Greetings barred-grid fans.
I found this one to be pretty tricky, and I am not sure I have all of the wordplay down – for that reason I waited until the solution was out before starting up this write-up, though it should be out within an hour or so of the solution being published.
A reminder that in Mephisto puzzles definitions can be confirmed in Chambers, so I will focus on wordplay here.
Away we go..
| Across | |
| 1 | Love to follow TV hosts right for new style of the 20s (7, two words) |
| ART DECO – Could not explain this for the life of me when I put it in. A little research and there is a TV show called Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway. Use an R(right) to replace the N(new) in ANT and DEC, then O(love) | |
| 6 | Retreating hood’s gal almost caught by PC Plod (5) |
| CLOMP – The hood’s gal is a MOLL, remove the last letter and reverse inside PC | |
| 12 | Picnic to be suspended after unpleasant matter (8) |
| PUSHOVER – HOVER(to be suspended) after PUS(unpleasant matter) | |
| 13 | Love taking mouthful in sacred fountain (8) |
| AGANIPPE – AGAPE (Christian love, often an oxymoron in the country I live in) containing NIP(mouthful) | |
| 14 | Deity’s name unknown to followers (5) |
| NUMEN – N(name), U(unknown), MEN(followers) | |
| 15 | Own goal in tournament’s opener with Germany knocking out Italy (5) |
| ADMIT – AIM(goal), I(in), and the first letter in Tournament, with D(Germany) replacing the first I(Italy) | |
| 16 | Made a bit warm fixing pin round far side of tent (8) |
| TEPEFIED – tricky wordplay that I don’t recall seeing before – the wooden pin is a FID, put it around the last letter of TEPEE(tent) | |
| 18 | Dapper youth, flush one with touch of elegance (5) |
| RUDIE – RUD(flush), I(one) and the first letter of Elegance | |
| 20 | Yellowhammer’s cry of distress heralding a lot of attention (6) |
| YOWLEY – YOWL(cry of distress) then EYE(attention) minus the last letter | |
| 21 | Excellent youngster, foremost in Oriental martial art (6) |
| AIKIDO – A1(excellent), KID(youngster) and the first letter in Oriental | |
| 23 | Shakespearean pledged something of interest in speech (5) |
| FINED – sounds like FIND(something of interest) | |
| 24 | Question priest about who’s making pleasantries? (8) |
| QUIPSTER – QU(question) and an anagram of PRIEST | |
| 27 | Yorked, England’s opener’s out, batting like a nerd (5) |
| DORKY – anagram of YORKED minus the first letter of England | |
| 29 | Cutting into beam it requires 45 degree angle (5) |
| MITRE – hidden inside beaM IT REquires | |
| 30 | Tories upset with limits of inquest take the lure (8, three words) |
| RISE TO IT – anagram of TORIES, then the external letters in InquesT | |
| 31 | As one in form stallion runs away from the field (8) |
| STUDENTY – STUD(stallion) then remove R(runs) from ENTRY(the field) | |
| 32 | American daring to play close to Little Mix around Ohio (5) |
| MOXIE – anagram of the last letter of littlE, and MIX surrounding O(Ohio) – I originally had that O=Ohio was part of a phonetic alphabet but that was from some memory that does not exist, I can’t seem to find a phonetic alphabet where O=Ohio. It is in Chambers as an abbreviation | |
| 33 | Breaking cover Greek character wheels round inside entrance (7) |
| GATEWAY – GETAWAY(breaking cover) with ETA(Greek character) reversed | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Awfully tense drama saving art school (12) |
| AVANT-GARDISM – anagram of T(tense),DRAMA,SAVING | |
| 2 | Scoundrel’s run out on the fiddle (5) |
| ROGUE – RO(run out), GUE(fiddle) | |
| 3 | One who receives fitting end to existence? (5) |
| DONEE – DONE(fitting, think of “the done thing”) then the last letter of existencE | |
| 4 | Smart girl assuming power is perhaps final (6) |
| CUP-TIE – CUTIE(smart girl) containing P(power) | |
| 5 | Plume of smoke’s beginning to distress (6) |
| OSPREY – O(of), the first letter of Smoke, PREY(to distress) | |
| 7 | Needing seconds to check confidential information? (7) |
| LOWDOWN – remove S(seconds) from SLOW DOWN(check) | |
| 8 | Old game, not new, that could generate life (4) |
| OVUM – NOVUM(old game) minus N(new) | |
| 9 | Just get weary over in popular holiday destination (7) |
| MERITED – TIRE(get weary) reversed inside MED(popular holiday destination) | |
| 10 | Spiteful about rule more than once — it’s an old knack (12) |
| PRETTY-PRETTY – PETTY(spiteful) surrounding R(rule) repeated | |
| 11 | Fish — thoroughly good (but only one kilo) — batter first (7) |
| LAMPUKA – PUKKA(thoroughly good) with only one K(kilo), after LAM(batter) | |
| 17 | Brick left out not returned (7) |
| FLETTON – anagram of LEFT then NOT reversed | |
| 18 | Daughter involved in wild revelry at dance party (7) |
| RIDOTTO – D(daughter) inside RIOT(wild revelry), TO(at) | |
| 19 | Australian genuinely did fancy embracing Australian drunk (7) |
| DINKY-DI – anagram of DID containing INKY(drunk, in Australia) | |
| 22 | Jolly quiet avoiding buying a round of drinks (6) |
| OUTING – removing SH(quiet) from SHOUTING(buying a round of drinks) | |
| 23 | Holiday’s doomed, visit cut short (6) |
| FIESTA – FIE(doomed, found under FEY in Chambers), then STAY(visit) minus the last letter | |
| 25 | Is the criminal getting time? (5) |
| SITHE – anagram of IS,THE. Found in Chambers as an alternative spelling of SITH | |
| 26 | Plant extract from aphrodisiac I required held back (5) |
| ERICA – hidden reversed in aphrodisiAC I REquired | |
| 28 | Base for sauce? Alternative kept back by wife (4) |
| ROUX – OR(alternative) reversed next to UX(wife) | |
I enjoyed this week’s a lot. AGANIPPE has appeared at least twice recently. The wordplay for 33a, 7d and 22d eluded me. All clear now, thanks GLH. I was delighted to see GUE appearing in 2d whose variant forms GU and GJU are particularly useful to Scrabble players. This is one of those words, along with Charleston and taghairm, that had much more characterful definitions in the old Twentieth Century dictionary compared with Chamber’s current dictionary.
The other delight from this week’s was to discover 4 dialectal variants to yellowhammer. I wonder whether those will appear over the coming weeks?
“Trick wordplay” in 16A: as it happens, much the same is done in ST crossword 5094 – 22D.
“Tricky”… and I see the wordplay eluded the ST blogger. I don’t think I saw it in that clue and biffed the answer. I maintain that I do not recall seeing that device. Nothing wrong with a new tool in the cryptic box!
Thanks glh, I found this tricky too- grateful to have your blog to explain the parsing
Sithe= time I can’t find it anywhere
Should have mentioned that – it is in Chambers as a variant spelling of SITH
Thank you for the blog – so much helpful stuff!
Interesting about the O in 32a MOXIE. My Chambers has O as an abbreviation for the US State, Ohio. I hadn’t realised some versions of the phonetic alphabet use Ohio for O.
One-letter abbreviations for states would be problematic, since there are more than 26 states. AFAIK, there have never been one-letter abbreviations in use.
I can see Britannica online has a page “U.S. state and territory abbreviations”:
Who came up with U.S. state abbreviations? We can largely thank the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), which has created abbreviations during much of its history. In 1831 the USPS developed its first list of state abbreviations, each consisting of two letters except Ohio’s, which was simply “O.” In 1874 the list was updated to include new states, and longer abbreviations were introduced, largely to avoid confusion.
And USPS has a page “Postal History: State abbreviations”, which has a table saying Ohio was “O” between 1831 and 1874.
So, I don’t know if my 1998 Chambers was thinking about something like that.
I think I was more interested about “Ohio” being used for O in a phonetic alphabet.
There are pages on Wikipedia like “Allied military phonetic spelling alphabets” and “Spelling alphabet” with several wide tables with lots of words that have been used for O:
Oscar, Oboe, Orange, Opal, Option, Oyster, Oak, Ostend, Owners, Ocean, October, Oliver, Oslo, Oble, Ontario, Olof, Otto, etc
…but no “Ohio”
Do newer editions of Chambers talk about Ohio in a phonetic alphabet? I wonder where they got it from.
Mea culpa – as I was writing it up, I saw O = Ohio in Chambers and thought “that sounds familiar, isn’t there a phonetic alphabet where O = Ohio” and wrote it in the blog without looking it up. I’ve amended it.
Thanks George. I had a similar experience with ART DECO. In a moment of inspiration I googled “Ant and Dec” and was amazed to get a result. Biggest holdup was AVANTGARDISM where I was hopelessly slow to see the anagrist.
And now I’m going to survey one hundred Australians to see how many have heard the word INKY for “drunk”. (No I’m not, I already know the answer).
It seems we have the opposite of ninja turtling today, with Ant and Dec derived from Art Deco by our cultured crew. They’ve hogged the Baftas since the time of the Pharaohs. I guess if I say they’ve hosted BGT since its inception some of you will have to look that up too!
I was hampered on TEPEFIED not least by not even being able to guess a FID was a pin. You could say I was Fid Def.