A few pieces of slightly obscure general knowledge in this one from Teazel, although all of them are clued fairly enough. However, I would not be surprised if some of this proves a little daunting to less experienced solvers.
I completed it in 9 minutes, but to be fair, I saw a couple of the answers between printer and desk, before I started the clock, so maybe my new normal of 11 minutes is a more accurate reflection of my time.
Many thanks to Teazel
Across
3 Larger veil announced, for his second bride? (8)
BIGAMIST – Homophone clue (announced) sounds like BIGGER (larger) MIST (veil).
7 Office worker at extremely large place of worship (6)
TEMPLE – TEMP (office worker) and L{arg}E (extremely, first and last letters).
8 Case I mixed up, going round information bureaux (8)
AGENCIES GEN (information) inside an anagram (mixed up) of [CASE I].
9 Sculpture is broken (4)
BUST – Double definition, two meanings.
10 Girl’s university in the south-east (3)
SUE – SE (south-east) containing U{niversity}. Today’s random girl’s name, but kindly clued.
11 Dangerous fish: it’s angry when disturbed (8)
STINGRAY – Anagram (when disturbed) of [IT’S ANGRY].
13 You are going to shout (4)
YELL – Double definition, the first being YE’LL (you will, you are going to).
15 Small prune that’s fed to pigs (4)
SLOP – S{mall} and LOP (prune). MER as it is usually referred to in the plural when applied to pig food (slops). We always called it pig swill at school.
17 Spooky home secured by relative (8)
SINISTER – IN (home) inside (secured by) SISTER (relative).
19 A brief vote in favour? Indeed (3)
AYE – A (a) and YE{s} (brief (lose last letter) vote in favour).
22 Portuguese folk music initially fine at a party (4)
FADO – F{ine} (initially) and A DO (a party). This was new to me, but gettable from the wordplay.
23 Find dance very short (8)
DISCOVER – DISCO (dance) and VER{y} (short).
24 Beginning to sign, go very slowly – it’s illegible (6)
SCRAWL – S{ign} (beginning to) and CRAWL (go very slowly).
25 Friend, youngster, meeting one old architect (8)
PALLADIO – PAL (friend) and LAD (youngster) with I (one) and O{ld}. Referring to Italian Renaissance architect, Andrea Palladio. A bit of a stretch in GK for the QC IMHO.
Down
1 Refutation afterwards raised to cover objection (8)
REBUTTAL – LATER (afterwards) reversed (upwards in this down clue) to give RETAL and containing (to cover) BUT (objection).
2 Mark working exactly right (4,2)
SPOT ON – SPOT (mark) and ON (working).
3 Beatrice given diamonds, perhaps part of necklace (4)
BEAD – BEA (short for Beatrice) and D{iamonds}. I’ve never personally known a Beatrice, so can’t testify to the authenticity of the shortened version, but Wikipedia gives it as OK in most countries.
4 Not put too much effort into one’s yoga, working out (2,4,2)
GO EASY ON – Anagram (working out) of [ONE’S YOGA].
5 Mouse taken as a tease (6)
MICKEY – If one ‘takes the Mickey’, one is teasing. Is Mickey the most famous mouse in the world, or is that Tom (or is it Jerry)?
6 Killed a large number (4)
SLEW – Double definition. SLEW as a large number is derived from the Irish ‘slua’ – a multitude, and again is a little less generally known.
12 Shy, joined the army again (8)
RESERVED – If I were to re-join the Navy (or army) people may describe me as re-serving.
14 Sad after stories, goes to bed? (4,4)
LIES DOWN – LIES (stories) and DOWN (sad).
16 Package needs care to move into place (6)
PARCEL – Anagram (to move) of [CARE], inside PL{ace}.
18 Journey abroad to watch the game (6)
SAFARI – Nice cryptic definition, the game in this case being the wildlife.
20 Expression of support for exam (4)
VIVA – Double definition, the second being the accepted shortened version of VIVA VOCE (oral examination). VIVA also means ‘long live’ in Italian and Spanish, hence the first definition.
21 Body’s temperature dropped? Not exactly (2,2)
OR SO – {t}ORSO (body, after dropping T{emperature}.
I was quite surprised to find PALLADIO here. ‘Palladian’ designates a major architectural style of the 17th and 18th centuries. (Inigo Jones was a Palladian.) No problem with SLOP, or BEA. I’m not sure if ‘folk music’ is the most appropriate term for FADO. Here’s an example by the great fado singer, Amália Rodrigues:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIIAsQM_Q2M 5:38.
Thanks for the example Kevin – a striking looking woman, but I’m not sure that the music is for me.
Weirdly, I found PALLADIO one of the easiest clues. I guess it depends where your interests lie. I admit, though, that my GK is weak in areas like science and music, particularly Portuguese.
It’s like Trivial Pursuit, isn’t it! Blue, yellow and brown – OK; pink and green, not so much; orange – aaagh!
Excellent reference to Ms Rodrigues, and excited to see Fado as an answer having only experienced it in person a year ago in Lisbon, bought some LPs, visited the museum and visited the tomb of Amália!
To be in the Fado area and be in a small club was exquisite – although I was told that it was probably an advantage not to be able to understand the words!! (Too miserable)
14:37. Everything went smoothly although some clues that seemed incomprehensible at first only revealed themselves with one or two checkers in. Luckily the NHO PALLADIO was easy to fit together. Thanks for FADO offering, Kevin, I used to enjoy it years ago (Mariza?) when I worked with a crew of Portuguese fellows but hadn’t heard any for ages.
Seemed quite hard to me but it’s pretty late at night here and I’ve been ‘grandad-ing’. 13 minutes finishing with SAFARI, SCRAWL then VIVA. Dnk PALLADIO but gettable with a few checkers.
Yeah, Palladio was a bit of a surprise, although I knew the name and cryptic was quite clear. I’m not as familiar with fado, but it rang a vague bell. I suspect something is going on here – look at the TEMPLE OIL line, and the TO SUE. Not sure about the B O AGENCIES, however!
Time: 6:57.
SLEW in the sense of a multitude is pretty common, if rather informal, over here (in the States). Just the other day, a student writer for The Nation (dot-com) used it twice, in close succession. I changed the second instance to “proliferation.”
8 minutes for this one. I’m not sure I ever knew that Palladian architecture was named after an actual person but this didn’t delay me. Like others, my first thought for pig food was ‘swill’ but since it didn’t fit or parse I arrived at SLOP fairly quickly .
I had meant to mention the connection from Palladio to Palladian in my blog, but forgot to put it in, so thanks for pointing that out.
18:12 here. I knew Palladio as an architect, so feel good about that, but totally missed the anagram in GO EASY ON, and pulled FADO from the “yeah, I think that’s a word I’ve seen before” part of my mind. Several clues made me smile, including BIGAMIST, BUST and DISCOVER, but my favorite was my LOI, SAFARI.
Thanks to Teazel & Rotter.
Fell at the last and put shed for 6d – get rid of / shed loads. Maybe the latter is never split. Twit. Not sure I would have been more comfortable with the correct answer, had I thought of it, as the second meaning was unknown, or at least too well buried to recall. Enjoyable puzzle nonetheless. With thanks Sam
You’re not alone ☹️
Looks like I’m out of step today as I found this really hard throughout. Only three on the first pass of acrosses – BUST, SUE and STINGRAY on the way to a mercifully all green 22m. Made it hard for myself by not being able to see past the fruit for ‘prune’ and for only being able think of ‘ami’ as a three letter word for ‘friend’ and ‘Amiladio’ looked like it might not be wrong.
Assumed it was Oink when I fed in SLOP (sic) so surprised to see a Teazel teaser. I found everything well clued and no passes although it did take me into the club at 24 minutes. Off to walk the puppy on a mild morning here.
Thanks Rotter and afore mentioned.
20 minutes and no real problems other than the unknown Portuguese music and the architect, both were fairly clued though.
FOI: BEAD.
LOI: VIVA.
Like others I was grateful that there was some kind cluing for the unknown music and architect. Made steady progress today with no serious hold ups. Started with TEMPLE and finished with AGENCIES in 7.34. Enjoyed the surfaces for BIGAMIST and STINGRAY
Thanks to Rotter and Teazel for the education
16mins for everything but VIVA. Ten combined mins of alphabet trawl before I gave up.
I disagree it’s fairly clued as it’s a double def involving a foreign encouragement and a postgraduate examination. With PALLADIO intersecting, I was left wondering whether there was an alternative three letter word for friend to start -LADIO.
Bit miffed with how it ended.
Not too bad for a Teazel QC I thought. That said, after a quick start on the RHS, I slowed rather but completed steadily and under target at a second or two over 14 mins. Not back to normal yet but I’m getting there.
Some nice clues. PALLADIO jumped out at me given a couple of crossers. I liked BIGAMIST, REBUTTAL, FADO, YELL, but OR SO was my COD.
Thanks to Teazel and to Rotter for a good blog and for filling a couple of parsing gaps. John M.
Typical Teazel, I thought, with some less common words – I was pleased to remember the architect but never twigged Palladian style was after him. Thanks for the education, Kevin. COD to 24A which describes my writing. 4:08.
Oddly enough, I knew ‘Palladian’ without knowing there was a Palladio!
Ditto. I think it’s unusual for a style to be named after a person. Most that I can think of are named after a monarch or a more generic term (rococo, gothic, etc)
FOI. BEAD, LOI FADO, COD BIGAMIST. Not for the first Time, I found that Rotter’s thoughts on all clues were almost identical to my own, FADO being the slight exception, where it rang a bell and seemed Iberian, so I put it in. Having enjoyed Kevin’s clip of a NHO singer and song, I would not immediately think of it as “folk”, but what other genre does it fit? I am familiar with the classical styled church in Ayot St. Lawrence and, whilst solving this clue, discovered why it is called the Palladin Church, as well as guessing the architect’s name. Easier than I usually find Teasel so thanks to him/her and Rotter.
I’d say that FADO is Portuguese popular music, similar in some ways to Japanese enka. To me, folk music is, largely, anonymous, where fado and enka are written (and no doubt copyrighted) by specific persons.
Glad you liked the example. When she died, the country pretty much shut down for three days of mourning.
f
I have visited Japan but not comne across enka, though I will consult Maestro Google.
All folk music is composed my somebody and I would argue that it does not cease to be folk music because it is later written down and probably copyrighted by someone like Bartok, Britten or (possibly) Seeger. Furthermore I would argue, albeit with some reluctance, that music composed/performed (eg by Seeger, or possibly Amalia) is best described as Folk . Popular though it deservedly is, such music is different in style to most “pop music” performed in Portugal
I have visited Japan but not comne across enka, though I will consult Maestro Google.
All folk music is composed my somebody and I would argue that it does not cease to be folk music because it is later written down and probably copyrighted by someone like Bartok, Britten or (possibly) Seeger. Furthermore I would argue, albeit with some reluctance, that music composed/performed (eg by Seeger, or possibly Amalia) is best described as Folk . Popular though it deservedly is, such music is different in style to most “pop music” performed in Portugal or elsewhere.
BIGAMIST jumped out of the clue and into the grid. LOI, PALLADIO, not so much. I had to build him from the wordplay, although Palladian did ring a bell. FADO was another unknown. 7:18. Thanks Teazel and Rotter.
NHO FADO, but followed instructions with no prob. I suspected that Palladian referred to a person so no qualms on PALLADIO, anyway the instructions were very straightforward.
Needed all the crossers for SAFARI and was wonderng in what language Sa=to see, and Fari is a game! Doh!
Andyf
I’m glad people enjoyed this, but I found it ridiculous as a quickie. At least six of the clues required obscure knowledge and or awareness of very obscure use of language. When these intersect there is little to go on,
I knew of the Fado from the little couplet
Oh the Fado / is so sad-o
But the Rumba / is a happier number
though having now seen Kevin’s clip, I think that is a little unkind on the Fado!
NHO Palladio though, but I did know of the adjective Palladian, and it was not a huge stretch to imagine the person the style was named after – and the cluing was quite generous.
Those two out of the way, the rest of the puzzle was very getable, though my last two, Viva and Slew, both took long alphabet searches. There are a surprisingly large number of words that go -I-A, and with S and V as initial letters, neither word comes near the start of the search! This pushed my time out to 11 minutes in all (or 1 adjusted Rotter?)
Many thanks to Rotter for the blog
Cedric
Completed this in 7.12, so well inside target. Made a small error by initially putting in SO SO instead of OR SO, until I discovered DISCOVER! Never heard of FADO but the cryptic was clear.
As an architect in my working life PALLADIO of course came easily to mind. This 16th century Italian was probably the most influential architect in the history of the profession, as his classical style was copied all over Europe. As Kevin has previously mentioned, Inigo Jones was the first British exponent of his style, and the Queens House Greenwich is generally recognised as the first building in the Palladian style in Britain. For those of you who love Georgian architecture, you can thank Andrea Palladio.
I was held up at the end but still managed to finish in 11 minutes.
LOI OR SO; unparsed, I admit.
POI was VIVA. PALLADIO worked out from the cryptic; I have got used to relying on the cryptic for unknowns. And the name seemed likely from Palladian.
Some good stuff. COD to SLOP.
David
All over the shop on this, but then as soon as I saw the grid (ten clues with no first letter) I got nervous. I am very first letter dependent! Took far too long with far too many of those ten, eventually finishing with VIVA.
Limped home in 12:16 for 2.1K and a Terrible Day. Next!
Many thanks Teazel and Rotter.
Templar
FOI BEAD and then BIGAMIST. I solved clockwise and was thankful for the cluing for both FADO and PALLADIO. I’m glad to see that Kevin got to showcase his knowledge of the Portuguese. Thanks for the link. My LOI was SLOP. COD to SAFARI. 6:55 for an excellent day.
Managed PALLADIO and even FADO early on but finally had to look up SINISTER (which gave me RESERVED) and VIVA. Rather dim not to have seen the former having solved some tricky ones. Should have had a pause.
Too much of a rush today, but thought this was a tricky QC.
Liked BIGAMIST, TEMPLE, DISCOVER, SAFARI, among others.
Thanks vm, Rotter.
Serious brain fog today. This took me 25 long minutes with at least 5 mins spent on LOI SLEW. Vaguely remembered FADO from somewhere and PALLADIO was generously clued. Wasn’t sure about parsing for YELL as I had imagined there was some homophone trickery (shout) rather than just a DD and of course that doesn’t quite work. Liked REBUTTAL and BIGAMIST. Very enjoyable. Thanks to Rotter for the extra insights and to Teazel for a rather tricksy puzzle.
I managed to complete this one with a little help, but I have to say that parts of this crossword were very poorly written in my opinion.
13a Ye’ll – Ye? There should have been an indication that we were supposed to look for perhaps an archaic form of you. I answered this one purely because of the letters already in place. This was poor cluing.
20d. Viva. How obscure! Surely there could have been a better way of cluing this one.
6d. Slew. I was supposed to know some obscure Irish word derived for multitude? Again what on Earth!
I really feel that Teazel just could not be bothered to put the effort in to make some of these clues less obscure.
I managed to complete it but it was a very unenjoyable and lacklustre puzzle.
Whilst I have a smidgeon of sympathy with you PW, I disagree strongly with your charge of laziness against our Setter.
Taking your points in turn, the clue for YELL was very well constructed with an extremely smooth surface, and one of its definitions was very easy to interpret, allowing the solver to look for a justification for the other definition, which was easily done with a little lateral thinking. I think an excellent clue.
VIVA or the French derived VIVE aren’t really obscure at all in the sense of ‘long live’, and are commonly heard in the UK, whilst VIVA VOCE or simply VIVA are also very commonly used in English. Perfectly fair in my opinion.
Finally SLEW for a large number is not an Irish word, but a fairly common English one, albeit more common in the USA than here in the UK.
My take on the ‘ye’ in YELL is that it’s standard English dialect for ‘you’ rather than the archaic word pronounced ‘yee’, and as such doesn’t required qualification. It’s in Collins.
I’m with you on “ye’ll” – I know it can be justified but I found it clunky.
I’m with you on VIVA.
Outside of the Spice Girls song “Viva Forever” and my university days; I don’t recall hearing anyone in this country use VIVA in the last decade. It doesn’t seem that common to me.
People who live in greenhouses shouldn’t throw stones.
Found this hard and needed help to limp over the line. Guessed FADO from clue (NHO), struggled with SLEW, but remembered VIVA (VOCE). Knew PALLADIO, however! Took a while to finish – hats off to those who could do it under 10 minutes!
Bang on 20 mins…
Personally, I thought this was quite hard and it took quite a while to get going. Whilst there were a couple of answers I didn’t know (Palladio, Fado) they were all fairly clued.
However, whilst 13ac “Yell” was obtainable and justifiable, I also thought the “ye’ll” aspect was a little tenuous – so I’m with PW on that one. I also don’t equate “spooky” with “sinister” whatever the dictionary might say.
FOI – 9ac “Bust”
LOI – 8ac “Agencies”
COD – 21dn “Or So”
Thanks as usual!
I’m intrigued by the fact that people who went disco dancing in the 70s were actually dance dancing !!
I think this crossword must have been written with me in mind as I studied Spanish and Portuguese at uni, so I am familiar with fado (although I find it a bit turgid to listen to) and I endured a fair number of vivas (viva voce exams) in the course of my education. With regard to Palladio I am married to an architect who has educated me in all things architectural from ancient Egyptian through to modern-day construction.
I was happy with SLEW as a word I am familiar with and I thought YELL was clued satisfactorily.
Despite this it still took me 20 minutes as I struggled with SCRAWL and DISCOVER.
Mr SR and I enjoyed this, thank you Teazel.
I’d heard of FADO and Mr SR remembered the other meaning of SLEW. I also thought it could mean drunk, at least in the past tense “slewed”, but haven’t checked the dictionary for that.
We also had no issue with VIVA having both suffered many during our undergraduate medical exams. And the films “Viva Las Vegas!” and “Viva Maria!” helped with the other meaning (as well as showing our ages…).
Does anyone remember Viva Zapata (sp?) moustaches?
Thanks also Rotter for the blog.
Funnily enough, MrB and I watched a very old Rumpole last night (it stood the test of time better than much from that era, we thought). A running theme was whether a character had a Fu Manchu or a Viva Zapata moustache 😅
Excellent!
My impression is that a Fu Manchu would be longer and thinner than a Viva Zapata
Was that the one with the undercover police officer pretending to be a hippie and where Rumpole falls for his female client? I remember it as one of the best episodes if it’s the one I’m thinking of.
Yes, that’s the one. It was an interesting storyline, although some of the acting was a tad wooden. But Leo McKern was very good. We may well search out some more 😊
I have the entire set. Leo McKern was born to play that role.
The John Mortimer books are superb pieces of humorous writing..
A Viva Zapata could be quite a challenge for Movember if starting from bare lip.
Good luck to anyone in their endeavours.
😅
I zipped along reasonably quickly until the SW corner, which took a minute OR SO to complete, and yes, that was the stumbling block! Having pencilled in SO SO, I couldn’t progress with DISCOVER, which slowed down VIVA, etc. Once I sorted that out, it took me to 8:25, which I’m more than happy with, as it’s a Teazel 😊 No problem with FADO – as soon as I read the first three words, it was done, and as a member of a U3A architecture group, PALLADIO was no stranger! I biffed REBUTTAL, and I never went back to parse that one. An enjoyable puzzle today with a few runners-up for COD.
FOI Bigamist LOI Viva COD Stingray
Thanks Teazel and Rotter – the info about SLEW was very interesting
9 mins, tough grid.
Nice Fado, thanks Kevin.
I discovered that stingray stings are pretty painful a coupe of years ago when I lived in Abu Dhabi. I now have a scar that looks like a stingray on my foot.
Dnk palladio. LOI safari.
COD discover.
Taken over target, as is customary with Teazel.
SAFARI LOI and COD.
6:57
NHO Palladio but knew Palladian and anyway it was fairly easy to join the various elements of the clue together. I had heard of fado, so that went straight in. I had ‘shed’ at 6dn and then stopped the clock (solving on paper). I then had second thoughts and started an alphabet trawl which soon revealed ‘slew’ – much better. I hadn’t restarted the clock but should probably add a minute on for that, making 14 mins in total. Didn’t manage to parse safari – completely overlooked the other meaning of game. Nice puzzle – thanks to Teazel and to Rotter for the blog.
FOI – 7ac TEMPLE
LOI – 6dn SLEW
COD – 3ac BIGAMIST, closely followed by 13ac YELL
5.52
Latish entry
Regular visits to NT properties as a kid meant PALLADIO wasn’t a problem. Them’s the days (unfortunately some might say) when you actually went in the buildings rather than going to the cafe followed by the shop and straight home.
My gran was a Beatrice so COD to that which was also my FOI
Thanks Rotter and Teasel
Had to laugh at your NT comment.
I find they’re now posh playgrounds for families who like to keep away from the riff raff.
Ooh, got to stick up for some NT places. It’s not like that at the property where I volunteer!
I guess it depends on where you go and the type of property and grounds, but we’ve noticed a lot more adventure playgrounds, cafes and shops to the point that the poor houses etc. often seem an afterthought for some people visiting.
We found this middle of the road for difficulty. Put in so so for21d until we got23a. Careless. Enjoyed the puzzle, thanks Teasel.
Teazel (and Orpheus) QCs are always the most challenging for me, so I was quite happy to finish all correct in 35 minutes, today.
BIGAMIST and SLOP made me smile, but the NHO FADO and PALLADIO caused trouble. However, despite spending the final few years of my career in academia, VIVA was my LOI. Actually, “career” is rather a grandiose word to describe my working life. Maybe ‘sequence of disconnected jobs’ would be a more appropriate way of describing it.
Many thanks to Teazel and Rotter.
I seem to be in the minority in thinking this was a fairly easy solve. I completed it in 7:42 which is the fastest I have managed in a long while.
LOI was AGENCIES , having forgotten that information can be GEN
many thanks
Managed a sneaky solve at work. Very happy with a time of 25 mins as there were some tricky ones. A thoroughly enjoyable mental workout.
Great blog as always Rotter, thank you!
Found this relatively straightforward, but at the same time it felt like there were quite a few tricky clues. NHO PALLADIO or FADO and was glad that a very similar SLEW clue has come up fairly recently. I think I agonised over it before and eventually gave up, so it didn’t take long to come to mind this time around. VIVA brought back memories of June 1997. LOI SAFARI, COD BIGAMIST, Time 16:19. Thanks Rotter and Teazel
wasn’t easy but doable which is how one gets better.
Does poison wyvern ever like a setter
Palladio is also a song by Karl Jenkins
DNF – couldn’t get VIVA.
Didn’t do Latin so at a disadvantage. If “Spanish” was added would make it accessible to us plebs who might have got a reference to eg Viva Las Vegas.
DIVA or HIYA would be better, more modern clues…
My father never could either! British made Fords preferred to Vauxhalls every time. The former had better trained sales staff, superior show rooms, far more persuasive advertising and were well worth the extra expenditure.
As I replied to Kevin:
Excellent reference to Ms Rodrigues, and excited to see Fado as an answer having only experienced it in person a year ago in Lisbon, bought some LPs, visited the museum and visited the tomb of Amália!
To be in the Fado area and be in a small club was exquisite – although I was told that it was probably an advantage not to be able to understand the words!! (Too miserable)
Anyway 22 minutes but gave up on Slew and put in Sled… and Viva I just couldn’t drag out and entered Visa! I knew it was similar!
So DNF
Thanks all
John