Guardian Cryptic 29,091 by Jack

78 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,091 by Jack”

1. The first Jack that I did I found too difficult, but the second one I thoroughy enjoyed. I got about half of this one out then, having stared at the rest for half an hour, gave up. Too tricky for me. For example, I would never have worked out why BO is “deficient facilities”.

   Thanks for the blog, manehi.

2. Quite a delightful puzzle. Enjoyed it. A blog that has left nothing unexplained (yet has not overexplained anything).
   Thanks, Jack and manehi!

   Liked BOWED OUT (There is a homophone branch (not a bark!) to audit bough-bow. I loved it for sure.), HOBO (Where can one go?), DICTATE (Woo…I mean ..WOW!), JOURNEYMAN (Haven’t come across a ROO for a while. Nice to see a little of it), EYES (the deceptive ‘sewers’ almost lead me to ditch it), HEART OF DARKNESS (What an &lit! On LIT! A colourful clue in b&w).

3. Like GDU @1, did quite a bit of staring, but got there in the end. Forgot to apply the indicator to bough as well as doubt in 8ac, which took an age. Joey the newly arrived Aussie was cute, as was hop inside stalk. 6d needed cr.ossers, would never guess it from that def. Quite fun in all, ta Jack and manehi.

4. Thanks Jack, that was satisfying. My top picks were JOURNEYMAN, HEART OF DARKNESS, CORPULENCE, AS OLD AS THE HILLS (great surface and anagram), and IMAGISM. I couldn’t solve BOWED OUT and couldn’t parse a few other bits so thanks manehi for the help. I searched for a Serpentine nina but so far I haven’t seen one.

5. Thanks for the BO in HOBO, manehi. I thought it was body odour due to there being not enough bathing facilities. ”Bog” for toilet seems a ”male” word to me, have never heard women use it.

   I’m afraid Jack’s cleverness in HEART OF DARKNESS was lost on me. Googled Kurtz and got the answer from enumeration.

6. cleaver puzzle and illuminating blog! thanks! SHOP TALK had me wondering if a question mark might have been more appropriate given the loose punny definition (?)

7. Not easy and the BOWED bit of BOWED OUT never came to mind; I knew DOUT was in there but wanted it containing something so never considered that the homophone could be applied to the phrase ‘bough doubt’. Very tricksy.

   Fortunately Kurz came immediately to mind from the movie adaptation, Apocalypse Now, and ‘Kurz’s nativism’ did get the antennae going so I was able to parse. Thank Goodness as I don’t think I could have reverse solved it. The other long ones looked like anagrams and came from enumeration once I’d got a few crossers. Everything else – tough and clever.

   Thanks Jack and manehi

8. Top class, thanks, Jack and Manehi. Loved the newly arrived Australian.

   The long downs were certainly helpful. Heart of Darkness was a write-in for me from the def – great book.

9. Struggled with that, and didn’t finish. I just didn’t get on Jack’s wavelength. Unlike a lot of others, I know nothing of Heart Of Darkness, so that clue meant nothing to me. Some good stuff in there, though, such as journeyman, which I didn’t get, but liked once I revealed it.
   Thanks Jack and Manehi

10. Not sure I’ve seen many by this setter. It took me some time to get onto his wavelength but I enjoyed this, tough but (with one exception) largely fair. I parsed HOBO as you did, manehi, but hesitated for a while over whether “deficient facilities” could really be an abbreviated bog. As for the exception, I happen to be a big fan of the book, but is it really ok to include a clue the answer to which is completely inaccessible if the solver hasn’t read Conrad?

    Thanks to Jack and manehi.

11. Charles @10. Haven’t read the book, but I have heard of it, so that was one I did get bit didn’t know the parsing.

12. Charles@10, yes, I think it is fair. I have never read the book, but, on first reading of the clue, I expected KN to be important. Once I had E,A,O and D crossers, the fairly obvious reverse anagram idea meant that that combination was pretty much the only possible solution. It’s actually quite satisfying to work those out. I’ll now search out the book! Thanks to Jack and manehi.

13. Charles@10 I read the book when I was about 15, so I have forgotten almost everything about it, but I googled Kurtz and there he was, the miserable sod, first in line. I do remember that I found it a very depressing novel.

    PDM@5 I have a sister-in-law, well I have quite a few, who uses BOG and BOG paper as her go to words for toilet and toilet paper.

    I found this tough, but worth the struggle. many smiles,
    Thanks both

14. Thanks Jack and manehi
    FOI was HERESY and I thought “what a good clue – I’m going to enjoy this”, but thereafter there were lots of question marks, resolved by the blog – thanks again, manehi.
    Kurtz rang a bell so I wrote in 2d, but had no idea of the parsing.
    LEAD ASTRAY was LOI, and another lovely clue.
    I don’t think I’ve ever seen POTBELLY as one word – “potbellied” yes.

15. Tricky but fair would be a good summary for me. 2dn was first one in, completely unparsed!! I haven’t read the book but I knew the name from the movie (‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning!’) and which book it was based on. 12 ac was LOI and was a guess rather than an informed solution.
    Thanks Jack and manehi for the very helpful blog.

16. Another marvellous puzzle but certainly not as quick a solve as yesterday. HOD was a write-in and like PM @7, I also thought of Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, inspired by Conrad’s novella, which I read at Uni. JOURNEYMAN was a beaut along with the super long anagrams. Great week so far.

    Ta Jack & manehi.

17. Challenging but very satisfying. 2d was a write in for me, but I didn’t work out the clever parsing.

18. I found this tough but fair, in common with others.

    I had the misfortune to read HEART OF DARKNESS at 15 for O levels, so that was a helpful write in. For me it was the stuff of years of nightmares and I haven’t seen Apocalypse Now or touched Conrad since, although I don’t remember the other Conrad book we read being as bad. We also read Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd and I don’t judder at the thought of reading more Hardy in quite the same way.

    Thank you to Jack and manehi.

19. Enjoyed it although didn’t like BO(G)!

20. [Shanne @18: I also read FFTMC for O level. This evocative phrase about Gabriel Oak has stayed with me forever ‘He felt a zephyr curling about his cheek, and turned. It was Bathsheba’s breath.’]

21. [Nichbach@13. re BOG. Thanks. Made me look it up. I see it comes originally from the cesspit.

    Then I wondered if the Australian term ”dunny” was regional.
    The Australian National University says:
    The dunny was originally any outside toilet. In cities and towns the pan-type dunny was emptied by the dunny man, who came round regularly with his dunny cart. Dunny can now be used for any toilet. The word comes from British dialect dunnekin meaning an ‘earth closet, (outside) privy’ from dung + ken ‘house’.
    I grew up in the era of the dunny man and the dunny cart , before sewerage and indoor toilets. Pretty scary as a kid with our redback and funnel web spiders lurking in the dark. TMI? ]

22. Potbelly stoves were popular here as heaters a while back …

23. Hmm, never knew that dunny had an etymology, pdm @21, ta for that 🙂

24. Interestingly, Wiki gives potbelly as one word here, except for the “corporation” meaning!

25. I gave up in the end due to lack of time, having finished about two thirds. I agree with others that it was hard but rather clever overall. I would only quibble with 2d, the definition is far too vague. Norbrewer @12 made a fair point, but I feel that clues should be solvable without crossers and there just isn’t enough help from the wordplay to make you think of the correct book if you haven’t read it. I would agree that the title of the book is fair general knowledge but I don’t think the contents is.

26. Muffin@24: all the single-word uses of POTBELLY I’ve seen have it as an adjective, which doesn’t gibe with the clue. POT BELLY or POT-BELLY would work better.

    Didn’t much like the definition for SHOP TALK (debate?) and nho IMAGISM. Got H.O.D. from the Kurtz reference but couldn’t parse it. All in all a very good puzzle aside from some quibbles.

27. Ah, and BO has another significance for Jack aka Skipjack aka Serpent. On Meet the Setter on 17 Jan 22 he says:
    “Of my blocked puzzles, perhaps my favourite is the one I wrote following the death of my dog, Bo: every across entry contained his name and the unchecked cells in the central row spelt out GOODBYE.”
    Can’t find any ninas in today’s crossie.

28. I liked the four long down ones which were a good way into this puzzle. The surface of 1d was very good (you can imagine a small child saying it). And HEART OF DARKNESS was excellent. You don’t have to have read the book to be aware it and of Kurtz – as others have mentioned there’s Marlon Brando’s character in Apocalypse Now, and also T S Eliot included a quote, “Mistah Kurtz – he dead”, as an epigraph to The Hollow Men.

    Many thanks Jack and manehi.

29. Well constructed and erudite puzzle, very satisfying. All four long entries are great – three excellent anagrams and the Conrad clue is particularly clever, with its reference to the nature of the character in the novel.

    The surface readings are all very coherent, with lots of clever cryptic definitions both for solutions and parts of charades: I particularly liked ‘excessive coverage’, ‘newly arrived Australian’ and ‘entrances for sewers’.

    Thanks to S&B

30. My problem with HEART OF DARKNESS is that unless you already know about Mr. Kurtz, you can’t get the title of the book, and until you have that answer, you can’t see the crucial KN wordplay.

    I started off by putting in TURN for 5d, and didn’t do much better after that – I got about two thirds of it before throwing in the towel, having found three of the four pillars. Defeated by the over in ARMED TO THE TEETH, the incomplete bog in HOBO, and many more. I liked HERESY, ANODYNE, SHOP TALK, SWANSONG, and I would have liked the joey in JOURNEYMAN if I had ever solved it.

31. I thought this was tough, but very fair and satisfying to solve. Re 1d: I have read the book, but didn’t remember the name, Kurtz. I got the answer from crossers / enumeration and came here ready to complain that it is a clue totally reliant on GK. Having read the excellent blog (thank you, Manehi), I now understand what a great clue it is. Wish I’d persevered more trying to work out the parsing instead of being so dismissive. Heyho. Thanks Jack for the fun.

32. I would agree with others that this was tough, fair and enjoyable

    Thanks to Jack and Manehi

33. Nice to see SWANSONG clued without a reference to Gloria (or even Kristy – the original Buffy The Vampire Slayer)
    Liked HOBO[g] – (yesterday’s DOGBERRY/BOGDERRY)
    STASIS – “Secret police STArt to subvert STAble STAte” – Jack giving us extra hints?
    loi BOUGH DOUBT
    Thanks J&m

34. My sympathies to NICBACH@13 and Shanne@18. In my view you’d have had to be a fairly precocious 15 year-old to enjoy Heart of Darkness, it’s not one for the innocent. I heartily recommend it to the more elderly, though.

35. Struggled to get much of a foothold at first, although I did solve HEART OF DARKNESS early on, having seen Apocalypse Now.

    I liked LEAD ASTRAY for the serving board and the definitions for EYES and SHOP TALK. Interesting that, to me, JOURNEYMAN means almost the opposite of experienced worker, viz [ODE]: A worker or sports player who is reliable but not outstanding.

    Thanks Jack and manehi.

36. A slow but steady solve which ended up being a very enjoyable challenge. I was pleased to be able to parse all of my answers although I see now that I mis-parsed the BO bit of HOBO as body odour not BO[g].

    Favourites: POTBELLY, JOURNEYMAN, CORPULENCE, BOWED OUT.

    Thanks, both.

37. Robi @35: You’re right that JOURNEYMAN is a rather disparaging term, but it is never used for a novice. So ‘experienced’, yes – master craftsman, no. A minor deception by Jack.

38. Very enjoyable. Another one where the first pass rendered almost nothing, and then it quickly fell into place. The long anagrams were exceptional.

    Thank you Manehi for a couple of parsings, in particular 17D

39. A very satisfying solve from a new setter for us. Particularly enjoyed all the corpulence, opulence and the HEART OF DARKNESS.

40. It was only once I read this blog that I appreciated how good HEART OF DARKNESS was. I also needed help here to parse HOBO, although I should have got it. I liked JOURNEYMAN, too; the newly arrived Australian was cute.

    Thanks to Jack and manehi.

41. Thank you to Jack for a very challenging but ultimately enjoyable puzzle. I managed all of the left-hand side fairly well, but then slowed up considerably. Like Gladys@30, entering TURN at 5d didn’t help. Got that sorted out but then had a bit of a hold-up seeing POTBELLY at 11a as one word rather than two. I liked the long ones at 6d and 7d but wasn’t so fussed on 1d and 2d (the latter seemed barely cryptic to me, though having read the blog, I now see that it was quite clever).
    It was good to come here to the blog and learn about a good dog Bo (thanks paddymelon@27) who was mentioned here in 12a HOBO but who can, I hope, continue to be remembered and memorialised.

42. Sorry, I apologise, but thanks to manehi for a helpful blog as well.

43. [paddymelon@27, similar memories of the outside dunny with all its scary challenges, the night cart workers and the eventual arrival of sewerage in our small town in country Queensland in the early 60s]

44. [Sorry – that comment was suppose to flag paddymelon@21, not 27]

45. manehi, thanks for parsing SWAN SONG, SHOP TALK, HEART OF DARKNESS, STOPGAP, ARMED TO THE TEETH and IMAGISM Had to use lots of check button.

    Thanks Jack and manhehi.

46. I’m waiting for posts from the US. I don’t know whether they are privy to this usage of ‘bog’ [Apart from some coarser slang terms, all of the usual words for places for excretion are originally euphemisms, apart from the straightforward ‘urinal’]

47. A bit tricky, although very enjoyable and all parsed in the end – helped by suddenly spotting that 2d needed a K in it somewhere, then the answer flashing into my head early on. Glad the vessel in JOURNEYMAN was an URN, as I couldn’t get that out of my head & might have struggled if it was something else.

    Favourites included SWAN SONG, JOURNEYMAN, TO BE GOING ON WITH, and LOI BOWED OUT.

    Thanks Jack and manehi.

48. HEART OF DARKNESS was my FOI and I thought it was just a weak literary GK clue having not spotted the KN chicanery – I really should have known better as the rest of the puzzle was excellent – as indeed was H of D itself. Lots of clues require some GK – if you didn’t know STASI were secret police then you would struggle to get STASIS etc.

    Cheers J&M

49. Thanks to Jack for a an engaging puzzle, greatly helped by my GK. Thanks also to manehi for the blog, also share his list of favourites were 8ac, 9ac, 11ac, 18ac, 1dn, 2dn, and 14dn

50. Truly cryptic. A chewy solve, perhaps because of some massive and rather unusual anagrams. Very much enjoyed as was blog.

51. I came here expecting everyone to be as confused as I was by TO BE GOING ON WITH. It seemed like an insane string of words and I could not imagine any instance when I would actually say that. I finally googled it and got a sample usage and confirmation that it’s a Britishism. I feel so much better now.

    I also couldn’t parse HEART OF DARKNESS but now that I see it, I love it.

52. Gervase@46 I don’t think anybody here in North America is familiar with BOG in that context.
    Bluedot@51 I’m glad you brought that up. TO BE GOING ON WITH was a new expression for me too and was one of my last ones in.
    I was helped by getting HEART OF DARKNESS which was my first one in, oddly enough.

53. Gervase@46 No, ‘bog’ in the sense of ‘privy’ (I saw what you did there) is unknown here in the US. Conversely, Americans use words that are largely unknown/unused in the UK, including ‘can’, ‘john’, and the execrable ‘restroom’.

54. Gervase @46: Re: “privy to this usage of bog” This stateside chap never heard of “bog” as a toilet but I’m very familiar with “privy” as a place for elimination.
    bodycheetah @48: I, for one, could never forget the Stasi after seeing the excellent film, The Lives of Others.

55. Sorry I just found this too esoteric,not my cup of tea.

56. Traditionally, JOURNEYMAN was the stage of a craftman’s career between apprentice and master, so he would have been experienced, and competent, at least.

57. bodycheetah @48 – I got the solution instantly from the surface reading but then looked for some wordplay and realised it was all rather clever. Although the fact that you can solve it from the surface reading alone means it’s possibly too clever by half. I don’t get the complaints about it though – you don’t need to know the book to solve it – “book” alone is sufficient as a definition, the rest is pure wordplay. A very fine piece of cluemanship.

58. Thanks for the blog, tough ,clever, imaginative . I am really glad the Guardian has a new setter .
    Lorf Jim has beaten me to the T S Eliot quote.
    Heart of Darkness is very short if anyone fancies trying it. Penguin do an edirtion with Youth and End of the Tether , all short , a trilogy of ages.

59. Almost winged this purely from the definitions, but really struggled towards the end with how BOWED OUT, HOBO, SHOP TALK and IMAGISM worked. But I’ve really enjoyed this week’s Cryptics while on holiday…

60. Roz @58: You probably know that Jack is Basilisk in the FT (and Serpent in the Indy.) He’s one of my favourite setters.

61. Brutally, brutally, brutally difficult for me, even with the excellent explanations.

    My mind doesn’t bend enough.

    Revealed all the ACROSS clues in the hope of finding some DOWN solutions….and ended up revealing all of them too.

62. Roz@58 Typhoon and Youth were (at 14) my O level novelettes, both of which were excellent reads. I learned many new words (for me) from Conrad (pellucid, gamp (yes, I know it is Dickens), physiognomy to name a few)

63. Steffen@61 Don’t give up Steffen! I started doing these a few years ago and enjoy them but have only recently gotten to the point where I can complete them. It takes time to learn crossword “shorthand”. I also find that there are days when my head’s just not in the right space. I think it’s great that you are so committed to challenging yourself.

64. A setter trying too hard methinks. Cryptic with a capital C.

    The great skill of setting is to hide the “bleeding obvious”. One’s reaction on solving is “Why didn’t I see that?”. Araucaria being a master of this.

    This was like plaiting sand. IMHO of course.

    I believe the parsing of 16A actually gives IDCTATE

    I also feel that a lot of the wordplay is “stretching it” but I can’t be bothered going through it.

    Definitely a promising setter

    Last gripe

    Was it really likely for a person to solve 2d if they hadn’t read the book. Even if they had seen the KN hint they couldn’t be sure it was correct.

    Golden rule of cryptics no. 3. When you get the answer you know it’s correct!

65. Loved the puzzle, but really wasn’t sure what to think about HEART OF DARKNESS. Granted, the clue is fantastically clever now I see it, however since Kurtz meant nothing to me at all I really had no choice but to google him. That showed up Heart of Darkness as one of the first results, saw that it was a book with a relevant subject which fit the numeration, so thought that must be it then and bunged it in with a bit of a sigh. Mainly because it seemed you either know of the character and the book or you are going to google, and there is no real challenge in solving the clue either way.

    But, having come here to see the wordplay, yes it is a very clever clue. But then again, the most satisfying clues of this sort are where you can do it the other way round, by making a guess from the wordplay and checking on google that your solution is an actual thing. So with this one you would have to say aha, I need an RK somewhere, I wonder if I can think of a possible phrase which includes RK and where the meaning of the phrase might be some kind of reverse cryptic clue for “RK”, and which also happens to be the title of a book. Isn’t going to happen really, is it?

    So while I hate the phrase “too clever by half”, as though being clever is a Bad Thing, I am personally going to have to file this clue under that heading and remember it as simultaneously one of the best and also weakest clues I have seen for quite a while. Can we call it a quantum clue?

    To be fair though, the rest of the puzzle was excellent.

66. Me @65: KN, obviously, not RK

67. FieryJack @65
    I like the concept of “Schrodinger’s clue”.
    As I said earlier, I completely missed the “cleverness” of 2d, and just got it from “Kurtz” – I can’t remember if from the book or “Apocalypse Now”; to be honest, I don’t think I’ve read/seen either!
    On reflection, I don’t think it’s a good clue, therefore. I don’t think it would be possible to solve if you didn’t know the Kurtz connection, but (as several have said), a write-in if you did.

68. Many thanks to manehi for the excellent blog and to everyone who has taken the time to solve the puzzle and comment.

69. I can’t even spell my own pseudonym!

70. Re: HEART OF DARKNESS, I haven’t read the book, but it was gettable from the necessity of there being a K plus the enumeration (and I think I also had the A by that point). The 2 is very likely, although not certain, to be OF, and the book’s certainly well-known enough. A more satisfying PDM if you get the reference, but not a stretch to think “huh, there must be a character called Kurtz in that book”.

71. Thanks Jack and manehi. There were a few I didn’t parse and a few I couldn’t solve but hey ho.

72. Thanks Tony@60 all the snakes. I do like Basilisk as well but I have to boycott the Independent.
    Dave@62 , Conrad aslo very useful for all the nautical references in crosswords.

73. Like a great comic-one great line after another-I did particularly like the newly arrive Australian
    And what was going on in the perimeter-the RHS looking a bit like the last chapter in Ulysses
    Thanks JC-great to see you in the Graun

74. Bhoyo@53: the can, the john and the restroom may be unused in the UK (verbally, not literally!) but they are certainly not unknown – many setters (Paul in particular) use both can and john in wordplay and expect us to recognise them.

75. This could have been my favorite puzzle of the year. Great job by Jack—thank you!

76. Are there some tributes to Rufus in here?
    He used “Go round” for SHOT in Guardian 24308 (which also included LEAD ASTRAY, albeit with quite different clueing).

77. I, too, was held up for quite a while after entering TURN at 4 down. The only parsing I missed was BO(G), so thanks for explaining that, manehi. Thanks, Jack, for an enjoyable couple of hours.

78. Funnily enough, erike44, I did that too with TURN. I am about 7 weeks behind at the moment, and have just waded through 76 comments before finding yours at 77! Cheers. Rob (long-time lurker, occasional -late – contributor).

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