The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29999.
Imogen has provided us with a crossword made up of basic clue types (plenty of envelopes) but still manages to be interresting and rewarding. If this is not enough for you, there also appeared today on the Guardian website an ancient crossword from Crispa, numbered 20,001. This one has the right number 29,999 for the current sequence, and appeared at midnight UK time. Who will get the honours of the milestone 30,000 tomorrow?
I have just been forwarded an email of Guardian 20,000, which is an Araucaria in the form of a poem with a clue embedded in each line.
| ACROSS | ||
| 8 | JEWELLER |
Rock purveyor we will make rude noises about (8)
|
| An envelope (‘about’) of WE’LL (‘we will’) in JEER (‘make rude noises’). | ||
| 9 | U BOLT |
Sprinter in bar bent back to grasp nuts (1,4)
|
| A charade of U (‘bar bent back’) plus BOLT (‘to grasp nuts’ – “I would forget my head if it were not bolted on”). Mr. Bolt’s first name is Usain.
Thanks to Coloradan @5 for pointing out that this is a double definition, as the clue now reads. |
||
| 10 | KENT |
Scots knew England’s garden? (4)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 11 | CHESTERTON |
Author as boxer, could one say – heavyweight (10)
|
| A charade of CHESTER (‘boxer, could one say’ – a boxt is a chest, more or less, so, whimsically. a ‘boxer’ ….) plus TON (‘heavyweight’). | ||
| 12 | KIDULT |
Childish type, endlessly dim, breaking equipment (6)
|
| An envelope (‘breaking’) of DUL[l] (‘dim’) minus its last letter (‘endlessly’) in KIT (‘equipment’). | ||
| 14 | TAKE A PEW |
Invite to relax and steal from church? (4,1,3)
|
| Definition and literal interpretation. | ||
| 15 | SHADOWY |
Indistinct notice with garish border (7)
|
| An envelope (‘with … border’) of AD (advertisement, ‘notice’) in SHOWY (‘garish’). | ||
| 17 | ASPERSE |
Slander, heartlessly audacious in itself (7)
|
| A charade of AS (‘heartlessly AudaciouS‘) plus PER SE (‘in itself’). | ||
| 20 | CHARTRES |
Cathedral search resolved: it’s right in the centre (8)
|
| An envelope (‘in the centre’) of RT (‘right’) in CHARES, an anagram (‘resolved’) of ‘search’. | ||
| 22 | SATURN |
God posed with big pot of tea (6)
|
| I think this is a Reubens in the National Gallery. A charade of SAT (‘posed’) plus URN (‘big pot of tea’). | ||
| 23 | CINEMAGOER |
Screen addict perhaps, one contorted with grimace (10)
|
| An anagram (‘contorted’) of ‘one’ plus ‘grimace’. | ||
| 24 | BOON |
Youngster spends year on benefit (4)
|
| A charade of BO[y] (‘youngster’) minus (‘spends’) the Y (‘year’); plus ‘on’. | ||
| 25 | HIT ON |
Suddenly discover hotel is losing pounds (3,2)
|
| A subtraction: HI[l]TON (‘hotel’) minus the L (‘losing pounds’). | ||
| 26 | NOCTURNE |
Short walk in once moving moonlit scene (8)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of TURN (‘short walk’) in NOCE, an anagram (‘moving’) of ‘once’. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | NEHEMIAH |
One hard man, he was involved with Ezra initially (8)
|
| An anagram (‘was involved’) of I (‘one’) plus H (‘hard’) plus ‘man he’ plus E (‘Ezra initially’), with an &lit definition. | ||
| 2 | FELT |
Considered a soft fabric (4)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 3 | PLACET |
Dwelling on tense vote in favour (6)
|
| A charade of PLACE (‘dwelling’ – “your place or mine?”) plus T (‘tense’) | ||
| 4 | TRIESTE |
Sad that Spain has invaded a foreign port (7)
|
| An envelope (‘has invaded’) of E (IVR, ‘Spain’) in TRISTE (‘sad’). | ||
| 5 | OUT-TAKES |
They don’t make the film, dates having been switched (3-5)
|
| TAKES OUT (‘dates’) with the two words ‘switched[‘. | ||
| 6 | TOURNAMENT |
What we are called in explosive competition (10)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of OUR NAME (‘what we are called’) in TNT (‘explosive’). | ||
| 7 | STOOGE |
Time goose should be cooked in foil (6)
|
| An anagram (‘should be cooked’) of T (‘time’) plus ‘goose’. The definition is a straight man who feeds lines to a comedian. | ||
| 13 | UNDERNEATH |
Hunt neared ground, positioned for concealment? (10)
|
| An anagram (‘ground’) of ‘hunt neared’. | ||
| 16 | WAR PAINT |
Distortion isn’t commonly cosmetic (3,5)
|
| A charade of WARP (‘distortion’) plus AIN’T (‘isn’t commonly’). | ||
| 18 | SORBONNE |
Aching to suppress German city university (8)
|
| An envelope (‘to suppress’) of BONN (‘German city’) in SORE (‘aching’). | ||
| 19 | ASTOUND |
Stagger about, ‘run out’ replaced by ‘stumped’ (7)
|
| AROUND (‘about’) with the Thanks to KVa @2, first with the correction. |
||
| 21 | HEIGHT |
The peak hour, dinner time? (6)
|
| A charade of H (‘hour’) plus EIGHT (‘dinner time?’ – at least according to the play by George S Kaufman, and its film adaptation, Dinner at Eight). | ||
| 22 | STRICT |
Uncompromising boss ultimately deceived on Radio 4 (6)
|
| A charade of S (‘bosS ultimately’) plus TRICT, sounding like (‘on Radio 4’ – the ‘4’ is unnecessary but does no damage) TRICKED (‘deceived’). | ||
| 24 | BOUT |
Start to bash away in contest (4)
|
| A charade of B (‘start to Bash’) plus OUT (‘away’). |
Not the hardest of Imogens., though needed help to finish off the last ones (PLACET and KIDULT)
Thanks PeterO for the explanations to PLACET and ASTOUND
Thanks Imogen, too.
ASTOUND
I think…
AROUND—>
R (is) out (and is) replaced by ST.
Terrific puzzle, with plenty of humour. 14a TAKE A PEW was funny, though I’m not sure how well one can “relax” in a pew! On the other hand, Canadian author Pierre Berton famously wrote The Comfortable Pew, a critique of the Anglican Church, back in 1965
1d NEHEMIAH a very clever CAD. Ezra was part of the story, with their two books in consecutive biblical order. Not sure, though, that Nehemiah would be described as a “hard man”? Maybe someone can shed light on that part of the clue?
9a U BOLT was brilliant but cruel. Obviously I bunged in U BOAT (“Sprinter”?), figuring “bar bent back” was TABU <–, and “nuts” was somehow O (bother). Anyone else make the same mistake? 🙂
Other favourites 20a CHARTRES (neat surface — tourists looking for the cathedral?), 23a CINEMAGOER (guilty), 5d OUT-TAKES (misdirecting definition, fun wordplay), 7d STOOGE (“foil” unexpected), and many others
New to me 17a ASPERSE, 3d PLACET
Thanks both
29,999, it’s 30,000 Eve! Can we open presents tonight, or do we have to wait until tomorrow?
Revealed final clue 1d in the end as I got bored with all the obscurities. Haven’t bible references had their day?
Thanks PeterO. For U BOLT, I actually took “bar bent back to grasp nuts” as a 2nd defn. Online Collins has: “a metal bar bent into the shape of a U and threaded at both ends to receive securing nuts”. Great stuff from Imogen as always.
I don’t see how the “it’s” works 20’s wordplay. I can’t make it read sensibly, except perhaps to put “it” “right in the centre”..
Last in was NEHEMIAH, having spent a while trying to make Jeremiah fit the wordplay.
I knew PLACET from Dorothy L Sayers:
“Placetne, magistra?”
“Placet.”
(Gaudy Night)
Mig@3 maybe he was a hard man because he rebuilt Jerusalem’s walls? Ezra-Nehemiah is a book in the Hebrew bible. Thought this was a clever clue.
Drdubosc@6
CHARTERS
my reading
: it (search*) has RT in centre.
I agree with KVa (normally a good sign) @3 for Astound and Coloradan @5 for U Bolt.
I struggled with LOI ASPERSE, BOON for some reason and had to look up PLACET.
I’m not too good on the Bible or any other religious text. I never will be. A Paulian “sounds like a Brazilian architect” would have served me better.
I liked TOURNAMENT once I got it.
Thanks Imogen and PeterO (You posted this so early!).
I’d only been thinking recently that setters seemed to have mercifully reduced the spate of foreign words/places that were everywhere in puzzles a while back. But this one proved me wrong. Add on more obscurities than usual, and this became less than enjoyable. Thanks Peter for the enlightenment.
Another who agrees with KVa @3 and Coloradan @5 re ASTOUND and U BOLT. I thought that this was such a smooth offering with lots of ticks, especially CHESTERTON, CINEMAGOER, NOCTURNE, NEHEMIAH, WAR PAINT and SORBONNE. I didn’t realise that the French triste was also an English word for sad and I did smile at the image conjured up by SATURN.
Ta Imogen & PeterO.
I agree that U BOLT was a double definition, with the second being more appropriate, because I think the sprinter is always referred to as Usain Bolt. In the end I enjoyed the contest, but found this difficult to start, with a lot of empty spaces after my first pass through the across clues. Like TOURNAMENT, SORBONNE and KIDULT. All the non-UK names are all very familiar, so quite fair, I think. I remembered the name NEHEMIAH from somewhere, but had no idea who he was. Thanks to PeterO and Imogen.
Drdubosc@6 The clue works if you expand the it’s to be “it has”, which is perfectly acceptable. e.g. “it;s got to be” “it has got to be”.
Much of this was very enjoyable, and, having only got TAKE A PEW after about five minutes, it felt quite an achievement to crack nearly everything else. It was good to be reminded of Gaudy Night as Miche @7 describes.
For my taste it did get a bit too-clever-by-half by the end. In particular, U-BOLT – really?! But JEWELLER, CHESTERTON, KIDULT, CHARTRES, BOON, NOCTURNE, TOURNAMENT, STOOGE, WAR PAINT… definitely worth the effort.
Thanks to Imogen and to PeterO for explaining the ones that were too clever for me.
Mig @3 I considered E-Boat rather than U-Boat but obviously it wouldn’t parse. The German E-Boat is less well known than U-boats but it was a fast motor launch (similar to the British MTB), known in German as Schnellboot or S-boot and therefore definitely a sprinter.
It was me who sent in Guardian Cryptic 20,000. There are probably copyright issues preventing it being posted here but I also sent it to the Guardian. They probably have it in their archive, but hopefully they will see fit to republish it.
It was accompanied by an article about Araucaria; it seems strange now to remember that back then occasional articles like that were the only way to find information about the setters. The article also included the very first Guardian cryptic.
Quite tough and also quite enjoyable. Amazed that I could finish this one!
New for me: PLACET; KIDULT; biblical story of Ezra and NEHEMIAH (found Ezra in my online dictionary and worked out the clue from there as Ezra was mentioned as continuing the work of Nehemiah); U-BOLT but I know the Jamaican sprinter and went down a bit of a rabbit hole watching some videos of his amazing races – wow, he was so amazing. And I agree that U-BOLT was a double definition : 1/ sprinter and 2/ bar bent back to grasp nuts.
Favourites: SORBONNE, CHESTERTON, TRIESTE, JEWELLER (loi).
Another who found this more straightforward than Imogen can be.
Miche @7 – I’ve never had much guilt about teaching stuff about the Bible because so much art, poetry and literature refers to it, and those arts are more interesting with the background knowledge. (I have run a Toddler Church, for my sins, and was basically familiarising the kids with Bible stories without much explanation. So many of the Bible stories that are given to children are followed by genocide that I didn’t want to explain, so I quietly lost them – Joshua and the walls of Jericho, Noah’s Ark, David and Goliath …).
I would agree that NEHEMIAH is one of the more obscure books of the Bible. It added to my cynicism the only time I attended HTB (Holy Trinity Brompton – where the Alpha Course originated) and Nicky Gumbel preached on a verse from Nehemiah. (I will add we had already attended full Latin mass at Brompton Oratory.) Putting HTB into context, it’s the local church for Imperial College and the Royal Colleges of Music, Organists and Art. It’s not full out of term time (unlike the Oratory) and when you realise how many thousands of students are found locally (23,000 at Imperial in 2024-5), its numbers don’t look so magical.
Thank you to PeterO and Imogen.
Oops put in U BOAT, the missing hyphen should have been a clue it was wrong and spent too long trying to justify incorrect JEREMIAH and CHATTERTON
A few obscurities thankfully one was an anagram and a European whistle stop tour (not my strongest area) slowed me down a bit.
TOURNAMENT my favourite today.
I did wonder about the significance of puzzle 20,001 being displayed. Might give it a solve later.
Thanks Imogen and PeterO
I liked SORBONNE, BOON and SHADOWY. I tried to make something of T Stearns Eliot for 1d. There was also a hurdler called NEHEMIAH, but I couldn’t find any more athletes.
I’m another who assumed there must be an object (as described by Coloradan@5) called a U BOLT, though I had never encountered one. TAKE A PEW made me smile, and if the painting described in SATURN isn’t in the National Gallery, it should be. Also liked SORBONNE and TOURNAMENT, and failed to parse OUT TAKES and BOON (I can never identify the source words for subtractions).
Always rather enjoy Im’s penchant for erudition, tho a heathen upbringing means my ken of OT “-iah”s runs out after Jerem- and Zebed-. And placet, too, was a nho. Otherwise, nothing too scary, thanks Im and Peter.
For me, around -> astound doesn’t quite work. As blogged is what makes sense, but of course that doesn’t work. And while I’m sure kva@3 is correct in what the setter intended, for me the ‘out’ is left hanging.
Does triste mean sad in English? I got it from the root but I kept looking for a way that foreign perhaps indicated the foreign word, but I can’t quite see it.
Thanks for the blog and puzzle. Finished with the dictionary but definitely a few unparsed.
khayyam @23: like KVa, I parsed it as R for run taken ‘out’ of AROUND and replaced with ST for stumped. I presume they are cricket abbreviations, although that’s not my game.
I also wondered if foreign was doing double duty in TRIESTE but then discovered that it is also English derived from the French word.
Alanc@24. But run out is ro, if you do know cricket. So perhaps that’s where the difference lies. St is indeed stumped and r run.
Slow going for me but I liked it a lot. All clues completely fair for me but like some others I couldn’t parse BOON. No reason why not as the clue is good. Also tried to make Jeremiah work and thought NEHEMIAH is carrying biblical obscurity to extremes.
Liked lots of clues but particularly TAKE A PEW and TOURNAMENT.
Thanks to PeterO for his explanations and Imogen.
Petert@20 – I was also looking for more athletes.
Many thanks to Imogen and PeterO.
[1d reminds me of being in a semi comatose state during those interminable RK lessons 60ish years ago. If Nehemiah was mentioned, I am afraid I missed him.]
I knew PLACET from diplomatic jargon. An ambassador is granted a placet from the country he is sent to, signifying acceptance.
I’ve seen KIDULT before, but had managed to suppress it from memory, something I will endeavour to do again.
The ‘4’ in 22d is entirely superfluous, as PeterO notes. ‘On the radio’ would have met the case equally well.
Didn’t know KIDULT or PLACET. Wasn’t quite sure how U-BOLT worked. The composition of CHESTERTON was rather strange with the box/chest interchangeable thing, I thought. Loved the comic TAKE A PEW. Reminds me of when I used to tell people who wanted to see primary sources for their family history that I would “grab a window of opportunity” and go to the local record office. So I was apparently imagined running up there with double glazing under my arm.
Lots to enjoy for me today, memories of gazing at the wonderful stained glass in CHARTRES cathedral a few years back. And me apparently being conceived in TRIESTE just post-war. (Just thought I’d mention that irrelevance). Great anagrams for CINEMAGOER and UNDERNEATH. I’ve gone on a bit, but many thanks today to Imogen and PeterO as we await tomorrow’s landmark puzzle with anticipation…
Solvers may be interested in this article on the forthcoming anniversary:
https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2026/may/06/crossword-editors-desk-the-guardian-30000th-cryptic
(Apologies if this is the wrong place)
Thanks for the blog , a bit of a Spock puzzle but some neat clues . OUT TAKES was clever and TOURNAMENT flowed nicely . NEHEMIAH earned a severe Paddington stare .
Ravenrider @16 , I still have that article tucked into my 1994 diary , very yellow now . Crispa was the longest server then starting in 1954 , classic Guardian misprint for Quantum – was a PSYCHICS lecturer .
Fewer setters then but a wide range of difficulty , those were the days .
For what it’s worth, I just wanted to add my voice to that of Shanne@8. I have no religious interest, but the Bible itself is a wonderful piece of art and it also feeds into so much else in our culture that I would feel intellectually impoverished by a lack of at least some knowledge of it.
Having said that, though, I agree that Nehemiah is rather obscure.
I enjoyed this crossword a lot and the blog too, so thanks to setter and blogger.
A bit of a slog but some fun clues included. U-BOLT was a fave, as was CHESTERTON. Thanks again Imogen.
Kidult is a word? I no longer wish to live.
There’s a piece in today’s Guardian from the crossword editor relating to cryptic no 30,000 , Crispa etc
See here
Like several others, never heard of PLACET, and never want to hear of KIDULT ever again. ASPERSE also new to me.
I couldn’t figure out U BOLT other than the sprinter, but agree that Coloradan @5 has it correct (thank you).
STRICT – you say the 4 does no damage, but if unnecessary then its only role is to mislead. Would Radio 1 also be fine? Or, say, Radio Ulster?
I spent some time trying to work out if there was a connection with TRIESTE, or if the was ‘iv’ in the answer. Oh well.
Thanks to both 🙂
9a is a horrible clue
For STRICT I thought Radio 4 was an RP indicator, tric-t rather than tric-d.
I got the gist of 1d from the clue but needed the crossrrs and a few bungs to get the right order for the NEHEM part.
I found this puzzle easier when going from the lower half upwards.
9@ ugh.
Crossbar@36 , I cannot find any crossword article in the paper today and I have checked all three sections .
Roz at 42 .Likewise no article in today’s Grauni. Still enjoyed this. Imogen’s always challenging which is ok by me. So not long to wait for. No 30K. I’m sure Alan Connor will surprise us!
Roz@42 & Cedric@43 – sorry it’s on the Guardian app, but not in the printed version.
Thanks Crossbar , no need to apologise , I am only annoyed with the editorial decision . It may be in the paper tomorrow .
Agree with several commenters above re the 4 in “radio 4”, PLACET was new to me, albeit fairly clued, while I ultimately had to reveal NEHEMIAH, which is something/someone I have never heard of, which made solving the complex wordplay in that clue near impossible (for me at least). Otherwise all good, and enjoyed the imagery in SATURN.
@Roz
Crossbar is referring to Alan Connor’s Editor’s blog for May, which is avaialble in the crossword section of the Guardian Website. I know you don’t follow links, but I’m sure you can find your way there! He includes scans of puzzle no.1, what he has estimated as puzzle 10,000 (although I think he’s 24 puzzles out), puzzles 15,000 and 20,000 and articles from 1982 and 1994. He does promise that we can look forward to something special tomorrow.
Thanks Imogen and PeterO
I didn’t parse NEHEMIAH (and had several goes at guessing it). I didn’t parse the CHESTER of 11a either, and am not at all impressed (or convinced) by it.
Miche @7 – I too knew PLACET from Gaudy Night.
Favourite TOURNAMENT for the construction.
Thanks Mitz , I am not ungrateful but there is no way I would ever use the Guardian website .
Excellent puzzle for me. I found it hard, but do-able in the end.
“Chest-er” for “box-er” made me laugh aloud – once I’d understood it, that is, which was not immediately (I’ve seen similar before, but this example was so good).
I also loved U-BOLT as the sprinter. Clever!
And I liked the word KIDULT 😕.
crossbar@36 – thanks! Interestingly enough, I found the review of “Germany in 1928” (Berlin Diary) fascinating (same page as Crossword #1) — quite thoughtful and slightly prescient (especially the last sentence).
Either Imogen is getting easier or I’m getting better at this. Unusual for me to complete one of their puzzles without a third sitting. Favourites today TOURNAMENT and WAR PAINT.
KIDULT is a great word! Whether meant positively: young at heart, or negatively: manchild/manbaby.
Agree with others about the extraneous nature of 4 in “on Radio 4”. Similarly with “of tea” in 22A. “Big pot” suffices and “of tea” only misleads. Not that I’m a setter of crosswords but it’s easy to make clues harder by adding unnecessary words. But doing so makes it an impossible task for the solver to know which words to disregard and which are part of the clue. It introduces a level of guesswork which is not the point of solving cryptics.
Enjoyed the puzzle but I don’t think U BOLT quite works, as the nuts grasp the bolt, not the other way round. But the surface was obviously tempting.
I also went looking for other sprinters after Skeets NEHEMIAH appeared, but I guess it’s just an interesting coincidence.
Faves: CHARTRES, UNDERNEATH and TOURNAMENT. Nho PLACET, my tilt of the day.
Thanks, I&PO
My money’s on Ludwig for
30,000…