Guardian Cryptic 28,253 by Tramp

59 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,253 by Tramp”

1. An enjoyable and solvable challenge for us today. We enjoyed the &lit and semi &lit clues very much.

   Favourites were PUBLISHER and JAM SESSION.

   Thanks manehi and Tramp!

2. Highly enjoyable. I do love Tramp’s manipulation of the language. ULULATES, RING and EXTRACTOR were all highlights today, along with (shout-out to Pasquale?) DONALD DUCK of course.

   Didn’t know HYDATID but was able to fill it in just from the wordplay. Had a few curries like that in my time…

3. Brilliantly clued throughout but all over too quickly. Loved DONALD DUCK, HYDATID for showing how to clue specialised knowledge and PREVAILED for the shout out to HRH

   [HMHB trivia trigger warning] Their lead singer once told this joke at a gig: How do you turn a DUCK into a soul singer? Put it in the microwave till its BILL Withers 🙂

   He was among fans so didn’t need to get his coat

4. Yes, the surface for PREVAILED doesn’t pull any punches. I’d never heard of HYDATID either.

   Don’t get Mrs P started about HOSPITAL CORNERS. Apparently it’s a dying art and some of her younger nursing colleagues don’t even know to face the open end of the pillowcase away from the door!

   Thanks Tramp and Manehi.

5. Several days ago someone had asked for an Android app that enables a user to enter tiles of letters that they can shift in order to form anagrams with their own words that are unlikely to be in the in-built dictionaries of the usual anagram finders.

   In my response to that message I had mentioned an app for iPad. Till that time I had not landed on any for Android.

   Both the Comments have now been purged.

   In the present new thread I mentioned a program that somewhat works on PC.

   In response to that someone has pointed to an app for Android.

   I hope that the searcher comes here (most frequently visited topic) and sees this and that!.

6. Having been the sore thumb yesterday with a number of quiblets about a puzzle rated highly by everyone else, I suspect I’ll be firmly in the pack today with full on admiration and enjoyment of Tramp’s latest offering.  Like bodycheetah it would appear, I did rather whiz through it today; completely on the setter’s wavelength.  Until the very last – AREA which I still don’t quite understand, even with manehi’s help.  But I’m more than willing to overlook that, given the delights everywhere else.  The clueing and wordplay throughout is pretty much faultless and the majority of surfaces read smoothly.

   Again, I’m with bodycheetah, and manehi and Boffo, in singling out DONALD DUCK, and with all so far in praising HYDATID; a dnk solvable from the clueing (even if the surface is understandably a bit of a mouthful).  I’d also highlight PLASTERED, the cheeky TEAT, SUSTAINING PEDAL for the anagram, INCREASES which might test some of our self-acknowledged cricketing novices, TRAP and RING which both misdirected me and CURLS UP for the nice surface.  I’ll stop before reaching essay length and listing every answer on the grid.  But not before a shout for my COTD, the brilliant POSIT.

   Wonderful creation, Tramp, and thanks to manehi for his insights.

7. Got busted at music camp, aged 11, for not doing hospital corners…had to report to kitchen and peel spuds..fascists! Pretty much cruised through this, though didn’t parse pos[t]it, d’oh, and just thought ‘Lulu must’ve sung “Shout”‘. Took a while to get that 9a was a part OF a piano, and that a fold was a pen. The Duck was cute. Couldn’t winkle out a def for 14d, and as a cad/&lit it was a bit ott. A mere quiblettino in a fun puzzle, thanks Tramp and manehi.

8. Penfold @4:  not just PREVAILED.  27a, 1a, 2a, 12d and possibly others have uncomfortable echoes.

   Thanks to Tramp and manehi.

9. Sorry, that should be 27a, 1d, 2d, 12d

10. bodycheetah @3: I’m namechecking you lots today but thanks for alerting me to the hidden depths of 14ac.  I’m aware of but don’t follow closely the issues around the HRH in question but hadn’t clocked the name of the lady.  So I’d interpreted the clue in context of the US singer and state.  Now I’ve done my homework, the topicality and wicked cleverness stand out.

11. I’m glad Mark squeezed in @6 just before I started to write; he’s saved me a lot of time and I’m due t  go out for  an eye test shortly. I agree with all he’s said (except that I have no problem with AREA).

    I just have to add ULULATE as my top favourite: it’s one of my favourite onomatopoeic words and as I’ve said before, Virgil uses the Latin verb it comes from for the wailing of the Trojan women at the fall of Troy.

    Huge thanks to Tramp – I loved it – and to manehi for a great blog

12. What a gorgeous puzzle today – FOI was SUSTAINING PEDAL (I’m a pianist and use it too much) and like others 7d was a DNK but dropped in thanks to some well-crafted wordplay.

    [Today’s pointless trivia related to 19d. I live near East Grinstead in West Sussex which is home to the Guinea Pig Club and used to have the Guinea Pig Pub, both named for the pioneering work of McIndoe in plastic surgery to treat returning airmen from WWII.  Second pointless trivia – possibly because of its position on the Greenwich Meridian East Grinstead is more-than full of odd religions and sects and is referred to as the Twin Peaks of Britain…  You’re welcome]

13. And that should be thanks to Tramp for a class-act and manehi for the informative blog.

14. Great puzzle from Tramp. A thrill to complete without any aids (apart from checking HYDATID) when it emerged from the word play. I also could not see how the pen in RIPEN was a fold. I tried reversing it too then the penny dropped and I realised that the previous clue had successfully misdirected me. Loved POSIT and PLaSTERED. Thanks manehi for the comprehensive blog. i needed your help to parse PUBLISHER and ILLITERATE.

15. Enjoyed this a lot, but where’s the definition in PUBLISHER?!

16. Thanks manehi, very helpful!

    I am learning too slowly to treat words individually and then look for an obtuse application of them.

     

    I took Guy and Harry and thought of “man” and “name” or “character” but did not go further!

    Was sure Harry gave us the answer Dirty, so very pleased to see how you got to DODGY!

     

    I got all the answers but never fully understood several of them …. thanks for helping us/me.

    My first completed answer was 10a TEAT from …. half of TATTAT around E

    I never checked to see if TATTAT fitted the whole clue! When I saw it was a word it was job done:O(

    Another lesson learned.

    11a gave me LULU and therefore ULUL but the rest of the clue was a mystery, not helped by 7d being an unknown word to me.

    Your interpretation of 26a also helps, but ,across the board, you revealed too many techniques to list here , thanks!

     

     

     

     

17. Thanks Tramp and manehi

    A very good puzzle. Favourite was HYDATID – I put it together then showed to my wife, a retired GP, and asked “Is that a word?”

    “Yes” she said “it’s a tapeworm cyst”

    drofle @15 I wondered that too. manehi has shown it as &lit, but I’m not sure it quite works.

18. Pretty sure that is my first fully completed Tramp puzzle, so certainly enjoyable!

    My only contribution is to mention that in 4d the ‘acceleration due to gravity’ is represented by a small ‘g’. The gravitational constant ‘G’ is not the same thing. See here.

    Thanks manehi and Tramp.

19. I hope there are not too many Guardian insider tricks e.g. “men” to “or” (which I have seen in several puzzles).

    “son” to “s” , and similar short-cuts , also cheese me off.

    I thought of “lad” for “son” giving me the idea that 1a was “bladdered”.

    I still use “check this” to avoid messing up the grid, and “plastered” has so many common letters it was much easier from there.   The “checks” and 225 together make this a novice solver’s paradise!

     

     

20. RB @19: I’ve been pondering on the right word and I think I have to say I’m delighted to dash your hopes!  There are hundreds of insider tricks and they’re by no means restricted to the Guardian.  In fact you could probably define cryptic crosswords as puzzles involving trickery.  Only the straightforward cryptic/double definitions might escape that description.  There are listings – Chambers for example – of many of the indicators of ‘tricks’ and, of course, of abbreviations.  But they can’t be comprehensive as most setters are constantly seeking new ways to bamboozle and mislead us.  I can only assure you that time and experience will gradually populate your own inner listings (unless, like me, you have an unreliable memory for these things).  The two you mention – OR for ‘men’ (from the military designation ‘Other Ranks’) (although, of course, it could also be Oregon, Operating Room, Olympic Record and many others) – and ‘s’ for son (it’s the usual abbreviation found in genealogy) are old chestnuts.

    You may, of course, already know all this, in which case I apologise for what might appear patronising.  I’m hoping it’s helpful as you progress from novice to experienced solver and, you’re right, you couldn’t have found a better place in which to learn.  Good luck. 😀

21. Meant to say, nice a propos surface to 4d (and, per protocol, it should have been Buzz, as the pilot, taking the small step/giant leap). Otoh, totally missed the wicked Prince/Va dig in prevailed (sort of news detail that goes in one ear and …).

    [And, re trivia item #1, MaidenBartok, Mrs gin’s fave ep of Foyle’s War was the one where Bill Paterson (right accent!) plays the skin surgeon who breaks all the rules, infuriating the stuff-shirts but gettting great results]

22. drofle @15 I think its one of those CAD / &semi-lit that irk the purists

23. Rather nice puzzle from Tramp today. It’s a weird world when I’m more confident about entering HYDATID than HOSPITAL CORNERS. Never heard of either, but with the latter I was just worried that there might have been some other combination of the anagram letters which led to the real answer.

24. drofle 215 & bodycheetah @22: I’m in agreement with the latter.  There is certainly disagreement about the &lit with very experienced solvers (including some setters) defining it differently – or at least not always in agreement on a particular example.  CAD seems a slightly less contentious definition and I certainly took that to be the case with PUBLISHER where the surface certainly references the role imo.

25. Beautiful use of English in his misdirections.  Ticks everywhere but liked the succinct AREA best.

    Can someone help me out with IT = that subject?  ILLITERATE went in only partially parsed as a result.

    I have to say I’ve never heard anyone say sustain-ING pedal.  Always referred to simply as the sustain pedal.  (The one on the right)

    Many thanks, Tramp, honed art.

26. mark @ 20

    Thanks for that. I used to do Ximenes in the Sunday broadsheets 50 years ago and rarely completed it.

    During the week I used to attempt to finish the Telegraph cryptic crossword on the train to work.

    I used to do that most days, too long ago to remember if they had nonsense clues to easier solutions.

    At the time I blamed Ximenes on having too many literary clues,greek mythology etc, but since restarting cryptics I am wondering if those were actually the “s” for “son” style going over my head.

    “The Archimedes Palimpsest” might have been TAP but I was not aware of it?

    I feel a bit better about it now. But if was setting a puzzle I’d feel that style of clue was a “complete omnibus putting oxygen under tramlines” – any fool could set a crossword that way. It is an eye opener though, the trick is in making the words either amusing or appropriate I guess.

    English producing E and ENG in the same puzzle set me on my high horse, one or t’other ,maybe, but not both imho.

    I think I’ll try to find a few Telegraph crosswords from the 1970’s – I’m dying to know!

     

     

27. A few of these made me scratch my head for the precise parsing after I’d tentatively solved them, but no complaints in the end. The long anagrams at 9ac and 25 ac were a helpful bonus and way in. Last one in was CURLS UP, though hadn’t been quite reduced to the foetal position by this elegant puzzle.

28. [RB @26: we’re a bit off topic so I’ll finish with this.  I find the DT the most accessible of the broadsheets and it’s a good stamping ground for one re-finding his feet in Crosswordland.  The majority of Guardian puzzles – Mondays historically excepted – probably employ more ‘trickery’ and obscurity than the DT but considerably less than, say, Ximenes’ successor Azed.  That said, if you persevere here you’ll gradually become used to solving at a standard that will make the DT a relatively straightforward experience.

    Addressing just two of your specifics: I can see why two different elements both resulting from ‘English’ might irk but, as I said before, the lists are neither comprehensive nor definitive.  Both E and ENG are acceptable abbreviations of the word and there’s no rule to say they can’t both be used.  Why should there be?  The Archimedes Palimpsest isn’t, to my knowledge, abbreviated to TAP but “First of all, the Archimedes Palimpsest…” would be a fair way of indicating those three letters imo.

    Nuff said and ATB]

29. This was one of those days when every first guess turned out to be correct, so either I’m remarkably bright this morning (not very likely) or this was at Tramp’s hitherto unsuspected easier-end-of-the-spectrum. Like others, I found the clue for HYDATID to be so fair that not only, like others, did I quickly write it in, but I didn’t even bother to check it in the dictionary. I must admit that Prince Andrew’s problem with his trouser zip went straight over my head at the time of solving, and at first even the slightly coy hints from penfold, essexboy and mark (#3, #8 & #10 respectively) didn’t fully expose to me the full import of what Tramp had done, so thanks for that, fellahs.

    Reading Mark’s handy hints for beginners made me think about how groan-worthy some of these have now become. I’m thinking of sex=IT, men=OR, and my particular bete noir, worried=ATE. I know that ATE is a common ending for English words, and there are perhaps not many ways to clue it, but this one is really beginning to grate for me. Or should I say grrr…worried?

    Thanks to Tramp for a very enjoyable solve, and to Manehi for the superbly succinct blog.

30. Echoing bodycheetah: wished there were more clues 🙂
    After my struggles this week even with the Anto Quiptic, this was a refreshing joy.

    INCREASE was my favorite, but then I was raised in a cricketing nation. I can imagine people who know nothing of cricket would find this one exasperating.

31. [Mark – concerning yesterday’s ‘other’ Mark, when I first posted here about seven years ago, there was no other William in sight, but I chose to add initials ….FP in case another William existed. I assumed, for a site that had existed for some years (and given that William, like Mark, is not unusual) that it would be bad form to do otherwise. And it avoided the situation you’ve encountered. I really appreciate your contribution here and feel you should perhaps have a more outstanding monicker anyway?! And no danger of folk assuming that using just one name reflects egocentricity! 🙂 ?

32. RB @26: sorry, really sorry, but couldn’t resist it: The beginnings of cryptics often provide obscure unintelligible text: it’s an avoidance of responsibility. (6)

33. [William F P @31: thanks for the kind words.  I have to admit my naivety: fifteensquared is the first site to which I’ve ever contributed so I probably didn’t think it through as well as you when I made that first ever comment.  And, from that moment on, I’ve been rather stuck with it.  Yesterday did prompt some pondering which continues…  I’m not the only first name on here but, in the time I’ve been contributing, the first to have encountered the issue.  No idea of the statistical significance of that!]

34. William F P @31:  I must confess that I never gave duplication a thought when I just used my first name on the first occasion I came here some years ago.  These days I have enough trouble with the plethora of user names and passwords that I try to keep things simple where possible.

    If you predate me I’ll happy change.  Just let me know.

35. Thanks for the excellent blog, manehi. Thanks to others for your kind words.

    I wrote this puzzle in May, and I thought it was quite good, so, I asked for it to be pushed up the pecking order. As with most of the puzzles I’ve written over the last year or so, this was largely a random fill. I only had the Dua Lipa clue written previously. I remember struggling to come up with ideas for most of these clues; I’m finding that with all my puzzles lately. I struck lucky with the Prince Andrew clue when I noticed the P and the VA for Virginia. I couldn’t believe my luck when I saw the anagram of LIED. Originally, the definition was “Had it”, which I prefer, but, for some reason, I changed it.

    I’ve already clued REHAB twice before:

    On it away from addiction? (5)
    Concerning addiction without it (5)

    so, I was pleased to get a decent third clue for it. I think I’ll have to stop clueing that word now.

    Neil

36. Thank for dropping in, Neil, and good luck with your rehab.  (That reads awkwardly, now!)

37. William @36: doubt we will ever confuse you with another: it’s your cheesy jokes!

38. Enjoyable – the most so of the week, IMHO. I had the whole bottom half in before I had anything more than RING at the top. Still, I was able to work through and complete it. Lots of nice clues, as others have mentioned, so I won’t list them. Thanks to Tramp and manehi.

39. Thanks manehi, i didn’t understand 1A and 13D but now they are clear.

    William@25 in case nobody has replied yet I think the equivalence is simply a grammatical shorthand eg “Go and sit on THAT CHAIR. IT is very comfortable” – chair here being the subject of the sentence so “that subject” = “it”. There are plenty more knowledgable grammaticians (?) here who can probably put it more clearly.

    Add me to the list of those not quite happy about PUBLISHER although this is only in retrospect as it was one of my first in so must have been acceptable on some level. Happy to have got the Moses reference today and think PREVAILED is extremely good but not quite enough to pip DONALD DUCK for my special prize – generally agree with the praise above, thanks Tramp.

40. Thanks Tramp, that was fun. My clue of the crossword was HYDATID — a new word for me but obtainable from the parsing; I also like how the entire surface relates to the answer. Other favourites were the neatly compact AREA, REHAB, TEAT, and AT STAKE. Thanks Manehi for the blog and explaining POSIT, DODGY, and DONALD DUCK.

41. Quite a bit of fun, as mentioned by so many others already.

    In 13D of blog, isn’t “is” (love that juxtaposition) a connector rather than part of defn? Otherwise doesn’t pass Plug&Play test, as not same part of speech?

    William, re IT: Perhaps think of “it”/”that subject” as comparable pronouns? E.g. if asked about cruciverbalism one might say “I enjoy that subject” or “I enjoy it”.

    Mark, re live=ARE: How about when giving one’s address, e.g. “We (live/are) at 1515 Cryptic Way”?

    Kudos to our setter/blogger/commenters!

42. Not sure I’ve ever finished a Tramp puzzle before, so very pleased. I found it a lot tougher than most of you appear to have. I agree with y’all about the favourites.

    22d took far too long – I thought ISMORE (-O) was an anagram (relaxed as the indicator) and so spent an age trying to convince myself that a MISER was a NO HOPER. What a LOSER… I suspect Tramp set that elephant trap deliberately.

    Thanks to Tramp and to Manehi. Nice work.

43. Thanks OddOtter @41: tbh, I’ve reflected and become more comfortable with AREA over the day.  I’m looking at it a bit in the context of cogito ergo sum which helps.  (No idea how to turn that from I to we but you get my drift, I hope)

44. Is IT possibly referring to the school subject as described in secondary education? Seems unlikely unless Tramp is techno -averse.

45. keyser@43
    Fifteensquared is 225.
    Just joking.

46. Sorry I misnamed.

47. Tattoo is quite commonly referred to as tat so the ‘half of’ could be dropped, methinks to make better surface. Splendidly clued puzzle. I just finished making a cryptic after a long time and it’s not easy to create clue after lovely clue. Hats off.

48. Fave clue 1d, but is it logical? That is , after should be replaced with before, he he he. Thanks Tramp and Manehi.

49. Interesting comment about tat. Originally, I had “small inked design” to signify tat. When I reviewed the puzzle, I noticed in Chambers that this diminutive form isn’t given for that meaning of tattoo: so I changed it. However, I’ve just checked Collins and it seems as though I could have kept the original. I’ve heard tat for tattoo (the inked design) used a lot.

    Neil

50. Ong’ara @ 48

    It works fine if you see it as a single phrase, ie post-sex (as in post-mortem). Nice bit of reverse misdirection by Tramp, in that you so often see what appears to be a two (or more) word phrase that has to be deconstructed.

51. I love short clues and answers that deftly misdirect, so 1d POSIT and 3d TRAP were favourites. I also liked 10a TEAT for the surface, and the great long anagrams.

    I was in an ALDI store in 2018 while in Glasgow on a curling trip, but we don’t have them here in Canada, so 5d DONALD DUCK was LOI – once I got it I loved it.

    And I didn’t catch the brilliance if 14a PREVAILED until coming here, so thanks to the bloggers who spotted it for giving me an extra big laugh.

    [ grantinfreo@21, that episode of Foyle’s War was one of my faves, too – Bill Paterson was superb as the McIndoe character. ]

    Thanks manehi for the informative blog and Tramp for the great crossword and for joining us here.

52. Ong’ara @48, presume your suggestion is tongue in cheek… but the clue might still work? One could see submit=post (e.g. to submit/post a comment) less T (shortly) then IT (with inferred punctuation: “… after, it”), yielding a w>d clue (wordplay contains defn); one might see the original clue as w>d too, w/submit=post and after indicating order.

    Like some, I saw 14D more as w>d than w=d, the defn being supplier=publisher, and rest of the wplay just being delightfully relevant to the defn but not part of it.

    Liked 19D but couldn’t help imagining possible triple defns, e.g. “expose guinea pig in field”, or maybe capture instead of expose.

53. Me @52… oops… correction to end of 1st paragraph: “one might see the original clue as w>d too, w/submit=post and after before indicating order.”

54. Excellent puzzle. Too many favourites to mention but PREVAILED stood out.

55. Thanks Tramp for a fun crossword, and Manehi for the blog – much appreciated. My understanding of 21a is that only the first two words form the definition, though I’m prepared to be overruled. Also, out of interest, I’d happily written in TRAY for 3d, which I think just about works with ‘supply’ as the definition, though TRAP is clearly better.

56. Bill_poster @55, re 3D… nice!  I actually spent a while trying to put R (mouth of river) into various waters to get a supply (PREE? PERE? REXE? many others) before trying TRAP and then realizing “mouth” was the defn.

    Concur re 21A.

57. Cracking puzzle.  Thanks, T & M.

58. Thanks to Tramp and manehi.

     

    Another of those fairly rare occasions when I was on Tramp’s wavelength.

     

    [ Re duplicated names, Mark(s)  and William(s) @31 @33 and @34 et al, I once saw a post from Kevin and thought “I don’t remember posting that. Is my memory getting that bad?” Then I noticed that the other Kevin used an upper case K as opposed to my lower case. I remember wondering whether there were any controls in place for duplicated or very similar names.  Perhaps it’s time I changed to kevininplaceofresidence]

59. Ok overall but not happy with IT meaning “that subject”.

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