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. |
|
5:28
STEPHENSON was in a recent 15×15, so he came to mind quickly.
8:55, and not much to say!
Even worse, I thought of Charles Munch – how many people even remember him? Only when I had the first N did Edvard magically appear. Stephenson was going to be tough, until I just biffed it, and I saw the anagram of bridgehead at once. It was eyelid that gave real trouble, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able finish – cryptic definitions are like that, you either see them or you don’t.
Time: 7:27
I certainly remember Charles Munch. Thanks for mentioning him. You prompted me to pull out one of my many Munch recordings (Rachmaninoff Concerto 3 with Byron Janis) and I am enjoying it now.
This is the later, remastered, version. I confess I have never heard the original vinyl pressing (sorry, vinyl, I no longer listen to vinyl) but the performance and sound are stunning, despite having been recorded over 60 years ago.
The original vinyl was RCA LSC-2237 in the US, later reissued as VICS-1032. Interestingly, only the Victrola version was issued in the UK – maybe RCA thought Janis had little marketing power overseas. Checking my spreadsheet, I don’t even have a copy of the original – I thought I did.
To comment on the sound, it was recorded in 1957 by producer Richard Mohr and engineer Lewis Layton. In this era, they used three Neumann mics (either U-47 or M-49) in front of the orchestra, an a few helper mics in the woodwind and horn sections. They recorded live to three-track tape, which was mixed down to two tracks for the stereo and one track for the mono. The recording equipment was all tube, as was the mastering amp for cutting the lacquer.
Valin, in the RCA Bible, rates the sound as only fair because of the lack of deep bass.
I find that the various issues of recordings and re-mastering of classic recordings can be confusing. I found the following notes online (slightly edited here).
RCA recorded the concerto in 1957 (as you say) and HDTT remastered it in DSD (Direct Stream Digital) from an RCA 15ips 2-track tape. Sonically, this is nothing like the old LP. This remastering is smooth and natural, with a pleasingly resonant warmth that gives it a realistic ambience. The Boston Symphony is spread out widely behind the soloist, the pianist is well integrated into the surroundings and not too far out in front of the other players as so often happens in concertos. Frequency balance, dynamics, and overall clarity are also quite good, so anyone who recalls the old LP as being too bright or hard or edgy should have no fears about this remaster.
See what you sparked off by mentioning Charles? Thanks; it got me listening today.
No mention of the bass but it comes over pretty well on my system.
I don’t think I’ve ever been more off a setters wavelength, I found this tremendously difficult, and finished off with a mis-spelled EMPORER. Outside of TIBER, AID, LAIRD and NAP I found everything else a battle, but I don’t think anything is unreasonable. Even missing some GK (the concerto, for example) I was able to solve everything in the end. Thanks to BR for explaining what I didn’t know.
Same! mid solve i checked the quitch expecting to see ~110 and instead was disheartened to find an 89! Cest la vie – in the end the Dutch vessel eluded me, as did EYELID and ITALICS
If you want to be really flummoxed, try yesterday’s (65 on the Snitch) 15×15 . . .
I too struggled. Eventually stumbling over the line in 25:19. I got EMPEROR, but only because it was the only kind of Penguin I could think of. FINGERNAIL and EYELID were both lovely cryptic definitions that raised a smile when I eventually got there, but took me forever to look at the right way.
11 minutes with EYELID as my LOI. Also I forgot to go back and parse STEPHENSON which I’d bunged in from definition and SON as the relative. I knew there was more to it and made a mental note to go back to it, but that’s not as reliable as writing a query in the margin of the printout when solving on paper. I am looking forward to getting back to that at the weekend.
I only knew I’d heard of EULER once I’d worked out what the monarch must be so thas was second last one in. A fair few seconds after that EYELID went in -a great clue once I’d solved it, very annoying until then. All green in 11.29.
9:54 which I was pleased with as it felt quite tricky. Never parsed STEPHENSON so thanks Bletchley.
I do enjoy Wurm’s puzzles and this was no exception despite pushing my GK to the limits.
DELFTWARE had to be dredged from the depths and only vaguely known from previous crosswords, EULER exists on the very periphery of my mind and I had to assume that there was an EMPEROR concerto. I’ve just looked it up on YouTube so will be listening to it over breakfast.
Started with FINGERNAIL and finished with EYELID in 8.31. COD to NIGHTCLUB.
Thanks to BR and Wurm
18:10 Norwegian Emperor Euler ce n’était pas facile.
Ta BRAW
4:25. It appears I was on Wurm’s wavelength for once. LOI NORWEGIAN taking a while to think of the artist, but no real hold-ups. Thanks Wurm and BR.
Well…. There is a clear division already between solvers who were ‘on-wavelength’ and those who were off-. Count me in the second group at 25 mins.
Some fascinating clues and some PDMs like Munch/NORWEGIAN, FINGERNAIL, EYELID, and ITALICS. My LOI was EULER but it only came to me when I had the crossers and even then, I’m not sure which deep, rarely-explored, part of my sagging long-term scientific memory it came from.
Tough. The SNITCH (88, ‘easier’!) gave me a laugh (not a happy one) and I am torn between a certain sense of satisfaction that I finished this at all without aids and a question about whether it is correctly pitched as a quickie. I never find Wurm easy but this was as hard of any of his recent offerings for me.
Thanks to BR. I am impressed that you didn’t have too many problems. I certainly had plenty.
Thanks to Wurm for a real challenge and some very clever clues.
I look forward to seeing what ‘normal’ solvers make of this. Perhaps I am out of line.
Thoroughly enjoyable puzzle. I biffed Euler but then googled him to be on the safe side.
I found it hard to get going, leading to an above-average time of 14:13. Lots to enjoy though. Took a while for the penny to drop on Munch despite him being helpfully capitalised.
Flew through this in 6:39, with only LOI EYELID causing much of a hold-up. Not much to add …
Many thanks BR for the blog.
Good puzzle but stuck on last two, indebted to Mrs M who came up with the lateral thinking necessary for STEPHENSON and ITALICS. Thanks BR.
Oh and it had to be EULER but NHO and again Mrs M’s Maths degree came to parsing rescue. Not often she deigns to get as involved as that!
as an engineer, strongly approve of Stephenson being included, and Euler. I found it all rather satisfying – and was flummoxed by the blinking sight screen for ages!
I’m now reminded of the old quiz question: the steam engine was perfected by a Scottish engineer called… ?
Watt?
I SAID, THE STEAM ENGINE…
LOL at the dad joke.
18:14, but a technical DNF as had to resort to an alphabet trawl to find the U for the NHO EULER. A very neat puzzle from Wurm.
Wait, why is it a technical DNF if you do an alphabet trawl? Surely as long as you plump for that answer and it came from your own mind, it’s OK?
I think some folks call it a DNF if every clue isn’t parsed. I’m with you but each to his/her own I guess.
Ah OK, never knew that. Thanks!
No pictures on scorecards! If you’re in the championships, and you hand in an all-correct grid, they’re not going to ask you to show your work.
Some clever misdirection today – took a while for the PDM with MUNCH. LOI EYELID. Thanks Wurm for great QC and BR for the very interesting blog – amazed to see that Scott Fitzgerald used wicked to mean good over 100 years ago.
Wurm is a bother in our world, though we find his clues rather masterful. Embarrassingly long time on FINGERNAIL and EYELID. Thought ‘quick’ for the former was akin to ‘give me a (quick) fingernail sketch of the concept’ – momentarily forgot the stuff beneath.
And EULER? I am the only non science leaning member of our tribe. Lonely. In my world – an apple falls from tree so that I can eat it. End of story. HOWEVER – this, dear readers (IMHO) is worth watching to the end. Just purchased (from Amazon) for physics loving grandson.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TGuxwgUyu2A
Thank you Wurm – wonderful workout. Thank you BletchleyReject, great blog.
Wow, so cool – thank you!
I’m with Blighter on this one. I didn’t have the required GK to solve EULER and EMPEROR and had to wait for the checkers. As for SAP/pas I was taught that you could not use ‘pas’ without the ‘ne’ so I struggled to parse it. FINGERNAIL was a very late appearance without the initial F and as for my LOI EYELID I thought it a very poor clue. 10:07 Thanks BR
Thanks for that and well done on your time!
As I said, perhaps I am out of line…….
. . .mais, pas d’accord
Nowadays the “ne” is usually omitted in speech, though not in writing.
My French classes taught the same, yet it took only a few days in France to teach me otherwise.
I was taught the same rule, about pas, in French classes, but now that I live in France, I hear pas without ne, every day, eg, in reply to a question about how the seat is:
“Pas confortable” (uncomfortable).
9:15
I confidently entered NAILPOLISH for 1a, only to find none of the down clues worked, forcing a rapid rethink.
EULER was my COD.
EYELID was my LOI.
Thanks BR and Wurm
I did the same!
I was OK with general knowledge but had to resort to aids to get NIGHTCLUB. I also missed the anagram indicator “out”in DELFTWARE.
I found this difficult, but enjoyed FINGERNAIL, EYELID, ITALICS once I got them.
COD STEPHENSON.
Tx Wurm and BR
7:24 for the solve. Glimmers of competence returning after yesterday albeit there was a typo. Mainly held up by those long anagrams of NORWEGIAN, DELFTWARE and BRIDGEHEAD although no idea about the EMPEROR concerto (is that really GK?) and once again my personal gripe against being expected to know French words rearing its head where we were choosing between sap or sop for a fool.
Nice puzzle otherwise- when Danish Blue went in my mind flitted across Monty Python but of course that was the Norwegian Blue and you wouldn’t want to get those mixed up on your crackers.
Thanks to Wurm and to BR particularly for the music lesson 👍
That’s one of the most famous concertos in the world, so it certainly should be!
Vinyl1: “It’s the single most popular concerto in the world!”
New Driver: “Not round these parts, sir.”
I just gave it a listen and I have to say “Very good”. That said, if it’s not on “Hooked on Classics” or used by a longrunning TV advertising campaign I can’t be expected to know these things!
Lol!
Norwegian Blue, yum! 🤢
26 mins…
Enjoyable, though personally I found this difficult. There were a few that I probably should have got quicker: 5dn “Italics”, 13ac “Eyelid” and 15ac “Closes” come to mind, but some of this I put down to Wurm’s clever wordplay. Thankfully 11dn “Delftware” was obtainable through checkers and logical letter combinations.
FOI – 1dn “Fable”
LOI – 13ac “Eyelid”
COD – 2dn “Norwegian”
Thanks as usual!
22:40
I found this tough and considered throwing the towel in with the last three EULER, EMPEROR and EYELID seemingly taking an age but eventually all parsed – Euler dragged from the back of my mind from a long ago degree in engineering (so liked Stephenson).
I can’t decide whether EYELID should be my COD or as Desdeeloeste, is a poor clue?
FOI: IAN
LOI: EYELID
COD: FINGERNAIL
Thanks to Wurm and BR
From TIBER to FINGERNAIL in 7:08 with a doh! moment when the latter dropped in. Similar moment with EYELID. No problem with EULER. Thanks Wurm and BR.
Tricky but fun, nonetheless. 17.07
Pi ❤️
Wiggly Wurm twists and turns again. Lots of very ingenious clues – EYELID, FINGERNAIL and NORWEGIAN all worth the price of admission alone.
I got totally stuck on the NHO (or forgotten!) EULER, though. After much headscratching in he went because at least there was a credible parsing, whereas the alternative (ELLER) could only offer a vague connection to William Tell and Elizabeth II.
I half expected a DPS but no. Phew. So 08:59 for 1.6K and a Tough Day.
Many thanks Wurm and Bletchers.
After a torrid time in Heron’s NW frontier yesterday, I was relieved to come back to what seemed like a very friendly Wurm. I was perhaps lucky to have all the required GK, but things were going so well that at one point (Adieu) I was seriously tempted to try Kevin’s party piece of writing in the answer without reading the clue. In the end CoD Nightclub (ah, that type of haunt) pushed me out to 12mins, which is still very fast for me. Invariant
DNF disaster. Will not prolong the agony but, eg, NHO EULER. Lots of good clues but was not on the wavelength. COD ITALICS. 1a witty.
Thanks, BR.
Clever stuff from Wurm as usual, 9 mins of fun, with ITALICS winning the COD for me. I confess I was unaware of the concerto, but it had to be from the penguin, as it were.
Thanks Wurm and BR – nice one.
4:37
Decent morning at the coalface. No unknowns apart from the concerto being known as such. My anagram solving hat worked very well to come up with DELFTWARE and BRIDGEHEAD in short time, and had a brief chuckle at the Munch clue/answer.
Thanks BR and Wurm
Not altogether straightforward with some tricky clues, and I was pleased to finish under target at 8.53. Fortunately I’d heard of EULER so no problems there, but my LOI NORWEGIAN I found a bit chewy, as on seeing Munch I failed for a while to bring old Edvard to mind. DELFTWARE brought back happy memories of a Dutch holiday visiting the delightful Delft.
I raced through this in 8 minutes, all parsed. LOI EYELID.
Many excellent clues, just right for a QC I thought.
COD to EYELID.
David
With Stephenson and Euler being solved early on, I looked forward to more STEM clues. But sadly no more. Breezed through the puzzle though and enjoyed it. Loved EYELID. Slightly concerned that quite a few solvers had never heard of Euler.
Thanks Wurm and BR
Heard of him, once, vaguely, sometime, yes: able to recollect today, no. But as I have survived throughout my working life to retirement without previously needing to know of him, do not be concerned. I’m sure he was a wicked bloke.
13:07. I’m with those who found this one tricky. I did like NORWEGIAN and ITALICS. I put FINGERNAIL in with a MER; I thought it ought to be a THUMBNAIL to “provide quick coverage”. Thank you BR for putting me straight. Thank you Wurm for the fine puzzle
My thanks to Wurm and BletchleyReject.
No problems with the GK but the clever cryptics like 1a Fingernail and 13a Eyelid refused to come to me for a while. Excellent crossword.
11:30
A few guesses, EMPEROR, FINGERNAIL, ADIEU but given the checkers and definitions they seemed obvious. Had to come here to understand the parsing though.
I had the GK but unfortunately not the wavelength. However I wanted to finish it as I was really enjoying Wurm’s smooth clueing. I ended up comfortably ensconced in the club after 25 minutes.
FOI – 7ac TIBER
LOI – 6dn STEPHENSON
COD – 1ac FINGERNAIL
Thanks to Wurm and BR
Continues a tricky start to the week.
Fingernail took me a while, always struggle on cryptic definitions. Similarly italics was my only clue unsolved, for the same reason.
Closes took me an unreasonably long time, probably because I had the s at the end of the answer and thought the “is” from the clue would end the word.
Despite delftware being an obvious anagram, the fact that I’ve never heard of it and the spelling was unintuitive meant I needed all the checking letters to guess it correctly.
Never heard of bridgehead but guessed it would start with bridge, which only left head for the ending.
No problem with Euler, and although I wouldn’t say I knew emperor concerto, I put it in with little hesitation.
6.40
I hadn’t heard of the unknown card game SKIP and for very good reasons. That delayed me a little, ditto EULER where the answer came to mind but I hesitated, failing to lift and separate. Otherwise, liked DELFTWARE.
Thanks BR and Wurm.
10 in 20, 14 in 30.
That’s an OK ish for me.
Thanks W and BR
Much too hard for me only about 50% done. Never seem to be able to solve a worm puzzle.
Onto tomorrow
I found this easier than yesterday, but there were still a few tricky clues, e.g. EYELID, FINGERNAIL and LOI ITALICS. Lovely puzzle with COD awarded to the wonderful FINGERNAIL. Thanks Wurm and BR.
I thought this was excellent fare, and I was on Wurm’s wavelength to such an extent that only 3 across clues were left to mop up after the first pass. My quickest solve for quite some time. The old fat-fingered me would have not bothered checking, and had a time of 2:45 but with at least one pink.
FOI/COD FINGERNAIL
LOI NIGHTCLUB
TIME 3:08
I too enjoy Wurm, EYELID eluded me and I’d forgotten how to spell EMPEROR
7.49 I got FINGERNAIL from the F but the other cryptic definitions EYELID and ITALICS held me up at the end. I didn’t know the concerto. Thanks BR and Wurm.
An enjoyable crossword but I still don’t understand the ‘to show stress’ bit of the ITALICS clue. What am I missing?
The italics would put emphasis and stress on certain words if they are included.
Thank you: of course!
Italics are sometimes used in a written sentence to emphasise or place stress on a particular word or phrase
Sorry, this was a reply to Penny above!
Thank you: a momentary mental block on my part.
I’m not sure BletchleyReject is entirely correct about Beethoven and Napoleon. According to AI Overview, Beethoven initially admired Napoleon as a hero who embodied the ideals of the French Revolution and planned to dedicate his third symphony to him. But when Napoleon declared himself Emperor of France in May 1804, Beethoven was disgusted. He saw it as a betrayal of the revolutionary principles of liberty and equality, and renamed the symphony Eroica. However, BR is correct about the concerto (composed 1809-1811), with its Emperor title “likely coined by a publisher or an impressed listener at the premiere”.
Thanks. You’re quite right of course. Goes to show that the output of a search is only as good as the input which in my case was something as deeply considered as “Was the Emperor concerto named after Napoleon?”. That will (or at least should) teach me.