Guardian 29,431 by Enigmatist

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29431.

I am afraid this blog falls well short of ideal, with at least three clues undeciphered. I am about to turn into a pumpkin, so all I can do is pass on what I have got and declare open season for the remainder.

ACROSS
9 BOMBASINE
Material as popular with sweet coating (9)
An envelope (‘with… coating’) of ‘as’ plus IN (‘popular’) in BOMBE (an ice-cream confection, ‘sweet’). Also spelt bombazine.
10 ASHEN
Removing jacket fast when wife goes pale (5)
A charade of AS (‘removing jacket fASt’) plus ‘[w]hen’ minus the W (‘when wife goes’).
11, 12 TURN THE AIR BLUE
Swear to Torify ‘Red Flag’ lyrics? (4,3,3,4)
A play on AIR, song and converting it to a Tory version (‘Torify’), BLUE for ‘red’.
12
See 11
13 ARCH
Principal ingredient of Cheddar cheese (4)
A hidden answer (‘ingredient of’) in ‘CheddAR CHeese’
14 PEPPERMILL
Go and wave off grinder (10)
A charade of PEP (vitality, ‘go’) plus PERM (hair ‘wave’) plus ILL (‘off’).
16 TENABLE
The box closes to capture sound (7)
An envelope (‘closes’) of NAB (‘capture’) in TELE (TV, ‘the box’).
17 ALEMBIC
Still an imbalance expressed ahead of overhaul (7)
An anagram (‘overhaul’) of ‘imbal[an]ce’ minus AN (‘an … expressed’).
19 AT GUNPOINT
Putting on a sham under threat of death (2,8)
An anagram (‘sham’) of ‘putting on a’.
22 EMMA
Four of them made one of the classics (4)
A hidden answer (‘four of’ – i.e.four letters of) in ‘thEM MAde’.
24, 25 NOT TO BE TRUSTED
Devious cryptic setter no doubt close to reinstatement (3,2,2,7)
An anagram (‘cryptic’) of ‘setter no doubt’ plus T (‘close to reinstatemenT‘)
25
See 24
26 ELITE
The pick of the tabs leaving raver disappointed? (5)
I suppose this is E-LITE, a play on the less filling food..
27 SEMIBREVE
Anyway, book is about No. 1, we read from reverse note (9)
A reversal (‘we read from reverse’) of EVER (‘anyway’?) plus BIMES, am envelope (‘about’) of ME (‘No.1’) in B (‘book’) plus ‘is’.
DOWN
1 ABSTRACT PAINTER
Kandinsky perhaps quietly set the craft free? (8,7)
If there is wordplay here, I cannot see it; there is the hint of ‘painter’ as a rope for mooring a boat, but I cannot build that into anything. So, again, by default I assign this to a cryptic definoition.
2, 20 AMERICAN GOTHIC
Slashing absolute value might sell this picture (8,6)
Well, the picture is by Grant Wood, and shows a couple (supposed to be father and daughter actually) with the man holding a pitchfork, standing in front of a house. The clue must have some wordplay, but I have no idea what.
3 PASTY
Just for one in Cornwall is cutting return local fare? (5)
An envelope (‘is cutting’) of ST (‘Just for one in Cornwall’ – actually there are two, St Just in Roseland and St Just in Penwith, although the former is just a village) in PAY (‘return’) Of course, the ‘fare’ is also local to Cornwall.
4 MISERERE
Soil retains dry composition (8)
An envelope (‘retains’) of SERE (‘dry’) on MIRE (‘soil’), for a setting of Psalm 51, most famously the one by Allegri.
5 REVAMP
A new face: Sir Keir and State both on the up (6)
A reversal (both on the up’ in a down light) of PM (hot off the press: ‘Sir Keir’ Starmer has been Prime Minister for all of five days) plus AVER (‘state’). ‘Both’ might suggest that the order of the particles is reversed – a reversal of ‘Sir Keir’ followed by a reversal of ‘state’ – but that is not what is required here.
6 HAIRDRIER
Appliance that blows woman’s verge of rose leaves around Scots town (9)
An envelope (‘around’) of AIRDRIE (‘Scots town’) in H[e]R (‘woman’s’) minus the E (‘verge of rosE leaves’)
7, 18 SHALL I BE MOTHER
Offer from those taking charge to dispense with services of char (5,1,2,6)
Cryptic definition; the expression is an offer to pour tea (‘char’).
8 UNDER LOCK AND KEY
Rudely knocked up a knight to open safe (5,4,3,3)
An envelope (‘to open’) of ‘a’ plus N (‘knight’, chess notation) in UNDERLOCKDKEY, an anagram (‘up’) of ‘rudely knocked’.
15 ABANDONED
Trailer loaded by crew I left (9)
An envelope (‘loaded by’) of BAND (‘crew’) plus ONE (‘I’) in AD (‘trailer’ for a film , say).
17 AT NO TIME
Giving up with mate in two moves? Never! (2,2,4)
A deserved question mark. I think this must be NOT I (‘giving up’) plus ‘mate. with the AT movced to the front, hence the ‘two moves’.
18
See 7
20
See 2
21 OR ELSE
Failing this foundation in Mineralogy; gaining a place for Economics (2,4)
A charade of ORE (‘foundation in mineralogy’) plus LSE (London School of Economics, ‘place for Economics’).
23 RUGBY
Maybe one on train’s covering away game (5)
RUG is a ‘covering’, a wig, and BY could be ‘away’, but I cannot see where the train comes in.

135 comments on “Guardian 29,431 by Enigmatist”

  3. 1d to abstract meaning to steal or remove, so if you abstract the painter you set the boat free.

  4. Abstract painter…stealthily remove rope to set boat adrift?
    American gothic seems to have
    Merit (value) and. Can go (may sell) and hic ..latin ‘this’ ?

  5. So, yes, chewy, with quite a bit of wtbleep. I guess ‘abstracting’ a painter rope might set a boat free, but quietly …? Hmm. As for the slashing gothic one.. no idea! Ravers like taking Es, so an E-lite would be disappointing, no problem there. Bombasine, ashen and arch went straight in, but not a lot else. The bits for, eg, semibreve were more fiendish, and the pasty clue was oblique (esp for an atheist 😉 ). Still, good to be stretched, thanks Enigmatist and sympathies Peter.

  6. What Bea said… 😀
    Slashing = position inside A MERIT
    Absolute = A
    Value = MERIT
    May Sell = CAN GO
    This (in Latin) = HIC
    A MERI CAN GO T HIC

  7. After two relatively easy days, was hit with this, and got nothing on the first pass.
    At the end, got everything except 3d, through a combination of luck and guesswork, could parse only a few… I can claim very little credit.
    Would never have been able to parse “Semibreve”,
    Thank you to Enigmatist and PeterO

  11. RUGBY
    Under RUG Collins has:
    a blanket, esp one used as a wrap or lap robe for travellers
    Maybe one on train=RUG, covering–>in a down clue indicating that RUG is above BY (away).
    Does it work?

  13. SEMIBREVE
    Under anyway Collins has:
    Usually any way. in any manner; by any means
    Under ever it has:
    in any possible way or manner
    come as fast as ever you can

    anyway=EVER (still a stretch?)

    Though a difficult puzzle, a very enjoyable one. Thanks Enigmatist.
    Thanks PeterO for the blog.

  14. Yes, another failure of parsing quite a few although I managed to fill in mostly correctly from the definitions.
    I’m still not convinced about ALEMBIC although I parsed it as per PeterO. Shouldn’t “expressed” refer to “imbalance” grammatically rather than “an”. “ahead of” to refer to “an” seems clunky to me.

  16. Solved like the quick, find the definition, ignore the wordplay then (usually fail to) parse.
    Not much fun.
    Thanks both.

  17. ALEMBIC
    TimC@14
    Agree with you that it’s somewhat confusing.
    Read it as ‘an-imbalance expressed’ to mean ‘imbalance expressed/expelled an’.
    Works, I guess.

  18. ‘Abstract’ is defined by Chambers as ‘to remove quietly’ so no worries about that one. Indeed it was one of the four I managed to get in my first pass through the puzzle. I never got to solve OR ELSE – which is entirely my bad as it’s fairly and clearly clued with hindsight – or RUGBY which still mystifies me. And I did not piece together AMERICAN GOTHIC which came from enumeration and crossers. I liked FOI, PASTY, for the St Just reference and EMMA was delightfully done. The turning point was MISERERE where, after playing with TT, SEC and BRUT, I thought ‘Enigmatist is the kind of setter to use dry = SERE’ – and there we were after which there was a run to the finish, bar the two that beat me. A very tricky puzzle indeed – my biggest eyebrow raise was the deletion of AN from the fodder in ALEMBIC which feels very awkward to me. Still, (excuse pun), Roz should be happy!

    Thanks Enigmatist and PeterO

  19. @16 HIYD, my experience too. I got it out surprisingly quickly once I stopped trying to parse the clues and just bunged in words that seemed to (and did) fit what appeared to be the definitions.

  20. I’ve never been keen on Enigmatist, and the parsings here haven’t changed that view. I did it pretty much as HIYD @ 16. I suppose it’ll keep those who wanted a harder puzzle happy.
    Thanks to PeterO and, grudgingly, to Enigmatist

  21. Ok so I wasn’t the only one. I saw a setter who I hadn’t seen before. Thought I’d give it a crack and bailed after a few clues. I’ll leave it at that

  23. This was a fail for me but thanks PeterO and others for the explanations. I’ll pass on any future Enigmatists.

  24. I got ABSTRACT PAINTER parsed as above, but came here for AMERICAN GOTHIC, and I parsed ELITE as an E for a raver being disappointing if it’s LITE, and laughed.

    Roz will be pleased to see Enigmatist back. I find him a work out, but enjoyable, as I’ve been solving his monthly Io crosswords in the FT and the even rarer Mephisto sppearances in the Independent.

    Thank you to PeterO and Enigmatist.

  25. I think 17 down is more likely to be an anagram (moves) of “mate in two” minus the “w” (giving up with).

  26. A bit too tortuous for me to enjoy completely first thing in the morning – but, like a prebreakfast 10k run, one feels better and smug for having finished it.

    Will have to study blog to fill in my partial parsings

    Thanks Enigmatist and PeterO (to have only 3 missing explanations is pretty amazing tbh)

  27. I think ‘char’ under 7,18d has a double meaning – tea, as PeterO has suggested, but also chore-person – so presumably the char had the day off and the tea-pourer had to do the chore themself?

  28. Thank you PeterO. Hope you didn’t go to bed with this on your mind. Bravo!

    What’s E on? E-LITE? I managed to solve nearly all by whatever means, and parse most, except for AMERICAN GOTHIC and PASTY and ABSTRACT PAINTER and ALEMBIC. I’d be interested to hear from those who’ve said they wanted more complex cryptics. Does more difficult equate with better quality?

    Liked the wordplay for REVAMP, although not so sure about the definition, grammatically. As PeterO says ”hot off the press”, although it could have been written some time ago, as the Labour Party has been ”on the up” for some time. It may be coincidence but RE – VAMP could also be clued as on the up( vamp being the top part of a boot or shoe/front part of the upper.) with ”on the up” doing double duty as a reversal.

    Favs PEPPERMILL, NOT TO BE TRUSTED, AT NO TIME, UNDER LOCK AND KEY, OR ELSE.

  29. I got all the answers without aids, but more than a few unparsed. If I manage to get to the York gathering this year I shall give JH a Paddington hard stare.

  30. Paddymelon @28 E = ecstasy, originally the drug of choice for ravers. Not sure what’s going down now.

  31. KVa @ 11 I think, from your Collins entry, that RUGBY is Maybe one on train’s covering = RUG plus away = BY.

  33. Snookered by AMERICAN GOTHIC and RUGBY like nearly everyone else, though I also got a surprising number by the time-honoured BIFD method (bung in from definition). I’ve never seen BOMBASINE spelt with an S before, but the clue said so… I managed to ABSTRACT the PAINTER, and I liked AT GUNPOINT, TURN THE AIR BLUE and the topical REVAMP. But my favourite was EMMA: short, sweet and beautifully hidden!

  34. So glad it isn’t just me.
    The first time through, the only one I had got was ARCH.
    Some clever stuff – I particularly liked REVAMP and OR ELSE – but an awful lot of too-clever-by-half stuff, with AMERICAN GOTHIC and ELITE probably the worst offenders, and a feeling that that is a couple of hours of my life I shan’t get back.
    Thanks to PeterO for doing the hard work so that I didn’t have to, and to Enigmatist for the bits I enjoyed.

  35. Peter O, thank you, but I was relieved to see that I was in good company – though I did come here to seek enlightenment on AMERICAN GOTHIC. So thank you Jason @7! I thought PASTY was a tremendous clue – but then I am biased. Am I the only one who thought Kandinsky was a very straightforward – and beautifully neat – clue? I suspect cryptics people are the only ones who ever spell char = tea that way, with its R. Some sympathy with the tongue-in-cheek George Clements @ 29 – but we know we love this sort of challenge.

  36. All the long clues today made me smile and as I don’t worry about being able to justify the solutions it was an enjoyable puzzle for me. Sympathies with PeterO having to parse and blog, many thanks, and for the pumpkin remark which raised another smile.

  38. There was far too much here that must have seemed clever to the setter but, even after guessing the answer, required a ridiculous amount of work to parse. Why would a train passenger need a rug? “bombasine” is a pretty unusual word clued with another unusual one (“bombe”), which is no help. Is “tele” a thing? Surely the box is the “telly”? Doubtless Chambers has it as a non-standard variant somewhere. “Alembic” – the grammar of this is totally wrong – either the article is doing double duty or is in the wrong place or both.

    Usually with a hard puzzle there is, at least, a feeling of real satisfaction at having learned an obscure word, or seen a clever parsing, but this just left me feeling weary and bored by the end, especially after guessing over half the answers and struggling to justify them. I’m sure some people really enjoy footling around in deep-lying Chambers (etymological spelunking?), or pretending that words can be put in any order at the pleasure of the setter, but for me the abstractions went too far.

    Having said that “abstract painter” was clever. Thanks PeterO – I did not envy you this one!

  40. Enigmatist has obviously spent the time since he last appeared in the Graun sharpening up his hob-nailed boots as, on a day for difficult crosswords (well the ones I’ve solved so far anyway) this was a prize winner

    My favourite clue was 3d.

    Thanks to Enigmatist (perhaps you could be a bit kinder next time) and well done to PeterO

  41. I completed this with two reveals (23, 26) and a bit of help with a couple of others. Perhaps oddly, I enjoyed it, though it feels like my efforts were rewarded in a series of random and unlikely coincidences rather than through such quaint notions as actually being able to parse much of it.

  42. DNF of course. Much too recondite even to parse some of the ones I did get. ALEMBIC is preposterous. Even under the principle that almost any combination of words can be arm-twisted to mean something, ‘an imbalance expressed’ is the kind of nonsense up with which I will not put.

  45. Liked PEPPERMILL, AT NO TIME & REVAMP

    Some of the over-elaborate wordplay seems a bit amateurish. Relief rather than a sense of achievement at finishing this.

    Cheers P&E

  46. Just too many “stretches” to make this enjoyable or comprehensible as a whole. By the way, the British have no idea how weird 7D sounds to other English speakers!

  47. I loved it despite my inability to parse. Thanks Enigmatist and PeterO, and all you bloggers who managed to parse everything!

  48. Frightfully clever and witty, which is my polite way of saying “What a pain in the backside.” Far too laborious and contrived for me and, it seems, for too many others for this to count as anything but an ordeal.

  50. Thanks for the blog, I would not have liked to explain this in a hurry , it has been nearly two years so yes I am very happy today , I thought it was brilliant , the only real dud is ALEMBIC which is a sort of failed compound anagram . Russ@31 has RUGBY , a travel RUG is simply a covering for someone on a train, not so common now but trains used to be colder. A few have mentioned ELITE = E – LITE so the tabs of ecstasy not up to snuff for the raver.
    PEPPERMILL very neat , AT NO TIME is brilliant.

    For fans of this setter we also have IO Wednesday , nearly always the last Wed of the month in the FT, ( not owned by right-wing billionaire tax-dodging criminals )

  51. JoFT@38; I agree that a modern train traveller is not likely to take a rug along, but “travelling rugs” were perfectly normal in the earlier days of rail when train heating was unreliable or nonexistent. If the clue had said “one on Victorian train’s covering” I think it would have been perfectly fair. I agree that there is no way to make the ALEMBIC clue parse properly, though it’s clear enough what the setter means, but generally a lot of clever clues and nice surfaces (11A, 5D, 17D, as well as the favourites of others.). So thanks to Enigmatist and PeterO; it’s always enjoyable for contributors when the blogger can’t parse a clue or two and we can show off our own prowess.

  52. Hello everyone,

    Does anyone know if the Guardian’s blank crossword grids are available as a word doc/ pdf? I am having a go myself at making crosswords and this would be very useful if it exists somewhere on the internet!

    Thank you 😊

  53. Well, I did try very hard with this, and managed eventually to correctly insert about half a dozen. But had very little idea about how exactly half of them parsed. Thought the grinder at 14 AC had to be either Coffeemill or PEPPERMILL and it took me an absolute age to see why the latter was the correct one. Thereafter pretty much gave up the grind and hit the reveal button. To admire clues such as AT GUNPOINT. But BOMBASINE, ALEMBIC, AMERICAN GOTHIC and MISERERE were beyond my ken anyway. Nice to discover how clues like RUGBY and ABSTRACT PAINTER panned our to. And for ages I thought surely not SHALL I BE MOTHER, but ’twas so. Sounding a bit world weary this morning, but this was far too tough for the likes of me…

  54. I almost thought that with ASHEN, PASTY and AMERICAN GOTHIC, we were getting a theme. PASTY was my favourite.

  55. I gave up on this one. My morning crossword should be fun. When I realised that I was hitting the Check button too often and then being irritated at the answer, I just figured I’d come here and try figure things out. BOMBASINE, ALEMBIC (obsolete anyway)…just seemed like trying to be clever for the sake of it.

  56. RGS@46 if we do we delight in it: mainly used in our house for replenishing gin or wine rather than tea. Glad to see I’m not the only one who thought ALEMBIC didn’t work (though strangely it jumped out at me, sans crossers, from the word count + ‘Still…’). Also no idea what ‘quietly’ is doing in 1d. Thanks PeterO for parsing PASTY which I’d never have got. I’ll revisit later to see if anyone has been able to crack AMERICAN GOTHIC.

  57. Well, I thought this was on the kind side for Enigmatist…. And several of the clues brought me genuine pleasure; parsing PASTY, AT NO TIME and OR ELSE, for example, made me smile at Enigmatist’s ingenuity (and is why I stay cruciverbally addicted after all these years!)

    No complaints from me …

    Many thanks, both and all

  59. Very rarely do I just give up trying. This is one of those days. Looking at the solutions I think I made the right call. On to tomorrow.

  60. Sagittarius @51: re the train rug – that’s kind of my point. Had it said “coach traveller” or “old train traveller” it would’ve made sense. So would just “traveller”. But adding in “train” without the reference to it meaning one from 150+ years ago was an unnecessary twiddle on top of a while load of other things you had to ignore to solve the clues.

    poc @42: My only run-in with “alembic” in the past has been in Shakespeare. Lady Macbeth, in her “screw your courage to the sticking place” speech says “That memory, the warder of the brain, shall be a-fume, and the receipt of reason a limbeck only.” which the director of one version I was in explained was a variant of “alembic”, giving the idea of the brain distilling thoughts and reason receiving only the fumes perhaps.

    Shakespeare repeats the usage in sonnet 119 (“What potions have I drunk of Siren tears, distilled from limbecks foul as hell within”).

  61. …though re AMERICAN GOTHIC, looking again, I realise Bea@4 is spot on. CAN GO (might sell) slashing (inserted into) A (absolute) MERIT (value), then HIC (this). Not sure that A for absolute is fair but no doubt it’ll be in one of the dictionaries.

  62. [Earworm (for the third time) – Allegri’s MISERERE mei, Deus (with karaoke lyrics in Latin (HIC) and English) – Let’s all sing along…]

  63. On my first pass, I had a grand total of one answer, ARCH. The only way forward was to reveal one–I chose the most impenetrable-looking long answer, AMERICAN GOTHIC. That gave me enough crossing letters that I did eventually manage to fill the rest of the grid, but as others have said, in several cases via the BIFD method. Several unparsed even after long staring, so thanks to all who assissted.

    As to the ones being discussed most here: E-LITE made me laugh, while ALEMBIC made me cross. I did, eventually, understand what we were supposedly being instructed to do, but there is no way a native speaker of English would ever write the instructions that way!

  64. Lechien@55 “trying to be clever for the sake of it” sounds like a fair description of why we do cryptic crosswords, surely. And thanks to the RRR movement obsolete is now interestingly antique (though admittedly that clue has wp problems)

  65. I really enjoyed having Enigmatist back even though I know how tough he can be. In some ways I can’t believe I eventually completed this grid but now I’m really glad I persevered, as copster@15 also commented. That being said, there were a lot of really tough clues I couldn’t parse either in full or even in part, so it’s been very reassuring to come here and find that I wasn’t the only one (as others have already remarked). I thought EMMA at 22 across was a gem of a clue (cf. PostMark@18 and gladys@33), and unlike some, I liked the way Enigmatist clued the colloquial phrase “SHALL I BE MOTHER” at 7/18d (which even as an Aussie I sometimes use when pouring a pot of tea – overly influenced by British literature when younger I suspect!).
    Many thanks to Enigmatist and PeterO, as well as previous posters for an interesting discussion.

  66. Fairly astounded to finish this during my normal lunch hour, though I didn’t get quite a few of the parsings. In particular I’m glad I’ve heard of both an ALEMBIC and the painting AMERICAN GOTHIC before… I found it worth persevering with; I had a very slow start and nearly threw in the towel at about ten minutes having put in three-and-a-half answers (I got the PAINTER bit) without being entirely convinced by two of them.

  67. [For 11a,12a TURN THE AIR BLUE, Wikipedia’s entry for The Red Flag contains various parodies, including this recent update: ‘
    For workers we no longer fight | Rebranded now, we’re Tory-LITE. | Keir Hardie, well, he’s real old hat | Keir Starmer now is where it’s at.
    Concern for you has mostly gone, | Unless you live in Islington. | We care not for the working class, | So stick the red flag up your arse.’]

  69. Everyone is busy wondering why train travellers need a RUG, but how does away=BY? Gone by isn’t the same as gone away, and I can’t think of an alternative example.

  70. I found a few going in and thought it might be worth persevering but by the time I’d got to just over half, most answers were unparsed. I revealed the rest to either think ‘I suppose so at a stretch’ or ‘no idea’. Having now seen the parsing, I must say this is a crossword devoid of any pleasure whatsoever. I don’t mind clues being hard when the parsing is clever, funny, or ‘I should have seen that, I am stupid’. These were just grindingly difficult with no reward at the end. Other than that, I enjoyed it.

  71. Put through the PEPPERMILL today with this one. I loved ELITE, ABSTRACT PAINTER, SHALL I BE MOTHER and EMMA but agree with other posters that some clues were just too tortuous to bring any real pleasure. At least it made my friend Roz’s day. Yes FrankieG @62, I posted that singalong in a Brendan puzzle last October. Big thanks to PeterO and those who parsed the trickiest ones.

    Ta both.

  72. I am with the majority on this one: more frustrating than enjoyable, and unlike with most difficult puzzles, many of the parsings do not seem fair even in hindsight.

    I hope the crosswords editor is taking note of this as I blame them more than the setter.

  73. 26a – E-lite tabs would be pills with little e (MDMA) in them, thus disappointing to ravers. I suppose

  75. All i got on their own were 1dn and 13ac. The rest came through steady use of the check button.

    How is “up” an anagrind in 8dn, UNDER LOCK AND KEY?

    Never heard of a train rug. Apparently the travellers in my plentiful experience with British detective fiction didn’t either use or mention them. And by me a rug goes on the floor.

    Thanks to Enigmatist and both thanks and sympathy to PeterO.

  76. Not seen an Enigmatist puzzle before. After the first read through, I checked back to see if there were special instructions – eg the wordplay for clue 1 is found in the surface of clue 2. No such luck, however, so went for the “bung in” approach like others.

  77. Gladys@69 , similar to Peter@ 74 I thought about having a little put by/away for a rainy day .
    AlanC@71, it feels like my birthday , there is no cricket on Radio 4 longwave.

    For people grumbling there are two consolations.First , we may not see this setter for another two years . Second, back in the day when the Guardian had seriously hard puzzles , this setter would not have made the top three for difficulty.

  78. after 6 hours I had 6 solutions. I then spent time finding anagrams for ENIGMATIST. This was MIST EATING for me. Litter box liner now. Well done everyone.

  79. Gosh I thought it was just (am I really going to say?) spiffing. Yes there were a few unparsed but cracking SHALL I BE MOTHER, MISERERE and the wonderful ELITE gave great pleasure to this (well I can be a) grump. (Soo impressed with myself for having heard of Kandinsky).

    Thanks both.

  80. JOFT@60: my objection to ALEMBIC wasn’t the word, which I is fine (and I had heard of it), but to the clueing.

  81. Thanks Enigmatist and PeterO
    Baffled by too many parsings to enjoy this, though I did fill in all the grid. I was impressed by the construction so that the “follow-on” anwers actually followed on in the grid.

  82. Like others, finished this with fairly liberal use of CAI (computer -aided inspiration) and bunge and parse (or not). Thanks to PeterO for the interpretation of those that eluded me. Some lovely clues, some I found less so. But, every setter has their quirks, and it takes a while to learn them. I hope we get the chance – I agree with Roz that the range of challenges is currently too narrow on each side.

  84. Glad to see Enigmatist here again, as I like chewy puzzles. Had no idea whatsoever about how to parse AMERICAN GOTHIC or RUBGY beyond the rug, but was pleased to finish. Thanks to E & P.

  85. [Roz @77: I’m currently undercover in Belfast (it’s pouring), intrigued to know who the toughest were/are as I only started these about 10 years ago. Please tell me you didn’t finish this before you got off your bus].

  86. [AlanC I always do the Guardian on my way home on the train, Wed my very short day , 20 minute journey . I had three left , AMERICAN GOTHIC and PASTY I knew but I never put them in until completely solved , plus MISERERE I had nothing. Had a second look about half an hour later and all straight in , this often happens . I am used to this setter , about 10 a year in the FT .
    The toughest for me were Bunthorne , Fidelio and Gemini ( two maths teachers from Belfast ) . No doubt your mission involves the local hospitality . ]

  87. Well, like many others I found this a slog, with lots of check button and more to admire in retrospect than to enjoy. Got seriously slammed by UK spelling for the first time in a while with bombazine and hairdryer. (Though I wouldn’t have got AIRDRIE anyway, and don’t like “verge of rose” much for only one side with no indication of which.) The long CDs can be a problem when I’m not on the setter’s wavelength, though 1d was FOI (I took “abstract” for “quietly remove” like many others).

    As with others, couldn’t parse RUGBY and AMERICAN GOTHIC (brilliant job Bea@4 and Jason@6!), too many moving parts in different ways. Also hadn’t a hope with St. Just. And though anagrinds get very loose, “up” seems a bit much.

    On the positive side, ticks for REVAMP and SEMIBREVE, and once I had bunged in ABANDONED, PEPPERMILL, AT NO TIME, and ASHEN I saw the constructions were clever and fair. I particularly like spelling out “one” for “I” and also the “four from” for the hidden in 22ac–LOI because I’d assumed it was a CD, then found myself slapping my forehead.

    Thanks PeterO and Enigmatist!

  89. Very late to comment today (I’m in Copenhagen), so apologies for that.

    I enjoyed the challenge a lot today, unlike most of our colleagues here, though many solutions were easier to find from enumeration/crossers than their parsings – but I succeeded in unravelling everything eventually. I think ‘bombazine’ is the far more usual spelling.

    I wish we were treated to more than the very occasional Enigmatist, but it seems that this is a minority view 🙂

    Thanks indeed to JH and PeterO

  90. This defeated me. Thanks for all the explanations. I’d be turning the air blue otherwise! My brain is obviously not to be trusted today.

  91. Yesterday I got home with only a few clues to do; today I got home with only a few clues completed so knew this would require a bit more work. Turns out needed a lot more work… nho alembic and bombasine. Loved turn the air blue and of course, semibreve and miserere. Admired those clues where single words led to the answer such as wave off in peppermill. How nice that safe wasn’t peter for once too. It’s good to have a very hard challenge but the editor must keep the range of difficulty if he wants to keep everyone happy: I’m looking at you Monday puzzle. Thank you Enigmatist, Petero and all the commentators.

  92. Just to buck the trend of comments, I loved this. So many delightful penny drop moments and genuine laughs. Good to see you back, Enigmatist.

  93. Gave up with only six filled in. Glad to see from the blog that I saved myself from wasting any more time on it.
    The Grauniad really is infuriatingly inconsistent – one day fun and doable, the next overworked obscurities.
    Enigmatist is going in the bin with Paul.

  94. As someone who usually completes The GCC I have to say that this wasn’t much fun; simply too abstruse and too many clunky surfaces. Not at all my cup of tea, but pleased for those who enjoyed it.

  95. The only thing I liked abut this puzzle was that the multi-word clues were arranged in straight lines instead of being scattered around the grid.

  96. It does appear to me in the light of puzzle 29341 that we do have a wide range or scale of solving ability and appreciation on Guardian Fifteen Squared. With me perhaps somewhere there in the middle. But I do hope and wish that it’s not all about conceit, but more about personal genuine pleasure and appreciation of success at whatever level with the Enigmas that are set in front of us on a daily basis…

  97. I think the main issue is that puzzles at this level are now very rare so this is a shock to the system . The Guardian used to have two at this level most weeks but also two puzzles for newer solvers which is even more important . It is only in recent times that nearly every puzzle is down the middle of the range.

  98. In the past, I remember Enigmatist puzzles being difficult but fair. Not this one. I failed to get a couple of clues and failed to parse about a dozen. Even after reading the blog and all the comments, I still can’t make sense of about a half-dozen: 11ac, 26ac, 27ac (anyway = ever?), 2dn (can we just use Latin words willy-nilly now?), 7dn.

  99. Roz@97 good point well made. The puzzles need to encourage and inspire newbies (arguably me a few years ago) whilst giving the very experienced solvers (like you) a proper workout. Variety is the spice of life; compromise leaves nobody happy.

  100. Ted@98 some of these are just very UK based.
    11Ac the Labour Party are the reds and their song , an air, is the Red Flag , the Tories are the Blues so TURN THE AIR BLUE if you torify it, also a euphemism for swearing.
    26Ac is club culture , tabs are tablets of ecstasy ( E ) taken by ravers , if they are E LITE the ravers are not happy.
    7D a very English scene , a teapot and cups on the table , someone says SHALL I BE MOTHER meaning pour out the tea (char) for everyone.

  101. Yes, great to see Enigmatist. As others have said, if we saw him more often, we’d get more used to his style. I struggled with parsing the same few already mentioned, but having reread the clues, everything now makes sense.
    REVAMP and AT NO TIME were peaches. I also liked ALEMBIC because of the poetic wording and the suitably understated definition.
    Thanks, Peter & Enigmatist. Come again soon!

  102. I remember part of a parody from the 70s (or earlier?)

    The people’s flag is deepest pink
    We’re not as left wing as you think

    I can’t remember how it goes on.

  103. A bit of a curate’s egg for me. Did it eventually with a lot of bungs, plenty of checks. Same gripes as most regarding some iffy constructions although there were some extremely ingenious plays here which I tip my hat to. For rudely knocked up, I find up the weakest and most unlikely anagrid of the three, but I suppose mixed up, up in the air etc means it’s fine.
    Difficulty. I have no doubt that Roz would have been happy to see this in the Friday/Prize slot as that to me is the correct berth. I feel that the Mon/easy, Fri/Hard, Tue-Wed randomly equal or in between was very helpful in setting expectations as a newcomer. Now it’s pot luck. Even Everyman changed its difficulty, but has seemingly settled down now to a more doable puzzle.
    Thanks very much to Enigmatist and PeterO

  105. Muffin@102, found this for you.

    The people’s flag is deepest pink,
    It’s not as red as you might think,
    Those socialists, they keep their wealth,
    New Labour contradicts itself.

    Then raise the salmon standard high.
    Under it they’ll watch us die,
    Though Lib Dems flinch and Tories sneer,
    We’ll keep the pink flag flying here.

  106. Thanks, Roz @100!

    I actually knew most of the facts that you mention. I didn’t know that the Red Flag was the Labour party’s song, although I gathered from context that it was a song. Knowing that fact does help make a bit more sense of that clue.

    I guess if I squint really hard I can see how 7dn is supposed to work as a cryptic definition. The connection between “E-lite” and the actual words of the clue still hovers beyond my reach, although I think I understand vaguely what’s intended.

  107. I’ll reiterate what I said earlier – I really liked this, but I have been solving the Io puzzles in the FT for the last year or so, so I’ve seen Enigmatist’s style before.

    [Also I couldn’t do Bunthorne back in the day. Had more chance with Gemini, don’t remember Fidelio, so that may have been in the gap between when I solved as a student and coming back to solve now. @Roz – the friend from student days whose funeral I attended at the end of May, apparently solved the Guardian in under 15 minutes every day, according to the address. I remembered him getting as stuck on Bunthorne as I did.]

  108. After two days of being able to finish the puzzle and parse most I didn’t get far with this one but absolutely get that it’s good to have a range of difficulty levels. I’ve been reading the blog here most days for the last 6 months and have to say that on days like today it’s more fun than the puzzle. Thanks all.

  109. I remember Bunthorne as being quirky, and sometimes impenetrable, but sometimes also very funny. Of course, he came from Burnley, which probably explains that!

  110. Message to the Guardian editors: if the purpose of these puzzles is to provide entertainment to the reader I would lose this setter.

  111. Jay@110… we can all be entertained at different levels. As I alluded to earlier,this was befitting of a Prize slot, maybe the Friday at a push, where we all (used to) accept that this is where the fiendish puzzles rightly belonged and to whom there was a target audience. That is my only quibble, that it landed in the formerly intermediary level puzzle zone. I’ve not looked for a while, but the AZED is the pinnacle and much harder than today, find a blog here and marvel. Lots of obscure words. Each to their own, but each must absolutely have their own. Roz, who’s an ace solver is totally on board. There’s a time and a place for everything and it’s a shame that this landed outside the bullseye.

  112. Jay @ 110

    Enigmatist is now among the 5 longest-serving G setters (his debut was in March 1979 [h/t to moaljodad]).

    While it’s clear that this puzzle has caused polarised views, that’s not a reason to ask for the setter to be excluded, more a reason to celebrate variety and the opportunity to explore different styles of clueing.

    I was certainly entertained by it, and enjoyed the tussle.

    While familiarity supposedly breeds contempt, it appears that unfamiliarity breeds disdain.

  113. I loved ABSTRACT PAINTER, although I did look askance at “quietly”. I think you could abstract a painter with a great deal of fanfare if you wished. IF, however, we are truly expected to start randomly translating clue words into Latin (what/hic) without any sort of indicator, I believe I will need to issue my first ever demerits to a puzzle. An additional half demerit for the whole “maybe one on train” weirdness.

  114. Jay@110 Azed No. 2,715 Plain
    It’s there on the side. The clues are a mixture of straightforward to devilish, it’s the answers that really knock you back. So many words way outside the current/common lexicon. That is half the fun. The blessed Eileen has been credited with JORUM which she repeatedly tries to credit to another, an answer constructed from all the bits that actually turned out to be a real word. I’d say a third of each AZED would qualify. Hence why Roz and her 7th Level solvers are thoroughly entertained.

  116. This was so far beyond me that I couldn’t even enjoy the blog and comments. Some very difficult puzzles are enjoyable after the fact with the aid of fifteensquared. Enigmatist’s FT puzzles (in his IO guise, slightly less enigmatic) are often like that. But this one was too much for my feeble brain.

    Having said that, for Roz’s sake I would be happy to see an Enigmatist every week. That way I would have a free day to catch up on some backlog puzzles. In other words, I don’t have to have a puzzle that suits me every day of the week in order for me to enjoy the Guardian Cryptics (and the fifteen squared blog).

    And I don’t mind being reminded periodically (just not too often) of my inadequacies as a solver. Acceptance of one’s limitations is a significant contributor to the retention of one’s sanity.

    [ It also doesn’t help that, apart from a couple of works – the Cello Concerto, the Serenade for Strings – I’m not a big fan of Elgar. 🙂 ]

  117. If I became ratty every time something made me feel a bit thick, then what a curmudgeon I’d be.

    I could probably get used to this setter.

    Thanks all.

  119. MAC089,

    This did make me feel a bit thick, I did become a tad ratty, and Mrs. E says that I am a curmudgeon.

    I’m not yet used to this setter.

  121. Thanks very much PeterO and various others above for making sense of quite a lot of this. If it helps anyone else coming to terms with their solving ‘mortality’, I find Enigmatist/Io to be worth a good deal of effort in that some of the clues are brilliant and give a definite sense of achievement from unpicking them, despite knowing that I will find others unparsable or entirely beyond me (MISERERE here eg) so I am comfortable in abandoning ship for the DNF lifeboat after a while – journey vs destination i suppose, but maybe we can’t change our wiring in that respect. Thanking Roz for her recommendation at the time, and in case it might get people back in the Enigmatist camp, I would say FT 17,748 is a more approachable puzzle (not everyone on here agreed) with a brilliant extra dimension. Thanks Enigmatist.

  122. That wuz well ‘ard, Sir!
    Thanks to bloggers for not making me feel quite so inadequate!
    Or should that be thanks to bloggers for making me feel not quite so inadequate?
    Or thanks to bloggers for making me feel quite adequate?
    ???

  123. Thanks Enigmatist and PeterO. This was a real struggle, and several answers remained unparsed. But I did enjoy it – a lot – and thought the effort was worthwhile. I am sorry some others did not.

  125. Ronald@114…was alluding to the 7th heaven. The ultimate in solving ability and satisfaction that folks aspire to, where one can dash off an AZED over one cup of coffee, which seems to be a common yardstick here.

  126. Taffy@125…many thanks for clearing that up for me! I seem to remember there were Levels of Achievement in schools when the National Curriculum came in, but I’d forgotten how high they went. Maybe they’re still in existence. So glad to get out of teaching all of 24 years ago now. Crosswordland is thankfully quite something else, much less stressful, no SAT’s or whatever they were called…

  127. My preference for crossies is to use no assistance of any kind; and never reveal if I think I still have the slightest chance of finishing. Finish I did for this one but it took 36 hours off and on. A number incompletely parsed, and totally defeated by 2,20.

    My take on ST in 3d is that Cornwall has a number of “STs” – St Ives, St Mawes, St Erth. St Just is only one of them (actually two as already pointed out), so, “Just for one”.

  128. A day late getting as far as I could and a DNF – but great to see Enigmatist back after a long break!

    I failed on RUGBY – tried GUARD without making sense of the wordplay, but this messed up SEMIBREVE which I also couldn’t get. Also couldn’t parse ELITE (and I still don’t get it!). At least I got the parsing of AT NO TIME straight away.

    But what the hell? It’s an Enigmatist and therefore unmissable! Hope this is the foretaste of plenty more from you, John. I was so enthralled that I haven’t even started today’s Vlad – that’s for tomorrow.

    Especially liked AMERICAN GOTHIC, AT NO TIME, ASHEN, UNDER LOCK AND KEY, TENABLE, PASTY, TURN THE AIR BLUE, REVAMP (two lovely topical ones), etc.

    Thanks to John H aka Enigmatist – and Peter (you sure had a tough blog!).

  129. Muffin @102, Taffy @105; the version I heard (probably dating from the Thatcher years) went:
    The scarlet flag is turning pink;
    The Labour Party’s in the drink.

    Of course “the past is a foreign country”, so ’tis said…

  130. Ronald@126…further to your analogy, I feel I have finally shrugged off my ‘U’nclassified status and am a borderline C pass now. That said, I wasn’t allowed to take an Anagram Solver nor a Word Finder into the exam hall with me. I really ought to invest in an Etui, Online Chambers, the Synonym version too and many folks rave about the Bradford lists as they are somewhat less ‘cheaty’. However, when GK is lacking, has to be Google.

  131. Laccaria @128/129. Loads of flag variations out there, the one I quoted was doing the rounds in 1977/8 when the Winter of Discontent was in full flow and Callaghan of all people was being accused of selling out. That’s aged well.
    As for ELITE..I’ll try an lern u bro
    Ecstacy…the tablet of choice for ravers. Aka Es
    So to be E-Lite would imply their stash was rather lacking in the required soma and hence ineffective or they had none at all.
    Innit

  132. Thanks for enlightening me Taffy@131. I guess I did more-or-less understand the original parsing, from PeterO, but I didn’t want to. Of all the abbreviations having currency in Crosswordland, I can’t help admitting that the ones invoking recreational drug culture (especially E and H) are the ones I feel most uncomfortable about (despite having made occasional use of them myself … the abbrevs I mean, not the drugs!)

    Am I alone in moralising thus? Am I too sanctimonious?

  134. Pino@133 thanks.

    Regarding BOMBASINE, I recall that BOMBE (a rare word meaning a dome-shaped ice-cream) was also the name given to the early codebreaking machines at Bletchley Park, devised by Alan Turing. Their purpose was of course to crack the German Enigma code. Puzzle by Enigmatist. Coincidence?!

  135. Didn’t finish. I had to eventually come here for about seven words. I should have googled Kandinsky; that would have given me the answer, and I think I would have got the word play. Quite clever. I have never done an Enigmatist cryptic before and found this setter quite difficult. I’ve been having quite a bit of success with the Genius crosswords each month and was getting big headed about it. This has brought me down to earth!

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