Guardian 28,532 / Boatman

68 comments on “Guardian 28,532 / Boatman”

1. The dance music is Latin without “in”.

2. 18. LATIN without the IN
   13. Yes Tor is a hill (Dartmoor?)

3. 18: Dance music is latin, without IN (fashionable), becoming lat.

4. Maybe Be a No is how to use veto? I think this is the first time I have ever solved a Spoonerism clue from the Spoonerism rather than the definition. I liked SACK, REORDER and RETIRE. Thanks to Boatman, Eileen, Andy Doyle and KJ, as I was bemused by LAT and TABOR.

5. I got the joke about the unfashionable dance music but I did not get the “follower of Yes” in 13d. Yes is a band but…? Anyway hope someone can sort that. Thanks Eileen and Boatman for today’s workout.

6. Thanks, Andy Doyle (again) and Grizz – and thanks KJ for Yes Tor, which I didn’t know.

7. The band Yes had a 1978 album called Tormato. Which for some long forgotten reason is why I am aware of Yes Tor in Devon.

8. Slightly tougher than usual, I thought. Maybe I’m just a bit dim today. I couldn’t fathom “(follower of Yes?)” at all – thanks, KJ @2.

   I had to do a bit of googling (I use Duck Duck Go, but you can’t verb that) for 19d. T_O_M_N_, with three of the uncrossed letters being vowels, is tough to get if you haven’t heard of the place.

   And I still can’t see where the O in BANJO comes from. As I said, maybe not at my brightest this morning.

9. Oh I see. Yes Tor and a rock band called Yes. I believe I should say “doh” now?

10. Miche@8 I really liked the suggestion from Petert@4 re 31ac. I also did not buy “Ban 0” as that would be a reverse of a veto!

11. The band Yes released a 1978 album titled ‘Tormato’. The album cover features a picture of Yes Tor (and some tomatoes)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tormato

12. There is a tor called Yes Tor. The band Yes released an album called Tormato,referring to the place. Bit niche, maybe there’s a more direct link?

13. Take the KING (leader) off JOKING to get JO ?

14. I’m afraid I found this a bit of a tedious solve too, but very nearly got there, stumped by LAT at the very end…

15. Bodycheetah@13 – that’s a really good theory.

16. As I don’t go to the gym, I didnt know LAT and couldn’t parse it either, along with RENEGADES and BUNGLE. I also took the bag out of bagpipe to leave PIPE for 26d, which sort of works until you get a crosser. SACKbut is much better.

17. I think Bodycheetah’s suggestion is better than mine for BANJO

18. Bodycheetah @13 – I’ll buy that. Thanks!

19. Perhaps Boatman will drop in to tell us.

20. The theme helped me to guess a few answers.

    Liked: ACTS UP, GONG and I laughed at the clue for 23ac which made me think of Trump.

    I managed to parse LAT but did not understand the ‘a follower of Yes’ bit in 13d although I know of the rock group, and was not sure of 31ac (the O).

    New: REGAL = a small portable reed organ of the 16th and 17th centuries; HANDBELL; ONAGER; CRESTA RUN; sackbut (for 26d), TOMATILLO.

    Thanks, both – and also Petert@4 for explaining the O in BANJO which makes sense to me now.

21. Bodycheetah@13: aha! Yes, very good.
    I really liked the Boatman’s Boatman clue — the plethora of possibilities involving I/me/my/mine/ I’ve/ I’m and bosun/crew/AB/salt/cox/RM/jolly etc had me all twisted up for some considerable time.
    And I thought the unfashionable dance music –> LAT was rather clever, too.
    Jolly fun.

22. Thanks for the blog , super duper crossword, nice to have a setter with some imagination.
    STINK BUG , BANJO and OCARINA are so clever , even simple clues like GONG and OBOE are well done. I love the misdirection from ” get leader from jesting ” .

23. Defeated today! The RHS went in ok but largely defeated on the left. I’m a big fan of Yes and I bought Tormato when it came out but still didn’t get 13dn! (Hoping the endlessly delayed Relayer tour goes ahead next year.) Thanks to Boatman and Eileen for putting me out of my left sided misery.

24. Anything harder than easy takes this plodder a couple of hours these days, by which time ennui hovers and ‘try a letter and check’ is resorted to, and so it was today. The acrosses at first yielded just intro, banjo (parsing?) and ocarina. Then the right side filled, then, fitfully, the left. Renegades was first thought, but the old ‘discovered’ trick didn’t click, sova biff. Got the Latin minus in joke (teenage dance classes … erk!). Thought avRegal was like a Farfisa or a Hammond! Tomatillo and cresta run were nhos. Been to Taormina and knew onager, so ended on an up, but a bit of a slog overall. Ta E and B.

25. .. so a biff..

26. The two “Boatman” clues were a real help today. If you’ve got 12a, where both Boatmans are I/me, then you can be pretty sure that the Boatman in 13d is going to be an actual boatman, according to the time-honoured practice of this setter. And the surface, with the follower of Yes, was brilliant.

    Many thanks Boatman and Eileen.

27. The YES follower did me like a kipper. I was thinking YES SIR and had SITAR in until I realised.
    After putting the dunce cap I rallied-the Sicilian location defied all anagrinders so I had to winkle it out.
    Should have asked my wife as she knew it-finished the letter in the middle
    Thanks Boatie and Eileen

28. Enjoyable solve with a few Boatmen around.

    I liked ACCORDION, BUGLE and CRESTA RUN, and thought RENEGADES was clever. I don’t think the clue for BANJO really works. If Bc @13 is correct, surely it should be leaderS, although I suppose JO could be a leader (as in Jo Swinson, but that is a bit contrived). Otherwise, I agree with TB @10 that it should be ‘How NOT to use veto …’

    Eileen, there are TWO many MEs in AMENDMENTS.

    Thanks Boatman and Eileen.

29. Robi @ 28 jesting= joking . To get leader ( king ) from gives JO ( king has gone ) . It works beautifully.

30. I liked the misdirection in 10 across: using “on (the) radio” for the anagram rather than, as so often, indeed very recently, to indicate a homophone.

    Taormina was a nice reminder of the sensational setting for the final scenes of Antonioni’s 1960 film, L’Avventura: maybe others were saved by that memory from having to check the word.

31. copmus@27 Like a 60s rock musician, I toyed with sitar too, (I tar after the last letter of Yes for me) It almost works.

32. Copmus@27. I followed the same false trail, thinking “YES SIR” and also “TAR” although I couldn’t put the bits together. A check finally convinced me of the error.

33. I found this hard, had to use aids a lot and still couldn’t parse some.

    But many made me smile when I finally got them so I enjoyed it.

    Favourites among those I did get were HANDBELL, STINK BUG, OCARINA, CREMATORIA, GONG

    [My first one in – straightaway although I couldn’t parse it – was TOMATILLO because I grow them – they make great green tomato chutney although this year those tomatoes that have survived the blight are unlikely to ripen given the lack of sun and so they will be used to make the chutney while the tomatillos will make salsa.]

    Thanks Boatman and Eileen

34. Thanks Boatman and Eileen
    I needed you for RENEGADES and bodycheetah for BANJO. Favourite ACTS UP.

    A couple of musical links from me today. First TAORMINA (which is how I knew it).

    Then my favourite folk singer.

35. I parsed BANJO as VETO = VET + O = BAN +O with leader of jesting (J) inside
    “How to use” hinting at having to do separation work on the word veto

    Works both ways though! Maybe mine might be too convoluted for a daily crossword

36. Fiona Anne @33 It’s clearly preserving season in crossword land, with Paul’s pickle theme and Philistine’s kimchi. I’m confident that chutney and passata will apear soon.

37. That was fun; I particularly liked OCARINA, CRESTA RUN and ACTS UP but there were a lot of other good ones.
    I didn’t manage to parse RENEGADES, BUGLE or AMENDMENTS and I am grateful to Eileen as ever.
    BANJO continues to bother me. I don’t think any of the suggestions really work very well, and it’s a shame we didn’t have “…to get leaders from joking with this instrument” or something similar
    Thanks to Boatman

38. Roz @29; thanks, I get it now!

39. spirit @ 35
    that is also how I had parsed BANJO – it made sense to me at the time and still does, but I think I prefer the parsing suggested by Petert now.

40. Robi @38 – Bodycheetah published first @ 13. I acknowledge priority.

41. Fun, though a few partings were elusive – thanks to those posters who spotted them.

    Standout clue for me was the &lit CRESTA RUN and I liked the clever use of ‘on radio’ as anagrist rather than (hackneyed) homophone indicator, but I’m getting rather sick of ‘six footer’ to indicate a member of the Hexapoda.

    Thanks Boatman and Eileen

42. Thanks Eileen for staring at RENEGADES for longer than I managed, KJ et al for Yes TOR and Bodycheetah for the BANJO reasoning which even then took more staring before I saw what you meant. I had to look up the port on Google Maps to resolve any doubt over the A/R order but I don’t mind that sort of thing, and interesting that it seems reasonably well known and even visited. I thought this was nicely tough and glad I made the early decision to stick to instruments of the musical variety when guessing definitions or parts thereof. Thanks Boatman.

43. Thanks, Robi @ 28- I’ve only just seen your post: I’ve had a friend here for coffee and we’re going out for lunch now. I’ve amended (!) the blog and hope there’ll be nothing more until I get back.

44. I’ve just noticed that ‘parsings’ came out as ‘partings’ in my post (autocorrect is such sweet sorrow – it took me several goes to get ‘anagrist’ to stick)

45. Thanks, Eileen and all – glad you had fun …
    Bodycheetah @13 – You have the right approach: “how to use veto to get leader from jesting” = ban JO from JOKING to get KING. I quite like the idea behind the alternative parsing, though it’s not quite complete – if “ban 0” means “allow everything”, the clue would have to suggest that the veto should never be used!

46. Gervase @44 sometimes I wonder if puzzles are sometimes edited by autocorrect
    At least this one wasnt.

47. I really can’t explain why some difficult crosswords are fun and some feel like a slog. This one felt more like the latter somehow. Part of it is I don’t especially enjoy clues like 19d, which essentially boil down to “scour a map of Sicily until you find a town which is an anagram of TO MARINA”. Also Yes Tor, while a very neat misdirection from the band, seems a bit obscure. That said, I should have got AB in TOR from the rest of the clue, which would have told me what to google.

    Hey ho, best get back to the day job.

48. Gervase @44 – I suppose parsing is parting, in the sense of “tearing apart” …

49. I thought it a fun puzzle, despite needing to look at a map at Sicily. What’s “interesting” about doing that is that if you’re looking an interactive map such as Google Maps, you can zoom in to see revealed progressively smaller and more unimportant towns, and the longer it takes for the one you’re looking for to show up, the less dumb you feel for not knowing it. Unfortunately, TAORMINA showed up right away!

    As for BANJO, appreciate hearing the intended wordplay from Boatman. I agree that “ban 0″ doesn’t work, but I still think the 3rd possibility, ” be(b) a ‘no’ around J” works well too.

50. Thanks for parsing RENEGADES, BUGLE. the muscle contraction in LAT,
    Eileen. And bc@13, thanks for parsing BANJO.

    PITCH UP for “arrive” and Skeleton for a sport are new to me. So was “Slimnastics” — where was that when we had the portmanteau puzzle a while back?

    I have to leave now, will read the rest of the blog when I get back.

51. Thanks for parsing RENEGADES, BUGLE. the muscle contraction in LAT,
    Eileen. And bc@13, thanks for parsing BANJO.

    PITCH UP for “arrive” and Skeleton for a sport are new to me. So was “Slimnastics” — where was that when we had the portmanteau puzzle a while back?

    I have to leave now, will read the rest of the blog when I get back. Pleasant puzzle, thanks Boatman, and thanks for the de-confusion, Eileen.

52. Thank you Boatman @45, I finally understand BANJO! How do you use a veto to derive leader (KING) from jesting (JOKING)? You BAN JO. Very good (and obvious when explained).

    (I don’t know if I misunderstood, but I took Bodycheetah @13 to be saying that it was: “How to use veto” = BAN; “(get) leader from jesting” = take KING away from JOKING = JO. Which is a bit different but also sort of works.)

53. Generally enjoyable with the obvious theme making it somewhat easier to solve — my favourite was the &lit CRESTA RUN; also fun were HANDBELL, RETIRE, and TUBA. I missed GONG, unaware the GG meant horse. Thanks Boatman for the crossword, Eileen for the blog, and Roz for explaining BANJO.

54. Tony @52
    It’s baby-talk – gee-gee.

55. KJ @ 2: A tor (in Devon at least) is specifically a large rock formation on top of a hill such as Hay Tor which I climbed many times as a child.

    There’s an annual competition run by the army called the Ten Tors, where teams of schoolkids, scouts etc. race between a selection of them.

56. Should add – a really enjoyable themed puzzle. Lots to like. Thanks S & B.

57. Muffin @54: Thanks, I never knew that gee-gee was baby talk for anything, let alone horse. Learning everyday …

58. Fun puzzle – I was defeated by TABOR despite having all the crossers; this is a new word for me. Also, couldn’t parse LAT until seeing the explanations here. Thanks Eileen and Boatman!

59. Oddly, Yes Tor is probably better known than the nearby High Willhays, which is a couple of metres higher and the high point of Dartmoor, Devon and Wessex.

60. Thanks Boatman for quite a tough puzzle I thought.
    Had [hip-] HOP for a while at 18, not confidently.
    Thanks to Eileen and the other learned contributors – I’d never heard of Taormina.

61. Gonzo @61
    Listen to the great song I linked to @34!

62. Many thanks Boatman and Eileen, and other contributors for various bits of parsing assistance. I didn’t have time to finish it this morning so put it to one side to come back to later, and very glad I did because it was most enjoyable, with a good variety of clues, all well constructed, and witty. 11ac was a favourite, 30ac is lovely, 5dn is very neat, 6dn is a proper dad joke, 23dn is beautiful in its simplicity.

    I got LAT from “muscle contraction” but the “unfashionable” dance music eluded me. Groan! “Follower of Yes” also went over my head. And I’m another who was foxed by the superfluous O in BANJO… Otherwise I was mostly on Boatman’s wavelength today (not something I can always say of this setter!) and everything made perfect sense. Very satisfying.

    Tony S @53 – you can’t have been doing crosswords very long if you’ve never seen GG before!

63. widdersbel @63: I’ve done American crosswords for decades, got into the FT 3 years ago when I retired (actually won a prize thanks to Rosa Klebb) , the G since the pandemic started, and the Indy lately, especially when Serpent, Knut, or Tees sets. Still GG for horse was new to me.

64. I think TAORMINA is just one of those times when hardly any words will fit, and Boatman did not want to disturb that corner of the grid. Boatman is completely fair about this, the word play and the definition are both very simple making this easy to look up even in an old atlas.

65. Tony S @64 – Ah! So you are fairly new to British crosswords then… It really is a very old chestnut in British cryptics. (But used to good effect in an excellent clue here.)

    Roz @65 – agreed, completely fair.

66. A rare DNF for me today, as I’d never heard of LAT. Even when explained here, I didn’t understand the muscle contraction, and then it suddenly dawned – contraction meant shortened form of the word! Thanks, Eileen for parsing AMENDMENTS, which totally escaped me, and thanks, too, to Boatman for an enjoyable mental tussle.

67. erike44 @67. I understood how the clue was meant to work, but I clearly don’t know the names of enough muscles, and I would never have thought of LAT(IN) for dance music.

    And my knowledge of places in Sicily is likewise lacking. I did know Yes Tor, though I was trying to make SITAR work for quite a long time. Defeated by the Spoonerism as usual, and several clues were unparsed. Toughest crossword since, ooh, maybe last week!

    Thanks to Eileen for some of the parsings I missed (especially RENEGADES). And thanks to Boatman for coming here to explain BANJO, which is probably the most seriously misleading clue I have ever seen.

68. Yes Tor was new. Got the Latin.
    Thanks Boatman and Eileen and the banjo solver.

Comments are closed.