Guardian Cryptic 28,258 by Nutmeg

76 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,258 by Nutmeg”

1. Saw who the setter was and thought ‘It’s going to be a better day today’.

   As usual with Nutmeg’s puzzles, I was not disappointed.

2. Great puzzle! I got a bit held up by FRAME OF MIND (thinking it could be PEACE or STATE) until I got MANIFOLD. Favourites were POLITESSE, TBILISI and HERMETICAL. I notice LIB used twice – goodness me. Many thanks to Nutmeg and loonapick.

3. Slow to get started but got there in the end and enjoyed the journey.

   Favourites were MAGNESIUM and BOOGIED because of the surfaces.

   Thanks to Nutmeg and loonapick!

4. There should  be a beer called Old contemptible!

   Great surfaces. Thanks Nutmeg and lonapick

5. I loved this though I did not parse PROPINQUITY. In 7d UTOPIAN I had POT as the prize (slang for cup) so it gave POTU reversed. TOP could also be prize, but is not reversed. I had not heard of OLD CONTEMPTIBLE, but found, not a beer but a pub of that name when I googled it. Many thanks to loonapick for explaining and to Nutmeg for the mental workout.

6. copmus @4:  There is – or at least was.

   Thanks for the POTTO photo loonapick.  I spent a while trying to make PONGO fit (the genus to which orang-utans belong – a fact I only learnt following the ‘a monkey is not an ape’ discussion on here a few months back).

   I found this relatively quick for Nutmeg, but very enjoyable and smooth as always.  Thanks both.

7. Can there be a more elegant surface than 1d? Great fun.

8. Beobachterin

   You win the “find Loonapick’s customary typo” prize today. I’ll edit when I get the chance – thanks

9. Thumbs up from me! Some trouble in the SW due to unfamiliars – had to check TBILISI in Bradford’s, as well as whether POTTO (23d) was actually a word. [What a delightful creature – thanks for the pic, loonapick! – wondering whether the TV series was named after the ‘softly-softly”?] I didn’t know 28a OLD CONTEMPTIBLE either, so thank goodness crosswords have – well – crossing words! Held up by confidently thinking 12a was STATE OF MIND and something to do with the TATE Gallery, but had to re-think that boo-boo due to MANIFOLD at 3d. For a while I thought QUIT was also used twice, drofle@2, until I saw it was actually part of “iniquity” in 23a PROPINQUITY (what a lovely sound that word makes!) as well as used in KEEP QUIET at 14d. However maybe LIB and QUIT could be paried in some way? My fave LIB was 22d LIBIDO. The puzzle might have opened with “DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH” at 1a, but you certainly do, Nutmeg. Many thanks, and to you too, loonapick.

10. [Not paried, I meant paired – grrr!] [Crossed witht your thanks for the phot, essexboy@6. Thanks to you for the embedded link.]

11. [“with”, “photo” – more grrr! – FFS (Fat Finger Syndrome – not the other)]

12. Thanks both.
    More Liberals in this than there are in Parliament!

13. Hi Julie in Australia – just to let you know that the title of the TV series “Softly Softly” comes from the old saying “Softly Softly cachee monkey” which is beleived to have originated in Ghana and popularised in England by Baden Powell who founded the Boy Scouts.

    But I prefer the primate suggestion!

14. Also more cups than in many trophy cabinets. Contest, china, pots, potto and even a bra.

15. A really enjoyable crossword.  12a FRAME OF MIND was great, though like JinA I initially toyed with the idea of STATE, thinking that it was an imaginary Tate Gallery or “Tate of the mind”, and wondering where the initial S came from.

    Some lovely words here: PROPINQUITY, POLITESSE, HERMETICAL.  The last of course derives from Hermes Trismegistus, after whom our commenter Trismegistus is (presumably) named.

    Many thanks Nutmeg and loonapick.

16. Fabulous puzzle today – loved 12a which was superbly crafted and a bit of a chorttle.   DNK POTTO but the word play was so succinct it fell in.  FOI 5d, LOI 23a (DNK but lucky guess).

    Thanks Nutmeg and loonapick!

17. [PS I note that Gaufrid has announced the provisional results of his consultation on the “Increase in comments” – see home page.  I wonder if in the light of this, Mark and Munromad (Monday comments @5 and @43) might reconsider their decisions to stop contributing.]

18. Thanks, loonapick – especially for the photo.

    Another lovely puzzle from Nutmeg – I’ll echo all the praise above.

    [Beobachterin @5 – back in 2011, we had a very enjoyable S and B meeting (see here) at the Old Contemptibles pub in Birmingham.]

19. I’ll look up Hermes T to see how he became hermetically sealed, ta Lord Jim. Another trademark smooth offering from Nutmeg, at her easier end but not without erudition… like Beobachterin @5 [I was thinking pot as in poker] and JinA @9 I don’t think I’ve come across Kaiser Bill’s alleged Contemptibles before, and had forgotten what propinquity means. Always learning, and forgetting! Otoh, Ali the greatest and Ian the Scot are like old pals. Smiled at ‘Don’t make me laugh’, and ‘frame of mind’ was inventive, both in the ‘don’t have to be hard to be entertaining’ category. Lovely job, thanks N and L.

20. Agree with essexboy@6 that this was relatively quick for a Nutmeg, and, appropriately, the spicy setter features in today’s quick crossword.

21. I really enjoyed this. Finished it waiting for two new tyres To be fitted on our car. loved POTTO as I learnt about them in Patrick O’Brian books! favourite was PROPInquity. Thanks Nutmeg for a friendly and entertaining puzzle and Loonapick for the blog. Parsing of CAR BOMb had defeated me.

22. Another occasion when I checked to see if there was a new crossword at about half past midnight, and thanks (?) to its pleasant steady nature found myself going to bed at about 2am… Well, there are worse ways of passing the time, especially as I had a glass of red to hand.

23. I thought that DONT MAKE ME LAUGH rather too easily gave the game away, for the top half of the puzzle, anyway. Though as with others struggled to solve 3d for a while with STATE instead of FRAME in for 12ac. But the usual excellent Nutmeg surfaces…

24. Lovely. I needed help parsing a few, so thanks Loonapick.

25. I’m another confounded by “Frame of Mind”. Manifold was my last one but I had to check and correct “State of Mind” first. I really should have considered it might have been wrong when I struggled with the down clue so much and I had failed to parse the across clue.

    I had been speculating that “State” referred to the Tate gallery, where an artist might like to see his work framed!

26. In the Goldilocks zone, this one. LOI was RUBY, even though I was thinking RU for the game as soon as I had the R. Didn’t we have PROPINQUITY not too long ago? Not too differently clued, at least as far as the IN[I]QUITY part goes, from memory. Lovely word, though. Thanks, Nutmeg and loonapick.

27. essexboy@6  4.3% is a bit pathetic for an ale bearing that name,(being an essexboy  meself)

28. loonapick @8: Ah so it was a typo! I did wonder.  Eileen @18, if we are ever allowed to meet again, I hope I can come along some time!

29. [Eileen @18. S&B? In rural Australia, that means Spinsters and Bachelors ball (usually B&S, though.) I take it that it means something different here – and finding the S&B thread shed no light.]

30. If I’d been on Roy Plumleys’s radio programme, without the internet or a dictionary, the last thing on earth I’d want is a Nutmeg crossword.

    I never get that Eureka feeling, with just one letter needed to complete a word the solution is rarely obvious to me.

    I unlocked the bottom half with the utmost luck!

    18 RUBY  Fortieth game to one side (4)

     

    Fortieth had me totally bamboozled until I saw the wrong solution!

     

    Rugby with “g” discarded – I was not on the same wavelength as Nutmeg on her last (my first of her’s) crossword, and switching from AM to FM  today, there was less interference, but I struggled.

    P and Old Testament and TO were all there, and I thought of them but did not write it in until I unlocked 23,26,28 – she beats me before I get started I think?

    I look forward to tuning in to her broadcasts one of these months. Tbilisi took ages, I couldn’t get away from Obelisk once I got the B!  And Potto , giving TB as the first 2 letters , fooled me completely.

    No reveals so good stuff.  Like last time, this site justified her clues , thanks loona , and made me appreciate her more with hindsight (nice bum?).

     

    China for Pal made me smile – I was convinced it was CUP – I’ll use a digital radio next time I think.

    Thanks Nutmeg, even if you do drive me mad.

     

     

     

31. TassieTim @ 29 – S & B = Setters and Bloggers aka Betters and Sloggers

32. [essexboy @6 and copmus @27 – you’re obviously both far classier Essex Boys than me – my tipple-of-choice has been cheap Chardonnay but recently more converted to Sauvignon Blanc. I have been known to down the odd Bacardi and Coke if feeling the full Southend…]

33. Lord Jim @15 – Correct! Also the mythical founder of alchemy, and I always thought “hermetically sealed” arose because alchemists invented the technique, though I may be wrong on that one.

    Although it is a lovely word, I had a small beef with PROPINQUITY at 23a because to my mind it means closeness in space but the definition seems to call for a word meaning closeness in time. Not enough to frighten the horses, though, and I’m sure someone with an up-to-date copy of Chambers will be able to put me right.

    All in all, an enjoyable puzzle and an interesting blog (the lesson on primates in particular), so thanks to Nutmeg and Loonapick.

34. JinA @9

    Softly Softly, the TV series, took its name from the phrase “softly, softly catchee monkey”, which was the motto of the Lancashire Constabulary Training School at the time.  The exact source of the phrase is not known, but it is possible that it was a pidgin English version of a West African saying.

35. I have a query about GET DOWN, in that as far as I recall, it is nestlings that develop the small, insulating feathers that we call down; fledglings develop the feathers that are required for flight. (I’m sure I’ve seen this error in another crossword recently, but I can’t find it.) This is supported by the Cambridge online dictionary, fledgling: ‘a young bird that has grown feathers and is learning to fly’; fledged: ‘(of young birds) able to fly’; and by my copy of Chambers: fledgling: ‘a bird just fledged; fledge: ‘acquire feathers for flying’. Any young bird trying to fly when their only feathers are down, will get down rather quicker than expected.

    Other than that, and the false move that STATE OF MIND turned out to be, this was a relatively more straightforward Nutmeg for me, as for others above. Thanks to her for an enjoyable solve, and to Loonapick for the very well presented blog (I like the red highlights for the definitions).

36. Nutmeg on good form again.

    Nice to see ALI popping in again, even if it is a chestnut. I still fell for ‘the greatest length’ at the beginning.

    I particularly liked PROPINQUITY, MANIFOLD and KEEP QUIET.

    Thanks Nutmeg and loonapick.

37. LAPTOPS was my LOI. Still don’t understand why China is Pal?!

38. Adriana @37. Cockney rhyming slang. China plate=mate.

39. Thanks! Rhyming slangs are hardest to guess if one doesn’t know.

40. I suppose strictly ‘The Greatest’ should be capitalised, but “am I bovvered”, not really.

41. [Hi Tassie Tim @29 – very sorry for the delay in replying: you’ve probably gone to bed by now.

    It came as a shock to realise that S and Bs (Sloggers and Betters) were an unknown quantity – yet another casualty of these weird times. My apologies to those who have joined us in these last months who wouldn’t know what I was talking about.

    For years now, there have been meetings, several times a year, of various groups of crossword enthusiasts in various venues (pubs) around the country. If you look under ‘Announcements, S and B York’ on the left of the page, you’ll see a post from Enigmatist about the annual meet in York that he’s been organising for the last few years, We haven’t alas, been able to host one in the Midlands since May last year.

    I think it’s apt that this has come up at a time when there’s been discussion about social interaction on this site and when a number of people have said how they have appreciated the personal insights they have gained from the comments. It’s even more important when we no longer at the moment have the opportunity to meet up and renew long-standing friendships. We’ve always had such fun at our gatherings – and we don’t (all) just sit and solve / talk about crosswords’.

    I suggest that you scroll down the general Announcements column, where you’ll find a number of reports (with photos, so that you can put faces to names) of former gatherings.

    I realise it would perhaps be too far for you to come and join us (!) but I do hope that at least some of us will manage to get together before too long.]

     

42. I’m probably quite wrong here because nobody has mentioned it yet, but regarding PROPINQUITY, I thought that iniquity and crime were different, the former concerning morality, the latter legality.  Didn’t stop me, though, they’re close enough.

43. TassieT @26 – well remembered – PROPINQUITY was used by Pasquale on July 14

44. DrW @42 that red book which shall remain nameless has “A crime” as the fourth definition

45. Like several others above, I first thought of STATE OF MIND. Unlike the rest of you, I entered it and didn’t rethink before checking it, so a dnf for me today (sigh). Otherwise on the easy end of the Nutmeg spectrum and classy from start to finish. Thanks to her and loonapick.

46. Smooth as silk and great fun!  What more could one want?  For 26a I was sure I had  -BILI-I and spent ages running through the alphabet to find what went before the B.   When the penny dropped it was a very satisfying moment!  Then of course I wondered why it had taken me so long!!  Very many thanks Nutmeg, and loonapick for the great blog!!

47. Liked DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH

    New: OLD CONTEMPTIBLE

48. Never massively like figures of speech in crosswords but that’s just a personal thing. The gripe out of the way, I thought I would just share with you that, after having entered POTTO decisively, I gave it a quick Google to check that he was indeed a pre-Norman Archbishop of Canterbury.

49. Thanks Nutmeg and loonapick

    I was another who thought that an artist would want her work in the TATE gallery to start with.

    I enjoyed this, but there seemed to be more “guess, then parse” ones than is normal for Nutmeg – 23a, 26a, 3d, 23d for example.

50. Another “sTATE of mind” here – but apart from that my only complaint is that it was over too soon. Love the POTTO.l

51. Bodycheetah@44 yes, and that’s not the only book, as it happens.  Maybe what allows the words to be considered synonyms is that so many activities are both (the old Venn diagram again).

52. Follow on to sh@38.  There is a rather long chain of connections here:  china->plate->mate->pal->lap.  In other circumstances, such indirection would have people screaming, but here it seems quite acceptable.  Working the clue from the other end helps, I suppose.

53. Thanks, Nutmeg — that was great. I ticked HERMETICAL, MAGNESIUM, STAYS PUT, LIBIDO, and DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH (wonderful surface for a double definition) as particular favourites. Both RUBY and POTTO were beyond me — thanks Loonapick for explaining.

54. muffin @49  I also thought she might like to see her work in the TATE.

55. It wasn’t my favourite Nutmeg, but then a poor Nutmeg is still better than a good effort from most other setters.

    I was going to say CARBOMB and ISLAM were my favourites, but I think this post might set MI5 onto me…

56. Am I alone in thinking that LIBIDO refers to a particular politician, viz the PM (sic)?!

57. Really enjoyed this puzzle – as a newcomer I thought the clues were clear and not too convoluted.  I didn’t get china=pal or cups=bra but was able to guess from the crossers and definition.  Also took me a while to work out that fortieth referred to the wedding anniversary – numbers always confuse me!

    Thanks to the blogs on this forum I was quick to spot ‘Ian’ for scot in 7d, and ‘do’ for party in 22d – also the inclusion of ‘it’ in the definition as a reference to something to do with sex so thanks for everyone for that. (and thanks to S&B)

58. Can’t add anything to the praise – POTTO a new word for me and PROPINQUITY my fave out of so many. So pleased to know that some of you have supped in the Old Contemptibles in Brum and hope to meet you there for a pint some day. Many thanks to Nutmeg and Loonapick.

59. I’m a little disappointed that no one has picked up on my little gripe @35. “I have a query about GET DOWN, in that it is nestlings that develop the small, insulating feathers that we call down; fledglings develop the feathers that are required for flight.”

    Either eveyone disagrees with me, but is too scared to say so, or agrees that I am right but thinks it too trivial to comment. Neither of which seems very likely, so I assume that you all just skimmed over my comment without reading! I’d be grateful for some response, either from the blogger or the setter. I note in passing that Nutmeg set another clue almost exactly a year ago (8/10/2019) where she demonstrated that she knew the true meaning of fledge (see 18a), so if she’s lurking, I’d like to know where fledge=acquire down comes from. Not so that I can give her a good telling off (heaven forfend!), but so that we can nip this in the bud.

60. Nixa@56, no, you are not alone. Here in North America we would also include a certain American leader in the reference.

    Adriana@39, I agree that rhyming slang produces a binary solving experience – either you know it, and the parsing is clear, or you don’t, and the parsing is impenetrable. However, it is also a most engaging form of word-play, and so the ones I don’t know always generate a laugh when they are explained in this blog.

    Nutmeg is one of my top-6 compilers [along with Arachne – can anyone advise where she has gone?], and this one was a corker. Special ticks for 12a FRAME OF MIND, 13a MORE LIKE IT and (yes, Oofyprosser@7) the wonderful surface of 1d DECLAIMER.

    [I called my first car, after about 10 years, the old contemptible.]

    Thanks Nutmeg for the gem, and loonapick for the excellent blog.

     

61. sh @59:  good point, but I think the reticence might be because @35 you (inadvertently) referenced a crossword which is still in ‘purdah’.

62. Sorry sh @59 I did read your post but went off on a tangent after seeing GET DOWN & BOOGIE(D) in the same grid and the missed opportunity for an Earth, Wind & Fire clue plus fantasising about a 70s funk themed crossword.

    Apologies to all if this should have had square brackets []

63. SH @35 and 59

    I would tend to agree with you, but I suppose you could argue that “fledge” means “get feathers”, and “down” in birds are feathers…

64. essexboy @61. Oops! Thanks for that. I had started to think that I’d imagined it. (Any idea where I can hide until this blows over?)

65. muffin @63. Isn’t this a bit like the discussion we had last week about “insect” being acceptable as a loose reference to any small creature of the invertebrate kind? You didn’t like the possibility of an arachnid such as the harvestman being referred to as an insect (see 60ff in comments btl), as I recall, whereas I said it was justified in the dictionary as being loose but customary. By the same token is “feather” acceptable as an inclusive reference to anything feathery on a bird? Perhaps it is. (And I do appreciate that you have said that you tend to agree with me about this clue – I am not arguing with you, but examining the argument that you propose.)

    But in this case the setter is saying that “fledglings get down”, when in fact fledglings have already gotten down, they’ve had it for several days if not weeks. What fledglings get is feathers that will enable flight. Where the setter seems to have gone wrong in this clue is in using ‘fledglings’ where nestlings is the more appropriate description of very young birds not long emerged from their eggshells.

66. Yes, I agree, SH, but it does depend on making a distinction between types of feather – “down” is feathers. However this is special pleading – you are correct in common usage.

67. Two things today: everyone is very succinct and many are keeping their own counsel. So an enjoyable blogfest for me as a result. Thanks Gaufrid

    Loathed as I am, it seems to me that a fledgling must GET DOWN in order to be a fledgling and the concatenation with descent is conjuring the need for flight feathers where these are not implied. On the other hand, this is a very nice Bordeaux…

68. Alphalpha @67. Nice try! But that would mean the first and second parts of the clue have exactly the same meaning. (And I hope you are not really loathed – certainly you are not on this site. Perhaps it was the Bordeaux that mis-typed loath!)

69. Hi Sheffield Hatter @35, 59 and 64/65, muffin @63 and 66 and Alphalpha @67 – apologies if I’ve misse any

    Following recent lengthy and, I think, very constructive re discussions re comments, I’d be really grateful, as the blogger of last week’s Paul puzzle, if this discussion were not renewed next Saturday, 😉

70. For 26ac I thought of TBLISI (which is how I thought it was spelled) but could not make it fit. My word search turned up BAIRIKI, capital of Kiribati, which was even less promising. Near the end of the list TBILISI appeared. Will need to remember Kiribati for another day.

71. Apologies, I meant Bairiki at the end although it’s probably worth remembering Kiribati too.

72. Eileen @69 someone had to say it and you did, many thanks!!!!!  A ceasefire on arguments on homophones would not go amiss either!

73. Many thanks, Spanza!

    Please, everyone, note Gaufrid’s update here

74. Sh@

    Just a mischievous malapropism. 😉

75. [Eileen @73 thanks for pointing out the update, I have added my approbation of Gaufrid’s new policy]

76. [Eileen @the-comment-with-the-winky-face, can’t believe you gave that hint to one of the answers in a puzzle still officially embargoed. (Paul himself did, of course, freely discuss the puzzle the day it came out in an open Zoom meeting, but he isn’t bound by 15²’s policies and advertised the fact he would be doing so anyway)]

Comments are closed.