Guardian Cryptic 28,874 by Vlad

63 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,874 by Vlad”

1. The only one I didn’t parse properly was SORDID as I thought that DI’S were the 2 coppers and so couldn’t work out why “ord” was soldiers, duh.
   Favourite was CAN OPENER for the “see”.

2. Sometimes I don’t get on Vlad’s wavelength and find his puzzles too big a challenge, but I seemed to have a much easier time of it today. However I needed all the crossers for the long clue at 11a THE BITCH GODDESS, as I thought for a while it was something to do with GADGETS (“Tech”). Like you, manehi, I appreciated 13a CONCERTINA, but also gave ticks to 17a NO-MAN’S LAND and the other long one, 20a STICKING PLASTER. Thanks Vlad and manehi. I need the blog to explain 14d, CAN OPENER, and to tidy up a couple of other uncertain parsings.

3. A step up in difficulty today. Lots to enjoy and a couple of Vlad’s on the point political comments. Never heard oh The Bitch Goddess but it was the only anagram that worked. Thanks Vlad and manehi

4. [P.S. I did have to look up a list of the elements to get 2d RUTHENIUM, I must admit.]

5. Too many bung-and-hopes for my taste. Thanks for the explanations, manehi. I am not of the “I couldn’t parse it but now I’ve seen how it works, it’s my favourite” persuasion. Thanks (I think), Vlad.

6. Another pioneering psychologist’s contribution, this time from Mr James, but so much more punchy! In a letter to H G Wells according to wiki. And again, a ginf dnk, needing the g of sprog (oblique nod to Roz) to nail it . Talking of history, is this Charlie’s first cw outing, @20ac. A fun workout, thx V & m.

7. Some tough parsing here, but all good, of course. Had to dredge up “OR” as yellow, as it’s more usually gold; haven’t come across “LIB” as the abbreviation for book, nor “SHTICK” as anything other than to give someone shtick (UK expression?). Like Tim, I misunderstood the parsing of “SORDID”, and I’d never heard of the expression “THE BITCH GODDESS”, so like Julie needed all the crossers.

   Thanks to Vlad and manehi for a really good workout and set of of explanations.

8. I’m pretty much in agreement with Julie @2 – I didn’t see the CAN OPENER and had never heard of THE BITCH GODDESS but I really liked CONCERTINA, NO-MAN’S-LAND and STICKING PLASTER.

   I also had ticks for ARISTO, RHUBARB, ANTAGONISES, IRRITATES and NERVE. (Once again, watching ‘Pointless’ proved useful – the periodic table comes up regularly.)

   Thanks to Vlad for the challenge and manehi for the blog.

9. Thanks Vlad and manehi
   Never heard of 11a, so was quite pleased when prolonged fiddling with the anagram produced the answer.
   Is there authority for abbreviating liber to lib?
   Loved 1a!

10. Thanks both. A good challenge. I struggled with the NW; THUNDERS was one of my favourites, once I worked it out.

11. I hadn’t heard of 11ac either. When working on the anagram I crossed the second word off the list of possibilities only to realise later that I was an 18 for using NYT Wordle rules in a Guardian Crossword.

12. Tough as expected but very satisfying to get everything solved eventually. The ones I found most difficult (and in a way enjoyed most) were RHUBARB, THUNDERED and especially BESPATTERED. Like a few others it seems, never heard of THE BITCH GODDESS as a term before and needed all the crossers. SNAKEPIT is a very descriptive word and comes in handy sometimes!

    Thanks to Vlad and manehi

13. Thanks Vlad for a tricky challenge, and manehi for the blog. THE BITCH GODDESS was actually my FOI – like muffin, I teased it out of the obvious anagram fodder, then googled for confirmation. Interesting. A few things here are pushing the boundaries of acceptable clueing a bit far for my tastes but it’s all good sport. CAN OPENER came with a massive groan when I spotted what was going on. Very cheeky.

14. Thank you M and V.
    11 A, THE BITCH GODESS. Looked at the anagram possibilities but thought, no way, that can’t be.
    But so many eminent people have used it before. Kudos Vlad.

    https://wordhistories.net/2019/01/17/bitch-goddess/

15. Maybe not Vlad at his most impaling, but tough enough for me. I think I’ve heard of the BITCH GODDESS maybe once before in my life – I found her eventually. Pointless has taught me a lot of elements I never learned at school, though I had trouble parsing RUTHENIUM because I thought the “she” was Ruth. Also had the same trouble as Tim C@1 with the DIs in SORDID.

    Like an idiot I missed the “see” and put TIN instead of CAN OPENER – maybe the C that I usually spell schtick with (incorrectly, apparently). Couldn’t parse SPROG and gave up on ARISTO and BESPATTERED.

    Favourites SNAKEPIT, IDEAL and the cleverly hidden PRAT.

16. Great puzzle but Vlad saw me coming with SORDID

17. Thanks Vlad and manehi

    muffin @9: ‘lib.’ (sic) for book is in Chambers.

    Given 20, I wonder whether this was written recently, or was on the shelf in anticipation of an inevitability?

18. I don’t get why PRAT is both back, and on the contrary. What am I missing?

19. Thanks SS @17. I’m trapped under a cat so can’t get to my Chambers!

20. paddymelon @18

    Because ‘idiot’ isn’t holding back(wards) ‘star pupil’, but ‘star pupil’ is holding back(wards) ‘idiot’, I think.

21. I must be thick, because I do not get ““see” as in the letter ‘C’ “ [sic]. There’s no indication that this is a homophone. Please explain, someone.

22. 14 down.

23. Thought this was tremendous – in the end. On first pass I had only the meekly inserted -IUM for the eventual hoped for arrival of a rare metal at 2d. Then with the solving of ANTAGONISES I proceeded in a strictly anticlockwise direction round the grid until stumped for a long while by the anagram that eventually produced THE BITCH GODDESS, even with lots of crossers in place – not someone I had come across before. Last two in were SHTICK and the fiendish SPROG. Many thanks Vlad and Manehi…

24. Not my favourite setter by any means. An anagram solver found THE BITCH GODDESS but I discounted it as implausible and finally had to reveal the answer. I cordially detest the word SPROG, but de gustibus etc.

    Leo@21: ‘C’ for ‘see’ has become accepted, possibly through the influence of texting. I don’t like it either and I don’t see it in Chambers, but there we are.

25. [In the ’50s, a local open-air jive joint here was dubbed The Snakepit; out of bounds to naice children, sigh, and absy f’t Devil for churchgoers!]

26. Leo@21 every letter in Chambers has a spelling for pronunciation , the most famous is aitch=h. poc@24 it is in my 93 for the third entry of SEE .

27. Thanks for the blog, great puzzle, pretty tricky but I seemed to progress because letters turned up when I needed them .
    11Ac new to me as well , needed all the letters in first , made the top right tricky.
    RHUBARB, CONCERTINA , IRRITATED are great constructions.
    SPROG has to be my favourite, love the word mainly because it annoys our sprogs, especially MiddleSprog.

28. [ Arachne as Rosa Klebb, appeared in the FT on Saturday, I suspect people can find this easily and it is worth the effort ]

29. Liked CAN-OPENER, RHUBARB, SHTICK, CONCERTINA, BESPATTERED.

    New for me: THE BITCH GODDESS; RUTHENIUM; SWEEPER = defender.

    Failed 18ac PRAT.

    Thanks, both.

30. Leo@23: Chambers’ third entry for ‘see’ defines it as “the third letter of the alphabet (C,c)”

31. Quite hard enough for me although I did manage to get the anagrams (but not those I had thought might be anagrams!) and shove in things fitting the crossers without any parsing. Thanks Vlad and manehi.

32. C for ‘see’ is alsos commonly used in text messages.

33. Thanks to vlad and manehi.

    I think gat > gun is more about the “toy” pistol than the machine gun. A gat gun / gat fires small air pistol pellets but uses a compressed spring rather than stored gas

34. How is a sweeper a defender?

    I enjoyed them all. I had run across the bitch goddess, though was surprised to meet her here. CONCERTINA was fun, though it makes me sad to be reminded of my lovely 1855 concertina that was stolen from my house.

    Thanks, Vlad and manehi.

35. Valentine @34: In soccer, a sweeper is a central defender who plays behind the other defenders, to ‘sweep’ up anything that gets through.

36. matthew newell @33
    “gat” is American ganster slang for a gun
    Valentine @34
    A sweeper is a defender, usually in football, who plays deeper than the other defenders to “sweep up” anything that gets past them. Not used currently as it negates the offside trap.

37. Well, the poor young people who were shoved up chimneys by their SWEEPER’s in days gone by were “doubly small”, though obviously enough the excellent explanations by Tassie Tim and Muffin @35 and at @36 give us the correct footballing connection. Did see a Master Chimney Sweep (it said so on his van) in our street the other day. Another member of a dying breed perhaps, along with that type of soccer player…

38. I found this on the tough side, which was a pleasant change. Like many others I’d never heard of 11a but with the first word and the c of the second, I realised it had to be that.

    Favourites were CONCERTINA, CAN OPENER and STICKING PLASTER . ( Note to self – Charles = King now, not Chas.)

    Thanks Vlad and manehi

39. Another explanation for LIB in 12a: book = lib (short for Italian libretto, a little book) = theatre slang for the words of an opera or musical.
    An enjoyable challenge from Vlad as always – thanks to him and manehi.

40. I don’t often associate fun with Vlad but this was. He/she must have had a chuckle after clueing ARISTO. I did on reading it. Lots of neat wordplay and enjoyable surfaces. THE BITCH GODDESS was new to me and I couldn’t parse CAN-OPENER but otherwise fairly straightforward for a Vlad.

    Thanks Vlad for the laugh and manehi for the explanations.

41. Ark Lark @38 – it took me far too long to think of a four-letter word that could mean Charles…

42. Yes, we’ll have to get used to king=Charles=CR here, as in other contexts. I seem to remember reading somewhere that all crossword references to her late Majesty are now out of bounds for the time being.

43. I solved the long anagram but refused to write it in until I had all the crossers. (Talk about obscure: after 40+ comments only one person – by my count – had ever heard of it before today.) This made most of the NE corner harder than it needed to be, I suppose, but I enjoy the challenge more if I can finish the grid without looking things up.

    Thanks to Vlad and manehi.

44. sh@43: I had heard of the b**** goddess but couldn’t have told you what she represented. If I’d had to guess I’d have said Fame, but Wealth also made sense. I think she was buried deep in my brain somewhere from the old black & white films I was hooked on as a kid: I can imagine Humphrey Bogart referring to her, out of the side of his mouth…

    Great crossword today, thanks Vlad & manehi.

45. I was struggling and then I got the C in BITCH, I had already entered THE, and it became obvious. Such an apposite phrase that I did no further checking . After that I still struggled though. FOI was PRAT because I had entered IRIS instead of PRAT, but then I got BESPATTERED and had to look again.

46. Thanks Vlad & manehi.
    A good romp. I Googled both SHTICK and BITCH GODDESS. The latter expression took me to its source, a letter from Willaim James (brother, I think, of Henry) to H.G.Wells, well worth reading in its comment on the American Dream which our present leaders seem to admire.

47. Apologies to grantinfreo @6 who had lready spotted the quotation I cited

48. With Vlad here and Monk in the FT, I knew I was in for a hard slog today. I didn’t get 11a, never having heard of THE BITCH GODDESS. Only having revealed it was I then able to complete the NE corner.

    I liked the construction of 14d CAN-OPENER, although I have a blind spot about ‘see’ – I just never can C it.

    Two favourites: My clue of the month is 1a ARISTO – pure laugh-out-loud genius. And 5d SPROG is a nice shout-out to Roz. (I want to see “first born” as a clue for SPROG1.)

    Thanks, Vlad for the fun challenge, and manehi for the much-needed parsing help.

49. Count me among those few who had indeed heard of “the bitch goddess Success” before today. It still took me a little effort to put in (it waited until the second half of the solve to go in). Did not remember it was William James [who indeed is Henry’s brother–I read his Varieties of Religious Experience in a philosophy course in college; he’s a refreshing change from most philosophers since he’s actually a good writer, in my opinion every bit as good as his brother, if not better. Just as famous as a psychologist, his Principles of Psychology is foundational. The best William James anecdote is that he was teaching a class at Harvard that Gertrude Stein took; her final-exam essay was one sentence, something like “It is far too beautiful a day to spend inside taking an exam.” She still got an A.]

    Where was I? The puzzle itself. It was on the gentler side for Vlad. I was anothet who had trouble finding the first D in SORDID, having two DIs instead of a DI and a DS, but other than that it proceeded satisfactorily.

    [Muffin @above, I too have had a drowsy cat on me the entire time I solved, plus the entire time I wrote this. (Home sick from work today–not COVID, just a bad cold.)]

50. I’d never heard of THE BITCH GODDESS, and even with all the crossers I spent a while looking for anything else it could possibly be!

    Liked SORDID, IDEAL, and NERVE especially.

    Thanks manehi & Vlad.

51. Congratulations to everyone who cracked this. I got close to nowhere, but I’m afraid I chucked the towel in when I saw SPROG, PRAT and ARISTO, all of which I, perhaps old-fashionedly, see as slang and not ‘real’ words, whatever the dictionaries may say. Having read the blog, I now know I made the right decision, as I’d still have been working on this one come Sunday. Tomorrow is another day.

52. BITCH GODDESS unknown…is it something in the fashion industry? Material is in the clue.
    Otherwise all hunky dory.
    Thanks both

53. Tim @52: the full phrase is “the bitch goddess Success.” As noted above, it was coined by William James, referring specifically to Americans’ materialism, but has since expanded to other contexts. The fashion industry is not (necessarily) involved.

54. Thanks manehi, I had a reasonable start but then made slow progress and the NE held out most of the day until I chanced upon 11A by thinking about where the few vowels were likely to go. But the delay gave me time to work out the parsing of the many tricky clues, this is often more satisfying than getting the actual answer.
    ginf@6 this is the first time I have seen Charles clued as King (but I am not solving every paper every day) – I fell into the Chas trap for a while until I read the clue properly and realised that Charles could not be part of the anagrist and that there was no room for CHAS with existing crossers (I did wonder if a defn by eg indicator was needed and decided that in a UK paper it is a straight equivalence).
    Very nice clue along with several others already mentioned and a very satisfying solve, thanks Vlad.

55. PS forgot to thank various contributors for expanding on 11A and Roz for the top tip.

56. Not on form today, so I struggled with a number. I’d not heard of the BITCH GODDESS, but even with the crossers, failed to decipher the anagram. Also missed SORDID, SPROG and THUNDERS 🙁 .
    Interesting that the “on the contrary” construction is used solely for the surface in 18, as “Star pupil holding back idiot?” works perfectly cryptically. Also, curious (to me) that 19 uses crew’s and not just crew, which seems to give an equally good surface and avoids the ‘s = has thing, which sometimes feels like a fudge to me. I guess not to Vlad, who’s the one that counts!
    Thanks, Vlad, manehi and all for the discussion.

57. Thanks to manehi for a nice blog and to others who commented.

58. Regarding whether this is Charles’s first crossword outing: not quite. He appeared as king in last Saturday’s Morning Star crossword.

59. Not on the setter’s wavelength today. Found this quite impenetrable and still couldn’t parse most answers after giving up. Ho-hum.

    I parsed 14 down as C, AN OPENER. (An opener being something useful)

60. pdp@11 Vlad (he/she) is a he. How do I know? I looked him up under “Setters” at the top of this page. His name is Jim. Before you write he/she, do look him/her up. Not all setters are in that directory, but many are. Same for bloggers.

61. Thank you, pic, Roz, peterM and Simon S, for enlightening me. I must use my Chambers more.

62. Vlad (Enigmatist and Boatman too) are setters I often save for weekends in expectation of a nice “settle back and enjoy” experience. So many other setters these days, while wonderful, don’t get the end of the pencil wet! No complaints, but it’s nice to have some duration to one’s pleasure…..
    Feel I’ve come across Charles for KING long before now (the 17th century versions are not unknown!) But the B GODDESS feels new to me.

    A scrupulously fair and delightfully constructed puzzle with more than several brilliant surfaces. Just one example – ARISTO is all one could want in a clue: word play leading unflinchingly to the answer with a healthy dose of wit neatly delivered en route to a satisfied smile. I’ve heard it said (if not perhaps recently) that some compilers like to produce a good One Across to start with…..and this was a real doozie!
    Many thanks, Vlad and manehi (I agree with you that this was far from V’s most tortuous….but none the worse for that, of course!)

63. [Roz@28,26 – Many thanks for the Spider Woman heads-up. I won’t get overexcited – one swallow doesn’t make a good cuppa and all that….
    And a pat on the back for taking the chance to remind folk of the spelling for H – and thereby its far preferable pronunciation (to me, at any rate!) than the dreadful “haitch” which makes me apoplectic and will probably be the cause of my death. Cleverly done….]

Comments are closed.