I saw Eileen’s plea in puzzle G24359 comments and agree with her – this puzzle needs a blog – and made some notes. Then Real Life got in the way. Then I saw Muck’s comment over on the G Talk site which I have shamelessly raided.
So I have slapped this blog in without a by-your-leave (and by now after too much to drink). So let’s see if it is still there in the morning.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | BIRDSONG (DR)< SON inside BIG Ref: The modern classic by Sebastian Faulks both a “great war novel” and a “Great War novel” though “great” is required to lead to BIG. Nevertheless one of the great clues in the puzzle |
| 5 | SHIFTY 1 FT inside SHY 12 isn’t 12 ac. When I got this on first glance … (cont. at 13D) |
| 9 | BEAUMARIS B(ritish) EAU MAR IS Err. Oh dear I thought I had this decoded yesterday – I guess I was pleased when I finally got it and saw the EAU for water in there – can anyone help? Full clue: British sea water variously rendered at Welsh castle (9) Muck says: Eau Maris, for sea water – Is that right? |
| 11 | GROWL GROW-L L for “plate” again – I didn’t get this due to 8D trouble (qv) |
| 12 | MICHELANGELO Our renaissance hero M “number” then (CHALLENGE)* inside IO (“10”) |
| 15 | SIX-SHOOTER Sixer is a brownie or cub scout leader of six. S[econd]-HOOT “Owl’s comment” inside SIXER |
| 18 | SPERMACETI The spice is MACE inside (PRIEST)*. The monster is a whale. Spermaceti is something stupidly put in cosmetics – can’t be still, can it? |
| 21 | BRUNELLESCHI BRUNEL-(CHISEL)* You really had to get the reference in 7D to understand which architect it was going to be – but somehow I spotted the “chisel used” as an anagram, and then the …ESCHI ending sprung to mind – and then this, 7D and 22D crystallised – a proper PDM – this is what made the puzzle great for me |
| 24 | AROMA Where was 12’s dome? A Roma (in Rome) |
| 25 | RAINSTORM [b]RAINSTORM |
| 26 | DUSTER First letters of During Unofficially etc. i.e. “openings” (least clever clue in the grid IMO) |
| 27 | ODYSSEUS (YO[u] SUSSED)* Beautiful clue – ‘specially when sussed on the first pass – Oh! I felt I was on a winner here |
| Down | |
| 1 | BABE I liked this clue – the definition “being in arms” is cute The answer given is BABY. The reason is explained in the comments |
| 3 | SUMMIT SU(MM)IT |
| 4,2 | NORF CIRCULAR ROAD (Lunatic car horror)* + d(ied). A London route not as far from the centre as the M25 (but only the Northern half) |
| 6 | HIGH NOON A film. Rank=high. 12 isn’t 12 ac (again) |
| 7 | FLORENTINE I didn’t know this was also a biscuit – more familiar with the pizza with the egg on top that my SO usually orders. Where is 21’s 22? In a lovely city in Italy |
| 8 | YELL-OW-ROOT O woe is me I put in YARROW-ROOT thinking “Yarroo!” as the fat-owl of the remove might have howled. I have never heard of Yellow-root. I had heard of Yarrow which is why I didn’t question my mistake, but it is not the root that is the medicinal part (I just checked) |
| 10 | SELF-SATISFIED (fifties AD less)* |
| 13 | CHESS BOARD HESS-BOAR in CD (cont from 5A) … and this, giving oodles of first letters, I thought this was going to be an easy A. How wrong I was. I thought this a classic clue too. |
| 14 | OBSEQUIOUS Obsequies= funeral rites. Replace E= drug by OU= dark blues, for obsequious |
| 17 | AMPERAGE AM-PER-AGE |
| 20 | THESIS THE-SIS |
| 22 | DOME DO-ME Maybe. I am only sure of this because of the integration with other clues – help! |
| 22 | AMOS DD Lady Amos is in the Lords |
I agree that this puzzle was worth blogging. And thanks for acknowledging my contribution.
Even though I couldn’t complete this one (AMOS and OBSEQUIOUS all passed me by – should have spotted “dark blue” = OU though, and SAFE for DOME didn’t help either), I thought the 12 refs were nice, especially when you’d almost expect the links to be great works of art from 12ac.
I might be pedantic (or wrong), but I had BABY for 1d – the “BY” being in the clue directly.
I have BABY for 1dn too.
Thank you Muck [although I couldn’t find your website] and Beermat [you should try Florentine biscuits!]for your contributions. I really did think this one should not go unremarked. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
9ac: EAU [French,”water’ + MARIS [Latin. ‘of the sea’] – ‘variously rendered’: I thought this was great.
1dn I had ‘baby’ too.
For anyone who couldn’t find my blog, on talk.guardian.co.uk, here is a copy so that you can see just how much of beermagnet’s blog is a verbatim copy. No problem – he acknowledged that he ‘shamelessly raided’ from it!
++ muck on talk.guardian.co.uk ++
Araucaria 24358 April 9th hasn’t been blogged still on fifteensquared.net.
A good puzzle with an Italian Renaissance theme.
ACROSS
1. Birdsong. A great war novel by Sebastian Faulks. SON=issue & DR< in BIG=great
5. 12 inches is IFT, in SHY
9. Beaumaris is a Welsh castle. Eau Maris, for sea water, isn’t in Chambers
11. GROW+L
12. Our first renaissance hero (Challenge+M+10)*
16. Sixer is a brownie or cub scout leader of six.
18. The spice is mace. The monster is a whale.
21. Brunel is our engineer + (chisel)* for our second renaissance hero.
24. Where was 12’s dome? A Roma (in Rome).
25. b(rainstorm)
26. Initial letters
27. Greek hero – (yo+sussed)*
DOWN
3. SU(MM)IT
4,2. (Lunatic car horror)* + d(ied). A London route not as far from the centre as the M25.
6. A film. Rank=high. 12 isn’t 12 ac.
7. Where is 21’s 22? In a city in Italy.
8. Yell+ow+root
10. (fifties AD less)*
13. Hess+Boar in CD
14. Obsequies= funeral rites. Replace E= drug by OU= dark blues, for obsequious.
17. am+per+age
20. the+sis
22. DOME ???
23. double def ??
Agree with BABY for 1d and Eileen’s explanation of EAU MARIS for 9a.
27d: DOME (as in Brunelleschi’s in Florence’s Duomo and Michelangelo’s in St Peter’s in Rome) is the ‘vault’, and “my’…’ will be no problem’, ie ‘will be no problem for me’ = it will DO ME (fine).
Lovely crossword.
The Italian name for Florence is Firenze, not Firenza
Wah! 1D is BABY. Obvious now I see it. I didn’t even check it in the published answers. So that’s another I didn’t get.
As for Firenza – It’s the way I tell ’em ;^)
[ And I’ve now understood why this appeared only as a link on the home page – but maybe that would be a good thing – so you don’t see the answers unless you choose to go down to the detailed page. These days, if I can, I have a go at the Indie after tackling the G at lunchtime, but sometimes inadvertantly see some answers on this blog’s homepage when I check it to see if the G’s blog has arrived. Is it worth airing this subject? ]
How did you make your post appear as a link? It’s never happened before but as you say it might be a useful feature.
At the very start of the blog I must of accidentally clicked that “more” button that puts in an html tag that looks like this:
Crikey, I wonder if that’s going to do something odd to this comment.
OK. You clearly can’t put that html tag in a comment even for it to appear in the clear. To see what it looks like in the code, using square brackets instead of the angle brackets, it looks like [!–more–]
In Araucaria’s 0f 19th April (24367), I have the answer to 11 across but can anyone explain it to me please?
Stuart, we don’t discuss live prize puzzles until after the deadline here.
I’m sure Rightback will be along with a blog for yesterday’s puzzle on Friday of next week. In the meantime YHM