Felix has given us a terrific mixture here – some gimmes like APE and DAWN, and some absolute snorters like BAGPIPER and EFFIGY. Ideal, to my mind, since the tough ones had a whiff of the 15 but you got enough checkers from the easy ones to help out. I was pushed over target and clocked in at 09:54. How did you get on?
(Because it’s Felix I’m assuming that there’s a Nina … but I can never see them and I didn’t today, despite googling Norwegian pop trio AHA to see if they’d written a song called FOOLPROOF GUACAMOLE. They hadn’t. Put me out of my misery, Nina-spotters!)
[On edit: and of course the Hive Mind has produced the answer. There’s actually a double-Nina here, both revolving round “PIPER at the gates of DAWN”. That was the title of Chapter 7 of “Wind in the Willows”, and it was then borrowed by Pink Floyd as the title of their first album. Felix has worked in references both to Grahame’s book and the Floyd. So: references to the book that I now see are PORTLY, RATTY and MOLE (in [guaca]MOLE), because the whole chapter is about Ratty and Mole going off to search for a missing young otter called Portly; and references to the album that I now see are ASTRONOMY DOMINE[eers] (first track on side 1) and BIKE (last track on side 2). There are also a couple of clues which have a flavour of each – “Proudly claim son has been placed in sailing craft” feels like a nod to Grahame because the chapter ends with Portly being placed in Ratty’s (rowing) boat to be claimed by his parents; and “Sort of rock music, trendy, to pass on” feels like a nod to Pink Floyd. There may be others! Many thanks to Sawbill, Ed Freshpot and simjt for spotting what I had missed.]
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Large journal exchanging two letters for Scottish player? (8) |
| BAGPIPER – this has nothing to do with Macbeth, it turns out (ahem). Instead, a “large journal” could be called a “big paper”. Swap over the I and the A (“exchanging two letters”), and you have BAGPIPER, the player of Scotland’s most famous contribution to world music. For people who start with 1a that was like getting a 95mph inswinging yorker first ball – I just couldn’t see how it worked and it ended up as my LOI. What a start. | |
| 5 | Start doing art with numbers, first of all (4) |
| DAWN – this, on the other hand, was a half paced loosener outside off stump. It’s the first letters (“first of all”) of “doing art with numbers” and was crashed to the boundary for my FOI. | |
| 9 | Triumphant exclamation from a bowler, maybe, cut short (3) |
| AHA – I’m going to stop with the cricket stuff, despite this clue being given a cricket surface. It’s A for “a” + HA for “a bowler, maybe, cut short”. A bowler is a type (that’s why it says “maybe” – it’s a definition by example) of hat and if you remove hat‘s last letter (“cut short”) it’s HA. I can’t believe I’ve written so many words to explain a three letter answer. | |
| 10 | Behaves imperiously: might be resolved to modernise (9) |
| DOMINEERS – an anagram (“resolved”) of “modernise”. | |
| 11 | Reversing right, declares a line for crossing (9) |
| TRAVERSAL – “reversing right” = TR, because that’s RT (“right”) backwards. “Declares” = AVERS. A = “a”, and then L = “line”. | |
| 12 | Old boxer appearing regularly in tabloid (3) |
| ALI – Every other letter (“regularly”) of tAbLoId. I suppose that Muhammad Ali (1942-2016), aka “The Greatest”, could be described as an “old” boxer, given that his last professional fight was in 1981, but ancient actors/actresses regularly get clued without the “old”. Anyway, fair enough. Fight fans will always wonder about peak Ali vs peak Tyson. | |
| 13 | Quietly, Henry and I call (5) |
| PHONE – “quietly” = P, “Henry” = H and “I” = ONE. | |
| 15 | Irritable Democrat, typically somewhat diminished (5) |
| RATTY – a hidden word, indicated by “somewhat diminished” inside “DemocRAT TYpically”. | |
| 17 | Poem due to be recited (3) |
| ODE – a homophone (indicated by “to be recited”) of owed (“due to”). | |
| 18 | Infallible pudding and what comes with its eating? (9) |
| FOOLPROOF – oh what a gorgeous clue. FOOL is a pudding, and the PROOF of any pudding lies in the eating, as the proverb remarks. Wonderful stuff and my COD. “Nothing can be said to be foolproof until it’s been tested on an actual fool”, as a former senior colleague used to say when a Judge failed to agree with one of his ideas. | |
| 21 | Stretches, so elegant, when exercising (9) |
| ELONGATES – an anagram (“exercising”) of “so elegant”. | |
| 23 | Many times shorter? (3) |
| OFT – I don’t really understand this. OFT is “Short for often” (Collins), and “often” means “many times”. If that’s all that’s going on it’s not much of a clue; if there’s more, I can’t see it. | |
| 24 | Cycle from outskirts of Ballyclare, about one kilometre (4) |
| BIKE – the “outskirts of Ballyclare” are its first and last letters, BE, inside which we put IK for “one kilometre”. | |
| 25 | From Ynys Môn, somehow emerges finally safe and sound, for example (8) |
| SYNONYMS – an anagram of “Ynys Mon” (indicated by “somehow”), + S for the last letter (“finally”) of “emerges”. Clever definition, though the grammar of the surface has been strained to breaking point. Ynys Môn, I now discover, is the Welsh name for what I have always known as Anglesey. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Proudly claim son has been placed in sailing craft (5) |
| BOAST – S for “son” inside “BOAT”. I protest against BOAT as a straight definition for “sailing craft”; I have a fishing boat and it most assuredly is not a sailing craft. This should have been a definition by example. | |
| 2 | Ordered cola — a mug — and dash of exotic savoury paste (9) |
| GUACAMOLE – anagram (indicated by “ordered”) of “cola a mug”, plus E for “dash of exotic” (a little bit of “exotic”, here its first letter E). GUACAMOLE is mashed up avocado, tomatoes and other stuff according to taste. While visiting a northern chippy, Peter Mandelson is supposed to have pointed at the mushy peas and asked for “some of the guacamole”. I really hope that that’s true but I bet it’s apocryphal. | |
| 3 | Sort of rock music, trendy, to pass on (5) |
| INDIE – I cycled my way through hard rock, glam rock and prog rock before deciding to wait for checkers. IN is “trendy”, DIE is “to pass on” if you’re a euphemistic type. INDIE music is made by new bands working with small, independent record companies. | |
| 4 | Men he’s contrived to catch in net (6) |
| ENMESH – anagram (“contrived”) of “men he’s”. | |
| 6 | Primate taking a series of exercises (3) |
| APE – A + PE. | |
| 7 | Denial about still mostly being in a bad way (7) |
| NASTILY – NAY = “denial”, which goes “about” STIL (which is “still mostly”, that is all of “still” except its last letter). If you do something NASTILY you do it in a bad way. | |
| 8 | Horn of insect, large on queen (6) |
| ANTLER – ANT = “insect”, L = “large”, ER = queen. | |
| 12 | Studying stars eating well, but missing out on starter (9) |
| ASTRONOMY – {g}astronomy. Nuff said. | |
| 13 | Saying rambler is in lead (7) |
| PROVERB – the “rambler” is a ROVER, and (s)he’s inside (“is in”) PB for “lead”. PB (the chemical symbol for lead) comes from the Latin “plumbum”, from which we get “plumber” (since all water pipes used to be made of lead before we realised that it’s poisonous). | |
| 14 | Maybe guy’s iffy gel, mostly for styling (6) |
| EFFIGY – Sneaky sneaky sneaky. David Beckham was once hung in effigy after getting sent off against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup, but the most famous EFFIGY in these parts remains that of Guy Fawkes, ceremonially burned on bonfires all over Britain on the fifth of November every year. An anagram (“for styling”) of “iffy ge”, the last letter of “gel” being omitted because of the “mostly”. | |
| 16 | Stout or fortified wine left years (6) |
| PORTLY – PORT = “fortified wine” + L for “left” + Y for “years”. | |
| 19 | Nuisance having zero sauce (5) |
| PESTO – PEST + O. | |
| 20 | Olympian trio running faster mostly (5) |
| FATES – in Greek mythology, the FATES were three goddesses who lived on Mount Olympus: thus an “Olympian trio”, which is a perfectly fair but slightly elliptical definition. They were sisters, each with their own role in creating the infinite threads which represented every human life – one span it, one drew it out and the third cut it. The third sister was often portrayed as blind, to emphasise the random nature of death. Here they are found by an anagram (“running”, think colours running in the wash and getting muddled up) of “faste” (which is “mostly” “faster”). A clever clue. | |
| 22 | Approve going round a tree (3) |
| OAK – to OK something is to “approve” it, and that goes round A to give you Britain’s iconic tree. | |
Great blog and comments. I learnt a lot (of useless stuff of course!)
Anyway ‘I’ve got a bike …’ is now spinning on the juke box that is in my head…..
For those of you who love The Floyd as I do, take the opportunity to see Australian Pink Floyd. They are fantastic and put on such a good show. They’re playing at the Royal Albert Hall later this year. I’ll see you there.
Thanks Templar and Felix.
Got off to a flying start with bagpiper. Thought foolproof really clever. Struggled to parse ‘oft’. Thanks for enjoyable blog Templar.
DNF
I’m getting close to throwing in the towel and accepting that I am simply incapable of doing these puzzles.
I thought I had finished after 33 dreadful minutes, only to open the blog and realise I hadn’t completed 1ac. Would I have got it had I not seen the answer? Maybe. I saw BIGPAPER immediately but I thought the answer was the name of a deceased Scottish actor. That is how poor I am at these things!
I have had 3 DNFs this week and have taken 94 mins. I am nowhere near where I want to be, a long way behind those who began at the same time as (or even after) me, and fed up of finishing with a sense of failure and disappointment. This is my worst week in ages, and has left me feeling very unhappy and deflated. I can’t deal with being so bad at this.
Thanks for the excellent blog Templar.
PS 2/5 on Quintagram – abysmal effort, even at my pathetically low level. Very depressing.
I sympathise – I’ve long since accepted that I’m never going to be good at crosswords, and can only hope to gradually improve my level of incompetence. I just enjoy the clues that I can solve and shrug at the ones I can’t.
Thanks Wombat, much appreciated.
can someone please explain what a Nina is??
I got bagpiper in quickly and liked it, but was completely stumped by TRANSVERSAL and FOOLPROOF. And can’t believe I didn’t see that GUACAMOLE was an anagram.
Thanks for blog.
From the glossary (accessible from the Help menu at the top):
Nina – a hidden theme or motif. They are named after the daughter of US artist Al Hirschfeld , whose name he hid in most of his artwork. Ninas are common in Times concise crosswords. They seldom appear in the daily cryptic but they have been known. For an example, look up Saturday Times cryptic 25,741 (22 March 2014). Ninas are similar to themes, but are hidden.