Solving time: 12:51
The right hand side went fairly fast, with its easy SHRINKING VIOLET at 6D. But the clever cryptic def of AUTOBIOGRAPHIES at the other long down held me up on the left hand side.
I seem to be noticing more clues nowadays which have a normal definition+wordplay structure but where the definition part is itself cryptic. For example in 10A, “Not having planned to leave…” could stand as a reasonable cryptic def clue for INTESTATE on its own.
Across
| 1 | CHAR(LAD)Y |
| 5 | TARSUS – home of Saul/Paul (not that my biblical knowledge is great, but “Tarsus, no mean city” sticks in my head as a litotes) |
| 10 | (w)INTE(r) + STATE |
| 11 | (i)F (h)ER (p)AL |
| 13 | AUCTIONED, being EDUCATION* – I wonder if it is a coincidence that DEALT + LOTS also has the right number of letters to be the anagram fodder. |
| 15 | E(CO)WARRIOR, EWARRIOR being (A WORRIER)* – Last clue solved. Though I had considered this structure, I thought there was unlikely to be a word that fitted. |
| 19 | FOR K (= instead of king) – normally forks in chess involve threatening two valuable pieces with a less valuable one (eg N or B threatening Q&R, or P threatening N&B) but this unusual fork maintains the plausibly non-chess surface |
| 20 | F(LASH)LIGHT |
| 22 | UPPER HAND – I am not sure why this is “not usually right for driver”. Perhaps a comment will help? (On edit: Thanks to helpful comment, I now know that for a right-handed golfer it is usual to have the left hand higher than the left when holding a driver.) |
| 26 | GOING – two defs, one horse-racing, the other auctioneering |
| 27 | C.A. + BRIO + LET |
Down
| 1 | CHIN(a) |
| 2 | AUTOBIOGRAPHY – cryptic def |
| 3 | LAS VEGAS, being SALVAGES* – The apparently helpful information that the city is “surrounded by desert” does serve to make the structure of the clue less obvious. |
| 4 | DRAM + A – I wasted only a few seconds thinking of Macbeth characters |
| 6 | A + F(F)AIR – &lit, though the cryptic reading doesn’t seem entirely clear |
| 8 | SOL(ID)ARITY, SOLARITY being ROYALIST* |
| 9 | RED CROSS – the country this time must be England |
| 16 | R(ELI)AN C.E. |
| 18 | B + LESSING – That would be the dead playwright, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, rather than the live and currently better known novelist, Doris Lessing |
| 21 | O + RIG + IN – at last I now think immediately that “axes” is likely to be the plural of “axis” |
| 23 | DE(B)AR |
I’m standing by for the inevitable “doh” moment.
Think cleft stick!
15A, 19A, 22A and 21D were particular favourites. In golf, right-handers would hold the driver with right hand below left – very neat clue (22A). Queens very rarely fork two bishops, but it is possible (19A).
The only clue about which I have slight reservations is 10A. I don’t think ‘Not having planned to leave’ really equates to ‘Not having planned one’s departure’ – which might have been a preferable definition?
Don’t agree on 10A. An intestate person might have made very careful plans about various aspects of their death. What they have not sorted out is what they “leave” to other people.
The golf reference is far too obscure though the answer was obvious without knowing about golf.
I’m not sure about red crosses flying across the country on St Georges Day. I think our parish church used to do this but I don’t know whether the practice continues. Does anyone else fly the SGC these days without reference to football?
For the golf reference, I was thinking of driving a car – unfortunately I’m yet to learn to drive, but I’d assumed that in the ten-and-three-o’clock position (or whatever it is) the left hand is higher than the right.
Of course the clue was easily solvable from its definition part especially if one had a couple of letters from the Down clues, but what I meant was that the average solver who knows nothing of the finer points of golf technique would probably not be able to work out the wordplay other than to guess that it had something vaguely to do with golf. Nor would the standard reference books for crossword solvers shed any light on the matter.
IMO clues should not require specialist knowledge that is not readily available to the average solver.
The examples you quote are not comparable. The first is fairly obviously a double definition; one stands a chance of knowing one, and the other is easy to check. I agree the second is more difficult but that it starts with a ‘B’ should be obvious and ‘LESSING’ is not hard to guess given the definition and a few checked letters. One might easily assume, if one didn’t know, that there may be a playwright called Lessing and again this is easy to check.
The thing about 22A is that having easily solved it as UPPER HAND (as I did) and even having made a possible connection with golf one is no further forward in understanding the wordplay without reference to a work on golf technique.
19A presented real problems for me but that was down to my own stupidity as I mentioned in an earlier comment; how could a short clue containing the names of three chess pieces fail to make me think of chess?
However having got F-R- I eventually resorted to going through the dictionary and both Chambers and Collins offered the chess definition of fork. I then kicked myself for not having solved it from the simple wordplay in the second part of the clue.
So the solution should have been easy to work out and the part requiring a bit of specialist knowledge was easy to check in a decent dictionary whereas “upper hand” with reference to golf technique was not.
Cases of = examples of
laying down = recording / writing down
lives = life stories – as in Aubrey’s Brief Lives
for others = for other people to read
What’s the defintion? I don’t understand the first part, ‘punch to the face’.
It was only spotting CHARLADY that led me to reconsider 1D and realise a slap is not really the same as a punch and the order of the letters didn’t quite fit the clue. Pretty near though.
4D and 26A were my two favourites today ‘spirit of the Scottish / play’ being a good join and ‘going, going, gone’ a good cryptic def. To be topical, there was an All Black rugby player called Sid Going, which gave rise to amusing commentary.
JohnPMarshall
The avoidance of names of living people is long-standing, but I wonder whether it is now old-fashioned and could be relaxed? It seems a shame that the setter was prevented from a reference to Doris Lessing in the week of her triumph. Should we really have to wait for her demise before she replaces G.E. Lessing in the Times Crossword?
Death has an odd way of putting a person’s fame into a kind of stasis; they will either be remembered or not. As time passes this degree of recognition settles to an extent that it becomes fairly obvious whether or not reference to that person is justifiable in a crossword clue.
On the other hand, celebrity (especially the kind of pseudo-celebrity that seems so pervasive in this and the previous century) of living persons can be fleeting and can exist solely because that person is in the news right now.
There are probably not too many people who haven’t at least heard of Jade Goody. But – perish the thought – supposing she met her demise tomorrow? In 5 or 10 years time, would a reference to her in a crossword be greeted with absolute bafflement by solvers; Jade who?
It’s also the case that we can’t assume all crossword clues would refer to a living “celebrity” in an entirely complimentary way. No setter worth his/her salt would deliberately insult a famous person, but a clue could incorporate gentle fun-poking humour – which could backfire hideously if the subject promptly popped their clogs.
All of that said – phew, what a post – my own feeling is that there is room for at least a little relaxation of the rules. Many a time I’ve been left with the letters BO in an answer and been tempted to use Derek as an oblique def. Not permissible at the moment though.
There are eight answers that are not in the blog:
12a Old Bank Of England, originally, as issuer of notes (4)
O B O E
17a Secure to river bank (4)
TIE R
24a Hide son pursued by relatives (4)
S KIN
28a Upwardly mobile and so revolting (6)
RISING
29a Bowled with accuracy and intelligence (8)
B RIGHTLY. A Jimmy Anderson of a clue.
7d Plant not growing is a wallflower (9,6)
SHRINKING VIOLET
14d Fast food bringing complaint by respectable citizen, say (10)
BEEF BURG(h)ER
25d Postpone visit (4)
STAY