When I saw that this was by Vigo I thought that something similar to what happened recently was going to take place: I was going to be blogging a crossword about which I was less than enthusiastic, while the great body of opinion was largely in favour. But no, on the first count, anyway. I’m very enthusiastic about this crossword, which seems to be to be just right for a daily cryptic: not too hard but not a gimme either, with some good clues and the whole thing a pleasant experience. Whether the great body of opinion will be largely in favour we have yet to see, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it is.
Definitions underlined and in maroon.
This is a pangram. Actually I thought this was quite a likely possibility because some unusual letters appeared early in the solving process.
But whether there is anything else I can’t be sure. There is a very loose connection in nearly all the clues to a marital chase, but I suspect this is purely my imagination. After all, it’s stretching it a bit to say that 14ac, which contains the words ‘Courageous men’ has much to do with it. It might be something private: did Vigo spend her honeymoon in Quebec? I doubt it.
| Across | ||
| 1 | SASHAY | Way of moving packet over the radio (6) |
| “sachet” | ||
| 4 | AFFIXING | Sticking sacking across very loud instrument’s head (8) |
| a(ff i{nstrument})xing | ||
| 10 | HUNKY-DORY | Marvellous, muscular fish (5-4) |
| hunky [= muscular] dory [= fish] | ||
| 11 | PHOTO | Flower concealing steamy picture (5) |
| P(hot)o — the River Po, a flow-er | ||
| 12 | ARIES | Raise rent for first house (5) |
| (Raise)* — Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, even though it isn’t until March, the zodiac not going alongside the year. | ||
| 13 | CHIPOLATA | Leader of historic capital manoeuvring around old banger (9) |
| (h{istoric} capital)* round o | ||
| 14 | TROJANS | Courageous men taking hearts of Cretans from Ajax and Thersites (7) |
| {Cre}t{ans} {f}ro{m} {A}ja{x} {a}n{d} {Ther}s{ites} — I’d never heard of Thersites, but it didn’t matter because it was fairly clear that all one would need to have was the letters in his name — I see now that he was a Trojan soldier, so the clue is &littish; one might even say that it’s an &lit. but I hesitate to do so since its meaning isn’t quite clear to me | ||
| 16 | HOPE | Smooth operator’s secret desire (4) |
| Hidden in smootH OPErator | ||
| 19 | JOLT | Shock line in note (4) |
| jo(l)t | ||
| 21 | EQUINOX | French who rejected working within old twelve-hour day (7) |
| e(qui (on)rev.)x — ‘French who’ is ‘the French for who’ | ||
| 24 | OVERGRAZE | Misuse field in part of match, beginning to get level (9) |
| over [as in cricket] g{et} raze | ||
| 25 | SWEDE | European got married in Greater London area (5) |
| S(wed)E | ||
| 26 | SWAMI | Took to the water with independent teacher (5) |
| swam I | ||
| 27 | ESPOUSALS | Sixth sense over America and Latin States’ final unions (9) |
| ESP o [= over] USA L {State}s’ — should it not be States’s? The final letter of States is an s. | ||
| 28 | SQUEEGEE | Something to mop up geese flying over Quebec (8) |
| Que in (geese)* | ||
| 29 | ABUSES | Exploits of Australian coaches (6) |
| A buses | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | SCHMALTZ | School master key to zero sloppiness (8) |
| sch M alt z | ||
| 2 | SUN VISOR | Manager dropping by for new type of shade (3,5) |
| supervisor with the per [= by] dropped and replaced by n | ||
| 3 | ABYSS | Times in bottom of American pit (5) |
| a(by)ss — ‘ass’ is the American spelling of the word ‘arse’ — nice to see a setter signposting this fact and not just going along with the creeping Americanisation of our language | ||
| 5 | FLY-FISH | Raffishly eccentric artist missing angle (3-4) |
| (Raffishly – RA)* — the anagram indicated by ‘eccentric’ | ||
| 6 | IMPROMPTU | I am on time and socially acceptable without any preparation (9) |
| I’m prompt U | ||
| 7 | ISOBAR | Grab osier, twisting segment into line (6) |
| Hidden rev. in GRAB OSIer | ||
| 8 | GLOBAL | Comprehensive blog involved gangster (6) |
| (blog)* Al — Al Capone | ||
| 9 | HOICKS | Yanks in Ohio surrounded by unsophisticated people (6) |
| h(O)icks | ||
| 15 | ALONGSIDE | Parallel to a hypotenuse? (9) |
| a long side — the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is its longest side | ||
| 17 | KNEECAPS | Body parts, regularly skinned, play up (8) |
| {s}k{i}n{n}e{d} (space)rev. — space = play in the sense of the amount of freedom for movement | ||
| 18 | EXPENSES | Divorcees covering writer’s costs (8) |
| ex(pens)es | ||
| 20 | TRAPEZE | Skill climbing say goes into flying act (7) |
| (art)rev. “pees” [= goes] | ||
| 21 | EXEMPT | Grant immunity to European politician replacing one in withdrawal (6) |
| exit with (E MP) replacing the i [=1] | ||
| 22 | WORSTS | Vanquishes most terrible things (6) |
| 2 defs — Chambers does give the nounal sense of ‘worst’ so I suppose it’s OK — and I suppose I only say ‘I suppose’ because I couldn’t get this, eventually giving up and putting in ROUSTS, which is no good of course | ||
| 23 | DEJA VU | Familiar sensation of French getting German agreement to rising radiation (4,2) |
| de [= of French] ja [= German agreement] (UV)rev. | ||
| 25 | SQUAB | Baby bird born under illegally occupied building with no foundation (5) |
| squa{t} b — I gather that a squab is a young domestic pigeon | ||
*anagram
Thanks John
You mention that the grid is a pangram but, if I have counted correctly, it is one of that very rare breed, a triple pangram, only the second to be blogged on 15². The first was set by Tees and appeared in August 2011. The blog of it can be found here.
Another great grid-fill by Vigo. The triple-pangram thingy is a great achievement but what I think makes the puzzle particularly good is that this didn’t get in the way of it being just a really good crossword, if you get my drift.
Thanks to S&B
Thanks Vigo and John
That was excellent, very well constructed and, as baerchen says, the triple pangram didn’t get in the way at all. I started to sniff it out around 2/3 through, so it helped with the last few.
Count me as another who enjoyed this. Spotted the pangram but missed the “triple” bit – a great feat! Lots of good clues including ALONGSIDE, OVERGRAZE and SASHAY. Last in, and a guess at that, was WORSTS, which I didn’t know either as a noun or verb.
A big thanks to Vigo for such an enjoyable puzzle and to John.
Yes, I saw the possibility of a triple pangram when three answers had a Q in them, and it certainly helped when with only 17dn and 22dn left I realised a third C and a third W were needed. Couldn’t parse 17dn though, as I never thought of ‘space’ as a synonym for ‘play’. At least I remembered (in 1dn) that ‘key’ in a clue can refer to one on a computer keyboard.
Not that it’s a criticism of this crossword, but is it my imagination or have setters been using the pee/go device rather a lot lately?
Excellent stuff.
Thanks, Vigo and John
allan_c @5
You’re right. Of late, we have encountered pee/go frequently in wordplay.
As long as we don’t have words like URINE, ENEMA and RECTAL (listed as no-nos in US crosswords by Merl Reagle) it is OK, I think.
Yet I remember we have had ENEMA in UK crosswords, haven’t we?
Perhaps beery hiker could tell us if these words figure in his compilation.
I’m in the yes camp. Thersites worth a look as he is like a Derek and Clive version of a fool in T&C.(I think)
Thanks Vigo & John.
What a feat of setting; very impressive! Nothing too obscure either although I didn’t know that meaning of SQUAB.
And all, I think, with at least 50% checking in all answers, John. Thanks to you for the blog and Vigo of course.
Very enjoyable. Took me a while to get into, but I really liked some of the cleverly hidden wordplay and definitions (12A and 9D in particular). And a triple pangram is very impressive. Bravo Vigo, and thanks John for the blog
Thank you John for the blog – glad the puzzle didn’t live up to expectations! Thanks also to everyone who took the time to comment. Not sure what time it is at home but in St Vincent and the Grenadines it is 15 minutes til the cocktail hour and your kind words have given me reason enough to raise a self-congratulatory beaker or two. Cheers!
Victoria
Very late to the party but we have to add our congratulations to Vigo for an excellent puzzle – a great achievement. We will forgive you for the fact that there only two links between the top and bottom half of the grid!
We wish we were in St Vincent to raise a glass with you.
Thanks John.
Last time I spied the double pangram until end and then triple(!) checked. Somewhere in the somewhat alcohol impaired memories of various sloggers and betters one setter told me of a quad grid being done, monk? Maybe. Suspect the full oed might be needed though. Thanks john and vi-go.