Guardian Cryptic 26743 by Bonxie

by

Wasn’t at all on the right wavelength for this at first, but once I got going it all seemed to fall into place. I particularly liked 14ac, 18ac, 1dn, 7dn and 8dn.

Across
1 GET AWAY
Escape? Never! (3,4)

Double definition
5 TORTURE
Wrong treatment — not the first to cause extreme suffering (7)

TORT=”Wrong”, plus [c]URE=”treatment – not the first”
9 UPPER
Superior part of Oxford? (5)

Double definition – the second half refers to UPPER meaning part of an [Oxford] shoe
10 APPLAUDED
Clapped out software program subsequently much admired (9)

APP=”software program” plus LAUDED=”much admired”
11 HEADHUNTER
Top horse for an executive scout (10)

HEAD=”Top”, plus HUNTER=”horse” [one used in hunting]
12 CRAW
Endlessly stroke stomach (4)

CRAW[L]=a swimming “stroke”
14 PROGRESSION
Spooner’s rig fabricated for forward movement (11)

(Spooner’s rig)*
18 WHITE MATTER
Treat me with transplanted nerve tissue (5,6)

(Treat me with)*
21 TEEN
Adolescent right to leave wooden utensils (4)

T[r]EEN=small wooden articles, especially eating utensils; with r[ight] leaving
22 EGOCENTRIC
Around the end of night shift, concierge becomes selfish (10)

(concierge)* around [nigh]T
25 ELUCIDATE
Clarify dodgy clue that’s holding a little back (9)

(clue)*, plus I.E.=’that is’=”that’s” around TAD reversed=”a little back”
26 MIGHT
Muscle, a little thing in the ear (5)

sounds like (“in the ear”) ‘mite’=”a little thing”
27 MUSETTE
Get ready to stop mum’s bagpipes (7)

a type of French bagpipe. SET=”Get ready”, inside (“to stop”) MUTE=”mum” as in ‘keep mum’.
28 DECRIER
He runs down animal outside stall — tail sliced off (7)

‘run down’ as in to speak badly of. DEER=”animal” around CRI[b]=”stall – tail sliced off”
Down
1 GAUCHE
Call for quiet, say, being tactless (6)

sounds like ‘go shhh’=”Call for quiet, say”
2 TOP HAT
Large tile exactly placed around edges of plinth (3,3)

“tile” is slang for hat. ‘to a T’=”exactly”, around P[lint]H
3 WORSHIPPER
Bicker over one dispatching a member of the flock (10)

ROW=”Bicker”, reversed (“over”); plus SHIPPER=”one dispatching”
4 YEARN
Barney scratches head — terrible itch (5)

([B]arney)*
5 TOP SECRET
Classified status protects English constitution (3,6)

(protects E[nglish])*
6 REAR
Rise up behind parent (4)

Triple definition
7 UNDERPIN
Corroborate where Nabokov placed comma? (8)

Nabokov, a lepidopterist, would have placed a comma butterfly UNDER a PIN
8 ENDOWING
Providing funds, though die in the red? (8)

END OWING=”die in the red”
13 ASTRONOMIC
Tremendous novel, so romantic (10)

(so romantic)
15 ORANGEADE
Pop round letter bearing oven bill inside (9)

O=”round letter” plus E=”bearing““letter”, with RANGE=”oven” and AD=”bill” inside. Edit thanks to Gaufrid
16 SWAT TEAM
Firing squad place inventor in line (4,4)

James WATT the Scottish engineer, inside SEAM=”line”
17 PINE NUTS
Salad ingredient or Spooner’s green nightmare? (4,4)

Spoonerism of ‘nine putts’, which might be a nightmare on a golfing green
19 GRIGRI
Good cook rehashes Italian starters for a spell (6)

=an African charm or spell. G[ood], plus RIG=”cook” plus R[ehashes] I[talian]
20 SCOTER
Duck! A wheels’s worked free from the motorbike (6)

SCO[o]TER=”motorbike”, losing an O or “wheel” – I assume “wheels’s” is a typo
23 CREED
Faith burned missing mat (5)

CRE[mat]ED=”burned” miissing the mat
24 HINT
Intimate clinch in TV part (4)

Hidden in [clinc]H in T[V]

59 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 26743 by Bonxie”

  1. 19d was a bit esoteric, but otherwise I thought there were some really good clues, especially ECGOCENTRIC, PINE NUTS, TORTURE and ORANGEADE. Many thanks to Bonxie and manhehi.

  2. Thanks Bonxie and manehi

    Easy enough to finish, but a couple I had no idea of the parsing. I’ve never heard of TREEN (unless it was one of Dan Dare’s enemies?), and didn’t know about Nabokov’s lepidopterist leanings, so never saw the right type of comma (and was a little surprised that Chambers gave underpin = corroborate – doesn’t mean that for me, exactly).

    Favourite had to be PROGRESSION, after having had a sinking heart at the thought of two Spoonerisms in the same crossword!

    I’ve never put pine nuts in a salad – they’re most often used as a component of the basil sauce “pesto”.

  3. I was right about Treens! – see
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treens

    [To expand on what I meant about underpin not being the same as corroborate, “underpinning” could be what a scientific theory is based on; corroboration could be evidence to back it up. For instance, the theory of the big bang is underpinned by Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, and corroborated by the discovery of the red shift of distant galaxies and the existence of the cosmic microwave background.]

  4. I’ve never put pine nuts in a salad either but saying “pesto ingredient” would be giving the game away.
    The Nabokov was my favourite clue although not everyone knows he was a lepidopterist.
    Great puzzle.

  6. Thanks Bonxie and manehi.

    I really enjoyed this, but was a little worried about how Eileen would react when I saw there were two Spoonerisms and entered SWAT TEAM. TREEN was new to me. ENDOWING and PINE NUTS were good!

    I have eaten PINE NUTS in salads, often ones with spinach or rocket.

  7. Thanks Bonxie and manehi

    An excellent puzzle, with some nice misdirection, though I thought it was a shame that TOP appeared in one clue and two close solutions. I had no problem with treen, but only know 19D as GRIS-GRIS (cf Dr John’s first album).

    Pine nuts add a wonderful texture to salads, and taste even better if they’re lightly toasted.

  8. Thank you, manhei.

    I thought this was a belter. So many elegantly concealed defs. Too many to list but an example is ‘Clapped out’ in the APPLAUDED clue. I find I’m so unready to separate phrases like this.

    Loved the Nabokov gag but had to look him up before chuckling.

    “Intimate clinch in TV part” has to be in my all-time top clue list.

    Only a tiny thing, but why is E = letter in the ORANGEADE clue?

    Thank you very much, Bonxie, a wonderful puzzle.

    Nice week, all.

  9. I had “letter” as the OE diphthong and wasn’t happy about it. manehi gives “round” as O rather than an instruction, which is better, so E is just “a letter” (1 of 26!)

  10. Thanks manehi; you had to come to my rescue for the parsing of UNDERPIN and UPPER.

    Thanks Bonxie; a bit tricky for me but some really good clues. I did, however, wonder about ‘constitution’ as the anagrind in 5d. I’m continually being told not to put nounal anagrinds after the fodder. Any views on this? I was also rather underwhelmed by E=letter; maybe ‘penultimate letter’ or some such could have been used?

    Nice Spooner trick for PROGRESSION. I liked Spooner’s nine putts.

  11. Muffin @9 I now rather think E= “letter bearing”. I previously thought ‘bearing’ was the inclusion indicator but now think that job is done by “inside”.

  15. Thanks Gaufrid – that makes more sense, and “round letter£ for O is an improvement on the usual “round”.

  16. Thanks for clarifying UNDERPIN — I thought it had something to do with Nabakov’s novel Pnin — maybe that was intentional red-herring.

  17. Took me a while to get into this, but I got there eventually.

    Loved the misdirection in 14a! My favourite of the day.

    Not very happy with “clapped out” as a definition for APPLAUDED – the “out” seems surplus to requirements.

    Totally failed on MUSETTE (partly because I’d missed the hidden word in the crossing 22d) but still couldn’t see it even once I’d used “reveal”, so many thanks for the parse.

    Struggled on UNDERPIN. I agree with muffin (@2 and @3) that it’s not a great definition, which, combined with the fact that I didn’t know that Nabokov was a lepidopterist pretty much floored me.

    Had much the same reservations as others about ORANGEADE, but Gaufrid@12 has parsed it to my total satisfaction.

    Thanks to Bonxie, manehi and Gaufrid.

  18. MarionH @17, I was intrigued with APPLAUDED, all I could think of was either that one took the APP ‘out’ of ‘clAPPed’, but this is double usage, or that one put ‘out’ the APP and ‘subsequently’ the LAUDED.

  22. Challenging, but all very neat as we have come to expect from Bonxie. Last in was GRIGRI – only come across this spelling in crosswords – Gris gris is more familiar. Treen and SCOTER were new to me. Liked TOP HAT, UNDERPIN and MUSETTE.

    Thanks to Bonxie and manehi

  23. Quite good, but some clues show that the writer is not quite aware of the difference between surface and cryptic parts.

    21a treen no-one would know; 22a the grammar is not right; 25a that’s doesn’t equal that is for IE; 4d grammar slightly wrong again; 5 ‘constitution’ doesn’t work as the ind; 7d who would know this fact?; 15 parsed wrongly but corrected by Gaufrid; 16d nice use of the imperative!; 20d yes, a boob.

    HH

  25. I’m surprised that TREEN is regarded as obscure as such items turn up regularly on the various antique shows on TV

  26. Loved this; really enjoyed it! Faves were UNDERPIN and ORANGEADE. Mark us down as two more who were fooled by 14a…we spent five minutes trying to work out what ‘rogue pression’ was!! We thought 10c was as in clapped out the band at the end of the show…ie applauded til they left the stage?? I dunno… Thanks Bonxie & Manehi

  29. More risible comments based on ignorance or prejudice:

    Treen is instantly known to anyone who has ever had an interest in medieval society, so to say no one would know it is ludicrously overstated.

    A wrong parsing by the blogger does not reflect on the setter or his puzzle.

    There is no imperative in 16.

    Cont p94 ad infinitum

  30. Simon S @29
    I know that Dan Dare was from a long time ago, but to call him “medieval” seems a little unfair – I read Eagle when I was little, but I would like to think that I’m not medieval!

    [Seriously, though, in cryptic terms there is an imperative in 16d – “place” is to be read as an instruction to put the inventor in a line.]

  31. Thanks to Bonxie and manehi. I had the same problems as those already noted – e.g., with UNDERPIN (I too kept trying to work in PNIN) and GRIGRI (I did not know that spelling) and I missed the delightful “nine putts.” Lots to enjoy here.

  32. GRIGRI nearly did for me at the end, not least because for a long while I had the answer starting with CRI (initials of ‘cook rehashes Italian’). Similarly MUSETTE was delayed as it was enveloped by MA(S) for mother(‘s), surely? Clever misdirections indeed.

    Two Spooners and only one spoonerism – class clueing.

  33. muffin @ 30

    😉

    I think place works perfectly well as a stative verb, with no need for further complication to be placed on it. If it were an imperative there should be punctuation after squad (cf “Gentlemen, start your engines”) or an exclamation mark [in my opinion, of course].

  34. Simon S @33
    I discovered from a German friend one of the reasons that written German seems so abrupt to us (I know virtually none). As with our questions having to be finished with a question mark, German instructions must be followed by an exclamation mark, so you always get the impression that they are shouting at you. I don’t think that this requirement is there in English.

  35. 16d is interesting from that POV.

    I think HH is probably right: as the clue stands, ‘place’ would have to be imperative for a good cryptic grammar, but the surface, although as ever we must regard it as illusory, contains a very commonly-made, and even accepted error (‘places’ would be the correct form as SWAT TEAM is singular. It would also be acceptable for the cryptic reading).

    Cryptically of course, an answer is always to be regarded as singular (AFAIK – please advise), and that’s where the imperative can come into play most forcefully, appearing indeed as a ‘stative verb’ when it isn’t.

  36. muffin & Paul B

    Interesting comments.

    My German is actually fluent, so as I’m used to speaking and reading it I know when I’m being shouted at (!).

    Team is indeed singular, but it’s one of those collective nouns that can take either a singular or a plural verb: ‘The team plays well’ and ‘The team play well’ are, to me, pretty much substitutable, though in the former case it may lean slightly towards their play as a unit, and in the latter slightly towards the way the individuals interact. But it’s marginal at best.

    You could perfectly well say “Firing squad place inventor in line [along with other executees, presumably], take aim, and fire.”

    And, yes, my tongue is a fair way into my cheek.

  37. Simon @36
    I think you have made a very good distinction between “the team plays well” and “the team play well”. Heated agreement!

  38. That was the ‘commonly-made and even accepted error’ to which I was referring Simon.

    But the cryptic reading demands accuracy whereof, if you use ‘place’, it must be regarded as the imperative for the clue to work, as far as I know (since the surface is utterly illusory). If you choose ‘places’ instead, then in addition to overcoming said goof and avoiding the imperative altogether, you activate the strange convention by which required words become active, so that (in this example at least) ‘SWAT TEAM places WATT in SEAM’.

  39. Game of two halves for me. I did about two-thirds of this and was enjoying it- TOP HAT was brilliant- and then came to a stop at the SW corner. I took a break to work in the garden- amazingly it hasn’t rained today- and came back to it rejuvenated. Well perhaps that’s going too far but the rest fell into place relatively easily. I took a punt on TEEN never having encountered treen apart from in Dan Dare but, having looked it up, it appears not to be obscure at all. I loved SWAT TEAM once I saw it. LOI PINE NUTS- and I’m not going to get in to variations on the salad!
    Thanks Bonxie.

  40. I’m going to push my tongue a lot further into my cheek (for the avoidance of doubt):

    Is there any difference between

    “The government says one thing, the opposition says another”

    and

    “The government say one thing, the opposition say another” ?

    I’m struggling to see one.

    [Isn’t the flexibility – and hence mutual incomprehensibilty – of English wonderful!

  41. Thank manehi and Bonxie.

    I enjoyed this. I was also looking for a theme in the clues, as is sometimes B’s wont, but didn’t see one.

    Cookie @ 6 Do I understand you are saying SWAT TEAM is a spoonerism?

  42. Re 41 no, not really. Only for people who say ‘may I’ instead of ‘can I’!

    But the surface illusion vs the cryptic reality, well, hmmm, yes, that’s different …

  43. Dave Ellison @41, no, I was afraid SWAT TEAM might upset Eileen since FRIENDLY FIRE did not long ago, sorry. But I did make a silly mistake at 14a, I read it as a Spoonerism which it is not, as others point out, it is a trick (I thought it said GROS PRESSION, which would be incorrect French for GROSSE PRESSION, without registering it was not English).

  44. Paul B @ 42

    May I = do I have permission?

    Can I = am I able?

    So I’m not clear what point you are making there.

    Should we go into the differences between “Shall I” and “Will I” ?

    PS I’m (happily) married to a tendentious pedant (= lawyer)…

    My cheek (singular) hurts

  45. Simon @44
    I remember the story of the Frenchman who fell in the Serpentine. He cried out “I will die, and no-one shall save me!”………………………….so no-one did.

  46. Thanks, manehi, for a great blog and Bonxie for a most entertaining puzzle.

    Very late to the party and I didn’t expect to have anything to add but here goes anyway.

    Like muffin’s, my heart sank when I saw 14ac and, since I boringly go through the clues in order, I hadn’t even seen the second one, but, when I got it, I laughed out loud – brilliant! And then the genuine one – brilliant again: regular readers know that I am not a fan of Spoonerisms but this one passes my test of being a meaningful expression in its own right – and what a witty one: double plaudits to Bonxie!

    I also think I should say that, although I always enjoy his puzzles, I’ve sometimes been less than complimentary about Bonxie’s surfaces, which, I know, are more important to me than some others, but today I had ticks against 25 and 27ac and 5, 7, 13, 17, 20 and 24dn.

    [Cookie @43 -I don’t understand your comment: I don’t remember the previous context and it’s too late to research or revisit it now. It’s the expression, ‘friendly fire’ that is totally abhorrent to me – it has nothing to do with crosswords. Let’s leave it there, please.]

    PS: I made a delicious starter for my friend a couple of weeks ago: bacon and avocado salad, incorporating pine nuts, lightly toasted, as Simon S recommends. 😉

  48. Simon S @40 … why does it sound doubly ridiculous to say “Leicester City was top of the Premier League* until last week”? Same with pop groups – always plural verbs. Is there actually a rule of any sort?

    (*For those of you who are more appreciate of treen than girouds, this is a football reference.)

  50. A lot of discussion here. I must not have been paying attention as I almost finished this puzzle without seeing much wrong.

    I couldn’t parse the Nabokov clue as I didn’t know he was a lepidopterist and haven’t read any of his works as I shy away from authors who write books involving paedophiles!

    I also couldn’t get grigri unaided as I’ve never heard of it. The SOED only has gris-gris and greegree by the way!

    As has been said there were some nice clues here and some amusing misdirection. On the whole, barring a couple of clues, I found this one of Bonxie’s easier puzzles.

    Thanks to manehi and Bonxie

  55. William, “Intimate clinch in TV part” has to be in my all-time top clue list.

    Could not agree more, a real light bulb moment for me. Super stuff.

  56. HH@23

    Re: treen. I knew it – does that make me no-one? Don’t you think it’s somewhat egocentric to assume that a word that you have never come across is universally obscure? For me (to be egocentric in turn) a large part of the pleasure in crosswords is to have my vocabulary stretched to its limits – and beyond.

  57. Thanks, Simon S and drofle. I got stuck in noun mode for “rig”, having flukily got Grigri from the definition (must be my past as a voodoo priestess that helped me).

  58. Thanks manehi and Bronxie.

    Like many, I needed your help to parse both T(R)EEN and UNDERPIN and also thought there should have been a hyphen in GRI-GRI but otherwise fairly straightforward.

    Liked the misdirection in 14ac.

  59. Thanks Bonxie and manehi

    Another Christmas catch up puzzle … and a little more gentle than expected from this setter. A great variety of clue types and brilliant misdirection used in a number of them – none better than the first Spoonerism. The actual Spoonerism was a laugh out loud gem !

    Hadn’t seen the terms TREEN or WHITE MATTER before and needed to look up GRIGRI. Was another who knew nothing about Nabokov’s other butterfly collecting pastime – sensed that we were looking for that sort of comma, just needed help to understand why.

    A fun workout.

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