Guardian 29,734 – Vulcan

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For some reason I was a bit slower than usual to get a foothold on this, but it all worked out in the end. Thanks to Vulcan.

 
Across
1 SEESAW Watches a women’s diversion for infants (6)
SEES A W[omen]
5 SATIRISE Make a joke of the day I get promoted (8)
SAT[urday] + I RISE
9 CAMPAIGN Political group I nag to work out plan of action (8)
CAMP (political group) + (I NAG)*
10 ALARMS Almost all weaponry is terrifying (6)
AL[L] + ARMS
11 RISE AND SHINE Call bootblack out of bed to start work? (4,3,5)
Cryptic definition
13 URAL Defaced wall painting of mountain range (4)
[m]URAL
14 ISOLATED One recently dead put into the ground alone (8)
I + SO LATE (recently) + D[ead], with a rather morbid definition A much better parsing from miserableoldhack: I + LATE put into SOD
17 FINESPUN Penalises wordplay that is too subtle (8)
FINES + PUN
18 PLEA Urgent request that may be bargained in America (4)
Double definition, referring to the American system of “plea-bargaining”
20 PRESS RELEASE This informs the media how to get out of seatbelt? (5,7)
To get out of your seatbelt you PRESS the RELEASE button
23 STEREO In store playing English hi-fi equipment (6)
E in STORE*
24 SAUSAGES Wise guys touring Oz or the States for simple food (8)
This is SAGES (wise people) containing or “touring” either AUS or USA
25 PROMISED Set to receive such ideal land (8)
Double definition, referring to the Promised Land of the Old Testament
26 LET FLY Attack poor service and hurry away (3,3)
LET (a poor service in tennis) + FLY (hurry away)
Down
2 EDAM Dairy product invented, is it suggested? (4)
EDAM might be clued as “made up”=”invented”
3 SUPERGLUE Reuse plug after replacing big sticker (9)
(REUSE PLUG)*
4 WHIMSY Fantasy question about one woman’s address (6)
I + MS (term of address for a woman) in WHY
5 SENSATIONALISED Shocked as insolent aside is given the tabloid treatment (15)
(AS INSOLENT ASIDE)*
6 TEARDROP Draw apart and flop down, having a bit of a cry (8)
TEAR (draw apart) + DROP (flop down)
7 REACH Arrive at a stretch of water (5)
Double definition
8 SIMON PETER Disciple Mark entering the holy city, safe (5,5)
M[ark] in SION (holy city) + PETER (slang for a safe)
12 ARBITRATOR But one’s decision should be anything but capricious (10)
Cryptic definition, I presume from the similarity of the word to “arbitrary” (they have the same origin)
15 APPLE TART Sweet, having skill to support small program (5,4)
APPLET (small computer program) + ART (skill)
16 SPURIOUS Not legitimate, so I usurp violently (8)
(SO I USURP)*
19 MANUAL Footballers given a large handbook (6)
MAN U (Manchester United) + A L[arge]
21 SCRUM Run through film showing a half of rugby (5)
R in SCUM (1979 film)
22 SEAL Aquatic creature and its habitat, loch? (4)
SEA (where seals live) + L[och]

61 comments on “Guardian 29,734 – Vulcan”

  1. Thanks Andrew – I parsed 14ac as I + LATE (recently dead) inside SOD (put into the ground) with the def as ‘alone’. So not quite so morbid!
    Good to see a return for SCUM – is it film or is it a movie or is it both? Still a bit unsure about ARBITRATOR though – I’m sure you’re right, it must be a cryptic def because of the similar derivations, but, well, it does seem a little tenuous. Nice puzzle though, so thanks to Vulcan for a leisurely Monday breakfast workout.

  2. Wonderful puzzle by Vulcan. I especially liked 24A (SAUSAGES). I agree with Miserableoldhack on the parsing of 14A.

  3. I also had ISOLATED as miserableoldhack @1
    For SCRUM I had film as in surface scum.
    Favourite was EDAM.

  4. Thanks Vulcan and Andrew
    Some oddities. Why “infants” in 1a? Youngsters, sure, but not infants. Why is FINESPUN “too subtle”? There isn’t anything derogatory in “finespun”. Why “half” in 21d? If the reference is numerical, the scrum has 8 from each side out of 15, so more than half.
    A lot to like, though. Favourite SIMON PETER.

  5. 21: I don’t know the movie, just thought of a layer on the surface of a liquid (and I think this has come up before).

  6. A little harder than Vulcan’s usual but none the worse for that. Liked SAUSAGES, SENSATIONALISED, SEAL and many others.

    muffin@4, the SCRUM half is one of the ‘half’ positions in rugby (the other being fly half).

    Thanks both.

  8. Similar experience to Andrew for me. Completed the E side first, but then I saw SENSATIONALISED and the rest fell into place. Liked EDAM (my LOI) when I saw the wordplay. Agree with others about the wordplay in 14 with just ‘alone’ being the definition. Not sure why SUPERGLUE is a big sticker rather than just a sticker, though the big makes for better wordplay. Agree with Muffin@4 on his question about the ‘half’ in the clue for 21 (and thought the film was surface ‘scum’ rather than the movie, but both work, of course). Thanks to Andrew and Vulcan.

  9. Sossiges was often a tasty variant spelling of SAUSAGES in my Year 4 Primary School class, I remember. And yes, it also took me a while too to turn the starter motor over with Vulcan’s offering today. Rather liked PRESS RELEASE in particular…

  10. For 12d, I parsed the solution as ARBIT RATER. A stretch, I know, but the only retrofit I could think of

  12. Still don’t really understand RISE AND SHINE. The surface seems very clumsy.

    Agree with others re FINESPUN. Why is it too subtle?

    Liked APPLE TART & ISOLATED.

    Many thanks, both.

  13. HaydenCarr @11
    See @6

    I think 12d is saying that an ARBITRATOR shouldn’t make an arbitrary decision.

  14. William@12
    RISE AND SHINE
    When a bootblack goes to work, he/she will SHINE (shoes).
    RISE AND start work/SHINE.

    ARBITRATOR
    I agree with the blogger. Can’t read anything more.

    FINESPUN
    Chambers gives one meaning as ‘over-subtle’. Def looks fine.

  15. Can anyone explain the use of ‘recently’ in 14ac? Surely all dead persons, even those who passed some time ago, are referred to as ‘late’.

  16. As per KVa @14, one might describe an over-elaborate or complicated piece of reasoning as a very finespun argument.
    Andrew Sceats @15 – late is conventionally used to refer to someone who has died recently, whatever recently is taken to mean. But I don’t think anyone would refer to ‘the late Julius Caesar’, for instance.

  17. I agree with Andrew and mufin @13. An arbitrator should be anything but arbitrary (capricious). I rather like the clue, although it was my last but one in.

    Andrew Sceats @15
    I think only dead people of recent memory are referred to as “late”. “The late Mr Smith” can only really refer to someone the speaker remembers being alive, and probably being alive quite recently. I find it hard to imagine anyone using “late” to refer to, say, Winston Churchill.

  18. @16 and @17 thanks. I take your point(s).

    I wonder whether it can refer to someone who died further in the past if we put the word ‘great’ between ‘late’ and the name.

    Might one not say ‘the late, great Winston Churchill’?

  19. Andrew Sceats @18, that’s an interesting point. As with so much in language it comes down to matters of context and judgement rather than simple logic. I was thinking that we Brits might, for now, refer to ‘the late Queen’. But would we still refer to her mother (who died in 2002) as ‘the late Queen Mother’? Probably not. On the other hand, I can well imagine an elderly widow, say, referring to her ‘late husband’ even if he’d died many decades before. Partly, I guess, as a way of letting her interlocutor know that her husband was no longer living.

  20. For 15d I assumed the small program was app(location) and wasted some time looking for “let” in the wordplay. Then played it through in my head and app let art made it obvious.

    I was surprised by finespun so searched and the first 3 online dictionaries gave me excessively or over subtle as the second definition, which cleared that up for me.

    I liked “half of rugby” as a definition of scrum (or fly), it stood out immediately to me. I’ve seen scum for film in a recent crosswords as well, I enjoy the fact that it has two equally valid ways to solve it, my first thought a few days ago was scum as in a surface film.

    And I’m another who wasn’t totally sure I understood 12d, a search for definitions of “arbit” (to give arbit rater) only found some Indian student slang for strange/weird, so I discounted that.

  21. ISOLATED
    Adding a dictionary reference to the discussion (moh has explained it well already):
    Collins
    You use late when you are talking about someone who is dead, especially someone who has died recently.
    ...my late husband.

    Another entry (in British English)
    (prenominal)
    having died, esp recently
    my late grandfather

  24. ARBITRATOR/arbitrary didn’t work for me, more ahem than aha. But much enjoyed overall, thank you V&A

  26. From the sublime (RISE AND SHINE) to the ridiculous (ARBITRATOR): CDs are not my favourite, but occasionally they are good.

    I don’t understand SET in PROMISED, and what happened to the “to receive”? Surely it is not just filling?

    Otherwise a great Xword. Thanks V and A

  27. Some lovely clueing in this. Particularly liked PRESS RELEASE, SAUSAGES. They more than made up for ‘made up’ – EDAM, which I’ve known as the basis for a groanworthy joke for too long now.

    SIMON PETER – the slang for a safe is new to me, though it’s more likely I previously encountered it and failed to retain the knowledge.

  28. A bit tougher than the usual Vulcan, with ARBITRATOR my last, and which I thought was very good. TomsDad @8: I parsed it as big=great=super. I enjoyed the SCRUM half, the other one mentioned in (LET) FLY, and RISE AND SHINE covered by KVa @14. I did think infants was a poor choice for SEESAW though. Very enjoyable overall.

  29. @26 Dave Ellison

    I read the SET in PROMISED as the full SET TO RECEIVE, which makes far more sense to me than merely SET.

  31. KVa @14: aah… that’s me being a bit dim. I only knew bootblack as the polish, not the one applying it. Ta.

  32. ARBITRATOR was the last in and was hoping to glean a bit more from here. But maybe there isn’t more to be had.

    As always with Vulcan I am either on wavelength and it flows in or I’m listening to a different station and it’s a bit of a grind. It was the later today.

    Liked RISE AND SHINE and SIMON PETER

    Cheers Andrew and Vulcan

  33. SEAL rang a bell; ‘Dynamo’ used a similar construction in crossword no. 29,489 last September (Whiskery aquatic mammal in the deep lake).

  34. AlanC@31 and muffin@4 One of my earliest memories is starting Infants’ school age five and playing on a seesaw.

  35. Andrew@15
    the only thing I can think of for recently is ‘of late’ as in ‘there has been a spate of burglaries of late’

  36. Chardonneret @34: the term infant seems to apply to a child under the age of 2 years at most, but your example of infant’s school is certainly more applicable.

  37. Chambers 2016…
    infant
    noun
    1. A baby
    2. A person under the age of legal maturity (Eng law)
    3. A young schoolchild
    4. An infante or infanta
    5. An aristocratic youth (obsolete)

  38. Did anyone else register that this is the third time in four days that we have had this grid? Tramp on Friday, Pangakupu on Saturday and now Vulcan today? I think of it as ‘the four H’s grid’ (after the pattern of black squares), and it makes occasional appearances, but it is, to say the least, unusual to see it so many times in quick succession.

  39. An enjoyable puzzle. EDAM was clever and neat.

    I thought 12d was good. I think the idea is that “arbitrary” sounds as though it should be the adjective to refer to an ARBITRATOR. The words do of course have the same origin as Andrew says, but “arbitrary” has rather changed from meaning “dependent on the decision of an arbitrator” to meaning capricious or random.

    Many thanks both.

  40. scraggs@29
    PROMISED
    Agree with you that ‘set to receive’ works as a better def.
    Both defs seem quite similar.
    Is it a DD or is the whole clue a CD?

  41. Saw Vulcan’s name and thought that this would be lovely Monday comfort food, but it turned out to be a bit spicier than I expected and, as already noted in the comments, none the worse for that. ARBITRATOR was a head scratcher for most of us it seems. I also parsed SCRUM as R in “scum = dirty film on the surface of something” rather than a movie; and ‘set to receive’ as the definition rather than ‘set’. Too many favourite clues to mention here, with Vulcan’s usual mastery of the smooth surface. I think a bit sneakier in hiding the definitions today, hence the extra chewiness (to mix up my food metaphors). Thanks Vulcan and Andrew.

  42. Andrew Sceats @18, miserableoldhack @19, et al., originally “late” would indeed only be applied to somebody who had died recently, being a form of “lately” (rather than the opposite of early) and related to “latter”. The usage also survives in the phrase “late of this parish”, i.e. used to live here but no longer, which now seems to be primarily a whimsically archaic usage.

    As the origin of the term “late” in this sense has faded, it has come to be used for the less recently dead, especially (as you point out) in the expression “late, great”, and I would suggest that the more famous a person is, the longer they might be referred to as late.

    I suspect also it tends to be used for longer to distinguish between two holders of the same title or position, e.g. the late queen as contrasted with the current queen.

  43. In 22D, is abbreviating loch to L a common practice in crosswordland? If so, I shall have to add that to my list.

  44. Wasn’t there a discussion here a while ago (but maybe not for Vulcan) of why a LET is not really a poor service in tennis? Something along the lines that the attempt might not be allowed, but it was good enough that the server is permitted to try again?

  45. Using ‘ late ‘ to mean recently dead is ok. So is using it to refer to someone long gone. I always refer to my late father, dead 73 years and my late mother, dead 26 years. It doesn’t only mean recently deceased

  46. Got stuck in the top-right for longer than I’d expect on a Vulcan Monday but an enjoyable time. NHO that sense of “Peter”. Laughed out loud at PRESS RELEASE.

    Is there any reason why Saturday is “the day”?

  47. Balladeer @46 I assumed that as Saturday is the day of the prize crossword, it would be the day Vulcan got a promotion.

    I didn’t finish, but I enjoyed it. Thanks Vulcan and Andrew

  49. This was the easiest Monday puzzle for a few months, in my experience. Or maybe I just slept well last night.

    Last ones in were PROMISED and ARBITRATOR, with the former seen as ‘set to receive’ as in “but you promised me an ice cream if I was good and I’ve been good. It’s not fair!” And the latter was witty but hard to see without all the crossers, as is often the case with clues having no wordplay. 🤔

    I’m surprised at the number of commenters who haven’t seen PETER for ‘safe’. We had a run of puzzles earlier this year where it seemed to come up twice a week. (Possibly I exaggerate. 😜) I was looking for SAINT Peter, but that would have required an indirect anagram of (STAIN) for ‘Mark’, so it was a nice moment when that old tea tray clanged into the side of my head.

    Thanks to Vulcan and Andrew.

  50. Fed’s puzzle last week was easier!!
    Gave up in the NW corner…
    Vulcan remains one of the hardest setters for me.
    Thanks both.

  51. Re 17 FINESPUN, although the dictionaries give “overly subtle” as one definition, I took it to mean “very subtle”, which the dictionaries also recognize. I read “too” as meaning “very” or “so” in the clue, as in “she’s too gorgeous” or “that joke is too funny”. I’m a bit surprised that no one else read it that way.

    I agree with scraggs et al that “set to receive” is the definition for 25 PROMISED.

    Favourite was 24 SAUSAGES, for the AUS/USA alternatives. And 5 SENSATIONALISED was a great anagram in an excellent surface.

    Thanks, V & A, for the sensational puzzle and super blog.

  52. Balfour @38: As soon as I saw it, I also realised this was the third consecutive Guardian cryptic with the ‘4-H’ grid. I agree it’s highly unusual.

  56. SAUSAGES wasn’t the wurst clue I’ve ever seen 🙂

    I think the 30C+ heat is definitely impacting my solving abilities

    Cheers V&A

  58. In the first pass I had PUNISHES for 17ac. A PUN-ISH would be a subtle wordplay and more than one of them (PUNISHES) would be too subtle. It was only getting to 3dn and the anagram fodder “reuse plug” had no ‘I’, that made me rethink. A case of too subtle wordplay, methinks.

  59. I too wondered about the wisdom of putting infants on seesaws, but Chambers definition 3, quoted by Tim C @37, settles that.

    I’m another who didn’t understand ARBITRATOR. Now that I know, I find myself wavering between hating it and being reluctantly amused by it.

    I thought the construction of 24ac (SAUSAGES) was particularly cute.

  60. Edam was the first example I remember in the old Telegraph ‘how to do a crossword’ book c.1990. Pretty sure it also featured in Thousand Jokes for Kids ‘What cheese is made backwards?’

    Otherwise I was left with this half done and there were clues I couldn’t parse without help here, for which thank you!

  61. Enjoyed completing this one — second in a row. Seemed closer to Monday difficulty than Vulcan’s recent offerings, but still chewier that I’d expect. Great surfaces today. Favourites probably 10a ALARMS and 17a FINESPUN

    For 25a PROMISED, I was trying PRIMESOD, which doesn’t seem to exist!

    I don’t usually like the vagueness in a clue like 12d ARBITRATOR, but this one worked really well somehow

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