Guardian Cryptic 28,420 by Crucible

88 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,420 by Crucible”

1. Apart from one or two glitches, I quite liked the puzzle.

   I agree with PeterO re: RURITANIA. Maybe the problem is just a dropped “a” from “… a part of the UK”, which would fix it simply.

   As far as DYSTOPIA goes, I think having US as the definition a bit of a stretch, more than we’re used to here. I read the clue as “stop” = “period in US”, and the definition just gone awol.

2. Enjoyable puzzle although I failed SORE.

   Favourites: AUTOPSY, CHOKE.
   New: CRUET.
   Did not understand why DYSTOPIA = in US although I parsed it the same way as Peter.
   * Dr Whatson @1 might be right about the clue.

   Thanks, Crucible and Peter.

   Note: I just saw the news about fellow blogger Rishi. May he rest in peace.

3. Thought as per Peter re the misplaced a for Ruritania, and as per Dr. Wh re the awol def for dystopia. Wasted a bit looking for a synonym for indigestion until the crossers went in, otherwise pottered along happily enough without audible groans or guffaws. Thanks C and PO.

4. Nice puzzle, and many laughs along the way. Thanks setter.
   As to DYSTOPIA, perhaps some Brits might look in the mirror more often.

5. There was much to enjoy here — REARRANGE, DENTURE, STYE, EVACUATE, and DISC were well crafted but many left me scratching my head like EARMARKED, RURITANIA, RENNET, CRUETS, and SORE. And DYSTOPIA= US? A bit hyperbolic, even by Guardian standards it seems. Thanks to both.

6. I’ll jump on the bandwagon – I too thought 6d was missing the definition. It’s interesting how we react differently – most of Tony @5s head scratchers were ones I liked (although I had a part parsed SHANGRILA for 25a for a while – there’s an anagram of ‘girl’ in there, plus the ‘a’, but I couldn’t account for the rest. AUTOPSY had nice misdirection – we have had a few Prime Ministers lately, and an afternoon. I snorted at the ORAL EXAMINATION too. Thanks Crucible and PeterO.

7. Me @6 – just noticed that you didn’t spell out that the PM definition for 11a stands for post mortem, PeterO.

8. In 6d you need all of “period in US” to get STOP – but that leaves you with no definition. No idea what Crucible is playing at here.
   There’s a sort of old fashioned medical vibe here, with SORE, DROPSY, AUTOPSY, BACTERIA, ORAL EXAMINATION, DENTURE, IRON LUNG and STYE (which we have had quite recently somewhere). I eventually remembered the shepherds being “sore afraid” at the sight of the angel in the Authorised Version, but it took a while.

9. The Bends album comes to mind here.
   If Trump had got back in again 6d might have been more appropriate-it parsed OK but a word I normally associate with 1984 or The Road
   But fine puzzle and blog

10. 25 Rita tours, i.e. goes round, a part of UK. Hence RU + RIT(ANI)A

11. Chris @10 – but in that case, shouldn’t the clue read “tours a part of the UK, fabulous place”? The “a” is in the wrong place for “tours” to make sense.

12. Thanks Crucible and PeterO
    RURITANIA was thrid in (after DISC and YEAST), and I didn’t notice a problem with it. I took it as RU then RITA A around NI.
    I tried to make 11a OCTOPUS – it nearly works, but again a definition would be lacking, as seems to be the case in DYSTOPIA.
    Favourite 16a – simple, but nice.

13. Thanks to Crucible ( and PeterO) for a tough workout this morning. I had a big question mark against 6dn like many others as US does not really cut it as a definition. In fact, I took ‘stop’ to be defined by ‘period in US’. Would love to know what Crucible intended.

14. Chris @ 11 – If you read “a fabulous place” as the definition, the clue makes perfect sense.

15. To Rodshaw @4. Maybe Crucible meant us, as in what “we British” are living in?

16. DISC, BREASTBONE, EAR(MARKED) also add to some kind of medical theme.
    Thanks to Crucible and PeterO

17. I think this is the fourth time we’ve visited RURITANIA this year. Clearly on the green list for UK travellers though it sounds as if it might take 6 hours queuing to get back into the country.

    I did wonder whether US in 6dn might be read subjectively as ‘us’; given the bizarre state of the world over recent months, any reader could then apply DYSTOPIA to their own nation (and rodshaw @4 points out that we Brits could look in the mirror. Bit of a stretch though.

    I liked gladys’s suggestion @8 with regard to the medical solutions. Yes, STYE is another favourite – and frequently clued as a lurker I seem to recall.

    My favourites today were AUTOPSY for the PM misdirection, ORAL EXAMINATION which generated a similar reaction to that of TassieTim, BREASTBONE for the lovely inclusion of Eastbourne and COTD CRUETS which is simply beautiful.

    Thanks Crucible and PeterO

18. [PeeDiddy @15: apologies for repeating your point which came in whilst I was still typing.

    Michelle @2 and others who may have picked up on the sad demise of one of our contributors, Penfold posted a late message yesterday, which some may not have seen, with a link to Rishi’s profile.]

19. PostMark @17 speaks for me with the same favourites, especially AUTOPSY and I also took US to be a misdirection for all of ‘us’ and not a criticism of the US of A. I also thought there was an obvious medical theme and I would add PALATE, (SECOND)WIND, SWEAT and (DUNDER)HEAD to those already listed.
    Great stuff but saddened to read about Rishi last night. As a relative newbie to this site, I found his contributions very interesting.

    Ta Crucible & PeterO

20. Not terribly convinced by SORE for 23d, which was last one in after a bit of head scratching. CHOKE, CRUETS and SQUELCH made things a bit messy in the SE corner for a while. Same kind of device used for BREASTBONE and DUNDERHEAD, I thought. Lots to admire otherwise…

21. ….and CHOKE and (BLACK)BEARD. Maybe a bit like finding band names everywhere you look 🙂

22. I apologise. There is indeed a missing definition in 6dn. The clue should finish with ‘not 25’. And 25 itself should read: ‘Game girl tours a part of the UK, fabulous place’

23. Thanks to Crucible and PeterO.

    Curious puzzle, with some write-ins and some much chewier clues (at least for me). My favourite was the ingenious BREASTBONE.

    I agree with others that the A seems to be in the wrong place for RURITANIA and ‘hence my indigestion’ for BACTERIA is dubious. And I took ‘period in US’ to indicate STOP, hence that the clue is missing a definition.

    Is this the penultimate draft of Crucible’s puzzle before his final version?

24. Thanks Crucible.

25. Thanks Crucible and PeterO.

    oops….

    I was thinking of RU and NIA (a girl’s name. Dunno if in UK there are girls by this name) going around RITA (part of bRITAin) …

26. Excellent puzzle overall! Enjoyed it!

27. Did anyone mention HEAD, REAR and BEARD if we’re talking body parts.

    Enjoyed the crossword

28. And WIND if we’re talking medical 🙂

29. Apologies AlanC. Just seen your contribution

30. As for 6d, there’s a famous dystopian novel by Yevgeni Zamyatin, although usually translated as “We”, not “Us” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)

31. Crucible’s clarification crossed with my post @23. I’m relieved that, as I had surmised, 6d was cock-up rather than conspiracy to calumny!

32. CHOKE is a lovely album by The Beautiful South and possibly the most un-Crucible clue I’ve seen although the UR subtraction ran it a close second. 8 ticks from me which is a record for this setter. Can’t resist a little bit of schadenfreude at some of the smugs on the guardian site who “got” 6d
    Cheers all

33. DYSTOPIA: What Postmark @17 says makes sense to an extent. US in the clue is a bit vague, otherwise.

34. S Krishna @33: it’s not often that I make sense to some extent so many thanks. However, I wonder if you might have missed Crucible’s own post @22 which clears up what happened with that clue.

35. Thanks for the blog and thank you Crucible for actually owning up to mistakes, we all make them. I was going to say it was a splendid crossword except for 6D and 25AC but now that is cleared up.

36. Like others here, my favourites were AUTOPSY and BREASTBONE for the use of Eastbourne as PostMark said @ 17 and an excuse to revisit Kevin Coyne’s Eastbourne Ladies.

    If we’re following the medical theme, DYSTOPIA can also mean an anatomical part that is not found in its usual place.

    Thanks Crucible and PeterO

37. Thanks Crucible @22 for the clarification which solves the main mysteries. I couldn’t parse SORE, SO for very and trying to turn RE into old! I had forgotten the old English. I spent ages trying to fit a seaside resort into 1d before realising the definition was the other end of the clue. I loved it all. Thanks again Crucible and PeterO

38. Julia @37: you and me both regarding 1d. With BR as an opener, I was playing with Brighton, Brightlingsea, Bridlington, Brixham …. Just amazing how many seaside towns might have fitted the bill and played a role.

39. I find this a delightful solve, purely because of Crucible’s openness. On first pass-through, I filled in only three answers. I could ‘see’ how the others worked but couldn’t decipher them yet. But everything unfolded rather beautifully – helpful crossers being an underappreciated art. Paul at his best is very good at doing this sort of ‘slow reveal’ too.

    DENTURE was a smashing bit of wordplay, not just for the whimsical definition but how well the anagram was disguised.

    Thanks Peter and Crucible.

40. Bit slow today mainly due to other, non-crossword stuff (work) getting in the way. Grrr.

    Found that both easy and hard – 50% went in without really thinking about it and the rest took ages!

    Thanks Crucible and PeterO!

41. Julia @37. Despite having a great many older English usages rattling around my head, I too failed to arrive at ‘SORE’. As an adverb, it does (did) function as an intensifier and so does overlap with ‘very’, but you would never have described someone as ‘sore wealthy’ or ‘sore successful’. It always functions to intensify a negative adjective, as in the shepherds being ‘sore afraid’ or as in this snippet from ‘Henry IV Part 2’: “And now dispatch we toward the court, my lords. / I hear the King my father is sore sick.” spoken by Prince John of Lancaster. I do think, therefore, that ‘very old’ > SORE was a bit of a stretcher.

42. Thanks Crucible for the clarification- that’s stopped me scratching my head over 6d and 25ac, the answers I’d got but the parsing was the problem!

43. [ Very interesting Spooner’s catflap @ 41. I like the word “fierce” to mean very. ” You must be fierce clever ” I am sure is used by Joyce, do not think it is Ulysses, probably Dubliners, maybe Portrait. ]

44. A very pleasant puzzle, with the exception of the head-scratching caused by 6d and 25a. Thanks to Crucible for popping in to correct these. However I’m still a bit unsure about the corrected definition for 6d, “not 25”. RURITANIA is a “fabulous place” in the sense of its being fictional, rather than being an ideal state. Is it really the opposite of a DYSTOPIA?

    Spooner’s catflap @41: interesting point. I would agree that SORE in the archaic sense only tends to be used in a negative context. But the SOED says about its origins: “OHG sero (Du. zeer, G sehr greatly, very)”, so I think “very” is reasonable.

    Many thanks Crucible and PeterO.

45. Interesting. It would never have occurred to me that “sore” came from the same root as “sehr” (which is the usual modern German word for “very” in both positive and negative contexts).
    No, RURITANIA isn’t any kind of utopian state: just a fictional middle-European kingdom.

46. Thanks DA

47. Apart from suffering my usual brain fog (see this link if you didn’t read my post yesterday about this phenomenon) with the last half-dozen clues, this was a fairly straightforward solve for me. Didn’t notice the gaffe in 25a in my rush to write the answer in, which I suspect is how Crucible came to get it wrong in the first place!

    I have a slight problem with ‘stifled’ meaning to leave out the A in SQUEL(CH), as to me it suggests that the A is not heard but is still present – the opposite of ‘expressing’ in EN(a)VY, where the letter is removed by saying it! (Yes, I know it’s a different meaning of expression, but I found it amusing. 🙂 )

    Last one in for me was PALATE, and I must have gone through a dozen or more synonyms for taste before that one made itself known.

    As regards DYSTOPIA, I tend to agree that ‘period in US’ completes the wordplay and leaves the clue without a definition, but with the likes of Johnson, Patel, Hancock, Gove, Williamson, Jenrick and others in charge of the UK, we don’t need to look very far.

    Thanks to Crucible for the fog and to PeterO for the blog.

48. Thanks to Crucible and PeterO.

    I charged through DYSTOPIA and RURITANIA without a backward glance so I raise a brimming beaker to all who found cause for pause. (But surely RURITANIA is generally regarded as a green and pleasant land so somewhat utopian?) And I enjoyed the rest although DISC and SQUELCH are of those multi-layered clues which cause a slight squirm under the BREASTBONE.

    As to SORE, I had an acquaintance from deepest, darkest Donegal for whom “very” was (not “fierce” but) “wild”: “wild tall”, “wild far” etc. I asked him once if he would describe the weather as “wild calm” and yes he would. For my own part I would have no problem with “fierce tame” so no fault found. (And of course we could have “sore painless” and “very light”.)

49. Apologies if some of my comments have ignored earlier posts – my screen didn’t refresh properly so I missed Crucible’s clarification and some others.

    S Krishna @25. Interesting parsing! I think NIA is a Welsh name, so it works quite well.

50. [Alphalpha @48: lovely story. It would appear that sheffield hatter is suffering from wild fog. Which is unfortunate on such a gloriously sunny day!]

51. I was a bit nervous when I went out on a limb with my proposals last night (me@1), but I’m glad to see now that the tree-branch and I survived, and the puzzle is well.

52. Lord Jim @44: Wiktionary (looked at askance by some, but it does give references to its Proto-Indo-European etymologies) suggests that SORE is ultimately from a PIE root meaning to bind or afflict. Thus perhaps its logical use as an intensifier of a negative quality (cf ‘painfully shy’), as it remained in archaic English, was later generalised in German.

53. [Thanks for “wild fog”, Mark.

    And Alphalpha – “very light” always amused me as a name for a flare. ]

    Re: SORE. I used to read the Marvel comics when I was a lad – one of the characters was called the Mighty Thor. They did a self-skit in which the equivalent character had a lisp and announced himself “I’m Mighty Sore”, to which someone replied, “So what? I ain’t feeling too clever myself.”

    I’ll get me cape.]

54. SH @53
    I had heard:
    The God of War rode out one day,
    mounted on his filly.
    “I’m Thor!” he cried.
    The horse replied
    “You forgot your thaddle, thilly!”

55. Thanks Gervase @52, that sounds plausible. A bit similar to other negative “very” words becoming more general in modern times – “awfully good”, “terribly excited”.

    Roz and Alphalpha: “fierce” and “wild” for “very” remind me of Sir John Middleton (I think) in Sense and Sensibility and his tendency to describe young women as “monstrous pretty”.

56. I’m certainly familiar with the shepherds being SORE afraid and I like the idea of SORE coming from sehr. Perhaps SORE subsequently shortened to SO.

57. I’m pleased that Crucible popped in to confess the errors, though a bit surprised they slipped through the Guardian’s exhaustive editing process. (I’ve just spent the morning proof reading my own work, and as thorough as I might be, I’m sure I’ve missed something.)

    SORE was a hit-and-hope that thankfully worked out. Took ages to see BREASTBONE. Clocked the theme!

58. [ Lord Jim @ 55 I am making no claims for fierce but I am sure I have read it and it was such a lovely phrase. Maybe only Joyce used it and only once, I have a feeling it may have been Nora Barnacle speaking to Joyce himself and calling him ” fierce clever ” . }

59. Enjoyed this puzzle, thanks to Crucible for the puzzle and the coming back with his correction, and thanks to PeterO as well. It’s probably raining on you in Long Island as well as me in Hartford — nice to know the UK was having a gloriously sunny day.

    In my experience, cruets contain liquids, usually oil and vinegar for salad dressings, not salt and pepper. Maybe you shake one to blend the vinegar with the oil? Some cruets are a pair of flasks, one for oil and one for vinegar, attached to each other side by side and leaning in opposite directions so you can only pour from one at a time.

    Did anyone else try to make 15d start with “donkey” for “ass” (but what to do with the rest of it?)

    [Roz@43 and alphalpha@48 The intensifier from Maine (and now spreading some) like your “fierce” or “wild” is “wicked” and can be positive or negative — more positive, if anything. “You must be wicked smart!”]

60. Valentine @59: I had the distinctly unsatisfactory – and unparsed – DONKEYHEAD in place for quite some time!

    On the cruet query, one of the things I enjoy about this site is the occasions when I find my assumptions being questioned and learning results. On the basis that a cruet set held in a cruet stand certainly seems to generally include salt and pepper shakers, I’d always assumed they were the cruet(s). However, your query prompted the inevitable Google and cruets do, indeed, appear to be the bottles. And, whilst one might shake a modern day bottle of vinegar or ketchup, I can’t see the oil/balsamic phials being used in that way. Thanks for raising it

61. Re Ruritania: I parsed it as game -RU, girl -TANIA touring part of the UK- RI (Republic of Ireland) and was expecting howls of indignation at Crucible’s poor geography! Thanks to Crucible and PeterO

62. For 6 I thought “US” might be the Jordan Peele film, where as I understand it the eventual reveal does make it into a dystopia of sorts. And I parsed RURITANIA as RU and TANIA around RI, figuring there might be a part of the UK that fit. (It’d work with part of the US, Rhode Island.)

    This does illustrate why clues relying on proper names make me cranky sometimes (“Cate” also though I was able to reverse-engineer that without much trouble); girls I know are more likely to be named Asha or Ryleigh than Rita these days.

    Had to reveal RENNET as “junket” in that sense was beyond me and I was stuck on “re” for “note.”

    Good fun with a lot of clever definitions, like “PM” for postmortem and “cover at night” for BEDSPREAD. Thanks Crucible and PeterO!

63. [@53 and 54, in our local version he said “I’m mighty Thor!” and she said “I’m thore too but I’m thatithfied!”]

64. [ Valentine @59 that is a great example, even better than fierce, Mr PostMark @60 , Chambers gives cruet as a small jar or bottle for sauces and condiments i,e, salt and pepper so we are not on shaky ground here.}

65. Thanks PeterO, your blog and the comments are SOREly needed totday as I fell into all the traps here and would probably have given up if a comment on the Guardian site hadn’t pointed out the errors (shame they affected linked clues although I had no problem with RURITANIA).

    Despite father-in-law in Eastbourne I couldn’t get past Bournemouth as my British resort needing to have UR removed, it even results in a BONE and a part of the body although not in the trunk: even when I sussed BR it took a while to realise that the removal operation would be able to “skip” that part and work on the second element.

    Also not helped by what I thought were a few tenuous/obscure definitions and my own lack of knowledge (I had always thought CRUS were the products of selected parcels of vines rather than the vineyards themselves). But as usual it is almost all my fault eg have no excuse for not getting DISC until almost at the end. Anyway I have learned a few things and enjoyed AUTOPSY the most, thanks Crucible.

66. [Roz @64 and previous postings. ‘Fierce clever’ is certainly an expression current in idiomatic Irish English, although I do not think that Joyce ever himself used it. If Nora did, it might be quoted in Richard Ellmann’s biography of JJ, although my copy of this vanished decades ago, lent to someone or other and never returned. See, for example, this whimsical piece in the Irish Times some years ago written from the point of view of Leopold Bloom, the ‘Odysseus’ of JJ’s ‘Ulysses’:

    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/my-odyssey-by-leopold-bloom-1.1171512

    “Fierce clever chap that Joyce, probably too clever. Great man all the same.”

    (PS. I know you don’t do links, but someone else might be curious.)]

67. Gazzh @ 65 ‘Crus’ can be either the vineyards or the vintages, but the latter derives from the former. For instance, the Bordeaux cru classification of 1855 was classifying the châteaux themselves, not their products (or else they’d have to do it annually).

68. [Bodycheetah @32: An excellent album but I still (just) prefer “Welcome to the Beautiful South” – Song for Whoever and You keep it all in remain two of my go-to tracks. I love that they mixed late-80s social commentary with fabulously performed music.

    They are playing in their current line-up at the Wickham Festival on 8th August – see you there?]

69. I’m another who couldn’t see how SORE worked, and now that I know I’m quite annoyed with myself. The university I work at does a lovely Christmas eve service of lessons and carols, and I’ve been quietly lobbying the chaplain for years to change the language in the lessons to the Authorized Version I knew as a kid. I got him to substitute “swaddling clothes” for “bands of cloth”, and my current campaign is to revert “terrified” back to “sore afraid”. By the time I retire, maybe I’ll have gotten that entire bit from Luke back into its old form.

    [I was at a funeral not long ago at which the 23rd psalm was read, but in a version that inexplicably changed “valley of the shadow of death” to “valley of darkness”. How could anyone ever have thought that the latter was an improvement?]

    I somehow failed to get CHOKE, even though it’s obvious in hindsight.

    Thanks to Crucible for dropping in to explain 6dn and 25ac. I got both, but the parsing bothered me.

70. Donkeyhead here too. And how – nearly blew a cerebral gasket trying to parse it.

71. Ted @69, heartily agree. Though a crusty atheist, as a kid at school assembly I felt “Yea though I walk … ” had archetypal depth. As did “Our Father, which art..”, the which adding to the mystique.

72. Thanks Simon S @67 – just been doing some reading on this and very interesting how the usage varies in the different regions (and equivalents in other countries). The moral of the story seems to be that the classification system is a good rough guide to the quality of the wine, except for when it isn’t!

73. [MB@68 Wow! a mass gathering with entertainment and socialising – I thought those days were gone for good – I’m in 🙂 ]

74. Cracking editorial oversight.

75. [bodycheetah @73: I’ve just booked for three days at WOMAD as well… Can’t WAIT!!!!]

76. [ Thanks very much Spooner’s catflap @66 at least I know it exists and I did not imagine it. I still suspect there is some link to Joyce, hence the use of the phrase in this article. ]

77. Postmark @33

    My apologies. Yes. I missed ‘it’.

    What you said makes sense to the FULLEST extent ???

78. I tried emojis & they turned into question marks. Sorry.

79. In my mind’s ear I always hear the AV text of Luke in the setting from Handel’s Messiah, complete with the two chords after “- and they were sore afraid” : pom POM!

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uPDqews1rf8

80. [grantinfreo @71 (ref: Ted @69). Likewise with the atheism – can’t say which of us is likely to be the crustier – the people who wrote that Authorized Version really knew how to handle the English language. “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” really gets your attention, doesn’t it? Where’s this “valley of darkness” – just a rainy day somewhere in South Wales, isn’t it?]

81. [S Krishna @78
    You need to put a space at either side of your intended emoji.]

82. gladys @8 – the sore afraid shepherds came to me immediately – ingrained from childhood – but just popping in now to thank you for your input @79: me too – I love all of the Messiah pom POMS!

83. Lovely puzzle – the DYSTOPIA boo-boo notwithstanding. All the clues and surfaces are so clever and read like complete phrases (unlike with a couple of the other setters here). Thanks.

84. I had a problem with “Bacteria” being alluded to as a cause of indigestion. Indeed, I find references in the literature to certain antibiotics which kill bacteria as a possible cause.

85. muffin@81 Thank you!

86. Just finished, guessing 23 down which I should really have parsed. Great fun.

87. Good puzzle, you might think that the errors would have been corrected online by now, but no…Thanks Crucible and PeterO.

88. Gosh, this one took me a long time. All good stuff though, albeit that I got 23d wrong. I had SIRE which I thought was a humorous equivalent to stye in its rare use as MOUNT (Chambers). Thanks Crucible and PeterO.

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