7:57. I thought this was going to be a tricky one when my first entry was 17ac. But after that things got a lot easier. A typically excellent offering from Dean with lots of smooth surfaces, a nice variety of clue types and a generous sprinkling of wit. How did you get on?
Definitions are underlined, anagrams indicated like (TIHS)*, deletions like this, anagram indicators are in italics.
| Across | |
| 1 | New volunteers retreating in combat |
| AT WAR – reversal of RAW, TA. Although the TA aren’t called that any more. | |
| 4 | Hard work and drink as a minor diversion |
| HOPSCOTCH – H, OP, SCOTCH. The ‘minor’ here being a child. | |
| 9 | Without capital, I invented anaesthetic |
| IMAGINARY NUMBER – IMAGINARY (invented), NUMBER (anaesthetic). Lower-case i being one of these, the square root of -1. We spent quite a lot of time on these at school, and I remember finding it very interesting but I’ve forgotten all of the specifics. | |
| 10 | Prize ram swapped for cow? |
| BUTTERCUP – CUP (prize), BUTTER (ram) but the other way round. I think the definition here is just a reference to the fact that BUTTERCUP is a typical name for a cow. | |
| 11 | Play it again, Sam? Initially, say no |
| SEGNO – S |
|
| 12 | Studies English very well |
| EYES – E, YES. | |
| 13 | Stay in South American B&B? |
| SUSPENSION – S, US, PENSION. You have to lift & separate ‘South American’. PENSION here is a French term. | |
| 16 | She is a sort to go flying |
| AIR HOSTESS – (SHE IS A SORT)*. &Lit. Lovely! | |
| 17 | Matured as a good journalist |
| AGED – A, G, ED. | |
| 20 | Possibly irons suit |
| CLUBS – DD, the first a reference to golf, the second a reference to cards. | |
| 21 | Houses or new digs rebuilt around lakes |
| DWELLINGS – (NEW DIGS)* containing LL. | |
| 22 | Obsolete engine to come alive most surprisingly |
| STEAM LOCOMOTIVE – (TO COME ALIVE MOST)*. | |
| 23 | I had back injury ending in all-out seizure |
| DISTRAINT – reversal of I’D, STRAIN, |
|
| 24 | A little like those guiding beliefs |
| ETHOS – contained in ‘like those’. Say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism… | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Can I like a friend? |
| AMIABLE – AM I ABLE? | |
| 2 | Lead in bags? |
| WEAR THE TROUSERS – CD. ‘Bags’ is a term for trousers. | |
| 3 | Built or demolished, say |
| RAISED – sounds like ‘razed’. | |
| 4 | Number of staff supplied by chief nobleman |
| HEADCOUNT – HEAD (chief), COUNT (nobleman). | |
| 5 | Do a balancing act with increased salary |
| PAY UP – a slightly odd cryptic definition, related to ‘settling a balance’ in a way that I can’t quite see. And then a cryptic hint. | |
| 6 | Heard sailors chant on QE2? |
| CRUISING – homophone of ‘crew’, SING. | |
| 7 | Temporary, as travel documents are? |
| TO BE GOING ON WITH – a definition and a cryptic hint based (I think) on the idea that you have to show your passport to get on a plane. | |
| 8 | Keep complaining about one’s first dart |
| HARPOON – HARP O(O |
|
| 14 | Distributed spades? |
| PASSED OUT – a reverse cryptic in which the answer is a wordplay indication for the word (spades) in the clue. | |
| 15 | One eating ice-cream right to swallow whole |
| CONSUMER – CON(SUM)E, R. | |
| 16 | Defendant’s account gone through |
| ACCUSED – ACC, USED. | |
| 18 | Drives away or is parking in reversing snow vehicle |
| DISPELS – a reversal of SLED containing IS, P. | |
| 19 | Bay — a large bay |
| ALCOVE – A, L, COVE. | |
| 21 | Detective seizes hot pants in India |
| DHOTI – D(HOT)I. | |
Re 11ac, in a former existence I studied, played and taught music for years but have never seen ‘segno’ as a musical direction. It was always ‘Dal segno’ or D.S. for short (repeat from the sign). Similarly ‘Da capo’ or D.C. (repeat from the beginning).
A very enjoyable puzzle. NHO IMAGINARY NUMBER but the answer was clear. Whilst it’s true that BUTTERCUP has become a go-to name for a cow there are few if any instances of famous cows of that name in fiction or real life. Apparently it’s become the custom for the cow in the pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk to be named Buttercup, although not in the story on which it’s based. And there’s another in Bob the Builder.
I agree with your comments on Segno, which means sign and can be used in phrases such as al segno – nothing to do with repetition but simply a direction to continue from the sign.
The usual dictionaries back you up. The closest to the definition here is Collins – ‘a sign at the beginning or end of a section directed to be repeated’ – but even here it’s defining the sign and not the instruction. ODE only has ‘dal segno’, and Chambers also defines it as a sign.
This took me ages. I had a ? at BUTTERCUP, not knowing any bovine associations with the word. DNK SEGNO. I see now that I misparsed ETHOS as (those)* despite the lack of any anagrind, not noticing–as is my wont–the hidden. I especially liked SEGNO & WEAR THE TROUSERS.
Re 5d – you would ask someone to “pay up” when he owed you a debt. Especially if there was a hint of reluctance on the part of the debtor. Does that improve things?
Took a while to unravel TO BE GOING ON WITH and SEGNO looked most unlikely but otherwise all good.
I must say Sunday’s puzzles ( and to a lesser extent Saturday’s) are such a pleasant relief after the usual Friday fare. Keep up the good work.
Rather a good puzzle. I always felt that imaginary was an unfortunate term for the square root of -1. It’s part of the fabric of the mathematics of life and is no more imaginary than -1 itself.
I find it cool and instructive that the term was coined by Descartes as a put-down, as he regarded such quantities as fictitious and useless, but they turned out to be far from that. Incidentally, I’ll note that the very… imaginative late French philosopher François Laruelle put the imaginary unit (square root of negative one) to some… interesting (my judgment is reserved) uses in his Philosophie non-standard: générique, quantique, philo-fiction.
I remember the amusing index in Francis Wheen’s 2004 book How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions which includes:
Lacan, Jacques: 79, 91–2; mistakes his penis for a square root, 88–9
***
Wheen wrote the index himself. His US publisher scrapped it, and insisted on commissioning a completely new one: “Over here, we don’t like jokes in indexes”.
Great fun. A Sunday PB and 2nd quickest ever at 14:31. However, having recommended it to Mrs rv and then later spending a fruitless few mins trying to explain i, maybe it was wavelength.
NHO SEGNO or DISTRAINT but enjoyed this immensely.
Thanks Dean and K.
Done on a tablet on holiday, so no notes, but I remember having quite a bit of trouble with TO BE GOING ON WITH and IMAGINARY NUMBER, though had the second word quickly. Not a term I’m familiar with. BUTTERCUP also took some time, although I liked it once I got the answer. Deceptively difficult-looking, but actually quite straightforward. SEGNO was also problematic. I knew DS or AS, but as Jackkt says, SEGNO simply means ‘sign’, not repeat, unless accompanied by further direction. I’m surprised that PB, as a trombonist, didn’t pull him up on that one! I had a bit of a MER at AIR HOSTESS – a term that is no longer in use, as it’s considered somewhat derogatory and doesn’t reflect modern air transport conditions. However, I have to say, travelling home on Aegean airlines was something of a blast from the past, as the stewards were exclusively youngish females, attractive, high-heeled and caked in make-up (the pilots, needless to say, were male).
11.51
Superb. Agree with everything our esteemed blogger has said (though the “balancing act” thing for PAY UP works well for me). Concise; smooth; and some wit – what more do you need. Lots of excellent clues but particularly liked AIR HOSTESS; SUSPENSION and HOPSCOTCH. STEAM LOCOMOTIVE was also a very nice anagram.
Thanks Dean and Keriothe.
My thanks to Dean Mayer and keriothe.
Not too challenging but a few quirks.
11a NHO Segno, I must eat a dictionary of musical terms. I felt the need to check it exists. Of course Humph famously never said “again” to Sam.
16a Air hostess; there is a pub of this name on the N side of Heathrow.
3d Raised. With razed this pair is the only antonym which is also a homonym in English I understand.
5d Pay up, the only ? on my paper.
6d Crew sing worst homonym, brilliant. QE2 has been retired from cruising since 2008, she is now an hotel in Dubai.
Ingrid, no? not Humph. (Of course he never said it either, but not famously.)
You may well be right, but I thought I remembered Ingrid asking Sam for “time goes by” and Humph reluctantly allowing it with “play it Sam.” But it’s a long time since I’ve seen it.
Ilsa insists, ‘Play it, Sam’, Sam plays it, Rick enters angrily and sees Ilsa.
Ah, yes, thank you.
Watch it again! It is one of those rare films where new things emerge every time.
It could be the start of a beautiful friendship!
I think I will.
Thanks all.
Two goes needed.
– Didn’t know that ‘i’ is a symbol for an IMAGINARY NUMBER
– Agree with the comments from others about SEGNO on its own not quite working
– Can never remember what DHOTI are, but the cluing was kind
FOI At war
LOI Wear the trousers
COD Air hostess
This will not be controversial… I watched a video last night that started out investigating a strange, very briefly seen ad for an ephemeral company, AviLoop, targeting people in the aviation industry and seeming to offer generally aviation-related services but acting as a front for garnering clients for the women seen onscreen fetchingly attired as AIR HOSTESSES—all of whom appeared to be quite “on the younger side”—and which turned out to have been created by a famous Slovakian female pilot, Nadia Marcinko, who had been trafficked to (ta-da!) Jeffrey Epstein and became his accomplice.
Great puzzle for one still very much learning. Solved all bar RAISED, which turned out to be one of the easier ones 🙄 Thanks for the education around IMAGINARY NUMBER and SEGNO (googled the latter). NHO DISTRAINT but followed the wordplay. Another MER at AIR HOSTESS, the preferred term being cabin crew. I will now remember how to spell DHOTI, with hot in the middle. Many thanks both.
As usual on Sunday, a very enjoyable puzzle which took me pretty much exactly half an hour (not so usual). Perhaps SEGNO is stretching things a bit, but I find the clue okay as it is with the question mark — even if the SEGNO is not in itself a direction to repeat, its presence is an indication that there will actually be a repeat, from the sign or continuing at the sign. The question mark seems to be saying that a SEGNO might just be hinting at that.
That’s a fair point
Took me the best part of Sunday morning, but that with many, many intrusions. Started off well, with AT WAR and WEAR THE TROUSERS straight
in; but then slowed considerably. Missed on SEGNO (NHO) and had forgotten HOPSCOTCH, even though I knew we were looking for a child’s game. ( The whole puzzle has a slightly 50s feel to it with WEAR THE TROUSERS, AIR HOSTESSES and HOPSCOTCH ( and even STEAM LOCOMOTIVE!). NHO DISTRAINT, but had to be. Especially liked TO BE GOING ON WITH .
Thanks Dean and keriothe
Didn’t get to this one until Monday and only finished it this evening. It started off fairly quickly with AT WAR but unlike others here, it took well over the hour and a half to complete (to much else going on at the moment). Thought that AIR HOSTESS was an excellent cd and STEAM LOCOMOTIVE a great anagram. Having a Maths degree, IMAGINARY NUMBER was close to a write in – nice bit about defining it as ‘I’. Didn’t previously know SEGNO or DISTRAINT (my third to last in) with the cleverly hidden ETHOS next and TO BE GOING ON WITH (a tricky one) to finish up with.