Guardian 27,499 / Tramp

58 comments on “Guardian 27,499 / Tramp”

1. Not much to say, moderately enjoyable if you, as me, did not guess the theme. I  had ondulated instead of nodulated for a bit.  Liked inapproriate and sports car

2. Re 12: Is the parsing right, Eileen? INTIN in PANG would give an N too many.

3. Where is the “w” in 26 ac?

4. Cracking crossword Gromit     I do love a crossword which leaves you with a big smile on your face

   Thanks to Tramp for the fun and to Lucky Eileen too

5. Nick Park, wow

   I thought a short episode was probably PAG(e)

   Thanks Tramp, Eileen

6. Excellent stuff, thanks T&E. Eileen, you missed out the W (with) in 26ac.

7. Thanks all – I was doing the corrections while some of you were typing and then my internet connection failed! Apologies for the careless slips.

8. Too hard to be enjoyable.
   Appropriates?

9. Very enjoyable, couldn’t parse RESISTS at all. Thanks Eileen and Tramp

10. I thought this was a tremendous puzzle. Favourites were SPROUT, INAPPROPRIATE, MOORAGE and ACETATE. Lovely surfaces. Many thanks to Tramp, and to Eileen as ever.

11. Brilliant puzzle. 5d is just a fantastic clue. Many other goodies too and I hope Nick Park and colleagues at Aardman find the crossword on their radar.

    Well done Tramp and thanks to Eileen

12. Really enjoyed this; a little easier after the last couple of days. Particular favourites 1d (our first in), 22a, 21a. Shared the doubt about page=episode, had to look up meaning of Nisei and failed to parse 18d; otherwise no problems. Thanks, Tramp and Eileen.

     

13. Thanks to Tramp and Eileen. A struggle for me. I did not parse EGGS or PAINTING, missed the Nick Park connection (though I did get PULL IN), and had trouble with CLANGER and INAPPROPRIATE.

14. A cracker but not too cheesy. Certainly not cheasy-peasy! Thanks Tramp and Eileen

15. Thanks to Tramp and Eileen. A nice puzzle as people have said, but a DNF for me caused by nothing more than my own stupid fault. I gave up on 16/11 after staring at it for ages. For some reason I got it in my head that I was looking for a two word (4-6) answer. That will teach me to read the clues more closely. Some nice clues and liked eggs and inappropriate. A lesson learnt today and thanks again to Tramp and Eileen.

16. EGGS – my best a-ha moment in ages. And could this be another oblique W&G reference? Can’t find any proof but I’m sure Wallace wouldn’t eat his breakfast boiled egg without soldiers!

    Mega kudos for PULL IN.

17. Delightful puzzle after yesterday’s (for me) slog through the nether regions of the periodic table.

    Never heard of the Indians or the clerics but clearly clued. Personally thought 10a a bit clunky. Hurrah for the Clangers mention. Great constructions for 1d and 6d.

    Thanks to Tramp and Eileen for the elegant blog.

18. Just brilliant!
    Before I start a puzzle I look at the whole thing and think I’m going to enjoy it when most clues are under a line long and there are some two word ones – combine that with Tramp’s name and I know we’re in for a treat.
    Being a W&G fan made the whole thing delightful but even without that there are some gems like 4 & 9a. 5d must be up there as a clue of the century in the context of the puzzle.
    Thanks for the blog and the links Eileen – the parsing for 9,13 and 15 eluded me – and to Tramp for an hour of joy.

19. As always, thanks Eileen for the superb blog and kind words. Thanks to others for the comments.

    I wrote this puzzle in March 2015 after writing the Nick Park (4,2) clue.

    Neil

20. I know Wallace and Grommit but knew nothing else of the work of Nick Park (or even his name), so missed that extra layer of enjoyment that comes from solving a puzzle and seeing the jigsaw puzzle pieces of a theme fit together.
    Nevertheless, thanks to Tramp, and Eileen and other participants, for an interesting puzzle and blog.

21. Superb with brilliant exploitation of a theme. Kudos for the Nick Park and Wrong Trousers clues especially.

22. I’d seen Wallace and Gromit years ago at somebody’s house, but hadn’t heard of Nick Park, so the theme totally escaped me until I got here.  But, Eileen, how gracious of you to give all those links!  I’ll play them later at leisure.  Now that I know what it’s about, it’s a fine puzzle and a lovely blog.  I like INAPPROPRIATE now that I’m reminded of the (British) verbal meaning of “trousers.”  I’d also forgotten about the British custom of toast soldiers — I’ve never heard of anybody doing it here.

    BlueCanary @17 — the North American natives here are not Indians but the children parents who have come from Japan.  When I looked it up I discovered that it meant specifically children of parents who have come to  the US or Canada — I had assumed it was to anywhere outside of Japan.  The name means “second generation;”  their parents, the first generation, were issei.

     

23. This was a truly great crossword from a setter whose puzzles I nearly always enjoy.

    Not having the initial P of PULL IN, I actually failed to get that answer, despite knowing it was a double definition.  I will gladly add my name to those who rate this as a fantastic clue.

    EGGS was very neat.   I didn’t actually parse it correctly because I thought of soldiers being ants (from eggs!), but of course the clue only works fully as blogged.

    EXEC is appearing more often in crosswords, and today’s clue to this word must be one of the more entertaining ways to clue it!

    I missed the significance of ‘on’ in 4a SPROUT and therefore failed to solve that clue.  I always enjoy conquering Tramp’s misdirections, but fortunately I also enjoy instances like this of being taken in by them.

    As well as PULL IN, I thought MODERATING, VAGRANT and INAPPROPRIATE were excellent clues.

    3d CLANGER (clued by ‘cock-up’) was straightforward enough, but I’ve never heard of the Clangers.  Likewise, NISEI, PASTORATES and NODULATED were all new to me but all fairly clued.  The ‘sticks out’ meaning of RESISTS was also new to me.

    Some of the themed references were lost on me, but I am a fan of Nick Park’s original animations.

    Well done Tramp, and thanks Eileen for the blog.

24. About half of this was easier than Tramp normally is, but the rest still took me ages to finish. As always they make perfect sense in retrospect. An entertaining challenge.

    Thanks to Tramp and Eileen

25. Many thanks for the explanation Valentine @22. I should have googled rather than just assume!

26. My brother was a huge fan of Wallace and Gromit, and he made me watch them all (including all the Shaun the Sheep episodes too) so this was fun. But not easy–many tricky constructions, some of which were too much for me this morning.

    Re the nisei: as pointed out by Valentine, they’re second-generation, so small-n native Americans, making the clue another clever misdirection.

    [There’s a bar here in Chicago called the Nisei Lounge. It was a hub of the Japanese immigrant community back in the 30s through 50s. Like most immigrant groups, they eventually assimilated and dispersed; the neighborhood (Wrigleyville) is pretty thoroughly yuppie now. The bar’s last nisei regular died in 2010 or so; the Tribune ran a piece on this at the time. The bar has kept the name in honor of its heritage.]

27. Cracker!

    WhiteKing’s post @18 makes my intended praise largely superfluous.

    Took longer than I should have done through blundering in with UNDULATED instead of NODULATED.  Other than that, pure joy.

    Tramp has mastered the setter’s art and PULL IN must surely be a candidate for CotY, no?

    Many thanks for the blog, Eileen.

    Nice week, all.

28. Cracking stuff from one of my favourite setters. Having grown up watching the Clangers, just a mention of the name is enough to put a silly grin on my face – such a charming show.

29. Rather hard I thought, especially the top half, but memories of W&G – and a desire to solve the clearly magnificent 5d – kept me going. EGGS fell last, and I wrongly considered it a cd rather than dd, on the grounds that the soldiers were bombing / falling into the eggs.

    Never heard of the Clangers, AlanB @23? Get yourself a box set forthwith!

30. Tramp is as consistent as Bollinger but without the price tag.Lovely puzzle.

31. Super puzzle.  I’m a big fan of Wallace and Gromit, so enjoyed it tremendously.  Having said that, I found it quite hard compared to the usual Tramp, perhaps because of some unfamiliar words (PASTORATES, NODULATED) or more probably because I did it late last night when overly tired.  It’s taken me until today to understand the 1st definition in 5, so I was a bit slow to fully appreciate it.  I can only echo the praise above.

    Once again, I’m bowled over with the number of thematic references and Tramp’s ability to weave them into clues.  Is the left hand column an intended Nina?  If so, anyone know who it references?

    Thanks, Tramp and Eileen for the excellent blog.

32. Trailman @40
    Thanks for the tip. The original Clangers series passed me by, but what encourages me is that the new 2015 series also uses stop-motion animation and not CGI.
    I can’t explain how both series went unnoticed!

33. Trailman @29 (me @32)

    Sorry – obviously I meant Trailman @29.

34. I found this one a toughie – but fun to do, and I’m relieved I didn’t need an encyclopaedic knowledge of the esteemed Mr Park’s excellent works!  (Although I certainly recognised a few allusions).

    Couple of unknown words for me: NISEI (dictionary says this means Americans of Japanese origin, so not really “native”?); and PASTORATES (I was thinking around PASTORALES but that doesn’t make sense).  MOORAGE occurred to me only after a lot of thinking (need Boatman to help out here!).

    Only guessed at the parsing of EDAM and EGGS.  For the latter, yuck!  I cannot abide soft-boiled eggs, and I thought “soldiers” had to always be smeared with marmite. Double-yuck!  OK, who on here is a ‘lover’, and who a ‘hater’?

    But plenty of gems to make up for that.  INAPPROPRIATE is so neat – it was my LOI but shouldn’t have been. I love the way ‘cut’ refers to a word in the clue (“trousers” -> “trouser”) rather than part of the solution.  Had me stumped for ages.  Very ingenious.

    SPROUT was another that held me up quite a while!  I must keep reminding myself that when you see “rabbit” in a clue, it seldom refers to our long-eared furry friend!

    Thanks to Tramp and Eileen.

35. I often have trouble with Tramp’s puzzles and this was no exception. I didn’t expect to need a detailed knowledge of W&G and, while I’ve seen some of the films,I don’t remember much about them but I got to the end give or take some of the parsing.
    I liked CLANGERS,EGGS and VENICE. I stumbled upon NISEI and then remembered seeing it before- I think in a crossword!
    So another ok from me!
    Thanks Tramp.

36. Laccaria @34:  if you were born in a place, are you not native to it regardless of your ethnicity?  That’s what “native” means (at least sometimes), surely?  I’m a native American, even though I’m not a Native American.  (Depending on which branch of my family tree you trace, I’m between sixth and ninth generation, variously of German, Irish, and English origin; but in what sense am I not a native of the United States?)

37. I enjoyed this puzzle, especially for its references to the works of Nick Park.  My wife and kids and I have made it a point over the years to see (and often acquire on DVD for future, multiple rewatchings) pretty much everything we have been able to find from Aardman.  Thanks to Eileen for providing links to some of them in the blog!  Gromit is one of the greatest characters ever created in movies/TV.  He is the perfect sidekick for Wallace, of course, but I think all of us would enjoy having such an intelligent, determined, resourceful, patient, and deeply loyal friend!  (Or “another” for anyone already blessed with someone (or -ones) like that, whether human or animal, in their life!)

    But for me as a US solver, this was more challenging than most, as I did not know (or possibly failed to recall having once learned of): (a) toast “soldiers”, (b) the Clangers animated series, (c) “pull in” as an idiomatic phrase meaning to arrest (although I know “nicked” = arrested from watching various British TV shows and movies), and (d) trouser as a verb meaning to take undeservedly.  So a nice bunch of TILTs for me.  (TILT = Thing I Learned Today.)

    Favorite clues for me today included VAGRANT, VENICE, STEWED and ENEMA (for its humorous PDM).

    Many thanks to Tramp and Eileen and the other commenters.

38. Laccaria @34:  NISEI works because it actually refers specifically to a second generation American, i.e. a person born in the US, as opposed to their ISSEI parents who immigrated from Japan.  I’m familiar with this because my partner is SANSEI.

    I stand with the commenters who found this puzzle on the difficult side. Knowing virtually nothing about British animation, I was skeptical from the outset that I’d be able to solve but I found the non-animation related clues to be just as difficult. There seemed to be too many possible definitions and I think it just overwhelmed my brain.

39. Re NISEI – I accept that the clue carefully avoided using the words “Native American” which specifically point to those descended from the inhabitants of the continent before European colonists arrived in the 15th/16th centuries.  But I’d probably have failed to notice that subtle point, and hence found the clue misdirecting, if I’d happened to know the word!

    Seeing as I didn’t, it didn’t make any difference.  I figured out NISEI from the wordplay, and assumed it was the name of a Native American tribe.  Until I looked the word up, that is… 🙂

40. Thanks Eileen and Tramp…a well constructed crosser which I failed badly on…I fear I couldn’t agree with your comment about gladdening the hearts of those of us who miss Rufus – Maybe only those who like DDs but are far better at crossers than us Mondayers!

41. Great puzzle. I love Nick Park’s work too. Thanks, Eileen, for the links. Nice to see the Clangers in there too. I knew some of Oliver Postgate’s (co-creator with Peter Firmin) family and was lucky enough to meet the man once. He told me the anecdote about the Clangers related here in interview with Clive Banks:

    CB: I heard a rumour that the Clangers swore! Is this an urban myth, or is it true?

    OP: Yes, absolutely! Their scripts had to be written out in English, for Steven Sylvester and I to use Swanny whistles; we just sort of blew the whistles in Clanger language for the text that was there, so it didn’t matter much what was written. But when the BBC got the script, [they] rang me up and said “At the beginning of episode three, where the doors get stuck, Major Clanger says ‘sod it, the bloody thing’s stuck again’. Well, darling, you can’t say that on Children’s television, you know, I mean you just can’t.” I said “It’s not going to be said, it’s going to be whistled”, but [they] just said “But people will know!” I said no, that if they had nice minds, they’d think “Oh dear, the silly thing’s not working properly”. If you watch the episode, the one where the rocket goes up and shoots down the Iron Chicken, Major Clanger kicks the door to make it work and his first words are “Sod it, the bloody thing’s stuck again”. Years later, when the merchandising took off, the Golden Bear company wanted a Clanger and a Clanger phrase for it to make when you squeezed it, they got “Sod it, the bloody thing’s stuck again”!

    https://www.clivebanks.co.uk/Oliverpostgateinterview.htm

    I had known, but forgotten NISEI, but got it from wordplay. I recognise ni as ‘second’ from nidan (second dan), a Go rank. Also insei, one who is enrolled in a school for the study of Go to pursue professional player status is perhaps related. ‘Next generation’,maybe?

    So much clever Trampish misdirection, like “rabbit on”….

42. Hi Tony @41- I’m just in from an enjoyable theatre trip and therefore not quite ready for bed. Thank you so much for the memories of the wonderful Oliver Postgate, so much a part of my children’s childhood. You set me googling and I found this interview, which gave me the opportunity to hear again that lovely voice. How lucky you are to have met him.

    As for NISEI – I’ve met it only in crosswords but I remember it cropping up three or four times, so I didn’t think to comment on it today.

     

43. Thanks for that, Eileen. My friend has a favourite photo hanging on his wall of Oliver with the Heath-Robinson contraption he contrived to spool the film for the stop-motion. And I have (somewhere) a photo of that photo! I can’t quite remember it but I think an old bicycle wheel may have figured in it. I couldn’t spot it in the film but it was in that workshop.

44. Ah, I see I have misremembered; no bicycle wheel, perhaps:

    “Smallfilms was able to produce two minutes of film per day, ten times as much as a conventional animation studio,[11] with Postgate moving the (originally cardboard) characters himself, and working his 16mm camera frame-by-frame with a home-made clicker.”

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallfilms

    Must dig out the photo.

45. Many thanks again, Tony – lovely stories, which led me to reread the Guardian obituary, where there are more. What an extraordinary man.

46. NISEI has four previous appearances, all of which have more specific definitions:

    Puck 25762: Second generation immigrant from Japan is 18 (5)
    Crucible 26410: Organise Ireland’s part in first Japanese issue (5)
    Vlad 26677: Japanese-American in thirties interviewed for promotion (5)
    Paul 27055: Welcomed back by enemies, industrious Japanese American (5)

47. Many thanks, beery, 😉

48. Loved it. Wonderfully clever surfaces. Favourites inappropriate, vagrant and pull in. One or two quibbles though. Is ‘nice’ a synonym for friendly? Why not use a word like ‘pleasant’? And are ‘nisei’ natives? Surely ‘native’ means indigenous?

49. Great puzzle; no surprise – it’s a Tramp after all! I made the mistake of solving “Nick Park” (before crossers) as PULL UP (closer to “nick” methinks, if a little further from “park”) so PAINTING took longer than it should. I’d thought of ‘in’ rather than ‘up’ but made the wrong choice. My own fault – should have pencilled in the preposition but too lazy, or overconfident, to find a pencil!

    It’s been a good week. This crossword was lovely and Vlad’s was also terrific fun. Qaos, though easy, was a joy to solve. After last week’s quiptic-like Pan, a great relief to find a Tramp this Thursday.

    I gather some people feel demeaned by those of us who moan “too easy”. That is never my intention; I simply try to balance opinion for any editor who may read our views. I sympathise with newbies but hope they’ll understand how frustrating it can also be to find our favourite daily pleasure over and done with in under fifteen minutes too often….!

    An excellent blog.

    Thank you, Tramp. Thank you, Eileen.

50. I don’t wish to prolong discussion but …

    William F P @49 “PULL UP (closer to “nick” methinks, if a little further from “park”)”  Hmm, interesting – I’d have thought it was the other way round: Chambers ‘pull in = arrest [nick]; [of a train] to arrive at a station’;  ‘pull up = to come to a stop; halt’ [park] Either way, the consensus seems to be that it’s a wonderful clue.

    Phyllida White @48 – see comments 22 and 26: Chambers again – ‘native = belonging by birth; born or originating in the place’; ‘Nisei = an American or Canadian born of Japanese immigrant parents’.

51. When I worked on the “Nick Park” clue I thought it could be a clue for PULL UP or PULL IN, as, according to Chamber’s, both of these can mean “to arrest”. Also, in my eyes, “pull in/up behind that car” can mean “park behind that car”.

52. Just for fun I’ll add a little more Japanese.  I learned a little many years ago for a trip to Japan, and my  favorite thing to say in Japanese is “on the twenty-first,” which is “ni-ju ichi nichi ni.”  Translated morpheme by morpheme, that’s “two-ten one day on.”  (I haven’t got a favorite thing to say in any other language.)

53. For the record, I also entered PULL UP at first, but corrected it once I got PAINTING.

    @Valentine,
    Haha! I will have to remember that one!I asked Google Translate what insei means in Japanese and it says ‘negative’!?

    PS Do I remember a scene with Gromit in a SPORTS CAR, or is that another false memory?

54. I’d forgotten this but when I wrote the puzzle I included “Nun Wrestling” as it’s a hidden joke in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wallace_%26_Gromit:_The_Curse_of_the_Were-Rabbit

55. Good grief, Neil – how could you forget a gem like that? A gift that goes on giving …

    More mundanely [why can’t I let these things go?] I found this for ‘pull in’ – I think ‘pull up’ is more like ‘stop and search’ than ‘arrest’.

    I think I’m signing off now but many thanks, again, everyone – loads of fun! ;-

56. Grrh!! that page has changed since I copied it earlier, when I had no internet access: honestly, it did have ‘arrest’ and ‘pull in’ on the same row.

57. Grrh again! – I meant ‘nick’ and ‘pull in’ on the same row, under synonyms for ‘arrest’.

58. Nuns wrestling

    I’d thought the surface of that clue a bit odd, but all is forgiven having learnt that tidbit. Also pleased to see quash=annul, as another setter used quash as a containment indicator recently, which I thought not quite right.

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