Time: 27:01
Music: Prokofiev, Symphony #6, Previn/LAPO
Was this tough? Well there were some tricky definitions and some unusual words, so it depends on how good you are. I could have finished in just over 20 minutes, if it were not for my struggles with radial. But others might have biffed that one, and gotten stuck on calumet or uniat. There are traps for everyone, you might say. As it was, I could only vaguely recall Pinner, and had to use the cryptic to get bargeman.
So let us know where you got stuck!
| Across | |
| 1 | Spatter liquid as worker in pub (7) |
| TAPSTER – Anagram of SPATTER, my FOI. | |
| 5 | Woman is arch, beginning to tease (7) |
| BRIDGET – BRIDGE + T[ease]. Not a standards violation, since the random name is the answer. | |
| 9 | Permitted female to leave uncultivated expert (9) |
| ALLOWABLE – [f]ALLOW + ABLE. | |
| 10 | Face to show entertaining people (5) |
| PANTO – PAN TO, as in direct a camera towards. | |
| 11 | In successful campaigns, American guided speeches? (13) |
| VALEDICTORIES – V(A,LED)ICTORIES. | |
| 13 | State delaying appearance of a commercial centre? It’s true (8) |
| VERACITY – AVER with the A moved forward + CITY. | |
| 15 | Quiet, internal part of Greater London (6) |
| PINNER – P + INNER. A suburb that might not be known to non-UK solvers. | |
| 17 | Call on artist outwardly beaming? (6) |
| RADIAL – R.A. + DIAL | |
| 19 | Turn handle and snatch a pole he has? (8) |
| BARGEMAN – NAME + GRAB backwards. | |
| 22 | Seditious labourers being out of line finally sacked (6-7) |
| RABBLE-ROUSING – Anagram of LABOURERS BEING – [lin]E. | |
| 25 | Type of Christian fighting group capturing area (5) |
| UNIAT -UNI(A)T. | |
| 26 | Get large drink and suffer the consequences of it? (3,6) |
| SEE DOUBLE – SEE + DOUBLE, see in the sense of understand. | |
| 27 | Half dead court limiting enjoyment is no longer valid (7) |
| DEFUNCT – DE[ad] (FUN) CT. | |
| 28 | Unscrupulous person reticent and mostly severe (7) |
| SHYSTER – SHY + STER[n]. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Bird in rush, changing direction at last (4) |
| TEAL – TEA(-r,+L). A duck as well as a colour. | |
| 2 | Empty talk from chum, mean not disclosing age? (7) |
| PALAVER – PAL + AVER[age]. | |
| 3 | What can dry up closed water source abruptly (5) |
| TOWEL – TO + WEL[l]. | |
| 4 | Fanatical state’s dispatch ceding power to bishop (8) |
| RABIDITY – RA(-p,+B)IDITY. | |
| 5 | Runs into wood for gun’s component (6) |
| BREECH – B(R)EECH. | |
| 6 | This writer’s demonstrating on the right path? (9) |
| IMPROVING – I’M + PROVING. | |
| 7 | Bats eating tip of native plant (7) |
| GENTIAN – Anagram of EATING + N[ative]. | |
| 8 | Stealing unusual rug in store (10) |
| TROUSERING – Anagram of RUG IN STORE. | |
| 12 | Finished with good circular alternative to the Tube? (10) |
| OVERGROUND – OVER + G + ROUND. Apparently a real thing, not an Uxbridge joke. | |
| 14 | Cheat’s endless charm: ultimately evil demon, no saint (9) |
| CHARLATAN – CHAR[m] + [evi]L + [s]ATAN. | |
| 16 | What may make Utes calm when roused? (8) |
| CALUMETS – Anagram of UTES CALM. The aboriginal inhabitants of Utah, not the Australian vehicle. | |
| 18 | Gather information following action by reporter about lawyer (7) |
| DEBRIEF – ED upside-down + BRIEF. My MER – an editor is not a reporter! | |
| 20 | Gossip — the very thing to support one information unit (7) |
| MEGABIT – ME + GAB + IT. | |
| 21 | Professional model in good health (6) |
| PROSIT – PRO + SIT. | |
| 23 | Use of mocking language is smooth? Yes, primarily (5) |
| IRONY – IRON + Y[es]. | |
| 24 | Armed struggle crosses Eastern river (4) |
| WEAR – W(E)AR. | |
This felt quite difficult, although it was probably me being quite obtuse; off the wavelength, as it were. E.g. I failed to see ‘liquid’ as anagrind until near the end, didn’t think of N as the tip of ‘native’, etc. Lots of the solutions seemed obvious once I’d got them. But NHO PINNER, and DNK UNIAT as a variant of Uniate. PANTO my LOI; I read it as PAN=face, TO=to.
Ditto PANTO.
Around an hour. Generally straightforward. Biffed TEAL but couldn’t parse since I completely focused on N,S, E and W without ever thinking of L and R. Had to look up UNIAT.
Thanks V.
17:44. Not very Monday-esque but it’s a public holiday here so we’ll have the easy one tomorrow please.
A couple of NHOs in UNIAT and PINNER. Not sure I’ve heard TAPSTER either but it was easy enough to derive. CALUMETS sits somewhere in the misty depths of consciousness, and was made harder by not twigging to the Utes reference.
Tough workout, happy to survive. Thanks Vinyl and setter.
Vinyl, in 13ac the A is moved back rather than the V moved forward.
Now corrected.
I was pleased to finish this in 30.05, actually I was just pleased to finish. Unknowns such as UNIAT and CALUMETS threw me and I struggled over MEGABIT, TEAL (another confused L/R victim) and a few more. Thank you V, I’m with you on ed v reporter, they are not the same. The great Aussie work-horse ute has pretty much disappeared now, it’s been replaced by enormous American pick-ups that, in a collision, destroy just about any normal car they hit.
From Subterranean Homesick Blues (full verse for the hell of it):
Aah get born, keep warm, short pants, romance,
Learn to dance, get dressed, get blessed, try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don’t steal, don’t lift
Twenty years of schoolin’ and they put you on the day shift
Look out kid, they keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole, light yourself a candle
Don’t WEAR sandals, try to avoid the scandals
Don’t wanna be a bum you better chew gum
The pump don’t work cos the vandals took the handles
Love Bob 🙂
Keep these a-coming. One of my highlights of the blog 🙂
Nice to know, thank you, I like to appreciate Bob while we still can! (If you get my drift…)
What did you think of the film (if you haven’t already been asked). I really enjoyed it for what its worth…
I thought it was brilliant, just loved it. I know some people have grumbled about the way it plays fast and loose with the truth of what actually happened, I couldn’t give a toss. As an impression of those early years, the prevailing atmosphere and the oppressive nature of the folk purists, it absolutely nailed it. My one regret is that the character of Michael Bloomfield was kind of down-played, he was central to the new Dylan sound and was a dynamic on stage presence at Newport. Must see it again!
Sorry, only saw your response today. I thought it was great, agree bio films always have to miss or combine something. I was quite young at the time so can’t comment on theatmosphere and only started to listen to his music in about 69/70 (I was 12 and my older sister had terrible taste in music – imo – but somehow bought Nashville Skyline!). Not going to pretend I immediately became an uber-fan, (there was a lot of of stuff going around in the 70s fo a teenager) but he just grew and grew on me. Such a legacy. Also thought the BBC Arena programme was excellent.
Absolutely agree – thank you for doing it, Lindsay!
40 minutes, delayed a little by the unknown UNIAT which apart from a 15×15 in 2019 has confined its appearances here to Mephistos and Club Monthlies. My other ‘unknown’ was CALUMETS which is making its third appearance here and was in a puzzle I blogged in 2018 when I also didn’t know it. Both of these were gettable from wordplay but I waited until I had all the checkers before writing them in.
I didn’t notice the ‘reporter / editor’ problem. Perhaps the setter looked for confirmation in the Chambers Crossword Dictionary which sanctions it, or the recently reinstated Collins Cobuild which allows it in the context of radio and TV journalism.
No problem with PINNER as I lived 4 miles away for 29 years and actually in it for another 5. It’s a suburb within the Greater London Borough of Harrow. Originally a small farming community it was developed as part of what came to be known as Metroland.
I would say calumets was *not* gettable from the wordplay, which just leaves you with C, L M & T to insert into four spaces. Fortunately I vaguely remembered the word; but it is an impossible clue for anyone who doesn’t.
Indeed.
Quite right! My bad.
Possibly others know this already, but via a Countdown site I have just discovered that the online version of what used to be called Oxford Dictionary of English is available at Oxford Dictionaries Premium. The printed dictionary hasn’t been updated in 15 years but online it’s updated annually. Many libraries provide free remote access to their members, but otherwise one can pay £16.66 for a year which includes many extras not supplied in print.
Quite so
CALUMET as peace pipe and UTE (see Utah) as native American used to make regular appearances in NY Times puzzles before they started requiring you to know rap lyrics and stars of unwatchable tv programmes. I’m not the only one who gave up on them. There’s also a famous racing stable in Kentucky called Calumet Farm. We used to pass signs to PINNER on the way to my grandparent’s house in Rutland.
Are you sure it’s the same Pinner?
That’s quite a distance
It is but it was on our way from our house in those pre-motorway days.
it’s also the birthplace of Sir Elton John.
He spent a lot of his formative years playing the piano in the Railway Tavern there
I parse PANTO as did Kevin and Galspray, see no reason a camera should be invoked.
I entered DEBRIEF with a shrug. I know people who are both reporters and editors, but they’re separate roles. (And the final editor on anyone’s piece should not be the person who wrote it. You can leave that to me! Ha)
NHO PINNER. So many place names in the labyrinthine Greater London!
Just the right level of difficulty for a weekday puzzle, I thought, though not a “classic” Monday breeze.
The problem for me is that ‘editor’ has become ubiquitous these days, replacing words like ‘correspondent’ and applied to any hack with some kind of specialty reporting field. I think in crosswords generally editor (ed) has meant the person in charge of the publication, or maybe a sub, but reporters have a distinct and different role.
Perhaps Pinner’s most famous native is Elton John, or Reg Dwight as he was then.
Now that you’ve brought up the “Rocket Man” (a real hit when I do it in karaoke), and Lindsay is nearby, I can’t resist passing along this story. Maybe you’ve heard it.
« As he described the multiple times his peers and colleagues tried to convince him he needed rehabilitation for his drug addiction, Elton John brought up one fateful night in Los Angeles in the late 1980s. John, who had been renting a house in southern California at the time, decided to host a huge backyard barbecue, inviting “everyone I knew that was in town.”
« “By the middle of the evening, I was flying, absolutely out of my mind, when a scruffy-looking guy I didn’t recognize wandered into the party,” John wrote. “Who the hell was he? It must be one of the staff, a gardener. I loudly demanded to know what the gardener was doing helping himself to a drink.”
« John said that the party suddenly dropped into a “shocked silence.” Eventually, John’s assistant, Bob Halley, broke the quiet. “‘Elton, that’s not the f***ing gardener,” John recalled Halley saying. “It’s Bob Dylan.” »
THE QUESTION that immediately occurs to me is, Why can’t the gardener have a drink? Why wasn’t the gardener invited to the party?! Well, y’all know, I’m a democrat… But John (who clearly blames the incident solely on his drug intake) went on to add insult to injury…
« Embarrassed at his very public gardener gaff and, as Elton John put it, “coked out of [his] brain,” the pianist quickly rushed over to Bob Dylan to try and make amends…much to the chagrin of the called-out songwriter. “‘Bob! Bob! We can’t have you in those terrible clothes, darling,’” John told Dylan. “‘Come upstairs, and I’ll fit you out with some of mine at once. Come on, dear!’”
« John described Dylan’s expression as “horrified.” Nevertheless, John continued to try to push Dylan out of the garden party and into the house so that John could dress him in some less-scruffy-looking duds. Luckily for Dylan, divine intervention by a former Beatle interrupted the clumsy shuffle. “As I continued propelling him out of the garden, I heard the unmistakable sound of George [Harrison]’s mordant, Scouse-accented voice calling out to me. ‘Elton,’ he said. ‘I really think you need to go steady on the old marching powder.’” »
https://americansongwriter.com/the-time-elton-john-mistook-a-scruffy-looking-bob-dylan-for-a-trespassing-gardener/
Exactly. The gardener who no doubt had to prep the area for the do and then clear away all the mess afterwards. And Bob didn’t need sartorial advice, or indeed advice of any other kind, from EJ. I say that as a fan of both musicians. Not Elton’s finest hour.
Great story from Guy, and I marvel at the innate class-consciousness and automatic snobbishness of Pinner’s most famous son. Bob has done many dumb things, but at least he never dressed like Elton…
🙂
Love this!
I once sat next to the same scruffy bloke on a plane from Heathrow to Tel Aviv, and only twigged who it was when the arrivals hall burst into wild applause on our entrance.
Well, he must have enjoyed that trip. He’s often said that people don’t appreciate their anonymity, being able to go somewhere and not be recognized. I didn’t find the quote I was looking for, but I found this: “By being a celebrity, you lose your anonymity. It short-circuits your creative powers when people come up and interrupt your train of thought. They consider you completely approachable. And you can’t be rude to people, so basically you shut yourself down. I know I do. I shut myself down when people come up and want to shake my hand or want to talk. That’s just dead time.”
Birthplace of Sir Elton John, the famous Rocketman
As Jack pointed out, prompting my long tangent on the fellow, above.
36 minutes. Sucked in by the surface of 16d, so CALUMETS took ages to get as my LOI, even though I’ve come across the word in crossword and quiz show land several times before. UNIAT was new though not hard to derive from wordplay and I was unsure of the parsing of PANTO (I didn’t know PAN for ‘face’, which the ODE gives as US slang) and DEBRIEF.
At least I’ve learnt a non-vehicular meaning of ‘Utes’; as Lindsay says, the vehicular sense so beloved of crossword setters describes a mode of transport which is becoming a thing of the past.
Easy but difficult, in that behind its user-friendly tone lurked a Wednesday or a Thursday puzzle. As vinyl says the four or so tough entries (anag. CALUMETS e.g.) didn’t help, but all in all, forgetting Mondayness, I found this a nice solve, even where the opportunity to clue an Irish goddess was missed.
35 minutes, favourite clue probably the bargeman.
Thx setter an vinyl.
A frustrating DNF, nho CALUMETS and had to insert a random combination of letters. Also didn’t get PANTO. Obviously not good this morning.
Thanks vinyl and setter.
58m 59s
For those who don’t know, PINNER was where Elton John was brought up. Whatever happened to him….??
Interesting little quirk in 5d. I had BARREL for a long time. RR for ‘runs’ inside BAEL which, according to Collins Online is: ‘1. a spiny Indian rutaceous tree, Aegle marmelos’. In other words it fits the clue but not the surrounding clues.
Sorry, Martin, I added my comment about Elton above before I got to yours. He was not only raised in Pinner, he was born there.
Thanks, Jack. I didn’t know he was born there as well.
Birthplace of Sir Elton John. Jack, did you know about his performances in the Railway Tavern ?
Possibly. More info on the exact location please.
Never heard of a CALUMET, and don’t think it can be classed as expected general knowledge, so why it was clued as an anagram is beyond me. Next please!
CALUMET is burned into my brain because of a Guardian puzzle many moons ago where the setter (Rufus, of all people) clued it as a CD.
Ouch! Yes, it’ll join the ranks of AMARANTHINE, ANNATTO, HECATOMB, and ABEDNEGO in mine…
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
(Henry V)
After 25 mins pre-brekker I was left with the ungettable Utescalm. Never heard of it, which is where the wordplay should help. I once coined OWAA! as an acronym for Obscure Word As Anagram, but it didn’t catch on.
Pity about that one.
Ta setter and V
18.03, would have been under 17 had I not mistakenly entered ALLOWANCE instead of ALLOWABLE, which until I realised where I had gone wrong made RABIDITY (my LOI) impossible. I believe the columnist Danny Finkelstein is from PINNER, and I do recollect CALUMETS from previous puzzles, though the Utes definition was unknown to me. Thanks V and setter.
I knew Pinner from BBC News Quiz, where DF complained he knew nothing about the Middle East because that’s where he lives. Great show.
Thanks setter except for Calumet,not really biffable as an anagram, a bit obscure. Great blog as usual.
Definitely a learning experience. Unaware of Uniats – and Utes, other than in the vehicular. Biffed MEGABIT as I missed the gab.
But CALUMETS and TAPSTER resurfaced from the depths, as did Elton’s birthplace.
42 minutes but with MACULETS, a sedative whose day will come. The peace pipe didn’t soothe at all. LOI the also unknown or forgotten PROSIT. The overground is very good for getting us to Kew Gardens but not yet a full alternative to the Tube. COD to DEFUNCT which my brain seemed to be today.I wasn’t sure about this puzzle at any stage. Thank you V and setter.
DNF, defeated by CALUMETS (I put CAMULETS, thinking of cam as an engine component and hoping it was some variation of that).
– Thought of PANTO once I had the P and the O, but I took a while to see how it worked
– Relied on wordplay for the unfamiliar UNIAT
– Didn’t know GENTIAN but managed to put the non-checking letters in the right places
The OVERGROUND most definitely is a real thing, and a huge success story for London transport. It used to appear on the Tube map in orange, but it has now been divided into six different lines and colours. Bonus points if you’ve ever actually ridden the Liberty line.
Thanks vinyl and setter.
COD Bargeman
48 mins.
Calumets – another obscurity clued by an anagram *sigh*.
Thanks, v.
DNF with a wrong guess of MACULETS. Having looked up CALUMETS it appears to be a calming peace pipe from Utah. Apologies if I missed someone else posting that.
Very slow in the SE in general and other NHOs UNIAT and PROSIT.
After the Underground/Overground joke I could not help seeing WOMBLE instead of DOUBLE.
Tricky and its a normal Monday in the UK. Thanks both.
15.31, mildly interrupted. I see I forgot to parse RABBLE-ROUSING, but otherwise I found this mostly straightforward. I had to make sure of the wordplay for CHARLATAN, because it’s a word I can misspell with great ease.
Found this a little tricky to get going and solved it bottom-up in the end.
NHO uniat but it didn’t matter, struggled to remember calumets, which did matter. Got there in the end.
No problem with Pinner, part of Metroland as Jackkt says. So unrelentingly suburban and middle-class.
Well, after a rapid QC solve, I thought I was on a Monday roll, and decided to knock off this one quickly before getting down to the chores (I usually leave the 15×15 for the evening). That didn’t work out well!
48 mins DNF missing a couple of the usual suspects, but enjoyable nonetheless. Now for those chores…
Calumets: “And let thy crooked smokes…”
slipped up over RADIAL don’t quite get meaning.
Thought Charlatan was a clumsy clue.
Tried to work out why BARREL was 5d before seeing BREECH. But shouldn’t “runs” be double R?
Apparently in cricket reporting r is either run or runs.
DNF. I certainly have come across CALUMETS before, because last time it came up I managed to solve it, but I had forgotten it again this morning. It was an anagram that time (28191) too, but with more helpful checking letters: C_L_M_T. I really don’t understand how a clue like that gets published.
Felt that I had made very heavy work of this at around 18 minutes, so glad to come here and find I am not alone. Had to resort to pencil and paper for CALUMETS and even then submitted with fingers crossed. Not a great clue.
First typo in a long time, despite double-checking. Wrote in TEAL, typed in TEAR.
No problems, but for some reason I didn’t particularly enjoy this. My toothache making me grouchy perhaps?
No problem with Calumet, I think I read something about it as a kid, and always remember Calumet City in the Blues Brothers film.
What Irritated me?
A as being short for American.
S (rather than ST) short for Saint.
I would not use the word able when I mean expert. Quite different degrees of ability in my usage.
Radial was a bit of a stretch for me as well.
I think it’s all pretty fair, I just didn’t really like it.
Quick time but sadly no such word as MACULETS. NHO PINNER but it looks lovely on Google images.
Liked: BARGEMAN and RABBLE-ROUSING
Not the best start to the week but a new word learned!
17a Radial, but I started with raring, as in raring to go; ring is near but not as good as dial. Delayed 18d Debrief.
19a Bargemen Biffed, not a clue.
25a NHO Uniat AFAIK.
LOI 26a See Double, added to Cheating Machine.
27a COD Defunct.
8d WOD Trousering.
Cheated so DNF 16d NHO Calumets; C.M. had it though. OWAA! Was aware of the Utes, vaguely.
The top half was very Mondayish, almost all very straightforward, but the bottom half was something quite different: see = get in 26ac was hard to see/get, although Vinyl’s equivalence is the right one. CALUMET was known as a word although I’d forgotten its meaning. Its only justification is that the setter may have reckoned that solvers should know it and what utes meant here. RADIAL presumably something about sending things out from the centre. 49 minutes.
interesting. Ihad the bottom half completed with still 13 clues left in the top half. I got there in the end in around 40 mins.
19.12
UNIAT straight in though I now realise I meant UNIATE. Vaguely remembered CALUMET or at least sufficiently enough to put the remaining letters in the correct spaces. OWAA! indeed.
Quite a few nice clues though – liked BARGEMAN as it was my LOI and bunged in from the literal, only appreciating it now.
Thanks Vinyl and setter