This comes from me, as I’d mistakenly thought it was my turn and wrote up a report yesterday. When I saw George mention in a comment his need to finish this puzzle to blog it, I first felt a right chump, and then made the obvious offer. So you’ll get two in a row from George at the end of the month.
This was quite tricky, taking 75 minutes – can’t remember at what stage Chambers was opened. One wordplay mystery remains for you to help with, at 12 (reduced from three after one last-moment bit of inspiration and one explanation from George). This puzzle has plenty of interesting stuff – the kind that’s worth persevering with.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | MOTIF – rev. of Tom = Bowling, IF=providing. Tom=Bowling comes from the song “Tom Bowling” by Charles Dibdin, most familiar as the cello solo in the Henry Wood Sea Songs Fantasia at the Last Night of the Proms. This version also has John Tomlinson with the words. A younger version of your reporter has a cameo role at bottom left in the first couple of seconds, and Mrs B appears later on. |
| 5 | PLUMIST – me=MI (Tonic sol-fa note with two spellings),in P,LUST. |
| 11 | APOCOPATED – Cut by one sound or syllable, from “apocope” (of course). (COP=nut,ATE=consumed) in A POD. |
| 13 | IRENICS = peaceful theology – anag. of (IR=Iran (IVR), since) |
| 14 | WETSHOD = (doh,stew) rev. Lovely def – “having water on plates”, using Cockney Rhyming Slang “plates (of meat)” = feet. |
| 15 | SNOT = tons rev. A snot is a contemptible person and hence a dog. |
| 16 | ECOD = record with both Rs removed – with the double removal properly indicated – Bravo! |
| 17 | EPISCOPY = bishops. EPIS(tles),COPY |
| 19 | SIM=card,ORG=organisation – the simurg/simorg is a monstrous bird of Persian fable. With SIM = computer game in last Sat’s Times, that’s two modern indicators to watch out for. |
| 24 | GHERAO = personnel trapping – some kind of Indian kidnap variation. E=head of enterpise inside HR=personnel, inside GAO = Goa* |
| 25 | DIVIDIVI – a tropical American tree and twice a “divi” = dividend. |
| 26 | BINS – short for binoculars |
| 27 | (v)ITAS – these are surely the only IT?S “palms”, but the rest baffled me until George explained it – vitas is a plural of vita = life, as seen in “curriculum vitae”. |
| 29 | SYNAPTE – a litany in the Greek church. (payments – M=money)* |
| 31 | RAW SILK = (laws irk), with “in chancery” = “in an awkward predicament” as the anagrind. |
| 32 | HERES,I,ARCH – very easy wordplay here when you see it, with “here’s” before your very eyes |
| 33 | CEILIDH – must be the only “song and dance” for CE?LID? That was all I could say until I saw the fiendish wordplay just before giving up and offering it to my audience to explain. Ceil=line (as in a ceiling),I=one,DH=dass heist=”that is German”. I don’t know whether usw. = und so weiter = “and so forth”, or z.B. = zum Beispiel = for example, fit into any Chambers words but if they did you saw them here first … (And a very sensible system the Germans have here – if we used abbreviations for English expressions instead of stuff like e.g. = “exempli gratia”, I’ll bet they’d be used much more accurately.) |
| 34 | DHALS – D=Dutch+Hals = portrait painter. Toyed for a while with PHALS = v. hot curries. |
| Down | |
| 1 | MAE WEST – ewes in Mat. |
| 2 | TOM-TOMS – the most popular sat-nav gizmos, which must be a fair bet for inclusion in some future Chambers in the manner of Hoover or Biro. The “kitchen” here is, as ever, orchestral slang for the percussion section. |
| 3 | ICES – hidden reversal |
| 4 | FOTHERED – other=second in Fed. |
| 6 | LA(R)DING |
| 7 | (m)UTES |
| 8 | MENSCH=”decent chap” – N in (M.E.,Sch.) |
| 9 | SYCOPHANTIC. sycophant=informer=canary – anag. of (pity,C=”side in crisis”),no cash) |
| 10 | TASTY – STY=climb, after “peaks of the Alps” = T,A |
| 12 | PRECIPITATE = reckless. The rest I don’t get – Reckless top banks are facing outbreak of criticism, indeed mine (11) – I guessed at mine=PIT and (outbreak of criticism)=C, but it didn’t help much. Over to Erwin in the comments … |
| 18 | SPHINGID = hawk moth. P in dishing*. Best improbable-looking word-start in this puzzle. |
| 20 | GRISLED = grey. GR=Greek,IS LED = “does not make his own mind up” |
| 21 | TRIP,(r)URA(l) – an Indian state in that eastern bit on the other side on Bangladesh. Another win for the very efficient index of my old Rand McNally atlas. |
| 22 | JOS(E,P.H.)S – Josephs are 18th Century ladies’ riding coats, possibly named after Joseph’s coat in the Bible. Joss=luck, as in the smelly sticks. PH=Public House=pub – as all OS Map readers know. |
| 23 | KISSEL=a Russian dessert of thickened fruit puree – SS=seconds in like* |
| 25 | DIRAC = (Car, I’d) rev. Brit. Physicist who has a constant named after him – Planck’s constant divided by (2 pi), which relates to electron waves and relativity. |
| 28 | KIRI = Kiri Te Kanawa. KIR=white wine and blackcurrant concoction,I=indeed |
| 30 | AMAH = one of two similar xwd maids (AYAH is the other). rev. of HAM,A |
I had some misadventures with a Tom Tom over christmas – blogger appears to be acting up today, but if the link works, you should be able to read about them here
HERESIARCH was easy as it appeared a few weeks ago. I though of BINS early on but couldn’t find it in the dictionary so had to wait for the checking letters.
There seem to be both African and Chinese tom-toms, which classical composers sometimes want but often fail to specify properly, leading to use of the ones that form part of a standard drum kit.
Bad composer handwriting can apparently lead to confusion between the tom-tom and tam-tam (gong).
(Summary of 2pp from Norman Del Mar’s “Anatomy of the Orchestra”)
I doubt that this or similar abbreviations would find their way into crosswords (too specialised I’d guess) but, for the record, typical shortened forms are:
TOM = tom-tom
KICK = bass drum
SNARE = snare drum
HI-HAT = (originally I think) high-hat
At a rough guess I’d say the introduction of these shortened forms became more prevalent as drum machines gained popularity. On labelling the individual pads, manufacturers would inevitably want to keep things as brief and clear as possible.