Guardian 27,428 – Puck

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Some not-too-tricky Puckery for our entertainment today.

There’s often (usually?) a theme in Puck’s puzzles, but I can’t see anything here, except that there is some repetition of elements (DUPLICATES?) in a few clues – a couple of LIES, two LINES, and two political parties. I await enlightentment.. Thanks to Puck.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. HYPED UP Extremely hairy Philistine reaches party in high spirits (5,2)
H[air]Y P[hilistin]E + DUP (political party)
5. PORK PIE In 26 without, say, a type of hat (4,3)
LIEGE without EG (say) is LIE, for which PORK PIE is rhyming slang; it’s also a type of hat
9. JULEP Frenchman with money for second drink (5)
JULES with S[econd] replaced by P[ence]
10. LIBERTINE Rake one chap used in occupation (9)
I BERT in LINE (occupation, as in “What’s My Line”)
11. CITRIC ACID Some lemon has HNO3 containing carbon instead of nitrogen (6,4)
NITRIC ACID (HNO3) with C instead of N, though “containing” is a bit inaccurate
12. SNAP Party without a break (4)
A in SNP (another political party)
14. LABYRINTHINE Puzzling row about a cowshed (hint: suspect not English) (12)
A BYR[E] + HINT* in LINE (another line, though with a different indication here)
18. CONSECRATION Making holy doctors snort cocaine (12)
(SNORT COCAINE)*
21. LYES Broadcast fictions which give substance to soaps? (4)
Homophone of “lies” (fictions)
22. ASYMMETRIC My crime? Sat around, being crooked (10)
(MY CRIME SAT)*
25. DEMEANING Journo backed definition that’s undignified (9)
Reverse of ED + MEANING (definition)
26. LIEGE Subject of story told by Georgia (5)
LIE (another one) + GE (code for the country, not the US state)
27. SETBACK Problem getting old Times supplement? (7)
SET BACK is TES, abbreviation for the Times Educational Supplement, always known to teachers as the “Times Ed”, which I see is now officially called just TES; no longer an actual supplement to the paper, hence the “old”
28. TRYPSIN Go wrong injecting soft enzyme (7)
P (soft) in TRY (a go) SIN (wrong). Trypsin is secreted by the pancreas, and is involved in the digestion of proteins
Down
1. HIJACK “Hello, sailor” is appropriate, when moving (6)
Hello, sailor = HI, JACK
2. PILATE Devout former judge and governor (6)
PI (devout) + LATE (former)
3. DUPLICATES Copies potential partners, keeping mostly upbeat? (10)
UP + LIC[k] (to beat) in DATES
4. POLKA President leading a merry dance? (5)
POLK (James K Polk, 11th president of the US) + A
5. PUBLICIST “Biopic strewn with lust, not love” (Advertiser) (9)
(BIOPIC LUST)* less O
6. RARE Thin artist reluctantly eating starters (4)
RA + R[eluctantly] E[ating]
7. PEIGNOIR Hook holding one black French dressing gown (8)
I in PEG + NOIR
8. EXEMPTED Spared once seduced, when short of time (8)
EX [T]EMPTED
13. STROKE PLAY City about right latitude for common sort of golf tournament (6,4)
R in STOKE (Stoke on Trent, which was granted City status in 1925) + PLAY (latitude)
15. YARDSTICK Standard measures for ale? That’s right (9)
YARDS (measures of ale) + TICK (mark against a correct answer)
16. OCCLUDES Stops only child Penny filling in part of crossword (8)
O.C. + D (old penny) in CLUES
17. INTERMIT Stop for a time in Bury, meeting male having sex (8)
INTER + M + IT (sex)
19. GREENS Topless match, with players from one side in shades (6)
[A]GREE + NS (partners in Bridge)
20. SCREEN Blind test? (6)
Double definition
23. MIGHT In power, May’s tense (5)
MIGHT is the past tense of “may”
24. PAPA Old man, twice party leader (4)
I presume this is PA[rty] twice, though it’s a bit of a stretch as (singular) “party leader”. A much better explanation from Larry et al: it’s PA (old man) twice,
with definition “party leader”, which is P = PAPA in the NATO phonetic alphabet (or possibly Papa Doc Duvalier, though I’m less convinced by that).

54 comments on “Guardian 27,428 – Puck”

  1. I failed to solve GREENS and I needed help to parse 3d, 15d, 11a.

    New word for me was TRYPSIN but it was very clearly clued.

    My favourites were LIEGE, PEIGNOIR, EXEMPTED.

    Thank you Puck and Andrew.

  2. Thanks Puck and Andrew

    Mostly very easy, with CITRIC ACID barely cryptic, though I didn’t parse DUPLICATES. I wondered if PAPA was a reference to Papa Doc Duvalier in Haiti, but I couldn’t remember his party – another rather weak clue.

    Favourite was YARDSTICK.

  4. I had 24D as PA (old man) twice, with the definition being ‘party leader’ – papa being the radio telecommunications word for ‘p’

    Thanks Puck and Andrew

  6. Another enjoyable workout for my brain today, only failing on GREENS = shades.
    23 down sent me into an internet wormhole discussion on whether modal verbs can have tenses…
    Many thanks P&A.

  7. Thanks, Andrew.

    Another highly enjoyable puzzle from Puck: my favourites today were LABYRINTHINE and CONSECRATION.

    My take on 24dn was a combination of muffin’s and larry’s: PA [old man] twice = party leader [Papa Doc or this one ].

    I well remember the weekly scramble for the staff room copy of the TES [a separate publication since 1914, according to your link, Andrew] each Friday lunchtime. It was the Jobs section which was the focus of attention and, by the time it reached the last pair of hands, there were several holes in it. It was always interesting to speculate as to who had ripped out what. 😉

    Many thanks, Puck.

  8. Thanks Puck, Andrew

    I did very badly on this.  I had UNSEEN instead of SCREEN, even though 22a was obviously an anagram with no N.  I thought of GREENS but didn’t try hard enough to parse it, so revealed it eventually.  Also revealed SETBACK, lacking the K.  Then got YARDSTICK and LABYRINTHINE (a bit unfair to separate the English from the byre, I thought), and finally revealed ASYMMETRIC.

    Pleased to guess TRYPSIN first time with only the T in place.  I’m with Larry@4 on PAPA.

  10. Larry @4:  Well done, better than mine.

    Don’t understand the might/may/tense thing.  Perhaps someone will help a thicko.

    Thought rare = thin a bit strained.  I suppose the link is ‘thin on the ground’ but I’d struggle to interchange them in a sentence.

    Curiously, as I’m fond of this setter, I found this all a bit clunky with more question marks than ticks.

    A good crosswording week, nonetheless.

    Nice weekend, all.

  11. As usual, a lovely puzzle from Puck and a very helpful blog from Andrew; many thanks to both!

    A few minor comments/observations:

    1. In the explanation for “yardstick” (15d) I think that “measures” should not be underlined as only the “standard” part of the clue is the definition.

    2. I was a little unhappy with “asymmetric” being clued as “crooked” in 22a. For me “asymmetric” means having no line (or point) of symmetry whereas “crooked” means not straight. I guess that’s just the mathematician in me talking however.

    3. With regards to “citric acid” (11a) I took it that we just replaced “N” by “C” in the formula HNO_3 as opposed to the substance nitric acid; I’m happier with the formula containing N (or C) as opposed to the substance (as Andrew says).

    However none of this detracted from my thoroughly enjoying the puzzle or turning to the excellent blog where the parsing eluded me.

  14. Thanks Puck and Andrew.

    Rick @11, -HCO3 is bicarbonate, not citric acid, which is C6H8O7. I agree, however, that ‘measures’ does not look like part of the definition for YARDSTICK.

    Not quite as Puckish as some, but still enjoyable.

    I got PORK PIE from the crossers before I solved 26. I was a bit misled at first by 4, thinking the President was P; Google showed me POLK, however.

     

  15. 16d – Greens.  Shades… Do I have a hazy recollection of poker players, usually the dealer, wearing a green coloured transparent eye-shade as protection from the glaring lamp over the table, or am in the dark about that?  I’m sure I’ve seen it in a film or two some eons ago.

  17. Nick and Robi, you are of course correct about YARDSTICK – now corrected.

     

    Re May/Might – the confusion of these is one of my grammatical bugbears, as when people say things like “if Hitler had died as a baby, the Second World War may never have happened.”

  18. P.S. In 24, if it refers to the phonetic alphabet, it wouldn’t have hurt to put party’s leader. Otherwise, Papa Doc was a party leader (of his own party) who was twice “elected” (“re-elected” in a 1961 referendum in which he was the only candidate.)

  19. Puck’s always fun, no exception today, even if maybe not quite as consistently skittish as sometimes. I did go theme-hunting, wondering if there was something religious with PILATE and CONSECRATION, but it seems not. Needed a bit of parsing help today eg with my last in SETBACK / PAPA – I see I’m not alone with the latter, and unlike Eileen @7 I’d quite forgotten the staff-room scuffles – been out of the profession rather longer though, in my defence.

  20. This was in the sweet spot for me–not too challenging to finish, but not too easy either.  I didn’t technically finish, since I put in LABYRINTHINE without parsing.  Also, since I put in PORK PIE from the definition well before I got down to LIEGE, I forgot to loop back and parse that one either.

    CONSECRATION was the best anagram I’ve seen in a long, long time.  Brilliant.

    The enzyme was new to me, and I spent far longer than was plausible assuming that it would end in -ase, since so many enzymes do.  [In fact, this is because I also do too many American-style crosswords, in which the clue “Enzyme ending” invariably leads to the entry ASE.] Another trap was SNAP, because I was thinking of the wrong party for a while–I wanted to find a way to make UKIP turn into SKIP.

    [Speaking of America, Valentine asked a couple days ago where to find American cryptics.  I saw the question, but late in the evening after the discussion was dead.  And then I didn’t post here yesterday, because I had nothing to say about the puzzle.  The best source I’ve found is Games Magazine, which publishes ten issues a year.  They usually run four cryptics an issue–two standard 15×15, and two “variety” cryptics with an extra twist.  This to go with about ten American-style crosswords–5 or 6 standard ones and 4-5 variety puzzles.]

  21. mrpenney @20

    You are quite correct about the enzyme. “Trypsin” is an old name; it would now be called something like “pancreatic protease”.

    William @10

    rare=thin as in atmosphere?

  22. Thanks to Puck and Andrew. Started off like a house on fire with this but then hit a brick wall. I had a similar experience to earlier in the week, with nearly all one side (lh) finished and little on the other. Eventually got down to two and spent ages on them with labyrinthine being the penultimate one in. Then I had to guess and Google on peignoir (never heard of it and my automatic spell correcter did not like it much) therefore technically got there but only with Google help. That said still an enjoyable challenge therefore thanks again Puck and Andrew for helping with my parsing inadequacies.

  24. A few questionable definitions in my world order.  Most notably ASYMMETRIC simply doesn’t mean CROOKED.  A letter S is doubtlessly crooked (bent, angled or winding according to Collins)but has rotational symmetry.  I’m sure there are many other examples.  Also THIN = RARE is stretching it a bit but I’d give it leeway in crossword land.  I’m assuming that GREENS refers to shades of green as it may refer to any other colour as I can’t find any other explanation.  Given the golf reference in 13dn there was a nice opportunity for an inventive cross reference.

  25. Thanks to Puck and Andrew. I got GREENS and parsed TRYPSIN but was puzzled by the GE in LIEGE (I was fixated on GA-Georgia) and missed the TES for SETBACK. As to President Polk, here’s a summary from Wikipedia: “Polk is considered by many the most effective president of the pre–Civil War era, having met during his four-year term every major domestic and foreign policy goal he had set. After a negotiation fraught with risk of war, he reached a settlement with the United Kingdom over the disputed Oregon Country, with the territory for the most part divided along the 49th parallel. Polk achieved a sweeping victory in the Mexican–American War, which resulted in the cession by Mexico of nearly all the American Southwest. He secured a substantial reduction of tariff rates with the Walker tariff of 1846. The same year, he achieved his other major goal, re-establishment of the Independent Treasury system. True to his campaign pledge to serve only one term, Polk left office in 1849 and returned to Tennessee; he died in Nashville, most likely of cholera, three months after leaving the White House.”

  26. Andrew @17 (may for might):

    Hear, hear! Unfortunately, nowadays it also occurs as often in writing as in speech.

  27. PetHay at 22. I was pleased to drag PEIGNOIR from the depths somewhere – I thought it sounded a bit familiar, so I searched to find that Philistine used it on 19th Dec 2017:

    Slack peignoir (night clothing)(9)

     

    Thanks to Andrew and Puck

  28. Re the theme as duplicates – it’s probably nothing, but every row and column has multiple duplicated letters … .  I haven’t checked other crosswords though to see if this is just a general feature :-).

    Thanks both – very enjoyable.

  29. Mostly at the easier end of Puck’s range, but all very enjoyable. Particularly liked CONSECRATION.

    Thanks to Puck and Andrew

  30. Regarding GA vs. GE:  I once wrote the following clue:  Stalin and Martin Luther King like 18th-century architecture? (8)

  31. Not a fan of this person’s style, but it is what gets called ‘fun’ I’m sure. 18 was the best of them I think. Doctors of Divinity they must have been 🙂

    Interesting to see the clue for MIGHT gets some way into the debate about the correct usage for the two contenders.

    Many thanks Puck and Andrew.

     

  32. Like Pethay@22 I found this a game of two halves : roared through the top half and then found the bottom a slow struggle. And like others I never got GREENS at all. But all very enjoyable.

    I knew PEIGNOIR from the memorable (aren’t they all?) episode of Fawlty Towers where Basil is flirted with by a French lady d’un certain age with the delicious name of Mme Peignoir.

  34. Could someone please show me in a sentence how MIGHT can be the past tense of “may”? More the subjunctive mood I’d say.

  35. I enjoyed this a lot – good fun and a good test of the brain.

    My favourites were HIJACK, PUBLICIST and YARDSTICK (in which I was briefly led astray, thinking ‘measures’ was part of the definition).

    I wasn’t sure how to parse DUPLICATES and PAPA, and it seems I am good company.  All is clear enough now.

    Thanks Puck and Andrew.

  36. Hi all thanks for the responses on peignoir. Never missed an episode of Fawlty Towers and almost certainly failed on the Philistine puzzle. Maybe I should simply consider it my bête noire. That said a timely reminder I must revisit my box set of Fawlty Towers.

  37. I meant to add to my earlier comment that there seems to be a stray ‘In’ in the clue to 5a (PORK PIE).  I only mention it now because the same stray word appeared in a clue in a recent crossword.  Perhaps there is a point to it that I’m missing.

  38. A tough finish for me in se corner. And had to check Lyes. Not my favourite of the week by a long way. No favourite clues either

  39. I couldn’t get GREENS. I did think of the answer but I couldn’t stand it up. I needed to look up LYES which was obviously the answer but I’d never heard of it. Most of the rest was ok. I liked HYPED UP which went in straight away, and JULEP,which I thought was spelt JULIP from the record by the Clovers, but having googled it, I see I was wrong.
    Thanks Puck.

  40. jeceris @ 34:  I’m with you. I’m not convinced that might is a tense of may.  They are both modal verbs with similar uses, although Andrew @ 17 offers an excellent example of how the two are not always interchangeable.  I would say they are grammatical moods rather than tenses.

  41. MAY & MGHT:
    To paraphrase Michael Lewis (The English Verb), they both belong to the group of nine modal auxiliaries which express the speaker’s views, thoughts or opinions at the time of speaking. This dovetails nicely with the fact that when referring to the past they appear in a PRESENT perfect form, as the sentence, “Had Napoleon been at his best on the day of Waterloo, the result MIGHT HAVE BEEN different.” illustrates. And, as Kinsley Amis points out, substitute MAY for MIGHT and you are left with thought that the speaker is not sure what actually happened.

  42. jeceris @34

    I’m with Andrew re it being a bugbear of mine, too but Puck’s clue is faultless: might is the past tense of may: I ask if I may leave the room; I asked if I might leave the room.

    The problem arises, as with could, would, should [all past tenses] because they can also be used in the subjunctive mood, rather than tense, regarding potential, rather than actual situations, as in Andrew’s @17 and il principe dell’oscurità’s @41 perfectly valid – but, in this case, irrelevant examples.

    But wasn’t it a great clue? 😉

     

  43. Well, thought it was all going smoothly till I got to the SE corner.

    Sorry, don’t buy into MIGHT.  First of all there’s a superfluous ‘in’ which messes up the definition, then I don’t think ‘tense’ is good enough to derive MIGHT from ‘may’.  In any case, what is MIGHT grammatically?  I would have thought it’s the subjunctive, which is a mood not a tense.  Whatever – I wrote it in as the only word to fit, reluctantly.

    P.S. I wrote the above before reading Eileen @42.  She seems to make a similar point though with a different view.

    When I got to TRYPSIN which I’ve never heard of, it meant a dictionary scan.  The wordplay is reasonably fair – or it would be fair for a more common word!  For such an obscure one, I’d like the wordplay to be an absolute open book.  But maybe others think it’s OK?

    Otherwise all went in smoothly.  Liked LABYRINTHINE – very ingenious wordplay – my only quibble was that the “not English” is separated from the cowshed (“byre”) to which it really belongs.  But I can live with that.

    Thanks to Puck and Andrew.  Not looking for a theme here.

  44. Thanks to Andrew for the blog, and to others for your comments.

    No major theme in this one, but a little more going on with the political parties than has been pointed out. In addition to the GREENS, there are brief appearances for LAB, CON and LIB DEM as the beginnings of longer solution words; and the SNP and DUP are both referred to within the clues. No place for Ukip, of course (they have no seats anyway) but also no room for Sinn Fein (who don’t take up their seats) or for Plaid Cymru.

     

     

  45. Thanks to Puck and Andrew.
    Had to sleep on this one and found out why this morning!!!!
    I had filled in 16a CONSECRATION at 14a! Blame tiredness and getting caught up in a rear of “Vera” last night!
    This morning (here), when I thought 5d PUBLICIST just had to be right (tricky anagram!), I spotted my error. What a 14a LABYRINTHINE twist I got myself into.
    Perfectly lovely puzzle. However I noticed in the comments that others had trouble with many of the parsings for which I had to come here to understand fully: 1a HYPED UP (had forgotten that abbreviation despite it appearing in previous puzzles), 10a LIBERTINE, 12a SNAP (unfamiliar abbreviation), 26a LIEGE (like ACD@25, I was unable to move beyond Georgia USA), 27a SETBACK (with ACD again – unfamiliar abbreviation), 3D DUPLICATES, 8d EXEMPTED (couldn’t see the “seduced” bit), and 19d GREENS (not being a bridge player despite encouragement from il principe to take it up). If mrpenny@20 is right then “technically” all these question marks make it a DNF for me. However I see a DNF as an incomplete grid rather than not being able to parse everything. Have I been letting myself off the hook too easily? I am sure not everyone who reports a full solve can always parse every solution.
    Can’t believe I had a major breakthrough with the science question, 11a CITRIC ACID. I actually really enjoyed 23d MIGHT despite the objections of others, and must admit as others have to looking up the enzyme at 28a TRYPSIN.
    Clever Puck, not so clever JinA! Thanks for dropping in to “state” your case, Puck@44.

  46. That was a REPEAT of Vera!!!!!
    And “for which I had to come here…” sounds awfully awkward.
    Apologies to anyone still reading this blog.

  47. Lots of folks @lots of numbers:  I may have missed the party (possibility in the present).  If you hadn’t phoned I might have missed the party (possibility in the past).  Actually, Eileen’s examples are a perfect demonstration already, I just wanted to add to the fun.  It bugs me too — “if I’d eaten that I may have died.”  (Perhaps I’m dead?)

    mrpenney @20 Thanks for the lead.  I don’t know Games magazine, but may (or might?) track it down.

    Puck and Andrew — thank you for all.

     

     

  48. Muffin @3: The Tonton Macoute was more like Papa Doc’s Gestapo or SS. Wikipedia tells me that his (entirely irrelevant) political party was the PUN, le parti de l’unité nationale.

    Ronald @23: Polk was chiefly notable for the Mexican War of 1846, in which we stole California, Arizona, New Mexico, etc., from their rightful owners — the war which resulted in Henry David Thoreau going to jail rather than paying taxes to support it. Polk should also be remembered for serving only a single term, as he had promised, although he would have been reelected.

  50. The four modal verbs in English are Germanic in origin and all have two tensed forms (and no non-tensed forms): may/might, can/could, will/would, shall/should. Re PAPA for P: The alphabet in question has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with phonetics. It’s an alphabet used in spoken communication to make certain that the spelling of a word, abbreviation, code, postcode etc  is known without possibility of error.

  51. Too many obscurities for my liking and a handful I didn’t have the patience to parse. I do realise I’m in the minority here and it is to be expected with Puck and/or a Friday.

    William @10: I too thought RARE = THIN was iffy until my partner pointed out thin air is rare.

    Thank you Puck for pointing out the party connections that seem to have eluded everyone.

    Thanks to Andrew also.

  54. Managed to complete this by lunchtime today – but had to go to watch the team lose so only posting now. A quick solve for us, doing this in under 24 hours (started around 1700 yesterday). I liked “hyped up” & “labyrinthine” as the clue demonstrates the concept. We do like a more straightforward Friday puzzle – thanks Puck.

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