Tricky, what? I was struggling through this, thinking I was glad that someone else would have to explain everything in a blog, when my eye was drawn to the puzzle number and I realised that poor individual was me. The August bank hol must have interfered with my internal blogging calendar. There were several unknowns and some beastly wordplay.
First in was GHANA and last was SANHEDRIN.
If any of my explanations don’t make sense then feel free to ask for further elucidation.
The technical stuff:
Clues are in blue (unless you’re in dark mode) with the definition undelined. Anagram indicators are in bold italics.
Notation:
DD: Double definition
CD: Cryptic definition
DDCDH: DD/CD hybrid where a straight definition is combined with a cryptic hint.
&Lit: “all in one” where the entire clue is both definition and wordplay.
(fodder)* denotes an anagram of the letters in the brackets.
Rounded brackets are also used to add further clarity
Squiggly brackets {} indicate parts of a word not used
Deletions are struck out
Square brackets [] expand an abbreviation or shortening like B[ishop]
| Across | |
| 1 | Criminal gangs redirect delivery for an occasion (9,4) |
| GREETINGS CARD – (gangs redirect)* | |
| 8 | In two languages, pasta and chips (no joints) (9) |
| MACARONIC -MACARONI, Chips. Relating to poetry, mainly. | |
| 13 | Order this sort of pie? (5) |
| APPLE – Sort of DDCDH based around “apple pie order” | |
| 14 | Be able to appear respectable: cancel being in court, or part of it (5,2,4) |
| SCRUB UP WELL – SCRUB, UP, WELL (the open space in the middle of a courtroom) | |
| 15 | Chinese invading borders of Georgia and another land (5) |
| GHANA – HAN in G{eorgi}A | |
| 16 | What dog owners may need exhausts the shop (4,5) |
| POOP SCOOP – POOPS, CO-OP. CO-OP for shop cropped up in another puzzle the following day. Not a clue you want to have to solve the day after you’ve had your dog put to sleep 🙁 | |
| 17 | With compost round, one gets impressive display of colour (4) |
| RIOT – ROT around I | |
| 18 | Persecutor almost looks to turn sweet (5-3) |
| BULLS-EYE – BULL{y}, EYES reversed | |
| 20 | A god was relaxing with some pot (6) |
| SATURN – SAT, URN | |
| 21 | All that cocaine’s mixed with Ecstasy: it takes away the pain (5,11) |
| LOCAL ANAESTHETIC – (all that cocaine’s E[cstacy])* | |
| 24 | Muriel maybe is about due to return for some preparatory effort (9) |
| SPADEWORK – SPARK around OWED reversed. I thought a Muriel was going to be some unknown plant. | |
| 26 | What one may do to rear? (5,2) |
| BRING UP – this a sort of one-and-a-half in one. You can bring up the rear, and to rear is to bring up. | |
| 27 | Good bed’s ornamental edging (5) |
| PICOT – PI, COT | |
| 29 | Hospital: uncle without uniform, having changed — into these? (5,7) |
| PLAIN CLOTHES – (hospital uncle)* | |
| 31 | An excellent article on puppet regimes linked to America (6,4) |
| DOLLAR AREA – A RARE A after DOLL. I didn’t know this term. | |
| 33 | Always no hurry, when in the world (3,3,4) |
| ALL THE TIME – if you have all the time in the world you’re not in a hurry | |
| 35 | Memento mori embraced as an alternative (5,7) |
| DANSE MACABRE – (embraced as an)* | |
| 38 | Hour to get sheep inside chopper (5) |
| HEWER – H[ou]R around EWE | |
| 39 | Married, Romeo at first improved (7) |
| RALLIED – ALLIED afrer R[omeo] | |
| 40 | Perhaps this in volume in party, say, to get sloshed (3,2,4) |
| VIN DU PAYS – V[olume], IN, DUP (N.I. political party), (say)*, semi &Lit | |
| 42 | Piece of legislation is bad — incarcerates a lot (4,9,3) |
| RACE RELATIONS ACT – (incarcerates a lot)* | |
| 44 | Composer’s work used in feature (6) |
| CHOPIN – OP[us] in CHIN | |
| 47 | The charm of Orientalism, any piece (8) |
| TALISMAN – hidden | |
| 49 | God only half assiduous (4) |
| THOR – THOR{ough} | |
| 50 | High quality chess victory for another person in form (9) |
| CLASSMATE – CLASS, MATE | |
| 52 | Clumsy Russian author being recited (5) |
| GAWKY – sounds like GORKY | |
| 53 | Reinforcement of love, overcoming resistance with some silver, perhaps (6,5) |
| ARMOUR PLATE – AMOUR around R[esistance], PLATE | |
| 54 | Warmer in East London for swimmer (5) |
| OTTER – How a chirpy cockney would say HOTTER | |
| 55 | Knot hurt — asked for loosening (5,4) |
| TURKS HEAD – (hurt asked)*, you can use one to make a woggle | |
| 56 | Charitable governors add ancient family members to tree (5,8) |
| ELDER BRETHREN – BRETHREN on ELDER | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Football fixtures that are unfairly moved? (9) |
| GOALPOSTS – DD verging on DDCDH | |
| 2 | Abandoned conspiracy retains one achievement (7) |
| EXPLOIT – EX PLOT around I | |
| 3 | Given bum steer, encourage one to attack the crown? (4,7) |
| TREE SURGEON – (steer)*, URGE ON | |
| 4 | With surprised expression, boy turns up? He doesn’t (2-4) |
| NO-SHOW – reversal of W[ith], OH, SON | |
| 5 | In which to stick boxing memorabilia? (9) |
| SCRAPBOOK – rather a neat CD | |
| 6 | One strolling across hill in the morning: one’s risky on the road (5,7) |
| AMBER GAMBLER – AMBLER around BERG A.M. In case this purely British slang, this refers to drivers who shoot through traffic lights when they’re on amber, about to go red. I know the light sequence we have isn’t the same as in other countries. | |
| 7 | Lowers head leaving the country, with all-consuming compulsion? (10) |
| DIPSOMANIA – DIPS, rOMANIA | |
| 8 | Air of excitement initially rising in excavation (4) |
| MIEN – E{xcitement} moving up from the end of MINE | |
| 9 | Part of paper suggesting hair dye? (6,10) |
| COLOUR SUPPLEMENT – DDCDH | |
| 10 | Magnificent plate put on table at intervals (5) |
| REGAL -REG (car registration / number plate) + {t}A{b}L{e} | |
| 11 | Most elegant to take meals in home? (7) |
| NEATEST -EAT in NEST | |
| 12 | Yellow little house and ground (6,7) |
| CRAVEN COTTAGE – CRAVEN, COTTAGE, home (football ground) of Fulham F.C. | |
| 19 | Optimist’s painful emotion at bereavement (8) |
| PANGLOSS – PANG, LOSS. We “did” Volataire’s Candide in ‘A’ Level French so the good doctor is well known to me. The best of all possible worlds, and that. | |
| 22 | One talking up a sort of market? (5) |
| HYPER – DDCDH | |
| 23 | Alarmed at flying fragments pictured all round, result of military blunder? (10,6) |
| COLLATERAL DAMAGE – (alarmed at)* in COLLAGE. “Fragments pictured” is excellent. | |
| 25 | Suddenly a bill, smaller than expected? (2,1,4) |
| AT A BLOW – A TAB LOW | |
| 28 | Some innards in sauce rebranded as “brains” (7) |
| CEREBRA – hidden. Very well hidden as it happens. I was trying to put something like {s}OM{e} in an anagram of sauce. | |
| 29 | Devote energy to game together, woman leaving to toy with beau? (4,4,2,3) |
| PLAY HARD TO GET – PLAY HARD, TOGETher | |
| 30 | Pattern of headgear commonly found in centre of worship (8) |
| TEMPLATE – ‘AT in TEMPLE | |
| 32 | Patterned container, coloured, to hold football kit (5-7) |
| CANDY-STRIPED – CAN, DYED around STRIP | |
| 34 | One employing personnel without strong emotion (5) |
| HIRER – H[uman] R[esources] outside IRE | |
| 36 | Having to go suddenly, thought cars unreliable (6,5) |
| CAUGHT SHORT – (thought cars)* | |
| 37 | Big building accommodates you in very large superstructure (5,5) |
| PILOT HOUSE – PILE around O[ut]S[ize] around THOU. Tricky to unravel, expecially as U on its own can be YOU. | |
| 40 | Committee member failing check on appearance (4-5) |
| VICE-CHAIR – VICE, CH[eck] AIR | |
| 41 | Council nursing home man given inadequate fluid (9) |
| SANHEDRIN – SAN[atorium], HE, DRINk. San makes me think of bath chairs. The supreme council and tribunal of the Jews during postexilic times, whatever than means. | |
| 43 | Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, latterly perhaps a very tense period (4,3) |
| COLD WAR – DD or DDCDH | |
| 45 | Equivocate, holding Saint David wrote this (7) |
| PSALTER – PALTER around S[aint]. I think this clue escaped from Mephistoland. Psalter is The Book of Psalms. | |
| 46 | Nurse, around the end of extensive working life (6) |
| CAREER – CARER around E{xtensive} | |
| 48 | The way indeed to get infections (5) |
| STYES – ST[reet], YES | |
| 51 | Surrounded by help, Mike pitched in (4) |
| AMID – AID surrounding M[ike] | |
DNK ELDER BRETHREN, SCRUB UP WELL, AMBER GAMBLER, CRAVEN COTTAGE. It’s not likely that David wrote the Psalms, but the clue was something of a giveaway. VIN DU PAYS was my LOI (and my COD), but only because it took me so long to parse it; my real LOI was CEREBRA of all things; once again my inability to spot a hidden comes into play..
My dad supports Fulham (alas!)
CRAVEN COTTAGE was once full of class
Georgie Best, Bobby Moore
Rodney Marsh, (saw him score)
Through the GOALPOSTS the ball had to pass
Just scraped in within the two hours. DNK SANHEDRIN or PALTER. I enjoyed AT defined as headgear commonly, which took me a moment to see. LOI PILOT HOUSE, one of several that took time to assemble. Nice crossword
I found ‘commonly’ on the offensive side; are Eastenders ‘common’?
is it not “common” to drop your aitches? Our cockneys (and anyone else) would have to be quite sensitive (or woke perhaps) to find it offensive
I wish I could remember the (English) sociologist’s comment on the British bourgeoisie’s use of ‘common’ as a disparaging term (‘She was common, flirty, looked about thirty’), a use one doesn’t find in American English. To answer your question, no. I somehow suspect that ‘your’ cockneys would actually find it offensive to be labeled “considered by the speaker to be low-class, vulgar, or coarse” (Collins, sv ‘common’ 7) or “(Brit) showing a lack of taste and refinement supposedly typical of the lower classes; vulgar” (ODE sv ‘common’ 3)
Hmm. ‘Common’ people all over the country drop their aitches, cockneys drop their aitches, but that doesn’t mean that cockneys are (or are being called) common.
I did look up common but only after I had posted, and found the definitions you quote. Much more offensive than I had expected. So yes.
There are other definitions, but none that quite square with my thought that it was just the opposite of posh
Instead Cockneys call themselves the ‘Salt of the Earth’. Attitudes changed in September 1940 when King George Vl and his wife Queen Elizabeth visited the East End of London, which had suffered the first night of ‘The Blitz’. The Queen in her finery, addressed the assembled ‘Sparrers’, with the words, “Were all in this now!” This endeared her to the Cockneys and the rest of Britain until her passing many years later. Prior to that the uncrowned King Edward Vlll and Mrs. Simpson had brought the reputation of the Royal Family to a pretty low ebb.
‘Gawd bless ’er Madjesty!’sums it up.
I found this extremely difficult at first, but then picked up speed as the checkers from one answer helped me with the next until the grid was full. I got lucky with PILOT HOUSE, which went in based purely on the fact that the word PILOT fitted the checkers and it looked like it might be a term for something or other. I thought ‘you in very large’ was indicating OUS and unsurprisingly couldn’t figure out the rest. Less lucky with SANHEDRYN, thinking ‘given inadequate fluid’ must be DRY and failing to notice that I had an N unaccounted for.