Guardian Cryptic 28,934 by Matilda

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A nice puzzle – I found it tough to finish after a quick start. Favourites were 21ac, 27ac, 2dn, and 13dn. Thanks to Matilda

…there is a theme of ERRORS: MISTAKE, BLOOMER, TYPO, ABERRATION, MISPRINT, LAPSE

ACROSS
1 MISTAKE
Prepare to admit first blunder (7)

MAKE="Prepare" around IST=1st="first"
5 BLOOMER
Nice sea colour, one might say, appearing first in rose? (7)

"Nice" as in the French city

MER=French word for "sea", with BLOO which sounds like 'blue'="colour, one might say" appearing first
9 LIEGE
Lord, say, implicated in falsehood (5)

EG=e.g.="say" inside LIE="falsehood"
10 TRAVERSED
Came across Ted welcoming partygoers (9)

TED around RAVERS="partygoers"
11 WATER NYMPH
Daphne‘s hen party planned with film crew at the end (5,5)

in Greek mythology, Daphne is a naiad or water nymph

anagram/"planned" of (hen party m w)*, with the m and w coming from fil-m cre-w
12 IRON
First newspaper of record is back in press (4)

first letters of N-ewspaper O-f R-ecord I-s, all reversed/"back"
14 TABLE TENNIS
Bleat about return of evil after X game (5,6)

anagram/"about" of (Bleat)*, with reversal/"return" of SIN="evil" after TEN=X (Roman numeral)
18, 20 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
Yes, doctor: from here, operating theatre work (3,6,2,6)

The Comedy of Errors is a Shakespeare play

anagram/"operating" of (Yes doctor from here)*
21 TYPO
The Grauniad may be involved in party politics (4)

hidden/"involved" in par-TY PO-litics
22 WELLINEVER
I’m surprised to be truly engaged, always (4,1,5)

WELL="truly" + IN="engaged" + EVER="always"
25 HALTER TOP
In dance, change one type of shirt for another, more revealing (6,3)

definition: a type of shirt that does not cover the arms or the upper back

in HOP="dance", insert: ALTER="change" + T="one type of shirt", as in a t-shirt
26 LINGO
‘Glo’, so to speak? (5)

'Glo' is the letter 'L' inside 'Go', or L IN GO
27 SENATOR
No good reason to accept Tory leader as a politician (7)

anagram/"No good" of (reason)* around T-ory
28 ENDLESS
Steel bands bat out composition like Schubert’s 8th symphony? (7)

Schubert's 8th symphony is known as 'Unfinished'

anagram/"composition" of (Steel bands)*, with the letters from 'bat' taken "out"
DOWN
1 MALAWI
A Western invasion of one African country or another (6)

A + W (Western), both inside MALI="African country"
2 SIESTA
Sleep in the cosiest apartment (6)

hidden in the co-SIEST A-partment
3 ABERRATION
Something not right with helping to chase grizzly bear (10)

RATION=portion="helping", after anagram/"grizzly" of (bear)*
4 ENTRY
Gatekeeper won’t begin to show the way in (5)

s-ENTRY="Gatekeeper", without its beginning / first letter

I initially parsed the clue as asking for the removal of the beginning letter of s-how
5 BLASPHEMY
Wobbling shapely bum? Heartless and an unacceptable thing to say (9)

anagram/"Wobbling" of (shapely bm)*, with bm from 'bum, heartless'
6, 24 OVERHEAT
Lovers remove clothing and cheat, but not starting to get too excited (8)

l-OVER-s without the clothing/outer letters, plus c-HEAT without the starting letter
7 MISPRINT
Road race 21 (8)

21ac is TYPO

MI=M1 motorway="Road" + SPRINT="race"
8 RUDENESS
Introducing dodgy equipment at first to working nurses shows disrespect (8)

insertion of D-odgy E-quipment into anagram/"working" of (nurses)*
13 NEWFANGLED
Modern teething result went first (10)

NEW FANG="teething result" + LED="went first"
15 BEEFEATER
Soldier‘s beer drinking exploit with Elizabeth the first (9)

BEER, around both of: FEAT="exploit" and E-lizabeth
16 STITCHES
Laughing in these, slip, running? (8)

to be 'in STITCHES' is to be laughing, and "slip" and "running" are two examples of STITCHES in crochet and sewing
17 ZEPPELIN
Led with this rock band flyer (8)

reference to the rock band Led Zeppelin
19 AVENGE
Get even with travel agency management centres (6)

the central letters of tr-AV-el ag-EN-cy mana-GE-ment
20
See 18

23 LAPSE
End of chapel and end of church showing gap (5)

chape-L + APSE="end of church"
24
See 6

58 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,934 by Matilda”

  1. A fine array of cryptic devices and some fine and amusing surface readings. Liked this a lot. Thanks Matilda and Manehi

  2. I couldn’t parse STITCHES, as I’m not into sewing. Everything else fell into place smoothly and was very enjoyable. No obscurities and no pesky British rivers! My favourite was BLOOME4.

    Thanks Matilda & manehi.

  5. Like manehi, I got off to a racing start before getting a bit bogged down. Beefeater=soldier seems a bit of a stretch to me and was my last one in. A brief glance at wikipedia tells me they are retired soldiers; I guess they were probably active soldiers in the past.

  6. Thank you manehi.
    Loved TYPO, for the double whammy of the Grauniad joke, and being involved in party politics.
    Humour amongst friends.
    And STITCHES. I remember my sewing class days. I never did get past the slip and running stitch. Oh, and blanket as well. Still got my sewing box or whatever you call them. Didn’t know étui until I found cryptics.

  8. It also took me an age to finish despite a quick start and half of the grid filled in.
    I liked TYPO and ended up kicking myself on the p (or d) finally dropping on the very nice ZEPPELIN.

  9. We thought STITCHES were what you get when you run too much – not so sure about the slip, though. This was enjoyable, with TRAVERSED, THE COMEDY OF ERRORS (we saw this recently – and what an anagram), NEWFANGLED, ZEPPELIN (terrific band) all great. Thanks, Matilda and manehi.

  10. I loved this. A nice array of cryptic devices and, I thought, every clue was fair. Enjoyed Typo, Halter Top and The C of E. Now for some nice loud Led Zep!!
    Thanks Matilda and manehi.

  11. If it’d had ‘blanket’ I might have parsed, rather than bunged, stitches. But some good chuckles … new fang indeed! Nice dark e-game fodder for the innocent table tennis. And bloo mer and L in go were pretty cute. Nice waltz Matilda, ta, and ta manehi.

  13. As for typos, what I’ve said before, print journos have been under the ec-rat/digital siege for ages and, along with the rest of the precariat, have my sympathy …

  14. Again, just the right balance of some easy stuff to start with and getting chewier towards the end. Some delightful surfaces, notably 1a, 9a, 21a, 27a, 8d (is there a subsidiary theme going on…?). And one which deserves immortality – I shall never be able to think of BLASPHEMY again without visualising a wobbling shapely bum.
    Thanks both.

  16. Enjoyed this, all except IRON. Perfectly getable clue but not keen on the device “First newspaper etc…”. If you’re after the N, then it’s the firstof newspaper.

    I’ll get my coat…

  17. Enjoyed this very much. I was doing blanket stitch only yesterday, to try to mend a t-shirt (it can help prevent fraying). Thank you Matilda, although I got the theme a bit late, it did help with lapse and comedy of errors, my last ones in. Thanks manehi for parsing lingo, and thanks paddymelon@6 for introducing me to e`tui which I had to look up! (And my iPad won’t do accents although my Mac does, what’s that about?)

  18. Nicely balanced crossword this morning. Found my brain PLANTed on the same PAGE as Matilda.
    Thanks Maltilda and manehi

  19. Quite delightful from start to finish. I’m totally with NeilH @14. Very few clues didn’t gain a tick from me.

    Josh Rubin @12 – I thought of a grizzly child, one who tends to grizzle (Collins ‘fret, whine, sulk, grumble’.)

    Many thanks to Matilda and manehi.

  20. Josh Rubin@12: me neither… despite Eileen’s suggestion @19. I think Matilda is conflating ‘grisly’ with ‘grizzly’ for the surface collocation with ‘bear’.

  22. A delightful puzzle from a setter who is not very familiar to me. Without going into detail, I’ll just say that I really enjoyed the ingenuity and humour evident in so many of the clues.

    Many thanks to Matilda and Manehi.

  24. Agree with the praise for this terrific crossword. A very good challenge. All my favourites have been mentioned. I did love Flea’s comment @18, which gave me a smile by cleverly referencing one of the best bands ever as clued at 17d.

  26. Entertaining puzzle with some amusing constructions and surfaces. I’m always relaxed about anagrinds, so ‘grizzly’ didn’t bother me, but my LOI was IRON – like William @16 I’m not keen on the wording here.

    Thanks to S&B

  27. Matilda has a real gift for clever and often amusing surfaces: MISTAKE, TYPO, and BLASPHEMY for instance. Loved COMEDY OF ERRORS, LINGO and NEWFANGLED.
    I parsed IRON as N(ewspaper) Of R(ecord) 1 (first) – all reversed. I think manehi has the right way to do it, but mine worked for me.

  28. Thanks for the blog, I liked LINGO, TABLE TENNIS and HALTER TOP.
    I think some clues gave far too much away in the word play, TED in 10AC , lOVERs and cHEAT in 6,24 , BEER in 15D . It would be nice to think for ourselves for once.

  29. When I first started doing cryptics, I was always pleased to see Matilda pop up in the Quiptic slot, as she seemed to have mastered the brief more than most. This was still accessible but fun. I toyed with BLOOMED for BLOOMER as the Nice sea is also the Med. Flea@18 It’s always nice to see a joke that doesn’t go down like a lead balloon.

  30. Like manehi, I started quickly with the top half solved, but then the bottom half took more rumination.

    I liked ENDLESS, although I had to check Schubert’s 8th, after thinking it might just be T. The ODE gives this for grizzly: ‘The words grisly and grizzly are quite different in meaning, though often confused. Grisly means ‘causing horror or disgust’, as in grisly crimes, whereas grizzly is chiefly used with reference to a kind of large American bear, and can also mean ‘grey or grey-haired’.’ I still quite liked the clue though. I also enjoyed BLASPHEMY’s ‘wobbling shapely bum’.

    Thanks Matilda and manehi.

  31. Really liked this: there were some very good surfaces, some quite amusing, so at a bit of a stretch you could say this was a COMEDY OF ERRORS itself.

  33. 19d AVENGE doesn’t quite mean “get even.” If you avenge a wrong you aren’t getting it even; “avenge” has to be transitive and “get even” has to be intransitive. There isn’t a sentence in which both will work.

    I finished this last night — always a bit disappointing, since I have nothing to chew over in the morning. But I enjoyed it, especially Led Zeppelin.

    Thanks, Matilda and manehi.

  35. What Roz @28 said + I liked NEWFANGLED as it’s an old-fashioned word that means modern – blimey I’m easily pleased 🙂

  36. Thanks, Matilda & Manehi. Like everyone else, I found this lots of fun.

    I’m another who raised an eyebrow at “grizzly” but decided it just about passes muster with the bad-tempered meaning, as per Eileen’s comment @19. (Perhaps this meaning is derived from the temperament of a grizzly bear, though I believe grizzly as applied to bears originally meant grey.)

  37. Ravenrider @5 If anybody doubts whether Beefeaters are real soldiers they need only try pulling some shenanigans at the Tower…

  38. Thanks Matilda and manehi
    Fun puzzle. Like Crispy, favourites were LINGO and NEWFANGLED.
    I laughed at BLOOMER, but I don’t think it quite works, as it should start “bleu”, or even “azur”, surely?

  39. Thanks manehi as I didn’t know the stitches (but do know blanket, like many above, why is that?). Agree this was a lot of fun and not too easy either, failed to spot the multiple synonyms, from my first 2 in I did wonder if there might be a Brendan tribute as 1d reads like one of his and 11a refers to classical myth which he often does.
    Muffin@38: you can separate the “Nice sea” and “colour, one might say, appearing first”: exactly as manehi does in the blog in fact!
    Thanks Matilda for another excellent crossword.

  40. Fun crossword, mostly a quick solve except a couple that held me up esp the parsing of STITCHES until the penny finally dropped which then gave me HALTER TOP my LOI

    Liked BLOOMER and NEWFANGLED

    Thanks Matilda and manehi

  41. Unlike Roz, I found that supplying the actual words to be operated on flummoxes experienced solvers, as we tend to try to think of a synonym and then perform the operation. If you mix in a few clues like this with mostly more difficult clues, the puzzle will seem harder.
    I finished pretty easily, but never saw the cryptic for senator, the obvious answer.

  42. Like Petert @29, I had Bloo/Blue Med(iterranean) in for a while before I realised the error of my ways. All very straightforward, I thought, but none the less enjoyable for that. Loved the way Grauniad/Groaniad and TYPO tied up with MISPRINT. Many thanks Matilda and Manehi today…

  43. This seemed quite gentle for the most part. I very much enjoyed the NEW FANG as teething result. For 26, I was obsessed with IGLOO as the answer but couldn’t figure it out (of course). Finally got the crossers to sort the real answer out.
    I like grizzly as an anagrind. To me, a grizzly child is one that’s out of sorts or fractious and those last two seem perfect as anagrinds to me.
    Thanks, M and m.

  45. Sorry, Eileen @44, for not acknowledging your comment. I saw it and was trying to expand on it further. My bad!

  46. Not at all – I was just glad that someone else saw it as I did! The verb to grizzle has a separate entry in Collins – nothing to do with ‘grisly’ or ‘grey’. (It doesn’t give ‘grizzly’ as an adjective within that definition though – but I’ve certainly heard it applied to children!)

  48. A satisfyingly challenging puzzle, though like others I was quick to start and slow to finish. Two minor grumbles though: IRON’s unsatisfactory letter indicator, as mentioned by some already; and LINGO: I don’t have an issue with such rebus/Dingbat-style clues per se, but they work well when they use real words, of which ‘glo’ is not one…

    Thanks both!

  52. Eileen @46 – that definition of grizzly has its own entry in the OED, separate to the grey meaning. As you rightly surmise, it’s derived from the verb grizzle, which is apparently 18th-century southern English dialect. (The grey meaning is *much* older – anyone who speaks a bit of French can guess where that comes from, so they appear to be entirely unrelated.)

    I agree it’s almost certainly not a case of Matilda mixing up grizzly and grisly.

  53. Can’t claim to have pegged the theme in the solving but mention of it in the Graun comments made me look & it was pretty obvious. Last 2 in for me were STITCHES & HALTER TOP – in took 2 stabs to settle on the latter giving me the checker that made the former obvious. Otherwise pretty straightforward & enjoyable fun.
    Thanks both

  54. Thanks Matilda for the amusement. My favourites were LINGO, ABERRATION, MISPRINT, and BEEFEATER. I got to this late and didn’t take the time to see THE COMEDY OF ERRORS theme. Thanks manehi for the blog.

  56. You left me in suspense anyway Lewis@55 if no one else.
    For my part I have yet to look up HALTER TOP but I must have heard the term somewhere. Otherwise some old favourites in this one and pretty straightforward.
    Thanks Matilda and manehi

  57. Me too Lewis@55. And the story is…. ? A lot happened in 1968.

    ttf@56. I wouldn’t look up a halter top. It’s only the ones who can wear one, who wear one, so not much to look at, maybe?

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