Imogen's today's Guardian setter…
…so you know what to expect – clever surfaces, tricky deflections and a couple of facepalms when you see something that's been staring you in the face for five minutes.
All of these were in evidence today. The two long across answers helped, although it took me a while to see POISONED CHALICE.
My LOI was SHEATH, because I couldn't work out what the parsing was, but I think I got there in the end.
Thanks, Imogen.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | GRIPED |
Complained of exercise in this square? (6)
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PE (physical "exercise") in GRID ("this square") |
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| 5 | MUSING |
Thought fun is late starting (6)
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(a)MUSING ("fun", starting late) |
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| 8 | DECRIES |
Criticises financial centre; forgets what to say about it (7)
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DRIES ("forgets what to say" on stage) about EC (City of London postcode, so "financial centre") |
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| 9 | DECAMPS |
Makes off, seeing current end-of-year measures? (7)
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DEC(ember) ("end-of-year") + AMPS ("current measures") |
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| 11 | POISONED CHALICE |
Unwelcome gift made undrinkable coffee, hated from the start by girl (8,7)
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POISONED ("made undrinkable") + C(offee) + H(ated) [from the start] by ALICE ("girl") |
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| 12 | HIED |
Hastened to adopt disguise for auditors (4)
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Homophone [for auditors] of HIDE ("to adopt disguise") |
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| 13 | UNOBSERVED |
Toff in uniform was in the army secretly (10)
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NOB ("toff") in U (uniform, in the phonetic alphabet) + SERVED ("was in the army") |
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| 17 | HUSBANDMAN |
Farmer being punched by small gang (10)
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HUMAN (being) punched by S (small) + BAND ("gang") |
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| 18 | FLEA |
Parasite‘s brief panic about pound (4)
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[brief] FEA(r) ("panic") about L (pound) |
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| 20 | REPENT AT LEISURE |
Translating English literature, pens second half of proverb (6,2,7)
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*(e literature pens) [anag:translating] Marry in haste, repent at leisure. |
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| 23 | EREMITE |
Man alone before child (7)
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ERE ("before") + MITE ("child") |
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| 24 | ALAMEDA |
A feeble prosecutor, so walk (7)
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A + LAME ("weak") + DA (district attorney, so "prosecutor") An Alameda is a public path or avenue. |
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| 25 | HAVE ON |
In safe space, nothing is to tease (4,2)
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O (nothing) in HAVEN ("safe space") |
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| 26 | SHEATH |
Summer weather coming in, button up dress (6)
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HEAT ("summer weather") coming in SH (be quiet, "button up") |
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| DOWN | ||
| 2 | RECLINERS |
Chairs about entrance to cabins on ships (9)
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RE ("about") + [entrance to] C(abins) on LINERS ("ships") |
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| 3 | PRISON |
It may have wings, but absolutely not power to rise (6)
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<=(NO SIR ("absolutely not") + P (power)) [to rise] |
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| 4 | DISCERNED |
Observed screen did go haywire (9)
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*(screen did) [anag:go haywire] |
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| 5 | MEDOC |
Red Dwarf is beneath me (5)
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DOC (one of Disney's Seven "Dwarf"s) beneath ME Medoc is a red Bordeaux wine. |
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| 6 | SOCRATES |
Philosopher‘s very cheap cars (8)
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SO ("very") + CRATES ("cheap cars") |
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| 7 | NIMBI |
New measure of computer storage filling two clouds (5)
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N (new) + Mb (megabyte, "measure of computer storage") filling II (two) |
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| 8 | DEPTH CHARGE |
Skilled with scalping, hotel make one pay a bomb (5,6)
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[scalping] ADEP(t) ("skilled") + H (hotel) + CHARGE ("make one pay") |
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| 10 | SPEED CAMERA |
Visiting sister, went and arrived with a progress check (5,6)
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PEED ("went") + CAME ("arrived"), visiting Sr. (sister) with A |
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| 14 | BE ALL EARS |
Manifest expectancy in stands ringing large field (2,3,4)
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BEARS ("stands") ringing L (large) + LEA ("field") |
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| 15 | VOL-AU-VENT |
Rodent not lacking stomach eating a sort of light pastry (3-2-4)
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VOLE ("rodent") + N(o)T [lacking stomach] eating UV (ultra-violet, "a sort of light") |
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| 16 | MAIN LINE |
A thousand queuing to catch a fast train here? (4,4)
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M ("a thousand") + IN LINE ("queuing") to catch A |
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| 19 | PIRATE |
Irrational to criticise thief (6)
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PI ("irrational" number) + RATE ("to criticise") |
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| 21 | PIETA |
Mondrian’s first to abrogate a religious genre (5)
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PIET (Mondrian) + [first to] A(brogate) |
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| 22 | ATE IN |
A little late, intentionally avoided any restaurant (3,2)
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Hidden in [a little] "lATE INtentionally" |
You must be feeling better to have unravelled all this so early!
Thanks for the parsing of SHEATH that one escaped me, and like so many others today is obvious now.
If anyone ever moans about a Monday Vulcan being too easy again, then this is what Imogen will do to us It was almost Vlad like in its difficulty.
Thanks Imogen and loonapick
Fairly tough going, for me. I had several missing just one or two letters (-a-e/on, for example) that were for some reason difficult to complete; and a-a-e-a, which I did not know, anyway.
Thanks, loonapick and Imogen
Too difficult for me and a toughie after yesterday
But, loonapick – in 8D I think you’ve scalped the wrong part of ADEPT
minty
The pride of swiftly finishing yesterday’s puzzle came before a near fall today. Same great clues but it was difficult. I think my favourite was MEDOC, because it made me laugh (and I’d tried all the other dwarfs first!), PRISON and PIRATE.
Phew! That was not a stroll in the park – or along an ALAMEDA. Really struggled with Imogen today although everything is fairly clued. A DNF – PRISON resisted to the end, ‘No Sir’ not being a phrase I ever bring to mind and the broad definition didn’t help. The aforementioned ALAMEDA was a dnk and I never thought of PI = irrational but I know it’s been done before so can’t really complain. Finally, I didn’t parse SPEED CAMERA – Sr as sister is a new abbreviation to me. I thought REPENT AT LEISURE to be the pick of the bunch for the clever anagram.
Thanks Imogen and loonapick
I found this hard. Stared at a few last clues for ages but got there in the end. But I was worried about DECRIES which I thought of early but completely failed to parse. My LOI was SHEAThE but I had been reduced to searching synonym lists! I was surprised that RATE was ok for criticise but I’m sure it’s correct. So many thanks to Imogen for the entertainment and loonapick for the explanations.
Oh dear, PM @5… to improve your solving you clearly need more experience with nuns, followed by a spell inside, and a little help from Scissor Sisters 😉
Once again I find I get on better with what everyone else thinks is the hard stuff, while I still haven’t cracked the final two clues of the last Boatman, and that was almost a week ago. Thanks Imogen and loonapick.
I agree, quite a few facepalms this morning. The words were all very gettable, and the parsings fair, but it took a lot of head scratching and lateral thinking. I think, loonapick, that you’ve missed the A from A UV in VOL-AU-VENT.
Thanks to Imogen and loonapick.
By googling I see RATE is a dated word for criticise. I’d love for someone here to point me to somewhere where it’s used.
I think that RATE has lost out to BERATE in everyday usage. The latter meaning to thoroughly RATE. so we still hace the word in use.
CanberraGirl @9. How about :Jay Rayner is a restaurant critic: he rates restaurants.”
Hard but fair. My only minor quibble is that if ‘poisoned’ is the same as ‘undrinkable’, we’re talking about a very inefficient would-be murderer…
Tough puzzle – it was an enjoyable challenge to solve this.
Favourites: UNOBSERVED, REPENT AT LEISURE, EREMITE, SHEATH, NIMBI.
New for me: HUSBANDMAN, ALAMEDA, DEPTH CHARGE.
Thanks, both.
Thanks Imogen and loonapick
Yes, hard, especially the NE, though unparsed ones for me were DECRIES and the CH in POISONED CHALICE; also MUSING.
Lots of good ones. Ticks against DECAMPS, HUSBANDMAN, SPEED CAMERA, and, next to last in, MEDOC (a real Doh! moment).
Tough going but rewarding.
Struggled with PRISON (no siree maybe?),
SHEATH (drizzle came to mind), ALAMEDA and I failed to see the UV light.
Thanks Imogen and loonapick for enlightenment
blaise @12 Yes, to take effect, the victim to drink from the POISONED CHALICE. The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true! Right?
In my parents’ day a sheath was a condom and a shift was a dress (tho buttonless), but not to worry, Imogen is always a bit curly. Is C for coffee a thing, as in the G in G&T? Whatever, poisoned chalice was a great help. So crates got a giggle, tho it must surely been seen before. Got vol-au-vent from def and enum, couldn’t bother parsing. And pieta reminded me of touching the foot of Mr Buonoroti’s in St Peters, later perspexed off from the public. All good fun, ta both.
Similar problems to those mentioned above. SHEATH took a while to understand and be confident about inserting, and so did the NW corner, with DECRIES another uncertain one, but thanks to Loonapick for the parsing thereof. The crossers from the not often seen HIED and the excellent POISONED CHALICE helped greatly with unravelling the DEPTH part of 8d’s bomb. Thought my loi RECLINERS was a very cute misdirection…
I thought this was a fantastic puzzle, entertaining from beginning to end. My favourites were DEPTH CHARGE, HUSBANDMAN, MEDOC, SPEED CAMERA and VOL-AU-VENT. Just great! Many thanks to Imogen and loonapick.
Penfold @16 … Danny Kaye..?
[gif @20 Yes, The Court Jester, but they broke the chalice from the palace. Now the pellet with the poison’s in the flagon with the dragon. The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true.]
Very tough but got there eventually. REPENT AT LEISURE was a write-in as it’s the only proverb I could think of with a punchline. I was fixated on Rupert for the toff in uniform for too long. All the best ticks already mentioned by others but SPEED CAMERA was my cod.
Ta Imogen & loonapick
grantinfreo @17: I parsed POISON CHALICE as C&H from the start rather than C for coffee
Oops POISONED and I think that was loonapick’s explanation as well
Too tough for me! Ended up revealing around half and couldn’t parse several.
DNK: EREMITE, ALAMEDA or PIETA
CenberraGirl @9. I am a bit late this morning, but in response to your query about ‘rate’, this passage immediately comes to mind from The Merchant of Venice Act I scene 3: Shylock is the speaker.
“Signor Antonio, many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my moneys and my usances.”
So RATE is a contronym? Did anyone else Google PYAWON to see if it was a bird they hadn’t heard of?
Petert @27 – at least one of us!
Petert @ 27. Yes, I too tried PYAMON.
Petert, no but I wondered about PONTEY
Some first-rate comments(as usual)…
Sample Blaise @ 11!
Blaise @ 12: Aha!
Difficult, like most of Imogen’s but I got there in the end.
I thought: “Wait a minute, a SHEATH isn’t buttoned up” but I loved it after the PDM, or should that be TTM? Others I liked were UNOBSERVED, PRISON, DEPTH CHARGE and MAIN LINE. I don’t really know why Imogen picked the archaic HIED for 12 when there are plenty of other choices for H?E?
Thanks Imogen and loonapick.
Yes I too looked for the lesser spotted Pyamon only to discover that it can’t be spotted at all. Enjoyable puzzle. Alameda held me up for a while but got there in the end. Tough like Vlad but perhaps lacking Vlad’s mischievous wit.
…and thanks of course to Loonapick and Imogen
Does anyone have any thoughts about how the weird bracketing wordplay works in DECAMPS?
Some chewy puzzling provided in this one from Imogen. Occasionally, IMHO, the chewiness arose from some dubious stretching of word senses: ‘made undrinkable’=POISONED, ‘absolutely not’=NO SIR, ‘manifest expectancy’=BE ALL EARS (surely, there is no ‘manifestation’ of such a state), ‘it may have wings’=PRISON and went=PEED (a Grauniad speciality).
But some neat stuff: I liked the clever surfaces for PIETA, SHEATH, HAVE ON and MEDOC.
(Shame the surface for the CHALICE clue was such a mish-mash.)
My thanks to setter and blogger today.
Amps measured in December?
Gobbo@35: DECAMPS — Oh, yes, there’s another bit of dodgy clueing. The setter just frobbed the surface to make it read a bit better, and to hell with the wordplay. I saw the DEC for ‘end of year’ and AMPS are ‘measures’ so got it pretty quick and didn’t notice the errant ‘current’.
As PostMark @5 says, not exactly a stroll in the ALMEDA. Both the long across solutions held me up until I had most of the crossers, which didn’t help (‘second half of proverb’ is a startlingly vague definition!).
I didn’t think of PYAWON, but I did wonder about PREVEN. I grasped the significance of ‘irrational’ immediately, but first tried with ‘e’…..
SPEED CAMERA was my favourite today.
Thanks to S&B
Gobbo/muffin/pserve – I’m sure loonapick’s parsing and muffin’s elaboration @37 is how it’s supposed to work – however that means the clue isn’t written in English. There’s no way (no sir(ee)!) that ‘current end-of-year measures’ can be construed as ‘end-of-year measures of current’. Nice idea but it doesn’t quite work.
Amps measured in December = ‘end-of-year current measures’, obviously.
I think the only way it could be made to work is if the measures are ’seeing’ the current, in a Yoda-esque kind of way. An ammeter might be thought of as ‘seeing’ the current, but amps surely don’t see it, they quantify it.
Otoh, I thought BE ALL EARS was fine, in fact very good. If you manifest/show expectancy, then you prick up your ears, you show by your body language that you are in an attentive state, such that someone looking on might say ‘He/she’s all ears’.
That was tough but enjoyable.
I had missed the fact that 9a didn’t really work, having, like pserve_p2 @38, seen DEC and AMPS and simply bunged in the answer.
I have waited decades to find some advantage in having visited Ampthill, and can now die happy. (The town has a park called The Alameda, and an Alameda Middle School).
I particularly liked 20a and 5d. Thanks Imogen for a good start to the day and loonapick for the blog.
Brilliant from go to whoa-the difficulty increased the fun
I loved the simplicity of the MEDOC clue
essexboy@40 Does the ? absolve? or dissolve if the two halves ‘married in haste …’
pserve_p2@38, I was half-expecting someone to come up with a long Greek word for an obscure rhetorical device. But ‘frobbed’ (frobbery?) is a very welcome consolation prize.
Gobbo @47: What you’re looking for is perhaps ‘tmesis’ (the splitting of a word or phrase by insertion of another word or phrase), which is a form of ‘hyperbaton’ (transposition of natural word order) 🙂 . Although the clue does take a bit of a liberty with the language, I can’t say I was particularly exercised about it.
There was a lot I didn’t get last night. This morning a liberal use of “check” finally got me through. But I enjoyed it, check button and all. Thanks to Imogen and loonapick.
Thanks for parsing DECRIES and DECAMPS, loonapick, I hadn’t a hope.
ginf@17 In the 70’s a sheath was a particular kind of dress, one that didn’t come in at the waist but went more or less straight down. I have no memory of a shift being anything people wore, it sounds medieval to me.
Penfold@21 Congratulations on keeping the cups straight. I never could remember which had what.
Although I solved the PIRATE clue without too much difficulty, it did leave me thinking there might be a part-of-speech problem. Isn’t clueing “pi” by “irrational” like clueing “chocolate bar” by “tasty”? Doesn’t it need at least an “an” in front?
There was a lot I didn’t get last night. This morning a liberal use of “check” finally got me through. But I enjoyed it, check button and all. Thanks to Imogen and loonapick.
Thanks for parsing DECRIES and DECAMPS, loonapick, I hadn’t a hope.
ginf@17 In the 70’s a sheath was a particular kind of dress, one that didn’t come in at the waist but went more or less straight down. I have no memory of a shift being anything people wore, it sounds medieval to me.
Penfold@21 Congratulations on keeping the cups straight. I never can remember which had what.
Gobbo @35 “…any thoughts about how the weird bracketing wordplay works in DECAMPS?” A few others have explained this but none quite how I saw it. I imagined a world in which different measures are used depending on the time of year, so DEC AMPS are the current measures that you use at year’s end; essexboy @42. I think ‘seeing’ just means looks like it might be. So if you wanted to query your electricity bill, you’d be referring to JUL AMPS in the summer and MAR AMPS in the spring. That question mark at the end is a bit of a giveaway. 🙂
As loonapick says, plenty of face palm moments. For me this was mostly because the surfaces were so smooth. ‘It may have wings, but absolutely not power to rise’ would be a rather feeble cryptic definition for GLIDER if this was Monday and Vulcan, but on Tuesday with Imogen it’s the fiendishly difficult PRISON.
Thanks to setter and blogger.
Today I learned that an ALAMEDA is a tree-lined street. I only knew the word as the county and city in the San Francisco Bay Area–it turns out it got that name because the Arroyo de Alameda, now known as the Alameda Creek, reminded the Spanish of a poplar-lined alameda.
As with everyone else, I found this tricky but ultimately satisfying.
I’m intrigued as to whether all the solvers had to resort to external sources/ check buttons?
Fortunately I had 3 hours to spare this morning to work on it but still required liberal use of synonym look ups. Even so I was pleased I nearly got there. Sheath and be all ears escaped me. I felt the former was on the unfair side of the line. Still very enjoyable morning.
Thanks Imogen.
TC @54. I eschew aids and check buttons as far as possible, but on this occasion I looked up a putative APALEDA, thinking of PALE as a (pretty good) synonym for feeble. When it didn’t appear in Chambers or in a Spanish dictionary it was back to the drawing board.
Tough but impeccably fair, and although I had plenty of head scratching minutes, it gradually yielded, as the best puzzles should.
Started with VOL AU VENT and SHEATH (which I somehow saw quickly), but struggled far too much on the two long acrosses.
Convinced myself that 13 must be undercover, absent any parsing, and that held me up too.
After a few light bulb moments, favourites were UNOBSERVED, HUSBANDMAN and PIRATE. Had to look up ALAMEDA.
Thanks Imogen for the working over, and to loonapick
sheffield hatter @52: Bravo – you have parsed DECAMPS in a wholly satisfying way, which gets round all the quibbles about word order
TC @54 yep, me too. Managed to avoid using the Check button, but a lot more use of dictionaries and google than I usually need for a midweek. Nothing wrong with that in my book, and with or without aids, boy that was tough! Great to see such a variety of difficulty day by day though.
sheffield hatter@52: I don’t think that quite gets it: it looks as if you’re describing what’s meant (which I think we’re agreed on) rather than what’s written. Your reading still requires DEC to modify current measures, and it doesn’t really do that shoved in the middle. Gervase@48: the thing about these rhetorical devices is they are what they are mechanically for a effect: it gets us nowhere to label the physical separation in this case without identifying the intended effect. It remains bewilderment in my case..
I am starting to wonder how many angels on the head of a pin dance…
Gobbo @59: ‘current end-of-year measures’ are what’s used at the end of the year to measure current. OK, it’s written in a way that’s intended to make you think of a glass of advocaat, but it’s a crossword clue, not an instruction manual!
Tough. Needed the blog to make sense of 3 PRISON. For 19 PIRATE, I’m ashamed to say I only got ‘irrational’ = ‘pi’ after filling in the answer from the definition and retrofitting to the clue! Oh well, I’ll be prepared for ‘transcendental’ when it comes up! Many thanks to Imogen and to Loonapick for the blog.
Thanks for the blog, super duper puzzle and perfect for my journey home for once. First reasonably tough puzzle since the last Imogen.
9Ac I just took current as a clarifier or it could be decohms, dechenrys ……….. even decbarns.
The barn has sub-units of outhouse and shed, but unfortunately not stable.
sh @61: “ ‘Current end-of-year measures’ are what’s used at the end of the year to measure current.” I think that’s the crux of the problem – they aren’t, not if we’re speaking English, even the highly ‘whimsical’ variety that we know and love in Crosswordland.
‘Current measures’ (without anything separating the two words) can have two meanings:
1) measures that are current (the obvious meaning);
2) measures of current (the less obvious but still valid meaning – just as ‘time divisions’ could conceivably mean ‘divisions of time’).
But once you stick an adjective (‘end-of-year’) between the ‘current’ and the ‘measures’, the second option falls away – just as if you stuck a ‘Parliamentary’ in the middle of ‘time divisions’, the hours/minutes/seconds reading would no longer be possible, and you’d be left with an instruction to measure the length of the House of Commons voting process.
Breaking the rules of syntax (such as where in a sentence particular kinds of adjective or other modifiers can attach) causes a breakdown of meaning just as surely as if you use ‘mitigate’ when you mean ‘militate’, or ‘glory’ to mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’. 😉
essexboy @64: Just so. Thanks for articulating properly what I was failing to. It seems to me though that Roz @63 has provided a viable reading that sort of works with imagined punctuation: ‘(current) end-of-year measures’ allows current to modify the subsequent bit. Apologies for not grasping this sooner.
Imogen and Vlad remind me what the Quiptic is for.
When I read the hints to an Imogen puzzle, I know that a puzzle like this is going to be way beyond me.
Ta for the aforementioned.
Gobbo: if “(current) end of year measures” works, surely “current (end of year) measures” does too.
SH: I spose, except the clue is for further qualified DEC SI units. In something already awkward the hierarchy of adjectives is a little smoother. And Roz did get a decent joke in too.
Roundly defeated today; had it not been for the check button, I’d have got nowhere, and even then several lucky guesses went in unparsed (MUSING for one, VOL-AU-VENTS for another). Thanks for the mind-stretching challenge, Imogen, and much gratitude to loonapick for much-needed enlightenment.
Next morning here now so even later. But many thanks Scatflap @26 . That was exactly the type of reference I was hoping for! Modern usage seems quite ambivalent on whether it is praise or criticism. But ‘berate’ certainly indicates the older usage.
I’d like to see a prize Imogen: then I’d have time to ponder and enjoy. A bit too abstruse for my daily bread but thanks to all concerned.
@CanberraG @70 et al – do we need to rely on an archaic use of RATE for the clue to work? Criticism doesn’t have to be negative – Chambers offers “to analyse and pass judgement on” for CRITICISE which also seems to cover the normal use of RATE. Apologies if I’ve grasped the wrong end of the stick
I was less keen on DRIES = “forgets what to say” which just seems like another example of taking half an expression (dries up) and equating it with the whole. Does bottoms = cheers? But overall I though this was really rather fantastic overall and showed some real innovation – always nice to see some original pirate material which was streets ahead of the rest imho
bodycheetah @72
I think “dries” is OK. “He’s dried” is what would be said in the theatre, I believe, when an actor forgets his lines.
Finally gave up and revealed the last 5 having been picking at it for several hours.
I’ll go back and read the blog now, but thought I’d get my impression in first.
Not a Tuesday puzzle. Such a shame as I’d enjoyed yesterday so much.
Good point bodycheetah @72
As I suspected.
If Roz, who I have massive respect for, enjoyed this one immensely, then indeed it was most emphatically not a Tuesday puzzle.
Think I’ll stick to Mondays, the Quicks and Everyman. Maybe be scan a few others.
Such a shame as I really, really enjoyed last week’s progression. Perfect.
As well as the “whimsical” word order (not the word I’d use) how on earth does 21a work. Surely Mondrian’s = Piet’s so we get pietsa. You can’t just ignore the s.
You’ll have to read “Mondrian’s” as “Mondrian has”, or – in other words – “Mondrian +” (= “Piet , followed by“).
Whether ‘Mondrian = Piet’ is fair game is another matter.
For some it may be a DBE (Definition By Example) and therefore needing an indication like, for example, a question mark.
That said, I think the artist is so well-known that Imogen should get away with it.
This crossword was perhaps too hard for too many solvers but I am so happy that such a puzzle still exists (as a compensation for, let’s say’ the Pans and Vulcans of this world – nothing wrong with them but at times we (read: solvers like me) need a bit ‘more’).
Eric @77. You can’t just ignore the s. I can remember making a similar comment, I think on the FT or Indy crossword blog on this site a few months back. I was firmly put in my place. I’ll try to be gentle: think about what an apostrophe-S can mean. It can be a possessive; it can be short for is; it can be short for has (which may be different from a possessive – see below).
If you assume that the S=belongs to PIET then you are right, it should be PIETSA.
PIET IS won’t make any sort of sense.
‘Mondrian’s first to abrogate’ needs to be read as ‘Mondrian (=first name=PIET) *has* the first letter of abrogate (=A) *added on the end*.
[This is a little bit like clues where the word “setter’s” appears. Leaving aside for a minute the instances where setter means a setting agent like glue, agar agar or something that sets like jelly or cement, and when it means a dog, it almost always means “I”=the setter of the crossword. So, it is either “setter is”=I am=IM, or “setter has”=I have=IVE. It would never be “setter’s”=setter+s=I+S=IS (ignoring the apostrophe). But this is what you do if you change Mondrian’s to PIETS.]
Of course, sometimes the S *does* have to be added to the letters clued (in this case PIETS), but as a solver you have to try to work out what the setter could mean, and what might work in the space available, and what the definition might be.
Personally, I feel this particular use of an apostrophe-S is misleading bordering on unfair, but I’ve got past that to now solving clues like this without any trouble.
I hope this makes sense, or that someone can explain it better. [I see that Sil has explained this more succinctly since I started typing, but I’ll post this anyway. 🙂 ]
Hear, hear Sil@78, there was a time when the Guardian had two hard crosswords every week , usually much harder than this. Of course we need a range of difficulty for a range of solvers but I feel the weekly balance is seldom right these days.
In my experience when I was a new and limited solver , I learnt far more by failing miserably at the hands of Bunthorne, Fidelio, Gemini etc than I did by completing a Rufus.
Taffy @76 – if you’re still there – don’t give up on Tuesdays! Apart from the tradition of ‘easy Monday’, there really is no fixed pattern for how hard puzzles in the other weekday slots are going to be. I know sometimes it seems like a progression, with Fridays particularly challenging, but that doesn’t always hold true by any means.
Going by the setters’ names is a better guide. Vlad and Paul are generally considered at the tougher end, but Qaos these days is quite accessible, and there’s the added help from the ghost theme, if you spot it. I also get on well with Philistine and Picaroon, but that may be a wavelength thing. Brummie I often have more problems with, but today’s went very smoothly – do give it a try.
“The only certainty is uncertainty.” Just recently I thought Anto’s Quiptic was the toughest puzzle of the week! Happy solving. (And if you do ‘fail miserably’, you’ll have the consolation of knowing that you’re following in Roz’s footsteps 😉 )
Roz @80 and EB@81.
Thank you both so much for your words of kindness and encouragement.
I had understood that the number of ‘hot chillies’ against each puzzle increased gradually and evenly during the week and recall many comments along the lines of too easy/difficult for any particular day. If as you say, outside of Monday and Friday things can be somewhat random, then that is most reassuring and I won’t turn my back in despair at a difficult Tuesday, nor preen over an easy Thursday.
Belated thanks to Sil and Sheffield hatter for taking such trouble to answer my query. I’m especially placated that you still felt it ‘ a little unfair’ and will try to move onwards and upwards as you have done. Thanks again both.
Really struggled with this. Got there in the end with liberal use of word wizard. But I won’t be trying Imogen again unless a prize. PIRATE I thought absolute fine. But disliked PRISON and MUSING immensely. MEDOC might have been a favourite had I not had INFRA there for so long. I guess NIMBI was rather fine.
I’m going to do whatever it takes to serve a tasty turkey for Thanksgiving this year. Let’s just say my family has been less than pleased the last few years. For some reason I just can’t get the bird to turn out moist and soft. Wish me luck!