Guardian Cryptic 28,761 by Tramp

89 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,761 by Tramp”

1. Thanks Tramp and manehi
   I see now why I couldn’t parse 11a!
   BIGAMY my favourite.

2. New: IMMOTILE, ISOGON.

   I did not parse:
   – the definition or the P (F + OG + LAM + P) in 2d. Oh, I see now. I did not know that LAMP = hit.
   – 8d apart from the def = one hanging.

   Thanks, both.

3. Thanks manehi,

   I was wondering about 11A, and had just about decided it was a case of ignore the apostrophe to include the S and take the missing A from around which did seem a stretch. I much prefer Tramp’s intended clue.

   Thanks Tramp.

4. Well done manehi for parsing 11a. It certainly had me beaten. It feels to me a little strained but still fair.
   I know it’s established, but I’ve never liked C=see. Nice clue apart form that though.

5. I enjoyed this as it all slotted together fairly quickly. Thanks Tramp and manehi.

6. As the Beach Boys would say “round, round get around, I get around” – between the blog and the puzzle I counted 19 rounds 🙂

   Hopefully the ear-worm will take your mind off Pritti Patel

   I enjoyed COPULATION after initially thinking VISITATION

7. I enjoyed this although there were a few I didn’t manage to parse fully. It was quite a mixture – some I got straightaway but really had to think about others.

   Favourites included: IMMOTILE, SUSPENDER, RINGMASTER, BOUQUETS, OBSCURE

   Thanks Tramp and manehi

8. ‘c’ is OK for ‘see’ as it is standard abbreviation in texting or so the young people tell me.

9. I parsed 11ac as Blah @3 did – but Tramp’s intended clue is brilliant, I think. Bravo, Neil, for correcting it so promptly – nothing to beat yourself up for.

   Other favourites today were BIGAMY, BOUQUETS, FORETHOUGHT, TANTALUS and OBSCURE – superb surface!

   Many thanks to Tramp and manehi.

10. Yes I included the apostrophe s and wondered where the second a came from. I concluded there must have been an error and bunged it in. I’m not convinced by eg=perhaps in TENT PEG.
    Favourites were RINGMASTER for the definition and BOUQUETS which was a great surface.

11. Thank you manehi for parsing a couple I had got but mis-parsed. I got FORETHOUGHT but decided that Thought was ‘still time’ i.e. a time when you keep still and think. Doh! And for BIGAMY I had Bi meaning couple (as in Bicycle) and Gay as not straight. I think this works, but manehi’s parsing is better.

    Still on a roll this week 🙂

    I got CUPIDS BOW, but tutted a bit as I didn’t think Bow and Fiddle were interchangeable. You need them both! Unless anyone can explain?

12. USP also featured in Saturday’s Prize, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to parse 8d. I liked the hidden definition in RINGMASTER
    Overall very enjoyable. Thanks Tramp and manehi

13. Replying to myself. I suppose Bow and Fiddle could be interchangeable as verbs. Any got anything better?

14. That’s how I read it, Moth.

15. It’s great when, for once, you remember from other puzzles (USP like Andy H and TANTALUS for me) Very enjoyable. Thanks, both.

16. I came here to see where the second A in 11a came from and did wonder if the clue was wrong! For 13a – my LOI – I put the ATION in early assuming people was (N)ATION, then wondered why COPUL meant See; I did wonder if it was a bishopric but I guess C=see is fair in textspeak.

17. Moth@13 or both coul be used as metonyms for the person playing the violin???

18. Thanks for the blog, manehi. I forgot I was in today until Richard Heald informed me of the error at 11a.

    Sorry. I messed up. The original clue for 11a is:

    PC? Priti Patel’s flapping around when interviewed, for example
    (4,10)

    I checked the proof quickly (incorrectly), and thought “when” was serving no purpose so asked for it to be changed. I feel so stupid. Time to pack in, I think.

    So sorry

    Neil

19. In my day it was a cig behind the bike shed, by our sons’ time (now in theirmid forties to fifties) it was a joint; now … hate to think. Nice puzzle, ta both.

20. C=see is in Chambers as “the third letter of the alphabet” – no need for txt spk

21. No Tramp don’t stop … a minor stuff-up merely.

22. I had the same thoughts as Moth@11 so thanks manehi for your superior parsing and Eileen and Petert for the bow, further thoughts welcome.
    Tim C@10 surely “perhaps” is easily replaceable by “eg” as a definition-by-example indicator?
    EVINCE was my recently-learned word here, lots of ticks as already noted, but a query on ISOGON:
    I don’t think I ever used the word – lovely bit of Jorum – and i like the wordplay, but I thought a regular shape needed angles AND sides equal whereas my dictionary defines ISOGON as regular angles only. So a rectangle is an ISOGON but it is not a regular shape (unless it is also a square). Thus a regular shape is an example of an Isogon but a clear subset thereof and we should have a d-by-e indicator. Happy to be corrected though.
    Despite that rather wordy/pedantic quibble I enjoyed this a lot so thanks Tramp – don’t pack it in, please!

23. Don’t pack it in, Tramp! I liked this puzzle more than some of yours. Importantly, it wasn’t over-elaborate or particularly difficult. I couldn’t parse PAST PARTICIPLE and didn’t get ISOGON, but that didn’t spoil the enjoyment much.

    Thanks to Tramp and manehi.

24. I think Tramp should pack in. Then I won’t have to look like a jackass when people compare my work to his 🙂

25. Very enjoyable & I thought very easy – for the first half. Last few were a struggle but still fun. Thanks for explaining the slip-up Neil. Easily done & no biggie.

26. I do not think compilers this good should pack in because of an easily-made mistake. There have been many over the years!

    Apart from the goof, which I see is now corrected on the Guardian puzzle page, I had but three small quibbles. First, at 16 Across ‘with’ is not the most popular link word, second I wasn’t quite sure about the definition at 13 Down, and last at 19 I am fairly sure that PT can only mean ‘pint’, where PTS is used for the plural.

    Very good puzzle.

27. I’m a bit lost for words, after having a go at commenters yesterday for using “gentle” to describe puzzles that they found easy. So let’s just say I found myself on Tramp’s wavelength today! Not quite a write in though, as I had to come back to four clues at the end. I went down the same track as ChannelSwimmer @16, but didn’t get as far as looking up COPUL before the penny dropped and was my last one in.

    The answer to 11a leapt out from the apparent fodder, so I didn’t even glance at the number of available A’s. Is (disintegration)*=DISORIENTATING a well known anagram pair? If not, then it’s a great spot.

    Gazzh @22: your “pedantic quibble” is perhaps a little picky. Isn’t it the case that the *only* figure with all angles the same that does *not* have all sides the same is a “rectangle that is not a square”? So ‘regular shape’ may not be strictly accurate as a definition for ISOGON, but it is not misleading or unfair.

    Thanks to Tramp and manehi. And extra thanks to Tramp for owning the mistake so quickly.

28. tlp @26. Re 19d. I haven’t had a chance to say this for a few weeks: it’s in Chambers! “pt: abbreviation: pint or pints”.

29. Great puzzle with lots of fine clues.

    I did spot the two As in PAST PARTICIPLE, and, like Blah @3, just assumed it was from ‘around’ [although that abbreviation doesn’t seem to be in Chambers at least]. My sympathies to Tramp for the error, it’s no great shakes and easy to do as I find that one is often word-blind after endlessly staring at one’s own crosswords.

    I liked BOUQUETS for Don Juan’s what, RINGMASTER for the top worker, FORETHOUGHT for the nice Brexit dig, and OBSCURE for the lovely surface.

    Many thanks to Tramp who is a great setter and should not be embarrassed by one small slip, and to manehi for a comprehensive blog.

30. Gazzh @22 “perhaps” may be replaceable by “eg” as a definition-by-example indicator but I’m not sure it’s easily replaceable. Is it a definition by example or is it only maybe a definition by example. Doesn’t exempli gratia mean for example rather than maybe for example? I’d much prefer “say” as an indicator in this instance.
    sheffield hatter @28 good to see someone banging on about the BRB. Is that an acronym for the Big Red Bible?

31. I forgot to mention that when solving IMMOTILE, for a while I kept trying to fit “rego check” and “pink slip” into 1mile but I couldn’t make them into a sensible word or fit into 8 letters. The MOT brought back memories for this emigrant. Apparently there are places in Sydney where you can get an ‘MOT’ by bunging a pineapple (50 bucks) in someone’s direction (not me of course) 🙂

32. Not as enjoyable for me today. I finished the crossword, but didn’t care for some of the clues. Some quibbles have already been mentioned: TENT PEG – “perhaps” equalling “eg”?, “pt” = “pintS”?; never heard of UPS in SUSPENDER; never heard of LAMP meaning “hit” – LAM, yes, so spent ages wondering where the p came from; c = SEE; THEY HOLD = WIELDERS. All unsatisfactory for me. However, I had no problem with 11 across, so the on-line version must have had the right clue. I didn’t parse SLIP-ON, but that was my lack of insight, no blame to the setter.
    Still, thanks to both setter and blogger.

33. A very speedy solve today, had a Monday feel to it.

    The answer at 11a was so clear, and it had the requisite number of Ps, so I didn’t even try to fully parse it.

    Thanks Tramp (no, not the time to pack it in) and manehi

34. The last plantagenet@26 I don’t like “with” purely as a link word either BUT I think here it can sort of work as wordplay, of the kind: “With joy in your heart, sing” (for the clue we need an imaginary comma between sharp and stick). But maybe this is Germanic sentence structure creeping into my brain?

    [sheffield hatter@27: i think any even-sided regular shape can be ‘stretched’ horizontally so that it is no longer regular but remains an isogon (eg sit an octagon flat on one of its sides rather than on a corner, “cut” in half vertically and insert a rectangular strip equal in height, of any width), the proof is left as an exercise for the reader BUT yes I am being pernickety in the extreme especially as I found the “for” in 7d more problematic! Also as a result of all this I have learned that polygons are named for the number of their angles rather than sides (of course these are the same, proof as above) so am happily enlightened as a result.]

35. Tramp continues in this week’s style – straightforward elegance. Still pleasant but I prefer more challenging puzzles from this “top favourite”. He sets a high bar; I thought his previous one was magnificent (as so much of his output)
    Many thanks, Tramp and manehi

36. Excellent puzzle, with no quibbles whatsoever from me, except the missing A in 11ac – commiserations to Tramp for ‘just one of those things’, and I sincerely hope that one of my favourite setters didn’t really mean it when he threatened to quit!

    Lots to like, especially BOUQUET and OBSCURE for their constructions and great surfaces. I was another who wondered for some time about COPUL+(N)ATION until I saw the light about the light 🙂

    Many thanks to Neil and manehi

37. [Gazzh @34. Yes, of course you are right about stretched hexagons and others with even numbers of sides/angles. I must admit I only thought about triangles and pentagons. I still think the clue is ok, and wouldn’t be improved by signalling a definition by example indicator – you seem to accept as much by your use of the word pernickety!]

38. Exactly what Gervase said @ 36

    Many thanks to Tramp and manehi

39. Gazzh @34. I’ve just re-read what you wrote about “with” in 16a. So, “with end of sharp stick, poke”, eh? Yes, I think I like it.

    As regards “for” in 7d, I think we should imagine a tacit “used” in there: ‘policeman [used] for smuggling heroin’. We have topicture the COPPER being blackmailed by the organised crime syndicate and being caught at customs with several filled condoms of H in his stomach; not a pleasant image, I know.

40. Gazzh @34 and sh @39: I was perfectly comfortable with the clue for PROD (the surface is excellent, with its nod to ‘a poke in the eye with a sharp stick’).

    Transposition of the normal order of words (hyperbaton – which sounds like a very large stick 🙂 ) is a common poetical device which I am happy to see in a crossword clue. “And all the world a solemn stillness holds” wrote Thomas Gray – it’s ambiguous as to which holds what, but the metaphor is little changed either way!

41. Very enjoyable and on a good run at the moment…cue a Paul ‘horror’ tomorrow. 13a confused me somewhat, does SEE not need a homophone indicator? Though it was clear what the answer was from the OPULATION bit.
    ISOGON was new, but gettable from the checkers and the w/p.
    Thanks both, looking forward to reading the comments now.

42. I liked your hyperbaton comment, but at 16 Across there’s no way to tell whether that’s what’s intended, given the order Tramp has ended up using. ‘With end of sharp stick, poke’ however, I don’t think I would have piped up.

43. Today I learned that DISORIENTATING and DISINTEGRATION are direct anagrams. Always pleasing to find such long words that pair like that.

    Also I would like to add my voice to say: Tramp, stop beating yourself up about a small and quickly corrected glitch… keep going, I enjoy yours!

44. Tramp is the 16th different consecutive setter, equalling the all time longest sequence with no repeats. Since May 2nd we have had Vulcan, Qaos, Pasquale, Boatman, Picaroon, Vlad, Brendan, Nutmeg, Paul, Philistine, Harpo, Imogen, Matilda, Brummie, Crucible, Tramp. So, if none of these appear tomorrow then we will have a new record.

    16 different setters on the trot has happened 6 times before. The first time was from 27th January to 13th February 2015, but the other 5 have all occurred in the 2020s (i.e. comfortably post-Rufus).

45. Lots of fun. I liked everybody’s favorites. Thanks, Tramp and manehi.

46. That’s interesting Mitz. As far as I know, at least one G setter is on a contract to provide a certain number of puzzles per month (or year possibly), so it’s strange on that basis to see this run of diversity over a period exceeding two weeks.

    I know the Great Lord John had such a contract, during which era he produced a great many prize puzzles.

47. Thanks for the blog , another exceedingly unscratched head today, four in a row now. It would be nice to have to think just once during the week.

48. Thanks both. [After bodycheetah’s startling revelation @6 – I’m surprised there was time to do the crossword as well – I’m reminded of the embarrassment of a world service announcer who Spoonerised ‘population immense du Cap’.]

49. [Gervase @40 I think it’s the air and not the world that holds the solemn stillness, so maybe a little less ambiguous. However, thank you for reminding me of it. Learnt it for my O-levels. Loved it then and love it now,. I can only recite the first 3 verses now, and the bit about the flower wasting its sweetness on the desert air.]

50. When I did this last night I couldn’t for the life of me justify the P in FOGLAMP or the second A in 11a. I actually said to myself “Tramp does not make mistakes, keep at it”. I eventually found an online dictionary that had the hit meaning of lamp; even online Chambers doesn’t – so much for that!

    As for the A, I think this falls at the feet of the editor. Tramp comes up with top quality clues, I hope he was joking.

51. Lovely puzzle today from Tramp and I found it no less enjoyable for being less tricky than most of his offerings. I think 11a must have been corrected by the time I solved it, so I actually managed to parse all the clues for once.

    My only quibble was in 12dn the definition for Art Director as “role in theatre”. This is not a common role in theatre at all (not to be confused with Artistic Director), whereas it is very common in film and TV.

    Many thanks to Tramp and manehi for all the fun.

52. Thanks Tramp, it’s always a pleasure to solve your clues. I particularly liked BIGAMY, DISORIENTATING, FORETHOUGHT, and TENT PEG. I needed a word finder to get ISOGON and the blog to fully understand COPULATION, FOG LAMP (lamp=hit is new to me), and SUSPENDER. Thanks manehi for the help.

53. [Roz@47: I don’t know if you solved Tuesday’s FT crossword by Hamilton but it was certainly a “head scratcher” for me.]

54. Dr Whatson @ 50

    The Chambers app has
    “lamp3 /lamp/ (slang)
    transitive verb
    To punch or thump
    ORIGIN: Cf lam1”

    I remember it from an Araucaria puzzle many years ago where he clued LAMPEDUSA along the lines of “hit USA”, and it was certainly in common use in NW England when I lived there 30-40 years ago.

55. Dr W @ 50 and Simon S @ 54 (and erike44 @32): I am just one single PostMark so hardly count as a statistical sample but I have (influenced by my father) only ever used LAMP and never LAM for hit. Diff’rent strokes …

56. paul b @ 46

    Even if a certain setter is contracted to provide, on average, one puzzle a week, a sequence of 11 different setters won’t be that unusual. Say a particular setter – let’s call him “Roger” – sets most of the Mondays. That means from Tuesday through to the Saturday after next, including Roger’s normal Monday, there are 11 days before another Monday “Roger” comes around.

    These days, “Roger” has been replaced by “Richard” but only on a fortnightly basis. So, even though “John” and indeed “James” are both knocking about with one every 10 days or so – sometimes more frequently, sometimes less so – it’s clear to see why in recent years there have been more long sequences with no repeats.

57. Lovely puzzle. Agree with others that the surface of 17 is superb.

58. Thanks sheffield hatter, Gervase (nice new word) and Mitz. AllyGally@51 your quibble is certainly less pedantic than mine. Various – is the US “Lam” for hit the same somehow as that in the phrase “on the lam”? I only know the latter as meaning “on the run”.

59. [Crossbar @49: Thanks for correcting my misquotation. ‘World’ appears in the preceding stanza. Must check my sources 🙁 . Somewhat less ambiguous, perhaps, but the doubt remains. SVO is the usual word order in English but we use OSV, in effect, when we omit ‘that’ at the start of a dependent clause: ‘the man the dog bit’]

60. Another goodie from Tramp, whose name I always love to see pop up.

    erike44 @ 32: As has already been mentioned, “See” for C as a letter of the alphabet is in the dictionary, As are Bee for B, Dee for D, Gee for G, Pee for P, Tee for T and Vee for V. This one really needs to just be accepted because it’s perfectly valid, and it isn’t going to go away.

61. Also, “lamp” as “hit” is absolutely clear as day to me. I grew up hearing it and using it (I’m 50, so it’s hardly new). In fact, I was completely unaware of the word “lam” until I started doing crosswords, and it’s one I have never uttered in my life, and don’t plan on using. When I first started seeing it I wanted to know why the pee was missing. I think if I tried using it everyone I know would think I’d mispronounced “lamp”. Clearly I move in different circles from many of you. 🙂

62. I hope it was a deliberate red herring that “after treatment” is 14 letters. Until I had the D of DETERIORATING I was barking up the wrong anagram tree for ages.

63. A long struggle today, but I am glad to see that others find it easier going. Really liked BIGAMY, BOUQUET and DISORIENTATING. I’ll pipe up with my usual complaint about using an initial letter of a word to signify the whole word, in this case F coming from following. I know that it’s allowed but I would like a more imaginative route. Thanks to Manehi for explaining COPULATION, SLIP ON and TENT PEG, which escaped my noggin. An excellent puzzle.

64. [Gervase @59 Ah yes. The world is left to darkness and the poet.
    Of course if English had more differentiated cases for its nouns the confusion wouldn’t arise. That’s why the word order is more important. I suspect it wouldn’t give setters as much scope for misdirection either.]

65. Thanks Tony@53 , I did see that one but I was late to comment. I was referring to the Guardian, we have had four fine puzzles but each as g**t*e as a baa-lamb. Tomorrow we need a big bad wolf.

66. Paul @63: people sometimes complain about setters using a random word to indicate the first letter of that word, but I think that rarely if ever happens. The convention is that it has to be a recognised abbreviation. F (or strictly lower case f) for following is a standard abbreviation that you will find in any dictionary. To quote the online Collins Dictionary:

    f. is an abbreviation for ‘following’. It is written after a page or line number to indicate that you are referring to both the page or line mentioned and the one after it.

67. … although sometimes setters seem to think something is a standard abbreviation when actually it isn’t! As in G for girl and B for boy.

68. Lord Jim @ 67: I think you have to allow for common sense to kick in at some point too. If you were in a pub and the toilets had G and B stencilled on the doors you’d know which one to go through, regardless of whether it’s in the dictionary or not. It irks me that some folk will not accept common usage when it’s usually just that the dictionaries haven’t yet caught up.

69. MarkN@68 unless you assumed that the G stood for Gents, and didn’t think to check the other one for L = Ladies. 😉

70. @16 Channel Swimmer: Me too! I went clockwise around all the bishoprics in the Church of England before succumbing to the inevitability that 13A must be coital rather than diocesan.

71. Crossbar @69: Guys and Belles would be an unfortunate choice by an adventurous publican …

72. [PostMark @71 We’d better stick with the traditional pictures – ladies in trousers and gents in kilts]

73. We are really enjoying being able to complete crosswords without needing to ask for help. Sometimes we haven’t understood even when the answer has gone in. So this section of the constituency is very happy atm!
    A fiddle is usually scraped by a bow. Or have I missed something?

74. Can someone explain why Go = Fit please?

75. If it “goes” it fits”. This “goes” in there = this “fits” in there.\

76. Scotblok @73 The way it works for me is to look at fiddle and bow as the verbs, not nouns. So to bow= to use a bow= to play a fiddle i.e to fiddle.

77. Fortunately, I finished the puzzle after the correction went in. (Worse was I couldn’t get the Anagram helper tool to work — usually it’ll show me the unused letters)
    I never heard of rear fog lights nor
    USP codes (must have missed a puzzle somewhere) — we call them UPC “codes” nor a boozer as a pub rather than the drinker. Also for some reason I’m more familiar with guy wires than guy ropes.

78. [Off-topic: I notice lately more and more references to king than queen. There used to almost always be a queen = ER clue. I don’t think I’ve seen one all week. Are the setters or editors worried about the Queen’s health?]

79. Back to the puzzle, as a math major, I was surprised by ISOGON as well — and discovered on Wikipedia
    that it is also used for 3-dimensional figures, where it gets much more complicated.

80. Calgal @ 77

    I think you may be confusing two different concepts.

    A UPC (Universal Product Code) is the numerical equivalent of a barcode, also known in Europe as EAN (European Article Number).

    A USP (Unique Selling Point) is a concept derived by marketeers to differentiate their product from other suppliers’, thereby supposedly providing a reason for customers to buy their offering, not others’.

81. Thank you, Simon S @80

82. [@78 Cal Gal: how right you are. At 9A in Tuesday’s Brummie, the queen was a mere *R* for regina not an *ER* at all]

83. [Dear Tramp/Neil, I hope you aren’t still giving yourself a hard time over 11a. I just had a question mark beside it but thought it was me misreading the clue in some way as you are such a precise setter. I was the one kicking myself as you pipped me at the post – I didn’t know ISOGON at 26a, which was going to be my LOI late last night Australian time. But I had a lovely time along the way, so 23a to you, and thanks.
    And thanks to you, manehi, for a clear blog and for helping me to parse 2d. We don’t know much about 2d FOG LAMPs here in Queensland, Australia.]
    Nothing to add to the posts above this late in the piece, though I had to concur with many of the favourites mentioned.

84. Crossbar@72, if you’re still around, hilarious.

85. I know this is late and perhaps redundant but I feel impelled to show Tramp my support. I thought the Pritti Patel clue was absolutely brilliant – OK the parsin’ wasn’t quite quite perfect, but who’s worryin’?

86. 12d is a role in film not theatre

87. A bit of a struggle, and I couldn’t get BRED for love nor money (no pun intended), but I got everything else, although I didn’t parse FORETHOUGHT, SUSPENDER, PAST PARTICIPLE (not helped by the misclueing) or BOUQUETS.

    ISOGON was new to me, but fairly clued, and clicked into place. DISORIENTATING took forever because I kept coming back to an anagram of ‘after treatment’ – damn those misleading crossers! TANTALUS was my favourite.

88. Thanks @this goes in there!

89. Very enjoyable.

    Did not know hit = lamp, or ‘USP’

Comments are closed.