Guardian 29,543 / Vulcan

77 comments on “Guardian 29,543 / Vulcan”

1. I found this quite tough. Only managed to solve 7 clues on my first pass. Definitely not a write-in! Ended up being quite enjoyable. Glad I managed to complete it 🙂

   Favourite: SEVRES.

   I could not parse 1d – I think there’s a typo in the blog, I guess it must be a homonym of TEE TIME with the answer being TEATIME – and was unsure how to parse 4ac.

   Thanks, both.

2. I think you’ve confused yourself with Serves and SEVRES at 8d Eileen (and TEATIME as Michelle says).

3. michelle @1

   Thanks – there is a typo in the blog, which I’ll fix now!

4. Especially liked HEBRIDES – was I the only one tempted by the crossers to spend ages trying to include an anagram of ‘gender’? – and ROCHESTER, a clue now on its way to my Kentish Town cousin, and SEVRES. Thank you Vulcan and Eileen!

5. Vulcan has gone to town on the cryptic defs today. One of those – ANTONIO – particularly appealed, as did the FLAT RACE. ROCHESTER is an odd one – feels like it’s defining the other end of the clue. And I was expecting TEATIME to be two words.

   Eileen, I think the answer for 8d should be SEVRES which is what you say in the comment but it’s not the answer you’ve given. Thanks for giving an explanation of LOOK UP which was slightly confusing.

   Thanks Vulcan and Eileen

6. Adrian @4: No, you weren’t the only one!

7. TimC @2 and Postmark @5 re 8dn – thanks for your comments: I had problems with this one (and the link!). I think it’s actually a sort of double definition, as SERVES means ‘dishes up'(?)

8. Yes, Eileen @7, but the answer to be entered has to be SEVRES, otherwise there is a clash with REPEATER at 11a. The definition is “these dishes”. The wordplay is dishes (serves) up.

9. Tim C @8 – you’re right, of course. Thanks: I’ll amend the blog.

10. Enjoyable stuff. Beaten by SEVRES, but that’s my impatience with it being the last one in as it was fairly clued, though new to me.

    Wondering if people might question ROCHESTER being called a Kentish Town (as has been alluded to, sans spoilers, on the Guardian thread) since it’s part of Medway these days. Personally I’ve no problem with it given that Medway is geographically in Kent anyway, though independent from Kent County Council.

11. Cryptic definitions are very hit-or-miss. They are too often write-ins or difficult to see, depending on the solver’s general knowledge and thought processes, and they rarely have additional wordplay to assist. For me TETHER was trivially obvious, but PHOTOJOURNALIST was unsolvable until I guessed PHOTO, and still leaves me with an unsatisfactory feeling. LOOK UP is rather better.

12. Scraggs@10: I think the description “Kentish” alludes to the traditional and historic east-west divide in Kent. West of the Medway is the diocese of Rochester and people from there are Kentish men/women. East of the Medway is the diocese of Canterbury, home to the maids/men of Kent. Woe betide those mixing the two up! So Rochester is, in a very historical sense, a Kentish town, just as Canterbury could be called a “town of Kent”.

13. When the crossword takes so little time…. is it too easy, or am I just getting better? Or both? Or neither? I felt oddly uncomfortable having sailed through, and long for something tougher as the week progresses. Be careful what you wish for, eh?

14. SEVRES was right up my street (I pass the porcelain factory/museum on my way into town). But Eileen, you only fixed the small typo: TEABREAK is still up as the answer…

15. Thank you, Blaise: I’ll fix it now. (Then I think I’ll go back to bed. 🙁 )

16. A first read through only produced Hebrides (great clue) but the rest came gradually after I got a couple of easy ones (nose job, falcon, look up, crimson, tether). For some unknown reason, Rowing was my last one in, I must have misread the number of letters needed. Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

17. Please don’t go back to bed Eileen @15 (although that’s where I’m now headed). Your blogs are much appreciated by me even if I don’t always comment.

18. Similarly to michelle @1, it took me a while to get going with this. I’ll put that down to Monday morning brain fog, as it eventually revealed itself to be fairly typical Monday fare. The apposite TYSON was comfortably my favourite, I also found the construction of LICENSOR rather satisfying. Surely the “not much” in COUSIN is extraneous?

19. Mandarin @18 re COUSIN: I agree and nearly commented to that effect in the blog.

20. This may have been towards the easier end of the spectrum, but I still found that every clue had to be thought about.

    Not too sure about LOOK UP…what’s the appear in court bit doing?

    Enjoyable start to the week and thanks to Eileen for her usually excellent blog.

21. The one granting permission at 21ac the loi for me this morning. Wondered about the He Brides clue for quite a while before it/they went up the (a)isles. PHOTOJOURNALIST not precise enough for me, but hey! it’s Monday again and it’s typically Vulcan. However, thought the TYSON clue topically good. Many thanks for the entertainment, V and E…

22. Jack of Few Trades @10 – absolutely, and that’s additional info that I wasn’t aware of. Like I say I’ve no problem with it whatsoever, for reasons mentioned.

23. Me @ 20: Just seen it…appear = LOOK (eg he looks/appears happy) + UP (in court, before a judge).

    I’ll get my coat…

24. Well crafted Monday puzzle from the Great Smith.

    I’ll second the choices Eileen made in her blog (mutatis mutandis 🙂 ) and agree with Mandarin that LICENSOR is nicely constructed.

    Thanks to Vulcan and the always highly appreciated Eileen

25. I never understand why lots of cryptic and double definitions leads to the perception of an easy crossword. Without the crossers, cryptic definitions are fairly impossible to my mind.

    I liked PICNIC, LICENSOR and TEATIME.

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

26. I thought this was perfect for a grey Monday morning. I really liked SÉVRES, ENTICED and ANTONIO. TYSON was superb. I’m not too comfortable with LOOK UP although I do accept that it works. I agree with Monkey@10 about PHOTOJOURNALIST. Many thanks to Eileen and Vulcan.

27. As someone at quiptic level I thought this was the most accessible Monday cryptic for a while, got there with a few checks, but had to admit defeat with SEVRES as never come across it before. Thank you Eileen for completing the picture.

28. Can somebody explain more re 24a? Is the “she” supposed to help somehow? And could the answer not be “…ism” or “…ise” as easily as “…ist”?

29. I thought, when writing in ROCHESTER, “PostMark won’t be keen on this”. It’s the old “for/from” question, where the usual way round is definition from wordplay, or wordplay for definition. Personally I think it can work the other way around depending on the clue, because arguably you can derive the wordplay from the definition. But maybe in this case it would have read better as “Her escort comes from this Kentish Town”.

    An enjoyable Monday puzzle. Many thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

30. Jack of Few Trades @12 – great info, loving the history, and Vulcan vindication! 🙏

31. Dan h @28: yes the “she” does help, and is vital, because the clue is saying “(a) picture is what she does for us”. “She” is effectively the definition, and that’s why it can’t be “…ism” or “…ise”. It made me think of Kate Winslet’s excellent recent film “Lee”.

32. Dan h @28 – you need he or she to tell you they’re a photojournalist, a noun referring to a person, rather than -ism or -ise. And various setters are using he and she interchangeably rather than automatically defaulting to he all the time.

    Robi @25 – I don’t find cryptic clues or double definitions easy either. Sometimes I see them immediately other times they take me forever. This puzzle RAISE THE SPIRITS took all the crosses to get

    Thank you to Eileen and Vulcan.

33. @lord Jim, @shanne, thanks!

34. Like Michelle@1 I found this quite tough and it took longer than it should have.

    I did the FT crossword by Gaff first and maybe that used up my brain.

    Like others I often find cryptic definitions difficult without crossers – although sometimes I get them straightaway. Likewise double definitions – even when I am sure it’s a DD, if I can’t think of a word that means both, I am stuck

    TETHER was my favourite and I thought TURN IN was neat.

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen

35. Dan h @28: To add to Lord Jim@31’s and Shanne @32’s excellent contributions, I would also note that the “us” here specifically refers to the Guardian newspaper, a “trick” we’ve seen a few times in puzzles. It is less common than setters using “I” or “me” to their name but worth storing away.

    Robi @25: Apart from Spoonerisms, which I often can’t get even when I’ve written in the correct answer, I also find CDs really tricky. Often I can do half of them – here I had “raise the …” for ages before the little bell rang.

36. Re PHOTOJOURNALIST: it seems a while since such a clue raised a query. Over the years, Arachne has done a grand job of helping to change the mindset. 😉

    (Helpful point re ‘us’, JOFT @35.)

37. I couldn’t get SEVRES, and instead had PETRIS, which are a type of dish of course but I couldn’t see how it fitted the cryptic part, which of course it didn’t 🙂

38. Robi@25, I totally agree.
    The crossers are my saviour. I always take a cryptic on my daily walk: today, Vulcan.
    Forgot to take my pen with me.
    Amazing how tough this “easy” puzzle became, without my solutions inked in.

    I am a Vulcan fan, and this was another fine offering.
    A bit more difficult than usual, even with a pen in hand, I found.
    Ta, V & Eileen

39. I sailed through this is very little time, only pausing for SEVRES. Strange the mixed reaction to PHOTOJOURNALISM, esp given (as Eileen says) efforts over the years here to avoid stereotyping

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen

40. DNF for me as I put PHOTOJOURNALISM, with the definition “what she does” instead of just “she”. It seems arguable at least.
    I enjoyed the rest of the puzzle – it’s always nice to be reminded that Shylock is not the title character!

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

41. I confidently wrote in PLATES for 8d, having none of the crossers at that point. I have never heard of Sevres so was still unsure even when I thought of ‘serves’ up.

42. Echoing earlier comments, I always found Rufus trickier than many posters because of his love of double defs and particularly single cryptic defs – which only give one direction of attack (though they were always very clever).

    Re gendered pronouns, it was indeed Arachne (bless her) who broke the traditional stereotyping. An alternative might be ‘they’, which is increasingly used as a gender fluid pronoun, though I find it confusing when used for a specific rather then an unspecified person (as in ‘each to their own’, which is well established). Why couldn’t it be used with a singular third person verb – ‘they is’, for example?

43. Thanks Eileen, your comment about Mike Tyson was funny.

44. The PHOTOJOURNALISM clue is – by coincidence, I imagine – resonant with an article in the Culture section of today’s paper, ‘My best shot: 10 photos that capture the 80s’.

45. Bruce @37 – Me too.

46. My last one in was FLAT RACE, since I’m unfamiliar with that phrase–horse racing is absolutely not my thing. Also, I think in this country steeplechase races are so uncommon that no one needs a term to distinguish them from “flat” horse races. It was clearly some sort of RACE, but I needed the crossing letters in FLAT before I was willing to guess that.

    I didn’t know of SEVRES either, but the clue was unambiguous as to what you had to do.

    Interesting that no one has complained about ANTONIO yet. I’m familiar with The Merchant of Venice, so it presented no problems for me, but if you aren’t, I imagine the clue would be a bit baffling. And it’s not exactly one of Shakespeare’s most-studied works, at least in schools this side of the Atlantic.

47. A crossword of two halves (nearly literally) – not a big fan of this grid where only two clues linked top and bottom. But a petty grumble for an otherwise pleasant enough start to the week.

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen!

48. mrpenney@46, I hear what you say, but the “jumps season” has just started in earnest over here, and it’s as popular and populous as “the flat”.
    Both sports now take place all year, but jumping is our “winter game”.
    “Over The Jumps” includes steeplechases, and hurdles, the latter for speedier types, over smaller obstacles.
    In fact, if it’s not a contradiction in terms, we have flat races for jumpers: they’re called “bumpers”. But that’s another story.

49. Very enjoyable and I would like to add my tick to those already given for the construction of LICENSOR. SEVRES was my LOI and another favourite, along with TYSON (which could be either Fury or Mike). Thanks Eileen and Vulcan.

50. I had the rare pleasure of completing this early in normal hours, rather than midnight, as I’m currently holidaying in Tokyo for the first time (what a magical City). It was a reasonably quick solve and full of Vulcan humour especially FLAT RACE and HEBRIDES. I was also struck by the topical TYSON and I also thought of ‘Lee’ for the recent release of the PHOTOJOURNALIST, like Lord Jim @31. I thought ANTONIO was brilliant.

    Ta Vulcan & Eileen.

51. Nice to see Derby not being a hat, especially for one who grew up by the racecourse.

52. I managed about half of this, and about half of what I managed I got from the definition without understanding the wordplay, so had to come here for explanations. And despite the blog and the discussion above, I’m afraid I still don’t understand how PHOTOJOURNALIST works.

    I had RAISE OUR SPIRITS for 9 originally which gave me some bother. NHO sevres or PATTERN=example. I did get HEBRIDES though, which made me chuckle.

    It’s a big step up from the quiptic!

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

53. I too had PHOTOJOURNALISM. I can see that -ist is better, but I’m still not quite convinced that -ism doesn’t work. What a P-t does for us is P-ism. Can someone put me right?

54. oh no computer @52: Well done on making the step up…although the quiptic has been known to be harder than the cryptic at times! At least with a crossword you do not need to fill every square to have learned something and improved your game and as more clues fall you will see more and more tricks setters like to use, making the next puzzle easier.

    Re PHOTOJOURNALIST, it is a sort of cryptic or hidden definition. Read the clue as “[A] picture [is] what she does for us” where “us” refers to the paper itself (James G @53 – does this make it clearer why the answer is -ist not -ism?). What makes it cryptic is the way it is phrased so “picture” could be a verb in the imperative here rather than a noun. This is a favourite cryptic trick. As Calvin and Hobbes put it, “verbing weirds language”.

55. Mandarin @ 18
    Regarding ‘not much’ in COUSIN as extraneous, I suspect the intention may be ‘coinage’ reduced to ‘coin’?

56. Jack of Few Trades @54 – I read the clue exactly as you have it in your second paragraph. Well put!

57. JoFT @54: Well put, indeed

58. Light and excellent, I often struggle with Vulcan’s cryptic definitions, bug not today.
    Held up for a while by COUSIN.
    Enjoyed HEBRIDES, I have seen this construction somewhere else recently.
    Just watching “I’m Alright, Jack” on some obscure channel, what a superb film.
    Thanks both.

59. I also had -ism. My grumble is there is no grammatically correct way to read the clue to get a definition for -ist (as far as I can see!). Adding missing words in isn’t a good argument IMO. Why is that better than dropping “picture” from the CD to get a very clear clue pointing to -ism? Or just reading the whole clue as an instruction, what I picture is the “doing” -ism not the “person” -ist…

    Anyway I too found this a relatively tricky jaunt for a Vulcan Monday. LICENSOR was a clear favourite.

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen

60. CJ@59 and several other posters: I agree that the clue for PHOTOJOURNALIST doesn’t work if that is the intended solution. If that’s what the setter intended, a better clue would surely have been ‘Picture what she is to us’. As it stands, I think it can only lead to ‘photojournalism’, but quite how one can photograph an ‘-ism’ beats me. It’s a bit unsatisfactory, I think, but otherwise a good start to the week. Thanks to setter and blogger.

61. I enjoy the cryptic and double definitions. I particularly liked ANTONIO, PICNIC and RAISE THE SPIRITS. For a beginner, these clues can be more approachable than those where I have to remember what ‘initially’ or ‘finally’ might indicate, or recognise innumerable anagrinds. TYSON passed me by.

62. Lord Jim @31 and AlanC @50, I’ve been too busy today, so you both beat me to the ‘Lee’ reference. For those unaware, Lee Miller was an American PHOTOJOURNALIST, and one was left in no doubt about her gender! [Excellent film, but when my Best Beloved and I saw it at our local multiplex there were only three others in the audience. We also enjoyed a lecture by her son Anthony at the Arts Society Chester]

63. I’m not sure why the epithet ‘gentle’ has been applied to this puzzle! So many difficulties with SEVRES and PHOTOJOURNALIST/ISM, and the small amount of money in COUSIN.

    I did a double take on LOOK UP, like my namesake William@23, but got there in the end. I must have solved a clue for HE BRIDES before, but if so my faulty memory has helped to make it a new and amusing clue.

    I put in APPEASER for 21a but was never happy with it, so the crossing ALIGHTS took me a long time, and the clue itself was very clever (or clever enough to fool me) in that thin=LIGHT is something that would apply to a dress, for example, whereas ‘dress’ is only there for the final letter!

    ‘Derby, say’ has been used recently for FLAT RACE, I think, but really it is The Derby. This only grates with me because of my horse racing knowledge, so it’s not a major grouse (a small ptarmigan?). A bit like scientists complaining about major errors in physics or chemistry. 😀

    Thanks to Vulcan and Eileen.

64. Not too difficult and some lovely clues. But a couple of them exercised my eyebrow for being a little too ‘same-sidey’… the TETHER one might come to the end of is simply a rope… and CRIMSON had the same issue, as capillary blood flow in the skin is the cause of blushing when embarrassed. So for me, both those clues had insufficient separation between the two parts.

    Aside from that though, good fun so thanks both.

65. I found this considerably harder than the usual Monday Vulcan offering, but maybe I’m just off my game today.

66. this was great, but would have been quicker if I’d not been trying to get Shylock in where Antonio belonged !

67. 24 Pictures what she does for us might have been more grammatically correct? Stil enjoyed it though. Thank you Vulcan and Eileen.

68. As a newbie mostly cutting my teeth on the Quiptic, I found much of this relatively straightforward (though with generous use of the check button!). FLAT RACE eluded me for a long time; I know nothing of horse racing.

    Having studied The Merchant of Venice for my A Levels 15 years ago ANTONIO raised a smile, but I don’t wonder if it’s stretching the realm of beginner-friendly as a cryptic definition clue. I don’t think it’s very commonly taught in schools anymore (as an aside, I remember also reading Hamlet, Macbeth and Henry V… pretty sure that’s it as far as my schooling in Shakespeare went).

    I liked this puzzle – something to distract me from a nasty cough I’ve picked up!

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

69. This took a little longer than expected for a Vulcan offering but was still a fairly brisk solve with several ‘d’oh !’ moments. Maybe it’s just me but I thought ANTONIO was so screamingly obvious that I was reluctant to enter it until I had several crossers in place, just in case Vulcan was being unusually devious. Really liked TYSON and LICENSOR though, and several others. Thanks to Eileen and to Vulcan.

70. A final belated note on ROCHESTER as a Kentish Town – were it not for an administrative blunder in 1998 it would still be a Kentish City and such a clue/surface would have been impossible.

71. Completely ignorant about The Merchant of Venice (whose fault is that?) having neither seen it nor read it so failed to get ANTONIO. Also failed on COUSIN. Got everything else and had no trouble with SÈVRES although I found the puzzle as a whole quite tricky. TETHER was so obvious I wasn’t sure what it was doing in a cryptic crossword, whilst PHOTOJOURNALIST was so obscure I’m still not really sure how it works. I enjoyed “breather” for NOSE!

72. I came here to find out why LOOK UP was to appear in court. And am none the wiser. The only possible connection was that if you were to look someone up maybe you were going to court them.

    Also failed as I could only see SCRUBS as a way to dress.

73. SEVRES is simply brilliant

    Kentish Town has put a lot of underwear in a twist. I write sitting near a map of Kent, my wife’s childhood home county. Surely it matters not on which side of the Medway Rochester finds itself but that Vulcan makes us want to think of the TfL Northern Line Station. Very clever, I think.

74. Phil@72. LOOK UP does not mean ‘appear in court’. It’s LOOK (appear) + UP (in court) – as mentioned in Eileen’s blog – this is quite a common device which is sometimes referred to as “lift and separate”.

75. Ignoring the arguments about ROCHESTER (Mrs PA is from there and she definitely considers herself from Kent!) – I thought it wasn’t a great choice of anagrind. If it was intended to reflect the tube (and rail) station, maybe “changed at” might have been better, although Kentish Town is far more than the station!

    Great puzzle otherwise, thanks Eileen and Vulcan.

76. Late to this, so no one is reading. Nevertheless, for the record, if “dishes up” is a synonym of “serves” as Eileen suggests, then isn’t the “up” doing questionable double duty, once as part of the synonym, then secondly as a reversal indicator?

77. AndrewTyndall@76, “dishes” is the synonym (he dishes the food), and Vulcan was cleverly exploiting one of its alternative – and possibly more common – forms “dishes up”, making the “up” perform a different role from the one we expect (“lift and separate”). Normally a lift and separate gives you a different meaning for each of the parts, but in this case the meaning remains the same for one part.

    It’s all been said by now, but I found this to be a rather unsatisfying mixed bag. TETHER was barely cryptic, ROWING could happily belong to a Quick Cryptic, and FALCON was instantly spottable. Yet I shared all the concerns mentioned about FLAT RACE, PHOTOJOURNALIST, COUSIN, PATTERN and CRIMSON.

    Favourites were probably RAISE THE SPIRITS and PICNIC.

    Thanks both

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