Guardian 28,139 – Boatman

120 comments on “Guardian 28,139 – Boatman”

1. I finished this just after one o’clock.
   Does anyone know why the PDF version is unavailable until some time after midnight?

   This one wasn’t available until about 12.17. I know I can use the print version but the PDF version is so much neater.

2. 3d If you move the G (edge of “bleedinG”) in RATING to the front you would get GRATIN (“upper crust”)

3. Thanks for the explanation of 1d & 21d.
   I think 3d is GRATIN (crust) with [bleedin]G going forward.

4. This was hard-going. It felt like doing 4 mini-puzzles one by one and finally, I gave up in the NW. I did not solve RATING, or GOOD VALUE which I failed to spot as an anagram. It did not occur to me that ‘up’ was an anagrind.

   New for me were SEA EGG and GUMBOIL.

   I could not parse JOCOSE.

   Thanks B+S.

5. I usually enjoy Boatman’s puzzles more than I did this one: not because it was rather challenging, but because a few clues were a bit of a 17s, imo.

   3d RATING was a bit tricky, made more so by the “going forward” which does not work either on the word in the abstract or as a down entry. In 27a REINVESTS, there is a missing “in”: to fund something is to invest IN it.

   In 26a, why is WED=”of the day” instead of just “day”? In 5d OIL RIG we have an inversion indicated by “heads up” – what are the heads doing there? 24a HUMAN seems to have too many connectives – not necessarily wrong, just ugly.

   Don’t get me wrong, there was as usual some very clever stuff, like the “paradigm shift” that wasn’t.  Also, note JARGON in the top row.

6. Thanks Andrew and Boatman.

   Nina in top row +1     JARGON(S).

   with ‘talk nonsense’ = BS in 9a,

   I see:

   – closes loop
   – synergy
   – push the envelope
   – paradigm shift
   – heavy lifting
   – buzzword
   – change management
   – coach
   – outside the box
   – re-engineered
   – bleeding edge
   – heads up
   – thoughtful leadership
   – big business
   – terrain
   – core competency
   – take the plunge
   – going forward

   – vlaue

7. that was value 🙁

8. You know, I used to work for “big business”, and despite the fact that I saw the NINA I didn’t realize how many jargon terms were in the clues until pointed out above – it just goes to show how insidious that language is.  On reflection, then, I think I should have given Boatman more slack.

9. This one put me in my place. Just couldn’t get on the right wavelength today and cheated a few.

10. Failed on a couple and did not enjoy this puzzle. To embrace the theme of the crossword, Boatman pushes the envelope too far for me, but I’m pleased for those who have enjoyed it.

11. Thanks to passerby and kenmac for the explanations of RATING, and to ilippu for pointing out the Nina, which I’m annoyed at missing. Must have been too busy trying to parse 3d..

12. Thanks B and A, and ilippu @6 for the rogues’ gallery.  Perhaps “getting beneath the surface” counts as JARGON as well, and the implied “We’re all human” at 24a?

13. Thanks for parsing of JOCOSE-it needed PET =SWEETHEART do setters no longer need to mention somewhere in Scotland for sweetheart to be JO?)

    And for LIDOS-perfectly fair.

    I only twigged RATING from the mininina (sounds OK as one word) and worked out the parsing going backwards.

    It felt a bit like an advanced yoga class with all that stretching in one puzzle.

     

14. Failed to parse 3d. Didn’t like it at all. G for bleeding edge? Forward in a down clue? Rubbish!

15. Another who failed to complete this. Sometimes a hard puzzle gives me pleasure but not today – it seemed too stretched. As NNI noted “edge” for the “g in bleeding” is vague and there were many similar examples. I had no idea about “jo” = pet and taking one synonym away from another was a step too far for me. There were several examples which pushed the Ximenean boundary and it all got a bit frustrating with writing in answers and then deciding “I suppose that’s what the setter meant” rather than the joyous “aha” moments I usually get.

    I had “non vital” which seems to me to be just as much (not) a phrase as “not vital” and fitted the (weak) clue.

    Lot of sour grapes today, so maybe it’s me but there did seem to be a lot of unnecessary bits and pieces here.

16. That was tough. Fortunately it’s a bank holiday here so had the time to solve this but I have to agree with the comments about 3d which was a messy clue.  Thanks to Andrew for the parsing of 8a and 1d.

17. I was utterly defeated by this, like many others. Couldn’t even spot simple anagrams at times. I don’t believe 7a has any sort of valid indicator, by the way.

    I wonder if it’s a psychological reaction to all the business jargon that people are subconsciously struggling to give it all their attention. If so, Boatman’s a lot more clever than we give him credit for.

18. Tough with an unhelpful grid.  A dnf since I too could not parse RATING – so thanks passerby.  I was grateful for the anagrams which gave me a route in.  A good challenge.

19. Well, got the grid filled but with some expletives in the margin, eg (politely) slow!, erk, down not forward? (for 3d), and wtf (for spot in 4d). And a Scots ref wouldn’t have helped with 1d, copmus@13, I still have no idea why jo = pet. Hey ho, bit of a grind, but no real grumbles.

    But then, the nina and its exemplars. Well I vaguely noticed ‘push the envelope’ and ‘at the end of the day’ but was totally unalerted; I mean, they’re just everyday cliches aren’t they? Isn’t that just the point! In plain sight, and so many of them! Very clever, and thanks ilippu@6. Not that it takes genius to slip a theme past the congenitally theme blind; yes my hand is up.

    Thanks Boatman and Andrew. I’ll now read the blog at leisurely pace and enjoy.

20. Also didn’t enjoy this . Some nonsense surfaces! I lost interest

21. Enjoyed the struggle but couldn’t finish – I gave up with about three unsolved clues and couldn’t parse several others. Never mind. Loved OIL RIG,  SEA EGG and FORELIMBS. Many thanks to Boatman and Andrew.

22. Got stuck with the NW corner and finally got bored and revealed. Never heard of JO for pet.
    Some rather convoluted. Not my favourite puzzle of the week!

23. Thanks Boatman, Andrew

    A record number of reveals today.  Should have done better, but NOT VITAL? How I didn’t kick myself.

24. I had exactly the same experience as michelle (@4), coming to a stop in the NW having found the rest of it hard-going. Part of my problem (although I’m not making excuses) was that there were not enough crossers for clues like these, and a few clues lacked clarity, in my view, even though they work and can be shown to work.
    Having said that, I enjoyed what I accomplished, and I thought 1a GOOD VALUE (which I tried to get without any crossers) was good value!
    Thanks to Boatman and Andrew.

25. Too tough for me today, things like BS for “nonsense talk” and several other revealed examples meant a frustrating DNF…

26. Largely defeated by the NW corner where I only got ADHERENT and SEA EGG.  The anagram in 7a totally escaped me, as did the clever construction of FORELIMBS.  I’ve never encountered Jo in this sense before.

    I agree with drofle @21 on the three standout clues and would add POTHOLER and my COTD, LIDOS.

    Following on from yesterday’s discussion of abbreviations, I was so fixated on ‘R’ being an abbreviation for ‘run’, I didn’t think to extract the whole word from ‘snub Harlem’ leaving SHAMBLES unparsed as a result.  Doh!

    Thanks Boatman and Andrew

27. Thanks Boatman and Andrew

    Three sessions, and even then it was a DNF, with RATING revealed. I don’t know why I persisted, to be honest – I didn’t enjoy the experience, and have nine clues where I had the solution but didn’t understand how it worked. I nearly gave up in disgust when I solved HUMAN!

    If I have to pick a favourite, it would be DRIVE.

28. …I meant to say that the sweet in 4d is a FRUITGUM, hence “fruitless”; GUM by itself wouldn’t really count as “a” sweet.

29. 4d I think the sweet referred to is fruit gum.

30. DrWh@5, day is indeed Wed, preceded by h[ard] [at the end of th]e. (Apols if already said).

31. Muffin@28. Just beat me to it.

32. Thanks Boatman for a difficult and often subtle puzzle. Thanks too to ilippu @6 for spotting so many irritants. You could add ‘reach out’ in 11d – acceptable only if you are a member of the Four Tops.

33. Another who was defeated – this was way out of my league. I got half the answers in after a long struggle, but had to resort to cheating (put in a guess at a part, then use check; look up synonyms; enter a wild guess based on what I thought might be the definition and check etc) to get maybe two-thirds of the remainder, then just reveal the last few. Again like others, I could have the answer but no idea of how the clue worked. Thanks, Andrew, for help there.

34. Thanks Boatman and Andrew.

    This puzzle left me with a slight feeling of dissatisfaction, caused mainly by NOT VITAL and HUMAN, both of which struck me as far too woolly and imprecise, not to mention GIRL as a solution to Betty.

35. This was hard! and I had to cheat a bit.  I had a vague idea of the theme but thank you so much ilippu @6 for setting out the extent of it.  A very clever puzzle.  Favourite was the non-themer 5d OIL RIG.

    The traditional dual use of “Boatman” helped here.  Having got 10a DRIVE where it meant I/me, it seemed highly likely that in 3d it meant an actual boatman, and I managed to guess the answer RATING.  (I couldn’t parse it though.)

    Many thanks Boatman and Andrew.

36. Thanks muffin and Scorpio, saved me a disquisition on Fruitgums, multicolored sweet discs in a wrapped column. Even so, a boil is an eruption, carbuncle-like; spot hardly gets there.

37. Thanks to Boatman and Andrewl.

    A stern struggle pretty well all the way, but no real complaints.   I didn’t like POTHOLER because of the requirement to “think of a disease, any disease” and remove the outer letters, so a clue within a clue and just the kind of thing that (imho) makes it easy for the setter to set but not by any means easy for the solver to solve other than by solve-then-parse.  I thought GUMBOIL was weak, as noted by Andrew, but it does give “sweet spot” which might add to the list of management-ese.

38. Hard, but enjoyable work mostly. I hit the buffers in the NW and conceded defeat. Don’t think I’d ever have got JOCOSE in a life-time of lockdowns

39. Thanks B & A.

    There were also the fashionable management approaches “Agile” and “Lean” in the clues.

     

40. One for the patient and persistent today, then … Good to see the penny dropping about the theme – and, yes, the point is very much the way in which these things slip past us unnoticed much of the time.

    Those who thought there was no anagram indicator in 7 Ac – think Chambers def. 15: “Amiss”, as in “What’s up?” or even def. 11 “In an excited state” …

    JO is an old favourite from Scrabble, along with XI and ZO – less familiar, I’d accept, to anyone else.

    Muffin @28 – Absolutely right: that one gave me some trouble at first, as I tried to equate “sweet” with “gum” in my first draft. But it was a fruit gum that I had in mind all along, and the “fruitless” idea suggested itself then.

    Bagel @32 and Alpha @37 – Yes, REACH OUT and SWEET SPOT were indeed intended as part of the list that Ilippu @6 so helpfully compiled! You’ve got almost all of them between you – as for the rest, perhaps that just proves that they’ve ceased to be buzzwords …

41. I did mention “reach out” in my preamble, and as I said there I particularly dislike it as an alternative to “contact” or “get in touch with”.  “Going forward” seems particularly prevalent at the moment in the daily Downing Street briefings.

42. This was clever setting but was not one of Boatman’s best IMHO. It is very difficult to take some ugly phrases and use them in clues without making life difficult for the solver.

    I don’t like ‘up’ as an anagrind, although some use it. NOT VITAL is not, in my opinion, a valid phrase. It doesn’t appear in dictionaries and although it is in Crossword Compiler it might refer to the abstract artist. Non-vital (or even nonvital, as in Collins) is in popular usage and would have been better.

    I did get JO = PET for sweetheart, although adding Scottish might have helped. I didn’t see the costume though. I think BS for ‘nonsense talk’ is fine, and I quite liked that clue. Funny that as soon as I saw ‘disease’ I thought of cholera, so I had no issues with that clue. I also like HEWED.

    Thanks Boatman and Andrew.

43. @5 (Dr WhatsOn)

    Re. 5D – I assume the “heads” in heads up should be read as a verb, as in “I’m going to head home” . So, heads up signals “moves upwards” (in a down clue, “spelled backwards). But certainly a (fair) misdirection given that one often thinks of heads denoting the first letters of words.

    Other than that I fully agree with you (and others who have posted here) about the fairness and quality of many of the clues today.

    And as others have said – 7A – “up” is not a legitimate nagrind. That was perhaps the nadir for me.

    One of the most pernicious aspects of loose clueing is that it makes relative newbies like me start second guessing everything in all but the most obvious clues, and one ends up losing one’s “radar” pretty much everywhere. This is maddening, it makes for an unpleasurable experience, and it means that many clues which would be solvable in another context go unsolved.

    It reminds me of the feeling I would get at school when I had to answer poorly worded exam questions.

44. I beg to differ about UP – for me it’s a sly piece of misdirection as UP is so often used a reversal indicator and there are enough dictionary definitions to justify its usage. Certainly beats yesterday’s “spongy”

45. Like many who have already posted, I was unable to get on Boatman’s wavelength today, especially in the NW, and had to cheat on 7a and 3d. I had SEVER (=cut) with a cut version of SEVERE (=hard) at 26a, and was not able to extract myself from that groove. Got JOCOSE from the crossers and def but couldn’t parse it. Some of the clues required quite a stretch to get there, which I appreciate and enjoy, but some were just a bridge too far for me.

46. @ Boatman (40)

    Just seen that you’ve posted here yourself. Good that as the setter you’ve come here. It’s appreciated.

    And I should probably add that, yes, a better and more experienced solver than me might not have been beaten by your crossword today and I’m sure would have taken more pleasure from it. Perhaps you were writing for the more expert audience, which is fine, that has its place.

    But I hope it is valuable to you to hear that your approach today can alienate the less experienced. Certainly it alienated me.

    Thank you also for the explanation of how you came to use “up” as an anagrind on 7A.but with respect, while I know understand your thinking, I still don’t think that is objectively a legitimate anagrind. The fact that “up” in the phrase “what’s up” occupies the same space as the word “wrong” in the similar(ish) phrase “what’s wrong” doesn’t mean that “up” means “wrong”. What’s up equally meams “what’s the matter”. It doesn’t follow that “up” means (or can be understood by crossword solvers to mean) “the matter”. But by the logic of your usage, it should.

    As for your alternative explanation, “up” might be listed in Chambers as also meaning “excited”. But excited itself has several meanings, not all of which mean excited in the sense of agitated or shaken up (the sense in which excited can be an anagrind). Doesn’t “up” mean excited rather in the sense of just very happy? If so, does this really work as an anagrind…?

47. Add me to the dnfers today. I generally find Boatman a challenge but today he’s put me back in the pavilion ret hurt. Never heard of ‘Jo’ in this sense & not sure how long I’d have needed to get forelimbs for arms. Anyone else look up Betty Moon? Pretty dire stuff to my ear.

     

48. I’m perversely relieved to see that I have plenty of company in defeat, failing to get HEATED (which I should have gotten) and GUMBOIL, which I couldn’t parse even after revealing. I also couldn’t parse POTHOLER, RATING or JOCOSE. With regard to the last of those, I agree with TheZed @15 that requiring one to subtract a synonym of one word from a synonym of another is the sort of two-step clue that at least borders on being unfair.

    Having said all that, I did enjoy my tussle with most of the clues and thought several were quite good, including SHAMBLE with its tricky anagram fodder. I got RATING via the thought process used by Lord Jim @35.

    Thanks to Boatman for the stiff workout and for dropping in to comment (always appreciated), and thanks also to Andrew for what must have been a challenging blog.

49. @45 Sheffield hatter
    I also had SEVER at 26A (for the reason you gave). I think this demonstrates one of the dangers of the non-rigorous clueing approach, at least for a less experienced solver like me. I was well aware that if the solution was SEVER, then “at the end of the day” made no sense to me in the clue, and that if that phrase was redundant then the word “cut” would seemingly be doing double work in the clue (as both definition and an element of word play). But by this stage I was so lost on the parsing of all but the most obvious clues that I just assumed this clue was not rigorously clued and that there was some way of reading “at the end of the day” that supported the answer SEVER. Again, a better solver than me would probably not have been thrown like this. But a dissatisfying experience for me as a relative newcomer none the less.

50. I am another who DNFed.  I resorted to the Reveal button after realising I wasn’t enjoying the ones I could solve and was discouraged by the obscurity and looseness in many of the clues.  If more puzzles were like this one I would find another hobby.

51. @48, DaveInNCarolina
    Thank you for introducing me to the concept of two-step clueing with your comment about JOCOSE. I don’t know if that’s a well established term, but it’s an apt description of the phenomenon.

    I’m interested to hear back from Boatman, if he or she is still around on this thread, about my concerns re the reasons why he or she used “up” as an anagrind. But unless I’m missing something, Boatman seems to me to have employed something of a “two-step” approach there too.

52. I’ve never agreed with so many comments since discovering 225.

53. No one has mentioned 6d being a Swiss painter.(nevereardovim)

54. David @51, the boundary between acceptable and verboten two-step clues is a bit fuzzy. For example, asking for an anagram of a synonym is a no-no, but asking for a reversal of a synonym is okay. I thought that JOCOSE fell a bit outside the boundary today, but others might disagree. It is at least “pushing the envelope.”

    I agree with you that Boatman’s defense of the anagrind “up” is suspect, i.e., that “What’s up” = “What’s amiss” implies that up = amiss. Another setter (it may have been Tramp, but I’m not sure) dropped in recently to comment and stated that the equivalence of two words in a single phrase did not by itself justify using one to clue the other. By way of example, he pointed out that just because a London bus is a red bus, one couldn’t use red as a clue for London.

55. David@49

    To use a other hackneyed phrase, don’t beat yourself up about the clues you did not solve. I’ve been solving crosswords for more than 60 years and, though I’m not a great solver, I am experienced. I too entered ‘sever’ for exactly the same reasons as you, and also realised that I could not parse it. I tend to get to the stage with Boatman’s puzzles where I think ‘What the heck, I’m not enjoying this’ and throw in the towel. I think that Boatman, along with Vlad, Qaos and one or two others are trying to explore new directions in clue writing, and while (in my opinion) the puzzles of the last two named have improved a great deal since their debuts, I continue to find Boatman’s clues, in general, too convoluted and ‘experimental’.

    If you made serious inroads into this puzzle then you are, obviously, a very capable solver and should not be disheartened.

    As usual, I emphasise that the views I have expressed are only personal opinions, and I am always pleased for people who have enjoyed puzzles that did not appeal to me.

56. Dr Whatson @5: at HEWED, the 1st E is from “…at the end of the” I think.

    Gosh, this was a flog.  This setter’s style is perfectly valid but (and here I express purely an opinion) unsatisfying due to the over-frequent strained definitions and lack of a coherent sense to the sentence.

    This is a shame because there are also some very good clues but I’m often left feeling a bit short-changed.

    Hey-ho, such is life in Graun Crosswordland.

    Many thanks, Andrew, short straw today, I feel.

57. copmus @53; see @42

58. I really didn’t enjoy this struggle. The puzzle was well and truly sacrificed for the sake of Boatman’s nina. I agree with all those above who have grumped about the clueing: jo=pet?, whole clue for GUMBOIL is lame, ‘up’ as an anagrind, several mangled and clumsy surfaces, ‘not vital’ not a phrase, use of Chambers as a justification (when Chambers is known for being hopelessly loose in their definitions). Meh!

59. Here’s what I think is one of life’s little coincidences.

    I’m a very amateur setter with a very small portfolio. Early this morning, out for my walk, I was musing on what to use as the theme for my next cryptic. Terms like ‘going forward’, ‘touch base’ and ‘ramping up’ swam into my consciousness. I remembered that, years ago at work, some of us used to play the well-known game of ‘management bingo’ – listening for the hackneyed expressions loved by our bosses. Yes, I thought, there’s the theme for my next bit of setting!

    Later, at breakfast, I started on Boatman’s latest offering. I didn’t enjoy it, for some of the reasons others have mentioned and, even after two sessions, I was a DNF. Ho hum. However, despite my earlier musings, and despite the liberal helpings of management BS in the clues, the theme completely eluded me. It was only when I came here that I realised what Boatman had been up to. Clever! And on the same day as I had a similar idea!

    My thought had been to have the buzzwords in the answers rather than, as today, in the clues. But is it spooky, or what? As I say, I put it down as one of life’s little coincidences. Maybe some of us would have other explanations … .

60. Every crossword this week has been fun, but there was just no joy in this one at all.

    I found it mechanical with far too much adding and subtracting going on.

    I do this is my lunchbreak as an escape from work, and this felt like work itself.

    The only one that raised a slight smile was PROCURED

    I didn’t finish it, not just because I couldn’t, but also because I wasn’t enjoying it.

    Right, that good old moan has cheered me up, back to the grindstone.

     

61. David @46 That’s a well made point about anagram indicators.  The list of them is already long; adding to it with synonyms that do not themselves indicate movement/rearrangement would lead to absurd results, and unfortunately often does.  I doubt your failure to complete this puzzle is anything to do with being relatively inexperienced.  I’d say I’m pretty experienced, and I like hard puzzles but fell well short on this.  Apparently it’s more to do with lack of moral fibre.

62. George Clements @55
    Thank you for the encouragement.
    I can’t claim to have made serious inroads. I got maybe 10 solutions (some of which leapt out me parsing and all, others of whigh I only got through crossers and apparent definitions and was utterly incapable of parsing), plus the incorrect SEVER, before giving up defeated.

    I don’t think I’ll ever be a great solver. I am interested in language, but I don’t really (yet) have the mind or the patience for engaging with the puzzling aspect of crosswords. Not being a natural, there are other things I’d rather proprioritize in my life than grinding my way to serious proficiency as a crossworder through many years of regular application. But in these corona days I do, unexpectedly, have time. And I’ve discovered that an attempt at the Guardian crossword is often a good way of trying to fill some of that time.

    Or rather, an attempt at the guardian crossword followed by a trip here. Not only to get solutions or parsing that evaded me. It’s always very rewarding and enlightening to read everyone’s comments too – regardless of whether or not I happen to agree with them. It’s enriching to see different perspectives, especially when they are invariably so well articulated.

63. Median @59: That’s a charming tale – I love the idea of Management Bingo.

    In R&D, we often had to endure the tedious presentations of sales people and to make life more interesting, we used to set each other obscure words that were to be insinuated into the conversation.  It was terribly childish of course, and the trouble came when a particularly unlikely insert was pulled off and we would all be thrown into the giggles, leaving the hapless Rep desperately trying to join in the joke!

    Happy days.

64. grantinfreo @30:  So sorry, should have read your post before barging in with mine @56.

65. I knew “Jo” from the folksong “John Anderson, my jo“, which seems to have been got at by Burns.

66. Thanks to Andrew and Boatman

    Too many spare words for my liking

    I don’t mind “up” as an anagrind ( Collins – “in an active, excited, or agitated state” ), but the “and” is superfluous.

    In 9a both “long” and “talk” are surplus

    Arms for foot soldiers plugging Boatman over nonsense

    13a “means” is for surface only, and I still don’t know what instructs the solver to select a section of the fodder.

    20a I can’t see how “uncovering” removes the outer letters of “cholera” – “uncover disease”, as an imperative would work, as would “disease uncovered”, or “skin disease”

    etc.

    I didn’t finish as I also had “non vital” for 6d which I think is a better answer.

67. Dansar (@ 66) – thanks for your this. But does Collins actually give any examples of “up” being used synonymously with “in an active, excited or agitated state”?

    I’m not an encyclopaedia, but I’ve never heard of a usage where “up” is synonymous with being agitated, or being excited (in the sense of excited as agitated, as opposed to excited as happy).

    About the only usages of “up” that I can think of that conveys some sense of agitation are where “up” is used as an adjective in the phrase “up in arms”, and where “up” is used as an adverb in such formulations as “riled up”.  But the use of “up” in multi-word phrases that convey a sense of agitation, do not mean that the word up, taken by itself, means or is synonymous with “agitated”.

    Is there maybe some example I’m unaware of where “up” is indeed used as a straight synonym of “agitated”?

68. Dansar @66:  Me too re NON-VITAL, but I suppose the enumeration gives NOT VITAL

69. David @67:  I wonder if “up in arms” would meet your requirement?

70. @ William (69) – I cited “up in arms” myself (@67), as an example which I do not think is adequate to establish that “up” is synonymous with “agitated”.

    While the entirety of the phrase “up in arms” describes a state of agitation, the word “up” within that phrase does not mean “agitated”. And in any event, “up” by itself is not apt to mean “agitated” when removed from the immediate context of that phrase, as it was in this clue.

    I think DaveInNCarolina (@54) citing (perhaps) Tramp in response to my original point about this put it very well. “The equivalence of two words in a single phrase [does] not by itself justify using one to clue the other. By way of example, … just because a London bus is a red bus, one couldn’t use red as a clue for London.”

    But I am genuinely interested to hear whether anyone is capable of identifying an example of the word “up” alone being used in and of itself synonymously with the word “agitated”.

71. I had the same struggles as most others with this and revealed JOCOSE, RATING and HEWED.  I am a fan of Boatman pushing the envelope, but I think he went overboard (see what I did there) with this one, particularly in the NW.  I think “forward” in 3 implies a specific direction and it’s the wrong direction for a down clue.

    I agree with Dansar that UP is OK in the sense of excited.  David @70, I thought of the phrase “the natives are up” and I think here it means excited or revolting on its own.

    One other trouble with Boatman’s out-there cluing style is that constructions one wouldn’t normally consider come into play.  I got burnt with this in 22a, where I confidently wrote in STURDY (S TURD Y).  Scatological yes, but seemed reasonable at the time (although it ignores the “you say” part).

    Theme passed me by.  I think I’m inured to these phrases now.  Thanks, Boatman and Andrew for unpicking the bits I missed.

    Dansar @66.  The indicator for the fodder in 13 is “out of”, means is a link as in [wordplay] means [definition].  Seems no worse than, say, “gives” to me.

72. I want to thank those who set me straight over the parsing of HEWED.  I saw the E coming from “the end” which left “of the” unaccounted for.  Instead, “at the” is left over as linkage, a lot better, but still a bit wordy.  In CS terms, I did what’s called “greedy parsing”.  The fact that there was loose cluing going on elsewhere in the grid made me think that’s that and not try harder.  Apologies for the noise.

73. @Phitonelly (71)

    Thank you for this. I’ve not heard the usage “the natives are up” before. But now that I hear it, it does sounds like the kind of thing that can only really be understood to mean “agitated” or the like. So there at least we do seem to have a legitimate sense in which “up” (at least in what is arguably a metaphoric usage) is synonymous with “agitated”.

    That said, it sounds (not least from the reference to “the natives” and the undoubtedly colonialist POV which the phrase betrays) to be a usage which must be at least 100 years old, perhaps more. Is this usage even current? Or is it now obsolete?

    If it’s an obsolete usage, then I will grittily continue on that increasingly narrow basis to defend my position that it’s not an apt anagrind… 🙂

74. David @70: the SOED has as one meaning of “up”, “In a state of disorder, revolt, or insurrection”, and cites as an example “The eastern counties were up” (Macaulay).

    It was in fact Boatman himself who said “it’s a bit like claiming that ‘red’ is a synonym for ‘London’ because a London bus is also a red bus” (Boatman 28,120, comment 34).

75. William@64, not a bother mate…

76. @ Lord Jim (74)

    Thank you for this, that backs up Phitonelly’s suggestion (@73). Though, I do have to say that Macaulay (1800-1859) is hardly current. Uncommon usages are one thing when they are current. Obscure and (if this is the case here) obsolete usages seem to me to be a step too far for an anagrind. I wonder if this usage carried on past Macaulay and (as in Phitonelly’s example) the colonial age.

    Wonderful that you identified that Boatman was the setter who previously (and elegantly) criticised two-step clueing when it goes too far. I guess Boatman determined on balance that his or her own clues today stayed just the right side of the line.

    I sense that I am unlikely to persuade those who are comfortable with “up” that it is not acceptable. And either way, I’m conscious that I’m monopolising this end of the comment thread. So I should probably gracefully wind down.

    Thank you all – especially Boatman and those representing a view contrary to mine – for an interesting debate.

77. Great deep-dive people, we really got down into the weeds here and maybe it’s time to circle-back and integrate some of the higher-level learnings with the low-hanging fruit

78. phitonelly @71

    I do see what you are saying, but I still don’t think it works. Perhaps my objection would be clearer if I recast the clue at the def end:

    Out of repair rig at Ennerdale Water

    I don’t think “out of” quite cuts it

     

79. Dansar, I like it!  Works for me.

    David @76, I agree.  ‘Nuff said.

80. Dave@67 I don’t know if you have heard of the expression “he went up like a bottle of pop” which means someone in a very agitated.state.

81. Hah! It’s given me some fun to see my own example being cited against me – and thank you, David, for maintaining the well-mannered tradition of this forum while fighting your corner. You’re definitely not alone in questioning whether “up” can really mean “amiss” or “in an excited state”, but the London Bus argument is a slightly different one …

    We (I mean setters) have to be very careful to avoid acting as though two words that can have similar effect in certain settings therefore have the same meaning everywhere – in my example, “red” does not mean “London”, even though a red bus may be a London bus. The test of whether two words are synonymous should be whether they add  the same meaning to comparable sentences – “red” means one thing and “London” means another, but in sentences like “What’s up?” or “I think something’s up” or “I can’t work out what’s up with this phone” or “the whole system’s gone up”, there’s no question that “up” is being used to mean “amiss” – and Chambers defines it accordingly.

    I think I’d agree with you that there would be a problem if this happened in the phrase “What’s up?” and nowhere else, because then you could argue that the meaning comes from the cliché, rather than from the individual words – but that’s not the case here. Of course, “up” can mean a lot of other things, but so can other more commonly used anagram indicators – that’s part of the fun!

    Anyway, a good number of experienced solvers didn’t have fun being misled by this device, so perhaps I was being too sneaky on this occasion. You should be aware that this is the second time I’ve used “up” in this way and, as far as I remember, it didn’t cause a commotion the first time, which strongly suggests that fairness in a clue depends at least in part on context.

82. Dave @62 As a relative newcomer to Guardian Crosswords I share your frustration; I bailed on this puzzle long before I solved enough of the clues to make a coherent comment on the puzzle. However, there are other times when I nearly complete a crossword by Brendan, Paul, Vlad, Tramp, and others — that pleasure keeps me coming back. Also, some of the Guardian setters have offerings in the FT and other publications — those seem a bit more penetrable but no less fun if you haven’t tried those.

83. Another DNF. 7 missing and a further 5 unparsed. I’m relieved I’m not alone. Thanks Andrew and everyone else who contributed explanations.

84. Why is fifteen squared no longer saving my name etc, even though I click the save button?

85. Julia @84

    The site does not save/store your details, this is done by your browser. If you change to another browser, or clear your browser’s cache, then you will need to enter them again. I have also known this to happen if there has been a browser update, which may have happened in the background without you knowing about it.

86. @ Boatman (81)

    Thank you so much for taking the time to develop your case. It puts me in a difficult position. Having promised to wind down graciously, I’m know I’m only going to risk incurring everyone’s wrath if I drone on yet again.

    On the other hand I feel it would do you a disservice not to reply to you when, as the setter, you’ve taken the time to address my concern specifically and develop your case so well. So those who feel they’ve heard enough from me can look away now…

    In short, there is a continuing concern that I think your case for “up” as “amiss” doesn’t answer. This is that it’s only the very specific phrases “what’s up” or “something’s up” as a whole to convey that something is amiss. No one ever says that anything else other than “what” or “something” is “up”. In fact, I think you your example, “the whole system’s gone up” (which I’ve admittedly never heard before) proves this. You introduced the word “gone”. You can’t say “the whole system’s up” to mean there is something amiss with the whole system, that wouldn’t make any sense.

    In other words:

    – remove “up” from the specific phrases “what is… ” or “something is… ” and “up” ceases to mean “amiss”.

    – couple other words which are not synonymous with “up” to “what is…” or “something is…” and those other words are also clothed with the meaning “amiss” (e.g. “what’s / something’s the matter“…)

    – couple “up” to verbs other than “is” and one might well get phrases which, as as whole, would serve admirability as anagrinds (“mash up”, “blow up”, even conceivably at a stretch “give up”). But in all these cases it’s the pairing of the other word with “up” that gives it the meaning that makes it suitable as an anagrind. Not the word “up” in isolation.

    All that being so, is there really anything to anchor the word “up” in isolation as an anagrind?

    That, I swear, is the very last word from me. Thank you for your indulgence. 🙂

    Either way, I wanted to reply specifically to thank you for the good natured way in which you’ve taken my comments, and for taking the time to participate yet again in the comments thread. I know I appreciate it, and I’m sure everyone else does.

87. Gaufrid @85:  Thanks for dropping in.  I was going to ask the same as Julia.  I’ve not changed my browser and the other possibilities you suggest would only require to re-enter one’s details once wouldn’t they?

88. [William @87 – Google Chrome just had an update for security, so it might have updated in the background for you]

89. Thanks Gaufrid and TheZed. I am certainly a Chrome user so I will watch to see if the saving comes back

90. Embarrassed to say that I looked at the awful grid and thought “No thank you, not on a day as hot as this.”  Readng this it appears I made the right decision.  Oh well, there’s always tomorrow !  Thank you Andrew for the explanations.

91. TheZed @88:  Did it?  Many thanks.

92. Failed and didn’t enjoy. Suspect there is a connection! Ah well, suppose it’s not/non vital.

93. Couldn’t get on with this. I really shouldn’t persevere when it’s only bloody mindedness that keeps me going.I failed in the end having SEVER for 26ac and not understanding JOCOSE or RATING both of which were plausible but that’s the best I can say. OIL RIG and SEA EGG were good clues but I had to reveal to confirm them.
    Tomorrow is another day!

94. David – All reasonable points, and I think between us we’ve at least established that “up” falls into a grey area in which either it can mean “amiss” or it can’t, depending on how generally applicable you see its role in the places where it appears. I think we can both be happy that we’ve raised a cogent argument for our position! The next time I’m talking to a linguist, I’ll ask them (if I remember) what they think.

    I quite agree about your other examples, though – “mash up” and “blow up”. In those cases, “up” has one of its many other meanings, suggesting completeness, very similar to its role in, for example, “fed up” or “close up”.

95. @David

    Up has been used as an anagrind many times by many setters over the years. You seem to be fixated on the idea that Boatman has invented its use. There are countless other targets deserving of your ire. I suggest you withdraw beaten.

96. Oh Dear!….I’m glad I’m not Boatman today!
    TheZed@15 et al. – I too had NON VITAL (making this my first dnf in some years; but I ain’t gonna beat myself UP over it since I don’t think it’s any worse than the ‘correct’ alternative!)
    I had no reservations over the use of UP as an anagrind. The argument that David is unremittingly forcing is one that has no doubt been considered often in the last decades (rather like the toddler who, on discovering his first tadpole, sets out to show his ‘new’ discovery to all the adults present!). I think it’s neat – and fair; a view clearly shared by, for example, the Master (Araucaria) on more than one occasion! And I’ve come across it here – and in the Times crossword – often in recent years. So I’m unsure about the fuss over this, in my book, baseless quibble.
    Well, I enjoyed the fact that there was something to chew on – I had thought that Boatman was getting much easier recently and, given the generally simpler (as in less puzzling) fare since lockdown, I was pleasantly surprised that I needed to do some genuine thinking/puzzling. Commentators here more often complain that puzzles are too difficult but, since many different levels of experience/expertise/ability are represented by solvers here, I think it proper that all levels of difficulty are welcomed positively.
    Having said that, I would agree that this didn’t match up to the finesse and elegance that Boatman’s been demonstrating increasingly in his work. In fact, many of his recent puzzles have been praised highly here (and possibly by some of the ‘turncoats’ who’ve chosen to slag this one off!).
    So, for me, a mixed bag. But my loyalty is unshaken insofar as knowing that when I next see this setter’s name on a virgin puzzle I will be rolling my sleeves up with glee!
    Many thanks Boatman, and Andrew (top blog)

97. Too tough for me, got half then gave up.

98. @ Bingybing (95)

    I promised I wouldn’t rehash my arguments or make new arguments.

    I don’t think it’s breaking that promise to point out that I’ve never suggested or supposed that Boatman is the first to use “up” as an anagrind. It makes no difference to me or to my points whether its a common thing: I question the usage on its merits, either way.

    And I think Boatman understands that. He/she hasn’t claimed that the frequency of its use is a justification for it – his or her defence of it has again been squarely based on his or her view of its merits. That’s all we’re concerned about here.

    And as I said, I don’t propose to go over the merits arguments again. We’ve done them to death 🙂

99. @ William FP (@96)
    I’ve been at pains throughout to openly concede that I’m a relative newcomer, and that I’m approaching this with due recognition that there may be much I’m missing. That doesn’t, in my view, invalidate my attempt to explore the issue. If it makes you feel big and clever to categorise me as a toddler to your “adult”, because I’ve had the temerity to raise a point and drill down in to it, then by all means do, it makes no odds to me. But Boatman, for one, responded to my points on their merits, and with considerable more grace than you. Might I suggest – if you’ll permit a mere newcomer to do so – that Boatman’s is a worthy example for you to reflect on.

100. I feel a bit bad for Boatman to be honest. I’ve only recently re-started doing crosswords after a gap of many years, but it seems to me that at least he tries to avoid the usual crossword clichés and use of vocabulary not seen anywhere outside crosswords (eg the execrable U for posh, invented by some airhead sixty or so years ago, never used again by anyone with more than two brain cells; the silly use of Spooner says etc). And as for UP as an anagram indicator, I remember having seen worse without too many squeals – ‘light’ for example (I think that too was one of my favourite setters), and more recently ‘spongy’.

     Having said that I’ve been going through some of the puzzles in the Guardian archive and came across this clue which I found absolutely stunning: Where the poor live and suffer without a chance to dream (7). Now it would be great to have a complete puzzle like this which require absolutely no specialist ‘crossword vocabulary’ – no ‘jo’ or ‘cat’ or ‘rhino’, appeals to Spooner etc.

101. @ Boatman (94)

     Thank you. It’s been really interestimg discussing with you. I’ll be looking forward to your next cryptic. Hopefully this thread and your and others’ useful comments will have left me better prepared to tackle the challenge.

102. A closing thought from me (courtesy of the Guardian’s crossword editor back in 2012) in response to a solver who had apologised for ‘being a pedant’…

     “… there is absolutely nothing wrong in my book with crossword solvers, setters or even editors being pedants.”

103. Bro – that’s enough! At least you earlier a knowledged your posts to be tedious repetitive and long winded. Matron says if it happens again she will remove all your privileges!

     Your ever loving sister Sadie XX ??

104. David @ (lots of numbers ) I‘ve just scanned through your posts so might have missed you considering this, or someone else suggesting it, but does “something’s up” help? To me that suggests something’s awry.

105. David’s Sister @103 – Welcome! If you have a presence on Twitter, please feel free to introduce yourself to @MrsBoatmanSays, with whom you may find it therapeutic to swap experiences of sharing aspects of your life with someone who enjoys a good argument!

106. Thanks to Boatman for the puzzle and his engagement with the comments, to Andrew for the blog, and to all contributors who turned my initial struggle into an overall enjoyable experience.

107. Good to know that I wasn’t alone in putting in SEVER. Trust Boatman for “cut” to be in the past tense.

     I would love to get into Boatman’s style but I’m just not there yet and this was a bit of a slog.

     I’m sure it will be a matter of time and I don’t think I should criticise this crossword for simply being difficult. It’s been a good test that I’ve returned to throughout the day.

     I’ve recently conquered my first Azed and I must admit that I was pining for the straightforwardness of knowing that a new word that I look up in Chambers will have as its first definition the exact phrase or something very like it from the  the clue.

108. Luchador @107
     [Coincidentally, I tried my first and only Azed a couple of weeks ago – no. 2499 – and my experience was very similar to yours. 14 of the 36 answers were unfamiliar, but that’s normal for that kind of crossword – one just needs the dictionary to hand.]

109. Haven’t done this badly in a LONG time.
     And strangely enough, I did not enjoy the solutions at all.  I thought “Jocose” and “Human” were both absolutely terrible 🙁

110. Re GUMBOIL: I still don’t quite get it, but I think “sweet” is GUMDROP and “fruit” is DROP (as in fruit dropped from a tree), so “fruitless sweet” would be GUM.

111. Mike@110 – I saw it as WINE GUM less WINE (fruit?) + BOIL.

112. Yuck

113. Very grateful to this site. Couldn’t look at this crossword til this morning. Imagine the pleasure in knowing you have a ‘spare’ puzzle up my sleeve during lockdown! Not for long. After far too long on first few clues and limited progress I cracked and checked a couple of answers here for parsing. So glad I did and saw that I would have wasted hours trying and failing. Nobody minds a hard workout when you get the reward of lightbulb moments but this would have been a lot of “what?!, how would I have got that?” frustration I fear. Onwards and upwards.

114. Second DNF in a row ??. I had DRAFT not DRIVE from AFT being a boatman’s rear (following), so was looking for something FATAL.

115. I also found “up” as an anagrind a little off, but having read Boatman’s explanation it makes more sense to me now. I’ve commented before that anagrinds seem to getting more inventive though. It’s good to see compilers engaging with the crowd here.

116. What is a NINA please?

117. Fishpaste @ 116

     Please see the FAQ page.

118. Since my first encounter with “jo” for “sweetheart” (or “sweetheart in Fife”, or some such), several years ago, I’ve not felt the need to investigate further – until Boatman’s use of “pet” to clue ” jo”.

     I had assumed that it was a synonym for “girlfriend”, but I now find (courtesy of the Dictionary of the Scots language), that it more usually means “boyfriend”.

     That doesn’t justify its use here though, but perhaps its other meaning (as a term of endearment), does.

     But if we are to allow “pet” on that basis, we must also allow “dear”, “darling” and “love” etc.

     I’ll assume we do, thus clues in various publications:

     Funny pet compound bans farmers [NFU monthly]

     Funny pet compound has active fun shed [Charlie Chalk’s staff mag]

     Playful love compound with bum fun shed [Grindr]

     Funny Jock’s dear mummy skips the Queen’s speech [SNP pamphet]

     Mischievous flipping Simpson remains disheartened [cartoon synopsis]

     nurse is coming

119. Yeah, I struggled with this one too, so it’s relieving to see I wasn’t the only one to give up. Still, thanks to Boatman nonetheless, setting puzzles like this can’t be easy.

120. For 8ac, I had BATHS. One closes = tab. Loop means go back so we get BAT. How synergy begins = HS as H and S are the first letters of how and synergy. When I was growing up we called the swimming pool the baths.

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