Great stuff, I enjoyed this very much. It took a long time for the instructions to make sense but in retrospect they are quite clear, so no excuse for not getting it first time. I think this could also be taken as the definition of a good clue.
In case anyone is still confused, the word play part of the clue gives the whole solution to be entered into the grid. In seven of the clues the definition part of the clue only refers to the later part of the solution in the grid, the rest has to be made up by adding a lady’s name onto the front. The solution enterd into the grid in these cases is undefined.
Thank you Brummie.
Across
9 Love, old — nevertheless getting into punt (9) BETHOUGHT
THOUGH (neverhteless) in BET (punt) – leading lady is BETH and the definition is OUGHT (nothing archaic, love as a tennis score)
10 Part of poem’s affected style of speech and poetic interjection (5) CANTO
CANT (affected style of speech) and O (poetic interjection) – a division of a long poem
11 Endless row backing housing chief’s main descendant (5) SCION
NOISe (row, endless) reversed (backing) containing (housing) C (first/main letter of chief) – a descendent. You could also have C=chief and scion=’main descendent’, take your pick.
12 Dyed-in-the-wool Conservative spiking Labour, ie swapping nitrogen for oxygen (9) INCURABLE
C (Conservative) going into (spiking) (LABoUR IE)* with N (nitrogen) replacing O (oxygen) – ‘swapping’ could be either an anagram indicator or an indication to swap letters, it works for me either way
13 Disturbance makes state chamber musicians tense (7) PATRIOT
PA (Pensylvania, state) TRIO (chamber musicians) T (tense) – definition is PAT (leading lady) and RIOT (disturbance)
14 Like a male ballroom dancer requesting “no piano”? (7) LEADING
pLEADING (requesting) missing P=piano
17 Two Russian doll-like articles between freeman and noble (5) THANE
two articles, AN inside THE, the smaller in the larger like Russian dolls – a middle-ranking gentleman
19 See 8
20 Slight inversion round fang tip preferred by Dracula (5) NIGHT
THIN (slight) reversed (inversion) around fanG (tip of) – purists may complain about ‘inversion’ for a horizontally oriented word here? My view is that whilst I agree it is technically wrong if it makes for a good clue then I don’t really care.
21 Student’s touching approach? (5,2) HANDS ON
cryptic definition – not really my cup of tea this one
22 Be thankful for indulgent sort at bar (7) JOBLESS
JOB (indulgent sort?) at LESS (bar, excepting) – definition is JO (leading lady) and BLESS (be thankful for). I can’t really explain why job is an indifferent sort. My only (wild) guess is that Job was known for being indulgent in the Bible. Patient yes, but indulgent?
24 Little animal, little weight, littlest one attended by Erica? (9) GRUNTLING
G (gram, little weight) RUNT (littlest one) with (atended by) LING (Erica, heather) – a young hog. I had not heard of this before and could not find it in Chambers. Maybe an American expression?
26 The beast within lives for a sartorial feature (5) LAPEL
APE (a beast) inside (within) LL (live, twice)
28 Doctors reckon thousand lost (old money) (5) ONCER
RECkON* anagram=doctors missing K=thousand – slang for a one pound note (no longer in existence)
29 Lloyd who dithers about love deal? (9) HOLLYWOOD
annagram (dithers) of LLOYD WHO around O (love, zero) – definition is HOLLY (leading lady) and WOOD (deal, example of)
Down
1 Leggy creature’s independent musical direction (4) IBIS
I (independent) and BIS (again, musical) – a long legged bird
2 Before court cut short stir-crazy tough (6) STRICT
STIR* crazy=anagram before CT (court, shortened form)
3 Flowers, jar version, collapsed (4,6) JOAN RIVERS
(JAR VERSION)* collapsed=anagram – definition is JOAN (leading lady) and RIVERS (flowers, things that flow). Joan Rivers is an American TV, statge and film personality.
4 Prejudicial to those getting on revolving stage without electric current (6) AGEIST
STAGE* anagram=revolving around I (symbol for current in electrical equations)
5 Line taken by persistent sort (fusspot) (8) STICKLER
L (line) in STICKER (persistent sort)
6 Slasher’s legacy: second estate? (4) SCAR
S (second) CAR (an estate car for example)
7 Flash stuff in Bengal circles (8) ENABLING
BENGAL* anagram=circles – definition is ENA (leading lady) BLING (flash stuff)
8,19across,24 Finished taming ego of Gordon (4,3,4) GONE FOR GOOD
(EGO OF GORDON)* anagram=taming
13 Pressure put on naff chat shows piece (5) PATCH
P (pressure) put on CHAT* anagram=naff – definition is piece. Another leading lady here (Pat), but she is already appearing in 13 across.
15 Lebanon produced and raised New York State’s ultimate old queen (4,6) ANNE BOLEYN
LEBANON* produced=anagram NY (New York) statE (ultimate letter of) – definition is ‘old queen’. Another leading lady, but a bit to close to Ann to be included? Also it would be hard to clue ‘boleyn’ without reference to Anne herself.
16 Good shot sorted out invaders (5) GOTHS
G (good) SHOT* anagram=sorted out – invaders of the Roman empire
18 Article: neuter cat for a fraction of a pound (8) ANNOUNCE
AN (article) N (neuter) OUNCE (cat) – definition is ANN (leading lady) OUNCE (fraction of a pound)
19 Window nut, easily moved (8) FANLIGHT
FAN (nut, fanatic) LIGHT (easily moved)
22 Keep recycling articles as an entertainer? (6) JUGGLE
Cryptic definition
23 Take on Scouse MP, loyalist at heart (6) EMPLOY
the heart (centre) of scousE MP LOYalist – definition is ‘take on’
24 See 8
25 Salt neutral lake (4) TARN
TAR (salt, sailor) N (neutral)
27 Title song about diamonds (4) LADY
D (diamonds) in LAY (song) – definition is ‘title’
My apologies to the early birds wondering where the post had got to. I somehow managed to get this appearing in the site as having been posted several days ago. Fixed now.
Thanks PeeDee. I had filled in nearly all the grid and still not understood the special instructions before the penny dropped. 3 and 15 had led me to think there must have been other notable ladies somewhere. The way I saw it was that there are two wordplays in those seven clues but no definition, which I had to wonder about. I enjoyed it though and felt some accomplishment when it was complete. I didn’t like fan=nut much.
Can anyone explain the annotated solution for 29?
Thanks PeeDee,
Excellent puzzle from Brummie that took me ages to get into. Very enjoyable though. I particularly liked PATRIOT, JOBLESS, AGEIST,
FANLIGHT and EMPLOY. Thanks Brummie.
To clarify Biggles A @2 –
The Guardian websute has this for the annoted solution:
29* Hollywood HOL<L)Y/WOO/(crow)D [Holly; wood]
WTF?
Thanks PeeDee and Brummie
Very enjoyable once the instructions made sense. In addition to the theme clues, I particularly liked 4d and 22d.
Presumably the clue was changed at some point. A prize to the first person to reconstruct it.
To reverse engineer the clue one would first have to determine whether the annotation should be HOL<L>Y or HOL(L)Y.
I was very pleased to finish this puzzle by Brummie. I have to admit that I gave up on my first attempt at this puzzle, mainly because I was frightened off by the thought that “in seven of the clues the definition element does not lead to the whole solution” but when I tried it the next time, I managed to solve a few clues and to work out the important 14/27 answers. Eventually I discovered the seven leading ladies: Ena (7d), Joan (3d), Pat (13a), Holly (29a), Anne (15d) and Ann (18d). However, I now realise that JO @ 22a is the correct one rather than ANNE @ 15d. Oh well, at least I solved all the clues!
Re GRUNTLING, I could only find it in the Free Online Dictionary: “Gruntling, n. A young hog. [Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913 by C. & G. Merriam Co.]” so yes, perhaps it is an American expression.
Thanks for the blog, PeeDee. By the way, I parsed 29a in the same way as you.
Hello Michelle,
My wife has a huge and very old copy of The Standard Dictionary of the English Language published by Funk and Wagnall left to us by her great grandfather. This was published in America in 1901. I just checked in there and gruntling is listed.
Got HOLLYWOOD quite quickly and identified it as a likely one of the 7. Subsequently got LEADING LADY and still could make no sense of it. ENABLING (with the obvious Flash stuff = bling) was my key to the theme.
Good stuff. First prize in a while to have a gentle “twist” of this nature (say midway between a Daily and an easier Genius) – and all the better for it.
Thanks
I thought this was a cracking puzzle, and I was very happy to have finished it without recourse to aids. It took me a while to work out what was going on with the special instructions.
As far as the annotated solution for 29ac on the Guardian site is concerned, what utter rubbish.
Gruntling is in the OED.
Biggles@12
You inspired me to pull my SOED 5th edition (2002) off the bookshelves, and yes, GRUNTLING is there. But it’s not in the online version of Oxford dictionaries. I guess I should be more energetic in future and pull out the hard-copy version of SOED.
Can anyone confirm/explain why JOB is an ‘indulgent sort’?
Hi PeeDee @14
Job is a person of great patience. Patience and indulgence are synonyms in the sense of tolerance.
Thanks, PeeDee.
A worthy prize crossword. I spotted LADY and hence the shtick of the puzzle fairly easily, but as the linked clues were not identified as such it was still a lengthy solve. The NW quadrant held me up for a long time.
Only grumble with a really good puzzle is that JOAN RIVERS is herself a ‘leading lady’ (this anagram took me ages to work out, so it may just be sour grapes on my part).
And I’m afraid I have no suggestions for why Job is an ‘indulgent sort’.
One meaning of ‘indulgent’ is forbearing. Job was noted for his patience.
I did not enter jobless as I could not construct it. This was partly because I thought Hands on was one of the 7 with son being student and Hand being some lady I had never heard of. I do not see how it(21) is a cryptic.
I parsed 21 ac as:
Student’s = HANDS, plus touching = ON; definition HANDS ON = (touching) approach. The question mark may excuse the apostrophe in “Student’s”.
Why are students hands? The nearest definition I could find for hand is “a worker, especially in a factory or ship”, but that doesn’t seem close enough to student for me.
For HANDS ON, the only connection I can see is the expression ‘old hand’ meaning a person who is skilled at something through long experience
as opposed to a student who isn’t. Still pretty vague though.
PeeDee@20 and Davy@21:
OK, maybe it is a cryptic definition after all. I was thinking “hand” could mean apprentice, but I agree the dictionaries don’t support this view.
re 29 “deal” in the clue is a type of wood – does that help?
Thank you Neddy, fixed now. What I wrote made no sense at all.
Thanks Brummie and PeeDee
A great puzzle that I didn’t start until this Saturday and thoroughly underestimated how long it would take. I had LEADING LADY early on but could not see how it related to the clues until very late with only 8 clues left – as it turns out both HOLLY and ENA had been entered with parsing questions still on them.
Last one in was OSCAR, an old Australian term for money after the actor Oscar Asche, that I previously had not heard of. Unfortunately neither had Brummie – with ONCER being the correct answer !!! Was having a little problem equating CAR to reckon.
As for HANDS ON – I had it as a cd. With hands on learning being when a student gets real experience by actually doing the work – eg a surveying student learns the theory and then goes to the field for hand on learning.
bruce @ 25
Your ideas for 21a are supported by the SOED
hands-on adjective …..(of a person) having or willing to gain practical experience;
Since no one else appears to have attempted the challenge posed by sidey @6, I’ll give it a shot:
29 Leo the First enters sacred court before mass’s final deal? (9)
Not the most elegant of clues, but it was the best I could do after 10 minutes of tinkering. I think it’s consistent with the Guardian’s annotated solution:
29* Hollywood HOL<L)Y/WOO/(crow)D [Holly; wood]
Good effort keeper! Where does the final D come from in your clue?
I was hoping that Brummie or Hugh would visit the blog and let us know what the original version of the clue was.
I took “crow(D)” to mean that there was an indirect reference to the word “crowd” in the original clue. So my clue has mass = crowd, with “mass’s final” yielding the D. (I chose mass, vice other synonyms for crowd, since it fits with the religious theme.)
Thanks, PeeDee.
I managed only just over half of this with a struggle. My problem was that I made it harder than it was because I mistook Leading Lady for the names of leading ladies in films. This was because I got 29 HOLLYWOOD early on and thought it referred to Holly Golightly in Breakfast At Tiffany’s – pleased as punch to recognise this; only it wasn’t, apparently.
I finally managed to solve it after a few days work, but had my doubts about ‘jobless’. I turned out to be all correct, despite the less-than-stellar time.