Hi, y’all! I am honored to have been asked to fill an alternate-Sunday slot here. The puzzle for my inaugural effort seems rather easy, with a large number of clues being very simple and short charades—but I have not been able to entirely parse TENDERFOOT (ironically enough). No hidden word, though, and—on the other end of the difficulty scale—no &lit.
There’s a bit of a musical leitmotif here. In particular, seeing ATONAL with FINE-TUNE tempted me to climb onto one of my hobby horses, the principle of just intonation, and to expatiate on how twelve-tone music, as Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari put it in Mille Plateaux, “in breaking with the tonal system, did nothing but push temperament to its extreme consequences“—there being no inherent tonality in an instrument tuned in equal temperament… But aren’t you glad I refrained?
Definitions underlined, (clue word)* indicates anagram.
ACROSS
| 1 | Helper seen around people following violent attack (8) |
| DIATRIBE — Helper seen around = AID <—, with TRIBE (people) following | |
| 5 | What top plainclothes copper did is rotten (6) |
| RANCID — He RAN (the) CID, he did. | |
| 10 | Unintelligent type helping Turner in the kitchen (4,5) |
| FISH SLICE — Unintelligent type = FISH, helping = SLICE (as in a “helping” of pizza). Capping “Turner” is darned sneaky. We Yanks call this implement (much more sensibly!) a spatula. | |
| 11 | Topless seller of tights?—It’s Twiggy! (5) |
| OSIER — [h]OSIER. The definition is cryptic too. Another deceptive capital letter. | |
| 12 | North-eastern China is land with no coast (5) |
| NEPAL — North-eastern NE + PAL (“China” on the East End). | |
| 13 | Short Disney movie about toys primarily—considered from the outset as brilliant (9) |
| FANTASTIC — Fantasi[a] with T, “toys primarily,” interjected, and then “considered from the outset,” i.e., C. I am never too impressed by clues that use the same root as the sought word. | |
| 14 | Trainee carer working on bottom (10) |
| TENDERFOOT — TENDER is “carer,” and FOOT is down there at the bottom of your leg, but I don’t quite get this. How does “working on” work? (FOOT TENDER, now, that makes sense.) Someone out there knows! | |
| 17 | Horror film about a submariner (4) |
| NEMO — Omen <—- | |
| 19 | When entertaining royal a Commanding Officer bowed (4) |
| ARCO — A CO with [R]oyal. “When” is not necessary. Another musical reference! | |
| 20 | Beneath small organ that’s supported from above (10) |
| UNDERSLUNG — Beneath = UNDER, small = S, organ = LUNG. Not another musical reference. | |
| 22 | Take time to manage boats outside English docks (9) |
| TRUNCATES — T for “time,” RUN for “manage,” boats being CATS (catamarans), outside E, English. “Take” is there just for the surface. | |
| 24 | Attack during match (3,2) |
| FIT IN — “Attack,” FIT, and “during,” IN. | |
| 26 | Sting at opening of Glasto has a dance (5) |
| CONGA — “Sting” is CON, opening of “Glasto” G, which has A. | |
| 27 | It’s said the jellyfish is such a simple thing (2-7) |
| NO-BRAINER — Does the equivocal “it’s said” imply a jellyfish may actually have some sort of cerebral organ? I haven’t looked it up. | |
| 28 | Oriental flower festival (6) |
| EASTER — A little tricky (or something), because you have all of EAST, but “Oriental” here refers only to the E, and the flower is ASTER. | |
| 29 | Pet’s lead trips foot (8) |
| PEDESTAL — (Pet’s lead)* |
DOWN
| 1 | The grammarian’s name for it? Sure thing! (8,7) |
| DEFINITE ARTICLE — “The grammarian’s name for ‘the’” is the entire straight definition, unscrambled (imagine a comma after “The”). “Sure thing!” can be seen as a cryptic definition or a two-part charade. | |
| 2 | A model upset Greek author, apparently (5) |
| AESOP — A + “model”, POSE <— “Apparently” because, as Wikipedia has it, “his existence remains unclear.” | |
| 3 | Decided on finished puzzle (8) |
| RESOLVED — Double Definition. (Finished the puzzle again?) Late-breaking correction: As an anonymous poster pointed out in the wee hours of this morning (my time), What we have here, after the definition, is a charade, “on” = RE + “solved” = “finished puzzle.” This one seemed so easy thatI flew right over the standard feature of RE as “on” and instead even implied, with my parenthetical, that the clue was a little odd. It’s too late for many people to see this change, but I am putting a lot of words in here so that it will stand out. | |
| 4 | Skimpy underpants hiding the bottom (5) |
| BRIEF — Brief[s]. Jeez. Wandered in here from the Quickie barely dressed. | |
| 6 | An alto struggling to describe music such as Schoenberg’s? (6) |
| ATONAL — Nice surface. And the alto has reason to struggle. Arnold S. himself didn’t approve of the term: “To call any relation of tones atonal is as little justified as to designate a relation of colours aspectral or acomplementary. Such an antithesis does not exist.” In his Theory of Harmony, Schoenberg expressed the hope that eventually instruments would be able to accurately reproduce higher ranges of the overtone series. He clearly saw the twelve-tone method as far from the last word. | |
| 7 | A neurotic ordered a stiff drink (9) |
| COINTREAU — (A neurotic)* | |
| 8 | Senior member of staff noted career girl required training (8-7) |
| DIRECTOR-GENERAL — (noted career girl)* (I would think “requires training” would be more appropriate as instructions to finding the answer than the past tense—but then you’d have two different tenses in the surface, which wouldn’t be nonsensical, just a bit bumpy.) | |
| 9 | One very tall European runner, say, is ahead (8) |
| BEANPOLE — European is a POLE and, ahead of that, a “runner” is one kind of long, green BEAN. | |
| 15 | Criticise performances on the radio—piano pieces (9) |
| NOCTURNES — “Knock” “turns,” it sounds like. Of course, a nocturne need not be a piano piece—although Chopin’s certainly are. My favorites are Debussy’s orchestral set: Nuages, Fêtes, et Sirènes. (This word, in the singular, also showed up on Wednesday, defined as “dark scene.”) | |
| 16 | Perfect nice melody (4-4) |
| FINE-TUNE — “Nice” is FINE, “melody” is TUNE. | |
| 18 | Recently put old end of beef in a pan (2,2,4) |
| AS OF LATE — “Old,” O, and end of beeF, in A SLATE (“pan” in the sense of “give a bad review”). | |
| 21 | Small wrap contains last of cucumber pickle (6) |
| SCRAPE — S, small, CAPE, wrap, with last of cucumbeR. | |
| 23 | Expensive fur bought up front in transaction (5) |
| SABLE — “Bought up front” is B, in SALE. (Not the same word, actually, as in my nom de plume.) | |
| 25 | Cardinal starts to examine Trappist’s belief (5) |
| TENET — “Cardinal” (number) is TEN, starts to (first letters of) examine (and) Trappists. |
The one thing I didn’t get was ‘fish slice’. The cryptic clear points to the correct answer, but this particular term is unknown in the US.
Thanks for joining the blogging team, Guy; I look forward to future blogs as well, of course, to your comments from this side.
Back in 2008 Peter B (now Crossword Editor, The Sunday Times, but then in charge of TftT which was his baby) stated that he was unaware of such a convention but it was then pointed out that the ‘rule’ was in the published guide to the Times Clue Setting competition and other sources – a book by Brian Greer, for example. Reverting again to the discussions in February, an anonymous contributor stated “I know Peter Biddlecombe allows it either way in Sunday Times puzzles”.
Clearly it’s a convention that can’t be relied on even where it is agreed that it’s supposed to be in force, which takes us back to 14ac where ‘carer working’ = TENDER now seems to be the most likely parsing, but it’s awkward to say the least and might suggest that the clue should have been rethought and amended.
Edited at 2018-05-27 05:25 am (UTC)
I’m pleased to see that my copy of the guide for Times setters (not supplied in that expectation that I would enforce all the rules therein) confirms that the “B,A” idea only applies to across clues, and in down clues, “A on B” can only mean “A,B”. It also says “This is a Times convention”. (The) Times conventions do not apply in current Sunday Times crosswords, and as far as I know, any past ones. And although I guess I have to take a bit of blame as I have in the past stated what various Times rules are (or were), I very strongly believe that solvers should not learn them all and expect them to be followed all the time. One reason is that an editor could forget to apply their own rule. In one long-ago Times championship puzzle there were two pure hidden words, breaking the Times rule that there is no more than one. As far as I know, none of the contestants delayed entering the second of the two obviously correct answers in the belief that there couldn’t possibly be another hidden word clue. Another reason is that rules like this may change, and if they are, there will not be an announcement in the paper to tell you. The biggest reason is that crossword solving should be an exercise in using your wits, not remembering arcane rules. As usual, the people who just buy the paper and happen to do the crossword, without discussing it on public forums, have said nothing about this clue in puzzle feedback.
“carer working” is for me quite simply a possible alternative to “carer” as the indication for “tender”.
Edited at 2018-05-27 04:18 pm (UTC)
Edited at 2018-05-29 05:13 pm (UTC)
Edited at 2018-05-27 10:06 am (UTC)
Edited at 2018-05-27 11:57 am (UTC)
But I see that there is a variety of opinions on this.
Edited at 2018-05-27 06:41 pm (UTC)
Edited at 2018-05-27 08:16 am (UTC)
Anyway. A good puzzle, difficult for the right reasons, with nothing too obscure, I thought. Though I’ll have to add 19a ARCO to my Big List of Words That I Write Down But Never Actually Revise. Setting aside the spatulate debate, I hadn’t heard of “fish” for “unintelligent type”, either.
FOI 1d DEFINITE ARTICLE, LOI 3d RESOLVED. COD 17a NEMO.
Edited at 2018-05-27 07:58 am (UTC)
30:41 secs for me with one wrong. Arcs for ARCO. COD Director General. Nice well disguised anagram.
So it’s another year in the Championship for the Villains. Ah well. The better team probably won yesterday.
I’ve got a FISH SLICE: it’s used for serving the helpings from a whole salmon, or would be if we had the occasion (and the finance).
I’ve yet to hear a FINE TUNE from an ATONAL composer, but I suppose that’s the point.
Welcome to the noble art and congratulations Guy: I still haven’t mastered the art of turning my clues blue. I’m sure it should be easy but I tend to end up with multiple shades, which looks weird. Best wishes for many future offerings.
So a similar experience to others.
Also struggled with 24a where Set On had a long life.
FOI was 6d. David
Exhausted from watching so much sport over the weekend;although the test match was mercifully short.
This took me 15:33. We have an antique and quite elaborate silver FISH SLICE we inherited. It sits in a drawer and has never been used. I think of a spatula as the flexible thing you use to get the last bit of cake mix out of the bowl. The object that seems to qualify as both is what I would call a turner or flipper. It’s a minefield: I wonder what Nancy Mitford would say.
In my childhood a fish slice was an egg turner/lifter. We’d have turned/lifted fish with it as well if we’d had any.
My first spatula was a stainless steel palette knife. In the kitchen it’s called a frosting knife. I’ve never been without one all my adult life. Its flexibility makes it much better for spreading butter, margarine, jam, peanut butter etc on bread.
When I moved to Canada I encountered the rubber/silicone spatula, very useful for getting the last of a batter out of a bowl or the remains of the jam, peanut butter that the metal one leaves behind.
Tom (and Jan) Toronto