Guardian 28,569 / Crucible

100 comments on “Guardian 28,569 / Crucible”

1. I can’t find enough “T”s in MATCH POINT, but, otherwise very enjoyable.

2. A very pleasant and entertaining puzzle. Favourites were 14a MAINSHEET and 17d ONE-HORSE. And the “artery” for M1 in the context of the surface of 5d was very clever.

   Eileen, I think it should be MAT not MATT for “dull” in 14d. Chambers has them both as alternatives.

   Many thanks both.

3. Petert and Lord Jim – you’re right: I had MAT = dull when I solved it, then carelessly used the spelling I’m used to when writing the blog – will fix it now.

4. Sport is not my forte, but I managed to get through it. Never heard of TIPCAT (sounds similar to the Lancashire game of “Peggy”.) AL FRESCO is two words to me.
   South west held out the longest, but an enjoyable workout on the whole.
   Thanks to Crucible and Eileen.

5. Auriga @4 – both Chambers and Collins give ALFRESCO as one word (adjective). It is, of course, from the Italian AL FRESCO ‘in the cool’ – or even ‘in prison’)

6. I found this so difficult to get a way in – only a handful of answers after some time – that I almost gave it away. PAR FOR THE COURSE gave me a way in, and gradually the answers came (Eileen, I don’t really follow your parsing for this – can you expand it?). Having two obscure words – DIPTERA, TIPCAT – crossing didn’t help. Thanks, Crucible and Eileen.

7. I hope no-one ended up with OUTERWARE today (I’m looking at you hatter, TassieTim and CanberraGirl!).

   I wondered whether ‘press’ in 22d might also refer to the media? Don’t we speak about the ‘press pack’ at times? Although press could also conceivably mean ‘pack’ – press them in/pack them in. It’s almost a quadruple/quintuple definition.

   BOWLER HAT, NEWCASTLE, STINGIER and ONE-HORSE were my other favourites.

   Thanks Crucible and Eileen

8. What a crafty concoction of misdirection this was today, culminating in loi PRE-EMINENT. ALFRESCO was another teaser. So glad I persevered with this. Came back to it several times before completion. PAR FOR THE COURSE jumped off the page and helped to kick start things..

9. Thanks Crucible and Eileen. I also picked out 22a and 6d as favourites, plus 5d and 17d. I found this a strange mix of very easy and very tricky clues, but all satisfying, except for a couple of minor quibbles – using the solution to 8d in the clue for 4d is surely something an experienced setter would normally try to avoid?

   Auriga @4 – it’s also very similar to the old Kentish pub game bat & trap. I imagine there are many regional variations of this game.

10. Thanks Crucible and Eileen
    I needed your parse for PRE-EMINENT, and I’d never heard of TIPCAT so guessed and checked; otherwise more straightforward than I expected. My favourite PICCOLO too, for the wonderfully misleading definition.

11. TassieTim @6
    Re 16ac: I read it as average: definition, then, more cryptically, a homophone (caught) of ‘parr (salmon), for the course’ = ‘menu item’.

12. (ONE-HORSE to mean “obscure” is an interesting expression in that it can only really apply to towns and such-like. I think I first came across it in The Thirty-Nine Steps – “It’s what we’d call in South Africa a one-horse dorp”.)

13. PM @7 – hopefully no one will try to claim ROUTEWEAR as a valid solution…

14. Ah. Thanks, Eileen @11 – now I can see the significance of ‘caught’.

15. Postmark@7 – I had a quadruple definition, too, for 22d. I thought of press, in this instance, as being to firmly push or pack in the contents of something. Theme was a barn door type, so for once I saw it early on. (Just been watching a Utube film of boys in India playing tipcat – v skilful indeed. ) Thanks Crucible and Eileen.

16. PM @7 – I’m very AWEAR of that trap now.

17. A very nice crossword, too many nice clues to mention but I thought 24 was a bit weak, perhaps only in comparison to the rest.

    Perhaps tip-cat should be enumerated 3-3 but no doubt there are sources that have it without the hyphen. Definitely a new one to me but the wordplay was clear enough. After going to Wikipedia I’m still not sure about how to play it.

18. Nice puzzle, I enjoyed it.

    Favourites: PICCOLO, COUNTRY PUB, FLOG, LOYAL, BYLINE.

    New for me: TIPCAT, NEWCASTLE Magpies (football team) for 25ac.

    I did not parse: 11ac apart from NI + rev of PEN. Took a while for me to work out that M1 is an artery (5d).

    re 23 d – I get that w = wicket in the abbreviation lbw but in cricket scores, usually w = wide(s), doesn’t it?

    I thought that 6d numbering should be (2,6) not (8) – but I see now that Collins/Chambers are fine with it being one word.

    24ac did not seem very cryptic to me.

    Thanks, both.

19. Unmistakable theme today and with a couple exceptions, wouldn’t they all usually be played alfresco, and probably require outerwear if it’s rainy?

    Some lovely misdirected definitions (high wind was very good) and some inventive use of a couple of chestnuts I haven’t seen in a while in the wordplay.

    Thanks Crucible and Eileen.

20. Thanks Crucible and Eileen

    In 2, I saw Wasps as faux-capitalisation, to link in with the theme, whereas in the solution it’s a beast with a sting.

    michelle @ 18: W = Wide in the analysis of runs, but a bowler’s analysis has columns O(vers), M(aidens), R(uns) and W(ickets). It’s also an abbreviation for wicket in WK = Wicket Keeper.

    And I think there are options for 6D: “we had an alfresco lunch”, but “we had lunch al fresco”.

21. Thank you, Crucible and Eileen! For once I spotted the theme, so it must have been extra-obvious. Does anyone outside crossword-land use the word ERSE these days, I wonder.

22. Simon S @20

    I read 2dn as you did – wasp = stinger – but kept the capital as in the clue.

    I agree re 6dn – but both dictionaries give only ALFRESCO.

23. Enjoyable puzzle with some clever constructions and cryptic definitions. Good surfaces and a theme that was obvious but not intrusive. My favourites were the same as Eileen’s.

    Auriga @4: For once I agree with Chambers and Collins: ALFRESCO should be written as one word to mean ‘in the open’ because this English usage is different from the original Italian. As Eileen indicated, ‘al fresco’ means ‘in the cool’ (with several metaphorical usages, including ‘in prison’ – cf English ‘in the chiller’). ‘In the open’ in Italian is ‘fuori’; during the summer in Italy dining ‘al fresco’ would be more likely to be inside than outside!

    Thanks to S&B

24. Very enjoyable solve. Also a neat link with the NI NEWCASTLE being in County DOWN.

    Ta Crucible & Eileen

25. [widdersbel @13: 😀

    TassieTim @16: 😀 ]

26. AlanC @24 – it’s also Crucible’s home. 😉

27. The county, I meant.

28. Thank you Eileen@5. I’ll remember the prison meaning!

29. Eileen, when I saw BOWLER HAT, I thought for a moment that there might be another mini-theme 🙂

30. ….and LOYAL

31. Tricky but fun, and took me a couple of sessions to sort out. For MATCHPOINT, I de-tailed MATT (dull) to give MAT……. but then couldn’t work out which bits of champion went afterwards or why, or where the other T came from (or should I have de-tailed MATTE?) so thanks for explaining that.

32. I really struggled to get started and nearly gave up. 23ac was my way in even though I’d never heard of it. Everything seemed to flow outwards from there. As noted, there were some lovely misdirections which made solving all the more enjoyable. Thanks to Crucible and Eileen.

33. AlanC @30
    Aha, now I see what you mean – I think.

34. To expand on Eileen’s parse, Diptera is the order of “true” flies. Unlike other flying insects, they apparently have only 2 wings (DI PTERA), as the hind wings are much reduced to balancing club-like rods called “halteres”.

35. Impressive sports range, with a smattering of zoological team names and plenty of misdirection.
    Liked MAINSHEET for its surface and PRE-EMINENT, ALFRESCO & PICCOLO (I almost wrote ‘sirocco’).
    Thanks Crucible & Eileen.

36. Thank you, Eileen, re the salmon homophone explanation. Assumed I couldn’t spell “par”.

    Still not sure about the second IN in NINEPIN. Anyone?

    Minor quibble at MATCH POINT which, I accept, will always be towards the end of a match but very often is not “the final exchange”. Does that explain the ? in the cluing perhaps?

    PM @7: re OUTERWARE…mea culpa I fear.

37. [ AlanC the master of the second theme. Do the LOYAList flute bands include the PICCOLO ? ]

38. Thanks Eileen, I didn’t understand MATCH POINT but with William@36 don’t see by = in.
    Agree that this was a great crossword overall with the theme broad enough to be unobtrusive and cleverly used to misdirect as well.
    But like michelle@18 i found CHESS a bit weak having spent a while overthinking it with “on board” = SS, “ending with mate” = E etc. ONE-HORSE my last for precisely the reasons set out by Lord Jim@12 and brian-with-an-eye@21.
    Favourite a close call but is PICCOLO, as thanks to Blah@19 I have only just realised it is not a local name for a particular breeze like the Sirocco that nearly trapped wynsum@35! Thanks Crucible.

39. AlanC @24 there’s also a racecourse in NEWCASTLE (not to mention Epsom DOWNs … ) 🙂

40. William @36 , Chambers just about gives support for IN = BY

41. I tend to agree with Gervase @23 on alfresco – it’s a naturalised term, so whatever is correct in Italian is not really relevant. It’s one word in the Guardian style guide, fwiw.

    wynsum @35 – I think that’s excusable – with the cricket club giving an obvious CC, SIROCCO was the first thing that sprung to my mind too. And I’m sure that was deliberate by Crucible. It’s very neat misdirection.

42. I’m quite out of step with commenters here, since I found this one irritatingly lax in construction: the left-over ‘IN’ in NINEPIN (Eileen simply shrugs ” + IN (by?)”); the def of ONE-HORSE=’obscure’ is as bizarre as defining ‘greenhouse’=’dangerous’ because of the phrase ‘greenhouse gases’. Do students want to be earning? Why students? You don’t go to university to be earning. Silly clue. M1=artery? Really? The ‘forwards’ in the def for PACK is an awkward stretch just to make the surface work at the expense of the definition. And then the string of exclusively Chambers idiocies: TR=trustee, mat=matt/matte, CH=champion. Not much pleasure to be had for me in this puzzle.
    I thought ‘high wind’ for PICCOLO was rather clever misdirection!

43. Roz @37 – and AlanC

    This was the only reference I could find – and you have to scroll all the way down to Track seventeen.

44. Slow to get started on this one, but definitely worth the effort.

    I started with ‘check’ for 24 but was soon disabused. I liked OUTERWEAR despite the DBE and PRE-EMINENT. I’m afraid that TIE-BREAKER is one of my bête noires when used in tennis. Originally, I’m fairly sure, it was called a tie-break. Some commentators then started using tie-breaker, presumably as an import from other sports. Strange how these little niggles can annoy one…

    Thanks Crucible and Eileen.

45. The Al Fresco combo featuring D Anderson on piccolo.

46. Roz @40: really? Fair enough. I suppose you could just about get away with, “in/by 10 days we’ll be in Italy”.

47. pserve_p2; Oxford dics have this example for in=by: ‘he was covered in mud’.

48. Robi @44 – I’m with you re TIE-BREAKER: it certainly did use to be ‘tie-break’.

49. [Thank you Eileen , I do not really know anything about this , Alan C might know more, or our musicians. I just suspect that a flute band could include piccolos and even bass flutes if they exist. Musicians feel free to educate me. ]

50. Has anyone got an example please for IN = BY for 11a?
    Agree with grumbles about match point. They are often ‘saved’ in tennis games and the match continues.
    Thanks all.

51. Pserve @42: this pastime is strange isn’t it? I had all the same quibbles as you and yet sufficient other good stuff to push the whole into the “enjoyable” category and out of the “irritating” one.

    Other setters, however, who don’t even bother to provide coherent surfaces for their clues (no names) often tip the solving experience into the negative.

    It’s very subjective.

52. [pserve @ I do agree with a lot of your points and overall opinion, especially ONE-HORSE and the students earning. However my limited knowledge of Rugby Union is enough to tell me that the eight forwards are frequently called the pack.]

53. Thanks Crucible and Eileen.

    11ac: Was searching the net for a popular writer named Nipen. Not there. So “‘IN’ stands for ‘by'” seems to be the best explanation.

54. Re MATCH POINT; yes, they occur before the end of some matches but the ‘final’ final exchange would be a MATCH POINT.

55. Thanks for that, Robi @54.

    I had no problems with 14dn: as you say, not every MATCH POINT is a final exchange but the final exchange is always MATCH POINT.

56. Eric @50 “In appointing Anne Robinson as host, Channel 4 has ruined a perfectly good programme”.

57. Re the quibbles about MATCH POINT, William @36 resolves the problem to my satisfaction. The ? would otherwise serve no useful purpose. Instead it suggests that the final exchange is only a possible outcome of a match point. Definition by example conventionally requires a question mark.

58. Thanks for the blog. Some rather stretched clues but par for the course, no complaints.

    There is old family parlour game, favourite of my mum, called “tippit” which I erroneously spelt as “tippet”, confidently and wrongly entered … nho “tipcat”, hey ho.

59. As usual, my prolixity has caused me to cross with Robi and Eileen 🙁

60. Ravenrider @17: this is a wonderful video of teenagers playing tipcat. I think it should be added to the Olympics in 2024!

61. pserve_p2@42 and Roz @52: forwards in rugby are definitely and always called the pack. Except when they’re packing down in a scrum. Then, they tend to be called the scrum.

62. Thanks to Crucible and to Eileen especially for ONE-HORSE (which has annoyed me because “Erse” is one of my favourite obscurities and I have been waiting for ever for the conversation to turn to linguistics so that I can reveal that I don’t know my Erse from my Albanian – it could happen yet).

63. pserve_p2@42

    Collins says this:

    If someone describes a town as a one-horse town, they mean it is very small, dull, and old-fashioned.
    [disapproval]
    Would you want to live in a small, one-horse town for your whole life?

    So the clue is cool, I guess.

    Eric@50

    Please refer to the example given by Robi@47

64. Very enjoyable, and even saw the theme today! Thanks to Crucible and to Eileen for several parsings that I just couldn’t work out.
    To join the in/by debate, they seem to have similar geographic usage, e.g. Ince-in-Makerfield, Bolton by Bowland. Doubtless someone with a better knowledge of toponymics will correct me.

    PrincessV@60, thank you for the tipcat link. Should definitely be an Olympic sport for its simplicity combined with high level of skill required

65. With spotting the quiptic pangram on Monday, yesterday’s Tommy Cooper theme in (by?) the Indy, and hardly being able to miss today’s I was counting that as 3 for 3 by Wednesday and patting my self on the back. However even tho I live in Down and not that far from Newcastle I didn’t see the mini theme even after thinking on first read through six counties must be NI – that’ll fool a few!

    Kudos AlanC 🙂 with Eileen revealing that Crucible lives here too, it seems unlikely to be a coincidence.

66. Thank you Robi@47 and brian-with-an-eye@56, those will do nicely.
    pserve_p2@42 (and Roz@52) – re EARNING: if we allow want = need, is this some social commentary on the fact that students are saddled with mind-boggling debt mountains these days? [And I was certainly glad of my holiday job in those days as it provided funds for beer during term, the full grant at the time not running to such luxuries after the deduction of compulsory accommodation costs.]

67. [Blah @65 – I lived in Bangor for several years, decades ago, so Six Counties leapt out.]

68. [Eileen and Roz, I grew up in East Belfast very near to where this band comes from and was often marching with my young playmates imitating the adults. All too bigoted for me now, but I suppose it has its place in history. Thanks for the lovely compliment, yet again Roz].

69. Thank you Blah @65.

70. Re pack and scrum, one pack can form a maul, but you need two packs to form a scrum.

71. pserve_p2 @42 – I also put a question mark next to ‘trustee’, and ‘what students want to be’. Also ‘head office’ and yes, ‘obscure’ is a bit of a stretch as a definition for ONE-HORSE. But overall, the positives for me today far outweighed the quibbles, which is why I didn’t think these things were worth mentioning before. YMMV, as the kids say.

72. Thanks to Crucible for a sportfest puzzle with great surfaces and clues that moved across the spectrum from easy to taxing. We had to reach for our trusty Chambers to parse a couple of clues.
    Agree in 22d there is at least a quadruple possibly a quintuple
    Thanks to Eileen, for highlighting ‘Erse’ a new word for me.
    Still not clear about the significance of ‘caught’ despite exchanges.

73. ShropshireLass @72

    ‘Caught’ is a regular homophone indicator (as in, ‘I didn’t quite catch that’).

74. AlanC @29 – thank you for highlighting the NI theme which had eluded me. Now I see how beautiful the area is around Newcastle which boasts a fine golf course and a dolmen!
    And on the same mini-theme, Blah @37 – yes piccolos are flutes, just rather small ones as the name implies, and almost certain to be included in an outdoor band as the higher pitch is more audible.

75. Eileen@73 – Thx – scales just fell from my eyes. ??

76. [wynsum @24: Royal County Down is one of the finest courses in the world although not a favourite of Jack Nicklaus, because of its many blind shots. I went home last week to visit family and climbed Slieve Donard, (not to escape them), with its wonderful views of the course from the summit].

77. Thanks both,
    Only scratch golfers reckon to go round in par. The average is much higher. But I agree in common usage it can mean something like ‘average’.

78. And fifes, commonly found in marching bands are similar to piccolos.

79. Pleasant memories of my dad teaching me TipCat, for which thank you Crucible! He grew up in the 1920s and 30s, so I didn’t think the pasttime was THAT old… though that is now almost a century ago, so positively Victorian I guess.

    And thanks to Eileen for the usual clear and helpful blog.

80. Back in the early 90’s I did an intense learner driver’s in Newcastle, County Down. My instructor was a local man, so when he asked me, when he gave his signal, to brake “fairly lightly” I almost sent him through the windscreen. Mistook his spoken instructions as “violently”. Try both expressions out in a NI accent. Fooled me. Almost killed him…

81. That was a fun and well constructed puzzle with some fine (and witty) misdirection.

    PRE-EMINENT, ALFRESCO, ONE-HORSE and PICCOLO were my highlights.

    I agree with annoyance of the use of Tie-breaker for Tie-break. What is even worse is the use of Breaker which seems now common esp in the US. I wish we could wave bye-bye to that usage, if you get my drift.

    Thanks to Crucible and Eileen

82. Managed to spell OUTERWEAR without any mishaps (thanks Mark @7 for offering potential commiserations). Apologies if I’ve missed it, but I don’t think anyone has answered Eileen’s quibblet, that “there ought really to be an indication that ‘overall’ is a definition by example”. I thought it was excusable this once because there is no intention to deceive. The word ‘overall’ is very close in meaning to the required solution, which would not be the case if using (for example) ‘Ulster’ to define COAT, or ‘Rugby’ to define GAME.

    Thanks to Crucible and to Eileen.

83. What pserve_p2 @42 said. I did like OUTERWEAR, MAINSHEET, and ROULETTE. Thanks to both.

84. Tipcat (plus all its many global variants) is one of those games playable anywhere in the open and does not require an expensive visit to a toyshop. I guess children instinctively invented it all over the world with what they found on the ground.

85. Hi sheffield hatter @82

    I hope you’re still there – I’ve been out.
    Re 9ac, I agree with your comment: I said ‘really’ to indicate that I thought that it was excusable in this instance and, I hoped, to forestall others’ comments – which seems to have worked! Crucible is a very experienced and reliable setter and, as Gervase points out @57, he’s well aware of the usual convention, as in the question mark in 14dn MATCH POINT.

86. Very enjoyable puzzle – had to wait for the blog to understand some of the parsing that was impossible for me as an American (Magpies, MI for artery, Down County…). Tip-cat was a new one too: Keith @84, the game is commonly played on the streets in the Indian subcontinent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillidanda), but I had no idea it was played elsewhere and called Tip-cat!
    Thanks Crucible and Eileen.

87. [ My pleasure AlanC , always a delight to see your theme ideas and for once I think I have added to it with piccolo.]
    [ On a complete tangent, a great time for anybody to see the Andromeda galaxy, the furthest reliable naked eye object. No moon, clear skies and easy to find tonight. ]

88. widdersbel @9 using the solution to 8d in the clue for 4d is surely something an experienced setter would normally try to avoid?
    There are other examples of this too: using WET for RAIN/RAINY in both 13 and 20 and using TRUE in the clue for 10 and in the solution for 21a.
    Seems like a deliberate choice, but I don’t really see why a setter would do it. I hope it’s not to deliberately make the puzzles simpler to solve.
    However, I enjoyed this one. I do think OUTERWEAR clue needs the DBE indicator though, despite sh’s defence. Thanks to posters for the IN/BY examples. I couldn’t see the equivalence until then.
    Ashamed to admit I thought a MAINSHEET was a sail until I looked it up! 🙁 .
    Thanks, Crucible and Eileen.

89. Learn something new every day on this site. Never heard of tipcat before.

90. Eileen @85. Apologies for not appreciating your subtle “really”, which either had the desired effect on everyone else or they weren’t that bothered about the “definition by example”. 🙂 Though I see that phitonelly has now joined us (while I was walking back from the pub) and thinks that Crucible was being a little unfair. I stand by the defence I posted @82.

    Picking up another point that phitonelly has raised: I did notice the repetition of wet, though not so much true and its comparative. I imagine that setters have clues that they have in store (or perhaps a card index?) for when a word crops up, and these coincidences are more a matter for the editor than the setter.

91. Liked the puzzle but can’t agree with Eileen about the surfaces, which I thought were clunky in places. Maybe I’m just comparing with Nutmeg’s yesterday. Thanks both anyway.

92. Eileen, I know you don’t always look at General Discussion. If you haven’t already seen it, there’s a message for there @186.

93. Many thanks, Lord Jim @92 – that was very thoughtful of you. I’m just in from choir practice.

94. That was a complete mystery.
    Thanks all.

95. Thanks Brian @ 56 for the example. Appreciated.

96. I was missing a T in MATCHPOINT and …did anyone find where the other IN came from in NINEPIN?
    Otherwise a pleasant solve …over too quickly.
    Thanks both

97. tim @96

    I don’t understand your comment re the missing T: I amended the blog very early on, in response to comments 1 and 2 (see my comment @3).

    Re 11ac NINEPIN: there have been a number of suggestions re IN /by throughout the blog.

98. Joining the discussion VERY late (as usual) I see no-one else parsed MATCH POINT from “about champion” (anagram of champion) + TT for dull… I think your pasring is better but I just didn’t see it!

99. Late to the party here but could the whole of 11ac be:

    NI (Northern Ireland – the Six Counties) + a reversal (bowled over) of PEN (writer) all standing BY a PEG IN LANE (which would be what an apt description for a PIN)?

    Webster gives PIN as a synonym for PEG… just a thought

100. On second thoughts … nope 🙂 doesn’t leave room for PEN, excuse me while I remove the foot from my mouth…

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