Guardian 28,504 / Tramp

65 comments on “Guardian 28,504 / Tramp”

1. Thanks Tramp, and for stepping in, Gaufrid
   I needed the blog for the parsing of HOT TUB.

2. Thanks both,
   I parsed tier = level = drawer eg top drawer = top tier. Also had bumpkin for 24 ac which works, sort of. That held me up.

3. Thanks for stepping in, Gaufrid, fascinating to think that dooted over the globe, an odd selection of people are all thinking, “Hmmm, what’s happened to the crozzie blog?”

   Another superb clue for JIM-JAMS. (Love ‘gear for going off’). We had it recently clued as something like, “Lucky man preserves retirement outfit” but I can’t recall the setter or blogger.

   Just realised that CAFFEIN(E) is another that disobeys the “i before e when the sound is ‘ee’” rule.

   ORPIN is new to me; wanted LUPIN but couldn’t parse ‘lu’.

   Not terrible keen on the surface of Second pound fairy regularly left for this. The answer jumps out but it reads a little clumsily for me.

   Other than that, lovely stuff from The Hobo this morning.

4. …dotted

5. Thank you Tramp and Gaufrid for the blog. I do query SKINNY, which is an adjective and doesn’t mean someone wanting a good meal. Or am I missing something?

6. Thanks for stepping in Gaufrid because I just couldn’t see where TEA COSY came from, nice surface to obscure the definition! Tyngewick@2 I had tier in the same sense as you but of course it works both ways which is neat. This took me a while to get into but then chugged along nicely, though TANGOING held me up trying anagrams of “tense one” as the crossers didn’t eliminate that possibility, very devious. THIRSTIER was my favourite, thanks Tramp.

7. PS trish in charente@5 think of wanting = In need of, although I have known several skinny people who eat like horses and never put on a pound, the lucky sausages!

8. Thanks for the blog. Did not know the alternative spelling of caffein(e) and I thought that F was loud, the musicians on here can explain please.
   I remember the JIMJAMS clue of William@3 and also a very recent clue with the Js removed to give imams.

9. I had yet another interpretation of tier=drawer, thinking of ties/drawstrings on a bag.

   Thanks to Tramp and Gaufrid

10. Thanks Gaufrid

    Enjoyed this. Quite a mixture for me. Got some really easily – then others got just by the crossers and the description and could only partially or not at all parse them.

    My favourites were: HOT TUB (loved the OTT in the middle) INDECORUM (made me laugh) and thought BREATHALYSER was a good anagram.

    Thanks to Tramp

11. Thanks Gaufrid.

    I wrote this in October 2019. You’re right about skinny: sorry about that.

    Neil

12. Thanks to Gaufrid for making everything well in the world by providing the blog!

    HOT TUB has to be the COTD although as with others, ORPIN was a DNK.

    Thank you Tramp (and Gaufrid again…)

13. Tramp@11: OED has skinny as a noun meaning a skinny person. I think the clue’s OK.

14. Roz @ 8

    [Thinking back to my long ago piano lessons I seem to remember my teacher telling me that f stood for forte which in italian means strong – but that in music meant loud – I suppose if you play strongly it will be loud.

    so ff would be very strong

    Might have misremembered.]

15. Roz@8: You’re quite right, f = forte; ff = fortissimo; and even fff = triple forte (or fortississimo)

16. …curiously, we all happily accept thatallegro means fast but my Italian chums reliably tell me it means cheerfully or gaily.

17. Roz@8: f is ‘loud’, ff is ‘very loud’, cf. p and pp. And I’m not even a musician. Very many thanks to Tramp, and to Gaufrid for stepping up to the plate.

18. One thing just occurred to me – isn’t a caravan (accommodation box incapable of powered motion thus needing to be hitched onto the back of another vehicle) very much NOT a camper ( accommodation box integrated with cab and engine)? I am certainly no expert so hope the Venn diagram intersection of caravanners/campers and crossworders is not empty and can clarify.

19. Thank you everyone , so ff is very loud but 12AC has very strong. Is there something else going on here ?

20. I found this more straightforward than most of Tramp’s and every bit as enjoyable. I didn’t parse TEA TRAY or REST and was another LUPIN but as that didn’t parse went with the heraldic OR and found it to be a plant. I thought STEPSON was clever as having decided it ended with SON I took this as the relation and only came up with STEPSON after SPELL went in and I decided against the implausible Stetson. Thanks to Tramp (I was ok with SKINNY as a noun) and Gaufrid for stepping in.

21. COSY not TRAY!

22. [William @15, Roz @8, Fiona Anne @14: There is a piano piece with 8 ‘f’s – Gyorgy Ligeti’s Etude No. 13, The Devil’s Staircase:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoLam2O3gtY

    And yes, you can hear the Fibonacci sequence in there very clearly. The whole of the Etudes are wonderful – I’ve been trying to learn No 4, Fanfares, for what seems like a lifetime and still not getting any closer to cracking it!]-

23. Roz @ 19

    I commented at 14 – I think f stands for forte in Italian which means strong

24. Thank you, Gaufrid, for riding to the rescue. The upside is that you may be spared having to monitor a comments thread that runs to 100+ by sundown, as happened on each of the last two days. That said, I wouldn’t bet on it.

25. I did see it Fiona Anne thank you but my Chambers gives forte as loud.

26. Roz @13 Forte is the italian word for Strong – Fortissimo meaning Very Strong. FF being it’s notation in terms of musical dynamics.

27. Thank you everyone, I think this is a case where Chambers does not have the full picture.

28. Gazzh @18: As a part owner of a VW camper, I too raised an eyebrow at camper = caravan but delving into the memory I think they were sometimes know as ‘motor caravans’. I’d use ‘camper’ to describe the smaller kind of van with no integral loo/shower and where the bed needs to be made up each day as opposed to ‘mobile home’ – a gin palace with dreadful fuel consumption and integral bathroom.

29. A nice plain crossword from Tramp: no ninas, themes or assorted gimmicks, just good tough clues. Took me an enjoyable while.

    Failed to parse TEA COSY and missed the tooth fairy reference in MOLAR. i knew CAFFEINE and ORPINE but not their E-less versions, and wasted a lot of time not believing that FF=very strong. Yes, I know forte means strong in Italian but does that mean that F means strong in English?

    Liked VOICE and INDECORUM. I don’t usually enjoy those Lego clues where just about every letter has a clue of its own, but I did like LAMBDA.

30. I wasn’t able to join in the Chambers dictionary discussion the other day as we don’t have one, but I’ve just had a look in our big OED and, yes, skinny is a noun as well. So apologies to Tramp. I had never heard it used, but I suppose you could call someone a fatty (if you’re being very rude) so why not a skinny?

31. Roz @13: it may help to think of the the piano (originally called the pianoforte), an instrument where if you hit the keys softly or strongly then the resulting sounds are quiet or loud respectively. When it was invented, the name pianoforte emphasised this facility, in contrast to older keyboard instruments such as the harpsichord (where the volume of the note played is not changed by how strongly the keys are hit )

32. Than you pedrox, I will remember this in future , only seen F or FF clued as loud ( very ) in the past.

33. I ticked GENDER which raised a smile. TEA COSY was another favourite. Coincidentally I just happened to be looking at an old puzzle of Picaroon’s which also had INDECORUM, in that case as “Bad taste of old booze after hot month” – both good.

    Re tier = drawer in 16d, I wondered roughly along the lines of DuncT @9 but was a bit unsure. Tyngewick @2, I’m not convinced that quite works – ok, top tier and top drawer (and top notch) all metaphorically mean the same thing, but that doesn’t mean that tier and drawer and notch by themselves are equivalent. Gaufrid’s explanation (if I understand it correctly) is interesting, ie that as someone who wins a match is a winner, then someone who ties or draws a match is a tier or drawer. That seems logical. I wonder what Tramp actually intended?

    Many thanks to Tramp and Gaufrid.

34. Thanks, Roz @8 for answering my puzzlement. I didn’t recognise the clue William mentioned @3 (although, looking it up, I see I blogged it, in 2018) but I knew I’d also met jim-jams very recently in a puzzle that I’d also blogged but it didn’t show up in my search – because, of course I’d (already) forgotten the deletion of the Js – and it was only last Tuesday!

    I’ve been out until now, so all that’s left for me to say is thanks to Tramp, as ever, for an enjoyable puzzle and to Gaufrid for stepping in once more.

35. [pedrox @31: Actually, the instrument was originally just called ‘Harpsichord with soft and loud’ by Cristofori (piano e forte), were known as ‘fortepianos’ and yes, they struck rather than plucked the strings (insert your own string-plucker joke). The term ‘Piano-Forte’ was first used by John Broadwood and was subsequently abbreviated to ‘piano’ from the early 19th century. Broadwood revolutionised both the action and the soundboard; the profoundly-deaf Beethoven was given one as a present…

    ‘Fortepiano’ fell out-of-use but has come back to refer to very early instruments (or replicas) in the late 20th century with the revival in period-instruments.

    A favourite childhood haunt was Finchcocks Museum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of6ZW3in6oA ]

36. I have a funny feeling Tramp has suffered before from a technical glitch of some kind which resulted in a delayed blog. And it’s a shame because this was a lovely puzzle and deserves its full share of comment. Hopefully some of our colleagues who are now abed will have the chance to post later.

    I liked a lot of the short clues today: TEA COSY, HOT TUB, STAY, RASPY, MOLAR and SWELL all got ticks. Of the others, I had to smile at the cheekiness of both GENDER and BEHIND BARS and for the excellently anagrammed BREATHALYSER. JIM JAMS is clue of the day as with some earlier posters.

    I’m sure this will not secure the endorsement of purists but I didn’t query SKINNY: someone wanting a good meal – yes, they might be SKINNY (or hungry which was my first thought). I guess I took the ‘for’ as implying/meaning ‘describing’.

    Thanks Tramp and Gaufrid

37. Excellent puzzle with always meaningful surfaces.

    Thanks to Tramp and Gaufrid.

38. PM@36
    ‘I guess I took the ‘for’ as implying/meaning ‘describing’.’

    Yes, that could work. Thank you.

39. I mostly liked this. I was not keen on OTT = gushing (if your fashion choice is OTT, would you call it gushing?) or drink=CAN, but there is overlap in both cases so OK.

    What I’m having a mental block over is magic=SWELL. SPELL, maybe, but SWELL? Is it just that they both are synonymous to wonderful?

40. Tyngewick@28 thank you and now I see online Collins has motor caravan as “former name for motorhome” and defines motorhome as what I would call a camper (though no mention of it being en suite or otherwise). So I am satisfied!

41. Dr WhatsOn @39
    I read it as both “magic” and “swell” being slangy terms for “wonderful”, as you suggest.

42. Well done Gaufrid for stepping into the breach…I thought this was great fun, particularly the convoluted CELEBRATE, SCAMPERING, and the hilarious clueing for GENDER, hot and steamy, time for a cooling beer in the garden…BREATHALYSER wasn’t too shabby, either…

43. Got about half way, which is reasonable for a Thursday Tramp puzzle. I find increasingly that I fill half the grid quickly, then hit the wall, and no amount of staring at clues brings any success. Even with regular breaks.
    There were a few I should have got today, to be fair.
    Having gone through the answers, I thought this was excellent.
    Thanks both.

44. Dr WhatsOn @39 and muffin @41 – I’ve never met mushroom = wonderful.

    I took mushroom = swell both as verbs.

45. Eileen @44
    Was that tongue in cheek? Otherwise, I hate to criticise you, but I don’t think you read my post closely enough!

46. muffin @45 – you’re right, I didn’t, but my brain has turned further to mush: it’s just too hot! My apologies.

47. Thanks Eileen – have a cold drink!

48. Failed miserably today could not get on Tramp’s wavelength at all.

    I shall await the next Tramp puzzle with trepidation. Well misdirected, Sir!

    Thanks Gaufrid for putting me out of my misery.

49. Bit embarrassed that LAMBDA was my LOI as I’ve written several hundred Lambda functions over the last year. Must be the heat. Nice of Thames Water to cut the street off today – they do say comedy’s all about the timing 🙂

50. It took me four sessions to finish and parse this, which says something: that I was enjoying it enough to keep coming back for another go. With some other tough puzzles, I would probably have given up after a couple of attempts. Thanks, Tramp, for a fun challenge.

    Favourite clues: BREATHALYSER and JIM-JAMS (LOI).

    Thanks, also, to Gaufrid for stepping in to provide the blog.

51. Like others, I was puzzled about TIER = DRAWER. I was thinking along the lines of Tingewick @2, but I wasn’t happy about it. I think Gaufrid’s explanation is surely the intended one, and I find in delightfully sneaky.

52. [Apologies to Tyngewick for the misspelling.]

53. This was nearly impossible for me. I got four or five last night, and no more this morning. I had to start checking one word at a time with trial letters until I got them.

    Tyngewick@2 I had bumpkin too, but in very light ink, since I was dubious about it. SON seemed a likely other ending, STEPSON very possible but I couldn’t justify it.

    Thanks to Tramp for the deviousness and Gaufrid for the much needed help.

54. I initially had “SET OUT” for 5d, thinking not connected = unplugged, out of the socket. Also caught out by the CAFFEIN spelling, and ORPIN new to me.

    BREATHALYSER needed a couple of crossers before I cracked it, but was very satisfying.

55. very enjoyable, quite tricky but got there in the end. Looked at the explanation for 13ac as I did not see can for drink. If it had been tinny now ..

56. I know that if the blog hasn’t appeared when I look for it (usually before I start work at 9 am US CDT) there were issues. I didn’t think to check again until now, when I’ve knocked off work and am happily indulging. So, sorry I’m late.

    Another way to think of f=forte=strong is to think of what forte means in English: a particular strength, as in, “I’m sorry, but musical terms are just not my forte.”

    Thanks for explaining HOT TUB, which was a BIFD for me. There was a coffee shop near where I went for grad school called Kaffein (deliberately spelled as in German); otherwise I don’t think I’d have gotten the alternate spelling there.

57. Fun puzzle. Liked SCAMPERING, INDECORUM, MOLAR, LAMBDA (loi).

    Did not parse 24d magic = SWELL? or 12ac CAFFEIN.

    New ORPIN.

    Thanks, both.

58. Roz@8 – musicians guard the true meanings of forte and piano lovingly, it’s always upsetting when setters make the loud/quiet mistake. Of course Tramp, like all great composers, gets it right! Dynamics are a quality, not a quantity (decibels). And incidentally for loudness we say ‘level’ not ‘volume’ – volume is specifically the three-dimensional quantity of sound. So an orchestral sound has a large volume, even if it is pp, and a string quartet much smaller volume even if ff.

59. MaidenBartok@35 Broadwood also delivered a piano to Chopin when the latter visited London towards the end of his life. I’ve just enjoyed re-reading my biography of him, and intend to re-read the Tchaikovsky (by John Suchet) one too. Unfortunately I seem to have mislaid my Beethoven one by him too, so will have to repurchase, I guess.
    Thanks to Tramp and Gaufrid, too, of course.

60. Thank you very much Adrian@59. I knew there must be more to this at a deeper level.
    It is not really the fault of the dictionaries, they have to sum things up in very few words.

61. if there is anyone still on the trail….why does OR parse as yellow?

62. Lostinlaos@61 because in heraldry or means gold, which effectively equates to yellow, is my understanding.

63. Andy Luke@62 – thanks for that. For a while I thought it may be an attempted homophone ( yell of OW)

64. “OR” doesn’t mean ‘yellow’, it means ‘gold’. ‘Gold’ can mean ‘yellow’ but ‘or’ means ‘gold’. If you go from ‘or’ to ‘gold’ to ‘yellow’, why not say ‘gold’ means ‘cowardly’ (‘gold’ to ‘yellow’ to ‘cowardly’)? Also, things like ‘going out’ as an anagrind. I don’t know, but it seems to me these days that setters are not aiming to give solvers an enjoyable activity anymore, they’re trying to STOP solvers from getting the answer in a constant fight among themselves for originality. Straining new anagrinds and new definitions, which often don’t work. I’m not enjoying them anymore, anyway, so I’m not going to bother from now on.

65. od @64
    Chambers
    or² (heraldry) The tincture gold or yellow, indicated in engraving and chiselling by dots
    ODE
    or² noun [mass noun] gold or yellow, as a heraldic tincture.

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