Today we have yet another of the treasure trove of puzzles left to us by Richard Rogan, this time setting as Felix. When doing so as Felix he usually liked to include a Nina, but other than the opening two clues perhaps referencing Kinder Scout, a high moorland plateau in the Derbyshire Peak District (where I was, by a strange coincidence, for a brief walking holiday a few days ago – which is perhaps why it is in my mind), and references later to a Pass and a Dale, both also Peak District terms, I cannot see any continuation of that theme or indeed any other. But then “Statherby fails to spot the Nina” is the very definition of Not News. Perhaps someone else will see one.
No matter, it is a very fine puzzle, Nina or not, and it took me 11:20 to complete it, slightly under my par time to round off an up-and down week which contained both one of my fastest and two of my slowest complete solves. Some very good clues today, no obscure words, and I hope something for everyone, from the crustiest old buffer to those with a more adventurous temperament. 5D was my LOI, and when I saw it, it was also my COD.
A trigger warning is possibly necessary for 10A, for those scarred by the debate 9 days ago in Felix’s last offering for us (QC 2767) over whether an Imamate could be a Caliphate, but today’s clue is I hope a lot less controversial.
So, much enjoyed even if (as ever) any Nina escaped me. How did everyone get on with it?
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (abc)* indicates an anagram of abc, and strike-through-text shows deletions.
| Across | |
| 1 | More compassionate family, visibly embarrassed, retreating (6) |
| KINDER – KIN (family) + DER (ie RED, or visibly embarrassed, reversed, ie “retreating”). | |
| 5 | Small camera initially reveals people on patrol (6) |
| SCOUTS – S (small) + C (camera “initially”, ie first letter of) + OUTS (reveals). | |
| 8 | Bahraini travelling around east, having rejected an area in Ireland once (8) |
| HIBERNIA – (bahrini)*, the anagram indicator being “travelling” and the anagrist being Bahraini with one of the A’s removed (“rejected an area”), all surrounding E (“around east”). We have to lift and separate “an area in” from “Ireland” here – Hibernia refers to the whole of the island of Ireland not just a part of it.
Hibernia is the name the Romans gave to Ireland, an island they never invaded but were certainly aware of its existence. The Latin name is both a Romanisation of the classical Greek word for Ireland, Ἰουερνία (Iouerníā) and something of a pun, as its literal meaning in Latin is “land of winter”, the Latin for wintry being hibernus. A little unkind – it is not always cold and wet in the Emerald Isle, even if to people more used to the Italian climate it might have seemed so! |
|
| 9 | Fail to answer question — but go through? (4) |
| PASS – A DD, the first meaning referring to the UK TV quiz show Mastermind, in which contestants who could not answer a question were allowed to say “pass” and move swiftly on to the next, and the second to succeeding in an exam.
Mastermind first ran in 1972, more than 50 years ago, and is still running on BBC TV, making it one of the longest running TV quiz shows in the world. The setting (a blacked out studio with just a spotlight on the contestant) and the usually fiercely inquisitorial quizmaster are both intentional features of the programme’s design; the creator of the show, Bill Wright, said he “drew inspiration from my experiences of being interrogated by the Gestapo during World War II”. |
|
| 10 | Prayer leader 0ne’s meeting before noon (4) |
| IMAM – IM (one’s, ie one is, ie I am, ie I’m – phew) + AM (before noon).
The Muslim cleric makes a second appearance in consecutive Felix puzzles. Whatever his fixation with Islamic leaders might be, those who remembered and learnt from the debate last time about “one’s” representing “I’m” not “Is” will hopefully have not had too much trouble here. |
|
| 11 | Favourites look furtively back to see what marching band must do? (4,4) |
| KEEP STEP – PETS (favourites) + PEEK (look furtively) all reversed (“back”). | |
| 12 | Some brambles tore Ruth’s one stocking! (6) |
| STORER – A hidden, in brambleS TORE Ruth’s, with the hidden indicator being “some”. Nice misleading by Felix here: despite the connection with Ruth in the surface, stocking is as in stashing away, rather than ladies’ hosiery. | |
| 14 | Firmly maintain it’s wrong to admit mortal sin (6) |
| INSIST – (its)*, with the anagram indicator being “wrong”, containing (“to admit”) a second anagram, (sin)*, with the anagram indicator for this one being, er, “mortal”? At least I think that is the second anagram indicator, but if so it is certainly an unusual one. | |
| 16 | One who has deserted a post office, say (8) |
| APOSTATE – A PO (a post office) + STATE (say). An apostate is someone who has renounced or abandoned their religion, so in that sense they could be said to have deserted it. | |
| 18 | Valley seeing return of English youth (4) |
| DALE – E (English) + LAD (youth), all reversed (“return of”). | |
| 20 | No hawk swooped in America (4) |
| DOVE – Our second DD of the puzzle, with the first meaning a nod to the phrase “hawks and doves”, a way of categorising those who prefer an aggressive approach to an issue (the hawks) versus those who favour a more conciliatory one (the doves), and the second referring to the fact that in US English, the past tense of dive (ie swoop) is often “dove”, where British English would more usually have “dived”. And I await being told that “dove” is perfectly acceptable in British English too … | |
| 21 | How tithe gets distributed, making you intensely passionate (5-3) |
| WHITE-HOT – (how tithe)*, the anagram indicator being “gets distributed”. | |
| 23 | Not so fair, challenger trapping king (6) |
| DARKER – DARER (challenger, as in “I dare you”) with K (for King) inserted into it. | |
| 24 | Reduce amount of education, we hear (6) |
| LESSEN – Sounds like (“we hear”) a period of education or lesson. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Girl in Isle of Man’s peculiar way of speaking (5) |
| IDIOM – IOM (Isle of Man) with DI (random girl’s name) inserted into it.
As it happens the Isle of Man does have its own “peculiar way of speaking”, the language Manx, which is closely related to Irish and Scottish Gaelic. Returning to the surface, the Manx for Girl, I learn, is ben aeg, which literally means something like “the blessed young”. We all needed to know that … |
|
| 3 | Fantasist rearmed for exchanges (7) |
| DREAMER – (rearmed)*, the anagram indicator being “exchanges”. | |
| 4 | Manage to flee (3) |
| RUN – A straightforward DD, and my FOI. | |
| 5 | Drink with cider, or a nip of something poisonous? (9) |
| SNAKEBITE – Another DD, but in contrast to the last clue nothing like so straightforward, and it was my LOI.
Snakebite is a mixture of cider and lager (beer to those outside the UK), and for some reason it is much more intoxicating than the alcoholic strength of either component would suggest. It also has, in my opinion, a rather unpleasant taste, so “a nip of something poisonous” is for me a fair description of the drink as well as the second meaning of “a bite or nip from a poisonous snake”. And for that it gets my COD. |
|
| 6 | Colleagues filling shop, possibly (5) |
| OPPOS – A hidden, in shOP POSsibly, with the hidden indicator being “filling”.
Oppo is an interesting word with a variety of meanings. In British slang it can indeed mean colleague or friend, and this is the meaning Felix is targeting here. But it can also mean opponent or opponents, especially in a sporting context, as in “Let’s press home our advantage while the oppo are tiring”; this is taken further in US English where, via “opponent research”, oppo can also mean “damaging information about a rival political candidate”. And in military slang I am told it can mean “a sweetheart, partner, or spouse” – which could I suppose encompass both friend and opponent. A very versatile word! |
|
| 7 | Samples last of fragrant flowers (7) |
| TASTERS – T (last letter of fragrant) + ASTERS (flowers). We have to lift and separate fragrant and flowers here. | |
| 11 | A worker confused about an old conflict (6,3) |
| KOREAN WAR – (a worker)*, with the anagram indicator being “confused”, around (ie “about”) AN (from the clue). | |
| 13 | Odd bits from that poison chap’s pudding ingredient (7) |
| TAPIOCA – Every other letter (ie “odd bits”) from ThAt PoIsOn ChAp. | |
| 15 | Melancholy of elite troops holding post up (7) |
| SADNESS – SAS (elite troops, the Special Air Service) with DNES (ie SEND, or “post”, reversed, ie “up”) inserted into it. The verb meaning of post, as in post a letter/ send a letter. | |
| 17 | Utter chaos at the end, before climax (5) |
| SPEAK – S (chaos “at the end”, ie last letter of) + PEAK (climax). Another very fine lift and separate; we are not looking for complete chaos here, but a meaning for Utter as a verb. | |
| 19 | Going places east for free (5) |
| LOOSE – LOOS (ie places for “going”, as in going to the loo / toilet / bathroom / choose your own noun) + E (east). | |
| 22 | Bad to leave without wife (3) |
| ILL – |
|
I struggled with this one, with APOSTATE, HIBERNIA, & NHO SNAKEBITE holding out for a long time. 8:48.
I don’t know if anyone’s interested in the Jumbo, but you might want to give today’s a try.
The easy ones were easy, but then I nho of OPPOS, HIBERNIA and I had no idea what was happening with DOVE.
Lots of things are not Hawks lol
That’s true … but if you say to yourself “what’s the opposite of a hawk?” the answer appears PDQ!
Some pretty tricky stuff here, I didn’t get APOSTATE, SNAKEBITE, HIBERNIA or DOVE, with only the last being something I should probably get. APOSTATE was clued fairly but still not a term I’d ever heard of. I guess SNAKEBITE is a clue you either get or don’t, I didn’t know the definition so tried to use the first part as wordplay, getting nowhere. Then HIBERNIA is just wild, it’s a pretty hard clue with a very obscure definition. Also NHO OPPOS, but was pretty obvious.
Apart from those the rest was pretty simple, so for me, this puzzle was pretty unenjoyable, the main difficulty presenting through obscurity.
I had no idea what was going on in 5d and assumed I was looking for some poison ending in ‘ide’, like cyanide. I’d heard of the drink but not the ingredients. Everything else was pretty OK but I had assumed that 7a was missing an ‘R’ and that samples should have been samplers, but the penny dropped eventually. We do seem to be seeing a lot of Imams and associated words of late!
Thanks Cedric, great blog and interesting to know how the Mastermind format came about.
Enjoyable. Took me 30 mins, half of that prob trying to get to DARKER, LOOSE and DALE but got there in the end for a pleasing 3rd completion out of 6 for the week.
A couple of NHOs but all with fair clueing so you can get there anyway (OPPOS, TAPIOCA).
CODS due to satisfaction when you see them: SNAKEBITE, DOVE
Can I add to the Nina thoughts that the ‘Pass and a Dale’ mentioned by Cedric in the blog have ‘SNAKE’ and ‘E/DOVE’ respectively located near to them in the grid. Plus MAM TOR is hidden away in there too, so definitely seems like a Peak District theme of some sort going on.
What a brilliant nina (as others spotted above). KINDER SCOUT, MAM TOR, SNAKE PASS, DOVEDALE, DARK/WHITE PEAK …
I am so pleased that we have some of RR’s QCs left.
snap
9 minutes. I was surprised by ‘mortal’ as anagrind in 14ac, but then I was surprised to find it in the extensive list of anagrinds compiled by Chambers. It still didn’t ring true so I checked a thesaurus for synonyms that might suggest how it applied, and the three most likely candidates I came up with were ‘awful’, ‘cruel’ and ‘terrible’, all of which I’m sure we’ve had in the past and I would have accepted as anagrinds without question. But then I checked those three words in the Chambers list which runs to more than 1000 words and found that only ‘terrible’ was included! I’m left asking myself why seemingly obvious words such as ‘awful’ and ‘cruel’ would not be listed whilst ‘mortal’, which still seems a bit dodgy to me, is?
None of this spoiled my enjoyment of a fine puzzle, but I mention it more as a curiosity.
I missed the theme, so congrats to those who spotted it.
“Mortal” can mean very drunk (13th definition in Chambers but I couldn’t see it in Collins).
Thanks for this. If I’ve met it before I had forgotten.
As Michael McIntyre once commented, almost any word in the English language can mean drunk, especially if preceded by the word “absolutely”. “I was absolutely mortalled last night” is pretty clear even if one has never met it before!
Yes, I’ve heard him say that and he may well be right. I think I’d have got the idea if I’d seen ‘mortalled’ (even though the word doesn’t exist) but ‘mortal’ doesn’t seem so obvious. Following mohn’s posting above I looked it up and found it as ‘very drunk’ in all the usual sources. It simply hadn’t occurred to me.
Interesting, thanks Jack. I can’t believe that “awful” isn’t in that list, it feels like anagram 101!
Tina and Cedric starring in Mick Hodgkin’s article in the paper today. Tina spelled correctly, Statherby nearly – but still, no pedants here!
Great blog as usual Cedric, thanks Felix
Hey Zak is there a link?
Edit: it’s okay, turns out I know how to google 🙂 thanks for the heads up. It’s a tiny bit disconcerting to be perceived
Mick did very well, picking two of our favourite commenters though you both come from different directions.
Cedric being grumpier than usual, and Tina becoming the UN 😁
Sorry I missed that puzzle, i think i was on a plane or something.
Did ok with this one. Love a Cedric walk through (are we allowed to have favourites?), Lift and Separate (twice!) had me having flashbacks to the old adverts!
Saw Kinder Scout very quickly and the others at the end. Mrs RH still bears the mental scars of me hiking her up Mam Tor in our courting days (my memory of how steep is actually is rather let me down).
COD to Loose, loos as “going places” made us 😂
Finished in a pretty much par 25.10 after a quick start.
Thanks Cedric for the usual wealth of info
I enjoyed the puzzle, similarly the blog. Thanks Cedric, hat tip to Felix.
No problem with SNAKEBITE. The ‘bite’ fitted the checkers and a distant memory of the unpleasant combination of the whole brought back memories of the students’ union bar, yards of ale and other indulgences destined to render one inarticulate.
Hibs FC was originally formed by Edinburgh Irish. Hence emerald green strip.
LOI DOVE. Strange how the shortest words can take the longest time but result in an Aha of satisfaction.
Mainly gentle but with a sting in the tale.
I got into an awful mess with HIBERNIA where trying to take ‘an’ out of the fodder left me a letter short which added to my usual brain freeze when asked to identify Irish place names put my brain into shut down mode.
Entered LOI SNAKEBITE with a shudder as it brought back memories of snakebite and black from student days – an awful drink but very cost-effective!!
Finished in a slightly sluggish 9.47.
Thanks to Cedric
In my student days, adding blackcurrant to a SNAKEBITE made it a Purple Nasty. Fortunately not tried since my student days!
Oh my word. That takes me back to working in a pub in the 80s. “Snakebite and black”. Shudder.
Terrific Nina and I thought a very fun puzzle. COD to LOOSE, which made me chuckle. Yes I am puerile.
All done in 07:31, hit submit, sat back happily … and then got very cross as the DPS (in fact two of them) appeared. I’d fat fingered my POI into AOPSTATE. Rage and self-loathing ensued.
Great blog, Cedders, thank you.
A fine puzzle from the much missed Felix, and a blog from Cedric totally worthy of accompanying it. I spotted KINDER SCOUT only on entering my LOI, so realised what the theme was, and noticed some of the rest when reviewing my efforts afterwards.
FOI KINDER
LOI SCOUTS
COD RUN (beautifully concise)
TIME 4:41
5:33. Nice puzzle fro Felix. LOI DARKER. I enjoyed the Nina ending up with the same list as Sawbill above. Thanks RR and Cedric.
Nice puzzle which I finished in 8:09. I had no idea about the Nina before coming here.
DNF.
Totally missed Dove and snakebite. A fun puzzle though.
Thanks for blog. Makes it so much clearer
5.35 DNF
What Phil said – lovely puzzle and blog.
Another careless mistake with my LOI meant I bunged in TESTERS. Shame – the brain cells were decently fired up this morning.
31 mins…
Had the majority after 20 mins, but then ground to a halt around the SW corner with 16ac “Apostate”, 20ac “Dove” and 17dn “Speak” all taking an age. NHO of 6dn “Oppos” so was glad it was a hidden answer.
FOI – 1ac “Kinder”
LOI – 17dn “Speaks”
COD – 19dn “Loose”
Thanks as usual!
a very nice puzzle with an informative blog thankyou
Certainly a school day today with much NHO eg dove use in US, snakebite, Hiberian, oppo meaning anything other than opponent.
Another good one from the archive. I thought I was heading for a rare Felix sub-20, but I was slow to get the Ill/Lessen pairing , and then needed an alpha-trawl to get my loi, the four letter (🙄) Dove – one of those clues that made absolutely no sense until blindingly obvious.
I never bother looking for Ninas, but even I might have spotted this one. . .given enough time.
CoD to 19d, Loose, same reasoning as Templar. Invariant
22 minutes, DNF. I had DENE for the valley, ned being a Scottish word for youth, which made LOOSE impossible. I also spent ages on SNAKEBITE. Thanks Cedric.
As usual Nina not spotted but found this a lovely puzzle from Felix. Didn’t know that sense of OPPOS. Liked DOVE because when I first read the clue I thought ‘what???’ but then I thought of US version of swooped and it all fell into place. I thought favourites was the definition for quite some time so my LOI was the now rather obvious KEEP STEP. Thanks for the brilliant blog Cedric. Informative as ever.
On edit: forgot to mention the wonderful clue for LOOSE 😃
I rocketed through the top half of this puzzle, but really struggled with the lower half. KINDER and SCOUTS both went in straight away and four of the six associated Down clues followed quickly afterwards. KOREAN WAR was my first foray further down, but virtually everything down there was hard going.
I finished up with APOSTATE, DARKER and DOVE and crossed the line in 36 minutes. Outside my main target, but quicker than my (optional) limit.
Thanks to Felix and Cedric.
21:15
This was all going fine until I came undone in the SW corner. APOSTATE took a long time to see but it was LOI DOVE that really put time on the clock.
7:34
Somewhat naffed off as was sure I’d changed RAN to RUN. Last five in were HIBERNIA, ILL, LESSEN, SCOUTS and finally OPPOS (not sure how that can mean two things that are the opposite of each other – the clue is in the name). Once again, very nicely blogged Cedric.
Thanks also to Felix/RR
A pretty straightforward and rather faster than average run through for us but, like Cedric, totally oblivious to the Nina so that was of no help to us. 10:02 though it felt faster. Fine puzzle and the usual fine blog, Cedric, thank you.
Another tricky one, and what I think is my first DNF in a while – stumped by SCOUTS, SNAKEBITE, DOVE and (NHO) OPPOS. Fingers crossed that things get a bit gentler on Monday.
Thank you for the blog!
19:29. Spent longest time on HIBERNIA but in retrospect it seems perfectly straightforward. I saw that mortal had to be an anagrist but didn’t know why, so Jackkt’s contribution on this topic was very helpful. Now I have to reread Cedric’s blog to properly digest all his interesting facts!
Nice puzzle
Roughly 15m
Some good sketches where comedians get mastermind questions correct even though they don’t know the answers, Morecambe and Wise, Russ Abbot etc.
COD LOOSE.