Guardian 29,264 / Jack

82 comments on “Guardian 29,264 / Jack”

1. Thanks Jack and Wileen
   I had several question marks too, including AUTOPILOT and SCHOOLING (though I think your tentative suggestion on the latter might be right, Eileen). I still don’t see why “ring” gives RIM in 10a.
   Favourites 5d and 23a.

2. [Sorry about the typo, Eileen!]

3. Thankyou Eileen for your superb explication of Jack’s challenging puzzle.
   3D was spectacular the whole surface and the wordplay. Best estate clued by Utopia with a moved to the top was a masterpiece.

4. I think autopilot is ‘best estate’ = UTOPIA with the A ‘raised’, then LOT = fortune?

5. 3d UTOPIA with A raised

6. 2d I think ‘best estate’ is perhaps UTOPIA with the A raised.

7. 3 down starts with utopia with a raised a

8. Thanks all – I knew I could depend on you. 😉

9. Autopilot : utopia (best estate) has raised A = autopi + lot
   I reckon

10. I thought A1 LOT was the best estate and POT rising could be a fortune, but I can’t justify the U.
    Good puzzle from Jack, though and thanks as ever to Eileen.

11. Ignore above comment @10. I should have waited!

12. Jack 3 down

    Pilots and yachtsmen refer to their autopilot as ‘George’. I don’t know why.

13. I came here for the parsing of SCHOOLING and AUTOPILOT too, so glad to see I wasn’t the only one.

    Thank you to Eileen and Jack.

14. Richard Hodgson @12 – see here: https://airplaneacademy.com/why-is-the-autopilot-called-george-two-prevailing-theories/

15. Thank you, Eileen, don’t envy you this blog one bit!

    Fine crossword (loved the JKJ gag) but marred by my inability to parse several.

    PRIMP went in early but how is rim a ring?

    I,too thought of choo-choo but thought surely not?

16. CHOO as 50% of training (choo-choo) works for me, and I’m not an anorak.

17. ‘Will’ is hand down (in an estate!) in 12.

18. I got the Utopia with ‘a’ raised. This uncertain etymology came from Googling

    Why is autopilot called George?

    The etymology of the nickname is unclear: some claim it is a reference to inventor George De Beeson, who patented an autopilot in the 1930s, while others claim that Royal Air Force pilots coined the term during World War II to symbolize that their aircraft technically belonged to King George VI.

    Thank you Jack and Eileen.11

19. If you aren’t easily offended. see here for George in action!

20. Eileen, I too was stumped by AUTOPILOT, so you’re not alone. By the way, is George/autopilot a British thing? (From your link, it would seem so.) I also thought “Surely not?” for the choo-choo.

    Most enjoyable, thanks Jack.

21. muffin @1 and William @15
    Collins – RIM: basketball; the hoop from which the net is suspended.

    GDU @20 – I’m really kicking myself over AUTOPILOT, which is now a top favourite! It does seem to be a British thing from the link I gave @14.

22. Failed to solve 17d.

    Favourite: semitransparent.

    New for me: ENTERAL; GEORGE = autopilot.

    I was unsure how to parse 18ac, 22ac, 3d.

    Thanks, all.

23. Thanks Eileen @21. Still a bit of a strech – you have to go hoop>ring>rim

24. Lots of satisfying clues to solve here and though I didn’t understand AUTOPILOT either, it fitted well enough for me to say that it worked. I can’t see anything else going on in terms of ninas etc., but then I am sometimes not very good at the “big picture”. Firm favourite was 2d TOM, DICK AND HARRY. Thank Eileen – super blog – and Jack – great puzzle!

25. SCHOOLING
    train
    intransitive verb
    to travel by rail
    What is used for training=TRAIN=CHOO-CHOO.

    Thanks, Jack and Eileen! Lovely puzzle and an excellent blog as usual!

26. I mean, for a depilator to go through locks you have to be shaggy indeed!

    One of many “OK, but”s in this puzzle.

27. I found this very hard, with AUTOPILOT, TAKE LEAVE, PEAL and SCHOOLING unparsed. Having read the blog and comments, I think the first three of these are excellent clues, but if SCHOOLING really is about 50% of choo-choo then I don’t think much of it. Like others, also doubtful about rim=ring (Eileen@21 – thanks, I suppose that justifies it, but I’m still not really convinced).
    I seem to recall reading in some boys’ magazine as a child, that GEORGE was an acronym for Gyro-Electric O… R… Equipment, but I’ve completely forgotten what the O and R stood for.
    Thanks Eileen and Jack.

28. me@27 … Should have checked before posting – “PEAL” should of course be “PEARL”, and I also can’t recall what the second G in GEORGE stood for.

29. 9a Unclear second issue published additional books (15) SEMITRANSPARENT
    2d Random dirty hack affected everybody (3,4,3,5)TOM DICK AND HARRY

30. FrankieG @29
    Sorry, I don’t understand your comment – would you please explain it?

31. Very nice crossword today. Good long anagrams which helped. Thanks Jack and Eileen. Couldn’t parse AUTOPILOT…thanks to our fellow commenters for their help with this.

32. I’d never heard of George for an autopilot, but very slowly came to the realisation that the only feasible role George could be playing was as the definition, and worked it out from there, which also confirmed my uncertain PRIMP. Chambers gives RIM as ‘an encircling band, mark or line’, or as a verb ‘to provide with a rim’, which seems close enough to ‘ring’ for me.

    Some lovely stuff in here, but I think my favourites were the simple CESSPIT and OBESE.

    Thanks Jack & Eileen.

33. me@25 contd…just adding a bit
    What is used for training=What is used for traveling by rail=(a) train=(a) CHOO-CHOO.

34. Eileen @30
    I think Frankie is referring Prince Harry’s autobiography “Spare”.

35. Amoeba@32
    PRIMP
    I agree with you on your explanation for ring=RIM.
    And under ‘ring’ Chambers gives ‘a rim’ as one of the entries.

36. A brilliant puzzle. Like Eileen I stared at 3d for ages but couldn’t parse it. So thanks to Paddy Melon @3 and others for sorting it. What a superb clue! Though I didn’t know George was an autopilot! The link between 2d and 22a was clever & amusing.

37. Thanks, muffin @34.

38. 9a Unclear second issue published additional books (15) SEMITRANSPARENT
    Prince Harry – a famous “second issue” – (heir and a spare) – wrote a book called Spare appearing here
    2d Random dirty hack affected everybody (3,4,3,5)TOM DICK AND HARRY
    He’s also the victim of a “Random dirty (phone) hack” and appearing here.

39. … and FrankieG @38.

    KVa @25 and 33
    Thanks, yes, that’s the way I was reading it – I just couldn’t believe he was using CHOO-CHOO! (But I quite like it now.)

40. What lucky Eileen said in her introduction

    Many thanks to her and Jack

41. This was superb. It took me ages to see how AUTOPILOT worked, and when I spotted it (from looking at UTOPI written in the grid) it was an immensely satisfying lightbulb moment. I am hugely comforted to think that for once I spotted unaided something that Eileen missed.
    The other thing I miss (and fortunately I don’t have the technical skills to insert it) was a link to the priapic autopilot in Airplane.
    “Trains and boats and ‘planes” and the outrageous clue for SCHOOLING was laugh-out-loud stuff.
    The anagram for TOM, DICK AND HARRY is a brilliant spot, and I think the immaculate charade for SEMI-TRANSPARENT is a thing of beauty. Cluing THREE MEN IN A BOAT as T, D & H AT SEA? (with the question mark carefully inserted) was very clever, not least because I can’t have been the only person to spend time being misdirected towards Sherlock Holmes’ address.
    Setters are often told to pare clues down, the shorter the better; but the very slightly wordy 17d demonstrates that in the hands of a really good setter (and this was Jack absolutely on the top of his game) a bit more can be more.
    Thanks to Jack for a first-rate puzzle and to Eileen for the customarily crystal-clear blog.

42. The only significance I could see in the Ls was that at times I didn’t know what the ‘ell was going on. Great puzzle, though. Thanks.

43. NeilH @41
    See my link @19 (if you must!)

44. Clever and entertaining puzzle from Jack. I confess that the Jerome novel and SCHOOLING flew in from the enumeration and crossings and I didn’t stop to parse them. AUTOPILOT was LOI, again unparsed, as the significance of George was lost on me.

    Lots of good things. CESSPIT one of the best hidden clues for a long time.

    Thanks to Jack and Eileen

45. I vaguely remember a 1938 George Formby film “Let George do it” which could be relevant

46. Having played a lot of basketball, I had no problem equating ‘rim’ and ‘ring’ – both being commonly used for the hoop. This was tough, but I got there. I did spot the Utopia, though not the choo-choo, and missed quite a bit of the other cleverness (thanks, FrankieG @38, and Eileen for the AT SEA links). And to Jack as well.

47. Brilliantly inventive. I missed the choo-choo train and failed to make the utopia / best estate connection.
    Top marks for SHARD, TAKE LEAVE, and SURROGATE for the ambiguous anagrinds
    PEARLL got a lot easier once my brain stopped reading it as “precious metal” 🙂

    Cheers E&J

48. I parsed the “will” in TAKE LEAVE as a transitive verb synonym for bequeath but Eileen’s version works just as well

49. Fair enough, bodycheetah – I think you’re right. (And apologies to Jess @17 for having overlooked your similar comment.)

50. [I’ve posted a link in General Discussion about rhoticity.]

51. A delightful challenge that left all solved but several unparsed. I completely missed UTOPIA and nho GEORGE, but bunged in autopilot from the crossers. Also failed to parse 18A and 22A, the latter being brilliant in hindsight. Lots of great surfaces here.

    Thank you Eileen plus various commentators for explication, and Jack for the puzzle.

52. Has no one spotted a hidden something today? (It would be quite unusual for there not to be one.)

53. Isn’t George the name of the autopilot in the film Airplane?

54. Muffin @43 – Thank you. I should have looked more closely.
    Now I genuinely couldn’t ask for more 😉

55. Wow. That was a wonderful treat to (almost) see out the year. Like many, I could not parse AUTOPILOT (am stunned and delighted by the solution provided by @3-7 above), nor SCHOOLING. PHIAL was my favourite, with SHARD the last one in; only when I had S_ARD from ‘doctor’ and the crossers did the penny drop. Many thanks Jack and congratulations Eileen on a first class blog.

56. I somehow managed to convince myself that “a gate” was “a reporter’s way of making progress” in the sense that every successful reporter needs their own Watergate.

57. Thought this beautifully put together, though like others I had problems with the parsing of AUTOPILOT or SCHOOLING. Ashamed to admit I never even noticed that CESSPIT was a hidden word, as I was wondering about the provenance of that as well before I read Eileen’s blog. Last one in, perhaps surprisingly was the Jerome K Jerome book title. Well done Jack today, and TOM DICK AND HARRY, too…

58. …though I suppose one could say that Jack the setter appears as Me in Three MEn In A Boat, in the author of that book’s name in JeroME K JeroME, twice, and also in the clueing of 24ac as “one” there. Better get my hat….

59. Best crossword I have done in a long time. Congrats to Jack and thanks to Eileen for the blog.

60. I assumed that ring =rim referred to the ring around Uranus. If you get my drift.

61. I failed on AUTOPILOT, and having never heard of George, can comfortably say I would never have gotten there.

    TOM, DICK, AND HARRY went in early for me, so I spent the rest of the puzzle with this Cole Porter earworm. It’s performed in thar clip by the incomparable Ann Miller, paired for once with dancers who can keep up.

62. thoroughly enjoyed this, thanks to all those who explained AUTOPILOT

63. I got there in the end. Absolutely brilliant. Everything is gettable but oooooh such a lot of thinking required. Very clever. Lots of variety.

    Jack / Serpent is my favourite setter ever (for me, even better than my once-beloved Araucaria, which is saying a lot!). ??

64. Oops. ?? Not intended!

65. Yes, Chezzbutt @ 60, I was just going to say that. If you know, you know: if you don’t, better keep it that way. Google at your own risk.

66. I also found this to be an enjoyable workout and I managed to complete it without too much difficulty, though like others I was not certain of some of the parsings. I had at one time known that autopilots were called George, but it took a while for the penny to drop and I didn’t fully understand how it all fitted together. I was initially mis-directed by the fact that George Best is also an airport. With thanks to Jack and Eileen.

67. For what it’s worth, I thought of RING and RIM as verbs, in the sense mentioned by Amoeba @32 (not in the sense referred to by Chezzbutt @60, which would be quite dirty even if this were a Paul puzzle!). I hadn’t thought of the basketball sense.

    This was a delightful puzzle, full of surprises. I loved CHOO, and now that you all have been kind enough to explain it for me, I especially love AUTOPILOT.

68. I thought this was a bit more straightforward than some of Jack’s puzzles, possibly because of the anagrams, although I failed to parse AUTOPILOT and SCHOOLING.

    I ‘liked’ the surface of CESSPIT, the natty charade for SEMITRANSPARENT, the extended definition for PAYMENT, the good ‘aural wordplay’ for DISAPPEAR, and the ‘partner after demerger’ in EXALTED.

    Thanks Jack and Eileen.

69. Delightful puzzle, thanks Jack and Eileen. Pretty much all the same ticks as Eileen had. AUTOPILOT was a bung-and-15^2, never having heard of George and not coming close to seeing UTOPIA etc.–thanks for the help! [Chemist@53, I think the autopilot in Airplane! was “Otto”; one of the charms of those movies is that they aren’t subtle.]

    Gave myself an extra challenge by bungling some anagrams, miscounting the letters in “old pirate” to think there must be something else there, and somehow becoming convinced that the A I got in 16ac meant it had to be an anagram of “star upset” rather than “rogue star.”

    And always happy to be reminded of Three Men in a Boat–to say nothing of the dog!

70. Thanks Jack. I mostly enjoyed this but I failed to parse several answers including AUTOPILOT which required knowing what “George” meant — too obscure for me. I liked clues such as SURROGATE, DISAPPEAR, PEARL, and ABSTINENT and the long anagrams but I was disappointed in not seeing a nina or a theme of some sort. Thanks Eileen for the blog.

71. All I could think of for 18ac was C and L for about 50 (ignoring the %) inserted into shooing – which, of course, is not the same as throwing away, but close-ish?

72. I found this generally enjoyable with a pleasing range of difficulty, so thanks Jack. AUTOPILOT was at the hardest end. I know I’m in a minority in saying that despite its ingenuity, the combination of an obscure/loose definition, and tricky wordplay makes it unsatisfactory at best. Ta to Eileen as ever.

73. I’m a little surprised how many people were unfamiliar with George for AUTOPILOT. Wrong generation, perhaps?

74. Loved this puzzle as much as the blog and comments. As per NeilH@41 I appreciated the lengthy wordplay which cast the jaded former lover in a new light and provided a fresh challenge in anagram spotting. Thanks Jack, Eileen and fellow contributors.

75. Many thanks to Eileen for the lovely blog, and to everyone who has taken the time to leave a comment.

76. Thank you Jack for dropping in. Hope you have seen how so many of us enjoyed your offering. Looking forward to more of you in the Guardian cryptic, or prize, position in 2024.

    If anyone’s still there mulling over these clues …. I wonder if even people knew or found the George definition for AUTOPILOT, that the difficulty was compounded, by solving on phones, with an indicator (raised) operating on a down clue. I was only able to solve this when looking at the grid, instead of trying to put the pieces together in the left to right orientation of the clue. (These things occur to me more vividly when I’m attempting to solve on phone, as opposed to print-out or desktop. Maybe setters are aware of this and can take advantage of it? Solvers, knowledge is power! 🙂
    Best wishes for 2024 everyone.

77. Pacific RIM = RING of fire? Just thinking ….

78. Rim for ring. The rim of a cup or a plate is (usually) a circle.

79. Chezzbutt@60 – I get your drift – 🙂
    Noticed CESSPIT and MISSTEP in column one could be anagrams of each other, after a bit of initial roman numeral multiplication or division.

80. Thanks to Jack for another excellent grid – completely share Eileen’s take on it. Can I offer an alternative parsing for SCHOOLING. I think that the words SCHOOLING and ABOUT are used twice. SCHOOLING becomes the answer but is also a synonym for TRAINING. ABOUT is used once to indicate that SLING is separated; and to indicate the removal of nearly half the letters of SCHOOLING. So, taking SLING (nearly 50% of its letters) from SCHOOLING leaves CHOO. I think.

81. Here’s yet another parsing for SCHOOLING: C = circa (about), H = half, OO = gauge used by (model) trains. I’ll get my anorak…

82. I found it really tricky to get a foothold in this, until the long ones at 2d and 22a helped each other to solve themselves. This helped me to write in CUTLASS (having seen ‘dock’=CUT but being reluctant to commit) and the unparsed SCHOOLING (‘used for training’=CHOO-CHOO is outrageous).

    ‘Partner after demerger’ was an innovative way to clue the EX in 17d, and ‘smashing result’ was also an eye-opener after having to try various second letters in S_A_D. I’m less impressed with ‘perk of job?’ for going on holiday, but hey ho.

    Thanks to Jack and Eileen.

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