Guardian 28,484 – Vlad

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Perhaps not as fearsome as Vlad can be, but no walkover, with the SW corner causing me the most trouble. No theme or Nina that I can see, but I could be missing something obvious (as I’ve said before). Anyway, thanks to Vlad,

 
Across
1 WHATEVER I don’t care where TV actor originally worked (8)
Anagram of WHERE TV A[ctor]
5 PASS UP Refuse to get secretaries drink (4,2)
PAS (secretaries) +SUP. Perhaps the definition is “refuse to get”, for added elegance
9 GUINEVERE Queen always surrounded by a lot of old money (9)
EVER (always) in GUINE[a]
11 REBEC Right to live in the city though it did have strings attached (5)
R + BE (live) in EC (City of London postcode) – the rebec is an old stringed instrument
12 NIGHTINGALES Watch it! He’s angling for trouble (12)
(IT HE’S ANGLING)* – a watch (I learned today) is a group of nightingales
15 ESAU Hairy bloke in middle of the sauna (4)
Hidden in the middle of thE SAUna. As Jacob, Esau’s twin, says in Genesis 27:11: “Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man:” – memorably recited in Alan Bennett’s sermon
16 INTERNMENT Put in grave situation — people in Northern Territory being detained (10)
INTER (bury, put in a grave) + MEN in NT
18 PROFLIGACY Debauchery of girl condemned (getting in quick) (10)
(OF GIRL)* in PACY
19 ONCE When caught only cuddling (4)
C[aught] in ONE (only); when=once as in “when/once I’ve finished this puzzle…”
21 STRAPHANGERS Unseated riders, those unfamiliar with a powerful horse initially restrained (12)
A P[owerful] H[orse] in STRANGERS – referring to standing passengers on London Underground trains etc
24 EQUIP Point to Sally’s dress (5)
E (compass point) + QUIP (sally)
25 SCINTILLA Touch wrong handle on boat, some might say (9)
Homophone of “sin” (wrong) + “tiller” (a handle on a boat)
26 SMEARS Makes dirty joke finally in second bar (6)
[jok]E in S MARS (bar)
27 PENNINES Chain fences round square (8)
NINE (a square number) in PENS (fences). The Pennines are a chain of hills
Down
1 WAGE Conduct was largely good at start of evening (4)
WA[s] + G + E[vening]
2 AS IF I doubt that oaf is about to show up (2,2)
Hidden in reverse oaF IS About
3 EMETIC Close to scene, police in charge encouraging evacuation (6)
[scen]E + MET (Metropolitan Police) + IC
4 ELEPHANT GRASS Plant hangers designed with petals (8,5)
(HANGERS PETALS)*
6 ARROGANT Superior skill keeps Josh’s associate at table (8)
ROGAN (as in the Indian dish Rogan Josh) in ART
7 SUBALTERNS Officers not the first choice to convert Poles (10)
SUB (substitute, not the first choice) + ALTER + N S (poles)
8 PACESETTER New era shortly — PC state the end of white van man? (10)
Anagram of ER[a] + PC STATE + [whit]E. A pacesetter might be “in the van” (leading), so a “van man”
10 EMINENCE GRISE Wise old head active in emergencies (8,5)
(IN EMERGENCIES)*
13 PENPUSHERS Go to collect new guides — they’re probably in the office (10)
N[ew] in PEP (go) + USHERS (guides) – this took me a while to parse as I was trying to make go = PEE
14 BATON ROUGE Somewhere in LA likewise being picked up in bar — you can bet on it (5,5)
TO (homophone of “too”, likewise) in BAN (bar) + ROUGE (what you can bet on in Roulette) – LA standing for Louisiana rather than Los Angeles
17 FLYPAPER Crafty old man meets a killer in the house (8)
FLY (crafty) + PA (old man) + PER (a)
20 BRETON Risk includes rector touching Norman’s neighbour (6)
R[ector] in BET (risk) + ON (touching); Brittany is next to Normandy
22 PLAN Clear but doesn’t have one idea (4)
PLAIN (clear) less I
23 LAOS Land of the Rising Sun holding American (4)
A[merican] in reverse of SOL

62 comments on “Guardian 28,484 – Vlad”

  1. Thanks for parsing NIGHTINGALES. I agree: this is not Vlad at his most devilish, but there were some beautiful clues, my favorite being 10d. Thank you, Vlad and Andrew.

  2. Some tricky ones today. I adored ARROGANT (having run through all the Joshes I have ever heard of). Dnk Watch = NIGHTINGALES and was all over the place parsing PENPUSHERS and BATON ROUGE so many thanks Andrew.

    And thank you Vlad for so much Tuesday morning fun.

  3. Difficult but fair, and therefore satisfying to finish. Like Andrew I found the SW hardest. Favourite was STRAPHANGERS for the definition. Not sure that PROFlIGACY is quite the same as debauchery, this being my only slight quibble.
    Thanks Vlad and Andrew.

  4. Thanks for parsing PENPUSHERS: like others I was trying to make go=pee, but this isn’t Paul… I didn’t know about the watch of NIGHTINGALES either. Liked the well-hidden (white) van man and the grave situation.

    Old Underground carriages had actual stout leather straps dangling from the roof for seatless passengers to hang onto, hence STRAPHANGERS.

  5. Like Andrew, made hardest work of the SW. For, e.g., flycatcher, had to remember fly (not sly) for crafty, per for ‘a’, and stop thinking anthropically…nothing too obscure or Vladishly gnarly, just a bit of work. With crossers in, penpushers was a bung … should have gone back to parse, but… For 14d, I got that LA meant La (naughty!), but again didn’t linger, so ‘yeah something with ban and rouge from roulette’…bung. Like yesyes, Josh’s mate rogan got a groan/grin. Good fun overall, ta V and A.

  6. What beaulieu @3 said, and I failed to parse PENPUSHERS, BATON ROUGE and FLYPAPER. Some quite lovely clues here, favourites perhaps being 12a, 16a, 21a, 25a, 4d, 7d and 8d. Delightful start to the day. Thanks Vlad and Andrew

  7. Argh – well-and-truly impaled today…

    Maybe I’ll go and re-do the Quiptic just to check the brain is still in there somewhere!

    Thanks (I think) Vlad and Andrew.

  8. More funsome tan fearsome today. Loved Josh’s partner-only with a couple of crossers did the pfennig drop.I think 14 is the state capital
    Great entertainment-thanks to setter and blogger.

  9. Not for the first time, the Pennines had me struggling. Great fun, with some lovely surfaces. After the first two clues I knew it was going to be a good day.

    Thanks s&b.

  10. Someone a while ago (maybe Gladys?) said that she never knew what to expect on a Tuesday in terms of difficulty. When I saw it was Vlad I thought it would be tough and for me it was. Started off not too badly in the NW but then slowed right down and even with the help of aids didn’t get the last few and needed help parsing some I did get.

    It is rare that an anagram is one of my favourites but I loved the clue for EMINENCE GRISE. Also thought ESAU and AS IF were cleverly hidden.

    Was pleased I remembered INTER for *put in grave* to help me with INTERNMENT. And I liked GUINEVERE – a change to have an actual Queen for an answer instead of as ER in the answer.

    Thanks Vlad and Andrew

  11. Well done Andrew – so many of these made no sense to me, until now.
    PER(a) and Straphangers would have gone to the grave with me!

    The latter is very amusing , the former, an education!

  12. Well I found that quite tough this morning. NIGHTINGALES was FOI with great confidence as I was entirely sure that this was a name for those nurses watches. Only when I came here did I realise the plural didn’t work in my parsing. Hubris…
    Add my vote for ARROGANT to the pile.
    Thanks to Vlad and Andrew

  14. Pace Andrew, I’m with MaidenBartok @7 on this one – I found it trickier than the last few Vlads.

    But highly enjoyable as usual. Particular plaudits for WHATEVER and STRAPHANGERS for their splendid surfaces, but plenty of other great clues.

    I smiled at ‘some might say’ used to defuse rhotic arguments. Like beaulieu @3 I’m not convinced that debauchery = PROFLIGACY but wotthehell.

    Many thanks to Vlad and Andrew.

  15. Thanks, Andrew, for explaining PENPUSHERS, which I couldn’t parse, and NIGHTINGALES, which I didn’t understand. I found a goodish source of weird words for groups of animals here. I think apes best expresses Vlad’s style and ravens today’s grid.

  16. Tricky puzzle. Last in was NE corner.

    Didi not fully parse 12ac = got the anagram, but did not know of a watch of nightingales; 13d, 14d (guessed the ROUGE bit from roulette), 8d (guessed it was an anagram) – got the defiinitions but how to parse?

    Liked WHATEVER, LAOS, PENNINES, REBEC.

    Thanks, Vlad and Andrew.

  17. What George @13 said.

    Some delightful definitions, etc: I loved the hairy bloke (thanks for the clip, Andrew), Josh’s associate, Norman’s neighbour, wise old head, white van man and unseated riders.

    I remember learning about the Pennine Chain in primary school but I don’t think I’ve heard that expression since.

    Many thanks for the fun, Vlad and Andrew for the blog.

  18. After the previous Vlad offering I recall thinking that I would never again go through such a grim grind (though mine was very much a minority opinion at the time). However, being weak-minded – and never able to resist a puzzle with many long-word answers – I plowed straight in to the current offering. Et voila – a surprisingly pleasant ordeal this time around.
    Those long words were mainly great-fun solves (STRAPHANGERS, NIGHTINGALES, PENPUSHERS etc), and even those five four-letter words were all cutely-clued, and could be solved independently, right down to LOI (ESAU), and approx. a 60-minute solve, overall.
    Thanks very much Vlad, you are happily reinstated on my must-do list.

  19. Vlad cements his position at the top of my favourite setters list with double ticks for BRETON, ARROGANT and PACESETTER
    I’d been listening to The Nightfly recently so BATON ROUGE must have lodged in my subconscious and popped up to interrupt my mental tour of Los Angeles

  20. Thanks Vlad and Andrew
    I filled in the grid, but failed to parse NIGHTINGALES (I thought it might be a TV programme about nurses that one could “watch”), PACESETTER, PENPUSHERS, or the PAPER bit of 17d.
    As with several other posters, STRAPHANGERS was my favourite

  21. I had Seth Rogen on my brain when I tried to understand ARROGANT — and lazily decided that one of his entourage must be named Josh.

  22. Managed to get there eventually, with the last two in PACESETTER and the tricky little ONCE. As with others earlier on this thread, ta very much Andrew for the enlightenment shone on the parsing of several of these. Didn’t see the connection between Watch and NIGHTINGALES either, one from a rather bizarre list of collective nouns or whatever they are called, particularly for birds. A Murder of Crows also springs to mind..

  24. I remembered the sitcom”Nightingales” (Robert Lindsay), which was about nightwatchmen, so I assumed the word was a slang term for them and biffed it in.

  26. Togs@23 I wondered if Vlad had been quick enough to include his usual topical reference. A strange coincidence if not. DS@24 I thought the same about NIGHTINGALES. BATON ROUGE was my favourite for the experience of finally spotting the misdirection. Thanks to Vlad and Andrew

  27. I didn’t know the watch of NIGHTINGALES and REBEC didn’t say musical instrument to me. I would have guessed a maverick French Canadian detective.

    I wasn’t convinced about the definition for 10d. Is an EMINENCE GRISE necessarily old and wise? Wasn’t Dominic Cummings the éminence grise behind Boris Johnson? He had power and influence without holding an any official position and was neither old nor wise.

    Thanks Vlad and Andrew

  28. I rather ground this one out, but I usually have trouble with Vlad. The top half went in more smoothly but lots of gaps at the bottom to begin with.

    I don’t understand the definition for INTERNMENT; surely, ‘being detained’ is interned? And ‘a being detained’ would be an internee or some such. I am more used to the definition of PROFLIGACY meaning
    ‘reckless extravagance’ but I see it also means debauchery. TILT is watch = (group of) NIGHTINGALES – I thought it must be an old term for a pocket watch!

    I liked the STRAPHANGERS and PENNINES among others.

    Thanks Vlad for the impalement and Andrew making sense of it all.

  29. Fine puzzle. Last night I got all but three in the SW corner as others have said. I woke up at 3am, glanced at the puzzle and STRAPHANGER pounced on me. FLYPAPER and then BATON ROUGE soon followed and then I went back to sleep.

    I loved EMINENCE GRISE = (emergencies*). Never can resist a good anagram.

    Watch of NIGHTINGALES was a TILT for me too. Lots of fun.

    Is there some particular association with white vans? Hospitals maybe?

    Thanks, Vlad and Andrew.

  30. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an indirect homophone before, as used in BATON ROUGE, where the sound of the homophone does not feature in the final answer, and I was nowhere near parsing that element of the clue. Fortunately it was pretty obvious what it had to be.

  31. Valentine @29 white van man is a term used by some people to describe a type of stereotypically self-employed, working class person. Often with aggressive broad manners etc. See also gammon

  33. Hi Robi @28

    Re 16ac – ‘being detained’ is a gerund, or verbal noun, e.g: ‘After ten years of internment / being detained, he was released’.

  34. Robi@28: INTERNMENT is the state of being detained: “during his internment, he learned Spanish, or found God, or WHATEVER…”

    Valentine @29: White Van Man is an archetypal British character: a busy builder or plumber who is always in a tearing hurry to drive his white tradesman’s van to his next job, and therefore prone to road rage with drivers who get in his way (often little old ladies like me).

  35. [Penfold @27: The Rebec is a very ‘thin’ sounding 3-string Renaissance violin played in the crook of the arm. Sound-wise it is probably closer to the modern Hurdy-Gurdy than a modern violin. I can’t find any videos of anyone playing the thing but there is an excellent CD of 14th Century Italian music by Jacopo da Bologna available on the Naxos Music Library that included period instruments including the Rebec. It probably came to Europe from Africa – the closest modern African equivalent is probably the Goje, a single string but played in the same way.

    (btw for those who don’t know, if you are a member of your county library, most have an arrangement with the Naxos Music Library for access – it isn’t just their CDs on there either; almost every major classical label is represented)]

  36. This was a beauty, the setter’s art finely demonstrated.

    When oh when will I spot the per = a gag?

    Loved NIGHTINGALES which slid in unparsed.

    LA instead of La caught me out and meant more time in SW than the rest of the grid.

    For once, with Vlad, more of a glancing blow than a full impaling.

    Many thanks, both.

  37. Thanks to Vlad for the enjoyable workout and to Andrew for explaining NIGHTINGALES. Who knew they flocked?
    I liked the resonance of a stake on red and the red stake of BATON ROUGE.

  38. Wynsum @37: Nice spot. Any idea what the original red stake was? I believe the town was named for it.

  39. [William @38 I understand it marked the boundary between two native tribes: the Houma and the Bayagoula]

  40. Loved this. Vlad on top form witha fab misdirection of LA. I do crosswords as a source of entertainment and fun and this really was up there with the best unlike yesterday’s which gave me little pleasure. Sorry to those who thought it brill but not me .Many thanks for the analysis.

  42. Phew! I found that really tough. Lots to enjoy, though. Didn’t know about the watch of NIGHTINGALES (I thought the latter might be a kind of watch, but as I remember they have something to do with the kit for horses). Loved SCINTILLA, PENNINES and PENPUSHERS among many others. Many thanks to Vlad and Andrew.

  44. Mr Paddington Bear and I found this hard. 1 across was our penultimate solve, by which time we were feeling exactly that!!
    Good to have learned the collective name for nightingales.
    Thanks to Vlad and Andrew.

  45. I am with those who found this quite tricky. I had to cheat on PENPUSHERS (which I would hyphenate) and I couldn’t parse it even after I did.

    Nice misdirection on BATON ROUGE. I also parsed it differently from the blogger: a homophone of batten (“picked up in bar”) plus rouge (you can bet on it). But I guess that leaves “likewise” with nothing to do. Hey, I like my clue better. (Yes, that’s how they say BATON ROUGE.)

    [Gladys @4: over here, public transit (at least in some cities) does still have straps from which to hang. They’re plastic these days. Interestingly (at least to me) it’s the newest generation of el cars and articulated buses that feature straps here in Chicago. (The straight buses don’t have wide enough aisles to need straps, I guess.) Of course, it’s been since March 2020 since I was last on an el that was crowded enough to have any straphangers, so they’re useless these days.]

  46. ginf@5, William@36 and perhaps other members of the British Reading Public: I think I said this yesterday, or recently at least, but the message apparently needs spreading: LA is the correct abbreviation for Louisiana. All states have a two-letter abbreviation, which is always written in all caps. Some years ago there was a great variety of state abbreviations — Massachusetts was Mass, California was Calif, and Ohio, which was already four letters, was O, Then they got standardized to the current two-letter version, I think about the same time as we adopted zip (postal) codes. If you write La on your letter to Louisiana they’ll still deliver it, but you’ll be in error.

    wynsum@37 I get that a baton rouge is a red stake, but where’s the resonance? Is there a red stake elsewhere in the puzzle?

    I found somebody playing a rebec on YouTube. Thin is the word. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8XxaRPpAwU

  47. Valentine@46 , the red stake is from roulette, coincidentally you can use the Martingale system for this ( drofle and Penfold ) but the casino will throw you out if they realise you are using it.

  49. Couldn’t parse PENPUSHERS or BATON ROUGE, so thanks Andrew for the enlightenment.
    In any case, these were made more difficult for me by having S+TRIP for 24a.

  50. Valentine @46; thanks for that. According to my Crossword Dictionary, some states also have 3-letter abbreviations that are not capitalised, viz: AL or Ala, AR or Ark, DE or Del etc. Is that right?

  51. What a sheer delight! Vlad on top form today. And I say that even though I struggled to get properly started and battled my way through. Like others the SW corner proved the trickiest.

    Favourites, of which there were many, were ARROGANT (for Josh’s associate at table), STRAPHANGERS and FLYPAPER (took ages to see the a=per).

    SUBALTERNS put me in mind of Betjeman’s “Subaltern’s Love Song”, that paean to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

    Sheer delight. Thanks to Vlad and to Andrew for explaining the collective noun

  52. Penfold @42 – thanks for the correction re martingale / nightingale. My confusion is probably due to having never recovered from the shock of going to Pony Club Camp aged about ten, to find I was in the company of about 100 girls and only two other boys.

  54. Robi@50 My guess is that those other forms are holdovers. Your letters will arrive if you use them, but official types never will.

  55. Valentine @54: thanks for clearing that up. Funny how there’s equal disagreement with our county abbreviations. Salop for Shropshire and so on.

  56. Quite taxing I thought, and I’m not a fan of the indirect homophone in 14 (and didn’t see the ROUGE reference).
    Had STRAD for 11 to start with.
    NIGHTINGALES is very good, must remember that one.
    Thanks Vlad and Andrew.

  58. Late to the party, but we need a moment of pedantry.

    So the story on U.S. state abbreviations is that the Postal Service has standardized two-letter versions that are always capitalized: AL, AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, etc. These were standardized in the early 1970s for mail. The Associated Press (AP) has a completely different set of standardized abbreviations of varying length–the above would be given as Ala., Alaska (no abbreviation allowed), Ariz., Ark., Calif., Col., and Conn. (note that as is usual in US style, abbreviations are still followed by periods–and in the two-word state names, AP gives them two periods: N.Y., S.C., W. Va., etc.). AP style is still standard in journalism. Other areas might use one or the other, or a mix of the two.

    The AP abbreviation for Louisiana is La., while the USPS abbreviation is LA. So Valentine and William are both right!

    Note that the Canadian postal abbreviations are expressly designed so that there are no duplicates with the US set. Manitoba is MB, because all the other possibilities correspond to US states. Meanwhile, Nebraska changed from NB to NE to give way to New Brunswick. The US territories (a.k.a. colonies) also have two-letter abbreviations, from which the Northern Marianas get the seemingly nonsensical MP (which stands for Marianas Protectorate, which the place hadn’t been called for decades when they came up with this system).

  59. I always get stuck on the compound words, like straphangers and penpushers for their weird juxtaposition of letters. So also defeated by the SW and DNF 🙁
    Agree with Penfold@27 éminence grise is a puppetmaster, not the actual head, and need not be wise nor old, just cunning.
    Thanks Vlad, and for your disentanglement Andrew; needed it today!

  60. Sorry Vlad I gave up on this one. Just too many head scratchers for me. PER = a ….. I feel is too tricky – so easy to hide the “a”.
    Well done though – you win.
    Thanks both

  61. Definitely a DNF for me with BATON ROUGE and PENNINES. How is baTOn a homophone of TOO? So I couldn’t think a word *ATOO. Did not parse EQUIP and SMEARS, wasn’t convinced by the equivalence of EQUIP=dress and forgot about the chocolate bar.

  62. I almost gave up on this, with five still missing in the SW this morning. Had to resort to the check button to eliminate SLIPPERS (those frequent causers of death in the home!), and finally saw MARS=bars (doh!). I can understand the complaints about ‘likewise’=>to(o) when there is no “oo” sound in the answer, though it didn’t bother me too much.

    Thanks to Andrew for ‘watch’=NIGHTINGALES. I have a book called An Exaltation of Larks, more than 50 years old, which has many of these terms amusingly explained and in some cases illustrated, but unfortunately I hadn’t memorised it prior to doing this crossword.

    Thanks to Vlad for much exquisite amusement.

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