Guardian Cryptic N° 26,066 by Orlando

by

The crossword may be found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26066.

This started off looking like a straightforward Monday offering, but I slowed down towards the end, with the NE corner the last to yield.

Across
1. Cleaner stuff on bottom of birdcage? Not 21 (7)
SHAMPOO A charade of SHAM (‘not 21’, the answer to 21A being REAL) plus POO (‘stuff on bottom of birdcage’).
5. A dry house rejected occasionally (2,5)
AT TIMES A charade of ‘a’ plus TT (tee-total, ‘dry’) plus IMES, a reversal (‘rejected’) of SEMI (detatched, ‘house’). 
9. Affair one of Othello’s people reported (5)
AMOUR A hompphone (‘reported’) of A MOOR (‘one of Othello’s people’). 
10. Sweet Fanny Adams back in Dylan’s place (9)
LLAREGGUB The fictional Welsh village of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood, sometimes bowdlerised – and perhaps made nearer to a real Welsh name – as LLaregyb, but intended, as the clue says, as a reversal (‘back’) of BUGGER ALL (‘sweet Fanny Adams’, definitely bowdlerised). 
11. Versatile rogue pulls a rope (3-7)
ALL-PURPOSE An anagram (‘rogue’) of ‘pulls a rope’. 
12. Christian Aid’s finale: Moon River (4)
DIOR A charade of D (‘aiD‘s finale’) plus IO (‘moon’ of Jupiter) plus R (‘river’); for the fashion designer Christian Dior. 
14. Walk by fellow in subtle NASA mission? (5,6)
SPACE FLIGHT An envelope (‘in’) of PACE (‘walk’) plus F (‘fellow’) in SLIGHT (‘subtle’), with a hint of an extended definition (see 2D).
18. Very exciting game for occupant of bed (3-3,5)
RED-HOT POKER A charade of RED-HOT (‘very exciting’) plus POKER (‘game’); the bed in question being for flowers, which might include Kniphofia. 
kniphofia,, or Red-hot Poker
21. Not counterfeit money in Brazil (4)
REAL Double definition. 
22. Church article’s lamentation about liturgical music (10)
PLAINCHANT An envelope (‘about’, placed in the clue misleadingly but not wrongly) of CH (‘church’) plus AN (‘article’) in PLAINT (‘lamentation’). Thanks to Kriscros @2 for the correction.
25. Inmates do riot in prison (9)
MAIDSTONE An anagram (‘riot’) of ‘inmates do’; I am sure that many of the law-abiding citizens of the Kentish town would object to the definition ‘prison’, but the prison of that name is one of the oldest in the UK. 
26. Short brass tacks, primarily for artist (5)
MONET A charade of MONE[y] (‘brass’) with its last letter removed (‘short’), plus T (‘Tacks primarily’). 
27. Fruit supplied by university graduate after tests (7)
SATSUMA A charade of SATS (‘tests’; the SAT, Scholastic Aptitude Test, is as far as I know a college admission test only in the US) plus U (‘university’) plus MA (‘graduate’; generally an MA is a post-graduate degree). 
28. Nameless Greek road — or one from Stratford (3,4)
THE BARD A charade of THEBA[n] (‘Greek’) without the N (‘nameless’) plus RD (‘road’). 
…
Down
1. Dizzy rascal has quantity for mathematicians (6)
SCALAR An anagram (‘dizzy’) of ‘rascal’. 
2. Olympian programme for 14 (6)
APOLLO Double definition. 
3. Arm twisting may be novel (10)
PERSUASION Double definition; the ‘novel’, of course, is by Jane Austen. 
4. Game over — king found in deck (5)
ORLOP An envelope (‘found in’) of R (‘king’) in OLOP, a reversal (‘over’) of POLO (‘game’).
5. Neoclassical architect, say, reveals sacred mountain (5,4)
ADAMS PEAK A charade of ADAM (‘neoclassical architect’; a whole family of them, but perhaps Robert id the best known, and most associated with the neoclassical movement) plus SPEAK (‘say’). The ‘sacred mountain‘ is in Sri Lanka.
6. Level binder (4)
TIER Double definition. 
7. What kind of fool am I, admitting midnight robberies? (8)
MUGGINGS An envelope (‘admitting’) of G (‘midniGht’) in MUGGINS (‘what kind of fool am I’). 
8. Voluptuary disturbed by satire (8)
SYBARITE An anagram (‘disturbed’) of ‘by satire’. 
13. Range of a climber that’s in Devon (10)
ILFRACOMBE an anagram (‘range’?) of ‘of a climber’. 
15. Dismay when old couple mounted horse (9)
APPALOOSA A charade of APPAL (‘dismay’) plus OOSA, a reversal (‘mounted’ in a down light) of AS (‘when’) plus O (‘old’) plus O (‘old’ again, making a ‘couple’). The Appaloosa is a breed of horses with a distinctive spotted pelt, perhaps most often associated with the Nez Perce Indians of the US Pacific Northwest.
16. If you listen, hear many old ships (8)
TRIREMES A double homophone (‘if you listen’) of TRY (‘hear’ a court case) plus REAMS (‘many’). 
17. The greatest in 23 — he’s not concerned with what’s 21 (8)
IDEALIST An envelope (‘in’) of ALI (Muhammad, ‘the greatest’) in ID EST (‘the answer to ’23’D); the definition references REAL, the answer to 21A.
19. Nirvana playing heartlessly somewhere behind the wardrobe (6)
NARNIA An anagram of ‘nir[v]ana’ without its middle letter (‘heartlessly’); for the mythical land of C S Lewis’s series of fantasy novels, the Chronicles of Narnia. 
20. Condition beginning to deteriorate, so it’s said (6)
STATED A charade of STATE (‘condition’) plus D (‘beginning to Deteriorate’). 
23. That is badly sited (2,3)
ID EST An anagram (‘badly’) of ‘sited’.
24. Hairy man in the sauna (4)
ESAU A hidden answer (‘in’) in ‘thE SAUna’; for the son of Isaac and the grandson of Abraham in Genesis.

33 comments on “Guardian Cryptic N° 26,066 by Orlando”

  1. Thanks Orlando and PeterO
    Very entertaining, with lots of clever clues, though quite a lot of general knowledge required. Favourite was IDEALIST, though I enjoyed many more too.
    Two small quibbles: I thought STATED was a bit weak, and the adjective SCALAR seems to be defined by the noun “quantity”.

  4. M & M

    I disagree over SCALAR – from what I recall of mathematics, the prime use of the word is as a noun, a scalar quantity.

  6. PeterO @ 4
    Isn’t it an adjective in the expression “scalar quantity”? Chambers lists it as an adjective. However, as a scalar quantity is defined as “having magnitude by not direction” (as opposed to a vector quantity, which also has direction), muffyword’s take on the clue seems correct to me.

  7. ….although to confuse the issue further, “a vector quantity” is frequently given just as “a vector”, in which “vector” is acting as a noun. I don’t think I have come across “a scalar”, though.

  9. Muffyword @5

    Yes, the word can also be used as an adjective.

    Muffin @7 (at sixes and sevens?)

    If you have not come across the noun usage “a scalar”, I think that is your limitation: see Wikipedia, Chambers etc.

  10. What joy, 40 years later, to finally use something that I learned while getting a degree in maths (which cured me of the subject for life!). I can assure you that for a mathematician the terms “vector” and “scalar” are both nouns and adjectives.

  11. A very enjoyable puzzle.

    LLAREGGUB was my LOI when I decided to trust the wordplay. I was 100% convinced that the clue was referring to a place in a work by Dylan Thomas but I didn’t know it off the top of my head, and the answer only came to me after the “g” checker went in when I solved MUGGINGS.

  12. I’ve definitely seen both ‘vector’ & ‘scalar’ used as nouns, but I’d venture that this could be considered jargon or technical language. in any event, in the context of a crossword clue, I don’t think it matters.
    what threw me (as a former employee of Mtv) was the mis-spelling of dizzee rascal’s stage-name. 🙂

    I blew the NE corner & consequently the whole grid by finding & putting in another anagram of “by satire” & not considering the definition properly, nor the implications for the remainder of that quadrant.
    dammit.
    can we have rufus back? 🙂

  13. I’m sure we’ll get Rufus back soon, duncan @12, but I for one don’t miss these occasional diversions elsewhere.

    A nice little medium-difficulty crossword with a good variety of clue types. Bits of this were done in the east-London Stratford so 28 threw me for a bit, expecting a bit of the Cockney rhyming slang that we east enders speak all the time. APPALOOSA only very vaguely remembered but the wordplay was perfectly fair.

  14. Thanks all
    Rather easy for a Tuesday.
    I would go further than Blaise @10 and suggest that most mathematicians woul not give a toss whether they are nouns or adjectives!

  15. A good deal of general knowledge required, but Wiki came to the rescue. 🙂

    Thanks PeterO; I didn’t realise that ILFRACOMBE was an anagram [range is a peculiar anagrind] and failed to parse it. ADAM’S PEAK is apparently sacred to Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, although that might be of little help unless you’ve visited Sri Lanka.

    I liked SHAMPOO – at the beginning I thought the ‘on bottom of birdcage’ was going to be ‘sand’ – what an innocent I am.

  17. Thanks PeterO and Orlando

    Tricky in places but generally very enjoyable. Very elegantly clued as usual.

    I got triremes but missed the explanation of try. I also missed the double ‘o’ in 15d and needed to check my answer which I had in fact misspelled.

    It helped that I was vaguely aware I had seen several of these answers before e.g. shampoo, llareggub, dior, and appaloosa (despite my error).

    I ticked 1a, 9a, 7a, and 17a as I went along.

  18. As no-one else has done so I’ll support PeterO’s doubts about 25. Maidstone prison may be one of the oldest in the country but I don’t see that as sufficient to justify using “prison” as a definition of “Maidstone”.

  19. Another fine puzzle from Orlando, a shade trickier than his normal offerings, I would say. I liked NARNIA and RED-HOT POKER in particular.

    SATs (27ac) do exist in the UK. They are Standard Assessment Tests and are – or used to be at least – taken at the end of Key Stages 1, 2 and 3 in English schools to benchmark where pupils were with their abilities in Maths, English and Science. Even the BBC and the quality papers refer to them as SATs Tests, which is pants, since the T for ‘test’ is there in the acryonym. About as annoying as the cashier in the supermarket asking me to enter my PIN number.

    Thanks to Peter for the blog.

  20. Thanks to PeterO and Orlando.

    An enjoyable surprise for a Monday puzzle.

    A minor correction of the parsing for 22a: the article should be AN rather than A.

  21. SATs in UK: often referred to as such by teachers, pupils, parents, press but never officially.
    Scalar: I agree with the several commenters above – frequently referred to by mathematicians and physicists as “a scalar” just as they would say “a vector”.

  22. It’s a pity non-scientists judge scientists by their own appallingly low standards. Non-scientists may indeed not give a toss (to use RCW’s word) about scientific definitions, but scientists must care about non-scientific definitions, as accuracy of definition is integral to the way they think.

    That apart, shouldn’t somebody by now have suggested the classification “adjectival noun” for scalar? Using “scalar” as shorthand for “scalar quantity” seems awfully similar to the shorthand examples in the third set of examples here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjectival_noun

  23. Wondered for a while to if “brass” in 26 referred to the monel metal used in the valves of brass instruments. Bit obscure and technically not correct I thought before kicking myself on realising how obviously it was money. Hopefully the “Bader-Meinhoff effect” will mean we’ll see monel turn up in its own right in the very near future.

  25. Hi all
    Thanks for the interesting discussion on “adjectival nouns” and the use of “scalar” as a noun – but isn’t muffyword’s (and hence Orlando’s, or vice versa) take on the clue correct? “Has a quantity for mathematicians” is adjectival, surely?

  26. ‘Has’ is the link word. The definition is the noun as seen in Collins.

    Ideally ‘Dizzy’ would be ‘Dizzee’, but then ‘Dizzee’ isn’t properly an anag-ind, is it?

    Fine work by trusty Orlando.

  27. It’s probably me but I found this puzzle strangely unsatisfying with an old-fashioned feel about it.

    All the answers are reasonably clued and I certainly preferred it to the usual Monday fare.

    My only comment is of a philosophical nature. Although 10A is definitely cryptic the “crypticness” is not the setter’s but that of the hero of my youth Dylan Thomas. So is a clue cryptic when it merely describes the crypticness inherent in another author’s work? 😉

    Thanks to PeterO and Orlando

  28. Thanks, Orlando and PeterO,

    Lots of interest in this puzzle. Favourites were LLAREGUB, which I haven’t seen in a crossword before and ORLOP, which is a naval favourite.
    SCALAR was unfamiliar but getable. New words are always of interest.

    Has anyone else heard of Adam’s Peak to describe the v-shaped hairline on a forehead?

    Giovanna xx

  29. Muffin passim: I hope that Paul B has resolved the last of your problems. Note too that PeterO did not underline ‘has’ in the blog.

    I’m worried though that you may have been misled by DL @22 suggesting the classification “adjectival noun” for ‘scalar’. No word can be “classified” as such. Grammarians sometimes use the term “adjectival noun” to describe, for example, the use of the word ‘summer’ in the expression “summer pudding”. In fact the term “noun adjunct” is more usual now. It is grammatically more precise.

    In any case neither term is relevant to the “grammar” of crosswords. The grammar of the clue for SCALAR is sound. Perhaps the word itself
    is a bit “technical”. A bit obscure even.

    Incidentally, Chambers classifies ‘summer’ in the above sense as an adjective. Collins prefers noun (as modifier).

  31. Wiki – top of your hit list – begins “An adjectival noun is a word that is used in a context”. The phrase describes the usage.
    It does not classify the noun. There is no such part of speech as an adjectival noun.

    Collins classifies many words as modifier nouns where Chambers classifies them as adjectives. For example, ‘village’,
    as in “village idiot”. I think Collins’ style is better.

    Note also that Collins, like Chambers, classifies ‘scalar’ as a noun and as an adjective. Not as a modifier.

  33. Just a very late note:

    There’s a place, Llanmaddog (now spelt Llanmadoc) on the Gower Peninsula near Swansea, which does indeed spell “God damn all” backwards.

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