Guardian Cryptic 29,514 by Omnibus

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29514.

One previous Guardian cryptic, from 2005, has appeared under the name Omnibus, and was announced as a compilation of clues submitted by Guardian readers. This one is not so announced, but reads rather similarly. It shouts its theme from the start: 1A SLOGAN: election slogans (clued with definitly apposite surfaces) mostly associated with UK PMs, but with Obama thrown in.

ACROSS
1 SLOGAN
Sweat blood! A new rallying cry (6)
A charade of SLOG (‘sweat blood’) plus ‘a’ plus N (‘new’).
5 CEILIDHS
In which Dashing White Sergeants may follow Gay Gordons? (8)
A straight definition.
9 HELMSMAN
Writing in Afghan province curtailed by the one in charge (8)
An envelope (‘in’) of MS (manuscript, ‘writing’) in HELMAN[d] (‘Afghan province’, and one that, unlike many, is familiar) minus its last letter (‘curtailed’).
10
See 11
11, 10 STRONG AND STABLE
Seek election fast? Not with error included in May’s 1 (6,3,6)
An envelope (‘included’) of – take your choice – [w]RONG (‘error’) minus the W (‘not with’) or [w]RONG (‘not’ – “I like that. Not”) misspelt (‘with error’) (I would be fairly sure that the former is what Omnibus intended, but I include both to illustrate how remarkably often alternative parsings are viable) in STAND (‘seek election’) plus STABLE (‘fast’).
13
See 21 DowIn
14, 16 GET BREXIT DONE
Oxbridge set, lacking suitable leader, take Ten by storm with Johnson’s 1 (3,6,4)
An anagram (‘by storm’) of ‘Oxbridge [s]et’ minus the S (‘lacking suitable leader’) plus ‘ten’.
16
See 14
18 TACK
Tag line (4)
Double definition.
19 BEDWETTER
Preferred to welcome soggy dew: he’ll wake up damp (9)
An envelope (‘to welcome’) of EDW, an anagram (‘soggy’; I think Omnibus missed a trick here – ‘foggy’ would be far preferable ) of ‘dew’ in BETTER (‘preferred’).
22 ENVY
Hostility when vying for the part (4)
A hidden answer (‘for the part’) in ‘whEN VYing’.
24 AGE GROUPS
Times includes set classifications by birth (3,6)
An envelope (‘includes’) of GROUP (‘set’) in AGES (times’).
26 FIASCO
Mafia’s come to conceal calamity (6)
A hidden answer (‘to conceal’) in ‘maFIAS COme’.
27 LAID-BACK
Cool clue for face (4-4)
Another wordplay-in-the-answer: LAID BACK gives DIAL (‘face’).
28 METEORIC
Mortice plugged by centre of key turns fast (8)
An anagram (‘turns’) of ‘mortice’ plus E (‘centre of kEy’). ‘Plugged by’ suggests an envelope, which it is, but with ‘turns’, placed where it is, ‘plugged by’ is unnecessary for the wordplay.
29 GARISH
Cheap and fishy? (6)
A Pauline whimsy: like the fish GAR.
DOWN
2 LEEDS
City’s residue includes primary deposits (5)
An envelope (‘includes’) of D (‘primary Deposits’) in LEES (‘residue’).
3 GUM ARABIC
Fool capsized horse in charge – what a sap! (3,6)
Acharade of GUM, a reversal (‘capsized’ in a down light) of MUG (‘fool’) plus ARAB (‘horse’) plus I/C (‘in charge’); GUM ARABIC is the hardened sap of, principally, Acacia trees.
4 NOMINEE
The chosen one – me! – in one arrangement (7)
An anagram (‘arrangement’) of ‘me in one’.
5
See 23
6 INSIDE
Playing while banged up (6)
IN SIDE (‘playing’), and one of the definitions of ‘banged up’ is in prison.
7 IRAQI
National initially is ready and quits idling (5)
First letters (‘initially’) of ‘Is Ready And Quits Idling’.
8 HALF-NIECE
The daughter of my brother by another mother, say – quite lovely about end of life (4-5)
A charade of HALF (‘quite’ – close, perhaps, but not, I think, the best of synonims) plus NIECE, an envelope (‘about’) of E (‘end of lifE‘) in NICE (‘lovely’). A HALF-NIECE is the daughter of a half-brother (‘my brother by another mother, say’).
12 ABILENE
Alkene libation recanted in part of Texas city (7)
A hidden (‘in part’) reversed (‘recanted’) word in ‘alkENE LIBAtion’.
15 EXTENSIVE
Long for former lover? It evens out (9)
A charade of EX (‘former lover’) plus TENSIVE, an anagram (‘out’) of ‘it evens’. My nomination for clue of the day.
17 OUTNUMBER
Overwhelm with clue to ‘burn me’? (9)
Wordplay-in-the-answer: an anagram (OUT) of NUMBER is ‘burn me’.
20
See 21
21, 13, 20 LABOUR ISN’T WORKING
Balfour, no effin’ joke, ain’t Geordie royalty, according to Thatcher’s 1 (6,4,7)
A charade of LABOUR, an anagram (‘joke’) of ‘Bal[f]our’ minus the F (‘no effin’ ‘) plus ISN’T (‘aint’) plus WOR (‘Geordie’ for our) KING (‘royalty’).
23, 5 YES WE CAN
Obama’s 1 – quite so! Learn to live without Conservative (3,2,3)
A charade of YES (‘quite so’) plus WECAN, an envelope (‘without’ doing double duty) of C (‘Conservative’) in WEAN (‘learn to live without’).
25 SOCKS
Beats hose (5)
Doublet definition.
27 LAC
Be without, we hear, water (3)
Sounds like (‘we hear’) LACK (‘be without’) and sounds like French to me.

picture of the completed grid

117 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,514 by Omnibus”

  1. Got a few clues — the less convoluted ones — but soon realised this was not a puzzle for a non-Brit.

    I think of a fiasco as mayhem, not necessarily a calamity. Envy/hostility a bit approximate too.

  2. Thanks Peter O. Yes, saw the similarities between this and the 2005 puzzle but couldn’t find a 225 blog on that. Could it have been put together by Tom Johnson, Doc, Gozo and various bus-related monikers, from his editorial roles?
    It does seem a bit of a hotchpotch of old and new.
    CElLIDHS a straight definition?! Should have looked it up before coming here. I’m going to have to do some homework.

  5. Agree with GDU and PM. There is only one point to re-enforce: there seem to be many over-engineered clues.

    Thanks to the setter(s) and PeterO for a brilliant blog

  6. I wondered about the central ABILENE. There is the Abilene Paradox about group think.
    Could that be a theme, or at least an organising principle for this crossword?

  8. Wasn’t really thrilled with this one. Once I realized the theme was political slogans, just looked up the ones I didn’t know. My rationale was, it’s not just UKGK (of which I know a fair amount) but It would have been really helpful to have been on the ground during the campaign to be familiar with the slogans, and as I wasn’t, I didn’t feel like being penalized.

    A lot of the clues were quite clunky. LAC wasn’t so bad, and I knew it from the French, but didn’t know it was now English. I looked in a few dictionaries for justification, but met with no success. There’s probably one somewhere, but I didn’t find it.

  10. I resisted entering LAC until it was totally unavoidable (LOI) because, indeed, it looked to me like an unindicated foreign word. Fair?
    Fortunately, being a Guardian reader, I knew the Pommy slogans. I agree that some of the definitions seemed a little loose. A CEILIDH is a Celtic bushdance, pdm@2. Virtually never seen in Oz. Thanks, Omnibus and PeterO.

  11. Dr. WhatsOn @8, I’m pretty sure “lac” is just French for lake and hasn’t made it to English. I checked about half a dozen dictionaries. That clue was one of my disappointments for the lac? of an indicator. 🙂
    The other disappointment was (the barely cryptic) CEILIDHS.

  12. I did enjoy the reverse clues for LAID-BACK and OUTNUMBER. Also INSIDE for “playing” and BEDWETTER.
    A mixed bag.

  13. I couldn’t be bothered to work out the word play for any of the slogans, so they were less than ideal clues – Thatcher 1 would have sufficed, for example.

    I am sure we had LAC fairly recently but I couldn’t find when.

    Thanks, PeterO

  15. Yes, TimC@9. I read the preamble for the 2005 puzzle, and 2d GUARDIAN READERS. But someone, or ones, had to put it together.
    [BTW this hasn’t come up yet, to my knowledge, in these blogs, but Alan Connor has revealed in his column that Ludwig was a co-compilation with Enigmatist.]
    I also enjoyed the reverse clues, particularly OUTNUMBER. Have seen LAID-BACK before in various forms.

  16. [paddymelon @15, it was mentioned in the General Discussion thread on here (very briefly) last week. I think Enigmatist’s involvement would have been a surprise to some]

  17. “5a … A straight definition.”
    of an incredibly obscure word to non-UK solvers, with absolutely no constructive component to give any clue as to the spelling of something that was conceptually obvious. I’d never heard of Thatcher’s slogan, but the rest of the puzzle was relatively easy.

  18. I don’t think CEILIDH is particularly obscure, even for non-Irish speakers, but I had to look up the components to determine the answer, and agree it wasn’t cryptic. I also concur with the general consensus that this was quite a mixed bag of relatively straightforward clues and the theme clues. I confess I got the theme clues by remembering the particular slogans and then seeing how the wordplay fitted, though a smile at Geordie royalty for WORKING. Raised eyebrows at LAC as well. Thanks to PeterO and Omnibus.

  19. Surprised to see setters using “effin” for F, although this might be more accepted in the Guardian than anywhere else (or a Paul thing, per past blogs on Fifteensquared). I like today’s double definition clues, and TIL LEES = residue. Thanks to PeterO and Omnibus.

  20. As a Brit, I knew some of the slogans, but Maggie’s were things like, There’s no alternative (TINA), the lady’s not for turning, there’s no society. LABOUR ISN’T WORKING was an election campaign, so the Conservative party, not specifically Maggie. CEILIDHS should have been a write in, if I could spell it. And Theresa May is so unmemorable STRONG AND STABLE only stuck as joke punchlines.

    [pdm@15 I posted a link to the blog on both General Discussion and the Ludwig blog, because I was amused.]

    Thank you to PeterO for the heroic detangling and Omnibus.

  21. Thanks Peter O and Everyone

    Agree generally with mood of above comments. Not a puzzle to write home about

  23. Enjoyed reading about the Abilene paradox very much. Thanks Paddymelon for the suggestion. Agree it is a deliberate allusion to the political slogans

  24. I enjoyed the lower half of the grid.
    For Ceilidhs i googled combinations of dashing white gay sergeant gordons. After going to some rather dodgy websites i finally find some ancient niche scottish dances. From there it was just looking for 6 letter words that might fit. I guess thats what Omni wanted me to do.

  26. I needed explanations for:
    OUTNUMBER – very clever, one of those reverse anagram clues;
    LABOUR ISN’T WORKING – As a non-Brit, I didn’t know WOR=Geordie ‘our’, though got the rest; (This was the only slogan I hadn’t come across.)
    STRONG AND STABLE – I forgot to go back to parse this, appreciate the double parsing possibility.
    I liked the surface for GET BREXIT DONE.
    I also liked GUM ARABIC, HELMSMAN, EXTENSIVE, LAID BACK.
    Thanks Omnibus and PeterO.

  27. A very mixed bag for me. Enjoyable in places, leaving me nonplussed in others. The satisfaction (and pleasant surprise) of completing it – especially looking at, e.g., the parsing of 11, 10, which just leaves me at a loss. That’s not a criticism of PeterO’s parsing (heroic effort), just the convolutions required by the clueing that leave me feeling less sure about anything than when I commenced solving this in the first place.

  28. I don’t usually come here just to criticise but I found this disappointing. A straight definition I did not write in until the end because I had to be missing something (5a) and a bunch of slogans which came from GK/crossers with the most convoluted wordplay which I could only be half-parsed to sort out afterwards.

    I don’t really get the double definition “tack” either – a tack could be a line in sailing, and it sort of is a way of attaching things, but both were so far from the meanings I could think of I entered it with zero certainty. Does anyone have better equivalents to put my mind at rest?

    Sorry to be so negative, but thanks for the blog PeterO

  29. Shanne @20 – my thoughts exactly, I don’t associate LABOUR ISN’T WORKING with Thatcher, more that it was the party’s electoral campaign slogan. The ones you mention are what comes to mind when thinking of slogans specific to her.

  30. I read WECAN as WEAN = learn to live outside C, so no double duty, but doesn’t quite work either. I thought EXTENSIVE was lovely, and WORKING made me smile 😎 , but I agree it’s not specific to the milk snatcher…
    I found this to be a mixed bag although SLOGAN helped a lot. I think pdm’s group folly theory is apt. Many thanks to PeterO for the parsing.
    As for CEILIDH, l used to play in an Irish CEILI band, and could write a similarly obscure clue based around The Walls of Limerick and the Siege of Ennis…
    [Eileen et al, thanks for the bonus links yesterday. Very belated MHR!]

  31. Agree with general tenor of comments – not a great puzzle. I found it pretty easy, in spite of doubts about TACK and LAC as noted by others. I was educated in Scotland and remember annual school dances around Christmas, where our PE lessons for a couple of weeks beforehand were given over to learning the Gay Gordons, Dashing White Sargeant and similar, so CEILIDHS was foi, though a ceilidh (pronounced ‘kayly’ by the way) would be rather less restrained and more alcoholic than a school dance for 11-year-olds.
    Thanks PeterO and the setter(s).

  32. Hmm. I liked the reverse clues but found much of the rest a bit meh, I’m afraid. But it passed the time – very briefly.

    It had to be LAC, which was familiar as a French word, but in English I only knew as a type of resin.

    I agree that CEILIDHS is a straight definition and a write-in for anyone who can spell Gaelic words and has ignored the remark (falsely) attributed to Sir Thomas Beecham: ‘You should try anything once, except incest and folk dancing’.

    Thanks anyway to Omnibus and PeterO

  33. I feel that Ceilidh tends to get used in England as an alternative to Barn Dance or Country Dance because the latter two sound a bit naff to some people. Whether that is a specifically English thing I wouldn’t know. Dashing White Sergeant and the Gay Gordons may be specialised knowledge but are among the better known dances, so claiming them as unfair is a bit like saying knowledge of somebody like Ronaldo or Messi is unfair because it requires specialist knowledge of football players.

  35. I see nobody’s complained about INSIDE yet… but if you’re sitting on the substitutes’ bench you’re definitely in the side but you’re certainly not playing.

  36. Re LAC @various.
    In the UK, particularly in England, one is considered ignorant if lacking a knowledge of French. Complete ignorance of science, mathematics, engineering and other languages is quite acceptable. This fin de siecle attitude seems to have echoes in the Guardian crossword setting milieu.

    Anyway, thanks for the crossword by with and from all, especially PeterO.

  37. I know the boundary between transitive and intransitive verbs is porous, but even so I feel ‘teach to live without’ fit would better than ‘learn to live without’ in 23/5d.

  41. A mixed bag indeed but LAID-BACK, EXTENSIVE, OUTNUMBER, BEDWETTER and GARISH were neat. Seemed strange to have Tories only in a G puzzle. Nice one Crispy @22.

    Ta Omnibus & PeterO for unraveling.

  42. Required some brain bashing, but I got there in the end – though I didn’t unravel all the parsings.

  43. Took me a while to get on the Omnibus wavelength but once SLOGAN went in the fun started. I enjoyed teasing out the parsings for the political and WOR brought back memories of Sid the Sexist from Viz – I won’t link as it’s not for the faint-hearted 🙂

    Agree LAC was a bit naughty – not even in Chambers!

    Cheers P&O (not the rogue ferry operator though)

  44. Tough puzzle. I didn’t catch on to the theme until Obama’s YES WE CAN which was easily solved due to crossers and letter count. I needed help from google for May’s two slogans. Tbh I didn’t bother parsing all the slogans.

    5ac – I am not sure how one can solve it unless one knows of CEILIDHS. I would have preferred a cryptic clue for this word.

    I did not parse 6d, or the WOR bit of 20d.

    New for me: LAC= water in English (unless it is French for lake which I know); ABILENE, Texas.

    Thanks, both.

  46. In defence of ‘Ceilidhs’, it is only a straight definition if the dances are the first meaning of those words that occurs to you. Otherwise, its a play on the meaning so of the word “gay”.

  47. bodycheetah @43…. “I won’t link as it’s not for the faint-hearted”… Ha’way pet, I thought the whole point of Viz was to be offensive.

  49. If I remember correctly, the previous Omnibus crossword in 2005 had its origins in Sandy Balfour’s X-Philes column in The Guardian. For a while he ran a competition every week for readers to submit clues for a particular answer, and eventually the crossword was compiled from the winning entries. Is that right or am I getting it confused with something else? It would be interesting to know if there is any connection with today’s Omnibus or if the name is just a coincidence.

    There were some nice clues here. I agree that EXTENSIVE was good, and I liked WOR KING. Thanks Omnibus and PeterO.

  50. Hmmm. While OUTNUMBER and INSIDE are very good, there’s always something a bit unsatisfactory about a puzzle that can be substantially cracked on general knowledge alone (I didn’t make use of the wordplay for any of the SLOGANs). Throw in a non-cryptic definition, general inelegance, and a few loose ends and I’m afraid this one ended up challengenging even my relentless positivity.

  51. 14ac (OXBRIDGE SET etc) is a brilliant clue, though when it comes to leaders it’s worth noting that the University of Oxford, not Cambridge, educated the delightful group of Sunak, Truss, Johnson, May and Cameron. Baldwin, a century ago, was the most recent PM to graduate from University of Cambridge. Other universities are available (please). Most enjoyable puzzle, thank you Omnibus and PeterO.

  52. Tomsdad@18: CEILIDH is the Scottish spelling. The Irish equivalent is CEILI, but neither of these tunes would feature in an Irish ceili, and from my time in Edinburgh I’d be inclined to think they they’re more common in Scottish Country Dancing (think the old White Heather Club on TV), which to my mind is not quite the same thing.

  53. beaulieu @31 – You describe exactly what happened towards Christmas at my school. Did all Scottish schools inflict this on their charges, I wonder, or did we perhaps attend the same one?

  54. I thought the “no effin” was very clever. I suppose the surface of CEILIDHS was supposed to make you think of “Gay” in the modern sense. I think you could use Lac Leman, for example, in an English text an Hotel du Lac is a fairly well-known novel???

  55. A Me Too with eventually having to trawl through the political slogans to get anywhere near completing this. Which anyway resulted in an unsatisfactory DNF. Though several clues to admire in their construction in retrospect. I don’t think we’ve recently had such a universal negative reaction to a Cryptic, it seems from the comments above. Which I see came flooding in from very early in the morning GMT. Still don’t get TACK, was certainly on the wrong one today, however…and I wasn’t yet part of this Guardian Cryptic discussion group as long ago as 2005…

  56. Lac is an English word and indicates a kind of resin, hence ‘shellac. Thus the clue needed a foreign word indicator. Didn’t much care for this puzzle. Gritty.

  58. MCourtney@46: In spite of having an allergic reaction to dancing and more left feet than the average centipede, dances were exactly the things I first thought of on reading “Gay Gordon” etc. If the setter had intended to mislead by making us think they were normal phrases, could they not have avoided the capital letters, which I understand to be fair play in cryptics?

    Beaulieu @31: The children of some friends were educated in Scotland (Aberdeenshire) and are recent graduates. They were taught Highland dancing including sword dances at school, rather than ceilidhs. As I understood it, Highland dances are solo, and ceilidhs, like other “country dances” are for pairs or groups. Perhaps it is a move to reclaim some heritage?

  59. Bslfour@53. You got a name check in the clue for LABOUR ISN’T WORKING. Balfour, no effin’ joke, ain’t Geordie royalty, according to Thatcher’s 1 (. Who the eff is Balfour? 🙂

  60. poc@52 There is a huge overlap between the somewhat genteel and usually highly skilled Scottish Country Dancing and the typical Ceilidh which is often rougher round the edges and characterised more by enthusiasm than dancing ability. The overlap is in the dance repertoire, specifically the very well known dances such as DWS and GG.

    I was very unimpressed by this clue, which was not cryptic in the slightest and was either a write in or only soluble with research (or, I suppose, the crossers and a little Gaelic knowledge).

  61. Well, I just loved it! So what if the slogans were, by and large, a write-in? It was still fun to work out the clever wordplay in most of them, even if the memories were rather distasteful.

    I think some of the complaints about CEILIDHS are rather niggardly. I’m with ravenrider @33. The surface surely has a military connotation and the two dances are anything but ‘niche’ to anyone who has any experience of country (never mind Scottish) dancing, which we actually did as part of PE lessons in both my primary and secondary English schools – and not just coming up to Christmas, beaulieu and Balfour.

    Lord Jim @49 – I think you’re right about Sandy Balfour and his X-philes, which were a highlight of the Friday (I think) Guardian – sadly missed. I heartily recommend his books, ‘Pretty girl in crimson rose’ and ‘I say nothing’.

    Many thanks to Omnibus, whoever you are and to PeterO.

  62. [Me @49: it seems my memory was correct. X-Philes 97 (3 June 2005) contains the winning entry for IGNITE, which appears as 1a in Omnibus 23,545 (though the clue has been tweaked slightly).]

  64. Jack of Few Trades@58: Very good point about the capital letters.
    Was just trying to point out that the clue wasn’t entirely without crypticism.
    Not saying it was a great clue but the negativity about this whole puzzle seems a little overblown. If it is a first-time setter I hope they don’t take it to heart.
    October 15, 2024 at 10:31

  65. Jack of Few Trades @58, I love your “more left feet than the average centipede”. I tend to go for “ambisinistrous” as a description of my dancing talent (interpreted as “having two left feet” for those without a classical education).

  66. The Grauniad comments are interesting; very varied reactions. It looks as if a couple of people suspected that clues were not all the work of one person, and others dug out the previous Omnibus puzzle.

  67. paddymelon @59 Yes, I noticed the fleeting namecheck. I know off the top of my head only two notable Balfours: the Arthur Balfour who crafted the 1917 Balfour Declaration which committed the UK to supporting the establishment of a national home for Jewish people in Palestine, and David Balfour, the protagonist of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped, from whom I derive my nom de guerre.

  68. Thanks Lord Jim @62 for the connection and confirmation of 1 across with your link (but a slightly different clue). I’ve just finished doing the original Omnibus 23,535 and IGNITE was my second one in just after 2 down (explaining who wrote the clues) with “Delusions of grandeur are said to become us (6,7)” 🙂

    Is Balfour @53 any relation (pdm @59 picks up a connection with today’s puzzle) or am I beginning to make connections where there aren’t any? 😉 Perhaps it’s time for bed for me.

    Edit… I see you are not he Balfour @67.

  70. I loved it! We did Scottish country dancing at school in Wellington, New Zealand, in the 1950s. Sometimes the negativity from Ozzie and Yankee commentators gets on my wick! Thanks O and P

  71. CEILIDH as a word isn’t particularly obscure, even if (like many other words) some people haven’t heard of it. We have two separate ones being advertised for next weekend in my corner of SE London, neither of them with any Celtic connection, (and anyone who went along and was prepared to dance would have a good time; a ceilidh is a fun event, and you might well come out having capered through the Dashing White Sergeant and Gay Gordons, which are both easy to pick up). However, the 5A clue, minus the question mark, could go straight into a general knowledge crossword and be considered perfectly solvable, so I can’t honestly consider it cryptic.

  72. DNF for me as I had TICK for 18a, which seems about as justifiable as the correct answer. Unlike some, I quite enjoyed this despite the quibbles.

    Thanks to Omnibus and Peter for the unscrambling.

  73. Eileen @61: We certainly learned Scottish Country Dancing at junior school, and the Dashing White Sergeant (earworm warning!) is a very familiar tune and brought back memories. But I take TassieTim@10′ s point: the sort of answer the clue needed was obvious if you knew what the tunes were, but the specific answer wasn’t, and I wouldn’t know about Aussie bushdances. Though I didn’t know CEILIDH was so unknown outside the UK.

    If this was indeed put together from readers’ clues, it accounts for the mixed bag and some of the over-engineering (a common feature of newcomers’ clues). I did like BEDWETTER and NOMINEE and FIASCO, but was never sure whether 18a was TICK or TACK. LAC=water is French, and HALF-NIECE needs too much explanation in its definition to make a good clue. The slogans must have been fun to clue, but are either obvious or unknown once you know what they are. I parsed YES WE CAN as Pauline In Brum@30 did – and some of the other slogans not at all.

  74. poc @52. I’d rather not think of ‘The White Heather Club’ please. A ghastly farrago of confected ‘Scottishness’ which has been deemed one of the worst TV programmes ever broadcast. It’s hideous presence on TV may have helped to taint my view of the country dancing that we were drilled in prior to the school’s ‘Christmas Dance’. In Jane Austen’s Bath, formation dancing had been perfected as a form of speed dating, but I could never see the point of asking any girl I fancied to participate in the Eightsome Reel.

  75. I enjoyed this more than the majority of commenters, though some of the 1s gave me a bit of a cold shiver. “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” wouldn’t have been out of place in this company. Thanks PeterO for the blog, especially 21,13,20 (Thatcher) which I’d bunged in without parsing but is a joy. Worldlyfeline @19, perhaps a worldly cat like you would admit “no effin’ “ as justified for “Balfour with no F in”, a reference to the old chestnut joke about mint choc chip or broccoli, take your pick.

  77. My experience was much like most other people’s but just to chip in on a minor discussion point:

    Jack of Few Trades@58: falsely capitalising initial letters of words that do not need capitals is fair game, but falsely de-capitalising words that do normally have capital initial letters is not!

    (I once read a coherent explanation of why this is the case that I wholly agreed with, but the nuances of the argument currently escape me…)

    Oh, and one minor quibble / pet peeve: 2d LEEDS, ‘primary deposits’ does not indicate D – such a single letter indicator needs to be possessive or adverbial, not adjectival. So ‘first of deposits’ or ‘deposits, primarily’ both make grammatical sense but ‘primary deposits’ does not. But I see this so much these days that I fear the battle is on its way to being lost…

    Thanks to setter(s?) and blogger!

  79. JoFT@58, I had the same thought about the capitals. Maybe “Shindig where white NCO dashed after effervescent gin” or somesuch. Which, come to think of it, is why I’m not a crossword setter.

  80. May I state that, despite Paddymelon’s unfounded assertion, that I had compiled today’s puzzle, I did not. As I compiled yesterday’s crossword I doubt if Alan Connor would have chosen to include the work by the same compiler on consecutive days — unless, of course, you are Araucaria with his four US- themed puzzles many years ago

  81. Pleasant enough, once you got the SLOGAN.

    I looked for something cryptic for CEILIDHS but didn’t find it. I suppose if you haven’t heard of the dances it could be cryptic. I liked the BEDWETTER and the HALF-NIECE, where I think one has to read ‘quite lovely’ as a phrase to get to ‘half-nice’. I was convinced that 20 was going to be ‘turning’, given Thatcher’s: ‘The lady’s not for turning’. I guess that couldn’t be fitted in with the other SLOGANs.

    Thanks Omnibus people and PeterO.

  83. Well! Whether this is a new setter or a syndicate I don’t know. If the latter – well I don’t think multi-setter puzzles work very well. But the theme suggests otherwise…

    The theme?! I was dismayed to find that all but one of the SLOGANS are infamous and deplorable Tory utterances, best forgotten. This put me off somewhat. Yes I know we’re supposed to be magnanimous and tolerant and display no political bias here in crosswordland – but three such slogans? Really!!!

    Post-rant (sorry!) … puzzle not too difficult apart from ABILENE which I’d never heard of, but the crossers suggested we had yet another hidden word (after ENVY and FIASCO). HALF-NIECE doesn’t quite work for me: colloquially, the wordplay ought perhaps to have a NOT in it (“not half nice!”). I had TICK instead of TACK – but for either word I don’t quite see the DD.

    But some gems in there too. I liked HELMSMAN, BETWETTER (ugh!), METEORIC, OUTNUMBER, LAID-BACK (reverse clues are often fun to spot).

    Thanks to ‘Omnibus’ and Peter.

  84. Enjoyed this on the whole, but struggled to justify LAC and TACK. Quite liked the reverse clues like LAID BACK & OUTNUMBER.

    Don’t quite see why METEORIC relates to turning fast. Thought it just meant approaching at great speed but haven’t looked it up.

    Chapeaux to PeterO for an excellent blog.

  86. William @84

    Re METEORIC: the definition is simply ‘fast’, as underlined in the blog – ‘turns’ is the anagram indicator.

  87. Like Laccaria @83, I was rather discomforted by the clueing of three Tory slogans. Still, it meant for some easy entries without the tiresome chore of actually having to work stuff out from the clue itself – something which Maskarade did well yesterday, while remaining approachable.
    The only thing I would say about the ‘Scottish country dances’ is that few if any genuine ceilidhs in the Highlands would go anywhere near them.

  88. Balfour @74 – if you disliked the White Heather Club you’d have loathed Welcome to the Ceilidh, a late 70s attempt to emulate it. It didn’t last.

  89. I completed this but I can’t say I enjoyed it very much.

    If this is indeed a compilation of reader submissions then I’m inclined to repeat something I’ve said before: our new(ish) editor would do well to remember that his job is to please the solvers, not the setters.

  90. For 18a, Chambers has the definition “the game of tig”, for both TICK and TAG.
    One of the other definitions for TICK is “a mark, often an angular line”.
    If this was in a crossword contest, I believe the organiser would have to accept TICK as a correct answer.

    I’ll leave it to someone else to justify TACK, which nobody seems to have done yet.

  91. Judge @90, the ‘line’ bit of TACK is the course taken by a yacht. The ‘tag’ bit is more dodgy, but I took it as tacking eg one piece of cloth onto another, which might mean you’re tagging something on.

  93. Perhaps it’s something Hugh Stephenson left behind. An obligation would at least be some excuse.
    Any suggestions as to how one recants a libation?

  94. Thanks for the blog, it is a shame SLOGAN was 1 Across, I got it straight away and it meant just writing in the linked answers. I prefer to solve from wordplay and actually the wordplay for STRONG AND STABLE plus LABOUR ISN’T WORKING was very good . The latter was a Saatchi & Saatchi poster showing a long dole queue , Thatcher tripled this in 2 years as well as wasting all the oil and gas revenues .

  96. Blaise @35: that has to be the most contrived complaint of the week. If you’re playing, you’re definitely in the side – that’s all that matters here, and there’s no need to fabricate a grievance.

  98. I liked this with the slogans which I got and could parse. BUT I agree with judge @ 90 that I think 18a TICK is a better answer than TACK. I can justify TICK far more strongly than TACK.

  99. Ravenrider@ 33; Poc@52

    Dashing White Sergeant and the Gay Gordons are Scottish dances, but both are frequently included in English barn dances and ceilidhs. I think that in Scotland people are expected to know them, while in England the caller explains them and walks the dancers through.
    In England the word has been widely adopted to mean a barn (bush if you are in Oz) dance where there are breaks between dances for other kinds of turn – song spots, monologuists, even poetry (the first time I encountered Pam Ayres she was fulfilling that role at a ceilidh where I was in the band).
    I should know – I’ve fiddled and called for hundreds of them.

  101. [Politics again – sorry! Wiki has this interesting bit on LABOUR ISN’T WORKING:

    “The poster’s design was a picture of a snaking dole queue … originally planned for 100 extras to be used for the picture. However, only 20 volunteers from the Hendon Young Conservatives turned up to be photographed. The desired effect was achieved by photographing the same people repeatedly and then striping them together.”

    There you have it! Deceitfulness in politics even back in 1978. Of course, this was long before the days of Photoshop; you can see the joins in the imagery.
    ]

  104. I enjoyed this. Laughed out loud at ‘Geordie Royalty’ leading to ‘working’.

    The Gay Gordons brought back fond memories of learning the ceilidh dances in PE lessons shortly before our school Christmas party every year. Came in really handy at all the weddings years later.

  105. I must be so thick…CEILIDHS…”a straight definition”…how do you arrive at CEILIDHS from “In which Dashing White Sergeants may follow Gay Gordons? (8)”.
    I must be so stupid.

  106. Could someone please explain the “Tag” part of the double definition for 18A? I get “line”, assuming that it relates to sailing, but I cannot find any way in which “tag” and “tack” are synonyms, unless it’s in the sense of “tag” meaning “attach a label” and “tack” being a way you can attach something – but if so I think that’s ludicrously weak.

  107. (Re my comment above – I see now that Trailman @91 has provided an explanation – I think that his is correct, but I still think it’s an unsatisfactory definition. Per Judge @90, I had to use the check function to confirm whether TACK or TICK was expected).

  108. Yes, thanks Tramp @95. The X-Philes was a great column – it would be nice if the Guardian would run something like that now. And I don’t mean just online like Alan Connor’s blog! Come to that, why does the Quiptic have to be online only? If things were in the actual paper I would stand more of a chance of seeing them.

    Tim C @68: interesting point that the original Omnibus was compiled by Sandy Balfour and that Balfour features in 21,13,20 today. Again, coincidence?

  109. [Lord Jim @108 it is called capitalist surveillance, the Guardian wants to sell all your details to advertisers or worse. It is why I avoid all these things, when this site introduces registration I will have to retire gracefully . ]

  111. HiyD @105 – the Gay Gordons and Dashing White Sergeant are Scottish country dances, so it’s plausible that one might follow the other at a ceilidh. Like any cryptic definition type clue, it relies on tricking you into thinking of a different interpretation of the surface reading to give it a cryptic element, but to anyone who does know the dances, it’s immediately obvious what the clue is referring to. If you don’t know the dances, it’s gibberish, so you can be forgiven for not getting this one.

    Tramp @95 – thanks for sharing this. I’m sorry your dad didn’t get to enjoy your work as a setter, he would have been so proud of you, you’re one of the best in the game. I have fond memories of solving the Guardian Saturday crossword over a pint in the pub with my dad and I’m glad he’s still around to chat crossword stuff. On my own attempts at setting, he’s the person whose opinion matters most to me, by a significant margin.

  112. TheGreatArturo @96. You’re absolutely right. I did contrive my complaint because I thought that it was the only clue that hadn’t received any flak so far…

  113. Widdersbel @111 – Thanks for the info. A large gap in my GK, Scottish dances I know nothing about.

  114. Re 23d: Not necessarily double duty if we read ‘learn to live’ as ‘choose life’ to define WEAN. Choose Life is an anti-drugs slogan (fitting with the theme)

  115. Balfour@74: for the record, I share your opinion of the White Heather Club. I merely mentioned it as a reference point.

  116. Got lac from the Booker winning Hotel du Lac . Didn’t get Ceilidhs or tack. I see tack as a change of direction across the wind in a yacht not as a line. Tried for an anagram (dashing) of “in which” plus another letter for 5ac.

  117. I’m with @Eileen, really enjoyed this one. I didn’t mind that the parsing of the slogans was convoluted – I thought they were fun. Ceilidhs wasn’t cryptic but it didn’t spoil the crossword. Got all but three which is great for me so thanks Omnibus for a fun and accessible puzzle

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