Guardian 26,808 – Vlad

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Once again the crossword has not (yet) been published properly on the Guardian website, though fortunately for me the PDF version is available here. After that difficulty, I had to struggle with Vlad, with a few surprisingly easy clues to get me started and some much tougher ones later that took a bit of explaining. He seems to be very fond of full or partial reversals in this one: twelve by my count. Thanks to Vlad for the workout.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. TRUMAN Controversial candidate wanting power … and nearly becoming president? (6)
[Donald] TRUM[P] + AN[D]
4. EMETIC Call on setter to retire — it makes you sick! (6)
Reverse of CITE ME
9. E-FIT Draw fellow in back as means of identification (1-3)
F in reverse of TIE
10. GLITTERATI Glamorous people I follow around (and refuse to stop) (10)
LITTER (refuse) in reverse of I TAG
11. NEPALI Language needing clarification — plain English! (6)
(PLAIN E)*
12. ON THE JOB Doctor not male — one patient at it (2,3,3)
NOT* + HE + JOB (patient person)
13. PAYING OFF Taking part in tiebreaker hasn’t lost — it’s working (6,3)
PLAYING OFF less L
15. STUD Boss’s room not quite finished (4)
STUD[Y]
16. PATH Cash from court gets Henry on track (4)
PAT (Cash, tennis player, so “from court”) + H – see 24a for a similar trick with a sportsman’s name
17. PRIMARIES Sign to west, proper elections (9)
PRIM to the left or “west” of ARIES (astrological sign)
21. TOMMYROT Claptrap from Conservative members occasionally worth recalling (8)
Reverse of TORY MM [w]O[r]T[h]
22. RUBRIC Instructions to massage deep, not hard (6)
RUB + RIC[H]
24. JUST IN TIME Rose sportingly let out after retraction at the last minute (4,2,4)
JUSTIN (Rose, golfer) + reverse of EMIT
25. ROTH Eight organisations rejected features writer (4)
Hidden in reverse of eigHT ORganisations. Philip Roth, author of Portnoy’s Complaint, among many novels
26. EUSTON Refrain from taking action over training centre? (6)
Reverse of NOT SUE, Euston station being a railway terminus or “training centre”
27. SLAYED Holder and others sounded greatly impressed (6)
Slade, which features Noddy Holder
Down
1. TAFFETA Material upset big cheese (7)
Reverse of FAT + FETA
2. ULTRA Extreme skill? Partly luck, on reflection (5)
Reverse of ART + LU[ck]
3. ANGLING Group heading off to fish for sport (7)
[G]ANG + LING
5. MUTATE China’s quite regularly embraced change (6)
Alternate letters of qUiTe in MATE (rhyming slang – “china plate”)
6. TORMENTOR Wrong people arrested for eliminating female bully (9)
MEN in TORT (a civil wrong) + FOR less F
7. CAT FOOD Brought round to prepare, regularly, a cold meal for queen (3,4)
Reverse of DO OFT A C (“queen” = female cat)
8. RIP-OFF BRITAIN Our own dear land (3-3,7)
Cryptic definition, with “dear” = “expensive”
14. INTIMATES Suggests it’s raised among prisoners (9)
Reverse of IT in INMATES
16. PROFUSE Liberal academic finds employment (7)
PROF + USE
18. MARVELL Poet (old woman) cut very complicated lines (7)
MA + anagram of VER[Y] + LL
19. EXISTED Was son left outside? (7)
S in EXITED
20. PRONTO Quickly aware of pair on top (6)
PR + ONTO (aware of)
23. BARMY Horse nibbling Mr Turner’s nuts (5)
Reverse of MR in BAY

53 comments on “Guardian 26,808 – Vlad”

  1. Thanks for the blog, Andrew.

    Another cracking puzzle from Vlad. I was feeling chuffed that I almost immediately saw through tricks like one patient, Cash from court, Rose sportingly and Holder and others – all brilliant – but just couldn’t explain CAT FOOD [totally misled by ‘regularly’ – grrh!] so thanks especially for that.

    Loved the topicality of TRUMAN and PRIMARIES. other favourites: GLITTERATI, ON THE JOB, MARVELL, EXISTED …

    Many thanks, Vlad – great start to the day!

  3. Not too quick on sporting references, I assumed “Cash from court” was PATIO missing the number 10, though I felt the equation of “10” (pounds?) with “cash” was weak. Relieved to find there’s a better explanation!

  5. Great puzzle – loved EUSTON (LOI), TOMMYROT, GLITTERATI, TRUMAN . . . Hadn’t heard of E-FIT but it seemed to work. Maybe not quite as challenging as some of Vlad’s previous efforts, but highly enjoyable. Many thanks to him and to Andrew.

  6. A real challenge today but everything was fair and clean with hindsight- just as it should be!

    Thanks to Vlad and Andrew

  7. Thanks to Dalv and Andrew.

    A great puzzle, but I could not parse JUSTIN, SLAYED or PATH (I like Jason’s @10 ‘tenner’ parsing!).

    EUSTON, RIP-OFF BRITAIN, GLITTERATI, MARVELL, TRUMAN, PRIMARIES and many other clues were terrific.

  9. Blimey, that was pretty tough in the end, despite more easy starters than Vlad normally gives us. I’m not sure I parsed everything, but the last two in were SLAYED and EUSTON both of which are obvious in retrospect – spent too long thinking about cricketing Holders. Favourites were TRUMAN, PAYING OFF, CASH and RIP OFF BRITAIN

    Thanks to Vlad and Andrew

  10. That was hard work, needing several sessions. Just finished with PRIMARIES and PAYING OFF, the latter needing a bit of help from the check button, though like so many it’s not that hard in retrospect. Still no real idea what is going on with CAT FOOD, which I worked out from the def bit.

    Slowed down a bit by thinking the sporting rose was Nick hence NICK OF TIME, despite no earthly reason for the OF. I don’t do golf. It doesn’t help that Wikipaedia throws up an Olympian of the 1980s Nick Rose, still apparently the European record holder for the 10k.

  12. Tough going again today. First pass through the clues gave me just three (2, 15, 20).
    SE corner proved most difficult, couldn’t get MARL(OW)E out of my head for 18.

  13. Trailman @10

    As for me, I thought the sporting Rose was cricketer Brian, which dates me a bit, I suppose. (And for the same reason, like beery hiker @9, I was held up for a while by thinking of cricketing Holders.)

    It’s not only Justin Rose I’ve never heard of, the phrase “rip-off Britain” is new to me. Is it a recent coinage?

  14. Thanks Vlad and Andrew

    After finding the first 5 across clues to be write-ins, I thought “what has happened to Vlad”. The remainder convinced me “not very much”!

    I loved ON THE JOB (I guessed the answer quickly but took rather longer to see how it worked) and EUSTON. I too was unfamiliar with the phrase RIP OFF BRITAIN, and it was my LOI (though I had guessed the BRITAIN bit).

    I didn’t like “partly luck, on reflection” in 2d – how much? which part? – a bit lazy, I thought. Also, although it wasn’t a problem for me, I don’t think Noddy Holder would be near the front of many people’s recollections any more.

    Why are the lines “complicated” in 18d?

  15. Enjoyed bits of this but didn’t finish it.

    Didn’t know a female cat was a queen nor that Job was patient which are surely my fault.

    But I didn’t understand after seeing the answer how paying off == working? Can someone explain that?
    If you’re working and being paid you could be paying off debts but you might equally well not be 🙂
    Is there some usage I’m missing?

  19. absolutely brilliant stuff Vlad…thanks; and thanks to Andrew for the blog.
    What with the future of the Indy cryptics being under under a cloud and gremlins infiltrating the Graun machine, I may need to take up decoupage

  20. Many thanks to Vlad and Andrew.

    An enjoyable solve, though tough at the end. Greatly enjoyed 27ac – there was a lot about “Sir Nodward” in the UK press over Christmas. Could only guess 7dn from the crossers, despite the fact I was sitting next to a bowl of the stuff, and the recipient of said 7dn was doing her usual queenly trick of helping me by sitting on the paper.

    Only quibble was 8dn – a slogan from quite a long time ago, and perhaps a tad unfair on non UK solvers.

  21. [Have since found out, pace @11, Nick Rose remains European record holder for the 10k road run, rather than track race. Don’t want to mislead anybody.]

  22. “Only quibble was 8dn – a slogan from quite a long time ago, and perhaps a tad unfair on non UK solvers.”
    (marienkaefer @20)
    Indeed, I didn’t know that expression.
    Had to look it up, even with only the first R and P missing.

    A very good crossword with a great one at the beginning (1ac, TRUMAN).
    LOI was EUSTON (26ac) – I am not sure whether I like the definition or not, unless it’s an existing expression.
    I am also not convinced by the nounal reversal indicator in 23d (BARMY) but I can see why Vlad did it.

    Lots of really good clues but at the same time not as hard as Vlad can be.

    Many thanks to the setter and Andrew.

  23. Wonderful. Only the odd quibbles already mentioned. I didn’t like half of luck backwards. Thanks Vlad and Andrew but still can’t parse cat food. Why is prepare ‘do’? though as I ask the question I can vaguely imagine a context for a synonym. Can someone put me out of misery? At first pass I got nothing. I didn’t find any gifts as others did. First in Truman. Last in Ultra but thought that the poorest light.

  24. Thanks to Vlad and Andrew. I eventually got through (thanks to a lot of guessing, most of which paid off) but I needed help with the parsing of PATH (I didn’t get Pat Cash), JUST IN TIME (I missed Justin Rose), PAYING OFF, TOMMYROT, CATFOOD, and EUSTON – and the RIP in RIP-OFF BRITAIN was last in (not a term I’ve come across in the US). Quite a challenge for me – but fun.

  25. Training centre (26 ac) seems to fit in with the modern (American) usage of describing as “train station” what was always a “railway station”. All those Railway Inns should now be Train Taverns. Do the Americans use railway or is it always railroad?
    A really neat (US again- how it rubs off on all of us) puzzle for a Tuesday. Every clue fell into place neatly. Thanks.

  26. A demanding puzzle but satisying to finish and parse. I had BATTY for 23 at first, thinking that Mr Turner was Ted Turner who might possibly be known as TT. Turner as the reversal indicator is a bit loose for my liking. The helpful embed for ROTH helped sort out the mess.
    Great stuff. Thanks, Vlad and Andrew

  27. keith thomas @ 25

    I had a light-hearted exchange with another contributor a week or so back, who made the same comment re railway/train station.

    If “railway station” is the form to use, should all bus stations be renamed “roadway stations”?

    ;^)

  28. I got a bit delayed on 1 across as I thought the last two letters were going to be AL for Al Gore (nearly becoming president – if it weren’t for those handing chads . . .).

  30. That was fun. In answer to a previous poster, Noddy Holder was the first to mind, but I thought he was in Wizzard which sounded like “wizard” which clearly means greatly impressed… sigh.

    Thank you Vlad and Andrew

  31. I always start on a Vlad puzzle thinking, ‘Right, I’ll do my best, but I’m unlikely to get there.’
    And sure enough I didn’t. But I’m getting closer – only four short this time. I really should have got ON THE JOB and PLAYING OFF, but CAT FOOD and EUSTON were always going to be just out of reach.
    All the clues were perfectly fair though, and often very clever. TRUMAN was my favourite.
    Thank you Vlad, and thank you Andrew for an excellent blog.

  33. Splendid puzzle. I found it slightly easier than most Vlad/Tyrus puzzles but no less enjoyable. 1a is wonderful. I also particularly liked 12a, 16a, 21a, 6d, 8d and 19d.

    Great blog and puzzle.

  34. [ACD @24: “RIP-OFF BRITAIN was last in (not a term I’ve come across in the US)”.

    As a Brit who visits the US often, I’m repeatedly reminded of rip-off Britain when across the pond. A lot of goods – especially software and electronic hardware – are priced at roughly $x and £x in the two countries, making Britain much the more expensive place for those sorts of stuff. Mind you, gas/petrol at 32p per litre (as recently) does help even things up.]

  35. Well, I’m glad so many enjoyed this; I thought it was mostly dreadful. Yes, TRUMAN was great but EUSTON-a wild guess-was awful.
    Can’t bring myself to thank the setter!

  36. Peter @35
    I’m so sorry that you didn’t like EUSTON – I thought that “training centre” for major station was really funny!

  37. Very grateful for the blog, Andrew. I had more queries than usual today: 7d (of course), `lost`, Rose & Holder and most embarrassingly, the sign to the west.
    Although Vlad always, always `wins` he surely puts a grin on my face and OFT shows me how to literally read a clue – sophisticating stuff. Thanks, Vlad. 18-ous.

  38. Well, this was a mixed bag. I loved many of the clues of this clever setter, and like Eileen @1 I was chuffed at seeing through all of his little tricks like ‘refuse’ = ‘litter’ and ‘Rose sportingly’ = ‘Justin’.

    However, I sympathise with Peter Aspinwall @35. I managed to complete this puzzle, but what slowed me down was the presence of too many doubtful expressions in the wordplay, so that instead of being satisfied with each clue as it went in, and hence with the crossword as a whole, I too often had to stop and look again and wonder why the setter used certain words and expressions in the way that he did and not be more precise – or even make it work properly.

    Examples of what I mean are:
    10A ‘and refuse to stop’
    13A ‘hasn’t lost’
    16A ‘from court’
    17A ‘to west, proper’
    21A ‘occasionally worth’
    26A ‘training centre‘
    2D ‘partly luck’
    8D ‘own’
    18D ‘cut very complicated’
    19D the question mark [needed for the surface]
    23D ‘Mr Turner’s‘

    I wouldn’t normally go into this detail, and in a different frame of mind I might remove three or four from this list of 11, but I suspect that examples of this sort would rarely appear in the output of other setters in the Guardian stable.

    I wouldn’t say dreadful, Peter, but I do go as far as ‘doubtful’ in some specific cases. I enjoyed the puzzle on the whole, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered with it, but the buzz of satisfaction I got from many recent puzzles was not there today.

  39. I meant to add (@38) that I failed on the parsing of 7D (CAT FOOD), like five other contributors before me (I counted!). That would also have been in my rogues’ gallery, if I had remembered, because ‘regularly’ meaning ‘oft’ is doubtful in my view, but I can’t say that was the reason I failed to work it out. CAT FOOD fitted the grid and the definition, so CAT FOOD it was.

    The main reason, though, for appending this post was to thank Vlad for a puzzle that I found to be at the right level for me, i.e. quite challenging, and also to thank Andrew for his succinct blog.

  40. I thought this was excellent, notwithstanding a few quibbles with the wordplay as pointed out by others. Too many to mention as favourites, but I loved the surface of 22d among plenty of top notch clues.

    I agree with copmus (way back)@2 – for me, a real stand-out.

    Thanks to Andrew (also for supplying the pdf link) and to Vlad.

  41. Thanks to Andrew for the blog and to others for their comments.

    EUSTON seems fine to me. Surely crosswords are allowed to be playful in their use of language. And there was a question mark at the end.

  42. Vlad @41

    I agree with you concerning EUSTON. I was on the point of commenting earlier on this clue but noticed the question mark (which I must have seen when solving it several hours previously) just in time. It needed it, but as you say it was there! I liked this clue and cannot improve on it.

    I look forward to the next ‘Vlad’ in my favourite paper. Please keep up the playful use of language.

  43. Very late to this as I was incredibly busy yesterday!!

    I’m with Peter Aspinwall and Alan Browne. I found this a dreadful puzzle.

    Vlad is pushing the limits on some of these clues until they become “unfair” as Ximines used to say. I won’t repeat the commets of Peter and Alan.

    Vlad seems to think that “training station” is OK, just good fun. Well I’m all for libertarianism but I draw the line when setters start to play with the idea that a clue should have a “defintion”. Vlad has used a Cryptic Defintion for a defintion! A definite no-no for me.

    In my opinion this puzzle would have been much improved with the services of an editor. Unfortunately ours is AWOL yet again.

    Thanks to Andrew and Vlad

  44. Brendan @43

    Sorry you found this one so bad.

    Just to clarify my own position. I called this puzzle a ‘mixed bag’, and I gave a list of all my minor gripes, plus an extra one in a later post, making 12 in all. Of these, I could be persuaded that four are defensible (and indeed have been so persuaded on one of them), leaving eight that I think could definitely be improved upon.

    Eight out of 29 is still a lot, and the overall effect was, as I said, one of giving me nothing like the buzz that some of our fellow regulars evidently felt on completing this puzzle. You said “Vlad is pushing the limits on some of these clues”, and I agree with you.

    Clearly I wasn’t fully satisfied, but my overall impression was positive, and I found many of the clues were sound, clever and enjoyable.

  46. “Dreadful” may be going too far but I certainly found this puzzle a frustrating experience. I do agree with Alan Browne’s specific criticisms. However, the puzzle was not good enough to be described as merely “doubtful”
    I wonder what Shed’s puzzle will be like?

  47. Vlad @45

    I think you forgot to add an “im my opinion” or something equivalent in your comment.

    Or is there a Cryptic Standard Rules that’s been ratified by the relevant bodies that I’ve missed? 😉

  51. Thanks Vlad and Andrew.

    Well I finished and rather felt “how did that happen?”

    What a wonderful collection of convoluted clues but with a few – dare I say – rather weak ones (ANGLING and STUD come to mind).

    I say I finished but actually failed opting for an unparsed FACING OFF at 13 which I now see was pathetically wrong. Parsed everything else just fine.

    And there are some real belters including EUSTON, SLAYED, MARVELL, and BARMY.

    I’m on the don’t like side of RIP-OFF BRITAIN. I’ve only heard that term as the name of a rather poor ITV consumer-affairs programme. But it had to be what it had to be – so all’s fair in love and crosswords.

  53. Thanks Vlad and Andrew

    Took a month after it was published to do and another couple of weeks to get around to checking it off.

    It’s always a tough challenge with this guy and again here there was plenty to ponder over. Lots of variation with the clue devices throughout. Like Hamish, I got PAYING OFF wrong by writing in a 3/4-parsed FACING OFF at 13a.

    No problems with the two sportsman clues and they went in very early – was then looking for a theme of sorts after that which didn’t eventuate. Funnily enough, the similar Holder clue was my last one in.

    Always imposing to see his name in the banner, but always a pleasure to get him done !!

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