Solving time: About 40 minutes (interrupted); two wrong (30ac and 44dn), one missing (42dn)
If you’ve read or seen As You Like It (specifically Act V, Scene IV), you probably found this easier than I did. After finishing the grid, ODQ came to my rescue: the theme was ‘the degrees of a lie’, which are the retort courteous, the quip modest, the reply churlish, the reproof valiant, the countercheck quarrelsome, the lie circumstantial and the lie direct.
I have no idea what the answer to 42dn is, nor can I explain 20ac or 44dn. I also can’t satisfactorily explain the ‘partial’ clueing of some of the thematic words; was there some method to the letters omitted in the wordplay (e.g. T in 37dn, HUR in 45ac)? [All now explained in the comments.]
* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | HACKING + COUGH (= ‘Inform’) – not a phrase I knew, but it’s in the Compact OED. |
| 12 | CRITIQUE; CUE (= ‘invitation to speak’) around RIT[artando] + I.Q. – my last solve (42dn apart), once I’d finally sorted 8dn, and a very hard wordplay which I took a while to see. |
| 13 | ATRO[city] + PINE (= ‘deal’) |
| 16 | VESTED + INTEREST (IN + STREET*) |
| 18 | RETORT (double definition) – I didn’t know that this could mean a flask used in distillation. |
| 20 | SHAVINGS – why is this ‘intoxicated investors’? It could be VIN in SHAGS, but I can’t find any support for ‘investor’ = SHAG. [See comments.] |
| 23 | SKIPPING ROPE; “RIPPING SCOPE” |
| 25 | POLYCHROME; “POLLY” + CHROME [Actually “POLLY” + “CROME” – see comments.] |
| 27 | CABIN BOY; (BABY IN CO)* – excellent clue. |
| 29 | GRANULAR; (RA + RA + LUNG)* – awkward indirect anagram; I spotted this answer from the definition (‘Particulate’). |
| 30 | DREAD LOCKS – not ‘breaklocks’, obviously, but I stupidly wrote this in and forgot to come back to it. I’ve really got to stop doing that. |
| 33 | INSTITUTIONS; INST + TUITIONS (with T and U swapped) [Actually the ‘I’ moves – see comments.] |
| 34 | AM(MON + IF)Y – hartshorn is a solution of ammonia. |
| 36 | BEAMER (double definition) – a beamer is a ball bowled at head height in cricket, so ‘Highball’ is a bit naughty, despite the question mark, as it’s the first word in the clue. Why not ‘Big smile produced by highball?’ instead? |
| 38 | CIRCUMSTANTIAL |
| 41 | S + PUD |
| 43 | H(A + LB)ERD |
| 45 | CHURLISH; LIS in CH, with ‘HUR’ unclued [No – see comments.] |
| 46 | MASS + ACRE |
| 47 | UN + CHAP + ER + ONE + D |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | BATTLESHIP; (THIS TABLE)* + P – ‘provide initiation’ is typical of why Araucaria isn’t my favourite compiler. |
| 2 | EKE + OUT – I only vaguely knew the archaic ‘eke’ = ‘in addition’. |
| 3 | UNBIDDEN; U (= ‘turn’) + N.B. (= ‘note’) + I.D. (= ‘who you are’) + DEN (= ‘retreat’) |
| 4 | SCREEN (double definition) |
| 5 | QUARRELS + [h]OME |
| 6 | W(HIP + PER[il])IN – ‘an assistant to a huntsman, who controls the hounds’, apparently. |
| 8 | DIFFERENTIAL, with IF for E in DEFERENTIAL – though the wordplay really asks for the opposite (i.e. E for IF). I struggled to justify ‘preferential’ for a good while. |
| 10 | [e]QUIP |
| 17 | TO + Pb (= ‘lead’) + A NANA (the dog in ‘Peter Pan’) – really good clue, probably the best of the puzzle. |
| 18 | REPL[a]Y – though sadly these days ‘penlty shootout’ would be a better fit for the wordplay. |
| 21 | VALI[um] + ANT |
| 22 | S(ARC + ASTI)C – another good clue. SC stands for Special Constable. |
| 24 | RUB + ICON – as in ‘crossing the Rubicon’, with a hackneyed pun on ‘flower’. |
| 26 | COUNTER + CHECK – a pun on ‘check’ =’square’, I think. |
| 28 | IRIS + MU(R + DO)CH – ‘do’ is short for ‘ditto’, as if that wasn’t short enough! |
| 29 | GEN(I)E – I had no idea what a thaumaturge was, but the wordplay was fairly obvious. |
| 31 | SO(FT + ANS)WER |
| 32 | COURTEOUS; (TRUE)* in COO, + U.S. |
| 35 | MEA(SURE)D |
| 37 | MODES (= ‘ways’) + T (unclued) [No – see comments.] |
| 39 | SOCIAL [Democrats] |
| 40 | TALL + OW |
| 42 | P?A? – the clue here is ‘The thing before the game’. PLAN or PLAY look most likely, but I can’t justify either (and this isn’t a thematic ‘partial’ clue). [It’s PLAY – see comments.] |
| 44 | LIES – I actually thought this was ‘lees’, which can mean the dregs (i.e. the ‘rest’), and thought Lee Fitzgerald sounded plausible, but no. Obviously ‘rests’ = LIES but why ‘Fitzgerald’s rest’? [See comments.] |
20A SHAVINGS=’savings’ for the intoxicated!
37D MODE+ST for two kinds of way?
42D I could only think of ‘The play’s the thing’ [Hamlet]
I had the same problems as you with some of these. The online solution says:
20A: SHAVINGS – savings pronounced when intoxicated
45A: CHUR(c)H
(so maybe that’s one bit of “partial” clueing?)
42D: PLAY “The play’s the thing”, Hamlet, II, 2 + what umpire says to start the bowling”
44D: LIES “One thing is certain and the rest is Lies”, Omar Khayyam
(OK was translated by Fitzgerald)
All pretty obscure and/or Auraucarian!
I’ll buy all those, including MODE + ST = ‘ways’ (which works) and CHURLISH = CHUR(C => LIS)H = ‘about leaving flower in church’ (which doesn’t, really) – all the other thematic clues had complete wordplay and possible missing definitions, so this all makes far more sense now. “Shavings” I should have seen, but the quotations were both new to me. Many thanks to both commenters.
I thought this was all wonderful , but it was a bit annoying the the preamble missed out 14/21 as one of the 7 removes of lie (both in the paper and online) – I see that these are asterisked as thematic in the online annotated solution.
33A Just to be picky – to get from TUITIONS to ITUTIONS it’s the first “I” that moves to the front. I think the Rev’s “slightly twisted” covers it well.
38A I still don’t understand how the partial clue “Detailed (14)” leads to CIRCUMSTANTIAL. I see the annotated solution says [as with ‘evidence’] but surely “detailed evidence” is not the same as “circumstantial evidence”.
A well-worn, tedious quotation. Of course we all remember its use in Listener 890 “Touchstone” by Afrit, 17/04/1947. I wonder how often it has been used since, and what its appeal is?
25ac POLYCHROME: I believe this should be pol(-l)y+c(+h)rome.
(Crome was an English Romantic painter, sounds like chrome)
I believe you’re right – I don’t think I read this clue properly. 33ac also corrected – thanks to Beermagnet, and for highlighting the absence of “14 21” from the preamble which I forgot to mention.
I think Araucaria has derived ‘detailed’ = CIRCUMSTANTIAL from ‘details’ = ‘circumstances’; Chambers does give ‘relating to details’ under ‘circumstantial’.