Guardian 27,425 / Vlad

73 comments on “Guardian 27,425 / Vlad”

1. Thanks Vlad and Eileen

   I didn’t enjoy this as much as you obviously did, Eileen, though I liked HOMEOPATH and PERUSE. I thought the parochial GK references to Ade Edmondson and Anthony Joshua were misjudged – I knew them, in fact, but would have had no way of getting the answers if I hadn’t – and “Mr Nasty” for “Hyde”, hence HIDE is only slightly more forgivable.

2. I thought this a very classy challenge. It’s always satisfying when the clues send you thinking in creative ways rather than helplessly wracking your brains as can happen with poor cluing.
   Homeopath is one of the best clues ever for its self-contained implication!

3. Have to agree with muffin – some grit in the machinery here.  Also, am I alone in getting tired of clues like 18a where anagrams aren’t actually anagrams, but near misses of anagrams – i.e. not anagrams at all?

4. Regular readers won’t be surprised to learn that once again my views coincide with Eileens.  Mrs Vlad and her clue are obviously top of my favourites list

    

   Thanks to Vlad and Eileen

5. I’m with Eileen-and Vlad.

6. I meant to say that it was interesting to see ‘in’ craftily cluing both POPULAR and HOME when we see one or other of them almost every day the other way round.

7. 25ac- I’ve always spellled the practice as HOMOEPATHY

8. JOSHUA needed a fact from my large acreage of general ignorance, so I don’t feel guilty for not getting it. Favourite I think the FLIP CHART and the HOME O PATH.

9. Hi Bart Edmondson @7

   Quite recently I commented that a clue in Paul’s puzzle had given me a useful mnemonic for spelling MESSIAEN – it often happens.

   [You must have been chuffed at the name check at 17dn. 😉 ]

10. I put in an unparsed ‘flow’ for FLIP in 10a and an equally unparsed ‘A con trick’ for 5d, so ended up being a DNF after a bit of a struggle, especially at the start. I liked this even if some of the subtlety passed me by; I thought the ‘top fighter’ was referring back to the biblical Joshua, never having heard of the 21st century pugilist.

    I agree about 14,23 and the &littish (fence sitting) HOMEOPATH was almost as good.

    The Guardian was headed ‘to this place’ today with the Independent going in the opposite direction ‘to that place’. Conspiracy or coincidence? I’d go for the former.

    Thanks to Vlad and Eileen.

11. Thanks Vlad; I thought this was a great crossword. Mrs Vlad should be proud!

    Thanks Eileen; I’ve always spelt ‘homeopathy’ as ‘rubbish’. A patient goes to the doctor with strange symptoms and wants a homeopathic remedy. If it’s not serious, drink a small glass of water, he says; if it is serious, drink a large glass!

    I would have thought most people would have heard of Anthony Joshua who is trying to take and unify all the world heavyweight boxing titles (although it’s not one of my favourite sports.) I did have to check on Ade Edmondson, though. I also didn’t know LEOMINSTER, although once it looked like ???minster, there was not much else to go in.

    I lazily put ON THE TOP for 16 until that unwelcome homeopath got in the way.

     

12. I’ll go in the “not a fan” category today.  Partially this is because I’m expected to know a British boxer named Joshua, a British comedian named Ade Edmonson, and some racetrack in Yorkshire.  At least for LEOMINSTER he told me which part of the map of England I had to stare at when it came time to cheat.   So maybe I’m not the best judge here.

    One other complaint:  “Villa centre half welcomes tie”: What work is the word “half” doing other than making the surface reading make sense?  In “hidden answer” clues there really should be no extra words.  I remember reading a memorable essay about constructing cryptics by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, a team who write some of the best American cryptics.  On this point, they said something along the lines of “You can hide the answer HERA in one word [tHERApist], or across two [oTHER Actress] but what about in OVER THE RAINBOW? Maybe in Oz, but we wouldn’t recommend it in Kansas.”

13. I enjoyed this although I failed to solve 19d & 24d and needed help to parse 4d, 10a, 28a.

    New words for me were ADE Edmondson (never heard of him!), LEOMINSTER, DRAGOMAN.

    My favourites were HOMEOPATH and 14/23 (Mrs Vlad haha)

    Thanks Eileen and Mr Vlad.

14. Thoroughly enjoyed this, only failed to parse RED CARD, and had to Google JOSHUA the boxer (or “hitter” as I prefer to call him). Favourite was GRACELAND. My Chambers says HOMEOPATH can also be spelled HOMOEOPATH.

15. Thanks Eileen and Vlad.

     

    Whilst I “finished”,  several elucidations needed today: HOMEOPATH, REDCARD, RIFLE, JOSHUA.

    I also agree with muffin @ 1 (sorry, again, Eileen)

    I am a bit surprised our ed did not poo-poo 12a, since we had a number two very recently.

16. Include me in the ‘loved it’ camp of this Marmitey crossword.

    A couple of gripes though, Not sure if Ade Ednmondson is quite fair and (Robi @11:)  No, I’ve never heard of the chap, but I wish him well in his pugilistic endeavours)

    Failed to parse the excellent RED CARD clue and have never used portent as a marvel but it’s in Chambers and perfectly fair.

    Not sure what half is doing in the LACE clue.  It works fine without it, doesn’t it?

    Gareth @3:  I know what you mean but it’s a perfectly valid ruse in my book.  It’s sometimes a last resort for the setter, I feel.

    Many thanks Eileen and Vlad, great stuff.

    Nice week, all.

     

17. mrpenney @12:  Apologies for repeating your ‘half‘ question in the LACE clue.  I started typing @11 but got sidetracked.

    I enjoyed your reference to the Cox/Rathvon essay but not sure I agree wholeheartedly with your other comments.  You often make points here about local knowledge but, you have to admit, that a crossword in The Guardian is always liable to be a bit UK-centric.  I recall tackling a cryptic on your side once (Washington, I think) and failed on an apparently famous TV celeb, a trail in Yesemite Park, and an unheard of cajun dish.  When I moaned to my host, she knew all 3 immediately!

18. To be honest, I’d never heard of the boxer, either. – I simply googled ‘Joshua, fighter’, to see if there was additional information about the biblical Joshua I did know and there he was. He sounded so famous that I didn’t own up. 😉

19. “Parochial (adj) – Very limited or narrow in scope or outlook”

    Can this word really be used to describe an actor and comedian who has been in the public eye for nearly 40 years, who starred in The Young Ones and Blackadder (the two top British comedy series of the ’80s) numerous Comic Strip films and other well known comedy series, and more latterly has had a major role in the BBC’s adaptation of War and Peace, and even a part in Star Wars?

    As for attributing it to the Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World – astonishing.

    Brilliant crossword, Vlad – thanks very much, and thanks too to Eileen.

20. Mitz @19

    I refer you to mrpenney’s post @12

21. @muffin

    A British World and Olympic Champion boxer.  A British Actor whose work has been seen all over the world and has been active for the best part of 40 years.

22. …and Eileen’s @18!

23. I’m not a boxing or horse racing fan, and I’ll admit that I stared at 28 for a while knowing the answer, but unsure how it parsed, but both are famous enough.  The actor is more a matter of taste, I’ll admit.  My argument is that the word “parochial” gets used inappropriately far too often here.

24. I see your point, Mitz, but mrpenney (from the USA) didn’t recognise the names (and Eileen didn’t know the boxer). I wonder if our Australian solvers will know them?

25. muffin @22 – I was actually challenging mrpenney’s comment, complaining about ‘a British boxer’ [in a British crossword] – I’m British and I’ve never heard of him, not being a boxing fan, but, like anyone else, British or not, I can google him.

    [mrpenney, I found out today that there’s a LEOMINSTER in Massachusetts – not surprisingly, pronounced differently: ours is Lem – ster. 😉 ]

26. Thanks to Vlad and Eileen. When I saw the setter I was apprehensive, and rightly so. I found it tough going with a lot of parsing after the event. My elation at finishing turned to disappointment when I realised I had got two wrong. Made exactly the same mistake as you WordPlodder, I put in flow chart and blagged a con trick for 5d, therefore a DNF for me also. That said enjoyed the challenge so thanks again Vlad and Eileen for the parsing. Maybe I will get you next time Vlad?

27. I had the same difficulties as some others (never heard of Joshua or Ade) but I always enjoy learning new things from crosswords, even if I’m not likely to need to know them for any other purpose.  My favorite “gosh I never knew that” was Budgie Smugglers as an Australian term for Speedos, from a Paul prize a few years ago.  I’ve never had any reason to use it since, but nevertheless knowing the term enriches my life! Very much enjoyed the puzzle, so thanks to Vlad and Eileen.

28. Tough without being contrived. Very satisfying (eventually).

29. I’m in the “love it” category (the crossword, not Marmite).  Unfortunately a dnf as, whilst I was aware the word DRAGOMAN exists, I didn’t know its meaning.  And it didn’t come to mind, either!

    I’m not going to get into the parochial argument, other than to agree with William @17: even in the Internet age where a newspaper’s crosswords can be undertaken from anywhere in the world, publications still have countries of origin and, therefore, focus and I’d expect that to come through in the puzzles to some extent.  If compilers are expected to shun any reference that can’t be guaranteed to be known to a global audience, it’s going to restrict their output.

    Lots of favourites (which is a contradiction in terms): RED CARD and HOMEOPATHY shared with earlier contributors, AGREED, RIFLE and SENTIMENTS (which is not a million miles away from being &littish) all deserve mention.  SIGNIFICANT OTHER is, of course, brilliant but I’m giving my COTD to FLIP CHART for its simplicity and elegance.

    My first attempt at a Grauniad online crossword was a Vlad and I nearly didn’t come back.  Now I relish his mischievousness and this was first rate.  Thanks to Vlad and Eileen.

30. Loved it.  Clever, funny, challenging and fair (no complaints about the very famous boxer, actor & race track).  One of those puzzles that I stared at for ages before making much headway at all, then slowly and satisfyingly it reveals itself.  Great fun!

    Many thanks to Vlad and Eileen.

31. fantastic puzzle; didn’t get Joshua, should have, annoying.

    many thanks Vlad and Eileen

32. Thanks for parsing HIDE and RIFLE – couldn’t see the wood for the trees. Enjoyed this one – not Vlad’s toughest but as always plenty of ingenuity and wit. TOOL was last in – obvious in retrospect.

    Thanks to Vlad and Eileen.

33. ‘Joshua won the battle of Jericho…´- presumably a fighter who wrote a book.  Isn’t that a double definition in itself without recourse to British heavyweights?   Or am I being a little perverse?

    As for Ade Edmundson, I always had thought it was Adrian and only found the ‘Ade’ reference when I DuckDuckGo’d (a friendlier alternative to Google) him.

34. Thanks to Vlad and Eileen. Too tough for me. With help from Google I did eventually confirm Ade Edmondson and Joshua the boxer (whom I should have remembered) and I did parse LEOMINSTER and knew Redcar from a previous puzzle, but ON THE HOP was new to me and I did not parse BEFORE LONG. I  would never use “parochial” to describe such a puzzle (that gap is part of the challenge), but there is an extra level of difficulty (and not just in matters of sports and entertainment).

35. For me the surface of 6 across is a nice piece of football misdirection. ‘The Aston Villa centre-half is looking forward to the cup match’. It doesn’t make much sense without the ‘half’ in the clue as there is no position of centre in football (unlike the NFL).

36. Me @16:  Sorry to bang on about it, but what is “half” doing in the LACE clue.  It works fine without it, doesn’t it?

    chargehand @33:  That’s how I got there and thought it perfectly OK.  Saves a lot of debate about whether one should or should not know names of boxers.

37. MJH @35:  Apologies – crossing.  See your point, but to make it, you’ve added a hyphen.

38. I really enjoyed this puzzle. Thank you Vlad. And clear concise blog. Thank you Eileen.

    I also thought the fighter reference in 19d was to JOSHUA fighting at Jericho, but then I’m not a fan of boxing. In fact, quite the opposite. But surely that’s one of the best things about crosswords that you learn new things. In retrospect I think I’d heard of DRAGOMAN before, but only got it from the precise clueing.

    Several favourites: 10a, 14/23, 25a, 15d. Good fun all round.

39. Well over my head, and left incomplete with ? signs littering several that I did solve. The wonderful SIGNIFICANT OTHER deserves better company. In retrospect there are several clues I should have got – JOSHUA prime amongst them – but others were biffed in with no real idea what was going on. So, too clever by half if you ask me, but that’s a bit of sour grapes as I’m obviously not clever enough to finish. And the last Vlad we had, I thought I was getting there!

40. William @17:  Just so I’m not being misunderstood, when I post here about linguistic and cultural differences I run into in these puzzles, I’m not usually griping about them!  Of course, there will be (broadly understood) local knowledge, and it often surprises me just how different things are.  Usually, my tone is meant to be, “huh–learned something there.”

    (Today–well, today I was griping.  Probably in part because I was up at that crazy hour in the first place.)

41. Joshua is a book and a Don is an academic, so I biffed ’em in.  I can live with that, as long as there isn’t too much of it.  In general, I enjoy Britishisms.  I miss some of them and pat myself on the back when I get others.

    Never heard of Redcar racecourse, but there’s Leominster in Massachusetts so the name was familiar.  Easy, once I got “leo = sign”; before that — could there be a Tagminster?  Ours is pronounced “Lemminster,” by the way.

    Why is RIFE “awfully common” rather than just common?

    mrpenney@12 GRACELAND is about as American as a clue can get, so we get our licks in too.   Where do you find “the best American cryptics?”

    Gareth @3 NICHE MARKET is an anagram of “race methink”, which is race methinks largely.  Or almost.

    Fine puzzle and enjoyable blog — thanks, Vlad and Eileen.

42. I thought this was great, consistently challenging and witty and neat. Finished it a bit quicker than usual with Vlad, who is normally at the slow end of my spectrum, along with Tramp. In which connection, I have just posted some figures under ‘General Discussion’, for what they are worth, and will hope to elicit some response and maybe comparative data. Here is the intro:

    Guardian setters: degrees of difficulty:  I have got into the rather nerdy habit of noting the time taken each day to solve the Guardian crossword, and eventually thought I might as well do something with the accumulation of data: see the list below, which tabulates my personal average solving times for the various setters over more than a year. I stress the word personal: it would be interesting to see how far the experience of others tallies or otherwise with my own….    For more, go to General Discussion

43. One for capital P for Perseverance today. Couldn’t solve a single clue first time through. But bit by bit, beginning with the SouthWest corner, I prevailed. Capital S for Supreme Satisfaction in the end…

44. I enjoyed this a lot – there were many excellent clues, of which my two favourites were SIGNIFICANT OTHER and HOMEOPATH, and many more came equal third on my list.

    It was indeed strange to have ‘number two’ used in the same way last Friday and today.  And like Eileen @6 I liked the use of ‘in’ to mean both POPULAR and HOME instead of having either of those two words as clues for IN.

    By chance I saw Anthony Joshua’s name in a headline recently, but otherwise I would not have heard of him.  However, because of his status and ranking I thought it fair to refer to him in a clue to JOSHUA, which is familiar to nearly everybody as a ‘book’.  (By the way, there are a great many famous and rich people whose world I don’t inhabit and who don’t inhabit mine, so it’s not surprising that I haven’t heard of them.  I’m in good company, I think!)

    Vlad is one of those top setters for whom a clue’s surface trumps such things as clarity (or precision sometimes) when necessary.  As I know from reading this forum, many solvers like it that way too.  I counted 5 clues today to which this comment would apply.  I admire most those top setters who don’t take such liberties, but I will also say that we have had two well-crafted but greatly contrasting crosswords this week so far, and I enjoyed today’s more.

    Many thanks to Vlad and Eileen.

45. Not Vlad’s hardest I think, but quite a challenge.  Curiously, my FOI was the long one, 14a/23d – perhaps because I had in mind today’s significant anniversary!  Hope Mrs Vlad didn’t mind any more than Mrs L does!

    As to HOMEOPATH (I think the American spelling is the de facto norm nowadays – or did anyone prefer “homoeopath”?) – plenty of folks out there (Ben Goldacre, James Randi among others) will be pleased with that clue.  But will others perhaps be looking up lawyers? 😮

    Couldn’t parse the “Edmonson” bit of ACADEMIC – I suspect it just needed a bit of GK.  And likewise with JOSHUA – not well up on the boxing world, though the name did ring a bell – faintly.

    Favourite – got to be FLIP CHART I reckon.  These reverse wordplays are so hard to get – and so satisfying when you do spot them!  I’m still scratching my head trying to dream up a reverse clue of my own…

    Nice one Vlad and Eileen.

46. I’m about 94.464% in the “loved it” camp.  I thought there were many great clues with satisfying PDMs, among them POPULAR, FLIP CHART, SIGNIFICANT OTHER, SENTIMENTS, and my favorite, HOMEOPATHY.

    My last two in were JOSHUA and RED CARD, and I did not like them as much as the others.  I did not know the boxer (world champion though he may be — I have very little current knowledge of, or interest in, the sport), which explains my lack of enthusiasm for the clue.  I solved it based solely on the biblical Joshua (for both halves of the dd), and found “top fighter” for the biblical Joshua rather weak clueing.  After coming here and learning of the champion boxer, I see that the clue was perfectly fine, and the deficiency was entirely with me.  As for RED CARD, I spotted “dismissed sign” as the def, but I didn’t like it.  I parsed the clue correctly without knowing what Redcar was, and used Google to confirm that it was indeed the name of a “course” (and the place where one would find the course, of course).  I did not absolutely hate 28ac, but I kept thinking that there must have been better ways to clue this answer, that would have been up on the same fine level (in my opinion) as so many other clues in this puzzle.  (I realize that RED CARD probably *has* been clued in many ways by many setters over the years, perhaps in some cases quite brilliantly, and that possibly Vlad was in a situation of having to come up with an original way to clue it.)

    Having grown up not very far from the Massachusetts city, I found LEOMINSTER (pronounced as noted by Valentine @41) to be an easy answer.  I did not know Ade Edmondson off-hand, although, after concluding that “Edmondson” in the clue for 17d must stand for ADE, and Googling to confirm, I recognized him from having watched some episodes of The Young Ones many years ago.  I also did not know ON THE HOP, but it was perfectly gettable from the clueing and the crossers.

    I missed the parsing for LACE.  My attempted parsing — which I was not very happy with, but it was all I could come up with, having completely overlooked the “envelope” — was:  L (center of Villa) + ACE (half of … graces?  braces? I was trying to think of a 6-letter word with ACE in it, that could possibly be a synonym for  “welcomes”).

    Many thanks to Vlad and Eileen and the other commenters.

     

47. Like others I mused for a while at the redundant (?) “half” in 6d.  I think it’s OK – because the surface needs it (you can have a “centre” in rugby but not in soccer).  And it doesn’t interfere with the wordplay grammar.

    Likewise the ‘up’ in 12a.  I didn’t see the connection ‘up’ -> ‘on horseback’ (not my scene, really!).  So once again I decided it was just a filler-word to help with the surface – but more dubious this time as it seemed to interfere with the definition.  To me, “Number two crosses line for game” would have been a fairer clue.

    Anthony Joshua – now that I’ve googled him, here he is in action, in case anyone’s interested.

48. Ade Edmondson is the Royal Shakespeare Company’s current Malvolio, which is beamed to cinemas across the UK next Wednesday if you wish to get to know him better.

    For 6d I imagine the American confusion might be because they don’t have centre halfs in the US soccer vernacular but center backs.

49. Never heard of the boxer JOSHUA but I knew the biblical figure who fought ‘ the battle of Jerico’ so who needed him? I’m certainly with Chargehand@33.
    Overall,though,I thought this rather good despite being a slow solve. I didn’t always get the parsing right so I needed to come here for FLIP CHART and I’m cursing myself for not being able to see this very good clue- I missed the ADE in ACADEMIC too!
    Most enjoyable.
    Thanks Vlad.

50. Well gosh didn’t that cause some debate ! I thought the GK parts were fair enough – but then I was a great fan of The Young Ones and I know someone who actually fought Anthony Joshua, so I had a bit of a head start. It took a little while before the penny dropped on Graceland though.

51. Oh and I’m forgetting my manners – thanks to Eileen and Vlad!

52. I’m a pretty pop culture-literate Canadian, but Joshua and Ade were unfamiliar to me. That said, I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that being stumped by the occasional reference to British celebrities, cricketers, footballers, cities, islands and slang expressions is the (small) price of entry to the glorious world of British cryptics.

53. William @37. I thought that as I typed it in, though to be fair it’s used with and without the hyphen. To be fair, Vlad could have added another level of misdirection and referenced ‘centre back’.

54. Excellent all round. Didn’t solve a single clue for 15 minutes, then wrestling and perseverance prevailed.
    Many thanks Vlad And Eileen

55. Interesting that the American LEOMINSTER is “Lemminster”. Ours, I think, is “Lemster” – even briefer!

56. Splendid puzzle

57. Having now read through the subsequent posts, I think I ought to confess:

    a) though I had heard of Anthony Joshua, I had no idea that he was a World Champion

    b) I had seen Adrian Edmondson in “The young ones” (which I hated), but only then in some late “Jonathan Creek” episodes – I don’t remember him in “Blackadder”, and I haven’t seen any of the other things mentioned.

58. You will have seen him in Holby City, of course, as Abra Durant.

59. What a nice little puzzle, not the hardest of Vlads but a really enjoyable one.

    I am a bit surprised [but that’s an understatement] by the number of (British) solvers above that were unfamiliar with Adrian (Ade) Edmondson.  When I saw the name Edmondson, it was the first thing I thought of – and I am not even British!  Together with his matey, the late great Rik Mayall – in The Young Ones (as Vyvyan), Bottom and occasionally in the IMO finest of British comedies Blackadder – he shook up the TV landscape. It might well be that muffin‘s addition @57 [‘which I hated‘ which is fair enough] was one of the reasons why so many people put a question mark to his name. As Van Winkle @48 said , Mr Edmondson does some serious acting nowadays and was recently rediscovered by the press as his 14,23 [Jennifer Saunders] also stepped into the spotlight again [as Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere].  Less well-known to many of Ade’s admirers is that he also fronted a folk-rock band called The Bad Shepherds who released three albums (as far as I know) and were even nominated for Best Live Act at the 2010 BBC 2 Folk Awards.

60. Many thanks to Eileen for the blog and to others who commented.

    Apologies for the missing hyphen in ‘centre-half’ which was a typo.

61. Myelbow @52 (second sentence):  Hear! Hear!  A glorious world it is indeed!  And each of those things that may stump a non-UK solver like me (or cause me to delve into Google until I can sort out the correct answer — same difference) becomes a TILT (Thing I Learned Today), which is almost always a fine thing to experience.  And there are invariably many bonus TILTs to be found in the (sometimes tangential) discussions in the blogs and comments appearing daily here on 15^2.

    Vlad @60:  Thanks for stopping by!  [Same to Tramp @56, assuming you are “that” Tramp.]

62. Another Hear! Hear! from me, it is indeed as the previous speaker said ‘a glorious world’ (a bit unlike the real world).

    Vlad’s apologies for the missing hyphen in 6d shouldn’t be Vlad’s. One or two people must have checked the crossword, surely?

    And me calling The Bad Shepherds a folk-rock band isn’t quite right. They really sound like pure folk but did a lot of remakes of pop classics like The Smiths’s Panic or even The Sex Pistols’s Anarchy in the UK.  Vyvyan revisited!  🙂

63. As an American solver, there were a few things that should have stopped me, but they didn’t.   I just put in the logical word, and don’t worry about it too much – you  can’t know everything.

    I picked this puzzle out of a couple I hadn’t solved because I like Vlad’s style, and he served up a fine puzzle that was eminently solvable.   You may have to think about the clue for a while, but they are very fair and eventually you will see how they work.

    I didn’t even see the hidden for ‘lace’, thought it was [vi]L[la] + half of some word meaning ‘welcomes’.   It give me ‘flip chart’, so it must be the right answer.

64. vinyl1 @63 – You and I both solved (if that’s the right word for it) LACE the exact same way — see my post @46.  Must be an American thing.

65. “Centre half” is not a typo in my book – Shoot! Annual 1978. No apology due.

66. This was a decided DNF for me, but none the worse for that.

    For me, Edmondson means the little cardboard tickets issued by British (and other) railways for at least 100 years. It’s no doubt a mark of my many youthful years spent collecting numbers on railway platforms that I spent a long time trying to fit that meaning in, rather than Ade of that name, despite him being perfectly familiar to me.

67. Lovely stuff from Mrs Vlad’s SIGNIFICANT OTHER.

    Just to throw in my two pennorth (10 cents’ worth?) on the parochialism debate, this is the Manchester Guardian we’re talking about; we southerners are lucky it isn’t all Madchester, Coronation Street and the Busby Babes.  I think it’s fair to expect a generally UK-centric feel in a well established UK institution such as the Grauniad crossword.  It’s great that solvers from the US, Australia and other far-flung lands enjoy them as well, but I really don’t think the puzzle should be internationalised for their benefit, or rather, see its British nature watered down.

    So yes, @12 mrpenney (among others), it is not that unreasonable for the setter to expect you to be aware of a British boxer named Joshua (who is a World Heavyweight Champion and Olympic Gold medallist).  My difficulty with JOSHUA is that as a devout and committed atheist I make it my business not to know about the Bible and whatever books it contains (it’s not my kind of fiction), so I often come a cropper with clues referring to ‘books’ as this one does.

    As soon as I saw Edmondson, I thought of ADE, given that Bill was probably AC, and Mike MIC: a clever clue leading from Don to ACADEMIC.

    (Aston) Villa don’t have a ‘centre’ looking forward to their next ‘tie’, but a ‘centre half’, so I don’t agree with opinions above that ‘half’ is redundant; the surface should make sense.  It feels awfully pedantic to point out, but in a complaint about redundant words, the phrase “I remember reading a memorable essay …” contains a redundancy itself.  As for said memorable essay, jolly good for Cox and Rathven and their disciplined setting; I don’t believe they decide the rules for Guardian setters, and in this instance it is only one short word extra.

    Hope this isn’t too tetchy, but a cough kept me up all night.  Lucky i am posting late as usual so few will read!  Thanks to Vlad and Eileen for a fine puzzle and blog.

68. I’ve only just caught up with the comments from Vlad’s (@60) onwards.  While solving this crossword I was stuck on LACE because I tried to make ‘L’ match ‘Villa centre’, as I think other solvers did.  Until the light dawned, I was a too dim to realise that inserting a hyphen would have removed the difficulty and made the clue work properly.

    I appreciated Vlad’s comment.  Although that sort of thing is the setter’s responsibility, there are one or two other links in the chain of producing a crossword, and one always hopes that a typo will be picked up if the setter has missed it.

69. Late as usual (it’s all about when the paper gets delivered) but wanted to say how much we enjoyed this puzzle. Thank you Vlad.

    And as always a nice blog, thank you Eileen.

70. Like Eileen loved it. Tricky but very satisfying

71. A super fun puzzle – albeit at Vlad’s easier end so the fun didn’t last as long as I’d hoped, but that’s just me being greedy! The setter’s ability to test does not depend on abstruse words that have to be checked post solve but on creative clueing. Without question, he’s a “top favourite” for me. Many super clues here, my personal choices including HOMEOPATH and SIGNIFICANT OTHER.

    Anthony Joshua, is the WORLD heavyweight boxing champion and, from all I’ve seen or heard of him, an articulate, and decent, young man who represents Britain at her best. I am no boxing fan but have surprisingly taken an interest in Mr Anthony Joshua. He is one of those rarities – an intelligent gentleman not unlike our ‘Enery. But more so – he is a very special (and big!) British heavyweight world champion. I have a feeling it may not be long before he’s a household name – worldwide!
    Thanks to Vlad and Eileen.

72. Well, if I’m to enter the great “Ade Edmondson” debate, it’s to declare myself one of the ‘not heard of him’ fraternity – sorry!  At least he only contributes three letters to the wordplay, one of them checked – so not knowing the name wasn’t so bad!

    This reminds me of an incident – not crossword-related – which happened to me about 15 years ago and illustrates how ignorance of popular culture may trip you up – or get you labelled a ‘snob’ or whatever.  Every time I say the words “never heard of him/her” I run that risk!  I was attending French evening classes, and one day the teacher set an exercise.  She wrote the names of several celebs (not necessarily French) on slips of paper and we each had to draw one slip.  Then we were supposed to recite a brief description (in French) of the person on the slip, from which our classmates had to guess who it was.

    Bear in mind that this was before the smartphone overtook TV as the mainstream media feed.  Well, as luck would have it, I drew the name of a TV personality whom I’d never heard of (he has since become a household name, but not back then – not to me.  I won’t name him to avoid embarrassment!).  So I announced “sorry, I’ll have to draw again, I’ve never heard of X——–“.  One of my classmates, a young woman perhaps 20 years my junior, immediately struck in: “Surely you must know who X——– is: he’s been on TV lots, he looks like ——- and dresses like ———, he does ————, you must know him…”.  Me: “No – your description doesn’t ring a bell – sorry.”  She:  “What, do you never watch TV?”  Me: “No…”  But of course I’d jumped feet-first into that last remark, so I quickly corrected myself: “Yes of course I watch TV – but perhaps not the sort of programmes you watch….”  Oops!  Talk about digging a hole for myself!  Of course I was a diehard snob ever after, to the lady in question.  Tidal waves of embarrassment!  Luckily for me, she dropped out of the class soon after.  Perhaps she didn’t want to spend the evening amongst snobs….

    So the moral lesson I learned from that episode – don’t chide fellow-solvers if they complain that their GK didn’t extend to being familiar with a particular bit of clueing.  We all have gaps in our collections of trivia. each of us is unique in that respect.

    Having said that, broadening one’s GK, if one has the time or patience to do so, is a great boon to crucivervbalists!

73. Today my solving partner told me that Adrian Edmondson also won Celebrity Masterchef in 2013 …..   🙂

Comments are closed.