increasingly rare these days.
    Thank you to Crucible and to Loonapick for the comprehensive blog.

  21. Mused happily through this, no fierce heat, except for first getting then trying to parse hash sign; hash alone could mean number, ‘hash sign’ can mean number and can also mean tag, but what about police dogs detecting a ‘hash sign’ as loonapick suggests? Not sure. Pancake Day was roundabout, as Mrs ginf had told me about mardi gras, fat Tuesday and Lent, but the pancake needed all crossers. A few gimmes like redbreast, Annie and Daphne eased the way, and the Cretan cross and gander were both cute, although seen before I imagine. Great entertainment, thanks both.

  22. Thanks Crucible and loonapick

    Rather an odd one. I breezed through most of it, then virtually ground to a halt, especially in the NE (rather like drofle). Fun, though.

    Favourites were FOI ECHO (again solved while it was printing off), APHRODITE, and HALO.

    (We always toss pancakes – it’s part of the fun!)

  23. Lots of posts whilst I was typing and I’m glad to see I’m in a minority of one. I must have got out of the wrong side this morning.

  24. That was tough! Not helped by the unfriendly “four for the price of one” grid as I found myself one down three to go. Got there in the end, a little unconvinced by octothorp but I suppose the Twitterati out there immediately think of it when they see the word “tag”.

    SPanza @4 put me down as another tosser – once I prepped over 100 pancakes in a single evening at college as more and more friends dropped by! Every single one tossed I am proud to say. All good stuff – many thanks Loonapick and Crucible for the work-out.

    Incidentally, parthenogenesis is not limited to invertebrates in the animal kingdom – it has been known in chickens and even in turkeys!

  25. I really liked this puzzle with all its allusions to classical Greece and Rome, an interest area for me. I didn’t know the word PARTHENOGENESIS at 16a so was delighted when I sussed it out using the wordplay. Ultimately it was a DNF for me because I couldn’t work out the unfamiliar EFFENDI at 23a nor TEFLON (someone to whom the #@!* doesn’t stick) at 21d from the clues. Still enjoyed it.

    Lots of ticks for 11a AVOCADO and 2d MINOTAUR, and I was also enamoured (!) of 25a APHRODITE, 3d POTATO, 5d WATERTIGHT, 8D FETA (can’t believe I got that one!) and 20d DAPHNE.

    Many thanks to Crucible and loonapick. Thanks for your well wishes for us all, loonapick. [P.S. loonapick and drofle@10, I often put feta on the cheeseboard if I have olives on there as well.] [P.P.S. Just to say, Gladys@12, AVOCE(t) is not the fodder for 11a, A VOCA(list) is, as explained in the blog.]

  26. [Sorry, I got interrupted and forgot to refresh before posting, thus the repetition of what loonapick said. BTW, loonapick, I am sorry to hear you are finding the lockdown dispiriting, but as I saw recently chalked on a driveway before the rain washed it away, WHERE (sic.) ALL IN THIS TOGETHER. (I think we need to try to get those kids back to school!) Your pseudonym reminded me that someone this week signed off their email with “Stay well and stay crazy!”, which I actually appreciated.]

     

  27. SPanza @4 – Fanny Cradock (shows age) used to intone that If A Pancake Is Thick Enough To Toss It’s Not Good Enough To Eat.

    Clever and enjoyable crossword, a pleasant start to another day in isolation.

    Thanks to Crucible and loonapick

  28. Thank you very much, bodycheetah@9.  I just spent a happy – and completely unexpected – half hour or so watching clips of Hancock’s Half Hour.  What an unbeatable combination – Hancock, Aphrodite and the glorious Irene Handel.  I couldn’t stop and carried on to The Blood Donor.  Genius.

  29. Thanks for letting me know my cooking skills are suspect.  I do not use pans of 21d because I am afraid the coating will taint my food and I do not cook pancakes often enough to keep a pan specifically for that purpose, which was my late mothers trick.  But I want to be a tosser, so if any of you tossers out there can give me any tips I would be much obliged!!

  30. NeilH @27 thanks for that; although I want to be a tosser, on the other hand, what is good enough for Fanny might be good enough for me!!

  31. Thoroughly enjoyable outing this morning and, whilst I’m no Greek scholar, most of these were not unfamiliar  AGAPE is new(ish): I suspect I’ve only encountered it in a crossword before.

    I did wonder if there was a mini theme around words ending in O and A, given that my earlier solves included CHIPOLATA, ECHO, FETA, AVOCADO and PLATO.

    It’s not often that a reasonably obscure 15 letter word is a write in but 16ac was FOI on this occasion.

    Amongst quite a number of clever constructions, I really enjoyed APHRODITE, ECHO, MINOTAUR and WATERTIGHT but COTD for the delightful wordplay which I parsed as a double definition “What precedes fast” and “Time for tossers”.

    Thanks Crucible as loonapick

  32. It’s day 30 here (Chicago). I’ve noticed that the volume of comments here is significantly higher than normal. Clearly more of us are finding time for the crossword now.

    I cheated on AGAPE–I knew the word, but I was stuck with the fact that “love” in a crossword sort of has me automatically toting a letter O around, looking for a place to stuff it in. Also, here the hospital department is called the ER.

    I echo the doubts about the HASH SIGN clue, which still seems a bit dodgy.

    This area has a large Polish community, so Mardi Gras is called Paczki Day here (and hey, non-Polish Chicagoans like doughnuts too, so we’re all happy to eat the paczki.) I’ve never lived in a place where it’s pancakes.

  33. I didn’t know EFFENDI, but got it from the fair clue, and I got SIGN but not HASH. Not sure about that one.

    I’m also not sure you would use ‘shredder output’ as SCRAP PAPER (which to me implies paper you grab to scrawl something down) unless you have tiny writing…

    Enjoyable start to the day.

  34. Sleep patterns shot by lockdown, I started this one a bit after midnight, and had a very enjoyable time with it, finishing before going to bed at…  late. Some lovely clues in this, a real pleasure to find myself in tune with the setter, with frequent muttering of “that’s clever”. MINOTAUR I had put in on the slightly dodgy basis of he/it being a “Greek character”, with the “”cross” being the TAU bit, though I couldn’t quite parse it fully… then the penny dropped with another “that’s clever” moment.  HALO was last one in; very neat once I’d seen it, which took a while (going slowly through the alphabet in my head for the starting letter) even with the two crossers. And now I have nothing to do over breakfast – serves me right for being a late-night crossword glutton.

    NeilH @27 – mention of Fanny Craddock reminds me of the splendid and possibly apocryphal comment made on her TV show by her husband Johnny – “… and I hope all your doughnuts turn out like Fanny’s”.

    Many thanks to Crucible for the fun, and Loonapick for the blog.

  35. Troglodyte @34 – I though for a moment, this being a crossword blog, that you were going to recall the unprintably rude Spoonerism one half of which referred to the late Ms Cradock…

  37. Very enjoyable, though I struggled with my last two. A_O_A_O was pretty daunting to look at, but quite satisfying to finally see it. The DO ending came first… And LOI DAPHNE was like pulling teeth – I always groan when the definition appears to be ‘plant’. For the longest time I was convinced I needed a vowel between P and N. PARTHENOGENESIS. on the other hand, was my FOI – just leapt out at me. Since I often find the longer ones hard, that was a real thrill. I also really liked Cretan cross once the penny dropped. How accurate! Thanks to Crucible and loonapick.

  38. Oh, and I had TORC for 4D (Torch singer, minus Hot) until I saw CHIPOLATA. I still think TORC is pretty good for that clue, though it’s not quite a disc, I suppose.

  40. The Classical theme chimed well with me, so much so that DAPHNE and NEPTUNE were straight guesses – with the former only semi-parsed, so thank you Loonapick for help on that. With the tsunami of grim news, crosswords that make me grin are oh so welcome, as I did at HERCULES, CHIPOLATA and GANDER; unfortunately I was swallowing a mouthful of coffee when the solution to 16a hit me – and I spluttered it across my printed-up copy!
    [Speaking of making a mess: SPanza at 4, I’m definitely a tosser. Tossing, for me, is easy-peasy. What I have yet to master, however, is successfully catching the little bastards. The best i can manage is a scrunched lump. Often i part-miss and bits hit the floor. Our kitchen has a high-ceiling and one time, thinking if it went higher I’d have more time to prepare for the splashdown, I launched the thing with such force that it hit the ceiling and stuck there. A whole new meaning to ”haute cuisine”…]
    Thanks to Crucible for a fine crossword and for making me laugh.
    PS Neil H at 35: I haven’t, as yet, been able to work out the Spoonerism!

  42. I’m another who was pleased to have got PARTHENOGENESIS straight away.

    I’m not sure what the problem is with the clue for HASH SIGN. Surely, as others have pointed out, the definition is just tag; the police dogs detect HASH and the number is SIGN.

    I didn’t know the guardians of apples, but then we’re not all classicists. Of course, for those who don’t know, Tony Blair was often called ‘teflon Tony’ in the UK press, as no dirt could stick to him.

    I liked the Cretan cross and the tossers.

    Thanks Crucible and loonapick.

  43. Enjoyed the puzzle, got all but four (two in each of the upper quadrants) last night and the rest at 3am.  Thank you, Crucible and loonapick.

    I’ve heard the Botticelli painting called “Venus on the half shell.”

    Our teflon politician was Reagan.

  44. Loved all the misdirection, but simply couldn’t have AGAPE meaning “love”. So had a DNF for me, sadly, just that one…

  46. A lot of fun. I’ll give a nod to AVOCADO, WATERTIGHT and GANDER among several other goodies. I parsed HASH SIGN as did loonapick and still think that was Crucible’s intent. Couldn’t toss a pancake to save my life, and if I tried I’m sure the result would be as described by Wellbeck @40 (thanks for providing an additional laugh this morning). Thanks also to Crucible and to loonapick for explaining what the heck “cross” was doing in the clue for MINOTAUR (d’oh).

  48. Thanks to Crucible and loonapick.

    Surprised myself with this one (not well up on classical stuff) and the only one un-parsed was MINOTAUR, very clever.

    Google confirms (which I thought I suspected from cocking the occasional ear towards Sir David Attenborough) the Komodo dragon can reproduce asexually.

    Great surfaces here, and it would indeed be SPLENDID “to pass one day swigging litres” in these trying and pregnant days but holiday experience speaks against it.

    copmus@1: Could I make so bold as to point you respectfully towards the blog for TEFLON; it wouldn’t do to proceed in life under a misapprehension.

  49. Breezed through a lot of this, took ages to dredge up AGAPE and then LOI was HASH SIGN, which just didn’t click as a clue.

    Thanks to all.

  52. Valentine @43 – “Venus on the Half Shell” was also a fictional novel by Kilgore Trout, referred to by Kurt Vonnegut in (I think) “The Sirens of Titan”. A real version was later written by Philip Jose Farmer, using the pseudonym Kilgore Trout; it’s not at all bad, if you don’t take it seriously, and why would you?

     

  53. I love it when there is a theme that is outside my area of specialty, but is gettable anyway. In fact, it seems that even those of you who are classicists misses ECHIDNA, which Wikipedia informs me “was a monster, half-woman and half-snake, who lived alone in a cave. She was the mate of the fearsome monster Typhon and was the mother of monsters, including many of the most famous monsters of Greek myth.” (To be fair, I didn’t know this previously, but looked at the word and thought it might be Greek so gave it a try.)

    One additional point on HASH SIGN. Here in the US, especially before Twitter, it has been also known as a “pound sign”, after the notation used on bags of nails in general stores, etc. The first few hundred times I heard it I was terribly confused since it made me look for the Stirling symbol.

  54. I parsed HASH SIGN but it didn’t sound right somehow and the puzzle as a whole seemed a bit off. I can’t justify the feeling but there it is. Having said that, most of this went in reasonably quickly. I was delayed in the NE esp by NOAH and ANNIE -both good clues in the end- and by HESPERIDES despite having, sort of,seen the theme
    Thanks Crucible.

  55. Thank you NeilH and Troglodyte – I clicked on the link and have just spent the past ten mins giggling inanely….

  56. I think’engineer’ in 21d is the anagram signal? Definition is ‘managing to dodge scandal’ Teflon-coated, ie non-stick.

  60. We do have a dedicated pancake pan – a smallish cast-iron frying pan.

    I agree with Anne that Shrove Tuesday is more correct, but we are more likely to say Pancake Day than Pancake Tuesday.

  61. Charles Yule @57: H is used in horse racing when describing the age and sex of a horse: C is for colt (male horse up to 4 years old); F for filly (female ditto); G for gelding (formerly male horse now missing the appropriate gear); H for horse (an entire male of 5 years or more); M for mare (female ditto). (Of course, Crucible might have had heroin in mind anyway.)

  64. Count me in as one of those that doesn’t really have a problem with hash sign, although I was able to come up with an answer because I would never call it that. As Dr WhatsOn mentioned, in the US it’s usually called a pound sign, or occasionally an octothorpe, with everyone understanding that the pound sign can be used as a stand-in for “number” – as in the numeric kind, nothing to do with hashish. In fact, pound sign is ubiquitously used for that symbol in automated voice systems.

    The point I’m longwindedly trying to get to is, who’s the weirdo that came up with term “hashtag”?  I know that hash comes from French hacher because it looks like hatchet marks, but even when using that sense, as I might do with engineering drawings, it’s still called either hatching or a hashmark.  I’ve suddenly realized that “hashtag” is annoying on a complete additional level to the whole Twitter annoyances.

  65. Bleudot @64

    I remember some years ago going into a butcher’s in a small village in Gascony (Jegun?) to buy hamburgers. I asked for “steak hache”. He picked up what looked like some pretty decent steak. I said “non, steak hache”. “Oui, va bien”, he replied, and proceeded to mince it and form it into burgers. You wouldn’t get that service in an English, shop!

  66. Dr WhatsOn, Bleudot@64 and elsewhere. There is an interesting Wiki article on this.

    I first came across confusion between the # and £ sign in the 1960s when using primitive devices such as the Teletype to produce programs on punched paper tape (you would punch a # and get a ?). It still occasionally crops up even with my latest laptop (whilst using Netbeans, surprisingly).

    The wiki article claims that Newton’s writing of lb (abbreviation for pound) morphed into the # we know now.

    Several explanations of the origin of octothorpe and hash-tag are given, too

  67. I had no problem with # = HASH SIGN = number tag. First time I encountered “pound sign” in US telephone systems, my first thought was my phone has no pound sign. This is a British newspaper after all.

  68. Great crossword and blog – thanks to Crucible and Loonapick.

    We thought there were 2 themes – suggested by PARTHENO (Greeks as noted above) GENESIS – in the latter camp we had WATERTIGHT, NOAH, PATRIARCH, and, at a push the animals …

  69. You can have any cheese you want on a cheese board. Also, to the theme, 22a clue has Drama, which is a town in northern Greece, though this is probably accidental.

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