A very nice traditional crossword, not all easy but plenty of accessible clues. Thank you Peter.
| Across | ||
| 1 | STOCK CAR | Keep short jack, say, in vehicle (5,3) |
| STOCK (keep) CARd (jack say, short) | ||
| 6 | THATCH | Giant hat chosen to accommodate unruly head of hair (6) |
| found inside (accommodated by) gianT HAT Chosen | ||
| 9 | NAPALM | Chemical weapon produced by friend entering conflict involving US (6) |
| PAL (friend) inside NAM (conflict involving US) | ||
| 10 | DOBERMAN | Bottom of grand robe ruined by male dog (8) |
| granD (last letter, bottom of) then anagram (ruined) of ROBE then MAN (male) | ||
| 11 | CORMORANT | Bird with inclination to cross rocky moor to river (9) |
| CANT (inclination) contains (to cross) anagram (rocky) of MOOR with R (river) | ||
| 13 | TWICE | Double tonic water initially put on the rocks (5) |
| first letters (initially) of Tonic Water with ICE (on the rocks) | ||
| 15 | TOTEMS | Symbolic representations of money found in large bags (6) |
| M (money) inside TOTES (large bags) | ||
| 17 | RETORT | Time to leave rejected pig’s foot in counter? (6) |
| a reversal (rejected) of TROTtER (pigs foot) missing (to leave) T (time) | ||
| 18 | BANKSY | Restrictions covering last piece of work by unknown artist (6) |
| BANS (restrictions) contains worK (last letter, piece of) then Y (unknown, in maths equations) | ||
| 19 | GRATER | Good amount to pay to get right bit of kitchen equipment (6) |
| G (good) RATE (amount to pay) with R (right) | ||
| 21 | PROEM | Introduction of literary work about Rigoletto’s opening (5) |
| POEM (literary work) contains (about) Rigoletto (opening, first letter of) – a new word for me | ||
| 22 | JAM-PACKED | Full of roly-poly? (3-6) |
| double/cryptic definition – roly-poly is a pudding continuing jam | ||
| 25 | SEDITION | Speech intended to promote disorder found in suffragette’s first book (8) |
| Suffragette (first letter of) then EDITION (book) | ||
| 26 | LEAGUE | Group in shelter nursing endless fever (6) |
| LEE (shelter) contains (nursing) AGUe (fever, endless) | ||
| 28 | STREET | Plant blocking extremely smart thoroughfare (6) |
| TREE (a plant) inside (blocking) SmarT (extreme letters of) | ||
| 29 | POSTPONE | Reschedule appointment with leader of promising musicians from the east (8) |
| POST (appointment) with Promising (leading letter of) then ENO (English National Opera, musicians) reversed (from the east, right-to-left on a map) | ||
| Down | ||
| 2/27 | TEA URN | Gold found in bird’s drinks dispenser (3,3) |
| AU (gold) inside TERN (bird) | ||
| 3 | CHASM | Cold meat contains small hole (5) |
| C (cold) HAM (meat) contains S (small) | ||
| 4 | COMPROMISE | Company pledge to settle dispute by making concessions (10) |
| COM (company ?) PROMISE (pledge) | ||
| 5 | RODENT | Animal in pit surrounded by rubbish (6) |
| DEN (pit) inside ROT (rubbish) | ||
| 6 | TUBA | Instrument taken up by absolute beginners (4) |
| first letters (beginners) of Taken Up By Absolute | ||
| 7 | ARROWROOT | Plant vegetable, losing miles on regular journey to state (9) |
| mARROW (vegetable) missing M (miles) then ROOT sounds like (to state) “route” (regular journey) | ||
| 8 | CHARCUTERIE | Meats and fish sliced next to lake (11) |
| CHAR (fish) CUT (sliced) then ERIE (lake, in America) | ||
| 12 | OKTOBERFEST | Fob setter off following good boozy celebration (11) |
| anagram (off) of FOB SETTER following OK (good) | ||
| 14 | METROPOLIS | City of Rome spoilt, sadly (10) |
| anagram (sadly) of ROME SPOILT | ||
| 16 | TANGERINE | Brown and green fluid covering end of kiwi fruit (9) |
| TAN (brown) than anagram (fluid) of GREEN contains kiwI (end letter of) | ||
| 20 | CATNIP | Head of colour mixed paint in plant (6) |
| Colour (head, first letter) then anagram (mixed) of PAINT | ||
| 23 | CRAMP | Stuff given to priest for pain? (5) |
| CRAM (stuff) with P (priest) | ||
| 24 | DINT | Hollow part of reed in trumpet (4) |
| found inside reeD IN Trumpet | ||
| 27 | See 2 | |
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
Thanks, PeeDee. You haven’t explained the one problem I had with this puzzle: where does the M in COMPROMISE come from? I couldn’t find any real justification for com as an abbreviation for company – I’m not sure that dot com was meant to signify company as opposed to, say, communication…
Lots of lovely clues. Proem was new to me too.
I liked the artist and the boozy celebration best.
Thank you Peter and Pee Dee
Hi Neil,
That’s my mistake, I typed CO out of habit. I think company must be COM, though as you say this isn’t listed in Chambers. COM as a top-level domain name was used to indicate “commercial”, the others were edu, gov, mil, net org and arpa.
I can’t explain any further I’m afraid.
NeilW & PeeDee
It may not be in Chambers but it is in Collins:
com
the internet domain name for
A commercial company
There is a common misconception that COM in domain names such as microsoft.com stands for company, it stands for commercial. Perhaps Collins is reflecting this in the phrase “a commercial company”. Regardless, commercial is the key word in this definition, not company.
It seems a stretch to use COM for company: .com refers to a top-level domain indicating commercial use, not an actual company or the word company. Not that I have any objection to setters using stretched definitions, it’s fine with me, but Peter does not seem to be that sort of setter.
Out of interest, the domain name specification describes the domain names thus…
The initial top level domain names are:
Temporary
ARPA = The current ARPA-Internet hosts.
Categories
GOV = Government, any government related domains meeting the
second level requirements.
EDU = Education, any education related domains meeting the
second level requirements.
COM = Commercial, any commercial related domains meeting the
second level requirements.
MIL = Military, any military related domains meeting the
second level requirements.
ORG = Organization, any other domains meeting the second
level requirements.
Thanks Peter and PeeDee
While agreeing that COM doesn’t necessarily officially mean ‘company’, I think that colloquially it now has that extended meaning, as the overarching body with a number of national subsidiaries, eg amazon.com covers amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr, amazon.de etc
Hi Simon,
I can see how “Amazon” is an example of a company. I can see how by extension “amazon.com” is an example of a company. I can also see that a “dot com” could be an example of a company.
I can’t see how just COM on its own is an example of a company, or is an abbreviation for company or anything else.
Hi PeeDee @ 7
It may be a case of agreeing to differ, but you omitted the ‘colloquially’ bit, whereby the ‘dot’ becomes invisible/inaudible.
I simply assumed com was a rarely used abbreviation of company. Enough already.
This was a very good puzzle, that I finished yesterday, then looked at the blog today, where I found many excellent clues whose merit I had not noticed.
Correction to blog in 26A, it is LEE around AGU{e} – endless fever.
Thanks to Peter and PeeDee.
Hi Simon – fair enough. I’m getting a bee under my bonnet!
gwep – thank you for the correction, fixed now
PS – the reason I pursue the COM=company topic is not to prove anybody wrong or to criticise the clue but to find a way to explain this to people in future. Explaining this sort of thing is the purpose of these bogs. Next time someone asks the question why does COM stand for company it would be nice to be able to explain that it is an abbreviation or some colloquial expression or whatever, and here is an example….
If anyone is still reading this and knows of such an example, such as “Amazon is a famous com” or “Jones & Com are tailors” then that would be very helpful. One that people would be able to read and think “Yes, I can remember hearing people say things like that”.