Guardian 28,544 – Qaos

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A quick solve for me today, helped by…

…the inevitable Qaos theme. Here we have over a dozen answers connected to gardening, highlighted below like this. (I could perhaps have added TIES to the list.) Thanks to Qaos for the 15a brief but enjoyable horticultural outing.

 
Across
1 CUTTING Penetrating piece (7)
Double definition – “piece” as in a press cutting
5 SPROUT Not even super finished this vegetable (6)
Odd (not even) letters of SuPeR + OUT (finished)
9 OVERSEAS Old lines surround area abroad (8)
O + A[rea] in VERSES
10 CATENA 100 + 1 + 10 + 1 in series (6)
C (100) + A (1) + TEN + (another) A – this is perhaps more familiar as part of “concatenation”
12 RESTRICTIONS Rotten crisis produced bans (12)
(ROTTEN CRISIS)*, with perhaps a surface reference to the past 18 months
15 RELATIVELY Rather start to read story about 4, see (10)
R[ead] + reverse of TALE + IV (4) + ELY (see)
17 DUE Proper moisture on the air (3)
Homophone of “dew”
19 SOW Very wide animal (3)
SO + W
20 STARBOARDS Rights of celebrities to collect fare (10)
BOARD (fare, as in “board and lodging”) in STARS. Can you have more than one starboard?
22 ABOVE ONESELF Conceited, like an out-of-body experience? (5,7)
Double definition
26 SOILED Nothing in shops is sent back dirty (6)
O in reverse of DELIS
27 MANDRAKE Sailor pursues war over poisonous plant (8)
Reverse of [viet]NAM + DRAKE (sailor). This hallucinogenic plant may be what Banquo in Macbeth i.3 calls “the insane root that takes the reason prisoner” (though other plants such as hemlock have also been suggested)
28 RUNNER Fugitive leader gets news for a pound (6)
RULER with L replaced by N N
29 EARTHED Fox heard ET is grounded (7)
(HEARD ET)*
Down
1 CROP Somewhat retired MP, or chief whip (4)
Hidden in reverse of mP OR Chief
2 TIES Makes bonds by losing money (4)
TIMES (by, as in 2 by 2) less M
3 INSPECTS Looks at home — time to wear glasses? (8)
IN (at home) + T in SPECS
4 GRAFT Initially, greasing roast with cooking fat is hard work (5)
Greasing Roast + FAT*
6 PLANTS Apple regularly supported by workers in factories (6)
Alternate letters of aPpLe + ANTS
7 OPEN ORDERS Person rode erratically in military formations (4,6)
(PERSON RODE)* – another answer where I think the plural is a bit suspect
8 TRANSVERSE Cross stars never get sacked (10)
(STARS NEVER)*
11 KILLER Difficult task to drink up measure inside (6)
Reverse of ELL in KIR
13 TRESPASSER Criminal in France, very old-fashioned royal (10)
TRES (French “very”) + PASSÉ + R[oyal]
14 SLOW MOTION 19 ÷ 50? Poet’s reduced rate (4,6)
SOW (19a) “divided by” L (50) + MOTION (Andrew M, former Poet Laureate)
16 VOTING Choosing French wine, discover­ing lots inside — gallons! (6)
“Discovered” [l]OT[s] in VIN + G[allons]
18 COLLIDER Pass learner with ride’s redesigned accelerator (8)
COL (mountain pass) + L[earner] + RIDE
21 RECEDE Cardinal saves church with end of steeple in decline (6)
CE in RED (cardinal) + [steepl]E
23 SPADE Spring day with Easter’s first card (5)
SPA (spring) + D + E[aster]
24 PATH Origins of putting: Augusta tournament’s historic course (4)
First letters of Putting Augusta Tournament’s Historic
25 WEED Small starter of duck and shrimp (4)
WEE (small) + D[uck]

71 comments on “Guardian 28,544 – Qaos”

  1. Thanks Andrew

    The answer to your question @ 20 must be yes as The Don gave us one in yesterday’s Quiptic. Oh, and he threw in a couple of 23s for good measure.

  3. Top half was easier for me. Had a deja vu moment with STARBOARDS having seen that recently.

    Favourites: RESTRICTIONS (foi), TIES, CATENA, RELATIVELY, VOTING, SOW, TRESPASSER.

    Thanks, both.

    * I forgot to look for a theme while solving, but afterwards realised that it is a gardening theme.

  4. Thanks Qaos and Andrew. I made heavy weather of this. Over half went in very easily but the rest was slow going and although I filled it in eventually, I failed on the parsing of a few – like, how on Earth does 19=SOW? Now kicking myself. Very hard. I put it down to lack of sleep.

    27a MANDRAKE was my favourite today.

    I suppose if STARBOARD is a noun, you can have more than one of them.

  5. Yep, gentle bit of gardening. One of the threaders said you don’t have to be 27 to solve it … that took me back the best part of 60 years, though no doubt the comic strip carried on. Did wonder about the plural at 20ac. Otherwise pretty neat, thanks Q and A.

  7. Thanks Qaos, and Andrew for putting me right on the theme. I knew there had to be one, so I guessed astronomy: MAN’s position RELATIVE to the STARs ABOVE, whizzing through space on this ball we call EARTH (in an elliptical MOTION, DUE to the sun’s gravitational pull), and hopefully not COLLIDing with the other PLANeTS. Is there anyone else OUT there? We could use the DRAKE equation to calculate the odds.

    You’ll gather I’m not a great gardener.

  8. Not my day. Top half went in very quickly and then I stalled badly. Couldn’t see starboards as a plural, didnt know news could be NN and thought it might be relatively but couldn’t equate that to rather. At least the sun is shining here!

  9. A worthy challenge (almost b-t-h) – with some chuckleworthy clues – enjoyed CATENA, RELATIVELY, RUNNER, TRESPASSER & SLOW MOTION, among others.
    Thanks Qaos, for an entertaining puzzle.

  10. The theme helped me put in RUNNER with some confidence which was my LOI and I couldn’t figure the wordplay. Liked MANDRAKE. Forgot the Poet Motion even though I now remember it from a while ago. Took longer than yesterday but just at my level. Thanks Qaos and Andrew.

  11. JerryG @8 – “news” is to be read as “more than one new”, with N standing for new.

    I looked up STARBOARDS to check if it’s considered a countable noun, and it seems not. However, the OED lists it as a verb! So it works if you read “rights” as a verb… except that “rights” as a verb doesn’t mean to turn right… But I’ve already spent longer thinking about this than it merits, so I’ll leave it there and not worry about it any further. I’m happy to accept it as a plural noun and don’t want to get bogged down in a grammar debate.

  12. I enjoyed this, without really spotting the theme. I looked at Qaos’ website after finishing – he says that if you don’t like crosswords this one might grow on you.

    I had ticks for 10ac CATENA (which I got from concatenation ) and 14dn SLOW MOTION – I always enjoy Qaos’ ‘mathematical’ clues – 15ac RELATIVELY and 13dn TRESPASSER.

    Both Collins and Chambers have STARBOARD as a verb (to turn to the right) so no need to think of plurals.

    Many thanks to Qaos for the fun and Andrew for the blog.

  14. I remembered Qaos as being tricky, but this all went in pretty easily until a couple at the end. Liked STARBOARDS, but otherwise it seemed a bit Mondayish. Thanks to Qaos nevertheless, and to Andrew.

  16. The top half felt like a ‘Monday’ puzzle but the lower half went in quite slowly. All very enjoyable. Thank you Q and A.

  18. I’m sure a game of two halves for most solvers. essexboy @7: I like your theme suggestion more.
    Was reminded of the only John Donne lines I can recall –
    Go and catch a falling star,
    Get with child a mandrake root
    Still no idea what it means…

    Ta Qaos & Andrew

  19. I liked the PLANTS theme. Thanks to Andrew and to Qaos. Today I even enjoyed the Maths clues as 10a taught me a new word, CATENA and the other one at 14d, SLOW MOTION, had the poetry tie-in.

  20. Loved TRESPASSER but it didn’t love me for a long time. Missed, yet again, the ‘by’ in 2dn.

    Thanks Qaos and Andrew.

  21. LikeMichelle @ 3, widdersbel @4 and JerryG @ 8, I found the top went in quite easily but then I ground to a halt for a while and it took a fair bit of use of aids to get the rest.

    Liked and even got CATENA even though I’d never heard of it. And the two little ones made me smile, SOW, DUE

    Not sure why shrimp = WEED

    Thanks Qaos and Andrew

  22. [AlanC @18. Donne is using the trope of ‘impossibilia’ – here conjuring up KILLER tasks that could never be performed. The ‘mandrake root’ joke arises from the fact that mandrake roots allegedly resemble small human beings, and it was further believed that, when pulled up, they uttered a scream. There is a scene in one of the Harry Potter films where Hogwarts’ herbology teacher, played by Miriam Margolyes, pulls humanoid mandrakes with tiny faces out of the pots they are planted in and they all screech loudly.]

  26. Like CanberraGirl@10 I couldn’t see how RUNNER worked and that was therefore the LOI, tentatively. Thought PLANTS and SPROUT were too similarly clued, solved as a pair at about the same time. The apparent mathematical misdirection of the SOW involvement with SLOW MOTION took a while to twig, with that SW section the last to yield this morning. By no means a KILLER or a Pig of a Puzzle, enjoyed it generally.

  27. Good puzzle from Qaos, rather easier yielding than usual.

    Clue for EARTHED is clever, as foxes are said to ‘go to earth’. At first glance I thought ‘grounded’ was the anagrind and wondered why it wasn’t ‘ground’.

    I’m not convinced by STARBOARDS. As a noun, the word is uncountable. As a verb it means ‘turns to the right’, but ‘rights’ as a verb means ‘corrects’. So they are not synonyms. An unusual example of a homograph (rather than homophone) clue?

    Thanks Qaos and Andrew

  28. Did no-one else find the parsing of KILLER to be somewhat wonky? “to drink up measure inside” — surely it’s the ‘measure’=ELL which is ‘up’, not the ‘drink’=KIR.
    For 22a I immediately thought of ‘self regarding’, which also works as a possible out-of-body experience: ABOVE ONESELF came much later.
    ‘Nam for the ‘war’ was a bit far-fetched, I thought.
    But some quibbles notwithstanding, I enjoyed this. My thanks to Qaos and our blogger.

  30. pserve_p2 @28: This has to be read as ‘up measure’ in ‘drink’. Such a reversal of normal word order (hysteron proteron) is not unusual in crossword clues, if it serves the surface reading.

  31. Gervase@30: Of course, you’re right — but my question was not whether such inversion is “unusual in crossword clues”, but whether it is “somewhat wonky”. Cf. the heated row in the blog comments for yesterday’s Guardian Cryptic on the double-duty solecism.
    Setters may use non-countable nouns as plurals, employ definitions which only Chambers records, throw in extraneous indefinite articles, and all manner of grammatical or semantic twists. And afterwards solvers might comment on the setters’ style, noting whether they find such devices enjoyable, irritating, acceptable, witty, subversive or whatever.

  32. Enjoyable solve; I had the same experience as some others that the top half went in very quickly but the bottom half was much slower.

    My online versions of Chambers and the ODE accept STARBOARDS, and Chambers accepts OPEN ORDERS. Yes, the learner is missing from the blog above.

    I liked TRESPASSER and SLOW MOTION.

  33. Thanks to Qaos and Andrew.

    I thoroughly enjoyed this even though it was a DNF because I couldn’t parse ‘killer’.

    drhhmb @29, the mnemonic I was taught: is there any red port left? (I understand that there is a red light on the port side, and a green one on the starboard.)

  35. Thanks Qaos & Andrew. Great fun, although the theme(s) eluded me until after solving. I threw in MANDRAKE thinking of Drake in a Man-of-war & without considering ‘Nam (which of course makes more sense).

  36. Drhhmb@29 and essexboy@13. Years ago somebody pointed out to me that Port, Left, and Red are shorter words than Starboard, Right and Green!

  39. EAsier than Qaos usually is, but I failed to parse RUNNER or MANDRAKE (war=VIETNAM gave too wide a choice of possibilities) and once I worked out CATENA I had to check that it existed.

  40. In case anyone is interested, CATENA literally means chain: we get the meaning series because that’s what the linked items form. If you have a metal chain or heavy rope or similar object and hold the ends apart so the length of it hangs down in the middle, the shape formed is called a catenary – at A-level we had to derive its formula. It is of relevance to architects and engineers.

  41. Vietnam is a country, not a war, its citizens might remind us. There was a war that took place there, but Vietnam has been a country before and after that war.

    Thanks for parsing RUNNER, Andrew. But you still need to mark (RIDE)* as an anagram, since the word isn’t COLLRIDE.

    ginf@5 I vaguely remember forgotten all about Mandrake the Magician from the comic sections of my youth, so I looked him up. Nothing sounded familiar.

    DrWhatson@40 I’m trying to think how I’d even begin to decide how to derive the catenary formula. I suppose I might have had more thoughts on the matter years ago.

  43. I only knew CATENA from Malbec: “Catena Zapata, Argentina’s most awarded winery, was founded in 1902 by Nicola Catena, an Italian immigrant. The family winery is known for its pioneering role in resurrecting Malbec and discovering extreme high-altitude terroirs in the Andean foothills of Mendoza.”

    Overall I thought this was ab fab with just KILLER feeling a bit off as it seems like an adjective that could describe all sorts of things rather than just tasks. Also, its meaning rather depends on your demographic as some might describe CATENA as a KILLER Malbec and not mean it’s difficult to drink – it definitely isn’t 🙂

  45. Thanks Andrew, thanks essexboy@13 for link to Drake’s formula: I also wondered if COLLIDER, RELATIVEly and more might make some scientific theme before seeing the light.
    I liked CATENA, recognised from the shape referred to by Dr WhatsOn above – the wikipedia entry is interesting and contains a connection back to crosswordland in the anagram of Hooke (see history section). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catenary
    pserve_p2@28: yes I agree with you on that one, sometimes I have to remind myself that the surface in itself is just the icing on the cake (as the term implies I suppose). I don’t much like “discovering” for the removal of first and last letters either (“uncovered” would work here if a bit obvious) but I think it’s fairly common and at least I remembered it today. And I had an uneasy ASIDE ONESELF (fitted crossers at the time) before rejecting that when the poet popped into my head.
    Thanks Qaos, I really liked TRESPASSER too.

  47. Thanks for the blog, standard of clues much better than yesterday . Missed the theme of course . I would have preferred a science that MrEssexboy was working towards. Accelerator for collider is a bit loose but acceptable I suppose.

  48. Qaos never disappoints. I enjoyed this garden variety crossword with clues like the efficient SOW, SPADE, and TRESSPASSER. I needed a word finder for a few and couldn’t parse RUNNER, KILLER, the MAN of MANDRAKE, and the MOTION of SLOW MOTION. Thanks to both.

  50. pserve_p2 @28 – yes, I did find 11d a tad wonky (and wonky is a very good word for it), but unravelling the grammar of the clue didn’t take nearly as long as remembering a drink to fit _IR. It was one of those days for me.

    There were also a few other wonky bits elsewhere in the puzzle I could mention (aside from the dodgy plurals), but nothing to really spoil my enjoyment of the exercise. YMMV, as the kids say.

  51. Lovely puzzle, I thought. Even if the dictionaries don’t list “starboard” as a countable noun, if you had a dozen boats facing in different directions they each have their own starboard. There are 12 different starboards there.

  52. Thanks both,
    ISTR that when sailing competitively the boat on starboard tack has right of way over one on port tack and claims it by yelling ‘starboard’. In a race where this occurred several times one might say something like, ‘There were lots of starboards today.’

  53. Me again,
    OED has a specific sub-entry for ‘soil-catena’ – series of different soils from the same parent material. Could be part of the theme, too.

  55. Thanks Qaos and Andrew. I couldn’t parse the war in MANDRAKE unless it was Man o War.
    Pleasant solve with a few easy ones 🙂

  56. Be careful what you wish for. Yesterday I welcomed the inclusion of STARBOARD, as we so often have PORT, but today the plural evaded me for some time. If STARBOARD were not countable, you couldn’t have too many starboards, though you can,of course, have too many ports. However, as the original meaning of starboard is a kind or rudder, it looks like the plural is acceptable.

  57. Roz @ 27. It is I guess a reference to the Large Haddock Collider at Cern which accelerates particles to further our understanding of deep physics. Whether the resulting Higgs Bosons are looking over starboards or ports has not yet been revealed.

  60. Thank you, MarkN. It may be the product of that evil invention, predictive text, rather than Autocorrect, but am literally crying with laughter here. That has made my day.

  62. But what other kind of collider would you want for “deep” physics? Oysters, say, are much too close to the shore>

  63. I am not even going to say what the LHC comes out as sometimes when my students type it in full. Suitable for a Paul crossword.

  66. I’d have thought RAKE was a better contribution to the gardening theme than the full MANDRAKE. At least a rake actually exists and one knows what to do with it in a garden.

  68. Working a day behind here ….

    Super crossword from Qaos who is my favourite setter these days, and also (for once ) found the comments fun to read.

    As pserve_p2 says though, NAM was 15a too far-fetched IMO.

    Will forever see the LHC as a Red Herring now.

  69. Too many beers consumed yesterday to finish, so did it over breakfast this morning. Struggled with KILLER and did not get either STARBOARDS or MANDRAKE. Could have got the latter from crossers and definition, but as Pedro says, <NAM was a step too far for me.

    Starboard as a noun is definitely not countable, despite the valiant attempts of a number of commenters. (I guess that in the Old English steorbord (=steering board) from which the word derives, it probably wouldn't have taken an S in the plural.) I've been trying to construct a sentence where "starboards" is used as a verb:

    Captain to helmsman: "Starboard your helm."
    Helmsman: "Starboard your helm it is, captain."
    First mate to captain: "When this helmsman starboards his helm he does it in a most un-seamanlike manner."

    It doesn't look very likely; and there's no way you could substitute 'rights' for 'starboards' either!

  70. Can anyone explain why wide = W?
    Also, for that, why new = N and royal = R?
    Maybe I’m not fully up to speed with all the possible abbreviations, but sometimes I get the feeling that any word can just substitute for its first letter…

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