This was a funny old puzzle. I raced through about 90% of it without blinking, then completely ground to a halt on the last handful. Even with a week to think about it there are still a few that I can’t even begin to make sense of, so all in all I can’t say this was a particularly satisfying solve, though others I am sure will feel differently.
There’s a theme in there, mind. At first it seemed like there was a suspicious number of male given names, but the connection seems to be that they are all the names of engines in the very well-known Thomas the Tank Engine series of stories. We even get two for the price of one at 1ac!
| Across | ||
| 1 | HENRY JAMES | Writer’s block overcome by woman with whiskies? (5,5) |
| JAM in (HEN + RYES) | ||
| 6 | FONT | Well set for printing (4) |
| Double definition | ||
| 9 | DOUGLAS | Mostly far from fair for Ape to assume place of Man (7) |
| UGL[i] in DO AS | ||
| 10 | EX ANIMO | Out of her mind, poor Maxine, with love (2,5) |
| (MAXINE + O)* | ||
| 12 | PERCY | Fellow from a country’s borders (5) |
| PER + C[ountr]Y | ||
| 13 | ENANTHEMA | French in hymn? A sore point! (9) |
| EN + ANTHEM + A | ||
| 14 | RING COMPOUND | Doctor from East keeps coming upon strange chemical substance (4,8) |
| (COMING UPON)* in DR< | ||
| 19 | BRANDY BOTTLE | Possible holder of fine tip from bookmaker, after the other lot bet recklessly (6,6) |
| B[ookmaker] + RANDY + (LOT BET)* | ||
| 22 | OGDEN NASH | Grand opening poem names a quiet American humorist (5,4) |
| (Grand in ODE) + Name + Name + A + SH | ||
| 24 | AT PAR | Transported first class by return, for what it’s worth (2,3) |
| (RAPT + A)< | ||
| 25 | DRACHMA | Children play cops once ready (7) |
| CHildren in DRAMA | ||
| 26 | DESKTOP | Bureau chief will do for PC (7) |
| DESK + TOP | ||
| 27 | NUDE | ____? Last of fig leaves prompt! (4) |
| It’s NUD[g]E, but I don’t understand the definition at all | ||
| 28 | DONALD DUCK | Godfather with a chance to consume skin of dead bird apparently brought to life (6,4) |
| DON + (D[ea]D in A LUCK) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | HYDE PARK | Male doctor turned to plonk in place of recreation (4,4) |
| Absolutely no idea how this works | ||
| 2 | NEUTRINO | Particle from sapling, perhaps, Ken picked up (8) |
| Homophones of “new tree” and “know” | ||
| 3 | YOLKY | Even bits of nylon like yarn, initially as yellow (5) |
| [n]Y[l]O[n] L[i]K[e] + Y[arn] | ||
| 4 | AISLE | Passage the writer is to broadcast (5) |
| Homophone of “I’ll” | ||
| 5 | ELEVATORY | Typical of hikers to leave rocks on track (9) |
| (TO LEAVE)* + RY | ||
| 7 | OLIVER | Hardy, maybe, but not a survivor (6) |
| O (zero, so “not a”) + LIVER | ||
| 8 | THOMAS | All the same mass equally? More? (6) |
| THO # Mass # AS | ||
| 11 | ANTONIO | He’d produce huge vegetable dipped in gin (7) |
| It was about all that would fit, but I see neither the definition nor the wordplay here, unless the definition is simply “he”, which I suspect it isn’t | ||
| 15 | CORINTH | City that was my home before leaving there (7) |
| COR + IN + TH[ere] | ||
| 16 | MANO A MANO | Close three successive letters penning articles about Chomsky (4,1,4) |
| (NOAM Chomsky in (A + A)) in (M N O) | ||
| 17 | ATAPATTU | Sri Lankan cricketer once turned up in Calcutta, Patagonia (8) |
| [calc]UTTA PATA[gonia]<. This must be Marvan Atapattu. I hadn’t heard of him, but the wordplay was unambiguous | ||
| 18 | TETRAPAK | Container of cardboard or wood containing gin (8) |
| TRAP in TEAK | ||
| 20 | GORDON | Turn before green light comes up, keeping right in general (6) |
| Right in (GO + NOD<) | ||
| 21 | EDWARD | Prince and leading journalist campaigning with Duke (6) |
| EDitor + WAR + Duke | ||
| 23 | HYDRA | New base for hotel that regenerated after cuts at the top (5) |
| Again, no idea how the wordplay works | ||
| 24 | ASSAD | Arab leader needing trailer for something to sit on (5) |
| ASS + AD | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = letters removed
1 dn: HYDE PARK is HYDE = person doctor Jekyll turned into + PARK = plonk
11 dn: giANT ONIOn (!)
Can’t help with HYDRA
Thanks for the blog Simon, I didn’t spot the theme. I had been warned that Bannsider was tricky, and this certainly was, but also very funny.
….or perhaps I can help
A Hydro is a spa or hotel, with a new base it becomes HYDRA.
I will stop talking to myself now.
…except to say that I took 27 ac ____? to be a sort of dingbat “nothing on”. Not entirely sure that nails it, though.
I thought 27ac was NUDE because it’s NUDGE with the last letter in fig removed.
Yes CET, I agree. I was suggesting the “____?” could work as the definition in the way I outlined.
I felt pleased with myself after finishing this one. Very tough, and some of the wordplay was difficult to work out even after writing the answers in.
I don’t know about Eileen, but I did wish that I hadn’t whispered last time when there was a Bannsider that I appeared to have finally got on his wavelength. I did take quite a while to sort this out over a couple of visits, and was delighted to say that I did spot the theme – must be all those times I had to read the books to my sons when they were small.
Thanks to Bannsider for keeping my grey matter on its toes and to Simon for the blog.
Hi crypticsue
Like you, I’ve been regretting giving a hostage to fortune! I only got about halfway through this one, then other things intervened.
Thanks for the blog, Simon – and Bannsider for cutting me down to size. 😉
Very pleased to have finished this one without aids in one session this morning. After yesterday’s Boatman in the Guardian I was surprised I had any brain cells left, although the libertarian style of both setters meant that I didn’t have to retune too much to be on something close to Bannsider’s wavelength.
I agree with Muffyword@1’s parsings of 1dn and 11dn, but I wasn’t overly happy with ‘dipped in’ as the instruction to remove ‘gin’ in 11dn.
I saw Hydro/Hydra at 23dn while I was solving, and thought the ‘regenerated after cuts at the top’ definition misleadingly excellent.
As far as 27ac is concerned I read the definition to be something like ‘bare’.
Sure, but how does one get from “____?” to “bare”?
I don’t think there is a definition as such in 27ac – it’s just a blank to fill in. Though I suppose one could stretch a point and consider the blank to mean nothing or that there’s nothing on there.
Re two for the price of one at 1ac, there are also two for the price of one at 27ac, ‘Duck’ being the nickname of one character. And btw from rediscovering the series with my grandchildren I see there even female names for some of the engines now – all very PC!
Thanks, Bannsider for the challenge, and Simon for the blog – I needed the blog to understand some of the parsing.
Well, you’re nude, as Adam and Eve might have been, when you have no fig-leaf. And in the surface, ‘last of fig leaves’ might suggest, or ‘prompt’, that there are no more to be had. The cryptic, of course, is unimpeachable in any case.
That’s how I saw it anyway, in this fantastic puzzle.
I thought 27a ____? was fine for nudge as used by authors – eg Neal Stephenson, whose ‘System of the World’ trilogy I am currently reading, regularly uses such blanks (though usually as ellipses) in dialogue to indicate a look as a kind of prompt, usually in frustration at slow-thinking – so a ‘nudge’.
Hm, thanks chaps. I at least see how some of these are supposed to work now, but I remain unconvinced that they truly do.
One last thing: how does PARK come from “plonk”?
Simon @14 – I think both ‘plonk’ and ‘park [it there]’ are informal ways of telling someone to put something down
Thanks Simon for the wonderful blog. I’m sorry so many people struggled with this.
At 27 across the blank is simply meant to stand for the actual answer, so the sentence is meant to suggest what Adam and Eve might have said when that apple caused them to realise their state of undress 🙂
The theme precisely is the names of engines 1 to 11 in the Railway Series. Another idea inspired by our son (?). One of the names had to be hidden rather obscurely, and I had to resort to some obscure answers to fit them all in I’m afraid. I had heard of Marvan Atapattu at least otherwise I’s not have used him.
I’m now off to study my clues again as the tag ‘libertarian’ isn’t really one I’m comfortable with!
I see Toby is in the drink.
Please don’t change anything Bannsider!
Andy B @ 9: ‘dipped in’ isn’t so much an instruction to remove ‘gin’ as one to drop ANTONIO into it (which entails approaching the solving/parsing from the opposite direction), so in the view of this pedant it works just fine.