Overall I think this crossword could pass as today’s, if you see what I mean. I would have solved it the first time round, though no memories surfaced, and there will be others no doubt who can say the same. I thought it on the harder side of average, with some reasonably demanding GK and vocab. requirements, and there are a couple of clues I’m still a bit unsure about.
I have tried to fit in with the modern vogue for giving the clue as well as the answer and analysis. It has taken me a fair bit longer to do the blog as a result, as it wouldn’t fit the template I use.. but no doubt that can be corrected. Do folks prefer seeing it this way?
cd = cryptic definition, dd = double definition, rev = reversed, anagrams are *(–), homophones indicated in “”
ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online
Across
1. Perhaps carpet worker’s collective has the right answer (6)
Turkey – TU + R(ight) + KEY
4. Halt, a jam involving Marble Arch in a big way (3-5)
Taj Mahal – *(halt a jam)
10. Reject sport in key vote to show religious respect (9)
genuflect – sport = FUN rev. in key (of) G + vote = ELECT
11. Grow this plant in the tropics – the Scots cannot (5)
canna – a dd, one being a pretty herb of tropical origin, which I was unfamiliar with but that goes for most plants I’m afraid
12. These bets are pitched a bit high (7)
trebles – a cd, trebles being schoolboy voices and also a type of bet. Not to mention a type of drink, too..
13. Noted factor in chemical test substance (7)
reagent – a note, RE as in doh, mi etc + AGENT, a factor.
14. American cigarette end with prime tar rating (5)
abuse – prime tar = AB (able-bodied seaman) + US + (cigarett)E. Rating someone, in the sense of ranting at or abusing, is a meaning I knew though it feels rather antique
15. Jobs for the boys, to stop mine running wild (8)
nepotism – *(TO STOP MINE)
18. All told, twice (3,5)
sum total – three times, really, since each component as well as the whole means the same
20. Expletive as heard before 9’s last part in opera (5)
ruddy – a reference to the Gilbert & Sullivan opera Ruddigore, meant as a homophone but in fact the original title was Ruddygore
23. Sort of broker with an evil appearance (7)
unclean – the broker is a pawnbroker, ie UNCLE, + AN. Is the def. a bit loose, perhaps?
25. Tooth powder manufacturer (7)
grinder – a dd
26. Some climb Eiger to get a tan (5)
beige – hidden in climb eiger
27. Sob brokenly – the city within a city is in darkness (9)
obscurity – *(SOB) + city = UR in CITY. Also a bit loose, since the Ur presumably referred to no longer exists.. old should be in there somewhere
28. When the heat’s on – in tennis set, that is (8)
nineties – IE in *(TENNIS). A reference to a hot day, as described using a former temperature scale named after a Mr Fahrenheit, m’Lud..
29. Scowling schoolboy (6)
beetle – I struggled with this. Beetle-browed scowling I can follow but I still don’t understand the schoolboy bit. I wrote it in with some trepidation but it seems to be correct. on edit: a reference to one of the “& co” in Kipling’s “Stalky & Co.” Thanks to bigtone53. The character of Beetle is said to be partly based on Kipling himself.
Down
1. Pickled stuff for a miser (8)
tightwad – pickled = drunk = TIGHT + WAD. Wad can be a verb, you couldn’t fire a musket without doing it… or it could be a noun here too I suppose, slang for money
2. Poem composed around Elizabeth the First (7)
rondeau – *(AROUND + E). A poetic form I know nothing whatsoever about, even after reading the Wiki entry..
3. Splendid eastern sail to windward coming up, man (9)
effulgent – E + LUFF rev., + GENT. To luff is to sail to windward, as all Hornblower fans will know. Effulgent is itself not a common word, so there may be some mutterings about that
5. Nothing improper about his subject, decreed Pope (14)
anthropologist – I wrote this in happily enough, assuming it must some sort of literary reference involving Alexander Pope. But I haven’t found one yet.. on edit: bigtone53 is on fire in a literary sense, and points out that Pope’s poem Essay on Man says that.. sort of
6. Doctor the tea and get coffee? (5)
mocha – doctor = MO + CHA = tea
7. Hams squatters live on (7)
hunkers – hams = hunkers (apparently!) and one hunkers down on them, does one not? Slightly odd clue
8. Penthouse for thin couple, say (4-2)
lean-to – sounds like “lean two.” Those of us that thought a penthouse was anything but, will be surprised to note (from Collins): “a shed built against a building, esp one that has a sloping roof”
9. Result of severing London borough’s traffic artery? (10,4)
Kensington Gore – a jocular cd, referring to the two London streets of that name, formerly part of the Gore estate.
16. Depravity no bar to 22’s sanctimonious duet, somehow (9)
turpitude – TUR(ban) + sanctimonious = PI + *(DUET). It’s always moral turpitude, for some reason..
17. Poet’s boast, heard in blank verse presumably (3-5)
eye-rhyme – sounds like “I rhyme.” Words that look as if they should rhyme but in fact don’t, hence the need for it to be blank verse.. It turns up quite often – a search of TfTT found 60 responses.
19. You’ve got oil on tunic, clumsy! (7)
unction – *(ON TUNIC). Unction is usually extreme… extreme unction being what you get when they don’t expect you to last the day out
21. “Yes, yes” say the Russians, “It’s awful – shocking artist!” (7)
Dadaist – DA + DA + *(IT’S). One theory is that the term originates from da, da, which is yes, yes in the Romanian language as well as in Russian
22. Origin of the town hat (6)
turban – T(he) + URBAN. Not sure I would equate turban and hat myself, but Collins says it’s OK
24. Bring into play, as river king, leading Thespian (5)
exert – river = EXE + R(ex) + T(hespian)
Edited at 2014-06-11 07:31 am (UTC)
Spent far too long on this to go though it all in detail again now but it was only just about do-able as far as I was concerned. Didn’t get the Pope ref either and still can’t find TURKEY as a carpet though it’s not much of a stretch from ‘Turkish’ which is familiar. I think we need a mention of “KENSINGTON GORE” as stage-speak for fake blood in order to fully understand 9 and 20.
On blog format, I think we reached a consensus that putting clues in the daily 15×15 blog is not worth the trouble, but it’s useful for the weekend prize puzzles when solvers have long forgotten the details and may not have a printout to refer to.
Edited at 2014-06-11 07:42 am (UTC)
I suppose that, although countries modifying rugs typically take the form of adjectives, by analogy with other geographical locations (eg towns – Axminster, Wilton), a case can be made for the use of the noun modifier.
‘Now, you have heard a lot of talk about the work in our mills, no doubt. You have? Very good. I’ll state the fact of it to you. It’s the pleasantest work there is, and it’s the lightest work there is, and it’s the best- paid work there is. More than that, we couldn’t improve the mills themselves, unless we laid down Turkey carpets on the floors. Which we’re not a-going to do.’
Funny how the image of the Victorian mills covered with Turkey carpet has stuck, so that was an easy clue for me.
Ulaca (on the wife’s plod)
To expand on Bigtone’s comment, in his Essay on Man, Pope wrote ‘The proper study of Mankind is Man’.
I suspect I’m just very attuned to the modern Times style, and the only other puzzles I do regularly are Mephisto and Azed, which are also very Ximenean. It seems that even a slight variation throws me off dramatically. I should probably make a point of doing the Guardian a bit more regularly.
I thought 5dn might be a reference to something Pope John Paul II said about anthropology in the 70s or 80s. Just from a quick google it seems he took a certain interest in the subject but it seems clear that I was barking up the wrong pope.
Edited at 2014-06-11 08:12 am (UTC)
On the other hand there were clues like 4ac: it’s very simple but you wouldn’t see ‘involving’ used like this these days and that threw me off completely for a while. The definition is also rather loose.
Edited at 2014-06-11 08:47 am (UTC)
rednim
On the Qualifier, I believe we are supposed to remain shtum on the time it takes us on the grounds that (especially with your time!) it might discourage slower solvers form entering, thus depriving the Times of several £15 entry fees. I take it you solved on paper – as you’ll see from local correspondence, access is by an arcane method that the Times wants to hide. Perhaps you have to know a special handshake.
As far as the obscure bits go, I think that by the mid-80s the style had reached a point where the language of the clues isn’t that different to one you might see today, but the expected knowledge of solvers remained rooted in an earlier age (I can’t find a citation right now, but I think an early crossword editor summed it up by saying the Times puzzle should be easily accessible to a senior civil servant i.e. a man who’d been to public school and studied an arts degree at an appropriate university; I don’t think “diversity” was a word much used in his circles). I got 29ac fairly quickly, but there again, I went to a school where Stalky & Co. was less a historical curiosity and more a manual for contemporary living.
P.S. My 2d is that I don’t think we need the clues reproduced for daily puzzles. I’d have thought most people come here soon after solving, when the puzzle is still fresh in the mind or physically available, and personally I find this format much harder to read.
Ulaca