Solving Time: 17 minutes for a fairly gentle crossword with few obscurities. Well none at all, really, apart perhaps from naseberries. Another good showing for technology, with octals and ergs and rhombs..
cd = cryptic definition, dd = double definition, rev = reversed, anagrams are *(–), homophones indicated in “”
ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online
Across |
|
---|---|
1 | prosperous – PROSPERO + US. I know little Shakespeare but the main characters in the Tempest are well known. I once saw the Tempest (at the Globe) with Vanessa Redgrave playing Prospero, Duke of Milan… confusing, a little |
6 |
twin – T( |
9 | surreal – U + RR in SEAL, the RR being “Right Reverend.” More reverend than very reverend, but not so reverend as an archbishop, who is most reverend. |
10 | ducking – dd. Ducking stools were more instruments of humiliation than anything else. There are still a few around.. |
12 |
endue – ENDU( |
13 | perimeter – EMIR rev. in PETER. Petermen, ie safecrackers, were common at one time, in the Saint or the Raffles books for example. Less so now perhaps, but still not too uncommon here in crosswordland |
14 | green revolution – NE + ERG rev., + REVOLUTION. Not a phrase meaning something ecofriendly, as one might imagine, but rather the opposite; a reference to agro-industry, and its effect of increasing food production |
17 |
right-mindedness – *(THINGS MEN DESIR( |
20 |
priorship – port = RIO in P( |
21 | rhomb – R + HO + MB, a bachelor of medicine. A diamond shape |
23 | scholar – SOLAR energy containing CH a Companion of Honour. Mostly they are politicians, but I was pleased to see Stephen Hawking in the list of members, not to mention Dame Judi Dench |
24 |
evictor – girl = VI in city = EC, + TO R( |
25 | onyx – ONLY X, with the L (pounds) removed |
26 |
ethereally – the Brazilian coin, a REAL, in ETHEL + Y( |
Down |
|
1 | passenger – col = PASS + *(GREEN), the def. being fare as in a taxi fare |
2 |
oared – A( |
3 | preternatural – R in PETER, + NATURAL, a musical note which is not a sharp or a flat |
4 | relapse – drink = LAP in RE, the Royal Engineers, + SE, compass quarters. |
5 | undergo – UN and DER, foreign articles, + turn = GO |
7 | waistline – I in WAST, “once used to be,” ie an archaic form of was, + track = LINE. Took a bit of unravelling, that did |
8 | Niger – GIN rev. + ER, our own dear queen. The Niger is Africa’s third largest river after the Nile and the Congo, and gives countries Nigeria and Niger their names |
11 | come under fire – a cd, referring to a firedog, an andiron |
15 | Englishry – *(SINGLY HER). Not a term familiar to me but easy to get to from the clue |
16 | naseberry – E + R + R in NASEBY, a well-known battle of the English civil war. Naseberries not so well-known.. I would call them sapodillas, and had some when in Qatar recently. A rather peculiar flavour, not helped by them only becoming edible when soft and on the point of rotting. |
18 | inherit – IN + HER + IT. IT = sex appeal came up only a week or so ago, didn’t it? Clara Bow was the original “It Girl,” appearing in a film of that name (ie IT) back in 1927, which gives you some idea how old-fashioned a reference this is.. |
19 | deplete – P in strike out = DELETE |
20 |
pesto – quickly = P( |
22 | octal – hidden in concOCT A Letter. Omitting a couple of digits, I suppose, since octal is a base-8 numbering system as opposed to decimal base-10 |
Jerry you have a typo at 12ac with an E missing. I’m not sure I knew that word and definitely didn’t know NASEBERRY or ENGLISHRY. Nor GREEN REVOLUTION, come to that.
Edited at 2014-03-19 01:40 am (UTC)
I wanted to put ‘surreally’ in the slot where ‘ethereally’ ends up, but of course it didn’t fit, only to find another place where ‘surreal’ does fit. The ‘naseberry’ had to be got from the cryptic, and the clue is set up to make you think you’re looking for a battle and not a tree.
Right-mindedness, eh? If we knew what mindedness was right, we wouldn’t be having all these arguments, would we?
Vinyl writes “If we knew what mindedness was right …”; I was thinking more along the lines of “If we knew what mindedness was, tout court”. What a stupid word!
So tech joke of the day, given we have OCTAL. Why do programmers mix up Halloween and Christmas. Because OCT 31 is the same as DEC 25. Boom boom
I think VI as a girl’s name is short for Violet, which is about the only girl’s name starting VI with a long I. It seems to belong with names like Phoebe, Brenda, Ivy, Ethel, Doris etc which were common in the early 20C but have since rather fallen out of favour .
Is chestnut a constituent of PESTO, perhaps?
Edited at 2014-03-19 05:54 am (UTC)
That, together with the made-up-specially feel of NASEBERRY and ENGLISHRY added to the weirdness. I kept going with an almost preternatural right-mindedness to overcome the twin hazards of online solving and resistential technology to finish with ETHEREALLY. Does that make me an E-VICTOR?
CoD to the devious PASSENGER. Only when writing this did it occur to me that it should have been Col Mustard.
26a LOI, but then I do object to proper names like this being used as part of the answers. Other than that a pleasant amble.
A real puzzle of two halves for me today… plodded through the first lot, finding it tricky, and then came to a long block, until I got PASSENGER, and then the rest all fell into place. Maybe I suddenly found that elusive wavelength.
LOI; EVICTOR, with that pesky VI in the middle. Not sure I totally agree with Derek above: Ivy and Phoebe seem to be enjoying a renaissance amongst the littlies of certain well-to-do neighbourhoods…
PS: Like Z’s idea that solving correctly online makes us E-VICTORS!
Almost blundered with Parameter for Perimeter before thinking carefully about the wordplay.
I was struck by the number of words I hadn’t heard of today but which were gettable from the wordplay: Englishry, octal, Green Revolution, endue and naseberry.
I don’t like 1A. If you know The Tempest it’s a write-in. If you don’t it’s a guess from checkers. Too close to those old “To be or … to be” clues. Not really sure what “printing” is doing in 5D.
Enjoyed Col Green. For me PESTO is the eccentric BBC commentator on banking and other financial matters.
NASEBERRY & ENGLISHRY = what?, but overall an easy solve. That’s what crossing letters are for.
Cheers,
Chris.
I thought ENGLISHRY was a good word that I’m happy to add my lexicon.
Another DNF for me but I got a lot more in today than earlier in the week so it must have been easier. Seem to be learning my lessons too because I immediately got IT=appeal in 18d.
PETER=safe and RR=bishop were new to me even if well known to all of you. I had ENGLISHRY and ENDUE but didn’t think either could be proper words – ho hum.
Re the quick cryptic, it’s well into week 2 and I’m still having trouble with letters appearing that I haven’t ordered. “Chibby” for “chubby” today, and no it wasn’t a typo and I do switch off the letter-skipping thing.
I’m going to have to avoid coming here until I have I think…
I don’t understand 3dn. How do you get NATURAL from “staff”? No doubt missing something obvious.
The only Vi I’ve ever known was a Victoria. I’m not aware that there’s a rule.
Thanks.
Edited at 2014-03-19 11:07 am (UTC)
A natural may be found on the staff in music, though one only needs to be written to override the sharp or flat in the key signature.
I almost fell into the parameter trap but I didn’t like the singular/plural conflict and realised I wasn’t necessarily looking for a religious leader laike an imam to put in the safe and that’s when emir ocurred to me.
At 14 I wasn’t sure how much of NE ERG I had to reverse and wondered if there had been a negre revolution somewhere, sometime.
COD to onyx and I also enjoyed the red herring non-anagram of Col Green’s.
It probably helped having pen and paper for the anagrams in the second stint. Does anyone know of Android software which is useful for anagrams (as in replicating what you do with pen and paper rather than actually solving them for you)?
The convenient NASEBERRY surely a word invented by crossword compilers. PRIORSHIP smacked of desperation. And somewhat annoyed that The Times should spell “praeternatural” as PRETERNATURAL. ENGLISHRY new to me, but a nice word which “fits” its context very well.
Had “parameter” in for some time before “mara” began worrying away at me. Nice clue. Parsing essential!
FOI the execrable PROSPEROUS, LOI EVICTOR, COD RHOMB, simply for being a lovely word.
Otherwise 28 min, just on the hard side of average. Took a while to get going, the unknowns were gettable, ENDUE was a known. Quite enjioyed it.
Rob
DNF, by a long mile. Re. our blogger’s comment //I know little Shakespeare but the main characters in the Tempest are well known// – well, not by me they’re not. Nor did I know ENDUE (I considered it, but then decided it didn’t exist), nor PRIORSHIP. I also blew PRETERNATURAL, as I was looking for some element of music annotation (on staff) involving an anagram of “resistance”.
Was fairly happy to have deduced the unheard-of NASEBERRY, NASEBY being probably one of the two battles I could probably name. Nice to see the slightly techie RHOMB and OCTAL in there.
I’d put my miserable performance down to long hours and overwork, but that’s an excuse I usually reserve for malpractice cases and, even there, it’s wearing a bit thin.
NASEBERRY last appeared in No. 25,343 (11 December 2012) with a very similar clue: “Tree sheltering English king and queen in battle (9)”.