There is usually a brief period when I stare blankly at a new Sunday puzzle, seeing no way in, until a secret panel in the sheer, opaque wall opens up… I don’t remember having much trouble with this one, once I finally got started. It is, at least, all clear on looking back.
I indicate (Ars Magna)* like this, and words flagging such rearrangements are italicized in the clues.
| ACROSS | |
| 1 | A drug crusade goin’ on (8) |
| WARFARIN WAR, “crusade” + FARIN’, “goin’ on” Makin’ war! The drug prevents and treats blood clots. Regarding adverse side effects, I read, “Significant hemorrhage…can occur at virtually any body site. Patients should receive education about easy bleeding or bruising.” Wikipedia says the risk of hemorrhage is “small but definite (a typical yearly rate of 1–3%)”—and also that Warfarin “first came into large-scale commercial use in 1948 as a rat poison.” It got a lot of good PR in 1955 when it was used in the treatment of US President Dwight D. Eisenhower after a heart attack. But I know what you’re all really curious about: “The name ‘warfarin’ is derived from the acronym for ‘Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation,’ plus ‘-arin,’ indicating its link with coumarin,” an ester used as a parent compound for anticoagulants. …I had WAYFARIN first, known from an old gospel song, “Wayfarin’ Stranger,” which I could think of no way to make a pun with here. |
|
| 5 | Organs of state constrained by egos periodically (6) |
| GLANDS LAND, “state” inside eGoS |
|
| 9 | Blue-grey female trousers not paid for (8) |
| GUNMETAL G(UNMET)AL |
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| 10 | Italian region where lakes are less cold (6) |
| UMBRIA |
|
| 12 | Fine oil improved seasoned mayonnaise (5) |
| AIOLI AI, “Fine” + (oil)* |
|
| 13 | Time man to leave hopeless old magazine (3,6) |
| THE STRAND T(ime) + HE, “man” + STRAND, “leave hopeless” The Strand Magazine was a British monthly featuring short fiction and general interest articles that was published from January 1891 to March 1950. It was revived as a US-based quarterly in 1998 and is still running as The Strand Mystery Magazine, with contributions from both established and emerging writers. |
|
| 14 | Objected to cuts quite without bias (4-8) |
| FAIR-MINDEDLY FAIR(MINDED)LY |
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| 18 | Beasts putting money before church flowers (12) |
| RHINOCEROSES RHINO, “money” + CE, “Church” (of England) + ROSES, “flowers” |
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| 21 | Really a mystery writer, keeping quiet to run a TV show (4,5) |
| SOAP OPERA SO, “Really” as intensifier + A + PO(P)E + R(un) + A Edgar Allan Poe is considered the inventor of the detective story. |
|
| 23 | Diamonds in gold for one timeless decoration (5) |
| MEDAL D(iamonds) inside ME |
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| 24 | Job, say, that is one with better earnings (6) |
| BOOKIE BOOK, the biblical “Job” + IE, id est, “that is” |
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| 25 | Swell way to ask Gatsby to visit? (8) |
| POPINJAY “Pop in, Jay!” |
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| 26 | Lake jumped into by one who takes orders (6) |
| WAITER WA(I)TER |
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| 27 | Retain knowledge about one of the team (8) |
| REMEMBER RE, “about” + MEMBER, “one of the team” |
|
| DOWN | |
| 1 | Dwelling supplementing locks with up to twelve (6) |
| WIGWAM WIG, “supplementing locks” + W(ith) + AM, “up to twelve” (and then it’s PM, until the next twelve!) |
|
| 2 | Central characters in Troy initially met by chance (6) |
| RANDOM R AND O + M |
|
| 3 | Country currently exporting whiskey and coffee (9) |
| AMERICANO AMERICA, “Country” + NO |
|
| 4 | Vain criminal opening up about press writer from Russia (4,8) |
| IVAN TURGENEV (Vain)* = IVAN, then VENT<=“up” over URGE, “press” |
|
| 6 | Cap I’m wearing burst into flames (5) |
| LIMIT L(IM)IT |
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| 7 | Wisdom, perhaps on D-day, being evacuated here? (8) |
| NORMANDY NORMAN “Wisdom” + D– |
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| 8 | Stalls holding Times supplements for emergencies (8) |
| STANDBYS STAND(BY)S |
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| 11 | Largely senseless tea cosies mom embroidered (12) |
| SEMICOMATOSE (tea cosies mom)* |
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| 15 | Fanciful lie marked as unreal (9) |
| DREAMLIKE (lie marked)* |
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| 16 | Weapon put out front (8) |
| CROSSBOW CROSS, “put out” + BOW, “front” (of a ship) |
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| 17 | Pasta cook picked up an award (8) |
| RIGATONI RIG, “Cook” + “a Tony” |
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| 19 | Funny line for a Bond baddie (6) |
| ODDJOB ODD, “Funny” + JOB, “line” |
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| 20 | Butcher opening to sell chicken? (6) |
| SLAYER S(ell) + LAYER, “chicken?” |
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| 22 | Volunteer c{op in e}veryday clothes (5) |
| OPINE Hidden The closest OPINE comes to “Volunteer” in dictionaries is in the latter’s definition as “to say, tell, or communicate voluntarily.” But the idiom “volunteer an opinion” is heard frequently enough—and an opinion is indeed often offered without its being asked for (or even welcome!). We’ve seen the terms equated in these puzzles before, and Thesaurus.com be damned! |
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1A: as far as I know, “warfare” is noun rather than verb, and Robert’s notes gave WAR, FARIN’. Although I haven’t found printed dictionary confirmation, I’m prepared to accept the online idea that informally, “go on” can mean the same as “get on” (esp in questions like “How are you going on.”), and therefore matches “fare”.
Yeah, I took the word as a pun, a made-up word modeled on “wayfaring” (or “seafaring”), and assumed that the way it breaks down would be obvious. That has been rectified. Merci.
Dictionary.com has “to go; turn out; happen” for FARE.
Lo and behold: Chambers has “warfare” as an intransitive verb, “To wage war,” tagged as obsolete; lit and figurative.
40+’,
It took me a while to recall Norman Wisdom, who I only know from here; I had to look him up just now to remember who he was. It also took me a while to remember Gatsby’s name. POPINJAY my COD.
Once again I made the mistake of tackling this late at night when I was very tired and nodded off a couple of times because the answers were slow to arrive. After one of these naps, with 37 minutes on the clock and less than half the grid completed I decided to abandon it. On returning in the morning I needed another 13 minutes to polish the remainder off although I admit to having looked up Gatsby’s first name. I nearly wrote ‘to remind myself ‘, but I don’t think I ever knew it.
I didn’t think twice about WAR and FARIN’ (goin’ on) as two separate entities.
The only clue I wasn’t sure about was MEDAL. It had to be medal but I just couldn’t see the parsing. Guy’s blog makes it obvious. I kept looking for something that was specifically gold not generically, which of course metal is.
I found this easier than usual and certainly easier than Saturday’s, which I only finished on Sunday after this one was completed. 1, 9, 21 and 25a were bifd from crossers and post-parsed. Just as well, as I couldn’t remember Gatsby’s first name either. RHINOCEROSES looks most odd in the plural, possibly owing to the reference to flowers! With 13a THE went in straight away, but it took some time to unravel STRAND, as I wasn’t familiar with the publication. All in all, good fun and clever, as usual.
26 minutes which for me is very fast for a Sunday puzzle, except I have just found I had typed POPINJOY instead of POPINJAY.
The Strand is where the Sherlock Holmes stories first appeared.
10a Umbria bifd. I woke on Tuesday morning with the parsing, rather to my surprise. I still think of the Lake District as primarily Westmorland (or Cumberland) which were both killed off by Grocer Heath in 1974. Cumbria is therefore a Johnnie come lately at half a century old, and not to my liking.
POI 18a Rhinoceroses. Here ladies and gentlemen is the richest animal in the world. Its name comes from two Latin words, rhino meaning money, and sorearse meaning piles. I’ll get my coat.
COD 25a Pop in Jay. I was pretty sure he was Jay, but cheated anyway by looking him up.
4d Ivan T. One of the very few Russian writers I have read a book by. Can’t remember its title though.
11d Semicomatose added to Cheating Machine. Not a word that comes readily to my lips.
There’s a old Rugby song, The Wild West Show, which contains your joke. Love it.
DNF, defeated by WARFARIN and GUNMETAL, which were both unknown to me.
Guy – I think you’re missing the with=w part of the parsing for WIGWAM
Thanks Guy and Robert.
COD Americano
Oops! Ta!
28.35
Strangely breezeblocked on RANDOM at the end – just couldn’t make head nor tail of it until the pound coin dropped.
Usual fine surfaces in a well pitched puzzle plus informative and enjoyable blog
Very interesting blog. I hadn’t known about the name Warfarin coming from Wisconsin University, or that the Strand Magazine lives on.
7d. (There is a typo in the year of D-Day). The “Norman Wisdom” device makes me think of this from the Sunday Times in 2010 (and told elsewhere):
****
There is only one official joke at the European commission, and it has made a welcome reappearance after many years. A health campaigner tells of a difficult committee meeting in Brussels recently at which the prospect of agreement looked remote and tempers were beginning to fray. At which point the French chairwoman called for a bit of plain common sense – “la sagesse des normands”.
“What we need here”, said the English translation, “is Norman Wisdom.”
****
I’d always assumed this story was a joke, reverse-engineered from the punchline. However, I have discovered a promotional website “Normandy Welcome”, which in the “Education” page:
https://normandiewelcome.org/secteurs/enseignement
is headed by the inspiring quote:
“C’est la sagesse normande qui a modelé mon esprit” André Maurois
…and, wonderfully, if you click the French flag at the top of the page, and change it to English, we do indeed get:
“Norman wisdom shaped my mind said André Maurois.”
Très drôle !
I’ve corrected the date. Full disclosure: not a typo—I was not certain of it but neglected to check. Of course the war didn’t end that quickly!
Only did this today, as things have been a bit upside-down of late chez ulacas.
I found it hard going but fair. Chuckled at 24 across, and was unaccountably pleased with myself for remembering that it was Jay Gatsby. Notwithstanding this, the instant recall hardly helped with the clue, as I had got all the crossers, including the J, by the time I finally solved it.
Thanks Robert and Guy
Took this to a cafe for a late lunch and embarrassingly left after a half hour with only AIOLI to show – lucky the coffee, spinach & ricotta pastry and Portuguese tart made up for it !
Still took a while at home to get rolling with it and took another couple of sessions to complete it in a total of just short of two hours – I guess that I found this one difficult !
WARFARIN was one of the earlier entries and did upset my mother when she first had to take this, reminding her that it was rat poison that was keeping her going. Apparently, the rats ended up developing immunity from it.
Eventually finished in the SE corner with REMEMBER, ODDJOB and POPINJAY the last few in.