Guardian 29,653 / Anto

87 comments on “Guardian 29,653 / Anto”

1. I thought this was easier than his recent Quiptic, and it was all good fun. WHIM and WARPAINT were nice openers and it flowed from there. My other likes were GLOVE PUPPETS, ESTATE AGENTS for the surface, NATIVITY PLAYS, SHRAPNEL, CAPITAL LETTER, SINGLE MALT, FIRE AT WILL and the clever TILLER, which seems to have stumped quite a few on the G site. Yes Eileen, T in for K.

   Ta Anto & Eileen.

2. Thanks Anto and Eileen
   I really enjoyed this – much more than most previous Antos. It took me ages to parse TILLER, but when I saw the T in for K it became one of my favourites, along with AT MOST.
   The only one I didn’t like was SHRAPNEL, It’s not really a DD, as the usage for small change derives from the ammunition, and the definition for that part is rather loose.

3. Thanks Eileen, agree about “T in for K”.
   Thanks to Anto.

4. Thanks Anto and Eileen

   Top faves: GLOVE PUPPETS (Someone may say hands? Yet…good one-no strings attached), TILLER (T in for K: One can say, ‘great double break’ and the other can say, ‘Routine Anto service’), CAPITAL LETTER (L.I.K.E.D. I.T) and AT MOST (don’t want to go beyond this).

   STEP SISTER
   Following a divorce, one’s children may acquire a step sister. Some missing link?

   GREASY POLE
   Read this somewhere online: In 1868 when Derby retired from politics, Disraeli became prime minister. “Yes,” he said in reply to a friend’s congratulations, “I have climbed to the top of a greasy pole.”
   Any connection?

5. KVa @4: that’s as good an explanation for GREASY POLE as we’re going to get. Ta.

6. Needed Eileen for parsing of TILLER – I agree with AlanC@1 that it’s clever.
   I took GREASY POLE as a straightforward cryptic definition with allusion to its literal meaning – it’s an expression frequently used about politics and politicians.
   Like Eileen I had vague memories of the ‘gooseberry’ meaning of ‘third wheel’, probably from the same source.
   I revealed ARABLE – even with all the crossers, I didn’t twig parable=story, and if I had done, I’d not have been confident it was correct.
   Thanks both.

7. Surely you don’t get a step sister after a divorce, you get one after a remarriage.

8. “Reaching the top of the greasy pole” is quite commonly used in political circles as a metaphor for success, where becoming PM is the ultimate achievement. Disraeli’s remark is a reference to the traditional fair entertainment whereby a valuable object – something like a ham – was put at the top of a stout oiled metal pole, and contestants paid for the right to try and shin up and get it.

9. Enjoyable challenge, I appreciated the humour.

   Favourites: CAPITAL LETTER, GLOVE PUPPETS, WARPAINT, TILLER, AT MOST.

   Thanks, both.

10. Had a decent chuckle at CAPITAL LETTER. Didn’t think much of TWO-SEATER but I see there’s a hidden meaning of which I was unaware.

    Good fun.

11. Crispy@7 – I agree STEP SISTER is unsatisfactory – it’s too vague. It could be a first marriage if the STEP SISTER and/or her step-sibling was born out of wedlock (to use an old-fashioned phrase). Also, using ‘something’ in the clue to refer to a human being is dubious English.

12. WARPAINT was lovely, but what a crap clue for TILLER.

13. I tend to blow hot and cold over Anto as a Cryptic setter, although I don’t usually have many gripes about his Quiptic offerings (even if last Sunday’s was stickier than usual)).
    This was a good example. There was plenty of clever wordplay and the fiendish “tin fork” at 26ac, but then it’s all a bit let down by a bummer of a clue at 3dn, poor surface, a definition that doesn’t fit the bill, and as Eileen pointed out, a mismatch in the grammar. And how would a story yield results???!

14. GREASY POLE. Apart from the usual meaning, I also read into career path the idea of a speedy, somewhat out of control trajectory.

15. Enjoyed this. GREASY POLE was foi for me. In my circles politicians are often referred to as poles so a slippery politician would be a greasy pole. And climbing the greasy pole is often used to refer to a political or corporate career (if you work in a large multinational corporation someone who jumps the greasy poles has moved from a purely local/national career path onto one which could lead to promotion to international roles – a difficult and rare feat as the metaphor suggests). Loved GLOVE PUPPETS.

16. I also loved TILLER once the t in for k penny dropped.

17. Thanks for all the help with GREASY POLE. 😉

18. Fleeting fun. SHRAPNEL held out until the bitter end but I rather liked it. Also PROTOCOL and TILLER

    Timc@12 you might want to refresh your familiarity with site policy – specifically section 1.

    Cheers A&E

19. I thought WARPAINT was a great start, and there were several other ticks. The rather vague or allusive elements in 2d and 3d are just something Anto does, like them or not. In the former, could you possibly see EEK as “Sound (shocked)”, that is a sound you make when shocked (rather than “sound” as a verb)?

    Thanks Anto and Eileen.

20. “Mostly harmless” but with some unexpectedly chewy bits like the ingenious TILLER – a real lift-and-disintegrate clue. I also enjoyed CAPITAL LETTER, SINGLE MALT and WARPAINT but I got stuck in the CROC / AT MOST / PROTOCOL area, and that meaning of SHRAPNEL, like the third wheel for Eileen, isn’t in my vocabulary.

21. Third wheel is pretty common Eileen. It’s sort of the street version of de trop.

22. One attempt to defend ARABLE

    pARABLE lacking intro- ‘can still yield’ results
    with the def as ‘can still yield’.
    Looks like there is still a gap!

23. gladys@20. Like your lift-and-disintegrate.

24. Cryptic and double definitions are my least favourite. The former because I rarely feel certain I’ve got the only right answer and the latter just because I find the search space too large for my small brain. Hence, I never really get on with Anto but it’s a free puzzle and a pretty good one so thank you.

    I think that for “greasy pole” to work, breaking it into pieces, “politician” has to mean “pole” somehow – as Muddy Thinking @15 is apparently familiar with, but it is new to me. “politician” could then be doing double duty (but needn’t) but without it there is nothing in the wordplay to give “pole”.

    On the butcher clue I thought “for k” was neat once seen (it took all the crossers and a hard stare).

25. ERSE
    A very old-fashioned term.

26. TILLER must be a marmite clue because it was my joint favourite with CAPITAL LETTER. I agree with Crispy @7 that a STEP SISTER would not be acquired in a divorce but that’s my only real quibble.
    Thanks to Anto for a fun puzzle and to Eileen for the blog.

27. Would it help Bodycheetah @18 if I said that I thought the clue was non-Ximenean and highly unsatisfactory as a result. 🙂 OTB

28. Not bad, but some discussion to be had about ARABLE land yielding ‘results’. Otherwise, fairs fair.

29. I thought T in for K was a bit clumsy
    Something like Tango fork would be T for K
    Just a niggle

30. Lord Jim@19
    REEK
    Your explanation is convincing considering that punctuation is on a need basis.

31. I thought WARPAINT the pick of the clues today, as did others, but a bit unconvinced about several others – TILLER, ARABLE, STEP SISTER, and the GREASY POLE. And I liked STATUETTES as well. FELL was the last one in with a shrug. Is that its meaning as malign in the expression “in one fell swoop” by any chance? I didn’t know that alternative meaning of SHRAPNEL, either. Didn’t the word originate from the name of a major general in the British army?

32. I continue to be on the fence about Anto. Too many DDs/CDs, and I agree with Crispy@7 that 8d makes no sense. I suppose 26a is clever, though I couldn’t see it. Struggled to parse SHRAPNEL as I’m not familiar with the meaning as ‘small change’, though I think it has appeared before. I looked in vain for S plus a synonym for ‘change’ before just bunging it and checking.

33. I’m with muffin @2: an enjoyable puzzle, but SHRAPNEL is what I think of as a one-and-a-half definition clue, where the slang meaning is clearly derived from the straightforward one. It leaves a sense of “is that all there is to it?”.
    TILLER beat me: the answer was guessable but I just didn’t see the wordplay. Clever! And I liked INELASTIC for the plausible surface.

34. copster@29
    I do not understand your niggle with a clue which I thought was very good. Can you please elucidate?

35. I liked the cryptic and double definitions – generally do – and found this much more approachable than Sunday’s Quiptic. I revealed REEK and couldn’t parse TILLER but otherwise it all made sense to me.

36. [Ronald @31: The originator of the phrase was Shakespeare, in Macbeth, where MacDuff discovers all his family have been killed. “What, all my pretty chickens and their dam, at one fell swoop?”. Shakespeare’s meaning here is of a terrible (“fell”) sudden act (“swoop” – like the sudden stoop or dive of a bird of prey). “Fell” still has that dark and dreadful aspect when used alone, albeit with a somewhat archaic feel.

    However, language evolves and “at one fell swoop” has become, more commonly, “in one fell swoop” where the expression has lost all sense of dread or terror but retained the sense of a sudden, often spontaneous, act. I can see that, perhaps, we might have little use for the original meaning, what with us not having mad tyrant kings acting with malice towards their perceived enemies and their families…]

37. Anna @25 Around 30 years since, two Irish colleagues told me that students who had acquired a certain level in the acquisition of Irish Gaelic were awarded with small, green, ring-shaped lapel badges. These were nicknamed ERSE holes. Perhaps my leg was being pulled. It would be interesting if anyone hereabouts who is Irish and of a certain age could confirm or refute.

38. 26 had me befuddled, only after reading it again and the crossers, did the small change descend,
    Not so difficult all considered. TY Anto and your good self.

39. That felt like light relief after yesterday. The anagrams were very pleasing. SINGLE MALT was delightful. WARPAINT beautifully clued and for some reason I particularly enjoyed IBID. They are all the clues that held me up interestingly enough.

    I didn’t like TILLER. I get the replace K with something that could be ‘tin’, but I don’t see why that is a T. It should be SN surely?

    Overall a puzzle I enjoyed. It had a certain wit. Thanks Anto and Eileen

40. I don’t think either third wheel or shrapnel were unreasonable – but not everyone knows “what everyone knows”.

    Roberto@39: you put T in for K.

41. Roberto @39

    It is ‘T in for K’ – a double L&S, or ‘fission’, as Roz feels she must now term it.

42. Ok, thank you Balfour @41. That is very nice indeed. Much too clever for me. Hats off Anto

43. And thank you Gladys @40. My eye jumped over your response to me. Sorry

44. I came for the TILLER explanation. “T in for K” how sneaky. Luckily it couldn’t be anything else because I didn’t have the foggiest idea how it worked.

    I really like Anto when he is out of the Quiptic slot. Some good clues in this. I liked all the double word clues.

    Thanks Anto and Eileen

45. I was quite happy with this puzzle, and I thought TILLER was extremely clever, it made me groan and then laugh.

    Third wheel is very familiar to me, perhaps an Americanism, as is greasy pole for what pols climb, but one person’s GK is another’s obscurity. Conversely, I never heard of the alternate meaning of shrapnel.

46. Why so much dislike for cryptic definitions when it says CRYPTIC crossword right there on the box?

47. It did take me a while before I got the T in for K to give TILLER, but a nice idea. I also liked the good anagram for ESTATE AGENTS, the topical surface for REEK, and the CAPITAL LETTER. I twigged early on that it was a US full stop but it took a while to find the right answer. Pleasant solve, thanks Anto and Eileen for making sense of it all.

48. Not too easy, not too hard. Very enjoyable. All favourites already canvassed. Thanks to Eileen for a great blog, and to Anto for an accessible puzzle very much to my liking. I agree with those who ended up appreciating the unusual device in the KILLER/TILLER clue at 26a; it was my LOI (which I couldn’t parse) so I came here for the explanation.

49. 10d – “period” for “full stop” is usual in parts of the UK, not just in the USA. When I was being taught at Netherlee Primary School in the 1950s, “period” was the term used, and they mentioned “full stop” as an alternative.

50. 2 CDs and 3 DDs hardly seems excessive? Each to their own

    TimC@27 yes – now we can understand your objection

51. Why T for tin? The chemical symbol is SN. Is T a recognised abbreviation?

52. HAJ @51
    Have you read the blog and the comments? It has been explained several times. You need to read tin fork as “T in for K”. It’s nothing to do with the element tin.

53. Jacob@46
    🤠

54. gtimprov@49
    CAPITAL LETTER
    Thanks for your informative post on ‘period’.

    Incidentally, Chambers (mobile app) has this entry for period at sl no 23:

    A mark (.) at the end of a sentence, a full stop (the word is sometimes added at the end of a sentence to emphasize the finality of the statement)

    No ‘American English’ indicator.

55. Thanks Anto and Eileen!

    I really enjoyed this one, and only had to reveal a couple clues. Being American actually helped for once! “Third wheel” is an incredibly common expression over here, and “period” meaning “full stop” was the first definition I heard. TILLER stumped me, but I really like it now that I see the explanation. I enjoyed WARPAINT, FIRE AT WILL, and SINGLE MALT.

56. i join those who liked T in for K — very clever. Also those who haven’t met shrapnel for small change or third wheel for whoever it is.

    Nobody has commented on the new look, but I prefer these mini-puzzles to the grey blobs by our names.

    Thanks to Anto and Eileen.

57. Jacob @46 I agree, I like them. And why are people still raising issues with the “T” in “tiller”? It’s been explained so many times.

58. Lovely crossword. I came here for the parsing of TILLER and TWO-SEATERS. TILLER is a brilliant clue; I’d got the “for-K” bit but hadn’t noticed that tin was “T-in” so was worrying that T (rather than Sn) was being used as an abbreviation for tin. Hats off to Anto and Eileen there. As for TWO-SEATERS I’d never come across that use of “third wheel” though it makes sense.

59. I liked TILLER, I could not parse it at the time, very clever.
    CAPITAL LETTER was very good.
    A welcome relief after yesterday.
    Thanks both.

60. My 2 cents worth. TILLER is meh, the grammar for EEK is wrong but is OK for ARABLE: the problem with that clue is the “still” – it suggests something of a possibly damaging nature has just happened.

    To be hyper-nitpicky, the clue for CAPITAL LETTER requires a “usually” since there is a variety of circumstances when a period/full stop is not followed by one.

    None of this really held up progress, it just detracted from the admiration of the puzzle.

61. JOFT@36…many thanks for that thorough (and scholarly!) enlightenment, my GK much improved as a result 🙂

62. Valentine @56: maybe no one commented because the little crossword avatar is an American-style crossword! (And a non-kosher one at that: I see some two-letter words and an unchecked letter in there, both of which are against the rules.)

    I’m surprised at how many have never heard of being the third wheel. It was commonly heard back in college when romantic relationships evolved quickly, so your group could, over the course of mere days, go from three friends to a couple and a third wheel.

    But I didn’t know the small-change meaning of shrapnel, which I don’t think has reached these shores.

63. I enjoyed this, despite having spent far too long on 6d looking for S(mall)[synonym for change]. I really liked the tin fork in 26a when the Penny finally dropped.
    In 18a I’d assumed pole to be a variant of the abbreviation pole leading to greasy/slippery yielding the solution phrase (which is used occasionally outside the political context), but it isn’t one I’ve seen written.
    Ronald@31 & JOFT@36, fell beast was Tolkien’s name for the winged mounts of the Nazgûl and thanks to the movies this phrase is part of quite contemporary pop culture, so as well as Jack’s excellent information we have a relatively modern usage.

64. Balfour@27: I think you’ve misremembered. The ring, known as a ‘fáinne’ (Irish for ring) and worn on the lapel, is either silver or gold according to proficiency, not green.

65. mrpenny@62: I suspect that the term “third wheel” is much more common in North America than in the UK. We certainly have the expression here (though it suggests one rides a bicycle – surely “fifth wheel” would be more appropriate in a car-driving age?) but we might also use “spare tyre” or “gooseberry”. Idioms are strange things and vary substantially across a country let alone between nations divided by a common language. The joy of this forum is that we learn of examples every day.

    [Eoink@63: Glad the word “fell” has not fallen out of use. I would maintain it is archaic in feel, however, as Tolkien was masterful in his use of language to convey setting. Ursula le Guin in her excellent set of essays “The Language of the Night” makes the point rather cruelly, by taking writing from Tolkien and E.R. Eddison and contrasting it with a more modern author, simply replacing the fantasy names and locations with modern ones. In the latter case the passage might just as well have been a 1970s political thriller but with the first two authors the language still left the reader with a distinct sense of the ancient and the fantastical.]

66. I don’t remember seeing multiple fission (t-in for-k) before, my TILLER remained unparsed, nice one Anto! Ronald@31, JofT@36, Eoink@63 – Tolkien apart, FELL meaning ‘malign’ is surely a classic ‘fossil word’, wherein that particular meaning is preserved in an everyday idiom (in this case ‘one fell swoop’) but the single word/meaning itself is not in everyday use. My favourite example being ‘proof’ meaning ‘test’ in ‘proof of the pudding’. As for ignorance of SHRAPNEL=small change, there are clearly not enough touring musicians on 225; per diems tend to be handed out in big denomination banknotes on a foreign trip, so ‘Has anyone got any shrapnel’ is a common cry in restaurants and bars. Thank you A&E

67. Thanks Anto for the usual amusement. I liked AS IT IS, ESTATE AGENTS, SET COURSE, and FIRE AT WILL; I needed a word finder to get ARABLE; and I didn’t see the cleverness of ‘tin fork’ until I read the blog. I’m more familiar with ‘fifth wheel’ than ‘third wheel’ but I’ve heard both. Thanks Eileen for the blog.

68. poc @64 Thank you. Well, it was 1976, and I suspect that some Guinness may have been involved that evening, so I will forgive myself for not remembering the matter of the colour. Where, out of interest, did/do women wear them if they did not sport lapels?

69. For a pop culture reference to shrapnel as small change see the lyrics to “Fit But You Know It” by The Streets (2004).

70. This was a curate’s-egg puzzle for me. I think 21ac (ESTATE AGENTS) is a brilliant clue, and although I didn’t understan 26ac (TILLER) before coming here, now that I know how it works I love it. But unfortunately there are quite a few clues that just don’t work, as others have pointed out.

    I’d name REEK (although Lord Jim @19 makes a valiant attempt to redeem it), SHRAPNEL, STEP-SISTER, and SINGLE MALT in particular.

    I think others have explained the problems with the first three of these. For the last one, I don’t think the Spoonerism works, because “mingle salt” doesn’t mean “consort with mariner”: it’d have to be “mingle with salt”. (Also, I personally happen to dislike Spoonerism clues in general, because the mention of the reverend’s name is too much of a giveaway, but I understand that others disagree.)

    Anto had a lot of flawed clues in his early outings and then seemed to me to get much better; this feels like a reversion to the old days.

71. Thanks for the blog , The GREASY POLE was an episode of Yes Minister , ” Because it’s there ” .

72. I, too, was stumped by the tiller until I came here – how clever! I’m very familiar with shrapnel as my (Londoner) boyfriend uses the term all the time. I know spare tyre as an expression of quite a lot of fat around someone’s middle…
    Incidentally, in German, the term is indeed fifth tyre on the grounds that cars usually have four of them.

    Many thanks Eileen and Anto!

73. Ted @70 I think the word ‘with’ just indicates that the word salt is with the word mingle. It is necessary for the surface grammar. Works for me.

74. I liked TILLER; don’t much care for STEP SISTER though, where the clue feels very loose. The third wheel expression is not one I’ve come across in English, but I have heard a variation from my Czech friends, though I’m pretty sure that they talk about the fifth wheel as being the unneeded one. Of course, that blows the clue out of the water here. Perhaps that’s why cryptic crosswords don’t exist (as far as I know) in Czech.

75. I think the grammar in 2d is fine if you read it as an imperative. Sound shocked! = eek!

76. [I wonder if the third wheel has hidden away on Daisy and her beau’s bicycle made for two? btw I did know the expression, though gooseberry is more common in Britain for the same concept.]
    It reminds me of a classic I’m sorry I’ll read that again sketch. It starts:
    John Cleese: Oh I do like to be alone in the country
    Jo Kendall: But John, you brought me
    John: You hid in the back
    Jo: You must have seen me
    John: Not at all, it’s a very large bicycle

    It continues!]

77. I remember that meaning of FELL from having to sing hymns at school (before we were allowed to avoid them as atheists):

    “The ancient prince of hell
    hath risen with purpose fell”

    In the original German it’s by Martin Luther and formed part of a motet by JS Bach (ein feste Burg ist unser Gott).

    I liked T in for K when I finally got it, but although I solved ARABLE I tend to agree that the clue is pretty loose. Anto can be quite challenging because of this sort of looseness, but I think he is getting better and more inventive.

78. Anto on form.
    Or, does that mean that Anto is appearing in the next 007 film?
    Will now have to watch out for fora, ford, form etc. Oh, and force, forge etc. No chance.

79. I have to confess to a faint shiver of schadenfroid at those unfamiliar with shrapnel and third wheel (sorry!). Growing up in the antipodes we were exposed to an even mix of US and UK culture (alright, TV for my generation) so I am familiar with third wheel (although gooseberry is more common here), and shrapnel is an expression that we use. These were an easy in for me with that prior knowledge, which helps in part make up for some of the infernal UK parochialisms that come up which regularly mess with my brain.

80. I very much enjoyed this, but fell three shy including Tiller. I’m sure when I first saw lift and separate clues it was when a longer work separated into two distinct full words. This ‘new’ development opens up thousands of possibilities as Wellcidered starts to list.

    Thanks Anto and Eileen.

81. Balfour@68: although I described it as a lapel pin, it’s just a small badge and can be worn anywhere as long as it’s visible. Wikipedia has an article on the history and it appears that the practice has largely died out.

82. FILLER’s “tin fork” as a cryptic instruction was clever (nicely spotted, Eileen) and amusing. For me, an example of the delight we derive as solvers. I’m surprised it met with negative criticism from one or two commenters … I can’t help wondering why they solve cryptics in that case

    Some lovely clueing here – CAPITAL LETTERS and ESTATE AGENTS for example

    I don’t have much experience of Anto as I tend to give Mondays a miss (unless it’s a setter who usually appears later in the week…) and I was pleasantly surprised

    (BTW I’m trying not to use full stops (“periods”) when unnecessary. It seems that young people nowadays find one plonked (pointlessly!) at the end of a paragraph to be somewhat aggressive in it’s finality. And I can’t say I disagree. In any case, why shouldn’t punctuation evolve?)

    Many thanks, both and all

83. [Balfour@37 – of course it was a leg pull (and the “award” was ring-shaped!) and a very amusing one; many thanks for the retelling…
    (poc@64 pulling your leg – or another victim of a good gag!)

    poc@81, now seen. Perhaps you’re a genuine victim (rather than a perpetrator) and this humorous piece has made it into Wikipedia!]

84. Is it too late to ask for guidance before looking at the answers?

    10d, 13d, 14d are beyond me.

    I’m hoping those might give me a way into the lower half….

85. Hi Steffen @84 – sorry, I didn’t see your comment before going away for the night yesterday and have only just seen it on my return.

    10dn: One renting London accommodation – it follows a period in USA (7,6
    A double definition: think of what the Americans mean by a ‘period’ and what would follow it in a piece of writing, then relate that to someone renting accommodation in a place like London for the first part.

    13dn: Consort with mariner supplying Spooner with alcohol
    Think of a word for consort (as a verb) and the fairly frequent crossword word for mariner, swap the letters and find a drink.

    14dn: Dismiss a material military order
    A four-letter word for ‘dismiss’ then A (type of) material.

    I hope that helps. 😉

86. Thank you for the hints.

87. Filled the grid, but made a couple of mistakes. 18a I seem to be the only one who put GREASY PALM (politician who accepts bribes). And 27a I slapped in CRITICAL (instead of PROTOCOL) just because it fit and I couldn’t think of anything else!

    10a we also use “period” in Canada instead of “full stop”. Will we ever see, for example, “a period in Canada” for a North American reference in a clue? William F P @82, thanks for articulating what I already do — leave out periods at the end of paragraphs

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