Guardian 28,836 – Vulcan

87 comments on “Guardian 28,836 – Vulcan”

1. Wasn’t on the right wavelength today — gave up when only half finished. Wasn’t familiar with French things, nor DEF. Hadn’t heard of 16a. Better luck tomorrow.

2. Thanks to Vulcan and Andrew.
   I agree with the rugby interpretation of PROP, although in the entire scrum there would be four (two on each side). Perhaps there’s another meaning?

3. No real problems. I had a question mark against GUY FAWKES but Regicide can apply to the perpetrator as well as the act. EMILE isn’t my favourite sort of clue… pick a name… any name that sounds French.
   Favourite was DEFROCKED.

4. Definitely a French tinge to this without being a theme as such. I parsed PROP as you did Andrew, as both being bound in the scrum with the other forwards. Smiled at ATTAGIRL and YORICK. No comment on the GUY FAWKES homophone.

   Ta Vulcan & Andrew

5. Rugby referees call “crouch, bind, engage” to form the scrum so maybe that’s the reference?

   Pretty meh overall but at least I learned what an EXOPLANET is so not a total washout

   Can we have some rain now?

6. Agree with the parsing of PROP. Each team has a pair of props, so although there are 4 individual props in a scrum, they consist of two pairs. And yes, the proper rugby term is bound in.

   Enjoyable crossword. Wasn’t sure about Def = Fabulous, so thank you Andrew for confirming that. Took far too long to get CHOSE – thinking of Res, and De. And put TAKE MY WORD in to start which muddled the top left for a while.

7. I found this easier than the Quiptic, with some delights, already mentioned above. My last in was EMILE as I find those kinds of clue unsatisfactory too. Nor was I sure how to parse PROP.

8. Failed on PROP – is it also a kind of an &lit? Also failed to parse POLEMIC, as I thought it was MIC at the end, so thanks for the blog, Andrew

   Thanks, as usual, to Vulcan, too.

9. [Apparently DEF comes from rap “singers” mispronouncing “death”, although why death = good is another mystery]

10. Thanks Vulcan and Andrew. A good start to the week.

11. Nice Monday puzzle.

    A bit unsure about the definition of IN THE LOOP – is “kept” part of it as you suggest Andrew? Or is it just “in touch”, with “kept” meaning that the P is “kept” at the end?

    Shirl @9: I assumed DEF was just a contraction of “definitely” but this suggests not.

    (AlanC @4: well done for your “no comment”. So far an ominous silence on the homophone which I suspect will not last.)

    Many thanks Vulcan and Andrew.

12. Thought this quite challenging in places, culminating in the NW corner with ATTAGIRL! the last one in. Similar knowledge of basic French for CHOSE and EMILE perhaps. Couldn’t parse or clearly understand GAMEKEEPER or CROUPIER. Thanks Vulcan and Andrew…

13. I did find this DEFinition – “The word def, meaning ‘excellent; outstanding; “cool”’ is one of the earliest and most prominent terms to come to mainstream slang from hip-hop, but its early history is shrouded in confusion” but it is not a word I have been particularly aware of. LOI was PROP but it looks like I was not the only one who found this unsatisfying I did initially wonder about PLOT – with L being one of the left/right pair, kept [bound] in a POT – but I think that was because I had just found Guy Fawkes!

14. There’s a rapper called MOS DEF and I’d always assumed it was short for “most definitely” – I’ve definitely heard MOS DEF used in that sense. But maybe he’s referring to hime self as the most fabulous? That does seem more like a rapper thing to do. Hmmm

15. For the dictionary haters, here is Chambers (2014)…
    def (sl) adj excellent, brilliant (orig in hip-hop culture). [Appar from definitive or definitely]

16. Thanks Vulcan and Andrew
    I found this difficult. I didn’t parse DEFORCKED or CROUPIER. As others have said, the definition for PROP doesn’t make sense, as if the reference is to rugby, it should be “one of four”.
    I’ll add to the “no comment” on FAWKES.
    IN THE LOOP was my favourite.

17. I couldn’t get any further than the rugby definition for PROP and was hoping that someone would come up with a better one, but it seems that has to be it. I did like 23a and 25a. Slightly more thought needed than normally for a Monday puzzle, but that’s no bad thing. Thanks Andrew for the blog and Vulcan for the puzzle.

18. I thought 23d was possibly a cryptic definition for prop as an abbreviation of propellor: “a mechanical device for propelling a boat or aircraft, consisting of a revolving shaft with two or more broad, angled blades attached to it.” I thought this had a bit more brain fodder in it than the usual Monday crossword. I enjoyed it so thanks Vulcan and thanks Andrew, as ever.

19. I meant to say that FOI was 16a. I would recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read it – one of the funniest books I’ve ever read!

20. Tough puzzle to start, I did not solve a single across clue on my first pass. Did not finish. Failed to solve 23d PROP.

    New: ME medical condition.

    Liked DEFROCKED, CHOSE, GRANDEE.

    Did not parse 14ac apart from GUY.

    Thanks, both.

21. Apart from PROP, which I didn’t get, I thought everything was straightforward and enjoyable. Well done Vulcan and Andrew.

22. I found this a bit of a chore. Possibly due to the French.
    I had no problem with PROP though. While all the forwards in a rugby scrum must be bound, the two props are especially bound as they must also bind with the opposition props to form the scrum and maintain correct binding until the ball is cleared. (Incorrect prop binding is one of the most common causes of scrum penalties.)
    Thanks Andrew and Vulcan.

23. Also failed on PROP. Could it refer to twin prop, perhaps?

24. Paul @22
    In your explanation, you have agreed that there are four props, not two!

25. muffin@24, yes four in a scrum, but only two in a team. From a team perspective, two is the correct number.

26. I also found this harder than usual for Vulcan, but no complaints. No idea about PROP which I put in simply from wordplay, wondering what I was missing; wouldn’t have had a hope working it out. EXOPLANET isn’t exactly a common word and took a bit of thought.

    I won’t make the obvious complimentary comment (referring back to itself) about DEFROCKED which is my early candidate for clue of the week.

    Thanks to Vulcan and Andrew.

27. Twin prop aircraft engines

28. Thanks Andrew and Vulcan.
    I also thought PROP is short for propeller as an online dictionary indicated.

29. Agree with Paul T @24 about there being two props per side; having played rugby for a long while I immediately think two from the XV.

    I thought 20d was a beautiful clue, thanks Vulcan and Andrew.

30. Yes, two a side, but where in the clue does it indicate “a side”?

31. Failed on PROP, ATTAGIRL and EMILE but otherwise this was my level.
    I did wonder if PROP comes from the pairing in the Solo card game, where are pair of players are joined as “prop” and “cop”.

32. Andrew, I presume that’s a typo in your explanation of 19Ac. Freudian slip?

33. Thanks for the blog, took me twice as long as a typical Vulcan . I like GUY FAWKES and GAMEKEEPER.
    I am convinced by Paul T with his 2 PROPs per side ( can I mention the rugby this week ? )
    I am on very thin ice now so please correct me if necessary – A cricket team has two openers who go in first, so four overall in the match. I think we would usually refer to an opener as one of TWO.

34. I found this difficult to get started but it eventually fell into place.

    Like Paul @25, I had no problem with the clue for PROP as there are only two in a rugby side. For those with a homophone problem, I’ll post yet again this very funny sketch.

    I liked GUY FAWKES for the dodgy homophone, EXOPLANET for ‘one dumped on’, and ATTAGIRL for the surprising definition.

    Thanks Vulcan and Andrew.

35. A very good example Roz@33. For those of a more chess-playing than sporting bent, would you say a pawn is 1 of 8, or of 16? I think either would be acceptable.

36. I enjoyed this. I liked CHOSE. Like some others above I was thinking twin-prop aircraft, but rugby props make more sense.

37. Another interpretation is that there are simply two “types” of PROP… tighthead and loosehead

38. Prop slang for leg in Chambers? As easy as that.

39. Heartily endorse the encouragement to read Cold Comfort Farm. However, it is far from being a smallholding, with a workforce in double figures and an income sufficient to support some of its owners in very comfortable retirement. A Big Business!

40. Reminds me of my favourite riddle: What has a bottom at its top?

41. muffin @30 where does it indicate two sides?

42. I think the aviation ref to PROP is the simplest and best but nothing like a rugby term to add to nay confuse the issue,

43. Turns out RING-FENCED doesn’t refer to an actual fence, )who knew, I never heard of it) but the practice of setting an amount of money apart. Never heard of ME the condition either.

    Where’s the definition in 5d UPON MY WORD? It would seem to be “on this unwritten promise,” but then what’s “rely” doing?

    Tim C@3 I thought all French males were named Rene, didn’t you? Next they’ll be telling us there are Scotsmen not named Ian!

    Total ignorance of rugby made PROP unattainable.

    I agree with muffin about COLD COMFORT FARM. I read a chapter or two and decided it was too funny to keep to myself, and saved the rest of it until I had somebody to share reading it out loud. I also read a novel by Georges Simenon called La maison sur le canal (I think). It had MAIGRET on the cover in large letters, but he never appeared in the story, which read as if Simenon had tried to write another Cold Comfort Farm when nobody had told him it was supposed to be funny. It was all mud and gloom and downward steam.

    Thanks to Vulcan and Andrew.

44. The difference between rughy and Roz’s cricket example is there are only two openers on the pitch at once, but four props.

45. Muffin my cricket knowledge is not as limited as i would like it to be but surely all four openers are on the pitch at the start of an innings ?
    I think the word bound leads to the rugby idea as explained by Paul T @22, bound does not seem to work for other suggestions.
    Moth@35 yes chess as well, I would say 8 pawns unless specifying the whole board. Also a pair of bishops, knights etc.

46. 19a. Loved your ‘two slag words’. Very apposite.

47. Re 19 ac: did anyone else get EXPERTISE before correcting to DEFROCKED? EX = no longer + priest*, and expertise is really good. Probably as totally wrong as we have ever managed!

    And having been a tight head PROP in my yoof, am happy with the rugby parsing.

    Enjoyable puzzle and helpful blog, thanks both.

48. Roz @45. You are quite right – two openers come out to bat; meanwhile the two openers of the other side take to the field…as fielders. I can’t believe there’s been so much discussion over a simple solution like PROP.

    I struggled to get on Vulcan’s wavelength today, with ATTAGIRL holding out the longest. Even after I’d spotted the anagrist, I couldn’t see either the children’s game or the definition. So a real tea tray moment when enlightenment clanged.

    Thanks to Vulcan and Andrew.

49. Irishman @47, yes, I went down that route until I got fallow at 20d. That’s why I always use a pencil not a pen.

50. Slightly more thought involved than a standard Monday. Bottom half much easier than top half.

    PROP seems straightforward if you know about rugby – otherwise, it would be very tricky.

    Thanks Vulcan and Andrew

51. Enjoyed that, apart from the two things already highlighted here – DEF was a poor synonym for “fabulous”, whatever it’s “hip-hop” meaning, while PROP was just badly clued, requiring a relatively obscure knowledge of rugby. I did have that knowledge, and when I put the word in, as my LOI, I saw the possibility it referred to rugby, but thought “surely there has to be something more to it than that?”. Having come here for enlightenment, I see that sadly there really was nothing more to it.

52. I too was puzzled by PROP, but I was convinced by Paul@22. I learned that binding is a term -of-the-art (or rather, sport) in rugby, and that, for me, carries the day.

53. Re 23D ‘BIPROP’ an old plane. Are the propellers bound?

54. I think we could settle whether a rugby prop is (could be) one of two rather than one of four by asking if anyone with even an occasional spectator’s knowledge of rugby is phased by ‘one of two’.

    Whether knowledge of rugby is a fair thing to expect or not is of course a matter of opinion, but in the UK it is one of the most televised sports on free-to-air channels. So I would say it is at least as acceptable as cricket, or 1930s literature.

55. Re. 23D – I took this to refer to the current race between Sunak and Truss, where truss = prop

56. Please, everyone, stop arguing about rugby and read Cold Comfort Farm! It’s a wonderful book ?

57. Moth @54. You may have deduced from mine @48 that I am unfazed by the PROP clue, but what you won’t know is that I am a Leeds Rhinos season ticket holder. Before each game when the teams are introduced the announcer always mentions their position. There are two props on each team. Naturally in each scrum there are four props present, two on each side. They are to left and right of their respective hooker, with their arms around each other. If you asked any rugby league fan how many props there are, the answer would be two. If you asked how many in the scrum the answer would be four, accompanied by a very strange look.

    I’m sorry so many people find this obscure.

58. The front row of a scrum is known as the “engine room”. The scrum as a whole is a test of strength, the props being the most powerful members thereof. So I think the whole clue works as a cryptic definition – two props (in each team) are bound in a scrum to provide power (for their team, against the other team). We are also given the wordplay “for power” = PRO + P. Add the surface misdirection towards the Tory leadership battle as per Orobanche@55, and I think this is a very clever clue indeed.

    Btw, there are so many esoteric references in cryptics that I don’t see the inclusion of basic rugby parlance (“prop”) to be in any way controversial.

59. I’m with AuntRuth @ 56 .

60. Valentine @43. A scotsman should rellay be Iain with two I’s.

    Orobanche @55. Loved it! Far better than all that about that horrible game!

61. Realy

62. Really

    Can’t win here!

63. I am a rugby fan – both codes. Don’t associate rugby props with power anymore than stability.

    But do associate twin props with power in aviation.

    Let us hope the setter solves the mystery soon. I will give her/him an hour and then reread the wonderful CCF. Great word play there.

    Thanks both and others.

64. 2. Please!

65. Kenneth Thomas @ 60

    I raised that the first time I saw it and was told “not in crossword land”…..

66. Got to say I found it about normal for a Monday.

    Some of the parsing escaped me (DEF?!).

    One small suggestion: for 21a would ‘Threat from…’ be a better indicator of a hidden answer?

    Thanks to both.

67. A couple of nice clues – enjoyed ATTAGIRL and DEFROCKED – but rather dull overall.
    Knowing nothing about rugby I still don’t get PROP 🙂
    And even though it fell into place, around these parts people would pronounce Fawkes more like Fox. Very different from Forks; so I had a hard time parsing it!

68. [Yes Ken Wales @63: power in a scrum is largely derived from the locks; by contrast, the primary job of the props, as the name suggests, is to keep the scrum from collapsing…to prop it up]

69. Michelle @ 20 and Valentine @ 43
    ME/CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) is Long Covid’s much older but much neglected cousin. Unlike the new kid on the block, it has been first dismissed and then neglected for over 30 years. However, it is indeed a debilitating condition, as our government has finally recognised (thank you, Sajid Javid).
    I will forgive any random number of props from a crossword that acknowledges this illness.

70. For 21a, I eventually saw the hidden word, but what’s the indicator– “?”?

    For 23a, how does Mike become M?

    For 23d, not being familiar with rugby, I came up with an alternate parsing, a reverse cryptic:
    (P OR P) written upwards, with either one being P for Power
    (with “bound” as “a leap upwards” — Chambers — I would have been happier with “bound up”).
    Kope@58, thanks for the very clear explanation of the rugby meaning. It’s a great insight into the game!

71. I WILL comment on the homophone simply because my pronunciation is much closer to a vulgarism than it is to FORKS. Nothing against the clue though.

72. Calgal @ 70

    The indicator is ‘of’, as in Joan of Arc = Joan from Arc.

    Mike = M (or vice versa) in the NATO radio alphabet.

73. Calgal@70 Mike is the phonetic alphabet word for M

74. Oops. Too slow!

75. Katherine @69: hear hear! (I think some may not be familiar with the name ME, as it tends to be used mainly here in the UK. CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) is more widely used (though also widely disliked by patients!) Historically a number of other terms have been used. A recent US study proposed the name SEID (Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease), along with a new set of diagnostic criteria.)

    [Jay in Pittsburgh @67 / BlueDot @71: just to spread a little mischief, I’d be interested to see the reaction here if, every now and then, we had a guest Scots/Canadian/US setter who made use of the cot-caught merger – giving us homophonous pairs such as fox/Fawkes, knotty/naughty, nod/gnawed, offal/awful, Otto/auto, rot/wrought… ]

76. Can someone remind me how O = Old? The only other one I’m not sure about is “sporting” as an anagrind

77. O=Old, as in OAP (Old-Age pensioner) or OB (Old Boy)

78. 4:58 @ 76
    O for Old is simply an abbreviation, as in OT for Old Testament or OS for Old Style [calendar] etc

79. I’m so embarrassed about Mike/Nato Alphabet. Thought I knew them all by now and didn’t double check.

    re: ME (which I had to look up):
    Michelle Akers, the US football/soccer star helped her team win international championships while battling Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (as we knew it at the time).

80. 23d prop is one of 2 in rugby but also “pro” = for (as opposed to con = against) and “p” = power. So it’s a rather clever double definition I think. Took me ages to see it.

81. Steve @80. Not a double definition, as PRO (for) + P[ower] is wordplay, as identified in Andrew’s blog a day ago. People have been muddying the waters by treating the clue as semi-&lit, with the forwards known as props being renowned for their power. But this is not so, as several have pointed out. It was just the setter being misleading.

82. Coming to this after the Tuesday puzzle, which perhaps made it seem easier as my brain was already warmed up. I also thought of both the rugby prop and propeller (prop) as making sense of PROP (my LOI) without going into too much thought about which one it should be. The explanations from rugby fans here look fine to me. I liked MOPE (elegant surface for a short word) and FALLOW. Thanks Vulcan and Andrew.

83. I took PROP (my LOI) to refer to aircraft, but wasn’t happy about it as there are aircraft with only one propeller. I never considered rugby, which I played at school. I had nothing to do with the scrum: I was a winger who spent most of the match running to retrieve the ball when the opposition had kicked it into touch, and then throwing it back in. That was in the days before the hooker took on that duty.

84. Oops! Forgot to say thank you to Vulcan, and to Andrew for explaining DEF (new to me).

85. 81 Sheffield Hatter @81. Very true – I stand corrected!

86. Thanks Martin and Mr Braver

87. Took a while, especially the NW corner, but finally got it. EXOPLANET was my favourite. I pulled a face at PROP.

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