Guardian Cryptic 27,472 by Vulcan

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27472.

Vulcan’s third contribution to the Monday slot, and the second that I have blogged. I detect a definite attempt to assume the mantle of Rufus, with liberal use of cryptic definitions, and largely straightforward clue construction. 22A UNICORN is for me the pick of the CDs, and 7D ALGERIAN and 15D APPLICABLE are a notch more difficult than the rest.

Across
9 APRIL FOOL The first victim? (5,4)
You’re too late, Vulcan. Cryptic definition.
10 CALVE Left in hollow to give birth (5)
An envelope of L (‘left’) in CAVE (‘hollow’).
11 PAWNS Men in game who are easily manipulated (5)
Cryptic definition.
12 SEVENTEEN One short of a majority? (9)
Cryptic definition.
13 PARTIAL Not entirely biased? (7)
Double definition.
14 BEARING Taking off from sound in this direction (7)
A homophone (‘from sound’) of BARING (‘taking off’). Of doubtful relevance, but in backgammon, one bears off counters.
17 SAUDI Arab in small car (5)
A charade of S (‘small’) plus AUDI (‘car’).
19 COX In a team he doesn’t pull his weight (3)
Cryptic definition.
20 PENNE Open new container of pasta (5)
A hidden answer (‘container’) in ‘oPEN NEw’.
21 TWADDLE Walk ungainly past front of truck for garbage (7)
A charade of T (‘front of Truck’) plus WADDLE (‘walk ungainly’).
22 UNICORN Horny Scottish supporter (7)
Cryptic definition; a reference to the royal coat of arms of the UK.
24 FORAGE CAP Limit on search for food assumed by soldiers (6,3)
Definition and literal interpretation.
26 ADDER Dread slithering snake (5)
An anagram (‘slithering’) of ‘dread’.
28 SHIFT Change dress for hours of work (5)
Triple definition.
29 VACILLATE Be unsteady, vital lace coming undone (9)
An anagram (‘coming undone’) of ‘vital lace’.
Down
1 WASP Insect lived quietly (4)
A charade of WAS (‘liver’) plus P (‘quietly’).
2 GROWER Farmer, good man in an argument (6)
A charade of G (‘good’) plus ROWER (‘man in an argument’).
3 CLASSIFIED Like some ads to be withheld for security (10)
Double definition.
4 CONSUL Briefly ask advice of diplomat (6)
A subtraction: CONSUL[t] (‘ask advice’) minus its last letter (‘briefly’).
5 GLOVEBOX Does it store things taken off your hands? (8)
Cryptic definition.
6 ICON I study religious figure (4)
A charade of ‘I’ plus CON (‘study’).
7 ALGERIAN African with some spice wrapped in sugar? (8)
Two references to people: an envelope (‘wrapped in’) of GERI (Halliwell – Ginger ‘Spice’) in ALAN (‘Sugar‘).
8 JEAN Girl cuts end off trousers (4)
A subtraction: JEAN[s] (‘trousers’) minus its last letter (‘cut end off’).
13 POSIT Assume one opens the letters (5)
An envelope (‘opens’) of I (‘one’) in POST (‘the letters’).
15 APPLICABLE Relevant program on TV about Blair regularly skipped (10)
An envelope (about’) of LI (‘bLaIr regularly’) in APP (‘program’) plus CABLE (‘TV’).
16 GLEAN Pick up article in valley (5)
An envelope (‘in’) of A (indefinite ‘article’) in GLEN (‘valley’).
18 UNAFRAID Brave being involved in a fraud (8)
An anagram (‘involved’) of ‘in a fraud’.
19 COERCIVE Forcing to break ice cover (8)
An anagram (‘to break’) of ‘ice cover’.
22 UNPACK Clear case? (6)
Cryptic definition.
23 ORDEAL Torture alternative: to bargain (6)
A charade of OR (‘alternative’) plus DEAL (‘bargain’).
24 FUSS Commotion, following American warship (4)
A charade of F (‘following’) plus USS (‘American warship’).
25 GOTH Old German received at hospital (4)
A charade of GOT (‘received’) plus H (‘hospital’).
27 REEF Bank‘s not entirely free finance (4)
A hidden (‘not entirely’) answer in ‘fREE Finance’.
completed grid

29 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,472 by Vulcan”

  1. It’s been a while since so many CDs assembled in one grid. I particularly liked SEVENTEEN and COX, and 28’s triple definition was very clever.

    I managed to solve FORAGE CAP without ever having heard of the soldier’s hat. UNICORN was my LOI, which I got entirely from the crossers. I thought the Unicorns must be a Scottish football team! You learn something new every day.

  2. Yes the sort of Monday puzzle we are accustomed to. Just my cup of coffee.

    Favourite was 7d which raised a smile on a miserable morning in the UK.

     

  3. Agree with pex@2. Re 21: Wouldn’t Ungainly walk.. be better as a clue since “ungainly” is more an adjective than an adverb?

    Thanks Vulcan and PeterO.

  6. Thanks Vulcan, good almost APRIL FOOL’s Day crossword – that took a little while to see as I thought it was going to be ADAM’S ????.

    Thanks PeterO for a good blog. Some small niggles eg. Spice and Sugar are of course capitalised in those meanings, and CABLE for TV is a DBE, so a ‘perhaps’ or QM would have helped.

    I did particularly like GLOVE BOX and SHIFT.

  7. Very Rufusian, and as with many of his I find the preponderance of cryptic definitions not my cup of tea (or coffee pex@2). My favourite by some way was the triple definition SHIFT and I liked APRIL FOOL. I also started off with NAILFILE and agree with PeterO that ALGERIAN and APPLICABLE are of a different level.
    Thanks to Vulcan, whose style will appeal to many, and to PeterO.

  9. Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO. I enjoyed this puzzle, which I found not too easy but also not too difficult. Last one in applicable which I could not fully parse and needed this blog for clarification. Some nice clues I also liked cox, Algerian and April fool. Thanks again to Vulcan and PeterO.

  10. Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO. I did not have trouble with GLOVEBOX but I did not know FORAGE CAP and had difficulty with the final -er in GROWER. My LOI was ALGERIAN which I could not parse but got from the crossers. I’m not a fan of CDs but I did enjoy this puzzle.

  11. I’m with Martin @ 3. “Ungainly” is not only “more an adjective”, it is only an adjective.

  12. Thank you Vulcan and PeterO.

    An enjoyable puzzle. My last in was also ALGERIAN – my granddaughter is Moroccan, if the definition had been North African the answer would have come sooner, but I would still have failed to parse it!

  13. Martin@ 3 & jeceris re Walk Ungainly: I really think either way works as well as the other.

    However I do like the idea that a duck might ‘ungainly walk where no other duck has gone before’.

  14. Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO.

    Yes, almost as if Rufus is back. Plenty of head scratching for the CDs and many smiles along the way. Might have had a “she/her” for 19ac as many of them are women.

  15. Thanks both,
    A good puzzle for the Monday slot. I hadn’t seen USS used as in 24d before, so that’s a welcome innovation. OED has UNGAINLY as both adj and adv and the parsing works both ways so 21a seems fine to me.

  16. Thanks Vulcan for a good Monday puzzle, and PeterO for the helpful parsing, which I needed for UNICORN and ALGERIAN.
    I like the idea of NAILFILE for 5d, but as I had already got COX I didn’t fall into that trap.
    Favourites were SHIFT and TWADDLE.

  18. Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO (especially for ALGERIAN).

    I enjoyed it, but not without some niggles as in: in what sense is a UNICORN a Scottish supporter?; in what context does “f” mean following (I think I recall raising this before, but can’t remember who was kind enough to drop kick me into the grandstand of comprehension or what they said)?; ROWER strikes me as being more than slightly contrived – would you pronounce that to rhyme with bower and has anyone ever heard it used to mean someone having an argument?

    SHIFT and UNPACK were favourites and generally applause for Vulcan if needed.

  19. I found this as challenging as Friday’s Paul, but, with its very different style, I enjoyed it rather less and failed to complete the SW corner.  (I wanted to get FORAGE CAP first in order to unlock that corner, but I’ve never heard of it.)  I’m sure that with a bit of online help, or luck, even, I would have made it to the end.

    Like Martin and jeceris I thought ‘Walk ungainly’ should have been ‘Ungainly walk’, but I now see that a dictionary has been brought in to support the way the setter phrased it.  I liked CALVE and COX especially.  I’m bound to like COX because I clued that word in a very similar way some years ago: “She doesn’t pull her weight in a race (3)” (as I remember it – it was probably the only ‘cryptic definition’ in that crossword!).

    Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO.

  20. Vulcan has now, I think, consolidated his/her Monday slot – and a good, not-too-hard offering today (which is just as well, seeing as I’m really struggling with today’s ‘Rookie corner’ on BD!).

    But I have to query ALGERIAN.  One of the cardinal rules of Ximenean setting, is that you do not begin proper names with a lower-case letter (although the opposite is OK).  So – seeing as Alan Sugar is indisputably a proper name (whatever one’s opinion of the bloke); also, notwithstanding my view that the so-called Spice Girls were devoid of any musical talent, nevertheless they were still the Spice Girls and likewise deserved capitalisation.  Hence, the clue ought to read “African with some Spice wrapped in Sugar?” which would probably be a dead giveaway.

    All I can say is, Alberich has told me that he would instantly reject any clue like this one.  Prolixic would probably come down on it like a ton of bricks too.  Perhaps I’d better ask Boatman (the most libertarian, maybe, of all setters) what he thinks.   For me, I’m afraid, it’s a no-no, especially since Vulcan is rightly occupying the ‘easier’ slot amongst Grauniad setters.

    I should at this point mention that my soi-disant lack of empathy with pop culture, didn’t stop me writing in GERI at once!  I’m not that ignorant!

    The rest all went down fine.  I almost stumbled at SHIFT – had written in STINT and was pondering how to parse it, until I spotted SHIFT.  Triple defs are not that easy to pull of, and I’d make this clue-of-the-day for that.

    Thanks to the pointy-eared one, and Peter.

  21. Alphalpha @18

    What’s the betting that someone else slides in while I’m composing this? For UNICORN, I refer you to the Wikipedia link in the blog; the UNICORN is Scottish in that it is the symbol of Scotland, and along with the English lion, supports the coat of arms. F for following appears mainly in book references – “see page 71 &f”; sometimes ff to indicate several following pages. I agree that ROWER in this sense (and pronunciation) would not find much use, but it is such a standard formation that I would let it pass.

     

    Martin @3 etc.

    I did wonder why Vulcan had chosen to present ‘ungainly’ adverbially; Chambers list it as rare.

  22. Laccaria @20 … “One of the cardinal rules of Ximenean setting …” That’s the point, isn’t it? We’re not all Ximeneans now? To me 7d is justified because – as well as capitalisation indeed rendering the clue too obvious – there aren’t that many Africans to choose from.

  23. Laccaria @20
    I take your point about the liberties taken with ‘spice’ and ‘sugar’, and I would just like to put in a word for the setter in deciding to use ‘program’ rather than ‘programme’ in 15d, as it is the correct form of the word to describe an ‘app’ but less suitable for going with ‘TV’ in the clue’s surface.

  24. Trailman @20 – I agree with you that, once you’ve decided that ‘African’ is the definition, choices are limited.  So – as you say, the clue wasn’t that hard.

    But – wearing my setter’s guise – I’ve been brought to book for flouting Ximenes.  My point is, he devised his rules for a reason – it was in order to make crosswords accessible to all solvers who have mastered the basics of wordplay.  In other words, to make crosswords fairer.  I was rightly told that, before you learn to break Ximenes’ rules, you have to learn to adhere to them.

    I just think that if Mondays’ puzzles, whether by Vulcan or another, are to maintain Rufus’s excellent tradition of being more approachable, perhaps they ought to also be Ximenean?  Because non-Ximenean clues are harder.

  25. I can’t say I enjoyed this much. I used to like the puzzles that Rufus set but I found this a rather pale imitation. I came very close to abandoning this because I found myself guessing too much. UNICORN was obviously the correct answer but I had no idea why and I couldn’t be bothered to go online to seek information.
    Sorry but this wasn’t for me.

  26. Thanks Vulcan and PeterO

    I did this this morning, but didn’t see anything worth commenting on. I’m coming in now because I think that some of the criticism has been a little unfair. “Supporter” is the accepted heraldric term for the unicorn (and the lion, for that matter) holding the shield; F for “following is quite common.

    I raised an eyebrow at ALGERIAN, but more for parochiality rather than lack of capital letters.

  28. Thank you Peter O and Vulcan, very Rufusian.
    I enjoyed this very much, but speaking as a one-time COX, 19a caused me to harrumph !
    I remember a very closely fought men’s blue boat clash about ten or so years ago, in which the little guy for Cambridge gave such an outstanding masterclass in steersmanship and motivation, it could be argued HE won the race ! If anyone remembers which year this was, please tell me, as I’d love to see it again.

    I once harboured an ambition to complete The Times whilst coxing a timed race on the Cam, but abandoned the project as hazardous. However, I regularly threw clues at the crew prior to a race in order to relax them.

  29. An enjoyable, not too testing start to the week. UNICORN was a bit of an educated guess, and 24ac was new to me, but the rest went in steadily if not spectacularly quickly.

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