Guardian 26,510 by Puck

93 comments on “Guardian 26,510 by Puck”

1. Thank you Puck for a hard solve and Manehi for the blog and for helping to parse 15a and 18d. There is a nina which for once, helped me solve the puzzle. It reads “no longer a never ending paint job” a reference to the fact that it is a myth that the bridge is constantly being painted. LOI was 18d I just did not see that pesky hidden reverse and went on the definition and crossers alone!!

2. By the way, forgot to mention that my COD (like manehi) was 8a!!

3. The reference in the nina is to the change to epoxy paint which means no more painting for 25 years. Supposedly.

   I am puzzled by the definition of KEYPAD, most of the ones I know of are quite handy and calling one an ‘area’ is odd to say the least.

4. Thanks manehi esp for explaining 17 and 20A and 5D. I only got THEURGY when I looked up ‘sheurgy’: I also looked up KISLEV after the event, and that time the strange word was indeed the right one. Had no idea what happened in 1890, and speculated it might be to do with 18D. This was all fair but some of it seemed awkward, eg for the York abbreviation, the magic in my problem answer above, and the NB.

5. Thanks, manehi. I really enjoyed this – I couldn’t fully understand the Nina until the very last clue fell – JERSEY, which is embarrassing since it’s such an old chestnut.

   I assumed the N of NB was from the other end of northern, thus giving “part of northerN Bridge”.

6. Found this a bit of a challenge but was helped by some very good wordplay and by looking up the anniversary before I started! Favourite was 6d.

   As usual, missed the Nina so thanks to those who pointed it out. Thanks too to Puck & manehi.

7. Thanks manehi. I thought the “honour” in 9a was J for Jack, an honour card. Honour = judge = J seems a bit too indirect.

   KEYPAD is part of, or an “area of”, a TV remote control. or just a “remote”.

8. Thanks Puck and manehi
   I didn’t enjoy this much – hard work and few smiles (I missed the nina, of course). I failed on O’KEEFE and NOWADAYS. I looked up Jewish months on Google, but unfortunately found the ecclesiastical calendar, in which the 3rd month is SIWAN, so took a long time to see KISLEV. I was also confused by (J)OCULAR as “in that” led me to expect to remove a letter from within, rather than at the front.

9. A good challenge – I worked through it steadily, and only got the nina near the end. I liked OKEEFFE, NOWADAYS and GLUE in particular. Thanks to Puck and manehi.

10. Thanks, manehi.

    I enjoyed this and found it much easier than the usual Puck. This was because the nina was clearly hinted in the preamble. I found/guessed “never ending paint job” early on, which gave me lots of opening letters at the lhs.

    A little held up at top right as when I entered the first three letters of FREEBORN and pressed check they disappeared, so I had to leave this clue till much later.

11. Thank you all for comments and for nina which I never see. Enjoyed it.

12. I also thought J=Jack in 9a. Thanks for parsing GLUE (I never manage to spot those sliding-letter ones) and for SAUSAGE DOG which I couldn’t quite sort out because of being misdirected by barker=dog as part of the wordplay instead of the def. Cheated THEURGY, KISLEV, O’KEEFFE and CAESURAE so like the Forth Bridge this was unfinished – but fun. Thanks Puck and manehi.

13. Thanks for a great blog, manehi.

    I enjoyed every minute of this puzzle. True to form, I didn’t see the Nina – a very clever one – because I deliberately wasn’t looking for one, expecting to find the theme in the answers [and, of course, it was in the clues!] and, with some difficulty, I’d managed to resist googling any possible anniversary.

    Very clever references to the theme in 11 [loved the misleading ‘northern’] and 14ac and 16 and 18dn, which gets my top marks today for the superb surface.

    I also smiled at the obsequious hotel owner, the Scottish bible, Sue Barker and Dawn French.

    I read 9ac as manehi did – I didn’t think about cards – but I think either works equally well. And I think I agree with NeilW about NB – I hadn’t really thought that one through.

    My only small niggle is, ‘Why do we need ‘female’ in 4dn?

    Huge thanks, as ever, to Puck for a highly enjoyable puzzle.

14. Rather tough – Puckish – but I think I prefer to consume the Puckish wordplays in a lighter setting.

    Another gender issue arises in 17a – Jo doesn’t mean “girl” – it means “darling” – the gender depending on who the speaker is – John Anderson (from Burns’s poem) was not a girl.

    Even so all in all a worthwhile tussle and a great tribute to the two ***English*** engineers who successfully designed the famous bridge.

    We surely need more railway-themed puzzles.

    Even with a preamble I forgot to look for the Nina – but then I’m one of those folk who takes a shopping list to the supermarket and halfway round forget I’ve brought one.

    Many thanks S&B.

15. JS @14
    You are correct about Burns’s “Jo”, but “Jo” is also a diminutive of “Joanna”, a girl. (The diminutive of “Joseph” is generally spelled “Joe”.)

16. Thanks, manehi.

    Highly enjoyable puzzle. The preamble and the grid strongly suggested a peripheral Nina, which helped a lot with the solve. I guessed �NEVER ENDING PAINT JOB from the outer letters I had – the NE corner was the last to yield for me.

    O’KEEFFE was my LOI (her place in New Mexico is well worth a visit if you happen to be in the Santa Fe area). I disagree with Eileen @13 that ‘female’ is unnecessary in 4d. In the context of the clue I found it a clever piece of misdirection, as I assumed that ‘female artist’ was part of a charade (FRA?).

    Although this wasn’t a pushover, by any means, I was expecting more trouble than I found – because my first few entries included KISLEV, THEURGY and CAESURAE, which seemed to have escaped from a barred puzzle!

    I agree with Andrew that the J in 9a is more likely to be ‘jack’, i.e. one of the ‘honours’ in a pack of cards.

    Too many good clues to single out favourites, but the two ‘hidden’ ones (22a, 18d) are particularly fine examples of their class.

    Bravo once again to the p�ka.

17. Thanks Puck and manehi.

    I found this very hard, extra thanks to manehi for a super blog. New words were THEURGY, KISLEV and CAESURAE (spell check does not recognise them either), and the Latin name, Eboracum, for York.

    I did like BASILISK, NOTA BENE, GLUE and OWNS UP among others.

18. I guessed the theme immediately, but it didn’t help me much. I also guessed quickly that there would be a nina around the perimeter. Despite this, I struggled and had to resort to the computer a lot.

    Even so, an enjoyable solve. Thanks, Puck and manehi.

19. I thought this was great – I always seem to miss ninas so I was pleased to spot this one and, like coltranesax, it helped me finish (I was stuck on litany, jersey and okeeffe before seeing it.) Thanks manehi & Puck.

20. CAESURA is a term from (especially classical) poetry: a ‘breath’ – a sort of subliminal comma – near the middle of a line of verse. I have occasionally used it on this site to refer to the break in a cryptic clue between the definition and the subsidiary part. Is there any better word to describe the latter?

21. Thanks Puck, nice setting but the constraint of the NINA meant some unusual words, which made the solve a bit of a slog.

    Thanks manehi, unlike Eileen I did Google and came up with the 125th anniversary of Georgia O’Keeffe in 2012, so assumed the Grauniad was just two-and-a-half years too late! 🙁 2015 is also apparently the 125th anniversary of Van Gogh’s death.

    I did like the clues about Dawn French and Sue Barker.

22. [Robi @21, bit of a stretch from the Langlois Bridge at Arles, now the Pont Van-Gogh, to the Forth Railway Bridge]

23. A good, testing puzzle. I couldn’t finish it without getting some help. O’Keeffe, Alexandria and Theurgy all eluded me. But very enjoyable.

    I see you all discussing NINAs knowledgeably. With it identified, I can see what it is – final letters taken in order around the edges of the completed crossword. Please could someone enlighten me about what the letters, NINA, stand for?

    Thanks DavidS

24. DavidS @23
    It’s explained here (about in the middle)
    http://www.fifteensquared.net/faq/

25. An enjoyable puzzle from Puck IMHO. I saw the nina but I didn’t know what it was referring to despite the hints in some of the clues. I thought the reverse hidden CAESURAE was excellent and it was my LOI, and I was also glad that KISLEV was clued so clearly.

    Count me as another who is sure that J=Jack (honour card) in the clue for OCULAR, and I don’t have a problem with the part of a remote controller that contains the KEYPAD being defined as “a remote area”.

26. Thanks Puck and manehi. I have to admit to looking up what the anniversary was when I was about half-way through; I had enough of the perimeter to realise what was going on then. Eventually only NOWADAYS eluded me.

    Enjoyable enough, though I felt that some obscure words had been chosen to benefit the nina. This might explain the “female” in 4d – perhaps it was an attempt to water down the obscurity.

27. Thanks very much, Muffin @ 24

    That explains it clearly.I imagined it was an acronym, thought the final “a” probably stood for “across” and came up completely blank about what the N,I and N could stand for!

    You’ve saved me from puzzling any longer. Many thanks. David

28. DavidS
    I had exactly the same problem myself a year or two back; some kind soul (Eileen, I expect) pointed me in the right direction then!

29. As soon as I had the N and the O at the top left, I was actively looking for the Nina which helped no end with a couple of clues, 18d in particular.

    Thanks to Puck for an enjoyable celebration and to Manehi for the explanations.

30. Thanks manehi and Puck
    Pretty hard but well worth it. I failed to parse nota bene. I parsed 20a as noways (which I took as opposite of always) including ad.
    For once I actually set out to find the border Nina, which in fact led me to 20a which was my last in. The

31. Re 20a
    I am not at all sure about my own parsing but manehi’s seems to have ‘this time ‘ doing double duty as definition and part of answer.

32. Thanks all for the comments – I actually did a quick glance over the grid (across, down, diagonally…) suspecting a Nina – but as always am completely blind to them.

    I agree with NeilW’s “northerN Bridge”, and with Andrew and others that J[ack]=”honour” seems much more likely with a “bridge” theme.

    Tupu, I don’t use “this time” as part of the answer, though I do reiterate it as the definition just before describing the wordplay – an old habit from my previous blog template. Hope that clarifies.

33. I had a fairly blank NW corner and no hint of a substantial theme, the railway etc references being a bit thin on the ground, so I went nina hunting – and it worked! I don’t often do this and it’s great when it works. Didn’t know O’KEEFFE or THEURGY but thought SAUSAGE DOG was a cracker.

34. I am usually irritated by Puck’s puzzles and this was indeed no exception. Many problems here.

    8a BASIL is dbe; 9a J does not equal ‘honour’ – that is at one remove; 11a ‘cutback’ your Guardianism; 12a massive chestnut; 14a senseless definition; 15a ‘knocked’ is very nice – for the surface; 22a very obscure; 24a ‘with’ is the annoying link word that improves the surface but clouds the answer; 26a ‘last place’ does not equal E; 4d annoying and probably sexist as blogged; 5d senseless wordplay; 6d needs QM: GUID BOOKS is so fanciful; 13d the anagram is only of SAGA: the SUE part ought to be put in as it is; 22d very weak definition.

    I really don’t see what the fuss is about with this writer, it’s always so loose and unfair. For me, of course 😀

35. Thanks manehi. I see it now.

36. What a fantastic puzzle! Total joy beginning to end. All fair clues, and all gettable. Never understand why hedgehoggy does the grauniad puzzles, as he (or she) always hates them! Loved the nina, and I actually spotted it and it was useful.

37. As entertaining as ever from Puck – the “nina” (if it counts as one) definitely helped once the penny dropped, but it must have been responsible for some of the more obscure word choices – KISLEV and THEURGY (my last in) were new to me, as was O’KEEFFE the artist, though familiarity with Australian cricketers of the 70s made that an obvious educated guess. Favourite clue was GUIDEBOOKS, also liked JERSEY, KEYPAD and GLUE.

    Thanks to Puck and manehi

38. Plus �a change, plus c’est la m�me chose – the essential ingredient is humour, and Puck’s crosswords are never short of it, which is why he’s a favourite for some of us. Should have included BASILISK in my list of favourites too…

39. Hedgehoggy @34 – can you please tell us how long you’ve been solving cryptics for – before the web was invented or since crossword blogs appeared giving more chances to be grumpy? I am working on a theory and you may be able to help me prove it.

40. Thanks to manehi for the blog, and to others for their comments.

    With reference to Hedgehoggy @34….

    I am usually irritated by Hedgehoggy�s comments and this was indeed no exception. Many problems here.

    8a BASIL is NOT dbe; 9a J DOES equal �honour� in bridge (thematic)� so that is NOT at one remove; 11a �cutback� your Guardianism – because this IS the Guardian; etc etc.

    I really don�t see what the fuss is about with this commenter, it�s always so loose and unfair. For me, of course 😉

41. Puck @40 – thanks for dropping in, and thanks for saying what many of us have been thinking for months!

42. And the wit about right for the compiler, for me of course 😀

    I went with the blogger on J = Judge, because that is the only representation we have ever heard of, Puck: who would know what you are talking about there? It’s just incredible what you expect.

    I stand by what I said on all clues.

    For james g, well I really don’t always hate them! There are some great puzzles in The Guardian and I always praise the good ones when they come along.

43. HH @42
    Ace, King, Queen, Jack, and ten are “honour cards” in bridge. In some forms of bridge, bonus points are given to hands holding 4 or 5 of the honours in the trump suit. J (for Jack) is therefore fairly obviously an “honour”.

44. Yes, many thanks to Puck and Manehi – terrific puzzle, and I was proud to solve it without resorting to Google. I was looking for a theme in the solutions, and when nothing leapt out, I checked the perimeter for a nina � I much appreciated the way the clues nudged the subconscious to the Forth Bridge. As with others, the nina gave my my LOIs: NOWADAYS, JERSEY (doh), LITANY and O’KEEFFE.

45. hedgehoggy @42: Sorry, but as a fellow setter, I disagree with your last comment and think Puck has it spot on – really, try reading what Puck wrote again and see if you can see why he might be right on each count. The majority of your comments on this site are innacurate due to your own misunderstanding and/or lack of solving experience/ability. The fact that you really can’t see this, after many comments from both other solvers and setters, surely must say something, no?

    One measure of intelligence is our ability to self-analyse and grow as people, no matter how old we get. What makes this life so wonderful, is that if we don’t allow ourselves to get blinkered by all our existing preconceptions, there is wonder and joy to be seen in so many things.

    The alternative is to be like the grumpy pensioner who dismisses all new music as rubbish, just because it doesn’t sound like how it did in the “old days”.

    I’m not saying you have to throw out your love of cryptic grammar, far from it (indeed, you might enjoy my number tricks in next week’s puzzle 🙂 ). Just let yourself be a little more open to new possibilities and to recognise that maybe, just maybe, you’re not always right about things. Who knows, maybe you’ll come to enjoy “Guardianisms” as wonderful things that allow you to appreciate the painting as a whole, rather than complain that the brush strokes in one place don’t go in the direction you like. After all, who’d stand in front of the Mona Lisa and say it’s rubbish just because she’s missing an eyebrow or two? 😉

    In fact, I have a challenge for you! (and to all other posters, for that matter) By all means keep pointing out all the “errors” you see in Guardian puzzles – it’s your prerogative, after all. But for each thing you DON’T like, try including one thing you DO like. 10 “errors” for 10 “likes”. I’m willing to bet if you can keep that up for a month, you’ll start to enjoy Guardian crosswords a little more. If you can’t do that, doesn’t that sound like my pensioner above? Go on, give it a try!

    Best wishes,

    Qaos

46. Qaos @ 45,

    Like 🙂

47. Thanks Puck for the puzzle and manehi for the blog.

    I enjoyed the struggle with this one, scratched head a fair few times, then smiled appreciatively.

    Thanks too to Puck and Qaos for dropping in.

48. I don’t mind ‘new possibilities’, but I do object to poor crafting. To be honest with you Qaos, just a little tidying here and there, even in the Guardian puzzles I do not like, would render them very good. What I don’t understand is why this isn’t done somehwere along the line, because in 99% of cases, this activity would not change the sense of the clues!

    I agree perhaps I am a bit negative though, even where I do try to praise the puzzles (like possibly yesterday’s) which I regard as well-written, so thanks for your comment.

    Hedgehoggy.

49. Unaccountably whistled through this, remembering (only from crosswords, obviously!) Hebrew months and other obscurities: and even seeing the Nina. Enjoyed the wit of the cluing, and had a chuckle at The Guid Book.

50. I suppose ‘honour’ > J (Jack, card) is like ‘model’ > T (Ford, car), which seems to be accepted.

    Thanks again Puck and manehi.

51. A brilliant puzzle,ill deserving the inane ramblings of Hedgehoggy

52. Since Puck gave us a hint in the preamble, I did have a flirt on the internet to see what the anniversary was, but in the end it only helped – eventually – with the perimeter nina. Good fun puzzle, and thanks to manehi for the blog. Wasn’t keen on THEURGY (bit obscure) but liked particularly the clever anagram with NANOTECH.

    This thread is starting to become an opportunity for hedgehoggy to parade his self-importance, so I will have one last comment about this whole thing, having mentioned a couple of weeks ago that he was getting on my tits. Let’s look at the 50 comments so far: ‘enjoyed’, ‘smiled at’, ‘humour’, ‘worthwhile’, ‘enjoyable’, ‘great’, ‘good’, ‘fantastic’, ‘entertaining’, ‘terrific’, ‘chuckle’ … And oh yes, there’s ‘irritated’ and ‘object to’. Well, if 48 comments are positive and two are negative, what does that tell you? If it looks like a good puzzle, feels like a good puzzle, smells like a good puzzle, then it probably is a good puzzle. You are not quite a minority of one, but nearly.

    This is meant to be an entertainment, hedgehoggy. So if Puck puzzles irritate you, why don’t you just puck off and leave the rest of us to enjoy them and comment on the bits that weren’t quite up to your standard? You’re not even that good at understanding them.

53. Thanks to Puck and manehi.

    Loved this puzzle.

    HH @ 48: HUMBUG!

    Cheers…

54. This was great fun. For once I got the nina early on and it made me laugh and helped me finish. I wasn’t thinking of commenting, since everyone else has said most of what I thought; but in response to the Puck,Qaos and hedgehoggy exchanges, may I just say that I am a pensioner who’s been doing Guardian crosswords since my student days. They have certainly changed since then, but why not? I value the challenge that new approaches bring – Puck and Qaos may perhaps remember that I registered appreciation for their efforts in this direction in a fairly recent Guardian letter. Conventions need to be tested, stretched and reinvented; the morning solve would otherwise, for those of us who’ve been at it for half a century or so, become a chore.

55. People don’t have to read hedgehoggy’s comments, it isn’t mandatory. He is always polite in his way.

56. Thanks, Puck, for your usual good fun and manehi for a super blog.

    Like Robi @ 21, I Googled anniversary and came up with Vincent. I was very pleased to spot the NINA with painting already in mind.

    Thanks, Puck and Qaos for dropping in. Enough said.

    Keep them coming.

    Giovanna xx

57. Really enjoyed it (as usual with Puck – and thanks for your comments). Liked the several misdirections. Got the anniversary straight away – having worked in railway industry for yonks. Also expected and unearthed the Nina. NW corner the most difficult to break down. Several smilers – 6d, 13d, 18d.
    Good to see sentiments from Qaos too.
    Blogs are never at their best in handling differences of opinion, but HH I do feel you’re missing something fundamental about the spirit rather than the letter of the law, as it were. It does become wearying rather than edifying (although do I detect you’re becoming a wee bit more open-minded?) 🙂
    Many thanks to Manehi

58. Hh@42
    “I went with the blogger on J = Judge, because that is the only representation we have ever heard of, Puck: who would know what you are talking about there?”

    Apart from all the people who pointed it out in this thread ? Let’s see … People who play bridge, people who have seen the device before, people who think about the theme as well as the clues and people who take the trouble to check before complaining – it’s even in the dictionary. However, I sympathise. I too wish that setters would tailor their clues to suit only what I already know.

    “It�s just incredible what you expect.”

    Quite.

59. Sometimes I agree with HH; more often I don’t. However I think that he is entitled to his (?) opinions – it’s always possible to skip over his posts if you fear that they might give offence (though you would miss a lot of entertainment!)

60. HH is indeed entitled to his opinions, but as Puck and Qaos have pointed out, they often seem to be not very well thought through, and almost always err on the critical rather than on the generous side.

    Hope springs eternal. Maybe he will amaze us all one day with an unqualified five-star review!

61. @hh
    PLEASE get someone you trust to explain the meaning of definition by example. The fact that you keep getting it back to front really undermines any claim you might have to criticising “poor crafting”. If you can’t see where a DBE is being used, or why it matters, it’s hard to see why you’d give a damn about any other genuine shortcomings, or indeed be able to spot them. Your DBE comments are the equivalent of complaining that an anagram is no good because it has the same letters as the answer – that bad.

    Also, NO experienced solver could say what you did about “honour”.

62. Qaos – loved your comment. Puck – thanks for the puzzle and for dropping in. Manehi thanks for the blog.

    I was brought up in Edinburgh. I got the anniversary immediately. It helped me not a bit in a tough solve, and I missed the Nina.

    Never mind. Arsenal won, and I am happy.

63. I missed the theme entirely so I found this a bit of a joyless slog.

    I’m confused in 6D. What is the apostrophe in “bible’s” for – I can’t see any role for it at all & it doesn’t appear in the answer.

    4D – Is there a standard way of representing Irish names that start with O’? As I’m Irish myself I would have written that clue as 1,6 rather than 7. I would never consider that as 1 word (& because of that I didn’t get the answer despite having -k-e-f-).

64. A really enjoyable puzzle.

    I got about three quarters of the way through and had reached an impasse! However help was at hand. I had been puzzling about the “Special Instructions”, half expecting some clues without definitions but none had arrived. Then the miracle happened. I saw a NINA!!!!!! At least the the NEVER ENDING PAINT JOB part of it.

    All then made sense. I saw the very obvious hints in many clues that had passed me by. I completed the NINA and the extra letters made the completion a doddle.

    I take back all my comments about NINAs although I hold to my opinion on pangrams 😉

    Surely HH has finally gone too far? Despite being wrong on almost all counts he insists on trying to defend his position despite PUCK and many others pointing out his obvious errors.

    Finally I must also disagree with Eileen. I would never have got OKEEFFE without the “Female”. Of course that probably means I am sexist or possibly a misogynist, although it would be the first time I have been accused of such “crimes”.

    Thanks to manehi for the blog and to Puck for a great puzzle.

65. I am with the minority that this wasnot such a hard crossword.
    We did find the nina and we saw all these rails and trains but we didn’t have a clue what this was all about.
    However, this puzzle could just as easily (and enjoyably) be solved without having any knowledge of the theme.
    So, many thanks to Puck for the crossword.
    And for his comment(s).

    Qaos @45, you’re a star.
    Well spoken, polite and clear.

    Your points are similar to the ones in my late post (@41) in the recent Picaroon blog (27 Feb).
    I wrote:
    “While I often do agree with some (sometimes many) of your remarks, there is also an overall feeling to a crossword.
    For me, this feeling can easily overrule a handful of technical flaws.
    I just wonder, how do you solve a crossword?
    Filling the grid, meanwhile ticking boxes?
    What gives you pleasure when solving a puzzle?”

    and:
    “By the way, I would like to emphasise that I do not find your posts offensive in any way (though often negative) unlike those of some of your criticasters.
    Yet, I ask myself: why are you always focusing on the minus points of a crossword? You hardly ever (well, sometimes you do in the Indy blogs [like in yesterday�s indeed fabulous Klingsor]) give room for the plus points.”

    Unfortunately, hedgehoggy did not reply.
    What crypticsue (@39) says today is something that’s also not unimportant.
    Recently, hedgehoggy admitted never to have seen D = director before.
    My thought was ‘how experienced are you’?
    Now that is not a point as such. I know pretty well myself what it means to start from point zero. But hedgehoggy’s comments suggest that he is a very knowledgeable solver.

    As I said above, I do often understand hedgehoggy’s objections.
    But in the blog of the recent Crucible he had a lot of things wrong.
    You cannot qualify ‘too easy’ and ‘the device shouldn’t have been an anagram’ as errors.

    Today, saying that 4d is ‘sexist’ and that 5d has ‘senseless wordplay’ is way off the mark for me.
    Yes, it is unfortunate that in 5d ‘northern’ has an N at the start and the finish, and yes, ‘part of’ is perhaps not specified enough but the whole idea behind this clue is lovely. And not unknown to experienced solvers, Anax has done things like this before. [or should I put a question mark here as it is a dbe … 🙂 ]

    22d (KEYPAD) is, in my opinion, a lovely clue.
    I tried to clue this word recently myself (but with a thematic restriction) and I couldn’t. I changed the words in the grid.
    ‘In a remote area?’, isn’t that great?

    If in 26ac the E comes from [plac]E, I am with hedgehoggy.
    However, I like to think that it is ‘last place in THE’ (=E) – problem solved.
    And, dear hh, 13d can be read as (SAGA around SUE)*.
    Complaining about ‘cutback’ as a Guardianism – now, come on!

    Thanks manehi.

    Oh, I almost forgot to say what a wonderful clue 18d was.
    Backwards hidden in a sentence that makes sense – wow.

66. @Sil

    “a handful of technical flaws”

    How many times does this need to be said?

    There are no technical flaws – it’s like the various codes of football. There is more than one valid set of rules.

    It’s not a case of your rules being the only rules and you’ll forgive a few “technical flaws” if they generate enough fun.

    ——————————————–

    @muffin #15 – thanks for putting me right on Jo – I’ll buy that one.

67. “There are no technical flaws” ?
    “It�s not a case of your rules being the only rules and you�ll forgive a few �technical flaws� if they generate enough fun” ?

    You are just like hedgehoggy but then at the other end of the spectrum.

68. Re Herb, (as it were) BASIL is not an ‘obsequious hotel owner’, but a male first (or Christian) name. So hedgehoggy is right: it’s DBE! As there are other nauseating hoteliers, famous or not, why not just use FAWLTY? Maybe Guardian solvers are too sophisticated to make the link? Wotevs. I’ll give him 9/10 for his analysis, errors passim notwithstanding, but he could just try to be a bit more human.

    Swagman talks trash as usual. The ‘rules’ are those of simple grammar, as The Erinaceous One among others states elsewhere, Barnard or no. There’s no special case for crosswords (witness MacNutt and Manley), as perhaps he himself observes, but if that’s the case he misses his own point by a country mile.

69. NB whilst ‘Fawlty’, since it is a ridiculous name, may not be dbe, even that is a risk, and should be qualified.

70. What is DBE? Please!!

71. It’s Definition By Example. Eg if you used ‘Basil’ to clue ‘obsequious hotel owner’. But Puck’s used ‘obsequious hotel owner’ to clue Basil, which is not a DBE and I can’t see how anyone could think it is. HH making that mistake is bad enough but that PaulB should support him is bizarre.
    Puck, loved the puzzle and loved your comment

72. “HH making that mistake is bad enough but that PaulB should support him is bizarre.”

    Yes – quite a coincidence – I wonder what Rowland would have thought.

73. “You are just like hedgehoggy but then at the other end of the spectrum.”

    I really don’t care for your patroninsing gratuitous offensiveness – intended to suggest that anyone (me in particular) who understands and enjoys puzzles which are logically clued but don’t conform to your personal understanding of how the clues should work are happy with clues done any old how.

    It’s a shame for those who have had to read their way in in recent years since the literature has been dominated by axe-grinders pushing exactly that line – and a lot of people have been taken in.

    Suggest you get hold of Barnard’s book and read it. Even if you prefer one over the other you will have to accept that the two seminal writers – Barnard (1963) and McNutt (1966) – define two different (even if considerably overlapping) cluing grammars – rulebooks – call them what you will but they’re both valid and clearly there’s more than one of them.

    I bet you weren’t a solver back then – I was.

74. Started this late yesterday and only finished it this AM. Didn’t see the Nina and didn’t get the anniversary. I found this very difficult but I thought,in retrospect, that it was an extremely clever puzzle but I’m relieved to see that today’s puzzle is by Paul!

75. In the BASILISK clue, the definition is “legendary slitherer” – I don’t see any dbe there. BASIL is part of the wordplay, and surely using a DBE there, particularly one this well signposted, ought to be fair game. Unlike some, I don’t enjoy being confrontational, so I only resort to such posts when sorely provoked (and there are persistent offenders on both sides of this argument). HH likes to call clues “unfair”, well “nothing’s fair in this world”.

76. One day late again, as usual due to paper delivery in rural remoteness. What a cracking puzzle! For the first time ever we got the Nina halfway through, which was a great help with some of the strange words (which in turn were caused by the needs of the Nina). One last comment on hedgehoggy: I sometimes get cross with clues, occasionally with whole crosswords, but how boring they would be if they stuck to such a rigid code as his. Lighten up, my man! It’s meant to be entertaining.

77. This seems an ok summary of the DBE rule:

    The Dbe rule is not infringed if the thing clued (i.e answer or part of it) is an instance of the word(s) in the clue.

    If “Basil” is an example of an obsequious hotel owner, then it is not DBE. It/he surely is, so there’s no DBE – the other way round would be DBE. Paul B’s objection, that there are too many Basils and that it has another primary use, is another matter (and also I think mistaken – it’s true, but not a problem, especially given Basil is a rare name and this Basil probably the most famous one. Cf “comedian” for “Marx” the other day – there are a lot of Marxes out there too, and at least one of them more famous).

    I think what may be happening here is that hh and pb are asking themselves “can obsequious hotel owner” be read as an example of a Basil?”. With some violence, it can, but that is to misread the clue; we can far more easily read Basil as an example of an obsequious hotel owner, and that leads us to the answer. Your misreading cannot be laid at the door of the setter! I hope people will not be misled by the fact that Paul B is himself a setter – this is a simple, and as Louise says @71, bizarre mistake. In Paul B’s defence, he was posting very late at night.

    I don’t see the point of JollySwagman’s resistance to the notion of a technical flaw either. Perhaps the phrase is a little unfortunate, but it can obviously be useful now and again (a phrase that is ungrammatical is surely technically flawed, in a clue or elsewhere?)

78. No, BASIL is a man’s name, as has been correctly stated. You are wrong about this. Basil Fawlty is only an example of an obsequious (etc) 😀

79. @78
    If Basil is an example of an obsequious hotel owner then it can’t be definition by example. Think about it. Pacino is only an example of an actor; would you object to Pacino being the answer to a clue with definition “actor”? DBE is when the answer ISN’T an example of the thing in the clue. It’s when the setter gets it the wrong way round. That is the entire rule. Do you see why it would be a problem, and why calling Pacino an actor, or Basil Fawlty a hotel owner, wouldn’t?

80. According to the traditional rules for DBEs stated by both McNutt and Barnard (but which many now feel should not be immutable):

    Animal can clue DOG because a dog is an example of an animal – animal being the general class.

    If dog (the example) were to clue animal (the general class) it would be a DBE.

    Obsequious hotel owner can clue BASIL because BASIL is an example of an OHO – OHO being the general class.

    If BASIL (the example) were to clue OHO (the general class) it would be a DBE.

    In the instant case OHO clues BASIL – so it is not a DBE.

    —————————————————————————-

    @Herb The term “technical flaw” assumes that there is a universally accepted set of rules at least one of which has been broken.

    For the I-don’t-know-how-manyeth time there is not a universally accepted set of rules – there is more than one valid approach.

    During the late 60s the Guardian hosted both the leading ximenean setter of his day (Custos) and the leading non-ximenean setter of his day (and indeed of all time) Araucaria. Their approaches (ie their grammars) were different – everyone knew what to expect.

    Non-ximenean puzzles are not ximenean puzzles with a few “technical flaws” thrown in for fun – they typically use more devices and follow different grammatical rules.

    But you are right about DBEs – as indeed you were on the previous recent occasion:

    http://www.fifteensquared.net/2015/02/03/guardian-26485-by-picaroon/

    when both HH and Paul B (quite coincidentally of course) got it wrong.

81. BASIL is a man’s name, as previously stated.

82. The clue is thus Fawlty 😀

83. To define BASIL properly in the way that that clue wants to do it, you’d have to say ‘Fawlty for one’ or something like that.

84. The clue refers to a specific BASIL i.e. Mr FAWLTY, it does not refer to Basil as a generic man’s name nor is it relevant that anyone else might be called Basil – is that not clear enough?

85. Re DBEs: the way I see it, a DBE is when a group (e.g. a city) is defined by an example of one of its members (e.g. Bath). So BATH in the clue to give the answer CITY is DBE and needs to be “Bath, perhaps” or similar. Conversely, CITY in the clue to give the answer BATH is not DBE as city is not an example of Bath. Everyone seems agreed on that.

    It gets more complicated when names are involved. Obviously there are quite a few Basils around so BASIL in the clue to give the answer FAWLTY is DBE. The other way round, well, there must be a few people called Fawlty in the world so technically FAWLTY in a clue to give BASIL is also DBE (HH is right about this). But in reality how may famous people do we know of called Fawlty? Just the one, so indicating the DBE is probably unnecessary.

    This is further complicated as we have a third dimension (obsequious hotel owner). If BASIL or FAWLTY or both were in the clue to give “OHO” (or a synonym if there is one) that would definitely be DBE. But the other way round, we have a description in the clue rather than an example – “OHO” isn’t an example of Basil Fawlty but a description of him. There are plenty of “OHOs” of which one is Basil (Fawlty) so I can’t see this is DBE.

    Hope that makes sense. All this talk about Basil Fawlty gives me the incentive to watch my Fawlty Towers DVDs again. Manuel?

86. I know nothing … I come from Malaga

87. Have you lot listened to yourselves ? My God, get a life.

88. @87
    Get a life? You mean, spend our Friday nights online reading comments about crosswords, then slagging them off of in the style of a 14-year-old schoolboy? I’ll think about it.

89. Between us we regularly manage to solve the cryptics but often have to consult fifteensquared afterwards to find the whys and wherefores for some answers and this week was no exception! One slight problem – all the references we’ve managed to find to the israeli calendar list Kislev as the 9th month, not the 3rd one. Did anyone else have this problem? Can anyone explain?

90. The KPs: Wikipedia has Kislev as “the third month of the civil year and the ninth month of the ecclesiastical year on the Hebrew calendar” [wiki].

91. The KPs @89
    From Chambers: “The third (ecclesiastically ninth) Jewish month, parts of November and December”.

    From Collins: “(in the Jewish calendar) the ninth month of the year according to biblical reckoning and the third month of the civil year, usually falling within November and December”.

    From Oxford on-line: “(In the Jewish calendar) the third month of the civil and ninth of the religious year, usually coinciding with parts of November and December”.

92. In the Weekly Guardian, the special instruction did not appear – why?

93. Many thanks Manehi and Gaufrid!

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