Guardian Cryptic 27,321 by Bogus

by

A weekday Guardian with

Special instructions: A tribute on 8 to 26 16 across, who gave us the 1 across 25

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27321.

Fortunately, the anagram at 8D was not too difficult to untangle, as I had heard of neither WORLD SMILE DAY (the first Friday in October) nor its founder, HARVEY BALL. Of the SMILEY FACE, I was aware. There has been one puzzle before under the soubriquet Bogus, the Guardian Prize 26046, of 18 November last, which commemorated World Toilet day. In the blog for that puzzle, it was revealed that Bogus was a collaborative effort, between Puck, Arachne and Nutmeg, so presumably the same trio are here again, going from one extreme to the other. I find that, as with the Biggles crosswords, the multiple authorship adds a layer of difficulty, because one does not know what to expect of each individual clue (but there can be the added fun of trying to guess who wrote what). Here, there are a couple of quite devilish clues, but plenty to fit the theme. I hope that Bogus will find further occasions to commemorate.

Across
1   See 27
4 WANGLE Engineer cannily takes women’s perspective (6)
A charade of W (‘women’) plus ANGLE (‘perspective’).
9, 15 GRINLING Gibbons show teeth and tongue, skipping closer (8)
A charade of GRIN (‘show teeth’) plus LING[o] (‘tongue’) minus its last letter (‘skipping closer’). Grinling Gibbons was an sculptor and wood carver (more famous as the latter).
10 SNOWFLAKES Crystallised forms of cocaine? Bogus setter’s first to ingest line (10)
A charade of SNOW (‘cocaine’) plus FLAKES, an envelope (‘to ingest’) of L (‘line’) in FAKE (‘bogus’) plus S (‘Setter’s first’).
11 TATTLE Story about extremely truculent rabbit (6)
An envelope (‘about’) of TT (‘extremely TruculenT‘) in TALE (‘story’).
12 LYING LOW Hiding case of luxury gin? Silly moo! (5,3)
A charade of LY (‘case of LuxurY‘) plus ING, an anagram (‘silly’) of ‘gin’ plus LOW (‘moo’).
13   See 1 down
15   See 9
16 BALL Regularly fall ill after bachelor party (4)
A charade of B (‘bachelor’) plus ALL (‘regularly fAlL iLl’).
17 LIQUIDITY Current state of two ponies? Ruth blows top about one (9)
An envelope (‘about’) of I (‘one’) in L (Roman 50) QUID (‘two ponies’ – a pony is £25) plus [p]ITY (‘ruth’) minus its first letter (‘blows top’).
21 HAIRLINE SAS perhaps on brink of triumph and verge of shock (8)
A charade of H (‘brink of triumpH‘ – brink for the last letter? Unusual, at least) plus AIRLINE (‘SAS perhaps’, Scandinavian Airline System).
22 UPBEAT You heard Pharrell’s number one hit, Happy (6)
A charade of U (‘you heard’) plus P (‘Pharrell’s number one’) plus BEAT (‘hit’), with a very apposite surface.
24 LICENTIATE Graduate‘s recent entertaining time amid old tribesmen (10)
A double envelope (‘entertaining’ and ‘amid’) of T (‘time’) in ICENI (‘old tribesmen’) in LATE (‘recent’).
25 FACE Confront female, one outranking king (4)
A charade of F (‘female’) plus ACE (‘one outranking king’ in many card games).
26 HARVEY Rabbit, one with long ears eating very last bit of celery (6)
An envelope (‘eating’) of V (‘very’) in HARE (‘one with long ears’) plus Y (‘last bit of celerY‘). Harvey was the eponymous invisible rabbit in the play by Mary Chase, and the better-known film based on it, and starring James Stewart.
27, 1 GEORGE SMILEY Agent offering Hobson’s choice of guide on vacation, with a 9 (6,6)
Quite a bit going on here: ‘Hobson’s choice’ is a choice of one thing, take it or leave it; GE (‘GuidE on vacation’) OR GE. 9A is GRIN, giving SMILEY (‘with a 9’). The ‘agent’ in the Circus is GEORGE SMILEY, the central character in several novels by John le Carré, the best known being Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Down
1, 20, 13 SPREAD A LITTLE HAPPINESS  Let apple Danish pastries be distributed in great number for today (6,1,6,9)
An anagram (‘be distributed’) of ‘let apple Danish pastries’, with an extended definition. The clue had the desired effect on me.
2 INNIT Isn’t it commonly where you get booze and sex? (5)
A charade of INN (‘where you get booze’) plus IT (‘sex’).
3 EASTERN Mid-September before a sailor’s back from Asia, perhaps (7)
A charade of E (‘mid-SeptEmber’) plus ASTERN (‘a sailor’s back’).
5 AFFAIR Event is a fine opportunity to have fun (6)
A charade of ‘a’ plus F (‘fine’) plus FAIR (‘opportunity to have fun’).
6 GRADGRIND Dickensian character of rag playing at close of 8 (9)
I think something wicked this way comes: ‘8’ must be replaced by its solution WORLD SMILE DAY and then treated as part of the wordplay , so that the clue is a charade of GRA, an anagram (‘playing’) of ‘rag’ plus D (‘close of’ WORLD) plus GRIN (SMILE) plus D (‘day’), for the character in Hard Times.
7 ERELONG Atmosphere Longfellow captures in no time, poetically (7)
A hidden answer (‘captures’) in ‘atmosphERE LONGfellow’.
8 WORLD SMILE DAY Damsel rowdily revelling for 24 life-enhancing hours (5,5,3)
An anagram (‘revelling’) of ‘damsel rowdily’.
14 POLAR BEAR Park’s first wild arboreal mammal (5,4)
A charade of P (‘Park’s first’) plus OLARBEAR, an anagram (‘wild’) of ‘arboreal’.
16 BEAMISH Maintain Anabaptist principles, with a big 9? (7)
BE AMISH (‘maintain Anabaptist principles’).
18 UKULELE Cult celeb wanting outsiders to support British music-maker (7)
A charade of UK (‘British’) plus ‘[c]ul[t] [c]ele[b]’ minus the outer letters of both words (‘wanting outsiders’).
19 TRANCHE Cut the crap! Rearrange that number for piano (7)
An anagram (‘rearrange that’) of ‘the’ plus CRAN, which is ‘crap’ with N replacing the P (‘number for piano’).
20   See 1
23 BY FAR Discontented fairy keels over in pub, leaving the rest standing (2,3)
An envelope (‘in’) of YF, a reversal (‘keels over’) of FY (‘discontented FairY‘) in BAR (‘pub’).
completed grid

64 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,321 by Bogus”

  1. Thanks Bogus and PeterO

    Fun, with EASTERN, POLAR BEAR and BY FAR my favourites. I agree that it was fortunate that the key anagram at 8d was easy.

    I hope that no-one today will say that they solved LICENTIATE or LIQUIDITY “bottom up” – ICENI is a bit of a leap “old tribesmen”, as is ITY from “Ruth blows top”!

    I didn’t understand BEAMISH, which, to me, is the great outdoor cultural museum in County Durham.

  2. Thanks Bogus, and especially PeterO for filling in the background. A lot of fun here, particularly GRADGRIND.

    But oh the power of the unconscious mind. Having yesterday listened to a friend going on at length about the falsehoods being put about by a former girlfriend, I entered LYING COW for 12 without checking the definition. Well, it fits the word play.

  3. Thanks to all of Bogus and to PeterO for the blog.

    Smiley Face is right. It describes what I was wearing while having a real ball solving this one. I’m ready for anything the rest of the day can throw at me now.

  4. Thanks to the collaborative triumvirate for a smashing puzzle which certainly put a smile om my face.
    Thanks too to PeterO for the blog; nice weekend, everyone

  6. Thanks PeterO and Bogus (whoever you may be). Tough I thought.

    Muffin@1 – re BEAMISH – think Jaberwocky “come to my arms, my beamish boy”

  7. Thanks, PeterO, especially for untangling GRADGRIND.

    And many thanks, of course, to the devilish trio, reunited to delight us again. I loved it.

    I think it’s time we had one of these 😉 .

  8. Not sure whether many solvers would have known that a pony stands for 25 quid, perhaps those that like a bit of a flutter, perhaps

  9. Enough to put a smile on anyone’s face.Lots of great clues.9/15 was a bit of a doosra but not a no ball. I got LAID LOW but entered GRINDING with no confidence whatever so i was caught at second slip.
    I knew of er Edward and Stanley but never heard of this geezer. If I’d have googled GRIN gibbons i would;ve got there.Or if I’d used my loaf I’d have worked it out but I was thinking of tongues as in french, erse etc.I bet it was a Puck clue.
    Great puzzl ad blog.

  10. I must be missing something in the parsing of 6d. If the explanation is correct, then, surely, the close of the solution to 8d is ‘Y’ – World Smile Da[Y] – and not ‘D’. I must be feeling a bit grumpy today as I did not find this as entertaining as others have, despite being compiled by some of my very favourite setters. I did find several of the clues really good, such as 22a, where I thought that I might need some knowledge of Pharrell Williams output (which I only know through his contribution to the Despicable Me films), but not so. Excellent misdirection.

  11. Ronald- agreement here on the currency of gambling terms in the general public. I had to strain back and remember Bobby Box putting a mankey on a nag at Doncaaahsta for his sitdaan money in some big card game, but wasn’t sure a pony was 25 nicker. Incidentally on the subject of gambling there was a tweet on the prospects of England winning the football world cup next year in Russia: odds quoted were 25/1- for those unfamiliar with gambling, this means if you put a tenner on England you’ll lose £10.

  12. Thanks for coming to the rescue, PeterO, a couple went in unparsed.

    This took a fair while to unravel as I’d never heard of the theme or Harvey Ball, but it was fun getting there. Some wicked clues and thanks to the triumvirate.

    Had to cheat GRADGRIND I’m ashamed to say.

    Nice weekend, all.

    PS.

    {Eileen, many thanks for yesterday’s link on the saddle. Fascinating reading, but still not convinced about the addition of riding!}

  13. Lovely puzzle
    Thanks Bogus, PeterO
    I think ‘Spread a Little Happiness’ is a song, so ‘a great number for today’

  14. Is anyone else having trouble with the app? It doesn’t mention the theme, and any clues which stretch over more than one part of the grid are replaced with Group Clues Format.

    Thanks for the parsing, PeterO. I was baffled all over the place.

  15. Sorry, baerchen @4 and William @12, but, since two of the three members of this brilliant collaboration are female, I have to demur at your use of ‘triumvirate’. 😉

  19. Muffin@1. Afraid I solved LIQUIDITY ‘bottom up’. I thought ITY for ‘Ruth blows top’ was the obvious reading and LQUID for ‘two ponies’ was again pretty clear to me. Didn’t get LICENTIATE though.

  20. Hi William @17 – as you see, that’s what I boringly settled for @7. [I had thought of ‘Unholy Trinity’!]

  21. Thanks Bogus and PeterO’s stirling blog.

    Perhaps we should call them muffin (@1) for one male and two females!?

    I thought this was very hard, not knowing the man, the day and various other matters.

    I haven’t seen any Danish apple pastries yet …

  27. Thanks to Bogus (triple threat?) and PeterO. A challenge but lots of fun. I did dredge up “pony” from previous puzzles but did not know the term TRANCHE and recognized GRADGRIND from the crossers without fully parsing it.

  28. Thanks, PeterO and Bogus.

    Unusually, I had all the answers to the Special Instructions quite early on, but ground to a crawl after that. SMILEY (I am not clear why this popped into my mind) and then SPREAD A LITTLE HAPPINESS succumbed first, not 8d.

    Crossword Solver helped out in the final clues

  29. Bravo to Bogus!
    (Or, now that I have read the blog and the comments above, I guess it would be more appropriate to say “Brava, Brava and Bravo” to “Bogus”!)
    As pleased as I was with Paul’s puzzle yesterday, this one kicked up the excellence level by a notch or two!
    So many clues to like. There were some great surfaces — I loved 23d and 8d and thought 22a was especially brilliant — some delightfully devious clueing, and a great theme. (I am aware that some regular commenters in these blogs are not very keen on themed puzzles, but I am solidly in the camp of those who can’t get enough of them.) Favorites for me included GEORGE SMILEY, BEAMISH, SNOWFLAKES, INNIT, and all of the themed clues (two of which, I realize, I just mentioned). COTD for me was GRADGRIND. (George Clements @10 – As I am typing this I do not see that any other commenters above have replied to your question about the parsing of 6d, but PeterO gave an excellent explanation of this parsing, among others, in his blog.)
    LICENTIATE and GRINLING were both new to me, but gettable from the wordplay and the crossers.
    Many many thanks to the terrific troika of “Bogus”, for a puzzle that will have me pretty 16d throughout the day today (in keeping with 8d, which I was not familiar with prior to this puzzle), and also to PeterO for a great blog as always.
    [Incidentally, for those who enjoy wordplay of all sorts, after I first typed “Bravo to Bogus” above, I decided to try to see how many steps it would take in letter substitution (change one letter at a time, regular English words, no proper nouns) to get from BRAVO to BOGUS. My best effort was 10 steps.]

  30. Might be being a bit obvious, but no one else has mentioned it: as well as creating World Smile Day, Harvey Ball was also the creator of the SMILEY FACE…!!

    Can anyone help to parse GEORGE SMILEY for us please? We get grin/smile and GE OR, but where does the other GE (and maybe the other Y if it’s not smiley) come from???

  31. Perhaps “triad”, which Collins helpfully defines as:
    1. A group of three
    2. A musical chord
    3. An aphoristic literary form
    4. A Chinese secret society
    5. A startegic nuclear force

  33. LiSho, PeterO has the explanation: the choice is of GE or GE, there is no alternative (ie Hobson’s Choice).

    If you are seen with a grin, you could be described as smiley.

  36. What a wonderful puzzle! Loved it. Favourites were LIQUIDITY, HAIRLINE, LYING LOW (brilliant – Arachne, maybe?) and UKULELE. Many thanks to the three setters and to PeterO.

  37. drofle @36
    I liked HAIRLINE too, but for me it was marred by “brink of triumph” for H – surely “brink” is a beginning rather than an end? “He was on the brink of success”…

  38. Thanks to DaveMc @29, but I’m afraid that I still just don’t see it. Why is close of 8 given as Worl[D] and not Da[Y] ? I don’t have any problem with the Gra (Art anagram) Grin (Smile) or D (Day). I’m sure that it’s just me, as no-one else seems to have an issue with the parsing, but it’s nagging at me that I’m being so obtuse.

  39. Thank you Bogus (now Nisus?) and PeterO.

    A fun puzzle, but some of the parsing took me a while and I failed to get GRADGRIND, Hard Times is not on the bookshelf so I have not had the chance to read it. Favourite clue was that for BEAMISH.

    I don’t think there is a problem with ‘triumvirate’ these days, the Oxford Dictionary online gives “A group of three powerful or notable people or things” and the Cambridge Dictionary online gives “A group of three people who are in control of an activity or organization”.

  41. Well that was fun – and baffling in several instances until I got here so thank you for helping out with some tricky parsing PeterO – great job. It’s a pity PAN is already taken as a setter as that would be the obvious name for these three brain scramblers!
    And what a lovely theme to have as a counterbalance to the increasingly grim countenances we see as blustering rhetoric is cranked up.
    With thanks the the triumphal triumvirate triad.

  42. Thanks for the blog. I found this quite tough in the NE and needed help parsing GRADGRIND and SNOWFLAKES.

    Rather too late to be of any serious contribution but, muffin @1 – I’m afraid I solved LICENTIATE “bottom up”. Iceni is usually the first tribe I think of.

    Thanks too to Bogus.

  43. This took some time. Never heard of the man or the day, and I’m not sure he’s worth celebrating. Still I got SPREAD A LITTLE HAPPINESS and the day easily enough, but they didn’t shed much light on the rest and I ended up looking up HARVEY. The rest was no easier but some goodies stood out- UKULELE,GRADGRIND,LIQUIDITY. I didn’t -and don’t- understand the ITY bit in the latter.
    A workout.
    Thanks chaps

  44. Crossbencher @35
    True. But a bummock is a bummock is a bummock, I always say.

    WhiteKing @41
    Re: your penultimate sentence, I couldn’t agree with you more! As it so happens, the most prominent blustering crank in my country gives every indication of fancying himself (bigly) to be a White King. I’m hoping the world will have an extra, de facto Smile Day to celebrate before the first Friday of October 2018.

  45. I’m glad I made time for this late in the day – it was enjoyable throughout, and I found the explanation of the source of this puzzle very interesting, as I admire all three setters in that trio or triad.

    I didn’t know HARVEY the rabbit, but I knew pretty much everything else. Hobson’s choice in 27A (= no choice at all) was reminiscent of Mary Celete’s crew (= no-one) yesterday.

    I do like muffin’s challenges on bottom-up solving! Like Hovis @19, I solved LIQUIDITY bottom up, finding L QUID for ‘2 ponies’ and ITY for Ruth topping herself before I saw LIQUIDITY (although it then came in a nanosecond).

    There were many great clues and many clever misdirections. WANGLE was my last in – it took me a while to see ANGLE = perspective and thence the answer.

    Huge thanks to Bogus, and to PeterO for the blog.

  46. Sorry, Cookie @39 – I’m digging my heels in here. I’m sure you knew already but your dictionary research will have told you anyway that the word ‘triumvirate’ means, basically, the rule of three men – Chambers: ‘…specifically that of Pompey, Crassus and Caesar (60BC] and that of Octavian [Augustus], Mark Antony and Lepidus [4BC]’ – the derivation being ‘trium virorum’ – of three MEN. The Latin ‘vir’ means ‘a male person’ [cf English ‘virile’] – the ‘human / mankind’ word is ‘homo’.

    I think I know enough of Arachne and Nutmeg to think that they wouldn’t be completely comfortable with being a member of a triumvirate. 😉 I’m quite taken with trenodia’s suggestion @31.

  47. Congratulations to all the “bottom-uppers” for LIQUIDITY and LICENTIATE- I’m in awe!

    Alan B – do try to watch “Harvey” – lovely film.

  48. A toughie and no mistake – especially seeing as I’d never heard of 8 – though the theme was clear enough once that one was in place! I’m afraid I’m in no position to participate in 8 today – sciatica’s been playing up and it’s been more like WORLD GRIMACE DAY rather than GRIN! 🙁

    I think GRADGRIND must have been really hard. I’d read a bit of Hard Times so I remembered the name, but it’s not among Dickens’ best-known. And the wordplay was – excuse me! – a bit too tortuous – though I had spotted the GRIN in the word!

    Wasn’t SPREAD A LITTLE HAPPINESS a TV ad slogan once? Something about honey or syrup or whatever? Anyway that’s where the phrase rings a bell, for me.

    21a was excellent. Clear misdirection all around, I love the definition (yes I’ve still got one, unlike many blokes of my age!).

    And 4a made me 9a! I remember the maths master at school, explaining to us what he called the Grand Wangle Theorem, his pet system for solving determinants. Unfortunately, although I remember the name, I no longer remember how to do the GWT. Grey matter not up to it….

  49. Eileen@46 and others. How about “threesome”? Not that I’m imputing any improper goings-on between Puck, Arachne and Nutmeg – though it might be fun! 🙂

  52. muffin @47

    ‘Bottom-up’ is the solving method I use most to complete these darn things! I often don’t get many answers by intuition from the definition, but when I do manage to do so the crossword tends to take a bit less time.

    Ok, I’ll look out for Harvey!

  53. Hi Alan B
    I suppose I get more (except anagrams and hiddens) “top down”, so it always gives me more satisfaction when I do one “bottom up”.

  54. Peter A @ 43: ruthless = pitiless, so [uth] = [ity]. But I agree, rather tough and I had worked out the answer before I parsed it.

  55. Eileen @36, perhaps ‘triumvirate’ is not a good connection anyway, they seem to have been hated by the women, especially the second triumvirate, hence Hortensia’s speech, and as for ‘triad’…

    I think your ‘trio’ is best.

  56. I did not like the theme for this crossword. Two of the clues suggested a better theme – “work is the curse of the drinking classes.” — Oscar Wilde

  59. @ Arachne at 57 (and friends) Thankyou very much for your gift of multiple smiles today. And for thelink to Pharrell’s “Happy”. Very sad about the outcome. I’m wondering which came first to inspire your second coming… this event or World Smile Day? Your World Toilet Day do had a big flow-on effect. Looking forward to your next collaboration.

  60. GEORGE Clements @38
    As PeterO explains in the blog, its “‘close of’ WORLD (D) plus GRIN (SMILE) plus D (‘day’). “Close” only applies to “world”, then “smile” and “day” are separate elements. So the “close of world” is D not Y. Does that help?

  61. Arachne @57: You did, you did! (And further thanks to you for sharing the “Happy” video, and thanks also to Sil @ 58 for the great Sting video, covering the other song of the day today!)
    Thanks to this puzzle and the ensuing blog, I have been grinling all day!

  62. Clarification to me @61: “You did, you did” was intended with the plural (for the three members of Bogus) “you”. Or, as they say in the south of this country, “y’all”.

  64. Oh dear, where on earth were my manners? Enormous thanks to PeterO for the sterling blog, and apologies for forgetting to offer them last night.

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