Guardian 26,487 by Nutmeg

48 comments on “Guardian 26,487 by Nutmeg”

1. Thanks manehi. Done in the lunch hour with recourse to Google only to check BLACK ARROW. Thanks for explaining the DEL bit in 4D, the NIC bit in 7D and bloomer=loaf in 23D, but the answers were clear enough. I liked the anagram-handling in 11 and 23A. Full marks Nutmeg.

2. Thanks for TRUMPETER – didn’t know trumper so the parsing was a mystery to me. Er – why does LAME = “game” in 10a? Or am I just thick?

3. OK, I’m just thick. It’s game as in “I’ve got this gammy leg…” isn’t it.
   I also had to Google BLACK ARROW despite owning a copy for years in my youth. I suspect the BLACK ADDER was named as a parody of that title.

4. Thanks, manehi.

   PASTA was last in; I failed to notice Lecturer’s was a homophone indicator.

   All this week seem to have been Xword lites – giving me a chance to finish them, I am pleased to say.

5. Thanks for the blog. Not my cup of tea, I’m afraid. I finished it but quite a few of the answers were a case of spotting them immediately from the crossers and then going back to see how the wordplay worked. It all felt a little dull to me.

6. I agree with post at 5, but I don’t really know why. This is good setting, very accurate, and with some nice misleading definitions, but it lacks maybe a bit of fire. It’s very ‘polite’ or ‘nice’, if that explains anything. Weird.

7. Thanks, manehi. As often, my favourites coincide with yours.

   I couldn’t disagree more with Aoxomoxoa @5. I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle, which, for me, had all of Nutmeg’s customary wit and elegance of cluing. As we often say, isn’t it a good job we’re all different? And that’s why we’re so well catered for, crosswordwise.

   My only [tiny] quibble is that the book is ‘The Black Arrow’.

   Many thanks to Nutmeg for, as manehi says, a fun challenge.

8. And, of course, hedgehoggy, who posted after I began to type.

9. I loved it but still slightly nonplussed re 10 wordplay. never heard of a game called lame but there is one called ducks- no doubt about the answer though

10. Thanks for the help on TRUMPER. I was trying to work out why PETER would have been one unable to follow lead (biblical?) and how RUM could be a note following T.

    Thanks also for DEL for “key”. I often seem to miss that one.

    I wrote in STILE for “a bit of a bloomer” (“could be” = alternative spelling?), but obviously the wordplay went nowhere.

    However, I still do not understand LAME = game. Gammy isn’t gamey to me. Any help here?

11. Hi copmus and Bob Clary

    Chambers – game�: lame; Collins- game�: lame; Collins gives ‘gammy’ as a dialect variant of game�

12. couldn�t 23a be a reference to someone who takes trains not planes?

13. oops I meant 27a, sorry!

14. I found that ‘game’ reference very obscure.

15. Thanks, manehi.

    Pleasant puzzle, neatly clued. KIDNAPPED was the key to the theme for me; I liked the clue for STEVENSON.

    Skilful use of a variety of anagrinds, container indicators and misleading definitions to give good surfaces. I’m surprised I haven’t seen the neat 16d before.

    My only very slight niggles are that ‘ably’ is rather too close to CAPABLY in 1d, and in 6d ‘dropped off’ means ‘fell asleep’ rather than ‘slept’ (= KIPPED).

16. Hi Gervase

    “I�m surprised I haven�t seen the neat 16d before.”

    I have – in an Orlando [not surprisingly] Quiptic, last November:

    Experienced peacekeepers by river (9)

17. Very enjoyable. Watched Black Arrow on TV a few years ago so was able to write the solution in as soon as I read the clue.
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040166/

18. Thanks Nutmeg and manehi. Neither too tricky nor too difficult this one. Having CAPABLE for 1d for a while didn’t help me, but that was the only real stumbling block. UNDERWENT and STEVENSON both very good.

19. Thanks Nutmeg, typically clever cluing.

    Thanks manehi – usual problems with homophones. Down here, we pronounce ‘passed’ the same as ‘parsed,’ but PASTA like ‘rasta.’ Not sure I’ve come across ‘Lecturer’s’ as a hom indicator – I spent ages trying to put ‘don’ in somehow.

    Lots of nice clues; I particularly liked TRUMPETER and ARMISTICE.

20. Thanks Nutmeg and manehi.

    Enjoyed this, TRAINEE, DELEGATES, NICER and SLICE were fun.
    PASTA and ‘passed a’ sound totally different to me!

    There also seems to be a WW1 mini-theme, YPRES, ARMISTICE, POST WAR…

    Gladys @3, was right with ‘gammy’ = game = lame, (OECD, gammy Brit. colloq., game 18th-c. dialect).

21. I don’t think game=lame is obscure at all. I’ve come across it plenty of times over the years.

22. Robi @19: As a Northerner, I had no problem with ‘passed a’ = PASTA, but you’re quite right that southern Britons pronounce the former with a longer ‘a’. Curiously, the opposite is the case in the US, where ‘pasta’ is pronounced with a long low vowel and ‘past’ with a shorter, higher one.

23. I said I FOUND it obscure. That means you can see it however you like, Andy!

    😀

24. I didn’t realise ‘gammy’ was related.

25. ‘Lecturer’s got through a’, ‘got through’ = passed, homophone PAST + A ?

26. Re 10a, I’m sure I’ve come across the expression “a game leg” in old films, and in Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring there’s a song about a chap called Tom who makes the mistake of kicking an old troll up the backside, not realising that the troll’s flesh is “harder than stone”. So having thus injured himself:

    Tom’s leg is game, since home he came,
    And his bootless foot is lasting lame;

27. Thanks to Nutmeg and manehi.
    I think 22d would be more truly &lit if “measure” had been replaced by “music”. I don’t think this would have made the clue any easier than it was.

28. Thanks manehi and nutmeg

    Very enjoyable – particularly liked 28a, 14d and 16d.
    Missed out on 23d – tried spike thinking skew might relate to skewer. The correct answer is very nice.

29. I always enjoy Nutmeg’s puzzles and this was no exception. Found it a bit difficult to get started, but it became fairly straightforward once a few crossers were in place. I’d never heard of BLACK ARROW, but got the theme from KIDNAPPED. Last in was RHYME, liked UNDERWENT and TREASURED. TRUMPER was a great Australian batsman of the so-called golden age of cricket – nice to be reminded of that too…

    Thanks to manehi and Nutmeg.

30. Samba originates in Brazil. Therefore the clue is not &lit.

31. medici @27 – actually the use of the word ‘measure’ is deliberate, as one of its meanings (albeit def 26 in Chambers!) is ‘A Dance’.

    I loved this, but then I love Nutmeg. I think it depends whether you prefer understated elegance or bells & whistles. I think what I like about Nutmeg is that her deception is through clever misdirection rather than (the more blunt instrument of) just picking synonyms/definitions which are wilfully obscure.

32. I did on reflection know that meaning of game – it’s just that at 5 a.m. it wouldn’t come readily to mind. Another CAPABLE for 1d and parsed-a for 9a here too, but homophones are always a minefield.
    Very nice crossword – just difficult enough to make me pleased to finish it without being exhausting. Thank you.

33. @30
    Even if the definition were dodgy it would still be an &lit clue, wouldn’t it, just a bad one?

    But the definition is not dodgy. The relevant sense of adopt (per Chambers) is “take up”. You seem to be taking a different (newer) meaning, the common one which applies to children, and attempting to apply it to the clue, just as the setter was hoping… There is no necessity for adoption (think of adopting a motion) to imply moving from one home to another. Its root meaning is something like decide on, choose, take on. (Latin Optare = choose)

34. I had to check BLACK ARROW too. I found this rather less satisfying than I’d expected. I usually enjoy Nutmeg’s puzzles but this didn’t quite make it for me. Some good stuff though- I loved YPRES and now I understand TRUMPETER,which I guessed, I think quite highly of that.
    Thanks Nutmeg

35. No, adopt = take up. Taking up is not the same as origination. If I take up smoking I do not originate it. Samba ORIGINATES in Brazil.

    Twist and turn as much as you want to 😀

36. It’s not ‘primarily’ South American either: it IS South American, and indeed purely Brazilian. There are West African links, but they do not and did not have that rhythm in West Africa: it originates in Brazil, in fact in Rio.

    Look it up if you like, it’s all there 😀

37. Went quite quickly until the NW corner, despite getting 11a early. I even tried weak-kneed = callow hence CALLS for 13a for a while. And I’m another who missed the homophone indicator at 9a.

38. @36
    No, sorry, but your logic is surely wrong. The fact that something originates somewhere cannot prove that it has not also been taken up, or ‘adopted’, there. “God save the queen” was adopted as this country’s national anthem; it also originated here. It would indeed be slightly surprising, though possible, if Samba had not been taken up in the country where it originated, and in fact it was long ago adopted as a national enthusiasm. I really don’t see how you can stand by your original point if you accept the correct definition of “adopted”.

    Some of your points here have certainly been valid but your analysis sometimes seems to be terribly hasty.

39. I solved 19 quickly, thinking of King Nebuchadnezzar as the dreamer. How sad is that?!

40. Like trailman I had call(ow)s for 13 until I realised that it made 1d impossible. Not one of nutmegs toughest.
    Thanks Manehi for a few missed parsings.

41. Like most Americans, I pronounce “pasta” like the Italians do, and “passed a” with a broad flat A. Thus, not homophone My Canadian acquaintances , by contrast, use the flat A in both words, which sounds hideous. Just data points.

    Of course by now I no longer expect homophone clues to “work” here.

    The clue could have been reworked easily enough as a charade of “past a,” which would have been dialect-independent. But I guess, where’s the fun in that?

42. I finished and parsed all of this in reasonable time.

    However I must agree with Aoxomoxoa and Hedgehoggy in that this somehow didn’t hit the spot. All the cluing is OK but I never actually had any “aha” moments. No criticism of Nutmeg is intended as it’s inevitable that some styles will suit some solvers more than others.

    I agree with Gervase that “KIPPED” doesn’t equate to “DROPPED OFF”. Not for me or apparently the SOED. Not a massive problem though.

    Thanks to manehi and Nutmeg

43. I forgot to mention my main gripe which was 24d.

    Unless we are using the famous “double duty” excuse (song) the clue is surely flawed.

    Also if “song will show it” is the definition we have another problem as all songs don’t “show” rhyme. So we either have no definition or a dodgy one.

    Another excuse maybe that this is a very poor &lit. 😉

44. Re 10A: I parsed it as follows:

    Outgoing Administration (like, say, Mr. Obama’s) = lame

    avoids attending = ducks

    game = lame ducks, like “sitting ducks”

45. On the “pasta” clue, I should probably mention Derek Jeter here. Jeter, a career-long New York Yankee, recently retired, and is a certain Hall of Famer. This based on his skill with the bat, not his wildly overrated work with the glove. Most great shortstops make difficult plays look routine; Jeter made routine plays look difficult. Thanks to the number of times play-by-play announcers described ground balls bouncing “past a diving Jeter,” there’s now this meme where he’s known as “pasta-diving Jeter.” Google it–you’ll even find photo-shopped images of him immersed in spaghetti.

    I don’t know if “pasta” and “past a” are homophones in New Yor but that certainly is some evidence that they are.

46. “The clue could have been reworked easily enough as a charade of �past a,� which would have been dialect-independent” (mrpenney @41).

    But, as Cookie @25, made clear it actually IS a charade of PAST and A.
    I really don’t see the problem.
    We needed more time to justify the indicator (Lecturer’s) and I am still not 100% convinced. However, a lecturer is someone you have to listen to, so perhaps it is similar to ‘on the radio’ and the like.

    We couldn’t find SLICE (23d).
    While I agree with Aoxomoxoa @5 that answers were often clear before parsing the wordplay, I cannot agree with ‘this is not my cup of tea’.
    The clueing as such is generally really excellent, with some great surfaces.
    That said, we weren’t happy with RHYME and we don’t like SAMBA anyway …. 🙁
    Not sure why Nutmeg chose lame = game, as they have three letters in common.

    But a lot to admire.
    Thanks manehi.

47. I haven’t much enjoyed the crosswords so far this week, so this came as welcome relief. A very fine tussle. (I also had “capable” and so didn’t get “yells”.) Thanks Nutmeg and Manehi.

48. ThanksNutmeg and manehi

    Finished this one on the day but only got around to checking it off now. What is not surprising with this setter for me, it brought an error with SLICE – had a tenuous SPIKE in there!

    It was a puzzle that drew a lot of initial errors – had ‘crabbed’ at 1d initially, ‘extract’ at 18d, ‘eyeballed’ at 18a and ‘cuter’ at 7d. This brought on a lot of unnecessary rework. Finally finished with CAPABLY and YELLS as the last two in.

    Thought that DREAM and the clever use of the RLS works were the highlights.

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