Solving time: Beyond recordable
Actually, solving time was about 30 minutes and then another similar length of time to get 23 & 13, which were readily obtained once I undid the damage at 21. There’s nothing terribly difficult here and I imagine smoke will be emanating from pencil tips all over the globe throughout the day.
| Across |
| 1 |
(RUB)< contained in (BUS)< for SUBURB, a residential area |
| 4 |
PEN NINE’S for PENNINES, where people walk
|
| 10 |
(g)ROUNDSMAN, a person who makes rounds in Britain and possibly elsewhere, for delivery or inspection purposes. Is that definition by example? |
| 11 |
‘T AIN’T for TAINT, a corrupt condition |
| 12 |
(THE GIRL THIS DUKE – E)* for TURKISH DELIGHT, a sweet for the little prince. |
| 14 |
GUN + (EG)< for GUNGE, a sticky substance. The Maxim is a type of gun. For a long time I wanted it to be a type of saw. |
| 16 |
(AVON + REP + US)< for SUPERNOVA, a star, or more properly, an ex-star, just as Avon, or more properly CUBA (County that Used to Be Avon), is an ex-county. |
| 18 |
MOR[ALI]SE + R(idicule) for MORALISER, a preacher. Our favourite inspector returns in a cameo role with Ali MacGraw. |
| 20 |
her(O’S RIC)hes for OSRIC, a courtier in Hamlet; the one who informs the Dane that Laertes wouldst duel with him in gentlemanly fashion and that the King hast laid a trifling bet on the outcome. Who could forget the prophetic lines “Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark”. |
| 21 |
CAUGHT ON THE HOP, 2 defs, the first one cryptic. My nemesis. I penned CAUGHT IN THE ACT with such conviction that nothing could gainsay it. I thought the cryptic definition referred to the 1774 Madhouses Act, which effectively made being mad a crime (as opposed to the 1845 Lunacy Act. There have been many Acts of Lunacy in the interim). Of course, it refers to hopping mad, an act of irritation rather than of lunacy, common in the last century. Thanks to Ms Kororareka for suggesting the way out of my impasse. |
| 25 |
GUIL(d) + E, for cunning. |
| 26 |
(OIL IN SUMP)* for IMPULSION, a force. |
| 27 |
DRESS + AGE for DRESSAGE, an equestrian discipline. Dress in the military sense of bringing troops into line. |
| 28 |
CO + ST[L]Y for COSTLY, which is expensive. L for pounds Stirling. |
| Down |
| 1 |
STRATA + GEMS for STRATAGEMS, or manoeuvres. |
| 2 |
BLUER, 2 defs. Blue as slang for squander tends to crop up a lot; the question mark could be for the noun formation from the verb. Blue is the colour of conservatism in the UK, the opposite of the US. |
| 3 |
ROD + LIKE for RODLIKE, or cylindrical. A rod, pole or perch is one quarter of a chain, or about a good length from the strikers end. |
| 5 |
E[RN]I.E. for comedian Ernie Wise. I’ll leave it to the readers to supply their favourite sketches. |
| 6 |
NATT[I]ER for NATTIER, as in less scruffy. Tragically the 21st century has seen the disappearance of natty gents outfitters from the high street. Where does one buy one’s beige checked cardigans with matching tam o’shanters these days? |
| 7 |
(HOUR BEING)* for NEIGHBOUR, someone close. Altogether “Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours…” |
| 9 |
E(MPH)A + SIS for EMPHASIS or stress. Ea is the abbreviation for each and m.p.h is miles per hour for those in metricated countries. Sis is short for sister, a sibling. I saw “Price per ea” printed on a two pack of kitchen cloths just this Saturday. |
| 13 |
CATCH + PENNY for a term describing anything cheap and showy, and this American band. I couldn’t get this to work with a T where the P should have been. |
| 15 |
NA[(TAR + R)<]IVE for NARRATIVE, a story. |
| 17 |
PAR(i)S + NIPS for PARSNIPS, which is food. |
| 19 |
LEGLESS, double definition, both cryptic. Legless being a state both of intoxication and of having no legs or members. |
| 20 |
(HOTEL)* + (smal)L + (pedal)O for OTHELLO, the Moor of Venice, a man with a bit of a temper and another Shakespearean reference. |
| 22 |
THING being both an obsession and an article. Not sure of the purpose of “revealed” except for the surface reading; akin to “seen in”. |
| 23 |
HOIST, being Planets Suite composer Gustav HOLST with an I for an L, as opposed to an I for an I. |
| 24 |
(DEGA(s))< for AGED, or way over the hill. Obviously a young whippersnapper of a setter. |
Also struggled a bit with 21 and 18.
“Milk deliverer” as a def for ROUNDSMAN is def by example – a roundsman could deliver something else, or inspect things apparently.
Legless also quickly in but would someone explain “club”, if there is one. I am not a member of a club but am susceptible to leglessness.
The false generalization in 14ac (“Maxim” giving GUN) is painful in combination with the use of “for example” to indicate EG. A solver who knows how definition works, but doesn’t know how Richard Browne thinks definition works, will have found three parsings of the wordplay – (Maxim for example) recalled, (Maxim + for example) recalled, and Maxim + (for example) recalled – none of which is the required one, Maxim for example + (for example) recalled. It doesn’t help that SAW is three letters long.
There’s a slip in kororareka’s analysis of 20dn (OTHELLO): “(HOTEL)* + S + pedal(O)”. That would be the most obvious reading of the wordplay, but it would give OTHELSO. The LO comes from (smal)L (pedal)O instead.
Clues of the Day: 26ac (IMPULSION), 13dn (CATCHPENNY).
As for the definition by example in Maxim, there have been one or two occurrences of late like this, and I thought I had perceived a general rule (or at least a local rule): that it was forgivable in wordplay (as here) for the sake of the surface, but not in the definition itself. Obviously if roundsman is anything to go by, I have got this totally wrong (again).
The alternative, as you suggest, is that “for example” is performing dual function, which again, until today, I thought was just strictly forbidden, except in &lit clues.
Obviously, the editor is the final arbiter. I’m of the “If I get it readily, then don’t think too carefully about it” school. I wasn’t held up overly long by Maxim today, and the editor can’t be expected to know that somebody in Australia thinks gesaw might be a variant spelling of gesso, even though it doesn’t fit any reading of the clue.
I think I’ve observed one or two clues over those years where dual function (“double duty”) was employed and the editor was unrepentant, so it just might play a part here, but I’d always look for explanations without it first.
I can’t quite understand the intense irritation that GUNGE(14ac)seems to have caused some of my fellow xword addicts. As Belloc’s celebrated comment on the realities of late 19th-century imperial diplomacy suggests, the Maxim was/is such a famous gun that the reference to it here, in my view, barely counts as D by E (though technically I guess it is). I’m also inclined to go with kororareka in finding D by E more acceptable in the wordplay than in the definition itself (though I can’t offer any evidence to counter Peter’s undoubtedly better-informed view that there’s no established convention on this). Hence, for me, the question of “for example” having to do double duty doesn’t arise, its function being merely to indicate the reversal of EG. The surface reading of the clue seems to me rather good.
On that basis, “milk deliverer” as a def. for ROUNDSMAN at 10ac is certainly more questionable, though I might enter the defence that, in common parlance, there are really only two things that roundsmen regularly do, which is to deliver either milk or the newspaper (if we ignore an obscure U.S. usage where it can also mean “a policemen who acts as an inspector”). So, again, though it is technically a D by E, it is hardly one that causes much unfair difficulty.
I agree with the general view that this was not an outstanding puzzle, but better in my opinion than some other comments suggest. For me a straightforward breakfast solve of about 30 mins.
I have to say I didnt have conviction with caught in the act (not thinking of the lunacy act) and especially leaving A_I_T, so my longest period of struggle had “caught on the run” (which again had no good reasoning) but at least there I could kid myself with ROIST and FANCYNANCY (!!!) (the famous composer “roost” to rhyme with Joost ?) Eventually staring at ROIST gave HOIST and then HOP and then (as a guess) CATCHPENNY. I have to say my logic had HOP as in HOPS and hence mad through inebriation in line with 19, but I am sure HOPPING MAD is the sensible reasoning.
Final time (again an estimate as some “breaks” took place) about 45-50 minutes.
As an aside this problem of 1/2/3 unfinished clues at the end of a crossword is beginning to annoy me. Doing some old ones off the archive there are frequent times where a tiny amount of clueing covers 50%,60%, even 90% of the time taken. It also leads to the inability to fit in one sitting. Is this just statistically expected, or is there a learning curve to master the outliers?
If your unsolved clues all cross one or more answers, like 23 and 13 crossing 21/26/28, it’s quite likely that you’ve got one answer or part-answer wrong, so you might ignore checking letters from one answer at a time and ponder ?A?C???N?Y, ?A?C?N?N??, and ?A?C?N???Y in turn for 13D, rather than ?A?C?N?N?Y. It’s also worth looking at likely choices for unchecked letters – at 23D, the I?T ending means that the fourth letter is almost sure to be one of ACEFLNORST – considering each one in turn may help to find a connection with the wordplay or def. For stuff like CATCHPENNY where the answer word is hard, experience with barred-grid puzzles is a considerable help – partly because you’ll know or vaguely recall more words, and partly because you’ll be used to making up unknown words from the wordplay and checkers.
I considered IN THE ACT but luckily disliked it enough to avoid writing it in. 15 was my last one in since I got stuck trying to get RBA in it rather than RRAT, despite the unlikely look of the resultant word.
I thought this was quite fun for a Monday, and really liked the surface in 20D OTHELLO. Having had all the crossing letters I only had to read the first word of the clue. In fact I probably didn’t even have to read the clue at all! Only going back over wordplay later gave me the Flintoff-evoking moment…
Neil
Maxim leading to gun is dubious, as is ‘for example’ doing double duty, but at least the capital M is there correctly (which it wouldn’t be for ‘saw’).
Not sure why ‘way’ is necessary in 24D. Makes old seem older!
28 minutes and like Sotira I never really felt in control. I found some of the clumsy surfaces off-putting – usually a clunky surface reading makes it easy to spot the elements required to solve a clue but for this puzzle that wasn’t the case.
Koro – in 28 it’s L for pounds Sterling (the ones with the Queen’s head on). Pounds Stirling probably have William Wallace’s head on one side and Paul Gascoigne’s head on a spike on the other.
I don’t like the definitions by example and the Maxim+EG clue is just awful. There’s surface padding and “way over the hill” for AGED is frankly offensive.
In COED at least, there’s also aged = “very old” to justify “way over the hill” as opposed to “over the hill”.
Tom B.
Seeing ‘hill’ in 2 clues and ‘milk deliverer’ along with ERNIE has me looking for Benny but penny was the nearest.
BLUER = squanderer is somthing which I only became aware of in the past year due to a couple of appearances in previous puzzles.
Who’s name was Trigger (Trigger)
And he pulled the fastest milkcart in the west
Not to forget “Osric”
Oh why don’t we play cards for her
He sneeringly replied
And just to make it interesting
We’ll have a shilling on the side
It all fits perfectly. For those unfamiliar with the sophisticated comedy of Benny Hill, here is the song in question. Note that the name on Ernie’s milk cart is “E.Price”, echoing “costly” at 28ac.
” in this sense has cropped up on several occasions over recent months in the Times cryptic, and I’ve learnt to be on the look-out for it. Could this use of “blue” have arisen from the similarity of sound with the more normal “blew”? Chambers seems to suggest this might be the case. Difficult otherwise to see why “blue” should have acquired this meaning.
Roundsman, ernie,gunge,osric,caught on the hop,bluer,catchpenny.
But it does make it more satisfying to finish.
‘Roundsman’ and ‘bluer’ I would guess are just as obscure over here, but perhaps it was ‘groundsman’ and blue=conservative that you were referring to? ‘Catchpenny’ is also obscure though admittedly it is designated as British in my dictionary.
I’m not sure you can get away with ‘Osric’ being UK-centric, though – surely Shakespeare’s Hamlet is as much of a literature staple in the US as it is over here? Of course that’s not to say that everyone’s familiar with it — I know I’m not!
Sorry about Osric- you’re right of course.
Blue in the sense of squander I haven’t heard.
Sorry to be so late – it’s 6PM here
I’m also Jim