Hello again. I liked this one. Not too easy, not too hard, with some very neat clues and generally good surfaces. The sort of crossword where if you think a clue is wrong, it is probably you and not the clue. What did you think?
Please, do feel free to ask questions or comment as required.
I use the standard TfTT conventions like underlining the definition, CD for cryptic definition, DD for a double one, *(anargam) and so forth. Nho = “not heard of” and in case of need the Glossary is always handy
| Across | |
| 1 | Uni mobs wrecked vehicle (7) |
| OMNIBUS – *(UNI MOBS). A nice easy one to start us off. The word always makes me think of Flanders & Swann. | |
| 5 | One hour trapped in crash after motorway confusion (8) |
| MISHMASH – MI (motorway) + H(our) in SMASH, a crash. | |
| 9 | Cowboy gets all Uruguayan calves herded once at the front (6) |
| GAUCHO – first letters of Gets All Uruguayan Calves Herded Once. | |
| 13 | Pastry again taken before tea? Try something different (4,4,1,3,4) |
| TURN OVER A NEW LEAF – I think TURNOVER is a pastry, ANEW means again, and LEAF is tea. | |
| 14 | Deliverance when umpire accepts position (6) |
| RELIEF – LIE (position, eg in golf) in REF, umpire. | |
| 16 | What encloses cattle a deer half avoided (8) |
| STOCKADE – STOCK (cattle) + A DE(er). Easy once you realise “cattle” is wordplay not a part of the definition. | |
| 17 | God of old Babel (4) |
| ODIN – O(ld) + DIN, babel. Wednesday is named after Odin/Woden | |
| 18 | Element of humanity and ecstasy includes God mostly (9) |
| MANGANESE – GANES(h) in MAN + E(cstasy). Ganesh, Hindu god of wisdom. Son of Shiva. | |
| 20 | Period of king holding power certainly forgotten (4,4) |
| LEAP YEAR – P(ower) and YEA (certainly) in king LEAR. Fifth in a series where the definition is the first word of the clue. | |
| 21 | Bit of help to net fish then hunt game (4-3-4) |
| HIDE-AND-SEEK – H(elp) + IDE (fish) + AND (then) + SEEK (hunt) | |
| 24 | Left cheated, taken in by a gang (9) |
| ABANDONED – DONE (cheated) in A BAND (gang) | |
| 25 | Catholic city with the French court in charge (8) |
| ECLECTIC – EC (city) + LE (the, in France) + C(our)T + IC, in charge. | |
| 26 | Stray scent almost enveloping one (4) |
| WAIF – I in WAF(t), scent | |
| 29 | Mystic briefly shaped revolutionary branch of philosophy (11) |
| METAPHYSICS – *(MYSTIC + SHAPE(d)) | |
| 31 | Choir ceased performing in area of York Minster? (11) |
| ARCHDIOCESE – *(CHOIR CEASED) | |
| 33 | What overseer does is very mean (11) |
| SUPERINTEND – SUPER (very) + INTEND (mean) | |
| 36 | Get over with a leap and bound sober (5-6) |
| CLEAR-HEADED – CLEAR (get over, with a leap, eg a hurdle) + HEADED bound, eg bound for New York | |
| 38 | Section of pretty pertinent class (4) |
| TYPE – hidden, as above | |
| 39 | Work out shoe strength (4,4) |
| PUMP IRON – PUMP (shoe) + IRON, strength. “There is iron in your words for all men to see” says Chief Ten Bears, in The Outlaw Josey Wales. | |
| 41 | Look again at compensation involving advert (9) |
| READDRESS – AD(vert) in REDRESS, compensation | |
| 44 | One’s son on St David’s day is noble (11) |
| MARCHIONESS – MARCH I (St David’s day, apparently) + ONE’S S(on). | |
| 45 | Appointed politician to look after energy (4,4) |
| LIFE PEER – LIFE (energy) + PEER (to look) | |
| 48 | Brook, perhaps main source of water (9) |
| STANDPIPE – STAND (tolerate, brook) + PIPE, perhaps a (water) main. | |
| 49 | Become united according to law but without support (4) |
| ALLY – (leg)ALLY, according to law less a support | |
| 50 | Innocent child covered in gateau in US picnic party (8) |
| CLAMBAKE – LAMB (innocent child) in CAKE, one type of which is a gateau | |
| 52 | Loose shark is swimming both sides of current (6) |
| RAKISH – I (current, electrical symbol therefor) in *(SHARK) | |
| 53 | Chaotic system of odd alternative technology vehicle (7,9) |
| STRANGE ATTRACTOR – STRANGE (odd) + AT (alternative technology) + TRACTOR, a vehicle. I won’t attempt to explain what one of these is, a nho for me, and having read the wikipedia article I am none the wiser… | |
| 54 | Artist I note put in brown (6) |
| TITIAN – I + TI (note, a drink with jam & bread) in TAN, brown | |
| 55 | Concertgoer has to back replacing a male Evangelist (8) |
| PROMOTER – PROMMER, concertgoer, with one of the Ms replaced by TO rev. Not sure I would regard promoter and evangelist as synonyms exactly, but indeed they are both pushing something. | |
| 56 | Sort of leather from gulls and relatives (7) |
| KIDSKIN – KIDS (gulls) + KIN, relatives | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Annoyingly slow empty boat in river (6) |
| OBTUSE – B(oa)T in OUSE, one of several rivers | |
| 2 | Exclusive new school in the East End (6) |
| NARROW – N(ew) + ARROW, how Eastenders might pronounce Harrow | |
| 3 | School chief supporting check for dope (9) |
| BLOCKHEAD – BLOCK (check, hinder) + HEAD (school chief) | |
| 4 | Go and shop as cheaply as possible (5,1,5) |
| SPEND A PENNY – a DD. I am old enough to remember public lavatories that charged 1d for admission. | |
| 5 | Witty remark about a ditch full of water (4) |
| MOAT – A, in MOT, as in bon mot. | |
| 6 | Quality of arrows left to kill seabirds aboard ship (11) |
| SLENDERNESS – END ERNES (kill sea eagles, a great crime) in SS, a ship. | |
| 7 | A manic hello changed sad mood (11) |
| MELANCHOLIA – *(A MANIC HELLO) | |
| 8 | Intermittent springs mostly come up around unfinished dig (9) |
| SPASMODIC – SPAS (springs) with DI(g) in COM(e), all reversed. | |
| 10 | Girl assistant carrying hamper that’s short (8) |
| ADELAIDE – DELA(y) (hamper that’s short) in AIDE, assistant. I tend to think only of the Australian city, but that was named after the wife of William IV so clearly applies to ladies too. | |
| 11 | What’s in Yangtze river plant raised for local animal (7,5,4) |
| CHINESE WATER DEER – Well the Yangtze contains CHINESE WATER, and REED reversed is a deer. | |
| 12 | High on Everest, maybe when there’s less demand (3-4) |
| OFF-PEAK – a DD | |
| 15 | Strangely inured accepting V&A is never changing (8) |
| UNVARIED – VA in *(INURED) | |
| 19 | Closure date of disused railway (8) |
| DEADLINE – a disused railway is a DEAD LINE, ha ha | |
| 22 | Heavily-built rodent eating southeastern monkey (8) |
| MARMOSET – SE in MARMOT, my second-favourite animal. (Capybara, to save you wondering) | |
| 23 | Spoil lie about report with alien which contains rubbish (10,6) |
| WASTEPAPER BASKET – Easy clue, but I struggled to parse it: WASTE (spoil) + PAPER (report) + BASK (lie) + ET (alien) | |
| 27 | I finish cutting mullet? Horrendous (8) |
| FIENDISH – I END in FISH | |
| 28 | Caught poem’s secret message (4) |
| CODE – C(aught) + ODE, a poem | |
| 30 | Role needing quiet skill (4) |
| PART – P (quiet) + ART, skill | |
| 32 | What could make Clare go away (5,3) |
| CLEAR OFF – ie, clare is *(clear) | |
| 34 | Beginning to notice terribly serious mental condition (8) |
| NEUROSIS – N *(SERIOUS) | |
| 35 | Deployed armadas line sea port (3,2,6) |
| DAR ES SALAAM – *(ARMADAS L SEA) | |
| 36 | Subdued glow has the ability to enchant surrounding loch (11) |
| CANDLELIGHT – L(och) is in CAN DELIGHT. When we have an occasional power cut, we discover that candles are close to useless by comparison… | |
| 37 | Pragmatic statesman’s approach putting true pressure on drunk held by lout (11) |
| REALPOLITIK – REAL (true) + P(ressure) + LIT (drunk) in OIK, a lout | |
| 40 | Feel aggrieved at being taken in by a media host (9) |
| PRESENTER – RESENT (feel aggrieved) in PER, a as in £1 a/per head. | |
| 42 | Following drug in drink come down in imaginary world (9) |
| DREAMLAND – E (drug) in DRAM (drink) + LAND, come down. | |
| 43 | Island not entirely in a former region of Africa (8) |
| RHODESIA – RHODES (island) + I (in, not entirely) + A | |
| 44 | Fur rug concealing broken rusk (7) |
| MUSKRAT – well it is *(RUSK) in MAT, a rug. I was doubtful about the def., but Collins second definition for muskrat is “The brown fur of this animal.” Otherwise known as musquash. Having attractive fur can be a drawback when humans are about. | |
| 46 | Simpson possibly very good composer (6) |
| BARTOK – BART, as in Bart Simpson, a popular animated cartoon character, M’Lud; and OK, very good, as in “Yes.” | |
| 47 | Earthy reds at first aren’t drunk (6) |
| TERRAN – *(R + AREN’T) where the R is the first letter of reds. | |
| 51 | Just show blonde straight up (4) |
| FAIR – one of those clues with lots of definitions. Presumably, UP can mean fair as well but I couldn’t think of an example. Over to you! | |
‘Try something different’ struck me as a poor definition of TURN OVER A NEW LEAF (ODE: start to act or behave in a better or more responsible way). Should ‘city’ in 25ac be capitalized? DNK CHINESE WATER DEER, looked it up. It took me ages to remember STRANGE in 53ac (I knew the term, but couldn’t tell you what it means. I didn’t think, though, that it itself is a chaotic system, but what do I know?)
Quite straightforward as evidenced by my copy having very few queries, notes or workings-out.
I missed ‘bound /HEADED’ at 36ac, so thanks for clearing that up. I also had no idea what STRANGE ATTRACTOR was about, but worked out the answer and took it on trust.
I think the question of ‘city / EC’ needing a capital letter has come up before but I can’t remember how the discussion went. Whilst I can see a sort of logic to the argument, the crossword usage probably comes up at least once a week and I have no particular recollection of City ever taking a capital letter unless it happened to be the first word in a clue.
I couldn’t work out bound / HEADED either, so thanks for that one.
In 20ac, I had the same parsing but it left “forgotten” unaccounted for in the clue. Can anybody enlighten me as to why it is there?
I had no problem with STRANGE ATTRACTOR as I studied chaotic systems, chaos theory and dynamical systems at university and remembered this. To be fair, it didn’t leap to mind, I got ATTRACTOR quite quickly and was thinking of a particular attractor (couldn’t get the Lorenz Attractor out of my mind) for a long time.
Nice puzzle I thought.
I think it’s intended to indicate YEA as being archaic. It’s listed as such in ODE and Collins. I don’t have Chambers to hand.
Oh, I see. I assumed it was an alternative spelling for YEAH, so very much not archaic. But if the dictionary gods decree it as such, then fair enough.
Thank you Jerry, in particular for explaining Leap Year – I got the answer without realising how Yea fitted in.
Fair to say that Strange Attractor is obscure, so it’s a matter of working the wordplay then (sigh) looking it up in Wikipedia.
Like you, a bit uneasy about Prommer for concertgoer. At least it was topical.