Guardian 28,475 / Tramp

72 comments on “Guardian 28,475 / Tramp”

1. Nice puzzle – enjoyed the theme. Like Eileen I had never heard of PARAMECIA or SPOD. Thought 1ac etc was clever, and liked WELSHWOMAN. Many thanks to Tramp and Eileen.

2. A steady solve, with a couple of obvious long algorithms to get rolling – then a less obvious one (WELSHWOMAN) to keep up the momentum, until the LOI (SPOD) – ugh, new-to-me, I’m pleased to say. PARAMECIA was also new-to-me, but nicely embedded in the clue. Thanks Tramp, for an entertaining puzzle.

3. I agree with Eileen – overt themes in the clues are certainly a Tramp trademark and I did smile a lot at the cheeky allusions throughout. And very timely too. I found myself on his wavelength today and this was a fairly swift solve but none the worse for that. I loved WELSHWOMAN, GORBACHEV, BYPASS, DECIMAL POINT and STENTORIAN (my other half heartily detests The One Show on TV and will leap to change channels if ever it comes on – partly because she finds presenter Sian Lloyd deeply irritating. And so Sian came to my aid on that last one). COTD, for the surface, has to be COME OFF IT.

   I was pleased to be able to work out PARAMECIA from the instructions but frustrated to find that my LOI – a bunged in SPAD – was incorrect. I put P into SAD which might have possibly indicated either horrible person or nerd and Dominic Cummings was a SPAD and might be either a horrible person or a nerd or both. SPOD is a nho so this was, by one letter, a DNF!

   Thanks Tramp and Eileen

4. Yes it was no mean feat Eileen indeed. A superb finish to the week with an obvious Princess Diana theme, including AIDS, EPIDEMIC, TORCHBEARER, BEACON, HYPER, MANIC DEPRESSIVES, HANDS ON and others I’m sure. I thought COME OFF IT was funny with different interpretations possible from the word play. Nho of PARAMECIA or SPOD but the clue were very fair. Also smiled at WELSHWOMAN after we had IRISHWOMAN quite recently. Top stuff

   Ta Tramp & Eileen

5. This fell into place very nicely apart from being held up at the very last by SPOD (not a word I shall be introducing to my vocabulary any time soon) and finally JOINTS. Without trying to be a spoiler, no clues like yesterday’s to put me in a crabby mood. PARAMECIA a nostalgic early Biology memory, along with the Amoeba. Many thanks Tramp and Eileen…

6. [PM @3: I think you’re getting your points, places and capes all mixed up] 🙂

7. Could it be that the definition for 10ac is just “basic life form” (the “a” being part of the wordplay and supplying the last letter)? That way the use of the plural can just about be OK?

8. What Lucky Eileen said in her introduction

   Thanks to her and especially to Tramp

9. I can’t have been the only one who tried to fit MOUNTBATTEN into 14a (?). Very clever misdirection, especially with the possible equivalence of ‘put up’ = MOUNT.

   A lot of poignancy here, with HANDS-ON perhaps an intentional (and touching) allusion to Diana’s approach to 21a patients.

   One thing that may be worth clarifying – BRITISH STANDARD TIME (not British Summer Time) was an experiment from 1968-71, with Britain remaining on GMT +1 all year, hence ‘Did watch show this once?’ Ingenious clue.

   Thanks Tramp and Eileen.

10. An entertaining crossword. Once I twigged what the “did watch show…? ” part of 1ac etc. it really made me smile, cleverly done!

    Thanks to Tramp. (Eileen, here’s a typo of a bracket in ‘or’ in 5ac, and I think you need to remove the underline of ‘a’ in 10ac PARAMECIA, as it’s part of the wordplay. Thank you for the great blog, as always)

11. Great one from Tramp, which I found less taxing than usual.

    Too many good clues to mention. I had some trouble with BST because I was solving on my iPhone. Highlighting 1ac showed that 6d and 8d were linked, but it gives as the clue: 1 across Broadcast did test… Therefore I spent a long time trying to find a solution for the words in the order 1ac, 6d, 8d (6d had to be TIME).

    SPOD was new to me, but I’m familiar with the ‘slipper animalcules’ at 10ac. However I was slightly niggled by the plural PARAMECIA clued as the singular ‘a basic life form’.

    Thanks Eileen and Neil

12. TerriBlislow @7: I saw it that way too and I think that’s how Eileen parsed it but the ‘a’ shouldn’t be underlined as part of the definition.

    AlanC @6: good point!

13. [pm@3 Sian Lloyd is an ITV weather presenter- Alex Jones is the WELSHWOMAN on the One Show]

14. TerriB @7, Conrad @11: You’re quite right that the ‘a’ is part of the charade. Still don’t like ‘basic life form’ as the def for a plural.

15. Me @10, sorry I meant 5dn for the typo

16. [I can remember BRITISH STANDARD TIME in the late 60’s – no fiddling with clocks and watches twice a year – can’t remember why it was ditched]

17. Great stuff, agree with above praises.
    [Eileen should your second ) in the parsing for 5d be a o for or?]

18. TerriBlislow @7 – as PostMark @12 says – that is how I parsed it – then carelessly underlined ‘a’. I’ll fix that now and 5ac (thanks, Conrad @10).

19. I meant 5dn!

20. Eileen @19 – Haha it’s catching!

21. After a difficult week it was lovely to finish one in a single session. Thanks Tramp and Eileen.
    Spod was not new to me perhaps having 2 teenagers helps. For some reason it’s more often heard as an adjective, he’s ( and it’s usually a he) really spody!

22. Yes, Conrad, I was quoting you!
    Sorry, SinCam @17 – I crossed with you.

23. [Shirl @13: shows how much attention I pay! Thanks for the correction, though: good job the theme wasn’t TV presenters 😀 ]

24. I’m surprised at how many people didn’t know SPOD but then I work in IT which may help 🙂 The archetypal SPOD is probably Mr Logic from Viz although some may favour Roger Irrelevant

    The WELSHWOMAN / SIAN link reminded me of a recent clue that did something similar with Irishwoman and Clare. If I only had a memory …

25. [Shirl @16: The experiment was ditched after a free vote in the Commons in 1970 (366 votes to 81). There was a great deal of opposition from Scotland, where it meant children going to school in the dark in winter. Although there was a decrease in accidents overall, the increase in injuries to schoolchildren weighed more heavily on many people’s minds.]

26. [As an aside, does anyone know if it’s possible to export/extract somehow the crossword data from the Guardian app? As a total geek (but not a spod!) I’d love to analyse my solve times by setter etc.]

27. bodycheetah @24 – just nine days ago, see here

28. SPOD was relatively common when I was at university in the early 80s, though not among my own friends. I have only very rarely heard it used since though and am surprised to see it in a crossword. Currently on holiday so can’t look at Chambers, but I always thought of it as slightly niche slang. Anyway, no issues solving that one for me ?

29. Me @28: that was supposed to be a smiley but it somehow got converted!

30. [essexboy@25 – you would have thought that an increase in accidents in the darker mornings would be balanced by a decrease in the lighter evenings. I seem to remember the Daily Rail running a campaign against Standard time. I don’t understand the farmers’ argument – surely you get up when the animals need you, regardless of what the clock says]

31. Essexboy@9 Thanks for the explanation of BST. I was hitch-hiking through various parts of the world at that time, so I missed this completely.

    Thanks to Eileen and Tramp, too

32. Thanks Tramp and Eileen. I liked this one. Thought HITCH at 23d was clever. Echoing Eileen and others,
    I needed crossers for the unknown variation on paramecium,10a PARAMECIA, and the unfamiliar 12a SPOD. Not that I was all that interested, but the brouhaha over the Princess Di interview did feature in the Australian media, and I spotted the references in the clues after I had read the Martin Bashir bit in the fodder for 1a. (Just for a moment though, I did wonder if Martin Bashir was a cricketer!)

33. Thanks Eileen, STENTORIAN was my last from def alone (thanks to a limerick on ISIHAC) and I had no idea what was going on otherwise, also somehow missed the ACHE in Gorby (had A for “A(t) the start” and wondered how CHE meant hurt!). I am determined not to let the quibble over singular/plural life form definition ruin my enjoyment of the construction.
    Delighted to see SPOD, a common but generally affectionate insult directed at the more stereotypical fellow STEM undergrads ( often a pot/kettle case), but long forgotten by me. I wonder if it derives from some warped diminutive of Trainspotter and such?
    Very enjoyable and educational too (essexboy I did look up this BST as I had assumed it was just the same as GMT, thanks for the extra details ) – thanks Tramp.

34. Thanks, Tramp and Eileen – an exemplary cryptic crossword and an exemplary blog to go with it.

    It took me a while to get there, but I was pleased to be able to both solve and parse the whole thing today, with one small exception, which is entirely down to needing new reading glasses – STENTORIAN was my LOI, and I just couldn’t fathom why SIAN = SPOD… in the end, I just whacked it in and hoped I would find enlightenment here. Kicking myself now.

    Like others, I didn’t know PARAMECIA but was able to get it from the clue. I did know SPOD, though.

    Had a slight moment of doubt over MANIC DEPRESSIVES, seeing that it put a V at the end of 5dn, but GORBACHEV came easily, so that was resolved quickly.

35. That was fun and after a somewhat beer-filled evening listening to Bartok in a car park in Peckham (never, ever put me down as ‘normal’) took a little longer than usual with a few DNKs but so wonderfully clued that most fell in with a few crossers.

    [bodycheetah @24: I know I’ve said this before, but are you SURE I don’t know you in ‘real’ life! Viz was required reading in NatWest IT Network Services in original paper form. Mr Logic was not only a fav but probably perfectly described 90% of the people who worked there… The guy who sat opposite me had a life-size ‘Clag-Gone’ poster on the wall behind him. Ah – how I miss the days-before-Zoom. SPOD was therefore a known known and makes an appearance in Roger’s Profanisaurus…]

    Thanks Eileen and Tramp!

36. Thanks Tramp and Eileen

    Re the singular/plural debate on 10, “Humans are a life form” is a perfectly acceptable sentence.

37. Thanks, Simon S. I’ve been meaning to say that I couldn’t see any problem with it.

38. New: SPOD, PARAMECIA (did not parse, just guessed it from crossers and looked in dictionary).
    Did not parse TORCHBEARER, STENTORIAN.
    Thanks, Eileen & Tramp.

39. Simon S @36/Eileen @37 – agreed, it’s fine

40. Enjoyable crossword with good references to the Bashir fiasco.

    I didn’t have any trouble with PARAMECIA. I wasn’t particularly concerned by the use of MANIC DEPRESSIVES as it’s only a crossword, but the following from the ODE may be of interest to some and expands on what Eileen said above:
    usage: The term manic depression is now felt to have negative connotations, and is being replaced by less loaded terms such as bipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder. People with the condition can be referred to simply as bipolar, or as having bipolar disorder.

    I liked PARAMECIA, TORCHBEARER and BST.

    Thanks Tramp and Eileen.

41. First-rate puzzle from Tramp. Easier than most of his, but none the worse for that. I particularly appreciated the clever construction and topical nature of several clues.

    Thanks also to Eileen for the blog. I needed her help with the parsing of STENTORIAN.

42. Very enjoyable. Not heard of PARAMECIA, but the wordplay was both inventive and fair. SPOD is a bit old-fashioned, but somehow I’d heard it.

    MANIC DEPRESSIVES is fine, I think. Not a term you’d expect to hear a lot today, but not insulting or cruel.

    11A was LOI, and a slightly tricky parse.

    Many thanks Tramp and Eileen.

43. [Having had the trauma of someone close suddenly becoming bipolar at an advanced age, I’d say “manic depressive” is horribly accurate. Weeks of wild, out of character behaviour followed by months of severe depression.]

44. Excellent puzzle from Tramp, and well blogged by Eileen stepping up from the substitutes’ bench. I wonder if the whole Bashir/Di theme came from anagramising BRITISH STANDARD TIME, revealing the dodgy interviewer’s name? I held myself up for a while trying to make KHRUSCHEV work, but of course it was never going to match the crossers, and anyway it was KHRUShCHEV. Favourite for me was EPIDEMIC – a simple device, but one that I guess Tramp had spotted some time ago and found the chance to use it here.

45. No prob re paramecia plural, as per Simon S and Eileen @36, 37. [Which is just by way of intro to saying that I love unicellular organisms like paramecia and amoebe. I used to say to students ‘Without a single neuron, let alone a brain, they hunt when they’re hungry … how? A verifiable algorithm for this will put you in Nobel contention’]

46. Glad that the task fell to you.Eileen-it was a delightful puzzle. I lest the long one to start with -the chap’s name had slipped my memory but a more skilled solver would’ve probably twigged it immediately.
    That was OK as it lasted a bit longer
    (Thanks Simon S for correcting a whinger on the Graun thread)
    What slowed me down at the end was the combination of ESCAPERS(great mis direction) and the new word for me-SPOD but once the former was settled this was easy to guess-“horrible person” for me seemed like RAT so that was the last bit done
    Thanks Tramp for a classy puzzle and thanks again Eileen

47. I didn’t care for the theme of this one- but seems to be just me.

48. Thanks Tramp and Eileen. Very enjoyable puzzle and delighted to discover SPOD, a word which should definitely exist!

49. I like that Tramp’s crosswords often have a contemporary flavour to them so I admired this one, especially as it was worked in whilst keeping the flow of the puzzle.
    Like many SPOD was unknown (along with PARAMECIA) and my loi. And like SH@44 I got to GORABCHEV via KHRUSHCHEV from a recent puzzle. Thanks to Tramp and Eileen.

50. A really great, inventive and fun end to the week. Some genuine laugh out loud moments. Apart from the many mentioned already, I thought 22ac “Mostly note how he cheated:left to break up” was brilliant and my COTD.

    LOI was AIDS – so on-theme but I kept trying to force AIDE in.

    Thanks muchly to Tramp and Eileen

51. Having been a microbiologist in an earlier life, I would automatically have spelt the organism at 10 as Paramoecium (or more accurately as Paramœcium with an oe ligature, but that may not display correctly for all). Interesting that neither of the dictionaries I have gives that spelling at all, though it can be found online.

52. This was an enjoyable puzzle, though half of the theme escaped me. Thanks Tramp and as ever Eileen (thanks for stepping in!).

    The Bashir interview was probably accessible in the US at the time, but it passed me right by, so I knew that the clues referred to Lady Diana but not the rest of it. Besides, “Princess” is always DI in crosswordland. That got me to ID blank-blank for 2 down, and I wasted a lot of time trying to find a word like “Ideogram” meaning “written character.”

    Never heard of Barry, which is probably why Tramp didn’t put Cardiff.

    How does JOTS = scraps? And should we include tittles?

    Eileen, thanks for rescuing my little brain from struggling with DOOM. I was trying to make something connected with making love out of DOO — billy-doo? bill and coo? Didn’t even have to lift, just separate — duhhh …

    1a I read as “did watch this show once,” must be the old dyslexia kicking in. Tried to think of something about one-time broadcasts …”

53. Hi Valentine @52

    Collins – ‘jot: a little bit’ (= scrap)
    Chambers: ‘jot: Latin iota (read as jota) from iota, the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet’

    As for ‘jot or tittle’ – from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable:
    ‘Jot or tittle: a tiny amount. The jot is i or iota and the tittle, from Mediaeval Latin titulus, ‘label’ is the mark or dot over the i.
    Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Matthew 5:18′.

    [For the record: I’m ‘standing in’ not because the scheduled blogger didn’t turn up but because he’s away and requested a replacement, so I wasn’t called up at the last minute.]

54. Awesome. Very different from most Fridays.
    My usual Friday is:=
    1. Stare at Paul puzzle for half an hour
    2. Get two answers
    3. Check the answers as they are usually wrong
    4. Give up
    5. Scratch my head as to why this aways happens
    6. Visit 225
    7. Get the answer to 5.
    Today I all but finished, except for 11a and 13a, both of which were new words, 11a not gettable from the wordplay, 13a I considered but dismissed.
    Quite a lot unparsed which I shall now check.
    Thanks both.

55. Thanks Tramp, the anagram for MANIC-DEPRESSIVES alone would have made this crossword memorable but there were many other great clues including TORCHBEARER, HANDS-ON, IDENTITIES, GORBACHEV, and BEACON (nice surface). Thanks Eileen for the blog.
    [Is it me or have the puzzles this week become easier as the week went on? I found Monday’s by Pan the hardest and Tramp’s (except for SPOD) being a relative breeze.]

56. Certainly a very clever puzzle. Like Barbara Williams @47 I wasn’t sure I was completely comfortable with the theme at first, but as I proceeded there was really nothing to offend IMO.

    Yes AlanC @4 – you and I both saw the slightly smuttier definition for COME OFF IT.

    Thanks to Tramp and Eileen.

57. Agreed – another great one from Tramp. I’m another who’d already had a snigger at Come Off It before working out the correct parsing. The fact that it’s much smarter and less smutty than I originally thought makes me feel like I’m being told to grow up (which amuses me even more – like that’s going to happen…). I’m sure it’s all part of the plan, and why I’m such a fan of this setter.

    Thanks S & B.

58. Many thanks Eileen for the super blog and kind words. Thanks also to others for the comments.

    The original clue for COME OFF IT was slightly more smutty: the first bit was “climax from sex?”

    Neil

59. Thanks for standing in for me today, Eileen. Coincidentally, this morning I walked (in driving rain) up to the highest point of Norfolk, BEACON Hill, which stands at a dizzying 103 metres above sea level.

60. My pleasure, Andrew – I bet you’re sorry you missed it. 😉

    I’ve done that mighty walk, too. (Our Leicestershire Beacon Hill is over twice as high – 248 metres!)

    I hope your weather improves!

61. Thanks, Eileen@53. I had a vague idea of the origin of jot, but not a tittle of the one for tittle. My other thought about them is that they’re like a horse and carriage, you can’t have one without the other. You hardly ever hear, “We had a jot today, the tittle was last Thursday.”

    Andrew@59 Why?

62. [Valentine @61 – because it’s there!]

63. Spod – that brings back happy memories of our cub pack walking the banks of River Spodden through Whitworth Valley down to the River Roach. The local name was The Spod.
    I won’t be using the word with its modern meaning.

64. I found this one a bit easier than yesterday’s and the long anagrams really helped. Still needed some help from the dictionaries etc and couldn’t parse a few.

    Especially liked GORBACHEV, PARAMECIA

    Had not heard of epidermic meaning on the skin although of course knew epidermis and at first wondered if it was a mistake.

    Thanks Tramp and Eileen

65. Like Fiery Jack @28 I only ever heard SPOD whenI was at uni in 1994/5. I had no idea it was a real word now!

66. [mb@35 if we don’t already know each other then perhaps we should. Which raises the tantalising prospect of a fifteen squared meetup once (if!) restrictions are lifted]

67. Thanks Eileen and Tramp. Enjoyed this very much -despite failing on 12a. I’ve never come across SPOD, so convinced myself it must be a reference to recent fallings-out in Downing St. The nasty person was SPAD, somehow compounded from nerd as a sad creature, around person. Ah, well . . .

68. MikeC @67. So much more inventive, reasonable and satisfying than the correct answer, but sadly still wrong.

    It will be no consolation to know that I initially toyed with POINTS for 19d, but despite being happy with a point being the ‘meeting place’ of two lines, I couldn’t quite convince myself that POTS could mean “not very much” as well as “a huge amount”.

69. Thanks Eileen for the blog of a fun puzzle from Tramp.
    [ I think I can just about recall British Standard Time as a period of journeys both to and from school in the freezing dark – something I would definitely have voted against given the chance.]

70. A rare finish for me. I have heard of SPODDY, meaning ‘geeky’, so the noun version wasn’t too much of a stretch. Sheffieldhatter @68 – glad I wasn’t the only one who wasted time on POINTS!
    Entertaining theme, thanks to Eileen and Tramp

71. In case you see this Tramp: One of the most impressive uses of a theme I have seen in 40 years and superb anagrams using it. I raise my cap to you.

72. Thank you

Comments are closed.