Guardian Cryptic 28,543 by Pan

79 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,543 by Pan”

1. Commenting purely to claim the prize for first comment!

2. Oh, and I did finish it at 2.30 this morning!

3. Not sure I agree that ‘from the dairy’ is weak. Why is it a no-no? Genuine question, not a dig.

4. I like a nice easy start to the week and this was just that. Thank you Pan and loonapick. (Nothing to add to the latter’s comments)

5. I can’t get 8D to work without close doing double duty either. I briefly toyed with optic = see = c, but that’s even worse.

   Sargasso sea and single cream I thought were OK if a little simple, and I rather liked chinless wonder even if the definition is a little loose.

   Thanks Pan and loonapick.

6. TP@3

   “from the dairy” isn’t a no-no, although it’s weak; the no-no is “stuff” doing double duty.

7. 13D. I feel the parsing should read “I (one) … “.

8. Beg your pardon, Loonapick, I understand now. However still not sure why the definition is any more weak than, say, ‘tape’ for ‘recording’.

9. I finished this puzzle quite quickly. It was easier to solve than to parse some of my answers.

   I agree re 14ac – but it took me a while to parse it until I worked out that A = across. I thought 18ac was okay – it is perhaps just one of those vague definitions that we see sometimes?

   I did not parse 8d (only got as far as NIGH + C in TAP with close doing double duty), or 27ac KING = spouse.

   Thanks, both.

10. Loonapick, you have a couple of errors in your comments: DOUBLE rather than SINGLE (cream); ASSYMETRIC rather than ASYMMETRIC. I agree this was reasonably straightforward. I actually liked CHINLESS WONDER (and MALEFIC). Thanks for parsing, loonapick – when the answers come quickly, it can be a matter of bung it in and forget to parse, so I didn’t notice either the CREAM or the NIGHTCAP problem. Ta, Pan.

11. Of course the king in 27 across can only be generic to the preceding clue as neither ER had a king …

12. Thanks, TassieTim @10 – now edited

13. I had the same queries as others, but confused myself by putting in unparsed REFER instead of RIDER for 26a. Once I realised the anagram for 7d wasn’t right, I got RIDER and then the King in 27a made sense. Anyway, I enjoyed the puzzle. Thanks to Pan and loonapick.

14. Thanks Pan and loonapick.

    I’m sure you’re right about 8d – that’s exactly how I read it, but most of this went in so quickly that I didn’t stop to ponder such details.

    While I broadly agree with you that it’s nice not to have so many CD/DD type clues for a change, there were, on the other hand, rather too many anagrams for my liking (12, whole or partial).

    That said, I rather liked 7,19. Nothing wrong with the definition there for me.

15. Thanks Pan and loonapick
    I was going to make the same point about “close” doing double duty, and I too didn’t like “spouse” for KING (in fact I felt the need to check this one) – it just isn’t true that the husband of a reigning queen is a king.
    I rather liked the definition for CHINLESS WONDER. OSIRIS was another favourite.

16. …although re-reading my comment after posting, it comes across as a bit churlish. Shouldn’t complain – the overall balance was fine for a Monday. Also not sure I’ve counted correctly anyway.

17. TP@1
    Not only do you get the prize for coming first, you have all three places on the podium. Congratulations!

18. A nice start to the week, only struggling to parse the King in 27a. As a relative novice I’m not sure what I feel about Close and (possibly) Stuff doing double duty in 8 and 18. I’m aware it sometimes happens, or is alleged, but thought…… there’s double duty going on here, let’s see what the community has to say about that!
    Many thanks to Pan and loonapick

19. I’m glad it wasn’t just me with NIGHTCAP and SINGLE CREAM. Not good, especially as the latter could easily have been addressed by “…stuff produced in the dairy”. As Michelle @9 observes, we sometimes see vague definitions – but if they can easily be un-vagued, as this one can…
    Pleasant enough start to the week overall, and MALEFIC, CHINLESS WONDER, ASYMMETRIC, ISTANBUL, ANGLICAN, were particularly enjoyable.
    Linked clues are often a bit random, but the link between 26a and 27a was actually genuine, and there was a positive A-ha! moment on getting how LINKING worked.
    Thanks, both.

20. Thanks loonapick, a very thorough blog but I’m left wondering about the same ones as you.

    Had a ? against LINKING through failing to spot the ellipses.

    I do hope Pan will drop in to offer explanations or a mea culpa.

    Many thanks, both.

21. Straightforward stuff this morning…

    Thanks Pan and loonapick!

22. A gentle start to the crosswording week. I’m gratified to find my question about NightCap was shared by others. My favourite was FORECAStle which I think is a lovely word. Thanks Pan. Ideal blog loonapick, thorough and fair.

23. I didn’t twig why King = spouse until coming here. Like it.

    Nice coffee time puzzle and a good comprehensive analysis by loonapick

24. The clue for PELICAN made me smile for some reason. I think loonapick’s comments are fair but I did enjoy CHINLESS WONDER. Not sure if I’ve seen both favourites for ‘gold’ in the same grid before now.

    Ta Pan & loonapick

25. Just noticed a typo in 1A, surely FARC are in Colombia rather than Columbia somewhat further north?

    Makes me think loonapick was right about the editing.

    I did enjoy it overall though so will stop nit picking now.

26. I think the 26/27 pairing is fine – to Muffin @15, I take 27 as referring to the clue not the solution of 26, and wife of a king is a queen (-consort), so this works. Re 24d this drink comes up so regularly that I’m starting to worry about the bottom-shelf drinking habits of crossword compilers.

27. I agree about the double duty in NIGHTCAP, but isn’t the definition for SINGLE CREAM just ‘dairy’, with its meaning of milk-derived food? The ‘from’ is then just a connecting word between wordplay and definition, and, while it would be unusual to put the ‘the’ in front of ‘dairy’ with that meaning, it’s not unimaginable, and it makes for a nice surface. Goodness that’s a lot of commas for one sentence. I could never be a lawyer.

    [AlanC @24 – I wonder if there’s been a clue for AURORA with two golds?]

    Thanks Pan and loonapick.

28. Personally, I thought this (for a Monday, the debate continues) was an excellent mix of some straightforward clues with some clever well-constructed trickier to solve ones. Particularly liked MASTERING and NIGHTCAP. Clue of the day for me was CHINLESS WONDER which I hadn’t realised was an anagram until I had -O-D-R already in place in the 19d part of it. Many thanks to Pan, then…

29. I was just breezily biffing my way through this, so didn’t choke on the double-duty “close to” or “stuff from the dairy”, nor the Columbia typo (well spotted, Blah@25).
    I did feel that it was rather heavy on anagrams (full or partial). I do think a wide range of clueing devices (DD, CD, &lit, anagram, hidden, charade, homophone, Spoonerism, lift-and-separate, etc.) makes for a really engaging puzzle.
    Thank you loonapick and Pan.

30. I don’t have a problem with double duty. The device seems to come up fairly often.
    But maybe not appropriate for the Monday gig, although I understand those who’d say never never on a Monday, a Tuesday, a Wednesday ….. or any day.
    Here’s the earworm for today.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPNASiM8rNQ

31. I very much liked CHINLESS WONDER. I had to work out the anagram, which wasn’t obvious to me, rather than, as often, rely on the definition and and then check that it fitted the anagram. The solution was clearly correct, so I think the definition is quite good enough.

32. Good start to the week.

    I don’t think there is a problem with the definition of CHINLESS WONDER, viz ODE: ‘an ineffectual upper-class man’ and for Hooray Henry: ‘ a lively but ineffectual young upper-class man’.

    I think SINGLE CREAM is an extended definition or clue-as-definition (CAD) as some like to call them here. I agree that the clue for NIGHTCAP seems to be flawed, but a good try. As well as CHINLESS WONDER, I liked BACKSLIDE, especially as it avoided the usual ‘backside’ parsing.

    Thanks Pan and loonapick.

33. 18 across… one = single with end of cake = e in stuff = cram

34. I would like to weigh in with those on here who have no problem with what is being called ‘double duty’ in clues – so it is a yesyes from me (borrowing another regular contributor’s moniker, for which apologies) rather than a no-no. As is occasionally pointed out here and in GD, there are no rules, merely conventions – i.e. things that solvers and bloggers are accustomed to recognise and with which they feel comfortable. I personally find what I take Pan to be doing here with ‘nigh’ and ‘stuff’ to be a witty and welcome extension of the ‘conventional’ setters’ repertoire – and boy, does that sometimes seem to be in need of some shaking up. The idea that Pan should come on here to issue a mea culpa, as William suggests @20, is one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen written here, to be frank.

    To compare small things with great, it is a device I am accustomed to from Milton, who uses it frequently, in what my old professor used to call a ‘glide’. The most famous example occurs in the first two lines of Paradise Lost:

    Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit
    Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste …

    Here ‘fruit’ does ‘double duty’, first functioning metaphorically to denote ‘consequence’ or ‘reward’ (as in ‘the fruit of his labours’) in relation to the construction that precedes it, and then literally to denote the fruit that Adam and Eve must not touch, as the construction unfolds. Who knows? perhaps this occasioned syntactic outrage among some readers, who demanded an apology. If it is good enough for Milton, however, it is good enough for Pan, in my view.

35. SINGLE CR(E)AM

36. Thanks Pan & loonapick, that was fun.

    I agree with Spooner’s catflap@34 that splicing, or dovetailing parts of the wordplay and/or the definition is all good, creative entertainment, and rarely confounds the solver or makes the solution more opaque.

    Blah @25 We all know the favourite watering hole of FARC leaders is in South Carolina! The only question is who bought the drinks?

37. All over too fast, with only CHINLESS WONDER sparking any brain activity. Both 8d NIGHTCAP and SINGLE CREAM were easily gettable so fair clueing I’d say. So I’m with Spooner’s catflap @34.

    Thanks to Pan and loonapick

38. Excellent post @34, Spooner’s Catflap.
    You deserve another name check as a reward, imho.

39. Also very many thanks to Pan for a very enjoyable crossword and loonapic for a well explained blog.

    Mea culpa for not adding that to my original post ?

40. Oh!
    That question mark should have been a smiley face.
    I’m too old to be ending all my sentences with an upward, questioning inflection.

41. So the QOTD is whether doing double duty is a device or a mistake. My guess, and it is just that, is that if it were a deliberate flouting of convention it would happen more often and more elaborately.

42. Markatrainbow @33/35; there is no argument about the parsing, which is what is given in the blog. The discussion is that ‘from the dairy’ is not a precise definition. I have suggested @32 that the whole clue might be regarded as the definition – an extended definition/CAD/semi-&lit.

    Spooner’s catflap @34 and others. It’s fine if you like double-duty; without it, the parsing would be NIGHTAP, which obviously doesn’t work. However, I don’t think most setters would consciously include double-duty in their clues. It will be interesting if Pan comments, but my feeling is that this is just a mistake.

43. … the chevrons including the C in NIGHTAP did not print.

44. First time in a long while that I’ve solved every clue in sequence. Had to ponder a while on SINGLE CREAM, LINKING and ENCORES but otherwise it all dropped in with ease and I am feeling a smidge smug.

45. Happy Monday – I enjoyed working through this crossword with help from my resident expert on the parsing of the clues that have ruffled a good few feathers today.
    I’m with Ronald @28 and Spooner’s Capflap @34 as these are my comments of the day.
    Also many thanks to Pan and Loonapick.

46. The ellipsis in 27a LINKING actually does refer the king back to his spouse in 26a!

    Tim Phillips@11 Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother had a king, but as a queen consort I’m guessing she wouldn’t be referred to as Elizabeth Regina.

    Thanks to Pan and to loonapick for the explanations.

47. Thanks for the blog , better that I say the minimum today.
    The only clue I nearly liked was 13D and I had to frown at that for the indirect anagram, why not say – Cart I adapted ……. ?

48. Roz @47 – I was going to comment that at least the debate about “double duty” has distracted people from complaining about the indirect anagrams… Ha!

49. Thanks Pan for an enjoyable crossword and Loonapick for the blog. I did not have any of the quibbles some others had. I don’t know Hooray Henry but the answer was obvious from the anagam. I liked PELICAN and BACKSLIDE in particular.

50. This slipped down without touching the sides – perfectly acceptable for a Monday puzzle. The few inelegancies were excusable as the solutions were unambiguous.

    Nothing else to say except that I was holding back on commenting until I had seen how Roz was going to phrase her apophasis!

    Thanks to S&B

51. Spooner’s catflap @34: much as I admire those opening lines from Paradise Lost for precisely the reason you give, I don’t think that device can be used as a justification for this sort of double duty in a crossword clue. In order to be fair to the solver, the wordplay part of a clue has to be capable of being read as a logical instruction to produce the answer. A poem does not have to be logical in the same way. I’m afraid that as it stands, 8d NIGHTCAP doesn’t work properly.

52. Very proud of myself for getting 18 out of the thirty clues without help!

53. Lord Jim @51 (and others who had a problem with 8d). In my opinion, a clue where a word is doing double duty is valid but potentially unfair, so should be signalled to the solver by putting a question mark on the end.

54. Thanks for the blog, Loonapick.
    Well, I enjoyed it as I am not very good. I particularly liked CHINLESS WONDER as, working in the City, I know so many.
    I am not well up on Egyptian Gods, so that was a bung-in.
    Another capitulation by England on the cricket field, oh well, there is still the Solheim Cup.

55. re NIGHTCAP debate: is there any such thing as a T-cap optic (possibly found in French bars)?

56. Lord Jim @34. In both the clues in question ‘the wordplay part of a clue [is] capable of being read as a logical instruction to produce the answer’. One of the elements in the wordplay also serves to provide the definition. I did not offer the Paradise Lost example as a ‘justification’, but just as a similar kind of verbal finesse. I hear what you are saying, but I completely fail to see the problem here. Maybe I bring the wrong kind of attitude to this forum and should just leave it to the Ximeneans.

57. Spooner’s catflap @56. “…a similar kind of verbal finesse.” Quite right. Poetry and crossword clues both involve playing with words: puns, rhymes/(homophones, hints and other sorts of verbal finesse are part and parcel of both. Your “wrong kind of attitude” is very much needed here!

58. It is nothing to do with Ximenes , NIGHTCAP simply does not work at all, SINGLE CREAM is okay with definition – from the dairy.
    close to optic found in bar = nigh + t(optic) ap OR = t(c)ap
    Crossword or not, we can not have “close to ” meaning nigh AND meaning last letter in optic AT THE SAME TIME,

59. [Gervase @50
    I had to Google apophasis. Wiki has some cracking examples, many of them from the recent ex-president, who I can’t quite bring myself to name…]

60. One of my quickest finishes ever. Theatrical note: “Chinless Wonder” comes from Look Back in Anger by John Osborne

61. Never mind the sleep inducing double duty discussion in 8dn. However you read “close” the clue makes no sense. You have to insert C into a word for “bar”. Neither NIGHTAP or TAP serves the purpose. The former is not a word at all and I struggle to equate the latter to a bar.

62. Roz @58. “…we can not have “close to ” meaning nigh AND meaning last letter in optic AT THE SAME TIME.” Why not?

    The two words ‘close’=NIGH and ‘close’=final bit of ‘optic’=C are pronounced differently and have different meanings; in Chambers they are meaning 1 (with a soft or unvoiced S) and meaning 2 (with a hard or voiced S). So this is even better than Spooner’s catflap’s example from Milton, where fruit is used with the meaning ‘consequence’ in the first line and in its usual sense leading to the second line, but the first meaning derives from the normal one. I wonder if he expected his readers to see where he was coming from, or did he think he was casting pearls before swine, and left the line unaltered with a shrug, and the thought, “well, it’s their loss if they don’t get it”.

    Admittedly, Milton was not writing anything so important as a crossword clue, but in a way Pan has done better.

    Though I still think a question mark at the end would have been helpful.

63. My twopenn’orth (sorry, jeceris!): the forbidden fruit idea goes very nicely with the SINGLE CREAM, which as Robi pointed out has an &littish quality. The cream kind of splodges over (or spills over, as it’s single) from the definition into the wordplay – even if, alas, it only covers one end of the cake.

    There isn’t the same playful allusiveness with NIGHTCAP, where my thinking is à la Roz. It seems more like Homer’s nodding than Milton’s fruit-play.

    Sandiegobrit @60: thanks for the reminder of Look Back in Anger (or Ankoolger, as I believe it was once clued). There’s a suggestion in Wiktionary that CHINLESS WONDER goes back to 1948, but I don’t know how reliable that is as the attribution isn’t complete.

    I’m not even going to mention apophasis.

64. jeceris @61. Whether or not the discussion of a word doing double duty is soporific, your reason for saying the clue does not work depends on just that discussion!

    As to the equation of ‘bar’ with TAP, try the Sheffield Tap, a bar on platform 1b at Sheffield station.

65. I am not going to complain that NIGHTCAP doesn’t work…..thanks Muffin @59
    And thanks to Pan and loonapick

66. I am very novice to cryptics so have been mutely following the blog for a while, but today at last I felt compelled to comment! It is late in the day so perhaps I have missed the window of time for input from more experienced others, but I parsed SINGLE CREAM as SINGLE (“one”) + [end of] C(ake) covered in REAM (“[to] stuff”). Maybe? Maybe not?

67. wot larx @66. Welcome to the site!

    Isn’t REAM what pipe smokers do when they want to clear out all the half-smoked tobacco and spittle that has accumulated in the bowl of their pipe? The act of stuffing the pristine tobacco into the bowl is called tamping, I think. I’ve never smoked, but one of my grandfathers did.

    I would be disappointed in a setter who used ‘covered’ to indicate that REAM is next to C (think of placing cards on a table – one that covers another would not be beside it); and using ‘end of’ to clue the first letter of a word would be a bit cheeky, though not necessarily wrong, in my opinion. Though as today’s comments show, there is room for lots of variation in opinions about clues, so please don’t let my response put you off!

68. jeceris @61 – taps are also the bars that you attach to your shoes when you want to do a little tap dancing.

69. wot larx @66: I can see where you’re coming from, but I think ‘end of cake’ is definitely E not C. If it was ‘one end of cake’ it could be either, methinks. As for ream = stuff, er . . . !!

70. Busy all day, so too late to add anything – and I won’t mention the double duty discussion either. 😉

    Hi sheffield hatter @64 – John Henderson organised his first S and B, to celebrate his birthday, at the Sheffield Tap – see here http://www.fifteensquared.net/2013/08/09/sloggers-and-betters-sheffield-a-message-from-john-henderson/

    He’s gone from strength to strength since then with highly enjoyable annual gatherings at York – see his announcement at the top of the page.

    We’ve had a host of new commenters in the couple of years since the last S and B. It would be really great to meet some new faces to put now-familiar names to – it’s not too late!

71. Nobody queried ‘gasses’ in 14A
    Gases is the plural noun and gasses is a verb form – surely ?

72. Eileen @70. Yes, I’m planning on attending the Saturday of the York S&B in October – I hope there’ll be a session devoted entirely to discussing “double duty”. I’ll be able to test the theory propounded by jeceris @61.

73. Never mind the sleep inducing double duty discussion in 8dn. However you read “close” the clue makes no sense. You have to insert C into a word for “bar”. Neither NIGHTAP or TAP serves the purpose. The former is not a word at all and TAP doesn’t mean bar?

74. Hi again, sheffield hatter

    Yes, I was pleased to notice you’d signed in. 😉

    (I very much hope not!)

75. I Iove the contortions people go into to justify setters’ synonyms. But I’m waiting patiently for someone to defend or explain NIGHTAP if “close” isn’t on double time.

76. jeceris passim

    Close/cloze may well be doing double duty. So what? There are no agreed rules for crossword setting, only conventions. Double duty may e frowned upon, and indeed avoided by some setters, but it’s not outlawed.

    And we often go for a drink at the local brewery tap, in fact we have two to choose from. Plus a third when we visit a friend in Bewdley, and a fourth that we frequented on a recent stay in Lyme Regis.

77. Admittedly neither was a real challenge, but for the first time ever I completed both the Cryptic and the Quiptic in clue order.

78. Well done, Ian S @77. That’s very impressive. Nice Monday offering although I preferred Qaos from Tuesday (today). I hope that the extended discussion over “close” will be long forgotten by the time I attend Saturday’s S&B in York.

79. I, for one, failed to notice the ellipsis between the clues for RIDER and LINKING, so it was just a matter of meh. Of England’s (and Britain’s) 6 or 7 queens regnant, only two were married to kings – Mary Tudor and Mary Orange née Stuart. And only one of whom was regarded as a king of England – my namesake wasn’t.

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