Guardian Cryptic 29,501 by Yank

124 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,501 by Yank”

1. thanks L and Y! same same. extra (8) prob typo I thought. Thanks for explaining ALLEGRO and likewise hadn’t heard of LESAGE (though no French degree pour moi)

2. In 19 down the animals went in two by two?

3. Strange puzzle, which certainly took me longer than usual for a Monday. I took the extra 8 as a typo.

   LESAGE and IVES were new to me, but seemed the most likely solutions. I couldn’t parse ALLEGRO (which I wouldn’t describe as ‘swiftly’).

   My rationalisation of TWO is that ‘two’s company’, ie ‘group appropriately’.

   I liked LEICESTER and GREAT GROSS.

   Thanks to S&B

4. Agree with SueB@2. Two is an “appropriate” group size when aboard the ark!

   The extra (8) looks like a typo to me.

5. I’m sure SueB and Jay are right!

6. Not an enjoyable solve for me. Having ‘end of an address’ for ORG is bizarre, and I’d never heard of enchanted Ella. Hoping someone can explain At work.

7. Didn’t get org as the end of an address in ALLEGRO, Doh, so thanks loonapick.
   It had to be IVES though I hadn’t heard of him. Similar with LESAGE.
   I also had a question mark for Two=group(appropriately) in AT WORK but I think SueB has it @2. Very clever, and added now to my other favourite ORGAN GRINDER.
   The extra (8) in FIGURINE is just a Grauniad.
   THORN as an Old English character on a Monday??? I had a moment of deja vu and thought it must still be Sunday with Azed. 🙂

8. (8) I assumed is a typo – haven’t got my paper version yet to check.
   Also agree with SueB@2.

   I liked ASK AROUND, ORGAN GRINDER (I think?) and RINGMASTER for Quasi.

   Not much choice for filling L-S-G-

   Thanks Yank and loonapick

9. I thought ALLEGRO as soon as I had the finishing “o” but couldn’t parse it. Biffed it when I had the starting “a” so thanks for the explanation which I would never have got. Some slightly questionable homophones and the already acknowledged obscure GK that needed post-insertion googles.

   On the whole a great change to have a Monday puzzle that lasted longer than breakfast. More please.

10. I also couldn’t see more than a typo with the extra (8) in 17. Groaned when I saw the wordplay, of course. I wonder why Yank went for a (to me) obscure lithographer rather than the better known composer in 12. The enchanted ELLA had passed me by, but Google helped after the crossers made the answer obvious, and the anagram made LESAGE soluble despite another gap in my GK. Agree with loonapick, that it’s good to have more of a challenge than normal on a Monday, though not sure any solvers new to cryptics would have appreciated it. Thanks to Yank and loonapick.

11. Great crossword – very enjoyable. But, not in any way an easy start to the week. Multiple Googles and dictionary checks on a Monday is very unusual.

    Thanks Yank and Loonapick

12. Re 17, END (of) USERS is S but I can’t see any use for a spare S, so…?

    Re 19, I thought about “two’s company, three’s a crowd”, but I think the two-by-two explanation is better.

13. I was torn between LESAGE, the lesser-known Italian playwright Lasege or their Spanish contemporary Lesega 🙂

    Not my favourite type of clue

    Lots to like though with ticks for ASK AROUND, RINGMASTER and WINE TASTER

    Can we just accept that everything that was said about the Arachne reference last week applies equally to PAUL? I don’t suppose anyone has changed their mind in the interim

    Cheers L&Y

14. Thanks L and Y.

    As has already been said, tricky for a Monday. While that may be appreciated by many (and I don’t mind it), I just think some consistency for Monday would be good, since it’s what would frequently be suggested to newer solvers as a step up from the Quiptic. I thought this one was several steps, and risks putting less experienced solvers off.

15. I found this to be great fun. A mixture of easier and more tricky clues: the parsing was beyond me with a few of them but it was a lively start to the week.

16. No clue how to parse ALLEGRO, as I’d never heard of the film. Governess/air likewise. And congrats to those who solved the TWO in AT WORK.

    No other problems, but I’d never heard of LESAGE, SOUS-VIDE, lithographer IVES or GREAT GROSS.

17. Entertaining puzzle but on a par with normal cryptics. LESAGE was new, but all that would fit, also did didn’t know Enchanted Ella for ALLEGRO

    Thank you to Yank and loonapick

18. Yes Me @12, I don’t understand what you are saying about “Re 17” (do you mean 8 down?). Can you give more detail?

19. TimC – on the electronic version 17d has two x (8) at the end.

20. Newer solver here, very much enjoyed three quarters of this – not a write-in but a good challenge and parseable (other than TWO in 19d for which thanks to Sue@2).

    NW was a bit unpleasant for me – I really hope “end of address” doesn’t become part of the lexicon; there are hundreds of TLDs – yes .org is one of the most common, but to me that’s a very weak clue. Had to be right but struggling to say it’s a nice definition “play it allegro” = “play it swiftly” at a push?

    Luckily I’ve done enough grauniads to know Paul as a setter, but GK missing for Lesage, tort, Ives and great gross though those all left few options from wordplay and crossers.

    Thanks loonapick and Yank for an interesting start to the week!

21. Lease is not in my Chambers Crossword Dictionary under playwrights.Never ‘eard of im
    When did Leicester (pop 0.5 mil) get demoted to being town?
    I thought this was crap!

22. Lesage?

23. Oh dear. Not my day. Didn’t spot the .org, or Eyre the governess, tried to make the blind alley be a passage, nho IVES the lithographer or LESAGE the playwright, forgot about the GREAT GROSS though I have met it once before, didn’t even notice the extra (8) in FIGURINE. Perhaps a cabinetmaker is more commonly called an ARKWRIGHT in the US: the only one I know runs a shop that’s open all hours. I suspect a lot of the knowledge may be more “general” across the pond.

    I did like ORGAN GRINDER (eww!), DE GAULLE (ouch) and ASK AROUND.

    Same quibble as usual about in-crowd clues using setters’ names.

24. Thanks Shanne @19. I’m obviously missing something.

25. SOUS VIDE was very trendy about 10 years ago – is it still popular?
    Nho TROT as a battery – is it a manufacturer?

26. BC@13 – yes, gladly (and I haven’t)! But I am interested nobody has yet commented on the 16D homophone, where Yank has produced a clue that works in American but not in European English, where the former French president sounds like “goal”, not “gall”.

27. For the avoidance of doubt, I did enjoy this despite the unusual GK, but anyone expecting an easy Monday would be surprised.

    Shirl@25: battery (as in assault and battery) is a TORT in legal terms.

28. This is a thorn: þ
    It later got confused with a y and gave rise to things like ‘ye’ as in ‘olde tea shoppe’

29. I just assumed there was a lithographer called Hackney and bunged in ACNE for the skin condition. Either that or a very rough homophone for Hockney.

30. In the SE, 19d, I thought I had a plausible ship-related solution for busy.. On Hold. (although I couldn’t parse ”appropriately”. Bunged it in and paid the price in that corner.
    RINGMASTER a favourite. Campanologist wouldn’t fit. Very funny.

    Bodycheetah , am with you about the ARACHNE, PAUL references. Personally, I don’t like these clues. If I were some random train traveller in the UK, picking up a discarded paper , as I did in the 70’s, I’d be very unhappy I couldn’t solve that.

31. Thanks Gladys @ 27

32. Peter@29. acne was the first thing that occurred to me too for the skin condition. Then when I got it and it wasn’t acne, I was struck by the thought that was a great gift for a setter (H)ackney/acne. No doubt it’s been done before.

33. Re Shiel @25, I think the battery is the assault , hence a tort

34. Shirl @25. Battery is a crime. From some legal site: What is a Tort? A tort refers to a breach of an individual’s civil rights, where one party’s negligence directly causes harm to another person or their property. Various types of torts exist, but all of them lead to personal injury or property damage.

35. copster @21 et al. Don’t get too hung up on city/town. I was listening to The Spinners (from Liverpool) last night, referring to Liverpool as a “dirty old town”.

36. (oops, having problems posting and editing in time. Shirl, hope you don’t mind that you’ve had several replies to your post @25 about TORT)

37. [L: Ella Enchanted (2004) starred Anne Hathaway. You may be mixing it up with Enchanted (2007). That starred Amy Adams.]

38. Phew that was a toughie but very rewarding. I loved ASK AROUND, ORGAN GRINDER, EXIT STRATEGY, DE GAULLE, RINGMASTER and the clever AT WORK. I did notice the extra (8) in FIGURINE and tried to justify it with IN inside the FIGURE 8, but I can’t make it work, so probably an error.

    Ta Yank & loonapick (I did smile at your boring Monday blogs).

39. Definitely on the harder end of Monday puzzles. Can’t help wondering if it might not be Alan Connor’s revenge for the lukewarm reception of his Ludwig puzzle las week. 🙂 🙂

40. Well, I was aware that my knowledge of early 18th century French dramatists was not up to scratch but I really thought I had the 19th century US lithographers off by heart. Not so, it would seem.

    Quite tough for a Monday as others have said and a fair bit of GK required. I’d have liked to have seen smoother surfaces overall.

    Obviously, Yank made life tricky for himself by having used ‘Old English’ in the clue for THORN but ‘Old England’ in OF AGE does not, surely, also get abbreviated to OE?

    Thanks Yank and loonapick

41. Not being familiar with Yank’s style, I found this puzzle very tough. Perhaps it escaped from the Saturday Prize slot?

    I failed to solve 21ac, 6d, 17d. I think it’s the first time ever that I failed to solve 3 clues in a Monday puzzle LOL.

    I needed help from google for the GK in this puzzle. New for me: lithographer James Merritt IVES (thanks, google – never heard of this person before, and I agree with Tomsdad@10 that the composer is better known); SOUS-VIDE; GREAT GROSS; playwright Alain-René LESAGE; ARKWRIGHT = early English name for cabinetmaker; the fact that LEICESTER is a Midlands town.

    I could not parse 1ac, 9ac.

    Favourite: ORGAN GRINDER.

    Thanks, both.

    I agree with SueB@2 re the animals going into the Ark two by two – so in this clue the two=appropriate number (for Ark) group.

    Crispy@14 I agree with you – but tbh I never recommend the Monday puzzle to beginners anymore.

    copster@21 – in the eyes of outsiders such as me, most so-called cities in the UK are towns because of their small populations. Rest of the world is not so concerned about whether they have cathedrals = be classed as cities. With a population of 350,000 Leicester could be thought of as a large town rather than a city. In many ways the two words can be used interchangeably if you forget about the cathedral factor 😉

42. Enjoyed this but couldn’t parse Allegro, so thanks to loonapick, and hope we see more of Yank (particularly on a Monday).

43. I thought the group was appropriately busy because it was at work – precisely where one should be busy. Not sure that works though, perhaps someone can advise. Otherwise I didn’t find this as hard as some despite being quite an inexperienced solver – a wavelength thing perhaps. Thanks Yank and Loonapick.

44. Thanks Yank and loonapick.
    I liked the neat anagram of ‘rudeness’, ‘liver pâté’, the foxy & cop-less ‘secret police’ and the busy animals going in two by two, hurrah!

45. For 5a ARKWRIGHT Collins has ‘in American English – a maker of chests, boxes, or coffers’ and
    ‘arkwright furniture in American English – late medieval English furniture of simple construction. [Oed.com and Chambers know nothing of this.]
    In any case, doesn’t Yank know that it always means Noah in Crosswordland? (Unless it’s referring to Open All Hours)
    American words, movies, actresses, lithographers… Correct me if I’m wrong, but I have a slight suspicion that Yank might be an American. 😉
    Thanks Y&L

46. AlanC @38 – yes, if it were not probably a typo (not sure as I don’t have the paper version) it could be
    FIGURE IN brackets

47. RussThree @35. The song (written by Ewan MacColl) is about Salford not Liverpool. Salford is also a city though.
    Great fun and satisfyingly tough. NHO Ella enchanted, Lesage or (that) Ives. Thanks both.

48. An ark is a cabinet (hence arkwright – cabinet maker). The ark of the covenant was a cabinet, not a boat.

49. Well that was a strangely satisfying solve. Talk about wavelengths. Took an eternity to get going but lots of lateral thinking, word, GK searches and synonym hunts for the definitions (often the wrong end of the clue!) and I made it to the end, quite chuffed. Not a Monday puzzle in the old definition, but this seems to have been junked now, which is a shame as that leaves the Q, QC and Everyman as the only options for beginners and pot luck Mon-Thu for a gentler offering, if at all. Spurious (8) a Graunism. I too biffed in ACNE knowing an aitch would be dropped from the front, but managed to dredge up (h)IVES once acne didn’t work. Was also a bit flummoxed by the TWO, so thanks for the clarification. Much to like as have been mentioned and a few mild quibbles

    Many thanks to Yank and Loonapick.

    [RussThree @35, seems Ewan MacColl wrote Dirty Old Town in 1949 for his play about a northern industrial town.]

50. Rosa Klebb (aka Arachne) in FT 15,169 in 2016: ’26a Arkwright is not open all hours at first (4)’ – apPAULlingly good.
    [wynsum@46 Nice spot! 😉 ]

51. My kind of town Chicago is.
    Oklahoma City is o so pretty.
    Size isn’t everything.

52. I agree about the odd GK required to complete this (why do we call it GK when it’s in fact quite specialised?). According to Wikipedia LeSage is chiefly remembered for ‘Gil Blas’, a picaresque novel, though he also wrote plays.

53. Nice to see thorn getting a name check, so let’s hear it for its voiced counterpart eth. Perhaps better known with her other partner Ron from radio’s The Glums, which, of course, started life as Les Miserables by Lesage. Amazing the way everything is connected. Sinister, even.

54. Some good stuff, some weird.
    IVES, LESAGE, pointless answers.
    Don’t understand the DE in DE GAULLE.
    Andy @48 An ark is a chest, cabinets are different, as are cabinetmakers.
    GREAT GROSS was nice.

55. James @54 You are absolutely correct, an ark technically is a chest, but over time it’s meaning expanded to include cabinets, as used in the clue. Arkwright is a common surname, designating a cabinet maker – the best known being Richard Arkwright, inventor of the spinning frame, and one of the founders of the industrial revolution.

56. Richard is the Arkwright who most readily springs to my mind, too.

    The inclusion of THORN should go some way to appeasing those who cringe at ‘ye’ = ‘the old’.

    I was pleased to see the ingenious clue for LEICESTER (great surface), which, although we are proud that it’s a city, I have no qualms about calling my home town.
    I also had ticks for PASSE, LIGHT YEARS, WINE TASTER, AIR PISTOL and FIGURINE.

    Thanks to Yank and loonapick.

57. Yes, pretty tough. I had an only partially parsed TIME WASTER at 22a – but then quite a lot of my other answers weren’t fully parsed either. I assumed ARKWRIGHT was referring to Richard of that ilk, but wondered if he made cabinets before inventing the factory (apparently not – crossed with a few of you there!). Thanks, Yank and loonapick.

58. [michelle @41: In a general sense, ‘city’ does imply a large settlement, but the official definition depends on the jurisdiction. The association of city status with cathedrals in the UK is an old notion, and erroneous. A UK city is a settlement which has been granted that status by royal charter or letters patent. They vary a lot in size. Most cathedrals are in cities, to be sure, but not all cities house one – and Southwell (pop. ca 7500) has a cathedral but is only a town. In the US a city is a settlement with ‘incorporated’ status, which means it has certain responsibilities for delivering services to its population. Some in rural areas have as few as a couple of thousand inhabitants]

59. Assuming that Yank is American, that might explain the choice of the unknown-over-here lithographer for IVES, but it would have been kinder to have referenced the more famous composer (and compatriot).
    LESAGE is, I guess, just something a setter has to do when faced with L*S*G*, though it wouldn’t take much of a tweak in the NW to have something a bit kinder.
    Sure, one might refer to ‘London town’ and such, but as a point of definition town is plain wrong. No less so for LEICESTER. Imperfect American knowledge perhaps?
    Despite the idiosyncracies, not too bad for a Monday I thought.

60. I got a bit held up in the NW corner with ALLEGRO and PASSE being unparsed (like Gladys @23 I thought it must be PASS(ag)E).

    Richard ARKWRIGHT was not, as far as I know, a cabinet maker, and the general term is either obsolete (Wiki) or American English (Collins). It doesn’t seem to be in Chambers or the OED. I liked the [Buzz] LIGHT YEARS, the ORGAN GRINDER with his liver pâté, and the FIGURINE (without his redundant octet).

    Thanks Yank and loonapick.

61. Andy@55 ‘its meaning expanded …’ Did it? Strange that the dictionaries have chosen not to record that. Of course I’ve heard of Richard Arkwright but what’s he got to do with the clue?

62. I wasn’t sure whether the De in De Gaulle was his own way of saying “some” or an American pronunciation of “the” as in the blog. Neither seems totally convincing.

63. I am absolutely not surprised that so few (none?) of you have heard of IVES. It doesn’t help with name recognition that he’s usually seen with his business/artistic partner Nathaniel Currier as half of the duo Currier & Ives. It also doesn’t help that their output is usually classed as Americana, so is probably of limited appeal elsewhere. Anyway, I guess it’s a change from the composer of the same name.

    I had not heard of the French playwright, but it seemed like the only arrangement of the fodder that made a plausible name.

    The DE GAULLE pun is so bad it’s good.

    Lastly, in typical American usage, “town” is the generic word for a settlement of any kind, so Leicester is a town, and so is London. But the grumbling about it was predictable.

64. Gervase @58 – Thanks for the clarification about cities. It’s a nonsense, of course. Milton Keynes was designed from the outset as a city (and there are a fair number of businesses calling themselves “New City…”) but TPTB only deigned to grant MK city status in 2022. There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason about it. You can get city status by having your MP murdered (Southend) or by the authorities wanting to shut Julie Burchill up for five minutes (Brighton & Hove). And in Birmingham, the “cathedral” is officially St Philip’s, but the church that people take seriously is St Martin’s in the Bull Ring.
    Eileen @56 – if you want a thorn-based cringe, try Wymondham in Norfolk which boasts, and I kid you not, Ye Olde Vape Shoppe selling smelly nicotine products.
    As for the crossword…
    There’s a lot to enjoy in this – LIGHT YEARS, ORGAN GRINDER, WINE TASTER, RINGMASTER are standouts, as, I guess, is DE GAULLE for sheer cheek.
    Didn’t get FIGURINE, not being familiar with that meaning of “fig”. Isn’t English confusing at times? Very formal dress, which may be worthless but costs a bomb, is referred to as “full fig”. Like AlanC @38 I wanted there to be a subsidiary wordplay with IN in FIGURE, but hey, this is the Grauniad, of course it’s a bally typo!!
    Thanks to Yank for the pleasant start to the day and to loonapick for explaining the bits I didn’t get.

65. mrpenney@63 Town is also a generic term in the UK. All UK cities are towns. The grumbling can be put down to status. UK towns can only call themselves cities with permission. The distinction between towns with city status and towns without is drawn to our attention so often and for some (mostly for the towns without) is so important that it has eclipsed the ordinary meanings of the words. It is as if part of the definition of ‘town’ is ‘not a city’.

66. Yes Me@12 END USERS are consumers.

    Ella Enchanted was a book before it was a movie. Read the book (charming), never heard of the movie.

    I don’t think of an ARTISTE as a virtuoso so much as a music hall performer, no?

    loonapick, ASK AROUND doesn’t have a reversal of “ask” (that would be AKS AROUND) but an anagram.

    Why is a fig a useless item? As in “I don’t give a fig”?

    Couldn’t think of any lithographers till I hit Google and was reminded of Currier and Ives, featured on many family calendars in my youth.

    Michelle@41 You’re very demanding in your definition of a city, cathedral or no cathedral. I’d certainly think of Leicester as a city at 350,000 and even the same of Hartford CT, where I live, at 125,000. It’s usually called a city around here.

    I rather like Ye Olde Vape Shoppe. Somebody’s tongue is in their cheek and they’re playing with cliches.

    Thanks to Yank and loonapick.

67. Apparently I am alone in complaining about GREAT GROSS, a term whose usage fell off a cliff around 1920* and has been all but obsolete for a century, except perhaps in crosswordland where I vaguely recall it turning up before.

    *why then specifically? I have no idea. See Google Ngram Viewer for verification

68. Michelle@41, Valentine@66: Cathedrals have nothing to do with whether an English town is a city, although this a popular piece of folk belief, possibly because for a long time the two did go hand in hand – although not by any formal requirement. Nor does size factor into it.

    In England a town becomes a city by royal charter, no more and no less. In the US, a city has a specific legal meaning (incorporation). Elsewhere in the world, the distinction between town and city (or local language equivalents) varies widely, in some cases being entirely informal (a “big enough” town is a city).

    Cambridge and Bath, among others, are modern cities without cathedrals. Birmingham was a city without a cathedral for years, and conversely Manchester a town with a cathedral before eventually being granted a city charter ahead of a royal visit.

    So is it correct to call Leicester a town? Absolutely, yes. A city is a town with a charter, hence a subset of town.

69. I enjoyed this a lot and didn’t find most of it notably harder than the usual Monday, different strokes for different folks I guess! Perhaps part of this is willingness to Google–Lesage was quite obscure to me but I guessed it from the anagram and checked, and once I figured that some expression for twelve gross and looked it up. Didn’t find the homophones much looser than usual, De Gaulle is certainly not pronounced like that in French but that’s more or less how I say it! And there weren’t many choices once the first E was in.

    That said I did have a bit of trouble in the southwest. Appreciative groan when the penny dropped (or was spent) for FIGURINE. By the time I got to that the extra (8) had been removed. EYRE for governess was the unparseable thing for me. I also had to use the check button because I forgot which doubled consonant to drop from the American spelling of “appall.” Like mrpenney@63 I’ve heard of Currier & Ives, I guess maybe it is particularly American?

    [Jacob@68–I think in the US the definition of city vs. town probably varies from state to state–here are the Arizona statutes if you want some casual reading for the next year, but it seems that there a municipality that incorporates must be a town if it’s very small and could choose to be a city or town otherwise? Also here in Vermont towns are often very geographically large and include a lot of rural land, because the entire state is meant to be divided up into towns except for a few “gores” left over due to surveying errors, and then not only cities but villages can be legally incorporated! In any case I very much agree that it is fair to call Leicester a town. Even Pittsburgh, a fairly large city, is called a “small town” in Songs for Drella, Lou Reed and John Cale’s biographical song cycle about Andy Warhol.]

70. Thank you very much for today’s blog, loonapick – it proved invaluable.
    I guessed ALLEGRO from the crossers, having never heard of “Ella Enchanted”; thanks to google, I now know it’s a 20 year old jukebox movie.)
    Actually I had a plethora of guesses followed by googling.
    The only Ives I could think of was a composer, though doubtless the lithographer is better-known in America.
    Maybe the same can be said of SOUS VIDE: yet another guess + google.
    Ditto ditto ARKWRIGHT: I knew of the 18thC inventor and Ronnie Barker’s shopowner. The third gent took a helluva lot of digging to discover.
    I did, at least, know about THORN – but my thoughts regarding it, Eth & Ron have been vastly outclassed by Alec@53.
    2D had to be LESAGE: thank you again, google and esteemed blogger.
    Do ORGAN GRINDERs still exist?
    Is TWO really a group? (The ark explanations are ingenious, but I remain unconvinced.)
    It’s ages since I read it, so would somebody please explain why Quasimodo is a circus star? Is it nothing more than a weak play-on-words to do bell-ringing?
    On the plus-side: EGRET and DE GAULLE made me grin.
    Thank you Yank for the challenge; I shall definitely be on my guard next time…

71. Gosh, so many (for me) almost impenetrable parsings – ALLEGRO, PASSE, LEICESTER, THORN to name a few. Guesswork got me about three quarters of the grid filled, but didn’t manage to ultimately stagger over the line. Liked EXIT STRATEGY, which is pretty much what I engineered for myself after realizing it would have to be a DNF for me today, with other more pressing things to do…

72. In 17D there are two (8) in the paper edition. Could be Grauniad consistency across versions.

73. …a couple of shirts and a pair of trousers, perhaps…

74. Yes, Almath@72, the online (8) may have disappeared, but it’s still there in my newspaper. In fact, I never even noticed it, because the first one is at the end of the line and the second on the – it turns out unnecessary – second line.

    I liked the playful pun on ‘some nerve’ at 16d and I was held up for ages on PASSE, having automatically “lifted and separated” blind from alley. Doh!

    An enjoyable challenge from Yank. Thanks for the blog, Loonapick.

75. Thanks Yank for a generally enjoyable crossword. I failed with ARKWRIGHT and FIGURINE but I managed all else with ASK AROUND, LIGHT YEARS, ABUT, AIR PISTOL, and DEGAULLE being favourites. I thought ORG for ‘end of address’ was a real stretch. Thanks loonapick for the blog.

76. A DNF for me as had never heard of the THORN character and I couldn’t work out PASSE and DE GAULLE. The most famous Currier & Ives lithograph is the one of Niagara Falls.

77. In ‘at work’ is it TWO as in ‘two’s company, three’s a crowd’ – ship’s company . . . ? If so, a bit laboured.

78. Jacob @67: No complaints from me about GREAT GROSS – 1000 in duodecimal. Such measures have become rare since most things are now measured in base 10. If only we were all polydactyl :). I would have thought ARKWRIGHTs ceased to be so called much earlier.

79. Pam@77
    The animals went in the ark two by two,
    See SueB@2 Jay@4

80. All correct without aids despite far too many guesses for my taste.

81. Yes Ives the composer is more famous than Ives the lithographer, but would you really want the clue to be unanswered?

82. This is really awful and one of the worst Guardian crosswords in many a year.

    Tell you what, Yank, buzz off!

83. Thanks for the blog, good set of clues , LEICESTER is very neat and precise . Every city is a town but not vice versa , the world’s most important city has 6 towns . Sue@2 has it right for the ark reference . I missed the double (8) it is on the next line .
    I liked FIGURINE , I often say to the students – I don’t give a ffffffig .
    Not the setter’s fault but totally unsuitable for the Monday tradition , maybe the Guardian should employ a puzzle consultant.

84. I rated this a medium difficulty puzzle, somewhat harder than usual for a Monday. I quite like more of a challenge on Mondays, when I’m fresh off the weekend and unencumbered by whatever fresh hell awaits at work. I would prefer easy puzzles later in the week when I’m more tired and grumpy. I still don’t like cliquey clues involving other setters, but I very much liked THORN, GREAT GROSS and PASSE. Thanks to Yank for something different on a Monday, and to loonapick for the much-needed blog.

85. I enjoyed and disliked that in equal measure I think the new routine is an easier week or a harder week, not necessarily alternating. I’m guessing this will be a hard week. As a veggie I found 14 quite unpleasant!

86. Yank seems to have gone out of his way to make this perversely difficult. Why an obscure lithographer rather than a fairly well-known composer for IVES? Although his definition for ARKWRIGHT is correct, named Arkwrights would have been fairer. Who has heard of LESAGE?
    Why is TURNKEY “ready for use”? Is an ARTISTE a virtuoso – I would have said not. “Governess” for a “sounds like” for AIR? “De” for “the” in 16d? I could go on – I have crosses against 13 clues (though I did have a tick against ORGAN GRINDER!).
    I didn’t like his last one, and hated this. I won’t bother if I see him as compiler again.

87. The reason for Quasimodo mentioned is because he lived in belfry therefore a ring master. I thought it a very good clue. Last time out I was very critical of Yank but like Fed he’s getting better.

88. I wonder what qualifies as “essay length”? But I don’t think I’ve ever seen/read as many as 7 or 8 such lengthy responses to a Guardian puzzle. I wonder what exactly this says about today’s offering…

89. [Muffin @86. “TURNKEY.
    Is ready for immediate use
    Turnkey refers to something that is ready for immediate use, generally used in the sale or supply of goods or services. ”

    Was often used by software suppliers of Turnkey Systems, who also delivered the hardware. Set it up, turn the key and it’s ready to go.]

90. How does “De” in “De Gaulle” sound like “the” in “the gall”?

91. [Thanks Taffy
    Never ever heard that. Is it another Americanism?]

92. Unlike mrpenny@63 I was surprised that so few of us had heard of Ives the lithographer. Currier & Ives prints were a regular feature of Christmas cards, back in the day when people sent them. (I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Currier & Ives that wasn’t a winter scene.)

    Adrian@81, 🙂 . (What was the question?)

    Bodycheetah@13, nice try (re: Paul/Arachne), but it didn’t work. The same for loonapick, whose judicious use of the term homophone/pun/aural wordplay was intended to ward off homophone complaints. Actually it might have worked somewhat, as there were only a few such (misguided) complaints.

    I failed to get 17d FIGURINE, but on seeing the answer it became one of my favourites along with 14a ORGAN GRINDER, both producing out loud laughs.

    I lose track of the days sometimes, so I didn’t even notice that this very nice puzzle appeared on a Monday. Thanks Yank and loonapick for the fun.

93. In fact I put in De Valera but took it out when it didn’t parse. But then neither does De Gaulle.

94. muffin @89: TURNKEY might have originated Stateside but is certainly used in the UK. A ‘turnkey project’ describes the installation by a contractor of a piece of equipment which is all ready to use when they have finished their work.

95. More parochial clues – not my adjective, but that of a contributor some months ago – where a setter inserts themselves or their moniker or another setter’s moniker into a clue or its answer. I find it to be beyond the brilliantly quiet “parochial”, beyond cliquey, in fact tending to the incestuous. It plays to the converted and can mystify the less dedicated solver. Indeed, Anto and Paul have even made themselves an answer. Setters, have some humility.

96. I see Mandarin at 84 is of the same mind, also considering it “cliquey”.

97. Arjay@95@96, see Bodycheetah@13.

98. Monstrously difficult.

    No enjoyment for me when I don’t even get a sniff.

99. Cellomaniac @97, re Bodycheetah@13, I don’t think I saw those comments last week, can you give a more precise location please?

100. Now I see that Gladys @23 has the same point, Gladys’s description being “in-crowd”.

101. And Paddymelon @30! It’s not just a bee in my bonnet.

102. The Ark took 14 of food animals, and birds, but I suppose they still went in “two-by-two”?

103. [Ros@83, you can’t mean Stoke-on-Trent surely? My birthplace….]

104. Well I fitted minutiae in for figurine and didn’t worry because there were so many I couldn’t explain and I cheated on so many

105. And what about Burl (Big Rock Candy Mountain) and ‘Orrible (Porridge)? Not to mention Saint and The Cat With Nine L? I’ve got ‘undreds more of these….

106. Take 9 across.
     In hard copy, over the crossword, there is the title of the puzzle, its number, and the moniker of the compiler.
     To the right separate from that are the clues.
     In the clue, the compiler then refers to him/herself by moniker in the third person with an apostrophe s, which the solver is thus encouraged to translate as I’m. Even though the moniker over the crossword is not part of the clue. And it must be pointed out many do not register the moniker.
     Does the compiler actually think that anybody other than a cognoscenti of such a dubious practice would successfully parse that clue?
     C’mon, give me a %, how many bar regular solvers could be reasonably expected to get that obscure contortion?

107. I was trying to parse (8) as something to do with a figure (number eight) with in/ within something (the brackets), but couldn’t get it to make sense and it seems superfluous anyway. Glad to see that a Grauniad typo is the likely explanation.

108. Arjay@106. Yank has form on the substitution of I for Yank. I missed it this time, and didn’t get it on a previous occasion in 29346. Yank, engrossed by clue for bloodhound, sits nervously for investigators (10)

     I don’t have an objection to it though. I think it’s a nice variation on the usual ”setter/’s”, and one that should be obvious, as you say, if you notice the moniker. Yank is a word that exists in its own right, unlike most of the other setters names, so if he wants to play with that I think it’s fair enough.
     I’ll be awake next time.

109. [@108 – and, of course, Boatman makes use of his name in so many ways….]

     I rather enjoyed this – I think – agreeing with whoever above compared his potential improvement with Fed’s!

     I’m one who likes the occasional surprise on a Monday (otherwise I wouldn’t bother to look on a Monday, shame on me. Though some of Rufus’ clueing was as exquisite as poetry, I’m one who enjoys the, well, puzzlement of a puzzle, so rarely checked out a Monday puzzle in many years)

     Thanks for a helpful blog, loonapick. And thanks for the pleasurable entertainment, Yank!

110. Arjay@several, Bodycheetah@13 was referring to a previous puzzle and blog, where a clue referred to Arachne, a beloved setter of crosswords for the Guardian. Several commenters objected to this for the same reasons you have cited. An equal number defended the clue. Bodycheetah’s comment was to the effect that all those who objected will never change their minds on the issue and neither will any of those who liked the reference, so what’s the point of prolonging the futile debate.

     Bodycheetah, I hope I have not misrepresented your comment.

111. William@109. Perhaps it’s that we’re more familiar with Boatman’s trademark clues, which I enjoy, and are on the lookout for them, whereas Yank is a relative newbie.

112. Paddymelon @108.
     Boatman also inserts Boatman into clues, playing with the knowing solver, because even if capitalised it normally (I don’t remember if always) resolves as tar, salt, A. B, etc, that is, a synonym for a boat man. Completely legitimate, misdirecting some with the use of his/her moniker, but not going outside the clue.
     The technical objection to the use of moniker is when it is not part of the clue. The practical objection is that it excludes solvers not in the know. The aesthetic objection is that the surface is often clumsy when the setter inserts the moniker.
     Incidentally @30 Paddymelon you mention being on a train in the 70s when being hit by the practice – I was upstairs on a double decker bus in the 70s looking at the solution of the previous day’s crossword (no blog cheating then!) when I realised that the setter had translated his/her moniker as “I” in the solution. I regarded it as illegimate then, and even wise to the contortion I regard it as illegitimate now. I hesitate to call it out as lazy clueing because so much thought goes into other clues to keep them legitimate. I cannot remember the clue itself, and it would be interesting to know the history of the practice.

113. @110,@111, we crossed.

114. I found this quite meaty but satisfying. (I like liver pate too😉). I am one who thinks including names of other setters is unfair. But I think it’s perfectly valid to use one’s own pseudonym. After all, it’s in plain sight when you are solving. And I’m not one for fixed rules. I like a bit of a surprise now and then, and I don’t mind some looseness with homophones, or definitions.

     I pronounce gall the same as Gaulle (rhyming with all). I blinked a bit at the De, but decided it was clued as the French for some.

     I couldn’t parse ALLEGRO, so thank you loonapick for the blog.

115. I agree with Moth: using your own pseudonym is fine. Expecting solvers to be familiar with all the other setters’ names is not.

116. There ought to be a sort of Duckworth Lewis calculation whereby, if the setter uses his/her moniker in the clue as “I” , or refers to another setter in a way that assumes the solver shares the same esoteric knowledge, and this means the solver enters DOGS instead of BOLS they should consider themselves to have not only completed the puzzle (which they DNF) but have already completed 20% of the next one, which they haven’t even started.

117. paddymelon@111 – I agree with you, we’ve been trained to keep a nautical eye out …. !

118. MattW@69: thank you for the clarification. I’ve lived in the US for long enough that you’d think by now I’d remember that what’s true in my state is often not true in other states!

119. Totally agree with Moth @114 and Gladys. I am fine with the setter using their own name or just setter for their own puzzle , I , me etc . As mentioned , Boatman does this very well .
     I do not like to see clues using the names of other Guardian setters , it just puts off newer or occasional solvers.

120. Really enjoyable puzzle. Thanks.

121. Alec@53 😀

122. Roz@83 ‘…the world’s most important city has 6 towns’ Stoke Newington, of course.

123. A real curate’s egg of a puzzle but I found reading all the above comments the best part. I wish I could tell the difference between a hard puzzle and one I found hard to do.

124. ‘Enchanted Ella’ (2004) starred Anne Hathaway, not Amy Adams.

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