Guardian Cryptic N� 26,110 by Picaroon

1. Thanks to Picaroon and PeterO for a fine puzzle and blog. Got 13d early on and started checking
   song titles on my old Bob Dylan albums. COD for me was CLOG. OIL BURNER was new to me. Great workout!

   Cheers…

2. The long quote is in fact a full &lit in the style of Araucaria. The fodder is D (opening letter of 13 down – DYLAN) etc. The whole thing is a description of the famous opening line. Quite brilliant.

3. Lovely puzzle. Even without the biggie and its little twist the rest of the clues were also amazingly fresh.

   The long one – not wanting to start any extended-def vs &lit wars I’ll agree with you rho (#2) that – yes – it’s brilliant.

   Thanks for the blog PO.

4. Thanks Peter, including for explaining TROLLEYBUS and the niceties of CLOG. Like you the NW – with the exception of the brilliant 3D, last in – came soon, followed by the Dylan quote. This was great from start to finish so thank you Picaroon.

5. Ironic that Dylan Thomas should feature so heavily on a day when Swansea was NOT named UK City of Culture.

6. Top stuff – thanks to both setter and blogger. Didn’t know the Thomas line, but was helped towards getting it by thinking it must be a line from a Dylan song (most of which I also don’t know), which helped me change ‘gently’ to GENTLE to match the anagrist. I knew a Septic was given to ‘ungrammaticality’, but didn’t realise a Jack could be too!

7. Superb puzzle, but let myself down by misremembering the Thomas poem and putting in ‘gently’ instead of ‘gentle’ at 23d, having not worked out the complex anagram (a 7d, 5d I fear). Caused myself problems by trying to make ‘oil tanker’ work at 30a and fitting the River Niger in at 22a, but eventually sorted those out. Seems churlish to quibble about anything in this puzzle, but I am not convinced by the definitions for 8d and 17a: surely a ‘lasso’ is a capturing device rather than one for bondage, and a cog requires a series of teeth rather than being a tooth. No doubt someone will point me in the direction of a dictionary that justifies the definitions: I hope so as the puzzle deserves to be free of any reservations.

8. Thanks Picaroon and PeterO

   I very much enjoyed this, though I could solve many without being able to parse them, eg the long clue fell into place when I just had four crossers – it helped to have written it out as a single long string, I think. And being a fan of John Cale (as well as Bob Dylan) was also helpful, as he produced a recorded based on the Dylan Thomas some years back.

   All in all an excellent start to the day.

9. Thanks, PeterO.

   As George Clements says, a superb puzzle. [ RE COG: Chambers has ‘a projection, eg on a toothed wheel’ and Collins: ‘any of the teeth or projections on the rim of a gearwheel’ – will that do?]

   I somehow got the long quotation very early on, from the enumeration, for some reason not being misled by the singer, although I got 13dn first, and listened again here
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mRec3VbH3w to Thomas’s own reading of it – what a treat.

   Too many good things about this puzzle to list them all. It’s a real gem.

   PeterO – the final R in 22ac comes from ‘runs’, not ‘river’.

10. Yes, as rhotician @2 says, the Dylan line is an exhortation (‘goad’) to his dying father not to submit meekly to age (‘getting on’, ‘long in the tooth’) and death, so the whole clue is a very fine &lit.

11. Thanks for the blog, PeterO, and for your explanations of the parsing of CLOG and the Dylan quote, which really enhanced my enjoyment.

    What a superb puzzle from start to finish! It put a smile on my face on this grey, rainy day.

    The long quote jumped out at me after I had a few crossing letters — I should have lingered over it a little longer to work out the parsing!

    I don’t do crosswords to keep senior moments at bay, but for the joy of solving clues like 7,5 🙂

    George Clements @7 A lasso is designed to tighten when pulled, so I think it could justifiably be said to be a form of bondage.

12. Rather pleased to have solved all of this, as was struggling at first. Thanks to Picaroon for a clever and challenging puzzle, and to PeterO for his clear blog.

13. In 15a explanation, you must have meant to type “… plus I (one)”.

14. Thank you PeterO.

    This is among the most elegant puzzles I have seen – heartiest congratulations to The Pirate.

    I really did not want it to finish.

    Bravo.

15. Fantastic. Thanks Picaroon and PO.

16. It took me a long time to solve it all, but an excellent puzzle. Thank you Picaroon and PeterO.

17. Thanks to PeterO for the blog. You explained several where I had the answer without being able to parse it.

    I got the long quote from the numeration plus a few crossers – and I remembered GENTLE (not GENTLY). That then gave me DYLAN and I spent quite a bit of time trying to squeeze Thomas in somewhere 🙁

18. The long one is ‘apposite’ not &lit.

19. rhotician @2, Eileen @9, Rishi @13

    I’m happy that you spotted my mini-theme around 7,5. Thanks all.

    George Clements @7

    According to the OED, the prime meaning of cog is a single projection or tooth, and cog as the entire gear is short for cogwheel. A lasso, if thrown successfully, surely does bind, and Picaroon must have chosen the wording of his (cryptic) definition to put you in mind of other things.

20. Thanks PeterO and Picaroon
    If the review of the Dylan concert in the Guardian today is to be believed, describing him as a “singer” is barely accurate.
    I don’t suppose anyone will agree that a crossword in which a substantial number of squares can be filled in by guessing one clue from its first letter and letter pattern is unsatisfactory? Thought not.

21. I agree!!! It was doddle.

22. Thanks Eileen, liz and PeterO. Can’t imagine what other things Picaroon could have tried to misdirect me into considering Peter.

23. I enjoyed this very much. Didn’t get clog and couldn’t parse et am – I still don’t like worry =eat.

24. Sorry – “et al”

25. Hi JohnM

    As in ‘What’s eatng you?’ It’s in both Collins and Chambers.

26. This was truly a tour-de-force.

27. As one of those not familiar with the Dylan Thomas poem I had to derive the long answer from the anagrist, and because I needed all the checkers it was my LOI. As rhotician@2 said, it was very reminiscent of the sort of clue Araucaria regularly threw at us. All in all I thought this was an excellent puzzle.

28. I’m afraid I’m in the “doddle” camp.

    I started the same as PeterO but my “in” was DYLAN which gave the long quote!

    Everything very easy then except for a slight delay on 3d.

    A bit disappointing for a Picaroon I thouight!

    By the way Mr Writinghawk @10 I don’t believe “the poem” is about Dylan not wanting his father to submit to old age and death. Almost the opposite in fact.

    Thanks to PeterO anf Picaroon

29. Thank you to Picaroon and also to the clever bloggers for explaining some of the difficult clues. Thought 1dn would be ET AL but couldn’t explain “ate” as one is normally “eaten” by worry. Also had 30ac as OILTANKER giving 14dn as TROLLEYCAR which led to an impasse in SW corner. Oh well, I’ll just have to keep on trying…

30. Jovis @29

    As with JohnM’s query @23 [apologies for the typo [should be ‘eating’] in my reply, I don’t see the problem.

    Eat = worry. ‘Ate’ is simply past tense, not a participle.

    I’m with George Clements @7: the puzzle deserves to be free of any reservations.

31. Good puzzle – I recall Paul going through a spell where he chained related answers in this manner. Reassuring to have the long answer explained as I couldn’t be bothered parsing!

    Cheers.

32. Eileen@30

    In the three weeks I have been following this blog I have learnt to take your comments with great respect. I accept that “eat” can possibly mean “worry” when used as a present participle. Is it therefore acceptable in crossword etiquette to move it into the past tense and equate “ate” with “worried”? One might say “something’s eaten you” but I can’ think of a sentence with “ate”. Does this matter? Sorry to be a pain.

33. Eileen, please ignore earlier post. I accept that you might say “worry ate at a person”

34. Jovis

    I think I’m with you.

    I can accept ‘What’s eating you?’ but, although, as I said, both Collins and Chambers give ‘eat’ = ‘worry’, I’ve never come across it in any other context – but this is crosswordland!

35. When we (my PinC and I) think that perfectly alright clues like 12ac, 18ac and 29d are weak(ish), there must be something really good about the setter – think: high expectations.

    Once more a great crossword by my [please, put your hands on your ears, dear Arachne] favourite setter.

    The long one wasn’t a write-in for us.
    As one not really familiar with English literature, I was only only looking at this clue with a cryptic eye – my PinC remembered the phrase.
    Quite clever to include two full “getting older” clues in the fodder.

    Yes, clever he is.
    [as, of course, are other setters – just a week ago John Henderson’s Trilogy made me jump for joy (figuratively)]

    Lots of thanks to Picaroon, and PeterO for the blog that luckily contained only one picture (but he or she’s cute, isn’t he or she?).

36. Thanks PeterO and Picaroon

    And thanks to others who’ve said it all above. I would just like to add my own spoonful of praise of this extraordinarily well clued and constructed puzzle. I put in quite a few ticks inc. 20a, 26a, 8d, but the themed intertwining of the ‘aging’ clues with the long Dylan quotation was quite spectacular I think.

37. Brendan@28 – I didn’t say not to submit, but “not to submit meekly”. I know Thomas is generally thought an obscure poet, but I think “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” is pretty clear.

    Rowland @18: The clue is exactly a classic (and as others have pointed out, ingenious) &lit: the entire clue without remainder gives the wordplay, and the entire clue without remainder is a description of the answer.

38. The clue, which is fun and clever, reads after the various numbers have been decoded,

    Opener from Dylan to goad: long in the tooth? Getting on? Raging required!

    but doesn’t really capture the essence of the line, or of the poem, in my view, and thus could not really qualify as &lit, unless you were being very generous. I have the rather uncomfortable feeling of ‘Guardian That’ll Do’ about this, whereof solvers are required to be very generous indeed from time to time, praising the effort rather than the result.

    It’s still good of course, but please don’t force it to be what it isn’t.

39. MR Writinghawk @37

    I think we must agree to disagree.

    Dylan Thomas an obscure poet?1 ( I don’t think he has been eclipsed by any of his contemporaries.)

    Perhaps his early tragic death severely curtailed his ouptut but poems such as Fern Hill, Do Not Go…, And Death Shall Have No Dominion, In My Craft or Sullen Art, The Force That Through the Green Fuse, Poem on his Birthday etc etc are still very widely read and known, (A major film within the last 10 years even featured him)

    As with crossword clues the “surface” of a poem is often very misleading. The context in which Dylan wrote “Do Not Go Gentle” is very important and totally changes it’s interpretation. (Of course Dylan never made anything obvious!)

40. Poppycock! An &lit is a clue type, describing how the parts fit together, not a judgement of the clue’s quality. If you think the meaning is indicated inadequately, it’s simply a bad &lit instead of a good one. If I write ‘Crap chair (5)’ it is a double def., and if someone complains rightly or wrongly that a ‘chair’ is not the same as a STOOL then they are saying my clue is a bad d.d., not that it is some other clue type. Picaroon’s clue is an &lit because the whole clue serves simultaneously as wordplay and as indication of meaning.

    Personally I think it’s an excellent example, the meaning (‘This first line from Dylan is an exhortation to those who are old that raging is required’) being perfectly sufficient. It may not ‘capture the essence’ of the line but that seems to set the bar very high. ‘Bird loses right to be a quadruped (3)’ would be an adequate clue, even though ‘quadruped’ hardly captures the essence of being a COW.

41. The rendering of the meaning of the Thomas line in the long clue is apt and precise.

    I suspect we shall have to add poetry to the ever-lengthening list of things Paul B has no comprehension of, and which already includes such categories as �What constitutes an & lit?� and �How do I produce convincing, rational argumentation?�

42. PS Brendan @39 the above wasn’t a reply to you, obviously. DT is a fine poet, we need not disagree about that. I didn’t say he was obscure, only that he was generally thought so, but one must admit that lines such as “When once the twilight screws were turned, / And mother milk was stiff as sand, / I sent my own ambassador to light” are not *entirely* straightforward.

43. Clue is not ‘fun and clever’ or ‘apt’ or ‘precise’ really, but approximate.. Poenm is about what you did woth your life, do not waste it, NOT about being angry or afraid because you are old. So Not really &lit, or as Mr Writinghawk says, a ‘bad’ one.

44. Thanks setter and all, a good all-rounder I thought.

    A late note: Dylan Thomas was known as “the singer in his chains”, from an allusion he made to himself in another poem.

    I wondered if it was rather he, in that guise, who was the solution to 13d, than Bob Dylan.

45. Actually no. Use of ‘required’ means tihs cannot be @& lit’, even a ‘bad’ one!!! I agree with Mr Peter O == ‘extended definition’.

46. Rowland @43,45: Who said anything about being ‘angry or afraid’? I’ve no idea where you got this. Don’t assume everyone has misunderstood the poem; we can read too. The clue says ‘raging required’, and Thomas’s poem does indeed require the addressee to ‘rage’. I don’t presume to conduct literary analysis to determine what he meant; merely to note that whatever he means by ‘raging’, that is the verb he uses.

47. Addressee is not ‘raging’ because ‘getting on + long intthe tooth’, that is obvious I think. But okay, if you do not agree, or you prefer ‘open-ended’. I think the clue is not quite right, and is mnot & lit (because uses ‘requirted’) but just mmy view.

48. Rowland @47

    I suggested RAGING as the anagrind, and sidestepped the #lit question, but it seems to me that ‘RAGING required’ would be just as acceptable as an anagrind – the ‘required’ is superfluous, perhaps, but not excludable.

49. Saw this and can’t resist. One or two other &lit Qs around the board, in Nestor and Pasquale, so it’s all the ‘rage’ if you don’t mind me being frivolous.

    So, Rowland doesn’t like the sense, others like Mr Writinghawk do, yet more others don’t like the form, yet even more others do. That sounds like a Guardian clue! My layman’s take is that the whole thing has to get very close to a definition, and the wordplay parts have to be equal to the surface, no more, no less, and you can’t TRULY say that here.

    I was in the ‘just about persuaded’ camp on sense, but the form, not that I cared, fell a bit short. Yes, I’ll buy it: a good old Guardian clue, maybe a curate’s egg, but that’s cool. This clue was among some nice ones I’ll say, and an enjoyable romp yesterday.

50. Well, I’m sorry I started all this. I wanted to make a small point about the parsing. And to say that it reminded me of some of the Rev’s gems.

    Paul B: I’ve never been accused of being very generous. Thank you, indeed.

51. Yes Mr Writinghawk @42.

    As I said “Dylan never made anything obvious!”

    To be honest my youthful enthusiasm for his poetry has waned slightly as I believe he tried just a little bit too hard.

    Apparently when asked if he was a “surrealist poet” he claimed not to know what surrealism was! Most disingenuous. (I’m almost certainly misquoting there!)

    However I still believe his prose to be among the finest of the 20th Century.

52. Hi non-Betty

    But how could I have known?

    In rejoinder to ‘jolly’ old War on the Idiots, if you can’t beat ’em, you know what to do.

53. Usual stuff from the usual double-act on the usual subject. Of course it’s an &lit. “required” is fully part of the surface reading in the definitional interpretation.

    Good poems, like good clues, often have many different possible interpretations.

    Th most common interpretation of this particular one (or at least its best-known and most often quoted parts) is that a son is addressing his father, who is not necessarily at that moment in extremis, but certainly looking towards an end in the near future; he is exhorting him to fight it for a bit longer, not to just peacefully slip away; rather the opposite of what many might wish for for their parents when their time comes.

    Presumably (this is not stated) it is so that he might enjoy maybe his company (or at least the knowledge of his existence) a bit longer – he doesn’t want to lose him yet.

    There are other reflections on life generally in the rest of the poem.

    On any interpretation its common use as a valedictory at funerals seems not to be quite right; but then its nearest competitor “The Road not Taken” by Robert Frost was (we are told by its author) written with almost the opposite intent to what we commonly take it to mean.

    Maybe “My Way” on electronic organ is the safest bet after all.

    @rho #50 – it was indeed exactly like one of Araucaria’s celebrated gems – and possibly the best I can recall, apart from those by The Master himself.

54. Last comment on “the poem”.

    Yes it is often bizarrely used as a valedictory!

    The clue of course is in the words which people appear not to read.

    It is “gentle” and NOT “gently.

    It is “rage” and NOT “fight”.

    Naturally all poems have various interpretations but it does appear that the most common one to this poem is not quite correct. Of course this was probably intended by Dylan as he was never knowingly understood!

55. Slightly baffled by the baroque attempts to prove the long clue isn’t an &lit.

    Are people actually saying that the poem does not, as an &lit reading requires, address someone old and encourage them to “rage”? I’m all for radical rereadings but I don’t see where one could go with this one. Practically every other line, including the first one (which I understand is also the title), seems to preclude it.

    Also, nobody has suggested a non-&lit reading, i.e. a separate definition/indication plus “subsidiary” indication (wordplay).

56. @Herb – last line.

    I wondered about that too – but I think it just misses out because “Opener from Dylan” is needed in the wordplay for a D – but those words would certainly do as a definition on their own.

    I also thought that whilst the colon makes it read one way, omitting the colon would have given a slightly different but still valid reading.

57. …and Hendrix’s tribute to Bob Dylan was hidden in the title of his album Electric Lady Land, but you knew that…

58. Combative from Jolly Swgaman. Not necessary.

59. This is becoming The Blog that wouldn’t go Gentle.

    Herb @55 and JS @56

    “Nobody has suggested a non-&lit reading”? How about my original blog, with the D coming from ‘down’? When it was pointed out to me, I felt that the other way was preferable, but it still seems to me that my original thought cannot be dismissed out of hand.

60. You are right!!!

61. I always did wonder what “&lit” meant.

    Still do.

62. I’m sure that’s not meant to be a criticism of the clue in question, Martin P, but that’s what it looks like. Could you clarify?

63. Hi bootikins:

    I’ve been reading this blog for a couple of years now, and have slowly figured out most of its dialect.

    However, I’ve still only a vague idea as to what’s meant by “&lit”.

    (Please don’t start the polemic all over again anyone: with context I’ll probably get there in my plodding way).

64. @PO #59

    Ah yes – missed that – should have read your blog more carefully. So that does indeed make it one of those 3-way jobs which I love and which don’t seem to have a name.

    Ie a full &lit plus a normal 2-way interpretation cleverly done using the dual possibilities of “down”.

    Even better than I originally thought. Brings back memories of Boatman’s great clue – 16d in G 25,555 which you yourself [PO] blogged.

    G 25,555 blog

    but with the current one we have the Araucaria-ness as well.

65. Messed up the link – it’s here:

    http://www.fifteensquared.net/2012/02/10/guardian-cryptic-n%C2%B0-25555-by-boatman

66. Well, the blogger didn’t seem to like that one either, and rightly so.

67. Van Morrison did a tribute to Dylan Thomas, although I don’t think he wrote the song himself.

    I’ll have one more try at linking – no matter if it doesn’t work it’s easily googlable on Youtube.

    http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Professional-Jealousy-lyrics-Van-Morrison/F3FF7F2CB1293EFA48256A34000EF9DF

68. Bob Dylan’s tribute to the poet was to take his name.

69. PeterO@59

    It was all a long time ago but I just noticed your reply and wanted to ackowledge that alternative non-&lit reading. I was distracted by the comments that seemed to think the &lit was not possible at all and forgot all about your original parsing. Oddly enough, I think that was my original thought too, before I plumped for (D)ylan. So sorry about that. I suppose hardly anyone will see this retraction but I understand the blogger does get a notification.

    I still think what I said about “Do not go gentle…” – basically supporting Mr A Writinghawk @37,40,42,46 – is right though, and relevant to anyone who thought the clue couldn’t be &lit because the poem meant something else instead.

70. Nobody’s mentioned “ye” as an antiquated form of “the.” It isn’t, and doesn’t go back any farther than such usages as “Ye Olde Tea Shoppe.” In Old English and in Middle English the alphabet had two letters, “thorn” and “eth”, which were both pronounced like modern “th.” They have disappeared from English but still exist in Icelandic.

    Thorn looks like this: � and eth like this: �. Thorn was misttaken for y, and hence “Ye Olde”. When thorn was still in English, there was not only no tea but probably no shoppes.

    Valentine

71. Well, I read it as a follow on from Araucaria’s last, and hope the rev had a chance to see it for himself.

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