Guardian Cryptic crossword No 29,705 by Maskarade

78 comments on “Guardian Cryptic crossword No 29,705 by Maskarade”

1. Enjoyable puzzle.

   New for me : PONTEFRACT CAKES, STYRENE.

   Favourite: ASSET-STRIPPERS.

   Thanks, both.

   For 23ac, I saw it as def = it with anagrind = may and fodder = elp to seal which perhaps is what manehi is saying?

2. Thanks Maskarade and manehi
   Brief, but pleasant. I liked the construction for CHOIRMEN and the surface for GYMS.
   STYRENE is a liquid, so not any use for making cups. It needs to be polymerised to make polystyrene before things can be made from it.
   Why do setters never recognise that many of us do actually pronounce their Rs?

3. Yesterday star and tsar met in the NW corner. Today we had SOFT and FAINT music up there. This puzzle was playful and neat. There were quite a few write-ins. I didn’t feel misdirected at any point and all the clueing was clear. So, a pleasure if not a challenge. Just right for a back to work day. I liked SOFT, CROUPIER, NUTMEG and TOKAY.

   Thanks Maskarade and manehi

4. Muffin @2: You are strictly correct, but it is common in the plastics industry to speak of “styrene” or “urethane”, for example, while meaning the polymer. One could also consider STYRENE to be the material from which the polymer, and hence the cups, are made.
   My thanks as ever to Maskarade and manehi.

5. My mum once told me that Picasso could do real paintings too 🙂 Good to see that Maskarade can crank out a conventional cryptic although it might have been better suited to the Monday slot?

   Some love anagrams and quality surfaces

   Cheers M&M

6. An awful lot to enjoy here, with Maskarade in very gentle mode. I especially liked GYMS, FAINT and CEREBRAL, and the long anagrams helped to make solving relatively straightforward. Thanks to M and m both.

7. Smooth and relatively straightforward with some lovely anagrams. I liked the pairing of SOFT and FAINT and the construction of ASSET-STRIPPERS. My favourites were the neat THOR and GYMS.

   Ta Maskarade & manehi.

8. Agreed, Bodycheetah@5 – this could have been swapped with yesterday’s to the benefit of both. I really liked THEMSELVES and THOR (though nothing much thaws around our place at the end of winter, because nothing much freezes). Thanks, Maskarade and manehi.

9. To make sense of Appleyard in RAIN STOPPED PLAY, I see that it is/was the surname of various cricketers.

10. Yesterday was a national (“bank”) holiday in the UK so this feels like the Monday slot even though it isn’t.

11. Agreed, I think yesterdays was deliberately placed for a day off workout, and todays for the hangover!

12. One of my quicker Guardian solves. I like to kid myself I’m getting better but this might have been a little bit on the gentler side.

    As always some neat anagrams from Maskarade and my favourite sweet got an appearance so all great fun.

    Thanks Manehi and Maskarade

13. SOFT and FAINT were actually my last two in…

14. SOFT and FAINT were actually my last two in…

15. Enjoyable puzzle. My favourites were CEREBRAL and CODE OF PRACTICE for the amusing surfaces. Though I would have spelt cod-piece as one word — unless it’s supposed to be an actual piece of cod?

    I’m afraid I don’t think the clue for SELLOTAPE really has an anagram indictor, but that’s my only quibble.

    Many thanks Maskarade and manehi.

16. 7d reminded me of this poem.

17. Me @15: “indictor” should of course be “indicator”. Why is it you only notice a typo when the edit time has just run out?

18. Muffin@2: I despair of getting setters and editors to understand that the R is not optional for many of us. I doubt that it will ever change, but I refuse to give up.

    I thought 23a clunky. The auxiliary “may” as an anagrind only works with a verb, but clearly the verb here is part of the fodder.

19. Has Maskerade gone soft?? After his fiendish recent bank holiday special I couldn’t believe this was from him! However an extremely pleasant solve with some lovely clues. Thanks Tom for a very gentle ride and as always a great blog .

20. I too liked the intersection of FAINT and SOFT. I struggled a bit more than I usually do with Doc.

    muffin @2…. “Why do setters never recognise that many of us do actually pronounce their Rs?” Because you’re in a minority in certain locations? I also pronounce my Rs, just maybe not the way that you do.

21. Lots to like, of which SELLOTAPE was my favourite.

22. Having grown up in the Great Wen, I’m relatively non-rhotic, but “Thor” and “thaw” differ in vowel as well as the “R” sound. Likewise “core” and “caw”.
    A phoneme too far for a fair homophone, I would say.

23. Ginger Tom and I really enjoyed the solve today. Maskarade is one of our favourite setters and we don’t see him often enough, imho. Thanks to setter and blogger as always.

24. Although SELLOTAPE strictly has no anagrind, I still like the clue and was moved to investigate it’s origins. I found this…

    “Sellotape originated in 1937 with Colin Kininmonth and George Grey, who coated cellophane film with a natural rubber resin in West London. They registered the product under the name Sellotape, based on a French patent. The name “Sellotape” was derived from “Cellophane,” but the “C” was changed to “S” to avoid trademark infringement.”

25. It’s a sign of just how skilled Maskarade is that he can produce the mind-boggling Bank Holiday specials and can also produce this – very gentle, but just challenging enough to be enjoyable. Though I’m with those who say that this one belonged in the Monday slot.
    I think it’s possible to over-think homophones, whatever your accent. The term is misleading, because they very often aren’t “sounds the same as” so much as “sounds vaguely similar to”. In the same way Spoonerisms are often not exact; and those of us who like the things (which I unashamedly do) would argue that very often, the more outrageous, the better.
    Thanks to Maskarade and manehi

26. There’s rarely (if ever) a homophone that works for everyone, so in my view it’s best not to take such clues too seriously. Somebody here (I think it was when the Quick Cryptic was introduced) described the device as ‘aural wordplay’ or ‘aural pun’ rather than homophone and I think that’s a better way of thinking of them. [Edit: I see NeilH has posted along similar lines whilst I was writing this in response to Auriga @ #22]

27. Fairly straightforward solve. I liked the ASSET-STRIPPERS on holiday, the CEREBRAL Le Carré novel, and the good surface for GYMS; not such a good one for PONTEFRACT CAKES though.

    As I have said many times before, if one is prepared to accept spellings as given in the main dictionaries, one also should accept the pronunciations given there. THOR and THAW in Collins are pronounced identically. The standard homophone for a setter has to be what’s in the dictionaries (RP), otherwise homophones are unusable. Perhaps the rhotic speakers might like to accept that there are many different pronunciations of words and there has to be a single standard for crosswords. A deviation from the standard can be indicated by Scottish, Welsh, American etc.

    Thanks Maskarade and manehi.

28. A rare completed and fully parsed for this crossword donut.
    Thanks both.

29. As I’m not English, sound clues can be difficult for me – Thor/thaw for example. I generally attempt these by saying the clue in a sort of Michael Caine accent. Thanks “Alfie”.

30. Muffin@16: Me too. Do you know the record Late Flowering Love? As well as the poetry and Jim Parker’s magnificent music, there is added entertainment to be had from spotting the spelling mistakes in the calligraphy on the record sleeve.

    This would have made a good Monday puzzle, coming in well under the tem minutes that defines a write-in for me

31. Goujeers @30
    Yes, it’s great. I also have “Banana Blush”, which isn’t quite as good.

32. Very simple

33. I thought THOR would cause trouble. I do sympathise with the rhotic speakers, but if sound-alike clues are going to be restricted to those that work perfectly in both rhotic and non-rhotic pronunciation, the number of them available to setters will fall by at least half – it’s the “lazy” RP that provides the opportunity for words that strictly shouldn’t sound alike to do so, and there are few examples that only work in the precise rhotic voice.

34. Big ticks for PONTEFRACT CAKES, CROUPIER and CREOSOTE. IMPERIAL and STAIRCASES a little scratchy for my liking but hey ho.

    Felt a little like a Monday in difficulty but very enjoyable.

35. Here’s a good homophone test (this was discussed here quite some time ago, and called a substitution test, similar to the one for synonyms). Make up a sentence with, say, Thor in it, but say Thaw instead. And vice versa. Would you be understood? Would the reaction in the hearer be anything more than a raised eyebrow? If understanding takes place, it’s good enough for a crossword homophone. This mimics the way rhotic and non-rhotic speakers manage to talk to each other IRL.

36. When I solved NUTMEG, I wondered whether this could be a tribute to the well-loved crossword setter Margaret Irvine.
    A lovely, fun puzzle, nice surfaces. It’s nice to solve a Maskarade puzzle without additional instructions, a sprint rather than a marathon. My favourite clues were the linked SOFT and FAINT, as well as THEMSELVES, CROUPIER, CEREBRAL and ASSET STRIPPERS.
    I hadn’t parsed the triple definition IMPERIAL – (should have looked in the dictionary).
    Thanks to Maskarade and manehi.

37. I’m not usually a Maskarade fan, but I enjoyed a lot of the wit in this offering. Quite straightforward, as others have said, but much to enjoy: ‘glossy magazines’ is a great spot, I particularly liked the elves and the Le Carré novel.
    Thanks to M&m
    PS BTW Goujeers@30 and Muffin@16 I played on the recording of Banana Blush as well as some performances at the QEH. Happy days!

38. Thanks both,
    Doesn’t WARPLANE need a DBE indicator?

39. DP @37
    We have a celebrity presence on the blog! What instrument did you play?

40. Very nice. I particularly liked the elegant SOFT/FAINT pair, the clever charade for ASSET-STRIPPERS, and the witty surface for GYMS. Also nice but bittersweet to be reminded of NUTMEG, much missed still.

    LOI PONTREFACT CAKES which I’d never heard of.

    The homophone discussion reminds me of once when I asked on social media, if you pronounce Mary/merry/marry differently (most Americans don’t), what do the last two syllables of “necessary” rhyme with? One of my British mutuals responded, “mussry.”

    Thanks Maskarade and manehi!

41. Whenever the homophone debate rears its regular head I’m reminded of a young Northern comedian (whose name escapes me), who explained to his audience that where he came from the phrase “It isn’t in the tin” is pronounced “Tintintin”

42. Thanks for the blog , I think the grid made things easier , many helpful letters , especially first letters . PONTEFRACT CAKES my favourite sweet but they must be genuine .
    I thought the theme was going to be quarks , I have found four but not bottom or my own quark , a few dwarfons hiding as well .

43. Very enjoyable “Monday” puzzle. WARPLANE took me ages for no good reason, a fine clue though. Favourite was PRONOUNCE. Speaking of which, I think you’d have to work really very hard indeed to pronounce “THOR” and “thaw” sufficiently differently so as to find that clue defective.

44. Muffin@39 if you still have an LP of BB, my initials will give the game away. I’m not sure that being a trombone/euphonium player qualifies me for celebrity, but thanks for the flattery!

45. DP @44
    Found you!

46. A crossword’s first across clue is often its classiest, but here it was surely the final down clue GYMS. Much enjoyed, thank you M&m!

47. This is the type of crossword I can solve without cheating, except that I did a search on “liquorice sweet names” as this was clear to me that the solution would be an anagram of “spacecraft token.”

    I thought the surfaces were excellent, in particular for 22D. I had forgotten about imperial beard. When seeing the explanation I remembered that I had once looked at photographs of nineteenth century Austrian gentlemen when looking up “imperial beard” in my search engine.

    Thanks to Manehi for the blog and Maskarade for a well crafted enjoyable crossword.

48. [Tyngewick@38 Please repost your “Rupert Brooke” poem here.]

49. Re the discussion on homophones, I once attended a university lecture by the eminent professor of linguistics David Crystal, at which he conducted an experiment.

    As I recall, he randomly said the words ‘court’ and ‘caught’ fifty times, and asked the 50 or so assembled undergraduates to write down what they heard. He then got us to ‘mark’ our results by comparing what he had said to what we had heard.

    I obviously don’t recall the exact results, but the overall conclusion was that what we heard bore a fairly random relationship to what he had said. Which suggests to me that some people may be a bit precious when it comes to setters’ use of homophones.

    Of course the results may have been different if Prof Crystal had been Scottish!

50. Ha ha, great fun.

    Hollow (but appreciative) laughs from me for WARPLANE, THOR, CHOIRMEN and, especially, STAIRCASES.

    My second weekday crossword this week. It must be the rain.

    Thanks to Maskerade and Manehi.

51. GeeDubya @49
    If he had an RP accent, there wouldn’t have been any difference. That’s the point of the futile complaint!

52. AlanC@9 I’ve only come across the name Appleyard in a cricketing context ( Bob, 9 tests) so the answer was clear, especially as repeated showers at Worcester yesterday deprived Warwickshire of victory.

53. [William @24: re your reference to a French patent for “Sellotape”, I was amused to hear a group of French women continually asking each other for “Scotch” while doing some crafting – that’s the term they use now for what we once learnt to call “sticky-backed plastic”]

54. That has reminded me , 2 Down is the best three word phrase in the English language .

55. Roz @54
    That’s a bit selfish. You aren’t compelled to watch it, surely?

56. GrannyJP @53 and William @24, as ever, the Americans beat us to it with the development of Scotch Tape in 1930

57. Roz@54 It certainly was for Worcestershire yesterday.

58. muffin @55 Without wishing to speak out of turn for Roz, I think I recall from earlier comments she has made over the years that she was especially pissed off when Test Match Special used to take over Radio 4 Long Wave.

59. Balfour @58
    I’m baffled why anyone would ever listen to Radio 4 Long Wave except to listen to the cricket. I think it has now moved elsewhere from that now – Radio 5 Sports Extra?

60. I confidently entered ARES for 13ac. Despite being an astrophysicist, I never remember which astrological signs come at which times of year, so I assumed Aries comes at the end of winter. Turns out it actually starts on the beginning of spring, so “end of winter” is arguably (just barely) correct, although “beginning of spring” would be a much more natural description.

    (I’m a rhotic speaker for whom THOR and THAW are not even close to homophones, so the wordplay works much better for me with the answer ARES. But I’m not complaining about the homophony. I recognize that those words are homophones for many English speakers, and I believe in casting a wide net for homophones: if two words sound alike for any reasonably large subset of English speakers, they’re fair game for a homophone clue.)

61. I will, on the other hand, whinge about 23ac. It’s cute, but the grammar doesn’t work: “It may” by itself can’t be an anagrind; it needs a main verb as poc @18 says.

62. Muffin, DP: I still have LPs of BB (the first), LFL, and I think tapes of JB’s Britain and Varsity Rag (when his voice was starting to fail). DP: delighted you are still around and solving!
    John Kirkpatrick’s; singing of A Shropshire Lad has been a delight for around 50 years

63. Thank you Balfour@58 , our kitchen radio which we also use in the garden is longwave , very good signal plus you get the Shipping Forecast , fortunately it no longer gets taken over by the flannelled fools . I also have a very rational hatred of cricket from my student days when it would take over The Parks for months on end .

64. SueM48@36 I thought the same about 3D NUTMEG being a reference to Margaret Irvine. Having actually met Maskarade at her funeral – along with Arachne and some other regular 15^2 contributors – I feel sure that you must be right. Nice touch if we’re right!

    Thanks to M&M

65. [Goujeers @62
    I remember seeing John Kirkpatrick playing several times with his then wife, Sue (mostly with the Albion Band). Sue played the oboe, and was notable for turning bright red whenever when was blowing it!]

66. [Goujeers and muffin – John Kirkpatrick has performed on Live to Your Living Room several times – I’ve seen Carolling and Crumpets and his WW1 songs show. They had Peggy Seeger’s Farewell tour, with her son’s, this week – the catch up is still live. Martin Carthy and Leon Rosselson are coming up.]

67. “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help” aren’t – as Ronald Reagan oh-so-hilariously once claimed – the most frightening (n) words in the English language.

    They are, circumstantially, in my experience “Have you dined with us before?”

    Thanks all.

68. Roz @63, unfortunately the Radio 4 long wave transmitter will soon be switched off. The time controls for some dual-rate electric meters will go with it.

69. I was surprised by the lack of comment on some of the parochialism: SELLOTAPE, PONTEFRACT CAKES. I expected a bit of chat on THAW/THOR.

70. Phil@68 the BBC has threatened this for years , the last firm date was March 2024 hmmm . They now say late 2025 but they always seem to chicken out .
    Etu @67 , the most frightening phrase in the English language is – Here is the new single from Phil Collins .

71. Roz@70. Can’t argue with that.

72. {Shane & Muffin & 65 & 66: In the 70s John K’s Dingles Chillilbom band and the ceilidh band I was in shared a drummer. JK has strayed with us several times, when doing workshops at the folk clubs Mrs G largely organises. Great bloke, and, like Martin Carthy, a Guardian crossword solver,

    What is Live to Your Living Room?]

73. [Live to Your Living Room – I have seen John Kirkpatrick live, also Benji, mostly as part of Bellowhead, and Martin Carthy live too.]

74. Goujeers @72
    Interesting!
    Shanne @ 73
    I followed your link. It seems a bit expensive for an online concert. The sound on my computer is quite poor, so I won’t bother.

75. I’m hoping I’m just on the wrong wavelength for this one. Almost every comment I see is talking about how easy it was but for me I got 3 answers and completely stalled. Yes, I’m pretty new at cryptics, but it felt completely beyond me.

    If this is easy, perhaps this won’t be the fun hobby for me that it was starting to feel like. 🙁

76. KT@75 I’ve been doing cryptics for five years now and this one was very challenging (but doable) for me. A few years ago I would’ve been in the same boat as you. I think that a lot of these commenters have been doing cryptics for dog’s ages. 🙂

77. Finished in 24 hours… half of which was taken pondering SOFT and FAINT! 🤣

78. All done, except for a careless mistake at 19d, FACE UP, so dnf. Enjoyable puzzle, though, with great surfaces throughout. 22d GYMS an excellent example. I wonder if it’s a rule that focusing on smooth surfaces leads to an easier puzzle?

    Loved the two volume clues, FAINT and SOFT

    THOR/thaw, variations in vowel sounds are not a problem. It’s the non-rhotic R that’s really really annoying. Rhotic speakers just don’t understand, as you can see from the comments above. I wish setters would abandon such soundalikes

    KT@75, it wasn’t long ago that I was in your position, feeling discouraged by comments about how easy a puzzle was, when I had just solved a few. I stuck with it, though, and am now more or less up to speed. Keep at it!

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