Guardian Cryptic 29,291 by Vulcan

74 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,291 by Vulcan”

1. Didn’t know the hazard at Aintree in VALENTINES. Favourites were NOBODY and SHUN.

2. TimC@1 – it’s actually Valentine’s Brook, now I come to think of it, although I assume it is shortened to Valentine’s. It is named after a horse who, in the second running of the race in 1840, apparently pulled off a miraculous recovery having struck the fence.

3. Add me to the list of those not au fait with Aintree (unsurprisingly). SANSCULOTTE was a doozie. Otherwise pretty straightforward and enjoyable, thanks Vulcan & Loonapick.

   I still groan at up/”in court”, which I’ve never heard in the real world.

4. A similar experience to Loonapick for me. I’d forgotten about Valentines at the Grand National, though I guessed where the clue was leading. I liked SANSCULOTTES and TRIGGERED. GDU@3 – ‘he’s up for shoplifting’ – ‘he’s in court for shoplifting’ seems OK to me, but no doubt this is just continuing a discussion. Nice to get a slightly meatier Vulcan on a Monday morning. Thanks to Vulcan and loonapick.

5. I think I’ve participated in Grand National sweepstakes at work occasionally – which is the closest I’ve ever got to the race. I am aware of Beecher’s Brook, I think, and I have a feeling there may be a Chair but Valentine’s meant nothing to me. I was beaten by that and SANSCULOTTE – which I should have got but it’s that old thing of foreign words not leaping out from anagram fodder. I sort of expected that to be two words but it isn’t! And I have to confess to being more familiar with the cruder version of 4d than this one – does anyone actually use the clean version?

   OWNING UP was my favourite today with the lovely natural surface.

   Thanks Vulcan and loonapick

6. Gdu’3 Up before the beak/ magistrates. I’ve heard it used, but perhaps these things don’t happen to music teachers, just french teachers.
   Lots to like here. I was a little slow today and it took a while for some parsings to sink in, eg I thought of HANSOM on the first pass, but only saw the reasoning when I wrote it in later.
   Thanks both

7. NOBODY’s perfect and I also liked UNDO and LOIRE. Learned something too. Thanks.

8. [Sofamore @7: John Eales, one-time captain of the Wallabies and excellent all-round player (he even kicked at goal, despite being a second row forward), was known affectionally by the nickname ‘Nobody’ on the basis that ‘Nobody’s perfect’]

9. Thanks loonapick @2 It obviously didn’t get wired into the brain when I was a little lad not far north from Aintree, unlike Beecher’s Brook (PostMark @5) which rang a bell.
   [GDU @3 you obviously haven’t been “up”, otherwise you would’ve remembered it.]
   What I really want to know is whether the SANSCULOTTES (no trousers… yes I know it’s not an exact rendering) MOONSTRUCK?

10. I suppose stuff as a synonym for luggage is in the same camp as things = clothes which we had recently. Yes, people say it, but it feels a bit sloppy to me.

    Enjoyed NO PICNIC & HANSOM.

    Many thanks, both.

11. Just realised that I missed UNDO from my favourites. A succinct clue with a nice pun.

12. Good gentle fun for a Monday morning, with the dear old Grauniad living up to its reputation – in 19a the place is Llandrindod Wells, not “Llandridnod”.
    Ta, both.

13. Thanks loonapick, especially for VALENTINES.
    I was struck by MOONSTRUCK at Id and STRUCK at 5a, but can’t see any connection.
    Tours up front in LOIRE was a good trick.
    Liked the surface for TRIGGERED, including ‘dig’ in the fodder, very contemporary, as is the definition, even if it is now overused and almost a cliché.
    Favs SHUN, THRESHOLD, and SINK OR SWIM, with the added image conveyed by ‘stark’ (naked) in the alternatives.

14. I found this tough but fair. Loved sansculotte and just could not see shoplifting (last in – took 5 mins to get grey matter to work)

    Thanks Setter and Blogger

15. A good start to the week, thank you Vulcan, as shown by the range of clues already referred to. It took me a long time to get Valentines having not picked up the National reference. (My daughter’s running a 10k at Aintree in a few weeks so I should have picked it up.)
    Thanks to loonapick for the blog.

16. Same experience as loonapick with an unparsed VALENTINES loi. Favourites were MOONSTRUCK, OWNING UP, ASCERTAIN, NO PICNIC and SHUN. I was also struck by the STRUCKS, paddymelon. Certainly, this was NO PICNIC for this setter on Monday.

    Ta Vulcan & loonapick.

17. I only got Valentines from the cards, forgot the fence. That and No picnic were last in but they really shouldn’t have been.
    Thanks Vulcan and loonapick

18. 20. I would have had it as two words (or hyphenated).

19. Maybe Vulcan’s been paying attention to the comments about including more contemporary references? I’d say STUFF HAPPENS, when working with kids, because I’m not supposed to swear and set a good example.

    I found the bottom half chewier too, didn’t know VALENTINES as hazard at the National, so that went in late and unparsed, but otherwise completed and parsed, albeit in a longer time than I usually solve Vulcan, more like Imogen.

    Thank you to Vulcan and loonapick.

20. I should have remembered VALENTINES but didn’t. Vulcan does a nice cryptic def (see WITCH DOCTORS, SHOPLIFTING, SINK OR SWIM, LOIRE, NO PICNIC). Splendid anagram for SANSCULOTTE, which took me a long time to see. I guessed correctly that UN=New York must refer to the United Nations, but there are many other things in New York…

21. Perhaps Vulcan is gradually becoming more challenging, as I didn’t get a single clue first time through the across clues. Or maybe that’s just me this Monday morning. However, right half eventually completed before left half. Not too impressed by STUFF HAPPENS or loi SHUN. Though thought SANSCULOTTE excellent. Not sure if VALENTINES might be appearing a little early in the calendar for some of us, with Feb 14th and and an early Saturday in April at Aintree still a little way off…

22. Nice one today.
    Clues for SHOPLIFTING and NOBODY stood out as simple , witty and enjoyable ones.
    Needed Loonapick’s help to parse VALENTINES.
    Thank you Vulcan and Loonapick

23. I was expecting HANSOM to be something like heruber. It’s odd how, once you have a wrong idea in your head, it’s hard to rethink. NO PICNIC my favourite.

24. A bit more testing than usual for a Monday but enjoyable nonetheless. Did wonder why there were two solutions containing STRUCK.

25. Quite tough but enjoyable. There were a few that I found hard to parse so I came here to check 11d, 13d, 22d.

    I agree with gladys@20 that 7d UN = New York seems a bit loose just because the United Nations office is there.

    New for me: the fact that the city of Tours is on the Loire river.

    Thanks, both.

26. Thanks Vulcan and loonapick

    GDU et al: I think the phrase ‘up in court’ stems from how courthouses used to be constructed – you were either UP in court or DOWN in the cells.

    I guess that may also be where the phrase “sent down” for “imprisoned” comes from.

27. After a reasonably bright start in the top half, I struggled to fill the bottom half, not helped because I DNK SANSCULOTTE.

    I liked the NO PICNIC and WITCH DOCTORS cds. I forgot about VALENTINES at the National and the ‘SHUN military command. I couldn’t get hinge to fit in 23. I also liked the wordplay of MOONSTRUCK with the ‘shows behind’.

    Thanks Vulcan and loonapick.

28. The sansculottes (or sometimes san-culottes) were originally so named as a derogatory reference to their poverty, which meant that they wore rough trousers, not the silk breeches (culottes) of the upper classes. They quickly adopted the name as their own.

29. On a first read through I thought this was going to be a lot tougher than proved to be the case, though there were three or four that required quite a bit of thought. I am another who didn’t know about the Valentine fence, but that’s one of the reasons I love these puzzles: always somethng new to learn. I’m not completely persuaded by STUFF HAPPENS, but lots of other good clues this morning. With thanks to Vulcan and Loonapick.

30. Largely straightforward. Add me to the list who were not familiar with Aintree’s jumps but got the answer from the other half of the clue.

    I’m also in the camp that found New York for UN a stretch. New York is famous for an enormously long list of things, and the UN also meets in Geneva. There are lot of other ways UN could have been clued, especially on a Monday.

31. Thanks to Vulcan for a delightful start to the week. Even though I was also held up in the bottom half. Thx to loonapick for the blog.
    Lots of favourites including SANSCULOTTE and VALENTINES

32. Regarding the UN/NY comments, I also thought it was a stretch at first but I think the ? at the end of the clue indicates that some licence has been taken and makes it acceptable.

33. You’d think I’d catch my own name in 13d, but I `had no idea that fences at the Grand National had names, much less what any of them were, and “anonymous cards’ just was baffling.

    In general I found, like loonapick, the bottom harder than the top. Thanks to loonapick and to Vulcan.

34. Nice chewy puzzle for a Monday, thanks Vulcan and loonapick.
    But I am definitely missing something in SHOPLIFTING – why is it the crime that doesn’t pay?

35. There my be a sideways political message here. The phrase “stuff happens” was famously used by Donald Rumsfeld about the disorder that ensued in Iraq following the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Interesting that it crosses with MISTRUST in the grid.

36. I thought SANSCULOTTE was NO PICNIC, needing most of the crossers. VALENTINES also a bit niche, together putting the final nail in the coffin of Easy Monday.

37. AG @ 34 It’s simply what it says: if you shoplift, you take goods without paying. Boom tish!

38. Yup – SANSCULOTTE (which I had always thought was two words or possibly hyphenated) and VALENTINES took a long time to drop in after what I had until then thought was a return to the old days of an easy Monday puzzle. Could only get one of the meanings of VALENTINES and did not parse LOIRE. Grateful to loonapick for the elucidation. Very enjoyable all round, with FIDDLE, SHOPLIFTING, NO PICNIC and NOBODY my favourites. Thanks Vulcan and loonapick.

39. …VALENTINES Brook so called because a horse called Valentine was reputed to have jumped this fence hind legs first, in the 1840 Grand National. I’ve heard the expression about the hind legs of a donkey, but this sounds a bit too far fetched to me…

40. Living in Suffolk I was pleased to see a local river appear for 21 – the Stour (anagram of Tours). Only to realise none of the crossers fitted…..long time to realise that was the wrong word ?. Clever clue.

41. For me there were a few too many dd’s and cd’s, which I find very all or nothing. Ah well. Thanks Vulcan and loonapick.

42. Thanks both,
    Anybody else have ‘snib’ for 23d? Seems to work.

43. Tyngewick @42 – Yes, me!

    @Loonapick. Strictly speaking, you can still be convicted of murder without the body as evidence, but obviously the clue works with the question mark

44. With regard to 12a (AllyGally@34 & Simon S@37), I would have preferred A rather than The crime that doesn’t pay, even with the ? at the end. Many crimes involve taking without paying (car theft, household burglary, art theft) that have nothing to do with shops.

45. Wow! Just noticed the “click to edit” function available after posting. How new is this? Great idea!

46. A delight from start to finish! Started with 1ac -such a clever surface. Struggled a bit with bottom half – like Jen @40 put Stour for 21d but No Picnic put me right. Thanks Loonapick for explaining Valentine’s – I know all the National fences but the penny didn’t drop.
    (Pouring down in the Lake District – so stuck indoors. Is that why I finally finished a crossword?)

47. I was with Jen @40 and Tyro @48: Stour with “enjoyed” instructing the anagram, in the sense of invigorated, or all shook up.

48. I had the opposite experience to gladys@29. I was on a completely different wavelength to Vulcan for the cryptic clues which all took time to solve. I must say, I did like SHOPLIFTING and FIDDLE. Overall, I found it enjoyable.

    Other favourites were MISTRUST and MOONSTRUCK. Comments I was going to make about obscurities and inaccuracies have already been fleshed out, so I will not repeat

    Thanks Vulcan and loonapick

49. This seemed to take a while, though on reflection I’m not sure why. SHOPLIFTING NO PICNIC and VALENTINES are all excellent cd/dd examples in the vein of Rufus and as such perfect for a Monday. I’m not convinced about WITCH-DOCTORS, SHUN or UNDO: they’re not clunkers but I thought they lacked Vulcan’s usual elan. The clever anagram and fine surface for SANSCULOTTE won the day for me in the end.

50. OK, I’m weird — SANSCULOTTE was one of my first-in on an only moderately successful first pass. Got them all in the end except for VALENTINE.

    Is RESIT also a noun? I passed over that possibility because I thought it didn’t match “further exam” in part of speech.

    I particularly liked MISTRUST and SHOPLIFTING.

51. What’s worrying me is Llandrindod Wells. I’m quite old, and speak a bit of Welsh. I’ve ALWAYS thought it was Llandridnod, and loved it for being so. Perhaps I’ve read too much Swift, and it’s a muddle with Brobdignad, or whatever it is. Life is full of disappointments…!
    Excellent puzzle and blog. Thank you.

52. Well, since I do the Guardian at noon in the US, when I do it, I have probably missed most of the party. I forgot I was doing a Monday puzzle, and whipped through it until I came to 13 down, with a bunch of unhelpful crossers, and half of a double definition I didn’t know – thanks to the UK solvers for filling me in. I did eventually see the answer using one of the definitions – that’s the good thing about cryptic clues. Fortunately, I got all the cryptic definitions without difficulty.

53. TT @ 50 Yes. You can say “I’m going for my resit tomorrow”.

54. Thanks for the blog, I liked MISTRUST and MOONSTRUCK , too many barely cryptic defintions for my taste.
    ThemTates @50 RESIT is used as a noun for the exam itself.

55. michelle @25, it’s not that UN = NY, it’s that “UN DO” (a party at the UN) = “New York reception?”. The question mark is the indicator that it isn’t a straight charade.

56. I like learning new things in a crossword puzzle, if the new thing is worth learning. The nickname of a fence on an English race course is not one of those, for me. SANSCULOTTE, on the other hand….

    A rare Monday mangling for me today, a DNF because of those two clues (13d and 20a).

    Thanks Vulcan and loonapick for the fun and exercise.

57. No problem with Valentines for me.
    Sansculottes defeated me, having studied the French Revolution, I should have done better. A very good anagram.
    Thanks both.

58. Too easy

59. 23
    I had snib for this which is just as valid as knob since both are things which “take turns” at a door.
    Unsatisfactory clue

60. Because of “national” I thought it was going to be something like Argentines, so the wrong pronunciation of TINES was fixed in my head. Consequently it took me a while to get the correct answer – it’s the old D_NY syndrome again.

    Thanks loonapick and Vulcan

61. I’m surprised that the Grand National is disappearing from general knowledge – even as a boy of eight or nine I knew all about the race, and having worked in betting shops quite a bit I never lost the knowledge. (I can’t watch the race now without anxiety – it seems that all the safety improvements of the last 30 years have made the race more dangerous than ever.)

    I thought UNDO was very good, and I even enjoyed the cryptic and double definitions.

    Thanks to Vulcan and loonapick.

62. VALENTINES was easily gettable from the cards clue but I think that a reference to a single fence on a single steeplechase course in a single country deserves some sort of award for most obscure clue! I haven’t stopped chuckling!

63. Thanks both and a grand entertainment. There must surely be an instance of someone accused of SHOPLIFTING being advised that ‘crime doesn’t pay’ and responding that they hadn’t paid…

    (The Grand National is indeed a dangerous race with the prospect of a fall and serious injury ever present. Perhaps I shouldn’t watch it through my fingers.)

64. Jenny cant @59, thanks for teaching me a new word! I shall cherish my knowledge that there are ‘snibs’ in the world.

    BlueDot @62, it occurs to me that part of why I didn’t solve VALENTINES is that, back when I was of an age to be courting, valentines weren’t “anonymous”.

65. PostMark @8: Prior to being known as Nobody, John Eales’ nickname was apparently ‘Slippery’. The Aussies have always had a way with sporting nicknames. Tugga for Steve Waugh and Oswald for Brett Lee are two of my favourites.

66. WD @ 65 I liked ‘Afghanistan’ for Steve’s brother Mark – the forgotten waugh…

67. In 3d, does “siren alerts” have anything to do with the clue other than to hide RENAL?

    5a – I was trying to use gem/diamond/something precious/pebble…

    20a – “extreme” made me try to use R and N from the ends of republican.

    13d – I had COUNTRYMAN for a “national”

    24a – I had HAILED. I still don’t understand that clue.

    8d – I was trying to use Madison Square Garden.

68. Stefan@67, good guesses. The key is to keep the mind flexible enough to swap in and out often multiple ways various parts of the clue can be interpreted until you find something that works. At the same time you can attack the clue from the other end by trying to work out what the definition may be. As for 3d, yes “siren alerts” is there to contain the solution as indicated by “cover”.

69. Well I forgive myself for not parsing VALENTINES now. I liked a few of these, including LOIRE and NO PICNIC.

70. Hi, I’ll just unlurk for a moment at this late point, to mention that Reverso apparently offers no translation into French for the English “word” Sansculotte. It does for sans-culotte, however, which it renders as two, un-hyphenated words. Make what you will of that.

71. Steffen @67
    For STRUCK, you’re right with gem as a possible synonym for stone, but in a 6 letter answer, shorter might be better, and st is the abbreviation for the old imperial measurement of weight.
    20a, I also was wondering where RN might fit, but also was I going to put ‘counts least’ in an anagram solver to see if anything recognisable came out. I didn’t because I don’t unless I’m stuck with a blank grid in the wee small hours, when turning on a light and finding pen and paper would be disruptive.
    24a that was one of my last in, but London cabs were originally horse-drawn HANSOM cabs and that name persisted when they became motorised. The Sherlock Holmes and Dickens stories feature these cabs.

72. We got the idea of the racecourse for Valentines, but didn’t have the requisite UK to fill in the blanks. And (is it a US thing?), we didn’t associate anonymity with valentines. Even in elementary school, kids usually signed them.

73. pianola @72
    I’m really surprised to hear that. I had assumed that we got Valentine’s Day from the US (like Trick or Treat), but Valentine cards are never signed in the UK.
    I seem to remember that they weren’t signed in Peanuts either?

74. 26ac, NOBODY: it used to be the case that there could be no charge for murder without a body, but that hasn’t been so for quite some time.

    11dn, WITCH DOCTORS: I thought the clue could have done with a straight def as well as this whimsical one.

    13dn, VALENTINES: like others, hadn’t heard of the fence, but it had to be …

    22dn, SHUN: didn’t get the second def. Could it have done with some sort of qualifier?

    Geoff Down Under@3,
    “I still groan at up/”in court”, which I’ve never heard in the real world.”

    It’s very common: ‘He’s up in Horseferry Road on the 14th on a shoplifting charge’.

Comments are closed.