Solving time: 15:30
Fairly slow with this one – 30A was my last answer and should probably not have been such a struggle. Others I found hard were 21D, 27, 20, 18. Only 6D went in without full understanding of wordplay. Plenty of good clues here, several based on just chopping up words in unexpected ways, and very little general knowlege needed – so I may be thrashed by the youngsters again.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | CAS(H)E,W – H=hard? As on (UK) pencils |
| 4 | TRI- = three,FLING=cast |
| 10 | A LA BASTER – alabaster is one of two substances, but both are white. |
| 11 | LOSER=flop. Reversal of “re sol” = “regarding, sun” |
| 12 | INDOMITABLE = (ambition led)* – easy but very neat little clue |
| 15 | MUST-SEE – (set)* in muse=inspiration. Strangely, COED doesn’t have must-see, just an entry for must-, with other post-hyphen verbs. So whether a “must-see” is a great picture, tourist sight or movie is up for grabs. |
| 17 | TRANCE – change of leader for “France” |
| 19 | SCRUFF – 2 defs |
| 21 | SIGNORA – reverse hidden word. As indicated in the comments, the “young” is strictly over-specific and the lecher implied by the surface reading should be happy to survey ladies of any age from behind. |
| 23 | (cof)FEE See jimbo’s comment for a red-herring answer |
| 24 | TONS ILL = evidence of epidemic,IT IS = “I can confirm”. A clue that now looks a bit of a sick joke but was almost certainly written several months ago. |
| 26 | “IN CAN” describes what (celluloid) film ultimately is. |
| 27 | SUPERHERO – anag. of “up here so” + R = “computer’s back”. Scrupulously fair punctuation here – some setters/editors might hyphenate the “back up” in the clue, to make the surface reading more convicing. |
| 29 | HOW=a question,IT,ZER(o). Cryptic meaning requires wordplay to be read in the past tense – “it has come to nothing, briefly”. |
| 30 | LEG=on,END=purpose. Overseas/new solvers baffled by leg=on, see the cricket part of my UK references page. |
| Down | |
| 1 | CHAR(IS)M,A – should be easy as “blocking appeal” doesn’t quite hold water in the surface reading. |
| 2 | S=(compass) point,HARD. I’m sure others looked for a G???? word. |
| 5 | RARE=fine,TASTE=bit (of food). “rarebit” = Welsh rarebit. |
| 6 | F(ALLE(NAN)GE)L. “Russian doll” clue, with FL. = Florida making a fairly rare appearance in the “state” role. |
| 7 | 1P SOFA=”very cheap furniture item”,C(T=tons)O. Nicely silly. “because of that” translates this Latin tag. |
| 8 | G(YR.)ATE – simple construction but nicely done cricket surface and opener=GATE is simple but original. |
| 9 | STAT(U)E – easy enough when you eliminate “static” as a possible answer. “Still work” is the def. |
| 13 | MO(S,QUITO)NET – the city of Quito often appears in mozzie clues. |
| 16 | SACRED COW – CD punning on low=”to moo”. |
| 18 | PA’S SWORD is what’s in dad’s scabbard |
| 20 | FI(NESS)E – annoying to take ages over this as I’m normally quick on the card-game stuff. Finessing is essentially guessing in Bridge. In the classic example, you lead low as declarer from a hand opposite one holding Ace and Queen. The hope is that the first opponent has the King. If he doesn’t play it, you play the Queen and keep the Ace to beat his King later, gaining a trick. |
| 21 | SK(IMP)Y – “what’s up” is simply the sky. |
| 22 | OF FISH = “Piscean?” |
| 25 | THERE – 2 defs |
| 28 | RYE – whiskey rather than whisky, and a Cinque Port in East Sussex |
Had RIO as the port for a while on some vague notion of a club or record called “whisky rio” but was never happy with it. Scabbard perpetually returned sheath in my head but took ages to make that simple step to sword – for some reason i kept thinking of archers??
30 was the last in here as well, and I have to say I dont like the “One always remembered” part – I can see where it is coming from, but it since legends are by definition cultural and variable things, I can’t agree with the logic. I see them more as stories, albeit with some “historical” basis, and you wouldnt describe eg. Oliver Twist as “always remembered”. Likewise the modern iconic use for sports stars or musicians – the remembrance is quite specific to a certain group of devotees.
Perhaps I am just grumpy as it was the last one in…..
Guessed entries without fully understanding:-
Must-see
Fallen angel (very bitty)
Skimpy
Legend (the leg bit despite being a cricket fan)
Ipso facto ( the ip bit for 1 penny)
Inexplicably took me ages to get Rye
Another example of small words having the capacity to cause mayhem arises at 23A where Cha(rge) also fits the clue. Note to new solvers – don’t write them in without checking letters.
It’s difficult to pick out the best clues but I liked the misleading use of “computers back up”, the scabbard and the 1P sofa jokes and the excellent construction of CASHEW.
Pedant’s note for Peter. Good bridge players would reckon to do better at finessing than just guessing. It’s all in the bidding and watching what opponents do and as important don’t play.
As far as bridge is concerned you can get really very good bridge playing software these days. I use Bridge Baron and it never throws the cards at me!
In 27ac, in addition to Peter’s comment about punctuatation, “screen saver” is also quite properly not hyphenated.
A minor quibble – a SIGNORA is not really a “young” lady, which would be a “signorina”.
Thank you Peter for explaining the IP in IPSO FACTO. There were many clever clues today as everyone seems agreed.
SIGNORINA is the Italian word for an unmarried woman of any age. The Italian word for “young lady” is RAGAZZA.
“The Italian term of respect applicable to a young unmarried lady.”
I do not know Italian, but I suspect it is rather like in French, where Madame is a married woman and Mademoiselle an unmarried woman, but when a lady reaches “a certain age” but is still unmarried she is called “Madame” out of respect.
My wife is Italian, and I checked with her before posting my second comment. She has an unmarried lady friend in Torino who must be nearer 80 than 70, and is addressed as Signorina. Regarding your comment about French practice, I can also produce a counter-example. Before our wedding many years ago in Torino, I remember my wife’s mother who was French (married to an Italian) addressing my Father’s unmarried sister, aged about 65, as Mademoiselle. Practice varies from place to place, and from class to class, as it does in English.
The comma in 1ac (CASHEW) isn’t necessary for the wordplay and rather spoils the surface reading. ‘Three’ for TRI- (4ac) is a bit dubious, as is ‘Ruthless’ for INDOMITABLE (12ac). MUST-SEE (15ac) is defined by example. SIGNORA (21ac) is wrongly defined (or perhaps defined by example). The first half of 26ac (INCAN) requires the solver to supply “here” or “this”. SHARD (2dn) is defined by example. In 9dn (STATUE), U is indicated by “widely accepted”, but the relevant sense is limited to the upper classes. And many of the surface readings are poor.
For me, then, not one to cherish.
I admit, I was dull about ‘rye’ and ‘password’, but ‘tonsillitis’ was not easy. I wanted 21 down to start with ‘she’, i.e. ‘eh’s’ upwards, but ‘sheer’ was a letter short. I thought the surface of 27 was poor, but the actual solution was not terribly difficult with the checking letters. Last to go in was the well-disguised cricket clue, but ‘purpose’ had me considering words ending in ‘tend’.
I really like 15, almost a triple definition with wordplay too.
Thanks for this one, setter
On the plus side, I was more appreciative of 4, 23, the definition in 27, 1 down, 5 and 9.
Didn’t understand the wordplay for 30ac, 6d, 7d, 13d, 20d before I got here. 20d was the most difficult I thought – a very obscure definition, and FIE is an even more obscure word to throw into the wordplay, so that the eventual answer was a (lucky) guess.
Lots of nice clues throughout. COD 22ac, with 4ac a close runner up.
I liked big screen saver as definition for SUPERHERO.
Like Peter last to go in was LEGEND which was especially difficult due to the -E-E-D possibilities.Took a couple of minutes to work this out and it raised a smile.
Otherwise, about 21 challenging minutes.
The “must-see picture” referred to may have been the movie type of “picture” – Google searches suggest that “must-see movie” is a more common phrase than “must-see picture”, let alone “must-see painting”.
My picture of D by E is a small circle (representing the E) inscribed in a larger one (the D) and an arrow leading from the small circle to the large one. I.e. E is a proper subset of D and E is clued to get D.
In this case, we have two circles with a non-null intersection; one circle labelled “wonderful picture” and the other “must-see”. There are wonderful pictures which aren’t must-sees (cinema classics, Water Lilies etc) and there are must-sees which aren’t wonderful pictures (Taj Mahal, Doubtful Sound, etc). Is it not possible to view this example as a case where the arrow leads from the outside of the “wonderful picture” circle to the intersection (which wouldn’t be D by E), rather than the arrow leading from the intersection to the “must-see” circle (which would).
If this example is D by E, then so must clueing dog to get setter, since a dog is but one example of a setter, just as a setter is but one example of a dog.
Most readers will know that I’m relaxed about UDBE (unindicated definition by example), as sometimes used in Times puzzles. Unless I’m being thick, any objection must either come from a desire to do the same as previous crosswords or authorities like Ximenes or Azed (which for me is a weak reason), or from an idea that there’s a thing called “definition” which exists outside cryptic crosswords and doesn’t allow UDBE but does allow other things we do in xwd defs. I don’t think there is. It seems that UDBE is not used in good-quality non-cryptic crosswords, and that for me is about as strong a reason for rejecting UDBE as I can come up with. But then we allow other stuff in cryptics that isn’t used in plain def puzzles, so again this is a weak reason for me. The same applies to any objection based on dictionary definitions not using UDBE – they don’t do other things that are accepted in cryptic clue definitions. So I’m not conviced that “definition” in a cryptic xwd context means anything other than “whatever is commonly accepted as a ‘definition’ part of a cryptic clue”. The sort of logic that justifies a principle like “parts of speech must match”, or “nearly all indirect anagrams are unfair” simply isn’t there for me.
Edited at 2009-05-14 04:21 pm (UTC)
I had all the checkers for Legend early on but left it till last. I finally wrote in Legend, not understanding the leg bit.
Spent all last night e-mailing the Times and the RBS trying to get on.
The 18dn just wouldn’t work.
Took me about 35 minutes when I finally found it.
McText of Minjup