Guardian Cryptic 28,796 by Anto

83 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,796 by Anto”

1. RE 12 – as king abdicated initially (AKA) = assumed name

2. I think 12 down is a.k.a. (also known as) being the first letters of ‘as king abdicated’

3. You just beat me to it, electric insect!

4. I couldn’t parse 12d either — thanks for working it out. I was thinking 1a would include NY or LA — haven’t heard of EC. Haven’t heard of “duke” for “fist” — my research indicates it might have something to do with rhyming slang?

   Apart from these sticky bits, it fell into place quite easily, and was very enjoyable.

5. Re 26a – Should the US state be NY rather than KY ?

6. Twenty minutes beginning to end is certainly different from normal Wednesday fare but will force me to start work now! Made up for struggling yesterday. AKA was actually my favourite clue.

7. Thank you loonapick.
   And thanks to electric insect and Alison C for 12, the one I also couldn’t parse. I like it!

8. And agree Steve@5. NY.

9. Thanks Anto and loonapick
   I didn’t parse ASSUMED NAME either, so thanks electric insect and Alison C. I also had never heard of a POETRY SLAM, so it was fortunate that it was clued as an anagram.
   Favourite tHE PRODIGAL SON.

10. Was EVEN a little fluffy? Not sure how distinct are the definitions…
    Pleasant enough
    Many thanks

11. Anto’s cluing is just the thing any day of the week.
    My favs were NOAHS ARK, CONDONE, THE PRODIGAL SON, FOIE GRAS and EXCREMENT for their surfaces, and wordplay.

12. Nice one, Anto. I liked the simplicity of SINBAD, and FOR SHAME. Ta for the help with ASSUMED NAME, ei & AC. GeoffDU @4 – EC is the postcode for the City of London and well worth remembering. I assume Duke = fist comes from the phrase ‘put up your dukes’ as an invitation to fight. Thanks, Anto and loonapick.

13. Yes, Steve @5 – you’re right – will edit when next at the ‘pooter. Thanks to the early commenters who explained ASSUMED NAME.

14. I enjoyed this with a nice variety of clues and some unusual solutions. Poetry Slam was a cracker. 5dn and 24ac were my favourites with clever clues and solutions. Thanks Anto and loonapick.

15. It took me ages until a huge penny dropped for ASSUMED NAME. It’s a strange clue, almost two wordplays with an implied definition.
    I did like SINBAD for the succinct religious view, CONSTANTINOPLE because I’ve never thought of the ‘sounds like’ before and THE PRODIGAL SON for a great anagram.

16. SHAME ON YOU is the norm so I was completely taken unawares-as were all word searches.
    POETRY SLAM could have been a good Python sketch.
    Re word references I could not find anything to equate EROS with SEX
    Yes there was an Eros centre in Hamburg which was a bit more than a dating agency
    but I think SEX and EROS are a bit too apart
    Otherwise OK

17. Thanks to both. A good puzzle marred by equating hypothesis with theory – a la Popper, you can have many initial hypotheses but eventually one theory (gravity, evolution) prevails.

18. Let’s forget about ‘string theory’ (just a loose string of hypotheses) and exclude the use of the term ‘theory’ in the social sciences!

19. Good God, Sinbad, for shame!
    Our youngest’s hobby includes bouts of performance, open mic nights, slams etc, so no prob there. But also missed the aka, der! Yes, TT@12, but why are they called dukes? And agree, copmus @16, sex for Eros is an eyebrow raiser. Good fun though, Anto, keep ’em coming, and ta loonapick.

20. … And then there’s The Theory Theory, madman @18 (something to do with cognition, I speculate) …

21. In Freudian psychology Eros (as opposed to Thanatos) pretty much is the sex instinct/ drive (though it’s a bit more complicated than that).

22. I thought this was excellent, with lots of clever and witty clues. Like others I’d never heard of a POETRY SLAM, but it was clear from the crossers and the anagram.

    “Theory” and “hypothesis” be used more broadly than in their strict scientific senses. Chambers includes for “hypothesis”: “a supposition; a theory to be proved or disproved by reference to facts”, and for “theory”: “an idea or explanation that has not yet been proved; a conjecture”.

    Many thanks Anto and loonapick.

23. … can be used…

24. Fork=old word for fist. “Duke of York” rhyming slang for fork. Thank you Professor Google.

25. Wot paddymelon @11 said. I always enjoy Anto’s clues and THE PRODIGAL SON is up there.

    Ta Anto & loonapick

26. I enjoyed this and made good progress unlike yesterday and Monday.

    Also didn’t parse 12d and had not heard of POETRY SLAM. PARISH also held me up.

    Favourites included: FIST, AUTOPSY, FOIE GRAS, LATHERED, SINBAD FECUND

    Thanks Anto and loonapick

27. Tough puzzle and was pleased to be able to complete it, unlike my failure yesterday.

    New: GYRE, POETRY SLAM.

    Liked SINBAD, OVERTRADING, EXCREMENT, FOR SHAME (loi).

    I did not parse 12d.

    Thanks, both.

28. I like Anto. It’s certainly unusual to have (not very) cryptic wordplay for the definition as well as the answer, but I enjoyed ASSUMED NAME. I did remember POETRY SLAM eventually: it was OVERTRADING that was new to me. Failed to parse (of all things) THEY, because of a fixation with the final Y being a “no alternative”, leaving THE unexplained.

    Liked AUTOPSY, NOAH’S ARK, FOIE GRAS, EROSION. SINBAD and PAR-ISH made me smile.

    Sorry: earworm warning!

29. I’m in double figures for names of bands. Just saying 🙂

30. Good one from Anto with no discernible (to me) theme.

    I liked the CON getting DONE, EXCREMENT, where I thought for a long time that the definition was old building, and THE PRODIGAL SON for the splendid anagram and the definition.

    Thanks Anto and loonapick.

31. 12 was too clever for me too, but now my favourite. Thanks loonapick & Anto.

32. copmus @16 – thinking about it, you are probably tight about ‘Shame on you,’ but I didn’t blink at ‘FOR SHAME’, probably because it is familiar from Shakespeare: ‘Fie, for shame,’ sneers Lady Macbeth to her husband after he has made displayed his discomposure before their dinner guests upon the appearance of Banquo’s ghost.

33. I, too, thought EROS for ‘sex’ was a bit iffy. Just as Flavia@21 says: “it’s a bit more complicated than that”.

34. Isn’t 24a samish?

35. I thought AUTOPSY was a nice lift and separate.

36. Question marks about the parsing of ASSUMED NAME too, before I came on here, also with EVEN and AMBIVALENT. Did like AUTOPSY for its surface and the clever anagram for POETRY SLAM. STRAND was rather neat, also. Have to admit a DNF, however, as I spent ages looking at the clue for FOR SHAME before impatiently giving up on it. Rather an epitaph for my feebleness of resolve there in retrospect. I always find EXCREMENT a most disgusting word that somehow aptly describes its subject matter. Many thanks Anto and Loonapick…

37. 11a I can’t make CONSTANT substitutable for “always.” One’s and adjective, one’s an adverb. Are we thinking of an “always companion”?

    I went steadily through this, more steadily than usual, last night. A bit easier than the usual midweek puzzle. There are lots of nice surfaces, and Eileen isn’t here to praise them, so I will. Thanks, Anto and loonapick.

38. Shirl@24, GDU@4

    Forks is itself an 1812 pickpocket slang term for fingers so (Duke of) Yorks is rhyming slang for a slang word Yorks = Forks=Fingers =Fist (hepcats jive talk dictionary 1945)

39. Thanks both. Something of a relief after yesterday’s struggle.
    Don’t see an issue with EROS – surely preferable to IT – nudge nudge wink wink!

40. Not too difficult today. I worked through it methodically with a minimum of thesaural assistance. I will add my voice to the chorus re EROS and sex. I can’t think of a substitution test that it would pass. I got EROSION from crossers and definition and worked backwards to EROS. But just a minor quibble in a very enjoyable grid.

41. Thanks Anto & loonapick that was a lot of fun, perhaps too many favourites to mention, although FIST is pretty neat (that Duke of York again) and I loved ‘goldcrest’.

    I was cross to miss Brendan’s tour de force yesterday, but nought to be done about it.

42. I also didn’t have an issue with Eros Lautus @39. Does nobody use the word Erotic any more.

43. Thanks for the blog , very neat clues today. A lot of repetition from me and too many people to acknowledge sorry, but I want to give the clues due credit.
    SINBAD is elegantly simple, POETRY SLAM a great anagram, AMBIVALENT is very well constructed, AUTOPSY has great use of Playtex and the AKA in ASSUMED NAME is very original.
    Very minor quibble for skinny = undernourished, I am very skinny but extremely well nousihed.

44. AlanC @ 29 , you must spill the beans, I much prefer your music “themes” to the overly contrived ones we have had recently. You could also kindly provide a link to PRODIGAL SON by Steel Pulse please.

45. Nice puzzle. Didn’t know OVERTRADING was a thing, but apparently it is.

    I think the related word “erotic” might help those with qualms about EROS. Well, it helped me.

46. Over all too quickly with only 12d to give pause to scratch my head. Couldn’t parse it so grateful for contributors who did.

    Thanks Anto and loonapick

47. wynsum@41 – many of us take pleasure in catching up with puzzles that we couldn’t do earlier in the week, but your unnecessary spoiler has potentially ruined the pleasure for anyone yet to do yesterday’s puzzle.

    re Roz@44 – AlanC … please don’t. Without any indication that the theme might have been intended by the setter, such listings are always of little value.

48. I started confidently by entering POPEYE in 9ac (reading “religious” as a noun, so Pop[e] + Eye). Took a while to unpick that mess!

49. V good, I thought. Slithy toves at 14ac, shades of Calvin Coolidge with SINBAD (“Yes, but what did he say about sin?” “He was against it.”) The elder brother’s reaction (worried, deploring) to the return of the Prodigal Son. And a homophone for can’t-stand-me-nose-pulled. Thanks A & L.

    [Ptolemy @47 – I very much doubt if anyone had their pleasure spoilt, let alone “ruined”, by wynsum’s comment. If I hadn’t already done Brendan’s puzzle I would have read straight past it without twigging that it contained a clue to the theme. People are far more likely to have had a ‘spoiler’ experience through reading your comment drawing attention to it.

    I am one of those who take pleasure in catching up with puzzles I couldn’t do earlier. But if I want to be sure of not reading any reference to a previous puzzle, I avoid looking at blogs published on later days until I’ve finished. If I do look, then I know there’s a chance I’ll get some unsolicited help with a clue – for the very good reason that clues from different puzzles on different days are often compared with each other, and such comparisons can form an interesting part of the discussion. There’s nothing in the Site Policy that I can see that prohibits such discussions – the only specific ‘spoiler’ rule relates to Prize puzzles.]

50. I was at a poetry slam the other week.

    Didn’t win.

    Was going well, put up a spirited fight but stumbled briefly and got beaten while my bard was down.

51. [Just now hearing an AUTOPSY of the Tory vote in your 2 by-elections, from Ian Dunt via my fav Oz journo, Phillip Adams. Massive vote EROSION. Sounds of music. (Sorry kenmac, couldn’t resist)]

52. MrEssexboy @ 49 I missed the Jabberwocky reference for GYRE , I was thinking of “The Second Coming” , WB Yeats. The first eight lines have never seemed more appropriate.
    I am one of those people who take great pleasure in things “of little value” .

53. [essexboy@49 … policy 3 clearly proscribes comments that are not in any part relevant to the specific puzzle. “Comments added to posts about a specific puzzle should, for the most part, be relevant to the puzzle under discussion.”]

54. Great collective etymology of duke, you folk, many tas. [Been doing old ones of the Rev, and there was a bloke back in the early-mid bounties, Ralph G, I think, who wrote neat etymological disquisitions of some words going right back to proto-Indo-European and then tracing them, via Greece, the Romances, the Germanics and the Norses all the way to old Albion, hence to further mix with the influences there. I wonder if Anna in Helsinki knew of him]

55. … early-mid noughties … bleeping autocorrect

56. [Ptolemy @53 – wynsum’s post @41 was, “for the most part”, relevant to the puzzle under discussion, and so was fully in compliance with even the strictest interpretation of Site Policy 3.

    You may not be aware that the “for the most part” was added during the earlier stages of the pandemic, specifically in order to allow greater latitude (with guidance that off-topic discussion should be square-bracketed, and that the number of off-topic comments should not get out of hand). There was much discussion about it at the time, and most responses (including mine) were in favour of the more liberal approach.

    My feeling is that the policy has worked pretty well. The number of comments has not got out of hand. Most of the discussion each day is clearly focussed on the puzzle in question, but there are also some fascinating digressions which reflect the wide range of interests of the contributors here, and which add to the pleasure of visiting the site.]

57. I’d like to recommend Rodriguez’ recent puzzle in the Independent, but I daren’t say why.

58. A satisfying Monday style offering. No real standouts, but I liked the maroon hair. Someone at work today has just that and very nice it looks too.
    For loonapick’s Kentuckian version of 26 – “Undernourished European beheaded in southern US state”? A bit too morbid perhaps for a nice sunny day.
    Thanks, A & l.

59. Thanks Anto, that was a perfect crossword to solve over a leisurely breakfast. Top choices included AMBIVALENT, LATHERED, NOAHS ARK, ELEGIST, PRODIGAL SON, and EROSION, the latter two for their surfaces. I had the same problem as others in parsing 12d; thanks loonapick for the blog.
    [Roz @43: I agree that skinny people can be very well nourished just like obese people can be poorly nourished.]
    [Petert @57: Yes, the latest Rodriguez in the Indy is very worthwhile.]

60. When Yorkshire Lass and I were (1976) arranging our marriage, the celebrant (Father Phillips, high CE) required us to visit him for instruction, which proved to be a wonderfully erudite lecture on Eros and Agape, and how both had their part. So very happy with Eros for sexual love, if not for the act itself.

    Excellent puzzle and blog – thanks both!

61. Failed to see aka, and never heard of POETRY SLAM, but it couldn’t be anything else from the anagram.
    As I commented yesterday, I totally missed the theme until I came here. Missed it again today in wynsum’s comment @41!

62. And AKA is the definition.

63. For those who query sex-eros: where do you think erotic comes from?

64. Cliveinfrance @38, no wonder I didn’t get it. A bit above my pay grade.

65. Don’t know about “samish”, I thought 24a a spiffing clue!

66. [Like wynsum@41 i Missed Brendan’s puzzle but the only spoiling for me came from Ptolemy@47. I find reading these comments is like attending an after-match function. Often as enjoyable as the game itself and I think the balance of relevance is just right so thanks to you all.]

67. AlanS @65
    PARISH could be an entry in the Uxbridge English Dictionary (ISIHAC).

68. Much nicer today

69. Ptolemy @47: boy did you add little value

70. Managed to do about half of it.
    Thanks both.

71. [The Ptolomy/eb exchange, for some reason, reminded me of the days when a big boxing match took place overnight somewhere (say Ali or Tyson) and would be shown the following evening in the UK. Or an overnight F1 race. You really had to avoid all media (and tell everyone at work not to tell you) if your didn’t want to see the result.

    If you really want no spoilers for an old crossword, sites discussing crosswords should probably be avoided until you catch up 😉

    Petert@57 – I too mentioned Picaroon’s Indy puzzle on Monday (late) without comment. If you’re recommending another puzzle, you don’t want to spoil it at the same time!]

    Neat clueing from Anto today. Thanks to him and loonapick and to those explaining AKA.

72. For you Roz, something of value – https://youtu.be/qaITQX3neiY

73. muffin@67 — Thanks for the link! Talk about fun with words! 🙂

74. …and Joan OVERTRADING was my first musician.

75. If we’re being musical, this is a rare opportunity to mention Istanbul (not Constantinople) by They Might Be Giants.

76. @42, @45, @63 and others who defend the EROS = SEX clueing based on the proximity to ‘erotic’… I’m still grappling with this.

    My understanding of cryptic crossword clueing is that it operates not at the level of ‘some linguistic connection’ but at the level of direct replacement value i.e. there is some context in which one could replace the word EROS with the word SEX and they would be interchangeably acceptable.

    If such a replacement value exists for EROS and SEX exists, I can’t think of it, and none of the explanations above are sufficiently robust.

    I do generally believe though that setters know their stuff, and I normally assume that the ‘substitution test’ answer is simply something that I haven’t thought of yet. I just don’t think the related adjective ‘erotic’ is a satisfactory explanation of why EROS means sex.

    I’m more than happy to be enlightened!

    🙂

77. Pdp11@71…and what about that classic episode of the Likely Lads where they spent the whole episode not wanting to hear the result of the England soccer team’s result away from home so they could watch it on whatever Catchup was called in those days. No spoilers here from me about the outcome in case someone hasn’t seen it yet…

78. Ronald@71 – lol – it was a good one. Whatever happened to the Likely Lads? 😉

79. Rob T @76
    I have found a few places that give a meaning for Eros (or sometimes eros) as physical love or desire, which sounds pretty close to sex, which can also be the attraction not just the physical act.

    (Interestingly, Chambers OL doesn’t have Eros at all.)

80. Thank you AlanC@72 , and Joan OVERTRADING is priceless.
    I tell my students that the next model from Apple will be called the MeMyself I -phone but they do not get the reference or the insinuation.

    [ The Whatever Happened……… episode was called – No Hiding Place. The “Catchup” programme was – Sportsnight ( with Coleman possibly ) , all I will say is England F……]

    [ Rob T @ 76 – The librarian was well known for her obsession with EROS / ….. ]

81. RobT @76, if you are still reading, eros as sex is from ancient Greek and is also Biblical, which is where I know it from, one of the Pauline letters where he writes of the different forms of love, eros meaning romantic/sexual love, phileo meaning brotherly love and agape unconditional love or the love from god. Looking this up, there are seven forms of love in Greek.

    I enjoyed this, but as often, did it earlier than the blog came out and forgot to check the blog until later.

82. @79, @80 and especially @81 – thanks all! I now know about the seven forms of love in Greek. Every day’s a school day! This specific reference is more satisfying than the earlier explanations that centred on the proximity to the adjective ‘erotic’, as while it was always obvious to me that there was a connection, i couldn’t make it truly fit until the penny dropped with the Greek forms of love thing 🙂

83. Thanks loonapick and those who spotted AKA (I didn’t) and helped unravel Eros- I suppose Anto was somewhat hamstrung by wanting Love to give the O later on. This was no walk in the park and I enjoyed more inventive construction as well as newer terms like POETRY SLAM. Thanks Anto! PS I am enjoying last Saturday’s Rodriguez so thanks lots of you for recommending without spoilers.

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