Guardian Cryptic 28,151 by Maskarade

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/28151.

Maskarade takes a turn at a daily Guardian puzzle, rather than his often formidable specials, and largely hits the right level, thought 8A I would say is not common, and the wordplaly of 22A is unusual. Solving was undoubtedly helped by the four long down lights, for which only the last word of 7D gave me any pause.

ACROSS
8 A PIACERE Leading trumpeter and percussionist missed out — appreciate playing as they wished (1,7)
An anagram (‘playing’) of ‘a[p]precia[t]e’ minus T and P (‘leading Trumpeter and Percussionist missed out’), for a musical instruction similar to ad lib, indicating that the performer may choose the tempo, for example, at pleasure.
9 ANCHOR Studio presenter‘s tie (6)
Double definition
10 SHAKES Ship stores fish in jars (6)
An envelope (‘stores’) of HAKE (‘fish’) in SS (‘ship’)
11 END TO END In row D? (3,2,3)
A cryptic reference to ‘end to enD‘.
12 AGIO In days gone by, I pocketed commission (4)
An envelope (‘pocketed’) of ‘I’ in AGO (;in days gone by’). The ‘commission’ is on changing money.
13 LAZY SUSANS Hating working girls that take a turn at the tables (4,6)
A charade of LAZY (‘hating working’) plus SUSANS (‘girls’)
15 CROQUET Game flirt getting run in (7)
An envelope (‘getting … in’) of R (‘run’) in COQUET (more commonly COQUETTE, ‘flirt’).
16 NAPHTHA Flammable liquid ruined hat after hot vessel tipped over (7)
A charade of NAPH, a reversal (‘tipped over’) of H (‘hot’) plus PAN (‘vessel’); plus THA, an anagram (‘ruined’) of ‘hat’. I came to this with the crossers …H.H. which looked wildly unlikely, but there it is.
18 DEPARTMENT Leave chaps on time in area of France (10)
A charade of DEPART (‘leave’) plus MEN (‘chaps’) plus T (‘time’).
19 SIDE Players moaned audibly (4)
Sounds like (‘audibly’) SIGHED (‘moaned’).
20 APPEALED Called ’owzat but was charming (8)
Double definition.
22 THRIPS Minute insects on the outside of a trio of vessels (6)
THR[ee sh]IPS (‘a trio of vessels’) minus the central letters (‘on the outside of’).
23 STINTS Is meagre with use of colour on board (6)
An implied envelope OF tint (‘use of colour’ – including ‘use’ gives me pause, but is perhaps OK) in SS (‘on board’ in the crossword cliché gives IN for the envelope)
24 NEW DELHI No good wheedling about capital (3,5)
An anagram (‘about’) of ;wheedlin[g]’ minus the G (‘no good’). NEW DELHI, part of the city of Delhi, is the capital of India.
DOWN
1 UP THE GARDEN PATH Where Maud’s lover could have misled her? (2,3,6,4)
Cryptic reference to Tennyson’s well-known Come into the garden, Maud, part of the long poem called just Maud.
2 BACK TO SQUARE ONE Exasperated compiler’s utterance: ‘Start again!’ (4,2,6,3)
Cryptic definition.
3 BEASTLIEST Most horrible thoroughfare falls within copper’s territory (10)
An envelope (‘within’) of ST (street, ‘thoroughfare’) plus LIES (‘falls’) in BEAT (‘copper’s territory’).
4 DEMELZA Successor to Ximenes got up and embraced one little girl or another from Cornwall (7)
An envelope (’embraced’) of MEL (diminutive of Melanie, ‘little girl’) in DEZA, a reversal (‘got up’ in a down light) of AZED (‘successor to Ximenes’ as setter of the barred crossword in the Observer). ‘Another’ in the definition would seem to indicate another girl, presumably the character from Poldark, rather than the Cornish village.
5 BARD Eisteddfod winner, dull, turned up (4)
A reversal (‘turned up’ in a down light) of DRAB (‘dull’).
6 ACROSS THE STREET Arranged sestet with orchestra on the other side (6,3,6)
An anagram (‘arranged’) of ‘sestet’ plus ‘orchestra’.
7 DOWN IN THE DEPTHS Blue and sorrowful, below the surface (4,2,3,6)
DOWN for ‘blue’ is a crossword standard, which leaves IN THE DEPTHS for ‘sorrowful’, possibly.
14 SHANTY TOWN Sea air won’t upset poor community (6,4)
A charade of SHANTY (sailor’s song, ‘sea air’) plus TOWN, an anagram (‘upset’) of ‘won’t’.
17 READING Fearing degree being dropped at university (7)
A subtraction: [d]READING (‘fearing’) minus D (‘degree being dropped’)
21 LUST Desire subtle changes be removed? (4)
An anagram (‘changes’) of ‘su[b]tl[e]’ minus the letters of ‘be’ (‘be removed’).

 

image of grid

96 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,151 by Maskarade”

  1. Yep, gentle from the oft-formidable Maskarade, though a bit of Italian helps with 8ac, and for 4d you need a bit of xwd-setter gk and a bit of TV-watching (or knowledge of Cornish names…it means ‘fort on the hill’ apparently. Anyway, it was one of Mrs ginf’s fave series, so no probs). And yes, the partly-emptied ‘three ships’ was a bit cute, as was end to end (old trick though). Anchor was one my LOsI and took a minute or three. Pleasant enough stroll, thanks M and P.

  3. For some reason, I started with the downs today instead of the acrosses, and the 4 long’uns opened up the puzzle to one of my quickest finishes ever.  The only answer that gave me trouble was DEMELZA, or rather the MEL part because I knew about AZED/DEZA.  (BTW, Deza was a Grand Inquisitor, but I think he preceded Ximenes the Inquisitor).  I happened to glance at the G. comments, which are supposed to be spoiler-free, but someone there mentioned Poldark and that was that.

  4. Agree with the above.  A gentle solve, but some research needed on 8A and 4D, both were new to me, and I suspect to most. I enjoyed all the long-downs, and got a chuckle out of END TO END, and thought LAZY SUSANS rather cute  … If you knew Suzie like I ……

  5. This was my 1st Maskarade and I found much to enjoy — ACROSS THE STREET, END TO END, and particularly LUST were noteworthy. I failed at A PIACERE which seemed gettable from the parsing after I read the blog; DEMELZA, on the other hand, was merely impossible. Thanks to both.

  6. I think that this was my first Maskarade – or at least the first one for a long time. I might have done some bank holiday ones a few years ago.

    New words for me were AGIO, and BARD = eisteddfod winner.
    i was unable to parse 22a.

    As I speak Italian, I will choose A PIACERE as my favourite today.

    Thanks Peter and Maskarade.

  7. A couple of follow-ups.  I imagine 8a might have given some folks some trouble, so I stand by my comments from several days ago that in doing these things it pays to be armed with knowledge of, maybe above all others, cricket, bridge and musical terms, whether you play or not.

    As for 5d BARD, doesn’t an Eisteddfod feature competitions for bards, so not only the winner is a bard, but second place and all the others too?  I would have thought entrant would be better than winner here, unless the purpose was misdirection, always possible of course.

  8. Mostly quick and easy. Didn’t know 8 or 12 but got them anyway. Demelza took the longest but I did watch Poldark. Still don’t follow parsing of 11. If row = end to end what is the D doing?

  9. Mostly quick and easy. Didn’t know 8 or 12 but got them anyway. Demelza took the longest but I did watch Poldark. Still don’t follow parsing of 11. If row = end to end what is the D doing? Thanks to setter and blogger.

  10. Gillian @9 D is the last letter of the word “end” so it is the end to “end.” I saw it as part of a double definition clue.

  11. Yes, relatively gentle. 8 and 12ax both new to me and the parsing of THRIPS eluded me. Liked END TO END, though not a new trick and fav was LUST.
    Thanks to Maskarade and to PeterO.

    A comment for MarkN from yesterday’s dscussion: relatively recently there was a Blake’s Seven themed crossword – that’s SF in my book.

  12. Funny how the brain works. NAPHTHA was my first one in for some reason, despite science and chemicals etc usually being one of my many weak points.

    I had a different parsing for 7D. Teh wordplay is “sorrowful [down] below the surface [in the depths]”. That would leave “Blue” as the definition. There’s a Cole Porter song called Down in the Depths where the title is both a play on what the narrator observes of city life from up in his or her high-rise, and a metaphor for the narrator’s feeling depressed. I wonder if that’s what the setter had in mind…

  13. I didn’t finish yesterday’s Puck, and sympathised with the first comment on here yesterday, the splendidly grumpy “I thought it was the worst puzzle I’ve ever encountered (Maskarade specials excepted)”.

    Then along comes none other than Maskarade… With a most enjoyable puzzle. Very slight discomfort about the last bit of 7dn, but the crossers got me there.

    4dn was my LOI; I didn’t know pre-Google that there was a Cornish village called Demelza, but I assumed that the two little girls of the clue were MEL Giedroyc and Sue Perkins, with one of them needing to be fitted into the reversal of the tiresomely look-at-me-aren’t-I-clever compiler.

    22ac was an unusual bit of wordplay, but with a clear definition it was gettable and rather neat. Liked 21dn, too.

    Many thanks to Maskarade and to ultra-early bird PeterO.

  14. Dr WhatsOn @7 re Bards.  The participants in an eisteddfod poetry competition are generally referred to as competitors and “Bard” is reserved for winners of those competitions.  The two major ceremonies at the National Eisteddfod are Chairing The Bard (for awdl; alliterative poetry in strict metre) and Crowning the Bard (for pryddest; free verse). So I think the clue works as written.

  15. I needed serious help with 4dn, never having watch the TV show or read the books, and only being peripherally familiar with the history of English crosswords, and couldn’t see the parsing for 11ac and 13ac, but otherwise this was pretty easy.

  17. I enjoyed this a lot (having mentioned yesterday how I’m also not so keen on Maskarade’s oversize holiday puzzles). Like others, had to work on DEMELZA; hadn’t heard of A PIACERE; liked the unusual wordplay of THRIPS, and thought SHANTY TOWN was good. Many thanks to Maskarade and PeterO.

  18. Like others, I think this was my first ever Maskarade solve.  I usually don’t bother.

    Technically a DNF for me as despite solving the AZED part, I could not see little girl MEL and would never have thought of Poldark to get me to DEMELZA.

    Thought END TO END  and A PIACERE (we often see it on scores) were brilliant.

    A surprisingly pleasant, and rapid, solve from The Beast this morning, many thanks.

  19. Wiggers @14:  Thanks for the bards thing.  How on earth do you possess such arcane knowledge?  Welsh?

  20. Thanks Maskarade and PeterO

    I had question marks against quite a number. I don’t think 2d or 7d work as cryptic or double definitions. I didn’t know AGIO, but it was gettable from the wordplay. I too speak Italian, so had no difficulty with A PIACERE, but I don’t think it’s a fair clue. 1d was a write-in, but favourite.

    I confess that I tried LECH first for 21d – hidden in subtLE CHanges!

  21. When I saw the name Maskerade, I was expecting quite a battle. This was much gentler than previous offerings. I, like others, had too check 8ac. and I think David’s explanation for 7d works better. For 17d, I took the definition to be ‘at university’ ie ‘reading’ maths etc. Reading Uni is, however, my alma mater! Thanks to Maskerade for being kind and to PeterO et al for the blog.

  22. I don’t know if anybody has already said this, but the definition for 23a should include “use of”.

  23. Stuck with two to go.  4d could have been DEJENZA, DEPENZA, DEMELZA or quite possibly others, and if you didn’t know, you didn’t know.

    And although I got the reverse AZED part, I’m a bit uncomfortable with clues which can give the impression to new solvers that the crossword-solving community is a members only club.

    THRIPS I’ve now filed in the “we don’t get fooled again – hopefully” folder.

    Thanks Maskarade and PeterO.

  24. Not surprised that this commentary is up so early, and already has a score of comments on it. Along with a couple of Vulcan’s, the easiest Guardian puzzle I have ever done. Astonished by the largely positive reception this puzzle has received on the Guardian page and here. The clue to DEMELZA is pure crosswordese. I didn’t know the word AGIO but the clue made it obvious. I’m off to fetch my Boatman book, I think.

  25. I don’t agree that this hit the right level – I thought the clues veered between write-ins (most of the long down clues and a few others) and rather too difficult. Like others I struggled for the last word of “down in the…” usually associating this with “dumps” or “ditch”. I’d not heard the phrase used before so maybe the Cole Porter reference is the one needed – another area of GK I am ignorant of.

    Unlike others I found “a piacere” straightforward though I am no musician and “Il mio Italiano e molto scarso”. With a couple of crossers, the first letter being “a” (as it is in most music instructions) the rest was solvable as an anagram and quite pleasing.  “demelza” needed a word search. “azed” was OK but “one little girl” sent me looking for “ilg” or variations of that. As we’ve discussed before, with a near-infinitude of names, it’s a weak device to say “girl” and expect people to light on one particular name. Obscure words need clear cluing (like “agio” – though possibly too clear there!) and as I’ve never watched Poldark (or almost any other TV program of the last 40-odd years) I might’ve come up with the title but not the name of a character in it.

    On the “what GK should I know?” question, picking up yesterday’s thread, I don’t think it is unreasonable to know the names of books, authors, musicals, TV programs. I’ve never seen most of the musicals from yesterday but could name all bar one. DItto I know of the series “poldark” but nothing of its characters. There is a distinction to be made between “heard of this but don’t expect everyone to know much about them” (e.g. names of Jane Austen books, Shakespeare characters, musicals) and “know this in depth”.

    Anyhow, thank you Maskerade for continuing the lockdown fun.

  27. Here’s a link to a recording of Cole Porter’s Down in the Depths. Some may think it too English, but of the many versions available on Spotify, I think this live recording by Mabel Mercer does a really incredible job of not only capturing the genuine depression in the narrator’s voice, but also the conflict between the narrator’s feelings and (in the piano behind her) the perky hustle of what she assumes she is missing out on down at street level in Manhattan. Phenomenal.

    “I’m deserted and depressed
    In my regal eagle’s nest
    Down in the depths
    On the ninetieth floor…

    … And here am I
    Facing tomorrow
    Alone with my sorrow
    Down in the depths
    On the ninetieth floor.”

    If the link takes you to an album, it’s the last track.

    The lack of a link button when using this blog from a telephone meant I couldn’t include it in my original comment above.

  28. Definitely on the mild side for Maskerade. As a one-time chemist, “ruined hat” gave me NAPHTHA immediately and I have enough Italian and musical knowledge for 8ac. The long ones were just as PeterO said. So an easy solve for me today unlike yesterday which seemed to be aimed at all my areas of ignorance!

    Thanks to setter and blogger both.

  29. I don’t normally go near the Maskarade toughies, and I found this pretty mild, perhaps because I have a penchant for a subtractive anagram. The four long ones gave enough crossers to make everything else accessible.

    The clues didn’t sparkle like the best Tramps or Pauls, though. Feel I could have tolerated being misled a few more times.

  30. So is there an accepted term for clues like END TO END eg “answer as clue”?

    And if THRIPS is ok then why not indirect anagrams too?

    Also I thought PeterO’s parsing of 7d was correct given the “and” in the clue.and the presence of “in the depths” in my dictionary of idioms

    Cheers all

     

     

  31. I parsed 7d as David did (blue being the definition) but wasn’t aware of the Cole Porter song.
    TheZed @ 25 I think that obscure words need either clear clueing or accessible crossers (largely what Puck was missing yesterday) so have no problem with a mix of difficulties.
    Enjoyed this puzzle and learnt a few new words.
    Thanks to Maskerade and PeterO

  32. Gordon McDougall @26

    That was my intention, but the utility that I use to create the blog occasionally balks at definitions. Corrected now.

  33. Unlike yesterday’s grind, I enjoyed this one: as several people here have noted, a rather whimsical setting. I’ve not come across the END TO END trick before, so that tickled me. My GK extends to musical score annotations and to renowned crossword setters’ monikers, but I agree with essexboy @23 that it’s a bit naughty to use cliquey crossworders’ knowledge for clueing in 4d.

    And how is “degree” = D? Really, the Grauniad setters are pretty slack with their initial letters as abbrevations policy. “Lecturer” = L seems to turn up fairly regularly here, but I see no widespread recognition of this equivalence outside Grauniad crosswords.

    Anyway, it was fun.

  34. I don’t speak Italian or read music but I do watch Poldark, so I found 4d easier than 8a.

    I think I might be in the minority but more Sunday night lowbrow TV references please.

    Thanks Maskarade and Peter.

    Ciao!

  35. Sorry, but 4d is simply unfair. I appreciate that GK is a patchy thing, but a character from an old TV series contained in a crossword setter (or inquisitor) is a step too far. If google is no help and the options are too great, something is wrong. I had de_e_za and still was a DNF. Bah! Particularly annoying as some clues were excellent.

  36. I’m a bit surprised Hugh didn’t prune one or the other of the SS container devices used in 10 & 23.  Although d=degree is listed in Chambers as one of many single letter abbrs, the word DREADING contains two of them, so this seems a bit imprecise to me. Also, I don’t see how “leading trumpeter and percussionist” gives us the T & P we are told to omit from the anagram fodder in 8a and I’ve no idea quite how one would wheedle around New Delhi. I could go on, but won’t.

    The editor posted somewhat defiantly recently on the G thread that “no puzzle gets published unedited”. Fair enough; but one sometimes gets the feeling that some compilers get edited more than others. We all know that Guardian puzzles are very much looser than those in other outlets but for my personal taste as a long-term G solver a bit of selective use of the secateurs wouldn’t go amiss.

  37. Eisteddfods seem to award prizes for a range of categories so a BARD would be an example of an eisteddfod winner and maybe clued as such? I can’t claim any expertise in this area – I was Googling and found the site

  38. Like many others I struggled with some of the more obscure terms, but the four long clues made this an otherwise straightforward solve.

    I don’t know if anyone else has mentioned this, but the four long clues start with UP, DOWN, BACK and ACROSS. Isn’t that a nice touch?

    Many thanks, as always, to setter and blogger.

  39. Thanks PeterO, especially for explaining 22A, the answer leapt out from somewhere down in the depths of my subconscious but I had no idea how to parse it.

    Speaking of 7D, like TheZed @25 I was going to moan about it not being a phrase as such (as I only knew “down in the dumps” or “in the depths of despair”) but thanks to David@12/27 and bodycheetah@30 I stand corrected – I still think it is a bit obscure but so are several others in here that I happened to know and thus wouldn’t complain about.

    I do see the point about 4D: shamefully I had to google “successor to Ximenes” to get Azed and got lucky with guessing Mel first up, having no knowledge of Poldark – without technical aids this would have been well beyond me (but I am fine with doing a bit of side research if necessary/possible).

    But I agree with TheZed that 8A was gettable even without the right level of musical knowledge once the wordplay dawned and crossers were in place – the A is fairly clear and PIACERE is a plausible Italian word (and,helpfully, the name of a pizzeria here) – similarly 12A hitherto unknown but clear from wordplay/crossers.

    So despite the obscurities and thanks to those long down clues this fairly flew in – thanks Maskerade.

  40. This was about par for a Grauniad puzzle IMO – not one of the best but perfectly adequate entertainment, if slightly on the non-challenging side. I share some of the doubtrs expressed by others, and I looked at a list of musical terms for A PIACERE (I’m sure I’d have worked it out by myself if I’d bothered). THRIPS and END TO END were my favourites.

    I’ve never watched Poldark, but DEMELZA was somewhere in my subconscious. That level of GK requirement seems perfectly fair to me: not only is she a major character in a major TV series, famously set in Cornwall; but also Google tells me her name is the title of the first Poldark novel. And while there are other possibilites from the wordplay, the correct answer is arguably the most plausible Cornish name.

    Thanks Maskerade and PeterO.

     

  41. A bard (bardd in Welsh) is a poet and poets enter the competitions for Crown (Coron) and Chair (Cadair). If they win, they automatically become prifardd – chief bard – and are members of the Gorsedd of Bards. So, yes, not only winners are bards (in the poetry categories). I didn’t enjoy the grid (Makerade seems to like grids that hide the first letters), the double use of SS for ship, 8a, 22a, 7d and the subtractive anagrams.

    Beth bynnach, diolch i Makerade a Peter O.

  42. Why is knowing that a winner in an Eisteddfod is a bard seen as arcane? Wales is a country in the UK and commentators seem to know facts from much further afield.

  43. I thought “AGIO, is that really a word,” and it was!

    I couldn’t find DOWN IN THE DEPTHS in dictionaries but saw it was in Crossword Compiler and wondered why until David @12 revealed the Cole Porter song. However, I had no problem with DEMELZA as I had seen the Poldark series on TV (and knew Azed as the successor to Ximenes.)

    I couldn’t parse THRIPS, although as now explained, I quite like it – I don’t think it’s comparable to an indirect anagram.

    Thanks Maskarade and PeterO.

  44. Megan @42 – Quite so. Even though I am but one-sixteenth Welsh (g-g-grandmother born in Chirk) I find the English mindset that regards virtually anything west of Shrewsbury as “white on the map Here Be Savages” deeply annoying.

  45. It’s Henry Longshanks’s fault, Megan. I mourned when reading about how Snowdonia was breached.

  47. I failed in the SW, having LECH (like Muffin @20 – back-formation from lechery and lecher). This left me with _T_N_C and the totally unparsed ATONIC (colourless music?). I admit there’s no proper containment indicator, but then quite a lot of Maskarade’s clues are imperfectly written.

    Re 7d, David @12 & 27 has got it right, I think. It makes the clue better than the slightly awkward one that we all seem to have assumed it to be. (Thanks for the Cole Porter song, David.)

    My Italian is even more limited than TheZed’s @25, but I got there with the assumption that the Italian word would be linked to “please” via “placate”. I agree though that a more helpful clue would be appropriate for such an obscurity.

    The setter could have provided us with a much wittier clue for 4d: the included “little girl” being MEL, he could have used Spice Girls instead (there being two Mels in that band). Having said that, I enjoyed the eviscerated trio of vessels at 22a.

    Thanks to Maskarade and PeterO.

     

  48. Thanks to PeterO and Maskerade – I didn’t recognise you with your numbers on!

    Was I the only person whose first stab at 9A was DICKIE after the legendary sports TV anchor Dickie Davies? Maybe I’m too old.

  50. I didn’t find this particularly satisfying. 4 long and very easy write ins (or at least 3.5 – I had DOWN IN THE …… for a while) opened up most of the puzzle but then a few answers that without knowledge had to be guesses at the end. e.g. if you know THRIPS you can work back to THR[ee sh]IPS, but it’s quite a leap in the other direction if THRIPS is unknown to you (as it was to me). Similarly with A PIACERE, I knew immediately I was after an anagram of AP[p]RECIA[t]E, and from all those vowels decided it was probably an Italian or Latin phrase but even with all the crossers it was a case of jamming in letters and googling to verify. So I’m clearly in the minority but I much preferred Puck’s musical number.

    Thanks all.

  51. I enjoyed this, a bit easier than M’s Bank Holiday Specials.

    Poldark always reminds me of another TV series involving ships. It’s what the staff of the Royal Yacht Britannia at Ocean Terminal near where I live call the queue outside the ladies toilets – The Onedin Line.

  52. Like Neil H, I was struck by the comment in yesterday’s blog about Maskarade puzzles – and so, never having tackled one, was on my guard this morning. The four long down clues went in fairly easily and although I sympathise with Baerchen‘s view I’m not quite as annoyed as him/her – being more in accord with The Zed’s take on this. Write-ins are all very well, but if some of the other solutions are only possible with a combo of wildly differing bits of GK, it takes all the fun out. Oh yes, 4D and 8A, I’m looking at you. Having never seen either of the slushy TV versions of a book that was pretty meh to begin with, Lord knows how I arrived at DEMELZA (i did spend a fair bit of time perusing a map of Cornwall). I’d no idea who Ximenes’ successor was, but presumed their stage-name had a z in it, which helped a bit…
    As for t’other: non molto piacere!
    I appreciate a cornucopia of facts and data are brought to bear in these things – but not even to provide the teensiest-weensiest hint that the answer isn’t in English?? Would that be because helping us poor mortals is the last thing a setter should do? A little while back there was an answer in french which had a d’ in it but no indication to that effect in the number-of-letters-in-brackets part (sorry – I’m sure there’s a proper cruciverbal term for this, but I don’t know it). When I raised this in the comments, I was firmly told by the grown-ups that apostrophes don’t get mentioned. Yet hyphens do. I’m not sure I see the logic in this. Perhaps there isn’t any. Perhaps that’s the point. Perhaps it’s a case of “all’s fair in love, war and crosswords”.
    Then again, I didn’t have a problem with BARD, though (pob parch dyledus, Copland Smith and Megan Tudur). I noted, but wasn’t overly bothered by, the doubling of the SS device in 10A and 23A. I enjoyed SHANTY TOWN. And I learned about “agio”. So, a curate’s egg.
    Many thanks to PeterO for an ever-helpful and interesting blog, and salaams to Maskarade – whilst making a mental note to keep my copy of Groves with me for the next time…

  53. When I google ximenes now, the third suggestion is “ximenes demelza”. Life imitating cruciverbal art? We’ll need to have a word with them about spoilers

  54. copland smith @ 41, knowing no Welsh I put your last line through Google translate and it came out as What’s hotter, thanks to Makerade and Peter O.  I wonder what you really wrote?

    DNF for me, because despite a reasonable knowledge of musical theory I had never heard of 8a.  I also failed on DEMELZA.

    Thanks to Maskarade and PeterO

  55. I’ve never watched Poldark, but familiarity with Azed enabled me to find 4dn in the list of first names at the back of Chambers – .though that doesn’t mention Mel

  56. Thanks to Maskarade and Peter.

    I suspect I’m in the minority who preferred yesterday’s outing. Oh well.

    Jim @38 also there are SIDE and END.

  57. I must be on a roll. That’s two Maskarades in a row, Easter and today. A personal best, indeed.

    I thought ‘this will all depend on the long down clues’ and so it proved. The rest was just filling in, though not without its challenges. I was convinced that 9 would start with the presenter ANT, that 14 was a full anagram of (sea air won’t), and so forth. LAZY SUSANS broke the deadlock, with a crucial Z for DEMELZA and S for the poor community.

    I have a great aunt who is a bard of Cornwall, awarded by its equivalent of an Eisteddfod, which was a nice link for me between two adjacent clues.

  58. Not having heard of Thrips, I initially went with ‘thrups’ as in ‘three cups’ for trio of vessels minus the middle bit. Knowing Azed as a successor does seem a bit too much of an inside job for my liking.

  59. Yes, 4d was unfair to newcomers. I don’t exactly fit that description, but I didn’t know that Azed was Ximenes’ successor. I finally got it by googling ‘girls names Cornwall,’ as well as ‘list of musical terms’ for 8a. That didn’t spoil the fun for me, as I don’t mind doing that for one or two clues per puzzle (although not the handful-plus that yesterday’s required).

    Like Robi @43, I saw AGIO right away, but had to confirm that it was a word. Ditto with THRIPS (well, not right away in that case), which I thought was innovative and stopped just short of being unfair. Also liked END TO END, which I’ve not seen before. Raised an eyebrow at the previously mentioned double SS, but otherwise no complaints.

    Thanks to Maskarade and PeterO.

  60. Robi @43 the indirect anagram similarity I suggested was based on the nature of the wordplay ie think of a synonym then perform some kind of transformation on it. In the case of THRIPS, the transformation is a (somewhat loosely defined) subtraction so why not a reversal or an anagram? To me, the principle seems the same

  61. Much nicer than yesterday’s. Like a couple of other commenters, I am puzzled by those who complain about needing to know Welsh or Cornish stuff. For those of us on the other side of the world, knowing British things is very useful – and I mean British, not just English, or Londonish. Of course, having lived in Wales for a few years, and having a Tassie friend who named his daughter Demelza, did help a bit, though I did have to look up who followed Ximenes. This one was in my Goldilocks zone. Thanks to Maskarade and PeterO.

  62. bodycheetah @60 I initially had a similar reaction to the wordplay here and I think it is right on the borderline. Think of a synonym and anagram is is not accepted. Taking a synonym and cycling the letters is, as is reversing it (we had “pan” -> “nap” in naphtha today). Shortening a synonym has been used (and is similar to “think of a name and now shorten it”). So what about this one? To me it would’ve been unacceptable as “the outside of” is weakly defined but it is redeemed by two things: (1) the term “trio of vessels” gives a pretty limited set of synonyms, more like a Spoonerism than a name, or “colour” (2) the expression “three ships” is a thing in its own right (as in “I saw three ships come sailing in”, the carol).

    So I was dubious at first but concluded it was tough, definitely out there on the limit, but fair. Given the contrast with “agio” which was very easy for an unknown word I thought it a decent balancing clue.

  63. Yes, its all been said.

    We started off expecting to do a lot of ‘cheating’ to get the answers and then try to parse. As it was, a pleasant experience from this setter and only had the afore-mentioned DAMELZA and the parsing of THRIPS to defeat us.

    Thank you Maskarade for being merciful today.

  64. Sheffield Hatter @47 – yes there are better ways to clue a Mel, I thought of “Kim’s respectable partner” but maybe that is too obscure for those outside a certain demographic.

    Jim@38, i must have been typing as you posted so I missed you, very well spotted! I never notice things like that, probably too busy thanking my lucky stars that the crucial long down clues were quite gettable.

    Wellbeck@52, TheZed @62 and others – how long before simple synonym anagrams creep in? I think the Grauniad had a recent article about a setter on another paper who used them freely (something scottish?). There are no laws, just boundaries to be pushed against or overstepped…

     

  65. Gazzh @64:  that was a while ago, but no more so than Camel!

    Re alternative clues –

    Cornish girl’s guide to the French Riviera? Au contraire! (7)

  66. 18A A french DEPARTEMENT is not actually spelled that way – I question whether it is legitimate to anglicise the term.

  67. Editor could have challenged the identical formatting of 10ac and 23ac. Otherwise pretty straightforward.

  68. Well, this was a bit of a mixed bag and no mistake. The long down clues gave me an in although the DEPTHS part of 7dn took a while. I didn’t know the Cole Porter song and didn’t recognise it when I listened to it on Spotify. 8ac was part deduction part guess but DEMELZA was a pure guess- I had the Z in so —. I lived in Cornwall for about twenty years and,while I’ve never met anyone called DEMELZA, it has become the name of all sorts of things- mostly grotty tea shops. I did my Mphil at READING university so there was a “take a stroll down memory lane quality about the puzzle.
    Enjoyable mostly
    Thanks Maskarade.

  69. I managed to put in AT THE GARDEN GATE because that’s where the singer says he is! So that held me up for a while. I knew A PIACERE from music but THRIPS was unknown, nor could I parse it. Having got a Q and Z, I was expecting a J but no. Overall, a good solve on this cold day. Thanks to Maskarade and PeterO

  70. There has been some commentary and maybe a little unhappiness expressed about the need for inside knowledge about the history of cryptic crosswords to solve 4d.  On the one hand I get it, but on the other I find it a little ironic, since knowledge of “historical” figures in cricket and football is positively celebrated here!  Shoemaker’s children, anyone?  This may help.

  71. Thanks to Maskarade and PeterO.

    I had similar difficulties to others so no repition – but THRIPS needs special mention.

    I have called this type of clue a Russian Doll in the past and to my mind they are unfair – the mechanism involves solving a clue within the clue and then manipulating that in accordance with the wordplay, in this case get “three ships” as a synonym for “trio of vessels” and then strip that in response to “on the outside”.

    The problem is where does it end?  Why not “minute insects on the outside of cup, mug and beaker”?  Here are a trio of vessels, go get “three ships” from that and manoeuvre  that towards THRIPS.

    Unlike Spoonerisms and subtractive anagrams there is no accepted indication that the mechanism is in play, so any clue could require examination for indicative synonyms, at which point the brain boils over.

    The fact that THRIPS was news to me was not the issue; I have no complaints about e.g. DEMELZA and A PIACERE – they just beat me and my armoury – but for me there is a level of clairvoyance required for THRIPS which I don’t have at my disposal.

    Grumpy today.  Still, glad of the distraction so thanks to both.

  72. THRIPS seemed very obvious to me and the format of the clue amused me. I appear to be in a minority here! On the other hand I agree with Togs that a French admin area is a DEPARTEMENT not a DEPARTMENT – that did hold me up.

  74. Enjoyed it very much – tough but (mostly) fair.  I agree with @71 Alphalpha.  I too did not get DEMELZA or THRIPS despite having all the crossing letters, and got A PIACERE only through a process of elimination and Googling!
    Thanks, Maskarade and PeterO.

  75. I looked at 8ac and thought, “Well, that must be an Italian musical term I don’t know, that’s an anagram of APRECIAE.” I then confidently entered A CAPRICE, not realizing that (a) there doesn’t appear to be such a musical term, and (b) it doesn’t match the anagram fodder anyway. But doesn’t it seem like A CAPRICE (pronounced “capri-chay”, of course) could be a musical term meaning something roughly like the definition?

     

  76. I thought the novel construction for THRIPS was a great idea and just needed the reference I SAW THREE SHIPS COME SAILING IN to be laid on with a trowel a bit more , eg something like ‘blah blah on the outside of TRIO OF SAILING VESSELS I SAW’?

  78. Dansar, in the language of setters (and solvers, too) who do not care too much about cryptic grammar.

    That said, we’ve seen it before. We: that includes you, I guess.

  79. Sil,

    Yes we/I  have. I have also asked the question several times before and have never received a cogent answer from those who accept this abomination.

  80. ‘They’ don’t have a cogent answer because ‘they’ don’t see the problem.

    ‘They’ think it’s you and I who have the problem.

  81. Dansar & Sil: Some other setters would use “first of trumpeters” in this situation, which has always struck me as clumsy. I think “leading trumpeter” is better. If we all know what it means, what is wrong with it?

  82. What’s wrong with it is that it doesn’t mean anything. “First of trumpeters” does mean something. I think you mean “first trumpeter”.

  83. “If we all know what it means, what is wrong with it?”
    For most solvers: nothing, for the minority that cares about (cryptic) grammar: a lot.
    That said, I’m not going to start an argument that I probably will lose.
    Because ‘they’ are right and I am wrong.
    Might well be the other way round though.

  84. Sil et al: I can’t quite grasp if you are saying “leading trumpeter” has no meaning in English? Are you saying it should be something like “lead violin”? My interpretation was that that there is a marching band coming and here comes the leading trumpeter. Or perhaps I have misunderstood what your objection is.

  86. @Dave 85

    Since I feel partly responsible for introducing criticism of this clue, the problem is that the wordplay reads “leading trumpeter and percussionist missed out – appreciate playing” etc. This is completely meaningless as an instruction to omit T and P from *appreciate. “Leaders of trumpets and percussion” would make more sense. Increasingly, first dog=d and the like are finding their way into the Guardian cryptic when they wouldn’t see the light of day in the Indy, Telegraph, FT(probably) and Times (definitely). This is an editorial decision which I cannot fathom.

    We all have our littles foibles, and I shudder when someone on here posts “it’s clear enough what the setter means and we all got the answer so where’s the problem?”

     

  87. baerchen @86 – the difference of view is probably because some of us solvers quite like the odd clue where we are not being instructed precisely what to do but can feel part of a slightly more creative process. For us a little allusion is fine, and “leading trumpeter” does describe “T” in an “… and on drums … Ringo Starr” sense. Somewhat different from “first trumpeter”. I had no problem with reading the clue to require T and P to be omitted, and am still wondering why Maskarade has thus brought shame upon me.

    Not sure how anything less than “… the first letter of trumpeter and the first letter of percussionist …” would have been acceptable under this argument.

  88. baerchen @86: Sorry for causing you to shudder with mine @81. When we are trying to solve a crossword, surely finding out what the clue means is the aim of the game? The setter is trying to lead us towards the solution as deviously (but fairly) as possible.

    You seem to be saying that “leading trumpeter and percussionist” is unacceptable (meaningless?) to indicate the letters T and P, and “leaders of trumpets and percussion” would be preferable. I honestly can’t see the difference. And why are you, Sil and Dansar in a position to say what is acceptable and what is not?

    I’m genuinely asking for an explanation, not challenging you just for the sake of argument.

  89. hi @sheffield hatter

    Just for the sake of disclosure, I set puzzles myself (Knut in the Indy, Julius in the FT and Hudson in the Telegraph Toughie, among others. I’m a fellow Sheffielder, incidentally). The majority of published setters have taken a vow of omerta not to comment on the style of other compilers – perhaps I should have done the same, but I’ve been solving the G cryptic for 35 years every day and I consider myself first and foremost a solver. I’m not in any way asserting that I am in a position to say what is acceptable. I do have an opinion, though, and my opinion is that clueing the letter t as “leading trumpeter” makes no sense. In your post, you argue that the setter “is trying to lead us towards the solution as deviously (but fairly) as possible”. Well, the more devious the better, say I. I wouldn’t especially describe the “device” used here an “unfair” – it’s simply wrong. The crossword editor of the Guardian is no mug, is a professor of journalism, has written a few books, has been doing the job since Hector was a puppy so it’s probably me. (And Sil & Dansar and a fair few others with whom I communicate by means other than this thread)

  90. Baerchen – thanks for responding. It’s this concept of “wrong” that I’m not getting. You concede that “leading trumpeter…” is not unfair, so how is it wrong? Why do you consider it meaningless if solvers are able to get the right answer? Is this all about Ximenes? If so, why is “leaders of trumpets …” Ximenean but “leading trumpeter…” Libertarian? My way of reading “leading trumpeter…” is to think of it as really saying “[the letter that is] leading [the word] trumpeter.

    Apologies if this makes you shudder again!

  91. sheffield hatter @ 90 etc.

    Hope baerchen won’t mind me sticking my oar in late.  I’m on the shudderers’ side.  I also set as Filbert in the Indy.

    It’s a fair point, that you understand what is meant by the clue.  Saying that the construction is ‘wrong’ is based on the principle that the cryptic instructions in the clue should be in proper English, just as the superficial reading of the clue should be in proper English.  Leading trumpeter does not mean the first letter of trumpeter in natural English in the way that ‘head of Government’ means G.  Leading is merely a signpost.  For me, the fact that the same sequence of words can be read naturally in two different ways is the very essence of a good cryptic clue.  It is hard and time-consuming to write clues like that, but it is always possible. Using signposts is like eating raw flour, sugar and eggs instead of turning them into a cake.

    I don’t think this is a principle that some setters accept and some don’t.  I think all do.  You’ll never see a puzzle with more than a handful at worst of ‘wrong’ constructions, and it’s no accident that the rest of the clues read well.  It’s also true that all setters write ‘wrong’ clues sometimes.  But they most often get past the editor in the Guardian.

  92. Thanks, James.

    OK, I understand “… the principle that the cryptic instructions in the clue should be in proper English, just as the superficial reading of the clue should be in proper English.”But “head of Government” only means G because that’s the convention in crosswords. Everywhere else it means prime minister, or equivalent. Similarly, anagram indicators such as agitated or messy mean “jumble the letters of the anagram fodder”. Is there a limit on what sort of word can have the same function? Recently we had a clue where the fodder included cake and the anagrind was “spongy”; some commenters on 225 decried this, I thought it was inventive and witty. Would mixture have been better? (Conventional in more than one sense of the word.)

    By the same token, if head is allowed, and first, and leaders, why not leading?

  93. sh @92

    Thanks for a fascinating debate.

    All of us who love cryptic crosswords are in a playful world where things are not what they seem.  But within that world, there’s a logic, and for many of us that rather surreal logic is part of the fun.  It’s almost a case of ‘How far can you push the logical limits of language, and still make out a case that you are doing precisely what it says on the tin?’

    ‘Head of Government’ means PM on the surface.  But once you’re down the rabbit-hole, government is a word as well as a thing, and a word has a shape, like a body has a shape.  And just as a body has a head, a word has a head-most element, and the head-most element of government is G.

    So I would argue that it’s not just convention, it’s letting your thought train follow that enjoyably perverse logic.

    Similarly with anagrinds.  I was one of those who had my doubts about spongy.  But if I were to attempt a defence, it would be along the lines of squeezing and manipulating a sponge so that its parts, while all still present, are in quite a different relation to each other from when you started.  [I’m thinking bathroom sponge now – I don’t normally do that with cakes.]

    By contrast, ‘leading’ = ‘first of’ is just convention.  With ‘leading’, there’s no instruction to cut off the head letter.  Leading = first would be fine, but not first of.  It would be the same problem if you said ‘first Government’ rather than ‘head of Government’ – the ‘isolate G’ operator is missing.

  94. essexboy @93. Thanks for joining in. Your points are well argued.  I see what you mean about “head of government” having an intrinsic meaning that is carried forward to crossword land, but my point was that if it can then morph into first of, or leader of, why can’t it also morph into leading. In the same way that a word can act as a noun in the grammar of the surface but as a verb in the wordplay.

    James says that the use of leading instead of leader of or first of makes it just a signpost and therefore not a legitimate part of the cryptic grammar. I like signposts. Or patterans. Or hints. Or suggestions. Especially if they’re trying to look like something else.

    Cryptic crossword clues are full of allusions. My mother, who started writing poetry in her old age, likened the clues to poetry, in that we (or rather the setters, but we as solvers try to understand them) use the language of the clue in the same way as poets use their allusive language. Both clues and poetry are developing all the time, constantly stretching the boundaries to see what still makes sense.

  95. @sheffieldhatter

    The simple answer is because even cryptic clueing grammar has to have some conventions and make logical sense, otherwise we end up at the Guess What I’m Thinking school of setting. Such devices are not ‘edgy’, or ‘innovative’. They’re just wrong.

  96. Well, 4d was a treat for readers of The Observer pre-1972 (still alive) and have watched/read Poldark. I am not one of them.

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