Guardian 26,372 by Otterden

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The puzzle may be found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26372.

The left side went in rather easily, but the right half, particularly the keystone clue 8D, took a little longer. The theme is the nursery rhyme and children’s game song which in its commom British version runs:

Ring a ring o’roses
A pocket full of posies
Atishoo, atishoo
We all fall down..

This is often taken to refer to the Great Plague, though some have come up with reasons to cast doubt on this interpretation.. Anyway, this puzzle includes several references to the rhyme.

completed grid

Across
9 LUXURIANT Sumptuous place on the Nile needs nothing altered before one starts to advertise new tenancy (9)
A charade of LUXUR, which is LUXOR (‘place on the Nile’) with the O changed (‘nothing altered’; only the answer indicates that the change is to a U) plus I (‘one’) plus A N T (‘starts to Advertise New Tenancy’)
10 CORGI Gas safety body once favoured by the Queen? (5)
Double definition. The Council for Registered Gas Installers, it seems from Wikipedia, still exists, but has lost its official status, which would account for the ‘once’ in the clue.
11 ORDINAL Ordain reuse of Latin service book (7)
A charade of ORDINA, an anagram (‘reuse’) of ‘ordain’ plus L (‘Latin’).
12 OPENING Opportunity to get round writer with gin cocktail (7)
A charade of O (’round’) plus PEN (‘writer’) plus ING, an anagram (‘cocktail’) of ‘gin’.
13 FUSE Rubbish mostly run together (4)
[re]FUSE (‘rubbish’) ‘mostly’
14 LOVE LETTER Private correspondence means nothing to the landlord (4,6)
A charade of LOVE (‘means nothing’) plus LETTER (‘landlord’).
15 HAS-BEEN One who used to be known for keeping insect close to extinction (3-4)
A charade of HAS BEE (‘for keeping insect’, with a grammatical stretch. Perhaps ‘to keep insect’ would be better) plus N (‘close to extinctioN‘).
17 STETSON Test out issue for the head (7)
A charade of STET, an anagram (‘out) of ‘test’ plus SON (‘issue’).
19 HYPERSPACE Revised format of speech therapy, missing the extra dimension (10)
An anagram (‘revised format of’) of ‘speech [the]rapy’ without THE (‘missing the’).
22 HALO Even in thralldom there is glory (4)
‘Even’ letters of ‘tHrAlLdOm’.
23 NUANCES New to the audience, dances lead off with small changes (7)
A charade of NU, a homophone (‘to the audience’) of ‘new’ plus ‘[d]ances’ without its first letter (‘lead off’).
24 ATISHOO Overheard a complete fabrication twice over in 8 down (7)
A homophone (‘overheard’) of A TISSUE (‘a complete fabrication’).
26 LOUPE It magnifies differences for couple starting off (5)
An anagram (‘differences’) of ‘[c]ouple’ without its first letter (‘starting off’).
27 EGLANTINE This flower is not ineleg­ant (9)
An anagram (‘is not’) of ‘inelegant’.
Down
1 FLY OFF THE HANDLE Get angry and quickly get away from other middle name (3,3,3,6)
A charade of FLY OFF (‘quickly get away from’) plus THE (‘oTHEr middle’) plus HANDLE (‘name’).
2 EXODUSES Mass departures from previous mix of uniform doses (8)
A charade of EX (‘previous’) plus ODUSES, an anagram (‘mix’) of U (‘uniform’) plus ‘doses’.
3 WREN Jenny used to be in the navy (4)
Double definition: Jenny as a name for the bird, and a member of the former WRNS (‘Women’s Royal Naval Service).
4 FALL DOWN Go over what we all do in 8 down (4,4)
Double definition.
5 STROBE Lightweight dressing gown (6)
A charade of ST (‘stone, ‘weight’) plus (‘dressing’; or ‘dressing’ may go with ‘gown’ to give ROBE, which may be preferable. Take your choice.) ROBE (‘gown’). My last in.
6 SCREWEYE Prison officer, I heard, is a supporter of hanging (8)
A charade of SCREW (‘prison officer’, to an inmate) plus EYE (‘I heard’). It would be a picture, say, that is being hung.
7 ARTIST He draws a regular tidy income subbing Times leaders (6)
First letters (‘leaders’) of ‘A Regular Tidy Income Subbing Times’.
8 RING A RING O’ROSES Gruesome song with rare origins (4,1,4,6)
An anagram (‘gruesome’) of ‘song’ plus ‘rare origins’. The enumeration threw me for a while. What is now a children’s song is said to have its origins in references to the Great Plague, so we have a true &lit.
16 ENRICHED Fertilised hen cried out (8)
An anagram (‘out’) of ‘hen cried’.
17 SOCIABLE Friendly Society getting one capable of doing things (8)
A charade of SOC (‘society’) plus I (‘one’) plus ABLE (‘capable of doing things’).
18 SMASH HIT Quiet sex appeal gets hospital series to become a great success (5,3)
An envelope (‘gets’) of MASH (‘hospital series’) in SH (‘quiet’) plus IT (‘sex appeal’).
20 PLAGUE 8 down said to be about this in London, where capital is changing hands (6)
PRAGUE (‘capital’) with R replaced by L (‘changing hands’).
21 POSIES Flowers about one’s person in 8 down (6)
Cryptic definition.
25 IONS Very small particles found in a television set (4)
A hidden answer (‘found in’) in ‘a televisION Set’.

 

38 comments on “Guardian 26,372 by Otterden”

  1. Thanks Peter. 12A went straight in and the nursery rhyme followed at once, from the word spread. Ditto the rest of it, though I paused over FUSE and POSIES, as well as SCREWEYE (two words?) and LOUPE, last in, brand new.

  2. Thanks Otterden and PeterO

    A slow start, but then it all went in very easily, with FUSE last as I needed the blog for the parsing.

    Chambers gives SCREW EYE as two words.

    I know that we have discussed enumeration for words with apostrophes endlessly previously, but here 6 for “O’ROSES” is clearly wrong, as the apostrophe is standing for the missing F in the separate word “OF”.

  6. Thanks Otterden for a good puzzle and to PeterO for a nice blog.

    Chambers, Oxford and Collins all give SCREW EYE as two words, so I think this must be an error.

    I’m fairly relaxed about the enumeration of RING A RING O’ROSES, especially as it was an anagram. I got it fairly early on, which led to a few write-ins as there are not many options in the nursery rhyme.

    I liked STROBE, which was my last one in.

  8. There is a second verse, several versions, the one I know is

    Ashes on the water,
    Ashes on the sea,
    We all jump up
    With a one,two three

    perhaps representing the great fire of London, 1666, which marked the beginning of the end of the great plague.

    The Captcha is asking me ? x seven = 56 (the system thinks the contribution above irrelevant). Thank you rhotician, Martin P and beery hiker for your helpful comments yesterday (Rufus).

  9. Thanks PeterO and Otterden.

    I enjoyed this, but for me the theme gave too much away. When I find myself guessing answers correctly from letter-counts only then in my book the theme as gone too far.

    I’m happy with the letter count in 8dn. I agree with muffin @2 in so much that it is not the way I would have coded it either. Having said that cryptic puzzles require lateral thinking, and the possibility that punctuation has been omitted (from the clues or letter counts) is just one more thing to consider.

  11. For me, 8d came well before 1d, so most of my holes were on the W side. Another with FUSE last in.

    I think the lack of alternatives to the themed answers is deliberate – I don’t see this as intended to be a difficult puzzle. Nothing wrong with that from time to time.

  12. Classic Guardian stuff, i.e. absolutely awful. What is happening to this once admired puzzle? Once again I have issues with almost every clue, certainly too many to list without offending the illustrious blogger here today, I mean, it’s really so lame.

    Sorry John Carney, but the clue grammar at 15 (and not just there) really is wrong, just so, so amateurish.

  13. The enumeration for o’roses should be 1,5 because o’ is an abbreviation of the preposition ‘of’.

    That of O’Casey, for example, should be 6 because O’ is a prefix, like Mac, Mc or M’, all indicating son or descendant.

  14. Thanks to PeterO for the blog. I had FUSE but needed you to explain why.

    I was impressed by 5d: once I had got away from ‘not heavy’ I realised that lightweight could be split in two so I eventually got the answer.

    I was happy with the grammar of 15.

  15. Thought this was a bit of a strange mixture of the obvious and the obscure, but fairly enjoyable and not too difficult. LOUPE was new to me and I only remembered SCREW EYE (my last in) after staring at the wordplay for a while. EGLANTINE was familiar due to the late Jackie Leven’s song based on Ciaron Carson’s poem 1798, which mentions it. Got the link fairly quickly mostly from the enumeration and the 4d clue.

    Thanks to Otterden and PeterO

  16. John Carney @4 I’m another to disagree.
    The clue doesn’t have “is keeping”, it has “keeping”.
    “Keeping” alone does not equate to HAS.
    I’m also unhappy with the enumeration of 8dn, and “u” for uniform.
    Decent puzzle otherwise

  17. I agree with the main criticisms. SCREW EYE is certainly two words and 8dn is as Muffin says. These quibbles made the puzzles less enjoyable than it should have been. LOUPE which I’d never heard of was the last one in.

  18. PeterO, glad you kept saying about differing opinions as to the meaning of the rhyme. Saved a lot of bother on here!

    So um? Are there not many on here who watch any of the plethora of TV programs about antiques? Because phrases such as “let me just look at it with my loupe” are pretty commonplace on those. Mind you, to be fair, it took me several years to twig to the fact of it not being “a loop”!

    Would something like “An atheists numbers” work for 11? I’m thinking as in not Cardinal.

  19. Thanks for the blog PeterO.

    I rather liked 5d as I’m partial to that kind of clue – it takes all sorts after all 🙂 However, I found some of the anagrams rather weak, 11A for instance where there’s not much difference between fodder and the answer.

    jeceris @16 – U for uniform is from the NATO phonetic alphabet and, so, a staple of crosswords since the year dot. As such I think The Times would allow that initial letter too (though a compiler might like to confirm or deny that).

  20. I neglected to say earlier that 5d was my favourite too – I love the “Doh!” moment when I see through this type of clue.

  22. Thanks Otterden and PeterO

    Interesting solve this one – a number of minor irritants such as the half-baked LUXOR, an over supply of anagrams, ambiguous handling of ‘refuse’, the ‘society’ so close to SOCIABLE etc. But having said that, there were some clever clues such as STROBE, FLY OFF THE HANDLE and my last one in PRAGUE.

    Also some new learning with LOUPE, RING A RING O’ROSIE history, SCREW EYE, etc.

    I was OK with HAS for keeping …

    Don’t know whether I fully understood POSIES …

  23. Brucew@aus @2., Hardly dare say anything here for fear of Derek Lazenby’s wrath (@18)

    A pocket was usually a little bag on a string, remember the nursery rhyme “Lucy Locket’s lost her pocket”. These were carried, full of spices, flowers etc, by people. When they passed a dead body, or smelt a bad smell, they would lift the pocket to cover their nose. They believed the plague could be caught from from bad air.

  24. It took me a while to get on Otterden’s wavelength but once I did it came together fairly quickly. I got SCREW EYE from the wordplay so didn’t really notice the incorrect enumeration. STROBE was my LOI after I finally saw the wordplay elements. I know the Guardian allows this type of clue so I don’t have a problem with it.

  25. I know this was a slightly erratic puzzle, but it had a certain charm, and I enjoyed doing it. Would have been quite nice for a Monday maybe.

    But like brucew I’m slightly confused – is there anything cryptic at all about the POSIES clue?

    Thanks to PeterO & Otterden.

  26. This side of the Atlantic, the more common rendition:

    Ring around the roses
    A pocket full of posies
    Ashes, ashes
    We all fall down.

    Needless to say, knowing this version rather than yours made several of these entries more difficult.

  27. Claire S @ 19, I’m afraid it is very hard to say what will get past the Times crossword editor. This is because, whilst there are rules and regs, these are not necessarily hard and fast. I guess the thinking is that it would be a shame to spoil a great idea just because of a silly little directive.

    To answer your question directly, ‘uniform’ does NOT appear in the official single-letter indication lists at the moment. Nor indeed does any phonetic-alphabetical letter-name.

  29. We did like this puzzle.
    Even if the nitpicker in me has some quibbles.
    Not about the enumeration of 8d though.
    It is common use in crosswords to ignore the apostrophes.
    DES O’CONNOR will be clued as (3,7) and GAME’S UP as (6,2).
    I do not see any reason to start a discussion on this.
    One may not like it (or even think it’s wrong) but this is how it is.

    My small niggles are about 11ac, in which in cannot see a justification for the use of ‘of’, and about 13ac and 27ac.
    FUSE for ‘rubbish mostly’, well, it’s true but too loose for me.
    And “is not” (in EGLANTINE) being an anagram indicator?
    It didn’t even occur to me when solving as this anagram was familiar to me.
    Still, I’m not sure whether I like it or not.

    Just like brucew@aus I was hoping to see an explanation of POSIES and, yes, I got one. Can’t say I liked this clue.

    But then there is hedgehoggy who @12 made very clear that he doesn’t like Guardian crosswords nowadays.

    “Classic Guardian stuff, i.e. absolutely awful. What is happening to this once admired puzzle?”
    Said in a day and age where Picaroon, Qaos, Philistine, Imogen, Nutmeg and Arachne (how are you?), to name a few, brought new elan with the familiar ones (Paul, Pasquale, Orlando et al) still around.
    We all miss the wond’rous (clued as (8)) world of Araucaria but, in my opinion, there’s a lot right in the Guardian World of Cryptics these days.

    “Once again I have issues with almost every clue, certainly too many to list without offending the illustrious blogger here today, I mean, it’s really so lame.”
    If so, tell us – but you don’t.
    You made clear how you thought about 5d, ending your post with a confusing smiley.
    An increasing number of setters do things like this, some others will keep far away from it. All fine by me. The world changes, the world of crosswords does too.

    Many thanks to Otterden for an enjoyable offering and PeterO for a fine blog.

  32. Didn’t there used to be a rule about bloggers not revealing anything that would give away any hints to what was in a crossword in their opening preamble? I have noticed in the last few weeks that this has often not been the case and now especially as several bloggers are including solved grids (I do like that idea by the way’ but it needs to be further down the blog).

    Thanks Eileen. I found this much easier than otterden’s last one.

    I had heard of loupe, being an amateur astronomer.

  33. A Times compiler @27 – thanks very much for responding – very interesting. I am surprised that the NATO phonetic alphabet isn’t allowed. That’ll larn me to comment on such things 🙂 I don’t think it’s unreasonable for The Guardian to allow it though.

  34. Thanks Otterden and PeterO.

    This took me a while (I’m still getting used to the Grauniad’s style) and 8dn beat me, not being two words. 5dn was wonderful though when it clicked and worth the price of entry on its own.

    I found that the references to 8dn gave a little too much away, but that’s a very minor and personal quibble.

    I appear to be in the minority knowing what loupes are, but then I have a surgeon friend who complained bitterly when somebody stole her work ones!

  35. Eileen @31

    Really surprised. This was quite normal usage when I spent a few years in London around 1962. You would hear men in the street saying “Got a match about you mate”, or more politely “Have you a match about you”. I had no trouble with 21d. Perhaps more recently “Have you a match on you” has taken over, or just “Have you a match”.

  36. Dave ellison @ 32

    There is such a rule, but it refers to the first paragraph of the preamble – that is, what appears on the fifteensquared home page. A solver might well come to fifteensquared for the solution to one puzzle, and not want to see hints for another puzzle which he or she may want to tackle later. Once you have gone to the page for a particular puzzle, you have the entire solution (well, generally) laid out, and the grid just provides a summary. You will hardly find a preamble that does not give away some information about the solution – and that is as it should be. I can see that if, while working on a puzzle, you come to fifteensquared to check on a particular answer, averting your eyes from answers that you still have to tackle, you might not want to have the entire solution thrust in your face; however there is a better way of achieving the same result – on the Guardian site, the ‘check’ or ‘cheat’ buttons will verify one answer without giving anything else away, and you can come to fifteensquared later for the wordplay.

    The reason that you have been seeing grids in several blogs recently is that PeeDee has just released an excellent utility which allows a blogger to blog as the puzzle is solved, and formats the result – and offers the grid in the process. The utility only allows the grid to be placed in the preamble. It is optional, but if the puzzle has a nina, it allows it to be highlighted, which is a strong reason for including it at least in that case.

    If there is a general sentiment against including the grid (except perhaps in the case of a nina, if there is one and I spot it), I would be happy to comply. It might even be possible to do a massive cut-and-paste job to move the grid to the end of the blog. However, without a groundswell of objection, I think many bloggers will find the grid too attractive an idea to give up.

  37. It turns out that PeeDee includes in the script for a blog not the actual grid, but an instruction to load the grid across the net. Thus it is a simple matter to cut-and paste the grid to the end of the blog, if that serves a useful purpose.

  38. Sil @29

    It is often the case that a solver, with the benefit of crossers, will approach a clue by considering words that fit the grid before seeing if they also fit the clue. In 8d I did briefly consider 6-letter words of the form _R_S_S.

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