Guardian Cryptic 29,535 by Harpo

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29535.

I found this an enjoyable puzzle without being too difficult, with 22A being the outstanding clue.

ACROSS
9 REPROBATE
Judge wraps up investigation on cycling rogue (9)
An envelope (‘wraps up’) of EPROB, which is PROBE (‘investigation’) ‘cycling’, in RATE (‘judge’).
10 SWEET
Charming group welcomes you patronisingly (5)
An envelope (‘welcomes’) of WE (‘you patronisingly’ ‘We made a mistake there, didn’t we?”) in SET (‘group’; mathematists might identify this as an indication by example, but that should not bother most of us).
11 AGONIST
Principal character, since November, is in Germany (7)
A charade of AGO (‘since’) plus N (‘November’, NATO phonetic alphabet) plus IST (‘is in Germany’).
12 ATELIER
Studio canteen regularly used by one that’s down? (7)
A charade of ATE (‘cAnTeEn regularly’) plus LIER (‘one that’s down’).
13 GETZ
Broadcast irritates jazz legend (4)
Sounds like (‘broadcast’) GETS (‘irritates’), for saxophonist Stan Getz.
14 BELLADONNA
Boy in Lebanon running dangerous drug (10)
An envelope (‘in’) of LAD (‘boy’) in BELONNA, an anagram (‘running’) of ‘Lebanon’. The drug’s name means “beautiful woman”, and it was once used by women in sublethal doses to produce a pale skin and dilated pupils of the eyes, regarded as alluring.
16 ENDLESS
Stream, as contrasted by Brooke, is thus eternal (7)
‘Brook[e]’ ENDLESS is BROOK (‘stream’), perhaps with an echo of Brooke’s poem The Soldier (“for ever England’ … washed by the rivers”)
17 MINUTED
Recorded obscure backing inspiring hit tune (7)
An envelope (‘inspiring’) of NUTE, an anagram (‘hit’) of ‘tune’ in MID, a reversal (‘backing’) of DIM (‘obscure’).
19 ROSE GARDEN
Outdoor venue in which you might find, say, Duchess of Cornwall in bed (4,6)
A cryptic definition, the Duchess of Cornwall being a rose cultivar named after Catherine, Princess William of Wales; the Rose Garden might be a generic term, or the particular one in the grounds of the White House.

As pointed out by RussThree @1, the rose was named after the previous Duchess of Cornwall, now Queen Consort Camilla.
22 TEXT
Times cuts offensive words (4)
An envelope (‘cuts’) of X (‘times’ 2X4=8) in TET (‘offensive’ in the Vietnam war). Short and sweet.
24 LEATHER
Agitation surrounds introduction of endangered animal product (7)
An envelope (‘surrounds’) of E (‘introduction of Endangered’) in LATHER (‘agitation’).
25 KARACHI
Asian dish containing dash of Cockburn’s port (7)
An envelope (‘containing’) of C (‘dash of Cockburn’) in KARAHI (‘Asian dish’ – India’s answer to the wok).
26 ANGLE
Corner fish (5)
Double definition.
27 ON THE GAME
Moving among thee, working as a solicitor? (2,3,4)
An anagram (‘moving’) of ‘among thee’. That kind of solocitor.
DOWN
1 URBAN GUERRILLAS
United by new piece of legislation, bans irregular militia in towns (5,10)
A charade of U (‘United’) plus RBANGUERRILLAS, an anagram (‘new’) of L (‘piece of Legislation’) plus ‘bans irregular’
2 UPROOTED
Completely destroyed container, breaking off lid on still (8)
A charade of [c]UP (‘container’) minus its first letter (‘breaking off lid’), plus ROOTED (‘still’, unmoving).
3 VOMIT
Bring up note, interrupting unfinished ballot (5)
An envelope (‘interrupting’) of MI (‘note’ of the sol-fa) in VOT[e] (‘ballot’) minus its last letter (‘unfinished’).
4 MATTHEWS
Dull article on vacant witless footballer (8)
A charade of MAT (or matte, ‘dull’) plus THE (definite ‘article’) plus WS (‘vacant WitlesS‘), for the great Sir Stanley Matthews.
5 DETAIL
Whimsically dock item (6)
Treated ‘whimsically, DE-TAIL (‘dock’).
6 ASCENDANT
Upwardly mobile worker hosts cracking dances (9)
An envelope (‘hosts’) of SCENDA, an anagram (‘cracking’) of ‘dances’, in ANT (‘worker’).
7 DESIGN
Condescend to accept second plan (6)
An envelope (‘to accept’) of S (‘second’) in DEIGN (‘condescend’).
8 STARS AND STRIPES
Ship carries sailors, also clear English flag (5,3,7)
An envelope (‘carries’) of TARS (‘sailors’) plus AND (‘also’) plus STRIP (‘clear’) plus E (‘English’) in SS (‘ship’).
15 LENGTHIER
Stagger northward over bad night in more rambling (9)
An envelope (“over’) of NGTHI, an anagram (‘bad’) of ‘night’ in LEER, a reversal (‘northward’ in a down light’) of REEL (‘stagger’).
17 MEERKATS
Mongooses with timid vermin mixing as little as possible (8)
No, not mongeese. Arguably the dreaded derived anagram, although the instructions are quite explicit: formed from MEEK RATS (‘timid vermin’) with the KR reversed (‘mixing as little as possible’)
18 THEOCRAT
Divine ruler translated Torah, etc. (8)
An anagram (‘translated’) of ‘Torah etc’.
20 SNAGGY
Small horse extremely giddy with obstacles (6)
A charade of S (‘small’) plus NAG (‘horse’) plus GY (‘extremely GiddY‘).
21 REROOF
Upgrade cover on Rolls Royce, accepting European cash (6)
A charade of RER, an envelope (‘accepting’) of E (‘European’) in RR (‘Rolls Royce’); plus OOF (dated slang, ‘cash’).
23 IRKED
Irritated, avoided ignoring mum (5)
A subtraction: [sh]IRKED (‘avoided’) minus SH (‘ignoring mum’).

picture of the completed grid

82 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,535 by Harpo”

  2. RussThree @1
    Of course, I should have realised that. The rose was named in 2005, and Catherine only became Duchess of Cornwall in 2022 on the accession of Charles III.

  3. Thanks Harpo. After a slow start I gradually got into the flow and was able to complete this excellent crossword. My top picks were SWEET, AGONIST, BELLADONNA, LEATHER, VOMIT, DESIGN, and IRKED. I was happy to learn by reverse parsing that ‘oof’ means cash; I’m certain that this will come in handy someday. Thanks PeterO for the blog.

  4. Favourite was BELLADONNA, only because when I see it I’m reminded of Ambrose Bierce’s definition in The Devil’s Dictionary, “In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.”

  5. Thanks Peter O, I needed you for the parsing of a few where my GK was lacking, but, like you, I thought 22a TEXT was a very good clue. I wonder if Americans and Australians would recognise the Tet offensive more readily as both countries were involved in the Vietnam War, whereas Britain wasn’t. URBAN GUERILLAS also very good.

  6. A few bits of dnk, like Karachi the dish and oof for cash, but nothing too fiendish from Harpo today. Thanks to him and PeterO.

  7. Lots to enjoy here, and not too difficult as others have said. Fully agree with Peter about the excellent TEXT, and I also had smiles for DETAIL and AGONIST.

  8. I found this more difficult than others here, I have to confess. I see I’m not alone in not being aware that OOF could mean cash, but the answer was obvious with the crossers. I can’t manage to equate ‘AGO’ with ‘since’ in AGONIST (my penultimate entry). Perhaps someone else can provide a sentence where the two words are interchangeable? I was grateful for the clearly signposted ‘WS’ to get Sir Stanley MATTHEWS as he’s not the first footballer to spring to mind these days. Liked GETZ (needed the G to get to him, though). I also liked 27 for the surface. Thanks to Harpo.

  9. 1D is my COD for the ultra-smooth surface. Fifth rows from top and bottom spell out NOTHINGS INTERIOR, but can’t see where that leads. Thanks PeterO and Harpo.

  10. Good old TET offensive; still going strong after all these years. The jazzman was nho but gettable; OOF for cash was even more nho(!) and an unparsed bung. STARS AND STRIPES and ON THE GAME earn my biggest ticks today.

    Thanks Harpo and PeterO

  11. Managed the right half, but most of the left defeated me. Knew the word Protagonist, but not AGONIST, and I’m another who didn’t know the value of Oof. Couldn’t see how IRKED worked (nice little rhyme there) so many thanks for the clarity PeterO. I haven’t been as sharp today as most of the other early birds today, I see, however. And perhaps Sir Stanley at 4d might not be familiar to the younger generation of soccer devotees…

  14. Thanks Harpo and Peter

    Some lovely surfaces and excellent clues. Not sure they will attract too many young solvers with examples being quite so dated as Matthews and Tet Offensive

  17. Thanks Harpo and PeterO
    I didn’t parse 1d, 17d (unsurprisingly), or 21d – when and where was OOF cash?
    Lots to like. Favourite ON THE GAME.

  18. And there may be more to it – add in (symmetrically placed) 10 and 26 for sweet nothings and interior angle.
    Anything else?
    Thanks to Harpo and PeterO

  19. There are SWEET NOTHINGS in the top half and INTERIOR ANGLE in the bottom half in the mirror positions (crossing with DuncT @18, sorry).

    I went digging for OOF and found this article researching it that links it to Yiddish.

    Thank you to PeterO and Harpo.

  20. Well, Harpo made me feel Dumbo and Groucho in equal measure, before Bingo.
    This was a real toughie for me.
    I don’t feel as complimentary as other posters about quite a few of the clues and solutions.

    Before I get corrected, some things which others find OK, are just on my “not very nice” list.
    “hit” as an anagram indicator;
    “oof”;
    “matt the ws” wherein matt = mat ( US spelling?);
    “lier” = one that’s down;
    “since”= AGO;
    more rambling = LENGTHIER;
    “gets” = irritates; ( nice phonetic though ).

    Plus a few others. Yes, I am sure that they are all legit, but I simply don’t find them satisfying.
    A shame, because there were some cracking clues, and I enjoyed completing the grid.
    Loved ON THE GAME;
    DETAIL is a nice use of the classic ” DETAILED” device.
    ASCENDANT wordplay completely dummied me into thinking, “aha… vertical reversal of ant! ”

    Some really good stuff, but for me, not top Marx.
    Sorry to be Carpo, Harpo, but thanks for a tough challenge, and to PeterO

  21. Very tough puzzle. I failed to solve 11ac and 13ac – never heard of GETZ.

    New for me: OOF=money/cash; KARAHI; footballer MATTHEWS (did not google to check it but assumed there must be at least one with that name).

    Favourite: IRKED.

    I could not parse 16ac; 22ac – I was stuck thinking that the TT=times; 1d.

  22. Tomsdad@8 and others. It is perhaps now an older usage, but ‘since’ and AGO are frequently found as synonyms. A random example from my head occurs here in the first paragraph of Hawthorne’s Introduction to The Scarlet Letter:

    “It is a little remarkable, that … an autobiographical impulse should twice in my life have taken possession of me, in addressing the public. The first time was three or four years since, when I favored the reader—inexcusably, and for no earthly reason, that either the indulgent reader or the intrusive author could imagine—with a description of my way of life in the deep quietude of an Old Manse.”

  23. [For Stan Getz, try this famous track. There’s a story that Astrud Gilberto had only turned up at the studio to bring her husband his packed lunch. He said to her “You speak English – have a go at singing this”. The rest is history!]

  24. Tomsdad@8 it’s perhaps a regional thing, but around here you might hear: “London? I went there two years since and won’t be going back”.

  25. top faves: SWEET, TEXT, STARS AND STRIPES and MEERKATS (I think I have seen the trick before. Liked the clue nonetheless).

    KARACHI
    Karahi, kadahi and kadai are all the same. Many must have tasted kadai chicken or kadai vegetable or some kadai+ dish.

    Thanks Harpo and PeterO.

  26. daja57 @12 late 19th century according to ODE.

    C2016….
    oof (old sl)
    noun
    Money (earlier oofˈtish)

    ORIGIN: Yiddish, from Ger auf (dem) Tische on the table

    oofˈy adjective
    Rich

  27. Tim C@26 – the blog that chats about sourcing etymology of unknown words (linked above) discusses all the rabbit holes they went down researching oof.

  28. Top marx from me. Most of the quibbles I’ve seen so far can be settled with a quick visit to Chambers. I think the Guardian “policy” is that anything indicating an anagram is an anagram indicator 🙂

    Liked the MEERKATS, URBAN GUERRILLAS & the splendidly silly SNAGGY

    Earworm? How about the bizarre spectacle of Morrissey singing the classic ROSE GARDEN

    Cheers P&H

  29. As someone with skin in the game I agree with E.N.B@20 that the mat is the thing that the cat sat on. Dull paint is matt or (if it’s very expensive) matte. I don’t have any problems with the rest of the stuff on your naughty step, though I was also more Dumbo than Bingo.

  30. E.N.Boll&@20: I found this less enjoyable than others too, though it is growing on me as I look back. Sometimes, I think, I am just not on the same wavelength for finding synonyms, which irks me when I don’t get a clue..

    For “hit” I thought it was OK as a past participle – if you consider a tune which has been hit then it is a “hit tune”…

    thanks to PeterO and HarpO

  32. This was just about right for me. NHO OOF and when I looked it up it was GenZ slang for something else ( roughly speaking ‘I feel your pain, but not really…’!) so many thanks Shanne@19 for the link. I thought lots of the short clues were great, TEXT, DETAIL, SWEET, VOMIT etc. ON THE GAME caused a wry smile. All in all a great job by Harpo and PeterO. Loved the earworms today. Coloradan@9 and 13, I do like HI as a hidden message. Have a great weekend everyone 😎

  33. More or less just what Pauline in Brum said, which saves me a lot of trouble on a busy morning.

    As soon as I see ‘offensive’ in a clue, I think TET – never more cleverly used than in this one: my standout clue, too, PeterO.

    Many thanks to setter and blogger.

  34. Yes Shanne @27, I read the link. It’s interesting to me the huge amount of background material that goes into a seemingly simple entry in the ODE or Chambers. I, for one, am always wary about questioning the output of professional lexicographers, even though, like everyone else, they can make mistakes.

  35. A satisfying solve which at first glance I thought would be a little tricksy, but it mostly fell into place.
    Great spots Coloradan@9 &13, DuncT@18, Shanne@19 – there must be something to it.
    Thank you Harpo and PeterO.

  36. This was an enjoyable crossword with, for me, one quibble and that is finding a sentence to interchange since and ago.

    TEXT was brilliant but I had to reveal SWEET.

    Many thanks, both.

  39. The Ninas connect with two of the clues: SWEET / NOTHINGS and INTERIOR / ANGLE – though I still can’t see any other particular significance.

    AGONIST was new but worked out from the wordplay. Never heard of a karahi before, but it had to be that. Like Anna@15 I guessed ENDLESS from Tennyson’s Brook, though I’m sure peterO’s parsing is the intended one. Thanks, P G Wodehouse for oof=cash, which I still took a long time to see.

    It’s been a while since we’ve had the once ubiquitous TET=offensive, but worth resurrecting it for a nice clue like TEXT.

  42. [I also thought Rupert Brooke’s The Soldier – which is very much how the World War 1 was seen for 50 odd years. The Wilfred Owen poetry we now think of as depicting WWI was mainly not published in his lifetime – only one or two were known then and harrumphed over, a few more were published by Edith Sitwell and her brothers in the 1920s, but didn’t gain currency. Owen’s poetry really only resonated in the 1960s, the 50th anniversary – which coincided with Vietnam. The same is true of the more interesting art – the Imperial War Museum commissioned paintings to be record WWI and sold most of them off – e.g. the Paul Nash paintings we now see as iconic were sold cheap to the Tate as not appropriate.]

  43. It’s a losing battle, I know, but TET does not equal “offensive.” Tet is the Vietnamese new-year holiday, and the offensive was designed to begin on Tet. So it’s the exact equivalent of the Easter Rising. We would all object if someone clued EASTER as “rising,” so why do we allow “offensive” for TET?

  44. I live in Vietnam, but it was the X and two crossers that helped me solve that clue
    I vaguely remember Oofy Prosser, but I just took it that OOF had been a synonym for cash once
    It raised a few smiles and exercised my brain, so thankyou both by Dr

  45. I really don’t think UPROOTED means ‘completely destroyed’. Not people from their homes, nor plants from the soil. But heigh-ho!

  46. Generally enjoyable. 8D was nicely constructed. 16A was clever, and enjoyed the Aha! moment.

    However, add me to the long list of those who were not alive in the 19th C and therefore have never heard of OOF for cash. (I also don’t see how the Yiddish equivalent of the German “on the table” comes to mean “cash”?). I humbly suggest that should not have passed editing.

    22A defeated me, and seeing the explanation here I am not nearly as enamoured of it as others seem to be.

  47. [Me @43: I have just learned that the full name of the holiday is Tet Nguyen Dan (with some diacritical marks I’m incapable of making). The word Tet by itself just means “festival”, but since that one is the most important festival in Vietnamese culture, it’s usually shortened to just Tet. Sorta like how Eid is, in full, Eid al Fitr, but everyone just calls it Eid, again translating merely as “festival.”]

  48. ‘Download the Guardian App for a better crossword experience’. Except that they may have forgotten to tell you the name of the setter. Again.

  50. ‘ago’ is a postposition – like a preposition but appearing after the noun. ‘since’ is usually a preposition but can appear for some speakers after its noun, as in ‘I was there five years since’. I’m available for barmitzvahs and weddings.

  51. mrpenney @43 & 47 – The answer to your question @43 is, of course, because Easter is not primarily associated with the 1916 Easter Rising, whereas in the Anglosphere Tet is exclusively associated with the Tet Offensive. Think about places as well as occasions. You could uncontroversially clue ‘Culloden’ as ‘Battle’ although it is itself just an area of moorland east of Inverness and does not itself equal ‘battle’; nor does Waterloo or Bannockburn or Agincourt, or umpteen other innocent locations where battles have been fought but which do have a primary association with those battles.

  52. Am I reading too much into the possibility of a US election result theme? Particularly words connected to some of the reactions?

  53. Lots to like here. BELLADONNA, KARACHI, DESIGN and THEOCRAT are nicely constructed.

    I knew ‘oof’ from P G Wodehouse but it took a while to recall. TEXT is succinct (though my first thought was SEXT 🙂 ) but, however much ‘offensive’ = TET has become a crossword commonplace, is it so different from ‘cathedral’ = ELY, which causes some of us to mutter darkly? It is at most a definition by example.

    In what register of English does ‘among thee’ make any sort of grammatical sense?

    Thanks to Harpo and PeterO

  54. Alfour @ 40: apologies, I missed you earlier contribution. I like your example but it still sounds like of dialect to me. Rather in the same way as a Scots pal of mine who likes to say. “He’s went doon the wing like a whippet!”.

  55. mrpenney@34&47/Balfour@51: I now expect we will see “rising” used to clue EASTER someday, in a down clue to misdirect us, and it’ll be fair enough I guess. Though maybe should be a definition by example. Still it seems like Tet is a famous offensive as well as a holiday, ditto Easter for a rising, and the surface is so good that I’m more inclined to stretch it. It seems like things that are well-known but not the primary meaning are often allowed anyway–there’d be nothing wrong with Easter for island (or vice versa).

    Like Auriga and nicbach I thought “oh, Oofy Prosser” once I’d reverse parsed that. [And like Suzydimple@52 I thought that associating VOMIT with a ballot was particularly appropriate this week.]

    Very enjoyable puzzle, thanks Harpo and PeterO.

  56. [Nice quotation from your namesake, Zoot @49, although I doubt if many on here, some of whom have not even heard of Stan G, will get the allusion. I just thought it might please you to know that it did not fall on deaf ears here at Balfour Towers at least.]

  57. Mandarin Snr is a northerner and he uses “since” instead of “ago”, in the same way that he uses “while” instead of “until”. So no problem for me.

  58. [Mandarin @57
    You’ve reminded me that the signs at level crossings in Yorkshire that read “Don’t cross while lights are flashing” had to be reworded!]

  59. Harpo beat my parsing ability (no change there), so many thanks to PeterO. Is it too “woke” of me to feel uncomfortable about 27, though?

  61. As with PeterO and Shanne@40 I thought of Brooke’s Soldier, which includes the line “A pulse in the eternal mind, no less” leaving me fruitlessly trying to fit mind into a solution.

  62. Only got around to doing this, this afternoon and I’ve enjoyed all the previous comments as I’m usually an early morning contributor. I had the same ear worm as you muffin @23, so pleased you posted that, I also knew the background story about Astrud. I noticed SWEET NOTHINGS but plumped for LEATHER INTERIOR (LEATHER directly underneath) although I agree with ANGLE being more symmetrical. TEXT, MEERKATS and URBAN GUÉRILLAS were excellent.

    Ta Harpo & PeterO.

  68. mrpenny @43: I agree — and I dislike seeing Tet, a national holiday in Vietnam, reduced to an offensive in what has to be the most needless war in American history. Besides, ‘tet’ as ‘offensive’ seems stale at this point.

  69. Mongooses always reminds me of the silly story the zookeeper who wrote to another zoo “Dear Sir, please send me 2 mongeese (crossed out) mongooses (crossed out). Dear Sir please send me a mongoose. Yours faithfully. PS Please send me another one

  70. Balfour @56. [Thanks. I didn’t think anyone would get it but it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.
    I thought afterwards that Stan irritated a lot of people.
    Ronnie Scott said he felt sorry for people who never heard Stan or Ben Webster play a ballad. There seem to be a lot of them on here.]

  71. There’s also URBAN INTERIOR DESIGN, ROSE GARDEN DESIGN and INTERIOR DETAIL (cleaning the inside of a car), any more?

  72. I’m with MrPenney@43 and Tony Santucci@68, I personally don’t think it’s fair or sensitive to clue TET as ‘offensive’, any more than DUNBLANE or HUNGERFORD should be clued as ‘massacre’, such tragedies being within living memory. Other associations with those words should be encouraged and I’m sure would be welcomed by the communities involved. And I agree too with Steppie@59 , if only because it is insensitive to suggest that sex workers (‘on the game’) ‘solicit’, ie act illegally. Other than these proudly woke gripes very much liked this clever crossword, thank you Harpo and PeterO

  75. Adrian @74
    Yes, but by that definition “being on the game” is also illegal, so why the extra problem with the “insensitivity”? Your post implies that being on the game isn’t illegal, but soliciting is. (Unless you can be “on the game” without soliciting, but it’s difficult to see how that would work!)

  77. I’m not particularly offended by the idea of solicitor=prostitute as such – it was probably funny the first 5000 times – just that as someone who has spent quite a lot of her working life among solicitors of the legal kind, its predictability in crosswords does sometimes get tedious (like tet=offensive, I suppose).

  78. Supper guest this evening, sorry, Muffin @75 et al, but if anyone’s still awake and even interested, my concern @59 had been that I doubt many “solicitors” in Harpo’s sense consider their work to be any sort of game.

  79. NW corner slowed me down massively after confidently filling in 2d as INORNATE which I parsed as anag (completely destroyed) of container (minus its lid ‘C’) = Still
    Doh.

  82. pianola@81: off topic, but a little black and white stray cat has adopted me here in Greece, and he’s known as “pianola” because of his markings. So I felt obliged to post!

    I, too, had to think twice, but a meerkat is indeed a small mongoose.

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