What larks! Lots of fun answers in this clever crossword, hats off to Mr Setter once again. I seemed to be on the wavelength, metaphorically speaking, getting it done in under half an hour and having no arguments with the parsing, except for 9d where I don’t understand the choice of definition for an otherwise excellent clue. Among some goodies, 12a gets my CoD vote for its neatness.
| Across | |
| 1 | Loss of interest from years on a course (6) |
| APATHY – A, PATH (course), Y. | |
| 4 | Spies what is said to be floury mix for bread (8) |
| CIABATTA – CIA (spies) then it sounds like BATTER (floury mix). | |
| 10 | He has a hunch as if weird doom is to follow (9) |
| QUASIMODO – QUASI (as if, Latin), (DOOM)*. | |
| 11 | Order for building one’s given to men in Washington (5) |
| DORIC – DC (Washington) has OR (men) I inserted. | |
| 12 | Nigerian visiting Bilbao on and off (3) |
| IBO – alternate letters as above. | |
| 13 | Soul’s ending in torment, after life of this? (11) |
| UNGODLINESS – (SOUL’S ENDING)*. Clever surface. | |
| 14 | Turn on girl accompanying artist and scold (6) |
| VIRAGO – VI (a girl) RA (artist) GO (turn). | |
| 16 | In retrospect, Cummings initially should replace tungsten in pen, one not working (7) |
| RETIREE – Tungsten’s symbol is W (for wolfram, its alternative name), so we take WRITER (pen) and replace the W by ee (e e cummings being the poet who insisted (pretentiously?) on being a lower case poet). So we have EERITER. Then reverse it all. | |
| 19 | Waits to execute youngster (5,2) |
| HANGS ON – HANG (execute) SON (youngster). | |
| 20 | Complete language, bar one noun (6) |
| FINISH – FINNISH the language loses an N. | |
| 22 | Note dinners thrown together for one that can’t stay (3-8) |
| NON-RESIDENT – (NOTE DINNERS)*. | |
| 25 | Right to avoid first medicinal herb (3) |
| RUE – TRUE loses T. | |
| 26 | Some sea-green water coming upriver (5) |
| EAGRE – hidden as above, a tidal bore. | |
| 27 | Definition of baritone (sound) one may check on phone? (9) |
| VOICEMAIL – sounds like “VOICE MALE” = baritone. | |
| 28 | Opera fan starts to see assorted Verdi offerings at the Garden (8) |
| SAVOYARD – initial letters of See Assorted Verdi Offerings, then yard = garden (in USA). Derived from the name of the Savoy Theatre built in 1881 by D’Oyly Carte for staging Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, thus known as Savoy operas. | |
| 29 | It comes after health? It is said to come first (6) |
| SAFETY – I’ve decided this is a double definition; the first from the “Health and Safety Executive” which nowadays protects (or plagues) us all, the second from the expression “Safety First”. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | In Paris, who may get into performance free? (6) |
| ACQUIT – ACT (performance) has QUI (who in French) inserted. | |
| 2 | A western alliance set up to pin down Turk (9) |
| ANATOLIAN – A, NATO (alliance) NAIL (pin down) reversed. The part of Turkey in Asia, across the Bosphorus. | |
| 3 | Loud bird-call audible in poem (5) |
| HAIKU – Sounds like “HIGH COO” that being a loud bird call, perhaps. | |
| 5 | Admitted to exclusive club? Sorted! (2,5,2,5) |
| IN ORDER OF MERIT – double definition. Exclusive because at any one time there are only at most 24 nominated members alive. Currently there are only 19. | |
| 6 | Notice China supporting British in court action (9) |
| BADMINTON – B (British) AD (notice) MINTON (kind of china). | |
| 7 | Cake’s radius: where to bet about it (5) |
| TORTE – bet on the TOTE, insert R for radius. | |
| 8 | Statement worked out charges for what solicitor did? (8) |
| ACCOSTED – AC (account, statement); COSTED (worked out charges). | |
| 9 | Cook’s underwear viler after fouling (4,4,6) |
| LONG JOHN SILVER – well, LONG JOHNS are a form of all-over underwear, and then (VILER)*, gives you the answer. But I thought LJS was the Quartermaster, not the cook, under Captain Flint. There seem to be two theories as to the origin of the term “long johns”, one to do with a tall chap, John Sullivan, in Derbyshire who sported them early on, and one as derived from French “longues jambes” meaning long legs. I don’t much like the latter, as I think the French would say “jambes longues” more usually. | |
| 15 | At sea, surely eat with great self-discipline (9) |
| AUSTERELY – (SURELY EAT)*. | |
| 17 | Wake up again to do some road work? (9) |
| RESURFACE – double definition. | |
| 18 | Popular line in board game is such a wonder (8) |
| CHINLESS – IN L (popular line) is inserted into CHESS. The term “chinless wonder” meaning upper-class twit, seems to originate from many people of high birth, especially the Royal Family, having a receding chinline. The current Duke of Kent springs to mind, although I wouldn’t be caught in print calling him a chinless wonder. | |
| 21 | Eccentric retains key allegiance (6) |
| FEALTY – FEY (eccentric, unpredictable) has ALT (key from keyboard) inserted. | |
| 23 | Green stuff eaten (not “ate”) up in desert (5) |
| NEGEV – VEG (green stuff) E(ATE)N = EN, all reversed = NEGEV. Desert in Israel, between Beersheba and Eilat. I went to Club Med in Eilat once for a diving holiday and the sea water was like soup because of the plankton bloom. And the airport lounge was a shed with no AC and the flight was hours delayed. Don’t go. | |
| 24 | For Greek student, introduction to Thucydides? (5) |
| THETA – Well if you were writing Greek, Thucydides would beging with Θ i.e. theta. | |
Later: This one took me 27 minutes for all but the intersecting answers FEALTY and SAFETY, both of which on reflection I should have got, but after an additional 10 minutes staring blankly at both I used aids to finish off the grid.
A little research this morning has confirmed my memory of LJS more or less.He first appears in a chapter of Treasure Island called ‘The Sea Cook’ and whilst he has officially attained the position of Quartermaster by the time of the voyage on Hispaniola, Jim Hawkins refers to him in the narrative as ‘our ship’s cook, Barbecue, as the men called him’ and describes him cooking in the roughest of seas.
Edited at 2021-11-10 07:01 am (UTC)
Edited at 2021-11-10 08:53 pm (UTC)
Definitely not as hard as I made it.
Fun puzzle: good to see DORIC popping up again. Have to keep the tone of these things up, you know…
FOI 24dn THETA (no variety!)
LOI 29ac SAFETY (curtain?)
COD 28ac SAVOYARD
WOD 11ac — alas poor DORIC!
There is also Grauman’s Chinese Theatre over in Horrywood.
Time (to fetch me coat!) 23 mins.
Edited at 2021-11-10 05:47 am (UTC)
I also took a while to see VOICEMAIL, FEALTY and IN ORDER OF MERIT. I think these last four took me as long as the rest of the puzzle (which I though was very good despite that).
Thanks setter and Pip (especially for explanation of RETIREE).
COD CHINLESS
That and SAFETY were my two LOIs.
I thought there some good surfaces today and I learnt a new word in EAGRE. I knew bore but not eagre.
I bunged in RETIREE just from checkers but never saw the WRITER bit and didn’t know ee Cummings. I was working on the C of Cummings.
Edited at 2021-11-10 07:20 am (UTC)
Long John Saliva, as Count Arthur Strong styles him.
Thanks, pip.
That I don’t have the skill for HAIKU
You’d not be ACCOSTED
By THE TAt in my head
And the FINISH would come sooner too
Not going to write an exhaustive list of stuff that tripped me up, but I note there were a couple (FEALTY, RETIREE) where I spent significant time completely failing to work out the cryptic, having guessed the correct answer. (Dominic C, I’m blaming you for one of those). Unknowns such as EAGRE, SAVOYARD, and MINTON for “china” added to my difficulties, and made this seem like a 120+ SNITCH to me.
On the plus side, I got IBO straight away – learned that one here a couple of months ago.
I’ve never read Treasure Island but I knew from his past appearances here that LJS was a cook. That’s also how I know the term SAVOYARD.
Don’t remember coming across MINTON before, and was surprised by the definition of ‘fey’.
Edited at 2021-11-10 08:13 am (UTC)
DNF after 30 mins pre-brekker. Too clever by half for me.
Now, where’s that marmalade?
Thanks setter and Pip.
I’m no linguist, but isn’t CIABATTA pronounced with a long A, ie bart, not bat?
a is always pronounced as in cat, fact and black.
So unless you pronounce those words as cart, farct and blark, then ciabatta is pronounced as cha-batt-a
Edited at 2021-11-10 12:12 pm (UTC)
Ciabatta in Italian is pronounced Cha-baartttt-ar, 1st and 3rd vowels very short like swchwas, second vowel long, the double TT emphasised. But that’s Italian; this is an English crossword, so anything goes 😉
Flying today, 14′ 24″, with 3′ spent on SAFETY / FEALTY.
Liked SAVOYARD.
Thanks pip and setter.
Glad you enjoyed it Pip, thanks for the blog. Well done setter.
Digression of the day: imagining that Cummings was the Dominic variety and that tungsten was represented by t and that a retinue does not work, then replacing the t of retinue by c and reversing gives EU Nicer which many of us wish DC had thought. Of course, the solution then collapses into the nonsense that it is.
Thanks to Pip for the explanations and to the setter for a chewy, enjoyable puzzle.
Edited at 2021-11-10 12:48 pm (UTC)
I also didn’t put RETIREE together, thinking that ‘writer’ and ‘ee’ were involved but not seeing how it worked. I didn’t know SAVOYARD but eventually figured out the wordplay, trusted that RUE is a herb once I had R_E, hoped that EAGRE was a word and that ‘minton’ was a type of china for BADMINTON, and couldn’t have told you that LONG JOHN SILVER was a cook, that a VIRAGO is a scold, or where the NEGEV desert is.
Enjoyable stuff nonetheless. Thanks to setter and blogger.
FOI Ibo
LOI Savoyard
COD Quasimodo
Another unenjoyable puzzle for me, and my hat remains firmly lodged on my head. At times I felt as if I were swimming uphill through treacle. DNK ANATOLIAN, biffed “edict” instead of DORIC (saw Washington, and switched my brain into neutral until BADMINTON kicked me in the backside), and took far too long to spot HAIKU, LONG JOHN SILVER, UNGODLINESS, and VOICEMAIL (a massive irritant which has not been active on my phone since about 2012).
I’m totally afflicted by APATHY and was almost tempted to be a RETIREE. Eventually sheer bloody-mindedness drove me to the FINISH.
FOI QUASIMODO
LOI FEALTY
COD VIRAGO
TIME 19:05
Edited at 2021-11-10 02:53 pm (UTC)
OM known from crosswords, but never knew what it was until looking it up today. Doesn’t seem to be actually based on merit? Charles and Philip? Yeah, right. Closer to home, the evil little gnome John Howard of Tampa fame and “throwing refugee children into the sea”, who probably won the award for scuppering Australia’s republican referendum.
In the US there is a chain of fast food restaurants named Long John Silver’s and specialising in fish. The fish is generally deep fried and generally accompanied by French Fries — the fish has some, but not a lot, of resemblence to the fish from a chippie, and the FFs have some, but not a lot, of resemblance to proper chips. This in the same way that LJS may have some, but not a lot, of resemblence to a cook in Treasure Island. (For those who weren’t previously aware of the restaurants, I apologise if learning of them gives you bad dreams).
Same POI and LOI as many others in the SE corner.
Incidentally 3 d “haiku” could also be considered as a homophone for “Smelly Scottish farm animal”
Moving swiftly on……..COD 28 ac “savoyard”.
Thanks to Pip for the blog and to setter for the puzzle — both of which were far better than England’s bowling in the final overs!
This is one of the most stubborn misconceptions about any poet!
His name was styled that way on a few book covers, and he used caps sparingly (but he did use them!) in his poetry. (I’ve had the hardcover Complete Poems since I was in high school).
He used caps when he signed his name, at least on the great majority of occasions.
Encyclopedia Britannica: Cummings used capital letters only irregularly in his verse and did not object when publishers began lowercasing his name, but he himself capitalized his name in his signature and in the title pages of original editions of his books.
It may at first seem of little import, but for a poet who paid such exacting attention to typography, it must be said once and for all that his name should be written and printed with the usual capital letters in their usual places: “E. E. Cummings.”
https://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/cummings/caps.htm
In the preface to a 1964 book about Cummings, critic Harry T. Moore ever claimed that Cummings had legally changed his name to insist upon the small letters, which led to an angry letter from Cummings’s widow calling this a “stupid & childish statement.”
https://www.woot.com/blog/post/the-debunker-are-you-supposed-to-style-his-name-as-e-e-cummings
Some of my 22.04 was taken up wondering whether “IN ORDER OF MERIT” was an actual thing. Of course the OM is fine and if you are a member you’re in it, so the wordplay works, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across the phrase as such. Along with many here, I’ve been listed in order of finishing (usually 26th), lined up in order of height, and watched Strictly contestants called out in no particular order.
In order of merit is not unreasonable but I can’t find it as a dictionary entry, though Cambridge online does list some examples of its use.