A couple “naughty” clues make this a typical Sunday, and the wit and elegance of the setting a typical Price outing. Not terribly difficult, but I did have to call on a friend to parse one of the aforementioned clues. There are a few here where the definition is longer than the wordplay, which can throw me at first. I particularly enjoyed the two astronomical entries (not counting the clue that references astrology).
I indicate (Ars Magna)* like this, and words flagging such rearrangements are italicized in the clues.
| ACROSS | |
| 1 | Cher’s duo rarely sang together (8) |
| CHORUSED (Cher’s duo)* |
|
| 5 | Article points to right solution (6) |
| ANSWER A, “Article” + N(orth), S(outh), W(est), E(ast) + R(ight) |
|
| 9 | Praise leads to promotion and less reviews (8) |
| PLAUDITS Promotion + Less + AUDITS, “reviews” |
|
| 10 | Front light out (6) |
| BOWLED BOW, “front” + LED, “light” (Light-emitting diodes) Cricket term (first of two here) …We had “out” for BOWLED in Saturday’s puzzle too, which no doubt made this easier for me. |
|
| 12 | Mathematician’s rule about conserving energy (5) |
| EULER (rule)* keeping E(nergy) |
|
| 13 | Strong ale not considered for minor ailment (5,4) |
| NAPPY RASH NAPPY, “Strong ale” + RASH, “not considered” …This sense of NAPPY was new to me. |
|
| 14 | Make a loud noise build up, perhaps (5,3,4) |
| RAISE THE ROOF With a literal interpretation of the idiom for a hint |
|
| 18 | Uninterested in babe sporting pierced lugholes (5,2,5) |
| BORED TO TEARS BORED, “pierced” + TOT, “babe” + EARS, “lugholes” |
|
| 21 | After the first, the other hit often described (9) |
| EXPOUNDED |
|
| 23 | Best two or three maybe (5) |
| PRIME DD |
|
| 24 | Short song heard from Spooner’s room (6) |
| LEEWAY “wee lay” |
|
| 25 | Right Charlie brought in by a junior minister (8) |
| ACCURATE A + C (Charlie in phonetic communications alphabets) + CURATE, “junior minister” |
|
| 26 | A poet that’s boring to study (6) |
| DRYDEN DRY, “boring” + DEN, “study” |
|
| 27 | Member of a rock band circulating a drug (8) |
| ASTEROID A + STEROID, “drug” |
|
| DOWN | |
| 1 | Use a PC (6) |
| COPPER COP, “use” + PER, “a” |
|
| 2 | Prophet filling in f{or a cle}rgyman (6) |
| ORACLE Hidden |
|
| 3 | Secret service technique (9) |
| UNDERHAND DD |
|
| 4 | Retract arms after each pitch (3,4,5) |
| EAT ONES WORDS EA(ch) + TONE, “pitch” + SWORDS, “arms” |
|
| 6 | Relations that turned up without agreement (5) |
| NOOKY YON<=“turned up” covering OK, “agreement” …This inspired me to put on John Cale’s 2012 album, Shifty Adventures in Nookie [sic] Wood and the title song, “Nookie Wood”: ”Hard times in the Nookie Wood…” |
|
| 7 | One jumps a wall or scrambles over (8) |
| WALLAROO (a wall or)* + O(ver) |
|
| 8 | Colourful dress: evidence a star is going away (3,5) |
| RED SHIFT RED, “Colourful” + SHIFT, “dress” |
|
| 11 | See Edward with another chap’s sweets (7,5) |
| SPOTTED DICKS SPOT, “see” + TED, “Edward” + DICKS, “another chap’s” …The plural seems a bit odd to me. Think you’d most naturally say, “For dessert, we all had SPOTTED DICK,” uncountable. |
|
| 15 | Parent worried on river transport (9) |
| ENRAPTURE (Parent)* + URE, “river” |
|
| 16 | Scruffy lie-abeds let themselves down (8) |
| ABSEILED (lie-abeds)* |
|
| 17 | Trifles cook holds ready, keeping soft (8) |
| FRIPPERY FRY, “cook” with RIPE, “ready,” clasping P (soft) |
|
| 19 | Sign chopped by a battle-axe (6) |
| VIRAGO VIR(A)GO |
|
| 20 | Key added to a map on purpose (6) |
| LEGEND LEG, “on” (in cricket) + END, “purpose” |
|
| 22 | University philosopher’s employment (5) |
| USAGE U(niversity) + SAGE, “philosopher” |
|
11D: The plural is perfectly normal. Your example is misleading — as soon as you say “we all had” a plural is implied. “We all had a cup of tea” would not mean that a single cup was shared, and practically any foodstuff name can mean the foodstuff or a portion of it. I cannot imagine “dick” replacing “dicks” in a question like “How many spotted dicks were served?” being asked in any English-speaking country.
Yes, this is a point that’s covered regularly by the Oxford Dictionary lexicographer Susie Dent in her role as adjudicator on the TV gameshow Countdown. Words listed in the dictionary as ‘mass noun’ cannot normally be pluralised but an exception is made for foodstuffs and dishes that one might order in a restaurant. So “Two spaghettis and two SPOTTED DICKS please”.
Of course. (Actually, I’ve never heard anyone order SPOTTED DICK anywhere!) The S merely seemed a bit of a “plural of convenience,” comme on dit. But I said the same about LEMON SOLES in a blog post a good while ago and got essentially the same responses. 😉
Suppose Dick (just to be vexatious!) makes Spotted Dick and serves portions of it to his diners, one could say to them “You are eating Dick’s Spotted Dick”. However, if he prepared say ten separate individual puddings, you could say to the diners “You are eating Dick’s Spotted Dicks”. But, because all ten had been prepared to the same recipe, and especially if it were Dick’s own recipe, you could again say “You are eating Dick’s Spotted Dick”. Isn’t English a generous language!
Have to disagree. I think your interpretation is valid for an individual dessert, such as Rum Baba or a Tartlet, but when it is a portion of a larger dessert, in this case a spotted dick, I would certainly say ‘how many spotted dick were served’. Another example would be everybody at a wedding has (a piece of) wedding cake, but not everybody has ‘wedding cakes’.
DNK NAPPY or COP (and can’t find ‘cop’ in ODE or Collins). I liked BOWLED, ASTEROID, & LEGEND.
COP as “worth or value” (Collins) is heard mostly in “not much cop,” meaning “not much use.”
Yes, COP in this sense is covered in both Collins and ODE with reference to the saying “not much cop”, no direct reference to ‘use’ though so I sympathise with those who may not be familiar with the expression. Also rather surprisingly it’s not in Chamber’s Crossword Dictionary (either way), nor is any other synonym with this meaning. No question as to the validity however.
I thought this puzzle was a lot of fun. Given the nature of some of the other clues, I’m surprised he used short song!
There are a few uncommon words and people here that it helps to know: Euler, frippery, abseiled, virago. Otherwise, very straightforward.
Time: 35:53
I started this last weekend and then forgot about it. As is my habit, I pulled up the crossword to see if it was all green, but half of it was white. So I did it just now before reading the blog. Lots of clever clues. It took me some time to see how COPPER worked since the clue is so short. I had no problem with SPOTTED DICKS, if you had more than one that is what you would say (although typically one is quite big and serves several people). Fun crossword.
69 minutes over two sessions, so this was hard! I mostly enjoyed the struggle though I noted on my print-out that too many of my answers went in without fully understanding the clue.
RED SHIFT and NAPPY as a strong ale were unknown to me despite considering myself knowledgeable on the subject of ales.
I’m not sure how ‘rarely’ works as an anagram indicator although ‘rare’ is in the Chambers list.
One of my main problems was self-inflicted as for much of the time I had BORED TO DEATH at 18ac.
I think “rare” could be a case of “synonym drift” in indicator use by setters. If you start with “strange” or “unexpected”: you could then move to “uncommon”, which I think can logically mean both “strange” and “scarce”, and then there’s another step. The trouble with printed lists is that they tend to record what has been used rather than what’s strictly sound. I’m pretty sure that Robert would have been happy to use “uncommon” or similar if I’d spotted this point.
(I believe a similar change from “at heart” to “essentially” is the reason why solvers are widely expected to see “essentially” as “centrally” – a usage I try to discourage.)
Excellent as always. Took me a while to see chorus dancer across the top. Thanks Robert and Guy.
Great puzzle, though more than usually obscure as regards some of the parsing. I had to check 13a post-solve as I’d never heard of this use of NAPPY. Nor had I heard RED SHIFT before. I thought the Spoonerism was particularly tricky – in fact it was my last in. 27a was a great clue, but took forever to solve thanks to the misdirection of ‘circulating’.
32.17
The SE really slowed me up for no obvious reason other than wanting A STONE to appear in ASTEROID and forgetting that word for battle-axe.
Great stuff as always. COPPER UNDERHAND BOWLED EXPOUNDED and NOOKY were all amusing/vg.
Always think it’s a shame we don’t get more comments on a Sat and Sun to appreciate the excellent weekend offerings (blogs and puzzles). (I do mine a week in arrears which helps a lot)
I’m a weekend lurker, reluctant to comment because “DNF” gets old! Since last summer seems I only complete the Saturday or Sunday offering about half the time – though I’d worked up a decent track record before then. Not sure what’s shifted but it’s very frustrating and fairly demoralising. Take this one – too many unknowns for me: EULER, NAPPY, RED SHIFT, NOOKY… And I still get stumped by the bloomin’ cricket references. Ho ho!
Was totally foxed by 13a Nappy Rash. I thought I was a beer fan but DNK nappy=strong ale.
1d Copper. I thought use=cop was odd, but the per=a is well known by now.
7d Walleroo, had to look it up, only to discover it is half way between wallaby and kangaroo in size.
Thank you Guy de Sable & Robert Price.
Don’t normally attempt this one but had plenty of time today. Needless to say I DNF (PLAUDITS of all things) but had fun along the way. CHORUSED went straight in as we had this in a QC very recently. I’ve never heard of that sense of NAPPY either. Couldn’t parse ORACLE only to find it was a hidden (dearie me). I now get how cop=use. Really liked LEEWAY, my absolute favourite sort of clue, although it took me an age to work it out. Would never have thought ‘after the first’ meant drop the first, or start after the first, in EXPOUNDED. Many thanks Guy and setter.
9:14. Another lovely puzzle. NHO NAPPY in these sense. I listened to a fascinating podcast series about the creation of the universe recently where I learned all about RED SHIFT, and then quickly forgot it.
No problem with the plural in 11dn. Yes you can have some SPOTTED DICK, just as you can have some cake, but you can also make two SPOTTED DICKS just as you can make two cakes.
And it had to be plural here because of the crossing letter. This is called by some a “plural of convenience.”
This… Dappled Richard will always sound funny to me. It doesn’t have an unspotted variety, I assume. 😀
I don’t know what a ‘plural of convenience’ is, but I would just call this a plural. One SPOTTED DICK, two SPOTTED DICKS.
It’s a curious name, for sure. I love the stuff: I’m not a big dessert eater but I will sometimes make an exception for suet puddings in general and SPOTTED DICK in particular. With custard, naturally.
Seems this would be both sweet and savoury—suet?! “Steamed pudding”… ? It sounds rather exotic to me. Meanwhile, I just read that « “dick” is an older, shortened term for pudding, derived from words like “puddick” or “puddog”. »
Definitely sweet! Suet is a key ingredient in these puddings, giving a dense consistency and texture. If made well they are simultaneously dense, rich and yet somehow light.
Christmas pudding is also cooked by steaming, and mince pies contain suet.
I always look forward to Sundays and I am never disappointed. This one took me an hour and of course, many of the answers were very reluctant to present themselves, so the pennies dropped all the louder when they finally did. The usual spate of sometimes very simple but elegantly misleading clues. My LOI was LEGEND, once I saw it needed to be split into LEG+END. But my favourite in this puzzle is probably ASTEROID. Thank you, Robert, again!
No idea of my time, but I enjoyed this one.
– Like others, NHO nappy=strong ale for NAPPY RASH
– Didn’t parse BORED TO TEARS
– Didn’t figure out how the ‘ex’ part of EXPOUNDED worked
– Got COPPER without seeing how cop=use
Thanks Guy and Robert.
FOI Chorused
LOI Virago
COD Abseiled
Very slow going for me: but happy to get the ones that I did! NHOS: RED SHIFT, COP=use, NAPPY=strong ale. But really liked EAT ONES WORDS, NOOKY, BORED TO TEARS, ABSEILED, DRYDEN. Too many look-ups to name, but hardest to get: RAISE THE ROOF, LEGEND, COPPER. Good workout.
Thanks Robert and Guy
Nice puzzle this week that stretched me out for an hour and a half to complete across three sittings. Didn’t spot the CHORUS DANCER nina across the top and also missed the correct parsing of 21a by not twigging to ‘After the first the other’ for the topless SEX.
A lot of neat charades used throughout, including the SPOT TED DICK’S and EA TONE SWORDS. The definition for ASTEROID (‘member of a rock band’) was a classic.
Was another who had not seen NAPPY as a ‘strong ale’ and also didn’t know of RED SHIFT. Finished in the SE corner with VIRAGO, that ASTEROID and LEGEND the last one in.