Thursday is traditionally the day for the more difficult Independent daily crossword.
Some solvers may feel that today’s crossword touches or crosses the bounds of acceptability for a daily crossword. Clearly there are a number of unusual words in today’s grid. OCREA, EPIFAUNAE, FIA, ARGALI, TRICOT and THEW, for example, are not words or abbreviations that I use on a regular basis.
The clues to the less well known words are fair and they are not too complex, so other solvers may consider that the overall balance of Nina, obscure words and cluing is about right. Indeed, the cluing shows how a good compiler can clue almost any word.
Three of the clues hint at a theme or Nina with references to Polly, Basil and a hotel in Torquay in 6, 9 and 24 down. The Nina is shown in the filled grid below where FAWLTY TOWERS and FLOWERY TWATS can be seen spelled out in the unchecked letters in rows 1,7, 9 and 15. The introductory sequence to each of the 12 episodes of FAWLTY TOWERS featured a near anagram of the letters of the programme title. FLOWERY TWATS is the only one that uses all 12 letters. I can’t find any obvious reason why FAWLTY TOWERS should form a theme today. The first episode was broadcast in September 1975.
If solvers saw the Nina developing, there is no doubt that it would be helpful. In my case, I saw FAWLTY appearing in row 1 and assumed that something useful would be in row 15. However, I didn’t see rows 7 and 9 until I had completed the puzzle, and row 15 wasn’t really a great help to me whilst solving.
I thought a couple of the clues were very good. My favourite was the one for NOT WORTH IT (14 down) I also liked the clue at 23d for PLAY.
There are also a few clues where I am less happy about the construction. I comment on these in the body of the blog.
I will be interested to read solvers views on this puzzle, but I won’t be around to respond to any comments till late afternoon.
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Across |
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|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue | Wordplay |
Entry |
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7
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Sheaths around stem inherent to procreation (5)
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OCREA (hidden word in [inherent to] PROCREATION)
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OCREA (a sheath formed of two stipules united round a stem) Chambers tells me that this spelling is the singular form. The plural form meaning sheaths would have another E on the end to form OCHREAE
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8
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Training people to crusade perhaps (9)
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Anagram of (perhaps) TO CRUSADE
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EDUCATORS (people who train; training people)
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11
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Artillery breaks in battles, ground good to cross (11)
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RA ([Royal] Artillery) contained in (breaks) an anagram of (ground) IN BATTLES T (RA) NSITABLE* |
TRANSITABLE (crossable; good to cross)
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12
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Oddly shirty model (3)
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Letters 1, 3 and 5 (oddly) of SHIRTY
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SIT (model, both as a verb)
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13
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Bottom feeders mostly feel pain, accidently swallowing gold (9)
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Anagram of (accidently) (FEEL excluding the last letter [mostly] L and PAIN) containing (swallowing) AU (chemical symbol for gold) EPIF (AU) NAE* |
EPIFAUNAE (the class of animals that inhabit submerged ground and river and seabeds; bottom feeders) I only found what looks like a plural spelling on the internet. My copies of Chambers and the Shorter Oxford only give EPIFAUNA. My version of Collins doesn’t give anything.
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15
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Colour of drink coming out of mouth (5)
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TAUPE (sounds like [coming out of the mouth] TOPE [drink hard regularly]) Chambers gives identical pronunciation for both these words.
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TAUPE (a brownish-grey colour)
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16
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One worshipful leaning does affect me (7)
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I DO (emphasising [hence italics in does] + LIST (lean)
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IDOLIST (one who worships)
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| 18 | Serious art collector (7) |
I’m struggling with the word play here, but Bradfords and Chambers Thesaurus tells me that EARN is a synonym for ‘collect’. So if ‘art ‘is considered as the archaic form of the present indicative of the verb ‘to be’, perhaps EARNEST can be cosnidered to be an archaic form of a collector. It seems a long shot, but it’s the best I can come up with. I look forward to some solvers suggesting something far better. |
EARNEST (serious) |
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19
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Measure one of 8 facing extremity (3,2)
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EN (a measure in printing terminology) + DON (example of an EDUCATOR [8 across])
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END ON (facing the extremity of an object)
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20
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Art seldom beaten (3,6)
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Anagram of (beaten) ART SELDOM
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OLD MASTER (any great painter or painting of a period previous to the 19th century; a piece of art or a painter that is seldom surpassed in terms of quality)
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22
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Brief directive from those in charge of motor-racing (3)
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FIAT (formal or solemn command; directive) excluding the last letter (brief) T
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FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile; International Automobile Federation; governing body of motor racing)
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23
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Asking for small houehold chore? Run away! (11)
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PETIT (a form of PETTY [small]) + (IRONING [household chore?] excluding [away] R [run])
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PETITIONING (asking)
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25
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Send home from work when the other’s taken on board (9)
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IT (sex; the other) contained in (taken on board) (EX [direct from] + TRADE [occupation; work]) EX TRAD (IT) E |
EXTRADITE (to hand over to a foreign government; usually, but not always, sending home)
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| 26 | Find time to go wandering (5) | T (time) + ROVE go wandering) |
TROVE (shortened form of TREASURE-TROVE [ownerless objects of intrinsic or historical value found hidden]) |
| Down | |||
| 1 |
So I won’t die at all? (3,3,4,2,2)
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FOR THE LIFE OF ME (during my life; whilst alive I won’t die)
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FOR THE LIFE OF ME (the phrase could be interpreted as ‘so?’ in terms of ‘try as I might, I can’t understand the importance’) double definition
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2
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A girl carelessly chasing a sheep (6)
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A + an anagram of (carelessly) A GIRL This seems to imply that the chasers are in front of the letter A I would have thought chasers came behind. A RGALI* |
ARGALI (the great wild sheep of Asia)
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3
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Always found in a town, it’s contrived to make American stop (3,7)
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AY (always) contained in (found in) an anagram of (contrived) A TOWN IT’S W (AY) STATION* |
WAY STATION (in America, an intermediate station [stop] between principal stations)
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4
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Allow to hug following split (4)
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LET (allow) containing (to hug) F (following) LE (F) T |
LEFT (went away; split)
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5
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Western drifter prepared to drive around to ‘umiliate wife (10)
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TEED (having put the ball on to the tee; prepared to drive [at golf]) containing (around) ([H}’UMBLE [{h}’umiliate] + W [wife]) I’m not sure what Western is doing in this clue.
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TUMBLEWEED (a type of plant that snaps off above the root, curls into a ball, and is blown about in the wind; drifter)
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6
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University helping to make Polly a lecturer (4)
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YALE (hidden word in (helping to make) POLLY A LECTURER
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YALE (American university)
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9
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Once Basil serves starters, smoke’s unimportant (7)
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OBS (initial letters of [starters] eac h of ONCE BASIL and SERVES) + CURE (preserve by smoking; smoke)
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OBSCURE (lowly; unimportant)
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10
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They say oysters, e.g. shoot fluid (2,3,5,4)
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Anagram of (fluid) OYSTERS E.G. SHOOT
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SO THE STORY GOES (they say)
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14
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Pointless #2’s right to strike (3,5,2)
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NO (#; number) + TWO (2) + R (right) + HIT (strike)
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NOT WORTH IT (of no value; pointless)
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15
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Pottery creator excited by dry area (10)
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Anagram of (excited) CREATOR + TT (tee toal; dry) + A (area) TERRACO* TT A |
TERRACOTTA (an unglazed earthenware made from a mixture of clay and sand; pottery)
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17
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Tar frequently seen on main roads etc (3,4)
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OLD SALT (in winter salt and grit are put on main roads to melt ice and snow and clear the road surface. This salt hangs around for a long time such that there is often OLD SALT reamaining on the roads). I think that’s how the parsing goes, but I’m not 100% sure.
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OLD SALT (sailor; rat)
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21
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Run across one beginning to cut cloth (6)
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TROT (run) containing (across) (I [one] + C [first letter of {beginning to} CUT]) TR (I C) OT |
TRICOT (a hand-knitted woollen fabric; cloth)
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23
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Inside service line, thus in this (4)
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L (line) contained in (inside) PAY (service; Bradfords gives pay as a synonym for service) P (L) AY |
PLAY (if the ball in tennis lands within the service line it is in play)
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24
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We will have hotel opening in Torquay – wrong way to get custom (4)
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(WE + H [hotel] + T (first letter of {opening in} TORQUAY) all reversed (wrong way) (T H EW)< |
THEW (literary term meaning custom)
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I look forward to shocked letters to the paper by a non-solver who happens to glance at the solution grid and only takes in the bottom row. (Time was when a Listener puzzle was rejected because A-R-S-E appeared in symmetric squares.)
EARNEST is a bit of an old chestnut using the Biblical suffix -EST. Thus we might say ‘He earns…’ while Moses et al (or their translators, I guess) would say ‘He earnest…’. Usually comes up when someone’s clueing TEA-CHEST.
ARGALI – can’t see anything wrong there – the anagram of A GIRL is chasing/following A, surely?
Chuffing Nora. I can only speak for myself, but this was way beyond what I would expect of a daily cryptic. I could add a couple of words more to the obscurities that Duncan has listed; add to that the usual devious wordplay from Anax and this solver was forced to give up with about half of it done. When that happens, I cheat on the rest to see what I couldn’t understand and even then I was left waiting for Duncan’s blog. And I still can’t see how FOR THE LIFE OF ME works.
I think ‘Western’ in 5dn is just referring to the fact that tumbleweed often appeared in Westerns when the baddies rode into town and everyone was hiding indoors.
Thanks to Anax, but this type of puzzle belongs elsewhere, I think.
I enjoyed this, although I now see I had TRICOT wrong (I entered Tailor, but forgot to check it).
Could FOR THE LIFE OF ME be a CD/DD of “So I won’t die”, and “at all”?
Thanks for the blog, Duncan. My favourite was TUMBLEWEED.
Thanks for the blog, Duncan. I needed to use the ‘check button’ a lot on this puzzle, and I failed to solve 23d. I needed your help to parse 18a, 15d, 15a, 17d, 3d, 25a.
For 23a, I also parsed it the way you did, with ‘ironing’ definitely being a household chore!
I parsed 1d the other way around, with the definition being “at all”. FOR (so) + THE LIFE OF ME (I won’t die). Example: I can’t understand it for the life of me / at all.
I agree with KsDad@2. In 5d, I also thought that ‘western’ was there in reference to old Western movies which often have scenes of tumbleweeds blowing about.
I liked 14d, 20a, 4d and my favourite was 23a PETITIONING.
New words for me were EPIFAUNAE, ARGALI, THEW = ‘custom’, OCREA, and AY = ‘always’.
(BTW, I did not see the nina – I guess I was just happy to sort of finish the puzzle and did not think to look for a nina as I was quite frazzled by the end of it).
I didn’t know how to start this comment but I agree with K’sD that ‘chuffing Nora’ is definitely the expression I was searching for.
I have a rule with crosswords in papers other than the DT (my first crossword ‘home’) and if I can’t do them after three separate tries, they go in the recycling. Sorry Dean but this was far far too difficult for me to even get a toehold in.
Thank you and well done Duncan.
Some interesting stuff. WAY STATION is rather good with the first bit being almost an anti-definition. The chap who coined epifauna pluralised it with an ess, but he was foreign so what did he know? And definitely more of a prize puzzle than a weekday job too.
Thanks, Anax and Duncan.
Just to expand a bit on what Phi said @1 about 18, the trick only works in the second person. Thus, if thou art a collector, that means thou EARNEST. I really should learn to expect this trick whenever I see “art” in a clue.
There were indeed a number of obscure words that I needed to confirm existed, but as I first derived them from the clues I can’t say this was overly difficult.
If there was any expectation that the average weekday solver would be able to finish this unaided, or even get close to finishing it, please let me know and I will never attempt another crossword.
Inevitably there were enjoyable clues and I was pleased to see a sprinkling (well two, anyway) of write-ins to kick start proceedings, but after a while I got firmly wedged on the NW corner and resorted to the cheat button. Hmmmmm…… OCREA, ARGALI, EPIFAUNAE all crossing – so that’s reasonable is it? That’s where I lost the will to carry on. 14D. (BTW Duncan – your parsing as entered for 14d has a T missing; right is RT)
Thanks for the blog, excellent as ever, and I’ll look forward to the next, hopefully a bit more accessible, Anax puzzle.
Well……. we enjoyed the challenge. When we saw that the setter was Anax, we thought we’d start earlier and leave the Grauniad to bedtime!
We saw the nina in row 1 but were then hooked on TOWERS appearing on the last row which held us up considerably. It wasn’t until Bert spotted the word elsewhere after Joyce solved 14d that we were able to finish the puzzle.
Not the best Anax we’ve done but enjoyable all the same. We were however glad to have 2 heads on this one as often one of us solved the clue while the other one parsed it!
I still don’t follow 1D completely but am thinking something similar to michelle (@4) just about does it. Once I got the answer, I was sure it had to be correct, so it must work somehow!
I enjoyed the simplicity of 20A – one of the pure clues of this type.
Controversial but I believe the theme makes up for any other points. I’ve seen many FT themed puzzles but none that tackle this most crossword-ish feature of the show. Spotting it did require experience to identify the odd grid, and knowledge of the setters penchant for themes, so the effort perhaps wont be fully appreciated.
Thanks.
I fell into the same trap as Bert&Joyce, putting T.O.W.E.R.S into the bottom unches. Fortunately I was doing it on Crossword Solver so the check button soon showed up the error – but I never thought to look for other nina components elsewhere so completing the grid was a bit slower than it might have been.
And I wasn’t all that happy with 1dn either.
But despite some new words to me (EPIFAUNAE, ARGALI) I thought this was at the easier end of the spectrum for Anax – maybe I’m getting to know how his clues work.
So thanks, Anax – and of course Duncan.
PS: I would have posted earlier, but there’s a beer festival on in Derby this week.
Well. This one kept me well and truly occupied while watching a day’s cricket in the sunshine. I spotted ‘Fawlty’ early on but only spotted ‘Towers’ and ‘Flower’ when I had one clue to go and had YT.ATS at the bottom. That helped immensely. Great fun in masochistic way but not one for a coffee break.
I know we expect a more difficult puzzle on a Thursday and Saturday, but I agree with those of you who thought that this one took the mickey. Maybe I was just in a bad mood this morning because I didn’t have as much time available as I normally do on a Thursday, hence the late post. I never enjoy solving when I have a self-imposed deadline.
With about 60% of the puzzle completed I resorted to aids but still couldn’t finish it. I used the check button to find that my answer of TRACE in 26ac was wrong. The check button left me with TR__E and TROVE sprang to mind, but I then stupidly entered TAILOR at 21dn without trying to parse it properly. When the check button told me it was wrong I put a little thought into it, saw the correct parsing, and entered TRICOT.
I actually had to use the cheat button for the first time in absolutely ages to give me the first letter of 1dn, but once I saw it was “f” the answer came to me. The rest of the clues on the LHS that I hadn’t solved then fell into place.
All in all not a very enjoyable experience.
Sigh…after my diatribe last week I was hoping that this Thursday’s offering would restore my faith in the Independent’s crossword setters. Sadly, it hasn’t. I’m not averse to obscure words – where would we addicts be without such challenges – but i do object when the setter has used such obscurities to allow him to set a puzzle with an irrelevant and indulgent nina! (Why is it called a nina by the way?). I’m perfectly happy to accept that Anax and the smug posters who thought this puzzle was “not too difficult” have both a higher IQ and a wider vocabulary than me; what i object to is the unnecessary complexity for the sake of the hidden artifice.
Please, Thursday setters, get down from your intellectual high horses and consider the mere mortals who make up 99% of your solvers!
Mozzie at #14, the FAQ section of this site gives the info re Nina that you ask about.
Too tough for me. My solving time each day is limited to two 30 min train rides. Anything I haven’t got by then I get from this blog. Today I only managed 8 clues in my solving hour
Yes, chuffing Nora just about sums it up. Anax sets some wonderful crosswords but I don’t think this was one of them, with its obscure words and clues that don’t seem to work very clearly.
But all is forgiven because of the magnificent 20ac.
Good thing I wasn’t blogging today. There’d have been lots of gaps.
Another only half done here. Gave up and read a book.
Yes, this was tough, but I was able to work most of the unfamiliar words from the wordplay later looking in a dict to verify them. The one exception was TAUPE – that I had to find from a list. I was maybe lucky in that I saw FAWLTY emerging in the top row tho I was not aware of FLOWERY TWATS’ appearance in the grid (though I had heard of it before) till coming here.
Well chuffing Nora didn’t quite get a look in. got about two thirds and then rather more important things had to be done. Frankly I’m not sure I could have finished this in a month of sundays. Thanks duncan and my mate anax for this and my present.
A late comment if anyone’s still around. At least the obscure words in this puzzle were gettable (imho) from crossing letters and wordplay. The same could not be said for a 14-letter word in the same day’s cryptic in the i – a recycled Quixote from a 2008 IoS. In fact that whole puzzle took me much longer than this Anax.
A very very very late comment if anyone’s still around :).
Two weeks on and I finished this puzzle without any mistakes within a day (in which I also did a Philistine and a Dac, together with my PinC, true). Not that I could (fully) explain 15ac, 18ac and 25ac but see, there you are. Faultless.
Not a puzzle for the average solver on his way to work.
A good one for someone (like me) in his first week of holiday.
Admit, I had to check certain words but even EPIFAUNAE came to the surface without opening a book.
The Nina helped a lot to get the final bits but I know Anax is convinced that this indeed should help the solver.
I cannot always finish an Anax so I am very proud today.
Liked NOT WORTH IT and TERRACOTTA perhaps the best, although, PETITIONING is also quite good. As were others.
Many belated thanks, Duncan, for your well-appreciated blog.
1D Is this not “for the life of me”, meaning I have to do this “for the life of me”, ie for the preservation/continuance of my life, that is “So I won’t die”?
In Australia taupe is pronounced “tawp”, so that was not helpful for the few of su solvers over here.