Solving Time: Well, it took me 35 minutes in all, but in fairness at least ten minutes should be deducted for the time I had to spend in rescuing a mouse that one of my cats brought in, normally the wife’s department.
As soon as I saw 1ac I knew I was going to like this crossword, and so it proved. I thought it fair, about the right level of difficulty and inventive, with lots of really slick surfaces. I was also struck by the unusually large number of references to people, in both the answers and the clues.
cd = cryptic definition, dd = double definition, rev = reversed, anagrams are *(–).
ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online
Across | |
---|---|
1 |
Fibonacci – FIB + ON ACCI( |
6 | Sahel – *(HEALS). Not a region I had heard of, I’m ashamed to say, especially given it covers more than a million square miles; so, a toss-up between sahel and sehal, but my guess proved right |
9 | tallies – introduction to titled = T + ALLIES = colleagues |
10 | newsman – NEW(S)MAN, a reference to John Henry Newman, author of the Dream of Gerontius, and of the (dreary) hymn “Lead Kindly Light.” |
11 | phase – = “FAY’S,” a homophonic reference to Fay Wray, she of the friendship with King Kong |
12 |
in transit – INTRANSI( |
13 | friction – FRACTION, with the A changed to an I |
14 |
ACAS – ( |
17 |
rive – RIVE( |
18 | tactless – T + ACT LESS |
21 | Annie Hall – concert venue = A HALL containing NNIE – nine “with the one deferred” – I confess I have only now worked that out! |
22 | clang – C + LANG, Fritz Lang being one of my favourite film directors. His Dr Mabuse films are wonderfully obscure. |
24 | high-hat – pedal operated cymbals, an essential part of every rock drummer’s kit. The snobbish meaning was not known to me.. I notice Chambers doesn’t say it is of US origin |
25 |
Italian – I TALI( |
26 | Ah, one to leave out at last.. but it is in there somewhere |
27 |
engrossed – ENG + ROSS + E( |
Down | |
1 | fit up – deposit = PUT + IF = provided, all rev. Those years spent watching “The Sweeny” not wasted after all.. |
2 | balsamic vinegar – *(MAGIC BEANS RIVAL) – and not an anagram of “beans rival fluid” as I stupidly first thought |
3 |
noisette – anagram of ( |
4 | cast iron – learn = CON containing ASTIR, ie moving. Slick clueing! |
5 |
ignite – ( |
6 |
so what – couples = TWOS, containing H( |
7 | home secretaries – in = HOME + closet = SECRET + stars = ARIES |
8 | linctuses – liberal = L + IN CT + applies = USES |
13 |
forgather – criminal = FORGER containing AT ( |
15 | I think this can be left out too.. |
16 | staccato – *(TOCCATAS). I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this anagram more than once before |
19 | nether – name = N + number = ETHER. Neat clue. |
20 | wattle – A simple dd., if you knew (as I did not) what Australia’s national flower is. Would you believe they have a National Wattle Day each year? No, really they do! |
23 | gonad – GOAD containing N = note. |
I did know both meanings of high-hat; Collins says: “Informal chiefly US and Canadian to treat in a snobbish or offhand way”.
There are a couple of clues where you need knowledge, UK-centric or otherwise: ‘ACAS’, the Miss Wray clue, ‘noisette’, Ross, Lang, and of course Fibonacci. I struggled with some of these, trying to dredge up buried information.
Quite a few ‘Aha!’ moments, not least when the penny dropped on FIBONACCI, one of the few mathematicians I know anything about. I have a pine cone on my desk which I picked up last year after hearing about the routine occurrence of Fibonacci number ratios in the spiralling lines of their scales. I didn’t quite believe it until I started counting… So Fibonacci was a pretty smart guy, but not as smart as a pine cone (which got there first). Heaven knows where that puts me – somewhere on a par with a mud puddle, I should think.
I finished in 50 minutes without resort to aids but unfortunately I guessed the placement of vowels incorrectly at 6ac.
Put me down as another who would write ‘foregather’. The long anagram at 2dn gave me some problems because I initially had (t)RENT at 17ac , a perfectly valid alternative I believe if one was solving the clue ‘cold’.
Edited at 2012-06-06 01:11 am (UTC)
Archimedes? Alan Turing? Euclid? Pascal? 🙂
Edited at 2012-06-06 08:07 am (UTC)
To Kevin: it ends “Australia, Australia, Australia, You ******* Beauty!”
12ac: very appropriate as Venus is doing it now-ish? Without which, no Australia as we know it.
My thanks to Jerry. Very fortunate for me that we swapped blogging days.
This was one of those sadly rare puzzles for me where all my guesses proved right. I can thank the desert for SAHEL. I’d heard of neither meaning of HIGH-HAT neither of WATTLE (wattle is the stuff which the huts people daubed in woad live in are made of), nor of the colour ‘cignite’, which isn’t surprising as I misread the clue – for once with impunity. I’ve learnt quite a lot about GONADS, which I was shocked to find in The Times until I read it could also mean an ovary – anything that produces gametes in fact, whatever that might be. I thought RALLYING (the omitted across) was pretty feeble. 58 minutes.
Christopher Walken made an early appearance as a nutjob in Annie Hall.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPS3bfJjReU
Edited at 2012-06-06 06:33 am (UTC)
Edited at 2012-06-06 04:26 am (UTC)
Edited at 2012-06-06 04:57 am (UTC)
WATTLE known and most easily remembered from Python – near the end of the sketch for the relevant bit.
The TRANSIT of Venus has been conjuring images of the delectable Uma Thurman in a van all week. Imagination can be a wonderful thing.
I thought RALLYING was an odd sort of clue in an otherwise entertaining bunch. CoD to the neat NETHER.
The source of the wattle in a bottle is disputed, without corroborating evidence.
HOME SECRETARIES & ENGROSSED were good but COD to IN TRANSIT
Knew FIBONACCI immediately – the fact that some folk haven’t heard of him reflects badly on education systems. Worth a little study even if you’re not particularly mathematical.
Had to guess SAHEL but had heard of the WATTLE from old OZ colleagues. Other than RALLYING a very good puzzle. Well done Jerry – our bloggers are having to work hard at the moment.
Andrew
Otherwise some very good stuff here. Nice to see FIBONACCI.
I know the phrase HIGH HAT from Miller’s Crossing:
You think that I’m some guinea, fresh off the boat, and you can kick me! But I’m too big for that now. I’m sick a’ takin the scrap from you, Leo. I’m sick a’ marching into this goddamn office to kiss your Irish ass. And I’M SICK A’ THE HIGH HAT!
Edited at 2012-06-06 10:45 am (UTC)
Clue of the Day: 7dn (HOME SECRETARIES).
… my last (blank) answer was one of the omitted ones! What with that, and Jimbo singling it out, I’m not sure what that says about me…
Anyway, I found this tricky, and, other than the gap at RALLYING, I got two incorrect: misplaced vowels at 6ac, and ‘Iranian’ (?) at 25ac.
Lots of unknown vocab here, too, so I’m glad I managed as much as I did. Many thanks for the enlightening blog, and all the comments above.
One of the few problems with this site is that if you come late (i.e. the day after a puzzle or similar), it’s very difficult not to catch sight of the current blog before finding the one you want to look at. So I was pleased to finish at 2345 (BST) and be able to come here without running the risk of seeing George’s upcoming blog.
Oh, and by the way, the ones causing difficulty seemed to come fairly easily for me: it was all the others which held me up!
Fibonacci went straight in when I had eight blanks and a checking I.
Sahel was in the news last week re a looming famine. Am I the only Radio 4 Today programme listener here?!
COD to In Transit because of its topicality given Venus transited the sun last night/this morning. No chance of seeing it here in Cheshire though because of heavy cloud cover.
A most enjoyable puzzle, and right up my street (no unknowns – not even the foodie BALSAMIC VINEGAR), so I like to think I’d have posted a decent time if tiredness hadn’t got the better of me.
I appear to have a considerably higher opinion of ACAS than dorsetjimbo does.
I turned the TV off and finished the rest in about 30 minutes.I almost parsed ANNIE HALL but decided it was A N(umber)(EIN)rev HALL. Got me there though. I didn’t spot how CAST IRON worked so thanks to Jerry for the explanations.
It wasn’t until I got IGNITE that FIBONACCI sprang to mind after discounting Pythagorus Euclid and Archimedes. This eventually led to BALSAMIC VINEGAR in which I had also been trying to use FLUID as part of the anagram. Doh. Some clever clues. I particularly liked NETHER. An enjoyable puzzle all round.