Guardian 29,127 – Boatman

85 comments on “Guardian 29,127 – Boatman”

1. Thank you Andrew. Was dying to see if my crime’s topper theory was right. V gratified. Great crossword. Is there a theme?

2. Certainly a whiff of a police corruption THEME throughout the clues but alas I had to CHEAT on SAMIZDAT. All good fun.

   Ta Boatman & Andrew.

3. Thanks, Boatman and Andrew!
   Liked ON CUE, POSTAGE, CHEAT, SAMIZDAT, DOVE and COCA.

4. I learnt a new meaning for burden. Didn’t parse POSTAGE or CHEAT. Never heard of SAMIZDAT.

   Great puzzle. Thanks Boatman & Andrew.

   I could point out that the clue for 18a contains the solution, but I wouldn’t be so pedantic. 😉

5. Couldn’t parse ITALIC (and impressed that you could). And Crimes Topper: sneaky genius! Thanks for unpicking these, Andrew.

6. I actually manage to finish a puzzle in a respectable time, I rush here and it seems I’m all alone!

7. Oh you were all hiding!

8. I feel a sense of achievement having completed this, even if I couldn’t parse everything, such as the S in SAMZDAT. Wondef if Steffen had a go at this!
   Thanks Boatman and Andrew

9. In fact I think the theme is the controversial policing response to Street disorders and the various laws covering them.

10. Thank you Andrew. I needed your help with the NDA in POSTAGE.
    THE was odd, as it appears in the clue. Liked the surface though, and there is the exclamation mark. I also looked across the middle row but couldn’t see anything. ‘The Met’ got another serve in ALL THE TIME. And could equally have been clued again in THEME, but Boatman refrained from that as its functions and criticisms of its powers are in every other clue, as far as I can see.

11. A puzzle of two halves for me, the right side more difficult than the left. No hope of parsing POSTAGE or EXPEDITE and I missed CEASE as being a hidden. I parsed 31a as C (‘Crimestopper’ (PC) ‘gets pressure from’ = P deleted) HEAT (‘police’ (US slang)), but I think your parsing is better. Glad to have remembered SAMIZDAT. Thought there must be a THEME but it passed me by.

    Thanks to Boatman and Andrew

12. I always enjoy Boatman and his treatment of themes and this was no exception with quite a number of anagrams to help ease the way in. Lots of fun clues with favourites including POSTAGE, ABDUCTION, DOVE and COCA.

    I found the NE the most difficult and needed the blog to parse CEASE which completely escaped me. I have to confess, I feel ‘right-leaning’ is a rather tangential definition of ITALIC and the grammar seems off in SPECTATORS; I don’t think ‘stop’ works on its own as the insertion indicator. Finally, whilst I liked the construction of STEAMIEST, I’m not a fan of the contracted ‘that’s’ standing for IE.

    Thanks Boatman and Andrew

13. I don’t think of ‘burden’ in this sense as musical. I think it just means the main theme or gist of an argument or speech

14. Thanks Boatman and Andrew
    Finished, but I didn’t enjoy it much. Several unparsed, and seeing the parsings, I’m not surprised – CHEAT for example.
    I heard SAMIZDAT on radio or TV very recently, so that at least wasn’t a problem.

15. Very nice to see Boatman who I don’t think we’ve had for a while. And the bonus of him appearing in three clues! (Normally it’s two.)

    I liked the crime’s topper in 31a. And the “heat” brought to mind Bob Dylan’s Hurricane:

    If you’re black you might as well not show up on the street
    ‘Less you wanna draw the heat

    Many thanks Boatman and Andrew.

16. As with yesterday’s Vlad, I had to reveal the last three or so. When I started in the NW I thought this was going to be a write-in, but there were several challenging clues. I got ITALIC, but like others I couldn’t parse it. I liked SAMIZDAT, ON CUE and ABDUCTION. I didn’t know the American past tense of dive. You live and you learn. With thanks to Boatman and Andrew.

17. I could not parse 12ac, 25ac, 8d DOVE = a splash in America; 23d.

    New for me: SAMIZDAT, CHAPLET.

    Thanks, both.

18. Some really awful cluemanship in this. Didn’t enjoy it at all.

19. A relatively gentle outing for Boatman, although I didn’t properly account for ‘reporting’ in SAMIZDAT, so double-checked there wasn’t an alternate spelling of ‘samisdat’ before entering.

    CHAPLET new to me; favourites were CEASE and POSTAGE.

    Thanks Boatman and Andrew

20. Finished and parsed all but POSTAGE, my LOI. I realised I had to take NDA out of something, but failed to see POST for AFTER, thinking after was part of the instructions. All good fun, if rather tough. My favourites have been mentioned already, but can I include CEASE, I needed all the crossers to realise it was a hidden answer.
    My thanks to both for blog and puzzle.

21. Thanks for the fun, Boatman, good to see you back – feels like it’s been a while. “Crime’s topper” made me laugh.
    And of course thanks for the blog, Andrew.

    Mike @13 – it does mean the main theme or gist of an argument, as you say, but that meaning is derived from the musical meaning, which is a phrase repeated at the end of a stanza or verse in a song.

22. Had to reveal SAMIZDAT and NHO F-BOMB or burden as a THEME or CHAPLET. Thanks Andrew for parsing. Agree somewhat with Ui Imari @18. I always find Boatman hard, and can never find a theme, but thanks for the brain workout anyway.

23. First thought was saints plural might be st…..st, then no, you need the last t for tense, so .. sts then, then oh well bung it. So the saints were just ss … shrug. Nice puzzle tho, ta BnA.

24. Lots here bunged in from def and parsed (or not) after the fact. Like others, couldn’t parse POSTAGE (I did wonder if it might be TONNAGE?) or CLARINET. THE was odd because it’s in the clue. Also lots of unindicated word=first letter: T(ense), F(orce), S(ociety), N(ational)…which I’m sure will all turn out to be In Chambers. I did like the crime’s topper though. Can’t see a theme, though there do seem to be a lot of crime and police references.

25. I always enjoy Boatman though I had to CHEAT to finish this. Disappointed to miss Crime’s topper. SAMIZDAT was my favourite. Thanks both.

26. A tricky and enjoyable puzzle, once I had got started with OUSEL THE ON CUE along the middle row. I quickly entered F-WORD through the O of OUSEL – but it wouldn’t parse! Fortunately, I had encountered F-BOMB quite recently, probably in a crossword. The rest went in with a few sticky moments, CHEAT being my only guess (now explained). Some great clues, of which I thought POSTAGE and ABDUCTION the best.

    Thanks to Boatman and Andrew.

27. Familiar with USA regional variant of the past tense of dive in the pattern of drive/drove. But I don’t think it extends to the past participle driven/ diven??.
    https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/dived-or-dove-which-is-correct

    But the one that strikes me is American English variant drug, past tense of drag.
    Apparently it’s only got one irregular past tense form in common, ie hang/hung.
    Suppose it stands to reason that a brain will hang onto the irregular, rather than the regular.

28. I usually have trouble getting onto Boatman’s wavelength, though that doesn’t stop me admiring his puzzles. For some reason, however, I found this one pretty straightforward the top half in particular going in very smoothly. I did have to check the spelling of SAMIZDAT, though. I especially liked POSTAGE. Thought of the NDA immediately but took me a while to get to agenda. Thanks to Andrew for the blog and appreciation to Boatman. I hope the bees are cooperating.

29. Top marks for SAMIZDAT – I was stuck on the idea that UNDERGROUND was lift and separate anagram thing until the crossers finally put paid to that idea

    Cheers B&A

30. In the parse of CHEAT: If “C” = crime’s topper, then “pressure from police” is “the HEAT from the HEAT” – with HEAT clued twice.
    WordPlodder@11’s parse may be what Boatman intended – “C (‘Crimestopper’ (PC) ‘gets pressure from’ = P deleted) HEAT (‘police’ (US slang))”

31. Thanks Andrew, for the sense of THEME which was new to me (as was CHAPLET) – I don’t quite buy COCA as &Lit but at least that avoids Colombia doing double duty. Was going to castigate myself for failing through SAMISDAT but i) that is the German spelling, ii) “is” certainly sounds like “is”, even to Rhotic speakers, and there is this too:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samisdat_%28zine%29
    muffin@14 i think it was mentioned on Univ Challenge (or maybe Only Connect) on Monday night, or i wouldn’t even have got close, probably!
    Really enjoyed unravelling parsing of ITALIC, POSTAGE, CLARINET and others, thanks Boatman.

32. Thanks for the blog, I am folding my paper this week and hiding the setter’s name . guess while I solve and I am 4 from 4 . Today was a gift , just need Paul and Enigmatist for a full house .
    Brilliant puzzle, I was most pleased to get POSTAGE from the wordplay, CHEAT has a super Playtex, ITALIC and SPECTATORS very neat . I did actually see the sort of police theme, I knew AlanC@9 would have the full version.

33. Frankie@30 you are overthinking- pressure from police= HEAT .

34. I found this tough but enjoyable. Particularly liked DOVE, AGENDA, ABDUCTION, ANTIPASTO and OUSEL. Took ages over POSIT, stupidly assuming ‘state’ must mean something geographical. Couldn’t help wondering if it was mere coincidence that the answer to 29D is ETON in reverse?

    Great fun: thanks to Boatman and Andrew.

35. Pdm @27, Running bear dove in the river ….
    And there are other, somewhat related, u-things, like snuk, and I rung my girlfriend …

36. Gazzh@31
    COCA
    I feel there is a case for &lit here.
    I read it as
    It is (what is) widespread (spread out) in Columbia plus C A.
    In other words, Columbia shortened +CA.

37. COCA not quite the classical &Lit , the whole clue can be the definition, “It’s widespread” is NOT part of the wordplay.

38. Tricky parsing indeed! The extra leaps needed for POSTAGE and CLARINET (and the fact that they crossed) held me up quite a while.

    Still a very enjoyable challenge.

    Thanks Boatman and Andrew

39. Roz @33: yes, Chambers has, for “heat”: “period of intensive search, esp by the police for a criminal after a crime has taken place (inf); trouble (orig with the police; inf); the police (US sl)”.

40. me@36 +
    Clarification:
    What is widespread (spread out/expanded) in (the word) ‘Columbia’…
    What is expanded to get Columbia? CO.
    So there is full participation of all words of the clue in the wordplay as
    well as the def.

41. Thought I was onto the endgame quite swiftly with this, half a dozen to go or so. But then realised I had impetuously bunged in Antipasti instead of ANTIPASTO, F-Word instead of F-BOMB, Portage instead of POSTAGE. Had therefore ground to a halt. And don’t think I ever would have arrived at SAMIZDAT in a month of Sundays, well, Thursdays. Couldn’t parse CHEAT or CEASE. A good work out, if ultimately an unsuccessful one…

42. OUSEL was new to me, my dictionary says “see OUZEL” so I don’t know if this is a British vs. American thing. My usual complaint about birds, fish, and plants applies. The musical meaning of BURDEN was also new to me.

    Needed help with the parsings for 25A and 27A, so thank you.

43. Thank you, Andrew and All – glad you had fun today.

    Andrew and TerriBlislow @1 – Your reading of “Crimestopper” is correct, though – WordPlodder @11 – I admire your alternative reading!

    AlanC @9 – You’ve inferred the theme and stated it succinctly. It’s particularly unfortunate that the new Public Order Act, with its potential to put an end to most forms of peaceful protest, should come along at a time when so many people, for one reason or another, say that they can no longer trust the police.

    paddymelon @10 – Well spotted! In fact, it wasn’t me exercising self-control: I’d had the same idea, but so did Vulcan, who got there first on 10 May, so Hugh asked me to find a different way into the clue. I wasn’t unhappy with the end result!

    Lord Jim @15 – I know! I’ve been busy writing The Second 50 – formal publication on 1 September, but available to pre-order now.

    Roz @37 – Yes, that’s the right way to look at it: COCA is a Semi&Lit.

44. and KVa @40 – You’re very kind (and rather ingenious) to give me a justification for claiming a full &Lit for COCA, but I hadn’t thought of that. It may have to go into the next book though (if there’s a third volume).

45. SAMIZDAT was new to me as was burden for a musical THEME.
    Not too tricky this time.
    Thanks Boatman and Andrew

46. Very enjoyable and not as tricky as I’d feared (after yesterday’s). I spotted a bit of the THEME but hadn’t quite clicked every thematic reference so coming here is, as usual, quite enlightening.

    One tiny eyebrow raise, though: I’m used to seeing two ‘Boatman clues’ and while I have no problem at all in having three, the exact same device was used in 9a THIEF and 26a POSIT, and I found this direct repetition slightly odd.

    Many thanks both!

47. Thanks for dropping in Boatman. As a proud, honest ex-serving Met officer of 35 years, I’m dismayed at the current disconnect. There has always been corruption, but I’ve never known public distrust to be so high. Sad days…

48. Now wasnt there an act called THE THE (probably just one geezer)
    just a thought

49. Thanks to Boatman for the puzzle and to Andrew for the blog. Sorry not to be able to join the love-in but I didn’t enjoy this. I did enjoy seeing the themes but found some of the wordplay and parsing a bit tortuous. It felt like a slog with little reward for finishing.

50. Thanks to Boatman for the puzzle which I found tricky and without much joy.
    I spotted the theme, but it wasn’t any help to me. [This maybe influenced by my lack of confidence in the current state of our criminal justice system, particularly policing.]
    Thanks to Andrew for help in parsing a number of clues.

51. “What a field day for the heat
    A thousand policemen in the street”
    Buffalo Springfield 1967

52. Lots of reverse engineering for me too, but a nice steady solve. Favourites were CEASE – cleverly hidden – CHEAT for ‘crimestopper’ and POSY. Good to learn a new meaning of BURDEN. Thanks Andrew for the excellent blog and Boatman for an enjoyable hour.

53. 23d: order = O on its own? don’t think i’ve seen it before

54. Bees @53: OM – Order of Merit.

55. I thought this was on the tricky side for a Boatman, but fun nevertheless. Failed to get NDA or Crime’s topper, but luckily didn’t hold me up.

    I thought COCA was a semi&lit, and on reading down the comments saw the justification for “widespread” but thought they might be rationalizations after the fact, rather than intentional, although plausible. I think that’s what Boatman is saying too.

    Thanks all

56. I would have had no hope of parsing POSTAGE. I think I may have heard of a NDA, but it’s far from my active vocabulary. No hope for CHEAT either. And the lift-and-separate of “press ‘s” was too much for me.

    Should have parsed CEASE, SPECTATORS, CLARINET, ISSUER. and NOTE.

    paddymelon@27 “Drug” as past of “drag” isn’t standard American usage — your teacher would correct it. It’s in some dialects, like “brung” for the past of ‘bring.”

    Thanks, Boatman and Andrew.

57. Boatman@49
    😀
    It’s good to have the setter drop in and clarify some points.
    Doesn’t matter I was wrong.

58. AlanC @54, i’m familiiar with OM for Order of Merit, but i don’t see that as justifying O for Order (just as PE wouldn’t justify “physical” indicating P, etc.) but perhaps i am picking nits!

59. Boatman@44 thanks for clarifying and KVa@36/40 I echo our magnanimous setter in thanking you for demonstrating a new way to look at the clue.
    Rob T@46 yes the double I (also noted by Andrew though he mistyped 5 for 9 i think) rankled a tiny bit with me, as (from memory) Boatman usually scrupulously avoids this, and certainly slowed me down in solving POSIT.

60. Gazzh @59 what about the repetition in 7, 14 and 19 down? But I suppose one expects unscrupulousness when it comes to leaders

61. Rob T @46 and Gazzh @59 – Yes, it’s a fair cop. I do very much try to avoid that kind of thing. I tag all of my draft clues in a database so that I can check which ones refer to the theme in different ways, whether too many definitions come before or after the wordplay, how many partial anagrams I’ve created and so on, and one of the things I tag is the use of “Boatman” in a clue, but I missed one on this occasion and neither PeeDee nor Hugh spotted the duplication. Grr …

    AlanC @ 47 – It’s good to hear from you. As a fair cop yourself, I’m sorry that you have to witness the current state of things. From my point of view, I’ve only had positive dealings with the police, but then I’m a respectable looking white male, so that’s what I’d expect. I hear so much anecdotal evidence from women who have been sexually assaulted by police officers or from those who’ve seen police officers targeting people who “look like a terrorist” because of the colour of their skin that it’s hard to believe that there isn’t a systemic problem. That’s one issue, and it’s compounded by the Government’s enthusiasm for creating new classes of offence that will cause even greater levels of distrust between the police and the policed.

62. Thanks to Boatman for a fun ride and to Andrew for the explanations. I am a relative novice and found this crossword very difficult, but it was also the most enjoyable one that I have come across in a while. I was completely led astray by CEASE and CHEAT. I just bunged them in towards the end, hit the check button, and then kicked myself when I came here and saw the parsing. It made me feel like laughing out loud at my stupidity!
    Re: “dove” vs “dived” I just have to mention that it reminds me how quickly language changes. My British father and his parents used “dove” rather than “dived” and from an American perspective, “dived” seems so very wrong. It’s like saying “drived” instead of “drove” (a mistake many newcomers to English make) but I guess it will just be a matter of time until that changes too.

63. [Irregular verbs in English can be very confusing when one is learning. I remember it took some time to persuade our young daughter that “I swimmed” wasn’t correct!]

64. Bees and AlanC , O for order is used in analysis , for example when writing out series using limits.
    Such as f(x) = 3 + 2x + O( x^2) ……..
    When x is small , terms of higher powers can be ignored in the limit.

65. [ AlanC @47, your reputation for fairness and honesty is legendary on here. I wonder if leadership is (was) an issue ? Only today in the Guardian there is massive criticism of Cressida Dick for her role in the Daniel Morgan inquiry }

66. Boatman@various , it is anonymous setters week for me so I was very pleased to see Boatman in 9Ac and two others. Myself and Lord Jim often remark on the double Boatman , one being I/me etc and one being nautical . ]

67. good fun Boatman. I admit I had to come here to check I had 25ac right

68. [Thank you Roz, The Daniel Morgan case is one of the most shameful episodes in Met history and I think his family have been outstanding at standing up against the Met stonewall. I would also point out that there were probably about 6 Commissioners preceding Cress, who all sat on their hands, but she seems have taken the hit] .

69. Crimestopper is terrible! ?

70. [ AlanC I owe you that several times over and I never forget.
    You will know a lot more than me about the Daniel Morgan case, the issue with Dick is that when there finally was an inquiry panel she refused to co-operate , obstructed any corruption investigations and refused to accept the findings. ]

71. Thanks both and I am always appreciative of the efforts required of individuals to provide my daily entertainment.

    But I seem to have recently run aground on themed puzzles more than otherwise. A theme may lead to a level of complexity in the cluing which requires a capacity for divination that is beyond me.

    Ah well. ‘Á chacun son gout’ (as blancmange mongers say).

72. From Arachne’s interview with shuchi:
    https://www.crosswordunclued.com/2013/02/interview-sarah-hayes.html

    ‘My other favourite of my own puzzles was Guardian 25,721 of 22 August 2012. It was a normal puzzle, but the squares along the the top and bottom read JUSTICE NOT DONE, whilst those at the sides spelt out the name of DANIEL MORGAN, a murder victim whose case was never solved because of appalling police corruption. His brother Alastair has been campaigning for a judicial inquiry into the case, and I was thrilled to have done my bit towards getting “Justice for Daniel” ‘
    https://www.fifteensquared.net/2012/08/22/guardian-25721-arachne/

73. DNF. Gave up on south east corner. Something if a masterclass in clunkiness? Sorry, Boatman, did not like!

74. [muffin@63 Your daughter is not alone. An ANN (artificial neural network – I guess it would be classified as AI these days) produced by Rumelhart and McClelland in 1985 did much the same as your daughter in its early learning stages of past tenses of verbs but managed to sort out many regular and irregular verbs eventually]

    muffin@14 I concur with what you said

75. I really enjoy Boatman’s puzzles, and this was no exception. “Crimestopper” a characteristically brilliant misdirection.

76. O for the days when the Met meant opera.

    Surprised by the number who don’t know “burden” in its musical sense. Last time this came up, which was not long ago, I quoted The Miller of Dee. This time I’ll just
    link.

77. @8 Crispy

    I gave it a go, like every day.

    Managed to get 9a, 11a, 17a (with google), 18a (lucky guess – I thought it was the middle word of the five words in the clue), 30a.

    Managed 1d, 2d, 3d, 13d.

    A better-than-average day for me.

    Question: in 21d, I thought HEARTLESS would refer to a single letter ‘a’ in PLAIN?

    How does EXTREME fit into that clue?

78. I remember first hearing DOVE in the western TV series The Virginian, from a character called Trampas. I was 11 or 12 at the time, and spent most of my teens trying to find occasions to use it, with little success.

    The only clunkiness for me was taking NDA out of the synonym for ‘schedule’ – it seemed unnecessarily difficult and, not having to write a blog about it (thanks Andrew) I just didn’t bother with the parsing. (Does this count as cheating?)

    I thought ‘right-leaning’ was cleverly misleading for ITALIC in an obviously politically themed puzzle.

    Thanks to Boatman for the puzzle and for dropping by for a chat.

79. Hi Steffen. Good effort!

    ‘Plain heartless’ could have been PN (plain without its middle) for the start of, for example, pneumoconiosis, or PLIN (if the answer was PLINY THE ELDER, but to clue just A from ‘plain’ you would want it’s heart, not take it away. (For example the letter E is often clued as ‘sweetheart’.) In the same clue it’s ‘extremes to enact’, which means the two outside letters, with “to” in this instance having the sense of belonging to.

80. Thanks Boatman for an excellent crossword and your blog participation. I missed SAMIZDAT and POSTAGE but otherwise all else fell eventually. Thanks Andrew for parsing.

81. Steffen @77 good to see you keeping on trying.

    For 21 you have to convert PLAIN to CLEAR and then “heartless” that to CLAR, then add IN, then *EXTREMES OF ENACT*, i.e. the outer letters ET. This is what makes later in the week puzzles trickier, the multiple steps involved, some having high synonym-count parts such as PLAIN, which has many, many meanings.

    I do have to agree with some of the dissenters above: for all the cleverness, I found this a bit of a slog and the multiple use of single letter abbreviations somewhat annoying.

    Thanks Boatman and Andrew

82. “Tricky” is an understatement. I gave up half-way through, utterly defeated. I occasionally fail to get one or two solutions, but this was a complete rout.

83. The clue for CHEAT perhaps epitomises everything I dislike about whoever Boatman is.

    Anything ‘topping’ something should exclusively belong in a down clue for a start, and an unindicated word collision makes things worse. Oh! Were that the only transgression.

    Real rubbish to my way of thinking, even though some clues demonstrate a vague understanding of how to write clues.

84. James@60 yes good spots, though for some reason i don’t usually mind/notice repetition of an instruction as opposed to a synonym, and I think the “leader” functioned well with the surfaces of all those which probably helped. Boatman@61 thanks for some extra light on the lengths to which you go in ensuring variety among the clues.

85. I read “early signs” as in early ‘confirms’ = CO, in “Central America” = CA

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