Guardian 26450 – Enigmatist

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Enigmatist’s name is one that always causes a slight feeling of panic when he comes up to be blogged, but I found this puzzle a very gentle one by his standards. I started at something of a sprint in the top left corner, but it wasn’t a complete walkover, as there was some characteristic deviousness, including an unusual meaning of an unusual form of a word at 22d (new to me, but clearly clued). I can’t satisfactorily explain 26a – no doubt someone wll quickly be able to point out the obvious. Thanks to Enigmatist, and Merry Christmas everyone.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. I BEG YOUR PARDON Guardian’s put through edited parody, being sorry? (1,3,4,6)
OUR (Guardian’s) in (PARODY BEING)*
8. ANDES A range of Italian desserts (5)
Hidden in italiAN DESserts
9. DECANTER Mother, perhaps, is unable to do/does dressing (8)
CAN’T (is unable to do) in DEER (does)
11. IMPULSE Back at university, London one, after writer’s urge to act (7)
I’M (writer is) + UP< + LSE (London School of Economics)
12. IMPASTO Paint not thinly applied is gone in one second (7)
PAST in I MO – impasto is thickly-applied paint
13. AT SEA Lining of coat’s easily lost (2,3)
Hidden in coAT’S EAsily
15. SCHNITZEL Hertz clients taken out for some food (9)
(HZ CLIENTS)*
17. IMPRESSED Showing admiration, Enigmatist is doing Mr Rusbridger’s job! (9)
I’M PRESS ED (Alan Rusbridger is the editor of the Guardian)
20. TASTE Liking condition No 1 to become No 3 (5)
STATE with S moved to become the third letter
21. AIRHEAD Feather-brain needs help to catch leggy bird (7)
RHEA in AID
23. NEEDLES Unnecessarily wily fleeing rocks (7)
NEEDLESSLY less SLY (wily)
25. MELVILLE Honey and lemon’s first sipped by loathsome author (8)
MEL + L in VILE
26. NIGER Not quite full backing for Queen and Country (5)
This looks as if it should be GIN[x]< + ER, but I can't find anything suitable meaning “full”. Or maybe NIG[H], meaning “not quite”? Or a lift-and-separate: “backing” = back IN + G? Thanks to Tom and Muffyword: it’s REGIN[A], reversed
27. HOW NOW BROWN COW Declaration from elocutionist who won crown, movingly taking in bow (3,3,5,3)
BOW* in (WHO WON CROWN)* – a phrase tradionally used in elocution
Down
1. I SAY I SAY I SAY One’s opening is always repeated twice (1,3,1,3,1,3)
IS AY (always) repeated twice, i.e. said three times
2. END UP Nude dancing? Take a little Peter Pan out! (3,2)
NUDE* + P[eter]
3. YES PLEASE Leader having dropped right down, scrutinises excuses rather! (3,6)
EYES (scrutinises) + PLEAS (excuses), with the first E moved to the bottom
4. UNDRESS Diabolical ruses employed to get around North Dakota, “The Altogether State” (7)
ND in RUSES*
5. PECKISH Quite esurient, rather like a 1962 Oscar winner? (7)
Gregory Peck won an Oscar in 1962 for To Kill a Mockingbird. Esurient = hungry
6. RUN-UP A low approach shot towards the hole, presumably to come second (3-2)
Double definition – the main meaning is from golf, and to run up is (“presumably”) what a runner-up does
7. OVERSIZES Such as XL and I zero in on nameless poetry (9)
I Z in O[n] VERSES
10. GOALLESS DRAW Does such an attraction have no point? One, actually, for each side (8,4)
A goalless draw has no “points” in the sense of goals, but each team gets a point in the league table for it
14. SUPERHERO Very posh, a woman’s in Kent, say (9)
U (posh) + PER (a, as in miles per/a second) + HER in SO (very)
16. IN THE KNOW Rip centre of kitchen out today and fly! (2,3,4)
KIT[c]HEN* + NOW
18. SOD’S LAW Pessimistic canon‘s portion of ground cabbage salad (4,3)
SOD + SLAW
19. DANSEUR Arty male performer excited 70% of Sun readers (7)
(SUN READ[ers])*
22. ELVAN Self-willed velocity witnessed in dash (5)
V in ELAN – this is an adjectival form of “elf”, one of whose meanings is “self-willed”
24. LOGIC Correct reasoning traps soldier in mountain pass heading north (5)
GI in COL<

59 comments on “Guardian 26450 – Enigmatist”

  2. Thanks Andrew and Enigmatist,

    Re 26ac: REGINa

    I thought ELVAN was elf in swilled, so thanks for the explanation.

  3. Thanks Enigmatist and Andrew

    When the across clues had only yielded an unparsed NIGER (I still don’t see the NIG part, though your offer of NIG(h) could be right) I thought that it would be a struggle, but END UP allowed me to guess 1a and then 1d, then everything went smoothly.

    Favourite was the lovely AIRHEAD, thought here were lots of other good clues as well.

    I didn’t like 19d. We have had several of these x% anagrams recently, and I think they are rather lazy clueing. Overall very enjoyable, however.

  6. Thanks Andrew [and Tom and Muffyword for the parsing of 26ac.]
    As usual, I agree with your analysis. I started off thinking the name on the puzzle must be wrong, because I was entering answers rather more rapidly than usual for this setter, but, as you say, the Enigmatic characteristics soon emerged, particularly in the parsing. 26ac turned out to be deceptively simple – but, like muffin, I was hung up on ER.

    My favourite, which really did make me laugh out loud when the definition dawned, was DECANTER, closely followed by SUPERHERO – Kent, indeed! 😉

    Many thanks to Enigmatist for the fun – and for being slightly more gentle with us on a busy day.

  7. Seeing the name Enigmatist always inspires a bit of nervousness and the expectation of a lengthy tussle, but fortunately for us lesser mortals he was at his gentlest today, and this was very entertaining – full of clever misdirections as ever, but without too much obscurity, the only unfamiliar word being the spelling ELVAN (my last in after MELVILLE). Liked IMPRESSED, AIRHEAD, PECKISH and DECANTER.

    Thanks to Enigmatist and Andrew

  8. What a treat – a big thank you Enigmatist for both being extremely entertaining and kind to the busy solver at the same time. Thank you to Andrew too.

  11. Thanks and Season’s Greetings Enigmatist and Andrew

    Favourites were DECANTER, IMPULSE, AIRHEAD and SUPERHERO.
    NIGER made me laugh, that is what comes of relying on crosswordese (I was fooled of course).

    muffin @10, good anagram!

  12. I have just found the Araucaria clue that DECANTER reminded me of – Prize puzzle 25,179, 24ac:

    24 Painter on top of stove to pour out the tea? (7)

  18. […….and referenced in this puzzle, Cookie (just seen that Andrew got there first). I’ve seen the film, but not read the book.

    There used to be a pop group I quite liked who called themselves “The Boo Radleys”]

  19. I’m still having a bit of trouble with 11a and 25a

    11 I’m fine with the im and the LSE but can’t work out where the UP comes from. U for university, ok, but the P?

    25 How does Mel = honey?

    Am I missing something really simple?

  23. Thanks Muffin @21

    As someone who did Latin at school, I should have known that. I do remember that Melissa is bee as in melissaphobia.

    As for “up” I’ll blame my antipodean location.

  26. muffin @21 UP at LSE! I can remember crawling on the floor of LSE recuperating that long card thing that spewed out of the old computer there in the early 1960’s. Eileen points out how blogging has changed, but just think of computers.

  29. I groaned when I saw the name and settled to some joyless toothpulling. But no! 45 minutes of pleasant tussling. Enigmatist in this mood will not satisfy those who use the Listener puzzle to time their soft-boiled quail’s eggs, but for my taste this was pitched at the right level for a Guardian cryptic. Thank you Enigmatist, and also Andrew for explaining the trickier ones.

  30. Thanks Andrew and Enigmatist. Definitely on the easier side of Enigmatist’s puzzles, though MELVILLE and ELVAN defeated me. Never heard of MEL as in honey before.

    Some nice humour in this crossword.

  31. Thanks to Enigmatist for letting us off easily for once, and to Andrew for the blog. I’m sure your parsing is right, but for 14D SUPERHERO I had just SUPER (‘very posh’) plus HERO (‘woman’ as with Leander). It almost works.
    I thought that in 5D PECKISH ‘quite esurient’ is something of an overstatement.
    In 10D GOALLESS DRAW I think that underlining ‘such an attraction’ as the definition rather obscures the intent of the clue; I would underline the second sentence as a definition (of sorts), with the first as a literal interpretation, a DRAW (‘attraction’) without GOAL (‘point’).

  32. Saints be praised, a gettable Enigmatist! I settled down on the sofa expecting maybe four or five at first pass only to find that 1a and 1d were soon in place and large parts of the N and W with them. A brief hold up due to the unwisdom of writing in OVERSIZED instead of OVERSIZES was soon out of the way until just bits of the SW were left. The very nice AIRHEAD proved the way in, with MELVILLE tagging along in the rear.

    None of this means that there aren’t still large open spaces in the Xmas Maskarade.

  33. Very much enjoyed this for all the reasons people have mentioned. Couldn’t get near explaining SUPERHERO (both “Very = SO” and “a = PER” get me every time…so to have both in one clue!), so I was grateful for the blog…thank you Andrew.

  34. Pah, these Listener types with their soft-boiled quail’s eggs. I don’t suppose that Listener solvers really are posh, certainly not all of them. I’ve met some of them, you see. I’ll admit that the ones that aren’t posh could be jumped-up in some way, social climbers who are devouring quail eggs by the bushel on the quiet, but in sooth that’s pretty much all speculation.

    Great puzzle, Enigmatist-lite in some ways (but not for example in a MEL way), yet the trademark flair still bubbles through in every clue.

    Thanks Andrew, and more Enigmatist in The Guardian please. Off now for hen’s eggs on toast, which I hope is a hangover cure.

  37. Let me join the chorus. Thank you, Enigmatist, for an entertaining and accessible puzzle, rather than one which was just difficult for difficulty’s sake.

    Thanks, too, to Andrew.

  42. Some rather easy clues for Enigmatist.

    However I still don’t see why there are no comments for 7D. Surely “OVERSIZES” just doesn’t work? Why plural and why Z for ZERO?

    Although there were some nice clues I found this rather disappointing for an Enigmatist. (Still not sure if this wasn’t an imposter 😉 )

    Thanks to Andrew and “Enigmatist”

  43. Re 7d it certainly works but perhaps one could be more explicit re the parsing. “Such as” is here synonymous with “Such things as” (see “such” in Chambers, after the adjective and adverb entries: “pronoun such a person, persons, thing or things”). The usage is slightly literary nowadays but not obsolescent, and very correct. z=zero is in Chambers.

  44. Sorry Herb. I’m still not convinced.

    I think your reference is general to both singular and plural, which is correct. BUT the use of XL surely puts us in the singular. Doesn’t it?

    Also the reference to z = zero seems to be mathematical and as a degree level mathematics student (many many years ago) I don’t remember ever seeing this.

  45. I clenched when I saw this was the big E but it was much easier gets started than his usual puzzles. I didn’t know ELVAN- obvious from the clue but-and I didn’t like OVERSIZES much. I liked AIRHEAD and MELVILLE. LOI was GOALLESS DRAW which I suppose I understand- despite being born in Liverpool, I know absolutely NOTHING about football!
    Thanks ENIGMATIST.

  46. A day late and a dollar short, but can anyone explain 1D? Why is “I say, I say, I say” “one’s opening”? Google indicates that it is the title of a poem by Simon Armitage (though not its opening), a collection of Peter Sellers’ home movies and also the title of some sort of pop album, but all these seem too obscure to be relevant. If it’s a reference to 1a, it completely escapes me.

  47. “I say I say I say” is the opening of many jokes, at least that’s how I read it.

    The one I’m still struggling with is FLY being the definition of “IN THE KNOW”. Chambers didn’t help me on this.

  48. IN THE KNOW is one (of many) meanings of “fly” that I’ve learning mainly from crosswords — I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it used in real life.

    I’m not familiar with “I say, I say, I say” as a joke opening (or any other common expression), and I still don’t see how that sense would follow from “one’s opening.”

  51. Chambers’ online lists as the first definiiton of fly as an adjective “colloq cunning; smart.
    ETYMOLOGY: 19c.”

  52. For ‘fly’ the OED gives ‘knowing,wide-awake’. In my London childhood it was a mixed compliment: a ‘fly’ character was more crafty than was wholly respectable.

  53. @44
    “Such” refers to plural things (sizes), whereas what these things are being likened to or associated with (in the cryptic reading) is singular. We have to avoid confusing these two features to follow the logic of the clue (and to use this construction properly ourselves). It is wrong to assume that plurals can’t be compared to singulars – “Kings like Henry VIII”, “Vitamins such as riboflavin” etc. – and vice versa, although Enigmatist is probably hoping we make this slip in the heat of solving and in the context of “such as” standing for “things such as”/”such things as”. I like this aspect of the clue – the plural being represented without an “s” – but I’m not sure I understand the surface.

    I don’t think I knew z=zero either, although I had no problem working it out. We can’t really hold that against the setter!

  55. Since ‘such’ = ‘of the same kind as’, I don’t see how either singular or plural can be inferred. We just don’t know, do we, until we’re told. So no-brainer. As to the ‘cryptic reading’, again I don’t see what it’s got to do with this discussion (so long tenses concur, obviously).

  56. Ian SW3 @51 Thanks for that, better study of my old paper dictionaries helped.

    plotinus @52 in my Birmingham childhood “fly” meant the same to me. My 1977 Chambers gives the definition of the adjective as “wideawake, knowing” but my modern one (1993 hehe) gives “knowing; surreptitious or sly”. I was concentrating on the sly side which is what was causing me a problem.

    Thanks Enigmatist and Andrew, a fun crossword and nice blog.

  57. I’ve spent two days enjoying this one so double dose of thanks to Enigmatist. I only managed about 17 or 18 of the clues before folding this evening. Ah, that moment when the penny drops – Sod’s Law had me grinning like a fool on the tube this morning!

  59. Thanks Enigmatist and Andrew

    It was a bit of a surprise to see how quickly the left hand side of this puzzle was filled in – and with no small amount of relief to be honest.

    Interesting expressions around three of the sides and thought that it might be leading to some sort of theme, but it didn’t develop into anything.

    Was another who didn’t see REGIN(A) going backwards, getting locked into the ER line of thinking. SUPERHERO was unparsed apart from the HER bit. It was the first time that I had seen the word MEL for honey, as was ELVAN for self-willed

    Finished in the NE corner with IMPASTO (tricky to parse), OVERSIZES (got caught out by writing OVERSIZED initially) and TASTE (which took longer than it should have to work out the wordplay). An enjoyable Christmas present unwrapped some 20 months later !!!

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