Guardian 29,194 – Tramp

80 comments on “Guardian 29,194 – Tramp”

1. For once I was on Tramp’s wavelength. Last one in was EXCITE, which took me a while: though ex was obvious. I especially liked OBSESSION, BLUE PETER and BALANCES. A good end to the week. With thanks to Tramp and Andrew.

2. Defeated by a couple, and struggled with some of the definitions.
   Thanks to Tramp and Andrew

3. It went in slowly. “Go” for work out in EGO, umm… NEFERTITI brought a smile

4. Thanks, Tramp and Andrew!
   OVERSHOT
   The true story ended well!
   NECKS
   Agree with the ‘tops’ comment in the blog.

5. Thank you Andrew. I didn’t have a problem with NECKS, the tops of bottles. Agree not all bottles. I found out recently that the necks of bottles of beer were elongated so when people got their hot hands around them it didn’t cool down the beer too much. Whodathunkit? Don’t know if it’s universal but down here there is a word for bottles of beer: Longnecks. The shorter ones without a long neck are called stubbies.
   Loved the def for OBSESSION. a thing.

6. Always pleased to encounter a Tramp: nice clean, tight cluing throughout and nothing to complain about. I needed Andrew to parse the missing letter in BLUE PE(s)TER. Some big smiles in here – esp for BEHAVE, OBSESSION, BRINK, FILTHIER, CLAD, ADAGE and the witty NEFERTITI.

   Thanks Tramp and Andrew

7. Ah, I see the problem with top/tops.

8. I found this more straightforward than most of Tramp’s puzzles, but no less enjoyable.

9. Our LOI was BEHAVE. How many words fit _E_A_E? Agree about ‘tops’. But there was plenty to like – as well as those that others have mentioned, I liked GEMINI and LIBIDO. Thanks, Tramp and Andrew.

10. BRINK, FILTHIER, and NEFERTITI were my favourites and Dirty Harry was a nice lift and separate. Gnomes seem very popular with setters at the moment.

11. Loved the surfaces in 18 and 7. On the whole on Tramp’s easier side, I thought. Tried to make one or two clues more complicated than they were (COALFACE for example), but on the whole I was on the right wavelength today. Hadn’t noticed the problem with 23, but I think Andrew’s right and ‘tops’ would have been better and the surface would still be fine. Enjoyable solve though. Thanks to Andrew and Tramp.

12. Thanks Andrew, I got my start on the down clues too, and i didn’t remember to parse AGARIC so appreciate that, and can now blame that missing plural for NECKS taking so long. I wondered if there might be some show called xxxx POTER and couldn’t get past Coal instead of Oil for a while in 15a. I thought there were some nice witty touches here and was happy to get the Gnome after meeting it for the first time recently (agree Petert@10 that these odd crossword terms come along like buses), but favourite probably the simple but elegant SECTOR. Thanks Tramp.

13. Really enjoyed this, but it was without doubt the easiest tramp I’ve ever done. The left hand side was a write in and the right hand side didn’t take much longer. But still great fun throughout with ticks for LIBIDO, BRINK, and AGARIC

    GNOME in this sense came up quite recently which was a blessing

    Cheers A&T

14. EGO
    work out=GO
    Collins:
    You use ‘go’ to talk about the way something happens. For example, if an event or situation goes well, it is successful.
    “She says everything is going smoothly.”
    Synonyms: proceed, develop, turn out, work out

15. Paddymelon @5: Enjoyed your derivation of necks, but surely a bottle reduces diameter at the top simply to make the application of a cork/stopper/lid easier, no?

16. Has anyone had print problems with this crossword. I know a lot of people do the crossword on a device rather than hard copy, but, both today and yesterday, the cryptic print out is tiny (about half the usual size) which has never happened in the previous 15 years! I have not changed any print settings on my system.

17. Well I never knew an adage was a gnome. Have/get, necks/drinks and go/work out were all head-scratchers. Never heard of AGARIC.

    Very enjoyable, my favourite OVERSHOT.

18. Thanks Tramp and Andrew
    I found this tough, though in retrospect it was mostly fair. I didn’t like “Harry is half-hearted” for PETER – usually half hearted means remove one of a double letter; I tried to work HARY in somehow.
    NEFERTITI and LIBIDO favourites.

    btw this week’s Quiptic has now appeared, and it too is a stinker!

19. Lovely puzzle!
    Top favourite among many was the brilliant NEFERTITI and I also loved the two lift-and-separates at 1ac and 16dn.
    Many thanks to Tramp and to Andrew.

20. Brendan @16: not I. I like a paper copy as you do and haven’t seen a change in the output. Sure your device hasn’t done an update? That can alter print settings.

21. Brendan @16. I think the solution to your printing problem was suggested by someone here. Change print size to 180%?

22. Thanks Andrew and thanks to others for the comments.

    My original clue for BLUFFS was:

    Lies from Tory mostly getting angry response on social media (5)

    I liked that but wasn’t allowed FFS.

    It’s been a difficult week. Many thanks to Alan Connor.

    Have a good weekend, everyone.

    Neil

23. I liked the NICKER in KNICKERS: she must have been a lady policeman.
    GDU@17 There was a discussion here about Gnome meaning ADAGE or synonym of adage the other day, time being relative to age, did Einstein say that?, and I am sure you had an NHO by it,
    I had ACE and NEFERTITI quite quickly and then things slowed, but picked up again when I moved to the bottom half.
    Enjoyable puzzle and clear blog, thanks both.

24. Thank you Tramp@22. You mas e mw laugh again.

25. Tramp@22. LOL. So FA is allowed but FFS isn’t?
    Thank you for a fun puzzle and I hope you also have a great weekend.

26. In fairness, FA can mean Fanny Adams.

27. My immediate response precisely, pdm @25

28. Well that was a brief pleasure! Surely one of Tramp’s easier offerings.

    Really liked BALANCES and NERFERTITI.

    Think I prefer the originally intended clue for BLUFFS.

    Thanks Tramp and Andrew

29. My great ooncle Jimmy used to say flackin’ ‘arry and blocky ‘eck.

30. What a shame that the original clue from Tramp@16 wasn’t allowed. A lovely and apt surface, but I guess there are those who would be offended.

31. Very much a tale of two halves for me this morning. Righthand side went in fairly smoothly after a sluggish start, but then held up for ages with LHS. Then LIBIDO suddenly gave me the oomph to progress there. Discovering two different meanings for Blue therein, and with BALL BEARING and FILTHIER in this section I wasn’t quite sure what I was dealing with. Not too impressed with BRINK or NICKER, couldn’t parse EXCITE (Cite=Call?), but enjoyed the ride overall…

32. …last one in the fiddly DISC. Remembering the floppy ones from another age…

33. I think I’m parsing 1a wrong – the way I understand the clue, I get “Ablances”? Where am I going wrong?

34. Fru@33
    BALANCES
    A (one) in (inside) B(front of Britney)+LANCES(Spears)
    A included in B-LANCES.

35. Fru@33 – A (one) in B ‘front of Britney’ plus LANCES (spears).

36. I read through the clues and did not solve a single one so I decided to come here and read the blog. I can’t comment on whether this puzzle is difficult or easy – maybe I’m not in the mood for a puzzle today, could not concentrate on it that’s for sure.

    Thanks, Andrew.

37. Found this a satisfying solve with lots of enjoyable clues and a decidedly smutty theme – FILTHIER, LIBIDO, OBSESSION, all good. Had some difficulties with the mysterious gnome, but otherwise pretty pleased with our triumphant return after a short break.

38. Agree with muffin@8 about ‘Harry’ – thanks Andrew for parsing clue,
    Don’t like this grid with left and right almost disjunct,

39. Get and have are not the same thing. Unless, apparently, ordering a coffee. “Can I get a latte” should be answered by “No, I’ll get it for you.”

40. I started well on the NW corner and everything then fell into place. Nice cluing from Tramp.

    I liked the Britney Spears for BALANCES, the definition for OBSESSION, and the surfaces for LIBIDO and NICKER (plus good wordplay). Muffin @18; I well remember being castigated in no uncertain teems for using half-hearted similarly to PE(s)TER – I suppose the objection is that the instruction is not clear which of two letters should be removed. I even checked petter to see if it could mean Harry, doh!

    Thanks Tramp and Andrew.

41. I printed this with no problems and without changing any settings (on Linux).

    I don’t see why 28a has a question mark.

    Hadn’t heard of that meaning for ‘gnome’, but I am familiar with ‘gnomic’ so it’s presumably from the same derivation.

42. Ref Brendan at #16.

    Yes, there has been a print problem as you describe every day since last Friday or Saturday including the Everyman on Sunday. I posted about it here I think on Monday and received helpful suggestions so I have a workaround, but what I would really like is for someone at The Guardian to fix it. Unlike The Times, I don’t have any contacts there, but I hoped someone might have a word with the right person or post info on who to contact and complain to?

43. Meant to say it’s the standard print command button, not the pdf one as that works okay but I don’t like the format.

44. I print the puzzle most days (so as not to hog the paper) and nothing seems to have changed for me. Is it browser related? I use Chrome.

45. Thanks KVa and Tomsdad, I see it now. I wasn’t attaching the “front of” to “Britney”, d’oh! Appreciate it.

46. I liked solving this puzzle, so thanks to Tramp.
    My only dislike was a biff at 9a BEHAVE (cf Tassie Tim@9), which I sort of see now thanks to the blog.
    Loved your infomative post about beer bottles in Australia, paddymelon@5. We also used to call longnecks “tallies” as I recall.
    Favourites already mentiond by others above, but another enthusiastic vote for 7d NEFERTITI.
    Thanks also to Andrew.
    [Brendan@16 – the same thing has happened to me with printing off the puzzles for over a week now. I have had to scroll down and choose a setting of 160 rather than actual size. I don’t know why it’s happening but it’s annoying to end up with such a small print puzzle if I inadvertently forget to do it. I haven’t changed anything settings-wise and I’m not sure why the grids are being transmitted in such a reduced format.]

47. [Sorry I see others have since remarked on the printing issue since I started typing my post.]

48. Like yesterday, the right side went in quickly but I struggled on the left. Maybe too many Britneys last night, FrankieG. NEFERTITI was a GEM(INI) along with BALANCES, LIBIDO, UNCONGENIAL and BLUE PETER. Andrew, you’re missing an R in your [k]NICKER[s], so to speak.

    Ta Tramp & Andrew.

49. Agree with muffin@18 on “half-hearted” for PE[s]TER – normally used on an even-length word with a double-letter centre, like these recent examples:
    MOP[p]ER, BEL[l]OW, HO[o]T, SUP[p]ER, WOB[b]LE<. Although setters have half-heartedly clued DO<+DIT[t]Y and A+ROMA[n]TIC and nobody complained.

50. I too had very little after the first pass but got their in the end. NHO AGARIC and had to resort to the dictionary.

    I’m not entirely happy with the construction of 16D although the parsing makes sense in hindsight. I expect I’m in a minority there.

51. AlanC@48 🙂 – I was just going to mention the R in [k]NICKER[s], too – aka https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Alan_Whickers

52. Frankie G 🙂

53. Tramp/Neil@22 – I’m amazed Wikipedia doesn’t have FFS on its disambiguation page – WT actual F – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFS
    Reassured that Wiktionary does – https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/FFS

54. Brendan@16. Yes it happened to me too. Changed settings on my printer. Now OK but then had to change setting for Indy crossword as it came out too large.

55. I thought Alan Whicker referred to £1 notes or coins? (Nicker = pound in Cockney/MLE – Multicultural London English) FrankieG @51.

    AlanC @48, similar solving to you, not much across, a lot more down, right hand side then left.

    I too liked the original BLUFFS better,.
    Thank you to Tramp and Andrew.

56. I normally find Tramp’s puzzles to be amongst the hardest found here, but not today, and I see some others thought similarly. A lot of good clues, fave was NEFERTITI, also liked BALANCES and OBSESSION.

    Had the same puzzlement over PETTER as muffin@18 and others, but it didn’t stop me.

57. I always enjoy a Tramp, and this was no exception. My only slight gripe was the repeated use of EX = old or former, but that device now seems to be used almost as frequently as ER = queen once was.

58. Thanks Tramp for a nice set of clues. Like others have said, the right side went in easily, the left side was more challenging. I was defeated by BEHAVE and BLUE PETER, the latter being new to me. My top picks were BRINK, LIBIDO, GEMINI, and HAIRDO. Thanks Andrew for the blog.

59. Shanne@55 – https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Alan_Whicker ‘(Cockney rhyming slang) A pound sterling; a quid.’ but
    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Alan_Whickers ‘pl (plural only) (Cockney rhyming slang) knickers.’

60. Thanks both,
    Cue Spike M.
    Q. Why can’t a lady with a wooden leg change a pound note?
    A. She’s only got half a knicker.

61. And always remember to turn off the BLUE PETER before going to bed.

62. [In the US, a “bucket of longnecks” could refer to an order of multiple beers served at once in a container of ice or it could refer to a pot of steamed clams, the variety that had “necks” that could protrude from its shells.]

63. AlanC@61 – At https://cockneyrhymingslang.co.uk/slang/blue_peter – The majority verdict on that one is “Mockney” 🙁

64. I remembered “gnomic” utterances in time to stop me scratching my head over gnome=ADAGE – a definition I have only seen once before, also in a crossword. That was typical of this puzzle: lots of technically correct meanings that were just outside the scope of my usual vocabulary. But I did like NEFERTITI.

65. Half-hearted to me suggests the removal of one of a pair of double letters.

66. “Up the spout” is an anagram indicator?

    FrankieG@53 Thanks for explaining FFS — I was wondering what the fuss was about. We don’t have it in the US. (We don’t have FA either, but I’m familiar with that one.)

    Thanks Tramp and Andrew.

67. Enjoyable puzzle from Tramp – a more straightforward solve than usual, as others have remarked. Favourites already flagged up.

    I have no problem with ‘half-hearted’. There’s nothing illogical about it and it’s good to have our assumptions challenged. It may usually indicate the removal of one of a double letter, but there’s absolutely no reason why it must, unless it creates a real ambiguity. As PETER is a valid word and PESER is not, there is no such here.

    Thanks to Neil and Andrew

68. FFS, Valentine @66, you need some more vulgar friends if you’ve never seen FFS in the US.

    I failed on BLUE PETER–that one we don’t have here, to my knowledge. Agreed that the left half was harder than the right, and also agree that the way the two halves barely interlock at all is not a cool feature of this grid. But I enjoyed this quite a bit, as I usually do with Tramp.

69. Thanks for the blog, I liked the kNICKERs idea and the reference to AlanC. AGARIC is a clever clue , Fly Agaric is a type of magic mushroom but pretty dangerous , Liberty Cap is the traditional one but much harder to find.

70. Bull Hassocks @57: on the other hand, the former pupil in 11A was not the EX-EYE I was wondering about, so no repeated use in this particular grid. “Thing” for OBSESSION is a very vague synonym.

71. I concur (6a) with Gervase@67 about “half-hearted”. Why does it have to be a double letter in the middle? Indeed I would go a bit further. If removing each of the two central letters can yield two words, you have still narrowed it down to two possibilities, and if the correct one is deducible from the rest of the clue (or from a crosser), then there is no ambiguity. I liked that clue at 16d BLUE PETER.

    Tramp sometimes gives me trouble, but not this time. Special favourites were the great anagrams and surfaces of 7d (the pregnant Egyptian) and 8d (the awkward canoodler), and the hilariously naughty image conjured up by the surface of 10a COALFACE.

    Thanks Tramp and Andrew for the fun and exlpanations.

72. I had BETAKE instead of BEHAVE — not sure I care for either, really, but TAKE is closer to ‘get’ than HAVE.

    AGARIC and BLUE PETER both new to me, but inevitable in the end. Couldn’t parse BLUFFS either, for now-obvious reasons.

    Wasted a fair bit of time thinking 29 was OVERDOSE, which fits the clue equally well.

    AndrewTyndall @70, ‘thing’ in 11 is not generic, it’s as in “I have a thing about clocks” or “Stamp collecting is my thing.”

    I guess I’ll just have to resign myself to E as the intended parsing for anything relating to tablets, ecstasy, etc.

73. Should have mentioned the definition in LIBIDO: “Congress controlled by this?” It’s, um, uncomfortably topical right now, as the legislative (as opposed to sexual) Congress is currently controlled by nobody and nothing…

74. The clue for 18a in the paper has a typo -fellow’s with an apostrophe. No-one else has mentioned it. Am I the only one here who buys it?

75. Zoot@94: not in my paper. Maybe a later edition?

76. ThemTates @72. I scrolled through every comment looking for an ally in BETAKE! Thank you!

77. Late to the show, but does anyone else think there are often more risqué clues around when Private Eye comes out?
    Thanks Tramp and Andrew.

78. I finished with DISC but unsure it was a plate. Yes we had gnome as ADAGE or similar quite recently.
    Thanks Tramp and Andrew

79. I found this quite challenging but got there. I have a couple of parsing quibbles though..
    1A – ‘one (A) in front of (B)ritney Spears’ would suggest ABLANCE
    16D Dirty (Blue) + Harry (Pester) minus the S (half-hearted doesn’t seem a fair direction).

80. Ellie: in 1a you have to split the misleading “in front” – it’s “one in (front of Britney + spears)”

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