Hello again. I enjoyed this crossword. It has no unknowns or obscurities (well, only a couple) and neat, concise clueing. It also features an Empress, two Presidents and a Prime Minister, a princely House, and the Raj. Stirring stuff. What did you think?
I use the standard conventions like underlining the definition, CD for cryptic definition, DD for a double one, *(anargam) and so forth. Nho = “not heard of” and in case of need the Glossary is always handy
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Tailor cuts curtain up for needle worker (13) |
| ACUPUNCTURIST – *(CUTS CURTAIN UP). Lovely misleading definition! | |
| 8 | Move somewhere to be inside (4) |
| STIR – A DD, one relating to a slang word for prison | |
| 9 | Bet with church to make impression on prior (10) |
| ANTECEDENT – ANTE (bet) + CE (Church, of England) + DENT, to make an impression on. | |
| 10 | Maybe vampire bit back facing inverted crucifix (4,4) |
| TRAP DOOR – PART (bit) rev., + ROOD (crucifix) also reversed. Apparently a trapdoor on a theatre stage can be called a vampire. Heaven knows why. | |
| 11 | Fame British sailors have around East (6) |
| RENOWN – E(ast) in RN OWN (sailors have) | |
| 13 | Stick number of fingers right into sponge cake? (10) |
| BATTENBERG – BAT (stick, sort of) + TEN (number of fingers) + R(ight) in BEG, sponge. I would have spelled it Battenburg, myself. So would Collins. But apparently either will do, and berg may actually be more accurate. Fun fact 1: a goodly subset of the British royal family had the family name Battenberg, which they Anglicised to Mountbatten in 1917. Fun fact 2: the colour scheme on British emergency vehicles is called battenberg marking, because it has squares like the cake. The scheme has spread to a number of other countries. | |
| 16 | Sudden twist was very impressive (4) |
| SLEW – a DD, as in: “Jerry made his Lamborghini slew across the road.” Collins doesn’t have the other meaning, but under the present tense SLAY, it has “to impress or amuse greatly.” | |
| 17 | Female the Italian married in La Dolce Vita say (4) |
| FILM – F(ilm) + IL (Italian for “the”) + M(arried). La Dolce Vita is a 1960 Fellini film that I must have seen once but remember nothing about. | |
| 18 | Wasted detective having had enough, full of drink (10) |
| DISSIPATED – DI (detective) + SIP (drink) in SATED | |
| 20 | Kidnapping sons as might be expected (6) |
| SNATCH – S(ons) + NATCH. “Used to indicate that a particular fact or event is what you would expect and not at all surprising.” (Collins, natch) | |
| 22 | Cute little creature heir to Dubya? (8) |
| BUSHBABY – A small nocturnal primate, and a jocular reference to GW Bush, a US politician. | |
| 24 | Reparation arranged for old guardsman (10) |
| PRAETORIAN – *(REPARATION). The Praetorian Guard in ancient Rome famously “elected” several Caesars, including Caligula and Claudius. | |
| 26 | Praise God in recital (4) |
| LAUD – sounds like “LORD” | |
| 27 | Book done as it should be: one shops must stock (4,2,7) |
| JUST SO STORIES – JUST SO (done as it should be) + I (one) in STORES, shops. Rudyard Kipling’s best known work, probably. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Dispute where Conservative blocks amendment (11) |
| ALTERCATION – C(onservative) in ALTERATION, amendment. | |
| 2 | Lay bare one in Pigalle, disreputable sort (5) |
| UNRIP – UN (one, in Pigalle and elsewhere in France) + RIP, a disreputable sort apparently. Unrip and rip, two words I wouldn’t use, in that sense, in a single clue! My last one in. | |
| 3 | Blue Berets greatly enjoyed surrounding northern plain (9) |
| UNADORNED – UN (blue berets, that UN forces wear) + N(orthern) in ADORED, greatly adored. | |
| 4 | Bed stripped after cavorting of erotic clique (7) |
| COTERIE – *(EROTIC) + (b)E(d), bed stripped. A slightly disappointing answer to an otherwise intriguing clue. | |
| 5 | Governor to lose head covering cold sore (5) |
| ULCER – C(old) in (r)ULER, a headless governer. | |
| 6 | Singles coming into Modi’s land or Subianto’s? (9) |
| INDONESIA – ONES (singles) in INDIA. Narendra Modi is Prime Minister of India, and Prabowo Subianto Djojohadikusumo is President of Indonesia. | |
| 7 | Sunbathing’s end in Punta Negra (3) |
| TAN – hidden, as above. I’ve always thought skin cancer was “sunbathing’s end,” but hey. | |
| 12 | Waterhouse novel involving second-rate location (11) |
| WHEREABOUTS – B (second-rate) in *(WATERHOUSE) | |
| 14 | Siren time and time again interrupting tsarina? (9) |
| TEMPTRESS – T(ime) + another T(ime) in EMPRESS. | |
| 15 | Musical flourish signals playing the same thing (9) |
| GLISSANDO – *(SIGNALS) + DO, ditto, same again. In recent crosswords, my inadequate musical knowledge has been sorely tested. | |
| 19 | U-boat with German markings finally surrenders (7) |
| SUBMITS – SUB (u-boat) + MIT (German for with) + (marking)S. | |
| 21 | Such gadgets as may be eye-catching? (5) |
| HOOKS – A CD, hooks and eyes, geddit? Mainly used for bras nowadays, so Wiki says.. | |
| 23 | Cold from the sea, dish served hot (5) |
| BALTI – BALTI(c), a sea with the C(old) removed. | |
| 25 | Government vessel raised (3) |
| RAJ – JAR (vessel), rev. | |
From my conversation with Gemini:
The theatrical “vampire trap” owes both its name and its ingenious mechanical design to a single, massively popular 19th-century melodrama: The Vampyre; or, The Bride of the Isles, which opened at the English Opera House (now the Lyceum Theatre) in London in August 1820.
The play was an adaptation by James Planché of a French melodrama, which in turn was based on John Polidori’s 1819 short story The Vampyre (the famous tale born from the same rainy weekend at Lake Geneva that inspired Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein).
To do justice to the supernatural villain, Lord Ruthven, the theatre needed a way for him to instantly vanish into thin air or materialise through solid walls and floors without the clumsy, slow movement of standard sliding panels.
How the Mechanism Works
Unlike a standard trapdoor that drops away vertically or hinges open like a cellar door, the vampire trap was designed for high-speed, seamless illusions.
The mechanism relies on two spring-loaded shutters or flaps (often made of flexible wood, canvas, or rubber-reinforced materialized panels) that meet in the centre.
The Disappearance: The actor literally leaps, falls, or is pushed directly into what looks like a solid surface.
The Reset: The momentum of the actor’s body forces the two leaves open. The moment the actor passes through into the understage (“the grave”), heavy springs or counterweights instantly snap the flaps back together into a closed, flush position.
To the audience looking on from the auditorium, the character appeared to pass straight through solid stone or timber in the blink of an eye. The mechanism could be built vertically into a piece of scenery (allowing a vampire to walk “through” a solid wall) or horizontally into the stage floor.
While the vampire trap allowed an actor to drop smoothly out of sight, it was part of an era of Victorian stage engineering obsessed with spectacular effects. It was frequently used alongside the equally famous Star Trap—an understage mechanism that used a counterweighted platform to violently catapult an actor upwards through a star-shaped series of triangular flaps, making demons, fairies, or ghosts appear to burst instantly out of the earth.
As to the puzzle, I finished in about 30 minutes but with a wrong answer, SKEW, at 16ac. I then went to the crossword dictionary to check if ‘skew’ is a valid synonym for ‘twist’ as I was unable to parse the remainder of the clue. I found it is, but the entry also listed SLEW as another alternative and I could see immediately that had to be the correct answer.
As a matter of interest, and as someone with a lifelong interest in theatre and backstage jargon, I don’t recall coming across ‘vampire’as a TRAP DOOR before today and that’s what prompted me to research its origins as posted above.
.
Great crossword with some amazing anagrams. I. was held up at the end with SLEW since I couldn’t convince myself that either meaning fitted. I didn’t know the vampire TRAP DOOR either but the wordplay was clear so I just took it on trust. Thanks to the previous post, I now know more than I nwws~
Never met the vampire before, nor BATTENBERG, but that was a piece of cake next to UNRIP, not knowing either the literal sense or “rip” in that sense. Thoroughly enjoyed.
My true NHO answer was battenberg; I had a vague feeling about the vampire and the rip/unrip clue, so I probably had seen those before. For crossword solvers, Kipling’s best known work is If, but I believe Just So Stories has appeared in the past. Hooks was very difficult, but slew was my last one in. If you are familiar with the concept of slew rate in electronics, you are more likely to think of it.
Time: 29:40
I had no idea about ‘vampire’–thanks, Jack, for the explanation–and waited until I had the P from POI UNRIP to put in LOI TRAP DOOR. DNK UNRIP, which struck me as rather like ‘unthaw’ (=thaw); but I knew ‘rip’, although it took me some time to recall it. I liked BATTENBERG; dnk the cake, but I knew the name.
Too hard for this little black duck. Had to seek confirmation after half an hour for the rip part of UNRIP and also for vampire = TRAP DOOR, which the internet seems to be only vaguely aware of.
Having allowed myself those liberties I thought I’d better confirm the existence of a BARTENBERG cake which at least saved me from a pink square.
Thanks Jerry and setter, some great clues in there today.
Just a disgusting puzzle. Had to bail after 30 minutes with no candidate answers for (what ended up being) STIR, UNRIP, and SLEW, and after coming here to see the explanations, I’m sorry I wasted any brain power even trying.