15:22. Quite a tricky one from Harry this week. There are a few things in here I found a bit questionable, or at least odd. The use of ‘turned’ in 8ac, the anagram indicator in 7dn, ‘most of the time’ in 14dn, singular ‘apparatus’ in 19dn. None of these things caused me a problem while solving but I’d be interested in your views.
Definitions are underlined, anagrams indicated like (TIHS)*, deletions like this, anagram indicators are in italics.
| Across | |
| 1 | Nut wrap and big cheese strip |
| HEADBAND – HEAD (big cheese), BAND. Nice humorous definition. | |
| 5 | Switching starter, eat half of course? |
| NINE – DINE with D switched to N. A golf course has eighteen holes. | |
| 8 | Turned fruit bishop brought to a relative |
| BANANA – B, A, NANA. Why ‘turned’? Just because it’s bent? But that’s not the same thing. Other explanations welcome! | |
| 9 | Rook must get to King’s file: find move |
| RELOCATE – R, E, LOCATE. ‘File’ means ‘row’ in the context of chess, and both kings sit in the fifth of these (after the rook, knight, bishop and queen in files A to D). I don’t play chess but I learned this meaning of ‘file’ from a crossword. | |
| 10 | Something that comes in turns for Reform? |
| EDIT – TIDE (something that comes in) reversed (turns). | |
| 11 | Jealous creep entertaining female high-flyer |
| GREENFINCH – GREEN(F), INCH. | |
| 12 | Anger with necktie getting tangled up in tongue |
| ANCIENT GREEK – (ANGER, NECKTIE)*. | |
| 16 | Modern ward in Barking with restricted views |
| NARROW-MINDED – (MODERN WARD IN)*. | |
| 18 | Risk-taker seen in rare nude TV broadcast |
| ADVENTURER – (RARE NUDE TV)*. | |
| 20 | Killer from close to Cincinnati in US jail |
| CAIN – CA( |
|
| 21 | Blue upon blue in your heart of hearts |
| DEEP DOWN – DEEP (the sea) DOWN (sad). | |
| 22 | Dozy type of kid making one amused … initially |
| NAPPER – NIPPER replacing I with A |
|
| 23 | Sulphur, bitumen-like substance and lead |
| STAR – S, TAR. | |
| 24 | Dope, elite officer at front admitted, is toxic stuff |
| ASBESTOS – AS(BEST, O |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | President touring old place where bills have gone up |
| HOARDING – Warren G H(O)ARDING. | |
| 2 | A hit getting sent up has tenor in bits |
| APART – A, reversal of RAP, T (tenor). | |
| 3 | Writing group in boat teenager upset |
| BEAT GENERATION – (IN BOAT TEENAGER)*. | |
| 4 | Bottle of note: present to customer unopened |
| NERVE – N, |
|
| 5 | Why one might buy their eggs over the hill? |
| NO CHICKEN – a definition and a cryptic hint. I’ve never come across this expression without the word ‘spring’ in it, but it’s in Collins. | |
| 6 | Books covered in commendable literary review |
| NOTICE – N(OT)ICE. | |
| 7 | Hear ignoble men started up Apple |
| BLENHEIM ORANGE – (HEAR IGNOBLE MEN)*. ‘Started up’ is a strange anagram indicator. | |
| 13 | Local manager hot to get new and handy footballer? |
| INNKEEPER – IN, N, KEEPER. My new girlfriend wears big gloves and has the number one on her back. I think this one’s a keeper. | |
| 14 | Sentimentality is fine (most of the time) |
| GOO – GOO |
|
| 15 | Desirable quality found in Essex housing essentially |
| SEXINESS – (IN ESSEX |
|
| 17 | A daughter opening something prior to Christmas? |
| ADVENT – A, D, VENT. | |
| 19 | Apparatus tackling, primarily, nuisance calls |
| RINGS – RI(N |
|
| 20 | Get in trouble being sanctimonious in bed |
| COP IT – CO(PI)T. | |
At 56 minutes I found this quite hard.
To address the points raised in the intro:
I also had a query about ‘turned’ in 8ac and simply don’t understand why it’s there.
At 7dn the anagram indicator ‘started up’ doesn’t work in my view. We have just about accepted ‘up’ as such (although there’s some dissent in the ranks about that), but I can’t understand how ‘started up’ does the job required of it.
I am happy with ‘apparatus’ clueing ‘rigs’ at 19dn. It’s listed as an alternative plural in Collins and in Chambers, and to my ear sounds more natural than the awkward ‘apparatuses’
The ODE has ‘can’ as North American, so I guess the setter is playing safe. After my complaints about unsignalled Americanisms in one of the daily puzzles last week I am not going to concern myself that Collins and Chambers disagree.
I have been unable to find a reference to the GREENFINCH being noted for flying particularly high but perhaps I haven’t looked in the right places.
I missed the relevance of ‘King’s file’ in 9ac. I used to have a working knowledge of chess notation but it’s too rusty for me to have thought of it.
Thanks jackkt. The mere mention of the word ‘apparatuses’ is enough to convince me on that one!
I have no problem with ‘high’ in 11ac. It makes the surface work and if you’re flying you are by definition high, relatively.
I’d disagree with you on that one. Specifically, greenfinches and other garden birds do not ‘fly high’- they flit from tree to hedge and so on. It made finding the answer particularly problematic and occasioned an indignant MER as the bird would be described as a low flyer if any qualification were to be made.
As for RINGS, I agree with Jackkt that you would refer to them as a single apparatus. You only use them in pairs, after all.
I believe that rings here is a gymnastics reference. The athletes compete on different kinds of apparatus, one of which is the rings.
Ah yes, that makes sense, thank you. Indeed the Wiki entry says ‘the rings, also known as still rings (in contrast to flying rings), is an artistic gymnastics apparatus and the event that uses it’.
Apologies for losing track of this discussion, but what has ‘rings’ got to do with ‘apparatus’ in this clue? As I understand it RINGS is the answer defined by ‘calls’, and ‘apparatus’ is cluing RIGS.
Sorry yes you’re quite right! I obviously wasn’t paying attention. I’m still happy with your explanation that ‘apparatus’ can refer to more than one thing.
You’ve got it
I read ‘turned fruit’ as simply a reference to the curved shape of a banana.
NINE gave me pause for thought, then the penny dropped. Overall I thought it was rather a nice puzzle
I’ve always thought of “apparatus” as singular.
“Most of the time” didn’t work for me, though.
(I “posted” this already, but got a 500 error, imagine that! Quickly losing patience with this site.)
I also queried ‘turned’; it serves no purpose that I can see. Nor does ‘getting’ in 12ac. DNK the bird or the apple. No problem with ‘high-flyer’; it’s been the definition for some bird or other often.
BANANA ended up being my LOI, perhaps because I was overthinking “turned” rather than ignoring it and realizing I was just looking for a fruit. I also thought “apparatus” should be plural since I didn’t realize it could be plural without adding ES. I’d never heard of the apple, but it was obvious it was an anagram despite the weird indication, and once I realized that the second word was ORANGE (despite it being an apple) it only took a moment to see BLENHEIM.
I realise that setters have to be increasingly creative to come up with new anagrinds, but I agree that ‘started up’ in 7d is really pushing it. That didn’t help with the answer in any case as I’d never heard of the Apple in question and the botanical sites I used to try and find the solution did not list it- perhaps I was looking for the wrong fruit!
Overall, a difficult and frustrating crossword with only BEAT GENERATION providing some satisfaction.
On the things:
The use of ‘turned’ in 8ac: there is the “having” interpretation of a noun + “ed”, as in the old chestnut “A wicked thing (6)”
the anagram indicator in 7dn: non-standard, but I’m sure I’ve seen both words as AIs on their own
‘most of the time’ in 14dn: maybe I should have used the red pen here, but it seems pretty close to “mostly”
singular ‘apparatus’ in 19dn: my first school chemistry teacher insisted on a rather formal description of experiments, with “Apparatus” as the heading for multiple things used in one, and someone with an MSc rather than just chemistry O-level recognised that usage. Conversely, I don’t think I’ve ever heard “apparatuses” used instead, or “an apparatus” for the singular meaning.
I’m sure I’ve heard it, or even said it, but in any case googling turns up a good number of uses of “an apparatus.”
I don’t get “turn-ed” either.
Having two non-separate anagrinds is even more unusual than having two separate ones (which has indeed happened… quite recently). They might interfere with each other in some people’s minds.
Anonymously, as hotel wi-fi v slow
Maybe I should have quoted the fist Oxford D of E,das “mass noun” means to me that there is no plural, as with “bread”, “oxygen”, etc.
1 [mass noun] the technical equipment or machinery needed for a particular activity or purpose: firemen wearing breathing apparatus.
The answer to the “wicked thing” clue is CANDLE because a candle has a wick, and a banana has a bend.
Double AI – yes, unusual, but as Keriothe said, not something that prevents understanding, at least for some
I understood “wick-ed,” I assure you. To me, saying a banana has turned would most naturally mean that it has gone brown and mushy. “Turn” and “bend” did not seem to me quite equivalent. And, just to be perverse, I posed the question and got this… AI (not anagram indicator!) result:
« No, not all bananas are bent; while the typical curved shape is very common, it results from a natural process called negative geotropism, where the bananas grow upwards towards the sun and away from the ground. However, some banana varieties, or bananas grown in specific conditions with less direct sunlight, can be straighter or only slightly curved. »
Haha
If “most natural” meanings were required, I think many cryptic clues would work!
would *not work
“Turned” didn’t make me think “bend” but instead to look for a reversal in the wordplay. Alas, “anana” isn’t a fruit; that’s “ananas.” And that part of the word is a palindrome, of course. But backing up to the Bishop… It was just a passing thought, ignoring half the clue.
A banana has a bend, but it doesn’t have a turn.
Away from the US grid system, not all turns are right angled. ‘The road had some twists and turns’ – so a turn could be a bend.
In a road, yes, but I don’t think anyone would ever say ‘this banana has a turn’ or ‘this banana is turned’.
I agree but isn’t the whole cryptic thing about splitting up everything and using synonyms? If turn can mean bend then why can’t a banana be bent – turn-ed?
Just because it doesn’t mean that in the required context (a banana). ‘The road has a turn in it’ is a phrase with a recognisable meaning. ‘The banana has a turn in it’ is not English.
This was hard work, but we got there (correct) in the end. Last couple of Sundays were a little much – where Saturdays not so much?!
Liked 1ac HEADBAND and 13d INNKEEPER for quirky but detectable synonyms or references. Note issues raised by keriothe and jackkt, and a couple of other things made the solve more challenging than it perhaps needed to be:
Also not keen on ‘file’ used as letter selection for insertion in 9ac RELOCATE.
In any case, had to look up to find the right Apple for 7d – how else could one solve an anagram like that? 12ac ANCIENT GREEK might have had more info. On the lookout now for the stray yank – in this case for 20ac CAIN. No offence Guy (presuming you are not an expat).
A search suggests that a GREENFINCH is a ‘high-flyer’ only in acrobatics.
Would be keen to know why ‘D’ becomes ‘N’ in 5ac NINE (maybe I’m just slow as usual and it’s embarrassingly obvious).
Apologies for any crossings, I will read.
Thanks to keriothe and setter for the challenge.
There’s no instruction in the clue to change the D of DINE to a specific letter, just to ‘switch’ the first letter to one that fits the remainder of the clue – N to make NINE as explained in the blog.
Thank you for responding.
For me, that answer was based on crossers and the possible golf connection mostly. While I could see ‘dine’ for ‘eat’, the clue’s order directing a switch also seemed odd.
OK, I can see that for the setter to do it any other way might have made the answer too obvious.
Hi. I got 9 across RELOCATE by complete guesswork. If one doesn’t play chess – as I don’t – can anyone explain any other way it might actually be worked out?
Guesswork is a perfectly good method – I think we all use it all the time! However with a few checkers and the definition I wouldn’t call this complete guesswork.
DNF. I was left with several in the NW corner, and elsewhere including the irritating NINE, SEXINESS and ASBESTOS. I should have got the latter and HEADBAND, which was a good clue, but that wouldn’t have helped finish. Overall, I disliked the deliberate obfuscation – I would much rather struggle with a clever clue than a misleading one with extraneous or not enough information. Perhaps I should memorise the entire list of US presidents, but on the whole, life’s too short.
My thanks to David McLean and keriothe.
DNF. I was feeling thick a week ago and completed only a handful of clues. On picking it up again yesterday I failed to find 2d Apart and 5a Nine (I don’t play golf, but had I got 6d Notice I would have got there.) Not sure why I didn’t see 2d and 6d; just a bit demotivated I think.
1d Hoarding, vaguely recalled a Harding president, but not certain.
15d Sexiness. I got lost trying to parse this, so biffed.
19d Rings. Wiktionary has
“apparatus (plural apparatuses or apparatusses or apparatus”
So I let Mr McLean off. I would NOT use either of those other plurals.
30.52
Similar MERs but if the answer is clear such things don’t worry me unduly, though TURNED wasn’t really a success. My test is whether it is a “Ahh!” or a “Uh?” when it’s explained. That was the latter methinks. Lots of nice stuff though – thanks Setter and Keriothe.
You thinks appropriately!
Good evening – morning here.
Thank you for the explanation of the wordplay in 15d SEXINESS. I’d been thinking about it on and off all week and just couldn’t see it.
Hadn’t considered “found” as an anagram indicator.
The verb found as in what happens in a foundry: “a place where metal or glass is melted and formed into particular shapes”.
Thanks David and keriothe
Had tried unsuccessfully to post this last week and couldn’t with the site difficulties – then left my laptop at home whilst being away for this last week.
As usual, started this with a cafe brekkie – only got 12 clues there by the time my coffee went cold and had to spend another 3/4 of an hour at home to finish this one off. There was some quirky stuff going on with the clues, but overall I didn’t mind that – the BANANA clue did elicit a wry groan rather than a wry grin !
Enjoyed the challenge of untangling the anagrams for the apple and language – in fact all of the long anagrams were quite neat.
Finished in the NW corner with HEADBAND (‘nut wrap’ – another groan), HOARDING and EDIT (with a head slap for not seeing that much earlier) as the last few in.
[Have noticed a number of sites having persistent issues of late – fifteensquared, one across and now this one !]