Guardian Cryptic 28,138 by Qaos

by

A gentle puzzle with an “aard” to spot theme?

I rattled throught this puzzle, not really enjoying the process, as some of the wordplay and definitions were a bit loose for my taste, and was then left with a few stragglers, one of which I would never have got without checking the dictionary, but i got there in the end.  I did not see the theme until after the puzzle was finished.

There were a couple of obscure entries – ADELE PARKS has sold millions of books, but she’s not the first name that comes to mind when one sees “English author” and I used to sell books.  NABLA is very obscure to non-mathematicians like me.  Allied with ASIA, who were not that big, unless the “big” in the clue refers to the size of the continent, that was three entries which seemed out of place in an otherwise straightforward puzzle.  In its defence, PARKS was relevant to the theme, which I will come to.

The definition to 3dn does not look right to me (where is the verb?) and there were a few superfluous words in the clues, which the Ximenean with me struggled with (for example, “with” in 23dn), but there were also some very good clues, such as the one for SHEEP, TROUSER and CLOSET.

The theme was Aardman Animations, responsible for CHICKEN RUN and WALLACE and Gromit, and headed by NICK PARKS.  I have highlighted as many of the theme words as I could see, but there may be others.

completed grid

Thanks, Qaos

Across
9 SHAVE He’s ripped on the outside, one very trim (5)
  *(he’s) [anag:ripped] on the outside of A (“one”) + V (very)
10 HILARIOUS Liberal wearing tousled hair promises to be funny (9)
  L (liberal) wearing *(hair) [anag:tousled] + IOUS (“promises” to pay)
11 AUDIENCES Car seen racing over 100 by groups of spectators (9)
  AUDI (“car”) + *(seen) [anag:racing] over C (100)
12 CURSE Swear at dog, tips of sausages eaten (5)
  CUR (“dog”) + [tips of] S(ausages) E(aten)
13 WALLACE Scottish hero — an expert climber? (7)
  A WALL ACE may be ace at climbing walls.  

The Scottish hero is of course William Wallace, who was captured by the English about 200 yards from where I am sitting now.
15 TROUSER Pocket for everyone in East­bourne, say, in retirement (7)
  U (universal, so “for everyone”) in <=RESORT (“Eastbourne, say”) [in retirement]
17 OUNCE Cat in the past goes round the bend (5)
  ONCE (“in the past”) goes round the U (-bend)
18 RUN Manage to exercise (3)
  Double definition
20 SHEEP Animal urinates over top of hedge, facing the other way (5)
  [facing the wrong way] <=PEES (“urinates”) over [the top of] H(edge)
22 GARDENS Plots involve danger close to Paris (7)
  *(danger) [anag:involve] + [close to] (pari)S
25 TRY IT ON Moon about end of party, to act audaciously (3,2,2)
  TRITON (“moon” of Neptune) about [end of] (part)Y
26 NABLA Mathematical symbol displayed on a blackboard (5)
  Hidden [displayed] in “oN A BLAckboard”

In mathematics, nabla (aka del), which takes the shape of a triangle with the point facing downwards, is used in vector calculus.  
27 EMPOWERED Authorised captive queen to be dropped into English sea (9)
  POW (prisoner of war, so “captive”) + ER (Elizabeth Regina, so “queen”) to be dropped into E (English) + MED (“sea”), so E-M(POW-ER)ED
30 CHICKENED To have shown fear in checked pants (9)
  *(in checked) [anag:pants]
31 SPAIN Country‘s at home beyond spring (5)
  IN (“at home”) beyond SPA (“spring”)
Down
1 ASIA English rock band, once big in the East? (4)
  Double definition.

Asia were much bigger in the USA than they were here, with only one of their albums reaching the top ten here, and only one single in the top 40.
2 MANDOLIN Bloke playing old fashionable instrument (8)
  MAN (“bloke”) + *(old) [anag:playing] + IN (“fashionable”)
3 WERE Wife’s present: divorcing husband at one time past (4)
  W (wife) + (h)ERE (“present”, divorcing H (husband))

Don’t like the definition here.
4 THICK EAR Punishment for most of this cake being spongy, right? (5,3)
  [most of] THI(s) + *(cake) [anag:being spongy] + R (right)
5 CLOSET Conservative leader to suffer defeat? Time for recess (6)
  C (conservative) [leader] + LOSE (“to suffer defeat) + T (time)
6 GRACIOUSLY £1,000 at first, young learner’s car reverses, collecting debts kindly (10)
  G (grand, so “£1,000”) [at first] + (<=Y (young) + L (learner) + CAR) [reverses] collecting IOUS (“debts”)
7 COURTS Seeks these at Wimbledon (6)
  Double definition
8 ISLE Ground lies surrounded by water (4)
  *(lies) [anag:ground] and &lit.
13 WRONG Grown apart, as not suitable (5)
  *(grown) [anag:apart]
14 ADELE PARKS English author, one left in river with powerboats? (5,5)
  A (“one”) + L (left) in (River) DEE with P (power) + ARKS (“boats”)
16 RIPEN Mature writing with Apple device? (5)
  R (“writing”, one of the three Rs) + iPEN (if Apple produced pens, they would inevitably prefix them with an i, as in iPad and iPhone)
19 NOTEPADS Writers’ blocks (8)
  Cryptic definition
21 EXTERNAL Outside bird caged by old metal (8)
  TERN (“bird”) caged by EX (“old”) + Al (chemical symbol for aluminium, so “metal”)
23 RABBIT Talk with pet (6)
  Double definition
24 SIENNA Old queen is turning brown (6)
  (<=ANNE (“old queen”) + IS) [turning]
26 NICK Cocaine stolen by family returning to prison (4)
  C (cocaine) stolen by <=KIN (“family”) [returning]
28 WASH Woman has dirty laundry (4)
  W (woman) + *(has) [anag:dirty]
29 DUNE American’s sci-fi novel under construction: centre of Earth is missing! (4)
  *(unde) [anag:construction] where UNDE is (unde)r with [centre of] (ea)R(th) missing

*anagram

94 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,138 by Qaos”

  1. Felt a bit like a Monday. Agree with everything Loonapic says. Didn’t spot the theme as usual. Not sure about “being spongy” as an anagrind. Feels like it’s just convenient because the anagrist is “cake”.

  2. Thought about a multiple keyword search, but had no idea which to choose, so failed on the theme as usual, ho hum. Pretty much a rattle through as Loonapick says, but with a bit of head scratching over Asia, a nho, and ‘were’, which earned a wot? in the margin. 30ac too has ‘cryp gramm?’ … I can swap chickened with ‘shown fear’ but when you add the ‘to have’, doesn’t the other need same? Forgot about readin’ and ‘ritin’, so failed to parse r+i-pen, d’oh, neat clue, as were some of the other shorties, like isle, wrong, sienna and wash. Fun enough I spose, thanks Qaos and Loonapick.

  3. loonapick and Frankie the cat @1 have summed this up perfectly.  Absolutely felt like a Monday.  I normally enjoy a Qaos and fail to spot the theme.  This time the theme was clear but the puzzle left me dissatisfied.  Weak clues for (amongst others) RUN, WERE, RABBIT, WASH, NICK ….  After recent tests, this really was a bit of a write in.  Apart from – never heard of ADELE PARKS (assumed it was the singer) or NABLAS and, as they intersected, this was a DNF for me.

    I think the double definition for ASIA should be ‘English rock band, once’ and ‘big in the East’.  Worked for me and resolved loonapick’s query.

    Thanks Qaos and loonapick

  4. PS nabla was another nho
    PPS not a great on sci-fi but Dune et sequ I did quite enjoy (along with the Arthur Cs, couple of Asimovs, et al)

  5. I saw the theme with about 2 to go, so no help for me there. “asia” my LOI and a bit of a guess from the “big in the east” – it sounded like it could be a rock band. “nabla” went straight in though, being up my street, though Adele Parks was unheard off and will remain unread by me even in lockdown.

    I had “exterior” at first (“or” for the metal “teri” being a bird’s name if bird = woman) but “spain” soon put paid to that idea. All very jolly but a few queries over grammar as others have said and not much of a sense of fun somehow, but thank you Qaos, and loonapick for all the parsing and the theme words. BTW it’s Nick Park not Parks…

  6. How did I miss the theme ?, and I am a real admirer of the Aardman productions. I had the same ‘never heard of’ experiences as others. As a total mathematics dunce, I am not surprised that I did not know ‘nabla’, but I’m usually not bad on authors – sorry Ms Parks. Pop music is also not a strong suit of mine, but it helps having had four children who had their favourite groups at different times – some compensation for the torture inflicted having to listen to them (both the groups and the children) over the years.

  7. Mostly, a steady work through with a few really neat clues – I liked 15ac and 16dn and there was something mildly Pauline about 20ac which appealed.

    25ac and 29dn I suppose require a bit of GK but acceptably so.

    NABLA, ASIA and ADELE PARKS were all NHOs (even though long ago I did A-level maths – shame on me!) but NABLA could be found from the N and B crossers and the wordplay for 14dn was clear enough to work out the answer. Really don’t like ASIA, though.

    I’m so glad it wasn’t just me with 3dn.

    Thanks to Loonapick and Qaos.

  8. Thanks both. Saw it was Qaos, thought “theme”. After solving WALLACE and TROUSER I got it (for once) and this made a rather easy puzzle from then on.

  11. I didn’t find this as gentle or Monday-ish as some, but I did get the theme quite early, when RUN and CHICKEN(ed) started bells ringing.  That then helped with the PARK in ADELE PARKS, and once I had CURSE and RABBIT I was on the look-out for WERE.  If I hadn’t been, I don’t think I would have trusted myself to write it in at 3d.  The definition is so odd that I still feel we must be missing something; perhaps Qaos can shed light if he drops in?

    Thanks Q & L

  12. I was relieved to see that there are several negative comments, as I don’t like being a solitary whinger. Repeated use of iou, obscurities, clumsy anagram indicators, a few chestnuts, all to serve an admittedly clever theme.

    Not my favourite, sorry. I liked the checked pants.

  13. Mixed bag for me. Couldn’t get NABLA, liked DUNE, CHICKENED and ISLE. Like NeilH@7, Never heard of ADELE PARKS, ASIA or NABLA. Thanks to Qaos and loonapick.

  14. Thank you loonapick for the elucidation, particularly with the reversed RESORT that i missed.

    If any consolation re NABLA, I spent several studying years using Delta and never heard it called nabla.

     

  15. Thanks Loonapick. I couldn’t really see the point of “American’s” in 29d. There’s a new film of the novel coming out this year – I wonder if that’s what prompted Qaos to use that particular definition? (Just to note, the highlighting of the definition in that clue is missing in the blog.)

  16. Enjoyably quick and completely missed the theme. 11a reminds me of the classic quiz question ‘what is the difference between audiences and spectators?’, audiences listen spectators watch. So the pedant in me suggests they are not equivalent but no doubt a reference work somewhere will allow it, lol.

  17. Had never heard of the sci-fi novel DUNE, the novelist ADELE PARKS, or the band ASIA. But as an undergrad I shared rooms with a mathematician, so I knew NABLA.

  18. Phil K @16: Absolutely agree. One of the pleasures of crosswording, for me, is the exploration and play with words and their meanings — and the ‘audiences’=’groups of spectators’ really grates.

    I suppose for some people, one of the pleasures of crosswording is hunting for a theme. Ah well! Chacun à son goût.

  19. re NABLA. You’ve suggested [Hidden] as the suggested wordplay from ‘displayed’. Have I woken up in Topsy Turvy Land?? The clue simply does not work on any level!

  20. DuncT @15 – exactly as I was going to say. Why ‘American’s’? It pushes the definition away from the start and made me hesitate. Surely most people with even the vaguest knowledge of sci-fi know Dune, and the nationality of Frank Herbert is irrelevant. I got the theme very early – CURSE, WALLACE, RUN and SHEEP were more than enough. It did help with several others, though I spent some time looking for where GROMIT was going to fit. Certainly knowing of Nick Parks helped with the author. I think if we are going to have HILARIOUS as themed, then AUDIENCES ought to go in too. My LOI was also ASIA. On first pass, I was almost certain it was going to be EYES (and two members of Asia came from Yes), but I was held back by thinking that the East isn’t famous for big eyes – rather the opposite.

  21. No problem with “nabla” or “Dune”. Guessed “Adele Parks” & “Asia”.  Never watch animations.  I did not spot the theme.

  22. I enjoyed this, although I missed (didn’t look for) the theme – I should know better when it’s Qaos.

    I think some of the quibbles are a bit harsh. I managed to put together (as LOI) ADELE PARKS, although I didn’t know who she was. I thought “Is ASIA a rock band?” but what else could it be with the crossers, and being ‘big in the East.’

    I managed to think ‘OUNCE’ for cat as it’s becoming quite usual in crosswordland. I liked the THICK EAR.

    Thanks Qaos and loonapick.

  23. Thanks Qaos and loonapick

    Re audiences and spectators, take a favourite band that you listen to on, say, CD at home. If you go to see them live and they put on a show, are you an audience member listening or a spectator watching? Or both simultaneously?

  24. A slow start with only three on first pass (nearly added a fourth with VOMIT for “cat in the past”!), but it all fell into place fairly soon. Except never saw the theme, and entered what I thought was a clever & lit SHANE at 9a. (Not so much Shane Warne, who was never trim, but the 1950s Western with Alan Ladd.) So dnf for me.

    I don’t have a problem with 3d, ungrammatical or not, and “American” in 29 is just plain old fashioned misdirection, so fair play I reckon. Not so sure about CHICKENED – doesn’t the grammar here require OUT as well? Never heard of NABLA despite long ago maths to A-level, but displayed=hidden is clear enough. I liked the unusual anagrinds: spongy was particularly good, I thought.

    Thanks Qaos & loonapick

  25. To me this felt blah throughout, quite rapidly solved with zero uplifting clues (well, WALLACE caused a weak grin)  …. one of those puzzles where you wished you’d had something better to do with your time. And also the variability in difficulty of recent puzzles again struck me quite forcibly.  At the moment I’m also working through the past two decades of old Everyman and Quiptic puzzles, and if on the easy side there is at least a commendable consistency in these, and very few clunkers.

  27. I enjoyed the neatness of ISLE, the misdirection in NOTEPADS and TRY IT ON as I was on the wrong path with IO & Y but ended up in the right place. WRONG/GROWN intrigued me as some form of “prime” anagram ie only has one alternative – not sure if this is a thing? Also, is there a word for answers/phrases like WALL ACE which don’t really get used in the real world? They seem to have gone out of fashion but some setters still use them. Anyway, the dog’s walked, the sun’s out and if Amazon are true to their word the Punt e Mes & Campari will be arriving shortly 🙂 Cheers all

  28. New for me were ADELE PARKS, ASIA (rock band), NABLA, THICK EAR.

    I could not parse TROUSER. I should have googeld East­bourne I did not know what its claim to fame is.

    Thanks Qaos & loonapick

  29. Well, I loved it. I have to agree with most of the quibbles – if, as Robi says, a bit harsh – but they didn’t spoil it for me.

    After getting TROUSER, CURSE, SHEEP and RUN in the first half dozen answers, I just settled back to have fun. [WERE had to be there, with CURSE and RABBIT but it’s definitely weird – almost as if there were a misprint or two.]

    Thanks to loonapick for supplying NABLA and the writer and to Qaos for the lHILARIOUS reminders.

     

  30. ASIA played at a pub in Southampton that I worked in as a teenager so the big probably does relate to the continent. I can’t remember much about the event other than lots of men in sleeveless denim and Kevin Keegan perms

  33. Wasn’t really sure about the clueing for ASIA and DUNE, but lots of fun along the way. Knew there’d be a theme of some sort as it was Qaos, but not really bothered to burst a blood vessel looking for it. 10ac and 6ac used the same IOU’s technique…

  35. Horses for courses I suppose. I thought this was a delight from start to finish – spotted the theme about halfway through which then helped with the SW corner (especially having never heard of Adele Parks but realising powerboats gave Parks – which must be right due to the theme – Adele became the only possible first name)

    Anyway, a big thumbs up and thank you to all involved from me.

  36. Yes, rattled through this, with similar nhos to others. I chuckled at WALLACE, thought ISLE was a well constructed clue and spotted the theme with only 3 to go, which helped with one clue. Agree ‘checked pants’ was good also. I love Wallace and Gromit, so this brought back many happy memories of fabulous films.
    Thanks to Qaos for the fun and Loonapick for the blog.

  37. The theme made me smile, how could it not?

    didn’t know nabla, i’m used to del. A bit of an “ouch” seeing “displayed” before the hidden fodder in that clue, as Bingybing@19 alludes to. Apple should keep an eye on crossword puzzles for device suggestions!

    Many thanks Qaos & loonapick

  38. @dutch, me too – I studied physics at university, and despite inverted deltas aplenty, we just called them dels rather than nablas .I am an Aardman fan, so Wallace and Trousers gave me the theme. LOI was 19dn, which ended the puzzle not with a bang but a whimper.

  39. I found this a bit tougher than most of you did, and I had to leave ASIA and SHAVE unsolved.  (I needed the former to get the latter, and I didn’t know the band.)  I enjoyed what I did, though, and I really should have made the connections to get the theme, as I knew most of the highlighted entries.

    I have had a lifelong interest in mathemeatics, but I strugled more than I should have to get NABLA from N???A.  I have come across that term, but it is used in a branch of mathematics that I have barely studied.

    Thanks to Qaos for an entertaining crossword and to loonapick for the blog.

  41. Yes, a quick run through, spotting the theme fairly early on but even so that didn’t help with 9a. Thanks to Qaos and loonapick.

    Isn’t it getting crowded on this site? Forty posts and it’s not 13:00 yet in the UK. And I suspect there would have been a lot more by now if the blog had gone up in time to attract the antipodeans and those over the pond.

    I sometimes do old Guardian crosswords (2007) when on some days on this site there were no posts, and on most, less than ten.

  43. It wasn’t as entertaining as Qaos often is, but I’m surprised to see so many negative comments. The only flaws I noticed were(!) WERE and the repeated use of IOU. Along with a few other mathematicians, I’m used to Del but did faintly recall NABLA. ASIA was not a problem for me, and I’m surprised that they are apparently much less well known in the UK (though I think “big” in the clue goes with the continent, not the band). Like Bill Williams @26, I first thought of Alexe as the author’s first name and had to resort to Google to get it right.

    Mostly satisfying, so thanks to Qaos. Thanks also to loonapick for the parsing of TROUSER (note to self for the future: Eastbourne is a resort).

  45. Surprised as the generally unappreciative tone here, I rather enjoyed it.

    No theme of course…never look but everything getable from the wordplay.

    Pity about the double use of IOU but otherwise jolly good fun.

    Many thanks, both.

  46. Afternoon all! Many thanks for all the comments and to loonapick for the blog. Did you spot where an extra themed entry could have fitted?

    Interesting comments about 26 ac. I think the original version had “written” rather than “displayed”, but the whole clue is intended to be an &lit; (of sorts). Personally, I thought it was such an obvious hidden answer that I was almost tempted to try one of Araucaria’s old tricks and leave out the indicator altogether! Would it be allowed in a barred puzzle? Of course not, but despite the grammar, is there enough in the clue solve it? I think so.

    After saying I was concentrating on producing more “odd-odd” grids, it’s Sod’s law that my very next puzzle should have an “odd-even” one.

    Best wishes,

    Qaos

  52. Pedro @#14  I used lots of deltas too and never heard them called nabla.  I looked the thing up, and a nabla isn’t a delta, it’s an upside down one that supposedly looks like a harp, which is a nabla in Greek, apparently.  And it isn’t used the way delta is in calculus, it has something to do with vectors in three-dimensional space that I for one never encountered in my math studies.

    Phil K @17.  While “audiences” doesn’t quite mean “spectators,” they are often the same set of people.

  53. This took me a while to get into and I sympathise with those who found some elements a little loose, particularly Bingybing@19: I agree that the inclusion indicator (or whatever it is called) is pointing the wrong way – this was my FOI though and brought back bittersweet memories as vector calculus first led me to realise that I was never going to be good enough to make a career out of maths research. Nonetheless the theme (which I completely failed to see) serves to cheer me up – “The Wrong Trousers” in particular is one of the best ways to spend half an hour indoors with your clothes on, I reckon. My favourite was 25A which (I now see) hints at their first outing in A Grand Day Out (as does the start of 6D). Thanks for the blog loonapick and thanks Qaos.

  54. I didn’t need to see the theme since I got almost every clue on the first pass, which was a good thing since not being a fan/follower I couldn’t see it even with a completed grid.  I did see a mini-theme of personal grooming:  WASH, SHAVE, TROUSER, TRY IT ON, CLOSET, and also discovered that NICK WALLACE was a writer for Blake’s 7, a previous Qaos theme topic.

    As for NABLA, I’ve used it probably thousands of times, and I did dredge the word up from the depths, but to agree with other posters, I had only heard it called Del in lectures.  The Wikipedia article here describes how del is much preferred due to “efficiency”.

  56. Even though I could not complete this — I had not heard of Wallace or Adele Parks nor was I familiar with “cat” as ounce — I found a lot to like, esp. GARDENS, EMPOWERED, and WRONG because their surfaces seem so readable. I must admit I was a bit surprised by the number of critical comments. Thanks Qaos, and Loonapick for the blog.

  57. I enjoyed this, but failed on the author and Nabla. Nabla really must be properly obscure because I work with 3D vectors all the time (I program video games in my spare time), and it didn’t even remotely ring a bell, to the extent that I would swear blind I’ve never heard it in almost 50 years on the planet. I did spot it hidden in the fodder, but it didn’t sound like a word, so I left it alone.

    As to spectators and audiences – the phrase “Filmed before a live studio audience” springs to mind, having preceded thousands of episodes of TV shows over the years.

  58. I missed the theme of course, despite being an admirer of Aardman. As a recovering mathematician I knew NABLA, though “displayed” seems a bit dubious as it’s usually an anagrind.

    DUNE is probably the best-known SF novel of the past 60 years (we old codgers don’t say “sci-fi” is we can avoid it). It has been filmed by David Lynch, adapted as a TV mini-series, and is currently being filmed again by Dennis Villenueve. The solution had to be DUNE, but the extraneous “American’s” just sat there contributing nothing. i could say the same about the “English” in 14d. You have either heard of ADELE PARKS or you haven’t (I hadn’t). Indeed the same applies to 1d. I used to have an ASIA LP many years ago, but I don’t think I even realised they were English.

  59. Just to provide a bit of balance, I was able to solve ADELE PARKS from the definition. She is a very successful writer of the sort of books that normal people like to read. Not the sort of people to get upset about the fact that just because AUDIENCE is derived from the Latin for “to hear” it can apply to persons who have assembled to look at something.  Per my 1993 Chambers – Audience … an assembly of hearers or spectators.

  60. Ah, OUNCE again. Hello old friend. How often has the snow leopard figured in Guardian crosswords?
    I didn’t spot the theme but with WALLACE and TROUSER being so close together, I really should have especially given the setter.I had to look up ADELE PARKS as I’ve never heard of her. I’ve heard of ASIA but I’ve never heard them-mainstream rock,I understand, so they’re probably ghastly- and I’ve never read or seen DUNE. However,from the cultural desert of my life, I rather liked the puzzle. I liked the clue for SHEEP.
    Thanks Qaos.

  61. I enjoyed this one – a fairly obvious theme even though my knowledge of it is cursory, and all of the less familiar solutions (I’d never heard of Ms Parks either) were fairly clued and easy to derive. The symbol was new to me too – I did a maths degree but did as little applied maths as I could get away with…

    Thanks to Qaos and loonapick

  62. Qaos says (about 26a):  Is there enough in the clue to solve it? I think so.

    Getting the answer is certainly part of the pleasure of solving any crossword, including cryptic ones.  But the more puzzles I solve, the further down the list of pleasures it goes, and if it is gained at the expense of a clever and elegant or even just sensible route to the solution then the pleasure is more than cancelled out.

    It’s a characteristic of Guardian crosswords that clues are allowed which are unconventional (one might say deficient in some element), when the ‘is there enough to solve it?’ test is seen as sufficient. The pay-off, hopefully, is that the clue is particularly inventive or funny.  I don’t think it’s a satisfactory test for a conventional clue, as this one seems to be.

  63. Tony @56 Definitely file away “ounce” as a cat for future reference…others can give the statistics but I’d say it comes up 5 or 6 times a year so future you will thank current you.

    MarkN @57 Nabla’s not really a vector thing so much as a vector calculus thing. You might do 3D vector calculations all day and never touch it but if you start using div, grad and curl then it is the standard operator, albeit a slightly obscure name for something better known as Del. Being a collector of odd names and historical terms (I sometimes refer to Naperian logarithms, octothorpe etc) I happened to find it familiar but also knew it was pretty outre!

  64. Van Winkle @59 I seem to recall that last time you contributed here it was to complain about the “bloated mess… the tedious debate … and all the narcissists piling in to bore us with their views.”  And now you’ve kindly contributed your views again, seemingly upset by another debate, and contrast the community here with the “normal people” who might read Adele Parks.  Have you ever thought you might be happier with the normal people…

  65. I’m a theoretical physicist who uses the nabla symbol quite a lot in my work. In my experience, nobody actually calls it “nabla”: as others have noted, it’s generally pronounced “del” (not “delta”, which is oriented the other way). But in the technical typesetting system known as TeX or LaTeX, which mathematicians and similar people use to write our articles, the command to insert such a symbol is \nabla, so people who write technical articles involving vector calculus for a living are likely to know the term from there. That’s a small subset of people, of course!

    I enjoyed this puzzle more than many others, although I too was disappointed by the definition in 3dn and by a few dodgy indicators.

  66. I’m another not to have heard of ADELE PARKS. Nor have I heard of Aardman animations, so no help there either. I’m also another with a maths degree not to know NABLA although I recall DEL. So I just got stuck on the left hand strip. I tried BLADE for 9a but couldn’t justify ABBA. Never heard of ASIA as a band. Anyway, I enjoyed the rest. Thanks Quas and loonapick.

  67. TheZed @63: Thanks, I’ll file OUNCE in the part of my brain where “vomit” already resides.

  68. Had to Google up Adele Parks, having never heard of her, and I have also never heard of Aardman Animations – I guess neither is all that well known this side of the pond! But even with that, this was a straightforward but very enjoyable puzzle – no complaints with any of the cluing.  Oh, and I also learned that “Rabbit” means to talk excessively!

  69. Thanks to Loonapick and Qaos. A fairly quick solve but with a lookup needed for the author and NABLA as for so many of us. The theme fell early – once I had WALLACE, WERE and RABBIT it was stand-out obvious.

    DUNE is one of the best sci-fi novels of all time; the series of sequels though became progressively more impenetrable until Frank Herbert finally disappeared completely up his own oozlum around book 5 !

  70. Jay in Pittsburgh @68, and all our friends on that side of the pond who may not be familiar with the British usage of ‘rabbit’ – my guess is that after watching this you won’t forget it in a hurry 🙂

    [I’m slightly disappointed that the lyrics given under ‘show more’ on YouTube don’t even attempt to spell out all the rabbits, but resort to ‘rabbit x 20’!]

  71. JohnB @69 agree with your analysis of the Dune series. Only I gave up on the third! The first was a landmark novel and set a bar that was hard to attain again. ‘Red Mars’ by Kim Stanley Robinson is the same: a superb opener that exhausted the seam.

  72. Mark @64 – happy where I am. I have long been a defender on this site of the idea that it should be all about the crossword. Today it took only a couple of posts to confirm that some people spotted the theme and others didn’t and that nobody has heard of Adele Parks. Why all the subsequent contributions that say little apart from repeating these points if not for people having an interest in themselves that outweighs the common good? Similarly with “debates” that have no substance other than in individuals’ likes and dislikes.

    As per Lippi @41, there are some of us who are nostalgic for the days when the Guardian blog used to be a sprightly discussion of settings and solvings, not this sprawling collection of diary entries. Perhaps that some is no longer very many.

    If anyone is wondering what Mark is on about it relates to this blog where Anna succinctly confirmed that a controversy did not exist as there were no rules other than those you set yourself, to be followed by several posts from persons setting out what they considered the rules, causing her to leave the site in frustration.

  73. I laughed out loud re SHEEP, which incidentally was my COD. Qaos, did you also have a mischievous grin when setting that clue?

  74. TheZed @63 – I’m a word magpie myself. I’ve got a terrible memory for most things, but words stick, and even the vaguest inkling that I’ve heard something before – however long ago – almost always rings a bell (however faintly). I will research any word I come across that I don’t already know, because I hate not knowing stuff – especially words (so I know what an octothorpe is 😉 ). But despite googling dozens of vector questions in the past I’m certain Nabla has never come up before even when I’ve been truly desperate in my searches. But then – you’re right I’ve not specifically looked for vector calculus. But then, who has? If I haven’t even stumbled across it searching in the right ballpark, how many people are going to know this word?

     

    And like I suggested before it’s an odd word. It feels like a company name, or a clumsy acronym. I found the answer and refused to put it in because of that. I’m perfectly happy to put unknown words in if they *feel* right – and I’ve pencilled in stuff that looked like gibberish before now and found it to be correct (some of the more obscure species of African antelope for example). But that just didn’t *feel* right. I’ll admit that the cluing was perfectly fair (I did find the answer), but if I don’t know the word, and I don’t like the look of it that’s a step too far for me.

  75. I really loved this!! WALLACE, RABBIT and SHEEP were early entries and – having been a fond fan of Nick P’s work ever since watching Morph’s antics with Tony Hart as a small child – much of the rest almost fell in of their own accord. Which made a pleasant change from my usual head-scratching/inspired-guesswork! Thanks to Loonapick for help completing the parsing to TROUSER, thanks to essexboy for the link to Chas’n’Dave (gercha!!) and, Qaos, thank you very much indeed for making me sit with a soppy grin on my face for pretty much all of the solve!!

  76. I for one welcome your contrbutions here Van Winkle, including your acerbic ones. But that’s precisely because I really enjoy the differing ways we all not only solve a puzzle but interact with its content in ways that, inevitably and naturally, involve our background, education, likes and dislikes, memories, family circs, what music our kids subjected us to, and all the rest. Enriching is what I find it, all of it.

  78. grantinfreo @76. Well said. Enriching … all of it.

    I hope other posters aren’t put off by Van Winkle’s acerbity. Clearly more people are now posting because more people are stuck at home instead of being at work, or on holiday, or visiting friends, or down the pub doing the Guardian crossword. Perhaps some people enjoy having something to share with others who have a common interest. Maybe feeling part of this online community helps to stave off the monotony, the stress and the anxiety of these strange days. I know I’ve been coming here more often than I used to, and I agree that it is enriching to meet other solvers and gain some insight into their experience of doing something that we’ve all done.

    As Van Winkle @72 so aptly put it, I’m happy where I am.

  79. This was a fun puzzle, although in places almost a write-in or, at least, a bit too easy.
    But what is ‘too easy’? [I admit I’ll have to be a bit careful with that label]

    The oddness of 3d and the indicator in 26ac have already been mentioned above.
    But where does W = ‘woman’ in 28ac come from?
    As far as I know W can be ‘women’ or ‘wife’ (see 3d) but not ‘woman’.
    Ah, those abbreviations again.
    Like also in 6ac: Y = ‘young’ according to the blog?
    However, I think the explanation should be slightly different:
    G (grand) + first letter of Young + L (learner), etc.

    But, hey, this was fun!
    Time to re-visit A Matter of Loaf and Death !
    Many thanks to Loonapick & Qaos.

  81. I’m sorry, but what is the point of having themes if they’re going to be so loose? I’ve been hacked off with theming in the Guardian’s crossword for a while (as a 23 year old solver, Columbo, Rhino as slang for money (this one was truly awful) and archbishops of Canterbury in the last few weeks alone were enough to make me wonder what the point was) but this is appalling. Maybe it’s because Qaos has attempted to theme all of their puzzles and they’ve run out of ideas. I’ve had a whack at setting in these corona affected times and coming up with consistent themes doesn’t seem that hard to me. This puzzle (and a number preceding it) are a big boooo from me

  82. Sil @ 79 re Young = Y

    It’s, to my mind, one of those abbreviations that’s pretty much only seen in a single context and extracted, in this case from YMCA. One may or may not like it, but I think it’s defensible, though it may not have dictionary support, cf W D L = Won Drawn Lost.

  83. OK, Simon, the only thing I can say about this is something that I won’t do myself.

    Fine if others do – like you I’ve seen it many times before.

    That said, I think in this crossword it was: Y = ‘at first, young’.

  84. my dear Simon @82…

    This is a point you’ve made many times before about picking a letter out of a longer abbreviation and attempting to justify its standalone use. FWIW (see what I did there?) I really cannot agree. You can’t take the N out of SNAFU and expect to get n=normal past any editor, even one as loose as Hugh.

    Some highly thought-provoking comments on here today. I cannot for the life of me see how anyone can justify 26; setter, solver or editor.

  86. I think I’ve said it before to Simon S, but I agree with baerchen and Sil et al that it’s not fair to extract a head letter from one word in a longer initialism or acronym. There are far too many permutations. (I also agree with Sil that Y is “at first, young” here, so whatevs as the Y-sters say.)

    I’ve also said here before that I suspect Qaos may also be Everyman, and I wish someone would put me out of my misery as to that theory. 🙂

  87. 14dn: who?

    If one crossword is not enough, then I found this, which has a few good warm-ups, including an American style one, always fair clues, & a reasonable chess problem: https://simplydailypuzzles.com/index.html

    Given the tendency by setters to include non-English words, could we have a few more Welsh or Gaelic words or derivations thereof in the solutions?

    I would also like to see a good clue that has ‘hithertounknown’ as the solution.

    Nila Palin @86: I think so, too, regarding Qaos.

    Best wishes.

  90. Top-selling = HIT  (as in hit record)

    girl’s = HER

    to = TO

    y = UNKNOWN  (as in a mathematical unknown, like x and z)

    Def. “only just discovered”

    But I’m sure you knew that…….   🙂

  91. Yes, of course I did, and it is a good concise clue. Guardian setters: take note.

    But like all good clues, there is also another possible answer, an allusion, even with a bit of license, even if my solution didn’t really fit the clue. 🙂

  92. Mark @71 thanks !   I stuck with it through the first three and even the fourth as it became progressively more weird. After that though, no way.  Interestingly the whole series had to be finished by a consortium after Frank Herbert passed away, which did at least tie up all the loose ends even if their writing style bore no relation to the original.  Shades of things to come with George RR Martin ?

    Robbie @81 – I know what you mean, that’s exactly how I used to feel in the 1970s as a newbie solver when all compilers appeared to have had a classical public school education and none ever seemed to use references less than 100 years old.  What does amuse me now is that Qaos uses themes I would have lapped up back then – Deep Purple Albums being one example, Blake’s 7 and Triumph cars other which spring immediately to mind !

  93. JohnB @92

    I gave up part way through the fourth book of the Dune Trilogy, as it had started to become writing for the sake of the theme, ‘milking a dry cow’ as it were.

    It’s a matter of opinion of course, but I would not mention George RR Martin in the same paragraph as Frank Herbert. I read the first two chapters of ‘A Game of Thrones’ (?) before giving up, as it is probably the worst fantasy/fiction ever written outside of a Donald Trump Tweet. I even bought a boxed DVD set of the first four seasons, and gave up halfway through the third. There isn’t even a story. It would take considerable effort to write a worse soap opera. Whoever compared Martin to Tolkien is severely scripturally challenged; and I don’t even care much for Tolkien.

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