One or two unusual words and phrases, including a German Eurocrat I’d only vaguely heard of, but in general a pretty accessible final Monday of the year.
I managed a typo in my 19:11, so it is in a state as close to ungrudgingness as I can muster, if I wish to attain anything approaching nirvana, that I hope you all did a lot better, and wish you a very Happy New Year.
PS I am introducing the squiggly line (~) to represent the missing bits of a word where deletion takes place. Thus, ‘starter in Raffles’ becomes R~
| Across | |
| 1 | Carefully study stanza and discuss (8) |
| CONVERSE – CON (‘carefully study’ – he conned the newspaper for the racing results; mostly found in crosswords) VERSE (stanza – close enough, methinks) | |
| 6 | Plate hot starter in Raffles: happen to devour that? (6) |
| CHROME – H (hot) R (R~) in COME (happen, as in ‘Dawn comes early in July’) | |
| 9 | See t-tutoring tricky to take in with tortuous talking test? (6-7) |
| TONGUE-TWISTER – g-generous cryptic definition. Or not. On edit (thanks JohnI): SEE T TUTORING W* where W stands for WITH | |
| 10 | Parched, stopped by pub: The Globe (6) |
| SPHERE – PH (public house) in SERE (poetic word for dried up or withered) | |
| 11 | Article horde rotated in vault is WMD (4,4) |
| ATOM BOMB – A MOB reversed in TOMB; a weapon of mass destruction that actually existed | |
| 13 | Trouble coming after ring names a drug supplier (10) |
| BELLADONNA – ADO after BELL N (name) N (name) A (A from the clue); a plant not a narc | |
| 15 | Get the round in — that which may be carried (4) |
| LOAD – double definition, the former pertaining to military hardware, say | |
| 16 | Comply with old Turkish governor (4) |
| OBEY – O BEY; in crosswords, BEY and DOGE as governor and REEVE as magistrate are staples | |
| 18 | Dance where the last shall be first in mock revelation (10) |
| APOCALYPSE – OCALYPS (CALYPSO with the, well, last to the first) in APE (mock) | |
| 21 | Cheeky display preceding second-hand books launch? (8) |
| MOONSHOT – MOON (to display one’s bottom) S (second) H (hand) OT (Old Testament); it’s interesting that in Rabbit Redux John Updike uses televised coverage of the 1969 moon landing (specifically the gobbledegook of the transcript between Mission Control and the modules) to point up the deathliness of the human relationships over there in the fictional twin towns of Brewer Mt Judge. For those who haven’t read Updike, he makes Ibsen look like Kingsley Amis. | |
| 22 | Quiet party ushered inside notice seaport (6) |
| ASHDOD – SH DO in AD; three short crosswordy words for Israel’s busiest port, not a million miles away from what is left of Gaza | |
| 23 | Harry Kane rages — shot unexceptional (2,5,6) |
| NO GREAT SHAKES – anagram* (indicated by harry, i.e. hustle, bother) of KANE RAGES SHOT; very nice | |
| 25 | Group round bar back for court proceedings (6) |
| TENNIS – INN in SET all reversed; we’re getting quite a lot of court stuff for tennis these days | |
| 26 | External layer red with comet disintegrating (8) |
| ECTODERM – RED COMET* | |
| Down | |
| 2 | With eight members the Spanish set firm up (7) |
| OCTUPLE -reversal of EL (‘the’ in Spanish) PUT (set) CO (firm) | |
| 3 | Victor somehow done with right and left — see new politician (3,3,5) |
| VON DER LEYEN – V (victor, as in the NATO alphabet) DONE* (‘somehow’ being the anagram indicator) R (right) L(left) EYE (see) N (new); an interesting character with multiple talents, not least a putative penchant for taking short cuts to obtain her thesis | |
| 4 | Wake from sleep — plan to introduce oxygen (5) |
| ROUSE – O in RUSE | |
| 5 | No inclination to listen to school board (7) |
| ENTRAIN – |
|
| 6 | Drink packed with fruit, and cheers for the sausage (9) |
| CHIPOLATA – HIP (fruit, of a rose for example) in COLA + TA | |
| 7 | Aggressive behaviour Proust periodically exhibited (3) |
| RUT – |
|
| 8 | Instrument doctor’s used to probe a von Trapp |
| MARIMBA – MB in MARIA. Problem solved! Basically, a marimba is a Latin American xylophone | |
| 12 | Outlaw hit and killed by fragments (5,3,3) |
| BILLY THE KID – HIT KILLED BY*; Henry McCarty, AKA William H. (got to love the H.) Bonney, AKA Billy the Kid. Killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett. Of course. Like Elvis, rumoured to be alive long after he had gone… | |
| 14 | Henry feeding daughter diet that’s immortal? (9) |
| DEATHLESS – H (Henry) in D (daughter) EAT LESS (diet!) | |
| 17 | French cheese stores have rich cake (7) |
| BROWNIE – OWN in BRIE | |
| 19 | Group from the south races alien in green (7) |
| OCTETTE – TT (races, Tourist Trophy, on the Isle of Man) ET (alien, who phones home) in ECO (green) all reversed | |
| 20 | Having circled both poles, track back (7) |
| SPONSOR – N S (north and south, thus ‘poles’) in SPOOR (track – the marks or traces left by a hunted animal) | |
| 22 | Enlightened sort, a bowler perhaps restricting runs (5) |
| ARHAT – R (runs) in A HAT; a somewhat (but not, I hope, over-vigorously) disputed concept in Buddhism; one rung below a buddha, basically, so pretty meritorious, which is what it means. Scandinavians are about as close as you can get nearer to home. | |
| 24 | Leaders of Greeks, Italians, and Norwegians in Geneva (3) |
| GIN -initial letters of the third, fourth and sixth words; usually styled ‘geneva’, and also called Hollands (especially in American English – ha! cue debate) this Dutch (not Swiss – genever is Dutch for juniper) gin is often sold in stone bottles | |
34 minutes but used aids for my LOI. I was pleased eventually to remember the Eurocrat and negotiate my way past the unknown ASHDOD and ARHAT, both of which looked unlikely, but it was APOCALYPSE that caught me out. If I ever knew it could mean ‘revelation’ along with its more familiar meaning I had forgotten it, and ditto CALYPSO clued as ‘dance’ rather than ‘song’.
ASHDOD is making its TfTT debut today and ARHAT has appeared only once each in a Mephisto, a Monthly Special and a Jumbo.
The rest of the puzzle was great.
The Greek apokálypsis is translated in Latin as ‘revelatio’.
9.20, and a nice end to the year’s Mondays, particularly the lovely anagram for BILLY THE KID.
I was glad I got to the politician early on, as if I was on a biffing streak I could easily have put a VAN in there. ENTRAIN made me smile after last week’s discussion. ASHDOD, ARHAT, ECTODERM and BEY all new to me.
Thanks both.
Are you copper-bottoming ’em my man?
No, I’m aluminiuming ’em ma’am!
(Repeat)
20 mins gentle exercise pre-brekker, only stumbling a bit down in the Ashdod/Arhat corner.
Ta setter and U
I finished in 23:21, started fast but the last few in proved sticky. LOI ECTODERM.
Thanks setter and blogger
21:15 with aids needed for ARHAT but otherwise a smooth and enjoyable start to the week. Thanks U and setter.
Good puzzle, with all clues completed except for 18A APOCALYPSE. FOI was OBEY. Spent ages to work out that ‘court proceedings’ would lead to TENNIS. Pleased to get BELLADONNA from my mind. NHO the Israeli port ASHDOD but managed to get from the wordplay. Thanks setter and ulaca for everything
10:42. It was with fingers crossed I put in the crossing unknowns ASHDOD and ARHAT, but the wordplay was trustworthy. I liked the “eat less” diet. Ulaca, I think 9A is not a CD but an anagram of “see t-tutoring” with a W for “with” inserted. Thank-you Ulaca and setter.
Thanks, John. I knew there must be more to it, but was too lazy to persevere!
Around 50 minutes LOI VON DER LEYEN Spent a while going through the wordplay with all the crossers. NHO politician. Checked after finishing and found House of Leyen in 10th century called Von Der Leyen from 14th century. Three of the line were archbishops in 16th and 17th centuries.
Thanks U.
27 minutes with LOI ARHAT, which I guessed it had to be from the start. I knew vaguely of Ursula. Nice puzzle to get back into the routine, soon to be disrupted again, Thank you U and setter.
15 minutes, finishing with the surprisingly tricky LOAD.
– Didn’t know sere meaning parched for SPHERE
– Didn’t parse APOCALYPSE beyond seeing that calypso was involved somehow
– Couldn’t have told you where ASHDOD is
– Relied on the wordplay for the unknown ARHAT
– Didn’t know Geneva as a type of GIN
Thanks ulaca and setter.
FOI Converse
LOI Load
COD Tennis
19.58. LOI sponsor. NHO arhat and puzzled awhile over octette given that octuple was an earlier answer. Totally fooled by load. In my ignorance I thought lad was another word for get, as in you stupid…! Happy to have ignorance rewarded.
I did the same ‘get’ parsing! Glad I’m not alone.
👍😂
Isn’t See T-tutoring and w for with An Anagram of Tongue Twister. No-one has pointed this out!
Cheers JeremyB
…apart from John at 9:01
35 minutes. Like several other posters, I wasn’t familiar with ASHDOD or ARHAT and even though the wordplay was helpful, I still wasn’t confident. I liked TONGUE-TWISTER and the OCTUPLE and OCTETTE pairing.
Thanks Ulaca.
I was entertained and impressed with this, not a Monday melee but a most suitable work-out that gave in even to me after about 20 minutes.
All of it seemed well-made, but the terrific TONGUE-TWISTER (anag. as Johninterred points out), NO GREAT SHAKES, VON DER LEYEN and BILLY THE KID probably snatch the laurels for me in this premium puzzle.
No particular problems today although nho Ashdod. Arhat I knew from my Zen reading.
The final TE on OCTETTE looks particularly redundant.
According to Wiki a marimba can be called a xylophone; but a xylophone is not necessarily a marimba …
I’d never seen OCTETTE before it came up earlier this year twice within a few days, the second a Jumbo blogged by you in February. We can’t possibly remember every new word of course.
Oh, I know the word. I just think it’s inefficient..
Ah well, that’s another matter! Cut out all the redundant letters in English words, and dictionaries might be much thinner.
I assume it is the French spelling and used to be fashionable here – I have a lot of old music entitled “octette”, “quartette” etc.
DNF. Romped through all but the SE in 20 mins then hit a wall with 5 or 6 missing. Now depressed to find that others found this “gentle”.
I did construct ARHAT and ASHDOD but without believing either could be correct. Also failed entirely on APOCALYPSE and OCTETTE despite pencilling in TETT and TTET variously.
New year please.
8:11. NHO ASHDOD but ARHAT was familiar to me, probably from Mephisto.
14’31”, with crossed fingers over ASHDOD and ARHAT.
Good to see APOCALYPSE – by coincidence I discovered the Greek / Latin meaning in Chambers when tackling an Azed. I had not previously known apocalypse / revelation were exactly the same word.
Previous discussions helped with ENTRAIN, and The Sound of Music was, of course, on TV yesterday.
I can now spell VAN DER LEYEN.
I have not been able to access the crossword club on my iPad, it just doesn’t load, any ideas?
Thanks ulaca and setter.
Same here. The old “clear the cache” method worked for me
22:08
A good puzzle. Needed to check the existence of ARHAT and ASHDOD. In SPONSOR I took “circled both poles” to signify ONSO which made things difficult. I liked MOONSHOT, CHIPOLATA and NO GREAT SHAKES.
Thanks to the setter and ulaca for the entertaining blog – the juxtaposition of Updike, Ibsen and Amis will distract me nicely for the next hour or so.
OK, I’ll bite, how does Updike make Ibsen look like Kingsley Amis? Can’t get my brain around it!
A good question. I’ve not read a great deal of either. I have eliminated their relative weights and alcohol consumption so I’m leaning towards the complicated inter-reationships of the characters as in, for example, Couples and The Master builder.
It was a pretty pretentious statement, given I’ve read only one work by each of them (well, on the second Updike) but thanks for biting!
What I mean in a nutshell is that Updike is very bleak, almost brutal, especially when writing about marital relationships. With his contemporary, Philip Roth, on the other hand, at least his earlier (better) stuff, there is always the humour to alleviate the misery!
From the Little Book of Calvinism: “Life is full of undeserved suffering and misery; but there is a dark side….”
A very funny book. My wife bought me a copy , which I appear to have lost. Strangely, it seems impossible to find any reference to it on the internet.
I didn’t quite get it. I’ve read a lot of Updike and most of Kingsley Amis, and I like both, though Amis will date badly I fear.
From CONVERSE to ASHDOD in 21:48. Had to construct the latter as well as its crossing ARHAT. After my CHIPOLATA I had a sudden APOCALYPSE at 18a, helped by the A from DEATHLESS and Billy’s Y. Thanks setter and U.
All went smoothly enough except for those mentioned above, ARHAT, ASHDOD, VON DER LEYEN, LOAD. I missed the fact that it was a DD and was, like Brenk1, thinking that lad must some version of get. 32 minutes, with some checking as I went to see that those odd ones were really correct.
17:20 – same four or so unknowns as others, with added puzzlement over LOAD, where I couldn’t see past O for the round in LAD.
22 mins so par for the course today. Most difficulty with LOAD and ENTRAIN. ASHDOD and ARHAT I’d categorise as VHO (vaguely heard of).
A mostly straightforward sub 30, though I missed a few parsings and constructed a few NHOs as others did. LOI OCTETTE, which sort of had to be but I’d never seen that spelling and failed to see the reversing “eco”. Thanks Ulaca and setter
16.37, with dearest Ursula carefully constructed from the wordplay – goodness knows how she would have been entered had I just guessed. ASHDOD from its Old Testament, Philistine roots: to my shame I had no idea it was still a port, let alone Israel’s second largest city. AHRAM from wordplay and (probably) Mephisto. LOAD last in, trying to account for the round O before realising I didn’t need to.
Liked the cracking anagram for BILLY THE KID.
I have as an earworm, prompted by the clue, a Lance Percival style (I know, I know) “Apocalypso” but the interweb denies all knowledge. There are apparently several, more rowdy, versions.
Genuine surprise at how many here had not heard of Ashdod, which gets at least ten references in the OT (and one in the NT – Acts 8:40). Much more often do I stumble over a word that is new to me but all you learned people are familiar with.
I have noted that not everyone posting here has Sunday School experience!
Enjoyed this although I made liberal use of aids. A couple of new words for me ( octette, arhat). Pleased to see a politician as the living person rather than a nho pop/ film star. LOI sphere.
Thanks to setter and ulaca
ASHDOD is, as Ulaca notes, next to what little is left of Gaza. Apparently, the name comes from a Hebrew root meaning, variously, “an oppressor; despoiler; ravager; theft.”
Just saying, like.
lol! I think the Israelites were probably describing the Philistines but, oops! there we go again….
The Philistines were as cultured a people as any in the Middle East, their reputation is completely undeserved … they just had the misfortune to fight the Israelites and lose. Cross the Israelites at your peril.
Plus ca change. (Can’t do cedillas.) But when they cross you it’s self-defence.
DNF. Looked up ARHAT, double-checked spelling of name in 3d, and revealed LOI SPONSOR (doh), having slowly picked off everything else. Didn’t know OCTETTE or ASHDOD but solved from wordplay. Liked DEATHLESS and BILLY THE KID. Many thanks U.
I managed to get the obscure ARHAT and ASHDOD from the wordplay, but failed with an “Extrain” at 5d, so joining the OWL club.
Thanks for the blog, Ulaca, for explaining how SPONSOR worked (I wasn’t aware of ‘spoor’).
A pleasant puzzle. Now back to see if I can make progress on yesterday’s ‘Mephisto’.
Bits of it were Mondayish, but bits weren’t. And lots of NHOs.
15a Load. Couldn’t parse; I was wondering how Lad=get. Doh! As many above.
18a Apocalypse. Didn’t understand but only word that fitted.
21a Moonshot COD. I like a bit of smut.
22a Ashdod, HHO but I needed all the wordplay.
26a NHO Ectoderm. Well have forgotten probably. I thought it is called epidermis.
3d HHO Ursula Von Der Leyen, but was surprised by the spelling which was thoughtfully laid out for us. DNK the plagiarism accusation.
5d Entrain biffed.
6d Chipolata biffed.
19d Octette, MER at archaic form. Or is it? Added to Cheating Machine anyway. Surprised it has come up before as I ought to have added it then.
22d Had forgotten Arhat, but remember looking it up before.
Finished in 25 minutes – a fast time for me – but didn’t parse Apocalypse, Entrain, Sphere (NHO Sere) and had my fingers crossed on Arhat and Ashdod.
Rode my luck today, you might say.
Haven’t figured out what Ulaca’s reference to Scandinavians is about… I see that I found ASHDOD but hadn’t put it all into the grid, meaning to check it first. Sad to think of it now…
Terribly allusive and pretty meaningless, really, I’m afraid. Before going to Norway and Sweden earlier this year, we read an entertaining book about Nordics called ‘The Almost Nearly Perfect People.’ ARHAT reminded me of that/them.
28.53.
14’48”. Afraid I didn’t wait to see how TONGUE-TWISTER worked, the answer was too obvious. It’s a weakness in some very clever clues that they are also very easy. Thanks to all.
Couldn’t agree more. The same goes for the Eurocrat and the outlaw, both obvious from a few crossers without tediously unravelling the clever stuff!
52 minutes, but parts of it were extremely easy (and parts of it weren’t). My last entries were MOONSHOT (after I decided DOWNSHOT made no sense), then ENTRAIN once I was able to parse it, and LOAD which I was never able to parse correctly, so I made very sure there was no alternative. Some of the clues, like DEATHLESS, were very good. But I entered BILLY THE KID just from the crossing letters before I even read the definition, before making sure it did fit the definition.
Came very late to this which I found delightful and annoying in 60/40 ratio which is fine. Some really cute anagrams.
Apocalypse does not mean ‘revelation’ as per the clue to 18 ac. It means a disaster or catastrophe in English, but is in fact derived from the Greek apokalypsis which does mean ‘revelation’.
Granted the catastrophe meaning is far more common, but ‘revelation’ is still the first definition in Collins.
DNF, beaten by APOCALYPSE. A very fair clue (the Apocalypse of John is an alternative name for the book of Revelation) but I failed to spot it.
Is a calypso a dance? I thought it was a song made up at short notice.
It is in Collins 😀
30:46
I found this on the hard side with several unknowns/forgottens:
NHO:
VON DER LEYEN – managed to enter from checkers 1,3,5&6
GIN = Geneva, but the parsing was plain enough
OCTETTE – Didn’t know this spelling
ARHAT – maybe vaguely heard of but didn’t know what it is
APOCALYPSE – my LOI, forgotten it means Revelation
ASHDOD – unlikely word but easily built from wordplay
ECTODERM – bunged in from three checkers but not sure I’ve heard of this
FTP:
SPHERE – forgotten SERE
Thanks U and setter