Guardian Cryptic 28,501 by Vulcan

70 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,501 by Vulcan”

1. New: AY = always; ARCED = discharged.

   Liked: ANOTHER PLACE, AFICIONADO, WELL-WISHER, BEYOND ONE, SHADOW BOXERS.

   Wondered if there was more happening with 14d COUNTED OUT – it seemed a bit simplistic.

   Thanks, both.

2. Like manehi I enjoyed this a lot – in my case, particularly SHADOW BOXERS, WELL-WISHER, SQUEEZE BOX and MAYO. AFICIONADO seems to have cropped up quite a lot recently. Many thanks to V & m.

3. After a challenging week last week, I found it good to have a straightforward solve. There were some clever clues such as 19ac and 18ac which provided some chuckles along the way. Thanks to Vulcan and manehi for the blog.

4. michelle @1 re COUNTED OUT: I think it’s just a rather good cryptic definition – no more to it than that.

5. An enjoyable romp, though I’m not sure that I would equate hypocrite with PRIG (23d).
   Thanks to Vulcan for giving me extra time to decorate the bedroom and to manehi.

6. Nice easy start to the week, I particularly liked BEYOND ONE and ENTRANCING.

   Thanks Vulcan and manehi

7. This was only a K short of being a pangram. A few months ago there was another instance of this – on that occasion it was a missing J, and a fellow-commenter with a better archive memory than I have pointed out that the same setter had been one letter short of a pangram in one of his previous puzzles. This caused someone else to suggest that the practice was a deliberate tease. Was that setter Vulcan too? Perhaps someone with more rummaging-time than I have this morning will be able to track it down.

8. I too wondered about prig=hypocrite but Chambers has “a sanctimonious person… critical of others’ failings” which seems to fit the bill. Hopefully I’m not being too priggish by pointing that out.

9. ILAN CARON@8 Not priggish at all : ) However, unless that sanctimonious person exhibits the same failings as those being criticised then the PRIG may be a pain in the bum, but they are not a hypocrite. Oh dear – back in Pedantry Corner for me.

10. Thanks ILAN CARON @8: for that clarification. Like others that one prompted a raised eyebrow. MAYO is the cream of the crop for its simplicity and I loved the delightful anagram and surface for ANOTHER PLACE. The anagram for OVERCRITICAL is similarly excellent – but I’m not sure the &lit attempt has quite worked for me.

    Thanks Vulcan and manehi

11. A good example of the “doesn’t have to be hard to be enjoyable” genre, I thought. 1d reminded me of the difficulty in buying a half way decent pre-made sandwich in England, given that most of them are smothered in cheap and nasty “MAYO”. PEEVE was cleverly hidden. Thanks, Vulcan and manehi.

12. The clue to IDLER at 21d doesn’t sit well. Is IDLER a noun or a comparative adjective? If it is the former, presumably ‘lady’ is doing double duty to describe who the idler is. If it is the latter, should it read ‘with less to do’.

13. I seem to remember THROWAWAY being a horse in Ulysses-at the races that is
    I liked this-a quick operetta of a puzzle,Unpretentious swift and witty
    Thanks all.

14. Thanks Vulcan and manehi
    Mostly OK (though the Quiptic is much more fun!). I agree with PostMark about OVERCRITICAL – what is a “civil reactor” supposed to be? The “from” in 13d is odd, too.
    I ticked 12, 15, 25, and 8.

15. TassieTim @11 Yes, PEEVE’s aren’t always well hidden 😉

    Thanks Vulcan and manehi

16. I always feel ARCED needs a K in the middle.

    Like PM @10 I wondered if OVERCRITICAL was supposed to be an &lit, but I don’t think that works. In fact I don’t think there’s a ‘straight’ definition at all. ‘Overcritical’ surely just means ‘excessively fault-finding’ – so what we have is an anagram, with an anagrind that, when combined with one of the elements of the anagrist (‘reactor’) serves as a cryptic indication. I hope that doesn’t make me sound overcritical; it’s quite ingenious, and I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it before.

    Re SQUEEZE BOX: difficult to resist Pan’s People as an eyeworm (despite poor picture quality).

    Thanks Vulcan and manehi.

17. Oh, that kind of dog! I am so well acquainted with my neighbour’s dog, named Shadow, that I looked no further.
    Enjoyed this. It took a while to spot PEEVE and to realise that ARCED was a word if it had a hard C. Favourites THROWAWAY and the two CDs WELL WISHER and COUNTED OUT. Like PostMark and Muffin I’m not sure about the civil reactor – a theatre critic perhaps? And why are boats specifically river craft?

18. Sitting out on campus at UEA collecting son with cup of coffee and already 21 degrees (argh!) this was an acceptable solve for my rather tired brain.

    I did like the OVERCRITICAL clue – all reactors reach critically but the “over” would be quite disastrous…

    As I saw the wonderful Saul David with Eliza Carthy last week, I can’t resist a Squeeze-box link https://youtu.be/c6Y5Tu7wpJI – a much maligned instrument.

    Thanks Vulcan and manehi!

19. Thanks for the blog. All very entertaining IMO.

    Gladys@17 I think that generally you mess about in boats on the river but sail the seas in ships, albeit some overlap with coastal craft.

20. essexboy @16. I had the same earworm, but more appropriate for Trekkies and Colombians.

21. Just right for this sweltering morning.

    I hope this doesn’t offend anyone but I find referring to a girlfriend as a squeeze rather sweet in an innocent sort of way.

    Not sure what from is doing in 13d but other than that quiblet, a very enjoyable solve.

    Unlike michelle @1 I thought COUNTED OUT (in the boxing sense) was rather good.

    Many thanks, both.

22. essexboy @16: I was going to make the same point, but I couldn’t be ARCED.

    Well constructed Monday puzzle – thanks S&B.

23. I’ve only recently taken to solving the Guardian puzzle every day and this is by far the easiest one I’ve come across. My target for The Times is 30 minutes but I solved this in 14 which I’m not sure I have ever achieved in the other place. Also it’s rare for me to finish a Guardian without having to guess an answer or look one up afterwards to check whether I was right.

24. Nice wee puzzle and same favourites as Gladys @ 17. Never got The Who, so hear is my tenuous ear worm https://youtu.be/LLSAGnHNqGc

    Ta Vulcan & manehi

25. I could probably offer a link/earworm/eyeworm relating to every clue.

    However I’ll just echo what manehi said at the start.

26. ENTRANCING raised a smile and COMPENSATION just about made up for the “from”
    SQUEEZE-BOX is hyphenated in chambers and one word for the early Logitech music streamer of which, for reasons unfathomable I have two on the top shelf

27. Wouldn’t a ‘civil reactor’ be in contrast to a military reactor?

28. jackkt @23 : don’t fall into the trap of quoting times on this site ! I nearly caused World War 3 to break out a couple of weeks ago !

    Spooner’s flatcap @7 : I raised the “false pangram” conspiracy theory on “Timesforthetimes” a few months ago. It could, of course, simply be that the setter intended a pangram but painted themselves into corner, but I believe that it can be a deliberate ploy to send the solver down a blind alley in the latter stages. You’re stuck with the last two clues, you realise you’re only a K short of the pangram, and you convince yourself it must be there somewhere.

    As to the puzzle, a gentle start to the week. I liked COUNTED OUT and ENTRANCING.

29. That should, of course, read Spooner’s catflap @7. I’m oversolving ?

30. @7: Spooners Catflap. It was Philistine who recently came close to a pangram – missing only J, 18th May. And on Sept 30th last, he was missing only an X. I don’t thnk Vulcan has come as close, not lately anyway, though in his last crossword (5th July) he was only two short, Q and Z. Of course my notes and memory are not infallible. Now I will turn back to something less obsessive…

31. Thanks for the blog, actually impressed with this, good example of an easier crossword with largely sound and interesting clues. I am going to be OVERCRITICAL on two points.
    19AC would be better with all INTEGERS from 2 up. Between one and two there are in fact an infinite number of numbers beyond one.
    20AC a civil reactor is actually OVERCRITICAL for a considerable time when starting up, it simply means each fission produces more than one further fission . Once the operating conditions are met it is important to stop this increase.

32. Jackkt & Times Ref: When … erm … elsewhere, I tend to refer to the Guardian (or 15-squared) as per today’s 3dn.
    Might reduce conflict potential eh?

33. Re #28: Thanks for the heads-up on that, Phil, I wasn’t aware. Is there an etiquette guide I can refer to? Does it apply to the whole site or just Guardian puzzles?

34. A fun crossword to start the week, and thanks for the blog. 12ac raises (for me) an interesting question: can a word in a clue have two different meanings simultaneously? I fully expect words not to mean what they initially appear to mean in the surface reading, but here “dog” changes meaning after it is read. First it means “to shadow someone”, but then by a couple of words later it’s been retconned to mean the animal. I don’t have a particular issue with it, and it didn’t hold up the solve, but even just as a question of grammar it’s a weird one.

35. Thanks Roz @31 for educating me re nuclear physics. I now realise that there is a technical meaning of OVERCRITICAL (see here, for example, section 2.1 second para) and withdraw any overcriticism @16.

36. Last one in was PEEVE, which was cleverly hidden away. As was ARCED. Thought 8ac was a nicely constructed clue too, as was the islander at 16d…

37. Thank you MrEssexboy @35, I did not realise people would not take it as a science clue.
    A civil reactor is simply a nuclear fission reactor producing electricty , e, g , Sizewell
    OVERCRITICAL can be dangerous but not always, hence minor quibble with an almost fantastic clue.

38. Roz@37 – thanks for the explanation. I was so poor at the science subjects that my Grammar School didn’t put me in for my O Levels. Nearly 50 years later I’m not a lot wiser !

39. A fun puzzle – I don’t think I’ve ever heard of SQUEEZE = girlfriend, and as I didn’t twig TSAR until towards the end the NE corner nearly went unsolved until I realised I’d bunged in BOXING instead of BOXERS. Thanks to Vulcan and manehi.

40. Thank you, Times Refugee, for your thoughts on ‘false pangram’ theory @28 and to quenbarrow @30 for the archival research, which has made it clear that Vulcan was not the perpetrator that I was remembering from 18th May. On 18th May, from memory, a four letter down-light in the extreme SW corner was CAVA, where it could easily have been clued for JAVA, given that the crossers were the two As, thereby securing the pangram. This was so obvious that Philistine’s dodging of the pangram just seemed wilful. In today’s puzzle, there is no opportunity quite so obvious, but if ATOM were to have been AMOK (how bulls run when in china shops), again the pangram could have been secured if this was in the setter’s mind.

41. Thanks manehi and Vulcan.

    Is it not more usual to speak of nuclear reactors being supercritical? Or does that have a different meaning?

42. jvh @ 41 . Supercritical is a TYPE of pressurised water reactor, PWR.
    It is referring to the pressure and the critical point of water, not actually the fission rate.
    I really need a white board and pen to explain critical point.
    Some kind soul will no doubt provide a link.

43. I (incorrectly) got PRIG from the first letters of Pitches Right Into Greedy. I convinced myself that I had “gutted” the words.

    Thanks to manehi and Vulcan.

44. [copmus @13 – your memory serves you well. THROWAWAY was a real racehorse who won the Ascot Gold Cup on 16th June 1904, the day on which Ulysses is set. Early in the novel, Leopold Bloom hands another character (Bantam Lyons) his used newspaper, saying the he was only going to throw it away. Lyons mistakenly takes this to be a nudge-wink tip to put money on Throwaway for the big race, which he does, and then the unfancied Throwaway romps home. This misunderstanding has further consequences later in Bloom’s day.

    This is probably the kind of tangential comment that makes Gaufrid tear his hair out. I would put double square brackets round it if I thought that would help. Sorry.]

45. [[SC @44: maybe – but it’s one of the types of comment that makes me delight in this site 😀 ]]

46. Straightforward enough. Maybe I’m being OVERCRITICAL but like William @21 I don’t like the unused “from” in 13d

    Thanks Vulcan and manehi

47. [SC @44, excellent. I studied Ulysses at uni and remember absolutely nothing about it, but loved the film version with Milo O’Shea]

48. I thought FLOOR for puzzle was a bit of a stretch – doesn’t it connote surprise more than puzzlement – but adding the “completely” nudged it in the right direction.

    Regarding false pangrams, I’m a bit surprised nobody raised the question of how frequently you’d expect them to occur naturally. It’s only by knowing this that you can make a reasonable guess about the reason for the ones you actually do see. After a bit of doing my sums, and making a few approximations, I calculated that on average, you’d expect to see one a year. So now we’re half way there. The next step is to count how many have occurred, and if it is a statistically significant deviation from the mean. Over to someone else for that!

49. Enjoyable puzzle about half done last night, the rest this morning with no use of “reveal.”

    To me “floor” means something more like “astound” than “stump.”

    ANOTHER PLACE in that sense is a new ‘un on me.

    Thanks, Vulcan and manehi.

50. More straightforward than some but nonetheless a fun puzzle to start the week. Thx to manehi and Vulcan.

51. Roz@42. Thanks. That explains it.

52. [My pleasure, I notice nobody has dared to ask me about the infinite numbers between 1 and 2. One more science bit for the day – The Guardian Quick Crossword on Saturday had penguins and turtles as MAMMALS , if anyone knows how to complain, please do so. ]

53. [ Dr WhatsOn @ 48 – there was a lot of discussion and analysis on this pangram issue during a recent blog for the FT Aardvark puzzle. About two weeks ago ]

54. Roz @42: Does this help? https://www.dummies.com/education/science/chemistry/the-basics-of-nuclear-fission/

    [I’d assumed that the ‘critical’ pointed to referred to the criticality of the fission chain – I’d heard of an SCWR but not fully understood what the abbreviation meant so thank you for pointing me on to plenty of Googling.]

55. Thank you Maiden Bartok @ 54, I am sure people will enjoy this.
    They should never have used the term supercritical where it is actually to do with the changes of state of the water coolant.
    As you point out, ” critical ” is widely used in relation to the chain reaction itself usually.

56. Roz@53 thanks for the tip-off. Aardvark’s puzzle appeared on 7th.July, and the discussion would seem to favour the “deliberate omission” theory.

57. [ T R @56, it was interesting and P B had a very convincing case for it being deliberate. S C @40 has a similar good case today for K. I should have joined in then but was sidetracked today by the science issues ]

58. Roz@53 Thanks for that pointer -I don’t often do the FT so was unaware of the discussion. About which, so close but so far.

59. [Roz: the word supercritical in reactor physics can also be used in the term supercritical mass]

60. [ Quite right curie @59, we need new words to avoid confusion. Reactors run with a supercritical mass and use control rods to remove some neutrons. Fission bombs have a highly supercritical mass. ]

61. jackkt @33 (and Times Refugee). If you are interested, I have raised this matter of solving times etiquette with Gaufrid under General Discussion.

62. Just failed on 13d and 27a, no excuse for either.
    Very enjoyable and good to restore a bit of confidence after last week’s mauling.
    Everything else parsed.
    Thanks both.

63. Roz@52: I assume the mammal clue was 7d? No idea what it originally said but it has now been changed.

64. Spooner’s catflap @61 – thanks, but not strictly necessary. We both know what’s expected of us now.

65. Gladys@63, quite correct – 7D Breeding colony for birds and also for mammals such as penguins, seals and turtles.
    Do you mean it has been changed online ? I hope they apologised.

66. I thought that the missing K from the near pangram was the letter that “should” have been in ARC(K)ED.

67. Roz @52&65. A correction was published on the letters page in Monday’s Guardian. Not sure how apologetic it might have been.

68. Valentine @49. The clue for 14d completely floored me and I wrote in POINTED OUT in error!

69. [That correction was in Tuesday’s paper, of course.]

70. Thank you , yes I did see it yesterday. Gladys must have meant a correction on line.

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