Guardian 29,048 / Imogen

101 comments on “Guardian 29,048 / Imogen”

1. 28 across. To change hem to here, yoy put re for m.

2. Reform is RE for M, i.e. change M to RE making hem here.

   Thanks both

3. 28a “RE” for “M”

4. Me @1. Or maybe you rather than yoy.

5. Thanks all – I knew it wouldn’t take long!

6. Same parse as crispy @1.

   Really enjoyed this solve.

   My favourite MONDRGREEN is from the Jimi Hendrix song “Bad Moon Rising” in which “there’s a bad moon on the rise” becomes ” there’s a bathroom on the right”.

7. Enjoyed this. Had to look up FLAX, which was new to me, and didn’t fully parse IRISHMAN. DIGIRATI delayed me for a while, but Literati clearly wasn’t right and the penny dropped eventually. LIFE RAFT made me smile.

   Thanks to Imogen and Eileen.

8. Charles@7 FALX not FLAX. Doh!

9. A neat crossword from Imogen. NHO “FALX” yet had heard of “DIGERATI” being an ex IT person. Noel Edmonds ( the DJ / TV and radio presenter ) used to feature MONDEGREENs and I used to love them ! Two that I remember are “Excuse me while I kiss the sky” heard as “Excuse me while I kiss this guy” ( Hendrix ) and “Forever in blue jeans” heard as “The Reverend Blue Jean” ( Neil Diamond ).

   Have to have a bit of a grumble regarding 9a in that the definition word LANDMARK is a noun whereas the solution ICONIC is an adjective. Maybe it could have been clued “Landmark’s nature shows one particular curve” or something similar.

   Gave a tick to DESIRES, TREMOR, IRISHMAN and HERESY.

   I see a mini-theme : Various / fragments / twist-arounds / of the 6 hieroglyphs of Only Connect are tied up in the grid Horned Viper ( split fragments ), Lion ( partial ), Reed, Water, Eye ( of Horus which is inside CHORUSES [!!!] and Falx=twisted flax [!!!].

   Thank you Imogen and Eileen.

10. Nice to have a bit of light relief from Vulcogen after the last couple of days. More evidence that time is running backwards this week?

    REFORM was my personal pick of the day and MONDEGREEN a jorum bringing to mind this earworm which is chock full of them

    Cheers V&E

11. Flea@9 LANDMARK can be an adjective, as in “it was a landmark case”.

12. Flea @9 I’ve seen LANDMARK used adjectively e.g. The Gherkin is a landmark / iconic building

    Can you really ever be an ex-IT person – I always thought it was a life sentence? Feels like that to me 🙂

13. Oh Flea @9 – how could I have missed that, as a devotee of ‘Only Connect’? Brilliant – thank you!

14. I missed a ) out after CHORUSES [!!!] @ 9.

    William@6 : I don’t remember Hendrix doing Bad Moon Rising. Imo, it was CCR Creedence Clearwater Revival.

15. I parsed 21 as so = very + d = “damp at first”

    Bad Moon Rising – Creedence not Hendrix!

    Lovely puzzle.

16. That makes more sense, TonyM – I wasn’t happy about that one.

17. Flea @ 9 – with 2d and 30d that’s (nearly) two reeds!

18. Never heard of ‘falx’: went for the unlikely sounding ‘falb’. Also never heard of ‘Tal’ – famous he may be, but as I hate chess not surprising – nor ‘digerati’ – a neologism I can well do without – but they were easy enough to deduce. The mondegreen that may appeal to setter Paul is from the song ‘Sway’ – ‘Other dancers may pee on the floor’.

19. Many thanks to Imogen & Eileen.

    A few favourite mondegreens:

    The ants are my friends
    Me ears are alight
    The girl with colitis goes by
    The ducks are hazards in the classroom
    Well, blossom arsehole
    Ireland’s industry

    Respectively from:
    Blowin’ in the wind (Bob Dylan)
    The Israelites (Desmond Dekker)
    Lucy in the sky with diamonds (Beatles)
    Another brick in the wall (Pink Floyd)
    All shook up (Elvis Presley)
    Islands in the Stream (Parton & Rogers)

20. Reading 12a reminded me of when I was young, living in East Yorkshire, I often wondered why, for example, Kingston upon Thames would never be just called Thames but just about everybody called Kingston upon Hull simply Hull. Don’t know if anybody still uses the full name.

21. As usual with Imogen, this defeated me and I had to reveal 8a (NHO), 12a (surely LIONISE means worship rather than make a fuss of), 15d and 29d, also NHO although I am delighted to learn MONDEGREEN! I thought the surfaces and misdirections were excellent, so I enjoyed it overall, although no actual LOL moments. A good challenge, maybe the more I try Imogen’s puzzles the better I will get?
    Thanks Imogen and Eileen and everyone else for their contributions to the blog.

22. Thanks, Eileen, and to Imogen for a smooth solve, with enough knottiness/obscurity to satisfy.

    Good to see a mention of my home city, Hull (only the very pedantic and pompous still use the ‘Kingston’ bit, Hovis @20). I possibly suppressed the theme, finding the quiz too cringe-making – both through the extreme nerdiness of the contestants, and the host’s dire attempts at humour!

23. I enjoyed this, thanks Imogen, and thanks Eileen for the blog. Plenty of smiles. I couldn’t parse HERESY or IRISHMAN (iris/flag was new to me). Not having heard of those British school assessments meant I was at a loss to parse DISTASTE.

24. Never heard of TAL or FALX.

25. SinCam @21 – re LIONISE: Collins has ‘to treat as or make into a celebrity’, which sounds fair enough to me. (I’ve always thought there was a whiff of unworthy worship about the word.)

26. I thought that UNSOLVED was the weakest clue. I did like HERESY and the crossing favourite of REFORM which I parsed as above.

    Talking about Mondegreens, and I’ve probably posted this before, here is Peter Kay’s version of misheard song lyrics… I don’t waste my evenings!!!

27. I trembled a bit to see Imogen at the top but it all turned out quite well (I find solving short words easier as the wordplay is simple).

    Once I saw NEO I thought “must be a theme of The Matrix”, but no. I liked the MISS IVE, the good anagram for HOD CARRIER, and the IRISHMAN with a good surface.

    Thanks Imogen, Eileen and Flea @9 for revealing the theme.

28. I enjoyed this – as Eileen said there were some relatively easy anagrams and charades to get me started and provide crosses to help with the more difficult ones. Even managed to parse all but REFORM including two I had never heard of: TAL and MONDEGREEN – the latter being a lovely new word for me.

    Thanks Imogen and Eileen

29. Hugely enjoyable with lots of penny drop moments. I especially like the short ones, ELI, AWE and TOR. Thanks as always for the excellent blog Eileen. Thank you Imogen for lots of fun

30. Slightly obscure Mondegreen: Tori Amos’s Horses.

    She sang ‘I got me some horses to ride on,’ but I could only hear ‘I got me samosas to write on.’

31. Flea@9: if it’s part of a theme I’ll pardon Imogen for FALX (nho and revealed) which otherwise didn’t need to be an obscurity. Likewise nho DIGERATI (and I worked in IT for 20+ years, but probably before the word was invented). I guessed LITERATI and was wrong. Nho TAL either, but like the inevitable ELI, he was obvious.

    An odd mix of the fairly straightforward and a few rather unusual ones – some accounted for by the demands of the theme. Failed to parse LIFE RAFT or LIONISE (particles are out of my league: I expect Roz will explain) or REFORM (clever, I like it).

    Liked the DES RES and MISS IVE. Did anyone else wonder if Yoda might be involved in the solution to UNSOLVED?

    Thanks Imogen and Eileen – best wishes for Christian Aid Week: I liked DIOR for exactly the same reason as you!

32. Thanks, gladys. 😉

33. … should have added ‘and to you, too’.

34. Liked DIGERATI, REFORM, MONDEGREEN and IRISHMAN.
    Thanks, Imogen and Eileen!

35. Re. MONDEGREENs, I recollect many years ago hearing Humphrey Lyttleton tell the story of how, when he at some earlier period was hosting a request show on the World Service, he received a request to play Elvis Presley’s song ,’Wurlitzer’. It took some head scratching before he realised that what was being referred to was ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ – ‘Well, it’s a one for the money …’

36. Flea @ 9 – could we have ‘two reeds’. (Reed + Read)?

37. Moley @36 – see Shirl @17.

38. Absolutely brilliant, Flea@9!!! Not having yet recovered from Maskarade’s Easter offering 8-0 (altho I did finish it), I wasn’t even looking for a theme (tut). Genius. Thanks very much and to Eileen.

39. Good puzzle. Started with little on the first pass but it gradually unfurled, from the bottom up. A few new words for me: FALX, TAL and MONDEGREEN – this last one is a new word to me but not a new concept! It immediately brought to mind this Maxell tape ad campaign from the 1980s:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gib916jJW1o

    Memory is a funny thing… I can recite the misheard words to that whole ad, 40 years on, but don’t ask me what the real words are (or why I just went into the kitchen)… 🙂

    Thanks Imogen and Eileen!

40. Sorry, I thought 8-0 would yield an emoji (for bafflement).
    I always thought the Beach Boys were singing
    Her Daddy took the teapot away
    and I always wondered why…

41. The other version of The Brick in the Wall mondegreen is the rather strange ‘The ducks orgasm in the classroom.’ I liked DESIRES and REFORM.

42. Hi Mimi @40 – try here: https://www.fifteensquared.net/2009/06/19/emoticons/

43. Very interesting to me, as a not very good chess player, that so many here have never heard of Mikhail Tal. Chain-smoking, hard-drinking, brilliantly flamboyant attacker and world champion in the 60s.

44. Here was I thinking this was a great solve, until I came here to find out how exactly LITERATI was parsed – d’oh! That apart, I had it all done and parsed. No idea of the theme, or of the show?/quiz?/whatever? that it came from. Talking of absurd MONDEGREENs, when it came out, I always heard Mull of Kintyre as ‘polythene bag’ – don’t ask me why, apart from it not being worth listening to anyway. What a dirge. Thanks, Imogen and Eileen.

45. Flea@9 & others re LANDMARK:
    Most dictionaries have it only as a noun but this one – The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language
    https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=landmark
    has ‘adj. Having great import or significance: a landmark court ruling.’
    It even allows it as a verb!
    ‘tr.v. land·marked, land·mark·ing, land·marks To accord the status of a landmark to; declare to be a landmark.’

46. Shirl@27, Moley@36, Eileen@37 : Yes I spotted that and also thought it tremendous that READ was at clue 2. My text was already full of round and square brackets and I didn’t fancy more so I didn’t write it up.

    The kudos is definitely yours.

    Did the HOD CARRIER labour on the connecting wall I wonder ?

    I think someone should invent a word for “a phrase in a song that one has strained to listen to, for a lifetime, but has never heard properly”.

    I have had that experience with “Blinded by the Light” – Mannfred Mann’s Earth Band ( long multi-word phrase ) and have just looked up the solution

    “revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night”

    Mondegreen by the American commentator :

    “wrapped up like a douche, you know the rumor in the night”.

47. Laughing so much at Peter Kay and that ad. Not forgetting Queen’s “Beelzebub has a devil for a sideboard”

48. However long I do these crosswords, references to partners at bridge continue to elude me.

49. Not exactly a mondegreen, but the 60s single “Louie Louie” was wrongly believed to have “pornographic” stuff hidden in its very hard-to-understand lyrics, to the extent that it was widely banned in the US.

50. Hadn’t seen FALX in scrabble playing years and nice to be reacquainted with MONDEGREEN. Surely UNSOLVED is solved so clue should have been “was” not “will be”
    Nice puzzle
    Thanks Imogen and Eileen

51. My favorite mondegreen is “Hold me closer, Tony Danza” from Elton John’s Tiny Dancer.

52. 8a – how do you know that “cunning” indicates an anagram?

    2d – when you see the word “article”, how do you know which one to use?

53. Really enjoying reading all the allusions and examples related to 15d MONDEGREEN – thanks Team! Lots of smiles here. I recall very clearly that classic Philistine puzzle based on the misheard verse that Eileen mentioned (four years ago – really?).
    I am not usually very good at cracking Imogen’s puzzles but this one was enjoyable, and while it held its challenges, I thought I had got there in the end. However, just like TassieTim@44, such victory was not to be mine, as I had bunged in LITERATI at 8a. DIGERATI, as for some others including gladys@31, is a new TILT for me.
    I admire Flea@9 who found a theme, but not being familiar with “Only Connect”, I would never have seen that.
    Thanks to Imogen and Eileen.

54. Steffen @52:
    8a: You have to consider whether any of the words in a clue might be an anagrind. They usually have some sort of connotation of moving, mixing, twisting… and ‘cunning’ (=devious) can fit into this. Counting up the letters in what you suspect is the anagrist (the letters to be rearranged) also helps – if you can’t identify the anagrist (anagram fodder) with the same number of letters as the answer, it may well not be an anagram. But maybe the setter has snuck in another bit to add or subtract something… so it is complex.
    2d: You need to consider all the articles – see what can fit into a possible answer. There is no way to tell in advance which it will be (and, again, the word ‘article’ might just be a misdirection).

55. I read somewhere that Jimi Hendrix would often the Mondegreen version in his live performances.

56. Used to have a little book of modegreens with cartoons: Hendrix kissing that guy and – favourite – ‘mice aroma’ (My Sharona) illustrated by an elegant glass perfume bottle shaped like a mouse and labelled ‘Infestation by Calvin Klein’. Well, made me laugh.

    Thanks to Imogen and Eileen, and all here who contributed to a fine rabbit-hole.

57. Like most (I assume) non-Brits, I have no knowledge of Only Connect — British television joins cricket as my Great Blank, with the exception of a few that have crossed over the Atlantic.

    My father as a child thought that the Lord’s Prayer said “Give us this day our jelly bread.”

    George@18 I had “falb” too, and I bet we aren’t alone.

    Nice puzzle, a few TILTS and some chuckles. Thanks to Imogen and even more to Eileen.

58. Bonnie Tyler – “It’s a hard egg”

59. Excellent. I spent most of my working life in IT and DIGERATI is a term I have never heard?
    Also 15dn was a new one on me…

60. Sorry to see that GC@18 hates chess – what on earth could it have done to him?

    I have a photograph of me paying my respect at the Tal memorial in a lovely little park in Riga, and then learning that his name was really Mihals Tals with bars over the ‘a’s; it seems that in Latvian one adds -s to everything – essexboy would know of course.

61. Surprised no-one has mentioned the mondegreen often heard in church: “the piece of cod which passes all understanding”.

62. Slightly off-topic – I’ve been doing cryptics regularly for just over a year now and thought I had learnt all the lingo, but today realised that I don’t know what ‘TILT’ means. I believe I get the general sense from context, but can someone enlighten me as to what the acronym means?

    Thanks!

63. Thing I learnt today …

64. Hi Valentine @57
    If you have been intrigued by today’s theme, you can find out more, with some sample questions and videos, here
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_Connect
    or on the Only Connect Data Base
    https://ocdb.cc/
    Over the years, there have been several teams of crossword enthusiasts, some known as setters / solvers here and one well-known setter has set questions for it!
    https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/people/meet-yorkshires-greatest-quiz-brain-he-does-times-crossword-minutes-and-sets-questions-only-connect-1744751

65. grantinfreo @63 – aha! Thanks.

    Seems so obvious now 🙂

66. Started watching the odd youtube ep of Only Connect after it was mentioned here (get about one-and-a-half right usually!), but would never have picked up what Flea@9 did.

67. Thanks, Eileen, I’ll have a look.

68. Rob T @62: your TILT is TILT. Not just used in crossword circles: very much part of primary school education these days.

69. PM @68 – ha! 🙂

70. Thanks Imogen and Eileen
    I found this very hard and had a DNF in fact – an unparsed LITERATI @8a and FALB @29d – never heard of either answer (or FALB for that matter!)
    I’ve only posted to share my favourite mondegreen – I don’t think anyone else has posted it yet:
    I can see Deidre now Lorraine has gone
    (I can see clearly now the rain has gone – Johnny Nash and others)

71. @62 @68 TILT = thing I learnt today
    I think

72. There was a lot to enjoy in this puzzle – and on this blog! This is the second day in a row that I have to thank Flea (@9) for pointing out the far from obvious hidden theme (yesterday it was a M?ori nina). (I don’t often watch Only Connect, but I am familiar with the terms peculiar to that programme.) I found both DIGERATI and MONDEGREEN quite tough to solve, but I was able to work out the former and managed to recall (from the depths) the latter.

    Many thanks to Imogen and Eileen.

73. What Alan B said above. Don’t know the programme but what a brilliant spot by Flea. Loved IRISHMAN, LIFE RAFT and REFORM (my favourite).

    Ta Imogen, Eileen & Flea.

74. Here’s an episode that’s over 10 years old, but one where the CROSSWORDERS show their nicely developed skills :

    https://youtu.be/0zuPxxK7Z1M

75. And there was me thinking early solves, MASTER EYE and READ might be the start of a theme. Monster fail.

76. Many thanks again, Flea @74!

77. My favorite mondegreen directly from my sister’s mouth:
    “Like walking in the rain and the snow
    When there’s nowhere to go
    When you’re feeling like Phil Donahue is dying!” [a part of you is dying] – 10cc’s The Things We Do for Love

78. I don’t think anyone has added this one, k d lang’s Constant Craving, heard always as God Send Gravy…

79. My mondegreen: My White Bicycle (Tomorrow/Nazareth) was always “My wife buys pickles”.

80. “Every time you go away
    You take a piece of meat with you” (Paul Young)

    MONDEGREEN is a new word to me, had to get a dictionary to find the answer. Other than that, tough but fair, to be honest.

    Thanks to Imogen for the puzzle and Eileen (plus others) for putting some meat on the bones.

81. Mrs KJ still thinks ‘sweet dreams are made of bleach’. Didn’t have the heart to put her right when we met 40+ years ago, nor the nerve now.

82. I always thought mondegreen came from a Scots folk song, the Earl of Hamilton. They slew the Earl of Hamilton and laid him on the green. Enjoyed that today.

83. F for field + OIL (eg linseed) gave me a plausible weapon for 29D so I missed the twisted flax and (appropriately) failed to solve UNSOLVED. So grateful for the blog Eileen and hats off to Imogen and Flea for inventing/spotting the clever theme,

84. Bob Dylan is full of mondegreens (also a word I learned for the first time during the 2019 Philistine puzzle). My favourite is “Rosemary combed her hair and took a cabbage into town” (from Lily, Rosemary and The Jack of Hearts).

85. “Round young virgin, mother and child….”

    Enjoyed the puzzle and the chatter.

86. Mandarin @84: this isn’t exactly a mondegreen but I like the way that sometimes in Dylan songs you can hear two different possibilities for what a word might be and they are both equally good. In “Idiot Wind”:

    Down the highway, down the tracks
    Down the road to ecstasy
    I followed you beneath the stars
    Hounded by your memory

    sometimes I hear the word as “hounded” and sometimes as “haunted”, and I like the fact that both seem to be suggested. I don’t want to know what the correct one is!

87. 54. Thank you

88. Hi Steffen @87 and 52, if you’re still there – there’s been a bit of discussion here lately about how it seems that practically anything can be an anagram indicator. I’ve just found this list of 861!
    https://www.unscramblerer.com/anagram-indicators/#:~:text=List%20of%20861%20anagram%20indicators%20that%20help%20solve,anagram%20fodder%20%28the%20letters%20you%20need%20to%20unscramble%29.

    and ‘cunning’ isn’t there. 😉

89. [Tina Turner singing about romance in South Central Los Angeles: “Watts Love”]

90. And Offspinnerr @ 61 “Gladly, my cross-eyed bear.”

91. Eileen @64 – I didn’t know about Enigmatist’s involvement (though it doesn’t surprise me) but I can tell you that Methuselah of the Independent is a regular part of the question setting team. And the current Everyman used to be one of the question editors.

    Anyway, I thought this was a hugeky enjoyable puzzle. Thanks, Imogen and Eileen. I only spotted the theme after I finished and didn’t see the genius “twisted flax” at all. Brilliant!

92. Hi Widdersbel @91 – many thanks for that extra information.

    I’m almost sorry that I started this, because my memory is hazy as to who teamed with who and I’m afraid of missing anyone who’s taken part over the years – but some research has revealed (and reminded me) that it was Dave Tilley who appeared with Enigmatist’s wife Jane and Mick Hodgkin (the Indy’s Morph) and Richard Heald competed as The Cluesmiths.
    … and there are probably more – but it’s getting late and I’ve had a glass of wine or two.

    It’s all been a lot of fun – huge thanks to all who have commented, especially those with mondegreens (I knew I could rely on you!).

93. Thanks Eileen as your preamble convinced me to have a go at this and I was not disappointed despite failing with a tentative FALT, thinking that lower case t looks a bit like a scythe. At least I was patient and trusting enough to assemble 8a and learn something else new. Thanks Flea for the theme spot, I am a big fan too. I won’t lower the tone with the Gabriel/Bush mondegreen that delighted us as kids, and apologies if it is in a link above. Thanks Imogen, I will try not to pass you by again ( would only be my loss).

94. Bullhassocks@22, I’m with you re nerdy contestants on Only Connect, but can’t agree about Victoria Coren. I love her sense of humour.

95. Re. liturgical mondegreens, I remember the little boy showing his friends what it had been like at his grandad’s funeral yesterday – four of you grab the nearest boy, and swing him while chanting ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and into the hole he goes’ before letting go.

96. Irishman@56 – just made me laugh too!

97. Always thought those lines in I Can See Clearly Now were a baffled neurosurgeon’s mid-operation cry:

    I can see clearly now the brain has gone…
    I can see four lobster claws in my way!

98. Very late to this, but no one seems to have congratulated IRISHMAN on being namechecked!

    Irishman @60 – thanks for the mention, but I’m afraid my knowledge of Latvian is non-existent! All I can tell you is that, as a Baltic language, it’s related to Lithuanian (and more distantly to the other languages in the Indo-European family), but unrelated to Estonian, which is part of Anna’s family.

    One more of my personal mondegreens: “Oh! A tree in motion!”. Thanks P & E.

99. [Sorry, I & E. Oh, the I ‘n’ E 🙂 ]

100. jkb_ing@19, I always hear Rogers & Parton as “Highlands Industry” (a sort of C&W version of The Proclaimers’ ‘Letter from America’, perhaps). I did come across MONDEGREEN in a language blog a few years ago so that wasn’t a problem.

     I didn’t quite complete this. I knew 8a wasn’t LITERATI as it had to contain an anagram of ‘great’, but DIGERATI escaped me as NHO (which I’m glad about as it’s one of these horrible portmanteaux, most of which disappear not long after they’re coined).

     I also had TURNED for 24a, as in a wooden finial ‘turned’ to a pointy-headed shape, with TUNED as ‘sharp’. I was slightly unconvinced about it though – with good reason as it ‘turned’ out! That meant the SE corner was a bit of a disaster. Everything else was good though – I even got TAL although NHO him.

     Irishman@60 – I believe every name in Latvian (even those of non-Latvians) has an ‘s’ added to both parts so you get Tonys Blairs, Donalds Trumps and the like.

     Thanks to Imogen for an entertaining puzzle and to Eileen for this always informative blog.

101. Quite tough. Was unsure how to parse:
     8ac – whoops, I had entered LITERATI. Never heard of DIGERATI.
     23ac
     28ac – thanks Crispy and others in the comments.
     32ac = cd?
     18d

     Liked DIOR, MISSIVE.

     New for me : chess champion Mikhail Nekhemyevich TAL; FALX; DES RES (for 20ac)

     Thanks, both.

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