Harpo is today's inquisitor in the Guardian.
One for the general knowledge buffs today. You need to know about geography, history, Bond villains, natural science, Scottish crime fiction, 19th century physics, etc to complete this puzzle today. Fine by me, as I like a bit of general knowledge in a puzzle, but some may find references to GELADA and LARGO obscure, especially when they cross as they do in the top left-hand corener of this puzzle. My LOI was NINE, a clever hidden, but my favourite was GUARDIAN ANGEL for its surface.
Thanks, Harpo.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | GELADA |
Baboon juvenile male breaks a great deal of equipment (6)
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LAD ("juvenile male") breaks [a great deal of] GEA(r) A gelada is a maned East African baboon. |
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| 4 | DAGGER |
Mark learned about limiting inane gaming (6)
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<=READ ("learned", about) limiting [inane] G(amin)G |
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| 9 | LAIR |
Abandoning front, dash in retreat (4)
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[abandoning front] (f)LAIR ("dash") |
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| 10 | LAUNDERING |
Washing articles abroad in middle of night (10)
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LA, UN + DER ("articles abroad" (French and German)) + IN + [middle of] (ni)G(ht) |
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| 11 | PUT OFF |
Gust around summit almost causes delay (3,3)
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PUFF ("gust") around TO(p) ("summit", almost) |
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| 12 | RHODESIA |
Raised extravagantly, bored by house in British colony once (8)
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*(raised) [anag:extravagantly] bored by Ho. (house) Rhodesia is the former name of Zimbabwe. |
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| 13 | NEURALGIA |
Disheartened indifferent US soldier with a nervous disorder (9)
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[disheartened] NEU(t)RAL [indifferent] + GI ("US soldier") with A |
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| 15 | NINE |
Square opening, partly round (4)
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Hidden backwards in [partly round] "opENINg" |
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| 16 | ARID |
Help to keep Rudolph’s nose dry (4)
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AID ("help") to keep R(udolph) ['s nose] |
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| 17 | UNALIGNED |
University somehow gained odd bits of land without any agreement? (9)
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U (university) + *(gained ln) [anag:somehow] where LN is [odd bits of] L(a)N(d) |
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| 21 | GUNGA DIN |
Bard finally enters piece to improve Kipling poem (5,3)
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(bar)D [finally] enters GUN ("piece") + GAIN ("improve") |
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| 22 | TRIAGE |
Sorting out gear – it’s daft (6)
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*(gear it) [anag:daft] |
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| 24 | FRAUDULENT |
Dishonest foreign wife with depression about guilt, off and on (10)
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FRAU (German for wife, so "foreign wife") with DENT ("depression") about (g)U(i)L(t) [off and on] |
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| 25 | DEAN |
Minister eschewing care of college fellow (4)
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DEA(co)N ("minister") eschewing c/o (care of) |
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| 26 | AGENDA |
Programme objective penned by Eastern commander (6)
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END ("objective") penned by AGA ("Eastern commander") |
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| 27 | RELAID |
Again deposited half of reference papers (6)
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[half of] RELA(tion) ("reference") + ID (identity "papers") |
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| DOWN | ||
| 1 | GRANULE |
Fine particle in sample lunar geologists picked up (7)
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Hidden backwards in [in…picked up] "samplE LUNAR Geologists" |
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| 2 | LARGO |
Mostly generous old Bond villain (5)
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[mostly] LARG(e) ("generous") + O (old) Emilio Largo was the baddie in the Bond book and movie Thunderball. |
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| 3 | DOLEFUL |
Blue duo fell out (7)
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*(duo fell) [anag:out] |
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| 5 | AND HOW |
Certainly, ‘name’ boards first-class Arab sailing vessel (3,3)
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N (name) boards A ("first-class") + DHOW ("Arab sailing vessel") |
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| 6 | GARDENING |
Age-old British pastime is good, getting tougher without husband (9)
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G (good) + (h)ARDENING ("getting tougher", without H (husband)) |
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| 7 | RANKINE |
Scottish crime novelist joins European physicist (7)
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(Ian) RANKIN ("Scottish crime novelist") joins E (European) Ian Rankin is the creator of Scottish detective John Rebus, while Rankine most likely refers to WJM Rankine, a 19th century Scottish mathematician and physicist. |
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| 8 | GUARDIAN ANGEL |
Vigilante huntress stops violent gang rule (8,5)
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DIANA ("huntress", a Roman god) stops *(gang rule) [anag:violent] |
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| 14 | RAIN GAUGE |
Repeatedly aiming at the sides, urine damaged volume-measuring apparatus (4,5)
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*(ag ag urine) [anag:damaged] where AG AG is [repeatedly] A(imin)G [at the sides] |
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| 16 | AQUARIA |
Tanks in a former Arabic union checked by, at the very least, Qatar, Iraq and Afghanistan (7)
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A + UAR (United Arab Republic) checked by [at the very least] Q(atar), I(raq) and A(fghanistan) The United Arab Republic was a brief political union between Egpyt and Syria that lasted about three years. |
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| 18 | LET IT BE |
Title changed on cover of boogie-woogie song (3,2,2)
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*(title) [anag:changed] on [cover of] B(oogie-woogi)E |
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| 19 | ENGLAND |
Edgbaston extremely happy to host new national team (7)
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E(dgbasto)N [extremely] + GLAD ("happy") to host N (new) |
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| 20 | EDMUND |
One of two kings died charging English hill, not getting over (6)
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D (died) charging E (English) + M(o)UND ("hill", not getting O (over, in cricket)) |
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| 23 | INDIA |
Country where diva hosts Victor? (5)
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DIA hosting V (Victor, in the NATO phonetic alphabet) would become DIVA so the V is IN DIA |
thanks LP and H! My LOI was also NINE and actually didn’t see the rev hidden until you pointed it out. I wasn’t familiar with RANKINE – only RANKIN which just goes to show where my reading interests lie. Mostly.
Likewise, Ilan Caron@1: I needed to Google RANKINE to check that he existed, the Bond villain was another unknown and I didn’t remember the UAR. Couldn’t parse INDIA either, having spent ages trying to think of countries with a V in the middle, and I still don’t understand how “inane gaming” means “first and last letters”.
Favourites GUARDIAN ANGEL, TRIAGE, LAUNDERING, ENGLAND.
Thanks Harpo and loonapick.
Gladys@2 – inane means empty, so empty G(amin)G?
Thanks loonapick: I only knew the “silly” meaning of inane.
I bet this was a good crossword, and thanks to Harpo and Loonapick.
No complaints, I got most of it.
Dnk Rankine, but did know gelada and largo.
But somehow I just wasn’t in the groove today and couldn’t really raise any enthusiasm for it. Probably December blues, or age, or something.
Not convinced by the RELA of 27? But otherwise, lots of satisfying twists and turns, many, for me, solved forwards, rather than reverse-engineering the parse. A Good Thing, to have a fair share of those, IMO. Thanks, H&L.
Thanks Loonapick. DAGGER (took me a while to find the “void” meaning for inane) is this from Wiki, I take it?
A dagger, obelisk, or obelus † is a typographical mark that usually indicates a footnote if an asterisk has already been used.[1] The symbol is also used to indicate death (of people) or extinction (of species or languages).[2] It is one of the modern descendants of the obelus, a mark used historically by scholars as a critical or highlighting indicator in manuscripts. In older texts, it is called an obelisk.
Showaddydadito #5. My first response was similar. Initially I thought that this is a lot of work, for Harpo, and later for me, but not much fun. But I switched from desktop to phone with only a couple to go, and decided not to reveal all, but to go over each of the clues again, and found a lot to like.
Often I think there’s the “halo effect” on the Guardian site. Endorphins high, happy to have solved it. Done and dusted. Then you land here, with a bit of a time lag, happy hormones subsiding, and you find a different response.
Other than the baboon and the Middle Eastern union I thankfully had the required general knowledge for this. RANKIN was the only Scottish crime author coming to mind this morning but GUNGA DIN was well down the list of my memorable Kipling poems.
Liked GUARDIAN ANGEL even if the parsing came after putting it in and EDMUND.
This seemed on Harpo’s tougher side but I imagine difficulty will be different for everyone on this type of puzzle.
Thanks Loonapick and Harpo
I like it that inane is used in its truer meaning — empty or vain (from which ‘silly’ is a more commonplace derivative) — although I didn’t get it at the time.
Enjoyable puzzle, thanks Harpo and loonapick.
Well, inane/empty was a surprise. Sure enough, they’re listed as synonyms in Collins.
Didn’t finish today, as my head was starting to hurt and I went over to Goliath in the FT.
I hadn’t heard of the two Scots Rankin or Rankine, so I was surprised that my guess (after solving the intersecting clues) was correct.
GDU @11, Sir Ian Rankin is a good read if you like crime fiction. I’m currently reading his latest where John Rebus (his Polis detective) is actually in prison for murder.
A DNF for me on two counts: I had REPAID at 27a – I could see where the first two and last two letters came from, but not the middle (and seeing the parsing here, I’m not surprised); and I have only now realised I never did go back to EDMUND. Thank goodness for the downs, though – after the acrosses I had only two entries, one of which turned out to be wrong. GUARDIAN ANGEL was a delight – I could see where DIANA could fit (having guessed that 17a might start with UN) and the rest feel into place. Thanks, Harpo and loonapick.
Far too taxing for me, with unknown words, less-than-general knowledge and a few dubious synonyms. In the midst of it all, some great clues. I liked laundering in particular.
I found this one intriguing and frustrating in equal parts, and I wasn’t feeling sufficiently energetic so ended up revealing a couple. As others have said, though, there’s lots to like when reviewing the clues calmly. I failed where my knowledge failed: inane for empty (apparently its original meaning; not sure if it’s truly still valid), UAR for the Arab union, the tanks. And I had to cross fingers and hope, with the baboon, the Bond enemy, the scientist and so on, happily with positive results. I also failed on INDIA and NINE and am kicking myself for both. That’s a very good hidden, and up there in my Best of the Year, while the device for INDIA is simply lovely.
The only one which I continue to be baffled by is AQUARIA; why does “checked by” mean “intermingle two sets of letters”? Surely the Q, I and A (initial letters) have to be kept together, according to the cryptic reading.
Thanks both
Tough, almost Vlad-like, but fair, with some lovely touches on the way. NINE was very clever, as was INDIA. LAUNDERING, FRAUDULENT and GUARDIAN ANGEL were very neatly put together, too.
I dredged up RANKINE from somewhere. The Rankine temperature scale – essentially the Kelvin scale, starting from absolute zero, but using Fahrenheit degrees – is one of those things that leave you thinking Why would you? but Rankine himself seems to have been a remarkable man who packed a great deal into his 52 years. I rather like it when a crossword prompts me to do a bit of digging.
I didn’t know GELADA or LARGO but the wordplay for GELADA was sufficiently clear that I could work it out, and that left me with three crossers towards LARGO. Fortunately (cough) the tough bit didn’t involve either of the lights with a majority of unchecked letters…
Thanks to Harpo and loonapick.
Thanks Harpo and loonapick
I found this difficult, especially in the NE, which required a lot of Googling – I had never heard of RANKIN or RANKINE. I also didn’t parse GUNGA DIN, and didn’t think the clueing for the RELA in RELAID was very fair.
Favourite LOI INDIA.
[Tassie Tim @13 – that would be Angel Delight, then – remember that?]
As a PhD physicist with a strong interest in history of science and measurement, Rankine was *not* a write-in. He does have a temperature scale named after him, which I have never heard of anyone using. So I would not expect any to beat themselves up about not having heard of him. Ian Rankin, on the other hand has been a best-selling author for a couple of decades with TV series made of his books, so is fair game I think.
I love untangling “guardian angel” and was also slow to find the hidden “nine”. Many thanks Harpo and loonapick.
I agree with loonapick’s comment about gelada and largo crossing, though once I solved it, Largo sounded vaguely familiar.
I resorted to looking up types of baboon, and failed because technically a gelada is not a baboon. It is apparently often called one though which I guess makes it fair.
If you know any Kipling poems besides “If”, then you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din. A great puzzle, especially LAUNDERING and GUARDIAN ANGEL.
According to OED, the word inane comes from Latin ‘inanis’ meaning empty or vain. A great puzzle.
Strictly speaking the NATO alphabet is not phonetic.
[muffin@17 ha, ha – but from my wife’s description of it, fortunately, no.]
I, too, balked at ‘inane’ for empty/lacking content: several commenters have noted that an early or “the original” meaning of ‘inane’ is ’empty’ and I think its etymology lies in the Latin word animus (which denoted mind, intelligence, reason, rationality) so that ‘inane’ came into English denoting a lack of animus, hence stupid, without intelligence or reason, and that links to the sense ‘air-headed’ (having nothing between the ears) and so the concepts ‘vacuous’ and ’empty’ developed in association with the word ‘inane’. It’s that vacuous/empty-headed idea that Harpo seems to be using in the DAGGER clue.
A very tricky last few clues, but satisfying up until that point. Particularly enjoyed LAUNDERING, FRAUDULENT, and GUARDIAN ANGEL. Felt less sure about the trivia knowledge, zoology and 19th century poetry.
I’ve only ever seen inane used like that once before, in The Times earlier this year. I understand the root of the word and that it can be synonymous with empty, but to work as an indicator it has to mean empty in the physical sense – i.e. you should be able to use it to replace empty in terms like ’empty bucket’, not just figuratively in terms like ’empty words’. Despite both Chambers and Collins giving ’empty, void’ as definitions, nobody would ever refer to an inane bucket. That could be simply because it’s not the common usage, but it could also be because inane can’t mean that. The only physical thing I can find reference to that can be described as inane is space. But that’s not an emptiness in a container, that’s just an absence of stuff.
Can anyone find an example to support the usage here?
Also, did anyone understand it without first translating it to ’empty’, and then applying ’empty’ to ‘gaming’?
James @26 – Inane / Empty head, as in Trump?
James@26: “…but to work as an indicator it has to mean empty in the physical sense” — Yes, I agree with you. I think it’s dodgy as a wordplay indicator to remove all the letters of ‘gaming’ except the first and last.
Can’t claim credit for spotting it (chapeau to HCrowley on the Guardian thread): the majority of the solutions use only (or mostly) the letters from GUARDIAN ANGEL.
As pointed out on the Guardian website, many of the answers, and one or two clues, are cleverly made from the letters of GUARDIAN ANGEL. Maybe this is why the controversial ‘inane’ is used in 4a. And the reason for obscure ones like GELADA
A challenging one with a few where I had to resort to the check button. I agree with James@26 on “inane”–the sense in which it is synonymous with “empty” is not the one that would mean “delete the middle letters.” For an analogy, “terminal” can be used to indicate the last letter, and “fatal” would be fair game as a definition for “terminal,” but “fatal” couldn’t be a last letter indicator. Many others where I slapped my head and said “Why didn’t I see that?”; particularly liked GUARDIAN ANGEL and the clever hiddens in GRANULE and NINE.
Rankin I’ve heard of (and the Rankine scale, like Kelvin but with Fahrenheit degrees). Always thought that he could be writing the dark and gritty remake of some lost series where Inspector Rebus and his hypnotist family solve wacky wordplay-based crimes.
Thanks Harpo and loonapick!
Rankine is probably better known for the ‘Rankine cycle’ than for his rather esoteric temperature scale. The Rankine Cycle is the principle that explains how a heat engine extracts mechanical work from a heat source. It is essential to the working of any thermal power station (whether that derives its energy from fossil fuels, biofuels, nuclear fuels or geothermal sources), so is fundamental to the way most of our electricity is produced.
Inane = empty, how? possibly vacuous, from the latin word vacuus meaning empty (vacant).
Inane=empty is the first entry in Chambers. No, I didn’t know it either. NHO GELADA but I did get the other references, even Rankine. INDIA was my LOI and took a while to see.
Yes, I rather agree with Loonapick’s comments about today’s puzzle. I know it sounds a bit ridiculous, but if the first clue I read – in this case 1 across – turns out to be a rather obscure monkey, then I feel slightly miffed. Decided to Google all 5 letter Bond villains ending in O when I had got that far, too.
Having said all that, there was plenty to enjoy, with loi DAGGER. Liked FRAUDULENT, LAUNDERING and UNALIGNED…
Ravenrider@19 – I’m with you & loonapick on the crossing of LARGO and GELADA. In both cases I felt the cluing was not quite directive enough for me even to be sure of what letter sought to go in to the blanks to then check against. So for me this was a “Technical DNF” as I needed to check a list of Bond villains to see what might fit the cluing (“ah – that one”), and MoreWords to see what would fit G-L-D-, and then back-parse it to check it was OK. To have both in the same part of the grid was a bit hardcore; for me, anyway.
Another mild grumble , but this is one where professional knowledge is offended by common use: in 6D, “Hardening” is used as a synonym for “toughening”. Not so – in fact they are pretty much opposites in many cases. “Tough” means “resistant to fracture”, whereas “hard” means “resistant to plastic deformation”. Things that are hard are mostly not tough (e.g. pottery) whereas things that are tough are mostly not hard (e.g. mild steel, which will deform a lot before it finally breaks) . If you harden a steel, say by heating it and quenching it, there’s a big risk of making it brittle (you have to temper it after quenching to get a good balance of hardness and toughness). Hence all the mystique attached to legendary smiths (Weyland and so on) and Excalibur and other semi-magical swords of old. OK, metallurgist’s burblings over… common parlance conflates the two, so it’s fine in context. (wanders off, muttering, anyway)
But, apart from that Mrs Lincoln…?
CotD was INDIA; ingenious. I also liked LET IT BE, not least because I’m trying to imagine it played boogie-woogie. Lots of other nice stuff, too.
I had (dimly) heard of RANKINE; I think he has a cycle named after him. Not a thing with two wheels and pedals, but a thermodynamic one, along the same lines as the Carnot cycle.
Thanks to Harpo for the puzzle (good stuff, despite my nit-picking) and loonapick for the explanations.
Wouldn’t diva hosting Victor be divva?
grantinfreo@37, on it’s own, yes – but where diva hosts Victor is (with)in DIA. The “where” is key to the cryptic reading.
This was more work than fun for me. I agree with the grumbles about inane. Context matters, and “it’s in Chambers” simply will not do here.
I failed to solve DAGGER, RANKINE (never heard of either chap) and NINE, although the latter is obvious in hindsight. And failed to parse too many to list.
I feel this is one of those cases where the cleverness of the device harmed the puzzle.
Thanks loonapick.
Yep ok, got it, ta AP. I was being a bit dim …
I noticed a lot of Gs in the grid and then saw in the two combined across clues in the grid, ARID and UNALIGNED plus LAIR and LAUNDERING, that GUARDIAN and ANGEL are both anagrams. AGENDA and RELAID also gives ANGEL as does GRANULE and ENGLAND. Very clever indeed and I would have thought Rankin is a must read rather than a should, Rebus is a wonderfully sardonic character.
Ta Harpo & loonapick.
Cryptic crosswords become less entertaining when it boils down to one-upmanship.I’m sure its beneficial to know GELADA =BABOON species and MARK=DAGGER in our everyday vocabulary!
Too tough in several places (as usual) for me but thanks for the comments helping me along. One sticky – why does nine define as square? I can only think of a grid or tidying/organising or settling a debt (right as ninepence/squared away, etc.)
Drums_are_not_noise@43: 9 = 3×3, or 3 squared.
Parsed GELADA as A G DEAL with ‘breaks’ as the anagrind and then spent long time wondering what to do with the juvenile male and the equipment. Also, this might be he first crossword where being a native German speaker came in handy. FRAUDULENT and LAUNDERING went in immediately.
Thank you Harpo and loonapick!
Too clever by half. Harrumph.
Some liked it all, but “excellent in parts” for me. 2 cheats required.
Thanks both.
Entertaining puzzle with some satisfying challenges. NW last in, with the help of DuckDuck for 1a GELADA and 2d LARGO. Couldn’t parse 4a DAGGER or 25a DEAN, so thank you loonapick. In the former, how does “inane gaming” = GG? (I don’t have time to read the comments right now, so apologies if this has already been answered)
A lot of great clues, but my favourite was 16a ARID which raised a hearty laugh (keep Rudolph’s nose dry — excellent!)
[PeterT @20
In Carry on up the Khyber, the leader of the Burpa tribe is Bungdit Din – I thought you would all like to be reminded!]
Me@47, never mind my question. I see that “inane” = empty
…I also forgot to add that in 8d GUARDIAN ANGEL, it was nice to see the first word clued as something other than “us”
Me @41: ANGEL also in the combined down clues LARGO and RAIN GUAGE and in NEURALGIA.
Mig @50: I had the same thought.
Glad to spot Cranmer’s timely “READ, Mark, Learn” in 4a. NHO GELADA, but, my being a lapsed scientist, RANKINE rang a distant bell for me. TTS&B
[DerekTheSheep@44: I hope you saw my explanation late in yesterday’s blog of ‘tea-tray moment’ 🙂 ]
DtS@36 Common parlance is what 99% of the world uses. The metallurgist’s tough/hard is just the linguist’s panino/panini. Was this puzzle tough or hard?🙂
DerekTheSheep@44
Ah, over thunked it I see. Much obliged.
As a Bond fan, I felt a right numpty not getting Largo.
On a tangent, I always reckon THUNDERBALL has the sharpest dialogue in any of the Bond movies
BOND: This looks like a woman’s gun?
LARGO: Ah, you know a lot about guns, Mr. Bond?
BOND: No. But I know a little about women.
Thanks Harpo and loonapick. I must say I wasn’t really able to see the equivalence between GUARDIAN ANGEL and “vigilante” absent any further link. For me that link was provided by the famous, unofficial protective group founded in New York City by the red-beret-wearing Curtis Sliwa in 1979. Sliwa was in the news recently for having been trounced, along with former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, by the inspirational, progressive Zohran Mamdani in the NYC mayoral race.
Zoot@54: I’d say it got the tempering about right, maybe a little overcooked as a few bits were tougher than they might have been, in that they absorbed more energy than expected.
[Alphalpha@53: thank you…. That was exceeding weird. What a way to make a living, eh?]
Very difficult, made me think it is Friday! One of the first clues I solved was 7d even though I have never read any of Rankin’s books (but I know of him) and never heard of the physicists either (found two in my online dictionary one described as British, the other as Scottish).
I failed to solve 1ac (never would have gotten this in a million years!), 4ac, 15ac, 1d.
New for me: RANKINE = physicist; LARGO = Bond villain; UAR = United Arab Republic (for 16d).
I could not parse 10ac apart from the IN G bit; 27ac apart from ID = papers.
James@26 but to work as an indicator it has to mean empty in the physical sense – i.e. you should be able to use it to replace empty in terms like ’empty bucket’, not just figuratively in terms like ’empty words’.
It seems to me that “Empty words” is just what is needed as an instruction?
I did try very hard to think of a Scottish crime writer, but only came up with Val McDermid, whose name I only know as she represents Scotland on Round Britain Quiz (which I expect all crossword aficionados follow?).
James@26: I’m not sure of the validity of your “physical sense” requirement, or of your replacement test. “disheartened” is a commonly accepted instruction to strip the internal letters. A disheartened bucket?
Pedantically, I agree with James @26, but, as it’s a crossword, I think Harpo can use “inane” metaphorically to mean “empty”. Can’t say I like it, though – perhaps he felt restricted by his self-imposed alphabetical limitation.
‘Inane’ for empty…?
Bit of a stretch
Really enjoyed this and wasn’t bothered by all the GK. I wasn’t familiar with a lot of that, but they were quite gettable through the wordplay. Loved LAUNDERING, NINE, and GUARDIAN ANGEL (and as someone said above, nice to see GUARDIAN clued without reference to the newspaper).
I have been interested to see the huffing and puffing about ‘inane’. I suppose it rather depends on what you normally mean by the word. An early poster (gladys @4) said that she thinks of it as meaning ‘silly’. I think of it as meaning ‘vacuous’, which makes the segue to ’empty’ rather easier.
Balfour @67
But “inane” means “empty” as applied to a statement, not to a physical object, as James @26 said.
I’m not complaining: I knew inane could mean empty-headed or vacuous, but not that it could mean literally empty. If any setter tries that trick again I will be ready for them.
Didn’t get nine – clever – or dagger otherwise all good . Thanks
muffin@68 Generally, I grant you, although I do not feel myself that under cruciverbal rules of engagement this invalidates Harpo’s appropriation of it. On the other hand, when Shelley writes in Prometheus Unbound (very end of Act III), of ‘… the loftiest star of heaven / Pinnacled dim in the intense inane’, besides pressing the adjective into service as a noun, he is not referring to any statement, but to the seeming emptiness of cosmic space as seen from earth. I no longer, alas, nave access to a full OED or most of my old research tools to see what precedent there may be for this application of ‘inane’, but I would be surprised if there were none.
Balfour @71
Good example, but since when did poetry have to make sense? 🙂
(I did allow @64 that cruciverbally Harpo could get away with it.)
Muffin @48 Din in Persian/Urdu means religion, so we get names like Islamuddin. You could read the name Gunga Din as meaning Ganges religion, but I have only come across Din in Muslim names. I was unaware of the unsophisticated crossword silver in the Carry On film.
Thanks Harpo for a masterful crossword. I noticed GUARDIAN ANGEL (great clue) contained the letters seen in a number of other solutions as pointed out by AlanC @ 41. Harpo/Monk usually has an ‘extra layer’ that makes his crosswords so appealing to me. Overall I thought this was on the gentler side for this setter; I only missed RANKINE. BTW, ‘inane’ makes perfect sense to me as a middle letter removal indicator. Thanks loonapick for the blog.
In one of Ian Rankin’s books (can’t remember which) Rebus defends cheating at crosswords by asking “Doesn’t everyone?”.
My favourite was the seasonal ARID for the neat surface.
I don’t understand why AND HOW means “certainly”.
HaddenUff @ 76. AND HOW = CERTAINLY is a rather weak equivalent by Harpo, but perhaps think of what you might say to emphasise (or even augment) concurrence with someone’s descriptive statement.
Thanks to H and Loonapick
Tony Santucci @74: just to finish off, GUARDIAN can be made from the combined across clues GUNGA DIN and TRIAGE. A remarkable feat and not sure I’ve seen something similar before. Again thanks to Harpo.
Did you enjoy this crossword? And how/certainly. Works for me.
Thank you nametab @77, I wasn’t aware of that usage until now. I expect I’ll hear it all the time now!
Just checking in, too late for anybody to notice. My last two in were DAGGER and NINE. I found most of it challenging although my GK stood up reasonably well. Thanks to all concerned.
[Martin@81: (waves) ]
AlanC@78. “GUARDIAN can be made from the combined across clues GUNGA DIN and TRIAGE. A remarkable feat…”. Actually the letters from 21 and 22 across make NIT EGG GUARDIAN. Looks like Harpo has missed a trick there.
I don’t mind if setters want to do something special with the grid, but to me it has to be a) worth the trouble, and b) useful for getting some of the obscurer answers. If the setter doesn’t let us in on the secret, it can look a bit self-indulgent. Or even “too clever by half”, as someone else said.
I failed to complete by just one letter, having REPAID at 27a, like Tim@13. However, looking on the bright side, I was able to solve two crossing jorums (the Bond villain LARGO and the monkey GELADA) and I’ve learned a new angrind. What are the chances of any other setter using “inane” for that purpose?
Thanks to Harpo and Loonapick.
8d Can anyone give me an example of a context in which vigilante could replace guardian angel or vice versa? A guardian angel looks after a persong whereas a vigilante pursues the interests of a group (Chambers 1993).
I think that in AQUARIA it’s only the Q of Qatar that does the “checking”; I(raq) and A(fghanistan) are merely appended.
Pino @84: See the link Coloradan @57 provided. An American indicator (e.g. NY vigilante) would have been helpful to some I guess.
Luton man @83: I think you’re always amusing, so presumably you’re extracting the Michael about my post #41.
Thanks H and I. I enjoyed this, mostly. However, I do think 27a is a bit tricky: RELA as half of reference seems a stretch, especially since REPAID fits the definition as well, if not better.
Amazing composition, bravo Harpo, and thank you loonapick. I loved learning ‘inane=empty’, I fear pserve@24 is barking up the wrong tree with an ‘animus’ etymology (see here). I am though aware that this late on in the blog these ramblings are into the inane..
Hadrian@89, that reference seems only to confirm the idea that some gave expressed here that inane can’t really mean empty in a physical sense – an “inane box” for example. I’m with those who find it really quite a stretch to use it cryptically for letter removal. I hope we don’t see it again!
AlanC@87 fwiw I didn’t interpret the comment @83 as being negative towards yours in any way, rather just expressing distaste for the device used by the setter.
g@85 yeah that’s my opinion @15 too. I was hoping that someone might analyse the clue here to illustrate that I’m mistaken, but seeing as no-one has I continue to think the clue is broken.
I finished this just now.
“RANKIN/E” seemed the only plausible names given the crossers, and it turned out to be right. Back-parsing DAGGER, having got the “read” part, I took inane to be able to mean what the setter intended.
I rather liked INDIA.
Cheers one and all.
Hoops man @87. Yes indeed. Thank you for saying that you find me amusing. 😃
AP@90 & G@85. Re the clue for AQUARIA. I guess it depends on how we understand the word ‘checked’. I thought of it in terms of the letters Q, I and A forming a group – of policemen, say – to check or arrest or restrict the movement of the group of letters formed by U, A and R. Does this work for you?
sh@92, I agree – that’s why I feel that you can’t split the QIA up! Since check is one of those many words which can either be interpreted as surrounding something or being contained in something, I wouldn’t mind QAUARIA or UQIUARA, say; but AQUARIA doesn’t work for me. I do see your interpretation though
AP et al
Apologies if it isn’t clear in the blog but I parsed it as the “a” in the clue (before former) , then UAR in the block of QIA (the initials of the three countries) so A-Q(UAR)IA
AP@93. Your example of QAUARIA as a solution you would accept is interesting. It seems like you are joining the A from the clue together with UAR to make AUAR and then surrounding it with my three policemen, QIA.
However, I see the A as totally separate from the rest of the wordplay. So, A + [UAR checked by QIA].
Edit: As I now see that our blogger has confirmed!
Actually, ignore me! I was getting mixed up about that initial A, forgetting that it is a separate part of the wordplay. As I myself said, wrapping the QIA around the UAR is fine, giving A+Q(UAR)IA. Thanks for prompting me to review it, sh!
Edit to say that I’ve just seen both the last replies, which arrived as I was writing. We’re all in agreement! The clue is fine. Tx all