Guardian Cryptic 29,268 by Yank

94 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,268 by Yank”

1. Welcome Yank. Ticks for LOST FACE and LAME EXCUSE. Seemed to be a lot of two word answers

   Cheers Y&L

2. AUNT POLLY was also a major character in Peaky Blinders for those who prefer more contemporary references

3. Thanks loonapick. I think the U / college synonym is an Americanism – and the setter’s name prepared me for this and for quite a few other Americanisms in the clueing. Welcome Yank and thanks for the fun.

4. Welcome, Yank.

   Sorry to be dim but I’m not seeing the connection between MAIN MENU andbegin here. Wouldn’t one be more likely to begin with the starters, say?

   Also, the cry of the buzzard is anything but hoarse. More of a piercing cry designed to make quarry bolt.

   Notwithstanding these minor quibbles, I enjoyed this offering from a new setter.

5. I was wondering about Aunt Sally for a while, or whether I needed to recall a Wooster relative that was not Agatha. nho AUNT POLLY in either Twain or Peaky Blinders. I certainly needed the crossers and POLLY/ALPHABET SOUP pretty much solved simultaneously.

   Faves included CARRIE FISHER, CAUTIONARY TALES, LOST FACE, LAME EXCUSE, EXTRA LARGE and KNIT. I struggled with HORSE, suspecting there was more to it: as we know, you can find a band name to fit just about any situation but I was still surprised to encounter on Google the album Horse Machine by Pumpkin Buzzard!

   Thanks Yank and loonapick

6. A new name on the top of my puzzle today and I found it refreshing and enjoyable. I particularly liked KNIT at 22d. Thanks to Yank and loonapick.

7. William@4 – MAIN MENU a computer reference?

8. Never heard ‘Polly wants a cracker’ (or remembered it from Treasure Island, so bunged in ‘fanny’ and then ‘nelly’ before the crossers put me right. I haven’t seen Peaky Blinders, so like loonapick I thought of the Tom Sawyer character. I too thought there was a transatlantic flavour to some of the clues today, but nothing to give too much difficulty. Liked 13 and 17, and refreshing to have a new setter. So thanks to Yank and to loonapick for the blog.

9. William @4 you ‘begin’ at the main menu in a website I think. But I agree, the call of the many buzzards that fly over my house is anything but hoarse.

10. Thank you loonapick. Needed your prompting about Aunt Polly. I found lots to like in Yank’s offering, especially the 2 word answers and CRYPTO and GARBANZO for their currency. :- )
    I don’t think of whales as greedy types. Is that American?
    I learnt something about buzzards and their voice boxes, or lack thereof. I thought I had the answer for the creature sounding like a buzzard. A BEING!

11. William@4 and JinA@7, yes, when working through selections on a web page, for example, you start on the main menu and then move on to sub-menus.

12. Why are trusted friends main men?

    Unfamiliar with Mark Twain, I didn’t know where Aunt Polly came from.

    I thought the clue for ALPHABET SOUP was a bit lame. I spent a while looking for some clever wordplay but didn’t find it.

    This was most enjoyable, and on the easier side of average. I wasn’t sure with this new setter whether to expect American spellings!

    Thanks Yank & Loonapick.

13. Thanks Yank and loonapick
    Rapid solve, but not without some question marks, in particular the animal references. Buzzards make a tuneful high-pitched whistling noise, anything but hoarse, as Redrodney says, and whales are not known for being greedy (see the Just So stories!)
    Favourite FRESH AIR.

14. Muffin@13

    Chambers has “whale” being a person with a very large appetite.

15. GDU @12

    A main man, normally singular, is a trusted friend (as in He’s my main man). I did hesitate at the thought of someone having more than one main man, though.

16. New setter but same old Guardian: almost but not quite.

    It’s not too good here and there, but I’d point to GARBANZO as an example of a failure to pick up on grammar, which word also, as blogged, shouldn’t really be in a daily puzzle. Was it an 8 for a crossword puzzle? Not completely, as there are some flashes here, but a poor performance again from the Guardian’s crossword editor.

17. I think the explanation of the “hoarse” buzzard is another Americanism – to those of us in the UK the buzzard is Buteo buteo, and has a more piercing cry. To many Americans the “buzzard” is the turkey vulture (Cathartes genus) which has no proper vocal organs for a song or call and so produces a rasping hiss.

    That, and a couple of other unindicated Americanisms (such as “main men”), were somewhat annoying as they drew my attention away from what as otherwise a very enjoyable debut puzzle where I felt the setter had worked very hard to produce smooth surfaces.

    So thank you Yank and also loonapick. HNY.

18. Solved one clue only (2d TEAL), gave up and came here to read the blog.

    Thanks, loonapick.

19. Loonapick @14
    Have you ever seen whale used in that sense? I haven’t.

    [Jack’s post @17 inspires me to post an interesting aside. When the inventor of table football was not allowed to patent it under the name “hobby”, he chose instead to name it after the bird, the hobby, scientific name Falco subbuteo…]

20. Maybe it’s having grown up in the US, but most flowed quite quickly (and enjoyably for that). HERE GOES took me about as long as the rest combined!

    With yank and pangakupu, is the grauniad diversifying?

21. I only got one clue on a first read through, but then the answers slowly emerged. Like others, 25 was last, but rewarding. Good to see a new setter given we lost a couple last year.
    Thanks Yank and loonapick, and fellow solvers, happy new year let’s hope!

22. Failed on ‘Garbanzo’, which is new to me, because I did not think of NZ as a Pacific nation.

23. Jack of Few Trades @17 has hit the nail on the head – the US buzzard is not the same bird as the UK buzzard (see also: robin). I had no problem with the Americanisms. There’s a bit of a clue in the setter’s pseudonym, surely? Let’s not be too parochial. None of the Americanisms are particularly obscure – well, none were unknown to me, which is all I care about – so I’m happy with a bit of diversity.

    Welcome aboard, Yank. And thanks to Loonapick as ever for the blog.

24. Muffin @19: I was going to mention that story, about Peter Adolph, but felt I’d rambled on too long already as I know people’s tolerance for bird-related facts can be infinite or zero (a bit like cricket). I think Subbuteo is a trademark name rather than the patent name btw but it is a lovely story.

25. With regards to the voraciousness or otherwise of whales, may I draw attention to “The Whale”, for which Brendan Fraser won an Oscar just last year?
    Loonapick @15: 2 people, each has a ‘main man’. Thus 2 main men.
    Also – some people expect a lot from a free crossword. I think the Guardian does a great job getting one out at all. I may have the occasional small axe to grind, but it’s only a crossword.

26. I searched for “hoarse buzzard” and found that the Black-breasted Buzzard has a hoarse cry. Like others have said, the name Yank primed me to think ‘American’ and excused college=uni, as well as that other name for chick peas. An interesting mix of some very accessible and some meatier clues. Thanks, Yank and loonapick.

27. Welcome to Yank! I enjoyed this debut puzzle – a breath of FRESH AIR, indeed.

    I’ll go along with PostMark’s favourites @5, adding ALPHABET SOUP.

    Thanks to Yank and to loonapick.

28. Took me a little while to get on Lark’s wavelength, but I enjoyed it once I did. MAIN MEN made sense to me, but doesn’t appear in my Chambers at all and probably is an Americanism that’s not quite crossed over enough to do away with the indicator.

    No issue at all with GARBANZO – I’ve vaguely heard of it, but more importantly the grammar is absolutely fine and the wordplay clear.

    Thanks loonapick, and thanks & welcome Yank.

29. PI as something irrational is one of those that I never manage to get my head round: I got the answer that it was part of but without the parsing.

    This was a good puzzle, I thought. When I’ve done a puzzle by a new or unfamiliar setter previously, it’s taken time to get into the right headspace, but today’s offering didn’t seem to present that additional barrier.

30. Muffin @ 19: Falco played for Spurs …

31. Good to have a new compiler on board. Most of this went in very smoothly but I hit minor wall before HORSE and ALPHABET SOUP fell into place. (Btw I’m very grateful for the explanation of the former, having heard our very vocal UK buzzards.)

    Thanks Yank and loonapick

32. I liked CRYPTO and LAME EXCUSE and was perplexed for a while by the buzzard. Overall I thought this was a good debut.

33. Thoroughly enjoyed this although I did have to dive into a reference book (aka Google) for ‘types of beans’. On completion my solving friend smugly told me he’d enjoyed many Garbanzo soups in Spain.
    ‘HERE GOES’ occupied 20% or so of the whole solving time.
    Welcome Yank and thanks to loonapick.

34. Widdersbel@22 – regarding robin, amusing moment in Mary Poppins film when into an English window flies an American robin. Which lovely large bird is I believe a type of thrush.

35. Interested to know why you gave up so soon michelle @18, as you are one of our more accomplished solvers usually? I learned a new meaning for NONCE rather than the acronym ‘Not on normal courtyard exercise’. A welcome addition to this fabulous group of setters and nothing unfair about the Americanisms. My favourites were CARRIE FISHER, ALPHABET SOUP and CRYPTO.

    Ta Yank & loonapick.

36. I found this a mixture of almost trivially easy (not a complaint!) and thoroughly puzzling. The buzzard’s mew had me on completely the wrong track, and I just couldn’t see alphabet from the L, B and T, so some difficulty with the SW corner. But overall, most enjoyable.

37. I did not know the POLLY (“cracker eating bird”) reference, so thank you for the explanation. I found this to be an unusual crossword and there were a few clues that made me think YANK had overdid the New Year celebrations or maybe it was me who did that.

38. Some excellent clues, some dodgy ones. Partly because of American usages like the buzzard/turkey vulture. And is a chickpea a bean?

39. TonyM@34: Reminds me of the raccoons in Hyde Park in 101 Dalmations. Sigh. The American robin is migratory (the clue is in its name, Turdus migratorius) and is indeed a thrush.

40. Entertaining puzzle with a wide spread of difficulty in the clueing, but nothing too intractable. I have a lot of USAnian relatives, and I have travelled there often, so the vocab caused me no problems.

    Favourites: DRY RUN, HERE GOES (LOI). Interesting that CELL WALL is clued without any biological reference. I was not greatly enamoured of ALPHABET SOUP but that’s no big deal.

    Thanks to our new setter and loonapick

41. copland @38: Is a chickpea a bean? Debatable, but certainly a pulse. I don’t know why Americans use the Spanish name (which is of uncertain etymology – most European languages have names related to the Latin ‘cicer’).

42. Muffin @19: living here in the US I have often heard “whale” used in that sense. By extension it also refers to somebody who plays for large stakes in Las Vegas (and probably loses a lot too, making them very valuable customers), and in business to a very large customer or deal.

    So probably an Americanism.

43. Gervase @41: Americans use the Spanish name because the Spanish were here before the English and it stuck. Numerous other Spanish terms are used in America, especially in the southwest, and particularly for items of food that are more prevalent in Hispanic cooking than Anglo recipes.

44. It took me a few clues to pick up on Yank’s wavelength but once I did it was a pleasurable run to the finish line. As a native Englishmen resident in the US for nearly three decades, I did not even notice the Americana until reading the blog and comments, but can see how they would have thrown some people.

45. [Most pulses are of Old World origin. The exception is the various varieties of Phaseolus: kidney beans, cannellini, borlotti, haricot beans, which originated in Central America. Therefore it would seem more logical for Americans to call these ‘frijoles’ and retain the name’ ‘chickpea’ for Cicer arietinum 🙂 ]

46. Nice to see a new face around here, metaphorically speaking – or maybe I should say FOUND FACE.

    Like some others, took the longest time over HERE GOES. Something tells me that a more experienced setter would not have left a clue with such an indirect definition part to be helped by unhelpful crossers -E-E -O-S, but maybe I’m overthinking it.

47. Gervase @45 – Jacob’s correct though. Where there’s a difference in culinary terms between the UK and the US, it’s usually because we got it from French (viz pois chiche) and they got it from Spanish or Italian.

48. [MainMan the management behind David Bowie’s Hunky Dory(1971) and Lou Reed’s Transformer(1972)]

49. [Jacob @43: I don’t think the reason is that the Spanish colonised the Americas first, but rather that GARBANZOs were, and still are, prominent in Iberian cuisine, but absent from traditional English food. ( I can’t think offhand of any other Spanish terms used in the US for ingredients rather than composed dishes, other than cilantro (coriander)). This may also be the reason why the small green squashes are know as zucchini (with a different gender from the feminine ‘zucchine’ which is far more usual in Italy) – they were introduced by Italian immigrants. Brits rediscovered them with the postwar interest in Mediterranean food and adopted the French name ‘courgette’, together with ‘aubergine’, though curiously the Americans remembered the old English name ‘eggplant’]

50. Also Telegram Sam was T-Rex’s MAIN MAN so the expression has been around in the UK for a while

51. Widdersbel @47: We have crossed, due to your greater concision 🙂

52. Excellent, good fun!

53. Had an impetuous AUNT Sally instead of of POLLY, so that meant I struggled to get ALPHABET SOUP, HORSE, GARNANZO and HERE GOES, therefore, to finish off the SW corner. Did like EXTRA LARGE. Didn’t much like MAIN MENU or DRY RUN…

54. Apparently Yank is none other than the (former?) crossword editor of the Washington Post (info from Twitter/X). Very enjoyable Guardian debut, in my opinion. Thanks all…

55. Interesting puzzle. I’m sure we’ll find out in due course but with a nickname of Yank and the bits of Americanisms he/she will be well domiciled in Uncle Sam. Whether or not Yank is an expat like Brendan will be interesting to see. I wonder though if the reference to Peaky Blinders tells us something. Anyway a fun challenge and a good blog

56. Jorge @25 I guess the crossword is only free if you neither buy the paper or donate/subscribe to the online version. If you’re getting it free then I’m subsidising you!

57. [Widdersbel @47: Although the term ‘chickpea’ does indeed come from French, its usage in English predates the European colonisation of the Americas, so early English settlers could have taken the word over with them, but as they didn’t cultivate or consume those pulses, they obviously didn’t 🙂 ]

58. I was baffled by “nonce” = “for a special occasion”. I have only ever seen the word as a derogatory term for a sex offender.

    Did enjoy the crossword. Loved ALPHABET SOUP and AUNT POLLY.

    Thanks Yank and loonapick

59. For the record, chickpea and garbanzo bean are equally prevalent terms here (“here” being the Midwestern USA, which I should specify since it may be a different story in the Southwest). We do use the word chickpea!

    [Fun fact about cilantro/coriander: in America, the word coriander always refers to the seeds (used as a spice) and cilantro always refers to the leaves and stems (used as an herb). I imagine there are plenty of Americans who are unaware they’re the same plant!]

    Lastly, I was not surprised at how few knew AUNT POLLY, who also appears briefly in Huckleberry Finn, which until recently almost everyone read in high school and is arguably Twain’s masterpiece. (The book uses the N word quite a lot–naturally, since one of the two main characters is an escaped slave, and the other one, our narrator, is a white teenager from a slaveholding state, with all of the prejudices that come with that–but many 21st-century school boards still object.) Anyway, most Americans know of Aunt Polly. The book is worthy of reading, for those of you not allergic to American literature.

60. Very enjoyable. Thanks Yank and loonapick. STUPID was my favourite. NHO a buzzard being hoarse, and though I remember the phrase ‘for the nonce’ from my childhood I thought that people were using it to mean ‘for now’ rather than ‘for a special occasion’. Could be I was wrong, they were wrong, we both were wrong or we both were right and it is just a third meaning to add to the one in the puzzle and the sex offender.

61. [mrpenney @59: Thanks for the clarification – and the reminder that cilantro is AN herb, but coriander is A herb 🙂 ]

62. Are we sure that Polly wants a Cracker is in the novel Treasure Island by RLS. It doesn’t sound like him. The “main” parrot is, of course, Captain Flint (pieces of eight pieces of eight). I can see lots of references to Polly in Treasure Island (including purported text) on net but I remain unconvinced.

63. Thanks Yank for a gentle but well-written crossword. I value smooth surfaces and there were many here. My top clues included STUPID, AXON, NOSE, HERE GOES, CRYPTO, and LAME EXCUSE. Thanks loonapick for the blog.

64. Welcome Yank and thanks to loonapick. I was helped today on the Aunt problem by, coincidentally, today’s FarSide issue which features a crime scene with police investigating a murder. In the background is a parrot chanting: “Polly wanna cracker. … Polly wanna cracker. … Pretty bird. … HARRY! DON’T SHOOT! … Pretty bird.”

65. And before I forget

    Thanks Setter and Blogger. Needed help on a few parsings and agree with comments on new Setter

66. [mrpenny @59: Thanks for the comments on Huckleberry Finn. In my opinion it’s the greatest American novel by the greatest American writer. Perhaps the 21st century school boards who object are those that are more focused on indoctrination, not education.]

67. Matthew @62: No, we are not – I was puzzled by that as I know Treasure Island really rather well and it sounded very unlikely, so I’ve checked it in Project Gutenberg, where no Polly and no crackers appear. The phrase meant nothing to me at all, so like some others I bunged in Aunt Sally until it became obvious it was wrong.

68. Might it have been Captain Flint’s parrot Polly in Swallows and Amazons that wanted a cracker?

69. Thanks both.
    9a defeated me, not sure how MAIN MEN = TRUSTED FRIENDS, but the definition was well hidden.

70. Welcome Yank! I suppose there were many Americanisms as many of the things that people are complaining about seemed natural to me, such as the hoarse buzzard, garbanzo bean, and “Polly wanna cracker” as the proverbial utterance of a parrot. (It was the basis of a Public Enemy song on Fear Of A Black Planet as well.)

    I did not parse NO CHANCE but have fairly often heard “nonce word” as a word invented for a particular occasion–“nonce” for “sex offender” is definitely not a US usage!

    Like Jacob@42 I’ve reasonably often heard “whale” as a big customer at a casino, or someone who spends a lot of money on a mobile game (so another kind of big customer as a casino).

    Also pleased to see “macho man” for STUD when the hoary old BOSS would have fit the surface as well!

    Thanks Yank and loonapick.

71. Polly Wants a Cracker is perhaps Nirvana but someone told me the original source was biscuit adverts.

72. Welcome to Team Grauniad, Yank! The abundance of Americanisms has already been adequately discussed. I had CNUT for 22d and thought NUT must somehow mean bind.

73. Oh, and I think I solved my first reverse anagram.

74. Thanks for the blog, a new setter for the New Year , perihilion is very early tomorrow UK time if the Ricci Tensor behaves.
    I will eventually second Bodycheetah@1 , a lot of two word answers , just an observation , nothing wrong with it. STUPID had a neat use of irrational .

75. Yes, Polly and cracker were an instant cognitive hit, but origin totally absent. Very odd.

76. Paul b@30 and at the end of his career, at my team, Millwall…

77. JHT @72: I had CNUT too.

    [Mr Penney @59 is correct. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a masterpiece. A pair of innocents — mistakenly imagining that they are escaping — but being swept instead towards a dreadful fate by the inexorable currents of the mighty Mississippi. The equation of the mistreatment of an adult chattel slave with the mistreatment of an unemancipated child is breathtaking and shocking]

78. Thanks Sarah@67. It sounded so unlike RLS that I was almost certain – but it is nice to know. Treasure Island has been remade in so many formats (panto, film, cartoon, TV series of the top of my head) that I presume one of them “lightened it up” with a less terrifying parrot

79. An enjoyable (almost-) solve. Defeated only by HERE GOES – daring words? But should really have got from the wordplay since I had all the crossers. Others I got from the crossers and definitions but needed parsings from here. NONCE having anything to do with a special occasion was surprising and I spent some time with AUNT SALLY.

    LAME EXCUSE my favourite as I got it very early on and was chuffed to be on the wavelength of what is for me quite a complicated clue.

    I look forward to the next Yank. Thanks loonapick

80. Bogged SW corner, perhaps no surprise in the liight of comments.

    I was charmed some years ago to come across ‘nonce’ as the French for nuncio.

81. I was surprised to be informed by our blogger that “Polly wants a cracker” is a common phrase in English, as I had never come across it before, and it doesn’t sound like Robert Louis Stephenson (thanks to Sarah@67 for checking); neither (as far as I can recall, muffin@68) is it in any of the works of Arthur Ransome, despite the repeated presence of a parrot called POLLY.

    Some of the Americanisms were a bit arcane for the Manchester Guardian, but it does now publish in America and Aus/NZ so I guess it’s fair enough. GARBANZOS was fairly clued, but the buzzard mix up is something the editor should have sorted. I was another who had CNUT, which fits the definition but only half of the wordplay.

    Thanks to Yank and loonapick

82. TonyM@34: You made me think of “bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover”: the bluebird also being a native of North America and unknown here…I enjoyed the puzzle. HERE GOES was the last in, and that one took me a while. My favourites were ALPHABET SOUP and CARRIE FISHER. With thanks to Yank (and welcome). and of course to loonapick for the blog.

83. Welcome Yank ! Strange puzzle in the sense that the top half was nearly a write-in but the bottom half took considerably longer. No issues with GARBANZO and I really can’t see what the issue was with that, considering some of the arcane words which (for example) Pasquale routinely finds to test us with. Maybe I misread the post. A good solid workout for a Tuesday. Thanks to Yank and to loonapick.

84. Welcome Yank, a good debut that I enjoyed and found testing in parts. LAME EXCUSE probably my favourite and I didn’t think there were any clunkers.

85. Beaten by the bean which I’d not heard of – pegged Greta in the wordplay but stupidly forgot NZ. LAME EXCUSE was very clever wordplay which I forgot to go back & fully parse. An enjoyable debut. Will look forward to the follow up.
    Thanks to Yank & to loonapick

86. Welcome Yank. Thanks for the work-out.

    I spent far too much time trying KNUT and CNUT for 22d before finally landing on KNIT, after some checks.

87. A lovely puzzle and I hope Yank will be a regular. I don’t understand why Michelle@18 had a problem with it except there are days when we can’t get going but if we put it away and come back then the penny drops. Polly wants a cracker was in a long joke that I can’t remember so the saying probably came from a book in the first place.

88. I have to say that I am amused here, in a turning of the tables volte-facing kind of a way, where people are (to an extent) complaining about Americanisms appearing unindicated in a British puzzle.

    I’m not saying I agree with this stars-and-stripey imposition, but as an FT compiler, I have gotten (sic) it right in the neck from time to time for being too British. Or arcanely so.

    OTOH, and I know I’m not the only person around these parts to hold the opinion, I’m adamant that cryptic crosswords are quintessentially British, and that solvers abroad, including Shermans and Hang Seng denizens, are attracted to same, at least in part, as a result of that trait. God knows the Great American Dilution is ubiquitous enough: those presumptuous bastards will be trying to foist democracy on us next!

89. Paul b @88: there have been American setters and solvers of cryptics since almost the moment the puzzles were invented, and you’ll find that the American ones, naturally enough, contain American cultural references. I started solving the ones in Games Magazine–they publish four per issue–and only started doing the British ones when that started to be not enough cryptics for me. I may be a bit of an Anglophile, which probably helped me persevere through all the cricket terminology, British military jargon, and so on that one has to learn, but the Britishness was certainly not the initial attraction.

    Anyway, this puzzle was not at the point of making you know anything about baseball or Congress or anything. Everything in it seemed fair.

90. Thanks loonapick for reminding me of Aunt Polly ( a long time since i read TS) and several above for some interesting extra knowledge, especially Jack@17 concerning the buzzards. I enjoyed this but was grateful for the setter’s choice of pseudonym, thanks Yank and hope to see you again.

91. A bit of background on the phrase Polly wants a cracker: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/75551/why-does-polly-want-a-cracker

    Enjoyed this – some fun clues and quite tricky in places.

92. I browsed the comments looking for an explanation of how “Charlie” somehow = NIT. No such luck. What am I missing?

    (Also, as an American, I will confess to never having heard that buzzards are hoarse, or that whales are greedy.)

93. Hi ThemTates, Charlie and nit are both general terms for a useless (but non-malicious) idiot – see also wally, muppet, numpty and more. Not sure what the US equivalent would be – dweeb or dork perhaps? I’d say that Charlie can be used in an endearing sense: “Ooh, you are a right charlie” whereas nit is more offensive, but there’s enough overlap in my eyes for the equivalence to work. Didn’t stop me trying to make CNUT work for a while, like some other people above!

94. I enjoyed this puzzle and would like to endorse the positive comments above. Definitely a breath of FRESH AIR.

    Tighter editing could help with “localisation”.

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