Guardian 28,289 – Imogen

74 comments on “Guardian 28,289 – Imogen”

1. Thanks Imogen and Andrew

   I didn’t parse BEFORE LONG, and, having seen the parsing, I think I can be forgiven! I thought the definition for NEWT was a bit loose – I checked REST (fRESh waTer), without seeing a possible definition.

   I agree about ANKLE – I don’t see that “replacing” indicates a reversal, so it’s a ghost anagram. Not difficult to get, though.

   Favourites CELIBACY and GLAMIS.

2. Yes, BEFORE LONG was tricky and I’m not sure that D’HOTE is a five letter word, but I enjoyed FRANKINCENSE and PONTEFRACT for their wordplay and NEWT because I like newts.

   [But who was that masked man you say
   That was the Lone Ranger]

   Thanks to Imogen and Andrew.

3. Another lovely crossword from Imogen. I particularly liked FRANKINCENSE too, and PONTEFRACT as it’s somehow got a pleasing sound to me. Couldn’t fully parse WET BLANKET as I got hung up on ‘feeble type’ being the definition.

   While I normally love reverse anagrams, I’m not sure about the clue for CLIMATE CHANGE. The anagrind’s already been given with ‘crawling’, making ‘change’ superfluous, surely? (Perhaps I’m over thinking this!)

   Thanks Imogen and Andrew (Imogendrew? 😉 )

4. Goodnes me – that was tough, tough, tough.  Much help needed today but no doubting this was a very cleverly clued puzzle.  Loving 1a!

   [Penfold @2: Ah – one of my favourite tracks of all time (I think banned by the then-very-prudish BBC?) and as used by the wonderful and very un-prudish Kenny Everett – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3lKOUfsjNI]

5. Thanks Imogen and Andrew.

   Several of these went in quickly, and I was left with __TONY as I went to bed; the answer came just as my head hit the pillow, but couldn’t be bothered to get up and put it in. However, it was the key to my finishing three hours later.

   I enjoyed this much more than I usually do. I would query OFT = REGULAR, again (I am pretty sure we have had this discussion before); regular could be once every million years, but I wouldn’t describe that as oft in my life time.

6. I share Andrew and muffin’s queries about ANKLE and Conrad’s re CLIMATE CHANGE but some great clues apart from that. I had ticks for CELIBACY, GLAMIS, OYEZ, FRANKINCENSE, EVAPORATE, MASS EXODUS and PONTEFRACT.

   Thanks to Imogen for an enjoyable challenge and to Andrew for a great blog.

   [Redshank (Crucible) in the FT. 😉 ]

    

7. Quite tricky but lots of fun. I also couldn’t parse ANKLE. Favourites were many, including PONTEFRACT and GLAMIS, but CELIBACY took the top spot. Many thanks to Imogen and Andrew.

8. I see my name has been changed in 7 above to “which took a bit of time to get”. Now back to normal.

9. Found this very difficult. Failed OYEZ (never heard of it), RUSE, MASS EXODUS apart from ‘mass’.

   I did not parse INCANDESCENT apart from ‘cand[i]es, or the ‘change’ in CLIMATE CHANGE.

   Liked GLAMIS.

   New: BETONY mint, CUSP = part of tooth, PONTEFRACT.

   Thanks to Imogen and Andrew.

10. I realise now that I also failed to solve ASLOPE & BEFORE LONG.

11. michelle @9

    OYEZ! OYEZ! OYEZ! was the traditional cry of the Town Crier before announcing news. He wore a colourful uniform an rang a big handbell.

12. I think the “needs replacing” part of the ANKLE clue refers to n/a backwards. I really enjoyed most of today’s crossword but thought NEWT a bit weak. Thanks to Imogen and Andrew

13. Yes, Imogen can be scholarly and chewy, but not too tough today (ie, for this plodder, somewhat over a leisurely hour). For example, knew which ‘it’ was meant, but celibacy was still an unscramble. Liked the glam rock bit (ignorant re later genres…is that Queen et al? Was Bowie a starter?) Oyez was cute, but no idea of befog in before long, too lazy too brainrack over it. Always like frankincense [one of Mrs ginf’s faves..If Frank had any sense etc etc..]. Betony the herb rang a vague bell. All good fun, ta both. Will now enjoy the chat and follow links, eg Penfold’s @2.

14. Dave @5. Glad I’m not the only one who complains about this. Why setters can’t use “frequently” instead of “regularly” defeats me. I’m sure if I was to check my thesaurus, it would have these words as synonyms now but it still infuriates.

15. [grantinfreo @13 – I love the bit in ‘Seven Brides for  Seven Brothers’, where Frank explains that his mother, who aimed to name the seven brothers alphabetically after men in the Bible (Adam. Benjamin, Caleb, Daniel, Ephraim and Gideon) could only come up with FRANKINCENSE for him.]

16. Phew that was a toughie with some great clues already mentioned above. FRANKINCENSE was my favourite and I concur with Conrad@3 that maybe change is superfluous or perhaps it does double duty? Ta Andrew & Imogen

17. I always enjoy the challenge of an Imogen puzzle. The clues are always smooth, and lead accurately to the answer once you’ve filtered out the distractors. Hovis @14, I suspect that the idea of a distractor is precisely why the setter prefers “regularly”, as it is likely to make you consider removing alternate letters from somewhere. To me, this feature of English, where words have multi-layered meanings, is what makes the best cryptic crosswords work so well.

18. michelle @9 Pontefract, meaning ‘broken bridge’, is a Yorkshire town, known to locals as Ponte (or Ponty) or even Ponte Carlo. King Richard II was murdered, probably starved to death, at the castle 1400. The sandy soils were good for growing liquorice. You might enjoy a Pontefract cake.

19. Andrew – thanks for the blog, but I think you are harsh to object to “King’s” at 21A.  It’s true that the New Testament report does not say that each king brought one gift, but nor does it say that they were kings at all – they are Wise Men, (rare and lovely things) – or that there were three of them.  If one stuck to strict biblical authority, I think the whole clue becomes incoherent and impossible!  A metaphor for life, perhaps.

20. I’m another who found this tough, right through to the end but it would have been worth it for CELIBACY alone.  I’m with Penfold @2 in wondering whether D’HOTE is a 5 letter word but accept that a ‘built in’ apostrophe is always going to present an enumeration problem.  P’raps it’s because I had the initial D and then dismissed CHANGE as the follower for CLIMATE because that left me with a word beginning with DH – and apart from dhoti and dhal, I couldn’t think of any.  Grrr!

    The struggles I endured today didn’t, however, detract from my admiration for some of the clues here.  The already mentioned FRANKINCENSE and PONTEFRACT scored highly along with BETONY – so simple, UPPERCUT and MASS EXODUS which are just brilliant imo, ANKLE because I like elks, and the sublime GLAMIS with its excellent surface.  (gif @13: I’d nominate T Rex as the archetypal glam rock band.  Others of the time/genre included Sweet, Mud and Slade.  Bowie certainly went through a glam phase though I’m not sure I’d class his Thin White Duke period as glam.  Freddie Mercury did the same.)

    [drofle @8: glad to see you back to your usual moniker.  I replied to your alter ego yesterday and I’m sure it’s the longest pseudonym I’ve typed!]

    Thanks Imogen and Andrew (especially for parsing BEFORE LONG which had me befogged)

21. I managed to zero in on several of these via the definition part of the clues: glowing…vanish…generously offered…plans…feeble type…But the usual delightful solve from Imogen. I think this week has been especially rich in great clues, and I thought FRANKINCENSE particularly good. Pontefract and Glamis a couple of castles, but no other cakes that I could see to go with the Yorkshire stronghold…

22. For some reason, I had much less trouble with this than I normally do with Imogen’s puzzles. I couldn’t parse ANKLE though and had to take a stab at the unknown BETONY. I enjoyed some of the parsing, especially for the apparently mundane ‘soon’ def for BEFORE LONG and for INCANDESCENT.

    Thanks to Imogen and Andrew

23. I was defeated by NEWT, even though it was one of the simpler ones. CLIMATE CHANGE was a favourite: Conrad, Eileen, AlanC – I saw “crawling with” as “covered with” – as in “her head was crawling with lice”, so there is only one (reverse) anagrind i.e. CHANGE.

    Thanks both.

     

24. [Ta Eileen @15, remember the title but never saw the film, must look out for it]

    Ta for the glam ed PostMark @20, never too late to enculturate.

25. [PS can someone more adept (prob most everyone) please remind me what to do when the site doesn’t remember your name and address]

26. [GinF – I’ve had the same problem for a few weeks. Gaufrid suggested some things to try, but none of them worked, so I just enter my details each time. Chrome remembers some of them sometimes!]

27. I am regularly defeated by Imogen, and today was another DNF, with TABLE D’HOTE refusing to reveal itself to me.

    FRANKINCENSE was nice, as was RUSE, and CELIBACY gave me a good chuckle when I spotted it, but I’m not really happy with either definition of SHOW TRIAL and the cluing for CLIMATE CHANGE doesn’t really seem to add up.

28. [Ta muffin @26. Yes, chrome pops up with the details to be entered, so no typing, just a couple of taps, mere seconds, which is why I haven’t bothered to ask before, but it’s been months since…]

29. PostMark @ 20: don’t forget Roxy Music!!

30. gratinfreo @25. The usual advice is to clear your browser history and then remember to retick the box asking to “Save my name…”.

31. Just had something from The Woodland Trust through the letterbox. About raising funds for Pepper Wood in Worcestershire. BETONY at 3d gets a glowing reference there: “…loves the open and sunny woodland at Pepper Wood. An ancient woodland indicator, it has glorious purple flowers…”

32. Postmark@20: Haha! I wondered why I couldn’t find my comment yesterday!!

     

33. . . . I must have pressed the tab key by mistake, and the comment went into the Name box below.

     

34. [Hovis/GinF

    Crossed fingers – that seems to have worked. Now to find out how many other problems I’ve created!]

35. Regarding PONTEFRACT, drilling and fracking are two very different processes, so, unlike many here, no ticks from me.  I am separated from my Chambers so unable to check if it erroneously equates the two. Otherwise very enjoyable and quite tricky.  Thanks both.

36. A thoroughly enjoyable solve, but while CELIBACY was delightful wordplay, the definition suggests abstinence rather than celibacy.  Sadly, we live in an age that shuns nice distinctions in language or sexual morality.

37. Most satisfying puzzle, which I found really tough. I share the quibbles about CLIMATE CHANGE and ANKLE, and whether D’HOTE is really a pentagrammaton, but this didn’t spoil my enjoyment.
    Although ‘mint’ makes for a great surface, BETONY is not such, though it is a fellow member of the Lamiaceae. But so are rosemary and oregano, and you wouldn’t call those mints, would you?

38. [Simon S @29: you’re right, of course, and who could forget them?  Though they were a strange mix: the less well-known members fitted the standard glam rock criteria but Bryan Ferry doesn’t (and didn’t) strike me as a glam icon and Brian Eno – who came up in a recent blog discussion prompted by ‘ambient’ – certainly looked glam though his leanings and output were more avant garde.  Rather like Rick Wakeman who was occasionally a pretty glammed up member of progressive rock group, Yes.]

39. [PostMark @20 and drofle @29: Showaddywaddy, Bay City Rollers?  And Gary Glitter if we must.  I went to a Convent Prep school in the 1970s – we had a Christmas Disco where the Nuns played all of these on the gramophone…]

40. Thanks Andrew.
    Miles above my level.
    Would appreciate another explanation of the reverse anagram in 4d

41. HoofItYouDonkey @40: Reverse anagram because the answer consists of the anagram indicator “CHANGE” and the fodder “CLIMATE.”

42. Just adding to praise for Imogen’s  puzzle and Andrew’s blog especially parsing 12 and 16

    Loved GLAMIS .Loved it all really

    Thanks all

43. Sorry to bang on, but that is now four superb puzzles in a row.  This one ratcheted up the difficulty level by a notch which made it just possible for me without resort to check and reveal.  Maybe Paul tomorrow to round off a great week of Guardian puzzles.  Credit where credit is due, Hugh really has recruited a great stable of thoroughbred setters for our delight.  Favourites were RUSE, unlike some, I love a homophone, CLIMATE CHANGE, big grin when I got it and CELIBACY fun definition and anagram.

    Many thanks Imogen and Andrew for help with several parsings.

    One last point I worked with the distillation of essential oils herbs and spices, all my professional life and I never heard BETONY described as a mint before.  But I bet it is in the literature nonetheless!

44. Another toughie for me today, with only a few glimmers of distant sunshine from time to time (or OFT, as we are apparently now saying). Most of my struggle was probably down to my non-flexible thought processes (took ages to get VISOR despite two crossers and spotting the IT subtraction), though Imogen does have a nice line in devious misdirection (especially ‘feeble type’ and ‘expressionless misery’).

    TABLE D’HOTE was one of my first in, but after two passes through the clues I had only about seven completed, at which point, if I had still been working, I would definitely have given up. With fewer no demands on my time these days, I persevered to the bitter end before coming here to see how much some people enjoyed what to me was mostly a slog. I did enjoy the reversals of PAVE and TARTS, though the indication for the reversal of ELK N/A was a little unfair, I thought.

    I initially confused ‘feeble type’ for the definition in 14d, possibly by analogy with the concept of not being able to fight one’s way out of a wet paper bag, but in fact a WET BLANKET is someone who spends a lot of time denigrating what others have found to be an enjoyable experience. 😉

45. Usual hard work from Imogen, though as ever with tricky clues it all makes sense when you get there. Well, almost always; the likes of BEFORE LONG were well above my head. But it’s not every day that I finish Imogen without too many alarums so I’ll settle for that.

    [I generally post from Firefox on mobile and it never remembers me, but since Trailman and my email address are early prompts in their boxes it hardly matters.]

46. sheffieldhatter I’m with you on the lack of flexible thought processes. I find that once I have been misdirected, I find it really hard to rethink. Lost in admiration for those who finished and parsed all this without recourse to the dark arts of the Check button. [Where else do you get to discuss Glam rock and nice distinctions of sexual morality at the same time?]

47. Test

48. Retest

49. Ta, Hovis @30, all good!

50. Martin Barton @41 thanks

51. [MaidenBartok @39: talk of nuns putting on Slade; here’s Slade putting on nuns.  Well, one of them.  The orthodontically challenged Dave Hill’s famous 1973 TOTP outfit was known as the ‘Metal Nun’.  Not a huge number of photos out there but there’s one half way down the page here. ]

52. [PostMark @51: That has brightened my arvo no end, esepcially reading the caption to the picture after the Metal Nun – spat my tea out over the keyboard… He’s still no oil painting though, is he?!]

    [Trailman @45: Make sure cookies are enabled – Settings, Data Management, Cookies.  Mobile phone rendering of this site doesn’t seem to display the message number on any browser I’ve tried.]

53. While I love a spot of pedantry as much as the next person, I’m inclined to agree with Sagittarius @19 that “King’s” is fine in the clue for FRANKINCENSE. I don’t think we have to regard only the text of the Bible as canon here; surely other major cultural depictions of the event are also acceptable as evidence. In particular, I note the traditional Christmas carol “We Three Kings”, which assigns one gift to each king.

    [In my experience, no one ever sings all the verses, which is a shame, because I’m particularly partial to the last verse: “Myrrh is mine. Its bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering gloom. Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in the stone-cold tomb.” I find it delightfully out of place in a story about giving gifts to an infant.]

    In 24ac, I think the intent is probably that “replacing” serves as a reversal indicator, although I can’t say I like it. “needing to be put back” seems like it would work better in the cryptic reading without doing violence to the surface.

54. Ted @53. Yes, replacing can mean placing again, in other words with a different orientation. I read it that way, but it’s potentially misleading because it can also look like the setter wants to completely change the positions of the letters, as some here assumed. Your alternative looks good to me.

    [That final verse king was a real WET BLANKET, wasn’t he! “Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying” sounds a bit like me @44.]

55. Ted @53

    I’m surprised you say that the myrrh verse is often omitted. I don’t think I’ve ever sung the carol without including it. I love the internal rhymes.

56. DNK PONTEFRACT and failed on the latter half (fracked just never came to me); and WET=”feeble type” was a DNK Britishism, so solved 14d but only partly parsed. Otherwise, solved/parsed the rest and felt darn good about it, this being pretty chewy for me!

    Re “king’s”, don’t think the clue implies gift per king either. Even if all gifts jointly given, when considering any one king FRANKINCENSE is still a gift from that one, so a “king’s present”.

    Initially raised a brow at “replacing” as reversal indicator (revind?)… then thought of replacing=”putting back” (e.g. replacing a book on a library shelf). “Putting back” can then be “arranging backward”… an indirect revind, so still a stretch but reasonable enough in a chewy puzzle? (And at least avoids the dreaded “reverse anagram” – cue ominous music/lighting).

    In botanical circles, not uncommon to ref a species as an example of its family, e.g. “betony is a mint, not a pink” to indicate it’s in Lamiaceae, not Caryophyllaceae (of which the unrelated “bouncing bet” is a member). Also, betony is in the genus Stachys, which are sometimes generally referred to as “wood mints” (or “woodmints”). So BETONY seems fair… just a different take on “mint” than some are used to, and isn’t that the point with cryptics after all 🙂

57. And of course, tip of the hat to our setter, blogger, and commenters!

58. Adding to OddOtter’s justification of “mint”, most plants that botanists refer to ask “cabbages” (Cruciferae, or is that another one that has changed?) wouldn’t look much like cabbages to most people. I remember being very disappointed when I first saw the endemic Lundy Cabbage!

59. Muffin: Cruciferae (fr/which we get cruciferous vegetables, due to their typical “cross shaped” 4-petal flowers) has indeed been supplanted, now being Brassicaceae. Family names now all end in -ceae, and ref a “typic” genus within the family… in this case Brassica, hence the mustard family.

60. Thanks OddOtter. Somehow Lamiaceae wasn’t a surprise, but Brassicaceae was.

61. [Now down here we have ‘sprung forward’ and you up there have ‘fallen back’ I find I’m late to this party as My cross wording period is Often over before the blog comes out. Also the puzzle gets posted up on the Guardian site quite late in my morning. I’m curious if someone can tell me what uk time the puzzle is expected to be uploaded? To save me checking and rechecking through my morning. ]

    Very much enjoyed this. FOI was TABLE D’HOTE although my parsing was a bit different. I was defeated by OYEZ despite the (unhelpful) crossers. Favourite was PINTEFRACT. I’m sure there is some drilling involved in fracking!

62. [CanberraGirl @61: Daily Cryptic always appears at mindnight local time (UK is currently UTC + 0)]

63. Me @56: Oops, should be ‘… dreaded “indirect anagram”…’; I think reverse anagrams (ala 4d) are just ducky (ref lexico: informal North American for charming or delightful) 🙂

64. [Square brackets for an off-topic comment! The myrrh verse of We Three Kings also puts me in mind of Brian’s mother at the beginning of “Life of Brian”: “Thanks for the gold and frankincense, but never mind about the myrrh next time.”]

65. The last appearance of BETONY was Nutmeg Feb 11 2020

66. Tough, tough puzzle (but very fair, I thought). Seemed like all the crossing squares had vowels!  I was defeated by PONTEFRACT (absolutely NO way I would have got this one…). And by OYEZ, although Mr. Google informs me that they do say Oyez in the US Supreme Court as well. Frankincense was my favorite…
    Thx, Imogen and Andrew.

67. [thank you maidenbartok @62. So 11am my time. I’ll have to plan accordingly!]

68. Penfold @18

    … and of course Ponte Carlo is not very far from Cas Vegas (Cas, Castleford).

69. Glad others found it tough, It took two goes and much use of the check button because I couldn’t parse some.  Very clever crossword!

70. Nice parsing! I thought the wet blanket was a “feeble type” but then couldn’t make sense of the clue–silly me!

71. OYEZ, meaning “hear” is Old French which was the official language after the Norman Conquest. Circuit judges are still given a commission to “Oyer and terminer (hear and determine)” cases. There was the same problem of English words creeping in- a defendant was once tried for contempt of court because he “jete le brickebat au juge”.

72. As late as the 1970s our courts opened with the clerk announcing the arrival of the judge by saying “Oyez, Oyez, be upstanding in court”, whereupon we would all rise.

73. Somewhat late here, but surely it’s the lady WITH the lamp?

74. This Drilling Engineer is adamant that drilling and fracking are quite different activities, even if a stack of dictionaries say otherwise.

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