Guardian Cryptic 29,052 by Vulcan

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Vulcan is in his habitual Monday slot.

This was a pleasant solve that wasn't too taxing for a Monday morning brain to vie with. A good crossword for a beginner although DEAD-AND-ALIVE was a new expression to me. I liked the two long ones at 5dn and 10dn.

Thanks Vulcan.

ACROSS
1 BOOING
Loudly complaining as reservation is cancelled centrally (6)

BOO(k)ING ("reservation", cancelled centrally, i.e with its centre removed)
4 WEEKLIES
Feeble-sounding stories in magazines (8)

Homophone [sounding] of WEAK ("feeble") + LIES ("stories")
9 SWARM
Small angry bees flying (5)

S (small) + WARM ("angry")
10 SUBEDITOR
Worker on newspaper throws debris out (9)

*(debris out) [anag:throws]
11 ROUNDELAY
Manage to put off receiving love song (9)

RUN ("manage") + DELAY ("put off") receiving O ("love", in tennis)
12 LET IN
Some bulletins admitted (3,2)

Hidden in [some] "bulLETINs"
13 DEAD-AND-ALIVE
One can’t be both at once? Boring! (4-3-5)

"you can't be both" DEAD AND ALIVE "at once"
17 AVERAGE SPEED
Cameras may check this disturbed deep-sea grave (7,5)

*(deep sea grave) [anag:disturbed]
20 CAPON
Fowl‘s leg better tucked behind (5)

ON ("leg" side in cricket) tucked behind CAP ("better")
21 ST STEPHEN
Two ways to record female martyr (2,7)

St. + St. ("two ways", i.e. streets) + EP (extended play "record") + HEN ("female")
23 AGE LIMITS
Restrictions that are in force for some years (3,6)

Cryptic definition
24 AIOLI
Sauce is top quality with oil mixed in (5)

A1 ("top quality") with *(oil) [anag:mixed] in
25 STRATEGY
Plan is to get back and wander round (8)

STRAY ("wander") around <=(GET, back)
26 HERESY
Present silly, but not sick, unorthodox opinion (6)

HERE ("present") + S(ill)Y, not ILL ("sick")
DOWN
1 BESTRIDE
Be seated across funfair’s top attraction? (8)

A "funfair's top attraction" would be its BEST RIDE
2 ORACULAR
Our Clara turns out to be prophetic (8)

*(our Clara) [anag:turns out to be]
3 NOMAD
Is this wanderer sane? (5)

NO MAD = "sane"
5 EMBRYOLOGISTS
They help you conceive boys/girls: to me that’s extraordinary (13)

*(boys girls to me) [anag:that's extraordinary]
6 KID GLOVES
These to hand, not just for children (3,6)

Cryptic definition
7 IN TOTO
One refusal to drink small measure altogether (2,4)

I (one) + NO ("refusal") to drink TOT ("small measure")
8 SPRING
Now leaves out something coiled (6)

Double definition
10 SALAD DRESSING
Girl applying herself to vinaigrette? (5,8)

SAL ("girl") + ADDRESSING ("applying herself to")
14 ADVENTIST
Some time during December 1st, one expects the second coming (9)

ADVENT ("some time during December") + 1ST
15 DETHRONE
Put down other end that’s damaged (8)

*(other end) [anag:that's damaged]
16 IDENTITY
Sort of parade one’s individuality (8)

Double definition
18 SCRAPS
Abandons fights for bits of food (6)

Triple definition
19 APPEAR
Seem to give attention to program (6)

Give EAR ("attention") to APP ("program")
22 ERASE
Cancel whole stretches of history, the ultimate in woke (5)

ERAS ("whole stretches in history") + [the ultimate in] (wok)E

72 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,052 by Vulcan”

  1. Thanks, Vulcan and loonapick.

    SPRING
    Maybe it is a triple def…
    Now
    Leaves out
    Something coiled

  2. KID GLOVES
    1. In the sense of ‘gloves made of kid leather’, these will not be just for children.
    2. In the sense of ‘diplomacy’ too, the same, I guess.

  3. I found this averagely difficult i.e. harder than most Monday puzzles, but easier than last week’s!
    Same likes as loonapick, plus SUBEDITOR.
    Also had never heard of DEAD-AND-ALIVE=boring.
    Only tiny quibble is that I don’t think SCRAPS and abandons are really synonyms.
    I parsed NOMAD as a negative answer to the question ‘Is s/he sane?’: ‘No, mad.’
    Thanks both.

  4. Warm/angry? And I didn’t know DEAD-AND-ALIVE meant boring — never heard the expression. Otherwise a good experience with an abundance of smiles. Thanks Vulcan & loonapick.

  6. I was delighted to see DEAD-AND-ALIVE: it was a phrase used by my late father-in-law – strictly, ‘a dead-and-alive hole’ as reference to a boring place. I had never heard it used before and this is the only other time I have encountered it since!

    Beaulieu @3 – scraps/abandons plans?

    I enjoyed the anagrams for both AVERAGE SPEEDS and EMBRYOLOGISTS. A nice Monday puzzle.

    Thanks Vulcan and loonapick

  7. Whoever gave Vulcan the Bumper Book of Riddles for Christmas has a lot to answer for 🙂

    I enjoyed ERASE, ST STEPHEN & CAPON

    Cheers V&L

  8. PS: I should have added, that even said father-in-law only used the phrase about one specific place: the quiet Scottish harbour town where his son had chosen to live! So it’s hardly ‘common’ usage 😀

  9. “Why man, he doth BESTRIDE the narrow world like a Colossus…” I suppose Caesar could have been sitting astride the globe, as if bouncing on a space hopper, although we petty men who walk under his huge legs would have a better chance of finding ourselves dishonourable graves if he were standing rather than seated…

    I rather liked Loonapick’s (Scots-influenced?) parsing of “He’s no mad!” = “He’s sane”, but my reading was the same as beaulieu’s @3.

    Glad to see PM @6 sharing my recollection of DEAD-AND-ALIVE holes; perhaps it might also be used with reference to cats?

    Three cheers for ST STEPHEN; thanks V & L.

  10. PostMark@6 and 8: “A dead-and-alive hole” meaning a one-horse town was in frequent use in our house when I was growing up, and we were certainly common, so…

    If Steffan looks in later, this would be an excellent crossword for him to work on in order to get familiar with some of the conventions used by cryptic compilers. Nice and gentle and very clearly clued, with one or two particularly nice examples. One doesn’t often see a triple definition, for example.

  11. PostMark @ 8
    My father (born 1914, South London) used the expression ‘dead-and-alive’ quite frequently, to refer to a boring place. It was certainly quite a common expression in my childhood (50’s and 60s South London). I wonder if it was an army expression.

  12. I’m another who’s never heard of dead-and-alive=boring. A strange phrase, but a bit like the living dead perhaps. Schrodinger might disagree about whether you can be both at the same time.

  15. Anna @11: you could be onto something with the army phrase idea. He served his time in North Africa during the 40’s where he contrived to bring about the defeat of Rommel by strategically burying cans of inedible bully beef in the sands of El Alamein.

  16. I knew DEAD-AND-ALIVE meaning somewhere boring, I suspect from books rather than hearing it used, but it surfaced from a few crossers.

    Just because I find the think of a word subtract some letters and use that clues difficult, BOOING was my last in.

    Thank you Vulcan and loonapick.

  17. I didn’t know DEAD-AND-ALIVE either. Two cracking anagrams, AVERAGE SPEED and EMBRYOLOGISTS and I also liked SALAD DRESSING and the amusing ERAS. Nice quick solve this morning.

    Ta Vulcan & loonapick.

  18. I’m another who has never heard of dead-and-alive to mean boring. Plenty to enjoy in this Monday-level puzzle. Thanks Vulcan and loonapick.

  20. Incidentally, Chambers gives “dead-alive” as well as “dead-and-alive.” Makes more intuitive sense, perhaps?

  21. Apart from never having heard of DEAD AND ALIVE as meaning “boring”, my main quibble was that SUBEDITOR required a past tense indicator, at least at the Grauniad.

  22. Thanks Vulcan. Loved ST. STEPHEN (with the misdirection sending me wild goose chasing after female saints) and the surface for ERASE. I parsed NOMAD in Scots: a sane person is no’ mad. Warm=heated and heated=angry (debate) but does warm=angry?

    Dead-and-alive holes (why always holes?) are a familiar expression to me in West London.

  23. Nicely clued puzzle with splendid long anagrams. I particularly liked BESTRIDE (I’m surprised I haven’t seen this before, but my memory of past clues is very weak).

    Like beaulieu and essexboy I parsed 3dn as NO, MAD.

    DEAD-AND-ALIVE was new to me too. The expression seems to have been around for a long time. Partridge (1938):

    dead alive, dead and alive. (Of persons) dull, mopish, cf. deadly lively, q.v.: C 16–20: S[tandard] E[nglish] till mid-C. 19, then increasingly coll[oquial].—2. Hence of things, esp. places: dull, with few amusements, little excitement (‘a dead-and-alive hole’): coll[oquial]; from ca. 1850; now S[tandard] E[nglish].

    Thanks to S&B

  24. Enjoyable puzzle.

    Favourite: STRATEGY.

    New for me: DEAD AND ALIVE = boring.

    20ac CAPON it seemed to me that the clue was back to front? I can only see it as ‘better leg tucked behind’.

    Thanks, both.

  25. PostMark @ 15
    He being your dad, I take it.
    My father was on the ships in the North Atlantic, but in the army, not the navy. He always used to joke that we only won because they sent him in the opposite direction to where the action was.

  26. Vulcan in fine form here, I thought. Bodycheetah @7 – I commend that person wholeheartedly if this is the result of that gift!

    Like Shanne, BOOING was my last in, and it was also my favourite from a fine set of clues.

    Dead-and-alive is not a phrase I’ve encountered before (afaicr) but the meaning is self-evident so it gave me no trouble.

    Thanks, Vulcan and Loonapick.

  27. A very Mondayish puzzle, and a notch trickier than the quiptic so all is well with the world 🙂

    DEAD AND ALIVE was a NHO for me but it couldn’t have been anything else. Liked HERESY, BESTRIDE and IN TOTO. I thought the surface for KID GLOVES was a little odd, although the solution was clear enough.

    Cheers both.

  28. Thanks Vulcan and loonapick
    I’m another who had never heard of DEAD-AND-ALIVE, and like ravenrider, I thought of Schrodinger’s cat (which I’ve always thought of as a flawed example, as the cat would be perfectly capable of collapsing the wave function!)
    I agree with michelle about the strained word order for CAPON, and, not unexpectedly, I though the “in” in WEEKLIES didn’t make sense.
    Why “flying” in SWARM? They might be, but are more probably not.

  29. I keep waiting for someone to clue IN TOTO as something along the lines of “On the whole, where Dorothy’s missing bacon probably is?”

    I agree with Michelle that the wordplay for CAPON yields ONCAP as written. Fortunately that’s not a word, but it was a bit jarring to have no indication that the particles were in the wrong order.

  31. Two Monday crosswords fitting the Monday expectations, with the Quiptic a little easier than the Cry[tic and both brimming with wit. Mt favourite was ST STEPHEN, I nearly went off on the female martyrs trip like Gladys, but I noticed STEPHEN fitted and thought hen= female, especially up North, Let’s have a closere look at this. BOOING too desrves a mention and I will stop there before I replicate the puzzle.

  32. Thought Vulcan was in top form today, with some cracking clues – ROUNDELAY, AVERAGE SPEED, ST STEPHEN, BESTRIDE, EMBRYOLOGISTS, SALAD DRESSING to name but a few…

  33. Re CAPON, I think a good case can be made out for ‘behind’ = ‘to the left’ (while not excluding the reverse).

    If you visualise a word as running left-to-right across the page (which is the natural way our eyes work when reading, at least using the Latin alphabet), then the N of CAPON is at the leading edge, and CAP is bringing up the rear.

    And if you think of the order in which the sounds are spoken, the CAP is further back in time. If someone dictating were to say ON first, the CAP would retrospectively have to be ‘tucked behind’ it in order to make sense.

  34. (Alternatively, as per Loonapick I think, you could read it as a leg (ON) that the better (CAP) has tucked behind.)

  35. eb @33: it’s a tricky field. I agree with you that there are arguments in favour of both ends of the word when using in front/behind and the same issue arises for me, to some extent, with movement of letter forward or backward within a word. Chasing/tracking/trailing are also potentially problematic as positional indicators for the same reason. I have seen them used to place things both to the left and to the right!

  36. Thanks to all above for the comments on 20ac CAPON. It was solvable as I know the word CAPON. I generally think of ‘behind’ in an across clue as being ‘to the right’ and ‘ahead of’ being ‘to the left’. So I would have expected the clue to read as: ‘Fowl‘s better leg tucked behind’.

  37. A fair puzzle for a Monday. The EMBRYOLOGISTS anagram was a brilliant spot!

    Thanks Vulcan and loonapick

  38. essexboy@34 and PostMark@35
    Head/front is used to indicate the first letter of a word and tail/back is used to indicate the last letter of a word. What is behind and what is ahead is clear in such clues. If that convention is followed, CAP is ahead of ON in CAPON.
    Just saying. The clue, per se, is all right for me.

  40. Dead and alive was an expression familiar to me from sixties London but hadn’t heard it in years. Common enough in my youth that I didn’t query its strangeness.

  41. Good start to the week with some nice clues.

    I liked STRATEGY for the wordplay and BESTRIDE, where Funfair’s top was not F, I’m not sure that EMBRYOLOGISTS actually help you conceive but maybe they could in a left-field fashion. Despite EB’s @33 explanation, it seems clear to me that most people would think that ON follows or is behind CAP as we write from left to right. I seem to remember a similar discussion previously.

    Thanks Vulcan and loonapick.

  42. Perfect for a Monday. I am among the crowd who have never heard of DEAD-AND-ALIVE but completed it from crossers. I will now look for opportunities to use it.

  43. Thanks to Vulcan for today’s entertaining puzle. I liked 8d SPRING (even though it’s autumn here!) – other good ones have already been canvassed (particularly ST STEPHEN at 21a, purportedly the first of the martyrs). Blog much appreciated, loonapick, and thanks to all contributors for an interesting read.

  44. On 20a I agree with loonapick (and essexboy @34 rather than @33). This is clearly indicated in the clue: ‘leg (which) better (has) tucked behind’. Though I agree it can easily be read as indicating the opposite. 🙂

    I was surprised that BESTRIDE includes sitting as well as striding, but it’s there in Chambers, so it must be correct.

    Thanks to Vulcan and loonapick.

  45. [One of my very early memories of school is of sitting in class staring at the pictures pinned up on the wall, and trying to understand why one of them seemed to have been drawn by somebody called Step Hen.]

  46. Jacob@42, if you are looking for opportunities for using DEAD-AND-ALIVE, you must enjoy being a miserable buggar. I remember it from my youth, always used by exservicemen and merchant seamen. to describe places they would have preferred never to have known.

  47. Yet another who had never heard of dead-and-alive as a phrase.
    And capon is simply clued unnecessarily confusingly. A good clue should not have to be tortuously parsed. What’s wrong with “Fowl’s better leg”?

  48. If you are bestride a horse, you are sitting on it.
    Why won’t this website recognise me? It did until a couple of days ago

  49. Postmark@11 Mu father was also in North Africa in the 40s . They put cans of corned beef ( bully beef) and evaporated milk under the wheels of their trucks to dig them out when they were stuck in the sand. He said if ever anyone got lost in the Libyan desert they would only have to dig down to find food and drink ( remember to always carry a can-opener) .

  50. [Chardonneret @49: it’s going to mystify the Libyan version of Egyptologists in centuries to come …]

  51. Muffin@28: when circumstances dictate an entire hive population will depart the hive for a new home – apiarists call that ‘swarming’.

  52. muffin@28 If bees are swarming (moving in a group, probably seeking new quarters) they’re flying. If they’re just pottering about the hive, they aren’t, and they also aren’t a swarm.

    DEAD-AND-ALIVE kept nagging me about the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, so I finally googled a bit and found that “Life-in-death” is a theme in it.

    What’s with the book of riddles? Did Vulcan use one?

    I enjoyed this. Thanks to Vulcan and loonapick.

  57. A nice Monday, good start to the week. DEAD AND ALIVE was my LOI but I knew the expression. AIOLI was new but could hardly be anything else.

  58. Muffin@54 No, but it’s probably safe to assume that the bees in those pictures didn’t walk to their new location.

  61. I too think that the clue for CAPON is the wrong way round, but I appreciate the creativity that many have put into justifying it.

  62. Very enjoyable quick solve for us … a relief after failing to finish any of the crosswords last week! Favourites BESTRIDE and NOMAD. Thanks Vulcan, and loonspick for the blog.

  64. Essexboy@9 that reminds me of Steve Bell’s cartoon showing a giant Margaret Thatcher saying “Behold ! I bestride the globe like a colostomy !”

    Good straightforward Monday fare again, very welcome after last Monday. My favourite like others above has to be ST STEPHEN. Thanks to loonapick and to Vulcan.

  66. TF – the NHS disagree with that.

    embryologist
    Career
    Description
    Embryologists perform both laboratory based tasks, consult patients and work as part of a multi-disciplinary team of doctors, nurses, technicians and health care assistants to help patients with sub-fertility or infertility achieve their goal of a baby.3 Feb 2022
    https://nshcs.hee.nhs.uk › embryolo…
    Embryology — Life Sciences – National School of Healthcare Science

  68. Loonapick @66/67. Thanks for those efforts!

    We seem to be getting more and more commenters who either don’t read the blog (or previous comments below the blog) or don’t bother to consult a dictionary before coming here to tell us all that the definition is wrong. Embryologists, of course, are people who study long and hard to get their science degrees, then spend their professional careers looking at embryos through microscopes and saying “Ooh, look: an embryo. Isn’t that interesting. If only there were a practical application. Ah well.”

    I wish these nitpickers would at least have the humility to say “in my experience” or “as far as I know” before telling us what they evidently don’t know.

  69. A nice puzzle. My first completion solely using the app rather than hardcopy.

    Never heard of a dead-and-alive (hole). Dad enjoyed Westerns so the expression we used was “one-horse town”. Great to have the memories.

  70. I know this setter has his detractors, but I always enjoy his output. Likes include PICASSO, VIEWPOINT, RHYMING SLANG, RE-ENLISTMENT, MIAMI, PUNGENT and SPANISH FLU. I also liked the opposite devices used in the first two down clues. NHO of TARDIGRADE but guessable.

    Ta Anto & Andrew.

  71. I’m not usually a fan of Vulcan but really enjoyed this puzzle. Some lovely surfaces and anagrams.

  72. sheffield hatter@68, is there a safer place for pedants (not a pejorative in my book) to display their knowledge, or lack thereof, than fifteensquared? I for one enjoy reading the nits, and then seeing them picked by the blogger or others – as long as they do it with kid gloves. I can’t conceive what a swarm of embryologists would say about this discussion.

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