Guardian 28,806 – Anto

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Let’s start with the grid..

4d and 20d both have three consecutive unches (unchecked letters), which goes against the principles of good grid construction. I’m sure this one not one of the standard Guardian set, but I do remember seeing it before in a Quiptic (where it’s even less excusable). Today’s Quiptic is also an Anto – perhaps the two puzzles have been mixed up? Having got that off my chest, I don’t have much to say about the puzzle itself: competent enough, but, for me, too many clues where the definition doesn’t work gramatically. Anyway, thanks to Anto.
Across
1 KNOCKER Critic used to demand entry (7)
Double definition
5 GIDDY UP Unbalanced when mounted? Best not say it then (5,2)
GIDDY (unbalanced) + UP (mounted on a horse)
10 ACME Peak current setter goes after (4)
AC (alternating current) + ME (the setter)
11 CURATE’S EGG Treat guest with grace — it’s not all bad! (7,3)
(GUEST GRACE)*
12 ENVY Resent calling out characters in mid-canvas (4)
The middle letters of canvas are N V, which sound like ENVY
13 CARDIGAN In prison, I drag around some­thing to keep me warm (8)
(I DRAG)* in CAN (prison). “Around” would usually indicate reversal, but I suppose it’s ok for an anagram too
14 CONTAGION It spreads cold vegetable over game (9)
TAG (children’s game) in C ONION
16 ASSET The way it’s positioned is a real benefit (5)
AS SET (the way something is positioned)
17 TORSO Body temperature, approximately (5)
T + OR SO
19 ASTROLOGY Log into a Tory’s daft predictions (9)
LOG in (A TORY’S)*
23 BEDFRAME Plot set up that supports sleepers? (8)
BED (plot, e.g. in a garden) + FRAME (to set up)
24 CASH Charlie is playing Henry for money (4)
If Charlie is playing Henry then it’s C AS H
25 HEARING AID Sound equipment Nigeria had distributed (7,3)
(NIGERIA HAD)*
26 DIET Check out time for regime (4)
DIE (“check out”) + T – “diet” as in a parliament or assembly: “regime” seems a bit loose as a definition Ah, it’s as in the more obvious nutritional sense: objection withdrawn
27 AT HEART Basically, he’s in a bitter environment (2,5)
HE in A TART
28 APPEASE Meet demands for programme facility (7)
APP (computer program, or “programme” if you insist) + EASE
Down
2 NO CAN DO Impossible for a knight to occupy dilapidated condo (2,3,2)
A N in CONDO*
3 CHEWY Substantial cut in charity limits (5)
HEW in C[harit]Y
4 ETCHING Attractive fellow leaving print work (7)
FETCHING less F
6 INTERN Detain worker — for nothing? (6)
An intern can be someone who is unpaid
7 DISMISSAL Mislaid at sea around ship? You get the sack (9)
SS in MISLAID*
8 UPGRADE Promote happy class (7)
UP + GRADE
9 PRECIOUS METAL Favourite has lead perhaps — it could mean gold (8,5)
PRECIOUS (favourite) + METAL (of which lead is an example)
15 TASK FORCE Special group request church to follow trusted leader (4,5)
T[ruster] + ASK FOR CE
18 OVEREAT Become angry when husband leaves? Get stuffed (7)
OVERHEAT less H
20 ROUND UP Summary arrest (5,2)
Double definition
21 GUSHERS Good guides, who can be very talkative (7)
G + USHERS
22 WAGNER Some children gawped over his ring (6)
Hidden in reverse of childREN GAWped; reference to the Ring Cycle, but “his ring” is a poor definition
24 CADGE Bum gets day in lock-up (5)
D in CAGE

58 comments on “Guardian 28,806 – Anto”

  2. Gentle start for the week although it took too long to get KNOCKER and CHEWY for some reason. DIET is a bit of a long bow although C2014 has Regime = Regimen = course of treatment, such as (med) a prescribed combination of diet, exercise, drugs, etc. I can imagine someone saying “I’m on a new regime” although diet would be much more common. I liked ASTROLOGY for the daft anagrind.

  3. No issues for me with ‘regime’ = DIET. ‘Dietary regime’ registers plenty of hits on Google, plenty of them in academic/official works and I suspect, in everyday use, if not wanting to use the word ‘diet’, many would say ‘regime’ rather than ‘regimen’. The unches were ugly but didn’t prevent solve.

    CURATE’S EGG, CONTAGION and TASK FORCE my favourites.

    Thanks Anto and Andrew

  4. Took an age to see GIDDY UP but liked it in the end.

    New for me unches ! Although don’t have an issue with an excess of them in straightforward clues like ETCHING and ROUND UP.

    Cod today, the elegant TORSO.

    Many thanks both.

  5. I agree that an app is a program and not a programme. Otherwise, pretty good for Monday! I wasn’t bothered by the grid but I suppose I see the problem if those had been tricky.

  6. I didn’t see any problems with that at all and enjoyed it. About what we expect for a Monday without being a complete write-in. Surely the only problem with 3 unches in a row is if the solution is ambiguous without more crossers?
    As for program/app I feel pretty sure that when I started programming back in the the dark ages (1969) eyebrows were raised when programmers talked of programs rather than programmes, as this was just an American spelling that came over with IBM.

    Thanks Anto and Andrew.

  7. 27 across contains the second instance I’ve seen recently of tart being incorrectly clued as bitter. Tart is sour not bitter.

  8. GIDDY UP my favourite – an unusual clue, but fun.

    I agree with Crossbar about APP (though make it 1966!). Sulphur has gone a similar way.

    I hadn’t noticed the excess unches, but they didn’t hinder me in any way.

    Thanks Anto and Andrew.

  9. As a Guardian crossword attempter for over 40 years I welcomed the Quiptic as a means to start the week with a completed crossword. Now it seems that the Quiptic has become virtually a full blown Cryptic. It leaves me with no satisfaction that I can no longer solve it. More consideration could be given to us poor solvers who struggle to do Cryptics.

  10. This was a bit of a CURATE’S EGG.
    I think GIDDY UP was more of a wordplay and cryptic def. ”Best not to say it then” could hardly be the def.
    Think WAGNER was similar. “His ring” is not a def.
    I’m another one for DIET, as in a health regime.

  11. Not wanting to nitpick, but on the subject of defs, predictions can hardly be a def for ASTROLOGY. It’s a study of celestial movements and their influence on human affairs.

  12. Régime is the standard word for diet (as in food) in French. Curiously, it can also be a bunch (of bananas, for example). If you combine the ambiguity of régime with the ambiguity of je suis (I am, from être, or I follow, from suivre), you get:
    Je suis un régime = I am on a diet, or
    Je suis un régime = I am a bunch of bananas.

    Like Andrew and paddymelon, I questioned ‘his ring’ as a definition for Wagner, but I’m now thinking that, with some imaginative stretching, it can work. After all, if it were “Ring his”, we would be more inclined to accept it as crossword-speak/newspaper headline-style for “The Ring was his”. So can it still work in reverse? A quick google search for possessive pronoun + noun combos came up with:

    Not theirs the warrior’s ruthless heel
    Not theirs the strife ensanguined spoil
    Not theirs the shriek , the cry , the pang
    Not theirs !

    and

    Hers the pathway to the grave

    In each case, we have to imagine an “is” or a “was” between the theirs/hers and the noun, so why not “his ring” = “His was the ring”?

    I enjoyed this; thanks A & A.

  13. I got to cash via Chas with the h ‘playing’, ie moving about, but the ‘as=in the role of’ method is better.

  14. Yaokam@9. Sympathies, neither the Cryptic nor Quiptic today were IMO straightforward, but then they were both by the same setter. While I don’t subscribe to the idea that the rest of the week has to be of increasing difficulty as it was historically, I do believe we need to have crosswords, Cryptic and Quiptic, not necessarily on the same day, to balance the week out, and encourage solvers. Otherwise, the whole cruciverbalist world will be diminished.

  15. I thought GIDDY UP was clever and wondered whether there had been some famous incident I was unaware of which made WAGNER a clue as definition. For once, I thought the Cryptic/Quiptic divide was about right today.

  16. Like others I thought GIDDY UP was clever; KNOCKER took me almost as long as the rest of the puzzle. But good Monday fare, not very CHEWY. Thanks to A & A.

  17. I quite liked it and ticked several clues – particularly the ones already cited above – 11a CURATE’S EGG, 17a TORSO and 26a DIET, as well as 27a AT HEART (despite the distinction made by Desmodeus@7) and 18d OVEREAT. Thanks to Anto for a puzzle that suited my mood today, which was for something not too difficult or frustrating. Thanks to Andrew for teasing out a few subtleties I didn’t spot – why the “AS” in 24a CASH, and why “for nothing” in 6d INTERN.
    [And hear hear, paddymelon@14, and others saying they like the so-called “gentler” offerings sometimes!]

  18. Enjoyable puzzle.

    Liked CONTAGION, TORSO, CASH, GIDDY UP, AT HEART (loi).

    I did not parse 12ac apart from middle letters of caNVas but could not work out why they were in EY.

    Thanks, both.

    I agree with Yoakam @9 and paddymelon@14 but I suspect that the Guardian does not care to encourage new solvers. Compared to the past, the Quiptic and Everyman puzzles are not geared towards beginners anymore. Are most solvers and setters are in the 65+ age group? I often wonder if there are a lot of 15-30 year old solvers and middle-aged solvers? And regardless of age, are there many new solvers in general?

  19. Found this generally straightforward although took far too long trying to work out why one 1ac might be SNICKET with entry as the definition and why 21d might be GASSERS.

  20. A bit of a grumpy blog today, have you come under The Last Plantagenet’s influence Andrew? I thought this was about right for a Monday puzzle, my only complaint is that tart is not bitter. The only thing sour and bitter have in common is that they are not sweet, has an oversupply of sugar swamped everyone’s tastebuds?

  22. Well I liked WAGNER(still do in fact)
    The plural of 1a reminds me of Young Frankenstein where the girl says “Sank you doctor!”
    “So whats it to be ,Squire?”
    I’ll have a double Anto on the rocks

  23. Plenty of pause for thought today, for a Monday. Very much liked CURATES EGG, CONTAGION and HEARING AID. My last two in were GIDDY UP and INTERN both of which had me scratching my head for a while. Many thanks A and A…

  24. Suitably Mondayish. GIDDY UP is unusually constructed, with an allusion rather than a straight definition. I’m relaxed about the unch question – two unches consecutively would be a no-no, but as long as the solution is unambiguous, 3/5 is not so heinous.

    I liked CARDIGAN, TORSO and ASTROLOGY (the last for the surface and construction – pity about the definition:) ).

    CURATE’S EGG is always taken to mean literally ‘good in parts’, but that wasn’t the original connotation. It comes from an old cartoon, in Punch, I think, where a bishop asks a nervous young curate about his boiled egg. He splutters ‘It was good in parts!’ Clearly a bad egg cannot be good in parts – the curate is reluctant to sound over-critical so resorts to a white lie.

    Thanks to S&B

    Like Desmodius and nicbach I demur at ‘tart’ = ‘bitter’.

  25. Desmodeus@7 – you are right in terms of taste, but a tart reply can be either sour or bitter, I reckon.

  31. Can’t agree with Andrew. I thought this was a thoroughly enjoyable Monday offering.
    Thanks Anto and Andrew

  32. I’m not sure that even a tart reply is the same as a bitter one. The first Is sharp and disapproving, the second is deeply resentful.

  33. I too was surprised by the non-defs for GIDDY UP and WAGNER.

    Regarding tart and bitter, this has come up here before. In fact, just this May, Anto equated bitter with acid, where it was objected to. I can see it might work as a real stretch, but wouldn’t it be better just to avoid the whole thing? Maybe not all setters read all comnents.

  34. For 14a I couldn’t get past “go” or “ru” for game, needed the check button to get to “tag.”

    essexboy@12 “I am a bunch of bananas” reminds me of JFK’s famous “Ich bin ein Berliner,” which does or doesn’t mean “I am a doughnut.”

    Pleasant puzzle, thanks Anto. And thanks to Andrew for the blog.

  36. Thanks Anto for a pleasant crossword with my top choices being CONTAGION, BEDFRAME, and INTERN. Thanks Andrew for the blog.

  37. Thanks for the blog, I think GIDDY UP would have been better as – Best not say THIS then. CURATES EGG was nicely done , I think the curate said – Parts of it are good.
    PDM@14 as far as I recall it was never a tradition for puzzles to get harder through the week. The aim was for 2 easy , 2 medium and 2 hard. Monday usually an easy day and Saturday hard. Usually the other hard puzzle would be a on Wednesday.

  38. Roz@37 et al. I think it is for the NYT that the stated policy is harder each day, and that might have bled into the discussion of the G.

  39. Late to the finish, as I have had an enjoyably sociable day. This didn’t all fall into place with my morning tea, but the rest gave in after I left it and came back. Unch is a new abbr for me, and I did notice them, but they didn’t bother me. Did make it slightly more difficult, but that’s not a bad thing.

    I liked GIDDY UP, and I think vague definitions are OK (as are vague homonyms, but that’s another discussion). For me, the test of whether a clue is fair, is if when you get the answer, you are convinced it is right, despite a bit of vagueness. And for GIDDY UP and AT HEART that applied for me.

  40. This is probably not the place to raise this, but does anyone know if there is going to be a blog for last Saturday’s puzzle (Paul, 28799)? Or has there been one and I missed it?

  41. Moth @40: Because Saturdays’ are prize puzzles, the blog isn’t uploaded until the following Saturday

  42. Moth@40 , the blog is there, it does not say prize, just Paul and the number. About half way down the list of blogs.

  43. re: the sour/bitter discussion —
    I have always thought them very different, but my English husband frequently says bitter for sour.

    I see Chamber OL defines bitter as:
    “having a sharp, acid and often unpleasant taste”
    and sour as:
    ” having an acid taste”
    It seems odd that dictionaries describe bitter taste as “unpleasant”, when so many bitter drinks are quite popular: coffee, tea, wines aged in oak, or hoppy ales/beers.

  44. Especially enjoyed TORSO (once I tried the T at the front instead of the back!) and ENVY. Also TASK FORCE,

    dnk: curate’s egg (I barely know what a curate is), how Henry could be “H”, unch

    Unfortunately, curate’s egg reminds me of a not-so-humble man talking of “good on both sides”.

  46. [Valentine @34, re “I am a doughnut” – we had a good discussion about this last year. Cliveinfrance @73 helpfully provided this link, which explains why no one in the crowd in Berlin thought JFK was claiming to be a doughnut, just as “I am a New Yorker” would not normally be interpreted as meaning “I am a magazine”. The idea that JFK blundered seems to have been invented by Len Deighton in ‘Berlin Game’.]

  47. Thanks Andrew though I have to side with those enjoying this one. I certainly found it chewy enough and needed a few visits until it all clicked into place, NE last and I think Roz’ suggestion would have helped clarify the definition of 5a. The blog has had me thinking about tart vs bitter, I do think of the former as a sharper acid taste, though modern IPA beer with high IBU values (has that ever been used in wordplay?) also tends to be on the fruity side by my palate, which is my long winded way of letting Anto off the hook, so thanks to him for keeping me thinking all day.

  49. Joe @ 4
    A weak comment.

    Although our blogger seems to have been in a grumpy mood, most people (including me) seem to have thought that the puzzle was fine.

    Thanks to Anto, and to Andrew for the blog.

  50. A week puzzle.
    Actually, it was pretty challenging for Monday. I missed CONTAGION, ETCHING and OVEREAT.
    Also put in WRITE UP for 20d at first, which made ASTROLOGY a bit of an adventure. I was thinking of US usage, e.g. “I’m writing you up for possession and intent”, but I can’t seem to find justification for that usage in online dictionaries. And it’s not quite the same as arrest anyway, so all in all, a rather poor attempt on my part.
    Enjoyed what I did get. Thanks A & A.

  51. I don’t know why Anto has come in for so much criticism today. The major fault seems to be with the editor for scheduling two of his on the same day. I really enjoyed this one. The Quiptic has certain similarities. Candy coming up in both, but hardly Anto’s fault.

  52. Dr Whatson, at 33
    Presumably the setters have better things to do than read the, yawn, comments? Too busy creating our next challenges?

  55. Thanks Roz@37 and Dr Whatson@38 for setting that straight about increasing difficulty over the week. I assumed from frequent comments that there was a tradition.

  56. Je suis un regime, didn’t sound right to me. It would mean I am a diet. So I did a search to find out how translate of “I am on a diet in French”. The answer, several times over, is “Je suis au regime”.

  58. [Octopus @56 – yes, ‘je suis au régime’ is fine for ‘I am on a diet’, but so is ‘je suis un régime’. In the second case, je suis means ‘I follow/am following’, from the verb suivre (see here for more details). Hence the riddle:

    Je suis Sophie, mais je ne suis pas Sophie. Qui suis-je ? ]

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