…but overall rather straightforward, I thought, a quicker than usual trip from Dean. Your mileage may vary.
I indicate (Ars Magna)* like this, and words flagging such rearrangements are italicized in the clues.
| ACROSS | |
| 1 | Measure of wire, almost 1,760 yards (3) |
| MIL MIL |
|
| 3 | Doing without us is of necessity (11) |
| PERFORMANCE PERFOR(MAN)CE “Man” in the general sense of the human race |
|
| 9 | Homeless alternative comedian leaving Spain (7) |
| NOMADIC (com |
|
| 10 | Pop music playing, which is ideal (7) |
| PARAGON PA, “Pop” + RAG, “music” + ON, “playing” |
|
| 11 | When finished, hide plain belt (6,7) |
| PATENT LEATHER PATENT, “plain” + LEATHER, “belt” |
|
| 13 | Having run, boy runs into activity (8) |
| LADDERED LAD, “boy” + DE(R)ED |
|
| 14 | Magic word appeals to audience (6) |
| PLEASE “pleas” |
|
| 16 | Drink with timid guards (6) |
| SHANDY SH(AND)Y |
|
| 18 | Coach went down minor diversion (5,3) |
| TRAIN SET TRAIN, “Coach” + SET, “went down” like the sun Typically a plaything of children, or minors |
|
| 21 | Father Joseph’s awfully nice men say “Revolt” (8,5) |
| EMINENCE GRISE (nice men)* + EG, “say” + RISE, “Revolt” Originally the sobriquet of “Father Joseph,” aka François Leclerc du Tremblay, right-hand man of l’Éminence Rouge, Cardinal Richelieu. The term has come to have a more general sense of someone “who wields power and influence unofficially or behind the scenes” (Collins). |
|
| 23 | Twists or produces a knot (7) |
| WINDSOR WINDS OR …I have a (nonclassical, to say the least) musician friend who has bragged that he never learned to tie a tie. I, on the other hand, have the WINDSOR knot so firmly in my muscle memory that once, on a very jet-lagged morning in Paris, I temporarily was unable to complete it because I stopped to think. |
|
| 24 | Dog that is sent back after biting (4,3) |
| SHAR PEI SHARP, “biting” + IE<=“sent back” |
|
| 25 | Hell-bent? The opposite (11) |
| DISINCLINED DIS, “Hell” + INCLINED, “bent” |
|
| 26 | Water tower empty when turned over (3) |
| TUG GUT<=“turned over” |
|
| DOWN | |
| 1 | Hog swimming in some pool (10) |
| MONOPOLISE (in some pool)* |
|
| 2 | Bound to put small donation in hat (7) |
| LIMITED LI(MITE)D That’s “the widow’s MITE,” from a story Jesus tells in the Bible. |
|
| 3 | Fictional lawyer is held up – and down, perhaps (9,6) |
| PUDDNHEAD WILSON (is held up and down)* The title character (with an apostrophe between D and N) of the great Mark Twain’s 1894 satirical novel, which is mainly about the lives of two people who were switched at birth, with the originally white boy growing up as black and vice versa. Pudd’nhead is a small-town attorney who eventually reveals the boys’ true identities through application of the newfangled science of fingerprint analysis. …If memory serves, this is the one that held me up the longest. |
|
| 4 | Could remember being withdrawn (8) |
| RECALLED DD |
|
| 5 | Twist, say, for rising Chinese dynasty (6) |
| ORPHAN PRO<=“rising” + HAN, “Chinese dynasty” That’s Oliver Twist, of course, from the eponymous Dickens novel. |
|
| 6 | Part of railway signal hardly bent after damage (11,4) |
| MARSHALLING YARD MAR, “damage” + (signal hardly)* |
|
| 7 | Country — one with capital in Abuja (7) |
| NIGERIA NIGER, “Country” + I + A, “capital in Abuja”— the capital of NIGERIA. &lit! |
|
| 8 | Bird in anoth{er ne}st (4) |
| ERNE Hidden |
|
| 12 | Trying to hide the evidence of aging? (10) |
| WEATHERING WEAR(THE)ING |
|
| 15 | Brilliant boy progresses quickly (6,2) |
| CRACKS ON CRACK SON |
|
| 17 | Declare source of heat arising in volcanic lake (7) |
| AVERNUS AVER. “declare” + SUN<=“arising” |
|
| 19 | Neuter animal at home for a bit (7) |
| SNIPPET SNIP PET Ouch! …I could find no dictionary listing for SNIP tout court as “neuter,” but the word is often used to mean just that, in this context. Indeed, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, has a Spay/Neuter Incentive Program, or SNIP. |
|
| 20 | Fuel’s particular job, releasing energy (6) |
| PETROL PET ROL |
|
| 22 | Made cow get hitched under one? (4) |
| AWED A, “one” + WED, “get hitched” |
|
I never know when I see it is Dean whether it will be really difficult or not too bad. In any case, the clues will be very clever with nicely disguised definitions. This one turned out not too bad. I think AVERNUS was my only NHO but the wordplay was clear. Also, although I’ve heard of PUDD’NHEAD WILSON I couldn’t tell you anything about it and I needed all the checkers to see it, given the somewhat unpromising anagrist with 3 Ds to fit in somehow.
NHO Father J. Pudd’nhead Wilson I think I once read, but all I remember of it is that I didn’t like it. I think PET can be said to be particular (to a given person) in, say, ‘pet peeve/hate’. DNK CRACKS ON. As always with Dean, some great clues; I especially liked DISINCLINED & WEATHERING.
To me, “pet peeve” means someone’s favorite peeve. A “peeve” seems intrinsically “particular” to one person. Anyway, the two words aren’t listed as synonymous anywhere that I checked.
Italics?
It looks like Kevin had an italicized book title in his post but it was accidentally deleted, leaving the code for italics.
That would appear to be it: Pudd’nhead Wilson was deleted, and the rest of the posting was italicized. Why, and how, I don’t know.
While I’m here, I might note that all the ODE examples for ‘pet’ take ‘peeve’, or ‘hate’ or ‘project’.
I took the liberty of amending. Hope that’s okay.
Ta.
I think 1D may be ‘monopolise’ rather than ‘monopolist’. Though I feel bad correcting something given I had a big DNF on this. Had never heard of Eminence grise, avernus, or puddnhead…and there were a few others that were a struggle too!! I clearly found it a lot harder than others!
Oh, that’s right, of course. There is no T in the anagrist! Ta
I think I read Puddnhead Wilson, maybe 55 or 60 years ago, but I had a hard time remembering even the title of the book. I did know Avernus as a feature of Dis, so it wasn’t much of a jump to a volcanic lake. Fortunately, you didn’t have to know anything about Father Joseph to get eminence grise – just follow the cryptic.
Time: 44:33
75 minutes, but I was pleased to complete it without resort to aids. For a start I never heard of PUDDNHEAD WILSON so I had to wait for all the checkers before I managed to disentangle the anagrist. Had no idea what was going on with ‘Father Joseph’ before or after solving the clue. I didn’t know MIL other than as an abbreviation of ‘million’ as an amount of money so the wire reference delayed me. According to Collins it’s a thousandth of an inch .
I liked TRAIN SET defined as a minor diversion although I suspect more adults than children divert themselves with model trains these days.
Wikipedia doesn’t have anything under ‘Father Joseph’ (Britannica does), but cross-refers from ‘Père Joseph’ to François Leclerc du Tremblay.
Thanks
This week’s didn’t sit well with me. Top half was relatively straightforward save 3d, but then I stalled for a couple of days and seriously considered giving up. Once I got 3d things began to get going again.
57m 45s
A slight harrumph at the idea that a TRAIN SET is a ‘minor diversion’. Don’t tell Rod Stewart that. He has at least one massive train set and he’s 79!
And a raised eyebrow at 7d. That is not even cryptic.
Never heard of Puddnhead so had no chance of finishing this even with all the crossers. Always very irritating when you are one short of completing , especially when the answer is a complete unknown.
Was fascinated to see the blog for this one, as I completely failed on it. Without 3a, I was unable to get the relevant down clues, which, once I looked up PERFORMANCE, went straight in. But I still can’t equate the word with any sense of ‘doing’. I’ve never heard of ‘doing’ as a noun. That apart, I had no idea of the source of EMINENCE GRISE, so clued as Father Joseph, I was never going to get that, as I couldn’t work out the components and didn’t have enough crossers. Nor had I ever heard of the fictional lawyer – I’ve read Twain’s two most famous novels, not this one, and was thinking along the lines of Perry Mason. Now that I’ve read the blog I don’t feel quite so bad about a major fail!
15:57. Tricky one. I spent a couple of minutes at the end working out the anagram for the NHO 3dn. I worked out that the surname was probably WILSON, and that the first name probably ended HEAD, but that left me with a D and a U that didn’t seem to fit. Eventually I clocked that it would work with an elision. Or rather two.
DNF 3d.
1a Not sure Mil is a word, but it is in Wiktionary as, inter alia, a thou(sandth) of an inch, so I let him off. Mark you it is not usually used for wire which is usually in a guage (12, 16 etc). Spark plug gaps and valve clearances were specified in thous, but not mils AFAIK. Kitchen units tend to be 600 mils in speech, spelt 600mm, about 2 feet. One of these days this country might decide whether to convert to metric or just leave the chaos we have, or even revert to Imperial.
21a NHO Father Joseph and cheated. HHO Eminence Grise so in it went. Finally saw the convoluted wordplay.
3d NHO Pudd’nhead, so DNF. I thought it might be somebody Wilson. Mr Google found about 50 fictional lawyers, but was no help. I wasn’t even certain it was an anagram so no chance. Added to Cheating Machine.
17d Avernus. Cheated for this. The lake was not not in CM, so added.
19d Snip=neuter. I have had “the snip”, a recognised euphemism, redirected by Wiki to Vasectomy. As Guy is in USA it may be that the phrase doesn’t exist the same way Over There.
I NHO People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, nor PETA, nor Spay/Neuter Incentive Program, nor THAT snip.
Looking back I took 63 minutes so obviously found it hard. I remember never having heard of Puddnhead Wilson and having to check it with google at the end, but I think now maybe it does ring a faint bell. I will have to read it sometime.
26 ac – It’s gut = empty (verbal sense) which has been reversed. Is that what you meant? Apologies for any perceived impertinence.
12 d – I think the synonym should include “evidence of”?
Many thanks to setter and blogger.
Fixed the underline, thanks. Funny that it took so long for anyone to mention that.
Yes, GUT is “empty,” which is the only thing “turned over” in the clue. I never explain reversals any more than that, in the confident assumption that the clue itself makes clear what is reversed.
I enjoyed the historical and literary references in this one – to learn more about the vaguely known EMINENCE GRISE and PUDD’NHEAD WILSON.
Also no purely cryptic definitions. Sometimes I find Dean’s CDs quite difficult to understand, and I think from reading these blogs I am not alone. A couple of clues here did have a rather cryptic definition with some difficult wordplay – but in combination they allowed me to work them out eventually!
Longtime lurker here. I found this quite a challenge and was pleased and surprised to finish without resort to aids. Can someone please explain how
DIS = HELL?
Ok, real long time lurker here, never posted but always read. Ironically, we may live in the same part of the world, judging by your tag.
DIS is often used as another word for Hades or the Underworld in Greek Mythology.
Thank you, Ian. Don’t think I ever knew that, even though Ancient Civilisations was my best subject in first year university (yes, Tasmania)!
Evidence of some very erudite and widely-read solvers here! I’ve never heard of PUDDNHEAD, nor Father Joseph, so already on the back foot… fared not too well, having to lookup those, plus other obscurities like AVERNUS. But tried I did, and lost, but learned.
Thanks Dean and Guy
Back on track after taking a full week to complete the previous week’s puzzle. This one took just over the 3/4 hour, but did involve a lot of electronic help with the ‘lawyer’, ‘behind the scenes influencer’ and finding PERFORMANCE (still didn’t parse it when it went in). Had WEATHERING as a dd, but see that it really doesn’t work now and the official parsing makes much more sense.
Thought that the definition for TRAIN SET was excellent. Finished with that one, followed by that WEATHERING and CRACKS ON the last on in.
Solving from a back-log of printed cryptics. I found this tough, but cleanly clued. Close attention to parsing shows how well put together it is. ‘Coach went down minor diversion’ probably the favourite. Thanks to Dean and Guy.