Guardian 27,193 / Nutmeg

by

A characteristically elegant and witty puzzle from Nutmeg.

Getting the four long answers early on certainly helped towards a straightforward but entertaining solve. Thank you, Nutmeg – I really enjoyed it.

Definitions are underlined in the clues.

Across

8 Centre back in attack last to display violence (8)
FEROCITY
A reversal [back] of CORE [centre] in FIT [attack] + [displa]Y

9 Got up in Paris, enceinte (6)
ARISEN
Hidden in pARIS ENceinte

10 State prosecutor’s lost new coinage (6)
FLORIN
FLORI[da] [state, minus da {District Attorney – prosecutor}] + N [new]

11 Like child making busy mum irate? (8)
IMMATURE
Anagram [busy] of MUM IRATE – lovely surface

12 Our nation oddly omitted to, in the past (4)
UNTO
[o]U[r] N[a]T[i]O[n] minus the odd letters – ‘unto’ is an archaic form of ‘to’

13 Record answer given by councillor entering race (10)
TRANSCRIBE
ANS [answer] + CR [councillor] in TRIBE [race]

15 Yet again take in post, including bill (7)
READMIT
REMIT [post] round AD [bill]

16 Dog runs after bait, nipping child (7)
LURCHER
LURE [bait] + R [runs] round CH [child]

18 Mad Hatter’s rig is more respectable (10)
STRAIGHTER
Anagram [mad] of HATTER’S RIG

19,5 Mark’s successor fighting Mark with little ardour (8)
LUKEWARM
LUKE [Mark’s successor – Luke’s gospel comes after Mark’s in the New Testament] + WAR [fighting] + M [mark]

20 Leading light from Staffs turned traitor (4,4)
POLE STAR
POLES [staffs] + a reversal [turned] of RAT [traitor]

22 Farm’s latest ducks frighten child’s animal (3-3)
MOO-COW
[far]M + OO [ducks] + COW [frighten]

23 Prior to support leader in Eucharist (6)
BEFORE
BE FOR [support] + E[ucharist]

24 Go north before journalist’s prepared to rise (8)
LEAVENED
LEAVE [go] + N [north] + ED [journalist]

Down

1 Favourably placed tenor spoke of missing mass with the best of motives (4-11)
WELL-INTENTIONED
WELL IN [favourably placed] + T [tenor] + [m]ENTIONED [spoke of, minus m – mass]

2 Put down tip from firefighter (4,4,5,2)
POUR COLD WATER ON
Double definition

3 Digital marker little bird mentioned on phone? (6,4)
SIGNET RING
SIGNET [sounds like {mentioned} cygnet – little bird] + RING [phone] – with a cryptic definition

4 Routine year for adult in exotic capital (7)
TYPICAL
Anagram [exotic] of CAPITYL – having swapped a [adult] for Y [year] in ‘capital’

6 An edition of Ancient & Modern? (10,5)
HISTORICAL NOVEL
A deceptively simple – but clever – charade of HISTORICAL [Ancient] and NOVEL [modern]

7 King’s noted lodging — building AKA brothel there (10,5)
HEARTBREAK HOTEL
Anagram [building] of AKA BROTHEL THERE, with a cryptic definition: a song [noted] by Elvis [The King] Presley]

14 Good feed making Spooner’s horse kick up a fuss (6,4)
SQUARE MEAL
‘Mare squeal’ – I’m not over-fond of Spoonerisms but I liked this one

17 Like fox consuming bird without pity? (7)
STERNLY
SLY [like fox] round TERN [bird] – I’m not entirely happy with the definition

21 Low digits from zero in ascending series (4)
TOES
O [zero] in a reversal [ascending] of SET [series] – with an amusing definition

32 comments on “Guardian 27,193 / Nutmeg”

  2. I kept thinking I was going to get stuck, but everything went in pretty smoothly – the sign of a well-judged puzzle.

    Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen.

  3. Very nice puzzle from Nutmeg today. Unlike Eileen, only two of the long solutions came early, indeed 2d was last in – no initial letters save for ON, and the whole clue is a bit Rufusian for my taste. But there is plenty that is just fun, like MOO-COW and IMMATURE.

  4. A lot of wonderful clues here. Nutmeg is fast becoming one of my favourite setters. I like the way she thinks.

    I really enjoyed 3d SIGNET RING, 6d HISTORICAL NOVEL, 7d HEARTBREAK HOTEL, and the Spoonerism at 14d, SQUARE MEAL.

    I stuffed up 20a, filling in LODE STAR even though I couldn’t parse it. For some reason I also couldn’t parse 23a BEFORE, even though I suspected Eucharist was only there to provide the final “e”. So thanks to Eileen for the correction and elucidations, and a fluent blog.

    Much appreciated, Nutmeg.

  5. Yes, great fun. My favourites were LUKEWARM, POLE STAR, SIGNET RING and HEARTBREAK HOTEL (wonderful!!). Many thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen.

  6. Thanks Nutmeg, Eileen
    Favourites TOES, HEARTBREAK HOTEL, IMMATURE
    FOI was ARISEN, which I wasn’t very impressed by, but all up from there.
    Remit I took to mean send (back) for post, rather than job for post, which I think is a bit of a stretch, since it might mean the scope of a job but not the job itself.

  7. Many thanks, Eileen.

    Was a little daunted by this grid at first sight, with it’s limited starting crossers and the fact that it’s screaming nina at one with all those exposed single letters around the periphery. All concerns ungrounded in this case but still no push-over.

    I seemed to lurch forward in fits and starts and suddenly it was done with LOI UNTO.

    This setter’s rather liberal definitions don’t make it easy (novel for modern, sternly for ‘without pity’ etc.) but an enjoyable solve nonetheless.

    Many thanks, Nutmeg, nice week, all.

  8. Thank you Nutmeg and Eileen.

    Lovely smooth surfaces to the clues, the one for LUKEWARM made me laugh, my mother’s married name was LUKE and her sister’s was Stone. I also was dubious about STERNLY, cannot find STERN and ‘pitiless’ given directly as synonyms, only indirectly as synonyms for ruthless, unrelenting etc.

    Favourites were the clues for SIGNET RING, IMMATURE, HISTORICAL NOVEL, SQUARE MEAL and HEARTBREAK HOTEL.

  9. I had a difficult day today and came to this puzzle late. I found it difficult – I have discovered it often happens that way when I am having a bad day 🙁 How some people solved this puzzle in less than 20 minutes is beyond my comprehension!

    I failed to solve 16a, 3d, 4d, 14d and I solved but could not fully parse 8a, 1d.

    I liked LUKEWARM

    thanks blogger and setter

  10. Thanks Nutmeg; horrible ‘NINA’ grid that made things more difficult than they should have been; some lovely clues, though.

    Thanks Eileen; I failed to solve the long ones early on (except of course, HEARTBREAK HOTEL) which complicated matters. I thought the state in 10 was FL, which made parsing the rest of the word fairly impossible [Orin Kerr is apparently a state prosecutor.] I do like Spoonerisms, although they are better when this produces a genuine phrase.

    ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John went to bed with their trousers on’ came to my rescue.

    I did like the firefighter’s tip.

  12. James @6

    I think you’re quite right about ‘post’ in 15ac: I was making it more complicated than it is. I’ll amend the blog.

  13. Eileen @12 – I didn’t think “post” had anything to do with “job” – I thought it referred to mail, as in e.g. I will remit your money by wire tomorrow.

    Thanks for the blog, Nice puzzle and surfaces.

  14. Not too fiendish, but more than challenging enough to be enjoyable. Those long down clues were a bit intimidating at first sight and 1d remained unparsed until I’d completed the rest of the puzzle. Like others I loved HEARTBREAK HOTEL, even though as usual I was slow to twig to Elvis being the ‘King’ referred to and those pesky last 3 consonants for HISTORICAL NOVEL held me up at the end. The ‘Low digits’ def for 21d was my favourite.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen.

  15. Andy Smith @13

    “I didn’t think “post” had anything to do with “job” – I thought it referred to mail, as in e.g. I will remit your money by wire tomorrow.”

    And I now agree, as I said – blog amended.

  16. Lovely thank you Nutmeg and Eileen. I particularly liked the King’s noted lodging in 7d

  17. Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen
    I had very nearly finished before I had to go out – just 9a and 4d left. They still took another 10 minutes when I got back in, though!
    Lovely as ever from Nutmeg, with HEARTBREAK HOTEL outstanding, and SIGNET RING good for the misdirection of the apparent “sounds like” indicator of “on phone”.

  18. Nutmeg has become my favourite setters. This one was a little easier than some of her recent puzzles but no less enjoyable.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen

  19. Good puzzle and some great clues. Tough to start with and then they slotted in nicely. Last in was 7d coz we had a crosser wrong. All’s well that ends well. Thanks to everyone.

  20. Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen. Very enjoyable – and I too look forward to the appearances of this setter. I needed help parsing FLORIN and got UNTO without fully understanding why. The long solutions took me a while but were well worth the effort.

  21. I come here much more often now to read the blogs, rather than read and comment, but I didn’t want to pass up this opportunity to say what a super crossword this is. As with Julie, beery hiker and others, Nutmeg is one of my top favourite setters, if not the favourite. In recent weeks I have been spending nearly as much time setting as solving, and she is the setter I most like to emulate if I can.

    I’m not normally a quick solver (as with michelle @9, this was not over in 20 minutes!), but I usually get there. Today the SE corner got a bit sticky, and I too wondered about the definition for 17d STERNLY.

    Thanks to Eileen for the blog and to Nutmeg for the crossword.

  22. I’m still not taken by Nutmeg’s crosswords. Too bland for my tastes. Too many words that would be in the same block of a thesaurus but don’t actually mean the same.

    To my mind, at least two of the big clues don’t work. For 2d, why would a firefighter be insisting on cold water? Surely warm would work just as well.
    And for 7d, as previously argued, Elvis was The King but not a king, so “King” does not quite work as a reference to him.

    Enough evidence in the previous comments that this is my problem and not Nutmeg’s.

  23. I did this in between lawn mowing- not my favourite job- and I couldn’t really get into it – the crossword. Looking at the completed grid, there’s nothing that should have been difficult but I struggled nonetheless. I did like HEARTBREAK HOTEL but I had to guess a couple- BEFORE and FLORIN spring to mind. Probably me rather than the puzzle.
    Thanks Nutmeg.

  24. Thanks both,

    A very pleasant crossword but I gave up on 4d and 21d. The mathematician in me doesn’t equate ‘set’ and ‘series’ even tho’, I suppose, a series is an ordered set so a question mark would have been appropriate for definition by example of a part of the wordplay. ‘Low digits’ was good.

  25. An enjoyable challenge today – neither too easy nor too difficult so perfect for my particular solving ability. I especially liked FLORIN< TOES and HEARTBREAK HOTEL. Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen

  26. Martin @11

    An “HISTORICAL NOVEL” isn’t an “edition”. Books have editions i.e. first editions but edition is not a definition for any book.

    Cars used to have letters to describe their “editions” known as registration letters (e.g. A Reg).However I think eyebrows would be raised if “A reg” was used as a definition for “Ford Escort”

    Yet again certain setters appear to be allowed latitude in cluing without any significant comment!

  27. Many thanks to Nutmeg for another superb puzzle. Sound clues throughout; particular favourites were 6d and 7d. I don’t see a problem with the use of “edition” in the former: the question mark is perhaps a sign that a certain liberty is being taken but in fact it’s enough for there to be a work entitled “Ancient & Modern” and the clue could be taken as referring to an edition of that book.

  28. Having just retired from being one I have never come across the abbreviation “cr” for councillor used in 13A

  30. Hagman @28 – I’m more used to Cllr but I found Cr in Chambers and so didn’t comment in the blog.

  31. Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen for an enyable puzzle and blog. Surfaces neat as usual except for AKA brothel in 7 d. More loose definitions than usual too, eg edition and stern as others have commented.

  32. OK I’m with those who thought Sternly for Without Pity was a bit loose, but everything else was just fine. Add me to Nutmeg’s fan club.

Comments are closed.