Guardian Cryptic 27,892 by Tramp

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A headscratcher from Tramp.

I enjoyed the challenge provided by Tramp this morning, although I think a few purists may have some things to say about it.

I am not sure if I have parsed 19ac properly, so happy to be corrected on that one.

The M in 9ac is not one I’ve seen in crosswords before, but I think it’s fair game as it is a much more common indication than many others used in crosswords.

There were a few loose definitions (5ac, but more especially 21ac and 25ac) thrown in as well.

The presence of McDonalds, Sega and CK might make one wonder if the puzzle had been given corporate sponsorship.

I gave ticks to 6ac, 6dn and 10dn.

Thanks Tramp

Across
1 COCKCROW Mate and brag very early in the morning (8)
  COCK (“mate”) + CROW (“brag”)
5 SWEDES Seeds crashing out of Wimbledon at the start: like Borg and Edberg? (6)
  *(seeds) out(side) of W(imbledon) [at the start]
9 IMPRESSED Grabbed one McDonald’s in a hurry (9)
  I (“one”) + M (McDonalds) + PRESSED (“in a hurry”)

I assume that M + the “Golden Arches” logo of McDonalds (a large yellow M), but I haven’t come across this before.  Purists will no doubt complain that it isn’t in Chambers, but it is such an ubiquitous sign that I think it’s OK.
11 RATED Did judge and juror ultimately put away director (5)
  (juro)R [ultimately] + ATE (“put away”) + D (director)
12 SUPERNATURAL Ace appears with real magic (12)
  SUPER (“ace”) appears with NATURAL (“real”)
15 ROAN Horse led round circuit (4)
  RAN (“led”) round O (ring, so “circuit”)
16 SCRAPPIEST Rubbish heaps left out in street that’s extremely messy (10)
  CRAP (“rubbish”) + PI(l)ES (“heaps” with L (left) out) in St. (street)
18 MACKINTOSH Designer label in top and rubbish coat (10)
  CK (Calvin Klein, a “designer label”) in MAIN (“top”) and TOSH (“rubbish”)
19 STYE Spot essentially going to obscure front of eye? (4)
  S(po)T [essentially going] (i.e. the essence (middle) going) to obscure (make invisible) [the start of] (e)YE and &lit.
21 TURBOCHARGER Modifying racer brought extra speed with this? (12)
  *(racer brought)
24 CLOUD Dim, cold and thundering (5)
  C (cold) + LOUD (“thundering”)
25 REED ORGAN Stops on this red with no gear changes (4,5)
  *(red no gear)
26 SWEARS Sun gradually damages blinds (6)
  S (sun) + WEARS (“gradually damages”)
27 INCENSED Seeing red bouquet to get date (8)
  INCENSE (“bouquet”) to get D (date)
Down
1 CRIB Bed for 2 (4)
  Double definition (“2” refers to answer to 2dn)
2 COPY Follow officer to yard (4)
  COP (“officer”) to Y (yard)
3 CHEQUE Pick up European form of money (6)
  Homophone of [pick up] CZECH (“European”)
4 OYSTERCATCHER Hissing cobra initially to struggle with secretary bird (13)
  *(hc to secretary) where HC = H(issing) C(obra) [initially]
6 WIRETAPS Bugs wife: flipping row after passion (8)
  W (wife) + [flipping] <=SPAT (“row”) after IRE (“passion”)
7 DETERGENTS Cleaners check toilets (10)
  DETER (“check”) + GENTS (“toilets”)
8 SODALITIES Orders from FA reduced international matches (10)
  SOD AL(l) (“FA” as in “sweet FA”) [reduced] + I (international] + TIES (“matches”)
10 DENTAL SURGEON One might fit crown green bowls at the back: land out for development (6,7)
  *(green s land out) where S = (bowl)S [at the back]
13 DRUMSTICKS Tattoos on Mark’s legs (10)
  DRUMS (“tattoos”) on TICKS (“marks”)
14 MASCARPONE Seeing that fish filling most of bread? Or cheese? (10)
  AS (“seeing that”) + CARP (“fish”) filling [most of] MONE(y) (“bread”)
17 DISORDER Fight in nick behind detectives (8)
  ORDER (“nick” as in “in good nick”) behind DIs (“Detective” Inspectors)
20 DECODE Untangle fish in river (6)
  COD (“fish”) in (river) DEE
22 AGES Gets on games consoles when upset (4)
  <=SEGA (“games consoles”) [when upset]
23 ENID Woman to stop hugging Tramp (4)
  END (“stop”) hugging I (“Tramp”)

*anagram

50 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,892 by Tramp”

  1. Thanks, loonapick. I thought this was excellent.

    The Golden Arches have come up before from Tramp, most recently 27,354 on November 14th 2017 – blogged by you!

  2. Like NeilW@1 I thought this was great, especially SODALITIES, WIRETAPS and DENTAL SURGEON. Many thanks to T & l.

  4. Indeed, Loonapick, the psychology of memory is as unfathomable as consciousness itself (in the ’50s lab rats memorised mazes but no-one could find where the memories were ‘stored’; they still can’t!).

    Yes, good puzzle, from the neat, like copy and crib, to the erk-surface, like 10d (pace drofle). And a few hmms, like s[po]t overlapping [e]ye, and swears as blinds (as in effing and blinding?), and disorder as fight. Don’t mind the odd household trade name but, yes, three of them is pushing it. Hey ho, fun anyway. Thanks both.

  5. Hmm, I’m going to beg to differ – I did not really enjoy this as much as other posters. I see from XKCD that to be properly controversial one has to like something others hate, rather than vice versa, so I’m not really being different here. However I felt there were multiple instances of the surface making the wordplay ridiculous (“swedes” leaps to mind – “out” does not mean “outside of”). “sega” are not games consoles (plural), they are a manufacturer of consoles and games. “Nintendo” would also not be a good answer, but “xboxes” would. That’s not just a loose definition (though I suppose it is a synecdoche). I (personally) am no fan of clues like “supernatural” where you have to guess very rough synonyms from a whole host, and then even the definition is not very good (magical would be better grammatically surely?) “Enid” was one of those I put in with little certainty – in the grammar of the clue “tramp” should be “me” not “i”.

    By contrast, I thought “stops on this” and “extra speed” were fine definitions given the simplicity of the wordplay attached.

    Thanks Tramp, and loonapick for the decoding (and deconvolution)/

  6. Thanks Tramp and loonapick

    I thought that this was mostly very good. Particular favourites were REED ORGAN (sorry, loonapick!) and DETERGENTS. I didn’t know SODALITIES, so needed a wordsearch.

    I thought of ROAN right away, but didn’t see why “led” gave RAN – is it as in a joint enterprise, perhaps? Like TheZed I wasn’t happy about “consoles” in 22d – “console” would work, though.

    SCRAPPIEST compares (superlative, in fact) whereas “extremely messy” is just a description.

  7. Very happy with this. Tough with some unusual clueing, but this makes a welcome change. Had to check some answers as i entered them but managed it all. L1i was sodalities. No idea what it meant.

  8. I enjoyed this moree than other Tramp puzzles usually I am not on his wavelength.

    My favourites were SODALITIES, DRUMSTICKS, SCRAPPIEST.

    I was unsure how to parse two answers below and still do not understand them – can somebody explain to me please 🙂
    26ac – I found “swear blind” in my dictionary, but could not see how on its own, swear = blind.
    1ac cock = mate? why?

    New for me was SEGA = games console.

    Thanks Tramp and loonapick.

  9. ugh, sorry – above should read:

    I enjoyed this more than other Tramp puzzles – usually I am not on his wavelength.

  12. michelle @8 – both “cock” and “blind” are in Chambers in the required senses (both marked as slang).  Cock: “(sometimes as old cock) a familiar form of address to a man”; blind: “to curse, swear”.  I think the latter is only in practice heard in “effing and blinding”.  (As in the Punch cartoon of a young Regency woman in a publisher’s office, with the publisher saying “We like your book, Miss Austen, but all this effing and blinding will have to go”.)

  13. I liked this puzzle a lot although I acknowledge some others’ points of view. Most enjoyable clues (some already cited by others) were 1a COCKCROW, 5a SWEDES, 7d DETERGENTS and 13d DRUMSTICKS. Lots of clever surfaces from Tramp. I am not used to spelling 18a MACKINTOSH with a K except maybe as a surname (in Oz it would be a raincoat, but I understand “Mac” from reading English novels).

    Thanks to Tramp and loonapick. I didn’t share some of your concerns, loonapick, though I did appreciate your help with a couple of the parses. I am grateful to Tramp for having set so many good puzzles, which have challenged and pleased me a lot – as did this one, Tramp’s hundredth.

     

  14. I found this very tough but got there in the end and thought it was an excellent crossword.

    I’m sure Tramp can defend himself but re TheZed @5, I liked the clue for SWEDES. Out and outside can be interchangeable, viz: I’m going out(side) and the clue says ‘out of.’  I do agree, however, that the plural seems to be unnecessary in consoles, unless there is more to it than I imagine. Apart from that, I can’t see anything wrong with the definition – I’m going to play on my Sega/console.

    I additionally ticked the nice anagrams for TURBOCHARGER and OYSTER CATCHER, as well as REED ORGAN and WIRETAPS.

    Thanks Tramp and loonapick.

  15. I’d go for ‘tough and excellent’ too – thanks and congratulations to Tramp and thank you to loonapick

  17. Lord Jim @ 12

    thank you! I really should look up words in Chambers or Collins – I can access the free, online versions of them

  18. A good workout and congratulations to Tramp on your century – how about offering your services to the England cricket team?
    SODALITIES was new to us as well but fairly clued – although it was only after we’d solved it and checked it in the dictionary that orders of the religious variety came to mind. Favourites were INCENSED DRUMSTICKS MASCARPONE and DENTAL SURGEON for its definition.
    Thanks to loonapick for the blog and Tramp for the fun.

  20. I did enjoy the struggle. My only moan really was some of the tortuous anagrams: 4d and 10d involve bits of 4 different words. After the first 2 across clues, I thought it was going to be a doddle, and then the last 3 downs were easy, but it took a bit of thinking in between. I didn’t know the word SODALITIES. But many thanks to setter and blogger.

  21. In 5a, the “out of” = “outside of” justification is not to my mind entirely satisfying, but I suppose it’ll do. But how about 17d: we know “in good nick” = “in order”, but that does not justify “(in) nick” = “order”, or is this a usage I’m unfamiliar with?

    Thanks.

  22. Mostly all been said about this, tough but enjoyable and ultimately rewarding. All my favourites have benn mentioned and thanks to Tramp (and congratulations) and loonapick.

  23. One of those puzzles which repaid the effort in nailing the parsing for clues such as MACKINTOSH, SODALITES (new to me) and MASCARPONE. Some good defs as well including ”Stops on this’ for 25a, ‘One might fit crown’ for 10d and the plain old, not so simple ‘legs’ for 13d.

    Maybe I’m saying this because I happened to twig to both, but I thought ORDER for ‘nick’ and SWEARS for ‘blinds’ were in the ‘tough but fair’ category’.

    Thanks (and congrats) to Tramp and to loonapick.

  24. robi @14 re “Swedes”. “Seeds crashing” gives us the anagram fodder and anagrind, and “Wimbledon at the start” gives us “W”. That leaves “out of” to mean “wrap the first round the second”. I can’t think of a context where that works, but perhaps someone else can? “I’m going out of the house” does not mean a wrap-around, even though “out” and “outside” might be interchangeable at times. It’s another of those “A can be used for B and B for C but A cannot be used for C” moments (mathematicians call it transitivity). For example Dick could be friends with Tom, Tom with Harry, but Dick and Harry are not automatically friends. In word meanings, to give a silly example, “Brave = Bold”, “Bold = Washing powder” but “Brave = Washing powder” would be pushing it!

    With prepositions, so much comes down to usage that it’s difficult to be hard and fast (I reckon they are one of the hardest parts of a foreign language to get right…so random!) so I am probably being stricter here than many others might be.

    cheers and, as I forgot to say at the start, huge congratulations on the 100th cryptic Tramp – truly impressive to be that ingenious for that long!

  25. Tough for me but got there. Never heard of SODALITIES but it pieced together from the clue, so fair enough! Spent a while trying to convince myself that McDonalds could simply be “M”, finally conjured a vision of the sign of The Golden Arse and decided it must be right.
    Thanks Tramp and Loonapick.

  26. Thanks Tramp and loonapick

    Congratulations to Tramp – looking forward to celebrating 150 & 200 (also, I hope by England batsmen).

    DrWhatsOn @ 21: I think if something can be described as being in good, bad [or other adjective] nick, then ‘nick’ = ‘order’ is reasonable.

  27. Yes, Simon S @ 26, I did think of that, but here is the problem I’m having. You basically don’t talk of things being in bad order, you’d say in bad shape. So in order means in good order – in other words order is not neutral in the same way nick is. At least that’s my experience.

  29. I’m glad to see others had difficulties with SODALITIES because I’ve never heard of it either, so, even with the crossers in, it was a tad trial and error. I liked SWEDES and IMPRESSED. I thought the M was just the initial letter of Macdonalds rather than a reference to the logo, and I admit that STYE was a guess.
    I did enjoy the puzzle though, and I don’t always get on that well with this setter.
    Thanks Tramp.

  33. Congratulations on the century. I found this easier than Tramp sometimes is, and an entertaining solve. SODALITIES was last in.

    Thanks to Tramp and loonapick

  34. muffin @6:

     

    re: “SCRAPPIEST compares (superlative, in fact) whereas “extremely messy” is just a description.”

     

    Extreme means “the most”, so is there not an argument for saying that “extremely messy” means the most messy? Certainly that’s the way I read it. Judged by extremity, scrappiest is as high as you can go. There is nothing scrappier.

     

    Also – I thoroughly enjoyed this as usual. Cheated on a few because I was pressed for time (and it was a toughie), but enjoyed the lot regardless. Congrats on the century Tramp – you’re up there with the best of them in my books. 🙂

  35. Valid point, MarkN. I don’t think I would use “extremely messy” to mean “the most messy”, though.

  36. Enjoyed this quite difficult puzzle, and – to Geoff Wilkins @28 – entirely agree, but that is exactly what many of the posters here come for! A bit of pedantry can be fun on a quiet day.

  37. We thought this was Tramp at the top of his game!

    For example, 13d (DRUMSTICKS) and (the unknown) 8d (SODALITIES) are so good because the surfaces are natural and – and above all – suggest a different kind of ‘tattoos’ and ‘FA’, respectively.

    7d (DETERGENTS) may be a chestnut and not much of a challenge but how economical is this clue?

    We liked the SWEDES of 5ac too. Loose definition? For us, a rather clear one.

    What a wonderful way to celebrate No 100!!

    Many thanks to loonapick & Tramp.

     

  38. Yes Irishman, I’m one of the many, often thinking Oh yes I did raise an inward eyebrow at such and such (eg Sega); didn’t bother about it at the time but quite happy to read others’ dicussions thereon.

  39. muffin @35: I agree. Only in crossword-land would I accept “extremely messy” to mean “most messy”. But that’s a place I’m happy to change my brain around a bit for. 🙂 I’m fine with liberties being taken as long as there’s a way to make it work.

  40. Thanks to loonapick and Tramp

    A fine centenary offering from Tramp ( wot no Nina! ).

    The only query I have ( query, not quibble ), is with 5a – isn’t “like” Borg and Edberg “Swedish” rather than “Swedes”?

  45. Nice puzzle – our group found it tough. What do people make of “Spot essentially going” for ST in 19a? Seems awkward to me – I can’t really get an appropriate English meaning for “essentially going” to make it work – but maybe it seems standard enough for more seasoned solvers?

  46. JamesM@45 essence = heart (of the matter), thus essentially going means to take out the heart from spot, leaving ST.

  47. Roberto@46 thanks! I get that much, and if the phrase in question was “essence going” or “essentially defective” or the like, it would check out – but can “essentially going” really mean “without its essence” or “losing its essence” or “removing the essence” in English?

  48. New words for me: quote @28. Love it!

    Didn’t enjoy the crossword though: too tough, although I might have given it more time if I’d known it was a centenary one.

     

  49. MarkN @34

    “Extreme means ‘the most’…”

    Please excuse the pedantry, but I take issue with that assertion. “Most” can mean “extremely”, as in “You are most welcome”. But “the most” means “more than all others”. Thus, “My room here is extremely messy, but his is the messiest” makes logical sense, but not if “the most” is used in place of “extremely”.

  50. Well, got there in the end, but got badly stuck on the top left after inserting OBEY quite early on for FOLLOW officer (OBE) to yard (Y). Eventually decided that must be wrong because of COCKCROW but it had us quite stumped for a while! Last one in was, of couse, SODALITIES, which we’d never heard of. Thanks all round…

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