Guardian Cryptic 28,586 by Nutmeg

77 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,586 by Nutmeg”

1. So … what’s with the hidden supermarkets?

2. Very enjoyable puzzle. Lower half was easier as it took me a while to work out 1ac which then helped with solving the top half.

   Favourites: YELLOWY, CRESCENDO, NASCENT, BLESSED, ROMANTICALLY, NUBIA, BRONCHI.

   New for me: CRYPTANALYST, ANIONIC.

   Thanks, both.

   * There is a small typo in the blog for 5d which is a charade of LOO + SING

3. A lot of fun. Didn’t find it as hard as the average Nutmeg, but that may just be me.

   A comment about “interminable” (16a). (Just a comment, not a complaint.) “Interminable” does not mean “remove the last letter”. “Interminable” means “without ending” and “without ending” can mean “remove the last letter”, so it works, but not directly, but rather via a subtle shift.

4. Excellent as usual — thanks Nutmeg. I found this on the easier end of Nutmeg’s spectrum but that didn’t detract a bit from its cleverness. I particularly liked BRONCHI, NASCENT, YOU’RE ON, LOOSING, and USER-FRIENDLY, the latter for its apt and natural surface. Thanks PeterO for the early blog.

5. There seemed to be some doubt on the Guardian blog about “blessed” for “revered”. I recall from my long-distant youth that a “blessed” was somebody on the path to sainthood, whom we were encouraged to pray to, so I guess that’s “revered”.

6. Trovatore, I noticed LIDL in the supermarket category. Also MORRISON, but didn’t know what it refers to. And DUE CE ME makes sense phonetically, but is not familiar. Pity, I’ve never spotted the elusive Nina, but hope to some day…

7. Thanks PeterO for AVOIDANCE: I was convinced the party was dance, so couldn’t explain the avoi. As others have said, on the easier end for Nutmeg, but quite enjoyable.

   And so (back) to bed.

   Tanks Nutmeg.

8. Oh, right, and ASDA

9. Not so beginning-of-the-week for me and I took a while to get this out, being held up by uncommon words like ENGILDS. Good to have the Nina at the end as reward for the struggle.

   Thanks to PeterO and Nutmeg

10. Lovely surfaces as per with Nutmeg with some crackers such as CRYPTANALYST, ROMANTICALLY, YOU’RE ON, PLAYGROUP and AVOIDANCE. The hidden supermarkets did amuse me and I suppose Sainsbury could be inferred from its continual benevolence to the TATE. Definitely on the easier end but delightful. NASCENT was my favourite.

    Ta Nutmeg & PeterO

11. INCAPACITATE stood out for me – all the elements were identified and then just had to be assembled – once I’d ditched LID for CAP. AlanC has identified the others that appealed.

    When Frau was recently clued without indication it was a foreign word, some argued it has been adopted into English, others that it should be well enough known not to require an indicator. I assume the same applies to BLANC?

    I appreciate it’s near sacrilege to query something by Nutmeg but I’m not sure I see the point of the three supermarkets. I may well be missing something obvious which I will later rue but, clever though it is, it’s barely a Nina or a theme. Just an oddity.

    Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO

12. It’s nice to see a Nina, it’s been a while. I see MORRISON, LIDL, ASDA and ALDI.

13. Very enjoyable. I love Nutmeg’s setting. Favourites already covered by others. I appreciated the blog which helped me to see how the “twinkling” part of SECONDO worked at 6d. I missed the hidden supermarkets as the names are unfamiliar to me and I don’t remember to look for ninas anyway, but it was clever of Nutmeg to include them and other solvers to spot them. Many thanks to Nutmeg and PeterO.

14. An enjoyable romp so thanks to Nutmeg and indeed to PeterO for the blog. Missed the NINA of course. CANDOUR = impartiality raised an eyebrow.

15. Thanks to Nutmeg and PeterO.

    I was wondering about the ‘twinkling’ in 6d which seemed redundant as the last letter of virtuoso is the word’s second ‘O’.

16. dantheman@15
    Interesting 🙂

17. SECONDO was my last one in, and very much a bung and hope, as I did not know the definition, and I don’t think ‘twinkling’ is a synonym for ‘second’ – can anybody give an example where you can directly interchange them (without ‘of an eye’ being added to the former)? That apart, I enjoyed this, and was pleased at how many I constructed, sometimes laboriously, from getting the bits and pieces and assembling them (e.g. CRYPTANALYST, BRONCHI, TALON, BLANC, YELLOWY, NASCENT – and that’s just the acrosses). Thanks, Nutmeg and PeterO.

18. dantheman@ 15: well-spotted

19. Having mentioned yesterday that, until recently, I attempted only old Nutmeg puzzles occasionally, I was delighted she appeared today!

    This one was on the easier side or I’m improving. I’ve never looked for ninas but I’ll try to remember now. Thanks to those who pointed them out, and to Nutmeg and PeterO (esp for explaining SECONDO; I like dantheman@15’s clever alternative).

    Like TimW@14, CANDOUR raised an eyebrow but my Chambers dictionary app has
    3. Freedom from prejudice, impartiality

    My favourites were similar to night owl / morning lark michelle@2 🙂

    Despite a background in computer science, CRYPTANALYST was new to me.

20. Which Morrison? Jim? Van?Or is there a supermarket called that.Theres a PM called that(and worse)in OZ-he went into parliament brandishing a lump of coal

21. Did anybody else get sidetracked by write in DRAMATICALLY for 7d? It does sort of work.

22. copmus@20 Morrisons is a supermarket in the UK.

    [Me@19 – just realised that michelle@2 may not be a morning lark or night owl: just on another continent :-)]

23. Missed the Nina and also misspelled ‘cryptanalyst’, so not my greatest performance. Perhaps I’m just feeling jaded, but I did not enjoy this as much as I usually do Nutmeg’s puzzles.

24. Tassie Tim @17 – “can anybody give an example where you can directly interchange them (without ‘of an eye’ being added to the former)?” This from the poem, ”Twas the night before Christmas …’?

    And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
    The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
    As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
    Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

25. Very enjoyable. Thank you Nutmeg. I missed the Nina but luckily there is 15^2 to point it out. Very clever. I had not figured out all the subtlety of the parsing of 1a. But even after reading PeterO’s explanation I was still being obtuse about anna-list being a chronicler until I googled annalist and the penny dropped. Thanks for your help with that PeterO and for helping me seeing how ends can work for terms in LeGENDS which was my LOI. I liked ENGILDS as it’s a lovely word and I’d wasted a lot of time taking the coat off precious before I figured it out. I think CANDOUR is a dated usage – frequently encountered in Patrick O’Brien books.
    A treat to have such an approachable Nutmeg which I could manage with barely a glance at a helpful thesaurus.

26. TassieTim@17

    Chambers gives ‘in the twinkle/twinkling of an eye’ as usage examples in its ‘twinkle’ entry, and I’ve seen and heard both shortened to ‘in a twinkle’, in similar fashion to other common phrases. Having said that, I took a while to remember that, with this my LOI too
    Thanks to Nutmeg for an entertaining start to my day, and very well-hidden nina, and PeterO for the answer blog.

27. Dan the man @15: Very nice, thank you. In fact SECONDO was my COD even before your embellishment.

    Struggled a bit with void for worthless but it seems fine on checking.

    Clever of everyone to spot the supermarkets. Not I.

    Lovely puzzle, many thanks, Nutmeg.

28. Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO. All good stuff. Agree with CanberraGirl that ENGILDS is a lovely word – but on a slightly pedantic note, shouldn’t the ‘to’ be included in the definition? Also agree that CANDOUR is a dated usage but perfectly acceptable, and again a lovely word.

    PM @11 – I know some setters use ‘ghost themes’ simply as a way to get started on filling the grid, so maybe that’s the explanation? The hidden supermarkets completely passed me by anyway.

    pdp11 @19 – your comment yesterday got me thinking that we hadn’t seen a new Nutmeg in a while and were probably due one, so I wasn’t entirely surprised this morning!

29. @tassietim My mother used to say « I’ll be there in two twinks, don’t wait for me » or « see you in a twinkling  » meaning « see you soon » .

30. [pdp11@19&22
    You are correct in both posts! These days I am more of a morning lark (used to be a night owl when I was younger). Also, I am on the “other side of the world” – so I do the puzzle in the morning / after breakfast in my time zone]

31. [michelle@30 – aha! Until I saw copmas@20’s comment, I forgot these puzzles are immediately available around the world. I always assumed (incorrectly) that cryptic crosswords were a very British thing but of course there’s no reason why any English speaker couldn’t enjoy them. I wonder if there are cryptic crosswords in other languages ? ]

32. Unlike Michelle@2, the top half went in more easily than the bottom which only became clear after 20k out on the bike. (Maybe that’s because she’s on the other side of the world to me? Is her bottom half my top half?)
    I would still say this was easier than many Nutmegs but just as enjoyable. Thanks to her and PeterO.

33. Rather enjoyed the ROMAN TIC ALLY plus a host of others, though SECONDO only went in because I checked that it did indeed fit the definition.

    [pdp @31, my belief is that English has, basically, more words in it than other languages – it’s a hybrid of Latin and Germanic, so two different roots, plus loads of borrowings on account of all that colonisation. That must make it easier to construct a cryptic.]

34. Yes, Nutmeg’s trademark smooth surfaces lead to a satisfying solve.

    Like Dave @7, I thought the party in AVOIDANCE was dance at the beginning until I twigged what the African was doing. I liked ROMANTICALLY and ENGILDS.

    As to the NINA, I’ve said before that starting with a blank grid a setter needs some inspiration to get going. That’s often a theme or a NINA, pangram etc unless one refers to a little black book of inspirational ideas. I wonder if Nutmeg started thinking the supermarkets could have been used further but then was stymied by the filling possibilities. Anyway, it’s always fun to find a NINA (I didn’t though!)

    Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO.

35. PM@11 I, too, really enjoyed the gradual piecing together of INCAPACITATE, including the reluctant rejection of INCADILITATE.

36. I enjoyed Incapacitate, but where are the supermarkets? I don’t see them.

37. MargEll – Morrison across row 4, Lidl and Asda across row 12, Aldi in column 8 down the middle.

38. Ah yes, I can see them now. They didn’t jump out at me though. Just solving the crossword is good enough for me, without looking for extra answers!

39. Ah, I now know what a Nina is. Hard ones to spot even when you’re told they’re there, and for someone not living in the UK would be much worse. Good crossword, I really like Nutmeg’s efforts, though many are rather harder than this one.

40. Thanks to Nutmeg and PeterO.

    I was thoroughly entertained by this. Much enjoyable chewing at the long answers and a lot of savouring besides: YOU’RE ON, CANDOUR and, well take your pick.

    I don’t quite get LEGENDS – “ends”=”terms”. I’m probably being a bit thick.

    pdp11@31: I’ve often wondered about cryptics in other languages and have nothing to report other than that there is one in Latin in the Observer (although I couldn’t say if it’s cryptic as such – mea culpa).

41. to pdp11: About whether there are cryptics in other languages, recently I found a website in Spanish of a Latin American living in London who had become enamoured of cryptic crosswords, and had started to make his own in Spanish. But first he had to explain the concept and give examples, so that would suggest it wasn’t a known thing in the Spanish-speaking world. I remember when I lived in Spain, newspapers used to include a “rebus”, which consisted of a jumble of pictures of various, seemingly disconnected objects or people, and readers were asked to solve a riddle written below. The pictures served the same purpose as the “charades” of cryptic crosswords.

42. Although this didn’t delight me as much as Nutmeg’s puzzles usually do (I can’t quite put my finger on why) there was much to enjoy – particularly for a chemist like me: CREOSOL, ANIONIC and NASCENT (though the surface for the last is scientifically dubious – sodium has such a low vapour pressure that it is unlikely to be detectable by smell!).

    Missed the Ninas, of course. Robi @24 is right that Ninas, ghost themes and pangrams are a useful way to help a setter simply to fill words into a blank grid.

    [Trailman @33, pdp11@31: Cryptics do exist in other languages but English is particularly well suited to this type of puzzle. This is not principally due to the size of its vocabulary, though that must help a bit. Because of the way the phonology of the language has developed, English is rich in homophones and homonyms. And because we have lost most of the original inflections, many words can be interpreted as nouns or verbs, or sometimes even adjectives. Some common verbs have the same form for present and past tenses, past tenses of regular verbs are the same as the past participle and only third person singular present ever has a distinct ending. This makes wordplay much easier than in a language such as Italian, where there are very few homophones and homonyms and inflections show function unambiguously. Italian crosswords only have occasional very mildly cryptic elements]

43. [pdp11 et al: this query has come up before, and not terribly long ago. There was some discussion and contributions from our community in countries where English is not the first language. I suspect it comes up reasonably regularly. This is quite an interesting snippet about the construction of clues in German. There were also some musings and contributions of French clues in the blog for Philistine’s Prize 28,524 from August. It did strike me that, to make full use of the vocabularies of Northern Europe, it might be necessary to expand on the usual 15×15 grid to accommodate those compound nouns! ]

44. Slow-going this morning and I failed to see the supermarkets.
    Strangely, Aldi & Lidl came to mind when trying to solve 10d (1 lid) before I twigged 1 cap.
    I did see colours in YELLOWy, White (from BLANC) and Gold (from ENGILD), a nascent if ultimately fanciful theme.
    I struggled with impartiality = candour. Is it not possible to be candidly partial?
    Otherwise a cracker of a challenge even if I am now a bit cracked!
    Thanks Nutmeg & PeterO.

45. Thanks Gervase and PostMark. I surmise that in most languages the setter would be in general confined to cryptic definitions; not much fun for either setter or sitter (although I always have time for a “cd” where others do not).

46. [Re the discussion on foreign-language crosswords, I was reading an interesting article recently on ‘Why Hindi and cryptic crosswords do not mix’ – although they do exist!]

47. Alphalpha @40
    The Germanic END is the original meaning of the Latin-derived ‘term’ (and the first entry in Chambers). That sense is not common now (but think terminus or 16A’s ‘interminable’); the current use that comes to mind is bringing a pregnancy to term.

48. Encouraged by Eileen, I will poke my head out of lurkdom again.

    Finished most of this with my morning cuppa, but temporarily stymied by the bottom left. Had another go at lunch time, and got there.

    Several words which are on the edge of my vocabulary, but I dredged them up, or derived them, from somewhere. CRYPTANALYST, ANIONIC, CREOSOL, ENGILD. And some word meanings that weren’t what I expected (although I’m not complaining – you live and learn). Terms/Ends, Romantically/with passion, Candour/impartiality.

    So thank you Nutmeg for the clueing which made it possible for me to get these. And thank you Peter O and all the rest of you for your company.

49. [pdp11@31, PostMark@43: de Volkskrant has a cryptic crossword in Dutch every Saturday. They most definitely do not stick to a 152 grid. They don’t even stick to a square or rectangular grid. I have tried them on occasion, but either their clueing isn’t as “clear” as is the case in the Guardian, or my Dutch isn’t as good as I think it is.
    pdp11: your moniker brings back happy(?) memories. I learnt assembly language on you (in the Netherlands).]

50. [eb @46: I recall discovering the very existence of Hindi crosswords when our erstwhile Indian contributor Rishi passed away and there were links here to valedictions from his crossword community. It was similarly interesting to learn just how much appetite for English crossword activity there is in India.

51. [Me@49: Sorry, my html went all wonky. Only the “not” should be in italics, and “152” should 15(squared).]

52. sheffield hatter
    [ I’ve left a message for you @237 on General Discussion, offerng a couple of clues involving a see other than Ely. I posted them yesterday in response to your comment @ 66 but too late for most.]

53. Still shaking my head about the Nina. Does this refer simply to the hidden supermarket names or something else about the grid which completely eludes me?

54. Alan@53
    I think that this is the clearest explanation of a NINA

    http://www.alberichcrosswords.com/pages/ninas.html

55. Thanks for the blog , enjoyed this far more than usual for this setter, a lot of very neat and imaginative clues.

    Moth@48 , taking a break is very under-rated for crosswords, it really does seem to work. Perhaps the brain is solving sub-consciously or we look at it again with fresh eyes and avoid the same blind alleys.

    I have discussed other language crosswords with EB and Anna and others, I think the very limited range of verb and noun endings in English allows the setter to mislead us with so many words.

56. I absolutely loved the beauty of BRONCHI today. Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO!

57. Roz@55. I couldn’t agree more. I know you are also a paper solver, and I think one of the benefits of this is you can’t use checks, so it makes you more inclined to come back to it and try again later. I don’t look at the blog until either I have solved it all, but may just need confirmation of parsing/meanings, or the next morning when I get the next paper. And even then I’ll have one last go before giving in.

    I do allow myself to google though, if there is a word I have derived from the wordplay and I want to check it’s a real one. Sometimes this then throws up the correct answer, if my attempt is wrong.

58. Moth you sound as stubborn as me. When I first started with Everyman there were no blogs , I used to carry it around all week, maybe half an hour a day trying to solve, if I did not finish I would check the answers in the paper and try to work out why the answer worked.
    These blogs are brilliant for explaining things but perhaps a little too tempting if you do not finish a puzzle.

59. [Thanks everyone who commented on foreign-language cryptic crosswords. Very informative 🙂 . The articles on German and Hindi cryptic crosswords were fascinating!]

60. [Bear+of+little+brain@49 – hehe. It was a real classic and you may recall that some of the people who worked on the OS were eventually poached by Microsoft to create Windows NT, much of which exists in the Windows we love today 😉

    My first solo trip abroad, to the Benelux countries, started in Netherlands. I have fond memories. When I got to a certain Belgian city, there was a British newspaper in my hostel dorm and the first clue in the cryptic crossword was

    An idiot in Belgium (7)

    This sounds too cute to be true but I kid you not. I wonder how they knew I was there 😀 ]

61. Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO.

    Like Gervase I didn’t enjoy this as much as usual and also can’t say why, as there’s nothing to complain about. I did particularly like INCAPACITATE though.

    [I wondered yesterday at the name pdp11, I was a little later to the DEC world, my first encounter was a MicroVAX II, running VMS 4.something, I remember MACRO very well bear+of+little+brain@49 32 bit assembly with 4GB address space, initially a little overwhelming for someone who’d learned Z80 assembly on an RML and a Sinclair ZX spectrum with 48K of RAM. Ah fond memories of happy days]

62. These Guardian readers are clever. I never would have noticed the supermarkets!

63. I needed the blog to explain the chronicler in 1a, so thanks for that. Faves: BRONCHI and CRESCENDO.
    I spotted MORRISON after the fact, and then some of the other supermarkets. There’s TESCO (anagrammatically) in the northeast too. Wonder if that was intentional.

    Thanks, PeterO and Nutmeg.

64. [Blah@61 – I didn’t expect pdp11 to mean anything to anyone here! VMS was awesome and my first proper OS. You probably know that Dave Cutler who created VMS also created Windows NT. Rumour has it (apocryphal) that VMS and WNT are related in the way IBM and HAL are. When Clive Sinclair died recently, I had a lump in my throat, recalling what he did for us. Happy days indeed. ]

65. [Yes indeed pdp11, Cutler took an idea to the board for a cut down version of VMS that had potential to have been platform Independent and capable of running on microcomputers rather than mini. The story I heard was that Ken Olsen pooh-poohed the idea claiming it would never sell, we now call that concept OS Windows NT. Shame that Microsoft then moved away from the design ideals.]

66. pdp11 @64 – the IBM and HAL myth is completely false, simply read the book. Chapter 16 HAL – for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer. Arthur C Clarke also flatly rejects the myth in the introduction.

67. [pdp11 @60: I have fond memories of a pdp 11/23. But the suggestion that Windows is in any way lovable! I have some liking for Unix …]

68. [Roz@66 – the story I heard at the time was that WNT was intentionally chosen to mirror IBM/HAL but not that HAL was intentionally chosen in relation to IBM, which I had assumed was as false as the claims for WNT. Thank you for confirming.

    Blah@65 – Yes, I recall that too. Ken Olsen, the man who thought PCs would never catch on! It’s funny how a man who ran the company that ate IBM’s lunch was so unaware of how vulnerable his own lunch was! If you’ve not read it, the book Show-Stopper about the creating of Windows NT is a cracking read on the making of Windows NT and heavily features Dave Cutler and his history at DEC.

    Monkey@67 – there was a wink in my comment but I’m curious about all operating systems which, like children, have their strengths and weaknesses 🙂 ]

69. Great to see Nutmeg again. I got carried away with 7dn and thought it could be appassianato and that would add to secondo and crescendo. Bad move. Eventually saw the error of my ways but, because I do the digital version I miss obvious cross flags, but even then the sw corner was a bit tricky. I loved the se corner which to me was pure Nutmeg.

70. [Monkey@67 NT was the first true native OS from Microsoft rather than just an application. I managed to obtain an engineering copy that had been unofficially debloated (or rather Cutler’s team had kept it away from the windows idiots) and installed this version for several of my clients in the mid to late 90s. At one such site a user called me saying she couldn’t access a file share, rather strangely she could still use network printers. I investigated and found her password had expired 2 weeks previously, (once a connection was made to a printer it persisted until the user logged off, whereas a file share required a password token for access every time a connection was made). I reset her account and her immediate problem was solved. Somewhat confused about how she had been working at all for the last fortnight I asked her to talk me through what she did each morning and evening. It turned out she had merely locked her workstation each evening for the previous 3.5 months and had not logged off or shut down for that entire time. Not a single ‘windoze’ memory leak issue in 14 weeks. Unheard of right? Now tell me that windows NT wasn’t worth it’s salt! The only Unix alternative for wintel at that time was SCO, which couldn’t have handled that any better than say Vista! I will of course freely admit that the situation is sadly very different today.

    Apologies to all uninterested parties for the long very off topic post]

71. Cliveinfrance from Alan in the Aveyron! Thank you. I knew what a Nina was but somehow thought it revealed a message rather than just a collection of, in this case, supermarket names. Probably just me being obtuse.

72. Took me a while to see Nina after it was pointed out and then missed MORRISONS. Thought the CRYPTA- a bit strange and CANDOUR too but otherwise a nice solve ..last night.

73. First there were questions, started by pdp11, about crosswords in other languages – German, Dutch, French, Spanish and Hindi. Then there was a separate conversation, prompted by pdp11’s moniker, in an entirely different and incomprehensible language. And here I was, thinking that fifteensquared was a site that revelled in the vagaries of the English language. More fool, I.

    Thanks, Nutmeg and PeterO (and pdp11), for setting this off. It was thoroughly enjoyable, as usual.

74. A few DNKs: CREOSOL, ENGILDS and SECONDO which were eminently gettable. ANION(ic) reminded me of its positive counterpart CATION which is the only word in Englsh where *ATION is not pronounced “ayshun”.

75. Vaguely aggrieved as sadly dnf having Drama for Ceasar in 7d and floundered in NW corner!

76. Thanks for the blog. Slowly trying Monday Cryptic level now. Quite happy with my performance. Engilds is new to me. 14Ac surface seemed to be UKGK, but turned out to be something more universal. Completely forgot my cations and anions.

    Just two wrong guesses in just five check answer… Very good performance in a cryptic for me.

    Oddly my personal rules are: no googling, no dictionary, no atlas, no look up. But I allow myself check-answer, but will be counted and recorded in my diary.

77. @pdp11 Most of the restrictions of Hindi applies to most Indian languages. But …

    There is a pioneer named Vanchinathan, (mathematician, programmer, professor,) who has been setting cryptics in Tamil. Vowels and consonants are combined into a glyph, so much reduced anagram possibilities. And isolated vowels are not allowed in the middle of letters, and words can not start in consonants. So highly restricted in these dimensions.

    But Tamil has some grammar not found in English. Rules on word combinations and splitting. So it is possible to create fantastic surfaces and clues. When I solve Tamil cryptic I get the taste of what the serious top level English cryptic solvers are enjoying. My own brain will dredge up word not seen for 25 years, poetry read in high school, characters from Mahabharata not known to most people, …

    I will cross post in General discussions, it is more appropriate there. Follow ups there, this page is likely to close soon.

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