Guardian 28,521 – Imogen

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Quite a tough one from Imogen today, though fortunately with a few easier clues to get me started, followed by a steady slog to the end. Thanks to Imogen.

 
Across
1 AUTUMN New financial institution losing pounds over a quarter (6)
Reverse of N MUTUAL less L (pounds)
4 SPUMANTE Wine sent spilling over cat (8)
PUMA in SENT*
9 DRILL Case of ‘Physician, heal thyself’? That’s a bore (5)
If the physician needs to heal himself then the DR is ILL
10 CAIRNGORM Minor crag blasted for stone (9)
(MINOR CRAG)* – a semi-precious stone found in the mountains of the same name
11 CHEVROLET Coming to a point, band finally abandoned hire car (9)
CHEVRON (a band coming to a point) less its last letter, plus LET (hire)
12 SHOWN Can it have to be proved? (5)
SH (be quiet, can it) + OWN (have)
13 OF MICE AND MEN Extravagantly commend a fine story (2,4,3,3)
(COMMEND A FINE)*
17 RECOVERY TIME After some bowling on ground, I’m yet to get some spin: wait before able to perform again (8,4)
REC (recreation ground) + OVER (some bowling, in cricket) +(I’M YET)*
20 ABACK Some black cab always around, so taken unexpectedly (5)
Hidden in reverse of blacK CAB Always
21 APERIODIC Irregular school lesson in fine class girl missed (9)
PERIOD (school lesson) in A1 + CLASS less LASS
23 FANTASIST One with a dream lover posed from behind first (9)
FAN (lover) + reverse of SAT (posed) + 1ST
24 CREEL Native American’s large basket (5)
CREE + L
25 SERGEANT Colonist put on fabric, one with stripes (8)
SERGE (fabric) + ANT (a “colonist”)
26 ASIDES They are not generally to be heard speaking (6)
Cryptic definition, though asides in a play are meant to be heard by the audience, just not the other characters
Down
1 ABDUCTOR Kidnapper‘s muscle (8)
Double definition
2 TRILEMMA Nuisance not having answer: girl in quandary (8)
TRIAL less A[nswer] + EMMA
3 MILER Athlete who looks happy, though not first (5)
[S]MILER
5 PAINTED DESERT In distress, broken by temperature, leave the Badlands (7,6)
T in PAINED + DESERT (leave) – it’s an area in Arizona
6 MONASTERY Second royal in unpleasant house, a single-sex one (9)
MO (moment, second) + ER (the Queen) in NASTY
7 NEOCON American politician‘s one foul trick (6)
ONE* + CON (trick)
8 ERMINE Predator of rat, say, biting its head off and beginning to eat (6)
[v]ERMIN (e.g. a rat) + E[at] – ermine is another word for the carnivorous stoat, especially when its fur turns white in winter
10 COLLABORATION Not a single job in Scottish island: a premature cancellation all round (13)
COLL (Hebridean island) + A in ABORTION (premature cancellation)
14 CHECKMATE Final move of lover from Brno announced (9)
Homophone of “Czech mate”
15 BINDWEED Curler, black, certainly fits round front of wig (8)
B[lack] + W[ig] in INDEED
16 HERCULES God! Imogen’s work left in the wrong place (8)
HER (Imogen’s, though Imogen the setter is male) + CLUES (the setter’s work) with the L misplaced. If I remember correctly, Hercules/Heracles became a god after completing his Labours
18 GAFFES Mistakes of bosses seeing no resistance (6)
GAFFERS less R
19 GAINER Winner of an inaccurate timepiece? (6)
Double definition
22 INCUS One magnet’s orientation to hold copper for anvil (5)
I + CU (copper) in NS (magnets are aligned North to South). The incus/anvil is one of the three small bones of the middle ear

61 comments on “Guardian 28,521 – Imogen”

  1. I couldn’t parse AUTUMN or APERIODIC so thanks for the help there Andrew. PAINTED DESERT was new to me, as was TRILEMMA. Clue of the day was MONASTERY. Thanks Imogen, great crossword.

  2. Difficult for me, and I needed quite a lot of dictionary + online help for some GK & words I did not know. Solved the SE corner last.

    Favourites: ERMINE, CHECKMATE, GAFFES, SERGEANT, HERCULES.

    I knew 10c because I drove past the Cairngorm Mountains about 20 years ago on a trip to Scotland.

    Did not parse: 21ac apart from PERIOD = school lesson; and 17ac apart from imyet*

    New for me: COLL = an island in the Inner Hebrides; TRILEMMA (but I knew DILEMMA so this was easy enough to guess); Painted Desert (= badlands); GAINER = (of a clock or watch) become fast by (a specific amount of time); BINDWEED = a twining plant with trumpet-shaped flowers; CREEL = large basket; INCUS = a small anvil-shaped bone in the middle ear.

    Thanks, both.

  3. Yeah, bit of head scratching, couple of hours for this plodder. He can be oblique this guy … autumn for quarter, ‘can it have…?’ for shown … And he can sometimes be scholarly, but not on Monday (as Vulcan) or Tuesday… not much unknown today. Mind you, I knew neither the financial nor theological meanings of trilemma, thought it was just lexical smartarsery, so apologies to Imogen. Collaboration too was a bung and shrug, Scottish islands being like fish … too many of the buggers to bother. All good fun, ta Im & Andrew. Btw, there’s also a 5d in South Oz, we borrowed the name.

  4. … And bindweed reminded me of the F&S song .. thankfully no earworm, too long ago (apols if it gets you 🙂 )

  5. 1a – a quarter? Could be one of the four seasons (6 letters, so Frankie Valli doesn’t fit), but which one? The first clue and already I’m on the horns of a quadrilemma!

    Thanks Imogen and Andrew

  6. It’s good to be back on the blog again today, and to report on a fine puzzle (yesterday by the time I arrived I noticed a distinct lovefest in progress, and didn’t like to spoil the party, for what for me was quite a dreary puzzle).
    But on with the positive and today … almost every clue pleased, and many chuckles were evoked along the way – from MONASTERY, CHEVROLET, OF MICE AND MEN, and many others – right through to the lovely misdirection of loi (HERCULES) – and minimum parsing problems
    Thanks Imogen, for forty-five minutes of intense entertainment.

  7. Very tough indeed, but also very satisfying. Hadn’t heard of either trilemma or bindweed but guessed from crossers and word play and Google confirmed.

    For 16D I’d confidently pencilled in DIS for the god thinking wrong place was the definition.

    Thanks Imogen and Andrew.

  8. Trilemma? Surely Tripolar next.
    A really good toughie-almost got through unscathed but put SWORN instead of SHOWN (too exhausted by then to check the possibilities)
    Thanks Andrew esp for parsing of AUTUMN and thanks Imogen for a fine puzzle

  10. Just the last few at the top held me up. Couldn’t parse AUTUMN, either, nor could I get NEOCON, which I hadn’t come across before, or SHOWN. Bit of a TRILEMMA at the end therefore, a DNF but enjoyed the rest. Nice to see CAIRNGORM in there, I have a rather lovely Victorian one handed down to me from my great-grandmother…

  11. Grantinfreo @3 “ Scottish islands being like fish … too many of the buggers to bother”. Could not agree more. Pretty much any four or five letter combination of vowels and consonants is the name of a Scottish island.

    This was tough but rewarding. Needed a lot of online help but got there somehow.

    Failed to parse COLLABORATION and RECOVER(y time).

    Thank you Imogen and Andrew.

  12. Not being of the football-liking (or even understanding) type, I believe the expression is that that was ‘a game of two halves’ for me in that approximately half went in very quickly and the remaining blighters took ages!

    Strangely, I had come across TRILEMMA before (working on some stuff around the economics of the Internet at the moment) and I have been to COLL having once been on a walking holiday to Mull, Iona, Tiree and Coll. The beaches on those islands are fabulous…

    SHOWN was remembered from my school days with one particularly irksome maths master who insisted on using various abbreviations including his own ‘ICBST’ (‘It can be shown that…’). Just to be even more perverse, he insisted on spelling shOwn as shEwn.

    Thanks Imogen and Andrew!

  13. Defeated by AUTUMN, TRILEMMA and PAINTED DESERT but I enjoyed getting the rest. HERCULES was class

    Ta Imogen & Andrew

  14. Thank you Imogen. Thoroughly enjoyable and all makes sense in retrospect, though I cheated on a few. And thank you Andrew. Kudos!

    I loved the journey into TRILEMMA/s (via google) and wondered if Imogen was referring to our current quandary regarding the pandemic, and all the ‘truth’ and ‘conspiracy’ theories:

    Agrippa’s trilemma “…. our beliefs are unsupported, or an infinite chain of justification supports our beliefs, or a circular chain of justification supports our beliefs……… presents three rather bleak alternatives to what justifies our beliefs as they “imply that we aren’t really justified in holding our original belief”

    Or the Münchhausen trilemma: a thought experiment used to demonstrate the theoretical impossibility of proving any truth, even in the fields of logic and mathematics, without appealing to accepted assumptions.

    I’m ignoring the ‘bleak’ ‘truths’ of Covid. Cryptics, especially Imogen’s, are a wonderful diversion.

  15. Got there in the end after 70 minutes when usually I take 20-40 minutes.

    Didn’t parse SHOWN though as I missed “Can it” could mean to “Be quiet!” or “Sh”.

    Favourite was HERCULES.

    Overall a very challenging and enjoyable solve in the sunshine – thanks Andrew and Imogen.

  16. A dnf as I came here without SHOWN having decided SCOON was not an alternative spelling of SCONE – and they don’t need proving anyway! I don’t think the parsing would ever have occurred to me if I had got it – thanks for that and others Andrew. My favourite was HERCULES – which came to me as I’m listening to Stephen Fry’s Troy at the moment. Thanks for the tough challenge Imogen.

  17. TheFSG@ 15, when I talk about an enjoyable solve in the sunshine it means a pen-and-paper, google-free zone. Good on you!

  18. Just to restore the balance in the chorus of praise I found this impenetrable – too many watery definitions: AUTUMN=quarter, COLLABORATION=not a single job (and including ABORTION=premature cancellation – my simple mind simply doesn’t work that way), SPUMANTE=wine (although probably no more unreasonable than the similarly adjectival “red” or “rose” (but never “white”)), BINDWEED=curler, and NEOCON=American politician (my ignorance very much in play here). I’m glad so many enjoyed it. Way too cold and lumpy for this Goldilocks. (Could be that I’m just not in form.)

    But thanks Imogen for the challenge and hats off (once again) to Andrew.

  19. Not exactly a Vulcan! Fairly impossible as ever, but my computer did most of the heavy-lifting.

    I couldn’t parse SHOWN (can it, ha ha). I’m another that had HERCULES as the favourite.

    Thanks impossible Imogen and Andrew for sorting it all out.

  20. Loved the double faux anagrinds in 5d – thankfully SPUMANTE put me out of my misery there
    Found this tough and am now several hours behind writing acceptance tests for a new court system so if the justice system collapses at some point it’s all Imogen’s fault

  21. Found that hard. Needed the blog to understand 12a SHOWN and 10d COLLABORATION. Never heard of Trilemma or Painted Desert, Many thanks to Andrew and Imogen.

  22. Got stuck with eight left to do, switched to online and confirmed a couple of letters with the check button, so a DNF for me, though the grid was filled eventually.

    I’d never heard of the semi-precious stone found at 10a (an early attempt at the anagram resulted in the 10-letter MICROGRAIN, a reconstituted stone – had to reach for the Tippex), or the Latin name of the anvil bone.

    Thanks to Andrew for parsing AUTUMN. And to Imogen for the stretching.

  23. I always find Imogen’s tough, but I stuck it out and got there in the end. I found it dry and humourless, and while I was pleased with myself for managing it, it was not a particularly pleasing experience, if that makes any sense.

  24. A much more challenging puzzle than of late, with lots of head scratching and a parsing failure. But all very fair and scrupulously clued.

    Favourites were MONASTERY and HERCULES. Plenty of chuckling on other clues too.

    I knew CAIRNGORM as an area not a stone.

    Bunged in SHOWN without parsing so thanks Andrew for the explanation.

    And thanks Imogen for a fun challenge today

  25. I dunno about period = lesson. A lesson is what you teach, a period is when you teach it.

    Tha Painted Desert (US) is in Arizona. Badlands National Park is in South Dakota. Nobody calls the Painted Desert badlands.

    But those aside, a challenging puzzle. There was a lot of blank in it when I got up this morning.

    Thanks, Imogen and Andrew.

  27. This was difficult and like some others I had to resort to some electronic assistance.

    16d HERCULES was quite intriguing. The Imogen in the clue obviously has to be the setter rather than a generic female of that name, or why would Imogen’s work be her clues? (“Work” by itself not being clues.) But as Andrew says, this setter is in fact male. So does that mean that Richard Browne regards his setting persona as being feminine? Or am I reading too much into it?

    Thanks to Imogen and Andrew.

  28. Wow, that was tough, with at least three not parsed. One of which was because I thought I remembered that BORA was a Scottish island, so I spent far to much unfruitful time trying to work out how a COLLATION coud be a cancellation of any sort, or why “premature” could indicate that I was to replace ANCE with O. No joy there, not surprisingly, and when I did get round to googling Bora I found that it is indeed an island but about as different to the Hebrides as it is possible to be.

  29. Like others, I needed a lot of help to finish this, and the blog to explain AUTUMN and COLLABORATION. The recent discussion about DODDER on General Discussion helped bring BINDWEED to mind.

  30. Thanks for the blog, I needed two goes at this which is rare these days but very welcome.
    I agree with the praise for HERCULES , was he a DEMI-god ? Not complaining , demi-god would have spoilt the clue.
    PAINTED DESERT was new for me but the word play very clear so fine.
    12 AC I had pastry in my head , needed a break to start afresh.

  31. Tough but rewarding with perhaps a dozen more laborious than others, and two very pleasing anagrams in ‘minor crag’ & ‘commend a fine’. I wonder whether ‘commend a fine novel’ would be allowed as an anagrind/def fusion?
    Thanks Imogen for the Herculean task, and Andrew for help parsing a couple.

  32. Val/SH @25/26: the problem with the Painted Desert = Badlands one for me is that it doesn’t obey truth in capitalization. The Painted Desert may be badlands, but the Badlands are the ones in the Dakotas.

    I found this puzzle too difficult. Had to cheat on several because I was out of time, and I couldn’t make heads or tails of AUTUMN even after cheating on it, so thanks for the explanation. I will say (since I’m now obligated to) that between the Painted Desert, the neocon, the Chevy, and Of Mice and Men, this puzzle is notably more American than usual.

  33. First time my wife and I have attempted a cryptic since we had the kids (yay for grandparents) and very pleased that we got them all (although we didn’t always know why until reading this!).

  34. Couldn’t decode APERIODIC having fixated on ERIC as the fine. Oh well.

    thanks for the explanations! (yes… AUTUMN was beyond me like many others).

  35. I parsed SHOWN as “can it have ‘to’ be proved”, as in SHOWN TO means proved (‘it has been shown to’ = ‘it has been proved’). Naah. Doesn’t quite work.

    Did anybody see that documentary about the craftsmen at the porcelain works, ‘Of Meissen Men’?

    Coat’s in me hand, goodbye and thank you I & A.

  36. I parsed SHOWN as HOW (have to be proved) inside SN (can it – ie, put it in tin (Sn). Almost works.

  38. Tough puzzle, but very fair and with some great clues. Thanks Imogen and Andrew.
    Val @25, SH @26 and mrp@32
    I too was thrown off by Badlands, which every American associates with the Dakotas! Never heard of “badlands” as a generic term for a desert, but Mr. Google does indeed verify this.

  39. Thanks Imogen and Andrew
    I wasn’t really moved to comment, but Alphalpha @18 prompted me to. I raised an eyebrow at “wine” for SPUMANTE too, but I put “spumante” into Google Translate and it gave the English to be “bubbly wine”!

  40. I might be wrong, but I understood “badlands” to not necessarily be desert, but topography that’s so dissected by canyons that it’s very difficult to travel through (generally they are deserts, though….)

  41. Interested to see a few more who can’t be bothered with silly pseudonyms. OK for setters.
    A quickish solve but which Scottish island made parsing COLLABORATION a chore (Iona is the usual and I’d even a feeling there was a Bora) and SHOW still seems iffy. Guardian setter do treat punctuation of clues in a cavalier fashion. Nonetheless many thanks for keeping the brain ticking over.

  42. My first rule of “guArDian” solving is completely ignore all capitalisation, punctuation, italics etc.
    Second rule is to remember that any word can be an anagrind if it indicates anagram

  43. muffin@40 the only Badlands I knew of are the Canadian ones – they give the explanation:
    The badlands were named by early French explorers who termed their steep-sloped mesas (flat-topped mountains) and deep, winding gullies as “bad lands to cross.”

    Home to many dinosaurs, too.

    I am surprised you forewent the opportunity to comment on surplus “ins” today.

  44. Dave Ellison @43
    The only slightly dodgy “in” for me was the one in 2d, but I was more critical there of the looseness of “girl” for EMMA – perhaps Jane Austen could have been involved?

  46. sheffield hatter@26 Well, you live and learn. Living very far rrom both badlands, I’ve only ever heard the South Dakota one referred to by that name,, but if Arizona wants to be bad too let’em.

  48. Wow – really tough. Like Roz @30, I needed two goes at this. Almost gave up with about 8 unsolved, but managed to get there. Loved AUTUMN, MONASTERY and HERCULES. Would never have parsed SHOWN. Many thanks to Imogen for the work-out, and to Andrew.

  49. Well I got there in the end, which is an improvement on yesterday. Thanks to Imogen, and Andrew for various parsings (I was hung up on PE for the school lesson) and to several commenters for the TRILEMMA discussion. Those who have never come across BINDWEED are lucky.

    Roz @30, thanks for giving me an excuse for taking so long to get HERCULES. He was the offspring of Zeus and the mortal Alcmene, and even Homer seemed a bit confused about whether he was a god or a hero.

    I’m not sure why ginf @4 feels the need to apologise for his musical allusion (the touching tale of inter-species romance between honeysuckle and convolvulus) but, if anyone would like an alternative earworm, this is what the reversing black cab reminded me of.

  50. Muffin @39
    The best known Spumante is that old crossword favorite Asti – not that all Asti wines are bubbly, nor all Spumante from Asti. It raised a smile from me that Imogen had managed to clue the other half – I expect deliberately.

  51. Quite a tough puzzle, which I fell just short of completing.
    Nice to see praise for the clue to HERCULES – I liked it too. Funnily enough, I saw a clue to that word a few days ago that used a very similar construction but a completely different definition:
    “The lady has fantastic clues – one putting in a huge effort repeatedly (8)” (This clue, incidentally, was highlighted out of context in a short piece about female crossword setters, and Nutmeg had just been mentioned.)
    I also liked ERMINE, CHECKMATE and GAFFES, which I see were among michelle’s favourites @2.
    Thanks to Imogen and Andrew.

  52. Too many unknowns for me, so no possible chance of conjecture to cross fill. Still remain cynical that setters do not use technology to help with compilations…

  53. I enjoyed this, though solved a mere 11 clues. I scuppered myself by pencilling in ‘tom’ in 4a, with only the M from 6d monastery a cert. I got 15d, with a wry smile, as I had spent a hot afternoon unravelling miles of the stuff from fences and tender plants.

  54. Least favourite setter by a huge margin. DrWhatsOn @23 is pretty spot in in my opinion. Even when you get an answer very little pleasure. As for bindweed a curler!

  55. Got stuck for ages as I had got fixated on particular readings of the clues. And writing in SPUMANTI hindered the completion.

  56. Phew! Finally finished this one, having taken a few runs at it. Like many others, I got about half the solutions very quickly, and the rest veeery sloooooooowly. Also like many others, I failed to parse SHOWN – so thanks for the explanation Andrew, and for the rest of the blog. And thanks Imogen for the challenge.

    I’m perplexed at some of the grumbles here – eg I had no problem with AUTUMN being “a quarter”. What’s wrong with that?

    “Curler” for BINDWEED is the only one that really baffles me, and Google has turned up nothing corroborative so far. Still gettable from the wordplay and crossing letters though.

  57. widdersbel @ 56 BINDWEED will curl itself around anything, including other plants, hence it is a big problem although the flowers actually look quite nice and are often seen in hedgerows.
    Think about runner beans curling around bamboo poles.
    Curler is a rather loose definition but the clue overall worked well , Gladys is convincing me to look at clues as a whole instead of just individual parts.

  58. I’m all too familiar with bindweed, unfortunately, but “curler” is a very loose definition. I’d be more forgiving if the surface were smoother – I get the idea but it’s a bit clunky. Oh well, nice try, Imogen!

  59. PhilinLivi@ 95 (where’s Livi?) I tried really hard to include CHAMPION too — tried to make it something i “chain”, e.g. slavery. Didn’t work.

  61. Tough to get started but then it went in ok but didn’t parse APERIODIC (as got stuck in PE as the lesson) or SHOWN where I thought can might be the SN = tin. I know a bit lazy.

    Thanks Imogen and Andrew

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