Guardian 28,447 – Anto

65 comments on “Guardian 28,447 – Anto”

1. This was a DNF for me because of SUPREME; I tried every Irish girl I could think of forwards and backwards, I added I and IR but nothing. Otherweise my LOI was TWENTIES which I couldn’t parse so many thanks Andrew; now I see it I think it’s a great clue. Other favourites were A FREE LUNCH, SWINE FLU and SKIN TONE but I thought LIMERICK was a brilliant. Thanks Anto.

2. I’ve commented rather less on Mondays – no doubt to the relief of many – and began Anto’s puzzle anticipating typical fare for the start of the week. What a pleasure this turned out to be. So here am I to acknowledge both the setter’s craft and Andrew’s excellent blog. I’m glad to see our blogger has no specific term for the subtraction clues (an unsatisfactorily vague descriptor but best I can come up with) that did seem to abound today. I almost wondered if that was going to constitute some kind of theme.

   TWENTIES was a neat opener and pdm clue, SHOWER was a nice and simple introduction to what to expect from the subtraction technique, DOONE (SDUTY) does rather jump out of the finished solution but is still a good spot, I liked FLAGRANT which held out for a while only due to the different pronunciation of that first syllable in the ‘signal’. ESPOUSE and A FREE LUNCH both made me smile, the device cropped up again in METTLE and BAGMAN had a nice surface. Favourites were BERLIN – beautifully done, ESSENCES which was satisfying to assemble and COTD, LIMERICK – very clever idea and a nice misdirection with Lear. All very pleasing.

3. yesyes @1: I have to confess the colleen escaped me and it was ‘pus’ – one of those intrinsically unpleasant words – that resolved SUPREME with a vague recollection of Emer coming only with hindsight. I probably shouldn’t be but I am smiling at the image of you trying every Irish girl you can think of – both forwards and backwards. Some start to the week 😀 !

4. Definitely not the expected degree of difficulty for a Monday. Another DNF, LIMERICK the one error, which I would only ever have solved by luck; didn’t know which ‘Lear’ to think of. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy when I had one those “What on earth is going on here?” after looking at the very clever 8a. NHO of EMER (thanks for the link) at 15a which had to go in from the def and rest of the wordplay.

   Lots of similarly good clues, with my favourite being SWINE FLU.

   No complaints from me if things are a bit easier tomorrow!

   Thanks to Anto and Andrew

5. So, “annual general meeting” is such a frequently-used grouping of words nowadays that it has earned an official setter-approved abbreviation (AGM, 22d). Who knew? I must try to keep up…

6. @Doug431
   That abbreviation is listed in my battered old Chambers from 1990, and I’d imagine it would have been in its predecessors too.
   I didn’t get on very well with this puzzle, having bunged CENTRE instead of MIDDLE at 3d

7. Thanks for the blog Andrew
   I suppose COLD CALLER would be a CD-not a great clue in that case
   I was nutmegged on SKIN TONE being fixated on broke as anag for UNIT and no word finder was any use
   For Aristocrat I was thinking BARON without O around EC giving BRECON-another fine mess but guessed the answer after revealing SKIN TONE

   Otherwise OK and I restored confidence chugging through The Times

   So is Anto going to be the new Boatman for eccentricity? Maybe not but it gave Monday a new dlant

8. I took UNDO to be an anagram (out) of FOUND without (concealing) the F (key). Didn’t spot the hidden. Thanks to all.

9. Tricky and a dnf with SUPREME stumping me, even though I have a distant relative called Emer. Agree that LIMERICK was excellent.

   Ta Anto & Andrew for explaining the more convoluted solutions

10. ‘Definitely not your usual easy-Monday fare from Anto today.’ What Andrew said!

    Wow – that was chewier than my usual attempt at a barbecue, for sure. I really did not like 22d – it was a ‘is that it?’ sense of deflation when I twigged it. Rather pleased with myself for the 24a football reference given that I can’t stand the stuff…

    A DNF as a little-too-much reveal was used but it was a well-crafted puzzle with a lovely twist (see what I did there – c’mon, it’s Monday…) to many of the clues and for that I say thanks to Anto and Andrew.

    As I have been shamed into not doing the Quiptic, that’s where I’m headed off to now… groan…

11. Maiden Barton @ 10 – I may be wrong but I think the term “early bath” was coined by Eddie Waring in his rugby league commentaries in the 60’s and 70’s.
    I agree with Postmark and the others – what an interesting crossword for a Monday.
    Thanks Anto

12. Sorry Bartok – apologies for my spell checker!

13. Hard slog. Easier to solve/guess than to parse some of the answers.

    Did not parse LIMERICK, PARCEL = plot but how to parse the clue, TROUSER LEG (was overthinking this not very cd); USELESS; ESSENCES.

    Favouries: ESPOUSE (haha), METTLE, BIRD, BERLIN, TWENTIES.

    New EMER (Irish name).

    Thanks to Andrew for the explanations.

    Will go do the Quiptic now – and hope it is easier than this puzzle!

14. That’s the first time I can remember the same answer occurring in both the Cryptic AND the Quiptic (OF LATE). Interesting to compare Hectence’s and Anto’s clueing styles.

15. @baerchen
    It isn’t in my equally battered and now spineless 1972 edition. I too had CENTRE in 3d for a while. I couldn’t parse SUPREME, and didn’t know what CEL meant.

16. [blaise @14: I’m trying hard to avoid a spoiler so suffice to say there is an intriguing coincidence with the Indy too.]

17. Apart from the rather weak TROUSER LEG, I thought this was excellent. COD for me was TWENTIES. NHO “early BATH”, but I had heard of Emer O’Toole. “BIRD lime” is rhyming slang for “time”, btw.
    Perhaps we shall to see Anto later in the week. Thanks to him and to Andrew for a couple of parsings I hadn’t fathomed.

18. Like Michelle @13 I thought this was a hard slog – almost gave up, which is unusual for me. A bit of a mix in terms of difficulty, but like others I thought SWINE FLU was great. Couldn’t parse LIMERICK even though I knew ABBA must be involved. Thanks to Anto and Andrew.

19. Nicely summarised Andrew.

    Guessed EMER but do not think it a fair clue.

20. Shirely @10: How funny! I was talking about Eddie Wearing with a friend the other day and I’m now reminded of the song ‘Eddie Wearing’ by Chumbawamba which I can’t find a link to…

    I was as-hopeless at rugby (the main game played by my school) as I was at football – being 6’1″ and built like the proverbial, I was always put in Left Back position. I remember one game where the other team started running towards me and I just decided ‘I’m not having this’ and ran off the field as fast as I could…

21. I convinced myself there was an Irish girl’s name Riamh, pronounced “reme”

22. Strangely uneven (and for me quite tricky) puzzle with some very clever clues and some that I felt were rather clunky. The ellipses between 11 and 12 make a bizarre combined surface, the Masonic and early BATH clues are weak, and 6dn doesn’t work for me. If it was rephrased as “Visitor in winter unexpectedly trying to sell you something?” it would be a DD but as it stands the ‘unexpected’ seems to be in the wrong place.

    On the other hand, I think the clues for TWENTIES, SHOWER, LIMERICK, ESPOUSE and A FREE LUNCH are wonderful, and I especially loved SWINE FLU.

    Thanks to Anto for an unusual challenge and to Andrew for his customarily excellent blog.

23. MB @20: here’s a bit of it

    Chardonneret (what a nice avian moniker) @21 – wouldn’t that be pronounced Reeve?

    AABBA v good, thanks A & A

24. [essexboy @23: FABULOUS!!!! Thank you SO much for that. I loved Chumbawamba but was always dismayed that ‘Tubthumping’ was picked up by the the jingoistic mob when that was about as-far from what they were much as Holst is said to have hated ‘I vow to thee my country…’]

25. [MB @24: reminds me of the time Cool Britannia turned a bit cooler (and wetter!) for John Prescott]

26. [Eddie Waring, when there was a punch-up on the field “Oh, the blood’s running to their fists!”]

27. There were some really nice clues here. TWENTIES and DO ONE’S DUTY were great, but clue of the day was the excellent SWINE FLU.

    [The latter reminds me of a BBC series a few years ago called Shakespeare Retold which updated several plays to the present day. In the version of Macbeth, the title character is an ambitious chef who murders his way to the top. The witches are three weird binmen, whose prophecy equivalent to Birnam Wood is that his downfall will only occur “when pigs fly”. At the end, police helicopters arrive to hunt him down. Brilliant.]

    Many thanks Anto and Andrew.

28. [MB@24 Boff Whalley from Chumbawumba is still writing great songs with the Commoners Choir]

29. Thanks Andrew for making sense of quite a few of these, starting from the top and including LIMERICK which I guessed from Lear and crossers but needed your parsing for the A-Ha (geddit?) moment. A strange mix of barely cryptic and ultra-opaque but I persevered to fully parse some of the more creative elements and found it very enjoyable overall, thanks Anto.

30. I enjoyed SWINE FLU, MIDDLE, TWENTIES and A FREE LUNCH, but didn’t get much else. I often struggle to even get on Anto’s easy wavelength and this one was frankly a washout: no criticism of the setter, just not my day.

31. A great puzzle to end the week (came in Sunday day night here). Lots of very clever clues. However, I thought “open” a weak synonym of FLAGRANT, totally misses the bad behaviour aspect.

32. Like others, I found this hard. I have to admit that I quite often struggle to get on Anto’s wavelength. I did enjoy some of this, but I ran up against clues which remained indecipherable (for me) even after a good deal of thought.

33. The LIMERICK clue was to contrived for me.

    To expand on 24d — “bird lime”, or “bird” for short, is rhyming slang for time or sentence.

    For a change, nobody has said this is easier than the Quiptic. Some have said they haven’t tackled it yet. I have, and it isn’t.

    Loved SWINE FLU! Thanks, Anto and Andrew.

34. PS I meant to ask – I can’t see why there are those two sets of ellipses ‘connecting’ DO ONE’S DUTY and OF LATE. I nearly assumed “OF CARE” was the answer for the latter, as “DUTY OF CARE” is a phrase we hear fairly often in the workplace these days and thus would make some connection between the two. Are they just there to muddy the water or am I missing something again?

35. Thanks to Anto and Andrew.

    I thought this was full of fun, with some quibbles already mentioned, but I’m breaking recent silence to praise SWINE FLU which made me chuckle. And the parsing of LIMERICK evaded me – very clever.

36. Gazzh@34: I’m inclined to propose that in this case the ellipses are there so that the setter can avoid having a clue which, as it stands, would be ungrammatical in that it would have no subject.

37. Actually some very neat parsing in today’s offering from a Guardian newcomer (well, second cryptic). Particularly taken by Limerick, a very well crafted clue.. and Swine Flu.. ha ha, very clever!

38. Technically a DNF for me because of BATH but I’m going to allow myself that one as that is not an American expression at all, though we do say that a baseball pitcher who leaves the game “hits the showers.” 8ac was also a confusing parse to me when I figured out the answer as in the US the Twenties were roaring themselves.

    6d seems almost like a double definition to me as it could be a visitor in winter or someone unexpectedly trying to sell you something, though it might work better if “unexpected” were at the other end somehow.

    A little heavy on the cryptic definitions for me, but the wordplay in 11a, 18d, 21d, 26a were particularly satisfying when I got them. thanks to Anto and Andrew.

39. Well, I managed to fill this one in but… thanks Andrew for the clarifications – especially on 8, 17 and 20ac, 4 and 5dn. BAGMAN was LOI for me but at least I could parse that one.

    I can see that ESPOUSE is groansomely clever now I understand it. Also enjoyed SWINE FLU and A FREE LUNCH. Thanks Anto.

40. Well we’ll! For me that was a crossword of two halves. Top half went in with little thought, then I slowed as I went further South, then hit a wall in the SE corner.

    I put in LIMERICK without any idea of the parsing (thanks Andrew – I should have seen that one as a fan of Mr Lear).

    LOI was 26a – a pleasant change for a Monday.

    Thanks Anto and Andrew

    And 100% agree with PostMark!

41. Too tough for me regardless of the day of the week — I found Saturday’s prize much easier — in any event I thought SWINE FLU made the effort worthwhile and I liked the anagram (unreal chef) for A FREE LUNCH. Thanks Anto and to Andrew for explaining so much.

42. More Mondays like this please!

    Thanks s&b.

43. “It’s an EARLY BATH for you Cantona” was apparently the taunt that triggered Eric’s ill-advised Kung Fu kick
    Can’t remember the last time so much lateral thinking was needed. I thought I was suffering the consequences of one too many negronis but apparently not. Not perfect by any means but enormous fun. Cheers

44. Rather tough for a Monday especially as I spent the morning playing string quartets for the first time in 14 months. Didn’t know EMER, CEL, or METTLE, and I failed to parse several others. I liked TWENTIES, DO ONES DUTY, SWINE FLU and A FREE LUNCH. Thanks Anto and Andrew.

45. Andrew, may I ask? What is a(n) NVCD?

    The puzzle was hard enough … please don’t make it more difficult .

46. stanXYZ@45. It is getting late-ish in the commenting day, so in case neither Andrew nor anyone else visits who clarifies NVCD – it is an abbreviation of ‘not very cryptic definition’, which is how Andrew described the clue immediately above in the blog – TROUSER LEG. Having used the phrase in that comment, I think he felt he could abbreviate it in the next.

47. It’s the first time in ages that I have had time to complete the Cryptic in time to join in the chat. I really enjoyed this, although unable to parse LIMERICK, so many thanks for that Andrew. Also the “backwords wordplay” had me stumped – had to get the answer and try to reverse engineer – will keep a look out for it in future. As with most, favourites were TWENTIES, SWINE FLU and A FREE LUNCH. Many thanks to Anto for a lovely challenge and to Andrew for an excellent analysis. It’s good to be back!

48. Alphalpha@36 – thanks, certainly plausible and I will look out for that possible interpretation next time…

49. The ABBA as a rhyme scheme idea came up in The Times only two or three days ago. There must be a database of clues that setters access but which throws up an “idea for the week” or something like it, because this sort of thing happens much more than chance would suggest. I feel a bit miffed about 15A, though I got it all right. There really should be a convention against clueing foreign words – and especially unusual foreign proper nouns – such that the unchecked lights allow for ambiguity. I’ve never met an Emer, so I didn’t really know if that or Omer was an Irish girl’s name. Tossed a coin and got lucky, but it shouldn’t come to this.

50. Thanks Anto and Andrew. Emer O’Toole is an occasional Guardian columnist.

51. On Emer – I think it shows Anto’s roots that he thinks it’s a common Irish name. It is, but only the Irish would think so – a “household name” Emer has yet to appear it seems (but see Macmorris@50). Yet practically everyone in Ireland has an Auntie Emer, a cousin Emer or an Emer who needn’t be mentioned thank you very much.

52. It occurs to me that in Ireland Anto is often short for Antoinette…. – leading no doubt to the occasional Auntie Anto.

53. BigNorm – interesting take on 15ac. But had I faced your dilemma, I would have ruled out SUPREMO on the basis that it’s a noun and the clue is defining an adjective.

54. [ For those not familiar with Edward Lear I suggest the Book of Nonsense which is filled with wonderful drawings and surprisingly clean Limericks. Here’s maybe the most famous:

    There was an Old Man with a beard,
    Who said, ‘It is just as I feared!
    Two Owls and a Hen,
    Four Larks and a Wren,
    Have all built their nests in my beard!’
    ]

55. Typical Anto – difficult but fair. All the more so because they didn’t stick the poor guy in the Quiptic spot for a change.
    I can’t even list all the answers I couldn’t get but they include the ones that Andrew described as NVCD. For me they went beyond cryptic into the realm of the nonsensical. But I enjoyed it just the same. I’m just happy to get some time to work on a puzzle again.

56. Why is 3D National Hospital Service? Not what Nye Bevan had in mind, I imagine.

57. Kaki @56. H for hospital is the MIDDLE letter of the abbreviation NHS.

58. Like many others I was unable to finish this – there were far too many clues that required being on the setter’s wavelength. I am surprised at the comment “typical Anto – difficult but fair”, having not experienced this level of difficulty from this setter before, and not being convinced of the fairness of some of the clues. With the required GK varying between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Eddie Wearing, it’s not surprising there have been mixed experiences.

59. Super workout for the brain. Too many ingenious and awesome clues to mention. NHS probably my favourite. Thank you Anto. And btw the first one of yours I’ve completed.
    (OK yes, a little bit of revealing enroute).
    And another btw: the annoying purple box is very small and therefore not a problem on the iPad.

60. Very late, but the “H” in the middle of NHS does not stand for hospital and never has. It stands for health.

61. John Davies, sheffield hatter @57 very clearly explains how to look at this clue.
    A clue that, in my opinion, is really poor because CENTRE would be equally valid as a solution (see baerchen @6, apparently the only one with this issue).
    There’s a lot more wrong with this crossword but as long as we’ll have solvers like Bruno @59 who genuinely thinks there were “too many ingenious and awesome clues to mention”, combined with the absence of a proper editor, I will be the odd one out.
    Which setter would use his own pseudonym as a solution (10ac, everyone seems to be OK with it today – no comments)?
    He could have used ‘into’, for example.
    Or is this what we call ‘witty’? I’d say, then do it in an Everyman way and use his ‘Primarily’ device.

62. John Davies @60 and The Kakistocrat @56:

    H can be an abbreviation for Hospital. In the clue, therefore, the middle of NHS, which is an H, can refer to hospital. I have no doubt at all that Anto knows what NHS stands for. It’s a cryptic clue so we should expect things not at face value.

63. OK except the rhyming scheme for a limerick is AABBA

64. And that is exactly what the blog says, Kleevay.

65. Well, I’m late coming to this puzzle, but I have to say I’m surprised by all the favorable comments. To me, with the exception of the excellent clue for 1dn, this was a return to Anto’s early days, and that’s not a compliment. The supposed cryptic definitions at 23ac and 24ac are very weak. I would have inlcuded 6dn (COLD CALLER) on this list, but I think that Gervase @22 is right about this clue — both that it is intended as a dd and that it doesn’t work as one.

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