Guardian Cryptic 29,526 by Imogen

73 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,526 by Imogen”

1. Thanks Imogen and manehi
   Good challenge. I hadn’t heard of XIAN, but it was fairly clued.
   I was held up very near the end by putting second to last 4a CAUGHT (as in tricked) – it nearly works!
   Favourite the simple but nice REPEAL.

2. I entered RECALL for 9across so was held up for a while in the NW quarter. But a lovely puzzle otherwise, for which many thanks.

3. Delighted to see the setter’s name and this was just beautiful from start to finish. Nice to see IRISHMAN after Brendan’s timely return yesterday along with PARTITIONED, which made me think of the division of Ireland in 1921. Laughed at PEEPING TOM and other favourites were BELLOWED, RACHMANINOV, HONOLULU, TURF WAR and NIMBUS but there are others. Couldn’t parse CLOPPED, no matter how long I stared at it last night.

   Ta Imogen & manehi.

4. Thanks Imogen and Manehi

   I found this tough sledging but got there in the end. As with most of this Setter’s puzzles, a few unparsed and not really settled to my satisfaction by explanation above.

5. Tough and enjoyable challenge. SW corner was hardest for me.

   15ac took me a while to parse – glad I got it right 🙂

   Londoner@2 – I also entered RECALL before REPEAL.

   Thanks, both.

6. Another who had RECALL.
   Is C=colt from stud farms or horse-racing or something else?

7. Londoner@2, michelle@5, Lin@6: snap! RECALL (as in to take back a car with faults etc) seems to fit the clue just as well as REPEAL. Then I wondered why I couldn’t fit Atari into 1d. XIAN – home of the Terracotta Warriors – was good. As a one-time caver/caverneer/speileologist, I was a bit puzzled by 16d, until I remembered that the Poms used to call us potholers. I like how Imogen’s clues, if you just find the right way to read them, leave you in little doubt (REPEAL aside!). Thanks, Imogen and manehi.

8. I would add PORTHOLE to the list of favourites. I made heavy weather of this.

9. This didn’t take me anywhere near as long to complete as yesterday’s – but then, I didn’t complete yesterday’s until the evening, to put that in context.

   It was satisfying to fill the grid, yet I really didn’t feel like I was enough on the wavelength for this to be as enjoyable as some have found it.

10. I found this tricky to get into, but the puzzle slowly and satisfyingly unravelled. Unusually, I parsed all the clues as I went along, and it was worth the time. I’m not always on Imogen’s wavelength, but this was a cracker.

11. I thought that WI in WADI was the West Indies, jammin’ until the break of day. Earworm Live London 1977.

    I’d forgotten about the Women’s Institute which I now remember from a previous crossword.)

12. Re.21dn, Sian, a variant spelling, also works: “croSs I sAy No”. Very enjoyable!

13. A couple of write-ins (UMLAUT and PEEPING TOM) gave me a good start. Never met C(olt) as an abbreviation, though I expect it’s common enough in horsy circles, so I didn’t parse CLOPPED.

    It was clear how BELLOWED worked, but I don’t think I’d have found the right person without the crossers.

    I enjoyed this: favourites PARTITIONED, REPEAL, DURESS and my last in COUGAR. I liked the jam-makers, though they might be difficult outside the UK (they took me a while).

14. Thanks both, clearly started this too early as I had none solved on my first pass.
    A nice steady solve followed.
    A few not parsed but all makes sense now.
    Favourites were Rachmaninov and Nimbus

15. I also relied on a previous crossword for potholer which gave me PORTHOLE. Chuffed to get that.

16. Good steady solve with about the right level of challenge for me. For once I was able to parse everything – must be making progress!

17. I also tried RECALL first, but REPEAL is much better – to recall something isn’t really to cancel it. I don’t remember coming across C for colt before, but it is in Chambers.

    Favourite was UNPERSON with its very clever surface.

    Many thanks Imogen and manehi.

18. Lord Jim@17 – my online dictionary disagrees with you re recall/repeal. It lists them as synonyms and gives an example of:
    ‘he sent another note to Lord Grey, recalling his earlier communication’.

    Collins also lists recall/cancel as synonyms 😉

19. Had problems seeing “c” as “colt”, but then I often stumble over setters’ cosy obsessions with cricket and horse-racing. This page sheds light; so many turf-world abbreviations!

20. PS I suppose that in CLOPPED, “moved” is doing double duty as both part of the wordplay and part of the definition (because “noisily” isn’t a sufficient definition on its own). But it’s one of those clues where it doesn’t seem to me to matter. It’s an extended definition, which makes it all right (IMHO).

    michelle @18: thanks, that’s a persuasive example.

21. The last few in in the SW corner were IRISHMAN, HONOLULU and SIKH. COUGAR took a while for the penny to drop. Thought CLOPPED a bit on the clumsy side. Otherwise some very nice clues.
    I’ve just read a slim volume about an Englishman who ran a leper colony in the Punjab in the early part of the 20thC. That is now Lahore in Pakistan…

22. Generally tough but fair, except…

    If COLT indicates C, nothing matters anymore. Yes, I’m sure it’s in Chambers. Perhaps it’s used in equine circles but if it’s entirely unknown outside, that doesn’t make it fair or reasonable. A good clue should lead one to arrive at the answer not go “it can’t be anything else” and then read a dictionary to justify it. Add this to my list of gripes about arbitrarily replacing a word with its first letter.

    I failed to parse 12D, having decided that the “portion of drug” was [A]CID which left me scratching my head for whose national hero TABLE might be. manehi’s parsing makes a great deal more sense!

23. TURF WAR I read as a whole cryptic clue, and I think the question mark indicates that. The gang thing, and a confrontation, (war) over (position) grass (turf)

24. Some lovely clues in here – UMLAUT, though a write-in stands out for me today, as does REPEAL which took some more head-scratching!

    Am I the only one who struggled with UNPERSON? Even with the crossers I couldn’t bring myself to write it in without a google. Does anyone have justification for why this is more “real” than other made-up words in mid-century books? Or am I just putting the bar in the wrong place?

    “Taken for a ride” felt a little bit of a stretch too, but I don’t think I can quibble there as it’s so obviously correct when you parse it.

    Thanks Imogen and manehi!

25. Jacob@22: Yes, C=colt is in Chambers, but it’s the 13th entry under the 5th alternate meaning of C. Not what I would call fair. The rest of the puzzle was very good however.

26. CJ @24. I also struggled with UNPERSON, never having come across the word before.

    Jacob @22. Ruling out the use of something because it’s only used in circles I could see being problematic – setters would have to stop using cricket and chess for starters, though I know there are some here who would be only too happy to see cricket disappear from crossword clues!

27. Liked COUGAR, CLOPPED, TURF WAR, UNPERSON and PORTHOLE.

    CLOPPED
    Like Lord Jim@20 says, I saw this as an extended def. Underlining a few words to indicate the
    exact def would be difficult.
    TURF WAR
    I go with paddymelon@23 on this. A CD.

    Thanks Imogen and manehi!

28. Found a couple of ‘c for colt’ clues from my file:

    Mounts donkey, keeping colt to last (7) Phi, Indy
    Man requiring you to separate colt from young cow (3) Hoskins, Indy

    UNPERSON
    It’s a word–not an unword!

29. Enjoyable, well-clued puzzle with some excellent surfaces which I found more straightforward than most from this setter, as it happens.

    REPEAL was the word that first came to mind, fortunately, so I wasn’t distracted by ‘recall’ – which can fit the definition, though it isn’t the usual sense of the word.

    Favourites were: OPIUM DEN, CARAPACE, PORTHOLE, NIMBUS, ‘taken for a ride’ and ‘into fragments’ – and the clever insertion of Rodrigo Díaz in INDICTABLE. CLOPPED was the least successful for me – rather too contrived -but the solution is clear enough, once found.

    Thanks to Imogen and manehi

30. Fine challenge! Some tricky parsings but all was fair.

    Favourites were COUGAR, PARTITIONED and UNPERSON

    I also had RECALL until QATARI came to my rescue.

    Thanks Imogen and manehi

31. CJ@24 and Crispy@26: ‘unperson’ comes originally from Orwell’s 1984.

32. CJ @24. All words are made up. :o)

33. Gervase@29: not “the usual sense of the word”? That would cover quite a few of the definition elements of cryptic clues, would it not?

34. how weird that the Humboldt’s Gift/Dangling Man author also appears in Knut’s Indy today!

35. Rather more gentle than often is the case with Imogen, not that I’m complaining. Despite many years of marriage, I’m not familiar with ‘hon’ for sweetheart, so HONOLULU was last in. With C = colt however, I didn’t miss a beat; my father was a bookie, and the horse-racing terminology is still there. G = gelding, M = mare, in case you need them later.

36. Crispy@26: I’d be happy for the setters not to assume that of course we all play Bridge and know all about which points of the compass are partners/opponents… But we would end up with a very limited field of knowledge to work on, and I enjoy learning new things from crosswords.
    Also, I wouldn’t get to show off my knowledge of snooker terminology from time to time!

37. my first in was deviant act for 2 down!

38. Deviant act is very neat – I’m glad I had enough crossers that it didn’t occur to me.

    CJ@24 and Crispy @26, if you start excluding everything from Orwell’s1984, there’s a lot we’ll lose: big brother, room 101, doublethink, thoughtcrime, newspeak and vapid in addition to unperson. It’s worth reading, if you haven’t.

    Thank you to manehi and Imogen.

39. Like Londoner@2 and others, I confidently started filling in recall for 9a (while thinking “it’s not quite what I’d define as cancelling) until I ground to a juddering halt at the penultimate light that already carried the “a” from Qatari at 1d! Always use pencil!

    I’m not convinced loped means moved easily (15a). More like running with a long stride, which surely needs more effort?

    Thanks to manehi and Imogen.

40. FWIW c=colt is not in my 1988 version of Chambers. I shrugged and assumed it was something to do with guns.

    Overall an enjoyable workout – I particularly liked TURF WAR and PARTITIONED.

    Thanks manehi and Imogen.

41. Very nice puzzle. Funny – chortled at Peeping Tom! I got quite a few, but an online solve and constant check is all that works for me, given the alien cultural references. But I do enjoy them using guesses and checks as crampons and ladders. Thanks.

42. CLOPPED
    Collins:
    If a person or animal lopes somewhere, they run in an easy and relaxed way, taking long steps.

43. I know it’s not the correct parsing, but I jumped to “bellowed” because Jocelyn Bell is still owed her Nobel for the discovery of pulsars.

44. Thanks for the blog, good set of clues , COUGAR and PARTITIONED very neat.
    C= colt is in Chambers93 which is the definitive edition for all crosswords,
    I would prefer setters to only use Nobel Prize winner for those who have won a real Nobel prize.

45. [ AlanC@3 – Porridge tonight BBC4 at 8 pm , special guest appearance from the home of KPR . ]

46. Roz @44: how are the Nobel Prizes for literature not real? I presume you turn your nose up also at the Nobel Peace Prize, and is economics up for the chop too? Non-scientific endeavors are valid ones too!

    I read The Adventures of Augie March a few years ago and quite enjoyed it, but I haven’t sampled any others of Bellow’s oeuvre. Maybe it’s time I fixed that.

    —-

    State capitals are indeed capitals, of course, but not sure how fair it is to clue them that way. Honolulu is a special case, since it was (to gloss over an uncomfortable chapter in American history) a national capital for many centuries longer than it’s been a state capital. But if a setter wants to clue Pierre as “capital” (with the tiny, obscure capital of South Dakota in mind), what do you think? I’d cry foul, even though I’m American. Or, for an in between case, Boston, say–not at all obscure, but “capital of Massachusetts” isn’t the first fact about it that springs to mind.

    The other capital here, Xian, is mentioned in Turandot, and I’m an opera nut, so that one I had heard of.

47. Re 15: at school, the Under-16s were the Colts (C), and the Under-15s were the Junior Colts (JC). Maybe that was just us, but C for Colt has a use outside horses.

48. Thanks to all those who have educated me re UNPERSON. I’m ashamed to say I have read “1984”, but don’t remember all the additions it’s made to the English language.

    Reading comments, you seem to think that I said we shouldn’t use terminology from specialist fields. That’s NOT what I intended, and I don’t think I actually said that. As a cricket fan, it’s an opportunity for me to feel better about myself when I understand those references in clues.

49. Shanne@38 I completely take your point, but it wasn’t quite countering the one I was trying to make. The others you list are undoubtedly part of the vernacular; I’m waiting for someone to tell me that UNPERSON is actually ever used, and that I’ve just somehow never come across it (and yes I have read the book, so clearly I’ve come across it at some point!).

    I’ve done some more research though (ngram searches) and it really does look like UNPERSON is used significantly more than most of the other (“made up” in mid-century literature) words I could draw an equivalence to, and roughly as much as “thoughtcrime” / “thought crime” over the past 70 years, which I’d definitely have no quibbles with.

    So, after all that, very happy to chalk this up to my woeful GK/memory and move on 😉

50. Very enjoyable.
    ‘…those making jam…’ = the WI was a new one on me!!!
    I’m usually all at sea with Imogen, so pleased to finish, though I did use the check button a couple of times.
    Thanks both.

51. HYD @50 well done . The WI is often known as “Jam and Jerusalem” , it was also the name of a BBC sitcom that was stunningly awful .

52. Roz @45 – I have adopted your recent advice and I put the crossword down for 30 minutes once I hit the wall.
    Makes a world of difference.
    Many thanks.

53. Glad it worked , I think most people find this . I think the optimum time is 20 minutes unless you are still making progress, then put it down for a while and for the next look the brain has come up with new approaches.

54. Crumbs. I’m a party of one then. I got about 15% of this and gave up. I just couldn’t spot any of the sideways references. Nobel prize winner. One of how many hundreds. Capitals. Whose national heroes. An already forgotten (by me) PM’s first name. All clear after the fact, but just all round aggro for me today.

    Thanks, probably.

55. [Roz @45: recording set up and thx, we were a force in those days 😢 “Jam and Jerusalem”, why pse?]

56. AlanC the WI is associated with making jam and apparently they all sing Jerusalem at meetings. I have somehow managed to resist invitations to join.

57. [I (as a male) have been to a WI meeting – a gardener friend was giving a talk on growing alpines and wanted moral support. Fortunately I knew the words to Jerusalem – but I was disappointed that the ladies didn’t seem to know the actions!]

58. What are the chances of Saul Bellow getting a mention in the Indy and Guardian cryptic on the same day?

    100% apparently!

59. There was an almost identical clue to one of these (I won’t say which because of spoiling) in the Radio Times that came today.

60. Fun puzzle! I thought 19D was brilliant.

61. Thanks both and I was entertained albeit after revealing ‘recall’ as foi to find REPEAL and therefore a kick-off dnf. (On this, it seems to me that eg foodstuffs found to be contaminated are ‘recalled’ and equally ‘cancelled’.) Thereafter I had no compunction about revealing when the sands had run through the mental egg-timer. There was still much to enjoy….

    I thought RACHMANINOV was a great spot (I worry about setters’ mental health being, as they must be, constantly on the lookout for possible anagrams so that nothing can be enjoyed at the surface level: ‘Come to Rocky Two?’ (thinks – ‘mock coyote wort’)).

    And it conjured an image of sycophantic courtiers applauding non-musical (but regal) outpourings.

    And like Jay@60 I thought 19D NIMBUS was quite good.

    I’m with Pete HA3@54 – it’s not invitational to cold-solve BELLOWED without crossers. And I’m kind of with Roz@ – it’s hard to take the Literature prize seriously after awarding it to the sanger twanger.

    muffin@57: There are actions? Do tell…

62. [Alphalpha @61
    Third verse – mime the bow and arrows, spear, and driving the chariot 🙂 ]

63. muffin @62 – people get put away for less!

64. It was a rugby club thing…..

65. Martin Amis would have liked 6a.

66. muffin@: It seems (0.52) that in New Zealand the cricketers and rugby crowd mix….

67. Thanks Alphalpha – they knew the moves!

68. 18a and 2d my only successes.

69. We Saul live in a Bellow submarine

70. Generally jolly good, but I’m with Jacob @ 22.

    [It’s a pity that the Guardian had to unperson Steve Bell. Just one cartoon that’s usually actually funny does no harm.]

    Thanks all.

71. I definitely didn’t find this puzzle easy, and in fact I didn’t quite finish it, having gone for an unparsed CLOMPED in 15ac. WADI was a jorum for me, and I didn’t know this meaning of SWANK. I’d forgotten the word POTHOLER, although I’m sure I’ve seen it before.

    C for “colt” was new to me, but I figured it must come from horseracing and didn’t have a problem with it.

72. My second foray into the “main” cryptic puzzles, another completion for me this morning. I had to use the checks and several parsings I couldn’t make head nor tales of – 4a, 15 and 12 especially I only got via crossers and definitions.

    17 was my first one in and raised a smile. 18 was a bit of serendipity as I often listen to his works in the morning when starting to attempt these (though not today).

    Thanks to Imogen and manehi

73. I’d put this one aside to mature, and finished it over lunch. NW corner was recalcitrant, even though I didn’t write in RECALL because I could see that ‘spurn one’ in 5d had to be anagram fodder. Finally getting UNPERSON helped me to see REPEAL, so this ended up as a very satisfying solve.

    Thanks to Imogen and manehi.

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