Guardian 26,445 / Tramp

65 comments on “Guardian 26,445 / Tramp”

1. Thanks Tramp and Eileen
   I found myself discovering with increasing relief that the “Coldplay” clues had nothing to do with Coldplay – as Tom Lehrer would have said “This I know from nothing”. In fact it was quite an easy solve with only WALLOPED and (I regret to say) SEWAGE giving me any problems with parsing (I missed “congress” = “sex”, I’m afraid!)
   Favourite was RABBIT ON.

2. Thanks Eileen and Tramp. I too didn’t fancy this much at first sight, but it steadily grew on me.

   Like Eileen, I’m unsure about the parsing of 6; it seems a bit clunky. I think I now understand the parsing of 10a, it looks like we have a lift-and-separate indicator as well as an anagrind; I don’t think the former is really necessary except for the surface reading.

   Too many good clues though, for me to list them separately.

3. I parsed 6d as you did, Eileen

4. Thanks Eileen for the super blog.

   Sorry about ENDURABLE and DISPOSE — sloppy clueing. Only now do I see that “dispose of” is “get shot of”. Doh.

   The seed for this was Gwyneth’s term for the split: “conscious uncoupling”. Their daughter is called Apple.

   The “on” for across clues usually means “after”, as you rightly say, but to my mind, this is silly. A fly on a wall could be FLY|WALL or WALL|FLY.

   Think I’ll forget this one.

   Happy Christmas

5. Thanks for dropping in, Tramp – I enjoyed it (and am prepared to say so if I didn’t!).

6. btw Eileen’s parsing is correct.

   I used to think that “you” for U was slack. However, “While U Wait” is pretty common so I now think it’s a useful device.

   Neil

7. Thanks for the elucidation, Tramp. I knew that there’d be more to it than I’d seen. I should have known to google the quotation, which you’d so helpfully put in quotation marks – I was going to say that I read the wrong papers but look where I’ve just found it!

   http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/26/conscious-uncoupling-gwyneth-paltrow-chris-martin – I’ll add 14ac to my list of favourites now! [I also wondered about your choice of apple as the type of tree.]

8. “Speed of sound” is a Coldplay song, apparently.

9. “Clocks” too.

10. Thanks Tramp and Eileen

    An enjoyable puzzle even though I knew nothing of this Chris Martin (a footballer of the same name came up on googling). By the way, Eileen, I see he has a first-class honours degree in Greek and Latin.

    I liked RABBIT ON, GINGERSNAP, ACCELERATOR and ACHROMATIC among others.

11. I think the setter is being a bit self-deprecating here: this was an enjoyable puzzle with some very good clueing. I did spot the Coldplay/Paltrow/Martin theme but couldn’t get too excited about it; but you didn’t have to.

    Like John A, this one grew on me. I liked WEEPS and CANIS MINOR for their toilet humour.

    As for the ‘on’ in across clues debate, I am happy with either way. When I first discovered Fifteensquared and was trying to work stuff like this out, Anax came up with a useful way of thinking about it. ‘Stoke-on-Trent’ just means that Stoke is next to the Trent, and the Trent is next to Stoke. So GINGER is ‘next to’ SNAP and PAN is ‘next to’ TO MIME. Works for me. Although ‘sweet thing’ for GINGERSNAP wasn’t my favourite ever definition.

    Thanks to Tramp and Eileen.

12. Thanks for that, Cookie!

    Hi K’s D

    I wasn’t meaning to start a debate – it was just an observation. It works either way for me, too. 😉

13. Thank you Tramp and Eileen – always nice to hear from the setter.
    I have a slight quibble with 25 – in film/tv camera moves a pan is very different from a track.

14. Thank you, Eileen and Tramp for a fine puzzle.

    I know little of this band’s output and less about the machinations of celebs. How clever of the setter therefore to construct a solvable puzzle around both?

    Don’t have too much difficulty with ENDURABLE. “How’s your food?” “Hmm…endurable” or equally, “Hmm…can be tolerated”.

    In case we don’t see you again before, Happy Christmas, Tramp.

15. Shirl @ 13 good one, I forgot to mention the pan/track thing. Found this but I expect you already it…

    “A tracking shot is called a tracking shot because in a film the camera is actually on tracks so that it can follow the action. Try to imagine filming someone in one car and you are in another car going down a motorway this is a tracking shot. A pan shot is where the camera stays still and twists to keep the subject in shot. You can combine the two different shots but that might get a bit to complex.”

16. From another point of view, “x on y” could be taken literally in a down clue, assuming x is first in the solution.

17. Thanks Tramp, nice of you to pop in. I thought this was a very enjoyable crossword.

    Thanks Eileen, especially for the parsing of TREBLE. While ‘box’ in 6 is good for the surface, should it not be ‘boxes’ for the wordplay? I’m surprised that people missed the “conscious uncoupling” quote as it was all over the media at the time [and unforgettable!]

    I liked ACHROMATIC for the use of archaic as fodder. I particularly enjoyed CONSPICUOUS and WALLOPED.

18. Very enjoyable thank you Tramp. thanks to Eileen too.

19. Hi Robi @17

    Re 6dn: I took the two elements, C and RE, as being the plural subject.

20. Thanks Eileen esp for parsing of 26a. I thought 10a was fine. I’m still a bit nonplussed about 6d although I guessed from def and crossers.
    And thanks Neil for popping in ( to both sites). We love you

21. second thoughts- not a mention of “yellow”

22. Enjoyed this a lot, particularly the Coldplay clues once I realised I didn’t need to know about the band, e.g. WALLOPED, CONSPICUOUS and SWALLOW. Many thanks to Tramp and to Eileen.

23. Eileen @19, thanks!

24. Thanks, Eileen

    Entertaining puzzle from Tramp.

    I picked up most of the Coldplay/Chris&Gwynnie references and enjoyed the wordplay with the names – though I was surprised that ‘Coldplay’ = *(COLD) didn’t appear! One or two clues are a bit ragged, but Tramp has graciously apologised (thanks for dropping by), so that’s all right then.

    I particularly liked 14a, for its neat encapsulation of an egregious piece of sententious nonsense, and the Redcar pet raised a smile.

25. I think 10 probably illustrates what annoys me about this otherwise good compiler (apart from the careless error also apparent in the clue) most, to wit prolixity. It has a Guardianism in it too, which is mildly irritating. Or in-deed irritating.

    This is kind of all right, but I’d like to see the tightening spanner put on most of the clues.

    The what’s on what debate is clear: in across clues things that are ‘on’ come after, whilst in down clues the go before. Very simple, and easy to observe.

26. [re panning vs. tracking shots: the resolution of an early “Jonathan Creek” episode – “The Reconstituted Corpse” – depended in part on the difference between the two types of shot.]

27. Thanks all
    I don’t like “apple for one” equals tree.

28. I liked all of this one. After getting smacked in the face with three thematic clues straight out of the blocks, it was very entertaining to see it all dissolve into smoke on the second pass. Thanks to Tramp and Eileen.

29. copmus @21 – it did strike me that, because of the lack of Yellow, the puzzle is ACHROMATIC.

30. Many thanks to Tramp and Eileen, but tho my Latin has rusted over many decades the blog for 19d sent me to Cassell’s dictionary (admittedly 1897, a year or two before I was born)which gives anulus or annulus..it was the double n at issue rather than the l. The Anglo/Latin pun at 22a was laugh-out-loud.

31. One more possible reference: Talk is a Coldplay song (and features the refrain “Let’s talk” rather interminably)

32. I gave up on Coldplay as soon as I heard them so the songs,albums,Paltrowisms and progeny were completely lost on me. Still the puzzle was quite easy to solve without this arcane knowledge. I didn’t care much for WALLOPING or TREBLE but otherwise this was very enjoyable.
    Thanks Tramp.

33. Hi Harhop @30

    Apologies for my lapsus digiti re ANNULUS – of course I meant ‘double N’. [But neither my Smith’s Shorter Latin Dictionary nor my [much bigger] Lewis and Short gives that spelling.]

    Again, it was only an observation…

34. @25 Hi hedgehoggy,

    After reading your erudite posts on this site, I think you’re the perfect person to answer a truly vexing question of mine.

    I’m a huge fan of classical music, but absolutely loathe jazz. I mean, they just don’t follow the rules! But there’s nothing I enjoy more than listening to jazz just to remind myself how awful it is.

    Now what I’m really looking for, is a good jazz blog where I can point out all the mistakes those jazz players are making. After all, I’m allowed my opinion and no-one can stop me. The fact that I want to do it on a jazz blog might seem extremely mean-spirited and lacking in social graces to some, but I really don’t care. Those jazz folks need educating and I’m the one to do it. They claim to really enjoy jazz music, but I know better. Jazzisms, I call them, if you’ll pardon me for breaking the rules of spelling for that clever little pun.

    I look forward to your sagacious advice.

    Ximenes_or_Nothing.

    PS. Superb crossword today Tramp!

35. For me, “underpants” does not mean “under pants” hence I used “after splitting”. It’s not a great clue, I’ve admitted that. I know it’s Guardian style, but as far as I’m concerned, you are not saying what you mean if you remove a space. To many “Coldplay” could mean “anagram of Cold” but I don’t like it.

    The “lift and separate” term has suffered the same fate as “R&B”. It originally had a valid meaning for something that was good but the term has been hijacked and it now represents something I dislike.

    @hedgehoggy: “in across clues things that are ‘on’ come after, whilst in down clues the go before. Very simple, and easy to observe.” (I’ll ignore the careless error in your sentence). Why does “on” have to mean “after” in an across clue? It’s a completely arbitrary rule. Also, as the brilliant Tyrus/Lato once put to me: “why does ‘on’ have to mean ‘above’ in a down clue?” The spider on the ceiling is under the ceiling.

    The comments about pan/track are valid.

    Neil

36. Tramp @35: I’m comfortable with the maxim ‘you must say what you mean, but you don’t have to mean what you say’, but for me ‘say what you mean’ doesn’t have to imply ‘WRITE what you mean’. As long as a clue, if articulated aloud in the correct way, gives a watertight formula for producing the solution, it’s fine by me. So I’m comfortable with setters who play fast and loose with word boundaries, capitalisation or otherwise, and punctuation – indeed (!) it’s something I relish.

37. I enjoyed this very much and it was (for me) quite a quick solve, so I must have been on Tramp’s wavelength :-).

    Tramp – I agree with your observations as to the arbitrariness of the “on” convention, and I think you are right to adopt a more flexible approach that is more consistent with ordinary English usage.

    Apologies for my ignorance, but could you explain your reference to “R&B” in your post above – I didn’t understand that.

    Thanks!

    Ben

38. Harhop @30, yesterday we had pannier, that I found really annoying it being from L panis = bread. I don’t know how to pronounce it (it is panier in French). I think there are many words with similar problems.

39. BenP@37: “R&B” used to mean rhythm ‘n blues ie blues — Muddy Waters etc. It now seems to mean caterwauling like Rihanna, Beyonce etc.

40. Thank you for the explanation – I thought it was a crossword-clueing reference that I’d not previously encountered…

41. Thanks for the blog, Eileen. And thank you Tramp for an excellent puzzle which I thoroughly enjoyed.

    I was minded to defend 27a by suggesting ‘of’ should be interpreted as meaning ‘from’ and, as such, treated as a link word rather than part of the wordplay. However, Tramp @4’s acceptance that it was an error has rather scuppered that defence.

    And I don’t really see what’s so wrong with the grammar in 10a: if something ‘can be tolerated’ is it not ENDURABLE?

42. Tramp @37: Very good points; I can now see why you’ve done the lift and separate like that. Particularly good point about the spider. Indeed, if our arachnid is on a wall, there’s no suggestion as to which side of the wall he or she is on.

    Oddly enough, it occurs to me that the point also holds true with underpants, which a person can have “on”. Except for perhaps Edmund Blackadder trying desperately to leave the trenches, chances are that not all of a person’s body will be under the underpants. Indeed, one might even say they’re around the person rather than being one one given side.

43. Angstony @41 – I think what people are criticising is that “can be tolerated” is equivalent to (as in your example) “IS endurable”, and not simply “endurable”. Doesn’t upset me hugely, but I suppose they are technically correct.

    Lovely crossword though, Tramp – and it’s great to have you here.

44. Rhythm’n’Blues was the fusion of two marketing terms that the American music press used to describe record sold in black areas of the U.S.hence it doesn’t refer to particular style. Many black artists in urban areas performed in amped up blues style but they weren’t the only ones that sold. I remember being horrified to find records by the crass balladeer Bobby Vinton in Billboard’s RnB chart in the sixties.
    The artists Tramp mentions probably do sell in the equivalent areas today.

45. Limeni @43: Well I’m told ‘technically’ correct is the best kind of correct, so who am I to argue? 🙂 But I wonder, are similar objections made if standalone verbs are clued using ‘to’ as part of their definition? And if precise grammar is so important, why is misleading punctuation generally regarded as acceptable?

46. All quite entertaining as we’ve come to expect from Tramp. Mostly quite straightforward but it took me far too long to see GINGERSNAP and my last in SEEDCASE even with all the crossers. Glad I didn’t need to know much about Coldplay – not one of my favourite bands…

    Thanks to Eileen and Tramp.

47. Re Tramp @6, please can we have more of U=you. I’ve been campaigning for some time now for such abbreviations that are now in common everyday use to replace the hackneyed and anachronistic U=acceptable.
    Thanks for a fine puzzle and blog.

48. Thanks to Tramp and Eileen. Agree with all the positive comments about this puzzle.
    Special thanks to Ximenes for his invitation to this blog’s resident curmudgeon.

    Cheers…

49. An enjoyable up-to-date puzzle – liked 14a and 5d especially.

    Agree with Angstony @41 about ‘of’ in 27a.

50. Re Mick, u may need to say ‘you texted’ or summink. If folks don’t know what u mean u could be in a spot of Barney. Frankly I wouldn’t worry about Crosswordese, as I guess it will never self-update: just do new things, as long as they work, and see what occurs.

    Re the debate that goes on and on, I wouldn’t subvert the unwritten rule in a puzzle of mine unless I could justify it in terms of total brilliance, and since that’s never occurred, no-brainer.

    Re jazz, I don’t think so somehow. Conrad?

51. 11ac. Surely GINGER SNAP is two words not one?

52. Crossbencher @ 51, like ginger nut?

    All this has been great fun. Thanks again Tramp and Happy Christmas.

53. Hi Crossbencher @51

    I didn’t really think about it when solving / blogging, but see now that Chambers has it as one word.

54. Well said, Tramp @35.

    The “underpants” in 10ac are not a Guardianism despite hedgehoggy calling it one. “After splitting” is there for a reason, just the way Donk did something like that last year in an Indy puzzle to keep their customers satisfied.

    I also agree strongly with the hijacking of the term “lift and separate”.
    To me, “lift and separate” is what happens in 1ac: the mind sees Chris Martin as an entity, while ‘Chris’ should be used for the construction and ‘Martin’ for the definition.
    I am quite sure that four or five years ago this was what we meant by “lift and separate”, often associated with Alberich/Klingsor.
    See also my (I’m sorry, superlong) post #52 in the blog of a Picaroon puzzle (Dec 2).

    This was a fine puzzle with, once again, the “theme” very well implemented, one could say typically “a la Tramp”.
    What I also find is that Tramp/Jambazi seem to become easier. True?

    I am not going to interfere in a discussion here on what is music, let alone ‘good music’.
    I had my share today with Chalmie’s crossword for the FT.

    Many thanks Eileen.

55. Well done “Ximenes_or_Nothing”, it’s about time someone made the point that you have. Constructive negative feedback is one thing but any idiot can learn a bit about a subject and use that to slag off other people’s work in an attempt to look clever. I don’t know if “hedgehoggy” is a failed setter full of resentment or just a rather sad attention-seeker, but we can be pretty sure he (or she, but it’s almost certainly a sad bloke) isn’t anyone who will ever make a useful contribution to Crossworld. Real setters/solvers don’t feel the need to show off like that.

    Free speech is important so let him vent his spleen but the best thing that setters and proper solvers can do is ignore him.

56. Loved this, thanks Tramp. I couldn’t even name a Coldplay track (I’m currently listening to Orange Goblin), but from experience I trusted that I wouldn’t need to, and so it proved. Lots of fun. My favourite was perhaps “Weeps” – small but perfectly formed, lovely surface, slightly immature. Spot on. It’s one I’ll share with my non-crosswordy friends, and that’s a fairly rare occurrence.

57. Thanks a lot folks

    Neil

58. A bit late, but wouldn’t want to pass up the chance to add my word of praise for this puzzle. For reminding us of the sheer Americo-babble bizarritude of our Gwyn, my favourite must be 14a.

    Thanks to Eileen for sorting out 16d for me. I’m not accustomed to such use of ‘uncovered’, but it seems perfectly fair to me. And WALLOPED is just a great word.

59. Talk about ‘venting spleen’, phew!

    I note my critics have new names not previously seen. They’re obviously regular posters who are too cowardly to post so angrily and unhelpfully under their usual names. Sad.

    I’m not a ‘failed setter’ either, just a keen solver.

    And I agree that jazz isn’t exactly prone to ‘mistakes’!

60. Thanks Tramp and Eileen

    I’ll join the chorus of praise for this – enjoyed it a lot even after making a sloppy error with NARRATION / DISJOIN :(. One of the few times that I didn’t re-check the parsing post-completion.

    Also parsed MACHINE a little differently – had MACH-1 and NE(O) – ‘nothing going from current’. I still think that works !

    CURE and the faulty DISJOIN were the last couple in.

    Thanks again Neil – love ya work …

61. Just got round to this one. Great puzzle, loved it all, thanks Tramp.

    Thanks to Eileen too.

62. Late as always, so I doubt many will read this, but anyway, both puzzle and blog have stimulated me to write. First, thanks to Tramp for a good puzzle, with some clever clueing and a well worked but not obtrusive theme. Thanks for dropping in to respond, as well. I’m not sure your apologies were needed: all clues were fair once realisation dawned, or at least endurable; no conspicuous need to dispose of any. I won’t rabbit on (on “on versus on”) any further, but thumbs up from me.

    I enjoyed the theme. Coldplay are a guilty pleasure of mine anyway, and as I enjoyed Sliding Doors and Shakespeare in Love, I am fairly well disposed towards Gwyneth as well, whatever one has read about her since. Any mention of Coldplay will result in snobbish reactions from many, as they are not seen as cool enough, but I’m sure Chris Martin is crying all the way to the bank, or at least can console himself by watching film of his band headlining at Glastonbury. No problem with Apple as a representative tree either: apart from fitting the theme, there is that saying about apples not falling far from trees as well.

    This puzzle and blog seemed to trigger off a musical theme in the comments, and I enjoyed the posts regarding R’n’B old and new. Being an old geezer, I resent a lot of the awful sounding stuff they represent as R’n’B these days (great: I sound like my old dad!). I also like classical music and jazz; not to mention 1970s blues rock such as the Groundhogs (as opposed to the hedgehogs). Can’t we all make up and be friendly?

    I thought 10a worked well, both parsing and definition. I struggled with 6d, but now my eyes are opened regarding you and u: although unusual, this usage is ubiquitous, and goes back at least to Prince in the 1980s. If it’s good enough for the greatest pop artiste of all, then please continue to use it thus.

    On and on.

63. Hello Henriettasandwich -just proving that you’re not the last to read this very entertaining blog! Did the crossword on Boxing Day. LIke you I am a fan of both band and actress – the LibDems of their respective professions (actually good but unfashionable – I’m biased)

64. I am extremely late, so much so that this may well not be read, but I just wanted to say how much pleasure I’ve had reading this blog and others before it. I get the puzzles from my subscription to the Guardian Weekly, so I access the crosswords later than in the daily editions of the Grauniad and therefore only attempt to solve one a week, late!

    Thank you to Tramp and Eileen and Happy New Year to everyone.

65. It’s never entirely too late to post comments: at least the bloggers see them, as they receive them by email.

    Thanks for comments and Happy New Year to all! 😉

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