Guardian 29,064 / Vulcan

53 comments on “Guardian 29,064 / Vulcan”

1. Challenging start to the week with some lovely clues such as RESPIRED,SURGICAL, BACKSTORY, COURIER, CRYSTAL PALACE, CRYSTAL PALACE and DEMUR. The homophone was qualified thankfully. THE CREEPS was clued recently in March by Matilda –
   High-tech spree leaves an uneasy feeling (3,6) .

   Ta Vulcan & Eileen.

2. Splendid Monday fare and not a Maskarade – yay!

3. Oops CRYSTAL PALACE, not so good they named it twice.

4. Respect to Vulcan for the “Said by some” in 4d.

   I found this a little harder to finish than usual (for example, RESPIRED and SURGICAL were late entries).

   Thanks Eileen and Vulcan

5. Thanks Vulcan and Eileen
   I enjoyed this – not as easy as usual. Favourite HERMETIC. I appreciated the “said by some” in 4d.
   Not convinced by LANDFALL. An avalanche is mainly snow and ice; a fall of “land” would be called a rockfall,

6. Like AlanC, I found this quite tricky for a Monday – the grid doesn’t initially look unfriendly but the NW and SE are both fairly cut off and CRYSTAL PALACE is pretty important to interlink the remainder.

   HERMETIC was my favourite today. I was surprised to find that an avalanche is defined as a landslip. I appreciate a ‘typical’ snow-based avalanche will include rocks and soil but thought the snow element was the defining characteristic with the earth-based alternative being a landslide.

   Thanks Vulcan and Eileen

7. Ha. Muffin. We coincide today – almost perfectly.

8. What muffin has said …
   Thank you Eileen and Vulcan.

9. Camera gave a PDM to me. We’ve been snapping street parties and gatherings all weekend on our Smartphones ! 10a expressed our actions !

   Ta Vulcan and Eileen.

10. muffin and PostMark – I raised an eyebrow at ‘avalanche’, too, but Chambers gives ‘a landslip’ and Collins ‘a fall of rocks, sand, etc.’

11. It’s some achievement to make me a fan of CRYSTAL PALACE. RESPIRED was clever too. SURGICAL took a while to get and I was almost floored by 4d, even though I could see it had to have an “r” in one element of the homophone.

12. Quite Quiptic-ish for the most part. NE corner was hardest for me. Favourites: THE OLD VIC, ON STRIKE.

    New for me surgical spirit.

    Thanks, both.

13. I suppose ‘avalanche’ comes from en aval, going down the slope in English, so it is correct.

14. Not a single “Huh?” today! Everything parsed, which doesn’t often happen. No obsucrities, although there were a few British things I didn’t know, such as The Old Vic, Kirk & Selkirk. But I had heard of Crystal Palace, I think!

    Thanks Vulcan & Eileen.

15. Enjoyable puzzle from Vulcan.

    I also wondered about LANDFALL (I originally posited ‘landslip’) but this is a very minor quibble. I agree with others about the good choice of ‘said by some’ (I still wince at TUDOR/‘chewed a’ in a recent Everyman).

    Favourites were HERMETIC and A BIT OFF, which went straight in but raised a smile. LOI was SURGICAL – I don’t think surgical spirit would normally be used in an operating theatre, but the question mark acknowledges this. Nice cryptic definition.

    Thanks to Vulcan and Eileen

16. Thanks for parsing landfall, Eileen. Also, with SURGICAL, thanks for making me realise I didn’t actually finish! Doh!
    Thanks to Vulcan too.

17. BIAFRAN is probably a ‘don’t know’ for anyone not old enough to remember the Nigerian Civil War in the 1960s

18. No problem with an avalanche being a landslip or landslide, but a LANDFALL? Much the same list of favourites as AlanC@1, plus THE OLD VIC (which makes a trio of UK-specific knowledge with SELKIRK and CRYSTAL PALACE). You need to be of a certain age to remember the BIAFRAN war, but I suppose most of us are.

19. Surgical, the spirit that can take the skin off your tongue …

20. I agree about LANDFALL. This should at least have had a question mark. The clue for 16d gave me TOOK STOCK until I was stumped by 20a and had to backtrack. Surely this is just wrong? Nho of ON STRIKE as a cricketing term, unsurprisingly. As to the ‘homophone’, I suppose there was at least a warning but it still took ages to see it.

    On the plus side, I did like 5a, 11a, 13a and 26a.

21. It took me a while to get started with all the cds and dds. SURGICAL was my LOI.

    I liked the steeple replaced in RESPIRED, THE OLD VIC with its roman numerals, and CRYSTAL PALACE with the rather pleasingly disguised surface.

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

22. gladys @18/poc @20; the ODE and Wiktionary have LANDFALL = landslip.

23. poc @20. Sorry, but I really do not see the problem with TAKE STOCK. What Caesar did was conquer Gaul; what Shakespeare did was write plays; what the police did on Saturday was arrest protesters. What the shoplifter did, therefore, was TAKE STOCK.

24. Spooner’s catflap @23 – thank you for putting it better than I did: that’s exactly what I meant.

25. I think 2 down needed the word “former” before West African. It was a declared state that only survived briefly.

26. Personally I thought this one of Vulcan’s most challenging puzzles. Took me an age to get going, and wasn’t at all helped by biffing in Grotto instead of OCTAVE at 22d, and Or What instead of OR ELSE at 12ac. Liked CRYSTAL PALACE and HERMETIC, and last two in the intersecting CAMERA (a bit loose, I thought), and FLAWED. Thanks Vulcan and Eileen…

27. I didn’t quibble about it, because it is a tad pedantic, but poc @20 has a valid point. ‘… what shoplifter did’: he took stock. To make the answer TAKE STOCK strictly requires the interpolation of ‘did’ or ‘was to’, which the clue does not indicate. ‘What shoplifter did do’ would have been grammatically more accurate, but clumsy, so wotthehell 🙂

28. Not a huge fan of LANDFALL, as ‘a fall of land’ is a whimsical interpretation of a word that doesn’t mean ‘avalanche’. Plus, the second part isn’t in the correct part of speech, to my way of thinking. Bit of a non-satis one for me then! Enjoyed most of this however.

29. What I like about Vulcan is that there are always a few clues that reveal themselves on first read but there are others which take a bit more thought. I had most of the RHS and then got stuck. After a quick walk in the rain, I came back to the LHS and immediately read a few clues differently than earlier and got to the finish line. Like others, my only quibble is landfall which I struggle to equate with avalanche.
    Thanks to Vulcan and Eileen for the blog.

30. copland smith @25
    The clue doesn’t state “state”. A Biafran is a West African, a bit (not exactly) like a Geordie being a north-eastern Englishman.

31. Almost a write-in for me. LOI was SURGICAL while held me up a little, and was also my favorite for the misdirection of “theatre”. Perfect for a Monday.

32. Is it not the case that we work with ‘clues’ – not ‘gimmes’?

    Is it really such a tragedy and grounds for what sure reads like bellyaching when some lateral thinking is called for?

    Seems to me we should rejoice when our great, beautiful and ever-changing language throws up modest variations that can bring on both a smile and a ‘really’?

33. Ui Imair @28 – the expression is ‘to make landfall’ (see here: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/make%20landfall) and so the underlined definition in the clue is the correct part of speech. The definition I gave in the blog is from Collins – I have amended the blog to make that clear.

34. Gervase@27: my point exactly. Caesar conquered Gaul, Shakespeare wrote plays etc. The answer is clearly ambiguous (!) and needs further clarification.

35. Hi Eileen

    The problem is that ‘made by returning crew’ is joined onto a whimsical definition: had the compiler added a qm I’d have let it lie, but as the clue doesn’t seem to have been written as a cryptic definition, the supporting part isn’t supporting anything that makes sense. ‘Made by returning crew’ per se doesn’t define LANDFALL as a noun in my book.

36. I’m in the “a bit trickier than the usual Monday Vulcan” camp. I liked the ‘side’ def for CRYSTAL PALACE and HEAVE-HO, both of which required a bit of working out as did the unflawed FLAWED homophone. I initially wondered about the tense of TAKE STOCK but in the end saw how it worked as explained by others above.

37. Thanks for clearing up 4 for me. I got it from ‘having weakness’ but couldn’t see the cryptic (and somewhat tenuous?) aspect. My initial thought for 16 was TAKE NOTES which I think would have worked equally well for the humour but which wouldn’t mean review so much as prepare for a later review, thus it was rejected.

38. I think 13A SURGICAL is better regarded as a sort of double definition, with the second being ‘of the (operating) theatre’, with no reference to rubbing alcohol other than suggesting the right kind of ‘spirit’ for the first definition..

39. I liked this , The Quiptic was bit too easy, but probably boosted confidence in the likes of Steffan. The quibbling here sounds rather pedantic to me. I assume they solved the clues, so could see the definition band wordplay. A setter has more than one problem to contend with, surface, misdirection and reasonably accurate wordplay. This was not a difficult solve and thequibbles seem to be about some of the easier clues. I understand the need for standards, but I think some of you are raising the bar a little high.

40. Enjoyable and Monday-compatible for me — trickier than the quiptic but not scarily so. I was defeated by SURGICAL, annoyingly, as the intended misdirection of theatrical theatres worked on me to the exclusion of all other types of theatre.

    Minor quibble: two clues used ‘these’ and ‘those’ to clue THE, which struck me as an avoidable repetition for such a good setter. Having two solutions start with THE seems like avoidable repetition in and of itself, but clueing them almost identically seemed like an opportunity missed.

    Thanks both.

41. I agree with Nicbach @39. It sometimes seems as of some comments are more about trumpets being blown than anything else.

42. Loved BACKSTORY. When I got the R, I thought it might be an adjective ending in -tory and possibly using a boy’s name, and the RY would be the “tracks.” Then when I got the K from ON STRIKE, there went my lovely Latin adjective! Oh .. could “boy tracks” be anagram fodder? And there it was.

    Apparently ON STRIKE is cricket for “at bat.” Who knew? Maybe mrpenney, he sometimes keeps up on these things.

    Thanks to Vulcan and Eileen.

43. 20a – I was trying to use S (from sick) & G (from ailing) as the “extremes”, and got nowhere.

    39. nicbach

    I enjoyed the Quiptic for the 50% I managed!

    I have currently solved 4 clues from yesterday’s Everyman, and am finding this toughest of all 3.

44. 11a. I had INSPIRES.

45. As one who used to listen avidly to TMS in my boyhood, I can confirm that in cricket, ON STRIKE is used to identify which of the two batters on the pitch is currently facing deliveries from the bowler. The other batter is said to be “at the non-striker’s end”.

    I recognise that we have to use the word “batter” instead of “batsman” these days, seeing as the game is played by both men and women. When I was a kid the word was always “batsman”.

    I’m not sure what people regard as the norm for a Monday, but I have to say I found this quite an easy ride – almost ‘Rufus’ian in its straightforwardness. Certainly nothing like Vulcan in his alter ego. I can’t think of a clue that really stands out … maybe TAKE STOCK worth an uptick.

    Thanks to Vulcan/Eileen.

46. ON STRIKE was a great clue. I’m afraid cricket terminology is, urm par for the course in xwds.

47. paul b@46 I wasn’t objecting to cricketspeak, just saying I’d learned something.

48. Good challenge, and no quibbles. CAMERA was my LOI – amazing how long I looked at that, trying in vain to imagine snapping animals that might fit, before the penny dropped. Favourite was SURGICAL.

49. Steffen @44. I was also considering INSPIRED (not inspires), because it seems to fit the definition ‘showed a sign of life’, but the drawback is that the other part of the clue is not fulfilled. ‘Church having had steeple installed‘ might have worked, but ‘replaced’ is meant to make us see RE-SPIRED is the only possible answer.

    Well done for getting half of the Quiptic done!

50. Redrodney@48 I immediately got what I thought it must be – which turned out to be the correct answer – but left it out until I had all crossers. Maybe we were both expecting something better/more cryptic than the rather weak clue it turned out to be.

51. This was an unusual balance of clueing and gridding. The Monday-ness of many of the clues was offset by the separation of the grid into four separate compartments, with hardly any help from crossers to enter each quadrant. It is an inventive way to make the easy more complicated.

52. After a long weekend it’s not surprising to read all the moaning. I’m happy to admit that I struggled because I was tired! Thanks Vulcan and Eileen, and even all you bellyaches. Life is back to normal maybe.

53. Tripped up on FLAWED, which was annoying. Otherwise just right for a Monday. I wasn’t too impressed with CAMERA, but I enjoyed KNAVE and RESPIRED.

Comments are closed.