Guardian Cryptic 29,220 by Vulcan

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A fun solve with many neat surfaces – my favourites clues were 18ac, 22ac, 27ac, 28ac, and 5dn. Thanks to Vulcan

 

ACROSS
1 SOLICIT
Proposition, very above board (7)
SO=”very” + LICIT=”above board”
5 MARS BAR
Some confectionery spoils on counter (4,3)
definition: a brand of chocolate bar

MARS (as in ‘to mar’)=”spoils” + BAR=”counter”
9 AESOP
Fabulous old author? (5)
cryptic definition: “Fabulous” meaning ‘like in fable’ or perhaps ‘to do with fables’ – Aesop is known for a collection of Fables [wiki]
10 PUSSYFOOT
Act timidly, but one could show claws (9)
“one could show claws” referring to the FOOT of a PUSSY cat
11 SPRING ROLL
Source some bread, a Chinese savoury (6,4)
SPRING=”Source” + ROLL=”some bread”
12 HAL
Computer filmed Shakespeare’s prince (3)
double definition: HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey [wiki]; or Prince Hal (who would become Henry V) in Shakespeare [wiki]
14 CATASTROPHES
Unfortunate outcomes of a song for chorus in musical (12)
A (from surface) + STROPHE=”song for [a Greek] chorus”; all in CATS the “musical” [wiki]
18 HORSESHOE BAT
Mammal and steed both sea-sick (9,3)
HORSE=”steed” + anagram/”sick” of (both sea)*
21 BAN
Injunction makes group finish early (3)
BAN-[d]=”group”, finishing early without its last letter
22 PERPETRATE
Commit a charge for each cat or dog? (10)
a PER PET RATE (i.e. a rate charged per pet)=”a charge for each cat or dog?”
25 UNAMUSING
Boring, girl contemplating (9)
UNA=name for a “girl” + MUSING=”contemplating”
26 SHRUB
Plant personnel tucking into sandwich (5)
HR (human resources / personnel department), inside SUB=”sandwich”
27 SAYINGS
Pronouncing the sibilant in “epigrams” (7)
SAYING [the sound of the letter] S=”Pronouncing the sibilant”
28 NOSEBAG
Baked beans go into feeder (7)
anagram/”Baked” of (beans go)*
DOWN
1 SPARSE
After fights, English scattered (6)
SPARS=”fights” with E (English) after
2 LUSTRE
Remarkable result brings distinction (6)
anagram/”Remarkable” of (result)*
3 COPENHAGEN
Unusual change closes free city (10)
anagram/”Unusual” of (change)*, closing around OPEN=”free”
4 TAPER
Get smaller and lighter (5)
double definition: as verb=’to lessen’; or a TAPER (noun) used as a lighter of e.g. candles
5 MISTLETOE
Bunch up at Christmas, hoping for a kiss? (9)
cryptic definition: a “Bunch” as in a bouquet of flowers, placed “up” above people, rather than “Bunch up” as a phrase meaning to get close together
6 RHYS
Welshman coming first in relay heat, you second (4)
first letters from R-elay H-eat Y-ou S-econd
7 BROUHAHA
Tea announced: sort of funny fuss (8)
BROU sounds like (“announced”) ‘brew’=”Tea”, plus HAHA=”sort of funny” as in the phrase ‘funny haha, or funny peculiar?’
8 RUTHLESS
Not forgiving, like an incomplete Bible (8)
Ruth is a book of the Bible, so a RUTH-LESS Bible would be incomplete (missing a book)
13 POP ARTISTS
Modern painters rendered Trappist so (3,7)
anagram/”rendered” of (Trappist so)*
15 ATHLETICS
His cat let out for exercise (9)
anagram/”out” of (His cat let)*
16 THE BLUES
Music from university players (3,5)
reference to Oxford or Cambridge ‘blues’, players representing those universities in sports competitions
17 IRON LADY
Fe-female PM (4,4)
definition: nickname for Margaret Thatcher [wiki]

IRON (chemical element with symbol “Fe”) + LADY=”female”
19 ZAGREB
Unknown barge travels into capital (6)
Z (symbol in maths for an “Unknown” value) + anagram/”travels” of (barge)*
20 BEDBUG
Insect that secretly picks up pillow talk? (6)
a BUG (listening device) in a BED “secretly picks up pillow talk”
23 PAGAN
Sun worshipper perhaps again leaving India, under pressure (5)
AGA-i-N, leaving the letter i (India, in the NATO alphabet); and after/under P (pressure)
24 TURN
Opportunity: vegetable 1p off (4)
TURN-ip=”vegetable”, minus “1p” with i=1

63 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,220 by Vulcan”

  1. A fun solve I agree. Liked 10, 18, 7, but all inventive for a Monday, though possibly with a couple of chestnuts thrown in.
    Thanks manehi and Vulcan.

  3. Thank you manehi. MUSTLETOE is a bunch under which one mught have a kiss. Old tradition or wishful thinking.

  5. Great fun, and dare I make the comparison, much more straightforward than the Quiptic.
    Thanks to Vulcan and manehi.

  6. paddymelon has it right for MISTLETOE – rather an early reminder of Christmas! BEDBUG is unfortunately timely. COPENHAGEN, NOSEBAG and HORSESHOE BAT the standouts for me.

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO

  7. GDU@2, that’s no longer a valid excuse. Several Australian universities now award “blues” for sporting excellence, including Melbourne, Adelaide and Queensland.

  10. Can I second Postmark@6 adding RUTHLESS , it took a long time but made me smile when I twigged. Many thanks to steer and blogger as well.

  11. Thanks Vulcan and manehi
    Very nice solve – more satisfying than the (harder) Quiptic. Favourite TAPER for the neat way the meaning is changed.

    [In Swallows and Amazaons, Ruth Blackett has changed her name to Nancy as her Uncle Jim (later Captian Flint) told her that the Amazon pirates were ruthless…]

  13. I agree with manehi’s pick of the ‘bunch’ plus RUTHLESS. I parsed 27ac as pronounced=SAYING+S (sibilant). Very enjoyable solve with a few creatures included in both answers and clues. PUSSY, CAT, HORSE, BAT, BEDBUG and PEN.

    Ta Vulcan & manehi.

  15. nicbach @10, I also had to go through the books… johnless, lukeless, markless, amosless…. before I came upon RUTHLESS.

    I enjoyed SAYINGS for “pronouncing the sibilant” and the above mentioned RUTHLESS.

    I raised an eyebrow at distinction=lustre and closes as an inclusion indicator. CCD confirms the first but not the second of those.

    My first pass through I didn’t get a single across clue. Is it me becoming a crap solver or is Vulcan becoming intentionally more difficult?

  16. Loved perpetrate but spent too long trying to shoehorn essay (pronounce silibant) into an answer.

    Thanks Setter and Blogger

  18. I enjoyed the clear clueing in this puzzle.

    Lower half was easier for me.

    Favourites: PERPETRATE, BROUHAHA, SOLICIT, COPENHAGEN, catastrophes.

    New for me: HORSESHOE BAT.

    Thanks, both.

  19. I’m never *quite* on Vulcan’s wavelength, although it only took me slightly longer than the Quiptic. NHO STROPHE, but I’m sure it’ll come in handy in the future.

    PERPETRATE was delightful.

    Thanks manehi & Vulcan.

  20. Very enjoyable. For me too RUTHLESS was a favourite and it came quite quickly as I have always chuckled on remembering somebody’s (I forget who’s) quip – ‘yes, totally without ruth’. Paired in my mind with a friend’s description of a date as “a night of totally bridled passion” (again, no idea if it was original to her). Thanks Manehi and Vulcan.

  21. michelle @18
    HORSESHOE BATS are so-called because their noses look a bit like a horseshoe. This is the Wiki article, though there are better pictures to be found online.

  22. Took a while to get going on this but enjoyed it

    Favourites: PERPETRATE, BROUHAHA, RUTHLESS, ZAGREB, TURN

    Not heard of STROPHE

    Thanks Vulcan and manehi

  23. So for those who haven’t heard of it, the strophe is the first part of the chorus; the performers sing or declaim it while moving one way across the stage. It’s followed by the antistrophe, a contrasting section during which the choristers move the opposite way across the stage. Then comes the epode, a usually brief concluding section resolving or just commenting on the tension between strophe and antistrophe.

    I once wrote this clue: Without mercy, like the New York Yankees after 1934? (8), but I like the version here much better.

  28. Like muffin @11, Arthur Ransome helped me to solve RUTHLESS without (like Tim C@15) having to think of other books in the bible before the penny dropped. Who would have thought, when I first started reading his books almost 60 years ago that he would still be so valuable today.

    Nice to see the UNA device making another reappearance – see this for what I think was its first. Hopefully it didn’t fool so many as previously.

    Thanks to Vulcan and manehi.

  29. I failed to solve quite a number of Acrosses at the beginning but the Downs provided a more fruitful journey.

    I liked the part anagram for HORSESHOE BAT, where I at first tried to use steed as part of the fodder, the baked beans in NOSE BAG, the wordplay in PAGAN, and my LOI RUTHLESS, where I thought there must be a strange old version of the bible that was unknown to me. I think in the clue for COPENHAGEN ‘closes around’ might have been more helpful.

    Thanks Vulcan and manehi.

  30. Liked all of PUSSYFOOT, HORSESHOE BAT and TAPER, and indeed several others this morning. However my usual impetuosity – whacking in Earwig with the G from NOSEBAG already in place, rather than BEDBUG – meant that the SE corner took a while to untangle at the end. I suppose if I had misspelled TAPER as Tapir, I might have had my hand up to suggest some kind of creature/animal theme. Thanks Vulcan and Manehi…

  31. SH@28, to quote some idiot from the link you posted “If I were to write down the top 500 female names that I know, I don’t think Una would make it. (I don’t know if I’d get to 500, but she most probably wouldn’t have been there anyway (before today))”. I think if you asked that idiot the same question now, it would be in the top 10 (although he’s still never met an actual one).

    And I’m sure the early finishing group was a band, but bank might also work (especially for the synth players among us).

    Favourites were PERPETRATE and RUTHLESS

  33. Most enjoyable puzzle with concise clues and smooth surfaces. Lots of favourites, all of which have been mentioned by one poster or another. I’m surprised manehi missed the Yuletide significance of MISTLETOE 🙂

    BEDBUG could also be considered as an extended definition: ‘pillow talk’ would release carbon dioxide in the breath – that attracts the nasty critters.

    Thanks to S&B

  35. A delightful start to the week. Nothing too taxing, but not a write-in either (for me at least). I liked IRON LADY, BROUHAHA and PUSSYFOOT. I got ZAGREB without difficulty, but shouldn’t it be the Z going into BARGE, rather than the other way around (?). Anyway, thanks to Vulcan and manehi.

  36. Gervase@33. Christmas is mentioned in the clue, so perhaps mentioning it in the blog as well would be otiose?

  38. Plenty to enjoy here, thanks Vulcan and mane hi. Good learning for a Monday, never having heard of strophe, so thanks to Mr Penney too.

  39. 3/4 of this went in fairly quickly but for reasons I now cannot fathom, the NW only yielded after a pause. I agree with all the positive comments today as I really enjoyed this. Spring Roll and Ruthless were favourites. Thanks to Vulcan and manehi.
    (The only Una I can recall is Una Stubbs who had the honour of playing Alf Garnett’s daughter in Till Death us do Part and, if my memory is correct, was on the London bus with Cliff Richard in Summer Holiday.)

  44. [JerryG @39: Una Stubbs more recently played Mrs Hudson in the updated series ‘Sherlock’. Una appears in Spenser’s ‘The Faerie Queene’, accompanied by the Redcrosse Knight. The name is alternatively spelled Oona, as in the UK politician Oona King]

  45. Thanks for the comments all.

    On MISTLETOE, sorry I wasn’t more clear. The blog entry only focuses on the element of the clue that I saw as being the more ‘cryptic’ part of the definition i.e. “Bunch up” is the part that for me has to be read ‘not in the misleading way’ in order to understand the definition.

  46. This was Vulcan at his best – great surfaces full of humour. Too many ticks to list them all, so I’ll just mention 10a PUSSYFOOT, 22a PERPETRATE, 7d BROUHAHA (nice aural wordplay), and 20d BEDBUG. (Like Ronald@30, I tried “earwig” at first, then chuckled when I saw the light.)

    Thanks Vulcan and manehi for the cheerful start to the day.

  47. I did what I did very quickly but had to cheat and reveal UNAMUSING, THE BLUES and TURN with SAYINGS my last one in before cheating. Great crossword though, probably easier than average I’d say.

  50. Excellent outing from Vulcan, pitch perfect for a Monday. Loads to enjoy but my favourites were SAYINGS, PERPETRATE and NOSEBAG. Never heard of “strophe” or a HORSESHOE BAT but the solutions could hardly be anything else. “Z” for unknown is one those crossword-specific bits of knowledge that always slips my mind (need to file it somewhere with Elia and llano), so ZAGREB took me longer than it should have. Great stuff, thanks Vulcan for the puzzle and manehi for the enlightening blog.

  52. Gervase @44: I didn’t know Una and Oona were the same name, which would probably make its most famous holder Oona O’Neill Chaplin, Eugene O’Neill’s daughter and Charlie Chaplin’s final wife. She had a granddaughter, also named Oona Chaplin, who has had some acting success on TV.

    All short words with at least as many vowels as consonants are common gridfill in American-style crosswords, so Oona is Crosswordland’s most popular Chaplin.

  56. I am all over the place.

    I seem to have lost the basics completely. I must be doing multiple things wrong.

    How do I read the across clues?

    I have managed to solve 12, 25, 27a, & 13d, 15d, 17d, 24d.

  57. Steffen if you’re still around. When I started doing these cryptic crosswords – 50 years ago – I would get about as many as you have today. You just have to keep plugging away. Someone like Vulcan, and Everyman in the Observer, are good for starters, but it’s also useful to go through those that you can’t even start and try to figure out how they work.

    You have an advantage over us old-timers in that you have this blog to help you. (I used to look at the answers in the paper next day. No explanations were available.) From the clues that you solved today, I would guess that you are reading the clues literally – and this sometimes works, so don’t stop! You must also get in the habit of splitting the clues up into bite-sized bits and see if they could possibly mean something else. Try to forget what the surface of the clue seems to be telling you – it is usually misleading!

    But to really help yourself to improve, I would suggest that you read the blog one clue at a time, then write the answer in your own grid, and then have a look at what crossers you now have. Try the other clues with the additional crossers, see if you get any ideas. Then look at another clue in the blog. Just one clue at a time, then think about it, then see how it might help you with crossers. (Here’s an example: 22a has ‘cat or dog?’ which suggests PET. Then I got 23d PAGAN, which gave me a P in 22a, so now I knew where PET could fit and it gives me an idea of the shape of the solution. ‘For each’ suggests PER, and now it’s coming together.)

    Rinse and repeat.

  61. Very annoyed with myself for not getting 16d, having just learned about university “blues” from last Monday’s quiptic. I liked RUTHLESS, PERPETRATE and BROUHAHA, though I wasn’t clever enough to get any of them.

  62. Steffen @56, you and I are both beginners and @57 sheffieldhatter is right – just keep going! I take a day to do each crossword and use the check button often if I think I have part of it. I use the Wikipedia “crossword abbreviation”
    page to see if the clues have one of these in from the words. That and the crossers and getting all the anagrams helps. Then I come here and read the blog and learn “crossword speak” little by little. It seems that these folks have been doing them for years and can spot all the tricks. Eg “primarily” and “lastly” often mean the first or last letter of the word before. Or “endless” means the word (or a synonym of it) has the last letter(s) taken off! It gradually becomes less murky!

  63. I was convinced 26 across was CAROB. ‘Sandwich’ = COB and ‘personnel’ = Army Reserve (AR). Must be the influence of living in the Midlands. Stopped me from getting POP ARTISTS despite having spotted the anagram.

    Loved PERPETRATE.

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