Guardian Cryptic 29,519 by Vulcan

55 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,519 by Vulcan”

1. 17 ac: The cat sat on the mat?

2. 17 across refers to “the cat sat on the mat I think? Thanks both.

3. Was going to say the same as Everpuzzled and SueB re 17.

   Lovely puzzle, needed to come here to parse PINAFORE, but a good start to the week.

4. Quick and delightful. The top half was easier than the bottom. Really liked STANDING ROOM, STANDSTILL, REST ONE’S CASE, COPPERHEAD, DELUGE and PINAFORE. I think we had DOGLEG last week. Covered the homophone CODA nicely with ‘some hear’, I.e. not everyone.

   Ta Vulcan & manehi.

5. Thanks to the setter and blogger. For 27ac I thought pinafore might be part of a costume and therefore a stafecraft.

6. Straightforward enough, thanks to both. Still don’t really get PINAFORE – does the ‘stage’ refer to the place the opera is performed?

7. I agree with AlanC -quick and fun.

   And also with everyone else about the cat sat on the mat, but I needed the crossers to be convinced.

   The Savoy theatre, next to the hotel, staged the G&S operettas, of which HMS Pinafore is one

   Thank you to manehi and Vulcan.

8. Redrodney @6: HMS PINAFORE by G&S was known as one of the Savoy operas.

9. Enjoyed this very much, with the same likes as manehi, particularly the stand in groom.

10. Gilbert and Sullivan fleetingly discussed on here recently, but PINAFORE was my loi. One or two of the definitions I thought rather iffy, but did like SILHOUETTE and STANDSTILL. Not sure I would have got MAT without the two first and last crossers in place, however….

11. Defeated by PINAFORE. A lovely Monday puzzle perhaps with the sole exception of MAT. I thought, as did others, ‘the cat sat on the mat’ and moved on, not entirely satisfied. Thanks Vulcan and manehi.

12. Thanks Vulcan and manehi. Most went in without troubling too much GREY MATTER, but with enough wit, such as STANDING ROOM, to make it rewarding. PINAFORE was oddly of a different order to the rest, as the comments above seem to confirm.

13. Really not a fan of 17A. I agree with others that it’s a reference to “the cat sat on the mat”, but it doesn’t strike me as meeting the minimum requirements for a legitimate cryptic crossword clue.

    I am generally grumpy about the “Quipticification” of the Monday crossword, though. I’m all for a gentle start to the week but it should be possible to make it straightforward without compromising the quality of the clues.

14. How much of HMS Pinafore is performed on the apron of the stage, I wonder. I failed to recall the name of the play first thing in the morning, though it was nagging me. I wouldn’t have known it was a Savoy opera anyway.
    I also played with the idea that the clue for Mat evolved from an earlier attempt with a Tom (cat), but Ever puzzled and SueB @1 and 2 said all that is needed.

15. MAT reminds me of the poem Cat by Tolkien, see here which has a lot of assonance. I particularly like the ‘lion’ bit.

16. Jayzed@27: whereas for some of us this was still tricky and enjoyable eh?

    More experienced/better solvers have the rest of the week so please leave us the one day which encourages us to have a go … especially if, like me, you actually pay for the print edition of the Monday to Saturday Grauniad ….

17. I think the fact the HMS Pinafore is a ship leads to the double meaning of the word stagecraft?
    Very nice clues all through, but a little too gentle.
    Thanks Vulcan
    And manehi

18. I found this puzzle witty and enjoyable.
    Strangely, the two 3-letter solutions caused me the most bother.
    I see “dogleg” reappears as “sharp bend”…. which I thought was inexact, last time, because of the “not so sharp” golf course version.
    But no, a sharp bend it is.
    I could love this puzzle for the “STAND-IN GROOM” alone, but there’s much more I found great fun.
    Thumbs up, V + manehi

19. PINAFORE was a write-in for me, but not necessarily for everyone, as is the way with “GK” (still don’t know why we call it that). I think D’Oyly Carte built the Savoy Theatre to stage the G&S operas, which did so well that he could build the hotel next door.

20. Very enjoyable challenge.

    I did not fully parse 11d and I came here to check 17ac (which did not seem to be very cryptic), and 27ac – which I guessed was a ref to Gilbert and Sullivan but I did not know its performance history or Savoy connection.

    Favourites: STANDING ROOM, DELUGE, REST ONE’S CASE (loi).

    Thanks, both.

21. This gets a thumbs up from me for STANDING ROOM alone. I’d hoped there would be more to MAT but it seems not, at least so far…
    I needed your help to fully parse PINAFORE manehi. My thanks to you and to Vulcan. A good start to the week.

22. 27a PINAFORE – Passing Savoy Court on a bus yesterday, I did my usual
    Peter Sellers’ … Michael Caine impression: “Did you know… THIS? …Not many people know that.”

23. [poc @19 – the Savoy theatre and hotel are very much of a piece – or were when I went to the hotel for pre-theatre drinks before seeing Noises Off during it’s 1980s run. Considering how much theatre I managed a decade ago, I must have been back, but I don’t remember going there again, but there was a complete rebuild of the theatre in the 1990s following a fire.

    Gilbert and Sullivan isn’t performed at the Savoy so much now, any I’ve seen (or paid for and not seen) has been elsewhere.]

24. Short but sweet today, though PINAFORE is going to be difficult for anyone unfamiliar with the Savoy theatre and its operas (and it led me down the garden path looking for cabbages at first). Favourite of course the STAND IN GROOM, though I liked EIGHTH, MARATHON and DOGLEG too. Good clues don’t necessarily have to be difficult, and these had the desirable “d’oh!” moment.

25. Worth the entrance-fee for STANDING ROOM alone!
    DELUGE and MARATHON were also fun – and DOGLEG clued rather better than in a recent puzzle.
    (I may be wrong on this, but I think a pinafore stage juts out from the main stage into the audience-area. It’s also called an apron stage.)
    Thanks v much manehi & Vulcan

26. …your remark about the cabbages, gladys@24, did make me laugh. Then I was reminded of the line from the Walrus and The Carpenter about “cabbages and kings”. There were kings of Savoy, too. Time to get my hat…

27. Confused by 17a as well. MAT would be a straight crossword clue for ‘place of feline repose’. In a cryptic I want to write MOT so the cat is backwards.

28. In addition to the cat on the mat, I wondered if there was a cat pose in yoga? I’m not too familiar with either and for a while was trying to figure out if it could be ‘MOT’ before swinging towards MAT.

29. Always rather nice when there is a generally accepted stand out clue and STANDING ROOM is clearly the one for today. A delightful construct. DOGLEG was amusing, for sure and, whilst they were very clearly signalled, the two anagrams for SILHOUETTE and TRIAGE were both nicely done. I also enjoyed the surface for MUG’S GAME.

    Thanks Vulcan and manehi

30. 27a was within my GK compass, so no problem there. I bunged MAT, shrugged, and moved on, although the explanations here make perfect sense in hindsight.

    12a is a classic.

31. A speedy solve indeed! But worth it for STANDING ROOM and DELUGE.

    I don’t see the difficulty with PINAFORE. HMS Pinafore was clearly a craft and it was staged at the Savoy theatre.

    Thanks Vulcan

32. Very enjoyable start to the week with some witty clues.

    PINAFORE, well PIN is stage, so AFORE must have something to do with craft, doh. I did like the STAND-IN GROOM, the DE-LUGE, PRE-SAGE and the good anagram for SILHOUETTE. I also enjoyed the corners of the lab.

    Thanks Vulcan and manehi.

33. Maybe it’s regional, but I went straight in with 1a ON(working TIMES

34. The cat didn’t always sit on the mat!
    

35. Agree that this was a gentle start to the week. I don’t know the Savoy, but I do know my G&S, so was able to get the clue through the crossers, and the word “craft”. I whiffed on CHIMP, though it’s certainly clear enough in retrospect (I put in CRIMP instead).

36. Re 13 down: around fifty years ago, in Australia, my colleagues and I used to work on crosswords at morning tea. I can only remember two clues from that period: ‘chief of police is a snake in the grass’, although I didn’t guess that it would be understandable outside the Australian context – but Google helps these days. The other clue involved the surprising anagram of ‘saturnalia’!

37. Richard @28 – yes, there’s a cat pose in yoga.

38. Thumbs up to – Still Going After All These Years @16 the Monday puzzle is a great start to the week for us newbies to the world of cryptic crosswords.
    Favourites: 12a, 15a, 20a, 22a, 28a and 21d.
    Thanks to Vlad for an enjoyable puzzle and to manehi for the blog.

39. Shropshirelass @38: you might wish to thank Vulcan instead although sometimes I wish Vlad was as easy as this 😉

40. Thanks for the blog, on the whole this was ideal for the Monday tradition and no harm in a couple of trickier clues . There used to be two puzzles like this every week and very helpful for newer solvers. DELUGE a neat idea.

41. [ AlanC I happened to see the league table yesterday and I thought for a moment that KPR were top . Alas it was across the breakfast table and I was seeing the Sports section upside down, perhaps you could try this to cheer yourself up. I promise not to mention the R word all season ]

42. [Roz @41: 🤣🤣 ]

43. Standing room – advanced double take followed by a guffaw! Others in the queue looked at me puzzled and wary!!

44. [ AlanC@42 , perhaps KPR could transfer to the Parva Liga ? ]

45. Loved everything but Pinafore which I really didn’t like. I even saw the stage-craft device, but without the Savoy knowledge I just conceded defeat. If it had had crossers that were more helpful I’d have had a shout, but all vowels left too many options. I’m pretty much allergic to G&S too, so the chances of me dredging it up without a consonant were slim to none.

46. Okay, the mat was admittedly weak. But we G&Sers loved Pinafore and also appreciated the wit (standing room and rest one’s case) and fun (silhouette, deluge).

47. Didn’t help myself (help my case, you might say) by putting in DROP rather than REST.
    Came here primarily to see what I was missing in not knowing how MAT is in any way a cryptic clue. Still not entirely convinced by it but the first couple of comments do give it perhaps a tad of justification.
    Enjoyed the puzzle but found the write-in top half a lot easier than the bottom.

48. I can’t believe all the opprobrium being heaped on the MAT clue. Yes, it really is cryptic – the sentence “the cat sat on the mat” is not descriptive of normal feline behaviour – it’s used in examples of grammar or correct pronunciation, or rhymes for pre-reading children, isn’t it? I can’t recall ever seeing a cat sitting on a mat and having the sentence pop into my head – it’s just a cliche rather than a description. The clue refers to the cliche, not to the actual habits of cats. And the whole point of a crossword clue is that the solver should be (momentarily) misled, but when the penny drops, should be sure that the right answer has been arrived at. A smile is a bonus.

    PINAFORE was last in for me and I thought that was a good clue, too.

    Thanks to Vulcan and manehi.

49. My familiarity with G & S didn’t help. I saw that IOLANTHE fit the two crossers I had and bunged it in, supposing that craft had something to do with witchcraft and therefore the fairies’ magic in Iolanthe. The SE corner didn’t go well after that.

50. Funday Monday: quick and pretty straightforward for the most part, and quite a few clues were write-ins. Nevertheless, Vulcan was on top form today: staying within the Monday brief of keeping things solvable, but still with plenty of invention and entertainment.
    I chuckled at the STAND-IN GROOM, and the four DOGLEGs, one on each corner of the Lab (not the scientific kind); “hotel suite”/SILHOUETTE is an inspired anagramic discovery; I loved PINAFORE being described as a “stagecraft”, even if I didn’t understand the Savoy reference; and to DE-LUGE would be a sensible course of action in pouring rain.
    I also enjoyed the cat/MAT clue, and thanks to sheffield hatter@48 for summing it up perfectly.
    Thanks to Vulcan and manehi.

51. The hen it is a noble beast
    The cow is more forlorner
    Standing in the rain
    With a leg at every corner.

52. Sheffieldhatter@48: hear, hear! It wasn’t a write-in, I needed the crossers, there was a penny drop moment. What more do you want? Excellent Monday fare. Thanks, Vulcan and manehi.

53. A satisfying crossword puzzle. Many pennies dropped. I was delighted to get CODA as I don’t usually spot homophones. For 27a , Savoy had to be a theatre but I kept thinking “pianoforte” I finally wrote in the word PINAFORE but needed Manehi for the parsing. Thanks to all involved.

54. I made life difficult for myself by entering ORTHOPEDIC as my 15ac bone doctor, after CHIROPRACTOR didn’t fit (thanks, Eddie Izzard).

    DELUGE made me literally laugh out loud and pen = female swan is new to me.

55. Deebster@22 in case you read this — a male swan is a cob.

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