Guardian Cryptic 26,929 by Chifonie

by

Not too difficult and nicely clued. Favourites 3dn and 14dn – thanks, Chifonie.

Across
1 DEDUCT Take away journalist found in the Channel (6)
ED[itor]=”journalist” inside DUCT=”Channel”
4 CAPSTAN Accountant pants moving windlass (7)
=a mechanism for winding in cables or rope. C[hartered] A[ccountant] plus (pants)*
9 SECTIONAL Coastline developed in parts (9)
(Coastline)*
10 POSED Sat in swimming school round the corner (5)
POD=”swimming school” of e.g. whales; around S[outh] E[ast]=”corner”
11 AWARE Informed of fighting in A & E (5)
WAR=”fighting” in A E
12 IGNORAMUS Simpleton is disorderly or amusing (9)
(or amusing)*
13 RESTING Soldier hurt still (7)
R[oyal] E[ngineer]=”Soldier”, plus STING=”hurt”
15 LEVITY Putting Italian in charge is silliness (6)
IT[alian] in LEVY=”charge”
17 SEANCE Irish lad gets to church for mystical meeting (6)
SEAN=”Irish lad” plus C[hurch] of E[ngland]
19 GALAHAD Pageant entertained man of honour (7)
=a knight of King Arthur’s Round Table. GALA=”Pageant”, plus HAD=”entertained”
22 GELIGNITE One third of German coal is explosive (9)
=an explosive chemical. A third of the letters in GE[rman], plus LIGNITE=vegetable matter on its way to becoming “coal”
24 NEPAL Plane crashed here (5)
a somewhat unfortunate reference – there was a crash in Nepal earlier this year. (Plane)*
26 ERATO Time to muse (5)
=the Greek Muse of lyric love poetry. ERA=”Time” plus TO
27 CONTINENT Sober and satisfied, when outside batting (9)
CONTENT=”satisfied”, outside IN=currently “batting” in cricket
28 SYSTEMS Second year stops logical processes (7)
S[econd] plus Y[ear] plus STEMS=”stops”
29 RETARD Embarrassed about sailor’s delay (6)
RED=”Embarassed” around TAR=”sailor”
Down
1 DESPAIR Misery for some French couple (7)
DES=”some [in] French”; plus PAIR=”couple”
2 DACHA Father has tea in country house (5)
=a Russian country house or cottage. DA=”Father” plus CHA=”tea”
3 CRITERION Canon‘s study includes liturgy and scripture (9)
CON=”study” around both of: RITE=”liturgy” and R[eligious] I[nstruction]=”scripture”
4 COLONEL Stop the Spanish officer (7)
COLON=”Stop”=a punctuation mark, plus EL=”the [in] Spanish”
5 PIPER Musician is quiet in supporting part (5)
P[iano]=”quiet” in PIER=”supporting part”
6 TEST MATCH Trial marriage produces international confrontation (4,5)
TEST=”Trial”, plus MATCH=”marriage”
7 NUDIST Madman claims Pluto is barely seen (6)
NUT=”Madman”, around DIS=”Pluto”, the underworld
8 ENDING Closure is imminent, when project leader goes (6)
[p]ENDING=”imminent”, minus p[roject]
14 SHEDLOADS Huge quantities in Slough? See the publicity! (9)
SHED=”Slough”; plus LO=behold!=”See”; plus ADS=”publicity”
16 VALENTINE Virginia’s deceptively lenient sweetheart (9)
V[irgini]A, abbreviation for the US state; plus [the ‘s indicates ‘has’] (lenient)*
18 EVINCES Clearly shows Scene VI is badly written (7)
(Scene VI)*
19 GRETNA Garbo hugs man in wedding venue (6)
Gretna Green is famous as a wedding venue [wiki]. GRETA Garbo [wiki], around N=chess notation for Knight, a piece or “man”
20 DILATED Acted without deceased becoming bloated (7)
DID=”Acted”, around LATE=”deceased”
21 EGRESS Scratching head, go back to exit (6)
[r]EGRESS=”go back”, “Scratching” its “head” letter away
23 GROVE Girl to stray in woodland (5)
G[irl] plus ROVE=”stray”
25 PIETA One in a tantrum’s a sad subject for a painting (5)
=a depiction of the Virgin Mary crading the dead body of Jesus. I=”One” inside PET=”tantrum”; plus A

35 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 26,929 by Chifonie”

  1. Why has “shedload” come to mean “huge quantity” as in 14d? A shed load originally meant a load which had fallen of a lorry, as in, “delays on the M6 between junctions 19 and 20 due to a shed load of roof tiles.”

  2. James@1
    Don’t think so. I think it refers to the quantity that fills a shed – probably as in a shed at a port rather than a domestic one.

  3. Thanks, manehi and Chifonie. Gentle stuff, but none the worse for that. I have been struggling with some recent puzzles, both here and in the Indy, so it’s a bit of morale-booster to get one that I can finish reasonably easily.

    Faves today were DESPAIR and COLONEL.

    I smiled at SHEDLOADS, since it’s a word that I’m partial to using myself, since it’s flexible: ‘Bairstow scored shedloads of runs against Sri Lanka’; ‘There were shedloads of people at the gig last night.’ But it’s really just a synonym for LOADS. The picture in my head is a garden shed, but George C may be right.

  4. It depends where the stress on the word lies. She’d load is the contents of a shed, shedlo’ad is a load that has been shed. Radio 5Live news bulletins often get it wrong!

  5. SHEDLOADS is just lots of something to me, using garden shed as a comparator, as with Kathryn’s Dad @3. Surely loads that have been shed are just SHED LOADS (two words?)

    Bit of an antidote to yesterday this. I spent less time on the entire puzzle than on 15d (or it could have been almost anything else) yesterday. But as you say manehi it was nicely clued; PIPER, CAPSTAN my favourites, the latter for the mental image. But Chifonie was lucky that something nasty didn’t happen in Kathmandu today.

  6. Thanks both.

    That was quick. Alt.usage.english (eg at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.usage.english/eTPQR6oKuB4) has discussed ‘shedload’ several times, as I recall, and usually concludes that ‘shedload’ is a euphemism for ‘shitload’. For me that only moves the problem one stage down the track.

    I rather prefer the motorway theory. I’m pretty sure I heard things like, ‘There’s a shed load on the the A34’, on news bulletins before I heard it used as a measure of quantity. Moreover, respectable news writers would not have used it, if it was already well-known to mean something else.

  7. Thanks Chifonie and manehi.

    Hear hear to the comment from Kathryn’s Dad@3. After my struggle and epic fail with the Vlad yesterday, it was reassuring to get my mojo back today. I have concluded that I am just not on the same wavelength as some setters. I bow to those participants who solve the puzzles I consider too difficult.

    I also liked 4a CAPSTAN and enjoyed 15a LEVITY and 17a SEANCE.

    Just one quibble; I would argue that the most famous PIETA (25a) is a sculpture not a painting.

    Have enjoyed the SHEDLOADS comments. I thought it was a euphemism for s$#@LOADS…

  8. Thank you Chifonie and manehi.

    A pleasant solve after struggling with Vlad yesterday. I failed to parse POSED and SHEDLOADS was a new word for me.
    My favourite was the clue for TEST MATCHES.

  9. Never come across the idea of the ‘shitloads’ euphemism, but it certainly sounds plausible.

  10. ‘Shedloads’- many of us cram our garden sheds with a huge quantity of superfluous stuff. So the contents of more than one shed amounts to a very great deal indeed! I’m rather fond of the term based on that quaint image, but I’m only guessing its derivation.

  11. Thanks Chifonie and manehi. I admire the elegance and economy of Chifonie’s clueing, and this was nice and gentle after being well and truly impaled yesterday.

    There might have been a more up to date clue for 23dn though, perhaps using the first part of the possible derivation of shedloads discussed above.

    I presume shedloads is a greater amount than bucketloads…

  12. Thanks to Chifonie and manehi. I too enjoyed this puzzle after yesterday’s struggle and also enjoyed the SHEDLOAD discussion above (the term was new to me). I paused a bit over the “lignite” in GELIGNITE and last in was CRITERION which I finally was able to parse.

  13. All very straightforward, did quite like SHEDLOADS. Would have been better suited to a Monday or the Quiptic slot.

    Thanks to Chifonie and manehi

  14. Definitely Mondayish but quite nice especially after yesterday’s puzzle. I couldn’t parse GRETNA; I’d forgotten N=Knight in chess so thanks for that. Liked SEANCE.
    Thanks Chifonie.

  15. Thanks Chifonie and manehi
    Fairly enjoyable, with SHEDLOADS and NUDIST my favourites. I was going to complain about the surface for CAPSTAN, but I’ve just seen its meaning.

    Julie @7
    Yes, Michelangelo’s, the most well-known, is a sculpture, but there are lots of paintings too. It’s just refers to Mary holding the dead body of Christ.

  16. 25ac is a clever clue, as Germany uses a lot of “Braunkohl”, excavated from enormous opencast mines by what are known in Germany as “Baggers”.

  18. Every time I actually finish the Grauniad crossword everyone says “Oh, a breezy stroll in the park today indeed!” Why’s that, do you think?

    Thanks Chifonie and manehi!

  21. Very enjoyable, even though I couldn’t parse POSED and missed N=knight in GRETNA. CRITERION in that sense was new to me. Favourites include GELIGNITE, NUDIST and SHEDLOADS.

    Thanks, Chifonie and manehi.

  22. As I understand it, the original phrase was “ship load,” quite properly used by US Navy sailors during World War II: “we will bring a ship load of military supplies to that island.”

    This honorable expression then became corrupted to the more commonly heard term “shit load” for large quantity.

    Interesting to think that “shed load” is a cleaned-up version of a corruption of an originally clean expression.

  23. Nobody’s mentioned the definition for CRITERION. Not being a religious scholar (either religious or a scholar) I’ve done a quick search. It would appear that CANON is composed of, or written according to, CRITERIA?

    Shedload not that common in Aussie parlance, although I might start using it given the state of my shed. Shitloads, truckloads. Solved the clue though, seen that Slough before.

  24. CRITERION’s got me intrigued. There are quite a few pubs named CRITERION in Australia, but I can’t find the derivation after looking at sites which give the origin for the names of Australian pubs. ‘The Royal’ is the most common name for a pub here. Is CRITERION a colonial thing? Surely it can’t be religious? Maybe it started out as an accommodation only hotel, for teetotal Christians?

  25. Walk in the park? Make that a slow I satisfying climb part way uphill then back to base camp. I’m joy solved 8! Too many obscure words for me today – still not sure why Dis = Pluto and never heard of Lignite. 2d, 4a, 21d, 25d and 26d were all new to me. Ah well…

  27. 7d. Dis is the latin for the greek Pluto as Chambers says. Similarly Jupiter = Zeus and Venus = Aphrodite.

  28. paddymelon @24 – it may be a colonial thing – there certainly are (or at least were) a lot of Criterion pubs here in NZ too.
    Can someone please elaborate on the use of ‘pet’ for tantrum?

  29. Gary @ 28. Interesting the Criterion pubs in the former colonies.

    ‘pet’ from Oxford dictionary online : A fit of sulking or ill humor: eg Mother’s in a pet. 16th century of unknown origin. Not known by we colonials it seems. I haven’t heard it said here, but I seem to remember it from English friends.

  30. probably related to petulance of Middle French and Latin origins. That would fit with the 16th century attribution.

  31. Thanks manehi and Chifonie.

    Another gentle puzzle this. I raced through only stopping to check PIETA in my OED.

    I wasn’t quite sure why PENDING = IMMINENT in 7dn. Some stuff’s been in my “pending” tray for years!

    Manana!

  33. Ah, thank goodness for Chifonie – a setter I can get cope with, even if it does take me a week of lunchbreaks to get through one puzzle. But even with help here, I remain puzzled by 3d. In what sense is the word “criterion” equivalent to “canon”?

  34. Swearymachine – Chambers has each as a definition of the other…

    criterion – a means or standard of judging; a test; a rule, standard or canon.
    canon – a law or rule, esp in ecclesiastical matters; a generally accepted rule or principle, eg in morals; a standard or criterion

  35. Thanks Chifonie and manehi

    Took this one out with me to enjoy over a plate of pasta at a local restaurant on the eve of our major football grand final. Finished all but two clues whilst sipping on a shiraz and waiting for the meal to come out (they weren’t that slow !) Got SYSTEMS and then SHEDLOADS whilst enjoying the last bits of the marinara !!

    Did wince a little at 24a – I think that it has an airstrip that is regarded as one of the half dozen most dangerous in the world.

Comments are closed.