Blogger’s nerves set in as soon as I noticed that yet again I had landed a grid with no 3- or 4-letter words, so I took a moment or two to get started. My first one in was 1dn which actually I didn’t know as an American bird but the wordplay was pretty clear. After that progress was steady and I completed it without resort to aids in 40 minutes. I noted two or three outstanding clues and lots of enjoyable references.
{deletions} [indicators]
|
Across |
|
|---|---|
| 1 | PLACE MAT – Anagram [on the loose] of CAMEL inside PAT (butter). A touch of DBE here though I suppose ‘pat’ is most commonly used in this sense with reference to butter…or dung! |
| 5 | ABOARD – BOAR (pig that mates) inside AD (notice) |
| 10 | OLD FATHER THAMES – Anagram [in new arrangement] of FOR HAMLETS DEATH. Definition: flower personified. When this came up last December I posted a link to Peter Dawson’s famous recording of the song. Here’s a lesser known version from 1933 by Bob and Alf Pearson: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/bob-alf-pearson |
| 11 | BABYLON – BABY (particular responsibility), L (Liberal), ON (acceptable) |
| 12 | RAMADAN – A{r}MADA (Spanish fleet – runs away) inside RN (British ships – Royal Navy). Definition: fast. A brilliant clue in my view. |
| 13 | BRIDGING – B (book), RID (free), GIN (spirit), G (good) |
| 15 | AFOOT – A, FOOT (Labour leader of old). Michael Foot, who held this office from 1980 to 1983 and was roundly criticised for allegedly wearing a donkey-jacket at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. His period as leader has been referred to a lot since last Thursday, but let’s not go there! |
| 18 | ERNST – TERNS (birds) with T moved to the end. Max Ernst, painter, 1891-1976. |
| 20 | FLETCHER – Two definitions, with reference to Fletcher Christian who led the Mutiny on the Bounty, and to the traditional craft of arrow-making. |
| 23 | RICOTTA – I (one) + CO (firm) inside anagram [crumbly] of TART |
| 25 | SINATRA – SIN (wrong), A, ART (skill) reversed. Frank came up only yesterday in the Quick Cryptic. |
| 26 | FAIR MAID OF PERTH – I had no idea who Catherine Glover was but I managed to biff the answer from ‘Australian blonde’ with assistance from the enumeration and one checker. I also couldn’t remember where the expression came from but was later reminded it’s the title of a novel by Sir Walter Scott, and Catherine, it turns out, is its heroine. |
| 27 | TRENCH – R (river) inside TENCH (swimmer) |
| 28 | GERSHWIN – Anagram [composed] of SWING HE R{avel}. The definition is &lit. Another really excellent clue. |
|
Down |
|
| 1 | PHOEBE – PH (Public House – as used on O.S. maps), O{p}E{n} B{e}E{r}. I didn’t know this bird. |
| 2 | ALDEBARAN – ALAN (Ayckbourn) encloses DEBAR (black – in the sense of boycotting something or someone). I rarely remember stars and other celestial bodies so I was pleased the wordplay was clear on this one. Sir Alan is still alive so we have an exception to the usual weekday rules here. |
| 3 | EMAILED – LIAM (Irishman) inside DEE (river), all reversed |
| 4 | ASHEN – AS (like), HEN (female) |
| 6 | BOHEMIA – HEMI (half) inside BOA (snake) |
| 7 | ARMED – Hidden in {Akht}AR MED{iates} |
| 8 | DISUNITE – SUN (newspaper) + IT (appeal) inside DIE (decline). Definition: part |
| 9 | PROROGUE – ‘Start of play’ is ‘prologue’ which includes two sides R (right) and L (left). The second of these changes to R to produce a word meaning ‘suspend’. There’s surely a simpler way of explaining all this! |
| 14 | INFRA DIG – IN, FR (French), A, DIG (barbed comment) |
| 16 | OVERTHROW – {l}OVER (sweetheart – topless), THROW (shy). Definition: extra – a run in cricket. On edit: There’s a discussion about cricket terminology below if you want to join in. I know very little about the game so the clue worked for me even if it’s not strictly correct. |
| 17 | RETROFIT – {leve}R, FORTE (bent – an aptitude for something) reversed, IT |
| 19 | TOTEMIC – Anagram [esoteric] of OCTET enclosing MI (note) |
| 21 | CANAPES – CAN (tin), anagram [mushy] of PEAS |
| 22 | NATHAN – TAN (beat) reversed, HAN (Chinese people). Lesser known than many of the biblical prophets, perhaps because he doesn’t have his own book. |
| 24 | CHIME – HIM (that man) inside CE (church) |
| 25 | STOLE – T (time) inside SOLE (exclusive) |
My only slight gripe is with “hint” for “first letter of” (28ac) — which I’ve been told (by Jimbo?) is conventional in the Mephisto etc. Still, the reminder of Gershwin’s famous meeting with Ravel was most welcome.
Fiendish wordplay for PROROGUE and RETROFIT — my last two in despite biffing them but not being able to parse right away. Best laff of the day, somewhat obviously given my location, was 26ac.
Slight correction (12ac): only the one R (runs) in ARMADA.
Edited at 2015-05-12 02:24 am (UTC)
10 People were killed, not one cured
and the answer was MENDED, definition cured.
I parsed it as: DEAD without the internal A, deleted by the phrase “not one”
Janie intervened with: I had MEN+D(I)ED. Can ‘were killed’ = both dead and died?
…and Ulaca concurred with: Well spotted. I think it was Zed’s deliberate mistake, as the Times daily cryptic does not allow A for one.
Now you know how long I’ve been waiting for my hurt pride to be soothed. I could also reveal how long it took to chase down that entry – try looking for “A” or “1” or “one” We do the research so you don’t have to.
“Ravel met Gershwin in New York during Ravel’s tour of the United States. In that meeting, Gershwin asked Ravel to be his teacher, to which Ravel responded that it was better to be a first-rate Gershwin than a second-rate Ravel.” [Wikipedia]
PHOEBE took me an age, as I was expecting a bird ending in -ER. DISUNITE also held me up on account of the odd rendering of the literal, with the introductory preposition serving no obvious purpose besides helping the surface make more sense.
NATHAN doesn’t really need his own book when he has an anthem devoted to him which is played every time a new monarch is crowned in the Abbey.
Edited at 2015-05-12 02:50 am (UTC)
Also didn’t know NATHAN as a prophet (thought it was the kid across the road), and managed to convince myself that there was a British politician called FLOOD (of old)*.
Not a great week for me so far, but one thing I do know is that an overthrow is not an extra.
Thanks setter and blogger.
Edited at 2015-05-12 04:38 am (UTC)
I can’t think of a sentence where extra can be substituted for overthrow, without extending the cricketing meaning of extras to include overthrows. Which it doesn’t.
Good point, Jackkt, about the not-deadness of Alan Ayckbourn. Didn’t register at the time. New policy? I hope not.
I’m sure galspray is right about the OVERTHROW. Shocking. I blame the ECB.
And maybe Kevin Pietersen.
Strangely, I put BABYLON in for 6d before I was disabused of that idea, then lo and behold it turned up in 11a. It must be the morphic resonances.
Morphic resonance is the theory of “the basis of memory in nature…the idea of mysterious telepathy-type interconnections between organisms and of collective memories within species”.
What this means of course is that the more people solve this puzzle, the more the answers are in the telepathic memory, so I was more attuned to picking up the word BABYLON from the ether because people like you, Jimbo, Sotira et al had already solved it!
I also have this bottle of snake oil which I’m told will cure everything.
Very good puzzle that was a pleasure to solve. I agree with Jack that ARMADA is excellent but how can the same setter produce 26A – a rather weak effort I thought
PHOEBE not known as a bird, and assuming the “open” just gave the O and wondering where the other letter came from
BABYLON (daddy, what’s a Liberal?), it being easy to go from BABY to “particular responsibility” but not the other way round. By the by, should London be worried now it’s got the Shard?
DISUNITE trying to fit in the FT. Got the answer several times before I spotted that it was right. Is the Sun a newspaper?
AFOOT Should have just thought about former Labour leaders rather than treating each word as a bit of crossword code. Couldn’t fit in esse for old being, for example.
Did get a bit MCC-choking-in-the-G&T about OVERTHROW. Dammit man, we all know buzzers ain’t extras.
I quite liked F M O P, even if I didn’t know she was the Glover girl.
Can’t believe I forgot flower=river.
And finally, to my fellow choristers, isn’t there a version of Zadok that starts “Zadok the priest threw up on the carpet…”? Can’t find it in internet land. Maybe it’s time we put it there.
Edited at 2015-05-12 09:00 am (UTC)
All done and dusted in about an hour. Like Galspray, I toyed with PM Flood for a while. PROROGUE (unknown) was my LOI by quite a long way. ALDEBARAN and INFRA DIG both dredged up from past crossies. Never seem to appear in ‘real life’ …
As I said, not having a great week.
“May the queen reign for ever” doesn’t sound familiar, so I’ve a feeling they stuck with “king” all the way through, but I could be wrong.
PS: YouTube appears to confirm it – though I suppose they could have dubbed in a different soundtrack.
Edited at 2015-05-12 10:30 pm (UTC)
However, this one was still pretty tricky, with a few bits I didn’t quite understand. ‘Aldebaran’ and ‘Babylon’ were just put in as the obvious answers….which they were.
Am I alone in thinking 20ac was outstanding?
Sorry Ulaca, but I reckon 16dn is just plain wrong
Some time ago I was told by a Times specialist that devices like ‘hint of X’ for the initial letter of X was never used in the Times, though it’s common enough in barred cryptics. I cannot remember who, but it might have been one of the judges in the Times clue-writing competition Obviously the rules have changed since then.
1. A for one/one for a
2. “a hint of” as initial letter
3. Live people.
It’s becoming more like the Guardian every day – and I mean that as the worst sort of insult.
Maybe just grumpy… baby as particular responsibility? Overthrow as extra? Some B*** I’d never heard of – vaguely guessed he was a Roger, “The murder of Roger Ackroyd” by Agatha Christie. Some good clues as per Times norm, but some absolute abominations amongst them.
Sack the Editor!
Rob DNF
Nick
However, I did finally get OVERTHROW despite the obfuscation, since nothing else fit. The FAIR MAID OF PERTH was equally surprising but inevitable from the checkers and wordplay. Nor had I heard of Max ERNST (I’m sure it’s mutual) – the only ERNST that sprung to mind was Ernst Mach, one of the most brilliant physicists of the 19th and 20th centuries, despite the fact that he dabbled in philosophy.
Come to think of it, there were plenty more that I didn’t know, including PHOEBE (I attributed the “O” to “open”, leaving me an E short), NATHAN (I almost had MALHAN, but decided that it must be ‘good old reliable Nathan’) and PROROGUE (I knew the L had to change, but wasn’t sure it had to change to another ‘side’).
So, all in all I consider myself lucky to have finished this one in 37 minutes. If I hadn’t, I expect I’d be grumbling about the obscurity of some of the answers, but the wordplay was generally clear enough to help out even an ignoramus like me.
My COD was either ABOARD or ALDEBARAN.
We blithely allow rivers to be defined as bankers and flowers, the sun as a setter etc etc…it’s supposed to be misleading! I’m pretty sure the setter and editor know enough about cricket – there’s at least one reference in nearly every puzzle.
Anyway, an enjoyable solve while waiting for a Full English in a caff round the corner from the station (I missed my train because of the damn roadworks and had an hour to kill, but only needed about 12 minutes for this). The Guardian put up more of a fight but was less satisfying.
L2I were DISUNITE and AFOOT (which didn’t spring to mind from the unfamiliar definition, which I assume is “being prepared” – and annoyingly FOOT didn’t come to mind as a labour leader, perhaps because he never made it to PM).
Pace linxit, I’m with those who aren’t too keen on OVERTHROW clued as “extra”.
Secondly, the reason that the uninitiated find this crossword difficult is that they don’t know what the question is and I thought the – absolutely rigid – convention here was that the answer sought was the first word or phrase or the last word or phrase. However in 28a, both the first and last words were part of the anagrind with the answer sought in between. Isn’t this breaking the rules?
The Times convention is that living people other than HMQ are not named either in clues or in answers although following the abandonment of this practice in the Sunday Times under its current editor it seems that the daily paper is prepared to break with convention on occasion, as in this puzzle. It is still unusual enough to elicit comments though.
I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean by not knowing what the question is, but 28a is an example of what has become known as an “&lit” clue, standing for “and literally so”. In these the definition is the whole clue so the “rule” about first and last words or phrases does not apply.
Edited at 2015-06-12 07:15 am (UTC)
Thank you for clearing up the matter of the non-reference to living persons in the clues. That really surprises me but it’s obviously just a false impression that I’d formed and I certainly can’t cite an actual example.
I’m even more surprised that you don’t understand what I mean by not knowing what the question is because that surely is, if not the essence of the cryptic puzzle (as opposed to the straight synonym type), surely the initial problem posed. Take 1a, for example: ‘Camel on the loose tucks into butter that sits on table’. If you showed that to someone who had never seen a cryptic crossword before they would, surely, say ‘What on earth are they asking, what are they looking for – the name of a type of camel or a runaway camel? What?’ In fact, we regulars (sooner or later) conclude that what is being sought is something ‘that sits on table’.
I have learnt from this blog what an ‘&lit’ clue is but didn’t see this as one. I saw the ‘sits on table’ element here as ‘he composed’ which is why I thought it broke the rule of the question being in the first or last word or phrase. I shall defer to your better judgement.
Thanks so much for taking the time to respond to me; as I said, a total, but very welcome, surprise.
There’s a posting above by Sotira (When Maurice met George) that explains the relevance of the reference to Ravel that supplies the missing R; of course it’s not necessary to know about this but it’s a delicious point of detail if one happens to do so and makes for a very fine clue in my opinion.
All these rules and conventions do get broken on occasion but will usually get picked up here pretty quickly.