Guardian Cryptic 28,784 by Imogen

60 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,784 by Imogen”

1. I put in sardonyx thinking Surely not, sounds like a cynical Asterix character.

2. Thanks Imogen and manehi
   I found this a slow start – for some time I only had ETHEREAL and SARDONYX. However there were several clues I liked when I solved them – WHATSIT (for the “bowler” misdirection), PREPOSSESSED, TAP IN, and HEDGEROW.
   A couple of oddities: “large” seems superfluous in 5a, and confused me for some time, and “share” in 21a.
   A DNF in fact – I had a perfectly sensible CHEAP at 23d (last bit of pancakE in CHAP). Nothing wrong with it, though CREEP is funnier.

3. Good puzzle with some well-disguised definitions and ingenious charades, tricky in parts.

   I particularly liked SHACKLETON, HEDGEROW, ETHEREAL and SEA-LEGS (though whether a seal is a ‘large animal’ is arguable). I originally had DISCOMFORT for 22ac, which held me up a while.

   Thanks to S&B

4. Slow start for me. 8d SARDONYX was my foi. I was worrying that I might solve nothing on my first pass of the clues!

   Liked STREAMLINE (parsed post solve/guess); PENITENTIARY; PLUCKINESS, ABACUS; WHATSIT; TRIO; GOANNA; I KNOW.

   I could not parse 6d ARUM; 5ac apart from def = balance.

   New for me:
   ESSE=essential nature or essence; HAWK-EYE – had vaguely heard of this but was not sure what it is; EDGER garden tool; DISCOMMODE.

   Thanks, both.

5. muffin @2: Ditto for me with CHEAP, which I agree fits the clue just as well.

6. But yes, needed a bit of help, esp in the SW. In The Jewel In The Crown, the Piggott-smith character says Not very prepossessing, is he? about the suspect he’s arrested. That was 1984, and I reckon that’s about the last time I heard it used. So, not obscure, but hard to dig up. Whatsit, otoh, I fell for like a bunny, thinking Bowlers say Howzat, not Whatsit, d’oh! 28ac, with its “..that all can attend”, had me looking for something with U. So, this smart puzzle had me feeling a bit dim. Good though, thanks Imogen and manehi.

7. Muffin@2 and Gervase@5: Chap – despicable person? Discuss. No, please don’t. Cracking crossie – great blog. Thanks a lot.

8. No, just “despicable”. The person is the “chap”.

9. Got about half out, then abandoned ship. I wasn’t on Imogen’s wavelength.

10. Pretty tricky, but got there in the end. Lots to savour as always with Imogen, In my case TRIO, SEA LEGS and WHATSIT in particular. With 17d went off on the wrong track with ‘to deal with’ – got stuck thinking about a dealer’s ‘shoe’ with hoe in it. Many thanks to I & m.

11. Not helped by writing LIMA in 21a. I also had DISCOMFORT. Thanks both.

12. I had RIAL (Rhode Island and Alabama) to give the wrong sort of capital/currency instead of RIGA at first. And wondered, as ever, do I write in CRÊPE or CREEP, then plumped for the right one.

    Good workout. Thanks Imogen and manehi.

13. Like others this took me a while to get going, and the top half came much faster than the bottom. FOIs were ABACUS and SHACKLETON, LOIs were ESSE and GOANNA – thanks for parsing manehi!
    Overall I loved the many misdirections and felt very superior when I sussed one out, good feeling, maybe my ancient brain not quite so bad after all!
    Thanks Imogen and manehi

14. Another one here with CHEAP rather than Crepe. I agree with muffin @2 and Gervase @5 that it’s an equivalent answer. Ho hum.

15. Oh, and STREAMLINE reminded me of that master of Australian linguistics Professor Afferbeck Lauder

16. ginf @1 – love Sardonyx of Gaul, sharp-tongued companion to Geriatrix and Unhygienix 😉

    After Brucie yesterday, I KNOW gave me a Kenneth Williams moment.

    Ditto re RIAL, Crossbar @12, but eventually figured ‘a capital’ must be a city rather than a currency.

    Also wondered about CHEAP/CREEP, but wasn’t sharp enough to spot muffin’s parsing for the former, so put the ‘correct’ one in with a confidence born of imperspicacity.

    Tim C @15, egg wetter gree. You’ll get ginf started again on his plate sarty.

    Great puzzle, thanks I & m.

17. Tim C – and Professor Lauder’s associate Emma Chisig.

18. Sorry. Tim C – Emma Chisit.

19. The SE defeated me. Just too tough today. Strine was new.

    Ta Imogen & manehi

20. esse(x)boy @16 and BazT @18…. as Leo Schofield says “Wad African genius”. I’m only an air fridge person but I Jess Tappenta heff a copy of his complete works (with illustrations by Al Terego) in my Gloria Soame on the Naw Shaw.

21. Gervase@3 whether you consider a seal to be a large animal would depend very much on the type of seal. Male elephant seals are around 15 feet long and weigh 3 tonnes but there are obviously much smaller seal species as well.

22. A frustrating exercise in obscurity.

23. muffin@2 and Gervase@5. I, too, made it cheap.

24. Yes, I found this tough too, but managed to complete, eventually. Thought that some of these stretched the boundaries of crossword convention, if such a thing exists, or ever did. Needed Manehi’s help to parse ABACUS, SHACKLETON and HEDGEROW. Didn’t know ESSE or GOANNA, LOI, and had to look these two up. Quite a challenge today

25. Got just over halfway though and bailed. A definite wavelength mismatch today.

    I have minor quibbles on some of the definitions: if AEROSPACE is ‘modern’ then Imogen is older than I thought; does CREEP really mean ‘despicable person’? It seems softer than ‘despicable’ to me. (Chambers says ‘unpleasant’); I didn’t consider a SEAL to be a large animal, unless prefixed with ‘elephant’; I associate STREAMLINE with efficiency, not speed. I’m sure there are valid answers to all these, and it’s just me that’s not in the zone.

    Ah well, here’s hoping I’m closer to the setter’s frequency tomorrow!

26. Not sure how one would use an edger, either manual or powered, toi deal with a hedgerow.

27. Yes, I had CHEAP and I prefer it. CH is not in Chambers as Chaplain.

28. Rob T @25!
    I have no issues with any of the solutions/definitions mentioned by you except with STREAMLINE. We may even have to be willing to lose some speed while streamlining a process.

29. This was good fun. I really liked Di’s commode for the convenience / inconvenience.

    PLENARY is one of those words that I’ve often heard without ever really knowing its meaning.

    In 14a, the 90 to give us “ninety” is the same device as used by Pasquale in last week’s Quiptic (when it was 16 for “sixteen”) and some people objected to it as an indirect anagram. Well it is, but only very slightly indirect (like the November for N in 28a) and I’ve got no problems with it.

    Many thanks Imogen and manehi.

30. I’m glad everyone else found this tough too. I did solve it all and parsed everthing except APPROACH, where I was trying to see why PROACH = chaplain, rather than breaking down into PRO + A + CH, duh. For quite a few I was building up answers rather than bunging in and parsing later and then realising that I had heard that word before, but it was well buried in the memory banks.

31. Thanks for the blog , great puzzle, very tough, first one this year that has needed two goes. A lot of fine , clever , misleading clues. Only one Paddington stare for 14Ac.

32. Thanks for parsing SEA LEGS, AEROSPACE and I KNOW, manehi.

    To me, “I made a mistake” is OOPS, not WHOOPS.

    HAWK-EYE as equipment was new to me.

    Last night I had almost all of the top half and almost none of the bottom. Filled in most this morning with the help of Check.

    Thanks, Imogen and manehi.

33. Rob@25 we have all been heavily defeated by puzzles in the past, it is good for the soul. Never forget the setter is the enemy and may defeat us but we live to solve another day.
    AEROSPACE is a modern industry by my standards and I certainly think one use of CREEP means a despicable person.
    A SEAL is very large compared to the vast majority of animals on Earth. People mix up animal with mammal , Animalia is a vast kingdom and most members are very small.
    If you STREAMLINE an object it will often travel much faster, as in the aerospace industry.

34. Lord Jim @29 it is very indirect because the letters are not present in the clue for the anagram.
    90 could be XC , iX o , nine O and there must be others.

35. Phew. Got there in the end but feeling somewhat mauled.

    Struggled with DISCOMMODE thinking ‘wrong part of speech’ before spotting that inconvenience can also be a verb.

    TRIO is brilliant and PREPOSSESSED has a lovely surface.

    Toughie but goodie, many thanks both.

36. A little obscure in places, so not a write-in. Not many quibblets, but does INSTIGATE mean “promote”? I thought it meant start off, begin or initiate, an activity which may or may not be accompanied by promotion, so not a synonym. No doubt somebody with a copy of Chambers is going to tell me that “promote” is given as a definition, and has been since at least the 2018 edition…!

    I especially liked coming here and learning a little more Strine as an added bonus. But I’d just worked out what “plate sarty” was, when Roz@31 hit me with another new expression, “Paddington stare” – Is it a particular kind of illegal immigrant ursine? Rhyming slang?

    Thanks Imogen, manehi and other contributors.

37. … or even worse, eb @16, Aduwye (a propos yesterday’s cosmophiloz with Roz):
    Aduwye nofime reely reel
    Aduwye nofime ear
    Aduwye nofa forlin treemakesa noys
    Fairs nowunair tooweer
    [Wotsyerurry, eresyerat]

38. … antribewtsta BazTnTimcee

39. … bettastoporkemnacllsmackus

40. copland+smith @ 27

    ‘Ch.’ for Chaplain is in Chambers.

41. This was tough. Only got GOANNA after a night’s sleep. Last night spent too much time too tired wondering where the “At” of 27a or the “Old” of Old Sarum, went. Turns out I needn’t have worried. Apparently the lizard ate them.

42. I’m probably not the only solver who knew GOANNA from Crocodile Dundee!

43. Roz @33 – oh, I know they all have a valid explanation, just slightly askew to my own understanding. I actually got a couple of them anyway, through definitions and bunging in.

    Thanks for the encouragement! 🙂

44. Me @43 – I meant “through wordplay” not “through definitions”, given it was the definitions that I was chuntering about…

45. Deep Thought@36, Paddington Bear was renowned for his hard stare when something or somebody annoyed him, like indirect anagrams.
    I perfected it when I was a student for boys trying to talk to me about cricket. I now mainly use it for people talking about phones, computers etc.

46. [btw if you haven’t seen Paddington 2 (in which there are some good example of the stare), do so immediately. Best film of the century so far!!]

47. Thanks manehi, eg for LAY = lyric, luckily today I had time to persevere with this and feel it was well spent despite failing with CHEAP though I think despicable is a harsher term and CREEP suits it better. Also I don’t think the wordplay tells us to find another word for pancake and then do some manipulation but enough people got it so it must be me. Had some other temporary failures including I VETO and share some gripes, plus I think we should have a ? Not a colon in 1a to show that bowler is an example of a hat. But got a lot of satisfaction from a lot of the parsing and enjoyed the trickery so thanks Imogen.

48. Gazzh @47
    I was thinking of cheap=despicable as in a “cheap shot” – a nasty rugby tackle, for instance.

49. I was proud of myself getting over three quarters of the way through before admitting defeat. Every day is a learning day

50. Thanks muffin agree that is a closer equivalence and I now class my performance as a ‘technical success’!

51. Gazzh @47. I agree that there should be something to indicate that ‘bowler’ in the clue is an example of a hat and not a synonym for one. I discounted HAT as part of the wordplay until finally forced to consider it.

    It took me about half a nanosecond to realise that 90=NINETY formed part of the anagrist in 14a. Since there are no rules, apart from a general desire for perceived fairness, what is the objection to this clue? As it was one of a mere handful of write-ins, I enjoyed it. 🙂

    Like Gervase @3 I had DISCOMFORT at 22a, which left me with _T_W_Y; possibly STEWEY? Is that Strine? Got LEEWAY at last, but carelessly wrote in DISCOMPOSE, which is close, but no coconut.

    Crosswords with this level of difficulty should be reserved for weekends. Where has the day gone?

    Thanks to Imogen and manehi.

52. Roz@45, Thank you!. My memory of the illegal immigrant is confined to marmalade sandwiches – which was recently relevant. Wonder which flight to Rwanda he is on?

53. [muffin@46, Roz@45, and DT@36 (to confuse you even more) – has Paddington recovered sufficiently from Jubilee tea with the Queen to get back to hard staring? Totally agree about Paddingto 2, muffin]

54. [ I actually have my Paddington bear from the 70s , it was handed down to Sprog1 but I have now reclaimed it. I have put a sign around his neck – Please do not talk to this bear about cricket or IT , Thank you.
    Our sprogs are too old now to consider going to the cinema with me, I think I was lucky with the golden age of kids films though. ]

55. [Roz
    You don’t need sprogs as an excuse to see Paddington 2!]

56. Another DNF, another RIAL at 21a. How many others were caught by that? The poorest clue I’ve seen for a long time.

57. Sometimes I look here at the end of the day (when I’ve been solving) and the consensus is the puzzle was easy whereas it’s the opposite for me. Today, I found this straightforward — a rare occasion I’ve been on Imogen’s wavelength.

    The top went in fairly quickly apart from ABACUS (LOI) but I was held up at the bottom because of DISCOMFORT, which cleared up after the crossers.

    I wonder if the issue with clues like 14a is that the more experienced you are (like Roz) the more possibilities you generate and therefore you can be overwhelmed by the permutations. Whereas, for me, 90 was “obviously” NINETY. It’s a bit like when Ms pdp11 and I do the Quick Crossword together. She usually gets the IT questions despite my considerable domain knowledge and I get the wines despite my very slight knowledge.

    Laccaria@56 – I’m surprised no one has commented on 21a. Picking two states from 50 gives 2450 (50 x 49) possibilities! I had to wait for the crossers – and then it was a write-in.

    [Paddington 2 definitely for adults. When we (adults) saw it, we were chortling the loudest 😀 )

58. DISCOMMODE was a bit disappointing as the COMMODE meaning is used twice. Otherwise I’m not complaining.
    Missed the HATS bit.
    Thanks both

59. PDP11@57: Crossbar@12 and Essexbox@16 both mentioned the RIGA/RIAL ambiguity before me. You’re right that the crosser resolves this, but it took me a long time to suss out HEDGEROW (mea culpa – it didn’t occur to me that “the way to…” and “how to…” mean the same).

    I just realised that I wrote in DISCOMPOSE instead of DISCOMMODE. Why? – beats me! Comes of doing it on paper instead of online with the ‘check’ feature. Oops!

    OK a few tricky bits, I’d call this a toughie, but thanks all the same to Imogen (who certainly made it more of a challenge than a Vulcan). And to manehi.

60. Thanks Laccaria@59 – I meant to say no one had mentioned the difficulty of getting a city by combining two states. The way/how was sneaky but then again there was quite a lot of sneaky (but fair) clueing 🙂

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