Guardian 29,750 / Enigmatist

151 comments on “Guardian 29,750 / Enigmatist”

1. Can’t help, Eileen. I’ve pretty much given up commenting here, but wanted to say congrats to anyone who completed and parsed all of this. I found it joyless like most of Enigmatist’s stuff.

2. Thanks Enigmatist and Eileen
   You have made me feel a bit better, Eileen. I filled in the grid, but only fully parsed GARLIC (which clue I didn’t like), BIRD SPIDER, NAYS, and CHASTE.

3. I’m afraid I can’t do any better than you Eileen. This was quite unfathomable in places, but the ones I could parse were damn clever. And I suspect the ones I couldn’t parse were even damn cleverer… I look forward to further elucidation from others. Many thanks Eileen for undertaking an unenviable task, and thanks to Enigmatist for a thorough beating up.

4. 20d – T (20 in the alphabet) + (wit)H + “IS”
   And for 18 across you have to include the.enumeration in the clue.

5. Sorry, I should also have thanked Eileen and Enigmatist for a challenging (if that’s the right word l start to the day.

6. We gave up with only a handful in. Too hard, come back tomorrow. Thanks for the valiant effort on the blog!

7. Thanks, DuncT!! I very nearly got there with 20dn [wit]H IS – and 18ac is so simple when you see it. I love it now!

8. HYDROGEN SULPHIDE – HS? H(onking) S(mell) at source?

9. One more – in 15 EROS is a near Earth asteroid
   Crispy – it’s HHS, you also need the “horrible”

10. H2S

11. 22, 24 The first letter of horrible honking smell are HHS, and H2S is the chemical formula for hydrogen sulphide.

    In 18, neither expression is bracketed with ages, I guess.

    Carmen in a theatre would be a night at the opera, which is also a Queen album (Freddie Mercury sang for Queen).

    Can’t help with any others, I fear.

12. Well done, Crispy – I’m glad you didn’t give up completely! 😉
    and thanks again, DuncT!

13. Crispy – I read it as HHS (Horrible Honking Smell) ie H2S. The whole thing is &lit

14. Thanks Andy @11. I knew I wasn’t quite right

15. ANIGHT AT THE OPERA
    Carmen=AA (automobile association), (IN TOP THEATRE)* playing is inspired (by AA)
    Mercury=HG seen to rise in it–GH in the above.

    CAD

    AT THE READY
    Rather=A TAD, part of army=THE RE, wary forgetting conflict=Y
    THERE in ATADY

    AEROSAT
    A+EROS+AT(with the coordinates of)

16. 15A: AEROSAT – A – Eros (near Earth Satellite) – AT (with the corrdinates of, ie in teh same place. AEROSAT is a communications satellite

17. (correction – Near Earth Asteroid).
    Huge thanks to Eileen – does anyone else feel it’s more fun when the blogger doesn’t preach answers from on high, but involves us mortals in reaching a shared understanding?

18. H2S
    HHS is already mentioned. Briefly HH=H2, I think.
    CAD.

    MISTAKEN IDENTITY
    ill-directed=MIS TAKEN
    one’s name and number=IDENTITY
    CAD

    Sorry Eileen. Unable to see what is exactly left to be parsed as I have come in a bit late. Please bear with me if I have repeated something.

19. I’ve been overtaken by too many helpers (huge thanks!) – I’ll give it a break for a few minutes to catch up!

20. Nearest I can get with MISTAKEN IDENTITY is M IS (man is= man’s) KEN (name, or maybe man’s name) ID (number or maybe name and number) ENTITY (being), clue as definition

21. Thanks KVa@15! I stand down on the opera very clever clue!

22. 4/5D: A NIGHT AT THE OPERA is an album (followed by ‘A Day at the Races’) from the rock band Queen, of which Freddie Mercury was the lead vocalist, so &lit.

23. 4,5, after much bemused staring, is AA (Carmen, Automobile Association) around anagram of ‘in top theatre’ with Hg (periodic table Mercury) rising in it, giving an impressive &lit solution for the Queen album of that name.

24. I saw the name and didn’t bother given that I’m struggling with a few Listeners at the moment and life is too short. Surely this would be better as a Prize where you have a week to leave it and come back to it.

25. miserableoldhack@20
    MISTAKEN IDENTITY
    You are on the right track, I think. I was wrong.
    M IS TAKE(name?) N(number), IDENTITY (being)
    CAD , of course.

26. Sorry KVa, I understand the elements of 4,5d (thanks to your explanation) but not how wordplay and def combine. Is Mercury both Freddie and HG? Is Carmen the Night At The Opera or AA?

27. Tough workout indeed. I always struggle with word orders like ‘new university appointee’s mislaid’, which doesn’t really seem all that natural a way to clue ‘do(n)’. Thank you Eileen for a heroic effort with the blog.

28. I am full of admiration for our blogger and for those clever souls who have contributed explanations for those that escaped her. I was absolutely taken to the cleaners with this one. A single correct solution – MAKE DO – before I turned to Google to be reminded of the PETERLOO MASSACRE. That enabled GARLIC and AT HOME and there I remained. Even having returned after – thank Goodness – solving Phi in the Indy, nothing else dropped so I came here for elucidation. Some exceedingly clever clues – AGE BRACKETS and A NIGHT AT THE OPERA are the standouts for me – but this is way beyond my pay grade as a solver.

    A NIGHT AT THE OPERA was Queen’s fourth album and included Bohemian Rhapsody so I guess it is THE album that saw Freddie Mercury rise to prominence. Which is just what the clue tells us in that second phrase.

    Thanks Eileen and (I think) Enigmatist

29. Reptilian@26
    A N A T OPERA
    The whole clue acts as the def. Please see Flavia@22 and The Other Mark@23.

30. Joyless is the apt word I think. If the most experienced solvers are struggling to parse many clues, maybe the editor needs to consider whether the puzzle is too severe? It would be boring if we weren’t defeated every now and then, but a total rout seems unfair.
    (Yes, I gave up halfway!)

31. me@25 contd
    MISTAKEN IDENTITY
    Could it be just
    One man’s name and number=ID
    being=IDENTITY
    ill-directed
    MIS-TAKEN

    I stop here. Forgive my multiple posts. Sorry.

32. Why is hippocampus fish? So relieved to see so many bemused by this puzzle, it makes me feel less stupid

33. Could someone explain AGE BRACKETS explicitly, please? I can take nothing from hints so far.

34. KVa @18 and 31 – please don’t worry: you’ve been a huge help. What I’ve found rather irritating in the past is a series of comments like ‘I agree with X’s parsing’, with no other contribution. That’s what I meant by repetition.

    John W @32 – please see the link I gave in the blog.

35. What’s CAD?

36. How quickly I went from ‘goody its an Enigmatist’ to ‘crumbs – its an Enigmatist at his most difficult’

    I did solve 19d, then 25a and 11a and after quite a lot of staring and muttering decided that, as I have quite a busy day today, I’d see what others thought as I didn’t think I was going to get much further.

    Thanks to Eileen – not one I’d have wanted to blog, people would have been waiting a long time for elucidation.

37. James @33 The definition is in effect the enumeration (3-8), which represents AGE BRACKETS from which under-2s and 9s and over would be excluded.

38. James @33, (3-8) is doing more than telling you the number of letters in the solution, it’s also telling you the ‘age-brackets’ that are excluded by the wordplay.

    Lizzie @35 Clue As Definition

39. Thanks Eileen and so many for help. Still don’t get AGE-BRACKETS though 🙁

40. I parsed it as MISTA (slang for mister) KEN for one man and then name and number as IDENTITY. A NIGHT AT THE OPERA is a brilliant &lit.

    Ta Enigmatist & Eileen especially.

41. Sheer bloody-mindedness got me through to a completed grid but with lots unparsed (Eileen, I feel your pain!) and no sense of achievement – or, indeed. enjoyment. Oh well…

42. Congratulations Eileen and the helpers in this stream! Jolly glad I didn’t have to blog this … completed it but with no idea of half of the parsing. And even with the explanations I’m struggling with some – including hippocampus …

43. Thanks @37,38. Still can’t understand the sense of the clue. (3-8) can be an age bracket, singular, so can’t be referred to by ‘these’. 0-2 and 9+ might be excluded from (3-8) but aren’t excluded from age brackets. Obvious answer, though, unlike most of the others.

44. I simply got bored with this puzzle, bunging in words that fitted with no idea of the (convoluted) parsing. Eventually I gave up.

45. The only things that made this possible for me were that many of the straight definitions, once identified, gave relatively obvious answers, and misuse of the check function on the on-line version. A joyless affair indeed.

46. James@43
    AGE-BRACKETS
    I think you have a point.
    (3-8) is a whimsical def. Age range within the brackets—-AGE-BRACKETS
    I think ‘these’=AGE -BRACKETS (not (3-8))
    There are two AGE-BRACKETS mentioned in the clue. That part can act as the def as well.
    A stretch? Sorry.

47. A hippocampus is a sea horse

48. Prospero@42 HIPPOCAMPUS is another name for the seahorse – a type of fish

    sorry Shirley – you beat me to it

49. Managed to get one clue (GARLIC) on the first pass, but have to get ready for a trip so decided not to torture myself. On reviewing the answers I have to say I’m glad I didn’t bother.

50. After last week’s successes this week has been almost a total bust, finishing with this one which was – to me as a newish solver – essentially impossible (GARLIC and CHASTE being the only ones in before panic took over). Ah well. It was always going to be too good to last 🙂

51. On google eros is a near earth asteroid

52. Still cannot fathom some of the answers even after reading the submissions herein, I think I was extremely lucky in completing this one!
    Write-ins helped, 4/5 & 6/10 & 13/14. 4/5was my second queen album, 13/14 being a Mancunian its well known event, year given too, 6/10 came tripping neatly off the keyboard because it matched the crossers I had.

53. Well, I bunged them all in, mostly from definitions and vague intuition, and with liberal use of the check button but I couldn’t parse half of them. I think playing Wordle helps me to visualise words or word fragments but l couldn’t make much sense of THIS crossword. I don’t even think it could be considered a good Prize offering. I’ll go through the alphabet sooner than leave a puzzle unfinished and timewise THIS took no longer than usual but the effort produced zero satisfaction and not a single smile or chuckle on a Friday morning. No worries, thanks Enigmatist and thanks to Eileen and other contributors for your support 😁

54. AlanC @40, I also wondered about MISTA KEN – I was possibly thinking of Mistah Kurtz – for one man’s name. But there’s no indication of slang being used, so I’m not sure.
    KVa @31, you may well be right about MIS-TAKEN for ill-directed. I’m sticking with ENTITY for being, though, and ID for one man’s name and number, as you suggest.
    I guess the mildly annoying thing about some of these clues is to arrive – finally! – at an arguably complete parsing and yet still not be certain that it’s what the setter was trying to point you at.

55. Kudos to all those who tackled and completed this. Not for me. I soon hit the Reveal button after only managing NAYS, appropriately enough. For the learning process. Even then needed Eileen’s ever patient analysis for far too many. Well above my pay grade. Haven’t read the blog today as I’m in a rush to do other things…

56. Well done to Enigmatist for setting such a difficult puzzle, only taken a few dozen comments from a number of experienced setters to get the parsing nailed down.

    So very clever, we’re all really proud of you.

57. And I thought Paul was bad. To be fair, I’ve struggled through a few of his but Enigmatist is on a higher level of obscurity. Completed but did not enjoy.

58. I’ve made several attempts at writing a summary but I’ve had a number of interruptions, including a half-hour phone call, with more comments piling up in the meantime!

    When I was invited to join the blogging team, all those years ago, I asked, ‘What happens if ever I can’t do the puzzle?’ The answer was something like, ‘We’ll all help you.’ I’ve always made a point of emphasising that bloggers are not infallible experts but simply the person who’s in the chair for that particular day. I’ve never been afraid of asking for help and it’s always been forthcoming – but I don’t think ever on the same scale as today! It’s been reassuring to know that others have struggled, too but I think, with all the various contributions, all my failures have now been covered in one way or another – so huge thanks to everyone!! I’d just like to say, ‘Hear, hear’ to Tim C @24! I think I might have made a better job of it with more time and breaks in between.

    I’m now adding AGE-BRACKETS and HYDROGEN SULPHIDE to my favourites. Thanks again to Enigmatist.

59. Well done to all solvers who finished this.
    I didn’t enjoy it because I failed to solve any clues at all (I think that’s a first for me).

60. So many possibilities for MISTAKEN IDENTITY. I think it parses as an &Lit almost in reverse. One man’s name and number is their ID; being is ENTITY; and it is all ill-directed – MISTAKEN.

61. The Rev, AKA Araucaria
    Often made cruciverbalists warier
    But when all’s said and done
    His clues were great fun
    And Enigmatist’s always much scarier

62. Thanks, Mitz! 😉

63. Nice one, Mitz.
    And enormous thanks to Eileen and the willing helpers who made sense of the eleven I couldn’t parse.
    I’m not sure if anyone’s already pointed out an additional subtlety in the clue for age brackets: “Birth to 2-year-old” doesn’t have a specific starting age and “9+-year old” doesn’t have a finishing age, so neither really qualify as brackets.

64. You’re welcome Eileen @58. I think I’ve just about finished Phi’s Listener 4874 (all will be revealed tomorrow) and my brain is hurting so I’m off to bed to let the magic of sleep do its repair work. 🙂

65. Thanks Eileen and Enigmatist.

    Re 20d:

    I took the _ as Morse code for T plus the rest. That leaves ‘What’s at #20’ (in the grid) as the definition.

66. I was thoroughly defeated, and even after reading the explanations here I still don’t get several. Among others, I can only admire those who got AA from Carmen or found H2S and knew it was hydrogen sulphide, both of which combined parsings far too esoteric for my skill and general knowledge I did not have.

    I would not describe this as a miserable experience as some have done, but only because I withdrew before I reached that point.

67. Thoroughly disliked this offering. Enigmatist now joins my list (of one) of don’t even bother

68. Eileen@0 – I certainly wouldn’t wish to be confronted by this level of Enigmatist first thing on a Friday knowing the task you unflinchingly undergo on our behalf. (Though perhaps there was, understandably, a little flinching to be had today!) Even by Enigmatist’s standards I’d describe this as not unlike unravelling an obstinate knot of earphone leads made from barbed wire! I was relieved (though not satisfied) to complete it, with a few ‘reveals’ which I never allow myself to use otherwise, and a good handful unparsed! I’m not sure whether I feel humbled … or humiliated!

    But I’m certainly in awe of your dedication (and courage!) … as ever!

    KVa, DuncT et al@various – Bless you, kind colleagues, where would we have been in 224?!

    There was much pleasure to be had from the unravelling here – more than from my ‘solve’

    But having finally absorbed it all, what a wonderful creation this was – perhaps more apt for a Prize, I thought, as some clues needed (and deserved) to be slept on

    AGE BRACKETS, HYDROGEN SULPHIDE and A NIGHT AT THE OPERA were delightful

    (Just a thought – A NIGHT AT THE OPERA is a fabulous &littish with a triple definition: “Carmen playing in top theatre”, “Mercury seen to rise in it” (the Freddie Mercury/Queen allusion others have explained) and “inspired” a self-referential description of the clue itself!!)

    A very smart puzzle which rewards perseverance – even after the event… One to be savoured…

    Huge thanks to Enigmatist, Eileen and fellow fifteensquarers

69. Thanks Eileen.
    Waking up to an Enigmatist to blog must be a harrowing experience.
    I’m from the growing band who don’t even attempt an Enigmatist puzzle.

70. Well, I had a go, and sorted out a few from definitions and A NIGHT AT THE OPERA from the enumeration, but Enigmatist is out of my league. On the other hand, it’s always good to find that Eileen is on duty – the collective effort is more fun than an authoritative pronouncement from on high.

71. A suitably difficult end to an unrelentingly difficult week. I got the top half filled in and a few below that, but less down to skill and more like bumping into things and seeing what stuck with the help of the check button, word wizard etc.

72. I feel like I’m sitting at the grown-up’s table. And I’m finding their fare pretty indigestible. I’ve been congratulating myself for completing Paul’s puzzles lately but I’m clearly not ready for Enigmatist. Thanks Eileen.

73. A shudder when I saw the setter’s name but I thought I would give it a go. I solved a few in the SW corner and then gave up. I echo the thought that this should have been in the Prize slot. There are some really good clues here, if the parsing is explained to you, and I particularly liked AGE-BRACKETS, very clever!

    Thanks Eileen for the hard work and Enigmatist for fooling many of us.

    PS The AI response to ‘Is hippocampus a fish’ is: No, a hippocampus is not a fish… The seahorse, a real fish, is also named Hippocampus.

74. I’m quite pleased that this wasn’t in the Prize slot, as I was unsure about several of my “solutions”, and so used the Check button.

75. As someone (i believe Araucaria) once said, good crossword setting is the art of losing gracefully. A lesson Enigmatist (and sometimes Paul) forget or never learned.

76. Got there in the end, but only with a liberal amount of word-search and guessing, and it was not much fun either. I was very grateful to read Eileen’s comments and those of the posters before me, to see I was not alone. Last one to be figured out (hours after entry) was AT THE READY (misdirected myself because the letters in “rather” were almost all in the answer).

77. I think that The Guardian should refund all of us the time it took each of us to (fail to) do this. The word ‘cheerless’ doesn’t do justice to the experience

78. Damn I miss James Brydon 😞

79. [Not only this puzzle – today’s Sudoku and Suguru also seem to be unusually difficult!]

80. I spent too much time on this and mostly it just made me miserable when I’m laid up after an operation and the daily crossword is more of a crutch to rely on than usual.
    I see that the 8,8 answers are valid … but in a grid like this I think it’s unreasonable. 🙁
    Though I except Peterloo Massacre from this grumble – only because I got it with no checkers…

81. Exactly as POC @49 says. Life is just too short for this.

82. Chemistry teacher here: Hydrogen SulFide please. No, it’s not “American”, it’s the IUPAC spelling and has been for decades. So that’s my excuse for finding this far too difficult for me today 🙂

83. After my solitary uphill struggle against Enigmatist this morning I’m finding serious consolation watching today’s Tour de France stage: the first individual time trial up a category 1 climb in, I think, the last 30 years. Nice to see 171 other poor sods in the same boat*.
    * To mix a metaphor, of course.

84. MisterG @82
    There is a difference of opinion on when IUPAC decided on the sulfur spelling – 1971 or 1990 depending on source, apparently – but the Royal Society of Chemistry only accepted it in 1992, so not a lot of decades ago.
    Mind you, even reputable scientific publications – New Scientist for example – habitually ignore IUPAC names. “Acetic acid” turns up much more frequently than ethanoic acid, for example.

85. After completing every puzzle this week I got 4 in this before giving up. Nothing like an Enigmatist puzzle to keep your ego in check.

    On the plus side the blog gets a good read.

    Thanks Eileen and Enigmatist.

86. Wow that was tough – I had nothing after 30 minutes but managed to dredge 13D from somewhere and then 4D clicked – was then able to chip away and finally finished but with several not parsed – thanks to Eileen and everyone for the explanations! For what it’s worth, I interpreted the #20 in 20D as a paradoxical self-reference – the letter in the cell marked 20 is the letter T, but you need to have the answer before you know this! Of course, T being the 20th letter of the alphabet makes much more sense 🙂 Apropos of nothing, there was an early radar system called H2S. Apocryphally, this was coined after the “stink” caused by misunderstandings between the scientific advisor, Lord Cherwell, and the project scientists. Thanks to Enigmatist – what a challenge!

87. The most unsatisfying and annoying cryptic I’ve ever laid eyes on.
    Thanks Eileen, for having a ton more patience and tolerance than I.

88. I remember finding Enigmatist difficult in the past, but this was a whole other level. I’m with those who found it unsatisfying.

    I managed to finish, despite having 12 clues completely unparsed, and some more only partially parsed. My unparsed list overlaps heavily with Eileen’s which made me feel a bit better.

    After reading the blog and all the comments, I think I just about understand all of the clues now.

89. Carmen for AA? What kind of sexist nonsense is this?!

90. Kelly @ 89

    Split Carmen to Car men and you get A(utomobile) A(ssociation).

    It’s been a crossword trope for years, nothing sexist about it whatsoever.

91. I like Enigmatist and don’t begrudge him his position at the top of the difficulty ladder but I’m not sure he really had his mojo working here. What is “briefly” doing in the Hydrogen Sulphide clue? And it’s H2S, not HHS. Doesn’t quite work for me. Some things like the double &lit for the queen album seem more for an audience of setters than solvers – and “Mercury seen to rise in it” doesn’t really define the album anyway, he just sang on it.

    I think the problem is the combination of difficult tricky-to-parse clues, with obscure words, with a fair peppering of jokey groaners (that aren’t obvious straight away) that makes it feel a bit unfair. Any two out of the three is probably fine but all of them at once is a bit Nightmare Mode.

    That said, I did solve two thirds of it, and I enjoyed HIPPOCAMPUS and AGE-BRACKETS and BIRD-SPIDER. Thanks to everyone involved of course.

92. I cane to this rather late. And it was very tough. I had parsing challenges like many of us.
    But, if you’ll forgive me, one more go at MISTAKEN IDENTITY…
    So One man’s name =A KEN. Number = ID. Being = ENTITY as many have said.
    MIST is an acronym for Medical Illness Simulating Trauma (used by amulance crew amongst others, I gather) – so AKEN IDENTITY is ‘directed’ – or preceded by MIST (which at a stretch can mean ‘ill’).
    Will that do?

93. Digger @91
    I didn’t parse HYDROGEN SULPHIDE at the time, but I think the “briefly” is because the wordplay gives H2S rather than the full answer.

94. Hornbeam @ 92 I think you’ve got there!

    More grumbling from me, though. In a clue that difficult (five parts, obscure acronym MIST, “directed” dodgily meaning “at the beginning”) Ken shouldn’t just be “man’s name”. “Man’s name” with no other guidance, if used at all, ought to be something stereotypically generic like Bob, Bill, Fred, Dave, Tom, Dick or Harry.

95. Picaroon clued AA as ‘carmen’ on 10 June 2020 (no. 28156), and then clued RAC as that on 8 July 2024 (no.29429). It has been done before! It fooled me first time round but I spotted it straight away this time.

96. A Night at The Opera is also a joyful Marx Brothers film. No-one mentioned this. I suppose I’m showing my age….

97. For the first time in a while, I gave up without trying most of this, and the blog doesn’t make me sorry I did. AT THAT was excellent particularly when I realized how “too” was meant. For the rest, too much obscurity and convolution for me.

    About MISTAKEN IDENTITY–could “MIST” be the old form of “missed” recorded in the OED, hence “ill-directed”? I am grasping at straws here, but…

    Eileen, it looks like there’s a typo in 3d–the answer is STANDS TO.

    Thanks to Eileen and the commenters.

98. CVM @96 Not at all. If I ever knew that ANATO was the title of a Queen album, which I probably did, my conscious mind could not retrieve it at 4.00 in the morning, so 4, 5 was a bung and shrug as I could not work out any connection to the Marx Brothers. But I gather that a subsequent Queen album was ‘A Day at the Races’, another Marx Brothers film, so the brothers were obviously in Queen’s mind as well.

99. I actually enjoyed this but in a very different way to most other setters. Having done a few Enigmatists now I’m starting to spot some of his regular tricks and I just treat the exercise as a learning experience. He’s fiendishly good at hiding definitions and having virtually no knowledge of chemistry the wordplay to H2S was beyond my ken but I biffed the solution in from the crossers

    Cheers E&E

100. SImon S @90 at the risk of mansplaining, I think the issue may be that the AA presumably employs women too?

101. CVM & Balfour ANATO was my FOI. When I saw the reversed Hg I thought of a word like night and the film suggested the answer. Never thought of Queen at all.

102. Balfour@98 [Ivie Anderson sang All God’s Chillun in A Day at the Races. She recorded it with Duke, but contrary to rumour he had nothing to do with the soundtrack.]

103. mattw @97 – thank you. For the sake of the archive, I’ll amend the typo now. I can’t believe I got away with it for so long.

104. I finished this and had parsed a fair bit. My blanks matched up with Eileen’s quite closely and I did have inklings elsewhere. I solved very few from the wordplay but retroparsed where possible. Funny that T = 20 has come up again so soon and the spiders are never ending this summer!

     I haven’t read all the comments as Eileen’s instructions clearly haven’t been followed. I’m not ploughing through 100! 😄

     Thanks to setter, blogger and erudite commenters.

105. Martin @ 104

     Please see my comment @34 this morning. 😉

106. Zoot @101,102 ANATO was, I think, my FOI too, because if you have a complex enumeration like that with a three-letter word in it, it is a fair guess that it will be ‘and’ or ‘the’. So I projected THE into the three-letter slot to see what might follow and the solution fell into place. I’m afraid my chemical symbols are not up to scratch. Meanwhile, thanks for the heads-up on ADATR. One of my favourite films is ‘Anatomy of a Murder’, in which Duke’s is present not only in the score but when he appears in person with some of his musicians as ‘Pie-Eye’.

107. As the commenting day draws to a close, can I just express my surprise at the amount of hostility and downright hatred directed at the puzzle and the setter, Yes, it was very difficult – I found it very difficult and there were some gaps in my parsing – but it was a legitimate challenge where, for me, real challenges are hard to come by, and the fact that some commenters could not solve it may be exasperating, but really …! Chill out, people. ‘They don’t like it up ’em, Captain Mainwaring’ comes to mind.

108. Balfour @106 [ I’ve got some of the music from Anatomy. Until the pandemic put an end to it I had an Ellington repertory band and we did a couple of the numbers.
     Have you seen Paris Blues. Duke did the score and appears as does Pops. Paul G dubs the tenor parts. It’s on YouTube.

109. Balfour @107. Glad you enjoyed it. A large number of us didn’t, and have just as much right to say so.

110. I’m with Balfour @ 107

     Just because you failed to complete it / found it hard / found it impossible is no reason to vilify the setter

     If he’s above your pay grade, accept it and move on

     Or tackle the challenge, persevere, and look to improve your skills

111. I didn’t say I enjoyed it, Crispy, but this elusive thing called ‘enjoyment’ that folks say they get from crosswords eludes me. I gain satisfaction from solving them, and I l welcome the mental challenge, but enjoyment …? I go elsewhere for that. Do people find going ti the gym enjoyable?

112. Thanks Eileen and others for the parsing.
     I had to do this in chunks of 2-3 clues as they took so long – with much GK checking – and quite a few from enumeration (although I parsed AGE-BRACKETS!)
     Tough but mainly worth it.

113. Took me over half an hour to get my first entry, 4d/5d, and I managed to parse it. Took me about another hour to complete it, using every external aid I could think of. Had a couple of guess and checks along the way, which incidentally were correct, and I failed to fully parse 6a/10a, 15a, 18a, 13d, 13d/14d, 20d. No complaints from me about the difficulty level. I’ve attempted hundreds of JH’s puzzles over many years, and I’ve failed to complete lots of them, but I would never moan about the fairness of them.

114. God knows how I finished it, and I certainly didn’t parse some of the trickiest ones, but it’s not half satisfying to get it done in the end.
     Then came here to see what the rest of you made of it, and was relieved to discover it wasn’t just me who struggled.
     After ANATO I was looking for other Marx Brothers references, but alas nothing.

115. I’ve just managed to delete a comment I posted, saying that it’s almost (early) bedtime for me – I lost some sleep last night 😉 – but wanted to say that it’s good to be ending on a more positive note, thanks to Balfour @107, Simon S @110, NNI @113 and Harpo Speaks @114.

     Renewed thanks to all, including JH. 😉

116. I don’t regard the comments @ 107 ‘for me, real challenges are hard to come by’ and @100 ‘If he’s above your pay grade, accept it’ as particularly positive or encouraging.

117. I had a friend who used to say to poor humour, ‘oh, I get it, it’s like a joke only not funny.’ Likewise, this is like a crossword only not fun. Flavia @116, the gentle world of crosswords has many willy wavers. Ignore them!

118. The sort of cryptic that makes me think… why do I bother? Well done and respect to anyone who enjoyed this.

119. The sort of crossword that makes me think… this is why I bother. Well done and respect to setter and blogger and everyone in the 225 village who chipped in to unravel the enigmas (I certainly couldn’t do so myself!)

120. I really struggled with this one, had to reveal a couple to get me anywhere near completion, But got there after one more reveal AEROSAT. I enjoy Enigmatist – a real challenge, but I’m retired and have all day to think about it! Some of the explanations on here have cleared the remaining fog.

121. My trouble started with “at that” meaning too or excessive. I don’t think I have ever heard or read someone use that term.
     Maybe it is an age or location difference? After that it was mostly incomprehensible to me.
     Good to see the combined skills of everyone here performing the autopsy.
     Doctor Estimating won this round.

122. Re 121: AT THAT = too in the sense of ‘also’ rather than excessive, but I agree it’s a stretch.

123. Balfour @111. Just because you don’t get enjoyment from crosswords, don’t have a go at those who do. And, yes – when I used to go to the gym, I enjoyed it

124. Had I completed and parsed every clue then I’d no doubt have said that this was a Brilliant Challenge, or words to that effect.

     However, I had to reveal THIS to unlock that corner, and had several unparsed, so was left without the completist’s satisfaction.

     Thanks to all, and hats off to DuncT in particular.

125. Crispy @123
     I enjoy doing crosswords whilst at the gym.
     Is this allowed do you think? Or should I be taking both more seriously?!

     This crossword was way too hard for me. And I’m usually quite good at them. I did find that frustrating, but it’s only one day and only a crossword that you can do for free on a website if you want, so I’m not going to let it affect me too much.

     Anyway, off to try the prize now. Hopefully I’ll get more than 1 answer today.

126. Gwd @225! Abso-flipping-lutely it’s allowed. Good on yer!

127. I ended up chucking all the vowels in and guessing the words, checking and if correct try and parse them maybe fully parsed 50% but got all the words. By hook or by crook.

128. Crackers @ 121
     Google gives lots of examples: “The meal wasn’t very good, and quite expensive at that.”

129. Lord, Crispy, here you are still banging an about this. Don’t you feel that you have, in the midst your indignation, rather lost the point of my original comment, which was about the degree of vilification directed at the crossword and the setter by those who failed to enjoy or to solve it? Or do you think that the imperative of your enjoyment legitimises that?

130. I was relishing this new Enigmatist offering and yes, while exceedingly difficult, I did get a lot of enjoyment from being flummoxed. 18A was deviousness personified.

     Also agree with @Simon S above – why is it necessary to vilify your opponent (in this case the setter)? Take the loss, rather, and store the knowledge gained so that you’re more prepared for the next battle.

131. I have just done this and found it as difficult as others have but I agree wholeheartedly with Simon S and Mudge. I find easy crosswords too dull and boring to bother with but don’t complain about them as there is room for all abilities in our wonderful crossword world. You know that this setter is challenging in all his guises and many people (like me) enjoy his challenge. Also it is possible to learn how to read his clues. During lockdown I downloaded dozens of his offerings and studied his fiendish methods especially his clever hiding of the definition words so that they are easily overlooked e.g. ‘in’ at 25 ac.
     Forgot to thank slogger and better!

132. I’ve seen 25ac turned around as “Understand force, in short”. (6)

133. Sunday morning and I’ve just finished this puzzle, though with many unparsed.
     Wow!
     (And, as someone else said, Friday’s Sudoku was difficult too).

134. Interesting that some people described this as ‘joyless’. I was frustrated with myself for not getting anywhere fast until, with a few filled in, I realised I couldn’t parse words I’d guessed correctly. At that point I kind of resign to accepting it’s just above my level which means reading the explanations here will improve me in the same way as learning a new word or meaning does. The meta clue to AGE BRACKETS is brilliant.

135. Record number of comments here
     I think I said on the Graun site. Something like”good luck to the blogger”
     As for me I saw Chaste and garlic and pretty soon saw the massacre which has come up before
     As for Queen I saw Mercury and Carmen and immediately got it from the enumeration.
     That put wind in my sails,bearing in mind I try and tilt the axis of the brain o
     For JH
     Very negative reaction on Graun thread
     Shame.Thanks Eileen and E

136. I think the nut was turned just a little bit too tight for me to enjoy this one. I missed the joyful ‘aha!’ feeling that I normally get for the handful of clues that I did solve. There were a few artfully hidden definitions that I did enjoy.

     The fact that no one can agree on the parsing for 6/10 MISTAKEN IDENTITY tells me that that clue was not well constructed. If someone can provide a parsing that does ‘click’ into place, then I will gladly change my opinion.

     I think there’s been a few too many digs at other posters on this comment thread. To make lemonade from these lemons, my view is that a crossword like this invites us to meditate on the role of enjoyment and satisfaction in our shared hobby. What makes a crossword pleasing to the solver (and also to the failed solver, like myself)? This is an old question with many answers.

     I’m reminded of a mathematics textbook that I read many decades ago. Mathematics can be written verbosely or sparsely. Often there is a crisp clarity and elegance to the sparse form. It reveals just what you need to know (where the “you” is assumed to be a reader with a certain level of experience; there is no universal calibration). But it is possible to go too far. This particular textbook (my friends and I felt) went just slightly too far. Beautiful compact arguments were compressed maybe 5% more than they needed to be, to the point of becoming obscure. Normally the reader has the responsibility of unpacking the meaning of what is written. This felt more like decrypting something deliberately unhelpfully hidden, rather than unpacking something carefully and lovingly stored for future use.

     It’s not about difficulty. It’s about judging when something is ‘just right’ for its difficulty level. I think this crossword was like that textbook: masterfully and brilliantly constructed but 5% too tight. That is my explanation for why so many people didn’t enjoy it.

     Digger @91 expresses it very well.

137. The problem with 18ac for we Yanks is that we call those “parentheses.” To us, “brackets” look like this: [ ].

138. Well, it‘s Sunday and have finally finished this with a great many unparsed,and a lot of cheating using a word finder!
     I usually like Enigmatist but I think he over egged this one and so spoilt a great many fine clues. For example, the (3-8) AGE BRACKETS clue needed rewording certainly as I’m still not sure how one should read it to make sense, but also, because it is such a quirky clue, far better to make it as obvious as possible by saying eg “under 3s and over 8s) because then when the light finally dawns it does so with a great big flash , staring you in the face all the time, something solvers love.
     Also, most setters abide by standard English word order and would NEVER say ‘new university appointee mislaid’ to mean the other way round . But some do, and I have a black list that I’m afraid Enigmatist is on! It spoils things – you just groan – and I’m quite sure E does not need to do it and I wish he wouldn’t.
     But many thanks and I really look forward to his next. Also, mega-congrats to Eileen – surely everybody’s favourite blogger and never afraid to say when she’s stuck!

139. It took me a few hours on and off, but I did finish this and parsed all but two (17A, 25A) neither of which seems unfair in hindsight.

     I noticed fairly quickly that the age ranges in 18A were exactly those not covered by (3-8) but it took me much longer to be sure that that was no coincidence.

     Anyway I enjoyed this: it did slowly reward my stubbornness.

140. This was hard & at times a bit unsatisfying. “Of course!” is more satisfying than, “I suppose it must be.” But some of the clues were inspired & I know what to expect when I see this compiler’s name. I’ve been doing crosswords for 25 years or so & I appreciate it when I get one hard enough to make me wonder if I’m going to finish it.

141. Canthusus @17: I don’t think that the bloggers ever preach from on high, nor do they consider themselves superior to us ‘mere mortals’. I find your comment most strange, and am wondering about the chip on your shoulder.

142. George@139
     Can you tell me how you parsed 6,10, please? No-one else has done it satisfactorily so far.

143. Re the highly praised 18 across. Age brackets is not a hyphenated phrase as far as I am aware. Thus the enumeration should be (3,8) and not (3-8), and so would not “read” as three to eight. As written it seems like a clue wanting to be clever.

144. Pino@142: 6A/10A should have been on my unparsed list too. (As should 9A because I didn’t know “cete”.) Sorry to disappoint you!

145. With so many ‘experts’ offering different opinions, can we call on the compiler to elucidate ?

146. HALFWITS@145
     He can be found at enigmatistelgar.bsky.social by anyone prepared to sign up to Bluesky.

147. I came here to find a definitive parsing of MISTAKEN IDENTITY and am none the wiser, really!

148. Just finished, took me over a week!

149. Hadrian@148. I didn’t start it until 29th July, so it’s only taken me about 24 hours, but I did have some help from my brother who “accidentally” glimpsed a bit of the blog, and in the end I guessed ACROSAT at 15a so was one letter out. Failed to parse those that most others failed on, plus one or two more.

     Gibrara@136 and Caroline @138 (and a few others) have touched on what I feel is the problem with crosswords like this. All the cleverness is on the setter’s side, and he hasn’t left much room for some of us to exploit our own cleverness to enhance our enjoyment.

     When completing an answer in a cryptic crossword, we should be confident that it is right, happy that we’ve solved it, and amused at how we were misled. Too many of these resulted in, “It can’t be that, can it? I suppose it must be. Why did it have to be so obscure?”

     I’ve met John (Enigmatist) a couple of times and he seems like a really nice guy, and I can imagine him being upset that so many of us didn’t see what he was getting at, and failed to get much pleasure from his effort to amuse us. He doesn’t deserve the calumny, though.

     Thanks to Eileen for involving the community like you always do – but the clues you couldn’t parse must be the longest list ever! (No fault of yours, of course. 😁)

150. Pretty grim. I got off to a great start, completing the first two down columns right away, and thought I was on my way. But I only solved two more in total after that. Even when I revealed the answers I didn’t understand many of them. Relieved to see that many others, even our esteemed blogger, struggled, too

151. 18 across: “Birth to 2-year-old” could be interpreted as above zero, and “9+-year-old groups” as above 9 – the positions of the ( ) brackets on a computer keyboard. Does that help? I still can’t elegantly wrap up the clue, though.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.