Guardian Cryptic 28,443 by Nutmeg

72 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,443 by Nutmeg”

1. Quite delightful puzzle, even though quite quickly solved. I enjoyed the ‘evenness’ of it all – my solving pattern roamed randomly over the grid, meaning most clues could be solved without the crossers. In fact each clue took about a minute, plus or minus. The only hold-up was parsing my LOI (ASSUMED) – I was looking for something much more contrived, and as so often, overlooked the obvious – duh.
   I always take delight in MISTRESS QUICKLY, and get a laugh at KING CANUTE (he reminds me of so many modern prominent personalities). I also happened to have re-read THE OLD WIVES TALE quite recently, wonderful novel. I’ll take the setter’s word for THROVE, but will stick to THRIVED for personal use. Thanks very much, setter, for a very entertaining interlude.
   PS: On a purely personal note, I always get a nostalgic kick out of CUTLASS. It was the answer to the very first cryptic clue I ever solved (almost exactly seventy-four years ago). A little light-bulb went off in my head, and I’ve been hooked on cryptic puzzles ever since. Between then and now I must have seen every possible variation of clue, but this was as good as any.

2. Nice puzzle, hard but not too hard!
   Favourites: THE OLD WIVES’ TALE, EYE CANDY (for once, I saw the C and Y construct), CUTLASS (loi).
   Did not parse: ON THE MEND.
   Never heard of Casualty (TV series) – thank you, google.

3. Agree, rodshaw @1, re throve, and dove (as in Running Bear dove in the river..). But yes, elegant and succinct as ever from the Spice Lady with just enough chew per clue (bit more than a minute’s worth for this old boy!). King Canute’s ‘demo’ reminds me of the crop of current fantasists, either holding back various planetary tides or refusing to see them. Hey ho. Nice puzzle, ta PnN.

4. Lovely surfaces as usual. What a nice start to the day. Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO.

5. It all looks neat and tidy when its finished but after the left hand side (saw SQUATTER and MISTRESS QUICKLY) easily enough I was floundering on the right. Being more of a Trollope fan tham a Bennett one (Alan’s OK)I was held up on the long one
   Great surfaces, Thanks Meg and Peter

6. I feel the need to put a word in for KING CANUTE. The legend of King Canute and the tide is apocryphal, invented by Henry of Huntingdon a hundred years later, but the point of the story is to illustrate Canute’s piety, not his stupidity. I’m sure Nutmeg knew this, as the cryptic definition ‘staging demonstration on the coast’ makes much more sense if we assume that KC (unlike his fawning courtiers in the Sunshine Band) knew that his feet were going to get wet.

   As to the historical Cnut, it appears that under his rule England thrived. Or THROVE, actually.

   Thanks N & A

7. [Sorry Peter, wrong disciple!]

8. ANGEL for ‘person funding play’ is a new one on me. Took a long time for the penny to drop for ASSUMED and CLEARWAY, but that’s just me being slow-witted. Agree re the vagueness of 21ac and the ambiguity of ‘inject’ in 9ac, but those are minor quibbles. Feel the same about THROVE as others, but I’d say it’s fair game for a crossword.

   Thanks PeterO and Nutmeg.

9. rodshaw- it’s some years since I read The Old Wives Tale but I agree, it’s a wonderful novel.

10. grantinfreo @3 has said it for me – ‘elegant and succinct’, and with ‘enough chew’ in every clue. I liked the two long ones best – also EYE CANDY and CUTLASS, which were highlighted also by michelle @2.
    In ASPIRANT, I would say RAN is being injected rather than doing the injecting, and I note PeterO’s take on the same query (‘ambiguous’).
    Thanks to Nutmeg and PeterO.

11. I’m not sure what the problem is with the ambiguity in ASPIRANT – as cryptic devotees, surely we thrive on ambiguity?

    In this case, the ambiguity comes from the fact that the object of the verb ‘inject’ in English can be either the thing injected (‘the nurse injected a drug’), or the person into whom the injection goes (‘we’re just going to inject you with the anaesthetic’).

    So cryptically, ‘the nurse injected me’ could be either NU-ME-RSE or M-NURSE-E.

    I thought it was a great clue.

12. [eb @6, had a lovely mate in Hove actually who left all his pals, including both me and the missus, 3000 quid each… a sweet soul]

13. Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO
    Exactly the reverse experience to copmus above – I had the RHS complete before having much in the LHS at all (though I hadn’t parsed FEARSOMELY).
    I had an unsatisfactory CONFORM at 3d for a while.
    Favourite ON THE MEND. The answer was obvious, but it took some time for the penny to drop on the parsing.
    Why is SON “native”? “Son of someplace” is very loose.
    [Pedants’ corner: asps are venomous, not poisonous. A poison has to be injested to have its effect.]

14. ..doh! ingested, of course.

15. [not ingected? 😉 ]

16. essexboy @11
    Regarding ASPIRANT, I saw it as the setter’s intention for us to place RAN inside IT and not be ambiguous – which the clue seems to be, as you say. I throve on ambiguity once, but I have thriven on clarity for longer (accompanied by any of many cryptic devices, but preferably not ambiguity).
    Thanks for your comment.

17. As usual I was delighted to see Nutmeg’s byline, and the puzzle lived up to expectations.
    copmus@5 – just a note to say that I always enjoy your comments and usually agree with them. I was also tempted by the Trollope hunch but quickly realised that the title wouldn’t fit. I also had ‘motorway’ for a while at 25a, which threw me temporarily. I agree with those who think that ‘throve’ is a lovely word – unlike the Americanism ‘dove’ mentioned by grantinfreo @3.
    Thanks to setter and blogger.

18. Lovely puzzle with the right mix of head-scratching and the initial ‘there is no way in 100 years I’ll be able to do this’ followed by steady progress with only ISOMER as an unknown.

    [essexboy @6: Family jaunts out to ‘the countryside’ often involved my grandparents taking me to The Anchor Inn at Canewdon, not that far from Southend (where I remember having a hot Scotch egg, chips and a half of Shandy aged about 12!) and they were always telling me how Canute had sat in the water nearby (I think actually at Paglesham) and commanded the sea (which would actually have been the River Roach or Crouch and not the sea at-all) to stay back. Obviously I swallowed this hook, line, sinker, Scotch-egg, chips and Shandy and that has made me the lying and impressionable person I am today… ]

19. And thanks to Nutmeg and PeterO (sorry!)

20. Definitely not a doddle for me, but hugely enjoyable as are all Nutmeg’s puzzles. I particularly liked TRIO, CUTLASS, EYE CANDY and AMBUSH. Didn’t know much about MISTRESS QUICKLY so took some time to do the left side.
    Many thanks to N & PeterO.

21. What a pleasure after yesterday’s struggle – yes ginf elegant and succinct. I got off to a flyer with 1 & 5a going straight in, then the left hand side with more work required on the right. I liked the ambiguity of ASPIRANT – a key part of the setter’s craft. Rodshaw@1 – thanks for your CUTLASS anecdote – great to have followed the iterations of a solution over 74 years!
    Thanks to Nutmeg and PeterO.

22. I found this very hard. Lots of use of aids to find answers and still could not parse some.
    Didn’t help that not heard of MISTRESS QUICKLY (liked alive = quick) or THE OLD WIVES TALE. Realised the latter was an anagram but took a while to work out what letters to use.
    And unlike Michelle @ 2, as usual, I did not get the C and Y construct – maybe one day.

    Lots of charades and envelopes which I often find difficult. Did remember that ANGEL is a backer.

    Liked KING CANUTE

    Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO

23. I spent a long time going through the Merry Wives in my head and forgetting MISTRESS QUICKLY so the left hand side took longer than it should have done. Clearly THE OLD WIVES TALE should be added to my TBR pile. Favourites today were EYE CANDY, SKULKS (because it is such a lovely word) and CUTLASS.

    Thanks PeterO and Nutmeg

24. Oh, Happy Day! A delight from Nutmeg this morning from start to finish – though the start took a while to materialise. Like copmus @5: SQUATTER was FOI and I breathed a silent prayer of thanks to Nutmeg for giving me a way in to what had, at first, seemed utterly impenetrable. And that Q led me to the gorgeous MISTRESS QUICKLY with its slightly ominous surface. The THROVE discussion for some reason reminded me of the recent Jabberwocky blog; it feels like a Lewis Carroll word.

    FEARSOMELY, RAUNCHY, SKULKS and the splendid ON THE MEND were favourites today but everything else was up to scratch with lovely surfaces and elegant clueing. Did anyone else flirt briefly with PROM instead of TRIO? It fitted the crossing ‘R’ and is ‘romp’ with its back to the start. I wondered whether prom might be a reference to musicians. I needed UNIFORM to set me right.

    Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO

25. [MB @18: ah yes, the Anchor! Not to mention the Shepherd & Dog, or the Plough & Sail… oops wrong puzzle 😉 ]

26. I liked the way there were parallel literary WIVES on each side of the puzzle. I needed too much help to really enjoy this (my fault, not the setter’s). I had cellmate for SHOWDOWN for a while (dungeon = cell and mate = final showdown). The quotation marks around “Lost” somehow hindered me from seeing it as an anagram indicator.

27. I agree with Whiteking @21 that this was a delight after yesterday’s treading through treacle. Lots of favourites already mentioned but I loved ON THE MEND and the delightful MISTRESS QUICKLY.

    I knew KING CANUTE and MUSE alongside each other were bands and so we have the AMBUSH, CUTLASS(es), SALTS, OLD WIVES TALE, SKULK(s) bands but I gave up looking after that (yes I know every word is a band) 🙂

    I’m lucky enough to have a flat on Hove ‘actually’seafront although I can’t imagine being as generous as your friends, ginf @ 12, when I shuffle off…

    Ta Nutmeg & PeterO

28. Enjoyed this offering from Nutmeg, only gripe was the wording of IRANT which to me was wrong

29. Definitely seems to be a left-right split amongst solvers. I had RHS complete with LHS empty. Once I saw MISTRESS QUICKLY the left submitted fairly readily.
    On the strong/weak verb split I’m on the THROVE side: I would never say “thrived”. “Dove” like “snuck” appeared in the Americas, and “dug” is a similar change to a weak verb.
    Thanks as ever to setter, blogger and commenters.

30. There was rather too much loose clueing in today’s Nutmeg for my taste, I’m sorry to say. The DD of ‘bore’ = ‘took it’ = ASSUMED is wonky, IMO, because ‘bore’ is not equivalent to ‘assumed’: ‘she bore the mantle of leader for two decades’ is fine, but you can’t ‘assume’ it for two decades — it is precisely the taking on that is the semantic essence of ‘assume’ and it is the carrying on that is the semantic core of ‘bear’. I find ‘managed to inject it’ wonky, too. HEADFIRST = ‘hastily’ is a bit iffy: my Oxford only records it as two words, and defines it, correctly I believe, as ‘without sufficient forethought’. SON = ‘native? Nope. DEEPEN = ‘lower’? Really? The redundant sailor in ‘sailor’s arm’ and play in ‘person funding play’ were irritating, though I realise that they function as distractors to muddy the wordplay, and might be regarded by some as clever. Ah, well. It was a half an hour’s engaging entertainment.

31. Thanks to the setter and blog contibutors!
    Did anyone else consider ‘play’ to be superfluous in 17d? Angels can fund anything, not just theatre productions.
    Also the first time I have encountered (in my limited experience) the ‘borders of’ device generating ‘and’ in addition to the actual border letters.

32. Another grate puzzle from Nutmeg. Lots to enjoy, with some splendid surfaces – special mention for CASUALTY (‘Lost’ was indeed a cult series) and FEARSOMELY (with its Nightingale references), but all the clues are well constructed in this aspect.

    [Auriga @29: Although I like THROVE I tend to use ‘thrived’ myself, but it would always be ‘strove’ for me. ‘Snuck’ is a US back formation, as you suggest, but ‘dove’ is more complicated. There were two verbs in Old English: dyfan, to immerse – a transitive weak verb, and dufan – to dive, an intransitive strong verb (cf ‘lay’, transitive weak verb, and ‘lie’, intransitive strong verb). These seem to have merged in modern English, with variable results]

33. Nutmeg’s beautiful surfaces, as ever, made for an entertaining (though not easy for me) solve.

    Peter @31; I’m more familiar with general business angels, but Nutmeg was perhaps following the Chambers definition: ‘A financial backer or adviser, esp one who finances theatrical ventures (informal).’

    I particularly liked ON THE MEND, CUTLASS and RAUNCHY.

    Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO.

34. Peter@30: “… the first time I have encountered (in my limited experience) the ‘borders of’ device generating ‘and’ in addition to the actual border letters.” It crops up from time to time, which is why Michelle@2 was pleased to have spotted it this time round, having been foxed previously, as I too have sometimes been. Perhaps fellow-commenters with more detailed memories of the archives will be able to point you to some instances.

35. PS, for ANGEL the ODE has: ‘a financial backer of a theatrical production’ and Collins has: ‘an investor in a venture, esp a backer of a theatrical production’.

36. I was left staring at 21 ac with something I something G something A something U something E for absolutely ages at the very end. Before the penny dropped or the light bulb lit up. Looking for something cryptic with a Nutmeggy flavour. Excellent puzzle, enjoyed it throughout….

37. Postmark@24: you’re not the only PROMenader for 11a, but the musical connection always felt a bit too tenuous for it to be right.

    Always pleased to find Nutmeg as the setter: tiny quibble over whether native=son but otherwise good fun, even if it did take forever to parse FEARSOMELY, and even longer to find a pencil to sort out THE OLD WIVES TALE anagram. (PS: what was the Trollope alternative?)

38. [Thanks, Gervase@32. I didn’t know the “dyvan” “duvan” pair.]

39. gladys @37: thanks for the reassurance I wasn’t the only one. I wonder if that was a deliberate trap? I tried to convince myself a) that The Proms encompasses audiences, performers and the performances themselves and b) that bands performing at university/school Proms – maybe in the US – might have earned the name. And then I got 3d.

    On the native = son, which has appeared earlier in the blog, too, I am sure I have heard the phrase “sons of …” in the context of patriots and countrymen. There is an association in Ireland, for example, for the Sons [and Daughters] of Ireland, there are memorials to war dead that refer to “the Sons of..” And, of course, we have no less an authority than Mel Gibson’s Braveheart with his “Sons of Scotland” speech 😀

40. Grantinfreo @3 I’d forgotten about that Running Bear song till you mentioned it, so I looked it up. What a sappy song! Every cliche that non-Native people love to make up about them. Every man is named for a big impressive animal, every woman is named for something pretty and ineffectual … And if they lived on opposite sides of an uncrossable river, how did they ever meet?

    George Clements @17 Was there a particular Trollope title you were tempted by? I’ve only read Barchester Towers and The Warden, and that years ago, so it went right past me.

    And the puzzle was a delight, with for once no use of Check. Thanks, Nutmeg and PeterO.

41. CLEARWAY was a new one for me, but deducible and confirmed with judicious googling (there are a lot of hits hereabouts for a company by that name).

    DEEPEN stumped me, because in my usual haste I neglected to consider ‘lower’ as a verb, though I could make no sense out of REED or possibly DEER as a ‘demand.’

    KING CANUTE was my last, and very satisfying it was when the penny dropped!

    Well played, Nutmeg, and well parsed, PeterO.

42. Like PeterO I made steady progress with this. Steady as in incredibly slowly, as I’m sure we’ll see it clued in a future Nutmeg. Like pserve_p2 @30 I don’t see ‘bore’ for ASSUMED, though I solved the clue, and I can’t find any justification in Chambers either.

    I don’t see any problem with the ‘inject’ instruction in 9a, or the poison/venom distinction; we might as well complain that a ‘coach’ is not a BUS.

    I remember finding out about strong verbs when learning German at school – in English they’re just absorbed as a child without thinking too much about them, but unfortunately they appear to be a dying breed. Partly this is because of old words being given new uses, like shine and weave, and then users treat them as weak verbs and we get shined and weaved instead of shone and wove; I’d hate to see THROVE go the same way, though to be honest I can’t remember ever using it. I’ll have to try weaving it into a sentence and see whether I get corrected to THRIVED.

43. Valentine@40 I wanted it to be The Way We Live Now, but it didn’t fit.

44. Quality crossword. Thanks, Nutmeg.

45. ‘Native son’ is a common expression in American politics = candidate standing for election in his home state. Also powerfully ironic title of Richard Wright’s landmark novel.

46. sh@ 42 I have the impression that “weave” meaning “create fabric” has retained its strong ending (“she wove those placemats”) but has gone weak-verb with a more recent usage meaning “move in a wavering manner,” (“she weaved across the room”).

47. Valentine@40
    I see that Petert has already answered for me. ‘The Way We Live Now’ is a decent enough book, but pretty lengthy and not – in my view – as entertaining as the Barchester ones. (I first came across the late lamented Alan Rickman playing Obadiah Slope in the wonderful BBC adaptation of the Barchester Chronicles).

48. I read The old wives’ tale a long time ago, and it didn’t leave much of an impression – as a I recall, it was about two sisters living in a very inconvenient house at the corner of a square, and not much happened except them arguing with each other.

    No, if you want to read Arnold Bennett, there’s nothing like The card!

49. Muffin@48: – – yes, The Card is excellent (also a movie), but having read every novel by Arnold Bennett, let me put a word in for Clayhanger. Can’t understand the several grumpy words in all the above comments concerning MrB, but tastes always differ, I suppose …

50. Thanks PeterO, I am in very good company today in struggling with ASSUMED and agree it is not the best clue on show, also didn’t like Canute being “on the coast” – a resort eg Hove is on the coast, I agree, but surely a person is AT the coast when visiting it? (And I agree with essexboy@6 that he knew what he was doing hence Nutmeg using “demonstration”.) So that was my last.
    Thanks for various cultural contributions above as I was previously ignorant of the mistress and the old wives ( and strong vs weak verbs, clearly need to make progress in my German!) although both clued very well if not immediately solvable. But I had no problem with the other quibbles noted despite nearly falling into the prom trap – maybe I was just happy to complete this after a slow start, needing two location changes and a beer. Thanks Nutmeg and EYE CANDY my favourite.

51. [Valentine @46. Yes, that was what I was getting at. I come across weave/weaved quite a lot in descriptions of sports such as horse racing, football and rugby, where commentators and journalists see it as a new verb and therefore put weak endings on it by default, but of course the imagery is straight from the weaving of cloth on the loom, with the warp swerving in and out of the strands that form the weft just like your slightly unsteady woman weaving across a room. However, because this use is now so prevalent there’s a danger that the original verb will also end up being weak. I was going to mention Penelope unpicking her loom every night, but of course she would have been weaving in ancient Greek rather than Anglo-Saxon.

    The case of shine in the sense of putting a shine on shoes is more problematical, since it looks as though it’s a back-formation from “put a shine on your shoes” and “shoe shine boy” and is therefore fairly naturally a weak verb, but if this results in the sun having shined five days this week, when in reality it shone – well, it’s probably the end of civilisation as we know it.]

52. [PS Peter@31: SPOILER ALERT for anyone solving previous puzzles so look away now: the device you mention was used, with a twist, in Brendan G 28439 (last week) in my favourite clue of an excellent crossword – it took me ages to see it there but that has helped me today! I have seen it before but no idea where and when. I’d say “once seen never forgotten” but how long do you think it took me today to twig what a sailor’s arm might be referring to?]

53. rodshaw @49
    I’ve read the Clayhanger trilogy too. More enjoyable than The old wives’ tale, as I remember (it must be at least 30 years since I read either), and an interesting take on a love affair from both sides.
    I still like his sillier ones, though – Grand Babylon Hotel, and The regent (sequel to The Card.)

54. [btw I may have misremembered this, but was it Arnold Bennett who, when in Paris, always ate in the restaurant in the Eiffel Tower, as “it was the only place I couldn’t see the damn thing from”?]

55. Rodshaw@1: Here’s one just for you:

    It’s apples to oranges for old blades to do damage control [9]

    Very easy for you, I’m sure.

56. Rodshaw@1: Oops – that should be [3,6] not [9]

57. Les@55: Thanks very much, seems a lovely clue. I don’t see the answer at first glance, but I’ll certainly ponder on it.

58. pserve_p2 @30: As one living in the US, I saw NATIVE and thought ‘NATIVE SON’ which just means someone (usually a politician) born in the particular state it refers to.

59. A CASUALTY is also (SAY = for example) one type of person LOST in a battle (the other type being those killed) so 5ac has a third solution (as long as the TV series in question is indeed followed slavishly enough to belong to the CULT category)

60. Thanks to those who have explained how “native” gives SON. Not an expression I’m all that familiar with.

61. Valentine @40: I was a kid when Running Bear came out. In later years, I would agree with your take on the lyrics but as a kid coming out of years of Catholic school, it was a major change from the stories we were fed about evil Indians repaying people just trying to save their souls by putting hot coals on their stomachs. We were expected to believe these saints were martyred for trying to save heathens. Songs and stories coming out in the 60s and 70s showed who were the actual evil actors in the history of the indigenous people of Canada and the US.

62. [muffin @60 and anyone else who might still be around – here’s a musical postscript to the ‘native son’ discussion (in fact, it’s how I solved the clue!)]

63. Les@55 … would the answer to your clue be CUT LOSSES ???
    If so, nice clue, and very crafty play on my comment @1, and I take my hat off to you.

64. Muffin @54. I’ve always believed it was Guy de Maupassant who lunched at the Eiffel tower for that reason (although Bennett might have shared that view, so to speak).

65. IanSW @64
    You are probably correct. Arnold Bennett was associated with a couple of famous French dishes, though, as I recall.

66. muffin@48 In The Old Wives’ Tale, which is set in the Five Towns of the Pottery District, one sister, the comfy one, stays home and marries somebody suitable, and the other runs away with the art teacher, who turns out to be a rotter; she, the romantic one, becomes hardened and tough, and I think eventually goes back to her sister’s.

67. There could be a bit of a theme here. The story of King Canute is an Old Wives Tale, where he fearsomely squatted on the beach and assumed he could turn back the waves as the water quickly deepened He became a casualty of the showdown.

68. Peter Williams @ 67. Love it!

69. Les@55 and rodshaw@63… chapeaus (chapeaux?) to you both. Great clue given rodshaw@1, and I’m grateful the answer was provided as I’m not sure I’d have got it. Very elegantly done.

70. Peter Williams@67 also very good stuff. The joys of only getting round to doing the crossword a day late is that we are one of the (likely) few to encounter the later nuggets of gold…

71. Could someone explain exactly why bore = assumed?

    Otherwise fine and of course we had the answer – but parsing very unsure.

72. Joan @71
    To bear/assume a burden. pserve_p2 @30 objected to this on the grounds that “bear” refers to continuing to carry the burden, whereas “assume” refers to the action of taking it up in the first place. I feel that this is nit-picking.

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