…and it’s also good to be back. Radiotherapy and post-treatment taking things easy are now complete, with some interesting hair loss which is mainly restricted to the back of my head.
Solving time 11:16
This ended much the same way as yesterday’s – checking for any other possibilities at 4D, where ‘split up’ and the checking letters implied TRAP, but the def. was unknown. Plus some minor fraternal trouble at 12.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | GUNS,HOT=stolen. Report = ‘bang!’ is an old Times xwd favourite |
| 5 | MIMI,CRY – the tragic heroine is TB victim Mimi in Puccini’s La Bohème. Here she is already looking unwell as soon as she appears in Act 1, though she keeps on coughing away until Act 4. |
| 9 | NEVER SAY DIE = (Seven are DIY)* – ‘fans’ (= spreads out) is the first of a couple of crafty anagrinds |
| 10 | RAM – 2 defs, one being ‘to crash with force’, the other ‘one that butts’ |
| 11 | AFRAID – F=frequency in ‘an attack’ = A RAID |
| 12 | Brothers=FRA,SCAT,I – I only knew fra as one brother, esp in “Fra Diavolo”, an Italian bandit, Auber opera or Laurel and Hardy film. I assume the plural is also ‘fra’. |
| 17 | TOWER OF LONDON – (wooden floor)* in |
| 21 | AL(GER.,I)AN – for those about to gripe about man=Alan, tell me how many other 8-letter North Africans you can think of with a German inside. |
| 23 | ABULIA – today’s new word, but easy enough to see as a hidden word, even before any checking letters if barred-grid experience tells you that -IA must be the ending. |
| 25 | TEA = “tee” – the surface meaning is ‘peg’ = Brit: a small drink of wine or spirits, esp. brandy or whisky and soda – a case of surface reading more subtle than the cryptic one for some, I expect. |
| 26 | CREDIT UNION – UN=one (Brit dialect rather than French), in direction*. A clue with barred-grid tendencies |
| 27 | CAL(l),ENDS – an alternative to ides as part of the month in Roman times – the first day. |
| 28 | GIDDY,UP=on horseback |
| Down | |
| 2 | NAVARIN = N.I,R,A VAN = ‘a delivery service’, all reversed. A Navarin is a lamb stew, presumably from Navarre. |
| 3 | HAR(B)ING,E.R. |
| 4 | TRAP = part rev. trap (also traprock) is a term for columnar basalt, as seen on Staffa or at the Giant’s Causeway |
| 5 | M.O.,DE-RATION |
| 6 | MEETS = (e)steem rev. |
| 7 | CARP,ARK |
| 8 | YUMMIEST = (us my time)* – ‘clocks’ is another fiendish anagrind, presumably in its “to strike, esop. the face or head” meaning. |
| 13 | BEEFEATERS – or officially Yeomen warders – the ex-servicemen in red and black who look after jewels ravens and tourists at the 17A. |
| 15 | H(I,DEB)OUND – {deb = debutante} seems to work a bit better than Deb = Deborah, but take your pick. Scoundrel = HOUND is a nice change from cur or cad. |
| 16 | AT(LAN)TIC, LAN being Local Area Network, and “the main” the def. |
| 18 | W,AG,TAIL |
| 19 | NULLIFY = (fully in)* |
| 20 | CA.,TNAP=pant rev. |
| 22 | (p)RICIN(g) – thanks to Mrs B for mentioning ricin the other day when we saw a castor-oil plant. |
| 24 | RING – round = ‘a round shape or object’ |
Tom B.
I sort of assumed they had omitted an apostrophe at 12 across, so Brother(ha)s sort of singing etc, as I wasn’t able to find FRA = Brothers (pl)anywhere
I’ve never met ONE=UN in a puzzle before so I was unable to fully justify 26.
34 minutes with some tricky ones.
TRAP = rock, and ABULIA were both new words for me, but they were simply clued so didn’t hold things up.
In 15dn I took DEB as debutante because she is a “young girl”.
I hope things continue to go well Peter – I came to terms with hair loss some time ago.
One for UN is commonplace in barred puzzles, but I don’t remember meeting it in a blocked before. And I agree that “young girl” is odd for DEB, as debs had to be of marriageable age.
Welcome back, Peter!
I found this about as easy as yesterday’s, 22 minutes for each, though I also had a moment of doubt about TRAP. I’ve come across ABULIA before so had no problem with that, but ‘clock’ as an anagrind is completely new to me. I was hoping for a time below 20, but I took too long to get CREDIT UNION and CATNAP
I support the queries already raised about “deb” (girl is surely just wrong in this context) and “brothers” where “fra” is singular. I’ll add one. 1D is very easy, being the initial letters of “greetings ….. language” but what purpose does the word “right” fulfill other than as padding? Remove it and the clue works just as well.
There were some nice if not outstanding clues in this and it’s a pity that what looks like carelessness just tarnishes it a little.
Your approach is mainly pragmatic. If the clue can be solved does the rest matter that much. In today’s blog you dismiss those who might quibble about the clue to ALGERIAN on the grounds that no other answer is possible. I personally don’t mind the use of “alan” but I don’t agree with you reasoning.
My approach stems from a desire to see some rules prevail and has nothing to do with how easy or difficult the clue is. It is born of a baptism into crosswords in the 1950s when there were few if any rules and living through the Ximenes publication and the adoption of his proposed framework for making clues fair for solvers.
There is surely room for both points of view and the debates they sometimes provoke are for me both interesting and enjoyable. I hope you feel the same.
I didn’t learn cryptic solving in the wild days of the 1950s, but did cope with some fairly liberal stuff at the Guardian when I started in the late 70s. When I first read books like Don Manley’s, about 20 years ago, I became a pretty strict Ximenean. Since then, I’ve mellowed a bit and don’t mind some of the strict rules being broken in daily paper puzzles (I stay strict for barred-grid puzzles).
It’s the rules I’m more concerned with than learning new/obscure things. The clue “perform strangely for a pet with nine lives (3)” meets your criteria but I think you would object to it as an indirect anagram of “act”. So it’s a matter of degree that separates us.
As to new/obscure things in the daily cryptic for me the general tenor should be that an obscure answer can be derived from wordplay that itself does not rely upon an obscurity.
I’d underlined “fans” and “clock” as unusual anagrinds and banged in frascati and credit union without fully understanding the WP (ditto genial, where it fitted the def and checkers – I think the “right” spotted by Jimbo made it look like some subtraction was needed which was not unlikely given how much there was yesterday).
Some clues felt a bit lazy (giddy-up, tea and ram for instance) which spoiled the whole somewhat.
Q-1, E-4, D-4 COD 16.
Welcome back Peter and thanks for giving me the opportunity to sub for you on a few of the days.
Wikipedia claims NAVARIN comes from navet – turnip – so I suspect Baldrick has been at his Lordship’s computer again.
Welcome back, Peter, now with added radioactive spidey powers.
Q-0, E-7, D-7 .. COD 16d WAGTAIL, a very elegant little clue.
French navarin (1866 in this sense; 1847 in sense ‘navet’), humorous alteration of navet (see NAVET n.2), apparently after Navarin, the name of a Greek town which was the site of a famous battle (the Battle of Navarino) in 1827, or perhaps alluding to the dish as characteristic of Navarre (see NAVARRAN adj. and n.).
Something there for everyone, I think!
Agree this was reminiscent of yesterday’s in being generally straightforward but with a few obscurities at the end preventing a really fast time. Calends was new to me, and without it I struggled with atlantic (not knowing LAN) and I also wasn’t sure why part could be rock. On the whole it had a nicer feel than yesterdays, perhaps because I thought it reasonable for the solver to expect me to know LAN and calends, even though I didn’t. bc
Saw “Frost/Nixon” last night, definitely worth a peek if it happens by.
Found this one easier than the Mon/Tue offerings, going through in 15 minutes, despite being unfamiliar with ABULIA, CALENDS and NAVARIN. Traprock is a pretty familiar term to those in the construction field in the US, so no great problem there, but it is hardly ever referred to as just plain ‘trap’. As for the quibbles, I think that ‘fra’ really is singular, and I pegged the ‘deb’ as a debutante, and I think ‘girl’ is clearly an OK definition, since in my mind a debutante today is usually in her late teens, and thus, to me at least, certainly qualifying as a girl. See you tomorrow.
I think I veer toward the Peter B side of the argument in the Peter/Jimbo colloquy above on fairness in crosswords. DEB = young girl at 15dn and ALAN = man at 21ac both seem perfectly OK to me. But, as Jimbo said in other words, Vive la différence! That said, I’m as puzzled as everyone else by FRA (surely singular) being used for plural “brothers” at 12ac. Perhaps some Italian scholar out there can put us right. Otherwise, I think we’re owed an explanation by the setter.
About 35 mins for me.
Michael H
TEA, WAGTAIL, NAVARIN and TRAP remained after a fairly quick solve for me just before bedtime.(I get the puzzle early online …a 6-hour difference here in Toronto) Had to come here to check and now see WAGTAIL and TEA…TRAP I might have guessed….but NAVARIN never.
ABULIA is a delicious new one for me.
Happy Christmas to those celebrating the Julian calendar version today.
Following yesterday’s corner of bacon, today I offer recipe for navarin of lamb as another cheap and nourishing winter warmer for those of us in the big freeze in UK.
I join everyone else in wishing you good health from now on.
From a -10 degree France
Mike and Fay
I found this puzzle rather easy, even the words I didn’t know. But I was looking for a North African with ‘ein’ in the middle, until I started to go through the possibles.
Once again, no time because of sporadic solving, a few minutes snatched here and there.
Trap is apparently a term derived from Swedish “Trappa” (meaning steps) derived from the layered nature of flood basalts and how they form “stepped” landscapes. I had not heard it applied to the columnar basalt formations that PB mentions at The Giant’s Causeway and Fingal’s Cave but these are also basalts and certainly the GC forms “steps” although not necessarily from being layered.
There are just the 2 “easies”:
14a Little tremors are unimportant (2,5,6)
NO GREAT SHAKES. More geology – hurrah.
1d Friendly greetings expressed nicely in any language right from the start (6)
G E N I A L. The first letters (right from the start) of words 2 – 7 of the clue with the literal being word 1. I agree with Jimbo that the “right” is unnecessary but also with PB that it is a quite acceptable embellishment. The view is quite good here from atop this fence.