Guardian 28,656 – Vulcan

68 comments on “Guardian 28,656 – Vulcan”

1. A good Monday Vulcan. Not too taxing! Thanks for the blog Andrew.

2. Yes, not a write-in for me but as JerryG says, good for Monday. I liked GO TO WORK ON AN EGG, PIT STOP and LEWD. Didn’t know that scold = rate. Thanks to V & A.

3. I didn’t know that about Ali Baba, and failed to parse POSSE, but neither could be anything else. Liked PITSTOP. Well, at least Vulcan knows how to spell a US President, unlike the perpetrator of yesterday’s Speedy.

4. A flying start, but then I got a bit bogged down. I originally had “grain” for 6ac which works in a Mondayish sort of way, but as 6d was obviously an anagram the error didn’t give me a problem.

   I find Sepulchre an odd word linguistically. It makes me think of gloominess and decay, and so when I first came across the similar word pulchritude I assumed it had a similar meaning. The truth couldn’t be more different.

5. I liked it, especially 1a SEPULCHRE (thinking “whitened sepulchres” for some current pollies in the UK and here!), 15a HOSED (another scriptural reference), 16a POSSE, 25a BATS IN THE BELFRY (which I am sure I have!) 27a ROOSEVELT and 7d USELESS. It took me longer to solve 3d L??? and 9a GO TO ??R? ON AN EGG than to do the whole rest of the puzzle – how embarrassing! Some clever touches from Vulcan, to whom much thanks – and to Andrew too for the whole blog, but particularly for explaining the LSE part of LEGALESE at 11a.

6. [Even though I click the “Remember me” box every time, I still have to re-enter my name and email every time I post – this has been so for some time. Any way to fix this?]

7. Lovely, staightforward clueing. I had forgotten Ali Baba’s origins, but the answer was very obvious. I love the word RHEUM, I can’t hear it without thinking of the great Peter Sellers in the ‘Pink Panther’: ‘Do you have a rheum?’ Thanks to Vulcan an Andrew.

8. My bad – the phrase from Matthew’s gospel is “whited sepulchres”!!!
   (a hypocrite; a person who conceals wickedness under a cloak of virtue)

9. An enjoyable puzzle, even though, to my shame, I failed to parse POSSE.
   Norbrewer @7 – you remind me of a happy memory from the 1980s, a CND lapel badge bearing the legend CLOUSEAU FANS AGAINST THE BEUMB.
   Thanks to Vulcan and Andrew.

10. I liked GO TO WORK ON AN EGG as I remember the phrase from my childhood. It wouldn’t be a familiar phrase for others (Julie?).
    ROOSEVELT appeared in another guise in Azed on Sunday.

11. Three-quarters of it was a breeze, but was then slowed down notably by the SW. Not helped by never having heard of PRAESIDIUM and knowing nothing about ALI BABA other than he was accompanied by 40 thieves.

12. Lovely start to the day. Liked PRAESIDIUM, BATS IN THE BELFRY and ARCHFOE.

    Ta Vulcan & Andrew

13. Favourites PIGHEADED, GO TO WORK ON AN EGG, LEGALESE (loi)

    New for me SCUT; and the fact that Ali Baba was a woodcutter.

    Thanks, both.

14. Nice gentle fare from Vulcan, but 13d took a lot of head-scratching – just couldn’t see the WOODCUTTER for the trees. Thanks for the blog Andrew.

    By the way…
    It’s very provoking,’ Humpty Dumpty said after a long silence, looking away from Alice as he spoke, ‘to be called an egg — very!’

15. Two weeks ago, I said that Vulcan was not one of my favourite setters but I rather enjoyed this one, especially PRAESIDIUM and SEPTEMBER, for their surfaces and GO TO WORK ON AN EGG, for the memories. Here‘s an appropriate example of the adverts.

    Thanks to Vulcan for the puzzle and Andrew for the blog.

16. Enjoyable diversion, liked go to work on an egg, remember hearing the phrase as a child although I don’t remember the adverts, thanks for a very apt example Eileen.

    Didn’t know Ali Baba was a woodcutter either, perhaps somewhat of a stereotype but I thought he was a carpet seller, don’t know where I got that from.

    Thanks Vulcan and Andrew.

17. J in A @6
    See the FAQ page.

18. Given that school will start next month, SEPTEMBER was a bit puzzling – but then, it is a Pommy crossie after all. ARCH-FOE took me the longest (I would have thought it needed the hyphen). I knew we were looking for something ON AN EGG, but it took a while to remember the slogan, which I had heard, but which wasn’t used here. SUPERNOVA was nice, and others have mentioned. Overall, didn’t take too lomg – about as long as it took for 10 English wickets to fall when I was a Bellerive Oval yesterday. Thanks, Vulcan and Andrew.

19. 11a was a mystery to me , even with all the crossing words complete.

    My problem was LSE, whether London Stock Exchange or London South East (web site providing chat on stocks), occupies my mind every day. Mick Jagger’s LSE would have been fresh before I got into shares (the good old days, looking at my bank balance?).

    I saw ALE , and gussed the G from ” sounds like LAGER ” – so tenuous.

    Thanks Andrew , I’d never have got the parsing because ” EG for say ” so I was completely thrown by Vulcan.

    I wonder what a cryptic clue is if 11a is not cryptic?

    Thanks for putting me out of my misery , Andrew – good work!

20. Latin featured very strongly today: Sepulchre, Sate, Legal, Super-nova, Posse, Emeritus, September, Spectre, Exonerated, Tryst – possibly others!

21. @19 London School of Economics

22. Re PIT STOP, the definition looks for a refuelling place, but isn’t the pit stop the thing that is done? The refuelling place is the pits, surely.

23. There once was a virile cockerel
    With a thousand hens in Spain.
    Now he’s old and slow
    So he’ll never go
    To work on an egg again.
    (Spike Milligan)

24. LEWD – Off Colour? I cannot stretch any of the synonyms of Lewd in Chambers to Off Colour. Solution clear from word play.

25. FOP @24 – “I thought that story was a bit off colour”, sniffily said by a prude, was the way I saw it.

26. FOP @24: from Collins online –

    off-colour
    in British English

    ADJECTIVE
    1. British
    slightly ill; unwell
    For three weeks Maurice felt off-colour but did not have any dramatic symptoms.
    He’s a bit off-colour today.
    He’s been a bit off-colour for the past two days.
    Milan looked off-colour but eventually took the lead in the 82nd minute.
    2. indecent or indelicate; risqué
    He denies making off-colour remarks about his colleaugues. [sic!]
    Collins English Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers

27. Can’t imagine any instance when I would comfortably interchange LEWD and off-colour.

    Try using LEWD in any of the SC’s examples @26 and you’ll see what I mean.

28. Nice start to the week to fire up my brain again.

    I liked GO TO WORK ON AN EGG, and thanks Eileen @15 for the apt link. I also enjoyed POSSE and ARCH-FOE; as TT @18 says, I think it needs the hyphen.

    Will the Quiptic be easier or more difficult?

    Thanks Vulcan and Andrew.

29. Enjoyable, and took me rather longer than the Quiptic, which is about right. A few answers on the very edge of my vocabulary (PRAESIDIUM, SCUT, ARCHFOE and GO TO WORK ON AN EGG – I’m in my early 30s. but *somehow* dredged that up).

    Thanks Vulcan and Andrew.

30. William@27: SC intended us to note sense number 2 of the Collins English Dictionary entry, for which just one example sentence is provided. And I believe that ‘lewd’ would substitute quite acceptably in that sentence.

31. William @27: the only example pertinent to the clue is that under definition 2, and there the substitution works perfectly well.

32. William @27: I think swapping them in “He denies making lewd/off-colour remarks about his colleagues” works.

    This was a nice, gentle puzzle. PRAESIDIUM was new to me but easily got from the anagram with crossers. RHEUM and SCUT were also guesses but the wordplay was clear. Thanks Vulcan and Andrew!

33. I didn’t know Ali Baba’s occupation, couldn’t parse POSSE, agree that the pit is the place to refuel and that a racing driver might make a stop there, think ARCH-FOE needs a hyphen (or a space) and found the puzzle to be a speedy and enjoyable solve.

34. [JinA @5/8 – my mind went straight to ‘whited sepulchres’ too! And ravenrider @4, it is a bit of an oddity, isn’t it? The ‘ch’ makes you think there might be a Greek root, but it seems that the ‘h’ crept into English – rather like the ‘h’ in Ant(h)ony – despite its not being there in the French, via which we got it from the Latin. The original Greek in Matt. 23 is τάφος (whence epitaph).]

    Thanks Vulcan and Andrew, and Eileen for Hancock’s ‘go to work on an eel’ 🙂

35. One of the better Vulcans, I thought. It’s always nice to acquire some knowledge from the word play, today’s example being the occupation of Ali Baba.

36. A pleasant enough Monday diversion. I too was ignorant of Ali Baba’s trade, so I’ve learned something.

    Thanks to Vulcan and Andrew

37. Out of interest, did anyone else mentally work through permutations of ___HUNTER and ___BUSTER before hitting on Ali Baba’s profession? (I couldn’t possibly say why the latter came to mind!)

    It was only when I went back to read the clue properly that the penny dropped on what “wood say” meant, and then the correct solution came easily.

38. Thanks for the blog, a very well set puzzle today with many neat clues and good variety.
    I liked LEGALESE and SUPERNOVA of course, our one science clue of the month I suppose.
    Should ARCHFOE be hyphenated ? This is not Azed.

    [ Speedy yesterday we had ISONHOUR ???? over to you MrEssexboy ]

39. To add to the LEWD information, like William I think of off-colour as unwell but just checked Chambers and it gives – smutty , blue ( in relation to jokes ) .

40. Andrew, I think the definition in 9a is “One’s mad to have these,” rather than just “mad,” which is an adjective, while the answer is a noun phrase. And you might want to capitalize the second S in “suspect” in 17d.

    The new Speedy, which wasn’t there when I started reading this blog, has gone berserk. It has only one down clue, which begins in the wrong place, and the bottom three rows are solid black. The across answers don’t fit the down one. No errant presidents in sight.

    Julie’s complaint about being erased happens to me too from time to time, randomly as far as I can tell. Any cure? Gaufrid — the FAQ section doesn’t answer Julie’s question.

41. Tx to SC@24 in response to FOP @24.
    I should have checked “off colour” in Chambers as well. 4th definition is “slightly indecent”.

42. I often wonder about the process different compilers follow in setting their crosswords. How or why Vulcan decided to include BATS IN THE BELFRY and GO TO WORK ON AN EGG, for instance. Especially if the puzzles are not themed ones. Wasn’t so long ago that An Apple A Day Keeps The Doctor Away was a popular slogan, but that would have filled too much of the grid.
    Nice gentle solve today. Liked the crossing EMERITUS and PRAESIDIUM. We had quite an eminent EMERITUS professor in modern and medieval languages participating in our U3A (University of the Third Age – i.e. old codgers like me) creative writing group recently…

43. Valentine, thanks for your corrections: I’ll fix the blog.

44. A nice confidence boosting start to the week. Couldn’t parse 11ac but otherwise made steady progress.
    Thanks for the blog Andrew and for a fun puzzle Vulcan – apparantly enjoyed by all. Probably all down hill for me for the rest of the week …..never mind.

45. [Valentine @40 and JinA way back @6: it’s the penultimate bit of FAQ and advises that the most sure way of rectifying the problem is to delete your entire browser history/cache and thereafter the site should remember your name and email address. The downside of that action is it also means no other regularly visited site will now remember you and you’ll have to sign in/password to all of those.]

46. [Valentine @40. The question from Julie is answered in the penultimate FAQ: The autofill of my name and email address when posting a comment no longer works even though I have checked the ‘remember me’ box. Is there a fault on the site?]

47. [Sorry, Mark. Should have refreshed before posting!

    I find that just typing the first letter of my user name brings it up as a pick list, and the same for my email address. This gets around the problem of losing all previously acquired cookies when you’d rather not.]

48. [No probs hatter and, yes, I’d rather pay the small price of typing that first letter than go through the pain of remembering all those other logins and passwords.]

49. [ I just ignore it for a day and then it works again, but I do give it my Paddington stare, ]

50. Spooner’s et al: re LEWD/off colour, many thanks and apologies; I blogged then scarpered.

51. Finished 2 hours before my usual starting time so now have a blank evening ahead. Just as well I’m a Francophile as well as a Scot otherwise I would not have been impressed by SEPTEMBER = start of school year.

52. [Roz @38 – wasn’t ISINHOUR the one with the fringe on top? 😉

    Joking aside, it’s actually a little known variant spelling, derived from Greek εις (’in/into’) ενα (‘one’) oυρω (‘I pee’), giving the meaning ‘chamber pot’).]

    [Valentine @40: The online ‘Speedy’ did indeed go SUPERNOVA for a while, but has now vanished from the skies altogether.]

53. jellyroll @51 – Yes, I registered a Scottish twinge of incipient protest at the anglocentric assumption that the school year begins in September. I thought, however, that, as with non-rhotic RP-based homophones, it was perhaps supported by Chambers … 🙂

54. [ EB @ 52 Does it mean the same as Eisenhower ? Very strange answer. Just a quick crossword and clue was something like – WWII general who became US president . ]

55. It must be my smutty (or puritanical, I can’t decide) mind, but the first meaning of off-colour that occurs to me is LEWD.

    Thanks Gladys@23 for the Spike Milligan reminder, and Eileen@15 for the very apropos egg marketing.

    Roz@49, is the Paddington stare something that can be learned? I’d love to have it in my repertoire.

    Thanks V&A for the fun.

56. [ cellomaniac@55 I perfected it when I was a student and boys would mistakenly assume I was interested in cricket. I now mainly use it for people trying to explain IT matters to me. You need to watch the 1970s BBC series for children if you want to see how it is done, ]

57. [Roz @54: I think the Eisenhower family would probably prefer the more conventional derivation, from German Eisen (iron) + Hauer (hewer)… but then they would, wouldn’t they? 😉 ]

58. One can almost hear Rufus bleating ‘you’ll miss me when I’m gone’, as for me this easy ride does not sit well with the Imogen ethos. Very difficult to ‘write easy’ though, I am told, and very easy to ‘write hard’, with the slot still open I think for that special writer.

59. [EB@57 yes I see what you mean. No idea how that clue got through or what they were thinking of ]

60. A tad more tricky than the Quiptic, as it should be, but got there without too much fuss. Ali Baba held me up, but I very much enjoyed RHEUM and EMERITUS.

    ARCHFOE was a new one which I don’t think I’ll be using as it just sits in the mouth awkwardly compared with archenemy.

61. essexboy@52 The Speedy is still accessible on my browser and still berserk.

62. Thanks TimC @10 for saving me brain-ache.
    And thanks to Vulcan and Andrew of course.

63. Nothing much to add on the puzzle – pleasant but very easy – but there are some very good Paddington hard stares in the movie Paddington 2; my favourite film of the decade so far! (Seriously, it is brilliant.)

64. I was not impressed by seeing “terrible” used as an anagram instruction twice in one grid: for both 1A and 27A. And speaking of 27A, since both Theodore and Franklin achieved that rank, shouldn’t it have read: “Lose voter? Terrible for either president”?

65. Wouldn’t 14a have been more correct as “short month”? NOV isn’t a month.

66. Tyro@44 My thoughts exactly. It’s good to finish one occasionally.

67. 3d
    He stood before a Botticelli nude
    Rude,
    Crude,
    Lewd,
    And altogether Pseud
    (From The Salopian in the mid-fifties, not that I was educated at Shrewsbury).

68. muffin @65.”NOV isn’t a month.” No, it’s an abbreviation that stands for a month. Kind of the opposite of metonymy. 🙂

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