Guardian 28,940 – Tramp

81 comments on “Guardian 28,940 – Tramp”

1. I had an extra layer of pleasure from this first thing this morning. I realised I hadn’t read yesterday’s blog and comments so quickly whizzed through – and there were some observations on the clueing of single letters/abbreviations. Can they be any old letter(s) as an abbreviation (e.g. s for small, of for old fellow)? And then today Tramp seems to have employed almost every abbreviation in the book! Clearly it is completely coincidental but it just made me smile every time I encountered another classic one.

   Tramp has become one of my favourite setters and I’m always delighted to see his name in the byline. And the clues were as fun, clever and elegant as ever. Hugely enjoyable with highlights including: ALASKA, FOREBEAR, MANIAC, POLAROID, ENRAPT, TREES, INHERIT, SKI JUMPER and perhaps my clues of the day – amongst serious competition – PHRASE and LACTATE. ‘…to feed the kids: splendid!

   Thanks Tramp and Andrew

2. A disaster for me. Tramp has over the months gone back and forth from my “good” list to my “bad” list, but returns to the latter today. I must have just been on the wrong wavelength — when I looked at the solutions there were plenty of “Oh, I should’ve got that!” But a good few groans too.

   Only half a dozen clues in half an hour so I went over to the FT, where my self-esteem was restored.

3. I finished a Tramp puzzle before 8am. A first for me.

   Lovely puzzle with lots of trademark misdirections.

4. Hi Andrew, thanks for the blog, but I think your parsing of 8 is missing the f from fellow.

5. I think Tramp is definitely a “wavelength” setter. I flew through this with only the wonderfully decadent trio of LACTATE, INVOKED and ECLAT giving pause

   Cheers T&A

6. I struggled a bit with this one but I did end up enjoying PHRASE for the deceiving “Couch potato”.

7. Despite Tramp being on my bad list, I didn’t struggle as much as usual, though it still took a while. I was ultimately defeated by trees. Won’t mention that Ulan Bator is now Ulaanbaatar. Oops – I did mention it. Thanks to Tramp and Andrew

8. Yes, PostMark@1 – lots of abbreviations but certainly not “any old letter will do” approach. It was great stuff, wasn’t it? My top half (I tend to do the boring start at top left then work down) flew in but bottom half (almost disconnected, grid-wise) gave more pause for thought. Loved the maniacal, chirruping, lactating, fumbling fun. Thanks so much Tramp and Andrew for the ever lucid blog.

9. A hell of a workout for me – hadn’t solved anything in the first fifteen minutes or so, but gradually got there so feel rather relieved. I think Tramp must rank as just about the most difficult Graun setter for me. Liked FUMBLER, POLAROID, ENRAPT and UNSPORTSMANLIKE in particular. Many thanks to T & A.

10. Well, we start with the gravitas of father figure and forebear, but then we get sex, a visit to the gaming table, some rule-breaking and eccy-taking, then more love-making, finishing off with a bit of porn and a line of coke. Nothing like a bit of a hoot, tx Tramp and ta Andrew 🙂 .

11. Re 13 down: I thought the ‘take off’ shortened was SKI[T]

12. Or SKIM 🙂

13. Agree with Ep @11. Super puzzle. Thanks to And T

14. Epeolater @11 and bodycheetah @12: I was not sure of my SKI[p], so one of you is probably right.

    Cat’s Whiskers @4 – thanks, the missing Fellow has been restored.

15. or SKI[N] in 13d. Is there something missing?

16. I had skim. Can see skit. Skip? Not really take off is it?

17. Solved only two clues on first pass. Top half was easier for me.

    Liked FUMBLER.

    I could not parse 20d but suspected it was an anagram of VIDEO plus something.

    Thanks, both.

    13d I parsed it as SKI[n] = to take off short

18. Marvellous with PM@1 comprehensively covering my ticks with CLEAVE and PHRASE my favourites. Very tough going with FUMBLER and IMMERSION HEATER holding out longest. I wonder if the KO across the middle was what TRAMP was trying to do to us solvers 🙂

    Ta Tramp & Andrew.

19. I also enjoyed this very much with lots of smiles – especially my last ones in which were, IMMERSION HEATER, got from crosser without recognising the anagram, FUMBLER, and TREES oh my goodness!
    Thanks Tramps, and for once I did not need Andrew’s lovely parsing, but that is a first for me, so thanks anyway.

20. I can’t really add anything to PostMark’s contribution @1, except to say that Tramp has always been one of my favourite setters, since the very beginning, when I blogged his Brilliant Fawlty Towers puzzle.

    I laughed and groaned at the various bits of misdirection, particularly in POLAROID, which reminded me of the tale of a joker appearing twice in a school photo – which I’ve just discovered actually did happen: https://petapixel.com/2012/12/13/double-exposure-a-clever-photo-prank-from-half-a-century-ago/

    Huge fun all the way through – many thanks to Tramp and to Andrew.

21. I’v been suffering with a flu-like virus this week (negative covid tests) and been in bed early and up late, so slow coming to this: Ive never hear of 6d or 8d, though the word play made guessing easier. Is it fair to have maniac as another word for fan? Liked the very long anagrams.

22. Thoroughly enjoyed this, thanks, Tramp. I often find Tramp’s puzzles quite tricky to get started on but they always yield in the end, with lots of satisfying penny drops that makes them worth persevering with. Great stuff. And thanks for the blog, Andrew – needed your assistance to see how “battle, member must go” gave us ELE_E, but it seems obvious now.

    kenmac @3 – me too, though I did start at about 5.30 (having been woken up by the sodding dog demanding to be let outside)

23. I was another who felt the KO across the middle was all too appropriate. I think Tramp is often hard for “bung in and parse later” solvers (like me at times) because the definitions are so well disguised. Still,well worth the effort.

24. Tough and slow to solve, but a good and enjoyable challenge.

25. Tramp has always been on my “good”: list and very seldom disappoints
    I started at the bottom with the excellent anagram which led to some more.
    Then gradually got tothe summit.Classy cluing all the way
    Thanks Tramp and Andrew

26. A few blasts from the past for me when I used to own a Polaroid camera, engage the customary immersion heater and often eat brisket – before all the red meat warnings came along. Also see some very unsportsmanlike moments in Sunak’s manoeuvrings!

    A chirrupy puzzle !

    Thanks Tramp and Andrew.

27. I found this somewhat easier than Tramp’s usual offerings, but doesn’t 7d involve an indirect anagram, and of a partial word to boot?

28. Yes, another great puzzle from Tramp, with some very clever misdirections. Just had to get enough answers cold to provide the crossers to defeat the idees fixes that were holding me up elsewhere.

    What gif@10 said re the content – a lot of fun. Tx T&A.

29. Poc@27 I read confused as part of the definition of melee, not an anagram indicator- one of those clever misdirections.

30. Another impressive offering from SuperTramp.

    “I choose to do crosswords not because they are easy but because they are hard”. Solved the bottom half first with little populating up top.

    I liked the two long anagrams, MANIAC, POLAROID, FUMBLER, CHIRRUP and INVOKED.

    Thanks Tramp and Andrew.

31. Thanks for the super blog, Andrew, and thanks to others for your kind words.

    I wrote this a month ago. I can’t remember the details, but, I saw “father figure” somewhere and thought of “dad bod”.

    Some of these clues were last-minute rewrites. I’d recently used “dealer” to define “croupier”, so was asked to rethink. I came up with the “raking it in” idea so that I could keep the wordplay of the original clue and the surface still (sort of) works.

    Eileen mentioned my Fawlty Towers puzzle. When I look at it now, I think it’s terrible. When I first started writing crosswords, I used to try too hard to shoehorn in modern references and themes. I didn’t care if the clues were long because I thought it made my puzzles seem different. In order to do this, I had to use a lot of single-letter indicators (head of, tail of, middle of etc). An editor pointed out to me that a recent submission of mine featured single-letter indicators in 10 out of 28 clues in addition to a smattering of abbreviations. The observation rocked me a bit. From then on, I tried consciously to reduce the bittiness and length of a lot of the clues. It’s good to see that, in general, quite a lot of you seem to like them: I don’t think I’ll ever be on some people’s “good” list.

    I hope you’re soon well, revbob

    Have a smashing Christmas and a Happy New Year.

    Neil

32. Dr. Whatson@29: Yes, that’s good.

33. The usual enjoyable but challenging puzzle from Tramp. Much appreciated. I have enjoyed previous comments. Did anyone else get all of the bottom half before anything at all in the top half like me? Thank goodness for the brainwave of 1a4a FATHER FIGURE (“dad bod” made me smile!) or I wouldn’t have known where to begin with the top half. Thanks for coming on to comment, Tramp. You aren’t just on my “good” list – I admire your ingenious setting very much. I worry that you take any criticism or slightly negative comment too much on board. You need to know the high esteem in which this crossword community holds you – you are such a clever and creative setter and you always get us to look at clues and grids in a refreshingly new way.

34. Thanks for the blog, this continues a run of fine puzzles by Tramp including a rather tricky Saturday. Perhaps the lack of themes , modern references and general bittiness suits me far more. I could mention many clues today , see the lists above, will just say 24Ac is a quite splendid anagram.

    Tramp I think good/bad list on here usually refers to difficulty/completion rather than the actual quality.

35. Lovely crossword – thanks very much to Tramp and Andrew

36. I missed this on the way through, TerriBlislow@8:
    My top half (I tend to do the boring start at top left then work down) flew in but bottom half (almost disconnected, grid-wise) gave more pause for thought.
    How funny – the opposite of my experience!

37. And I loved your hilarious summation of the variety this puzzle offered, gif@10!

38. Tramp is definitely one of my favourite setters and this puzzle had more than its fair share of treats: clever constructions and disguised definitions. Favourites as for Robi @30 (particularly the long anagram at 24ac – clearly this crossword isn’t two years old 🙂 ) but there weren’t any that I didn’t appreciate.

    Roz @34 is spot on about the ‘haters’ – just sour grapes about finding the puzzles difficult. Thanks for dropping by, Tramp, and don’t be put off by the knockers 🙂

    Many thanks to Neil and Andrew

39. I do not think they are haters I certainly did not mean that, it is just some people have a ” do not attempt setters ” bad list.
    For a few years when I was learning I had Bunthorne on my “you are a b*****d list ” but I would still appreciate his brilliance when I had the answers the day after.

40. Found this extremely tough, with many of the clues not reading at all smoothly. Struggled finally with the SW corner and bunged in MANIAC (fan, really?), CHIRRUP and ENRAPT without being at all clear about how they worked. Last one in, after lots of attempted permutations with all four crossers in place was BRISKETS, which I shall award my COTD. But finished this with a bit of a frown, I have to say today…

41. Great puzzle on the whole but I did not like 2 down. Is spectator meamt to be see-er abbreviated to seer? And is the plural of ash really ashes? I think we would always say ash trees.

42. Ronald @40 Chambers has “A keen enthusiast” for MANIAC which seems pretty close to FAN

43. Thanks Tramp and Andrew

    I can understand people having a ‘do not attempt’ list, but I think it’s a real slight on the setter to label them out and out as ‘bad’. A setter isn’t going to please all solvers all of the time, and won’t please some solvers any of the time, but I think that to equate that with ‘bad’ says more about the solver than the setter.

    Ronal @ 40 how about “The Barmy Army are real cricket maniacs?”.

44. KT @ 41 How about “I wandered among the oaks and the ashes”?.

45. Interesting how reactions vary on this one… I’m firmly in the positive camp, really enjoyed this. Some fabulous misdirection going on, and lovely anagrams too. A good difficulty level for this relative newbie: top half went in more easily than the bottom (as others have said) and the chewier ones taxed my brain (and latterly the Check button) just the right amount.

    Thanks to Tramp for the little peek behind the curtain too!

46. Plainly the majority of contributors here are expert solvers. I assume you all solve without resort to online aids.
    For me Tramp’s level of difficulty means I can’t get enough clues without help to give me adequate crossers. First clue solved was 18d. 1/2 hour later 3 bottom half clues only.
    Did anyone notice that strontium is hidden in 9a. I spent a while trying to find ninety.
    So eventually I came here for 1a and then the top half started to fall into place but still cheated on 4 other clues.
    Sadly I started doing the Guardian crossword in the the early 70s during the days of lavengro , nimrod, and of course the mighty araucaria. I’m sure I completed many more then than these days as I find many of the synonyms too obscure.

47. Tramp @31 – thanks as ever for sharing your thoughts, it’s always fascinating to get this kind of insight into the setter’s thought processes, and the technicalities of setting. The linking of “father figure” and “dad bod” is a brilliant spot – I’ll never be able to mentally unlink those two phrases now.

48. Great puzzle, though I slowed a bit in the bottom half. Two great long anagrams (esp the Sunak reference).

    Nice to see good old ULAN BATOR!

    Liked SKI JUMPER (I had take off = skit), INVOKED and LACTATE

    Thanks Tramp and Andrew

49. Tramp is absolutely at the top of my “don’t even bother go there list” as his crosswords are miles above my level, but fun to go through the answers.
    Thanks both.

50. It’s a Tramp crossword, so welcome to the twistyverse! This took me several sessions with pauses for breakfast, coffee, present-wrapping etc – but all of them were enjoyable and in the end the only one that finally defeated me was the IMMERSION HEATER which just would not come and needed the anagram-o-matic.
    Some very cunningly disguised defs – TITLED, RENTED, INHERIT and PHRASE all produced their A-ha! moments. It took a while to work out what sort of JUMPER 13d was going to be – very necessary because for a long time that was the only crossover into the top half, long after the bottom was nearly done. Eventually FATHER FIGURE came to the rescue.
    I can understand people having a do not attempt list – mine doesn’t depend on how hard the setter is, but whether the game is worth the effort needed. Tramp very much is.

51. Gervase @38 – You could not be more wrong. No sour grapes from me, just acceptance that I am not bright enough to do a Tramp puzzle. I enjoy going through the answers.
    You must try harder to second guess people’s attitudes towards crosswords.

52. TC @46 – I consider myself a long way from being an expert solver. I do sometimes resort to online aids but managed without today – it was just a case of whittling away at it and waiting for those pennies to drop. According to the Guardian Puzzles app, I took just over 49 minutes to complete this one, which is longer than average for me for a weekday puzzle (although that probably includes some time when my mind was on other things like making coffee). I don’t think I had an awful lot more than you filled in after the first 30 minutes though.

    I’m always very reluctant to reveal a whole answer because it deprives me of the pleasure of solving, but I do find the Crossword Genius iPhone app useful – it’s pretty good at giving hints without giving away the solution, eg a pointer to the type of wordplay or a hint at a synonym. I don’t usually share in comments here if I’ve used such assistance because I don’t think other people are usually that interested in the minutiae of my solving experience, but apologies if anyone is misled by this omission into taking me for some kind of solving genius! But as mentioned, I didn’t resort to it today.

    I have another app called The Crossword & Anagram Solver which I mainly use for its “shuffler” feature – if you recognise that a clue is an anagram, you can enter the fodder letters and can then drag them round on the screen until they eventually start to look like a real word. I don’t consider this “assistance” any more than the old-fashioned method of writing out the letters in a circle on a bit of paper, but it’s more convenient if eg solving on the train.

53. Bodycheetah@42 and Simon S@43, O.K, O.K! I’ll accept fans as sometimes behaving like MANIACS, then…so who’ll be more maniacal this evening, do you think, the Moroccans or the French fans?

54. Tough but enjoyable. If I get stuck with a Tramp clue I usually find that a few minutes doing or thinking something else gets me a fresh perspective. This is not always the case with other solvers, when a few days are still sometimes not enough to get me restarted!

    I enjoyed some of the misdirection, like ‘couch potato’ and ‘element of surprise’, and the surface of 23a was so smooth and amusing it was almost a shame to have to pick it apart and solve it 🙂

    Thanks to Tramp and Andrew.

55. Widdersbel @52. I always solve in the newspaper because on the odd occasions when I haven’t been able to obtain a copy and go online it’s always too tempting to use the reveal or check letter facilities available. It’s not just about admitting defeat, or accusing myself of cheating, but as you say “it deprives me of the pleasure of solving”.

    I forgot to mention my appreciation for and total agreement with what Julie wrote @33 in praise of Tramp: “You need to know the high esteem in which this crossword community holds you – you are such a clever and creative setter and you always get us to look at clues and grids in a refreshingly new way.” Just to add that I hope he hung around after his appearance @31 long enough to read it!

56. I despaired of even remotely understanding one third of the clues here. Then I took a nap, 1A and 9A promptly leapt out at me, and the rest was a canter to the finish line.

57. Got started late after a morning trip to the airport. Raised an eyebrow at the transliteration of the capital in 6d. My Mongolian friends tend to put a few more letter A’s in the name. Though to be fair they usually call it UB, and transliteration is a matter of taste. Happy Chanukah, Hanukkah etc

58. Thank you. I appreciate the nice comments.

    Neil

59. Outstanding crossword — thanks Tramp. This took a bit of effort to complete because I kept getting misdirected — that makes solving more fun for me in the long run. I had many favourites including BRISKET (nice succinct surface), MANIAC, POLAROID (loved the surface imagery), TREES, INHERIT (great definition), ULAN BATOR, and PHRASE (amusing surface). Thanks Andrew for the blog.
    [I have my own “no-fly” list of setters, my “must-do” list, and a “will-do-if-I-have time list”. Tramp is a “must-do” for me.]

60. [HYD @51: Very sorry about my unintendedly patronising comment @ 38, but I did put ‘haters’ in quotation marks, and the frequent grumbles from posters about difficulty and ‘obscurity’, and references to ‘do not attempt’ lists, do seem unnecessarily grumpy. However, if you enjoy reading the solutions in the blog it does seem strange that you’re not willing even to have a go.

    I rarely tackle barred puzzles because too much of the vocabulary is unfamiliar and I don’t like having to check that every other word actually exists – but I will attempt one if I have enough time and nothing better to do 🙂 ]

61. Loved this, as I do all puzzles that I can complete without help! Top half went in easier than the bottom half, but overall well-clued and gratifying to be able to parse everything even if with hindsight.

62. PM@1 That discussion made me think about whether a single letter has a use by itself, such as S for small that you see on clothes, or whether it can occur only in combinations, like M for member in MP. The second sort I’m dubious about.

    Last night I got the whole bottom half except for ENRAPT and none of the top half except FATHER, without FIGURE, because I did know what dad” meant but had no glimmer of a clue about what to do with “bod.” I tried to think of synonyms for “bod,” but it took me till Widdersbel@47 to realize that “dad bod” is a thing, and that other solvers recognized it. So then I googled it and realized what everybody else was on about.

    Thanks for the puzzle, Tramp, including the bod, and for the helpful blog, Andrew.

63. Weird. Couldn’t get a single answer this morning. Went back after lunch and it all fell into place.
    Liked ARRANGE and PHRASE.
    Thanks both.

64. On a day when I was feeling under the weather this puzzle was a real tonic to lift my spirits. It wasn’t easy, and I got temporarily stuck in the SW corner, but I enjoyed the clever wordplay and deft definitions throughout, and I felt very satisfied to have completed it.

    Many thanks to Tramp and Andrew.

65. Great puzzle, took us two sessions over coffee to finish(so we haven’t got to the FT yet!)
    We also had to work up from the bottom as couldn’t get a handle on the top half!
    Thanks to Tramp and Andrew

66. Gervase @60 – no problem, thanks for the reply

67. Valentine: the custom is that you can use an abbreviation if it is supported by a dictionary. “Member” is in the dictionary under M, so that is fine. It’s not allowable to extract letters from longer abbreviations: so, you couldn’t use P for “parliament” just because it’s in MP. You’re not really supposed to use esoteric abbreviations in standard crosswords. “Absent” for A, for example.

    All these are guidelines. You could argue “men” for OR and “sailor” for AB are esoteric. Setters use “pub” for PH but I don’t think that’s in the dictionaries.

    Some papers have lists of allowable abbreviations: The Guardian doesn’t.

68. Tramp@67. Thanks much for both the puzzle and the explanation on abbreviations. One reason I just got the Chambers Crossword Manual was to see what I’ve been missing … . Odd that the G has no lists; am sure the FT does :-).

69. Thanks for that comment, Tramp @ 67

    Is A = Absent really esoteric? I recall it from school roll-calls in the 1960s.

    OK, maybe it’s a long time ago and schools don’t do roll-calls anymore, but I wouldn’t fault it, though I might take a long time to spot it.

70. Late to the party – finished this last night, but no time for comments. When FATHER FIGURE popped straight into my mind on reading (great clue!), I thought we might be in for an easier than normal time, but that remained pretty much the only top half answer (save the capital) until the bottom was practically complete. Usually I find commenters here largely agree on the more transparent/more difficult halves or quarters, but not for this one. Yes, this was mind-bending in places… but isn’t that why we do crossies? Thanks, Tramp and Andrew.

71. Thanks Andrew for the melee (been in enough scrums that I should have twigged that!) and the, er, ecstasy as I thought that was part of the tab and that the solution somehow meant “in” ( like wrapped in). I was grateful for geography and old spelling to get me started on the slow but very enjoyable road to success but count myself lucky with 25a and a few others defying parsing for a while. ( I am amazed that some people got the lower half done first!) Simon S @67 I recall A being marked in the register in the 80s, can’t think of a stand-alone M= member though! Thanks Tramp for all the misdirection and the insights here.

72. Re ‘member’=M because “it’s in the dictionary”, maybe that’s because it’s in more general use than just MP. There’s also Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire; obviously you couldn’t use ‘most’=M on that basis though. 🙂

    Despite being thought esoteric, A for ‘absent’ is in Chambers, but under the lower case heading; perhaps it’s not just Simon @69 who remembers school rolls. (AWOL provides a hint that military pen pushers must have used it too.) Absent is listed immediately after ‘about’, which aroused a soupçon of abuse in these comments when used in a clue a few weeks ago.

73. Thanks Andrew for explaining ELEVATE and CROUPIER, the two I couldn’t parse. (I didn’t think that PIER and DOCK were synonyms, but they are both structures with a bit of sea alongside).

    I didn’t know DOOFUS, but guessed it before checking in a dictionary. Is that cheating? I think not, as one can’t be expected to know every word that occurs in a crossword. It’s a way to learn.

    Unlike some solvers who give up and look up the answers, I put unfinished crosswords to one side and then come back to them later – even months later. Am I the only one who’s anal enough to do this?

    Thanks for the brain exercise, Tramp.

74. Great fun!
    Thanks, Tramp and Andrew (note in passing, PURR is what a pleased Tom might do).

    Can’t help thinking that 1a 26a (2nd half)’s reaction to 14, 20 and 23 would probably have been “Careful now!!”

75. [Eileen @20, that double exposure with a panning camera thing happened at my Secondary School in the UK. I think the culprit ended up with detention. I may still have the photo]

76. Yes I had “skip” too for “take off” eg skip school.
    Thanks Tramp and Andrew

77. A for absent was still being used in the 1980s when I was at school, maybe even used now, every lesson attendance was recorded for our sprogs.
    PH is used on OS maps , I think that is a good enough source for any abbreviations.

78. Erike44 if that is cheating then I have cheated on most of the crosswords I have solved especially the tougher ones. And you are not the only one to salt away unfinished puzzles for a rainy day, somewhere I still have Easter’s Maskarade special and a summer Enigmatist. But where on earth did I hide them?

79. [Gazzh@78. Easter Maskarade and summer Enigmatist? Hope the dog ate them. It’s the season to be jolly! 🙂 ]

80. Like Ronald @40 Briskets took me ages – left over (pun intended) to today. Loved Brisket growing up.
    I love Tramp – really tough but masterfully clever and worth the slog.

81. Very late to this, but A isn’t a Department of Education absence code for maintaining registers of attendance. If anyone wants to see the list there’s a 22 page pdf here, which include things like B = educated off site, D = dual registered, I= illness, H = school agreed holiday, R = religious holiday.

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