The rota has given me a second Bannsider Saturday Prize puzzle in a row and, while not quite as intractable as Indy 8345, it was another tough mental workout…as one might expect.
No particular themes or Ninas that I could see, and at one point it looked like it might be a pangram – but no Q, Z or J. There were, however, many wonderful surface readings and misdirections, a cross-referential anagram, and a lovely Dad’s Army reference. A BELLY DANCE – entertaining manipulation – and a Y-fronts gag at 1D kept things light-hearted. Plus some maths – FIBONACCI SERIES – and literature – Alexander Pope – to add some intellectual gravitas. And some sport – with Rugby Sevens making an appearance as well.
So a mixed bag of references, but consistently high-standard clueing – with few ‘easier’ entry points – maybe MUCK, USED, INTERN and BLOTTO were the softer underbelly of this hard-nosed puzzle. But YELP, EXAM and ANDY are all counterpoints to my usual approach of attacking the shorter clues first, as they should be easier to get… And all four long answers were pretty devious anagrams – especially 2D.
This certainly took a few re-visits to get anywhere near complete on the Saturday of publication, and then lingered on into Sunday and the Monday journey to work as well.
Always nice to see Malawi get a mention – as I spent some of my formative years there in the 70s – even if solving it involved the dreaded ‘mother-in-law’!
The Dad’s Army anagram was a laugh-out-loud moment, when the pfennig dropped. And I think EXAM was last in.
Thanks to Bannsider for another enjoyable challenge…hope other solvers enjoyed it as much as I did…
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
| 1A | ASH DIEBACK | A plea for peace: what’s evident in ending of apartheid disease (3,7) | disease (of ash trees) / A + SH (plea for peace/quiet) + DIE BACK (EID – the last three letters of ‘apartheid’, back) |
| 6A | CASH | What’s withdrawn from Woolworths account? (4) | what’s withdrawn (from a Woolworths, or indeed any other, account) / hidden, reversed word in ‘WoolwortHS ACcount’ |
| 9A | DON’T TELL HIM, PIKE | Old hit line kept about protecting anonym ultimately? (4,4,3,4) | old hit line (from hit show Dad’s Army) – at least a partial &lit? / anag (i.e. about) of OLD HIT LINE KEPT around (protecting) M (last/ultimate letter of anonyM) |
| 11A | DEFRAY | Provide funds for government department – and tip off Treasury (6) | Provide funds for / DEFRA (government department) + Y (last letter, tip, of TreasurY) |
| 12A | BLOTTO | Bachelor confronts matter of chance wasted (6) | wasted (drunk) / B (bachelor) + LOTTO (matter of chance) |
| 15A | EXAM | One might be taken for English PM, perhaps (4) | One might be taken for English (as an academic subject) / If the time is PM, then it is no longer (ex) AM! |
| 16A | WATER WHEEL | Its revolution driven by race? (5,5) | CD – Cryptic Definition? / A race (or stream) drives the revolutions of a water wheel. |
| 18A | FLYCATCHER | Knowing about pilots training this female airborne killer (10) | airborne killer (bird) / FLY (knowing) + C (circa, about) + ATC (Air Training Corp, pilots training) + HER (this female) |
| 19A | YELP | Half or quarter of pine bark (4) | bark / YEL (half of ‘OR’, or YELlow) + P (quarter of Pine) |
| 21A | FILLIP | Medicine provided that reverses stimulus (6) | stimulus / PILL (medicine) + IF (provided that) – all reversed |
| 22A | AIR-ARM | Service taking off? Mostly underdone in the end (3-3) | Service (branch of the fighting services) / AIM (end target) around RAR (most or ‘rare’, or underdone) |
| 25A | FIBONACCI SERIES | Biosciences Fair originally run for mathematicians? (9,6) | run (or sequence, of numbers) for mathematicians / anag (i.e. originally) of BIOSCIENCES FAIR |
| 26A | MUCK | Starts off mainly using cornet, keen to provide brass accompaniment? (4) | brass accompaniment (‘where there’s muck there’s brass’) / first letters of ‘Mainly Using Cornet Keen’ |
| 27A | BARELEGGED | Deliberately collided with fences in wild glee in a mini? (10) | in a mini (skirt) / BARGED (deliberately collided with) around (fencing) ELEG (anag – i.e. wild – of GLEE) |
| Down | |||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
| 1D | ANDY | Man with what looks like mark on the front of his pants? (4) | man (‘s name) / AND (with) + Y (shape of opening on some male underpants, or Y-fronts) |
| 2D | HENDECASYLLABIC | Composed of 4 and 6 and one – as this is (15) | as this (clue) is (i.e. comprising eleven syllables) / anag (i.e. composed of ) BELLY DANCE (see 4) and CASH (see 6) plus I (one) |
| 3D | INTERN | As serial criminal offences occurred, perhaps, picked up and put in jail (6) | put in jail / homonym (i.e. picked up) – serial criminal offences might occur ‘IN TURN’ |
| 4D | BELLY DANCE | Entertaining manipulation of middle ground by EEC and Liberals (5,5) | entertaining manipulation of middle (usually of the female form) / anag (i.e. ground) of BY EEC AND plus LL (Liberals) |
| 5D | COHO | Fish to present as a pair? No way! (4) | fish / CO-HO(ST) – present as a pair – without ST (street, way) |
| 7D | A LITTLE LEARNING | Celt – Anglican cleric banning Catholics – represented over time danger to Pope (1,6,8) | danger to (Alexander) Pope – ‘…is a dangerous thing’ / anag (i.e. re-presented) of CELT ANGLICAN CLERIC – without any Cs (Catholics) and including an extra T (time) |
| 8D | HIEROGLYPH | Sign greeting husband – provide the bloody thing the wrong way up! (10) | sign / HI (greeting), plus H (husband) + PLY (provide) + GORE (something bloody) – all reversed |
| 10D | MALAWI | Mother in law one’s got in this state? The reverse! (6) | state (or country) / MA (mother) + LAW + I (one) – i.e. law in (mother + one), not mother in (law + one) |
| 13D | FEE FI FO FUM | Line of giant plates of meat, suitable for rave, all cut (3,2,2,3) | Line of (spoken by) giant / Four words ‘cut’ short: FEE(T) (plates of meat) + FI(T) (suitable) + FO(R) + FUM(E) (rave) |
| 14D | SEVEN-A-SIDE | Famous golfer not initially in reserve rugby game? (5-1-4) | (cut-down version of) rugby game / SEVE (Ballesteros, famous golfer) + N (initial letter of ‘not’) + ASIDE (in reserve) |
| 17D | FABIAN | Patient left winger, one in enforced absence from football? (6) | Patient / Left winger / FA BAN (enforced absence from football) around I (one) |
| 20D | FRIEZE | Wall decoration to suspend in auditorium (6) | wall decoration / homonym (i.e. in auditorium) of FREEZE (to suspend) |
| 23D | ACTA | Minutes or even seconds from autocrat returning (4) | minutes (of a meeting) / every second letter (‘even seconds’) from AuToCrAt, reversed |
| 24D | USED | Enjoyed being top dog at Washington Post? (4) | enjoyed (made use of, with satisfaction) / The ‘top dog’ at the Washington Post might be a US (American) ED (editor) |
I found this puzzle difficult and I needed to use the “check” button quite a lot throughout when I did it online this morning. I failed to solve 17d and I couldn’t parse a lot of answers: 8d (I got the rest but LYP reversed = PYL, not PLY so I gave up on it), 13d, 18a, 1a, 24d, 22a, 16a, 19a (last in).
New words for me were ‘hendecasyllabic’ ‘Ash dieback’, ‘air-arm’, DEFRA, the song “Don’t Tell Him Pike”, ‘coho’. Also, FEET = plates of meat.
I particularly liked 25a, 23d, 10d and my favourites were 15a EXAM, 21a FILLIP & 2d HENDECASYLLABIC – apart from the anagram and the 11 syllables in the clue, I also liked the reference in the clue that 4 + 6 + 1 = 11.
Thanks bannsider and mcrapper67.
Why do FEET = plates of meat?
Okay, I get it now – Cockney rhyming slang. “Plates of meat” = “feet”.
I am still whispering it but I appear to be still on the Bannsider wavelength, albeit this time needing two sessions with ‘cogitation’ in between. Who can resist a crossword with the immortal words uttered in 9a!
Thanks to Bannsider and mcrapper67.
I somehow managed to complete this without resort to aids but it was a battle, especially the top half.
“Don’t tell him, Pike” was an excellent clue which held me up for ages, although if you aren’t a Dads Army fan I think it would be pretty impenetrable. Michelle@1 – it isn’t a song. It is one of the most famous lines from a long-running UK sitcom. The link below contains the line and the build-up to it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V3SqxUomwk
HENDECASYLLABIC only went in after I managed to arrange the anagram fodder into a word that just about looked right. Somewhat embarrassingly ANDY was one of my last ones in, but that honour went to FABIAN after I finally realised I wasn’t looking for a word spelled BA?I?N.
Thanks mc-rapper for the blog. I loved this puzzle. My favourite was DON’T TELL HIM PIKE. Super crossword.
Michelle@1 – PYL/PLY in 8dn does look like a mistake, doesn’t it. I couldn’t parse it, too.
I think this was the first crossword by Bannsider that I’ve completed so either I’m getting better (unlikely) or this was one of his less difficult offerings. The only one I couldn’t parse was 3d because I didn’t pick up on “picked up”. I didn’t spot the PLY/PYL “mistake” so it didn’t bother me.
My favourite clue has to be 9a across if only because “don’t tell him Pike” is one of the most memorable and funny lines from any British sitcom, not just Dad’s Army. Thanks Bannsider for the laugh out loud moment when the penny dropped.
AndyB@5
Re “Don’t tell him, Pike” – thanks for the youtube link – it’s very funny. As I only did a cursory google search on it, I had assumed it was a song – my mistake.
Yet another crossword where I needed the blog to parse some of the answers. But on the other hand there were some where the previously obscure parsing became obvious the moment the answer was written in – 13dn was one of those, and was my CoD.
I agree with michelle and Dormouse about PYL/PLY in 8dn. What with that and the possible misspelling of ‘Brobdingnadian’ yesterday could it be that eimi’s on holiday? But, hey, who’s worried? 🙂
Anyway, thanks, Bannsider and mc_rapper67
BROBDINGNADIAN (sic) is as entertaining. Thanks Allan.
Thanks for all the comments/feedback – apologies, but a weekend away has restricted my ability to respond. My ‘plates of meat’ are raw after trudging round the ‘CarFest South’ site…
michelle – thanks for pointing out that ‘6 + 4 + 1 = 11’ makes that clue for HENDECASYLLABIC even more impressive. And apologies for not including a link to the Dad’s Army/’don’t tell him, Pike’ reference – thanks to Andy B for doing the honours.
to several commenters: I obviously hadn’t spotted the PLY/PYL discrepancy – maybe I/we parsed it wrong and there is a better explanation?
lastly – I enjoyed ‘Andy B’ at #5 not getting ‘ANDY’ until almost at the end!
No I’m afraid there IS an error in the HIEROGLYPH clue for which I humbly apologise. Especially as it occurs in such an obscure word. I’m glad it’s too late to have to think up a replacement!
“About” in the Dad’s Army clue is rather a weak anagram indicator too I fear, but probably just about OK.
Thanks to my regular blogger 🙂 for such an interesting and comprehensive report.
Really good puzzle, Bannsider. Thanks!