Guardian 29,366 – Kite

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A puzzle that took quite a lot of thinking, but satisfying to work out. Thanks to Kite.

We have a theme indicated by the central entry DNA, which is an ACID in the form of a DOUBLE HELIX with BASE pairs, a STRUCTURE discovered by CRICK and WATSON, with help from a largely uncredited (at the time) Rosalind FRANKLIN. Maurice WILKINS was also involved, and DNA strands include PHOSPHATE groups. Apologies for any references I’ve missed. (I don’t know if any CURIEs were involved.)

 
Across
9 CURIE French scientist is Spooner’s apprentice, some say (5)
A rather dodgy spoonerism of “rookie” – but we have the “some say”. The scientist had better be Pierre Curie, as Marie was Polish (though she became a French citizen)
10 PHOSPHATE Detest dogs initially peeing next to hospital compound (9)
P[eeing] + HOSP. + HATE (detest), with “dogs” meaning “follows”
11 DUNGAREES Aged nurse upset those with a bib (9)
(AGED NURSE)*
12 TASTY Interesting savoury (5)
Double definition
13 WILKINS Former England footballer is type absorbed by victories (7)
ILK (type) in WINS. I presume the footballer is this one
15 ANIONIC Soon I see one entering that’s negative (7)
I in ANON (soon) I C
17 OWN UP Confess that hurts before Sally returns … (3,2)
OW (that hurts!) + reverse of PUN (a joke, sally)
18 DNA … and reviews vital instructions (3)
AND* – DNA contains the “instructions” for building living things
20 HELIX Team the French finally vanquish, having turned the screw (5)
Reverse of XI (e.g. football team) + LE (French “the”) + [vanquis]H
22 ENDIVES They might be curly sides I’ve cut (7)
I’VE in ENDS
25 ASSUMED Victoria’s finally amused about being taken for granted (7)
Anagram of victoria’S + AMUSED
26 BLUER Lower wheel about uniform weight (5)
Reverse of RE (abot) + U + LB (pound, weight); lower as in “more depressed”, I suppose
27 STRUCTURE Building trust with cure arranged (9)
(TRUST CURE)*
30 SALES TEAM Marketeers showing enthusiasm to drink beers (5,4)
ALES in STEAM
31 CRICK Credit check ignoring capital is a pain in the neck (5)
CR[edit] + [t]ICK
Down
1 ACID Peaceful place lacking bitter (4)
PLACID less PL
2 FRANKLIN Kite flyer getting plain, short string (8)
FRANK (plain) + LIN[k] – a reference to Benjamin Frankin, who famously flew a kite during a thunderstorm (string)
3 BETA Greek character in desperate bargaining set up (4)
Hidden in reverse of desperATE Bargaining
4 APPEASED Performed Sunday instead of Friday the 2nd: satisfied? (8)
APPEARED witf [f]R[iday] replaced by S[unday] – one of several uses of this trick
5 POLSKA Dance around square in native European republic (6)
S in POLKA. Polska is the “native” name for Poland
6 SPOTLIGHTS Spies with foreign plot involved have accents (10)
PLOT* in SIGHTS
7 WATSON Detective’s assistant with a beginning of tricky issue (6)
W[ith] A + T[ricky] + SON (issue)
8 DENY Edward rejected the last of smelly refuse (4)
Reverse of NED + [smell]Y
13 WHOLE Healthy swimmer old for gala’s final (5)
WHALE (swimmer) with [gal]A replaced by O
14 IMPOVERISH Bankrupt rascal past his embarrassment (10)
IMP (rascal) + OVER (past) + HIS*
16 COXED 10 in school instructed from the back (5)
X (10) in CO-ED (school) – coxes sit at the back of rowing boats
19 ANAGRAMS Bad credit with debit card makes these (8)
BAD CREDIT and DEBIT CARD are (perhaps appropriately) anagrams of each other
21 LIMOUSIN Briefly hunting after Long Island cattle (8)
L[ong] I[sland] + MOUSIN[g]
23 DOUBLE Possible university for Australian twin (6)
DOABLE (possible) with A replaced by U
24 SISTER Relative turning up, is endlessly demanding (6)
Reverse of IS + STER[n]
26 BASE Stand deep in pitch, say (4)
Homophone (surely uncontroversial) of “bass”
28 COCK Male that indicates the passing of wind (4)
Double definition – male bird or weathercock/weatherwane, which shows the direction of the wind – or maybe just a single cryptic definition, as the second meaning comes from the first
29 ELKS Deer overturned cask leaking contents (4)
Hidden in reverse of caSK LEaking

88 comments on “Guardian 29,366 – Kite”

  1. Well. Embarrassment as an anagrind? That’s a new one.

    We’ve had the discussion before, but I still think DNA should be (1,1,1). I groaned at CURIE. I had a few other reservations, but I’ve probably whinged enough for one day.

    I missed the theme, so thank you, Andrew.

  3. Is “rookie” pronounced as “rue key” in some dialects? That’s the closest I can get to a familiar Franglais pronunciation of CURIE before Spoonerising.

  4. I liked the theme and the disguised scientists and other thematic elements. It was hard not to miss the central DNA.
    I got the feeling the theme was more important to Kite.
    3 single letter substitutions was maybe 2 too many.
    But otherwise enjoyed the exercise.

  5. I checked WILKINS in relation to DNA having solved the puzzle and spotted the theme early enough to help with FRANKLIN. Interesting that there’s another undervalued scientist in the DNA story after the campaign to include FRANKLIN with CRICK and WATSON. [I completed a geocache AdLab in Cambridge over Easter that didn’t work properly because the blue plaque celebrating Crick and Watson has recently been changed to include Franklin.]

    This wasn’t the easiest puzzle this week, but I find Kite one of the chewier setters.

    Thanks to Kite and Andrew.

  6. I missed the connection as always.

    Not really my cup of tea. Not sure really what irked me – but unsatisfying to a small extent. Probably me not the puzzle. Still finished before setting off for work so that’s perfect.

    Thanks Kite and Andrew

  7. I had Lin[e], not Lin[k] as the parsing for FRANKLIN and the same question mark as GDU @1 for DNA. Missed the theme.

  8. Thanks Kite and Andrew
    Somehow I managed to miss the theme, despite being very familiar with it; as soon as I’ve written in an answer, I forget it.
    Some obscure GK here; fortunately I knew about FRANKLIN’s kite and remembered Ray WILKINS.
    Several unparsed. I’ve never seen S for square, though it’s in Chambers. No idea what “dogs” was doing in10a. “Victoria’s finally” for S rather than A is unfair, as there’s no possessive.
    Favourite DENY. Party trick – ask people to name a four letter word ending ENY; most won’t get it.

  9. I don’t like the way setters seem obliged to have a spoonerism in every crossword these days. There are just too many of them and inevitably the quality drops. Today’s is particularly awful.

    It was nice to see POLSKA, though. I don’t know any Polish, but assume it’s the ‘fieldy country’ as Russian поле (polye) is a field ??

  10. I failed to parse BLUER and CRICK, and revealed COXED (accidentally) and ANIONIC (deliberately). Having got CURIE and CRICK early on, I thought Kite’s theme might be scientists, but it took some time to realise that it was the DOUBLE HELIX STRUCTURE of DNA, though I am not enough of a scientist to be sure whether or not some likely looking suspects “belonged”.

    (WILKINS, for instance. Never heard of either of him, though I knew both of FRANKLIN)

  11. Nice puzzle, had to reveal a few at the end of my allotted one hour.
    Marie Curie was Polish therefore Polska, another reference in 5D

  12. [The Nobel Prize was awarded to Crick, Watson, and Wilkins. Periodically someone complains that Franklin wasn’t included, but she was ineligible, being dead by then.]

  13. Some Lancs [eg Beatrix Campbell] pronounce look like Luke and book like buke, but here we say Curie with a y-sound in it, like Kewry. Well, it’s all just fun, innit. And of course, wind and weathercock, d’oh! Otherwise pretty straight, nice theme-day topic (ta pdm @2) and yes utterly shameful that Rosalind F was denied a Nobel. Thanks Kite and Andrew.

  14. Muffin @8. I think “dogs” indicates follows, so detest/hate is at the end of the word in the answer.

  15. [grantinfreo @13: Your use of the word ‘shameful’ implies active malice against Dr Franklin. As muffin @12 has pointed out, she was ineligible under the rules of the Nobel Prize Committee. Sad, yes, shameful, no.]

  16. Like gladys @10, I knew enough to identify the theme (about half way through) but not enough to be confident that I’d spotted all the references – very clever.

    As far as the clues went, I particularly liked (pace muffin) Victoria being finally amused, the clever 19dn ANAGRAMS and the substitutions at 4dn APPEASED, 13dn WHOLE and 23dn DOUBLE (I like that type of clue).

    I also liked the Kiteflyer at 2dn – having spent some thinking it must be a nifty self-referential clue and trying to find words beginning I or ME, until I finally remembered FRANKLIN, which was what clinched the theme, I think.

    Not surprisingly, I missed the Spoonerism and still can’t get my head round it. Not surprisingly, I’m totally with Anna @9.

    Many thanks to Kite and Andrew.

  17. Oh right, ta muffin @12, by the time they awarded it she had died. I wonder if she got a mention at the ceremony …

  18. I didn’t see the theme until I completed the puzzle. I was alerted to the presence of a theme in the Guardian blog, then with a bit of help from google saw the DA theme – Watson, Crick, Franklin, Wilkins, helix, structure etc. Obviously, the theme did not help me at the time of solving! Tbh I start to wonder about themed puzzles and I don’t really see the point of them. Maybe it is more fun for the setter than the solver?

    I could not parse 10ac as I put the of P + HATE at the end then was puzzled why PHOS = dogs!

    New for me: LIMOUSIN; footballer WILKINS; ANIONIC.

    Favourites: DOUBLE, COCK (for the visual memory of a rooster on a weather vane which I have not seen much of lately); ANAGRAMS.

    I was fine with the spoonerism today.

    Thanks, both.

  20. Anna@9 The Polish for field is “pole” pronounced poll-eh. Poles were known as Polanie back in the far distant past – the people of the fields or plains.

  22. Might be drawing a long bow, but FRANKLIN’s research revealed the DOUBLE HELIX via X-ray crystallography, which uses radiation measured in CURIEs.

  23. For me this one was too much “OK I suppose” and not enough “ha, brilliant”. Maybe I’m just not feeling it today. The saving grace was the excellent coverage of the theme, so kudos for that.

  24. Although I’m not good with sciency stuff, the theme was familiar enough to help with FRANKLIN, who I didn’t know about, and a sad story yes. I thought BLUER was referring to lower or BASE language. I have seen the Bad Credit/Debit Card device before (eg a Matilda Quiptic last year), but still an enjoyable one. I also like the substitutions, Eileen @16.

    Ta Kite & Andrew.

  25. For 9a CURIE – “French scientist”, Pierre, not Marie, we need the French pronunciation, as here – ‘KOO REE’, (not ‘KEW REE’). Then the Spoonerism is ok.

  26. I initially thought 18A was DNR which is sort of the reverse of vital but was rapidly corrected by HELIX which gave away the theme. It was good to see FRANKLIN and WILKINS being recognised. I found 28A BLUER, 13D WHOLE, and 28D COCK a bit meh. The outstanding clue for me was 19D ANAGRAMS. Many thanks Kite and Andrew for a good start to the day. Also thanks to Crossbar @20 for the further information on Polska.

    [ Earworms? I found some songs about DNA, quite a few in fact, but none good enough to share even if I knew how to do it …🤣]

  27. [Some setters find a theme helpful, or even essential, to provide a skeleton to construct the puzzle around. That’s fine, but sometimes the theme becomes so demanding that other aspects of the crossword suffer. Today’s was OK.]

  28. Couldn’t understand the Spoonerism even after biffing and checking the answer. Not good, even with the qualification. Nho the footballer. Missed the theme of course, though it was well done. Tried SALTY before TASTY, as both are equally valid for the clue until crossers ruled it out.

  29. Agree with most of the other gibes, plus 12a unpardonably weak (which I suppose now you could clue “Diluted and feeble”?)

  30. Thanks to Andrew for a great blog and to all the posters, especially PM @2 for pointing out the significance of today’s date. I thought it might be good to have a science-themed crossword for a change.

    My original clue for CURIE was: French scientist that is chasing scoundrel but the ‘that is’ grated a bit, so I thought it might be fun to have a Paulian Spoonerism with ‘some say’; apparently not!

  31. Soundly, roundly defeated by this, with an almost blank NE corner. Though I knew about Butch WILKINS, I suspect many others didn’t. Did enjoy getting COXED, but rudderless with ANIONIC, a nho. And whenever a compound appears as a solution (so to speak) I get in a bit of a panic. Could be anything, hope the clueing is precise enough – which wasn’t quite the case, for me at least – with PHOSPHATE. The clue for ANAGRAMS very good if it’s a first. Another I failed to twig…
    And many thanks for popping in, Kite…

  32. Kite @30, ‘dodgy’ sounding Spoonerisms, as well as ‘dodgy’ so-called ‘homophones’ are fine by me.

  35. Kite@30 – thank you for a lovely, chewy puzzle. I enjoy dodgy spoonerisms and homophones, so it’s all good. I liked ANIONIC, HELIX, COXED and ANAGRAMS. A lot to like there, and a nice, appropriate theme too.

    Thanks also to Andrew for the always excellent blog.

  37. I don’t think I got onto Kite’s wavelength today and ended up with a largely filled grid but a scattering of words that held out. I was nowhere near getting BLUER and the Spoonerism was lost on me. I missed the foreign language trick for POLSKA, the assembly of PHOSPHATE (I suppose HOSP for hospital is obvious in retrospect but it’s not an abbreviation I recall seeing) and I didn’t connect FRANKLIN with his kite, though I am aware of the tale, but thought it was a self-reference. HELIX, APPEASED and LIMOUSIN my favourites.

    Thanks Kite and Andrew

  40. Remembered this excellent BBC dramatisation from 1987 Life Story – it won the 1988 BAFTA for Best Single Drama.
    Cast: Jeff Goldblum as James (Detective’s assistant) Watson, Tim Pigott-Smith as Francis (pain in the neck) Crick,
    Juliet Stevenson as Rosalind (Kite flyer) Franklin, dna Alan Howard as Maurice (“Butch”) Wilkins…

  45. Well that was an enjoyably hard work out. Missed the theme as ever. Thanks Andrew for pointing it out. As I expected, there are several complaints about the spoonerism, but not from me. Thanks Kite for exercising the old grey cells.

  46. Blimey that was tough or maybe I just woke up in gormless mode. Complete theme bypass for me. Top ticks for APPEASED, HELIX & SPOTLIGHTS with the spies providing another earworm from Was (not was)

    I think I’d file this under admired rather than enjoyed

    Cheers A&K

  47. Missed the theme, as usual; but it seems to have been sciencey stuff in general rather than just DNA, though it was clever to get CRICK, WATSON, WILKINS, FRANKLIN, HELIX, BASE and DNA in. ANIONIC is rather fun, too – thanks to Inuitsk @ 42 for pointing out yet another link with DNA. POLSKA is a neat nod to the country of origin of the great French-by-adoption scientist.
    Apropos Rosalind Franklin, I think the thing that winds people up is not that she didn’t get a Nobel – rules is rules – but that a lot of people have tended to marginalise her (absolutely crucial) role in the story. Was this because she was a woman, because she was Jewish, because she died young…?
    The pleasantly groansome Spoonerism ROOKIE > CURIE (which, as has been pointed out, works even better in a Clouseau-esque French accent) isn’t nearly as bad as the POOR FLAN > FLOOR PLAN that Picaroon perpetrated a few days ago. And if you remember that the object of the exercise is to entertain, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it.
    As others have observed, TASTY and COCK are a bit meh and the clue for ASSUMED is on the borderline of unfair. I tend to feel that Ximenes was a bit over-pedantic – why shouldn’t redhead be R? – but I think he’d be right to crib about “Victoria’s finally” to give S.
    But a pleasantly tough challenge. Thanks to Kite (and further thanks for dropping in here) and to Andrew.

  48. Bodycheetah@46 – That’s my favourite Was (not was) song – 😉
    My earworm: The Pogues’ Fiesta(1987) – The lyrics plagiarise both Coleridge (aka Popeye) and García Lorca…

  50. Kite @30. Thanks for dropping by. Living in France I heard Curie the way the French pronounce it, so fine with me.

  51. What would life be like without the odd dodgy homophone or spoonerism? BORING! OK, maybe the complaint is they are too frequent. Define too! Ha, I’m starting to sound like a Mills and Boone novel. Next thing you know I’ll be talking about Snowy Orbs. I’ve just read Darling by India Knight, highly recommended
    Anyway, struggled but enjoyed, didn’t see the theme
    I never think to look for one, even though Thursdays are apparently theme days and in hindsight, it was blindingly obvious.
    Thanks both.

  55. Nice! Nice appropriate theme, nice clueing, nice interesting blog. I’d forgotten BF’s kite-flying and was side-tracked by the fraud known as kiting. I was very pleased to get WILKINS as I know diddlysquat about any sport. And I love ENDIVE, so TASTY. Thank you Kite and Andrew.

  58. Missed the theme, but then I rarely think of looking for one. Too many reveals today, but all quite logical once I’d seen them. I spent too long trying to fit Biggles, Algy or Ginger into the kite flyer.
    Marie’s French daughter wasn’t too shabby a scientist either.
    And I too had DNR for the vital instruction, which didn’t help.

    Thanks Kite and Andrew.

  59. Totally missed the theme, had no idea there was one.

    Anna@9 How did you get the program to accept Cyrillic letters?

    Never heard of either Wilkins, but the wordplay was good, so I put him/them in. Does that make him a jorum?

    Now that I know what’s what, this was a delightful puzzle. I enjoy things with themes — not just puzzles. My address book (from the Metropolitan Museum of Art) has a theme of correspondence, with pictures of people writing or reading letters and desks or inkpots and a painting of the receipt of the first telegram.

    DNA (3) is fine with me. We don’t write it with spaces or punctuation in between the letters. Does anybody want UNICEF spelled as 1,1,1,1,1,1?

  60. Thanks to all for your comments. I’m encouraged that some have found it interesting to research a bit more about the history of the elucidation of the DNA (3!) structure. It was one of the greatest scientific discoveries in the 29th century.

    I was pleased by Neil H’s @47 comment: The pleasantly groansome Spoonerism ROOKIE > CURIE (which, as has been pointed out, works even better in a Clouseau-esque French accent) and thanks to Inuitsk @42 for pointing out that ANIONIC was also part of the theme. The POLSKA link to Marie Curie was serendipitous.

  62. Kite – very enjoyable, many thanks. I enjoy the ‘sound alike’ clues; no quibbles from me over TASTY either. Continue as you do, and you’ll have no complaints from me

    Many thanks again

  63. I can’t believe I missed the theme! I thought “oh, phosphate – that goes with the DNA clue” … and then thought no more! I am a biochemist!! Sigh. Really must look for themes! Personally, I enjoy a theme (when pointed out to me!), if it doesn’t mess up individual clues, which it didn’t today.
    ANAGRAMS was really funny. I didn’t solve it until I had most of the crossers. When I understood it – it was a laugh aloud moment. My favourite.
    I didn’t like CURIE much either (sorry, Kite). I didn’t solve POLSKA, and didn’t think that one was fair. But otherwise, a great crossword at a perfect level of difficulty.

  64. Finished this but didn’t enjoy it much. Didn’t get the theme (though in retrospect, it’s very well imagined even if predominant).
    Didn’t like the Spoonerism, “tasty”, “cock” or “bluer” (bluer? Really?) and found some of the cluing too stilted.
    Also don’t much like, in general , “replace/substitute one letter” clues.
    Liked “Wilkins” and “anagrams”, also 11a where I had “underages” to start, which I had to correct…
    Thanks very much to Kite and to Andrew for the blog

  66. Muffin@65 Yes, I thought it was a word…(lurking somewhere, in the depths of Chambers…). I was proved wrong. Very quickly.

  67. Thanks for the blog, found this very good , for once I did notice the theme , CURIE not part of the theme, they are not used to measure X-rays.
    I liked the dogs in PHOSPHATE , POLSKA very neat and DOUBLE was clever.

    Yes Wilkins did get the Nobel prize which only goes to show that crime does pay sometimes, perhaps there should be a prize for theft.

  68. Just to say a big thank you to Kite for taking part in the thread today, much appreciated 👏. I was fine with Curie…
    Ros @67, could you elaborate on your comment about Wilkins please, did he steal someone else’s work?

    [bc @46 & Frankie G@48&49, thank you for the earworms which I loved 😎. As for FG@53, best draw a veil over it I think…]

  69. I must be super thick but still don’t get Curie. Ok it’s kew ree but what has that got to with an apprentice? Utterly baffled!

  71. Pauline @68
    It does seem odd that Wilkins was awarded the prize. He was technically Franklin’s suprvisor, but the relationship broke down, and she did her best to prevent him from seeing her findings. The Xray diffraction photo that was crucial to Watson and Crick cracking the structure was seen by Wilkins for the first time in the same lecture as Watson saw it.

  74. I thought the same thing as E. Foster @54 regarding the plural of “elk”, but various dictionaries list the plural as “elk or elks”, so Kite is in the clear on this one.

    Equating ACID with “bitter” raised my hackles a bit: acids are sour, not bitter. But I’m sure in some metaphorical contexts they’re interchangeable, so it’s probably fine.

    Many schools are co-ed, but I’m not aware of any context in which the words are interchangeable: would you ever say, “She went to a co-ed”? In old-timey US usage, “co-ed” could be used as a noun, but it referred to a person, namely a female student, not to a school.

    Antonknee @72 — I’ve definitely seen maps in which “Square” was abbreviated S.

  75. Many thanks Muffin @71. That’s no doubt what Ros meant. The sometimes murky world of academia…

    [I think I shall watch Life Story posted by FG @40 for further information.]

  76. Pauline
    Life Story was very good. My interest in science was possibly started by reading Watson’s The double helix when I was a young teenager.

  77. Hard work. Got there. Still unsure of wheel in 26a but think it must mean reverse it all. Shall we make it a rule that all spoonerisms should be voiced by Sellers?

  78. Cedric @69
    kew ree

    Now, for a Spoonerism interchange the k and r: rew kee which to some people sounds like rookie

  79. Valentine @ 59, I have no issue with UNICEF being enumerated as “(6)” as it’s an acronym. DNA, on the other hand, is an initialism.

  80. Had thought I was improving but this week shows I was wrong. Think I’ll use my time in other ways from now. And this despite finding Curie easy. Thanks, but no thanks.

  82. I got all except POLSKA, and I even saw the theme in time for it to be of use (WILKINS, since you ask). I had a few parsing problems, ‘Sally’ for PUN for example, and BLUER too at first, though I got it before coming here.

    I do wish that people would check things in dictionaries before coming here to tell us something is wrong when in fact it’s right!

    I tend to agree for once with muffin@8 about ‘Victoria’s finally’ being a little unfair – I’ve got used to the last letter of a plural being added to a charade or anagram, but a possessive? I guess that resolving the answer into (amused+s) was just too tempting for Kite!

    Thanks to Kite for joining us here, sorry you had to read so much criticism and abhorrence. I thought the theme was well done and appropriate, and the Spoonerism was just great. More please – the more outrageous the better. And not forgetting thanks to Andrew for the blog.

  83. PachyMam@80 just in case you come back. Perseverance sometimes pays off. I often get stuck and come back to complete or almost complete. If you don’t keep on trying, you’ll miss out on a lot of enjoyment. And to be fair quite a lot of frustration and irritation too.

    But if you find yourself getting frustrated and irritated, put the crossword down and come back to it later, if you have time. In my experience it gets easier more often than not.

  84. [Probably far too late for anyone to read this, but I wanted to say FG @41 thanks for the link to Life Story. I just finished watching it. It’s a really interesting film. Muffin @76 your explanation for what is evidently a lifelong passion is lovely.]

  85. I can’t believe how long it took me to get ANIONIC, given that I am very fond of a method I was told 40 or so years ago to remember the difference between cations and anions (which are attracted to cathodes and anodes respectively); “cations are pussytive”

  86. [Pauline in Brum@84 – You’re welcome – I’m glad at least one person watched it. Couldn’t resist one last earworm – another POLSKA]

  87. Like sheffield hatter @82, I managed them all but POLSKA, but with a couple unparsed. I don’t see how “school” is a proper clue for COED, unless you would also accept “train” as a clue for STEAM.

  88. @87 and others: in my youth I often heard “co-ed” as a noun (short for “co-educational school”) so I had no problem with “school” as a definition.

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