Guardian 28,196 / Vulcan

88 comments on “Guardian 28,196 / Vulcan”

1. Thanks very much to Vulcan and Eileen.

   Not trying to sound cocky but a couple of these I thought were too obvious. Nevertheless, I did enjoy 11a STONE COLD SOBER, 5d IN A FLAT SPIN and 8d EASY RIDER. I couldn’t parse ANTI at 16d as I couldn’t see the definition – one of the first things I learned about 2d CRYPTICs back in the day was that the definition should come at the beginning or end of a clue, though I think we now accept that some of those old “hard and fast” rules can be broken. I also thought of the sea for “main” in 1a, Eileen, but then ditched that and eventually read it as a question, “(If you are) after a main course, a RECIPE is something to follow”.

2. One man’s meat as they say – these vague and weak definitions (hardly cryptic) are not to my taste but I know others find them quite fun. Any chance of a bit more explanation of 1ac? So far I have a recipe is something to follow, but no idea what it has to do with the sea.

   I put in “mate” but did not parse it as “failure on board” – “mate” is a success on the board as it is what the winner does. The loser is “mated” surely? I vaguely had “E” for failure (as in exams, though anything seems to be a pass these days) on “mat” for “board” (very -ish) but was not convinced.

   Thanks Eileen and Hephaestus.

3. Thanks Eileen. I had doubts about CT – surely CT = COURT not CAUGHT. However if you found t I guess we have to accept it.

    

4. JinA: Thanks for recipe explanation – I think you are right.

5. Thanks, JinA – you’ve reminded me that that is how I originally read ‘after a main course? – I’ll delete my query!

6. I read 1a as a question. i.e. If you are after a main course, then a recipe is something you might follow.

7. A few unparsed today, so thanks very much Eileen for your explanations, and thanks JiA@1 for your parsing of recipe.

   Favourites were STEPLADDER and STONE COLD SOBER.

8. TheZEd @2 – it doesn’t have anything to do with the sea here (but ‘main’ in clues usually does!)

9. Yes, with the ?, ie “are you after”, that works, JinA, brava! It had me scratching.

10. Apart from 1a, 9a, a, 13a, 14a, 16a, 25a, 2d, 3d, 22d there were some okay clues here. I gave OCTOBER a tick for straddling 4 words and EASY RIDER made me chuckle but it was slim pickings overall. Is Vulcan really the best the Guardian can find for the Monday slot?

11. I too scratched my head over recipe. Having read Eileen’s interpretation and the comments, it occurred to me that “seconds” come after a main course, but I’m not sure it helps.

    JulieInA @1 – was it ever a convention that the definition always comes at the start or the end, or just a useful guideline for beginners because it is almost always true? In this case it’s worth it for a nice smooth surface in my opinion.

     

12. Very enjoyable puzzle.

    Liked SECOND MATE, KID GLOVE, EASY RIDER

    New: INFRA DIG

    I thought of ‘After a main course, something to follow?’ as a sort of slang way of saying, “If you are you after (looking for) a main course to cook, this is what you follow” (ie a recipe)

13. Credit where credit is due: there were a number of stronger clues interspersed with what Eileen rightly describes as a typical Monday medley.  Which does rather sound like damning with faint praise, I accept.  Hard to tell if this is Vulcan upping his/her game, though, as there are also the typical easy/weak clues such as CRYPTIC, ARID and WEEP.  I thought ANTI was a class above others: like JulieinAustralia @1, I was looking for a definition at the beginning or end of the clue, but I guess the oft quoted definition of  cryptic clue doesn’t actually specify where the definition should fall and I liked Vulcan’s technique for hiding it in the middle.  If RECIPE is, indeed, parsed as JinA and others have suggested, then it’s quite clever and I smiled at KICKING ONESELF, EASY RIDER and OCTOBER which was nicely hidden.

    With regard to the quibbles already raised: Ct for caught is a stretch but, yes, it does seem to appear in some online lists though ‘c’ is certainly more prevalent (I particularly think of the reasonably rare ‘c&b’ as in ‘caught and bowled’ – though it always seemed to me it should be ‘b&c’) and mate is both victory and defeat (TheZed @2: You’re certainly right about the loser being mated but I think it does work as a noun).  I’m no scientist but I suspect there may be some arguments about whether O and air are synonyms; the latter contains quite a lot of other elements.

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen as always.

14. Thanks Vulcan and Eileen

    OK for a Monday – much easier than Matilda’s Quiptic! “dry” would be better than” dull” in 14a. “Service” is doing double duty in 15d, as you imply, Eileen – an “ace” can only be a service winner.

15. [Mark @ 13

    I think it’s ‘c&b’ rather than ‘b&c’ because the layout of the scorecard runs Batter – How out – Bowler, so it preserves the sequence and avoids writing C Smith – B Smith.]

16. Thanks all for the recipe explanations – I was overthinking it and thrown by the mention of the sea, which was a route I’d gone down too.

    Re definition at start or end (JinA @1 and others) my understanding is that the normal form of a clue is something like “definition given by woedplay” or “wordplay leads to definition” where “given by” and “leads to” can be linking words such as “in”, “from”, “by”, “found in” etc (though some work one way, some the other and some both). Sometimes the linking word is omitted and some punctuation must be assumed.

    To have the definition anywhere else would require a rather unusual construction, though it has been done (there was a good one in the G’s cluing competition recently though I forget the details). So it’s not so much a rule as a side-effect of the basics of cryptic grammar.

17. Still not happy about RECIPE, but I hadn’t got any further than ‘course’ maybe being ‘E’, which doesn’t help. Nor does thinking of it as the French for grocer backwards without the I. By the time you start down those paths, it’s time to give up. At least the crossers made it obvious.

18. As always, taking my time to pen my missive, I ended up overlapping with several others who’ve made similar points.  bodycheetah @10: I think you’re probably damning with faint praise too with your “Apart from…”  and a list that runs half way across the screen 😀

    michelle @12” INFRA DIG is an abbreviation of Latin ‘infra dignitatem’ meaning beneath (one’s) dignity.  I think it’s decidedly dated – not sure I’ve seen or heard it used (apart from in crosswords) for a long time.  I associate it with the earlier half of the twentieth century so decidedly before my/our time.

19. Vulcan must have some serious dirt on Hugh because I can’t see any other reason that fortnightly we’d be subjected to these puzzles. Some of the clues are so basic as to be not cryptic (1ac, 9ac, 25ac, 2dn 23dn), others seem to be written by someone who doesn’t think cryptic clues need any grammar or definition at all (16ac, 7dn). There’s no joy in going “oh that must be it because it half works and fits with the other letters.

    Sorry for the rant but to compound my dislike of the puzzles it irritates me that my least favourite setter is also the most regularly appearing one by far.

    Anyway I know some people like them and interesting to read the blog and comments as always so thank you Vulcan and Eileen.

20. A gentle start to the week. I thought 1ac was OK as is; the sea did not cross my mind… I liked OCTOBER, ANTI and EASY RIDER.

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

21. I have just finished Matilda’s excellent Quiptic and would heartily recommend it. 😉

22. folks….there’s some dramatic overthinking going on re 1a

23. I thought there was more to this than people give it credit for. At 18a, I spent some time trying to do something with STAIRCASE having of course reversed CATS and used ‘one’ ‘run’. At 19d, I initially tried to parse DAWDLED because of the D and WED. At 2d I looked for an anagram of OBSCURE but then saw the word ‘cryptic’ printed less than a centimeter above its position in the grid! I also explored the sea route at 1a. I’ve had my busiest week since 23rd March so now have a backlog of crosswords to catch up on and this was a good start. Thanks Vulcan and Eileen

24. Like others I was somewhat puzzled by RECIPE, so thanks to JinA for making sense of it. Also like others some of the clues are very weak and barely cryptic including that word WEEP and OXYGEN. INFRA DIG is an expression my parents used to use I remember from my childhood more years ago than I care to remember! I didn’t realise a hack was a noun for a horse though I know riders go out for a hack on their horse. MyCollins dictionary has put me right.
    Thanks to Eileen and Vulcan

25. I thought 1a RECIPE was rather good, parsed as JinA says @1, with the clever misdirection of “after” and “to follow”.

    16a ANTI was interesting, and I’m still trying to make my mind up as to whether it fully works.  I think it would work better with the “a” omitted, although the surface then wouldn’t read so well.  (I agree, TheZed @16, that there is no rule that the definition has to be at the beginning or the end – that’s just where it normally ends up naturally if a clue works properly.)

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

26. Thanks Vulcan and Eileen

    Musically, we have Ballad of Easy Rider from the Byrds, a very dark Rook by XTC, Rod Stewart was Stone Cold Sober on his Atlantic Crossing and I’ve heard Rumours of Fleetwood Mac’s Gold Dust Woman.

27. Mondays are ok, mixture of Vulcan, Pan, Anto etc. It’s a tough craft and a learning process (see, eg, recent comments about Anto’s development). No grumbles here. Same for solvers I suppose although I’m a cogitative plodder, don’t hurry and haven’t got much sharper. Weekends, I do a couple from the Times (syndicated in a local Rupert Rag, well after their London publication). When I can, occasionally, manage one in under an hour, the solving times for the veterans on their blog will be in minutes! Humbling!

28. Thanks Vulcan and Eileen. I agree this puzzle has some unsatisfying answers (WEEP, CRYPTIC) but some I really enjoyed. EASY RIDER, kICKING ONESELF and ANTI.
    My LOI was SHACKLING and I’m still a bit unhappy for sling to be strap.
    Overall I was grateful for a gentle start to the week after grappling with Paul’s Prize on Saturday! Before finishing today I only had 5 answers in for Saturday but Vulcan’s puzzle got my creative ideas going again and I’ve managed a few more for Saturday’s puzzle.

29. I, too, can’t make sense of RECIPE but the advice of DavidT @17 is wise. Life is too short.

    In answer to Mark @13, the breathable bit of air is OXYGEN.

    Now, of course, when oxygen was first discovered in the 18th century, scientists still believed the “phlogiston theory” of combustion was correct; that combustible substances contained an inflammable principle called phlogiston, which was liberated when combustion took place. When Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen, he named it “dephlogisticated air”, reasoning that things burned more brightly in an atmosphere of oxygen because it would be better able to take up phlogiston.

    The Frenchman Lavoisier, however, showed that combustion involved the burning substance taking up oxygen rather than losing phlogiston, and because if the combustion products were dissolved in water the solution was acid he came up with the name oxy-gen (acid producer). But before he hit on that name which we now gratefully use, he suggested the name eminently breathable air. I did wonder whether there was a gentle allusion to this in Vulcan’s clue.

    Incidentally, anyone who might have supposed Michael Gove to be historically illiterate should consider the fate of Lavoisier, the greatest scientist of his day. He was guillotined in the French Revolution, with the dismissive comment “La Republique n’a pas besoin de savants” [essentially, The Republic doesn’t need experts]

     

30. All I care about on Vulcan Mondays is that I don’t have some ghastly cryptic definition hanging over to the afternoon. Today, not even a ghastly definition of CRYPTIC could hold me up. Thank goodness for that.

31. NeilH @29: thanks for that and, if that was Vulcan’s intent, I appreciate the reference.  I’m not entirely convinced.  I thought breathing was the inspiring of air – all of it.  It’s just the bits other than Oxygen don’t do us much benefit.  After all, one can breathe smoke, carbon monoxide etc but they’re not breathable in the sense intended.

32. Nice start to the week for us newbies so thank you Vulcan and Eileen.  As with others, STONE COLD SOBER was my fav because I’m not sure I’ve been this since the 23rd March…

33. When several clues are obvious while the puzzle is still coming out of the printer, you suspect an easy solve, but when a whole segment falls (NE) before the ink is dry you suspect it is a waste of a sheet of paper. The only consolation was that I set a new personal record for solving time. I found the quiptic a significantly more decent challenge.

34. rodshaw @33 – as I said on the Quiptic thread, the puzzles would have been better the other way round – as is quite often the case.

35. At the risk of sounding cocky, I can’t be the only one for whom almost every clue was an immediate write-in. 13A brought to mind a comparison between solving the puzzle and thrashing a beginner at chess; there’s little pleasure to be derived from such a lack of challenge. However, solvers have varied tastes, and the editor must try to cater for them all, just as TV programme planners give us Love Island and TOWIE as well as University Challenge and Inside No 9. So I shouldn’t moan, but I still do.

36. I get along better with Vulcan when he doesn’t saturate the grid with cryptic/double definitions. There are still several here, but only CRYPTIC and WEEP stood out to me as weak, and those were at least easily gettable. I don’t think of a MASSACRE as an overwhelming victory, but Collins justifies the usage. Otherwise all steady and straightforward except for RECIPE, where my thoughts were the same as Eileen’s, but I still couldn’t make it work (initially not convinced by the explanation of JinA @1, but perhaps that was the intent). I did like OXYGEN and SECOND MATE.Thanks to Vulcan and Eileen.

37. Pleasant enough for a Monday – if it’s too easy, there are also the FT and Indy crosswords to do.

    I thought 1A was a bit strange, but accept JinA @1’s thinking. INFRA DIG is still in common usage, I think. None of the dictionaries seem to give it as dated. Thanks NeilH @29 for the extra information about ‘breathable air’.

    Thanks Vulcan and Eileen.

38. Eileen

    I’ve been going through the Guardian crossword archives for some time now, starting from when the fifteensquared blogs first began, and am currently in May, 2008. On March 17th 2008, a certain name first appeared in the comments, and was a regular thereafter. The nature of the comments suggested that this person, by the name of Eileen, was a blogger-in-waiting!

    Clue: ‘Bows and scrapes to obtain indications of approval’ (12). Remember that?

39. The question mark in the clue to 1 across should be where the comma is.

40. Neil H – the difference between Lavoisier and Gove is that Lavoisier was bemoaning his fate, whereas Gove was simply being mendacious.

41. Alomg with others I enjoyed today’s Quiptic much more than this.  I did like STONE COLD SOBER and OXYGEN. I parsed RECIPE asmJinA@1 did and thought the device for ANTI was clever.

    Mark@13, as per NeilH@29’explanation, that is why I liked oxygen, ie that O is the part of air that we need and is (part of) why we breathe. However, I would just like to point out that inspiration is only part of breathing; exhaling is also important as the exhaling of carbon dioxide is also vital.

    Thanks to Vulcan and to Eileen for the blog.

42. muffin @14

    I have heard tennis commentators making a clear distinction between an ace, when the receiver fails to get a racket on the ball, and a service winner, in which contact is made, but the ball is not returned in court. By this measure, there is no double duty in 15D; ACE is just a ‘winner’.

43. PeterO @42

    Although your distinction between “ace” and “winner” is true, it is irrelevant to the point I was making. The only shot in tennis that can be an “ace” is a service.

44. Pleasant puzzle.  (I’m still hung up on parts of the Quiptic.)

    greensward @38 — I tried to find the fifteensquared for the puzzle you mention.  I found the puzzle — it’s Rufus, 24,338.   But when I googled “fifteensquared 24338” I got the reply that there was no such entry.

    I also remember, during some old rootling of my own in 2008, that one day that year was your first blog, Eileen, with welcoming comments from other bloggers.  What date was that?

    For what it’s worth (very very little), “courses” is a term for the big sails on each mast — the mainsail, the foresail and the mizzen.  Having said that, I can’t work it into the recipe clue at all.

    Thank you, Eileen and Vulcan.

45. I enjoyed this overall. I think some of the criticism has been a bit harsh.

    Muffin @ 43: Ace can also be a winner in cards (eg splitting a deck to decide who wins – assuming it’s agreed ace is high).

    Thanks to Vulcan and Eileen.

46. Valentine

    You were unable to find the puzzle on this site because the online version was incorrectly numbered and that error was carried forward into the blog. I have now corrected this and the post can be found here.

47. I usually have a first go at the crossword over breakfast, and then aim to finish it off (which I sometimes manage to do) in the evening. So my delight at finishing today’s puzzle over breakfast was somewhat diminished by the realisation that I wouldn’t have it to distract me later. Hey ho.
    Thanks to Vulcan and Eileen.

48. Many of the clues need tightening up, or could have been put more elegantly. Editor clearly happy let things slide with Vulcan. Shame.

49. Hi greensward @38  Yes, I do remember – and how long I took to pluck up the courage to post a comment! You and Valentine prompted me to do some rootling of my own in the archive. My first blog was on September 24th 2008 – an Orlando puzzle. How times – and blogs – have changed!

50. Simon @15 -do you remember a cricketer name of Atherton b McGrath

    and a Sheila who bowled under the name of Lillian Thompson?

51. When I did this last night, I wondered about ANTI, and looked forward to seeing the wisdom of the crowd in the morning – would it be considered inventive or against the rules?  As might be expected, a mixed bag.

    To expand a bit on JinA@1, most clues are definition+wordplay (in either order), DDs are a subtype of this, and there are also CDs and &lits.  That seems to be all and today’s 16a is none of these.  I frankly don’t know if there are such things as rules for cryptics, or just evolving practice, but I will say this.  We get about 10,000 clues a year in the Guardian Cryptic, and most of the setters are very experienced, and – I don’t say this enough – quite brilliant and innovative and as far as I can remember, don’t ever try things like this.  There must be a reason.

52. I wonder why there is a policy of having two easy crosswords on a Monday? It seems to leave the more experienced solvers frustrated and people like me sometimes at sea later in the week. However I prefer to congratulate myself on a record fast solve than bemoan the nature of the clues, although, like others, I found the Quiptic a more satisfying exercise..

    Thanks to Eileen and Vulcan

53. Thanks both,
    Short but some sweet bits. While this is Monday fare, I thought there were some enjoyable clues e.g. 11, 5, 8, 15 and some interesting misdirection. No sympathy with the grumblers over this one.

54. Petert @52, the Quiptic does not appear in the printed paper, while the Cryptic does. My guess is that the ‘easy Monday’ tradition in the printed paper is so well-established now that it’s immutable. The only possibility would be to move the Quiptic to later in the week, and that would be fraught with danger too.

55. Most of this was ridiculously easy, but it took me ages to get MASSACRE because I’d put MOTIVE at 24a. Yes, I know MoT is a test rather than a law, but it’s as close as some of the other loosenesses in this crossword. MATE=failure? ARID=dull? Thanks to Julie in Australia’s explanation @1, 1a is now seen as quite clever, though without the crossers could anyone have written in RECIPE with any confidence?

    Highlight of the day so far: Penfold’s mention @26 of Rook by XTC. Highly recommended.

56. Not sure about 25a. Are we to read “rarely valuable” as meaning “valuable because of its rare nature”? This seems a bit awkward…

    I also didn’t like 14a. Surely “arid” doesn’t mean “dull”. Though I guess arid land, due to the lack of water, might be considered dull to look at.

57. HH@56 et al: Here is an extract from Collins about the second meaning of arid:

    ADJECTIVE [usually ADJECTIVE noun]If you describe something such as a period of your life or an academic subject as arid, you mean that it has so little interest, excitement, or purpose that it makes you feel bored or unhappy.
    She had given him the only joy his arid life had ever known.
    …the politically arid years of military dictatorship in the 1960s and ’70s.
    Synonyms: boring, dull, tedious, dreary  

58. Thought loi ANTI quite a cute little clue…

59. Vulcan bashing seems to be the Monday sport in these parts so I wasn’t expecting much from this crossword. I was pleasantly surprised and I enjoyed solving this over breakfast. By the way, the Saturday FT crossword by Julius should not be missed. Thanks to both.

60. Thanks Vulcan (and Eileen).

    To those who can only find unpleasant things to say about someone’s attempts to amuse and entertain, I would suggest you take a long, hard look in the mirror.

61. To those who feel they have the right to police the opinions of other members of this site, I would suggest you take a long, hard look in the mirror. Or better still, at the site guidelines

62. ‘Unpleasant things’. Can you be more specific? Are people not allowed to comment anything other than glowing praise?

    Some people find these puzzles too easy for a cryptic slot. They should be allowed to say so.

63. Agree with KeithM @48. There really shouldn’t be so much discussion on what is supposed to be a fairly straightforward puzzle. The fact that there is tells me that today’s offering is not all it should be.
    Thanks Vulcan

64. HH@56:I interpreted the definition of GOLD DUST as “rarely valuable” to mean it’s both valuable and rare, eg. “Parking places in the centre of town are like gold dust”.

    As a relative newcomer I enjoy an easy romp on a Monday. Today’s favourites were STONE COLD SOBER and SECOND MATE.

    Thanks to Vulcan and Eileen.

65. Oh dear. I’m one of those who rather liked this crossword. Then again, one of the reasons I generally enjoy Vulcan’s puzzles is that quite a few of his/her clues remind me of Rufus. I recall there was a section of the FS community that didn’t like him, either. I wonder how much the numbers overlap….
    Personally, RECIPE made me grin – precisely because the reference to “main” had me starting out looking for some connection to the high seas. Likewise, with a T & a B in 7d – my first thought was ANTIBES, before spotting the well-hidden (to me!!) correct answer. And again, how refreshing to have a different sense of “ct”. Thanks to Vulcan for the fun, to Eileen for the blog, to Neil H for the fascinating info on Lavoisier and phlogiston (I SO love the extra things I learn via this site!) though I have to confess, I’m with Lyssian on Gove himself.

66. Wellbeck @ 65

    Vulcan is a he.

67. muffin @43

    “The only shot in tennis that can be called an ace is a service”. Certainly, but so what? I suspect that you are trying to conflate the surface, where ‘service’ and ‘winner’ hang together (with not an ace in sight), and the wordplay, where they do not pair up.

68. AllyGally @64: I agree, something that is valuable because of its rarity could be “rarely valuable”. I thought this was a good attempt at a misleading definition.

    Wellbeck @65: Again, I agree about the attempt at misleading with “main” leading to the high seas (with the added diversion of a “main course” being a large sail). But there was a missing “penny drop moment”, I thought. In a clue like this we have to be sure that the answer is the same one that the compiler has thought of, and I don’t get that sense here. But that’s maybe a problem with any cryptic definition?

69. PeterO @67. Yes, this is another of Vulcan’s subtly clever clues, where “service winner” seems to come from tennis, but in fact “service” is religion and “ace” is cards. (Self @55. This doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind about some of the looseness in today’s puzzle. There’s cleverness, sure, but perhaps some of it leads to looseness.)

70. I’m not clear that “ace” means “winner” except in tennis. An ace doesn’t have to win in cards.

    I should say that I quite liked the ambiguity. I don’t think “double duty” is necessarily a no-no.

71. Easy, except for RECIPE which accounted for half my solving time. I wonder if the setter deliberately inserted a difficult clue in this crossword?

72. Thanks to Eileen and Vulcan

    4a Chambers has kid-glove, and Collins has kidglove. It just means “gentle”.

73. muffin @ 70

    Well, Agent Orange has recently been talking about acing his cognitive function tests, and he’s certainly a winner…

74. Yes, Simon, but again that’s a tennis reference!

75. Maybe not a tennis reference? North American English usage of “ace” can be “achieve high marks in (a test or exam)”

    Which isn’t to say I wouldn’t like to see him end up in, rather than on, court 🙂

     

76. Didn’t get along with Anti.  Been doing the Guardian cryptic for nigh on 15 years and can’t think of another occasion when the beginning/ending rule has been broken (which isn’t to say it hasn’t been but it must be extremely rare).  Why not simply clue it as “Wanting to hide an opponent?”  OK it would have been straightforward but the only thing that didn’t make this clue straightforward was not following the standard rule and thereby throwing the solver.  Maybe I was just tired and not sufficiently imaginative but this was the only clue I didn’t get and I BLAME THE SETTER! 😉

77. Morpheus @76, I agree that the surface disguise made ANTI hard to spot, but I’m not sure it’s unfair.  I regard the beginning/end rule for the definition as unwritten at best, so I quite liked the clue in the end.  The setter could have kept the same surface meaning and not infringed the “rule” with something like “Wanting to give a hiding to opponent” but I suppose he just chose not to.

    On the other hand, I didn’t feel so well disposed to RECIPE as a CD, and the DD PREGNANT was pretty repugnant.  The definition for KID GLOVE is more an allusion to it than a synonym and I didn’t like CT for “caught” in TACTFUL very much.  Other than that, seemed par for the course for a Monday.

    Thanks, Vulcan and Eileen.

78. I found most of this fine. I did have ANTI in mind for the longest time before I put it in as the last answer (after SHACKLING), when it seemed it couldn’t be anything else.

79. I think ANTI is an absolute gem of a clue. It’s so difficult to construct fair clues where the difficulty lies in finding the definition in the middle of the clue, but here we have a simple definition and “hidden in” wordplay all under a perfectly smooth surface. Wonderful.

80. I know I’m late to the discussion here, but could somebody please explain what the actual definition of 7d is supposed to be? I’m assuming it’s supposed to be an &lit / ‘clue as definition’, but if that’s the case the answer could just as easily be any of an almost infinite number of possible expressions of time. Seems like an absurdly vague, lazy clue, even if it was easily solveable.

81. The definition part is simply ‘When’.

    I was using the crossword to help teach a beginner, and 16ac messed that up!!

82. Thank you Vulcan for a puzzle I could make some progress with.  Between Monday and Thursday I managed over three quarters of it with the south west corner being the one with gaps.  I had 25ac, 12d, 17d, second half of 21ac so just 3 across words and two down words missing.  Thank you Eileen for providing the answers and explanations for the missing answers.  Mostly dohs but I would never have got 16ac.  I would get the Telegraph where the puzzles are generally easier but my wife insists on getting the Guardian.  For those who find these these puzzles too easy may I suggest The Times.  As for news content and actually reading the paper, I only do that if I have finished all the puzzles.

83. Puntanelle @81:

    Re 7d, whether you take “When” as the definition or take the entire clue, it’s still a weak, vague clue.

84. As someone who’s still a cryptic noob, I like having two eas(ier) puzzles. I mean, I didn’t complete this one until right now. ¯\_(?)_/¯

    Never heard of INFRA DIG. Technically, my LOI was MASSACRE, but since I actually had to guess-and-check to get ACTIVE but was able to get MASSACRE after I had the final crosser, I consider ACTIVE my “true” LOI. (Also, I parsed ‘service winner’ as a double pun: ‘service=mass’ + ‘ace=winner’ yes, but also ‘ace’ as in ‘Flying ace’ – a.k.a., someone in the military service who wins a lot of air combat battles.)

    I was also iffy about the construction of the clue for ANTI, but the result was pleasant enough that I just dinged them a mental point and moved on.

    AllyGally@64 and sheffield hatter@68 That’s how I interpreted ‘rarely valuable’ as well. Horexio Helgar@56 I’d say ‘arid’ as a synonym for ‘dull’ would be a largely poetic choice of words rather than something the everyday person would use if they weren’t trying to flowery language.

    Not seeing how ‘run’=’ladder’, though?

85. query at #84     run = ladder is from nylons/tights  – maybe less common today

86. ‘Infra dig’ completely new to me. Knew what it had to be an anagram of and still couldn’t fill it in.

    I welcome my fortnightly Vulcan puzzle. It makes me feel accomplished when I complete it. (Occasionally.) Not a feat I would accomplish on any other day of the week …

87. Completely agree with Julius Mach, Khitty Hawk and Colin F. Some of us are very grateful for puzzles on the easier side of things. I really like Vulcan’s puzzles (though this one wasn’t my favourite). Due respect to experienced solvers and all that, but please don’t begrudge us puzzles that provide more of a way in.

88. 16ac – it’s the “a” that annoyed me

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