Guardian Cryptic 28,489 by Vulcan

78 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,489 by Vulcan”

1. Umma was nee for me. The other new thing was posting early instead of last.
   Thanks Vulcan and PeterO

2. Best cryptic/quiptic duo in ages (as usual the quiptic was somewhat more challenging).
   However lots to relish in this cryptic, with a couple of obvious anagrams (12A & 16A) providing grid entry points. Enjoyed BOAT RACE and KEEP-FIT CLASS – among others – all the way to LOI (FEUD).
   Thanks Vulcan, for a very entertaining puzzle.

3. Mostly straightforward and fun, with a few trickier ones, as PeterO said. I particularly liked PSEUDONYM, not really sure why, maybe just the surface. Was not too keen on the “make a splash” part of BOAT RACE or the “people in line for awards”=heroes – both seemed rather weak.

4. I guess the splash made in 1a is metaphorical, i.e. publicity, as you certainly don’t want your oarsmen making any! But yes, quite a nice smooth Vulcan again this time. I knew Mount of Olives from Bach (the St Matthews..?), but not that a tyke was a Yorkshireman (never heard my Lancs rels use it, tho they have been known to utter the odd tribal gag, e.g., ‘the best thing from Yorkshire is the road to Lancashire’). Although some puppies do become rottweilers, I wouldn’t pick the latter in a word association test. Hey ho, enjoyed this, ta V & P.

5. Why did it take me so long to see easterlies? It was done only recently. Thanks setter and blogger.

6. Nice puzzle.
   Failed PUTTY knife. Guessed knife but did not know about Yorkshire tyke, and a quick google search of glazier’s tools did not bring up putty knife.
   Thanks, both.

7. Just realise I also failed to solve Coniston Water. I had guessed water, but never heard of Coniston. Will try to remember that for the future.

8. Nice smooth crossie. I did think that there would be a few traps for non-Poms: CONISTON WATER and TYKE have been highlighted, but I would also think that those not from [certain parts of] England would struggle with BAPS – a word I only came across while living there once. I particularly liked TROPHY WIFE. Thanks, Vulcan and PeterO.

9. Some real smiles in this Monday effort from Vulcan: I thought the surface for TROPHY WIFE was outstanding. The anagrams for PSEUDONYM, CONISTON WATER and PASS JUDGMENT were clever and EASTERLIES is smashing clue with good misdirection. And I enjoyed assembling PUTTY KNIFE.

   Same criticisms as Dr W @3 as well as not particularly liking ‘on front’ in BAPS (which is a clue/solution that has more than one reading).

   Coniston Water may not be well known to non Brits but is the place where Donald Campbell famously came to grief in 1967 attempting to set a new water speed record and reaching speeds of 300mph+

   Thanks Vulcan and PeterO

10. Coniston Water always reminds me of Bluebird: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluebird_K7

11. I also liked EASTERLIES. I remember drawing the trade winds on a map of the world between the doldrums and the horse latitudes.

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO

12. [Penfold @11: I assume Horse Latitudes was an intentional Doors reference? Based on the story of Conquistadors abandoning horses overboard part way across the Atlantic, I believe. ]

13. Well, that was a nice gentle start to Monday – all solved, all parsed, no obscure terms I’ve never heard of, no major complaints. Some great anagrams and neat surfaces. Thanks Vulcan and PeterO.

    If I’m quibbling, I don’t like “on front” in 1dn – a case of clue grammar being sacrificed for a neater surface. Wasn’t sure about LIES=“occurs” in 7dn but I’m convinced by PeterO’s example. Nothing else worth mentioning.

14. PostMark @9 – Coniston ought to be as well known to non-Brits as, say, the Great Lakes or Titicaca are to us. Even without the Bluebird association, it’s one of the biggest lakes in the Lake District.

    Baps and Tykes might be considered more obscure but still fair game in my book.

15. Fabulous puzzle just at the right level for a Monday. No DNKs here but not a write-in and as others have said some nice surfaces and a couple of giggles.

    [Near where I live are Tilgate Lakes in deepest Sussex, the last part of an estate once owned by the Campbell family. There is a plaque by the lake which claims that the lakes were once used by Malcolm Campbell (father of Donald) for testing very early versions and scale models of the Bluebird although there is some dispute over this. There was a pub called ‘The Bluebird’ which stood on the foundations of the Campbell’s original house.]

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO!

16. Great Quiptic – oh, hang on…

17. Thanks Vulcan and PeterO
    Yes, mostly good, though I didn;t like the “which can make a splash” either (an early idea, eventually rejected, was BATH BOMB). Some very nice anagrams.
    Wouldn’t “Do wrong again” be better for RESIN?

18. Like MB @15 I though this a really good Monday puzzle. Got a bit stuck in the NE corner at the end before getting EASTERLIES, HERE GOES and RESIN. Many thanks to Vulcan and PeterO.

19. Like others, enjoyed.

    Particularly loved IN ALL for it’s succinctness

20. Not the easiest Monday puzzle but a good challenge. I completely blanked on Easterlies and I’m kicking myself! Thanks Vulcan and PeterO.

21. Wasted quite a lot of time trying to parse Eisteddfod for7D!
    A very satisfying solve throughout though. I enjoyed it. Thanks Vulcan and PeterO.

22. TassieTim@8, as a never-resident, non-Pom I dredged up CONISTON WATER from the depths, presumably the Bluebird connection, BAPS comes up often enough here that it comes to mind when I see “rolls” but I have never eaten or even seen one. I was distracted by TYN?E and didn’t parse TYKE but should have. The one that regularly throws me is “attractive” = FIT. I think that is exclusively a Britishism and often wonder how they describe someone who can, say, run a 30 minute 10K?

    A pleasant, steady solve. Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO.

23. So all those times I was called a little tyke as a child they were actually referring to my Yorkshire heritage 🙂

24. Just what I needed for the first crossword back after a short illness. Of course, LOI had to be the clue referencing good health. Thanks Vulcan and PeterO

25. Re BOAT RACE, as part of a goodwill exchange back in the 80s, Cambridge university agreed to race against a Brazilian university team on the Amazon. Sadly, the Cambridge crew misjudged a particularly choppy part of the river and capsized. It led to the wonderful comment by the Cambridge captain in the post race interview, “…in those pirhanna infested waters, our first concern was for our cox.”

26. I also enjoyed this, but I do have a quibble. The clue for 10d surely needs ‘girl’ to be plural? as the ‘of’ already gives the ownership. But everything else worked brilliantly, I also DNK tyke as Yorkshire and as the Guardian is an English newspaper I see nothing wrong in having UK-related clues. And yes, we can fast runners ‘fit’, the use as ‘attractive’ is so recent that I assumed it came from America?!
    Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO.

27. Why did spellcheck change call to can?

28. [SinCam @7: because it can? More likely to be predictive text than an objection to your spelling.]

    A nice Vulcan: not too easy to be interesting. Liked PSEUDONYM for the used pony, and IN ALL for the neat surface. First met BAPS when at university in Swansea: the kind of softer flatter bread roll that’s perfect for bacon.

29. Enjoyed this, and the many subsequent comments about the BOAT RACE. I was watching on the towpath in 1978 when the Light Blue boat sank in choppy water, making quite a big splash or two. I wonder if any other solvers witnessed it that day. I also liked several of the neatly disguised anagrams – PSEUDONYM, PASS JUDGEMENT, and TROPHY WIFE to name but three…

30. SinCam@26. OF OLIVES . I saw that as an incorrect double genitive Of Olive’s? But your fix is simpler. Plural: Of Olives.

31. Very enjoyable. I thought the use of ‘puppy’ for ROTTWEILER was particularly cute. TROPHY WIFE was also great.

    Ta Vulcan & PeterO

32. Gentle but enjoyable start to the week. UMMA was an unknown. I particularly liked TROPHY WIFE and PUTTY KNIFE (I’m Yorkshire born, but found the escape tunnel before I was 2).

33. [PostMark @12 Not a deliberate Doors ref. I was just back in an old geography lesson. Yes, the horse latitudes supposedly got their name because ships stalled in the weak winds and sailors threw their horses overboard, but I’m not convinced. Wouldn’t they have eaten the animals instead of throwing them overboard? Then again, people are strange.]

34. Neatly clued and straightforward puzzle. EASTERLIES was my top clue and I’d echo what PM@9 and others have said. Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO.

35. I had no idea about CONISTON WATERS. I knew about Donald’s attempts at land speed on Lake Eyre, Oz. But I didn’t know about where he died.
    Wiki gave this up: On 23 March 2021, organised by The Ruskin Museum, two Hawk jets of the Royal Air Force staged a fly past over the Lake District to mark the 100th anniversary of Campbell’s birth. As they flew over Coniston Water, the jets dipped their wings in salute, in a repeat of a gesture carried out by an Avro Vulcan on the day after his death. Campbell’s daughter, Gina, laid flowers on the surface of the lake as the jets flew overhead.

    Avro Vulcan? Is there a connection there?

36. Am I the only one who found JUDGMENT without a middle ‘e’ odd? I don’t think I’ve ever come across it before, and had to look it up. I notice Ronald also used JUDGEMENT in his comment …

37. Not difficult but elegant and very enjoyable.

    Standout for me was TROPHY WIFE with its appropriate surface.

    SinCam @26: double plurals are perfectly standard in some contexts. “That is a horse of Olive’s” is the normal wording – it suggests one of several she possesses, whereas “That is Olive’s horse” implies only single ownership. “That is a horse of Olive” is not a valid English sentence.

38. Re 10D, if there were multiple horses/mounts in a field you could easily say “That’s a horse of Mike’s and that’s a horse of Olive’s”.

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO

39. …I meant double genitives, of course

40. Simon S @38: We crossed – because you were more succinct!

41. chrissevile @36
    It looked odd to me too, so I Googled and discovered that without the E is the more common spelling. See here.

42. Yep, I agree that double genitives are fine (see here, for example). How else would you tell the difference between a painting of John and a painting of John’s?

    chrissevile @36: Legal judgments are judgments, other judgements are judgements… except in the States, where they’re all judgments.

    Favourite today was RIVERSIDE, which also gave me this earworm, courtesy of Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO.

43. [Sorry muffin, there’s a whole lotta crossing going on.]

44. (essexboy @42) That Rosetta Tharpe clip is an absolute classic. I saw it on the original Granada TV transmission, and it was one of the things that pointed me towards a lifelong love of blues music.

45. [Times Refugee @44: 🙂 As Chuck Berry is supposed to have said, ‘My whole career has been one long Rosetta Tharpe impersonation’.]

46. Excellent puzzle. I have never enjoyed a Vulcan (I am usually not a big fan) as much as I enjoyed this. Some delightful constructions and misdirections. Perfect Monday stuff. More like this please, Vulcan.

47. I have no problem with double genitives. I use them all the time and so, I suspect, do most people who speak British English.

48. BAPS downunder. The earlier immigrants (Poms) used to be the bakers. Since then Vietnamese immigrants have frequently become the bakers. Baps is/are now more well known. As the Vietnamese bakers were influenced by their former colonial oppressors, the French, baps are sweet and doughy. Give me a rice dumpling any day.

49. Enjoyable Monday fare with many good clues.

    I’ve always spelled it JUDGEMENT, but then again I’m not a lawyer. DNK TYKE for Yorkshireman – if there are any Yorkshiremen out there, would you be offended by that term?

    I particularly liked TROPHY WIFE, HERE GOES and PUTTY KNIFE.

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO.

50. Thanks essexboy, for your elucidation of double genitives.

51. But wouldn’t you say that is Olive’s horse to avoid all that?
    I still think there’s something going on with Coniston Waters and Vulcan. Anyone?

52. Chrissevile@36…I bashed out the word Judgement in my comment without even noticing that it wasn’t exactly part of the correct answer for 12 across. Apparently my version with the extra “e” is not acceptable in “American English”.

53. Robi @49 as a Yorkshireman I’m not offended by much apart from London beer prices

54. bodycheetah@53; Me too. As a Yorkshireman I was called a tyke all my youth, and often it was said with a derogatory sneer, along with the adjective bl**dy. But unlike snowflakes almost everywhere else in the world I was unoffended, and in fact wore it as a badge of pride. I suppose in modern times I could have demanded a safe space.

55. Standard Monday fare, straightforward with some nice smile moments. Only clue that gave me pause was 7d – EASTERLIES, in retrospect I have no idea why.

    COTD for me was 13d PUTTY KNIFE

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO

56. Robi @49. TYKE for Yorkshireman – if there are any Yorkshiremen out there, would you be offended by that term? The “official” nickname for Barnsley FC is the Tykes, so I guess the answer is no.

57. pdm @51 – you could, but see Gervase’s point @37. ‘That is Olive’s horse’ implies it’s her only horse; ‘a horse of Olive’s’ tells us she’s a multi-horse woman.

    Similarly, I always say ‘a friend of mine’ because it creates the impression that I have more than one friend. 😉

58. Ark Lark @55. Only clue that gave me pause was 7d – EASTERLIES, in retrospect I have no idea why. Me too, and I think it’s because ‘occurs’ is an off-beat synonym for LIES. PeterO (in a comprehensive and occasionally witty blog) has given an example of its use in describing days in a calendar, but it’s an unusual equivalence and it certainly held me up for the longest time.

    I always use JUDGMENT and the version with an E in the middle looks weird, but Chambers has either as acceptable spellings, with no distinction between judicial and non-judicial uses (pace essexboy @42 – take it up with Chambers if you don’t like it!).

59. [I think the avoidance of what is being referred to as double genitives is a mistake similar to the use of “between you and I” (when “me” is actually correct), “it may have made a difference” (when “might” is correct) and similar instances of what I think of as polite-but-incorrect English. It’s something that my grandmother’s generation were taught – I remember her particularly regaling against “I beg your pardon” (when mishearing someone), and insisting that “what did you say” was perfectly polite and actually a more accurate way of addressing the situation. Presumably there were other teachers who did not rebel in the way she did, and have passed this “polite” nonsense on.

    The use of “haitch” to pronounce the letter H may be another example: it stems from the idea that the user wants to avoid dropping the (non-existent) initial H from the name of the letter, as though they were lower class and didn’t know any better. I have heard teachers (when my daughters were at school) use “haitch”, and naturally there will be new generations of their pupils perpetuating the error.

    Another “polite” error, which I see quite often on blogs and forums dealing with beer and pubs, is “I have drank that beer before”, or “I have drank in that pub many times”, where the word “drunk” is being avoided as though its only meaning is to signify being three sheets to the wind.]

60. I enjoyed that, though “booted” as an anagram indicator seemed a bit of a stretch.[ SH@59 I would venture to cautiously agree with your criticism of over-correctness. It’s something I have had enough of, but /haitch/ can, I think, be just a regional pronunciation.]

61. Sheffield Hatter@58
    [In Oz, I was led to believe that Catholics were brought up to say “haitch” (presumably an Irish influence), whereas the rest of us were told it was “aitch”. For all I know, that may be a (sub)urban myth, but it often seems to be true if you become conscious of such things. In England, on the other hand, it was much simpler: “aitch” = posh / “haitch” = common. Of course, that may simply be a reflection of the fact that Australians used to divide themselves by religion, whereas the English did (and do) by class.]

62. JUDGMENT is the US spelling. I thought we were still the UK so it should have an E between the G and M

63. Edward+Foster @62. That may be your view, but Chambers, as I wrote @58, has both spellings as legit. The Guardian, for what it’s worth, *always* uses the spelling without a central E in the newspaper. As we know, the paper’s style guide doesn’t extend its influence as far as the crossword, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a clue leading to JUDGEMENT any day soon.

64. An enjoyable Monday morning puzzle. 7D was LOI, I’d not heard ‘trades’ (not ‘trade winds’) before.

    I didn’t parse 6D, and think ‘those in line for awards’ is a bit loose for HEROES.

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO

65. Happy 4th of July (observed). Well, in truth everyone observed it yesterday, but today’s the day off work. Despite being reasonably well-informed about British geography, I’m afraid I didn’t know the lake. And over here “tyke” is just a slightly quaint word for “child.” Both clues were gettable anyway, with the anagram fodder only producing one plausible lake name and the PUTTY KNIFE suggesting by reverse engineering that “Tyke” must be a Yorkshireman. That’s what a well-constructed cryptic does–since there are always two routes to the answer, you’re only in real trouble if they’re both beyond you.

    Otherwise, a straightforward and enjoyable challenge.

66. TROPHY WIFE was indeed very clever and clue of the day.

    I’m afraid I’m not convinced by “occurs” = LIES in 7d. It doesn’t seem to be in Chambers or Collins as far as I can see. “Good Friday falls between…”, sure, but “lies between”? Would anyone say “My birthday lies in July”?

    Re CONISTON WATER, some clever clogs will try to tell you that there is only one lake in the Lake District (Bassenthwaite Lake). Of course there are plenty of lakes there, but most of them (like Coniston Water) do not have the word “lake” in their names.

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO.

67. On a scale from 1 to 10, 5 lies/occurs/falls halfway along.

68. Simon S @67. Thanks for the example. I can’t speak for others, but I was only saying that the off-beat nature of this synonym made the clue hard for me, not that it was either wrong or unfair.

69. 0 to 10 if you want 5 to be halfway along.

70. A nice puzzle for Monday–not hard, but lots of satisfying answers! HERE GOES was particularly pleasing to me.

    As an American TYKE and CONISTON WATER were new to me (I know of the Lake District but not the individual lakes within) but Putty-Knife was clear from the clue and crossers and CONISTON WATER guessable from the anagram and checkable with a search. Perhaps surprisingly I had no problem with BOAT RACE (we sometimes speak of a team being “boat-raced” when they’re being decisively routed, which I saw explained as what happens when a boat catches the swift central current) or BAPS–I looked into the background of the smack barm pey wet video and discovered the chip bap, in fact I invented the bap bap (a bun with a bun in it) but it didn’t catch on.

    I was surprised by JUDGMENT without the E which I thought was a US spelling but I guess it’s in the UK as well!

71. Simon S @67, thanks, that is a better example. Though I suppose the fact that it’s hard to think of convincing examples does maybe suggest that it’s a far from obvious equivalence, as sheffield hatter says.

72. Years and years ago Jim Toal (either as Tyrus or Vlad, don’t know anymore) clued CONISTON WATER as a splendid anagram of ‘two containers’.
    And so, unfortunately, my alter ego’s clue went into the recycle bin ….
    Really nice puzzle, more pleasing than today’s (easy) Times crossword.
    Many thanks to PeterO (especially for using the word ‘sound’ in the preamble 🙂 ) & Vulcan

73. Lord Jim @71 but would cryptics be half as much much fun if setters only used obvious equivalences?

74. Not only am I a Tyke, within that class I’m a Loiner. In 80+ years I’ve never been called either.

    Thanks to Vulcan for a pleasant work-out and to Peter O

75. I was aware of TYKE = Yorkshireman, as someone observed earlier, Barnsley FC are known as ‘The Tykes’.
    I particularly liked MOUNT OF OLIVES, I dug that up from RE about 50 years ago.
    TROPHY WIFE was excellent.
    Thanks Peter and Vulcan

76. JUDGMENT, I was told at school, is the Cambridge UP preferred form, while judgement is the Oxford UP one. My COD lists it under the latter, with ‘also judgment’: there is no suggestion that one or other is legal use, nor that one or other is US use. The same with acknowledgment, etc. I have always used those forms, largely as we did Cambridge GCEs, though I am an adherent of the Oxford comma. But as I am a graduate of neither, I have no axe to grind.

77. ginf@4 I wouldn’t say that some puppies become Rottweilers. Some puppies are already Rottweilers.

    I had never realized that the trades are specifically easterlies. I thought that they were the prevailing winds at a given lattitute, which might be opposite to those at a different one. So when a friend and I sailed across the Atlantic, we took the Northern route going (Boston-Azores-Falmouth) and the Southern coming back (Falmouth-Portugal-Senegal-French Guiana-Miami), with the prevailing winds in our favor both ways. I thought both sets of winds were trades.

    Thanks, Vulcan and PeterO

78. I saw BOA TRACE as something that could “make a splash”?

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