Guardian Cryptic 28,909 by Qaos

79 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,909 by Qaos”

1. DELOREAN and PLUTONIUM are both pointers to the theme.

2. I counted nine (maybe eleven themers. Any advances?

3. Sorry, should have said:
   BACK TOken THEatrics FUTURE
   TIME MACHINE
   BROWN
   MARTYrs
   EINSTEIN
   PLUTONIUM
   DELOREAN

4. Bloody hell – how did I miss that?

5. Back to the future?

6. Even I saw the theme – partly because I thought Qaos always had a theme and looked, but DeLorean gave it to me. I also had TURN for TOUR for a while.

   And plutonium is made in a reactor by bombarding uranium with neutrons.

   Thank you to loonapick and Qaos

7. I enjoyed most of this, and there was some clever and accurate cluing. I don’t think TURN works for 16a, because the clue isn’t “books going over about sport”; and, as Shanne @6 reminds us, plutonium is produced by bombarding uranium-238 with other bits, so 14d seems very neat. I’m grateful to loonapick for explaining how 19d works, and, once again, it’s very clever.
   Not greatly impressed by BAKING SODA or HAVE NOTHING ON, though.
   Thanks, both

8. Even I… because I rarely see themes.

   BAKING SODA needed all the crossers, but I liked HAVE NOTHING ON.

9. I never spot a theme unless a clue pretty much says “Today’s theme is …” After yesterday’s discussion about UK-centric GK, I’m intersted to know what peoplethink about the final two down clues. Even I struggled with Hague as a Tory peer.

10. Spotted the theme from TIME MACHINE, looking initially for HG Wells but then connecting it to FUTURE and it helped with getting DELOREAN which was one of my last in. Did not spot the TO and THE however; didn’t even think Qaos would try with those.

    I was on the wavelength today – or the puzzle was more straightforward than Qaos can be. I solved all but the aforementioned DELOREAN, LEAGUE, BAKING SODA and the long vertical in the middle on first pass which is fairly unusual for me. It may not have been terribly difficult but I saw PLUTONIUM as CAD/&littish and it was one of my podium along with ONYX and MARTYRS.

    I was intrigued by the exclusion of Saturday’s = S’s in FUTURE. Is Saturday normally indicated by an S (in which case, what is Sunday?) or is Qaos sneakily using the Jewish Sabbath which is both a Saturday and indicated by an S?

    Thanks Qaos and loonapick

11. Thanks Qaos and loonapick
    No theme for me, of course, but a rapid solve.
    Yes, PLUTONIUM is formed from Uranium 238 absorbing a neutron. This gives off a beta particle, transforming a neutron into a proton and thus making it a different element, the highly unstable Neptunium 239. Another beta decay results in Plutonium 239.
    I heard something on the radio this morning about a campaign to instigate a “pltonium medal”, to award to British soldiers who observed the first British atomic bomb tests, in Western Australia 70 years ago this year.

12. I did wonder why he chose ex-chancellor rather than ex-PM for BROWN.

13. Muffin @12 – I presume for the misdirection of ‘German’ with ‘chancellor’.

14. Knew that there’d be a theme but didn’t find it until I’d finished.
    I had Turn instead of TOUR to start with and found that to be an equally valid answer from the clue without the crossers. “Books about sport” = NRUT, and going over gives TURN = circuit. Simple.

15. muffin @12 – to mislead with German chancellors? It’s where my brain went to start with, on first read through, when I leave anything I’m not certain of until I get crossers.

    NeilH @7 for TURN the “books around” gave me NruT around the sport, before flipping the lot with the final over.

16. And crossed with everyone

17. A fairly steady solve, even if the theme didn’t reveal itself until I had almost finished (DELOREAN made the penny drop). I then went back through the other solutions counting up how many themers I’d missed…

    Liked: FUTURE, BOTTOM, AT A STRETCH, HAVE NOTHING ON.

    Thanks both!

18. Didn’t notice a theme, but then, I never do. An enjoyable workout, but I hadn’t parsed ONYX or TOUR till I came here. I guessed LEAGUE & BROWN, as I lacked the requisite knowledge of things British. Never heard of Delorean. I liked HAVE NOTHING ON, although I’ve seen a similar clue before.

19. Thanks for the Chancellor explanations. You’re all probably right!

20. This came together corner by corner for me ( in fact anti-clockwise starting in the NE). I didn’t spot the theme, as usual!
    I don’t quite understand the GK debate. British setters in a British newspaper with a predominantly British audience are surely going to have a British framework for their GK? (However, one of the pleasures of this blog is hearing alternative meanings/slang etc from overseas contributors.)
    Thanks Qaos and loonapick.

21. A rather clunky puzzle for me, lacking in the smoothness of surface that I have come to associate with some writers. Most of this is easily treatable, though it seems one must take one’s chances as to a firm editorial hand in The Guardian. I’m afraid that I too missed the theme.

    As to the inevitable Guardianisms, I actually chuckled at the appalling smartypants device, so yes, the ‘elixir’ referred to passim has not quite worn off yet, thank you very much.

22. There’s a theme?

23. Loonapick@4 – you are bound to be under time pressure. I have no such excused usually don’t spot themes until too late – or if it is very obvious. I think I get tunnel vision – focusing only on one clue at a time and rarely remembering to check for relationships. I was chuffed to see this one and it was “DeLorean” that gave it to me but only at the very end. I thought this was a relatively easy challenge today and even cracked the signature “arithmetic” clues quickly. One or two clues were write-ins. “Baking soda” had a fairly lame clue (which in turn made it a fairly difficult solve as the -o-a that I was staring at suggested a pesky foreign word and I was convinced “well” must have significance). I wondered about “league” as a synonym for competition then realised that if you are a member of (say) the premier league you are by default in a competition. Thanks to both setter and blogger for a great start to the day,

24. I went to The Strand to see the Theatre production of BACK TO THE FUTURE, quite recently (and great fun it was), so I got the theme relatively early. I liked the smartypants device and although I’m not a scientist, I suspected there was something clever going on with Uranium and Plutonium, so thanks for the explanations above. I liked BOTTOM and BAKING SODA.

    Ta Qaos & loonapick.

25. I’ve never seen ‘Back to the Future’, so I wouldn’t have known the significance of DELOREAN (but I did tick it as a good clue and marked it as &lit), so I missed the theme.
    Other ticks were for FUTURE, BOTTOM, EINSTEIN, FLAVOUR and – top favourite – MARTYRS.

    PostMark @10 – S for both Saturday and Sunday frequently appears in calendars: see the one at the top right of this page.

    Many hanks to Qaos and loonapick for an enjoyable puzzle and blog.

26. And thanks to Qaos and loonapick, as well. 😉

27. Found this quite tricky, but very enjoyable. Thanks loonapick for parsing BOTTOM, OUTING and DE LOREAN. Favourites were BAKING SODA and MARTYR. Totally missed the theme as always, but now that others have pointed it out I think it’s great! Thanks Qaos.

28. Very nearly got successfully back on the horse today, after yesterday’s fall. But slipped off again because for some inexplicable reason I put TAKE NOTHING ON. Grrr.

    And the theme went totally over my head, although it’s blindingly obvious now.

    Oh, and further to my rant from yesterday’s crossword (which no-one will have seen because I only posted this morning). Non-UK GK required today: Bonnie Parker, Time Magazine, Le

    Not a complaint, just pointing out that not all country-specific GK is UK.

    It’s not a complaint

29. I was definitely side-tracked by the word German in 23D – even though I was mentally including an N in the solution. I sat there, running through as many German chancellors as I could think of, knowing it couldn’t be Brandt because I already had ONYX.
    And then the answer hit me.
    As for LEAGUE, I’m afraid my first thought was, “Oh, he’s a peer now, is he? Well, they generally dish out titles & jollies to their ex-leaders…”
    Lots of ticks for other clues, plus 1A and 8D made me smile – and I have to confess the theme sailed right over my head!
    Thanks to Qaos for the fun, and to Loonapick for the explanation of the parsing to MARTYRS, which defeated me.

30. [Perhaps I’m being irascible, but I was a little put out by invitations to buy coffee for kenmac this morning. Don’t get me wrong – perhaps it’s quite acceptable to others – I haven’t seen any other comments. But it’s a seemingly permanent pop-up in the corner of my screen and for myself, I don’t expect to be importuned at 15²!]

31. [muffin@11. “Operation Hurricane was the first test of a British atomic device. A plutonium implosion device was detonated on 3 October 1952 in Main Bay, Trimouille Island, in the Montebello Islands in Western Australia. With the success of Operation Hurricane, Britain became the third nuclear power, after the United States and the Soviet Union.” Wiki

    A sad but related story is the number of First Nations People who were displaced or died after the 1956 testing at Maralinga, South Australia. It was our forelock-tugging Prime Minister who allowed/welcomed this.

    https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/maralinga-how-british-nuclear-tests-changed-history-forever

32. Like PM@10, eventually got the theme via time machine, HG Wells, time travel in general then Back to the Future when LOI DELOREAN dropped (it even got me to correct a hastily entered RACK). American film, isn’t it? So much for being UK-centric. Thanks Qaos (always enjoy looking for your theme) and loonapick.

33. Liked FLAVOUR, THE YARD.

    I did not parse 7d.

    Forgot to look for a theme until I finished the puzzle but could not see anything apart from tennis, Borg, Mac[enroe]? Oh, I see it relates to a movie!

    Thanks to Qaos and loonapick as well as those who explained the theme.

34. Thank you Andy Doyle and paddymelon (#3, 5) for the theme, also Shanne and muffin (#6, 11) for reminding me of school physics. #31, paddymelon’s second comment, is another reminder of just how uncivilised the First World is. Suited Metropolitan nimbyism has a long way to run yet.

35. I found this a lot more accessible than your average Qaos, only being held up a while in the SW quadrant because I was yer another TURNer (which I think works perfectly well, as Shanne @15 points out).

    PLUTONIUM is neat, as is HAVE NOTHING ON. MARTYRS is fun – pity about the surface 🙂 I entered BAKING SODA with fingers and just a few letters crossed – rather an exiguous clue, what?

    LOI was DELOREAN, which might finally have revealed the theme to me, had I bothered to look for it, but I don’t think it would have helped the solve anyway.

    Thanks to S&B

36. Missed the theme, as is tradition, and I join the ranks of the TURNers. BROWN’s one of the better-known ex-chancellors – I think I’d forgotten HAGUE was a peer now, but at least he’s been a fairly prominent Tory for some time.

    EINSTEIN was my pick of the bunch.

    Thanks Qaos and loonapick

37. Good fun solving today’s cryptic. DAMSEL flagged up to me that ‘DAMSEL in distress’ is a significant trope in the Back to the Future franchise ( rescue of Lorraine – Marty McFly’s mother for the BTTF fans ). AlanC@24 : I also went to The Strand and thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle ! Thanks to Qaos and Loonapick.

38. Eileen @25: I had considered calendars but had not appreciated they constitute accepted abbreviations. Presumably that means we should also accept Friday = F and Wednesday = W in future puzzles?

39. Like others I did not spot the theme, and NHO some of the films mentioned including Delorean, But I did finish, despite finding the bottom half quite difficult, the top being relatively easy for me.
    Thanks everyone for the various explanations, and thanks Qaos and loonapick for a nice start to Tuesday.

40. Some setters sometimes include themes. This one never doesn’t! Excuse the double negative but it does surprise me a little when posters say they missed a Qaos theme (though I shouldn’t be smug as I had no idea about themes, or ninas or pangrams, before I found this site).

    I enjoyed this puzzle as a reminder of some great movie entertainment. I look forward to the next two Qaos puzzles on the same theme, to complete the trilogy.

    I wondered if CYBORG would indicate a wider theme of 1980s time travel films but it seemed to Terminate there; shame as that would have been Excellent.

    THE YARD/hydrate was probably my favourite as a clever anagram.

    Thanks to Qaos for the entertainment, and to loonapick for unpicking.

41. Another speedy solve, but totally failed to spot the theme.

    Favourite was THEATRICS

    Thanks Qaos and loonapick

42. Only one FLAVOUR for Roz?

    tlp’s update re the excellent elixir elicited elation.

    I chuckled too at smartypants, and the &littish THEATRICS, and at Bill & Ted’s suggestion @40. Thanks Q & L.

43. Re 14d: I read EXCITE as the anagrind, so relationship between uranium and plutonium not at issue for me. Comments about bombardment suggest it’s ok, so the clue is really rather clever.

44. Found this fairly straightforward for a Qaos puzzle, though needed Loonapick to unpick the clueing for READERS, MACHINE and EINSTEIN, which they simply had to be…

45. Being Qaos, I searched for the theme and found it, but only at the end.

    I liked FUTURE for the surface – hope Rufus is still doing well, he’s a very pleasant man. I also liked the good anagram for DELOREAN, the wordplay in OUTING, the extended definition and wordplay of PLUTONIUM, and BROWN as the German ex-chancellor. I was another that tried ‘take’ NOTHING ON before substituting with HAVE.

    Thanks Qaos and loonapick.

46. PostMark @ 38 – I know someone who used the formulation ‘died on Wednesday’ to clue DREW 😉

47. [1961B @40: The first challenge for a setter – and perhaps the most daunting one – is simply to choose a blank grid and fill it with words. A ghost theme, such as Qaos typically opts for, is one way to focus this activity. For the solver the theme is irrelevant to the solution of the individual clues, and I am sure I am not alone in not even bothering to look for one. Clearly the situation is different if a central clue is flagged as the keyword to a theme, or if, as happens sometimes, the rubric to the puzzle indicates that the themed solutions are not otherwise defined :)]

48. Personally, I’ve always looked upon themes in crosswords to be a spot of bravura by the setter and very little to do with the solver. Every now and then, cognisance of a theme helps with the last few clues, but not generally I find.

49. With TIME and EINSTEIN went looking for Hawking and Relativity, but as with many others DELOREAN clinched the correct theme.

    Did anyone notice that HAVE NOTHING ON has two additional meanings, beyond the two in the clue? Had me puzzled about the connection to “free” for a short while.

    Loved the puzzle, though, found it more accessible than many Qaoses.

50. Add me to the list of those who missed the theme and nearly always does. Getting 8d almost immediately was a huge help, but still ended with a couple “solved” but unparsed.

    And apparently I’m in a minority for not struggling with Hague.

51. Straightforward solve except for missing B(L)OTTO, falling headfirst into the TURN trap and (of course) missing the theme.

52. 11a I thought the spelling of the non-capitalized versions was “bonny.”

    I had “turn” too, for reasons given above. Slowed me down for PLUTONIUM

    5a OU could also be Oxford University, which I would have thought of first if I’d managed to parse the clue.

    I never would have got the theme. It was a bit frustrating to search for the word “theme” and find people saying the got it or they didn’t but nobody saying what it was. Finally Andy Doyle’s list suggested “Back to the Future,” a film I’d heard of but knew nothing about. Looked it up and read the plot. Okay, that’s it then.

    Pleasant puzzle, even though themeless for me. Thanks, Qaos and loonapick.

53. Gervase @47 and William @48.

    Gervase, you say that Qaos and the rest include themes to focus the activity of filling a blank grid with words (though I should think that trying to fit solutions to a theme would make that task more difficult than just inserting unrelated words).

    I see themes differently: I can’t imagine Qaos took the trouble to include all those BTTF references (such as MARTY in MARTYRS!) just to fill the grid with words. I am sure the setter’s reasoning is more about adding to the entertainment for us solvers.

    I can’t see a Qaos puzzle now without expecting a theme, and looking for it is part of the fun. If as you say you don’t even bother to look for one, I think you are ignoring part of the challenge a setter like Qaos has posed. That’s entirely your choice of course (and as I posted @40 above, I used to be blithely unaware of such devices), but now I would feel I was missing out if I didn’t look for it.

    Similarly William @48, you say you believe the setter’s themes are “little to do with the solver”; I would say they are very much to do with us: not as a help in solving, but more as an extra element of fun. Setting and solving crosswords is a kind of dialogue – I don’t think the setters are just talking to themselves.

54. Yes very enjoyable and yes I saw the theme (this may be a first for Qaos).

    The discussion of S=Saturday/Sunday reminds me of a little teaser (of my own manufacture? – I cannot now recall) which goes: Where would you find Jason and his Mam during the year?

    Here’s an earworm for today.

55. [1961B @53: I can only speak for myself as an amateur setter – I’ve compiled about 50 over the years – that some sort of theme can be a great help in grid filling, particularly if it is an open set rather than closed set theme, and therefore there is a choice of how many thematic words to include. Much more challenging to compile are puzzles like Brendan’s recent example, in which all of the across solutions contained the name of a river – this wasn’t a ghost theme of course, as the keyword RIVERS was flagged as such.

    I relish Qaos puzzles for his inventive constructions, particularly those alphanumerics, so I never feel I am missing out by not theme searching. Each to his own; some of the best solvers don’t even pay attention to surface readings – when composed well these give me the most satisfaction from a crossword 🙂 ]

56. Thanks Qaos. I didn’t find this as easy as others did nor did I think it was easier than other crosswords by Qaos. Nonetheless I got there in the end and I enjoyed the ride. I saw the theme with DELOREAN and I actually saw the car that was used in the film on the National Mall in DC as part of an iconic cars exhibit. Thanks loonapick for the blog.

57. Abbrevs of time for days of the week are a bit weird, which is possibly why they tend not to be included in single-letter indicator lists. As far as I can gather, we have, or can opt for, M T W R F S and U, which are, as I say, quite weird. I’d say either to hell with it and include those, or use M T W F and S, with a choice of defs for the Tees and Esses.

    A proper reassessment of SLIs is well overdue, IMO.

58. Someone I knew used to use ? (theta) as a one-letter abbreviation of Thursday, and a kind of decorated S (Gothic, or possibly blackboard bold – he was a mathematician) for Sunday.

59. Ah, my theta failed to display. Try again: θ

60. Thanks both,

    Unusually I spotted the theme. At one point I wondered if there was a nuclear physics theme going on with plutonium, flavour and bottom and Brown(ian motion). It would have been quarkily charming.

61. Thanks to our blogger for pointing out the extra R in MARTYRS – one of the three: should have seen that and for parsing ONYX, which, again, I’m disappointed not to have seen. But I did get both these into the grid, unlike the mysterious HAVE NOTHING ON which, at least for me, works perfectly as a single definition but says nothing at all in connection with ‘free’. I see that several posters have marked it as a favourite clue or similar. What am I missing, please?

62. Thanks for the blog, totally missed the theme but I thought the clues were good. I like the STRETCH double meaning, THEATRICS is neat and the MACH 1 is clever. I had got fed up of pants for an anagram but the smartypants is a clever Playtex development.
    Qaos has missed out not linking FLAVOUR with BOTTOM but I expect (s)he wanted to use Shakespeare for a change, we get too many particle physics clues.

63. If you have nothing on, you have no commitments on your time and are therefore “free”. Think John Inman in Are You being Served? (I’m free!)

64. Norm@62 I have nothing on this weekend ( I am totally free ) .

65. Further thoughts on the uranium , the clue for PLUTONIUM works perfectly well as a clue but not as a description . nothing to do with excitation which merely leads to photon production. The plutonium actually comes from the Neptunium-239 which does last for several days.

66. I find the discussion of single letter abbreviations interesting. I used to be slightly irked by them, because (a) it seemed like an easy way out for setters trying to complete an otherwise clever clue, and (b) there are so many of them, and it can be hard to guess what the setter is doing. And then there are the letters that are part of an acronym, much to many solvers’ annoyance.

    Now I take a more laissez-faire attitude (L, or LF?). (a) If a clue needs a single letter to work or to make a good surface, the setter is right to use it rather than waste an otherwise clever clue. (b) Because there are so many of them, if I think I have solved a clue but one letter is needed, I just go looking for it in the clue, making the assumption that there is a word with a one letter abbreviation for any letter of the alphabet. And I don’t bother checking to see if it is in Chambers.

    Other solvers have different experiences of course, but for me the fewer annoyances I perceive, the greater the pleasure I derive out of the interaction with the setter and the puzzle. (Hence my occasional rants about homophonophobic sticklers.)

    Lots to like in this puzzle, especially the numeric clue at 1d and the emotional actors at 6d. I was another TURN at 16a until 14d PLUTONIUM set me straight. (U = uranium and union).

    Thanks, Qaos and loonapick for the fun.

67. Thanks to Qaos and loonapick. Loonapick@4, I think you must’ve temporarily forgotten it was Qaos and he ALWAYS has a theme ! I actually saw this one early for once as I got FUTURE and BACK quite early. I did wonder how/whether Qaos would be able to work DE LOREAN into the grid and of course it soon transpired that he had ! I thought this was fairly straightforward except for the SE corner where it took a while before various pennies finally dropped. EINSTEIN and MARTYRS have to be my favourite clues, some tangential thinking required to parse those.

68. [cellomaniac @66
    I came across a clue recently where left” in the wordplay gave WENT!]

69. Starting as usual at top left FUTURE and BACK TOken the theme fairly shouted at me. Only slight hiccough was I had “with NOTHING ON” at first.
    Thanks Qaos and loonapick

    Ps the coffee cup has changed but still there

70. Muffin @ 68 – they left = they went, no? Both mean “departed”.

71. Loonapick @70
    I wasn’t criticising it!
    The clue was:
    Number left after the start of year (6)

72. cellomaniac @66 – I quite agree. I quickly developed the (relatively) laissez-faire attitude to potential ‘quibbles’ raised by some here, as I see crosswords as more art than science. And once I started trying setting myself (I am but an enthusiastic amateur) I saw the other side of the interaction! I’m now more sympathetic to the challenges of encoding compared to decoding 🙂

73. Sorry to be so obtuse: in what way is a “row” the same as a “bank”?

    And thanks to Loonapick for disabusing me of two notions: that objections at university are registered by “shouting” from which the “h” and the “s” must be subtracted to render OUTING; and also that the “I” that was breaking the speed of sound was the number “one” from which the “o” must be subtracted…so MACH I plus (o)NE…which I now see was flawed because it does not account for the “break” in the clue.

74. I thought about row=bank and came up with a row or bank of seats in a stadium – but it’s far from the first synonym that came to mind.

75. AT @73 – my Chambers thesaurus offers ROW as ‘line, tier, bank…” with several others following, but ‘bank’ is third.

    Amusingly, my Chambers dictionary gives the following for ROW: “A line or rank of people or things, eg seats, houses, turnips, etc” (it was the turnips I found amusing)

76. Loved it. Only twigged the theme late on but most of the references.
    Thanks all.

77. A common entry is trireme, this had three banks or three rows of oars , or rowers but not bankers.

78. On 62 & 63, ‘I’m free’ in that sense would equate to ‘I’m have nothing on’, which is obviously not working. The clue really needs to say ‘Be naked and BE free’ to work properly, but I’d guess Qaos would argue that it’s kind of implicit anyway.

    The single-letter thing is going to run and run (my R&R joke for the day) but for compilers who work for publications attempting to standardise their lists, it must be a lot harder than using anything that turns up in the BRB. I do agree though that it would be good to have a logical, universal list that setters and also solvers would be privy to. Much better, but it might be impossible!

79. Also BANK = TIER = ROW for that clue I think.

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