I really enjoyed this Wednesday puzzle; not too difficult but with a collection of good anagrams, mixed cultural references and deceptive and amusing definitions. Cut affecting mothers? This week I think I’ve fully parsed them all, but feel free to put me right if I’ve missed a trick.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, [deleted letters in square brackets].
Across | |
1 | Noble European artist very taken by Mrs Simpson (8) |
MARGRAVE – Not Wallis, but Homer’s wife MARGE, has RA, V inserted. I knew a margrave was some kind of old European nobleman but couldn’t have told you anything more about it. | |
5 | Reversing wagon over Joe; how distressing (6) |
TRAGIC -CART reversed with GI Joe inserted. | |
9 | Nowt wrong with Hindu crime fiction (9) |
WHODUNNIT – (NOWT HINDU)*. | |
11 | Previous month, uncovered gold (5) |
PRIOR – [A]PRI[L], OR for gold. | |
12 | Skinny daughter sacrificing anything to be a dedicated swimmer (7) |
LEANDER – LEAN (skinny), D[aught]ER, where aught = anything. Leander in Greek legend was the chap who swam across the Hellespont every summer night to see his love, Hero, but drowned when a winter storm came along, so she drowned herself too. I can’t explain why I knew this trivial story, but I did. If Leander came back after 2022 he could walk over the new bridge, now the longest suspension bridge in the world. | |
13 | Free love recollected by sailors (7) |
ABSOLVE – ABS (sailors), (LOVE)*. | |
14 | Goes off side in a pleasure boat (6,7) |
PADDLE STEAMER – ADDLES (goes off), TEAM (side), inside PER = ‘a’. The “per pound meaning a pound” ruse again. | |
16 | Musical group tight, having consumed two pints, missing second note (6,7) |
STRING QUARTET – STRINGENT (tight) loses its second N[ote], and insert QUART = two pints. | |
20 | Bitter drink affected game plumber’s guts (7) |
CAMPARI – CAMP (affected), [m]ARI[o]. I am ignorant when it comes to computer games but I’d heard of Super Mario being a plumber in a game years ago. | |
21 | Former copper beginning to erupt, go ballistic! (7) |
EXPLODE – EX (former), PLOD (copper), E[rupt]. | |
23 | Huge country home — help is coming round (5) |
INDIA – IN (home), AID reversed. | |
24 | Place to buy drinks in can that helps to fund the church (5,4) |
TITHE BARN – THE BAR where you buy drinks, inside TIN = CAN. | |
25 | Delicious beverage reportedly downed with pirate’s approval? (6) |
NECTAR – NECT sounds like “necked”, downed, AR as in ARRGH me hearties! | |
26 | Always empty rooms to let here in Scotland (8) |
AYRSHIRE – AY (always) R[oom]S, HIRE = to let. |
Down | |
1 | Cut almost plausibly fluent figure in the jungle (6) |
MOWGLI – MOW (cut), GLI[b] = almost plausibly fluent. As in Kipling’s The Jungle Book. The name supposedly meant “bald” as being a boy he had no fur unlike other animals. | |
2 | Simpson put in an appearance, knocked over wine (5) |
RIOJA – Not Wallis, or Bart, this time, but O.J. of American Football fame who (possibly) didn’t murder his wife and her friend. He is put into AIR (appearance) reversed. | |
3 | Full game of golf enjoyed — exhausted! (7) |
ROUNDED – ROUND of golf, E[njoye]D. | |
4 | Ruined investor quit holding large position in entertainment sector (13) |
VENTRILOQUIST – (INVESTOR QUIT L)*. | |
6 | Mature East German blocks fencing thrust (7) |
RIPOSTE – RIPE (mature) with OST (German for east) inside. | |
7 | According to Spooner, little Mildred acquired a diver (9) |
GUILLEMOT – Spooner would have said “Millie Got”. | |
8 | Iron ore, essentially, loaded on board transport vessel (3-5) |
CAR-FERRY – CARRY = transport, insert FE (Fe, iron), R (centre of oRe). | |
10 | Planners try at working honestly and openly (13) |
TRANSPARENTLY – (PLANNERS TRY AT)*. | |
14 | Aid camper getting injured? I might (9) |
PARAMEDIC – (AID CAMPER)*. | |
15 | Conservative group overturning No 1 cut affecting mothers (1-7) |
C-SECTION – C (Conservative), SECT (group), NO I reversed. | |
17 | Falls once more going over the border of Rwanda (7) |
NIAGARA – AGAIN reversed = NIAGA, R[wand]A. | |
18 | Hardy character clutches gospel regularly, having removed hair shirt? (7) |
TOPLESS – O P L as above, inside TESS (of the d’Urbervilles). | |
19 | Hat that is carrying the head? (6) |
BEANIE – BEAN (head) I.E. that is. | |
22 | Over a thousand tapir — wingless animals (5) |
OKAPI – (edited as pointed out below by G de S and others): O = over, K (a thousand), API = tapir ‘wingless’ as above. |
MARGRAVE was my FOI but tentatively since I had no idea whether it was a word but the wordplay took me there, Then I got several of the down clues starting there, such as MOWGLI. A steady solve from then on.
Only 19 minutes for this one (including parsing and marking up my print-out) so this must have been at the easier end of the range.
My only failures were the parsing of two ‘modern’ references, ‘Mario’ in CAMPARI and OJ Simpson in RIOJA. I sort of assumed there was a character in The Simpsons (which I have never seen) called JO but now it has been pointed out I know the name OJ Simpson, and JO wouldn’t have worked because it would need a reversal indicator.
17:50
I never figured out STRING QUARTET. I didn’t know that Mario is a plumber, but I recalled him wearing coveralls, which was enough. (The setter likes doing things with initial/final letters: mARIo, DaughtER, EnjoyeD, RwandA, tAPIr.) I liked LEANDER & PADDLE STEAMER.
Well, look at that. Marge Simpson, OJ, GI Joe and the Mario Brothers in the one puzzle, and not a classical reference in sight. (Though we did have to know Kipling and Hardy.) 21.45 for me, an enjoyable puzzle and thanks to Nelson for explaining CAR-FERRY and STRING QUARTET where I could see neither carry nor stringent.
From This Wheel’s On Fire:
This wheel’s on fire
Rolling down the road
Best notify my next of kin
This wheel shall EXPLODE
I grant you Hardy, but no knowledge of Kipling is required, only Disney..
In fact, only Disney, as Kipling stated that the boy’s name was pronounced to rhyme with ‘cow’ rather than ‘show’ and it was subsequently Disneyfied, to my disgust, as the book was a childhood favourite.
Like you, I have always resented the Disney pronunciation of Mowgli, given Kipling’s explicit instructions.
There was Leander? Though not too obscure
23m 35s
The LEANDER I had heard of is a rowing club in Henley. Didn’t know the legend of Hero & Leander.
And I knew of the title MARGRAVE because the late John Peel entitled his memoirs ‘MARGRAVE of the Marshes.’
Thanks, Pip, especially for PADDLE STEAMER, STRING QUARTET and Lorraine Chase, er, sorry, CAMPARI!
Like others, I didn’t finish parsing STRING QUARTET, and I appreciate being reminded of that. I was a bit distracted, and didn’t parse the second half of CAMPARI either. My POI was MARGRAVE, which emerged from some dim recess of memory, and last the Kipling lad. (I’ve never kippled.)
26:47 but one pink square. I left the middle vowel of GUILLEMOT until right at the end, as I didn’t know the spelling, and a Spooner clue doesn’t help. Went with “A”, which led to the pink.
Apart from that, very smooth solve. No NHOs today, which is rare. Saw Marge Simpson straight away, although not OJ later. Only knew LEANDER from Shakespeare, so didn’t know of his swimming abilities. Liked the Mario= plumber reference, one for the kids, there.
PADDLE STEAMER, CAR FERRY and STRING QUARTER were biffs which moved things along.
I’m not sure I like the “I might” for PARAMEDIC. Why I, why not he? Also why a hair shirt in 18 d, is that supposed to make the surface smoother?
COD C-SECTION.
‘I’ is preferable to ‘he’ as it avoids the question ‘why not she?’
Seriously though, it’s what I call a ‘riddle definition’ in which the solution is treated as if it were a person. You get this sort of thing in riddles that begin e.g. ‘My first is in a but not in b’ etc.
The last line of the riddle is always ‘What (or who) am I?’
26:22 – a personal best for me so this must be at the easy end of the scale.
I was expecting Wallace to appear in the pantheon of Simpsons.
I was expecting Wallis!
😳
Just over 20 mins fully parsed, which is quick for me. Really enjoyed this, with the Simpson’s, Mario and OJ putting in an appearance.
I had OKAPI as simply O (over) K (thousand) and API (wingless tapir).
Yes, that’s right for OKAPI. The parsing in the blog would give A twice and no O.
35 mins so quite quick today, but good fun, as our blogger says. LOI the NHO MARGRAVE but once one had worked out the right Simpson it became clear.
The four long clues were fun.
Pip, you have a small error at 2D as it’s just AIR that’s reversed, not the OJ as well.
Thanks pip and setter.
18:31
As with MartinP1, only aware of MARGRAVE through John Peel’s book. Fortunately, knew too that Mario is a plumber – not that it was truly necessary, as the checkers made that answer pretty plain. Much enjoyed though, and pleased to get below my 22m30s target for a Snitch of 65.
Thanks P and setter
26 minutes. I really enjoyed this apart from wincing ar the C-SECTION. COD to MARGRAVE, which I did know, but the cryptic was good. Lots of other good clues too, the WHODUNNIT, PADDLE-STEAMER, STRING-QUARTET and TITHE BARN my favourites. Thank you Pip and setter.
9:33. Unlike Paul I couldn’t get started in the top left and indeed I ended up finishing there, MARGRAVE and MOWGLI being my last two in.
As LindsayO alluded to several references here felt modern – Marge Simpson, OJ Simpson, Mario and GI Joe. It’s all relative though as they’ve all been around several decades!
Well, they’re more recent than Beerbohm Tree!
Either I’m getting better or this was easy. 17.31 today and I’m usually happy if I get in under the half hour. Thanks for parsing RIOJA for me: I always forget OJ, but that may be because I don’t particularly want to remember him.
Well, I know I am! This was the speediest I’ve ever been on a cryptic – today’s QC taking me longer. Slight hold-up at 1a, as I NHO MARGRAVE, but worked it out. Lot of biffing got me to a speedy conclusion, but I always go over and parse later. The definitions were easier to spot than usual, which helped me enormously. ( I have a kitten called MOWGLI, which helped too.)
…. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is Rounded with a sleep.
(The Tempest)
20 mins with brekker. I feel quite pleased to have spotted Marge, OJ, Tess and Mario and, eventually, to have uncovered Stringent.
Nice one.
Ta setter and Pip.
I have an uneasy feeling that the rest of the week is going to be rather harder: 10.32 today which is by my standards very quick, helped by several lucky biffs (of which the best example was GUILLEMOT). Having Bach on in the background helped with FOI MARGRAVE (of Brandenburg….)
Thanks Pip and setter.
Ah, the Margrave of Brandenburg! So that’s how I knew of it. I knew it had a connection to a composer I studied the life of but just couldn’t think who it was.
That’s how I know the word too. Isn’t it ironic that the very important and influential Margrave of Brandenburg should now only be known to posterity as the man who rejected six of the most sublime pieces of orchestral music ever written?
Apparently a recording of Concerto 2 by Karl Richter was sent into space with the Voyager mission in the 1970s, as part of a message for whatever distant intelligence the spacecraft might eventually reach – as someone said at the time, “we could just have sent them the whole of Bach, but that would have been boasting!”
🙂
Less than an hour, over breakfast, with interruptions, so very quick by my standards. Didn’t understand the plumber reference, but got the O.J., and Marge Simpsons, and also remembered the late John Peel as “Margrave of the Marshes”, so you can work out my vintage.
Nice puzzle. Thanks for the blog and explaining STRING QUARTET and PADDLE STEAMER, the ones I couldn’t fully parse.
11’44” with a typo 🙁
Some great clues, though I didn’t bother parsing PADDLE STEAMER or VENTRILOQUIST.
Thanks pip and setter.
For most of the solve I thought that 1d (‘figure in the jungle’) was going to be the name of someone in I’m A Celebrity… that I hadn’t heard of, so MOWGLI was a very welcome relief. Thanks for not doing that. I enjoyed the inclusion of two different Simpsons and Mario.
Just under 15 minutes.
– Didn’t fully parse STRING QUARTET
– Like Merlin above, wondered what ‘hair’ was doing in TOPLESS
– Needed a (mercifully short) alphabet trawl to get BEANIE
Thanks piquet and setter.
FOI Margrave
LOI Tragic
COD Paddle steamer
7:40. My fastest for a while. LOI AYRSHIRE. My favourites were the crossing PARAMEDIC and NECTAR…. which prompted me to look this up : International Talk Like a Pirate Day is on 19th September. Read about it here. Thanks Pip and setter.
Quick today, but fun.
I can’t help thinking there are quite a lot more Simpson clues out there waiting… almost a grids worth.
22:12
No dramas.
Thanks, p.
Oh frabjous day!
Previous PB of 12:40 smashed today at 9:47 and currently the lowest (equal) WITCH.
Either I’m getting better at these, or this one was very easy: 18 mins, v fast for me. Lots of easy biffs, post-parsed. Only RIOJA held me up at all.
17:30
Really enjoyed this and Pip’s summary says it all. Clever mixing of the Simpsons. I’m another who got MARGRAVE from John Peel. COD CAMPARI.
Thanks to Pip and the setter.
About 35 minutes which is as quick as I have ever done one. Most enjoyable.
Thanks Pip
A very quick 21 mins though with some unparsed. Did not spot Stringent or Addles so thanks to our blogger for explaining them.
Similarly, I had heard of Hero and Leander but forgotten the swimming. If Natalie Haynes has covered that one it didnt stick.
I’m sure the setters use Simpsons references just for the fun of stirring up a response. I enjoy it but other modern culture references are available.
Brat/bart, Homer the Simpson/Homer the poet, and Marge are all very useful from the setter’s point of view. If you have a good sequence of letters or a deceptive quirk in your name, you are likely to be immortalized in puzzles.
For non-Americans, this week the NFL aired one of the weekly gridiron football games just like normal, but on a sister channel in a “Simpson Simulcast” they used fancy tech and voices to replace the images of all the players for the entire game with Simpson cartoon character avatars. So you could watch a famous player, dubbed in as Homer do something, or watch Lisa outrun the defense for a touchdown. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. It really happened.
POI 12a Leander. Never worked out the “aught” bit, so biffed. The new bridge would leave him with a LONG walk because Hero lived in Sestos at the other end of the Sea of Marmara.
20a Campari. DNK Super Mario so I biffed it.
25a Nectar. Oh dear, only read the first two words of the clue, and biffed. I should have read on because I like the pirate, Aarrrr!
2d Rioja BIFD. O.J. never occurred to me. That was thirty years ago!
19d Beanie. Tried to justify Nessie, but the 24a Tithe barn put me right. I always want to spell it Tythe, which doesn’t work.
Flanders & Swann at the drop of a (or possibly another) hat:
“Said Hero & Leander ’tis nobbut slander!”
(that’s slander with a short “a” in a fake Yorkshire accent.)
11.19 for this, skipping over the more contentious bits noted above, but enjoying a whizzy solve.
So I spotted neither OJ nor Mario, and made no fuss over the (hair) shirt.
Since, as our noble blogger indicates, the plausible full reversal of RIOJA gives JO, I just assumed Jo Simpson was a known individual: she is (was) too, the victim in a notorious hammer murder case in 2010.
I also misparsed the STEAMER, thinking “goes of” was a weird way of saying paddles, and having no idea about the ER at the end. STRING QUARTET also went in without much though: after all, the two pints were there.
A pleasant if undemanding jaunt.
7.07 puts me in rarefied company on the leaderboard (well it would if I solved on the club site not the app). Not a PB I think but pretty close. A bit of a biff fest once I twigged a fast time was on.
12’39” for me.
I liked lots of this, especially the PADDLE STEAMER, but it was a day that confirmed my impression that I don’t like Spooner clues.
Also share the query from others above as to why it’s a hair shirt…
6.45
Very much enjoyed rattling through this one. Never heard of MARGRAVE, but I liked the Simpsons reference. Didn’t quite twig the OJ one, but no matter (the blog says ‘all reversed’, but it’s just AIR that’s reversed – OJ appears in order).
I often find ‘remove outer letters from a synonym’ wordplay tricky, but this time both APRIL and MARIO were quite quick to come.
Thanks both.
14 mins. I’m afraid MARIO passed me by….
22′ split between coffee shop and home. Saw the Simpsons reference right away and constructed MARGRAVE, which I’d heard of without knowing its meaning. Didn’t parse the OJ and Mario references. Everything else pretty straightforward, with my limited classical knowledge at least reaching as far as LEANDER and the Spoonerism offering the usual groan. Thanks Piquet and setter.
Quick day all round for me – 15m 41s for the concise, the quick cryptic and the cryptic combined.
Rather too many biffs in the interest of speed, but I did go back and appreciate all the cluing, though never got (M)ARI(O), so thanks to picquet for that one.
9:13
LOI was TRAGIC.
9:13
Saw Mario and Marge but not OJ, thinking it was Jo and that somewhere there was a Jo Simpson, which although there was she wouldn’t have been used here. Disliked the fact that the setter invoked a hair shirt, gratuitously unnecessary so far as I could see. 26 minutes. Does a TITHE BARN still help to fund the church? I doubt it. A Margrave of Brandenburg here (surely not piano music?), not a M of the Marshes, hardly helping the modern culture move.
Absolutely right. What I should have said is “6 of the finest secular pieces ever written”.
“Hair” shirts, as opposed to ordinary ones are worn presumably by hardy characters who read, or even clutch, gospels. So yes, part of the surface.
I had assumed that it was meant to be “her shirt”, but that it slipped by the editor.
I would have done better if I had been able to remember Marge, but I had a mental block. I did get a grip elsewhere in the grid, allowing me to biff the longer answer – paddle steamer, string quartet, and tithe barn all went in as the obvious answers. I was worried about the correct vowel in the middle of guillemot, but it looked OK. My only quibble is that the rating abs. is singular, not plural.
Time: 17:52
Actually the abbreviation is AB standing for ‘able-bodied seaman’, so if one wants to pluralise, the standard rule of grammar would be to add an ‘s’. Maybe a bit cheeky but I think we have had it before.
19:13. I share others’ concerns that the back end of the week is going to be brutal… I saw Marge and RA and V, but I could not see how to put them together for ages. I was aware of MARGRAVE as a word though – perhaps should have been more patient.
a very enjoyable puzzle, with some amusing cluing. thank you both.
Easy peasy, except not knowing Guillemot getting the ‘u’ from a Spoonerism was too many for me. Mostly I was glad that Pip got to blog the puzzle with the round of golf in it.
There were at least three here that we didn’t parse (fully) (14a and 16a, didnt get the Mario bit of CAMPARI) but we soldiered on without looking at the clock and knocked almost three minutes off our PB! Knowing of Marge Simpson, MARGRAVE (knowing only that it was some sort of noble) and GUILLEMOT being a crossword regular also helped a lot. 17:54, faster than we’ve done some Quickies. Thanks Pip and setter.
Much easier than yesterday’s. The Margrave of Baden was a cousin of our King Charles.
36:16 NHO MARGRAVE but the wordplay was enough.
11.06 WOE and one typo
Another GUILLIMOT – doesn’t look so wrong but should have got it. And another typo elsewhere despite “carefully” checking.
Otherwise I like a “modern” reference though The Simpsons was never my thing so MARGE didn’t come straightaway.
VENTRILOQUIST was a clever anagram.
Thanks all
Didn’t know MARGRAVE but once I switched from Wallis to Marge he turned up quickly enough. Missed the mARIo bit of CAMPARI and biffed STRING QUARTET as I already had VENTRILOQUIST, TRANSPARENTLY and TOPLESS. Smiled as OJ joined the flock of Simpsons. Fun puzzle. 12:44, but missed getting on the SNITCH by 1 place as I was late starting due to having to pull the washer apart and retension the drive belt so it doesn’t fall off again. Thanks setter and Pip.
DJ John Peel was known as Margrave of the Marshes methinks? Thats how i got that. Today very quick and Monday too but Yesterday did not come suddenly for me.
20:20, but with a fat-fingered STRING QUATTET.
I’m another who got MARGRAVE from John Peel’s autobiography.
40:12
A nice accessible puzzle for the QC fraternity. NHO MARGRAVE or LEANDER but both obvious from the wordplay. Struggled to get into the NE corner but once I’d got ABSOLVE the rest quickly fell into place. LOI CAMPARI which I failed to parse.
An absolutely delightful puzzle, straight up my street, with no unknowns, some biffs and post-parses, but I do this as a matter of course to make sure I’m not bunging in something wrong and misleading, so enjoyed the wordplay very much. Particular favourites – LEANDER, because quite unbiffable, TITHE BARN and AYRSHIRE, ditto and GUILLEMOT, because I like bird clues rather than Spoonerisms, as such. I failed to parse the ARI part of CAMPARI, having forgotten Mario, but OJ did eventually occur to me. MARGRAVE went straight in, courtesy of Bach, rather than the sainted JP. More like this, please, especially when I haven’t too much time!