Guardian Cryptic 28,455 by Nutmeg

61 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,455 by Nutmeg”

1. The letters across the top read BACKSTOP backwards, and at the bottom we have ENDPOINT. Can anyone explain the significance of these, please? Nice puzzle, thanks to Nutmeg and manehi.

2. Lots to admire and enjoy, as always with Nutmeg, although unusually for Nutmeg I do have a few quibbles. ICE CAP = mountain peak? COMES = ‘is produced’? WELL = attentively?? (Manehi’s valiant attempt at defending 17d depends on the contextual meaning given to ‘well’ by the verb ‘listen’. You might as well argue that well = legibly, because ‘to write well’ = ‘to write legibly’). And I do think it’s unfortunate to include a term that appears to derive from a racial slur, even if most people who use the word ‘welch’ are unaware of that and don’t intend any insult.

   I agree with manehi in ticking B & B, and ‘parr for the coarse’ made me laugh out loud (amazingly, I think both homophones work in every conceivable accent?)

   Well spotted Ali C @1, but I can’t shed any more light.

   Thanks Nutmeg and manehi.

3. Hands up who confidently put “horse” for 10ac thinking “ok but not especially cryptic, horse chestnut and all that…?”

   Perhaps just me.

4. Not me RichardK @3 but only because 6dn was FOI. This proved harder than it first looked and I had similar quibbles to essexboy@2, especially comes for ‘is produced’. 1dn proved to be very elusive which left me struggling for a while.
   Thanks to Nutmeg and manehi.

5. I will confess to having struggled with Nutmeg for a while now. Even Vlad’s puzzle yesterday was polished off quicker than this one, which I will confess had a liberal application of the ‘Check’ button applied to it, and I still needed manehi’s reassurance on parsing PAR FOR THE COURSE and COMESTIBLE.

   Felt like I’d been through the wringer today.

6. Ali C @1. I have an idea that the ninas may constitute an oblique reference to the unusual nature of the grid, whereby all the across solutions are either ‘backstopped’ by 1d, PAR FOR THE COURSE or ‘endpointed’ by 8d, BED AND BREAKFAST. Therefore, ‘backstop’ leads to the top of the backstopping light, and ‘endpoint’ leads to the bottom of the endpointing light. Any other interpretations welcome, and probably a good deal more persuasive, but I thought I would give it an airing.

7. Lovely as ever from Nutmeg and I’d not be surprised if someone finds something I’ve failed to spot that makes sense of the two Ninas spotted by Ali C. (Spooner’s catflap – I like your suggestion) I do have two small quibbles – one, just because it’s a chestnut I loathe in every respect. There are quite a few alternatives to ASTI when presented with A-T_: why do so many setters plump for it – and then make it an inclusion clue? As for ICE CAP, I’m with essexboy @2. I see it is in Chambers which, of course, excuses the setter but, even there, it would appear to be acknowledged as something that sits on top of rather than is the mountain peak. An interesting clarification from Wikipedia which, I know, is less authoritative: Ice caps are not constrained by topographical features (i.e., they will lie over the top of mountains). Probably splitting hairs but it could have been clued with a better definition quite easily.

   Big ticks for both long ones, esp 1d, and also for KNIGHT, OPERATOR, HIRSUTE, MUSLIN and SINGABLE.

   Thanks Nutmeg and manehi

8. I really enjoyed Nutmeg’s wit as always, particularly GONDOLA, KNIGHT, MUSLIN (COD for me) and the long down clues. Didn’t get the second definition of OLDIE as an old joke. Many thanks to N & m.

9. Happiness is Nutmeg shaped.
   I spotted ‘End Point’ but not ‘Backstop’.
   I agree that there are a couple of minor quibbles, already mentioned, but a real delight nonetheless.
   Thanks to setter and blogger.

10. BED AND BREAKFAST and HIRSUTE were my favourtties today … and I’m not usually keen on homophones. I was with RichardK @3, my FOI was HORSE. As with essexboy @2, I required reassurance parsing WELL TO DO and I’m not particularly enamoured of the clue. Love the ninas AliC @1. Thanks manehi and Nutmeg.

11. I agree with essexboy on both positives and negatives of this. Having got “caviar for the general” in my head for 1 down, even though it didn’t fit and couldn’t be right, it took me ages to rearrange the wordplay in my mind.

12. Much to like about this puzzle – it was certainly well-above PAR FOR THE COURSE. Other favorites included UPSTATE, WELCHER, MUSLIN and CORNWALL. In spite of immediately spotting the name of one of my all-time heroes, TRAD was my LOI (well, that’s jazz, for you).
    One sign of a well-crafted cryptic is that most of the answers can be solved purely from the clues – without help of crossers – and I suspect this came close for me, though of course it would probably have taken twice as long. Thanks very much, Nutmeg, for an entertaining puzzle.

13. Spotted the ninas but defeated by COMESTIBLE and ADROIT. HIRSUTE, ASPERSION and GONDOLA were my faves.

    Ta Nutmeg & manehi

14. Well, that was odd! First view and I had nothing until the light came on for 1d (and 9a) and from there it started to flow.

    Caught out by quite a few so a technical DNF but much fun anyway. Nice puzzle – no clue on the Ninas!

    Thanks Nutmeg and manehi!

15. Petert @11. I followed a different red herring for 1 down: the enumeration 3,3,3,6 immediately made me think “pap for the masses,” which almost fits what I thought might be the definition (“to serve uncouth folk”) and when the first four crossers confirmed it I almost inked it in. (To be honest it helped me to twig Firedog, Rite, and Hirsute.) Thank heavens for the salmon of doubt…

16. I had the same doubts as essexboy @2 over the off-centre synonyms in a few of the clues, but it didn’t detract too much from the enjoyment.

    Good use of homophones without incurring the wrath of Spooner’s catflap’s RSVP – 1dn especially.

    My other favourites were different from those of other posters: SINGABLE and ADDITIONS – for the smoothness of their surfaces.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and manehi.

17. Ta for the useful blog.

    I usually like Nutmeg but I found this a curate’s egg. Too many superfluous words IMO unfairly included for surface reading. eg. why “Ali” – did he have a trademark on a hook? “needs” to speed up? etc. Maybe just me being slow today.

18. Louis Armstrong did not play trad jazz. He created the music which was eventually copied by
    (typically white, British) trad bands.

19. Always associated trad with, say, the Dutch Swing College, not early New Orleans and Louis, but my music ed is patchy at best.

20. Similar thoughts, mij.

21. Same here, Richard @3 – in fact it was my FOI, and I was feeling very pleased with myself for quite a while, until I realised 6d & 7d had to be what they were..
    I also agree with mij @18 about Satchmo’s style of music, and was trying to work out how TACS could be anything to do with speed…
    Thanks, Nutmeg, & manehi for enlightening me on this and many others!

22. Gervase @16 – just one more thought on the homophones – I think quite a few Scots would pronounce ‘her’ differently from the ‘hir’ in HIRSUTE (a bit like the merc/murk distinction).

    Also – the second part of the homophone requires either a very posh RP accent (in which suit is pronounced ‘syoot’) or a Norfolkian/American yod-dropping ‘soo’ in ‘hirsoot’.

    To be fair though Nutmeg does garnish the clue with an apologetic question mark.

23. Not on Nutmeg’s wavelength at all.

    Bunged in 1d and 8d just from reading the clues and word numbers although couldn’t parse either. But they helped me to get quite a few answers and then the crosses and the descriptions got me more. But there were lots I couldn’t parse. So strange puzzle for me.

    Liked : OLDIE, HIRSUTE, WELCHER, MUSLIN

    Did not know AIT was an island.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and manehi

24. New word for me: WELCHER – and this word seems to be quite racist:
    “mid 19th century: of uncertain origin; perhaps from Welsh, on account of the formerly alleged dishonesty of Welsh people.”
    Surely racial slurs like this are to be discouraged?
    There were a few comments on the Guardian blog such as this: “As one of Welsh ancestry I cannot stress just how offensive 17a is. Please never use it again.” and “STOP USING THAT CLUE IN 17a! It was complained about a few months ago and it’s offensive.”

    New: Glyndebourne opera house – thanks, google.
    Liked MUSLIN, FIREDOG, HIRSUTE.

25. This took a while, with right hand half completed before I finally solved FIREDOG, unable to see which end of the clue indicated the definition. Surprisingly, the 1d golfing term eluded me for quite a while despite being glued to the TV pictures of a certain 50 year old defying his age in the USPGA on Sunday. MUSLIN a typically cute Nutmeg clue…

26. The east of the puzzle was finished before the west was started, but I got there eventually. Like GrannyJ@21, I tried to shoehorn SCAT into Satchmo’s clue, and didn’t get TRAD until almost last, the actual last being FIREDOG (not a well known object these days, but a nice clue).
    A few “Hmmms” today – same quibbles as other people with COMES and WELL and ICE CAP; not sure that OPERATOR=conductor either. Liked PAR FOR THE COURSE, HIRSUTE and CORNWALL and missed the ninas completely.
    (And after all the “usual offices” lately, we have a different one for RITE.)
    Thanks Nutmeg and manehi.

27. Much to admire here, as always with this setter, but on this occasion to many synonyms seemed strained or loose to me: character=person; office=rite; needle=spine; conductor=operator; will=attentively, and so on.

    Rather spoilt the fun for me today, but I did enjoy OLDIE, & KNIGHT.

    Many thanks, both.

28. HIRSUTE OLDIE + “needle” and “junkie” had me wondering about a Neil Young themette
    I thought KNIGHT was lovely and FIREDOG was a TILT but the “setter” as dog seems to be popular in crossword land at the moment and as always with Nutmeg the wordplay was impeccable

29. [Fiona Anne@23: I’m surprised that setters continue to get away with AIT since as far as I know the only aits (and eyots) in the world are near me on the River Thames. Chiswick Ait is probably the best known as a landmark on the Boat Race course, but there are quite a lot up and down the river. It’s a very parochial term, but one of those words that is too useful for a particular combination of letters.]

30. [Fiona Anne@23: I can remember my brother going to Raven’s Ait, when I was a boy and thinking it was Raven’s 8]

31. […and for information, there is pub overlooking one of the aforementioned islands in the Thames, called “One Over the Ait”
    https://www.oneovertheait.co.uk/%5D

32. Not my favorite Nutmeg, I’m afraid. I always think that a question-mark is the setter telling us they haven’t quite quite got a perfectly working clue, and there were quite a lot of such here today. Interestingly, the one near-miss synonym for me was not one of them: cow for subdue in CORNWALL. The former necessarily involves frightening, the latter doesn’t. But close enough, I suppose.

33. The historian AJP Taylor attributed the origin of the term “Welch” to the first person, presumably a Mr Welch, who used the Gaming Act 1845 to avoid payment of a debt. So should we avoid using terms that, albeit mistakenly, cause offence? A bit above my pay grade that one

34. 1 down was a laugh-out-loud for me, too. Cracking clue. Didn’t understand the nina. I always say “Bockstap” automatically, as Steve Bell’s rendition of Arlene Foster in the If cartoon (RIP).

35. Stumped by UPSTATE. The word never even occurred to me, though I live in perhaps the only place in the US that actually uses the word as defined. I’ve never heard it used anywhere but in reference to New York. So shame on me!

36. Ali C, Re. BACKSTOP and ENDPOINT ….. a reference to Brexit and where it has got NI?

37. re 17across. Thankyou to michelle for standing up for the Welsh. To clarify, the word can be spelt with ch or sh. Whichever, it has been pulled up as derogatory on many occasions, including in Parliament, and is certainly considered offensiv by many of us. To bodycheetah, whatever A J P Taylor thought, the idea certainly dates back at least to the 1780s; there is a nursery rhyme starting”Taffy was—” from that date.

38. Lots to enjoy but I share the reservations about “well” =attentively. I feel much the same about the use of “do” that cross up with various meanings. I recall do=cook on the grounds that “do the lunch” means “cook the lunch”, but on that basis, “do” could mean so many things. Do the weeding, do the washing up, do my marking, do ones exercises… does it mean weed , wash, mark, exercise?)

39. Cross… Oops, I meant crops

40. travellingran@37 I’m not suggesting people haven’t had racist beliefs about the Welsh for centuries – just that the origin of the word “welch” with regard to betting may not be related to the Welsh at all.

    MS@38 “cook” is at least listed in Chambers as a meaning for “do”

41. Despite failing in the NW corner I found much I liked, GONDOLA, HOOKED ON, and MUSLIN being among my favourites. I had not heard of FIREDOG or parr for salmon, nor could I parse COMESTIBLE. I was amused by UPSTATE being “further from civilisation” since many of the cities and towns in New York State seem vastly more civilised than the mess that is New York City. Thanks to both.

42. Thanks for all the possible (and plausible) explanations of the ninas. I’m still not sure. Maybe only the setter really knows!

43. I was tuck on almost all of the LHS after this morning’s session, and returned after a few beers to complete – which surprisingly went quite smoothly. Quibbles mentioned above also occurred to me, so I won’t repeat them, except to mention that TRAD was very far from my thoughts when Louis Armstrong appeared in the clue; I know Wiki is not to be relied upon, but “a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance” seems about right, and as mij @18 said, his style of music didn’t get called traditional until after he’d stopped playing it!

    WELCHER is a technical term for someone who doesn’t pay out on a bet when obliged to, and is not a slur on the Welsh nation or in use as an insult to Welsh people. It seems to me that this word is fair game in a Guardian crossword.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and manehi.

44. [Prompted by yesterday’s homophone debate (yes, I know, YAWN!) I was going to write something late last night about the sound that appears in English words like murk, berk, work and dirk, but decided to let it go. (Did someone say hurrah?)

    But now we have HIRSUTE, so I feel emboldened. Are there any other languages where these sounds would be identical? I was thinking in particular of ‘er’, which Eileen mentioned would be ‘airr’ in Scottish, as it would in the German third person male pronoun. And it’s the same in French (chemin de fer), Spanish (Bernardo), Icelandic (the fictional detective Erlendur) and probably many other European languages. Perhaps Finnish? Where’s Anna when we need her…

    I would guess that English is unique in having so many different spellings for the ‘ur’ sound. Which of course is one of the reasons why homophones are fairly common clues in our crosswords.]

45. I have given up on Nutmeg crosswords.

46. valerie @ 45 – I’m sorry to hear that. Nutmeg’s clues can be tricky, but they are so witty that it’s really worth the effort.

47. [valerie gradwell @45: There are times when I get nowhere with Nutmeg but there are other times when I nearly complete her crosswords. I always give them a shot because her surfaces are among the best in the business.]

48. drofle @46. I know what you mean, and I’m glad I had the time to devote to this puzzle. When I was still working I would likely have left it half unfinished, so I can see where valerie gradwell @45 is coming from. If I hadn’t got onto Nutmeg’s wavelength for the witty PAR FOR THE COURSE, I would have really struggled to get RITE and FIREDOG, and the reference to Louis Armstrong was more misleading than helpful. I’m not complaining, just saying that some Guardian crosswords take me longer to solve than I would have had to spare before retirement.

49. [sh @44: fascinating question, and I’ll try not to bore everyone silly. English is far from the only language where mergers (or mair-gers?) have taken place between previously distinct sounds, resulting in homophones in some regions but not others. Take the German Bären (bears), Beeren (berries) and Bieren (beers, dative plural). You can click on the links to hear the audio for yourself. There’s clearly a difference between Bären and Bieren, but what about Beeren? It kind of slides between the two, depending on speaker and region. Some speakers preserve the three-way distinction, but for many ä and e have become indistinguishable.

    Most English people learning German (and a good few teachers!) assume that the IER sound in vier (4) and vierzig (40) are identical. In fact they aren’t. The R isn’t even pronounced in vier (we’re not the only ones with rhotic/non-rhotic issues!) and the vowel sound is more like ‘fear’ in 4 and ‘fir’ in 40.

    There are regional issues in French too. Pense in Provence sounds like pince in Paris (and even more confusingly Provence sounds like province). And what about eau de parfum and Pierre Cardin – do they rhyme? The final nasal sound is the same for most French people today, but it wasn’t in the fairly recent past.

    Finally – how many homophones can you think of for 100 in French? Cent, cents, sent, sens, sans, sang, s’en… I’m sure there are more (but don’t confuse them with son/sont, or with saint/cinq/sein/sain!]

50. npetrikov @35 is absolutely correct concerning UPSTATE. Agreed in New York, it means “far away from the metropolis” which is in the state’s southeast. But in Illinois, those rural locations would be referred to as DOWNSTATE, since Chicago is in the state’s northernmost part

51. [essexboy @49. Fascinating! So, is there a crossword site for German newspaper readers where people write in to say, “That’s not how they say vierzig around here”?]

52. Re 23a UPSTATE. Interesting that in this context “up” means away from the main centre. In other contexts it’s the reverse. In England traditionally the “up” lines of railways go towards London and the “down” lines away from it. And you go “up” to university and, if you’re unlucky, get sent “down” from it.

    But conversely, downtown, as in the Petula Clark song, is the city centre. I had a vague idea that this was because the centre of a city would normally be around the river or river mouth and the outlying parts therefore higher up. But perhaps as AndrewTyndall suggests it’s because “up” and “down” mean north and south in New York State.

53. Lord Jim @23. Not up here in Lancashire you would be going down to London on train or in car. It’s obviously “down south”.
    Thanks to Nutmeg and manehi

54. Re 17a WELCHER: I’ve never heard a person from Wales referred to as Welch, (always Welsh), so the racial or geographical innuendo never occurred to me.

    It’s too bad when a perfectly good word gets stigmatised as racist because of false (or at least conjectural) derivations that are patently racist. To quote the derivation cited by Michelle@24, with emphases added: “of UNCERTAIN origin; PERHAPS from Welsh, on account of the formerly ALLEGED DISHONESTY OF WELSH PEOPLE.” So some racist lexicographer takes an opportunity to cast aspersions on Welsh people, and that makes word “welch” racist. It reminds me of the objections raised in earlier blogs to the words “slaver” (meaning to drool) and “niggardly” (meaning miserly).

    Re homophones, e.g. 15a HIRSUTE, can we not agree that homophones should sound similar to each other, but do not have to sound exactly the same, which would be impossible given the variety of accents of English-speakers around the world? So HIRSUTE is similar to HERSOOT, HERSYOOT, HERESOOT, HERESYOOT, HAIRSOOT, and HAIRSYOOT*. Can’t we be happy with that?
    * also AIRSOOT and EARSOOT in Bow Street.

55. Just coming on (late) to thank Nutmeg for a very enjoyable puzzle and manehi for a helpful blog. [You probably won’t see this, bodycheetah@28, but I am listening to Bob Dylan Radio on Spotify this week to commemorate His Bobness’ 80th birthday, and as well as the old Dylan favourites, I get a sample of contemporary 60s and 70s songs from other “like” artists. Just as I was smiling at your HIRSUTE OLDIE comment, “The Needle and the Damage Done” started playing. Spookily coincidental! ]

56. Even later, here to thank you manehi for explanations of FIREDOG and COMESTIBLE (which I only got because the name of a good local booze supplier contains it), sheffield hatter, essexboy and others for digressions and detail on pronunciation (I won’t add schwyyzerduutsch to the mix!) and Nutmeg for enjoyment of KNIGHT and more. Also as a plastic Taff to add my vote to those unoffended by the cleverly-clued WELCHER, in case anyone is counting.

57. Anyone else remember the Monty Python sketch about cheesy comestibles? It helped me get 19. https://montycasinos.com/montypython/scripts/cheese.php.html

58. [Nice one, Julie! Not just the singer, but the song too.]

59. William @27 A term for the Catholic mass is “divine office.”

    Upstate is north.

    Good old ASTI, not yet displaced by Rioja.

60. I hit send before I’d expanded on my note. The speculation about downtown being probably in the direction of the river sounds right to me, if fits many towns in the US, though not all, of course. Some aren’t on a river, they are (for instance) on a historic cattle

    Lord Jim @52 Upstate (NY) and downstate (IL) both refer to the up and down on the map. I don’t think there are other states that use those terms, though I’m not sure about that. In the case of New York
    State, there are those who say they don’t live upstate but in Western New York. If you look at a map of the state you’ll see that some of it is a straight up-and-down with The City at the bottom, and some more of it extends from the middle of the up-down off to the left all the way to Buffalo. The odd shape comes from being bounded to the north by Lake Erie and to the south by New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

61. I tend to avoid words like WELCH because they are seen as offensive by many, even if the actual origin is uncertain. I was surprised to see it show up in a Guardian puzzle for this reason, but I can’t say that I was personally offended by it. I regard the definition of UPSTATE as the actually insulting item in this puzzle (although again, I’d be lying if I said it bothered me a lot).

    I had a silly bit of confusion over 16dn: I assumed that “amorphous” was the anagrind, and couldn’t see how “for spreading” could provide a definition.

    I found this to be a great puzzle, with 20dn (MUSLIN) and 21dn (ICE CAP) as particular favorites. I understand that some people don’t like the looseness of the definition for the latter, but it didn’t bother me.

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