Kairos fills the mid-week slot this week. Until last year, Kairos was only to be found in the Independent on Sunday. But he has now appeared six times in the weekday editions and this is our second Kairos blog.
We usually find Kairos slightly easier than most other setters, and this puzzle was no exception, but no less enjoyable despite the rapid solve time.
Some specialist knowledge is required to parse 3d – we knew the Elkie Brooks song referred to but were amazed to find on checking that it dates from as long ago as 1977 – probably rather obscure for some solvers?
Thanks to PostMark for noticing the NINA in the perimeter which we also noticed. In our hurry to complete the blog, we forgot to mention it.
R (take) in MASALA (Indian spices)
Hidden or ‘involved’ in tacticaL AIR Defence
ERA (time) round or ‘penning’ Z (final letter) – a reference to Ezra Pound
FAL (river) SEAL (creature) ARM (weapon)
NICKER (thief) in KS (Kansas)
WAS (used to be) A BI (bi-sexual – ‘part of the LGBT community’)
IkEA (furniture store) with D (department) replacing or ‘covering’ K (Kelvin)
DL (decilitre – ‘measure’) in or ‘accepted by’ GOYa (artist) without or ‘leaving’ A (America)
AD (air defence) EN (space, in printing)
LES (French for ‘the’) SON (native)
If you were released from a CELL (incarceration) you could fancifully be described as being EX-CELLED
An anagram (‘about’) of LEAR BOASTS
RAnTS (declaims) without the middle letter or ‘heartlessly’
Alternate or ‘periodic’ letters of aDmItS aCtOr
LARNE (NI town) round or ‘welcoming’ E (English) + R (rector)
An anagram (‘in a tizzy’) of GET CASTRO round or ‘introducing’ A (American)
RAF (fliers) FLEe (split – as in to make oneself scarce)
pEARL (from Elkie Brooks’ song ‘Pearl’s a Singer’) with the ‘p’ (quietly) missing or ‘leaving’
ALLEY (type of marble – as in the little glass balls) WAY (style)
Double definition
MIEN (look) round or ‘incorporating’ Z (zone)
ABLE (expert) after or ‘supporting’ (in a down clue) DUR (Durham)
S (special) EDGE (border)
M (money) ALL (everyone) in SPRINT (career)
adDRESSED (spoken to) without ‘ad’ (notice)
LION (courageous person) following GANG (criminal group)
BA (graduate) ‘invested’ in CASH (funds)
Hidden (‘some’) in AberdeEN TERriers
bRISK (busy) with the ‘b’ (bee) omitted or ‘ignored’
A homophone (‘report’) of BARLEY (grain)
There’s a perimeter Nina today but I’m not sure what it signifies. I don’t recall having attempted many by this setter but everything solved satisfactorily with ticks for the construction of GANGLION, the misdirection of SMALL PRINT, the clever use of ‘mien’ in MIZEN, the misleading use of marble in ALLEYWAY, the two cheeky clues – WASABI and KNICKERS with COTD going to FALSE ALARM for the delightful surface.
Thanks Kairos and B&J
Thanks PostMark – we noticed the NINA which actually helped us complete the puzzle more easily. However, we completely forgot to mention it in the preamble!
Tough in places but nothing I didn’t know apart from the NI town. I wonder what other solvers think about 9a where the answer is the poet’s first name. Not complaining – who else is called Ezra?
Hovis @3: I asked the question, on another blog where Ezra Pound popped up, as to whether there will come a time where current solvers are not aware of him. Or are only aware because he appears in crosswords. I would suspect his work is read less frequently these days – though that might prompt a deluge of riposte from the fully signed up members of the EP Fan Club who also happen to be Independent solvers and posters on Fifteensquared!
B&J @2: I am ALWAYS spotting Ninas, themes, acrostics and pangrams and then completely forgetting to mention them in my posts. Always… 😉
Thanks to Kairos for the Wednesday morning entertainment, and to Bertandjoyce for blogging.
We also spotted the nina, and used it to help with the final few entries, and we also wondered about the significance of it – perhaps it’s just that it fits nicely around a grid because of the (5, 5, 5, 5) structure??
I’m not sure whether I’d be happy with other poets’ first names being used as entries, and clued as “poet”, but agree with Hovis that there aren’t a lot of Ezras (is George Ezra better known than EP?), and (to my shame) the reference in the clue to an “American” poet did very significantly narrow the number of candidates that I knew of.
It’s not that one is unaware of him, but that it would be unacceptable, say, to clue poet and have John as the answer, claiming that Masefield or Donne was the answer….
There were a couple of other answers we felt were inadequately defined, but we enjoyed the puzzle. EXCELLED and KNICKERS were favourites.
Thanks to setter and blogger
Sorry we crossed with DavidO@5!
We didn’t spot the Nina as usual
The grid promised a Nina and for once I got it part-way through, which helped with my last few in. False alarm was excellent. Wasabi and Excelled made me smile. How is R ‘take’, please? Is it R for revenue?
Thanks to Kairos and to Bertandjoyce
And yes, I was surprised to be on first name terms with a poet, but it works for Ezra. I’ve heard of George Ezra, David0 @ 5, but he’d have taken longer to dredge up from the memory!
Hi Jayjay@8. Recipe is the Latin word for “take”, and R is supposed to be the abbreviation (formerly?) used in doctors’ prescriptions (e.g. R 2 paracetamol twice daily, I suppose). I think it’s one of the tricks that is too convenient for setters to give up, and therefore part of the grammar that new solvers just have to learn.
Thanks, DavidO ?
I enjoyed this. The cluing was impeccably brief and accurate with nice smooth surfaces. As others have commented, I can’t see the significance of the Nina, which, as usual, I completely missed.
I agree that the clue for EZRA seemed a bit vague, but at least we didn’t need to know Goya’s first name!
I had lots of ticked clues, and to mention just a few of them: FALSE ALARM, KNICKERS, GODLY, EXCELLED & ALLEYWAY.
Many thanks to Kairos and to B&J.
Another very enjoyable puzzle from this setter although needless to say I missed the Nina!
My favourites list looks remarkably similar to that of Rabbit Dave and I think FALSE ALARM just had the edge.
Thanks to Kairos for the fun and to B&J for the review.
A very pleasant coffee-time solve, helped by spotting the nina about half way through. We particularly liked FALSE ALARM and ASTROLABES.
The R for recipe on prescriptions dates back to the days when the prescription was literally a recipe, telling the pharmacist or dispenser what ingredients to take in making up the medicine, not an instruction to the patient as to how much to take.
And we were momentarily fazed in 6dn as the ususal spelling is MIZZEN, but we see Chambers allows the single Z alternative.
Thanks, Kairos and B&J
When I spot a nina or theme I usually try to find out if there’s anything significant about the date. All I could find for this one on the internet was that it apparently derives from a play called ‘Hans Beerpot’ by the wonderfully-named late 16th/early 17the century playwright Dabridgecourt Capability Belchier. Whatever, I enjoyed the puzzle so thanks Kairos and B&J.
…..and the full quotation is “Great minds think alike, though fools seldom differ”. A prize for the first setter to come up with the the second part as a nina.
Thanks allan_c @14 for the explanation.
At the risk of upsetting more regular posters would it be at all possible to stop using solve as a noun here please?
Solution is only 3 letters longer and test, whuch would convey pretty much the same meaning is actually shorter.
Enjoyed the puzzle and spotting the perimeter phrase very early helped to make it a quick solution!
Thanks to Kairos and B&J
Great fun, although “island” is perhaps not my favourite definition in a crossword (that was my last one in)! EXCELLED was the top clue for me.
Re. verbs used as nouns, “solve” is not as bad as the “ask” now polluting discourse in US corporations, in my opinion.
Bali and Barley are not homophones for me..could be a northern thing but I don’t thing the South Pacific song is pronounced barley-hai. Otherwise enjoyable puzzle.
reddevil @ 18
from Chambers
solve
noun
1. A substance that dissolves another
2. That component of a solution which is present in excess, or whose physical state is the same as that of the solution
3. Something which provides a solution
3 may have its origins in chemistry, but there’s no reason the meaning can’t be adopted
This one was fun. Hadn’t heard of a marble called an alley, so that was was a BIFD for me. Thanks for the explanation.
And PostMark @3: Ezra Pound will always have a place in the history of poetry. As the leading figure of the Imagist school, he represented a clean break from older Western styles (though the influence of Whitman in that can’t be discounted either). Imagism owes a lot to haiku. This one is the most famous (and one of a very few poems I have down by heart):
In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Of course, the other fact about Ezra Pound–that he was a Fascist collaborator and anti-Semitic propagandist in Italy during the war–may overshadow his poetic contributions, and he’s a great place to start a conversation about how you separate the artist from the art. After the war, Pound was too big a problem to go unpunished, but also too famous to put on trial. So he was declared insane and placed in an asylum. This intriguing poem by Elizabeth Bishop is about that part of Ezra Pound’s life.
Precisely, Simon. Solve as a noun does not equate to the solution (the end result of the solve).
mrpenney @22: I don’t dispute your point in the slightest. The key qualifier (imo) was “in the history of poetry”. Scholars, whether academic, professional or amateur, will certainly learn of him. I guess my – not particularly astute – observation is based on the fact that, in my late fifties, I am aware of a far wider range of poets than, say, my 17/20 year old sons. (And when I say I’m aware, that’s – to my discredit – sometimes as far as it goes. I’ve never knowingly read Pound!). They are aware of Wordsworth and Keats – a mix of GK and English lessons – but not Pound and I see little likelihood of them encountering him – or many others. As younger solvers – and setters – enter the fray and the oldest generation lay down their pens, I just suspect we will see less of the likes of Pound used as he was today.
as allan_c@14 e MIZEN …Forester never spelt it like that… maybe its a time thing.. which may apply to Ezra Pound also.. mrpenney@22 you sell Pound very well and have prompted a re-read but poetry and literature seems to have a shelf life … with exceptions obviously like Dickens and Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Shelley… poetically Pound may be slipping from the collective consciousness but I hope that he isn’t only recalled through notoriety.. he was still a great poet..
thanks Kairos n Bertandjoyce
mrpenney@22 You are truly my poetry teacher today. Thanks for both the haiku and the Elizabeth Bishop poem. The only other writer I can think of that you could indicate by first name only is Oscar Wilde.
Thanks to Bert and Joyce for the review and to all for the appreciative comments. There was no particular reason for the Nina other than the starting point for a grid fill.
Hovis @23 anything but precisely in fact. The chemical meanings of solve and solution hardly equate to the crossword ones.
In my book the solution is how you get from the problem to the required end result/answer – hence the phrase “let me walk you through the solution” which makes no sense in your interpretation.
I expect people will carry on using it and others such as fail as nouns and I will carry on having an involuntary shudder every time they do.
C’est la vie.