Guardian Cryptic 29,633 by Ludwig

79 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,633 by Ludwig”

1. Thanks Peter O. I didn’t mind Ludwig’s latest offering. There seemed to be an internal consistency about it, not too tricksy or ‘dressed to impress’. Entertaining surfaces eg ZYDECO but I found the solve just a little too obvious.
   My fav was CELESTA, which was more disguised.

2. Pretty much what PeterO said. I wouldn’t have called 7a obvious (one man’s obvious is another man’s blind spot) but it was indeed the first to fall. MEGABUCKS took the longest to see. REFUSE and OGRE nice and clean.

   Tx L&P

3. Oh, and I had no idea about JERSEYS. UnKnown GK. Was trying to solve it from a guess at wordplay. Didn’t occur to me that there may be such a thing as a Crown dependency, or to look it up. And tops I thought must be some mountain range, or a synonym for the best, but what was one with the crossers E S Y? (I did know jerseys as an item of clothing worn on the upper part of the body, usually by footballers down here. Do you call them ‘tops’? I thought the exclamation mark was simply for emphasis. Maybe I should have paid more attention.

4. Liked SIGHT, HINT AT and SQUEAL.
   Also PASTRAMI.

   Thanks Ludwig and PeterO.

5. Paddymelon @3 yes, tops refers to clothing worn on the top of the body, so sweaters, JERSEYS, Guernseys, jumpers, hoodies, etc al. More informal wear, more second layers. A few Crown Dependencies around: Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, all self-governing.

   Not the most challenging of puzzles,but enough solvers who will enjoy an accessible crossword, so not all bad.

   Thank you to PeterO and Ludwig.

6. So is the exclamation mark in the clue for JERSEYS a nudge to Ludwig’s misdirection with the lower case d in Dependency?

7. I had the bottom half almost complete with only a few at the top, so not like your experience, PeterO. I tend to think L’s clues are harder than they are eg REFUSE which is quite straightforward but I was looking for something more difficult.

   I liked NOTARIES and NOVICE, but nho ZYDECO.

   Thanks PeterO and Ludovic

8. I took the ! in the JERSEY clue to be like that in “What a great day!”

9. DE@7: my experience as well – the bottom virtually complete while the top was empty. In the end, completed it OK. I enjoyed the aha for NOT ARIES when I finally stopped trying to shoehorn LENT in there. Thanks, Ludwig and PeterO.

10. I found some clues slipped in readily but others like the aforementioned CELESTA at 19d were more difficult. I liked 17a JERSEYS. Thanks to the setters Ludwig and PeterO.

11. When Ludwig’s first puzzle appeared, I went into deep shock. Impossibly difficult, so I gave them a wide berth for a while. But latterly they seem to have become more approachable, and this one was fun. Rather a lot of anagrams. Only one obscurity — ZYDECO. I confidently entered LIED for 16d but couldn’t think what letter to insert to get “continued”. Continued/lived I thought a bit odd.

12. I’m another one who had the opposite experience to PeterO, with the NW corner holding out to the end, in part because I hadn’t heard of ZYDECO, even though the ZY was clearly clued. I should, of course, have heard of it, but it isn’t in my (1983) edition of Chambers. I didn’t have a problem with CELESTA though, thanks to Bartok. Liked NOTARIES, SPORADIC and APOSTLE. Didn’t spot the pangram. Thanks to Ludwig and PeterO.

13. ZYDECO looks like the US version of Skiffle, or maybe it’s the other way round?

14. What a strange grid Ludwig has chosen for his latest: only two links between E and W and the same between N and S. In fact each quarter is almost completely isolated from the others. And a full dozen of the solutions have fewer than half the word checked. And then he has clued the vast majority at quiptic level apart from HINT AT which is quite tricky and BEAUX ARTS which seems fairly obscure (though I am sure I am inviting brickbats from the many 225 followers of 19th century French architecture). I guess ZYDECO could be added to the obscurity list, given some earlier comments. Nothing here to upset the horses but I shall be pleased when Ludwig settles into his niche and we have some idea of what level of puzzle to expect.

    Thanks Ludwig and PeterO

15. A bit like Skiffle, Tim C, with a Louisiana Creole flavour.

16. A solid solve for me, possibly better in the Monday slot? My favourite clue was HINT AT. I also liked APOSTLE, NOTARIES, and SPORADIC. Thank you to PeterO and Ludwig. Didn’t spot the pangram until I had finished.

    GDU @11, I read LIED as ‘continued being’ without the middle letter.

    [Also, I think we were later told the first Ludwig was written by Enigmatist and the second by Alan Connor which may explain your reaction to the first.]

17. I believe zydeco formed the sound track to a Dennis Quaid film from way back – The Big Easy.
    Liked notaries (ditto TassieTim trying to use lent until I remembered today is pancake day), apostle and beaux arts. Thanks for the blog

18. Oh dear! I’m not in tune with other commenters today; not just unchallenging but unrewarding too (apart from engendering a brief research into “Beaux-arts”, hyphenated btw, and it’s difference from art deco)….
    Sorry – but the most boring puzzle I’ve solved in a good while…..
    I very, very rarely comment negatively on setters here…..

19. Postmark@14. I don’t hold out much hope that Ludwig will settle into his niche. He hasn’t done it with Everyman. I just take it one puzzle at a time.

20. Thanks Ludwig and PeterO
    I enjoyed most of this, I wasted a lot of time trying to make an impossible anagram with D (ultimately implicateD) for 25a.
    Crown dependency’s would have been fairer in 17a.
    Not convinced by “continued” to give LIVED, though that’s how I parsed 16d.
    Favourites FOI BY NO MEANS, NOVICE, NOTARIES, and PASTRAMI.

21. I did not notice it is a pangram until I had finished the puzzle and went to look at comments on the Guardian blog.

    Unlike PeterO, I found the top half harder where I slowed down in the NW corner.

    Favourites: NOTARIES, NOVICE, MEGABUCKS (loi).

    New for me: ZYDECO.

    Do we know yet if Ludwig creates his own clues, or does he use clues sent in by Guardian readers? I seem to recall that is what was said about his first puzzle?

22. PHARMACY is clearly correct from the wordplay.
    But it doesn’t mean ‘chemist’.

23. Ludwig is unlikely to settle into his niche because “Ludwig” doesn’t exist – he is played by more than one real setter, so the styles are going to be different. Today’s was on the easier side. The nasty grid didn’t help, though knowing there needed to be a K for the pangram helped me get my last in, MEGABUCKS. Rather a lot of anagrams today, of which BEAUX ARTS held me up the longest. I liked NOT ARIES and H IN TAT.

24. While I solved HINT AT from definition, I didn’t see the parsing. That’s very good. Thanks Peter0 for explaining.
    An enjoyable puzzle. I found the bottom half quite a bit easier than most of the top.
    My picks were NOTARIES, BY NO MEANS, MEGA BUCKS, CELESTA, ZYDECO and BEAUX ARTS, the last three because they were more unusual.
    Thanks Ludwig and PeterO.

25. Anna @22
    As an (ex) chemist I would agree with you, but I’m afraid that boat sailed a long time ago. How long have “Boots the Chemist” been about?

26. muffin@25 agreed, “the chemist” meaning “the pharmacy” has been common usage as long as I can remember (in the UK) and I’m nearly 50 so it sailed a while ago!

27. Pauline@16, yes, “continued being” makes more sense. Note, muffin@20.

28. This was certainly on the gentle side (mostly) but I enjoyed it. Nice smooth surfaces. Favourite HINT AT which was clever (and what someone I think described recently as a reverse clue). I knew the term BEAUX ARTS for fine arts but not the architectural style.

    Many thanks Ludwig and PeterO.

29. Pauline @16 and GDU @27
    Yes, that’s better.

30. My least favourite kind of puzzle is one where everything is easy but there is one you just can’t see for ages, MEGABUCKS in this case, but one of the joys of Crossword Land is that ZYDECO and BEAUX-ARTS exist side by side.

31. muffin @25… interesting that in Australia the chemist shops are generally termed pharmacies. My dad, who had a ‘chemist shop’ in the UK when on visits here seemed to understand the linguistic equivalence given that he was a MPS (Member of the Pharmaceutical Society) 🙂

32. muffin @ 25 and Dan h @ 26

    Thanks for your comments.
    I always read it as ‘Boots the chemist’s’ ie the shop where the chemist (pharmacist) worked.
    I can’t remember ever seeing ‘Boots the chemist’.

    I amy be remembering it wrong and there aren’t any here in Finland to go and check.

33. According to both Wiki and old photographs of shop-fronts on the Web, it was actually ‘Boots the Chemists’.

34. muffin @25 I would say that in the UK, the distinction between pharmacy and chemist is becoming more distinct. In the 70s, the use of the word pharmacy was almost unknown. In the past, a “chemist” shop would usually sell chemicals and pharmaceuticals, but more recently the chemical side reduced to developing photos (sometimes selling chemicals for this) and selling films. This of course mainly died out with the advent of digital cameras, but Boots still offer printing services.

35. Same interpretation of LIED as Pauline @16. Enjoyable and a reasonably quick solve last night, to me this was an obvious pangram waiting to happen, so that gifted me JERSEYS earlier than I might have solved it. Favourites in no particular order were NOTARIES, HINT AT, BY NO MEANS, PASTRAMI and MEGABUCKS.

    Ta Ludwig & PeterO.

36. With a Ludwig puzzle you never know what to expect. Despite the unfriendly grid, I found this one pretty straightforward, although a few clues took a bit of untangling. My FOI was ZYDECO – a write-in for me, having visited New Orleans on several occasions – which immediately alerted me to a possible pangram.

    I liked the way some of the surfaces disguised a simple construction: NOTARIES, REFUSE. My pick of the crop would be AS IT WERE, BY NO MEANS, and the neat HINT AT.

    I’m another (ex-)chemist for whom the misuse of the term is a source of regret, particularly when asked about my profession. Actually, I would prefer ‘Boots the Apothecary’ 🙂

    Thanks to Ludwig and PeterO

37. Guardian blog discussing the identity of Ludwig.

38. @Anna. It’s not exclusively Boots. I would say in conversation ‘I’m going to the chemist’ (meaning the shop). In that respect it’s acceptably synonymous

39. My first thought when I wondered whether ZYDECO could possibly be a word was – how many of the well-informed on here would know it. When I had only the O at the end, I imagined it might me Techno. However…
    Last one in a bit of the same thing for me. Pure ignorance of CELESTA, though that one probably better known amongst our happy band of solvers.
    Apart from that, a complete doddle this morning, I have to say….

40. PostMark @33
    I actually wrote “chemists” originally, but checked with Google before posting, where it had just “chemist”.

41. Well, perhaps on the easier side of the spectrum, but I enjoyed it.

    Here’s today’s earworm in case you’ve never heard ZYDECO.

42. Like a couple of others above, I had the opposite experience to PeterO, with the majority of the puzzle falling into place quickly but the NW corner holding out until last. I was unsure about ‘sound’ as an indicator for ‘sounds like’ but it seems ok. Once I had overcome my misgivings, that gave me the crosser I needed for HINT AT, one of my favourites along with NOTARIES (once I had checked that the dates did not mean Lent), MEGABUCKS, and NOVICES. CELESTA and ZYDECO were new to me and enjoyed looking them up as always with new words. Thanks PeterO and Ludwig.

43. Another much more straightforward Ludwig than the first two offerings. First couple went in straight away and then I hit a pause, but it all came together. “by no means” for me came from immediately thinking of the wordplay not the enumeration. “hint at” was my clue of the day.

    Re chemist vs chemist’s – I suspect it is a simple lazy contraction rather than a metonym. However, another possibility is that, in our minds, when we go to get prescriptions we are thinking of the fact that we actually speak to a person – the pharmacist – who is licensed to sell them. So in a sense we are going to the pharmacist/chemist. Equally we might go to the hairdresser or the butcher (if we are lucky enough to have one) but probably go to the grocer’s or the baker’s because we don’t go there in the expectation of dealing with one particular person who has provided the entire service.

    Having said that, equating chemist with pharmacist is still inaccurate and an annoying change to the language which removes useful precision. Gervase@36 is aware, I am sure, that in Germany he would need to visit “Ein(e) Apotheke(rin)” and similarly in Russia I recall seeing signs saying “аптека” (“apteka”). In Egypt pharmacies are denoted by the sign of the staff of Asclepius outside, which cuts across the language and script barrier nicely! I can only imagine that our use of the word chemist is related to the historical context that places like Boots sold many chemicals, for brewing and winemaking, cleaning etc and were primarily in the chemical trade, with pharmaceuticals being a later add-on.

44. Ho hum. Worth it for HINT AT. Just

    Never a good sign when you start doing the killer sudoku mid-solve

    Cheers P&L

45. Not sure this is exactly zydeco, but fun anyway https://youtu.be/pr_HcNzNBXg?si=ih9UqOFc3xApMFNt

46. @43. Comparisons with other languages are frankly irrelevant. And whether you’re a fan of it or not, language evolves, and as said above going to ‘the chemist’ implies you are going to the chemist’s shop. There really is no more one needs to say on the subject in my view. It’s correct.

47. My only contact with ZYDECO is in Paul Simon’s classic Graceland album, but it was easy to recall after seeing the first two letters. I agree that this was a fairly straightforward puzzle, but enjoyable nonetheless and with some good surfaces.

48. Re PHARMACY, the US term ‘drugstore’ is ostensibly more self-explanatory, but misleading in that pharmaceuticals are just a small part of what is on sale.

    Bingy @46: You are clearly not a chemist!

49. Yes, it is “really” the pharmacist’s or the pharmacy, but in everyday speech that shop has been the chemist for as long as I can remember. It may not be technically correct, but it’s in daily use in the UK.

    The US drugstore sells a different wide range of products from the UK chemist: you don’t go to the chemist to sit at a counter and drink a soda.

50. For the avoidance of doubt, I don’t have a problem with the well established expression ‘going to the chemist’ instead of the more accurate ‘pharmacy’. But it is mildly irritating if I say I am a chemist and some people assume that means I sell aspirins.

51. Pedantic point: the architectural style is Beaux-Arts with a hyphen. Without the hyphen it is a style of painting.

    For the first time in my life I spotted the pangram, but not until all I needed was a K. However, that did help me with both 9A and 4D which had eluded me to the very end.

    ZYDECO and CELESTA were new to me, although clearly familiar to others, and conversely Beaux-Arts I knew but was obscure to some. A reminded that what is “general” knowledge is in the eye of the beholder.

    And as a transplanted Englishman I have no issue equating the British “chemist” where one would buy Anadin or Paracetamol with the American “pharmacy” where one would buy Anacin or Tylenol.

52. My wife is a pharmacist and her career has been in hospitals, amongst other things advising senior consultants about interactions between different drugs. Pharmacists do not just sell aspirins.

53. I had the same experience as some above in that I had the bottom half finished with little populated above, and the NW quadrant the last to fall (I didn’t know ZYDECO). Some nice twists here, especially HINT AT. I also enjoyed the messenger job for APOSTLE, the sweatier pants in AS IT WERE, the meandering that wasn’t an anagrind in SNAKING, and the ‘in case’ for CELESTA.

    For those who didn’t like chemist, consult the ODE and Collins for the dictionary definitions. In my experience PHARMACY was a posh name that was rarely used in the past, although in those days chemist’s was probably used more than chemist.

    Thanks Ludwig and PeterO.

54. This puzzle went very quickly for me, with ZYDECO being my first one in. But then my parents were both from Louisiana, so I’m well familiar with it. I’m not a fan (accordions are prominently involved, so there’s that). It’s associated with the rural Cajun country, though you can certainly find it in New Orleans too.

    Gladys @49: lunch counters and soda fountains began disappearing from American drugstores in the 60s, and were firmly a thing of the past by my 1980s childhood. (There are still a few soda-fountain style businesses out there, but they’re no longer in drugstores. How they came to be in drugstores in the first place is a tale dating back to the days when Coca-Cola contained cocaine.) But of course it is still the case that US drugstores sell a large array of things other than pharmaceuticals. At my local one, I’d estimate that drugs and other healthcare products occupy only about a third of the retail floorspace.

55. I thought 2 down was nonaries but did not find a legal neaning for it – until duh! I realised notaries also fit

56. mark @55 I did the same thing with “nonaries” and then the penny dropped. It took a while though. 🙂 Otherwise a fairly painless solve.

57. [Lord Jim @52: I didn’t mean to belittle pharmacists at all. But because ‘the chemist’s’ provides a lot more than prescription medicines, and not everyone behind the counter or on the till is fully qualified, it seems ‘the chemist’ is seen by many as little more than a shopkeeper rather than a serious professional.]

58. “Notarties” was used by Araucaria many years ago. The rubric (I paraphrase) read “answers without definition are 23ac (or whatever)”. 23 across was notaries. So the other answers were Pisces, Libra, Capricorn etc. But not Aires.

59. “Notarties” was used by Araucaria many years ago. The rubric (I paraphrase) read “answers without definition are 23ac (or whatever)”. 23 across was notaries. So the other answers were Pisces, Libra, Capricorn etc. But not Aires.

60. NE corner the last to crumble for me. Here’s the Beaux Arts trio playing Schubert, my kind of earworm. Thanks L&P

61. Some of us who remember the pop charts from the 80s and bought compilation CDs in the 00s did not find 1D obscure at all.

62. Gervase @57 and passim: that’s probably why our term drug store is more accurate. The pharmacist is the lady in the white coat behind the counter in the back who knows what she’s talking about. Everyone else in the joint is just working at a drug store.

63. What a gem. I loved it.
    Just the right level for me. Several easy ones, some harder ones, and then several which took me quite a while. But all finished and parsed. (Though HINT AT took a while to parse!)
    Good surfaces. Fun clues. Perfect.

64. [The debate on whether breast-lifting imagery – Playtex, ‘lift and separate’ – should be a standard descriptor on this site continues on yesterday’s Philistine blog. Very pleased to learn that Eileen is going to lead the way and no longer use the imagery 🙏]

65. @Lord Jim, Jacob, Gervase (50-52): As you probably know, in the UK you do not need to go to a pharmacist to buy aspirin or similar – you can get them (in limited quantities) off the shelf in a supermarket. Here, you only need the pharmacist to sell you prescription and certain over-the-counter meds. Other countries vary in strictness.

    Bingy@46: My main point was “chemist” vs “chemist’s” which shows a linguistic shift observed only in certain examples and not others. Thus it was an indication of the way in which language continues to change and some thoughts on what rules might apply to those changes. Simple laziness (dropping the “‘s”) or metonymy (the use of the person for the place) would suggest the drift would be indiscriminate. The fact that it isn’t implies something else is going on. Languages evolve, yes, as do species. In neither case is the process completely random and many people like to study what underlies that evolution.

66. [Gervase @57: noted, thanks.]

67. Going to the chemist’s…” is surely shorthand for ” Going to the chemist’s shop” –

    In our local chemist’s the front of house staff are pretty knowledgeable about an enormous amount of necessary information regarding the medicines being dispensed / bought over the counter – they’re much more than shop assistants and a very important point of reference for customers: the qualified pharmacist works in the background, only coming to the front if needed/requested – but no prescribed drugs can be handed out without being first checked by the pharmacist: no pharmacist on site, (not uncommon) no prescriptions handed out.

    As for “Boots” – Jesse Boot, son of the founder and responsible for growing the company, was probably responsible for naming the company, but no-one knows where the appropriate apostrophe went, or when … or seems to care. It’s not even earned a mention on here ..

    The Boots in Shrewsbury had both a cafe/restaurant and a lending library …. as did many of the stores … maybe not a soda in the drugstore – but a lovely hot Ribena in a glass held in a filigreed metal cup did it for me.

68. Hadrian@60 BEAUX ARTS made me think of the trio too. By coincidence I bought their recording of the Brahms piano quartets only this morning. I have all their Schubert as well.

69. Enjoyed this a lot. Thanks S&B.

    Re: Chemist. It absolutely works for me, because it’s what my parent’s used, and that’s how language works. It may be an age thing too, since I think it’s maybe a little outdated. I work in a supermarket and anyone who needs prescriptions asks if we have a pharmacy. I’ve never been asked if we have a chemist. I say we don’t and then advise them to head across the retail park to Boots (IMO a chemist).

70. What is the point of Ludwig as a named setter if there is no attempt to develop his setting persona? Each puzzle is different, and apparently characteristic of whichever Guardian setter has supplied it. I can understand the (possibly short-lived) Dynamo gimmick for which there was apparently a Monday brief. This not. It wasn’t a very good joke to start with.

71. In John Wyndham’s The trouble with lichen, the central character’s parents struggled to understand that she wanted to study chemistry at university, but they eventually realised that she didn’t want to be a pharmacist. They never came to terms with her change to biochemistry!

72. This would have been a good Monday puzzle if not for the unfriendly grid, which turned it into four separate small puzzles. Which is always slightly unsatisfactory. Never heard of ZYDECO personally but the clue made it clear we were in pangram territory, confirmed by the intersecting SQUEAL and BEAUX ARTS. That helped me get JERSEYS and MEGABUCKS which were otherwise slightly tricky. I thought was a solidly clued puzzle, but it lacked a certain elan. But, I used to say that about Pangakupu who I now consider to set consistently fine puzzles. NIGHTCAP is a nice surface.

73. In my Connecticut lunchtime solve, I found this one quite easy. I knew zydeco, knew the pharmacy/chemist thing in the UK, knew Beaux Arts. It was only when I came to 17 that I was really in trouble. But after two minutes, the answer just popped into my head.

74. I managed 22a and 27a.

    How many synonyms do you know for WOEFUL?

75. I do find it hard to get into these Ludwig puzzles, which is not say I’m not glad of them. Once I have a few in I’m often getting words from crossers but I need this blog for some of the parsing.

    Which seems like a good time to be offering my sincere thanks to PeterO and Ludwig!

76. muffin @71 nice to see somebody else remembers trouble with lichen, and by some coincidence I’m currently re-reading it for the first time in many years.

77. I was stupidly confused by the definition of 18dn: I took “Scattered” to be the anagrind and then wondered how “to need regenerating” defined SPORADIC. Of course, it all makes perfect sense the other way around.

    On 16dn, I agree that the clue works better if you take “continued being” to indicate LIVED, rather than just “continued”.

78. Steffen @74 – keep at it. Sometimes it takes us the whole week – Guardian Weekly -and we have two totally differently wired brains, which helps a lot! 😆

79. Completion was in sight, but stymied in the end by STORY (Singular?), JERSEYS (Crown dependency?), and PHARMACY (Pacy?). When will I learn to look for a theme before giving up? The pangram might have helped

    Took me a while to see SQUEAL, even though I knew it was a container. Couldn’t figure out what ESQUEA was!

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