The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29521.
I felt the brunt of an Enigmatist just back in July; at least this time I managed to parse everything to my satisfaction, but there is no two ways about it: it was a struggle.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1, 26 | NUMBERS RACKETS |
Illegal betting for Yankees game: book opening (7,7)
|
| A charade of NUMBERS (‘book’ of the Old Testament) plus RACKETS (‘game’), with ‘opening’ indicating the order of the particles. | ||
| 5 | CN TOWER |
Toronto icon is unable to flush out a debtor (2,5)
|
| A charade of C[a]N’T (‘is unable’) minus the A (‘to flush out a’) plus OWER (‘debtor’), for the Canadian attraction. | ||
| 9 | PRIOR |
Former England wicketkeeper who’s seen at the top of the order (5)
|
| The wicketkeeper is Matt Prior, and the ‘order’ is a priory. It took quite a bit of digging to get that one. | ||
| 10 | WOODENTOP |
Fool will not work to include lyric (9)
|
| An envelope (‘to include’) of ODE (‘lyric’) in WON’T (‘will not’) plus OP (‘work’). | ||
| 11 | NEW BALLS PLEASE |
High Court Judge’s dictum reportedly recognised Johnny and Zoe’s statements? (3,5,6)
|
| The ‘court’ is for tennis, and ‘high’ for the chair umpire’s – judge’s – elevated position. Johnny Ball and Zoë Ball are both television personalities, and NEW sounds like (‘reportedly’) KNEW (‘recognised’), and PLEASE sounds like PLEAS (‘statements’). | ||
| 13 | LOCO |
Small engine used to pull buggy (4)
|
| Double definition: LOCO[motive] (‘engine used to pull’) in shortened form (‘small’); and ‘buggy’ as crazy. | ||
| 14 | IN NO TIME |
Old #1 in Telegraph punches local Independent compiler pdq (2,2,4)
|
| An envelope (‘punches’) of O (‘old’) plus T (‘#1 in Telegraph’) in INN (‘local’) plus I (‘Independent’) plus ME (‘compiler’ of this crossword). | ||
| 17 | MANDARIN |
A bureaucrat, in part panjandrum – and a ringleader (8)
|
| A hidden answer (‘in part’) in ‘panjandruM AND A RINgleader’. | ||
| 18 | E-FIT |
What helps to produce portrait if eyewitnesses can recall (1-3)
|
| A hidden (‘what helps to produce’) reversed (‘can recall’) answer in ‘portraiT IF Eyewitnesses’, with an &lit definition. | ||
| 21 | DOUBLE ENTENDRE |
Feature of Carry On Nurse, pricking our Bernie’s nose comically with needle (6,8)
|
| An envelope (‘pricking’) of TEND (‘nurse’) in DOUBLEENRE, an anagram (‘comically’) of ‘our’ plus B (‘Bernie’s nose’) plus ‘needle’. Bernie Bishop was a charcter in Carry On Nurse, or it might be Bernard Bresslaw, whose feet (uncredited) apparently appeared in Carry On Nurse, and the rest of him appeared in other Carry On films (along with many a double entendre). | ||
| 23 | OXIDISING |
Getting reaction a bit wrong, passport is in front of general (9)
|
| A charade of O (‘a bit’ – binary) plus X (‘wrong’) plus ID (‘passport’) plus ‘is in’ plus G (‘front of General’). | ||
| 24 | LINER |
Insert cosmetic (5)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 25 | SESTETS |
Screening thirds, this examiner does lines from Sonnets (7)
|
| SE[t]S TE[s]TS (‘this examiner does’ – I take it that the more normal word order would be “examiner does this”) minus the third letter of each word; an Italian sonnet consists of an octave, eight lines, followed by a sestet, six lines. I did wonder if the parsing involved ‘ThiS‘ giving the removed letters, but eventually I chose the interpretation here. | ||
| 26 |
See 1
|
|
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | NIPS |
Is pinching more than just a dram (4)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 2 | MAIDEN CENTURIES |
Milestones in MCC (6,9)
|
| A kind of double definition, with MCC being Marylebone Cricket Club, and M (MAIDEN, cricket again) C C (Roman numbers, CENTURIES) | ||
| 3 | ENROBE |
Dress carried to the North East (6)
|
| A charade of ENROB, a reversal (‘to the north’ in a down light) of BORNE (‘carried’); plus E (‘east’). | ||
| 4 | SAWFLY |
Pest got savvy (6)
|
| A charade of SAW (‘got’ – geddit?) plus FLY (‘savvy’). | ||
| 5, 6 | CROSSING THE FLOOR |
Sort of girl chosen for manipulating defection (8,3,5)
|
| An anagram (‘for manipulating’) of ‘sort of girl chosen’. The definition refers to an MP voting against his or her party. | ||
| 6 |
See 5
|
|
| 7 | WITH A DIFFERENCE |
As subtraction turns out, peculiarly (4,1,10)
|
| Definition and literal interpretation. | ||
| 8 | REPRESENTS |
Intensely dislikes supporting theatre shows (10)
|
| A charade of REP (‘theatre’) plus RESENTS (‘intensely dislikes’ – intensely?), with ‘supporting’ indicating the order of the particles in the down light. | ||
| 12 | ALL MOD CONS |
House-buyer may want these scams unattributable to rockers? (3,3,4)
|
| Definition and literal interpretation, playing on the 1950s-1960s British youth subcultures of mods and rockers. | ||
| 15, 16 | FALL LIKE NINEPINS |
Go down, as many will with strike at end of lane (4,4,8)
|
| The ‘lane’ is in a nine-pin bowling alley. | ||
| 16 |
See 15
|
|
| 19 | STAGER |
Leading actor passing round tips from great experience? (6)
|
| An envelope (‘passing round’) of GE (‘tips from Great Experience’) in STAR (‘leading actor’), with an &lit definition. | ||
| 20 | EN BLOC |
Mark very particularly chopping cabbage up in one go (2,4)
|
| An envelope (‘chopping’) of NB (nota bene, ‘mark very particularly’) in ELOC, a reversal (‘up’ in a down light) of COLE (‘cabbage’). | ||
| 22 | EROS |
In rising, painfully winged archer (4)
|
| A reversal (‘in rising’ in a down light) of SORE (‘painfully’). |
My second ever completed Enigmatist!
Thanks both
Finished it but hated it. Sorry.
Well done Dave Ellison@1. Not wanting to come here, but PeterO’s up so early. Thank you PeterO. Not looking at the solve, just yet. I so needed this distraction today and will keep on plodding. I hope this offering from Enigmatist gives some satisfaction for those who are looking for a more stretching solve.
Dr. Whatson@2. Dunno yet.
Thanks PeterO and Doctor Estimating.
This one exposed gaping holes in my knowledge. There are a few that i still don’t understand, but will wait for the northern hemisphere solvers to ask and answer after their morning cuppa.
Wow that was tough. Thanks PeterO for shedding light on some of these. I feared that 10ac was a poorly indicated homophone clue (“wouldn’t op”) but your parsing is much more sensible.
Liked 10a for reminding me of The WOODENTOPs (1955-6) “… and last of all, the very biggest spotty dog you ever did see”…
…oed.com doesn’t know about them: ‘slang. 1981– woodentop, n. a. A uniformed police officer; b. a dim-wit.’…
…Jonathon Green has an earlier citation, gets the etymology right, but gets the year wrong:
woodentop (n.) [the BBC-TV children’s series, launched in 1965; it featured a family of wooden dolls who lived on a farm] a uniformed police officer.
1977 [UK] G.F. Newman Villain’s Tale 106: They got away? You mean to say they got clean away? […] What the feck were all those wooden tops doing?
Playing with each other?
1985 [UK] J. Sullivan ‘To Hull and Back’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] I will make life very comfortable for you, no more aggro from wooden-tops in the market.
2008 M. Herron Reconstruction: (2019) 156: He lit up while waiting for the woodentop on duty to locate someone who understood the game’s rules.
Thanks E&PO
Had a look at this in the early hours. A first for me, couldn’t figure out a single clue on first pass then. Had been warned by someone on here how tough The Puzzler might be. Will have another go later, perhaps…
Agree entirely with PeterO’s estimation of this. A real struggle to make progress. One pedantic correction to the blog – ‘CROSSING THE FLOOR’ in UK politics means changing political party from the government to the opposition or vice versa rather than just voting against the party of which you’re a member. I needed to tease out the parsing to remember 5 and 6. I realise I hadn’t properly parsed 25 ‘SESTETS’ after seeing how the clue worked. I hadn’t realised you had to first find a suitable re-phrasing and then delete every third letter from that. 10 took me back 40 years to an old job, for reasons that I won’t go into. Liked 11, 12 and 21. Thanks to Enigmatist and PeterO.
Far beyond me. Thanks for the write up
Tough but doable though I had no idea of the parsing of SESTET which seems remarkably abstruse. I’m OK with the usual ‘think of a synonym and do something to it’: fair game in most cryptics. But ‘think of a combo of two words, that’s not really a phrase and clued with a slightly odd word order and then remove every third letter …’
I also needed PeterO for NIPS – rather distractingly, the solution also appears in reverse across the first two words of the clue, ‘Is pinching …’ which, with the subsequent ‘… more than …’ had me thinking it was a cunning reverse hidden @lit or some such. Which is what happens when you’ve spent a chunk of the last hour trying to get inside the head of Enigmatist!
I agree with Tomsdad on the meaning of CROSSING THE FLOOR. I had no idea ‘buggy’ means crazy – apparently it is ‘US informal’ but no reason for that to worry this setter.
Thanks Enigmatist and PeterO
Thanks for the reminder FrankieG @10a (though I do wonder if, given long enough, you will have eventually cut and pasted every page of oed.com into 225 …) I was surprised to learn there were only ever 26 episodes – I was born almost 10 years after the series was made and I wouldn’t have been watching TV for the first few years but I certainly remember enjoying the Woodentops as a child.
Curious that the least hint of an indirect anagram is forbidden while things like SESTETS get a free pass – certainly above my pay grade, like much of Enigmatist. NHO the CN TOWER or Mr PRIOR, and although I did eventually get CENTURIES, the abbreviation for MAIDEN was beyond me. I didn’t have time today to give this the attention it deserves, but of the ones I could do ( about half) I liked ALL MOD CONS and CROSSING THE FLOOR. I recognised Johnny and Zoe, so I got that answer but couldn’t parse it.
The sort of bowling alley that has multiple lanes uses ten rather than nine pins, which is a pity.
I found this really difficult. I managed to get answers for everything eventually and reverse parsed some but needed PeterO to explain most, which you did very well. Like Alex in SG, I thought WOODENTOPS was a sounds like. Nho SESTETS or CT TOWER so I’ve learned some new things which is a bonus. Agree with PostMark@12 on the parsing of the former. I had NUMBERS RUNNING for ages, before I got more clues. Thank you to Enigmatist. It was too far outside my comfort zone for me to enjoy the experience, but I am sure better solvers will.
I like the tough ones so was delighted to see Enigmatist’s name. Took some time, but very much worth the struggle, particularly for MAIDEN CENTURIES, WOODENTOP and DOUBLE ENTENDRE. Come back soon please Mr E, as otherwise I have to look up your old puzzles.
This was like going 3 rounds against Mike Tyson. (Not that I could go 3 seconds!)
It took me from here to eternity, and I still cocked-up on 25ac, bunging in SESTERS.
I didn’t know buggy could mean crazy; I couldn’t make sense of the “OX” in OXIDISING; I originally went for “crossing the house” in 5,6 (down) from pure stupidity.
TKO to Enigmatist.
Superb work by PeterO
( and some entertaining comments from posters, too ).
All in and most parsed with heavy use of the check button.
I remember watching the WOODEN TOPS, just, and have read the reference to thick policemen. I did get SESTETS from knowing the term but no hope of parsing. After the gimme of E-FIT, CROSSING THE FLOOR was early. Fair amount of reading American writers to know buggy is mad, so LOCO was OK. And following a Toronto photographer who featured the CN TOWER in her photos.
I checked to see if PRIOR was a cricketer – I think the parsing is that the PRIOR is the second in seniority behind an abbot in an order of monks.
Thank you to Enigmatist and PeterO.
I figured out E-FIT and LINER but then gave up. Much too difficult for me as a beginner. I revealed all of the remaining answers and many of them still didn’t make much sense until I read this blog. If all cryptics were like this, I wouldn’t keep trying!
Top faves: CN TOWER, PRIOR (I remember this cricketer. I don’t recall whether he was an opener. If he was an opener, then an extended def/CAD), NEW BALLS PLEASE (Google helped me to cross-check those two BALLS), E-FIT, MAIDEN CENTURIES and STAGER.
SESTETS: Parsed it correctly (OK almost) except for the unaccounted-for ‘this’. I understand now that it’s just the change in word order that fooled me. Maybe the clue is somewhat unfair (or the grape is too high to be sweet!).
Tough but enjoyable as always an Enigmatist is.
Thanks Enigmatist and PeterO!
Unlike most commenters I found this of only about average difficulty for a Graun crossword (so I struggle with some puzzles others find straightforward).
Favourites include MAIDEN CENTURIES (I hadn’t seen the full parsing until I came here) and CN TOWER as a simple concise clue (surprised some were unfamiliar with this – it was the world’s tallest tower until 2009).
Thanks PeterO and Enigmatist.
This was tough and not much fun, despite getting nearly everything eventually. Had to reveal a few and generally couldn’t be bothered to parse the many that I had guessed like SESTETS. Well done, PeterO, for working that one out! 21a in particular reminds me of the over-elaborate clues that some people submit for the Azed competitions.
Finally made it to the end, only to find that the buggy LICE were wrong. I had to use too much internet searching for my liking (Johnny & Zoe, Toronto tower, England wks – though at least I had heard of Matt – sonnet lines, American gambling, AI identikit), as well as too much checking (e.g. both TWELVE and DOUBLE CENTURIES turned up blanks). Is WITH A DIFFERENCE a proper phrase? – I had the latter two words but struggled on WITH. My favorite clues give answers that I can see are unambiguously correct when I find them (I have never understood the “Now I know how it works, clue x is my favorite” response) – but these were too few and far between in this one for me to enjoy it much. Thanks anyway, Enigmatist, and definite thanks (and condolences) PeterO.
Tough one but got there in the end, mostly from the definitions. NHO & LOI: WOODEN TOP, SAWFLY. Fave: ALL MOD CONS. I assumed it was Melbourne Cricket Club but that makes no difference. Many thanks to PeterO and Enigmatist.
Very tough and some of the references felt old-fashioned to me. I needed quite a bit of online help for the GK. Finished it but did not really enjoy it.
New for me: E-FIT (took me a while to work out what the modern version of an identikit is but it was obvious that it had to be e- something!); CN TOWER, Toronto (thanks, google); pdq = pretty damn quick (for 14ac); WOODENTOP; Johnny and Zoe Ball (for 11ac) – found via google – I never heard of these people; SAWFLY; wicketkeeper Matt PRIOR; SESTET.
I could not parse the O=a bit in 23ac; 25ac (I wondered if it required removing letters but at that stage I just couldn’t be bothered to attempt the parsing); the ‘is pinching’ bit of 1d; 20d – never heard of cole cabbage.
It took a while for me to realise that loco can mean buggy/mad in 13ac.
Like PostMark@12, I saw the reverse hidden NIPS in 1d but I could not see the reversal indicator.
And now… a late start to the rest of my day!
Thanks, both.
Not my cup of tea. Too much obscure knowledge like Johnny and Zoe, CN Tower for my liking.
Apart from struggling to parse SESTET, this was a lot of fun.
I thought PRIOR might be a triple definition but ‘former’ doesn’t really work.
Can 1a be plural? I guess yes, but it just sounds a bit clumsy.
I enjoyed learning about the origins of ‘panjandrum’ as part of a memory test written by Cornish dramatist Samuel Foote for the actor Charles Macklin.
Thanks to PeterO and Enigmatist
Found this almost completely outside my comfort zone, though I had heard of (and watched as a kid) the Woodentops. The cricketing GK was a complete blank. Gave up and revealed most of it.
Huge thanks due to Peter O for explaining such an obscure and unenjoyable slog. Small thanks to Enigmatist for the few clues I managed to solve
Another who found it difficult. NHO that definition of ‘buggy’, and ended up revealing LOCO, NUMBERS RACKETS, EN BLOC and NIPS. I can appreciate how some of the GK would present a further barrier for many.
Glad, though, to get as far as I did. A couple of write-ins (MANDARIN for one) helped me gain a foothold and thus a fighting chance.
KVa@20 – Prior did occasionally open for England, I think mainly in ODIs
Very tricky with some baroque constructions – quite a lot went in from the definition and/or the crossers and I failed (or just couldn’t be bothered) with several parsings – but very entertaining.
GK is always a help – CN TOWER was my FOI and a write-in. Lots of fun here – I particularly liked the double significance of ‘high court judge’ in NEW BALLS PLEASE , the anagram for CROSSING THE FLOOR (I’m with Tomsdad @10) and the &lits for STAGER and E-FIT.
I had the initial D, so I was momentarily distracted by ‘daffodil’ for ‘Feature of Carry On Nurse…’ 🙂
Thanks to JH and PeterO
Shanne @18: as an ex-WOODENTOP, I don’t consider myself to be ‘thick’, in fact it is a pejorative term used by CID officers to describe their helmeted uniform colleagues (ironically, every police officer starts out as one). Anyways, this was a real slog, but I’m glad I persevered to the end. Favourites were NUMBERS RACKETS, LOCO, MAIDEN CENTURIES, ALL MOD CONS and FALL LIKE NINEPINS.
Ta Enigmatist & PeterO.
I think I’m slowly getting on to enigmatist’s wavelength but I’m not 100% sure it’s somewhere I want to be
That said, I thought NEW BALLS PLEASE, ALL MOD CONS & DOUBLE ENTENDRE were great fun
Cheers P&E
I found this a challenge but managed to finish it. However I left it half parsed, or some rhyme of that. Some parsing seemed too elaborate to work out and by then I’d run out of puff.
The most obscure was – and still is – SESTETS, which, when explained, sounds like Yoda speak. I also needed PeterO’s explanations for WOODENTOP (another wouldn’t op here), IN NO TIME (local, doh!), the homophone part of NEW BALLS PLEASE (had to google to find who J and Z were), DOUBLE ENTENDRE (couldn’t work out the anagram fodder) and the O IN OXIDISING. All good learning.
But I did parse all of the down clues, so will give my favourites as MAIDEN CENTURIES, ALL MOD CONS and EN BLOC.
My appreciation to PeterO for making sense of some quite intricate word play and explaining it all so clearly. And thanks Enigmatist for the challenge.
Thanks to E & PO, as always. I thought this slightly less taxing than Enigmatist’s last, a month of so ago, and a lot less taxing than his July puzzle that Peter alludes to in his preface. I think that after the September puzzle Roz wrote something about Enigmatist ‘dumbing down for the Guardian’ (forgive me, Roz, if I have misquoted you on that), so I await her take on this one with interest.
Sheesh! I’m trying to progress (slowly) through the ranks from Quick Cryptic, Quiptic and Everyman to the hallowed Cryptics and realise that Tuesdays are my limit. Today’s was a real head scratcher – even with PeterO’s help.
I sometimes think my ‘OCD-ness’ is a barrier as I need precision. For example, can someone please explain why 5A is described as ‘2,5’? Surely it should be ‘1,1,5’.
This was really like pulling teeth – got totally stuck several times and as for parsing, I’m glad I wasn’t doing it … congratulations, PeterO – and thanks. Though of course crossing the floor does involve a little more than voting.
Thanks for the blog, I found it a bit dull and I would have liked to scratch my head a bit more. Perhaps my expectations too high on seeing the name.
I thought the long Down entries were barely clued at all .
SESTETS was clever and STAGER a neat & Lit .
Tough but I got there with a few unparsed. I spent far too long trying to fit “tests” into SESTETS, so thanks Peter for sorting that out. I also couldn’t parse EN BLOC, though it looks simple enough with hindsight.
For anyone who doesn’t know them, Johnny and Zoe are father and daughter, not just random Balls.
Percybass@37 I think you make an interesting point about CN TOWER. I think the answer is that the original name was an acronym but, with changes of ownership, it doesn’t really stand for anything now. Any Canadians around to confirm?
Thanks P and E.
I had zero answers on my first (across) pass and was feeling grumpy. Then three downs came to me, and slowly, very slowly, the rest. Then I felt quite pleased with myself.
I am another who has never heard of “buggy” as insane (is it US slang?) . Thanks for parsing 25a, which I just biffed.
Balfour@ 36 my dumbing down comment was very tongue-in-cheek , I found the last one very tricky indeed , and I needed two goes at it which is rare for me . That is why I was disappointed with this one.
Your new name is much easier for me to type.
Amma@19 and others who struggled with this. I’ve been tackling the Guardian cryptic for years. I often complete it but this one pretty much defeated me. I only managed 7 solutions before I gave up entirely, which I rarely do. It was a bit of a stinker. So don’t let it put you off continuing with them. Many thanks to Peter O for the blog. What would we do without Fifteen Squared to teach us?
Percybass@37, that’s just its name and how it’s written: CN TOWER (or TOUR CN, in that bilingual country).
Don’t give up on the puzzles after Tuesday! They do vary from day to day. This was chewy, but you may find another cryptic is just on your wave length. Hang in there and enjoy the journey.
Percy@37 it is all about being stubborn , I used to take all week to do the Everyman when I started . Sometimes for Bunthorne I would not get a single answer all weekend.
It is worth trying the harder setters because you learn new things , the setter may defeat you but you live to solve another day .
Percybass @37: I understand why the numbering of 5A bugs you. This crops up quite often in crosswords, and the way I’ve come to look at it is to consider the way the answer is written, rather than the number of real words that it represents. So we write ‘CN’ as a single ‘word’. Similarly, ‘FA Cup’ would be ‘2,3’.
CROSSING THE FLOOR reminded me of Hartley Shawcross, a postwar Labour Minister who moved to the right, and was widely known as “Shortly Floorcross”, though he never actually joined the Tories.
Enjoyed the half I knew why I’d got it right! As others have found, this was too tough for me today.
Favourite was MAIDEN CENTURIES.
Lots to learn though from a great blog; thanks PeterO (“a bit wrong” needs to go in my bag of tricks), and thanks Enigmatist for the puzzle.
I’m genuinely surprised by the overall impression expressed by many here..
Personally, I felt that Mr H had pitched this elegant puzzle at just the right level for a weekday cryptic; it seemed he hadn’t made me work as hard as he often does!
And some delightful clues…
I loved ALL MOD CONS, and thought MAIDEN CENTURIES a gorgeous “semi &lit” (and STAGER a nice &lit too)
All in all, a lovely surprise
Many thanks, Enigmatist!
Whenever I see Enigmatist as the setter I know I’m in for a tough solve and this was no exception. I didn’t help myself by putting DROP instead of FALL in 15d, but after that it fell into place. Favourite was 11a by far. Head scratch at 9a in trying to fit KNOTT In, but then remembered Matt. He wasn’t a regular opener. Anyway very enjoyable and challenging. Thanks P and E.
7d Oed.com: ‘WITH A DIFFERENCE – 1813– … with a new, unusual, or striking feature or treatment.’ Example citation:
‘1975 In Rome an enterprising countess has started a baby-sitting agency with a difference—the baby-sitters are grannies. Victoria (B.C.) Times 12 May 16′
cont…@49 – MAIDEN CENTURIES being a “semi &lit” because the whole clue was the definition – I think PeterO may have missed this – a super clue
Thanks both and like many here I fell foul of LOCO and don’t understand why – it’s a stretch but no more than we are used to.
I found this thoroughly enjoyable, not least because the first pass produced only MANDARIN and EROS and I had that awful feeling of imminent rout. It all worked out in the end (and thanks to PeterO for some parsings) but while it wasn’t Goldilocks the satisfaction on completion (bar LOCO) was intense.
[PeterH@50 etc al … If you could spell out the answer, in capitals, to the clue you’re discussing – rather than just the clue number – it would save the bother, for some, of having to scroll up and down to find out what clues you’re referring to …. it can be time consuming and irksome. This may be why it’s become the ‘convention’ here over the years. Thank you]
[So who were Neil & Debra?]
You know exactly what to expect when you see Enigmatist at the top of the puzzle and this one didn’t disappoint
My favourite was 11a, even though I do fondly remember the Woodentops
Thanks to Enigmatist and PeterO
PB@37 and TGA@36: there is a said to be a convention that the enumeration depends on whether the letters appear with full stops after them in a dictionary. So A. A. Milne is 1,1,5, but RSVP would be 4. Of course it depends on the dictionary etc, but it’s a sort of guideline, and no odder than lots of other crossword conventions, as well as opening more possibilities to setters.
[Roz @42 -Drat! Unmasked! I would have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for those darned morning swimmers. One morning the site started rejecting comments under my old pseudonym, and despite several hours of effort and experimentation by kenmac and me, we both remained completely baffled as to the reason and were unable to resolve it. A self-reinvention can be helpful, and I decided that Balfour would be a bit more chatty – although some of my subsequent interventions on difficulty levels have not been universally well-received …]
Wfp@52 Yes, and apparently the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) has a board of honors at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London that recognizes cricket players who achieve certain milestones, including scoring a maiden Test century
Enigmatist clearly likes his cricket. Sorry Roz
Re. WOODENTOPS: I was a sickly child – or rather I had an absurdly over-anxious mother who imagined me to be ill a lot – so I was off Primary School often, and it was always ‘Andy Pandy’ on Tuesday, ‘Bill and Ben’ on Wednesday, ‘Rag, Tag and Bobtail’ on Thursday, and ‘The Woodentops on Friday’. I was reminded of it recently when,commenting on ‘Test Match Special,’ Jonathan Agnew said that the unusual delivery action of the Indian bowler, Jasprit Bumrah, resembled the movements of Spotty Dog, a reference that seemed to be lost on his younger colleagues.
My favourite crossword for ages. Good to see him back.
[ Bodycheetah@59 I have taken advice on this , the honours board is for any century for international cricket at Lords ( plus for bowlers ) so the clue is two disconnected parts . Azed likes cricket as well , I do not care as long as it does not invade Radio 4.
Balfour @58 I think all names should have a maximum of 3 letters , start with a capital and no apostrophes . ]
Phew. Seems mostly fair if you understand the references, which by and large I didn’t (I knew ALL MOD CONS from The Jam album of that name). Worked out most of it in the end and there was a lot to appreciate but for me mostly from the other side (like picking through almost all the crossers of MAIDEN CENTURIES before realizing what that phrase must be). Thanks Enigmatist and PeterO!
Percybass@37, as a few have said don’t let this discourage you from mainline Cryptics in general. As you may gather from the other comments, Enigmatist puzzles are often intimidating even for more experienced solvers (which I am now, I guess)! And the puzzles don’t always get harder as the week goes on. (But sometimes one does have to tolerate something that’s not super precise.)
PASS
MAIDEN CENTURIES was excellent in every sense; I revealed SESTETS in the end – a clue too far for me. Not easy, to say the least! Thanks both.
AlanC @33 – my knowledge of the phrase comes from a combination of detective novels being rude about slow uniformed WOODENTOPs and hearing specific characters being specifically referred to as a WOODENTOP – not knowledge of police officers personally (although they used to have a favoured pub locally).
Welp. I filled the grid but with much “bung and check”, and after reading PeterO’s elucidations feel a bit better about falling short on this one. I cannot say I enjoyed it: sometimes, the destination is not worth the journey.
Note to self: Avoid Enigmatist!
This was no more difficult or obscure than your average Araucaria but there are plenty of revisionists who would have you believe otherwise. As I have said before, if you publish ludicrously easy puzzles for most of the time it’s no surprise that a puzzle like this stands out these days. Depressing but there we are. I enjoyed it, FWIW.
MCC was very clever, but some clues felt over-contrived (e.g. SESTETS). Enigmatist isn’t quite as scary as he used to be, so thanks to him and PeterO.
[Balfour@60: … and ‘Picture Book’ with Sossidge & Bizzy Lizzy was Mondays]
Well said bingy @ 69!
Bodycheetah@59 – or even a “board of honours”! Sorry – but it is Lord’s, old chap! 😇
Roz@62 – MAIDEN CENTURY is a “semi &lit” and a superb one imosvho!
I should also have singled out NO BALLS PLEASE for special mention, but there were many lovely clues. I would say this was Enigmatist at his sleight of touch coruscating best ….
[Balfour@60 – wonderful! Adding the scheduled broadcast days adds a frisson to the nostalgic waves you’ve had me surfing! But are you sure AP’s day wasn’t Monday? And the Woodentops on Friday – it somehow felt even better than, and different from, the rest]
Enigmatist is always too hard for me, although this time I managed about two-thirds of it. I would say that this one was too British for me–I won’t bore you with the list of words, phrases, and cultural references that we don’t have over here–but on the other hand CN TOWER was a write-in for me. [“Going to the tops of tall things” isn’t high on my list of fun tourist activities–seen one, seen ’em all, and the lift tickets are usually pricey–so I’ve never done that. But the CN Tower is hard to miss in the Toronto skyline, so I certainly have seen it on each of my several visits to the city. Yes, Toronto is worth a visit–it’s both Canada’s New York and its Chicago.]
I also liked the illegal bets on the Yankees game. [For those not following, the Yankees are back in the World Series after a (gasp) 15-year absence. They face the Dodgers who (shock horror) last won a pennant in 2020. The rest of baseball fandom, as you can tell, are playing our tiny violins for them both. First game is on Friday.]
I enjoy this setter in his Elgar guise in the DT, and this puzzle is slightly more accessible in my view.
You have to do a few to get on the wavelength, then they get more fun and less frustrating.
2D probably my favourite.
All done apart from ‘loco’, where the meaning of ‘buggy’ as mad was unknown to me. I essayed an unparsed ‘lice’. So, DNF, but a good mental workout.
FALL LIKE NINEPINS, a strike is a a term used in ten-pin bowling when all ten pins are knocked over with a single bowl and the bowler gets an extra bowl. In nine-pin bowling when all nine pins are knocked over the term used is ‘nine-ringer’ and no extra bowl is given. The better score in nine-pin is to leave the middle pin upright and get a full house worth 12 points. In PeterOs parsing should the lane be as in a ten-pin bowling alley?
Well I did eventually finish this, but it was like pulling teeth. For me, the fun of crosswords is deconstructing the clue, trying to spot anagrams or “see past” misdirections. The penny-drop moment with CDs is a delight, too.
When, as here, I spend most of my time laboriously searching online for facts – like people/places/aspects of Toronto, cricketers who aren’t called Abbot (my first try), Carry On films (and, just in case, Bernard Bresslaw’s career) etc etc, it simply becomes a GK quiz.
I shall wear ovengloves next time I try an Enigmatist.
So thank you PeterO for explaining it all, thank you Norfolkdumpling @43 for the encouragement, and thank you Balfour @60 for cheering me up with very-distant memories of Woodentops, AP, and Bill & Ben.
Bill and Ben go into a pub. Bill says, “Schlobba-lobba-dobble, little weeeeed!”
And Ben says, “I’ll get these – you’re pissed”.
Thanks Enigmatist and PeterO
I gave up with about 2/3 done, as I didn’t understand so many of the answers that I had guessed and checked. I seriously thought that my printout was missing some Special Instructions!
Anyway, there was this Essex girl who walked into a pub and asked the landlord for a double entendre, so he gave her one. (I’ll get me coat!)
Defeated, had to reveal most of the lhs.
First time to complete all the answers (not all the parsing though) for an Enigmatist, which suggests to me he is trying to make it easier for us. I used to avoid JH’s puzzles when I started doing cryptics during covid, but then found out that we used to be classmates (I recall him making crosswords 40-odd years ago!) so thought that I should give them a go, and, as Roz says above, tackling the more difficult setters is a good way to improve your skills. I’ll never make up the 40-year gap in experience though! Thanks PeterO for your enlightenment on a number of clues and thanks Enigmatist.
Like Dave Ellison @1, my second-ever completed Enigmatist – I must be fully awake today ! ALL MOD CONS and CN TOWER were my lead-ins, and knowing Matt PRIOR was a help too. Favourite was probably NEW BALLS PLEASE which raised a gentle smirk. I will be honest though and admit to resorting to the “check” button on a few occasions, but definitely no “reveal” nor use of e g. Danword for this one. Thanks to PeterO and to Enigmatist.
Great crossword, but defeated by NHO SESTETS which, before coming here, was way out of reach for me. Well done to all who constructed it from the fiendish wordplay alone. Favourite was FALL LIKE NINEPINS.
MrPenney@73…ah, now, a bit of nostalgia. I can remember listening at night, as a teenager (in England) on the radio (or was it called the wireless then) to the World Series of 1963 between the Yankees and the Dodgers. The mighty Mickey Mantle hardly struck a blow for his team and the Dodgers triumphed quite comfortably. More than can be said for my feeble attempt at Enigmatist today, though I’ve much enjoyed reading all the comments since…
Like George Clements @75, I eventually revealed my LOI, LOCO, and didn’t know that definition of buggy. Overall, it was hard but fair I thought, apart from that wicketkeeper – had to resort to google for that one, never having heard of Mr PRIOR. Also new to me was CN TOWER, but managed to get it from the wordplay and a few crossers. Thanks to PeterO for explaining a few of the other parsings that had got me beat.
Having been at the Sussex Cricket Society tea today Matt Prior went straight in! Found the rest pretty demanding.Had to check one or two as couldn’t understand the clue e.g numbers rackets . Thanks for the blog: needed it!
ronald@83: but of course that Dodgers team had Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, two Hall of Fame pitchers at their respective peaks, so it’s no wonder Mantle (past his peak by then but still formidable) was held to so little.
No two teams have faced each other in the World Series as often as the Yankees and the (originally Brooklyn, now LA) Dodgers.
Way too British for me. I knew things like ALL MOD CONS but never heard of the Balls and Woodentop etc.
Zero. Nada. Zilch.
Humbling. I’ve stopped attempting the crosswords from Wednesday onwards, and today proved why!
I empathise with @37. I am very lucky to complete a Quick Cryptic ( I think I’ve done it once).
I’ve never completed a Quiptic or Everyman….not even close.
Steffen @88
Enigmatist is easily the hardest current Guardian compiler. I wouldn’t bother, if I were you.
Great puzzle
I always feel that this setter does not intend to beat the solver
but to make it worth the effort
I was clean bowled by LOCO
Thanks all.
If I had a Do Not Attempt list, Enigmatist might well be at the top of it. But I agree with Roz that it’s always worth having a go. I think I might have got a bit further with this given time, but it’s been a day with lots of other commitments.
Anyway, the real experts have had something to get their teeth into for once. It doesn’t happen all that often, so don’t give up if you aren’t one of them (yet).
Thanks PeterO for explaining. I, per my expectiations, found this very tough compared to yesterday’s and Monday’s cryptics. I have been told that the Monday cryptic is an exception as it’s traditionally easier than the others in the week. I filled the SE first, then SW. The rest was spotty,
I don’t quite understand the explanation for 14a. INN does is not enclosing OT.
Steffen @88 There is a site, Lovatts Puzzles ( https://lovattspuzzles.com/ ) whose daily cryptic is between quiptic and quick cryptic, and the level is pretty consistent. It also has some nice reveal features. They have a crypto quiz game that explains how cryptic clues work.
@88 Steffen and @91 Gladys, FWIW my method is to start the crossword at midnight when it’s published online, sleep on it, then find moments throughout the day to keep at it. I will never be able to Roz it or Eileen it in one morning sitting, but the combination of a subconscious and time always delivers eventually, even with toughies like the very classy Enigmatist (more Hindemith than Brahms IMO). Thanks PeterO – esp for OXIDISING parsing – and Enigmatist.
AR @ 92 OT ‘punches’ INN (local) _ I(ndependent) ME (compiler)
@94 Simon S – thanks!
This took 3 sessions and still lacked a couple of parsings. Respect to PeterO and thanks to Enigmatist: great stuff!
I agree with Mark@12 and Gladys@14 about the parsing of SESTETS. Considering the relative difficulty of the word (several others have admitted to failing to get this clue) and the obvious options of SYSTEMS or SISTERS instead, our setter could have either made the wordplay a little more friendly or the answer more accessible. The idea that he is trying to make things easier is completely for the birds.
Having said which I was pleased to have got to within one of finishing the goddam thing. And I only looked up CN TOWER after I had solved the clue, so no erythropoietin injections used on this occasion. 😜
Thanks to JH and super thanks to PeterO.
9ac I don’t know one cricketer from another, but after ABBOT didn’t work with the crossers, PRIOR seemed the obvious answer at the top of the order. I do the puzzle in bed at night, so I can’t look anybody up.
Michelle@25 Cole is cabbage in “cole slaw,” which comes from koolsla, Dutch for “cabbage salad.” It’s probably American — many of our phrases of Dutch origin date from the time that New York was a Dutch colony called Nieuw Amsterdam.
nho WOODENTOP but guessed it as meaning a fool. Same for MAIDEN CENTURY — never heard of it but guessed it from cricketspeak. Same for Johnny and Zoe.
O=bit? I can see why now, but I wouldn’t have guessed that in a century.
Thanks Enigmatist, and profuse thanks to PeterO.
Bingy @ 69 thought this crossword was no harder than Araucaria – hmm! But the great thing about Araucaria was that when you got the answer, you always KNEW! Enigmatist needs to do some work on this, then his crosswords would be superb, in my opinion.
Parsing so convoluted I didn’t even enjoy reading the solution.
I’m with many on this. Too convoluted to be fun.
Ex bingy@69, you called the normal Guardian cryptics “ridiculously easy”. As a solver who finds them challenging and fun, I find your comment to be arrogant, supercilious, patronizing and insulting.
Other solvers at your level (e.g. Roz) manage to comment without demeaning the rest of us. I appreciate their comments and often learn from them.
All I learned from you is that there are solvers who are better than me and who feel the need to tell me so. Fortunately they are few and far between on this mostly friendly and engaging site.