A bag of assorted holiday candy that arrived a few days early, this is my second Harry to blog in a row and another uncommonly gentle one, with a generous proportion of anagrams, two hiddens and nothing to frighten the reindeer.
I indicate (Ars Magna)* like this, and words flagging such rearrangements are italicized in the clues.
ACROSS | |
1 | Two places to find water in Turkey, perhaps (4,6) |
MAIN COURSE A big pipe and an outdoor channel |
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6 | Behold old royal following flipping star (4) |
IDOL LO, “Behold” precedes the lamented Lady DI if you’re “flipping” the answer. Strictly speaking, “following” isn’t needed to indicate the order of the parts of the charade, but it gives the surface more sense, and, most importantly, an allusion to the Xmas trope of following a star. |
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9 | Baby Jesus … ultimately kid you rejected (5) And you’ll burn in Hell for that! |
SUGAR |
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10 | Lord’s position as Conservative member (6,3) |
SQUARE LEG SQUARE, “[c]onservative” + LEG, “member” “Lord’s” is of course the cricket ground. …I have no idea what this term means. And don’t tell me (again), as I never retain such information. |
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12 | A criminal wearing many clothes heading for arctic air (4,2,1,6) |
AWAY IN A MANGER A + (wearing many)* covering A |
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14 | P{ole and Er}itrean held potential poisoner (8) |
OLEANDER Hidden |
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15 | Stumped by irritating sensation in part of darned stocking (6) |
STITCH ST(umped) + ITCH, “irritating sensation” |
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17 | Copper pots empty after dad brought in these? (6) |
CUPPAS CU, “copper” + P |
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19 | Catholic orthodox leader donning elaborate crown (8) |
CORONATE C(atholic) + OR(O |
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21 | His mate’s crack upset fruity type at yuletide meal (9,4) |
CHRISTMAS CAKE (His mate’s crack)* In the UK, “fruity” is not nearly as offensive as in North America. |
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24 | Million invested in treating bruising’s paying off (9) |
IMBURSING (bruising)* holding M(illion) ReIMBURSING is heard much more often… |
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25 | Muscateer? That’s spelt wrong, I moan! (5) |
OMANI (I moan)* Punning on the name of the capital city |
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26 | Why Chicagoans might be late home for Christmas (4) |
NOEL NO EL |
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27 | Endless presents … it needs to change (10) |
PERSISTENT (presents … it)* |
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DOWN | |
1 | Majority of Christ{mas s}ucks (4) Eric Idle agrees… |
MASS Hidden |
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2 | Where one might see Cinders being unhappy with present? (7) |
INGRATE IN GRATE |
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3 | Is a racier turn wrong for pre-panto act? (7-6) |
CURTAIN-RAISER (Is a racier turn)* |
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4 | Leeds side holds southern uni in a poor match (8) |
UNSUITED UN(S)(U)ITED …What held me up here was (of course) the sports reference. |
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5 | Saint Nick has no time to wrap posh sweater (5) |
SAUNA SA(U)N |
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7 | Joy provided by my boss turning up not heavily armed (7) Phew! |
DELIGHT ED(itor)<=“turning up” + LIGHT, “not heavily armed”—as in light infantry |
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8 | Stuffing or hog or ale can cause excessive gas (10) |
LOGORRHOEA (or hog or ale)* |
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11 | Those accompanying Bird jazzed up operas and tattoos (5,8) |
ROAST POTATOES (operas + tattoos)* Not Charlie Parker, then… |
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13 | Fairy story potion? (10) |
CONCOCTION DD |
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16 | Wise men with Christmas presents for some having a ball? (8) |
CORSAGES COR, “Christmas!” + SAGES, “wise men” …I was surprised not to find “(Jiminy) Christmas!” as an interjection in Collins, or Dictionary.com, but it is in the OED (scroll down). This was my LOI because it took a while to remember that. Criminy! |
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18 | Post about preposterous boozer’s story of Christ (7) |
PARABLE PA(BAR<=“preposterous”)LE |
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20 | A time to stop contrary vicar being mean (7) |
AVERAGE A + REV<=“contrary” + AGE, “time” |
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22 | State of humanity, I admitted, close to collapse (5) Cheer up, mate! It’s Christmas! |
MAINE MA(I)N + |
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23 | Good (providing getting half-cut at present) (4) |
GIFT G(ood) + IF, “providing” + |
26a can be parsed two ways:
No EL(evated) railroad
No el=L (in Chicago L, the elevated railroad of that city).
Enjoyable puzzle
That seems to me just the same way twice.
I also thought NO EL said it all.
We have an L train in NYC, but that’s not why it’s called that.
Not quite, the first way is using Chicago as a metanym for USA, with the abbreviation EL; the second is specific to Chicago using the name of the letter L.
But there’s no metonym necessarily indicated. The cryptic part of the clue is specific to Chicago. In any case, EL is simply L spelled out, and in both cases it means the same thing.
But I really wrote this only to give you the correct spelling of “metonym.” 😀
If you look at EL in Chambers you’ll see that it’s an abbreviation of elevated in reference to US railroads. Whereas if you take the reference to Chicago specifically, which seems to be referred to as Chicago L, then you can use el for L. Either way works.
Nice festive offering from DM and had fun completing it. I still don’t get the COR in CORSAGES, is it something to do with Corinthians? Thought NOEL was clever although I do remember a similar clue coming up before. Didn’t know CORONATE for crown but it makes sense given that it happens at a coronation. Could’ve done without LOGORRHOEA. COD to SQUARE LEG, sorry Guy!
I’m not sure but I think there’s a star a little closer than Proxima Centauri, I’m looking at it now.
Thanks for the blog/s and happy new year.
QC setter Noel (Richard Rogan) once set us a puzzle which would have been a double pangram but for the fact that it contained NO L.
COR/Christmas as interjections (as I said), exclamations expressing surprise, amazement, or admiration.
I thought it was implicit that we were talking only about the nighttime sky, but I’ve added a parenthesis to that note for our fellow pedants. FYI, though, the first definition for “star” in Collins is “ any of a vast number of celestial objects that are visible in the clear night sky as points of light.”
26 minutes with two lookups, so a technical DNF. As so often I became stuck on two remaining intersecting answers CORONATE and CORSAGES. I still don’t understand the definition of the latter.
Re PARABLE, we’ve come to accept a vast range of anagrinds and I would have no problem with ‘preposterous’ as one such, but I fail to see how it indicates reversal. My thesaurus lists c20 synonyms and I can’t imagine any of them fulfilling that role either.
I think corsages are floral gifts given by a gal’s beau to wear on her dress before going to the prom, hence presents for some having a ball. More common in America methinks.
I think it would be harder to create a double pangram without a particular letter than with.
Yes, in this Yank’s mind, corsages are virtually exclusively related to high school proms.
“Preposterous” etymologically/“literally” means taking what’s last (post) as first (pre) and vice versa. I’ve seen it used this way before—though, as far as London puzzles go, maybe only in Mephisto.
Yes, I know it’s not being used as an anagrind here and hoped I had made that clear in my previous.
Your point about the literal derivation of preposterous is interesting and had never occurred to me before. I wonder how frequently it’s actually used in that sense rather that the more usual ‘absurd’. As mentioned, my thesaurus doesn’t list any synonym that covers that meaning , but the entry for ‘preposterous’ in Chamber’s Crossword Dictionary begins by noting it as both anagram and reversal indicators so it’s something I need to bear in mind for the future.
I’d already amended that reply again (re anagrind/reversal) before I read this. I think “preposterous” is only used so literally in cryptic puzzles (like a few other words we could mention).
Definition 1.a. in OED (though with now rare) placing last what should be first.
DNF
I thought this was an absolutely smashing puzzle with loads of amusing clues so thank you Mr M.
Didn’t understand COR for CHRISTMAS but in it went
My problem was with 1d where I couldn’t decide between MOST and MASS. I see that the dictionary does give “the greater part” as one of the definitions for MASS so fair enough. But also is “of” a sufficient indicator for a hidden? Obviously so. MOST fitted the definition but not any w/p I could divine but nor could I for COR…
Anyway excellent puzzle and thanks as always Guy
‘Coronate’ is an adjective.
It primarily is in British English; Collins indicates that its use as a verb is mainly American (and the American dictionary Merriam-Webster does not have a listing for it as an adjective). In the clue here, it is clearly a verb, as it is defined by “crown,” which here modifies no noun.
4d. I wondered how you’d get on with “Leeds side” = “united”!
21ac. Interesting re. “fruity”. It’s of course fine in the UK, and the US connotation isn’t really known or used. But helpful to have that flagged up: I could imagine slipping up with that one in certain situations.
26ac. NOEL. This has been covered in the exchanges above. But for me I had a bit of a “peeling an onion” feeling with this one.
The form of the clue was pretty generous:
Why {something to do with America} for Christmas (4 letters)
…which did suggest I could enter “NO-EL” with reasonable confidence that “el” was some unknown US term.
Later on, looking up “el” in Collins told me it was “US, Informal: elevated railway”. Fair enough, a contraction one might know, which explains why NO EL could mean “no trains”.
But then I wondered if “Chicagoans” was particularly relevant. Googling informed me that the elevated railway in Chicago is a notably major part of their transport system. So “no elevated railway” for Chicago is like “no Tube” in London.
However, it became apparent, that in Chicago it’s normally called the “L”, and not “el”: to the extent that the latter is almost regarded as a solecism used by out-of-towners.
So, overall I am in two minds about this one. Quite a fun clue. Rather tough for a non-US solver. But maybe less satisfactory for the subjects of the surface.
Thanks, Guy. I liked Cor = Christmas once I saw it (talk about two slightly dated phrases), and I really liked Omani. I’d always thought the Chicago El was El, so the L by itself viz Chicago never occured to me as needing thinking about. Thankfully.
For 1D I thought of ‘main’ as meaning the sea (‘when Britain rose from azure main’) rather than ‘main pipe’ but I suppose either parsing works.
Fun puzzle, and most not too hard for me: came unstuck at AWAY IN A MANGER (forgetting that sense of “air”), and had disunity for a while at 4d, which held me up. As with Guy, I don’t think in football terms. Liked the overall irreverent feel to this, with “fairy tale” and the Jesus clue being “SUGAR”, etc. (and the plea at 27a!). Lots of good devices and unhealthy food – that’s what I like.
The used of coronate(d) rather than crown(edJ during broadcast of the latest coronation jarred with me. My, admittedly 1935 edition, OED notes the former as bot. & zool.
I was reluctant to insert it, but corsages forced the point, thanks for explanation of ‘cor’.
LOI imbursing. COD idol for unusual definition of Di.
Thanks David and Guy
Had a few problems printing this off last week, so didn’t get to solve it until last Thursday. It took a couple of meaty sessions and just under the hour and a half to complete. Had initial errors with the 2d / 14a crossers which held things up for a bit – but thoroughly enjoyed the solve. Like others, had trouble with the ‘Christmas’ / COR part of my last one in CORSAGES and had to look up why they were ‘presents for some having a ball’ – but all new learning is always welcome.
Now on to this week’s puzzle – which had no problems in getting printed !