Guardian 29,184 / Vulcan

96 comments on “Guardian 29,184 / Vulcan”

1. I struggled with the top half, so worked my way up from the easier SW corner. Enjoyed ‘Her nibs’ as it was a favourite of my mum about self-importance. I also liked the links between ARABIAN/NAIRA and SANTA/RUDOLPH plus the consecutive ENEMY, GO AGAINST and ENCOUNTER. My favourites were DISTAFF, SANGFROID and GEORDIE which made me smile. Nice one.

   Ta Vulcan & Eileen (and ta for no earworm).

2. So Dutch is Cockney slang for wife? This, along with my ignorance of heraldry, was my only hiccup in an otherwise straightforward and enjoyable experience.

3. I initially despaired of finishing this, but once I started in the SE and SW things started to fall into place. Nice to complete a Vulcan puzzle on my birthday!

4. Happy Birthday James! 🙂

5. Forgot to thank you, Vulcan & Eileen. Where are my manners?

6. apparently Dutch was rhyming slang for wife based on the Duchess of Fife: I didn’t know that. In any case, although that would hold good FOR MY OLD DUTCH, I’m not sure that is the origin of GO DUTCH where each person pays for their own meal in a restaurant. https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/going-dutch/ suggests the phrase comes from Pennsylvania and refers to the Deutsch who tended to bring their own food. I thought 12a NAIRA was brilliant, if a bit obscure.

7. Thank you Eileen for sparing me the earworm, which immediately exploded into my brain!

8. Favourites: NAIRA, RAMPANT.

   I could not parse:
   13ac ENEMY = fight I know of ‘time is the enemy’
   17ac – the EN bit / counter = bar
   20d

   New for me: CONE OFF, NAIRA; REP = a fabric with a ribbed surface (for 1d).

   Thanks, both.

   Geoff@2
   one of the explanations is that Duchess of Fife -> wife in Cockney rhyming slang but there are other explanations as well.

9. Nice puzzle, thanks both. Yes Eileen, we had a reminisce here some years ago about those bottles with their rubber ink spouts … you had to take your thumb off the airhole for just the right amount of time … about a second!

10. Thanks Vulcan and Eileen
    I found this hard – especially for a Monday! I got the time bit of ENEMY, but why “to fight”. Why Her Nibs? Is RAMPANT “out of control”?
    I got NAIRA from ARABIAN rather than its clue.

11. ENEMY a shrug and bung – even after the blog, I think it poor. NHO the expression CONE OFF. I too found the bottom easier, though. Thanks, Eileen and Vulcan.

12. Thanks for shining a light on Dutch/wife, revbob & michelle. Come to think of it, I’ve never known the origin of “go dutch”, although I’m familiar with its meaning.

13. Thank you, Eileen, enjoyed this.

    Was a tad thrown by Her Nibs in the INKWELL clue. Perhaps the setter knew Eileen was an ink monitor!

    On researching Dutch for wife, came across this which I didn’t know.

    Many thanks, both.

14. muffin @10: apologies – failed to read your comment re her first.

15. Vulcan’s fortnightly spot on a Monday might be predictable — but the level of trickiness here certainly wasn’t! (I think Vulcan has decided to ditch his Mondayish style of setting and get up there with the Vlads, Picaroons and Pauls.)
    The ENEMY clue was rather loose, I agree, but Vulcan must have reckoned on the crossers limiting the options. I really like “two holding hands” for the E + N bridge players — and I didn’t see it, because the counter=bar secured the solution. RAMPANT was a clever one, too, I thought: I was completely wrong-footed by thinking of Mercury and Hermes and omens and augurs.
    My thanks to setter and blogger.

16. Enjoyable, despite my general ignorance, it’s good to learn something new even if I am likely to forget it again. Like others, started at the bottom and worked my way up, with NW taking the longest.
    Muffin @10, the enemy is the one to fight? As well as time being the enemy.
    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen

17. muffin@10 Why not Her Nibs? It comes up on a few searches.
    For Dutch/Dutch courage/double dutch. I didn’t know of past https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-68084,00.html#:~:text=To%20'go%20Dutch'%20is%20a%20a,those%20of%20a%20larger%20neighbour..

18. muffin@10: Why? … because this is The Guardian.

19. Sorry, fail on the link. It was meant to be refer to past enmities.

20. Eileen, I remember well the inkwells. I think our ink was made of cabbage juice, Looked like it, smelled like it.

21. Re michelle #8: Yes, I’m sure it’s a reference to the saying which I know as ‘Time is the oldest enemy’ of which there doesn’t seem to be a definitive version. I’ve seen many clues in other puzzles that have referred to it.

    Add me to those puzzled by ‘Her’ in 26ac. I sort of assumed there must be a female writer called ‘Inkwell’ but haven’t been able to find one.

    Does anyone here have the ear of someone at The Guardian who can fix the problem printing using the direct print command? Since Saturday (including Everyman on Sunday) this has been reducing the grid and clues to fill only about a third of a page of A4 instead of the whole sheet. The PDF command works but that’s also too small for my ageing eyes.

22. I thought NAIRA/ARIAN was a little unfair. Both obscure, acknowledging ”obscure” is subjective, meaning something I didn’t know. And it made the NE difficult because if you didn’t get them, you wouldn’t get the ARABIAN, or maybe could work it out, depending on what you got first. ( I got them all, said she with glee, but only with a bit of guess and google.)

23. Hmmm… a quaint history of the British education system: inkwells? There were holes in the desktops in my schools which had once held inkwells, but we were required to use a fountain pen for schoolwork, and then came comprehensive schools and Bic biros.

24. I found this a steady solve. A little tougher than is usual for a Monday perhaps. The only one I couldn’t get is ENEMY. I thought it must be that but couldn’t work out why. I liked NAIRA and ARABIAN. Strange to think that the history of Christianity since the 4th century seems to have turned on the fact that Constantine (a fairly recent convert who nevertheless went on to kill his son and his wife) lost patience with Arius at the Council in Nicea. Some say Newton was a secret Arian who “confessed” his heresy on his death bed. With thanks to Vulcan and Eileen.

25. I parsed AMARYLLIS differently. Flower (river, R) seen in a spring month (A MAY) with foolish cut and reversed (SILL). Thanks for parsing 13. It was beyond me.

26. Re my comment at 25… Which would make it an &Lit.

27. With RAMPANT, at first, I thought one leg was PANT as in a pair of pants but couldn’t see how Herald equalled Mar as in RAM up. Thankfully, I looked up Heraldry for the proper explanation.

28. Or, more accurately, see the word “Flower” doing double duty. Anyway, enough self-correction. On with the day…

29. Jackkt – I go through the device of opening the crossword the. clicking on the 3 bars at the top right of the page – I assume you are using Microsoft?
    This brings up a menu one of whose commands is “print”.
    Just click on that and it comes up with a window which allows you to change the layout/print a specified page etc.
    Just click on the blue Print button at the bottom and it comes out filling the whole page.
    Hope this helps

30. I also remember INKWELLs, which must make you (Eileen) and I of a similar age.
    I was frustrated a bit with this. Aren’t Ops in DROPS plural and surgery singular? How does ENEMY = fight? Is OUR LADY an anagram or a cycle (Your lad cycling, Mary?)
    It took longer than the usual Vulcan and I failed on RAMPANT

31. My school education occurred when inkwells were on the way out. We enjoyed firing pens or other projectiles toward the ceiling using the inkwell’s hole and a ruler on the shelf beneath it. Ah, those were the days. 🙂

32. pserve_p2@ 23. “Quaint” ?? You’re showing your (tender) age. Before using ink and inkwells I learned to write on a slate. Now they’ve got something similar with (computer) tablets and styluses/styli.

33. Oh and I forgot, March isn’t Spring, but the beginning of Autumn. 😉

34. [Oh, GDU@31.. That was clever! Demonstrating understanding of Physics in primary school. Did you get six of the best? Our teachers threw chalkboard dusters at the naughty boys, or caned them. So cruel, and that was in the public schools. The Catholic school children fared much worse.]

35. I’m baffled by the clue for ENEMY still. OK, so time can be the enemy, but where does “to fight” fit in? I bunged in ROUND, being the time that boxers and wrestlers fight for, which was most unhelpful in progressing.

    Never heard of CONE OFF, and I suspect it would mean something entirely nefarious if the expression was in use here.

    If Vulcan is going to start making things tougher, that can only be a good thing. Thanks to Eileen and Vulcan.

36. GDU@31, did you also muck about with the Cuisinaire rods? We place the 9 rod across the 10 rod, stuck the 1 rod on one end, and whacked the other end. Much more fun than arithmetic.

37. paddymelon@34, that was one of the less naughty things I and my mates got up to, most of which, as you pointed out, were in one way or another connected to the laws of physics. 🙂

38. Not much to add.But thanks Vulcan for waking me up.

39. gregfromoz, no, must admit we never tried that!

40. paddymelon @ 22 – I agree with you re 12ac: I hadn’t a hope with the Nigerian ready but I did, fortunately, know the heresy.

    pserve_p2 @23 – you could fill a fountain pen from the inkwells.
    (I am amazed / horrified that there should be any query as to Her Nibs ( for the record, it is in Chambers) after years of Arachne’s efforts at enlightenment.)

41. As someone with a previous exposure to heraldry, it took me far too long to get 1a, and thus the NW corner to finish the puzzle.

42. Jackkt@21 – I use my mini iPad, take a screenshot, save to Photos and then print after setting paper size to A4. Works for Azed as well.
    More about DISTAFFs here if you’re interested https://www.facebook.com/groups/1585089858418616/

43. Sorry, the link @42 turns out to be a private page. Try this https://blackcatsews.blogspot.com/2021/01/tutorial-one-more-way-to-dress-distaff.html#more

44. Meandme @43 – Wow!

45. Thanks Vulcan and Eileen

    revbob @ 6 DUTCH possibly from Duchess of Fife needs also to be the origin of GO DUTCH – split the clue in two, LEAVE = GO, WIFE = DUTCH, the two together happen to combine to/form a known expression.

    NAIRA for the Nigerian ready is common enough (just search this site using spaces before and after) though it’s its first appearance this year, and, sorry Eileen, it also featured in Picaroon’s 29812, which you blogged on 11/11/22.

    Tim C @ 30 How about “The consultant is doing surgery / ops today”?

46. I too really struggled with the top half, with not a single solution inserted after the first run through. Then took a while with the last few in the NE corner, especially loi NAIRA, which I hadn’t any idea about even though it had to be that from its reverse location in the clue and its vital part in the solving of ARABIAN. And strangely on the subject of the thoroughbred horse, I only knew DISTAFF from that realm, not as a spinning stick.
    Tougher than usual for a Monday, I thought…

47. I found this hard for a monday, but the Quiptic harder. I aabadoned it until finishing the QCryptic, when things ther started falling into place.
    I had heard of NAIRA, through crosswords, I think,,but not the Arian heresy, but I had to look it up to check, Time being the ENEMY took a while to clickand isn’t an animal RAMPANT standing on two legs with a forepaw raised, or am I just showing my ignorance. I was also unaware, or had forgotten, DISTAFF=spinning stick: I suppose DISTAFF= women’s work comes from that.
    TimC: It seems sad that as the seasons differ in the southern hemisphere we cannot use March as a spring month, wokeness gone mad (I must start doing the daily mail crossword!).

48. PARSNIP – I think SNIP as “cut the end off” may be referring to circumcision:
    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/snip
    ‘Verb 4 (informal) To circumcise.’
    as a noun, or rather the noun, it’s something in the same area:
    ‘Noun 6 (definite, the snip, euphemistic) A vasectomy.’

49. Like GDU I forgot to thank you both. Many Thanks!

50. I liked it, especially 26a INKWELL. Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

51. Simon S @45… nah still doesn’t really work for me but I’m not sure I can explain why.

    nicbach @47… my tongue was in my cheek. Please don’t start doing the Daily Mail crossword (is there such a thing and does it consist of just 3 and 4 letter words?).

52. Simon S @45 – oh dear, egg on my face again: thanks for the reminder. 🙁

53. Followed Eileen’s link for RAMPANT to check that ‘A beast rampant (Old French: “rearing up”) is depicted in profile standing erect with forepaws raised. The position of the hind legs varies according to local custom: the lion may stand on both hind legs, braced wide apart, or on only one, with the other also raised to strike’
    And Followed Eileen’s link for ENEMY to find a nice !rish photo of the Ha’penny Bridge, Dublin
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha%27penny_Bridge
    which I’ve just learnt was ‘known later for a time as the Penny Ha’penny Bridge.’ That’s inflation for you.

54. [nicbach @47, and Tim C various. As this is a northern hemisphere crossie, having Spring in March is fair game (as you acknowledge, Tim). It’s the same as Pommy GK. What does annoy me, though, is the hemispheric chauvinism on display when I get a personal invitation to attend a “Summer School” in midwinter July. If you are deliberately addressing an international audience, you ought to be aware of such mistakes.]

55. Paul @25 your alternative parsing of AMARYLLIS involves taking two steps to get R from FLOWER. Isn’t that a no-no in the same way as indirect anagrams? I mean it wouldn’t be right to expect a solver to deduce R from Cam or Exe say.

    Agree this was a bit tougher than the average VULCAN but then there is the Quiptic. The simpler puzzles seem to avoid clues where there’s work involved in finding the anagram fodder I’ve noticed. For instance where only part of the answer is clued by an anagram. Also no themes no?

56. Found this in a .pdf of an old (1950s) Brewer’s on Page 333: ‘ENEMY.
    How goes the enemy? or What says the enemy? What o’clock is it? Time is the enemy of man, especially of those who are behind hand.’
    also this
    https://www.crosswordunclued.com/2010/03/have-no-enemy-but-time.html
    ‘Some trivia about the expression “time is the enemy” –
    Brewer’s online dictionary of Phrase and Fable lists this phrase: “Time is the enemy of man, especially of those who are behind time.”
    “How goes the enemy?”, “What says the enemy” were popular ways of asking “What time is it?” in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The catchphrase apparently originates from a dialogue of the play The Dramatist (1789) by Frederick Reynolds.
    Ennui. I’ve an idea, I don’t like this Lady Waitfor’t—she wishes to trick me out of my match with Miss Courtney, and if I could trick her in return—[Takes out his Watch.] How goes the enemy?—only one o’clock!—I thought it had been that an hour ago!
    In the play, the character Ennui who speaks these lines is described as “the time-killer, whose only business in life is to murder the hour”.’

57. Eileen @40
    I wasn’t questioning the “her” as such – any personal pronoun would have been equally as odd, as it’s just the nibs that go into the inkwell.

58. I think ‘his nibs’ is more widespread, as a) it kinda-sorta rhymes, and b) men tend to be more self-important, especially since they still have a majority of senior managerial positions.

    A nice Monday, some write-ins, some thinky ones, and like others I enjoyed ENCOUNTER.

59. Thank you so much, Eileen. The links to rampant and naira were so helpful. I don’t know how you manage to do this for us. But it’s so appreciated. I wouldn’t have got so far without you. Sometimes I can finish them on my own these days!

60. TimC@51: I think 3&5 letter words, certainly none of the other kind, not directly at leasst.

61. Pretty tough for a Monday, especially as I didn’t know RAMPANT (heraldry), ARIAN/NAIRA, and REP.

    I’m not sure why Nibs is capitalised? I liked DISTAFF, where first to break wasn’t B, ENCOUNTER for the two holding hands, and PROTEST for ‘about to go off’.

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

62. Some very nice surfaces today. Both NAIRA and its reverse were new to me.

    As usual I have NHO the flower, and so had to verify that the random jumble of letters I had arrived at by parsing alone was an actual plant.

63. FrankieG@48: I think if you used the expression “the snip” most people would think of a vasectomy before circumcision…(?)…Apologies if someone has made the point above, but on the broader discussion of “Her nibs…”: more common is of course “His nibs”, being a facetious saying about a person who is demanding and tyrannical e.g. “His nibs demands fresh bedsheets every day”…No reason why it shouldn’t be “Her nibs” as the context requires…

64. It took two visits (my brain is stuck in second gear today) but I finished and rather enjoyed this. I liked ENEMY but I have a soft spot for a deceptively simple cryptic clue, if only because I feel clever when I get them (although I thought SANTA was too simple).

    Also liked GO AGAINST, INKWELL and OUR LADY.

    Thanks very much both.

65. … re 63, also a term for The Times editor, if I’m not mistaken (as in THE editor).

    CRS is fun because sometimes you get something like DUTCH = WIFE, where the non-rhymed word is either not used (as with ARIS for ARSE), or mangled (as here, where Dutch doesn’t have much to do with duchess). ARIS btw is ARISTOTLE/ BOTTLE connecting to BOTTLE & GLASS/ ARSE. And yes, bottle = courage does have something to do with that, as to lose one’s bottle means … well you can guess.

    Two nice ones from London geezers (ice-creams, as in freezers) in the pub (rubber, as in rub-a-dub, where you can have a pint of laugh and titter) for ready money, or cash: (a) BANGERS (and mash), and (b) PIE (and mash).

    I’m here all week.

66. Eileen@40, I echo your amazement at the questioning of “Her Nibs” at 26a INKWELL, which happened to be my favourite clue – clever, and a great surface. Also, re 21d RUDOLPH, a derisive thank you for the earworm you supplied by apophasis. (I’ve been looking for a chance to use that word since I learned it here, from PostMark I think.)

    23a SANGFROID, another favourite, brought to mind the classic Fractured French line, “Here comes the Englishman with his usual bloody cold”.

    Thanks Vulcan for the well-pitched challenge, and Eileen for your customarily informative blog.

67. Thanks, Eileen. I think I’ve sussed which is the obvious(?) earworm, but mine came from the linked SANTA. I warn you, it’s rather kittsch…

68. …with shrubbery in the audience

69. …and (just checked) I can’t believe she’s 79!

70. Thanks Eileen and Vulcan. Nice crossword and blog. 10a appealed to me – I liked the idea of our lady’s lad misbehaving! Does that make me a heretic?

71. pdm @32, “You wrote on my slate ‘I love you Joe’ when we were a couple of kids”

72. Agree with the general view this was hard for a Monday. RUDOLPH made me smile.

73. It was a harder Vulcan but less amusing I thought.

74. I parsed MOPER as mop er. A hesitant or half-hearted mop!

75. Thanks both and an entertaining challenge (needed Eileen for RAMPANT).

    Back in the day of black and white steam television there was an ad for a proprietary ink (sold in bottles!) which had still photos accompanied by the spoken injunction: “His nibs! Her nibs! All nibs prefer (here insert the brand – I’ve forgotten)”. ‘His nibs’ was represented by a top hat and a monocle and ‘Her nibs’ by a coiffure and a pince-nez. Innocent times. Astonishing to think that it was (presumably) profitable back then to advertise your brand of ink on television, such was the market.

    It’s all virtual ink these days of course.

    (And that ladies and gents represents my entry for the boring old fart (nostalgia section) (fountain) pentathlon.)

76. Mike Clarke@70: Related, but at a tangent, can I reccommend An Episode of Sparrows or Innocent Sinners (Book/Film), where towards the end Lovejoy prays before the statue of Mary “Hailn Mary, Holy Mary, make me contrary and independent”. Contrary might be wrong but it’s a synonym.

77. I parsed 11A slightly differently. I took the whole clue as the definition.

    Flower (river) was R
    Spring Month was May
    Foolish to cut was Sill, back was llis

    A + MA(R)Y+LLIS

78. Yep, I found this tougher than the average Vulcan at first too.
    I saw RAMPANT as PANT = ‘one leg’ (half of ‘pants’) and was wondering what ‘RAM’ or ‘MAR’ had to do with ‘Herald’!
    I’m so used to ‘surgery’ cueing ‘OP’ that I was wondering where the extra ‘S’ came from!
    Also completely bamboozled by the fact that ‘NAIRE’ appears in ‘Nigerian’ reversed, so was wondering if that was an alternative form of NAIRA, or how NAIRA was derived from it. I loved the Mary clue and the fitting surface of SANGFROID.

79. … (same as AlanC @ 27, I just saw. Sorry!)

80. gif@71. I do remember that song, School Days, but I see it was written in 1907!

81. jvector @ 78 – also see Paul @25.

82. [ for people with printing problems the key is to set scale to 180% rather than 100%. This assumes you are using windows. The scale parameter is available under ‘more options’ after you select print]

83. Very glad to find my ‘bung’ of ENEMY was correct. Thanks Vulcan and Eileen

84. This has to be the toughest Vulcan I’ve ever seen – I wonder if it ought to have been published under his ‘Imogen’ moniker?
    No matter. I got there eventually, though I had to look up both NAIRA and ARIAN – a pity that both the word and its reversal are rather obscure. And like others, I wasn’t too happy with ENEMY.
    Is the word ‘Heraldry’ actually derived from ‘Herald’? I was certainly foxed by “Herald’s” when, having finally sussed it, I think it ought to have been “in heraldry”.
    I presume the cryptic def. for SANTA alludes to his being typically depicted carrying a sack of goodies – not too intuitive. “Christmas” made the write-in a doddle, however.
    Likes for TOP FLIGHT, FLY-PAST (clever def.), SOFT TOP among others.

    Thanks to Vulcan/Imogen and Eileen.

85. Alphaalpha@75 = I think it was ‘Quink’ but I’m not sure. Loathsome stuff, fond memories of spilling it all over my exercise books.

    At least it was better quality than school ink as was put in the INKWELLs on our desks. That stuff was guaranteed to clog up your prized fountain-pen in a jiffy.

86. I found this a great Monday solve. I had to reveal ENEMY (shouldn’t have needed to) and DISTAFF (daff is one step too clever for me) and I wrote NAIRA in backwards for no apparent reason. The worst thing is that I couldn’t parse MARGATE and I can’t believe I’m the only one here complaining about it. I can’t explain it but the NHO “marge” for margarine is one of those words that I loathed on sight. I refuse to ever use it and I hope I never see it again. Ick! Poo!

87. The Distaff Side of anything means that part of it that accommodates (or is run by) women. I learned today that the male side of something was the lance side — an expression I’m sure nobody uses. Why bother — the male “side” is the whole thing anyway, it’s the ladies who require an auxiliary.

    Thanks to Vulcan and to Eileen for the fascinating links. Wow indeed for dressing a distaff — who knew how complicated spinning could be?

88. BlueDot@86 I can well believe you’re the only one complaining about it. It’s a perfectly logical and useful abbreviation, much like saying ‘mayo’ for ‘mayonnaise’. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it either – you must be from America or perhaps Canada I suppose?

89. Long Time Lurker@88, in case you’re still here, I’m a Canuck and we have “marge” here. Blue@86, I’m not a big fan either, but at least we don’t call butter “butt”.

90. Got them all, but several parsings obscure to this Yank — 5, 13, 18, 28
    Never thought my knowledge of heraldry would exceed my Cockney slang, but RAMPANT was easy and GO DUTCH was opaque.
    “Marge” was new to me, and I’m threescore years old…

91. cellomaniac@89 that’s interesting to hear. Wiktionary currently has this sense of ‘marge’ labelled as ‘Britain/Ireland/Australia/New Zealand’. I wasn’t sure as sometimes you use ‘Commonwealth English’ over there but at other times ‘American English’ or a mixture of both (though the language is getting increasingly Americanised even in England). I shall edit the entry. I’ve never heard of ‘butt’ for ‘butter’ though and that’s not a term I much like or would ever use – it makes butter sound unappetising and I could imagine it might put certain people who hear it said off their food, though I’m personally made of sterner stuff!

92. @87 who knew how complicated spinning could be?
    Any spinner knows. Producing fine fibres requires a sound knowledge of fibre related science as well as artistry. Typically it is “women’s work” though so under the radar and undervalued ?

93. I also found the top half harder, with half a dozen – make that eight! – left unsolved yesterday. However, they all fell in two minutes this morning, so I put it down to a lack of flexibility that had cleared after a good night’s sleep.

    Held myself up momentarily by bunging MARMITE in at 2d – well, it is a spread! – but that was soon fixed when I saw how the wordplay in 11a worked.

    Thanks to Vulcan for a tougher than usual Monday/Tuesday challenge, and thanks to Eileen for another excellent blog.

94. LTL@91, “butt” for butter was a joke, obviously not good one. Anyone using that contraction would deserve a kick up the backside.

    Yes, we do blend US and UK English. We even claim that our classical actors invented the mid-Atlantic accent to blend in with both. (Think Christopher Plummer for example.)

95. Could anyone explain why ‘a square’ is A T? No one else seems troubled by it so I assume I’m missing something obvious…

96. gw @95
    A T-square is a piece of draughtsman;s equipment. See here.

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