25883 One to bring out the latent Grundy in all of us

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Undoubtedly there will be be letters, and not only the 161 in the grid. Our puzzle contains some genuine obscurities, one in Sanskrit for goodness sake, which you either know or you don’t. There’s a dodgy word from the arcane world of surgery, another from Mongolian (though you should know that one), one of those pretentious, made up words from Victorian literature, a bit of Yiddish, and a bird that spells its name differently from the way I managed, which accounts for my one error in the course of a 25.55 solve. Purists, crossword Grundies, might well object.
But, oh! best beloved! All this can be forgiven, for this is a work of genius. Hidden in this grid, sometimes in plain sight and sometimes with more cunning, are all seven days in the life of Solomon Grundy, a sort of NINA plus, which with a bit of tweaking would indeed brighten up the Listener to which it coyly refers. I think deserving of a round of applause, as when a magician pulls off his best trick.
I’ve placed a key to finding all seven at the bottom of this entry, so that if you haven’t spotted them all, you can still have a go. No peeking!
These are the (more or less) conventional workings. Sections in French have not necessarily been approved by L’Académie.

Across

1 BOULES  Game
The French version of Frances Drakes’s game, neatly heterodyned on the clue. “Where the” in French can be OU LES, which gets tagged on to B(ritish)
5 MULBERRY  Deep Purple
A more unlikely group to cover a lullaby it would be hard to imagine. Read as a clue, MERRY (happy) enfolds the letters of lUlLaBy with the odd ones missing.
9 CHRISTENED Given title
An anagram (broadcast) of CREDITS and (t)HEN without its first letter
10 DIED passed on
Stamp gives DIE, and the primary letter of D(uty) gives the rest.
11 EDACIOUS  Facetiously, greedy
One of those words made up from a basic knowledge of Latin by Victorian writers trying to impress with their erudacity. The ubiquitous journo ED is followed by promises to pay, or IOUS, when they have been preceded by AC(count).
12 BURIED Long-forgotten
Hollies (not the popular beat combo) might be described by a desperate poet as “berried” which gives us the soundalike du jour. This was the clue that made me think something Grundy-related was going on when I was reviewing ineffectually for typos.
13 UP TO Busy with
No police this time. Busy with as in “up to no good”.U(niversity plus P(lease) T(urn) O(ver)
15 EARRINGS
I think just a cryptic definition, and to be honest not the finest. But I think it may be here to alert us that there is a hidden theme going on, as in Leonard Bernstein’s favourite diversion, the Listener Crossword now in the Saturday Times. The Listener was, at one time, the only reason I subscribed to the Club, because you got it on Friday at 4.
18 BACHELOR  Man United? No!
So you’re looking for an unmarried male. The German scorer is the immortal Johann Sebastian (or possibly PDQ), who, as Douglas Adams affirms, wrote far more music than any one man could in a lifetime. Part to play, or ROLE, is reversed and attached.
19 CASH  bread
Being one of the slang terms for money. Cash sounds like CACHE, or hoard. Un autre soundalike du jour.
21 XANADU  Ideal place
From “Kubla Khan, or A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment”, a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Stately pleasure domes, rivers called Alph, all that stuff. Times gives X, article gives A, Posh gives U Fancy fellow gives DAN: Fancy  Dan, according to Chambers, is “a stylish rather than effective performer”. Those last two bits are reversed as instructed
23 ANCESTRY Line
Place TRY for essay after (d)ANCES (I think) for uninitiated plays.
25 MALL Where shops are.
Not in my country they’re not. Ici on a encore un autre soundalike du jour. Allegedly, it sounds like maul for Hammer.
26 OVERTHROWN done away with
Finished provides OVER, and merde! Encore un soundalike du jour! This time, THROWN sounds like throne, seat. So it does.
27 CATS’ EYES Middle of the road guides.
Or, come to that, things that allow a queen, or cat, to see. The road versions are the invention of the remarkable Percy Shaw, whose cast iron, rubber and glass bead constructions saved many a life. Now sadly mostly replaced with plastic variations.
28 ASSAYS  tests
Start with the reverse of the equivalence in 23: tries becomes ESSAYS. now make the first letter not E(uropean) but A(nswer). Voila!

Down

2 OOHED expressed pain
An odd word but necessary to the setter’s purpose. Man is HE, place him in (w)OOD for forest without W(ife)
3 LOINCLOTH  basic cover
Reluctant is LOTH, which (accepts” O(ld) and INCL(usive). Chambers confirms the abbreviation.
4 SHTOOK  trouble
The Yiddish origin is disputed, but not by me. SHOOK for disturbed, about T(eething). Have I mentioned how superbly smooth these clues are?
5 MANX SHEARWATERS  Birds
I believe I spelt this wrong last time, but this time I have no excuse. Count the A’s in the anagram fodder M(illions X (cross) WESTERN SAHARA.
6 LADYBIRD  It is spotted
In the classic version, black on red. BY D(uke) ie “about” within LAIRD for landowner.
7 EIDER  Source of down
Separate carefully. Our word is hidden in cluE I DERived.
8 RE-EMERGES  Again comes out
To realise union might give SEE MERGER. Swap the ends as you are told.
14 PRANAYAMA  Controlled brathing
A practice in Yoga derived from the Sanskrit for “breath of life”. An anagram of MANY A PARA, but I think a “no fair!” is called for. If you don’t know the word, there is no way of being sure what order those letters go in.
16 INCISURES  Cuts
A word primarily used by surgeons to make their patients feel safer: obvious derivation, and here C(ompound) I(nterest) with INSURES for “guarantees” getting round.
17 ILLUSORY  False
Account with no introduction is (b)ILL. Revision of YOURS gives the rest. 
20 SCOTIA  Moulding
You have to work hard with the wordplay, especially if the word itself is unfamiliar. S(mall), then case for O(bjrec)T surrounded by the CIA. The Greek σκοτιά is derived from a word meaning darkness, and this moulding is concave at the foot of a column and therefore presumably in shade.
22 ATLAS maps
Initially A(ncient,) then SALT for mariner (lift and separate) backwards completes the word
24 ROWDY lout
As a noun, that is. Let us assume that the fourth bank of seats is ROW D. The unknown gives Y. In this case, the “in” doesn’t indicate inclusion, just whererow D is.

Now then. Solomon Grundy
BORN on Monday.     Appropriately, diagonally from the top left of the grid
CHRISTENED on Tuesday.    Close enough at 9ac
MARRIED on Wednesday      In the last row of unches
TOOK ILL on Thursday       It’s even got the space. Hidden in 4d and 17d
WORSE on Friday     Hidden backwards in 24d and 8d
DIED on Saturday     10a
BURIED on Sunday     12a
And that was the end of Solomon Grundy
There are minor variations in versions, but I don’t care. It gave a fine frisson of discovery: a thematic crossword which does not require understanding of the theme to solve it, and certainly in my case only revealed its full glory once the puzzle was completed. Many thanks setter.

61 comments on “25883 One to bring out the latent Grundy in all of us”

  1. Well spotted Z. Have to admit that’s clever. Almost enough to make me forgive the terrible 14dn. Which, if you hadn’t guessed, I got wrong.

    Official time was over an hour, but again with major distractions, so I’ll just claim one minute less than whatever Ulaca comes in with.

    Lots of good clues today, I enjoyed BACHELOR and EARRINGS and had some fun sorting out the letters in MANX SHEARWATER.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

  2. Spotted some of the Grundy bits starting with the NINA, but looked in vain for the rest. Thanks to Z8 for enlightenment. I also wondered when he (Grundy!) might have been a BACHELOR and whether RE-EMERGES might be something for the eighth day! Unlikely: more likely to have been confined to the ANCESTRY.

    Never heard of the breathing and had to look it up. Ditto the moulding where the darkness/obscurity etymology is highly appropriate.

    Edited at 2014-09-04 05:17 am (UTC)

  4. The theme and NINAs were all wasted on me. I completed the grid in a little over an hour with some resort to aids once the 60 minutes had passed, principally for the breathing thing which I didn’t think much of for the reasons mentioned in the blog. Other unknowns were SCOTIA and INCISURES but I managed to work them out from wordplay.

    I note the half query about “dances” at 23ac which I think is sound as “play” and “dance” can be substituted perhaps with reference to light dancing or playing upon water or scenery.

    “Mall” does not sound like “maul” in my world but I’ve no problems with it and those that might do have a question mark to ease their pain.

    I felt a sense of achievement having battled my way through this so it’s a bit of a let-down to find I apparently missed half the point of it.

    Edited at 2014-09-04 05:58 am (UTC)

    1. Throughout Australia “mall” is sounded as “maul”, meaning a shopping centre. But I don’t think the latter often means “hammer” (verb) here. Happy to be corrected as I don’t get out much and, besides, I still have pommy residues.

      It always sounds so “common” to me when the TV commentators say HM is travelling by coach down the Mall (as in Mal-colm).

      Edit: “maul” is not in Ramson:
      http://australiannationaldictionary.com.au/index.php

      Edited at 2014-09-04 06:17 am (UTC)

      1. I have an earworm from about 1976 when the word first entered my consciousness. It was an ad for Tweed Mall in Tweed Heads and it was very clearly (and incessantly) pronounced to rhyme with pal.

        Since then, as you say, I have only ever heard it pronounced to rhyme with ball.

        “You… can… get it at the Mall, get it at the Mall, get it at the Mall, when you…. waaant it.” Oh God make it stop.

      2. One of the curiousities about MALL is that it also means “a heavy hammer”. While BRB describes it as archaic in this sense, it rather contrarily defines Maul as “a heavy hammer, a mall”. In the clue, “picked up” pretty clearly signifies a soundalike, but may be rather unnecessary. I would pronounce mall as in Pall Mall (or, to be really irritating, mallet) myself, but then I think here in Britland we tend to pronounce mall as “shopping centre”.
        1. We typically reserve the use of “mall” for shopping precincts which are no longer open to vehicles. What do you call these?
        2. There was once a game called pall-mall that used a mall as a type of hammer so you’re right z8 the “picked up” in the clue is not really needed and confused me until I realised what was going on
      3. >It always sounds so “common” to me when the TV commentators say HM is travelling by coach down the Mall (as in Mal-colm).<

        I’m sure Her Maj would say she’s travelling down “the Mell”.

  5. 40 minutes of excellent fare, though I was slightly disappointed with PRANAYAMA and SHTOOK. My random arrangement of R, N, Y and M gave PYANARAMA for the former whilst a dubious ‘set on’ for disturbed gave an equally dubious SETTON for the latter.

    Other than that, great stuff. Particularly liked ROWDY but my COD has to be BACHELOR. The clue reminded me of Michael Macintyre saying that MAN CITY and MAN UNITED sound like two gay nightclubs!

    Edited at 2014-09-04 07:19 am (UTC)

    1. Weren’t they a 1980s girl band?
      40 min DNF – shtook! – and pana-whatever wrong. Other correct guesses Scotia and Incisures; totally missed the Solomon Grundy bits (which I’ve heard 40 years ago but couldn’t have told you more than born and died).
      So not overly enjoyed, though there were some great clues – loved Bachelor & Mulberry.
      Rob

  6. All done bar the breathing (and there I really have no excuse, having unsuccessfully attempted it many moons ago in yoga classes…).

    MALL, schmall… never heard of the hammer or how it was pronounced, went in on shops alone…

    Didn’t get the anagram at 9ac (one of last ones in, along with SCHTOOK), EDACIOUS and SCOTIA from wordplay.

    Was so glad to have filled in all the letters, I would never have seen the nina, so thanks for pointing that out. Very creative now I see it…

  7. Lots about this to like, especially one or two quirky definitions, but I fell at the last hurdle after 30 minutes by getting my consonants in the wrong order at 14dn. Had I known the answer I think I would still have thought the clue unfair. A brief hold-up at 20dn after taking ‘small case for the object’ as ACC and putting in CACCIA, but eventually saw the equally unknown SCOTIA.
  8. Most of this is very good and enjoyable if containing rather too many “sounds like” – one of which, mall/maul, is not needed.

    I was lucky with the rest of it. SHTOOK was used frequently in my youth and SCOTIA has appeared in bar crosswords. I agree 14D is not clever but I must have come across it before because I was confident about the spelling.

    Don’t see the point of the NINA which completely passed me by – these words are hidden in the grid, so what?

    1. I have to say I agree about this particular NINA. I think they’re ok when marking some event or anniversary but as far as I’m aware this is just random and I wouldn’t want such things to become a regular feature.
  9. 14dn is so jaw-droppingly, iredeemably awful that I’m going to pretend this puzzle never happened.
  10. When I was footling about with 14 down I said to myself ‘This is going to be Sanskrit’, so at least I got one thing right. Besides juggling the wrong letters into place at that one, I also had ‘scitia’ (‘it’ for object) and was absolutely clueless at SHTOOK. A pity, because my father used to use the word.

    At least I paid attention to the anagrist and got the bird right this time.

    Some good stuff, but if a puzzle can be too clever by five-eighths, this was it. Yeeees.

    Edited at 2014-09-04 08:42 am (UTC)

  11. Resorted to aids after 30 mins, the last five of which had been spent staring in vain at 4dn and trying to decide which of PRANAYAMA or “prayanama” was going to be correct at 14dn. When I got SHTOOK I told myself that I should have got it without aids because I hadn’t considered SHT?O?. Yes, the nina was clever, but it went way over my head, and while a lot of the cluing was excellent I didn’t enjoy the overall experience.
  12. I would NEVER have seen the Nina so thanks for that. There are malls (pronounced “maul”) all over the NYC suburbs but I agree with others re the UK pronunciation. So that meant I kept re-visiting that horrid little clue. Also “ooh” is what you say to the fireworks display around here and “ow”, or worse, when someone in the crowd steps on your foot. Very ingenious puzzle despite the quibbles. First rate blog. 31.15
  13. An hour – with two wrong, as I’d not thought carefully enough about 28ac and entered ESSAYS. Consequently finally put SCYTHE at 20dn as nothing else fitted.
    I’d vaguely heard of 14dn (was sure that PRANA refers to breathing)so that went in early) – Solomon Grundy passed me by completely, especially as I didn’t have the MARRIED nina.
  14. Good try, setter but I felt that trying to insert the NINA led to somewhat forced answers (SCHTOOK, OOHED, PRANAYAMA) which detracted from the overall enjoyment of solving. I have no problem with NINAs in principle and indeed spotting them is an added pleasure but not at the expense of the main purpose of the puzzle.

    Great blog z8

  15. 37.10 but with pranamaya, being too familiar with the concept in the last four letters. Nevertheless I think it’s a perfectly acceptable word to use and that some who didn’t know it are being petty in their ignorance. I love the concealed Grundy and see it as a work of art that the setter created both for him/herself and for anyone who saw it – thanks z. And a great variety in the verbarium, as I call it – thanks again setter. A minor delight.
    1. Hang on. I don’t think anyone here has a problem with unfamiliar words. I comment on them every day and revel in the challenge of unravelling them.

      But it’s a cryptic crossword, not a quiz night, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable that an obscure word should be clued in a way that CAN be unravelled, without having to resort to mere guesswork.

        1. In today’s puzzle, the words SHTOOK, EDACIOUS, MANX SHEARWATERS and INCISURES were unknown to me. Each of them presented a fair and enjoyable challenge to solve.

          PRANAYAMA did not. I don’t think it’s petty or ignorant to point that out, as many solvers have done today.

          1. I agree it would be more convenient if a full way to a not generally known-by-the-likely-audience word were always shown, either by the clue itself or a combination of that and the answers around it; but it could be argued there’s a touch of a quiz element to do with general knowledge in every crossword. It can also be argued, as you do, there should always be a second way. I don’t mind the odd call on a word-sense floating below the scenes, in a case such as today’s: I feel I should have listened more to the possibility of pranayama and maybe gone for it. I quite like that summons so to speak; but I recognise your side of the argument and you may be right.
            1. Yes, and I’d have been less critical if my “word-sense” had led me to the correct solution!
          2. Damn right. Part of the solver’s “art” is being able to construct completely unknown words from bits of wordplay. When a foreign or obscure word is clued as an anagram then often, as today, it becomes a matter of luck and guesswork rather than a test of skill.

            No doubt Don Manley will be along soon to join Joekobi’s camp and tell us we’re all as thick as pigshit for not knowing the word (see his musings on Augustine of Hippo on the Crossword Centre’s messageboard).

        2. I think it’s reasonable to expect that an obscure word will be clued without ambiguity, and having to fit Y, N, R and M into P_A_A_A_A without any clue as to what order seems ambiguous to me.
      2. PRANAYAMA was easy for me, but that’s because I know the Sanskrit root for “breath.” Which is probably because I know the music of Pandit Pran Nath, and where his name came from.
  16. I found today’s puzzle an enjoyable, if somewhat unusual challenge. I felt that I was making good, quite speedy progress from the start but then hit patches of very slow moving traffic. Quite a stretch of one’s GK, as z has indicated in his blog. Spot on 30 mins to finish, fully parsed, although it took me forever to sort out 23a and 28a. And then I came to the blog to discover that I have a further piece of work for today – to unpick the NINA spotted by our eagle eyed blogger. Good on ya, z!!
  17. Very clever, if at times a bit too clever, stuff. Completed successfully, but had to resort to aids for the “controlled breathing” whatsit at 14D, which eluded me even with all the cross-checkers in place. SCOTIA was equally unknown to me but the cryptic parsing offered a way in.

    I agree with Jimbo that the dubious homophone indicator at 25A is superfluous to requirements as MALL and MAUL can both mean a “heavy hammer”. And, like him, I too can’t quite see the point of the hidden life story of Solomon Grundy, fiendishly ingenious as it is. No doubt I’d feel differently if I’d been clever enough to spot it myself. Thanks to Z8 for explaining it – though I still can’t see where MARRIED comes from – “in the last row of unches”??

  18. I did see the Nina which made me smile but there were bits of the rest of it that didn’t. If you don’t know your yogic breathing, there is no way of knowing how the letters RNYAM are supposed to fit in. I also struggled with 4d and I would associate OOHED in 2d more with excitement than pain. Just over 15 mins but with one wrong (14d).
  20. All I can say is well done to the blogger for spotting the NINA. I was so exhausted after finishing this that I was incapable of spotting anything. I took ages to get the birds and the anagram at 9, and ended up having to use an aid for 4. I should have used one for 14 as well, where I ended up with a wrong answer. I prefer total obscurities to be unambiguously clued, but crosswords are not intended to be done under exam conditions, so there’s nothing wrong with checking in a dictionary.
    I didn’t understand the ‘fancy fellow’ reference in 21, nor the wordplay to 8, but thought 18 very clever.
    The toughest challenge of the week so far, but also the most enjoyable.
    The NINA would have more point if we were expecting it. As it is, many, like me will have missed it. Why not have a NINA puzzle every Wednesday, say, or the last Friday of the month?
  21. Yes well, this sort of thing so often seems to try too hard, for me anyway. Yes I know it’s a feat to fit all the stuff into the grid, but if the piece suffers, as in my view it does here, what’s the point?

    An Independent puzzle in The Times, I rather feel.

  22. I agree with Chris above. I used to enjoy the Indy crossword until it started relying on themed puzzles and dropped the living persons only and trade name rules. I gave up on what used to be a fine puzzle as often I couldn’t decipher the theme, made up of celebs I’d never heard of! Having said that, I’ve no objection to a theme that you don’t need to understand to finish the puzzle – I didn’t spot this one at all, and admit that it is clever indeed. Anyone who’s ever tried their hand at setting puzzles will know that it’s hard enough to fill in the grid with sensible words in the first place – to then include seven pre-determined ones makes the task almost impossible.

    Edited at 2014-09-04 01:32 pm (UTC)

  23. Clearly the setter is very clever but my admiration goes to the blogger and everyone who solved the puzzle. After a happy outcome yesterday this left me in despair and frustration. After 80 minutes I only had two thirds of the answers and several of those were without understanding the parsing or with reverse parsing and only entered on the basis that it had to be the answer based on the definition and checkers. Obviously very clever, but very dispiriting to the less talented solvers. Like Ulaca I had SCITIA at 20 down. 14 down was obviously an anagram and in the end I gave up playing around with the missing letters and looked it up. Less clever tomorrow I hope – though as it’s Friday…………
  24. Fantastic blog z8 – thank you!
    Three missing today: the breathing, Scotia and Ancestry.
    The nina was lost on me. Per the editor’s twitter feed there was a theme in Saturday’s prize puzzle and another to come on 1 October.
  25. Those complaining about the PRANAYAMA clue do so with total justification. I can only apologise for this, as normally I am quite hot on things like that!

    If it is any consolation I also missed the NINA while solving this puzzle. While I think it is clever, and the setter is to be commended for his ingenuity, we agreed that such semi-hidden delights are not really what the Times Crossword is all about, so expect to see this sort of thing only very rarely.

    1. Thanks Ed. Hope you’ve also noticed the flood of complimentary comments over the last week or two in particular. Keep up the good work.
  26. Clearly a lot of Kerfuffle, especially over the breathing exercise, which is, I believe supposed to engender a feeling of peace, tranquillity and oneness with the cosmic all. Clearly didn’t here. Many thanks to Ed for intervening, but before the setter gets a rap over the knuckles could I make further comment on today’s Nina+?
    I think I agree with the comments that it should be a rarity, but I also think when the rarity is pulled of with such panache it shouldn’t be seen as a dirty trick or the start of a slippery slope towards (shudder) the Indy standard.
    Perhaps if more of us had seen it it might have got the round of applause I suggested.
    Funnily enough, the last one on this sort of scale also happened on my watch: 25691 back in January where all the down clues were paired, though clued separately RECEPTION/CLASS, VENTURE/CAPITAL and so on. I had the same response as I did today – wow!
    I think they are at least acceptable if
    -You don’t need to spot the theme to get the answers
    -You pretty much complete the crossword before the conceit becomes apparent
    -it doesn’t mess up the flow of the crossword, or force too many obscurities, allowable in the Listener, but not here.
    On this one, maybe a couple of entries – OOHED and SHTOOK are the obvious ones – were a bit forced, but I don’t think desperately so.
    Ironically, spotting the relevant unches in row 14 would have helped a bit with the PARADIDDLE in 14d, but then since, generally, we don’t look for that sort of connection, I would still say the setter needs to find another way of cluing Sanskrit!
    By all means keep them rare, but please don’t ban such things altogether. I found this one a special joy, and I stand by my opening remarks and salute to the setter.
    Best of luck, everyone, in spotting the next one in, say, six months or so.

    Edited at 2014-09-04 04:17 pm (UTC)

  27. … for the apology for P_A_A_A_A, which baffled me and either meant a word search online or a guess. Also SHTOOK which I find it hard to believe is a worthy English word; Yiddish is not my thing. I always thought the word was SCHTUCK. Collins gives SHTOOK as an alternative, I see.
    And a MALL is not pronounced MAUL in England nor is it in general use as a place where shops are, unless you’re on holiday abroad.
    Otherwise, a good test with some excellent clueing and apparently a NINA about someone called Solomon Grundy, of whose existence in detail I was also blissfully ignorant.
    Glad I was off blog duty today, well done Z.
  28. 29:25 but with two wrong. The breathing thing natch and I also had the same SETTON momble as Pootle at 4d.

    Well done Z for spotting the NINA and thanks to RR for owning up to allowing the dodgy clue through. None like that in October please!

    1. The thing with such clues is that if you know the answer you will have the advantage over a “better” solver who doesn’t know the answer, whereas in the absence of such clues you are likely over the course of 3 puzzles to finish slower than that “better” solver. So even if such clues may feel unsatisfactory when solving in a leisurely fashion at home, in competition I would suggest that you should be actively hoping for them – as long as they’re words that you know, of course. Both Magoo and Jason guessed incorrectly at this particular answer.
    1. Oh I think it can. “The rule of Westminster in Scotland was overthrown by the yes vote”. You can adequately substitute done away with in that sentence without significantly changing the meaning

      Edited at 2014-09-04 07:36 pm (UTC)

  30. Great blog z8, and thanks for unravelling the Nina. I think the Nina’s brilliant, I never spot them, but am always impressed with the setter’s ingenuity.

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