Guardian 28,958 / Anto

78 comments on “Guardian 28,958 / Anto”

1. Quite enjoyed this, although the fact I finished it fairly swiftly suggests that it’s easier than the usual fare in the Cryptic slot. I’m not sure I see the point in the ellipses between 1ac and 5ac. There’s also a rogue apostrophe in 5d which I spent some time thinking was a hint but seems to merely be an error.

   BABY ON BOARD made me chuckle when the penny dropped. Thanks Anto and Eileen!

2. Felt a bit Anto redux – not as many “out there” clues as usual. Then again I’ve got the ubiquitous flu so maybe my marbles are scrambled

   Cheers A&E

3. Another fairly straightforward solve. I parsed AGHAST as Eileen did.

   I liked ABSTRUSELY. I wondered about the left handed boxer too.

   Thanks Anto and Eileen

4. I parsed AGHAST the same way as Eileen & AL did. Can’t see any loose ends.

   SOUTHPAW: Isn’t it a single word?

5. Perhaps more typical of a Monday, but some nice clues. I failed on 17d; cryptic defs are always tricky if you’ve never heard of the definition because there is nothing to fall back on. I also failed on 10ac despite having gro?house because I’ve never heard of it and I was fixated on the complaint fitting as gr???ouse so couldn’t make sense of a health organisation o?h

6. DROP SCONE:
   Is it to be taken as an extended definition/ semi&lit?

7. I really enjoyed this, especially 14 and 18 ac. My inner punctuation pedant popped out when I realised; like Lovable Jim @5, that the apostrophe in 5d was an error. I can’t stand these looser’s who get it wrong…

8. A South Paw boxer is left-handed, so stands with his right hand forward, with the left hand back to punch with. Not that I’m an expert on boxing! I think Eileen is correct on the parsing of AGHAST as well. Didn’t notice the rogue apostrophe in 5d, which was one of my last entries. GROW HOUSE was a new term to me as well. 17d took me far too long. I thought this was tougher than other ANTO entries, but perhaps I just wasn’t on the right wavelength. Liked the anagram in 18 and the reference in 4d. Thanks to Anto and Eileen for the blog.

9. I think the southpaw clue is all topsy turvy (and hence my LOI). It’s always one word, I believe, and in boxing a southpaw would lead with their right hand. The whole word has been used to mean left handed but the clue is surely about boxing (in a fight). But pretty much a write in otherwise.

10. Monday fare, but some nice anagrams. Nho GROW HOUSE or PAY DIRT, but fair enough from the clueing. Didn’t realise that DEAR JOHN was a US thing, but Eileen’s link seems to settle it…

11. Pretty easy for an Anto. I did my usual thing for 10 of not seeing that an internal component could have a letter that it shares with its envelope at either end, and hence tried to figure out what OWH was – there’s an organisation in the USA called the Office on Women’s Health, which was close enough, although seeing it here as WHO instead was a bit of a d’oh moment.

12. I like Anto and this was another enjoyable puzzle. Also parsed AGHAST as Eileen and liked the anagrams she refers to (although your numbering is a bit awry in your preamble E). Looked for a bit of a Radiohead theme with BABY’s (ON BOARD) got THE BENDS and allegedly you have to be a NERD to listen to them. DEAR JOHN held out longest and no need for lavatorial humour. SOUTH PAW and ABSTRUSELY were my favourites. Tired of seeing EVITA yet again though.

    Ta Anto & Eileen.

13. V. enjoyable. My favourite was the SOUTHPAW (I can’t tell left from right so wasn’t bothered if it was strictly correct!) cryptic def closely followed by THE FOGGIEST.

    I remember DEAR JOHN as a BBC 1980’s so-called sitcom which was more sad than it was funny (but none the worse for that) and looking it up now, I see there was an American spin-off.

    Thanks to Anto and Eileen

14. An enjoyable divertissement, thank you, Anto. I didn’t think virile and stout were one and the same. I tried very hard to find a health group with initials OWH in 10a, and after much searching found Office of Women’s Health, part of America’s CDC. I didn’t even notice WHO staring me in the face. D’oh.

    I hadn’t heard of a grow house either. Nor a drop scone. Is that one you pick up from the floor after a mishap?

15. GDU@14
    LOL. Enjoyed your comments.

16. MACO89 @ 11, I see you made the same mistake with 10a!

17. Thanks, AlanC @12 – no idea what happened there. Will fix it now.

18. Pay dirt was a dnk for a couple of G-threaders too, Eileen. To me it’s quite familiar but I have no idea how … echoes of old Westerns perhaps. From low to high culture, Goethe’s gift was wunderbah, my cod; and then back again to the hard-working Evita. I liked Genesis, (though ‘genes making us who we are’ could spark the perennial nature-nurture debate). Lots of interest, thanks to Anto and thanks Eileen.

19. Didn’t know that meaning of GROW HOUSE (I own a growhouse in the usual sense of a cheap plastic greenhouse for getting geraniums through the winter). Liked ELGIN, THE FOGGIEST and BABY ON BOARD.

20. Dear John was familiar but again dnk where from … Mailer’s The Naked and The Dead maybe.

21. What is Anto on? GROW HOUSE. Acid drops in ADDS. DROPS CONE? I haven’t THE FOGGIEST (Goethe’s gift wasted(favourite clue).

22. grantinfreo@20 You may be thinking of the Dear John which was a Pat Boone hit in the 60s; Taylor Swift also had one of the same title, but different lyrics, I think

23. Reproduce my notes…
    20d – Can’t parse
    28a – odd definition?
    19a – never heard of it
    1d – never heard of it
    16d – never heard of it
    17d – Why the US?

    Just had to reveal 17d, when I read the blog, I’m sure all will become clear…
    Thanks both.

24. Today’s earworm. DEAR JOHN. Does anyone else remember this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMueKWzG0WE

25. Dave Ellison@22. We crossed. The link I posted@24 is older than Pat Boone’s, but he’s got a much better voice. Strangely, I remember the other one.

26. Enjoyed this. I couldn’t parse Aghast but it had to be the answer. As film buff I’m more than familiar with Dear John and Pay Dirt, they are almost cliches in some film genres ( the joys of a misspent youth )
    Thanks Anto & Eileen

27. As I’ve said before, I think Anto has improved markedly with time. There seemed to be a lot of anagrams, but on counting I believe there are only six, which is within acceptable limits.

    I liked the definition for BABY ON BOARD. It’s a pity that SOUTHPAW is a right leader. I am another embarrassed to say that I also looked up OWH, doh!

    Thanks Anto and Eileen.

28. Thanks Anto and Eileen
    Anto has come in for quite a bit of criticism in the Quiptic slot, but I thought this was one of his best. I loved BABY ON BOARD and THE FOGGIEST.

29. I liked THE FOGGIEST too. SOUTHPAW is fine as Tomsdad has pointed out. A lefthander leads with the right in the same way as a left-handed batsman stands with the right side facing the bowler.

30. Tough puzzle. Failed 17d.

    Liked: THE FOGGIEST, UNASSUMING.

    New for me: ABBACY, GROW HOUSE.

    I did not parse the AG bit of 20d; 5d DROPS CONE but why the word ‘go’?

    Thanks, both.

31. michelle@30 5d I would say the definition is the whole clue. I think the idea is if you eat too many scones, your sylph like figure would go

32. As a British immigrant to the US all of these were familiar to me, including GROW HOUSE, typically used for weed; and PAY DIRT, which has evolved from its literal origins to mean a monetary windfall or financial payoff in general.

    SOUTHPAW seems to reward knowing a little about boxing but not too much.

    BROAD BEAN was last in, even though I had BROAD and _E_N I was stumped for a while!

33. Sorry. I see the problem with SOUTHPAW now. I didn’t read the clue properly.

34. Yep, ‘Dear John, how I hate to write’ sounds very familiar, so did the war lit guys like Mailer get it from the song, or …?

35. Sorry Kva@5 I see you had hinted at this already. I hadn’t, when solving, seen the CONE idea, so I think this turns it into a very clever clue, not yet been appreciated enough.

36. michelle@30
    Seen the comment@31.
    Please see my question@6.

    My view: ‘Lets shape go’ be taken as one block of wordplay to mean ‘drops cone’.
    Then the whole clue is the definition as DE@31 says.
    Maybe semi&lit or extended def, whatever one calls it.

37. DE@35
    Now I am sorry 🙂

38. Thanks, Anto & Eileen. I often find Anto quite tricky (largely because of the “creative” definitions) but got on quite well with this one today – which I assumed was because I was on his wavelength for once, but I see others are suggesting it’s because it’s an easy one. Oh well! Enjoyed it either way – agree with you, Eileen, that the anagrams are neat, and it’s all done with his usual sense of fun/mischief.

    PAY DIRT is a familiar phrase to me but I didn’t know the specific gold prospecting meaning, so thanks for the enlightenment. Like Wordplodder @13, I know DEAR JOHN from the wonderfully bittersweet 80s sitcom with Ralph Bates – which I remember very fondly. It’s not one I’ve ever seen repeated – wonder if it’s one of those that was too much of its time for modern tastes…

    I would have assumed GROW HOUSE to be a synonym for greenhouse… Anto does like his “edgy” references, doesn’t he? But unlike paddymelon @21, I’m taking acid drops to be a reference to the sweets rather than the drugs.

39. Thanks Eileen, I remember reading about a 10A in my parents’ local paper years ago but never knew they had a special name, had the same thinking as you for 20d (I suppose Tension makes a change from temperature) and am relieved that it’s not just me querying 7d and the rogue apostrophe. Likewise not alone in being indebted to the fantastic sitcom for 17d (i still like to drop the obvious catchphrases into conversation when opportunity presents itself) – and overall found this another enjoyable outing from Anto, thanks to him.

40. Widdersbel @38 – From memory, Dear John, was written by John Sullivan of OFAH and Citizen Smith fame. It was rather good as you would expect.
    Ralph Bates featured in many of the cheesy Hammer horror films of the 60’s, he invariably ended up with Christopher Lee’s fangs in his Gregory.

41. My experience mimics Michelle @30 except pay dirt was also new to me.
    Thanks all. Lovely sunny morning, nice walk in Botanic Gardens.
    Happy New Year!

42. I don’t understand why poor Anto often comes in for “damming with faint praise”, for I rather enjoy his/her stuff. There were some real beauties in this one: BABY ON BOARD was delightful, THE FOGGIEST was a neat anagram, and ACHE was one of those short clues that ought to be easy but had me staring blankly for ages before the penny dropped. DEAR JOHN was also pleasing – and reminded me of former MP Neil Parish, who was forced to resign recently after being caught watching online porn in the House Of Commons; he said it was accidental & he’d been looking for a website about tractors – one wag promptly commented that Parish’s wife later sent him a John Deere letter…
    Many thanks to Anto & Eileen

43. HIYD – Citizen Smith! Wow! That’s a real blast from the past. Didn’t know about the John Sullivan connection, thanks for the info.

    Wellbeck – the (recurring) problem with Anto (he’s a he, by the way) is his tendency, as Eileen mentions in her preamble, to be a bit loose with his definitions, which can make his clues much harder to solve than they need to be. Take “it’s showing green”, for example – rather oblique as a definition for BROAD BEAN, no? And several commenters today have mentioned this as being a clue they struggled with. On the positive side, I do enjoy Anto’s playfulness that leads to him coming up with definitions like “junior executive”, which made me smile.

44. Not much to add to what’s come before, as ever with Anto very enjoyable with some lovely clues and anagrams especially.
    @widdersbel yes I thought of the sitcom too 🙂
    Thanks Eileen for the blog and Anto for the puzzle
    ~ Matt

45. Hi all, just finished convincing my Mum not to chuck a half-jar of crystallised honey.

    Compared to some of you, I’m afraid to say that I’m fully aware of GROW HOUSE, but didn’t get it because I’ve never heard of ‘grouse’ used in that context. Probably due to my youth and University companions.
    Glad that there were quite a few anagrams here; made it a bit easier for me.
    Also never heard of VIRILE = stout. Learned a lot though!

    Thanks everyone!

46. W @43 I did wonder if the definition for BROAD BEAN was actually just GREEN with “it’s showing” simply a link (or introduction to the def). He does a similar thing with ABBACY and “to establish”

47. [Oh lovely, Wellbeck @42, such memories! The father of my ’70s girlfriend was an engineer with the local branch of John Deere. A John Bircher, he and family came to remote 0z to escape Commies and hippies, poor things 🙂 . Of course, their three daughters (all drop-dead gorgeous) took up with the ratbag sons of three of Perth’s most radically Left families!]

48. bd @46 – my interpretation exactly. Some setters use wordy links more than others, but ‘showing’ is a bit of tell for a link word in my (limited) experience.

49. bodycheetah and Rob T, re 25ac: I was struggling to make sense of this. Are you saying that ‘green’ (= vegetable) is the definition? Do we really use the singular of ‘greens in this way’? I don’t think I’ve ever seen / heard it.

50. This puzzle was more American than usual, with SOUTHPAW, GROW HOUSE, and PAYDIRT being donations to the language from this side of the pond, in addition to (apparently) the Dear John letter.

    SOUTHPAW (which I didn’t get because of the dodgy enumeration–it’s one word, folks) is more familiar in baseball than boxing. A folk etymology holds that since baseball diamonds are generally laid out with the batter facing east or northeast (so as not to be blinded by the adternoon sun), a left-handed pitcher, facing west, has his throwing arm to the south. But the dictionary debunks this.

    I’m another who looked at OWH trying to make that a health organization. Oops.

    Thanks to Eileen for elucidations and Anto for the challenges.

51. Merriam-Webster when queried for synonyms of STOUT configures VIRILE in its list.
    Although The Crossword is a written form, I’m surprised nobody has started a debate about this : ( we do have 15^2 earworms of course ) :

    This is my form and research seems to show that our late queen and Alexa are lined up !
    ( Outside the scope of today’s offering but the debate would never stop if a second scone vibe were added – ” layer jam on or clotted cream on, as a first application ” )
    Regarding DROP SCONEs, you can bypass all this, when speaking, merely referencing “Scotch Pancakes” – and just butter goes on, to my preference !
    Ta Anto and Eileen
    PS Where’s Roz today ? The well-known Phil Collins fan, GENESIS being one of the answers.

52. Fair enough, bodycheetah, your interpretation is convincing – I guess my confusion is down to being more used to seeing greens in the plural for this sense.

53. Eileen @49 and Widders @52 – yes, ‘greens’ as plural is what actually gets used in English (backed up by dictionaries) but I still think this explanation is more plausible than identifying “it’s showing green” as a definition, which is odder 🙂

54. Oh, another comment: didn’t a prize puzzle a couple weeks back have RIMINI clued in almost the same way? (And knowing that, couldn’t the editor have suggested that Anto sub in, say, Bikini or Bimini? (Bimini has the benefit of also being a resort, and could easily be clued as something along the lines of “Swinging little resort in the Bahamas (6)”. Bikini is, of course, uh, not a resort.)

55. I’m of similar mind to bodycheetah & Rob T. Broad beans are greens, but to me a broad bean is therefore a green. Who has a portion of broad bean?
    I’m also quite surprised how many others, like me, couldn’t see the woods for the trees in10a. I didn’t get as far as searching for OWH on t’internet, but steadfastly ignored the possibility that the split in grouse might follow the O, not the R.
    Southpaw has to be one word for me.
    Good fun though. Thanks to Anto & Eileen.

56. Well, Rob, as I implied, I wasn’t happy with ‘it’s showing’, either. 🙁

57. Eileen @49: ‘Greengrocer’? Would that work?

58. Alphalpha – now we’re back to the rogue apostrophe. 😉

59. All good fun. I’m don’t know why “some” is there in 19. Doesn’t seem to help the surface at all and doesn’t contribute to the definition or wordplay. Or is it that the edge is a BRIM and some means take only part of it??
    Belated Happy New Year, one and all!
    Thanks, E and A.

60. P@59 Yes – well spotted – it could well be (B)RIM. Might get a Paddington stare from some quarters but not from me 🙂

61. MrPenney @50 Thanks for the education about SOUTHPAW and baseball. It may be more commonly linked with that sport than with boxing on your side of the pond, but elsewhere it’s a boxing term well known to anyone who pays more than passing attention to the Noble Art. Baseball is very much a minority interest in the UK, but the left-handers in my family (all female and none of them pugilists or baseball players) are all known as southpaws: wherever the term started, I’d say it’s pretty widely understood outside the sporting world these days. Our setter has goofed slightly though, as others have pointed out: orthodox boxers have their right glove forward in their usual stance; a southpaw (left-handed) boxer leads with his right.

62. Oops! And I’ve goofed as well! Orthodox boxers in their usual stance, of course, have the left glove forward.

63. I led with my right albeit right handed and was called a southpaw

64. phitonelly @59 and bodycheetah @60, if you’re still there (I’m almost hoping you’re not!).
    I’ve pondered long and hard over whether to pursue this – and I may regret it – but I really can’t buy that!
    (Collins: ‘rim, the raised edge of an object…’
    ‘brim, the upper rim of a vessel…’)
    Are you seriously suggesting that Anto is asking us to think of a word, RIM, for ‘edge’, then add a letter [b] to produce a word that means virtually the same thing, in order to delete it, to justify unnecessary verbiage (‘some’), for which, as has been noted, he has form? (Rhetorical question 😉 )

65. Thanks Anto, I enjoyed this quite a bit. It took me longer than I expected but I’m not complaining. I ticked THE FOGGIEST, GENESIS, ABBACY, and SUN UP as favourites. [SOUTHPAW fighters throw jabs (less powerful short punches) with their right hands and use their left hands for the more powerful straight punches. “Leader” could be seen as one that has more power.] Thanks Eileen for the blog.

66. [HYD@23: Consider yourself fortunate that you never heard of a STINK BUG.]

67. Perhaps the reason that PAY DIRT was new to Eileen and to some of our British commenters is that England, unlike the US, Canada and Australia, has never had (or is likely to have) a gold rush. It’s certainly a familiar phrase to me.

    mrpenney@54 Not atoll!

    Now that I read all this discussion I wonder — why have I never heard anybody called a “northpaw”? It gives me paws.

    Thanks to Anto and Eileen.

    I got stuck at 16d STINK BUG by trying to make something of the many common letters between STINK and “links”.

68. I got stuck (well tired last night) and wobbled in bottom left but got there in the end. I’m always a bit surprised at a clue like 3d : RATION BOOK which isn’t cryptic as the meaning of RATION and BOOK are the same in the answer as they are in the clue.
    Thanks Anto and Eileen

69. Nice one, Anto. I failed on 17d DEAR JOHN, but when I saw the answer it became one of my favourites. I share others’ favourites, the humorous 16d BABY ON BOARD, and the great anagrams at 18a THE FOGGIEST and 13d ABSTRUSELY.

    Thanks also to Eileen for her usual informative and cheery blog.

70. Valentine @67, here’s an article on the origins of southpaw that gives an example of north paw (from 1859, in an article from a Chicago newspaper, referring to James Buchanan having a tired north paw from shaking so many hands (in case (!) you don’t want to read it)):
    
    The early examples given for southpaw show it as two words, though since every dictionary has it only as one now I don’t think that lets Anto off the hook (and it’s not crossword compiler’s mistake either).

72. Bodycheetah @46: that was my reading too of ‘green’. A bit of a stretch I realise now but ‘it’s showing’ I took as referring to the Mr Bean sitcom as ‘on tv’.

    I enjoyed this Anto puzzle a lot.

73. Eileen @64,
    No I wasn’t seriously suggesting it. I parsed RIMINI as you did, but the some issue bothered me a bit, so I wrote a comment about it. As I was writing it, it occurred to me that BRIM was a just possible alternative explanation, but I don’t buy it either. I agree it’s probably a somewhat looser than average clue construction.

74. Many thanks, phitonelly @73.

75. I feel like there is a bit of a Grateful Dead (Set) San Francisco (Foggy) drug (Grow House, Green clues, Burnt) theme here.

76. This American didn’t know “Dear John” came from her side of the Pond either.

    I started doing cryptics over Christmas—NYT was getting boring—and today was the first day I solved about half the puzzle without hitting “Reveal This.” Feeling pretty chuffed at this small victory. Onward!

77. [Jess @76: Keep at it. I was an NYT solver for decades but got bored as well. I always liked cryptics and discovered the FT crossword a few years ago while serving on jury duty in DC — a fellow juror gave me his paper and I haven’t looked back.]

78. Knowing Anto often posts here, I didn’t get to post yesterday, because I solved very early and the blog wasn’t around until later, but wanted to add a positive comment, as I like Anto, and this I sailed through completely on tbe same wavelength, only not parsing AGHAST, but also forgetting to go back and look at it.

Comments are closed.