Guardian Cryptic 28,675 by Nutmeg

104 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,675 by Nutmeg”

1. Did it! No cheating! Back to sleep now …

2. But before I do … for some solvers (esp. non-UK), Brahms and Liszt may be a mystery. Cockney rhyming slang for ‘pissed’, = drunk. I seem to recall US usage of ‘pissed’ is the UK’s ‘pissed off’ (as in, ‘annoyed’; not as in ‘went away’).

3. Mostly very good clues, as expected from Nutmeg. Fave was SAPPHIRE.

   My one quibble was SCARCE =? “in demand”. It could happen, of course, but I think this is an example of sloppy thinking, sorry. Many products become scarce when they are no longer produced because they are NOT in demand. Conversely, many products are plentiful precisely because they are desired. I know Nutmeg is almost universally praised, but I hope today is not a case of the Empress having no clothes!

4. Many thanks to Nutmeg for another superb crossword. SAPPHIRE was a gem, no doubt about that. BISQUE also pleased me a great deal as well as BAFFLE, RESIDUAL, and the simple SHE. Thanks Tim @2 for clarifying TIDDLY; I failed with ATHENE and I didn’t fully understand CAULDRON so thanks PeterO for your parsing.

5. I expect I’m being dim here, but how does ATE mean concerned in ATHENE?

6. If something eats at you, it concerns you …

7. … but indeed I think the ‘at’ might defeat the synonym argument. No doubt others will have a view (what’s the point of 225 otherwise!)

8. Thanks Tim @6 & 7. I see now. Bit of a stretch for me, but ok I guess.

9. I’d never heard of EMIL AND THE DETECTIVES and struggled with some parsings but finally got there. Are the Rhoticists going to complain about STALIN?
   I read “only female” as just intending the singular, but I think I like your take better PeterO.
   SAPPHIRE was good as others have noted. Great misdirection with Stone Age. Also liked CAULDRON.

10. I don’t pronounce STALIN with a long a, so I held off entering 10 for a while, which slowed me down. Is AIT in 1d a bit obscure? I needed Google to confirm the parsing. I was definitely misdirected by 16 for a long time as I couldn’t get ‘shards’ out of my mind. I found this very difficult, with the East side holding out. And of course I didn’t notice the pangram. Thanks to PeterO and Nutmeg.

11. My first pass of the across clues was disastrous and I would have folded had it not been for EMIL AND THE DETECTIVES which I read over fifty years ago. Some wonderful clues, favourites being CAULDRON, ADJOINS and RESIDUAL. I rejected PSI twice before realising that the internet company was an ISP! Couldn’t parse ATHENE so many thanks PeterO and thanks Nutmeg for a most satisfying mental workout.

12. Did this at “far too early” o’clock on the Graun app and surprised myself by completing it. I prefer to do it on the paper version, but the paper boy comes later.

    In retrospect I enjoyed this, though struggled to get on the same wavelength. Good anagram for EMIL etc, made harder by not having paper to scribble on.

    Thought it might be a pangram as my FOI was ZEE, but then forgot to check for the other letters. I don’t usually notice at all.

    Had to check that BALMORAL was a hat. Like PeterO, not sure about the plumed bit. And, oh dear, STALIN, didn’t see the starlin’ homophone.

    Thought the mischievous child was going to be an imp. Would you call one an ELF?

    I seem to be complaining a lot, which is odd, as I did like the crossword. Probably just too early.

    Many thanks Nutmeg, and PeterO for helping out with some parsing.

13. I enjoyed this a lot, though, being picky, I thought that some of the definitions were rather uncharacteristically loose for one of my very favourite setters.

14. Crossbar @12 sums up my own feelings; some absolute gems in here – as usual – and I did enjoy it but a couple more gripes than I’d expect. The bird, the hat and the elf. But very much compensated for by the clever and logical clueing elsewhere. SAPPHIRE, BISQUE, QUICK FIX, SEAGULLS all appealed to me with ELITIST taking COTD. Very elegant.

    PeterO, I know you’re unlikely to edit the blog now and it’s no big deal but I think ‘fuses’ is ‘merges fast’ in 19d.

    Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO

15. I enjoyed this tough puzzle. I solved only 4 clues in SW corner on first pass. Finished LH side first.

    Favourites: SAPPHIRE, BROUGHT OFF, STRAPPED FOR CASH, SHE, BAFFLE.

    I did not parse 31ac or 10ac but suspected it had something to do with ‘starling’.

    New: BALMORAL = plumed hat.

    Thanks, both.

16. Grateful to finish but found some of the wordplay a little strained.

    Didn’t care for ate = concerned for example, and a find close = bar a bit of a struggle.

    Couldn’t find a plumed BALMORAL anywhere but no doubt someone shoved a feather in one once.

    Like Crossbar, maybe tackled this too early!

    Many thanks, both.

17. Yes I agree with the ticks for SAPPHIRE at 16a. I was especially happy to play “spotto” for each letter of the alphabet once I got 23a QUICK FIX. I agree with PeterO’s summation in his preamble as I enjoyed this. Some of the grizzles above surprised me I have to say. Many thanks to Nutmeg amd Peter.

18. Well I think I do agree with most of the “grizzles” ? Enjoyable workout, but definitely needed 225 today to explain the parsing of rather too many of the clues (Athene, Ait, ate, not sure that “fast” was needed, etc).

19. What ian@18 said.

20. @11

    It must be 50 years since I read EatD – If memory serves me right the boy caught the thief by putting a pin prick through some (money) notes.

    I noticed a lot of double letters – perhaps this is typical of pangrams!

21. Most enjoyable, despite a few rather off-centre definitions, as others have remarked (I remembered that a BALMORAL was a type of headgear, but not what it looked like – beribboned rather than ‘plumed’, in fact). I spotted that the puzzle was likely to be a pangram, but fortunately I didn’t need to look for missing letters in order to complete it.

    Tomsdad @r10: The word AIT (alternatively ‘eyot’), a small island, especially in a river, is found in the names of several such in the Thames, so not completely out of common usage. But aits are found more often in crosswords…

    Favourites as PostMark @14, but with the addition of STRAPPED FOR CASH.

    Thanks to S&B

22. I agree with PostMark re the gems outweighing the grizzles (lovely word, which I haven’t heard / used for years – thanks, Julie 😉 ).

    My ticks were for SAPPHIRE, ELITIST, WAIT, EXPLODE (the surface amused me!) and BISQUE.

    Re the grizzles: Tim Phillips @7 – the ‘at’ in your example is superfluous: ‘What’s eating you?’
    Crossbar @12 – I don’t think I would say ‘elf’ myself but Collins has ‘ a mischievous or whimsical child’ and Chambers ‘a mischievous or fairy-like being , esp a child’. It makes a nice change from ‘imp’. anyway – a neat piece of misdirection, in fact, for me.
    Re the plumed hat, see here: https://jaffefeathers.co.uk/product/glengarrybalmoral-hackle-single-colour/

    Thanks, as ever, to Nutmeg and PeterO.

23. Found it difficult to break into this: the gateway was the long anagram, though it’s a book I barely remember and have never read. Defeated by BALMORAL (the hat is new to me) and failed to parse CAULDRON or ATHENE. Setters are stretching the very useful ate=worried equivalence further and further and “concerned” is another step – not quite too far yet, but getting there.

    Even I pronounce the R in starling, if not as forcefully as our rhotic colleagues. Speaking of birds, in birdwatching circles you will get jumped on from a great height by the purists for daring to speak of SEAGULLS since there is no bird species of that name: they are just gulls. Good clue, though.

    Other favourites SAPPHIRE, FRENZY, STRAPPED FOR CASH, TIDDLY, ZEE.

    Glad to find that DRUGGIST wasn’t a famous US chemist, since I don’t know any.

24. Eileen @22 – that’s kinda my point. I think you might say ‘ate at’ me to be equivalent to ‘concerned’ me but I am not sure you would say ‘ate me’. The ‘-ing’ comparison isn’t the same part of speech (clutching at 45-year-old O-Level English here … )

25. Re 10a STALIN: If you are a rhotic speaker (as I and most Canadians are), but you have watched British films or television programmes, then you know perfectly well how non-rhotic speakers mispronounce words with r in them. 🙂 So rhotic/non-rhotic homeophones should pose no problem in solving or understanding the wordplay.

    Re 28a, “in demand” carries an implication that more people want the thing than can get it, so SCARCE works for me. (And if nobody wants a product, it can hardly be considered to be in scarce supply.)

    Thanks Nutmeg for the tussle, and Peter for some much needed help with parsing.

26. Thanks PeterO and Nutmeg. I’m always impressed at how Nutmeg’s brain darts all over the place, taking you with her

    I did know ‘AIT’, from crosswords, where I get most of my education these days. Didn’t know 2 etc, but liked the way Nutmeg positioned it in the grid so you could follow the flow.

    Interesting to have ‘QUICK FIX’ in a pangram, very close to the story about the quick brown fox. Didn’t help as I got it late and even if I suspect a pangram I don’t often use it to solve the clues.
    I saw the parsing as a double definition. QUICK – express/fast and FIX – difficulty/jam/pickle/spot of bother.

27. yesyes@11: Re PHI, I think one could probably justify the alternative Greek letter, PHI as a valid solution. I for internet and HP, the giant US computer company.

28. Oops. Re PSI, of course.

29. Or the other way round.

30. [Spoo?]

31. I also found this hard, but as my quibbles have now been explained I think it was very fair. I did know ait for key for island ( a bit convoluted but very fair), and I am now happy with ate for concerned. FOI was fiddly which quickly led to Emil and I was away, slowly thereafter. LOI Laureate, d’oh! Thanks to Nutmeg and PeterO.
    Oh, and I do think fast is needed, as fuse doesn’t just mean merge, it means bond as in a sealed joint.

32. I always struggle with Nutmeg, and I ended up doing what I usually do – reveal them and see how many I can parse (on this occasion about 2/3).

    Several DNKs, including ‘Emil…’

    I pronounce Stalin with a short A, but the alternative pronunciation is very common, so I thought that one was fair enough.

33. Me @31 Tiddly!

34. Re STALIN. To me the confusion is about how to pronounce Stalin, not about starling. I pronounce it with a flat ‘a’ as in cat. This is how it was pronounced (not very fondly) by my Polish parents, and is probably how the Russians/Georgians would say it too. But I don’t mind. I really don’t expect crossword homophones to exactly match my pronunciation. Just annoyed with myself for not thinking of starlings.

    Eileen @22. I’m sure that’s a perfectly valid definition of elf, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it used like that.
    And thanks for BALMORAL plume link. 🙂 Very smart!

35. Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO
    EMIL was FOI – the enumeration suggested “and the”, and the rest of the anagram fell out easily. I read it when I was young, and still have my copy – a reprint from 1949. (Nearly right, Daniel @20 – the pinpricks were becuae the notes had been pinned inside his jacket, and were used to identify them).
    I didn’t parse DRUGGIST and, to be honest, I thought that Nutmeg had made an unheard of mistake with STALIN.

36. gladys @23
    The only one who sprang to mind for me (a chemist!) was Linus Pauling, but he didn’t fit. High powered physicists seem much commoner in the US.

37. [Off-topic, but true, rhotic story. In my first years living in France, I was talking with a Glaswegian friend, who’d been living there for much longer than me, about getting to grips with the language. I was moaning about often having to repeat a word before the person I was talking to would realise what I meant. She replied “Oh, I’ve never had that problem. I think it must be the way I roll my Rs.” Took me a moment before I exploded in laughter…]

38. Not on it at all this morning, so needed help to find the solutions and the parsing of ATHENE. I didn’t think STALIN quite worked more because of the /ng/ than the /r/. Somehow, it feels wrong to have a homonym of an incomplete word, even allowing for the Pritti Patel pronunciation. If you take away the last sound, it’s /sta(r)li/.

39. There have been all sorts of weird and wonderful spellings of those islands in the Thames. Ait and Eyot being just two of several of these…
    Enjoyed this greatly. It slowly yielded, left side first of all, then the right. Last one in was CAULDRON. Many thanks Nutmeg for the setting and PeterO, for explaining exactly how STALIN and PSI worked. I had that as Phi, thinking HP as in Hewlett Packard was the company required…

40. I would hesitate to call Stalin left wing: I guess Trotsky would not have. And as many others I would use the same short a as Crossbar (34). So I oinly got that when all the crossers were in and it was obvious who was meant. I seem to recall my children having to read Emil when they were at school, and reading some of it with them, but it was a long time emerging from the deep recesses of what used to be a memory. So I found the North West a bit tough.

41. A DNF as I could not see RESIDUAL, and now kicking myself, as it was probably a write-in for other solvers. SAPPHIRE was super.
    [Saddened to hear that Bamber Gascoigne, erstwhile presenter of University Challenge, has just passed away. I imagine a lot of us were great fans and helped to enhance our education as well, paddymelon @26. Coincidently the BBC showed Stephen FRY, when he was a student contestant on the show.]

    Ta Nutmeg & PeterO

42. If you really want to know about aits

    RIP Bamber Gascoigne.

43. [Indeed AlanC @41. Sad. I see he died in Richmond. I remember seeing him walking along the Thames tow path there about 40 years ago. I admit to being a bit starstruck then. ]

44. Thanks Gladys, my favourite is Eel Pie.

45. In Russian, the ‘a’ in Stalin is long not short as it derives from stal’ the Russian for steel. This is turn is derived from the German stahl – which clearly shows that the ‘a’ is long. Like Lenin and Trotsky, Stalin is a pseudonym, his real name was Djugashvili.

46. I’d never heard of an 8a (I used to live near a suburb with that name) or 2 etc. d,and 1d baffled me, so this was pretty heavy going.

47. I was eaten by the ‘ate’ but not by the ‘ait’. ELF and ‘close’ ate me, as did ‘fast’, but STALIN didn’t.

48. What’s the “sounds like” indicator for stalin/starlin?

49. muffin @48 the section dictator?

50. Second not section

51. muffin @48, dictator’s bird

52. Ah!

53. I think that Nutmeg must have been reading Roz’s comments because, at least for me, this seemed a lot harder than most of her previous crosswords. As usual though, I found this very entertaining with Nutmeg’s smooth surfaces.

    I had a lot of likes: ELITIST, ADJOINS (where, having spotted a potential pangram, that helped), BAFFLE, DRUGGIST, STRAPPED FOR CASH, BROUGHT OFF and LAUREATE. I’m not sure that I would equate ait with key, although they’re both islands. Eileen @22 has explained the plume; one Collins definition of BALMORAL is: 3.Also called bluebonnet. A Scottish brimless hat traditionally of dark blue wool with a cockade and plume on one side. SEAGULL is ‘a popular name for gull’.

    Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO.

54. [Robi @53
    In the 17th century, wearing bluebonnets became so fashionable that it was known as the bluebonnet plague 🙂 ]

55. Petert @38; I took the ‘dictator’s bird’ as STALING, and then it was ‘tailed’ to give STALIN.

56. Thx to Nutneg for an excellent puzzle, full of twists and turns and a rare pangram. Too many favourites to list, just looking forward to the next puzzle from this great setter.
    Thanks also to PeterO and bloggers for your insights.

57. Positive overall but I wonder if Nutmeg got bored of being called precise and decided to expand her repertoire!?

58. [Thanks muffin @54, you’re a mine of information. When I Googled bluebonnet plague, I got a lot of articles on bubonic plague! However, this may be of some interest.]

59. Agree with most of the quibbles above, but re ‘eat’ = ‘concern’ how about ‘What’s eating you?’ – no need fot ‘at’.
    Thanks Nutmeg for an enjoyable puzzle and PeterO for help with parsing 7d.

60. I see what you mean Sourdough @ 59. But I can’t see how you would actually use ATE like that. Would you say “what ate you?” for “what concerned you?”. You’d say “what was eating you?”

61. What a lot of comments
    May I add a big tick especially for SAPPHIRE-a gem of misleading

62. You’re right Crossbar at 60 and I can’t think of an example that works in the past tense.

63. Thanks Nutmeg, a gem of a baffle.
    I especially liked SAPPHIRE, ELITIST, BISQUE and QUICKFIX
    and thanks PeterO for the much needed blog – I failed to parse 31 & 32.

64. I’m with revbob at 40 and not sure why ‘left wing’ is needed at 10a. Surely ‘dictator’ would be sufficient and adding the left-wing simply makes a potentially politically-contentious comment.

    Otherwise an enjoyably chewy solve. Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO

65. Anybody else have SPARROWS for 12a? That’s PARR in SOWS.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and PeterO — hope you’ve dug yourself out, Peter.

66. Petert @38
    You’re darn tootin’. Not. Think Hopalong Cassidy rather than Priti Patel. [Incidentally, the phrase, complete with elision, has reached some reputable dictionaries.]
    Eileen @22
    Thanks for the link. Of course, that does not make the hackle a definitional part of the bonnet (after all, If you were thoroughly confused about your heritage, you could stick a leek in your Balmoral)., but it does indicate one as a “suitable” addition.
    Ait and ate: I see this as an example of a common trait, namely the blurring of the distinction between what a commenter does not know (ait), and what a commenter feels is invalid (ate), either being used indiscriminately as a stick to attack a crossword.

67. When the first clue you manage to solve is 29 down, you know it isn’t going to be an easy day.
    Tough but fair, with some especially neat bits of work in SAPPHIRE and ADJOINS. The one I didn’t get was WAIT, because I was too focused on the key being ALT – fair play to Nutmeg, I don’t mind being outwitted by a setter who is playing by the rules.
    Not entirely convinced by outburst = frenzy, but that’s as near to a cavil as I get. I’d wondered whether the “only” in 31a was redundant, but PeterO shows why it belongs there.
    Thanks both.

68. Did anyone out there know that Vladimir Putin’s grandfather was personal chef to 10 across? Amazing what you learn when googling frantically for Guardian crosswords

69. NeilH@67 I too tried to justify WALT for WAIT but the queues at Disneyworld seemed a bit of a stretch.

70. Thanks PeterO, I agree with a few of the grumbles above but overall enjoyed a stiff challenge exemplified by LOI WAIT, not helped by overthinking nice clues like RESIDUAL, and spelling ATHENA thus and not thinking to parse it – but eventually got there.
    Valentine@65 I didn’t go down that road but got stuck on Haul = Loot to be reversed inside Bear – there is a Bateleur but that doesn’t quite work, and I couldn’t work an Otter into anything either.
    Favourites ELITIST and BISQUE, thanks Nutmeg.

71. Thanks for the blog, complete opposite to my experience on Friday with Enigmatist. This time my heart sank when I read Nutmeg but the puzzle was an absolute delight. I have a sea of circles and no crosses. This is far and away the best Nutmeg puzzle I have done. BROUGHT OFF is favourite by a narrow margin
    Robi@55 is correct , the bird is tailed so STALIN sounds like STARLIN (g) .

72. No quibbles, grizzles or complaints from me. I loved it. Medium diffficulty I’d say. The book title (which inho) helped given the obvious “and the” in the title.

    SAPPHIRE and CAULDRON were favourites.

    Thanks Nutmeg and PeterO (for parsing ATHENE)

73. Roz@71 and Robi@55 It seems odd to have a homophone of part of a word, which doesn’t sound like the original word. Would “Girl sounds acid with no end” 3 be all right?

74. Petert @73, I don’t think it is a homophone of part of a word. The bird is a STARLING, which could be pronounced ‘staling’, and then that word is ‘tailed’ i.e. the ‘g’ is removed to give STALIN. Does that make sense to you now? 🙂

75. It makes sense but that requires us to remove a letter from a non-existent word.., which, as I say, seems odd.

76. [I’ve said similar before, but if people are going to pronounce “starling” as “stahling”, what on earth do they think the R is there for?]

77. Muffin@76 For the same reason as the H??

78. Petert @77
    “Staling” and “stalling” wouldn’t be pronounced the same!

79. …the R modifies the pronunciation, as does the H!

80. A question for those who think every letter in an English word should be pronounced: how to you pronounce the first word in the answer for 6d?

81. Great crozzie, great blog both A and BTL.

    I only came to praise ELITIST. And non-&lit surface of the year-so-far for CAULDRON.

    [muffin@54: SOD ((smile of the day). It won’t catch on….)]

82. TassieTim@80: S2OD

83. Alphalpha @81
    Not original, I’m afraid. I think I first heard it from Maddy Prior of Steeleye Span.

84. [Re Maddy Prior, she had form in the Excruciating Groan Stakes. I remember a mid-70s Radio 1 Steeleye Span In Concert where she asked (I paraphrase)

    “What do you get when you spin a Tibetan bovine around and give it a frizzy hairdo?”

    “An afro’d dizzy yak”

85. Me @ 84

    ]

86. alphalpha@81 and muffin@92 wha ….??

87. [Simon S @ 84 ] [LOL]

88. [Tassie Tim @ 80. cough, rough, dough, bough. Pity the students of English as a second language.

    As a former teacher of Adult TESOL, a linguistic joke:

    How do you spell FISH? Answer GHOTI. ‘gh’ from cough, ‘o’ from ‘women’, and ‘ti’ from ‘nation’ ]

89. Valentine@86: Blue Bonnet plague? cf muffin@54.

    Simon S@: G(roan)OD definitely

90. muffin @76 What is the difference between how you would pronounce “starling” as “stahling”? Genuine question – they sound the same to me!

91. “starling” *and* “stahling”

92. Gave up on this at breakfast today, so no one will read this. If they do I apologise for saying that STALIN does not have a long A for me, so I bunged it in without parsing. Likewise ATHENE and WAIT. And never did get BALMORAL or CAULDRON. Another victory for Nutmeg. 🙂

93. No one will read this, I know.

    But from Texas I thank Tim Phillips for the explanation of the cockney rhyming slang. I guessed the right answer and suspected the slang explanation. As I’d finished the puzzle I just went to this excellent source, Fifteen Squared, rather than Google.

    Thanks to all. Here in the new world, a day later but with no shortage of dollars.

94. BTW. Nothing shouts pangram like an answer such as “quick fix”! Knocks out q, k and x just like that.

95. You’re not the last @SH. I picked up the paper yesterday afternoon, got ZEE in first and finished the bottom right corner. Then got some more in dribs and drabs including the book title this morning before resorting to crossword solver and working out which words made sense. Last one was wait which completed the pangram so I knew it was right but I then came here for an explanation or two. I agree with those who say that although keys and aits are both types of islands, they are not synonymous as you do not get many coral islands in rivers.

96. Peter @ 95 (if you come back to this)

    Do the Florida Keys have coral?

97. [Paddy Melon @88: the mneomic for the seven ways to pronounce “OUGH” in English is “we thought we’d coughed up enough dough through the borough of Slough”. It turns out that in American there are only six ways, since they rhyme borough with dough]

98. Thank you Andrew Tyndall @97. Brilliant! Glad I checked in so late. Surprising I’ve never heard it, but probably because ‘borough’ and ‘Slough’ are not very familiar down here. Will have to come up with an Aussie one. I’m thinking ‘thorough’ but I’m not sure about ‘bough’. It’s a bit archaic, like Slough. 🙂

99. [pdm @98 – perhaps droughts are more common in Oz than boughs and sloughs? Wiki gives the 7 common pronunciations plus 5 uncommon ones, including /əf/ which apparently is exclusive to the River Greenough in Western Australia. (I think they might have missed one – /u:x/ in Scots sough.)

    Willoughby thought he’d coughed up enough dough through the Greenough Valley drought?]

100. I loved STRAPPED FOR CASH, but does anyone know where this expression comes from? I can’t think of any other use of STRAPPED apart from the painful one.

101. pdm@98 – rock a bye baby ……….. when the bough breaks………

     How is lough pronounced ? Think I have heard it as loch but I may be wrong.

102. Thank you essexboy for ‘drought’. Why didn’t I think of that? Story of my life!

     I had to look up the pronunciation of Greenough though!

     You should copyright your mnemonic. Now do you have mnemonic as to how to spell mnemonic? 🙂

     Roz, I wouldn’t dare try to pronounce lough.

103. [ eb re Greenough. I was thinking because the stress is on the first syllable, the second is reduced to a schwa.
     As Aussies are notorious for copying names from other places or people, there had to be another Greenough somewhere. Found one in Montana and an audio pronunciation. Sure enough it’s the ‘uff’ sound, or /?f/
     I bet the phonetics won’t come out because I didn’t do it the way you showed us how. I wish I’d bookmarked that.]

104. Yep, fail.

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