There are a couple unusual—even NHO—words here, and I don’t know how difficult this would’ve seemed without very recent serendipitous discoveries in other puzzles, but all was clued so cleverly and entertainingly well that my solve was a steady romp.
I indicate (Ars Magna)* like this, and words flagging such rearrangements are italicized in the clues.
| ACROSS | |
| 1 | Chill out? Do this to maintain warmth? (4,4,5,2) |
| KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON With a literal interpretation of the idiom for a cryptic hint |
|
| 9 | One will leave and go away briefly near Iowa (7) |
| BEGONIA BEGON |
|
| 10 | Trump slogan appearing around NHS unit makes you colour (7) How well you know me! |
| MAGENTA MAG(ENT)A |
|
| 11 | Arty type’s shocking utterance about heroin (4) |
| BOHO BO(H)O |
|
| 12 | I’m against going for assessment with social worker (10) |
| PROTESTANT PRO, “(going?) for” + TEST, “assessment” + ANT, “social worker” |
|
| 13 | Everything occupies mostly irritable dabbler (7) |
| MALLARD M(ALL)ARD |
|
| 15 | Red slogan repeated by one around lunchtime (7) |
| CHIANTI CH(I)ANT + I |
|
| 17 | Music producer Oa{sis trum}peted for a while (7) |
| SISTRUM Hidden “a musical instrument of ancient Egypt consisting of a metal rattle” (Collins) …Must be NHO, as I was imagining something different! |
|
| 19 | Bit of a lad some might have for dinner? (4,3) |
| LONG PIG CD Human flesh served to cannibals, translation of a Māori and Polynesian term |
|
| 20 | A tall hat worn around North Dakota etc. (3,3,4) |
| AND ALL THAT (A tall hat)* covers N(orth) D(akota) …I went back and forth on this, as “around” is in many anagrind lists, and “worn” is not (in any?)—but “battered,” say, is. Creative Anagrind Prize! |
|
| 22 | Animal flatulence flipping overwhelms vet ultimately (4) |
| STAG GA(T)S<=“flipping” |
|
| 25 | After dismissing core members, reggae band get back together (7) |
| REGROUP R |
|
| 26 | Indian greeting star outside a vacant set (7) |
| NAMASTE NAM(A)(S |
|
| 27 | Refugee old prince passed by a circuitous route (9,6) |
| DISPLACED PERSON (Old prince passed)* |
|
| DOWN | |
| 1 | One skewered king on its file with bishop by a bishop (5) |
| KEBAB K(ing) + E (the file where the king is initially placed on the chessboard) + B(ishop) + A + B(ishop) |
|
| 2 | Food parcels broken into by soldiers? (9) |
| EGGSHELLS CD, playing on “soldiers,” which can mean strips of bread or toasted dipped inside a soft-boiled egg (“food parcel”) |
|
| 3 | Beastly type kidnaps North American (4) |
| YANK YA(N)K |
|
| 4 | A French editor with trapped wind’s stuffy (7) |
| UNAIRED UN(AIR)ED |
|
| 5 | I’m into quotes about Hebrew, say (7) |
| SEMITIC CIT(IM)ES <=“about” |
|
| 6 | Consumption sadly isn’t gone, I admitted (9) |
| INGESTION (isn’t gone)* swallowing I |
|
| 7 | State of heavyweight? God-awful primarily! (5) |
| TONGA TON, “heavyweight” + G |
|
| 8 | New heed given to object in close encounter? (4,5) |
| NEAR THING N(ew) + EAR, “heed”+ THING, “object” |
|
| 13 | Sad case Mr Wrong walked all over (9) |
| MASSACRED (sad case Mr)* |
|
| 14 | Republican to probe if Apollo cooked up hoax (5,4) |
| APRIL FOOL (if Apollo)* with an R undercover |
|
| 16 | Those giving cronies jobs in new stone pits (9) |
| NEPOTISTS (stone pits)* …Positions filled by nepotists typically do not involve strenuous manual labor. But maybe quarry foreman… |
|
| 18 | Old picture taken by police of the forehead (7) |
| METOPIC MET, “police” + O(ld) + PIC The Metropolitan Police Service of London …NHO anatomic term. Surely needed a few crossers for this. |
|
| 19 | Academic was first to secure merit (7) |
| LEARNED L(EARN)ED |
|
| 21 | Artist, say, in German article (5) |
| DEGAS D(EG)AS |
|
| 23 | Unripe lime? (5) |
| GREEN DD |
|
| 24 | A few throwing out old piece of Ercol? Duck! (4) |
| SMEE S |
|
16:42
Lots of DNKs:BOHO, dabbler, SISTRUM, LONG PIG, Ercol, METOPIC. It’s my understanding (well, belief) that in the daily cryptics a hyphenated word is treated as one word, so that in ‘god-awful’, A would not be an initial letter; can I assume that this convention doesn’t obtain in the ST?
I’m pretty sure I’ve said here at some point that I’m happy to count a hyphen as a separator of words, thought I may well have also allowed the first letter of a hyphenated word to be seen as its front. If everything else is clear and you just have to consider two possible interpretations, that’s the kind of trade-off for the sake of a surface meaning that I’m inclined to allow, while still insisting, as the obvious example, that “indeed” cannot logically mean “inside deed”.
A Sunday puzzle at the easy end of the scale but unfortunately I fell at the last hurdle after 31 minutes as I needed aids for NAMASTE. I wish I could claim it as a NHO, but it has appeared here several times before.
I had a question mark against SISTRUM when I wrote it in but vaguely remembered the word if not its meaning. It has appeared before too, including a QC in 2024.
I knew LONG PIG and BOHO but METOPIC was from wordplay only.
ERCOL is still in business after more than a century – traditional British but founded by an Italian from whom it takes its name.
Thought this was an excellent challenge but, to my great annoyance, I was undone by LONG PIG. I had absolutely no idea what was going on here and given the obscurity of the expression, it was unfair for the wordplay to offer no assistance I went for LONE as ‘ a bit of a lad’ might have suggested a loner. Grrrrrr.
MARDY I hear quite often in the south of the UK. Don’t recall hearing it when I lived up country. Nearly undone by LONG PIG. I had never seen it written and thought the term was L’Homme Pig. A bit of research corrected that misunderstanding. SISTRUM and METOPE were new to me.
Some very clueing here.
Conversely, as I keyed in MARDY, I commented to my wife that it is a word I had never heard here in the south but it was quite common in the West Riding, where I used to live.
Half an hour, but with no confidence whatsoever that LONG PIG was right as it was a complete guess.
– Initially put CONTESTANT for 12a and didn’t correct it to PROTESTANT until forced to by UNAIRED
– Trusted the wordplay for the unknown SISTRUM
– NHO METOPIC meaning ‘of the forehead’ or the SMEE duck
Thanks Guy and David.
FOI Kebab
LOI Long pig
COD Sistrum
could somebody please post an explanation of the answer to 9ac. I understand the parsing. thanks
Leave can mean to grow leaves
I felt pretty much on the wavelength for this, given it was a D McL, with much of the top half going straight in, though there were a few hold-ups. I was unable to account for the E in 1d, though it was obviously the answer, and had to come here to understand the reference to chess positions. CHIANTI held me up for ages; when will I think ‘wine’ when I see ‘red’ rather than just ‘communist’? LONG PIG amused me, yielded with a couple of crossers. NHO METOPIC, from wordplay alone, but the duck was recalled from previous puzzles. I had a bit of a MER over EGGSHELLS, since although EGG was obvious enough, it took a long time to work out what the rest of the word was. I would argue that you can’t break the shell with a piece of toast, so technically it’s the contents of the shells that are broken into. I felt this could have been clued more accurately. My LOI, needing all the crossers, was MASSACRED – again, a clever surface.
My thanks to David McLean and Guy du Sable.
I agree, a couple of odd words, lucky coincidences and quite doable.
13a Mallard, I felt the need to confirm in a dictionary that mardy=irritable.
19a Long pig remembered from “Coral Island”, which I read about 65 years ago, a long time before I first met –
26a Namaste NHO, as indeed I said last time it came up.
18d NHO Metopic, really this time.
24d Smee. NHO Ercol even though they are just down the road from here. There are several furniture makers in the general area of Princes Risborough to High Wycombe due to the availability of suitable wood. HHO Smee as a bird, from Xwords.
DNF. No way of getting LONG PIG if you don’t know the expression. Harrumph.
AAfter reading the blog this morning, it occurred to me to wonder how–nay, how the hell–I got LONG PIG. Certainly not from the clue, which stinks.