Guardian Cryptic 28743 Nutmeg

86 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28743 Nutmeg”

1. struggled today, but enjoyed it very much. Historian was second last one in and a delightful clue. Thanks Nutmeg and thanks scchua for the blog and parsing shepherds pies which was too convoluted for me to get.

2. Thanks Nutmeg and scchua
   Very slow start, but it got easier. I didn’t parse SKYPE or PROSPECTS.
   No particular favourites, nearly all very good. I’m not a fan of complicated constructions like RURITANIA, but I managed to work it out.

3. As always with Nutmeg found this quite tricky and could not parse a few – certainly not 1ac. But got PELAGIC even though I hadn’t heard of it. Also hadn’t heard of REFECTION.

   Liked: EVOKE, PRIMP, FREYA, EASED, RURITANIA, IVY LEAGUE

   Thanks Nutmeg and scchua

4. I’m a fan of Nutmeg’s crosswords but I was a wee bit underwhelmed by this, not sure why. I must be feeling out of sorts.

   14a PRIMP made me smile. Not a word you hear very often any more. More likely to hear it’s companion “preen”.
   23d FOLIO is one for my daughter, an occasional solver and full time rare books librarian. And I spotted the hidden reversal straight away. I’m usually slow about these hidden words.
   19a SKYPE – I didn’t get the parsing at all. D’oh. Thank you scchua for the explanation.
   25a PELAGIC was a new word for me, but easily getable. Sounds familiar now I think about it, but didn’t know that’s what it meant. Now I want to go on a cruise again.
   23a FREYA reminded me that I once “did” the whole of Wagner’s Ring cycle at Covent Garden. Not all in one go, obviously. These days (Covid permitting) I stick to live-streamed operas, usually from the Met, at a local theatre, and never Wagner.

   Thank you Nutmeg and scchua.

5. I thought SHEPHERDS PIES was intended as an &lit – the whole clue is required for the wordplay, and could also be taken as a description of a shepherd’s pie – a way of using up leftover meat (the last of a series of meals, the third perhaps) by which time the quantity of meat is naturally depleted?

6. [btw scchua, your first image for SISAL won’t open for me. ]

7. I couldn’t parse SKYPE, either and can’t quite work out SHEPHERD’S PIE. I wondered if it was a clue as definition as the Shepherd’s pie is the last thing you make with the remains of the Sunday roast? (Though, in my family, it was a Monday meal rather than a Tuesday one.)

8. I couldn’t figure out the definition for SHEPHERD’S PIE but I think essexboy & Petert have come up with the recipe. I also missed the pesky SKPYE clue. Thanks scchua & Nutmeg.

9. I’m another who struggled to parse SHEPHERDS PIES. I think you may be right, essexboy @5, unless anyone can come up with a better explanation…

10. Slow to start but got faster as I went. I couldn’t parse SKYPE (like many others, it seems) or SISAL. Lots to like but not many that really stood out, though. Thanks, Nutmeg and scchua.

11. Good puzzle to get the brain ticking over. I’d COME UP AGAINST the word PELAGIC in relation to birds, but hadn’t heard of REFECTION. I couldn’t get the correct def for SHEPHERDS PIE either, without invoking double duty, but I think essexboy @5 and Petert @7 have given a plausible explanation. Maybe the ‘lacking third of meat?’ is taken up by the mashed potato on top?

    Favourite was the surface for IVY LEAGUE.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and scchua

12. Liked RURITANIA, IVY LEAGUE, PELAGIC (loi)

    Did not parse 19ac.

    New REFECTION.

    Thanks, both.

13. I missed PESKY to get to SKYPE too, but other than that parsed this one. First read through I had very little, but it all came together steadily from there. SHEPHERDS PIE and that top left corner were my last in, but I parsed it as essexboy @5 and Petert @7. PELAGIC was one of my earlier solves (PRIMP was my FOI), but they are both in my vocabulary.
    Thank you to Nutmeg and scchua

14. Thank you Nutmeg and scchua.
    I liked RURITANIA for the (maybe not Prisoner of Zendaesque) image and HISTORIAN & IVY LEAGUE for their anagrams.
    Happy to go with &lit explanation for 1a

15. Like essexboy @5 I thought SHEPHERDS PIE had to be an &lit, although if it is, it’s not the best one I’ve seen. I’m also trying to convince myself that employ is a good definition of EXERT.
    I agree scchua that there seems to be two anagrinds in the &lit IVY LEAGUE.
    I was pleased to be reminded of REFECTION which brought to mind the Refectory at Uni. In my experience SKYPE was Pesky, at least after Micro$oft took it over.

16. I took SHEPHERD’S PIE to be a cad though it’s probably not the smoothest one I’ve encountered; everything else did flow, however, and there was plenty to like. I did laugh at ‘student of old’ as def for HISTORIAN. Like our blogger, I was surprised to see a second anagrind in IVY LEAGUE; technically required in a subtractive, yes (though not everyone appears to insist on it) but not if the eliminated letters are in the right order which, with ‘fit’, they were. REFECTION is a dnk but I made the connection with ‘refectory’ and I wouldn’t have been able to come up with PELAGIC if asked but have a vague recollection of such a thing as a pelagic dolphin?

    Thanks Nutmeg and scchua

17. I hadn’t managed to parse 1a either; remembering Pelagius (who may have been Morgan) helped me in 25a.

18. Enjoyable as always from Nutmeg, though I didn’t find it easy, unlike the near-unanimous chorus of Guardian contributors. I entered SKYPE on a had-to-be-that basis (“troublesome communications app” defines the thing perfectly!) and couldn’t parse it either: one of those sliding letter jobs that I can’t do. Held up on EVOKE by thinking the first wife must be an EX (the proper answer is good) and smiled at PLAY HARD TO GET. Thanks for the help in parsing SHEPHERDS PIES.

19. Wondered whether there was going to be some kind of literary theme given OBSCURE, INSPECTOR, FOLIO and RURITANIA linked to PLAY HARD TO GET, but couldn’t really get anything convincing. I too took 1ac as a cad, and assumed that the second anagrind in 17ac was there because FIT is not present as connected letters.
    All in all a pleasant morning distraction in a rather dreary Madrid! Ta Nutmeg and scchua.

20. Enjoyable puzzle from the Spice Girl with some nice constructions and good surfaces (as usual from this setter).

    Luckily, I managed to parse everything – I agree with essexboy and Petert about SHEPHERDS PIES, though it’s not the neatest clue in the puzzle. I rationalised the second anagrind for IVY LEAGUE (one of my favourites) as indicating that the letters of ‘fit’ were not consecutive in the anagrist, but this is a bit belt and braces.

    I’m surprised that PELAGIC is unfamiliar to many. Presumably that applies also to the contrasting ‘benthic’ and ‘demersal’?

    Thanks to S&B

21. Nice to see “degree” = BSC instead of one of the airy-fairy arts types that the setters normally choose 🙂

22. In 26 I had GET as in understand / appreciate to give reason for failure.

23. Found this quite a bit harder than the normal Nutmeg challenge today. Rather made things difficult for myself by trying to dash in – without enough thought – Panoramas instead of PROSPECTS for “views” and Edged instead of EASED in the NE corner. Wasn’t too convinced by the definitions required for EXERT and EASED either. Simply had to be REFECTION from the clueing though I only knew Refectory. Favourite clue HISTORIAN. Last one in the unknown PELAGIC. Not so happy memories of a Boy Scout weekend camp where I had to direct a group of blindfolded fellow Scouts along a SISAL trail, through patches of stinging nettles, too.
    Many thanks Nutmeg and Scchua…

24. Thanks Nutmeg and scchua

    I guess the most common occurrence of (a version of) PELAGIC is ARCHIPELAGO.

25. Thanks both. I found this pleasant and delightful; SKYPE was sooo good and HISTORIAN had me gasping like a landed fish for an age.

26. @24 Since our resident classicist Eileen hasn’t commented, perhaps I could point out that the opposite of PELAGIC is BENTHIC, from the Greek words for ‘open sea’ and ‘depths’ respectively.

27. Aside from the clunkiness of 1a, I found this to be up to Nutmeg’s usual very high standards.

    HISTORIAN was a joyful construction, also big ticks for PLAY HARD TO GET and IVY LEAGUE.

    Needed the blog to parse pesky SKYPE.

    Thanks Nutmeg and scchua

28. Seems I was in good comapny with a couple of parses I couldn’t quite get, but nevertheless I found a lot to like here; there were the usual good surfaces although I did write Definition? beside 1a SHEPHERDS PIE. My favourite clues have already been mentioned. Thanks to Nutmeg and scchua.

29. Good, enjoyable puzzle from the reliable Nutmeg.

    Like EB@5, I took 1A as an &lit or cad. And like muffin @2 I failed to parse PROSPECTS and SKYPE, the latter being particularly pleasing once all was revealed.

    I’ll give my own view about subtraction anagrams, where I don’t think the ‘sadly’ in 17 is required. Firstly, the letters of FIT, although not contiguous, appear in the right order. Secondly, even if they were not in the correct order, once the anagrind is before the compound word, it could be resolved as IVYLEAGUEfit, so no need for a second anagrind in my view. I realise that that is not the policy of certain editors but it seems logical to me.

    I ticked OBSCURE for the surface and IVY LEAGUE for another good cad or semi_&lit.

    Thanks Nutmeg and scchua.

30. Gervase@20: pelagic and benthic I know: demersal I had to look up. (From a holder of the type of degree Shirl@21 looks down her superior scientific nose at, but I did once share a student house with a marine biologist.)

31. Thanks Nutmeg and scchua. I found this hard going, but I suspect that’s mostly down to me being tired. Wasn’t helped by one or two fairly stretchy definitions making it more difficult than it might have been.

    Favourites were PRIMP (lovely word), PLAY HARD TO GET (lovely cryptic def) and HISTORIAN (lovely anagram).

    I’m still baffled by SHEPHERDS PIES. Median @9 – I do hope someone can come up with a better explanation because I don’t find those proffered so far at all satisfying. I suspect it’s just one of those clues that doesn’t quite work as the setter intended. Never mind.

    scchua, re 12a EVOKE – I suspect it’s more likely that Nutmeg’s intention is to mean “wife” in the old-fashioned sense of “woman” (a sense that lingers on in terms like “midwife” and “housewife”) rather than implying formal matrimony with Adam.

32. Robi @29 – I’m with you on subtractive anagrams – for me, the bit to be subtracted is to be regarded as a collection of letters rather than a discrete word, hence the order of the letters is neither here nor there. But as you say, some editors will be more strict about such matters and require a second indicator.

33. Didn’t know REFECTION but it couldn’t really be anything else. Missed SKYPE which was annoying but I thought it was a good, fair challenge today.

34. Technically, what I call a DNF, as I failed to parse PLANETARY, SKYPE, or PROSPECTS.

    I only managed REFECTION due to the memory of the dining hall at university being called, pretentiously, the refectory.

    Found this a lot more accessible and therefore enjoyable than some offerings from this setter.

    Many thanks for the excellent blog.

35. I haven’t commented here much lately; it’s because I’ve been doing the puzzles later in the day, by which point it’s all already been said. That’s true today too, even though for once its still early here. I just wanted to say that as a product of Princeton and Harvard, I particularly liked the fugitive Yalie.

36. A couple of others have questioned whether employ=EXERT. The definition really should be “employ pressure” or force or something like that. But the wordplay part of the clue has “regardless of pressure”, so maybe Nutmeg is winking and saying “I know, I know”.

37. Another immaculately clued offering from Nutmeg. SKYPE was obvious from the crossers and I could see the PE but my parsing stopped there. I kept returning to 1A, not being able to discern the definition. Eventually the wordplay penny dropped and it was my LOI. I took the definition to mean “of meat”, i.e. something made of meat. However, the whole clue alludes to a dish so I share others’ bafflement.

    PELAGIC was new to me but clear from the wordplay. Thanks Gervase@20 for further educating me with BENTHIC and DEMERSAL — all lovely words!

    And thanks William@34 for mentioning refectory: I knew REFECTION sounded familiar but couldn’t put my finger on it.

    Thanks Nutmeg and scchua.

38. [I just looked up BENTHIC, from BENTHOS, which mentions PLANKTON and NEKTON – another pair of lovely words, the latter being new to me. Aren’t dictionaries fun 😀 ]

39. [pdp11@38: Many of the better dictionaries will include a definition of ‘fun’ qv ( 🙂 )]

    [There seems to be a degree of academic snobbery abroad @21, 35 – what fun!]

40. Crossbar@6, sorry, but I can’t pinpoint the fault. (It works OK on my Android mobile as well).
    Widdersbel@31, I’m with you, as indicated by the insertion of “de-facto”.

41. Shirl @21, yes good to see BSc for a change, but I think the BA PREPONDERANCE is more likely due to the usefulness of the letters than arty bias 😉 . For BSC, apart from OBSCURE, I can only think of OBSCENE, ABSCOND and ABSCESS.

    [revbob @17, thanks for Pelagius = Morgan (probably), I never realised that. Although I could do without being reminded of Piers Pelagius.]

42. Thanks to Nutmeg for an enjoyable puzzle and thanks scchua for the blog. Big ticks for SKYPE, HISTORIAN, PLAY HARD TO GET and IVY LEAGUE. Happy with scchua comments regarding SHEPHERDS PIES.

43. Thanks to Nutmeg and schua. Great puzzle but having difficulty with SHEPHERDS PIE. I can parse it but there’s nothing left for the definition. Some (PostMark @16 et al) have referred to this as a ‘cad’ – can someone enlighten me please?

44. I’m late to the party today but I enjoyed this. Like many I struggled with the definition at 1ac and I’m not convinced by the suggestions so far. Also, why the plural?

45. John Wells @26 – thanks for that. I had to go out quite early and, for once, didn’t finish the crossword before I went. (I wasn’t really in the right frame of mind, after the very sad news of Alberich / Klingsor’s death.)

    Thanks, as ever, to Nutmeg and scchua.

46. Interesting that “pimp” has come to mean PRIMP as in “Pimp my ride …” etc. and yet they presumably come from completely different origins?

    I started out with SUPPORT instead of SUSTAIN which seems to work just as well until the crossers got involved

    Cheers all

47. MrEssexboy@41, perhaps aBSCissa is a bit too scientific.
    On the subject of education , it was Florence, Dresden, Etruria and Oxford for me. [ Muffin please keep quiet for now ]

48. ” Pelagic Birds of the North Atlantic ” is a classic guide for bird-watchers.

49. Thanks for looking scchua @40. I’ve probably got my settings wrong somewhere – I’m android mobile too. Just odd that I can see one but not the other. And I do like your illustrations. 😀

50. Same problem for me on a Windows 10 laptop, Crossbar.

51. Thanks Nutmeg for the challenge. I found this more difficult than the usual Nutmeg puzzle and resorted to the “guess then check” game to complete the crossword. I couldn’t parse SKYPE to save my life. As usual, there was much to like with ticks for OBSCURE, EVOKE, TRIPPED UP, IVY LEAGUE, and SISAL. Thanks scchua for the blog.

52. [Alphalpha@39 — I’m not sure what you mean – a reference to another meaning of fun? A correction?]

53. Lovely puzzle.

    Knew “pelagic” from a videogame (Darkest Dungeon). They’re a good source of osbcure words if you play the interesting stuff. Knew Gervase @ 20’s “benthic” from the film “The Abyss”, where it’s the name of the petrol company. Did not know demersal though, so that’s today’s lesson sorted, thanks.

54. [scchua@40 – I had assumed it was just me but since others have mentioned it, I can’t see the first image on any of my devices (Android, Windows 10 laptop, iPad). The reason is that the first image is giving an “access denied” message for sisalrugs.com i.e. something you have access to but not necessarily others. Try looking at this page in another browser or private mode to see what others are seeing.]

55. Candymandad54 @43: No one’s yet replied to your query. Cad stands for ‘clue as definition’ and is often used in situations like 1a where, as the phrase suggests, the clue in itself defines the solution as well as giving the wordplay to get there. I think it’s a more recently adopted phrase, employed where we used to use ‘&lit’ and suggesting just a tiny bit more flexibility in interpretation. For my part, I can never be confident that I’ve identified an &lit, whether solving or setting, so I play safe and refer to cad. With huge respect to Nutmeg, as comments here seem to agree, 1a is probably not the best example you’ll ever encounter. Hope this helps.

56. Candymandad @43: CAD around here stands for “clue as definition,” which is related to an &lit, without quite as much literalness as &lit implies.

57. muffin and crossbar I’m on a Windows 10 laptop too, and got both images for SISAL. As far as I know I’ve never had dealings with sisalrugs.com.

    I missed pesky, just biffed in SKYPE unparsed.

    The clue for RURITANIA seems to be telling me that one king and then another beheaded a queen. Once she ‘ad ‘er ‘ead tucked underneath ‘er arm, how did the second king do it?

    I knew “refectory” but looked it up anyway and learned some quite astonishing things about rabbits.[

    When I was a kid I spent one sweaty summer with my parents putting up sisal insulation, called “sisalation”, hammering it onto bare rafters. My father was maniacal about heat.]

    [I knew the word “pelagic” anyway, but just yesterday I read an article about an astonishing pelagic bird, the Cahow (Bermuda petrel). All the Cahows in the world breed on one corner of the tiny island of Bermuda, and spend then rest of the year out at sea. In an average lifetime, says Audubon magazine, a Cahow flies 2.4 million milles, equivalent to about five round trips to the Moon. Pelagic birds may occasionally rest on the water, but also stay aloft for days at a time, even sleeping on the wing.]

    I didn’t know “demersal” or “nekton,” though. Swimming in google waters is always diverting.

    [“Primp” reminds me of a story I once heard on the radio about the culture, and about how if you’re going to a Goth event you may spend more time primping for it than attending it — so much so that they developed a rule that you couldn’t primp for longer than you were at the event.]

    Thanks Nutmeg and scchua for the diversion.

58. [Valentine @57
    On a related note, I’ve seen an expedition being defined as a trip that took longer to plan than execute.]

59. bodycheetah @46 as you say, pimp and primp are probably linguistically unrelated. To extend the coincidence, pimps manage tarts, and primp = tart up.

60. Valentine@57 – I liked your Cahow and primp stories 🙂
    [I wonder if sisalrugs.com access is related to the country you’re in. I’m in UK. I vaguely recall you’re in the US; don’t know about others.]

61. [I wondered about that too, pdp11@60. The theory is looking good, I’m UK too ]

62. I just couldn’t see what the first word of 8d was. I was looking at returning to university from the point of view of home i.e. going rather than coming. I still don’t see how oppose = COME UP AGAINST, which means to encounter (a problem or obstacle). I suppose in terms of football teams, Arsenal come up against Spurs next Saturday, but you’d never say Arsenal oppose Sports next Saturday.

    That’s a quibble though. Great puzzle. Thanks N and S.

63. Oh the memories! PELAGIC is a word I’ve only met once in (sort of) real life, in Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun (volume 4, The Citadel of the Autarch, I think). Must read it again, if only for the unreliable narration…

64. I managed to eventually get ALL of the words today (though not the parsings). About half the words came on the first pass! But a struggle to finish.
    I only got 1a after getting all the down words, and thinking of “cooked … dishes”, but failed at the full parsing. My last-parsed was PESKY-SKYPE.

    My new British Culture phrase was “COME UP AGAIN” = “go/come back to”. Is it just to university? Is the “UP” because it’s higher education? Or do most students live south of their university?

65. PS, I had no problems with viewing the sisal pictures in the blog, but in the midst of going through the blog/comments, I briefly lost access to fifteensquared.net!

66. A big fat DNF for me which is normal for Hoofit v Nutmeg. Along with Paul, my most difficult setter.
    Looking forward to going through the solutions of the ones I missed.
    Thanks both.

67. Calgal
    “Up” to university is standard English usage. It explains one of the famous Dr. Spooner utterances: you have hissed all my mystery lectures; leave by the next town drain!

68. All been said except (unless I missed it) that 15 really needs a DBE indicator.
    Enjoyed the PELAGIC commentary. Can’t wait to go to a restaurant and order the demersal fish of the day just to see what I get. Probably a thick ear! Must also look out for the much rarer “Benthic Birds of the North Atlantic ” 😉 (pace, Roz).
    Thanks, scchua and Nutmeg.

69. PELAGIC and DEMERSAL have stuck with me since school for some bizarre reason, I think it was a way of classifying fish, but could be wrong.
    Roz @48, I have a copy of ” Pelagic Birds of the North Atlantic ” being a committed birder, though my favourite is still “Gulls of Europe, Asia and North America”. An amazing reference book. Helped me identify the fabled Glaucous-winged Gull at Beddington SF many years ago.

70. pdp11@52: Oh dear, have I done it again? I was merely riffing on the concept that not many would see dictionaries as a source of ‘fun’ (although I do) and having a little gentle fun myself while at it. But I think I’ve hit ‘facetious’ mode again – it’s involuntary: I can’t help it; I think it’s a post-Python thing. Please forgive and if you can’t forgive, forget it.

71. Muffin@67
    I think the student had also tasted a whole worm.

72. I spent nearly an hour mangling my normally perfect diction but still could not come close to making Pause sound like Paws. Lazy clueing methinks.

73. Paul the other one @62. Don’t suppose you’ll see this, as a lot of time has passed since you asked about ‘oppose’=COME UP AGAINST. I haven’t looked in Chambers, but I can get from one to the other by inserting “meet” in between. Thus Arsenal would oppose/meet/come up against Spurs.

    I expect Chambers will have used the exact same example, but I can’t be bothered to check. 🙂

    Unlike many who’ve commented, I had a rapid start but ground to a halt with about eight to go, partly because of keeping half an eye on Ronnie O’Sullivan (who opposed/met/came up against John Higgins in the semi-finals of the snooker). Once they had finished play for the day, I finished off Nutmeg.

    It’s been fun. Especially (to an Irish)*=HISTORIAN.

74. Podule @ 72

    In my diction there’s no difference. Curious.

    How does yours differentiate them?

    (And what is ‘perfect diction’?)

75. Simon@74. I refer you to comment 50 on Tramp’s puzzle of 22nd April.

76. Podule @75 – count me another who’s intrigued by your comment. I can understand Fiona Anne’s floored/flawed difficulties, although my own pronunciation makes those words homophones, but I’m struggling to see the problem with pause/paws. It would be helpful if you could provide more detailed insight into your pronunciation of these words, rather than send us scrabbling back through comments on other puzzles that don’t really provide enlightenment.

77. Podule@72
    What Simon S said. (In perfect RP.)

78. Re the paws/pause homophone

    Depending on where Podule is from, I can think of a couple of possibilities for how his/her pronunciation of the two words may differ.

    1) In the US, many speakers say ‘pause’ with a short vowel (listen here), but ‘paws’ with a longer vowel (listen here).
    The phonetic transcription would be /pɔz/ or /paz/, and /pɔ:z/ or /pa:z/, respectively (the colon is a length marker).
    Although the vowel quality is essentially the same (same mouth shape), the difference in vowel quantity (the length of time that you linger over the vowel) will mean that the speaker perceives them as two quite different sounds.

    2) In Cockney English, the so-called ‘THOUGHT split’ results in distinctions not present in RP.
    Pause will be /’pɔʊz/, paws will be /’pɔəz/ (sorry no speech samples to link to!) Interestingly, Paul’s will be /’pɔʊ:z/ – same as pause but lingering a little longer over the vowel.

    After all that, I expect Podule will turn out to be from Uist! 😉

79. [Oops! The /a/ in the phonetics above should be a /ɑ/ – not that it probably bothered anyone.]

80. In Cockney English… Paul’s will be /’p??:z/.
    That’d be the diction of Dock Green then, essexboy??

81. [ HYD@69 , we have a copy as well, also the PJ Grant-Gulls which I think is the fore-runner to your favourite.
    I often see glaucous gulls in winter when I go swimming. Glaucous-winged , no chance , only two visits to Britain I think ?? neither were near us ]

82. phitonelly @80: lovely!

83. Thanks scchua and if anyone still cares I couldn’t see your first pic yesterday when I was in the UK but can today when back in CH. Enjoyed some new abyssal vocab and bird chat, thanks everyone, and thanks Nutmeg for kicking it all off. PS Shirl@21 if I have a BA in Maths does that mean I am either airy or fairy but not both, and if so, which?

84. I’ve been all at sea for a couple of days. Interested to know about pelagic birds. I’ve only ever heard that word in relation to sharks. boomp boomp boomp boomp boom boomp boom boomp ………..

85. Like Paul the other one @ 62, I havered over 8d and felt confident with Goes Up Against, which meant I didn’t get 12ac. All enjoyable. Thanks to Nutmeg and scchua.

86. Belated thanks to PostMark@55 and mrpenney@57 for taking time to explain the use of ‘cad’. Much clearer now. Regards.

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