Guardian Cryptic 27,384 by Philistine

by

Today’s Guardian puzzle can be found here.

One of those puzzles that is harder to parse than to solve, and I’m not sure i was completely successful in that regard, as I can’t satisfactorily parse 11ac.

An enjoyable solve if you don’t have to worry about blogging, with some unusual devices used (12ac, 24ac and 23dn, for example), and some basic modern languages knowledge is needed for a couple of other clues.

Thanks, Philistine

Across
1 VOLTE FACE Fixed fee to cover account after potential turnaround (5,4)
  *(fee) to cover Ac(count) after VOLT (“potential”), so VOLT-EF(AC)E
6 AGED Old and heartless, OK! (4)
  AG(re)ED (“OK”, with its heart (centre) removed, so heartless)
10 DWELT Lived in Germany with the world of the Germans (5)
  D (Germany) + WELT (“world” in German)
11 NEGLIGENT Slack peignoir (night clothing) (9)
  NEGLIGE (“peignoir”) + Nt. (“night”).

Not sure I have parsed this right, as “clothing” would indicate that the Nt, should go around neglige rather than on the end?
12 PROBLEM Difficulty with Mao parable, but not as translated (7)
  *(mo prble) (“Mao parable” with no As, indicated by “not as”)
13 INCITES Provokes auditory perceptions in certain places (7)
  Homophone of IN SITES (“in certain places”)
14 STICK-IN-THE-MUD Fogey briefly holding these people under detention to begin with (5-2-3-3)
  STICKIN(g) (briefly “holding) + THEM (“these people”) + U(nder) D(etention)
17 NEARLY THE SAME Perhaps she meant to eat at dawn, or similar (6,3,4)
  *(she meant) to eat EARLY (“at dawn”)
21 DEVIOUS Shifty of you French to pinch Naomi’s bottom (7)
  DE VOUS (“of you” in French) to pinch (Naom)I
22 REELING Slippery one in band is staggering (7)
  EEL (“slippery one”) in RING (“band”)
24 SATISFIED Met inquiry into a serious tax evasion fraud Detective Sergeant leads astray (9)
  *(iiastefds), the initial letters (leads) of the words after “Met”
25 CLASH Pound in banknotes and coins producing conflict (5)
  L (“pound) in CASH (“banknotes and coins”)
26 PERK Advantage of a copper kettle (4)
  Hidden in “copPER Kettle”
27 RESISTING Being uncooperative, is asleep outside (9)
  IS with RESTING (“asleep”) outside
Down
1 VIDE POST See later deposit slips after five (4,4)
  *(deposit) after V (“five”)
2 LIE TO Blair kept box in which even letters deceive (3,2)
  Even letters of (b)L(a)I(r), (k)E(p)T and (b)O(x)
3 EATS LIKE A HORSE So there is a leak, perhaps from gorges (4,4,1,5)
  *(so there is a leak)
4 AGNOMEN Little old man of legend in an appellation (7)
  GNOME (“little old man of legend”) in AN
5 ENGLISH What about slingshot for breakfast? (7)
  EH? (“what”?) about *(sling).  The definition is breakfast, as in “(full) English breakfast”.
7 GREAT IDEA Brainwave said in response to “what goes with a grey suit, darling?” (5,4)
  Homophone of “GREY TIE DEAR“
8 DETEST Dislike taking part in aptitude testing (6)
  Part of “aptituDE TESTing”
9 CIRCUMFERENCES The sexes in science recur, after setting boundaries (14)
  M and F (“the sexes”) in *(science recur”)
15 INNOVATOR Popular star to right of pioneer (9)
  IN (“popular”) + NOVA (“star”) + TO R(ight)
16 HEDGEHOG Insurance on Harley-Davidson — a vanishing breed (8)
  HEDGE (“insurance”) + HOG (“Harley-Davidson”)
18 LUSTIER Irish leader visiting troubled Ulster gets more passionate (7)
  I(rish) visiting *(ulster)
19 TIRADES Diatribes with no final school qualification turn out the same (7)
  (diatres) (“diatribes” without IB (International Baccaluareat), a “final school qualification”)
20 ADDS UP Makes sense for tots (4,2)
  Double definition
23 IRAQI Middle Eastern fuel qualifier when refined (5)
  *(qaiir) (“qualifier” with “fuel” removed)

*anagram

44 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,384 by Philistine”

  1. I read 11a as an anagram of neglige and ‘nt’ with ‘slack’ as the anagrind, so enclosure wasn’t required.

  5. Thanks to Philistine & loonapick.  Agree that there was a bit of solve first, parse later.  But very enjoyable.

    11a: I didn’t see it as an anagram – I had “neglige”, plus “nt” being the “clothing” (i.e. the first and last letters) of “night”

  7. jkb_ing @ 5 you’re right of course. I’m sure I parsed it that way at first, but my brain hasn’t woken up yet.

  8. Thanks Philistine and loonapick

     

    When it was 5d before FOI I thought that it was going to be a struggle, but in fact it went surprisingly easily after that. NEGLIGENT (parsed as posters above) was my favourite.

     

    I’m not seeing a subtraction indicator for IRAQI unless “refined” is doing double duty as this and anagram indicator.

  9. Thanks, loonapick. Yes, the parsing was a bit tricky and I was glad I wasn’t blogging to begin with – some innovative cluing here!

    There’s another homophone in 13ac: insights = perceptions.

    Many thanks, as ever, Philistine, for a fun challenge.

  13. Thanks for those who put me right on NEGLIGENT.  I probably would have got there in the end, but once I saw Nt as short for night, which I’m not even sure is right, I just couldn’t “unsee” it, if you know what I mean.

    And Mitz has explained 23 much better than I did, although that is the way I parsed it.

     

  14. Thanks to Philistine & loonapick – I enjoyed this.  In 14, shouldn’t “them” be “those people” rather than “these”?  Thanks for help with parsing Iraqi, which I stared at blankly for far too long!

  15. Great puzzle – on the easy side, I thought. Like others, parsing came after the event. Favourites were INCITES, DEVIOUS, SATISFIED and GREAT IDEA. Many thanks to P & l.

  16. Thanks loonapick.

    What a strange mixture of difficulty?  A large proportion of write-ins and some really difficult to parse.

    Generally, it was the subtractions that gave me trouble:

    – like muffin @8 I don’t see a subtraction indicator at IRAQI.

    – failed to spot the subtraction (no A’s) in PROBLEM.

    – not keen on having to having to remove IB (International Baccalaureate) to get TIRADES.

    I’ve always spelled it ‘negligée’ but perhaps a single e is also allowed.

    VOLTE FACE was my single tick.

    Thank you, Philistine.

    Nice week, all.

  17. Pretty much perfect, I thought. Thanks Philistine and loonapick. Didn’t know hog for Harley. I do now. Will look up to see why it is.

  19. Thanks to Philistine and loonapick.

    A long slow slog for me – and then at the end, so near and yet so far! I missed both 1a and 1d – the two Latin answers, VOLTE FACE and VIDE POST (had heard the former but not the latter). Ronald@18, I wish I had had that part of your education. The nuns in primary school taught me some Latin roots but that was about the extent of it. Mind you, in later years, I could still impress my students with “manus” the hand and “caput” the head when we were defining words…

    I did like 21a DEVIOUS, 8d DETEST, 9d CIRCUMFERENCES and 20d ADDS UP.

  20. Thanks to Philistine and loonapick.

    Some good clues; I liked the Paulian pun homophone for GREAT IDEA and VOLTE FACE. I didn’t much like the clue for NEGLIGENT; the NEGLIGE spelling is unusual and not in my ODE (although in Chambers), and surely if this is meant to be parsed as the clothing of night, it should be night’s clothing (otherwise, isn’t it N…T?)

    I missed the ‘as’ meaning A’s, doh! HOG for Harley-Davidson is pretty obscure, although it could be Googled after the event.

  21. Yes, a strange mixture. With the VICE VERSA / VOLTE FACE start, I was sure there was going to be a ‘foreign phrases’ theme, but I looked in vain.

    I knew there was a familiar name for a Harley-Davidson, but couldn’t remember what it was till I got the HEDGEHOG.

  23. Thank you to Philistine and loonapick.

    This went in much more quickly than  seemed likely at first glance, and like others many answers went in without working out the parsing.

    I enjoyed some of the more unusual device such as the subtraction of “as” in 12ac.

    The long clues with more than one word went in quickly. 17ac and 3dn would have been clued by Azed as 13,3 words and 14,4 words: and 14ac just as 13. I wonder if the same device would make solving a bit more challenging, or would that be too difficult?

     

     

  24. Like others we did plenty of post-solution parsing, but everything was teased out in the end. I felt particularly smug when I got the “as” device – it reminded me of the two Boatman remove-d type clues last week which I didn’t get. My other favourite was GREAT IDEA which I had to say out loud to Mrs W before the p d’d.
    Thanks to Philistine for an enjoyable and not too taxing puzzle and loonapick for the explanations.

  26. Does anybody else find they often get more down solutions on the first time through than across ones? It’s as if I have to read a certain number of the clues before my brain tunes in to the setter.

  27. OK – am I really the first to say it?

    “Hang on a minute lads, I’ve got 7d!”

    Enough of that… Reasonably smooth ride from Philistine – probably the most devious was PROBLEM, but I spotted the wordplay fairly early on (I suppose it counts as a ‘lift and separate’ type?)  Never heard of AGNOMEN but the clueing was fair and helpful.  Nor of the HOG in HEDGEHOG but – then – I’m no biking devotee!  Sad but true definition!

    Thanks to Philistine and LP.

     

  28. Late to the party, of course.  I liked this; it went quickly.  HOG for a Harley is familiar here; it’s possible simply that it’s an Americanism.  The bike, after all, originates in Milwaukee.

    Oddly, my first in was 1D, despite the phrase not being all that familiar.  Like others, I didn’t understand where the subtraction came from in the IRAQI clue until it was explained here.  Thanks to loonapick and Mitz for that.

  29. Loved the anagram in 3d!  One of my favorite bits of a good puzzle.

    I join the protest at neglige (can’t do the accent) with only one e at the end.

    Agnomen swam up from the dim depths, I knew I’d run across it somewhere and it was obviously some kind of name.   So I looked it up, and the history of agnomen and cognomen too is interesting.

    I usually don’t mind the non-rhotic homophones, but “grey tie dear” seems to me an r too far.

    Thanks, Philistine, loonapick and Mitz!

    (I don’t like the new formatting where a carriage return jumps two lines and whatever you type in comments disappears when you refresh before posting.

  31. salsaman @30 – [pedant’s hat on] Errrr …. no. Not precisely.

    A nova occurs when one member of a binary star system, usually a hot White Dwarf, ‘steals’ unburnt material from its companion (a cooler Red Giant) and heats it up so that it ignites, causing a temporary flare-up which may be many times as bright as the original stars.  But neither star ‘explodes’, strictly speaking.  After the event they are able to return to their normal state.

    What you were probably thinking of is a supernova, in which a star really does ‘explode’ in an act of self-destruction, with devastating consequences.  These are much rarer events, but far more spectacular.

     

  32. MrPenney @28 – we were visiting Maryland and Pennsylvania a few years ago, and learnt that there is also a big H-D plant at York, Pa.  Indeed we saw an awful lot of Harleys about.  I think they’re revered almost like gods in those parts!

  33. Thanks to Philistine and loonapick. I’m another who needed lots of help with parsing with items already cited, especially with Grey Tie Dear. I did know HOG but not the IB necessary to parse TIRADES.

  37. Very enjoyable, with some really good clues.  Sorry you had a bit of trouble in the NW corner, Julie (@19) – my knowledge of Latin phrases used in English, and of Latin generally, helped me to get 1A and 1D quite quickly.

    I thought the clues for NEGLIGENT and 23d IRAQI could have been refined (so to speak), but I have no complaints – after all, the blogger and subsequently some commenters have managed to prove, somehow, that these clues do work.  Solving this puzzle without having to look anything up gave me particular satisfaction.

    Thanks to Bridgesong and loonapick.

     

  38. Lovely puzzle. Just about right for me- and it’s my birthday! I liked PROBLEM,VOLTE- FACE and HEDGEHOG. AGNOMEN was new but clearly clued and so, I think, was NEGLIGENT.
    Good fun!
    Thanks Philistine.

  39. Thanks both. When required to take alternate letters from a sequence of words, I’m never sure whether to take alternates from the sequence of letters, or to treat each word separately, as in 2d. Is the convention always as in 2d?

  40. Tyngewick@39 – I don’t think there’s any consistent rule – you have to try either one scheme or the other till you get the right one!

  41. Howard March @26. Yes! It makes me wonder if I should start on the down clues.

    Many thanks to both for an enjoyable afternoon. This was one where the parsing definitely took second place and I had never heard of VIDE POST but the clueing meant it was the only thing it could be, although my Latin finished soon after verb conjugating. JiA@19, you may have had nuns but across the Tasman we had pipe smoke and leather patched jacket elbows.

  42. Thanks loonapick and Philistine.

    I didn’t know it, but HOG is apparently Harley Owners Group; why was no one else willing to spell it out here?

    I’m another who thinks neglige is a bit odd (and so does the spell checker here).

    I though we were perhaps building up to another Latin Quarter in the TL – Philistine Oct 28 2017.

    The GREAT IDEA put me in mind of the A GRADE A GREY DAY. GREAT, EH? Lots of other such examples at https://linguistlist.org/issues/4/4-481.html

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