Guardian 29,758 by Vulcan

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A very nice puzzle, I particularly liked 5ac, 21ac, 24ac, and 1dn. Thanks to Vulcan

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 HANDCART
Conveyance for one visiting hell? (8)

reference to the phrase 'go to hell in a handcart' meaning to get worse very quickly
5 LOOTER
Rioter perhaps to replace equipment knocked over (6)

RETOOL="to replace equipment", reversed ("knocked over")
9 HOMEPAGE
The principal screen, or all of them on estate agent’s website? (4,4)

definition: "The principal screen [… on … website]"

all pages/screens on an estate agent's website might be a 'home page', a page about a home/house
10 SHERPA
In spring, that woman he may bring to the heights (6)

definition: someone who might act as a guide to mountains/heights

HER="that woman", in SPA="spring"
12 TUTOR
Coach taking workers’ association to hill (5)

TU (trade union, "worker's association") + TOR="hill"
13 TOP DRAWER
High-quality spinner, attractive one (3,6)

TOP=spinning toy="spinner" + DRAWER=something that draws/attracts="attractive one"
14 AGGRANDISING
Increasing wealth of criminal gangs raiding (12)

anagram/"criminal" of (gangs raiding)*
18 ELASTIC BANDS
At a stretch, they manage to keep things together (7,5)

cryptic definition

surface may mislead if "At a stretch" is read to mean 'With difficulty/effort' rather referencing the stretchability of elastic bands
21 BIRD’S NEST
Martin’s home is the finest visited by Irish detective before noon (5,4)

definition: a martin is a type of bird, so a martin's home would be a BIRD'S NEST

BEST="finest", around ("visited by") all of: IR (Irish) + DS (Detective Sergeant) + N (noon)
23 COYPU
Rodent is shy, backing up (5)

definition: a type of rodent from South America

COY="shy", plus reversal/"backing" of UP
24 ARISEN
Having got up, is near collapse (6)

anagram/"collapse" of (is near)*
25 MINIMART
Note oils perhaps in convenience store (8)

MINIM=a half "Note" in music; plus ART="oils perhaps", as in oil paintings
26 DOGGED
Pursued with tenacity (6)

double definition: as a past tense of 'dog'=to follow/pursue; or as an adjective meaning showing persistence/tenacity
27 REINVENT
Unnecessary thing to do to wheel? (8)

reference to the phrase 'to reinvent the wheel' meaning to do something unnecessary (spending time and effort creating something that already exists)
DOWN
1 HI-HATS
Has hit varying sets of cymbals (2-4)

anagram/"varying" of (Has hit)*
2 NUMPTY
A stupid person in Humpty-Dumpty rhyme (6)

rhymes with 'Humpty' / 'Dumpty'
3 COPYRIGHT
Make an accurate transcription of a law (9)

COPY RIGHT="make an accurate transcription of"
4 RAGS TO RICHES
Rig the Oscars to mess up the Cinderella theme (4,2,6)

definition: Cinderella is known as a rags-to-riches story

anagram/"mess up" of (Rig the Oscars)*
6 OTHER
Hiding face, parent is not the same (5)

[M]-OTHER="parent", with the first letter ("face") missing/hidden
7 THROWSIN
Shirt now changed, returns to play (6,2)

definition as in a football throw-in where the ball is returned to play after leaving the pitch

anagram/"changed" of (Shirt now)*
8 ROAD RAGE
The fury some are driven to? (4,4)

cryptic definition: "driven" is to be read as a reference to driving a car, instead of "driven to" meaning 'pushed to'/'led to'
11 OPEN CAST MINE
Merging ten companies from which superficial value can be extracted (4,4,4)

definition: open cast mining happens at the surface (i.e. "superficial") level

anagram/"Merging" of (ten companies)*
15 INDUCTION
Admission to office shows some logic (9)

double definition: as in being inducted into an office; or as in using inductive reasoning
16 KEYBOARD
Characterful feature of phone (8)

cryptic definition: refers to characters on a keyboard, rather than "Characterful" meaning having distinctive qualities
17 CARRYING
Being pregnant, a sister at last showing emotion about it (8)

A (from surface) plus [siste]-R at last; with CRYING="showing emotion" around them
19 GYRATE
Keep turning with extremely giddy speed (6)

extreme/outer letters of G-[idd]-Y, plus RATE="speed"
20 TUT-TUT
Pharaoh’s doubled shame (3-3)

definition: 'tut-tut' or 'shame!' can be used to express disapproval

TUT (Tutankhamun)="Pharaoh", doubled
22 SCENE
Observed to speak in part of play (5)

sounds like ("to speak"): 'seen'="Observed"

40 comments on “Guardian 29,758 by Vulcan”

  1. A TOP DRAWER Vulcan Monday offering. I liked HANDCART, AGGRANDISING, COYPU, REINVENT and RAGS TO RICHES. Some commenters on the other site are querying KEYBOARD but I thought it was fine.

    Ta Vulcan & manehi.

  3. I don’t think we have numpties in Australia, but I eventually found them on the web. Scottish?

    No other speed bumps, and a very enjoyable experience, thank you Vukcan.

  4. Pleasant solve. Good blog.
    Thanks Vulcan and manehi.

    I liked the cryptic definitions, particularly.
    That said, I have a small query about HOMEPAGE:
    Should the clue not say ‘each of them’ instead of ‘all of them’?

  5. Great start to the week. It was satisfying to get an answer such as COYPU – I think I must have heard of it at some point, but the clueing got me there well enough.

  6. A very smooth and simple start to the week. I am a fan of cryptic definitions and I think I prefer Monday crosswords to be like this, but am grateful for whatever we receive.

    I liked HANDCART and MINIMART but it was all very pleasant.
    Like AlanC @1, I noticed people on the other page querying KEYBOARD, but it’s right there in my phone settings. If it’s good enough for Google and Samsung it seems entirely valid. (A 1-second Google search confirms that Apple agree.)

    Thanks Vulcan and manehi

  7. A nice Monday crossword for me. Enough to give me some pause for thought and some nice clues to go with the cryptic definitions. Looter was probably my favourite.
    I held myself up a little by trying to find a different spelling to make bungee cords fit, and my first attempt for 26 was driven instead of dogged, but the “I” really didn’t look likely as a crosser.

  8. Yes GDU@3, from Chambers…
    numpty (chiefly Scot)
    noun
    An idiot

    ORIGIN: Perh from obs nump

    I love the richness that the Scottish language brings to us. In today’s SMH there’s a photo with a protester holding up an image during Trump’s visit with the sign saying “Hope yer next jobby is a hedgehog”. Not sure if this link will work.

    Anyone else start with RUBBER BAND before the letter count made it incorrect?

  9. A better than usual Vulcan. Clearly some old phones don’t have keyboards, but we can let it pass, though I’m not a big fan of DDs in general. I frowned at ‘wealth’ in 14a as AGGRANDISING can apply to pretty much anything and more often refers to esteem (self or otherwise) and other intangibles, but the answer was clearly an anagram.

  10. Thanks Vulcan and manehi
    Very nice. I found the SW a bit harder than the rest. I thought the clue for THROWS IN was particularly neat.

  11. Good Monday puzzle; I went rather slowly in the SW for some unaccountable reason.

    I liked the attractive spinner for TOP DRAWER, BIRDS NEST where I spent too long trying to think of an Irish detective, and the surfaces for OPEN CAST MINE and CARRYING.

    Thanks Vulcan and manehi.

  12. I believe that COYPUS were introduced to the UK from South America to be farmed for their fur just over a century ago. But they escaped into the wild and did a lot of damage to their watery environment, particularly in East Anglia…
    Enjoyed this, last two to yield today were the SHERPA and the LOOTER.

  13. A pleasant start to the week.
    ‘Dogged’ is an example of the words that fascinate me, insofar as you can only pronounce them properly if given context. Other everyday examples include ‘use’ and ‘close’.

  14. Beaten by LOOTER when ‘retool’ just wouldn’t come to mind. I thought OPEN CAST MINE a splendid anagram.

    Thanks both

  15. pic@9: my first encounter with the word was ‘territorial aggrandisement’ …

    Self-aggrandisement is irritating, but maybe that’s all …. whereas territorial aggrandisement is an offence in international law …

  16. I agree this was a very pleasant Monday puzzle. My favourite was THROWS IN for the clever surface (and for the football link after yesterday 🙂 ). I found the slightly cryptic definitions for HANDCART and REINVENT the hardest.

    Vulcan did SHERPA before as “High-level guide‘s phrase needs translating (6)” (29,076), for which several of us had SERAPH before being put right by the crossers!

    Many thanks both.

  18. Just to add a little international flavour to the compliments, this was a very nice Sunday evening puzzle, and a perfect way to end the week(end).

  19. Sunday evening puzzle for me too!
    Set off quickly and thought I was on for a record time, then ground to a halt in the SE corner.
    LOI was REINVENT, but was also one of my favorites, along with HANDCART and RAGS TO RICHES.
    No issues parsing anything, so I feel I should have been faster!

    Nonetheless an enjoyable puzzle to end the weekend, thanks Vulcan and manehi

  20. I was weirdly in sync with Vulcan. Got 90% without a clue of the crypticism! But enjoyed it thoroughly. And the blog doubled it.

    Thanks to Vulcan and Manehi

  21. Being American, I’m more familiar with “going to hell in a handbasket”, so I had to rely on guess-and-check to figure out what the British version was, alas.

  22. I thought the clues for HANDCART and REINVENT were a bit unusual, with the definition given by a colloquial expression – good innovation.

  23. This keeps happening to me lately: my last one in, REINVENT immediately became my favourite clue. Does anyone else suffer/enjoy the same feeling?
    [Many years back our local lake was infested with COYPUS. One winter when the lake was partially frozen over I spent nearly an hour watching mother coypu repeatedly pushing her babies up on to the ice, then climbing up onto it, when it broke under her weight and dumped them all back into the water again. Full marks for persistence… They got rid of them in the end because it ruined the fishing.]

  24. [Curiously the only coypu I’ve ever seen was in the River Arno – I can’t remember if it was Florence or Pisa.]

  25. Blaise@23 yesterday’s Everyman had “uselessly intervened – vis-a-vis wheel?” for “reinvented”, which I didn’t get at first either.

  26. I’ve just realised that I’ve made a faux pas by explaining an Everyman clue a week before it’s supposed to be blogged 🙁
    Profuse apologies and please don’t hate me!

  28. Nice puzzle, but I didn’t get a great start, as I’ve never heard the expression alluded to in the first across clue. I was brought up in a Christian home, so maybe going to Hell wasn’t something considered! Thanks setter and blogger, as always.

  29. Yes, I’m a hopeless old pedant, but I would have liked 24ac even more if ‘collapse’ had been ‘to collapse’ or ‘collapsing’. In similar vein I agree with KVa@4.

  30. Hector @29 One way of couching an anagrind is to voice it as an imperative to the solver. ‘Doctor’ is frequently used in this way. Therefore, ‘collapse’ directs us to do so with the anagram fodder. No issue with that.

    In another vein, 29 is not many comments on a Guardian cryptic at 8.30 in the evening. Despite other commenters describing this as ‘nice’ and ‘pleasant’, I’m afraid it was dull. Please, something more interesting tomorrow.

  31. Each to their own of course, but I didn’t find it dull; just normal Monday fodder, and nothing wrong with that. And as some others have expressed, I liked the CDs based on idioms, so it did have a little spice too; in my case, the first I had to think about, while the second was a write-in… but that’s CDs for you. Others will have found the exact opposite, or both, or neither. And that’s what makes them fun IMO.

    I agree with Hector@29 about collapse: I found it a bit clunky, because the imperative wouldn’t be used in normal speech after the object, unless it’s a magician exclaiming it while waving a wand. But hey, if there’s a way of making it make sense then that’s technically good enough.

    Thanks both

  32. Balfour@30. Point taken, but outside of crossword clues doesn’t an imperative verb more often precede its object than follow it? People often say to me ‘Get a life’, rarely ‘A life get’.

    Like you, I prefer something a bit more challenging than today’s offering but I’m not sure I would want Enigmatist every day. All tastes have to be catered for, and something pitched at my preferred level won’t appeal to everyone.

  33. Balfour @30; I thought it was perfect. I had a very slow start to it and thought it too hard, but somebody in the Grauniad comments said it was their first ever complete solve so thus encouraged I did indeed finish it. We can’t all – yet – cope with trickier clues so give us a chance to catch you up!

  38. Muffin@24 [I too saw a coypu in the Arno, in Florence a few years ago now. Apparently they are quite widespread in Europe]

  39. Before any crossers, I had convinced myself 14A was PROFITEERING. Got it eventually – very nice solve. Thanks Vulcan !

  40. Completed, except I carelessly had 7d THROWN IN (instead of THROWS), so dnf. A fun and creative set of clues. Favourites 23a COYPU, 27a REINVENT (which took longer than it should have!), 4d RAGS TO RICHES (for the great anagram), 8d ROAD RAGE

    Like Khitty Hawk @21, 1a I would say “to hell in a handbasket”, but HANDCART came readily enough

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