Guardian 27,485 / Boatman

64 comments on “Guardian 27,485 / Boatman”

1. Thanks to Boatie for a criminally enjoyable trial with a superbly integrated theme, and to Eileen for the blog. I thought that 3 was particularly excellent and timely, given the mob connections of the current 1 across and 16 down in charge of 18, and what must happen, if there is any justice.

2. A wonderful, well clued puzzle as always from Boatman – one of my favourite setters. Loved MOBIUS, STOCKHOLM, HANDLE and KIDNAP in particular. I found this relatively easy on the Boatman scale. Many thanks to him and to Eileen.

3. Thanks Boatman and Eileen

   First pass of the across clues only yielded CINCINNATI, so I thought I was going to be in for a struggle. However a few of the downs went in and the rest went surprisingly quickly. No complaints, and favourites were the simple WHOA and MOBIUS.

   Boatman seems a little confused about whether SCAMPI are fish or crustacea. The former in most pubs, I think, although they’re not supposed to be!

4. Terrific stuff, the theme wove it’s way throughout, and all clues perfectly fair, just the way I likes ’em. WHOA was splendid.

   Thanks to Boatman and Eileen.

5. It’s fishy if they are fishy.

    

6. Nice intro and blog, Eileen. For once Boatman stopped trying to be Batman and bowled perfect line and length.

   First Marlowe book. Interesting to compare book with film (Bogart boviously)Bits they couldnt really include

   but the beancounters insisted on a Hollywood ending.

   Very nice.

7. I have written in the past that puzzles by Boatman are not my cup of tea. Mixing my metaphors shamelessly, I am pleased to say that this one was right up my street. Witty, but accessible. Thank you Boatman for a very enjoyable start to the day.

8. Really enjoyed this, though it was actually a DNF for me as my second last one in was HOMIES at 4a – well they are a gang, though I couldn’t parse the rest of the clue so it was just a guess. I should have looked more closely at the wordplay. My favourites have already mentioned but I did like 14a, DINE, my LOI, for the misdirection.
   I appreciated the clever comment from Bullhassocks@1 which linked several clues in a topical manner.
   Many thanks to Boatman, Eileen and their posters.

9. I completely agree Eileen.  I found this to be not as difficult as Boatman’s usual offerings and I did not (as is often the case) struggle unduly with the parsing.  I’m a bit wary of themes, as I feel they sometimes make the puzzle rather contrived in places (or require quite a bit of specialist knowledge which I often don’t have), but this was not the case here.  Several clues to enjoy; I agree with drofle@2 and muffin@3 but also liked MARLOWE.

   So a great puzzle from Boatman and an (as always) excellent blog from Eileen – many thanks to both!

10. [Eileen you are amazing . Your midnight brain must work much better than mine!]
    [copmus, thanks for your response yesterday filling me in on your Maggie and Townsville locale. I also enjoyed the Marlowe/Bogart titbit you included today. I was a big fan of Raymond Chandler for a long time. Was the film you mentioned “The Big Sleep” or “Farewell My Lovely”?]

11. I couldn’t parse a few of these, though I was still able to finish it. Thanks Boatman and Eileen

12. My feelings are pretty much the same as Eileen’s and others’.  Slight sinking feeling on seeing the name…steady plod forward waiting for the weirdness to kick in…then suddenly the grid was complete.

    A pleasant stroll around the murky territory of US crime fiction with some excellent clues including HANDLE, AMERICA, & KIDNAP.

    I would normally dislike the sort of clue which defines Möbius as a ‘stripper’, but Boatman was careful to clue it fairly.

    Fine job, Boatman, many thanks.

    Nice week, all.

13. Julie@10 It was The Big Sleep. Read it at around the same time as All the Kings Men .

14. Cracking puzzle.

     

    18d must surely be a candidate for the hall of fame. Brilliant &lit – so accurate.

     

    Thanks all round.

15. Excellent puzzle. JollySwagman, you took the words out of my mouth – 18d was absolutely brilliant.

    (I do miss the old dual use of “Boatman”, once to indicate I/me and once to indicate an actual boatman.)

16. A great intro to an excellent puzzle Eileen. I did make a start after midnight and was pleased to see I found several toeholds but it wasn’t yielding quickly enough to make me think I should keep going. I do like it Boatman when he pushes the boundaries of convention and sometimes it becomes too hard work for me, but not here.
    I agree with everyone on the integration of the theme and many of my favourites have been mentioned. I’ll add CINCINNATI (where I held myself up by putting TT and not bothering to parse fully), LOOK CLOSELY AT (which was a struggle as I had TO from TT), and BY HEART. My other self-inflicted stumble was a lazy CATNAP instead of KIDNAP which meant FLATBILL was a bit tricky. So a lovely puzzle that I contrived to make more challenging than it was.
    Many thanks to Boatman, Eileen and all contributors.

17. I agree absolutely with all the positives expressed by WhiteKing@16 and am impressed by Eileen solving (and blogging?) all this in the middle of the night! I was too soon tempted to use the reveal button so must admit DNF but even so I think this was a really great puzzle, specially for its hints at murky business in the USA, so indeed many thanks Boatman and Eileen.

18. Much easier than yesterday’s Cryptic and Quiptic, or indeed most puzzles by Boatman. Theme-blindness probably helped me in this case, although I comletely failed to parse HANDLE.

    18d was both elegant and clever.

    I am always uneasy about riding roughshod over diacritics, in this case an umlaut and a tilde.

    Thanks to Boatman for the fun and Eileen for the elucidation.

     

19. This was great fun!  I enjoyed the themed clues.  My favorites were KIDNAP, BOUT, and my hands-down CotD, AMERICA — a superb &lit, and a smooth historical reference to the gangsters such as “Al” (no surname is needed for that individual in Crosswordland!) who flourished during the Prohibition era in the U.S.

    Bullhassocks @1, your second sentence was spot on!

    Many thanks to Boatman, Eileen, and the other commenters.

20. Not being a night owl like Eileen but an early bird, I finished this between the newspaper arriving and breakfast circa 8 am. I was surprised to find myself on Boatman’s wavelength, and thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle. The only thing I had to look up was ‘flatbill’, but just to check: the clueing was absolutely spot-on. Many thanks to Boatman and Eileen.

21. I see the sun has come out this week, not only literally in the UK but also in your comments … Thank you! Eileen, in particular – I always enjoy your blogging, so it makes me very happy that I could entertain you today. Yes, I think I was a little kinder on this occasion – I did notice that a couple of my pieces earlier this year were a little … let’s say, spiky. Credit, too, to my checker (I’m not sure whether he’d want me to identify him, so I’ll let him out himself if he wishes) who bravely called out two or three clues in my first draft for being unnecessarily convoluted – after I’d decided that I agreed with him and put a bit more effort into rewriting them, I was very pleased with the result.

    BullH – You seem to have identified an interesting chain of coincidences in the clues … I couldn’t possibly comment! Anyway, I wouldn’t wish what’s implied in the clue to 1Ac on anyone. Curse of Boatman? Er …

22. Dybbuk @20 et al – I’m not really a night owl but I had to be out early this morning [immediately after posting, in fact, so I’ve only just seen Bullhassocks’ great comment @1 – many thanks for that. 😉 ], so, after watching my recordings of both ‘Only Connect’ and ‘University Challenge’ after coming in from choir practice, I felt so psyched up that I thought I would stay up the extra half hour until midnight to see what was in store this morning. When I recovered from the shock, I thought I’d better make a start, in case it was the usual struggle and before I knew where I was, I’d solved it and it seemed sensible to carry on and do the blog while I could still remember the parsings. I then had to turn into an early bird and format and post the blog when I woke up.

    I’m grateful to Boatman for his ‘kindness’ today – and to the unknown checker! I didn’t have time for full appreciation of all the topical allusions but I did note that it was a pity that 3dn is not a complete &lit and can readily forgive the definition being in the middle. 😉

23. Hope the new Boatman resists going back to the old Boatman.

24. Thanks to Boatman and Eileen. I think I found this a bit tougher than others but did get there in the end. I did have to do some dictionary checking here and there for unfamiliar words, but the cluing allowed me to parse and then check. Dine was my last one in, though now I am not sure why. Maybe just having an off day. As with others liked America, but also liked stoolie and impeach. Overall an enjoyable puzzle and thanks again to Boatman for the challenge and Eileen for her customary excellent blog.

25. BtheB @23 – We’ll have to wait and see! I was going to say that all coins have two sides, but perhaps a better way to put it, considering today’s entertainment, would be to say that my softer and spikier aspects are different ways of viewing the unified surface that is my inner 4 strip …

26. Thank you Boatman and Eileen.

    My heart also sank when I saw who the setter was, but solving this puzzle was most enjoyable as was reading the comments!

27. Very good puzzle here – never heard of FLATBILL but should have guessed that in a double-themer where half of it is “all things American”, there would be a specifically US bird rather than a European one!  Perhaps I should gen-up on my American wildlife – I know what a mockingbird is, and have heard of bluejays, condors, bald eagles, and turkey-vultures, but that’s about it…

    Despite being theme-derived, I think HANDLE would have been extraordinarily difficult to anyone who hadn’t solved MARLOWE first.  Oddly enough, I was one of those!  I got HANDLE down first and then went hunting around for a MARLOWE.  Not hard to spot him!

    Makes me wonder whether Dennis Potter’s classic The Singing Detective might provide material for a theme.  Not this time, perhaps!

    Thanks to Boatman and Eileen.

28. Excellent, Cookie! It’s an unfamiliar pleasure to see everyone being uniformly happy with one of mine …

    Laccaria – Now, you shouldn’t give me ideas like that! This was my third detective-themed puzzle, and fun for me to set as well, so you could be on to something there …

29. By the way, you may like to know that I’m trying to organise an In-Conversation event with Alan Connor as part of the Brighton Festival in May – still waiting for confirmation from the venue, but my website should have details shortly.

    Also, I’ll be running a masterclass for aspiring setters and advanced solvers on Saturday 12 May in Brighton and I can take another couple of people if you get in touch quickly – more details here

30. By recent standards, this was a gentle Boatman without too many stylistic quirks. MOBIUS was last in and in retrospect my favourite.

    Thanks to Boatman and Eileen

31. I enjoyed this, despite missing out on the two thematic clues (handle and Marlowe – really ought to have guess the latter) – I only spotted the ‘cops and robbers’ aspect of the theme, rather than a specific author.

    Can someone explain to me why TER = three?

    Thanks to Boatman and Eileen

32. Thanks to Boatman and Eileen. Like others I fund this puzzle more accessible (less spiky?) than others. I did not know FLATBILL, missed the Chandler-HANDLE connection, and had trouble with CRUSTACEA, my LOI.

33. Hi Mike @31

    Re TER = three: I wasn’t thrilled about this one but didn’t have time to discuss it this morning. TER is Latin for ‘three times’; both Collins and Chambers have it listed as ‘ter-‘combining form*  three, third, three times’ [*Collins: ‘a linguistic element that occurs only as part of a compound word‘.   As in ‘tercentenary’, for example.

    [interestingly – or not – that’s how I initially approached the answer to Anto’s Quiptic clue yesterday: ”Wire three times? Strange way to send short message (7)’ – but, of course, couldn’t reconcile wire = TWIT. 😉 ]

34. Nearly completed this in the morning, then went for a walk and stared at the remaining SW corner for some time until I plucked up the courage to enter CRUSTACEA at 14d, having just two Cs and a U. Thankfully it worked… Enjoyed the theme, and was pleased to see that no-one thought it got in the way of the clueing, as is sometimes the case.

35. Can anyone explain the IMPEACH clue? Where’s the definition? Unless “charge” is doing dd I don’t see how it works. What’s “included” there for?

36. P.S. What’s”into” doing in 15? “Threats at its core” doesn’t work for me either.

37. Hi jeceris @35/36 – I think I was being too ‘readily forgiving’ @comment 22. 3dn doesn’t really work: it should be &lit but ‘leaders included’ is superfluous, apart from being the instruction.

    And I was expecting others to have queried [and perhaps justified] ‘into’ in 15ac while I was out this morning. It doesn’t work for me – and it’s not as if it helps the surface, as far as I can see.

38. I was going expecting this to be a bit of a sod- especially when BULLIES was the only one in on my first run through- but this proved to be an extremely enjoyable solve. I especially liked CINCINNATI,MOBIUS and,LOI,DINE.
    Great fun.
    Thanks Boatman.

39. First cryptic I’ve completed in my short ‘career’. Though I failed to parse a few, the theme helped me guess some of the answers. It was a lot of fun and the puzzle (and, subsequently, Eileen’s blog) helped in my ongoing education about how these pesky things work. Thanks to both.

40. Congratulations and welcome, Keyser @39. 😉

41. I think IMPEACH works fine as an &lit.  The “leaders included” simply elaborates the definition, indicating that impeachment, as is well known, can be directed against the highest in the land.

42. jeceris @36 It’s either part of the definition (Dine = ‘eat into’) or an indicator that the definition becomes the wordplay (‘dine’ into ‘din e’) depending on your preference, works fine for me as does ‘threats at it’s core’ for e.

    Thanks to Boatman and Eileen.

43. I usually enjoy Boatman’s puzzles, and this for me was one of his best. Much of what I could have commented on has been said already, so I’ll just make the general comment that I appreciated the inventiveness evident in the clues and the way the theme was woven into the puzzle.
    I too queried the rather strong filler ‘into’ in 15a DINE, and, on a positive note, I liked the rather devious wordplay in 27a HANDLE, mainly because it was a way getting Chandler into the puzzle!
    Many thanks to Boatman and to Eileen for an excellent blog.

44. JimS@41 IMPEACH: for me the “included” is strange in the cryptic reading, though i understand its role in the surface which seems to be what you are saying. A first letter indicator is needed, that would be “leaders”

45. robert @42
    I didn’t see your comment when I posted mine. Perhaps ‘filler’ was not the best way to describe ‘into’ in 15a; ‘link-word’ is nearer the mark, and ‘into’ is rather a strong one (or so I thought). However, I like your idea of interpreting it in the manner of ‘the definition becomes the wordplay’, and this might be what the setter had in mind. (DINE = ‘eat into’ doesn’t work at all IMO.)

46. Robert @42. But DINE isn’t the same as “eat into”.

    And “its” can only refer to “racket” since “threats” is plural. For “its” to refer to “threats” we have to insert (the word)before it. And I’m never happy with having to insert extraneous matter. The solution should be available from the fodder.

47. Boatman @28 – all yours re The Singing Detective – I’m not about to claim it!  We could have a go in our forthcoming Masterclass, perhaps.  I did, just now, toy about with some clue ideas and came up with:

    Soap, Sir, is awfully rash (9)

    Perhaps not 😮 .  Better to focus on all the songs featured in the series, of which there were a great many.  Be sure to include that hilarious Dem Bones Dem Bones Dem Dry Bones number!

48. Jerceris @ 46 ‘Eat into’ is a verb form of eat so is fine as a synonym of dine (itself a verb meaning ‘to eat’), plus it’s pretty hard to dine on something unless you eat into it.

    Threats is a seven letter string with ‘t h r’ at it’s beginning, ‘a t s’ at it’s end and ‘e’ at it’s core.

    Eat into / racket / with / threats (at it’s core)

    Dine / Din / with / e (just the centre letter from the word threats)

49. Thanks, all, for your further positive comments. The booking page for the Brighton event that I mentioned @29 is now live here – it’s on Thursday 17 May – do come if you can.

50. Yes, a lot of positive comments today – and rightly so, we thought.

    One of the most enjoyable offerings from Boatman in recent times.

    And the reason is, in fact, quite simple: he behaved himself and kept far from the boundaries of Crosswordland.

    Therefore, for some solvers perhaps a bit less exciting than on other occasions but not much controversy either.

    Not everyone seems to be aware of the fact that the setters they ‘love’ most [Arachne, Picaroon, Nutmeg, to name three] are also setters with a flawless technique. Many solvers often only see the ‘beautiful surfaces’ and/or LOL moments but it is their ability to offer these within immaculately written clues that stands out.

    We thought Boatman came very close today.

    Milder? Perhaps better?

     

51. Yes, it was a bit better than it usually is.

52. Does 12 KESTRELS require a second anagram indicator? Presumably it’s “out”, if so. (It’s not mentioned in the blog so I wondered whether Guardian crosswords possibly don’t require it.)

53. It all depends on the order of things.

    In this case the anagram indicator comes first. So, ‘battered deerstalkers’ can be ‘kestrels/dare’ (even though that is not a real word, of course)

    Remove ‘dare’ and everything’s fine.

54. Thanks, Sil. You have greater experience of cryptics than I do, but the anagram/deletion is obviously something I still can’t quite get my head around.

    Are you saying that if the clue was eg. Hunters, winging it in deerstalkers nervously, dare to go out, a second anagram indicator would be needed? I struggle to see the difference.

55. Super crossword. Loved it. Very neat. On the easy side but most entertaining. Many thanks, Boatman, and to Eileen of course.

    (I would simply love to know how long Boatman took to compose this – but I guess that’s a trade secret?!)

56. Hunters, winging it in battered deerstalkers, dare to go out

    The second indicator is needed only for the surface I think.

    Elks rest, however, as they do 🙂

57. Re 12a. I see Eileen has underlined “hunters”, but I thought the definition was “hunters winging it”. The anagram indicator is “battered”, and “dare to go out” means the letters of “dare” going out of “deerstalkers”. So “out” is not an anagram indicator.

58. I too will join the praise for a ‘more accessible than some’ Boatman! Maybe I’m just good on crime! Some amusing stuff in there too. Eg 18d. DNF for me in the top right but close enough I’m happy with my effort.

59. Featherstonehaugh and JimS @56/57, I can see that ‘out’ serves the surface, but I wondered if it was also necessary as an anagram indicator for ‘dare’. I’ve often seen a second anagram indicator when the letters of the content to be removed don’t appear in the correct order in the original fodder, which is the case here. Sil says it depends on where the indicator appears in the clue, which I didn’t realise. I think I’ll have to look at a few more examples before I can confidently spot the difference.

60. A bit late but remarking that there is a secondary detective theme here with (Stock)HOLM and “deerstalkers”.

61. I also enjoyed this puzzle very much. 18d is a gem of an &lit, and 4a is particularly clever. Boatman’s grammar is still a bit loose for my taste — the word “into” in 15a, for example, and the lack of a proper definition in 3d — but in this case the ratio of cleverness to imprecision was very high.

    My chemistry is admittedly rusty (!), but as far as I know rust is not the result of an acid attack. On the contrary, acids often remove rust.

    I appreciate the fact that Boatman comes here to discuss his puzzles, even when the comments are negative, so it’s nice to see him here when the comments are so positive.

    Thanks to Boatman and Eileen

62. You’re right about rusting, Ted – it’s an electrochemical process requiring oxygen and water, catalysed by dissolved electrolytes. It forms hydrated iron(iii) oxide, which can be dissolved by some acids.

    [I’m trying to remember the source for an exchange I remember

    “Do you have a word for manana?”

    “No we don’t have anything that conveys the same sense of urgnecy…”]

63. Nila, a second indicator is not necessary, as one possible result of battered deerstalkers, as pointed out by Sil or Dutch above, is kestrelsdare.

    However, the clue can be read as either having a second indicator or not. We can say that ‘dare to go out’, as JimS firmly believes (!), means d,a,r,e has to go out, as in leave without being anagrammed, or we can say, as is equally possible, that dare, when anagrammed (out), is what must go. So you takes your choice. They both work, and neither is in my view particularly elegant.

64. ^ Thanks again. I’ll try to retain the information for future use, but I can’t 100% guarantee not bringing it up again!  😀

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