Guardian Cryptic 26,832 by Screw

59 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 26,832 by Screw”

1. Thanks manehi. Good fun as always from Screw.

   I took 26a to be referring to the “one horse” in steveNAGe (though if that’s right I think it’s a bit vague).

   2d indicates a plural answer – shouldn’t the clue have read “… He’s seen it all”?

2. 26: I think Stevenage is there because it has one horse (nag)

3. Thanks Screw and manehi
   A bit of a mixture – some I liked a lot (DENTIST, PECKING ORDER, HASTINESS and DUSTBIN for example); some I had no idea of the parsing (1a, and 17d), and some that didn’t quite work for me.

   2d seems to have a mismatch between singular and plural. I didn’t equate PULL with “inhale”. “Supply” is a novel anagram indicator in 14a, but I suppose it’s OK as it was my second one solved (ARCADES FOI).

   I found “one horse” in steveNAGe!

   (I’m a bit surprised by the Wiki link on XENOPUS. It makes no difference to the clue, of course, but when I was studying Biology they were always called “clawed toads” rather than frogs.)

4. SNAP! to Andrew and PeterT on the “one horse”.

5. Incidentally, has an OLD FART necessarily “seen it all”? Chambers defines the phrase as “a staid or curmudgeonly old person”.

6. I do enjoy crosswords that make me chuckle…thank you,Screw!

7. Thanks all for spotting the NAG

   “they” is often used as singular, for example when the gender of a person is unknown.

   @muffin, I think pull=inhale is related to smoking. And I’m not sure if you’ve worked this out already, but “supply” as an anagrind works in the sense of “in a supple way”

8. Thanks, manehi, for the blog and Screw for lots of fun, as usual.

   Far too many ‘favourites’ to list – I couldn’t parse 1ac but I like it now!

9. Thanks manehi – I hadn’t seen “supple”. I thought that AA + rations “supplied” the anagram fodder; yours is better.

10. Great puzzle as always from Screw. Like others I had trouble parsing some, e.g. PROOFREADING, JACK-IN-THE-BOX and ONE-HORSE TOWN. Loved OLD FART, but yes – why a plural in the clue? Many thanks to Screw and manehi.

11. Thank you, manehi.

    Bit of a mixture here with more to like than otherwise.

    PRO(OF) READING and JACK IN THE BOX are both marvellous but went in unparsed. Also enjoyed DENTIST & DUSTBIN.

    Less keen on BLADDER and PULLS UP, and surely an old fart is singular and, I agree with Andrew @5, he has not necessarily ‘seen it all’.

    On balance, good fun and well constructed, thank you Screw.

    Nice week, all.

12. Got 9a but had not heard of Chief Pontiac. Couldn’t fathom 26a. Had to search Crossword Solver website for “Xenopus” at 24a.
    In 23a, “pulls up” = pilot lifts nose of an aircraft. You operate the bellows of an accordion by pulling (inhaling?) and pushing (exhaling?).

13. Excellent puzzle, where my favourite surprise came from suddenly discovering the right Solo. Thanks Screw and manehi.

14. I could see “Pro of Reading” but had no idea they were called the Royals.

    There may be something in some lyrics by a band called The Fields of Nephilim concerning Stevenage as a one horse town although I would have thought Hitchin

15. Thanks Screw and manehi.

    Most enjoyable, even though I could not parse PROOFREADING. PECKING ORDER, ONE-HORSE TOWN, JACK-IN-THE-BOX and CAME A CROPPER were great!

16. Thanks Screw and manehi.

    Great crossword that slowly yielded. I couldn’t parse PROOF READING and ONE-HORSE TOWN.

    Good, witty clues; I particularly liked EXPAT among others.

17. When did xenopus ever hop? Scientific incorrectness gone mad!

18. Some very nice clues there, as already listed above.

    22 seems weird to me. The cryptic grammar is fine, but the surface grammar is absolute nonsense to me. “One getting up there’s Irish hosts”? What is that supposed to mean? There are lots of word combinations that could hide RISER/RESIR, so surely it can’t be that Screw was desperately stuck for a valid clue.

19. Schroduck @18, I could only think that the comma might be in the wrong place “One getting up there’s Irish, hosts when climbing”, hardly an improvement…

20. Thanks to Screw and manehi. I had some of the same parsing problems as already noted and, owing to internet problems, could not verify XENOPUS (new to me) or the existence of the Reading Royals. Still, a very enjoyable puzzle.

21. In what way does “lifts nose” equate to PULLS UP?
    The suggestion that a pilot pulls up by lifting the aircraft’s nose is surely the other way round? The nose goes up on take off doesn’t it? If the reference is to pulling up a horse, then surely the “nose” goes down.

22. I’m another in the Parson’s Egg camp with this one. Though far more parts good than not.
    I saw the NAG in Stevenage but wasn’t convinced that that could be it. Like Scroduck@18 I found 22d very peculiar. BLADDER = last stop before going? And could someone explain why CAP = equipment. I think I’m missing something obvious.
    And some gems. Lovely dd at 1d/19a. Beautiful hidden at 5d. Etc.
    Thanks all.

23. DP @22
    I wondered about “cap” too, but all racing swimmers seem to wear one (unless they are bald, like Duncan Goodhew was!), so they do make up a part (minor, possibly) of the swimmers’ equipment.

24. This was tough, but finally yielded. PROOFREADING, STEVENAGE, and JACK-IN-THE-BOX went in unparsed, with several others needing a good long stare before I figured them out.

    [I’ve only seen Stevenage from a train window (last time I was in Britain). Looked like a boring dump (with apologies to any who may live there) but hardly a one-horse town.]

    I admit I did think of a sports team when I was trying to solve 1 across, but the one that came to mind was Kansas City. Which of course I immediately dismissed as too improbable to figure into anything. (Not utterly impossible, as they are the current title holders…and heck, they do expect y’all to know about Chief Pontiac for gods sake. Just vanishingly improbable.)

25. jeceris @21, runners after crossing the finishing line usually have there heads up as they slow down, but I don’t think Screw was visualising this at 23a.

26. @18 Schroduck The ‘Irish hosts of one getting up there’ seemed just about grammatical +/- the comma.

    ‘Bladder’ is unconvincing. How is the bladder the last stop before urinating?

    I was OK with ‘old farts’ having seen it all. It’s the essence of OFdom to go on in that vein – think Monty Python’s ‘Four Yorkshiremen’, or even G Boycott. However the plural, as others have noted, spoiled the clue a little.

    Thanks both.

27. … the bladder being the last stopping place of the urine prior to the micturation.

28. jeceris @21

    Pilots in aircraft in flight “pull up” to lift the nose when in a dive, say. I think the term comes from the joystick (or modern equivalent) being pulled back to raise the nose and pushed forward to lower it.

29. I couldn’t parse PROOFREADING (football!!). I wondered if it had anything to do with Reading were I lived once upon a time but the local football team meant nothing to me. ORLANDO was LOI thanks to the(rather good) misdirection.
    On the whole I thought this rather a fun solve.
    Thanks Screw.

30. Like Eileen (@8), I found this to be ‘lots of fun’ but ‘couldn’t parse 1ac’. (I thought 1A might be to do with Reading but couldn’t see why.)

    At first I thought ‘they’ in 2D (OLD FART) was a mistake, but I understand the explanation first pointed out by Andrew @1. As for 26A (ONE-HORSE TOWN), I solved it from the spot-on indication ‘minor place’ and the suggestive ‘(3-5,4)’, but the clue seems incomplete.

    This was a very enjoyable solve for me today – it’s nice to see some humour in the clues – and the puzzle was not too difficult, with many well-constructed clues.

    Thanks to Screw and manehi.

31. Thanks Muffin @23. I’ll buy that, though – as noted with a number of other explanations – it seems just a bit wide of the mark to really need convince. Also to VW@27. Completely convinced by that. And so delicately expressed!
    Thanks to all for the entertainment.

32. Thought DENTIST was a brilliant hidden clue. Didn’t understand royals and missed 9 and 12a. Lots to like. Bloom and solo indeed. Enjoyed BLADDER and NIGHT, thank you screw for not disappointing us.. Quite liked DUSTBIN too.

    Many thanks Screw and manehi

33. Some of this I found a bit weird, or unknowable, like the Reading FC one.

    Re OLD FART, I’d say it is a mistake. The default pronoun in English is ‘he’ regardless of the subject’s gender, as I understand it, and it isn’t regarded as sexist to use it.

34. Issy Porter @33
    I partially disagree; I have often seen “they” used when the gender is indeterminate. However in this case the problem could have been easily avoided by using “He’s seen it all” (old farts are never female, are they?). I wonder why Screw (or the editor) didn’t go for this less controversial option.

35. Some good clues (my favourite being FISH PASTE) but overall I didn’t really enjoy it.

    Although I have little interest in football, I did get 1a because I live near enough to know that the road from Junction 11 of the M4 past the Royals’ ground is a nightmare on match days and so best avoided. That’s the only reason I know it, though, and clues which rely on knowing teams’ nicknames usually frustrate and annoy me. I didn’t know TRIVIUM, but I worked it out from the wordplay, then googled to be certain the meaning fitted the clue. I got EXPAT but couldn’t parse the PAT part, though it seems obvious now thanks to manehi’s explanation.

    Like most commenters here, I was puzzled by the choice of “they” for 2d, and I still don’t understand why “occasion to perform” leads to NIGHT when such occasions can and do occur at any time, not just night time.

    Thanks, Screw and manehi.

36. jennyk @35
    You make a good point about NIGHT. I read it as “last occasion to perform”, but this would make “last” do double duty. Twelfth Night, perhaps?

37. This was a challenging solve and parse but I evetually got there.

    Only two gripes one and a half of which has been mentioned. The surface of 22D isn’t grammatical and OLD FART is singular. (Also is OLD FART a spoonerism of FOLD ART. I await to be enlightened as I would have thought FALD ORT was more appropriate?)

    Nonetheless this was enjoyable.

    Thanks to manehi and Screw

38. Issy (@33) and muffin (@34)
    I know I have already commented on ‘they’ vs. ‘he’ in 2D but not yet on the spoonerism, which could have provoked further comment.
    The essence of Spooner’s lapses is the exchange of initial consonantal sounds. To get OLD FART from FOLD ART you exchange no sound with the ‘F’ sound. I don’t mind this twist on the usual rule for spoonerisms.
    All in all, I think writing the clue as
    “Spooner’s origami? He’s seen it all!”
    would have been perfect. ‘They’ has been justified in previous posts, but there’s no need to avoid the obvious ‘He’.

39. Alan Browne @38
    I agree. Although I don’t, on the whole, like “Spooner” clues, the Spooner part of this one seems OK to me. It’s in the pronunciation rather than the spelling, BNTO.

40. Too much awkward parsing required for my taste but I can see everyone else seems very happy with this so shhh……de gustibus etc.

41. A quick update from Invergarry, where I’m in the middle of a hillwalking trip with some truly amazing weather. This was a very enjoyable puzzle – initially I thought quite easy by Screw’s standards but the NE corner was a little tricky and there were a few obscurities.

    Thanks to Screw and manehi

42. [Jealous, BH – both of the scenery and the weather. Grey and cold all day here, though dry.]

43. Question, is beery hiker Irish? A host of obscurities perhaps?

44. Had no chance with The Royals. With crossers was going for a European dynasty or a waterway or part of the anatomy.

    Xenopus was perfectly gettable from wordplay.

    Learnt a bit of trivia about the origin of trivia.

    Chuckles at bladder, nearly weed my undies.

    Hung up by putting in OLD FOLK (because of the ‘they’). Thought oak might have been used originally. It could have been a good clue if the grammar and definiton were improved,as said above.

45. I liked this and especially the clever little jokes. Like many I had to come here for the reasoning behind some answers. I was awfully distracted in the NE corner thinking that 4d could only be “EXILE” as Jersey is an “isle” and thought it must be a homonym without a “sounds like” indicator. So a wry moment when I saw the cow pat joke. I got PROOFREADING but had no hope of knowing what the whole clue meant. TRIVIUM was new to me despite my teaching background and I actually had it as TRIVIAM thinking it must be a variation on TRIVIAL (“brief”?). I had to go to both insects and amphibia in the Fauna section of my trusty thesaurus to find XENOPUS; fortunately having “X” as the initial letter was of great assistance. Thanks to Screw and Manehi, and to bloggers. I really enjoy the wit and repartee in the comments posted. It’s a great little online community and we do share some fun as we stretch our brains.

46. Muffin @39

    Of course a Spoonerism is in the pronunciation (or in fact the letters if we are to be precise). However how does that explain how to get OLD FART from FOLD ART? A spoonerism is about transposition but in this case one of the original sounds/letters/pronunciations hasn’t been transposed. Why?

47. BNTO
    Because one of the words doesn’t start with a consonant? I really don’t know what the “rules” would be about this possibility. However I’m satisfied that fOLD ART transposes to OLD fART.

48. muffin and BNTO

    To echo what I said @38, this is not really a spoonerism (I called it a spoonerism with a twist). In a spoonerism you exchange the initial consonant sounds of two words. In FOLD ART ‘art’ doesn’t have one. So in this case you exchange null (no sound) with the sound ‘F’, putting null (no sound) in front of OLD and ‘F’ in front of ART. Prey hesto!

    So 2D is not a true spoonerism, but I thought it was ok.

49. Julie @45

    I would just like to endorse what you say about this ‘community’ and this cream of crossword blogging sites. I’ve been here more than a year now, and after (usually) enjoying the solving experience 4-5 days a week I get extra enjoyment from the blogs.

    [I visit Australia every year for a few weeks to visit family, and because access to a printer is not convenient I get an Australian paper that prints the Times crossword about 30 days behind the UK and enjoy solving it with my daughter. There is a friendly blogging site over there (name forgotten) for the Times and Sunday Times crosswords – not as good as this site but friendly, and like another community.]

50. At least one crossword I know of bans Spoonerisms, or whatever it is that approximates to a Spoonerism, some metathetic trope, since the indication for same is always too bloody obvious. Thus no matter how subtle the idea, as with Araucaria’s ‘burly chassis’ (for Shirley Bassey), the answer is always a write-in (unless it’s so bad as to be risible).

51. Couple of obvious ones missed as usual (Doh!) and 9a 12a beyond me. Wrestled with “declaim” for a while for the latter. Got “puffs” instead of “pulls” for 23 which meant I missed 19d and seems to me to work equally well: puffs up meaning self inflated or snobbish i.e. to lift the nose. And doesn’t require arcane knowledge about flying an aircraft.

52. Enjoyable fun – had to finish it this morning as we were stumped last night by a number of clues.

    Thanks to manehi for parsing 1ac and 7d.

    Lots of good clues especially 4d and 1/19.

    Thanks to Screw for the smiles.

53. Paul @50
    I couldn’t agree more about the always obvious indications for spoonerisms in cryptic crosswords, but for me the answer is hardly ever a write-in. I usually have to get the answer first, if the definition is strong enough and/or if I have enough crossers, and then work out the spoonerism to confirm.
    Getting OLD FART was probably my quickest ever (even though it was only a sort of spoonerism), and I got it unexpectedly not from the definition but from origami leading to ‘fold’. I wouldn’t call for spoonerisms to be banned, but because the device is so obvious a limit of one per crossword would be ok.

54. Old fakir @51
    I agree with you that “puffs up” fits the clue very nicely, although unfortunately not the crossers. It was my first thought too.

    Paul B @50 and Alan Browne @53
    I also agree about the obviousness of the indicators, but sometimes a Spoonerism lends itself so well to a lovely surface reading that it would be a shame to waste the opportunity.

55. jennyk @54
    Absolutely!

56. Never posted here before but it’s a great site and has helped me a lot with learning how clues work. For 21 down did anyone else get ‘retrain’? Re = note and train as an alternative to flight, and it’s what companies get you to do (if you’re lucky) before you are ‘let go’

57. Excellent puzzle indeed – lots of fun and inventive clueing. Re the Spoonerism debate, I’m surprised at the almost exclusive use of ‘Spooner’ to clue a perfectly respectable bit of wordplay. ‘Leaders swapping places’,’Exchanging introductions’ or some such would offer a preferable alternative in my book or at the very least ‘tongue tied cleric’ or similar.

    powysjune@56, 21a ws my last one in, so your perfectly plausible parsing sidn’t fit the checkers, but it works for me.

58. Thanks Screw and manihi

    Have a habit of putting puzzled by this setter aside for a day or two – well actually three with this one (usually find a backlog one to do on the day) ! Then find that they aren’t normally that bad, once I get started.

    This one was very enjoyable with a lot of wit in the clues. A couple of the long ones that I couldn’t parse – JACK-IN-THE-BOX (where I didn’t recognise the JACK IN phrase, very clever once explained) and ONE-HORSE TOWN (where finding NAG in the town was too obscure for me).

    Finished in the SW corner with XENOPUS (which I’ve seen recently in another puzzle here or in FT, but had to re-find it all again), SHANNON (with a self-appreciative pat on the back for seeing the Star Wars character inside) and BLADDER as the last one in.

    Good to see the community here growing still …

59. Thanks manehi and Screw.

    I really enjoyed this one. Lots of fun including the cheeky PECKING ORDER, OLD FART and EXPAT.

    Thanks for explaining PROOFREADING, I’d never have got the Reading FC link on my own.

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