Guardian 26,517 by Tramp

75 comments on “Guardian 26,517 by Tramp”

1. Thanks manehi. Last two were 10A and 5D but couldn’t for the life of me make sense of them, so thanks for that. Wouldn’t have got DECANT without yesterday’s discussion here. Never heard of the person you mention, or her show or habits. Amazing I finished this in good time.

2. I mean baffled by not 5 but 8D, EPEE: should have got ‘go’ in this sense, it is irritatingly frequent.

3. Some clever ideas in there, and funny to see A&D getting a mention after yesterday’s tease.

   I ‘far’ liked POKER (more practice with “A = PER”!), POST-IT, the V-sign and BUTCHERS…among others.

   Thanks manehi for a couple of explanations, and Tramp for some good moments.

4. Enjoyed this, thank you Tramp; favourite clue was 14d. I too was amused to see the presenters’ names again after being one of the many who were fooled by them yesterday!

   Needed help with the parsing of 19ac and could have kicked myself when it was pointed out. Thank you for that, manehi.

5. Rats! I got too clever for my own good with 23 (BEEB). If you contract ‘gamBLE Upset’ you get BLEU, which is a French broadcast channel.

6. Thanks, manehi.

   Great stuff, as usual from Tramp, with some brilliant anagrams, especially 11,5, one of my favourite clues, along with 6dn – and there were lots more.

   I would recommend the programme, if you have access to it. I have a feeling there’s rather more to this puzzle, if I could Only Connect.

   I laughed out loud when I saw 7dn. Overseas solvers should have had less trouble with it than they might have had on Tuesday, say.

   Many thanks to Tramp for the fun. [Another good day, with a clever puzzle by Donk [Screw to us] in the Indy.]

7. Superb! The clue for POST-IT must be one of the all-time greats, but there’s lots of good stuff here, as others have said. Thanks to Tramp, and to manehi for the blog.

8. I didn’t know who Victoria Whats-her-face was, but for once, that didn’t matter in the slightest–it all went in anyway. Apparently, though, that made me miss half the fun. Thanks for the explanations.

   I needed to come here for parsings of Lasagna (because Aga is not a brand I know) and Poker (because I’m an idiot).

9. I didn’t have too many technical issues with this, but somehow I didn’t really like it. There is the Guardian obsession with bodily functions and sex here, which I usually find puerile, and I feel that some of the clues here are rather strained to accommodate the theme: it feels ‘shoe-horned in’ wherever it can possibly be referenced.

   3 and 14 down I really liked, I should say.

   11 5a indicator should be post-positional; 13a order is odd; 16a liked the infinitive ind, but the def falls down for me; 22a strained order again, seemed clumsy; 24a sense?; 7d I think switching back the duo, who are always called ‘Ant & Dec’ would have been a good thing to indicate; 18d is not a word; 21d why have ‘written’?

10. Thanks, manehi.

    Fun, as ever from Tramp. This took me a while to get into, as this setter’s puzzles often do. I did enjoy the references to VCM and her splendid show.

    Like molonglo @1, my last in were USE UP – which I had come up with much earlier, but couldn’t parse, and which left the unpromising _P_E for 8d, but I finally solved this last one, with a smile and a groan.

    The long anagrams are ingenious: 11,5 for the name check and 16a for the smooth surface. Favourite was the succinctly cheeky 3d.

    At least the sum at the bottom is easy: ? – 1 = 0

11. Thanks Tramp for an amusing puzzle, quite Paulian in parts.

    Thanks manehi, I didn’t parse USE UP correctly. The line-break hyphen in 2d is not needed in the online clue version.

    HH @9; re UNKINDER, many -er or re- derivative words are not given in dictionaries. I always use the Scrabble Checker (based on Collins,) which gives UNKINDER as a legitimate word.

    I particularly liked APRES-SKI, POST-IT and ELECTROMECHANICAL. I would add to the praise of Only Connect (BBC2 at 8.30 after University Challenge.)

12. If hedgehoggy doesn’t think UNKINDER is a word, he might also not enjoy Shakespeare.

13. Thanks Tramp and manehi.

    I enjoyed this even though it took quite a long time and I needed help with parsing. Had never heard of VCM before, but was wise to DEC and ANT!

    Hoggy, the sex references could be regarded as appropriate here, apparently VCM attempted to make the best hardcore porn movie ever.

14. Hi Andrew @12

    That’sexactly what sprang to my mind! 😉

15. Apologies for the inadvertent sex reference – I mwant, of course, ‘that’s exactly’. 😉

16. Oh dear, another typo, in my haste to cover my embarrassment – I meant ‘meant’!

17. I really enjoyed this puzzle and don’t have any issues with it, technical or otherwise. I finished in the SW with the excellent OYSTER.

18. Thanks for the super blog manehi.

    I wrote this in December. I came up with the clue for �post-it� in the office — under my monitor was an upturned pad of notes with �Post-It brand� on the back. I immediately thought of �after sex� and then spent all night thinking of a definition. Ten minutes to bedtime, I got “sticky”, as it were, and was so excited I couldn’t sleep: such is the rock-and-roll lifestyle of a crossword setter.

    Victoria Coren Mitchell is superb and Only Connect is one of the best shows on TV. I decided to start work on a puzzle having seen her spin a tale on Would I Lie to You? about ringing up Tim Henman when she’s stuck on a crossword clue.

    hedgehoggy: thanks, as always, for the lessons. In writing this, I realise that I’m helping you play your little game, however, this will be the last time I ever reply to you (unless I ever get the pleasure of commenting on one of your masterpieces). Your posts seem to get more attention than the puzzles and that�s such a shame � it certainly puts me off coming here. I must admit, I don�t tend to read the blogs on other puzzles but, having done so on a few recently, it pains me to admit that I agree with a lot of what you say regarding grammar. However, some things you write are idiotic: you seem to bang on about “order” and “tortuous constructions”; where does it say that the elements of a charade-type clue should be presented in the order in which they appear? The manner in which you hide under the cloak of anonymity and make your matter-of-fact, cutting comments with an air of superiority makes my blood boil. I will leave it there before I say something I shouldn�t.

    Thanks for the comments

    Neil

19. Bristling with indignation, Tramp….! Well done with the puzzle, fascinating to hear where and how some clues have their origins…

20. Well of course there are words that used to be words 😀

    I don’t want to be more unkinderer though 😀

21. My spell check will not accept ‘unkinder’ but will accept ‘unkindest’.

22. Thank you to Tramp for a splendid puzzle – just seeing Victoria’s name in a clue made me smile and there was lots to enjoy throughout. Thanks to manehi too.

    As for prickly comments, they are starting to make me yearn for the days when I didn’t know about crossword blogs, just solved all on my own in peace and quiet and if I didn’t enjoy a particular puzzle, it went in the bin because I knew there’d be another one along tomorrow. HH would do well to remember that setters are actual really nice human beings who are just doing their day job. Perhaps we ought to get a few of them to come along and give you the price of a paper and tell you what you’re doing wrong.

23. Well what about ‘screen quiz returns to entertain v’? How you dispose of V is up to you of course but that is a natural order. For 22 you could put SAG in a different girl that would have been easier surely. That’s what I mean anyway, and why can’t I point it out?

    These remarks are just my opinion, as I always say or try to imply. I also said I really like a couple here, but still I am in the wrong! 🙁

24. crypticsue — it isn’t my “day job” though: It’s my one-hour-before-bed-when-family-life-permits job.

    The knockers don’t realise all the contraints when writing a puzzle: use a Guardian grid (but not one with those horrible three-unch-five-letter squares); only use at most six anagrams; only use at most one hidden; make the theme “hidden” — punters don’t like use of general knowledge; don’t include Wagner, even though I love him; don’t clue a word you’ve used recently (two of the words in this puzzle had to be replaced as I’d recently clued them); don’t use a clue you’ve written before; don’t use a word as an answer that’s been in a Guardian puzzle recently; don’t use a lot of single-letter indicators; use only common abbreviations; no unusual words; don’t make your clues too long; no long anagrams; don’t make it a “curate’s egg” but make sure you give a way in to the puzzle — not too easy, mind; no write-ins; punters don’t like cryptic definitions; add a bit of sauce but not too much; no non-drawing room words; make sure people can solve it without aids on the Clapham omnibus; make sure your theme isn’t shoehorned in. … I could go on and I haven’t even mentioned Ximenes.

    Anyway, back to the day job now.

    Neil

25. Thanks Tramp and manehi.

    For me, Tramp never fails to entertain and stretch, and today was no exception.

    In a wider context, while it’s true that everyone is certainly entitled to an opinion, that doesn’t mean de facto that those opinions have to be aired every day. Personally, I find that I learn more if I keep my mouth shut and my ears and mind open.

    As far as Spiny Norman goes, when I see the name I move on to a contributor.

26. Thanks manehi and Tramp – and good on the latter for standing up for yourself and other setters. Please do keep coming back, it’s always interesting to see the setter’s side of things.

    UNKINDER is a string of letters (or sounds) with an intended meaning, and one that’s easy enough to deduce. Therefore it’s a word, regardless of what lexicons it might appear in – in the same way that a place does not only become a place when it’s recorded on a map. Otherwise, we might as well say that words have only existed since dictionaries have.

    We do, of course, have an unspoken agreement with setters that words will appear in Chambers or some other major authority, but it needn’t always be so.

27. Apologies Tramp @22 – I knew as soon as I pressed submit comment that I should have left out the ‘day job’ bit – particularly as I probably more than most people know that a large number of setters do have completely separate day jobs from their crossword setting lives.

28. @23
    The problem is that your being able to come up with slightly different versions of Tramp’s clues has no bearing on the quality of his work. So it’s fine to say “look – I can write a similar clue!”, but not to imply that there is therefore something wrong with the original. It’s no substitute for analysing the clue.

29. …and of course it’s not (as you always seem to imply) that these setters can’t write with a nice easy, obvious word-order. They are teasing you…seeing if you can unravel the clue to find a way to make it work.

    – which is why they call them ‘Puzzles’.   😉

30. If you say so guys. It’s my opinion. Someone said I was talking rubbish about word-order so I tried to demonstrate what I mean. You can’t have it both ways 🙁

31. Found this quite fun – overall fairly straightforward by Tramp’s standards (which does not mean easy!). Last in was DIPLOMATE, which I had to check because I’d never seen it before. I did wonder whether BROWNIE was a make – I thought it was more of a model. Liked VINDICATOR, OYSTER and PROUST.

    Thanks to Tramp and manehi

32. I loved this! The first run through yielded almost nothing but gradually and extremely satisfyingly, the SE, NW and then NE corners yielded. I failed on 5 in the SW corner but still one of the most enjoyable ones for me for a while.

    I especially enjoy the chagrin when one of the clues I miss is a hidden answer (here, OYSTER) – these should be the easiest but sometimes the setters misdirect so well.

    Thanks manehi too for those last 5.

33. Thanks all.

    Despite our resident grinch (great word by the way, do look it up if it’s unfamiliar and you’ll know to whom I am referring) I thought this was Super-Tramp.

    Loved the fun – only slight quibble was “Make for camera” which should perhaps be “Make of camera” but would render the clue too easy.

    I do hope the unpleasantness often engendered by our grinch doesn’t put off setters from dropping in – always nice to hear from them.

    Nice week, all.

34. Aah, HH, don’t be sad … I’d give you a stroke, but, you know, the prickles …

    I find some of your posts helpful, because, being relatively new to cryptics, they cause me to look at the mechanics for constructing clues. As you say, it’s your opinion, which I believe you’re entitled to express. Just sometimes, you know, a little bit tactfullier ?

    (Wanted to put a “wink” emoticon in there – could someone please tell me how?)

35. What no Balderdash?

36. @34 😉

37. Sorry, meant to say: thanks, Tramp, for the lovely, elegant, ever-so-slightly risqu� puzzle … and thanks manehi for the PDM for the parsing of epee. I should have had enough years driving across Europe with three children whining “Mum, I need to gooo…!” every 5 minutes to have got that one!

38. Sorry that doesn’t help does it, it is a semi-colon followed by a )

39. hh @9 – if this was puerile, I hope I never grow up!

40. @HH 30

    is neither way an option you could perhaps bung on the menu?

41. I enjoyed this. My FOI was UNKINDER which I thought brilliant and there was much else that I liked. I was held up by the SW corner largely because of the alternative spelling of LASAGNE. Otherwise quite a fun puzzle.
    Thanks Tramp

42. @crypticsue – Thanks! 😉

43. Interesting comments @24. What’s wrong with Wagner? (I mean, okay, he was an anti-Semite, but why should that keep his operas out of a puzzle?) Bellini is apparently okay, what with all the times NORMA shows up. So it can’t just be a prejudice against opera.

    And William @33: Is “grinch” with a small G now officially a word? (And surely everyone knows how the Grinch stole Christmas–or did that one not cross the Pond?) Also, I like the super-Tramp reference, but thanks to you I’ll now be thinking The Logical Song in my head all morning.

44. Thanks Tramp and manehi
    First read through I only had SWIMMING COSTUME, and no other thoughts occurred. However I then got TV SET, and the rest went in easily enough (though some unparsed – particularly embarrassingly the “range” = “AGA” in 22a, as we have one!) EPEE was my favourite.

    Interesting that Tramp says that standing instructions include “no long anagrams”. We had a 17 letter one here, and that’s by far not the longest I have seen in the Guardian.

45. @44   Yes, EPEE was delicious – particularly as   “Energy to go for point…”  is so clearly a “Letter Substitution” cluetype!   🙁   🙂

46. Yes, Limeni – exactly why I liked it, I think.

    There were several that didn’t turn out to be the type of clues that I thought they were going to be – very clever!

47. Started this on the tube, went for a long walk, came back, and eventually realised that LASAGNE was the cause of all my problems.

    Great to see the wonderful Victoria C M getting a clue all to herself. Rather surprised how many bloggers did not know of her; I had rather thought we cruciverbalists were pretty much the sum total of the Only Connect audience.

48. Just here to give a round of applause for 3d – an instant classic.

49. @Tramp @24, thanks for the rundown on what you’re not allowed to do. It was quite amusing (although not, obviously, for you). No Wagner indeed…Oh, and before we get too lost in reification (look it up, hedgegoggy) the crossword was pretty damned good, as well..

50. muffin @44 – this one by Paul was 53 letters (and I bet somebody can find a longer one 🙂

    http://www.fifteensquared.net/2011/10/27/guardian-25464-paul/

51. bh @50
    Tramp has clarified the Guardian site. They aren’t so much Guardian style guides; more a list of things solvers have complained about, though he does try to take them into account.

52. Trailman @ 47: I, for one, didn’t know of her because I’m not British (and thus don’t watch British TV, except the programs PBS sees fit to import).

53. [muffin @51 – I wasn’t querying that, I was just backing up your point about 17 letters not being anywhere near the longest]

54. [Thanks for that, bh. (I may well be one of the complainers!) I realised after posting that, as you have a presence “over there”, you would probably have seen Tramp’s comment.]

55. Re: Long anagrams.

    This one by Paul – afraid I can’t remember when but about 10 years or so ago in The Guardian – would take some beating:

    “Here ‘n’ there in the heavens’ watery mire are tiny slits, so the harsh weather is slight, not bulky, perhaps? (Spike Milligan) (5,3,5,2,3,3,5, 3,4,4,2,3,6,4,2,5,5,3,4,2,4)”.

56. @55

    I’m sure many others on here will remember the long anagram quoted – but many must be too young – surely!

    I’ve just done a bit of googling and it was set in 1997 – late Oct. or early Nov. I remember doing it in the paper and it’s hard to believe it was that long ago. Also in the original the clue ended “perhaps? (4 by Milligan)”

57. Thanks to Tramp and manehi. I see to be the only one who found this very difficult today.

    Enjoyed POST IT – a classic as many have said.

    Tramp@24 Thanks for your interesting set of rules – very interesting. I assume these constraints are ones issued to all Guardian setters? Did you miss one out – setters can choose to ignore at most one of these rules?

    ” don�t include Wagner”: We have had fairly recently crosswords with this as a theme!

    ” no unusual words”: don’t know how the Guardian defines unusual, but there are often words most Clapham omnibus people would say are unusual.

    “don�t use a word as an answer that�s been in a Guardian puzzle recently”: I am intrigued how a setter would know this, given puzzles are submitted some time before publication. Is clairvoyance a prerequisite for setters?

    ” punters don�t like cryptic definitions”: One word, Rufus.

58. Sorry, I should have been clearer. The list was simply some of the things I now bear in mind after comments read here on previous puzzles. Most of the items on the list are not Guardian policy. You’re right about using words that other setters might have used recently; this is not an issue when first creating a puzzle but might lead to writing clues for different words before publication (as happened with two entries in this puzzle).

    Neil

59. @57
    No, it’s not a real set of rules! That would be weird. See the Guardian site (below today’s cryptic), where Tramp has explained.

60. D’oh. Sorry, can’t delete the cross-post.

61. As a solver who has never commented but occasionally comes here for help with the crossword (I do the puzzles Monday to Friday)all these exchanges made me think of a nursery rhyme that my 18 month old granddaughter enjoys:

    A wise old owl sat in an oak
    The more he heard the less he spoke
    The less he spoke the more he heard
    Why can’t we all be like that wise old bird

    Just saying.

62. [My first camera was a “Box Brownie”, though I think (it was a long time ago) it was made by Kodak. I could change the film myself, though – apparently the original ones you sent the whole camera back to Kodak, who developed and printed the pictures and sent them back to you, with a replacement camera and film.

    Only Connect is one of the programmes I never miss. I’m intrigued by Victoria in a hard-core porn movie, though, Cookie – or was she just the director?]

63. Tramp@58 Thanks for the clarification. I see they are an admirable set of rules and as far as I can see you adhere to them perfectly.

64. [ muffin @62, Victoria with Charlie Skelton used to review porn films for the Erotic Review. They thought that most of the films were terrible and decided they could make a better hardcore movie themselves. They wrote up their attempts to do so in Once More with Feeling (I haven’t read it, it is apparently very funny, they went to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Amsterdam…)]

65. [Thanks, Cookie – I must look out for it (the book, I mean!)]

66. hh @9 As I’ve said before I don’t mind the forensic analysis but can you explain what is meant by “16a liked the infinitive ind”?
    What infinitive? What ind?

67. [Cookie – the book is now ordered from Amazon]

68. Well I thought this was the puzzle of the year so far.

    I won’t repeat what’s already been said except to say that I thought it was genius to find an anagram from Victoria Coren Mitchell which actually related to the loose theme.

    Luckily for me Only Connect is one of the 5 or so programmes on the TV I actually choose to watch. Consequently I was familiar with VCM and her exploits. (Those on here who don’t know her must be familiar with her father Alan Coren of Punch and Listener fame!)

    There were just so many good clues in this puzzle!

    Thanks to manehi and Tramp

69. Re ‘Only Connect’: I totally agree with Trailman’s comment @47.

    [Our Jetdoc – Jane Teather – was a contestant a while ago.]

    Hi Malagachica, if you’re still there

    There’s a guide to emoticons here: http://www.fifteensquared.net/2009/06/19/emoticons/

70. Thank you Eileen – I searched and found it! I was a bit surprised because I used these punctuation type representations of emoticons about 10 years ago on Yahoo groups, for example, but most fora now seem to use the actual graphic that you choose from a drop-down menu. The soapmaking forum I belong to has a seemingly endless list encompassing every emotion known to man or woman. Many posts seem to consist of just the emoticon – we use “rolls eyes” a lot!

71. Victoria Coren Mitchell is a great host on the fabulous Only Connect she is also an excellent poker player and has won a fair amount of money. I wonder if this is related to 21 across

72. I can only echo the majority’s enthusiasm for this wonderful crossword – Tramp on top form.
    Really enjoyable.
    Also of the same high quality: Tramp’s exquisite posts @18 and @24.

    The much mentioned 3d was my first one in.
    An example of how a very easy clue can still be a little gem.
    11,5 may be a splendid anagram find but 16ac was even more impressive (nice interaction between cryptic reading and surface).

    Also impressive, Malagachica’s sweet post @34 and Cathy’s mysterious one @61.

    I actually wanted to follow Tramp’s advice not to give hedgehoggy more attention than he (perhaps) deserves.
    However [and it’s late in the day anyway], I do want to say something as the first line in comment #9 is so typical:
    “I didn�t have too many technical issues with this, but somehow I didn�t really like it”.

    (a) It’s not for the first time that I read a post from HH [here or elsewhere] in which he starts with pointing out whether there were technical issues/errors/mistakes or not. Starting with it, is an approach that’s off-putting for many readers here. Most solvers emphasise the overall feeling when tackling a crossword, rather than put the focus on fine-tuning.

    (a*) I say ‘he’ because HH never made his/her gender known to us. Actually, it would be appreciated if HH would tell us somewhat more about his/her backgrounds. Perhaps, ‘we’ would get a better understanding of HH’s view on cryptics. That said, I respect the fact that most posters (unlike me and only a handful others) prefer to be ‘anonymous’.

    (b) The comment #9 makes also very clear that there is a strong link between ‘technical issues’ and ‘enjoyment’. I myself may have clear thoughts of what I think is good cluing (please Jolly Swagman, don’t comment on this!) but the correlation between what for me are ‘technical flaws’ and the overall enjoyment is not terribly strong. Therefore, I can enjoy (and appreciate) Alberich/Klingsor, Nimrod etc but also Rufus and curate’s eggs too – I won’t mention names.

    (c) In follow-up posts HH often uses brightly smiling emoticons. Is it to make clear that everything should be taken not as seriously as we do? Or to laugh away to opponents?

    Sorry to all those who do not want half of the comments being spent on HH.
    I have said now what was already on my mind for some weeks, so that’s it then.

    Instead of that it’s perhaps more productive to say loud and clear: Long Live ‘Only Connect’.
    Even as a non-Brit, I don’t think I’d ever missed an episode.
    Perhaps, I can only answer 10% of the questions correctly but, each week, it makes one’s brain cells work for the full 30 minutes.
    Maybe that’s why I prefer it to University Challenge and, in a broader sense, that is what education should be about anyway.

    Thanks manehi, and once more Tramp for another Jewel in your Crown.

73. Thanks Tramp and manehi

    Smashing puzzle that had a bit of everything in it – a clever theme totally lost on me with the details – don’t know any of the shows or people, a great mix of clues including a few real gems and finished up with a touch of good fun ribaldry.

    Late to this so suspect that it’s only Geoff and the blogger left to read … I’ve never commented on the hedgehoggy poster, but since his/her appearance the focus of the blogs has tended to become a debate of he/she and the rest of the world that has detracted from the subject that is central to this site – the puzzle itself. Now when you have comments like Neil’s above where it could potentially drive the setters away – there is a huge contribution loss as well as a forum for the setters to take on board less ‘fanatical’ feedback.

    I know whose contributions that I’d prefer to be reading here !!!!

74. Bruce @73 – just to show that some of us read the late posts – your contributions are always welcome!

75. We only looked at this last night so sorry we are late (if anyone reads our comment at all) but we have to take issue with 23 across. We would read “make” as denoting the manufacturer, not the model. You wouldn’t call a Golf a make of car (well, we shouldn’t’t,anyway). Similarly, the Brownie was a model of camera made by Kodak.

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