Solving Time: 22 minutes, plus a few to check some parsings. About average for a blooging day, but I was slow to get started and it didn’t feel easy. I’m pleased with the time, in the end. I think I like this crossword, it’s got some excellent clues with very good surface readings, which I am always a sucker for. Good stuff. It is perhaps rather Anglocentric, what with the bear, the comic, the rural county and the industrial port, and none the worse for that of course.
cd = cryptic definition, dd = double definition, rev = reversed, anagrams are *(–), homophones indicated in “”
ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online
Across |
|
---|---|
1 | Herefordshire – present = HERE + FOR + D(aughter)’S HIRE. Not so hard (for an English ex-cricket fan), once the H appeared anyway |
8 | knob – central parts of weaKNess + imprOBably |
9 | Rupert Bear – game = RU + forward = PERT + stick = BEAR, the def. being “strip of paper;” “strip in paper” being a shade too helpful… |
10 | gymnasia – *(GAS + I + MANY), the second consecutive cryptic def. being “pumping stations,” as in pumping iron. |
11 | browse – summit = BROW + points = directions = SE. |
13 | codswallop – fish = COD + S(mall) + paste = WALLOP… with the fish and the paste sandwiching the small, see? A very neat clue, that |
16 | lilt – (portuga)L in “was illuminating” = LIT |
17 | snog – SONG, with the O moving towards the tail. Ah, snogging, I remember it well <sighs> |
18 | tantamount – light brown = TAN + horse = MOUNT, containing we’re obliged = thanks = TA |
20 | Mr Bean – British = BR rev. in MEAN. I like him about as much as Jack likes Spike Milligan.. |
22 | mooching – low = MOO + punch = CHIN + G(lass), the girl having left it, see.. mooching reminds me of this classic song from that wonderful film, Blues Brothers |
24 |
coatimundi – fur = COAT + IM, + UNDI( |
26 | pogo – LOGO, with the L(arge) replaced by a P(arking)… pogoing being the sort of dance you do, if you are as totally untalented at dancing as I am |
27 | Ellesmere Port – “from Calais, she’s” = ELLE’S + just = MERE + left = PORT, to make the industrial port (its highlight being the oil refinery) at the seaward end of the Manchester Ship Canal. I used to go there and watch the tankers coming up the Mersey and going into the canal. For fun. This was before computers, you understand, damn near before television in fact. I mean, it was that or Muffin the Mule.. |
Down |
|
1 |
honeymooner – polish = HONE + unknown = Y (so, not x or z) + shower = MOONER.. well, look it up <blushes> |
2 |
robin – ROBIN( |
3 | for a start – chap with dreadlocks = RASTA(farian) in keep = FORT |
4 |
Raphael – hammer = RAP + HA( |
5 | shrub – pipe down = SH + RUB = massage. What with the massage, the snog, the mooning, and the honeymoon, is this setter trying to tell us something? Is this a theme, or what? |
6 | imbroglio – *(BIG LIMO OR) – a word I know, but can’t pronounce.. |
7 | eta – dd, Greek letter and a TLA for “estimated time |
12 | silent night – fast = one = I + LENT + approaching = NIGH (as in “The end is nigh..”), all in ST(reet) |
14 |
segmental – *(M( |
15 | piano wire – *(OR WIPE A N I). Tricky clue.. not so hard to see its an anagram, but a bit of a leap from a baby to a baby grand, as I suppose is intended. Almost certainly not an oblique reference to garrotting, trying though babies can be at times |
19 | nominee – hmm, so if a miner digs, a minee must be dug? And NO MINEE can’t be… you get the picture here, I hope |
21 | Nimes – hidden, rev., in streetwiSE MINister. A lovely town, wish I was there.. |
23 | hippo – with it = HIP, + (the river) PO. I thought of this straight off but didn’t write it in, thinking the def. a bit weak at first. It is an @lit, ie the entire clue is the def. |
25 |
owe – sounds like O( |
Good to see ELLESMERE PORT. I used to play cricket against them for my school’s old boys team. (One notable game was at Capenhurst on the day in 1966 England won the World Cup Final. We had to start early so as to watch the match in the clubhouse under the nuclear power plant chimneys.) Not a good place for a honeymoon, a massage or a snog. But if you like the odd imbroglio, it’s just fine.
The Wirral is not the best placed for cricket right now:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/apr/27/cricket-team-bowled-out-three-runs-wirral-cc
Edited at 2014-04-30 01:33 am (UTC)
My time was about an hour and a half, with the final answers trickling in. I was held up because the ‘r’ in ‘for a start’ looked like a ‘b’, preventing the easily-constructed Rupert Bear from being put together.
An interesting challenge, where the cryptics had to be the primary guide for most of the entries.
Edited at 2014-04-30 04:43 am (UTC)
I agree Jimbo the Baby is loose too, but very gettable.
‘Minee’ for one who might dig was no problem for me, given that I have to deal on a daily basis with the ‘standees’ on our buses. No problem at all with mooner.
I needed to figure out my last in the South American racoon from the wordplay, eventually twigging when I saw COAT. HIPPO is even cleverer when you see that ‘connecting’ the (Greek) river will give you hippopotamus.
Loved the definition for GYMNASIA and thought PIANO WIRE was very good too. Hats off to the settee (sic)!
Edited at 2014-04-30 02:43 am (UTC)
Jerry, you didn’t explicitly say it, perhaps out of embarrassment , but at 1D the mooner is a “behind shower”, which surely is worth today’s 8p admission fee. (Why is my spellchecker objecting to “mooner” and not “spellchecker”?)
Also at 19D, I took it that the minee (spellchecker again!) could never be dug by you; so the apparent convergent evolution of the “ee” and “er” suffixes wasn’t in evidence here, as opposed to on HK buses, say.
Edited at 2014-04-30 07:23 am (UTC)
Edited at 2014-04-30 07:00 am (UTC)
I thought this was a serious challenge with very few gimme definitions, and one clue – HIPPO – where I can’t really see a definition at all even given that it’s an &lit. Didn’t detract from a sort of grimly determined enjoyment.
No problem with “mooner” (Chambers has it) and a smirk at the wordplay. I found myself wondering whether Dean Mayer had sneaked another one into the dailies, given the mildly risqué, schoolboyish humour.
Does it help that MINEE is (apparently) the Ministère de l’Eau et de l’Energie? Didn’t think so, but it must have something to do with le digging pour coal.
Is MR BEAN a comedy? I think we should be told.
Edited at 2014-04-30 08:18 am (UTC)
In fairness, I’m feeling pretty dim and foggy this morning and might have enjoyed the challenge when on better form — or on a Saturday. But I doubt I would ever have got RUPERT BEAR. I thought I was looking for a game and was focussed on some form of Brag that I hadn’t encountered before.
re Mr Bean. I would always insist that I can’t stand it but every time I find myself inadvertently watching a bit of the show I end up laughing like a drain. Don’t tell anyone.
SNOG brought back some pleasant memories but baby for piano was a bit of a stretch. I don’t really understand how the definition for HIPPO works. MR BEAN has never yet made me laugh.
Tn the dark days 1942-45 my grandfather taught me to read using the Rupert strips (and they were called Rupert not Rupert Bear – just as the annuals are just called Rupert). So as well as remembering him and his chums like Bill Badger I was reminded of my now long dead grandfather
I thought there was some decent cluing here, although as has already been mentioned there were one or two iffy (or non-existent) definitions. The only clue that I thought was a little unfair was 24ac, where “coatamundi” fits the wordplay just as well as COATIMUNDI, and it is an unusual enough word for it to have been a toss-up between the two without resort to aids. I chose right, and it was my LOI.
As far as I know (and others may correct or support me) “A” cannot be clued as “one” in the Times daily. It was certainly that conviction that stopped me going for coatamundi.
Forgot to add – COD to ELLESMERE PORT. Not hard but smooth.
Edited at 2014-04-30 10:29 am (UTC)
I got off to a bad start after shoving Staffordshire in 1a (staff=team maybe) so things rapidly got very sticky in that corner. 28.10.
One of the difficulties with 9ac is that courtesy of the theme song to the 70s TV series, so many people think that it is “Rupert, Rupert the Bear …”
Edited at 2014-04-30 11:26 am (UTC)
I had the same thought as Andy about COATIMUNDI. I went for I by association with COATI.
Edited at 2014-04-30 10:13 am (UTC)
Rupert Bear was my LOI despite having read on a Tottenham Hotspur forum this morning that if we get Frank De Boer as manager his name would lend itself to a song to the theme of the Rupert the Bear TV show.
Knob for boss made me laugh – I guessed it may be where the expression ‘one for his knob’ comes from in cribbage but I don’t think my boss would approve of me referring to him as a knob
Chambers
boss – meaning 2
noun
A knob or stud
Perhaps your boss would prefer the other definition.
Edited at 2014-04-30 12:48 pm (UTC)
Edited at 2014-04-30 08:15 pm (UTC)
I don’t know why it took me so long to get 9ac – I was trying to think of a game that would fit, but should have remembered that for the Times, the only game is RU.
Enjoyed this one (maybe because I finished it unaided unlike yesterday’s appalling dnf), but it did take an age… FOI: FOR A START; LOI: GYMNASIA
Didn’t have a problem with MINEE or MOONER.
Still don’t really understand HIPPO, and didn’t get the parsing for KNOB, so thanks for that.
I’m very much in the “enjoyed this” camp. The mooner raised a smile, codswallop is a great clue and pogo gave me a warm feeling of nostalgia – my first ever gig was The Stranglers in 1977 and whilst the jury may still be out on whether they were a punk band ot not 99% of the audience were punks that night so there was pogoing aplenty.
As has been said there were some great surface readings and I enjoyed all the wit and quirkiness so thanks to the setter from this settee at least.
Nairobi Wallah
Minor counties cricket and the dear COATIMUNDI are (only) just within the bounds of reasonableness, so I won’t repeat the rant about yesterday’s words …
“Strip of paper” a bit inelegant to describe old Rupert, but never mind. FOI IMBROGLIO, LOI RUPERT BEAR, COD has to be CODSWALLOP.
Edited at 2014-04-30 09:26 pm (UTC)
I foolishly put in “ELLESEMERE WEST”, knew it was dodgy, and then didn’t question it. Consequently, I failed completely on HIPPO despite its being obvious, and put in HYPHE in desperation, hoping that it was an obscure term related to ‘hyphen’. How stupid can one be?
COD was SEGMENTAL, simply because I had all the letters and most of the checkers but had to stare at it for an eternity before it clicked.
Apart from that, I found the rest a hard slog, taking about an hour to get that far. Maybe I just wasn’t on the right wavelength.
Despite the time taken, there is a sense of satisfaction in prevailing ultimately when it seemed unlikely.
Well done, for sticking at it – I hate to leave a crossword unfinished, or cheat, and so far have never had to, since if you put it to one side for a bit, then have another look, eventually everything will come…
I thought both this crossword and the previous day’s were excellent
24:41 for me, finally sticking for ages on CODSWALLOP (imagining a different parsing) and RAPHAEL.
In contrast with some other commenters, I thought this was a brilliant crossword, and (not for the first time) have no objection to some of the clues that others didn’t like. For heaven’s sake, it only needs a bit of lateral thinking to sort out 19dn (NOMINEE) and the “baby” in 15dn (PIANO WIRE). Sadly this is far too late for the setter to read, but I raise my hat to him (or her).
Great blog as well, Jerry. Thanks.
I suspect my blogging career may be drawing peacefully towards its close, Tony, but I have enjoyed some of the interaction very much and yours not the least.