A new name in the Cryptic slot today – welcome, Caius!
I have not taken time to search the archive to see how long the tradition of a fortnightly appearance from Vulcan on a Monday goes back but I’m sure it’s quite a long time. It was certainly a shock to the system not to find a Vulcan puzzle this morning but it turned out to be by no means an unpleasant one. I found this an intriguing solve, with some refreshing cluing, neat constructions and – important for me – smooth and meaningful surfaces.
My ticks were for 1ac MANOEUVRE, 9ac REGIMENTS, 17ac DAFTEST, 20ac DOCTRINE, 22ac SETTER, 2dn LOGICIAN, 6dn UNKNOWNS, 15dn BROKERED and 23dn ERRATA. I’m afraid two pieces of parsing (10ac and 5dn) were beyond me but I’m sure the customary help won’t be long in coming*. I’ll make my usual plea to you to resist simply repeating others’ suggestions, if you have no further comment to make. I’ll amend the blog as promptly as I can! (* It came in record time, I think – what a lovely community this is! 😉 )
Many thanks to Caius – I really enjoyed this and look forward to the next one.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
7 Island getting upset over EU operation (9)
MANOEUVRE
MAN (island) + an anagram (upset) of OVER EU
8 Bird in bamboo across river (5)
CRANE
CANE (bamboo) round R (river)
9 I’m welcomed by chaps following soldiers in big groups (9)
REGIMENTS
IM in GENTS (chaps) following RE (Royal Engineers – soldiers)
10 Senseless, not sharp in the head, unbalanced (5)
INANE
Help, please!
Of course, it’s IN[s]ANE (unbalanced) minus s[harp] – many thanks, all
12 Suited to perform services (6)
DUTIES
An anagram (to perform) of SUITED
13 Worries, as wife’s picked up tools (8)
FRETSAWS
FRETS (worries) + AS round W (wife)
14 Give up wearing a ring? (7)
ABANDON
A BAND ON (wearing a ring)
17 Most stupid to try bucking trend first (7)
DAFTEST
A reversal (bucking – clever!) of FAD (trend) + TEST (try)
20 Teaching medic to withhold oxygen in first sign of emergency (8)
DOCTRINE
DOCT[o]R (medic) minus o (oxygen) + IN + E[mergency]
22 Someone like me puts tester to use (6)
SETTER
An anagram (puts to use) of TESTER
24 ‘Kentish Spirit’ is thin, watery liquid (5)
SERUM
SE (South Eastern, so ‘Kentish’) + RUM (spirit)
25 Of course, they are spectators! (9)
RACEGOERS
Cryptic definition
26 Some soave in small vessels (5)
VEINS
Hidden in soaVE IN Small
27 Puts a new spin on horse-based air conditioning? (9)
REINVENTS
Not sure about this: REIN (horse based?) VENTS (air conditioning)
Down
1 Sweet treat dunked in senega tea, unusually (6)
GATEAU
Hidden in seneGA TEA Unusually
2 Following write-up, I am able to take on one person skilled at thought (8)
LOGICIAN
LOG (write-up) + I CAN (I am able) round I (one)
3 Those in charge crushing a surreal rebellion (6)
RULERS
An anagram (rebellion) of SURRE[a]L minus (crushing) a
4 Leader of group to sign and approve, please (7)
GRATIFY
G[roup] + RATIFY (sign and approve)
5 Leaves off career to retrain, and succeeds in the end (6)
FRONDS
… and another I should have seen: the final letters of ofF careeR tO retraiN anD succedS – thanks again
6 Sunk in snow-drifts – is getting out what might cause difficulty? (8)
UNKNOWNS
An anagram (drifts) of SUNK [i]N [s]NOW, minus (getting out) ‘is’
11 Really big game to play (4)
MEGA
An anagram (to play) of GAME
15 Facilitated purchase of very poor chianti? (8)
BROKERED
BROKE (very poor) + RED (chianti? – definition by example)
16 State how you might answer phone within two rings (4)
OHIO
HI (how you might answer phone) in O O (two rings)
18 Having an depiction that’s only skin-deep? (8)
TATTOOED
Cryptic definition, with a rogue ‘n’ in the clue, both online and in the print version
19 Angrily berated one making an argument (7)
DEBATER
An anagram (angrily) of BERATED
21 School leaver? (6)
TRUANT
Cryptic definition
22 Ms Hathaway is on the way up, Ms Miller (6)
SIENNA
A reversal (on the way up, in a down clue) of ANNE (Ms Hathaway) + IS – and here‘s a bang up to date picture of Ms Miller!
23 Slips on slips? (6)
ERRATA
A clever closely-linked double definition – errata (singular erratum): a list of errors and their corrections discovered in a published text, typically inserted on a separate page or slip of paper after printing to fix mistakes introduced during production
I could not parse 10ac, 5d, 23d and I was not convinced 27ac REIN = horse-based – maybe somebody will explain this…
The rogue N in the clue for 18d has now been corrected.
Eileen 10 a IN[s]ANE (unbalanced, not sharp)
My take on 10a was senseless = insane with the ‘s’ removed (not Sharp in the head); this leaves inane = unbalanced.
10a – I think it’s INSANE (unbalanced) less S (sharp in the head, i.e. first letter)
5d is the final letters (in the end) of ‘off career to retrain and succeeds’
5D is the last letters of Off Career To Retrain And Succeeds
Many thanks, chaps – I’ll amend the blog now!
Eileen – 5d is a last letters clue
re 27 maybe vents in rein to air-condition a horse?
Comment #10
I read it as if it’s horse-based air conditioning you might have vents in the reins, or rein vents.
10ac: IN(s)ANE
5d: ends ofF careeR tO retaiN anD succeedS
5d – last letters of off career to retrain, and succeeds – perhaps ‘end’ should be plural
Thanks to everyone – that’s enough now!
Not on this setter’s wavelength to be sure.
Using my arbitrary scrabble tile metric this crossword gets a very low approval rating – only three crossers that score more than one, adding in my opinion an unnecessary extra level of difficulty.
Still I couldn’t set to this standard so thanks Caius and Eileen
I have nothing to add to the comments on specific clues, but I’d like to stress just how good and entertaining the crossword was. One is always a bit cautious with a new setter, wondering if they are going to be too straightforward or go the other way and pitch the difficulty too high, but this was just right. Like Eileen, to whom many thanks for the numerous, excellent blogs, I look forward to seeing more of Caius.
Thanks both. This was a generally a good crossword, certainly defeated on a few, although a few I thought let the standard down. I was pleased I had 5d completely wrong as I was taking umbrage at what I thought was a clunky parse. I had prunes – as in to take leaves off, with run (career) in PE (retrain?) and s, kind of works but not quite.
Eileen, in your revised parsing of FRONDS you have omitted ‘restraiN’.
Thank you, Balfour @18.
I hope people have not misinterpreted my comment @14. I’d be interested in more reaction to the puzzle!
Eileen, I suspect that you will get more comments as more of the usual solvers shake off the effect of staying up watching the football until 5.00, even if they remained perfectly sober while doing so …
You’re probably right, Balfour: I had other preoccupations in the early hours!
Welcome Caius, enjoyable puzzle. This seemed a lot harder than what we have become used to on a Monday but maybe it’s just a new setter’s wavelength thing.
Enjoyed MANOEUVRE and SIENNA.
Thanks Caius and Eileen
A new setter with an unfamiliar style, but one I think I’m going to like. Several where I couldn’t spot the trick but kicked myself when I did: FRONDS, for one. The whimsical REIN VENTS for the modern air-conditioned horse made me laugh and I also liked A BAND ON, TRUANT, UNKNOWNS and OHIO. As Larry@3 says, INANE very nearly works the other way round, and looks as if it should – the actual parsing is rather contrived. But I’ll be happy to have another go at Caius.
I had the same struggles as you, Eileen, and one or two more. Not knowing Sienna Miller nor the Kentish reference slowed me down.
Nice to have a new setter, even if I don’t know how to pronounce it.
Geoff Down Under – Kent(ish) for SE used to be quite common (cf Newcastle for NE) – worth filing away.
Re pronunciation: depends whether we’re talking Roman names, (Caius / Gaius Julius Caesar – I would say Guyus) ) or Cambridge colleges (Gonville and Caius), in which case Keys! No way of knowing in this case – perhaps time will tell!
That was a nice Monday solve despite the unfriendly grid. Thanks to the posters who explained rein vents, a fun whimsical reading, like Eileen I’d read rein as a stretch for horse based. 5D was LOI and the parsing took me a while, well disguised.
Wasn’t too impressed by Kentish being represented by SE, and thought RACEGOERS was a bit loose for Spectators, nor did I think TATTOOED as being particularly precise.
Apart from that, some excellent clues, and like Eileen I had to be told how FRONDS worked…
I had exactly the same two caesurae in my parsing! I wonder if, being a Monday, I’d left my brain in a low gear (and would have had no problem if, say, Enigmatist had been the setter!)
Which leads me to think that this was perhaps not suited to the Monday slot
But I’m not complaining, I’m simply thinking of our learners. For myself – how refreshing to be faced with a slightly different style of clueing
I’m looking forward to the next ‘Caius’ (hopefully more Caius Augustus than Caius ‘Caesurae’ !)
Many thanks to this noble Roman – and our noble bloggess
Like many I was very slow to see FRONDS. Strange that an acrostic should be so elusive.
ronald @27 – I think perhaps I should have explained the ‘of course’ in 25ac, which I underlined as part of the definition: racegoers are spectators at a (horse) racing course. I think we quite often see ‘Ascot’, a specific racecourse, with clues including ‘of course’.
Stupid misspelling of manoeuvre caused a frustrating half-hour on 2d. Tough for a Monday maybe, but a nice puzzle with excellent surfaces. Welcome Caius! And thanks Eileen.
Thanks, Eileen @ 25.
There was one occasion fairly recently – 15th December 2025 to 5th January 2026 – when Vulcan was absent for three weeks, but that was obviously over Christmas and New Year. The last time he was away for three weeks rather than the customary two before that was from 2nd to 23rd May 2022.
William F P and Petert – I still can’t believe that it was those two I missed! I can’t even pretend to have been beguiled by the football. 🙁
Thank you, Mitz @33 – I was rather expecting you to pop up at some point!
Thanks for the blog, Eileen, and for the comments, everyone else. This was enjoyable to set, and I hope my occasional tricksiness doesn’t raise too many eyebrows (there are a few comments on the Guardian site about it taking a while to get on my wavelength – fair enough, though I really did like REIN VENTS).
I’ll leave the explanation of my name for another day (or another month). Time to head back to today’s Genius now.
Welcome Caius with an enjoyable crossword that I found rather difficult – at the beginning I had solved none of the upper half of clues. I liked the worried wife’s tools as FRETSAWS, A BAND ON when wearing a ring, the well-hidden GATEAU, and the UNKNOWNS causing difficulties in snow-drifts. As some others have pointed out, the horse-based air conditioning is REIN VENTS as a phrase, so no need to parse REIN as horse-based.
Thanks Caius and Eileen.
Either I’m particularly dull this morning, or this was tougher than normal for a Monday. And I don’t even have the excuse of staying up late for the game, being in the US.
5D defeated me, although “obvious in hindsight”. I also failed to parse INANE, and find S for “sharp” rather arbitrary. (Yes, I’m sure it’s in Chambers, etc.) Otherwise this was all good fun.
Many thanks for that Caius – we always appreciate setters dropping in. As others here have said, it does often take a while to get used to a new setter’s ‘wavelelength’ but I usually find it’s well worth while! It’s good to know that you’ll be back, anyway!
Jacob @37 – re 10ac: S is clued by ‘Sharp in the head’ (first letter of) – I missed it too, as you know!
Thanks to Caius – a particularly challenging puzzle for a Monday – and a new setter with, of course expected idiosyncrasies – which is why we like the Guardian cryptic. I have to say one of my most enjoyable for a new setter. Of course the parse for 5 down escaped me (glad I wasn’t alone).
Minor quibble – too many of what I call “bad pun” clues – apparently “cryptic definitions”. I take particular exception to a TRUANT being clued as a “school leaver”. Typically they don’t turn up in the first place!
On 27 across (REINVENTS), I have the breakdown as REIN-VENT-S (VENT in REINS) being horse-based air-conditioning.
Peter B – I had the same thought about TRUANT. Thanks for your take on REINVENTS – I quite like that.
Eileen @39 Aha! Thank you, I withdraw my objection 🙂 And apparently yes, I am particularly dull this morning.
Comment #43
Well I enjoyed this though I thought it was hard for a Monday. Didn’t realise this was a new setter but I hope he feels encouraged. Failed on MANOEUVRE but totally fair clue.
Eileen@30, yes, of course, rather missed that…
And I wonder, as someone who often frequents the end of King’s Parade, Cambridge, near the Senate House, whether Gonville will make an appearance as a new setter too. Another day, another month maybe Caius’ true identity will indeed be revealed as he says…
Ilan @43 — no discussion of live prize puzzles please!
However obscure you think you’re being, you’ve actually just spoiled the Genius for me before I completed the endgame.
@Admin — I suggest deleting comment #43
Thanks Caius. This was a mixed bag for me necessitating a couple of reveals along with other clues guessed but not parsed. I did enjoyable bits such as FRETSAWS, ABANDON, BROKERED, and OHIO. Thanks Eileen for the blog.
Rob T @46
Comment deleted – my apologies: I missed your comment.
Thanks Eileen! 😁
Took me all day, but made it in the end. Thanks Caius and Eileen. As an Aussie, I’ve still no idea who Ms Miller is, but thanks for the newspaper article.
Queenslander @50
Neither had I until this morning – so I was chuffed to find such an up-to-date link!
Many thanks Eileen.
Did about half and was stumped by the unfamiliarity of the setters style, but much to like.
I put it down to the 0400 finish this morning.
Thanks Caius
Thanks for the blog , very good set of clever clues with many nice touches . REINVENTS is very neat , DOCTRINE a bit imprecise for which O . I think ERRATA slips are most common for exam papers unfortunately .
A sticklebrick grid plus many entries with fewer than half checked made it seem trickier and not in the Monday tradition . I would advise newer solvers to switch to the FT .
I would watch the football but I do not understand the role of the variable gravity .
Good crossword. Half simple, half more difficult. I couldn’t parse 23d, though it was obviously ERRATA. Still not overjoyed about the explanation for it above.
Many thanks for the blog, Eileen, it was really helpful.
Like Queenslander @50, this took me an eternity – and not because I was tired from watching football. Sadly, the Easier-Monday ship has clearly sunk beneath the waves…
For starters, an unfriendly grid, but one that crops up with disappointing regularity.
A new setter is always a challenge, and whilst the succinctness of some clues charmed (MEGA, ABANDON, TRUANT) others were harder to love. I’m with ronald @27 re RACEGOERS, Larry @3 on the looseness of INANE, and really wasn’t wild about REINVENTS.
I had at least heard of Sienna Miller, but a minor model-cum-actress did seem a tad unfair on solvers from outside the UK. (After all, Miller is hardly an unusual surname.)
Perhaps next time I’ll be better at getting the hang of Caius. I do hope so.
1d) I immediately saw ‘negate’ hidden in senega tea, which of course completely blinded me to the actual hidden letters
Like many others, I found this tough and have only finished it at 4:30 pm. Mind you my brain was frazzled by the England match which I watched this morning. Good to have a new setter but it took time to get on the right wavelength.
Liked many of the clues but found the clue for TRUANT very loose.
Thanks Caius and Eileen.
Thanks Caius. As somebody who is a medium crossword solver I found this enjoyable without being too tricky so perhaps “wavelengths” can again be invoked.
Something I’m puzzled about and it jumped out in this puzzle more than others it’s when and how question marks are used.
In my mind a question mark allows us to bend the rules, by “double using” a word or words in the clue.
In this crossword “give up wearing a ring?” was a good clue, but why did it need a question mark?
The same for 6 (unknowns), 15 (brokered) and 23 (errata). I see the four of them are sort of puns – but so are most clues.
Inversely, in this crossword “tattooed” and “truant”, both had question marks. So do all cryptic definition clues have/need question marks?
Btw, I was trying to do something much more complex with School leaver, wondering if “trains” were both things that leave (“leavers”) and the verb to “to school”. It’s nonsense and the plural doesn’t work but when I see a question mark I’m looking for that punning element. And truant was then rather meh!
Any thoughts?
Usually it’s if it’s a definition-by-example (eg ‘Caius?’ for CAMBRIDGE COLLEGE). ABANDON is because the definition is quite tenuous. Same with UNKNOWNS, chianti is not the only type of RED, and ERRATA are not always on slips. TATTOOED and TRUANT are both sort-of-&lit; clues (perhaps slightly on the Quiptic or Monday end of things) so it’s an indication that ‘something fishy is going on in this clue’.
An exclamation mark, by the way is ‘here be dragons’ not ‘look how clever I am’.
Comment #60
Fell down in the NE corner. As Jeeves would say, between Caius and I exists an imperfect fusion of souls.
Thanks and welcome, Caius. Thanks Eileen.
Found this tough for a Monday. Took ages to spot FRONDS.
The only one I couldn’t parse was ERRATA because I was unaware of the slips. Thanks as ever Eileen for the blog and the whole community feel you generate.
I too watched the football live and left finishing until later than usual. The clues I had left from the early morning, including the pesky FRONDS, fell pretty quickly in the end.
I liked DOCTRINE, RACEGOERS and REINVENTS among others.
Thanks Caius and thanks again Eileen.
Many thanks, Caius. (#59)
I realise my comment looked like I was asking you directly rather than giving a thanks to the setter and then throwing out a question to the community.
Either way, your answer helps articulate something I didn’t have right.
I was startled to see that exclamation mark meant “here be dragons” as this is the name of my WiFi network – “But how does he know!!!” – before realising it’s just a medium level coincidence. Time I had a lie down, perhaps.
#35 Hello Caius. You irritated me immensely – so many, many thanks. I’m not a fan of the easy Monday puzzle and this was a welcome wake-up call when I was gearing up for the routine write-in. Keep ‘em coming!
Caius@35
Hello Caius. You irritated me immensely – so many, many thanks. I’m not a fan of the easy Monday puzzle and this was a welcome wake-up call when I was gearing up for the routine write-in. Keep ‘em coming!
Top half was not bad, but my progress in the bottom half was not so good and had to reveal the last couple. Was a bit of a step up for a Monday perhaps. Mostly ok with the wordplay and parsing but there were a few I felt were a bit loose and happy to have them explained here. Thanks Caius hopefully we’ll see you again, and thanks Eileen and the other commenters for clearing up some things for me like INANE, and some others.
Many thanks again, to all, especially Caius, for the puzzle and for dropping in.
It’s been a great day for many of us, one way or another, especially for me – in the last half hour – in SW 19. 🙂
I hope you’re all recovering from your hangovers!
Completions hard to come by lately — three short today. 23d I thought of ERRATA, but couldn’t parse it. A list of slips inserted into a publication on slips of paper — dastardly and very clever!
Despite the dnf, this was a really delightful puzzle, with lots of wit, charm, and whimsy. Favourites 13a FRETSAWS (fun surface and wordplay), 14a ABANDON (“wearing a ring”), 20a DOCTRINE (surface), 3d RULERS (just completed a prize-winning theatrical production with that title), 6d UNKNOWNS (good Canadian surface), 11d MEGA (succinct), 16d OHIO (great surface)
Thank you Caius for an excellent debut, and Eileen for an engaging blog
A logician is not a person skilled at thought. It is a person skilled at reasoning.
Roz@53, re your last sentence – I think instead of issuing yellow and red cards, a panel of judges should award points for technical and artistic merit.
Also Roz@53 and Doofs@15, it was a double whammy. The grid was unfriendly as Roz points out, and to elaborate on Doof’s point, of the 44 crossers, 22 were vowels, and 18 of the 22 consonants were the common (and therefore less helpful) S, T, R, and N.
Nevertheless, an enjoyable puzzle from the (to me) unknown setter. My favourite was the laugh out loud 27a REINVENTS.
There is a string of islands so obscure that they have not yet been discovered, called the Caius Keys. When you get there you land at the Caius Keys quays, the most important of which is the key Caius Keys quay.
I liked most of this as a nice Monday surprise. I didn’t particularly care for the interaction of the three ?/! clues in the SE though (RACEGOERS, ERRATA, REINVENTS). I suppose REINVENTS did have a second way in, but the other two really only had the one sense. Which is fine in small doses, but the dose was getting a bit heavy for my taste.
Hi Caius, thanks for the puzzle, which made a perfect Monday bedtime solve for us.
I’m unworried by the pronunciation of your name, but would very much like to know on which syllable(s) the stress falls for Pangakupu’s…
TheFrog@70: Chambers, definition 2: Logic: The science and art of the necessary laws of thought.
Etu@73: Panagkupu is uniformly stressful.
First time commenter here. I’ve been doing the Monday Guardian cryptics for the last few months, and occasionally other days of the week, having been interested for decades but only getting good enough to finish a whole puzzle through watching Cracking the Cryptic for a few years.
This one definitely felt hard for a Monday puzzle. I find cryptic definitions and double definitions hard, because you can’t always be sure that you’ve got them right, unlike with other clue types. I eventually got through this with extensive use of the One Across tool, and still had to cheat on a couple of answers (5D, 23D). Some lovely clues, but I hope future Monday puzzles are more straightforward.
For 21D, it could have been ALUMNA when I had two of the checking letters, which surely fits the definition as well as TRUANT?
Haha… nice one Caius (yes, yes, I know I’m a slow old man who took his time getting there). 🙂