Guardian Cryptic 29,544 by Fed

90 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,544 by Fed”

1. Thanks Fed and Andrew. Couldn’t agree more with the summary – excellent misdirection and an all-round fun challenge.

2. Thanks Andrew for the correct parsing of 20d. I missed the hidden TRACE, but came up with a much more convoluted and less satisfactory parsing. I took CE to be the outer letters (‘shells’) of ‘cartridge’ and ART for ‘live’ (as in ‘who art in heaven’) backwards (‘on the counter’) and coddled these together to make TRACE.

3. Willbar @2 I did exactly the same. Very enjoyable. Peter, are you an insomniac like me or domiciled outside the UK?

4. Thanks Fed for a great set of clues. I did a lot of ‘reverse parsing’ since I found many definitions to be straightforward but the wordplay not so obvious (aside from the anagrams). At any rate it was all fun with my top picks being EASY COME EASY GO, SESAME OIL (I liked Fed’s appearance), UNIT, PUNCTURED, and my favourite, GUARANTEE. Thanks PeterO for the blog.

5. Apologies PeterO for misnaming you as Andrew in my post @2. I must have picked it up from Alex in SG @1.

6. Sorry – thanks Peter, not Andrew (got confused with my early bloggers)! And also apologies for being a bad influence on Willbar… back to bed for me

7. Thanks PeterO. I needed you for a couple of parses, and I appreciated the extra info where my GK was lacking.
   However, I still don’t get the definition higher still for EXCELSIOR.’

8. Can’t see the Excelsior reference without remembering the Ogden Nash version:
   ‘The shades of night were falling fast
   The rain was falling faster
   When through an alpine village passed
   An alpine village pastor’.
   Apart from that I agree with PeterO. Lots of rabbit holes that I inevitably went down, but like Tony Santucci @4 I saw the answer from the definition and crossers and then worked out the parsing. And as Willbar@2 spent a long time assuming ‘cartridge cases’ meant CE, before I finally saw the reverse inclusion. Wasn’t familiar enough with Harry Potter to see 4a for a while. Liked 1d, 4d, 9 and 24. Thanks to Fed and PeterO.

9. Snap, Willbar & DaveF@2+3. Did anyone else bung in MINUTE BY MINUTE for 19+21a? Fits the clue just as well… but made the downs difficult. Thanks, Fed and PeterO.

10. paddymelon @7, I had the same problem having got the answer from the anagram and not being aware of the Longfellow poem, but checking afterwards, Chambers told me that it’s a Latin word meaning “higher still”.

11. Oh, thanks Tim C@10 for higher still.

12. Thanks Fed and PeterO.
    Faves: LIDOS, SESAME OIL and BOOBY TRAP.

13. An enjoyable tussle – started with enough on the first pass to make me feel clever, then gradually became somewhat chewier until a handful of holdouts (some of the long ones) took me as long as the rest put together. The perfect solving curve for a satisfying puzzle.

    Many thanks to Fed and PeterO.

14. Many thanks Fed and Peter

    Most enjoyable crossword. The long answers meant (for me at least) an easy fill-in but lots of parsing puzzles to work out post favto.

15. A grid of two halves, for me: top half, a stroll, bottom half an uphill struggle.
    FAMILIAR SPIRIT (24ac) seemed like a “green paint” answer, until I checked and found it’s the recognised expression. My bad.

    19,21 (ac), [brief=little] felt off-key, but I can see that they are interchangeable in some contexts.

    18(ac), LOOSE ENDS, is a bit rough on non-UK players.

    In 1(down), TOUT ENSEMBLE, “overall effect” seems tighter to me, without impairing the clue.

    And finally….again, I see that “I see” = IC. YOYOY?

    Overall, an enjoyable ensemble performance; all the right notes….but……

    Ta, Fed, great blog PeterO, as ever.

16. Tim C @10 – I thought letter by letter for a bit, but only entered the BY until I had some crossers

    The left hand side went in OK, but I think I found every rabbit hole on the right.

    Fed set a Quick Cryptic a couple of weeks ago, so it’ll be interesting to see if newer solvers are encouraged to try this one.

    Thank you to Fed and PeterO

17. Shanne@16 This newer solver had a go. Daunted at first but I managed about half of the answers and could actually parse some of them – PIER, IMPEL, LITTLE BY LITTLE, SMUGGLED. I found yesterday’s much easier with all of the double and cryptic definitions but I was pleased with my efforts today. I would never have worked out EXCELSIOR or TOUT ENSEMBLE though I assumed there was an anagram somewhere involving Mel B.

18. I was well misdirected. On the counter to mean a reversal? NHOI. Compost meaning dressing? I’m obviously not a gardener. Finished in the end, so many thanks to PeterO and other bloggers for the parsing, and hats off to Fed for the puzzle.

19. In 18 across, LOOSE ENDS is the Radio 4 show being referred to, not PM.

20. SMUGGLED appeared in a very recent crossword with an almost identical clue.

    Aside from that, very clever but I’m afraid not at all enjoyable for me. DNF

21. New word for me. I’ve never heard of MOKE being a donkey. What an ass! Must file it away for the future.

22. I loved this one! I’m still a bit confused by the parsing of 26A though – how does “converting a lake into huge” give us the OS, please? I’m assuming I’m missing something obvious because it wasn’t explained.

23. 13d EXCELSIOR. I don’t disagree that the Longfellow poem is a bit more mood than meaning, PeterO, but how about listing Longfellow’s poems in order of ridiculousness? And maybe compare and contrast with Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’.

24. Tanya K – start with LIDL the store – remove L for lake (which comes from maps) add OS for oversized or huge and you get LIDOS.

25. Very tough.

    New for me: LOOSE ENDS = BBC Radio 4 show (thanks, google – and parsed after solving).

    I did not parse the BOMB part of 12ac; 7d.

    Thanks, both.

26. What a brilliant start to the day! – excellent clues just tumbling over each other to get a look-in.

    I’m another who went down the TRACE rabbit hole, feeling smug to have remembered the ‘art’ trick, completely missing the hidden in plain sight reversal (‘on the counter’ does appear quite often as an indicator, Sin Cam @18).

    Apart from that, managed to winkle it all out, with many a grin and satisfied ‘aha’. I loved the lift and separate Steve Jobs, Jack Dempsey and guest house, the great anagrams in EASY COME, EASY GO and TEARDROP and really enjoyed working out the constructions of LIDOS, TOUT ENSEMBLE, SESAME OIL (loved FED’s appearance), GUARANTEE, COMPOS MENTIS, EXCELSIOR (I always like to see ‘supply’ as an indicator), PUNCTURED and PIER.

    A real treat on a snowy morning. Many thanks to Fed for the puzzle and PeterO for the blog.

27. I resent the expectation that a term for students from a series of children’s books should be known to all and sundry. Sorry, I’m obviously in a group of one.
    Thanks for the rest of it though.

28. Thanks Fed and PeterO for this morning’s ingenious entertainment.
    I especially liked the ‘Bond’, the party boo, ‘guest house’, ‘gooey mascara’ and ‘Jack Dempsey’.
    Sated.

29. Pete HA3 @27 – muggle is used more widely than from the Harry Potter series now – we use it for non-geocachers in geocaching (which is an international activity). There are references in the logs all the time: e.g. “too many muggles to do a proper search”, “caching with my muggle sister”, or one I posted recently “gave up as the GZ (geocache zone) became muggle central”.

    It’s like text speech – if you do much texting, or work with teenagers, it becomes automatic to convert CUL&R and the rest. (See you later)

    Muggle is in general use, according to the Oxford Dictionaries, as someone who is not conversant with a field or activity.

30. Quite brilliant – in fact a little toobrilliant for this plodder.

    Everything went in but had to await Peter’s excellent blog for the full parse of LOOSE ENDS and the now glaringly obvious TRACE.

    Here’s today’s earworm

    Many thanks, both.

31. I struggled a bit to get on Fed’s wavelength but it all fell into place eventually.

    I was not familiar with FAMILIAR SPIRIT, so wondered about witch’s cat. Good anagram for UNDOMESTICATED, wordplays for SESAME OIL, GUARANTEE and PUNCTURED. I also enjoyed the guest house for MUSIC. I was another with a reversed ‘art’ in TRACE while muttering a bit that the reverser was in the wrong place. I’m not too sure about shells as a hidden indicator.

    Thanks Fed and PeterO.

32. I was a few parses short of a full solve (not a euphemism) – revealed three also – and found this difficult but rewarding. I do like puzzles which stretch me but aren’t too daunting to feel I should bother with.

    I wish all the difficult ones were more like this, but I know that’s an impossible ask…

33. Curious mix today – seemed very much on the easy end of the spectrum, but was left puzzling over a few of the parsings. Missed the reverse TRACE and, despite being a gardener, didn’t see that COMPOST could mean “dressing”. Have to say I was quite happy with MUGGLE as a widely known term. To not know it I think you’d have needed to be over about 50, and never read what are the best selling books ever, and never seen any of the many films, and never had children at any time over the last 30 years, and never come across the term in a newspaper/other media in all that time…. sounds like quite a small segment of the population!

34. Hard work but got there in the end, having followed many of the rabbit holes. One of them was to try and shoehorn Jack = TAR / AB / OS into 16d. Should know better by now.

35. Pete HA3@27. Interesting point re MUGGLES, but given the success of both the books and the films, I think it was reasonable. We get enough sporting terms from spirts that I suspect are less popular.

36. I had a different problem with TRACE, namely that it doesn’t quite mean find, at least in my usage, but I suppose it’s close enough.

37. Everything went in in the end, but I needed the blog for several parsings, so thank you PeterO. Too many brilliant surfaces to mention, as well as lots of misdirections.

    Amma@17 I also found this considerably more challenging than yesterday, by design I assume, and I suspect most others would agree.

38. TassieTim@9 I also started to put in “minute by minute” instead of LITTLE BY LITTLE in 19A, but TRACE cleared that up. Regarding “muggle” in 4A: I’ve never read the Potter Books or seen the movies (perhaps that makes me a muggle of sorts), but I still know the term; these things seep into our brains. I’ve NHO of COMPOST as dressing, and pictured its use in an unpleasant word salad. 🙂

39. TOUT ENSEMBLE and GUARANTEE were fun to solve….
    Many thanks

40. Thanks PeterO and thanks all.

    PeteHA3 @27 the word’s origins maybe in a childrens’ book but it has now entered the language. Here it is in a headline in that well-known home for fans of childrens’ literature, the Financial Times less than a month ago. And the Daily Mail uses it here to describe those who aren’t the right type of people for a members’ club.

    You might not like it, but it has jumped from the pages of a childrens’ book to dictionaries.

41. Bashed. Ta both.

42. Like others I bunged in minute by minute for a start! Spent the rest of the time chasing rainbows! I thought Fed was getting more understandable in recent offerings but this I found very difficult. Hey ho. Can’t win them all. Ta for the blog: needed it!

43. Surely SESAME OIL isn’t an appropriate ingredient for stir-fry, due to its low smoke point?

44. I was yet another person with ART reversed for trace, thanks for the much clearer solution Peter.
    For 23d I have a pieris trailblazer shrub in my garden which led me to remove one’s = is from pieris while wondering if trailblazer was a well-known term for pieris. How easy it is (for me) to overcomplicate a well-signposted clue.

45. Agree with E.N.Boll&@15 this was easy then difficult. Very enjoyably so though, and I hope Evan Davis learns of his eponymous clue. Thank you Fed, and PeterO (esp for TRACE parsing)

46. Pete HA3@27: I always resent being expected to know things I don’t know, but not everyone knows what everyone knows!

47. I’ve neither read the Potter books nor seen the films, but I remembered MUGGLE straight away. We’ve seen many people on here suggesting we should be losing 19th century public school slang, but now we’ve had someone saying in effect, down with modern culture!

    [William @30: as well as that Dusty Springfield hit, there’s a song of the same name on an early album by the Rolling Stones that I had running through my head as I entered the answer in the grid, and Google tells me that, more recently, both Oasis and Radiohead had tracks with the same name.]

    Dr. WhatsOn@36. Re TRACE, Chambers has ‘to discover the whereabouts of ‘, and the Oxford Thesaurus has ‘investigate, discover, ascertain, detect, determine, find, seek, search for’ etc. Seems ok to me 😃.

    Thanks to Fed and PeterO.

48. Enjoyable puzzle, with many of Fed’s typically imaginative clues. Many of the longer solutions went in from the definition and a crosser or two, with the parsing following respectfully behind – but that never bothers me.

    I especially liked LOOSE ENDS, SIDESHOW, GUARANTEE, EXCELSIOR – and SMUGGLED (thanks for dropping by Fed, and I agree that the word is now used generally for members of an out group, but we Guardianistas are unlikely to have seen it in the Daily Mail 🙂 ).

    Thanks to S&B

49. WhiteDevil@43. The internet is a wonderful thing. My first hit was a stir fry recipe with SESAME OIL added at the end of the cooking as a flavouring, and my second said that it’s good for stir frying as it has a high smoke point!

    I’m not claiming that either of these is accurate from my own knowledge, but they seem to get the setter off the hook.

50. Dave F @3
    I live in Ronkonkoma, Long Island, New York, and the puzzle arrived at a respectable 7pm. Monday evening, local time.
    Median @19
    Sorry if I confused you.
    Robi @31
    I agree that in 20D TRACE ‘shells’ sits better in the surface than the wordplay, but, like so many of the clues here, the surface is so smooth that I thought it did not warrant any objection.

51. Very nice puzzle. As PeterO says 8ac does a great job of supplying misdirection from the anagram; also got tripped by trying to find a way to subtract “I” from something for 23d before realizing it was more literal and less clichéd than that. Great constructions for 4d and 14d as well. I did need to use the check button for LIDOS (Lidl isn’t that familiar and search engines stubbornly refused to reveal the pool meaning for LIDO). Thanks Fed and PeterO.

    [Tomsdad@8: For me, “Excelsior” reminds me of this Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon, which ends:

    The answer came both quick and blunt:
    “It’s just a advertising stunt!
    I represent Smith Jones and Jakes,
    A lumber company that makes
    Excelsior!”

    which I see may be a particularly North American joke–here “excelsior” is a name for the packing material made of wood shavings.]

52. PeterO….. I would still like to know what is “ridiculous” about Excelsior (the poem, not the clue).
    See me @23

53. Came back to this after a healthy long pause, with slightly less than half of the grid filled. Decided to use more Patience, Persistence and Perseverance than I normally do. Rewarded with successfully completing with a sigh of genuine satisfaction. Some really excellent clues within, had most trouble with EXCELSIOR and the SPIRIT part of FAMILIAR, which I did know of in relation to the witch’s cat. A proper, fair challenge I thought today…

54. Very late to this today and it has all been said so just taking the opportunity to thank both setter and blogger. SMUGGLED, UNDOMESTICATED and LOOSE ENDS my faves today.

55. BTW Excelsior was adopted by NY state in 1778. Excelsior (poem) was written in 1841. So not “probably hence”, as you seem to suggest.

56. Not sure I parsed all of this! But what an excellent puzzle indeed! Some of my back-working brought actual out loud laughs – and the ones I did parse gave me a real sense of achievement. And for those I couldn’t get even once the right answer had been found courtesy of crossers, I just popped along here to delve into an excellent analysis by PeterO.

    All in all, a triumph!

57. Thanks Fed and PeterO. A slow, steady solve, with a few left unparsed at the end. Will do my best to remember ‘supply’ as an anagrind.

58. Monstrously difficult for an idiot like me.

59. Sheffield Hatter @47: so there was! Didn’t think of that one.

60. PeteHA3 @27. You are not alone. I avoid anything to do with Harry Potter, didn’t go to public school and only occasionally read the FT. Never heard the term MUGGLE and so, naturally, 4 across my LOI.

    Found this crossword a strange mix of easy, strange and quite difficult clues – so a good test all round. Lots to like.

61. Google will not take me to any site showing that COMPOST is a dressing but I can see that it makes sense linguistically and it didn’t hold me up too much. The same cannot be said for SPIRIT or LOOSE ENDS. Fun puzzle nonetheless.

62. Alec @52: Each to his own, but I’m with PeterO in finding Longfellow’s poem ‘EXCELSIOR’ sententious doggerel (only slightly modified into the song Upidee, memorably rendered by the Muppets). Sorry!

63. BlueDot@60, look for the phrase Top Dressing with compost, that is quite common.

64. I managed to come up with another alternative for 19a, LETTER BY LETTER, which also seems valid. Quite a difficult puzzle for me, with excellent misleading surfaces.

65. A lovely puzzle – very clever. Didn’t parse trace correctly, and didn’t know Tout Ensemble but it was well-clued so eaily gettable. Loads of favourites.

    HoagyM@33@: I’m over 50, never read one word of the books, never seen the films, and haven’t had children and yet I do indeed know “muggle” as being part of the HP universe first and foremost. (I think it’s a horrible term tbh.)

    sheffiledHatter @ 49: Sesame oil is definitely good for adding to a stir fry as a finishing touch. Not sure about cooking with it, but it’s definitely a valid ingredient as a flavouring.

66. Great crossword, defeating me by two – FAMILIAR SPIRIT, which I still don’t understand, and PUNCTURED, which is an excellent clue and probably my COD. Thanks to setter and blogger.

67. White Devil @43 per Wikipedia, “Light sesame oil has a high smoke point and is suitable for deep-frying. Toasted sesame oil is not suitable but it can be used to stir fry meats and vegetables, for sautéing, and to make omelettes.”

68. Sh@47 Right! Now I think I was thinking of track. Too much thinking (or maybe not enough!)

69. Dr Whatson @36 Chambers has Trace ~ to discover the whereabouts of

    That’s the meaning I’ve always read in headlines where, say, Police seek to trace a missing person, no?

70. 25a “Get to the chopper!” Always good to see a reference to one of the greatest genre films of all time.

71. A really excellent puzzle, started off well but hit a few brick walls. As ever, perfectly fair and an enjoyable solve.

    I’ve got to admit I smiled broadly at the commentators who hadn’t heard of Muggles and the responses given. Yes I do believe it’s now part of common usage!

    Thanks Fed and PeterO

72. A lunchtime solve for me here in Connecticut. I’m always worried I’ll run into something very UK-specific, and I did with Lidl. Fortunately, I could just biff lidos, seeing O/S at the end.
    The puzzle does have French on one side and Latin on the other, but nobody seems to have complained about that.

73. Big Norm@66
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familiar
    Should help you get the general drift. Often cited during the many extremely dubious witch trials.

    A very enjoyable puzzle, with varying degrees of difficulty which I like. Means you have a few entry points around the grid which helps to unlock the rest, leaving the usual 4 or 5 serious headscratchers at the end..and for me, wordsearch.

    Thanks very much Fed and PeterO

74. Those who find the original Excelsior the height of Victorian tosh might like to try this version.

75. Fed@40. Hadn’t intended my moan to sound quite as terse as it did. It’s one of those situations where my brain got fixated on the beginning of the clue being the solution and I never gave the final word the significance it deserved. That’s what’s fun about solving these puzzles.

    gladys@46. (Big smile. Thsnks.)

76. On the muggle debate, I think one of the benefits of doing crosswords is that you can keep up to date with the latest popular culture without having to get too close to it. This applies to sporting heroes, pop stars, their horrible music, fashionable phrases, texting acronyms, etc. Today I have learned what a muggle is and I didn’t have to read any of the Potter books. Wonderful!

77. I found this quite tricksy. Got there in the end but needed Peter’s fine blog for some of the parsing. LOOSE ENDS and GUARANTEE the pick of an excellent, and often devious, bunch.

78. Not sure why some are referring to the Harry Potter books as children’s literature. Like many of the great books originally ostensibly for kids, they are great adult reading too.
    General knowledge = what I know. Obscure knowledge = what you know but I don’t. 😉

79. Neil97@76. 🙂 So true. And I’ve also learned, and retained for maybe a minute, lots of historic things too like ancient civilisations, classical music, the military.

    It’s interesting to me that cryptics are a code to get you to a solution, usually via the wordplay, but many of the comments are along the lines of ”I’ve never heard of …….. “. It’s to be expected that we don’t all have the same set of “general” knowledge, or vocabulary, especially these days, when the solving pool is perhaps more diverse than when cryptics first started, but nowadays we have online searches available for confirmation, rather than creaking shelves of 24 volume reference books.

    And agree Tassie Tim@78 with your definition.

80. In spite of belonging to the group described by HoagyM@33, I have heard of MUGGLES. It’s the title of one of Louis Armstrong’s greatest early recordings (1928) and named for what he enjoyed in his leisure moments.

81. Whether you like the books or not, the Harry Potter films are fun, just to watch almost every famous British actor strutting their stuff, and obviously having a ball doing so.

    Thanks Fed for a very entertaining puzzle, and PeterO for explaining the few clues that I didn’t get.

82. This was quite tough but I got there in the end – had to check the spelling of COMPOS MENTIS which was LOI. Wasn’t altogether happy with MUSIC – I guess ‘house’ is a genre unfamiliar to me, and I thought ‘visiting’ got in the way of the wordplay.

    Rest was fine: special ticks for UNDOMESTICATED, EASY COME EASY GO, LOOSE ENDS, P*NCT*RED (don’t say that word aloud when cycling, you’ll bring down a visit from the fairies!), BOOBY TRAP and GUARANTEE.

    Although I agree SMUGGLED works fine, especially that cryptic definition ‘ran’, I hope there aren’t too many Harry P tropes in puzzles to come. I guess I’m not the only one who feels the genre’s a bit jaded now…

    Thanks to FED and Peter.

83. Alec @55
    I was aware of the dates you give. You seem to misread me.

84. gladys@74
    Many thanks for the link. It’s a very long time since I last read it. It may send me looking for my Marriott Edgar books which of course include Albert and the Lion.
    Thanks to Fed, more tractable than I though at first and worth the effort, and to PeterO forhelp with the parsing.

85. Late to the conversation and not wishing to wade through to see if this has already come up, but Longfellow? LONGFELLOW? My mind went straight to Stan Lee on seeing “Excelsior!”

86. Tremendous fun, thanks Fed and PeterO. Struggled with a couple of NHOs (compost= dressing?) but otherwise today found I was mostly on Fed’s wavelength — which is never 6d’d

87. William@30 – I had the same earworm, and thought that by now the supermarket in 26a would’ve used Dusty Springfield’s 19a,21a (1966) in their ads:
    “Lidl, buy Lidl, buy Lidl, buy Lidl, buy Lidl …”
    And@59 – the Stones’ B-side of Not Fade Away is from 1964 (a jubilee for the Hackney Diamonds).
    And Paul@85 – ditto on Stan Lee and “Excelsior!” – (a Marvel fan, long before I learnt any Latin).

88. Tomsdad@8 loved that verse and went in search of more, only to discover it’s not Nash but, surprisingly (to me), A.E. Houseman :

    https://allpoetry.com/Excelsior:-the-Shades-of-Night

89. Well, well. If there were an emoji that said, “sadly shaking head at the way people leap to judgment”, insert it here. Longfellow “Victorian tosh” (Gladys @ 74) and “sententious doggerel” (Gervase @ 62). If anyone is interested in a more nuanced and informed assessment, go to the Poetry Foundation pages on Longfellow, perhaps the most popular and successful and academically influential poet in American history. My curiosity wonders how Tennyson, Coleridge, Wordsworth and Keats might fare under these scrutinies.

90. Other examples of “sententious doggerel”:
    All along the watchtower (Bob Dylan)
    The National Anthem
    Onward Christian Soldiers (Sabine Baring-Gould)
    A Subaltern’s Love Song (John Betjeman)
    You’re right. I have nothing better to do.

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