Guardian Cryptic 29,531 by Vulcan

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A gentle start to the week.

As is the norm most Mondays, we have a comparatively straightforward puzzle, athough it wasn't all plain sailing – you need to know about peacock butterflies, for example, to confidently put in CATERPLLAR at 18ac. The parsing of IRRUPT held me up a little, and DIVE BOMB was my last one in as it took me a little while to see PLACARD, but generally answers revealed themselves fairly quickly,

Thanks, Vulcan.

ACROSS
1 DRIFTED
Gone With the Wind? (7)

Cryptic definition
5 PLACARD
Public library ticket includes a notice (7)

PL (public library) + CARD ("ticket") includes A
9 FARCE
A long way to church, a ridiculous situation (5)

FAR ("a long way") + CE ("Church" of England)
10 GORBACHEV
Important Russian composer covered in blood, see (9)

(JS ) BACH ("composer") covered in GORE ("blood") + V (vide, so "see")
11 MY PLEASURE
A supremely awful ‘Don’t mention it!’ (2,8)

*(a supremely) [anag:awful]
12 HERB
Say Rosemary is in another building (4)

Hidden [in] "anotHER Building"
14 HAPPY MEDIUM
One result of successful seance, nothing extreme? (5,6)

Cryptic defintion
18 CATERPILLAR
Provide food at a sort of box for young peacock (11)

CATER ("provide food") at PILLAR (" sort of box")

A peacock butterfly is so named because its spots look like those on a peacock's tail feathers.
21 AMPS
An elected member’s current measures (4)

A + MP's ("elected member's")
22 COME-HITHER
Seductive, appear to have success with woman (4-6)

COME ("appear") to have HIT ("success") with HER ("woman")
25 PINEAPPLE
Long to take one fruit or another (9)

PINE ("long") to take APPLE ("one fruit")
26 HABIT
Hospital has not much custom (5)

H (hospital) + A BIT ("not much")
27 DETRAIN
Step on to platform and run into arrest (7)

R (run, in cricket) into DETAIN ("arrest")
28 TREASON
Acts of disloyalty aren’t so bad (7)

*(aren't so) [anag:bad]
DOWN
1 DEFAME
Slander half-deaf celebrity (6)

[half] DE(ad) + FAME ("celebrity")
2 IRRUPT
Break in and sound pleased about smashing something (6)

<=PURR ("sound pleased", about) smashing IT ("something")
3 THERE THERE
The corps not here? I sympathise (5,5)

THE + RE (Royal Engineer "Corps") + THERE ("not here")
4 DEGAS
Wise daughter looking up French artist (5)

<=(SAGE ("wise") + D (daughter), looking up)
5 PORTRAYAL
Depiction of grand entrance pierced by a little sunshine (9)

PORTAL ("grand entrance") pierced by RAY ("a little sunshine")
6 AJAR
A container not properly closed (4)

A + JAR ("container")
7 ATHLETIC
As is lithe cat, racing around? (8)

*(lithe cat) [anag:racing round]
8 DIVE BOMB
Come rapidly down to earth with a bang (4-4)

Cryptic definition
13 BEAR WITH ME
Wait a bit: I haven’t left Paddington (4,4,2)

If "I haven't left Paddington" (Bear) then I still have the BEAR WITH ME
15 POISON-PEN
Such a nasty letter from Post Office, with wrong pension (6-3)

PO (Post Office) with *(pension) [anag:wrong]
16 SCRAPPED
Cancelled, not without a fight? (8)

SCRAPPED ("fought")
17 STEP ON IT
Poet isn’t working: hurry up! (4,2,2)

*(poet isn't) [anag:working]
19 PHOBOS
Quietly tramps to see the moon (6)

P (piano in music, so "quietly") + HOBOS ("tramps")

Phobos is the larger of Mars' two moons.
20 PROTON
For heavyweight, a tiny scrap (6)

PRO ("for") + TON ("heavy weight")
23 ELECT
Choose from the lectionary (5)

Hidden in [from] "thE LECTionary"
24 PAPA
Father appearing twice a year (4)

P/A (per annum, "a year") appearing twice

66 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,531 by Vulcan”

  1. Nice and gentle for a Monday. IRRUPT was a guess, and had to come here for the parsing, but otherwise straightforward. No less enjoyable for that of course. Thanks to both.

  2. This is a perfect example of the fact that a puzzle doesn’t have to be hard to be good. Lots of smooth surfaces and tight constructions, with many smiles along the way. IRRUPT took me a moment to work out, but that was it.

  4. Good grief, no wonder I couldn’t account for the final letter of GORBACHEV. That was my only sticking point; all else fell into place and was enjoyed. I have a dislike of words like “detrain” and “deplane” but they’re happening, so I guess I’ll have to live with it.

  5. Lovely puzzle. I enjoyed the humour 🙂

    Favourites: BEAR WITH ME, COME HITHER, THERE THERE, HAPPY MEDIUM.

    New for me: I catch trains a lot but today I learnt DETRAIN; Peacock butterfly (for 18ac) – wow, they are very beautiful!

    Thanks, both.

  7. Failed to parse IRRUPT and still not frightfully keen on it. Asking for it as a synonym for something seems a bit of a stretch to me.

    Other than that gripelet, a pleasant solve with a smile at BEAR WITH ME.

    Many thanks, both.

  8. I have been involved in the butterfly count, so the peacock wasn’t a challenge for CATERPILLAR. That spelling of IRRUPT isn’t one I’ve seen for a while, so that was my last one in.

    Gentle Monday fare and a lot more straightforward than yesterday’s Quiptic.

    Thank you to Vulcan and loonapick.

  9. A couple of chewy bits, but I’d be repeating what’s been said by others above.

    It does bear repeating though that it was a pleasant puzzle and would have sat well in the Quiptic slot yesterday, compared to what we did get.

  10. A pleasant 50 mins or so during a bout of insomnia last night. It could only be GORBACHEV, though I couldn’t work out how the V worked. I only had difficulty with IRRUPT. I especially liked CATERPILLAR (though I didn’t know the butterfly), THERE THERE and PHOBOS (the new BBC series on the solar system is excellent). With thanks to Vulcan and loonapick.

  11. I’m in total agreement with mrpenney @2.

    I’ve sometimes found Vulcan’s puzzles rather lacking in humour but this was a delight from start to finish, with many a chuckle along the way. Favourites were GORBACHEV, MY PLEASURE, HAPPY MEDIUM , CATERPILLAR, BEAR WITH ME and PHOBOS.

    Interestingly, IRRUPT (to burst in) is less commonly seen than ‘erupt’ (to burst out) – cf oriental and occidental.

    Many thanks to Vulcan and loonapick.

  12. Thanks Vulcan and loonapick. I didn’t find it quite such a breeze as others – but still a fun Monday stroll. Liked Caterpillar and many others; less happy with Irrupt

  13. Thanks Vulcan and loonapick
    Very entertaining – lots of nice clues. Spoiled for choice for favourites, but I particularly liked HERB.
    I’m another who didn’t parse IRRUPT.
    Not happy with DRIFTED, though. A allusion rather than a definition, and drifting boats are much more likely to be carried by water currents rather than windblown.

  14. A nice start to Monday: BEAR WITH ME and the HAPPY MEDIUM made me smile: many neat clues like MY PLEASURE and HERB.

    One or two unusual abbreviations: V(ide) in GORBACHEV and P(ublic) L(ibrary) which I have never seen in real life, though I expect it’s in an official list somewhere. And I see I’m not alone in failing to parse IRRUPT.

    PS: muffin@13: I started with DRAFTED for 1ac.

  15. For whatever reason, I’ve always assumed the abbreviation V for “see” refers to The Vatican (Holy See). Maybe I’m wrong but it always works.

  16. Good fun. BEAR WITH ME didn’t get the Paddington stare. Also enjoyed
    HAPPY MEDIUM and CATERPILLAR.

    Ta Vulcan & loonapick.

  17. A lovely puzzle. Like Muffin I had reservations about 1ac (“vented” would’ve been a great answer if it fitted!) but otherwise there was lots to enjoy and some chewy parsing to do.

    My beef with words like “deplane” and “detrain” is that we already have a word for this, the much more beautiful and elegant “disembark” which also harks back to the word “barca” meaning a ship’s boat, indicating an action people have been performing for millennia before planes and trains were invented. What’s next – “decar”?

    Many thanks Vulcan, and loonapick.

  18. Andy Doyle @15: same here. I’ve never used V = vide = see and doubt I ever will so the registration plate serves the purpose well. BEAR WITH ME made me smile.

    Thanks both

  19. I think we had the abbreviation for videlicet relatively recently, which was new to me then but helped me think perhaps v=vide.

    I failed to get irrupt because I had drafted instead of drifted, thinking someone who had been drafted into the forces could well be described as gone, and “draughted” as a pun for blown away. I queried in my head the US spelling for the latter, but even so it seems better than drifted to me

  20. Always a gentle pleasure to start the week with a Vulcan puzzle. Though held up at the very end by both IRRUPT and loi DRIFTED, however. 6 Down was enabled by my memory of childhood joke: “When is a door not a door?” Pause, “When it’s a jar”. Teehee.
    Have to admit with the moon clue and with an H in place as second letter I trawled through all the hundreds of now known named moons beginning with SH……
    Many thanks Vulcan and Loonapick for the reassuring Monday fare.

  22. DRIFTED
    Collins
    When something drifts somewhere, it is carried there by the movement of wind or water.
    The clue seems fine to me.

  23. Muffin@13. Agreed that drifting boats are carried by water, but drifting snow is carried by wind so OK with me. I think the question mark excuses the allusion

  24. I must admit I had thought that IRRUPT was a soundalike for erupt, which you might do with joy about something smashing (good), and it just about makes sense like that. The correct parsing is much better!

    I agree that this is a classic example of a crossword not needing to be hard to be enjoyable. Lots of nice clues. I’m sure that we’ve had variations on the clue for BEAR WITH ME before (as something Christopher Robin might say?) but it still raised a smile.

    Many thanks Vulcan and loonapick.

  25. Criceto @23
    I agree that drifting snow is windblown, but that doesn’t fit with “gone” – “arrived”, more like 🙂

  28. This was good fun. I particularly liked BEAR WITH ME and THERE THERE. I really couldn’t get V but shall remember from now on, thanks to loonapick and Andy @15. IRRUPT was my LOI too. Thank you for making me smile Vulcan 😎

  30. Criceto@26 I read that they are offering massive salaries in the Indian Public Library, too. I liked COME HITHER and PHOBOS. I keep changing my mind about DRIFTED.

  31. Good fun, with lots of enjoyable clues – BEAR WITH ME, HAPPY MEDIUM, HABIT, PROTON and the classy PHOBOS being my faves.
    I got bogged down with DETRAIN: it clearly had to be the answer, but I had real trouble believing this is a proper word. (I always use get off”?) Scouting around, I found an account of an airport apparatchik referring to passengers “deplaning”.
    O…..k.
    I shrugged and bunged it in. By the same token (as JoFT @17 has already noted) “decar” must also be an acceptable word in the cruciverse. Also dehorse, debike, deboat, de-e-scooter….
    Thank you Vulcan and loonapick

  32. Thanks Vulcan and loonapick

    GDU et al per the OED, DEPLANE goes back to 1923 and DETRAIN to 1881, so they are hardly new usages.

  33. Shanne@8: I’m not aware of any alternative spelling for IRRUPT.

    I didn’t know PL but bunged it and it’s in Chambers. Failed on the butterfly but smiled at HAPPY MEDIUM.

  34. I parsed PAPA as letter P (phonetic alphabet) appearing only twice in the months of the year, April and September.

  35. Lovely! Smooth surfaces, humour and some fun CDs.
    GORBACHEV: I didn’t know that ‘see’ = vide = v, but will remember in future. (Alternately, Vatican) And I didn’t parse IRRUPT.
    Favourites – MY PLEASURE, BEAR WITH ME, HAPPY MEDIUM, CATERPILLAR.
    Thanks to Vulcan and loonapick.

  36. …it’s in Chambers…
    Yes, it would be. I’m just trying to imagine a context in which an abbreviation for Public Library was needed and used. Street maps, perhaps?

  37. Very pleasant and smooth. Many good clues, as already listed by others.

    DRIFTED and IRRUPT were my last entries. I don’t have a problem with either – the former referring to snow – though I didn’t parse the latter. Shanne @8: Like poc, I don’t know of any alternative spelling. Are you confusing it with ‘erupt’? Both from Latin: e-rupt (break out) and in-rupt, assimilated to ir-rupt (break in). Confusingly, disrupt doesn’t mean ‘put back together again’: dis- here is an intensifier rather than a negative prefix 🙂

    Thanks to S&B

  39. Lots to like today, as ever with Vulcan. My favourite was probably PHOBOS, which I could get even though I had never heard of the moon. Got stuck at the top of the crossword, not least because I too had ‘drafted’ instead of DRIFTED. But once that was sorted out, IRRUPT had to be the answer, although I needed loonapick to parse for me. Thanks loonapick and Vulcan.

  40. Gladys@36: Map abbreviations always put me in mind of “The Hotel Inspectors” episode of Fawlty Towers and the “P Off” incident.

    Wellbeck@31: I shall definitely be using the term “de-e-bike” at some point…thank you for taking things to even sillier heights!

    Simon S@32: Accepted, and I do not dispute the words’ validity. I just am saddened by their existence as they add neither utility nor beauty to the language. (In our house things which add one or the other alone are deemed “a half Morris”. Only things which are both useful and beautiful are “the full William”)

  41. Like many others, came here to check how IRRUPT worked. Now I am here, would like to praise Vulcan for a bit of wit with HAPPY MEDIUM and BEAR WITH ME.

  42. I’ve only ever come across IRRUPT in the contact of rapid increase in bird populations so I had always assumed it meant to break out. Humbling to look it up this morning and find it means to break in.
    Thanks Vulcan and Loonapick

  43. Pleasant puzzle, almost finished in bed last night. I knew “irrupt” but couldn’t parse it. Last one in was 8dn DIVE BOMB.

    Thanks, Vulcan and loonapick.

  45. Nice puzzle. Liked PHOBOS, GORBACHEV, THERE THERE.

    PORTRAYAL was the pangram in yesterday’s NYT Spelling Bee puzzle, so it fairly leapt off the page at me.

  49. Chardonneret@47 Also had “DRAFTED (I feel like it fits the clue better), and then tried to make “ABRUPT” the answer for 2D, with no success.

  50. I lost count of the times I was asked to “bare with me” in emails when I was at work (it didn’t offend a spell-checker). In every case I declined, sometimes politely. Like others I didn’t see the rising purr in irrupt – maybe because I’m the opposite of a “cat-person”?

    Thanks Vulcan and loonapick

  51. As a (long since) retired librarian, I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t get the “Public library = PL” part of the answer until I’d filled it in. In my time in the profession, it was regularly used as an abbreviation, along with CL for County Library and UL for University Library

  52. Like others I failed to parse IRRUPT but the rest went in smoothly enough. Had to laugh at HAPPY MEDIUM – reminded me of that old joke:
    “If you punch your fortune-teller because she laughed at you, is it called ‘striking a happy medium’?”

    Perhaps one or two unindicated DBEs – ‘peacock’ for instance? But I had no trouble thinking of the butterfly rather than the bird – each year we do our best to participate in the Big Butterfly Count. Any others on here do likewise?

    Thanks to Vulcan and loonapick.

  53. monkeypuzzler@50 – I remember, years back when I was still at work, our very prim-and-proper HR manager (someone who’d stand no nonsense) put up a message on the notice-board with the words “please bare with me.” When her slip was pointed out – not without some ribaldry – she was not best pleased… 🙂

    And no – she didn’t propose a trip to the nearby nudist beach…

  56. 1a is a great example of why I can’t do Vulcan crosswords, I have no idea why “Gone With the Wind?” = DRIFTED?, why not FLOATED or WAFTED?
    Very little of this done, harder than last Saturday’s prize for me.
    Thanks both.

  58. Like Nakamova@49 put drafted for 1ac (very pleased to to have got the homophone) and then had to bung in abrupt at 2dn and hope for the best. Ah well. Only 2 wrong quite a triumph for me. Enjoyed the rest -thanks Vulcan.

  59. Didn’t know IRRUPT. I guessed it was a three way clue – synonym of “break in”, homophone of “erupt” (ie “sound pleased”), and then a tenuous definition of smashing something. Glad it was better than that!

    Thought BEAR WITH ME was a lovely clue.

  60. NW corner took all day, never heard of IRRUPT but won’t forget it now (thanks esp to Eileen@11 for etymology); spent too long looking for homophone of a word meaning ‘pleased’.. Great puzzle, Vulcan is a virtuoso setter (and thank you loonapick)

  61. I was held up for half a second by CATERPILLAR, not because of the peacock bit but rather I had to check if a pillar box was a thing. And of course I immediately recognized the UK mailboxes, aesthetically so far superior to what we have in the US!

  62. Not convinced by DRIFTED or DIVEBOMB but otherwise some delightful clues, especially BEAR WITH ME. Thank you Vulcan and loonapick.

  64. JoGa@63. Yes, v=vide is in Chambers. I’m pretty sure Vulcan wouldn’t have used it otherwise. If a setter wants to use the initial letter of a word that is not a standard abbreviation, it will be indicated by use of “originally” or “first of”, or even “a little bit of” (which I personally think is a cop out🤔).

  65. I was amused reading through these comments how many people said they struggled with DRIFTED and IRRUPTED (full disclosure: I did too!) but also said it was a gentle puzzle, typical Monday fare.

    I’m with HoofIt@56: I struggle to get onto Vulcan’s wavelength, and even the easy ones can seem difficult – especially after fighting tooth and nail with Arachne over the weekend. And as for ‘Gone with the wind’, like many others I was looking at an A for the third letter until finally settling on an I instead. Surely a cryptic definition with zero wordplay should lead to a very strong “ah ha” moment and a certainty that we have arrived at the only possible answer?

    Thanks, despite my small grouse, to Vulcan, and to Loonapick for spotting PURR reversed when most of us couldn’t.

  66. Top left corner held me up as I was convinced “Gone with the wind” was BELCHED
    At least it’s got seven letters -unlike sone other suggestions – and it is definitely wind related
    Otherwise typical Vulcan, bang on my wavelength

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