Guardian 28,378 – Tramp

75 comments on “Guardian 28,378 – Tramp”

1. Favourites: GREEN ROOM, AGE BEFORE BEAUTY.
   New for me: the song “Everyday” by Buddy Holly, but the clue made it clear it must be him.
   I did not parse the spoon bit of SPOONBILLS.
   Thanks, Tramp and Andrew.

2. Thanks to Tramp and Andrew.

   It seems the satisfaction at completing a Guardian Cryptic unaided increases exponentially as the week progresses – so I was delighted to finish a Thursday puzzle without resorting to Google.

   Highlights were the great simplicity of the clue for URGE, the use of the word ‘presents’ in DASHER, and the wonderful mis-direction of ‘Her Majesty’s Pleasure’ in ROYALIST.

3. Oh boy! Did I love 19a. And the food additive in ENCUMBER.

   Like michelle @1, I struggled to parse the ‘spoon’ in SPOONBILL, but it doesn’t matter anymore.

   Another enjoyable puzzle. Not the easiest, but a Tramp that’s a doddle? That’ll be the day!

   Thanks Tramp and Andrew

4. Great early blog – thanks Andrew. I needed your help to parse URGE and SPOONBILLS. ‘Detailed’ in 14a passed unexplored through my brain despite writing down ‘spot’. Left side went in smoothly but I found the right much harder. I gave in to temptation to get computer help with the long anagram at 8d and after putting that in the rest fell into place. I puzzled myself with spelling 17a as MARTIAL for a while! Thanks Tramp for a satisfying puzzle.

5. Took a while to get in to this but eventually came together nicely. I loved the ‘Everyday performer’ (I’m of the vintage to remember this, Michelle @1!) and ‘Nut’ definitions, but my pick for the day was SPOONBILLS, both for the not so easy parsing and because they’re such appealing birds as well.

   Thanks to Tramp and Andrew

6. “On” = “beside”?

7. Now you say it Geoff @6. That still puzzles me too.

8. I was another with the left half complete and nothing significant in the right. However, after an eight hour break, the rest followed in this interesting but hardish puzzle.

   Thanks Andrew – I needed you for the explanations of the seemingly impenetrable EMBRYO, BUDDY HOLLY and RUMBLE whose meaning I did not know

   Thanks Tramp, also.

9. Well… all these years listening to ‘Every day’, and today’s the day I find out I’ve been spelling it wrong. Next you’ll be telling me super calla fragilistic XP alladocious isn’t 4 words and an initialism, or that it has nothing to do with Windows.

   I’d post a link, but the mini-theme had me wishing it could be Christmas everyday, oops every day.

   I wondered about beside = ON in SPOONBILLS, but then thought of Walmington-on-Sea.

   Agree with dantheman @2 about ROYALIST. Thanks Tramp and Andrew, and to our cricketing correspondent @3.

10. 19a last in when the tune finally bubbled up from the depths, certainly not faster than a rollercoaster. And yes, Andrew, an indrawn breath at 26a, it almost was his last. Pottered through in under the hour, fastish for this potterer, so at the easier end of Tramp I found. The long’uns down the sides helped. Enjoyable, ta both.

11. Oh sh one t, only the was was supposed to be bolded…

    Extra bolding removed. A

12. ginf @11 🙂 yep, get well soon Mr Woods

13. A good challenge. I agree with michelle@1 regarding 9a GREEN ROOM (also thought of the same term for surfers in a barrel wave) and 1a AGE BEFORE BEAUTY. I also ticked 19a BUDDY HOLLY (cf. Penfold@3), 26a TREES because of the clever little golfing connection (and how prescient re Tiger Woods!), and 20d DASHER (similar to dantheman@2). Thanks Tramp – and also to Andrew (like CanberraGirl@4, I needed help to parse 25d URGE and now I feel really silly as it was a bit obvious really – but I often have trouble with four letter words!). Strange to have a Christmassy theme in February, but I liked your clever and amusing linking of those clues with the Buddy Holly song, essexboy@9.

14. [1d (DOWN) AGE BEFORE…)

15. Guessed MARSHAL in spite of thinking the sedimentary rock might be cHALk and not spotting the reversed ram. Couldn’t parse URGE. But BUDDY HOLLY, GREEN ROOM, ENCUMBER were fun, and I liked the way Tiger Woods gave the context for the “supporters” in his clue.

16. 11 ac I put as BARMEAL. Does it still work?

17. A nice crossword, but my mind was playing tricks on me. Collapse came to mind several times for 24ac, but it took a while for me to see where it actually belonged, and I got marshal by first considering chalk for the sedimentary rock, then seeing ram for sheep, and finally correcting the spelling and parsing the clue properly.

    Four in a row for me, a personal best I think though the first two were considered easy by others here.

18. Thanks Tramp and Andrew
    I loved ENCUMBER.

19. Excellent puzzle and blog
    Thanks Tramp and Andrew

20. I really enjoy Tramp’s puzzles, and this was no exception. Like muffin, ENCUMBER was clue of the day for me. Many thanks to Tramp, and to Andrew.

21. Lots of ticks – too many to mention but others already have.

    Huge thanks, though, Tramp, for the welcome earworm – I loved him! And thanks for a great blog, Andrew.

22. MARSHAL. Shepherd. Why? Oh! Penny drops.

    Slow today.

    Not just todasy.

    Lots of great clues: COLLAPSE, BUDDYHOLLY, ENLIGHTEN, ONCE. Thanks Tramp.

23. Thanks Andrew, there were several new tricks in there for me.
    e.g. detailed, playing, ‘to take one’

    So annoyed with myself (ex-golfer) to have missed putting, tees and RU (not golf).
    Tiger’s injuries look grim to me. I had an aneurism behind the knee which burst and the sediment blocked all 3 arteries in my lower leg, putting my leg in danger of being amputated! They bypassed the knee and popliteal artery to connect one of the 3 arteries (femoral) but their plumbing needed to be protected from swelling in the calf. They sliced down my leg on either side to relieve the inevitable swelling – I think they have done just that on Tiger! I left hospital a month later still unable to walk without support. That was over 2 years ago and my balance is still iffy though I do walk the dog unaided. I’m not expecting to see him back on a golf course.

    Many thanks to everyone who did not make this puzzle look like a walk in the park! The posters on the puzzle page iteself do not seem to care about deflating beginners with their stupid “write-in” claims! I am certain we enjoy these puzzles a million times more than they do. Thanks Tramp!

24. Hard work but good fun and mostly parsable by this aging nut (job). 19a was lovely.

    [Penfold @3; I had to keep telling myself, Take Your Time; it’s a Tramp – That Makes it Tough but at least it’s not one of Paul’s Valley of Tears.

    There was a point where I did want to Rip It Up though…]

25. Lots of very cleverly constructed clues in this excellent puzzle. Like gratinfreo I found it easier to solve than most Tramps, which I always enjoy despite the trouble they usually cause me.

    ENCUMBER and ROYALIST stood out, but there are many great clues and there isn’t a duff one in the crossword (although I don’t really like the hysteron proteron in the clue for DASHER!)

    Many thanks to Tramp and Andrew

26. Happy memories of Buddy Holly for me two. One of the first records I owned. At one point I thought “things are getting closer, going faster than a roller coaster” but I was held up by putting HEADCASE for HEADBUTT.

27. Liked your link essexboy @9: for a while on the east side, I couldn’t see the Roy Wood for the TREES. I thought BUDDY HOLLY, ENCUMBER and AGE BEFORE BEAUTY were particularly good.

    Ta Tramp & Andrew

28. Initially very few went in, but then finished smoothly, so I agree on the easier side for Tramp, but still a workout for me, very enjoyable though. ENCUMBER my fav with lots of ticks. Now to listen to Everyday. Thanks to Tramp and Andrew

29. A different, and considerably less melodious, earworm for me, BUDDY HOLLY being a bit before my time: HEADBUTT took me back to the anarchic John Otway who made his name with Really FREE in 1977. I’ve seen him in concert in recent years – no less crazy. Sadly, no bunsen burners in the grid.

    Splendid puzzle, top to bottom. My intake of breath at 26a – one of my favourites for its cunning surface – was more in sympathy with the setter. The sadness of coincidence. Like others above, I wish TW the best of fortune with recovery.

    Thanks Tramp and Andrew

30. Great fun as ever from Tramp.

    Particularly enjoyed GREEN ROOM. (Even though we’ve had some rounds of crazy putting in recent times, it still hobbled me for a moment or two. Lovely.)

    Many thanks both and all.

31. Ta so much A @11.

32. [Gervase @25: Glad tidings I bring! Proteron shmoteron 😉 ]

33. [PostMark @29 HEADBUTTs is one way of getting an earworm out of your brain, but beware of the OX-EYES, ’cause I’m sure they’re gonna get you. Yeah!]

34. AkaReborn@23
    How did you find out that Tiger’s injuries are so similar to yours? Please don’t take this question the wrong way, my lovely daughter in law has always loved Tiger and I want to know the worst and to be certain that it is true….
    Great crossword, though I too needed help with parsing, very sad about Tiger.

35. What a great wek we’re having. Another finished in time to give me the rest of the day off and at last the sun is shining here in NW England. Everything was gettable even if you didn’t know it although I couldn’t parse URGE. Kidsgrove Dave @16, I also tried to turn 11a into food having learned another meaning of jerk the other day. Thanks to Tramp and Andrew.

36. No offence taken SinCam.

    This is from the Washington Post and echoes another newspaper that I saw yesterday.

    Additional injuries to the bones of the foot and ankle were stabilized with a combination of screws and pins,” Mahajan’s statement said. “Trauma to the muscle and soft-tissue of the leg required surgical release of the covering of the muscles to relieve pressure due to swelling.”

37. With BUDDY HOLLY as an answer I thought there might have been a theme there, but Oh Boy he did Not Fade Away (enough earworms for today).

    Slightly slow to finish with a few resistant in the bottom half (including URGE , where I had to Think It Over). Another good crossword with GREEN ROOM, BARBELL, COLLAPSE and HEADBUTT as my picks of the day.

    Thanks Tramp and Andrew.

38. Well, I successfully had everything filled in correctly eventually, but several I struggled to parse, so in actual fact I rather gave up doing this towards the end. SE corner slipped in snugly last of all. I was another who initially had headcase for HEADBUTT…

39. Got to this late and the left hand side went in reasonably well – the NE was the toughest for me, though WARN was LOI. Needed help with the parsing on a number of these, particularly EMBRYO, about which I hadn’t a clue. “Everyday performer” – brilliant. Andrew, I think you have your ‘beauty’ and ‘dish’ in the wrong places – but that was a great clue and also a huge help. For 17a, I could see the reversed RAM and the final L – and couldn’t work out how the SHA got into the middle of the sedimentary rock MARL. Too much Geological knowledge! There are plants called Oxlips too (lips in the middle of cheek(s)?) – but I could never be accused of two much botanical knowledge. Thanks, Tramp, and Andrew for several tricky parses.

40. In addition, Helfet said, Woods “may need soft-tissue procedures, maybe a skin graft. He may need multiple, additional procedures to stabilize the bone perfectly, to restore the length, alignment and rotation of the leg.”

    SinCam, whilst this looks dramatic the skin graft is fairly minor (apart from agony where they take the slither of skin – it was from my thigh and if a nurse spoke to me I could feel a cold draught across the wound from her breath! Incredibly sensitive!). In my case only one graft was successful and I feared having a second one from my other thigh. After several days I asked the surgeon when it was likely. The reply was that it would not happen at all! He explained the skin graft merely introduces a healing catalyst to the severe wound and the skin used only lasts a day or two! If it works it speeds recovery, but if it doesn’t c’est la vie!

    The skin they take is very skinny (the film Red Sparrow shows it as a torture) and is then further reduced by rolling it into a mulch.
    I thought it was going to be a slab of meat!

    “Split-thickness skin grafts classify according to their thickness into thin STSGs (0.15 to 0.3mm), intermediate STSGs (0.3 to 0.45mm), and thick STSGs (0.45 to 0.6mm)”

    Tiger is a fighter and can afford the best treatment so hopefully he will recover – fingers crossed for him.

41. I was lucky to get up close to Tiger after a wayward drive, in the Open at Royal Portrush GC, a couple of years ago. The charisma just oozed from him. I join others in wishing him the best.

42. Another tick up on the difficulty scale today. This took several sessions to complete which does add to the satisfaction level. Excited/anxious about tomorrow.

43. That was just great. Thanks to Tramp and Andrew. The only cloud was a failure to parse URGE (doh, doh, doh)- thank goodness for 15^2.

44. Thanks Tramp and Andrew. Great stuff. Like TassieTim, I struggled with parsing 17a – just couldn’t get past MARL.

45. When England wickets fall more quickly than the clues, you know it’s tough. Not entirely true, but close. I found this very hard, just at the outer edge of what I’m capable of. But I got there, testament as much to stickability as to my solving ability.

46. MikeC@44 and others
    I blame Anthony Martial for helping me to forget Marshal spelling! I only needed the SH and was a whisker away from revealing 17a when I thought about an H …..
    18d then became obvious but remnant for BUTT still confused me. I decided a “loaf remnant” must be a “fag end” in the usa perhaps? A special type of fag maybe. They were the last two in! Did it need a cigarette hint in a British crossword? Nut and loaf for HEAD , Nut and remnant for BUTT is ok I guess?

47. best moment for me was finding that IN was part of the definition in CAVE IN. Also enjoyed AGE BEFORE BEAUTY. After you! And very nice to see Buddy Holly. Great stuff as usual, many thanks Tramp and thank you Andrw

48. Thanks Tramp and Andrew with a few puzzlements.

    What food additive is E NUMBER?

    What is the definition for ROYALIST?

    I had 17a as a reverse of “lead plus sheep.” Was MARDAEL a sedimentary rock? Apparently not.

    I put in HEADBUTT hoping that “nut” was a synonym for something related, but it was a new nut to me.

    Having got 9a GREEN ROOM, I thought 1d, beginning with _G_ was a dish called EGG something. With the B added from BAR (was it BARHEEL? I heel is a jerk, sort of …) could it be EGG BEFORE something? Took awhile.

49. Many thanks Andrew for the super blog and thanks all for the comments.

    The definition for Royalist is: Her Majesty (is) pleasure for this one?

    At Her Majesty’s Pleasure means “in prison.”

    On = close to, beside.

    See Chambers.

    Neil

50. I thought this was fantastic. I’ve been critical of Tramp in the past, particularly around synonyms that didn’t feel quite precise enough, but no reservations at all today. Some great devices that were new to me. I particularly loved 16 d.

51. Frustratingly defeated by 23 across. Thought I was looking for an anagram of “is clear” with all crossers in place. But no obscure muscle could be found.

52. Always a pleasure to see the setter drop in. Thanks Neil for explaining Royalist as I didn’t twig the device.

53. Another good puzzle with a bit of a step up in the difficulty stakes. My ticked clues have all been mentioned. I do admire the ability of setters to get my brain to see things the “wrong” way – like 3d which I read as “A cave in a woody area” and it took a while before “cave in” as a verb occurred to me. The art of the setter – or the easily misled solver. Thanks to Tramp and Andrew.

54. A tricky one but I did get them all in the end…with perhaps a little help from the check function.

    I appreciated that where the definition was tricky or indirect like 11ac/1d/8d, the wordplay was accessible, and that where the wordplay was something I can’t get as an American (E Number, RU, EN, though I really should be up on those last two abbreviations by now) the definition was straightforward enough for me to reverse-engineer it. Some very nice misdirection too; for 22ac (LOI) I kept trying to figure out if it could be “OVER” for “tip off a Romeo”!

    I had thought that “age before beauty” was something you say after someone lets you go first rather than the other way around but apparently not!

    Thanks Tramp for a fun one and Andrew for an excellent blog that helped with the parses, especially 14ac (I can never figure out “detailed”) and 5d.

55. Looks like it was just me who got thrown by 23a. I thought “Muscle work out is clear” was a muscle with “is clear” worked out!

    Didn’t help that the crossing letters were all in the erroneous anagram.

    Even so, it was very enjoyable – thanks Andrew (& Tramp)

56. Valentine @48
    E numbers are permitted food additives in the EU (though some, e.g. tartrazine, are less “permitted” than they used to be). See here for full explanation.

57. [Valentine @48: EGG BEFORE WICKET is of course a common way of getting out in cricket… but only in the morning session.]

58. Smashing puzzle – lots of fun. My favourite was probably headbutt, just because I haven’t seen the word nut used in that context for far too long, and it’s a lovely one. Makes me think “Glasgow Kiss” would make a fun phrase to clue…

59. Great stuff from Tramp, as ever. Tough but satisfying.

    I see I wasn’t the only one who tried to find an anagram of “is clear” at 23a. Turns out there isn’t a muscle called the arsicle.

    matt w @54 – the only proper response, when someone says “age before beauty” as they let you precede them, is to smile sweetly and reply “pearls before swine.”

60. My daughter treasures one of Tiger Woods’s balls, that he gave to her at the end of his last round, after a not very successful tournament at The Open at Muirfield in Scotland a few years ago.
    One of his golf balls, with the name Tiger Woods inscribed on it, I hasten to add. Make a swift recovery, Tiger, if you can…

61. Yes, ARSICLE would have made a great muscle but it was not to be.

    A lot of Buddy Holly’s songs came from words and phrases that he or his band had come across, and I’ve wondered in recent years whether they had seen A-boards outside pubs (bars?) or cafes saying EVERYDAY meals, or similar adverts for everyday service. Like essexboy @9 I used to think that the song was Every Day (which of course is what Buddy Holly sings and what the lyric means), but the song title is in fact ordinary, run-of-the-mill, undistinguished. As of course Tramp appreciated with his ‘everyday performer’ intending to mislead, for whose voice could be more out of the ordinary than Buddy Holly’s?

    Plenty of other misdirections, as always, and I really struggled to get the last three or four in the SE, despite earlier clues having tumbled almost as fast as the wickets in Ahmedabad.

    Thanks to Tramp for the entertainment, and to Andrew for the parsing of SPOON, which had escaped me.

62. Another excellent puzzle and thanks to Tramp for joining in. Very enjoyable week so far.

    Mainly posting because of the awful coincidence of Tiger Woods appearing, just after his shocking accident. Both the golfing references were clever though.

    Great anagram of solitary/ROYALIST too, but I think ENCUMBER was my favourite.

    Thanks Tramp and Andrew.

63. Though I failed at several — HEADBUTT, ROYALIST, and WARN — this still ranks as my favourite crossword of the week. Many clues had me marvelling at Tramp’s brain including the often-mentioned GREEN ROOM, MARSHAL, AGE BEFORE BEAUTY, and COLLAPSE. Thanks Andrew for parsing — I didn’t fully understand SPOONBILLS and ENCUMBER. The Tiger Woods clue was eerie given his recent accident — I wish him well.

64. Thank you to Tramp for giving me something to keep me staring at my computer screen during a long, tedious Zoom meeting that I’m forced to sit through. The meeting is still going (nearly an hour later). I’ll go look at the Indy now.

65. [Andrew
    After I posted the E number link, I noticed that you had too, but yours doesn’t seem to work. Any idea why?]

    Thanks for pointing this out – link now corrected. A

66. Must have been on the right wavelength with this one, but still a DNF: never heard of the plants at 21D and failed to construct them from the word-play. Heigh-ho!

67. BigNorm @66
    They are rather better known as “ox-eye daisies”.

68. Great puzzle. Some terrific clues – BUDDY HOLLY, COLLAPSE, ENCUMBER among others.

69. Completely threw myself by having ENOCH for 10ac. Doh!

70. Great puzzle. I couldn’t parse ENCUMBER (never heard of “E Number” here in the U.S.) or EMBRYO (that was devious!) even though they were obvious answers after I got the rest of the visible letters
    Thanks to Tramp and Andrew.

71. Finished! A rarity for me. A few in the NE corner that I could not parse.
    Dead chuffed to finish a ‘tricky’ puzzles.
    Thanks both.

72. Finished as well, Hoofit! A great relief for us, having last week come to the sad conclusion that after many happy years with the Guardian crossword it was mutating into something we did not recognise and leaving us cold. I was just thinking how nice it was to have a crossword almost devoid of that ghastly device of “shortening” words not in the clue. But that was because hadn’t parsed the SPOON in SPOONBILL (sorry Tramp, that was a truly ghastly clue in my book). Otherwise, really nice crossword, thank you Tramp and Andrew.

73. I got spoonbill but like many others couldn’t parse. And I still think that ‘spo’ as detailed spot is a stretch too far.

74. Jenny @73: I think “detailed” might refer to “t-cut”, hence remove the t. T-cut being a product / procedure used when polishing (detailing) a car. Possibly.

75. Give over

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