Solving time: 40 minutes
Here we have a puzzle designed for the better-educated. If words like ‘usufruct’ do not come easily to mind, and you have not heard of ‘Hereward the Wake’, you might have some little difficulty here. On the other hand, if you do have the knowledge, you can put in a lot of answers from the literals alone.
Music: Bach, Suites for Cello and Piano, Starker/Sybok
Across | |
---|---|
1 | SCAMPI, SCAMP + I, not an anagram as many will expect. |
5 | HANGOVER, HAN([indulgin]G)OVER. One does not usually consider Victoria a Hanoverian, and I don’t think she even spoke much German, but there you go. |
9 | FLOUNDER, double definition. |
10 | ALARUM, A L + A RUM. An archaic word usually only seen in stage-direction ‘alarums and excursions’, which doesn’t convey much to modern readers either. |
11 | BRAND NEW, BRAND (the Ibsen play) + N + E + W. General knowledge required! |
12 | CANNON, sounds like CANON. |
13 | USUFRUCT, US U + U FR + CT. An instant write-in if you know the word. |
15 | NOEL, NO[v]EL. |
17 | Omitted. |
19 | WESTERLY, W(ESTER L)Y, where WY = W[ildl]Y. |
20 | LUSTRE, sounds like LUSTER. |
21 | EMBOLDEN, E + MB + OLDEN. |
22 | MADAME, MA(MAD backwards)E. Don’t be fooled by the ‘mad’ at the beginning, that’s not how the cryptic works. |
23 | ABETMENT. Well, that’s got to be it. I call on the usual crew of early posters to explain why. |
24 | NICKNAME, cryptic definition, for those who watch TV. |
25 | NONUSE, NO(N)US + E. |
Down | |
2 | COLORADO, CO(LOR(A)D)O. |
3 | MOURNFUL, M[edical]O[fficer] + URNFUL. |
4 | INDENTURE, anagram of RENT DUE IN. Not a legal document in much demand these days. |
5 | HEREWARD THE WAKE, HERE-WARD on THE WAKE, where the wake is what is found behind a boat. |
6 | GALLANT, GALL on top of ANT. I was thinking of a gall wasp before seeing the obvious. |
7 | VERONICA, VERON(IC)A, as in Two Gentleman of Verona, a play I have heard of and may have even read in my English PhD program, many years ago. |
8 | RUMINATE, RUM IN + anagram of TEA. |
14 | CARIBBEAN, anagram of A BRIBE CAN. |
15 | NOBLEMAN, NO(B[a]L[l]E[t])MAN, where the tag alluded too is widely known. |
16 | EPISODIC, EPI(SO DI)C, where a DI is a Detective Inspector, or so I suspect. I can’t explain where the ‘SO’ or ‘O’ comes from, but someone will. I surely isn’t ‘1 SOD’ in EPIC. |
17 | CYCLAMEN, CYCL(AM)E + N. |
18 | PAGEANTS, P(AGE)ANTS, a play on the various meanings of ‘spectacles’. |
19 | WORKMEN, WO(R[eligious]K[knowledge]MEN. While solving, I thought ‘knowledge’ was ‘ken’, but now I have worked out the correct cryptic. |
Edited at 2013-01-07 03:24 am (UTC)
leftright side. Was there an alternative to the two drinks=RUM crossing at 10ac and 8dn?Not too sure about EPI(SO,DI)C — slightly mistyped in the blog — but took the SO to be “s.o.” as used in dictionaries for “someone” (=some one?). This is probably wrong (surprise!), but it floated my boat.
Liked HEREWARD for its nice geographical accuracy. Pity he didn’t keep the bloody Normans out! Then we’d have a language as imagined by a chap in Anthony Burgess’s autobiography who refused all Latinisms. The “bus” became “the folkwain”, usw.
Edited at 2013-01-07 02:37 am (UTC)
Maybe there’s something to be said for ‘1 sod’?
Edited at 2013-01-07 06:30 am (UTC)
Only last Friday I asked if ‘pants’ was “in danger of becoming another ‘bra'”. Starting to look that way.
Maybe something for the E”U” to think about?
Now, that’s why I come here.
Yep, you meet a lot of strange people here…
Sticking to matters judicial, I enjoyed the ‘question mark as legal disclaimer’ in 14d (the setter’s equivalent of adding “allegedly” to a statement).
Edited at 2013-01-07 04:01 am (UTC)
Edited at 2013-01-07 06:54 am (UTC)
I wasn’t bothered by ‘pants’ last time, but twice within a couple of days suggests it is in danger of becoming overused already. However I agree with joe (last Friday)that baby-talk is not to be encouraged and if ever we get ‘pooter’ for ‘computer’ I shall not be responsible for my actions!
Having watched the excellent 3-part TV series ‘Victoria’s Children’ only last week I’m can assure our blogger that Queen Victoria spoke fluent German. It was her first language and she never lost her accent.
Rather crunchy for a Monday, and I liked HANGOVER and HEREWARD (in this direction indeed!)
I rather wanted Bill’s companion in 2d to be Ben.
I actually had most of the required knowledge for once, including USUFRUCT. HEREWARD THE WAKE was familiar but only very vaguely, so he was last in once I’d worked out there was another way of saying “abetting” and all the checkers fell into place.
Oh and yes, I agreee it has to be Sod’s law in 16dn.
Edited at 2013-01-07 11:12 am (UTC)
The lawman must be Sod as suggested above, but I assumed at the time it stood for “Sergeant on duty”.
I don’t think 4 really works, needing an additional ‘in’ (which would ruin the surface, of course) but otherwise some lovely clues.
Many thanks for your blog.
Chris Gregory.
An enjoyable puzzle and my education saw me through Hereward and usufruct … LOI was PAGEANTS with a groan at pants again, 25 minutes. My CoD was MOURNFUL as I like my tea by the urnful.
I came to this after 18 holes of golf that left me completely knackered – I’m well out of condition through enforced lack of exercise – so found this harder than it might otherwise have been. Sods Law you might say.
Struggled through it, surviving wierd vocab and DBE along the way. Off for a kip now.
Mind you I’m a bit nervous about altering my subscription in any way. Based on past experience it will lead to some combination of double charging, the creation of duplicate accounts and mysterious changes to my log-in ID to a non-existent address ending “@timesplus”.
Nice to see this unusual grid again (blank squares making up two capital Es and two four letter words fully checked). It doesn’t get an outing very often.