Guardian 26,983 / Imogen

42 comments on “Guardian 26,983 / Imogen”

1. Thanks for the great blog Eileen! I enjoyed this but I do agree with you that it was easier than usual for Imogen (no problem with that!) and that there were a few rather bland clues. However this did not detract from a good puzzle (so thanks to Imogen for that).

   My parsing of 23 down was the same as yours. I went astray for a while with 16 across where I entered “SEEN OFF” – I took “failed” as doing double duty as the definition and part of “failed to notice”, giving “see no”, followed by “ff” for “females in short”. Looking back, it’s not a very convincing parsing (but it seemed like a good idea at the time).

2. Whoops – sorry! I meant 23 across, not 23 down.

3. I found it very hard to get into initially – a lot of staring and feeling incompetent. But once I got going, it yielded fairly easily. Had RETOOK rather than BETOOK, but it didn’t sound quite right. Favourites were SAWN-OFF, GNUS, THREE-RING CIRCUS (hadn’t heard that expression before) and FAMOUS LAST WORDS. Many thanks to Imogen and Eileen.

4. Eileen – re 22a: Recently ‘curate’ has become very trendy and overused as a verb when talking of the process of organising exhibitions. Private Eye will probably soon have a ‘Curating’ column alongside its ‘Solutions’ one!

5. Eileen, I quite enjoyed this.

   Even though I got 23a WARDEN, I did not see the parsing at all. In what sense might warm mean excited?

   I must ‘fess up that I didn’t actually finish, as 5d eluded me and many words fitted, so I bunged in “BITE” without parsing it. I was unfamiliar with the term for a nuclear reactor, PILE, but thought the correct answer was an amusing play on words.

   5d aside, the RHS went in okay for me. 11a EXEGESIS was reminiscent of EXEGETE in another recent puzzle. [Interesting as I am in the throes of reading exam essays from my adolescent “exegetes”, who are unpacking Hebrew and Christian scriptural texts. I’d rather be doing cryptic crosswords than marking exams! You and other former teachers will get that, Eileen!]

   Held up for ages on LHS by having filled in 1d as “find oneself open”, and when nothing much else worked, I had a rethink, and eventually saw “GIVE ONESELF AWAY”, a much better answer. After that, I liked 10a BETOOK and 29a GALOSHES (which gave me my LOI, 21d HANK).

   I only got 15a ISFAHAN because “FAN” has been used recently in a Guardian Cryptic with “cooler” as the definition, although I did have to check my work via an online encyclopaedia.

   Favourites were 19a COUP, and like drofle@3, 2d FAMOUS LAST WORDS and 6d THREE-RING CIRCUS.

   Many thanks to Imogen and Eileen.

6. Thanks, drofle @4 – I hadn’t come across that one. I think I probably blank these dreadful noun – verb constructions. Decades on, I still haven’t really come to terms with ‘to access’, the first one I met, I think. [Actually, I ought not to object to curate as a verb: its derivation is impeccable, from the Latin curare – to take charge of, attend to – it’s just that it doesn’t seem to have been a verb in English, until recently. I’ve just checked the SOED and it doesn’t have it, either.]

   Julie @5 – EXEGETE was in the Umberto Eco puzzle, which I also blogged.

   If the parsing of 23ac really is WAR[m], I can’t make up my mind whether that means Imogen is easily excited or the opposite. 😉

7. Thank you Imogen and Eileen.

   I was dismayed at first on seeing the four long down clues, it meant solving the across clues with little help from crossers. However, I managed to finish, and enjoyed the solve, but do not understand the Hobbit clue and CURATE as a verb was new.

   The COED gives warm adj. 4 animated, heated, excited (a warm exchange of views.)

8. PS clicked on googling about Be Took, my late husband always read those books the children, I could not stand them.

9. Thanks Imogen and Eileen.

   I’m glad you put reasonably in front of straightforward. I found this very difficult especially as a number of the long clues were cd or dd. Not my cup of tea but in retrospect everything was fairly clued although I lacked the knowledge for TOOK and Michael Tippett’s composition.

   I liked SAWN-OFF though.

10. Eileen @6, the use of “curate” as a verb has been increasing since the 60’s — if you put “curated” into this Google tool, you’ll see how quickly it caught on: https://books.google.com/ngrams

    Note that this tool counts uses in books; as you know, neologisms are usually common in speech, newspapers and magazines long before subeditors allow them into books.

    (I’m not trying to talk you out of your distaste for the word, just thought you might be interested.)

11. Thanks both. I am with Robi @9 in finding this hard going. IN HOCK means pawned to me, not locked up.

12. Thanks to Imogen and Eileen. I did not know ISFAHAN or the Tippett oratorio and took a while before seeing BETOOK and PILE, but the cluing was enough to get me through eventually. Maybe CURATE as a verb is more common in the US, but I am familiar with it in connection with museum exhibitions.

13. The COED (1995) gives curate v. 1 tr. act as a curator of (a museum, exhibits, etc.); look after and preserve. 2 intr. perform the duties of curator.

    I love the Irish usage of the word that Eileen found, guess many people spend more time in the pub than at church; perhaps Imogen meant this usage in the clue, a barman is certainly “given orders”!

14. I enjoyed this, for the simple (and in my case rare) reason I was able to do almost all of it without resort to dictionaries, thesauri, or other means of help. Took was not familar to me, as I have a horror of anything to do with L of the R and its offshoots, and I too failed on 5d. I liked THREE-RING CIRCUS and FAMOUS LAST WORDS.

    All in all, a pleasure. Thank you to Imogen and Eileen.

15. Third time attempting to contribute here, because the BL**Dy cookies notification will not be closed. And it’s very annoying.

    Enjoyed today’s grid — thanks Imogen — and indebted to Eileen — thanks Eileen — for confirming some of the solutions. 21d made me swear, having decided that TISSUE less IE left TUSS — maybe a large tussock?

16. This was enjoyable. I found it much easier than yesterday’s Picaroon, but that is not a complaint! I liked 2d – a bit Rufus-ish. Is GNUS really pronounced like news?

    (By the way, there’s been some further discussion today about yesterday’s Picaroon if anyone’s still interested.)

17. Quite fun thought I stumbled on a few. Like others I’m not sure in hock means locked up. Isfahan, I had never heard of but will not criticise a setter because of my poor gen kn. Took? Perhaps some Tolkein ref. I’ve never read him and intend to keep it that way. And for the life of me, don’t see Coup=Stroke.

18. Spike Milligan thought so, JimS @16. In the Bedside Milligan he drew a picture of a gnu, wrote 9 o’clock inside it (that then being the time for the BBC TV news), and called it the 9 o’clock Gnus. Funnier to see than to tell.

    Started off very slowly, but soon got the two long down answers on the RHS. Those on the left took longer, indeed FAMOUS LAST WORDS was LOI, no doubt (for me) because it was indeed very Rufus-ish. Not helped by the iffy WARDEN. Warm = excited? More like mildly interested. Now HOT, that’s excited.

19. Not Imogen’s toughest, but very enjoyable nonetheless. Last in (no excuse in retrospect) was PILE. I don’t think I can see any reference here yet to the ONE TWO THREE FOUR in the long down clues – I can’t claim credit for that because it was mentioned on the Guardian comments page.

    Thanks to Imogen and Eileen

20. Thank you Imogen and Eileen. I enjoyed this very much: perhaps because I thought it would be really hard and it yielded quite easily. Last one in was betook, which I should have got sooner as I was passionate about the books when I was a teenager in the 60s, and I smiled when sawn off finally clicked. I have a beautiful 1913 Persian carpet from Isfahan, so that went in readily.

    Child of our Time – Tippett seems to have gone into something of an eclipse since his death.

    Gnus – I now have the Flanders and Swann song going through my head – definitely not a homophone in their version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPgo6s1lBbw.

21. Thanks Imogen and Eileen

    I often complain (not least about Imogen crosswords) about clues that can’t reasonably be solved “bottom up”, but need a “top down” (guess answer from definition, then parse) approach, so it was interesting that 8 of the first 9 I solved today I did “bottom up” (the exception was PILE).

    I left it to go out without about 6 left, but these all went in easily on my return.

    I expect I’ve related this before, but I have fond memories of a (Punch?) cartoon of a zoo-keeper outside the gnu (wildebeest) enclosure, saying “We like to keep animals in their natural environments.” The enclosure was wall-papered with crossowrd puzzles….

22. Hi beery hiker @19

    No reference in the blog, certainly – because, of course, I didn’t see it! – so thanks for that. I can’t say that it adds a lot to the clues for me: as I suggested before, I wasn’t particularly impressed by the long clues, except for ‘death sentence’ in 2dn and the anagram in 6dn.

    As for the hobbit, I had to google that, as I share others’ lack of interest.

    Shirl @11 and Steve @17 – I thought that about IN HOCK, too [and meant to mention it]. Both Collins and Chambers have it as in prison, as well as in pawn / debt. COUP = stroke / blow is the first definition in all my three dictionaries.

    Marienkaefer @20 – surely the whole point of the Flanders and Swann song – ‘a g’nother g’nu’ – [which I valiantly resisted supplying] is that they *are* homophones?

    Thanks for the smile, muffin @21. [As you might guess, I’ve been out, too,]

23. Those who remember the early days of T Rex will be familiar with Steve Peregrin Took, who named himself after the hobbit. I am not a Tolkien fan either but I remembered reading that somewhere…

24. Started off as a really difficult puzzle and got easier as we went along. In hock is not locked up, though. In hock is in debt, surely. Still, a good workout over lunch. Thanks to everyone.

25. Eileen

    Apologies – just seen that you mentioned Flanders and Swann, so you got there first as usual. I duly g’nash my teeth (at myself, not you). I was thinking of the homophone gnus/news.

26. Hi Marienkaefer @25 – no apology necessary: it’s easy to miss things. I very nearly didn’t resist [and I’ve had it going round my head all day anyway!].

    We seem to be at cross purposes re the homophone but I think we each know what the other means!

27. Thanks to Imogen and Eileen.

    There’s a mention on the Guardian thread of the ‘Long uns’ having a sequence and indeed you can find ‘ one, two, three and four’ therein. There’s also ‘sense’ in column 7 but it makes no sense to me.

    I recall a collection of Spike Milligan’s poems (A dustbin of Milligan? or A book of bits, or a bit of a book?) the following…

    If all of the gnus in London Zoo,
    Disappeared together,
    We’d have to say, ‘That’s the end of the gnus’…

    …and now it’s time for the weather.

28. Hi morphiamonet @27 – beery pipped you @19. 😉

29. Thanks Eileen,

    Too busy in the middle of Julius (hand drawn grid as in Crete and no printer available!!) must have skimmed over Beery (sorry)

    Julius sees a theme and goes for it!

30. Thanks Eileen and Imogen. Enjoyed the puzzle.

    morphiamonet @27: out of the 15 columns, please look at the letters in column 7 of the completed grid.

31. Hi IzzysGrandad [morphiamonet??] @29

    “(hand drawn grid as in Crete and no printer available!!)” – but, gosh, wasn’t it worth the effort?!

    There’s been discussion today on the FT thread about why more disgruntled Guardian solvers don’t try the FT puzzles: there are lots of our favourites there, under various guises, and today’s Julius is an absolute cracker – highly recommended. [You’ll find a link at the beginning of the FT blog.]

32. When I first encountered Imogen’s puzzles I found them extremely difficult but recent ones have been far more straightforward. This was probably one of the easier ones but I struggled with some of it. 21 dn really misled me. I knew that TUZZ was an alternative to TUFT,so I assumed that TUSS was an alternative spelling, and this screwed up the SW corner for quite a long time and I took far too long to see FAMOUS LAST WORDS. I also was a RETOOK-I liked the books back in the day and still do- annoyingly enough.
    Not my finest hour.
    Thanks Imogen.

33. Ok I appreciate that the g is really silent, but I would have thought it was pronounced noo rather than new.

    Anyway my favourite crossword animal is the okapi.

34. I thought this was a very good crossword. Certainly not easy. No problem with the hobbit as he is one of the main characters in Lord of the Rings which I remember reading in 1973 whilst on holiday in Yugoslavia. The clue which caused me the greatest grief was 23ac. I thought of War(den)immediately but could not work out where “war” came from. I can understand “hot”=excited, but does “warm” really equate to excited?

35. I looked at CURATE for a long time and could not see the exhibition connection. As soon as I saw Eileen’s parsing though, it clicked immediately and I wondered why it hadn’t earlier. I’m sure I’ve seen curate as a verb frequently in the US.

    “Streets ahead” was the new one for me.

36. A very enjoyable skirmish today. Thanks to setter and to Eileen who made me groan at my own incompetence over the two unsolved clues.

37. Hi IzzysGrandad / morphiamonet

    Please use only a single pseudonym, to avoid confusion, and to avoid contravening the site policy, unless there are two of you, separate persons, using the same email address and IP address.

38. It’s probably too late for anyone to see this, but for the “Hank” reference to hair, see Kipling: A fool there was and he made his prayer (Even as you and I!) To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair.

39. Thanks, Valentine. 😉

40. It’s a thoroughly sexist poem — not only is the woman in it despicable, but all us regular guys have to put up with this sort of treatment.

41. Presumably the Hank in names like Hank Marvin and Hank Jones are nicknames for those with a quiff or similar, i.e. a tuft.

42. Thanks Imogen and Eileen

    Finally got back to a Guardian puzzle and also found this to be a bit easier than the normal challenge set by Imogen. ISFAHAN was actually my first answer – have always had an interest in Iran / Persia and this city has just stuck for some reason.

    The right hand side of the puzzle gave me the most trouble. Like others, I had problems connecting IN HOCK to being locked up – although it couldn’t be anything else from the word play. The two long ones at 7d and 8d were amongst my last in along with SAWN OFF and COUP. During my last parsing run-through it became apparent that HIVE(s) was not the shortened discomfort at 5d and was eventually able to track down that PILE(s) were (and that PILE was an old term for a nuclear reactor).

Comments are closed.