The setter today is a person of few words, all carefully chosen with precision and deliberation. Succinct clue after concise clue revealed a very tidy mind at work. A most enjoyable and challenging puzzle.
ACROSS
1 MORALITY PLAY Ins of OR (Other Ranks, soldiers) in MALI (country) + TYPE (kind) minus E + LAY (set)
8 NUREYEV Rev of V (versus, against) + EYE (study) + RUN (course)
9 RHUBARB R (Rex, king) + ins of BAR (court as in the legal profession) in HUB (focus)
11 PATELLA Ins of T (last letter of that) in PAELLA (stew containing saffron, chicken, rice, vegetables, seafood, etc.) for the kneecap
12 TIMPANI Ins of PAN (knock as in criticise) in TIMID (retiring) minus D for the plural of TIMPANO, an orchestral kettledrum.
13 CADDY dd for the guy who carries your bag while you play a round of golf and a container (usually of tea)
14 HERETICAL Ins of ETIC (rev of CITE, quote) in HERALD (messenger) minus D
16 OFFICINAL Ins of I (one) C (cold) IN (at home) in OFFAL (waste or rejected part of a carcase or rubbish)
19 ha deliberately omitted. Chambers2 defines gnome as a pithy and sententious saying, generally in verse, embodying some moral sentiment or precept
21 APROPOS Ins of OP (opus, work) + O (nothing) in APR (April, month) & S (succeeded)
23 MINARET M (motorway) + *(RETAIN)
24 EMANATE EMAN (rev of NAME, term) ATE (worried)
25 DUDGEON DRUDGE (menial, dogsbody) minus R (resistance) + ON (working)
26 HORN OF PLENTY *(PROF THEN ONLY) horn of the goat that suckled Jupiter, placed among the stars as an emblem of abundance
DOWN
1 MERITED Ins of ERIT (rev of TIRE, weary) in MED (the Mediterranean Sea)
2 ROYALLY Ins of OY (rev of Y, unknown + O, ring) in RALLY (meeting)
3 LEVIATHAN Ins of VIA (through) T (time) H (hard) in LEAN (efficient)
4 TAROT TA (Territorial Army, volunteers) ROT (go off)
5 PLUMMET PLUM (prize) MET (paid)
6 ARAMAIC A (indefinite article) RA (Royal Academician, artist) *(AIM) C (circa, about) for the language used by Jesus Christ
7 INSPECTORATE *(PRIEST AT ONCE) I like the leg-up when an obvious annie gives you the starting letter of 6 answers
10 BRILLIANTINE B (black) RILL (stream) + ins of AN TIN (element) in IE (id est, that is) What a brilliant clue for a product which I used in my schooldays. Does Yardley still exist? My COD for the nostalgia.
15 ROLE MODEL Ins of EM (space in printing) + ODE (poem) in ROLL (list)
17 FARRAGO Cha of FAR (much) RAG (ridicule) O (over) Not a single word wasted to clue the disordered mixture aka hotchpotch
18 CAPTAIN CAP (better) STAIN (spot) minus S
19 DUNEDIN Ins of N (new) in DUE (expected) + DIN (row) for a city in New Zealand
20 CARVERY CAR (saloon) VERY (jolly)
22 SHELF Ins of H (husband) in SELF (identity)
++++++++++++++
Key to abbreviations
dd = double definition
dud = duplicate definition
tichy = tongue-in-cheek type
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
*(FODDER) = anagram
TNT Crack = tough nut to crack
TNT Crack = tough nut to crack
Finally I saw ‘inspectorate’, which really opened things up. I put in ‘officinal’ from the cryptic and ‘farrago’ from the definition, and I was on my way. I put in ‘patella’ without really knowing why, then saw why, and was able to jump to ‘royally’ and ‘Nurgyev’ from the definitions. Last in: ‘Leviathan’. All done in about an hour and a half, no aids used.
I commend the setter on a very high-quality offering, but my brain is worn out for now. No Guardian puzzle for me tonight.
Hopefully the blog was of some assistance and do please try again.
19ac (today’s light-inclusive) is pretty clever given that Icelandic tales are exactly where one does find gnomic sayings.
The ‘Turbulent priest’ is nice.
Some great clueing. I especially liked CADDY which took me far longer than it should have done to see where the split was.
I’m not sure I’d describe a PAELLA as a stew though, but Chambers does so it’s perfectly fair. To me a stew has to at least have a mixture of stuff sloshing around in some sort of liquid.
Nearer home the SOED describes it as being cooked in a large shallow pan, not exactly descriptive of a stewpot!
Didn’t know OFFICINAL or that HORN OF PLENTY is a type of mushroom.
I can’t fault anything but this is not the sort of puzzle I want to be faced with on blogging duty as I struggled to find the setter’s wavelength.
Paul, I’m not an expert but I think the idea of paella is that it does slosh around in liquid but this evaporates and/or gets absorbed into the rice during the cooking process.
Edited at 2013-01-24 05:07 am (UTC)
Edited at 2013-01-24 05:55 am (UTC)
Who’d spent his whole life in a cellar.
From drinking much brew,
He died in a stew-
-p or … maybe in a paella.
Edited at 2013-01-24 08:57 am (UTC)
Typing woes apart, this was a very precise puzzle, and quite a challenge on a cold morning, with hold-ups which were not unique to me. Had never heard of OFFICINAL but the wordplay gives it quite fairly; and without disputing the validity of stew=paella from a dictionary POV, I have to say that as a cook, I’d no more call a paella a stew than I would a biryani.
OFFICINAL was the only unknown today: according to Chambers it can also mean “belonging to or used in a shop”.
I agree with others on paella. On this occasion I think Chambers is wrong.
I wondered about bank for SHELF, but I suppose there’s the continental variety. Like others, I wondered about stew for PAELLA, since it lacks gravy, but Chambers dissents. I suppose you could argue that it’s the result of a stewing process (it is when I make it, anyway).
Very much liked the Gnomes of Reykjavik.
Edited at 2013-01-24 09:32 am (UTC)
I also struggled with paella as stew and wonder if somebody with more knowledge than I could comment upon PATELLA as “bone”. I have a memory of it being softer and more flexible than bone.
CODs for 7 and 15 for the deceptively concealed definitions. Always good to see the light after one’s been cleverly led down a blind alley.
I’m also happy to be making my first post as someone other than Anonymous, though unfortunately my ‘organization’ will not allow me to upload a ‘userpic’. I will try at another portal.
Many thanks to setter and blogsmith.
Chris.
I remember brilliantine being inflicted on me: unless you protested loudly, the barber would slap a dollop of the stuff on your one-and-thruppenny short-back-and-sides, then spray the entire creation with an atomiser. I used to emerge from the salon smelling “like an Arabian brothel”, as my father disdainfully remarked.
Edited at 2013-01-25 01:15 am (UTC)
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