Guardian Cryptic 28,154 by Nutmeg

61 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,154 by Nutmeg”

1. I found this harder than Saturday’s Prize puzzle. I prefer easier puzzles on a Monday because I like to do both the Quiptic and the Cryptic but I cannot spend hours on them.

   Could not parse PROSECUTION

   New: TERRENE, TAFFRAIL, DINK, BITTIER

   Failed HIP RELACEMENT (guessed placement but did not think of hip).

   Thanks to Nutmeg and loonapick

2. Last week I said that I don’t like Mondays. This week I love Monday. A real joy to see and solve Nutmeg’s puzzle. A slow start, but a most satisfying unravelling.

3. I presume SPARER is ‘less rounded’ in the sense of being thinner or less fat – someone described as being of ‘spare appearance’ is lean or thin.

   I agree, harder than the usual Monday with plenty that needed some thought including the unknown TERRENE, BITTIER and PERCIPIENT. Enjoyable as a result and satisfying to finish with all safely in.

   I like DINK as a word, both in the tennis and bicycling senses.

   Thanks to Nutmeg and loonapick

4. This took me longer than usual, but since the Quiptic had been pre-released last Thursday the overall time was the same. My foi was LYRE, and my first pass was otherwise blank. Thereafter it went in slowly with some (=quite a lot of) checking help. DINK and TERRENE were new to me, and I could not parse PROSECUTION, though now I don’t know why. Many thanks to Nutmeg for a great workout and to loobapick for the explanations.

5. Thanks Nutmeg and loonapick.
   I was also thinking BROWNER for 2dn until I realised that it isn’t actually an anagram of BREW ONE.

6. And, I forgot to say that I am with WordPlodder on SPARER.

7. Yes, I also had BROWNER but HIP REPLACMENT put me right when I could not think of another three letter body part that made sense. BITTIER LOI and it is not in my chambers but I do note the ‘?’ in the clue. TAFFRAIL new to me, as was DINK – what a great word, it’s quite dinky really.
   Lots to like with trademark elegant clueing. Fav was DO WITHOUT.
   Thanks to Nutmeg and Loonapick

8. I thought this was a fantastic puzzle, albeit a lot tougher than expected for Mondays. Loved HIP REPLACEMENT, JEAN-PAUL SARTRE and ECHOES in particular. LOI was ZERO, which was also very clever. Many thanks to Nutmeg and loonapick.

9. I think your opening comment is a bit of an understatement loonapick.

   As said, harder than the Prize and not for us a Monday morning

10. Most Mondays, I start at the NW and advance steadily SE-wards, refusing to leave any unsolved.  Today, I wondered around the globe putting in at any port where sanctuary could be found.

    Great puzzle, albeit with some slightly strained synonyms and a pleasant change to the usual Monday fare.

    Loonapick, sorry to add to your blushes but browner is not an anagram of BREW ONE.  Made the same slip myself before HIP REPLACEMENT came to the rescue.

    Many thanks, Meg, super puzzle.

11. Right in the Goldilocks zone! Thanks to Nutmeg and loonapick.

12. William@10 – I realised that BREW ONE is not an anagram of BROWNER and that was what made me rethink that answer.  I’d have never got HIP REPLACEMENT without that I as I was looking for a play or an opera or some such…

13. Found this a lot harder indeed than the typical Monday offering.  In fact, didn’t fill in a single across in my first pass.  I still don’t understand why “with more sediment?”=BITTIER (unless of course it’s just “with more bits” but seems quite a stretch.

14. Well that was chewy. Good fun, a harder workout than it ought to have been (last night’s bedtime birthday whiskey didn’t help!) but all very fairly and squarely clued. An X and a Q short of a pangram, which had me wondering if they’d squeeze into the top left somehow as that was the last area to fall. One thing about Nutmeg, once you get the answer you are left in no doubt it is right, even if it is an obscure term (like “terrene” or “percipient”) because the wordplay is so precise, and even the double definition (“do without”) was absolutely unambiguous. “KL” threw me for a bit, as I was looking for “m” and kept thinking “squarer” but it’s good to see a couple of 2 letter cities that are not “NY” and “LA”!

    Many thanks Nutmeg, and Loonapick for the parsing.

15. Perfect. I too had BROWNER written in, and GO WITHOUT instead of DO WITHOUT which took too long for me to untangle. Should have realised that Nutmeg would never have put GO in both the clue and the answer.

    TERRENE was new. IN THE RAW was very clever. Enjoyed BRIDLE also, although I dare say it’s been done before.

16. I decided to use lockdown to tackle the guardian cryptic. This blog was essential in the process of getting up to speed. I’ve been working on older puzzles in case I got completely stuck but this weekend I graduated to doing the current puzzle. Really enjoyed today’s puzzle. Only needed dictionary help with about two clues. Especially terrene which was new to me and I couldn’t parse. Theories about a bishop from Tyrrene. Thanks everyone who contributes to this blog. I couldn’t have done it without you!!

17. My FOI was ACCENTED, but then I’m a phonetician! Had to check DINK and TERRENE in Chambers.

18. Welcome, CanberraGirl, always admire the non-Brits who tackle the Graun.  Has to be harder when one’s never heard of places, sayings, and other local dialect stuff.

     

    TERRENE sounds like the feminine form of Terrence, doesn’t it?

19. lonapick @12:  Apologies – didn’t realise that’s what you meant!  Thanks for the blog.

20. William. I have to admit to being UK born.

21. CanberraGirl @20:  What an admission!  Welcome anyway.

22. welcome CanberraGirl, it’s always nice to see another antipodean, we won’t hold your birthplace against you!

23. NW corner was last to yield its secrets as I wasn’t entirely convinced about BITTIER. A bit more grey cells involved than is usual for a Monday…

24. What a nice change for a Monday. At one stage I was starting to resent the unfairness of having to think harder; what a hypocrite! More of this please, Mr Editor. Thanks setter and blogger.

25. I was only too pleased to get snagged in the top left-on a Monday.

    Great stuff. thanks all

26. Enjoyed this one, though it deserves better than the Monday slot. Took a while to find an entry point and the NW corner held out longest.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and loonapick

27. DNF for me; could not see 1d but when I came here and saw the answer, It became my favourite.  Lovely puzzle set at just the correct level for me these days.  Other favourites were HIP REPLACEMENT for its clever misdirection, LINE JUDGES again for the misdirection and NABS, so simple yet it had me pondering for quite some time.  Many thanks Nutmeg for getting the week off to such a good start and loonapick for DINK and several others!

28. Super puzzle, up to Nutmeg’s usual high standard. Another one who was quite stuck in the NW corner. BTW, I’ve looked in the main dictionaries for DINK meaning a small dent in a car, which seems to be in popular usage (maybe variant of ‘dint?’) The only reference I found was in Wiktionary ‘Scots.’ Does anyone else know/use it that way?

    I also toyed with browner before noticing it wasn’t an anagram.

    I particularly liked BRIDLE and HIP REPLACEMENT, and there were many other fine clues.

    Thanks Nutmeg and loonapick.

29. Thoroughly enjoyed this, thank you folks. I too considered BROWNER for 2d but it didn’t fit with my 9a TANNOY (bit of a stretch I know). Anyway got there in the end with LOI ZERO (spent ages looking for Australian and NZ ducks).

30. Took quite a while to get going on this, and scratched my head for a long time trying to parse HIP REPLACEMENT before figuring out that ‘theatre’ is British-speak for ‘operating room.’ I’m another who had to retract the near-anagram BROWNER. Never did get to BITTIER, so a dnf, but no complaints. Favourites were DINK and DO WITHOUT.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and loonapick.

31. First ever on-phone solve; massive lightning bolt, very close, woke me up and fried the modem…so no download and print. Hey ho, needs must…appreciated that the clue you’re looking at appears both above and below the grid, so all on-screen, very thoughtful, thank you to the designers. Yes, a Nutmeg is always a treat. Can’t see the clues or grid as I type, and it’s well past yardarm, so no witt[er]y comments, but greatly enjoyed, thanks Nutmeg and Loonapick.

32. Oops, dnf, instead of bittier had bitsier..bitser (slang, maybe only Oz slang(??), for mongrel = brew). Note to self: it’s Monday, don’t overthink!

33. A Monday challenge, for a change. Good.

34. Lovely crossword.  I’m mildly surprised that DINK is new to several commenters: little dinks over the net have been a part of Wimbledon commentary for years.  Like TheZed @14, I spent some time fruitlessly searching for an opportunity to insert a Q or an X into my last ones in.

    I believe shorter words can really test a setter and it’s a mark of greatness when the clues are as good if not better than those using more promising material.  Vlad gave us four beauties on Friday and I ticked DINK, ZERO and NABS today.  Like SPanza @27 I enjoyed LINE JUDGE for both the misdirection and the cryptic definition, IN THE RAW is very nice indeed and brought a smile.  Although JEAN-PAUL SARTRE rather jumped out from the enumeration, I did enjoy the clever anagram.  (Sartre was shamefully omitted from Monty Python’s Philosopher’s Song with Descartes providing the (probably better) rhyme for ‘drunken fart’.  MP did, however, do a sketch largely based on Sartres.  Copyright means it’s not readily available (at least I couldn’t find a nice copy) so there’s a link here to a version with Spanish subtitles (which will either add to or detract from the enjoyment for our Spanish speakers!).

    Thanks Nutmeg and loonapick

35. grantinfreo@31. About 15 years ago I was sitting on my deck idly looking at the sky when I saw a bright point of light – which was a lightning bolt which hit the coax cable on the fence a few feet away – fried all the computers in my office at the end of the garden. I have used an ethernet bridge (comms via the mains electricity) ever since. I reckon I am one of a very few number of people to have observed lightning end-on …

    Puzzle was very good, chewy – dnf (gave up, too early, on a couple in the NW.

    Thanks for the blog.

    I’m with the others on “sparer”.

36. ngaiolaurenson @7; BTW, BITTIER is listed in the WordWeb Pro version of Chambers – many ‘-er’ comparatives are not necessarily listed in dictionaries.

37. Ta for that hint Andy Smith, I’ll find out about ethernet bridges.

    And ta for MP doing Sartre, Mark, a real treat!

38. It is my experience living now in the US that you never hear the word bitter here in the brewy sense, so it was not top-of-mind, and the crossing B meant it just had to be beer, which was my own unfortunate misdirection for way too long.

    Interesting that there were two clues referencing tennis and two referencing inheritance.

    This was not an easy puzzle, though I got off to a good start with J-P S from the enumeration alone.  For me, there is no longer any expectation of any particular level of challenge on any particular day of the week.  Seeing the setter’s name though, that’s a good clue!

39. Very good but for me, it fell slightly short of Nutmeg’s usual high standards. I thought LORD IT OVER and BITTIER were weak synonyms. And maybe a bit less precision than we’re used to in 18a & 21a? Plus a hint of double-duty for racket in DINK. The rest of it was typically excellent. Cheers all

40. [PS, Andy Smith, the lightning bolt tripped my main breaker, so, unless the surge got down the line in microseconds, it seems that it’s the bolt’s field strength that does the frying…physicists…anyone..?]

41. ginf @ 32

    ‘Bitzer’ used to be, maybe still is, slang in motorsport circles by small/privateer racers who used readily available commercial parts from assorted manufacturers. They were called bitzers because they were made from bitzer this and bitzer that.

42. Yep, Simon S, I’m sure Oz inherited bits/zer; a linguist, somewhere, will know..

43. Another NW struggler here, couldn’t get BITTIER, despite bitter being one of my favourite beers, and spent a long time trying to justify the totally imaginary word NORFFA (someone from the north of the USA?) as a reversal of AFFRON(t) at 9a. Everything else had already been too slow to drop into place, so came here for help from Loonapick.

    Thanks to Nutmeg for the stretching.

44. Agree that it’s a treat to see Nutmeg’s name atop a puzzle any day fo the week. Certainly not easy, but at no point unfair I don’t think. I particularly like clues like 11ac and 26ac where my crossword brain instantly goes “theatre = surgery” or “Arab = horse” but I still have to do a bit of mental wrangling to reach the answer. Lovely start to the week. Thanks both.

45. Thanks both,
    Lovely puzzle. Far be it for me to quibble, but the capital of Malaysia is Putra Jaya not KL.

46. Tyngewick@45

    Both are correct – Putrajaya is the seat of government or administrative capital, but the national capital on internaltional documents is still considered to be Kuala Lumpur.

     

47. I really enjoyed this.  A combination of terms I just about remembered and ingenious but scrupulously fair clueing means that I made steady progress, held up only for a few moments by ZERO, LOI.  But I came here mostly to recognise what I believe is the first time I have encountered my home city in a crossword.  I have finally returned and tonight is my last night in quarantine. To Tyngewick@45 and Loonapick@46, I can assure you that KL is indeed the capital of Malaysia and was the capital of the British colony of Malaya prior to independence.  Putrajaya is a Federal Administrative satellite city purpose built at the end of the last century, but Parliament House, the King’s Palace, the national mosque and many other major national centres are in KL. No Malaysian would ever suggest that their capital is Putrajaya. It would be a bit like suggesting that the capital of England is not London, but Whitehall.

48. Where are my manners?  Thank you to Nutmeg for a wonderful puzzle and to Loonapick for the comprehensive blog.

49. Just completed (well almost). I checked the correct spelling of Terrene but still managed to write terreen which left me with _N_O for the duck so no chance of getting ZERO.
    Came to the blog to spot my mistake and no surprise to find lots of praise mixed in with lots of comments about it being a fair bit harder than the usual Monday offerings. Long may it continue, I say.
    Wonderful puzzle!!
    Thank you Nutmeg for a great start to the week.

50. I started this just before lunch expecting to knock it off quickly but-. When I returned to it, with most not done, I made a little more progress but left with the NW corner and that took a while. Guessed NOTIFY and managed to get DINK – which I’ve never heard of but I don’t watch tennis so–!
    Hard for a Monday and not one of Nutmeg’s best,but Thanks anyway!

51. My head hurts. Glad it’s all over.

52. Recent crosswords have taught me a new word each day, today’s being TERRENE. I’d heard of TAFFRAIL but perhaps only in a previous crossword. BRIDLE elicited a ‘why-didn’t-I-get-that-sooner’ groan. Especially liked 18 & 25. How on Earth (or in space) did setters manage before Spielberg released ET in 1982? I must have seen it about 30 times (the clueing technique, not the film).

53. Unlike others my stumbling block was the SE corner. Loi was upflow.
    Having played my first game of tennis for three months last week, dink came easily. I liked the cleverness of in the raw and the misdirection of hip replacement. I still get thrown by theatre meaning a medical one! Thanks loonapick and nutmeg.

54. Michelle @1 I agree, Saturday’s prize was not as difficult as this puzzle. I guess Monday being “easy” is not always true; besides, Nutmeg’s one of the setters who baffles me often so I didn’t expect a write-in. (And, no, that’s not a criticism!) Thanks Loonapick for the blog — when I saw what I missed I was glad that I bailed when I did.

55. As many have observed, that was tough for a Monday. But many enjoyable clues! I couldn’t get BITTIER and TERRENE despite having all the crossers…both new words for me. Thanks Nutmeg & loonapick.

56. One of the things to do with a drunken sailor is to ” Tie him to the taffrail when she’s yard-arm under”. Just in case you ever need to know.
    Thanks to Nutmeg and loonapick.

57. Too tough for me this late at night – expecting a quick Monday solve before lights out but eyelids began to drop with only only 3/4 done so came to the review. Thanks to all.

     

58. Thanks Loona and nutmeg. I fell about 5 short plus a couple of correct/not parseds when i ‘times our’ (well I do have work to do as well).

    I hope this isn’t the ‘new normal’ for a Monday – I’m sure the Graun knows, but there are a lot of casual solvers out there, who take the physical guardian and for who Monday is their only chance. My guess is they would be checking the solution this morning thinking ‘well, is never have got that’ for the likes of 3d, 7d, 18a…or some of the precise but complex constructions that serious solvers love but less experienced solvers don’t see (say 14a and others).

    So a good crossword, but not a Monday crossword I guess is my summary…

59. ginf @ 40. From memory, lightning strikes do indeed produce a large local spike in electromagnetic fields (an ElectroMagnetic Pulse, EMP, IIRC) which can damage unshielded electronics that suffer them. Coronal discharges can do something similar, as can (thankfully rare) nuclear explosions.

    Excellent puzzle, just finished it! Thanks to Nutmeg and Loonapick

60. I had the parsing for ENROBED as BORNE (HELD UP) reversed (RISING) before ED. Thank you Nutmeg and Loonapick.

61. The golden age of the cryptic crossword. Such fun. Dink 🙂

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