Guardian Cryptic 28,729 by Imogen

81 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,729 by Imogen”

1. 28 is the ending you say, but with Was Ten (for perhaps now 11) and OT for books

2. Was ten OT (old testament books)

3. For 28a, if it is perhaps now 11 (o’clock), it “was ten”

   Bit of a parsing workout overall for me

   Thanks Imogen and loonapick

   minty

4. Re 28a: ‘perhaps now 11’ could be ‘was ten’ followed by OT (books).

5. Agreed re 28a. I think 26a is P(arking) with HARD TO in the van (in front), with definition of ‘car’. Quite a workout this morning, with a couple of unknowns – dogs are out of my sphere of interest!
   Thanks to blogger and setter.

6. I sympathise with you having to blog this one, loonapick. Took me ages of staring at 28a to unpick it but I got there eventually. A bit tortured, but it works. Several others had me scratching my head too. LAP for “sort of dog” is a very Imogen kind of trick – and he always catches me out with it.

   I got WEIGELA from building up the bits of the clue – it’s a new word to me, but looked plausible enough.

   Can anyone confirm, am I right in thinking that JOBSWORTH was coined by That’s Life? Or does it predate the programme? I remember they used to have a special award for the best examples. It’s a shortening of the phrase “it’s more than my job’s worth”, as commonly used by petty-minded officials enforcing The Rules.

7. 12A. Living in Nottingham, Trent bridge is of course in the Midlands too

8. Yes, the WOE of 11a deceived me for a while with WASTE NOT WANT NOT until I deciphered the fairly tortuous wordplay (which is understandable for a long answer). I also wasn’t aware of JOBSWORTH with that meaning but I knew “it’s more than my job’s worth….” which is what it’s derived from. Hadn’t heard of WEIGELA as well although it was gettable from the wordplay.
   I was looking for Lab in LHASA APSO but not to be. Not convinced by Lap=Dog. Yes a Lapdog is a dog but a Lap is not used by itself to refer to a dog at least if C2014 can be believed.
   Favourite was FIRMAMENT.
   Thanks Imogen and loonapick

9. With the exception of 28 this felt like a bit of a halfway house between Imogen and Vulcan – Imocan maybe or Vulgen? Very enjoyable nonetheless with 1a my personal favourite. Thanks L&P

10. Tim C @9 I think it’s “one sort of dog” = lap

11. I enjoyed most of this but have to agree with loonapick re: HARDTOP. Also, some of the surfaces really seemed quite unnatural. And as for 28a, not only was the wordplay a bit tortured, but the definition “saying” seemed a bit wanting: why don’t we clue everything as “word” or “words”?

12. Phew. The SE corner took as long as the rest put together.

    Since when did RAGTIME = jazz? Two completely different genres in my book. Admittedly adjacent chronologically but still uniquely different.

    Kept thinking there was a cricket theme here but perhaps the setter is a fan.

    Many thanks for the excellent blog, loonapick, don’t envy you this one.

13. William @12 I had a feeling RAGTIME/JAZZ might ruffle some feathers but there it is in Chambers: “A form of Jazz music …”

14. Dr. WhatsOn @11 – Norbrewer @5 proposes what IMHO is the correct parsing of HARDTOP, which circumvents loonapick’s and your misgivings.

15. widders @6: your query intrigued me. A bit of rootling around on Google suggests the phrase might have been coined by UK folk-singer Jeremy Taylor, in a song he is said to have written in the late 1960s when based in South Africa (where he also wrote the SA chart topping Ag, Pleez Daddy which outsold Elvis Presley and resulted in him being banned from the country for implicitly criticising apartheid). The album with the Jobsworth title came out in 1973 which is also the year That’s Life was first screened.

    Jobsworth, Jobsworth, It’s more than my job’s worth,
    I don’t care, rain or snow,
    whatever you want the answer’s no,
    I can keep you waiting for hours in the queue,
    and if you don’t like it you know what you can do.

16. loonapick et al re HARDTOP. I read it slightly differently with HARD TO preceding (in van) P (parking) with the def as “car”.

17. Plants and dogs both lie outside my interest or experience, so nho the dog and I thought the plant ended in -IA, so that held me up for a bit. I agree with BC@10 half write-ins and half tortuous convolutions. Still, I got there, so thanks to Imogen, loonapick and other contributors.

18. Staring out at the WEIGELA as I did this (I often misname it as weigelia), so that was my favourite. I agree with Norbrewer about HARDTOP. JOBSWORTH was apparently coined by singer songwriter Jeremy Taylor in the 1960’s. I was a bit dubious about Black, for one, as a definition of SEA, but I suppose it’s the same as Lap for dog.

19. Norbrewer @5: so sorry, missed your post.

20. bodycheetah @10… What sort of dog is it? It’s a Lab. It’s a Lap. It’s a Bitser. Spot the odd one out, unless homophonically the second one is a dog from Finland.

21. PM @15/Petert @18 – thanks for that. I’ve just been doing a bit of digging myself and came across that same song on YouTube – I won’t share it here, it’s dreadful… has not aged well!

    Norbrewer @5/William @16 – I agree with your parsing, though it still leaves the clue reading a bit oddly. “Getting” would work better for the cryptic grammar (but not the surface).

22. For whatever reason this all slipped in very smoothly, even the obscure answers (to me) like WEIGALA, MOTTLE, PSHAW and LLASA APSO were fairly clued. The two long, wordy clues just jumped off the page, a great help early on. Thanks Imogen and Loonapick…

23. This puzzle was about my limit, but I solved it apart from parsing a couple (e.g. BABY BOOMER, MOTTLE which I didn’t know as a noun). WASTE NOT WANT NOT needed all the crossers but one, but once written down I parsed it quite quickly.

    I enjoyed PTERODACTYL and TRENT BRIDGE. Overall, tough but fun.

24. A lot to like here, but “time in the middle” is a cricket-ism that I didn’t know, so I failed to parse TRENT BRIDGE, along with both JEWEL IN THE CROWN and WASTE NOT WANT NOT (I got no further than the wan tot to confirm my guess was right).

    Found that although I knew WEIGELA, I have been spelling it wrong all my life – so many plants are something-ia that the ones that aren’t come as a surprise (aubrieta is another example).

    I know about mottling and things being mottled, but MOTTLE as a noun, as it seems to be here, is new.

25. I really enjoyed teasing out the wordplay in this puzzle, especially 28ac. JEWEL IN THE CROWN, PTERODACTYL, HELL TO PAY and FIRMAMENT were very neat, too, and HUTU and PSHAW made me smile.

    Widdersbel @6 – I immediately thought of the ‘That’s Life’ awards, too. Thanks to PostMark and others for the extra information.

    Many thanks to Imogen for an interesting challenge and to loonapick for a great blog.

26. [Sorry to various people I crossed with while typing that comment!]

27. Lots of lovely words in this one. I knew WEIGELA, although it sadly departed from my garden long time ago. Favourites were READ MY LIPS, JOBSWORTH and FIRMAMENT. Thanks to those who parsed 28ac.

    Ta Imogen & loonapick

28. Enjoyable though somewhat curious puzzle, with some good constructions but the surfaces range from the excellent (JOBSWORTH, TRENT BRIDGE, FIRMAMENT) to the absurd – 28ac in particular (I got this easily from the enumeration and a few crossers, despite the exiguous definition, but couldn’t be bothered to parse it – congratulations to those that persisted)

    Nothing unfamiliar here. WEIGELA is one of those plant genera, like Fuchsia, honouring German botanists whose names get disguised in the anglicisation of the pronunciation (my grandmother always pronounced it as ‘widge-eelier’, non-rhotically, of course 🙂 ).

    Anyone else try *(TOREFOOT) before moving on to prosody? LOI was BABY BOOMER – I needed the M to see it, having unsuccessfully tried to summon up a former cricketer, given the other references to the sport 🙁 .

    Thanks to S&B

29. Just a little bit discomfited that “in the” appears in both the clue and solution for 1ac.

30. Thanks Imogen and loonapick
    I struggled in the SE too, William. I was initially sure that 20 would start JOEY, so I was trying to think of 70 year-olds called that. When, eventually I got BABY BOOMER, it became one of my favoruites, along with NORSE. PTERODACTYL was nice too. I agree with William on the parsing of HARDTOP; it makes the “van” not superfluous.
    Gladys and others
    I have never heard the plant called anything other than Weigelia, so reading its spelling was TILT.

31. Maybe my covid brain fog is lifting. Quite pleased to have managed this with the exception of WEIGELA and LHASA APSO, both of which were unknown to me but fairly clued.

    Thanks, Imogen and loonapick.

32. [gladys @24: Aubrieta is almost invariably rendered as ‘aubretia’. Another genus named for a botanist (Aubriet), French this time, whose name gets mangled (cf Choisya). One of the few German ones whose name escapes unscathed, despite the alarming spelling is the Californian poppy: Eschscholzia 🙂 ]

33. Really enjoyed this but the daft surface of the week award goes to ‘Elbow say brownish, seen from underneath’.
    My wife pronounced the bloomer at 2d as ‘wig-alia’.

34. [Such a great series, JITC, with Piggott-smith, James, Malik, Dance, Ashcroft, Farrell et al. Mrs ginf was away, had to tape every ep, on pain of death]

35. Digbydavies @33: Couldn’t agree with you more. I seem to have become de-sensitized by over-exposure to daft surfaces – probably from other setters rather than this one. How does a setter produce one like this when capable of beauties like, Viking raid – no help is secured by hooter?

36. Yesterday I struggled and everyone here said it was easy. Today I didn’t struggle too much and people say it’s hard!

    Came here looking for a better explanation for WOE as I thought of the Bill-and-Ted-esque “Woah” but thought it couldn’t be that! HUTU made me smile.

    Some clunky surfaces but otherwise fun. Thank you Imogen and loonapick

37. Completed it all, but not all parsed, including the WASTE NOT WANT NOT, which I got as a saying from crossers but didn’t put together. I knew both the LHASA APSO as one of the many little dogs around and WEIGELA from having had a pretty variegated version with pink flowers in a previous garden, so those went in OK. Although it felt tough, it took me just over the half hour I hope to finish around with these crosswords (although don’t by any means always succeed).

38. I had the same problem as many with dogs and plants and finally got 28ac without parsing it. Overall this was enjoyable though. Thanks to Imogen and loonapick. (Went through Manchester Airport on Saturday and was impressed with the many non-Jobsworths keeping cheerful in very difficult circumstances. )

39. I fell 4 short, which for me, is a triumph for an Imogen puzzle.
    I could parse little, so looking forward to being enlightened.

40. Actually, I parsed a lot more than I thought…I must be getting better…
    I was unaware that a BOOMER is a kangaroo.
    Thanks for the parsing for 28a. Holy smoke!
    I did enjoy it, SE was my undoing. I need a lie down now.
    Many thanks Loonapick.

41. Tough but enjoyable.

    I did not parse:
    12ac apart from bettergrind* – should have realised that ‘time in the middle’ = batting;
    28ac apart from WAN + N in TOT;
    and did not understand the ‘head appearing stoned’ bit of 1ac but got the def.

    New: WEIGELA (well clued); LHASA APSO.

    Thanks, both.

42. RAGTIME could make good Spooner
    Didnt Stravinsky have crack at it

43. muffin @30. I started thinking Gary Cooper for some strange reason for 20 across. It appears he’s 120 not 70. Never heard anyone call a Roo a Boomer in my nearly 40 years as a resident in the land of Oz although my Aussie born wife knows the word from its referenc in a ChristMass song by Rolf Harris. Two reasons to give it a miss.

44. Ronald @22 – I completely agree. This all slipped into place straightforwardly enough but with plenty of fun along the way.

    I am lucky enough to have two WEIGELA in my garden (although I still struggle with the correct pronunciation as it so clunky compared to the graceful plant itself).

    FIRMAMENT was my favourite.

    Thanks Imogen and loonapick

45. copmus @42 – Spooner’s Jag music? (7)
    And for 10a, Spooner’s support for King – did it help his ascent? (3,4)

    Had a George Bush senior moment with 13a, and for 14d’s first dog I was thinking LASSI – mango’s best friend.

    Thanks I & L

46. Thank you Imogen for the challenge and loonapick for helpful blog.
    Loved TRENT BRIDGE which doesn’t quite give ‘batter grinds’ – Trant’s Bridge?

47. Thanks loonapick for the BOOMER though I have to agree with Norbrewer@5 and thanks to everyone who parsed the saying.
    I failed on the bloomer with a tentative WEITESA but fair enough, got the dog though and full marks for the clueing there.
    Lots of music in here somehow from the obvious RAGTIME (how can it not be jazz when it’s so…jazzy?) to the real Inspector NORSE and MISSION which I got thanks to the lyrics of Motörhead’s Bomber!
    DrWhatsOn@11 “Saying” was enough to make it clear to me (Ok, and a couple of crossers), it is a fairly well known example of the genre, just as Pterodactyl is a not too obscure old reptile.
    essexboy@45 A+, time for your entry on MyCrossword if you haven’t done one already!
    Anyway TRENT BRIDGE is so good I am going to text it to cricketing friends from those parts, thanks Imogen.

48. Could anybody explain the “SEA” for “BLACK” in 25a?

49. NNW @ 48: The Black Sea, with ‘for one’ indicating a dbe.

50. wynsum @ 46: not sure what point you’re making. The anagrist is BETTER GRIND.

51. Simon S. Thank you.

52. Simon S @50: I think wynsum’s comment is that ‘batter grinds’ would be a good description of a difficult innings at TRENT BRIDGE and could make for a splendid clue -it’s just a pity that it isn’t quite right as anagrist!

53. Well, I completed this, but my word it was a real struggle in places. I failed to finish off the parsing for quite a few – so loonapick, I am profoundly grateful for your help and lost in awe at your skills!
    In fact, it relieved me enormously that even a godlike blogger was having trouble with some parsing. 28A I guessed once a few crossers were in place: I could see wan tot, but the rest was utterly beyond me.
    I’d never heard of the dog, not the flower. I had no idea kangaroos were called boomers (another inspired guess).
    However, HUTU, NORSE, LOW GEAR and PSHAW made me grin, and thank goodness I remembered how to spell Pterodactyl…
    Thanks to Imogen for the mental workout – I’m now going to sit quietly with a cuppa…

54. wynsum @46: “He’s last in as a substitute – batter grinds out here”?

55. I enjoyed PSHAW, THE ARTS and TRENT BRIDGE but it never really got going for me thanks to WEIGELA, BABY BOOMER and LHASA APSO (but I’ve met that before) in particular. One person’s obscure general knowledge is another’s common currency I suppose. Better days ahead.

56. Gervase@54: That’s very good.

57. Thanks to Imogen for all the hard work that goes into putting a puzzle together. Thank also to loonapik for blog and opening comments which I share.

58. re. HELL TO PAY: I read the wordplay as a paraphrase, thus “that fellow will[1] always[3] secure first place[2]” paraphrased as “he’ll[1] top[2] ay[3]” (where ‘top’ works like “she’s expected to top the leaderboard”).
    Overall I thought too many clues were rather infelicitously tortured.
    But 1d was excellent, imho.

59. Thanks Imogen and loonapick. Struggled a bit but got there although couldn’t parse a couple. Nevertheless, a good workout.

    [PostMark @15 – I have Jeremy Taylor ‘s ‘Jobsworth’ song on vinyl – 1974 album with Spike Milligan, recorded live at Cambridge and called ‘An Adult Entertainment’. There is a reference in the lyrics to a charge of 50p; so this must date the song to post 1971. Lots of other good songs on the album as well – particularly enjoy ‘Transplant Calypso’; and of course Spike on excellent form]

60. Since a boomer is a large adult male kangaroo, BABY BOOMER is a bit nonsensical, innit? Certainly, there were some difficult parsings here. Thanks, Imogen and loonapick.

61. Me @ 60 – the Australian men’s basketball team is called the Boomers, after the big male roos.

62. 11a Whoa = WOE? This is not the first time that the Guardian ignores the different pronunciations of W and WH. It reminds me of a BBC story I heard years ago, in which the Russians were going to stop hunting for Wales.(Couldn’t someone send them a map?)

    12a I got the anagram, but the cricketing reference was beyond me.

    Thanks to Imogen and loonapick, whose help I needed.

63. TassieTim @60
    You can have a baby Giant Panda, so why not a baby boomer?

64. Catflap@14 yes you’re absolutely right. I had read that but it didn’t click that it resolved the problem. I’ll blame that on it being 3am.

65. I missed that too, and credited William with the parsing (which might, of course, have been arrived at indepebdently!) I’m sure it’s the right parsing.

66. Valentine @62: Re WHOA the same thought crossed my mind, but there are fewer people who preserve the WH/W distinction than are rhotic speakers, so the homophonic problem might not have occurred to many.

    But I also wondered whether even those who distinguish ‘white’ from ‘wight’ or ‘where’ from ‘wear’ actually pronounce the interjection’WHOA!’ with an unvoiced W?

67. I suspect that, if you are having to shout “whoa”, you have more to worry about than voicing the H!

68. As a 58 year old baby boomer (b. 1963) I’m not too happy with the definition of ‘must be about 70’ ! Otherwise no complaints. thanks Imogen and loonapick

69. I’m with MattWillD @36. This one felt a lot easier to me than yesterday’s, which several said was either like a Quiptic or easier than one! Though to be honest I guessed at PHASA UPSO for the unheard of dog (PUP being just as good as LAP, I reckon), but Google had never heard of it either. Never heard of WEIGELA, either, but perhaps that was lucky as if I’d known it as weigelia it probably would have been rejected or complained about!

    I have an album of ragtime music called Elite Syncopations by Chris Barber and his Jazz Band. (The link is to the title track, written by Scott Joplin, the King of Ragtime.) That surely deals with any questions about whether RAGTIME is jazz!

    Thanks to Imogen and loonapick.

70. Nice to see Weigela, a plant i only know in the narrative of my mother telling me about when I used to call. I knew I had left it too long between calls if she would keep me on the line to describe what she could see from the kitchen window. Invariably it involved birds and the Weigela. I had no idea what the plant looked like, or where it in the garden it was positioned, which made much of the stories hard to follow, but conversations with your mother are best when without purpose, and I miss them. A nice little nostalgia trip tucked within the crossword today.

71. [muffin @67: Devoicing W is rare these days amongst English speakers worldwide, but voicing H even more so – except when gargling 🙂 ]

72. Very good. Lots of fun surfaces with those for TRENT BRIDGE, LHASA APSO and THE ARTS being my picks.
    I agree with other commenters about the cryptic grammar not quite cutting it in HARDTOP. What about “Parking: not easy to put in van or car”? Also, although I liked SEA, for me it doesn’t quite work. It would be nicer as “Short layer of coal could be Black” but the pesky capitalisation wrecks it.
    Entertaining tester today. The 28 parse is not for the faint-hearted!
    Thanks, I & l.

73. Think I saw LHASA APSO in a previous crossword but didn’t remember it. Some others undone but I saw HARDTO was in the van.
    Thanks both

74. God bless you northernRich @70. What a lovely thing to say.

75. Re 5 – What happened when the devil started losing his hair?

76. [muffin @67/Gervase @71: ‘Devoicing W is rare these days amongst English speakers worldwide’ – except in Family Guy ]

77. eb @76
    Brilliant! I maintain, though, that there wouldn’t be time to stress the H in “whoa”…

78. muffin @ 63. The Giant Panda is a species, and you can have both baby ones and adult ones. A boomer is an adult (male roo, and on the large side as well). Can you have a baby adult? Contradiction in terms.

79. Muggsy Spanier and his Ragtime Band, 1939. Ragtime is short for ragged time, its roots being the overlaying of African rhythms and millennia-old ‘time signatures’ on western 4/4 time, meaning that notes are played or sung in places ‘unexpected’ by western musicians (at the time, at least) – i.e. syncopation. It is certainly a form of jazz or indeed you might argue that all jazz is ragged time. Given the sort of music that is ‘allowed’ to be called jazz today (don’t get me started … oh, you have!), I am certainly happy for it to be synonymous with ragtime for the purposes of a crossword …

80. WEIGELA and LHASA APSO were new to me, and needed Googling. HUTU was a hunch. TRENT BRIDGE was nice. Like many others, WASTE NOT WANT NOT came after a few crossers and not much parsing!

81. Is it generally acceptable to have “In” preceding the definition (11ac, 21dn)? Don’t think I’ve seen that before unless definition is at the end of the clue.

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