Guardian Cryptic 28,561 by Vulcan

55 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,561 by Vulcan”

1. Excellent Monday stuff. DEPICTS made me chortle

2. Well, that didn’t take long and was what you want on a dull Monday morning when Johnson is still in Downing Street…
   But some delightful clues – particular favourites PRIMA DONNA, WEAR DOWN, YOUR PLACE OR MINE, SENESCENT (though sometimes the last of those feels too close to home for comfort). I thought PEEP wasn’t the strongest clue I’ve ever seen, but I guess it did the job. Can’t make my mind up about 25a. I suppose the cryptic def works, but it feels like it ought to be either dis-spiriting or de-spiriting.
   Very minor cavils about an enjoyable puzzle. Thanks to Vulcan and manehi.

3. Several smiles today. DEPICTS, as noted by Bodycheetah. Also EXORCISM, LEARN ONE’S LESSON and CUP FINAL for the topical surface. BALKANS resisted for a surprisingly long while.

   Another APSE??? I suppose the problem is ‘apse’ and ‘epee’ are the only two ‘common’ words that fit the crossers. (opie, opye, spae and spue being obscure). And, if the other two crossers are employed, ‘apse’, ‘also’ and ‘arse’ are the only obvious choices. (ansa, apsu and asse being the rarely used alternatives). So two that Paul will be able to use; APSE or ‘also’ for everyone else!

   Thanks Vulcan and manehi

4. I always thought chicks went ‘cheep’ rather than ‘peep’. Also, never heard of ‘hard’ in front of ‘roe’.

5. NNI @4: me neither on ‘hard roe’ and this is what I learned from Wiktionary which was slightly more informative than most others which merely confirmed the existence of the phrase: hard roe: roe (eggs of fish), as opposed to milt (sperm of fish), which is also known as soft roe or white roe

   As for the chickens, I can’t see how a beak can form either a ‘ch’ or a ‘p’ !

6. enjoyable puzzle and excellent blog manehi as per usual.

   When I was solving I thought that widish was a bit borderlineish but Chambers likes it so who am iIto complain..

7. PM/NNI – Chick(en)s are reputedly capable of remarkable feats of oratory. If they get tired of ‘cheep’ or ‘peep’, they revert to chickery-chick, cha-la, cha-la, check-a-la romey in a bananika, bollika, wollika…

   Thanks Vulcan and manehi

8. Enjoyed this today. Thank you to Vulcan and manehi. A good start to the week.

   I’m reasonably new to 15*2 so this may be a repetition comment. I wonder about the use of a term like mashie. Will people under quite an advanced age or not devoted Plum readers have heard of this? I doubt it. Should setters be thinking about age demographics?

   Just, I hope, a non-contentious thought.

9. I made the assumption the WIDISH (probably pronounced widdish, I decided) was an example of Caribbean cuisine that had so far passed me by: thank you manehi for parsing it correctly for me. Obvious. Duh!

   YOUR PLACE OR MINE was a great anagram and DEPICTS was funny. But my cotd was CUP FINAL for the surface. Thanks Vulcan!

   @8 SteveThePirate: I think the joy about the Guardian crossword is the use of really old-fashioned words like MASHIE but also utterly new-fangled ones like aps in APSE. It really stretches you in both directions.

10. Excellent Monday puzzle. I love it when I can complete one despite not knowing all the words. HARD ROE and PURDAH new to me, and I had made a mental note to ask for WIDISH next time I ordered Carribbean food, until Manehi’s parsing helped me out. My favourite was the Gene Wilder & Richard Pryor visual I got from WEAR DOWN.

11. Yes, yesyes @9 – I was also going to ask for ‘widdish’!

12. Good Monday morning fare.

    I particularly liked YOUR PLACE…, and PURDAH.

    WIDISH is a bit contrived but perfectly acceptable (and a good basic clue), and I agree with NeilH @2 that ‘dispirited’ doesn’t really mean de-spirited, but I liked the clue a lot anyway.

    My chief (perhaps rather pedantic) quibble is that the Picts were not Scots. The former were the original Brythonic Celtic inhabitants of Caledonia, the latter were Gaels who originally came over from Ireland.

    Thanks to S&B

13. Did anyone else try to anagram Bachelor into 5a? I wasted time there before seeing IMPEL which I’d managed to miss first time through. Liked DEPICTS. Also I’d like to second yesyes@9 that the range of references is a definite part of the appeal of guardian crosswords. Thanks Vulcan and manehi.

14. Gervase@12: Mmm… yes, rather pedantic.
    I set off assuming that a Monday Vulcan would be dispatched very quickly — but it was not! The SE corner, with DEPICTS, EXORCISM and PEEP, held me up for a bit. I was fixated on using “auld” for the “old Scots”, and I agree that chicks don’t really peep, but cheep. I chuckled at WIDISH, RESTATED, “one’s less on”=”diary not so full”, and NEW LABOUR. Lots of fun here.
    Thanks to Vulcan and manehi.

15. Good fun. Ta Vulcan & manehi

16. Thanks pserve_p2 for reinforcing the parsing for ‘less on’. I’d missed that detail earlier.
    Hard roe and soft roe was a thing in the days when you could buy whole herrings. You never knew which you’d get. We’d eat the roe for breakfast.

17. Gervase @12: I always defer to the experts. Sellars and Yeatman, in 1066 And All That, explain the origins of the Picts quite clearly: “The Scots (originally Irish, but by now Scotch) were at this time inhabiting Ireland, having driven the Irish (Picts) out of Scotland; while the Picts (originally Scots) were now Irish (living in brackets) and vice versa. It is essential to keep these distinctions clearly in mind (and verce visa).” Simples.

18. Good Monday start to get the brain working.

    pserve @14; Chambers to the rescue: To cheep like a chicken. SteveThePirate @8; I learnt MASHIE from doing crosswords. I liked the simple APSE, RESTATED, DITTO, YOUR PLACE OR MINE and LEARN ONE’S LESSON.

    Thanks Vulcan and manehi.

19. … the Chambers’ definition was for PEEP.

20. Took me a while to get going on this – not sure why – maybe the weather.

    Good puzzle. Especially liked MASHIE (long time since I heard that term – and yes tried to think of a potato containing FE at first)

    Thanks to Vulcan and manehi

21. Lovely, fun Monday crossword completed here as the rain changed to bright sunshine, thank you Vulcan (for the puzzle, not the weather). I’m now off to re-read my copy of 1066 And All That – thanks PostMark@17 for reminding me of it.
    Thanks, too, to manehi.

22. Great fun, I loved ‘flu panic’ – there’s no shortage of panic at the moment, unlike fuel.
    Also, liked the idea of an empty diary as penance.
    Thanks to Vulcan & manehi.

23. So, a largely non-contentious start to the week if we’ve been reduced to discussing PEEP or cheep, and the Sellars & Yeatman version of history (thanks Mark @17). Some amusing anagrams and cryptic-ish double definitions to accompany my coffee. I lazily mis-read ‘diary’ and was looking for fewer cows until the penny dropped.

    Thanks to Vulcan and manehi.

24. SteveThePirate @8. This issue is raised here from time to time, but it cuts both ways. If you go over to this morning’s Quiptic blog, for instance, you will find that two contemporary expressions used in the puzzle, which, although I am of ‘quite an advanced age’, I would have thought were fairly well known, were completely unrecognisable to the first of the (at the time of writing) two commenters on there. Just as children learn stuff from adults, so adults should learn stuff from children. Perhaps I was fortunate in having children only when I reached my 50s, resulting in my absorbing their millennial cultural signifiers to supplement my own.

25. On the subject of archaic/contemporary words and expressions, one up to date abbreviation that I don’t think I’ve yet seen incorporated by a setter is IOT – Internet of Things. Out of pure curiosity, has anyone else encountered it?

26. [PM @25: Shakespearean tale-teller suppresses Freudian desire to achieve – briefly! – physical inter-connectedness (3) ]

27. Lovely crossword, thank you Vulcan and manehi. I thought apse @ 11ac was a bit of a groan!

28. BTW, it’s definitely worth taking a look at the Quiptic, which is at least as difficult as this one, if not more so.

29. Thanks Vulcan and manehi. Despite a few minor quibbles, I thought this was Vulcan on strong form. Like others, DEPICTS made me laugh out loud – great clue, even if not 100% historically accurate.

    NeilH @2 – EXORCISM came to mind instantly on reading the clue but I wasn’t happy about writing it in until I had some crossing letters for confirmation. And even then it felt a bit weak.

    PM @3 – yes, APSE again, but Vulcan deserves credit for coming up with an original clue (at least, I’ve not seen it clued as a homophone for APPS before, so that’s good enough for me). And the surface reads well.

    SteveThePirate @8 – Pretty much all my knowledge of golf comes via the Oldest Member’s yarns, so the term was familiar to me, though I have absolutely no idea whether it’s current or obsolete. But I think it’s a fair criticism (and I’ve been pretty vocal in the past about my feelings on setters using obsolete terminology, so should try to be consistent on this).

    PM again @25 – I’m familiar with the concept of the Internet of Things, but I’ve never seen that abbreviation…

30. Slightly tougher than a normal Monday but very enjoyable. Yes, mashie is an old word but too good to lose especially when used in mashie niblick!
    Thanks to Vulcan and manehi.

31. Good challenge, neither too hard nor too easy.

    I liked: NEW LABOUR, WEAR DOWN, DUNGEON, EXORCISE, DEPICTS, SMALL PRINT (loi).

    New for me: MASHIE, HARD roe.

    I did not parse: DITTO.

    Thanks, both.

32. [eb@26: funnily enough I was working with the same word! Foolish character in charge of using modern technology (7)]

33. Thanks Vulcan and manehi
    I really enjoyed this one. Despite quibbles, EXORCISM and DEPICTS made me smile, and LEARN ONES LESSON was great too!
    I tried an unparsed DRAMA QUEEN first at 21a, and with the X already in I was expecting a pangram. Not to be, though.
    I would disagree with Robi @28. I did the Quiptic first; yes, it’s much harder than this, but I didn’t find it anywhere as much fun.

34. [widdersbel @29: re IOT, here you go. ]

35. [essexboy @26 As You Like IT]

36. Thanks to Vulcan and manehi.
    Postmark @5 gave me my smile of the day – on the pronuncial limitations of avian mouths.

37. A very enjoyable Vulcan.

38. PM @34 – there was another bit to my comment that didn’t appear because I put it in triangle brackets, so I guess the site parsed it as html and my witty aside is lost forever. But the moment has passed now… Anyway, I’ve made a note of that one for future use!

39. Not really awake when I did this earlier today, so having tried and failed to shoehorn DRAMA QUEEN into PRIMA DONNA, searched in vain for a foodstuff to go into WIDISH or a potato variety containing FE, and tried to cudgel my brains into remembering YOUR PLACE OR MINE and SMALL PRINT, I did at least smile at DEPICTS.

    [I remember being able to buy cod roes, hard or soft, as a nice occasional supper dish to eat on toast.

    PostMark@25: I know the Internet of Things as a concept, but not as an abbreviation]

    I second the recommendations for Anto’s Quiptic: it’s a good one.

40. PM@5 … got me thinking about onomatopoeias in other languages – if you search for cheep or peep on this page you will see that they can make a whole host of sounds 🙂 … .

41. oh dear …. link didn’t make it for some reason https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-linguistic_onomatopoeias

42. [geof @41: Great link. Reminded me that in Italian dogs go ‘bau bau’ or just ‘bau’, and that in the Monteverde district of Rome there is a self-service dog grooming shop with the punning title Bau Haus]

43. Found this a bit sticky after a rapid and confident start. Took me ages to get MILLET and DITTO, and DEPICTS was also late in with a loud groan.

    It seems to me that EXORCIST, EXORCISE and EXORCISM are all viable answers for 25 across, as ‘job’ can be interpreted as role or task, and I saw nothing in the clue to point me to the intended solution.
    I did enjoy the surfaces in HARD ROE,NEW LABOUR and WEAR DOWN.

44. SteveThePirate @8 – out of interest, I looked up MASHIE in the OED. It says “somewhat archaic” rather than “obsolete”, a subtle distinction. I was amused by this citation, from Tackle Golf by J.Stobbs (1961):
    “Take a mashie, that is (in vulgar modern terminology) a 5-iron.”

    I tend to agree – far nicer to give the different clubs names rather than soulless numbers. Apparently derived from “mash hammer”, a type of heavy hammer used for breaking stones.

45. Thanks for the blog, sound clues, good variety, many techniques and a bit of originality. Just the job today.

46. geoff @41: sorry to be a bit late expressing my thanks but I’ve been on a Zoom call. What a wonderful resource to have found. Though I do hope setters don’t start to make use of it – the idea of a Tagalog rendition of a ticking clock being required knowledge for solving fills me with dread…

47. 23A reminds me of flanders and swan. Swan sings “to kokoraki” all in Greek, making the sound “tsu tsu”. When Flanders complains that chicks don’t go tsu tsu, swan replies “they do in Greece.”

48. I think Mashie was something akin to a 5 iron

49. Fine crossword and great blog. Thanks Vulcan and manehi. I have over the years been a bit critical of the vituperative nature of some of the comments here on Fifteenquared, and also of the endlessness of some of the comments, but today I would just like to say how intelligent, incisive, witty and restrained everybody has been, it has been a real pleasure to read all the thoughts!

50. [Asterix in French is a good source of onomatopoeias: dogs go OUAF OUAF (or when running away yelping, Kaï Kaï), a brick falling on somebody’s head goes PAF (and the recipient says OUILLE!) a knock on a door is POC, the crack of a whip is CLAC, a hiccup is HIPS, and so on).]

51. SPanza @49. It was a pleasure to read your plaudits. I’m not sure how intelligent, incisive, witty and restrained I have been today, but on behalf of those who have been, I say thank you.

52. Thank you to everyone who replied to my query. How nice to have a social media platform that can indulge in a reasonable exchange of views.
    (Good to see someone else enjoying ‘the oldest member ;’:))

53. As a very regular golfer these last 10 years I can confirm that the old words for clubs have not been used near me.
    Like others a chick going peep and hard roe were new to me.
    Thanks Vulcan and Manehi

54. [ Obviously no-one here is a connoisseur of that quitessential HARD ROE – caviare! ]

55. [ … quintessential … ]

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