Guardian 26,787 / Imogen

54 comments on “Guardian 26,787 / Imogen”

1. Thanks Eileen
   I think you will find that 5ac is APP (program) in SCRY (divine). 😉

2. I think 5 is APP (program) in SCRY (look into a translucent ball or other material with the belief that things can be seen, such as spiritual visions, and less often for purposes of divination or fortune-telling)

3. Oops – thanks both! Another new word, then, which I would never have got. [I do know ‘descry’, which came first, I find.]

4. Thanks Gaufrid-took some difficulty in parsing 5 as it involved an antique word (Spenser I think) when you first think of “sky”
   Another great puzzle.

5. Another great puzzle – thanks for the blog, Eileen. Some were difficult to parse but came eventually. I couldn’t parse 22 because I took the “on” as equating to “about” leaving me puzzled by the rest of the clue. Nice for the Airplane to get a nod in 19.

6. A bit easier than some Fridays we have seen. Very enjoyable but struggled to find a p.s.d.c word and rashly bashed in tropospher.. Oh bggr :-).

7. Thanks Imogen and Eileen.

   I found this hard and needed help with some of the parsing, especially with JEFFERSON where I kept trying to make it a homophone for AIR FORCE ONE (the near homophone REALISE led me to hope!).

   So many good clues, in particular MEMENTO MORI and METRONOME.

8. Lots to enjoy here but some of those things that grate a little. I would say that Grimsby is a port rather than a harbour. There is an ‘I’ in the middle of 28,27 that is intrusive but not helpful. ‘I bury’ is not entomb and I can’t see where it fits in at all. I don’t think that ‘Middle earth’ is an art so perhaps the definition is just ‘Tolkien’s’ which seems a bit weak. These little niggles take away from my enjoyment and make me feel quite hedgehoggy at times.

9. Tom Hutton @8

   Re 22ac: it’s ENTOM[b] in MEMOR[y] I – as I tried to indicate in the blog.

10. An enjoyable and educational challenge to continue another excellent week. Pretty tough in places but considerably easier than the last Imogen prize. TROPOPAUSE and MONAD were new to me. ALABASTER was last in.

    Thanks to Imogen and Eileen

11. Nice puzzle, although I got stuck on LIMEY. Favourites were MEMENTO MORI, PITYING, JEFFERSON and SELFIE STICK. Looking through the clues before I started, I saw ‘program’ and ‘airplane’, and thought oh my god, the Grauniad has succumbed to American spelling! Thanks to Imogen and Eileen, as ever.

12. Another tussle ending a great week on the Guardian.

    I thought the definitions were the great strength here. Curly and cryptic many of them – no biffing – you needed both ends of the clue to nail the answer.

    Minor quibble – 29a – “looking witheringly” I associate with a schoolmasterly over-the-specs scowl (as apparently perfected by Jeremy Corbyn in the House of Commons). I could get “that’s pitiful” from that – but not “pitying” – which is a more sympathetic thing. Anyway it was obviously needed so I bunged it in. Is there another way to look at it?

    Otherwise absolutely top stuff.

    Many thanks to Imogen for another protracted tussle. When am I ever going to get anything done around here?

    Thanks also to Eileen for the blog.

13. Agreed about some of the parsing. I left 7d because I couldn’t reconcile ALABASTER with “I’m ready to carve”.

14. Too loose for my tastes. I always get suspicious about clues with question marks, hoping that the mark doesn’t signify “this clue doesn’t quite work but let’s go with it anyway”. My suspicions were strong with 12/17a and 19a, both of which required allusions that weren’t present in the clue.

    And please can we stop having “execute” for “take the first letter from …”? Beheading is only one of a range of possible options. As previously mentioned, the instruction could equally mean “inject “lethal” into the middle of the word” or “put the word in front of “a firing squad””. You would only know it meant “behead”, either because you were working backwards from a guess or because you had seen the usage before, neither of which is particularly satisfying. Further, in this case, as far as I am aware, “blimey” is not animate, so taking its head off will not leave it any less alive than previously. If I come across it again, my knickers might get so twisted there is a chance of some serious damage to my familial prospects!

15. Thanks, Eileen.

    29a: I don’t think a pitying look and a withering one are the same. I’m sure Maggie Smith could do a dozen variations of intermediate frostiness between the two.

    25d: Execute for behead again. I still don’t like it.

    Quibbles aside, a very enjoyable if tough solve. And I love “telephone extension” for SELFIE STICK.

16. Thanks Imogen & Eileen.

    An enjoyable tussle with my computer friend providing some assistance. I was thinking the telephone extension was something point but the crossers prevented that. Solved MEMENTO MORI after I got METRONOME.

    Nice to see my partial name check in 19. With the carving in 7, I inevitably thought of windsurfer but it didn’t seem to fit in. I loved the SELFIE STICK. I wrote down the ‘coopts/d’ letters and then thought that couldn’t be right because there were only ‘o’ vowels, doh, I should have known better seeing as I was one of those once upon a time. MONAD and scry were new to me and the TROPO….. did give some pause for thought!

17. Generally a lurker but the appearance of my father’s home town in 1 across made for an excited little flurry this morning in my neck of the virtual universe.

    Thanks Imogen- you made my week.

18. This gave me much food for thought (as have most of the puzzles this week!); enjoyed it in the end though. Favourites were “selfie stick”, “memento mori” and “limey” – I don’t share the quibble about the latter.

    Many thanks to Imogen & Eileen.

19. My big hold up was in the NE, where until the very end I had the program as C (too much knowledge etc). I’d discarded SCRAPPY as SRAPPY didn’t make any sense. Much, much later the penny dropped …

    BARN was an act of faith in the absence of other buildings. Liked MEMENTO MORI, SELFIE STICK.

20. I tend to struggle with Imogen’s puzzles, but I found this easier than most. I couldn’t parse ALABASTER. I didn’t realise until reading the blog explanation that, having been interrupted, I’d forgotten to parse MEMENTO MORI when I returned, but I suspect I would have failed. I spent quite a while trying to get something meaning “bum” from an anagram of “smaller? Mine is”, with “hell” as the anagrind.

    Among other nice clues, I particularly enjoyed MEMENTO MORI, BETWEEN THE LINES, BOTTOMLESS PIT and RETALIATE.

    Thanks, Imogen and Eileen.

21. Thanks to Imogen and Eileen. I knew MONAD but not TROPOPAUSE or “Gordon Bennett” for [B]LIMEY and needed help parsing SCRAPPY (my last in) and PITYING (“withering” threw me off). I got MEMENTO MORI without seeing the “entom[b].” Lots of fun.

    Does the setter know that Shakespeare scholars now disagree about the spelling for the heroine of Cymbeline. Should it be Imogen or Innogen?

22. Thanks Eileen and Imogen

    I enjoyed this for the most part but was not wholly happy with the definition in 29 or the clue itself in 11a. I am puzzled about the definition of pause. Is it ‘dwell’ or ‘dwell on’ as a verb, or is it ‘dwell’ as a noun? The latter, though much less well known, is a much clearer match, in which case the ‘to’ and the ‘on’ have to be positioning instructions which is just about pmanageable.

23. Hi Tupu @22

    I must confess I matched pause and dwell as verbs, without giving it too much thought. I didn’t know ‘dwell’ as a noun but now see that Chambers has ‘a pause or hesitation in the working of a machine [engineering]; a part of a cam shaped so as to allow a pause in operation at any point in its cycle [engineering]’. It’s been quite an educative day!

24. Thanks Eileen
    I did not know ‘tropopause’ and I also assumed that ‘dwell’ and ‘pause’ were meant as verbs. I guessed the answer but did not likel it and did not write it in. At least in 29a the answer and its component parts were all straightforward words even if the definition was somewhat stretched. In 11a it is the combination of an uncommon word with a partly unclear definition that dissatisfies me.

25. Thanks Eileen and Imogen.
    Another tough one completed, so satisfying 🙂
    Many new words for me and needed parsing for Barn and Middle Earth.

26. A bit of a mixed bag. Some nice ones- SELFIE STICK,JEFFERSON and TROPOPAUSE (which I’d never encountered before);some not so nice- MIDDLE EARTH (which I thought pathetic). I couldn’t parse SCRAPPY and it took a while to see TEA CADDY-I had TEA CHEST at first! I knew MONAD from my memories of the work of the sociologist Georg Simmel.
    Mostly I enjoyed this which is not always the case with this setter.
    Thanks Imogen

27. Thanks Imogen and Eileen
    Started this where we were staying and finished it on the long car journey home (I wasn’t actually reading the paper while driving!), so entirely without external aids. Only failures were the parsings of SCRAPPY and MEMENTO MORI (which I too got from METRONOME/I’M). Quite satisfying.

28. Way over my head. Congrats to anyone who got much more than half a dozen today.

29. me @27
    I neglected to say that it was a joint effort with the navigator!

30. Didn’t embark on this puzzle until I came home from work. 45 minutes effort, including the missteps noted above, tropospher, tea chest etc, and I hit a complete wall with about 7 clues remaining. Went out for a 30 minute walk without consciously thinking about any of the remaining clues, came back and all became clear. I could hardly write quickly enough to get them all in. Strange business the subconscious!

    Thanks to Imogen and Eileen

31. Quite satisfying, one or two niggles, such as the ‘executed’ mentioned, which to me doesn’t mean ‘take the first letter away’. The SCRY element I’d never come across, which made that one very hard to get, the Middle Earth thing, too, a bit of a stretch maybe. I only saw the ‘joke’ after I’d guessed the answer.

    Also, correct me if I’m wrong, I think it’s actually Middle-earth, so should have been (6-5), in TH and LOTR.

32. Hi DafyddT @30

    It is amazing – we all say this – how often that kind of thing happens.

    I went on line to solve [most of] this last night before a late bedtime and couldn’t for the life of me see the parsing of MEMENTO MORI. This morning it was crystal clear. [It might be because I’m much happier doing it in my paper.]

    [Just a pity the same did not apply to 5ac – but you can’t win ’em all. 😉 ]

33. Thanks Eileen and Imogen

    I shared Eileen’s initial thoughts as to the parsing of 5a. Loved SELFIE STICK and many others. On reading comments, find myself agreeing with concerns about 12, 19, could have easily been a little tighter.

34. Eileen @32
    I sympathise – we spent some time trying to work out how “crap” could be a program. I’ve seen many crap programs (and programmes, indeed), but no one specific one!

35. Hi Dutch and muffin

    Many thanks for the contemporaneous [amazing – after a whole day of no comment!] – support. So glad it was not entirely just me. As I was in the chair today, it was within my power to expunge my embarrassing gaffe but I decided to brave it out. I justified it to myself by visits to sites such as this https://www.pcdecrapifier.com/ – but I wasn’t convinced!

36. I had an enjoyable solve with this. (Nearly all the same mishaps as mentioned above included)

    I too had misgivings about “looking witheringly” as being at the extreme end of the spectrum where “pitying” is at the other end!

    Lots of nice clues though. Eileen, your comment of “JEFFERSON Airplane was an American rock band, formed in the 60s” although factual almost made me weep 😉 This is the band that “appeared at Monterey (1967), Woodstock (1969) and Altamont (1969)—as well as headlining the first Isle of Wight Festival (1968)”!!! Not only that they had Grace Slick!!

    Surely this picture sums up the confidence and hopes of the late 60s. I think I’ll dig out my copy of “Surrealistic Pillow”, stick it on the stereo and cry for my lost youth. (Pity I don’t possess a turntable anymore)

    Anyway thanks to Eileen and Imogen

37. [BNTO @36
    For me, “White rabbit” is the prime memory of Jefferson Airplane (then there was the Jorma Kaukonen “Hot tuna” – some guitarist!).]

38. “White rabbit” (featuring Grace Slick) here:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANNqr-vcx0

39. Completely off topic, but yes, Jefferson Airplane one of the three great mid sixties American bands (up to & including Volunteers), along with Grateful Dead & Love…Doors et al in Division 2…Velvet Underground in a league of their own above all others

    I’ll get off my soapbox now

    PS Brendan you should get a turntable – even on a moderate one vinyl sounds **way** better than CD…don’t even mention mp3

    Sorry, another hobbyhorse rolled by…wonder where the third one is?

40. [Simon S @39
    I recall hearing about a concert that didn’t start until about 1 in the morning because Jefferson Airplane and The Doors couldn’t agree about who who go on second (to finish the gig).]

41. [Simon S – did Love ever record anything other than “Forever changes”. It did include one of my favourite lines “the snot has caked against my pants – it has turned into crystal” – (not entirely serious!)]

42. [Not being audio purists, we finally got rid of (almost) all of our vinyl last year and replaced essential albums with CD equivalents. Surrealistic Pillow had to be one of those. I have “White Rabbit” only as an mp3, though, but it is still one of my favourite tracks of all time.]

43. muffin @ 42 I think you’re in heated agreement with yourself 😉

44. I picked up this puzzle very late today. I had only 12A/17A to solve at the end, but I didn’t bother with that because I don’t know anything about Tolkien except the titles of two of his books (which everybody knows).

    On the whole this was a challenging crossword with some very enjoyable and well-crafted clues, but somewhat spoilt by some ‘off’ definitions and indications, which certainly held me up and caused a bit of frustration along the way. I don’t remember saying this about any of Imogen’s puzzles before.

    Others before me have pointed out all except one of the bits that I thought were off today. The one remaining is the ‘et al’ in 15D (RETALIATE), and I thought Eileen might have picked up on it. ‘Et al’ means ‘and others’, not ‘and the others’. It is ‘et cetera’ that means ‘and the others’ or, more literally, ‘and the other things’. (Obviously ‘with’ was a perfectly good indicator for ‘and’.)

    Perhaps Eileen could correct me on this if she doesn’t agree.

    I have no gripes, though. I enjoyed it as it gave me a good mental work-out, with some humour thrown in.

    Thanks to Imogen and Eileen.

45. Alan Browne, you are absolutely right, of course.

46. Embarrassed to say I didn’t get JEFFERSON. Thanks to others with similar memories of the band. I am now having a day of nostalgia. I will dig out my turntable and play Surrealistic Pillow for the rest of the day. Along with White Rabbit my other favourite is Somebody to Love.

    Thank you Eileen and Imogen.

47. We did [Eileens initial parsing of ‘program’] on this.

    Surprised to see so many enjoyed a crossword with so much iffyness to it.

    Too many unfavourites to mention – as Eileen might not)say.

48. 25. I used to work for someone called Gordon Bennett. “Gordon Bennett” was an alternative expletive to “Gord Blimey” the slang for “God Blind Me”

49. Bernie @48

    The alternative ‘expletive’ Gordon Bennett is not really an expletive, of course – that’s the whole point. Instead of being profane, you say something entirely innocent!

    I always thought Gordon Bennett was a ‘bowdlerization’ of the simple ‘Gawd’. You say the word and then immediately extend it to say a famous name instead (he was an extravagant playboy in the 19th century). Conversely, the simple ‘blimey’ is bowdlerization by substraction, you might say, omitting rather than extending the divine name.

50. A sad day as I’d completed all 2016 puzzles then missed out on two at once. (See also comment on Tramp’s Prize). There was a lot to like, esp 24,16 and 9D, but I couldn’t manage the NE corner. SCRY and TROPOPAUSE are new to me. I too tried TROPOSPHERE only to find there were not enough spaces. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered Jefferson Airplane when Eileen pointed it out but it was too far back when I was actually trying to solve it and I wasn’t going to scroll through my small list of US or other nation’s presidents. I don’t think that I’m goes with alabaster -it should be It’s – and it’s ready to be carved not to carve. Continuing with the nit-picking, SERIAL to me means more than one programme.
    Now for Paul but at 11.00pm it will hve to wait for tomorrow.

51. Tom Hutton ‘art’ is the middle of earth! See 12 across

52. Pino @ 50 (Probably nobody will see this, I’m so late with it). Would you think that “the food is ready to eat” would mean that it was ready to eat somebody? Phrases like ready to eat, ready to wear, etc. can apply to the object as well as the subject of the verb.

53. Thanks Eileen and Imogen.

    Lord knows how but I must have been on the right wavelength because I raced through this needing only Gaufrid and PeterT’s help to parse SCRAPPY.

    By the way, and with reference to 12/17, did you know that TOLKIEN is Hobbit-forming?

54. Thanks Imogen and Eileen

    Another tough one from the backlog pile which took most of last weekend to get finished. An unusual number of words that were unknown for me from this setter – GRIMSBY (one of the English towns that I hadn’t heard of), FUSILLI (for that spiral pasta that I just know as ‘spiral pasta’), TROPOPAUSE, MEMENTO MORI, SCRY (as part of 5a), POSTDOC and ‘Gordon Bennett’ as a mild oath.

    Had actually written in POMMY at 25d and was wondering how I was going to parse that !!! I thought LIMEY was a very clever clue when it finally dropped.

    Smiled when I found JEFFERSON Airplane but did not go and put them on in nostalgia all of the same.

    Finished in the NE corner with ALABASTER (loosely defined but imminently gettable from the wordplay), the unknown POSTDOC (that I had to get with the help of an on-line word finder 🙁 ) and SCRAPPY (which I had parsed similarly to Eileen’s initial effort) as the last one in).

    It was hard but very enjoyable and it helped present a decent challenge across the weekend up in the country.

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