Guardian 26,524 by Boatman

73 comments on “Guardian 26,524 by Boatman”

1. Surely a torc isn’t usually an armband, but rather a necklet?

2. Flavia – Chambers has “a necklace or armband in the form of a twisted metal band” – the necklace may be more common, but the clue should be fine.

3. Thanks to Boatman for a grand puzzle and manehi for some crucial parsing.

   The parsing for 1d and 26a went completely by me; I thought a TORC was a neck adornment so was wrong-footed by arms. PEACE eluded me as I was stuck with A and PEEC when ‘sh’ was removed from speech and tried futilely to turn one of the words in the clue into an anagram indicator;

   Favorite was 3d.

4. Thanks to Boatman for a very enjoyable crossword and to manehi for explaining the many doubts I had!! I really enjoyed the misdirection of the Spooner clue. Never heard of SHEEP SCAB but it had to be!!

5. Thanks manehi. Credit due for a pretty good puzzle, but the two clues mentioned by Freddy annoyed me (got them, couldn’t make sense of them) as did the TORC one. 1A similarly got, but it bothered and baffled.

6. Slight tweak at 1ac? POSH = “of [classy speech]”

7. Some lovely things (I’m sure everyone smiled at Spooner!), but slightly spoiled for me by what seemed like a few ‘liberties-too-far’. Maybe it’s just personal taste though. But does anyone get pleasure from clues like the ‘cement’ one, or intimi-DATING?

   I also had a grumpy cryptic-grammar moment for a while with HANDED OUT, in that ‘house’ seems like it needs an ‘s’ to work. But I suppose it’s j-u-s-t about acceptable as an imperative.

   Lots of quality misdirections though, including his trick (which I quite like) of misleadingly long definitions.

   Thanks Boatman – and manehi for some quality parsing.

8. I had a different take on 26A that works just as well: “Disjointed noun” gives “no un” so you remove “un” from “daunting”.

9. Thanks Boatman and manehi

   I quite liked it – “faint praise” I think is appropriate. I had no idea of the parsing of 1d or 26a either. I wasted some time trying to fit FORE as the warning into 24a. For some reason I spotted the SPOONER’S anagram straight away.

   Is it OK for the “a” in the clue for 19d to indicate “an” in the solution?

10. I enjoyed this a lot, although couldn’t get TORC. Yes, some of the clues were a bit tricky (couldn’t parse PRONOUN or DATING), but all in all an excellent puzzle. Favourites were HEAP ABUSE, INVERTED COMMAS and SPONSOR.

11. Muffin @ 18D – we agree with you about this clue. Surely rewording the clue to say something like “Speech about a new dog” would have been better? Or are we all missing something?

12. ulaca, Blaise – yep, I think your parsings are better. Thanks both – have edited the blog.

13. Sorry should say 19D!

14. Shirlet @11
    Much better!

15. Shirley – sorry!

16. Hi everyone, thank you for your kind wishes regarding my holiday. There were some quite nasty comments as well in my absence so shame on their perps 😀 !

    This puzzle is certainly among the worst I have ever seen. Bad technique, compileritis, silly definitions, it’s all here. But admittedly I did not expect anything different from this compiler.

    1a nonsensical cryptic grammar; 9a compileritis definition; 10a has ‘the’ in the clue and the answer, grammar for ‘leaders’ is wrong, compileritis def that doesn’t really define; 12a compileritis, def is OTT; 13a compileritis anagrind; 15a really the H rather than the CH is indicated, though Araucaria did this annoying sort of thing; 16a def for CAN’T is wrong as far as I know, compileritis in the punctuation again; 17a ‘heap abuse ON’ is correct for INSULT, I would like to be shown how this works without ON; 22a nounal ind, normal Grauniad; 24 ‘starting motor’ incorrect grammar; 25 ‘frames’ not ‘frame’ is correct; 26a how do we get to daUNting from this mess? It is TOTAL compileritis an ungettable; 27a inclusion grammar is hard to allow; 1d why ‘could have’? It’s not needed, and compileritis again; 2d double duty for MEDIC and a weird surface sense; 3d appalling cryptic grammar; 5d why ‘so’? It’s put there to pad the awkward surface at the expense of grammar; 6d SHE-E = compileritis, it’s not indicated well enough anyway; 7d & 8d DEAD twice in the grid; 8d why ‘this’? A messy clue; 19d ‘a’ is not really ‘an’.

17. Also, the ‘theme’ is shoehorned in at every opportunity, where there isn’t really a theme at all. Pointless.

18. HH @ 16 It seems you’re back with a vengeance!

19. HH You don’t seem to have taken to heart the suggestions from setters that you include as much praise as blame in your comments.

20. Thanks, Manehi – I’m particularly happy that you liked 18Dn, as that was the single clue from my notebook that led to the rest of the theme …

    And welcome, Hoggy! It seems that this morning’s eclipse has not darkened your mood any more than normal! However much you dislike my style (and we’ll probably never agree on the relative merits of the different approaches to clueing, though it would be a lot of fun to invite you to one of my Masterclasses, so that we can debate the issues properly for the benefit of the next generation of setters), it’s to your credit that you still battle away to finish my puzzles and, presumably, at some level to enjoy them … A shame that you didn’t at least chuckle at 17Ac, though. Heh heh.

21. Ach! I convinced myself that HEST was some kind of ancestral German tribe, and as such never found my way to SHEEP SCAB or the ABUSE that becomes an obvious follower of HEAP once you have that B. Thanks for the puzzle Boatman: apparently they’re solver Marmite but I must say I always know that I’m in for something that will exercise the little grey cells when I see your name below the grid.

22. Hello Boatman

    Well I wasn’t trying to ‘heap abuse’ you (sic), and I am sure I would enjoy your class. I would be outside it with my placard 😀

23. Hoggy – Yes! You should be in Birmingham with your placard – it would be marvellous … And I’m sure it would be done in the spirit of informed debate, neither to insult nor to heap abuse …

24. This was a lot of fun, wrapping up a good though challenging week. I couldn’t parse the second E in Sheep Scab (d’oh!) and surprisingly managed to understand DA(un)TING but not PRONOUN. Isn’t it odd the way the mind works, or sometimes doesn’t.

25. That seemed like a quick week. It took me quite a while to get on Boatman’s rather unique wavelength but I managed to finish it correctly without recourse to aids so the cluing can’t have been that bad. Having said that I couldn’t parse PRONOUN and it was my LOI from definition only. If all setters were the same crosswords would be a lot duller, and I like the way Hugh allows his setters to push the envelope. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; the Guardian Cryptic has a house style that should be apparent to the more experienced solver, and whingeing about it on a regular basis won’t change anything and seems to me to be an exercise in futility.

26. And yet you could not parse Andy? That is why I ‘whinge on’ about it.

27. I had the same problems as Matthew Marcus. I couldn’t make SHEEP DASH or SHEEP KEDS work and learned more about sheep disease than I ever wanted to know.

28. Oh HH – and we were having such a nice week too …

    I enjoyed the fight with Boatman today – and it was a bit of a fight with Tippex applied in places. THanks to Boatman and Manehi.

29. Thanks Boatman and manehei.

    I enjoyed this, but the parsing of 1d and 26a, as with Freddy, went completely by me, no complaints just hope I remember this sort of clue for the future. Going to watch the eclipse…

    …it was cloudy, but it was perhaps better like that as I got veiled glimpses with the naked eye.

    See that there is now another parsing for DATING using DAunTING. 19d, ‘a’ is a weakening of the Old English ‘an’, does that help? Shirley’s suggestion of ‘new dog’ is a good idea.

30. Cryptic Sue I understand you are a v. experienced solver. If you have had to use Tippex there is no hope for mortals!

31. HH@26 – the fact that I couldn’t parse PRONOUN doesn’t make it a bad clue, just a hard one for me. I’ll mentally store the clue construction for future use and hope to remember it next time something similar comes up. Because the answer was reasonably clear from its definiton once all the checkers were in place it wasn’t exactly impossible to deduce.

32. Very nice indeed! To my eyes, a good example of how a puzzle can flagrantly ignore the “rules” and still be fun and fair. Some of the clues could probably be made more Ximenean (“Free speech at least dear”?), but I think they’d loose their flair in the process.

    One small question – why is it “this gulf” in 8d? If it’s about the relationship of actual Chad and Aden, Chad is to the west! (Unless you go ten thousand miles in the wrong direction, I suppose)

    RECOMMENCE completely defeated me – I saw that it had to be “re-something”, which assumed was clused by “about starting”, and then that led me up a total blind alley. Thanks for the parsing of that, and thanks too to Blaise for explaing “DA(un)TING”.

33. Schroduck – Thank you! I did have a slightly different version of 8 Dn in the first draft, which explicity referred to the Gulf as being to the east of the country, but Hugh felt that the wording that was needed to make it work that way round left the parsing too ambiguous, so we settled on this compromise. I like it very much when cryptic surface readings mirror reality, but sometimes we have to remind ourselves that this isn’t a general knowledge test!

34. Having carefully sifted out all the punctuation before starting, there were several clues that I really liked – 13a, 17a, 21a, 22a and 3d. I couldn’t parse 26a and 1d either, but at least the checkers didn’t really leave any doubt. Thanks Boatman and manehi.

35. Hi Andy B

    I don’t like ‘reasonably clear’, esp as the cryptic part is so hard to get (could almost be anything), to me there’s no excuse! This is the compileritis, where so-called ‘flair’ is actually just bad writing.

    To me, of course.

36. I enjoyed this, but failed with the parsings of PRONOUN and DATING, which are clever but a bit too clever for me to see – apart from those this was fairly accessible for a Boatman. Last in and least familiar was TORC, which was guessable once the crossers were in place. Liked ORPHAN and INVERTED COMMAS.

    Thanks to manehi and Boatman

37. hedgehoggy @35 … and to me in this particular instance. I can’t imagine that the cryptic content of 1d and 26a was of any practical use to anything but a handful of solvers. They appear more to have been written to draw praise after the fact from contributors to this website, rather than guide the humbler solvers home. It is the setter’s prerogative to follow this route, of course, but expect comments from those that consider that invention also needs precision if it is not going to dissuade people from taking Guardian crosswords on.
    Honestly, is there anyone who saw “woman stretched out” and thought “Shee!”?

38. Well Van Winkle, I am glad we concur. I agree fully. I truly believe that compileritis is a genuine disease and should be listed as such in the journals.

    😀

39. [Apparently Arachne is scheduled to get a long overdue first prize puzzle tomorrow. Can anybody remember a prize with a female compiler – if not it is an injustice that should have been rectified a long time ago, and I’d like to see Nutmeg get one]

40. Thank you Van Winkle! I thought I was alone in expecting wordplay to lead towards the solution.

41. Imogen?

    That was my joke. Plodge was a lady, and who set prize puzzles.

42. Really enjoyed this, with the usual caveats about occasional inability to parse. Loved the misdirections, with 3d top of the list.

    HH @17 complains that “the ‘theme’ is shoehorned in at every opportunity, where there isn’t really a theme at all”. I’m not sure he’s entirely got the point. Part of Boatman’s skill at misdirection here is keeping us guessing whether or not we are looking for a grammatical term in the solution. If they either all were, or all weren’t, it wouldn’t have been half the puzzle.

43. [If you have any information about Plodge I would be interested – there is indeed one prize by them in the Guardian archive: No. 21,909, May 27th 2000. The last Plodge puzzle appeared in 2002 and there are 22 in the archive in total, but I can find no further details about them at all.

    Other candidates are Auster (was the Australia Day special by “Kookaburra” (23,047 – Jan 24th 2004) Shirl O’Brien going by a different name for the special occasion?) and surely Crispa (Ruth Crisp) who set for the Guardian from 1954, even predating Araucaria, until 2004.]

44. I enjoyed this for the most part but I got bogged down in the SW corner largely because of DATING which I wasn’t able to parse and ended up guessing. The rest were quite well clued I thought. I had no problem with TORC and I loved the clue for SPONSOR. I suppose the theme was rather slight but that didn’t bother me either.
    Thanks Boatman.

45. GIs do “recon” rather than “recce,” which made RECOMMENCE impossible to parse for me. Learned a new Britishism today, then. And I’d never heard of a torc—and even if I had, my thoroughly rhotic American dialect makes it sound nothing near like “talk”! (Presumably y’all say both words sort of “tawk,” right?)

    In general, this was tough but fair—exactly what a Friday puzzle is supposed to be. The upper left was the hardest for me; I had to “cheat” on both “torc” (because I didn’t know the word) and “sponsor” (because I’m a moron).

46. Thanks manehi. Some very tricky parsing in here, I enjoyed the challenge very much.

    Boatman – thank you, and I think you have the patience of a saint!

47. Thanks boatman and manehi. Very much enjoyed this.

    I’m a relatively inexperienced solver, but eventually got there – although dating probably took 30 minutes on its own to parse. Thought of shee for stretched woman straight away. I reckon if I can parse it, it can’t be too bad. And only torc was unfamiliar. Great!

    Only minor complaint is an=a. Didn’t like that.

    Very much enjoying the Guardian variety. Roll on tomorrow..

48. Hi Ross @47
    If you, a “relatively inexperienced solver”, actually managed to parse DATING (even if it took 30 minutes) – RESPECT!

49. Thanks to Boatman and manehi for the puzzle and blog.

    HH @16
    HH @17
    HH @22
    HH @26
    HH @30
    HH @35
    HH @38
    HH @41

    HUMBUG!!!

50. “Plodge was a lady, and who set prize puzzles.” This comment is certainly among the worst I have ever seen. Bad technique, posteritis, it’s all here. But admittedly I did not expect anything different from this contributor.

    Thanks Boatman for a typically challenging puzzle (though “torc” realy doesn’t sound any thing like “talk”). And thanks manehi for the blog.

51. It’s hard to search for Prize puzzles by setter using The Guardian’s form, I find, though I’m probably not very good at it. You have to specify a date as far as I know, and if you don’t know what that date is …

    Since the ones we have are all good, I must presume that women are under-represented as result of life choices. Very sensible life choices, I should say: who the hell wants to be a crossword-setter?

    Boatman: you have been hedgehogged.

52. DuncT @50
    It depends on your accent, I suppose – torc and talk are pretty close for me.

53. I finished this and like others failed to properly parse DATING and PRONOUN.

    A lot of my A-HA moments for this puzzle were more like OH-DEAR moments. These have all been commented on already. Just a little too convoluted in my opinion.

    I also didn’t like the fact that CONVERTED IMAMS was anagram fodder for INVERTED COMMAS. It was so close that I spent ages looking for another solution. (Nobody else seems to mind though 🙂 )

    It was nice of Hoggy to interrupt his holiday for his favourite setter. 😉

    Thanks to and Boatman

54. Thanks Boatman and Manehi. I went wrong a few times had over the top for 10ac and put in hosted out for 14d and realised it didn’t make sense. However got there in the end hence late post. It’s been a hard week working late but a good week for crosswords. I remember Plodge liked her work.

55. Also thanks to manehi who mysteriously disappeared from my previous post.

56. Ok muffin, yes, I’m a relatively inexperienced solver and yes all clues were solved and parsed correctly today. But in fact there is a group of four of us who have been solving them every day this year since a hungover new year’s day. One lives in Canada so rarely contributes (as they are often finished when she wakes up) but its a great way to learn and very sociable. And none are experienced. Whatsapp is our friend. This one happened to be solved by me bar about two or three clues, so I thought I’d ignore the help in my comment as I think I’d have got there. But it did take two of us to get DATING. We were stuck for at least 30 mins on the parsing when another of the four said maybe scary= daunting. I immediately thought disjointed noun= no un. So no, I have to admit I did not parse it myself. But the sentiment holds – it was a splendid and very fair workout. Just back drunk on a Friday or I’d never have posted such a long comment. Sorry…

57. Why are hedgehoggy’s posts always a combination of hit and miss?
    Some things he objected against made sense: the use of ‘frame’ in 25ac for example, or the word ‘so’ that’s clearly in the way in 5d, or the dubious use of ‘holder’ in 27ac (Boatman could have gone for a clue with ‘holding record’ in it).
    But 1ac having ‘nonsensical cryptic grammar’? The cryptic grammar is perfectly alright, unless one doesn’t accept ‘… , on the surface’ as a container indicator – but I do.
    IMO, nounal anagrinds are often (not always) fine, like in 22ac: ‘version’.
    Perhaps, our criticaster means that we should have ‘ …’s version’ here, just like he wants us to have ‘ …’s leaders’ in 10ac.
    Some setters do, some setters don’t – one Paul does, the other doesn’t.
    And what on earth is a ‘compileritis anagrind’?
    I am usually very critial about taking an unspecified number of letters but, for me, ‘last part of [speech]’ is a lot better than ‘last bit of [speech]’ or, grrr, ‘last [speech]’ to indicate CH.

    Van Winkle @37, I was actually one of those thinking of ‘She+e+’ right away. I think a measured use of these kind of things is what makes crosswords exciting.
    Paul does it every so often, and then Boatman is a weirdo when doing it?

    I think, Schroduck @32, that you’re absolutely right by saying: ‘To my eyes, a good example of how a puzzle can flagrantly ignore the “rules” and still be fun and fair.’
    Although, I think there was not much against the “rules” (if there are any [this remark is only there to avoid Jolly Swagman jumping upon me]).

    I liked in particular 10ac (OVER THE BAR), the ‘converted imams’ in 21,11 (despite the overlapping ‘verted’), 22ac and 6d.

    Great divers use of ‘speech’ – nothing compileritic [I don’t know what the proper adjective is, so I just say something].
    So, chapeau to Boatman with whom I have love/hate relationship (well, with his puzzles, of course).

    Leaves us with the much discussed 26ac (DATING).
    For us: answer clear, parsing unclear.
    One may complain about this clue not being fair but, actually, what had to be done was signposted very clear .
    Boatman could easily have left out ‘Disjointed’, a thing that the great Philistine might have done, but he didn’t.
    Moreover, the words ‘used in’ tell us to apply ‘no/un’.
    I think this is a fair game.
    You hardly see these things in the Independent but I remember a clue in which Donk did a similar thing to indicate a split (which was accepted even there, and rightly so, IMO).

    Many thanks manehi for the blog and Boatman for a splendid piece of compileritis (or whatever).

58. Sil so much respect. The only bit of Dutch I learnt was tot zeins well I did learn more but actually the only phrase I remembered but I wouldn’t want to say good bye to you. Had a wonderful holiday in your country perhaps hedghog gy needs to visit soon and enjoy your culture and friendliness.

59. HedgeHoggie @16: I have to ask, how did you work up your head of steam for the day before you discovered the alleged imperfections of cryptic crosswords?

    @17: One of the added pleasures of Boatman puzzle is that, when he chooses, a single word serves as a seed idea for as many clues as he can work up: so he gets a nod of admiration from me as I like to see the twists and turns attempted in the name of maximizing that seed idea. In other circumstances, ‘a=an’ might be less forgivable.

    ‘Compileritis might be a cute and clever neologism but then again, so is ‘bloggeritis.’

60. Welcome back to my spiny comrade, hope you had a nice holiday. Do take another soon, and I’ve heard Mosul is a nice place…

    Guess it’s the beer that’s made me rise to troll bait (yeah I’m technically trolling too but this is the first and last time you’ll see me). But really, is it really only Swagman and me who’s cottoned on to who HH (and his other sock puppets) actually is?

61. Didn’t get close to parsing 1d and 26a, and missed torc altogether. Rest went in ok.

    I think this was my first boatman puzzle and it came as a fun surprise, though I certainly had a few “can you do that?” moments of unease (record holder, house). But the entertainment value was high

    Thank you boatman, and respect to all you heroic parsers

62. p @60

    Well don’t keep us in suspense who is the real HH?

    Is it the Tooth Fairy? 😉

63. DuncT @50 – out of interest, where are you from? Torc and Talk sound identical to me.

64. Oh watch out, here come(s) the real troll(s).

65. PeeDee@63. I’m what Eileen in the past has described as a rhotic Scot. For me torc has a much shorter vowel and a clear R. The two words just don’t share the same “sound space” in my brain (think of “white” and “wheat” – quite distinct, although it could be argued they differ only slightly in the vowel sound).

66. Hi Dunc, I get you now. I just looked up rhotic – very interesting. I live near Perth and and some people around here pronounce the R in Perth very distinctly.

67. Because I only flirt with this website rather than give it the regular attention it deserves, I have never before read one of Hedgehoggy’s entries…

    A refreshing blast of vitriol in amongst all the fawning. Prickles in the cuddle-fest.

    Totally agree with most of hedgehoggy’s objections to Boatman’s setting but, having said that, I always look forward to the challenge of unpicking the seaman’s knots.

    One thing Hedgehoggy. Your use of cheery emoticons suggests a failure of nerve. If you’re gonna talk tough, don’t apologise for it. Go the whole hedgehog…

68. PS Darn it. Submitted previous entry under my real name. My cover is blown. Let us never refer to this again.

    I am YOGDAWS.

    A worshipper at the altar of St Paul.

    (Although he has been testing my faith of late. Hey, Paul, I know you’re a busy man, but this humble supplicant says, ‘Don’t got soft on us. Recover your edge!’

69. PPS That’s…’Don’t GO soft on us…’

70. For me hedgehoggy posts seem to me to be on topic, about the crossword in question, criticisms are of the setter’s work not the setter in person, the criticisms are supported by argument and example – so fair enough I think.

    I don’t agree with much of HH’s criticism myself (in fact hardly any of it), but so what? Just skip over it and read the next comment.

71. Would have been quicker if I hadn’t been trying to work out how to fit Hedgehogs into 17a.

72. Thanks Boatman and manehi

    Another cracking puzzle from this setter who always creates a momentary blanche when his name appears in the banner, as one knows that there is a serious challenge coming. And so it was here!

    It took up most of the day on and off on Tuesday to complete, but eventually got there – including the two hard parsings which was very satisfying. Did miss the ADEN bit in 8d – had messed up that whole back part.

    Many fine clues, a lot of variety and some ‘out of the square’ thinking required to get there – along with the customary trait of using a ‘theme’ word or phrase throughout the clues.

73. Sorry about the late comments, but I print the crosswords off and solve them about a week behind. Didn’t get “torc” (neither does my spell checker!) and didn’t twig the parsing of “sponsor”. I was interpreting the “means to unite” in 1d as CE = church of england, can conduct marriages, but cement certainly makes more sense.

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