Guardian 26,272 / Boatman

44 comments on “Guardian 26,272 / Boatman”

1. 12a: Could it be “gobstopper” as in a stopper (end letter) in the word “gob” to get your G?

2. Were ‘Sweet’ a glam rock band? I don’t know, I couldn’t stand the stuff.

3. Thanks, endwether. Apparently they were, now I look it up. [But the clue breaks the ‘rule’ about not ‘decapitalising’ letters.]

4. A bit hit and miss with this one. I did print it off at midnight and then spend the next hour solving it, but some of the clues were a bit wayward for me. Got them all in the end but had to guess at a few from the crossers. Is a ‘tongue’ a speaker? Liked 22ac and any reference to Ancient Rome (17) is fine with me.

5. Looking further, 12a is probably parsed as “gob’s topper” to get the g.

6. That’s it, Duketime! [I didn’t respond before because I didn’t understand your ‘end letter’.] Many thanks. 😉

7. Any time. It’s rare that I can figure out these clues better than you folks!

8. Thanks Eileen, including for the parsing of 26A. Allsorts of variations on the theme, of which my favourite was CANDY. STONILY was last in, because it seemed it must end in -E: a little unfairly, 16D does not signal a genitive for our setter. Nevertheless high marks to Mr Knowles for an interesting puzzle.

9. Hi molonglo

   “16D does not signal a genitive for our setter.”

   That was my initial thought but it’s THY [on top] then ‘of Boatman’, I think, as indicated in the blog.

10. A tough one for me. I couldn’t get GLAM, OSTIA, and GRAVELLED.

    A question about ADHD (my FOI!): shouldn’t the enumeration be (1,1,1,1)?
    [There was a brief discussion on this on another blog, and a regular setter said he followed the rule that an acronym that was pronounced as a word – UNICEF, say – could be enumerated as one word, but an acronym that is pronounced by spelling out the letters, like ADHD, should be enumerated to account for the individual letters. I quite like it, but I recognise that other setters may not agree.]

11. Forgot to thank the setter and the blogger! Eileen’s work above helped me understand why I had missed the ones I did.

12. Eventually completed without aids, but the clues were rather too wayward for my taste. I could go through the things I didn’t like, but that would be tedious.
    Thanks, as always, to Eileen for a very honest and tactful blog.

13. Thanks for the blog, Eileen. My experience of solving this was very close to yours. I had to cheat on ADHD, didn’t see the parsing of GRAVELLED or ABLE (though in that case I should have done!) and shared some of your quibbles. GLAM I did get — I didn’t care for Sweet but they were my era.

    Thanks to Boatman.

14. Eileen #9. Of course, tks.

15. Great puzzle – thanks to S&B.

    Started off seeming rather easy for a Boatman – ended with some rather long stares.

    I don’t understand the quibbles.

    Surely it’s well-known by now that Boatman uses the full freedom allowed by Barnard (ie according to his seminal book) and ignores the arbitrary restrictions imposed by Ximenes – ie capitalisation and punctuation are arbitrary. Knowing that you just have to be on the look-out for it – and when you find it it adds to the fun.

    It’s standard G & (D)T setting really.

16. Thanks, Eileen. Well, I enjoyed the test!

    But I agree that 1dn is not on. I suppose “Sweet, typically a type of rock” might have been a touch easier to see but it would have been fairer.

    On the other hand, I sympathise with Boatman: 8dn, my last one in, would have been a write-in on the first pass if it had been enumerated (1,1,1,1).

17. @NW#16 – That’s pure xim – just like the (Brian) Close example in his book. Boatman, thankfully, is not ximmie.

    First thing I ever learned about how to solve a cryptic crossword – ignore punctuation and capitalisation – it may be just there to mislead – or some of it may not.

18. Thanks to Boatman for a good challenge.

    Thanks to Eileen for a nice blog. I didn’t get the parsing of COURSE; course I didn’t! ADHD is pretty well-known to anyone in pharmaceuticals/ medicine. As to enumeration, who would give CIA as 1,1,1? I don’t think so.

    I particularly liked NECROPOLIS and CANDY, despite the grammar.

19. JS @16 – I don’t give a damn about Ximenes and have no pressing need to either read or attack his book. The capitalisation of names thing was something I’d just picked up in solving Guardian puzzles (and reading this blog) over the years.

    Anyway, I’ve seen you going on about Ximenes before and certainly don’t want to start some silly argument about him. Personally, I’m no great fan of rules of any sort – the more left-field the clue, the better. 🙂

20. Thank you Eileen, your help was much needed today.

    I find some of Boatman’t clues (e.g. 26a) remind me rather too much of Ted Rogers and “3 2 1” in the inscrutability of the parsing.

21. Thanks Shirl

    My sentiments entirely.

    Can’s say I enjoyed it. Not my cup of tea. Too many stretchy definitions.

    I prefer Araucaria’s ‘rule’ about compound words that indicate letters. Maidenhead = M is fine – head of maiden. Birkenhead = B – not fine – head of Birken??

22. Thanks for sorting out ABLE (which I should have seen) and ONSET (which I don’t think I’d have parsed in a month of Sundays otherwise). I also had problems with OSTIA because I was busy translating “no small” into OS and wondering why it didn’t say “island’s” to explain the last bit…

23. Shirl #20

    Ted Rogers & 3-2-1 is spot on! For me 5 falls into this category. Perfectly fair,it’s just that you are a bit exhausted by the time you get to the end of the clue.

24. With others who say ADHD ought to be (1,1,1,1) – definition of an acronym is ‘a word formed from the initial letters of another word’ — you can’t *say* ADHD!!!

25. @LilSho

    Yes you can: “Eh Dee Aitch Dee”

    Sorry, where are my manners? Thanks Boatman, and Eileen: immaculate as ever.

26. Thanks to Boatman and Eileen. Very hard work but got there in the end. Tried to make
    Gummy Bears (bummy gears?) work at 3d until the crossers precluded that. F for little woman?
    Straffed was a new spelling for me.

    Cheers…

27. Thank you Eileen et al for the explanations.

    I’m with the critics on this one. Too much wordplay which either in part (eg gobstopper) or whole (eg 10a, 20a, 26a) presupposes a knowledge of the solution.

28. @mitz – ok, but it’s not a word, is it…like UNICEF or NATO??? There isn’t a *word* which makes 8d a ‘word’…

    Don’t get me wrong, we enjoyed it, and we did figure out the answer to 8d, I just don’t think it works as a four letter *word* — think I’m with Laudanum re how Aracuria parsed things…maybe I’m just too old fashioned?!!

    Thanks Eileen btw – always enjoy your solving!

29. I have long been of the opinion that enumerating clues like 8 as (1,1,1,1) makes them write-ins, whereas giving them (4) turns them into the most challenging, and therefore entertaining kids on the block. Give me the latter any day.

    Until the Guardian has a new crossword editor (and I don’t know that Hugh has any plans to step aside any time soon) such clues will be delivered as 8 was today – he has stated that this is his policy.

30. I know that Mitz…doesn’t mean it doesn’t make me mad!! Like I said, we got the answer, but I was just a bit befuddled (also, because I’ve only been doing these puzzles for about a year, I sometimes still have to try and work out the answer before I parse the clue – and vice versa, as I did today with ‘straffed’ and when I looked, it was always spelled with only one ‘F’ – so I still sometime end up a bit (lot!) confused) – so forgive me…maybe I’m a little sensitive as well because my mam is a special needs teacher and has a lot to say about that stuff!!

    Not sure we disagree…it was a good puzzle, and Eileen’s blog was great (as always)…maybe I ought to have a bit more confidence in myself to commit ink to paper…!!

31. Thanks all
    Favourite was 26 across
    My attitudeto punctuation has always coincided with JS’s @17

32. I read that as a majority having had fun, with a couple of annoying quibbles, depending on taste. Thanks to Eileen … I’ll convert you to the joy of Spoonerisms yet!

    As for ADHD, I generally try to avoid non-pronouncable acronyms – neither way of dealing with the letter count is really satisfying – but it was too tempting in this case. “Gob’s topper” I’ll defend vigourously, as “gob” is surely a word, and that which tops it is “G” … of course, you do have to be sufficiently unhinged of mind to ignore not only punctuation and capitalisation but also word breaks, but I’d recommend this approach to life on the grounds that it’ll make you a happier, if more peculiar, person!

    By the way, if you thought that some of the tricks and definitions were too much of a stretch, be grateful that Hugh picked off a couple of more wayward constructions such as this, which was the original idea for 9Ac:

    Found nothing in sackful of duke’s letters

    I even toyed with …

    Found sackful of duke’s letters empty

    Heh heh …

33. I found this very tough but mostly enjoyable, and I must admit to having given up on ADHD, though I should have thought of it. I feel that using abbreviations like this that can’t be pronounced is a bit sneaky, but I suppose there isn’t much else that would fit there. No problems with GRAVELLED, but I agree with Eileen’s comment about JELLY BEANS. Did like FONDANT and CANDY.

    Thanks to Boatman for the challenge and for the comment, and thanks as always to Eileen for the blog.

34. Thanks for the crossword Boatman and for the blog Eileen – I couldn’t parse quite a few of them today.

    I’m not keen on acronyms in crosswords but that’s mainly due to sour grapes because I never get them.

35. Thanks Eileen and boatman too tough today, was stymied by putting in thyme which seemed ok. Glam caused a curse!

36. I found this tough and I agree with those who thought that some of the clues were a bit of a stretch. I needed aids at the end to find out if “ADHD” or “HDAD” was the correct answer because they both fit the wordplay.

37. Sweet or The Sweet was a glam rock band.

38. The trouble with Boatman and me is that Boatman has become more and more freethinking while I went slightly more the other way. Don’t get me wrong, I like a bit a libertarianism but this puzzle would never have passed the offices of The Times.
    One may now think that I didn’t like this crossword but, actually, I did, unlike some of Boatman’s recent offerings in which the repeated theme felt like a chore.
    But he’s clever, no doubt about that.

    Last one in was GRAVELLED (12ac) and we looked and looked for the parsing – and then Ah! (which was a nice end to the solving).

    I have no quibbles about any of the across clues except perhaps 19ac (POD). However, that’s a personal thing. I don’t like “not one device to download” meaning ‘delete I from I-POD’. But setters do it (with the much admired Enigmatist at the forefront).

    I had no problem with GLAM. Having ???M it was the first thing I thought of, feeling even more certain by what JohnM says in #37.
    I think 16d (the MY thing) works, but just about.
    Also no problems with ADHD, nice clue.

    Well, did I have any problems then?
    3d: this is strictly speaking not a good Spoonerism as there is a construction going on too (“…. over his ….”).
    4d: is ‘speaker’ really a definition for TONGUE?
    25d: I think Boatman should have left out the word that little word “a”.

    All in all one of the most enjoyable Boatmans of late.
    Not sure though whether he’s still the B in my ABC of favourite setters (as his website mentions).
    OK, in my AbC then …. 🙂

    Many thanks, Eileen.

    ps, I had to re-submit this post because I filled in thew rong value in the capture competition: …. minus six = three doesn’t give 9 …….

39. An acronym, by (most) definitions, can be pronounced as a word. ADHD is not an acronym, it is an abbreviation. It is not written A D H D, so I think its enumeration as (1,1,1,1) would be wrong. (4) is correct because it is a four-letter abbreviation. (As opposed to a three-letter abbreviation, or TLA – itself, of course, a TLA.)

    I think Andy B’s observation @36 is more pertinent. The term is rather specialised and the wordplay ambiguous.

40. For me the worst Boatman ever.

    More of a chore than fun. Also too difficult for a weekday puzzle.

    All my gripes have been covered at least once each so I won’t repeat them.

    Thanks to Eileen and Boatman

41. JollyS @17

    Surely you exaggerate. One of the things I eventually learned about crosswords was to be wary of, rather than ignore, punctuation.
    In 14a the first hyphen needs to be ignored, the second must not be.
    Capitalisation can be ignored, or not, I think, only in the first word of a clue. In 16d ‘boatman’ would render the clue invalid.

    PS Like NeilW I wish you would stop banging on about Ximenes.

42. Thanks Eileen and Boatman
    I fall into the ‘I like it’ camp – it was tough (and I failed with GLAM – putting in a tenuous plum and coming here before my final parsing run through), but was able to get and parse the rest after quite a solid brain workout.

    I posted recently about the setters’ increasingly clever way of disguising hidden words and TONGUE proved so again here – my second last in and with all crossers required. Had no issue with speaker – it gave me a smile with its lateral definition.

    CANDY was also very good – I got what he was after with the C AND Y quickly enough, but spent an age trying to work out why HILL = I :). Eventually got the other definition to cold!!

    Many other good clues including FREEBIE, STONILY and POD.

    Am not usually good with Boatman’s spoonerisms, but JELLY BEANS was my second word in – so no problems at all with that one today.

    I think the issue with the captcha might be related to a timeout if you take a while to type your post.

43. I liked this too though sadly I failed to get the basset and the gob’s topper! Some very creative cluing.

44. @rho – Your term “to be wary of” is a more accurate description of what the solver’s attitude to capitalisation, word-splits and joins and punctuation should be – the point being that in normal (shall we call it Barnardian) cluing those aspects may be arbitrarily changed in passing from the surface reading to the cryptic one.

    Unlike Boatman I don’t require the stems of words such as DUNDERHEAD or BIRKENHEAD to be meaningful words for the suffix -HEAD to deliver me the first letter – nor do I need (as Ximenes does – there I go again) an apostrophe S to make it grammatical – less still do I need a meaningful word defining something which actually has a head, as opposed to just a leading or uppermost part.

    The meaning of -head (as a suffix) as detailed in Oxford Dictionary Online (“The front, forward, or upper part or end of something”) takes me straight there.

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