Oink fooled me a few times this April Fools Day
Rabbit/Rabbit, Surgeon/Sturgeon, and Starling/Startling are all chestnuts where a T is added. Two came up today.
Definitions underlined in bold , synonyms in (parentheses) (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, other wordplay in [square brackets] and deletions in {curly} brackets.
| Across | |
| 1 | Might one leave you simmering for a bit? (8) |
| CANNIBAL – Cryptic definition
THis was tough for 1A, and was my LOI. I saw that CONVIVAL fitted, but that didn’t make a lot of sense. I didn’t really like this cryptic definition. |
|
| 5 | Greek God is brave enough to sacrifice daughter (4) |
| ARES – d{ARES} [is brave]
Surprisingly my FOI, even though I’ll admit its a toughie. Ares is known as Mars in the Roman world. And the planets got Roman names, even though they were of course known to the Greeks. So we could have had Hermes, Aphrodite, Ceres, Ares, Zeus and Demeter. |
|
| 9 | Grant leads to applicants discovering American university (5) |
| ADMIT – A{pplicants} D{iscovering} + MIT (American University)
MIT and YALE seem to be the main US universities with handy letters. The ETONs of the US, if you will. |
|
| 10 | Scared of Capone possibly carrying gun? (7) |
| ALARMED – AL (Al Capone) + ARMED (possibly carrying gun) | |
| 11 | Gesture indicating approval of Mafia boss’s return (3) |
| NOD – DON (Mafia boss) reversed
Struggled here as I thought the Mafia boss was the Capo. |
|
| 12 | Painting of crude lap dances (9) |
| LANDSCAPE – (LAP DANCES)* [crude] | |
| 13 | Communication from estate agent? (6) |
| LETTER – One who lets, an estate agent
LEASE, LET are common crossword tricks. |
|
| 15 | Servant out of bed, you say? It’s not true (4,2) |
| MADE UP – Sounds like “Maid up” | |
| 17 | Bird getting hold of cat’s tail? Astonishing (9) |
| STARTLING – STARLING (bird) contains {ca}T | |
| 19 | Drop long story with no conclusion (3) |
| SAG – SAG{a} (long story) | |
| 20 | Describe former plot to capture island (7) |
| EXPLAIN – EX (former) + PLAN (plot) contains I{sland} | |
| 21 | Dim-witted Henry bitten by bloodsucker (5) |
| THICK – H{enry} contained in TICK (bloodsucker) | |
| 22 | Quickly look in both directions (4) |
| PEEP – Palindrome [in both directions] | |
| 23 | Doctor eating last bit of halibut — or some other fish? (8) |
| STURGEON – SURGEON (doctor) contains {halibu}T | |
| Down | |
| 1 | A little pouch Anne left in vehicle (7) |
| CHANNEL – Hidden in pouch Anne left | |
| 2 | Traveller of sound mind, according to Glaswegian? (5) |
| NOMAD – No’ Mad (Not mad, with the scottish “Not” abbreviated to “No”) | |
| 3 | Erudite uncle a little the worse for wear (12) |
| INTELLECTUAL – (UNCLE A LITTLE)* [the worse for wear]
I spent ages looking at “erudite uncle” as the anagram, with “a little the worse” as the indicator. |
|
| 4 | Kitchen range fashionable once more (5) |
| AGAIN – AGA(Kitchen Range) + IN (fashionable)
Other ranges are available. |
|
| 6 | Run wild in anger about an MP (7) |
| RAMPAGE – RAGE (anger) contains MP
This leaves the A unaccounted for? Does “an MP” become “a MP”? |
|
| 7 | Creep left in team (5) |
| SIDLE – L{eft} contained in SIDE (team) | |
| 8 | Male’s merriment causing serious offence (12) |
| MANSLAUGHTER – MANS (Male’s) + LAUGHTER (merriment)
My first thought was MANSPLAINING, a very serious offence these days. |
|
| 14 | Tiring journey of a priest abroad (7) |
| TRAIPSE – (A PRIEST)* [abroad] | |
| 16 | Hide from oinking creature? (7) |
| PIGSKIN – ?
Don’t understand this one. Is there a word missing for KIN? Hide from oinking creature’s family? (7), works better. |
|
| 17 | Zest returns after small nap (5) |
| SLEEP – S{mall} + PEEL (zest) reversed | |
| 18 | Local extremely ignorant, don’t you think? (5) |
| INNIT – INN (local) + I{gnoran}T
INNIT is a colloquial British English contraction that derives from the phrase “isn’t it?” Can even be used as a filler word, like “like”, or “you know”, as in the wildly ungrammatical “I’m going down the shops, innit” |
|
| 19 | Arrest of witnesses announced (5) |
| SEIZE – Sounds like [announced] SEES (witnesses) | |
Lift and separate is needed for parsing 6dn, so A (an), MP rather than A MP (an MP).
The clue to PIGSKIN is a cryptic definition with no other wordplay.
This puzzle was a DNF as after 25 minutes I was still unable to solve 1ac so I gave up and resorted to aids. 10 minutes over my extended target time was enough for me to admit that I was beaten. I see from his comment on the 15×15 that plusjeremy also failed to finish the QC and wonder if we both missed out on the same clue.
This was the one that did for me: Might one leave you simmering for a bit? ( 8) .
DNF as I didn’t get ARES despite it turning up every so often. CANNIBAL came to me near the end after thinking about the ‘simmering’ part of the clue. Agree, PIGSKIN is just pig-skin rather than pigs-kin, and links back to Oink’s habit of including one clue in each of his crosswords that refers back to his name. Thought CHANNEL was a bit odd for vehicle. Liked SEIZE and MADE UP.
Thanks Merlin and setter.
I agree channel=vessel is odd. They both have metaphorical senses that are similar: “kickboxing was a channel/vehicle for her aggression”.
Thanks. Yes, I thought along the same lines. (I’m sure you meant to write vehicle)
St Francis famously coined it I think…
Also DNFed missing 1a, but was slow to finish the rest.
CANNIBAL was my LOI; not a great clue. Like Merlin, I spent a lot of time thinking 3d was (erudite uncle)*; if I’d started with (uncle a little)*, I could have got in under my 6′ target; as it was I had to settle for 6:29.
6:07, with LOI (and COD) CANNIBAL. Also liked LANDSCAPE. Spent time (like everyone else it seems) looking at the wrong anagrist for INTELLECTUAL.
Good puzzle, good blog. Thanks Oink and Merlin.
I’m another 1ac DNF. I don’t share Galspray’s enthusiasm for CANNIBAL, because I don’t like any clue that leaves no way to figure the answer out if no light bulb comes on to explain the definition. No problems otherwise, thanks Oink and Merlin.
Having failed on it myself, I tend to agree that CANNIBAL is not the best of cryptic clues as apart from the word ‘simmering’ there’s little or nothing to suggest the consumption of food. Perhaps ‘for a bit’ is intended to do so (otherwise why is it there?) but I don’t see how, unless ‘bit’ is a word meaning food, but I can’t find that it is.
A little dig into the archive reveals that in QC 2525, 13 November 2023, Oink gave us this clue:
Might he leave you to stew for a bit? ( 8)
The clue was mentioned 17 times in despatches that day with 7 posters, including myself, saying they particularly enjoyed it. One poster considered it a poor cryptic.
So why did I find it easier on that occasion? Leaving aside the method of cooking, the only difference is ‘he’ instead of ‘one’ which immediately suggests the answer will be a person/type of person. Another factor that may have had some bearing was that the checked letters were different: ?A?N?B?L. Perhaps B?L at the end was more helpful than C?N at the beginning.
Maybe it’s a stretch, but ‘bit’ is often used in connection with food, for example: ‘nice bit of smoked haddock’, ‘lovely bit of squirrel’.
Do I detect a fellow fan of Friday Night Dinner?
Yes. RIP Mr Ritter.
Indeed, a very sad loss
If it’s not been mentioned already, I think the trick with CANNIBAL is that “Might he” = “CAN-NI” …
…or at least that’s how I got there.
Well the idea certainly takes one a good way to the answer (“Might one” in today’s clue actually, which works better), and if I’d thought of it I’d surely have solved the clue instead of failing. But sadly it can’t be intentional wordplay because it wouldn’t account for the second N and it stops short with nothing to cover BAL.
I couldn’t parse the whole clue, but lucked into a hint for myself by accidentally thinking “might” could be “can” and “one” could be “I” …. which left an extra N in between but did lead me to figuring out Cannibal… lucky error, I guess!
I thought CHANNEL was one of the best concealed hiddens in an age – needed that before CANNIBAL finally emerged from C_N_I _A_ with a sort of odd mini-groan. Not that any of that matters because I put my L in the wrong place in SIDLE to give ‘slide’ which I didn’t think really meant ‘creep’ but almost does (in a slide into my DMs sort of way) but most certainly doesn’t fit with the end of ALARMED so that became ‘alarmei’ without me noticing. Two errors from three pink squares the reward. Not all green in 12.42.
I was another SLIDEr but fortunately ALARMED put me straight
Thanks Merlin, we fell into the same traps as you, probably accompanied by a Lirpa Loof from “That’s Life” many years ago!
Enjoyed the crude lap dances. We spent a long time in a united senior moment trying to come up with the name of a person who is named in a will to manage the dead person’s estate (estate agent), when executor finally popped out it was of course far to long, d’oh.
Thanks Oink
Oh dear, ‘Eros’ at 5a scuppered what was otherwise a fairly gentle solve – no excuses as I’m well aware of ARES, just my usual carelessness unfortunately.
A typically high quality puzzle from Oink, despite 1a, with my COD going to MANSLAUGHTER.
Thanks to Merlin
I put in EROS from -R-S (well it seemed inevitable) but then couldn’t work out where the D went!
I was another EROS which I couldn’t, for the life of me, pass.
Another Eros here … decided it was me that couldn’t see where the D went …
17:13 needing time in particular for ARES and CANNIBAL. I did enjoy CANNIBAL which – once I’d seen it – reminded me of other (quite a few I think) previous clues on the same lines. Thanks to Merlin and Oink
ARES scuppered my chances of a full grid.
I managed to get CANNIBAL by accident as the first part of the clue is “Might one” which I translated into CAN+I. Of course it doesn’t parse in the end, but it nudged me in the right direction! Perhaps it was the hand of another Greek god at work….
Pi ❤️
I did the same!
Very fast until it wasn’t – all bar 1A and 1D in under 6 minutes and then stumped for a further 7. CHANNEL is one of the best hiddens I’ve seen for a while, and CANNIBAL – well I always really struggle with &lit clues, because as LindsayO observes, there’s nothing to go on if you don’t see it. And without the C at the front and unhelpful checkers –N-I-A- there really was nothing to go on. The C from 1D though helped me to find it and led to a 12:51 completion, but I do not warm to the clue.
I also share Merlin’s MER at PIGSKIN – not the strongest clue, and the suggested alternative is a great improvement!
But other than that, an enjoyable puzzle. Many thanks Merlin for the blog
&lit clues you do have 2 ways to get the clue, the cryptic definition and the wordplay. This is just a cryptic definition.
I enjoyed this, and I’m with galspray on CANNIBAL being COD (as well as LOI), after SEIZE, which took a while. NOMAD made me chuckle. No problem with PIGSKIN – as Jack says, a simple def.
Great puzzle (in 9:24) – thanks Oink and Merlin
Tough for Oink, and as for others LOI CANNIBAL added minutes to the solve. I thought PIGSKIN was very good, my COD! Just shows how tastes vary.
Limped home in 10:19 for 1.8K and a Slow Day but to my surprise still in my usual midtable slot (QUITCH running at 118, though, currently giving me a perfect 100 WITCH).
Many thanks Merlin and Oink.
All fine except that dratted 1a – battled with it for 20 minutes and gave up. Had to be CHANNEL but = vehicle a bit far-fetched (though do see it’s possible, thank you Merlin). Got INNIT but amazed it’s in any self-respecting dictionary (no worse than the abomination helluva, perhaps). Liked PIGSKIN and MADE UP.
Thanks Martinu, helluva added to Cheating Machine. It is in Wiktionary I see. Innit already in both.
A pleasure! One of my pet hates, first seen in cheap American novels of the 1960s. Please educate me: what is Cheating Machine?
Really struggled with MANSLAUGHTER for no reason, and equally slow to get THICK – describes my brain this morning ☹️. Understood PIGSKIN as a simple definition. Had CAN- to start CANNIBAL for most of the time until a PDM. Thanks Merlin and Oink.
Merlin – think you mean Rabbi/Rabbit in your introduction. I was also slightly surprised to see 2 out of the 3 chestnuts with an added T in the same crossword.
(B)eaten by 1A.
😀
🤣
17:44
Fell in the SLIDE trap until I got ALARMED. Spent ages trying to make EROS work, but no addition of a D made any sense.
LOI was CANNIBAL.
Thanks Merlin and Oink
Eventually saw CANNIBAL, but DNF as NHO (D)ARES. Some head scratching involved in a couple of other cases too. 28:14 to finish – slower than average for me.
Yes, tougher than usual from Oink. I got on pretty well at first but was slowed by a few (all mentioned by others above). My last in were SEIZE, CANNIBAL (a biff once the crossers were available but aided by ‘simmered’) and ARES another lucky biff once I realised that the obvious possibilities didn’t fit. I was surprised by INNIT but it was easy to deduce.
My PDM of the day was NOMAD.
An interesting 19.22 in the end.
Thanks to Oink and Merlin.
20:59 for the solve. Really what everybody else has said about CANNIBAL/CHANNEL except I didn’t really understand why CHANNEL=vehicle despite spotting the hidden relatively quickly and therefore not feeling comfortable putting it in. Also a struggle on INTELLECTUAL so didn’t have much to work with on 1A. ARES also a hold-up and eventually BTPed. Up to those last four I’d taken about 11mins and my hopes of yet another good time on an Oink puzzle were being dashed. That pairing of the 1s leaving me feeling a little shortchanged on an otherwise slightly tough but decent puzzle.
Thanks to Merlin and the Oinkster
I normally get on well with Oink but I thought he was off beam today. 1a was typical – like a joke that only you get and doesn’t really work because you have to explain it. Definitely on his own planet today. Thanks though and Merlin of course!
DNF 1a and 5a. Glad I gave up because I would never have got the former.
Was obliged to start at the bottom where clues fell in increasingly quickly, so I began to enjoy myself. Liked PIGSKIN, MADE UP, SIDLE, NOMAD (COD). Anagram of Lap dancers made me smile at the unlikely contrast.
Thanks vm, Merlin.
All but three left to do with the ten minute mark approaching, and then the wheels fell off. A further five was spent solving INTERLECTUAL after I finally spotted where the anagram was, but a further five minutes on, I was no nearer solving 1ac and 1dn and on the 20 minute mark gave up. I actually thought of CHANNEL for 1dn but couldn’t parse it, and was not happy that channel described a vehicle. I was mad when I discovered that I’d once more missed the hidden.
As for CANNIBAL, I’m not sure I would have got it with all the checkers in place. I usually don’t question the validity of the setters clues, but I thought this was a little flawed.
I struggled a bit today. FOI SLIDE which held up progress until necessary correction.
However I did finish all correct: LOI CANNIBAL after a 5 minute alpha trawl to find words that fitted. The definition was not obvious. We have had Cannibal before and this was not the best clue, as noted by others.
ARES also held me up; got it from parsing and then remembered we’ve seen him before, not too long ago I think.
19 minutes in all.
Some excellent clues. Liked SEIZE and MANSLAUGHTER.
A tough Oink today.
David
After my struggles yesterday, I was more than a little relieved to find that others were in the same boat today. If even Jackkt needs to use aids for 1ac, then I’m fairly relaxed about a loi DNF due to the subtle difference in difficulty between he/one in the clue. CoD to 15ac, Made Up, for the smile. Invariant
11.29
I was asking for an Oink last week but this was at the quirkier end as others have said. I remember that earlier CANNIBAL clue (or at least remember being delayed by something similar) but it was still my LOI. Not sure it helped lift cryptic clues from the bottom of my favourite types of clues! And really struggled to understand the CHANNEL for vehicle (but now I like it).
Thanks Merlin and Oink
15 min mostly stewing over cannibal (which I was convinced was going to be some type of Italian stew or pasta…) until the PDM. I’m often done by pure cryptic as there’s very little else to hang it on
Pretty fair imho
Nice oinky and cheers Merlin
I see what you did
Four “easy” clues and the rest were beyond me. And it’s “all fools’ day” innit.
Was wondering whether Merlin was playing his April Fools’ Day joke with that Rabbit/rabbit opener but then I realised it’s just a typo 🤣
I didn’t see rabbit/rabbit using the android app.. Isn’t it “white rabbits” to pre rebuff “pinch punch first of the month”?
I assume it was a reference to RABBI/RABBIT e.g. “Endless talk from teacher (5)” type clue
6:00. Another who had SLIDE at first for 7D, took ages to see SLOI CHANNEL and then a while to spot LOI CANNIBAL, which, unlike some here, I rather liked. Thanks-you Oink and Merlin.
Another DNF.
Some good clues, but some were beyond me inc 1ac.
Thanks Oink and Merlin.
Dnf…
Was Oink always this hard? It feels a while since we last saw them, and I always thought they were fun and of average difficulty – but this felt difficult. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right vibe – but this wasn’t a great start to April.
With regards to 1ac “Cannibal”, my initial thought without any checkers was Saucepan – but the “you” element felt it was more personal rather than an object, and this was indeed the case.
FOI – 11ac “Nod”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 18dn “Innit” – hate the word, but a clever clue.
Thanks as usual!
Tougher than usual for an Oink! ARES was FOI. I was very slow in the NW. I spotted CHANNEL fairly quickly, but ADMIT and NOMAD were slow to arrive. CANNIBAL held out until the end and was LOI after a long ponder and sudden PDM. Had to write out the fodder for INTELLECTUAL. 9:49. Thanks OINK and Merlin.
Completed in about 25 minutes with 1a 1d and 5a last ones in.
Not sure about INNIT – it’s a word I sometimes hear that really makes no sense if you think about it, such as the other night in the pub one of the young staff was talking to his boss and he said “I need a haircut innit”
Anyway an enjoyable solve so thank you Oink and Merlin.
innit is shorter than the rhetorical “wouldn’t you agree”…
Found this both doable and enjoyable. LOI CANNIBAL held me up for a very long time before the eventual PDM. Couldn’t parse CHANNEL as, again, I failed to spot a hidden..! Arrived at ARES via ‘cares’ which didn’t quite work – thanks for the correct parsing Merlin. Really liked PIGSKIN (don’t see any problem with this at all) and NOMAD 😆 Thanks Oink and Merlin.
DNF, 5a Ares, I didn’t notice I had left it blank. Grrr!
1d Channel, guessed, could not parse, I often miss hiddens. Also not the first synonym for vehicle to come to mind.
6d Rampage took an amazingly long time to get, don’t know why.
COD 8d Man’s laughter.
16d Pigskin, I thought this was a simple def, very slightly cryptic.
Thanks Oink and Merlin.
I found this very tricky for an Oink! MANSLAUGHTER took me a long time, and my LOI of CANNIBAL required about five minutes all by itself. 24:43 in total.
Thank you for the blog!
Interrupted today, so my time of 20.21 is a little misleading, but the puzzle certainly took me longer than usual.
5 clues I couldn’t figure put today, and each time erudite comes up, look up the definition, then forget it when it next appears, not very clever of me! I like the cryptic definition clues, though I can’t always solve them, 1a I liked, when I read the blog and realised what it meant, though 16d feels like it could just be a regular definition? Thank you for the blog 😁
I should have given up after 20-25 minutes when I just had 1a and 1d to solve. Stupidly, however, I persevered for a further half an hour before they fell. CHANNEL was my POI when I finally saw that it might mean vehicle and CANNIBAL was my LOI after a long alphabet trawl.
Then, when I came here, I found that my eRoS at 5a was wrong and my extra half-hour of struggle was all for naught. I had NHO ARES and ‘dares’ didn’t even come close to entering my head for ‘brave enough’, so it was another DNF.
Many thanks to Merlin for the blog.
Failed on 1ac and had to use aids. In fact I struggled with most of the NW quadrant. I saw the hidden at 1dn reasonably quickly but didn’t enter it for a while as I thought vehicle as a definition was a bit loose. Pondered over 9ac for several minutes until I eventually entered 1dn. I was using the wrong anagrist at 3dn until explain went in. Also started with the wrong anagrist at 12ac (crude lap instead of lap dances) which also led to delay. In all 25 minutes for all except the simmering cannibal.
FOI – 11ac NOD
LOI – DNF
COD – 8dn MANSLAUGHTER with an honourable mention to 2dn NOMAD
Thanks to Oink and Merlin
DNF
Biffed EROS for my Greek God. I can usually breeze through on Oink but this was a head scratcher. Took ages to unravel LOI CANNIBAL. Even with the correct god this one would have hit the 30 minute mark.
Channel= vehicle? Fixated on Eros, but couldn’t figure out why, should have had sense to try alternative
So my contrived parsing of CANNIBAL with CAN = might and NIBAL as a homophone of nibble for a bit is not correct then? That clue, my LOI, took 3 minutes of my 8:08 solving time. Thanks Merlin – I didn’t like this cryptic definition either.
My other thought was that bail = leave but couldn’t get the wordplay to work.
9.59 This felt quite hard but I didn’t get stuck. STARTLING, STURGEON and ARES have all appeared recently, which helped, though ARES was still LOI. I did like PIGSKIN. Thanks Merlin and Oink.
The always amusing Oink had me baffled at first but I warmed up on the chestnutty bottom half and returned to finish with CANNIBAL (hoho) in 13:14, so no long, frustrating hold-ups. Lucky for me that after entering “slide” at 7d, my attempts to believe it was a good answer failed and I threw it out, recovering from my blindness on the way back. I liked “vehicle” for CHANNEL. I get tired of all those cars and buses, and it’s a classically slantwise definition.
I kind of sympathize with the INNIT haters but as a foreigner, I enjoyed learning the word and use it in my internal monologues often. As for being ungrammatical, it seems to play a similar role to n’est-ce pas, which I’ve never heard objections to. So much more convenient than wasting brain cycles on distinguishing between “isn’t he”, “didn’t they”, “aren’t you”, etc. etc.
Thanks Oink and Merlin.
19m
Tough. Was going to write my last few in but it is too long. LOI cannibal. Have been bitten by this before so should have got it sooner
COD landscape/intellectual.
DNF. All complete in about 15 mins save 1ac and then spent 5 fruitless minutes failing to get cannibal. Seeing that a lot of others also failed seems to confirm it wasn’t a great clue. Enjoyable otherwise.
Add me to the DNF because of cannibal. COD pigskin.
Thanks Oink and Merlin