Guardian 29,764 – Harpo

91 comments on “Guardian 29,764 – Harpo”

1. Thanks Harpo and Andrew
   Quick, but very pleasant. I didn’t parse ENCYLOPEDIA.
   I wonder how many solvers will remember Michael Foot?
   Chuckled at ASSESSES, but isn’t it contrary to the Guardian style guide (actor rather than actress for female performer, for instance)?

2. I found this relatively straightforward for a Harpo, but decidedly tricky for a Monday, expertly untangled by our blogger. Couple of minor points: 7d I think is L[eft] D[aughter] W[ith] in O (love) Oman. 19d anagram fodder is FREE (not fine) FELT DIRE. Thanks Harpo and Andrew

3. I started out well with some of the excellent anagrams going in first and giving me a good foothold. However the rest of it was very stubborn and for me this was a tricky start to the week. I completed it but perhaps due to my initial expectations it felt like a bit of a slog.

4. Not only do I remember Michael Foot, I remember the (in)famous duffle coat which was the subject of scruffiness accusations/ general criticism.

   Not only were the 6 + 6’s nice symmetries. They were all splendid alliterations. Great stuff.

   Thank you Harpo and Andrew.

5. UK solvers (especially those who remember Michael Foot) will recognise 3-2-1 as a UK TV game show of the past. Probably longer ago than I wanted to know.

6. Seeing 22d I immediately thought, ah ha, ‘Sade’, being Slade without the l for left, and was dicombobulated to find the answer was 5 letters not 4. Got the correct answer in the end. Enjoyed the challenge of the puzzle.

7. It might be “relatively straightforward for a Harpo” (I don’t think I’ve encountered him before) but by heck it was a stretch for a Monday IMHO. Some seriously complex constructions in amongst the clues. I got them all in, albeit with liberal use of letter bingo, but several parsings were obscure to me until I read this blog. So a DNF for me.
   Having said that there were some lovely long anagrams amongst the clues, and I particularly liked 14.
   Thanks Harpo and Andrew.

8. Well this SILVER SURFER (a new term for me) as an expat remembered COUNTDOWN in the UK, which is called Letters and Numbers in Aus as Countdown was already taken as the Aus version of Top Of The Pops. I remember when I first moved here my mum used to send me VHS tapes of Countdown so I could get my fix. I also remember in my first job in a Stress Office in the UK working with someone who did the numbers spot occasionally (no, not Carol Vordeman).

9. @ muffin I suspect a few of the others solves are likely to prick the modern and left-leaning sensibilities of the Guardian readership – OLD WOMAN, AYER’S ROCK, the surface of 15a – but otherwise enjoyed the level of difficulty for this one and found it generally satisfying.

   I have never seen NARKS spelled with a K, and could only parse LABOUR LEADER and ENCYCLOPEDIA thanks to Andrew, but loved SLOANE SQUARE.

   Only 3 letters short of a pangram by my count!

10. Flea@4. Was it a duffle coat? My memory is that it was a donkey jacket, or similar, and provoked outrage because he wore it at the Cenotaph. However, my memory is not what it was so you may be right.

    This was more fun than most Monday offerings, I thought. Thanks to Harpo and Andrew.

11. COUNTDOWN is still going, it’s 3-2-1 that existed once and has gone. There were SILVER SURFER clubs in one of the school libraries I worked in, after school sessions.

    I’m another who solved this in normal cryptic time, but I like Harpo/Monk.

    Thank you to Andrew and Harpo.

12. I’ve seen a couple of references to a different spelling for NARKS. How else would you spell it in this sense? NARCS are anti-narcotic agents, I think, and I haven’t ever seen NARX!

13. New for me: SILVER SURFER, STICKLEBACKS.

    Favourite: ENCYCLOPEDIA (loi).

14. A steady solve with some super surfaces. As others point out, 3-2-1 was a game shoe fronted by the excruciating Ted Rogers, but was also hilarious as the conundrums for the contestants were so convoluted, that I don’t think anyone ever won the star prize. I really liked the alliterative corners and ENCYLOPEDIA was my top choice.

    Ta Harpo & Andrew.

15. Smooth puzzle & smooth blog.

    Both most enjoyable.

    Thanks, both.

16. NARKS
    NARC and NARK seem to have the same meaning (one is a variant spelling of the other).
    Interestingly, narco is the drug, the drug seller, as well as the law enforcement agent 🙂

17. @10 Charles – my memory may not be 100% on this either, but I seem to remember it being reported as a donkey jacket because that was what it looked like in the photos, whereas it was actually a duffle coat and so not the scruffy attire that the press appeared to suggest.

18. Thanks KVa @16. Google seems to prefer narc to narco.

    I’ve searched for images of Michael Foot at the Cenotaph. None are very clear (and not worth linking to), but although there are several references to his “donkey jacket”, it looks much more like a duffle coat.

19. Thanks KVa @16. Google seems to prefer narc to narco. (As does my spellcheck!)

    I’ve searched for images of Michael Foot at the Cenotaph. None are very clear (and not worth linking to), but although there are several references to his “donkey jacket”, it looks much more like a duffle coat.

    Sorry about the duplicate. I didn’t think I had posted the first one.

20. Great Monday stuff. A few to slow me down at the end but nothing too taxing.

    Enjoyed LABOUR LEADER and memories of ‘dusty bin’ in the 3-2-1 clue (if I’m remembering my old telly correctly)

    Liked STICKLEBACK. I remember telling someone it was my favourite fish when they asked once to a rather bemused look. Turns out they were talking about food which my vegan brain didn’t compute. I still cringe thinking of that.

    Thanks Andrew and Harpo

21. With regard to the NARC/NARK debate, my feeling is that the clue is referring to what used to be known as a ‘copper’s nark’ (sic), which Google tells me may derive from nak or nok, the Roma word for nose. The narcotics agent sense of narc is, I assume, a US import and has little to do with being an informant.

22. Scraggs @17 – Nearly correct, it was reported as a donkey jacket because the tabloids correctly calculated that that was a cheap smear which people would remember. It was actually a perfectly respectable coat, quite expensive and bought for the occasion and on which, allegedly, the Queen Mother complimented him.
    But one of the rules of English journalism is that anyone politically to the left of Peter Mandelson is to be smeared at every opportunity, while the likes of Johnson are to be indulged. In 2019 he rolled up to the Cenotaph looking a mess and laid a wreath upside down. The BBC “accidentally” showed footage of him from 2016 looking presentable (by his standards at least).
    Nice crossword and useful blog, BTW.

23. It was purported (and reported by the RW gutter press) as being a donkey jacket which actually annoyed Foot a lot as he knew how much it had cost!

24. MOH@21
    NARKS
    Thanks for the info.

    This led me to think that ‘narc’ and ‘nark’ were the same:

    Narc
    M-W (agreed. It’s not a go-to dictionary while solving a UK crossword puzzle)

    narc
    noun (1)
    variants or less commonly nark
    pluralnarcs also narks
    slang
    : a person (such as a government agent) who investigates narcotics crimes : narco
    an undercover narc

    narc
    noun (2)
    variants or less commonly nark
    pluralnarcs also narks
    slang
    : a person who informs on another especially to the authorities : snitch
    It wasn’t me who called the cops—I’m not a narc.

25. While a lot of clues were very accessible, and there were plenty of anagrams, there was too much unknown for me to finish this; didn’t know Foot or “navvy”, or SILVER SURFER or SASHAYED (which I didn’t put in even having figured it out from the clue, as I didn’t believe it to be a word 🙂 ) But no quibbles from me on this as everyone’s GK is different.

    The insertion indicator in 9a seemed awkward to me (“being accepted by… is…”) Liked ASSESSES for the wit. Thanks Harpo and Andrew

26. KVa @24 – as someone who has and does read entirely too much crime fiction, both English and American – copper’s NARK has been around and is something I’ve read in the older books and stories. According to the Grammar Phobia blog, it’s been in English slang since the 19th Centuray. Narc is more recent in my reading experience and according to the online etymological dictionary, it’s only been around since the 1960s (so a century later).

27. Michael Foot’s (rather smart) coat is on display at the People’s History Museum in Manchester. As is Harold Wilson’s pipe, though there is no space, apparently, for David Cameron’s silver spoon.
    Thanks to Harpo and Andrew.

28. A breezy start to the week, although not as breezy as Floris will make it for some. I had flashes of inspiration for LABOUR LEADER, ENCYCLOPEDIA and STICKLEBACKS – I recommend this approach because it really speeds things up. I also found the anagrams to be very intuitive, especially the longer ones. I think I was just on the right wavelength today. As usual, to keep my feet on the ground, I stared at all the crossers for a while before getting LOI, CIRCULAR. I doubt many finished on that one.

    Thanks Harpo and Andrew

29. Every time I solve a Harpo puzzle, I feel I really ought to have a go at his Monk ones – which rarely actually happens.

    This was most enjoyable – beautifully constructed, with the symmetry and alliteration at the corners, already noted and some super anagrams, which certainly helped the solving along.

    My ticks were for OPULENCE, ZOROASTRIANS, STICKLEBACKS, EUCHARIST and REKINDLED.

    Re the jacket: as has been said, it’s hard to tell but, if it’s a duffle coat, I can’t see any toggles. Some interesting further reading here:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27038765 – I enjoyed your comment, NeilH @22.

    Many thanks to Harpo for the confidence-builder and to Andrew for a great blog.

30. A pleasantly nostalgic crossword with Michael Foot, 3-2-1, and STICKLEBACKS as a reminder of Primary School Nature Study.

31. [Right, I’ve tried to stop myself but can’t resist lobbing in another pebble to the discussion on Michael Foot’s coat. While the garment in question may or may not have been a duffle coat, should it not more properly have been called a duffel coat? Given that the style and fabric originated in the Belgian town of Duffel? OK, OK, I’ll get me coat…]

32. @22 NeilH – thanks for the further info, and yes all that you say makes sense.

33. Lovely start to the week.
    Michael Foot and the Silver Surfer-quite a combo

34. Thanks Harpo for an elegant and rewarding puzzle, and Andrew for the helpful blog (I didn’t know that ROCK can mean crack).
    I particularly liked the economy of AVERT & ADELE, and the positioning of the four paired solutions, with the alliterative pairs rhyming on the right & awash with sibilant ESSES on the left. Also, I liked that Michael Foot was opposite & was the complete opposite of someone who might have SASHAYED or displayed OPULENCE in any way.

35. Great to see Harpo again. Top marks for BALLOTED, ASSESSES & AYERS ROCK

    Very low pencil percentage today – just NOISE – could mean it was easy, precise or both?

    Chambers app doesn’t offer “narc” as a variant of NARK – it’s a separate entry with a different, albeit related, meaning

    Cheers A&H

36. The UK copper’s NARK (police informer) existed long before the US NARCotics agent and is a completely different animal, but from the quoted dictionary entries it looks as though the two spellings are converging as alternatives for each other. It’s the informer that is wanted here.

37. I had head instead of lead and thought that Labour header was a surprisingly clunky phrase in an otherwise beautifully constructed crossword, I really should have taken a few seconds to think about it.
    Silver surfer isn’t a phrase I’ve heard for a long time (in this context, pace Marvel), I remember it from the earlyish days of the web when the media seemed to think that older people mastering technology were sufficiently unusual to need a descriptor.
    I enjoyed this, thanks Harpo and Andrew.

38. A bit of a shock to see Harpo’s name on a Monday puzzle – I thought it was more difficult than the usual fare (eg the parsing of ENCYCLOPEDIA). I should have got SLOANE SQUARE earlier but I got stuck in thinking it was something to do with queens! That made the NE corner trickier than it should have been. I liked LABOUR LEADER, ZOROASTRIANS, SILVER SURFER, BALLOTED, and REKINDLED.

    Thanks Harpo and Andrew.

39. Martin@28: I’m another who finished on CIRCULAR, mostly because it took a long time to work out the crossing SILVER SURFER. ENCYCLOPEDIA also took its time, and I never did fully parse it: nor did I work out exactly how the order of the first four letters of OLD WOMAN was indicated. A rather dated term, that, as is AYERS ROCK, but the clue makes it clear enough that it’s an older name. The ASSESSES made me laugh, and I liked the big anagrams and the matching 6-6’s in the four corners. This was a bit harder than your average Monday, but none the worse for that. Thanks Harpo and Andrew.

    (PS: anyone else misdirected briefly by the hidden VALVE in the clue for NARKS?)

40. For anyone interested in Michael Foot’s attire, the People’s History Museum have a short video about it. It seems to be neither a donkey jacket nor a duffle coat but a perfectly respectable short coat.

41. Once I was able to solve AVERT, I could finally solve the British politician at 5,10 across. Having been misled by the device of the obligatory capital letter F at the start of the clue making me try to think of something at the end of one’s leg rather than Michael F. EUCHARIST took a while as well, as my version of a shortened Tuesday is Tues, not Tue. However, lots to like and enjoy this Monday morning…

42. Although I sort of qualify as one myself (despite my head hair retaining its youthful colour; my beard hair is entirely another matter), I was only familiar with Silver Surfer as the name of a comic book character (who features in the Fantastic Four movie currently in cinemas).

43. Defeated by SILVER SURFER, which I’ve never heard, perhaps because I suppose I am one.

    Why is E=eminent? Chambers doesn’t list this as an abbreviation.

44. poc @43
    It’s “opening in eminently”

45. For anyone interested in Michael Foot’s attire, the People’s History Museum have a short video about it. It seems to be neither a donkey jacket nor a duffle coat but a perfectly respectable short coat.

46. Poc @43. If you are referring to 15dn it’s “opening in eminently” which is E

47. I had not heard of SILVER SURFER before, but it was constructible from the wordplay. However, before getting there, I fell for the misdirection and was wondering if we needed a different SILVER XXXXER representing a kind of horse (browse also has a meaning similar to graze).

48. IIRC (and I rarely do), the derivation of the meaning “informant” for “narc” is that originally it meant an undercover narcotics agent attempting to infiltrate a group of drug dealers or – more commonly – drug users. Often weed smokers, because they were easy pickings. And often mocked in pop culture for how hilariously obvious such agents were.

    From there it was a natural extension to mean any informant.

49. On Michael Foot’s 90th birthday Plymouth Argyle had him registered him as a player and named him in their squad. He was a life time fan of the club. They didn’t need to bring the left winger on.

50. Jacob@48 – that’s the derivation of narc, something that’s only been around since the 1960s. We’re all talking about a copper’s NARK, which has been around for at least a century longer. I know I came across it in Pygmalion (premiered 1913), which we read at school, but also in Dorothy L Sayers (1893-1957) and Margery Allingham (1904-1966). Just listing stuff actually written at the time, not books set in the past.

51. I believe that the OED entry for narc in 1971 was a copy of the 1908 entry and read:
    “Nark sb. Cant. {Romany nāk nose.} (See quot. 1894.) [Earliest two citations:] 1865 Slang. Dict. (ed. 2). 1894 A[rthur] Morrison [Tales of] Mean Streets 260 He resolved to . . become a nark—a copper’s nark—which is a police spy or informer.”

52. As Gladys@36 points out, NARK and NARC are two entirely separate words with different etymologies. NARK is British slang for a police informer and is derived from the Romany ‘nak’ – nose. As Eoink points out, it is first recorded in 1865. NARC is an abbreviation of ‘US narcotics agent’, and is derived from the Greek ‘narke’ – numbness or torpor.

53. Write in. Took 15minutes

54. [Off topic, but is the Guardian Suguru unusually difficult today? I don’t see how I can progress without guessing.]

55. Ed@15 fascinating. Thanks for sharing

56. Thanks both,
    Bunged in ‘silver screen’ for 24 26 because that’s what our local art cinema calls the day time sessions when pensioners can get in cheaply and browse on tea and biscuits.

57. I’d only come across SILVER SURFER on “This Country”, Kurtan at his best, beware the language. Great puzzle, thanks Harpo and Andrew

58. Muffin@44: of course

59. Muffin @54,
    I agree it is quite tough but it does come out. Eg, in spreadsheet notation, C6 has to be a 2 or a 4. If it’s a 2, D4 has to be a 2 and C4 has to be a 4 which is not possible because A3 has to be 1 or 2 or 3.

60. [Thanks Tyngewick. In fact I made an unsuccessful guess!]

61. SLOANE SQUARE had a neat surface but there’s not much room for manœuvre between squalor and square, I can only think of queens … as a potential false lead for that clue.

62. Ayers Rock was clued as an old name but isn’t Uluru older?

63. Although I am familiar with Silver Surfer I spent some time trying to think of a silver deer. Browsing isn’t quite the same as grazing. It means to feed on tree leaves rather than grass.

64. I’m not seeing balloted = voted in 25a. Yes vote = ballot, but with vote as a noun, not a verb. You often hear about union members being balloted about something, but once they have cast their votes, they have not “balloted”.

65. The most enjoyable puzzle I’ve done in a while. Favourite was BALLOTED. Got LABOUR LEADER early in my head but had to wait for crossers to confirm, as I couldn’t parse it to save my life. This is probably explained by the fact that only upon reading the clue here, did I notice that it was ‘navvy’ not ‘navy’. DUH!
    And as enjoyable as it was, did it fully take my mind off the cricket and how agonising that was in the end? NO!

66. monkeypuzzler@ 64

    I had exactly the same misgivings about BALLOT but I did find, as the last entry in Chambers, ‘to vote by ballot; to draw lots’.

67. I spent a long time on 4 down before concluding that it must be the American version of the British ENCYCLOPAEDIA but not indicated as such.

68. Crossbencher @67
    Is it AE or Æ? I’m not sure how the latter would fit in a crossword 🙂

69. Me @68
    It would be a good challenge to construct a grid in which the ligature Æ was a crosser!

70. Ed @53: is your nickname Big?

71. Alan@70
    🙂

72. Thanks Harpo for an excellent start to the week. This was a slow, but ultimately satisfying solve. My top picks were EUCHARIST, SLOANE SQUARE, AVERT, and ADELE. My only nitpick was the wordiness in the clue for OPULENCE; I felt ‘being accepted by’ could easily be replaced by ‘from’ or ‘in’. Thanks Andrew for the blog.

73. Tony @72
    “Accepted by” gives a great surface – OLD MONEY would disapprove of conspicuous wealth!

74. Muffin @73: Yes, ‘accepted by’ does enrich the surface but having the definition ‘being accepted by’ the wordplay strikes me as odd.

75. Tony @74
    It depends on how you punctuate it. One way (the one that works) is “old money” (O PENCE) is accepting “extremely unusual” (UL)

76. Very enjoyable puzzle.

    I’d never heard of SILVER SURFER, which Google tells me is a comic book character, or maybe a grey-haired person using the Web.

    I thought right away of ENCYCLOPAEDIA, but it didn’t fit. Finally I realized the puzzle was using what I think of as the American spelling.

    A bit of history on the word SASHAY. Nowadays it means to walk in an ostentatious manner, but it comes from American square dance, where it means to hold both your partner’s hands and skip-step sideways. It comes, like many square dance terms, from French, since square dance is descended from the French quadrilles popular a century or so ago. The French term was ‘chasser,” since one foot chases/follows the other (but doesn’t pass it) in the step, but it got changed to “sashay.'”

    Another sidestep — another traditional American form of community dance, much less well known than square dancing, is contra dance, in which people dance not in four-couple squares but in parallel lines of any length. Those dances are English, descended from “country dance.” But — here comes French again — French speakers in Quebec and the US called them “contre-danses” because the two lines are facing/against each other, and that got re-anglicized to contra dance. People will tell you that the two lines are “contra” to each other even though “contra” doesn’t exist on its own anywhere else in English.

    I haven’t read all the comments, because I have to leave now, so I apologize if I’ve made a goof because of that.

77. Very enjoyable for a Monday.
    A few NHO’s but all fairly clued, though 14a took a bit of educated guesswork.
    I remember Michael Foot well, a great parliamentarian and Plymouth Argyle fan. MP for Ebbw Vale, I seem to remember.
    Yes, he won few friends turning up at the Cenotaph looking like he had just got out of bed.
    Thanks both.

78. Muffin @75: Thanks. That makes sense. I withdraw my quibble.

79. HIYD @77
    You might know Zoroaster better as Zarathustra, as in this.

80. AlanC@70: No, that would be me. But I did get the joke.

81. Well that was dreadful. I normally expect to solve Mondays; this one I managed eight clues. And half of the ones I didn’t (and indeed did) get I had to come here for. I had real trouble finding the anagrams, or identifying what needed anagramming, and the charades were off-the-scale difficult. And then there was everything else! Ah well, there’s always tomorrow…

82. muffin @79 – thanks for that!!

83. Michael Foot’s coat came I seem to remember from Wetheralls, a Tailor owned by the (former Tory) Speaker Bernard. I have no doubt he was irritated by aspersions cast by the (as usual) sneery right wing press.

84. I remember Foot. He was a leg end in his own lifetime.

85. Took a few visits during today but I managed it without having to reveal any, so a first for me on the Monday Cryptics. It would seem all the practice with the QCs and the Quiptics is at last starting to pay off LOL. Checked in here to confirm I’d spotted most of the wordplay which I had. Thanks Harpo, and Andrew.

86. I was another one who had CIRCULAR as my LOI. I was looking for something less straightforward than a DD I think.
    Roz still hasn’t checked in. Hope she’s okay…

87. An enjoyable crossword.

    [Poor old Michael Foot. One of the greatest British statesmen since the Second World War, now remembered for what he once didn’t wear & for leading Labour into a heavy election defeat in 1983. He was an exceptional speaker, a fine writer, a splendidly maverick backbencher, & a principled & decent man who spoke out against the social effects of Thatcherism.]

88. JC, 87

    👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

89. A nice Monday puzzle to stretch me (did not get parsing of “encyclopedia” and “Ayers Rock” when doing it).

    Eileen @29 Nice to see that fifteensquared bloggers occasionally need confidence building!

    Thanks Andrew & Harpo.

90. Is it too obvious to salute the added richness given ‘flipping day’ in 21a by the fact that Tuesday is annually Shrove?

91. Very pleasant solve. Difficulty level seemed right for a Monday

    My far and away favourite, maybe of all time, is 16d ASSESSES, the funniest clue I have ever seen

    Tamarix@86, I miss Roz, too, and hope she’ll be back soon. She may be on holiday

    Gradually catching up with the present day! Just a week out now

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