A themed offering from Puck, which can be found here.
After I had solved the puzzle, with one query at 24dn, where I can’t see a definition, I noticed that there were words like HAIRY, BANDED, FAIRY etc, and these suggested to me the possibility that Puck had included some kind of creature in the puzzle, and I then saw that ARM and ADILLO could be seen near the bottom of the grid. A search on Wikipedia confirmed that HAIRY LONG-NOSED, PINK FAIRY and SCREAMING HAIRY are species of armadillo, but the cleverest one has to be SEVEN-BANDED, as Puck has inserted BANDED at clue number 7 – brilliant!
Thanks, Puck. My favourite clue was 1dn, and 15,3 raised a smile.
David
| Across | ||
| 1 | SEVENTEENTHS | Fractions of number in choppers to put on uniform on board (12) |
| N(umber) in TEETH (“choppers”) put on EVEN (“uniform”) in SS (“on board”, ie on a steamship), so S-EVEN-TEE(N)TH-S | ||
| 9 | AHERN | Female’s seduced by an ex-taoiseach (5) |
| HER (“female’s”) seduced by AN Refers to Bertie Ahern, the Taoiseach of Ireland from 1997 to 2008. | ||
| 10 | SCREAMING | Doctor grimaces, describing onset of nausea as being all too loudly evident (9) |
| *(grimaces) describing N(ausea) | ||
| 11 | DREADED | Terrifying regular visitors to Dorset and Leeds (7) |
| Take regular letters from D(o)R(s)E(t)A(n)D(l)E(e)D(s) | ||
| 12 | HALCYON | Happy as a kingfisher? (7) |
| Double definition – a halcyon is a type of Asian or African kingfisher. | ||
| 13 | DISBURDENS | Frees from tax in Norfolk town (10) |
| BURDEN (“tax”) in DISS (“Norfolk team”) | ||
| 15, 3 | LONG-NOSED | Large dong one’s confused with a “far out” snout (4-5) |
| *(L dong ones), where the L stands for “large” | ||
| 18 | PINK | Leftward leaning flower (4) |
| Double definition | ||
| 19 | SIX-SHOOTER | Arm that’s hairy and small, short 3 (3-7) |
| SIX (“hairy”, look at SIX down) + S(mall) + HOOTER (“nose”, 3dn, shortened) | ||
| 22 | TWOTONE | 4,480-pound European, sounding like a siren (3-4) |
| TWO TON (“4,480-pound”) + E(uropean) | ||
| 24 | NON-STOP | Somewhat contrarily, spots no numbers around the clock (3-4) |
| Hidden backwards (indicated by “somewhat contrarily”) in “sPOTS NO Numbers” | ||
| 25 | GENDARMES | Nice men in uniform, mostly Greek S&M nuts (9) |
| *(gree s and m), where gree is “mostly Greek“
Gendarmes would be men in uniform in Nice (and the rest of France, of course) |
||
| 26 | FAIRY | Puck? Female, 6, non-starter! (5) |
| F(emale) + (h)AIRY (6dn, without its starter) | ||
| 27 | PECCADILLOES | Half-heartedly called police about son’s minor indiscretions (12) |
| *(caled police) about S(on) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | STEVENSON | From southern town, originally, and yet northern writer (9) |
| S(outhern) T(own) + EVEN SO (“and yet”) + N(orthern) | ||
| 2 | VANADIUM | Lead — a radioactive element? Not lead, it’s a metallic element (8) |
| VAN (“lead”) + (r)ADIUM (“radioactive element”, without its lead) | ||
| 3 | See 15 | |
| 4 | EARPHONES | Listening devices from back of one shop near Barking (9) |
| (on)E + *(shop near) | ||
| 5 | NEATLY | One fat fly heads off, as ordered (6) |
| Take the heads (initial letters) off (o)NE (f)AT (f)LY | ||
| 6 | HAIRY | Dangerous, so locked away at last (5) |
| HAIR (“so locked”) + (awa)Y | ||
| 7 | BANDED | Grouped together with a retired joiner (6) |
| AND (“joiner”) in BED (“retired”) | ||
| 8 | EGGNOG | Drink for one that’s picked up medal (6) |
| E.G. (“for one”) + <= GONG (picked-up “medal”) | ||
| 14 | DRIVEN MAD | Infuriated by golf shot, curse back-up supports (6,3) |
| DRIVE (“golf shot”) + <=DAMN (“curse”, backed up) | ||
| 16 | OUTSTRIPS | Takes more off away kits? (9) |
| OUT (“away”) + STRIPS (“kits”) | ||
| 17 | TO AND FRO | Model T Ford, on a return trip? (2,3,3) |
| *(t ford on a) | ||
| 18 | POTAGE | A poet raving about Goat’s Head soup (6) |
| *(a poet) about G(oat) | ||
| 20 | REPAYS | Fish, catching record yields (6) |
| RAYS (“fish”) catching E.P. (“record”) | ||
| 21 | MOSAIC | Operating system in iMac involved a collection of bits (6) |
| O.S. (“operating system”) in *(imac) | ||
| 23 | OUNCE | Ring relative who’s missing lost cat (5) |
| O (“ring”) + UNC(l)E (“relative” missing L) | ||
| 24 | NASAL | Like first of nurses taking city hospital round (5) |
| N(urses) + <=LA SA (“city” and “hospital”, round)
I can’t see NASAL being defined here, though? |
||
*anagram
24d – LA san reversed – and N(urses) is a nasal consonant
The first letter of nurses N is a nasal sound.
Thanks, tony – didn’t see that, but should have, d’oh!!
Thanks for the blogs! – two for the price of one today, so I’ll post my comment on both.
A very good example of a puzzle where not spotting the theme did not detract from the enjoyment of solving it [apart from the frustration of knowing that there must be one, since it’s Puck]. I got as far as trying to make something of the fact that today is the SEVENTEENTH…
I could get seriously worried about Puck’s seemingly boundless passion for armadillos: I really did think he’d exhausted that theme, which makes this puzzle all the more brilliant.
Lots of lovely stories in the clues, as always.
Many thanks for the fun, Puck – I do hope you weathered the storm.
Just as well i never get themes as i would never ever have got this one. Clues were well enough done to make it solveable. Good crozzie!
Thanks, loonapick, especially for the insight into the theme. I would never have noticed the hidden ‘gendARMes peccADILLOes’ and ‘long-nosed’ was a little perplexing as it has not been lexicalised. ‘Outstrips’ I took to be a solution to a clue with two lots of word play and no definition, the senses ‘outruns’ and ‘surpasses’ being considerably commoner then ‘outdoes in denuding oneself’. Ecdysiast A outstripped ecdysiast B, indeed.
Sorry for the double blog. I had arranged to swap with Peter as I am starting a new job tomorrow, and didn’t want the distractions of a blog, but something went wrong, and now you have two for the price of one.
I smiled at seeing ‘dong’ [with the luminous nose] in 15,3.
Had to go through quite a lot of combinations before the SIX at 19a revealed itself – not watched any cowboy films for a long time – then quite a lot more head-scratching at its relevance, till the penny dropped. Up till then, it had been a quick solve, but a rewarding one.
Needless to say, the theme and the indication of it went well over my head, but hats off to you on this one, loonapick.
I wasn’t aware of Puck’s obsession with armadillos and as often happens there is more to a puzzle than I see that initially that adds to the enjoyment. Well done loonapick for spotting it. The interweaving of clues is very clever and affirms Puck as a top setter for me. The setters’ minds work in mysterious ways.
I feel ok about not finding the definition for NASAL as I’m in good company!
I liked 4d for its anagrind and thought 17d was a neat hidden word.
Thanks to Puck and loonapick.
The word armadillo is connected up if you choose a different ‘a’. Not that I spotted it at all. Excellent puzzle. And thanks for the extra blog. If any puzzle deserved or needed two blogs, it’s this one.
Thank you Puck and loonapick.
I missed the theme, but that did not hinder my enjoyment of the puzzle. I failed to parse SIX-SHOOTER, PEA-SHOOTER did not seem likely, and AHERN had to be, I must have heard of him in the recent past.
Copmus @5 on PeterO’s blog adds the MOSAIC ARMADILLO, STEVENSON ARMADILLO, NASAL ARMADILLO, TWO TONE ARMADILLO and the SIX BANDED ARMADILLO to the list.
Hi Whiteking @10
See puzzles 25,615 [April 2012], 26320 [July 2014], 26358 [September 2014], 26690 [September 2015] – and there may be more!.
You can look up the blogs on this site but you really need to see the completed grids to appreciate the brilliance and I can’t seem to get the Guardian’s website archive to work.
[Good luck in your new job, loonapick – I hope that the problem you refer to isn’t job-related.]
[yes, good luck loonapick, I do hope someone can blog tomorrow’s puzzle in your place.]
Thanks, muffin and Cookie (both fans of Bake-Off?)
No, the thing that has gone wrong is the double blog. I had, through Gaufrid, arranges to swap tomorrow with today, but Peter appears to have forgotten and I didn’t check to see if he had already posted.
[never seen Bake-Off, I live in France and don’t watch television anyway, my moniker is because I’m half-baked, not a proper biscuit, and muffin is named after his cat.]
Thanks to Puck and loonapick. Lots of fun. I had to check AHERN and needed some help parsing others but fared better with this setter than usual.
[Cookie @17
My previous cat, in fact. The current one, as you may recall, is “Captain Jack Sparrow”.
I’m interested in all cooking, except baking, in fact!]
Well,I certainly didn’t see the theme but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t see the definition of NASAL and I don’t think much of it now it’s been pointed out! I liked the rest of it though especially HALCYON and it’s always nice to see OUNCE cropping up again. The latter I first encountered while still at Primary School and was pleased that not many knew it was a snow leopard!
Thanks Puck.
muffin@19 My previous cat was named Pie, speaking of bake-off. My current one is named Zoe.
[muffin @19, I remembered that muffin was not your present cat, but hoped that the ‘after’ would cover the fact, my English is failing. By the way, I do not watch television since the hours clash with the time I am cooking, I listen to the concerts etc. on the radio.]
[i wasn’t complaining, cookie!
need i explain no caps?]
I’ve never seen a ‘reverse’ cross-reference before – where the solution word is given, asking for its number. So perhaps no surprise that I couldn’t parse the SIX of SIX-SHOOTER – just a tentative write-in. I wonder what Ximenes would have made of that clue? (Probably he’d be 10a “Fetch the Comfy Chair!”)
Rest of it was fine. Didn’t spot the theme. I suppose the key word counts as a NINA – being hidden in the solution rather than part of the solution?
Thanks Puck – a real puzzler! And loonapick.
Here are links to the four previous Xenarthra-centric puzzles by Puck that Eileen’s #13 mentions:
25,615
26,320
26,358
26,690
I really enjoyed this, but like several prior commenters on this or PeterO’s blog of the same puzzle, I completely missed the theme. I agree with WhiteKing @10 that finding out about the theme here has only elevated my enjoyment and appreciation of a puzzle that I already thought was excellent. My favorites were NON-STOP, BANDED, STEVENSON, GENDARMES, and my CotD, SIX-SHOOTER. I failed to parse HALCYON as I did not know that is a species of kingfisher — I would have had to Google it to get it. Many thanks to Puck, loonapick, PeterO, and commenters to both blogs.
A lovely puzzle, yes … but if anyone is wanting a pernickety comment isn’t policing in Nice down to the men in blue, from the commissariat, with the gendarmerie in their military khaki doing their business in rural areas?
Clever imp! The whole theme passed me by as blithely filled in the grid.
I remember all his previous incarnations of his armadillo fetish, and on gets a double treat on reading the blog.
Thanks for sorting this one out, loonapick!
Failed on SIX-SHOOTER and filled in RIP-SNORTER in desperation! (Vague reference to NOSED).
Can someone suggest how REPAYS – YIELDS, though?
Nice week, all.
Gendarmes are military police, but are not restricted to rural areas. Indeed, if you visit the Gendarmerie page on Wikipedia, the first picture you will see is of gendarmes on motorcycles in Paris.
Hi Mitz @25
So why did I get ‘Crossword not found’ when I searched for each of them on the archive? Grrr!
Huge thanks, anyway 😉 – they really are worth following up, when you have a few minutes.
And, to be precise, you’re absolutely right that I should have said ‘Xenathra / Pholindota’, rather than ‘armadillos’ – apologies, Puck. 😉
Correction: Xenarthra.
Re “Xenarthra” – I do wish the taxonomists wouldn’t keep inventing new groupings! In my younger days it was “Edentates” which was a lot easier to remember. Yes I read my David Attenborough!
I suppose, if I’d know what the word meant, and that this was Puck’s predilection, I’d have looked a bit harder for ARMADILLO (or ANTEATER, or SLOTH).
But spotting the theme is only a secondary diversion from the main task of actually solving the crossword, I reckon.
It did cross my mind that the “teeth” in 1ac related to “edentates”, but, although I knew that the South American anteaters were, I couldn’t remember if the armadillos were too.
Well I didn’t know anything about armadillos, or puck’s obsession with them, so I missed that bit but it’s very clever.
I loved the puzzle, brilliant, missed AHERN and the crosser BANDED (I might have seen that if I thought armadillos), and I couldn’t figure out where SIX came from.
Lots of nice clues, enjoyed POTAGE and OUNCE and many more
Thanks puck and thanks loonapick for the explanations
FD @32
Apparently “Edentata” was a false relationship, so has justifiably been separated – see here
Thanks to Puck and several bloggers.
I sniffed a theme early: it seems to me that themed puzzles are inevitably and inherently less, how shall I say, impenetrable? By which I mean not easy to get a bite into. (Michael Bentine had a great story about having a tomato passed to him by an elderly gent on a train who asked if he would mind “getting it started”).
I noticed a similar effect recently with a 2001 A Space Odyssey theme. In that case spotting the theme was a help – but only if the theme was of interest, and the same applies here. In any event it took a while to get started and I enjoyed slow progress. In conclusion, I found it a somewhat gristly puzzle.
I don’t mean this as a total negative, but there were times (cf. Epeolater@6’s comments on OUTSTRIPS, ff. on HAIRY, REPAYS) when I could find little to chew over.
I have never before encountered the crossworthy town of DISS.
Tasty morsels were: AHERN, DREADED, NON-STOP and TO AND FRO.
Armadillo. Wow.. didnt spot that at all.. thanks
Muffin@35 – yes I’d already looked them up. I’m probably showing my age here, but I’m pretty used to the experts splitting up taxa into more and more diverse groupings. I see it happen more and more amongst the fungi (in which I have a particular interest – mainly culinary!). When I was a kid there was only one genus of Boletes (the group which includes the prized porcini) – now there are over half a dozen.
More than anything else I bemoaned the ‘extinction’ of the good old Brontosaurus! A favourite of every inquiring child, this name was sacrificed in favour of “Apatosaurus” in the mid 20th century.
However, in recent years “Brontosaurus” has made a comeback – it is now believed that it was a separate genus from Apatosaurus. Rejoice!
FD @38
“Brontosaurus” was lost because “Apatosaurus” had priority as a name (i.e. the type bones were named this first). Good news if old Bronto is now thought to be a different genus, though!