Another pleasant Wednesday, middle of the week and middle of the road. I liked the English seduction and the dodgy moneylender.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Means by which we keep Auntie afloat? (7,3) |
| LICENCE FEE – cryptic definition, Auntie being the BBC. | |
| 6 | Ill-gotten gains in dictator’s country house (4) |
| HAUL – sounds like HALL, as in a posh village mansion. For example, Kirby Hall is near us, but sadly is not our residence, none of our relations live there. | |
| 8 | A club brawl recalled — such a shambles! (8) |
| ABATTOIR – A, BAT (club), RIOT reversed. | |
| 9 | British in more ways than one? Goodness me! (6) |
| BLIMEY – B for British, a LIMEY being North American slang for a Brit. Something to do with British sailors eating limes to avoid scurvy. | |
| 10 | Ruler in mess, enemies finally advancing (4) |
| SHAH – HASH (mess), advance the S to the front. S being the end of enemies. | |
| 11 | Loot Shanghai perhaps, causing misery (10) |
| SPOILSPORT – SPOILS = loot, PORT e.g. Shanghai. | |
| 12 | Attorney General attending trial, battle ensuing (9) |
| AGINCOURT – AG (Attorney General), IN COURT = attending trial. | |
| 14 | City I governed in recession, full of hope at first (5) |
| DELHI – I LED = I governed, reverse it and insert H[ope]. | |
| 17 | Bishop visiting important part of Ireland (5) |
| KERRY – RR (Right Reverend) inside KEY = important. | |
| 19 | E cryptically? It might be a surprise (3-6) |
| EYE-OPENER – EYE opens with E. | |
| 22 | Busy time in Saigon hotel she transformed (4,6) |
| HIGH SEASON – (SAIGON H SHE)*. | |
| 23 | Shooting party coming back nice and warm (4) |
| SNUG – GUNS reversed. | |
| 24 | Throw in the towel, having trouble dropping European in fight (3,3) |
| BOW OUT – WOE = trouble, drop the E and insert it into BOUT = fight. | |
| 25 | Anne infuriated with a lot of recent arrivals (8) |
| NEONATAL – (ANNE A LOT)*. | |
| 26 | Seduce English scholar (4) |
| BEDE – BED = seduce (successfully!), E for English. The Venerable chap, b. 672. | |
| 27 | Visitor, one only stumbling before darkness descends? (3-7) |
| DAY-TRIPPER – a tripper being one stumbling; DAY being before darkness descends. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | An advancing predator? (4,5) |
| LOAN SHARK – slightly witty cryptic definition. | |
| 2 | Tea and a little bit of butter on one’s bread (7) |
| CHAPATI – CHA (tea) PAT (a bit of butter), I (one). | |
| 3 | Spooner’s rattled policeman finding knives here? (8) |
| COOKSHOP – Rev. Spooner would have said “SHOOK COP”. | |
| 4 | Confidential film (3,4,4,4) |
| FOR YOUR EYES ONLY – double definition, one a Bond movie. | |
| 5 | Cherish memory of system Balmoral embodies (6) |
| EMBALM – hidden as above. | |
| 6 | Rug, cheaper one I tossed out (9) |
| HAIRPIECE – (CHEAPER I I)*. | |
| 7 | Find a Parisian on ground (7) |
| UNEARTH – UN = a in French, EARTH = ground. | |
| 13 | Lieutenant, no-hoper lost in remote region (5,4) |
| NORTH POLE – (LT NO HOPER)*. | |
| 15 | Soldier in Irish uniform (9) |
| IRREGULAR – IR = Irish, REGULAR = uniform. | |
| 16 | Horribly proud, about to have great fall (8) |
| DOWNPOUR – OWN (have) inside (PROUD)*. | |
| 18 | Classic example of endlessly ambitious work (7) |
| EPITOME – EPI[c] = ambitious, endlessly; TOME = work. | |
| 20 | Not initially dominating, bringing son in all the time (3-4) |
| NON-STOP – N[ot], ON TOP = dominating, insert S for son. | |
| 21 | Flogged, as boxer may be (6) |
| BELTED – a boxer might win a belt and so be a champion. | |
34 minutes with time lost by confidently writing BEATEN at 21 and then having to rethink it when the answer at 27ac needed to go in.
BOW OUT seemed likely at 24ac but when parsing I wasted time trying to make OWE mean ‘trouble’.
MER at COOKSHOP which I assume is an Americanism.
Didn’t know the figurative meaning of EMBALM.
SHAH was my LOI.
COOKSHOP, which I didn’t get, was new to me.
Collins has it as American. I remember in the westerns I used to watch there was usually a ‘cookhouse’ so I assumed ‘cookshop’ was along similar lines.
And ODE has it as ‘archaic’ in the sense of restaurant, and ‘Brit’ in the sense of ‘a shop selling cooking equipment’. (My J-E dictionary marks both senses as Brit.) Anyway, NHO in either sense.
OED has it as a specifically British and Australian usage meaning ‘a shop or department selling cooking and kitchen equipment’. The first citation is from the Daily Mail in 1967: ‘Robert Carrier..was trying to make pyramids of glasses… He was preparing to open his cookshop in Harrods today’.
Australian usage according to OED? Never heard of it here in the West. I had CHOPSHOP, as a place stolen cars are cut up for parts, though possibly not with knives, and entered without being able to think of anything better.
None of the citations are from Australian sources but they don’t just make these things up so it must be used. Like PK below I’m a little surprised at how unfamiliar the term is here, but from the reaction it obviously isn’t particularly widespread in the UK either.
I am surprised. I would have thought COOKSHOP was common usage here as there are plenty of them, selling kitchen equipment, as you say. In fact there used to be a company actually called thus, with branches in numerous towns.
I would recognise it (and did), but would more likely say Cooking Shop. The ‘shop’ would make it sound non-US, unless it was a Cooking Store’s proper name
The parsing is a bit off. Spooner’s rattled policeman is surely ‘shaken cop’ Shook cop doesn’t quite work.
Rattled as verb rather than adjective?
It’s a good job there’s nothing coming up that requires both speed and accuracy in solving, as today I bunged in EPISODE. At least it was quick. Quite a few errors on the Snitch, so perhaps I’m not alone.
Thanks both.
Yes, me too (Episode), that’s three in a row where I’ve got one clue wrong.
11:45. My first finish of the week! I was beginning to worry with the championship imminent. As with the past two days I did get stuck at the end, today on HAUL, HAIRPIECE and SPOILSPORT. I thought the rug was going to be a foreign word for some sort of carpet until it finally dawned on me that it was my old nemesis the compound word. That gave me HAIRPIECE and HAUL then to rub salt into the wound my LOI SPOILSPORT was another compound word. Maybe a timely reminder to consider compound words at the championship if necessary. In reality there is ample time for me to forget this lesson beforehand!
I nearly wrote in SPOILACITY, thinking that, despite my never having heard it, such a word might exist and it parsed, sort of; then the penny dropped – bit of a “d’oh” moment.
Ha ha – I like it. It sounds like a word a football pundit (ex-player) will make up before being repeated, utterly po-faced, by untold other ex-playing pundits under the mistaken belief they are imparting sage wisdom to the inexpert masses.
“Other teams are learning to play with a lot of spoilacity to break up City’s attacks.”
I’ll try and introduce it into pub talk…
18.35, so two in a row under 20 which is quite an achievement for me. Thanks to PK for explaining SHAH and SPOILSPORT (my LOI). First in LICENCE FEE but after that there was a bit of a drought until the downs got me going. It took a long time to land on ‘hall’ and I appreciated the challenge of several compound anagrams whose fodder was not in plain sight but had to be deduced before the business of unscrambling could begin. Enjoyable puzzle.
From Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts:
Two doors down, the boys finally made it through the wall
They cleaned out the bank safe, it’s said that they got off with quite a HAUL
In the darkness by the riverbed they waited on the ground
For one more member who had business back in town
They couldn’t go no further without the Jack of Hearts
Marvellous: he called Joan Baez “from a phone booth in the Midwest” and recited all the lyrics – an incident that appears in her magnificent Diamonds & Rust.
Lovely midweek puzzle. Spoiled by the NHO COOKSHOP.
Around 45 minutes with greatest problems with three short words HAUL BEDE and SHAH. FOI FOR YOUR EYE’S ONLY and EYE-OPENER, NON-STOP, SNUG, IRREGULAR, NEONATAL and DAY-TRIPPER followed quickly. I enjoyed the solve until I hit the short words. LOI SHAH with not a clue how it worked.
Thanks Piquet
29 mins. Blimey, that was quick today. I belted through this almost non-stop with nothing irregular to unearth and the odd eye-opener to please.
A lot of clues went straight in with only a few in the SW taking a little while, BELTED, BOW OUT, EPITOME & BEDE last 4 in.
Seem to be a lot of wigs flying around recently!
I liked LOAN SHARK.
Thanks pip and setter.
14.55
Nice bit of Milne in the clue to CHAPATI, from ‘The King’s Breakfast’:
“Nobody”, he whimpered,”Could call me a fussy man;
I only want a little bit of butter for my bread!”
LOI SHAH (couldn’t make TSAR work)
COD LOAN SHARK
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother
(Henry V before Agincourt)
15 mins mid-brekker. All very gentle I thought – until the boxer one where I thought of Belted early on but had to trawl to convince myself there was nothing better.
The usual worry about Hash’s ‘S’ advancing backwards towards the front.
Ta setter and Pip.
32 minutes with COOKSHOP LOI. I think I knew it as a place you can buy cutlery, crockery and kitchen paraphernalia. POI was BELTED, courtesy of Lonsdale. COD to EYE-OPENER. So that’s why York is a shambles. Decent puzzle. Thank you Pip and setter.
10:42. COOKSHOP my LOI too, but I knew the word as we have one in town here. I liked the surface for DOWNPOUR. Thanks Pip and setter.
22:00
FOI: LICENCE FEE
LOI: SHAH
Speedy start, encountered same difficulties as jackkt with BOW OUT and BELTED (a doubtful BEATEN considered) and then held up at the end by SPOILSPORT, COOKSHOP (toyed with CHOPSHOP for a while) and SHAH.
Thank you, piquet and the setter.
25:48. A good start with FOI 1ac LICENCE FEE. I was happy with COOKSHOP which is just as well because I read the Spoonerism as “hooks cop” and thought it a bit iffy. My indirect anagram detector nearly klaxoned twice, but is now safely back on standby. I liked LOAN SHARK
21:21
Nice puzzle. LOI belted.
Thanks, p.
32:43 all green, no cheeky checking.
Pleased to knock off the two rather easy cryptics at 1a and 1d quickly. LOI BELTED, which I thought of, but could only see as “belted earl”, then went right through alphabet. Twice.
Was sure 14a would be Hanoi “how many 5 letter cities can send in I, and include an H?”
COD ABATTOIR.
About 15 minutes. Only unfamiliarity was ‘cherish memory of’ as the definition for EMBALM, as I tend to only think of that word in its literal sense.
Thanks piquet and setter.
FOI Bede
LOI Belted
COD Downpour
14:42
I’m fairly sure that just reading the dreaded words “according to Spooner” adds at least 20% to my time. Otherwise no issues.
After a harder than usual start to the week I’m thankful for the confidence builder.
Thanks to both.
6m on the dot. On the wavelength today, no problems, no unknowns.
17:50, might have been quicker but I wrote B-OTHER for 9ac which slowed me down getting HAIRPIECE and then HAUL, then BLIMEY was LOI (good clue). For a while I thought I might be on for sub 10 minutes but that hope went by the wayside about half way through as I slowed down a lot, especially in that NE corner at the end.
Thanks setter and blogger
An hour or so, which is quick for me, but fifteen minutes pondering the Spoonerism and SPOILSPORT clues.
I liked LOAN SHARK and wasn’t familiar with this meaning of EMBALM.
Thanks Pip and Setter.
20.33, with BELTED and COOKSHOP extending the time mightily. I spent a while wondering whether boxers, canine or pugilistic, could be vended, which answered the flogged bit of the clue. And I’m entertaining a suspicion that our setter thought of SHOOK COP before arriving at COOKSHOP. Round here, that’s Robert Dyas (or Amazon, I suppose).
SPOILSPORT nearly threw me, wondering when Shanghai became a sport. Card games at the Olympics? A more athletic version of Mahjong?
I quite liked “E cryptically”.
16:34
Well off the boil yesterday, but seem to have recovered the mojo today, though this does seem to have been a gentler offering. Pleased to remember shambles = ABATTOIR, and a twitchy eyebrow at COOKSHOP before the LOI BELTED was finally inked in (saw it earlier but wondered if there might be a better and perhaps more obvious answer). I liked SPOILSPORT and AGINCOURT.
Thanks P and setter
No particular problems in my 39 minutes. Very MERs at 4dn being said to be a film when initially it was a book, but then many films are based on books and some are far more well-known than the original. And epic = ambitious in 18dn, which is close enough I suppose but they’re not the same. Liked the Shanghai clue. I wanted 10ac to be star, with the tsar’s s moved to the left, but of course couldn’t make this work. That’s why it was my LOI, as it evidently was for several.
What next? ‘Pride and Prejudice’ or ‘Oliver Twist’ clued as a film?
I suspect more people these days are familiar with the film than the book? I share your misgivings about epic = ambitious; I think “close enough” is being very generous.
The Godfather is the classic example of this.
7:09
On wavelength just like keriothe today. The answers came to me pretty much as I read the clues starting with L FEE and L SHARK. Only BOW OUT and BELTED at the end needed a little thought, the latter probably because a boxer in crosswords is usually a dog.
DNK that meaning of Embalm, and nor does Wiktionary. Online Collins has it as def 2. Not sure I knew what a cookshop was and again Wiktionary says it’s a shop selling cooked food, not a place to find knives. Misread 11a as SpoilSport and eventually remembered playing the darts game of Shanghai. Finally read it correctly, SpoilsPort, DOH! 6a Haul took a long time. 10a Shah came to me quickly but Hash didn’t. Private Eye invariably called the Shah “the Shit of Persia” but I’m not sure the Ayatollah was a huge improvement.
POI 23a Shooting Party=guns, giving snug, rather odd bit of English really. We don’t call archers “bows” do we? Again Wiktionary doesn’t mention the shooting party.
The people doing the shooting are habitually referred to as the guns, to distinguish them from keepers, beaters, pickers-up etc. This meaning is in Collins.
Thanks! Should have looked there. My 1979 copy of Collins has it as def 3.
Collins is available online. You have to scroll down through a lot of COBUILD entries before you get to the proper dictionary but it’s all there!
23′ so relatively quick for me. FOI LICENCE FEE made me check whether I’d wrongly opened the Concise (honestly, I did check…). Quite a few early write-ins including UNEARTH and a confident “bother” (like SteveB) which held me up until the HAIRPIECE anagram made me think again. Good fun after a few hiccups this week. thanks Piquet and setter.
Surprised people are not aware of COOKSHOP being a kitchen shop, my wife had one for a while but these days you get all that stuff at IKEA or TKMaxx or Dunelm or similar and the boutique type cookshops are less common.
Or indeed Amazon.
There are still some in Les Halles in Paris, esp E.Dehillerin.
Not called a cookshop though, it is “materiel de cuisine”.
19:18
LOI ABBATOIR once I’d decided CAKESHOP had to be wrong.
Prior to that, SHAH had taken a while.
Nice puzzle, thanks setter and Piquet.
16’23”, held up by the nho COOKSHOP, and more so by banging in ‘bother’ for 9 across.
Liked LOAN SHARK.
Thanks pip and setter.
What you shake will be shook, and what you cook will be cake (maybe?).
15 minutes. This one was right up my street; no unfamiliar words in the answers (always my nemesis), apart from COOKSHOP, but that was easy enough once I had the checkers. More cryptic clues than usual, which I liked, several anagrams, which I tend to spot quickly, and less one-letter-at-a-time hackneyed wordplay, which, as a comparative newbie, is my other nemesis.
FOI – LICENCE FEE, which immediately gave me CHAPATI and FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
LOI – BELTED, which was a long time coming, especially as I was pondering whether the boxer might be a dog.
At last, something more suited to my level!
ABBATOIR LOI, LOAN SHARK COD.
13:19
Well I did not like 3 down for a multitude of reasons but I biffed it in anyway. I can accept one or two MERS a day as in general i enjoyed it for fifteen minutes my second best ever
Got off to a quick start with LICENCE FEE, ABATTOIR, AGINCOURT and FOR YOUR EYES ONLY flying in, but then got bogged down. BOTHER at 9a caused problems in the NE until HAIRPIECE corrected both it and my mombled RANHI at 14a. LOAN SHARK and SHAH held up things for a while, but the main delays were in the SW. Eventually BOW OUT and LOI, BELTED arrived. 26:00. Thanks setter and Pip.
Heading for a quickish time around the twenty five minute mark before becoming bogged down in the sw corner. BEDE, BOW OUT and finally BELTED had me stumped for nearly 20 minutes before the penny dropped. I finally crossed the line in 44.12, bruised bloodied but unbeaten, not to say relieved.
A gentle pre-prandial exercise, finished in 27 minutes. Pleased to parse all the clues without assistance, with just a MER at the syntax of SPOILSPORT at 11ac.
FOI – LICENCE FEE
LOI – DAY-TRIPPER
COD – LOAN SHARK
Thanks to piquet and other contributors.
22.20 – I didn’t give COOKSHOP much thought as soon as the spoonerism presented itself and surprised to see so many NHOs for it. Rest seemed fairly straightforward and workmanlike.
27’15”
Good early pace, failed to quicken in the straight, plugged on on gamely….
… and all parsed bar the tripper, who had to fall in retrospect.
Given that today is the hundredth birthday of the Wireless Choir/BBC Singers, recently narrowly saved from the axe, I cannot help thinking 1ac’s inclusion is no coincidence. I’ll be spending my afternoon penning a letter in the hope of stopping another cutlery of BBC silver, albeit Jonathan Doige of Yorkshire might prefer to be likened to a bone-handled piece of Sheffield steel, being mindlessly binned; county cricket commentary is facing the chop.
I’ll take a cookshop in preference to a three-letter-abbreviviation for a piece of defunct techno-junk anyday.
Thank you Pip and setter; I thoroughly enjoyed this.
Romped through this in only 16 mins – a v fast time for me. Only LOAN SHARK, my LOI, held me up for any time.
Very much on the wavelength for this – most answers went straight in. I was held up with CHAPATI by mis-spelling ABATTOIR initially, but checking the cryptic rather than my bif put me right (I notice there are 2 mis-spellings of the word above, so don’t feel such an idiot!). FOI was the contentious COOKSHOP and LOI was HAUL, since I don’t regard a hall particularly as a country dwelling. This definitely felt a lot easier than the medium to hard Quick Cryptics, but was fun to do, with interesting surfaces. I particularly liked BLIMEY and LOANSHARK.
Am I the only person whose heart sinks when they see a Spooner clue? For some reason my brain just goes completely wayhire when faced with these clues.
25 mins slowed up by: a) falling asleep, b) typing LICENSE FEE for some reason and c) my COP OUT didn’t make sense and BOW OUT very slow in coming to mind.
As I always say, “Have a good trip!”.
At last – a crossword I could finish! No obscure gk and answers I could work out from the wordplay. Expect many of you found it too easy but I’m happy.
27:43 with two pink squares. I had biffed EPISODE, which really doesn’t work.
A very accessible puzzle for the QC fraternity. Only defeated by LOI BELTED.
No drama. No personal hangup with Spoonerisms, no personal irritation with amusing cryptic definitions when I get them, so COD to Loan Shark.
A rare finish, thoroughly enjoyed. I did find LOI BEDE difficult though. Luckily B comes early in a trawl.
All done in 18:10. COD to BLIMEY, very clever. Many thanks PK.
FOI LICENCE FEE seemed so obvious I thought I must be missing something.
LOI BOW OUT and COD goes to EYE-OPENER.
Just the right level of difficulty for me. Thanks to the setter
All went very quickly until the last two: the 6s down and across. Couldn’t get CRIMPLENE out of my mind for the rug. Well, it fitted! Got there in the end on 13’46”. The FOR YOUR EYES ONLY film bore scant relation to the short story that it took its name from. I’d call it KITCHEN SHOP. Thanks to all.
25.06 with one ear on the footie.
51:12. very slow, no idea why. liked AGINCOURT and SPOILSPORT best. thanks both!