Guardian Cryptic 26,855 by Chifonie

by

Very enjoyable, with some nice bits of misdirection. I particularly liked 2dn and 18dn.

Across
1 CELESTIAL Divine Satie composed in a small room (9)
  (Satie)* in CELL=”small room”
6 STRAP Tie leaves back (5)
  PARTS=”leaves”, reversed/”back”
9 ADD TO Increase one form of insecticide with oxygen (3,2)
  A=”one”, plus DDT=”insecticide” [wiki], plus O[xygen]
10 LIGHT YEAR A long way in a short time? (5,4)
  LIGHT=falling “short” of a required amount plus YEAR=”time”
11 ELECTORATE The people prefer no local tax (10)
  ELECT=”prefer”, plus O=zero=”no”, plus RATE=”local tax”=an amount levied by a local authority
12 NERO Ruler found in throne room (4)
  Hidden in [thro]NE RO[om]
14 TEMPTED Stand-in has lad with his mouth watering (7)
  TEMP=”Stand-in”, plus TED=”lad”
15 SANDMAN He induces sleep with morphine, initially in the sanatorium (7)
  AND=”with”, plus M[orphine], all inside SAN[itorium]
17 MANTRAP Poacher’s concern requires words of comfort repeated quietly (7)
  =a trap for catching trespassers. MANTRA=”words of comfort repeated”, plus P[iano]=”quietly”
19 UNTUNED A Parisian has day with boy not properly adjusted (7)
  UN=”A” in French, plus TU[esday], plus NED=”boy”
20 SECT Faction agreed to accommodate Charlie (4)
  SET=”agreed”, around C[harlie]
22 EASTERTIDE See it rated badly in the festive season (10)
  (See it rated)*
25 EARLIER ON Hearing tall story by boy previously (7,2)
  EAR=”Hearing”, plus LIE=”tall story”, plus RON=”boy”
26 SYNOD Fellows hold Yankee back in council (5)
  DONS=”Fellows”, around Y[ankee] and reversed/”back”
27 TROVE Valuable collection lets Tory leader gallivant (5)
  T[ory] plus ROVE=”gallivant”
28 EAVESDROP Dope raves about spy (9)
  (Dope raves)*
Down
1 CHASE Follow trial about husband (5)
  CASE=”trial” around H[usband]
2 LADIESMAN Philanderer ends in buffet with a woman, finally (6,3)
  DIES=”ends”, in LAM=”buffet”=strike a blow, plus A plus [woma]N
3 SHORT STORY Work of fiction in which politician keeps trousers on (5,5)
  SHORTS=”trousers” on TORY=”politician”
4 ILLBRED Bill, affectedly embarrassed, is discourteous (3-4)
  (Bill)* plus RED=”embarrassed”
5 LEGATES Ambassadors for the French tycoon (7)
  LE=”the” in French, plus Bill GATES=”tycoon”
6 SITE Location of stated exhibition (4)
  sounds like ‘sight’=”stated exhibition”
7 REEVE Always got up to capture English bird (5)
  EVER=”Always”, reversed/”got up”, around E[nglish]
8 PURLOINED Open lurid assortment that’s stolen (9)
  (Open lurid)*
13 UNIT TRUSTS One has faith in investments (4,6)
  a form of investments [wiki]. UNIT=”One”, plus TRUSTS=”has faith”
14 TUMESCENT Bloated stomach egghead’s to detect (9)
  TUM=”stomach”, plus the head of E[gg], plus SCENT=”detect”
16 MONSIGNOR Prelate finds new character in Othello (9)
  N[ew] plus SIGN=”character”, all in MOOR=”Othello”, the MOOR of Venice in Shakespeare’s play [wiki]
18 PRAIRIE Plain tart takes in Romeo’s look (7)
  PIE=”tart” around R[omeo] plus AIR=”look”
19 USTINOV Actor sees drunken viscount caught out (7)
  Peter USTINOV [wiki]. (viscount)*, with the c[aught] taken out
21 CARGO Load vehicle with spirit (5)
  CAR=”vehicle” plus GO=”spirit”, energy
23 END UP Turn out dying to get mounted (3,2)
  END UP could more cryptically =”dying to get mounted”
24 HIDE Leather cloak (4)
  double definition

48 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 26,855 by Chifonie”

  1. Thanks manehi and Chifonie.

    SANDMAN and TUMESCENT are new words to me, but clued well.

    Like you, I liked PRAIRIE, and also, ELECTORATE, MANTRAP, and SYNOD.

  3. Thanks to Chifonie and Manehi. Annoyed with myself for being stuck so long on the last word – 18d PRAIRIE, which made for a good lesson in reading the clues closely, as I mistakenly had put MANTRAS instead of MANTRAP for 17a. I enjoyed LEGATES and TUMESCENT (the latter word always reminds me for some reason of those sorts of coy euphemisms authors use in sex scenes eg swelling members and heaving breasts) and also had to smile at a drunken Peter USTINOV and the pollie keeping his pants on (SHORT STORY).

  4. Thanks Chifonie and manehi
    Pleasant enough. I liked several, including CELESTIAL, PRAIRIE and SANDMAN.
    REEVE might be an unfamiliar bird – it’s the name given to a female RUFF, a rather rare wading bird.
    I had trouble with UNTUNED as I tried to fit a 3 letter day abbreviation in.
    Does “dying” need to be read as a noun in order to give “end” in 23d?

  5. Thanks manehi, there were a few clues here that I got from crossers and definitions but couldn’t parse. My favourite was the one I failed on – PRAIRIE.

    Muffin, yes I believe you’re right, eg “rage, rage against the dying of the light”.

  9. Thank you, manehi.

    This is not a favourite setter of mine but I enjoyed this. Some nice clueing, including LIGHT YEAR, SHORT STORY, MONSIGNOR, PRAIRIE, & USTINOV.

    I was going to get all precious about the part of speech of ‘mouth-watering’ in TEMPTED but now see the whole definition works fine.

    Pleasant start to the week which takes me to…I was going to say America, but we all know that’s a continent, now, don’t we?

    Nice week, all.

  12. [William @9
    The USA is of course part of the continent of North America, so you are “going to America”. Have a good trip!]

  13. Thanks both.

    Like William @9 I was worried that ‘tempted’ was the wrong part of speech, but manehi’s parsing explains it.

  14. Very enjoyable. 3d made me smile.

    Re 23d, I had the same initial hesitation about “dying” = “end”, but decided it was ok on the basis that “end” can be an adjective, as in “the end days”. As muffin and matrixmania point out, the alternative is to read “dying” as a noun.

  15. Brought a few smiles to my face, which is good for a Monday morning. SHORT STORY easily top of the list, though not without a disquieting image of an adulterous member of our present governing party on his way to a liaison while wearing schoolboy trousers.

  16. Thanks Chifonie & manehi; good start to the week.

    I thought at the beginning that the boy was Ed in UNTUNED, which caused a bit of head scratching.

    I liked MANTRAP as gamekeeper didn’t seem to fit in.

  17. I enjoyed this. The clues I liked best coincide with others’ favourites, to which I might add 19D (UNTUNED) as it sent me the wrong way at first.

    I wondered whether ‘dying’ was right in 23D, but muffin @4 and Jim S @14 have both given good (alternative) explanations.

    Thanks to Chifonie and manehi.

  18. Definitely one of Chifonie’s better ones, but still pretty straightforward. Two weeks off out of three for Rufus – hope he’s OK…

    Thanks to Chifonie and manehi

  19. Thanks Chifonie and manehi

    Nice straightforward puzzle to start the new week which I rather enjoy after usually getting through a couple of hard catch up ones on a weekend.

    Had to check that TU was indeed an abbreviation of Tuesday and hadn’t come across TUMESCENT before – must get a hold of some of Julie’s books :).

    Finished with that said ‘bloating’ word, PRAIRIE (which I also found harder than it should have been) and the clever MANTRAP as the last one in.

    Beery, maybe he is suffering from writers’ cramp with his heavy output – see that he featured in the FT Monday prize slot !!!

  20. Trailman @15 Ha-ha! Yes I vaguely remember that… but who was it?

    Muffin @12 Yes, quite right of course. A propos nothing frightfully relevant…how do you embolden & italicise here?

  21. William @20
    You use HTML tags. b turns bold on, /b turns it off; i the same for italics. The tags must be placed inside the “arrow” symbols” (on comma and full stop keys on my keyboard. (I can’t show you, as they would then operate!)

    The FAQs deal with this, and also how to embed links.

  22. Thanks to Chifonie and manehi. I had little trouble parsing the clues but did not know REEVE as a bird or UNIT TRUSTS or MANTRAP-poachers. Last in was SANDMAN, partly because I initially did not link “san” to sanatorium. A very enjoyable Monday experience.

  23. I had to look up REEVE as well and TUMESCENT had me foxed for quite a while, as did PRAIRIE, but I rather enjoyed this. LOI SYNOD. A little harder than Rufus but nice and gentle nonetheless.
    Thanks Chifonie

  24. Yup–another one here who had never heard of REEVE as a bird. I only know the reeve who has a tale in Chaucer. I thought that this was tougher than usual for a Monday, but it all went in pretty smoothly nonetheless.

    Thanks to both setter and blogger.

    [And America is not a continent, it’s TWO continents, if you want to use that definition of the term…]

  25. [William @20, Cecil Parkinson springs most readily to mind, but one is spoilt for choice – Boris in short trousers anyone?]

  28. Thanks all
    Nice change for a Monday.
    Last in were 2d and ,14 ac.
    I could not decode between untuned and untoned.

  32. William @20

    The following code

    <b>This is in bold type </b>

    <i>This is in italics </i>

    would look like this:

    This is in bold type

    This is in italics

    Just don’t ask how I did that! 😉

  37. missing rufus. Monday not the same. that being said i greatly enjoyed this crossword and felt pleased as punch to complete it all. thanks chifonie -im a fan and thanks manehi

  39. Thanks Alan Browne for revealing the &gt; &lt; secret!

    I didn’t reveal the method initially as in my experience that would have almost certainly compromised the teaching objective. (I worked in IT education for 2 years!)

    P.S. I don’t think many people would have noticed what you did so probably didn’t get round to thinking how you did it. 🙂

  40. B(NTO) @40
    But Alan still hasn’t revealed the general method. “Revealing the &gt; &lt; secret” at least gives more people a useful tool for helping others here and possibly elsewhere, and it may have pushed some people a little further along the path towards realising that a general method exists (or reminded people like me who had forgotten). I doubt that many people even realised from your comment @32 that there is one.

    While you are right that letting people discover something for themselves usually makes the answer more likely to stick (so I’m not giving a spoiler), I think that works better in a situation like education in which people are told there is an answer and have an incentive to find it beyond just curiosity.

  42. Thanks Brendan and jennyk for your comments.

    I may not have shown the best judgement in revealing the information on escape sequences so soon. I was addressing muffin mainly, but I could have stopped to consider that all of us read these comments, and I spoiled it for Brendan and possibly others. I’m pleased (I suppose I could say relieved!) that muffin was appreciative.

    It’s not too early now to give the answer to the second teaser (in my post @36), which probably only Brendan noticed. In order to display &gt; you can’t type it as is – you have to type &amp;gt;

    Thanks jennyk for your excellent summary of the broader picture in which HTML character codes and escape sequences are just details.

  45. Yes, me too, which seemed so obviously right I wrote it in with confidence and then had to get the Tippex out, again, when i couldn’t do the across clues.

  46. jennyk @40

    Thanks for your comments.

    My reasons for not initially mentioning the solution to displaying tags such as <b> was not to let William find out himself but merely to avoid him being confused by a solution to a problem that he probably didn’t know existed. William only wanted to know how to display bold and italic characters so that’s all I described. As you say eventually people spot the “problem” of displaying actual tags.

    You refer to the “general method” but of course one also has to consider what happens to text that is entered in “text input” boxes which is to be displayed on a site. Normally most tags would be removed from such input as their display on the host site could be use for malicious purposes. Hence the list of “supported tags” above this input box which will be displayed unmolested! 🙂

    Of course you are probably aware of this but I’m just throwing this into the discussion for general consumption. (We’re very off-topic by now so apologies Gaufrid)

  47. B(NTO) @46
    Ah, I misinterpreted your final sentence @32 as an indirect invitation (to readers in general, not just William) to address the bigger question. Your point about causing confusion by going into unnecessary and unwanted detail is a very good one – I have a bad tendency to over-explain.

  48. Thanks manehi and Chifonie.

    Last in as usual and not much to add. Finding that REEVE is a female Ruff was new to me too.

    Otherwise all pretty straightforward with MONSIGNOR and UNTUNED the last pair in.

    I can move on to Tuesday now!

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