Guardian Cryptic 28,612 by Nutmeg

78 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,612 by Nutmeg”

1. Thanks Nutmeg and manehi
   A typical Nutmeg puzzle – not difficult, but a lot of fun. I did need the parse for OUNCE, though.
   I loved TOSCA; it would be difficult to stage as there are two tenor roles!

2. Yes, a very nice puzzle as always from Nutmeg. I was flummoxed by STAIR in STAIRCASE, but now see the construction thanks to manehi. Loved REST AREAS, SPEAR and BE MY GUEST in particular. Many thanks to N & m.

3. Thank you manehi for parsing REST AREAS for me; I didn’t spot the ‘like’ = AS and assumed that REAS was a body of the military I hadn’t yet encountered (Reserve Expeditionary Air Service?). And, having BOUNCER for ‘clubman’ and skinning him successfully I thought the ‘chucking out’ was superfluous.

   Thanks Nutmeg for a fun puzzle. I think my favourite (for the irony) was TOMBS.

4. Many thanks to Nutmeg for a fun puzzle, and to manehi for the blog – in particular for parsing 14d. I thought ‘pence = coins’ and though I could see it didn’t work, bunged in SIXPENCES and moved on. Never heard of 13d ALL ENDS UP meaning completely, but it had to be.

5. Enjoyed this puzzle though couldn’t parse a few fully e.g. EFFETE

   Especially liked the *CASED* in SHOWCASED. Also liked VACANT, NO CHANGE, PECTORAL, TOMBS

   Thanks Nutmeg and manehi

6. I couldn’t decide if OUNCE was clever or a bit tortuous. I feel “Doorman skinned cat” might have been neater, but, as ever, an enjoyable puzzle.

7. Certainly the quickest Nutmeg I’ve completed so def on her wavelength. Many ticks including OUNCE, TOSCA, BE MY GUEST and the clever SIXPENCES. Lovely surfaces throughout as per.

   Ta Nutmeg & manehi

8. Very much enjoyed. Just the right amount of challenge for me. Thanks to Nutmeg and manehi (sorry to hear of your computer frustrations). Really liked 8a GOOD SAMARITANS, 24a PRESENT COMPANY, 25a CREPITUS, 4d BE MY GUEST (as mentioned above by others) and 9d RECORD PLAYER.

9. ALL ENDS UP was an NHO for me too, but it had to be. A job isn’t a career — and in a recent puzzle I think I jibbed at a ‘calling’ used to define a job or career.
   This was a jolly good, straightforward puzzle, I thought. No theme that I could identify, and some nice wordplay inside neat surfaces e.g. EFFETE, SPEAR, REST AREAS.

10. A reasonably smooth solve. I came here to see how a LAT was a poster – to be reversed and put with the ‘frame’ of ‘illuminated’ = ID to get TIDAL. Oh well, at least the answer was correct. I liked ALL ENDS UP, NO CHANGE, TOMBS and PRESENT COMPANY, but needed some research to find out how Brownies are organised. Thanks, Nutmeg and manehi.

11. Spent too long thinking 14d was going to be “sesterces”.

12. Rather too many strained parsings to be enjoyable, for me.

    Job as a synonym for career is just not on in my book.

    OUNCE went in straight away with the crossers but I would never have thought of bouncer for clubman.

    Not familiar with ALL ENDS UP but that’s probably just me.

    Thanks for the blog, manehi, I hope you’ve resolved your IT issues.

13. A generous way in, I thought, with the long anagrams at 1d and 8 across. Loi was the tanners or Lord of the Manors at 14d once I’d got the X in TAXI STAND. Couldn’t parse REST AREAS, so thanks to Manehi for that, and of course to Nutmeg for her usual elegant puzzle this morning…

14. Thanks to setter and solver – In 20d I thought that “single” was a bit redundant (and slightly confusing) as we are used to just E for English without any qualification. Good solve all round, though!

15. This was lovely. I didn’t know 25a so tried a couple of arrangements of the vowels before getting there.

    Thanks manehi and Nutmeg

16. A bit of a slog to be honest, though I liked OUNCE. The definition for RECORD PLAYER is needlessly contorted. Had REST STOPS until the crossers put me right.

    Never heard of ALL ENDS UP. Is it regional?

17. Thoroughly enjoyable as ever. Thanks manehi for the parsing of EFFETE, which I just couldn’t see, and Nutmeg for a customarily elegant puzzle.

18. Couple of bits of dnk, viz the noisy joint thing, and the guides group sixes (anything to do with uniforms was suss to the ginf seniors). Nice as spice as usual, ta N and m.

19. You often hear “beaten all ends up” on cricket commentaries, meaning “completely beaten”.

20. S@14 I think maybe Nutmeg is indicating the you only have to remove one of the Es in CAREER?

21. Pleasant, practically painless puzzle from Nutmeg. Like TT @10 I had the same parse fail for TIDAL. LOI for me was CREPITUS – I knew the word but it took the crossers for me to realise it was an anagram. Favourites were TOSCA and the 6ds at 14d.

    sofnon @14: ‘single’ because only one of the Es needs to be removed.

    Thanks to S&B

22. muffin@19: well, I don’t follow cricket, so maybe that’s my problem. It can be a disadvantage in cryptics though I’ve perforce learned a few of the common terms.

23. I think the job v career objections a bit middle class. No wonder carers get such poor wages…

24. yesyes@3: I wouldn’t have got bouncer from just “clubman”. Clubman chucking out is fine.
    Thanks manehi for parsing REST AREAS. I was thinking fares=money not fares=passengers, so it took me a while to find TAXI STAND – I started with TOLL BOOTH…

    liked TOSCA, OUNCE, SIXPENCES (I was in the Elves).

25. A nice puzzle, as ever from Nutmeg, but not convinced that decadent quite works as a definition for EFFETE.

26. Great puzzle. I really liked 25a (though NHO) because it was so clear from the crossers, and 16d for the misdirection which has fooled me before. I thought 13d was a bit weak, although again NHO it. Thank you Nutmeg and manehi

27. Another good one from Nutmeg, I struggled a bit in the SE corner.

    After my discussion about dictionaries yesterday, I was surprised to see that dependent is given in the main dictionaries as an alternative spelling to dependant. I thought dependant was always used to distinguish the two.

    I liked NO CHANGE, SHOWCASED, SIXPENCES and BE MY GUEST. I failed to see the bouncer, though.

    Thanks Nutmeg and manehi.

28. Thanks manehi, I was flummoxed in the same way as TassieTim@10 with TIDAL and wasn’t sure about SPEAR but it was plausible so thanks for fleshing it out.
    I found this trickier than most it seems – got off to a good start but ground to a halt half-way through with evenly spread blank spaces tormenting me until a REGENERATIVE cup of tea did the trick (not for the first time).
    Speaking of which I thought the definition of RECORD PLAYER was nicely open to misreading, also liked the double use of I to mean simply itself after I had tried to work Setter and similar into the clues. Thanks Nutmeg.

29. Thanks Nutmeg and manehi. This was a nice steady solve for me, and very satisfying.

    Mere hint of an eyebrow raise at job=career, but I was more troubled by “between” in 6d, and was scratching my head trying to come up with two words for “valley” for a minute or so… but really, it’s a good sign if this is the worst I can find to quibble about. TOSCA, EFFETE, SIXPENCES, SNOT among my favourites.

30. Lots of fun in this very engaging puzzle. Favourite of the day has to be SNOT – also learned that an OUNCE is a name for a snow leopard.
    Many thanks to Nutmeg and to manehi for the blog.

31. Thanks to muffin@19 for explaining why I’d never heard of ALL ENDS UP: here in the US I don’t think I could find a cricket commentary if I wanted to – which I don’t.

    I thought DATA FILES rather redundant – does anyone say that in 2021? – but otherwise thought it a very nice puzzle.

32. Very enjoyable. Ticked all the boxes: solver-friendly grid, some long entries, and sensible and humorous surfaces; a pleasant accompaniment to breakfast.

    Far too many favourites to mention but TOSCA (thanks muffin @1 for tenor note), SHOWCASED, EFFETE, and TIDAL were good; SNOT was brilliant.

    Thanks Nutmeg and manehi.

33. I would think that the essential part of a good Samaritan is that he/ she is not a neighbour.

34. [Dr W @31 – I first thought the same about DATA FILES then I recalled it is used (quite often in my experience) to distinguish between files that contain structured data (eg CSV, fixed length, etc) from those that don’t (eg readme files). Sometimes these files have a .DAT extension, which can be a generic marker for a structured but proprietary (eg not CSV) data file.]

35. TH @33 a neighbour can also mean someone who happens to be near you not just someone who lives next to you.

36. Thanks to Nutmeg and manehi. Great fun.

    NO CHANGE reminded me of the story an elderly friend used to enjoy telling of a colleague who would offer to amuse by tossing a coin and catching it in his mouth. The inevitable happened and his workmates entertained themselves by ringing up the hospital at regular intervals to ask if there was any change in him – simple times.

    SPEAR is one of those clues I dislike where we have to solve a clue and then manipulate the answer to get to the final answer: mast=spar and insert an “e”. But it seems I weep alone.

37. Dr W @ 31: I do, to distinguish them from my music files.

38. TH @ 33 & pdp11@35 I thought that in the Good Samaritan parable the neighbour is the one who behaves in a neighbourly way, regardless of where they are from.

39. Pdp11@34, simons@37 – it’s all data to me, especially in today’s world where anything and everything is subject to processing, but thanks for the different perspectives.

40. [The point of the parable of the Good Samaritan is that Jesus has just agreed with a questioner that you should love your neighbour as yourself. “But he … asked “And who is my neighbour?” (no doubt expecting some limited legal definition of “neighbour” that would undoubtedly have excluded the unpopular Samaritans from needing to be loved). Jesus then tells the story, and concludes by asking which of the characters had acted as a neighbour to the man in trouble? The answer is the Samaritan: the point is that (as Tom Hutton says) he wasn’t technically a neighbour to the man in need, but acted as one.]

41. Enjoyable puzzle.

    Favourite: REST AREAS (loi).

    New for me: CREPITUS; SIXES = Brownie groups; ALL ENDS UP.

    Thanks, both

42. Set off like a train but then developed a brain fog for the last 40% or so. Never knew ounce was a cat and NHO crepitus. But I think the whole thing was fair and the career/job/calling worries didn’t bother me. Thanks N and M.

43. News to me that Brownies are organized in sixes, though I was one long ago. Maybe it’s just a UK thing. “All ends up” must be another UK thing, it’s a new one on me.

    muffin@1 Who is the second tenor besides Cavaradossi in Tosca? As I recall, the escaped prisoner is a baritone.

    I don’t take taxis all that often, but when I do I pay in the taxi when we get where I’m going. What’s with a taxi stand?

    Thanks to Nutmeg for her usual elegant fare and to manehi for clarification where I needed it.

44. Thanks Nutmeg and manehi.

    Strikes me ‘another’ is somewhat unnecessary in 1ac. A RESET is simply an ‘adjustment’, not necessarily ‘another adjustment’.

45. [Valentine @43
    Spoleta ]

46. I was stuck for a while on ALL ENDS UP, having convinced myself from the crossers that the middle word must be ONES. Dr. WhatsOn @31: I don’t think muffin meant to suggest that it’s purely a cricket term – it’s in Chambers, as “completely; convincingly”, and Collins, as “totally or completely”.

    BE MY GUEST is a pleasant phrase. Unfortunately these days the more normal response to asking “May I…?” is “Go for it” or “Knock yourself out”, which both sound rather sarcastic to me.

    Thanks Nutmeg and manehi.

47. Valentine @43 – TAXI STAND may well be a UK thing. It’s simply an arranged spot where people can queue for a taxi – you usually see them outside stations, for example – which takes away some of the pain of trying to hail one down in the street. “Fare” in this case is just another (some might say cynical) way of saying “passenger”.

    Alphalpha @36 – thanks for the laugh! Also, re SPEAR, I initially tried to make an anagram of MAST+E (as in MAST “at sea”) but none of STEAM, MEATS, TAMES, TEAMS or MATES seemed to fit the definition…

48. LordJim@46 I’m sure it’s a fine expression, and might be quite widely used for all I know, I was just referring to the opportunities I might have had, or not had, to run into it here.

49. Quite fun and not too taxing. I did not know CREPITUS, so it took a few tries and Googles to complete that one.
    It’s quite interesting that some comments result from Nutmeg going out of her way to write the clues unambiguously (e.g. single English (20), another adjustment (1a), etc). It’s a fine balance between wordiness and fairness, I reckon.
    Nice to see crosswordland’s favorite cat appearing again and thanks to ShropshireLass@30 for reminding me that it’s the alternative name for a snow leopard. Such a cute (coot?) critter.
    Is that a deliberate hat-tip to a former Coronation Street star in the middle, I wonder?
    Thanks, Nutmeg and manehi. Hope the IT woes are behind you now!

50. Thanks Nutmeg for an enjoyable crossword. Favourites included PRESENT COMPANY, SHOWCASED, and SNOT. I failed at OUNCE and could not fully parse EFFETE, REST AREAS, or SIXPENCES so thanks manehi for explaining.

51. Lovely puzzle, as usual from Nutmeg. Whilst I can see the issue with job = career, if I told you that for most of my life I had a career in the videogame industry as a game designer you’d know full well what my job was.

52. I am somewhat new to solving The Guardian as I solve it of and on so to speak but this to me was enjoyable, and having read the parsing even more so, I like the idea of the once a week quiptic.

    TIA

53. Delightful puzzle as always from Nutmeg. Nothing too demanding but plenty of fun.

    I liked SHOWCASED, OUNCE, and CARER in particular.

    I put in SIXPENCES, without parsing it so thanks manehi for sorting that out.

    And of course thanks to Nutmeg for the entertainment

54. 22d funniest clue of the day!

55. Phitonelly @ 49 You may well be right, especially as the slang for a sixpence was a tanner.

56. Thanks for the blog , not my favourite setter so will keep quiet.

    Lord JIm@46 is quite right about the general use of ALL ENDS UP.
    I was frequently beaten ALL ENDS UP by Bunthorne when I was learning to do cryptics. Those were the days.

57. Now that is how to set a crossword !

58. Roz @56
    Interesting. Nutmeg features in our top five setters for quite a lot of us, I would guess, so what don’t you like about her puzzles?

59. muffin@58 just find the puzzles far too easy, clunky word play and everything just seems so obvious.

60. Thanks for your response, Roz. I tend to agree about “easy” (see me at 1), but not with “clunky”. Each to their own!

61. MarkN@51 I would know what your job is because you have told me – you’re a games designer. If I told you I had a career in the insurance industry would you know what my job was?
    Late in the day but I also disagree with Bonnie@23 that this is a class issue – no-one is saying that you can’t have a career as a Carer, just that a Career is not synonymous with a job – you can have a career as a waiter 6 days a week but do a job washing dishes once in a while when they’re short staffed, or vice versa presumably!
    However the online thesaurus I use has career as a synonym for job (but not the other way round) so I’ll shut up now!

62. Rather late to the party today – I’ve been out since early morning but found time to do the crossword first.

    I agree that this was slightly easier than Nutmeg can be but that suited me today. My favourite clues were GOOD SAMARITANS, REST AREAS and BE MY GUEST, along with SIXPENCES for the long-distant memory of Brownie days and CREPITUS, which I knew as a Latin word (a creaking) but didn’t know it had passed seamlessly into English – I loved the ‘moving pictures’.

    Top favourite, though, was TOSCA – brilliant surface! In the two choirs that I belong to, tenors are in very short supply and duly cherished. [Yesterday evening, though, my church choir was considerably augmented to sing Faurés Requiem and we had six (!) tenors – who come into their element in this work. I always wish I were a tenor whenever we sing it.]

    Many thanks, as ever, to Nutmeg, for the fun and to manehi for the blog.

63. [Eileen @62
    My wife sings in a choir that are generally very good (Cantores Salicium, or “Willow Warblers”), but I always dread performances that have prominent solo roles for tenors!]

64. Eileen@63 I have mixed memories of Faure’s Requiem as my voice broke as we prepared and I was forced to mime.

65. Thanks both,
    A straightforward solve after a long walk. [Eileen@62 on one occasion when the all-male barbershop choir I sing with was walking on stage a lady member of the audience, whom I took to be a choral singer, remarked to her friend ‘What a waste of men!’

66. Never heard of OUNCE for snow leopard, so stuck in ARNIE (Palmer) for “Clubman,” which forced BACKDRAW, which I hoped was some sort of stage curtain. Couldn’t past either one, of course. I always refuse to look up anything, so I must come here to learn!

67. Should have been “Couldn’t parse.” Sorry. First time actually commenting here!

68. That must have been hard to bear, Petert @64. I feel for you.

    This, of course, is the movement in question (taken just a tad more slowly than I’m used to) – and the accompaniment is exquisite (remember the old Lurpak advert?).

    Thanks for the smile, Tyngewick @65. 😉

69. Eileen@68 Lovely.

70. big @66 – Welcome!

    As phitonelly said @49, OUNCE does crop up quite often, so worth filing away. Hope to hear from you again.

71. muffin@45 Thanks. I’d forgotten the Roman cops

72. I’ll also mention, as none of my compatriots has, (if there are any on this blog — mrpenney, where are you?) that today is Thanksgiving in the US, so many of us may be surrounded by cousins and looking at hugely overfilled plates, or perhaps taking a walk to recover and prepare for pumpkin pie.

73. Eileen@70. Thanks. Glad to be here. I’m across the pond, so have been lurking for a year or so, working the puzzles and, most importantly, learning the idioms, slang and just plain Britishisms needed to truly succeed. Flatter myself that it’s kind of working.

74. big @73

    Glad to hear you’ve delurked – onward and upward! 😉

    And Happy Thanksgiving to all who are too busy enjoying it to read this!

75. Valentine@72. I am with you, new friend, now lying on the couch watching “football” with shirt buttons straining.

76. Surprised many people were unaware of sixes, unsure how I knew of it as I wasn’t a member of the scout movement. Wasn’t worried about job/career distinction, my first venture into employment was to join the RAF where I seem to recall being told that the main difference between it and the Boy Scouts was that the latter had adult leadership!

77. I was same as Tassie Tim @10 with illuminated frame= ID. Otherwise enjoyable solve and learnt CREPITUS and SIXES are brownie groups.

78. A DNF, as had bunged in STEAM – e in (mast)* – without understanding the definition. Then got RECORD PLAYER and didn’t change the rest of the word. DNK CREPITUS: not the word anyway 🙁 .

    Thanks Manehi and Nutmeg.

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