Guardian 28,592 / Tramp

72 comments on “Guardian 28,592 / Tramp”

1. What Eileen said – now there’s a surprise 🙂

   Thanks to her and Tramp

2. A little tougher than yesterday but good fun. Thanks Tramp and Eileen.

3. Enjoyed this. Spent ages trying to fit transgressions into 1d. Mortified to think my prime time of life is a period in history now. Definitely think the Tories need an 8,5.

4. Thank you Eileen, you’ve pretty much covered what I wanted to say!

   STARS AND STRIPES was delightfully concealed and CANTILEVER earned another tick.

   Felt instruments for EQUIPMENT a tad loose and TESSELLATE was perhaps the weakest clue but other than those trivial quibbles, a delight from start to finish.

   Didn’t know STYE without the E, and checking AGNATE yielded the antonym enate. Super to find new words like that.

   Many thanks, Tramp.

5. Found this tough but satisfying. A dnf due to use of the check button. Lots to like. Thanks to Tramp and Eileen

6. What Eileen said.

7. I thought this would take me all day at first reading. Eileen, I parsed ROGER as I picked up sounds like aye. I got started with the smooth CALVE and steadily worked my way up to the NW. I liked ROGER, EGOMANIA, STODGY, CANTILEVER, VOICED and the brilliant ORAL HYGIENISTS. PRIVATE was incisive and I would suggest PULLOVER is an &lit. Very clever setter with lots of misdirections.

   Ta Tramp & Eileen

8. I parsed ROGER as a homophone (picked up) of I = AYE, as in aye captain.

   Lots to love today brilliant anagrams, and just the right amount of cheek and wit. CONTINENT made me laugh.

   Thanks Tramp and Eileen

9. After a tricky start, I found this easier than either of yesterday’s, though no pushover. I did fail to parse everything, though spending a little more time might have helped.

   I had POLE for POST for a short time.

10. A fine puzzle, though I needed a little help to complete it. STARS AND STRIPES, CANTILEVER were excellent. Ironically I liked SINKABLE for the surface. I parsed ROGER as Eileen did.

11. STARS AND STRIPES went straight in and helped to get things going. But I did not find this that easy. I agree with much of what Eileen said (what’s new) and I enjoyed the wit and naughtiness. Favourites ROGER, ORAL HYGIENISTS (for the Tory lying reference) and CALVE. Many thanks Tramp and of course as ever Eileen.
    PS I also could not detect a theme and I enjoy Tramp more when he does not have one!

12. Superb, thanks Tramp & Eileen, I loved all of it.
    I saw 18d as a PULL LOVER splice, failing to register ‘on’ – mea culpa.
    And PRIVATE has some spice!

13. Didn’t think of I/aye, so parsed Roger as ‘I heard that’ even tho ‘I picked up that’ is a bit clunky. Nice puzzle though. Partners + sadists … hmm [maybe a setter will do one for our Macron + our clown of a PM]. Vaguely remembered agnate, no doubt from an earlier puzzle. Much enjoyed, ta Tramp and Eileen.

14. Tough puzzle.

    Favourites: PRIVATE, SOMEDAY, VOICED (loi).

    I did not parse: 16ac; 18d.

    Thanks, both.

15. Splendid crossword with many clever constructions and misdirections. The long anagrams are very good; too many other excellent clues to enumerate.

    Eileen’s parsing of ROGER is surely correct – in radio communication terminology it doesn’t mean ‘yes’ (aye) but ‘message received & understood ‘.

    I’ve always liked Tramp’s puzzles but I find his athematic ones are especially enjoyable.

    Many thanks to Neil and Eileen.

16. [… just Macron, not ‘our Macron’…]

17. Gervase @15: I have friends who informally say ROGER when they mean yes, understood.

18. Found this a bit heavy going but once I’d finished and looked back at it I can’t think why – and only two unparsed.

    Agree that the long anagrams were good.

    Thought CALVE and CANOPY were neat.

    Never heard of AGNATE.

    Thanks to Tramp and Eileen

19. Lovely stuff. Particular favourites SOMEDAY, STARS AND STRIPES (post-Guantanamo, getting off with sadists is about right), PRIVATE (I’d completely missed the reference to the royal who, unlike Harry apparently, has not let the side down – thank you AlanC @7 and wynsum @12), ORAL HYGIENISTS (loathing the Blues and having a daughter-in-law who works in dentistry…).
    Thanks to Tramp and Eileen.

20. I took a while to get going with this; as Eileen said there were lots of clever misdirections.

    INSTALL for plant, ha ha, I spent ages looking at lists of plants in Bradford’s. Good anagrams of partners and sadists, and Tories lying. I also really liked STODGY. I’m still not quite sure of one foot for RIGHT. I do realise one can have a right or left foot, but I wouldn’t say: “I’ll put a sock on my right”. Chambers gives for RIGHT: ’14.A glove, shoe, etc for the right hand, foot, etc’.

    Thanks Tramp and Eileen.

21. Thanks Tramp and Eileen
    Worth it for the wonderful anagram for STARS AND STRIPES!

22. Very good.

23. Like Wynsum@18 I was puzzled by 18d, thinking there was some kind of error, as I had LOVER as the sex partner, which left me with PUL, and no suggestion why an L had been removed. Thought the grid today helped greatly in that I was able to slowly drip feed my (rather tentative at times) solutions from a general NW region of the puzzle down to the SE corner, with CALVE the last one in, cleverly hidden from me all this time, as I was so unsure of PULLOVER.
    Excellent clueing throughout, liked the long anagrams, though don’t much like S for School in 19ac.

24. Robi @ 20 I think it’s OK on its own, as the clue provides context, as in “Which foot did you injure?” “The right”.

    Thanks Tramp and Eileen.

25. Completely missed Him and Va, nwst the Oz connection, ta wynsum @12 et al … clever Tramp!

26. Nice puzzle, nice blog.

    I was a bit surprised at the STY spelling of STYE. Anyone know a way to find out how often in practice it (the eye problem) is spelled one way rather than the other? Just doing a search and comparing the estimated numbers of hits doesn’t work because that conflates all meanings (i.e. pigpen).

27. I think there will be little but praise today, not least for Eileen’s super parsing of ROGER which zoomed past this lazybones. I was pleased to crack STODGY and ORAL HYGIENISTS and, like Chardonneret@3, was somewhat startled to find the SEVENTIES categorised as an historical period (as far as I am concerned history begins (ends?) sometime in the early sixties.

    Thanks both

28. Dr WhatsOn @26 – for what it’s worth, Chambers gives ‘sty’ as the first spelling and Collins ‘stye’!

    I’m surprised that people didn’t spot what I meant by ‘naughty topical references’ re 22ac. (I gave that one a double tick. 😉 )

29. Alphalpha@27…in 1963 to be precise…? According to Larkin, with particular reference to 18d today…

30. [Much enjoying the refs to what/when is history, just as (the late) Mrs gjnf and I enjoyed exclaiming “History!?? That was, like, yesterday!” when helping with our kids’ school history assignments]

31. Another gem from Tramp just as Eileen said.

    Thanks both!

32. A very enjoyable puzzle, though needind some check button here and there. But I’m puzzled by Eileen and ginf’s refeences to topical naughtiness — I must be too many oceans away.

    Thanks, Tramp and Eileen for a pleasant morning.

33. Valentine @32 – try this: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/26/prince-andrew-to-be-questioned-under-oath-virginia-giuffre-case

34. As always, thanks Eileen for the impeccable blog and the kind words. Thanks to others for the comments.

    I only wrote this in October but figured the Prince Andrew story might not stick so I asked if it could be used sooner than later.

    The original wordplay for sty was “rotten area”. We changed it to “infected area”, which I think still works but it’s a little harder to parse: I wasn’t familiar with this spelling of stye.

    A little plug: next year’s 3D crossword calendar is available to buy online. Some of the finest setters (and me) have written puzzles for it. The link is here:

    https://3dcalendarpuzzles.co.uk/shop/

    All proceeds to Children in Need and RNIB.

    Neil

35. Thanks Tramp and Eileen – I completely agree with everything in your intro, a delight from start to finish and too many ticks to pick a favourite. First-class crosswording. Also agree with Gervase @15, not least on the parsing of ROGER. The only sour note for me was, like others, discovering that the decade of my birth is now considered a historical era! (But this is nothing new – the same happens when my son, a history teacher, tells me that he is teaching stuff in class that was considered ‘current affairs’ when I was a boy).

    As for 22ac, I got the reference but my lawyer has advised me not to say any more than that. 😉

    Wiliam @4 – disagree that 15d is ‘weak’ – it’s one of the easier clues today, sure, but it’s still perfectly formed.

36. Tramp @34 – surprisingly, the OED only lists ‘sty’ for the eye condition, and suggests it started life as ‘styan’ which became ‘styany’ (‘sty-on-eye’). ‘Stye’ is only given as part of the phrase ‘neither buff nor stye’, which is apparently an old Scottish saying meaning ‘neither one thing nor the other’.

37. I found this a bit of a grind from beginning to end.

38. I was born in the seventies, too.

    I don’t think I’ve ever solved a crossword in which there are no easier/weaker clues. You have to strike many balances when writing puzzles. Anyone can hone in on a perceived weak clue.

    Neil

39. An excellent puzzle with many mischievous clues. New word for me was AGNATE. Favorites were 2d, 8&5d, 14d and 25ac.
    Thanks Tramp and Eileen

40. Just for the record, I totally agree with Eileen’s superior parsing of ROGER, I just happened to get there along with Blah @8 another way.

41. widdersbel @36, however the ODE gives sty or stye for the eye condition.

42. Thx Eileen @33 I previously took 22ac at face value and parsed it, but this now adds a whole new level of meaning 🙂

43. Thanks Tramp. I found this on the difficult side and needed to reveal a few but I had fun nonetheless. Favourites included SOMEDAY, CONTINENT, SINKABLE, and THUG (amusing surface.) In STODGY I thought of “sty” as an area where pigs are kept and associated its filth with “infected area.” Thanks Eileen for parsing, I never would have figured out PULLOVER.

44. Oh no, dearest Neil (Tramp@38), you’ve HOMED in on one of my betes (with circumflex) noires; what one HONES are skills, or a knife …

45. Eileen@28 yes, but! The more I see comments like “But it’s in Chambers” or “It’s not in Chambers” the more I think Chambers fails to track well actual, current usage.

46. Dr WhatsOn @45 – I did say, ‘For what it’s worth’. (And this was not the word that Tramp intended, anyway – see his comment @34.)

47. Thanks for the blog , much to cherish here , I particularly liked the brevity of many of the clues. As a few people have said , the lack of a theme often leads to a better puzzle.
    William @ 4 – scientific instruments are always referred to as equipment.

48. @3 Chardonneret: All good things must end – even the Tories aka Richmond Greens

49. An enjoyable, tough but fair puzzle. Thanks Tramp. And thanks Eileen for helping me parse CANTILEVER, EQUIPMENT and SEVENTIES. Looking at your explanations, I’m puzzled why I struggled parsing them!

50. Thanks Eileen, I wasn’t firing on all cylinders and needed plenty of help today but really enjoyed the anagrams, misdirection and some sly components when I finally understood them. It seemed to me that “SINKABLE” in the maritime sense is quite an odd word, did it even exist before the Titanic was described as its opposite? Now you can buy “sinkable driftwood” for your aquarium. Perfectly fair clue of course but my favourite was TESSELLATE as I have on rare occasions stacked sofas (and, more often, chairs) like Tetris blocks in order to hoover more effectively! Thanks Tramp and also for the 3D plug, found my pristine 2021 copy in a drawer this morning so must try harder in 2022.

51. An enjoyable puzzle which I found a little more accessible than Tramp normally is, though as always some of the parsings took a bit of thought to see.

    Thanks to Tramp and Eileen

    [When I did my History O Level in 1983, our modern history period started in 1870 and ended in 1951, which would make today’s equivalent 1989 so the Eighties should be history now too – this makes me feel old]

52. Dr. WhatsOn@26 – an unscientific observation based on a quick search: US sites mention sty and, if at all, a parenthetical stye. The opposite for the UK. The US also mentions just stye but UK hardly ever mentions just sty.

    You can exclude words from Google search eg

    “sty” -pig

    will search for word sty and return results without pig. Lookup Google operators and advanced search for help.

53. Lovely puzzle, thanks Tramp and Eileen.
    Only posting now because this blog had not started at the time I finished – a record for me! (But I did wake up quite early)

54. Sorry grantinfreo. Point noted.

55. widdersbel @35: I agree with you, weak was a poor choice of word. It simply stood out for me as untypically simple compared to the rest of the puzzle.

56. Roz @47: “scientific instruments are always referred to as equipment”.

    Really? Well swipe me. Thanks, Roz.

57. Great fun puzzle with excellent disguise and a classic clue at 22a!

    Loved so many of these but double ticks for SOMEDAY, PRIVATE, ORAL HYGIENISTS, CANTILEVER and PULLOVER

    Thanks to Tramp and Eileen

58. I enjoy Tramp’s cluing style more and more with each outing, I think. The very nicely defined CALVE was my favourite.
    I vaguely remembered AGNATE from previous puzzles. Thanks to William @4 for supplying ENATE, but now I’m confused as to the difference between ENATE and COGNATE. Scale in 8/5 gave me pause, but looking it up, it’s can apparently mean both put on and take off scales. Another autoantonym to add to the list.
    Lots of fun. Thanks, Tramp and Eileen.

59. I can’t remember (from last night) seeing EQUITY or RITE and took LOVER as the sexual partner. Too casual!
    Thanks Tramp and Eileen

60. William @55 – as the man himself says @38, you need a balance of clues to make a good crossword. Even Azed usually includes one or two easier ones to give you a foothold.

    And easy or not, I loved 15d for the mental image it conjured up of someone playing sofa-Tetris, as per Gazzh @50.

    Phitonelly @58 – I agree the definition of CALVE is brilliant, but my favourite is still the recent ‘drop a little lower’ from Tees in the Indy.

61. Hi widdersbel @60

    I didn’t recognise your ‘drop a little lower’, so couldn’t resist researching and found that it’s a puzzle that, for some reason, I didn’t do.

    CALVE today had one of my double ticks for the definition – ‘deliver new stock’.

    Two of my favourite setters coming up with great clues / definitions for such a short word – not a pin to choose between them, I reckon!

62. Loved 22a. Had a lot of trouble with it but ultimately no sweat: just hired some really good oral hygienists.
    Thank you, Tramp, Eileen and everyone else who happens to still be around.

63. Thanks, Eileen@33 I’ve been vaguely aware of the Randy Andy scandal but didn’t know the accuser’s name. Very clevere topical clue, I now know!

    widdersbel@35 (and others, I think) For me the decade shock came when I read (in fhe sixties, I suppose) that something was “set in the fifties” when I’d thought of the fifties as everyday life. News to me at the time that it had characteristics beyond ordinariness.

64. Phew, just finished this some 15 hours or so after starting. This included a couple of trips out, so that’s not 15 hours of solving. But my Mrs Tom and I really enjoyed this, our second completed Tramp puzzle, with many great clues. Nearly failed by having Sevenoaks as a partially parsed 19a (it has a school!), meaning 14d refused to yield. A eureka moment, spotting Seventies, and then Cantilever fell into place as LoI.
    Many thanks to Tramp for the entertainment, and Eileen for explaining several of the parsings that eluded us

65. Everyone agrees this was a great crossword, yet only 60+ comments here as opposed to over 120 the other day. Why? I think I know the answer. No homophones! Just saying!

66. Late to the party but I just wanted to thank Tramp for a tough but fair puzzle and to thank Eileen for the blog as well.
    It took me some time to solve. I had to smile at the short underwear for BRASSIER at 6d, among other clever clues.
    Thanks to Tramp/Neil for plugging the 3D Calendar. I find these puzzles highly enjoyable and end up completing all of them before the first six months of the year is over, as I don’t possess sufficient self discipline to keep to the recommended dosage of one a month. Highly recommended if you want to learn about a whole new dimension (!) in cryptic solving.

67. Eileen @61 – yes, both are great. This kind of wit and invention is exactly what I do crosswords for. Love it!

68. Very late to the party, as I only just cracked the last two clues – ROGER & AGNATE (a word I didn’t know). Also I had ‘solved’ EQUIPMENT, but hadn’t spotted EQUITY, although I had worked out PMEN. Thank you Eileen.

    Most enjoyable. Especially the satisfaction of finishing it off this morning.

69. FOI: STARS AND STRIPES from “standard partners” and the enumeration – then saw the anagram, so standard alone was the definition. Missed the EQUITy as my wife had the printed copy so can’t parse the clue in my head so well. For once she parsed PULLOVER for me as I was stuck on PUL+LOVER.

70. Scuppered myself by putting PROP instead of POST at 22dn. It works at least as well – the position would be in rugby.

71. Super puzzle. Fell one shy of completion. Didn’t know AGNATE as a word but really ought to have twigged the wordplay. Struggled to parse a few so thanks Eileen & Tramp of course

72. Got about 10 clues, and then got stuck. Mild cheating to get the oral hygienist anagram. By and by the crossers helped in guessing, check answer helped than got about 10 more fair and square. All in all it is a high score for me.

    Thanks to the setter for showing up in the blog.

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