Guardian Cryptic 28870 Harpo

70 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28870 Harpo”

1. I had a quick look at this last night and had only DRESSED UP and OPUS DEI, so I thought this was going to be tough and so it proved. Got there eventually with quite a few unparsed like GALLIPOLI, LLANDUDNO and DEMOLISH. I liked the long 1ac and 1d,, ABSALOM, TONE DOWN, MOUSTACHE and LONE PAIR.

   Ta Harpo & scchua.

2. Thank you scchua for the explanation of LONE PAIR: in my school sadly Chemistry was dropped for what is now Year 8, and then was set against Latin. I really regret that, though there’s something very nice about discovering fascinating subjects from a low level in later life. Could someone give me a use of UNDERSTRAPPING though? I do like Harpo and, from a Guardian subscriber’s point of view, hope we see himmore often.

3. Fairly straightforward I found. I did like ABSALOM for the (sort of) relevant surface, and especially GALLIPOLI, again for the poignant surface. I’m guessing it would be more familiar to Australian solvers than others (apart from Turkish ones).

4. Blimey that was hard work and only a single tick for LLANDUDNO to show for it. Marx out of ten for Harpo? 7

   Ta H&S

5. Thanks to both – however fungi constitute a different kingdom from plants and lichens are only part plant in a mutualistic association with fungi

6. Well done Harpo! How nice to have some science in the crossword for a change.
   Thanks to scchua for some tricky parsing.

7. Thanks Harpo and scchua
   Quite a lot of science. As a retired chemistry teacher I had no problem with LONE PAIR, but I expect it might give others a problem; ditto THALLI.
   I didn’t know that use of SO in SOUSA, and I also don’t unerstand UNDERSTRAPPING at all.
   Favourites ONE PAIR (obviously) and TONE DOWN.

8. komornik@2 Collins defines understrapping as meaning inferior. I’ve never heard of it. My problem now is that I have have certain images etched in my brain as a result of this clue.

9. Re the SO = “provided that” in SOUSA, Wiktionary has a host of examples, but none more recent than 1743:
   I went away very well satisfy’d, not caring where I was sent, so it was but out of his Sight; for he now became more my Aversion than ever.

   I don’t think it should be used in a crossword without any indication that it’s archaic.

   Scchua, I think our Kiwi friends might object to the Tasman Sea being in Australia 😉

   Plenty of clues to enjoy though, I rather liked “perhaps as a march” being DEMO-ISH.

   Thanks H & S

10. Seems to me that ‘broad’ in 25 is spurious and what I get out of 8 is ‘all along’ not just ‘along’. Maybe I’m too picky. I liked it anyway.

11. Is Cleo’s needle an obelisk … I think that’s how my brain sort of fudged 6d. For the Welsh resort, otoh, needed to vowel-check the second letter before it surfaced. And 5d was just read the tin and shrug. And yes scchua, wondered about Sousa’s So. Lots to enjoy, thanks HnS.
    [My favourite Harpo scene is him bashing a piano to bits then playing the strings as a harp. Mrs ginf would’ve said It’s repressed childhood rage (mine, that is…)]

12. I too had wondered about UNDERSTRAPPING but Chambers gives it as meaning “subordinate”, i.e. being an understrapper.
    I didn’t know THALLI (although familiar with thallium) and had forgotten about LONE PAIR, but in both cases it’s just possible to get there with the wordplay and the crossers, which is fair enough.
    There were some delightful ones in here, notably DEMOLISH (for the lovely whimsy of “demo-ish”), LLANDUDNO (neat semi-misdirection in that Llandudno is, of course, a “northern resort” if you are lucky enough to be anywhere in Wales – a reminder not to be Anglocentric or even worse Londoncentric), ENAMELLED (neat use of “poll” – though of course as Edwina Currie once admitted, one aim of the “poll tax” was indeed to get people off the electoral roll), OBELI (a neat piece of wordplay giving an even neater surface).
    Thanks to Harpo and sschua.

13. Agree that it’s nice to see some chemistry but unfortunately lone pairs of electrons will readily form coordinate bonds. “Negative duo that aren’t bonded etc” would have worked.

14. Oh yes, lone pair. Did Chem to early undergrad, but today no electron activity… probly too long ago.

    I like that quote, eb@9, it’s like ‘so long as’ but succincter.

15. I liked the various repetitions, such as ALLI in 5dn and 12ac.

16. Thank you to Harpo.
    A puzzle that I quite liked, though some of the science content was challenging for me. I also didn’t fully understand 1a SHADE PLATFORMS (no wonder as it was wrong – d’oh!), 1d SET A BAD EXAMPLE, 4d LAST GASP, 8d STRINGING ALONG and 23d T-BONE. (Though I have to admit once I thought I had solved them from definitions and the crossers, and some of the wordplay, I didn’t really go the extra mile in terms of full parsings.) I eventually failed on the unfamiliar place-name 26a LLANDUDNO, having originally tried ARMADILLO (which didn’t make sense) using some crossers – then eventually erasing it – and then I had big question marks and blank lights. So along with my booboo on 1a, it was definitely a DNF for me.
    There were still some clues I appreciated like 12a GALLIPOLI (a familiar “campaign” for Aussies, as TimC@3 says) and 22a MOUSTACHE (as mentioned by AlanC@1).
    I didn’t like the reminder at 20d re OPUS DEI – a terrible secretive organisation that eventually was one factor in putting me right off religion.
    Thank you to scchua for the helpful blog.

17. [Thanks Friends for further interesting posts that appeared while I was slowly typing my response.]

18. [P.S. grantinfreo – thanks for your comments re a favourite band on yesterday’s blog – I’m going to go back to those YouTubes you mentioned. Isle of Wight will really bear revisiting. I am always concerned when responses to our early posts might not have been read – yours were. JinA]

19. I liked GALLIPOLI, TONE DOWN and SPACE PLATFORMS. I googled IFUSA to see if he was a bandleader I had never heard of, and needed a bit of help to get THALLI, but a nice challenge.

20. Komornik @2… here is a use of “understrapping” from Volume 21 No. 1067 of The Bulletin (28 July 1900)….
    ………
    Or graciously they give me understrapping jobs
    Among their hybrid dynasties of hell;
    Yet in their tamest blood my passion madly throbs,
    Incarnate in their holiest forms I dwell.
    ……….

21. Tough but quite quick, using rather more help than I really like. I was a bit doubtful of some of the definitions (ALONG, UNDERSTRAPPING), and there were rather a lot if obscure words: THALLI, OBELI, marc (probably a crossword staple, but not lodged in my memory) and several requiring quite broad general knowledge.

    Somehow I really enjoyed it !

22. A most enjoyable challenge. I managed to work out the scientific answers from the wordplay and was gratified to learn the meanings.

    The long answers at 1ac and dn were very helpful in supplying initial letters. I particularly enjoyed working out the answers to GALLIPOLI, one of the most moving places I have ever been to, LLANDUDNO – nearer to home but not yet visited – and SET A BAD EXAMPLE.

    Other favourites were XANADU, for the reminder of ‘Kubla Khan’, TONE DOWN, ABSALOM and OBELI.

    Thanks to Harpo and scchua.

23. MARC came up last week, I think.

24. Yes, Pasquale September 15th

25. Most enjoyable puzzle – like others I relished a bit of science. COYB @13 is quite right about LONE PAIR but it is still good to see it appear, despite the erroneous definition. Also, ‘fungus and lichen’ is a bit off-centre for THALLI, which refers to individual organisms undifferentiated into recognisable organs, rather than taxa, and not all fungi are thalloid, but wotthehell. In fact, THALLUS is itself rather a misnomer, because it is from the Greek for ‘green shoot’ – the sort of structure which a thalloid organism doesn’t have. (Thallium was so named from the green line in its emission spectrum).

    SOUSA was my LOI as I didn’t know that meaning of SO. 27ac had to be what it is, but for me it just conjures up athletic supports 🙂

    Thanks to S&B

26. Filled most of the bottom half, and then slowly pieced together the top half. As others have said, good to see some science although THALLI are bodies of fungi and lichen, as far as I know.

    I liked XANADU for being well-hidden, MOUSTACHE and NEUTRON for the wordplays, LLANDUDNO for the surface and wordplay, and GALLIPOLI for the surface.

    Thanks Harpo and scchua [can’t get the Xanadu picture to show].

27. essexboy@9, point taken. For international harmony I’ve amended the blog.

28. Thought at first this might be a quick solve with SPACE PLATFORMS and SET A BAD EXAMPLE flying straight in. And 17 ac therefore a bit of a giveaway beginning with an X. However, hard going thereafter, with several of these needing Scchua’s concise parsing to confirm in retrospect – ENAMELLING, DEMOLISH, ABSALOM to whit. Bunged in LONE PAIR eventually after toying with Love Pair. Had to look up last one in THALLI, as dnk. A curious mixture this morning…

29. First one in: TASMAN SEA, of course. It’s not in Australia, but it certainly laps on our shores, not very far from where I am. Some obscure words, and wordplay – I thought to look up the technical term for a punctuation dagger, but would never have figured out that parsing. TONE DOWN was wonderful. I got to SOUSA via the sousaphone. Thanks, Harpo and scchua.

30. Some good clues here with new words in UNDERSTRAPPING and THALLI (unaware of the subtleties discussed above) and if I ever did know what a LONE PAIR was, this was long forgotten. I should have come across it before, given the famous people and particularly one infamous person who have sported one, but I didn’t know the term ‘toothbrush’ MOUSTACHE either.

    I liked the related GALLIPOLI and TASMAN SEA; putting essexboy @9’s point in another way, remember there’s an N and a Z in ANZAC.

    Thanks to Harpo and scchua

31. Didn’t know that meaning os SO, nor UNDERSTRAPPING as inferior (why?) but this was a fun challenge. Managed to work out all the answers from the precise clueing even when the meaning / answer was unknown! Thanks Harpo and scchua for the parsing.

32. My science background was “hard”, so LONE PAIR was known, THALLI required confirmation.

    With two Turkeys and two T-s I thought there might be something going on, but apparently not. Liked LLANDUDNO.

33. I read through the clues, did not solve a single one, came here to read the blog.

    Thanks, both.

34. I searched the web for ‘understrapping’. The first five results were crossword solver sites, and this page right here was #2!

35. [That’s great JinA, enjoy. Tons of great Doors vids, eg Light My Fire … takes you right back ..]

36. Being Welsh I consider LLandudno a northern resort, so I was having trouble parsing it with an N floating around, then it clicked. I had heard of Sousa, but I knew nothing about him except that I thought he was a band leader and the last part of his name wa USA and I went with IF SO for the other.
    Thanks for the crossword Harpo and the explanations sschua

37. I was also pleased to see some science references. I still know “educated” people who would look down their nose at someone for not knowing that George Eliot wrote Middlemarch, but be proud of the fact they’d never heard of a neutrino. Anyway, a very enjoyable puzzle. One of those that on a first read through I fear I’m going to find a major challenge, but with a bit of thought and time enlightenment comes. With thanks to both.

38. Thanks Harpo, this is exactly what I like in a crossword — less common words but all obtainable due to excellent clueing. LLANDUDNO is a prime example — I had never heard of the resort but with a few crossers I was able to solve it. UNDERSTRAPPING was another oddity I enjoyed; THALLI, OBELI, LONE PAIR, and ABSALOM were vaguely familiar but the wordplay made them obvious. Thanks scchua for the illustrated blog.

39. Defeated by SOUSA and OBELI and there were many more where I bunged in the answer without bothering to parse (the science theme helped me). Probably should have left this until tomorrow when I would have enjoyed it more. Thanks Harpo and sschua

40. John Philip Sousa wrote The Liberty Bell, which was the Monty Python theme music. Plus lots of other marches. The sousaphone is named after him.

41. [GinF, JinA, too bad you missed my late post yesterday, but I stupidly missed the LmF link, which is now here.]

42. What does ‘Ml0(essentially)’ in the parsing of 23 mean?

43. Apologies. I use acronyms to initiate MSWord macros when preparing my blog. Unfortunately, I typed “Ml0” instead of “Mlo” standing for “Middle letter of”.

44. A few too many obscurities for my taste to actually finish, but a great education to read the fascinating definitions in the blog.
    Got close, 1a and 1d certainly helped.
    Thanks both.

45. Plenty of work here, and a bit of grounding in chemistry and biology clearly of some help!

    THALLI correctly applies to lichens, but for fungi the thallus is strictly speaking the mycelium, not the fruiting body like the mushroom which we’re all familiar with. Also – pedant’s corner – (scchua?) fungi are no longer regarded as plants: they belong to a separate kingdom which is closer to animals than to plants.

    I had trouble with GALLIPOLI, though the definition and crossers made it easy enough: couldn’t parse the second half. Ah well! Also, in LLANDUDNO, I remembered (after some scratching at my half-forgotten Spanish) that LLANO is Spanish for ‘plain’ – but I didn’t know it had any usage outside the Spanish language. One learns a lot from solving!

    SOUSA made me laugh – for a strange reason. Many years ago I remember watching a documentary about the man, during which some Chinese bloke came on screen and asserted, with a perfectly straight face, that Sousa was actually Chinese – and that his real name was Mr SO. When he went to America he added USA to his name to make it more acceptable to English-speakers.

    Of course he was pulling our legs! But it’s a nice story, and the wordplay here reminded me of it.

    Does ‘Provided that’ equate to ‘So that’? Their meanings are slightly different. Otherwise that explains the wordplay.

    Thanks to Harpo (new to me I think) and Scchua.

46. Thanks for the blog, I see KPR still at the top of the table.
    A lot of newish setters this week, I liked MOUSTACHE and NEUTRON. Unusually high number of vowel endings,
    Sousa helped to develop the sousaphone, he liked marching brass bands and it was much easier to carry and play compared to a tuba.

47. Thanks scchua. Good puzzle

48. Roz @46 – thanks, I did wonder about Sousaphone.

49. I echo Eileen@22 and TS@38 re the obscurities (at least for non-scientists) in this puzzle – lots that I didn’t know, but all were fairly clued and gettable with the crossers, and I enjoyed the learning that came with it. I especially liked the device and surface of 6d OBELI, my COD. (And I’m going to try to find a use for the word UNDERSTRAPPING.)

    I respectfully disagree with YesMe2@10 re broad being spurious (did you mean superfluous?) in 25a LARGO. Largo can mean slow tempo and broad phrasing (especially bow strokes for string players) or mood, in contrast to Lento, which can mean just slow.

    Thanks Harpo and Scchua for the verbal and pictorial fun.

50. Roz @46: if only :-;

51. [cellomaniac @49
    You have given a very tenuous reason to post a link to one of my favourite pieces of music.]

52. [ Thanks for the link, muffin – beautiful, very Arvo Part-ish. (I think “arvopertish” would be a useful adjective). ]

53. Thanks scchua, i needed your parsing clarification for a few including, shamefully, 3d, despite spotting that it must have been (Y)ELLED and knowing why a redpoll is so called!
    Am I allowed to say this wasn’t too tough despite not knowing some parsings and a few definitions? It was certainly, therefore, fair despite what appear to be some not-quite-mathematically-precisely-defined scientific terms (but welcome appearances).

    As for UNDERSTRAPPING – surely we all know a few ‘strapping’ lads/lasses and this must be related? (Wiktionary seems to think so.)
    Very enjoyable and I have Mr Fussy to thank for my favourite MOUSTACHE, thanks Harpo.

54. Had S A E PLATFORMS and couldn’t guess SPACE. What is one?
    THALLI was/were new. OBELI keeps occurring..is it the only O E I?

    Thanks both

55. Thanks scchua for your much appreciated help with parsing a few.

    tim the toffee@54. SPACE PLATFORMS didn’t hit me on the head either. In my case I put it down to reading in the wrong direction as I thought ”offering” would lead to the answer, not the anagram wordplay. I still do, but no-one else has mentioned it. I can see how ”offering” fits with the surface reading but it doesn’t seem to fit the cryptic grammar.

56. Oof, I slogged through but a lot of answers and components were total obscurities to me. MOUSTACHE was my favorite clue.

57. pdm @55, know what you mean about 1a, but I resolved it as “the 14 Scrabble tiles which make up SPACE PLATFORMS” offering you the chance to make an anagram (“exceptional”) out of “aspect from Alps”. It works if we think of the offeree as an anagram-hunting puzzle-setter.

    As for the thing itself, Collins online has ‘space platform’ as an alternative name for ‘space station’. Word origin 1955-60. The example sentences give the impression that it’s now an outdated term.

    If you look at Google’s Ngram viewer (a fascinating tool, by the way) it looks like the term arose in the 40s, took off in the 50s, fell back in the late 60s/early 70s, then surged again and reached a high point around 1984. Its use then declined sharply. My guess would be that, since the advent of the ISS especially, ‘space station’ has become the default term for the concept that we’re talking about, and ‘space platform’ has fallen into disuse.

58. tim@54 and PDM , SPACE PLATFORM is somewhat theoretical at the moment. The new Artemis programme is planning to build one around the moon. Crafts from Earth could dock there before descending to the surface. Long term it could be used for crewed missions to Mars.
    GAZZH@53 I found this very easy , almost a perfect write-in which is rare. I did not want to say much, maybe the setter suits my solving style.

59. Sorry Roz, should have realised it’s about to make a comeback!

60. Sorry MrEssexboy, I type slowly. The term is being revived for Artemis, it is really different to space station, having the potential to launch major missions.

61. eb@57. I like your interpretation of 1A.
    Ever an anagram-hunting solver. 🙂

62. I am very sceptical however , it is mainly just science fiction.
    Missions to Mars are like commercial fusion reactors and general AI , ALWAYS just 30 years away.

63. Thank you Roz for your interplanetary, most extraordinary craft.

64. You are always welcome PDM and thank you for the CARPENTERS tribute.
    EB I have checked Chambers and Collins and both do agree with you, but the term is subtly different to space station. Space station has become the general term for SKYLAB, MIR and the ISS of course. Space Platform will return if one ever gets built.
    Now is a good time of year to observe the ISS , it is very easy to see, you need to know roughly where to look and when , it moves very quickly but is very obvious.

65. Many thanks Roz @64, I do enjoy looking at the ISS, as (a) I don’t need a telescope, and (b) I can be fairly sure I’m not staring at the wrong star, which often happens when I venture into stargazing.

    [pdm @63, that calls for a musical link.

    “We are your friends”

    (I could have linked to the Carpenters, but Klaatu made first contact. Although I did like the first comment on the Carpenters’ version on YouTube : “If there was ever a human voice that could put extraterrestrials at ease, it would be Karen’s” 🙂 )

    And a bonus track for Roz (well) ]

66. Thank you EB , I think. I will look later, with trepidation , when I have help escaping the endless adverts and videos.

67. Like michelle33, I didn’t get a single clue on reading last night. This morning it went in fairly easily. Some very nice clues, many pointed out, with friendly wordplay for obscure words. More Harpo please!

    Thanks Harpo and scchua for a very clear and entertaining blog. I didn’t know what a toothbrush moustache looked like even though Laurel and Hardy entertained me for many years 🙂

68. Where is the link to the Carpenters, please?

69. [Valentine @68, I failed to include it, but there’s the the full-length version here]

70. Roz et al thanks for the SPACE PLATFORM explanation. Must have a look for ISS but a bit cloudy.

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