Guardian 28,297 / Puck

54 comments on “Guardian 28,297 / Puck”

1. I usually enjoy the extra challenge of figuring out special instructions or working through a set of interconnected clues, and having both in the same puzzle made it especially entertaining even if somewhat daunting. I thought the grid was a bit unfair, with essentially no connections among the four quadrants and twelve answers having less than 50% crossers. In the end I nearly got there, ultimately being defeated by TORTOISES, a clever clue once I revealed it. Looking back, there was much to admire, including the four central clues to which the special instructions pointed. Thanks to Puck and mhl. (Can’t help with the parsing of 2d, it looks the same to me.)

2. After starting with GONDOLA, CAP and a couple of words in the top right quadrant, I saw the possibility of CARAPACE round the middle, and that helped me to get TERRAPINS, which along with SHRIMP gave me my first two thematic items. From there, it was a rather slow but rewarding voyage round the grid anticlockwise, the last quadrant (the SE) being the most resistant.

   This was a clever and entertaining puzzle, with some great clues. TERRAPINS, GONDOLA, CONFIT and TURTLE were my particular favourites.

   I have memories of the same central device (accommodating an 8-letter word) in earlier puzzles – both set by Puck, I believe, using the same grid.

   Thanks to Puck for the puzzle and to mhl for all the explanations.

3. I think 2d is a ‘lift and separate” – “some ‘onescortege’ ”
   Thanks Puck for a challenge – CONFIT was new.
   Thanks mhl for the blog.

4. Doing this puzzle was like reading one of those old Philip K. Dick stories where you get in the mind of the protagonist and then reality will start turning inside out, and you think you’re tripping, even if you haven’t taken any drugs …

   What I mean is that in early stages of doing this, what I thought was the theme kept flipping from cars to creatures and back again. YMMV of course if you did things in a different order, but when you start with SPIDER and BEETLE and are thinking of the special instructions, you’re going to be in for a rocky ride. (Indeed, 12a tells you that these two play for both teams.)

   Having said all that, I think it was a great puzzle for weekends when we have a little more time. I did not find it difficult exactly, but it took some time to sort it all out, get the (right) theme and resolve all the cross-references. There was no fiendish parsing, no difficult GK or terribly obscure words (with the possible exception of EIDOLA), just the speedbump of definitionless clues plus the extra layer of puzzling to add to the fun.

   As for 2d (ESCORT is another car model, btw), I took the “some” to indicate the hiding, a la lift-and-separate, as I just saw gonzo@3 say before I submitted.

5. Thanks mhl. Great weekend puzzle. 2d is “some (of) onescortege”

6. Ah. Too late!

7. I too was thinking cars as the theme for a while.
   The clue for ARMADILLO was a bit contrived with MA leaving and then returning. I came up with
   Mother relocates in Texas city to be with daughter.

8. I needed a little help with this and I got a bit confused by what had a carapace and what didn’t, but I got the central four very early, and got there in the end. Thank you Puck – as devious as ever, and thank you Mhl for the many clarifications. I think my favourite was 25. So easy when the penny dropped, so long in the dropping. Not entirely sure that ransack is a synonym for search but…hey!

9. I think ARTHROPOD is not one of the 10 solutions “not further defined” for two reasons. First, because the clue at 12a (Dorothy cut 18 about 9, 11 or 13?) does define it, in terms of the answers at 9, 11 or 13, which are all arthropods; second, because the list in the blog contains 11 answers, not 10.

10. Thanks to Puck and mhl. I got ARTHROPODS fairly quickly but was misled into thinking there would be 9 or 10 other answers to fill out the grid. I did get close to that but I was stymied by TORTOISES (which  did not parse), and TURTLE also did not fall into that category.

11. Thanks to mhl and Puck. Yes 2d is definitely a lift and separate ( is it Puck who always had one of those somewhere in his puzzles ?) I thought this was fairly straightforward once the central “ring” was filled in. This was perhaps helped by the NW corner yielding fairly easily.

12. Yes, Sheffield Hatter @9, I too got a bit confused by the “10 solutions” part of the preamble. I also got 11

13. Thanks mhl. Top half done first, which produced ARTHROPOD (handily Brummie had it just weeks ago) and some frowning and googling – was this the theme, and was TERRAPIN one? The very neat roundabout – and all else – was soon thereafter revealed. Good work Puck.

14. I did not do this ouzzle, and I seriously doubt I could have completed it!

    I had fun reading the blog.

15. sheffield hatter @9  I agree about ARTHROPODS, which like ARACHNIDS refers to animals with carapaces — and also with definitions.  They’re tempting, but no …

    I thought at first it would be all arthropods, and then there was a vertebrate or two .. puzzling for a while.  I never saw CARAPACE until I came to the blog.

    Clever and ingenious, Puck, haven’t seen one like this before, though apparently it has happened.  And thank you for relief to the aching brain, mhl.

     

16. This took me a long time, and I too was misled by the possibility that the link might be (fast) cars having got CAR APACE round the middle and then SPIDER, but it soon became clear that it was something else. The unkind grid didn’t help. I knew the Greek “eidolon” from The Name of the Rose where it’s a significant word, but had no idea there was a legitimate English word with the same root.

17. This took me a while too. I also was a bit distracted by the potential cars theme (a rocky road indeed, Dr.WhatsOn@4) – especially when I had 2d ESCORT and 11a SPIDER early on.

    [A long time ago I was at fault in going up the rear end of another car when I was driving on a Learner’s Permit in my then boyfriend’s Escort – that put me off drving for a while as it was an expensive mistake. We also owned Alfas and Alfettas for many years in our younger days, though we were never lucky enough to own a Spider.]

    Once I solved 12a ARTHROPOD and 15d ARACHNIDS I began to see what Puck was getting at – and then I spotted the clever CARAPAC(E) – CEC at 17d was unfamiliar) in the middle three-letter words. At that point it all became clearer – although I had a little way to go in order to solve the 8d TERRAPINS.

    [My favourite was 13a SHRIMP, only because my son and daughter-in-law have nicknamed their baby due in March “Shrimpy”, as that is what s/he resembled in the first scan they had.]

    I found this one a lot of fun. Puck is certainly very good at being – well – Puckish [as the online dictionary says: “playful, especially in a mischievous way”]

    Thanks to Puck, mhl, and other commenters.

18. [Sorry for the almost identical opening remarks, Gladys@16. By the time I typed what I wanted to say, you had come on with a similar solving story.]

19. Thanks mhl. I found this a satisfying exercise but didn’t spot the CARAPACE central feature until too late to be much help because I had by then unwittingly entered most of the answers. So I wasn’t clever enough to be misled by car brands. Even missed my own name for far too long!

20. Most enjoyable!  I thought I had 12 rather than 10 solutions sharing the central feature, but thanks to this blog I can see 2 of them actually were defined.  I couldn’t parse shrimp, so thanks for explaining that mhl, but not knowing the model or ton = fashion, I’m not surprised I couldn’t parse it.  Thanks to Puck too for the excellent puzzle – I enjoy the “special instructions” variety.

21. Got lucky on this  .. saw its importance and deduced CARAPACE almost immediately, and was off to the races.  I don’t usually enjoy puzzles which are overly-themed, and almost didn’t start this one, but was glad I did.  Very quick finish in fact.  Parsed all but NECTAR, and came here to check, so now have to slap myself at the side of the head!

22. Indeed, that was hard work, but definitely fun. At first sight, a horrific grid with puzzling instructions, and I think I was lucky to spot the ‘carapace’ part very early. I got AURORAE, ADAMSON (I remember reading Born Free while I was at school) and CAP, and although I don’t know HDMI as you do, mhl, it had to be CEC even if I’d never heard of it, and having also managed SHRIMP, I saw what must be going on. Even so, I couldn’t parse CAR or RAP, so thanks for explaining those. My biggest problem was having too many themed answers, which meant that at the end I was really surprised when SEA URCHIN turned up as LOI. Thanks everyone who pointed out that because some were in fact defined, they didn’t count, and I wish I’d realised that myself. I didn’t know EIDOLA, SCHIST (or CEC!) but they were clear enough from the clues. As JinA @17 said, ‘Puckish’. And thanks to Puck.

23. When I finally finished this gem over a 24 hour period I was deeply satisfied — this has to be one of my favourite puzzles of this year. Everything about it — the central feature, the theme answers, the well-crafted clueing and how all of it came together — this is why Puck/ Wanderer sits at the top of my setter list. Thanks mhl for the write-up.

24. I too was unsure about arthropod and hadn’t bothered to count, so finished up staring at the crossers for loi tortoises wondering if it was in fact undefined. Only got it this morning before starting on Paul. Otherwise, quite a fun steady solve, Liked the Parisian be[r]et, and confit, among others. Thanks both.

25. This was a lot of fun, and not as daunting as I’d first thought once I really tackled it. My only query was concerning CONFIT because I think a confit doesn’t necessarily have to use duck as the main ingredient. Then maybe the question mark deals with that. Either way, it was nice to see our local dish getting a mention. Thanks to Puck for being so clever and to mhl and contributors for the blog.

26. I am wondering If I would have been better off with no instructions at all as I think i crosssed 10 carapaces off and didnt look for any more themers, whereas my list included two sub-groups.

    Great puzzle though.Puck will be Puck

27. A great challenge for me … much enjoyed. Needed the blog to explain that TON is fashion and that TORT is TROT backwards rather than a reference to being given the runaround in law. But now I’m left wondering what Alan B’s full name is. Cholsey Duncan.

28. Oops. I mean Biggles A not Alan B. Sorry about that.

29. I agree with sheffield hatter, ARTHROPOD isn’t one of the special answers, as “9, 11 or 13?” provides the defn by example, and also is clearly not part of wplay (clues for the other 10 are entirely wplay).

    Re ESCORT, saw the clue as simple dd: “lead someone” being the verb, and “cortege” an example of the noun (with “‘s”=”is” acting just as connector). Was delighted to come here and see the alternate hidden-answer parsing… uncommon to see a clue that works so well in two quite different ways!

    Thx to blogger/setter/commenters 🙂

30. I don’t think SHRIMP is one of the ten answers.  Apparently, the model was known as Shrimp, even though her full name was Shrimpton.

    I was having problems parsing CAR, so thanks for that.

    And the clue for TRIPOD doesn’t read too fluently for me.  You have to read ‘taking in too much’ as a noun.

    A nice little puzzle, though.

    Thanks to Puck and to mhl.

31. Agree that it was satisfying and enjoyable. Just right for a Saturday IMO.

32. A very ingenious and enjoyable puzzle but methinks ‘carapace’ was being used extremely loosely.

33. I thought 15d arachnids was one but like 12 across, it has a definition.

    Seems to me a bit naughty to include those to confuse the issue. I had trouble with 24d because “scuttle” is to career so I thought it was cuttle though couldn’t reconcile it with model. I would have guessed turtle but thought I had 10 already.

    Otherwise quite fun.

34. Goodness me, a dozen and a half answers by 2.30 in the morning, UK time and thirty by 9.00.  With the result it’s largely been said.  Frustratingly this was a dnf as I was defeated by two linked and undefined solutions in the SE – TURTLE and SEA URCHIN.  Somewhat hazy about just what has a carapace, so, with ARACHNID and ARTHROPOD, I had my ten themed solutions, or so I thought, and, whilst I had thought of ‘hurtle’, I was looking for something meaning model.

    When pursuing, fruitlessly and along with many others, an initial automobile theme and trying to work out what was going on in the middle, I fleetingly saw CAR AT PACE which certainly described a SPIDER before reality kicked in.

    Today’s earworm will be Winds of Change by SCORPIONS – perhaps not typical of their heavier work but forever associated with those optimistic changes in Eastern Europe following the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Believe it or not, one of only about a dozen singles to sell more than 15 million copies (along with White Christmas and Candle in the Wind!)

    Biggles A @19 (& Choldunk @27): I, too, found that little throwaway line about missing your own name rather intriguing.  Given there’s nothing remotely Biggles-like in the grid, one’s mind turns to the letter A.  Aurora(e) and Adam(son) both seemed the likeliest, Ace(tone) a real outsider; you would have had somewhat unsympathetic parents if you were christened Arachnid, Arthropod or Armadillo.  Please don’t feel the need to answer if anonymity is your preference but it was amusing to ponder.

    Thanks Puck and mhl.

35. As others have said, this was a lot of fun!

    I’ve referred before to Puck’s ‘seemingly boundless passion’ for armadillos et al: I’ve lost count of the number of times they’ve appeared in Puck / Wanderer puzzles, either as single entries or as part of a theme, as here, three years ago. Goodness knows how he keeps doing it so brilliantly.

    Alan B @2 refers to other puzzles using the same central device. I knew which was the first, because I blogged it and it was an armadillo that was curled up in the middle. The blog didn’t have a completed grid but you can see it on the Guardian website.

    I’ve managed to track down the other, which had a theme of camels, with camelopard in the centre.

    Huge thanks to Puck, as ever, and to mhl for a great blog.

36. A nicely difficult challenge, thanks Puck.

    In the end I couldn’t parse TORTOISES or TRIPOD (I went for TRIPOS at first, assuming OS for oversize rather than OD for overdose), so thank you mhl.

37. self @34: that’s meant to say a dozen and a half posts, not answers, by 2.30 in the morning; I’m certainly not attempting to solve Puck at that ungodly hour.

38. Tremendous puzzle. My favourite of lockdown. Thanks Puck

39. I only found out after reading the blog that I had not in fact finished this puzzle, having put it down with the intention of returning to it, and then completely forgotten that I needed to solve 28a CONFIT. Being a vegetarian made it difficult for me to recognise “duck cooked in its own fat” as recipe rather than wordplay, but maybe I’d have got there in the end. Other than that this was a very enjoyable crossword.

40. Thanks to mhl for the blog and to others for your comments.

    Eileen @35: In an ideal world, there would always be room for another armadillo, but sadly I can’t have one in every puzzle. As for using the central device in this particular grid, it’s one way of connecting up what would otherwise be more like four separate little crosswords joined up in the middle. This CARAPACE one is actually my sixth of its kind.

    The full list (with puzzle numbers) is: ARMADILLO (25615), ANTEATERS (26358), ANTENNAS (27208), MENAGERIE (27549), CAMELOPARD (27746) and CARAPACE (28297).

    They have mostly featured animals of one sort or another, but for ANTENNAS the creatures were Teletubbies.

41. Really enjoyed the puzzle.

    Thanks Puck (gosh! It’s always an exciting moment for Mr SR and me when a setter manifests among us 🙂 ). This may be a good moment to thank you and the other setters for saving our sanity during lockdown by providing a mental workout, structure to the day and a feeling of companionship from this site. We appreciate the thought and time you all put in.

    Anna @30: I did think that SHRIMP was one of the ten. I know la Shrimpton was known as The Shrimp – presumably a diminutive of her last name and possibly a reference to her slenderness – but all the clue “Swinging Sixties model’s out of form” leads to is “Shrimpton” without “ton”, and no further definition such as eg “nickname”. And shrimps do have a carapace, don’t they?

42. Many thanks, Puck. I hadn’t remembered quite so many using that device but I do (now) remember the Teletubbies one. I’ll have fun looking them up again – thanks for the links. 😉

43. I was defeated by BARNACLES – Puck fooled me into thinking Cablecars – which seemed to have a definition and Ford some of the crossers – though not EIDOLA
    Thanks to Puck and mhl

44. I think it’s all been said by now, so I’ll just ad my thanks to mhl for the blog and to Puck for an admirable crossword.

45. Thanks to Puck for a perfect prize/weekend puzzle: well worth taking a bit longer over (a few days in fact). After a quick glance last Saturday, I had entered but three letters (CAP, the most straightforward clue in the puzzle). What with football, rugby, Bake-Off and The Crown to divert, I didn’t get this done until late on Tuesday evening, long after Everyman and the daily puzzles had been dispatched.  Finally entering TORTOISES and TURTLE together, after a lengthy wrestle with the whole thing, gave the sort of satisfaction that comes from completing a tricky Paul puzzle.

    I enjoyed the unusual grid, with the clever CAR RAP CAP C.E.C. device at the centre, plus the four quarters having almost no crossers: each had to be solved as a separate entity. I can’t recall seeing many grids where every black square is a single one, no blocks of two or more.

    As for the theme, I identified more than ten – it was “not further defined” that eliminated pretenders like ARTHROPOD, HERMITAGE and ARACHNIDS (my knowledge of biology, as to which creatures actually possess a CARAPACE, is limited).

    Roundabout, runaround (TORT) and runabout (CAR) all added to the fun.

    Just seen that Puck has added a comment, so thanks again for going the extra mile to create a bit more than the average puzzle, and to mhl for blogging.

46. [It was nice to be reminded of Puck’s previous puzzles having this kind of thematic centrepiece. The two memorable puzzles that I remember solving are ARMADILLO and ANTENNAS.]

47. I felt very chuffed to finish this – chuffed is a rare feeling these days so much thanks to Puck and to mhl.

48. Epeolater, re CARAPACE: I too wondered if this might be stretched, but after researching I find its usage for almost all ten special answers is well covered ( 🙂 ) by one or more of the major dictionaries/encyclopedias, and often by scientific sites/papers as well. The sole exception is SEA URCHIN, though non-authoritative refs do occur online for that too (and perhaps someone can find an authoritative ref?).

49. OddOtter @48. The thing about SEA URCHINs is that they have an endoskeleton, rather than the exoskeleton of the ARTHROPODs. This teaching aid only mentions CARAPACE in relation to crustaceans, not echinoderms.

    This article goes on a bit further about this: “…these spines may look like components of an exoskeleton at first glance [but] echinoderms do not have an exoskeleton, the spines are extensions of an internal endoskeleton […] composed of calcium carbonate plates and spines that are actually covered by a thin layer of epidermis.”

    Or this from Britannica (scroll a third of the way down the page): “In sea urchins a spherical, rigid body is formed by the five arms coming together dorsally around the anus.” It doesn’t say CARAPACE in so many words, but is spherical, rigid body good enough? Hey, if we being picky, I’m not sure the “bony plates” of an ARMADILLO actually form a carapace, which Chambers limits to crabs, TURTLEs, TORTOISES and TERRAPINS. (Unless perhaps we adopt the Rudyard Kipling theory of the Beginning of the Armadillos.)

    So Epeolater @32 is probably right to say that the theme was being used extremely loosely, though the crossword was also described in that comment as very ingenious and enjoyable, with which opinion I heartily concur. (I just got hooked by the research.)

50. PostMark@34 and Choldunk @27. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so cryptic. My name is Adamson and I sat there for some time staring at A_A_S__ trying to think of a synonym for jubilation. I’m well acquainted with Born Free too. Glad to know I afforded you some amusement!

51. Re CARAPACE: Collins has several entries (scroll to see all), together mentioning turtles/tortoises, crabs/lobsters, & armadillos, while lexico mentions arachnids & crustaceans (the latter is in Chambers online too); numerous other refs corroborate these. That covers all special answers but BEETLE & SEA URCHIN. Wikipedia adds arthropods (so insects as well as arachnids & crustaceans) and numerous science/nature sites (e.g. entomologytoday.org) discuss beetle carapaces, leaving only urchins as iffy. Hard for me to see that as “extremely loose”. And lexico also includes a general defn as “Something regarded as a protective or defensive covering” thus lending some credibility to urchin as well, though it’s still scientifically sketchy.

52. Haven’t got time to read all the comments, but just to say that as soon as I saw the grid and read the rubric, I remembered Puck’s previous puzzles featuring a keyword coiled round the centre: ANTENNA and ARMADILLO (with its little tail sticking out), so I knew exactly what was going on. However, I did get stuck for quite a while in the SW corner as, although I’d heard of a CONFIT, I didn’t know what it was and I’d never heard of EIDOLA, so it wasn’t until I finally twigged BARNACLE (which eluded me a lot longer than it should have) that I could use word search to get those two difficult ones and finish the puzzle.

    Sheffield Hatter @9 is clearly correct in what he says: ARTHROPOD is defined and takes the list of ten to eleven.

53. Just popped in to check my parsing of this one, to find another Jaydee has appeared. Not sure what the protocol is for this as we both obviously share some initials. In future, I will use an alternative name.
    Thanks to setter and blogger in any case.

54. Hated this more than any crossword for a long time.

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