Some bear traps here.
I don’t often get a Pink Square on blogging days, as I parse how I go. But 1D got me. The Hungarian dance was completely unknown and I went with CSARDAS with CSAR for CZAR (which I thought was a valid spelling). The usual spelling (and wikipedia entry) is spelt Csárdás . This is what I looked up before submission.
On the menu today, a high percent of Double defs and cryptics:
- Double defs : 5
- Cryptics: 3
- Anagrams: 3 1/2
- Assembly Clues : 10 1/2
- Homophones : 1
- Hiddens : 1
Definitions underlined in bold , synonyms in (parentheses) (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, other wordplay in [square brackets] and deletions in {curly} brackets.
| Across | |
| 1 | Strikes parts of sleeves (5) |
| CUFFS – Double def | |
| 4 | Poster wanting British lumberjack (7) |
| BLOGGER – B{ritish} + LOGGER (lumberjack) | |
| 8 | Loved touring north wearing jewellery (7) |
| ADORNED – ADORED (loves) contains N{orth}
I had CROWNED until I decided that I couldn’t make “crowed”=”loved” |
|
| 9 | After indications of displeasure time to improve (5) |
| BOOST – BOOS (indications of displeasure) + T{ime} | |
| 10 | Holder of valuable papers to conclude trial quickly (8,4) |
| DISPATCH CASE – Double def, second one being cryptic
I didn’t actually know what one was, apparently it’s a thin case used for carrying business documents and papers, has roots in diplomatic and military contexts. Less boxy than a briefcase, I think. |
|
| 12 | Random hissing not shifting (6) |
| STATIC – Double def | |
| 13 | Gather supporters with alcohol in Irish party (4,2) |
| DRUM UP – DUP (Irish Party) contains RUM (alcohol) | |
| 16 | Humiliatingly tuck into alphabet soup? (3,4,5) |
| EAT ONES WORDS – Cryptic
If one eats Alphabet Soup, then one is actually eating words. Or more likely eating a random selection of letters. |
|
| 18 | Sin that precedes the fall? (5) |
| PRIDE – Cryptic, based on the phrase “Pride goes before a fall”
PRIDE is one of the 7 deadly sins. The phrase is derived from a biblical verse in the Book of Proverbs. “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18) |
|
| 20 | Stupidly respect ghost (7) |
| SPECTRE – (RESPECT)* [stupidly] | |
| 21 | Poet who’s extravagant? (7) |
| SPENDER – Cryptic definition
Stephen Spender: English poet, novelist, and essayist in the 1930s. One of his most famous quotes is: “Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.” |
|
| 22 | Railway company carries one for ship (5) |
| LINER – LNER (Railway company) contains I(one)
In 1948, British rail absorbed LNER, LMS, GWR and Southern Railways. After later privatisation new companies adopted the old names, so LNER, GWR and Southern still exist today. Poor old LMS is mainly covered by Avanti these days. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | No end of elan following Russian ruler’s Hungarian dance (7) |
| CZARDAS -CZAR (Russian ruler) + DAS{h}
Getting the right synonym for “elan” made this hard, along with believing that CZARDAS could ever be a word. As noted above CSARDAS is the more common spelling: and as we all now, the name derived from csárda (old Hungarian term for roadside tavern and restaurant). |
|
| 2 | Makes fun of heaven in unreasonable delight (5,8) |
| FOOLS PARADISE – Double def
First one cryptic, if you make fun of heaven you “fool paradise”. Expression popularised by Shakespeare’s usage: Nurse uses it when warning Romeo not to mislead Juliet, saying “if ye should lead her into a FOOLS PARADISE, as they say, it were a very gross kind of behaviour”. Not his best line, to be sure. The “as they say” seems to imply that Will wasn’t sure of the phrase himself. |
|
| 3 | Where displaced Romanians may go? (3,6) |
| SAN MARINO – (ROMANIANS)* [displaced] | |
| 4 | Bob shortly cut up section of dress (6) |
| BODICE – BO{b} + DICE (cut up) | |
| 5 | Object in regalia, gold and black (3) |
| ORB – OR (Gold) + B{lack}
As in ORB and Sceptre, coronation regalia, along with odd stuff we saw last year like the spurs and the glove that looked like Camilla’s oven mitt. |
|
| 6 | Possessions at marina damaged: he stops to help? (4,9) |
| GOOD SAMARITAN – GOODS (Possession) + (AT MARINA)* [Damaged]
Both my children were born at Good Samaritan hospital. |
|
| 7 | Ceremony sounds correct (4) |
| RITE – Sounds like RIGHT(correct) | |
| 11 | One on the wagon making athletic movement (9) |
| CARTWHEEL – Double def, first one semi-cryptic | |
| 14 | Chemist’s artificial gems, usually rubies at first (7) |
| PASTEUR – PASTE (artificial gems) + U{sually} + R{ubies}
The term “paste” in jewelry refers to the paste-like mixture used in the manufacturing process. The components of the mixture are combined wet to ensure thorough and even distribution |
|
| 15 | Device responsive to signal processing snores (6) |
| SENSOR – (SNORES)* [processing] | |
| 17 | Address to cat cut short work (4) |
| OPUS – O PUS{s}
The archaic/poetic O used to address someone. Vocative case for those who like their Latin. This O for the Vocative case is famously mentioned in Winston Churchill’s autobiography “My Early Life”, where he recounts his confusion as a schoolboy learning Latin: |
|
| 19 | Finish immersed in splendour (3) |
| END – Hidden in splendour | |
Quite a bit here that I NHO (SPENDER, PASTE, LNER, etc.), which made for a slow somewhat frustrating solve. A couple of a-ha moments unlocked the grid eventually, although I also wrote CSARDAS (I didn’t realise that CSAR was wrong, apparently TSAR/CZAR are acceptable transliterations).
12:40. I took a long time to decide between DESPATCH and DISPATCH. Would they both be considered correct? Thanks for parsing LINER- I thought LINE was maybe the railway company( as in The Rock Island Line).
I think DESPATCH CASE ought to be equally valid as all the usual sources have ‘dispatch’ and ‘despatch’as alternative spellings. In the UK the one in most general use is ‘dispatch’ but in Government related matters ‘despatch’ is used e.g. when ministers address the House of Commons they stand at ‘the Despatch Box’. I hesitated over which to choose but came down on the side of DISPATCH.
Fortunately I knew CZARDAS from Liszt’s Hungarian Dances amongst others.
9 minutes for this one.
Isn’t it limited to DISPATCH, by the second clue, though?
Not sure what you mean, PG, would you care to explain more?
A dispatch case, is a quick hearing, open-and-shut is another term, for it.
We’d never write ‘despatch case’, about a court case. So, ‘dispatch’ fits the second part of the clue.
I dithered over CZARDAS too–I probably would have used CS if called upon to spell the word, but ‘Russian ruler’ settled it. DNK LNER, but DNTK (didn’t need to know). Alice addresses the mouse, ‘O Mouse’, since she had seen it in her brother’s Latin grammar. I wasted some time struggling to recall DISPATCH. 6:55.
A definition such as ‘Hungarian dance’ is guaranteed to make the heart sink, and so it proved. I got the CZAR bit ok and ended with DAS after running CZARELA past the check function. 9.27, which I thought was ok considering I am solving in trying circumstances – in the waiting room of a car dealership while my car is being serviced. With a loud TV blaring. Anyway, a nice crossword which helped pass the time, thanks Merlin and…who? Here it’s Mara, on the Times site it’s Teazel.
Definitely by Teazel. I have edited the heading.
Another with CSARDAS. Thought 2D was from an anagram of ‘fun of heaven in’. Saw STATIC early for not shifting but couldn’t get the random hissing till I saw the blog!
Thanks Merlin and setter.
8.40 with a typo (OOB)
Got the rest but not a fan of the dance thing which wasn’t crystal clear enough for a Mephisto word in the Quickie (imho).
Thanks M & M
NHO DISPATCH CASE or CZARDAS.
The clue for PRIDE seemed hardly cryptic but just an allusion to a very well-known saying as could be found in any non-cryptic puzzle. The other biblical allusion, to the fable of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden, hardly crossed my mind.
Not a great week so far with two DNFs in a row.
DESPATCH and CZARDAS were both basically toss-ups, implying an Expected Error Count of one, which is exactly what I got. Probability rules.
Thanks Merlin and Teazel.
Ha. Nicely put.
Opened a new tab to check the dance and luckily never thought of dEspatch. GK tested by SPENDER and BODICE. Bit of a grind but all green in 16.59.
I’m asking for the referee here. In His Majesty’s Government at Westminster, the boxes used by ministers to hold “valuable papers” for the good running of this country are DESPATCH boxes. This is a British newspaper. No argument.
Following my earlier comment I’ve now concluded that both spellings have to be acceptable answers. It’s certainly true that the UK Parliament website uses the older spelling ‘despatch’ throughout even though ‘dispatch’ is the more usual spelling away from government business. But from the setter’s POV, both Chambers and the ODE have entries for ‘Dispatch Box’ when referring to the one in the Commons where ministers stand when delivering statements. They also have DISPATCH CASE. ‘Despatch box’ and ‘despatch case’ are only covered by the general ‘alternative spelling’ entry following the header word ‘dispatch’.
When there’s an valid alternative spelling and the letter is unchecked, that feels a bit sub-optimal to me.
An extraordinary puzzle with not just one but two “coin-toss” words with alternative spellings, and in both cases the letters in question are unchecked. I thought this wasn’t meant to happen, and I would certainly agree with anyone feeling aggrieved at pink squares for either. I guessed lucky with CZARDAS and unlucky with DeSPATCH, but don’t consider this a DNF.
That apart, a gentle ramble through some interesting clues for a 13 minute solve. I parsed FOOL’S PARADISE as a simple construction clue, with “makes fun of” = fools and “heaven” = paradise, and I had to drag the poet SPENDER out of deep recesses (slight MER at suggestion that all spenders are extravagant; one can spend money carefully and sparingly too).
Many thanks Merlin for the blog
Cedric
I totally concur regarding the coin tossing. And because the pink square appears, as with my frequent typos, it doesn’t always mean that you didn’t solve the puzzle correctly in your head – and that’s what matters in the end.
Thank you. And I notice on re-reading earlier comments that I have complied perfectly with the GEEC law – that is, the Galspray Expected Error Count
I enjoyed this but having a 50/50 guess for the second letter of the unknown dance took the shine off it somewhat. Fortunately I went the right way and my ignorance helped me with the ‘correct’ spelling of DISPATCH BOX.
Started with CUFFS and finished with SENSOR in 8.31 with LINER unparsed.
Thanks to Merlin
My cry of “heads” came up both times, but I thought that these two clues totally ruined an otherwise decent puzzle.
FOI CUFFS
LOI BODICE
COD CARTWHEEL
TIME 3:34
3:34?!!!! Not humanly possible surely?! 🙃
Just to depress you further, the QUITCH shows that Mohn did this in a lively 01:45 …
Yes – he got delayed in bottom left corner . . .
It’s quite extraordinary, he must just see all the answers without having to think about them. I occasionally get a brief flash of that experience but never for an entire crossword.
Totally agree! I just transferred the very slow hard copy (DNF-as not familiar with Eastern European dance spelling etiquette) to digital, it took me 3.19. Even without the Claret, I doubt I could do it much quicker. Include reading the clues and a whole lot of head scratching, I’m rarely under 20 mins. I still come back every day for more.
Thanks all
18 mins of thoughtful solving, didn’t think twice about the DISPATCH CASE but pondered much over the dance, fortunately came home safely.
16A was a PDM when I had the crossers to see that WORDS must be at the end, but even with crossers, the preceding parts evaded me for some time; doh…
I liked OPUS, and the blog entry – I remember a similar incomprehension as to why Romans spoke to their furniture, and why it was thought I needed to know how to do so.
11:12
I was lucky with the spelling of CZARDAS and DISPATCH.
I have no idea why the name of the “Late but Never Early Railway” is frequently revived for the East coast main line, whilst the “ell of a mess” name has never been revived for the West Cost line.
Thanks Merlin and Teazel
Though Teazel thought this rather nifty,
His cluing now looks pretty shifty:
Alternative spellings
Were fairly compelling –
So which one is right? Fifty-fifty!
Submitted off leaderboard because I thought this was a bit unfair. Got one right and one wrong, as per galspray’s prediction. Many thanks Merlin.
👏🏻
Bravo!
CUFFS / CZARDAS a nice friendly start – harder to continue but gradually they all went in. LOI DISPATCH CASE (NHO); spelling usually my strong point but couldn’t decide whether it was DIS- or DES-, fortunately plumped correctly. NHO artificial gems = PASTE, so thank you, Merlin. (Are you US? I think it’s jewellery here)
If memory serves, the likes of Sherlock and Poirot couldn’t throw a brick without hitting a murderer who mistook “paste” for real diamonds. Statistically speaking, paste jewellery must have been a leading cause of death in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Enjoyable and amusing but had to look up the Hungarian dance in the end as my first guess (Czarela) was wrong. After that I solved LOI STATIC.
Started off well with CUFFS, EAT ONES WORDS and SPENDER.
DISPATCH CASE took a while, owing to original mistake with 1d.
Liked DRUM UP, BLOGGER, PASTEUR, CARTWHEEL and OPUS.
‘Pride goes before a fall’ was often quoted to me in childhood!
Thanks vm, Teazel.
DNF with 14 mins on the clock. I had DeSPATCH (never even contemplated DISPATCH) and CZARD_S. I biffed STATIC from ‘not shifting’. I couldn’t parse it (completely missed the double definition) so I was equally hesitant about the S at the end of the dance as well as the second letter possibility. To top it all, I got really bogged down in the SW corner with PRIDE/OPUS. Not a good day !
25:51 with the CsARDAS coinflip lost. Half my time spent on that left side where I was on the verge of quitting at 21mins with BODICE, DISPATCH-CASE, STATIC and the dance remaining. Glad to have dug it out and finished off.
Not a great choice of puzzle for the QC with all that specific GK and typical Teazel cluing. This is 3rd consecutive Teazel puzzle I’ve taken in the 25-30min range which is now what I consider taking too long. There were a few nice clues in there but I can’t remember what they were other than CARTWHEEL.
Guessed right on the Z and the I, so I was all green.
I understand that if you put a time at the top or bottom of your spiel here, the QUITCH will pick it up and include it in your statistics. It’s happened to me a couple of times where I’ve included a time for a fat finger DNF and it has ended up in the statistics.
STATIC LOI.
7:03
5:00
I didn’t even think that the Russian ruler would be anything other than CZAR given that I had the first two checkers. DISPATCH came into my head first as well, with the notion that DISPATCHing, i.e., killing someone, would be done quickly. In comparison, the rest of the grid was very accessible.
Thanks Merlin and Teazel
I got stuck on 1d and 12a having done the rest of the puzzle in my normal time.
In the end I resorted to a careful analysis of the clue to get CZAR and then thought of DAS/H. I did not expect it to be correct.
Happily I chose STATIC instead of STASIS having missed the double definition.
I was a DISPATCH man but I often wonder about the spelling in the phrase ” mentioned in dispatches” and it seems both could be correct.
So I finished all correct in 23 minutes.
Some of this was OTT for a QC.
COD to OPUS.
David
I went for the right option with CZARDAS but was another who opted for DESPATCH CASE. I won’t count it as a DNF as it appears to be agreed by my fellow solvers as an acceptable alternative. My solving of the puzzle was broken not once but twice by the telephone ringing, so I regard it as an achievement to finish inside my target at 9.46.
17m
Had to do this in two sittings.
Struggled with dispatch case, static, and LOI czardas thinking of a synonym for elan.
COD San Marino/opus.
1d ruined this puzzle for me, as I’d NHO the Hungarian dance and never got anywhere near DASh for elan. DISPATCH CASE was also a NHO and I wouldn’t have solved STATIC in a million years. So, I timed out at 40 minutes with those 3 clues unsolved and the difficult-to-banish feeling that I should never have started.
Thanks to Merlin for the blog.
5:30 but another with DESPATCH, although I got CZARDAS correct. Thanks Teazel and Merlin.
DNF
Gosh, what a stinker. No idea on the NHO Hungarian dance and having convinced myself wearing jewellery was CROWNED I was never going to get it right.
The rest wasn’t overly easy either (DISPATCH CASE, SPENDER annd FOOLS PARADISE all caused problems) and the clock was over 30 minutes before I entered my random guess for 1DN.
Eek, two I couldn’t get today! I’m really struggling with dash as a synonym for elan. Chambers has it as vigour and style, so surely dashing not dash? In which case ‘no end of’ doesn’t work? Maybe it’s just me…
This one got me along with Spender. Got lucky with dispatch case and had to biff Pasteur, not knowing paste was a synonym for artificial gem!!
I enjoyed Fools Paradise
I thought this was hard. Thanks guys
Technical DNF as I checked the NHO CZARDAS and was able to correct the ‘S’. Liked OPUS, FOOLS PARADISE and EAT ONES WORDS. Tricksy clueing from Teazel made for a rather long, yet ultimately satisfying solve. Many thanks Merlin.
It’s csárdás in Hungarian. In my Hungarian dictionary the English gloss is czardas.
I knew CZARDAS from my own efforts to strangle Vittorio Monte’s Czardas on the violin. I also fondly remember Max Jaffa playing the piece on a TV show many years ago and plunging his bowing hand into a bucket of water after finishing. It’s got some quite quick sections in it! DISPATCH, however, was a toss up. I fortunately went the setter’s way (not going to say the right way!). Otherwise, from CUFFS to FOOLS PARADISE in 7:40. Thanks Teazel and Merlin.
Czardas, by Nero and the Gladiators (!) was one of my first records back in 1961… I did like guitar groups. It’s on Youtube if you want to enjoy it!
Yes, that’s the piece. Definitely a different interpretation though! 🤣
I would have thought the Russian ruler settled it – it is common to see either Czar or Tsar, but I’ve never seen Csar.
An enjoyable 5.45 minutes.
Thankfully the despatch spelling never crossed my mind, and I never knew that czar/tsar could be spelt csar, so bear traps missed due to good fortune.
COD to Opus as it made me smile.
Thank you Teazel and Merlin.
Finished in 24 mins, but a couple of errors: 1dn “Czardas”, where I put Csardis”, and mispelling “Dispatch” – although I note using an “e” could be accpetable.
Didn’t think this was straightforward, and even longer answers such as 2dn “Fools Paradise” and 16ac “Eat One’s Words” took a while to get. My knowledge of poets is limited, but 21ac “Spender” was achievable.
FOI – 1ac “Cuffs”
LOI – 1dn “Csardis” (incorrect)
COD – 4ac “Blogger” – mainly as it brought back memories of the internet when it was a more gentle place.
Thanks as usual!
O what a hard QC! Is Teazel the hardest of them all?
Enjoyed the blog more. Thanks Merlin.
Feeling dog-in-the-manger I entered C-blacksquare-ardas, as the unch has 2 valid spellings, S & Z. Obv I was looking at the dictionary at this point, so DNF anyway.
Otherwise quite hard IMHO, with a wide range of “tricks”. Didn’t think I would get 13a DrumUp, but with all the checkers it was easy in the end.
On railways GWR was revived, and not sure if it is Great Way Round or God’s Wonderful Railway. The Shunt’em Crash’em & Rollover (London Chatham and Dover) gets my ROD (railway of the day.)
Oh, and my mum who was quite a bit younger than Churchill learned “O Queen”, whilst I was just as confused as Winnie on “O Table”. Regina declines exactly as Mensa, so why did the author(s) plump for the table?
One of my friends said his brother was asked in a school test “What does GWR stand for?”. He had no idea so plumped for Good Work Ron 😀
15 minutes, all parsed. Never considered ‘csardas’ as a possibility just as I never considered ‘dispatch’ – I always spell it with an E. Didn’t know the poet but the answer was obvious with the checkers.
FOI – 1ac CUFFS
LOI – 12ac STATIC
COD – 11dn CARTWHEEL with EAT ONES WORDS a close second
Thanks to Teazel and Merlin
19:55 but feel I would be more comfortable with the cartwheel rotation of the slow coach on this particular schlep. Like others, several DNKs but got lucky through ignorance of the older spelling of dIspatch and the alternative of cZar. Hey big spender sprung to mind so that helped with the unknown poet and Lighter had too many letters so I chucked in Liner in the hope that LNER might be L…. Northen Eastern Railway.
All in all relieved to get to that bit in splendour
Wizard as always from Merlin and a prickly tease from Teazel
I concur that two disputable spellings made things more difficult, though not irretrievably so, I’m not anexpert on Hungarian dances, couple of quick cheats got me there in the end, but as per mostthis week, I thought a bit beyond’quickee’ definition, that or I’m getting feebler minded.
18.57 I was slow throughout. DISPATCH CASE took far too long and the NHO CZARDAS was LOI. Having been faster than verlaine on the concise I was feeling very pleased with myself. PRIDE does come before a fall. Thanks Merlin and Teazel.
P.S. I was lucky. I know that dictionaries show despatch and dispatch as synonyms, but I’ve only seen despatch used with the plain meaning of to send, not to send quickly. So dispatch felt like a better fit for the second half of the clue.
A DNF in 15:30. NHO the dance: tried, checked and of course failed on csarela. Perhaps should have thought of dash but didn’t so we revealed it. Needed 1d for both the D and the S. At least we jumped the right way on DISPATCH! Thanks Merlin and Teazel.
A real stinker but usual for Teazel. Not sure he should be setting QC’s but then what do I know. Never a good day when I see his name but I persevere ☹️
25 minute solve for me, CZARDAS no problem (but it’s CS in Hungarian) and DESPATCH along with many others. Now, mentioned in despatches and the despatch box in the House are pretty good pointers: surely DESPATCH is perfectly valid. As for elan, you can say of anyone that they ‘cut a dash’ in society, and behaving with elan springs to mind. My LOI was EAT ONES WORDS: I was convinced that alphabet soup had to be minestrone so I spent ages trying to find the anagram. Schoolboy error by an oldie – one never learns! Thanks Teazel and Merlin
Pleased to finish this in a reasonable time. We do not worry about the fine detail of the spelling eg 1d and 10a, only too happy to get the answers even if the spelling is not exactly correct.
The only acceptable spellings of the erstwhile Russian autocrat are TSAR and CZAR, which means that there is only one possible spelling of CZARDAS in this puzzle. As Kevin says, way at the top here.
Enjoyed though DNF in 17:42 because NHO CZARDAS (or csardas) and couldn’t see the DAS from wordplay. Somehow “no end of” as an instruction to remove the last letter doesn’t sit well. Maybe I’m just grumpy, it’s been known to happen. “The German following Russian ruler’s …” would have been gettable for me. Maybe too gettable?
The “wanting” in 2A misdirected me for a pretty long time, looking for a synonym of “poster” containing a B to remove getting a kind of lumberjack. Heyho, live and learn. EAT ONES WORDS and OPUS were very cute. NHO LNER so lucked out there.
Thanks Teazel and Merlin. “As we all know”, haha. Churchill anecdote, 😂.
DNF in 23:01, courtesy of the Hungarian dance. I wasn’t enormously happy about being expecting to turn “no end of elan” into DAS, but on reading the blog that seems to be the least of its problems.
Thank you for the blog!
An easier than usual Teazel IMHO but great fun
All done in
22.00
Having solved this puzzle in about 90 minutes I’m feeling like the clue to 19D. I’m also smiling at the thought that my time was ten times longer than jackkt’s 🙂
NHO CZARDAS, but knew CZAR, and with D-S had to guess a vowel and then saw elan = DASH, so got it right! On the DESPATCH side of the argument. Not too difficult otherwise for a Teazel.