Admittedly I was probably not in the best frame of mind for it, having (a) this week just started a new job in Bromley that is very promising but has an early start, necessitating a punishing 6am wakeup call every morning and (b) yesterday evening having returned from a viewing of Bergman’s utterly depressing 1963 film “Winter Light” about, as so many of them are, the deafening silence of God in the face of human suffering. I did it on paper in an unexciting time, let’s say about quarter of an hour, much of it spent at the end thinking that 18ac had to be CURTAIL even though that did seem very weird, but that 16dn probably couldn’t be PALIKIR, the mighty capital of the Federated States of Micronesia, no matter how much I love knowing its name for quiz purposes.
The clues that didn’t baffle my exhausted brain are very brilliant though and I think this puzzle probably has many more potential laugh-out-loud moments as average, and also satisfied my interesting vocab and erudite GK requirements (I very much liked the Debussy clue, and the Italian tenor too, made me feel very classical). Thumbs up to the setter – so what did everyone else think?
ACROSS
1 Blue shed on hill (8)
DOWNCAST – CAST [shed] on DOWN [hill]
5 Stores spoken of somewhere in SW London (6)
BARNES – homophone of BARNS [stores “spoken of”]
10 Car maintenance business? It doesn’t make much (7,8)
SERVICE INDUSTRY – car maintenance is SERVICE, business is INDUSTRY, as a whole phrase a SERVICE INDUSTRY doesn’t generally produce goods
11 Trash rough sketch after fuss (10)
FLAPDOODLE – DOODLE [rough sketch] after FLAP [fuss]
13 Italian tenor losing line in musical (4)
GIGI – GIG{l}I [Italian tenor (Beniamino), losing his L for line]
Hope this clue didn’t remind anyone else of the epoch-shatteringly bad Bennifer movie…
15 Invitation to copy talks without constraint (4,3)
LETS RIP – sounds like “LET’S RIP”, which could be an invitation to copy software or what have you
17 Small seals close to shore showing cunning (7)
SLEIGHT – SLIGHT [small] “seals” {shor}E
18 Dock replacing terminal with large screen (7)
CURTAIN – CURTAIL [dock] replacing its last letter with… um, N for large? Think I’m missing something
19 An agreement earlier in the day to back religious figure (7)
MADONNA – AN NOD AM [an | agreement | earlier in the day] reversed
21 German playwright has British cast to be authentic
ECHT – {br}ECHT – German playwright (Bertolt) losing his BR for British
22 Meeting, not for reorganising plant (10)
MIGNONETTE – (MEETING NOT*) [“for reorganising”]
25 Only a little time at the top for this officer? (6-2-7)
SECOND-IN-COMMAND – humorously misconstrued, if you only spend a single second in command, you’ve been a very short time at the top
27 Bolts used for front parts of cars (6)
DASHES – double def
28 Maybe Cupid’s period of influence precious, we say (8)
REINDEER – homophone of REIGN DEAR [period of influence | precious, “we say”]
DOWN
1 Such extremely penetrating new fluid is what bowl contains (7)
DISHFUL – S{uc}H “penetrating” (FLUID*) [“new”]
2 County, in short, that’s declared? (3)
WAR – the country is WARwickshire, and war is something that gets “declared”
3 Cooked sliced ham about right for a December festival
CHILDERMAS – (SLICED HAM*) [“cooked”] about R [right]
4 Deal with old shirts piled up (3,2)
SEE TO – O TEES [old | shirts] reversed
6 Row away from river to get fit (4)
AGUE – A{r}GUE [row, losing its R for river]
7 What vanilla has? Very close! (7,2,2)
NOTHING IN IT – {va}NIL{la} has NIL in it
8 Pen on table for writer of elegance (7)
STYLIST – STY [pen] on LIST [table]
9 America’s masculine representation, one for export (5,3)
UNCLE SAM – (MASCUL{i}NE*) [“re-presentation”, after I has been “exported” out of the equation], &lit or semi-&lit
12 Sweet white wines no great shakes? (11)
AFTERSHOCKS – AFTERS HOCKS [sweet | white wines]
14 Top player’s aim, playing with England (7,3)
LEADING MAN – (AIM + ENGLAND*) [“playing”]
16 Listener’s commonly getting the shakes in small cup (8)
PANNIKIN – homophone of PANICKIN’ [“listener’s” commonly, getting the shakes]
18 Needing evening out, stopped around mid-afternoon (7)
CREASED – CEASED [stopped] about {afte}R{noon}
20 One changes finale in Debussy piece, but not the opening (7)
AMENDER – END [finale] in {l}A MER [Debussy piece, “but not the opening”]
23 Recess in cliff-side road, corner half obscured (5)
NICHE – {cor}NICHE [cliff-side road, losing half the word COR{ner} from the start]
24 Competitive, the last to move up, one of two that could be capped (4)
KNEE – KEEN [competitive], with the last letter moving up into second position. Knees come in pairs and can have kneecaps or even be kneecapped.
26 Measure of land is for more than one (3)
ARE – the plural form [“for more than one”] of IS
Along with PANNIKIN there’s CHILDERMAS, FLAPDOODLE and MIGNONETTE to add to the list of little-known (by me) words we’ve had over the past three days.
Well done V for sorting it all out and for seeing the positive in it
Here’s to next week.
I had L/N written in as the checker on the end of Curtai(l/n) but DNK Pannikin.
Lots of grumbles today: Childermas, Debussy pieces, a PLANT anagram, Gigli? and the Curtail debacle.
However, mostly I liked: 14dn and 18dn which are superb clues and stand out from the rest.
Thanks setter and V.
Edited at 2018-04-06 06:27 am (UTC)
MIGNONETTE and CHILDERMAS were unknown, as was FLAPDOODLE although having arrived at the latter through wordplay I thought I recognised it. A google search suggests that it has not come up before, but then it hasn’t found it in today’s blog so perhaps it’s not working properly.
I never heard of Warwickshire being abbreviated to anything other than ‘Warks’ but Collins confirms ‘War’ is valid. I imagine there are probably 3-letter abbreviations for all UK counties as required for some particular purpose even if they are not the ones in general use.
Edited at 2018-04-06 07:22 am (UTC)
Cannot fathom 18ac which I suspect is wrong somehow.. I suppose you could read the clue as just dock = CURTAIL with the last letter replaced, the def. being “large screen,” but that still seems less than satisfactory.
No problems with Gigli or pannikin but could not parse the Debussy clue.. my extensive knowledge of Santa’s helpers came in handy yet again, though
Agree there’s a hiccup with 18ac.
Is not perhaps the ‘N’ from quantum field theory – the large-N sigma model?
FOI 2dn WAR
WOD 11ac FLAPDOODLE
I also liked 13ac GIGI as it made a pleasant change from HAIR and CATS!
COD 12dn AFTERSHOCKS
DNF with 6dn AGUE and 28ac REINDEER (They are out of season!) incomplete!
Oh! and 22ac MIGNONETTE which eluded me as well.
Much in agreement with Sotira.
Bad Friday for Meldrew
Edited at 2018-04-06 07:58 am (UTC)
I know we’re a demanding bunch, but when a crossword (especially a rather precious and teasing one such as this) gets a clue wrong, as surely 18a is, it does knock one’s appreciation of the contest, especially because the affected difficult down clue, 16 is kiboshed. In desperation I tried pillikin, which might be a small cup but has nothing else going for it, but in the end corrected it with a note to complain to the editor (just like this).
Pity, it’s otherwise a toughish challenge. Thanks to V for untangling everything, especially the Debussy. Otherwise, pish and tush.
I think N is the electric terminal neutral ‘N’ replacing L for large.
FOI ECHT, after I’d shared the general puzzlement at 18A, and entered CURTAI, leaving the end blank – a wise move methinks !
DNK CHILDERMAS but it was a fairly easy anagrind.
Biffed MADONNA but parsed it immediately. Also biffed UNCLE SAM, AGUE (really disliked the clue) and AMENDER. Thanks to V for his usual enlightenment.
Once I spotted PANNIKIN 18A was (unsatisfactorily) complete.
LOI REINDEER, almost COD but that honour falls to SLEIGHT.
Didn’t like WAR or DISHFUL.
WOD FLAPDOODLE
V did you do yesterday’s Guardian by Brummie? Excellent theme there I thought, and up your street.
I have been doing the Guardian much more recently since taking a paper subscription. This makes absolutely no sense at all, since if I want to do the puzzle I can print it for free in about 15 seconds, but somehow the fact of its physical presence on the breakfast table makes me pick it up. This perhaps tells you something about how lazy I am.
Other minor harrumphs were GIGI (forgotten movie clued by reference to forgotten singer) and RIP (as opposed to RIP off). I happened to know both references in the former, but only from doing these things, and the latter turns out just to be a usage I wasn’t familiar with.
The largest harrumph though was 18ac, of course, for reasons already well rehearsed. Looks like a mistake to me.
In spite of all the harrumphing I did rather enjoy this. FLAPDOODLE is a great word, and deriving words like MIGNONETTE, CHILDERMAS and PANNIKIN from wordplay is fun.
Edited at 2018-04-06 10:17 am (UTC)
Edited at 2018-04-06 09:58 am (UTC)
‘Rip off’ can also mean copy, or ‘steal or plagiarise’ as ODO has it.
I liked 18 down and 6 down a lot. In 6 down, the misdirections arising from the use of the “row” homophones, achieved by associating “row” with river, and then the “fit” homonyms, were both very clever, I thought; and succinctly achieved.
A puzzle that had a sleigh puller I hadn’t heard of before, exhibited real sleight of hand but was also sleightly faulty, (18 across ). (“Sleightly”, should be pronounced, ”slately” here, in the voice of Bertrand Russell).
Edited at 2018-04-06 11:02 am (UTC)
My suggested alternative clue for 25 across.
Speaking of which, I don’t think that ‘with’ is an acceptable link word between wordplay and definition (although others may disagree), so I don’t quite buy the idea that ‘large screen’ is the definition, but I don’t have any suggestions for what is supposed to be happening. Just an error, perhaps?
Edited at 2018-04-06 04:28 pm (UTC)
Passing comment on the rest would be rather like answering the question “Yes, but what did you think of the play, Mrs Lincoln”…however, I shall be positive, and agree with the opinion above that such blips stand out because they are so rare and the standard usually so high.
Edited at 2018-04-07 06:31 am (UTC)
I felt disinclined to cut the setter any slack with 6d and 18c — they’re simply wrongly clued and someone screwed up. Pah!
The only redeeming feature was the VANILLA clue — I *knew* it must be something about the letters of ‘vanilla’ (two Ls? two As? a double? N and A?). My COD. Very witty.
Thanks, V, for your judicious blog.
CHILDERMAS was very vaguely recalled, though I know not whence – I shall endeavour to celebrate it henceforth. AMENDER went in unparsed on the grounds that it fitted. BARNES was an NHO, and I was only sure it was right after AGUE went in. NOTHING IN IT, MADONNA (which I tried spelling both ways), SECOND IN COMMAND and STYLIST all presented challenges which, on reflection, they shouldn’t have. FLAPDOODLE was a vaguely known word, but in the cluttered cupboard which I use as a memory it had somehow got separated from its meaning. MIGNONETTE, of course, must have been an NHO for everyone, so I don’t feel bad about spending a good ten minutes (actually it wasn’t that good) letter-juggling to arrive at it. In fact, it would probably be quicker to list the clues that didn’t give me grief.
Finally, I managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by confidently putting in MIMI at 13ac. That’s always the way with long procedures – you close up with a sense of relief, only to discover that you’ve put something back in the wrong way round. Clearly, the setter was unaware of the existence both of “Mimi!” the musical, and of the famous Italian tenor Giovanni Milmi.