This puzzle had a slightly odd feel, being generally of average difficulty but shot through with more than a few potential pitfalls in the shape of uncommon bits of vocab such as 14A, 2D, 17D, and 21D. The second meaning of 20A might also not be familiar to all and it’s even possible that the cricket knowledge required for 10A might have eluded some. So overall I’d say this was a reet gradely Yorkshire Day challenge. Thanks, Teazel.
The puzzle can be found here if the usual channels are unavailable: http://feeds.thetimes.co.uk/puzzles/crossword/20160801/17507/
Definitions are underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Space traveller given nothing to wake up (4,2) |
| COME TO – COMET (Space traveller) + O (nothing) | |
| 4 | Closely follow pig, tricked to go inside (6) |
| SHADOW – SOW (pig) with HAD (tricked) inside | |
| 9 | Scare in spilling poison (7) |
| ARSENIC – anagram of (spilling) SCARE IN, for Agatha Christie’s favourite poison | |
| 10 | Batsman’s total; made with five boundaries? (5) |
| SCORE – a boundary in cricket is either a four or a six, and five fours would make 20, which is another meaning of SCORE | |
| 11 | Manage to sustain one collapse (4) |
| RUIN – RUN (Manage) around (to sustain) I (one) | |
| 12 | Second weapon demanding attention (8) |
| STRIDENT – S (Second) + TRIDENT (weapon – take your pick from either Poseidon/Neptune’s three-pronged spear or the slightly more dangerous modern-day ballistic missile) | |
| 14 | Swiss pop groups in strips of linen (6,5) |
| GENEVA BANDS – GENEVA (Swiss) + BANDS (pop groups). Never heard of these, and a bit of Googling suggests that they have never appeared in any of the main daily cryptics since blogs began. Chambers: “The two strips of white linen hanging down from the neck of some clerical robes”. Award yourself a triangle of Toblerone if you can name 5 or more Swiss pop groups. | |
| 18 | Run through new canteen doorway (8) |
| ENTRANCE – R (Run) in (through) anagram of (new) CANTEEN | |
| 20 | Scary film talks (4) |
| JAWS – double definition, the former referring to the Spielberg shark film, the second (Chambers): “A long talk or lecture (informal)” | |
| 22 | Man shortly dressing formally (5) |
| ROBIN – ROBIN{g} (shortly dressing formally, i.e. the word “robing” without its last letter) | |
| 23 | Roosevelt offered this fresh round of cards (3,4) |
| NEW DEAL – a fresh round of cards would be a NEW DEAL. The definition refers to (Chambers): “Franklin D Roosevelt’s policies for prosperity and social improvement in the United States, 1933-40” | |
| 24 | Make fun of staff breaking into earnings (6) |
| PARODY – ROD (staff) in (breaking into) PAY (earnings) | |
| 25 | Nervous, being nowhere near the centre (2,4) |
| ON EDGE – a literal interpretation of the figurative expression | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Presides over academic posts (6) |
| CHAIRS – double definition | |
| 2 | Service I have to give street gang (7) |
| MASSIVE – MASS (Service) + I’VE (I have). Chambers: “(slang) A gang, esp a street gang”. Google suggests that Ali G’s West Staines Massive is going to be the most familiar usage to people in the UK, but how much that audience overlaps with that of the Quick Cryptic I’m intrigued to find out. It did crop up in a Telegraph puzzle last year and caused quite a lot of comment. | |
| 3 | Cistern is to fail expensively? (4) |
| TANK – double definition, one a noun and one a verb. Chambers describes the second as US informal. | |
| 5 | Pilot has crashed, ending up here? (8) |
| HOSPITAL – anagram of (crashed) PILOT HAS | |
| 6 | Finished crossing river in aircraft (5) |
| DRONE – DONE (Finished) around (crossing) R (river) | |
| 7 | Flowery tribute, recollecting the war (6) |
| WREATH – anagram of (recollecting) THE WAR | |
| 8 | Mark an attractive way of speaking (5,6) |
| ACUTE ACCENT – A (an) + CUTE (attractive) + ACCENT (way of speaking). This was clued similarly last week in Quicky 622, though with a more helpful definition. | |
| 13 | Kept back to be given new teaching: not right (8) |
| RETAINED – RET{r}AINED (to be given new teaching: not right, i.e. the word “retrained” (to be given new teaching) but without one of the letter r’s (right)) | |
| 15 | Precise purpose, but no prospect of progress here (4,3) |
| DEAD END – DEAD (Precise) + END (purpose) | |
| 16 | On tour, the French abandon restraint (3,3) |
| LET RIP – LE (the French, i.e. a word for “the” in French) on TRIP (tour) | |
| 17 | Tristan’s lover, one deceived by English (6) |
| ISOLDE – I (one) + SOLD (deceived) + E (English). Tristan and Isolde are characters from an old Celtic legend – the legend has inspired numerous creative types over the years, not least Richard Wagner and his opera Tristan und Isolde. My commiserations if you’ve never heard of the lady, as this isn’t the most obvious wordplay. | |
| 19 | River bank hides opening of burrow (5) |
| TIBER – TIER (bank ) around (hides) B (opening of burrow, i.e. the first letter of the word “burrow”), for the river that perhaps most famously flows through Rome | |
| 21 | Country lover avoids one bird (4) |
| SWAN – SWA{i}N (Country lover avoids one, i.e. the word “swain” (Country lover) without the letter I (one)). For swain, Chambers has “poetic, often ironic; also archaic 1. A young man, 2. A peasant or rustic, 3. A lover or suitor”, Collins has “archaic or poetic 1. a male lover or admirer, 2. a country youth”, and Oxford has “1. (literary) a young lover or suitor, 2. (archaic) a country youth”, so “Country lover” seems to be combining two meanings. I’m not too bothered about that as it’s arguably quite helpful but, as I commented just over a year ago when we had swain clued simply via lover, I think some indication of its poetic/archaic nature might have been appropriate. Having said that, even avid ornithologists equipped with a x100 spotting scope will struggle to find many birds fitting ?W?N. | |
But got ISOLDE.
Though the thinking behind DROVE is creative, it’s a bit of a push for it to be a definition of “Finished” or “Finished crossing”, and the Dove aircraft is possibly a little obscure for the Times. As you get more experience with puzzles in the Times, you’ll notice that certain subjects are fair game for any old random answer (such as Biblical figures, literature, classical music, etc) and certain subjects are kept very much at arm’s length (e.g. football, popular culture, science (only half-joking here …), etc) – I think aircraft fall into the latter category.
Edited at 2016-08-01 04:45 am (UTC)
MASSIVE lack of knowledge of GENEVA BANDS but I was acquainted with ISOLDE and her SWAIN !!!!
Thanks for the blogs I wouldn’t still be doing the QC without them!! Some days I can even manage the real Cryptic!!
Time terrible 47 minutes but at least I did it !!
Fiona P
Right at the difficult end for me. DNK 2d or 14a , It is very rare to have 2 complete DNKs in the quicky. COD 5d. Thanks blogger for explaining my DNKs and Teazel for a tough start to the week.
Tough crossword today, had to ask Mr Google if such a thing as Geneva Bands existed.
Andrew
All the same comments here as above – DNK GB, but guessable from the clue, and LOI JAWS.
Returning, my last two were 13d and 14a. LOI was 14a with all the checkers. I plumped for Helena (assumed she might be Swiss) Bands, so I got one wrong; something learnt.
Many of the comments refer to GK, but 14a is not GK in my opinion. Perhaps Swiss was enough of a clue for Geneva. Should we say Obscure Knowledge?
I shall now continue my struggle with the Saturday crossword as it’s raining hard outside. David
Obscurity is usually defined on crossword forums as a function of the solver – if you know the word, it’s not obscure, and if you don’t know it then it IS obscure. However, to me, obscurity implies something between the two (but closer to the “don’t know” end of the spectrum), which then requires a statistical underpinning in order to have any proper meaning, i.e. if x% of a demographic Y have not heard of a word, then it can be said to be obscure. All that’s then left to define is what should the value of x be (5 or 10, maybe?) and what should the demographic Y be (all human beings, all English speakers, all English-speaking crossword solvers, etc).
Obviously, actually carrying out such an analysis is logistically difficult so a rule of thumb I often use is: does the word have less than 100,000 Google hits? If so, I will tend to be happy for it to be considered as obscure. If I Google “geneva bands”, I get a mere 2,870 results, which to my mind definitely puts it in the obscure category. Of course there are caveats to this approach, but it does give some context when faced with comments of the form “Oh, I can’t believe people are saying that NOWIKOLSKI is obscure – he’s a legend in nose-flute circles!” (Sorry – just realised how much I’ve rambled on.)
I also had Robed for 22ac, until I got 13dn as retained.
No problems with Da Massive, Jaws or Isolde but dnk Geneva Bands.
Reasonably tricky today, 30 minutes for me.