Guardian Cryptic 28,527 by Fed

90 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,527 by Fed”

1. Does it make a difference if you know who the setter is? Last time I had no idea about Fed’s identity and came a cropper. Today, every time I got stuck, I thought I could see Mr G grinning impishly at me through the grid, and somehow it seemed to help.

   Favourites were the wicked output, the lime-and-soda incident, the pseudo-mathematical IN LIEU, and, for the surface, 17ac – those annoying Swedes who even in their down-time love to combine de-cluttering and saving the planet.

   Thanks Fed and loonapick.

2. A lot of parsing after the fact for me today, and I didn’t work out how DOLLOP or CO-WORKERS were constructed.

   I liked IN LIEU, and PUNDITRY

   Thanks Fed and loonapick.

3. [EB@1

   Very much so I’d say my first attempt at a gor-monstrosity was a recent Bluth in the indy and I had a miserable DNF. But today was much easier]

4. There seemed to be an awful lot of container-and-contents clues today, and I don’t know if the fragmented approach to CAULIFLOWER EAR and GENE POOL really appeals to me.

   But I am a big fan of Dave G, so I will persevere. Not sure the setter’s real identity is supposed to be relevant, but it is.

5. Isn’t this just Fed’s second in the G? Not surprised if it’s your first, loonapick. Trademark humour and inventiveness from Mr G this morning and the odd device that might split commenters. Not being a boxing fan, I took longer than I should to spot CAULIFLOWER EAR which is a characteristic I associate with rugby.

   I thought CHANDLER was superb, once I’d worked out the pronunciation of wicked. Also enjoyed the construction of CROSS EYED (a query, though: is ESSO actually a company or a brand? I know the parent is Exxon but I’m not sure if there are actually registered companies named Esso. Didn’t stop me solving.) IN LIEU was another tick for connecting with three others – although lieu/loo are close but not identical for me. GENE POOL was favourite for the combination of surface and construction. Very enjoyable breeze today.

   Thanks Fed and loonapick

6. Thanks loonapick for parsing CAULIFLOWER EAR and THEOLOGIAN for me; they’re always obvious when you see them, aren’t they?

   I thought this was going to be a DNF after the first pass but it yielded to persistence and there were some cracking clues along the way: BORROW and RIGGED and DOLLOP being among my favourites. Thanks Fed!

7. Thanks Fed and loonapick
   My first Fed. I enjoyed it, but there were several that went in unparsed. I loved CHANDLER.

8. The last couple were a struggle, and I take the point that if you aren’t a square eyed Brit you may be lucky enough not to be familiar with the insufferable Ant & Dec and the Eeyorish Mr Shearer.
   But the rest of this was a delight, and a marked contrast with yesterday’s Vlad. Boatman suggests that a test of a good clue is that getting it produces an Aha! moment rather than a Grr! moment – and I had a lot of Aha! moments with this one. Favourites CHANDLER, GADABOUT, BORROW, CO-WORKERS (there have to be some compensations for being aware of those two), RIGGED, RIDE, CAB DRIVER, CAULIFLOWER EAR, THEOLOGIAN, WOOD.
   I particularly like a setter who can come up with something interesting for a short word, and three of my favourites clued RIDE, WOOD and EAR.
   KULFI was a new one for me, and resulted in a pleasant diversion looking at recipes!
   Warm thanks to Fed, and to loonapick for the blog.

9. Another good one from Fed. First pass yielded little but understanding arrived bit by bit. Thanks loonapick for explanations and DaveG for the challenge. (Am I missing something obvious but why is corporation = gut?)

10. Plenty to enjoy here, including ROCOCO, GADABOUT and CO-WORKERS. I thought the cluing was very neat. LOI was DOLLOP, which I stared at for a long time. Many thanks to Fed and loonapick.

11. Fiddly, fiddly, fiddly. Then just when I think I’ve got the hang of fitting all those irritating little bits together, I hit DOLLOP and its three crossing clues, and all the wheels fall off. Don’t watch MOTD so I don’t know Shearer (lwho might be a different Shearer for all I know). Doll up = preen is too long a stretch for me, and I have no excuse for the other two except exasperation.

    DNK KULFI but I worked it out.

12. I managed to complete this one but some were based on the description (guesses), crosses and use of aids – and I couldn’t parse them all. But It was fun. Last corner in was NE. Somehow CAB DRIVER jumped into my mind which helped.

    My favourite was IN LIEU and I also liked PUNDITRY.

    Thanks Fed and loonapick

13. JerryG @9
    “Corporation” is used for a beer belly or “gut”.

14. Thanks Muffin, that’s new to me.

15. JerryG @9, I don’t have Chambers but if you go to Collins online 3rd definition, there are several informal synonyms. A bit of a cryptic chestnut, if you eat enough of them. 🙂

16. My first Fed too and very enjoyable it was. I just spent a bit of time reading a “Meet the Setter” article about Dave Gorman, which I enjoyed, and realised I have met him before as Bluth. I did have to google Ant’n’Dec and “Shearer pundit” to make sense of 22a and 29a respectively, but no matter – always learning. Lots of fun and my favourites have already been mentioned by others above. Thanks to Fed and loonapick.

17. This was quite a challenge. Left half easier than RH side.
    Parsing of a few clues took me a while to work out (19,22,29ac and 8/27 d)

    Liked: CHANDLER, ROCOCO.

    New: lan Shearer football pundit; KULFI. Almost forgot who Ant + Dec are/were – never saw them on TV.

    Thanks, both.

18. [Michelle @17
    It’s Alan Shearer. He used to be a very good footballer.]

19. Couldn’t completely parse cauliflower ear, or wicks for the chandler. My only question is why STaY for board in 28a? Getting the two long downs made this a pleasure to solve. I enjoyed the surfaces as well. Thanks FED and loonapick.

20. CanberraGirl @19
    STAY puzzled me too, but I think it must refer to staying in a boarding house. A bit loose!

21. Actually, I think this is my second Fed puzzle…

22. CanberraGirl @19; you stay somewhere, or you board there. As in “boarding school”.

23. If we are going to pick up on loose definitions, I wasn’t too impressed with DOLLOP = ball; but it’s all in the game,

24. Thanks muffin @20. That makes sense.

25. NeilH @22 23. Thanks. It works for me now. And I had the same question about dollop being ball.

26. NeilH @23: I might have posted this before but, on the first French holiday I took with my partner, we had finished lunch and she wanted ice cream. Pointing at her choice on the menu she hesitantly requested “deux dollop, s’il vous plait”. To then learn that the French term is ‘boule’. So that one brought a smile and was consequently fine in my personal book.

27. Surely a pudding is a certain type of (usually hot and stodgy) dessert? Kulfi is not a pudding. I would not call ice cream a pudding.

28. A couple I couldn’t parse, but they all went in eventually.

    Thanks Fed & loonapick (especially for the parsing)

29. PostMark @26; even if you have posted it before (and I’m not sad enough to check), it certainly bears repetition ?

30. Memo to self. This site mangles smilies…

31. According to Nancy Mitford, a pudding is what posh people call a sweet.

32. Don’t know if it’s just a Scottish thing, but up here, pudding and dessert are interchangeable terms.

33. Second Fed and as enjoyable as the first. I thought ‘Ant n Dec’ might be doing double duty with a worker ant and the Disasters Emergency Committee which funds aid workers. Just a thought…

    Ta Fed & loonapick

34. loonapick @32

    I agree

35. Yes, whizzed through this until I ground to a complete halt in that south-east corner. With PUNDITRY, KULFI and DOLLOP impenetrable. Until then I was enjoying the experience. I also more associate CAULIFLOWER EARs with Rugby Football than pugilism

36. Regarding 26A IN LIEU, I think “as a” should be included in the definition.

37. Another 2nd Fed for me and very enjoyable.

    Had GO BONKERS for CO WORKERS 🙂 – seemed to fit nicely, and didn’t bother trying to parse the boxer’s complaint.

38. A pleasant straightforward solve, with a couple of uncertain parsings. DOLLOP – I got stuck on preen = doll and missed the up part.

    Two favourites today – GADABOUT (a great word) and THEOLOGIAN

    I couldn’t see that the surface of 29a made any sense, although knowing of AS from MOTD meant getting the answer was no problem.

    Thanks to Fed and loonapick

39. Gave up on SE corner – needed Bradford for KULFI, but never thought ‘ball’ could be DOLLOP, and with little interest in football the only Shearer I knew of was Moira.

40. Thanks for pointing out “Wicked”for CHANDLER-very droll
    I really liked the 2/4/12 connection
    Thanks Fed and loonapick.

41. I quite enjoyed this one, despite several harrumphy moments over ‘lower’=’shame’ in 8d, the repeated ‘pry’ in wordplay for PANTRY and PUNDITRY, and the inside-out containment indicator in RO[COC]O.

42. Oh! And I missed the jolly clever “wicked output” for the candle-maker: I just biffed and shrugged. Thanks, loonapick, for that insight.

43. …. Oh, yes [thanks Ark Lark @38] and I also gagged at the horrible surface of 29a. I think surfaces are important. I like a nice surface.

44. My reaction a bit like gladys’ @11. I managed to fill all the squares correctly, but there was too much “it’s got to be…” and then a need to check for my liking. Never could parse CHANDLER, ACTION, BORROW, GENE POOL, STAYED or (LOI) DOLLOP. On the other hand, I was pleased to work out IN LIEU before I had any of 2, 4 or 12. On pudding, my Brummie wife uses it to mean any dessert, while I agree with Neill97 @27. Thanks, Fed and loonapick.

45. Bizarre puzzle – got progressively more obscure on the way down to that wretched SE quadrant.
    Non-Brits might well ask who the heck are “Ant ‘n ‘ Dec” (tried to fit them into an anagram prior to Mr G telling me they were actual people), not to mention Shearer & his modern job – plus that 16th century Indian ‘pudding’.
    But must admit I did enjoy CHANDLER (superb), GADABOUT, GENE POOL, IN LIEU etc.
    On the whole however I was pleased when the ordeal was over – by then was quite ‘Fed-up’, in fact.

46. Agree with much of what Rodshaw says @45.

    Ran into this at breakneck speed and got steadily slower until grinding to a halt faced with the unknown KULFI & CO-WORKERS pair in the SE.

    Often thought Operation Phi would be a good clue for HIP REPLACEMENT.

    On the whole, glad it was done.

    Many thanks, both.

47. Thanks for the blog , a bit Mondayish but quite nice in parts.
    I have seen WICKED possibly more often than seeing MORE WORK = UTOPIA, it is not so common now but I always think of candles. ( another two for Fiona Anne )
    I still say DOLL-UP , must be an age thing.
    Pudding = Dessert or afters is fine by me.
    Is Alan Shearer the one where Spitting Image do not even write a script ? They just use his own speech, a continuous stream of cliches impossible to satirise.

48. “It was a game of two halves.” (The sort of thing that Alan Shearer might say). The top went in smoothly with the bottom taking longer to fathom, but very enjoyable.

    I particularly liked the LOI, CO-WORKERS and CAB DRIVER. I wasn’t too sure about shame = lower, and I DNK KULFI, although the clue was fine.

    Thanks Fed and loonapick.

49. Another great puzzle from Fed – good to see him back.

    Three cracking crosswords today, with Eccles in the Indy and Julius in the FT. We’ve ben spoilt.

    Many thanks to Fed and to PeeDee.

50. Having just had a home “cooked” meal served by the soon-to-be ex-outlaws (yes, still on good terms) I can tell you that DOLLOP was a hoot although it wasn’t at the time… Wish there’d been some 23d on offer though.

    I’m with essexboy @1 – it really helps knowing who the setter is. This was a quickie compared to the last Fed (which I keep reading as Fred!) and a delight. Even with my limited knowledge of football, 29a went in fine (why is it that all sports commentators and pundits insist on shouting when they are trying to describe the various sporting goings-on?).

    Thank F(r)ed and loonapick!

51. Thanks paddymelon@15.

52. To be fair, I was sort of enjoying it before I hit the DOLLOP, thinking to myself that all those lots-of-little-bits charades rather reminded me of the old Everyman’s style – but the last four were painful.

53. Enjoyed this one, greatly helped by getting HIP REPLACEMENT early, wrongly thinking it was an anagram of HELP PAIR SECURE. I guess that is the crossword equivalent of the ball going into the net off Mr Shearer’s backside.

    Big quibble on preen = doll up and then ball = dollop, consequently needed a word search to get that one. Also spent ages wondering whether a BROIT was a thing, almost going to Chambers to see if it was an obscure type of bike, before the obvious light dawned.

    I still have no idea which is Ant and which is Dec and have long since ceased to care.

54. gladys@52 , it reminded me of Everyman too. DOLLOP is the same technique as BORROW , even the same letters.
    The bottom right of a grid often has the most awkward looking words, I always start again there after trying all the across and down clues.
    No support from Chambers for dollop=ball but I do think it is used by potters for that sense.

55. Thanks Fed and loonapick. I filled the grid without parsing a few but enjoyed the process. I liked THEOLOGIAN and GADABOUT (hoping Fed might have middle name beginning with A), the juxtaposition of CROSS-EYED & ORBIT, the reprise of ‘pry’, and perhaps a ‘replacement’ mini-theme with ‘O’ twice IN LIEU of ‘U’.

56. DOLLOP = ball is a new ‘un for me. I think of a dollop as a bit of a liquid or semi-liquid. You might add a dollop of cream or mayonnaise, but a dollop of ice cream is a scoop too far.

    10a Since District Attorney is a US office, shouldn’t there be some sign of “American” for “a lawyer”?

    I got stuck on HIP REPLACEMENT, because I ran out of anagram after HIP REPLACE — I thought the anagram fodder was “help pair secure”. Only this morning did “cement” occur to me.

    Anyone else try “Christie” for the crime writer? It worked with the H crosser, but the next crosser sis it in.

    rodshqw@45 Indian pudding is a New England dessert made from cornmeal, eggs, milk and molasses. I’m quite fond of it, especially with vanilla ice cream. Probably would be good with kulfi too.

    I enjoyed the last Fed and this one too. Why does everyone else seem to know that Fed is Dave Gorman? Who’s Dave Gorman?

57. What Eileen said

58. I thought DOLLOP for ‘ball’ was fine – I was thinking of those ice cream scoops, which the “dinner ladies” at school also used to put a ball-shaped dollop of mashed potato on your plate. Not such a memorable experience as Mark’s partner’s French ice cream @26, perhaps, but it helped me solve the clue.

59. Valentine @56
    For Fed/Bluth see here.

60. Was it actually potato in those scoops, hatter? I remember it with a shudder. And so wet it didn’t absorb the thin brown soup that masqueraded as gravy

    Valentine @56: Here you go. And here.

61. Thanks loonapick, as owner of a mild 8+27D I got that fairly quickly and didn’t bother to parse it, fortunately as Lower= Shame would have been beyond me I think ( the other long down entry similarly written in but thankfully not needed yet).
    Like others got a good start and ground to a halt SE, needing a thesaurus to fathom Doll Up for Preen but happier somehow that DOLLOP is or certainly could be ball-ish, even when soggy mashed potato is involved.
    GADABOUT is a great word encountered recently but regularly in a Julia Donaldson book, to contrast another lovely word BuRROW which popped into my head thanks to Kafka’s short story. Thanks Fed, I have completed the solution of your crossword and it seemed to be very enjoyable.

62. I had a lot of fun with this one, but it wasn’t all plain sailing. In particular, solving seemed to slow down as I proceeded, echoing rodshaw@45, I was a little surprised to see the two appearances of PRY and the same substitution gimmick in 19a and 20d, but it didn’t hurt.

    Just to round out the picture on the two British celebrities: living in the US I’ve never seen A&D in action, but they are frequently made fun of in comedy panel shows that I watch a lot, so no Googling needed there. As for Shearer, I wasn’t familiar with his current job since although a lot of PL is broadcast here, they use different commentators and pundits, but as it’s a common route for superannuated sports stars, it wasn’t hard to make sense of.

63. PS Valentine@56: are you Dave Gorman?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_You_Dave_Gorman%3F

64. I had forgotten the ice cream scoop to serve mashed potato, it must have been Smash, great advert , awful taste and texture.
    Gazzh @ 61 we are due a Kafka theme, Gregor Samsa was in recently but there is so much potential overall.

65. Re 13a – there was a cycle frame builder in the late 1980s from Sheffield with the brand name Orbit. Made various touring bike frames from Reynolds 531 tubing I seem to recall

66. [Mark @60. School meals in Hertfordshire where I grew up were pretty good. I think it was the first county, or one of the first, to offer children a choice of meals.

    Certainly I have no bad memories of school mashed potato, except for one meal that has stuck in my mind: it consisted of a poached egg in a bed of mashed potato – I couldn’t stand poached eggs.]

67. Re: Pudding (which was fine by me).
    I was once sitting on a multi-national dinner table including Americans, someone Nordic … – it’s a long time ago, I can’t remember exact details. The (Northern) English person sitting next to me had to leave for a few minutes after the main course and said, “If they come round to serve pudding, get me one.” This initiated a long discussion regarding the use of the word ‘pudding’; dessert or sweet are synonymous with pudding, but pudding does not necessarily mean dessert – black pudding and steak&kidney pudding for example. For the Americans ‘pudding’ was a very specific kind of dessert.
    The more we discussed it, the more examples we found.

68. As a data point, I did know of Ant and Dec (they appear in these crosswords often enough, and they also appear in Love Actually, which was a big hit here). I did not know Alan Shearer, but that’s hardly tovbe wondered at. Even so, I did get there in the end, with that one in fact the LOI.

69. Lots to learn in my first Fed — Ant&Dec, Shearer, DOLLOP as ball, and KULFI all led to a DNF. I could not parse CHANDLER or THEOLOGIAN so thanks loonapick for the blog. I still don’t see how deal = WOOD. There was a lot to like, however, such as CROSS-EYED, IN LIEU, and RIDE. Thanks Fed, I look forward to your next offering.

70. “I think non-Brits will struggle with the south-east corner”

    Indeed, I was coming here to say that as a non-Brit I struggled with the SE corner; kulfi isn’t something I see much either, and DOLLOP eluded me (as well as the parsing for BORROW). Is it usually a ball? Also “how’s your father” as sex; I’m used to “it” as sex by now, but I thought “how’s your father” was what Bally Jerry pranged his kite in?

    Thanks Fed and loonapick for the parsing help!

71. Lin @67 , nice story about puddings and yes lots of meanings , but for many , pudding is fine for any type of dessert , even ice-cream served after a main meal.
    Tony @69 DEAL is any type of soft wood , usually pine. Timber merchants often use this term.
    matt @ 70 – a bit of ” how’s your father ” is a rather outdated euphemism for sex, there are so many and the fashion always changes.

72. Tony@ 69. Deal is the specific name for fir or pinewood when used as a building material. Also a bit of a chestnut …. in crosswords.

73. Tony, I learned the word deal = wood from this poem, by Wallace Stevens–I think it’s the only place I’ve ever encountered the word in the wild, and from an American poet at that.

74. [I’ve made kulfi a couple of times. The first time the first three hours of the recipe was making evaporated milk, so the second time I started with evaporated milk!]

75. Thanks to Roz, Brigster, and mrpenny for explaining DEAL to me. I can now file that information on the shelf in my brain that includes cat = vomit, sailor = rating, and china = mate.
    [Eileen @49: Just completed Julius in the FT; it is indeed a “cracking crossword.”]

76. Not entirely one for me. Some witty and smooth surfaces but too much guessing followed by fiddly cut-and-stick parsing. But I’m glad it met with general enthusiasm. De gustibus….

77. Roz @ 47

    Thanks. Duly noted.

    (Just seen – been on a long car journey)

78. Later to this one today but just popping in to say thanks loonapick and Fed. Much to enjoy here. Didn’t parse DOLLOP but the rest more or less fell into place eventually.

    NeilH @8 – no Grrrs but one or two Hmmms…

    Fiery Jack @53 – it’s easy- Ant *always* stands on the (viewer’s) left, Dec on the right.

    Surprised so many haven’t seen this use of “wicked” before – thought that was a bit of an old chestnut. Still a good clue though.

    Pudding is any sweet dish that comes after the main course. End of.

79. widdersbel@78
    “Pudding is any sweet dish that comes after the main course. End of”
    You mean like steak and kidney pudding and black pudding (see Lin@67)?

80. Pino @ 79

    Steak & kidney pudding & black pudding aren’t sweet dishes.

81. Thanks Fed and loonapick. Couldn’t parse cauliflower ear, and didn’t get stay=board or shame=lower, but a pleasing solve nonetheless.

82. Thanks for the blog, loonapick. Only just got round to checking in after a long day. I’m very surprised to see that Kulfi seems to be considered obscure to so many – it’s certainly not from the 16th century – and I wouldn’t have considered it any more unusual than any of the other dishes one finds in an Indian restaurant. Chambers’ first definition for pudding is simply “the dessert course of a meal” which seems fair enough to me.

    Anyway – thanks all!

83. Simon S @80 – …unless you serve them with custard.

84. I finally put DOLLOP in after finding DOLL UP in the Chambers thesaurus under PREEN. But DOLLOP is necessarily shapeless and BALL is necessarily spherical or ellipsoid.

85. As someone whose name is just two letters different to Dave Gorman, who is frequently misnamed for him both verbally and in writing and who sets the occasional cryptic for a small group of friends, I can see my life is not going to get any easier!

    Did actually really enjoy this except for DOLLOP. No argument that it fits as a synonym; just never substituted the words myself. Thought ORBIT was excellent.

86. Re: 22ac. as an Australian Ant’n’Dec get the occasional mention on shows like The Last Leg that I do watch, but ‘corker’ for a good joke is a bit of English slang that didn’t surface for me.

87. Thanks, Gaufrid and gazzh for the Gorman guidance. My horizons are duly widened. And thanks mattw@70 for the comedy link — it’s a corker.

    mrpenney@73 I learned about deal from deal tables, which seem to appear in British fiction of some earlier decade. I didn’t know for quite a while that it mean a kind of wood — apparently originating from the town of Deal, where the tables (or was it the wood?) were local products.

    maarvarq @86 I seemed to know “corker” as “a good one,” so it could as well be a joke as anything else.

88. Valentine @87: Agreed, a corker can be anything super-duper. I guess the mind of Fed’s alter ego would naturally turn to a corker of a joke, but other corkers are available.

    Here’s Indian cricketer Murali Vijay getting “a corker of a delivery from James Anderson as his timber was disturbed in the very first over”.

    (That was three years ago, when we were doing rather better against India than currently.)

    And, whaddya know, here’s Mark Twain in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (chap. 16, para. 12):

    “Well, a body is bound to admit that for just a modest little one-line ad, it’s a corker.”

89. SimonS@80
    I know. I was trying to be ironic.

90. PhilInLivi @84 well, just as you can find DOLL UP in Chambers Thesaurus under PREEN, you’ll also find BALL in there under DOLLOP

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