Stopped the clock at 11:15 on what I thought was a very pleasant but not too demanding puzzle (with the caveat that it’s obviously impossible to tell in advance if everyone else will think the same, as proved by last Tuesday’s*). The major stumbling block might be the classical references, though there’s also a fair bit of natural history, not to mention a mathematician, but no poets, which will please my Tuesday co-tenant. I’d say this felt a little old-fashioned, but not in an overly dusty way.
*At time of writing, my only comparison on the leaderboard is with Jason, and as I’m just under twice his time, I’m pretty much where I’d expect to be by that measure. I shall wait for people to confirm if this puzzle is, in fact, dreadfully hard / insultingly easy [delete as appropriate].
Across | |
---|---|
1 |
CONCLAVE – CON |
9 |
REACTIVE – |
10 | SCUM – C in SUM. Scum, sub-human scum as Alan Partridge once said. |
11 | BILLINGSGATE – playful suggestion based on the fact that it’s now automatic for journalists to apply the suffix “-gate” to any scandal at all (and yet when a cabinet minister gets into a row with Downing Street police over using the correct exit, it’s Plebgate rather than Gategate, which I think is missing a trick). Anyway, an imaginary scandal relating to overcharging could be Billings-gate, as in the name of London’s traditional wholesale fish market. |
13 | PIGNUT – GNU in PIT; I didn’t know this, but was convinced enough by the obvious wordplay to put it in even before any checkers appeared. Anyway, it’s the underground tuber of a herb, which has many common names; this one indicates its popularity with foraging pigs, presumably when they can’t get truffles. |
14 | EMPLOYER – PLOY(subterfuge) in REME(rev.) |
15 |
UNSTUCK – S |
16 | CHEETAH =”CHEATER”, as in the answer to the question why you shouldn’t play cards when you’re on safari. |
20 |
PALOMINO – PAL O’ MIN |
22 | CURATE – RAT in CUE. |
23 |
ARISTOCRATIC – (AIR)*, T |
25 | ISIS – gIgS mIsS. The Thames, but only the bit which flows through Oxford, hence “part”. |
26 |
EYEGLASS – G |
27 |
HABANERA – A BAN in HER A |
Down | |
2 |
ORCADIAN – O |
3 | COMBINATIONS – COMB(“dress”), NATION in IS. Combinations would be the ancestor of the onesie, I suppose… |
4 |
ANALYTIC – ANA(“accounts”), L |
5 |
ERMINED – |
6 | HANG-UP – double def. |
7 | VISA – hidden in kieV IS An; possibly a comment on the slightly worrying situation in that part of the world. |
8 | RESEARCH – REES(the requisite Welshman) with half his letters reversed, ARCH(“chief”). |
12 | GEOMETRICIAN – (CAIROMEETING)*. Rene Descartes was influential in maths as well as philosophy, and quite literally a Renaissance Man. |
15 |
UNPLACED – (PUN |
17 | HECATOMB – HECATE, the classical enchantress, with her final letter changed from E to O, then M.B. for the doctor. A hecatomb was a sacrifice of 100 oxen, so not the sort of thing to happen every day. |
18 |
ANTERIOR – the port of RIO in [BANTER without the B |
19 |
BOORISH – O |
21 | ISOBAR – 1’S 0 BAR, as it might be written. |
24 |
ILEX – I |
Last in – and only unknown – was PIGNUT, which I certainly couldn’t have put in without checkers, partly because I never think of a gnu/wildebeest as an antelope. Must rewire the brain.
I always do better at knowledge-type puzzles, as I put in ‘ilex’ and ‘hecatomb’ without thinking too hard. It was ‘Orcadian’ that really got me; I realized Kirkwall might well be in the Orkney Islands, but I didn’t know or couldn’t recall the word. My parsing was wrong, too, since a ‘cad’ is not really a peasant and ‘-rian’ is not the last four letters of any type of poem….but, my answer was correct, so chalk one up.
There is a famous ‘Habanera’ in classical music, I believe, so this was not new to me either.
I’m with Ulaca on PIGNUT. Never heard of it.
That’s the end of the gnus … now the weather forecast.
I liked the gnu clue. You can’t have too many gnus. I have no idea what I mean by that.
Came in under the half hour, but with two letters wrong: ibex (misremembering my plant-life), and unplayed (dnk laced=beaten, and didn’t think it through enough). Other than that, I had RESEARCH and REACTIVE in from definition alone, so thanks for parsing those two.
DNK PIGNUT or HABANERA, but worked them out. Was helped that GNU came up recently.
I went to Carmen at the Sydney Opera House last week, so HABANERA was a gimme. It was the only production I have seen where Carmen was taller than Don Jose, which added to the fun at times.
In Spanish PALOMINO has another rather unpleasant meaning; luckily it’s just a horse in English.
HABANERA from its non-mention in G&S’s “Dance a Cachuca” (worked for me – one of the advantages of encroaching senility).
PIGNUT known but as a variation on peanuts, so wrong on that count (worked for me, etc). My only other antelope, the eland, had no hope of fitting in, so had to be the gnu.
Liked the grin at BILLINGSGATE, though it was an image of Smithfield which came to mind (worked etc).
EMPLOYER just about my CoD for the subterfuge involved in hiding the definition.
When I first started work my train used to come into London close to where the old fish market used to be and occassionally one could see the fish mongers with those wicker baskets piled up on their heads.
My grandfather used to wear combinations – a one piece vest plus long wooly under-trousers to keep him warm driving his taxi. My daughter sings the HABANERA from Carmen so all in all a family affair
Overjoyed to see Descartes described as a mathematician – perhaps soon the likes of Poisson will appear!
However, you will learn that he did ballet as a schoolboy! It was on the curriculum at the time.
Edited at 2014-03-11 09:58 am (UTC)
I believe it has moved on in recent years.
BILLINGS-GATE raised a smile, a refreshing change from the bad language option.
Edited at 2014-03-11 10:45 am (UTC)
I didn’t know reactive as a voice or that poetic peasant and since Monty Python didn’t do a mathematicians’ song I didn’t know that Descartes was one.
I was very pleased with myself for remembering hetacomb (sic) from a previous puzzle so that gave me issues with the crossing answers where I’d transposed the T and C.
If you’re still interested in blogging the Quick Cryptic can you drop me a PM with your personal email address so I can send you some helpful stuff. I think I already gave you posting access, but I have a template and some other instructions you’d find helpful.
I didn’t know LEX or ILEX so 24D was a non starter. Not keen on having to know one or other obscure words to get that answer, but judging from lack of similar comments perhaps they are just obscure to me.
16ac reminds me of the classic joke as recounted by my sister when she was about five:
Q: Why don’t they play cards in the jungle?
A: Because there are too many lions.
I’m now a complete fan of solving these puzzles on the iPad. It’s brilliant!
Sincere apologies for yesterday’s faux pas, haven’t lived in the UK for decades and didn’t know ST was a prize puzzle. Thanks for sorting it all out.
Nairobi Wallah
Thank you, Setter, for providing me with mental images of Callas in her prime, with the HABANERA, and of the Louvre’s shattering Poussin “Et in Arcadia Ego”, with ORCADIAN. (Odd thing with Callas, she utterly spoilt it for all her successors in so many roles, yet the voice was neither beautiful nor technically perfect. She was just unequalled as a musician and an actress, and in her ability to combine the two. Sheer genius.)
PIGNUT was new to me, but inevitable from the wordplay. LOI the fiendishly misleading and clever (and short clued) REACTIVE. Chapeau bas Setter! Ad multos annos!
Failed to parse ANALYTIC (not knowing that meaning of ANA). ORCADIAN was a guess, as was HECATOMB – I knew neither the word itself, nor Hecate. However, henceforth I shall hold summer hecatombs rather than mere barbecues.
I had heard of PIGNUT, and remembered it because it’s such a likeable, chubby little word. It’s also known as a kippernut. It’s words like that that make you realize how wonderful the English language is. Why all these foreign johnnies insist on using their own made-up languages is beyond me.
Day off today, which in practice means a day doing the paperwork to explain all the mistakes I’ve made earlier in the week. Fortunately it’s only Tuesday, so a mere handful.
At least GEOMETRICIAN went straight in since Cartesian geometry was how I first came across the man.
I think your description of this as “a very pleasant but not too demanding puzzle” sums it up nicely. And I agree with those who thought it a bit old-fashioned (which is fine by me, being a bit old-fashioned myself :-). If I had to guess the setter, I’d pick the previous crossword editor.
The Tennessee Stud would have been a palamino, too.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dq-1G6Wif8s