Good fun as always from Tramp, with the long answers around the edges characteristically clued, and a couple of them needing close attention to get the details worked out. Thanks to Tramp (and also to kenmac for his persistence in getting last week’s problems with the site resolved).
| Across | ||||||||
| 1 | WASHING MACHINE | Spinner Shane Warne’s head aching: getting out with one maiden (7,7) Anagram of SHANE W[arne] ACHING I M. I see there has been some controversy about a recent incident in a cricket match, perhaps making the surface reading accidentally topical |
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| 8 | LEANT | Did rest with skinny latte in centre (5) LEAN (skinny) + the middle ot laTte |
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| 9 | NICKNAME | Tag and arrest somebody (8) NICK (arrest) + NAME (important person, a somebody) |
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| 11 | ENDEMIC | Nurse and medic treated disease (7) EN (enrolled nurse) + MEDIC* – “endemic” is usually seen as an adjective, but like “pandemic” it can also be a noun |
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| 12 | AUSTERE | Simple one providing food without frills entertaining me, informally (7) US (informal “me”, as in “give us a kiss”) in [c]ATERE[r] (one providing food, less its outer letters or “frills”) |
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| 13 | WAGES | Pay women to get dates (5) W + AGES |
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| 15 | EXCAVATOR | Mostly screw, drinking sparkling wine: one could be at mine (9) CAVA in EXTOR[t] (to screw) |
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| 17 | ILLNESSES | Hurtful points in complaints (9) ILL (hurtful) + NESSES (points, geographically) |
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| 20 | CROSS | Ford hybrid (5) Double definition – think of fording a river |
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| 21 | HECKLER | Routine intruder? Inspector without lead to cross line (7) L in [c]HECKER. A heckler may intrude on a comedian’s routine |
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| 23 | INVADER | Concerned with duke over Virginia: Queen stands by attacker (7) VA in IN (concerned with) D[uke] + ER |
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| 25 | JEROBOAM | Romeo and Juliet, both principally drunk bottle (8) Anagram of ROMEO A[nd] J[uliet] B[oth]. A Jeroboam (named after a biblical king of Israel) is equivalent to four standard bottles |
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| 26 | RINSE | Wash back of woman in spring (5) [woma]N in RISE (to spring) |
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| 27 | ATLANTIC SALMON | Fish in canal almost tricked to bite last of bait (8,6) [bai]T in anagram of IN CANAL ALMOST |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1 | WELTERWEIGHT | Fighter, eg wrestler (not small), stopped early with wound (12) Anagram of EG WRE[s]TLE[r] WITH. The anagram is indicated by “wound”, rhyming with “round” |
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| 2 | STAND | Extremely scared around brown bear (5) TAN (brown) in S[care]D |
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| 3 | INTUMESCE | Made-up cuties, men swell up (9) (CUTIES MEN)* |
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| 4 | GANACHE | Good style, with profiterole initially missing chocolate filling (7) G + PANACHE less P[rofiterole] |
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| 5 | ARCHAIC | Old-fashioned spies set up meeting with chief (7) ARCH (chief) + reverse of CIA (spies) |
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| 6 | HANDS | Indicators of hours and seconds? (5) Hours and secords are indicated by H AND S, and by HANDS on a clock |
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| 7 | NUMBER TWO | Deputy close to Gordon Brown also in speech (6,3) [gordo]N + UMBER (another brown) + homophone of “too” (also) |
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| 10 | NEUROSURGEON | Ungenerous or liberal: perhaps one does mind job in hospital? (12) (UNGENEROUS OR)* |
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| 14 | GOLDCREST | ‘Grand’ and ‘most ancient’ describe wings of Christopher Wren? (9) C[hristophe]R in G + OLDEST |
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| 16 | VICE VERSA | Charlie always put in credit card the other way round (4,5) C[harlie] EVER in VISA |
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| 18 | SORT OUT | Deal with kind public (4,3) SORT (kind) + OUT (public) |
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| 19 | SEISMIC | Pick up heavy breathing on microphone, that’s shocking (7) Homophone of “sighs” + MIC |
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| 22 | LOOFA | Toilet: nothing is cleaner in bathroom? (5) LOO (toilet) + FA (nothing) |
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| 24 | DENIM | Daughter at store held up jeans (5) D + reverse of MINE (store) |
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Good fun today. Thanks Tramp. And Andrew for the blog.
Thanks, Tramp and Andrew!
Enjoyed the puzzle and the blog!
We’ve missed you all!!
Great puzzle and illuminating blog. Thanks Tramp and Andrew. Got all the answers but needed check button and then Andrew to explain a few, particularly 1d.
Most enjoyable, thank you Tramp. Hadn’t known INTUMESCE or GANACHE. Wondered a bit about mine/store, but I guess it’s OK. Goldcrests were once called wrens, but aren’t any more, according to what I found in cyberspace. And I wasn’t aware that ENDEMIC could be a noun.
Thanks for the blog Andrew.
Thanks Tramp and Andrew.
Feeling chuffed, having completed this, though with several unparsed.
Well, I had the letters for the spinner, but could not work out the anagram without some crossers. While I did not even realise that thge Fish was an an agramuntil after I solved it. The grid was very user friendly.
Nice puzzle. I likede the 4 long ones, JEREBOAM, INTUMESCE, and JEREBOAM.
Thanks both
Very nice. Liked HANDS especially for the superb surface.
Great stuff.
Ta Tramp & Andrew.
Thanks Andrew, really enjoyed scratching my head over a number of these and a few chuckles thrown in are always welcome. I did raise an eyebrow at the def of 14d but if there’s historical precedent then some poetic licence and the wonderful surface do the rest as far as I am concerned, and it’s a lovely bird. Think 3d is a new word for me and i found the “IN…” a little counter-intuitive but I suppose it makes sense in the same way as in-flammable. Thanks Tramp for another great workout.
Same dnks as GDU @5, intumesce, ganache, and endemic as noun. I’m lazy with anagrams, like washing machine, jeroboam ans welterweight … wait for a few crossers then bung ’em in; only grind the grist when crossers are scarce. Good puzzle, thanks Tramp and Andrew.
Good puzzle. Liked HECKLER, JEROBOAM among others. HANDS is very neat – looks like one of those clues that’s been done before but I don’t recall seeing it, so credit to Tramp.
I did query GOLDCREST=wren, but if they’ve been conflated in the past then the ? makes it OK.
To nitpick, all 4 of the long clues on the edges are anagrams – I’d prefer more variety.
It seems tumesce and INTUMESCE are synonyms, but the adjectives are not – tumescent means swollen, while intumescent means capable of swelling e.g. when heated. Intumescent insulation must be specified for electric/data cabling in some cases – it swells up if there’s a fire and helps prevent the fire and smoke from spreading.
Thanks Tramp and Andrew.
[I should add my belated thanks to kenmac for getting the site back up – I’m another who missed it!]
Greatly helped by a friendly grid, I thought, today. NEUROSURGEON and ATLANTIC SALMON excellent anagrams. Couldn’t quite parse AUSTERE or EXCAVATOR, so many thanks Andrew. Last one in the rub a dub LOOFA…
Rather a lot of ?s together with rather a lot of ticks.
Needed Andrew’s parsing but all seems fair now.
GOLDCREST was my pick of the bunch.
So nice to be back here, thanks again to those responsible for the fix.
Brilliant to have 225 = 15 squared back in action. Thank you Kenmac. The limits of my Guardian cryptic are the limits of my world.
Enjoyable puzzle.
Favourite: ATLANTIC SALMON.
I could not parse 12ac apart from US = me, informally.
Thanks, both.
Good and moderately challenging puzzle. HANDS is very polished and I found CROSS to be a particularly neat dd.
I counted eleven clues where you had to either delete individual letters from a word or to add the the first or last letters of a word (or both) to arrive at some anagram fodder. I´m fine with the device, but this was a bit much. Still, thanks Tramp, I like your style, thanks Andrew (ditto) and a very big thank you for Kenmac´s unceasing labour of love!
Thanks Tramp and Andrew
Yes, ENDEMIC can be a noun, but it doesn’t refer to a disease; it’s an animal or planr found in a particular area (as in the adjectival form).
I suppose mine=store as in “a mine of information”.
GOLDCRESTS aren’t wrens, but they did used to be called “goldcrested wrens”, so the definition is OK; my favourite clue, and not just because I often see them from my front window.
Sorry to see folk quibbling over GOLDCREST when, for me, it was a stonking clue – possibly the pick of a great bunch.
An enjoyable, though gentle, tramp….
Many thanks T and A
I agree with muffin@19 that ENDEMIC is nothing to do with disease. Otherwise a very satisfying crossword especially as at first pass I could only solve a couple of clues. (Of which GANACHE was one). I didn’t know INTUMESCE but was familiar with ‘tumescent’ which helped. Thank you Tramp and Andrew.
Fun puzzle with some ingenious constructions and great surfaces. Many good clues here: amongst others WASHING MACHINE and WELTERWEIGHT were particularly clever (I thought) and ‘routine intruder’ and LOOFA raised a smile.
ENDEMIC as a noun is more familiar to me as a plant or animal native only to a specific area: the kiwi is a New Zealand endemic.
Thanks to Neil and Andrew – and kenmac for restoring normal service.
I didn’t like store=MINE and can’t find any justification in Chambers at least. Had to check that ENDEMIC can be a noun (it can). Several others were solve and try to parse, but that’s not unusual. I liked LEANT, STAND, HANDS, WAGES, RINSE and CROSS particularly.
I’m in line with those who found this a reasonably approachable Tramp – and also with those who waited for a few crossers before getting my head around the long anagrams. Nice to be able to use Shane Warne, Romeo & Juliet, Gordon Brown – even if it does mean a few SLI’s. GOLDCREST, NUMBER TWO, ARCHAIC, STAND, ATLANTIC SALMON, JEROBOAM, INVADER and the simple but highly effective CROSS were my biggest ticks.
Thanks Tramp and Andrew
I feel that you didn’t fully explain the “without frills” aspect of caterer in the 12a explanation. Thanks for the blog though. Glad the site is back in full swing.
Very good to see the return of the blog. Favourites were 1ac, 7 and 14. I do find the manipulation of well known names very clever.
Glad I’m in good company needing some help parsing, but what a very enjoyable puzzle. I’ve no idea when I got on Tramp’s wavelength, which means often I can do quite a lot of guessing. Thanks Tramp and Andrew.
poc@23
DENIM
MINE and STORE both in the sense of ‘a source’ can be considered synonymous. No?
Liked it but like KateE @27 did a lot of guessing and had problems with parsing. All fair though.
Favourite GOLDCRESTS.
Collins has its only noun definition of endemic as an endemic disease.
Chambers gives endemic (n): an endemic disease or plant.
I thought of mine as in “fifteensquared is a mine of information” I was happy to solve this while marshalling our school street closure.
William F P@20 – I don’t think it’s quibbling to query wren=GOLDCREST – would you accept e.g. ‘horse’ as a definition for ‘cow’ because they’re both similarly-sized mammals? However, GDU@5 points out that goldcrests used to be called wrens, so combined with the question mark at the end of the clue, that makes it OK in my book.
poc @23: I wondered about mine = store but justified it (to myself) with the phrase. “he’s a mine/store of information”.
That was fun. I thought a couple of the anagrams were difficult to work out.
Loved GOLDCREST, HECKLER (made me smile), GANACHE, INVADER
Like others so glad you are back.
Thanks both
I’m either on Tramp’s wavelength from the off so breeze through at a decent lick (for me, at least), or it takes me flipping ages. This was the former, but no worse for it. Really liked the definition in HECKLER, the entertaining LOOFA, and the appearances of Shane Warne and Gordon Brown.
Thanks both
Thanks for the blog, a very fine puzzle, I am fond of long anagrams with letters added or subtracted here and there. AUSTERE was very neat and GOLDCREST as beautiful as the bird , HANDS is doubly clever .
My Chambers93 gives the setter a lot of cover . MINE = rich source ENDEMIC = disease and GOLDCREST = golden-crested WREN .
So pleased you are back!
Very good. Liked LOOFA, VICE VERSA and HANDS. Some cleverly misleading definitions, like ‘routine intruder’ in HECKLER and ‘one does mind job’ in NEUROSURGEON.
Cheers both.
Thanks for the super blog, Andrew. Thanks for the kind comments.
I wrote this in February 2022. I think mine/store came from a mine of information. I thought a goldcrest was a wren, but, maybe I was wrong.
I was pleased with the clue for HANDS, but, it seems so obvious to have not been spotted before.
Neil
[Goldcrests (Regulus regulus) are in the kinglet family. True wrens are a different family. There are lots of wrens globally, but I think the only European one is my favourite scientific name, Troglodytes trogloldytes. However many very small birds are loosely called “wrens”, so the definition for goldcrest is fine.]
For those of us outside the cricket-watching world, what was the incident everybody’s talking about?
I’m having trouble with ENDEMIC as a noun. “The endemic is worse than usual this year”? “My cousin died in the endemic.”?
I’d never have gotten AUSTERE. News to me that “us” for “me” is American.
How does WELTERWEIGHT work? From “wrestler” you have to take out S (“not small”) and R (why?) to make the anagram. How does that R get out of there?
I finally got EXCAVATOR when I stopped trying to work in “asti,” the ubiquitous sparkling crossword wine, and ILLNESSES when I stopped fussing over “complaints.”
According to the site Wine Folly, a Jeroboam is six bottles. I had Rehoboam for while, another Biblical king.
Thanks to Tramp, Andrew and oh thank you thank you to kenmac.
14D seems to be an instance where my lack of knowledge of birds was an advantage: the construction was clear, and I assumed that a goldcrest was a wren if Tramp said so!
Thank you Tramp for the puzzle and Andrew for several parsings that eluded me.
Thanks to Tramp for a fine puzzle with some amusing surfaces and to Andrew for the blog. We were on the right line for parsing of 12a but got the wrong but if the industry.
Ticks for 1a, 6d, 10d, 27a.
[add our thanks to kenmac for dealing with last week problems with the site – missed your comments.]
Valentine@42 the WRESTLER is not small so WRETLER and stopped early so WRETLE .
“Tell US” for tell ME is often used by gossips in the UK .
Valentine
Bairstow, England wicketkeeper, was batting. After the last ball of the over had been bowled, he went walking out of his crease, thinking the over was over. Carey, the Australian wicketkeeper, instantly threw the ball at the stumps and stumped Bairstow. England claimed it’s in the rules but not in the spirit of the game, despite Bairstow trying to do the same earlier in the game.
I suppose NE, S, SE and S could also be considered points. But nesses is neater now that it’s pointed out.
Sometimes I think I might like to take up crossword setting in my old age.
Then I see a puzzle like this and realise I should stick to solving. Rather like Joe Root ramping an Aussie quick for 6, it’s a skill I will just have to admire in others.
1a – where does “I M” come from?
Steffen@49 I is one, M is abbreviation for m(aiden) over in cricket
Steffens,
One maiden = I M
Like SS@47 I saw the points of compass. HANDS not really cryptic. Missed EXTOR(t).
The GOLDCREST clue was one with which I would have tested my birder friend; sadly no longer reachable.
Thanks Tramp and Andrew
Thanks Tramp for an excellent crossword. I had no problem with any of the clues or definitions though I couldn’t fully parse LOOFA, not knowing that “fa” means nothing. My top picks were ARCHAIC, HANDS, and GOLDCREST. Thanks Andrew for the blog.
We submitted the clue “Ford hybrid (5)” to ChatGPT. After several minutes it came back with “Fusion”
Tony @53
FA for nothing is a rather rude acronym, sometimes prefaced with “sweet” (though this can also be followed by the less rude “Fanny Adams”).
Andreas61
I know what you mean. When I first started setting, I used a lot of single-letter indicators (SLI). I would look to get modern references in clues and I loved writing themed puzzles; this often led to long, bitty clues with lots of SLIs. I thought it made my puzzles seem different and fresh. An editor pointed the SLI issue out to me. I’m glad he did. Ever since, I’ve tried to simplify things even though it makes my puzzles a bit more homogeneous. I don’t think this puzzle is SLI-heavy.
There are many considerations to bear in mind when setting puzzles: some of which aren’t obvious to solvers. One day, I might try to list them. Someone above mentioned that they don’t like all anagrams around the perimeter. I’ll add that to the list.
It’s impossible to find an optimal grid-fill and set of clues in every single puzzle which satisfies all these constraints. Some commenters state repeatedly that they don’t like clues for which they see the answer and then work backwards through the wordplay. Do these people expect all clues in all puzzles to be equally balanced so that every solver has a 50:50 chance of cracking each one from the wordplay or the definition? That’s quite a constraint.
Anyway, enough from me. I’m glad this seems to have been received well.
Thanks for the comments.
Neil
Great to have the blog back and lovely puzzle today! I particularly like GOLDCREST, and the deception in JEROBOAM where “Romeo” is being used in full rather than the NATO alphabet. HANDS is brilliant but I didn’t parse it–I had figured that the second of a duel might be a “hand” in some way.
[muffin@55: I had always thought it was Fanny Adams. I was going to say that it was because of an Agatha Christie story involving Fanny Adams and Gammon and Spinach, but looking it up the lady named in the story (“Strange Jest”) is Betty Martin, as in “all my eye and…” and Fanny Adams has F.A. to do with it! I also found a grisly story about who Fanny Adams was and an even grislier story about the slang meaning of “Fanny Adams” before it came to mean what it does now: https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/sweet-fanny-adams.html%5D
Thanks Neil @ 56, good post
Tramp’s postings at 46 and 56 demonstrate another reason why 225 has been so missed over the last week. His responses to the comments and his insights to the setting process are fascinating. It’s easy sometimes for us solvers to be critical but the reality is I’m in awe at the skill that goes into producing the Guardian cryptics. Respect is due.
muffin@55, matt w@57: Thanks for the elucidation regarding Fanny Adams. And another thank you to kenmac for fifteensquared — it’s a great resource.
Did anyone else find 12A so difficult that they dabbled with ABSTEME, with the definition being “simple one” rather than “simple”? The letters “ME” were there to tempt me, and all the crossers are the same. Alas, it could not be parsed.
Along with everyone else, I found HANDS to be both simply beautiful and beautifully simple.
Very happy today to see the blog back, as well as a Tramp that I could complete. I really liked the natural surfaces like “extremely scared around brown bear”.
Tramp@46 Apparently cricket is even more unfathomable than I’d thought. If England were batting, Australia surely couldn’t score a run? Or does stumping Bairstow somehow affect the score even though nobody scores a run?
Roz@44 Thanks for corroborating my impression that “us” for “me” isn’t particularly American. Than again, maybe American gossips say it — I don’t know any.
Valentine @63. I’m not sure anyone said that ‘me’=US was an American usage. (I’m not going to go back through 60 posts again to check!) Perhaps the capital U and S caught your eye and triggered that thought?
Tim@52. I don’t understand why you think the clue for HANDS is not cryptic, and you didn’t hang around to give your reasoning. Perhaps you thought that, like the clue itself, it would be obvious. But being obvious does not necessarily mean that a clue is not cryptic, I reckon.
There are two ways of getting to the answer: a definition that is slightly offbeat – you wouldn’t normally refer to the hands on a clock face as ‘indicators’ – and some wordplay using H for hour and S for seconds, with AND linking them. Simple, but definitely cryptic.
Are seconds and hands both words for assistants. A further cryptic reference.
I thought so too JerryG@66
Valentine
Stumping Bairstow does not affect the score in the sense of the number of runs, but, it’s another wicket for Australia. Bairstow then leaves the field and a worse batter (no 7) comes in to bat. There is then only four wickets (batters) renaining to try to reach the target score.
One thing that is particularly confusing about cricket is the term wicket: it can mean several different things depending on context.
Well done Tramp. Let’s keep the Americans confused about cricket. While seeming like we’re trying to be helpful. 🙂
Tramp@68
For the record, when Bairstow was out it was Broad (No 8) who came in to bat. Definitely a worse batter.
Took me a while, but got there in the end. Really enjoyed this, with EXCAVATOR being my CoD. My dirty mind thought NUMBER TWO had something to do with something else that’s brown!
Thanks, Pino
Most days I finish the grid. Today I didn’t get a single answer. Made worse to see comments that it wasn’t too hard. Ho hum.
@ Alastair agreed. Polished off the prize (for the first time) over a couple of sittings. This had a lot of assumed Knowledge imo which may be fair game but still leave me baffled – why is “IN” a synonym for “concerned with” for example. Probably just sour grapes for me thinking I was making progress with cryptics but you’re not alone!
Really enjoyed this one, got nothing on my first attempt but then it gradually started to crack. I liked the big anagrams round the perimeter. Thought austere & invader were really hard and Jeroboam was the new word for this week. Hands, heckler, washing machine, goldcrest – all superb. Thanks Tramp!