This wasn’t my favorite Harry puzzle, though it has its moments—including a (flawless!) &lit. Admittedly, I started off on the wrong foot (so to speak) with 1A. That was soon corrected, but I’m left with a couple clues that either I don’t quite understand or are lacking something.
I indicate (Ars Magna)* like this, and words flagging such rearrangements are italicized in the clues.
| ACROSS | |
| 1 | Go away, I hear, in Oxford? (4) |
| SHOE “shoo” The most natural reading of the word order would have the definition by example give you the answer, although some may instead write in the homophone, clued more directly. |
|
| 3 | Artist cuts press off about Pound (10) |
| SCULPTRESS (cuts press)* with L also in the mix |
|
| 10 | Am I not in a foreign type of film? (9) |
| ANIMATION (Am I not in a)* |
|
| 11 | Those a player lays down to score (5) |
| TILES This could refer to various games, but first to spring to mind is the marvelously spelled mah-jongg. CD …Well, I guess it’s meant to be one, but I don’t see anything cryptic about it… unless someone were to confuse “lay” with “lie,” which no one literate enough to be here would do, of course, but that must be the ruse, as that can put a risqué spin on it. Unless I’m missing something—it’s been known to happen! |
|
| 12 | Winger mostly keen to hold line (5) |
| EAGLE EAG(L)E |
|
| 13 | Drug … take mine to get high (8) I think the setter’s stash must be pretty potent… |
| KETAMINE (take mine)* |
|
| 15 | Official coach has no time for strain (7) |
| REFRAIN REF, “official” + |
|
| 17 | Hearty travelling around cape? (7) |
| YACHTER (Hearty)* with C(ape) on board &lit First noun definition of “Hearty” in Collins is “a comrade, esp a sailor.” |
|
| 19 | Blunder in juggling? (5-2) |
| BALLS-UP Straight definition and cryptic hint |
|
| 21 | Old lover cares for presents (7) |
| EXTENDS EX, “Old lover” + TENDS, “cares for” |
|
| 22 | Cook cut slicing fruit and cheese (8) |
| MANCHEGO MAN(CHE |
|
| 24 | Went out in old hat (5) |
| DATED DD |
|
| 27 | A large division warning of danger (5) |
| ALARM A + L(arge) + ARM, “division” |
|
| 28 | Faux leather at top coming off cap? (9) |
| IMITATION |
|
| 29 | Reserve squad? (10) |
| DETACHMENT DD |
|
| 30 | Refuse to believe study by unknown (4) |
| DENY DEN, “study” + Y, “unknown” |
|
| DOWN | |
| 1 | Viking, say, casting copper base (5,5) |
| SPACE PROBE (copper base)* |
|
| 2 | Unsettled arguments King dismissed (5) |
| OWING |
|
| 4 | Yellow bit of kit stylish nurse grabs (7) |
| CHICKEN CHIC, “stylish” + K |
|
| 5 | Old star left upset, tenor admitted (7) |
| LANGTRY L(eft) + ANG(T)RY « Emilie Charlotte, Lady de Bathe (née Le Breton, formerly Langtry; 13 October 1853 – 12 February 1929), known as Lillie (or Lily) Langtry and nicknamed “The Jersey Lily”, was a British socialite, stage actress and producer. » (Wikipedia) …I’d heard of her, of course. |
|
| 6 | Icon in Carry On Matron originally (5) |
| TOTEM TOTE, “Carry” + M |
|
| 7 | Duke who played Duke out of western (9) |
| ELLINGTON |
|
| 8 | Very very fair (2-2) |
| SO-SO In the sense of “meh” |
|
| 9 | A force probing hacks’ ID badges (8) |
| NAMETAGS N(A)(MET)AGS That’s yer METropolitan Police, of course, and the “hacks” are horses (NAGS). |
|
| 14 | Head office? (10) |
| PRESIDENCY CD British solvers will recognize the idiom for HQ. I’ve heard it over here too. As you can see in the comments, it was nevertheless hard for me to see what was cryptic about this clue. (I have deleted my original note.) Sorry about that, chief. |
|
| 16 | Possibly save for trip or break (4,5) |
| FALL APART “Save” in the sense of “except for” (“Except for that nasty trip on the ice, my winter was accident-free.”) |
|
| 18 | Orchestrate an arrangement a cute lad plays (3,1,4) |
| CUT A DEAL (a cute lad)* |
|
| 20 | One enters before old lady gets award (7) |
| PREMIUM PRE, “before” + M(I)UM The I is said to enter the entire phrase “before old lady,” without being more precise. To say “enters old lady,” after all, could be alarming. |
|
| 21 | Transport proposal EU leader leads (7) |
| EMOTION E |
|
| 23 | Droll gripes making liberal mad primarily (5) |
| COMIC COLIC, “gripes,” with L(iberal) becoming M |
|
| 25 | Close to breakfast, ready to eat baloney (5) |
| TRIPE |
|
| 26 | Spelling Rod, Welsh article failed ultimately (4) |
| WAND W(elsh) + AN, “article” + |
|
1A: The definition is “Oxford”, which is a noun, like the answer, and “in Oxford” cannot be a noun, so “in” must logically be a linkword between wordplay and definition, making SHOO impossible as the answer.
14A “Head office”, in everyday British English, is the HQ of an organisation. The clue is cryptic because you have to ignore that meaning, just like old chestnuts like “Die of cold”.
Thanks. I didn’t notice that my underline was too long on the left for SHOE. I’ve heard the phrase “head office” for HQ and it occurred to me when solving. Not sure why it didn’t make more of an impression. It’s still the kind of mildly cryptic clue you might find in a non-cryptic puzzle (and maybe without the question mark). Not a big fan of CDs in general, as I’ve mentioned.
CDs seem to be one of the oldest kinds of cryptic clue, if not the oldest. When British solvers as a whole name favourite cryptic clues, they are more likely to be CDs than anything else, especially if you ignore “Gegs”, which was first seen as a fictional cryptic clue. As you’ve effectively explained, they can give solvers who are new to cryptics a chance to fill in a few answers relatively easily, along with hidden words and the more obvious anagrams.
Well, you Brits are said to be fond of understatement, and a CD can be the most subtle of clues.
I thought 1a was unfair in that it’s not clear which is the homophone and which the definition especially as there’s no cross-checker to disambiguate this clue. Had there been one comma then there would have been no ambiguity.
I don’t see how ‘I hear, in Oxford’ can be read as a homophone of ‘shoe’. ‘I hear Oxford’, yes, but the presence of ‘in’ makes this impossible IMO.
I’m about to give up on this. I made the right choice by tossing a mental coin. But I don’t understand why I should have come down in favour of SHOE over SHOO as the answer. To my mind I should read the clue as:
Go away I hear, in Oxford – in which case I hear SHOO and the answer is SHOE
or Go away, I hear in Oxford – in which case I hear SHOE and the answer is SHOO. (This is what actually occurred to me first after which I vacillated between the two possibilities and landed on SHOE. With both commas I found this impossible to decide with confidence.
The presence of ‘in’ in the clue didn’t and still doesn’t register as a differentiator. As mentioned below I saw that as an elliptical form of ‘in the word’.
I there a straightforward explanation which will help me avoid this dilemma in the future?
I see what you mean. Your second reading is effectively ‘[a word for] go away [which] I hear in [a word for] Oxford’.
I suppose the way to resolve this is to look at the parts separately: which is more likely to be a homophone indicator: ‘go away I hear’ or ‘I hear in Oxford? The former is a more natural reading.
Scrabble was first thought for the game but, as you say, there could be many.
NHO MANCHEGO, which my iPhone has underlined in red. SPACE PROBE took ages after being thrown by ‘Viking’. Clever. Remembered LANGTRY from somewhere deep in the past. Everything else was fun to work out.
Thanks Guy.
49 minutes.
I was also torn between SHOO and SHOE at 1ac but eventually went for SHOE using the same logic presented above by Peter, that ‘in’ had to be a link word separating Oxford from ‘Go away, I hear’. Incidentally to take up a point raised by Richard, one of the first things I learnt on arrival at TfTT 17 years ago was that punctuation in a clue cannot be relied upon so it’s best to ignore it.
I thought of dominoes and Scrabble re the TILES clue. If the wording is to have a secondary meaning I assumed it would have something to do with music.
MANCHEGO has appeared only once before in the TfTT era, in a Mephisto puzzle 12 years ago. I certainly didn’t know it.
I suspect the reason for not seeing manchego as a crossword answer very often is that ?A?C?E?O can also be filled in by ranchero, and M?N?H?G? looks like a possibly inconvenient choice for filling a grid.
As far as the word is concerned, it’s almost certainly visible in your local supermarket, as well as the Concise Oxford, and usually said to be the best-known Spanish cheese.
Yes, there have been 9 appearances of Ranchero as an answer.
I wasn’t questioning the validity of MANCHEGO just recording that I (like Quadrophenia) have never come across it. No doubt a holiday in Spain, which I have never visited, would have sorted that out. Also when there’s a word I don’t know I like to check the archive before mentioning it in the hope of preventing someone posting that I have written about the word x number of times in my previous blogs and comments.
I checked the cheese is available at Tesco but I don’t expect to sample it because I see it’s made from ewe milk which I have an aversion to along with goat’s milk.
I may be obtuse (OK, no “may” about it), but I just do not understand 14d – despite being a Brit.
I took PRESIDENCY to be:
a) term of office
b) place of residence for a president
It’s a bit unsatisfactory and I can’t think what it would have to do with a Brit.
As my note (now) says, and as Peter told me (what?! You don’t read Mr Biddlecombe’s remarks?!), “head office” is a common British expression for “headquarters,” which makes the clue more cryptic than it stubbornly appeared to this Yank.
That a bit of an assumption on your part. I did read Peter’s comment; I didn’t understand it. Apparently this is a week where I’m finding it difficult to tune in to the common wavelength.
Hey, I didn’t assume. I asked, in what was meant to be humorous incredulity.
MANCHEGO is frequently on sale at Lidl in the UK, so not such an uncommon word these days.
I assumed TILIES referred to Scrabble.
I still don’t accept Peter’s explanation of 1a where IN has to be a link word because you can read the clue elliptically as … in (the word) Oxford. I do believe that usage is not uncommon in cryptics.
On shoe/shoo, I’ve just looked at the first 100 entries in the folder of emailed ones (which includes online completions), and 91% went for SHOE, although it’s impossible to tell exactly why. The question mark indicating a definition by example might have been seen as the signal, or the definition being the shorter of two possibilities. If there’s a visible choice between a definition that’s plain and one requiring elliptical reading, I would favour the plain one as a solver.
Well as it happens I went for SHOE as well, but it was a simple 50:50 choice. I couldn’t find any reason for choosing one over the other. And I still can’t. All I can say is that I would have felt hard done by if I’d made the wrong choice. For those who did, they have my deepest sympathy.
If it was a simple 50:50 choice, 91 out of 100 would be an impossible result. There’s a coin toss option at random.org that gives you the chance to try it. I think it would take hundreds if not thousands of attempts to get a split more unbalanced than 70:30.
Hi all, I am new here. Enjoying reading the analysis of clues. It occurred to me that 11 (Those a player lays down to score) could be interpreted as referring to a workman ( the player or participant in their field) laying down tiling to physically score (cut) them. Just an idea to give a more cryptic double meaning.
Hi Alex, and welcome to the forum.
In this particular clue the setter has given ‘player’ as the one who is laying (something) down. This really only supports either, 1. someone playing a board game, or 2. as mentioned by Jackkt above, someone laying down a ‘score’ in musical notation. If the latter, then the answer may well have been ‘notes’, but the already entered checkers meant this was not the answer. So, it must be a board player and the answer was ’tiles’.
Also, the setter would never clue a workman as a player. But, I do see the connection of scoring tiles before cutting.
You don’t mention if you attempt the crosswords or if you just read the blog, but either way hope you are enjoying one or both.
Thanks. Yes, I see what you mean, my explanation was always quite loose but wondered if it could be expanded on. It’s a strange clue as both notes and tiles work well but neither would be particularly cryptic.
I attempt the Times occasionally and enjoy them, but I rarely get more than halfway through one. Always learning and hopefully improving! I only discovered the blog today when browsing, will bookmark and visit as it seems a useful resource!
I was happy with SHOE and MANCHEGO (which I enjoy), my only query was TILES as I didn’t feel as if I’d understood the whole clue – but it ‘had to be’ in the end. Liked the word play for TOTEM.
12:38. Moderate puzzle with a quirky feel to it.
11ac strikes me as hardly cryptic too. I can sort of see that there might be an alternative meaning relating to music as jackkt says, but you have to squint a bit. In a good CD the cryptic meaning should be more obvious than the literal, so that it fools you. Here I hesitated to put the answer in because it seemed too obvious – I felt a bit fooled by not being fooled!
My original thought was for NOTES, but it seemed too obvious, and I waited for crossers, which quickly suggested TILES.
I found this easier than most of David Maclean’s, though I really didn’t like PRESIDENCY. I’ve lost my copy and hence my notes, but I don’t remember struggling particularly with any one clue. I would have thought that MANCHEGO would be as well known as Brie these days and found in any large supermarket, but maybe that’s just in the UK.
Got all bar PRESIDENCY which is good going for me. Still not sure I understand this clue fully though. I must admit shoo never occurred to me. I instinctively knew the definition was an example of ‘an Oxford’ but I’m not sure why. Maybe the ‘in’, maybe the ‘?’ YACHTER took a while as I didn’t understand the ‘hearty’ reference. I did like WAND for the misdirection. Anyway, many thanks for the blog Guy, especially the parsing of FALL APART.
31.49
FWIW I paused at 1a but not for very long. If the answer had been SHOO then it would have been a very bad “double” so on that reasoning it had to be SHOE. Familiar with MANCHEGO but couldn’t get RANCHERO out of my mind. Been doing these too long!
Thanks Guy/setter
Fun but DNF because…
1a ShoE/O, I left this blank. Probably I should concentrate more, then I would know witch was which!
1d Viking. Where is astro_nowt when you need him? I cheated to confirm there really is a space probe called Viking.
5d Langtry. I read up on her, so cheated of course. Although it was just to find out about her; recognised the name, no idea about her life etc. I’ve since forgotten most of what I read, oh dear.
Thanks Guy & David McLean.
I did surprisingly well, for me, and didn’t need an aid or a look-up until 2/3 way through, with REFRAIN beating me. Also didn’t know the Viking as a space probe, so that didn’t help. Most of the rest went in quite quickly, and I had all the GK – like MANCHEGO and LANGTRY. But big hesitation over PRESIDENCY, as it didn’t feel cryptic at all! Good to have a faster, less complex Sunday offering for a change, with more success.
Thanks David and Guy
A cafe breakfast solve that went into the second cup of coffee to get finished in the single session in just under the hour. Some good anagrams used, especially the tricky one for YACHTER. I was surprised however, to see the one for KETAMINE needing only the KE to be moved to the front.
Was held up for a while, like others, to determine the SHOE clue. Didn’t know the cheese and had to use a word-finder to get it for my penultimate answer – EMOTION was the last.