A few clues today stretched my general knowledge. The most mysterious was the Shakespearean character that I’d never heard of; various sources suggest he might sometimes be spelled with a J or a G rather than an I.
Otherwise there were several clues where the penny eventually dropped with a delightful clink! Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle. How did you all get on?
Note for newcomers: The Times offers prizes for Saturday Cryptic Crosswords. This blog is for last week’s puzzle, posted after the competition closes. So, please don’t comment here on this week’s Saturday Cryptic.
Definitions are underlined. (ABC)* means anagram of ABC, with anagram indicators italicised.
| Across | |
| 1 | Manifestation of pride to precede fall: land here? (8) |
| AIRSTRIP – AIRS + TRIP. | |
| 6 | Beetle small with base shortened (6) |
| WEEVIL – WEE + VIL(e). | |
| 9 | A change of course we hear follows token response to strike (7-6) |
| COUNTER-ATTACK – COUNTER=token + A + (sounds like, we hear) TACK=change of course. | |
| 10 | Watch insect here shedding wings (6) |
| TICKER – TICK + (h)ER(e), “shedding wings”. | |
| 11 | Booze keeps shrew mad for musical man (8) |
| GERSHWIN – GIN=booze, “keeping” (SHREW)*. | |
| 13 | Left mate on roundabout, playing with a slide? (10) |
| PORTAMENTO – PORT=left + (MATE ON)*. Didn’t know the word, but glissando didn’t fit! | |
| 15 | What’s said when claiming many lands (4) |
| BAGS – three definitions! “Bags that one”, “bags of money”, “bags a prize”. | |
| 16 | Nurse in warm bath regularly (4) |
| AMAH – every second letter. | |
| 18 | Print from plate and table next to burning house (10) |
| LITHOGRAPH – LIT=burning + HO=house + GRAPH=table. Graph for table seemed a stretch, but it is in Collins. | |
| 21 | Leaving child constitutes misconduct (6-2) |
| GOINGS-ON – GOING + SON. | |
| 22 | Harvester in back-breaking exercise? (6) |
| REAPER – PE=exercise, “breaking” REAR=back. (PS: It’s interesting that, with the hyphen, “back” is the victim of the breaking. Without it, “back” is the perpetrator!) | |
| 23 | Self-important as Hercules on a bender? (4,3,6) |
| HIGH AND MIGHTY – HIGH=on a bender + AND + MIGHTY=like Hercules. | |
| 25 | Liner in Korean city’s sound (6) |
| INSOLE – IN + SOLE sounds like “Seoul”. | |
| 26 | Bulge in pants Mrs Grundy hides? (8) |
| PROTRUDE – PRUDE (Mrs. Grundy, for example) “hides” ROT=pants. The question mark indicates Mrs. Grundy is an example of the kind. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Shakespearean villain one with a company around him (7) |
| IACHIMO – I=one + HIM, with A CO=company around. I didn’t know the character, and was less than confident of the wordplay. Might “him” refer back to a synonym of “villain”, I wondered? No – he was the baddie in Cymbeline. I didn’t know the play either. | |
| 3 | Poor feeder, pike’s first observed in very British river (4,7) |
| SOUP KITCHEN – P in SO + U.K. + ITCHEN=river in Hampshire. | |
| 4 | Revolver found by soldiers climbing rocky peak (5) |
| ROTOR – RO=OR (soldiers) “climbing” + TOR. | |
| 5 | Model, one sure to drop dead, refused ecstasy (7) |
| PARAGON – PARA(trooper)=one sure to drop + GON(e)=dead. | |
| 6 | Battle without end to save revolutionary work in sport (5,4) |
| WATER POLO – WATERLO(O) “saving” PO=OP (work), “revolutionary”. | |
| 7 | Muse having to leave for day (3) |
| ERA – ERATO was a muse. Remove TO. Meaning as in “back in the day”. | |
| 8 | Sounding bell after time gives hint (7) |
| INKLING – (T)INKLING of a bell. | |
| 12 | Dealer carrying a book drove to meet tribe (11) |
| HABERDASHER – HERD=drove (cattle, say) “carrying” A + B, then the tribe of ASHER, one of the 12 tribes of Israel. No haberdashers in our High Street these days. | |
| 14 | One sort guzzling another quiet drink (4,5) |
| MILK SHAKE – MAKE=sort, “guzzling” ILK=sort + SH=quiet. | |
| 17 | Second heron bothered smaller waterbird (7) |
| MOORHEN – MO=second + (HERON)*. | |
| 19 | Best to clothe dancing nude looking firm (5,2) |
| TONED UP – TOP=best, “clothing” (NUDE)*. | |
| 20 | Drunk as a skunk perhaps draped round looker? (3-4) |
| PIE-EYED – a skunk for example might be PIED (black and white, like a magpie). “Drape” that around EYE=looker. | |
| 22 | One with thick skin runs in circle to corral horse (5) |
| RHINO – R=run + H=horse + IN + O=circle. | |
| 24 | Sound cut short in viscous liquid (3) |
| GOO – GOO(D)=sound, as in “good reason”. | |
IACHIMO was my LOI, and, giving up, I resorted to Chambers Word Wizard—where the name didn’t appear! So I had recourse to an alphabetical list of Shakespearean characters: “see Jachimo.” I wish I could say I got it from the wordplay—which was suddenly blindingly clear!—but of course I would still have had to check.
Special thanks for the parsing of PIE-EYED. Skunks are simply black-and-white, but I see now that only two colors are required for something to be PIED.
PORTAMENTO: Think of the two-and-a-half-octave leap of the solo clarinet that opens GERSHWIN’s Rhapsody in Blue.
IACHIMO…I, too, resorted to a trawl through a list of Shakespearian characters.
PORTAMENTO: Thank you, Guy. I have definitely learnt something new today!
I was doubtful about IACHIMO since I’d never heard of him, and the wordplay maybe allowed for some other name. But I googled him afterwards to find he was OK (being a Saturday, no immediate pink square feedback). My LOI was AIRSTRIP whichI thought was neat.
28:15
DNK PORTAMENTO or ITCHEN. Biffed PARAGON & WATER POLO, parsed post-submission; in the case of PARAGON, just before coming here. My only problem with IACHIMO was recalling him from memory; I needed a couple of checkers to bring him to mind. I liked the rather rude 26ac: a bulge in pants, even the mention of it, would be something Mrs. Grundy would want to hide.
If you select Shakespeare as one of your topics for the Yale English PhD orals, the assembled professors can quiz you on any of the 37 plays. Therefore I must have read, or at least scanned, Cymbeline, but I have absolutely no recollection of it 45 years later. Fortunately, the cryptic was obvious, and that was the one I found difficult. I knew that string portamento is typical of the orchestral styles of the late 19th and early 20th century, so in it went. I ended up with the fastest Saturday time every, 19 minutes.
73m 01s of hard but satisfying work.
FOI was ROTOR and LOI was AIRSTRIP. In between there were numerous question marks so thanks, Bruce, for HIGH and MIGHTY, PROTRUDE, MILK SHAKE and GOO.
NHO PORTAMENTO so thank you, Guy, for providing an example (Rhapsody in Blue)
NHO IACHIMO and had to resort to a list of Shakespearian characters from which it became possible to parse the word.
NHO ASHER in HABERDASHER. There is a public school in Hertfordshire which was called until recently Haberdashers Aske’s School
One of the reasons for AIRSTRIP being my LOI was I equated ‘fall’ with ‘drop’.
3d was another that had me heading up a garden path. I initially had SOUL BROTHER. B for British and Rother being my river. I think there are a total of 4 Rothers in Britain.
I thought BAGS and WATER POLO were very good but my COD to REAPER.
Decent Saturday puzzle which took me to just over the hour.
FOI 4dn ROTOR
LOI 7dn ERA
COD 22ac REAPER
WOD 25ac INSOLE brought back memories of Cambridge soccer and cricket blue Doug Insole, one of the ‘Wisden Five’ in 1955. He played for Essex and England and was later an influential administrator. The Pavilion at Chelmsford bears his name. Fine slip fielder and all rounder. He passed away in 2017 after a long innings of 91.
1ac AIRSTRIP set me up nicely for 2dn IACHIMO. We read Cymbaline in the sixth
under our English studies supremo ‘Cheese’ Winterburn. Nicknames for teachers were wonderful. We had ‘Chimp’, ‘Seedy’, ‘Cret’, ‘Scabby’, ‘Drip’ and ‘Isaiah’ The HM was ‘The Beast’. But I digress. Meldrew
“Cheese” Winterburn? The names are all quite… evocative. What an amazing memory you have. Seems I’ve repressed most of my school years.
All Our Yesterday’s.
‘Cheese’ Winterburn derived his name from a play he was in – he played the part of an Edam!; ‘Chimp’ Edwards (Physics) looked and walked like one; ‘Seedy’ Seedhouse (Biology) was self-explanatory as was ‘Drip’ Wilson (Music); ‘Cret’ Brown (Geography) referred to his flock as ‘cretins’, he was also known as ‘Yonkers’ by his ‘House’. ‘Scabby’ Scarborough (PE, RI & English) had suffered from smallpox. And ‘Isaiah’ Wortley (Latin & Football) had one eye somewhat higher than the other! Meldrew V.
The only two nicknames that come to mind from my school days are ‘Dogend’ and ‘Rhino’.
PS….Isaiah is funny but sounds a bit clever for schoolboys!
50 minutes and rather surprised to find the unknown and unlikely-looking IACHIMO derived from wordplay was correct. Another unknown was ASHER but the clue was no problem as we had numerous haberdashers in the village where I was born and raised and I was aware of the school from an early age as several of my friends at prep school went on to study there. It relocated during that period from Mill Hill to Elstree.
I went to that school, but it still took me a while to see the answer to the clue. I eventually remembered Asher from a junior school performance of ‘Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat’: there’s a song that lists Joseph’s brothers, who include ‘Nebulon, Asher and Gad’ – funny the things that stick in your mind for half a century or more.
I never got IACHIMO or ERA, and AIRSTRIP was my LOI of those I did get. Generally, I thought this was the hardest Saturday puzzle for a couple of months at least.
I had FALTEMENTO which I presume is Italian for a small error. And that led to IOCHIMA. I had all the letters but not in the right order-a bit like Eric. In fact I had IACHIMO written by the clue but it didn’t fit.
Fine apart from that.
David
I usually write my notes immediately I finish but for some reason didn’t last week. However, I have a copy and there are none of the usual pencilled question marks and exclamation marks at any of the clues, which indicates relatively plain sailing. Took around an hour. Obviously came across words NHO in IACHIMO and PORTAMENTO, but took a punt on them from the clues. Thanks, Guy, for the PORTAMENTO example, which has prompted me to dig out my old Rhapsody In Blue CD. It’s been too long…. Sighed over the recollections of a well-stocked haberdashery counter, too. Crossword and blog an all-round enjoyable experience. Thanks, all.
Similar problems here with IACHIMO and PORTAMENTO. Got both from wordplay but needed checking (for the sake of learning something new as well as making sure there wasn’t an error in the crossword).
Visited an absolutely gorgeous, traditional haberdasher’s in Clitheroe recently. My dear, the buttons! The ribbons!
Enjoyed the crossword as usual and thanks for the blog. Mr SR and I had wondered about REAPER seeming sort of backwards (appropriately enough) in the parsing, but if it’s okay with Bruce, it’s okay with us 🙂
We were in Clitheroe visiting friends only a couple of weeks ago, though we only went to food shops, sadly! But we did come away with a couple of amazing pork pies from the famous Alpes Butchers shop. In fact, it was only during a walk up Pendle that I was made aware that Clitheroe had a castle! Obviously its charms need further investigation…
That’s about a week after we were there.
We didn’t know about Alpes Buthchers (boo!) but did get some sausages from Cowmans (hurrah!).
We also went to Holmes Mill which, as fellow food-lovers, I suspect you did too 🙂
REAPER is PE in REAR, thus: REA(PE)R.
Sorry for the tardy reply; only just realised this was here.
Thanks for the explanation, Bruce.
We did see how PE went into REAR, it was just the parsing more implied the opposite. However, there have certainly been those sort of “reverse insertions” like this before.
Certainly not intended as a major criticism of crossword or blog. Both are very much appreciated.
Aha – now I see your point. I think that the hyphen makes the difference. With the hyphen, “back” is the victim of the breaking. Without it, “back” is the perpetrator of the breaking!
I have no notes about this one, but it all got completed – IACHIMO from wordplay with crossers – I haven’t (yet) read Cymbeline. I was mightily puzzled by Mrs Grundy – the only Grundys I have encountered are from The Archers and the Nursery rhyme – but deduced she was a prude from the answer when it dawned, before looking her up. PORTAMENTO was annoying, since I knew there was an alternative to Glissando, but couldn’t bring it to mind. Again, worked out from the crossers and the wordplay, once I had abandoned trying to create an anagram from ‘left’. LOI LITHOGRAPH, which was more straightforward than it had seemed to be throughout!
Old Iachimo was the only one that gave paws, as my cat always says. I trusted the easy-peasy wordplay and was rewarded, astonishingly. Nice puzzle, lots of good clues.
At my school, the local incomprehensible, they locked poor old physics man Ted Dimmer (real name) in the cupboard.
Cymbeline being the one play of the Bards that I have not read ( on advice!) – so no idea there and a bad start to an otherwise opaque (to me) set of clues. Also struggling with an alternative to GLISSANDO, but not coming up with anything; etc etc. Not my best shot….but enjoyed GOINGS ON and HIGH AND MIGHTY amongst others.
18 Across: Print from plate and table next to burning house (10)
LITHOGRAPH – LIT=burning + HO=house + GRAPH=table. Graph for table seemed a stretch, but it is in Collins.
I looked in Collins English Dictionary, 13th edition, 2021. The entry for GRAPH does not mention TABLE and the entry for TABLE does not mention GRAPH. What Collins dictionary supports GRAPH for TABLE?
[I first came across the term ‘portamento’ when learning about MIDI music files.]
It was clearly worth an eyebrow raise because I looked it up!
My Collins Thesaurus of the English Language, 3rd edition (iPad app) has:
table
noun
1 = counter, bench, stand, board, surface, slab, work surface
• I placed his drink on the small table.
2 = list, chart, tabulation, record, roll, index, register, digest, diagram, inventory, graph, synopsis, itemization
• Consult the table on page 104.
3 = food, spread (informal), board, diet, fare, kai (N.Z. informal), victuals
• She always sets a marvellous table.