I needn’t have worried. As with the proverbial iceberg, there was a lot going on under the surface here, and any expectations of plain sailing were quickly wrecked. I finished inside 13 and a half minutes, but felt really lucky to make that time. I’d definitely class this as a “wavelength puzzle” – light on simple X + Y = Z equations, heavy on pennies dropping from heaven. Not knowing for sure Weber’s first name (if it isn’t one of “Carl Maria von”, anyway), or Bach’s religious denomination, or the pygmy race, or the definitive pronunciation of the odd-toed ungulate, or why “int” should be a bid (parsed that one just after I hit submit) I was half expecting a lurking error somewhere, and breathed a sigh of relief to have escaped. Also, is a “snowman” really an article rather than, say, a person? In fairness we may watch too much Raymond Briggs in our household.
Anyway I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I adore a crossword puzzle that makes me feel like I know something, and this one with its gentle requests for economic, artistic, anthropological, astronomical, political, and tragical comical historical pastoral knowledge, qualified swimmingly for that category. And as I’ve also said I like my crosswords not to skimp on the fun. It felt like the setter must have been having it while compiling and that resulted in me having it too. Cheers, sir or madam!
LOIs were the somewhat involved 8D and the ingenious cryptic definition at 5A – so obvious once it resolved in fullness before my eyes, but how long did I spend trying to find a word for “outsiders” to go inside PLAY? That vied for COD with the splendid 24D, for me.
1 TIPPET – fur: TIP PET [suggest | cat for one]
5 TALK SHOP – cryptic def (bore as in “make bored”, converse as in “conversation”)
9 SCREW TOP – closer: CREW [team] “goes through” STOP [road sign]
10 PROFIT – surplus: IT [pronoun] used by PROF [academic]
11 UNHAMPERED – play on the two senses of “hamper”, viz. to encumber and picnic basket
13 MARX – R [run] “into” MAX [Weber] to get “another economist”
14 DEWY – “laden with pearls”: “returned”, {flash}Y WED{ding} “rings” the answer
15 GET-UP-AND-GO – double def – to walk out, and energy for doing things
18 STABLEMATE – “being from the same background”: B [bishop] “breaks” STALEMATE [deadlock]
20 HOAR – ice crystals: “not diamonds”, i.e. minus D, in HOAR{d} [treasure store]
21 STAG – excluding women: STAG{e} [“short” leg]
23 DRAMA QUEEN – someone too fond of making scenes, or “Titania for one”, a queen in a drama
25 LEONID – double def: “a bit of [the Leonid meteor] shower, or Leonid Brezhnev
26 LUTHERAN – “it could be Bach”: (UNEARTH L{arge}*) [“work”]
28 CATS EYES – stones: T [{pu}T “finally”] into CASE [container] + YES [“that’s correct”]
29 PARADE – march: {includ}ED A RAP{id} “section, which returns”
Down
2 IN CONCERT – working together: 1NT [“a particular bid” in bridge] “to absorb” CONCER{n} [business, “shortly”]
3 PLENARY – for everybody: PEN A RY [write | a | line], L [different line] “included”
4 TUT – show disapproval: TUT{u} [“three-quarter length” skirt]
5 TAPIR – “browser” (as in herbivorous animal) that sounds like TAPER [one recording “broadcast”]
6 LEPIDOPTERA – the Order of the Peacock (sc. Butterfly): (RE-APPLIED TO*) [“unusually”]
7 SNOWMAN – “frozen article child makes”: SN OWN [tin – have], MA [parent] “tucking in”
8 OSIER – shoot: {l}OSER [failure “must be executed” – i.e. have its head cut off], with I “entering”
12 PIG-HEADEDLY – obstinately: during PLY [journey], GI [recruit “turned”] + HEADED [went]
16 TWA – double def: Scots for two, and a Pygmy tribe
17 GRAVEYARD – final destination: GRAVE YARD [serious | distance]
19 BYGONES – past events: BY [through] + (SONG E{nglish}*) [“recreated”]
20 HAUTEUR – disdain: H AUTEUR [hard (on) influential director]
22 THETA – character: T [time] “to go through” THE A [two articles]
24 ARLES – “where Van Gogh worked”: shown by his {e}ARLES{s} self-portrait, “endlessly”
27 TAP – double def, sort of dance / exploit
Thought the Van Gogh gag was brilliant. Thanks to Verlaine for a great blog, and to the setter for the most elegant torment.
Nor did I twenty seconds ago.
Found this very hard, but got there in the end, so thank you setter. Ashamed to say I could only see one solution for TALK SH**, but hey I’m Australian. The penny dropped eventually and I’ll give it COD.
Great blog as usual Verlaine. Just change 5D to 5A in your final paragraph.
The top half, apart from the butterfly and GET-UP-AND GO, was a disaster and I was on uncertain ground in the NW, not sure that DEWY was right because there’d already been a reverse hidden at 29ac and I thought there was a convention not to have more than one per puzzle.
TAPIR is “tape-ear” in my experience so the sound-alike never occurred to me. LOI was OSIER which was galling after its recent appearance in two or more puzzles and discussions here. Never heard of TWA pygmies and wondered if one is allowed to use that term these days.
Edited at 2015-02-06 10:04 am (UTC)
I learnt a useful lesson to re-check an answer I’ve entered.
I’m doing this puzzle in Bath, the graveyard of ambition. How true. How true.
I finished with LUTHERAN only once I’d changed from Gravesend to GRAVEYARD.
Also got two wrong: I had taper at 5dn, not really understanding the ‘browser’ bit, and then ‘tua’. No real explanation for that one… didn’t know the Scottish word, nor the Pygmy tribe, so that was always going to be punt…
Thanks, as ever, for great blog, Verlaine!
OSIER was a bit of a guess, though the checkers didn’t seem to support anything else, as I didn’t see the wordplay. Despite it’s common usage I’m not that keen on ‘execute’ to indicate initial deletion. There are various methods of execution and most these days do not involve beheading.
I’ve never pronounced TAPIR to rhyme with ‘taper’, but then it’s not a word I pronounce every day.
Chambers has both ‘tay-peer’ and ‘taper’.
The tailor worked and worked, and he talked to himself: “No breadth at all, and cut on the cross; it is no breadth at all; tippets for mice and ribbons for mobs! for mice!” said the Tailor of Gloucester.
Sue Sweeper
I wanted to put in ‘twi’, which is a language and not a pygmy, but eventually I decided it must be ‘twa’, which turns out to be a general term and not a specific tribe.
My final problem was that I had carelessly removed a ‘d’ from ‘horde’ instead of ‘hoard’, so put in the momble ‘hore’. It was only when I saw ‘graveyard’ that I corrected this slip.
Slow but steady progress through the rest. Got Tippet and Twa from the wordplay without knowing either definition.
Thought Arles was a gem of a clue.
A ferocious non bridge player, I had no idea what was going on in 2d, so thanks M. V for that, TALK SHOP and the brilliant ARLES. The pygmy was a guess, but I am going to a late, late Burns Supper shortly so the TWA was easy.
I’d definitely quibble about the taper/tapir homonym – I’d pronounce it “tape ear”. Wonderful animals, tragically endangered in the wild. Tasty too.
Failed to parse IN CONCERT – bridge is a closed book to me, and I assumed the “company” was “co”, leaving me with too many letters left over when the clue ran out.
Didn’t know ARLES (but a great clue). Nor did I know the pygmies, though perhaps I should have, as they once ran a major airline. Enjoyed LEONID (I’m a big fan of meteor showers), though I’ve noticed a general paucity of techy/nerdy clues of late.
I thought this a very fine puzzle, though, and enjoyed working through it afterwards to make sense of some of the clues I’d only half-understood.
Like Dr Thud I’ve always pronounced TAPIR as “tape ear”, but I see that the ODO prefers “taper”.