Guardian 28,477 – Vulcan

75 comments on “Guardian 28,477 – Vulcan”

1. Can’t see the blog!

2. Sorry Auriga, I hit the “publish” button too soon – should be there now.

3. Definitely on the easy side for me, except for the inordinate length of time it took to see BACKBONE (I was fixated on the end being POLE). 1d is, as you say, Andrew, a homophone of ‘beater’, even to us Aussies (which apparently makes us non-normal rest of the worlders, according to a recent comment on the Everyman blog) 😉 Thanks, Vulcan and Andrew.

4. Nice puzzle.
   I failed to solve FURLOUGH, HOPE + MESH

5. Got that BETA-vu feeling all over again this morning. As Tassie Tim hints at, we were reminded on yesterday’s Everyman blog (@19 onwards) that our friends across the pond say bait-a, not beet-a, and that’s before we even get started on non-rhoticity. I’m usually in favour of allowing some leeway when it comes to homophones, but a double whammy is a bit unfortunate.

   I finally put MESH for 15a because I couldn’t think of anything better, but I don’t like it. (Actually it’s not quite true to say I couldn’t think of anything better – my first idea was Austin Powers’ reaction on getting hitched to the delightful Vanessa – YEAH baby!)

   I did like FEIGNED and the RED ROSE.

   Today’s earworm, with apologies: I’m a lonely little PETUNIA in an onion patch.

   Thanks V & A

6. Definitely a Monday puzzle but thats what I need to start the week. Like essexboy@6, mesh was the only thing I could think of but I expected to see something cleverer as the correct answer. Thanks Vulcan and Andrew.

7. Thanks Vulcan and Andrew
   I rather liked the anagram for BIG BEN, even though it’s not the clock!

8. Thanks, Andrew and Vulcan.

   The last two BACKBONE and HOPE I had to reveal, having spent ages on. Like TassieTim@3 I had thought it was POLE at the end of 4d, but the check button said no. Is HOPE DESIRE? I cannot really reconcile the two.

9. Dave Ellison @8
   I wondered about HOPE, but if you hope for something to happen, presumably you desire it to occur.

10. Some people say “if you can’t say anything good, then don’t say anything at all”, so I’ll keep quiet on this one 😉

11. Ah, normal service resumed. Thanks Andrew and Vulcan.

12. Found myself thinking ‘This is pretty smooth, in fact it actually has the feel of an accomplished setter’ so I think Mr Browne is finding his Monday groove. I’ve always said alpha, ‘beeta’ etc, so no prob there. Agree, TassieTim@3, stared for ages at the crossers for loi backbone. So, easy but enjoyable, thanks V and A.

13. Gentle start to the week liking BIG BEN, BLACK HOLE, ARTWORK and BACKBONE. MESH was meh.

    Ta Vulcan & Andrew

14. SPAs (Single Page Apps) are all the rage on the web these days – I’ve even written a few myself – so APPOSITE gets a pass from me. MESH on the other hand just seems so lazy – personally I’d prefer to couple with my french horse 🙂

15. Slower than it should have been but possibly something to do with the garden being full of very noisy magpies at 4am (other than the usual ‘stick some old CDs up in the trees’ routine, has anyone got an idea what to do with a magpie – I’m thinking a light Jalfrezi myself).

    Mostly OK, but I really do not like 15a MESH at all. I can think of several uses for the word (one possibly involves what I’d like to pass above avian rock-group through) but engaged? Hmmm – no. I’m thinking of the sign on the loos at Victoria Station reading ‘Free/Meshed’ and it is too horrible to contemplate…

    And on the subject of US vs UK homophones, I’m off for another cawfee to try to jolt the gr[e/a]y cells before the Quiptic.

    Thanks Vulcan and Andrew!

16. [MaidenBartok@15 my cat could help you out – she just delivered a large magpie to her 6 week old kittens for their first solid food!]

17. I thought this was a really good Monday puzzle, with some easy clues but great surfaces – just what’s required. Like TassieTim @3 it took me a long time to see BACKBONE, and I also got a bit stuck with WALL and FURLOUGH (nice clue). An enjoyable experience all round. Many thanks to Vulcan and Andrew.

18. [bodycheetah @16: Yer on! Does your cat have a ‘day rate’ or is it magpiepie by the hour?]

19. Thanks, Andrew. And thanks Vulcan for a nice, gentle start to the week. The only one that gave me any trouble today (and LOI) was MESH – took me ages to see it, even with the crossing letters in place. I think it’s fine though – the definition is misleading enough to count as cryptic. I say “bee-ta” and don’t much care how they say it in other countries.

    Favourites were 24ac FEIGNED and 19dn ORANGE for their neat surfaces, and 25ac RED ROSE for making me smile.

20. I thought of MESH as referring to gear wheels engaging.

21. MaidenBartok @15 – presumably the sense intended for MESH here is as in engaging gears. I’m slightly troubled by where your mind is taking you on this one!

22. Cogs engage with other cogs in gearboxes or with chains in bicycles; the process of engagement is meshing. Synchromesh gearboxes are a thing. I’m no mechanic, I barely know my sprockets from my tappets but 15a is fine.

23. Mondayish in some ways, but not in others. Looks like I’m not alone in having found MESH and BACKBONE hard to crack (almost gave up on the latter) and others like FURLOUGH and BRUIN weren’t immediately obvious.

    Thanks to Vulcan and Andrew

24. mostly enjoyed this – “time ebbing away” for BIG BEN was particularly poignant i thought! but the double definitions for QUITE and DITCH i found weak, and ‘daily’ for CHAR strikes me as something that should be left in the past. but maybe that’s just me!

25. too easy, i finished this without needing to fill in the grid.

26. [essexboy @5 Have you tried playing Arthur Godfrey to frighten the magpies away?

    PETUNIA CARTOON gives us the excuse to revisit the Coastguard public information film.]

27. [Sorry, it was MaidenBartok @15 with the magpie trouble. Maybe they could eat essexboy’s earworm?]

28. Agreed with the general consensus – more dodgy cds here than in Rick Wakeman’s back catalogue. Was also expecting someone at 15sq to be sounding off (pun intentional) about BIG BEN, so thanks to Andrew and muffin@7!

    I thought FURLOUGH and STOCKADE were cute, though.

29. [Penfold @26: no, but it did have a strange effect on the gent on Table Number Six. 😉 Re MB’s magpie trouble, I’m given to understand that doubling turns sorrow into joy.]

30. Isn’t “about” in 8a doing double duty — signifying both the reversal of LAW and that the reversed LAW surrounds the L? Is that quite legitimate?

    Gave up on MESH so a dnf on a Monday.

31. VinnyD @30, it can also be formed without insertion – (WAL)L!

32. I thought this witty and amusing throughout. Really enjoyed the solve. Though took me a while to figure out BACKBONE, my last one in today. I think Vulcan’s recent Monday puzzles have become a real treat…

33. Despite being “easy Mondays” I rarely find them easy to finish. Like others BACKBONE took ages, MESH was “what else can it be?” as despite seeing the meshing cogs I was looking for more, I had an unparsed SIN BIN for BIG BEN and to my shame as a Lancastrian I didn’t get RED ROSE! Thanks to Vulcan and Andrew.

34. Maybe it was the IT problems this morning or something else but I didn’t find this at all easy. I have said before that cds can be tricky; either you see them straightaway or you get stuck. LOI was BACKBONE, which I thought was quite neat, once I got it.

    Is a CARTOON a joke? I know it’s a comic strip but I don’t really see it(?)

    Thanks Vulcan and Andrew.

35. …and I always find it peculiar that the words APPOSITE and Opposite are so similar to look at, but so different in meaning…

36. … maybe Chambers definition covers it: 4.Anything that or anyone who provokes a laugh

37. … that was the definition for joke

38. Interesting that there is pretty universal sentiment that the puzzle was easy, except for BACKBONE (maybe that was because it’s a property of vertebrates generally? Isn’t it?)

    I still quite liked it, but wasn’t thrilled by the opening link-word in RUSH, and was wondering if the clue for ABSTINENT wouldn’t be better if it said “not indulging”?

39. Mr B and I persuaded ourselves that 3d was Sin Bin (assuming it could be a slang word for prison where you’d while away the time.). The anagram leading to Big Ben wholly passed us by

40. Widdersbel @21: ‘I’m slightly troubled by where your mind is taking you on this one!’ I can assure you that you are not the only one troubled by where my mind goes…

    [Penfold @27: I was told that magpies don’t like CDs. I left out a stack for them to choose from, including my entire Rossini opera set but stupid things can’t work out how to turn the player on…]

41. [MB @40 – they aren’t stupid – they don’t turn the player on because they don’t like CDs!]

42. [MB@40: it’s Matt Hancock who’s to blame. He’s supposed to be getting Corvid under control isn’t he?]

43. Like Bayleaf @39 I was looking at SIN BIN too – it’s a real thing, used in rugby and ice hockey, for example, to reduce a team’s numbers on the field following a particularly bad infraction of the rules. After 10 minutes the player can return, so they are meanwhile “see[ing] the time ebbing away”. As always with what appear to be cryptic definitions, I remained to be convinced, and eventually saw the ‘ebbing’ anagram.

    The clue for MESH would have been acceptable in a quick crossword, having nothing cryptic about it. It therefore took almost as long as the rest of the crossword, desperately seeking something to tell me it was the right answer, such as, oh I don’t know, some wordplay?

    Couldn’t get BACKBONE, again with CDs there’s no wordplay to help if you don’t see it, and I ended up with a less-than-satisfactory HAWKNOSE, probably influenced by this fantastic song by Amon Düül II from 1972, which I offer to essexboy as a cure for his earworm: Hawknose Harlequin. (Some prominent noses can look quite columnar, no?)

    Thanks to Vulcan and Andrew.

44. bodycheetah @16 How did the kittens manage? All those feathers to chew past with teeny-tiny teeth …

    What’s the anagram indicator for BIG BEN? “Away?”

    Never heard of SIN BIN. Thanks, Vulcan and Andrew.

45. For Big Ben, we had ‘sin bin’. It works with the clue – ‘Where to see the time ebbing away’

46. A rapid solve in the Monday tradition, the only delays being the CDs. Some elegant clues leading to FURLOUGH and BIG BEN and others. But not a fan of MESH or BACKBONE, which was LOI

    Thanks Vulcan and Andrew

47. A full grid is an event that happens as regularly as a solar eclipse for this poor excuse of a solver, but got close…
    15a, don’t get the cryptic bit
    2d, yup, should have got that
    4d, yup, should have thought more cryptic
    12a, a new word for me
    Thanks both, looking forward to reading this excellent blog

48. HoofItYouDonkey @47. 15a, don’t get the cryptic bit. There isn’t a cryptic bit!

    The clue is ‘get engaged’, and Andrew says it is “…made mildly cryptic by the more common meaning of the phrase”. So there isn’t really a cryptic bit, because normally with a two-word clue we’d be looking for a double definition: a word for which ‘get’ is one synonym, and ‘engaged’ another (with the surface reading of “promise to marry” only mildly misleading). In the absence of a double definition (and believe me, I tried), we have to look for a cryptic definition. MESH means ‘get engaged’ in the gearbox sense, but it is by no means in the least bit cryptic.

    This clue just makes me feel short-changed.

49. I promise I’ve never used, or even seen one; I’m not even sure they exist, but I got CHOKE BALL instead of BLACK HOLE at first. Oops!

50. I have only just returned to doing cryptic crosswords after a few years away.
    The “cheat” facility on the app helps enormously of course but my brain is still being kept active. This one was nice and easy for me.

51. Sheffield Hatter @48 – yes, I see now, don’t like it though. I did briefly look at MESH but couldn’t see it.
    Thanks.

52. [MB @40 You were given duff information. Magpies like opera, so you’re supposed to play the music elsewhere, to lure them from your garden. Try playing Rossini somewhere down the road tonight and hopefully they’ll come away, come away with William Tell.]

53. Enjoyable Monday crossword though I used a word finder to get BACKBONE — cryptic definitions can be OK once in awhile but the fewer the better. BETA and beater don’t sound at all alike in my neck of the woods but I’ve gotten used to “close enough” so it didn’t interfere with my solving. I loved BIG BEN as well as WALL, FEIGNED, and ORANGE. On the whole I thought the surfaces were quite smooth. Thanks to both.

54. [ Hawking radiation can escape from a BLACK HOLE and possibly tachyons, the definition is too simplistic. ]

55. [Tony Santucci @53: the quickest of off-theme notes to thank you for your late post yesterday re Elon Elongates Gates!]

56. MaidenBartok @40 and TassieTim @41
    No, it’s Rossini they can’t stand – calling them thieves, indeed.

57. [PostMark @42: I wasn’t going to post this but you’ve forced me too do it… Once I’ve wiped the tea out of the keyboard that I just spat out.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbYcdR3Ldfc. ]

58. [And Penfold @52; honestly, sush, Penfold…]

59. Pretty much wrote in everything, but I absolutely could not get FURLOUGH, MESH or BACKBONE – no excuse for the first one, but I thought the other two were at least mildly unsatisfactory…

60. Tony @53 – in the US we pronounce it as bay-ta; luckily I remembered it’s be-ta on the other side of the pond!

61. in the spirit of super-pedantry may i point out that the Great Clock and the chiming thing
    have been out of action for renovation since 2017 so you’ll neither see nor hear the time.
    still loved the clue tho!

62. PostMark@ 55 Where is Tony’s late post? Not in yesterday’s Everyman. Not in Saturday’s Prize. I do remember an ELONGATES clue, but not in the few days.

63. Jay in Pittsburgh @60 — Actually, if you’re like most Americans and Canadians, you pronounce it as bay-da.

64. [Valentine @62: ’twas in yesterday’s Independent on Sunday where, prompted by a solution on which I’d commented, he posted From the Sunday NY Times (noncryptic) puzzle — Southern university beefs up campus security?
    ELON ELONGATES GATES ]

65. PM@64 you weren’t to know, but I just sat down for lunch with yesterday’s NYT puzzle in front of me, and I thought I’d just check in with 225 before tackling it. So much for figuring out the theme now …

66. [Dr W @65: my road is paved with good intentions! I have no knowledge of the puzzle so, if there is indeed a theme and I’ve inadvertently spoiled it for you, I can only apologise. This only started on account of a courtesy thank you post.]

67. [Dr. WhatsOn @65: Sunday’s NYT was a write-in from start to finish and a newbie would have caught the theme in a second. It is a witty puzzle but it’s nothing like what the Guardian offers.]

68. [Belated thanks, sh @43. I think I caught some nice Floydish echoes. I collect that ‘Amon Düül II influenced such bands in the late 70s like Hungarian psychedelic hardcore shaman punk band Galloping Coroners’. Perfect for those cosy autumnal evenings in Budapest, reeling ripe and passing our jorums of wacky goulash round the kert. Bit of a magpie magnet though.]

69. TonyS@67 I’ve been doing the Sunday NYT for years – I used to use pencil or multiple colored pens, but nowadays I find it so predictable that black ink is fine. Sometimes all I do is just look at the theme clues, usually spottable either by italics or extra-long solutions, like the one we’re talking about today, and try to figure out the gimmick from them alone. Just a little game I play.

    And PM@66, no big deal – there are other things I should be doing instead!

70. [essexboy @68. I think Amon Düül II CDs are unlikely to attract magpies, who in my experience are more into punk rock. Just don’t hang them up in the trees – the CDs, not the corvids, of course – they like the shininess.]

71. Please stop this ridiculous conversation about magpies/corvids. It has no relevance to the puzzle under discussion and so is totally off topic.

72. Nice puzzle, thanks Vulcan and Andrew.

    Re BETA, (BEATa, BAITa or BETa), I’ve always pronounced it BETa – I don’t say either alphabait or alphabeat.

    Hovis@10, since you didn’t follow your own advice, neither will I (insert smiley emoji).

    bodycheetah@14, I agree that MESH was a weak clue (although correct), and I much prefer your alternative – as a clue, of course.

    Lorna Fitzpatrick@50, welcome to fifteensquared, if you haven’t posted before. I enjoyed your comment – the cheat facility, websearch, dictionaries, etc. are all good if they keep you at it, and the brain exercise is invaluable. Have fun.

73. @essexboy [For earworms, try Tasavallan Presidentti’s Last Quarters, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X2mljghpGk%5D

74. LOI was HOPE, and only got that going through the list of 140 words that fitted *O*E in the Chambers app. And then only after wondering whether COVE(t) might be a “journey east”.

75. I guess that each of us has our own things that we’re extra-picky about, and for me it’s anagrinds. As Valentine @44 notes, I guess “away” must be the anagrind in 3dn, but I can’t see any way to make myself happy with it.

    Like others, I found some of the cryptic definitions uninspired, but otherwise there was a lot to like about this puzzle. “Feeding frenzy” in particular is a very nice anagram (with a perfectly sensible anagrind).

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