Guardian 27,545 / Nutmeg

60 comments on “Guardian 27,545 / Nutmeg”

1. Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen

   Very enjoyable, but an odd one for me, as I slowed down as I went on, eventually needing a wordsearch to finish with RATSBANE (which I didn’t parse).

   (Eileen – currently this is “Uncategorised”)

2. muffin @1

   Thanks for the heads-up, now corrected.

3. LOI was ratsbane. Not heard of it before. Otherwise really good way to get the brain in gear. Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen.

4. I absolutely loved it….with Nutmeg I always feel I am in the hands of a precise setter who will be challenging but fair. Best ones were 8a ASSET-STRIPPING, 4d LITTLE TOE, 6d EUPHONIUM, 7d FENCE (I actually knew the reference to Aintree because of recent racehorse references in puzzles), and 22d SERVE. But being intensely parochial, I was chuffed to find 13d DOWN UNDER, my CotD! Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen.

5. Ta for the helpful blog. I didn’t know that gnome was a synonym for adage, didn’t get ratsbane either.

6. Thanks, both, totally agree with Eileen’s comments.  Right in my Goldilocks zone.

   Slightly confused by RATSBANE.  I can find ratbane or Rat’s Bane as the plant but only the poison for RATSBANE.  Is it in Chambers or Collins?  Not near either this morning.

   Blundered in with SUNBURNED which held things up a bit.

   Nice to see the other meaning of GNOME again – been a while.

   Pick of the crop for me ROUND THE BEND.

   Top job, Nutmeg, many thanks.

   Nice week, all.

7. All sing     “Isnt she lovely?”

8. Like Dutchman@4, my LOI was RATSBANE (and I bet it was for Nutmeg too!!). Like Eileen, I really appreciate Nutmeg’s gentle wit. Favourites today were LEAVE OFF, TEACUP, BEFRIEND and ROUND THE BEND (lots of nice misdirection). Many thanks to N & E.

9. As with muffin we couldn’t parse RATSBANE. Unlike others, we had to ‘reveal this’ to get the answer.

   Also agree this was enjoyable

10. William @6: Chambers has ‘a name for many poisonous plants’ for ratsbane.

11. I really enjoyed this after a sort of week off, but didn’t quite finish, partly because of RATSBANE. Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen for the elucidating blog.

12. SetSquare @10:  Thanks for that – seems fair enough then.  Probably one of those ‘country’ names that means different things in different parts of the country.

13. I’d heard of LOI ratsbane, but it wouldn’t surface from the neural depths and it took half as long to get ‘rate’ as ‘consider’ and then reverse ‘nabs’ inside it as it did for the rest of the puzzle. Ditto for E. Nisbet in 15a, despite The Railway Children being among Mrs ginfreo’s favourite nostalgias.

    JinA@4, yes it’s nice when the antipodes gets the occasional mention (even roo=jumper!)

14. I enjoyed this puzzle even though I failed to solve 5d AXIS (should have gotten this!) and could not parse my answer for 1d (which I should have been able to work out, just did not see it).

    My favourites were 21a, 3d, 15a and 19a (loi)

    Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen.

     

15. Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen.  Very enjoyable.  EUPHONIUM in particular made me smile.

    RATSBANE was also my LOI, in fact I had exactly the same experience as Muffin @1, needing a wordsearch and then being unable to parse it.  AXIS also held me up for a bit, having first wondered whether there were any international alliances called AMIR or APIL.

    ESTAMINET always reminds me of the (actually rather unpleasant) T S Eliot poem Gerontion – “spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp” – which we studied at school.

16. Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen. Delightful. I did know RATSBANE (from previous puzzles) and gnome = ADAGE (from the term “gnomic”) but I took a while getting the anagram for FRAUDSTER and the “push” = “drive” in PUSHCHAIR. My LOI was AXIS (as usual, a cricket term – here “six”) gave me trouble. Thanks to Eileen for the Milton allusion that added to the fun.

17. cont…

    Has there ever been a didgeridoo (Committed around littlle bloke’s commitment with love instrument! (10))?

18. I think the orange anagram was my favourite clue today. Not really diffcult, but perfectly formed.

    LOI for me too was RATSBANE. I have serious deficiencies in the plant and fish departments.

    Thanks to Eileen and Nutmeg.

19. Forgot to say, thanks Nutmeg and Eileen.

20. Another with RATSBANE as LOI. For a long time I was looking for a “consider”, then saw that the reversal of NABS would give me ?A?SBANE. I have never heard of the plant, but it had to RATE for consider.
    I liked 19. I think because I was so slow on the uptake. I managed to parse it, but insisted on pronouncing it to myself as “teak-(pause)-up”. It took a while for the penny to drop.

21. But is RATSBANE a plant? Chambers online describes it as “rat poison, esp arsenic oxide”.

22. btw, although I am perfectly happy with boundary=six, you no longer hear that on commentaries – a “boundary” is a 4, while a six is always “a maximum”!

23. Jason @21:  See Setsquare et al @10

24. grantinfreo @17:  I clued it once as Wooden tube for making very long raspberries  (10)

25. Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen. As others have said a very enjoyable puzzle with axis and, like many others, ratsbane last ones. I also misparsed 18a but got the answer by thinking it was an anagram of me state in. Lots of nice clues but I liked pushchair and heads of state. Thanks again to Nutmeg and Eileen.

26. So much to enjoy, though I did need Eileen’s help on a handful of parsings. ESTAMINET and RATSBANE were new. PUSHCHAIR was excellent I thought. I got ENDED but incorrectly – I thought it was an anagram of DEN (a name and also somewhere you are concealed) in ED… overthinking it.

    I don’t get RY = LINES? Can someone enlighten me?

    Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen – a nice start to the day.

27. Keyser @26

    It’s (RY, that is) an abbreviation for “railway”, often used in crosswords

28. Jason @21: Chambers on paper says ‘poison for rats, esp. white arsenic; a name for many poisonous plants’.

29. Keyser @ 26, I think RY is short for Railway. Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen.

30. Thank you Nutmeg and Eileen.

    A most enjoyable puzzle.  ADAGE for ‘gnome’ was new to me, I thought it might have been in a crossword a little while back, but on checking only found it in the Independent and Azed. I first knew the EUPHONIUM from the words of The Floral Dance, spellcheck does not recognise it, but one of my grandsons plays it.  BOLERO was my last in.

31. muffin @27 & Judy @ 29 – thanks both! One to log in the memory bank.

32. Hmm, “in oxford perhaps” seems rather vague as part of a cryptic definition, and “axis” for international alliance also seems a bit vague to me. Otherwise good.

33. HM @32: Oxford is fairly common for shoe.

34. 18a: has anyone ever seen a cafe that calls itself this? I’ve only seen the word in crosswords …

35. Great Puzzle and blog so thanks both.  It has all been said really, thoroughly enjoyable and cultured.  My favourite was ROUND THE BEND, but there were several others nearly as good.

    muffin @ 22 you need to watch more ‘proper’ cricket.

36. William@24, fun clue, although we’re probably both being a bit non-pc, given its ceremonial import.

37. 25ac is a hugely satisfying clue. Very neat.

38. Another fine puzzle that would have made for a good prize (and why has Nutmeg still not been seen in the prize slot yet?). Mostly fairly straightforward and all simple enough in retrospect apart from a few slightly obscure words (I remembered ESTAMINET from previous crosswords, RATSBANE was plausible if only half-familiar, and I don’t think I had seen GNOME used this way, though gnomic utterances must be the same thing. AXIS was last in – just took me ages to think of the right kind of boundary (despite being a cricket fan).

    Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen

39. … possibly because the placing of “putting” in the clue leads to XISA rather than AXIS.

40. I had surprisingly few after the first pass through across clues and one I did have – BREAK OFF – turned out to be wrong.  I gradually made inroads from the south up.

    I loved the Romanian garden anagram.  TEACUP was also very nice.  Routine for ROUND in 9 took a while for me to understand.  I rationalized it in the sense of “doing the rounds”.  It also took a while to find the (or a) plant called RATSBANE, rather than the name for arsenic oxide, but I eventually found one in Wiki (spotted wintergreen).  Surprisingly, a search of “ratsbane” fails to bring this up.

    Good fun.  Thanks, Nutmeg and Eileen.

41. First I’ll restate (yet again) today’s favourite phrase: ‘Last one in was RATSBANE.’

    This was a gem of a puzzle, as you rightly say, Eileen.  My favourite among many excellent clues was ESTAMINET, an example of a ‘perfect’ clue that makes sound cryptic sense and a totally different (and entertaining) surface sense.  I first thought “Here’s an easy anagram of ‘Nutmeg’s in”, but fortunately, seeing the ‘M’ and the final ‘T’ in place already, I somehow came up with ESTAMINET as a likely answer – and it parsed.

    RATSBANE, which I hadn’t heard of, was just the sort of ‘simple’ clue that I often find so difficult.  I first thought of ‘bane’ as a possible ending, then the ‘B’ suggested NABS going backwards, and then, by trying to think simultaneously of a likely name for the plant and a possible word for ‘consider’, I found the answer and checked it by looking it up.

    Many thanks to both Nutmeg and Eileen.

42. Agree with everyone – this was a gem. Thanks, Nutmeg and Eileen, for a lovely start to another sunny day.

43. I had no problem with RASBANE. However, I did screw this up by entering ASSET STRIPPERS for 8 ac which left me with the,rather lame, FORGE for 7dn. FENCE is so much better that I’m surprised I didn’t see it. I didn’t know Gnome = ADAGE but like BH @38, I knew about” gnomic utterances” so it had to be the answer. ESTAMINET I knew from past crosswords but I’ve never heard it in any other context. I liked EUPHONIUM.
    Thanks Nutmeg.

44. Nice puzzle!  I enjoyed all four long entries, especially MANDARIN ORANGE, and EUPHONIUM was CotD for me.  My LOI was AXIS. Just like Lord Jim @15, I first tried to see if AMIR or APIL might be a Thing … but then the lightbulb came on and I recalled that “boundary = six” in cricket (of which the scant knowledge that I have, comes primarily from (1) prior Guardian cryptics, (2) this forum, and (3) this amusing Google doodle game).

    I enjoyed the DOWN UNDER comments above, including the clues for didgeridoo offered by grantinfreo @17 and William @24.

    Many thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen and the other commenters.

45. Super puzzle.   Thanks to all,

46. Lovely puzzle as is usual from this setter. Many thanks NUTMEG.  I thought MANDARIN ORANGE was eloquent and i enjoyed ASSET STRIPPING, as well as many others.

    Thanks eileen for parsing of TEACUP.

47. Thanks, dutch  – the  parsing of TEACUP came to me only as I wrote up the blog, in desperation. 😉

    I’ve been out for most of the day, since posting the blog, so pleased to see that people enjoyed it as much as I did.

    Keyser @26 – my apologies for not explaining RY = lines: I know you’re fairly new here. It is fairly common, so worth filing away.

    Lippi @34 – no, not over here but I first met the word, years ago, driving through France, looking for a place for lunch and seeing ESTAMINET emblazoned on a building and wondering what it meant – too late. [We were veterans at spying, mid- morning, attractive places to eat and then, when lunchtime came, travelling through a culinary desert.] I’ve since met it a number of times in crosswords – and it’s in Chambers.

    phitonelly @40 – I read it as routine = ‘the daily round [the common task’ – as in the hymn].

48. [Eileen @47

    I know of an “estaminet” in Chiavenna (on the Swiss side of the Italian border) that shuts at lunch time so that the staff can have their lunch!]

49. muffin @48 – reminds me of the time we fetched up at 14.01 at an establishment packed with happy eaters to be met with ‘Fermé  – désolé’, with the familiar nonchalant Gallic shrug. It’s not just here that words like ‘desolated’ and ‘devastated’ have been so demeaned.

50. Getting the ‘I’ in AXIS I was looking for a IV – four for a boundary. I wondered if the ‘up’ was doing double duty. A boundary up (over the fence) is SIX.

    Got caught out by LEAVE OFF. Stuck in the groove of thinking but surely if the leave is off, they’re not going on holiday.

    Delightful, disguised definitions and mischievous misdirections.

    Thankyou Nutmeg and Eileen. Game well played.

51. Well RATSBANE, which is ‘RATE introducing NABS round’ for the cryptic, is a very difficult clue, and that’s why it held us all up.

    It’s also incorrectly defined, according to Collins at least, which says it is arsenic oxide and not a plant. Elsewhere we find various toxic plants called either RATBANE or RAT’S BANE (or RAT’S VEIN), but not RATSBANE.

    Close enough for jazz?

52. featherstonehaugh @ 51

    Not incorrect according to Chambers (see my comment @28).

53. I’d like to say how much I value this site – when I’m completely stuck for a parsing it always delights.  As with almost everyone else, Ratsbane LOI, never heard of it, but I really enjoyed this puzzle

54. phitonelly @40 — I found quite a few plant references when I searched for ratsbane, e.g.

    http://scienceviews.com/plants/spottedwintergreen.html

     

55. @ 53 – well said.

    Thanks for the fantastic blog (as usual) Eileen, and another ta to Nutmeg for a crossword that kept me going for most of the day.  11ac took me too long (thinking it ended in ‘E’) and resulted in a good sigh out when solved.  Never got 21ac.

56. John E @54
    I wasn’t clear in my post. I meant that a search for RATSBANE in Wikipedia failed to find spotted wintergreen, even though that flower is in there and ratsbane is listed as one of the common names in the article.

57. I put in Amir for 5d — a + rim backwards — the AMIR Alliance is an organisation that helps underprivileged children.

     

58. Hi John E et al: many thanks. I shall dust off the BRB (not a pot) and scan.

59. The first answer to go in was RATSBANE… no only kidding, I needed Chambers wordsearch too. Should have got it as I’ve definitely heard of it before.

    What a lovely puzzle though. I liked the two long answers especially. This is the Guardian crossword at its very best.

60. Should be “two long DOWN answers”…

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