A typical Araucaria puzzle — a mini-theme, classical references, multi-word answers and clues referring to other clues. Quite entertaining, provided you’re not too much of a purist.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | BIGOTRIES — Omega = big O + TRIES |
| 6 | ALAS — a lass -S |
| 11 | PAVAROTTI — I knew this had to be Pavarotti, and wouldn’t have bothered too much with the wordplay on a non-blog day. The Roman satirist is Varro (presumably Varro Atacinus rather than his contemporary, Varro Reatinus). ‘Singer’ is the definition, so that must leave ‘patti’ for the ‘coloratura’ part, but I don’t know how it works. (Patti Smith springs to my mind, but seems a little incongruous in this company.) |
| 12 | TANTARA — hidden word, with the indicator being the ‘in’ part of ‘inconstant’. I suspect this is not at all Ximenean, but I quite like it. |
| 13 | RAMBERT — RT (right) about AMBER (the middle traffic light) |
| 14 | NOT IN THE LEAST — NO TINT HE then LEST containing A |
| 17, 1d | TWO TENORS AND A BARITONE — reference to the three singers at 11a, 21a and 16d. TWO TEN OR SANDA (Sandra -r) BAR I *(note) |
| 21 | DOMINGO — a domino is a type of cloak, G is a note. |
| 22 | SCHEMER — SC HEM ER |
| 24 | SHORT TIME — MITT< in SHORE. Chambers defines this as ‘working fewer than the normal number of hours per week’, which is 40 for some people. (And I would have said ‘less than’, time being a continuous variable.) |
| 25 | OWNER — N in OWER, defined by ‘I have’. |
| 26 | NEED — “knead”. |
| 27 | THERSITES — easy to work out from the wordplay, even if you’re not familiar with the name. Thersites was a soldier in the Greek army in the Trojan war, and appears as a character in Troilus and Cressida. |
| Down | |
| 2 | GAVIN — GAIN round V. Chambers says Gavin is a Welsh name, perhaps meaning ‘white hawk’. |
| 3 | TERRA INCOGNITA — *(integration + RC) |
| 4 | IMPEACH — IMP (‘monkey’ in the sense of mischievous child) + EACH. |
| 5 | SEVERAL — *(leavers). |
| 7 | LYTTELTON — reference to the baronetcy and the ever-wonderful Humph. I’m not sure where the ‘John’ fits in, but doubtless someone will enlighten me. |
| 8 | SHIFTY — 1 FT (foot) in SHY. |
| 9 | GRAMMAR SCHOOLS — *(logos) about RAM MARS CH. ‘Select affairs’ seems a slightly dodgy definition, but forgivable. |
| 15 | TOTEM POLE — TO TEMPLE outside O. |
| 16 | CARRERAS — CARRIER minus i + AS |
| 18 | EGOTIST — E GOT IS T(on), the ’vulgarly’ referring to the dropped h’s. |
| 19 | OBSCENE — OB (obit) on SCENE. ‘Not very nice’ is a slightly sardonic definition. |
| 20 | ODDS ON — ODD SON |
| 23 | MONET — a lot of ‘money’ plus the usual T for ‘model’. |
I took Patti to be Adelina Patti (1843-1919)
John is Elton, surely, after removing the ‘on’ from Lord Lytton
Thanks, Conrad. I had never heard of (or don’t remember having heard of) Adelina Patti, but I really should have spotted Elton John.
Thank you Conrad for the Patti definition. I too arrived at the solution without really understanding the elements.
A really super puzzle from the great man.