Guardian Cryptic 29,028 by Vulcan

72 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,028 by Vulcan”

1. I find “plain food” a weird phrase. Enough that I doubted that it could be the answer.

2. Mostly enjoyable clues, no sticky moments. I wasn’t aware that Dylan is a Welsh name, but I am now. Padding/walking along I thought odd, and I didn’t think 11a was cryptic, despite getting the “joke” that it’s the London underground.

   Thanks Vulcan & PeterO.

3. Geoff @2. I wouldn’t have remembered that Dylan is a Welsh name except that I just got an email from bookshop.org today about the Dylan Thomas prize, so it was fresh in my mind.

4. I thought this straightforward and enjoyable, with one minor quibble. I find clues like that for GUYING are neither definition+wordplay nor the usual form of CD, but rather something in the middle and not completely satisfying, but maybe that’s just me.

   Thanks V&P

5. I agree with PH @1 about PLAIN FOOD being a bit odd. Is it a recognised lexical term or at least a commonly used adjective + noun combination? Maybe I’m missing something but I think it would fit into the category of what the Times for The Times site calls a “green paint” answer; “green room” would be OK as an answer as it is a recognised term whereas “green paint” isn’t. Using PLAIN, with “flour” or “text” would similarly be OK as an answer but I can’t find PLAIN FOOD as a term in a dictionary.

   Anyway, enough trying to pretend I know what I’m talking about. I liked the RELAY RACE, OVERFLY and GUYING cryptic defs and SOD’S LAW which seems to lend itself to amusing clues. Today’s was a good one, but my favourite is: “I’ve had enough of salad – but this means I’m bound to get some!”.

   Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO

6. Like PH@1 and WP@5 I too wondered if PLAIN FOOD was a real term – it sounded almost right but not quite. If you do a Google search you get articles entitled “Best plain food recipes” and the like, so it’s certainly used as if it’s a “thing”; maybe in a few years we will see it in dictionaries,.

7. PLAIN FOOD, COLD WATER & CLEAN LIVING, coupled with being bashed twice
   daily with the Bible, what more can Man ask for, Maybe a length of rope?

   PS: My body is a Temple, I worship at the feet of Venus & Bacchus.

8. Worth doing for RELAY RACE alone. And I rather like the ambling PADDINGTON. I am less keen on the word, OVERFLY, in the ‘forget to stop at’ sense which could only be in the US, really. Overfly somewhere in the UK and you’ll be in the briny pretty quick. It is Sod’s Law that I use Sod’s Law every time I’m meant to use Murphy’s …

   Thanks Vulcan and PeterO

9. Not keen on sausage because terming the clue cryptic is stretching it a bit. Similarly, guying is weak. Not overly fond of overfly and plain food but certainly acknowledge they do fit the cryptic definition. Strangely annoying this morning; maybe it’s just me not looking forward to a long work schedule…

10. Defeated by the very good RELAY RACE as once RALLY RACE entered my head I couldn’t make it leave. In my defence after the less satisfying CDs for SAUSAGE, OVERFLY and GUYING I figured I just wasn’t vibing with Vulcan’s thought process. Thanks V and PeterO.

11. Plain Food is a very English term, I think. Tends to mean food with no spice, usually eaten when somebody has a stomach complaint.

12. All over fairly soon.

    Enjoyed TAKE A BOW but found the rest rather PLAIN FOOD.

    “… athletic kite’s red…” Wot?

    Find clues like GUYING & OVERFLY a bit of a strain.

    Many thanks both.

13. Not keen on the clue for 11a. Monday should be easy, yes, but the clues should nonetheless be cryptic

14. I took 24ac to be ‘out’=OVER and ‘being in a plane’=FLY, with ‘miss’ as the definition.

15. I think PLAIN FOOD is the opposite of what I used to (still) call “summat good and not so common”. Memories of me as a little lad being ill and mum making me “a chopped up egg in a cup”.

16. Good PLAIN FOOD is something I have been told to cook, no foreign muck (garlic, spices or curries) when catering for events. It really is an English/British thing.

    I also wondered about OVERFLY, had fly in for ages, waited for the crossers before I entered the over, making it my LOI.

    Thank you to Vulcan (and such a contrast to that tough Imogen from last week) and PeterO.

17. Talking of the tube/underground, I thought there might be a mini-theme with PADDINGTON being on both the CIRCLE and DISTRICT lines and BOW also on the DISTRICT line. One can also get to BRUSSELS from PADDINGTON via Kings Cross (which they would be if beaten by ACES HIGH). SOD’S LAW that NI were beaten by FINLAND in the European championship last night. Apart from that bit of nonsense, I enjoyed this, especially RELAY RACE and T-BONE STEAK.

    Ta Vulcan & PeterO.

18. Nothing wrong with PLAIN FOOD, if you’re of a certain age it was something you were encouraged to eat rather than experiment with “foreign muck”. However, this is another Monday example of a quiptic masquerading as a cryptic. I wish the Graun’s puzzle editor would create some clear blue water between the two.

19. @Shanne,16: Sorry, I failed to observe that you too had referenced “foreign muck”. Clearly we have encountered similarly insular appetites.

20. Having flown from Perth to Hobart today, I guess we did OVERFLY Adelaide, but we weren’t keen on the clue – LOI, and only because we couldn’t think of anything more likely. GUYING also seemed weak – definitely not a DD, not a satisfying CD. PLAIN FOOD, on the other hand, seems perfectly OK – we have certainly heard the phrase here in Oz. Thanks, Vulcan and PeterO.

21. The clue for RELAY RACE is a nice riddle, but I wouldn’t agree that it’s ‘as a cryptic definition should be’, as it’s only cryptic in the general sense of its meaning not being obvious, rather than the usual crosswording sense of giving words double meanings.
    ACES HIGH puzzled me – I can’t find it in any dictionary. I assumed it was a poker term, and Ace-high is in Collins as a term describing a hand, eg a straight, in which an ace is the top card, but that doesn’t fit the definition. I suppose aces high just means ‘in this game, aces are top cards’, which you might say before a game of rummy. Is it an established term? I think I’d say ‘aces are high’

22. [Charles@18 – the difference between the Quiptic and the Cryptic is not the difficulty of the solve, but that the Quiptic is only available on the internet. Those who buy the newspaper are entitled to an easy crossword on a relatively predictable basis. It would be valid to complain that a Quiptic is too hard, but not that the Cryptic is easier than the Quiptic.]

23. Liked the similarly constructed CAROUSING and FLOURISH. Wasn’t particularly keen or sure about loi OVERFLY. Thanks Vulcan and PeterO for a gentle start to the week…

24. Just want to add that “Plain Food” is also a common term here in Malaysia, where normal, everyday food is anything but. Typically used by doctors or patients dealing with gastric issues.

25. Suitably Mondayish puzzle, with a few smiles. I liked the anagrams for THE LAKE DISTRICT, T-BONE STEAK and NOSTALGIC. I parsed OVERFLY as Andrew S @14. I don’t have a problem with PLAIN FOOD (though I’m not so keen on SAUSAGE).

    [Christopher Prout was at one time leader of the Conservative group in the European Parliament. Not surprisingly, he was known as the Brussels Prout]

    Thanks to S&B

26. Nice easy start as per normal Monday. I’m a NOSTALIC PERSON so here ( as per GUY from The Vaults ) is a RELAY RACE of one video I highly support, one I do not and one in between

    https://youtu.be/7UfiCa244XE

    https://youtu.be/XDeiovnCv1o

    https://youtu.be/1mRec3VbH3w

    Thank you Vulcan and PeterO.

27. I agree that “PLAIN FOOD” is a very recognisable term from my youth, as opposed to “spicy/foreign stuff”, and I thought Bear was doing double duty in 19a, as “PADDING” fits with the way a bear walks, on its pads.
    Thanks, Vulcan & PeterO

28. RHS was easier for me.

    Favourites: PADDINGTON, REALY RACE, SLOUCHED.

    New for me: OVERFLY = miss out.

    Was wondering if 11ac was a cd.

    Thanks, both.

    I lived in Bali for many years. The equivalent of plain food there (where the food is usually spicy) is to eat white rice porridge (bubur) when one is not feeling well.

29. OVERFLY is poor. To miss out is not the same as to miss.
    GUYING is a real stretch, even knowing the Fawkes reference.
    SODS LAW was good, as was RELAY RACE.

30. Van Winkle@22. Thanks. I’m so used to consuming my media online these days that your explanation hadn’t occurred to me.

31. Thanks Vulcan and PeterO
    I’m happy with the definition for PLAIN FOOD, but still think the clue is rather weak – fare and food are too similar in meaning.
    I hadn’t heard OVERFLY used in the sense of miss out before.
    I liked PADDINGTON (his 65th anniversary this year) and PERSON.

32. Gervase at 25: thanks for starting my week with a giggle!
    Thanks too to Vulcan, and PeterO – for the fun and the blog

33. @5 -plain food used to be a term used in hospitals to denote the bland ‘soup and sweet’ fare ordered after surgery. It didn’t seem off to me.
    Re OVERFLY – I think FLYOVER is more typical as in ‘Nebraska is a flyover state’, an expression I heard used by non-Nebraskans whilst I was working in Nebraska.
    SAUSAGE was not even cryptic IMO
    I thought there was a food theme-ish with FLOUR and SLAW + TBONE STEAK, BRUSSEL SPROUTS and possibly RANCHER (a type of burger offering), oh and the pesky SAUSAGE!

34. Didn’t know OVERFLY and wasn’t entirely certain of GUYING, which held me up at the end, but they were the only plausible entries. A nice Monday puzzle.

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO.

35. Yes it’s definitely Monday! Half a cup of coffee and it’s all over!

    BRUSSELS SPROUTS was neat.

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO

36. Many thanks to Vulcan, and to PeterO for the blog.
    PLAIN FOOD is a perfectly acceptable collocation in Br Eng; as others have said, often recommended to those suffering upset stomachs.
    James@21 ACES HIGH is commonly used by card-players to establish conventions at the start of a game.

37. Good start to the week, although having briefly thought about BRUSSELS SPROUTS, I then forgot and wasted too much time on looking for an anagram of ‘EUmakesspeechesR’ to no avail, especially as it has 16 letters, doh!

    I liked the clue for SOD’S LAW but didn’t much enjoy that for OVERFLY and the ‘just’ in the clue for TEMPO. We did have a discussion recently about phrases not found in the usual dictionaries. I can’t find PLAIN FOOD in the usual sources, although it is accepted by Crossword Compiler and is used verbally, at least in the UK. WP @5, when I first started compiling I sent a crossword to Alberich where I had used ‘green roof’ – he gently pointed out it was not acceptable!

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO.

38. First pass through yielded almost nothing, surprisingly for a Monday. And then I think my brain clicked into gear (coffee taking effect?) and it all fell into place on a second pass.

39. PS, I found PLAIN FOOD in the Pan Crossword Dictionary (ed. by Mike Hutchinson).

40. The PLAIN FOOD thing shouldn’t be a matter of opinion, even where it is used to mean ‘stop eating curry all the time if you want to get rid of that ulcer’: it’s either in the dictionaries or it isn’t, and it lacks entries in Collins and Chambers. It’s also not an idiomatic phrase, so really it ought to have been pushed to the side of the plate.

    Charles makes a good point above. I appreciate what Van Winkle says too, but IMO the Quiptic should be easier than any Cryptic, and the old Rufus slot would be no exception.

    Enjoyable solve. I will now try to locate some irregular vegetables.

41. Five seconds on Google is enough to confirm that PLAIN FOOD is indeed still a thing – yummly even have a top 10 plain food recipes

    I was hoping there might be something more to THE LAKE DISTRICT clue but it appears in the case less is just less

    Pretty much par for the Vulcan course

    Cheers V&P

42. lady gewgaw @ 39: Check out for irregular vegetables.

43. The Quiptic is aimed at beginners so for me, being easy is not sufficient – it also needs to be meticulously fair, in the strict Ximenean sense. That is why Pasquale is such a fine exponent of the form. I like Vulcan’s style but he has a number of quirks that I feel would make him unsuitable for the Quiptic slot (the same goes for Anto).

    Anyway, I enjoyed this puzzle, especially the amusingly clever, very Rufus-esque, and not-at-all-suitable-for-a-Quiptic CD for RELAY RACE.

    I would argue that PLAIN FOOD *is* idiomatic, with a fairly well understood meaning (as various comments here confirm), so I’m slightly surprised it’s not listed in any of the usual dictionaries. It certainly has greater merit than the GREEN PAINT example mentioned earlier. But I’m not a lexicographer, so what do I know? Robi @36, you were perhaps a tad unlucky to have GREEN ROOF rejected, because green roofs are very much a thing now (listed in the OED with the earliest citation being from 1984).

    Thanks, Vulcan and PeterO.

44. An enjoyable solve. Thanks to PeterO and Vulcan.

45. Thanks for the blog, not keen on OVERFLY or GUYING but I thought the rest was ideal for a Monday. Great to see PADDINGTON (he has saved me from so much annoyance in meetings lately ) and he is even honoured with a special theme from AlanC . I liked SLOUCHED wirh multiple deceptions in the clue.
    For PLAIN FOOD I agree with Crispy @ 11 , it is almost a prescription at times.

46. ‘Green roof’ has a Wikipedia entry, which is more than can be said for PLAIN FOOD – but the latter was a familiar enough expression for me to insert it without worrying whether it was kosher.

47. Our quickest ever solve … less that 30 minutes. Feel like we’re not beginners any more (famous last words). BRUSSELS SPROUTS about the only thing left on our allotment we are eating at the moment … roll on the asparagus.

48. lady gewgaw @ 39

    People, either living or fictional, appear quite frequently in crosswords, though they aren’t in dictionaries (cf Paddington today). Are you saying that they shouldn’t be allowed either?

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO

49. I too, thought GUYING was weak but the wiktionary gives GUY as a
    ‘Verb
    guy (third-person singular simple present guys, present participle guying, simple past and past participle guyed)
    (intransitive) To exhibit an effigy of Guy Fawkes around the 5th November.’

50. And FINLAND is another station, like PADDINGTON (not the bear).
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland_Station

51. My only experience with “padding” as a way of walking is a British usage, meaning, as far as I can tell, to walk barefoot indoors. “He climbed out of bed and padded into the kitchen.” I am ready to be corrected.

    PLAIN FOOD brings to mind another Britishism, “a good plain cook.” But that’s bit green paint-ish. It reminds me of a time when I had just arrived at Heathrow and was buying a Cadbury’s bar at a snack stand. The lady asked me if I wanted plain chocolate, and I was just about to explain, “No, I want the fancy kind with the fruit and nuts,” when I remembered that “plain chocolate” is British for what I would call “dark chocolate.” I did want that.

    An interesting difference between “green paint” and “green room.” In the first phrase you’d stress the noun, being the main element in your discourse, and in the second you’d stress the adjective because it’s a thing, like “dining room.” If you stressed the first word of 15d, it would mean something you ate while overflying something.

    Robi@36 I got hung up on the same non-anagram.

    Thanks, Vulcan and PeterO.

52. [ Roz @44: can always rely on you for the generous name check. I thought it was a reasonable stab, but obviously didn’t appeal to anyone else 🙂 ]

53. [AlanC I prefer your made up themes to the actual ones that usually spoil the clues ]
    James@21 ACES HIGH is used when cutting the deck to choose the dealer or in Knockout Whist to decide a winner of a drawn round.
    I hope that Anna has seen 17Ac .

54. Oh dear! Much too hard for me.
    Thanks both.

55. GUYING I kinda-sorta got via old British slang, a ‘guy’ being a frightful person, or figure of fun.

    ACES HIGH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7_1c2PsVIQ

56. Not my favourite crossword as there are too many loosely clued answers and vague definitions as others have mentioned but the answers I did get I got quite quickly. Did anyone else put ‘roulade’ for 11A? I put that, which made 1D and several further linking across clues impossible to get.

57. Thanks both,
    Some rather loose clues, I thought. Eg 21d. And 11ac really needs a DBE indicator as some sausages , eg salami, are not usually cooked before they are eaten.

58. Tyngewick @57
    I hope the meat in salami is cooked before the sausage is made!

59. I don’t think anyone else has admitted a somewhat sexist parsing of 25ac as the singer, Cher, is “some woman”.

60. @59
    Read the blog again

61. I managed this today for the first time ever. I didn’t use reveal at all, but I cheated by using “check” A LOT.

    I am new to this – does ‘c’ mean ABOUT? ROUGHLY?

62. Simon S @ 48 obviously not, in a crossword that allows names, and they all do, as far as I know, even if those named have to be dead in one of them. By the bye, an acquaintance told me that, amusingly, there is a very exclusive list of people whose names have appeared in that paper, who were not in fact dead at the time of publication.

    The relevant argument is put rather well in Manley’s famous book, where the comparison between YELLOW SHIRT (not allowed) and BROWNSHIRT (allowed) is made. There’s no doubt that you can have a yellow shirt, or indeed a brown one, but of these only BROWNSHIRT is a ‘thing in a dictionary’.

    These boundaries are set to prevent just about anything going into a puzzle, I suppose, and while it may be hard on occasion to decide what crosses the line and what doesn’t, I think the idea is helpful.

63. short for the Latin circa

64. Steffen@61
    C and ca are abbreviations of circa which is Latin for about. Both are commonly used, even outside crosswords.

65. Thank you. I struggle to use it in the crossword setting a lot. Does it mean that words are surrounded by other words/letters?

66. Muffin @58 Salami is made by stuffing uncooked raw meat into an ox runner with a little salt and a bacterial culture. It is then hung up in a cool place to ferment. No cooking involved. I’ve done it a couple of times with good results.

67. Steffen @61/65 – first of all, congratulations on your first completion. Don’t feel guilty about using the check button, but I predict that your sense of achievement when you manage without it will be all the greater!

    My advice would be – try doing the next Monday cryptic/Quiptic* without it, and if you get stuck, instead of resorting to aids, just sleep on it. It’s amazing how something that seems impenetrable can magically resolve itself the next morning. And if it doesn’t, try the next day, and the next. It’s not a race, it’s something to be savoured, if necessary over a whole week.
    (*Not if it’s Anto though 😉 )

    Re ‘about’ – as muffin and Pino say, it can (like ‘roughly’ in 6d) be an indication that you have to stick a C or CA (for ‘circa’) somewhere in the solution.
    But it can also be:
    – an insertion indicator, i.e letters surrounded by other letters (or an ‘envelope’, as it’s referred to in the blog). See 1d today, where “Makes speeches about the end of irregulaR” gives SPOUTS surrounding R, or SPROUTS.
    – a reversal indicator, as in ‘about turn’ – eg 26a
    – an anagram indicator (anagrind), in which case you have to understand ‘about’ in the sense of ‘shaken about’/jumbled up. There’s an example in today’s Quiptic.

    baerchen @60 – I would suggest that you read Jellyroll’s post @59 again. I don’t think he’s ignoring or disagreeing with the parsing in PeterO’s blog, just humorously suggesting an alternative reading.

68. Thank you for the tips.

    I tried asking for help a few days ago on the cryptic site but was quickly shot down and advised to ask questions here!

69. Lady Gewgaw @various. It seems clear from the blog that ‘plain food’ is a common enough term that it means something to a lot of people, even if it isn’t in the dictionary. I think setters use common sense (mostly) and should be allowed some artistic licence.

70. Tyngewick @66
    I didn’t know that! You’ve rather put me off eating it…

71. SAUSAGE was so non-cryptic that it fooled me completely. Can a non-cryptic clue in a cryptic crossword be cryptic in that it’s the last thing you expect?!

72. I thought Vulcan might have had Roz in mind when he crossed 19a PADDINGTON with the ever-so-slightly indirect anagram at 20d DREAMY.

    I agree with Van Winkle@22 about the relative difficulty of Quiptic and Monday Cryptic crosswords, and lady gewgaw@40 provides no rationale for her rather dogmatic dictum.

    Thank you Flea@26 for two of your links (#1 and 3), which made my day. And thanks, Vulcan and PeterO for starting off the week in good form.

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