Guardian 28,882 / Imogen

80 comments on “Guardian 28,882 / Imogen”

1. 22a: ACCUSative

2. ACCUSER
   I thought half ACCUSative (case)+ ER (heartless Employer)

3. Thanks, both – Doh! I’ll amend now.

4. ACCUSER = ACCUS (ative) + ER. I have just spotted this, thinking USER, like yourself. Which is curious, because for a long time, I had ER at the end, but couldn’t see the rest.

   Thanks Eileen and Imogen

5. Too many obscurities (Athelstan, Islay as source of whisky, AMND as an abbreviation, Putto) even if they are clever. I now have to add Italian to the list of languages needed to solve an English crossword.

6. Thanks Eileen and Imogen.
   I took 22 as half of accusative (case) plus er ( user missing its middle)

7. Sorry. Forgot to say thanks Eileen for putting me out of my misery.

8. Case is ACCUSative….ER… outside letters of. employer.

9. In 18A, the standard abbrevistion for the play is ‘MND’ nor ‘AMND’. This was briefly debated and clarified here relatively recently. Therefore, the indefinite article in the clue is needed to provide the A – it would otherwise be redundant.

10. A fairly chewy but ultimately doable puzzle, pretty enjoyable overall I thought. A couple of unknown-to-me words (ATHELSTAN, PUTTO) but crossers and lucky guesses got those over the line. I also got lucky with what was quite niche GK, I thought: I got [d]OMANI as I was in a Italy this week, and I just about dredged up Dolores=LOLITA having read the book over three decades ago. As ever, a handful of parsing eluded me, but that’s what this site is for 🙂

    Thanks both.

11. Spooner’s catflap @9 – that was a really careless slip: I well remember that debate, in which I think I defended MND as the abbreviation!

12. I think “Don’t go to bed” is STAY UP, which gives you the cue to reverse the STAY in YEATS. I was convinced I had to concoct something out of “Ado about Nothing” for AND. I think the SMOG and PEA-SOUPER were in my brain today.

13. I last tried one of Imogen’s some time ago, and was quick to put him in my “Don’t attempt” list. But having breezed through today’s Bradman in the FT, I was at a loose end, and gave it a go. I got less than half out, and even after looking at the solutions for the others there were nine that I couldn’t understand. Looking at the parsings here elicited several groans, and ensured he stays on the list. There were too many obscurities for this little black duck.

    Some of the ones I did get I quite enjoyed. If I’m feeling brave I might try another Imogen in a year or two.

14. Thanks Imogen and Eileen. What is the reversal indicator in 16 down? Does anyone else find the surface of 7 down distasteful given the disturbing content of the novel?

15. Thanks Petert “12 for that clever explanation of 16 down which appeared while I was typing my query!

16. Petert @12
    ‘I think “Don’t go to bed” is STAY UP’: that’s what I meant in the blog but I didn’t express it very well . 🙁

17. As PeterT pointed out, “don’t go to bed” is “stay up”. This is one I did get!

18. Thanks Eileen, much too difficult for me.
    Out of interest, what does ‘ARISTOTLE’ have to do with ‘A’?

19. Sorry, I meant ‘ALPHA’

20. Enjoyed much of this, particularly ALPHA, POLYP, YEATS (clue of the day for me), COLONY and POSY. But defeated by the NE corner, with DNKs in CLICK TRACK and LOLITA being Dolores’ real name in the book of that name. Wasn’t sure if it was Out or PUT TO SEA. I wonder too whether ATHELSTAN, PEA SOUPER and the moony meaning of MARIA would have been part of every solver’s general knowledge. Very tricky in places, and rather a miserable DNF for me this morning. A SYNDICATE doesn’t always have criminal undertones…thanks Imogen, and Eileen for producing her usual inimitable clarity on some pretty difficult (I found) clueing.

21. HoofitYouDonkey @19 – in both Greek and English, Aristotle begins with A.

    Ronald @20 – thanks for your kind words but I seem to have been failing on the clarity today. 🙁

22. HoofItYouDonkey @ 18: I think Aristotle is just a random Greek, who would us ALPHA for A.

23. I did know ATHELSTAN, and he deserves to be better known, being widely regarded as the first king of England (as your link says Eileen).

    Some entertaining clues. I liked the so-called fish and the musical girl I just met.

    HIYD @18 and 19: Aristotle was Greek, so A was ALPHA for him.

    Many thanks Imogen and Eileen (I don’t think “quick look” should be underlined in the clue for PEAK).

24. SueB @14: Yes, I do.

25. You’re quite right, of course, Lord Jim. I’m beginning think I should go back to bed!

    Re ALPHA – me @21: I was thinking of children’s alphabet books – ‘A is for apple, etc’ but Shirl’s interpretation works, too.

26. Many thanks for the heads up on ALPHA. Obvious really!

27. Completed but with little enjoyment, and I failed to parse ‘and’. All in all, I found many of the clues over-contrived.

28. ‘And’ and ‘accuser’ were bungs, over my head, and showing my lack of hedication (due to my slackness, not to my alma mater, producer of PMs, AGs and other luminaries). Agree, Eileen, that Ms is ageless (and with yr late hubby’s love of the peaty whisky!). I too dnk ‘click track’, and like SueB @14 felt a shadow at 16d, tho it was an ‘in’ read, and on the shelf chez ginf. Lots to chew on, thanks InE.

29. Good fun, with some clever clues – I liked COLONY, YEATS, ACTUARY and PEA-SOUPER particularly.

    Parse failure with ACCUSER – I was hung up on ‘young lady’ = MISS (churlish grumble: a MS isn’t necessarily young!). D’oh – and I’m partial to a Laphroig or a Bunnahabhain myself 🙂

    Nice to see a bit of Italian in a puzzle other than the usual pasta and musical terms.

    Thanks to Imogen and Eileen

30. PS loved the famous Greek ‘A’, very neat.

31. Gervase @29 Thankfully I ignored Frank Sinatra and didn’t forget about domani

32. PPS liturgical point for non-heathens, does the i in Vikings come from 1, as in, e.g., 1 Kings 18 … “And it came to pass…”? And if “biblical book” = Kings, where does the 1/I come from?

33. Thanks Imogen and Eileen
    I speak Italian, so OMANI was FOI, but I don’t think it’s fair clue in a British puzzle.
    I thought AND came from one of several Shakespeare plays with an “and” in the title!
    I should have been on Islay this week, but Covid prevented that.

34. gif @32: yes, I believe the convention is 1 Kings, 2 Kings, I Samuel, 2 Samuel etc

    A tough one today but I did enjoy teasing it out. Sometimes the long, slow, challenging solve can be very rewarding and that’s how it felt today. My faves have all been mentioned: YEATS AND ALPHA are my podium three.

    Thanks Imogen and Eileen

35. Like yesterday this was tough but unlike yesterday I didn’t find it a huge amount of fund. (Sorry Imogen!) I struggle with clues where you have to think of a word, chop bits off it, add a bit of anagram and then insert an abbreviation which is not one in common use. Having said that there was lots of good stuff, most of which has been mentioned. Thanks I and Eileen that was an excellent blog. Time for a bit of Lagavulin, a double!

36. GDU @13 “I last tried one of Imogen’s some time ago, and was quick to put him “… Isn’t Imogen a female name: “perhaps the most tender and the most artless” according to Shakespeare? My apologies to the setter is I am wrong but, sadly we must admit that most setters are male: a tragedy if that is correct.

    I don’t know the screwdriver in 31A. I thought that it was a cocktail.

37. “My apologies to the setter is I am wrong” should read “My apologies to the setter if I am wrong”.

38. I just had to look up sonic screwdriver, never having been into Dr Who. That plus an inability to get to “so nice” made this a dnf.

39. Peter, Imogen is Richard Browne.

40. … and also sets as Vulcan, usually on Mondays. I still struggle to equate the two.

41. And Vulcan isn’t on my “Don’t attempt” list!

42. I, too, thought some bits of this puzzle a bit iffy: as mentioned above, the surface for LOLITA was a bit off, the assumption that a ‘Ms’ is young is awry, the bard’s MND was just very awkward and gnarly clueing: George@27 had it “over-contrived” and I agree.
    The COLONY was clever, though!

43. Never knew the acronym for the Shakespeare play – these things are shorthand for insiders and baffling (and annoying) to the uninitiated. Oh well, I expect it’s In Chambers…

44. [SueB @14 and essexboy @24: Quite right, but as it was my LOI I entered it with relief and without thinking too much about it. Umberto Eco wrote a short parody of ‘Lolita’ in which the protagonist (Umberto Umberto) is a gerontophile rather than a paedophile]

45. Great to have Imo on top form after Pickers’ blinder yesterday
    And great to see your blog, Eileen

46. I enjoyed this except for the clues where I was hamstrung by lack of necessary knowledge (LOLITA, AND, PUT TO SEA). Quite a few of these bear traps today, which seem to have caught a variety of understandably grumpy bears.

    I did enjoy RWANDA, ACTUARY, YEATS – where I tried for some time to fit KEATS in, on the grounds that YEATS was Irish, as no doubt I was meant to. It took Eileen to bring out the full business of that clue. Yes, took ages to see MS instead of MISS in MISLAYS. I think Imogen is on my “attempt with caution and don’t expect to finish” list.

47. Wonderful crossword! Brilliant clueing and plenty of smiles. So many favourites to choose from but special mention to UNWELCOME, YEATS, COLONY, MISLAYS and ALPHA.

    Thanks to Imogen and Eileen

48. I had a similar experience to Crispy – got so far and no further. Reveals showed the wisdom of backing off but there were some pleasurable moments and further solves en route.

    I did get ALPHA which made me smile. Such a succinct clue! (Can I claim a name-check? Hardly.) And among the reveals the POLYP and POSY conjunction led me to ‘chapeau’ the setter’s skill.

    Thanks both but particularly to Eileen for the superior blog.

49. Just out of interest, I googled AMND to get A Midsummer’s Night Dream come up pretty much universally. but I couldn’t find it either Chambers 2004 or 1999 (one’s mine, the other’s my daughter’s), in in the 1999 MND is there as Motor Neurone Disease.

    I found this tough, but mostly soluble, with quite a few groans as I bunged in an answer then parsed it.
    In common with others I did wince at the LOLITA clue (too much working with young CSA victims). New to me were PUTTO and (D)OMANI. Another one who took ages to see ISLAY in MS, not LAY in MISS. I would suggest that MISS suggests young and MS any age not wanting to reveal marital status.

    Thank you for the puzzle Imogen and Eileen for the blog.

50. I initally assumed 18A had something to do with Snug, but couldn’t work it out. I then got diverted onto Much Ado, and as I’d got 4 D I convinced myself it must be ado. Goodness knows why. Oh well. PS I think foreign words are acceptable providing they are fairly common knowledge without necessarily being able to speak the particular language e.g. manana, meaning tomorrow (or morning, I think?) in Spanish , and of course domani, meaning the same but in Italian. Thanks to both.

51. Too many not very common synonyms and examples leading to not enough crossers to help. Very disappointing after yesterday. Had to come here for 2/3rds of the puzzle.

52. Re fairness or otherwise of the Italian words in the puzzle, DOMANI is definitely one which requires some familiarity with the language but PUTTO is a term widely used in English in the context of fine art, so could be considered more in the nature of (specialised) GK. Putti are juvenile winged cherubs – the Raphael ones from the Sistine Chapel are perhaps the best known:

    https://www.google.com/search?q=raphael+putti&client=safari&channel=iphone_bm&source=hp&ei=Q_A_Y4beHu-W9u8Pq76g6A0&oq=raphael+putti&gs_lcp=ChFtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1ocBABGAAyBwgAEIAEEBMyBwgAEIAEEBMyCAgAEB4QFhATMggIABAeEBYQEzIFCCEQoAE6CAgAEIAEELEDOgsILhCABBCxAxCDAToFCC4QgAQ6EQguEIAEELEDEIMBEMcBENEDOggIABCxAxCDAToLCAAQgAQQsQMQgwE6CwguELEDEIMBENQCOg4ILhCABBCxAxDHARDRAzoLCAAQgAQQsQMQyQM6DgguEJIDELgEEMcBEK8BOgUIABCSAzoLCC4QgAQQxwEQrwE6BQgAEIAEOgsILhCABBCxAxDUAjoOCC4QgAQQsQMQgwEQ1AI6CAguEIAEELEDOg4ILhCABBDHARCvARDUAjoUCC4QgAQQsQMQgwEQxwEQrwEQ1AI6BggAEB4QFjoICAAQHhAWEApQ0ApY5ZSWBGCjn5YEaABwAHgAgAHsAogBnRGSAQgxMC42LjEuMZgBAKABAbABAA&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-hp#imgrc=1KmQH-pI2Jh3ZM&imgdii=5UHMtLsiTZXeQM

    Sorry about that – I can’t get the hang of links on my iPhone 🙁

53. Gervase: @52. Well, I don’t speak Italian but I thought this was fairly well known e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPkL7cw7J7Q

54. Nuntius@52 Thanks. That was the point I was obliquely making above.

55. Thanks Petert, that will teach to read others’ comments before sticking my oar in (!)

56. Nuntius and Petert: Certamente 🙂

57. Eileen — a very enjoyable set of links in the blog. I especially enjoyed the PEA-SOUPER article and photos.

    Anybody else trying to work some three-letter version of Snug into 18a?

    SONIC screwdriver was new to me — I’ve never seen Dr Who, which is the source, I find, of this versatile tool. (A note to that effect in the blog might be helpful to ignorami/ae like me, Eileen.)

    Eileen — why is MARE an I-stem noun? It doesn’t fit the requirements I think I learned in school.

    Peter@36 At the top of this page in the black stripe is “Setters,” and if you click on that you can find the real names of many setters. I recommend it.

    Enjoyable puzzle, thanks Imogen. And a really superduper blog, Eileen, you’ve surpassed yourself. Thanks!

58. Difficult and I can’t say I enjoyed, it to be honest. I got the eastern half and a couple of the western half but then gave up. After reading the explanations here I’m glad I did. Poor end to a good week for me.

59. Thanks, Valentine @57 – glad someone read the PEA-SOUPER link. I enjoyed it.

    MARE -IS is a third declension neuter noun. see here for the conjugation.

60. [Valentine @57: All Latin third declension neuter nouns ending in -e, -al or -ar are I-stem. But don’t ask me why!]

61. Spooner’s catflap @9, if you’re still around,

    I owe you an abject apology: I (thought I) amended the blog immediately this morning, following your comment and have only just discovered that I didn’t. I must have omitted to confirm the update, which I have now done, late in the day, I’m afraid.

    [I blame a recent COVID diagnosis for my various lapses today: my remaining symptoms are tiredness – and brain fog!]

62. On 7D, worth saying that the clue makes no direct reference to the Nabokov novel. Lolita, like Lola, is a recognised abbreviation for Dolores, which is a perfectly conventional first name. I could imagine Bessie used as a definition for Elizabeth, or Peggy for Margaret. There’s no need to invoke the novel at all, unless one wishes to do so.

63. Many thanks, Sagittarius @62 – I didn’t know that.

64. Eileen@63 – it’s in Chambers in the Names section (as dipped into extensively by Maskarade in a recent puzzle). I should also have said thanks for the blog.

65. Sagittarius @62: True enough, but the word ‘sex’ in the clue does rather lead one in an unsavoury direction

66. Anyone else have CAMP for 26d? Fits quite well unless you already have the crossers 😉 .
    Tough puzzle and a DNF for me, but then I always struggle with Imogen. Missed MACHISMO and MARIA was a guess. Loved the way ATHELSTAN came together.
    Thanks, Imogen and Eileen.

67. phitonelly @66
    I would have written CAMP in as my second entry, but I saw there wasn’t an M in the anagram for 30a.

68. muffin @67
    I’ve been doing the crossword in reverse clue order of late, so hadn’t even read 30a at that stage. So, effectively hoist by my own petard!

69. @58, hear hear

70. I’m a bit late, but I wonder whether anyone else parsed ROCK as I did. I took ‘back to rear’ to be R, and the ‘big bird’ to be an auk – which would ‘come over’ to my ears (which are west central-belt Scottish) as OCK. Thus ROCK.
    But great blog and great puzzle. Thanks both, and to all contributors.

71. That was tough, but with some enjoyment along the way – ATHELSTAN, ACTUARY, VKINGS, POLYP, RWANDA, ANTISEPTIC, COLONY. But I was defeated by PUT TO SEA and only got OMANI by having a spouse who speaks Italian.
    Thanks to Imogen and to Eileen (and others) for explaining the ones I didn’t get.

72. I could not get past “Ado” for 18, being fixated on Much Ado About Nothing. To me, “not much at first” meant drop the word “much”, but the rest made no sense. I only got “And” after checking.

    I really enjoyed this puzzle. Plenty of challenges and clever clues, and all gettable with some thought. Just right.

73. Me too Greg@72.
    I failed in the SW. County for colony. Cast for posy and clump for polyp. All fitted MY crossers and I vaguely convinced my self of the parsings. Polyp should have sprung to mind, for all the wrong reasons.

74. A bit late, but noone else has mentioned (unless I missed it) that AND is a grammatical joiner, making the clue a double definition, like the ALPHA with A being Greek for a Greek.

75. I mean twin definition, not the technical term double def

76. JF@74. That’s how I approached AND as well.
    And AND is also in RWANDA.

77. Judith Fielsen and paddymelon, if you’re still there

    Oh dear, more lack of clarity on my part, it seems. There is only one definition in 18ac, as underlined in the blog – AND = (grammatical) ‘joiner’. The rest is wordplay. I added the fact that Snug, in the play, is a joiner as a point of interest, making it, as I said, a clever clue. My apologies.

78. I do think Imogen is becoming increasingly playful; PEA SOUPER and KEATS (with almost an Arachnean/Philistineal/Trampish feel) my sort of fun clue. Like COLONY but we’ve seen similar before. So many to like; PUT TO SEA, AND, OMANI (I don’t recall seeing the neat d(omani) before.. ), PING PONG, CLICK TRACK (nho) etc….

    This was real fun to solve and I’m feeling quite smug that I decided to save it for my Saturday morning coffee in the sun!

    Huge thanks to Imogen and Eileen

    [On a note of Zoilism (sorry, Eileen!), I don’t think the ‘a’ should be underlined in 24dn]

79. Thanks William @78 – I’ve no idea how that happened! I’ll fix it now.

80. Tough puzzle and I’m glad I persevered but I could not parse13ac; 18ac; 20ac; 22ac.

    I liked OMANI, COLONY, ATHELSTAN; SONIC; YEATS.

    Thanks, both.

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