Guardian 28767 – Nutmeg

88 comments on “Guardian 28767 – Nutmeg”

1. A delight from start to finish. I liked 14d especially.

   Thanks Nutmeg (no aids needed today) and Andrew

2. 14d gave rise to a little schoolboy giggle but there was lots more fun with some delightfully misleading surfaces including ‘bar food’ and ‘on which one’s suit may depend’ and both bits of BUFFER.

   Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew.

3. I really struggled to get started today but once 6/23dn went in, it all came together in a rush. I enjoyed the Paulism at 14dn!
   Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew.

4. Like Dave E @1 I found this a total delight, especially NAPOLEON and FIT TO BUST. Nutmeg never disappoints! Many thanks to her and to Andrew.

5. This started slowly (like you Andrew), with only about 3 across clues going in, but somehow after that it all unravelled without too much trouble, but with enough challenge to be really enjoyable. Great surfaces.
   MILK CHOCOLATE made be smile – I was caught out by thinking of the wrong sort of bar at first, of course.
   Also liked NETHER (the number thing so easy to forget) and the clever surface of JERSEY. And FINANCIAL TIMES and CLOTHES HANGER. I could go on.
   Only ADEPT held me up with the parsing. Why could I not see DEPT? Kept thinking it was maybe DEP(o)T. D’oh.

   Many thanks Nutmeg and Andrew. Lovely start to the day.

6. Superb. Every single clue an absolute gem. Still smiling at 14d. : D

7. I had Duffer for BUFFER as I had in mind an Australian “Station” (farming property) referring to a Duffer who duffs cattle. Buffer makes more sense.
   FIT TO BUST and CHAGRIN were likes and favourites were MILK CHOCOLATE and JERSEY.

8. I’m kicking myself for entering CRADLER instead of CRAWLER. But an enjoyable solve none the less, so thanks, Nutmeg.

9. Nutmeg! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

10. Unlike Dave Ellison @1, I did need a bit of help with resort to the Check button on a few occasions today but, fortunately, no Reveals. It took a long while to equate podium with MEDDLE, to spot CRAWLER and to parse CONFIRMED. With the latter, I couldn’t fit in ‘running’ having plumped for CON = Conservative rather than C = Conservative. (Not sure why the CON option seemed to leap out at me when thinking of the shower in power …)

    I did twig the possibility of HANGER, though. Likewise, MILK. Both helped open up areas of the grid. NETHER, GROUND RENT and ALLOWANCES were the biggest PDM’s. No problem with the definitions of BUFFER but, if a train did actually run into one at a station, I suspect there might be complaints.

    Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew

11. Kicking myself for entering RHEBUCK which is an alternative spelling of Rhebok for 7d and I came here to discover why ‘ree’ or ‘Rie’ was equivalent to bank. Oh well. Roebuck is much better. Thanks Nutmeg I enjoyed all this especially Dental and Clothes Hanger. I was sure 8d was going to have ‘hearts’ as it’s second word until ruled out by crossers. Thank you Andrew for blog. 26a should have first N as Name not Number.

12. I know I said this last week, then failed on Friday, but I seem to be on a roll! But I did misparse CONFIRMED, having Con for Conservative, and assuming Firm was a Company that was still Running. So thank you Andrew for clearing that up for me.

13. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew
    I parsed CONFIRMED as Moth did @12. FIT TO BUST my favourite too.
    It’s in common usage, but I hate hearing “medal” as a verb.

14. My only pedantic quiblet is TAKE for scene – it really means one attempt at part of a scene.

15. Knew immediately which Bristols were being supported, but still needed all the crossers for fit to bust. Ditto for nether: knew the number trick automatically, but it was still loi. D’oh for both … bit dense. But yes, typical elegance from the Spice Lady, thx, and to Andrew for your succinct blogging style.

16. Very nice, though I failed on buffer because I don’t recognise that meaning.
    I tried to put “get it done” into 14d early on with ge=great energy, but it never felt right, and after all, it is not a Paul crossword.

17. Wonderful puzzle from Nutmeg. Lots of favourites but I would pick out NAPOLEON for it’s brilliant construction and JERSEY for it’s succinct surface reading. Thanks both.

18. I just reiterate blaise@9 and everyone who gave special mention to 14 and 18d and 26a.

19. I will admit to being in the minority who aren’t usually huge fans of Nutmeg, but this was excellent.

    MILK CHOCOLATE by itself was worth the entry fee, and not the only excellent clue by any measure. Bar food will keep me chucking all day today.

    Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew.

20. [I know we shouldn’t correct typos, but I had to for chucking in the above please read CHUCKLING.]

21. Blah @19 & 20: not sure if that’s an occasion for CHORTLE or CHAGRIN?

22. I needed Andrew’s help to get row = bank, and I still don’t feel entirely comfortable with it; but apart from that, isn’t this a brilliantly constructed puzzle?
    Too many superb clues to single out favourites, really, though I was another who liked MILK CHOCOLATE and who both enjoyed and sniggered at FIT TO BUST.
    Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew. The day can only go downhill from here…

23. Looking back, I see that I only biffed Financial Times; praps I was worrying about the poor nuns, who would have been anything but relaxed 🙂

24. Started very slowly. Not easy but quite enjoyable for the most part. NW corner was very tough for me.

    New: 14d FIT TO BUST (and did not parse it apart from the definition) – never heard of bristols = breasts); PUT ONE’S OAR IN = meddle.

    Failed 4ac BUFFER (I was thinking of DUFFER but I could not parse it apart from the def).

    Liked CHORTLE, UNWIND, NETHER.

    Thanks, both.

25. Like others I started very slowly, but gradually speeded up until the last four clues in the NW corner like Andrew. Could not properly parse 12a, 22a, 26a and 27a but d’uh when I read the blog, so thank you Andrew!
    Favourites were 21a, 14d and 19d.
    Thanks for a great puzzle Nutmeg, I don’t know how you do it

26. michelle@24 It’s Cockney rhyming slang, Bristol City. I’ll leave it for you to work out.

27. There were some lovely and witty clues here, my favourite being 8d CLOTHES HANGER, with the romantic sounding surface (suggesting “suit” in the sense of courtship) and then the prosaic answer – brilliant!

    Many thanks Nutmeg and Andrew.

28. Like Andrew says, started slowly but somehow it then all came together with no hitches.

    Bottom half seemed easier than the top.

    Another vote for MILK CHOCOLATE

    Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew

29. A delight from start to finish.

    Many thanks, Nutmeg and Andrew.

30. Thanks Nutmeg, really enjoyable.

31. Very slow start, only relieved thanks to the much-needed anagrams. Lovely cluing throughout, though.

    MEDDLE caused me to reflect on how our language is still evolving. Fans of the Olympics will have noticed that to medal became a verb a few years ago and this year I heard that an athlete is highly likely to gold in this event. I wonder how long before the verb to podium arrives?

32. Not a puzzle for the lactose intolerant, one feels. In addition to MILK, we have thick fluid, ‘lower’, dairy cow, ruminant, ‘one pandering to active baby’, express… and can it be coincidence that the Bristol reference crosses with cité? 😉 At least the stripping nuns have nothing to do with it.

    Like Lord Jim @27 I thought CLOTHES HANGER was brilliant, both for the reason he mentions, and the fact that it’s one of those anagrams where the sounds in the anagrist are quite different from those in the solution – two out of three vowel sounds, plus /s/ → /z/, and /tʃ/ → /k/ + /h/.

    Many thanks Nutmeg and Andrew.

33. @31 racing cycling commentators have been (mis)using to podium for years – 1st, 2nd and 3rd are all achievements in the sport.

34. Thought this great fun from start to finish – TUNING UP to CONFIRMED – and really liked the generous long anagrams MILK CHOCOLATE and CLOTHES HANGER. Two of a kind in their clueing with CRAWLER and BUFFER. And even though JERSEY was a fairly obvious solve, the clue had a charm of it’s own, I thought, with the “new shed” therein. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew…

35. Only knew (silly) old duffer, like Michelle@24. Didn’t know buffer in that sense. But I’m pretty good with railway stuff.

    Liked MILK CHOCOLATE but would have got it earlier if I hadn’t misread the order of the clues 15/17. CHOCOLATE MILK =bar food? A milk bar maybe. Don’t know if that translates in the UK, but that’s what we (used to) call it down here.
    [I loved the malted milk in stainless steel tumblers, with ice cream. So yummy and yet so painful, going to your teeth and your palate. It was the first thing I ordered after returning to Oz in the late 70s after 3 years in the UK and elsewhere.]

    CLOTHES HANGER FOI and a fav.

36. Thanks Nutmeg & Andrew.
    Loved all of this. A little tricky, but I didn’t hit the buffers.
    I especially liked the ‘thick fluid’, the ‘new shed’, and ‘tea at home’ for (mad) George.
    I was momentarily confused by 26a (‘surely the name’s Ethel?’) before the penny dropped.

37. [Sadly I was working just near Moorgate in February 1975.]

38. eb@32 – good spot re dairy, gold meddle

39. [wynsum @38: well, I do seem to stick my oar in sometimes… actually I was aiming for the gold top 😉 ]

40. Crossbar@26. I’ve always wondered why Bristol rather than Manchester, or Norwich, or Cardiff to name but three? Is it to do with how old the clubs are? I suppose if Bristol was the first it would have been picked up as rhyming slang first.

41. Moth@40 Maybe because Bristols is easier to say than Manchesters, or Cardiffs and worst of all Norwiches.

42. Another gem from Nutmeg.

    I was thinking about milk bars as in A Clockwork Orange! I liked BUFFER for the surface, DENTAL for the canine association, JERSEY for the new shed, and NETHER for the not-seen-for-some-time number.

    Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew.

43. @31, @33 and archery commentators. Driven me nuts this verbification of nouns…

44. What Eileen said.

45. I nearly got there all on my own but needed a little help from one of those cheeky crossword solver app thingies for the last half-dozen or so. I was misled by clever little tricks like numb-er and bar food meaning food in a bar shape. Oh, and I have heard DUFFER but not BUFFER for an old person before, but the station connection put me onto the right answer.

    I spotted the ‘Bristol supporter’ reference early but for a while had LET IT BURN in there, thinking of the feminist bra-burning phenomenon of many years ago and the reference to ‘energy’… so I misdirected myself there. And I got oddly fixated on the metaphorical rather than literal ‘ruminant’ and so was thinking about thinking, not cud-chewing…

    Very enjoyable overall, I like Nutmeg’s puzzles.

46. Duffers are not necessarily old. Just not that bright. A quote from Swallows and Amazons regarding the Walker children. “Better drowned than duffers. If not duffers won’t drown”

47. Like our blogger, I got off to a slow start, but it all came right in the end. I was slightly disturbed at 25A with MAIM (vb) being clued by ‘Lame’, which I only ever use as an adjective. It seems that it can also be a verb, though the examples I’ve seen cited in my dictionaries seem forced and unnatural to me and hence I’ve never used it as such.

48. William @31: ‘to podium’ has, I fear, already arrived in the world of Formula 1. I hate it with a vengeance, as I also do ‘to medal’.

49. No-one else has mentioned this and I trust it is not deemed poor taste to raise it (!) in relation to the Bristol discussion. Does anyone else recall the minor furore when one of the train companies launched new uniform for their onboard staff including nice blouses emblazoned with the names of major stations around the network? And some bright spark in the design department managed to place Bristol right across the front of the blouse in an unfortunately inappropriate position? Only in Britain …

50. [Re “Bristols”: I just tried googling to see if I could find a date for the origin of this, without success, but I did come across this:

    “Bristols” is an example of rhyming slang. Bristol is famous for its seagull pies – hence the term “Bristol Pies – eyes”. It’s traditional if you walk into an English pub to compliment the barmaid. Usually with “Hello love. Nice Bristols! Any chance of a pint?”.

    One to file under useful advice for tourists, along with “Don’t forget to try out the famous echo in the British Library Reading Room”.]

51. [LordJim@50 – I’m guessing that is from I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue:-)]

52. LordJim @50, I’m going off-topic somewhat, but that reminded me of some ‘tourist advice’ I saw doing the social media rounds during the London Olympics, which included the gems “Don’t forget when you enter a tube train to loudly exclaim your surname and destination stop” and “Please don’t embarrass a London cabbie by offering him a tip, all he ever expects is a quick kiss on the lips“

53. Bristol and Breasts are alliterative, as quite a few slang terms are. I think the earliest usage was in the 1960s

54. I can’t join the outrage against medal etc as verbs. It’s just a new usage, and quite handy.

55. BigNorm @48: Good Lord, has it really? How gruesome.

    Mind you, I learn from Susie Dent’s excellent book that almost all the linguistic ‘evolutions’ that make us turn our noses up as being ‘incorrect’ have at one time or another been staple parts of our language. American spellings – color; flavor; neighbor; analyze; traveling; etc., have all at one time or another been spelled that way over here. The US “gotten” was very common at one time, apparently.

56. Muffin @13 I wholeheartedly concur re medal – see also summit 🙂 And I recently heard someone use EFFORT as a verb – they were American though

    Lovely crossword with some beautifully disguised anagrams

57. Moth @40, It couldn’t have been Norwich as that was already taken as an acronym. 😉

58. [William @55 – thanks, I’d forgotten that. Our loss of gotten is much to be regrotten.]

59. …and Pink Floyd buffs won’t need reminding that MEDDLE was the title of their sixth album in 1971. The track “Echoes” taking up half the playing time…

60. Many thanks both…
    An easier Nutmeg for me than usual.
    16d was my favourite as it appealed to my puerile sense of humour. A familiar slang word for me, tricky for others, I suspect.
    For a nice change, everything was parsed.

61. Another neatly and elegantly clued puzzle from Nutmeg. NW quadrant was the last to crack for me as well.

    I also enjoyed the dependant clothes, the bar food and the new shed.

    ‘Medal’ as a verb grates with me too, but as Crossbar @54 generously concedes, it is simply one of the latest examples of denominalisation – a process which has been going strongly ever since English lost most of its inflections. Many common and unremarkable verbs started life as nouns: an example is ‘clue’, which I used in my first sentence here 🙂 . Languages which retain distinct verbal endings have to modify the word in a suitable way. This is particularly fun when the word is an English borrowing – the verb the Italians use for the action on a computer mouse (incidentally ‘mouse’ also in Italian and not calqued as in the French ‘souris’) is the lovely ‘cliccare’.

    Thanks to S&B

62. [Gervase@61 I love these words that wander into one language from another. The Polish for “to click” is kliknac. The a and c have diacritics which I won’t attempt to reproduce here, and it is sort of pronounced cleecknonch. ]

63. I had a hard time with this. A good half of it was still undone this morning and I needed a lot of aids.

    24a GROUND RENT Rent means torn, but torn doesn’t mean slashed.

    I did the same as PM with CONFIRMED. Tim C@57 What’s the Norwich acronym, or is it too rude to relate?

    Rob T@45 The so-called “bra burning phenomenon” never actually happened. People mocking feminists invented it patterned on draft card burning, which definitely did happen, and publicly.

    Fine puzzle, thanks Nutmeg, and thanks Andrew for the blog.

64. Crossbar @26 et al. Thanks for adding Bristol to my list of favourite pieces of rhyming slang — I never realised that was its origin. [It’s also in my top ten silly French-English translations (Robert = Bristol). But Number 1 on the podium still has to be Mercredi = Sugar…]

65. Valentine @63 (k)nickers off ready when I come home. I think it was popular with soldiers sending letters home.

66. Valentine #63 – I think it’s probably just about ok, admin sendme to the corner if not.
    It’s an acronym for “knickers off ready when I come home”.
    Coined, I think by Alan Bennett from memory.

67. Thanks for the blog, like Blah@19 I am not usually a fan and often critical so only fair to say that this was an absolute gem . No need to repeat people’s favourites , I think MILK CHOCOLATE is the winner , the phrase itself should really be banned.

68. BURMA – B(e)U(ndressed)R(eady for)M(y)A(rrival)was another similar one…

69. There ain’t a noun that can’t be verbed.

70. AlanD @31 re Podium: worth noting that to a lot of cyclists, getting on the podium means a moment in the spotlight and showing off the team sponsor, and therefore a lot more than the difference between second and third (and fourth…). Also, for some cycling races, such as UCI XC World Cup, the podium is 1-5, not 1-3. In other words, “to podium” really does have a specific meaning beyond “finished in the top 3”.

71. What a fantastic crossword — thanks Nutmeg. My FOI was an error — I put “clip” for 9a but soon realized it didn’t work. My LOI happened to be 9a, TAKE, and I had to run through the alphabet to get it. I liked many clues — MILK CHOCOLATE, NAPOLEON, OBTUSE, JERSEY, CLOTHES HANGER, and TESTIFY among them. I couldn’t parse BUFFER or FIT TO BUST so thanks Andrew for the help.

72. Thanks Andrew, funnily enough TAKE was my first and led to the NW going in relatively easily, but plenty of head scratching elsewhere. Can I add “evidence” to the top of the list of horrendous new verbs? And international business bs seems to have adopted “learning” as a noun which I also struggle with. Thanks b Nutmeg for another excellent puzzle

73. [I can just imagine all the indignant letters filling Alfred the Great’s inbox when the peasants first started to use “sail” as a verb. Presumably the traditionalists still colour up f anyone proposes to cycle to the shops or telephone a friend. Do we have a date for when the English language should have stopped evolving?]

74. erike44@8: I was another CRADLER.

    MarkB@43: don’t you mean “by nouns being verbed”?

    I spent a while wondering if there was an Incan leader called PANOSAMX.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew.

75. I me and NAPOSAMX, of course.

76. VW, et al … and academics do it too, e.g. languaging, used by a certain recent-ish sub-set of linguists …

77. Not having heard of buffer for old fellow, I popped in PUFFER (a reference to steam era).

78. BUFFER and FIT TO BUST can both be filed in the “too British for me” folder, but otherwise this was quite fun.

    I am also one of those who tried DUFFER. Also, I’m afraid I still don’t understand the clue. To me, “buffer” can be a thing that polishes, a thing that neutralizes the pH of a solution, or a spacer between things to absorb any overage (which is, I guess, a general version of what the chemical buffer is but an instance). Neither of the definitions in the clue are any of those. British English slew me again, I guess.

79. Those of you who complain of britishisms in a British crossword – I suggest you do one in a newspaper of your own country. but I doubt that it will be of comparable entertainment.

80. RoddyMac @79, who said I was complaining? I was merely mentioning that I was defeated by Britishisms. This misunderstanding is frequent whenever I comment. Surely everyone’s learned by now that I find the differences between our dialects fascinating, not frustrating.

81. mrpenny @78 – surely the railway use of BUFFER is “a spacer between things to absorb any overage” – i.e. to absorb the momentum of a train that has overshot the stopping area at the station. But I am another who doesn’t know the ‘old fellow’ use.

82. mrpenney @78/80 – I trust that you, and our other overseas contributors, will not be put off by the rudeness of the post @79. I think the overwhelming majority here positively welcome the fact that we are an international community of solvers, and one of the delights of 15² is the chance to get varying perspectives on language use (and many other subjects!) from around the globe.

    On the BUFFER question which you raised @78, I’ve just discovered that Americans call them bumper blocks or stopblocks. Over here, to run into/hit the buffers is something a train can do at a railway station, but it’s also used a lot metaphorically, when plans run into sudden difficulties.

    If you scroll down the wiki article there’s a list of accidents caused by trains hitting the buffers, including the 1975 Moorgate disaster referred to by paddymelon @37.

83. [Sorry TassieTim, we crossed.]

84. essexxboy @82. What rudeness? The superiority of British crosswords is of renown. No offence intended, simply pointing that out.

85. mrpenney@80 I did not mention you.

86. Like most Aussies here, never heard of buffer as old fellow. Whilst I got (and loved) 14d, I think I’d say “fit to BURST”

87. Thanks Roz @65 and HIYD @66 for answering Valentine @63. I’d gone to bed. It predates Alan Bennett and was in common use in WW2 amongst others.

88. Yes, the fun in the Alan Bennett sketch is that he is dictating it to a telegram stenographer, who, after being persuaded that Alan isn’t the Bishop of Norwich, wants to spell it KORWICH.

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