Time: 07:21. I found that this geographically entertaining puzzle from Wurm didn’t cause me too many problems.
Plenty to like with smooth surfaces and some misleading defs adding to the enjoyment. I usually find cryptic defs difficult but was able to spot and solve today’s three examples of the genre without the usual delay.
Definitions underlined in bold, deletions and letters in wordplay not appearing in answer indicated by strikethrough.
Thanks to Wurm
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | This is on hand to provide quick coverage? (10) |
| FINGERNAIL – Cryptic definition
‘Quick’ here as a noun for the soft flesh underneath a growing fingernail or toenail. Always makes me think “Ouch!”. |
|
| 7 | Wood losing mass in Roman river (5) |
| TIBER – TI |
|
| 8 | Boy harbours plot in Finnish parts (7) |
| LAPLAND – LAD (‘Boy’) contains (‘harbours’) PLAN (‘plot’)
Specifically the northernmost part of Finland. |
|
| 10 | Favoured official made mistake on piano (9) |
| PREFERRED – REF (‘official’) ERRED (‘made mistake’) following (‘on’ in an across clue) P (‘piano’) | |
| 12 | Scotsman in Moravia now (3) |
| IAN – Hidden (‘in’) |
|
| 13 | That blinking sight-screen! (6) |
| EYELID – Cryptic definition | |
| 15 | Concludes Conservative is defeated (6) |
| CLOSES – C (‘Conservative’) LOSES (‘is defeated’) | |
| 16 | Fool in France not returning (3) |
| SAP – Reversal (‘returning’) of PAS (‘in France not’)
As in “Je n’aime pas…” |
|
| 17 | Haunt dark wood? (9) |
| NIGHTCLUB – NIGHT (‘dark’) CLUB (‘wood?’)
‘Wood?’ as a definition by example of a golf club. ‘Haunt’ here as a noun for the answer |
|
| 20 | Tell story a ranter spoiled (7) |
| NARRATE – Anagram (‘spoiled’) of A RANTER | |
| 22 | Fail in a university: goodbye (5) |
| ADIEU – DIE (‘Fail’) contained in (‘in’) A (‘a’) U (‘university’) | |
| 23 | Brigade he’d trained secured position (10) |
| BRIDGEHEAD – Anagram (‘trained’) of BRIGADE HE’D
The def needs to be read as a position which has been secured, usually by troops – ‘Brigade’ in the wordplay is a nice touch – in a battle. Looking it up, it is more specifically a position inside enemy territory from which to attack (Oxford Dictionaries). |
|
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Wicked, extremely labyrinthine story (5) |
| FABLE – FAB (‘Wicked’) L I was going to say ‘wicked’ was yoof speak for “very good”, but then I realised it was yoof speak even when I was a yoof. The earliest quotation in this sense in the OED is in 1920 from F. Scott Fitzgerald in This Side of Paradise. |
|
| 2 | Munch for instance on grain we cooked (9) |
| NORWEGIAN – Anagram (‘cooked’) of ON GRAIN WE
Aarrgh!! Yes, THAT one. Wurm is trying to deceive us into thinking about a masticatory activity, but no, it’s Edvard Munch (1863-1944), the Norwegian artist, most famous for “The Scream”. |
|
| 3 | English monarch beheaded calculating Swiss (5) |
| EULER – E (‘English’) The sneaky def here is a Swiss person who calculates, the mathematician Leonhard EULER (1707-1783). Mathematicians here will know far more about him than I do, but amongst his many other achievements, he defined and gave his name to e, the base of the natural logarithm. Not quite of the same importance but he’s probably crossword land’s second most famous mathematician after Newton. |
|
| 4 | South leaving card game for sleep (3) |
| NAP – And what do you know, as if by magic we have another card game – Napoleon or nap. Very good and my COD. We’re back to 16a if South’s partner leaves. |
|
| 5 | Type inclined to show stress? (7) |
| ITALICS – Cryptic definition
‘Type’ as in printed characters or letters, not a nervous ninny as we were led to believe from the surface reading. |
|
| 6 | Engineer’s relative keeping fowl (10) |
| STEPHENSON – STEPSON (‘relative’) containing (‘keeping’) HEN (‘fowl’)
Another nice surface with both Stephenson père (George (1781-1848)) et fils (Robert (1803-1859)) engineers and pioneers (and that’s probably an understatement) in the development of locomotives and railways. |
|
| 9 | Hindus, able, processed cheese (6,4) |
| DANISH BLUE – Anagram (‘processed’) of HINDUS ABLE | |
| 11 | Draw fleet out: vessels from Holland? (9) |
| DELFTWARE – Anagram (‘out’) of DRAW FLEET
Tin-glazed, usually blue and white earthenware originating in the early 17th century especially from Delft in Holland. Yet another misleading surface, with ships rather than ‘vessels’ as “containers” first coming to mind. No “vein” or “aorta” to have to worry about anyway. |
|
| 14 | Penguin concerto? (7) |
| EMPEROR – Double definition
I’m not quite sure how to parse this; it can be seen as a cryptic definition as well. A type of penguin – the largest of all penguin species – and referring to Beethoven’s piano concerto No.5, known as the EMPEROR. I’d thought the concerto was named after Napoleon, but no, Beethoven disapproved of Napoleon’s military activities and conquests and the concerto has no association with any emperor according to Wikipedia. Even if it’s on every “Your 100 Greatest Classical Music Pieces” album, it’s still a wicked piece of music. |
|
| 18 | Some of these eggs raised birds (5) |
| GEESE – Reverse hidden (‘Some of… raised’) in ‘ |
|
| 19 | One devoured by fat landowner (5) |
| LAIRD – I (‘One’) contained in (‘devoured by’) LARD (‘fat’) | |
| 21 | Artificial intelligence did initially help (3) |
| AID – AI (‘Artificial intelligence’) D AI is in all the usual dictionaries in this sense. First used in the early 1960’s. |
|
I thought the ‘quick coverage’ for fingernail was referring to thumbnail which provides quick info.
That’s excellent logic for a 9 letter answer; for 10 . . .less so 😉
Given the setter, I’m very happy with my 28 minutes, all correct and fully parsed finish. Tough to get started, PREFERRED and IAN got me off the starting blocks, and breezeblocked for 4-5 minutes by ITALICS at the end, but everything flowed in between.
Only one NHO: the EMPEROR concerto.
I liked EYELID, although it had me stumped for some time.
Many thanks to BR and Wurm.
10:02 here, enjoyed this a lot. LOI was EYELID, but my biggest chunk of lost time was from carelessly reading “Munich” instead of “Munch” and diving down a rabbit hole of all things Bavarian as a result. Ho hum.
Thanks to Wurm and BR.
If it’s all there it’s all there. Very good puzzle, thank you. But getting indignant about ‘English’ monarch beheaded and sheepishly deflating, maybe it’s Ruler, oh no it’s EULER, he even has a ‘Rule’ (or an Equation anyway).
For 21D, I parsed it simply as the initial letters of “Artificial Intelligence did”- no need to know that Artificial Intelligence has its own abbreviation.
Struggled a bit but got there in the end.
Great thing about this site is the varied comments and knowledge one acquires. I actually prefer Rach 2!!
Surrendered @ 25 mins. With Fingernail (and yet Finger was obvious) and Euler (a GK Q too far?).
Was I the only one trying to maker Eller work? Calculating Swiss, William TELL with ER (English Monarch) added and T beheaded But no idea what or who an Eller is!
Thanks BE and Wurm
I found this tricky and just about swerved the SCC at 19:09. Not typically a fan of cryptic definitions but I thought these were very nice – completely impossible (for me) right up to the point where they became blatantly obvious (again, for me).
I got a bit lucky with DELFTWARE. The novel The Stars’ Tennis Balls by Stephen Fry (a modern reworking of The Count of Monte Cristo) includes a character called Delft, and for some reason he popped into my head even though I haven’t reread it since it was published 25 years ago.
Thank you for the blog!
I liked this one from Wurm. Several PDMs such as ‘Munch’ ‘eyelid’ and ‘italics’.
26.10 to finish.
Love the Emperor concerto but Euler’s mathematics is a bit beyond me.
Thanks for the blog BR.
We did moderately well on this one – 9:17 – and enjoyed it, especially the NORWEGIAN Munch. Thanks, all.
9:31 so a gentle outing with Wurm today (after reading some comments, I conclude that I was on the wavelength), but still plenty of bite. FINGERNAIL was amusing after I got all involved with “thumbnail” in the sense of a thumbnail image, no leverage there but it cost some brain cycles. I did think describing Euler as a “calculating Swiss” was a bit like describing Shakespeare as a scribbling Englishman, but no harm done, I’m sure he’s not insulted. PAS made a fool of me until the very end. COD NIGHTCLUB for the poetic surface.
Considering there were three cryptic definitions, which usually baffle me, I feel I got off easy today.
Thanks Wurm and Bletch.
A stressful 16 minutes and then well over an hour on the 15 x 15 which the Snitch said was easy.
No enjoyment to be had from being so poor at this. I found the puzzles hard today and struggled a lot. Then I come here and see how easy most solvers found it.
Re the 15×15, I can honestly say that I struggle more with the 60-70 band than 80-90. I’ve found yesterday’s and today’s really difficult.
I often have the same issue. Not sure why?
Very tricky in my book – but entertaining!
DNF gave up after 30 minutes on Stephenson Sap Emporer and Euler – but wonderful stuff.
Thanks all
John
13:29
Found this hard going, LOI EYELID.
Misread Munch as Munich, which didn’t help.
COD EULER, One for us mathematicians.
Got nowhere near it. from 1a (actually your fingernail is under the quick, and nailpolish fits much better as it goes over the quick.), but as it is cryptic could be anything, as mentioned by many before, if you dont get it you dont get it. Way out of my league. Thanks to all concerned for your efforts.
It appears that my comments are being deleted, so I wont try for a third time.
And then as soon as I say that they suddenly re-appear!
If I close and re-open then all my comments are gone, If I save and scroll up and down again they are there.
You’re on page two!
Click on “Newer comments” (links at the top and bottom of the page) to get there.
Euler. I was forced, forced I tell you, to give up maths when they stopped calling it sums. But what stuck in my retentive 80-year-old quizlady’s mind was the name Euler. I never understood logarithms, so I must just have seen and retained the name. Reader, I unlocked it!