It’s always a delight to see Tramp’s name on a puzzle that I’m down to blog – but, as time has gone on, and as he has increasingly demonstrated his prowess in writing puzzles with intricate themes, cleverly hidden in both clues and answers, the delight has been tinged with trepidation that I’m going to miss the theme altogether, or, at least, have insufficient knowledge of it to do the puzzle justice.
Hesitantly, I’m going to say that this one seemed relatively straightforward for a Tramp puzzle and I think I’ve spotted all of the [Spice Girls] theme [familiar to me through the grandchildren] but, knowing Tramp, there may well be more going on than I’m aware of [can’t see ‘Scary’] but I don’t think there’s a complete list of their songs in there.] Whatever [as the kids say] – I thoroughly enjoyed it, so many thanks, as ever, to Tramp!
Across
1 Go to university — oddly, full houses reserved
BASHFUL
BASH [go] + odd letters of F[u]L[l] round [houses] U [university] – nicely misleading punctuation
5 Sole scourers — cat without tail around its prey?
PUMICES
PUS[s] [cat without its tail] round MICE [its prey]
9 Musical’s lead song — this one?
MARIA
M [first letter – lead] of M[usical] + ARIA [song] for perhaps the lead song of ‘West Side Story’
10 Britain behind — that is concerning for supporter
BRASSIERE
BR [Britain] + ASS [American behind] + IE [that is] + RE [concerning]: we don’t usually see this so well-known crossword support[er] spelled out in full – bravo, Tramp!
11 Rolling Stones cut LP— iPod bug playing two notes at once
DOUBLE STOPPING
Anagram [rolling] of STONE[s] [cut] + LP IPOD BUG
I didn’t know this term but the anagram and crossing letters led to ‘double’ and thence ‘stopping’. I consulted my son, an erstwhile double bass player, who told me that, in his line, it wasn’t common practice but, if he found himself the only bass player in his student orchestra, he had some fun in the 1812 Overture – and I thought there was lots of fun in this clue, too!
13 Buggy — no round in middle of golf tournament?
PRAM
PR[o]-AM [Professional / Amateur – Golf Tournament] minus the middle O [round] – clever surface
14 Well, peak with sex change?
FOUNTAIN
[m]OUNTAIN [peak] with source [first letter] changed from M [male] to F [female]
17 One climbs over it — a member of 12 second
CLEMATIS
Reversal [over] of IT + A MEL C [a member of the Spice Girls] + S [second]
18 Precious time with baby
TWEE
T [time] + WEE [baby – Emma Bunton, ‘Baby Spice’]
21 Good line wasted by Democrat — America to go for developing business
GROWTH INDUSTRY
G [good] + ROW [line] + THIN [wasted] + D [democrat] + US [American] + TRY [go]
23 Trains for show on late transport
REHEARSES
RE [on] HEARSES [‘late’ transport]
24 Saw commercial season
ADAGE
A simple charade: AD [commercial] + AGE [season]
25 Bad-tempered — wearing sporty pants initially …
STROPPY
An anagram [wearing] of SPORTY P[ants]
I liked this one, because I like the word and I liked the surface – [reference to ‘Sporty Spice’, Mel C] and it was a change to see ‘pants’ not used, as quite often these days, as an anagram indicator [but I do really like that, too!]
26 … most classy model — way over height
POSHEST
POSE [model] + ST [street -way] round H [height] – introducing [Posh] Spice Girl Victoria
Down
1 Total initially missing in oil company’s accident
BUMP
s[UM} [total] in BP [oil company] – of course, I wasted time trying to find a word to take ‘t’ from
2 Carrier of baby grand cuts arm — sore toe hurt badly
SURROGATE MOTHER
An anagram [badly] of G [grand] + ARM SORE TOE HURT – another ‘Baby’ reference and perhaps my favourite clue
3 Loud Mel B raging over a light drink
FLAMBÉ
F [loud] + an anagram [raging] of MEL B – Spice Girl in the clue this time – round [over] A [flambé as a verb, I think]
4 Shot up large old boy’s bottom
LOBBED
Charade of L [large ] OB [old boy] BED [bottom]
5 Shells protect other Ninja Turtles: Leonardo and Rafael initially damaged part of theirs?
PLASTRON
A new word for me, for part of the turtle shell, cleverly constructed from an anagram [damaged] of the initial letters of Shells Protect Other Ninja Turtles Leonardo And Rafael
6 Girl Power — stop waste
MISSPEND
MISS [girl] + P [power] + END [stop] – with a reference to the Spice Girls theme
7 Form of struggle in Africa, where calm is shattered
CHEMICAL WARFARE
An anagram [shattered] of AFRICA WHERE CALM – great surface
8 Stalk one of 12 — hot stuff
STEM GINGER
STEM [stalk] + GINGER [Geri Halliwell, another of the Spice Girls]
12 Mistakes turning up — cold, horrible Geri splitting band
SPICE GIRLS
Right on cue! C [cold] + an anagram [horrible] of GERI in [splitting] a reversal [turning up, in a down clue] of SLIPS [mistakes]. I don’t know too much about the Spice Girls but I believe that Geri’s departure was rather crucial. I certainly wouldn’t offer this as an &lit but it does seem a rather clever clue.
15 Delay while parking over street, just in time
LAST-GASP
LAG [delay] + AS [while] + P [parking] round [over, in a down clue] ST [street]
16 Dancer upset popular judge governing on satellite
NIJINSKY
Reversal [upset] of IN [popular] + J [judge] + IN [governing] + SKY [satellite]
19 Figures include drink
ADDS UP
ADD [include?] + SUP [drink]
20 Awards no marks
OSCARS
O [no] SCARS [marks] – a nicely succinct clue [from one who was once accused of prolixity!]
22 Top footballer once
BEST
And another – a double [?] definition: for those too young – or far-flung – here he is
Thanks Tramp and Eileen
I found this more straightforward than the last couple (yesterday’s was left unfinished, I confess), but very enjoyable all the same
I was a little thrown by “flambe” as a drink. The anagram gave me the answer, but my first thoughts were that a flambe was something to eat rather than to drink. I suppose the “light drink” means that the drink – e.g. brandy – is Alight when poured over the food?
Thanks, Eileen. Tramp tweeted this morning to say that this was quite easy – I must admit, though, that he had me thoroughly misdirected on a number of occasions! No complaints, though.
I read “light drink” as an instruction for e.g. crepes suzettes.
Thanks Eileen. Like Muffin I read the last two words of 3d as liquid fire. Though barely familiar with the Spice Girls, I Had little trouble with the theme; there seemed to be an extra C in 17a but I see it now. Failed finally on 5d.
Hi NeilW
Thanks – that’s what I meant by ‘flambé as a verb’ [polite imperative].
Thanks Eileen.
I think he’s reversed Mel C into 17 but I can’t remember which one is Scary. (Is that what you meant?). I was convinced for a long time that the second word in 11 started with M to accommodate Mel B reversed there. Sporty and Baby are hiding in the clues, of course. The problem came with a count-up – Mel B had to be Sporty or was she Mel C? I spent ages looking for them in diagonals, in unchecked unches or hiding between entries. Not easy if they rather passed you by at the time. A wee bit naughty of Tramp.
Sorry Eileen, I misread your preamble. I thought at first that you too thought there was one missing.
Thanks Tramp and Eileen, an entertaining puzzle.
Some very good clues with tantalising definitions, such as ‘sole scourers’ and ‘carrier of baby.’ Maybe ‘scary’ could [just about] have been used as an anagrind for MEL B in 3d.
I also particularly liked the clue for SPICE GIRLS.
Hi aztobesed @6
I meant that the only *nickname* missing [in either clue or answer] was ‘Scary’ [Mel B], as we had Posh, Baby, Ginger and Sporty.
…. there was ‘SCAR’ in the grid 😉
My favourite clues in this puzzle were 21a, 10a, 5a, 14a, 9a.
New word for me was PLASTRON.
Thanks for the blog, Eileen. I couldn’t parse 5d.
Thanks Eileen. I wouldn’t have got the sex change peak solution in years. Got as far as mountain for peak but . . . Never mind. Good puzzle, and, as ever, great blog.
Tramp’s puzzles are invariably fun, and this light-hearted theme just about hit the spot. Clearly I wasn’t in the target audience for the Famous Five when they were at their peak (although for some strange reason I do remember the Union Jack mini-skirt), but you could hardly say that you’d never heard of them since they seemed to dominate the pop and goss pages of the papers for most of the 90s.
I failed on PLASTRON, but liked the anagrams for SURROGATE MOTHER and CHEMICAL WARFARE; and PUMICES was also good. Another fine puzzle from the vagrant; thanks to him, and to Eileen for blogging.
Eileen @ 8
Ah, I see. The devil’s in the detail with this puzzle. I hadn’t clocked that they were nicknames. So I’m still missing one? I thought there was a nuance at 5 in the definition. The PLASTRON is also a military breast-plate as well as being part of a turtle’s shell, though the etymology is the same. But in the cartoons the turtles’ plastrons were not only turtle shells but military breastplates – if that makes the slightest lick of sense.
18ac in today’s FT puzzle [by Wanderer!]: Force one Spice Girl to cover No.1 from Prince [5]
Eileen: many thanks for the comprehensive, splendid blog and the very kind words.
I wrote this puzzle at the end of June 2012 having seen the Spice Girls reunite to herald their (at the time) forthcoming Viva Forever stage show. As it turned out, it seemed that “forever” wasn’t very prophetic as the show will have its last performance in nine days’ time. Hence, this puzzle is a bit of light music playing whilst the Spice Girls’ casket disappears out of view and the curtains close. To set the record straight, I was never a fan of theirs but they do capture the zeitgeist of my postgraduate days and I thought they might make for an interesting puzzle: many might disagree.
I don’t normally set out to write difficult/easy puzzles. I fill a grid, write the clues by trying to mix up the clue types and the resulting ‘difficulty level’ is what it is: with this puzzle I deliberately tried to make it easy. I wrote this around the time that 25,669 was published which was deemed too difficult by many solvers — it didn’t include any anagrams (unless compound anagrams count) — and so this was my attempt to go easier on the solvers.
I did miss an opportunity at not including ‘scary’ and I don’t like the way I’ve abused punctuation in 1ac. As others have stated, I was using “light” in 3d to be the imperitival form of the verb.
I looked at this puzzle prior to publication and figured it would get slated; “too easy”, “not the bloody Spice Girls” etc. I also thought a few of the clues were particularly weak, especially 24a. I might be handing out a petard on which to hang myself but I also thought too many clues contained long dashes. So far it seems to have gone down better than I expected.
Anyway, enough waffle from me.
Many thanks.
Tramp
Thanks, Tramp. The best clues are the ones that are “easy” when you know the answers!
THanks, Tramp. I always love the background stories to your puzzles. 😉
Of course, I meant “hoist” not “hang”.
@Tramp
For what it’s worth, I didn’t find this especially easy – STROPPY (not sure I’ve seen ‘wearing’ used to indicate an anagram before), LAST GASP and PLASTRON (completely failed to see the clue type) being the hold-outs.
I quite like abuse of punctuation. In BASHFUL it was the order of the instructions that was the difficulty for me, as well as the ‘to’ for juxtaposition.
Hadn’t noticed the ‘long dashes’ but there are a lot of them. I know them as ’em rules’ (short dashes = en rules) but am not sure I’ve ever seen setters use rule = em/en. Measure, yes, but not rule. Too obscure perhaps?
No complaints at all from me about the puzzle. I enjoyed it. I especially liked the ‘late transport’, ‘carrier of baby’ and the MOUNTAIN/FOUNTAIN change of sex. ‘Light drink’ is also very good.
Is 21a (six elements) a record for a charade?
Good stuff. Many thanks.
And many thanks to Eileen for the blog: exemplary as always.
Thanks for the blog, Eileen. And thanks to Tramp for an enjoyable puzzle and for stopping by.
I have to say, I didn’t find it a pushover and missed some of the wordplay altogether… It was easy to get into the theme, however.
My favourites were SURROGATE MOTHER and BRASSIERE 🙂
Thanks to Tramp, and to Eileen for the blog. There were several cases where I had the right answer but failed on the parsing but you cleared them up.
I am of an age where I can say I have heard of the Spice Girls and could name some of them! I could not name any of their songs.
Eileen
Have you forgotten Stroppy Spice, who left the group (by mutual consent) before they left Liverpool and became famous?
Thanks to Tramp for the entertaining crossword, and to Eileen for the blog.
Interesting point posted by Tramp.
I’ve always regarded punctuation as the setter’s minion – not to be trusted under any circumstances, so it came as a surprise that a setter might consider it ‘abused’. Isn’t re-supplying ‘black’ punctuation with ‘white’ punctuation part of our duel? (“If I take out that comma, stick that in brackets and remove the capital letter, I see what they’re driving at…”). Or is Tramp double-bluffing by pretending that his daemon obeys the rules?
I have always regarded a capital letter in the middle of a clue with deep suspicion: what would this word mean with a lower case initial letter? As aztobesed commented: it is a duel between setter and solvers.
But crytptic punctuatrion muszt be accurtate.
We enjoyed the puzzle despite the theme!
Last one in was 5d which we managed to guess from the anagram but we did check it out before coming here. We missed the sublety in the parsing for 3d until we came here – thanks Eileen for the explanation.
Thanks also to Tramp – it was good amusement over lunch!
Thanks – but I do dislike that Guardian grid, with the NE & SW halves almost completely disjunct. With the former completed, couldn’t get into the latter without resorting to aid for 2dn, to find I’d been going wrong by including ‘cuts’ in anagrist, with ‘hurt badly’ as anagrind.
Rowland at 25
Why?
nms – that way, my friend, madness lies…
Thanks Tramp and Eileen. Good fun, covering a trip to a meeting and back (plus polishing off at lunch). The stuff that PeterM mentions @27 is the sort of thing I like best: the question being “OK, so it looks like an anagram, but of what exactly?”
PLASTRON was my favourite – not because it was an unfamiliar word (it was) but because I can’t remember seeing that kind of construction before. CLEMATIS also stood out as a nicely subtle addition to the theme.
Mitz @29: the construction of PLASTRON has appeared before in the Guardian. I seem to remember the word ‘starts’ in the clue telling you how to go about it.
Excellent blog of a fun puzzle (I enjoyed the Spice Girls far more as a theme than as a group!).
The odd thing about the 1a discussion is that I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with the punctuation. My reading is:
“Go [=bash] [must be placed next] to U[niversity] – oddly [= in an odds-only condition], full houses [= is used as a container]”.
I think it’s borderline at worst. I’m actually not a big fan of “to” in that context, though. Maybe different punctuation would make the “to” read better; I’m not sure. I do prefer punctuation to make sense in the cryptic reading, but the big exception that everyone now seems to accept (I don’t think they always did) is that you can jump from wordplay to definition, or vice versa, with no link or punctuation. That is probably a departure from any normal punctuation rules. But anyway, I wonder how many people still actually try to make the whole clue work as a single cryptic reading when they solve? I get the impression a lot of people don’t really care and just want the individual bits to work in isolation, which is maybe a pity and might be behind a some disagreements.
I used to think punctuation could always just be ignored (I’ve seen some cryptic crosswords that actually say this in the rubric) but I’ve shifted on this a bit. The best clues manage to make a virtue of it. As it happens in my latest Azed submission I accidentally used a colon instead of a dash and only realised after I’d posted it. It still just about works, but I was furious when I realised.
Now in my third week of Guardian crosswords!
Enjoyed this. Needed a bit of work, even after I noted down the names and nicknames of the Spice Girls.
Entering GLOBAL INDUSTRY held me up for a while. Hadn’t heard of DOUBLE STOPPING or PLASTRON; the former was obtained by the crossing letters, but the latter needed the (electronic) dictionary.
Nice to see the setter on here. Thanks to him and Eileen.
Incidentally, Spiceupyourlife won the first race at Ripon this afternoon!
Wow, got there ar last. Didn’t Paul do a Spice Girls puzzle some years back, to get slated by a few for dumbing down? I even scurried back to the first CD my son ever bought, only to find that the audience was so expected to know who the performers were that they were not listed by name.
Couldn’t parse NIJINSKY, or rather could but didn’t trust the double IN, and all in all the SW quadrant held me up significantly. I dallied with GLOBAL too, Gatacre! And looked for an anag of GOODLE for the first six letters. Spending a bit of time in the garden helped trigger CLEMATIS and the end was in sight.
Loved BRASSIERE, REHEARSES, SURROGATE MOTHER.
chas @30 – getting the answer from a set of initial letters is common enough, but a can’t remember seeing one before where you need to take the initial letters of a phrase and them jumble them up to find a word that is referred to by the entire clue.
Thomas @31
It’s a good point about “to”: maybe “by” would be preferable. The whole clue is contrived to shoehorn “houses” in there so that I had something with which to attach “reserved”.
Something like (the best I could do in the tea break without a thesaurus):
Book mostly clear as hotel fills in “reserved” (7)
might be a better clue — I might use that someday.
Whjat is wrong woth ‘to’?? No problkem for me. Don’tt undetsratnd the surface , nmind you!
Thanks, Eileen – and Tramp for the puzzle and comments.
Came late to this today, so there is little left to say. Very enjoyable, as ever with this setter. I didn’t have any issues with the punctuation (except that I felt the ellipses between 25a and 26a were unnecessary) or the construction of any of the clues. Many good ones, my favourite being 10a: good construction, good surface and :).
Thanks Eileen and Tramp
Finished this after a longish break. I got most though not all the Spice Girl references but those missed were not strictly necessary for solving. I failed to parse flambe properly – the use of light’ was very clever. I was left feeling that some of the cluing was rather contrived, but the puzzle was satisfying to solve.
I particularly liked 10a (nice to have the whole word for a change), 11a, 1d, 2d, 7d, 8d and 12d.
I had to check that ‘plastron’ was correct.
Maybe I’ve missed it, but is Nijinsky ever not defined as “dancer”, given that there is an obvious alternative?
Derek @ 40
How about ‘famous hoofer’?
That was indeed the one to which I was refering. I was just wondering if it has been done already, or whether that is still in store for us.
Bally favourite for the Triple Crown, I’m told?
D’oh, so close… Nicholas II was King of Russia and Poland but only a Duke of Finland.
Mitz @35 sorry – I misinterpreted your comment @29.
aztobesed @44: Nick 2 was King (Korol) of Poland, but Emperor (Tsar) of Russia – strictly of ‘All the Russias’, ie including Belarus, Ukraine (‘Little Russia’) and sundry adjacent territories.
@azto and Derek
Wasn’t Colin Bell known as Nijinsky to Manchester City fans?
Thanks all.
Isn’t Plastron singular and shells plural?
Hi Coltrane
Yes – but the definition [as underlined in the blog] is ‘part of theirs’ so I can’t see a problem.
I have the same quibble as Coltrane@48, and ‘part of theirs’ could still suggest a plural to me, especially with ‘shells’ at the start of the clue, whereas ‘part of his’ would unequivocally suggest a singular but would obviously wreck the surface reading. I didn’t know PLASTRON so had to use aids to get it because the only alternative as far as I could see from the anagram fodder, in the plural, was PLANTROS, and that didn’t look right.
I endorse what’s already been said.
I admire nicely misleading punctuation
Thanks to Eileen, and really good to hear from Tramp.
Tip-top.
Favourite: Clematis.
Excuse my rather laconic posts: presbyopia and BlackBerries are not good together.
On to Pint Two…
Thanks all.
My wife and I did this over a beer at the pub
(apart from Plastron – a bit sneaky). I
passively monitor the site occasionally
to check on the difficulty (often misleading!),
and the ones we missed/backchat. I miss
that curmudgeonly guy who presumably has died,
who took everyone to task – I’m not offering to
be his replacement! Tramp has definitely moved
into the roster of interesting setters – “Ah, it’s
…. today!”, but I didn’t think this was one of his
best. Nothing to do with Spice Girls (a pop group,
M’lud). OK, but I know you can do better T. My
missus said “Oil give it 5”. If you understand that,
you too were born before Jerry,Spotty,Slutty.. er, I
forget the rest..
Jamie says:
“…I miss that curmudgeonly guy who presumably has died…”
===
I think most of us know who you probably mean, and happily he still makes an appearance from time to time, after an absence of a while, (through health matters I understand).
Thanks Tramp and Eileen
Always fun crosswords from Tramp and this was no exception – being this late, most has been said and after reading blog – found that I’d parsed both BASHFUL and FLAMBÉ wrongly – had in fact found a recipe for a flambé shooter drink consisting of creme de menthe, vodka and Bacardi rum!
Last in was STROPPY after toying with scrappy for a while.
Apart from the gauche reference @53 – an enjoyable blog as well.
Actually it was the “gauche” sort of comments here that I
always liked, rather than the “fawning” type which usually
follow the appearance of the setter, and usually put
the end to any criticism. If you’re still out there – and we
know who you are – I’m a fan.
I’m surprised that nobody has queried the spelling of ‘Rafael’ in 5d. Having been at primary school when the ninja turtles appeared, I thought that he was ‘Raphael’? (as they were named after Italian painters).
Pre haps Jamie is ‘fawniung’ to RCW!!? Finny thiong for a lurket to pop up and say.
Tom @57. Good point. Sorry.
5 is crap. What role does “sole” play?
58 – Well I generally lurk around the solution bit
at the top of the page, so I may have missed your
dingers down here at the bottom.
Hi Huw
5 isn’t crap – the sole refers to the bottom of the foot and as per Wiki …
“Pumice stones” are often used in beauty salons during the pedicure process to remove dry and excess skin from the bottom of the foot as well as calluses. It was also used in ancient Greek and Roman times to remove excess hair.
Oh! dear. No-one noticed (and Tramp too polite to mention) though Gervase@38 did think the ellipses between 25ac and 26ac were “unnecessary” and others questioned “wearing” as an anagrind.
I feel sure the correct parsing of STROPPY should be an anagram (“pants”) of SPORTY around (“wearing”) P (first letter – “initially” – of POSHEST). Hence the ellipses – not unnecessary at all.
I make this post not to catch out the blogger (though the fact no-one else has mentioned it adds strength to my suspicion that many here don’t actually read the blogs!) but to ensure no future readers should be left with the mistaken idea that this puzzle was anything other than perfectly constructed.
(What a guy that Tramp is; to allow his work to be traduced in two ways because he is too polite to correct the blog!)
And Gaufrid, if you see this, so as not to discourage future passers-by, the number should be 25,979 rather than 25.979.
Somewhat reassuringly, albeit timewastingly, Google doesn’t seem “intelligent” enough to notice the similarity!