Guardian 26,187 – Enigmatist

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I blogged Enigmatist’s last weekday puzzle in April last year, and can repeat almost verbatim what I said then: “It’s been quite a while since we saw Enigmatist on a weekday … and as always I was a little apprehensive when I saw his name.” The grid is a little solver-unfriendly, with the black squares in the centre almost cutting it in half diagonally, with only the four long answers providing connections. I filled in the upper right half without too much of a struggle, but the other half proved more troublesome. In general the fact that there were quite a few multi-word answers was a help. I have a slight doubt about my parsing of 16d, but otherwise I think I’ve been able to explain everything this time. Thanks to Enigmatist for a very satisfying challenge.

 
 
Across
1. LOW MASS Lightweight service of no note? (3,4)
Something lightweight has “low mass”; in the Roman Catholic liturgy a low mass is one without music, or notes
5. BUSHIDO It was honourable, for Japanese double-decker was open-top? (7)
BUS HID O (nothing). Bushido is the Japanese “way of the warrior”, or the Samurai way of life
9,10. MOTOR INSURANCE Small time Scots golfer packs in US round — the price he pays for his driving? (5,9)
MO (moment, small time) + (IN + US<) in [Sam] TORRANCE (golfer)
11. READ ALL ABOUT IT Here’s the latest deplorably bad ratatouille! (4,3,5,2)
(BAD RATATOUILLE)*
13. MAIN High sea swirling round Sardinia manor houses (4)
Hidden in reverse of sardiNIA Manor
14. CUT NO ICE Knowing about false icon, failed to impress (3,2,3)
ICON* in CUTE
17. LEGOLAND Say “That was funny!”, then tour model village (8)
EG (say) in (“toured by”) LOL (that was funny) + AND (then). Legoland (of which there are several – the UK one is near Windsor) is a theme park that is (more apparently than actually) built from Lego bricks
18. AGRA Mausoleum site‘s £1K value reduced by 33% (4)
A GRA[ND] – AGra is the site of the Taj Mahal
21. FULL STEAM AHEAD Strong second eleven players each get forward quickly (4,5,5)
FULL (strong) + S + TEAM + A HEAD (each)
23,24. CONTAINER PORTS Where chests are looked after, is writhing outside of emergency room in awful pain (9,5)
ER in PAIN* in CONTORTS
25. SHEATHE Passion exhibited in novel case (7)
HEAT (passion) in SHE (novel by H. Rider Haggard)
26. LAY ODDS Make a better offer (3,4)
Cryptic definition – i.e. “make an offer to a better”
Down
1. LAMB Beastly young spy boss trespassing on Q Division? (4)
M (spy boss, in the James Bond novels and films) in LAB (Q division being where the gadgets etc are developed)
2. WITHERING GLANCE Cycle across carpet with weapon, giving a look of disdain (9,6)
THE RING (Wagner’s cycle) in WIG + LANCE. I presume wig=carpet because they both mean “reprimand”; at first I thought it might be an alternative to the slang “rug”, meaning a wig (on your head)
3. ABRADE Nameless type in A&E scrape (6)
BRA[N]D in A [and] E
4. STIFLE To repress lecturer going through first of epileptic seizures, stood up (6)
L in E[pileptic] FITS, reversed
5. BUST A GUT Try very hard to pull replacement player over, collecting cheers! (4,1,3)
TA (thank you, cheers) in reverse of TUG SUB[stitute]
6. SORBONNE Where to get taught in present-day European capital and afflicted round former one (8)
BONN (capital of the former West Germany) in SORE
7. IS NOTHING SACRED Christian song corrupted by editor might elicit such a question (2,7,6)
(CHRISTIAN SONG)* + ED &lit
8. OVER THE WAY Open cut? Yes, across road (4,3,3)
A nice charade: OVERT HEW AY (variant of AYE = yes)
12. SMALL FACES Walk into sci-fi expert’s group (5,5)
MALL (a walk[way]) in SF ACES. The Small Faces were a pop group of the 1960s
15. CLASS ACT Outstanding performer on court contracted canine fever (5,3)
C[anine] + LASSA + (“on”) CT
16. INTERNEE Prisoner‘s nice warm coat, perhaps sleeveless (8)
Not sure about this, but a nice warm coat could be a WINTER NEED, which loses its “sleeves” to become INTERNEE
19. AMORAL Smell put up by Liberal, having no principles (6)
AROMA< + L
20. CHIPPY “Takeaway” Catholic, well-equipped for child-bearing? (6)
C + HIPPY. Chippy = fish-and-chip-shop. “Takeaway” can mean a place selling takeaway meals
22. AS IS Noel, Liam & Co are unloved, like Status Quo (2,2)
OASIS (band consisting of N + L Gallagher among others) less O

51 comments on “Guardian 26,187 – Enigmatist”

  1. Thanks, Andrew. I had exactly the same “journey” as you through this fun puzzle which seemed a little easier than standard E fare. I also wondered briefly about rugs and carpets! 🙂

    Your explanation of INTERNEE was the best I could come up with too. I had a quick Google at the end, not being particularly familiar with the SMALL FACES, to make sure there weren’t a bunch of song titles hidden in the puzzle… seems not.

  2. what a great start to Wednesday morning – Enigmatist puzzles don’t turn up that often but when they do…. not his most tricky but I did have a lot of fun solving it. I agree with your explanation of 16d Andrew and thank you to you for the blog. Big thanks to Enigmatist too for turning this grumpy person into a very happy solver.

  3. Enjoyable tussle – agree with all above – it could have been much worse.

    16d can’t add much – same prob here. I worried about “nice” not really helping in the cryptic reading. That’s not like Big E.

    Best I could do was translate “nice” to IN – then the sleeve that gets removed is WIN D. A wind sleeve is one of those things that flaps about at an aerodrome to show the wind direction – so the “perhaps” would cast its spell over that too. I’m stretching a bit though.

    Everything else great fun.

  7. Yes, very enjoyable, and a good challenge. No problem with the Small Faces, but that just shows my age, though young Enigmatist must have been told about them by his parents.

  8. Re 16

    Terne is an alloy sometimes used to ‘coat’ steel. John Drake (Patrick McGoohan) was number N(IN)E in ‘The Prisoner’, old TV series. Still struggling with the extra ‘e’.

  9. Thanks Engimatist & Andrew! I seem to have spent hours on this but it was worth it. I took 16 to be a WINTER NEED as well – it was my last in. Couldn’t parse WITHERINGG but now it’s hard to know why I had so much trouble with it!

  11. Well, it’s ‘nice warm coat perhaps’, is it not, so we’re being asked to allow some rope, and the def plus cryptic indication of ‘sleeveless’ are uncontroversial. Whassup with that?

    Another fab puzzle from E, on which I always get high.

  12. umpire36 – sorry to be the bringer of bad news but John Drake wasn’t the Prisoner and he was Number 6 not 9. If it’s any consolation, that clue still baffles me even with explanations.

  14. @umpire64

    “nice” still isn’t doing anything.

    TERNE is good for warm coat as it’s hot-dipped – just ordinary old-fashioned tinplate.

    How about

    nice = IN
    warm coat = TERNE
    perhaps = EG
    sleeveless = remove one sleeve – ie the G

    last bit still stretching a bit

  15. Doh! Scratch all prior burblings. Senior moments, confusing the Beatles’ numerical revolution, and Danger Man. May have to intern myself in a quiet room with soothing music and a game of 000s & XXXs.

  16. Thanks to Enignmatist and Andrew – a really enjoyable puzzle with some outstanding surfaces (CONTAINER PORTS, LEGOLAND and WITHERING GLANCE).

  17. Thanks to Enignmatist and Andrew – a really enjoyable puzzle with some outstanding surfaces (CONTAINER PORTS, LEGOLAND and WITHERING GLANCE). I couldn’t parse INTERNEE either.

  18. Just before I shut the door and apply the compress to my head, although removing the ice from nice might suggest warmth, the remaining letter is no help, but removing the ‘c’ (cold), thus implying the opposite, leaves the necessary NIE to manoeuvre round terne.
    That’s it, I’m done.

  19. @umpire46 – ie with perhaps as the anagrind – a bit indirect but I’d buy that, except that now “sleeveless” isn’t doing any work.

  20. I used to approach Enigmatist puzzles with a lot of trepidation, but as has been mentioned above this wasn’t one of his stinkers, and as a consequence it was an enjoyable solve.

    Count me as another (W)INTER NEE(D) subscriber for 16dn. As far as the inclusion of “nice” in the clue is concerned I think it is being used the same way as it is in “a nice hot cup of tea”, and is there for the surface reading.

    LAMB was my LOI after LOW MASS.

  21. Not keen on INTERNEE, but I thought the rest was a very good example of a medium-level difficulty puzzle. CHIPPY was the standout for me.

  23. Thanks Enigmatist, another masterful puzzle.

    Thanks also to Andrew as I couldn’t parse WITHERING GLANCE or INTERNEE. ‘Across’ in 2 is a funny word, I guess it can be used as either a containment (‘over’) or insertion indicator depending on context.

    I did like the SMALL FACES and thanks to Eileen for the link. 🙂

    It took me ages to get MAIN as I was determined there was going to be an ‘s’ somewhere in the answer!

  24. Just spent all lunchtime looking at the crossers for INTERNEE (last in), till working out what worked. Came here and found I might not have been alone. What a relief. (It’s winter need for me; I’m joining endwether @22 in hoping he’s wrong.)

    That apart, not Enigmatist’s hardest ever crossword, and I liked the way that the long clues linked the corners and, in particular, the almost separated diagonal halves. SMALL FACES my favourite.

  25. Yeah, as I’ve said in a reply elsewhere, this puzzle while hard is justifiably so, as the compiler never puts the difficulty into choosing unnecessarily tough ‘names’ for the clue ‘components’. I guess that’s experience on Enigmatist’s part, but it really knocks seven bales into yesterday’s mayhem. This one is really nice, maybe a longer solve, but a L’Oreal puzzle: ‘he’s worth it’.

    I parse the so-called ambiguous entry as Andrew does, ‘simples’ as the meerkats say.

  26. Hello Fifteensqu.,

    Very tough puzzle, ultimately resolving but not without a decent fight. I agree with the blogger about the split in the grid creating two mini-puzzles, but when I finally got moving I found the lower section yielded first. In fact, though I had looked long and hard at all the clues, I completed the lower portion before I had broken any territory top-right.

    Enigmatist is a setter I wish we saw more of from the Guardian; we seemed to in the past, and his constructions are that bit different and certainly stretch the solver perhaps more, perhaps just differently. You always know you’re in for a challenge with an Enigmatist, for sure.

  27. I’m one of those who sees Enigmatist and expects a lengthy struggle, but this was fun and surprisingly straightforward. Liked SMALL FACES, IS NOTHING SACRED, AS IS and BUSHIDO. Thanks for parsing INTERNEE, which I missed – also failed to see why the AND got into LEGOLAND.

    Thanks to Enigmatist and Andrew.

  28. Thanks Enigmatist and Andrew
    In contrast to many, I didn’t really enjoy this one – mainly, I suppose because I failed to parse so many of the clues and got the answers from definition and crossers (my weakness, I accept).
    I didn’t see “walk” = “mall” or “c” for “canine” until after I had entered those two.
    LAMB and IS NOTHING SACRED were my favourites.

  29. What I don’t like about INTERNEE is that ‘winter needs’ is not common parlance, the way ‘withering glance’ is. I would dislike it appearing as a solution so I like it even less in the wordplay.

    Enigmatist’s style is sometimes a bit contorted. In 23,24 ‘chest’ for CONTAINER is a bit dodgy as is, fittingly, ‘is writhing’ for CONTORTS. But guessing from crossers/enumeration/suggestion then working out the parsing is fun. And in this case I think the dodginess is OK.

    I like the &lit in 7d. I also like 20d. HIPPY is amusingly clued. And “Takeaway” Catholic? There’s a thought.

  30. The headscratching here about “internee” rather supports Tom Hutton yesterday (Puck @25). It is not a good clue if the cryptic indications are so far into the setter’s private thinking as not to be of any use to solvers in reaching the answer – and it is still worse when they remain scarcely intelligible even when the answer is known.

    That said I enjoyed the tussle, although I kept having a creepy feeling that I was doing a puzzle in the Times.

  31. Excellent blog. Many thanks Andrew. And thanks to Enigmatist for the tough challenge, which I rose to only in part. I wonder if clues only seem contrived when one doesn’t get them? Today’s responses make me feel like I belong to a different species. Yesterday’s puzzle all fell into place quite quickly for me. This is not a criticism of E but I failed to tune in to his wavelength. But I’m getting there. More please.

  33. This must be a personal best solving time for an Enigmatist. This rather suggests he was taking it easy on us, but none the worse for it. 7dn and 20dn in particular were very good.

    Many thanks.

  34. Paul B@3 – thanks for your input and for taking up the Rowly mantle, both in terms of content and brevity. I agree that 7dn isn’t an &lit per the classic definition, but it would be more helpful to visitors to this site if you told us what type of clue you think it is, rather than telling us what it isn’t.

  35. Am I the only one that entered CHINKY at 20d without a second thought, on the reasonable (?) assumption that at some time, someone, somewhere, would have seen a girl of a certain size and shape, and said ‘ooh, she’s a bit hinky’?

  36. B’s Paul and Andy

    Careless of me to echo Andrew with &lit for 7dn. A while ago someone proposed ‘extended definition’ to describe this sort of thing, and Andrew’s underlining reflects this.

  37. Not much to add as it’s all been said.

    On the easy side for Enigmatist but still enjoyable with lots of nice clues.

    I too couldn’t parse INTERNEE but I’ll go along with the WINTER NEED as the “perhaps” absolves the compiler from some of the earlier criticisms in my opinion.

    I held myself up or a while by entering CONTAINER PARKS for 23,24A. When I could get the writhing out of many manipulations of CONTARKS I finally saw the light!

    Thanks to Andrew and Enigmatist

  38. At 12d: I question the possessive construction having to be parsed as a plural.
    Thanks for Small Faces link Eileen
    Thanks to Andrew

  39. Thanks, Enigmatist and Andrew.

    Like others, My heart sank when I saw E’s name fully expecting to struggle. However, I was pleasantly surprised to finish in good time.
    CHIPPY was fun (Good child-bearing hips used to be a common enough description – before the era of the stick insect!)
    IS NOTHING SACRED was good, too.

    E, please keep your snorters for the prize puzzle.

    Giovanna xx

  40. nametab @38

    But surely it’s not parsed as a plural. It’s ACE’S.

    Consensus has it that we just don’t enter punctuation marks in the grid. So FACE’S = FACES in “grid terms” 😉

  41. bootsie @25

    “knocks seven bales into”?
    And as who have you said in reply and where? I think we should be told.
    There is a lot to be said for E’s cryptic style. It doesn’t always do exactly what it says on the tin.

  42. Btw in 18ac, 33 percent is not a third. I was sure that Enigmatist could not mean a third or else he would have said so; and so I struggled for a while to find some other use to put the instruction.

  43. Thanks Andrew and Enigmatist

    A bit of a struggle as I am a fairly slow solver, but I was pleased to finish this and parse it all (except for ‘legoland’ as my last one in despite eventually seeing all its component parts but then forgetting the ‘tour’). I too went for ‘winter need’.
    I ticked 7d but there were of course many excellent clues.

  44. xjp @ 42

    33% = 1/3 is close enough for me and, I suspect, most other humans.

    Is the view dark where you’re looking from? How’s the curvature of your spine?

  45. The term &lit was coined by Ximenes. He devotes a whole chapter of his book to it. Towards the end (pp 75-76) he indicates that as well as “perfect” &lits (meaning the whole of the surface forming the WP and also the def) he includes an “offshoot type” in which the def covers the whole of the surface but there is also a lesser def (typically satisfactory but less precise) which allows the remainder of the surface to form the link (if there is one) and wordplay. He gives the example:

    What a bishop may have had before getting a crook (7) for PREBEND

    as an &lit – on which basis 7d is also one.

    If for some folk usage has made the translations:

    &lit -> &lit (for perfect ones)
    &lit -> extended definition (for offshoots)

    so be it – others may bicker but the intelligent reader can sort it out whichever version is used.

  46. Not too long a solve, though I think “internee” is impenetrable and very poor. BUT – where’s the wit in clues a paragraph long?

  47. Andy B thanks for perpetrating one of JS’s favourite myths, but see rhotician @ 36. And, for extra fun, see JS @ 45 enlisting Ximenes (whom he profoundly dislikes and frequently batters) once again to attempt to promote up the 15/2 league his own opinion (what’s that smell?) about what &lits are. But that’s our Jolly! And where would we be without him.

    To me it’s a total no-brainer: &lits don’t (need to) have definitions added in any way shape or form. There are many clues, like E’s excellent 7dn here, that use e.g. an apposite anagram to suggest a link with the answer word, but it’s far too kind, and confusing for some people who aren’t as experienced as some others, to classify these ‘&lit’.

  50. Perhaps this needs further clarification.

    “Extended definition” there may well be but that doesn’t describe the clue. That term is more commonly used to describe the situation in which an exact definition seems to be demanding double duty of some of the terms on the WP/def overlap. If it then turns out that there is a shorter def (usually a broader one) which allows the clue a conventional reading then we excuse (in fact celebrate) the overlapping part with that term. What is critical in this case is that the longer definition uses the whole of the surface.

    I indicated above what Ximenes (who undoubtedly coined the term &lit) called clues like 7d. Don Manley (in his book) called them “semi-&lits” – and he called the long definition, which uses the whole surface “enhanced” not extended. Usage makes language change; extended and enhanced are not quite the same but they are interchangeable in many situations. Maybe “extended” provides more general coverage since the longer definition, whilst usually the better one, might sometimes be a bit of a stretch.

    Sadly others have deviated from this and have used the term semi-&lit to include clues where the def uses the whole of the surface but the WP only uses part of it, although arbitrarily they don’t apply it to the converse. Strict Ximeneans don’t regard these as well-formed clues.

    The critical thing about Ximenes’s second category of &lits (or Manley’s semi-&lits – same thing) is that there has to be a completely conventional reading of the clue available using the shorter version of the def – the extended/enhanced def then covers the whole of the surface as a bonus.

    It’s that simple. I’m not really making any points of my own there – anyone interested can check back in the quoted texts.

    There are other categories of clues which share the property of &littishness (in the sense that the WP refers back to the real meaning of the surface) for which nobody has suggested a name. Adjectivally I would call these &littish even though they are not &lits in any of the senses described above.

    Pseudoscience is sadly the hallmark of our age but it might be better if the self-appointed colleges of cardinals who try to redefine the language and claim it as their own concentrated on filling in the gaps rather than messing with what is already there. Not long ago there was an attempt to change the well-accepted term “anagrind” to “anagind”, for no obvious reason.

  51. Not really my cup of tea. Got most of it, but had far more many “meh” moments than “ahas”.

    I don’t buy 17, it doesn’t parse unless the blogger changes the clue.

    The duds rather spoiled the good ones (7, eg) for me. Oh well.

    Thanks for the puzzle and the blog!

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