I recently watched the BBC series An t-Eilean. So, I now know that Harris and Lewis are a single island. That was a surprise! That left me well primed for 24d. But 25a, not so much! Thanks, setter. How did you all do?
Note for newcomers: The Times offers prizes for Saturday Cryptic Crosswords. This blog is for last week’s puzzle, posted after the competition closes. So, please don’t comment here on this week’s Saturday Cryptic.
Definitions are in bold and underlined. With the luxury of a week to do the blog, I can expand on the wordplay:
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- where explanations are necessary, wordplay fodder – synonyms and the like – appear in [square brackets]
- wordplay instructions appear thus
- anagram fodder is (THUS)*, with the anagram indicator in italics
- a ^ symbol indicates where text is to be inserted.
| Across | |
| 1 | The noise of a school used to be unending (5) |
| SCHWA – SCH [school] + WAs, unending. A schwa is an indistinct or neutral vowel sound. |
|
| 4 | Digital extremist upset by lunatic fringe (9) |
| FINGERTIP – (FRINGE)*, lunatic + TIP [upset]. | |
| 9 | Vile word, spewed with attitude (5,4) |
| WORLD VIEW – (VILE WORD)*, spewed + W [with]. | |
| 10 | Prepare two or three? (5) |
| PRIME – two meanings. Prime something for use, or a prime number (defined by examples). | |
| 11 | Heading for No 1: “Alien in New York”? No, but it’s in top 100! (6) |
| NINETY – N + I + (ET in NY). | |
| 12 | Crosswords etc in dad’s paper (8) |
| PASTIMES – PA’S TIMES. | |
| 14 | Comeback for pasta sauces, price about right for slimmers? (5-4) |
| SUGAR FREE – RAGUS [pasta sauces] back, + F^EE about R. | |
| 16 | Boorish person from tech firm (5) |
| YAHOO – two meanings. A character from Gulliver’s Travels, or the tech company. Yahoo, the company, has an email service. Every so often we get an email in our GMAIL service that was meant to go to somebody else at YMAIL. |
|
| 17 | Is shirker paid less as retainer? (5) |
| IDLES – hidden (retained). | |
| 19 | Discover singer Bob’s left out, replaced by double (3,4,2) |
| GET WIND OF – GEL^DOF [the singer, Bob] with L, left, out and replaced by TWIN. | |
| 21 | Con ward? (8) |
| DRAWBACK – this is the answer as a cryptic clue. WARD is DRAW back. | |
| 22 | Dullness of Proust novel (6) |
| STUPOR – (PROUST)*, novel. | |
| 25 | Hit single? Not Careless Whisper (5) |
| ASIDE – so much going on here: the A SIDE of a single is the one the record company thinks (hopes) will be a hit. George Michael had a huge hit with the song Careless Whisper. If you drop the “careless”, you get just “whisper”, as in an ASIDE on stage. | |
| 26 | Fruit of millions held by Zuckerberg, Mark’s fellow billionaire? (9) |
| MUSKMELON – Zuckerberg, Mark and MUSK, ELON are both very rich indeed. Write the second name in the format indicated, and insert M for millions, to get a fruit I’d not heard of. It looks a bit like a rockmelon. | |
| 27 | Display glass? (9) |
| SPECTACLE – two meanings. | |
| 28 | Part of play witnessed by audience (5) |
| SCENE – sounds (to audience) like SEEN. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Dissolute, was not so old and wise to do this? (3,4,4,4) |
| SOW ONE’S WILD OATS – (WAS NOT SO OLD WISE)*, dissolute. | |
| 2 | Piscivore caught by another one (5) |
| HERON – hidden (caught by). | |
| 3 | I’ll verify accounts of car stuck on hill (7) |
| AUDITOR – AUDI on TOR. | |
| 4 | Play heads or tails and lose it (4) |
| FLIP – two meanings. | |
| 5 | Novel put up as toilet paper source (10) |
| NEWSAGENTS – NEW [novel] + SA [AS, put up] + GENTS. I was slow to get this. |
|
| 6 | Key power one has to comprehend source of motivation of second person? (7) |
| EMPATHY – E [musical key] ^ P [power] + A [one] + THY [of second person], all to comprehend M [source of Motivation]. I think the whole clue is to be seen as definition, even if in indirect form. |
|
| 7 | Sore loser in 2020? He had to maintain “I won” (9) |
| TRIUMPHED – TR^UMP + HE’D to maintain I. | |
| 8 | Perhaps start to make Perry’s media presentation (5,10) |
| PRESS CONFERENCE – to make Perry pear cider, obviously you begin by pressing pears. I don’t suppose they need to be Conference pears though? | |
| 13 | Old magic trick failing in the end, dodgily using blue humour? (10) |
| TRAGICOMIC – (O MAGIC TRIC-)*, dodgily. Why is the definition “blue humour”? Well, “blue” as in “sad” is at least adjacent to “tragic”. And, “humour” approximates “comedy”. |
|
| 15 | Provoke girl to disappear, leaving hospital on ecstasy (9) |
| GALVANISE – GAL + VANISH + E. | |
| 18 | Edit message’s underlying implication (7) |
| SUBTEXT – SUB [edit] + TEXT [message]. | |
| 20 | Is America divided by the endless mass, Panama? (7) |
| ISTHMUS – IS + US, divided by THE + M. I don’t think the whole clue quite works as definition, but it’s close! Is it fair to call Panama an “endless mass”? |
|
| 23 | Move to the rhythm in Lima? (5) |
| PULSE – two meanings. Dancing, or beans. | |
| 24 | What Harris and Lewis combine to make (4) |
| ISLE – HarrIS LEwis, combined, hides the answer. And, Harris and Lewis are two separate parts of a single island, divided by a central mountain. Delightful! | |
Thank you for the information about 24D. I’d not appreciated the geography of Lewis and Harris: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_and_Harris
(I also see An t-Eilean/The Island is on BBC iPlayer for another 5 months in the UK).
For 25A, I thought the definition was “Not Careless Whisper”. An aside is “any confidential statement spoken in undertones”. So, whether in a play on stage, or in a social group, it is something “whispered” very purposely so that some particular people won’t hear it, but certain others will. Therefore, an aside is very deliberate, rather than a “careless” whisper. (The George Michael song title is part of the amusing surface).
Chambers offers these definitions of “aside”:
Words spoken in an undertone, so as not to be heard by some person present.
Words spoken by an actor which the other persons on the stage are supposed not to hear.
I had trouble deciding where that stood as to “careless” or not.
The reference to the song is great for the surface, as well as being the definition, of which “Not Careless” is an essential part. Careful, at least in appearance, that only the audience can hear.
The definition has to be ‘not Careless Whisper’ because otherwise the words ‘not Careless’ perform no function in the wordplay.
32:42
Slow going. Like Peter W, I took ASIDE to be ‘not careless whisper’, although come to think of it, most whispers are intentional. I never heard of the song. I also had no idea who singer Bob was, since he wasn’t Dylan; I worked backwards from the solution to the wordplay. I liked SCHWA.
I liked the MUSKMELON clue (at least once I saw what was going on). My LOI was DRAWBACK, another where I was slow to see how the clue worked. I had never heard of the song “careless whisper” so that went right over my head but was not important to solve the clue.
52 minutes. I had no idea what was going on in the wordplay for EMPATHY, so thanks for that, Bruce. I don’t think I’d ever have worked it out. (No definition underlined in the blog here, btw).
I don’t understand ‘using blue humour’ as the definition of TRAGICOMIC. Why blue? That means smutty, doesn’t it?
I also missed the hidden element in 24dn that turns it from a more or less straight definition into a proper crossword clue.
I had the same problem with ‘blue’; forgot to mention it.
Thanks J. Good questions. I guess the whole clue for EMPATHY must be definition (?)
In TRAGICOMIC, tragedy could be blue (sad) if you squint, and humour could be comic.
It does normally but not here. Here it is blue = sad, tragic. Just a bit of deception ..
Thanks, and to Bruce.
Took a bit to get on the wavelength with this one – but still better than the dailies we have attempted recently. All correct but needed some parsing here.
Took a shine to 19ac GET WIND OF once figured out which Bob we were talking about. Also 5d NEWSAGENTS (very novel toilet) and 20d ISTHMUS for being a good ‘straight up’ cryptic clue.
Sort of got 11ac NINETY but not enthralled. Also not really taken by the ‘format by example’ in 26ac MUSKMELON.
Still not sure what is going on with 8d PRESS CONFERENCE and 13d TRAGICOMIC. Also why does ‘edit’ give SUB in 18d SUBTEXT?
Overall, enjoyable challenge. Thank you setter and branch.
‘sub’ is short for ‘subedit’.
Thank you . . . I think ?!
Perry is an alcoholic drink made with pears, in the same way that cider is made from apples. Therefore, if you press a ‘Conference’ (a variety of pear), you will obtain the juice that makes perry ultimately.
Learn something every day !
Am usually there or thereabouts with Saturday crosswords but I ran out of patience with this one and gave up early on. The use of A side to indicate the lead song on the old vinyl single took me back at least 30 years so not exactly current and TRAGICOMIC is a stretch too far.
Hoping today’s is a bit more palatable.
No problems with this, although nho muskmelon which I am suspicious is mainly an Americanism. I think they are what I would call a “melon.” Also although I am aware of schwas, they are a bit of a blind spot for me and I don’t understand them. But neither clue was hard. Mrs W is a fan of George Michael so no problem with the whispering. Also happy with tragicomic and its slightly deceptive definition.
Overall I thought this crossword was a neat effort. No complaints.
DNF in 22
Had M_S_MELON but absolutely no idea what was going on with the w/p and didn’t know the fruit. Loved the puzzle but not a fan of that clue which was a bit too contrived for my taste (other preferences available, of course…)
Thanks Bruce/setter
96 minutes – hard labour!! The previous Saturday’s Listener took far less time. Some tricky parsing, eg EMPATHY – PDM days later with &Lit realisation. But, for all that, much to admire with some really clever clues – PRIME, NINETY, IDLES, GET WIND OF, MUSKMELON (NHO), SOW ONE’S WILD OATS, NEWSAGENTS and COD TRIUMPHED. A master of the art at work here, imo.
These Saturday puzzles do vary in difficulty but are always interesting. This was at the tougher end but still very entertaining.
I particulary enjoyed PRESS CONFERENCE and while dessert pears like Conference would not traditionally be used for making Perry they can be. Similarly we make copious amounts of cider from our non-cider apples and I can vouch for the results. When I recover.
33:31 for the record.
Thanks setter and branch.
Two goes needed. No major issues, though I relied on the wordplay for the unknown MUSKMELON.
Thanks branch and setter.
FOI Heron
LOI Aside
COD Get wind of
My thanks to branch and setter.
Not too terribly hard IMO, although it must have taken me a while to work out in 14a the Ragus in sugar-free as I ringed it. Had to look up 26a the NHO muskmelon for reassurance. Enjoyed the comment on the Orange One at 7d Triumphed. I too queried 18d Subtext but it didn’t delay me and I do know of subeditors being referred to as subs, so all OK then.
14:05. Very good puzzle. I slowed myself down by putting in GET WORD OF.
I’ve been to Harris several times so was aware of the geography. Spectacular place.
I thought MUSKMELON (NHO) and GET WIND OF were brilliant, though with the latter I had to biff the answer first, as I couldn’t get beyond either Dylan or Marley. Likewise, I spent far too long trying to fit Katy or Como into the Perry bit of 8d. Many other wonderful clues that I appreciated, though PASTIMES to describe crosswords is surely less apt than ‘way of life’! LOI was DRAWBACK – another of those dreaded cryptic clues that I find so hard to get my head around. I’m another who failed to parse EMPATHY, though the answer was obvious enough. Thanks to Branch and setter for a great puzzle.
I got all but MUSKMELON (VHO) and EMPATHY but for a while I put ‘shout’ instead of ASIDE, I’m flabbergasted that no-one else has admitted doing that yet as it’s surely the first answer everyone thinks of? ASIDE is a better answer though as it accounts for the use of the word ‘careless’ in the surface. A schwa is a mid-central vowel rather than an unstressed one (though it’s both in traditional RP) but in any case it is the vowel sound of the pre-consonantal definite article (‘a’) – my FOI.
Yes, SHOUT was my first choice too.
Great minds!