26002 In which philosophers have a race. On camels?

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
16.43 for this one, slowing down towards the end and puzzling a while over the entry at 24 (25 two days ago) where I currently have only a sketchy idea of how it might work. I expect learned and possibly heated discussion on the true nature of Robin Goodfellow. There’s quite a bit in here that requires you to shine a light into the darker corners of received vocabulary, and I’m as always interested to know where others find the general knowledge has passed them by until now.
As far as I can make out, there are no hidden surprises in base anything to discover, no “hidden” clue, and it’s not even close to a pangram. Here’s my working.

Across

1 DINNER PARTY  social function
First to detect is D, hidden is INNER, person is PARTY.
7 ELF  Robin Goodfellow
If Cervantes wanted to write the definite article, it would be EL, because he’s Spanish. F comes form F(emale). AKA Puck in Midsummer Night’s Dream, ” that shrewd and knavish sprite”. I have no idea whether there’s a distinction between elf and sprite, though only one is safe to drink.
9 SAGE DERBY  Cheese
It’s a good candidate for the main constituent of the Moon’s structures, being green. S(ociety), to become old: AGE, and hat: DERBY
10 AS PER  According to
Now most commonly followed (in my house, anyway) by “usual”. Impersonator is APER, which quite literally gets around S(on)
11 EARDROP  piece for listeners
More to do with ear decoration, here, I think – piece is a rather odd word for a drop of fluid. PEAR DROPS are sweets with a distinctive odour similar to acetone, unsurprisingly because they contain isoamyl acetate and ethyl acetate. Knock of the introductory P
12 ENDLESS  Potentially boring
You need to know that the name Dalziel is pronounced D L when dictated. E(nglish) NESS (head) provides the enfolding remainder
13 GRIPE beef
Your GRIP is the member of a camera crew responsible for moving the camera, and you put the versatile silent E from the beginning of Eat onto the end.
15 SOMETHING  an unknown
S(ociety) makes its second appearance and is followed by a changed ONE MIGHT
17 NO ACCOUNT  good-for-nothing
Turn ON into NO, add A C(old) COUNT or nobleman, and there you are
19 COMET  Traveller round sun
The writer is ME (if you see what I mean) and the bed is a COT. Rest the former in the latter
20 ERINYES  snake haired creatures
The Greek Furies, who turned up recently (though I can’t find the reference). ERIN is Ireland, YE is “old” for “the” (allegedly) and the S comes form S(outh)
22 CLIPPED  sharp
I’m not sure about this as a definition. A clip is a sharp blow administered by a constable to a miscreant youth in the days when that wasn’t assault, but is a clipped accent sharp? Or a clipped hedge? The wordplay’s easy: C(onservative) LIED about P(arking) doubled.
24 IDAHO State
I preferred the clue in 26000, and I’m not sure I’ve fully understood this. The moon has to account for IO. The remaining DAH is HAD backwards, but how that equates to “needed” is a mystery. I’m open to (probably perfectly obvious) enlightenment.
25 DROMEDARY desert transport
OK, here goes. D(eparts). City: ROME. Subtle: DRY and area A, all to be assembled as per instructions. Is dry subtle? As in humour, perhaps. Or sherry? For me, another rather tenuous link, which caused no problem while solving but does now I come to explain it.
27 GUY Ridicule
A Guy in this case is the effigy of Guy Fawkes created for Bonfire Night (5th November and in the modern era most dates thereabouts) with old clothes and stuffing, and used to solicit pennies from passers by.
28 FOUR SEASONS  pizza
F(orce) OUR SONS collects SEA marine’s (for which read “of the sea”)

Down

1 DIS soul venue
“The fictional city in The Divine Comedy that contains the lower circles of hell” in this instance, and sadly nothing to do with James Brown. Probably. Just take the E(nergy) out of DIES masquerading as “conks out”
2 NIGER  republic
It happens to be REGINA (queen) clipped and reversed
3 ENDORSE  back
Bible class time. The witch of ENDOR summoned up the spirit of the prophet Samuel on the demand of the first King of Israel, Saul. Didn’t do him any good. Read it in 1 Samuel 28. If you add ShE without its middle letter, you get our entry.
4 PARI PASSU  together
Means “with equal pace” in Latin, though ours is derived from PA inserted into PARIS (how kind of the setter to give French capital!) plus US raised.
5 RHYME  word pattern
On gives RE, which cuddles a short HYM(n)
6 YEAR DOT  Earliest known period
An anagram of TROY IDEA with the I missing as per instruction.
7 EUPHEMISM  it’s one for sex
The definition turns on reading that last bit properly, as in “it” is (a euphemism) for sex (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more). Out of bed provides UP, edge gives HEM, and a reconstructed SEMI provides the shell.
8 FORESIGHTED  with ability to predict
A neat anagram (fantastical) of HORSE GIFTED
11 ENGINEERING  Artfully contriving
Or, if you’d prefer, the career of the Brunels, pére et fils (et son fils aussi). Isambard Kingdom Brunel, as well as having a wonderful name, is arguably the greatest of the Victorian engineers. Look on his works, ye mighty, and marvel.
14 IMAGINARY  fancied
One girl is 1 MARY,the other is GINA. Place in an embrace.
16 MOTOCROSS  Rough bike race
Doctor is M(edical) O(fficer), who goes TO CROSS (bridge)
18 CRY WOLF  Raise alarm falsely
Derived from one of Aesop’s fables. Constructed as follows: C “about” R(ailwa)Y and FLOW “current” reversed.
19 CHIMERA  wild idea
If you share the same opinion as someone else, your opinions CHIME. Add the R(oyal) A(cadamician).
21 SADHU one choosing austerity
Miserable provides the SAD, Husband the H, initially Upset the U.
23 PIANO  quiet passage
As in music. IAN, Scottish for John (nothing to do with loos) “stops” or fills in P(ilot) O(fficer)
26 YES That’s right
All the ends of “Beats Randle McMurphy” reversed. Who he? The hero of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, though I can see no other connection.

49 comments on “26002 In which philosophers have a race. On camels?”

  1. I had a bad feeling about this one, as I proceeded through the acrosses without a solve, pausing only at 13 to wonder if there were a type of stagehand called a whin. But somehow things picked up, although it took me a while to realize that ‘queen’ did not mean ER, that ‘fantastical’ was an anagrind, and that 6d was two words. I also discovered that I didn’t know what PARI PASSU means. Liked 10ac and 3d, inter alia. Dumb question: is FOUR SEASONS a kind of pizza? a brand of pizza?

    1. Four seasons is a pizza with four different toppings quartered on its surface, for those who can’t make up their minds.

    2. Often seen on menu boards as “quattro stagioni”, along with the word “authentic”. I don’t know why I know this as I hate pizza (I lived in Napoli for a while and even hated their pizza, which actually was authentic).
      1. You see “Quattro Stagioni” advertised a lot in Venice as well, but there it usually has nothing to do with pizza.

        Edited at 2015-01-22 11:10 pm (UTC)

  3. Similar experience to Kevin. Very slow start on the acrosses and I thought it was going to be a stinker, but picked up some speed on the downslopes. Got cornered in the north-west for a while, but overall a pretty uneventful solve.

    ERINYES and SADHU were unknown, PARI PASSU virtually unknown. All quite generously clued though.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

    1. Come to think of it I didn’t know ENDOR either, but Samantha’s mother in Bewitched was Endora, so that was good enough for me.

      Apologies to the classically educated.

  4. I did know this one–although if you’d given me ‘Furies’ I probably couldn’t have come up with it–but didn’t know they were snake-haired, so I actually toyed with ‘Gorgons’ for a bit.
  5. 40 minutes which, considering the problems I had getting my first answer, wasn’t too bad.

    Re 13ac, I know in film making there are sound stages but for me “stagehand” suggests live theatre where a grip is a person responsible for shifting sets and properties.

    Re 22ac, I think this may refer to speaking in clipped tones where short abrupt words are spoken very quickly, very business-like and maybe even appearing rude or “sharp”. Also tied in with this is a staccato style delivery which might be described as “short and sharp”. However I can’t find a dictionary entry that directly defines “clipped” as “sharp” or vice versa.

    Didn’t know ERINYES but the wordplay was helpful.

    1. I had occasion once to find out what all the obscure jobs in film-making did – the best boy, dolly grip, gaffer, breakdown artist and so on – and it’s the film versions which have stuck in memory. That’s my excuse!
      My immediate association during solving on “clipped” accents is Noel Coward, who of course could be acerbic, acid tongued and all those things, but I couldn’t make the sharpness a function of the clipped accent. You can a say anything you like in a clipped accent, and it’s likely to sound frightfully witty and sophisticated, and it might be sharp too. But it’s not sharp because of the accent but because of the wit or venom behind it.
  6. 18m. Most of this went in quickly, but then I got stuck in the SW, not helped by having put in EIREYES. Once I’d figured out the correct answer it looked much more familiar, funnily enough. I didn’t know ENDOR but PARI PASSU is an everyday term in my line of work so no problems there.
  7. During which I was pleasantly reminded of a youthful liking for pear drops — not to mention pineapple chunks. Very pleased to spot ERINYES: mythical ladies who look over your shoulder while solving crosswords?
  8. 14:03 … bit of a hit and hope with ENDORSE. I’m afraid I assumed Endor was something Wizard of Oz-related.

    This would have been a much harder puzzle had 11d not featured the Brunels, whose name instantly brings ‘engineer’ to mind.

    Z8, it’s usually quite safe to drink someone’s ‘elf.

    COD .. EUPHEMISM, for being located in a renovated semi

  9. Well it had to happen – 25 minutes to finish this one, but a DNF with the Quickie (at least without aids).
    Clearly this was on my wavelength, though I had to come here for enlightenment on some of the parsing (thanks z8). Also I thought “French capital” was far too obvious and so was trying to put “Dad in French”, i.e. PERE in for ages.
    Having worked out EURINYES and PARI PASSU I then convinced myself that in fact I’d known them all along (which is probably true but stuck in the deeper and less accessible recesses of my brain)
  10. Several unknowns today (PARI PASSU, ERINYES, ENDOR), but as has been noted, the parsing was clear. Nothing much else to say…

  11. 3 seconds slower than our esteemed blogger in 16:46.

    Working in the IT department of a financial company, I knew PARI PASSU as a financial term. I didn’t know what it meant though. I now know it means ‘loans, bonds or classes of shares that have equal rights of payment, or equal seniority.’.

  12. It sounds like a poncey surf’n’turf. Do the toppings really correlate to the seasons? Come on, spit it out. I liked the clueing of the three-letter words, particularly ELF, and, as noted above, EUPHEMISM, for the way it conjured up an image of a renovated semi. Drinking someone’s ‘elf is safe of course but one must always be careful with someone elfs’s.
  13. They’re also sometimes called the Eumenides, the kindly ones, although as Furies they’re anything but. Apparently it was thought that they had to be constantly flattered and propitiated (rather reminiscent of some fine old C of E hymns) so as to avoid bad stuff happening. Didn’t get this from O Level Greek but from Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time where they’re one of the themes. 15.14
  14. For once, I knew the obscure ones so this turned out to be relatively straightforward. Like pootle, I knew 4d from the financial world where new issues are often said to ‘rank pari passu’ to existing shares etc. Perhaps we will have mutatis mutandis one day.

  15. 11 mins. I think I must have been on the proverbial wavelength, and ENDLESS was my LOI after EUPHEMISM. As far as pizzas are concerned I like them, probably because I don’t see what isn’t to like about melted cheese.
  16. No great sweat here, the wordplays were mainly pretty good and if one did what one was told out popped the answer

    I also got the witch from Endora and couldn’t remember how to spell ERINYES. Amongst the other slightly loose stuff mentioned by our esteemed blogger I wasn’t sure about “forces” in 16D

  17. 12 minutes, so I was also on the proverbial. To my way of thinking, all those years spent studying classics were well worth it if it means I can occasionally gain a small advantage in crosswords like this one (I always knew there had to be a reason for it).

    Meanwhile, I have spent my entire adult life carefully reading pizza menus, weighing up the options, considering all the possibilities and then ordering a Four Seasons. A great option for indecisive diners.

  18. 7:42 – I will forgive the appearance of my least favourite sweets as we also have my most favourite engineer.
  19. Went astray with 1a – wrote in “Supper party” on the basis that “First to detect” was a superintendant – so SUPER – and “inner person” meant to insert a “P” into “SUPER” 🙁
  20. 33m today but like others a very slow start, reaching 8d before I found one I could do. Fortunately 1ac fell next and I was away, with no major hold ups. I had same unknowns with witches and furies plus a few simply BIFD such as IDAHO and the pizza, so thanks for the blog.
  21. I was bang on the setter’s wavelength today and had this before the coffee was made, not sure what that says about me. Count me in for the “Bewitched” ENDORA for 3 down.
  22. 19 minutes. Perhaps I am more high brow than I thought 🙂 – no DNK’s and not a thought of Bewitched though SADHU was dredged up from the darker recesses based on the wordplay.
  23. Apologies if I misunderstand your parsing of 11 ac. “Piece” seems perfectly correct to me as it refers to a type of earring (and not a drop of fluid.

    Thank you setter and blogger!

    1. Yes indeed, my phrasing was ambiguous.  I should have written “piece would be an odd word for a drop of anything”.  My strong preference was for the ear decoration.

  24. I made rather a slow start, but on the whole a fairly straightforward puzzle with some good wordplay. I found today’s Quickie rather tougher.

    Edited at 2015-01-22 06:15 pm (UTC)

  25. About 20 minutes, with ERINYES from wordplay, and SADHU from wordplay and a very vague memory of it appearing here before. ENDOR just because it sounded right. LOI was IDAHO, where I was unconvinced of the parsing (same as Z’s), then I finally decided it just had/needed to be the answer. Can’t think of any other way ‘had’=’needed’. Regards.
  26. Had = needed as in ‘had to’ or ‘needed to’ do something, I think. Sue Sweeper
  27. Phew. 27 minutes for me, despite never having heard of ERINYES, DIS or SADHU, and being a bit shaky on PARI PASSU.

  28. Interesting that like others it was a slow start for me, but the answers went in steadily after that.
    I may have missed it in the comments but there is a verb to guy meaning to mock/ridicule
    2 finishes in row, encouraging
    G’night
    Alpinecol

    1. On GUY: I had it down as the definition of the clue. In my blogs, the answer is in bold block capitals, and is followed by what I consider to be the word or phrase giving the definition offered by the clue. The rest is the wordplay (and, before anyone else points it out, flannel). In this case, the clue was pretty much a double definition, but I took “ridicule” to be the plainer version, and it appears as the primary definition.

  29. 8:44 for me. I thought I’d been faster as I finished at a decent pace – but, looking back, I made another ridiculously slow start.

    Nice puzzle.

  30. My FOI was CLIPPED, so also off to a very slow start. After an hour I managed to enter the last letter (the U in GUY) and submitted, greatly surprised to find that everything was right. I had to rely very heavily on wordplay, in SAGE DERBY, ERINYES, PARI PASSU, SADHU, and then of course there were the many clues where I didn’t understand the wordplay entirely (ENDORSE, ENDLESS, not knowing how to pronounce Dalziel, my British phonology extending no farther than Cholmondely and Featherstonehaugh). All in all a delightful if somewhat frustrating puzzle. COD to EUPHEMISM, even if I didn’t quite catch the meaning of “it’s one for sex” before seeing it here.
  31. I’m afraid that this crossword did not elevate my thoughts. Rather the opposite. So by the time I got to 7 dn and was thinking euphemistically about sex what seemed appropriate was ‘to give her ONE’. (‘one’ is it (a euphemism) for sex).

    The blogger prefers the rather less crude ‘IT is one for sex’ (suggesting that there are others). A preferable alternative, to be sure. But what exact phrase did he have in mind where ‘it’ substitutes for sex? ‘We did it’ or some such doesn’t quite work grammatically as one ‘has’ sex but one doesn’t say ‘we had it’.

    1. I may possibly have to refer you to the entries on it inthe Urban Dictionary, that ever reliable source of folk definitions. In this case, 211.3 “Well, duh… sex”

      The Python Nudge Nudge sketch finishes with
      Norman Well I mean like you’ve er…you’ve done it…I mean like, you know…you’ve…er…you’ve slept…with a lady.
      Him Yes.
      Norman What’s it like?

      In truth, the number of polite and impolite euphemisms for sex is beyond measure, and here I think the setter just chose one that made sense in the surface reading of the clue, a rather racy little short story, which may well have ended up with one girl cuddling another just a few clues later.

      We do the research so you don’t have to, and in this case so you don’t clutter up your hard drive with egregious and possibly illegal images.

  32. Thanks that’s clearer now;I’d been looking for guy as a noun equivalent for ridicule
    Alpinecol
  33. I find it a bit irritating that anyone would classify this puzzle as ‘Easy’. It’s kind of pointless having a classification system if it isn’t reliable. I have been paying particular attention lately and actually find that the puzzles that are classed as Hard 1 are infact the easiest. Maybe I’m missing something.
    1. I don’t thinkv an objective system is possible. All I can say is “I found this hard/easy”, and you might well disagree, as in “puzzles that are classified hard are in fact easiest”, which may be true only for you. Many contributors use the term “wavelength” for puzzles they found harder/easier than the rest appeared to. My own Mohs scale runs from talc sub 10 to average 17 to diamond 40+ based on time alone, but even then there is a subjective feel factor. Part of the fun of this board is finding out how dumb/clever you’ve been compared to the others.
      Might I suggest be becoming a member to remove anonymity? It’s free and easy and doesn’t risk spam. Then it’s easier to compare and contrast your findings with the other friendly competitors. I for one would welcome another regular/frequent contributor,especially if your viewpoint is different.

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