Guardian 28,132 – Imogen

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[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here

I found this quite easy by Imogen’s standards, with the two long downs going in quickly and providing lots of helpful letters. A few slight obscurities, but all helpfully clued.

No theme that I can see, apart from a SOLE down the middle column, which may or may not be fishy… Thanks to Imogen.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
9. PETTY CASH Typecast in play, initially hope for change (5,4)
TYPECAST* + H[ope]
10. IDAHO Away from the borders, raid a hostile state (5)
Hidden in raID A HOstile
11. AINTREE Chair here (own Scots pine, for example) (7)
AIN (Scots “own”, as in “my ain folk”) + TREE (e.g. a pine). The Chair is a famous fence at Aintree racecourse, jumped in the Grand National for example
12. PRIAPIC Oversexed pair flopping with film (7)
PAIR* + PIC
13. OVID Poet in old film (4)
O + VID[eo]
14. WOOL-STAPLE One could get fleeced here in court — lawyers principally stick together (4,6)
WOO (to court) + L[awyers] + STAPLE (to stick together) – it’s “a market where wool is sold” (given as two words in Chambers); “staple” here is related to “stable”, meaning it was a fixed market
15. THRIFTY Careful of the short gap at end of runway (7)
TH[e] + RIFT (gap) + [runwa]Y
17. CORTEGE Understand about opening heart in solemn procession (7)
GET (to understand) reversed (about) in CORE (heart)
19. ELEVEN-PLUS Team given extra exam (6-4)
ELEVEN (team, e.g. in football) + PLUS (extra)
22. GARB Greta’s short dress (4)
GARB[o]
23. EMBARGO This thus inhibiting business graduate? (7)
MBA in ERGO (thus), with an &littish definition
24. GARNISH Fish dish, head removed, filled with new parsley, perhaps (7)
N in GAR (fish) + [d]ISH
26. IDLED Turned over papers by the light (5)
ID (papers) + LED (light)
27. PERINATAL Around time of arrival of train, leap out (9)
(TRAIN LEAP)*
Down
1. SPEAK OF THE DEVIL Festive polka he’d danced, an unexpected turn-up (5,2,3,5)
(FESTIVE POLKA HE’D)*
2. STINGIER Entering police speed trap, one gets nearer (8)
I in STINGER (device used to puncture the tyres of a car being pursued by the police)
3. DYER Dreadful-sounding colourist (4)
Homophone of “dire”
4. CATEGORY Type of sporting grey coat (8)
(GREY COAT)*
5. CHAPEL Red line covers a page in centre of worship (6)
A P[age] in CHE (Che Guevara, a “red”) + L[ine]
6. MINISTER Diplomat‘s car back shortly (8)
MINI (car) + STER[n] – I wasn’t sure minister could mean a diplomat, but Chambers gives “A diplomatic representative of a government in a foreign state, esp one ranking below an ambassador”
7. RAMP UP Male creature and baby get much more intense (4,2)
RAM + PUP
8. TOO CLEVER BY HALF Arrogant, having an IQ of 150? (3,6,2,4)
Double/cryptic definition – the “average” IQ is 100, and 150 is half as much again
16. FREE RIDE Non-contributory benefit for railway staff? (4,4)
Extended definition – railway staff are usually able to travel free on trains. Not a particularly great clue if you ask me
17. CHUGGERS Insistent solicitors are cold with people displaying emotion (8)
C[old] + HUGGERS – chuggers is a portmanteau of “charity muggers”, people who approach you in the street to encourage you (sometimes very persistently) to sign up for regular donations to a charity
18. EMACIATE Waste energy on coat I took in (8)
E[nergy] + MAC (mackintosh, coat) + I + ATE (took in)
20. EMBALM Blame for spilling marmalade, just having opened preserve (6)
M[armalade] in BLAME*
21. PROMPT Speed effortlessly through part, not needing this? (6)
ROMP (speed effortlessly) in PT, and another &littish one: the “part” being a role in a play
25. RANK Speaking plainly, not top level (4)
[F]RANK

65 comments on “Guardian 28,132 – Imogen”

  1. Thanks for the solve, Andrew. Both 14a WOOL-STAPLE and 17d CHUGGERS were TILTS for me. What a lovely portmanteau the latter is. I love a good portmanteau – such a quirky part of the language! I agree the two long ones at 1d SPEAK OF THE DEVIL and 8D TOO CLEVER BY HALF were extremely helpful in opening up this puzzle. They were favourites, along with 27a PERINATAL. Thanks to Imogen for a satisfying learning experience today.

  2. Quite a quick solve today, for an Imogen puzzle. 14a was my last one in, a term I think I have come across, but I didn’t know its meaning.Thanks Andrew for the elucidation, and to Imogen for the puzzle.

  3. Yes nothing too scholarly, tho several unknowns for this antipodean: the chair jump at Aintree, the wool staple (does the fleecing actually happen there?) and the term chugger, tho we certainly have them here. And yes embargo has ‘Def=this ..inhibiting?’ next to it. Liked petty cash, and the said embargo, and the clue for arrogant was pretty neat. Always a bit of fun to see a motley gang of regulars, good old red Che, and Garbo, and Ovid. I too wondered about minister; we’ve had some undiplomatic ones over the years (a recent High Commissioner of ours to the UK was once a cabinet minister here; he brushed off serious public concern about domestic violence as “the things that batter” …gasp!).

    Good puzzle, thanks Imogen and thanks Andrew.

  4. WOOL-STAPLE was bridge too far for me (Julie @1 maybe that’s what TILTS means?) — I mean I figured it out from wp more or less and then went on a Google spree.

    thanks for the blog! — concise and informative.

  7. Yes, a quickie today. Like Ilan @4 I hadn’t heard of WOOL STAPLE, but I got it OK. Favourites were CHUGGERS and PERINATAL, where I wasted some time trying to fit in Perennial. Many thanks to Imogen and Andrew.

  8. howard@6 and Ilan Caron@4, in case Julie doesn’t revisit the site, TILT = Thing I Learned Today.  TILTS is the plural, though some might argue that that Things I Learned Today is also TILT.  Like Julie, I love a portmanteau too.  Thanks Imogen and Andrew

  9. I loved CHUGGERS having had to run their earnest gauntlet for many years at Broadgate Circle. I do wonder whether Anto or Everyman would have got away unscathed with flopping & sporting as anagrinds? Overall nothing here to alter my status as an Imogen fanboy. TTFN

  10. Such neat cluing-class puzzle with neat surfaces for the unpicking of

    If ever I am in a street lined with restaurants, I will not choose one with a cbugger outside-in that case I would call them touts.

    Thanks Imo and Andrew

  11. Thanks both. Good puzzle.
    Film and Video are different things but I think that ship sailed long ago.

  12. I took 20d as BLAME* (blame for spilling) followed by M (marmalade, just having opened) but may be convinced otherwise.

  13. Good one to get the brain working before another day of lockdown! Re 2d, how does stingier equal nearer? Am I missing something?

  14. 16d – free ride.  I took it as a play on the literal and figurative meanings of the expression. Still rather a weak clue.

  17. Thanks, Andrew and Imogen.

    Like others, I hadn’t heard of WOOL STAPLE – I liked the surface. I like portmanteau words, too, but CHUGGERS is an ugly one.

    [I don’t think I’d heard the expression RAMP UP before three months ago but its constant airing at the afternoon briefing makes me cringe.]

    My favourite clue by far today was AINTREE.

    ‘Away from the borders’ in 10ac seems unnecessarily wordy?

    JezzerG @13 – ‘near’ can mean ‘mean’ or ‘stingy’ – and so can ‘close’: worth filing away as it crops up fairly frequently.

     

  20. Thanks for this.

    2D – since when did “stingier” mean “nearer”? I wonder if this was supposed to be “meaner” and somehow an error was made in the typesetting.

    16D – forgive me if i’m misunderstanding the terminology (I’m still pretty new to this), but isn’t this a kind of combination clue or double definition rather than simply an extended definition? The ability of railway staff to normally “ride” for free”, is not a non-contributory benefit – but rather a benefit in return for for work done. The solution only amounts to “non-contributory benefit” when one allows a different meaning of free ride, namely the act of freeloading (taking advantage of something that others have paid for). So not a single, extended definition, but rather playing with different meanings.

  21. … and now I notice that others while I was writing my post (@20), others have

    – answered my point about 2D (thanks Shirl @16, though I’ve never in the best part of half a century of living heard or read anyone using the word “near” to mean “miserly”, is it dialectal?)

    – made the same point as me about 16D (thanks Grim and Dim @14)

  22. I’d forgotten CHUGGERS, although I’ve seen it somewhere before (probably in crosswordland). I didn’t know WOOL STAPLE (TILT).

    I also parsed EMBALM as Hovis @12.

    I liked PERINATAL and AINTREE as well as the long uns.

    Thanks Imogen and Andrew.

  23. More or less in tune with Eileen except that I had heard of wool staple.   Chugger is an awful word but it is a good descriptive noun

    Thank you to Imogen for the brain-stretching and Andrew for the blog

  25. David @20 (and others) – I quite agree. A good example of a ‘free ride’ is anti-vaxxers, who ‘ride’ for ‘free’ on the herd immmunity provided by the sensible. ‘Near’ for mean is something I learned through crosswords only. I think at that time we were told it is from a northern England dialect. I had some problems in the S, especially the SE corner, but I got there in the end. I don’t know how long I stared at E_E_E_-P___ before I got it – and what a ‘how can you have been so stupid’ moment that was! Thanks to Imogen and Andrew.

  26. Every day at university I entered the Students’ Union building through a bevy of importuners of every kidney. Training that has left me impervious to mere chuggers.

  27. Re NEARER etc – we live in a strange world here in Crosswordland. Outside, the first Greta people think of is a teenage climate activist, whereas here we plump straight for a 1920/30s film actress. Similarly, I don’t think the first gangster to come to most people’s minds would be Al from the 1930’s. Etc etc

  28. I know the OED counts ‘near’ as archaic but I think it is dialectal: you still hear it in the north of England but only privately- not in a public context.

  29. Maybe not his toughest, but I didn’t find this easy. No excuses for not seeing DYER earlier – that was last in – spent far too long thinking about named artists. A fine crossword.

    Thanks to Imogen and Andrew

  30. Shiri @27 I did think of the world’s favourite eco-truant first but try as I might I couldn’t make a dress out of her

  31. No walk in the park for me, I have to say, but got there in the end.  I appear to be one of those dragging the average IQ below 100.

    The chair at Aintree rang a faint tinkling bell about 10 fathoms down.

    Loved CHUGGERS although not heard the term before, and COD for me was EMBALM.

    Saw a delightful new-born cria this morning, and thought I’d share that unusual word with you all.

     

  32. Thanks Imogen and Andrew

    Fun. Favourites AINTREE and CHUGGERS.

    I raised an eyebrow at MINISTER for “diplomat” too. You’ll probably have heard about diplomats – if you ask a diplomat for something and he says yes, he means maybe; if he says maybe, he means no; if he says no, he’s not a diplomat.

    I’m note sure WOOL STAPLE is related to “stable” Andrew – the staple refers to the strength and length of the fibres.

  33. Great fun, and even though from the definition I felt that 17ac simply had to be CORTEGE, couldn’t quite work out the clueing of this one…

  34. CHUGGERS and WOOL STAPLE were new to me – but gettable.
    As others have said, the two long ones were not hard to get, although I had to wait a bit for 8d to fall. Once they were in, some otherwise meatier clues softened up a bit, and I enjoyed the run through to the end, RANK going in last as expected.
    By happy coincidence, I recently solved a crossword elsewhere in which TYPECAST was clued as an anagram of PETTY CASH minus H, and that was my first in today, just before I filled in the long one at 1d.
    Thanks to Imogen and Andrew.

  35. muffin @32
    [I enjoyed your quip, as I did a recent one about a Dane in France. Please keep them coming (within reason and within site rules, of course!) – they are a tonic for these times. If you weren’t a Quiptic solver already, you should be.]

  36. MINISTER is the name of 2IC in some large embassies. They are v senior diplomats. Less common now that our diplomatic service is shrinking.

  37. Thank you Imogen and Andrew. As others have said, relatively gentle by Imogen’s standards, and the two long down clues going in quickly helped.

    6dn reminded me of when I was Private Secretary to a junior Government Minister in the mid 80’s. He was relatively informal and liked his staff to address him by his first name, Peter, rather than Minister.  I accompanied him on a trip to Africa, and we spent 24 hours in Nigeria. The High Commissioner was absent, so his Deputy – the Minister – was the host. He and Peter went off to play tennis together. When they came back he said to me “your Minister said to call me as I call you. Is that by his first name or Minister?”.

  38. Even though the Government allows us a daily stroll in the park, this was not it for me today.  Got there in the end but found Imogen and I were not attuned.  No criticism intended; I just had to worry away at it.

    Wasn’t sure about MINISTER  for diplomat but Biddy @36 has resolved that query.  I agree with Andrew that FREE RIDE is probably the weakest but that doesn’t detract, for me, from the overall quality.  Some lovely surfaces.  WOOL STAPLE intrigued me: I got the answer but couldn’t understand the parsing as I had always thought ‘staple’ to be a measurement of some kind, rather than a market.  muffin @ 32: is this what you’re referring to?  Ticks from me for CHAPEL for the neat construction, PROMPT and EMBARGO for the &littishness, PERINATAL and GARNISH which both misdirected me for a while.  AINTREE is the one that seems head above shoulders today; lovely definition.

    I feel PRIAPIC came up recently.  Or maybe it was ‘priapism’.

    Thanks Imogen for the test and Andrew for the help

  39. An enjoyable solve, and solidly clued throughout. AINTREE, WOOL-STAPLE and CHUGGERS, all unknown to me, went in from wordplay and crossers alone and were followed by a detour to Collins to confirm their existence. Chuggers represent a pestilence that has apparently not crossed the Atlantic, unless I’ve just led an extremely fortunate life.

    I parsed EMBALM as did Hovis @12 and grantinfreo @15.

    Thanks to Imogen and Andrew.

  41. This went in reasonably steadily at first, then slowing to a grind for much of the eastern half for me. TsILT were the chair at AINTREE, CHUGGER and MINISTER as a synonym for diplomat. Thanks also to Muffin for the diplomat definition. I did like AINTREE very much despite not knowing the chair reference.
    Thanks to Imogen and to Andrew

  42. This was quite difficult for me. New words were eleven-plus, chuggers, wool staple, and stingier, as well as the Chair thing at Aintree which I found in wikipedia.

    I was happy to be able to complete the puzzle and parse everything on my own. Thanks B+S.

  43. Eileen @ 17 – if there are two words/phrases that I wish that I could never hear again, it is RAMP UP and UNPRECEDENTED. They have both been very overused the past month or so.

  44. Muffin@32 Yes, I’d only heard of WOOL-STAPLE to refer to the fibre quality. It seems quite a co-incidence that there are two meanings.

  45. There were also “staple ports”, whic were licensed to export wool. Barnstaple, where I was born and brought up, is an example.

  46. Thanks both,
    I confess I was beaten by 18 and 21. Being a Lincolnshire lad, I hadn’t a moment’s pause at near for stingy.

    The free-rider problem is an important one in economics which seemed to me to justify16 d and provided it with several layers of meaning.

  48. I didn’t think this was that easy but I did prevail eventually. I managed to dredge up WOOL STAPLE from society and economic history so long ago- and Barnstaple is just down the road from where I live. I’d forgotten CHUGGERS but it finally came to me: I think I’d only encountered it via a crossword though. AINTREE is just down the road from where I grew up. SPEAK OF THE DEVIL sounds wrong to me. I think I’ve only heard TALK OF THE DEVIL but never mind.
    Liked GARB.
    Thanks Imogen.

  49. Some very deft extended definitions and surfaces today, of which CORTEGE, EMBARGO, IDLED and PROMPT were my favourites.  I got stuck on my last one – RANK – because I hit on RUNG first and spent a while trying to parse it, obviously to no avail.  WOOL STAPLE was well-clued, and a TILT for me too.  Fun to read up on in Wiki.  Talking of TILTs, thanks to Auriga for “kidney”.  I was totally unaware of that meaning and thought it must be due to some bizarre autocorrection!

    Very accessible and enjoyable puzzle.  Thanks, Imogen and Andrew for the succinct blog.

  50. Enjoyed this; it’s always satisfying when I discover new words — WOOL STAPLE, CORTEGE, AINTREE, and CHUGGERS were today’s contributions to my knowledge base. Liked DYER for its simplicity and surface. Interesting discussion on “nearer” being STINGIER — “nearer” seems similar to “tighter” in a vague sense. Thanks Imogen and Andrew.

  53. Gasmanjack @51 Thanks!  I’ve discovered it did, indeed, raise its head a couple of months ago.  A Pan on 17th February.

    Couple standing in picture concerned with male sexuality (7)

  54. For a Westmorland lad, ‘near’ is used as often as ‘mean’. Agree that chuggers is an ugly word. Re Michelle’s point @ 43, apart from its overuse now, when they say ‘unprecedented’, they are trying to imply ‘unpredicted’.

    Thanks Imogen & Andrew; best wishes all

  55. YAY Finished it – which for me is a rarity. Didn’t parse all of THRIFTY or MINISTER, but I can live with that. I hadn’t heard of WOOL STAPLE. And learnt a new sense of ’near’.

    So thanks to Imogen for a great puzzle, and Andrew and others for their explanations and for this site.

  56. Nice puzzle.  Aintree, Chuggers and Eleven-Plus (is that a high school exam?) were new to me.

  57. Jay @ 56

    That’s right, there are still a few areas that practise old-fashioned selection at age 11.  The 11+ determines who goes to the ‘grammar schools’.  (I was one of the 8d!)

    Nice puzzle, thanks I and A

  59. Nearly all of it beyond me today.  Can someone please help – why is ‘nearer’ a definition of ‘stingier’?

  60. Pete @59

    Sorry, have you not read the comments? “Near” in northern argot means” stingy”, so “nearer” gives “stingier”. (I live in Northern England, so this gave me no hesitation whatsoever.)

  61. Some very poor/weak definitions, e.g., 12ac, 2dn, 17dn; otherwise not bad.

    ‘Oversexed’ does not indicate ‘priapic’. Maybe ‘painfully stiff’ would!

    Muffin @60: I’ve lived ‘Up North’ for years, yet never heard that use of ‘near’. I’ll remember that, though, thank you.

    ‘Chuggers’ is just poorly defined.

  62. I always aim for the clues with multi word solutions and I got these early on except for WOOL STAPLE which I’d never heard of. As a northerner (Cheshire), near/close is certainly familiar to me for being ungenerous. I struggled with the lower half; not knowing CHUGGERS didn’t help and I could only think of RANT for 25d. (I’ve had a trying day trying to sign in to my local health centre and being continually rejected. ‘Patient access’ has more meaning than intended, I think)

  63. bodycheetah @30

    But she does represent a ‘small shield’ in her own way, and she is not afraid of being a ‘target’!

  64. Regularly Guardian crosswords are extra hard for non Brits, and even expatriates who are not up to date with the argo. Near, Staple, Stingers, Aintree, Chuggers. I found this hard enough, took a couple of hours of disconnected time to sort out. But thanks for the parsing, I solved but didn’t quite “get” cortege!!

  65. Muffin@60

    Sorry, my bad for not reading comments.  I’m from Blackburn, Lancs & I’d never come across that usage of near.

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