Solving time 5:23
An easy solve for me – partly from one of the long answers being a name familiar to me. But I should have been quicker, as I missed a pretty easy 1A in my haste, dismissing “Razilia” as an impossible woman’s name before even thinking about its letter count. 17, 22, 29 and 7 went in without full wordplay understanding
I think this puzzle is easy because lots of things mean what they very often mean in cryptic clues. I’ll note these with “EM:” (expected meaning) below. If I add (T), that’s because I think it’s a meaning commonly used in the Times puzzle rather than cryptics in general.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | B(OLIVIA)N – some will tell you that “woman” is hopelessly vague for Olivia, but in context it seems fine to me – the rest of this clue being straightforward. EM: “borders of” for outside letters |
| 5 | S,TAT(U)E – EM: gallery=TATE, university=U |
| 10 | ONION-SKIN – CD referring to onion prep in the kitchen. Onion-skin was the stuff you wrote airmail letters on before we had e-mail. |
| 11 | The one I’m sure you can do without help – if not, just ask. |
| 12 | CHAR(t) – EM: time=T, (T) table=chart |
| 13 | LE(IS.,URE)LY – EM(T): Dutch painter = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Lely – for the same word-making reasons as composer=ARNE, river = one of the three-letter UK ones |
| 15 | APOSTROPHE – def and punctuation sample. For the first meaning, the example I remember is Siegmund’s “Walse!” (i.e. “Wotan!”, who doesn’t appear until the next act) in Wagner’s Die Walkure – sleeve notes or books often use “apostrophizing” to describe it. |
| 17 | BASH – three definitions – I just saw “party”=BASH from checkers and thought “try to crash” was a rather odd def., but of course it’s “try / to crash” |
| 19 | B(A.B.)Y – “Baby Bunting” rang a bell, though I couldn’t remember exactly why – it’s just a name for rhyming purposes |
| 20 | STONEHENGE = (gen on these)* |
| 22 | RAZOR BILL – def. and nice daft joke about Mr. Claus and his trademark beard |
| 24 | N,ARK=chest (as in the Ark of the Covenant) – if your name is Arkwright, it seems that one of your ancestors made wooden chests, not boats. |
| 26 | LEAVE – 2 defs – “green light” = permission = leave, and as in “taking one’s leave” |
| 27 | H(OUSE=river,BOA=snake)T – mix the structure of 1A and another river as used in 13, though a less common one this time. EM: snake=BOA / ASP as suggested by Jimbo below |
| 28 | RIDDLE – 2 def’s, the first connected with riddle=a sieve. Instant joke “Who went to sea in a riddle by Edward Lear?” |
| 29 | C.(HE(YEN)N)E. – what I like to call a “Russian doll”, spottable if you notice two “containment indicators” – “entertaining” and “to enter” here. After yesterday’s accidental coincidence I’m not attaching any significance to the first and last Acrosses both being “someone from N America”. EM: church = C.E. or Ch., (T) longing=YEN |
| Down | |
| 1 | BOOM – 2 defs and the phrase “baby boom” – the nicely deceptive boom = “TV equipment” comes from the recording process, where the microphone boom is (along with other cameramen) what the TV camera man tries to keep out of your picture |
| 2 | L(E)IGHT,ON,BUZZARD – one of those blurred defs here, as this town is a very short distance from Bedfordshire’s western border, and East is part of the wordplay. At Mrs B’s workplace (Stoke Mandeville Hospital) one bit of tea-room chat was about where you would live if you could choose anywhere in the world. One loyal resident actually chose “Leighton Buzzard”, so there must be something special about this ordinary-seeming place. EM: East = E |
| 3 | VEN.,(b)ERATE – EM: Archdeacon = VEN. |
| 4 | AL(KY.)L – EM(T): completely=ALL |
| 6 | TONGUE – (get on,U=posh): EM: posh=U |
| 7 | TO THE MANNER BORN – MAN in ((A)nother Bronte)* – I got this from word lengths and checkers, and fairly ridiculously decided this must be some obscure literary hen party, possibly by ill-informed confusion with vaguely remembered TV sitcom “To the Manor Born” |
| 8 | EMERY = rev. of (Y,R.E.M.E.), WHEEL = (parade ground) manoeuvre. An Emery Wheel is a grinding/sharpening/polishing device. EM: unknown=X, Y or Z |
| 9 | AN(TIP,H.)ON – not so expected meaning |
| 14 | CAT BURGLAR – pretty much what Macavity is in T S Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, with “having taking ways” as an extra hint |
| 16 | OUT = dismissed (cricket), Tory = RIGHT (another EM) |
| 18 | CHANC(E.R.)Y – EM: a royal personage converted to ?R |
| 21 | O=old,R=republican,WELL=source – EM: the O and R |
| 23 | (p)LOUGH – Lough is the Irish equivalent of Loch. dipper = plough by way of the US name “The Big Dipper” (i.e. ladle) for Ursa Major = “The Plough”. |
| 25 | STYE = “sty” – Tamworths are ginger pigs |
H
I don’t think I’ve seen Baby Bunting turn up in a crossword before, so some imaginative clueing there as well as the Santa Claus clue.
Having completed the grid I spent ages trying to see wordplay at 15ac through not realising the first part of the clue was a straight definition. Now I have read the comments here I realise I have met that meaning of APOSTROPHE before.
Or has it already done so in The Times?
Good blog, Peter. I would volunteer an EM for snake=boa or asp.
Onion paper brought back some memories. In addition to airmail in the days before photocopying it was used by banks of typists along with piles of messy blue carbon paper to produce carbon copies of letters, reports, etc. Happy days!
Eventually I got BASH though, and realised WHEEL was another possibility that actually fit the clue. SHEET didn’t even occur to me.
I also opted for EMERY PAPER. I didn’t do National Service!
(I didn’t know this without help, but it seems that in standard classifications, Kentucky is a “southern state” and Kansas is not.
Edited at 2009-11-25 12:44 pm (UTC)
Re Peter’s blog, the first word of 9 is ‘unidentified’, not ‘unknown’ so I wasn’t tempted to consider X,Y or Z, but went straight for ANON – a case of the setter being less devious than he might have been.
Incidentally, ‘onion-skin’ is not a term I’ve met before.
My biggest problem was not having heard of ‘Leighton Buzzard’. Had to get it from the cryptic after getting ‘razorbill’ first, rather than the other way around. ‘To the manner born’ was also difficult for a while. Most annoyingly, I thought of ‘Stonehenge’ immediately, but didn’t check to see if it fit the anagram until ten minutes later.
I thought ‘alkyl’ and ‘antiphon’ were a bit tricky, but at least I knew it has to be Kentucky.
I could not remember who Macavity was until I saw what the answer must be. Same thing with ‘baby’ Bunting.
To some of us, LB instantly and only brings to mind the Leyton Buzzards:
Saturday night beneath the plastic palm trees
Dancing to the rhythm of the Guns of Navarone
Found my Mecca near Tottenham Hale Station
I discovered heaven in the Seven Sisters Road.
New words for me were ONION SKIN (as a paper), ALKYL & ANTIPHON, although all of these rang vague bells once I had them.
A few not fully understood before coming here – 15, 26 & 3.
I must admit, I’d never realized that the sitcom ‘To the Manor Born’ was a play on words. I thought that’s how the original was spelt. Feel silly now.
But everyone considered them part of the South, even if they were a border state.
To Anonymous, true it is that Kentucky remained on the Union side in the US Civil War, but it certainly was (and is) thought of as a southern state. In fact Kentucky was a slave-holding state but actually declared neutrality at the outset of the Civil War, which was violated by the Confederates, leading to the occupation of KY by the unionists, and thus preventing secession (although a rump Confederate govt of KY was set up and inaugurated in 1862 during an advance of Southern armies; it disappeared after the Federals reoccupied.)
Too obscure a definition of the expression for me.
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