24732

32 comments on “24732”

1. 36 minutes. Took me a while to unpick some of these clues, and, like PB, had trouble spotting the hidden MOBS. The 4th Earl of ABERDEEN is not, for me at least, the most memorable of Victorian premiers, and neither does the football team spring promptly to mind. Never heard of otto oil (though I now discover it is the same as attar of roses) and spent a long time mentally going through numerous German emperors, musicians and inventors. All in all quite a taxing puzzle, I thought.
2. No problems with this one – 20 minutes to solve – except the 7A MOBS and 8D BELLOW intersection. Eventually twigged 7A, which is a really misleading hidden word and then guessed 8D from wordplay.

   At 14A ESSENTIAL OIL “Otto perhaps” is a bit obscure. Even if you know of it from bar crosswords the more usual spelling is “attar”. Luckily “time off work” in a 9,3 construction immediately suggested (t)OIL. Also I’m a bit wary of “pants” as an anagram indicator at 12D

3. All the answers starting in the top four rows, apart from EMIGRE, went straight in, and a handful of others in the SE but after that it was very heavy going and I was unable to finish within the hour.

   I was completely thrown by finding O?L at 14ac having previously assumed that the 3-letter word would be OUT. I then started thinking that Otto might be the name of an owl in children’s story or cartoon that everybody but me would know about. In the end my only cheat was to look up “Otto” in the dictionary where I found it is alternative to “Attar” and that put me on the right lines.

   I’m not sure I understand 26ac. The common figurative meaning of “rising tide” doesn’t seem to be covered in the clue and “between low and high water” could just as easily describe a tide that is on the ebb and therefore not rising.

   With reference to 8dn can somebody please remind me what is the convention for capital letters when they are not required for the word that is being clued?

   1. I have for years completely ignored them Jack along with all the other punctuation. Having said that there’s a clue in last Sunday’s Mephisto where the definition is “!”
   2. The convention is that a setter may deceive by capitalizing a word that doesn’t require it (as in 8d), but to use lower case where a capital is required is taboo.

      So ‘harry’ can be ‘Harry’, but ‘Harry’ cannot be ‘harry’.

   3. I see no problem with 26 Jack. An ebb tide would be between high and low water.
      1. But that’s exactly my point!
         1. The cryptic is as per Peter’s blog. The definition is “between low and high water”. I see no ambiguity in that – an ebb tide would be the other way round, ie “between high and low water.

            I don’t follow your reference to the “common figurative meaning” [of “rising tide”] – it doesn’t come into the clue.

            I may have missed your point completely, in which case I apologise – put it down to a post-Xmas hangover!

            Chris

            1. It may be a case of post-Christmas hangover at this end! What you say is eminently sensible and I can see now why the clue is correct.

               1. Let’s just hope we can get through the next couple of days! Happy New Year!

                  Chris

4. Found this tough. Touching an hour. Agree with dorsetjimbo about the silly anagram indicator. Re capitals, I think lower and upper case variation can be ignored for solving purposes. I thought Ottot was pushing it; but otherwise a sharp and fair test.
5. No timing today — too many spells. Agree with everyone so far on the oddness of “pants” as an anagind. And, re the same clue, glengarries are surely but a part of Highland dress? Can’t imagine anyone going out in Scotland, especially in this weather, dressed only in the bonnet! Also agreed: the less said about tail-enders the better. Not that he’d have made much difference.
6. I thought this was an excellent puzzle with some first-rate clues (9 was a real beauty with its smooth surface). It took me 40 minutes, with 7 and 14 being the last entries.

   To jackkt, the convention is that a setter may deceive by capitalizing a word that doesn’t require it (as in 8d), but to use lower case where a capital is required is taboo.

7. 18 mins, last in was 22A BABIED. I thought there was some nice wordplay and I enjoyed this one. 8D BELLOW as COD. I’m not sure whether ‘pants’ in 12D is to be taken as a verb (Chambers gives ‘throb’) or an adjective, as in the modern expression ‘that’s pants’ (=rubbish).

   Tom B.

   1. Chambers Slang Dictionary has Pants = nonsense, rubbish as dating from the late 19th century.
8. I found this heavy going but can’t really see why. All the clues are fair and relatively uncomplicated. I was annoyed with myself for thinking of GLENGARRY straight away as highland dress but discarding it because it didn’t fit the anagram. I never thought of a plural. Came in at 55 minutes but needed aids for PARADIGM. Again, I can’t understand why I couldn’t see it – obviously not my day!
9. I’m sure it’s the modern adjectival use of ‘pants’. I don’t have a problem with it – it’s not an expression I’ve ever used, but it’s pretty common out there in the real world. A lot more common than Glengarries or paten.

   The pants anagrind was the least of my problems. I took a long, long time over this, before ESSENTIAL OIL unlocked the last half dozen or so answers. I’d no idea essential oil was a real term – I thought it was the product of an adman’s imagination. I’ll go and stand in the corner.

   1. To help me to understand this usage, the clue says “A girl’s green pants….” Why doesn’t it have to be “A girl’s green are pants….”
      1. I suspect, in the absence of a requirement for punctuation in clues that this is still acceptable. Eg “three men, portly, walked into the room” – this doesn’t necessarily need “are” in there to reference the adjective to its subject.
10. For the first twenty minutes, I had nothing, but then I slowly started to fill in the top left. ‘Glengarries’ was the breakthrough, and I had no problem with the anagram indicator.

    The whole right side was difficult, and for a long time I thought ‘stone’ was going to be the literal for 16, a dolomite or something like that.

    In the final corner, ‘mobs’ was hard to see, ‘Bellow’ was obvious but elusive, and I had never heard of Lome. But it was the clue for ‘screw top’ that had the most possibilities, and I toyed with ‘ram’ and ‘cram’ for a long time.

11. Took me just over the hour
    Thought 9 was a stunning clue.
    Otto was tough
    Won’t forget it though
12. Well over an hour, in several stints. MOBS, BELLOW, ABERDEEN went in straightaway. But struggled with many, some of which (ESSENTIAL OIL, RISING TIDE, GLENGARRIES) went in on a hopeful ‘can’t be anything else’ basis without really understanding the wordplay. I’d pencilled in PRETTY but failed to convince myself that really = ‘quite’, even in a phrase such as ‘pretty good’/’quite good’.
13. I liked this a lot; perhaps even more than yesterday’s. A very slow start was followed by a complete stop, then on restart slow progress to a rather rapid finish as self imposed deadlines approached. I thought 13 was a repeat of yesterday’s repeating clue for a time. COD to PARADIGM, as has been suggested, amongst many deceptive clues, not the least of which was MOBS.

    I can’t let the day pass without congratulating England on retaining The Ashes. The Aussies were pants.

    1. Got all without difficulty except 24d. I still don’t get it. Help!
       1. dd. A shower of abuse = a lot of abuse. Film lot = film studio. I had SET stuck in my mind until the “L” happened along.
          1. I understood it in the sense of “a disparaging term applied to any group of people one disapproves of” (Chambers) e.g. you horrible shower!
             1. Yes of course. Very Ealing comedy, although I have never heard “shower” used that way in New Zealand. So more or less a triple definition by proxy.
14. About an hour, and a pretty tough outing, I thought. I also was trying to make an anagram of (otto perhaps + t) all the way through, until the O and L appeared after I finally cracked through the NE corner. Then I got ESSENTIAL OIL from the wordplay only, having never known of the ‘otto’=’attar’ connection, as my last entry. COD to PARADIGM, very smooth. Regards.
15. Easy to start but I found it hard to finish, especially the SE corner. Took 35mins altogether. Fine effort by the setter.
16. As I understand this UK slang expression, it is adjectival in force. So if you say ‘a girl’s green pants’, it is like saying ‘a girl’s green crazy’.
17. Iguessed it was”pretty” but what have houses got to do with it?
    1. Houses is a verb here, meaning “contains”. So the wordplay is PETTY (insignificant) containing R (the close or end to bordeR), the whole thing meaning “quite”.

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