Guardian Cryptic 27,637 by Nutmeg

47 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,637 by Nutmeg”

1. I think that the “on borders” in 18 is an indicator for the envelope of SWARD around KY (the abbreviation for the state), rather than being the borders of KENTUCKY (otherwise the “on” doesn’t make sense as KY is in SWARD, not on it).

   Didn’t like the Old Testament appearing twice (22a & 19d), but otherwise very enjoyable – thanks both.

2. Thanks Nutmeg and Teacow.

   9d too many tos in the online clue; a case of Paris in the the spring.

    

   A pleasant romp, completed in two sittings

3. Agree with cryptor re 18d, that’s how it parsed for me. Didn’t know the soap of course, should have worked it out but got lazy and cheated, so dnf. Also bunged in an unparsred divorce at 5d, well knowing that ‘orc’ has nothing to do with work, and didn’t go back and think again. Double dnf. Pity because otherwise a nice stroll with lots of lovely surfaces as usual with Nutmeg. The Reaper was a ripper, a double tick, plus ticks for 10, 17, 21, 24 and 27ac, plus 2 and 18d.

   Thanks Teacow and Nutmeg.

4. I could not parse 18d or the ERG in 5d, and failed to solve 26a DOES which I still do not fully understand.

   My favourites were OMITTED, BREAST, DEEP SPACE, SYBARITE.

   Thanks teacow and Nutmeg

5. Buns short for bunnies? probably not; (hair)does more sensible.

6. Chambers gives “bun” (definition 3) as a playful name for a rabbit.

   Isn’t 17ac an indirect anagram?

    

    

7. Like grantinfreo @ 5 I parsed “buns” as rabbits – does being the female.

    

8. Thanks both. Mostly pretty good I thought, but a dnf, as I had HIT AND RUN for 7d, though unhappy about it meaning ‘skedaddle’. This meant I didn’t see SCAB which should have been obvious.

   I’m not quite sure about a BIGHT being a depression, but it just about works. And does ON AVERAGE mean generally? – not to a mathematician it doesn’t!

   Several favourites including MODUS OPERANDI and PROTEGE.

9. MODUS OPERANDI I thought was very nice. Other than that some clever clues.

10. I was thinking buns as rabbits but I’ve changed to the hair view. No one calls bunnies buns shurely.

    My last in and least favourite. iut I didnt mind OT cropping up twice as both clues were excellent-as was the rest of the puzzle.

    Three crackers in a row rom the Graun

    Thanks Teacow and Nutmeg

11. Lots of fun as usual from Nutmeg. I also couldn’t parse DOES. Like beaulieu@8 I put in HIT AND RUN initially before I saw the error of my ways. Favourites were DEEP SPACE and CURTSEY. Many thanks to N & t.

12. Thanks, Teacow, for the blog.

    I had lots of ticks – these are examples, not an exhaustive list: excellent anagrams at 14 and 17ac, super surfaces at 1ac and 1 [;-) ] 3 and 16dn and interesting constructions at 27ac and 15dn.

    Many thanks, Nutmeg – sheer delight.

13. Could “serve”be a homophone indicator for does= doughs ie buns?
    Maybe not!!

14. Thanks Teacow and Nutmeg, very enjoyable. Favourites were 9, 14, 26 & 27. 26 is surely the bunny reference, as the plural of hairdo is hairdos, not -does.

15. Except for 26a DOES, which was my LOI and an uncertain guess from the crossers, this was an enjoyable puzzle to solve. Felt a bit like copmus@10 about that one. Whether it was about rabbits or hair, it was a let-down after such a fine puzzle to end with a whimper rather than a bang…

    Otherwise lots of ticks, including most of those already named by grantinfreo@3 and others, as well as 12a RISSOLE, 7d CUT AND RUN and 23d TRA-LA. My CotD was definitely 14a THE GRIM REAPER. I was chuffed to work out 15d EMMERDALE from the wordplay; then had to look it up to confirm I was right: it sounded more like a cheese to me than a soap opera.

    Many thanks to Nutmeg, as well as to Teacow for the explanation of a couple of unparsed clues.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

16. Sorry about all that white space – not sure why it’s there; I must have hit enter too many times at some point.

17. I think it’s the bunnies. Chambers gives only “dos” or “do’s” as plural of noun ‘do’.

18. I loved this. Yes the quibbles on DOES but some wonderful clues. !d, 14a, 17a, 27a especially (as most have said). Paused for some time at 5d as I’d put DIVORCE (no doubt a delibrate misdirection) but couldn’t parse the ORC bit…

    Thanks Teacow and Nutmeg.

19. Does didn’t do it for me, either. In fact, not solving it held me up with a fair chunk of the puzzle.

20. Thank you Nutmeg and Teacow.

    A super puzzle, especially the &lit. clue for THE GRIM REAPER! I went for the rabbits at 26@, I once had a pet one called Honeybun that I kept secretly, as I thought, in a field near my boarding school – at lunch one day the maths teacher at the head of the table twitched her nose while looking at me…

21. I’m for the bunnies!

22. A nice puzzle, despite my putting HIT AND RUN initially.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and Teacow.

23. Yes in fact it was the spurious ‘e’ (a la Dan Quayle’s potatoe, remember?) that had me looking for an alternative; and given (hair)do is sort of slang, and ‘dos’ is problematic (ms), it sent me down a rabbit hole.

24. The joyous intricacies of language, culture and thought!

25. My old COED gives bun², n. (Personifying name of) squirrel, rabbit. [16th c., of unkn. orig.] backing up Chambers (Richard @6).

26. Great crossword, thanks Nutmeg.

    Thanks Teacow; I raced through this at the beginning and then got seriously stuck in the SW corner. Bun = rabbit is in the Chambers Crossword Dictionary, Bradford’s and of course the BRB. I prefer if the solution is put underneath the clues if possible. I sometimes have a quick peak at the blogger’s rider before completing the grid and I can see all the solutions very quickly when they are at the top.

    I did particularly like Superman’s MODUS OPERANDI.

     

27. Thanks to Nutmeg and Teacow. As others have said an enjoyable and steady solve, but like others held up in the SW. It had to be does, but why I did not know. This along with skyward were the last ones in. The long anagrams got me going, and I did like curtesy, rehangs and retrograde step. Thanks again to Nutmeg and Teacow.

28. I thought this was going do be a dns, never mind a dnf! I got to 20d on my first pass before anything went in. Then Mrs W got the NW going and it was a steady solve thereafter. I didn’t parse the SA bit of 1a, and think it’s a bit iffy given appeal is in the clue; nor DOES; nor SKYWARD which I’m still not sure it works with “on” for “around” in a down clue. 3d felt clunky to me until I came here (thanks Eileen). I particularly liked TOGAS which hasn’t yet got a mention, along with THE GRIM REAPER and several others which have. I’m surprised the 8d definition hasn’t attracted comment – maybe we’re becoming more broad minded, or does the setter’s gender influence our thinking?
    Many thanks to Nutmeg and Teacow – and as someone else has said 3 top notch puzzles in a row – thanks to editor Hugh as well.

29. Thanks to Nutmeg and Teacow. Great fun. I did not know EMMERDALE but did piece it out and had the same trouble with DOES.

30. Another top class puzzle

    Thanks to Teacow and Nutmeg

31. Delightful puzzle, thanks to Nutrmeg and Teacow.

    Teacow, a tiny oops — you have NAVE as a “section of search,” rather than church.

    I put together EMMERDALE from the various bits, but was puzzled, since like Julie I thought it sounded more like a kind of cheese than a kind of soap.  So I googled it and all was clear.

    I tried CURTAIL for bob — did anyone else? but the check button left me with CURT.  (Yes, I do use check when I’m stuck.)

    In DEEP SPACE I thought that “pace” meant “progress back and forth,” which left me stuck for the rest of it.  Thanks for that explanation, Teacow, and for the one for RETROGRADE STEP, which baffled me.

32. Thanks Nutmeg and Teacow. Yes, a rollicking good solve this one, and nothing to look up! So much more satisfying when the surfaces are inspired and the definitions all accessible. I liked the 2 long downs – parsing perfection. ‘Does’ are fine as bunny type buns for me. Though I didn’t get it!

33. WhiteKing @28. If you take KY as the abbreviation for Kentucky, rather than the ‘borders’ thereof, that frees up the ‘borders’ part of the clue for use as the inclusion indicator.

34. Buns nibbled in fancy bars (7) (The Times, July); raised eyebrows in Times for the Times too.
    I thought it looked familiar.

    Apart from being a tiny tad heavy on the scripture, great fun.
    Thank you Nutmeg and Teacow. 

35. PS Loved SKYWARD; beautifully hidden (hidden as a misdirection) definition – very elegant !

36. Question from America… Maybe this is taken for granted in the UK but why does ON=”leg” (BARTIonE)? I know if something is on a leg, it’s supported, but it’s supported by the leg, therefore the LEG = support, not ON=support… ??

37. Oh and one more thing from the US… was VERY surprised to see “tit” actually refer to breast! I assumed at first glance it would refer to a bird. I can tell you in the US you would NEVER see “tit” meaning breast in any puzzle anywhere ever. Americans are so prudish, any publisher would be run out of town!

    I didn’t mind, though. 🙂

38. Thanks to Nutmeg. Favourites were DEEP SPACE and THE GRIM REAPER.

    Thanks also to Teacow for the very helpful blog (which was much needed for me!), and to Cookie @ 20, whose story made me smile.

39. Glenn @ 36 – sorry, it’s cricket. “on” is interchangeable for “leg” referring to the side of the wicket that the batsman’s bottom is pointing at. (The other side, that his/her head is on, is the “off” side). For a right handed batsman, if he/she looked straight at the bowler, the left side would be the “on”, the right the “off”)

    Imagine a baseball hitter, the bat side would be the “off”, the side his bottom is facing is the “on”

    (Btw, women cricketers are called batsmen too)

40. Thanks Greensward – as usual the shortcoming is with the solver not the setter, especially one as accomplished as Nutmeg.

41. Not quite the trouble-free experience I nearly always have with a Nutmeg, but this was still a great puzzle.

    At last, SKYWARD is explained.  I thought the clue was clunky, but the true wordplay, as intended, has been explained on this page, for which I’m grateful.

    I got into a muddle also with CURTSEY.  I thought that word was CURTSY, and I kept looking for a completely different solution before I did the obvious thing: look it up!

    I especially liked THE GRIM REAPER (my first in) and DEEP SPACE (one of my last).

    Thanks to Nutmeg and Teacow.

42. Thanks Nutmeg and Teacow

    I’m very pleased it was Nutmeg today, as I was away and doing it without any aids at all (including a dictionary!); I knew she would be a fair solve and so it proved.

    I was happy with “bunnies” – “honeybun” is short for “honeybunny”? – and it was one of my laugh-out-loud moments when I saw the third meaning of “does”. The other no-one (at a quick scan through) seems to have mentioned – TO GAS!

43. Shirl @39 Thank you!

44. Had to abandon this with the SW virtually blank. Came back some hours later and managed to finish it but DOES was a guess and very unsatisfying. Some goodies – SATIRISED,BIGHT and BREAST. I was surprised at the latter but–!
    Thanks Nutmeg.

45. 26a – I thought does was a play on dough which you can cook and serve and can make buns out of. Probably snatching at straws.

46. I know I’m late to the party re: buns, but clearly there are not enough XKCD readers among the solvers here, and I feel compelled to do what I can to rectify that:

    https://xkcd.com/1682/

47. Absolutely dreadful. If there’s no regimen that setters follow then this sort of lazy construction will persist. Why emulate Paul who is the worst prize setter this newspaper has ever had?

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