Guardian 26,636 – Nutmeg

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After yesterday’s expert duffing-up by Vlad I was expecting (or hoping for?) something a little gentler today, but I found this one pretty hard too. However, it was soundly and accurately clued (apart from two rather weak cryptic definitions), so I got there in the end. Thanks to Nutmeg.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
9. PREDATION Editor stops “helping” on page, so the Eagle survives (9)
P + ED in RATION
10. IDAHO State promise in church to secure a husband (5)
A H in “I DO” (though the traditional response in a church wedding is actually “I will”)
11. TRAPEZE Bar on which artists depend (7)
Cryptic definition – they’re trapeze artists
12. INGENUE Artless miss, say, retreating in tavern used regularly (7)
EG (say) reversed in INN + U[s]E[d]
13. NATTY Smart races, no outdated fences (5)
TT (races) in (fenced by) NAY (old-fashioned “no”)
14. MAIL ORDER How crusaders acquired their protection? (4,5)
Cryptic definition – reference to chain mail
16. INCIDENTAL MUSIC Background notes including medical units rewritten (10,5)
INC + (MEDICAL UNITS)*
19. GUARANTEE Bond‘s nature changed with age (9)
(NATURE AGE)*
21. STUNG Fleeced animals from Africa moving west over time (5)
T in reverse of GNUS
22. RAT RACE Gunners drop unremitting quest for success (3,4)
RA (Royal Artillery or Gunners) + TRACE (a trace or a drop is a small amount)
23. SLITHER How the legless proceed and possibly buttonhole the lady? (7)
SLIT (buttonhole is an example) + HER – the legless ones being snakes
24. BANJO Something to play during suburban journey (5)
Hidden in suburBAN JOurney. It might get you some funny looks on the 8:25..
25. SHORT WAVE Type of radio broadcast lacking signal? (5,4)
SHORT (lacking) + WAVE (signal)
Down
1. UPSTANDING Honourable position at university in the north (10)
UP (at university) “to the north of” STANDING (position)
2. PEDANTIC Pernickety poet finally coming to the fore in film (8)
DANTE, with the last letter moved to the top, in PIC
3. SAFETY Half-hearted measures adopted by state security (6)
FE[E]T in SAY (state)
4. TIDE Current speaker’s restrained (4)
Homophone of “tied” – my LOI, ?I?E being a combination with rather a lot of possibilities..
5. ANTICIPATE Expect head to support worker here in Paris (10)
ANT + ICI + PATE. Solvers who are 2 down might question whether expect=anticipate
6. RINGWORM Band cut up, admitting source of recent infection (8)
RING (band) + R[ecent[ in reverse of MOW
7. TANNED Brown well beaten (6)
Double definition
8. SOLE Single swimmer‘s base (4)
Triple definition
14. MONOTHEIST Believer for whom the motion’s turbulent? (10)
(THE MOTIONS)*
15. ROCK GARDEN Butcher (not I) docking rear part of grounds (4,6)
(DOCKING REAR)* less I
17. DIAPASON Stop sending up assistance — clergyman’s run off (8)
Reverse of AID + PARSON less R. Diapason is a kind of organ stop, providing the most basic sound of the instrument.
18. SOUTHPAW Fighter who’s put out about amateur (8)
A in (WHOS PUT)* – a southpaw is a left-handed boxer (or left-handed person generally)
20. ATTUNE Worried about zealot’s rising temper … (6)
Reverse of NUT (zealot) in ATE (worried)
21. SHINTO … religion thus riven by suspicion (6)
HINT in SO
22. ROBS Birds dropping in sacks (4)
ROBINS less IN
23. SHOD Tonics set up in Boots, maybe (4)
Reverse of DOHS (the note doh in sol-fa is the tonic of the key)

48 comments on “Guardian 26,636 – Nutmeg”

  1. Enjoyable enough, if not maybe at the absolute top end of Nutmeg’s oeuvre. But still, some good things in there.

    I had TIDE as my last-in too – I think of tide and current as different things, but my thesaurus doesn’t!

    Thanks both.

  2. Is pedantic the same as pernickety?

    What do you make of “Upstarts, sent down”?

    Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew.

  3. Thanks, Andrew and Nutmeg.

    What a relief after yesterday’s; at least I got more than four answers today. I managed to complete it and I thought it was easier than the usual Nutmeg – quite enjoyable.

    TRAPEZE includes a nice pun on DEPEND (“rely on” and “hang from”).

    Thanks for explaining 2d, 3d and 23d

  4. i enjoyed today’s, though was stumped by a couple in the northwest corner. I don’t understand how one gets TT from “races”.

    For what it’s worth (and being a bit 2), I parsed 16 as INC + (MEDICAL UNITS)*.

  6. Thanks, Andrew.

    I’m glad you commented on ANTICIPATE – but I’m afraid that battle is now lost, though it still jars: ‘expect’ is in both Collins and Chambers but not my SOED but I’m sure that’s only because it’s quite old – and also ‘I Do’, which is what the bride’s father says.

    They were just little niggles. I did like the clue for DIAPASON, which I learned through singing ‘in perfect diapason’ in ‘Blest pair of sirens’, which is full of lovely words, then later married a man who played the organ and discovered it was a stop.

    I also liked PREDATION and SHOD – and the fleeced animals [and I’m sorry, I can’t resist it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqgPyqyh4X4 ]

    Thanks, Nutmeg, for an enjoyable puzzle.

  7. Relief and redemption after yesterday’s torture. Thanks Nutmeg. And thanks to Andrew for a clear and helpful blog. As a southerner who spent all his career at universities in the north of England I was ready to jump on my hobby horse about rural/urban and north/south divides implicit in Nutmeg’s use of ‘up’ for attending university in 1d. Fortunately Andrew saved me from embarrassment – oh, no he didn’t 🙁

  8. Thanks to Nutmeg for a tough challenge and to Andrew for clearing up a couple of points about which I wasn’t sure. I was beaten by several today – found it even harder than Vlad.

    So no-one else so far has an answer for Morphia @2 – I too am curious about the Nina.

  9. Thanks, Andrew.

    MikeP – perhaps morphiamonet’s question @2 pertains? 😉 I, also, couldn’t quite see the point of the Nina; is there something else to it?

  11. NeilW @9 Ah, I see it now, thank you. But now it appears to be more deliberate than incidental. If I can eliminate direction and hierarchy from my interpretation I can find another hobby horse to sit on…

  12. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew

    I enjoyed this a lot, and for once spotted the nina when I was looking for a pangram (it’s two letters short). Can’t rumble the nina, though.

    Re the ‘I will’ vs ‘I do’ question, it depends on the question you ask the person who’s marrying you to say. Both times I’ve been married the question has been “Do you take…?”, to which my reply was “I do”.

  13. Looking at the crossword again, I can’t help wondering whether there’s an INCIDENTAL MUSIC-related theme?

    13 NATTY Dread by the Wailers
    21 STING is nearly The Sting with its ragtime soundtrack
    24 BANJO
    25 SHORT WAVE radio used to include music programming
    8 SOLE/soul music
    15 ROCK garden
    17 DIAPASON
    20 atTUNE
    21 SHINTO includes ceremonial music also called SHINTO
    23’s tonics

  14. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew.

    Most enjoyable, but some of the parsing was hard going, thanks again Andrew. I especially liked TRAPEZE!

    Thanks also to Eileen for reminding me of Flanders and Swann, I actually saw ‘At the Drop of a Hat’ in London as a girl.

  15. I’m a muppet. After doing all the hard work in what I thought was a trickier Nutmeg than her last several efforts I misbiffed “shop” at 23dn without thinking about the clue too much. It was only after I clicked on the Check all button and saw the final letter was wrong that I looked at the clue more closely and got to the correct SHOD fully parsed. Ho hum.

  16. Eileen@6 – a reminder of the distinction : saying that a couple anticipated marriage was very different from saying they expected the event. (Though perhaps not so much nowadays)

  17. Andy B @15, you and me both, if that makes you feel any better.
    What you didn’t do though was put in ZONE at 8d, having entirely missed the triple definition and assuming I’d missed the cryptic bit, as zone = base for the def.
    Overall though, very good, tough but fair in comparison to tough tough tough yesterday.

  18. Spicy fare from Nutmeg. After an unpromising first run-through, final completion was all the more satisfying (as with yesterday’s by Vlad).

    I didn’t get anything until the final across clue SHORT WAVE, which was followed by a series of moments of pleasure and enlightenment. Last one in was SOLE, flummoxed by the triple definition plus the fact that there are so many words that fit -O-E.

    Like Andy @15, I also initially went for SHOP instead of SHOD (Boots being one such, and hops being a previously unknown form of tonic, with the S moved up). D’OH!

    Favourites include IDAHO, NATTY, PREDATION, ANTICIPATE and MAIL ORDER.

    Thanks to both setter and blogger.

  22. I was expecting a nice easy ride today and I started well enough but at the halfway mark I got badly bogged down and it took me quite a long time to finish. Perhaps I’m not especially with it today but I thought this the most difficult Nutmeg puzzle that I’ve encountered.
    Not very enjoyable.
    Still, thanks Nutmeg.

  23. Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew. I did get TIDE quickly but got PEDANTIC without parsing Dante-edant and took a long time seeing SHOD (my last in) because I was brought up with do-re-mi (the Mary Poppins movie spelling), not doh.

  24. Tough in places, but a lot easier than yesterday’s – an entertaining challenge maintaining Nutmeg’s usual high standards. There is something rather satisfying in having a guess like DIAPASON confirmed by Google – I thought my knowledge of musical terminology was quite good but I’ve never played the organ, so that was last in. Liked PREDATION, MAIL ORDER, GUARANTEE, ANTICIPATE and SHOD.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew.

  25. Just seen Eileen’s comment on DIAPASON – in my defence I#ve never sung in a choir either.

  26. Meic will confirm or deny, but maybe they were talking about 23a: “How the legless proceed” = “in a slithery way” rather than just “slither”.

  27. I think the legless in 23A slither.. I believe I’ve only ever come across it as a verb, but Chambers does give it as a noun too.

  30. Re #3 Vlad was not really hard, just badly written, which makes things very tricky to unpick.

    Here we have a normally good setter who has done some bad things today.

    1a the definition is in the wrong part of speech for me: ‘predation the eagle survives’? Odd; 11a should really be ‘some artists’ or ‘certain artists’; 14a is a cd to a fanciful and not the real def. This I find unsatisfactory; 23a leads to ‘slithering’ for me; 14d this leads better to an anagram of THEMOTION which has insufficient letters. To get THEMOTIONS this grammar is not right; 17d a bit obscure I think; 18d A = amateur somewhere I suppose!; 20d the grammar for the apostrophe doesn’t seem at all good.

    Pity, as this setter is normally very pleasing to solve.

  33. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew
    I found this hard too, especially the NW, and TIDE was also my LOI. Nice clues, though – I particularly liked PREDATION, STUNG (GNUS in their rightful environment, a crossword) and DIAPASON.

  34. Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew. This is the second Nutmeg I have finished: either she is getting kinder or I am getting better …

    Eileen @6 – that was my immediate thought with 21ac, and I also thought “I bet Eileen references it”

    Cookie @14 – I also saw Flanders and Swann as a boy. I remember being a bit disappointed that the set didn’t change in the second half. My parents endlessly played the LP, and when I was small I found Flanders’ growly voice bits quite frightening: “a g-nother g-nu, I wish I could g-nash my teeth at you”.

    22ac – I think the surface is a reference to The Arsenal.

  35. Simon @32, I think hh’s point is that the clue to 9 should have read “… by which the Eagle survives” rather than “… so the Eagle survives.”. I agree that the grammar in 9 feels a bit off (as it does in 23a), but it was otherwise a thoroughly enjoyable puzzle. Thanks, Nutmeg and Andrew.

  36. I solved this yesterday evening. U.S. central time is six hours behind UK time, most of the year. That means that the puzzles drop here at 6 p.m., and this blog gets posted at a frightful hour of the morning here. So it’s rare that by the time I get here (mid-morning CDT, usually) I have anything new to say about the actual parsing of the clues.

    Today I do! (At least I think I do–I’ve only sort of skimmed the responses towards the end.) The cryptic definition for TRAPEZE isn’t as weak as the blog indicates. “Depend” in this case has both its usual “rely (upon)” definition and its more literal “hang down (from)” one. So there is at least some wordplay going on there.

    As for the solving, I found it tough but straightforward. Initially, instead of RINGWORM I had TAPEWORM (on the theory that a tape is a band, loosely, if you’re using either word to refer to a length of strapping or something like that–think “tape measure” or the tape at the finish line of a race). But of course there are no five-letter states starting in A.

  37. Oh, and by the way–not that replying to HH is a good idea, but in this case I’ll make an exception: A=amateur in golf and tennis. Most pro tournaments are theoretically open to amateurs and professionals; amateurs, modernly, are a small minority in golf tournaments and virtually absent from the larger tennis events. To distinguish them, they’re denoted by an A next to their names (in tournament draws for tennis or on the leaderboards for golf).

  38. Ian @ 35: I suggest that so’, ‘thus’ and ‘by which’ could all refer to the way the eagle survives, but that the first two bring in the misdirection meaning of ‘consequently’, while the latter acts more as a pointer. I think the clue is exquisite.

  39. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew

    I failed to solve 3d SAFETY, and new word for me was DIAPASON.

    My favourites were STUNG, ANTICIPATE, MAIL ORDER, INCIDENTAL MUSIC, IDAHO & PEDANTIC.

  41. mrpenny @36

    “Today I do! (At least I think I do…” Sorry to disappoint – see the comment @3. But I agree it is this that raises it to a fine clue much above the standard CD.

    Your remark “I solved this yesterday evening” seems strange at first reading just now as it sounds as though you had access to it before us in Britain, but I see what you mean!

  43. Dave in Spain @ 42

    It’s not “half measures”. It’s “Half-hearted measures”, ie “FEET” (measures) with half their heart, ie E not EE, hence FET

    hth

  44. Dave @42
    I think you have misread it – it’s “half-hearted”, not “half”. The heart of “feet” is “ee”, so half is “e”.

  46. I tremble to differ with HH, but to anyone with a knowledge of Church music, 17D is not obscure. True, it requires some specialist knowledge (which I have, being, like Eileen, both a singer and spouse of an organist) but who is to define what is “obscure”? I would have no idea who is Arsenal’s goalkeeper or played bass guitar in 70s rock group Flymetothemoon, but I accept that some people have that knowledge at their fingertips and the rest of us have Google ….

    I suspect that “obscure” to some people = a word I don’t know …

    Lovely puzzle, by the way, thanks to setter and blogger. Am a little concerned about 20 though … does “ate” really mean worried?

  48. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew

    Have fallen a day behind, after being ‘Vladded’ on Tuesday and some of Wednesday !

    Always look forward to seeing Nutmeg’s name in the banner and she didn’t disappoint here. Circumstances had the solve spread throughout the day and gave time to savour each clue. Finished down in the SE with SOUTHPAW, SHORT WAVE and SHOD the last few in.

    Wasted a little time when trying to find a half-hearted measure in NY, before switching ‘state’ context. At 10a, I’ve had one I DO and two I WILLs … and now one I WON’T !!! 🙂

    Forgot to look for the nina and it’d be interesting to know what it means.

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