41:15. I started this puzzle on the 28th, decided I was too exhausted to tackle it, and saved it until the next day when I was feeling a little more rested and had plenty of time for it. I’m glad I did: I quite quickly realised that it was going to be a challenging exercise so set my expectations accordingly and enjoyed solving it enormously.
There are lots of tricky clues in here, with particularly oblique and/or less-than obvious equivalences (in some cases I had to take them on trust and confirm in dictionaries while writing up the blog, Mephisto-style) and some tricksy wordplay. There’s one answer (52ac) which I had to check, which would normally annoy me a good deal but in the context of this intricate puzzle it seemed kind of fitting somehow. Great stuff, thank you Dean.
In this context it’s all the more annoying that in the course of writing up the blog I have discovered a typo: A CAPPALLA. Drat!
How did you get on?
Definitions are underlined, anagrams indicated like (TIHS)*, deletions like this, anagram indicators are in italics.
| Across | |
| 1 | Wretched school equipment stops working |
| DOWNS TOOLS – DOWN (wretched), |
|
| 6 | She gives milk to children |
| MOO COW – CD. ‘To children’ because this is how they say ‘cow’. | |
| 10 | Soldier captured by marine given back support |
| AEGIS – reversal of SEA containing GI. | |
| 14 | Given very little room, able to go solo |
| TOILET TRAINED – CD. We got HOUSE-TRAINED the very next day. | |
| 15 | Variable parts of bill? Also, old territory |
| NYASALAND – N(Y)ASAL, AND. Here Y is the variable and it parts (separates) the letters of NASAL (of bill, nose). Now Malawi. | |
| 16 | Princess eating type of nut and fancy caviar |
| BELUGA – BE(LUG)A. I had a vague memory that a lug nut is a thing. For those who don’t follow the royal soap opera the princess is Beatrice. | |
| 17 | Unconnected switch position? |
| BESIDE THE POINT – I think the cryptic hint here is a reference to points and switches on a railway. | |
| 20 | Mixed nuts coating toast that is worst to eat |
| UNHEALTHIEST – (NUTS)* containing HEALTH (toast), IE. | |
| 21 | Plots beginning to scare Conservative ranks |
| STORYLINES – S |
|
| 23 | Flying aloft, Christmas vision in yuletide poem |
| A VISIT FROM ST NICHOLAS – (ALOFT CHRISTMAS VISION)*. An impressive anagram! The name of this poem was only vaguely familiar to me but a lot of the content is much more so. See here. | |
| 27 | Use autopilot to avoid responsibility |
| LET GEORGE DO IT – I did not know this expression but thankfully I remembered that the autopilot on a plane is referred to as ‘George’. Absent that knowledge I don’t think I’d have solved this. The expression ‘let George do it’ is an American one which may be connected to an earlier French expression, laisser faire à Georges, associated (probably erroneously) with Louis XII and his prime minister Cardinal Georges d’Amboise. | |
| 29 | Nice tea and spirit drink |
| THE BOTTLE – THE, BOTTLE. Tea being thé in Nice. | |
| 31 | Lacy satin pants that businessmen might use |
| ANALYTICS – (LACY SATIN)*. | |
| 33 | Each pill possibly contains separate bit of helium |
| ALPHA PARTICLE – (EACH PILL)* containing APART. The nucleus of a helium atom is one of these, apparently. I know from a really good podcast I listened to recently (Crash Course Pods: The Universe, if you’re interested) that the first minutes of the universe involved the creation of lots of helium (along with even more hydrogen and, weirdly, a bit of lithium) but I don’t know how (if at all) ALPHA PARTICLEs were involved. | |
| 35 | Diagnose an odd cooking substance in good side of turkey |
| SAGE AND ONION STUFFING – (DIAGNOSE AN)*, ON (cooking), STUFF (substance), IN, G. | |
| 40 | Adhesive pioneers somehow used to coat axes |
| EPOXY RESIN – (PIONEERS)* containing XY. | |
| 41 | What you will play when Christmas is over |
| TWELFTH NIGHT – DD, the first based on the fact that ‘What You Will’ is the secondary title of the Shakespeare play. | |
| 44 | Ready for a Christmas treat |
| CHOCOLATE COINS – CD. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a chocolate coin referred to in this way (and it’s not in any of the usual dictionaries) but it’s a logical extension. Edit: quite how I managed to type that sentence without realising my error (CHOCOLATE POUND) I have no idea! | |
| 45 | Anger cut short for promoting peace |
| IRENIC – IRE, NIC |
|
| 48 | In Perth, a Shanghai gin tipple’s very popular |
| SLINGSHOT – SLING (gin tipple), S, HOT. ‘Shanghai’ is an Australian (and New Zealand) term for a catapult. | |
| 49 | Stayed out all night, equalling record? |
| SLEPT LIKE A LOG – a definition and a cryptic hint based on a log being a kind of record. | |
| 50 | Was a model your lecherous type? |
| SATYR – SAT, YR. | |
| 51 | Love dressing for dinner |
| RELISH – DD. | |
| 52 | Cooking burrito, be given one Christmas blessing? |
| URBI ET ORBI – (BURRITO BE)*, I. I worked out that the answer must be either this or ORBI ET URBI but had no way to disinguish so looked it up. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | See a piece of dried fruit |
| DATE – DD. | |
| 2 | Yuletide song, very modern, embraced by joint parents |
| WHITE CHRISTMAS – W(HI-TECH)RIST, MAS. | |
| 3 | Yule TV special broadcast with no guarantee of success |
| SPECULATIVELY – (YULE TV SPECIAL)*. Another great anagram. | |
| 4 | Blooming extreme ride?. |
| OUTLAST – OUT (blooming), LAST (extreme). I didn’t understand how ‘ride’ (as opposed to ‘ride out’) means OUTLAST. I still don’t really, but Collins defines ‘ride’ as ‘to endure successfully; ride out’ so I’ll take it up with them. | |
| 5 | One with pork pies to scoff when served up |
| LIAR – reversal of RAIL. Once again, I didn’t and don’t understand how ‘rail’ and ‘scoff’ are synonymous, but the latter is literally the first definition of the former in the relevant entry in Chambers. | |
| 7 | Invest over 500 in 9? |
| ORDAIN – O, R(D)AIN. RAIN might be the WEATHER FORECAST. | |
| 8 | New London location’s bridge, one with dock |
| CONNECTICUT – CONNECT, I, CUT (dock, as in an animal’s tail). | |
| 9 | It may change after a shower etc |
| WEATHER FORECAST – (AFTER A SHOWER ETC)*. Brilliant anagram! Only a semi-&Lit because the words ‘it may’ are not part of the wordplay. | |
| 10 | Unaccompanied, a top lady of jazz keeps quiet |
| A CAPPELLA – A, CAP(P), ELLA. | |
| 11 | Bank‘s gift-wrapped stamp? |
| GRADIENT – GRA(DIE)NT. | |
| 12 | Prepare to keep appointments most dignified |
| SEDATEST – SE(DATES)T. | |
| 13 | Something smelly and small — nettles |
| INCENSES – INCENSE, S. | |
| 18 | Peak form of sweetbread? |
| SUGAR LOAF – a large hill in Wales. I think this is the intended reference because others (Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine, for instance) are spelled as one word and require ‘mountain’, whereas the SUGAR LOAF in Monmouthshire isn’t and doesn’t. ‘Sweetbread’ is a ‘form of’ what you would get if you produced a loaf with sugar. Edit: see the discussion in the comments. A bit of subsequent googling reveals that the famous monolith in Rio de Janeiro is in fact referred to as the ‘Sugar Loaf’ (sometimes – the most common form does seem to be ‘Sugarloaf Mountain’). That one is obviously much more famous than the hill in Wales so probably the intended reference. It doesn’t change the answer! | |
| 19 | Sweet stuff for which one bee enters flower |
| RIBOSE – R(I, B)OSE. A sugar. | |
| 22 | Something to stand on together |
| INSTEP – the second part here counts as a cryptic hint (as I think about these things) because as a straight definition it would require the answer to be two words. | |
| 24 | Start of confession from average thief, not a criminal |
| FORGIVE ME FATHER – (FROM |
|
| 25 | Is hardware store doing this Christmas bonus? |
| STOCKING FILLER – definition and cryptic hint, because a hardware store would indeed stock Polyfilla or similar. | |
| 26 | Wild tiger seen here? |
| SERENGETI – (TIGER SEEN)*. Wild? A tiger seen here would be absolutely livid, thousands of miles away from its natural habitat. Geo-zoological verisimilitude is rightly sacrificed on the altar of a good &Lit! | |
| 28 | One lecturing men twice at breaks |
| ORATOR – OR(AT), OR. | |
| 30 | Having lost profits incidentally |
| OUT OF INTEREST – DD and cryptic hint. | |
| 32 | Slushy? Drove one out to lunch |
| SENTIMENTAL – SENT, I, MENTAL. | |
| 34 | Back-to-back articles on 50s records |
| ANNALS – two ANs, one reversed (back-to-back), L, S. | |
| 36 | Season to hide something in stocking — right now? |
| ANY LONGER – A(NYLON)GE, R. I can’t quite see how you get ANY LONGER from ‘now?’ | |
| 37 | Amazed and embarrassed with present Ulster sent over |
| IN WONDER – reversal of RED, NOW, NI. Cue complaints that Ulster and NI are not technically the same thing. However ‘Ulster’ is commonly used as shorthand for Northern Ireland, rather as ‘Brits’ is used to refer to citizens of the UK. | |
| 38 | Is streamer we threw covered by quality benchmark? |
| WEBCASTS – WE, B(CAST)S. British Standard. | |
| 39 | Settler: One’s given time |
| COLONIST – COLON (indicated by the colon!), I’S, T. | |
| 42 | Is one fired up over British capital? |
| TBILISI – reversal (up) of IS, I, LIT containing B. | |
| 43 | Endless Christmas leading to sister’s apprehension |
| NOESIS – NOE |
|
| 46 | Chris Tarrant’s Christmas guide |
| STAR – contained in ‘Chris Tarrant’. | |
| 47 | Fruit — no peach, it’s said |
| UGLI – sounds like ‘ugly’. | |
Great stuff, indeed. DNK RIBOSE, NOESIS. DNK who the princess BEA was; still don’t. I think the SUGAR LOAF is the peak in Rio de Janeiro, the one with the enormous statue of Jesus. At 44ac, I had CHOCOLATE COINS, which is what is given on the club site. It’s too bad that POUND also fits; but none of the 100 solvers on the club leaderboard have an error. For what it’s worth, I knew URBI ET ORBI, although for some reason I typed in URBE, and didn’t correct it until I finally saw TBILISI. I liked the impressive anagrams, and TWELFTH NIGHT, ORATOR; but COD to COLONIST.
There is at least a page of phrases, though not a proper entry, for CHOCOLATE COIN in Collins online.
So… drop a quid on the counter and ask for a pound of chocolate…
The peak in Rio is, as far as I can tell, generally referred to as ‘Sugarloaf Mountain’, like the one in Maine. God knows how I managed to write what I wrote in the blog without realising that CHOCOLATE COINS was the correct answer!
Odd; I could swear I’ve never seen or heard ‘Mountain’ (for what [very little] it’s worth, it’s sugar loaf [pão de açúcar] in Portuguese); but whatever.
I have no idea, I didn’t know what it was called until I wrote the blog so I’m just going by observed usage. Intuitively this makes sense: it’s not really a mountain. A bit more googling reveals that it’s called ‘Sugar Loaf’ by Britannica and the International Commission on Geoheritage (whatever that is, sounds official). On that basis it does seem the best fit, since it’s obviously a lot more famous than the hill in Wales!
I was pleased to finish this and discover I got it all correct. I also did not know URBI ET ORBI but my guess turned out correct. Also pleased the NHO NOESIS was also right. I had no idea about Shanghai being a SLINGSHOT in Oz (or maybe Scotland since there are two obvious Perths), but the wordplay seemed to imply correctly that it is. Also never heard of LET GEORGE DO IT but I did know that autopilots used to be called George (as was ICL’s 19xx computer operating system). This was not easy but most enjoyable…a description that applies to most of Dean’s regualar 15×15 offerings too.
36dn Not very satisfactory but maybe ‘I won’t tolerate this any longer/now’?
Also in 1ac I wondered if ‘s’ is an abbreviation for ‘school’ but probably not generally accepted.
That’s how I parsed DOWNS TOOLS. I cannot see how STOOLS are school equipment.
Yes I think that’s the better parsing. STOOLS are school equipment in the way that chairs and tables might be but it’s very vague.
Remember jumping in with A VISIT FROM ST NICHOLAS as FOI and later being pleased to find such rarities as NOESIS and NYASALAND (just wanted to see if I could spell that again). High-quality stuff indeed, with the only strain in grid-filling detected in the awkward SEDATEST. Hurray for 1A: Workers of the world, unite!
Needed a Christmas holiday to find enough time for this challenging offering. Like our blogger I put POUND instead of COINS without seeing the better alternative. I see from the leaderboard around me at 125 a few stalwarts with an error ( I’m looking at you Rabbitoh ), presumably the same one. Oh well, Noel, Oh hell!
Before a checker ruined it, for a long time I had CHOCOLATE MONEY at 44ac.
I think they’re all resolved now, but I had too many unknowns and parsing queries along the way for this to be an enjoyable solve. I get dispirited as they mount up.
Re 52ac, our blogger may have become resigned to it but I’m still going to moan about foreign expressions clued as anagrams leaving the uninitiated having to toss a coin.
Urbi et Orbi is (RC):church Latin with a definition in Collins, so not really any more “foreign” than Agnus Dei, and as it’s a papal address/blessing at Christmas and Easter, you might also see it when these get mentioned in news reports.
1A S = school is in Collins, comfirming a suggestion already made, and equipment = tools
9D “It may change” = a flowery anag indicator, I think., so without checking whether Dean claimed it, I’d count it as an &lit
18D shd really have been (9), allowing most of the modern spelling English versions of this mountain/peak name. I’m pretty sure the relationship between my oarents started when he was in hospital after a fall on Austria’s Zuckerhutl on the walking holiday where they met.
Chocolate coins – I think I started with money, but did not think of “pound” as an alternative when it needed changing, presumably as they so often come in bags of muliple coins.
9dn: I struggle with ‘it may change’ as an anagram indicator but it doesn’t really matter!
18dn: the hill in Wales is known as the Sugar Loaf, so works perfectly as an answer with this enumeration. With 9 letters the clue would work less well because there is nothing (at least that I have found) known as ‘the Sugarloaf’.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mountains_named_Sugarloaf – “sugarloaf” seems more common than old-style “sugar loaf” as the word before mountain/hill/etc
As it happens, one website has “The Sugarloaf” for the Welsh one – https://www.visitmonmouthshire.com/things-to-do/the-sugarloaf-p1505681
As the clue is presented the best option is clearly something which 1) is generally written as two words and 2) doesn’t require mountain/hill etc afterwards. The one in Wales still seems the best fit to me. Both Wikipedia and (more authoritatively) the National Trust have it as two words.
See my comment to Kevin above: it seems the monolith in Rio is actually referred to in some (quite authoritative) sources as the Sugar Loaf, to me makes this the preferable (because much more famous) reference.
Just for interest, competition entries with ‘pound’ will have been disqualified?
If it were up to me I would disqualify it (in spite of having put it in) because it seems there’s just no such thing. If you google it you get references to ‘chocolate pound cake’… and my erroneous blog!!
Fair enough. Chocolate coins do at least purport (in a sense) to be money, whereas the cake name arises from the weight of ingredients so a further level of whimsicality required to make the connection. And, while the cake may be a treat, it is not particularly a Christmas one.
I actually hadn’t realised one can go back and check one’s online competition entries for correctness, presumably once the competition closes!
Tackled this today and just finished after a long session. I wasn’t surprised that there were a couple of errors- I misspelt TBILISI (again) and had the O and the U the wrong way round in the NHO URBI ET ORBI. I had a MER at OUTLAST too but did as instructed by the wordplay and couldn’t think of anything else.
Some words and terms just at the limits of my knowledge so I wasn’t too unhappy.
Thanks to keriothe and Dean
Found this very tough. Finished then made a stupid typo in 11d.
Fortunately I remembered the RAF slang for autopilot otherwise I would never have got 28a either.
Had chocolate coins as per the published answer.
I couldn’t see how “now” could mean “any longer” until a friend offered: “she doesn’t live here any longer/now”
Yes, I gave an example above but your friend’s suggestion is better
Didn’t think much of 44a. Got it wrong, I notice – must have put ‘coins’ but forget now. Should have looked up the RC phrase before submitting, but reckoned the world had to come before the [Vatican] city. Rather sadly, if predictably, it doesn’t.
Seeing Dean’s name, I was expecting a tricky one, and so it proved, although none the less enjoyable, since I did fill the grid. Sadly, I had ORBI ET URBI, so no biscuit! My problem with this was multiple half clues all over the grid. For example, I got GEORGE quickly enough, but was it set/let/put/get? At/on/do? I had COW, but no moo. I didn’t know the title of the poem, but luckily it was biffable. IRENIC was NHO, but guessed. I was also held up on the NHO NOESIS by guessing PENNY for the chocolate treat and only unravelled this at the very end. I also guessed ALPHA PARTICLE and failed to parse NYASALAND (VHO). Liked SLEPT LIKE A LOG and TOILET TRAINED particularly for the misdirection.
May I be the first to complain about NI and Ulster being lazily confused? (I don’t care if it’s ‘shorthand’ or ‘generally’ accepted. NI is made up of only six of the original nine counties of Ulster. The reason Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan were excluded was simply in order to ensure a Protestant majority in NI.)
Perhaps in future setters could refer to NI as ‘the Occupied Six.’
You can complain as much as you like! People will continue to use the word as such and dictionaries will continue to reflect that usage.
Multiple goes needed.
– NHO MOO COW or that apparently it’s what children call them
– Not familiar with AEGIS meaning support, but the wordplay meant it had to be
– Took ages to piece together A VISIT FROM ST NICHOLAS, not knowing the poem
– NHO the expression LET GEORGE DO IT, but remembered George as autopilot so it sounded plausible
– Didn’t know that ‘What You Will’ is the second title of TWELFTH NIGHT… very clever
– Biffed SLINGSHOT, not knowing that sling is a gin tipple and only dimly remembering that meaning of Shanghai
– Didn’t parse WHITE CHRISTMAS
– Didn’t know that New London is in CONNECTICUT, so relied on the wordplay
– Couldn’t have told you that RIBOSE is a sugar
– Had to trust the wordplay for the unknown NOESIS
Thanks keriothe and Dean.
FOI Serengeti
LOI Noesis
COD Twelfth Night
My thanks to Dean Mayer and keriothe.
I was a bit discombobulated to find such a biggie on Sunday. I’ve mislaid my paper so don’t know if I DNF or not, but I got most of the way there anyway.
I cheated a lot or I would never have got enough crossers.
16a Beluga, I wasn’t sure there were lug nuts, but according to Google they are vehicle wheelnuts or similar.
23a A visit… I didn’t recognise this as the title but recognised the poem all right when I looked it up.
27a NHO Let George do it; it is American.
33a Alpha particle. I did know that when they capture 2 electrons they are helium.
41a 12th Night, I did it for O-level I think and HHO the alternative title, but looked it up.
52a Urbi et Orbi was in Cheating Machine so must have come up before.
18d Sugar loaf. There is a Sugarloaf in the Malverns (where I was brought up) between N Hill and the W Beacon, but I was not clear whether it was one word or two. I HHO the Rio one, ditto on enumeration.
19d Ribose, NHO. Did A-level Chem so it really is obscure.
26d Serengeti, was amused at the tiger being wild in the wrong place.
43d NHO Noesis, but biffable and I checked it.
Grid completed save for GEORGE and WEBCASTS in around 72 minutes. I was sort of on the right track for “streamer” but the will was being lost by that point. Of the answers I put in, I got URBI and ORBI the wrong way round (rather unfair I thought fwiw) and was another POUND (bit unlucky there).
Some great clues as mentioned by Keriothe and nice to have a special Yuletide treat.
Thanks for all this: I couldn’t work out wordplay or definition for ANY LONGER.
“URBI ET ORBI” is always in the TV listings as the name of the programme on BBC1 at 11am on Easter Sunday:
***
Urbi et Orbi
His Holiness the Pope’s traditional Easter blessing to the city and to the world.
Commentator Mgr Vincent Nichols
Television presentation by RAI
Radio Times, 1988
***
Hadn’t realised it could be a Christmas blessing too.