Guardian Cryptic 28,902 by Anto

61 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,902 by Anto”

1. Found this fairly straightforward, but testosterone beat me. Thanks L and A

2. Same as Crispy though both OATES and TRAINER remained unparsed; I didn’t spot the leg-end trick. Not normally one for the homophone debates, I’d have to say Titus and tight as aren’t the same for me but, as I didn’t know that’s what I was looking for, I can hardly claim it held me up! By contrast, SEA KELP was a delightful lol and other faves included APHRODITE, SCUPPER, MONOPLANE (lovely spot), U-BOAT, RAGS TO RICHES and the neat little middles clue at the end, NERDS. Do folk still talk about the HIT PARADE? I have no idea.

   Thanks Anto and loonapick

3. Like Crispy I found this fairly straightforward apart from RIPASSO. I’d guessed Rio might be the start & finish, but, knowing nothing about wine-making (drinking – yes, making – no) I had no option but to work my way through a host of Italian/Spanish sounding words till I stumbled on the correct one.
   I appreciate what counts as GK is a tricky thing to classify, but even so this did feel a bit of a stretch…
   Thanks to Anto and loonapick

4. A few quiet groans for the likes of sea kelp, Titus and the old leg end, but fun enough for a Mundy. Always thought scupper meant sink, I.e. completely kibosh, rather than just upset, but if not it wouldn’t be the first of ginf’s lifelong misconceptions. Nho the wine method but sticking pass in Rio sounded suitably vino-ish. Thanks AnL.
   [… now for Us v the Paddys in the pyjama T20 with, fingers crossed, no bleep rain…]

5. Enjoyed many of these, but some were a little too high-brow UK for my monday. cheers.

6. Finally remembered RIPASSO from somewhere. Took me a while to see how to parse TRAINER as well, and held up for a while just putting in TITUS for 13a (well, it is Monday), until 7d put me right and the memory cells kicked in. Liked 26a and 5d. Thanks to Anto and to loonapick for the blog.

7. For me 9A was ambiguous (opining/opening? ) until resolved by AGITATO.

8. Just about parsed TRAINER but never had a chance with OATES. Also learned a wine-making technique, must try that out.

   NERDS, APHRODITE, and RAGS TO RICHES were very nice, as was SEA KELP.

   Thanks Anto & loonapick

9. Yes, it took a hard stare to decide which way round OPI(e)NING went.
   RIPASSO was a new one and needed all the crossers. I (eventually) had TRAINER from TRAINEE plus the first four words of the clue, and then couldn’t see what “broken up” was doing. Missed the Latin in INCUMBENT and didn’t remember the right OATES.

   AIR AMBULANCE, SEA KELP (is there any other kind of kelp?) and MOSH PIT were fun.

10. I did wonder whether SEA KELP needed a cockney indicator but it brought a smile when I got it. No problems with Titus ~ Tight as… near enough’s good enough.
    I did get RIPASSO, but I don’t understand why Italians need to chuck in the skins for a second time. Just leave them in a bit longer the first time for greater extraction like I do. Mind you, I am usually dealing with elderberries. When my newly planted Merlot, Cab Sav and Shiraz (Syrah if you’re posh) vines come to fruition I may have a change of heart.
    No hope of parsing TRAINER so thanks loonapick.
    Finally it was good to see a mention of the great Jacques Tati in AGITATO. I remember being dragged to see Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday at the cinema in Kensington High Street in the 1970s and not being very amused about it, until the film started. A true clown in the best sense of the word.

11. A pleasant start to the week. Ripasso was LOI as I’d never heard of it. Didn’t parse Trainer which is quite clever. Is Sea Kelp a homophone impervious to regional accent? Thanks to Anto and loonapick.

12. Mostly enjoyable. I couldn’t parse TRAINER, and hadn’t heard of Jacques Tati until I went looking. I didn’t get OATES, and I pronounce “Titus” with a schwa in its second syllable. Doesn’t everyone? Also hadn’t heard of ripasso, but quite gettable from the wordplay. I carelessly had “aeroplane” for 3d at first, which held me up a bit.

13. I must be the only one who has heard of Titus Oates but never heard of a Mosh Pit. Too much lying in bed as the clocks went back yesterday has made my brain moshy. Kept putting the wrong words in (condemn for 17.. decided demn had something to do with indemnity) so that didn’t help at all.

14. Somehow managed to dredge TITUS from the memory banks – I think the exclamation mark hints at a degree of homophoneyness

    And great to see a reference to HMHB’s classic “Sponsoring the moshpits” from their underrated “Some call it godcore” album which didn’t appear in the HIT PARADE

    Great stuff from Anto and Loonapick

15. Re 23 across: for future reference for anyone who cares and/or in case it’s ever useful – in the culinary and horticultural worlds, a pea is a legume until it’s dried, at which point it becomes a pulse.

16. Thanks to Anto and loonapick. Some enjoyable clues. It was also good to read the blog to help with understanding some of the parses, though it was kind of reassuring to see that the same ones were a challenge for our blogger and many other solvers as well (12a TRAINER and 13a OATES). 26a TESTOSTERONE was clever. [PostMark@2, funnily enough, I wrote beside the clue for HIT PARADE at 15d, “Is there such a thing any more?]

17. Tough puzzle. About halfway through I was tempted to give up on it. Failed 13ac OATES – never would have solved this in a million years!

    Liked SEA KELP.

    I did not parse 12ac.

    New: RIPASSO.

    Thanks, both.

18. I finished this thinking: thank goodness it wasn’t in the Quiptic spot, where Anto’s crosswords are often published.

    Some tricksy clues and new vocabulary among the more straightforward fare. First in was SEA KELP, then not much until I reached the down clues and the lovely spot of MONOPLANE followed by the long anagrams down the sides. I did know Tati for AGITATO, but needed to have dredged the musical term up to work it out.

    In common with others I didn’t parse TRAINER, although that split word clue is used regularly enough, or OATES, although I did vaguely remember Oates and plots, it was one of my last two in, so I didn’t stop to dredge up Titus for the homophone. Not such a bad thing.

    My penultimate one in was RIPASSO, new to me, which I did parse after check buttoning my way through solving it.

    Thanks to loonapick and Anto.

19. I loved The homophones. Neither of them are exact for my own speech (I would sound the h in help, and have a slightly different vowel sound for Titus), but I am relaxed about that. I have always thought that homophones do not need to be exact (in crosswords), and expecting a homophone to suit everyone’s exact speech patterns would rule them out altogether.

    I give the same leeway to definitions.

20. Loved this although did not get OATES and NHO RIPASSO. Ticks for SEA KELP, REDRESS, RAGS TO RICHES and GARDEN OF EDEN which I guessed from the clues, no need to write out the letters for the anagram! Also liked TESTOSTERONE which I’d thought was an anagram till I noticed the absence of U. Thanks Anto and loonapick

21. Wikipedia: “A homophone (/?h?m?fo?n, ?ho?m?-/) is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning.”

22. I’m very glad I didn’t spend/waste my time with trying to fathom out how TRAINER could be arrived at, as it appeared to me to be the only possible combination of letters that fitted with all the crossers in place. Very tricky, and glad to see Loonapick’s explanation. One or two other head scratching moments, but therefore more of a Monday challenge than normal/usual…

23. For once the homophones didn’t bother me (the ones that I seriously dislike are those that reply on non-rhoticism). However I didn’t know RIPASSO and it’s not in Chambers. Also couldn’t parse TRAINER.

24. I even thought ‘legend broken up’ must be foot or ankle, but I still didn’t register for TRAINER, doh!

    I liked the patients getting high, SEA KELP, which as others have said is near enough, and SCUPPER for the interesting surface.

    Thanks Anto and loonapick.

25. The UK government’s online portal for tax, pension, passport, etc. allows me to use a passphrase as a login validation — “my voice is my password”. It works because each person has an individual voice print; nobody pronounces words (particularly in a joined-up sequence of words, rather than ‘citation’ pronunciation of a single word) in exactly the same way. The reason that this doesn’t totally confound speech communication within a language is because we use a system of discriminatory sounds, such that if you hear me say “car park” and your ear picks up two rhotic ‘r’ sounds in the phrase, you match that with your internal template of sound to word correspondences and recognise that there are no alternative English words which have that sequence of sounds other than “car” and “park”. The rhotic sounds in my speech do not discriminate between words in English. And so English speakers agree that my rhotic “car park” is equivalent (the same) as your non-rhotic “car park”. If I also add a sing-song intonation to my pronunciation of “car park” (as some speakers might), you will do exactly the same and hear “car park”. In Mandarin, it won’t work the same way.

26. Duh! that’s wrong — not online portal; it’s the telephone call centre that uses the passphrase, of course.

27. OATES – I may be some time? No. Joyce Carol? – Well, she has plots (but it says he). Can’t be anything else… NHO the right Oates, though. TRAINER – crossers plus the reference in 20d, but not a clue as to how the wordplay works. RIPASSO? NHO either. So, we got there in the end, after some fun on the way, but not the most pleasing of ends. Thanks, Anto and loonapick.

28. Thanks loonapick, my pdf print had an e-free Sooth in 23a but luckily didn’t impede solution, elsewhere I thought there were a couple of confusing extra words in linkage but nothing fatal.

    Failed on OATES which I had to look up – if you happen never to have heard of the man and his misdeed there’s no second way into the clue really, especially if the homophone wasn’t clear, unlike say 19d as observed above. (I might have somehow plucked it from somewhere if his namesake had instead been indicated by the cryptic def!)

    But I loved 12a, 18d and saw plenty of other evidence of Anto’s wit, thanks to him. Ps thanks also pserve_p2 for an interesting observation.

29. [PS forgot to praise 1 down, good example of my favourite type of clue. And for the many of us less familiar with the details, (Tim C await your appearance with produce at wine tasting festivals around europe) I found this diagram of ripasso vs amarone production interesting:

    https://www.wineandabout.com/basics/ripasso-amarone-methods/#.Y1-10nbMJdg ]

30. Thanks Anto and loonapick
    So much for easy Mondays! I found this the hardest puzzle I’ve done for ages. I wasn’t helped by never having heard of MOSH PIT, with the crossing 24a also emptily staring at me for ages.
    I gave 9a a very careful look because of its potential for ambiguity, then decided that the clue led to OPENING, so AGITATO was also a long time coming.
    I didn’t parse TRAINER or OATES either.
    I know quite a lot about wine, but I hadn’t heard of RIPASSO. Wiki tells me it’s quite a new technique, and it seems a waste as the leftover skins should be used to make grappa!

31. I really like Anto’s puzzles which usually feature playful and inventive clues. My favourite today was 3d MONOPLANE for the brilliant “Napoleon complex”.

    I don’t think I would have got 12a TRAINER unless I’d worked backwards from 20d TRAINEE, then figured out the parsing afterwards.

    I had no problem thinking of Titus OATES but entered Titus as the answer, while vaguely thinking it was a bit odd to refer to him by his first name. It was only getting 7d that put me right.

    One minor quibble. In 4d UBOAT, does “to serve on” work in the cryptic reading? Or is it just there for the surface?

    Many thanks Anto and loonapick.

32. Like muffin @30 I found this surprisingly tricky. Not because of unfamiliar vocab, as it happens (everything was in the memory bank, albeit with some words in dusty corners) but perhaps I was not firing on all neurones this morning.

    Nevertheless I enjoyed the variety of constructions and the good surfaces. BESEECH and ‘crave’ are not quite the same (you beseech someone but crave something) but close enough and the clue reads well. The def for TESTOSTERONE is a bit strange (supposedly?) but with a good charade. And should HIT PARADE have had an indication that the solution was an archaism, as others have mused? 🙂

    Thanks to S&B

33. Very enjoyable. New words in AGITATO (and pleased to see Jacques Tati get a mention) and RIPASSO. Liked especially INCUMBENT and ABSENCE. Didn’t parse TRAINER. Thanks Anto and Loonapick.

34. Spooner is alive and well!

35. Not finished – although wordplay gave RIPASSO it’s not in usual sources (Chambers, Collins, Oxford) had to use check to verify.

36. Gervase@32: BESEECH and ‘crave’? Er…. which crossword are you doing? Or have I missed something?

37. Thanks loonapick and Anto!
    Liked SEAKELP and TESTOSTERONE. But what is the connection between GAME and ON in 8a?

38. 8a How does ON = “game”?

    Apparently I’m not the only one who’s never heard of RIPASSO.

    Gazzh@29a How do you ferment dried grapes for Amarone?

    Thanks, Anto and loonapick.

39. pserve_p2 @36: BESEECH was in the Quiptic. Definitely not my day! 🙁

40. Valentine@38

    Re:Game – I too am struggling to come up with a phrase where GAME/ON are interchangeable, but the closest I can get is “I’m game” being roughly equal to “I’m on” (I.e. I’m willing to participate).

41. Thanks for the blog, I thought this was really good, MONOPLANE was my favourite. I thought TRAINER was fair enough , Anto tells us it is a Playtex clue, usually we get no indication . The only thing I know about Titus OATES is Popish Plot, and do not know any details but it was enough for the clue. RIPASSO is obscure for me but the clue was very fair.

42. Following Loonapick@40 , Chambers eventually gives ON = willing to participate in an activity, bet. It is very near the bottom of a very long paragraph containing meanings for ON .

43. I had vaguely heard of Titus Oates and definitely heard of Titus A Newt so the homophone caused me no distress.

44. I liked pserve_p2@25’s discussion of homophones, and I think it amounts to much the same as what I’ve been calling the substitution test. If we buy that, along with bc@21’s definition reference, we arrive at a place where rhoticism is irrelevant (it’s just one of many ways to vary) and we can accept anything that’s reasonably close. Especially as the setter is asserting it’s close to them.

45. I didn’t parse OATES but I did – and loved – TRAINER, my favourite along with MOSH PIT.

46. Thanks Anto for an excellent crossword. My top choices were SEA KELP, APHRODITE, INCUMBENT, APPEASE, U-BOAT (great surface), CHIANTI, RAGS TO RICHES, and RIPASSO. As a big fan of Italian wines I’ve had many bottles made by the RIPASSO method. I only guessed OATES and TRAINER and never could have parsed either. Thanks loonapick for the blog.

47. Memories of Titus the newt got me to 13A – via TITUS, fixed by 7D, as for others here. (It was my father-in-law’s paper, honest.) Grateful to loonapick for the parse of 12A, although 20D helped in bunging in the answer.
    Hard but fair, I thought – thanks to Anto.

48. Definitely chewier than the Quiptic, so all is well in that regard. I join the chorus of not having heard of RIPASSO. I thought SEA KELP was marvellous.

    One day a homophone clue will pass without comment. Today is not that day…

    Thanks both!

49. [Valentine@38 i can only assume they are not completely dry by that point, and of course the sugar is still there and even more concentrated so the resulting wine is quite boozy. There is a winemaker here in NE Switzerland who has tried the same technique as an experiment, but he can only do it in very good years when the grapes are presumably extra juicy.]

50. Titus? (Groan!)

51. [TassieTim@50 – have we reached the Peake of Titus references?]

52. Very enjoyable, just failed on TESTOSTERONE.
    Thanks both.

53. Coming a bit late to this discussion, I thought this was perhaps a bit demanding for a Monday but quite fair; and there were a number of clues which I really enjoyed: ABANDON (seemed clever with a neat surface, though I admit game = on is a bit of a stretch); OATES (I was familiar with the conspirator and thought the homophone was delectably appalling); SCUPPER; NERDS.
    I didn’t know RIPASSO but got it from the wordplay, which is what I ask for an unfamiliar word. Muffin @30 observes that the skins should really be used for making grappa; which reminds me of holidaying in Sorrento once, where among the various versions of coffee one could buy was a corretto, being an espresso “corrected” with a shot of grappa. Excellent idea…
    Ta both.

54. Even if, as has been pointed out, it’s the twenty-somethingth entry in Chambers, I’m still uncomfortable with ON/GAME.

55. TassieTim @27 (and others). The doomed companions on Scott’s march back from the south pole all referred to Captain Oates as “Titus”. When I first read this I had no idea who Titus Oates was, so I had to find out. That was about 40 years ago, and this crossword is the first time the information has been of any use to me.

    I wish I had had similar GK to help me with RIPASSO!

    Thanks to Anto a& loonapick.

56. I thought the difficulty of this was very uneven. Some long answers like GARDEN OF EDEN and APHRODITE were almost gimmes for me, but the ones I didn’t know I wouldn’t have gotten in a million years. Never heard of OATES and didn’t know RIPASSO despite living in wine country (never cared much for the fruit of the vine myself). Too hard for a Monday in my opinion, but I’m a newbie solver so I’m bound to get wrecked with some frequency by a puzzle not on my wavelength. Thanks Anto and loonapick.

57. Must be a very narrow age band that would be familiar with both ‘mosh pit’ and ‘hit parade’

58. Tripped up on HANDS IN – I had ‘hands on’ (hand + son), figuring that a son could be a pride and joy, or potentially in the lion’s family, and ‘to hand on’ or pass over. I didn’t think it was much cop, but I completely forgot that pride is a sin …

    OATES was dredged from the memory bank and RIPASSO was new to me.

    I loved SEA KELP and OPINING but my COD was INCUMBENT.

59. The homoiophone (thanks essexboy) in 13a OATES came to me not as “tight as” (as loonapick said) but as “tight-ass”, meaning stingy in North American slang. Either way, it was a tricky clue that needed help from my encyclopedia to parse.

    As others have opined, this was harder than usual for a Monday. I have a stepson and daughter-in-law who are just starting out on cryptics, and I printed off this one with the Quiptic for their long drive home today. I hope Anto hasn’t discouraged them. Nevertheless,
    I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle, so thanks Anto and loonapick.

    [ Thanks TimC@10 for the Tati traffic cop video. I have all his films on DVD, but I hadn’t seen this clip before. If his humour remains popular, there is hope for the human race. ]

60. Many people complain that the Monday cryptic is much too easy. This one wasn’t. If I’ve ever heard of Titus Oates I’ve long since forgotten him. Not heard of the wine making technique. And the trainer as someone who covers your leg? Give me a break. Stared at all these for a very long time with no success. Got nearly everything else but on a Monday reckon to finish it.

61. Gliddofglood @60. You’re not the only one to have never heard of Titus Oates! Strangely, when searching for something else in the archive today I came across an appearance in the wordplay of a clue (‘one inventing a plot, reported’=OATS) less than three months ago.

    I think the TRAINER is an athletic shoe that covers the ‘end’ of the ‘leg’ (or ‘legend’).

Comments are closed.