Solving time: 44:29
There was a lot of clever stuff going on here, so my time felt like a good one. It took me a while to get started, but I made fairly steady progress thereafter.
I think 4a just gets my COD, narrowly ahead of 5d, but there are plenty of other good clues here. My compliments to the setter.
cd = cryptic def., dd = double def., rev = reversal, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as (–)*, and removals like this
Across | |
---|---|
1 | MA (the chick feeder) + CAW (squawk) |
4 | PYGMALION = GYP (pain) rev + MALI (nation) + ON – ‘the work of an Irishman’ is the definition, as George Bernard Shaw was from Dublin. |
9 | T(HE’S)AURUS |
10 | EX-CON – dd – a political defector being an ex-conservative |
11 | ROCOCO = OR (gold) rev + CO (joint, as a prefix) twice |
12 | TRAIN SET = TEST (to check) rev about RAIN |
14 | TEN-GALLON HAT – cd |
17 | BANTAM + W + EIGHT |
20 | I + DO LATER |
21 | UGRIAN = (AIR GUN)* – not a word I knew but with all the checkers in place there seemed no alternative. |
23 | CAB(A)L |
24 | AMPLIFIER = (IMPERIAL)* about F (strong) – ‘mint’ is the anagrind. |
25 | S + POTTIEST |
26 | HONEY – dd |
Down | |
1 | MATURITY = RUT (hollow) rev + IT all in MAY (tree) |
2 | CRESCENT = C (curved shape) + RECENT (new) about |
3 | WHATCHAMACALLIT = HATCH (fashion) + A + MAC (coat) + ALL (everything) all in WIT (mind) |
4 | PARR – cd – Parr being both the name of a fish, and of Henry VIII’s sixth wife. |
5 | G + ASTRONOMY (subject for those looking up) |
6 | AMERICAN ENGLISH – cd – In American English a ‘story’ can be a level of a building, to us a ‘storey’. |
7 | INCISE = IS in |
8 | NINETY – I’m not sure of the wordplay, but I think it’s that ninety in Roman numerals is XC, which is hidden in ‘excess’ but must be written in capitals, hence ‘capped’. |
13 | ALL THE RAGE = (L |
15 | IGNITION = IT + IN + GI all rev + ON |
16 | STINGRAY = STINGY (mean) about |
18 | DISCUS |
19 | BOO-BOO = BOOB (mistake) + O x2 (nothing to be repeated) – &lit |
22 | SPAT = TAPS (hot and cold) rev |
Ended in the NE, where I would give me COD to PARR just ahead of PYGMALION and IGNITION.
A typo at 7a – should he BANTAM.
MA as “chick-feeder” tried my patience; I’m afraid I think it’s stupid, but of course this may have something to do with my inability to solve the thing!
I had no idea how 8dn worked but I’m sure your explanation is the right one and it also accounts for the lack of a hidden answer elsewhere in the puzzle. 3dn was also not fully explained as I had A MAC ALL inside WATCH IT (mind) which left “fashion” in the clue and “H” in the answer unaccounted for.
Well done!
Edited at 2014-02-28 02:34 am (UTC)
By the weirdest chance I had typed the words PYGMALION, ROCOCO and MACAW earlier in the day (don’t ask), which certainly helped.
Great work parsing NINETY, Dave. I gave up trying to understand it. Thank you. And thank you, setter, for a mind-warping solve (chick feeder, indeed!).
Couldn’t see CO for “joint” (11ac) either. Great puzzle; but not to be faced without coffee.
Dave, when you blogged the puzzle a month ago that had ‘Finno-Ugric’ in it, I mentioned Hungarian was also a Uralic language. It’s not much of a leap to the variant ‘Ugrian’.
38 minutes plus one tick, and I was still on the first page. All very clever, off the wall thinking, so respect to the setter. Stetson my FOI, SPAT my last, struggling to find any word in which the H and C could be exchanged before thinking the setter just about got away with it.
TRAIN SET for my (relatively easy) CoD
Thanks for explaining NINETY, Dave. It was my last in, and I didn’t have a clue: it was just the only thing that seemed to fit. Too clever by… oh, I already said that.
Based on my experience with teenagers, I did toy with SLEEPIEST.
Edited at 2014-02-28 10:05 am (UTC)
I was held up in the NE at the end by carelessly having entered “eighty” for 8dn, parsed as (w)eighty, which kind of made sense when I entered it early in the solve. It was only when I realised that 4ac was PYGMALION that I knew for sure it was wrong, although I already had a feeling it was because “?? C?G?” for 10ac looked very unlikely once I had INCISE. I then sussed out the XC in the clue for NINETY, EX-CON became very easy with the correct checker at the end, and AMERICAN ENGLISH was my LOI. I expect to see “storey” spelled “story” nowadays, possibly because I read a lot of American novels, so the clue didn’t automatically lead me to the answer.
Great effort Dave – glad I didn’t have to come to the rescue on this one. Not my cup of tea at all.
Personally it doesn’t bother me. As long as the wordplay is clear I can’t see why a new word isn’t just as fair game as something obscure just because the latter happens to be in a dictionary.
Edited at 2014-02-28 02:48 pm (UTC)
I was much happier toady with whatchamacallit, which I’ve heard used many times, than I was yesterday with rager and rampager, which might both be in every bloomin’ dictionary under the sun but I’ve never heard uttered or seen in print in my 52¾ years on this planet.
Oh, and today, not toady.
On further investigation I have found WHATCHAMACALLIT in Chambers Slang Dictionary which dates it from c19+. OED has it as “chiefly US” with its first example dated 1942 though it appeared as WHATCHA-MAY-CALL-IT in 1926.
Edited at 2014-03-01 06:10 am (UTC)
Just caught up with your message from yesterday re Masonic influence on the grid layout of US cities. I’ve checked it out since. You exposed a giant lacuna in my GK!
Compliments to the setter for some ingenious clueing but I found this too much of a struggle to be a pleasure.
Very well solved and blogged Dave.
… and that blank was PARR, where I’d not heard of the fish, and history is never a strong point…
Was determined to finish today, and almost made it, but it did take a (very) long time. Couldn’t parse AMPLIFIER (doh!), BOO BOO, CRESCENT or NINETY, so many thanks to Dave for sorting it all out.
I have three teenage sons, so SPOTTIEST raised a wry smile.
Not sure about time – 35 minutes on the train this morning, 4 more clues from memory whilst walking to the office then the last three (PARR, THESAURUS and MATURITY) straight in when I looked again just now. Liked PARR when the penny dropped.
Found some like 1a and 22a rather weak or silly.
A good week for me, managed to do them all.
Nairobi Wallah
Camps I’m in:
1) Didn’t parse 8 so thanks Dave.
2) Very Enjoyable puzzle
3) 19 works as an &Lit
4) I seem to be alone here but MINT as an angagrind?
COD to gastronomy for the looking up part.
Agree with K about ‘mint’.
Edited at 2014-02-28 03:08 pm (UTC)
Edited at 2014-02-28 07:11 pm (UTC)
Can’t see the objection to WHATCHAMACALLIT – the word’s in everyday use, unlike quite a few we’ve had recently. Definitely not teotwawki.
Liked the recursive clueing of CRESCENT, the subtly misleading GASTRONOMY, the clever AMERICAN ENGLISH, and the excellent PYGMALION, my COD. FOI ROCOCO, LOI SPAT and NINETY.
A “Heineken” crossword, reaching those parts …
More like this, please, just not every day!
Was I the only one that had (w)eighty for 8d until 10a made it untenable? Much better than the real answer, in my view.
The whole process reminded me of abdominal surgery. Jumped in full of confidence, then realized it was all going to be a lot more complicated than I’d thought. Muddled along for a while, then put in the last couple of bits without really being sure.
Still, it all ended well (the crossword, that is). I stared at 3d for ages with all but the first checker in place, wondering what on earth could have that many As in it. Having put it in, I couldn’t be bothered to parse it – I’m not keen on these Ikea-style clues where you have assemble the word from a multitude of small parts.
Failed to parse NINETY as well. Looking at [daveperry]’s suggested parsing, I think this had the makings of a clever clue, but it somehow missed the mark.
UGRIAN I only got because the anagram was so clearly flagged, and because “Finno-Ugric” had cropped up recently. What ever happened to the Ugs?
LOI was 1ac (MACAW), which I didn’t think was a good clue although I can’t say why not. Overall, though, I enjoyed this one – challenging but doable.
I’m working tonight and looking forward to brisk business. I’ve got an accumulator bet running with some colleagues, which will pay for a good weekend’s drinking if, by midnight: (a) we get at least one stabbing, (b) the total of lost extremities is greater than two (digits count individually unless they are lost along with the limb) and (c) there are no fatalities (DOA’s excluded). I’m fairly optimistic about (a) and (c), and can always give (b) a nudge in the right direction.
Award for Most Unexpected Accident of the Day (so far): owl attack. Moral: think twice before attempting to rescue an owl that has been hit by a car.
Edited at 2014-02-28 09:21 pm (UTC)
This blog needs a little livening up
I have a surgeon friend with a dark, dark sense of humour – goes with the territory no doubt.
I was slowed by bunging in EIGHTY for 8dn (capping WEIGHTY = “in excess”, admittedly rather loosely, and probably just a thinifer’s reaction to all those fattipuffs) and didn’t twig the true significance of “capped” until I came here. (Thanks!)