The puzzle may be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/cryptic/25938.
One of the pleasures of sharing the Friday Guardian blog spot is the regular appearance of Araucaria puzzles. Her we have it in essence – the daring constructions and definitions, but nothing that defies explanation, and above all the good humour. Long may he flourish.
| Across | |||
| 1. | Killer keeps awfully hot — do I not? — aiming for straight sets (11) | ||
| ORTHODONTIC | An envelope (‘keeps’) of THO, an anagram (‘awfully’) of ‘hot’ plus DON’T I (‘do I not’) in ORC (‘killer’ whale). I got the ORTHO part readily, but was sidetracked by thoughts of doxies (if you need to look that up, don’t), before realizing that the sets in question were of teeth. | ||
| 9. | Morris — is she from Paris? (7) | ||
| ESTELLE | French (‘from Paris’) EST ELLE (‘is she’ to construe), for the former Labour MP, Estelle Morris. | ||
| 10. | Line — end of Central, start of Metropolitan — ascribed to the law (4,3) | ||
| LONG ARM | A charade of L (‘line’) plus ONGAR (‘end of Central’. Prior to its closure in 1994, Ongar Station was the easternmost terminus of the London Underground Central Line) plus M (‘start of Metropolitan’; for those benighted souls who do not know London, the Metropolitan is another Underground Line) | ||
| 11. | Exaggerate what’s no distance in Russia at a point (9) | ||
| OVERSTATE | A charade of O VERST (‘no distance in Russia’; O for zero, and a verst – singular in English, but plural in Russian – is an old Russian measure of length, varying in size, but settling around 1 kilometer) plus ‘at’ plus E (‘point’ of the compass). | ||
| 12. | Queen and prince coming after death (5) | ||
| RIGOR | A charade of R (Regina, ‘Queen’) plus IGOR (‘prince’; an opera by Borodin, or the historical figure on whom it was based). | ||
| 13. | Old currency gamble? (4) | ||
| PUNT | Double definition; the punt, or Irish pound, was the major unit of Irish currency before adoption of the euro. | ||
| 14. | Report of weakly cure embracing odd bod and lunatic (10) | ||
| HEBDOMADAL | An envelope (’embracing’) of BDO, an anagram (‘odd’) of ‘bod’ plus MAD (‘lunatic’) in HEAL (‘cure’). There is no real definition, but a second wordplay – |
||
| 16. | People like Lolita — it’s a difficult thing to do (3,7) | ||
| SEX KITTENS | Definition and literal interpretation (SEX – verb, to determine the sex of) | ||
| 19. | King of footballers? (4) | ||
| OFFA | A charade of ‘of’ plus FA (Football association, ‘footballers’) for the 8th century king of Mercia, best known as a dyke. | ||
| 20. | A word of comfort from another place (5) | ||
| THERE | Double definition, although the ‘word of comfort’ is often repeated. | ||
| 21. | In a way, left a lot of flowers for children’s author (5,4) | ||
| ROALD DAHL | An envelope (‘in’) of L (‘left’) in ROAD (‘a way’); plus DAHL[ias] (‘a lot of flowers’; a distinctly Araucarian interpretation of ‘lot’). Roald Dahl was not only an author of children’s books; witness the short story collection in 2D/1D. | ||
| 23. | Parthian shot in sketch? (7) | ||
| OUTLINE | Double definition. As Eileen recently explained, the Parthians were notorious for turning in the saddle when retreating on horseback, and firing arrows; hence a ‘Parthian shot’ is an OUT LINE, a verbal barb delivered on exit, leaving the recipient with little chance for riposte. | ||
| 24. | Premier destroyer of romance (7) | ||
| CAMERON | An anagram (‘destroyer’) of ‘romance’. | ||
| 25. | Holds forth about the purpose of posterity (11) | ||
| DESCENDANTS | An envelope (‘about’) of END (‘the purpose’) in DESCANTS (I onlyknew the word as a musical term, but it has another meaning, to ‘hold forth’ at lenght about a pet subject). | ||
| Down | |||
| 1. | See 2 | ||
| – | See 2 | ||
| 2,1. | 21’s clue to self-hate? (5,2,3,10) | ||
| TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED | A ‘reverse’ clue: ‘to self-hate’ is an anagram (UNEXPECTED) of TALES OF THE. | ||
| 3. | Too old for reporting of event? Not a hundred! (4,3) | ||
| OVER AGE | A subtraction: [c]OVERAGE (‘reporting of event’) less the C (‘not a hundred’). | ||
| 4. | Does lie perverted lead to rape? (7) | ||
| OILSEED | An anagram (‘perverted’) of ‘does lie’. Rape is an OILSEED of the cabbage family. In the US, they, the gentle souls, refer to the extract as canola oil. | ||
| 5. | Fits of temper at time worker drinks? (8) | ||
| TANTRUMS | A charade of T (‘time’) plus ANT (‘worker’) plus RUMS (‘drinks’). | ||
| 6. | Diplomat accused of intrigues? (6,9) | ||
| CHARGE DAFFAIRES | Definition and Fractured French literal interpretation. | ||
| 7. | Collapse of French work of art (13) | ||
| DECOMPOSITION | A charade of DE (‘of Frernch’) plus COMPOSITION (‘work of art’). | ||
| 8. | Water feature? I’m not sure — dubious parallel between books (8,5) | ||
| UMBRELLA PLANT | A charade of UM (‘I’m not sure’) plus an envelope (‘between’) of RELLAPLA, an anagram (‘dubious’) of ‘parallel’ in B (‘book’) plus NT (New Testament, more ‘books’). The umbrella plant, or palm, is often grown in ornamental ponds. | ||
| 15. | Emperor‘s clothes raised over half disease (8) | ||
| TIBERIUS | An envelope (‘over’) of BERI[-beri] (‘half disease’) in TIUS, a reversal (‘raised’ in a down light) of SUIT (‘clothes’). | ||
| 17. | Re-enter formation of earth (7) | ||
| TERRENE | An anagram (‘formation’) of ‘re-enter’. | ||
| 18. | Subtle twist in Duncan Edwards’ initiation (7) | ||
| NUANCED | An anagram (‘twist’) of ‘Duncan’ plus E (‘Edwards initiation’). | ||
| 22. | Devil opening the show (5) | ||
| DEMON | The first part (‘opening’) of DEMON[stration] (‘the show’). | ||
I enjoyed this puzzle although I found it easier to solve than to parse.
I liked a lot of the clues, with my favourites being 24a & 25a, 3d, 6d, 8d & 15d. I also appreciated the clue to 9a as it was easily solvable even though I had never heard of Baroness Morris of Yardley, and I simply did a quick check via google to see if an “Estelle Morris” actually existed.
I was unable to fully parse 1a (I thought it was an anagram of HOT DO I NOT + RC), 10a, 11a and 1d.
New words for me were HEBDOMADAL & TERRENE.
Thanks for the blog, PeterO.
Re 14a, I parsed it as definition = “report of weakly” => homophone of weekly => HEBDOMADAL. I cannot find “hebdomidal” in any of the dictionaries that I access online. Can you please explain more fully?
michelle@2
I think that is a typo in the blog.
I really liked 2,1 – I still find it hard to pick reverse clues, but enjoy them when I get them.
Thanks for the blog PeterO, I was also unfamiliar with this meaning of DESCANT(s).
2,1d is one of the nicest clues I’ve ever seen! Congratulations, Arau!
I vote 2,1d one of the nicest clues ever!
Muffyword@3
Thanks, yes I see that it must be a typo.
Also, I forgot to mention that I could not parse 2,1 but now I see that it is indeed brilliant.
Thanks, PeterO. I thought this was very enjoyable.
Needed the explanation for Tiberius.
How can yesterday’s Puck be described as superb when we have this from Araucaria?
In 20a THERE, I took the A of “A word of comfort” to indicate only one occurrence – or is that what you meant?
Thanks Peter. As ever, the clues are so good that even the unexpected – SEX KITTENS, eg – and the unheard-of (9a, 8d) fall into place with a happy sigh, and all that is needed is google to verify and add a bit: as with the Parthians when we had them (luckily) recently.
Thanks for the blog, PeterO…
… and for the acknowledgment, but it was Andrew who explained ‘Parthian’ a couple of weeks ago. 😉
However, Dave Ellison, I did call Puck’s puzzle yesterday ‘superb’. There is no greater Araucaria fan than me but I like apples as well as oranges – and, from yesterday’s comments, it seems I’m not the only one!
Lovely puzzle today, with many typically Araucarian clues. As usual, it’s difficult to pick out the best but I was very impressed by 18dn – and it was clever to get two real people into one crossword.
I smiled at LONG ARM, OFFA, SEX KITTENS and especially the lovely self-referential surface of OVER AGE.
Another splendid offering from the reverend. Thanks, PeterO, for confirming my suspicions re ONGAR.
Perhaps you ought to rewrite your explanation of 19ac, though – I doubt he was known “as a dyke”! For his dyke, maybe 🙂
I did mean to mention also 2,1 down – I love that kind of clue – but I did think it was a bit odd that A had clued Dahl as a children’s author and then used that example.
[Thanks, Stella! 😉 ]
What a fine weekday Rev, and thanks to PeterO for the comprehensive blog, particularly helpful in uncloaking TIBERIUS for me also.
Many thanks PeterO and Araucaria
A lovely puzzle full of playful wit and good humour.
I really liked 1a, 14a (though I too was tempted by hebdomidal despite parsing the answer correctly!), 16a (excellent), 20a, 23a (had to refresh my memory in order to parse it), 2,1, 4d and 8d.
Thanks PeterO for the blog as although I found this much easier to solve than several recent puzzles I was stumped with the parsing of quite a few e.g. OVERSTATE, DESCENDANTS and TIBERIUS.
I liked a lot of the clues including SEX KITTENS. (BTW it is not as difficult to do as sexing young rodents or indeed birds. Sometimes, since coat colour is sex-linked in cats it is easy, as for example when our ginger puss had 2 ginger toms and 3 tortoiseshell females)8.
I have to say that I have thought of our premier CAMERON in 24ac as a destroyer of many things, but never before romance!
Thanks, PeterO
Another really entertaining one from Araucaria, with a lot of ingenious constructions. I knew the word HEBDOMADAL (which I think is only used regularly at Oxford), so it was an early and useful entry; it’s rather puzzling that there is no straightforward definition here. ‘Weakly’ doesn’t really help the surface.
2,1 is wonderful. Eileen @11: It is very characteristic of Araucaria to mislead by linking clues which have to be taken in different contexts to make the connection. I did spend a while trying to think of one of Dahl’s children’s books which fitted the enumeration. As I’m sure the good Rev intended.
I look forward to meeting up with many of the regulars tomorrow in Manchester.
Thanks to PeterO for the blog. I needed you to explain why I was right on a couple of occasions.
On 10a I tried for a while to use L for line as well as L (end of Central) and M but got nowhere. Then I spotted Long Arm and finally saw the name of an underground station!
Thanks PeterO.
1ac reminded me of the time Araucaria clued this as:
“Correcting sets in the North? O don’t! I can’t bear it (11).”
One of the best “concealed” clues ever I think – thanks again Araucaria for yet another smashing crossword.
Fantastic (both the puzzle and the blog)! Unfortunately, I confidently wrote “umbellar plant” into 8d, happy with the botanical term (and ignoring the def, of course). It took me ages to realise my rashness. Some knowledge is a dangerous thing, even in Araucaria’s puzzles… Thanks again!
How nice to be able to sit in the sun to wander through an Araucaria crossword. Trip to dentist this morning helped get ORTHODONTIC.
Last in was TIBERIUS, after several attempts to find a disease that fitted. Like many others, unable to parse – thanks, PeterO!
Surprised that grid-maestro Mitz hasn’t popped in with a word or two about today’s, which is … exactly the same as yesterday’s. And, what, just the one difficult word (HEBDOMADAL)? Mysterious.
Plenty for certain people to discuss re clueing strategies here I’m sure, but what a fantastic puzzle.
Thanks Araucaria and PeterO.
Ah, Paul B, but it isn’t exactly the same as yesterday’s. It’s an even tougher construction, with long lights down the extreme East and West rather than two words each. Hence HEBDOMADAL I would guess!
Very enjoyable – plenty of tricky stuff mixed in with the easier starters. CAMERON = (romance)* is becoming a bit of a standard (and the poor fella is probably thinking far from romantic thoughts about his beloved electorate right now, but that’s another story). I struggled at first, but after TERRENE and NUANCED between them made the great RD obvious (can’t believe I didn’t get him on the first sweep) I thought I might breeze through the rest. I didn’t, but it wasn’t a slog either.
I wondered if the clue for ESTELLE might work without “Morris”?
Very enjoyable; some delightful clues here.
Thanks PeterO; I was lacking a bit of GK here, especially verst and hebdomadal. The latter had to be ferreted out of a word searcher.
Like many others, [note apostrophe, Eileen ;)] I loved TOTU and ORTHODONTIC [straight sets, indeed!]
Life can be pleasant; late spring in the garden solving an Araucaria, cuckoo giving it some from the hill behind me only having to break off to consult Chambers over 14a. I scoobied myself a little putting in Pele for the King of Footballers for absolutely no good crosswrding reason, thinking Mt Pele might have been named after a caribbean potentate. Umbrella plant was an elegant example of a charade, the solver led to a plausible solution gently by the true patoralist’s hand.
Hi Robi @22
It’s taken me until now to understand your comment – and even now I’m not sure.
I think you must mean ‘comma’ rather than ‘apostrophe’, referring to my response to your comment on Wednesday, on how the omission of a comma made you appear to be saying [“I won’t continue to avoid giving offence”] the opposite of what you meant. 😉 [The same wouldn’t apply in the case of your comment today, of course.]
And if Gordius had produced some of this he would have been pilloried. But today is obviously sycophant’s corner.
“aiming for straight sets” is undoubtedly a truism for an orthodentist, but it is barely a definition of the word ORTHODONTIC.
Who but an utter snob of the linguistic variety would ever know of or use HEBDOMADAL? It is an utterly pointless word when the simple “weekly” covers every possible usage. Let’s face it, given the comment at @15, only those with a penchant for tasteless bragging of the “I went to Oxford” variety would ever use the word.
And unless you’ve been to Russia, why would you know VERST without the help of Google? Not the sort of word that springs to most peoples mind on a crowded train.
I wonder how much blue touch paper will do the trick?
Really interesting comments, Derek. You’re certainly not the first to assert that what Araucaria gets away with every time, other setters are routinely crucified for.
However:
ORTHODONTIC: “the branch of dentistry dealing with the prevention and correction of irregular teeth, as by means of braces.” In other words, the branch of dentistry which is “aiming for straight sets”.
I think I’m with you on VERST, but only because I’ve never heard of it either – I’m sure there must be some that have (eg the Rev himself, otherwise I don’t know how he would have thought to include it as part of a charade clue). For me this one was what I would describe as a moral victory for the setter – I put in the correct answer but couldn’t parse it properly.
I’m less comfortable with your vilification of people who do happen to have some snippet of arcane knowledge in their armoury. I think at #15 Gervase was merely stating that he recalled the term HEBDOMADAL from Oxford. I didn’t read any bragging into it, tasteless or otherwise – I found it quite interesting really.
The point I found most strange, especially coming from a regular crossword solver, was your dismissal of any word that is pointless because there is another word that means the same thing. What, like a synonym? Where on Earth would crosswords be without synonyms? Would you be in favour of a government sanctioned bonfire of words, as with Newspeak in 1984?
Yes, well, Mits is right not exactly like yeasterday’s, but very close Paul B (good point about RCW, now the darling of GUers!), and no, I don’t minf people ruibbing me about my ty ping. Thing is, if I go back and correct, on a bad daty i’m just aslikely to make as many mistsakes in my ‘rehash’ if you see what I mean!! No biggie, we all hs cross to bear.
So, I don’t say enough about wehy I don’t like stuff. Fair enough, but I’m awry of re-doing a blog, esp where I don’t like a lot of the clues. But I get your drift, the GU Club of Mits, Aztobezed, Thomas99. and you other guys.
Araucaria gives us Araucarianisms as well as Guardianisms, so pit falls everywhere, but here I go!#
12ac def is wrong.
14 sense is off, quite a ‘weak’ clue.
16 support doesn’t help much
21’a lot’ doesn’t say how much.
2,1, tense of the defd
22ac see comment at 21.
That’s it,but just practising on Araucaria, whomm I always enjoy regardless. Great puzzle.
Cheers and peace,
“Rowelyui”!!
Ha! Wonderful Rowly, thanks!
12: Does rigor [mortis] not “come after death”?
14: I think it works OK if you go along with “report of weakly” giving the definition.
16: Granted, a very cryptic definition in part two – more of a hint really – but perfectly gettable.
21: Does it have to?
2,1: A pretty perfect clue, if you ask me.
22: Possibly the one out of the lot that most people would have an issue with. You’re not allowed to imply anagram fodder, so is this any different?
Hi Eileen @24; yes, my apostrophe is your comma, just a bit higher! Brain fade, but you got the point anyway. 🙂
That’s more like it, Rowly – something we can get our teeth into. But Araucaria is probably the wrong setter to illustrate your ‘Guardianisms’ objections since he seems bent on providing clues which get you where he wants you with the minimum of information. You either like his 22 clues or you don’t – I can see the objection but it’s OK by me. To be honest, I didn’t think this was him at his best, so I wouldn’t want to get pernickety about what works or misfires in this one – but I thought Puck’s puzzle was as tight as a drum yesterday and would be much readier to defend what he was up to there than say the defence of 14 here or the tense of the indicator at 2, 1d. To drag this old poacher up before the beak is too much like catching a serial offender with the fish still wriggling in his pockets – and his record’s as long as his arm. But I suggest that when the magistrates catch that glint in his eye, he’ll always get off with a caution.
Oh gosh Mitz, yes, it’s all of two black squares different. Still can’t quite see how either grid would necessarily make for a tough grid fill, but that’s just me. Perhaps you compile yourself, and have had an … alternative experience?
Rowly – brilliant! And thanks for your leniency.
Hi Paul,
My point is that this grid (and yesterday’s) would be tough on the compiler without the barrier right across the middle.
I found this hard to get started on as only got a couple of clues on first reading. But I got there eventually with all in bar Hebdomadal, for which I had to resort to the cheat button as never heard of it.
I enjoyed the clues I could parse, with sex kittens and offa being favourites. Needed help to parse 11a, 15d, 23a, 1d. Was a bit misled by the ‘lots of flowers’ for a while at 21a but didn’t object to the clue once the penny dropped. Many thanks for blog. I did much better today than with Puck yesterday…result!
Well Mitz, it looks like I missed that somewhat crucial bit of info. Drat, drat, and … you know the rest.
However, even with that block removed from today’s grid, so that, say, you have two extra 15-letter entries (3 and 4) to cope with in the downs, there’s still no reason why it should be a tough fill, or one that necessarily invites the inclusion of recondite entries (‘resorting to some really obscure words’, you called it). Is there? I’d have a go for sure!
I admire your confidence and look forward to the results! How about we invite DL to be obscurity monitor…
I was amused by Derek’s comment @25 suggesting that I was indulging in ‘tasteless bragging’ when I remarked that HEBDOMADAL is only regularly used at (the University of) Oxford. I have never been a member of that institution. I’m a Cambridge man myself….
In fact, checking on Wikipedia, I discover that the Hebdomadal Council was renamed in 2000.
Mitz, I was only referencing the other post as justification for mentioning Oxford, not to comment on the post or the poster.
Synonyms usually have other meanings or can be used to imply shades of meaning as well as just being a direct synonym. This one has no such redeeming features.
The problem with 1ac is not in getting from the answer to definition, which is all very jolly, it is going the other way, because the keyword in the definition is set. Set has by far the most definitions of any word in the OED. Pages upon pages of the damn things. So mentally sifting through that lot to find the particular one required is too much like hard work than fun. Which is also why I’m not fond of people using boy and girl which can lead to far too many possibilities.
I’d torch such monstrosities as Business-speak etc any day of the week. But then most of us don’t use those words anyway, so we wouldn’t really miss them. Bring on new words that do something useful and new by any means though.
I found this easier than some of Araucaria’s puzzles and finished it reasonably quickly without resort to aids, but I confess that I couldn’t parse the wordplay for OUTLINE, having completely forgotten the recent discussion about how ‘parting shot’ derived from ‘Parthian shot’. HEBDOMADAL was my last in, and although I didn’t know the word the answer was clear enough from the wordplay, and the homophonic definition wasn’t a problem. Araucaria has used this cluing device plenty of times in the past, and Paul also seemed to use it a fair bit, although I don’t remember having seen him use it lately.
As far as what Araucaria is allowed to get away with compared to other setters, my view is that you know what you are going to get from him and you should adjust your mindset accordingly when solving.
Some heartwarmingly black humour and a refreshing absence of prudishness too here.
Viva!
Thanks Araucaria and PeterO
Enjoyed this notwithstanding a failure to properly parse 10 with the unknown Ongar railway station and 8d – more through laziness I think.
As usual plenty of new learning and the familiar devious clues. Last in was LONG ARM but did have to revisit my original PONY and change to PUNT during the final parsing run.
I think the major difference between the ‘looseness’ of A and that of Rufus / Gordius (from this week) is that with the former there is only one answer that fits the clue whereas the other two can leave more than one possible solution.