Another fine Sunday outing with Dean. This seemed quite fresh, with a couple bits of unusual vocabulary—one of which I was pleased to know already—and some well-camouflaged definitions, one whose answer is essential to another very clever (and as usual very concise) clue.
I indicate (Ars Magna)* like this, and words flagging such rearrangements are italicized in the clues.
| ACROSS | |
| 1 | Ingredient of fine Guinness, perhaps (6) |
| FACTOR F(ine) + ACTOR, “Guinness, perhaps” Alec G. is the most famous thespian of that name. |
|
| 5 | Pieces match, but not on paper (8) |
| MENTALLY MEN, “pieces” (in chess, say) + TALLY, “match” |
|
| 9 | Feel divide, left out (4) |
| HAVE HA |
|
| 10 | Good offices will stock cold remedy (10) |
| MEDICATION MEDI(C)ATION |
|
| 11 | Four quarts of fluid in large oil lamp (8,6) |
| IMPERIAL GALLON (in large oil lamp)* Fun fact: A gallon is equal to “four quarts” on both sides of the pond, but the British IMPERIAL GALLON is significantly larger than the American measure. That’s because yer Brit’s pint, at 568 cubic centimetres, is bigger than the Yank’s (just 473)! |
|
| 13 | Name is given to Greek nymph (8) |
| CALLISTO CALL, “Name” + IS + TO |
|
| 15 | Some r{etalia}te as well as others (2,4) |
| ET ALIA Hidden |
|
| 16 | Biological material sent out to Mars (6) |
| STROMA (to Mars)* …NHO, and not the same as “stoma” at all |
|
| 18 | Old model stuck, cut by old kind of sword (3-5) |
| TWO-EDGED T, “Old model” + W(O)EDGED |
|
| 20 | Look here, it says “X marks the spot” (5-9) |
| CROSS-REFERENCE With an alternate interpretation of the phrase, literal in another way Probably not a coincidence that this puzzle features one, which is rare for the Times. |
|
| 22 | Terrible female novelist in Italian town (10) |
| GORGONZOLA GORGON, “Terrible female” + ZOLA (Émile, 1840–1902), socially conscious “naturalist” French novelist …Always a gripping read! I also really like the cheese named after the town, and it’s been too long… |
|
| 24 | Sick? Not very, miss (4) |
| OMIT |
|
| 25 | Elaborate action parts for chase (8) |
| DETAILED DE(TAIL)ED |
|
| 26 | Female can notice inside information that’s false (6) |
| LADIES L(AD)IES Amusing definition, cunningly hidden |
|
| DOWN | |
| 2 | Startle with a large member (5) “Oh, what a beauty! 🎶 I’ve never seen one as big as that before!” |
| ALARM A + L(arge) + ARM, “member” |
|
| 3 | Rich people fell into order before song and dance (3,4-2-2) |
| THE WELL-TO-DO T(HEW)ELL + TO DO, “song and dance” |
|
| 4 | Bones for stays (7) |
| REMAINS DD |
|
| 5 | Ordinary wordplay for 9 Across? (6-2-3-4) |
| MIDDLE-OF-THE-ROAD |
|
| 6 | Bat welcome to devour rubbish (7) |
| NICTATE NIC(TAT)E “Bat” in the sense of (Collins) “to wink or flutter (one’s eyelids)” Collins proper (British) has the form “nictitate” (“from Medieval Latin nictitāre to wink repeatedly, from Latin nictāre to wink, from nicere to beckon”), and online Collins also gives us NICTATE as an American variant. But both Chambers and Dictionary.com have the former as a variant of the latter. …which is the word I knew (I think). |
|
| 7 | Fitting a soft type of shirt (3) |
| APT A + P(iano), “soft” + T, “type of shirt” |
|
| 8 | Insanely difficult to eat duck cooked with onions (9) |
| LYONNAISE (Insanely)* swallowing O, “duck” |
|
| 12 | See dame boarding sub last (2,3,6) |
| LO AND BEHOLD LOAN, “sub” + D(ame) of the B(ritish) E(mpire) + HOLD, “last” …Biffed, and then the last one parsed |
|
| 14 | Lorry that man used to carry fine plant (9) |
| ARTICHOKE ARTIC, “Lorry” + H(OK)E |
|
| 17 | Soccer club stadium incorporates small lake (7) |
| ARSENAL AR(S)ENA + L(ake) |
|
| 19 | Loose coat used for sweeping (7) |
| OVERALL DD |
|
| 21 | “X” — author on strike (5) |
| CHIME CHI, “X” in Greek, + ME, “author” |
|
| 23 | State proposal that’s realistic when delivered (3) |
| GOA “Goer” |
|
I had all but four answers after 34 minutes but was too tired to continue so I abandoned it overnight. On resumption, two missing answers came to me immediately and I used aids for CALLISTO which appeared without comment from me in February this year defined as a satellite so I must have dredged it up from somewhere or perhaps the wordplay was more solver-friendly than today.
That would still have left one clue unsolved at 6dn but unfortunately I didn’t notice it was missing so this has to count as a DNF even allowing for one use of aids.
I have come across NICTATE before without complaint, most recently with helpful wordplay (TATE was clued by ‘gallery’ – the only one known to Crosswordland) but I hadn’t actually remembered the word and I would never have worked it out today with ‘welcome / NICE’ requiring a bit of a squint.
I find it hard to believe I have survived for so long at TfTT without realising that chi = X in the Greek alphabet. If I have met it before, it didn’t stick.
“Welcome” is listed as a “Strong Match” for NICE at Thesaurus.com… but, yeah, I did check that.
Done! Which is a relief given recent form. And a Dean Mayer, too. *buffs nails against chest* I didn’t know all the words here – NICTATE, CALLISTO, STROMA – but the clueing was so precise that the answers were beyond doubt. Never knew what LYONNAISE actually meant, either. Most enjoyable. Thanks, all.
We debated have = feel at yesterday’s get-together. I think yours is the best explanation I’ve heard but I’m still not completely convinced they’re synonymous!
Guy, the better way to think about the difference between the British and US pint is that British is 20 fluid ounces while US is 16. Hence we learnt at school that a pint of water weighs a pond and a quarter. Therefore 9 US pints makes one Imperial gallon.
In transatlantic terms a pond and a quarter is an ocean of a difference!
Breezed through this one in 20 minutes, squinting at HAVE just long enough. A pleasant way to discover that GORGONZOLA is also a town.
Mightily mightily struggled with this, with so many “Whoops I should have seen that sooner” I knew that I was making very heavy weather of it. Even when I got HAVE and the long one I couldn’t see how the former came from the latter. I think I had convinced myself it was harder than it was and saw traps where there were none.
Or maybe it was the too many whiskies last night and too little sleep ! (I do these a week in arrears)
Thanks Guy and Dean
11a Imp Gall; UK & US fluid ounces are close in size, US about 4% larger, but UK pints have 20 and US pints 16. “A pint is a pound the world around” as long as you take the def of world the same way as the World Basketball championship did from 1950 to 2010.
16a STROMA NHO but there were few pronounceable options. Had to look it up after to see what I DNK of course. I have to say that I do not anticipate using this word again in my lifetime.
6d NICTATE on the very edges of knowledge, I felt it was hard, I wrote “Um!”
12d Lo and behold biffed and not parsed. Thank you Guy.
Found this quite tricky.
NHO NICTATE or STROMA; biffed MIDDLE-OF-THE-ROAD and THE WELL-TO-DO; glad I’m not the only one who didn’t know chi=X for CHIME; wasn’t sure about HAVE.
Thanks setter and blogger.
FOI Factor
LOI Have
COD Ladies
45 minutes, absolutely delightful as always. Much of that time was spent working out the sometimes unexpectedly convoluted wordplay (for example, I wrote in TWO-EDGED, then erased it again because it didn’t fit my conception of what I thought the wordplay was going to be [O+SIT and so on, instead of just T for “old model”] and later put it in again, when I saw how it really did work). Among many brilliant clues, the “female can…” in LADIES stands out.
But then, maximal deception is what it’s all about, isn’t it. So just a typical Sunday….
Hydrochoos says it all above: had a hard time seeing the definitions even after I’d biffed. But good weekend fun. CODs the female can, Alec the fine actor, and the tasty town.
Thanks Dean and guy
Did this one in a couple of sittings today – the first in a cafe with coffee and scone/jam/cream – the second after hopefully walking it off back home. Got to say that there was more to be done in the second session and it took just under the hour and a quarter to finish. Had most trouble with HAVE and needed to understand the tricky parsing of 5d to convince myself that it was really right. the other one that took an age to resolve was LO AND BEHOLD.
CHI as X was familiar from uni statistics and its Chi-squared test, which used the X symbol.
Finished in the SW corner with ARSENAL, STROMA (which was new to me) and DETAILED as the last one in.