Guardian 26,061 – Gordius

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There seems to be quite a lot a “general knowledge” required in this puzzle, with a few people, places and classical references. Apart from that, the usual Gordius offering. By popular request (aka Michelle) I have included the clues below, with definitions underlined.

 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. UNDERLINE Stress in the tube? (9)
The Tube, or London Underground, could be an “under line”, and you can stress something by underlining it
6. COPE She combines with it to be poetic (4)
POETIC is an anagram of COPE + IT, and “she” is the poet Wendy Cope
8. MALTREAT Scotch perhaps about a time to bully (8)
MALT [whisky] + RE A T
9. ÉMIGRÉ Recorder backing work for asylum seeker? (6)
EMI (recording company) + reverse of ERG (unit of work)
10. FEMALE One that makes master feel inadequate? (6)
(MA FEEL)* &lit – a nice concept, but rather spoilt by the indirect anagram, even though MA=master is a common crossword trick
11. REGISTER Boy tries out record (8)
REG + TRIES*
12. ELATED Chuffed by story about party leader (6)
Reverse of TALE + ED [Miliband]
15. MUTINOUS Revolting classic character can love America (8)
MU (Greek letter = “classic character”) + TIN + O + US
16. CINNAMON Spice for 15 Roman character early in the week (8)
CINNA (presumably this one, one of the conspirators against Julius Caesar) + MON[day]
19. CAMBER Slight arch on East Sussex shore? (6)
Camber is a slight curvature, e.g. of a road surface (as in the worrying road sign “adverse camber”), and Camber Sands is a (reasonably well known – at least I’ve heard of it) beach near Rye in East Sussex
21. VESPUCCI His name gained New World prominence (8)
(Barely) cryptic definition, referring to Amerigo Vespucci, Italian explorer after whom the continent of America was (probably) named
22. CURACY Element slightly indecent in church office (6)
CU (copper) + RACY
24. ATTILA Conqueror turned to race, inter alia (6)
TT (motorbike race) in ALIA, reversed
25. DIAMETER Time read out from one side to the other (8)
(TIME READ)*
26. ORAL What’s said or sung, but not at church (4)
CHORAL less CH
27. SOSTENUTO Number turn out after emergency call and keep it going (9)
SOS (emergency call) + TEN + OUT*. Sostenuto (Italian “sustained”) is used in music to indicate a smooth style of playing
Down
1. UKASE Decree to take Britain as English (5)
UK (Britain) + AS E. Ukase was a proclamation in tsarist Russia
2. DETRACT Take away from foreign land (7)
DE (“from” in French etc) + TRACT (land)
3. REEVE Note girl gets to bailiff (5)
RE (note, as in do-re-mi) + EVE
4. INTERIM Plant setter’s getting for the time being (7)
INTER (bury, plant) + I’M (setter is)
5. ENERGETIC Lively Frenchman backed to become in charge (9)
Reverse of RENÉ + GET + IC
6. CAISSON Watertight chamber is thus in metal shell (7)
IS SO in CAN. Read all about caisson as a wateright compartment here
7. PERSECUTE 8 in itself quaintly pleasing (9)
PER SE (in itself) + CUTE
13. LEICESTER Crete lies roughly somewhere between Reykjavik and Aden! (9)
(CRETE LIES)*. I don’t know if there’s any significance in the choice of Reykjavik and Aden as places that Leicester (or Crete) is between
14. DEMOCRATS Politicians find rising star come to dead end (9)
STAR COME [dea]D, all reversed
17. NUPTIAL Like marriage taking up Latin translation (7)
(UP LATIN)*
18. NAIADES One sea and other river nymphs (7)
(I SEA AND)* – the usual English plurual is Naiads, but Chambers also gives this version, which is closer to the Greek original
20. MORCEAU A bit in France sounds a fortiori here (7)
Homophone of “more so”,which is an informal definition of a fortiori. MORCEAU is French for “piece”, or “bit”
22. CHASE Hunt with no time to be modest (5)
CHASTE less T. The “be” is redundant in the cryptic reading
23. CREDO Belief being firm about colour (5)
RED in CO[mpany]

29 comments on “Guardian 26,061 – Gordius”

  1. Thanks Gordius and Andrew.
    Mainly straightforward. I was baffled by the definition for COPE, as I hadn’t heard of the poet (it becomes a very clever clue), and I hadn’t come across that spelling of NAIADES before, though the anagram forced it, obviously.

  3. I liked 5d, 27a, 14d, 1a, 15a, 22a, 20d.

    New words for me were UKASE, REEVE = ‘bailiff’, CAISSON, CAMBER (both the arch and the village).

    I couldn’t parse 6a.

    Thanks Andrew and Gordius.

  4. Thanks, Andrew

    Some nice clues here, with a few rather bizarre ones; 13a has a singularly weird definition and 22d seems to be the wrong way round. COPE took me a while to disentangle, until I remembered Wendy. Mostly straightforward, though the NW quadrant took a while, and 10a defeated me, _E_A_E being so unpromising.

  5. Thanks Andrew.

    Difficult towards the end (6, 10, 19a and 7, 20d) so I needed your answers and explanations to finish.

    I had DEBASE for 10a, but clearly couldn’t say why. Also CUTSLY, for 19a, a little desperate but it fitted the first part of the clue – not heard of the beach. This was fitting in well with PERPETUAL for 7d, but again, I couldn’t see why.

  6. 19a – Camber also means TILT (or BANKED) and this I think is the usage in the phrase “Adverse Camber”. Most roads are tilted into corners – when they go the other way you have to be more careful of skidding. If it meant concave (i.e not arched) then said road would fill up in the middle with water and gunk.

    This was a tough one I thought.

  7. Very tough for me, some obscure words and references with some dodgy wordplay in places, agree that the clue to Leicester was weak.

  8. It was ‘made’ difficultr by the poor clues I woulds say. also 10 is NOT &lit. MA isd ‘master of arts’ anyway, but why does FEMALR make master feel inadequate? I don’t know I am sure. Also you have redundant One, not part of the clue workings, and I did not like ‘inadequate’ as an ‘ind’. There I have savaged it!! But I don’t like any clues here I’m afraid.

    Rowland..

  10. 13D Reykjavik, Leicester, Aden:
    If you put a string on a globe between Reykjavik and Aden it crosses Leicester – near as dammit – but Aden is almost 4 times as far away from Leicester as Reykjavik.
    (Can’t help thinking York and Oxford might have pinned it down a bit more easily.)

  11. Had to come here to finish. 6a, because I had not heard of Wendy Cope.
    1d I was never going to get because I had MISTREAT in for 8a. Surely mist is as Scotch as malt?

  12. beermagnet @ 10
    …..but Crete isn’t between York and Oxford!
    Charles @ 11
    That looks a valid point. Of course the slight drawback to “mistreat” is that it doesn’t fit.

  15. Lovely puzzle. Emphasising Gordius’s style but maybe a little tougher than usual. Of course in times past Gordius was often regarded as one of the tougher setters. We get used to his mildness in the Tuesday slot these days.

    Faves 6a (superb &lit) and 10a – clever but innocent hints at the politics of gender.

    I think the indirectness in 10a is not “unobvious”, so fair – ie MA for master is a trivially easy translation.

  16. I found this very difficult, and had to resort to aids several times to complete, which I always find disappointing. This was mainly due to inadequacy on my part, though I felt that some of the clues were a little woolly. (Personal opinion).

  18. Thanks Andrew and Gordius

    A tougher puzzle than usual from Gordius with quite a lot of ‘general knowledge’ required as Andrew says.

    10a had me badly puzzled. I saw and liked the link between ‘cope + it’ and ‘poetic’ but did not put it in because I did not know about Wendy Cope and my searches showed that Cope was not a first name which I was looking for. I also saw that Copt might fit but could not parse it. In the end I entered nothing.

    I saw Leicester and l;iked the anagram but did not go as far as drawing a line.

    I liked the charade in ‘mutinous’ in 15a.

    I checked the spelling of naiads which then yielded ‘naiades’ – I should have waited till I had got ‘diameter’ in 25a which was also a nice clue.

  19. Most &lit clues I can solve, but not that one, however superb it may have been. Are you sure it’s kosher, Swaggers?

  20. I found this tough for a Gordius. At the end I needed to check COPE as a poet instead of “Cepo”, who may have been an ancient classical poet for all I know. I also used aids to show all the ?e?a?e options, and I went past FEMALE a couple of times before I finally saw how it fitted in with the wordplay, and just about fitted in with the definition. Not the greatest of clues IMHO, although I shouldn’t complain about the indirect anagram because there was one in yesterday’s Quiptic and I commented that such devices should only be used in the main puzzle.

  21. Completed, without much fun, except for 6 & 10A

    I’ve never heard of Wendy Cope. Obviously had to be COPE or CEPO because of wordplay. I have now looked her up as WENDY appears to be required to find her in Google. She appears to be related to Pam Ayres 🙂

    6A just doesn’t make sense!!!

    Thanks to Andrew.

  22. Paul B – I’m a bit worried that the question you ask of Jolly re the “superb &lit” may be too cryptic for some.

    So to be both presumptuous and patronising I ask instead:-

    What is it that Wendy combines with to be poetic? Not vermouth I hope.

  23. Oops – typo – the “superb &lit was t’other’un – ie 10a.

    Well that was the original intention.

    Second look at 6a:

    WP

    She [COPE – ie the letters therefrom] combines with IT to be POETIC

    uses the whole surface

    Def (at a stretch)

    She [Wendy Cope] combines with [uses – deals with] it [sex appeal or the act iself] to be poetic

    uses the whole surface too

    and that’s exactly what most of her poems are about – the travails of the game of love – scoring and/or failing to and the deficiencies of her targets and “conquests” – ie us geezers in general – or at least the ones still available.

    I’ll give it at least a strong &littish – do please notice the -ish.

    Naughty old Gordius – who’d’ve thought!

  24. I felt very smug that I knew about Wendy and thus found 6A very simple. It makes a welcome change from, for example, the names of cricketers, knowledge of which is often taken for granted in crosswords, but which leave me stumped!

  25. JollyS – I suppose your positive attitude is to be commended but the more you “stretch” a surface the less “litish” it becomes.

    As B(NTO) says ‘She combines with it to be poetic’ just doesn’t make sense.

  28. I felt a little beaten up by this one. Second hard Tuesday in a row?

    There was an odd combination of fairly easy clues and extremely bizarre ones. 6 and 10, no clue as to how to solve them ever came to me, and even Andrew’s help left me feeling a bit cheated.

    A number of clues used what seems to be a new trick, where the clue must be worked backwards from the solution – example, “chaste” becomes “chase”, but how? “by having no time to be modest”. I think clues with that sort of construction are not very good. The general concept is fair, IMO, but the setter must be more careful in the clue’s grammar.

    Used many aids to resolve many clues – CAMBER, for instance, required me to look up the geography of East Sussex, since the definition was a bit weak.

    I did like about 3/4 of the puzzle though – 9, 8, 15, 22, etc. etc.

    I thought 20 was unfair. I got it, but using a French word in a British crossword, as opposed to the usual “German article” sort of foreign language tricks, seems wrong to me. Perhaps a Prize Saturday puzzle one day will involve foreign words in every clue/wordplay/answer? That would be fun.

    I think this should have run later in the week.

    Thanks to Andrew for the blog (it amazes me that you bloggers can solve these things in the early AM!) and to Gordius for the most excellent Friday/Saturday puzzle. Hugh, how carefully do you try to manage the increasing difficulty over the week?

  29. I had CHANCE at 22a, thinking element, and CHANCEL for church office with the indecency of the L removed. Found out that CHANCEL isn’t a church office.

    I thought some of the clues were obscure – REG for BOY? I had SOBRIETY as 11A (anagram for BOY TRIES) and was going to look up RECORD to see if there were any correlation. This was tough. Could ANCHOR at 19A work as an anagram for SHORE? I wasn’t even close to the right answer.

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