Guardian Saturday puzzle 28,470 / Vlad

66 comments on “Guardian Saturday puzzle 28,470 / Vlad”

1. Sorry that I cannot agree with Eileen.
   After a quick glance through I suspected this would be a tricky solve, and thus decided to enjoy it over several coffees-sessions rather than at a single eyes-down concentrated sitting, as is my wont. Turned out to be a good decision – though the enjoyment factor was sadly lacking. Almost walked away from it after the two obvious anagrams convinced me that the WORDSMITHERY might leave something to be desired, and blatant KNAVERIES might dominate the puzzle. But gritted my teeth until the bitter end, with weak smiles at VERANDA and LONDONERS – about the rest, DON’T ASK ME ! – shall be inclined to give this setter a miss in the future.

2. ACD
   Thanks to Vlad and Eileen . I struggled to get Post-AVIATOR and HAPORTH, did not parse SAUNTER, and was glad to see an old favorite, ASSEGAI.

3. Thanks Eileen. Like you I enjoyed this and was left grappling at the end to explain 21a and 25a. I did know about Wiley Post so can’t plead ignorance. I was ignorant about NISEI though and had to seek Google assistance. In my limited experience the plural of TAHR is just that, the same as the singular.

4. Managed to get three quarters of the way through this (slowly) with help from the dictionaries and parsed all those I got. South east defeated me except for SUCCOUR ( which I thought was great). I was really pleased as usually get nowhere with Vlad.

   Other favourites were ROPED IN, VERANDA, IN TOUCH, DONT ASK ME

   Thanks Vlad and Eileen

5. Well done Eileen for finding the AVIATOR Wiley Hardeman Post! I was so far from getting that, along with most of the southern half of the grid, that the crossword has been sitting under a pile of recycling since last Sunday. However, a revival of the brain cells, following the England v Scotland match this evening, saw me complete the remainder in double quick time, including NESEI which I had forgotten, and TAHRS which I did not know. I even remembered ‘are’=A!

   One of my first in was HAP’ORTH, which amused me since there had been some discussion of varieties of this and similar contractions on General Discussion during the week leading up to Vlad’s appearance here. Favourite was SUCCOUR, partly because I had been looking for something involving MARK, which is the term used by con artists, and partly because, when the penny dropped, I had a little grin at the thought of the homophone police dropping in here later to have their two-pennorth.

   Thanks to Vlad for an enjoyable challenge and to Eileen for the blog, and especially for the aviator, Post.

6. Thoroughly enjoyed this, although it did require work on both days of the weekend. Thanks to Eileen and to Vlad.

7. NISEI, of course – forgot it again between solving and typing!

8. Oooops meant south west.

9. I had fun with this, but had the opposite experience to Eileen vis-a-vis how readily I got the answers. Some “easy” ones took ages. I don’t want to say that AVIATOR was FOI: firstly because it wasn’t (quite), but mainly because what I think is more interesting is how many and which answers one gets with no crossers to help – the order in which that happens is more a function of where the clues fall in clue order than anything. [Don’t know why I’m telling you this!]

10. Needed a bit of guess-and-check for aviator, Mr Post being a nho for me too, and ditto for aestivate, though it now rings the faintest of bells (probably from an earlier cw). Otherwise not as gnarly as Vlad can sometimes be. [And some nice resonances … I can hear my northern rels say ‘Tha daft hap’orth’, and I once sent a framed photo of The Kiss to a favourite cousin before her wedding]. Enjoyable, thanks V and E.

11. I liked it too. As for grantinfreo@10, I thought it was less difficult than other Vlad puzzles I have tackled before, as sometimes previously I haven’t been able to get on Vlad’s wavelength. Unlike rodshaw@1, WORDSMITHERY was my favourite clue! TAHRS at 13a was new to me (and rang no bells for me at all, Eileen) so it was a case of work it out then look it up to see if it really was a word. I had a bit of trouble with seeing the “LONERS” part of LONDONERS at 16a though now it seems really obvious. I thought the homophone indicator at 24a SUCCOUR “for crying out loud” was very clever and amusing. 22d THROB also got a tick from me. By the way, I also really valued the full explanation in the blog for 25a AVIATOR which helped me to see the extra layers there. Many thanks to both Vlad and Eileen.

12. Thanks Eileen. Similar experience to you and others. Lots guessed at once and correctly, then parsing proved fiendish. Ticks for 1A despite the iffy/clever anagrind and also for the Kiss man. Most enjoyable.

13. Liked VERANDA.
    New for me: TAHRS.
    Did not parse VIBRANT, SAUNTER – I still do not understand why TER = terrace.

    Had parsed AVIATOR as post/job. Never heard of Wiley Post.

    Thanks, V+E

14. Thanks for the blog. I had never heard of Wiley Post so I asked our AeroENG people about him and he is very famous in that field for his achievements and innovations. I wonder if a bit of reverse sexism is acting here for once, I suspect most people have heard of Amelia Earhart and Amy Johnson who are from virtually the same era.

15. Thanks Eileen and Vlad.
    I liked this, but found it remarkably straightforward for a Vlad, though like others did need Google to confirm POST, TAHRS and NISEI.
    [The 24a homophone reminded me that my grandfather used to tell a tale of a rich American visiting his ancestral home village in rural Scotland. Having been told that the parish church needed expensive repairs, he immediately provided the necessary money, and was invited to attend the Sunday service. The minister said a prayer of thanksgiving for the donation “Lord, we thank Thee for this SUCCOUR Thou hast sent to us…”]

16. Loved it! Most intriguing clue was AVIATOR with its so clever surface and it was the one I most wanted to crack. It turned out to be my LOI after following exactly the same thought process as Eileen, with the great satisfaction of the man himself popping up on Google. I feel we should have heard of him, along with the others.
    Huge thanks to Vlad for perfect weekend entertainment and to Lucky Eileen for loving it too.

17. Thanks Vlad and Eileen
    I enjoyed it, and was pleased to finish. LOI, after a long delay, was AVIATOR, resulting from the same Google as Eileen. I thought you would have found it easy, though, Biggles!

18. [beaulieu @15. Aye, weel, maybe, as they might say in rural Scotland. The last time SUCCOUR provided an answer in one of these puzzles (Brendan, #28439 on May 7th), William of this parish (@44) told the same story, in essence, only in his version it was a USAF serviceman who had been posted to Suffolk during WW2 and had made a fortune back home in Philadelphia who was moved to cough up for the church repairs. Are there, I wonder, other regional variants of this chestnut?]

19. Thanks Eileen and Vlad. I completed this, but needed this help with some of the parsing. ORATORS particularly puzzled me, but now is clear.

    I had to research the AVIATOR Post, which must have been a hard clue to follow for those of you outside the UK, unfamiliar with the recent scandal here.

    Michelle@13, it seems TER=terrace is an approved abbreviation by the US postal service in relation to the word as it appears in street addresses.

    BigglesA@3, TAHR was completely new to me, but I guess it is one of the words for animals which herd together, where the plural may or may not add S, like antelope or buffalo, or indeed fish. (It doesn’t work with sheeps or deers, however.)

20. I think for ORATORS the A is locked up ( inside ) not part of the anagram.

21. Vlad on a Saturday is an intimidating combination but, like Eileen and several others here, I found this a really pleasurable test – though, surprisingly, not one to outlast my usual morning cuppa solving slot. Much has already been said so not a lot to add from me. Like hatter, I smiled at HAPORTH (FOI), given the recent discussions. Real pleasure in some of the anagrams – WORDSMITHERY – which, like JinA @11, I ticked as favourite – and the delightful Cath’s Bedroom. And what a joy to look up Post and find him there – I was beginning to suspect as I parsed and actually looked up Laurens van der Post first to see if he had ever flown!

    Did any other fan of rock music wonder about Gene Simmons – front man of Kiss – when tackling 8ac or was it only me?

    Thanks Vlad and Eileen

22. Thoroughly enjoyed AVIATOR, partly because I’d not heard of this particular story and was quite amazed when I looked it up, and partly because having done so I realised how very neat a clue it was! (I actually did know of Wiley Post, but never made the connection until the anagram finally dropped out. ) Worth doing just for that.

    Thanks, Vlad and thanks, Eileen for the parsings I couldn’t quite sort out: ORACLE and AESTIVATE (which is a lovely word, especially for those of us in winter right now).

23. sjshart @19 – thanks for enlightening Michelle re TER. (I’ve only just logged on.) It’s used as an abbreviation over here, too – Chambers doesn’t indicate it as US usage.

    Roz @20. Thanks – I’ll amend the blog.

24. [Sc@18 – yes, it is one of these stories that are repeated as fact in many different variations, and possibly never really happened. My g’father was a great raconteur, and I’m sure many of his tales were true, but maybe not this one.]

25. In biology, aestivate is to spend the hot season in a dormant (‘retired’) state e.g. lungfish in a coccoon in drying mud

26. Had welcome and needed help in Flat Cat terrain with this one. Failed to parse VIBRANT and AESTIVATE. Chief assistant related similar sucker/succour story (beaulieu @15, S catflap @18).Thanks Vlad … and Eileen.

27. sjshart@19. Thank you, exactly, I too was thinking of sheep and deer. We share our countryside with tahr and I have never heard any use of the plural. Sometime when I have nothing better to do I must try to find out why there is a difference in the plural form of animals.
    muffin@17. Being an aviator didn’t make the association any easier!

28. Angus @25 I thought of estivate but didn’t even pencil it in because the definition didn’t work and the length was wrong. The alternative spelling did not occur to me. I suppose “when retired” could have a double purpose hear. “Spend the summer when retired” is a rather neat definition.

29. A very enjoyable, high-quality crossword. I got temporarily stuck in the SW, but then getting LIVES (to complete PRIVATE LIVES) and LONDONERS got me through quickly to the end. There were some cracking clues, and there’s no need to enumerate them yet again (!).

    I see that michelle’s question about TER = terrace has been answered (for both US and UK readers!), but I would just like to add that the abbrevations Rd, St, La, Ter and many others are now very common in actual road signs (in the UK), and not only in indexes to street maps. For example (near here), there is a road sign ROBIN HOOD LA. For some reason, I find that odd-looking and rather mean, whereas I don’t feel the same about ST, RD and AVE (perhaps because they are contractions and not abbreviations).

    Many thanks to Vlad, Eileen and other commenters.

30. A terrifically enjoyable solve. LOI AESTIVATE held out for four days, and I still wasn’t sure of the parsing, but overall a very satisfying puzzle where even those answers outside the boundaries of my GK (yes, TAHR, NISEI, AVIATOR, I’m looking at you) were gettable through scrupulously fair wordplay. Thanks Vlad and Eileen.

31. Re TAHR, I was reminded of Call My Bluff, where perennial favourite ‘bluff’ definitions were a) diseases of sheep and b) antelopes, both being an apparently inexhaustible supply of obscure words.
    Wondering if there was a combination of TAR and H, I looked up the list of Antelopes in our trusty pocket Bradford, where it appeared – bingo! – unfortunately it was misspelled as THAR which held us up for a bit!

32. Did anyone try and put in HARTS instead of TAHRS?
    Thanks Vlad and Eileen.

33. Many thanks to Eileen and Vlad

    Mr Beaver @ 31: THAR isn’t misspelled in Bradfords. Curiously, both THAR and TAHR are different sorts of Himalayan goat.

    I wonder how many clues have solutions that share definitions, wordplay and letters, and so require a crosser to resolve? (I don’t mean clues where there are two possible answers that use different letters.)

34. Thanks Vlad and to Eileen for the brilliantly concise and engaging explanation.

    I just wanted to add, while the crossword for the most part had some pleasant clues and witticism (I did like HORS-DE-COMBAT (war-horse in the antique Schoolboy Book of Howlers!) and WORSMITHERY), what really stood out for me was my LOI — AVIATOR.

    I only really got this from the crossers, and did the same search as Eileen (though I used DuckDuckGo) to find the intrepid flier.

    However what really struck me is that our setter has ‘smuggled’ an entire summary of this disgraceful episode from British jurisprudence and public life into the clue – so there is a kind of editorial content as well as a clue. Of course it may not be to everyone’s taste, and one definitely has to be careful, but it does seem noteworthy, at least for me.

    Bravo Vlad, and again thank to Eileen and all learned contributors on here.

35. Epee Sharkey @34 – exactly: that’s what makes it such a brilliant clue – and it’s not the first time Vlad has done this kind of thing.

36. A very enjoyable solve. Interestingly, my search for an AVIATOR came up with Wiley’s compatriot Henry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Post
    No relation, as far as I can see.
    Thanks Vlad and Eileen.

37. Another great Vlad crossword. Like Eileen, I particularly liked the Post Office and National Opera.

    I just assumed the Post was the type of employment, so missed out on Wiley Post. I spent ages on the parsing of AESTIVATE because I thought for some time the lot of drink was ‘sea’.

    I double-ticked the kiss man and DON’T ASK ME.

    Thanks Vlad and Eileen.

38. Eileen, I also enjoy an ingenious bit of separation as in National Opera here. I’m remembering one about the Ark Royal, so I looked it up — it was Oct 13, 2015, no. 26,701. Chifonie set it (haven’t seen him lately) and you blogged it. I also noticed comments by Cookie — she hasn’t been by lately either. Thanks for the blog, a pleasure over Saturday breakfast.

    And I enjoyed the rest of the puzzle too. Thanks Vlad.

    Like most on this site, probably, (except for Biggles) I’d never heard of a TAHR. Like fewer, probably, I had no idea what O2 had to do with a dome.

    Nobody seems to be an aviator any more, it’s been subsumed by “pilot.” And even more so “airman.” As I think about both those words now they feel like terms from the early days of aviation. My local airport, Bradley Field, is named not for a local bigwig but for a young airman who was killed in a crash there. why was he an airman, not a pilot? And has anybody seen Amelia Earhart referred to as an airwoman? an aviatrix?

39. There’s an excellent set of BBC radio episodes about the Post Office scandal.

40. Valentine @ 38

    We haven’t seen Chifonie lately as he died in October last year.

41. Thanks Vlad for a tough but fun puzzle, and thanks Eileen for the blog – especially for the explanation of 25ac, the definition for which completely eluded me. But yes, it is indeed a brilliant clue. Thanks also for the explanations of 21ac and 15dn, which were both far too convoluted for me to parse. Also nho NISEI or TAHRS, but they were gettable

    PostMark @21 – yes, was looking at that one for ages trying to work “Gene” into the solution, until the penny dropped. (Incidentally, Eileen, while we’re on 8ac – I took PE to be the internet TLD for Peru rather than the vehicle registration – sign of the times! Works equally well either way though.)

42. ha-daniel @39 – seconded for the recommendation of that series. It’s mind-boggling how they got away with it for so long.

43. hapdaniel @39 and widderspel @42
    That looks very interesting – many thanks.

44. I said of Tramp’s puzzle on Friday that “I like that Tramp’s crosswords often have a contemporary flavour to them” and 25a must rank as the best of all time – as noted by EpeeSharkey@34 and Eileen in the blog. Thanks also to hapdaniel for flagging up the podcast which I will listen to (www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf7j/episodes/guide). Like many it was my loi and I didn’t know about Wiley Post until I came here. Eileen said it all in her introduction for me so thanks to her for the great blog and to Tramp for another cracking puzzle.

45. Oops – this one is by Vlad – very embarrassing!

46. Thanks to Eileen for an excellent blog and to others who commented.

    As Wikipedia says, Ms Vennells has not as yet returned her CBE or repaid the bonuses she ‘earned’ from the Post Office.

47. Thanks, Vlad, for dropping in. As you say, this disgraceful scandal is not over yet.

    When drafting the blog, I initially included a link to this hugely comprehensive site but finally opted for the Wikipedia entry, trusting that commenters would draw their own conclusions.

    This week, I’ve been reminded of Arachne’s 2012 puzzle 25,721, with the peripheral Nina DANIEL MORGAN JUSTICE NOT DONE.

    I’m proud to see such puzzles in the Guardian.

48. Eileen @ 47

    Well said on all counts, I concur heartily.

49. Couldn’t get most of the SW corner. Quite a bit of the SE corner blank too, including the marvellous 25ac, which I really wanted to get because of the brilliant topical surface. Never heard of Post, though (like most), and took “and” literally and the P of Post as one of the initials in the anag. I did know (and get) NISEI, though, and enjoyed many of the clues I did manage to solve, especially WORDSMITHERY.

    22dn was one I didn’t get. Did you, Eileen? No one seems bothered by its absence from the blog. Maybe everyone else got it? I’ve just solved it now, having learnt what all the crossers are: [playe]R in BOTH* (managed). Beat

50. Brava Eileen.
    Biggles @27. Thanks, that doesn’t make me feel so bad.

    And thanks Vlad for dropping in. I looked up Vennells and and liked the multiple connotations of Post Office, even though I had no GK to solve this clue.
    That’s what I like about the Guardian crosswords. TILTs.

51. Yes Tony Collman. 22D was a challenge for me. Usually managed is ‘ran’. But interesting to see it as an anagrind.

52. Tony Collman and paddymelon – I’ve no idea how the last clue fell off the bottom – it wasn’t deliberate! My apologies to all, if anyone’s still there.

    I’ll add it now, just for the record. Well blogged, Tony. 😉

53. Now that Tony’s pointed it out, I’m surprised that no commenter, including me, noticed that THROB wasn’t blogged. What were we all doing?

54. [I’d also like to add — should have done yesterday — something about today to the US. Today, well yesterday now, June 19, was the first time Juneteenth became a Federal holiday, though it has been observed by some since 1865 in our Civil War. June 19, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, was when Union soldiers arrived in Texas with the news that slaves were free and had been free for over two years. Juneteenth since then has been whichever Saturday in June fell on a “-teenth” date. A lot of the country didn’t know about it, but black Americans, especially in Texas, have celebrated it ever since. Our usually contentious Senate adopted it unanimously, and the House nearly so, and President Biden gladly signed it. Now as a Federal holiday it will always be on the 19th, and probably celebrated on Saturday the ‘teenth.]

55. Paddymelon@51, yes, I was trying to interpret “managed” as ‘ran’ for a long time. I never got any of the crossing answers when solving , finally cracked the clue after learning here what all the crossers were and reverse-engineering the wordplay after considering what words might fit the template T_R_B.

56. [Valentine @54. Thanks for the info about Juneteenth. So the slaves were freed but nobody bothered to tell them for two years? About par for the course.]

57. Hi Valentine @54

    Thanks for that. I did actually hear something about it on the radio yesterday – for the first time ever!

58. Eileen — you probably heard about it yesterday for the first time ever because it was a Federal holiday for the first time ever, though it had been important to people for over a century and a half.

    essexboy — it’s not so much that nobody got around to telling the slaves in
    Texas as that those in power carefully concealed it. Something I just learned yesterday is that slaveholders (I refuse to say slaveowners) in Virginia and I think other Confederate states saw emancipation coming and relocated to Texas, a backwater where they correctly figured that word wouldn’t get there for some time. So the slave population of Texas grew rapidly in the mid-1860’s with many people who would have been free if they’d been able to stay in the Good Ole South country.

59. Ooops — sorry, I meant sheffield hatter, not essexboy. Sorry, sh.

60. Valentine @58 – yes, I remember now: that’s exactly what I heard. (That’s me, listening to the radio in bed before I’m properly awake.) 😉

61. Valentine if you read this, I once read that the Alamo was about defending slavery rather than some heroic defeat ( Kurt Vonnegut I think ) . Do you have the full story on this ?
    Also on Juneteenth didn’t Trump want to hold a rally in a very inappropriate place ?
    ( I do not use the internet )

62. No thanks for this one. 25a was a rubbish clue. Using such an obscure person (Post) for the definition puts Vlad firmly in the category of timewaster.

63. Roz — oddly enough I just heard a radio program on Wednesday interviewing the author of a book called Forget the Alamo making exactly your point. You may be able to track it down. I know you don’t use the computer, but I’ll put the link in anyway in case someone else is interested.

    https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2021/06/16/1007160857/fresh-air-for- june-16-2021-challenging-the-myths-of-the-alamo

    I didn’t remember Trump’s inappropriate rally, but a git og googling showed me that last June he wanted to hold a rally on Juneteenth in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the site of a murderous riot there a hundred years ago, in 1921, on may 31 – June 1. White vigilantes killed some 300 people and destroyed Greenwood, a prosperous neighborhood known as “Black Wall Street.” There was considerable outcry about the disrespect of the time and the place until Trump rescheduled the rally to June 20 and then boasted that he had “made Juneteenth famous.” It was famous before, of course, but mostly to black people, who apparently don’t count.

64. Thank you very much Valentine, I had a vague memory of Trump but your version makes a lot of sense now.
    When I have time I will try and track down the Kurt Vonnegut reference but it is tricky to think of which book it is in , or it may be one of his rambling introductions.

65. I enjoyed this and was extremely pleased with myself for almost finishing a Vlad! Thinking THAR was the answer I looked it up and put it in the grid, thinking a word like that couldn’t possibly be wrong… then couldn’t do 1d. Also didn’t get 21a, BRAND not occurring to me for ‘make’.

66. Valentine@63, many thanks for the NPR link. It’s all about telling (making up) a story, isn’t it? And they’re still making them up.

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