Guardian Cryptic 29,610 by Harpo

77 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,610 by Harpo”

1. Aren’t they all anagrams of each other?

2. Stared at the crossers of loi 12a for an age, then cheated with guess letter check for the d, before finally waking up. Illude is one of those unused verbs of which the noun and adjectival forms are common. Hey ho, maybe next time … or not. Only saw the ninas after glancing at the G-thread, very clever. Thanks Harpo and PeterO.

3. I think the tis in TISSOT is “sit up” = become startled.

4. Tim C @3 – you beat me to it, That was my best guess in the end, but it seems very oblique, or perhaps just ‘arguable’.

5. I thought 4 anagrams around the outside, after wondering about pangrams and where was there space for a J and Z after getting the Q and X.

   SCLEREMA is a hardening of tissue isn’t it? It’s not underlined, but surfaced from somewhere. And CLAQUE is clue about A Q.

   Thank you to PeterO and Harpo.

6. Maybe “cryptically become startled” Balfour @4

7. I thought this was quite tough. If the toughness was a consequence of grid-wrangling in order to get the perimeter anagrams, I’m not sure it was worth it, but YMMV.

   When PeterO uses the word “particles” (here, in 2d) I never know if he is trying to use it in the linguistic sense or just as a common synonym for bits and pieces. But its meaning is clear enough, anyway. Talking of LEGO bits, I remember as a kid in the early 60’s on holiday bringing back from the Continent brick shapes that weren’t yet available in England – very satisfying.

   Tx H&P

8. As PetetO said, the unknown words created the most difficulty. I needed all the crossers for SCLEREMA and ILLUDE.
   Some very nice clues, I especially liked MANNERS, EXIT POLL and DENARII.
   Thanks both.

9. I made slow and steady progress on the RHS and then ground to a halt. When I came back for a second try I was fortunate to spot the anagram perimeter which helped with the first letters of some of the LHS clues. Too many unfamiliar words for me to enjoy this but was pleased to finish. Favourites were LORELEI, EXIT POLL, DENARII, MANNER and IN SEASON. Thanks PeterO and Harpo.

10. Knowing nothing about horses, the distinction between ROAN and bay passed me by, so I was happy with the clue. Like others I needed the crossers and external confirmation for ILLUDE and SCLEREMA. Guessed ROOT-KNOT, but needed the crossers to check it wasn’t the other way round (as in ‘club-root’). Only noticed the perimeter after finishing and seeing the comments on the G site. Liked TRADE-PLATE and EARTH-TONES. THanks to Harpo and PeterO

11. I rather liked SIT up in TISSOT- it made me smile. A few very tricky words though – I had to look up CLAQUE to confirm it exists and took to the dictionary again for ILLUDE which then enabled LOI, UNEVENTFUL. My faves today all: SUPERLOO and TRADE PLATE for the definitions and MANNERS for the surface/construction.

    Thanks Harpo and PeterO

12. I finished the puzzle but can’t say that I liked it. I think 25A does not need “month” ULT is last and has nothing to do with month. I’m would have hoped that a Marx brother would have been more amusing. Perhaps this is why Harpo never talked.

13. Liked SCLEREMA, TRADE PLATE and TISSOT.
    TUMULT (a minor point)
    in the last month=ULT

    Thanks Harpo and PeterO.

14. Hard work today and some evil parsing (I’m looking at you, LORELEI). ILLUDE was unknown and remained unsolved. ROOT KNOT and SCLEREMA were also unknowns but emerged from the wordplay. I had CLIQUE for CLAQUE for some time, which didn’t help. Didn’t see the clever stuff going on round the border until tipped off by a Guardian comment: perhaps that explains the need for some of the many obscurities. But it was satisfying to sort out TRADE PLATE and EARTH TONES, DENARII and EDENTATA, and EXIT POLL was fun.

15. 25a TUMULT. — note the full stop indicating it’s an abbreviation — “1750– ult., adv. = ultimo, adj. & adv.².”
    And ULTIMO is “{1. 1582–1682 † On the last day (of a specified month). Obsolete.} — 2. 1616– Of last month. (Abbreviated ult. adv. and ulto. adv.)
    [There’s also INST. 1771– inst., adj. n= instant, adj. II.2b.
    And INSTANT is “…II.2.b. 1547– Said of the current calendar month; now elliptical as in the 10th instant, i.e. the tenth day of the current month. Abbreviated inst.”]
    It’s all very dated. 😉

16. Guessing it was a pangram halfway through helped me with CLAQUE but in the end it turned out to not be a pangram (no Z for starters). On completion, for once I did see FOUR ninas on the edges of grid – SLAINTE, SALIENT, ELASTIN, NAILSET all of which are anagrams of themselves.

    Failed to solve 12ac and 22d – never heard of this artist.

    New for me: SCLEREMA; ROOT-KNOT; TRADE PLATE; ESPIAL; SUPERLOO; CLAQUE.

    Thanks, both.

17. Liked the !rish Nina, making a nice change from Māori, and the LORELEI, for once not a “Rock singer”.
    [earworm Roxy Music’s Editions Of You from For Your Pleasure (1973):
    ‘And as I was drifting past the LORELEI | I heard those slinky sirens wail, whooo’ — I may have mentioned it before.]

18. Well I saw the ninas…after finishing the puzzle, so a lot of help that was! I found some clues dropped in right away (first pass on the across clues yielded about half of them), some were fun to piece together exactly as the setter intended (ALEXANDRIA, LORELEI, EDENTATA) but some were just a bit too obscure, to fit the nina, for my taste. And equating roan with bay for horse-types is painfully wrong, the colours being part of one of the first Pony Club badges.

    I may be one of the few people who still uses “ult”, “inst” and “prox” on the rare occasions I write letters!

    Many thanks to Harpo – a rare outing, so not a setter I feel immediately in tune with – and to PeterO.

19. Yes, @15 I’d left out “PROX., adv. Now rare. 1621– = proximo adv.”
    And PROXIMO is “Now rare. 1698– Preceded by an ordinal number specifying a date: in or of the next month. Abbreviated prox.” Citation:
    “1935 There must be millions of our citizens who have not the least notion what is meant by your inst., prox., and ult. A. P. Herbert, What a Word! iii. 64″

20. Phew. Had quite a few really? moments with this one. Having to resort to Chambers a few times.

    Still don’t see how on = close to but no doubt someone will have an example handy.

    Many thanks for the excellent blog, PeterO.

21. Gladys @14 sums it up nicely. I had to return to the SW quadrant this morning as it was a total blank last night. Loved it.

    Slainte Harpo & PeterO.

22. Thanks Harpo and Peter

    Not my thing – I can see the appeal for others, but not me. I suppose I feel like some other correspondents do when they are critical of a Paul puzzle which I have found brilliant. If we are going to have a range of puzzles with varying styles – then some will be more preferred than others. Just as it should be .

23. Found this very hard and did not finish, had to reveal CLAQUE which I never would have solved.
    Also needed the parsing for several. NUNEATON – why does NEAT mean Cattle please?
    Thanks for the struggle Harpo and the parsing PeterO.

24. Cheers for that. MANNERS and CLAQUE were the leading clues for me. I could only finish once I had some protein and caffeine inside me, but perhaps the puzzle lacked a little punch?

25. With JackOfFewTrades@18 on some were fun, some too obscure for my taste… but not the part about seeing the ninas, which I did not. They would have helped me with LEGO which I gave up on and which was a fair clue. With TISSOT, I feel that if the cluing is going to be that oblique then the answer should be pretty readily gettable, and TISSOT was a NHO and not the first result of a search for it either (I got a brand of watches). TA for “terriers” similarly, I guess “ta terriers” brings up the Territorial Army around sixth. OTOH most of the other obscuritiies did fall to wordplay, or in the case of NUNEATON a list of towns in the Midlands (I suppose that’s not an obscurity to many!) Ticks for EGRESS, AERO, ALEXANDRIA, CLAQUE (nice to question as just Q!), AT EASE.

    Thanks to Harpo and PeterO!

26. In 8a, I parsed the O as close (last letter of) tO and the N as mid-laNds, Midlands in that case doing double duty.
    Thanks both

27. SinCam@23, “neat” is apparently an old term for cattle. (That source’s claim that it’s New England seems dubious, the OED has it going back to Mercia.) That is part of the reason I had to look at a list of Midlands towns!

28. I agree with AlanC @21 that gladys @14 sums it up nicely.
    I too found the bottom left corner the most stubborn but enjoyed getting there – only saw the Ninas on completion.
    Many thanks for the challenge, Harpo and PeterO for the blog.

29. Some tough answers today to fit the Ninas I guess (which of course I didn’t spot).
    Favourites were CLAQUE and MANNERS, which I thought a very smooth surface. Puzzled over parsing TISSOT for a while until an aha! moment. I agree with Tim C @6 that a ‘cryptically’ would have helped.
    Lots of NHOs for me, ULT, NEAT, ILLUDE and SCLEREMA so I’ve definitely learnt a few things today! Thanks Harpo and PeterO.

30. As often is the case with Monk I paused about half way to check what was going on
    That helped me to the finish line
    Thanks all-good fun

31. I looked for NINAs at the beginning, then forgot about them until the end, but it helped with my LOI ILLUDE. Clever setting; some might not like the necessity to have to incorporate a few obscure words. I’ve not seen SCLEREMA before but, of course, I’m familiar with sclerosis. I liked ALEXANDRIA for the surface, the good anagram for EARTH-TONES, the definition for TRADE PLATE, and the wordplay for IN SEASON. I couldn’t parse CLAQUE because I thought question was qu or que (but that’s Quebec).

    Thanks Harpo and PeterO.

32. Averagely enjoyable for me (not a criticism – as implied by Matthew Newell@22, if there are varied styles of puzzle, it’s inevitable that some will be more enjoyable than others to any individual – for me, this was in the middle of the spectrum).
    I liked many of those already mentioned; also ESPIAL. There didn’t seem too many obscurities to me – my only new word was SCLEREMA which was clearly clued – and I guessed the SCLER… bit from arteriosclerosis being hardening of the arteries.
    Ult. for ‘last month’ seems to belong in the sort of Victorian business letter that is signed with something hyperobsequious such as ‘I respectfully remain, Sir, your most obedient and humble servant, …’
    Dr. WhatsOn@7 – before the days of Lego, there were Minibrix, which were very similar to Lego bricks but made of hard rubber – and which I had as a child in the ’50s.
    Thanks Harpo and PeterO.

33. I’m afraid I joined the order of EDENTATA for a while with this, making slothlike progress and then becoming ultimately extremely lazy with a couple of exasperated reveals at the very end, including CLAQUE. (I wonder whether there is any connection between CLAQUE and Clique, members of whom can also be rather sychophantic…)
    NUNEATON often appears in crosswordland as an example of a Midlands town, I have found, here with the curiousity Neat component = cattle as Matt W@27 explains for us…

34. …curious, but it’s curiosity of course. However, no dead felines in the neighbourhood, glad to say…

35. A larger than usual proportion of unknown words made this quite a long slog, but satisfying to get to the end. Not a fan of over-use of the first letter to indicate a word, even if it is reasonably common (adult, large, european, great) as I always feel a bit deflated on spotting the ruse. About once a puzzle is nice, especially when in a lovely clue like LEGO. In the end I parsed TSETSE as the blog, but felt a bit uneasy about ‘places’ for two ‘sets’. I can see ‘place’ as a clue for ‘set’ when both are verbs, but not as nouns. I’ll have to cogitate on it some more. Thanks Harpo and PeterO.

36. William @20
    How about (to quote The Sound of Music) “You are sixteen going on seventeen”.

37. Paul @35: I think that using the first letter of a word in general is not accepted in crosswords – the letter has to be a standard abbreviation in some context. So “A” = “adult” comes from cinema and games ratings, “L” for “large” is a standard clothing label (whence we also get XL, S, M etc), “E” for “European” I only know of as part of other abbreviations (EC, EEA, ECHR etc) and “great” was actually “grand” as in “That car cost him fifty grand” which has the standard abbreviation “50G”. It’s worth knowing most of these as they are all legitimate abbreviations.

    I have to say I am not a great fan of the “it appears in other abbreviations” model but accept that it makes sense when the same letter appears in multiple places. E.g. If I take apart “FRGS” as “fellow of the royal geographical society” I am OK with using “F” for “fellow” as there are many other instances of it (FRCO, FRCS, FRS, FInstP…). Ditto “R” for “royal” (RAF, RAC…) and “S” for “society” (one we see often in crosswords). However, it does not follow that “G” = “geographical” as there are few, if any, other instances of that (e.g. the IBG which is now subsumed into the RGS was the “institute of British geographers” so the G stands for something different.

    I hope that makes sense – I think it is very fair to criticise some liberties, but here I think each case is justified by the dictionary and by common usage.

38. It took me a while to get on Harpo’s wavelength. Even then, some of this was unsatisfactory.

    The weakest IMO was TSETSE. SET twice for ‘two places’ does not work for me, surely that would be SETS twice? ‘Fly from the same place twice, cycling’ is much less awkward.

    NEAT for cattle my dictionary says is archaic, which is for me always unsatisfactory either in a clue or an answer.

    ULT for ultimo mense is a NHO, neither the Latin expression nor its abbreviation, and I have no idea why such a thing would need to exist when the perfectly good English expression ‘last month’ exists.

    And NHO of TISSOT, although I’m sure many have.

39. Had most of the NE corner go in fairly fast, but then ground to a halt. Eventually gave up and hit reveal, and I have no regrets. This puzzle might set a record for NHOs in clues or answers for me! That combined with some oblique cluing made this one impossible for me. Will be wary of the next Harpo… Thanks anyway, to Harpo and PeterO.

40. Arguably become startled -it is (become) abreviated (arguably) to ’tis’ is how I parsed it!

41. Similar experience to yesterday, in terms of revealing three and there being a number of unfamiliar words/references. Given that this was another one that stretched me, I’m happy with my efforts.

    Thanks matt w@27 for explaining neat = cattle.

42. I really enjoyed this and found the obscure words made me solve from first principles rather than reverse the answer from the definition

    BTW Chambers has this definition for ROAN: Adj. “Bay or dark, with spots of grey and white” and there’s also a type of horse called “bay roan” so close enough for a cryptic in my book

    Cheers H&P

43. When I had completed the puzzle I finally spotted the peripheral Ninas and realised how Harpo had constructed the crossword, and why there were so many unusual words. I didn’t find it particularly difficult though, as etymology guided me to the solutions of the ones I hadn’t come across (ILLUDE and SCLEREMA). I missed the ‘sit up’, but spotted the ‘sot’, and TISSOT was fortunately familiar.

    ‘Neat’ for bovines, singularly or collectively, may have fallen out of general usage but crops up quite often in Shakespeare. I, for one, would not wish crossword vocabulary to be restricted to words found in Taylor Swift lyrics 🙂

    Favourites: SUPERLOO, TUMULT, TRADE PLATE, MANNERS.

    EDENTATA is the old name for a group of mammals which DNA analysis has shown to be unrelated – sloths, pangolins and aardvarks are now classified in separate, and not even closely related, orders. So this word is archaic!

    Thanks to Harpo and PeterO

44. Thanks Harpo and PeterO
    Amongst several awful clues, using 50% of team to clue FUL stands out as the worst.

45. Jacob@38.

    Neatsfoot oil is still readily available if you need it for oiling your boots, so “neat” is still with us and in common use. Anything you can buy from Amazon can’t be completely out of date.

    It’s claque and illude that got me

46. Jack @37 thanks for your thoughtful reply. I do look down on examples such as ‘G for geographical’ (not that I have ever seen that particular one, but I have seen plenty that made me think “really?” – although someone always finds an example in one dictionary or another) more than the commonly used L for large or D for daughter and so on. But even when it’s a common abbreviation I would prefer that setters avoid using the trick as much as possible. (Just my opinion; others are available!) It never provides a satisfying ‘aha’ moment to parse S = son for the hundredth time, although I accept that sometimes there might be little alternative, or a clue might be so good that we can overlook the triteness of one part. I don’t much notice when there are one or two of these words in a puzzle; more than that and I tend to make a comment.

47. I take your point Paul@46 – both on the overuse (which applies to any cryptic method I guess) but also on the “it’s in the dictionary” explanation. An abbreviation being in Chambers validates its use, but does not always excuse it…

    But then again, where would we be without some familiar tropes to get us started while we puzzle away at the ingenious, inventive oddities? Even when those oddities go a little awry (muffin@44’s comment on “ful” being an example).

48. Muffin @44: Wholeheartedly agree. Worst clue I have ever seen. If you’re going to use that trick at least try and identify the sport!

49. I also agree with Muffin@44!
    I will be wearing protective gear next time I attempt a Harpo; hearty thanks to PeterO for numerous explanations

50. Muffin @44: It’s always nice to see my team getting a mention, but despite being a proud Cottager I would never have made that connection!

51. Thanks Harpo for the challenge. I saw the Nina forming early and that helped me to complete this except for the nho NUNEATON with the nho ‘neat’ being cattle. My top picks were EXIT POLL, EARTH-TONES, ROAN, and TRADE PLATE. Thanks PeterO for the blog.

52. Too many obscure words. The fact that they were forced on the setter by the Nina isn’t sufficient justification for a normal Wednesday puzzle. I enjoy solving puzzles like this but perhaps once a week at the weekend, when I have the time (90 minutes!).

53. [FrankieG @ 17: Thanks for the ‘Editions of You’ earworm. That prompted me to dig out my vinyl copy of ‘For Your Pleasure’, one of my favourite records of the ’70’s.]

54. Neat puzzle. Top half much easier than the bottom for me. Liked LORELEI, SCLEREMA very much.
    Couple of quibbles. I thought EGRESS was only a noun and I can’t see why EARTH-TONES is hyphenated.
    Thanks, Peter & Harpo.

55. To be honest, I am rarely bothered by the presence or absence of a hyphen, and usually have no idea which option is correct. But I do get confused when something I always thought of as two words is clued as one.

    (No, I didn’t like FULham either.)

56. Oh dear!!!!

57. After months and months of successfully completed grids, this was my second dnf in two days. I’m getting a bit anxious about tomorrow!

58. Despite the above comments I don’t see how “arguably become startled” = TIS. Putting “arguably” in a clue does not to me justify what would otherwise be unfair.

59. Lot of people appear happy to flaunt their ignorance of cryptics on here today. Nowt so queer etc etc.

60. @58 – Paul has built an entire career on it

61. I made a fair amount of headway with this but I’m glad I gave up when I did — NUNEATON, SUPERLOO, and ILLUDE would not have emerged from my brain no matter how long I stared at the clues. Managed to put in UNEVENTFUL and TISSOT, but had to come here for the full parsing. Fun to see the Nina after the fact.

62. Thanks Andrew @45 for bringing the neat/cattle connection home for me. Those of us kids growing up in the 50’s lucky enough to own a fine Rawlings or Wilson baseball glove would care for it with regular, diligent applications of neatsfoot oil. Not till now did I realize that glove and treatment derive from the same animal!

63. Thanks Harpo and PeterO

    I’m with bingy @ 59, I thought this was very good, and what more cryptic puzzles should be like.

64. Well, this satisfied my ideal crossword criteria of something for breakfast, something for lunch, something for tea ( that’s SUPPER to any southerners) but still did not like it overmuch, for reasons much as stated above. However, NEAT for cattle was one of my first ‘must remember this’ words when I first returned to regular cryptic solving and not having seen it for ages even looked it up YESTERDAY! What is it about crosswords that somehow percolate the national psyche? Shades of the Normandy landings and that Times offering.
    Never even noticed Nina!
    Many thanks to Harpo and Peter O!

65. For us – 2D (I will be found underneath large bricks etc) went in as Sett, which one would find underneath, and is a type of large brick.
    And fitted with Nuneaton.
    And stopped us getting 10A aero!
    If you’re startled you’re made to sit up. Sit up is tis. Arguably says it’s a clue within a clue.
    IMNVHO!

66. I have an example for William @20 of how close to can mean ON. “Gainsborough is a town on the river Trent.” (It’s actually “on” firm ground close to the river.) But he’ll probably have taken himself off to bed, like a sensible chap.

    What a pleasure to be able to agree with muffin@44. Half of Fulham FC indeed.

    I’m remarkably cheerful despite having failed to complete. Pleased to have got CLAQUE (good use of ‘this’!) and SCLEREMA (by the same route as Beaulieu@32) but failed on the ILL DUDE and a couple of others. Had to check that it was ROOT-KNOT and not KNOT-ROOT – the only crossers I had were the two Os, so I looked it up.

    Thanks to setter, blogger and below-the-liners.

67. I wrote something but it didn’t get posted, and when I tried to repost it I was told I’d already said that. Too late to type it all out again.

    Maybe it’ll turn up one day.

68. Scotblok @ 65

    A sett is not “a type of large brick”, it is a stone more-or-less cube, and is a form of paviour.

    No one sensible would build a wall from setts.

69. SW corner was especially resistant, so in desperation I looked for – and found – the nina, and thank goodness for that. Wouldn’t have solved the obscure words without it I’m sure. So I’m applauding what others have complained about – the Nina might have forced the inclusion of complex vocab but its very presence, when spotted, made amends. Thank you Harpo and PeterO

70. What nina ?

71. This is what I tried to post last night:

    I have an example for William @20 of how close to can mean ON. “Gainsborough is a town on the river Trent.” (It’s actually “on” firm ground close to the river.) But he’ll probably have taken himself off to bed, like a sensible chap.

    What a pleasure to be able to agree with muffin@44. Half of Fulham FC indeed.

    I’m remarkably cheerful despite having failed to complete. Pleased to have got CLAQUE (good use of ‘this’!) and SCLEREMA (by the same route as Beaulieu@32) but failed on the ILL DUDE and a couple of others. Had to check that it was ROOT-KNOT and not KNOT-ROOT – the only crossers I had were the two Os, so I looked it up.

    Thanks to setter, blogger and below-the-liners.

72. Paul@69. The circumferential letters in the grid make up four seven letter words that are anagrams of each other. (For the origin of “nina”, please see FAQs above.)

73. Definitely too tough for me. I did manage some of the top half, enough to see SLAINTE which set me wondering: surely St Patrick’s is still several weeks away?! Clearly that was a red herring.

    Too many NHOs for my liking: ESPIAL, ILLUDE, SCLEREMA, ROOT KNOT, TISSOT, CLAQUE (shouldnt it be ‘clique’?), EARTH-TONES (yes I can see the sense but not heard that phrase). Etc. Etc. I think this would be better cast as an Azed than a Cryptic.

    Oh well – can’t win ’em all. At least I tried!

    Thanks to Harpo and Peter.

74. Laccaria @72
    The CLAQUE is/was a group of supporters paid to cheer loudly in the audience for new music, opera in particular – mainly in Paris, I think.

75. Ronald, 33:

    Didn’t the Late Lamented Captain Beefheart have a number called Clique Claque, or something?

76. I usually agree with about 50% of what muffin says. Does that make me a muf? (FULham indeed.)

    As he also noted, a CLAQUE was a paid cheering section, often for a particular singer. They were the operatic equivalent of soccer hooligans, as they also were expected to loudly boo the singer’s main rivals.

    Re 8a NUNEATON, sometimes I enjoy getting my old atlas out and scouring a map for names of towns that fit a crosser or two, but not this time.

    When I saw the nina across the top I thought I would be treated to a selection of single malts, but alas it was not to be.

    Thanks, PeterO, for elucidating some of Harpo’s elusive illusions. And thanks, Harpo, for the merciless beating.

77. Second in a row with about half solved. As usual, I forgot to look for a theme (nina, etc) before giving up. The ninas may well have helped. I was pleased to get some of the more “obscure” entries, like SCLEREMA, CLAQUE, EDENTATA, ESPIAL. I don’t begrudge a harder puzzle — many of the more advanced solvers are kind enough to express appreciation for the easier ones

    For 24a I wanted HOT (smuggled) bottles (contains) O (over) = HOOT (bay) (instead of ROAN)

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