Guardian 28,464 / Crucible

74 comments on “Guardian 28,464 / Crucible”

1. Another good Saturday puzzle to enjoy. I liked the way the theme was peppered throughout the clues and answers without having to know much about the different sports.

   I liked NOVICE, which was my last in, best of all, and CHIP, AFICIONADO, IRISH and SKI JUMPING were other favourites.

   Thanks to Crucible and mhl.

2. Thanks to Crucible and mhl. I did not parse VICTOR, but I enjoyed NOVICE and PASSPORT.

3. We’re off to the races, so to speak, with this one. Ironically, NEWMARKET, with its double containment, took the longest to see. Altogether a nice workout, with no particularly specialized knowledge (it seems) required.

4. A DNF for me as I could not see NOVICE for love or money. Medal = MO? claims to possess = IVE? Student = L? I just could not put it all together to make a word (but those clues that leave you with only vowels as crossers leave so many possibilities…). Still, I enjoyed most of it. Thanks, Crucible and mhl.

5. Even though I cheated to get ANGLING and NOVICE and I couldn’t fully parse the clever VICTOR, I thoroughly enjoyed this crossword due to clues like CHIP, AFICIONADO, ULULATED, and ATHLETE. Thanks to both.

6. Thank you to Crucible for last Saturday’s puzzle which I liked a lot both in terms of the theme and the clues. Interesting to see several comments on NOVICE (22d) which took me ages to see – having been taught by nuns in my childhood meant the “NO VICE” play on the word made me smile. I had to look up Munro to get Saki to help with SKI-JUMPER (19a), as I was unfamiliar with that writer – I had gone off in pursuit of Bert Munro for a while (though no motorbikes were involved). Agree with many favourites already cited above. Thank you for the blog as well, mhl.

7. I found this puzzle to be the rarity of being both very easy and very enjoyable. Having solved the first four clues as the puzzle churned out of the puzzle, I groaned – but then quickly started chuckling at the ingenious nature of the clues. The hilarity lasted right until the last two (20D, 22D), which were both minor gems. Others enjoyed along the way included LEATHER and NEWMARKET.
   Thanks Crucible, you are now firmly established as my favorite for a quickie.

8. Whoops … that should read “out of the printer”

9. Nice relaxed trot through this, though didn’t click why centre meant back. And I played rugby at school and can still rattle off all the positions … dim! Agree with mhl, lots of succinct surfaces, thanks both.

10. Enjoyed this. Completed it last Saturday (which some help from aids) except for ANGLING which I didn’t get despite staring at it several times during the week until yesterday when suddenly it was obvious.

    Did not manage to parse SKI JUMPING. I did not remember that Saki’s name was Munro even though I love his short stories.

    Favourites were AFICIONADO, NEWMARKET, IRISH, TIME SIGNAL, FIGURE SKATING (which was FOI).

    Thanks to Crucible and mil

11. Oooops – I meant mhl (spell checker?)

12. Found some of the GK very baffling – such as Munro, Twickenham, Scottish singer (finally remembered there was a singer in the 1960s named Lulu). Possibly a good puzzle for the Brits but not for so-called “global Britain”, haha.

    Did not parse MEANS TEST = big game, or SKI JUMPER. SAKI = Munro – still do not get this and too lazy to google it/him/her.
    12ac Guessed CENTRE as it was an anagram but could not parse it. I know nothing about rugby obviously!
    New for me: CRAW = stomach of an animal.

    Favourite: PASSPORT.

13. All the Munros I could think of begin with the name Ben – so I failed to parse ski. Thanks Crucible and mhl.

14. Glad to see others had trouble with NOVICE. What TassieTim @4 said goes for me almost exactly. I finally fell back on Chambers word search and it was so obvious when I saw it in the results. Rats!. I thought it was a very neat clue. The rest was relatively easy, helped by some early anagrams, and all good fun – I got ANGLING from the crossers, but couldn’t parse it.
    Thanks Crucible and mhl.

15. Thanks for the blog. I suppose NOVICE was quite nice and did actually take more than five seconds. I think six letters with just three vowels can be a bit tricky , consonants make things easier. As for the rest, best I say nothing except shame on you Guardian.

16. I could not see NOVICE as I had the wrong definition, I see it now, very clever.
    Excellent prize….

17. @Roz 15 – What was wrong with the rest?

18. Small typo in the blog, mhl, for 9d. Should be FIGURE SKATING and reads FIGURE STAKING. Might be a sport in Transylvania – maybe we should ask Vlad?

19. […and, as if by magic, I open today’s Prize and there he is…]

20. There’s a small typo at 9dn: it should be FIGURE SKATING, not staking.

    I thought the SAKI reference was a bit obscure in what was otherwise a very accessible puzzle.

    Thanks to both.

21. Also in 18d its eastern not easter.
    I failed on 25d which I thought was CHARM (close of stomach + arm as in ” the RN is the navel arm of the forces”) Do youcharm someoe by stroking them?

22. Most of this crossword was more straightforward than your average prize but as mhl says in the blog, that does not have to be a cause for complaint (or even more extreme reaction than Roz@15 whose comments just come across as arrogant and unnecessarily rude imho).

    My experience was similar to many here with NOVICE coming to me in a flash of inspiration

    [where I pictured the much missed Caroline Aherne in her alter ego as
    ]

    and as many others here, SAKI was new to me in SKI JUMPER, thanks to mhl for that parsing and the rest of the blog.

    I’ll say Thanks to Crucible for what I thought was an enjoyable solve with the use of a theme that was elegant and subtle.

24. trying to post a link,apologies for the lack of experience causing empty post

    https://youtu.be/f-qh5w6ZYL8

25. [and again (after it worked). I hope at least one person clicks on my link to Caroline Aherne’s character ?]

26. .@2 – that’s the most succinct handle I’vs ever seen. Brian van Philp@21 – I never have. Ed the Ball@25 – thanks for that and your persistence. An enjoyable puzzle with excellent surfaces. No shame in that. Thanks both.

27. It was a fun puzzle, and I’m with those who had to look up Munro to parse the ski jumper – and then was irritated as I love the Saki short stories – Tobermory is worth finding if anyone wants an introduction and should have remembered Hector Hugh or HH Munro is the proper name of Saki.

28. Many thanks Crucible and mhl. Had welcome help this week. All good except my mangled parsing of ANGLING = (GNARLING – R)* with ruining working overtime.

29. Totally agree with mhl, a Crucible puzzle is always very welcome. I had to go and educate myself on SAKI=’Munro’, but other than that the sports theme was right up my (bowling) alley and I enjoyed it very much. ULULATED and JAVELIN were great.

30. Re NOVICE: I was also almost a DNF, but when I clicked on this blog I looked down at my printed version of the puzzle and saw I hadn’t done 22d; but NOVICE immediately jumped into my head.

    Liked ANGLING, PENTAGRAM and NOVICE.

    Roz @15 – It seems you’re simply too good at crossword puzzles. Try doing the Genius standing on your head with both arms tied behind your back?

31. Crucible always seems to receive praise for smooth surfaces, but I found ‘Wool supplier hiding blemish books clothing course’ very clunky – perhaps not helped by the sentence, if such it is, being split in the newspaper version between ‘blemish’ and ‘books’, and even if we accept that ‘books’ functions as a verb in the surface, what on earth is a ‘clothing course’?

    Failed on NOVICE like several others. I found this a rather old fashioned puzzle, with dated references to Saki and Lulu making it also rather UK centred. As Michelle says @12: “global Britain”, haha. Also I found it a little short on smiles – best was FIGURE STAKING.

    What? A typo?

32. Thanks for the fun puzzle and excellent blog, Crucible and mhl.

    Ed The Ball @22, re Roz@15, I sometimes think that there are two Roz’s. Occasionally she makes a comment like this that is gratuitously insulting to the Guardian setters, and by extension to those of us who enjoy their work, while most of the time her comments are friendly, informative and interesting. I’ll happily treat the former as a small price to pay for the valuable contribution to the blog of the latter.

33. A certain sense of deja-vu at 13A …

    Everyman on March 21, blogged by PeterO on March 28: “Hour of anticipation: Glaswegian singer to turn up and screech (7)”

34. Thanks for the link, Shanne@27, glad that you were more successful in your link posting than I was earlier too. I enjoyed that little diversion and it will help me to remember HH Munro = Saki for future reference. A life taken too young.

    Cellomaniac@32 and drofle@30, I am sure you are both right about Roz: indeed Roz has been polite and helpful in response to me in the past. In my view, though, flaunting how good you are or how quickly you solve is not necessary and off-putting for new solvers and discourteous to people who are only doing their jobs and “shame on the Guardian” is an extreme point of view. Not everyone can be brilliant and quick at solving.

35. I think the setter has enough postive feedback but I must add my haporth and add to the applause
    Thanks DA once again.

36. Once again, I put my copy of the paper into the recycling bag by accident, so I have nothing specific to add. I’ll go along with copmus @35.

37. Always dispiriting to read “fairly easy for a prize crossword” when I had failed to complete more than about 3/5 of it.
    Thanks, mhl, for the parsing of ANGLING and SKI JUMPER – I had guessed them but couldn’t parse them.

38. Not much more to add, but I enjoyed it, especially PASSPORT, JAVELIN and NOVICE.

    Thanks Crucible and mhl.

39. mhl – just a clarification regarding the International Phonetic Alphabet. The IPA and the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet (also known as the NATO alphabet) are two quite different things. Uniform, Victor and Yankee belong to the latter (which, despite often being called a ‘phonetic alphabet’, actually has nothing to do with phonetics!)

    I wasn’t quite as enamoured of this as most contributors above. ‘Dithered’ in 9d makes no sense to me as an anagram indicator, and how is ‘figuring’ the same as ‘depicting’? (that said, I expect it’s in Chambers 😉 )

    And, notwithstanding all the praise heaped upon NOVICE, I don’t think it works, mainly because it isn’t true. In my experience, young and idealistic religious believers – which is what novice nuns tend to be – are acutely, even obsessively, conscious of things in their lives which, rightly or wrongly, they perceive as sinful. I can’t imagine a novice ever claiming to possess ‘no vice’; ‘Order student what she’d like to have’ would work better.

    For those interested, have a look at this piece on The Humanist website written by an ex-nun – particularly the bits on ‘Discipline’ and the ‘Chapter of Faults’.

    [Out of consideration for sheffield hatter, I’ll refrain from posting any more links to singing nuns.]

    Thanks Crucible, I did like PASSPORT, and enjoyed mhl’s link to the Bishop of Norwich.

40. eb @ 39

    ‘Dithering’ is a process in audio processing which is used when digital recordings are changed from one sample rate and bit depth to another, ie changing things around, so seems a reasonable anagrind.

41. Thanks, Simon S, should have checked before I posted! I’ve now also found a ref to Sons and Lovers, where it means ‘shaking with cold’.

42. As a still very indifferent solver I enjoyed this. A query rather than a quibble; in 4d does it matter that the grammar only works for the surface and not the wordplay, which would need “couple enters” rather than “couple enter”?

43. essexboy @39: “And, notwithstanding all the praise heaped upon NOVICE, I don’t think it works, mainly because it isn’t true. In my experience, young and idealistic religious believers – which is what novice nuns tend to be – are acutely, even obsessively, conscious of things in their lives which, rightly or wrongly, they perceive as sinful.”
    Absolutionly! Even as a west of Scotland Protestant by upbringing, this immediately struck me as just plain wrong. I am glad that someone else brought it up, as I felt that my background perhaps rather disqualified me from commenting, although I did subsequently marry a Catholic…

44. bit late to the party here, and for the most part just going to to agree with the favourable overall reaction above. I counted 18 sporting terms, none requiring specialised knowledge and none specific to football or cricket.

    My LOI was, as for many NOVICE. I’m in agreement with essexboy @39 about this — I have a ‘?’ Beside it,

    1) for the reason essexboy cites, a young religious isn’t expected to have no vice, rather to aspire towards it.
    2) also I don’t think a novice need be female, could equally well be male.

    On the other hand, it is a neat joke, and of course continues the sporting team (a novice handicap — a horse race limited to horses who haven’t won yet).

    Thanks to Crucible for the sport and to mhl for explaining it all.

45. Thanks for parsing NEWMARKET, mhl. You’d think as a Dick Francis AFICIONADO I would have caught on.

    mhl — small typo in the clue for REPOT — you said “workers to,” need “workers do.”

    Epee Sharkey @44 Your statement #2 is quite right, of course, novices come in both sexes. But would you have made it if the novice in the clue were “he”? I’m thinking of Arachne’s lesson to us in using “she” in clues where there is no particular reason to use either pronoun, just (I assume) to add an ounce of counterweight to the millions of instances where it’s “he.”

    Thanks to Crucible and mahehi.

46. Ohhh *that’s* how CHIP parses. I thought “C” was the approach to “crisp,” and “hip” was green somehow (perhaps because of the plant, although that’s not green), and then CHIP was an example of an American, and I was going to be cranky that we’re not all named Chip. But “American’s crisp” is fair.

    I did not entirely vibe with the puzzle here, mostly because of the across clues with more than half the letters uncrossed; I had to look up OUTPLAY and then smacked my forehead. Earlier I had looked up NOVICE and did not smack my forehead.

    Thanks crucible and mhl!

47. Hi Valentine,

    My main issue with NOVICE was the assumption that ‘no vice’ was a precondition for being a noviciate.

    I definitely agree with using ‘she’ where there is a choice between ‘he’ or ‘she’ for the reason stated. Thinking about it some more, I’ll withdraw my second quibble with the clue. Even though it means that our hypothetical (female) noviciate is being made a gentle figure of fun with her outlandish claim of ‘no vice[s]’ – I guess true equality is taking the rough with the smooth.

48. essexboy @39 and others critical of the clueing for NOVICE — The question mark at the end of the clue indicates two things to me: (1) there’s wordplay afoot (in this case, NOVICE/NO VICE), and (2) the setter’s suggestion that the novice “claims to possess” no vice may be dubious or even outright false. So, I think the clue is acceptable.

49. Good fun for a follower of various sports and I was chuffed to get NOVICE and NEWMARKET. I thought CHIP and CENTRE were neat.

    Ta Crucible and mhl

50. We don’t often see Crucible setting the Prize and I wasn’t sure what to expect but thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle. I have come across Saki, aka H.H.Munro a few times doing the TLS crossword, but still had to look it up. Thanks to Shanne @27 for the link — enjoyed reading it as I don’t think I’ve read any Saki before.

    NOVICE was LOI twice, as I got it when solving on my phone but had forgotten the answer by the time I came to fill in the grid on my PC (where it’s handier as reference when reading this blog). I think I had to resort to Chambers’ Word Wizard both times!

    Brian Val Philp@21, the RN is the naval (not navel) arm of the forces.

    Ed the Ball @22-25 Thanks for the link. Most amusing.

    Petert@42 – you’re right that the wordplay needs ‘enters’ (or ‘entering’), but strictly, so does the surface (‘couple’ is a singular noun), so one wonders why Crucible went for “enter”?

    Re ‘dither’, there seems to be some suggestion of agitation and excitement in American usages of this word according to the entries in Collins online. I must admit I wasn’t actually aware of these meanings when solving and that after making such a fuss about “ripe” last week, I didn’t even notice this.

    I agree this puzzle represents no shame at all for the Guardian, even if it was easier than Roz would have wished.

51. [essexboy @39 out of consideration for sheffield hatter, I’ll refrain from posting any more links to singing nuns. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me (this week).] I thought ‘dithered’ was good, and pleased to see it supported by Simon S and accepted by you, essexboy; Tony @50 – I think ‘dithered’ has a bit of a shaky feel to it, regardless of the way it may be used on either side of the Atlantic. One can imagine someone dithering over SKATING or STAKING, for example. 🙂

    petert @42. Both the surface and the wordplay required ‘enters’, as Tony has pointed out @50. I think it’s quite common for nouns indicating more than one person to be given plural forms of the verb, despite it being grammatically dubious (not just in crosswords, I mean). But you (and Tony) are right that ‘couple’=MATE=(entity involved in wordplay)=> ‘enters’ not ‘enter’. Or (he dithered) have I confused myself?

    [Epee Sharkey @44. This doesn’t invalidate the point you were making, but a novice race is for horses that have not won at the start of the current season – they can continue in novice races but carry a penalty for each win. A race for horses that have not won at all is called a maiden.]

52. SHeffield Hatter @51, thanks for the insight on horse races, always good to learn something new!

53. Michelle@2 Unlike Roz, I have no wish to appear rude, but I must say find your glorying in your own ignorance somewhat baffling. We all have our blank spots, obviously, and although that’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s hardly something to be proud of either. Quite a lot of non-Brits HAVE heard of Saki, for example. (Although I had forgotten, admittedly.) And regardless of your attitude to sport I’m surprised you could go through life as an anglophone never having heard of of Twickenham and its significance or of the term ‘test match’. Anyway, now you do know them and this knowledge may help with solving more clues in the future, so that’s something to be pleased about, isn’t it?

54. My rudeness and annoyance is entirely directed towards the Guardian and the crossword editor.
    The Guardian is my newspaper, I buy it every day and have done the crossword every day since 1995.
    It has a long and noble tradition of difficult Saturday crosswords, sometimes taking all day, all weekend even all week. It also has a long term policy of two hard, two medium and two easy crosswords each week.
    Both of these traditions have been completely abandoned, I never thought I would see the day when I preferred the FT crossword on most days.
    This is a decent crossword , well set but it is a suitable for a Monday not a Saturday.

55. Roz @54 and your gripe really merited the comment “shame on you Guardian”??

56. As I wrote, for many months they have completely abandoned two long standing traditions.

57. Roz – It’s true that nowadays Mondays are no longer always a doddle, and Saturdays are sometimes quite easy, but I don’t see that as shameful – just different.

    Nevertheless it would be interesting if the crossword editor would comment on this.

58. Drofle@57 first of all congratulations on your crystal ball, I rarely comment on the Guardian crossword these days because I seem to be in a minority of 1. Just tell me genuinely when you last found a Guardian crossword seriously hard, i.e. it took you more than one day.

59. Roz @58 – They usually take me 1-2 hours, but never more than a day (although I’ve very occasionally passed on one clue). But you’re at the very top end of solving ability, so it’s not surprising that you find them too easy. As I suggested, why not try the Genius or other intentionally tough ones? I don’t think The Guardian is going to satisfy you, but as you know from other comments it’s impossible to please everyone.

    Re my crystal ball – yes, that was quite amusing.

60. The Guardian DID have hard crosswords even quite recently. Vlad and Philistine used to be much trickier.
    How many times now do you read – I thought this would be tricky being Vlad but found it not too bad – or words to that effect. The Genius and others are not in the paper, I will not touch the Listener because of Rupert Murdoch . Nobody , however experienced as a solver , should finish a Guardian Saturday in less then ten minutes, ever.

61. Roz – Aha! I’ve remembered that, unlike a lot us, you don’t source the puzzles online. I haven’t bought the paper Guardian for years (my wife used to object to my being buried behind it at breakfast). I’m an online ‘member’ and print out the puzzles; and if I want more I can search their archives for ancient Bunthornes etc.

    Trouble is that you’re probably in a small minority nowadays. But why not raise the issue in the General Discussion?

62. Paper and pen only for me. I have a friend who passes on the FT crossword most days.
    See if you can find the Bunthorne with a Cote du Rhone Villages theme, that was definitely a whole week.
    I will just refrain from general comments on the crossword again, I may comment on various topics that arise or occasional clue analysis. Got to go now, I need to time my Azed solve.

63. I see your points about policy Roz@54 , and agree with drofle@57 that it would be interesting if the crossword editor would comment on the policy.

    It might be worth remembering that solving the crossword daily for 25 years gives you a great advantage over other solvers and I suspect – from all you have said – that you started from a higher point than most of us. Perhaps Vlad and Philistine’s crosswords are easier because of that experience, I know that in the last year or so they have got easier for me.

    One of the things that I have always liked about 15^2 is that generally people don’t cite their solving times here and stress how easy it was every time: this is quite off-putting for those of us who don’t always solve all of every crossword every day and who often come here to improve our solving ability by checking the unparsed or unsolved clues.

    As an unintended byproduct of “shaming The Guardian”, you are perhaps putting off those visitors here (perhaps a silent majority) who solve more slowly and are less experienced and able.

64. I see your points about Guradian policy, Roz@54 and agree with drofle@57 that it would be nice if the Guardian Crossword editor would comment on this.

    Crossword difficulty is of course subjective and relative to experience and it might be worth remembering that solving the crossword daily for 25 years and counting counts for a lot of the latter. From the comments that you have made I suspect that you started from a higher point than many. I am sure that there are lots of people around who would be proud to finish a crossword in a day. I find Vlad and Philistine’s crosswords easier than I did twelve months ago and I am sure that is down to experience.

    One of the things that I like about fifteensquared is that most contributors don’t often cite their solving times or say too much about how easy it was. This kind of contribution I would imagine is quite off-putting, particularly for new solvers.

65. Sorry if this is an outdated question but I haven’t done a crossword in a while but when did the Saturday one stopped being a Prize one ?

66. I think there may be others like me who don’t judge a puzzle so much by its difficulty but by the cleverness and wit (not obscurity) of the wordplay and surfaces. I’ve been doing the Manchester Guardian and Guardian, pen and paper, daily for twice as long as Roz but it was only about 3 years ago when I was introduced to this site that I realised that there was a “hardness” policy. Of course, it hadn’t passed me by that Saturday’s were more difficult because there was a competition and that Monday’s were easier (or occasionally impossible) as a result of the regular setter’s style. Hardness is to some extent an individual matter anyway as we appear to find different types of clue more or less difficult and some puzzles are easy but for one clue and others hard work but eventually yield. For what it’s worth, though Saturdays as a rule have been getting easier since they ceased to be Prize, I haven’t noticed that applying to any other days. I certainly couldn’t support Roz’s statement even if it is supported by an analysis of her individual time-sheets.
    As many of the posts on this site are hardness related this does mean that there are quite a lot that skip.

67. Sugarbutties: the Saturday crossword and the Everyman are still officially Prizes, subject to all the rules and constraints that go with a Prize (no helpful buttons, no answers for a week and no discussion) – except that ever since Covid began the Guardian has excused itself from actually accepting entries or handing out prizes. Why? Shortage of staff, possibly, or the risk of exposing said staff to Covid-y contamination via the mail? Anyway, that’s how things stand.

    Very late to the party, but I’d like to add my voice to those saying that NO VICE is not a necessity for a novice, and indeed a religious novice claiming to possess NO VICE might be looked on with some suspicion.

68. The point I’m making is that this is the first Saturday puzzle in the actual newspaper version at least that I am aware of that does not describe itself as a Prize one or mention that due to Covid they are not accepting entries. It looks like they have scrapped the concept completely

69. Sorry. I’m an online subscriber, where all the individual “prize” crosswords are grouped under a general heading dating from last March that says no entries, no prizes. I hadn’t realised that they had stopped saying this on paper. Maybe they have indeed given up.

70. Roz @54, if you’ve got a gripe against the editor’s policies, why don’t you write to him about it instead of slagging him off in a public forum behind his back? He doesn’t have to read 15² and quite likely doesn’t. His name is High Stephenson and you can email him at guardian.crosswords@guardian.co.uk

71. SH@51, I only knew dithering as meaning being hesitant and indecisive. I was interested to read of the technical sense in sound recording as mentioned by Simon S @40. I wouldn’t have imagined anyone “dithering” over SKATING and STAKING, although I can easily imagine writing one in error for the other.

    Paul often seems to use unindicated Americanisms, so if that’s really what this is, Crucible is in good company.

72. Oops! Roz@54 & me@70:

    His name is Hugh Stephenson

73. Tony@70, I have written to the Guardian on several occasions with specific examples and I have never received a single acknowledgement.

74. Late as always, but just to say I counted 20 sporting elements in the solutions, including RE-POT (something a snooker AFICIONADO would do, possibly at the Crucible appropriately enough), and PAS-SPORT. So this may not have been the hardest, but the theme made it fun.

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