Guardian 28,737 – Anto

81 comments on “Guardian 28,737 – Anto”

1. The NW went in quickly but then slowed down somewhat. I like Anto’s style and had ticks for CONDOM, PORPOISE, MUM AND DAD, HANDS OFF, MEGAPHONE and NEOLOGISM. Wasn’t sure about TIMBER but I presumed motorway is being surrounded i.e. flooded by the river. Couldn’t parse PATINA, so thanks. Today’s obscure Ron manager, John LOWRY (groan). 🙂

   Ta Anto & Andrew

2. I thought of Tommy Cooper as well, Andrew, and was tempted to put him in, as his name fitted the grid.

3. I had LEAD ON for 28ac, which I think works as well as HEAD ON.

   If you say that such-and-such a minister is leading on pensions reform, it means that he/she has the lead responsibility, so is ‘directing’ operations; and an instruction to ‘Lead on!’ is an encouragement to go ahead, or make progress.

   Other than that, I agree this was on the gentler side for Anto (and definitely quicker than the ‘Quiptic’!).

   In 10ac, surely the ‘originally’ is unnecessary, as O is the chemical symbol for oxygen?

   I did like ACE; thanks A & A.

4. essexboy @ I took the ‘originally’ to mean the first of the three O, rather than the first letter of Oxygen.

   As in Anto’s last outing, I found the last few (in the left half) tricky to finish.

   Thanks Anto and Andrew

5. Game of two halves for me. The LHS was completely finished without a single entry on the right. After a pause, the RHS gradually succumbed. I enjoyed the misdirection today such as Deal in 15ac. Also some lovely smooth surfaces such as 1ac. Thanks Anto and Andrew.

6. Thanks Anto and Andrew
   Yes, much better than that horrible Quiptic. Favourites CONDOM, PATINA, HANDS OFF, and CATCH PHRASE.
   MEGAPHONE doesn’t work for me, and I would go further than eb @3 – I think LEAD ON is actually a better solution.

7. That was lovely and raised quite a few grins of acknowledgement in passing. I usually loathe Spoonerism clues because my mind doesn’t work that way, but rather liked MUM AND DAD, parsed PATINA with no problem, but found it hard to bring to mind as a synonym for polish. PATINA and TIMBER were my last two in.

   I too found it easier than the Quiptic.

8. Some great clues here, but…

   With someone like Vlad, say, I usually end up needing three or four answers in one corner, and the feeling that “if I get one, I’ll get them all”. With Anto, I usually end up needing one answer in each of three corners – which just makes me hit the Reveal button on them. Maybe that’s just me.

   Anyway, I’ve got that off my chest. Thanks to Anto and Andrew.

9. Another LEAD ON here. CONDOM was clever. It just shows Anto can set an accessible puzzle.

10. II also couldn’t decide between Lead On and Head On but ended up going (just) for HEAD ON, I’m also not convinced that PATINA=Polish which is a pity because it was one of my favourites because of the wordplay. Other favourites were TIMBER (great hiding of the definition) and MUM AND DAD (I’m sure a stroppy teenager somewhere must have used that Spoonerism).

11. Tim C @10
    PATINA originally meant the greenish covering of basic copper carbonate that forms on exposed items containing copper (bronze or brass, for example), but has become applied to the sheen on objects, especially wooden ones, that have been subject to repeated polishing over a number of years.

12. Like Essexboy & PeterT I had LEAD ON. Great puzzle! I particularly liked CONDOM, PATINA, MUM AND DAD and HANDS OFF. Excellent cluing. Many thanks to Anto and Andrew.

13. I thought there were some excellent clues here; my favourites were HANDS OFF, ENIGMA, CATCH PHRASE, PARLIAMENT and, topping the lot, RAP SHEET and ACE – a little gem.

    I had HEAD ON but agree that LEAD ON is just as good.

    One quibble: old girls are alumnae.

    Thanks to Anto and Andrew.

14. eb @3 & DaveEllison @4: same here on the first of the three O’s. [In my setting experiences, I have often found myself cursing that the word from which I need to delete/swap a letter has more than one occurrence of said letter!] ‘Originally’ did get me looking at the beginning of the word Oxygen, ‘original’ might have led me straight to the first occurrence but I’m not enough of a technician to know if there is any significant difference.

    I haven’t encountered MEGAPHONE diplomacy so found that one a struggle to parse but everything else worked. I did end up with HEAD ON from the ‘direct’ definition, was happy with it and moved on so LEAD ON never occurred. RAP SHEET for the nice use of criminal, HANDS OFF for the surface, TIMBER as other have said for the almost hidden definition and, yes, the amusing CONDOM were favourites. And nice to encounter an owl-less PARLIAMENT for a change.

    Thanks Anto and Andrew

15. In the restoration game here, patina has generalised to the overall effects of aging on just about anything, even an entire building.
    An ok puzzle, dnk non-dom for ex-pat or the Tina acronym, o’wise pretty straightforward. Thanks to both As.

16. Whilst admiring muffin’s justification, I still don’t but PATINA = polish. It’s not the noun and certainly not the verb.

    TIMBER for deal without the eg indicator is a bit off a let down for this setter in my book.

    MEGAPHONE doesn’t work for me either.

    HANDS OFF was super, though.

    I keep trying to warn to this setter but still need a few more sweaters.

17. I think, generally, polishing removes patina, so not completely happy with 17a. I also had lead on for 28a. But plenty to like in this puzzle.

18. …warm…grrr

19. At first, this seemed like a quite approachable crossie from Anto – indeed, I was thinking it was much more suitable for a Quiptic than what we saw on Monday. However, most of the way through I hit a wall. I thought HEAD ON, MEGAPHONE and PATINA were all confusing. The first could just as easily have been ‘lead on’ or ‘send on’, none of the three seemed to me to quite fit. Nor could I see the advantage of MEGAPHONE over ‘telephone’. And crossers _ A _ I _ A give a multitude of possibilities so that even when you think yearly = p.a., and make the dubious equation of ‘polish’ with ‘patina’ (polishing might produce a patina – though there are many other ways – or a polish might have a patina) and say to oneself “surely this is not invoking the Iron Lady?”, it still seems possible that there might be other, better fits. I merely BIFD CURT. In each case, it was enter with a shrug and click ‘check’ hopefully. That said, I did like a lot of the ones I got earlier: PORPOISE, RAP SHEET, HAMLET, LOWRY, CATCH PHRASE especially. Thanks, Anto and Andrew.

20. SCRAPYARD was also nice. I wish the Poms would. I believe the UK is one of only two countries not to have, quite sensibly, gone fully metric. When we visit the Old Dart, it’s a mish-mash. Petrol sold in liters, to drive miles. I blame TINA.

21. I too had my doubts about “patina”, but OED has “a gloss or sheen on a surface resulting from age or polishing” as a secondary entry.

    Quite enjoyable. I’d never heard of Lowry. “Non dom” was new to me too.

22. Non-dom has been in the headlines in the UK recently, regarding the status of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s wife.

23. Like JarryG @ 5 the left side went in quite well but the right took a while.

    Liked PORPOISE, CATCH PHRASE, PUT RIGHT, ENIGMA, HANDS OFF

    Thanks Anto and Andrew (needed your help to parse a few)

24. TassieTim @20 and to make it worse, we normally refer to our vehicles’ fuel consumption in miles per gallon even though we buy fuel in litres; meanwhile, the metric alternative is litres per 100km, which is even harder to get ones head round because the units are reversed.

25. [Last time we were in Ireland, the disatnces on the road signs were given in kilometres, the speed limits in miles per hour….]

26. muffin @11 I take your point although there’s not much support in the BRB (2014). The closest it gets is “a sheen acquired from constant handling or contact (also fig)” I would see polishing as more intentional than the surface finish caused by repeated handling, although there seems to be support from the OED from GDU @21.

    Eileen @13, you are of course correct with alumnae, which as a male I failed to spot, although I’m not sure whether alumnus and alumni aren’t gender neutral (if not in Latin but in English).

    PostMark @14 MEGAPHONE diplomacy is also in the BRB. If you need an example of it, look no further than the current government in Australia in its dealings with China.

    William @18, turn off autocorrect and spell words for yourself. 🙂

    Tassie Tim @19, the only “advantage of MEGAPHONE over ‘telephone’” is that ‘Megaphone diplomacy’ is in the BRB whereas ‘Telephone diplomacy’ isn’t, but it’s a good thought.

27. TassieTim @20, petrol is sold in litres, not liters, in the UK! I quite like the quirkiness of our hotchpotch of metric and imperial units, as well as our spelling which reflects the sources of many words.

    Essexboy and others have pointed out my quibbles already. There were several nice clues and nothing too annoying, so at least 7 out of 10 for Anto today.

28. Tim C @26. I was just about to query BRB but is it Big Red Book? If so, I like it.

29. Surely non-doms are not expats? The Chancellor’s wife seems to live in the UK.

    Eileen @13; from the ODE: When used in the singular, alumnus (which is a male form in Latin) sometimes refers specifically to a male former student, with alumna being the corresponding female term, but the plural alumni generally refers to pupils or students of either sex. In the extended meaning ‘a former member of a group or organization’, alumnus may refer to either a man or a woman.

    I found this a bit of a curate’s egg. I got stuck on the MEGAPHONE/ HEIDI combo where ‘she’ was a rather vague definition. I liked the P(o)ORPOISE, TIMBER for the deal, HANDS OFF for the mine workers, ENTRY LEVEL for the ground floor flat, and the good Spoonerism for the family bank.

    Thanks Anto and Andrew.

30. I think TIMBER=deal should have had a question mark (definition by example).

    Muffin@25: speed limits in Ireland have been marked in KPH for many years now. I frequently drive across the border and have to take this into account.

31. Thank you Andrew , very helpful on the parsing which I did not get.
    Too many!

    I smiled on 12 across when I thought you had missed the anagram of ‘perhaps’ into ‘phrase’ (my solution) until I saw I needed to lose a p somehow :O)

    TINA was new to me in every sense so , having confirmed that it started with “per annum” , this was LOI one letter at a time , because PATINA was also new to me!

    Quite enjoyed this puzzle though it was a stop/start for me several times!

    Thanks to you both!

32. Quite tough but enjoyable for the most part.

    Liked PORPOISE, ACE, TIMBER, HAMLET, CONDOM, CURT.

    NEW: the painter Laurence Stephen Lowry.

    Did not parse 17ac PATINA apart PA (forgot about TINA but have seen it used in crosswords before), 22ac MEGAPHONE.

    Thanks, both.

33. Yes indeed Roughtrade @28, that is she. I usually quote from 2014 although I have a battered 1983 edition.

34. surprisingly quick, especially the left side (like others above). Have not done this week’s quiptic yet, and am a bit nervous after the blog intro. Lowry was last in; I liked it when the penny dropped. Even as (or perhaps because) an ex-diplomat I couldn’t parse Megaphone, but nothing else fitted that I could think of. Thanks Andrew for clearing that one up. And thanks Anto for a lot of fun.

35. Thanks, Tim @26 and Robi @29. You’re right, of course!

36. [Monkey @27. Quirky is amusing, but is it a good way to run a country? When I last taught in England, I found that many of my students really had no good grasp of either imperial (few knew how many inches in a foot, for example) or metric (which all their science was taught in). The sort of thing that crashes Mars probes. The other non-metric country, of course, is the USA.]

37. Yet another LEAD ON here, but I found this much more accessible than Anto’s Monday Quiptic. Particularly liked RAP SHEET and HANDS OFF, MUM AND DAD and SCRAPYARD. I must try to remember that the middle-letters trick used in ENIGMA and RESULT seems to be an Anto favourite.

    Since I spell curtsey with an E, parsing CURT gave me some trouble. Once I convinced myself that MEGAPHONE wasn’t TELEPHONE, I could see the allusion to that kind of diplomacy, and I think Anto intended either an &lit or a CD, but it doesn’t really work for me.

38. Several of these I had question marks against after tentatively inserting in the grid – HEIDI, MEGAPHONE, ENTRY LEVEL. Liked RAP SHEET, HANDS OFF (made me smile), and CATCH PHRASE. Thought CONDOM and TIMBER were tricky but clever, last 2 in. A mixed bag today, I thought…

39. Robi @29 I believe that the Chancellor’s wife is an Indian ex-pat living in the UK. If she was a UK national she would almost certainly not be eligible for non-dom status.

40. Nice puzzle which beat me by two: I really have no excuse for not seeing LOWRY, nor HEIDI, especially as I had specifically ruled out a homophone of ‘high C’. Should have reached a tone higher! As for the painter, for some reason I had sculptors in mind and bunged in ‘Moore’ in unparsed desperation. Moral, as my old English master used to say: RTFQ (read the question)!

41. Thanks Paul @39; I guess non-doms are expats from a different country. I was thinking of British expats when I wrote the comment.

42. I am definitely warming to Anto. Certainly at the easier end of the spectrum but with some neat, succinct and playful construction.

    Favourites were ACE, CONDOM, PATINA and CATCH PHRASE.

    I share Eileen @13’s view of ALUMNI (v alumnae) although I see ODE thinks otherwise.

    My only quibble with MEGAPHONE is this – the point is that megaphone diplomacy isn’t diplomatic at all.

    Thanks to Anto and Andrew

43. Thx to Anto for an enjoyable puzzle, my favourites for the day are: CONDOM, PORPOISE, RAP SHEET, HAMLET, LOWRY, CATCH PHRASE and ACE.
    Thanks also to Andrew for blog.

44. MEH indeed! Not convinced by the definition of PATINA (though I like the construction), ‘diplomacy’ does not equal MEGAPHONE, despite the co-occurrence, the LEAD ON/HEAD ON ambiguity is unfortunate, and the grammar of the wordplay for ENTRY LEVEL doesn’t work for me.

    However, there are some great clues -my favourites were RAP SHEET, CONDOM, TIMBER, CATCH PHRASE and the splendid HANDS OFF (this alone was worth the admission fee).

    [Robi @29 (and Eileen @13): The ODE catalogues usage rather than being prescriptive, but to use ‘alumnus’ for a female ex-student shows a tin ear for language. However the convention in Latin is that the masculine gender is the default for mixed company, so ALUMNI is the correct term for a group of old girls AND boys]

    Thanks to S&B

45. Oh, and thanks to Andrew for reminding this non tennis fan of the significance of ACE, which escaped me.

46. Obvious it was condom but hadnt heard of NON DOM (rosbif, pommy git, teabag, limey yes)
    At this rate Anto will be able to order his hybrid Maserati from the staggering fees paid to setters

47. Thanks Anto & Andrew – I needed help with TINA but I really enjoyed this, especially RAP SHEET and ‘family bank’.
    I thought of St Lawrence on his gridiron at 3d,
    Steve Bray outside PARLIAMENT with a SHINY MEGAPHONE
    and LOWRY papers discovered in a SCRAPYARD.

48. Non-dom is a new one on me. Also the painter LOWRY and Tommy Cooper and his CATCH PHRASE and the catch phrase MEGAPHONE DIPLOMACY, which sounds self-contradictory, and I don’t feel deprived from having missed it all these years.

    How did I not see the parsing of TOPERS?

    Briefly tried to imagine “scrapfoot,” “scrapinch,” “scrapmile,” before landing in the YARD.

    We don’t have the “bank of mum and dad” (16d) in the US, though we certainly have the practice. We would call it the “bank of mom and dad,” but a small business is a “mom and pop.”

    Eileen@13, Tim C@26 and Robi@29 All right, “alumni” for both sexes works as representing the tiresome “masculine stands for all” convention. Not that I like it (where’s Arachne when you need her?)

    What’s the Big Red Book?

    Tassie Tim@36 Even in the USA we do science in the metric system.

49. Paul@39, I think I’m right in saying that Lord Rothermere (owner of the Daily Mail group) has Non-dom status but is a UK national. In his case , for some reason , the non-dom status is hereditary. As if inheriting the title and the family wealth were not enough!!

50. Thanks Anto for a solid crossword. My favourites included RAP SHEET, PORPOISE, CATCH PHRASE (a homophone clue I actually liked), MUM AND DAD (a Spoonerism clue I actually liked), and BEEF UP. I missed LOWRY (unfamiliar painter to me) and PATINA. I needed the blog to understand HEIDI, HAMLET, and TIMBER so thanks Andrew for the help.

51. Paul@39: the essential requirement for non-dom status is that you don’t spend more than 90 days a year in the UK – your country of birth is irrelevant. Richard Branson and Mick Jagger are a couple more British-born non-doms.

52. I was just about to mention Lord Rothermere, non-doms are usually not expats, simoly tax dodgers. Our Health Secretary was a non-dom for six years even though he was born and raised in Britain.

    Thanks for the blog , some nice clues but far too easy , that is three so far this week.
    I liked the O originally in PORPOISE , it could have been the second O also but it is better than just O . Similarly the FIRST name for CONDOM is very accurate. TIMBER was also nicely done.

53. Gladys @51 – if only it was true. A non-dom can live here permanently for 15 years dodging taxes.

54. Well said Roz.

55. Valentine 48: BRB/Big Red Book = Chambers.

56. [Talking of the BIG Red Book, some might find this amusing. A recruitment company is currently developing an AI assessment tool that will determine a candidate’s suitability with responses to five automated texts. (I know – where the heck is progress taking us???) They boasted in their release that they had recorded 1.2 million interviews and built a database of “500,000-plus million words”. 500 billion. I presume that’s why the Red Book has to be so Big 😉

    The maths are also remarkable. Wouldn’t that be roughly half a million words per interview? I know I talk a lot but even I would struggle to produce that many! At a rapid rate of 3 words a second, I think it would take me almost 48 hours – without a break!]

57. Like others I reached for my Chambers, which is indeed big and red – some days my only exercise is reaching it down from its exalted position high on the book shelves. To me, PATINA=sheen=polish – it really doesn’t matter if it’s deliberately rubbing or continually handling, it’s still polish, which produces a sheen, which has become equivalent to PATINA.

58. Thanks to Anto and Andrew. Like others I found today quite enjoyable, but with some rather questionable cluing. Having read through the blog and all the comments, I still have one question (sorry for being a bit dim here!)… why is TIMBER an example of a DEAL? Or is DEAL an example of a type of TIMBER? Either way it seems a very weak clue, but am still confused as to how it’s supposed to work.

59. This link is to an article in the Graun explaining nondom status. Hope it helps 😉

60. Ian @58 DEAL is often used by timber merchants, confusingly RED DEAL is a type of pine that is usually pretty white.

61. Ian @58
    “Deal” is a generic term used for any softwood (usually from conifers) used in woodworking. As others have mentioned, a definition-by-example indicator is really needed.

62. I enjoyed this. Anto consistently comes up with inventive clues. I particularly liked HANDS OFF, CATCH PHRASE and ACE (very neat).

    gladys @51: I think you’re thinking of non-resident rather than non-domiciled status – the two are different for tax purposes. The former can apply for a tax year while the latter relates to your long-term situation and intentions.

    Many thanks Anto and Andrew.

63. Gladys@51 You’re confusing residence with domicile there. It’s all quite complex, even for qualified tax advisers, of which I am one though retired and rusty nowadays. For residence and ordinary residence (two important tests for income tax purposes), physical presence and intention to be present are key. Domicile is more difficult to get one’s arms around and UK tax laws use the term without specifically defining it. Generally we inherit a domicile of origin from our fathers, not usually mothers, and, for a Brit born in the UK with a British father, it is notoriously difficult to shake off that domicile of origin, which would require severing all significant ties with the UK, including nationality (by taking on another nationality through naturalisation). For some reason, we Brits, or at least the press and usually opposition politicians, believe it should be easier for, say, the Chancellor’s wife, an Indian, to ditch her Indian domicile than it is for me to ditch my domicile of England and Wales. It’s not exactly fair, and it would be easier to remove the concept of domicile from the income tax laws if Parliament wanted to than to play around with domicile, which has other non-tax implications (e.g. entitlement to Crown or other government protection). See – I said it was complicated. Certainly much more so than the press (The Guardian included) or the Opposition front bench believe.

64. This was entertaining. I also had LEAD ON, but I actually thought HEAD ON worked better.
    I missed PATINA, being unfamiliar with the TINA acronym. I think DEAL, being a generic term for various woods, is probably OK without the usual DBE indication. I’m not quite convinced the wordplay for TOPERS works as written.
    Faves: RAP SHEET and HAMLET (nifty way to include M and E separately).
    Thanks, A & A

65. [BigNorm@63 – interesting. Since we have an expert, what do you think about the claim that non-dom status is used to avoid paying tax?]

66. I struggled a bit with entry level. What if the main entrance is via a concourse on the first floor?

67. Patina – a green or brown film on the surface of bronze or similar metals, produced by oxidation over a long period.
    “many bronzes have been overcleaned, their original patina removed and artificially replaced”

    So the opposite of polished!

68. On a couple of occasions my mind wandered to contemplate how a potty-mouth like Paul might have clued the “FU” in BEEF UP…or considered “Congress” to be copulatory rather than legislative. Imagine my relief, then to be reassured that “some protection” was of the Trojan variety, as they say in the United States.

69. Thanks Andrew and Anto. As is often the case, I struggled to get on Anto’s wavelength and actually found this harder than yesterday’s Vlad. Never mind.

    I won’t repeat what others have already said but I’m surprised no one has mentioned the thing that struck me:
    Doesn’t Anto know any more recent examples of a catch phrase than one from someone who died 38 years ago?

70. Scotblok @67
    Did you read the earlier posts?

71. Thanks to roz @60 and muffin @61 for the clarification.

    Every day’s a learning day ?

72. Widdersbel @69 – you make a good point. Out of curiosity, I searched for British catch phrases and Wikipedia has more from the 20c than the 21c – – the most recent being from 2009, which surprised me. The 70s and 80s seem to have been the heyday of catch phrases.

73. [BigNorm@63 – most of your post is not relevant to the clue, and according to convention on this site should have been in square brackets, so that people who only use the site for help with or discussion of the clues could skip it.

    Having said which, still within within square brackets, I would take issue with your comment about how tax avoidance by pretending to live in a country where you don’t actually live (or vice versa) is “complicated” – and “certainly much more so than the press (The Guardian included) or the Opposition front bench believe.”

    It’s really not complicated – it’s just cheating.]

74. [pdp11 @72 – thanks for the list. As you say, lots from the 70s/80s. The other thing constraining Anto’s choice, I imagine, would be trying to find one which doesn’t immediately stick out as a catch phrase, and which one can work fairly naturally into a clue. That cuts out most of them – the only likely candidates I can spot, apart from ‘Just like that’, are don’t panic, stupid boy, I don’t believe it, I’m free, I’m listening, you rang – all of a certain vintage. And, not thinking of any particular larger-than-average tax adviser, Norm! 😉 ]

75. I thought CATCHPHRASE was one word. I agree about ‘original O’ and I think LEAD ON is better. Not familiar with HEAD ON. As for ALUMNI, that’s the patriarchy in action! But thanks, both.

76. [eb @74. The only catch phrase you mention that I recognise is Tommy Cooper’s. Good choice, then.

77. [ Sheffield hatter @73 says it very well , except it is tax dodging not a mealy-mouthed avoidance, it is very simple to retain non-dom status while still paying your taxes properly on income, Akshata Murthy is in that position now finally.
    Non-dom avoidance of income tax is simply a dodge by the very wealthy.
    There is a conspiracy of silence in this country about all the tax dodges of the wealthy, it is why the very rich pay a lower marginal rate of tax than the people cleaning their homes. I wonder why most newspapers are so quiet on this topic ? ]

78. Who’s Heidi?

79. essexboy @74 – isn’t it a necessary and defining feature of catch phrases that they are instantly recognisable as such? And if you’re going to use one as a definition by example for a crossword clue, it will need to be one that the majority of solvers are familiar with to avoid accusations of unfairness or obscurity. “Just like that” leapt off the page at me – as I’m sure it would have done for anyone old enough to be familiar with Tommy Cooper (I still remember the 11yo me laughing his head off while watching TC literally dying on stage, thinking it was part of his act).

    I don’t have a problem with the choice from that point of view – it’s a perfectly good DBE – but it’s yet another out-of-date cultural reference, of which there are already far too many in crosswords.

80. Widdersbel @79 – yes, ‘just like that’ made me think immediately of Tommy Cooper too, but to begin with I thought it might just be a playful allusion – after all it does make sense within the surface meaning of the clue. My guess on reading some of the others on the list was that it would be tough to incorporate them in a clue in a natural-sounding way – perhaps a challenge for your next compilation?

    tony @78 – Heidi (see wiki entry here) is ‘among the best-known works of Swiss literature’ – but you probably knew that?

81. Ruth @75 you’re right, catchphrase is definitely one word (according to Chambers and OED). This threw me off a lot, especially as I’ve never been aware of that particular catchphrase.

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