Guardian 28,408 – Anto

90 comments on “Guardian 28,408 – Anto”

1. I think in 1ac, it’s simply that if you put split before decision you get divided opinion, and ‘left’ is the definition.

2. Stared at BEST BEFORE DATE for ages before I got it with help from the crossers – and it is so obvious.

   Favourites included: ELEPHANT (made me smile) NOSTERATU, EVENS, SQUAT, TREMBLERS, ALTER EGO

   Thanks to Anto and Andrew (There were several I needed help to parse)

3. I thought this was OK, but anyone would struggle to follow Brendan at his whimsical best yesterday. The S in LANGUAGE SCHOOL was an easy crosser which eliminated any other options, so I’m inclined to give Anto the benefit of the doubt on that one. And it is a very nice cd, really. I also liked ELEPHANT and SANITISER.

   OPERA reminded me of a clue I recently wrote for a beginners’ cryptic (“I’ve passed MOT – drive!”) where the wordplay is staring you in the face but the surface reading is just too irresistible.

   Thanks to Andrew and Anto.

4. A reasonably gentle work out this morning. I couldn’t parse 8ac but it was an early entry soon confirmed by the crossers. Thanks Anto and Andrew.

5. Boffo @3

   Funnily I really enjoyed yesterday’s, found it easier than today’s – and managed to parse them all but one – whereas today there were several I couldn’t parse. It is very hit and miss with me – sometimes I just get it – often I don’t. Got nowhere with Paul’s on Tuesday.

6. I found this quite hard to get into, but then a steady solve. LANGUAGE SCHOOL was a mystery to me, as was OPERA. Liked ELEPHANT, CLOUD and ENNUI; hadn’t heard of the meaning of TREMBLERS, or of the existence of LANCELETS, so had to look them up. But good fun. Thanks to Anto and Andrew.

7. Thanks Anto and Andrew
   A great improvement on Anto’s early efforts. I thought the construction of BROMANCE was brilliant, as they had one, BEST BEFORE DATE and ELEPHANT were good too.
   I didn’t parse OPERA.
   I don’t see how “captured” fits in to 2d.

8. Didn’t know the bomb meaning of trembler. Watched all of Danger UXB, but….?

9. [GinF @8
   Nigel Balchin The small back room!]

10. I enjoyed this very much, and thought the surface for BROMANCE was admirable.

11. [Ta much muffin @9, it predates UXB then, so might’ve been in the script….too long ago…]

12. First time through I only had OUST, but it gradually came together. Like Boffo @3 I can forgive LANGUAGE SCHOOL. Really liked the Pauline ENNUI. There were some clever constructions such as SILVER TONGUE (recalling Lyra from His Dark Materials). I couldn’t parse OPERA but Andrew’s explanation makes good sense. A pleasant start to the day.
    Thanks to Anto and Andrew

13. Tripped over a few of these this morning – BROMANCE was a smile when I worked it out though but as with Andrew, found LANGUAGE SCHOOL on the border of annoying…

    Thanks Anto and Andrew!

14. I really enjoyed this and thought it was clever and witty, particularly BROMANCE, ELEPHANT, BEST BEFORE DATE and GAUNTLET.

    Many thanks Anto and Andrew.

15. Thanks Andrew, I couldn’t parse OPERA (I had RA for men and OPE as short for OPEL cars but no idea why!), Language School, ENNUI and SENIOR MOMENT fully or partly so you have been a big help today. Agree with you about Lancelets (a “guess&google”) and with ALI C@1 on the split decision.
    I thought the surface of UTOPIA nicely topical given the latest Suez crisis, and while Anto may not be Brendan, I think he shows distinct flair on occasion and the cluing of CLOUD was a happy if coincidental nod to yesterday’s theme (and, luckily, within my limited poetry GK).
    But just beating NOSFERATU and SILVER TONGUE to my prize today is the excellent BROMANCE, thanks Anto.

16. I thought this was great too. I don’t think alternative solutions that don’t match the crossers ARE alternative solutions. Found many of them chuckle-aloud-satisfying.

17. This was a bit of a mixed bag for me. There was some clever stuff I really enjoyed, such as ELEPHANT, BROMANCE and LANGUAGE SCHOOL, my FOI (although actually in a l. s. you would probably learn that due was two and coppia was couple, but close enough). One of the clues from yesterday helped me get one of today’s quickly, but I shouldn’t say more on that.

    I wasn’t convinced about “captured” in the clue for LANCELETS – you can’t put in absolutely anything to link definition with wordplay, can you, even with a question-mark? And anyone who thinks a FRIDGE is for short term storage hasn’t seen mine.

    CLOUD struck me as a kind of clue we don’t have a good term for. It’s not really a CD. Nor a D. It’s more like a chunk of GK rearranged and synonymized to obscure the intent. Very much consistent with cryptic practice, but not traditional wordplay either.

18. I’m leaving more confused than when I arrived!

    Only wanted to see how 15a worked. Another use of “on” – never get them , but what tells you it is even worse because it sounds like on?

    Picking up is not confined to listening, I am sure kiddies pick up things from watching and feeling too.

    But I get it , what I didn’t get was what Boffo was talking about in 3 …… I don’t think I’d want to be one of his students!
    Was the answer Opera? I did not think so, but nothing else looked obvious to me , including how long the answer is?

    It pays to talk, ok, Motive I’m leaving happy!

19. I had thought so-so, but coming here and seeing the full parsings I’ve changed my mind. I failed to see the cleverness of BROMANCE. And couldn’t parse LANGUAGE SCHOOL, which I now think rather brilliant. The only dud was LANCELETS. Looking forward to the next Anto. Thanks too to Andrew.

20. [Dr. Wh @17, on a shared sleeper on the way to Sicily, Mrs ginf and the other senora were discussing weight control. She said “He tries to diet, then says ‘Fa mi due spaghetti’ “]

21. I pretty much agree with all of Dr WhatsOn’s comment @17.

    I’ll just add that I rather liked 21ac and 9dn made me smile.

    Thanks to Anto and Andrew.

22. Totally agree with xjpotter @19. If any other universally-adored setter (Paul, Crucible, Vlad, the deservedly sainted Brendan) had clued BROMANCE or LANGUAGE SCHOOL as Anto did, the gushing praise would threaten to drown us all. It seems to me that we all have embedded views about certain setters, and are unwilling to alter them despite evidence to the contrary.

23. akaRebornBeginner @18: I think that 15a was a little unfair because even the (performing = on) in English is a much harder sound that the French “en” (more like an “ehn”) and as a loan-word, I think it needed some reference to indicate.

    As an aside, I notice that Americans tend to pronounce French words completely differently – one can thinkg of the way that “Notre Dame” is said there (Note-er Daym) and even phrases such as en-route come out as “N rowt” as opposed to “ehn root” so I’m not sure if this clue will translate across the pond at all.

24. Like Gazzh @15, I got the answer for OPERA by default (apparently ‘Ope’ is Midwestern slang for sorry or surprise when a car cuts in front). Also parsed SPLIT as Ali C @1. BROMANCE, CLOUD, ELEPHANT and SILVER TOUNGE were very good but NOSFERATU was my COD.

    LANCELETS was new but it was just one of those words that suggested itself from the definition, after having already solved GAUNTLET.

    Ta Anto & Andrew

25. Slow Horse @22: I was thinking exactly the same.

26. Makes a pleasant change to use Italian! LANCELET was so obvious that its obscurity is perfectly forgivable. The only quibble I had was FRIDGE, my LOI. COD for me was Caesar and Antony.
    Thanks to A&A.

27. [MB @23 Our American friends have to pronounce Notre Dame like that, otherwise Desolation Row wouldn’t rhyme:

    All except for Cain and Abel
    And the hunchback of Notre Dame
    Everybody is making love
    Or else expecting rain]

28. MB@23 – I quite agree. I couldn’t parse ENNUI because it would never occur to me to pronounce ENN as “on”.

29. I really loved ELEPHANT — one of my last few in and I simply couldn’t see the obvious in the jumbled letters! What a great clue. LANCELETS, by contrast, doesn’t feature in my crossword clues Hall of Fame.
    I also tend to agree with xjpotter and Slow Horse (@19 and @22) regarding the fulsome praise and indulgence which is afforded to certain setters in this forum. I thought this a jolly clever, witty and appropriately challenging puzzle. Thank you, Anto.
    And thanks to Andrew for the explicatory blog.

30. [Penfold @27: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnlIWpZSPXU ]

31. I wonder if Anto was thinking of the same joke as I was: How do you TELL if there’s an ELEPHANT in the FRIDGE?

    Re ENNUI, it’s as English as café. In fact we’ve had VIII while the French only had IV.

    Many thanks Anto and Andrew.

32. [essexboy @31
    Isn’t it “how can you tell if an elephant’s been in the fridge?”]

33. [muffin – mea culpa]

34. essexboy @31: I don’t think there is a problem with whether it is English or French; after-all, English is 50% (ish) French. I think the issue is how to point to the homophone and that (at least for me) wasn’t clear especially for those of use with a very hard “nn” sound darn sauf.

    [I’m tempted to reshare Kenneth Williams’ ‘Ma Crepe Suzette’ but I’ve done that far too many times before…]

35. Notre Dame in Indiana is pronounced as noted; the university by that name in Baltimore is pronounced in a quasi-French manner (without the rolled r). I wouldn’t say that Americans Anglicize French words more than the British do. No one here says garridge, for example. And most USAnians (not me) say valAY for valet.

    Like Gazzh @ 15, I was trying to work out how an Opel could be an OPE and whether RA could perhaps be “men” in the sense of “other ranks” or similar.

36. MaidenBartok@23: we Americans pronounce ENNUI just the way the clue says, so that was no trouble–the tricky part there was that “wee” is a less common term here (and I’ve never heard it used as a noun, as it is interpreted in the clue).

37. MB @34: if you click on the audio thingy on the Merriam-Webster page I think it sounds OK for Anto’s purposes. Of course it might be a problem if it was one of those words where the French don’t pronounce the ‘n’ as ‘n’ – Non, je ne regrette rien! – but here, ce n’est pas le cas.

38. VinnyD @35: Interesting point and I’d forgotten about about “garaaajeh” in the US. But I do wish you’d call him Nigel Farridge…

39. I can see why Andrew had mixed views on this but I’m another who has been enjoying Anto’s development and the good clues here certainly made this puzzle worth doing. I identify the same highlights as others – BROMANCE, ELEPHANT, UTOPIA, OUST, LANGUAGE SCHOOL (the subtlety of which missed me until reading the blog) and two contenders for COTD: BEST BEFORE DATE and NOSFERATU. I’d also single out SINGLE OUT which hasn’t yet been mentioned in despatches but describes the majority of my own cricketing performances and brought a smile.

    Thanks Anto and Andrew

40. Duh! Got hung up on “force bank” being FE and then couldn’t account for RIDG…
    LANCELETS are new to me, and it took a while (appropriately) to remember that meaning of MOMENT. Thanks Andrew for pointing out what I’d missed about OPERA and LANGUAGE SCHOOL (both good). Of the ones I did get, favourites SINGLE OUT, ENNUI, NOSFERATU, BROMANCE and of course the ELEPHANT in the room. Thanks Anto.

41. As others have said, a mixture of the brilliant (e.g. ELEPHANT) and the slightly iffy (e.g. LANCELETS) with LANGUAGE SCHOOL being a bit of both. Shouldn’t CLOUD have been “How a wandering poet….” rather than “What…”?

42. Petert @41: I read it à la Austen “Reader, I thought him rather vulgar”, i.e. “What a wandering poet thought (to be) lacking company”. Incidentally, I don’t think anyone has yet posted the explanation for the origin of the CLOUD metaphor. 😉

43. We thought it was excellent – lancelets may be obscure to some, but then cars and cricket are to me.

44. muffin @32 There are two riddles you ask in order. How can you tell an elephant’s been in the fridge? There are footprints in the peanut butter. Then (after some time and other riddles) How can you tell if there’s an elephant in the fridge? The door won’t close.

    Lancelet reminds me of another primitive fish-ish chordate. Take a listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98KB4BtTaO4 for “It’s a long way from amphioxus,” or just look at the lyrics at https://evolution.gs.washington.edu/amphioxus/. It’s sung to “It’s a long way to Tipperary,” The chorus goes

    It’s a long way from amphioxus, it’s a long way to us.
    It’s a long way from amphioxus to the meanest human cuss.
    Good bye fins and gill slits, hello lungs and hair —
    It’s a long way from amphioxus, but we all come from there.

    I’m posting this even though I haven’t read all the posts because I have to stop shortly, and I’m assuming nobody else will have posted this song.

45. Thanks for the blog, lovely crossword, many splendid clues. ELEPHANT, BROMANCE, CLOUD,NOSFERATU, SILVER TONGUE was superb and very topical. It nearly lasted my whole train journey home for once.
    Drofle@6 DUE was used by AZED in this sense just two weeks ago so you should have got it immediately.

46. I solved it all but clearly missed some of the subtleties in the parsing. I was another trying to turn OPE into a car and also BENNERS into petitions at 4d. I would highlight SINGLE OUT, ELEPHANT, CLOUD, ALTER EGO. Didn’t know NOSFERATU. Thanks to Anto and Andrew

47. essexboy@42 Oh I see, though I think Wordsworth meant he was lonely and looking down rather than implying that clouds were lonely, which, especially in the Lake District, they rarely are. Maybe “What a wandering poet imagined himself to be..” but that gets clumsy. I will attempt to see if Heineken refreshes the parsers other beers cannot reach.

48. [Valentine@44: How do you get four elephants into a Mini? Two in front, two in the back.
    Later:
    How do you get four hippos into a Mini? You can’t, it’s full of elephants!]

49. Enjoyed the puzzle, especially 4a BROMANCE, 10a ELEPHANT and 10d SENIOR MOMENT. Needed the blog to understand 20d OPERA and 7d CLOUD (yes I know the poem and the poet but as my user name might suggest, this is not my natural domain). Many thanks to Anto and Andrew for the blog.

50. [Penfold @27, only a few of my cohort were at his concert here in ’66, doing Highway 61. They were tuned in, me not yet. Over half a century later, heard DR any number of times but never picked Noter Dayme (even tho the local Notra Darm U is my young bloke’s Alma Mater)]

51. This was all very strange. Seeing Anto’s name, I was expecting something fairly straightforward, but I had very little on first pass. Then things moved quickly from the bottom up, courtesy of a few biffed in, until the NW was left. Back after lunch, in went the excellent ELEPHANT and I was nearly there. LANCELETS last in, via Wikipedia for certainty. What a mishmash of clues.

52. gladys @48
    What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill?
    “Here come the elephants over the hill.”

    [Later] What’s the difference between an elephant and a blueberry?
    Elephants are grey.

    [Later] What did Jane say when she saw the elephants coming over the hill?
    (“Here come the elephants over the hill?”)
    No, she said “Here come the blueberries.” Jane is colorblind.

    [Later]

53. Thanks to Anto and Andrew.

    I thought this was great – Anto rising through the charts of favourite setters every time he appears. I needed Andrew’s help for OPERA (LOI). (Must buy a new tea-tray…)

54. 18D was an obvious anagram but not one which I could unscramble. Unlike our blogger, I thought 8A was a superb clue – “SCHOOL” clearly responds better to the “where” in the clue than “LESSON” would, as the former is purely geographic as the clue is in its most literal sense. I liked 9D as well. Thanks to setter and blogger.

55. … and thanks to our blogger for parsing 20D. Could only be one answer, but I couldn’t for the life of me see how the clue worked.

56. Valentine @52
    Why shouldn’t you go into the jungle at 4pm each day?
    Because the elephants have their parachute practice.

    [Later]
    Why are crocodiles flat?
    Because they went into the jungle at 4pm.

57. I tended at first to agree with Andrew that ‘Sea creatures captured using little spears?’ is a little unfair, being the same definition twice, and with muffin @7 and Dr WhatsOn @17 about the use of ‘captured’ as a link word. But on reflection, isn’t this like capturing someone’s essence in a portrait or description? So, ‘little lances’ perfectly captures the appearance or likeness of the creatures that we consequently call LANCELETS.

58. [Given that it’s almost Friday and tomorrow is a Bank Holiday….

    What do you call a pachyderm that doesn’t matter?
    An irrelephant.

    Why are elephants wrinkled?
    Have you tried ironing one?

    Donning coat…]

59. I enjoyed this a lot.

    Regarding American pronunciation of French it does seem to be – like their spelling – all over the place. A lot of times they’re closer to French than us Brits – the dropping of an initial H on words like “herbs”, the dropping of the final “t” on “turbot”, but other times it disregards that altogether, and makes no attempt whatsoever.

    Regarding elephants, I always liked the surreal – How do you know if there is an elephant in your fridge? Because you can’t get your bike in there.

    A newer one – How do you get an elephant out of the theatre? You can’t darling – it’s in his blood.

60. I hope those with the paper edition enjoyed the Guardian’s topical 1st April item

61. Julia – it’s online too: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/01/suez-2-ever-given-grounding-prompts-plan-for-canal-along-egypt-israel-border

62. It is rather hard to tell these days without an anagram for the byline.

    A blue plaque for Princess Diana ???
    Slavery was a cultural experience for African people ???
    Raw sewage discharged 400000 times last year ???
    Gavin Williamson is the Education Secretary ???

    The news increasingly seems like satire.

63. Mostly I thought this was fun and very witty. I liked the surfaces for OUST and SILVER TONGUE, enjoyed the wordplay for BADMINTON, and I thought ELEPHANT was the clue of the day. I failed to get NOSFERATU even though I loved the Herzog remake. MOMENT for “substance” seems a stretch to me. Thanks to both.
    [Slow Horse @22: Your point about folks having different standards for favoured setters is well taken. I remember Vulcan getting crucified on a routine basis; this seems to have subsided after it was revealed that he is the well-liked Imogen.]

64. Tony Santucci (63 Re. MOMENT)

    HAMLET (Act III, scene 1 opening soliloquy)

    … thus the native hue of resolution
    Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
    And enterprises of great pith* and moment
    With this regard their currents turn awry,
    And lose the name of action.

    * or ‘pitch’ depending on what text you are using

    As in ‘momentous’….

65. Tony Santucci @63. Chambers has moment – importance, consequence; substance – solidity, body. Think also of the interlinking concepts in physics of moment of inertia, momentum, and mass. Doesn’t seem too much of a stretch to me.

66. Roz @45 Yes, I remember now (Azed’s DUE). I didn’t think of it when I saw the clue, which simply seemed incomprehensible and I needed to attend to repairing my garden shed!

67. When I read 7d I thought “at least he’s grasped the fact that it was the poet not the cloud who was lonely”. Then I read it again.

68. sheffield hatter @65

    Well there you go. You vindicate the setter via physics; I vindicate the setter via Shakespeare. I guess that is why we all keep coming back to the forum – on the way to which funny things can happen.

    [By the way, could the 59-minute gap between your contribution and drofle’s @ 66 be a record?]

69. Spooner’s catflap – with your moniker it should have been you doing the physics! But I’m glad you posted the quote from Hamlet as I think it provides a more accessible justification for the clue.

70. [ drofle @66 , it was the NUMERO UNO solution, I would not have known DUE today without it ]

71. Sheffield hatter @69

    [Thank you. I was terrible at and bored by physics at school – dropped it as soon as the curriculum allowed. If I had your level of knowledge my moniker would probably be Schrödinger’s catbox. : – ) ]

72. I thought this was very good too. ELEPHANT, NOSFERATU and BEST BEFORE DATE were all excellent. I couldn’t parse LANGUAGE SCHOOL because my Italian is almost non-existent, but that’s not Anto’s fault. I enjoyed the PDM when reading the explanation in the blog. Ditto the Carmen gag. Anyone else try TIMEBOMBS for 12? I should have realised when it was not given as 2 words, but I’m a little slow today 🙁 .
    Very good point by Slow Horse @22. First impressions are hard to shift.
    Thanks, Anto and Andrew.

73. I started attempting the Guardian cryptic crosswords about 6 months ago and aside from an occasional success on Mondays, this is the first one I have managed to complete without any assistance other then the old grey cells. So even though Andrew did have some quibbles, I really enjoyed it. Thank you Anto

74. Spooner’s catflap – It was Schrödinger I was confusing with Spooner, of course! Must have had a 9d there. Schrödinger’s catbox is an amusing concept in itself.

75. Spooner’s catflap @64, sheffield hatter@65: Thanks for the two explanations of moment, one from science, one from the arts. I could have researched the word myself but what fun is that? Besides, I’m more apt to remember the lesson better this way.

76. Droid@73 congratulations, i wouldn’t call this an easy crossword and it is also a feather in Anto’s cap as you must have found the clues sufficiently clear and accessible. Hope this is the first of many!

    phitonelly@72 not quite, but early on when I just had the T and S i thought of tripwires just because it fitted one part of the def, but I have managed to wean myself off the lazy habit of bunging in anything vaguely plausible and CHECKing so with a couple more crossers my next guess was a better match to both definitions. But i can’t for the life of me remember why I have heard of TREMBLERS in relation to bombs etc, probably some spy novel.

77. Just read the thread xjpotter @19, SlowHorse@22, Tony @63 and Phitonelly @72, very interesting and I find myself totally agreeing. We all have a tendency to judge the crossword based on the setter instead of “the thing in itself ” and I know there is a fancy word for that and hope someone will enlighten me.

78. TREMBLER was certainly in a Dad’s Army episode with the bomb in the vault of the bank.

79. Gazzh @76
    Similar – when I had ?????,E?O for 21a, I wrote in BRIAN ENO (singer, though not best known for that), thinking “I’ll parse the rest of that later”!

80. I quite like Anto’s puzzles as long as they are kept out of the Quiptic slot. ELEPHANT and ENNUI were my faves by far.

    I’ll echo my fellow Americans in saying I only say “noter dame” when referring to the university in Indiana. Otherwise I pronounce notre dame and en route the way the French would except with a rhotic r.

81. Having seen the word used incorrectly above for the third time this week, the others being on Radio 4 by people who should know better, I feel compelled to point out that “fulsome” does not mean “generous”. It means “extravagant” or “insincere”. Same root as “false”. Just a bugbear of mine.

82. The clue for ELEPHANT is one any setter would have been proud of and there were lots of others I liked. I’m rarely bothered by iffy clues as long as they not convoluted so the quibbles passed me by. I didn’t parse OPERA (neat) and FRIDGE was also my loi shortly after SENIOR MOMENT which was a close second for cotd for me. Many thanks to Anto and Andrew.

83. I had trouble with some of this but I loved BROMANCE!

84. [jeceris @81: I’m not saying you’re wrong about the incorrect use of fulsome anywhere else, but I thought that pserve_p2 @29 had intended it to mean extravagent rather than generous. Of course, I may have been mistaken.]

85. Gazzh @76
    Re: 12, I had the T, B and the S and I thought the chances of another word with those crossers was pretty slight! Needless to say, this made 4d a bit of an adventure for me. I actually think TIME BOMBS is not a bad fit for both halves of the dd.

86. Absolutely loved 20d. Blindingly obvious – but with an irresistible power to send solvers off in the wrong direction. And a warm smug feeling as a reward if (a) you got it immediately – not me – or (b) you’ve seen this clue before – definitely not me.

87. SH @ 84 and pserve @ 29.
    Looking back at the original post I can see your interpretation and appreciate that I may have misunderstood what was meant. So apologies all round if that is the case.
    I also believe that the lavish praise bestowed on other setters is sometimes fulsome in the true sense of the word.

88. [ I agree with sh@84 that pserve@29’s use of fulsome was apt. I also agree with jeceris@81 that the frequent misuse of fulsome is ruining a very useful word. I recall at a meeting back in my working days our Director of Communications (!!) offering “to provide a more fulsome explanation” of something. I replied, “I don’t want a more fulsome explanation, I want an honest one.” She had no idea what I was saying. (And this was in a university setting.) ]

89. I loved the clue for LANGUAGE SCHOOL – it reminded me of an old classic which might have been too rude for actual publication:
    “In which three couples get together for sex” (5)

    Thanks very much to Anto and Andrew.

90. [ Someone once told me that a good synonym for fulsome is cloying, it certainly stopped me using it in a positive sense. ]

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