Guardian 27,437 – Crucible

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Crucible gives us a good workout this morning, with a couple of clues I can’t parse to my complete satisfaction.

There’s a fairly obvious construction theme in the answers, with MASON, BUILDING, BRICKS & MORTAR, LIME, CEMENT, TILE and others, and perhaps the RESIDENT (and maybe even a HOUSEWIFE) to live in the result, which may have been YUPPIFIED. Thanks to Crucible.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
9. HOUSEWIFE Cryptically, how she runs home (9)
Not sure about this: I think the idea is that HOUSEWIFE is providing a cryptic indication of “how”, but the best I can get is that it’s HO and then you USE W[IFE]. I feel I must be missing something. (In Ximemes’ book “The Art of the Crossword” he describes clueing HOUSEWIFE as an &lit: “I have plenty of time to stitch, then I iron” – HOU[R] + SEW + I FE – which is very clever, if rather showing its age.)Thanks to Shirl: it’s just that HOUSEWIFE = HOUSE + WIFE = HO + W = HOW.
10. STRIP Bare land here (5)
Double definition; bare as a verb, and strip as in landing strip
11. RELIEVE Free to go through again, retaining key (7)
E (musical key) in RELIVE
12. DEBACLE Girl joining society left in first-class mess (7)
DEB (a girl “joining society”) + L in ACE
13. POINT Tip: fill the gaps between 7 (5)
Double definition – for the second, to point is to “fill the joints of (brickwork or masonry) with smoothly finished mortar”
14. GOOD LOSER Drool goes everywhere — he takes it on the chin (4,5)
(DROOL GOES)*
16. ROGET’S THESAURUS Users get authors to change one of their sources (6,9)
(USERS GET AUTHORS)*
19. YUPPIFIED Yen increased, provided one invested and got smarter? (9)
IF (provided) + I in Y UPPED
21. MASON He dresses Mother and Child (5)
MA + SON; “dress” here is probably in the sense of “smooth the surface of (stone)”, as a mason might do
22. LASAGNA Turner cherished small silver dish (7)
S AG in LANA (Turner, actress)
23. BOREDOM Did nurse prepare Mark for weariness? (7)
BORE (nursed) + DO (prepare) + M
24. MULCT Fine chimney in Glasgow backs onto court (5)
Reverse of LUM (Scots word for chimney) +CT
25. COLCANNON Pass priest eating Northern Irish food (9)
COL (mountain pass) + N in CANON
Down
1. THIRD PARTY Insurance for Lib Dems? (5,5)
Double definition
2. BUILDING Mike secretly tackling the Italian racket in construction (8)
IL (Italian “the”) DIN in BUG (to put a microphone or “mike” on secretly)
3. CEMENT Bond writer comes into a little money (6)
ME (“the writer”) in CENT
4. TILE Lost boring game? That’s old hat (4)
L[ost] in TIE (football match etc) – tile is an old-fashioned word for hat (as in the song: “Where did you get that hat, where did you get that tile?”)
5. HEAD-TO-HEAD Contest what bad pupils are told to do? (4-2-4)
Bad pupols might be sent to the headmaster, so told to HEAD TO [the] HEAD
6. ISABELLA Is Lincoln entirely standing up queen? (8)
IS ABE + reverse of ALL. There have been a few queens called Isabella: perhaps the most famous is Isabella I of Castile, patron of Christopher Columbus
7. BRICKS Reliable types initially keen to crack emerging economies (6)
K[een] in BRICS, the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and (a recent addition the the group formerly known as BRIC) South Africa
8. APSE Part of church, perhaps eastern section (4)
Hidden in perhAPS Eastern
14. GOTHIC ARCH Sack actor, high with cocaine, opening at the Abbey? (6,4)
(ACTOR HIGH C)*
15. RESENTMENT Bitterness to do with feeling one’s ignored (10)
RE + SENTIMENT less I
17. TAILGATE What pushy drivers do to gain entrance to estate (8)
Another one I’m not sure about – a gate can be the entrance to an estate, so I suppose you could “tail” it to gain entrance, but that doesn’t seem a very satisfactory explanation. Thanks to crypticsue: it’s a reference to the tailgate as the rear door of an estate car
18. RESIDENT Local chairman’s heading off (8)
[P]RESIDENT
20. PESTLE It crushes steel forged under pressure (6)
P + STEEL*
21. MORTAR Hawk carries this weapon (6)
Double definition, with the hawk as the device used to carry plaster or mortar
22. LIME Story about male constituent of 21 (4)
M in LIE
23. BOLT Run off some cloth from old mill town on leaving (4)
Two definitions (a bolt can be a length of cloth), and BOLTON less ON. Colcannon is a dish of leftover potatoes and cabbage, similar (or identical) to what’s called bubble-and-squeak on this side of the Irish Sea

72 comments on “Guardian 27,437 – Crucible”

  1. I was hoping you’d explain the housewife – but I can tell you that the ‘estate’ in 17d is a vehicle, a tailgate being a hinged piece at the back allowing access, eg to a truck

     

    Thanks to Cruciible and Andrew

  3. Fairly straightforward. I particularly liked LASAGNA and HEAD-TO-HEAD. Also rather flummoxed by HOUSEWIFE AND TAILGATE. Thanks to C & A.

  4. Thanks crypticsue and Shirl, I’m sure you’re both right.  In that case I think the TAILGATE clue is a bit weak, as the metaphorical sense of the thing that pushy drivers do comes directly from the “rear door” meaning.

  5. Fun puzzle though dnf as didn’t know hawk as a mortar board – wanted to put merlin – and didn’t know colcannon.
    HO + W was surely the explanation.
    Obvious , for once, building theme with lime tile point bricks mason apse gothic arch.

  7. Re 17d: I use the term ‘tailgate’ to mean follow someone into a gated estate – ie to go through the door or gate behind them if you don’t have a key or the code for the keypad. Admittedly, that is probably an extension of meaning from the pushy driver meaning.

  8. Thanks Andrew for BRICS, spectacular clue, and the hawk device, and tile. I saw 1A similarly.

    I went down the wrong path for the opening at the Abbey, thinking it was gabled arch (actor Gable + I couldn’t say what else).  I don’t get the tail bit of 17A either, but don’t feeL so bad being in such good company.  Happy to get MULCT from wordplay and LUM from  cryptic crosswords (otherwise wouldn’t have known either). Loved YUPPIFIED and the fodder for ROGETS THESAURUS. Chuckle for HEAD-TO-HEAD.
    hh

  9. Strictly speaking the dish is called ‘lasagne’, plural of ‘lasagna’, this being one sheet of pasta. All the names of pasta dishes are plural nouns. If I were to look at a restaurant menu and see a dish listed called ‘spaghetto’, I’d give that restaurant a miss on the grounds that it had taken nouvelle cuisine to ridiculous extremes. Now I’d better have a panino and then a lie-down.

  10. 17d. A tailagte is defined as “a hinged flap at the back of a truck which may be lowered or removed when loading or unloading the vehicle.” So “Estate” refers to a vehhicle.

  13. Bit more of a work out than yesterday. Parsing of HOUSEWIFE stumped but yes that is very clever! Favourite was HEAD-TO-HEAD.
    Thanks to Crucible and Andrew.

  14. Many thanks Andrew and Shirl,for parsing 9ac. My dearly beloved husband came up with an alternative: Sounds like: “How’s wife?” (this particularly works well if you are Northern in the UK and use a glottal stop instead of definite article) which reflects: “how she?” in the clue. Good eh?

  15. @1. Apologies for the repetition, but it took me so long to type my comment (together with the mistakes) that I had not read your reply.

  16. Thanks to everyone for explaining HOUSEWIFE and TAILGATE. I too was stumped for the parsings, and agree with Andrew @4 that the clue is a bit weak.

    However, I rather liked the building theme, and MASON and MORTAR were my favourites. And what a strange word is MULCT. another one of those that you tend to see only in crosswords.

    Thanks to Crucible and Andrew. Enjoyable start to the day.

  17. Thanks Crucible and Andrew

    An enjoyablepuzzle, helped by the fact that I used to be a builders merchant, so the theme was familiar territory.

    Andrew, I think your definition of COLCANNON has slipped from the final across to the final down clue.

  18. Re TILE. I don’t have Chambers but is the abbreviation L for lost common? I was working on D for defeated but could only come up with vide, which is not a hat, in English, or Latin. Not that I knew the TILE for hat anyway

  20. Missed 24a MULCT and 4d TILE, so a DNF for me today. Reflecting others’ experiences, I had question marks against 9a HOUSEWIFE, 17d TAILGATE and 21d MORTAR, as I couldn’t fully parse them. As well as enjoying 16a ROGET’S THESAURUS and 5d HEAD-TO-HEAD, as mentioned by previous commenters, I also ticked 22a LASAGNA (although I take CatotheElder’s point @9) and 6d ISABELLA.

    Thanks to Crucible and Andrew, and to contributors to the forum.

  21. I wonder whether, in the dark Machiavellian world of crossword compiling, there is a term for the obscure word that is retrieved from the dusty annals of the thesaurus to fill the awkward little combination of letters in the gap that is left after your beautifully crafted words are fitted into a grid.  Whether there is or not, I’m sure MULCT fits that description today – or perhaps my vocabulary is lacking.

    TILE was my LOI for no apparent reason. COLCANNON was a DNK.  This will be to the displeasure of Mrs F-T-C who is a Belfast girl and is frequently expanding my vocabulary with words like “thran” and “scullions” – “stubborn” and “spring onions” to you and me.  You saw it here first !

    At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly – I really don’t like words like YUPPIFIED although I see it is in the OED – what is the world coming to?

  23. If you ‘tail’ gate you get the letter e, which is the ‘entrance’ to estate. Pretty ingenious I thought.

  26. A slow start but then the SW corner yielded although I didn’t know MULCT (well clued, though).

    I loved HEAD-TO-HEAD; good crossword all round. Thanks to Crucible and Andrew.

  27. Thanks for the blog, Andrew – and for HOUSEWIFE, Shirl.

    Another great puzzle from Crucible – today’s favourites ROGET’S THESAURUS, HEAD-TO-HEAD and YUPPIFIED.

    Hi Frankie the cat @21 – I lived in Northern Ireland for ten years, long ago, and loved words like ‘thran’  [and ‘throughover’]. I think you mean ‘scallions’ – the scullions might have to deal with them. 😉

    Many thanks to Crucible for an enjoyable puzzle.

     

  28. ROGETS THESAURUS was a fine answer and I remembered MULCT from Bertie Wooster. Not so sure about BORE=nursed in 23a.

    Frankie The Cat @21: I think you mean ‘scallion’. A scullion is a menial servant. Even in Belfast we didn’t used to eat them

  29. Not one of Crucible’s toughest, despite having the same parsing problems as our blogger and some others, and taking MULCT very much on trust – what else could it be? I even worked out the theme too, which helped a bit at the end.

    I must have been influenced by the Guardian’s recent coverage of freemasonry – working out the MA + SON of 21a, seeing ‘he dresses’, I immediately thought of the masons’ weird attire rather than the dressing of brickwork.

  31. Thanks for the blog, Andrew, and to Shirl for HOUSEWIFE which I think is very neat.

    Found this an elegant crossword with smooth clueing abounding.  Ticks at RESENTMENT, MASON, & BUILDING.  Also much admired the &lit-ish anagram at ROGET’S THESAURUS.

    Oofyprosser @23:  Nice try but isn’t ‘to tail’ something to cut it’s tail off?  As in top and tail the carrots etc.

    poc @28:  Pleased to hear it.  I had an Aunt in NI who used to make us laugh by calling onions rapscallions!

    Nice week, all.

  32. copmus @30:  Re HOUSEWIFE…to quote a ghastly popular phrase, “what’s not to like?”.  HO & W are both in Chambers as abbreviations, and together (cryptically) they make HOW.  I didn’t parse it at the time but now think it’s rather good.

  36. Thanks to Crucible and Andrew. Started off quite slowly but it gradually unpacked to a completion. Struggled with the parsings already mentioned (housewife and tailgate) even though they had to be correct. Furthermore was unaware of brics in 7d, but given the theme it could be nothing else. Personally liked third party, though they are probably only just about that these days. Thanks again to Crucible and Andrew (along with other contributors) for helping with the above parsings.

  37. I wonder if TAILGATE is ‘What pushy drivers do to gain’ + ‘entrance to estate’, estate being the car, and to gain being to catch up/get ahead.  It’s still a bit same-both-sidesy but at least it accounts for the gain.

  38. I didn’t know hawk as a mortarboard either, but biffed it in anyway. I did know “colcannon” — I’ve made it.

    Cato @9  The dish is called “lasagna” in the US, for some reason, but being proud of myself for knowing that the British usage is “lasagne” I was stuck with 14d ending with E_C_.  Each?  Etch?  The “check all” button took the last letter off LASAGNE and then the penny dropped.  And also in the US, you ask for a panini or a biscotti when you want only one.

    Loved HOUSEWIFE and ROGET’S THESAURUS for good anagram fodder.

    Perhaps “scullions” was Mrs. Frankie’s pronunciation of “scallions”?

     

  39. I finally sorted out HOUSEWIFE but not TAILGATE (I like oofyprosser’s version of how it parses!) My local storage warehouse has a PIN operated gate with a sign saying No Tailgating:One Car At A Time Please.

    The other problem was BOREDOM – bore=nursed just doesn’t work for me and nor does do=prepare. What I call a “well, I suppose so” answer.

    Enjoyed the theme: you could use all that lot to build an APSE or even a GOTHIC ARCH.

  40. This was a bit more cryptic and a bit more devilish than yesterday’s Orlando, but just as entertaining. I was held up only by unfamiliar words and meanings, but guessing my way through those seemed to work. COLCANNON at least seemed a likely word, whereas the acronym BRICS looked less likely – but the answer had to be BRICKS.

    I have no particular favourite clues – I enjoyed the whole puzzle.

    I remembered RESENTMENT being clued in a similar way not long ago, and a search quickly found the clue in mhl’s blog (on 4 January) of Maskarade’s Christmas 2017 special crossword:

    Annoyance about feeling I must leave (11)

    Thanks to Crucible and Andrew.

  41. Hi, FTC

    I knew “colcannon,” also being married to someone from Northern Ireland. But she would say “thrawn” rather than “thran” for “stubborn. It’s a great word, I think.

    “Housewife” did leave me guessing too. I think “How’s the wife or “How’s ‘wife” as a homonym is the most likely explanation

    David S

     

  42. Hi Gladys @39 – I thought of bear = nurse  as in ‘I’m staying in because I’m nursing a cold’, then found in Collins, ‘to harbour; preserve: to nurse a grudge’ : ‘bear a grudge’ is a common expression, isn’t it? And Chambers has ‘nurse: to hold, carry or cuddle [as a nurse does a child’]. All three senses work ofr me, I think.

  44. [In my comment @40, I copied the clue from a previous crossword correctly, as follows:

    Annoyance about feeling I must leave (11)

    but the enumeration looks wrong.  (RESENTMENT has 10 letters.)  The crossword in question required extra letters to be added to many of the answers before entry into the grid.]

  45. Some of these were easier to guess than parse, but overall this was gentler than most recent Tuesday puzzles (if only because Tuesday has often been the toughest of the week). Couldn’t parse HOUSEWIFE and one of the MORTAR definitions needed checking.

    Thanks to Crucible and Andrew

  46. A suggestion for ‘tailgate’ – a legal term relating to an inherited estate is tail, as in ‘entailed’ or ‘fee tail’.

  48. Thanks to Crucible and Andrew. I have little to add, for I had the same problem parsing various clues (including the bore in BOREDOM) but did know MULCT and like Valentine@38 started with the UK lasagne (rejected by my spell-checker) but realized that Lana Turner required the US LASAGNA. Re scallion-scullion, aficionados of Shakespeare’s Hamlet know that there are three early printed editions of that play with lots of variations. For me the most entertaining comes in Hamlet’s “rogue and peasant slave” soliloquy that ends Act 2 where he castigates himself by saying all he can do is “fall a-cursing like a very drab, a …” The Second Quarto here has scullion; the First Folio has stallion (defined as a male prostitute), but the unreliable but often entertaining First Quarto has scallion.

  49. One has to be careful with usages in this day and age, as I found out the hard way some years ago. 1 across reminded me of this. I started an online chat session with a friend in the US with the innocuous UK phrase “Hey ho”. I was somewhat shocked by the angry response “Who’re you calling a whore!”. It took me the best part of 20 minutes to calm her down! Since when I have been very circumspect with using “HO”!

  50. I tried to do this last night when pretty tired and struggled mightily.  Not getting the first across solution inhibits the solve generally I find, and I had no idea about HOUSEWIFE.  The HO + W explanation works well.

    Lots of new terms in this one – MULCT (I parsed it correctly but didn’t enter it due to incredulity), HAWK as a plasterer’s tool, COLCANNON and BRICS.  I was also sceptical about BORE for NURSED (Eileen’s bore/nursed a grudge works for me) and DO = PREPARE (the cook synonym – e.g. “I’m doing shepherd’s pie for dinner tonight” – also now seems fine).

    Good puzzle which I failed to fully engage with.  My mistake.

    Thanks, Crucible and Andrew.

  51. Thanks Eileen @27 and poc@28.  I do indeed mean scallions.  Also I’m often accused of being throughother.

    David @41 I suspect thrawn v thran is just a difference in dialect.  I didn’t  realise that there was such a variation in accent across the province until I met Mrs FTC.  I used to think that my impression of the Rev Ian Paisley was not only excellent but representative of the whole of NI.  I understand now that I was wrong on both counts.

  52. I would imagine quite a few of us had trouble parsing HOUSEWIFE! Obvious why, but I guess it could be considered unfair to collide the two abbreviations in that seamless way.

  53. My non-parsers were the same as Andrew’s: HOUSEWIFE and TAILGATE.  But aside from that, this was within a whisker of being a DNF for me.  It was only on a browse through Chambers looking for M_L_T fits, that my eyes lit upon MULCT.  Is this a fair clue?  An obscure word is OK if the wordplay is straightforward, and obscure wordplay is OK if the word is common enough.  But here we have MULCT and LUM in the same clue!  Now you see why I gave up Scrabble!

    Oh well, so be it.  Like the theme, at any rate – albeit rather obvious!  When I came to MASON, I was thinking of an obscure alternative definition – but then I don’t know enough about the organisation to know exactly how those guys dress up in secret!  (Apologies if I’ve offended any Masons…)

    Thanks to Crucible and Andrew.

  54. Thanks to Crucible for the puzzle and Andrew for the blog, not forgetting Cato the Elder @9 coming to the rescue of the Italian language!  We must resist the temptation to feel superior to our US cousins, as the expression “paninis” is becoming widespread here (although my spell-checker doesn’t like it)

  55. Hi again, Frankie the cat @51

    I’ve been driving myself mad ever since your latest comment, trying to remember a clue that made me laugh out loud. I’ve just finally found it – in an early Tramp puzzle: ‘In Belfast, picks up an ounce and performs part of baptism? (7)’. [It’s here if you get stuck. ;-( ]

  56. Came very late to this but I found it most agreeable- and a great improvement on yesterday’s puzzle. I even saw the theme which probably means it was bleeding obvious! I liked MULCT which I did know but was obvious from the wordplay. LOI was HOUSEWIFE, which was a guess from the crossers, and I won’t go over my parsing problems. Nice puzzle!
    Thanks Crucible.

  58. Hi again Eileen @55.  That’s very good.  I’m not sure I’d have got that for a very long time. But indeed funny.  Genuinely funny clues are few and far between. 🙂

  59. Great fun today.  I enjoyed the ghost theme, and actually it came to my rescue when I spotted it after staring at 21d, my LOI, unable to complete it for the longest time.  It was at that point that I first noticed the ghost theme, and saw that MORTAR would work for the “weapon” portion of the clue as well as for the theme, and assumed (correctly) that “hawk” must have a meaning in the masonry trade.

    Incidentally, speaking of MORTAR, I believe nobody today has yet commented on the non-themed but still closely linked answers of MORTAR and PESTLE.

    “Scallions” has sure been getting a lot of discussion today, for a word not featured in any way (clue or answer) in the puzzle.  I just thought I would mention that this term is not a bit of regional dialect restricted to N. Ireland.  It is very commonly used here in the US as well — probably more commonly than spring onions or green onions (the other terms I have heard).

    I laughed at Laccaria @53’s comment on MULCT and LUM in the same clue.  Lum used to be one of those words I encountered only in Crosswordland.  But then the other day, a bananquit flew into my lum, so I guess I can’t say that anymore.

    Many thanks to Crucible, Andrew and the other commenters.

  61. To TAILGATE is also to drive very close behind a (slower) car in front. It’s what pushy drivers do, especially on motorways. As well as the (rear) entrance to an estate car. Gains=gives, as had been noted.

  64. To be very clear: I thought this to be another fine puzzle from our beloved setter (even if the theme left me cold – I see themes only as value added so no complaints from me).

    But, am I the only one who finds ‘everywhere’ questionable as a proper anagram indicator? [14ac]

    Yes, some may say everywhere = all around = all over the place. And, true, these two are well-known anagram indicators.

    However, in my opinion (and my solving partner’s too) the word ‘everywhere’ does not indicate any movement (of letters).

    Where did I go wrong? (if I did)

     

  65. Late on this I appreciate, but does no one else feel 4d is out? A tie is not necessarily a boring game. In fact in cricket it would be the most exciting possible finish, in rugby it is a rairity and a football game finishing 3-3 would hardly be a bore. I had no problem with L for Loss, L being the common abbreviation for defeats in a league table

  67. patjb@65: a tie can just mean any match as implied by Eileen. ‘Boring’ is a slightly clunky inclusion indicator, telling us L ‘bores into’ TIE.

    I’m surprised LUM caused comment; ‘lang may your lum reek’ (‘long may your chimney produce smoke’) is, or certainly was, well-known in Scotland as a phrase wishing a long life.

    ‘Thrawn’ is another familiar word in Scotland as well as NI. I think ‘scallions’ is used in North America as well as NI (and occasionally in GB – I’m sure I’ve seen it used in cookery books).

  71. re 23 across: nurse does not equal bore, agreed, but “did nurse” – as written in the clue – surely DOES!

  72. Sorry, this has been bugging me for a while now. The problem with 9a HOUSEWIFE is that “cryptically,” doesn’t seem to add anything. I thought it was a super crossword otherwise. And I learned a new word in “mulct”. And now, so has my predictive text.

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