Guardian 29,423 / Vulcan

64 comments on “Guardian 29,423 / Vulcan”

1. Nice start to the week with smooth surfaces throughout. I liked REDCOAT, HOOP, BEATITUDE, SNIDELY, CUPID and VISAGE for this 80s earworm. Agree with your take on TAVERNA. It’s basically TAVERN plus A.

   https://youtu.be/UMPC8QJF6sI?si=uIgp3TRT65uWasiO

   Ta Vulcan & Eileen

2. Thanks Vulcan and Eileen. I loved Forbidden City and quite a few others.

   Only wordplay in Taverna I could guess at would be tavern=pub plus a gives place for souvlaki etc

3. 20d wordplay: Pub = tavern, then add the ‘a’. Definition “place for souvlaki and retsina”. But you are right that a TAVERNA is basically just a Greek pub anyway. Thanks, Vulcan and Eileen.

4. Thanks, AlanC and TassieTim – I missed that but I don’t think it improves the clue much! I’ll amend the blog.

5. Had to alpha-try-check to get the o before guessing redcoat, my loi. What’s with the camp entertainer, is that a Butlins thing, or ..? Otherwise a Mondayish outing, cheers Vulcan and Eileen.

6. Sorry, gif @5 – I did intend to include this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butlins_Redcoats – then forgot!

7. Thank you Eileen.
   Echo gif’s question@5.

8. Yes, TAVERNA also struck me as little more than a Quick clue (even with the ‘a’ extra which could be easily ignored).
   Thank you, Eileen, for digging out your classic clue for SIMON PETER. Vulcan’s clue was one I would have been happy to compose, but Pasquale’s has the classic ‘aha’ ring to it.

9. Held myself up by pencilling in an unparsed Dragoon instead of REDCOAT which slowed that corner up. Odd mix of write ins and things I dithered about.

   Thank you to Eileen and Vulcan

10. A gentle start to the week. Liked BEATITUDE, SNIDELY, and FORBIDDEN CITY for the bizarre surface

    Suitably gentle earworm for CUPID

    Cheers V&E

11. Enjoyable puzzle. My favourites were VAMPIRE, CUPID.

    I now realise I did not really parse TAVERNA.

    Thanks, both.

12. A fun puzzle pretty much of the old Monday style and difficulty – no complaints there.

    I think what is disappointing about a clue such as “taverna” is that the wordplay and definition ultimately have the same etymological basis. I think what many of us see as clever clues are ones where an unrelated word or meaning is spotted hidden inside another word and then that is incorporated into a clue which has some surface meaning. To clue “hostel” as “Innkeeper heads The Spanish Guest House” would be weak because host and hostel both come from the same Latin source.

    My etymological trigger for today was “torpedo” – coming from a word meaning “numbness” (and so also the root of “torpor” – which was then used to refer to the electric ray whose shock caused paralysis, and thence to an underwater mine.

13. A pleasant start to the week, though I too found the NW a little tricky in places. Like Shanne@9 I fixated on dragoon instead of REDCOAT, suspecting that camp was an indication for drag. As it turned out the answer was more straightforward. Anyway, thanks to Vulcan and Eileen.

14. Thanks Eileen @6, guessed it was something like, or maybe I’d heard of them somewhere somewhen.

15. People who started their careers as REDCOATS include Des O’Connor, Jimmy Tarbuck, Michael Barrymore, Ted Rogers, and Jimmy Cricket. I won’t comment on their claims to be comedians.

16. Pleasant start to the week.

    I liked SNIDELY, where even after solving I failed to spot the hidden (stripped) for a few moments, the wordplay for BEATITUDE, the good part anagram for FORBIDDEN CITY, and the TORPEDOED cd.

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

17. Nice start to the week. Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

18. Liked CLOVE HITCH and SIMON PETER.
    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen!

19. Fun Monday puzzle.
    Re blog I can’t parse the Pasquale clue!

20. Alastair @19 “Breaker of promise, thrice ultimately (NT) (5,5)” Definition is the whole clue, wordplay is an anagram (breaker of) with the anagram fodder being “promise” “e” (thrice ultimately) and “NT”. It’s an &lit clue.

21. 1a was so obviously TROOPER (or maybe TROUPER) that it took a long time to realise it wasn’t. I hadn’t thought of Dragoon, but that works too. But REDCOAT is better if you know about Butlins. I liked SIMON PETER and the imperial palaces in Bedford.

22. Took a while to get HOOP and KINDLE, even with all the crossers in place. Same experience with both the interlocking TORPEDOES and BEATITUDE at the very end. And I rather liked the SIMON PETER clue as it/he stood today…

23. ronald @22 and others – I should have given a tick to SIMON PETER, too.

24. Like you Eileen I wondered if a prince was technically a noble (7d). (Really I should know, being a noble myself (ahem)). But it seems the Second Estate of pre-revolutionary France included the royal family except for the King, so maybe it’s ok.

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen (nice to see you back after the problems with the site last week).

25. I don’t know why but I struggled to find LOI REDCOAT and don’t even have the excuse of being misled by DRAGOON. Otherwise, all very smooth sailing. I totally agree with Eileen’s ticks – including SIMON PETER – and would add KVa’s second fave, CLOVE HITCH although I parsed it as a straight whimsical CD rather than a charade.

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen

26. I got my predators and victims mixed up and had LAMPREY for VAMPIRE. FORBIDDEN CITY was my favourite.

27. Matthew Newell @2, if you’re still there – my apologies for having overlooked your comment re TAVERNA, noted now.

28. That was a fun and gentle enough start to the week, I thought. No clues were too difficult to parse. REDCOAT, FORBIDDEN CITY, CLOVE HITCH, SIMON PETER all very clever. Sometimes you just know which clues will elicit debate on here – I thought that as soon as TAVERNA went in.

    My LOI was KINDLE…probably because I abandoned mine years ago to go back to physical books (from a local bookshop).

    Thanks Vulcan for the fun and Eileen for the excellent blog.

29. Missed a few — NHO REDCOAT — and was derailed for a bit by trying to fit Campari ( a different kind of red flower) into CAMPION (another new word for me). Wasn’t helped by distractedly plunking in Saint Peter instead of SIMON PETER, though eventually figured it out.

30. Good start to the week. Favourite was beatitude. Fortunately didn’t take too long as have to get cracking with Tour de France (only watching!!). Thanks Eileen and ever reliable and enjoyable Vulcan

31. Lechien@28…so did I (abandon my Kindle for a while), preferring the feel of real books, being able to physically turn the page. But my groaning bookshelves have no room left, books piled haphazardly now, and I’m rather selfconscious that they’re a disgraceful eyesore to new visitors to my house. So I was surprised that it took me so long to get 12ac today as I’m therefore back to using one for light fiction…

32. Well judged Monday puzzle. I was also slow to complete the NW quadrant, but my LOI was the unexpected cryptic def for TORPEDOED. Like PostMark I also interpreted CLOVE HITCH as a simple CD.

    I’ll go along with Eileen’s choice of favourites. There isn’t a problem with ‘noble’ = PRINCE, as this is the usual translation of киязь, the highest rank of the nobility in pre-revolutionary Russia, without any connection to the ruling dynasty (think Tolstoy).

    Thanks to Vulcan and Eileen

33. I very much liked the notion of imperial palaces in the fine town of Bedford.

34. Thanks you Vulcan & Eileen for this delightful start to the month.
    Favourites maybe ‘he takes a bow’, the collapsing cinema and Bedford city.

    I liked that FORBIDDEN CITY takes up the central axis / meridian.
    The last Emperor, Puyi, was finally expelled in 1924, maybe here alluded to by CENTENARY.

35. CAMPION can also be white, but the common one is pink, despite being officially called the red campion.

36. Liked all those – just finished the crossword in the work canteen, getting some curious non-crossworders to pitch in.

    I wasn’t familiar with “ho” as an abbreviation for “house”, though. Could anyone help explain where that’s used?

    Thanks to Vulcan and Eileen

37. AlexB – Ho for house is one of the abbreviations found on maps.

38. 10A defeated me, I must get better at spotting those lift and separates.

    Otherwise good solid Monday fun.

39. Many thanks to Vulcan and Eileen. A splendid start to the month. Loved CUPID and FORBIDDEN CITY. Needed help from TimC to parse Eileen’s Pasquale version of SP – thanks Tim… Loved the earworms from AlanC and Body cheetah. Redcoats reminded me of Hi-de-Hi! Link at the end…
    Can’t help but wonder if PRINCETON could have been clued as a Brigerton reference (not sure how widely known the series is, but it’s on Netflix..) I thought possibly “royal society”, but no doubt this demonstrates why I have a long way to go before I can be a setter 😎.
    https://youtu.be/zU-zZqcAfzQ?si=URnqcTflsV2VBsWA

40. Shanne @37 – thanks!

41. AlexB @36, on maps.

42. Sorry! I misspelt князь (knyaz’) 🙁

43. PinB @39 (and Alastair @19) re the Pasquale clue: it was a bit naughty of me to include it at all but I thought I would leave folk the chance of some fun in solving it for themselves. I did give the reference and the date, to facilitate finding the blog in the search facility. (In those days, we didn’t give the clues on the blog – it’s 18ac and if you do look it up, the following clue is also in my little book. 😉 )

44. REDCOAT, my last in, not very familiar to a non-UK solver, especially the Butlins connection.
    Otherwise, a lovely puzzle from Vulcan that allowed steady solving.
    BEATITUDE was my favourite. Ticks also to CUPID, CLOVE HITCH, FORBIDDEN CITY, CENTENARY, TORPEDOED.
    As usual, Eileen provides very clear explanations.
    Thanks to both.

45. [ PinB @39: funnily enough I thought of Hi-di-Hi as well. As for Bridgerton, my wife forced me to sit and watch all three series with her (honestly) and gleefully informed me last night there will be a fourth 😉 ].

46. Eileen @43, many thanks. I checked the other one too. It was not a word I knew but I shall remember it. Quite brilliant.
    [AlanC@45, my commiserations. I rather like it for reinventing history albeit partially, but I can well understand why many would not 😎]

47. [PinB – did you get the clue, from the Guardian website? ‘(Pasquale, inside working, using long obscure words (14’)]

48. @12 agreed and including VAMP in VAMPIRE also grates!

49. [Eileen@47, many thanks, I did. P 😎]

50. Much as the same as others enjoying a gentle Monday that yielded most answers in morning coffee break and lunch. Redcoat and torpedoed held me up too because I was hoodwinked by camp and was thinking Grayson, Inman et al and because I couldn’t get champagne out of my head as smashing on a hull. Thank you Eileen and Vulcan.

51. Nothing really to add except an irrelevant anecdote.

    PRINCETON, like most of the Ivy League schools, has basically two types of students: very smart, and pretty smart but very privileged. I’m in the camp that got there entirely on my wits, which means I worked a series of on-campus jobs to earn book fees and spending money. One of those jobs, my last year there, was as a teaching assistant in the introductory geology class (I was a geology major)–this involved grading papers, helping set up labs, etc. One of the students I had in that class was a member of the Jordanian royal family (I will withhold the name). He was an okay student, and contrary to the clue here, he did show up to class!

    So yes, there in fact have been princes at PRINCETON. Or at least one, anyway.

52. Thanks for that, mrpenney – I always enjoy your anecdotes!

53. SIMON PETER was nice and seasonal, as his feast day was last Saturday.

54. [Piglet @53 – thank you for that: we’ve had a lovely weekend celebrating the Petertide Ordination of our much-loved curate in our Cathedral on Saturday and her first celebration of the Eucharist in our church yesterday.]

55. I had SAINT PETER too for a while till I got TORPEDOED by the crossers.

    Anybody remember the animated cartoon character SNIDELY Whiplash?

    The word for “using long and obscure words” in Latin means “foot-and-a-half,” (I’m not sure whether using the word here counts as a spoiler for that other puzzle) implying that was the length of those long and obscure words.

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

56. [Valentine @55
    I really shouldn’t have referred to that clue as well – I’d be on dear Gaufrid’s naughty step by now – but I love it so much!) but I may as well now give a link to Andrew’s blog of that puzzle, for those who haven’t found it for themselves, where you can also read the comments, where your definition appears – so no spoiler!
    https://www.fifteensquared.net/2013/06/07/guardian-25968-pasquale/ ]

57. ronald @31: how can any collection of books be “a disgraceful eyesore”?????

58. Tassie Tim…not to my eyes, anyway! Though some people like to have well ordered shelves, even if they’ve never read some of those books upon them. All my books, without exception, have been personally read by me. Cover to cover…

59. That’s my level of difficulty.

    How many non-solvers know a peter is a safe?

    And I couldn’t do it yet without the ability to check my answers using the phone app

60. I found this vastly harder than the usual Monday puzzle. I had to cheat on three clues. I suppose I was just having a bad day.

    I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a similar clue for REDCOAT before, but I’d completely forgotten the “camp entertainer” meaning, so I didn’t get it. (Having grown up in the northeastern US, right near many revolutionary war battle sites, the other meaning is very familiar to me, so I should have figured it out anyway.)

    [Like mrpenney, I’m an alumnus of Princeton. During my time there, there was at least one royal personage, namely Princess Olga Isabelle of Greece, among the students. I have been told, although I don’t recall looking it up myself, that she was listed in the campus telephone directory under the surname “Of Greece”.]

61. I was useless at this. The right hand side of the puzzle went in ok eventually but 23 was the only clue I could manage on the LHS.

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

62. Very late to the party here – we did it on Monday night but have only just had time to look at the blog. Dnf for us – 12A (duh!), 8D (because we bunged in lamprey for 5A), and 15D.
    But isn’t there a part of speech problem with 15D? The clue gives a definition for “Being torpedoed”, not just Torpedoed.
    Nice puzzle though. Just right for a Monday night after choir and the pub!

63. This took me all week and I still dnf, missing 1ac.
    And reading the blog, I discover my answer for 13ac is wrong. I had BLENCHED, taking “benched” in the sports sense.

64. really loved it! perfect, thank you

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