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) + ER (queen), L(eft) and E(arl), in CHATTY, 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. [No squinting needed: see Postmark’s comment below ..] | |
| 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.
Thanks, jack. The puzzle is my usual source of slightly esoteric cultural GK, but I guess I came across him somewhere else.
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.
Corrected, thanks.
I’ve altered the parsing .. the Earl has to be accounted for as well as the queen.
Still hasn’t come right – it’s ER+L+E in CHATTY.
! And the clue was so easy to solve…
50 mins. Stuck on EARTHBORN/MANZONI (NHO) and EXECRATED for ages. The I bunged in TRUE for 12ac not getting it at all. Bah!
I did enjoy the long clues, and hesitated before plumping for George rather than Andrew.
Thanks JerryW and setter.
25 minutes.
– Can’t recall seeing a reverse hidden with a letter removed as used for ASSURED
– ST GEORGES CROSS went in with a shrug
– Didn’t know MANZONI so had to hope that Z was the right letter for ‘unknown’
– Not quite sure how classify=range for STRANGE
Thanks Jerry and setter.
FOI Reek
LOI Manzoni
COD Legislator
To classify is the third verbal def of ‘range’ in Chambers and the second in Collins so the setter’s on solid ground. Collins even gives an example of usage with ‘she ranges herself with the angels’.
Agree with your first point-hope this doesn’t become standard practice.
Beaten by the MANZONI/EARTHBORN cross. NHO of the former, and realised it was a name I didn’t know and wouldn’t get. Made the latter harder. I’m also unsure how classify=range, but hey.
8:35. No major problems and quite a lot of biffing. I don’t remember coming across MANZONI before but I had heard of his most famous work so I guess I must have done.
I did think of piece = MAN in 18d – but read the WP as putting that around an island containing N,X, Y or Z so made no progress until the final checker came from the CRISIS below. Some very smooth clues with some typical ‘Timesian’ (should that be ‘temporal?) constructions.
Thing I learned today – that prolific can simply mean reproductive. I was only familiar with the abundantly productive meaning and ‘barren’ seemed rather a harsh definition. EVENTER, LEGISLATOR and ALLEGORIST my faves today. Pretty much bang on 30 minutes, having expected faster after a quick start.
Thanks to blogger and setter
22.12 (with NHO MANZONI a complete guess).
As one might say when listing the advantages of being English, “Our flag is a big plus”.
COD ST GEORGE’S CROSS
LOI MANZONI
21’14”. Liked MID-LIFE CRISIS.
St George was half-Palestinian, was executed there, and is the patron saint of various countries. Do the lamppost-climbers know this?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27048219
Patron saint of Moscow, which comes as a surprise to most…
I plumped for St George but it was only crossers that rejected Andrew. LOI MANZONI entered more in hope than expectation. The ABHORRENT linkage to EXECRATED only came after I had to put the crossword down for ten minutes to answer the door. A toughish one. Thank you Jerry and setter.
33:00
Pleasant puzzle. NHO Manzoni, so a lucky guess with the Z.
Thanks, Jerry.
Verdi’s Requiem is dedicated to Manzoni
I have also NHO Manzoni – but it essentially had to be that.
Also NHO a TRANSOM, but again there was no other option once I saw ‘release price’.
FREE for ‘lavish’ seems a bit loose to me. That was my LOI, with EXECRATED as the POI giving me the R.
I enjoyed the puzzle which fell steadily into place.
‘He was a bit free with his hospitality’
As our blogger says, a really nice crossword. But I went wrong by putting in EARTHLING and invented a poet called MANZINI, NHO the right one. That made STRANGE STRAGNE so came here to be put right on the poet. UNPROLIFIC looked like a made up word to me.
I’ve been reading up on Iceland, where I’m holidaying soon, they still seem to use those ancient characters like ETH and THORN, in Old Norse.
The language spoken in Iceland today is, in essence, Old Norse. They haven’t seen any reason to change anything, and it’s not like they get a lot of immigrants introducing new words.
Enjoyed this puzzle and all correctly completed bar “Manzoni”, which I have never encountered, and “free” which, on reflection, was gettable.
Range and classify aren’t obvious synonyms for me but can see it listed.
Thanks to both our blogger and setter.
32:26 where I was defeated by the nho of TRANSOM although my guessed TRANSUM was close. Ransom=release price seems obvious in hindsight (don’t they all?) so a little bit gutted.
Still not sure I fully understand ST GEORGES CROSS but obvious from checking letters.
I got LIVE AND LET DIE from the enumeration. That film seems to have more than its fair share of appearances.
EARTHBORN my COD
Thanks blogger and setter
Yes, I’m still none the wiser on ST GEORGES CROSS. But everyone seems to think it’s brilliant, so I must be missing something?
Since the cross is a large red plus sign, essentially, you could regard it as a positive symbol, since plus is positive and minus negative. That’s all it is, but still think it’s a clever surface.
3 short.
NHO MANZONI, and with Island = MAN, IS or I, and X,Y, Z to consider there were too many options.
Also missed FREE, which I was convinced started with W(ith)
My thanks to JerryW and setter.
I found it a bit puzzling, being on several occasions unsure that the “right” answer fully worked, but then I do miss quite a lot.
I was worried, rightly, by 8d where I had St Andrews Cross rather than George’s, which is a multiplier not an adder.
24a Earthborn, VHO perhaps, but I had to check it. Wiktionary just has “Born or produced on the planet Earth” so not particularly human.
26a Mid-life; liked the IF clue.
1d Lady C, I too was offput by “heroine”.
7d Execrated, I somewhat execrate linked clues.
13d Legislator biffed, thanks JerryW.
18d NHO Manzoni, added to Cheating Machine.
29:53. A fun solve, and the first time I’ve felt vaguely on the ball in over a month. NHO MANZONI but will look him up. I thought everything was fair and clearly enough signposted.
21.04, faltering on UNPROLIFIC, which looks made up, and my last, FIRMS, where I thought FARMS was possible – in a way they’re stable companies, and I can squeeze “makes more” out for farms. Luck guided my submission.
I initially thought EARTHLING would be OK, though the wordplay didn’t enable it, but since I already had entered the delightful CHANGELING that was unlikely. EARTHBORN seems an uncommon epithet, but we are, after all, a quintessence of dust as well as all the loftier stuff.
No other crosses occurred to me: I’m in Farage country and the “patriots” have been out in force. Be nice if they did something about the untidy tatters of flag that still flutter miserably from our lampposts.
Liked this a lot, and thanks to Jerry and the Worshipful Company of Commentators!
15:30
L & L D straight in, CHANGELING biffed, MANZONI NHO, MER at range, didn’t know EARTHBORN (like Z considered E-LING). Pretty much par for the course then.
How did your MLC manifest itself Jerry?
Slowed by inability to get EXECRABLE out of my head despite knowing it ti be wrong, which logjam was broken on getting EVENTER, a beautifully misleading surface (as is SWINDLE). I tried MANZINI as the poet but there isn’t one (so a technical DNF as I used aids). Finally biffed MANZONI without seeing the piece=MAN thing. Enjoyable!
Really nice puzzle – thanks setter and Jerry for the blog.
The reverse hidden at 14a had a letter omission – comraDE RUSS (i)Ans – to give ASSURED. This was the first time I remember seeing a letter omission in a hidden answer. Has this happened before?
I was familiar with TRANSOM from dinghy sailing – the end of the boat that the tiller (rudder) is attached to.
LIVE AND LET DIE went in as soon as I wrote the anagrist down. Made good progress until I got to the RHS. A biffed ST ANDREWS CROSS made FREE and SWINDLE ungettable as I was fixated on the pig being a SOW instead of a swine. EXECRATED took an age until I realised it was a cross reference to 10a. EARTHLING held up the construction of MANZONI until I noticed that STRANGE had become STRAGGE. Eventually I realised that I needed GEORGE rather than ANDREW and I breathed a sigh of relief when the grid was all green after submission. Sadly 43:09 had elapsed by then. Not my finest hour. Thanks setter and Jerry.
No great problems, just general slowness on a nice crossword. MANZONI was no problem because I learned as a teenager that Verdi’s Requiem was a requiem for M. In 2dn is a VIOLA a large fiddle? I thought it was only a little bit larger than a violin. Wikipedia confirms this: it is hardly ‘large’. With my name I had little trouble with 17ac.
The viola certainly a fair bit larger than a violin in practice. I don’t think you could confuse them if you saw them together.
DNF in 19
Had all the checkers for the CROSS apart from the E in GEORGES which unfortunately permitted ANDREWS. Could make neither head nor tail of _R_N for FREE (understandably) so gave up and came here to find out why I was going mad (as jobs to do).
No problems with rest and some nice clues (MLC for example). Thanks Jerry as well for the usual erudition.
Lots of us seem to have gone for Andrew, but why!? Are we not being constantly reminded of George? And he has the unbeatable advantage of being + not X..
With Italian names, it will of course be a ‘z’ so the other unknowns x and y don’t apply, that’s how I cracked Manzoni. As for transom, it’s one of the church features apart from nave, apse etc. About 40 minutes.
A pleasant exercise, all done in 42 minutes, though it did include a lot of answers which were biffed first and unscrambled afterwards, when I prefer to do it the other way round. At 18dn I had M_N____, and was expecting the answer to be MONTALE, as he is known for his poetry, unlike Manzoni who is more prominent as a novelist and playwright. But MANZONI it had to be or else the rest of the SW would collapse.
FOI – TORSO
LOI – MANZONI
COD – SWINDLE
Thanks to Jerry and other contributors.
An enjoyable puzzle completed in 51.15. I was surprised to see so many solvers initially went with ST ANDREWS CROSS. At least I had a good excuse for it ! Spent a fair bit of time closing up with EARTHBORN and finally MANZONI with fingers crossed.
Utterly defeated by the SW. NHO Transom and could not manage ransom from the wordplay. NHO Manzoni and without the M was never going to decipher the wordplay. Earthborn mystified me – I was looking for Earthman that did not fit or Earthling that would have made Strange wrong. Had to look up Earthborn in a dictionary – totally counterintuitive to me as not everything born on Earth is human. NHO Thorn so that wasn’t helping me either.
Other than that, enjoyed this today.
Thx Jerry and setter
Not everything born on Earth is human but every human is born on Earth
Exactly my experience. Plus throw in unprolific, NHO which even guessing might be an anagram, I couldn’t guess which ‘mostly’ it meant. And (if i had even suspected it might be a word) I would have assumed unprolific meant ‘not abundant’ – not as extremely sparse as ‘barren’.
A fun puzzle with plenty of good clues. I found it fairly tough, it took me 33 mins. I can’t remember meeting EARTHBORN before. I was held up in the end by UNPROLIFIC and ST GEORGE’S CROSS (last one in). I used to play the VIOLA – it IS a large fiddle (which I also used to play)! Among a lot of fine clues, my personal favourites were to LIVE AND LET DIE and FREE. Thank you to Setter and Blogger.
There used to be a lot of very unfair jokes about people who played the viola, which actually has a lovely sound. There is a beautiful viola concerto by William Walton, for instance.
I haven’t got a time for this one, as it was done during brief breaks from work, but it was certainly tougher than Monday’s and yesterday’s. I liked EVENTER but still don’t really understand how ST GEORGE’S CROSS works!
I made hard work of this. Not helped by entering LIVE ANT LET DIE which made DIALLED very hard to find. Just short of 40 mins.
Thanks to Jerry and our setter.
After getting to be glib about CADDY yesterday, I get to be humbled by the complete lack of British cross-symbol knowledge. Once I had enough crossers, I threw in ST CHARLES CROSS because it was the first name I thought of that would fit. Is there such a thing as a St. Charles Cross? No! But you could fill in any Englishman’s name there and ask me “is _that_ one a cross?” and I’d be left shrugging. Anyway, I picked the wrong gentleman and never revisited it, which screwed me on 12a.
24 mins but OWL with MANNONI. I’d thought of “man” for “piece” but stupidly wanted to put it “about” the unknown, even though I’d already used “about” to get “on”. So I decided that the checking N must be the “unknown” (as in any number). Worra twerp.
Jolly good fun. Thanks Jerry for explaining the bits which had passed me by, especially if being the middle of life!
Verdi wrote his requiem in memory of Manzoni.
Not sure what that last message from Lawson is about. I think we’re being spammed or fished or something. Crossword finished in 21’16” and much enjoyed. Thought of ANDREW for 8 down, but the W seemed unlikely for 19 across so I had another think. MANZONI LOI and NHO. Thanks.
46:03
Not much enjoyed, and quite a way outside my current target for a Snitch of 95 (32:30). Managed to work out the unknown MANZONI, plucked TRANSOM from a very dark recess, and bunged in three of the long ones off the bat (taking longer with, and balking slightly that Lady C should be considered a heroine – protagonist is surely more correct). Failed to fully parse ENHANCE.
Thanks Jerry and setter
Apparently all Italian school children have to study I Promessi Sposi and hate it because it is written in a sort of bogus 15th century Italian. Much better to read it in a no-nonsense English translation.