Guardian 29,509 – Anto

by

This was rather easier than Sunday’s Quiptic from the same setter, I thought, though with one or two quibbles that I won’t bang on about. Thanks to Anto.

 
Across
1 STAND BY Be ready to do nothing (5,2)
Double definition
5 WEED OUT Get rid of unwanted drug that’s been released (4,3)
WEED (cannabis) + OUT (released). I think “unwanted” has to be part of the definition, though it reads rather strangely, weeds are by definition unwanted and the drug presumably isn’t by its users
10 COMB Groom initially coy on meeting bride (4)
First letters of Coy On Meeting Bride
11 FOLK REMEDY Alternative for meek lady lacking a traditional cure (4,6)
Anagram of FOR MEEK LADY less A
12 POLARI Special language giving information on freezing (6)
POLAR (freezing) + I[nformation]; Polari is a slang formerly used in the gay subculture and elsewhere, brought to wider attention by the Julian and Sandy sketches in Round the Horne
13 IMPUNITY Exemption allows compiler to admit being weak about it (8)
IT in I’M PUNY (the setter’s admission of being weak)
14 PEACE SIGN I can see GP bothered by gesture seeking no conflict (5,4)
(I CAN SEE GP)*
16 TIPSY Clues given to Yard, wasted (5)
TIPS + Y – wasted and tipsy both mean drunk, though to different extents, I would say
17 AD-LIB Mad liberal conceals stuff that’s not prepared (2-3)
Hidden in mAD LIBeral
19 MANHANDLE Rough up Nigel for example (9)
Nigel is an example of a man’s name, or a MAN HANDLE
23 EPISODIC Great story about earth I told in instalments (8)
SOD (earth) + I in EPIC
24 THAMES River group gets rejected, having eaten meat (6)
HAM in reverse of SET (group)
26 BY AND LARGE Dylan moved around in river boat mostly (2,3,5)
DYLAN* in BARGE
27 OBIT Little appreciation for one who is late (4)
Cryptic definition: late=dead, and “little” because it’s an abbreviation
28 THE DESK Work space sketched out, eliminating carbon (3,4)
SKETCHED* less C – surely this is not a standard phrase?
29 PERFORM Put on in accordance with procedure (7)
PER (according to) FORM (procedure)
Down
2 TWOSOME Broadcast raised in volume when showing traditional sexual arrangement (7)
Reverse of SOW (to broadcast) in TOME
3 NUBIA Parvenu biased somewhat against part of Africa (5)
Hidden in parveNU BIAsed – Nubia includes parts of modern-day Egypt and Sudan. “Against” seems to have no function in the cryptic reading
4 BOFFINS Experts unavailable during scraps (7)
OFF in BINS (scraps, as a verb)
6 EUROPA Money annually applied to create satellite (6)
EURO + PA (per annum, annually)
7 DIMENSION Extent of US currency getting acknowledgement in reports (9)
Sounds a bit like “dime mention”
8 UPDATES Meets potential lover following happy news (7)
UP (happy) + DATE (a potential lover) Thanks to paddymelon for the correction: the second part is DATES = “Meets potential lover”
9 FLYING SAUCERS Buffoons regularly see them (6,7)
The alternate letters of bUfFoOnS give UFOS, which might be seen, or misinterpreted, by the foolish
15 CRIMSONED Organised crime don’s looking embarrassed (9)
(CRIME DON’S)*
18 DIPTYCH Drop extremely tacky church artwork (7)
DIP (to drop) + T[ack]Y + CH[urch]
20 HI THERE Welcome success in this place? (2,5)
HIT (success) + HERE (in this place)
21 LEERIER More wary about strange linkage between both sides (7)
ERRIE between L[eft] and R[ight]
22 ADDLES Shambles when wife’s abandoned puzzles (6)
WADDLES (shambles about) less W
25 ALOOF Sale room offer is essentially disdainful (5)
Centra letters of sALe rOOm ofFer

80 comments on “Guardian 29,509 – Anto”

  1. thanks A^2. Wasn’t au fait with Polari but now have read the referenced wiki page. Didn’t really like the FLYING SAUCERS clue which I felt was a bit loose.

  2. Andrew, I agree that unwanted is part of the definition in WEED OUT which can be used in a metaphorical sense. If you weed out a wardrobe of clothes you are getting rid of unwanted items.
    I was surprised that POLARI isn’t in Chambers 2016.
    For some reason the right side seemed to take a lot longer than the left.

  4. BUFFOONS has got some form on cryptics as I found today, but this was an extra step in converting UFOs to FLYING SAUCERS. Liked it.

  5. I found this quite a trudged which, looking back, I can’t see why. Have to agree with Andrew that THE DESK, while being a straightforward solve, is an odd term.

  6. Had a fascinating afternoon reading articles on POLARI. One of the words that came up was ”khazi” which we had only recently in Paul on 3/10.

    Got misdirected by shambles in ADDLES. I thought shambles was an abattoir, and wondered if there was a slaughter house named (W)addles.

    As a homophone (wash my mouth out with soap and water) purist, even I laughed at DIMENSION.

  7. For 12a POLARI, oed.com has all these ‘Variant forms:
    1. α. 1800s Pallary, 1900s– Palare, Palarey, Palari, Palary, Parlare, Parlari, Parlary, Polari
    ” β. 1900s– Parlyaree ( British English /ˌpɑːliˈɑːri/, U.S. English /ˌpɑrliˈɑri/ )
    2. Also with lower-case initial.’
    I cqba looking them all up in my Chambers (’93).

  8. I thought the NUBIA clue would work better as:
    Parvenu biased somewhat in Africa.
    Nubian is more familiar, so NUBIA had to exist.

    I agree mostly more straightforward than the misplaced Quiptic, with several clues raising grins

    Thank you to Andrew and Anto.

  9. 28a THE DESK is ‘The Securities Department at the New York Federal Reserve,
    which carries out all of the Federal Reserve’s orders to increase or decrease the dollar supply when interest rates are changed.’
    [It’s not just any old desk, it’s The Desk.] (Thanks OneLook.com)

  10. Thanks Anto and Andrew
    There was a controversial clue in Anto’s last Quiptic in which the wordplay gave a synonym of the solution rather than the solution itself. FLYING SAUCERS is the same, though easier than the Quiptic one.
    Does ADDLES mean “puzzles”? It usually means goes off, as in eggs.

  11. [My favourite bit of Julian and Sandy:
    ‘In one sketch, discussing Julian and Sandy’s time out travelling the world aboard ship, Sandy reveals Julian was swept overboard in a storm:
    HORNE: But did you manage to drag yourself up on deck? — JULIAN: Ooh, no, we dressed quite casual….’]

  15. Shanne @13
    I can’t think of an example where they could be substituted. “That puzzles me” but not “that addles me”. “That addles my brain” but not “that puzzles my brain”. Can you think of one?

  16. I found the LHS surprisingly straightforward (apart from POLARI which was today’s only NHO – though I should have been able to construct from the parsing I suppose).

    RHS required more head-scratching, but as a result gave me greater satisfaction. Favourites were OBIT, FOLK REMEDY, EUROPA and UPDATES. Audible groan when MANHANDLES went in!

    I’m happy with FLYING SAUCERS – though I did initially miss the “regularly” as U-F-O-S doesn’t stand out as a “word” when you’re scanning, and of course I thought it’s too short to eat up so much of the fodder!

    Thanks Anto and Andrew!

  17. Andrew, I think 18d definition is only ‘artwork’, or ‘church’ is doing double duty (unnecessarily)

  18. This is probably the most famous DIPTYCH, in England, at least. As RussThree says, a diptych isn’t necessarily a church artwork, though it seems that this example was.

  19. I got all of this with the exception of POLARI. I kicked myself as I am very familiar with Round the Horne. I agree with muffin@18 re the Wilton Diptych (National Gallery in London). I’m around a third of the way through Dan Jones’ new biography of Henry V (highly recommended) which also mentions it in the early chapters which deal with the hapless Richard II. With thanks to Anto and Andrew.

  21. POLARI an unknown to me too, was wondering whether SOMALI might fit the bill with all the crossers in place, but it didn’t parse at all. Went through this quite swiftly until I got to the SE corner, where I wondered about MANHANDLE (why was Nigel chosen, particularly?), OBIT, LEERIER and PERFORM for quite a while before inserting them with a bit of a shrug…

  24. Failed on POLARI – not in Chambers which makes a change 🙂

    Top ticks for FLYING SAUCERS, MANHANDLE & UPDATES

    Muffin I think “addled” might be regional? I grew up in Yorkshire and it was often used to mean confused. I didn’t know it meant anything else until I started doing crosswords!

    Cheers AA

  26. I very much enjoyed this, with lots of clues raising smiles. Yes, a couple of quibbles but as Andrew says, not really worth banging on about. FLYING SAUCERS was great, and I also had ticks for COMB, FOLK REMEDY and MANHANDLE amongst others.

    I agree that the definition in WEED OUT is “Get rid of (the) unwanted” – clues often drop the article as they are usually written in a sort of headline-speak.

    (I was too young to understand Round the Horne when it was first broadcast but I got into it when it was repeated years later on Radio 4. I then bought all the series on cassette, later replaced by CDs. I love it and can quote it endlessly as my long-suffering family and friends can attest. Yes FrankieG @11, that was a good one.)

    Many thanks Anto and Andrew.

  28. Didn’t spot POLARI, though I’ve heard of it, but had no problem with the flying saucers. I agree that THE DESK is pretty poor. It reeks of desperation on the part of the setter to find something that will fit at the last minute.

  29. In my experience, Anto usually delivers a few crackers and a few slightly dubious clues. Nevertheless, I tend to enjoy his puzzles/addles (?).

    Having recently returned from Egypt helped with “Nubia”. Aswan now has a fabulous museum dedicated to Nubian history, going back thousands of years. It is something of an apology for swamping most of their homeland and archaeology under the waters of Lake Nasser but it is extremely informative about a people I knew next to nothing of before the trip.

    I agree about addled but it always brings to mind the limerick (which I hope Muffin will enjoy):
    “An insect was heard to complain
    That a chemist had addled its brain
    The cause of its sorrow
    Was para-dichloro
    Diphenyl-trichloroethane”

    Thanks An[to|drew]

  31. Agree that this was easier than his recent Quiptic and it was filled with lots of humour. Agree with most that FLYING SAUCERS and WEED OUT were clever clues and I also enjoyed FOLK REMEDY, MANHANDLE, OBIT and BY AND LARGE. Had to reveal POLARI, but was interesting to read about it. Too young I’m afraid to have heard the content of Round the Horne, although I’m aware of the programme. I agree with Andrew that TIPSY and wasted are probably at the opposite ends of drunkenness but a nice surface nonetheless.

    Ta Anto & Andrew.

  32. THE DESK a bit weak. NUBIA in Africa, not “against” it. Puzzled by ADDLES.
    But for my money, FLYING SAUCERS a quite superb &lit for which I’ll forgive Anto a great deal.
    A suggested reason why Nigel was chosen in 19a, apart from the surface reading referencing the point that there is certainly one Nigel who most Guardian readers would very much like to rough up; the crossers end _N_L_, so you have a subtle misdirection as you try to find a word ending in INGLE.
    Thanks, both.

  33. I couldn’t make SOMALI or ROMANI work for 12a, and although I had heard of POLARI I thought it was spelt differently (there are lots of variants), and the wordfinder hadn’t heard of it, so I didn’t get it. Nor MANHANDLE, and I got hung up on bit=little for OBIT so I couldn’t parse that.

    I liked the FLYING SAUCERS, also DIPTYCH, FOLK REMEDY, the neat little COMB and Anto’s trademark central-letters clue in ALOOF.

  34. Tough and enjoyable. I solved the lower half first then made my way slowly through the upper half.

    Favourites: PERFORM, TIPSY.

    New for me: POLARI (sounds fascinating, I want to learn some words!).

    Thanks, both.

  35. While FrankieG@9’s suggestion for THE DESK is interesting, I think a simpler explanation is that it is (or was) commonly used in newsrooms. You would have the news desk, the sports desk, the foreign desk, etc. A reporter would speak about working “from the desk”, where most people would say “from the office”.

  36. I think there’s a typo in the blog for 21d, ERRIE for EERIE.
    Overall I enjoyed this, for some reason 22d took me ages and was LOI, and I fell for the anagram of Nigel as INGLE at the end of 19a for far too long.

  37. I found this a bit more difficult than Anto’s recent Quiptic, though perhaps I’m in a minority. Left hand side went in relatively quickly, the remaining half held out for longer. All worth it for the clueing for FLYING SAUCERS though.

  38. It wouldn’t be an Anto without a few naff bits, but I found this rather bona. Most clues I found straightforward but a few took a while to vada (I’m amazed that POLARI is so unfamiliar, though I admit I did try SOMALI and ROMANI before finding the right word – my LOI).

    I particularly liked FLYING SAUCERS, DIPTYCH and especially MANHANDLE, for the misdirection that others have already alluded to.

    Thanks to Anto and Andrew

  39. Also, no problem for me with ADDLES – whether it’s a regional thing or not (E. Midlands in my case), ‘addled’ works as a synonym for confused, as in ‘my poor addled brain’, so very much of a piece with ‘puzzles’.

  40. There seems to be a general approval for 9d, in which the wordplay doesn’t give the solution. It’s a worrying innovation; this one was fairly easily solvable, but have a look at the controversial one* in Sunday’s Quiptic (if you haven’t seen it already) to see what might ensue.
    * I won’t be more specific to avoid a spoiler for anyone who still intends to do the puzzle.

    [JOFT @29 I do like it!]

  41. Thanks for the blog , very enjoyable puzzle , lots of neat clues.
    I took FLYING SAUCERS as a double definition , no issue with this. IMPUNITY flows very nicely , good to see EUROPA for once instead of IO . Fascinating moon due to get two visits in the fairly near future . MANHANDLE , I spent too long trying to find a reverse anagram for Nigel .
    I agree with Russ@17 for the church just being CH. A triptych more likely for a church because of the altar.

  42. [ AlanC@31 in the Observer on Sunday the league table had KPR highlighted in a very pretty shade of blue. Is this because they are special ? ]

  43. I thought this was a bit more straightforward than some of Anto’s puzzles.

    I liked the wordplays in IMPUNITY and HI THERE. I did wonder about THE DESK, but the comments above suggest that it is kosher. I also liked FLYING SAUCERS, despite muffin’s reservations; I think it’s a small jump from UFO to FLYING SAUCER.

    Thanks Anto and Andrew.

  44. A fine Wednesday outing. Polari was new to me, never having cottoned on to Round the Horne, and the SE held me up for a bit.

  45. muffin@40 Are you referring to Quiptic no. 1297? I just ran through it to see what the controversy was, and I’m afraid I’m missing it.

  47. Enjoyed the puzzle, had trouble with the right side.

    I knew Polari from some previous puzzle. I’ve never met it on its own.

    Thanks to Anto and Andrew.

  48. michelle @34: Several words from POLARI have entered general colloquial usage in British English: butch, camp, naff, khazi, scarper….

  49. [I’ve had this earworm all morning: Domenico Modugno’s Nel Blu, Dipinto Di Blu (1958, aka 12a [p->V]OLAR[E<-i])
    [TiLTs: It's the second ever US Billboard Hot 100 No. 1, the first ever Grammy winner (for both Record and Song of the Year), but only third out of ten in Eurovision.]

  51. [ AlanC never mind, I am sure that , with your influence in the background , KPR will confidently march into League 1 at the end of the season . ]

  52. If it’s the one I think muffin@40 means in the Quiptic, I’ll admit that I didn’t get it. I didn’t think it was unfair (once again, the wordplay results in a definition rather than the word itself) but not really a Quiptic-level clue.

  53. [I can’t find a khazi in Chambers (’93). Bona is only there in Latin. Vada is missing, too. Eek! is just an ‘interj‘. (Naff is there, but very obscene. Don’t read it.)]

  54. Kazi is there and other spellings but not with the h . Naff was picked up by Porridge to avoid the inmates swearing.

  55. Usual curate’s egg, for me, from Anto.

    Enjoyed10,26,9 and21.

    Some issues with 16 (not the same meaning IMHO), 28 (agree with Andrew), and 7 (not a very good sounds like for me).

    19 made me groan out loud.

    But all doable and just enough difficulty to give me the uncertainty of being able to finish. 9 down was the hold up, but once in the rest followed.

  56. Chambers App

    kazi, khazi, karzy, karsey or karsy /käˈzi/ (slang)
    noun
    A lavatory (also carsˈey)
    ORIGIN: Said to be from Ital casa house or perh Ar kursi chair

  57. Thanks Anto for the clever clues and polished surfaces so plentiful in this crossword. My top picks were COMB, TIPSY, BY AND LARGE, PERFORM, EUROPA, UPDATES, FLYING SAUCERS (COTD), and HI THERE. I failed with the nho POLARI and MANHANDLE. Thanks Andrew for the blog.

  58. I had certainly heard of POLARI. As a bookish gay man, I do have an interest in the history of my people*. (The LGBT community is seven-ish percent of the world’s population by the average credible estimate, making a population larger than that of the United States, and spread out over every corner of humanity, so I’m using “my people” in a slightly tongue-in-cheek way.) It was still one of my last two in.

    I found this puzzle difficult, but as Frankie the Cat said up there @5, looking back now, I can’t quite see why.

  59. I wrote in FLYING SAUCERS but didn’t spot _u_f_o_s. I was thinking buffoons = clowns and conflated this with childhood memories of circus acts spinning and juggling plates (saucers).

  62. mrpenney@58: This took me longer to complete than yesterday’s Tramp (which I found much easier than most). The left hand side was fine, but the right hand side was tough in places . It’s always interesting to hear how hard/easy others find a particular puzzle and contrast with one’s own experience.

  63. Like many who got to the puzzle before me, I revealed 12a. As soon as I saw the answer I obviously realised the device. I did, though, out of simply wanting to finish, bun in SOMALI as that was all I could think might be a possibility, even though I for obvious reasons couldn’t see how it was possible from the clue.
    It strikes me that Anto just does what Anto does, and the Ed tosses a coin as to which slot he’ll put him. Thus his Cryptics will all have a fair selection of write-ins and his Quiptics many off-putters for the unsure newbies. And so it will doubtless continue.

  64. Polari… a clue relating to 50s radio in UK. I’m British but at a sprightly 62 I think crosswords should not really exclude people as old as me, much as it makes me feel young. A 62 year old youngster from anywhere else in the world would only possibly get that if it was a special interest of theirs. Shame as I enjoyed most of it. I don’t think we need to get too ‘yoof’ culture, but there are limits!

  67. @66 Muffin. My elder brother was working in the Bahamas at that time. I used to record RTH on a reel-to-reel and send them to him once a fortnight. Apparently these became a focal part of a Friday night’s party of ex-pats.

    RTH still makes me smile, classic scripts and extraordinary performances from Kenneth Williams et al. Could have done without the Frazser-Hayes Four in mho. Enjoy your evening.

  68. Muffin and Dave F: and regardless, the reference isn’t to the radio show anyway–it’s to a slang lingo that had already fallen into disuse (except for a handful of words) before most of us were born. But it’s an important and interesting piece of history nonetheless!

  70. Coloradan @69
    That’s clever! I had never considered “space” (as in “use the space bar”) to be part of a possible anagram fodder.

  71. At some point I was in the precise opposite position to muffin @10: I remember encountering the use of “addle” to mean “go off” (as food) in a previous puzzle and having no idea that that meaning existed. I only knew it to mean “puzzle” or “confuse”.

    I was defeated by POLARI, although I’ve definitely heard of it before and should have gotten it. In general, I thought this was one of Anto’s better puzzles.

  72. Frankie G @11[ My favourite bit: J and S telling Horne about their Mediterranean holiday:
    Sandy: Jules doesn’t like talking about it. He got badly stung.
    Horne: Portuguese Man o’ War?
    Julian: Oh, he wasn’t in uniform.]

  74. I don’t know why but this seemed to take me a while. I thought FLYING SAUCERS and FOLK REMEDY were very nice.

  75. Coloradan@69. Very inventive, but works even less well than the original clue/parsing, in my opinion. Punctuation can be ignored, but if a space (written as such) is included in the fodder can we then ignore it? And does ‘work’ define THE DESK any more than ‘work space’? I don’t think so.

    HoofIt@60. Sympathy from me, as I couldn’t finish either. Being away from home with no Guardian this week, I tried to solve it on my phone but found it very clunky and off-putting because of unfamiliarity. Failed on WEED OUT, POLARI and a couple of others. Anto is so variable that I struggle to understand if the clue is too simple or too difficult. It’s like trying to solve Vulcan after being bogged down in a Paul. Easy stuff reads as difficult because the mind is attuned to that level. Well, that’s my excuse anyway.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  76. sheffield hatter @75: thanks, my thought was that a single “space” serves as a separator when the two-word answer is written out, and hence IS a legitimate element in the fodder. And I now think that Bear @73 has the better sense of “work”: “back to the desk” == “back to work”

  77. A day late, I’m catching up, but I’d parsed 2 as ‘NUBI’ homophone / pun for ‘newbie’ as parvenu next to (against) an A ‘part of Africa’ with ‘part of Africa’ doing dual duty as the definition. Why can I never see read-throughs???!

  79. Thanks both and rather belatedly,
    Has anyone questioned whether ‘polari’ can be considered as a language? My online Chambers knows it not and OED calls it slang, as does our blogger. I don’t think it even manages the status of a dialect. Perhaps the clue can justified if language is treated as a mass noun so that any collection of words is ‘language’.

  80. Very late to the party, but a reference to polari more recent than the 60s was a Morrissey song, ‘Piccadilly Palare’ wiki (and title of album containing it – Bona Drag). Yes, it’s 34 years ago, so hardly a contemporary reference, I know.

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