The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29880.
I found this as tough as is to be expected from Imogen, with some oblique definitions and well-hidden wordplay (in one case too well hidden).
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | CLOVEN |
Opening meeting of wise women is left divided (6)
|
| An envelope (‘opening’) of L (‘left’) in COVEN (‘meeting of wise women’). | ||
| 4 | DEBATER |
One making argument presented girl with tear-jerker (7)
|
| A charade of DEB (debutante, ‘presented girl’) plus ATER, an anagram (-‘jerker’) of ‘tear’-. | ||
| 9 | APOSTOLIC |
Carrying out mission, working as co-pilot (9)
|
| An anagram (‘working’) of ‘as co-pilot’. | ||
| 10 | WRUNG |
Twisted wide part of climbing frame (5)
|
| A charade of W (‘wide’) plus RUNG (‘part of climbing frame’). | ||
| 11 | HEDGE |
German philosopher shortly holding Dutch is a barrier (5)
|
| An envelope (‘holding’) of D (‘Dutch’) in HEGE[l] (‘German philosopher’) minus the last letter (‘shortly’). | ||
| 12 | ALGORITHM |
VP once almost hit badly by mass set of instructions (9)
|
| A charade of AL GOR[e] (‘VP once’) minus the last letter (‘almost’) plus ITH, an anagram (‘badly’) of ‘hit’ plus (‘by’) M (‘mass’). | ||
| 13 | DECLINE |
Go through cases for refuse (7)
|
| Double definition; in the first, ‘cases’ refers to the grammatical parts of verbs.
As pointed out by Lippi @18, nouns are declined, not verbs. That definitely merits a rap over the knuckles with a ruler. |
||
| 15 | NUCLEI |
Growth centres in new capitals sure to miss out on relaxation (6)
|
| A charade of N (‘new’) plus UC (Upper Case, ‘capitals’) plus LEI[sure] (‘relaxation’) minus (‘to miss out’) ‘sure’. | ||
| 17 | SPRYER |
Mister not active? Even more so (6)
|
| A subtraction: SPR[a]YER (‘mister’) minus the A (‘not active’). ‘Active’ is also required for the definition. | ||
| 19 | DWINDLE |
Gale in valley, but not a drop (7)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of WIND (‘gale’) in D[a]LE (‘valley’) minus the A (‘but not a’). | ||
| 22 | DIAERESIS |
Having rejected help with new series, a mark for each of the Brontës (9)
|
| A charade of DIA, a reversal (‘rejected’) of AID (‘help’) plus ERESIS, an anagram (‘new’) of ‘series’. A diaeresis is the double dot over the e of Brontë. | ||
| 24 | NEWER |
Nothing cooling in nice jug? Later (5)
|
| A charade of N, which is ‘n[ice]’ without ICE (‘nothing cooling’); plus EWER (‘jug’). | ||
| 26 | SYNCS |
Updates phone and drives into ground to be picked up (5)
|
| Sounds like (‘to be picked up’) SINKS (‘drives into ground’). | ||
| 27 | ENUMERATE |
List non-British food additive consumed (9)
|
| A charade of E-NUM[b]ER (‘food additive’; a number identifying them in the EU and EFTA) minus the B (‘non-British’); plus ATE (‘consumed’)’ | ||
| 28 | PODCAST |
It’s something to hear selected actors at school (7)
|
| A charade of POD (‘school’ – e.g. whales) plus CAST (‘selected actors’). | ||
| 29 | BEHEST |
What is in most excellent order? (6)
|
| An envelope (‘is in’) of EH? (‘what’?) in BEST (‘most excellent’). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | CLASHED |
This woman staying in, wearing clothes that didn’t match (7)
|
| An envelope (‘staying in’) of SHE (‘this woman’) in CLAD (‘wearing clothes’). | ||
| 2 | OVOID |
Like Humpty-Dumpty, round, as described by poet (5)
|
| An envelope (‘as described by’) of O (’round’) in OVID (Roman ‘poet’). | ||
| 3 | EXTREMITY |
In greatest distress, perhaps a hand (9)
|
| Double “definition”, the second being an indication by example, this time acknowledged (‘perhaps’). | ||
| 4 | DECAGON |
Last month past noon several sides joined for this (7)
|
| A charade of DEC (‘last month’ of the calendar year) plus AGO (‘past’) plus N (‘noon’). | ||
| 5 | BOWER |
South African admitting wife is a violinist (5)
|
| An envelope (‘admitting’) of W (‘wife’) in BOER (‘South African’). An unannounced indication by example. | ||
| 6 | TRUST DEED |
Deter dust blowing around legal document (5,4)
|
| An anagram (‘blowing around’) of ‘deter dust’. | ||
| 7 | REGIME |
In administration, a number of companies’ books are missing (6)
|
| A subtraction: REGIME[nt] (‘a number of companies’ – the apostrophe is just for the surface) minus NT (New Testament ‘books are missing’). | ||
| 8 | ALSACE |
Whites here virtually too sick (6)
|
| The definition is the region whose wines are primarily white; but is the wordplay a reference to the disease ALS? It seems to me most unlikely, but I cannot come up with anything else. All suggestions welcome.
Thanks to KVa @1, who came up with the parsing 5 minutes after I posted the blog. |
||
| 14 | CAPTAINED |
Took charge of international and got old boy to leave (9)
|
| A charade of CAP (‘international’) plus [ob]TAINED (‘got’) minus OB (‘old boy to leave’). | ||
| 16 | CLIENTELE |
Following complaints upfront are still not well fed periodically (9)
|
| A charade of C (‘Complaints up front’) plus LIE (‘are still’?) plus NTELE (‘NoT wElL fEd periodically. | ||
| 18 | RESPECT |
Avoid damaging muscle during relaxation (7)
|
| An envelope (‘during’) of PEC (‘muscle’) in REST (‘relaxation’). | ||
| 19 | DISCUS |
Hurled plate (taken from cupboard, is customary) (6)
|
| A hidden answer (‘taken from’) in ‘cupboarD IS CUStomary’. | ||
| 20 | EERIEST |
Most mysterious English lake with a bed of stone (7)
|
| A charade of E (‘English’) plus ERIE (‘lake with a bed’ – the ‘bed’ is a useless piece of information – what lake does not have a bed? – but I think it must belong here) plus ST (‘stone’).
Better: ‘bed’ just affirms the order of the particles (in a down light). |
||
| 21 | ADDS UP |
Makes sense to have another drink (4,2)
|
| A charade of ADD (‘have another’) plus SUP (‘drink’). | ||
| 23 | RASTA |
Follower of religion that elevates a head of state (5)
|
| A reversal (‘that elevates’ in a down light) of A TSAR (‘a head of state’). | ||
| 25 | WHALE |
After wicket robust thrash (5)
|
| A charade og W (‘wicket’) plus HALE (‘robust’). |
ALSACE
virtually too=ALS(o)
sick=very good/badass/ACE (slang)
EERIEST
ST at the bottom (EERIE on a bed of ST)
I came here to avoid I0 in the FT, and I am not sure Imogen did me many favours by throwing out a lot of tough clues and iffy synonyms.
I needed help to parse CAPTAINED and E-number in ENUMERATE was beyond me given I live neither in UK nor EEA. I ticked TRUST DEED and DECAGON.
I see Imogen also appears in the Guardian as Vulcan. How are their crosswords different?
Thanks Imogen and PeterO
The e-number was unknown in this part of the world. Hadn’t heard of Hegel. Whale/thrash was new to me.
Martyn@2, Io in the FT is the only setter I know never to even try!
I parsed EERIEST as KVa @1, as “the bed” giving the word order. Came here to get the parsing of ALSACE.
Thank you to PeterO and Vulcan
I parsed ALSACE as:
ALS(o) [virtually too] + ACE [“sick”, as the kids say (or used to)]
I too skipped IO and went directly to this one. It was tough but fair and really a lot of fun. I agree with KVa on the parsing of ALSACE. I don’t think it has anything to do with Lou Gehrig disease. My favorites were ALGORITHM and CAPTAINED, but there were quite a few that I liked. Thanks to Imogen for saving the day and to PeterO for a great post.
Maybe to trained eyes this could be a masterpiece??but to a young enthuse like me this sounded like absolute g***age!!
GDU @4, I think you’ll find the E numbers for food additives are the same numbers listed on the food you buy in Australia but maybe minus the ‘E’.
I’m a fan of Imogen, but lazy, esp when it’s cricket and shiraz time. So a couple of parses in the SE were in the cqba basket (enumeration — dnk the jargon, and clientele — too many bits to bother). Enjoyed it though, ta Im and Peter.
Is 23d RASTA an &lit?
It would be colm @11 if “follower of religion” was part of the wordplay, but it’s not, so I think CAD (Clue As Definition) is the best. 🙂
I’m another who needed help with parsing a few. Nuclei and Alsace were definitely more tortuous than enjoyable, but other than that, I really enjoyed this. I also learnt the English for what, in my ignorance, I have always called an Umlaut.
In the best tradition of fifteen squared posters I liked the clues I could get and thought ALSACE and NUCLEI were unfair.
🤡
I gave up after the first clue attempted (Apostolic) as I knew today would be too difficult for me. Ho hum.
All done apart from ALSACE which wouldn’t have come even if I spent the whole day on it.
A few I needed the blog to understand fully NUCLEI, DECLINE amongst others but got them from the literal definitions.
As always quite the work out from Imogen.
Liked ALGORITHM and ENUMERATE
THANKS PeterO and Imogen
Tough indeed. On 13a: nouns are declined (subject to declension), e.g. in Latin; verbs are conjugated.
Agree with Lippi#18 that 13 refers to nouns rather than verbs, with cases being nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive and so on. I found this difficult, with a lot of teasing out required in the parsing, and didn’t know the ‘thrash’ meaning of WHALE. Did like ALGORITHM, NUCLEI, DIAERESIS and REGIME Thanks to IMOGEN and PeterO.
Thanks Imogen and PeterO
Several unparsed, but worth it for OVOID and ALGORITHM.
Very tough with 75% completed last night. EXTREMITY, SPRYER and ALSACE held out longest, so it really was a grind in the end. However, with this setter, there is no easy ride, so no complaints. Favourites were ALGORITHM, NUCLEI, DIAERESIS, ENUMERATE and CLIENTELE.
Ta Imogen & PeterO.
Tough but mostly enjoyable.
Favourites: DWINDLE, NUCLEI (loi).
I couldn’t parse 27ac apart from ATE=consumed; 7d.
New for me: DIAERESIS (always wondered what those are called!); WHALE=thrash.
I agree with KVa re the parsing of ALSACE and EERIEST.
Dave F@13. A diaeresis looks just like an umlaut but has a different function. (Wikipedia enlightened me…). There’s doesn’t seem to be any distinction in the Unicode character set, but I may be wrong…
Whatever, joyeux Noël à tous mes lecteurs…
Imogen is just about my favourite setter, and I thought this was just great, particularly ALGORITHM, DECAGON, SPRYER and DWINDLE. Couldn’t parse NUCLEI; had to use the spellcheck list for ALSACE, but all in all a lovely puzzle. Many thanks to Imogen and PeterO.
I agree with Peter #14
I think I feel a bit cheated when there’s more subtracted than remains as part of a charade, eg n(ice) and lei(sure)
Most of the puzzle is brilliant though!
There were some great clues in this (APOSTOLIC for one, with its very smooth surface ), so I was very much enjoying doing about the first 80-90%, but I got quite bogged down by the last few. LOI was ALSACE, where having looked at it every which way for some time, I cheated by bunging in things that fitted the crossers until “check word” OK’d it. Even then I couldn’t see why: a DNF for me, then. So thanks, KVa and others, for clarification. I do think that this clue, with its somewhat sideways definition and two quite hard to get elements (for me, anyway) was rather out of kilter with the rest of the puzzle.
Still, “If you can’t take a joke, you shouldn’t have joined up”…
Thanks Imogen and PeterO.
Re OVOID, Dumpty is famously not (or not necessarily) an egg in the nursery rhyme, just assumed to be later. There are lots of things it might be about. Wiki
A real tough cookie, and one that was ultimately too hard for us to chew all the way through.
I’m a tad worried, because I found this reasonably straightforward, and did it in half an hour – although there were 2 or 3 I couldn’t parse. I’m no genius, so I can only assume extreme good fortune and/or the crossword gods were looking kindly on me for some reason. But then there’s an IO waiting over at the FT, and I probably won’t be able to do ANY of that.
I just looked at the IO – I was right . . .
[Geoff Down Under @4: Hegel was well known to some of your “compatriots“ (the Philosophy Department at the University of Woolamaloo), though they thought him inferior to Hume in some respects.]
Does no-one remember the Philosophers’ Song from Monty Python? Hegel features (as does Descartes) – very useful today.
Had to reveal ALSACE and even then couldn’t parse it. Really too oblique for non-oenophiles. All the same, most of this was excellent. I particularly liked SPRYER, NEWER and DIAERESIS.
[DTS@31:
“Here’s a ridiculous riddle for you
How many Os in Wooloomooloo?
Two for the W, two for the M,
Four for the Ls, that’s plenty of them”
CJ Dennis]
[TassieTim @34
You’ve reminded me: how many Ls are there in Millwall?
Answer: none – the locals pronounce it miwaw.]
[muffin@35: Actually, I miscounted the Ls – it should be Woolloomooloo.]
[TassieTim@34; Thanks for that! According to Wikipedia, in the script for the MP sketch, the Bruces are identified as being on the faculty at “U. Woolamaloo”. This was possibly spelt thus to avoid offending the delicate sensibilities of inhabitants of the Sydney district: or maybe they just didn’t spell check it, given they were not especially particular about offending anyone…]
I usually start crosswords by choosing a clue at random. Unfortunately, I chose 4d today, and then confidently entered NOVAGON as a figure with several sides. It was a new word for me, but seemed reasonable enough – last month was NOVember, and ‘nove’ is Italian for nine. Only, 12a now ended with a V, which seemed unlikely. But maybe the word ended with NAV? Short for navigator, which might mean co-pilot?
It was over an hour before APOSTOLIC at 12a put me out of my misery. As if an Imogen puzzle wasn’t
hard enough already!
But I shouldn’t say “misery” – I thoroughly enjoyed this tussle – despite failing at the end on ALSACE. And I’ve learned a new word – nonagon – which I look forward to using when the need arises …
Many thanks to Imogen, and to PeterO for a fine blog.
To answer some of the questions above:
Martyn @2: When this setter gives us what he feels is an easy puzzle, he calls himself Vulcan; when it’s a tougher challenge, he’s Imogen. No one is quite sure how he manages to gauge his own level of difficulty, but he’s usually right. (Personally, I found this one to have a weird mix of Vulcan-level and Imogen-level cluing.)
Various people: Diaeresis are the double dots to indicate that a word that looks like it should be pronounced with one vowel actually has two: Chloë, coöperate, naïve, Noël, etc. It’s largely fallen out of fashion in English–my Autocorrect wanted to delete all four of those examples–but you do still see it in older texts, in the New Yorker magazine, and in French. An umlaut, by contrast, changes the pronunciation of the vowel. “Schon” (German for already) has the vowel in our word “shone”; “schön” (German for beautiful) has roughly the vowel in our word “curve,” if you stop short of saying the R.
(Then there’s the heavy-metal umlaut, which is just decorative. Blue Öyster Cult, Mötley Crüe, and, in honor of the late Rob Reiner, Spin̈al Tap.)
Somewhat comforted to see that even our esteemed blogger was defeated by the parsing of ALSACE. A couple of others also eluded me today.
poc@33: Unfortunately for the Alsace clue, the more you know the harder it got as I recall some excellent Alsace pinot noirs. But it’s true that the region is more strongly associated with white wines. And I agree that the cluing was unhelpful for such a weak definition.
I’m interested to see that “E numbers” are not more widely known because, in my experience, they became a synonym for “additives” long before the UPF debate started. I recall discussions in staff meetings at school about where E numbers in sweets and fizzy drinks were affecting kids’ behaviour after break/lunch, but the term was used generically for “anything unnatural” whereas, in fact, even things like vitamin C and gold (really) have E numbers.
[mrpenney@39: The other fake one is Häagen Dazs where the dots are on the wrong vowel to be a diaresis and make a weird dipthong if it’s an umlaut, asking us to call the company “hey-argun darts”.]
Thanks PeterÖ and Imögen.
THANKS Derekthesheep @31, your comment was the best part of the crossword and the blog.
Hard puzzle as expected, had difficulyies with those mentioned.
martyn@2 Vulcan does the Monday puzzle every other week, and his puzzles are gentle and Mondayish. Imogen is his evil twin.
PeterO the bed is the clue’s, not the lake’s, as KVa explains @1.
mrpenney@39 Thanks for the explanation of the diaeresis. I knew it but had never articulated it to myself.
How does cap = international? This is more sports stuff, I’m sure.
Thanks to Imogen and PeterO.
Valentine @43
In several sports, when a player gets his/her first international selection (i.e. he or she is “capped”) an actual wearable cap is awarded. I don’t know why this started, but it dates back to the 19th century.
Very tricky, needed a lot of sittings – mostly for the NW corner – but completed (fourth in a row, a personal record). Thanks to PeterO, KVa and others for the parsings – I missed a few. Favourites OVOID, BEHEST, SYNCS. Thanks Imogen!
mrpenney@39 and as Ginger Rogers nearly sang “You say oysters and I say öysters”
After a bit of head-scratching, I think 8 down parses as follows
Virtually too = ALS(O), ie most of the synonym for “too”
Sick = ACE (modern slang for something good)
?
(sorry i somehow managed to miss KVA’s identical comment at #1!)
That’s 5 mins of my life I just wasted.
Oh well, at least my deconstruction has been corroborated 😉
[muffin@44: apart from in the Netherlands, of course, where such an award might be open to misinterpretation. ]
When I went through all the across clues without a single one solved I felt a sense of panic. However, once I managed DECAGON things took shape a little more. Though it was a tough struggle still. Finally defeated by ALSACE, and quite a bit of the parsing too. Well done to those that managed to complete/compete today…
I still don’t understand 3d – EXTREMITY is, perhaps, a hand. But how is “in greatest distress” related?
Fun chewy challenge, thanks Imogen, PeterO and everyone else.
DerekTheSheep @31
Thanks for the reminder; however, the link you gave is incorrect (the ‘link’ button provides you with an http:, which you failed to overwrite; you meant this).
Kristi @51
Chambers: extremity … greatest necessity or distress …
Thank you very much, PeterO @53. I hadn’t thought to consult the Big Red Book!
I’m usually very quick through an Imogen, but today I got about haldway and the fun stopped.
I think I’ve got winter solstice lassitude.
Still, we’re already a few days past the earliest sunset now, shortest day next Monday and latest sunrise about a week after that.
Thanks anyway to Imogen and PeterO
The thanks line has become the link I was trying to add. Try it
I failed on four today, but enjoyed the crossword, because Imogen/Vulcan is so witty. I was frequently breaking into a smile when solving the likes of DISCUS and CLASHED, and even the ones I failed on, like ALSACE, with its weird or puny definition and its doubly difficult wordplay, evinced a wry grimace rather than a full blown groan. (Yesterday’s Chandler was just one long grind for me. Only two incomplete, which I was satisfied with, but no smiles. I don’t think that setter has even a glimmer of a sense of humour.)
Thanks to Imogen and PeterO.
[Showaddydadito @55
Thanks for the link. The bit about the equation of time was fascinating! I always wondered why latest sunrise and earliest sunset weren’t on the solstice.]
[PeterO @52: thanks for picking that up! ]
This puzzle badly needed a robust editor to politely and firmly tell Imogen to go away and come back without the numerous examples of imprecision and redundant words. I’m on a phone and thus cant be bothered to list them. All i will say is CAP does not mean INTERNATIONAL. It just doesn’t.
Sorry Bingy @60, you are just wrong 🙂
Failed to finish today as I had to reveal ALSACE. Even then I didn’t understand it, as I’d never heard that sick = ace.
The discussion on e numbers reminded me of a song by Richard Stilgoe, where the chorus starts “Black Forest gateau is good for you, with E107 and E102.” (I know there should be a circumflex on gateau, but my tablet doesn’t perform as it should.)
Excellent puzzle. I had two unparsed – ALSACE and NUCLEI. Tough, but I don’t see anything unfair.
Using jerker as an anagrind is a bit left field, but obvious when you see it. I wanted BOARD for 2d for ages but couldn’t square it with the definition. Faves: APOSTOLIC, DWINDLE, RASTA and REGIME. There seemed to be a lot of comparatives and superlatives featuring today, comparatively speaking 😉 .
Thanks, Imogen and PeterO.
Bingy@60, if someone said “he was an England cap”, would you understand what he meant?
Phitonelly@63. ‘Tear-jerker’ was an example of this setter’s wit and sense of humour. Yes, it’s a bit left field, but once you see it it’s quite clear, and it’s also very funny.
Bingy@60. I can remember a discussion about ‘international’ =CAP on this site before. I’m not saying you should have been aware of that, but on that occasion there were commenters equally as surprised as you on this occasion. Probably reading the sports pages makes it more likely that someone would know it, but if you’re going to emphatically say it’s wrong perhaps you should check in a dictionary first.
Erike@62. ‘Sick’=ACE is an example of unfairness, I think. The definition was very loose, and when that’s the case, I reckon the setter should give us a chance by making the word play a little bit kinder. ‘Sick’ can mean very good, outstanding; and ACE means excellent, very good, or something similar, but asking us all to make that leap is just a bit too much. They’re slang from vastly different generations, too. (And ‘virtually too’ wasn’t very friendly either.)
Muffin @35 – Indeed…note my avatar
[Ha ha Muffin@35 and Hoof It@66. Likewise there is no T in Lu’on. Confusingly, perhaps, there is one in Town but not in Airpor’.]
clyde@38 Last month used to be often ULT, but I haven’t seen that around for some time. I don’t think it would ever be NOV in a December crossword, because, I have always assumed, setters realise that crosswords are often done outside December, for example in Guardian books of crosswords compiled from past crosswords.
I am surprised no one has mentioned Pa Brunty changed the name to Brontë, to stress the pronunciation of the y sound.
[s…p@55 I am pleased to see I am not the only one who bores my friends with this one about earliest sunset. Do you know if the site can give times to less than a minute to locate the earliest day (I guess interpolation would do it)]
[@various comments about declining etc. Our Latin master use to cite: a dative put I beg you pray, after envy, spare, obey…
Thanks PeterO and Imogen
[sheffield hatter @67, Muffin@35 et al.; Mrs TheSheep, after many years, remains highly amused at the local pronunciation of the bit of Nottingham that many of my family come from: Bulwell, or, as she is said Boo’ool .
SH – re Luton Airport – you possibly have in mind that 1976 advert with Lorraine Chase? Nah! ]
[Latin was, numerically, my best subject at school – 98%, then 99% – but I had to give it up in favour of chemistry (which I don’t regret)]
sheffield hatter @65 – I was thinking the same about “sick” / “ace” . AFAIK, “sick” comes fairly recently from skateboarding / mountainbiking / climbing youth, though its usage has spread, whereas “ace” is decades older, not quite talking ’bout my generation but not long after. So I think using them as equivalents in what was already a difficult clue was a bit naughty.
But maybe everyone has given that clue enough of a kicking by now!
[sheffield hatter @67, Muffin@35 et al.; Mrs TheSheep, after many years, remains highly amused at the local pronunciation of the bit of Nottingham that many of my family come from: Bulwell, or, as she is said Boo’ool .
SH – re Luton Airport – you possibly have in mind that 1976 advert with Lorraine Chase? Nah! ]
I was ticked off at skiing once ignoring the ‘er’ in Wolverhampton, to a Londoner the correct pronunciation is ‘Wolvrampton’, of course.
16d I understand how to parse the answer, but where does the clue ask for the word ‘clientele’. What am I misding
DECLINE was my first full-answer cheat in months but I needed the help to solve ALSACE & CAPTAINED and the SW properly.
Tough but hopefully the spelling of DIAERESIS will stick.
I often get misled by adjacency clues not being in the same order as the answer – PODCAST being this puzzle’s.
.Visdotter#73. CLIENTELE
Following as a noun, is the definition, as in a group of customers for example. I don’t have Chambers but Collins online does have following as a synonym for clientele.
phitonelly@63: if you are British, you would (assuming any interest in sport), understand England cap = England international. But in my experience, it is a usage confined to Britain (and maybe Ireland too?). Certainly never used in Australia. “But it’s a UK crossword” – true, but you can’t assume all solvers are in the UK.
Rich@74. Yeah, it’s where POD is being used as an adjective, so the actors belong to the school.
Visdotter@73. I’m afraid it’s in the Big Red Book. 🙂 Chambers has CLIENTELE: “a following; all the clients of a lawyer, shopkeeper, etc.” (So a following in the sense of habitual users, or fans, supporters, I guess.) It’s always used these days in the second sense, in my experience. It was a new usage to me too – I got the answer from the crossers and the wordplay. (Apologies Paddymelon, we crossed.)
Visdotter @73,
The C in the answer comes simply from “complaints upfront”; “Following” is the definition, not part of the wordplay.
Thanks to the edit function, I can now say “Hector, we crossed”, apparently before the crossing comment!
Visdotter @73
I marked as definition (underlined, in italics and brown) ‘following’ as a noun, which serves, being perhaps oblique but I think acceptable.
phitonelly@78 … which is why I deleted #79. It’s interesting that if you look up ‘following’ in Chambers you find the definition ‘ a body of supporters’, which probably doesn’t immediately bring ‘clientele’ to most minds (though I’m not suggesting that the clue is misleading).
Lots of this was beautiful, but ultimately a DNF. I reckon ALSACE and NUCLEI are two of the hardest clues I’ve ever seen. On the other hand, DIAERESIS is one for the Pantheon – absolutely superb.
TassieTim@76 – re ” you can’t assume all solvers are in the UK “: agreed, and plainly many are not. The Graun is now an increasingly international news source – and more power to its elbow for that – but the unspoken understandings about the crossword have, I think, changed not that much from when it was the Manchester Guardian.
So, for better or worse, there is a tacit assumption that the solver is likely to be a native English speaker with a pretty wide vocabulary and range of GK, and if not a UK native, more likely to be Commonwealth-based rather than otherwise. A more than passing knowledge of cricket (and to a lesser, extent football) is assumed, but not so much hockey (ice or otherwise) or American football or baseball (which, as we all know, is only rounders with knobs on). Fairly minor towns in the UK are in (e.g. Shepton Mallet, recently), but only larger ones elsewhere. And so on. (And probably, someone who won’t see 60 again!). I’m not saying this is a good thing., but it is what it is.
And we have Pangakupu and Yank (and others?) to keep us in the Old Country on our toes and broaden our horizons…
Mr Paddington Bear and I have had a crossword holiday and this was our first one for many months. We found it tricky and almost resorted to Fifteen Squared but we soldiered on and at 10.15pm have just finished. We enjoyed it. Thank you Imogen for giving us a mental work out.
TassieTim @76: weirdly, the US has imported most of its soccer lingo from the UK,* so “cap”=”appearance for the US national team” is well understood in the world of US soccer fandom.
*(Why? I think because the US broadcasters were way behind the curve in realizing how quickly the sport’s popularity had grown. For years, it was semi-racist-ly (but at first also accurately) assumed to be a niche Latino sport, and it was brodcast only on the Spanish-language channels, despite mounting evidence that gringos liked it too. So when they clued in about a decade ago and needed to suddenly hire a bunch of English-language soccer commentators, a fairly large fraction of them had to be British.)
Derek @83: I would fall over backwards if I saw a baseball or gridiron football clue in a British crossword. (YOGI BERRA came up once, but it was in his role as a quote machine rather than a baseball player.) Incidentally, every time he appears, Yank (Fred Piscop over here, where setters don’t use pseudonyms) draws moaning and kvetching on this site about all those unfair Americanisms, so it’s not exactly like all of you have open minds…
I made a real mess of this one. Three uncorrected long mistakes (12a ALGORITHM (LOGARITHM), 27a ENUMERATE (ELUCIDATE), 14d CAPTAINED (CONTAINED)), which more or less matched their definitions but not their wordplay, caused me to have four others remain unsolved, not before spending a fair bit of time with it. Sigh…
I enjoyed 9a APOSTOLIC (great surface), 21d ADDS UP (funny)
Thanks for the parsing of 8d, which was also revealed as a spoiler in the comments. I think it is the first clue that I have ever thought not up to scratch.
@Sheffiled Hatter
Perhaps it’s you that should. The ‘international’ is the match. The ‘cap’ is the occasion of being selected for the match., in other words the accolade for being selected, not the match. They are not the same thing and no dictionary in the world says otherwise. The fact that most solvers think ‘yeah I kind of know what the setter means’ does not make it right
If of course it said ‘international appearance’ fair enough, but that would make the clue nonsensical so he took the lazy option
Bingy @88 – From Chambers – International – A PLAYER who takes part (or has taken part) in an international match. So, not just the match.
Great stuff from Imogen, so thanks.
My favourite was DECLINE. I did parse ALSACE, but with curled-down mouth corners. I got NUCLEI from the crossers and didn’t allow time to retro-parse, so setter can have that.
Cheers one and all.
Re: international =CAP, this was previously disputed/discussed in 29,751 by Brockwell last summer. As several commenters said, it is difficult to see one word replacing the other in a sentence, but I don’t see that as a necessary criterion. Mainly because CAP is sports journalist shorthand for “a player who has been picked to represent their country in an international match”, so why replace it. 🤔
I give up
Actually I don’t. It is simply not correct to say CAP is shorthand for a player who has played internationals. They may refer to him or her having x number of caps but in 50+ years of following sport I have never once heard someone described as a ‘cap’. Because it’s not correct. The cap is the designation given for playing it.
@crispy – I’m not disputing that ‘international’ is shorthand for an international match or player. With respect, that is not my point. You may as well say ‘appearance’ is synonymous with international. Where do you draw the line? The fact that two words are often seen together in the same context does not make them synonyms.
OK. Hands up and apologies all round. I had not seen def 5 in Chambers under CAP. Still think it’s never used at all to mean that but Imogen is entitled to rely on it.
I’m not brilliant at the Guardian Cryptic but pleased with myself at having been able to parse 8, ALSACE. I very much dislike the slang word “sick” to mean skilful or the best etc, but I did recognise it as being a synonym for ACE in this instance.
16 CLIENTELE stumped me. Thanks PeterO for enlightening me as the definition being “following”. I belatedly realised it was a reference to the noun not the preposition.