Guardian Cryptic 28,770 by Anto

69 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,770 by Anto”

1. I liked it too! Lots of fun clues.
   And, for once, I found the quasi-spoonerism amusing (normally I get fed up with the need to figure out the clue first, then switch initials to get a weak pun or a meaningless phrase).
   Thanks Anto and manehi

2. An easy Monday solve. I liked the Spoonerism the seduction and the portaloo

3. Yes a good start to the week with lot of clues to like and, like Wellbeck @ 1, I especially liked DITCHWATER.

   Thanks Anto and manehi

4. I would add OUTSIDER to the favourites. It’s strange how your expectations affect how you experience a puzzle. Anto is so much more enjoyable when there isn’t a Quiptic label to make you think it should be easy.

5. Good puzzle but thought tan = skin damage a bit of a strain.

   Many thanks both.

6. How have I not seen the cryptic split of RATIONALE before now? It ended up as one of my favourites.
   I liked CHOCOLATE TEAPOT which brought to mind all the “As useful as” Australianisms such as “a crack in a glass eye”, “an ashtray on a motorbike” and the common “tits on a bull”.
   I knew SYRAH, which I would know better as Shiraz, and a nice drop it is, even though I haven’t tried the most expensive example in Australia.
   The other two favourites were COME ON for the triple definition and CLOT for the “backward look”.

7. Was I the only one who guessed FLAMBOYANT from the B-Y crossers and then spent ages trying to fit F for Fellow into the parsing?

8. Agree with comments thus far. Favourites were PORTALOO, SCRUTABLE and DEEP FREEZE which made me smile ?. Many thanks to Anto and Manehi…

9. Agree with William … maybe skin “treatment” is a better definition ?
   Thought 21ac syrah a bit unfair … it’s not in my copy of Chambers, although I admit it was easy enough to guess at from the clue even though I’ve never heard of it.

10. Thanks manehi as I wasn’t sure of NEMO but now remember it was around the edge of those Scottish pound coins (1984 issue?). Really enjoyable and I found plenty to challenge me, my only not really a gripe is that a chocolate teapot has one very good use as it can be eaten! Thanks for a great start to the week Anto.

11. Good Monday morning fare.

    As well as the aforementioned TAN I also felt defence = BACKS was tenuous. In rugby the backs are meant to be a teams most offensive weapon. Whilst in football, although their are full backs, wingbacks and centre backs I have never heard them collectively referred to as backs.

    Didn’t spoil an enjoyable solve. Thanks to both.

12. Came here with my Monday mentality that this might be a breeze, but it certainly wasn’t. With confidence melting away as I struggled to find a way in, was very glad of the generous CHOCOLATE TEAPOT anagram. Thereafter things gradually revealed themselves, with some delightful and satisfying to solve clues. Liked REIN IN, wasn’t quite sure how CLOT or SALIENT worked exactly, so many thanks to Manehi for explaining. An excellent start to the week….

13. William@ 5 and Jinja @9. ‘tan’ in TITAN is definitely skin damage in these parts, if you’re of European stock. Australia has one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world and tanning ‘salons’ are also dangerous.
    https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/skin-cancer/surprising-facts-about-indoor-tanning

    I was tickled by the misdirection and looking for a note +an anagram of ‘skin’.

14. A DNF for me on 23d (I thought he was the captain of the Nautilus) and 21a (never heard of it and no idea of the wordplay).
    Pleased after getting absolutely nowhere with Brendan’s prize at the weekend.
    Thanks both.

15. Jinja @9 and William @2 – sadly a tan is a sign that the sun has damaged the skin, however much fashion promotes sun-kissed skin, so I grinned wryly at that definition.

    Gazzh @10 – but you don’t need to make chocolate into a teapot to eat it, except as a PG tips gimmick, and it wouldn’t function at all well as a teapot. There were adverts showing a chocolate teapot a few years back as something so useless, but I didn’t find them with a quick check.

    I enjoyed this. Thank you to Anto and manehi

16. It was a slow solve, quite tough for me.

    Liked FLAMBOYANT.
    New: CHOCOLATE TEAPOT; NEMO.
    I did not know how to parse 11ac, 3d, 6d, 8d.

    Thanks, both.

17. Personally I think 8d clue doesn’t quite work as ‘lo’ is backwards in colt, not in the answer. Otherwise very enjoyable.

18. I thought nemo was zero men raised, then was left wondering about a def and about Rome … woeful ignorance! [The late Mrs ginf and I always lamented Latin having been removed from our curricula]. Not sure I’ve come across chocolate teapot among the “As useless/ful as” canon, but I liked the anagram. Does scrutable sans ‘in’ get used at all? Compared to the ubiquitous shiraz, syrah is not a staple down under, except in cws. Ditto rioja. Just enough chew fra Mundy, ta A ‘n’ m.

19. A bit mixed for me. On the one hand there were some really nice clues, with the Spoonerism at 15d being a favourite (and the water and witch daughter reminding me of this).

    On the other hand there were a few where I thought, I see what he’s getting at but does it strictly work? For example in 8d the “look” (LO) is already reversed in COLT, so to get CLOT you are not reversing it but undoing the reversal. And in 16a, “is absolutely useless” (or even just “absolutely useless”) doesn’t seem the right part of speech to be the definition for CHOCOLATE TEAPOT. Maybe I’m just in a picky mood this morning.

    Thanks Anto and manehi.

20. I thought there was a mini theme in the SE:
    PORTALOO, DITCHWATER, NUMBER ONE, POT at the end of 16A and possibly ACIDITY at 22A
    Also amused at the idea of someone standing outside the PORTALOO, in the middle of winter, in the DEEP FREEZE, calling out COME ON, ASAP.

    My favourite was the triple def COME ON. Also ticks for the homophone in DEEP FREEZE, the wordplay and def in SALIENT. Glad I didn’t fall for googling Ulster artists. Bliss!

    Anto has a way of disguising the def and the wordplay, and making you think where to break up the surface. Love it.

21. [Sorry Johnnybgoode @17, you beat me to it about 8d.]

22. A most enjoyable crossword, Anto, with PORTALOO my favourite and LOI. Thanks to manehi as well for pointing out the triple definitions (I’d only noticed two in each case), and for parsing SUBTITLE, the wordplay having gone over my head.

23. Pleasing solve, which for me, was a bit more challenging than the usual Monday fare. I got left with the NW corner to unravel at the end. I thought there were other possible solutions to 3D, like warm up etc., and that was my LOI.

    I liked the RATION ALE, FLAMBOYANT for the theatrical fellow, DITCHWATER, which was a good Spoonerism, and SORBET for the surface. I’ll also add SUBTITLE, now that the nuanced has been explained.

    Thanks Anto and manehi.

24. A pleasant change for a Monday! Plenty of fun although nothing too daunting. I managed to solve in more or less numerical order.

    My highlights were SUBTITLE and FLAMBOYANT for the polished surfaces.

    Thanks to Anto and manehi

25. I remember seeing the tests described here
    

26. Trying to link again
    

27. Cryptic more difficult than Quiptic for once. I struggled with this one

28. https://www.plokta.com/plokta/issue23/teapot.htm
    is the link

29. Jinja @9, Syrah is not in my 1983 Chambers but is in my 2014 Chambers which is now 8 years old.

30. Jinja @9, SYRAH is also in Chambers (at least up-to-date versions) under Shiraz.

31. … it’s also in Collins and the ODE.

32. Enjoyed this. CHOCOLATE TEAPOT was my FOI so gave me a foothold for lots of down clues. Liked FLAMBOYANT and DITCHWATER.

    And after starting a discussion of triple-definition clues yesterday in the Everyman blog, I was pleased to see two of them in this!

    Oh and I got NIRVANA from ‘bliss’ and the crossers, but blew the parsing by thinking of VAN Morrison as the ‘Ulster artist’… ?

    Good work both, thank you.

33. I always thought it was dull as dishwater – now I’m not sure if that’s valid or I’ve been using the wrong expression all these years 🙂

34. An enjoyable start to the week with lots of clever definitions and wordplay.
    Ticks for SALIENT, FLAMBOYANT and RATIONALE.
    Thanks to Anto and manehi
    [Thanks also to Tim C @6 for the Australianisms which were new to me]

35. @33 – me too! so I started typing ‘as dull as…’ into Google and it auto-suggested ‘dishwater’ but not ‘ditchwater’ so its definitely an acceptable (probably dominant) variation. Further research suggested that it started as ditchwater in the 1700s and morphed to dishwater when we got more domesticated…

36. Nice start to the week with little to frighten the horses. I’m not usually a fan of Spoonerism clues, but today’s works well. And full marks to Anto for FLAMBOYANT. Thanks to Anto and our blogger, as ever.

37. If I were to be very pedantic, I might raise the eyebrows at the clued equivalence of Ulster and NI (for Northern Ireland). Northern Ireland contains only six of the nine counties of the Province of Ulster. But the distinction is often not made, at least in the UK, so I’ll leave the brows in their usual position for the time being.

38. With Number One and Portaloo thought we were straying into Paul’s territory, but couldn’t see any more!

39. This was a tougher Monday challenge than normal for me. Looking back I’m wondering why as there’s nothing too obscure or different. I think, as some have mentioned, Anto disguises the definition really well and that adds to the enjoyment. Like RobT I thought NI Van in 23ac was a reference to Van Morrison, the once legendary singer who now sets conspiracy theories to music.
    Thanks Anto and manehi.

40. I think the above comments have variously covered my own thoughts – couldn’t parse CLOT and don’t think it quite works… did a double-take on dishwater/ditchwater… think “absolutely” wasn’t required, given the phrase is “as useful as a chocolate teapot”… Syrah is a well-known grape variety, so no issue there… also spent a few moments trying to work Van Morrison into parsing of NIRVANA. All good fun though, thanks to Anto and manehi.

41. Thanks both,
    I’m not a fan of 22a. ‘Confiscating’ suggests to me that ‘id’ should be removed rather than inserted. And ‘bitter’ is a separate primary taste from ‘sour’ or ‘acid’ according to OED.

42. Thanks for the blog , very enjoyable , large number of clues with definition at the end and solvable without it. Not much praise yet for SALIENT which I thought was very neat. SYRAH is in my Chambers 93 with its own entry.
    8D I took as Fool=CLOT ( becomes )horse with backwards LO . That is take the answer and get a horse by reversing LO.
    Slight quibble , NEMO is very ambiguous if you solve the clues individually without the grid.

43. Just a repeat of Shanne@15 and PDM @ 13, a sun tan is skin damage caused by the UV photons in the sunlight. We do need sunshine to help produce Vitamin D but we do not need a tan.

44. 22dn. ASAP is not a four-letter word: it is four single letters A. S. A. P. so should be clued 1,1,1,1.

45. Thanks Anto for a substantial and very enjoyable Monday crossword. I particularly liked RATIONALE, USUAL, the nicely hidden EUREKA, FLAMBOYANT, and SORBET. As an added bonus I learned that CLOT=fool as well as the amusing expression CHOCOLATE TEAPOT. I don’t automatically think of tan=skin damage but every dermatologist will tell you that it is indeed the case. Thanks manehi for the blog.

46. Lovely puzzle, and I agree with those who found it trickier than usual for a Monday. LOI Clot, but I didn’t have a problem with it. I treated as a double definition, with one half being cryptic.

    As to the tanning issue, sun beds are banned in Australia, most dermatologists want them banned everywhere, and I thought I’d seen a news article saying it may happen in the UK at some point soon (but can find nothing to back this up admittedly.)

47. Crossbencher @44, we’ve had this discussion many times before. Both Chambers and the ODE have ASAP. Only Collins has a.s.a.p. The Guardian Style Guide has: abbreviations and acronyms
    Do not use full points in abbreviations, or spaces between initials, including those in proper names: IMF, mph, eg, 4am, M&S, No 10, AN Wilson, WH Smith, etc.

48. Really enjoyed this one, and for once did not need much help with parsing the clues – only COLT baffled me once in (and I see some debate above on the correct parsing). Favourites were DITCHWATER, PORTALOO (last in except for COLT) and CHOCOLATE TEAPOT, and SYRAH. Thanks Anto and Manehi.

49. William @5 “…thought tan = skin damage a bit of a strain.” I think if you were a cow that had been turned into a pair of shoes you’d probably think the tanning process had included quite a lot of damage to your skin!

    Johnnybgoode @17 & Lord Jim @19. I agree with Roz @42: the clue for 8d is a reverse clue, with CLOT becoming ‘horse’ with the backwards LOOL. I didn’t see it at first and like you thought it was a mistake, but now I think it’s pretty clever.

    grantinfreo @18. I think SYRAH *is* shiraz (or vice versa) – just the French name for the Australian grape. 🙂 [Takes cover as hail of French grapes approaches.]

    BigNorm @37. The use of ‘Ulster’ to clue NI always raises at least one objection, and today it was your turn! You are correct of course, and I think the Guardian’s own style guide agrees, but crossword setters just find it too tempting.

    Crossbencher @44. In addition to the response of Robi @47, I would add that ASAP is an acronym and is often pronounced as ay-sap, so the enumeration you propose is unnecessary.

50. [Note to self: putting reversed arrows between LO and OL simply removes the space between them and makes LOOL. Doh!]

51. Whether you call it Syrah or Shiraz, it’s a grape not a wine. Lots of wines are made with that grape. You wouldn’t ask for a pint of Fuggles!
    Yes, I thought it was dishwater, now you come to mention it! Good start to the week, though!

52. AuntRuth but we often have a glass of Chardonnay or Merlot and sometimes Syrah, though I accept that in its French form it’s less common as a single varietal.

53. I do like a nice chewy red. Cut my teeth on Coonawarra shirazes, early ’60s.

54. [AuntRuth @51. You’re right in general, but there have been a few beers in recent years called Fuggles. I’m reminded of a Welsh brewery that called their beer Cwrw, which has the double benefit of a name that most English people struggle to pronounce, plus the (mostly Welsh speaking) bar staff having the joy of hearing foreigners ask for “a pint of beer”!]

    [Petert @52. One of my favourite wines is Fitou, which was often seen in British shops in the 1980s and 1990s, but has been crowded out by Australian Shiraz wines in the last 25 years or more), and this is only 20% Syrah. I like the complexity and subtlety from the combination of Grenache, Carignan, Mourverdre and Syrah, whereas a Shiraz just hits you in the face and says “Look at me, I am Shiraz! Tremble all before me.”

    OK, maybe back to beer after today.]

    [Any Half Man Half Biscuit suggestions?]

55. Petert, a ‘glass of Chardonnay’ could be a Chablis or a Champagne from France, or something from California or New Zealand or all sorts of places. There is no one wine called a Chardonnay.

56. Rob T @32 I dislike triple definitions intensely. essexboy@28 in the Everyman blog you refer to has described my reasoning much more politely than I would. One of The Scotsman setters (over)uses this device.

57. A tough Monday challenge for me – failed on 21 both ac and dn but got the rest – eventually. Favourite – Flamboyant.
    One bete noir – case for Patient. I’ve seen this before in previous puzzles. I spent the last 10 years of my professional life telling trainees, “A patient is not a case, (s)he’s a person. She’s not a diabetic – she’s an 8 year old girl who has diabetes.”
    I know it’s “only” a crossword puzzle but I wish setters wouldn’t use this particular equivalence. Despite that, thanks to Anto for an amusing puzzle.

58. AuntRuth @55: I work as an online shopper for a well-known supermarket. When I pick wines I pick Chardonnays and Shirazes. That’s what is written on the label. I do pick Champagnes, because that seems to be an exception (and we don’t stock Chablis).

    Every major wine producer will happily sell you a bottle with Chardonnay or Shiraz on the label. If Hardy’s, Wolf Blass, Yellow Tail, Barefoot, McGuigan et al are happy to label their wine Shiraz, then it’s Shiraz. As far as the general public is concerned those are the names of the wines. “Most people” don’t care about the grapes, only the stuff that is made from them, and “most people” get to set the rules about how language is used.

    Also, whilst my fairly old Collins has the grape listed first, it also has the wine made from the grape listed alongside it.

59. Tyro @57. I’m pretty sure it’s not the Guardian crossword that’s causing your tyros to use ‘case’ when you would rather they use PATIENT! Given your evidence that the equivalence continues in irrepressible use in the medical profession, I expect it to appear more often than ‘Ulster’=NI in future.

    Sorry.

60. DNF, but enjoyed CHOCOLATE TEAPOT (and thanks to PeterM for the scientific proof!)

    I enjoyed the California connection of 7D. “Eureka” is our state motto, and Drake supposedly sailed into Drake’s Bay (north of San Francisco).

    In California, as in much of the world outside of Europe, many single-varietal wines are made, including Syrah and Chardonnay, as well as Pinot Noir, Merlot, and Sauvignon Blanc. I once went to a wine tasting where we had 6 very different Syrahs. Meanwhile, in the Champagne region, they are experimenting with other varieties, to deal with effects global warming.

61. Late to the party on this hot Memorial Day holiday. I will mention that (since my usual MO is to surf the shortest entries until I get one) the first clue I figured out was NEMO, which as written could just as easily have been OMEN. Yeah yeah, you are supposed to use the crossing letters to figure out which. I was still slightly peeved.

    The CHOCOLATE TEAPOT was new to me, though it doesn’t sound *completely* useless–it would be tasty. There was a chocolate shop near where I went to university that specialized in funky-shaped chocolates, and it would not surprise me if they’ve made a chocolate teapot at some point.

62. Rob T /jellyroll – you would think, after yesterday’s Everyman discussion, that I would be alive to the possibility of a triple def at 3d. Alas no. I failed completely to solve it by analysing the clue, and only got it via my method of last resort, i.e. a mental alphabet trawl. I was lucky it wasn’t ZONE IN. 😉

    I agree with all the positivity about the puzzle generally. Thanks Anto and manehi.

    [sh @50: I thought it was just an extra long LOL.]

63. mrpenney@61: For Nemo, I think perhaps it might have been easier to get which way around it should be if you didn’t know the Latin. I clocked it was “Omen” backewards, and then realised that “Nemo” was part of the inscription on a pound coin. I’d completely forgotten what it actually meant until then, but was happy to enter it when the penny dropped. But for me it had a right way around due to how I solved it.

64. When I was a child the saying was CHOCOLATE FIREGUARD for something useless , coal fires were more prevalent then.
    OMEN/NEMO is a typical example where the “instruction” is in the middle, we get it with homophones too.

    MrEssexboy@62 , these triple definitions get everywhere.

65. That’s interesting Roz@64. I thought CHOCOLATE TEAPOT was very British, but chocolate fireguard takes the cake.
    I did see online some science testing the useless chocolate teapot theory, which I think has been mentioned. Needs to be about 1cm thick or whatever. Besides, who wants chocolate in their tea? Coffee maybe. But a chocolate fireguard? Hope Santa got there in time to enjoy it.

    I like the analogy of a an ashtray on a motorbike. Much more our weather and culture down here.

    I got NEMO, from the reversed warning, without knowing the Latin. Don’t have any problems with the instruction in the middle. Perfectly grammatical to me.

    Then looked up Captain Nemo in Jules Verne, thinking there may be something I’ve missed. ”anti heroic deuteragonist” All Greek to me 🙂

66. Just creeping in to confess to abject failure. I got completely stuck on the top left corner, and even this morning when I used today’s paper to get some of my missing answers, I still couldn’t derive any others. But once I saw them they made perfect sense.

    Ah well, today’s puzzle here I come.

67. Nemo is also the alias of Captain James Hawdon, in Bleak House. My favourite Dickens work.

68. [Crossbar@67. Arrggghhh. Bleak House. Set in my first year of Uni. Who’s got the time to read 900+ pages when there are so many other more interesting things to do, sex and drugs and rock’n’roll, and politics? 🙂 Too heavy even to carry.
    Am about to be forcibly retired. I might put it on my bucket list thanks to your recommendation. ]

69. [paddymelon@68 Bleak House has most of those things, perhaps not rock’n’roll 😀 The BBC serialisation of it is excellent]

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