Solving time: 47 minutes with quite a few bits unparsed as I began my blog. I think I got there in the end although some of it was tricky to unravel. How did you all do?
As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]. “Aural wordplay” is in quotation marks. I usually omit all reference to juxtaposition indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.
 Across |
|
| 1 | Lead to secure entrance (9) |
| SPELLBIND | |
| SPELL (lead to – e.g. that’ll spell trouble), BIND (secure) | |
| 6 | Intention to keep note about criminal organisation (5) |
| MAFIA | |
| AIM (intention) containing [to keep] FA (note), reversed [about] | |
| 9 | Space — it is awfully sterile (7) |
| ASEPTIC | |
| Anagram [awfully[ of SPACE IT | |
| 10 | Ravel’s penned unusual Slav or Czech nationalist work (2,5) |
| MÁ VLAST | |
| MAT (ravel – entangle) contains (’s penned) anagram [unusual] of SLAV. This is a series of 6 tone poems by the Czech composer, Smetana. The title translates as ‘My country / homeland’ hence ‘nationalist’ in the definition. Probably the most famous of the pieces is Vltava aka The Moldau which depicts the course of ‘the Czech national river’ from its source to its confluence with the Elbe. |
|
| 11 | Muslim ruler in Iraqi city having a change of heart (5) |
| MOGUL | |
| MOsUL (Iraqi city) [having a change of heart] becomes MOGUL | |
| 12 | Cat has run in following men, reportedly in confusion (9) |
| MAELSTROM | |
| Aural wordplay [reportedly] MAELS / “males” (men), then TOM (cat) containing R [has run in] | |
| 13 | Difficulties since introducing Greek (5) |
| AGGRO | |
| AGO (since) containing [introducing] GR (Greek) | |
| 14 | Managed company move, mostly acrimonious (9) |
| RANCOROUS | |
| RAN (managed), CO (company), ROUS{e} (move) [mostly] | |
| 17 | Help curse get resolved in mummy’s tomb? (9) |
| SEPULCHRE | |
| Anagram [get resolved] of HELP CURSE. Ancient Egypt had many tombs that might be classified as sepulchres, hence the ‘mummy’ reference. | |
| 18 | Passage from Jeffrey Archer? Stark, perhaps (5) |
| FREYA | |
| Hidden in [passage from] {Jef}FREY A{rcher}. Dame Freya Stark (1893-1993), explorer and travel-writer. I’d never heard of her but took the answer on trust. I’d have been happier never having heard of Jeffrey Archer. | |
| 19 | Measure of resistance as I am exercising west of Lambeth walk? (9) |
| IMPEDANCE | |
| I’M (I am), PE (exercising), DANCE (Lambeth walk). ‘West of’ is a juxtaposition indicator. There’s an argument that ‘walk’ should be capitalised here since it’s part of the name of a real street in London as referenced in the song Lambeth Walk and the Cockney dance of the same name. Both featured in the 1937 stage musical Me and My Girl by Noel Gay with book and lyrics by Douglas Furber and L. Arthur Rose. In the 1980s the show was revived with a new book by Stephen Fry and ran successfully in the West End, on Broadway and toured for many years. It’s reputed to be where Fry made his first million. I won’t post a link to the tune as its a real earworm and you’ll be cursing me all day. | |
| 22 | Skin gashes need iodine putting in (5) |
| CUTIS | |
| CUTS (gashes) containing [putting in] I (iodine) | |
| 24 | Retired academics returning — it has to anger me (7) |
| EMERITI | |
| IT + IRE (anger) + ME reversed [returning] | |
| 25 | Finish on note admitting end of symphony’s turned bland (7) |
| ANODYNE | |
| END (finish) + ON + A (note) containing [admitting] {symphon}Y [end of…] reversed [turned]. Handy that we had this only last Wednesday. | |
| 26 | Dated tax article includes it (5) |
| TITHE | |
| THE (definite article) contains [includes] IT. An ancient method of raising tax revenue. The proceeds sometimes went to the Church. Payment was often ‘in kind’ e.g. crops from the fields. Produce would be stored in ‘tithe barns’ some of which survive to this day. | |
| 27 | It is unavoidable, distress when given dirt about son (5,4) |
| NEEDS MUST | |
| NEED (distress), SMUT (dirt) containing [about] S (son). This appears in the proverb ‘Needs must when the devil drives’ meaning sometimes you have to do things you would rather not. | |
| Down |
|
| 1 | Mass of insects small, getting close (5) |
| SWARM | |
| S (small), WARM (close – as in warm weather) | |
| 2 | Go over need for measure of conductivity (6,3) |
| ENERGY GAP | |
| ENERGY (go), GAP (need – e.g. a gap in the market). Collins: energy gap – in physics, the difference of energy between the bottom of the conduction band and the top of the valence band of the electrons in a crystalline solid. So now I know – not! | |
| 3 | Bird landed, let out and flying low (6,3) |
| LITTLE OWL | |
| LIT (landed), anagram [out] of LET, then anagram [flying] of LOW | |
| 4 | Unawareness in school about the Muppets’ inventor entertaining one (15) |
| INCOMPREHENSION | |
| IN, COMP (comprehensive school), RE (about), HENSON (Jim, the Muppets’ inventor) containing [entertaining] I (one) | |
| 5 | Even Madge agreed: just not a good — a fantastic superstar (4,4,7) |
| DAME EDNA EVERAGE | |
| Anagram [fantastic] of EVEN MADGE A{g}REED A [just not a G (good) – i.e. only one of the G’s]. I had fun finalising the anagrist here! For the surface reading, Madge Allsop was the long-suffering, silent “bridesmaid” of Dame Edna as played on stage and TV by the actress Emily Perry. | |
| 6 | Girl accommodating six in French farmhouse (5) |
| MAVIS | |
| MAS (French farmhouse) containing [accommodating] VI (six). I had no idea what was going on here as my first port of call, Collins, doesn’t list ‘mas’, nor do the one-volume Oxfords. It’s in SOED and Chambers but the amount of foreign words not really incorporated to English that we are expected to know these days is starting to get a bit much. Also I wonder when there was last a Mavis who might reasonably have laid claim to being a girl. | |
| 7 | Shed much light in speech — it’s a skill (5) |
| FLAIR | |
| Aural wordplay [in speech]: “flare” (shed much light) | |
| 8 | Shrub one encountered right over in region of China (9) |
| ARTEMISIA | |
| I (one) + MET (encountered) + R (right) reversed [over] contained by [in] ASIA (region of China) | |
| 13 | Absorbed in thought about can having no alcohol (9) |
| ABSTINENT | |
| ABSENT (absorbed in thought) containing [about] TIN (can) | |
| 15 | Interfering in workplace, mostly dedicated but without power (9) |
| OFFICIOUS | |
| OFFIC{e} (workplace) [mostly], {p}IOUS (dedicated – devout, dutiful perhaps) [without power] | |
| 16 | All yours open initially outwards yet ours upwards (4,2,3) |
| OVER TO YOU | |
| OVERT (open), then O{utwards} + Y{et} + O{urs} + U{pwards}[initially] | |
| 20 | Grassy land in part needed for fold (5) |
| PLEAT | |
| LEA (grassy land) contained by [in] PT (part) | |
| 21 | Spin perhaps is mostly nonsense (5) |
| DRIVE | |
| DRIVE{l} (nonsense) [mostly]. One might ‘go for a spin’ in a car. | |
| 23 | You and I have sat around as one does in a sauna (5) |
| SWEAT | |
| SAT containing [around] WE (you and I) | |
An easy start with SWEAT, PLEAT, OVER TO YOU and NEEDS MUST coming quickly. Then slowed as clues became harder. Got out the bottom and then the NW corner. The NE corner was much harder. Fortunately I knew ARTEMISIA and it yielded slowly until I came to LOI MA VLAST. I had V_A_T so the choice was VLAST or VSALT. I biffed the first as VL seems to be more Czech. About 80 minutes to finish.
Thanks Jack as I had no idea of the parsing of some.
I saw Ravel and (Slav) and immediately bunged in LA VALSE, fully intending of course to go back and deal with LA_E. This led, equally of course, to minutes wasted trying to deal with 5d, 7d, & 8d. 6d was a problem anyway: DNK MAS, which didn’t look likely; and it really is a bit much; I’m pretty sure I’ve never come across it. I needed all the (correct) checkers to finally come up with DAME EDNA and force me to give up LA VALSE; I’m not sure I knew MA VLAST, although I knew the music. DNK Stark. I thought of SPELLBIND early on, but could only think of S (lead to Secure) + BIND; never saw spell=lead to.
I took WARM to be ‘getting close’, as in children’s games where ‘getting warmer/colder’ means getting nearer to/further from guessing the answer or finding the object etc. ‘close=humid’ doesn’t really mean ‘warm’.
Very good puzzle! It went a bit slowly until I gave it my full attention, and then nothing held me up very long. I saved the NHO MA VLAST for last, and was happy that my first guess turned out to be right.
I’ve seen MAS on handwritten signs in southern France. Think we’ve had it here before—if I’m not remembering a Mephisto…
I play Ma Vlast quite often, and it has been my solving music in at least two blogs. However, this is the first time it has appeared as an actual answer.
I shall remember to pay more attention to what you are listening to then!
It’s Smetana’s bicentenary this year so it’s coming up a lot. I think it’s a good thing if the Times crossword introduces people to his most famous piece. I think a lot of the people saying they’ve NHO it will recognise the movement Moldau/Vltava if they give it a quick play.
BGS?
I didn’t think I’d finish, but I did – really quite tricky. Like Kevin, I put in La Valse, but unlike Kevin I immediately erased it as nonsensical. You don’t want wrong answers in your grid! I would have been really stuck if I hadn’t been able to remember Jim Henson, even though that led me to bung in misapprehension. Oops, doesn’t parse, try again. I could not remember Dame Edna Everage, and had to work the cryptic, but on the other hand, I could vaguely recall Freya Stark.
The French farmhouse is frequently found in Mephisto, so it must be in Chambers; I’ve simply gotten used to it, along with all the other strange words from Mephisto-land.
Time: 30:40
Failed on SPELLBIND after missing spell/lead to trouble. Ma Vlast a NHO. Everything else came slowly but surely with the help of wordplay, especially ARTEMISIA. The Henson hint gave INCOMPREHENSION which led to others across. Thought the angrist for Dame Edna was well thought out to include Madge. Nice mix of biffing and scratching head.
Thanks Jack and setter.
My only problems were MA VLAST that I’d never heard of, but the wordplay left little room for anything else. And I didn’t know Lambeth Walk was a dance, but I did know IMPEDANCE (I work in electronics) so I just took it on faith that it was.
Here’s how to dance The Lambeth Walk:
1. Partners stand side by side, gentlemen on the right. Walk forward 8 steps (4 bars), swinging the arms Cockney fashion.
2.Link arms. Go round in circle, 8 steps, to left. On 3rd beat of 4th bar shout “Oi!” and give Cockney salute.
3. Side by side again. 2 steps forward 3 quick steps ditto. (1 and 2 and 1.2.3.) Repeat. (4 bars in all)
4. Face partner. Back 3 steps, close heels and……….slap knees on 3rd beat of second bar.
5. Take 3 steps towards partner and salute on 3rd beat of second bar, shouting “Oi!”
16.40 with a typo
Thought for a moment the Stark reference was to GoT but that’s Arya isn’t it?
IMPEDANCE not known and LOI but took the Lambeth dance thing on trust
Thanks Jackkt for the parsing of NEEDS MUST
Freya Stark was Queen Regent of Valyria and the only daughter of Prince Aeranyx Stark. Mother of Relaelys, Raegor, and Rhaenelyra Targaryen. Considerably better known than the Dame referenced by Jack, and under the new lowbrow rules much more likely to have been who the setter intended!
Try reading the whole sentence.
Somewhere between MA VLAST and MAS for French farmhouse I feel the Xword is gradually moving away from me. Otherwise an enjoyable, if slightly quirky and in parts solvable only by biffing (for me), work-out. Mat for ravel, drive for spin and spell for lead to went in with a shrug, so thanks Jack for explaining. It seems most people are now ignoring the first T in TfTT but I’ll stick with it, 28.
From Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream:
But the funniest thing was when I was leaving the bay
I spotted three ships sailing, and they were all coming my way
I asked the captain what his name was, and how come he didn’t DRIVE a truck
He said his name was Columbus, and I just said good luck
26:12 but 1 error
IMPEDENCE went in without parsing, resulting in one pink. I didn’t know the shrub but built it from the clue. Otherwise, this was relatively straightforward.
Thank you, jackkt and the setter.
NHO MA VLAST, and I took the vaguely remembered FREYA Stark on trust – thank goodness it was a “hidden”! The French farmhouse was another gap in my knowledge, despite sailing through my French “O” level 60 years ago (an ultimately futile exercise as I’ve barely used it since).
FOI MAFIA
LOI ENERGY GAP
COD DAME EDNA EVERAGE
TIME 9:01
Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death-
The undiscover’d country…
(Hamlet)
After 30 mins mid-brekker I met my fardels – the crossing shrub and Czech. Pity about those and some of the stretchy synonyms.
Ta setter and J
You may recall that ‘Who Would Fardels Bear?’ was the title of Ed Reardon’s only novel.
(It was adapted into the film ‘Sister Mom’ by Jaz Milvane, with the setting moved from Oldham to California and the lead taken by Sally Field.)
41 minutes with LOI a constructed MA VLAST. MAS for a French farmhouse was another unknown but it had to be Mavis, and this Oxford physicist could not have given that definition of the Energy Gap. If only I’d gone to Cambridge… But are you sure it’s not the amount we’re going to miss the Net Zero target by? COD to INCOMPREHENSION, a frequent state of mind today. Thank you Jack and setter.
40 mins but had to look up the NHO MA VLAST. Couldn’t see it. Shame because I was really enjoying it until then.
Mas was not a problem for me as I used to live in one and am still surrounded by them!
Had to work hard on a number of clues, MAELSTROM, RANCOROUS, & ARTEMISIA all made the little grey cells do overtime. ENERGY GAP was unknown but once I had the crossers it was obvious.
I did laugh at Dame Edna though.
Thanks Jack and setter. Oh, by the way, I have already got the earworm so it’s too late. Eek.
20.12, not helped by misbiffing MISAPPREHENSION. Quite a few cultural references, some lower than others.
NHO MÁ VLAST.
LOI ENERGY GAP – Physics A-Level was a long time ago.
COD DAME EDNA EVERAGE.
21.45 with a lot to chew over. Struggled for ages in the NW corner having assumed the answer was rajah – isn’t there an Iraqi town called Raqah? Fortunately, the J eventually caused a change of plan.
There’s a Raqqa in Syria.
Finished in 27:23 though NHO either MA VLAST or ENERGY GAP. Saw Me and My Girl with my then girlfriend many years ago, it was a great show.
Thanks Jack and setter
12:11, with a guess for MA VLAST at the end, on the basis that ‘ravel’ must mean ‘to tangle’ (as ‘unravel’), and ‘mat’ isn’t too far from that. Phew. Also didn’t know MAS, although its proximity to ‘maison’ helped, and MAVIS was the only name going.
SEPULCHRE was a beauty, and I loved the Muppet creator’s appearance, but found the Dame Edna clue a bit, ahem, everage. So it goes.
Thanks both.
Tricky one, I thought. You can’t drink as much wine as I do without being familiar with the word MAS, eg Mas Amiel.. but I typo’d impedence sadly. Nho Ma Vlast and I thought having mat = ravel as part of the clue was a bit much.
And Mas de Daumas Gassac.
Yes! I have a case tucked away.. won’t be ready to drink for five years at least 🙁
I bought a case yesterday too!
To my surprise, they pronounce Mas as mass rather than ma in that part of France (Languedoc).
Here in Provence, we always recognize the Parisiens when they say « ma » for mas and « Byou » for the local village (Bioux) we call « Byooks »
I have a friend who used to live in Le Gers, similar story!
I used to live in Biot near Antibes. The T is pronounced and, so, similarly we could tell the Parisians who said Bee-Oh.
That’s nothing – try having Ballachulish as your local village!
About half an hour, finishing with fingers crossed for MAVIS (where I didn’t know mas as a farmhouse) and MA VLAST (which I put in as it sounded liked it could be Czech).
– Didn’t see how lead to=spell for SPELLBIND, so thanks for the explanation
– Relied on wordplay for 18a as I hadn’t heard of FREYA Stark – like Dvynys above I was thinking of Game of Thrones
– Forgot that ‘energy’ can mean ‘go’ so wasn’t sure how ENERGY GAP worked
– Had no idea how OVER TO YOU worked and just biffed it from the enumeration
Thanks Jack and setter.
FOI Swarm
LOI Ma Vlast
COD Maelstrom
Was that really necessary?
29m 27s
This was on my wavelength, especially as ‘Vlatava’ (‘The Moldau’) from MA VLAST is one of my favourite pieces of music. I’m sure it must make expat Czechs feel quite patriotic.
No problem with the two Dames either, Freya Stark and Edna Everage. I’m sure they would have been an entertaining double act!
The one I didn’t know was MAS as a farmhouse; and I used to live in France.
Thank you, Jack.
33:47
Mas and Ma Vlast were today’s NHOs.
Thanks, jack.
30′ and quite straightforward as I sit on the runway on a flight to sunny Rhodes
17.37 with quite a few smeared entries. FREYA was one: my mind went to Cold Comfort Farm and thinking one of the Starks must have been Freya, fine except they had adder as part of the name and Freya wasn’t one anyway. I still put it in trusting that no-one would mention Geoffrey unless they needed him for a hidden. ENERGY GAP only because it fitted grid gaps and wordplay. Eventually conceded that UNCONCIOUSNESS might fit the definition (possibly better, I thought) but was Muppetless. For a shrub, ARTEMISIA did pretty well fighting for the Persians at the battle of Salamis, but still lost. I did know MA VLAST, but smudged the move from Ravel to mat. Like others, the familiar bit is Vltava, with its entirely unnecessary whump! whump! at the end.
Pleased in the end to have a clear round.
16:09. DNK MAS for French farmhouse or who FREYA Stark was. LOI ENERGY GAP, which seems to have a rather odd definition, but I couldn’t see how to get Siemens/m into the answer. Thanks Jackkt and setter.
Sailed through this in 12 minutes but then stupidly entered the alternative spelling TYTHE. COD DAME EDNA EVERAGE
MA VLAST was no problem, having taught in Prague for six months. In the Vysehrad Cemetery, where Smetana and Dvorak are buried, the
church bells play Vltava on the hour. It’s a nice idea; Pere Lachaise playing Riders on the Storm for Jim Morrison probably less so.
Thanks to Jack and the setter.
Yes, LA Woman would be much better! Or an ode from Oscar Wilde maybe?
42 mins, but needed aids for SPELLBIND. Still don’t understand clue for ENERGY GAP. NHO MA VLAST, and thanks for explaining it. Guessed it, not seeing that mat=ravel (which I think a stretch, and slightly unfair given that MA VLAST is already somewhat obscure). A strange mixture of very difficult and very easy, I thought. Odd puzzle.
Mostly filled in fairly straightforwardly, but I never understood why spell = lead to until coming here. Other things usually known, although I was unsure why energy gap = measure of conductivity. It seems extraordinary that some people have never heard of Ma Vlast — it’s so well-known — but then there are areas of music about which I’m completely ignorant. 53 minutes, with a few aids by the end because time was ticking on and I was stuck. Not that the aids helped with the Dame Edna clue — she hasn’f found her way to Chambers yet.
28:24
With fingers crossed for MA VLAST.
LOI ENERGY GAP after SPELLBIND.
Very nice puzzle, thanks setter and Jack.