I enjoyed this crossword, which was on the whole straightforward but with interesting nuggets of information – 8 AC, and some amusing clues – 18Dn.
Posted by Simply Simon Peters
Across
7 LONG JOHN is obviously half of a pair of warmers – Longjohns are an undergarment which is like a babygrow for adults, minus coverings for the hands and feet. I can see that Long goes together with Short (23 Ac) – but is there more to it than that?
9 BRONTE anagram, but also The three sisters wrote under pseudonyms of Currer Bell (Charlotte Bronte) Ellis Bell (Emily Bronte) and Acton Bell (Anne Bronte) to disguise their femininity and to get their works into print.
11 TEN ANTS HIP
12, 25, 16 THETA Y BRIDGE DISASTER Theta is the 8th letter of the Greek alphabet, Bridge is a card game, Y is the end of every, Dis is the lower city of hell, and an Aster is a flower. The Tay Bridge Disaster happened in 1879.
15 WEIR DO
17 ANANAS, this held me up because I couldn’t get the significance of ‘darling’, then I recalled that the Darling Family in Peter Pan had a dog, called Nana. Ananas is the Genus name for the Pineapple.
20 RHODESIA – anagram of hero aids.
22 BRECHT ‘B’ is the second letter, and the German for right is recht.
23 CLARE SHOR T – claret around ‘sh’ and or, for golden.
24, 14 RUBY WEDDINGS anagram of Burns we giddy, and is the celebration of 40 years of marriage.
26 TREASURE – being part of cenTRE on ‘A SURE’ (certain).
Down
1 FORESHOW – ‘how’ following (succeeding) an abbreviated forest, meaning to predict.
3 WORTHY – an inverted row on top of thy – the possessive of the solver, thou.
4 A BING D O N the lottery is Bingo, the number is D – Roman 500, N is new, Abingdon is on the Thames.
5 CON SCIENCE
6 ST RING
8 NONE EWS – No news is good news, or so they say.
13 THIRD GRADE – Lew and Leslie Grade were impresarios, and Michael is the son of Leslie, and nephew of Lew.
18 SCHUBERT – is Chub, a fish ‘in sert’. The Trout Quintet is the popular name for the Piano Quintet in A by Franz Schubert. “In sert” made me laugh.
19 PAY OUT – the boy or girls is PAT and YOU are the solver (hopefully).
22 HILARY – the monster reported is the Gila Monster which is a venomous lizard, and RY is an abbreviation of railway, for line. Hilary is a name for either boys or girls.
7/23: Perhaps it’s a ref to JOHN CLARE (the poet)?
7/23: more likely to be long john silver, cf 26ac “Treasure island”
Except the reference given is to 23 ac, not 26 ac.
7/23: I think the silver ref in 7 is indeed to long john silver of coruse — but the cross-ref to 23 must be JOHN CLARE (unless Elton John has a sister Clare…)
7/23: Isn’t the “complement perhaps to 23” just LONG as the opposite of Short.
Dear Adjoint Functor – I agree, and that’s what I suggested at the outset – see above.
12 years later!! Araucaria was a kind man. He responded to my request and set a crossword to celebrate my parents’ Ruby Wedding (hence 24a,14a). Dad was a proud son of Burns country (hence also the anagram and 10a) and a ‘fan’ of the poetaster William McGonagall (12a, 25a, 16d). Mum likes Schubert (18d, 10a) and was born in Batley (22d). They lived in Abingdon (4d). The long and short of 7a and 23a (geddit?) is that I am Clare and my brother is John. Best present I ever got anyone.
Hi Clare, and belated congratulations on your parents’ Ruby Wedding (and for it being honoured by Araucaria.)
I’m currently going through the Guardian crossword archives, and got stuck on this one. I still can’t work out 24d (the solution given is ‘ROSE’) and it’s not explained either in this blog, or in the Guardian’s annotated solution. Do you have any idea of the parsing? Thanks (if you’re still watching.)
greensward @8
I’ve had a look at the clue and I think the solution given on the Guardian page is incorrect. It should be ROSS with the wordplay being a triple, cryptic definition:
ROSS {and Cromarty} – former part of county
ROSS {Sea} – C
ROSS {on Wye} – on Y
Thank you for picking up on this, Gaufrid, much obliged. That was the answer I originally had, but with only the ‘on Y’ bit making any sense to me. I will no doubt have more queries like this in the future (or past!), particularly regarding Araucaria puzzles. Thanks again, and please keep watching this space…