Hello again. This crossword I really liked. I thought the clues clever and mainly concise, with good surface readings and just the right level of difficulty. Mr Manzoni apart, no unusual words at all, and no queries. A pleasure. What did you think?
I use the standard conventions like underlining the definition, CD for cryptic definition, DD for a double one, *(anargam) and so forth. Nho = “not heard of” and in case of need the Glossary is always handy
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Film invalid — delete freely (4,3,3,3) |
| LIVE AND LET DIE – *(INVALID + DELETE) I just wrote it in, from the enumeration and one checker.. | |
| 9 | Amusing pretty girl runs boards (5) |
| DROLL – R(uns) in DOLL. | |
| 10 | Obscene rating split half of “horsey” bores (9) |
| ABHORRENT – AB (rating, ie able seaman) + HOR(sey) + RENT, split. | |
| 11 | Finally suing after Guardian feature covers substituted child (10) |
| CHANGELING – ANGEL (guardian) in CHIN, a (facial) feature, + (suin)G. My older sister used to claim she was a changeling, when she was annoyed with us. | |
| 12 | Lavish with compliments? (4) |
| FREE – a DD | |
| 14 | Guaranteed return of some comrade Russians one’s abandoned (7) |
| ASSURED – hidden rev. as shown above, with the i removed as instructed.. | |
| 16 | Horse trainers encourage racing primarily on flat (7) |
| EVENTER – EVEN (flat) + T(rainers) E(ncourage) R(acing) | |
| 17 | Essentially potty release price for component of Windows (7) |
| TRANSOM – (po)T(ty) + RANSOM, a release price. Bits of windows and doors turn up regularly enough in crosswords, though I couldn’t say which bit this is. | |
| 19 | Adult regularly wearing pig skin (7) |
| SWINDLE – (a)D(u)L(t) in SWINE, a pig. Skin is one of a startling number of words meaning to defraud or swindle. Evidently a very popular human activity. | |
| 20 | Smell ultimate in fear that’s terrifying (4) |
| REEK – (fea)R + EEK, a word also found in last Friday’s cryptic. | |
| 21 | Barren crop in mostly fluid ground (10) |
| UNPROLIFIC – *(CROP IN FLUI(d)). | |
| 24 | Human attention beginning to be engaged by old character (9) |
| EARTHBORN – EAR (attention) + B(e) in THORN, an old character, specifically: Þ, þ .. and not to be confused with ETH, ð. How very human, to assume that “earthborn” refers only to us, and not the millions of other species we share the planet with.. | |
| 25 | Trunk’s more or less on time (5) |
| TORSO – T, OR SO | |
| 26 | Stressful period, arguably, if credit is doubled (3-4,6) |
| MID-LIFE CRISIS – Well, IF is indeed mid-lIFe, isn’t it? + CR(edit) IS IS. I really liked this clue. I had my mid-life crisis last year when I was 74, which is quite encouraging when you think about it. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Noble queen left with earl hosted by loquacious heroine (4,10) |
| LADY CHATTERLEY – LADY (noble) + L(eft) and E(arl) in CHATTERY, loquacious. Was Lady Chatterley actually a heroine? She is in the book’s title, I suppose. Discuss. | |
| 2 | Large fiddle comprises half of offences (5) |
| VIOLA – VIOLA(tions). Yes, 50% exactly. | |
| 3 | Symbolic storyteller building toy trails around houses (10) |
| ALLEGORIST – LEGO, in *(TRAILS). | |
| 4 | Tried to get connection put up on type of display? (7) |
| DIALLED – LAID (put), rev. + LED, a type of display more tellys use than not | |
| 5 | Intensify limit of humanitarian assistance, mainly in European church (7) |
| ENHANCE – (humanitaria)N + HAN (d), assistance mainly, in E CE. | |
| 6 | Mysterious closure of blood vessel (4) |
| DARK – (bloo)D + ARK (vessel) | |
| 7 | Found 10 packed in box south of river (9) |
| EXECRATED – EXE (river) + CRATED. Found to be abhorrent, in other words, as per 10ac. | |
| 8 | What might be seen as positive symbol for part of the UK (2,7,5) |
| ST GEORGES CROSS – + and – are electrical symbols for positive and negative terminals respectively. See an AA battery for example. And I think we all know these days what the cross of St George looks like. Ironic that nobody knows what St George himself looked like. Or anything else much about him.. allegedly he was a soldier in the Roman army who never came anywhere near England. As for the dragon he supposedly slew, that doesn’t appear until about 700 years after George died. You couldn’t make it up (except they did). | |
| 13 | Lawmaker on trial — so unexpected (10) |
| LEGISLATOR – LEG (on, a cricket side that isn’t off) + *(TRIAL SO). Simple once I managed to unscramble the anagrist. | |
| 15 | Instrument captured spirit (5,4) |
| SNARE DRUM – SNARED, captured, + RUM (spirit). | |
| 18 | Piece about island inhabited by unknown poet (7) |
| MANZONI – Z (an unknown, along with X and Y) in MAN (piece, as in chess piece) + ON (about) + I(sland). This was my LOI, but I would have got is sooner if I had twigged piece = man, which I always seem to be slow to do. Also, nho Alessandro Manzoni, which perhaps I should have, since Wikipedia says he wrote a book “generally ranked among the masterpieces of world literature.” (The title is at the top of this page, in case you hadn’t noticed, and means “The Betrothed.“). The book is available from booksellers and having read some of the reviews on Amazon, I’m rather tempted to acquire a copy. | |
| 19 | Way to classify alien (7) |
| STRANGE – ST (way, street) + RANGE, to classify; maybe, if you squint. | |
| 22 | Makes more stable companies (5) |
| FIRMS – a DD. Someone who firms could be making something more stable. Maybe. If you squint.. | |
| 23 | Sound spanned by Port Hudson (4) |
| THUD – hidden, as above. | |
Thanks, jerry, I’m with you in having found a lot to like today.
We must have had Manzoni before. I didn’t remember him even when I looked him up, but I did remember following a link to The Bethrothed once.
Manzoni’s only previous appearance here in an answer was in a TLS puzzle blogged in 2017.
I too had NHO MANZONI but he seemed more likely than other combinations of X/Y/Z and ON/RE/CA. Held up for a time by biffing ST ANDREWS CROSS without thinking about it enough. I took the literal to be “symbol for part of the UK” so that bit worked fine for either saint. I missed the IF part of the wordplay for MID-LIFE CRISIS but shrugged and moved on. Nice crossword.
I put ST ANDREWS CROSS first too, and the only thing that makes it incorrect is the checkers. (Edit: …Only the definition. The wordplay would be wrong.)
St Andrews Cross is a saltire, a diagonal cross, so not a positive sign.
Yes, but I took “what might be seen as positive” to be CROSS and didn’t understand the rest of the clue.
I understood your point, Paul, but was replying to Guy’s comment that ST ANDREWS CROSS would have been valid but for the checkers.
Yeah, as I vaguely recalled. And then I did look it up. My hasty remark referred only to the definition.
You robbed me of the pleasure of finding, or at least trying to find, Mr. Manzoni, which harshed my buzz toward the end. I’d read your intro on our home page before solving and was hoping you hadn’t given away an answer. Expect a stern talk from vinyl about using the Excerpt function to edit how your posts appear there.
I have added an excerpt to avoid the problem for others.
Well, I am glad to see we have a reliable editor who apparently works 24 hours a day!
I biffed my way through the top of this puzzle in good time, and then got most thoroughly stuck in the bottom. I was absolutely certain that 21 was going to start with I and end in -FUL, and I was not disabused of this notion until I biffed St. Georges Cross, not having a clue what the setter was getting at. Manzoni seemed right, even though I couldn’t place him, but upon looking him up he seems primarily to have been a prose writer.
Time: 56:39
36 minutes for this.
I reckon other creatures’ viewpoints wouldn’t include us or any other creatures, so not too bothered by the implications of EARTHBORN.
Liked it. Also expected barren to be I…FUL, confirmed (?) by FIRMS. Had ER as a queen and CHATTY for loquacious in 1dn. Missed IF = mid-life. No other problems, bar taking a minute or two to tease out MANZONI.
Yes, Jerry’s parsing doesn’t take account of “queen” in the clue.