Solving Time: 26 minutes.. so a bit harder than average but not unduly so. As we saw yesterday it can be hard to judge a crossword mid-blog, as it were.. but I thought this a decent effort, let down by a rather uneven set of clues, but redeemed by its inclusion of St Eric Morecambe..
cd = cryptic definition, dd = double definition, rev = reversed, anagrams are *(–), homophones indicated in “”
ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online
Across |
|
---|---|
1 |
Proserpine – R( |
6 |
curb – CUR + B( |
9 | cowling – COW + LING (heather) |
10 | medulla – soME DULL Academic. A part of the brainstem attached to the spinal cord and controlling autonomic activities like breathing, thankfully.. |
12 |
prima donna – proper = PRIM + ADO + N( |
13 |
aid – ( |
15 | resort – men = OR (yawn) in REST. |
16 | strophes – STROP + HE’S. There is a whole vocabulary of poetic metre, such as strophes, iambs, feet etc etc, met (by me) only in crosswords |
18 | hard core – dd |
20 | tissue – as in a tissue of lies, I suppose. I see what the setter is getting at but to me it seems a bit lightweight as clues go |
23 |
ism – IS( |
24 | Manchester – MAN + ST in CHEER |
26 | holiest – story = LIE (as in tissue) in HOST |
27 | stature – STATU(R)E |
28 |
pads – soft = P + notice = AD + S( |
29 | regenerate – R(oyal) E(ngineers) + *(TEENAGER) |
Down |
|
1 | puck – dd. Well, once I had 1ac, it had to be puck or peri, and it turns out that a puck is, according to ODO: “An input device resembling a mouse, dragged across a mat which senses its position to move the cursor on the screen.” That was news to me, I confess |
2 | onwards – cd. Where nurses are, geddit? |
3 | Eric Morecambe – *(RARE COMIC ME) + live = BE. Cue a link to youtube, I think my favourite quip is this one |
4 | pagoda – A + DO (= cook) + GAP (= opening), all rev. Only properly parsed this clue now.. |
5 | nominate – home = IN, in mother= MA, in NOTE |
7 | unleash – *(HOUSEPLANT), having removed the letters POT. So really *(HUSELAN) |
8 | blandished – BLAND + I + SHED. For some reason blandishments seem much more common than actual blandishing |
11 | diatonic scale – *(NICE CODA TAILS). This crossword did stretch one’s anagrammatic skills rather. I looked at the Wikipedia entry for diatonic scale, but understood not a word I’m afraid |
14 | archbishop – *(BOORISH CHAP), having removed an O |
17 |
brunette – career = RUN in BETTE( |
19 | rambled – walk = AMBLE in RD. Amble and ramble being uncomfortably similar in meaning, undermines the clue a tad |
21 | specula – *(CAPSULE). Not an instrument I’ve ever seen in use, I’m pleased to say |
22 | chaste – C + HASTE |
25 | mede – ED in ME. The reference is to Daniel, Ch6v15, where King Darius the Great is forced by his own laws, “The laws of the Medes and the Persians,” to toss Daniel into the lion’s den. The rest is history. Or myth. |
Quite a lot from the literals or enumeration today, including Eric M. Had to attend carefully to the anagrist at 11d, though, as I was thinking of a first word ending ‘-tic’ by analogy with ‘chromatic’. A bit of a throw-back puzzle that will suit those brought up on the Classics and the Bible.
I didn’t do so badly on this one, solving in two sessions as I listened to some symphonies of Humphrey Searle. About 45 minutes total. I had ‘inwards’ rather than ‘onwards’, which makes more sense for the cryptic but less for the literal. Only by seeing ‘nominate’ did the whole NW fall, as the final correct answers were quickly written in, some with only a vague understanding, as ‘Puck’. Fortunately, I had encountered Eric Morecambe in previous crosswords, but I know as much about him as Brits would know about Red Skelton.
The whole puzzle was quite solid, a decent medium-level challenge that will allow me to go off to bed at a reasonable hour.
Edited at 2014-03-05 02:36 am (UTC)
– I didn’t know what a MEDE was
– didn’t know this meaning of PUCK
– knew I misspelt ERIC MORECAMBE last time he came up
– wasn’t sure if ‘strophis’ was a possibility and the wordplay works either way (I think).
I did like 17d, even though it’s clearly brunettist. I may have to file suit for psychological trauma.
I had triple definition HARD ROCK – which comes pretty close to working (kind of group, not giving way, and foundation)- for a while
Edited at 2014-03-05 09:20 am (UTC)
“The Medes and the Persians” are familiar but I had no idea of the source or the connection with laws. I suspect I’m not Robinson Crusoe in that.
I had never heard of a PUCK as a mouse – this Apple mouse (I had one once) from about 15 years ago is the right shape though.
MEDE had to be the answer (though I pondered BEDE as the law-giver). But the Medes and Persians thing went straight through to the keeper.
If I’d been blogging, I’d still be scratching the noggin over ISM.
Afterthought: maybe 20ac is a subtle reference to the Yorkshire Post?
Edited at 2014-03-05 07:32 am (UTC)
Like sotira I misspelled Eric last time he appeared. I remembered this fact, but not how I’d done it, so I had to take care with the anagram.
I listened to some Finzi yesterday evening. I won’t be rushing to repeat the experience I’m afraid. Perhaps I’ll try some Searle this evening. He shares a first name with my youngest which disposes me positively towards him.
Edited at 2014-03-05 08:59 am (UTC)
BTW nice to see Magoo back in the land of the living too!
Edited at 2014-03-05 08:41 am (UTC)
I’m always a bit freaked out by them. Somehow between sightings (usually at a zoo near my parents’ house) I always manage to forget how weirdly big they are.
Just googled capybara – eek!
Also torn between STROPHIS and STROPHES but fortunately plumped for the latter on the basis it sounded like a plural whereas the former sounded more singular.
About 45 mins. Smiled when I read Sotira’s first post above, thinking ‘yes, me too…’ until I got to the bit about Eric M, when I checked my spelling. Ooops! I got it right last time, and didn’t think too much about it…
My problem with Eric M was that I knew I misspelt it last time but I couldn’t remember how. Thankfully, all the letters were there in the clue ….. just not necessarily in the right order.
Is it churlish (or just foolhardy – I’m bound to have committed a similar solecism) to point out that, aside from Jerry in his excellent introduction, we have been spelling PROSERPINE wrong throughout?
BRUNETTE my last in – that devious definition and a hazard at SPINSTER causing a last minute frantic check on checkers. The rest solved today from NE and clockwise.
Edited at 2014-03-05 09:07 am (UTC)
As mentioned above I didn’t know PUCK but took an educated guess. The Goddess and the poetry stuff both turn up from time to time. I thought TISSUE very weak. All in all a rather dated feel to this one.
Greetings from Nairobi. Re your question of yesterday, all the Indians I know pronounce it raiyeetha, i.e. a sort of elongated e in the middle. The t following is softish and not hard. Hope this helps.
A German friend visiting Mumbai a few years ago went to Jalali’s which in those days was THE place for authentic Indian cooking (sadly no longer there) and ordered their hottest curry not realising a hot curry at Jalali’s really is hot. After the first mouthful he took a dollop of raitha in the hope of cooling things down, not realising that genuine Indian raitha has fresh chopped chillies in it!!! Using petrol to put out a fire was the phrase that came to mind when I heard the story. When he recovered and asked Jalali how people put out a gastronomic fire, Jalali simply said, “Genuine Indians don’t need to put out gastronomic fires!!”
Nairobi Wallah
All the more reason to be sparing in the use of homophones for foreign words when clueing.
Edited at 2014-03-05 10:28 am (UTC)
My knowledge of the Medes comes solely from a poem that an inspirational headmaster used to read to us in junior school; it began “Darius the Mede was a king and a wonder….” The children loved it, but anything by Vachel Lindsay is likely to provoke much clucking and tut-tutting by educationalists these days.
In one of those curious crossword coincidences, this week’s LoveFilm DVD has just come through the letter box: “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”.
Other Ranks?
27 minutes and about a pint of coffee, CoD 25D which is impenetrable.
Thanks for explaining 23. I thought the US city had been chopped off the front so I was left wondering if there’s a US city I’ve never heard of like Juda, Sikh or Shinto. Maybe the Shinto Pucks play the Juda Capybaras at ice hockey.
At 26 I’m still unsure as to whether holiest = most scared element or host = element of mass. Anyone?
COD to the non-blonde.
Edited at 2014-03-05 01:40 pm (UTC)
p_in_l
{Captain Mainwaring} Well done Ulaca, I was wondering who’d be the first to spot that {/Captain Mainwaring}
p_in_l
deke
I got it from the Shakespeare reference and guessed the rest.
Edited at 2014-03-05 03:35 pm (UTC)
It drew a yawn from the blogger but why is “men” = or?
This has been answered higher up the chain today but the reference is to Other Ranks (ie non-officers). To quote z8
“Yes, exactly, Other Ranks. Turns up quite a lot, hence Jerry’s yawn.”
Proserpine and Strophes both unknown but gettable from wordplay.
Made a meal of the NW corner with initial wrong guesses of Inwards for Onwards and Cowslip then Cowhide for Cowling.
Rather embarrassed to say I justified Puck by thinking an ice hockey puck resembled a computer mouse!
No stand-out clues today, too many write-ins, too many obvious anagrams, and at least one dud – TISSUE – but ERIC MORECAMBE made me smile, so all is forgiven.
Your honorary citizenship is hereby granted. However to complete the process, you must watch this link. Although sometimes Morecambe & Wise humour can be a bit uneven, this sketch with Andre Previn really is about as funny as it gets. Observe the way the orchestra itself is in stitches for much of the sketch
Edited at 2014-03-05 06:20 pm (UTC)
Speaking of capybara (how did they crop up?), I’ve eaten one – or at least a part of one. Not bad. Now every time I eat chicken I can say “tastes a bit like capybara”.
Nice to see ERIC MORECAMBE turning up, and a nice clue too, as was ARCHBISHOP. I failed to parse PAGODA and ISM, though the answers were inevitable.
PROSERPINE was one of those names in the back of my memory – could have been a godette or a Shakespearian character for all I knew. Had never encountered STROPHES before, and took a guess that this wasn’t STROPHIS. I presume a strophe is what someone writes after the apostrophe and before the catastrophe.
As for 21d, all I can advise is that if your gynaecologist isn’t sure what’s wrong with you, don’t ask him to speculate.
Edited at 2014-03-05 06:46 pm (UTC)
Edited at 2014-03-05 08:41 pm (UTC)
The mirrors themselves are concave, which means that if you examine a patient in sufficiently strong sunlight you should be able to melt the wax right out of their ears.
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine
The pronunciation of Latin in England has changed radically over my lifetime and for both the old and the new one can find fat red-faced Latin teachers who insist they know exactly what is right when in fact they haven’t – we haven’t – a solitary clue
Could the answer be PUCA, perhaps a variant spelling of POOKA (??) which could, at a pinch, be classified as a fairy? Was there another 3-letter farm animal ending in W apart from COW that would give a likely answer to 9ac? (Surely SOWLING wouldn’t do?) Could I get an X in as first letter to allow PIXY for 1dn? And if so, how would the mouse fit in with that? And so on … (Deep sigh!)
And I’d forgotten all about the blessed PACA!!!