Guardian 26,475 by Tramp

51 comments on “Guardian 26,475 by Tramp”

1. Thanks Tramp and PeterO

   Having developed and printed lots of photos in my time, I would argue that in a darkroom a film cannot be seen. In amateur darkrooms the film is/was put onto the spiral by feel. However, I acknowledge that after developing and fixing the film (negatives) could be seen.

2. Thanks Peter. Never having heard of the bird and ignorant of the quote, I spent an hour on this sans aids. Googling educationally afterwards I discovered, re 19D, that eyes popped over MK in BIKINI. On 22A the bank ref is just standard financial language. Good fun, thanks Tramp.

3. Thanks, PeterO. I enjoyed this although, not being familiar with the long quotation, I needed most of the crossers to work through the anagram and so made more of a meal of the puzzle than I would otherwise have done. A theme in the finest Guardian tradition, I thought. 🙂

4. Excellent puzzle! A worthy follow on to Puck’s the day before! The surface is full of UK election issues…of taxes and cuts and Tory and and Labour! Thanks PeterO and Tramp. Too many favorites but if I were to name one it is 13d.

5. thanks to Tramp for a most unusual (yet very Tramp-like now I come to think of it) idea and to PeterO for the blog. Ms Klass has (fairly) recently ventured a controversial opinion on a suggestion by UK opposition parties that a tax be raised on residential properties valued above GBP 2MM; this is commonly referred to as the “mansion tax”

6. Thanks Tramp and PeterO

   I found this difficult – I too had to work hard with crossers on the long anagram (in contrast to my usual moans about “solving from the letter pattern”), so it was satisfying to finish, although I didn’t parse ORDER, EROGENOUS or REASON OUT, and also wondered about the LINE in 22.

   [I too only knew CHARIVARI from the London variety, so I looked on Wikipedia:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charivari
   I was amused by the idea of using the discordant noise also to encourage engaged couples to get on with it and wed!]

7. Can I add my bit to the praise for a nicely challenging yet solvable puzzle this morning. Not seen avarice in plural form before, but it looks ok. Thanks to both.

8. Surely bank is a line on the underground?

9. Parky @8
   Station rather than line, I think. It’s on the Central Line and the Waterloo and City Line.

10. Muffin@9. Yes, but I have a memory of an old link through a tunnel to some post office or other (which I confess I can’t find on Google), of should I just give it all up!?

11. The Waterloo and City is sometimes called “the drain”, I think.

    There was an underground post line, I remember, but I don’t think it went to Bank.

12. Found it! There was an underground post line, closed in 2010, and nowhere near Bank! Sorry for the waste of time.

13. A nicely challenging solve. I vaguely remembered the quotation which helped.

    Thanks to Tramp, PeterO and Myleene!

14. Lovely puzzle – many thanks to Tramp and PeterO. I didn’t know the Tempest quotation but worked it out eventually. Couldn’t parse EROGENOUS or OVEREATS.

15. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Post_Office_Railway]

16. I really enjoyed this puzzle and its theme. Count me as another who didn’t know the line from The Tempest so I needed almost all of the checkers before I got it, and after I did DARKROOM was my LOI.

17. @Parky

    I wouldn’t want to hijack the thread unduly but Bank station is set quite deep (Northern Line, Central Line, W&C Line, Docklands Light Rwy) and is connected by stairs and escalators to the much shallower Monument station (District& Circle). It used to be possible to enter Monument Station at Fish St. Hill and walk underground all the way to the Cheapside exit opposite what is now the Coq d’Argent.
    That should guarantee me the Boring Post of the Year Trophy, with any luck

18. Thanks Tramp and PeterO.

    Myleene Klass certainly seems to be running through this puzzle, as does Ed Milliband and the Labour Party (9a, 10a, 13d).
    Klass attacked Ed Milliband on ITV’s ‘The Agenda’ programme over the proposed Mansion Tax (12a, 18a, 24d).
    Klass auctioned on e-Bay her white BIKINI worn on the ‘I’m a Celebrity…Get Me out of Here’ TV series to raise money for victims of the Farepak savings scandal.
    Klass has frequently modelled (15d).
    Klass suffers from sexual frustration (25a).
    Klass has been an amateur astronomer most of her life (1a).
    ‘Mansion Tax is Pure and Simple’, Ed Milliband hitting back at Klass (24d).

    Estates, piles, mansions, houses of parliament, ordinary houses and homes also seem to be running through.

19. Thanks OeterO and Tramp
    An excellent puzzle and a great improvement on yesterday’s.
    Charivari is usually known as ‘rough music’ in Britain. It has a complex history and forms of it have been found over much of Europe as far as Russia. It was used by local folk to discipline a wide variety of offenders. A main account of it is in E.P.Thompson’s Customs in Common. An Amercan form is known as Shivari.

20. Thanks PeterO for the splendid blog (I thought I got up early).

    I wrote this puzzle in November 2014 after reading about Myleene Klass’s rant at Ed Miliband (see link). A privileged celebrity not being able to see the real world through her gold-plated bubble.

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/18/myleene-klass-ed-miliband-mansion-tax

    I asked whether it could be used soon due to its topical theme. There is no mystery as to why the puzzle was put back six days. Hugh had a few issues with the first draft and I had about a week to address them. I was busy and couldn’t guarantee that I would get them done in time, so Hugh took the precaution of moving it back, as he didn’t want to wreck my weekend. In the end, I could have made the initial date.

    The original clue for 14, 28, 21, 4 was:

    Poor Myleene Klass thrived – financial quotation (The 27) (1, 4, 7, 3, 4-4, 5).

    Although this is not a well-known quotation, it is in ODQ and I thought that if the clue were in a Prize puzzle, it could be justified. I think in this clue, the anagram is clearly indicated and, given the solution to 27, the source is stated so solvers could either work it out from crossing letters or look it up. Hugh thought it would be intractable for many solvers as nothing in the clue points to the nature of the quote, hence, I added the “red herring?” and “How it stinks” bits. I feel this spoiled what was a neat clue but I do see Hugh’s point: I still think the original clue would have been justifiable in a Prize puzzle.

    I had to argue that “bank”/”line” are synonymous. I think they are; a bank of keys on a typewriter is a row or line of keys, according to Chambers. Similarly, I also had to argue that “me”/”us” can be the same thing: give us a kiss.

    My original clue for 12 was:

    Mansion? Charge fortune (4),

    but there was some debate as to whether “charge” and “pile” are synonymous — I think they are as in “we will all pile/charge round to his house”, but I conceded. I’m happy with the rewrite though.

    Out of interest, I wanted to get a reference to “Pure and Simple” in there because of Miliband’s tweet (see link above).

    Thanks for the comments

    Neil

21. Very nice topical puzzle. 24a is a particularly nice surface: “Pure and Simple” was the best known single by Hear’Say, the band that brought Mylene Klass to the public eye.

22. Thanks Tramp for an interesting but challenging solve.

    Thanks PeterO, I appreciate the grid below the blog.

    As I may have said before, a crossword editor (not Hugh!) once said that long, linked phrases/quotations should be avoided because either you know them and they are a write-in, or you don’t, which leads to frustration. I didn’t know this one but eventually put it together with most of the crossers filled. I did, however, like the interweaving of the MK and TEMPEST themes. As I don’t watch ‘Celebrity’ I didn’t get the BIKINI reference, (is BOTTOM LINE also part of the theme? 😉 ) although I did see MK giving Miliband a pasting over the mansion tax (but then Wiki says she is worth at least £11m – probably a lot more by now!)

    I liked the DARKROOM, despite Kevin @1’s reservations.

23. Thanks PeterO, and fine work, Tramp. I can only imagien the look on MK’s face when told that she’d had the micky taken out of her by a whole crossword – particularly if cryptics are not her forté.

    I don’t think I’ve seen me = us before, but the usage is very common up north, so I’m happy with it.

    I was unfamiliar with the long quotation, but it was perfectly easy to derive from the clue and few checkers. The edited version of the clue helped, but I’d agree that the original was a neater clue.

24. baercher @5 and (especially) Cookie @18

    Thanks for the info. The connections seemed probable, but given the time constraints I could not dig them out.

    Particular thanks to Tramp for dropping in, and providing the background. Incidentally, it is not a matter of being an early riser: I live in New York, and Thursdays crossword arrives at 7pm. Wednesday. I generally try to put the blog and myself to bed by 10, or not too long after.

25. Schroduck @21, do you think Milliband had Hear’Say’s debut single ‘Pure and Simple’ in mind when he hit back at Mylene, or was it just chance?

26. Thanks Tramp and PeterO.

    I loved the Klass-bashing theme even though I failed to complete the crossword unaided – CHARIVARI, which I’d never heard of, and PILE defeated me. I also needed help parsing AVARICES, OVEREATS, and BIKINI – ‘wearing’ = IN just didn’t click for me. MERE also took me ages to parse because I got it fixed in my mind that ‘about’ was an envelope indicator and so spent too long trying to understand ‘pure’ = ER – which of course it doesn’t.

    Gripes? For once I don’t have any! 🙂

27. Angstony @26

    I did not get around to mentioning it before, but note that we have ‘about’ in three clues here – 25A and 1D as well as 24D – all used differently, and none of them an envelope indicator.

28. I quite enjoyed this although I had problems parsing several eg. OVEREATS. I’ve never heard of CHARIVARI nor of AVARICE as a plural, and I didn’t know the quotation but, knowing it was from the TEMPEST,I was able to look it up. I know very little about the talentless and reactionary Klass but I was rather glad to see Tramp taking the mick out of her.
    Roll on the mansion tax!

29. A most enjoyable puzzle. As an overseas solver who had never heard of Myleene Klass, and didn’t know the Tempest quotation, I was nevertheless able to solve the puzzle in about 75 minutes, with a little scribbling on the side.

    But I don’t see why anyone would want to pick on Myleene Klass. She seems to be an admirable woman who studied hard in her youth, and managed to earn a large fortune entirely through her own efforts and talents.

    The mansion tax doesn’t make any sense to me either. If a fellow works hard and pays taxes, why should the government care what he spends his money on? Suppose he buys a £2 million car, or a £2 million pound stereo instead – there’s no annual tax on that, right?

30. Enjoyed this a lot. It felt fair and challenging for me. Many thanks PeterO and Tramp. Now to test us maths.

31. vinyl/1 @29, what concerned Myleene Klass in particular was that there are many elderly people living in old family homes that have soared in value, especially in London, people quite unable to pay a mansion tax.

32. I found this one pretty difficult, and didn’t finish it until I was on the bus home – the long quote meant nothing to me and had to be teased out slowly and even after that there were plenty more tricky parsings – for me not one of Tramp’s best but still entertaining in places. Needless to say I know very little about Ms Klass, but as always with Tramp specialised knowledge was not required. Last in was AVARICES.

    Thanks to PeterO and Tramp

33. Thanks Tramp and PeterO

    PeterO @ 27: I have a slightly different take on 24D, where I think ‘about’ *is* a containment indicator.

    I see the definition as ‘simple’ and the construction as as M _ _ E [Myleene gutted] surrounding [about] ER [RE ‘up’ ie PURE separated, and then reversed]. I don’t know of ‘mere’ meaning pure, but certainly know it as simple / only.

    Possible?

34. Cookie@31: that might be her problem with the mansion tax but I don’t remember her complaining about the bedroom tax. Maybe I’m being cynical.

35. vinyl1 @ 29:
    This isn’t really the place for a political debate about the merits of flat versus progressive taxation systems, but you should know that in this country we already have a semi-progressive (banded) property value based local taxation system (called ‘council tax’) as that’s a good general indicator of personal wealth. The problem is its upper limit is considered by many to be unfair, as it means millionaires and above pay a significantly smaller proportion of their income towards local services. I personally think the Labour proposal is crude, preferring instead the Lib-Dem proposal to extend the existing council tax banding, but in either case it is inconceivable that a system would be introduced that didn’t give rebates to people for whom the rating is more than they can reasonably afford, just as already exists within the council tax system. In my opinion Klass was being disingenuous in her criticism because it was her own wealth she was really concerned about, not the welfare of pensioners who just happen to own multi-million pound properties. As far as I’m aware she’s never spoken out against the current government’s benefit cutting policy that has seen countless people lose their family homes simply because they had more bedrooms than was deemed necessary.

36. Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel? Tramp,apparently.

37. Most enjoyable – great theme and tight, concise clueing. Liked EXAMINATIONS, PILE and BIKINI especially.

38. More politics I’m afraid…

    Angstony @35 – that may be how you imagine the world is for those of us who live on a tiny income. But my wife’s and my combined income is about £10,000 (self employed teachers). Because of that we are lucky to qualify for £5,000 Tax Credits to help bring up our children. But out of that we have to pay £2,500 Council Tax!

    They deem that the tiny cottage we live in is in a high band, so will only allow a small percentage of the bill to be offset by Council Tax Benefit, and by the time they have introduced all the arbitrary disallowances which they have set up, you find you qualify for nothing. Added to that, self employed people are made to do completely new sets of accounts for time periods decided on by the council, and then they ask you to do this about every two months, which takes so much time that in the end you just have to give up.

39. Tricky but got there in the end. Googled the quote once I had surmised “a very fish smell”! 12a is my favourite which seems apt given the motivation for the puzzle.

40. This was one of the “good” Anglocentric puzzles: I didn’t need to know anything about British current events, but learned about them nevertheless.

    I had never heard of Klaas, and know nothing about current British general-election issues. The Tempest quote rang a bell, and the “red herring” proved to be anything but: it was what allowed me to fill in “A very … and fishlike smell,” and then the rest of the anagrind was quickly reduced to “ancient.”

    On the other hand, Charivari was new to me, and I was unable to get that one.

    I was hoping for the quote to have some relevance to the rest of the theme(s), but apparently not.

41. Also, as a resident of Chicago, it’s kind of sad to see the musical (which is wonderful) referenced in British crosswords so much oftener than the city itself (which is even more wonderful).

    In addition to the musical and play, there’s also the movie (2002 Academy Award for Best Picture, with Gere, Zeta-Jones, and Zellweger).

    In a New York Times puzzle I recently did, there was a clue for “Chicago co-star” and I had Z——–; I confidently put “Zellweger,” when what was wanted was Zeta-Jones. Threw me off for a good ten minutes.

42. Charivari is just one of those words once heard never forgotten for me. Great puzzle, a pig to see into and realise Myleen has very little to do with it. A masterpiece of misdirection, Thanks Tramp & Peter

43. Vinyl1 You have repeated Klass’s self serving excuse for an argument which only demonstrates your gullibility. The wealthy are clearly quite safe when they can count on others to squeal on their behalf. Oh,and Klass makes lousy records as well.

44. Tramp @ 34, who could think up such a sick thing as the bedroom tax. Are you fighting it, or anyone on this site?

    I had never heard of Myleene Klass until this morning. I am a New Zealander and I don’t live in the UK. You get what you vote for.

45. What??
    Tramp writing a crossword with a Shakespeare quotation in it??
    This will surely be a one-off thing, I guess? 🙂

    Good puzzle (of course) with a lot of cuts, lefts, abouts, mansions and taxes (often used in different ways, a la Boatman).
    Last one in was 25ac – took a while to parse EROGENOUS, especially since ‘sexy’ is a potential anagram indicator.

    Thanks, PeterO.

    BTW, I think there’s nothing wrong with Tramp’s original clue for 14,etc. The key thing is (The 27), and not the fishy smelly bit.

46. I see that Vinyl/1 and myself are regarded as gullible. We probably don’t live amongst such a cynical people as you in the so called United Kingdom.

    I can see why the Times does not allow living people to be referred to in their crosswords, apart from their probable fear of libel.

47. Arvenius @ 38:
    I’m aware there are serious flaws in the council tax system and rating/rebate levels can be a postcode lottery. I didn’t mention it in my previous comment, but I actually think a local income tax would be a far fairer system. Unfortunately that’s not presently being proposed by any of the major parties. So often with politics it’s a case of picking the least terrible option from a bad lot.

    None of that changes my main point though, that Klass’s concern for propertied grannies rang somewhat hollow.

48. As Cookie says @46, The Times doesn’t allow living people getting a mention in crosswords.
    Their crosswords are very precise (which I [just like hedgehoggy, who wasn’t here tonight] really appreciate) but the lack of real people etc makes them also less ‘exciting’, if that’s the right word.

    I prefer the policy of the Guardian (and the FT and the Independent) which does allow using names of living people.

    However, a couple of years ago I had a short exchange of emails with Monk (Indy/FT setter). At one point, I showed him a clue that I was really proud of (at that time). Apart from the fact that the clue was faulty, he also mentioned the fact that, in the surface of the clue, I shouldn’t have given an opinion on the ‘event’ that was the solution to this clue. I cannot say what it was here as I still want to use the idea at some point.

    I think, Monk was right.
    I like using living people (politics, football, music) but one should avoid ‘opinions’ that could or might be seen as libellous.

    While I agree politically with Tramp and while indeed the Guardian is a left of centre newspaper, it is walking on thin ice.

49. Last time I remember the “who breaks a butterfly on a wheel” quote being used it was about another pop singer with a huge fortune and an unhealthy concern for hanging on to it – Mick Jagger. And that was 45 years ago!

50. Thanks Tramp and PeterO

    Very late to it … after initially putting it away when couldn’t get a start into it a month ago ! This time after getting a start in the NW corner, was able to complete what was a very enjoyable puzzle.

    Like many, I also did not know the quote – but after many crossers was able to piece together the individual words and look up the quote later.

    Lots of interesting devices and his typically clever misdirection endorsed the effort to complete it.

    As with many of Tramp’s puzzles, the ghost theme (that I didn’t understand contextually before coming here) provided an interesting sideshow without impacting on the solving of it.

51. brucew@aus – I also put it to one side though hadn’t attempted ’til now. Lovely puzzle. Surprised by vinyl1’s comparisons; they are only apt if houses don’t appreciate in value or if both £2m stereos and cars do! I’m with Tramp all the way…..!

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