(Please click here for this same blog but with a picture quiz added. Please do NOT post hereinbelow any comment relating to the picture quiz. Thank you.) As usual, Brendan has built a mini-theme into his crossword, highlighted in 13,18 across. Enjoyable puzzle, thanks to Brendan. And thanks to PeterO who kindly swapped days with me. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
5 French star having party in pub before closing time (6)
BARDOT : DO(a party;a social function) contained in(having … in) [ BAR(a pub) placed before(before closing) T(abbrev. for “time”) ].
6 Learners that you finally supplied with driving aids (6)
TUTEES : Last letters, respectively, of(finally) “that you ” plus(supplied with) TEES(things you put your balls on to help with your golf drive – I definitely needed more aid than that when I was a learner).
9 Coward’s end is elsewhere in conflict at sea (3,3)
COD WAR : “Coward” with its last letter(…’s end) moved to the 3rd position(is elsewhere in).
Answer: Any one in a series of confrontations in the 1950s and 1970s between the UK and Iceland about fishing rights in the North Atlantic.
10 Minimal intelligence? (8)
MICRODOT : Cryptic defn: Reference to the very small means spies use/used to convey secret information.
11 Youngster‘s finishes counting towards score (4)
TEEN : -TEEN(the suffix that finishes the numbers thirteen to nineteen, counting to twenty;a score).
12 Folder with task organised for dealers (10)
TRADESFOLK : Anagram of(organised) [FOLDER plus(with) TASK] .
13,18 Complete parts of it repeatedly, as in some places here (3,3,2,3,5,3,2)
DOT THE I’S AND CROSS THE T’S : DOT(.) and TEE(t), parts of “it” when written, are repeatedly used in the answers here. To a lesser extent, some answers have to be completed with a repeated letter, whether at the end of or somewhere within the word.
Answer: Literally, to complete writing the 2 component letters of “it”. Figuratively, to complete, ie. to finish the last few details (in addition to the meaning of being meticulous with the details).
21 Unsettled, with low temperature (4)
MOOT : MOO(the lowing sound of cattle) + T(abbrev. for “temperature”).
22 Sit exam – holding it back is extremely silly (8)
DOTTIEST : [DO TEST](sit for an exam) containing(holding) reversal of(… back) IT.
23 A lot of people in the wrong – setter and solver backed out (6)
THRONG : “the wrong ” minus(…out) reversal of(… backed) “we”(the pronoun for setter and solver together).
24 In this way, editor is influenced (6)
SWAYED : Hidden in(In) “this way, editor ” .
25 Uncertainly move infant in discomfort? Not hot, however (6)
TEETER : “teether”(an infant in the teething stage, feeling much discomfort, and giving much discomfort too to its parents) minus(Not …, however) “h”(abbrev. for “hot”).
Down
1 Have a fit, finally, as part of blazing row in town (4,4)
GROW INTO : Hidden in(part of) “blazing row in town “.
2 Over and over again, interrupting journey north for detective (6)
POIROT : O(abbrev. for “over” in cricket) plus(and) O separated and contained in(again, interrupting) reversal of(… north, in a down clue) TRIP(a journey).
Answer: Hercule, Agatha Christie’s famed detective creation.
3 Look for some 12 who deal with cuts (8)
BUTCHERS : Double defn: 1st: Cockney rhyming slang for “look” from “butcher’s hook”, as in “have a butcher’s at the other blog”; and 2nd: Some tradesfolk(answer to 12 across) who buy and sell meat cuts.
4 Good sort including East European in drive (3,3)
TEE OFF : TOFF(a good sort;a gentleman) containing(including) [ E(abbrev. for “East”) + E(abbrev. for “European”) ] .
Answer: To play the first stroke of a golf hole, from the tee, where you’re allowed to use a tee (cf. 6 across).
5 Worker, perhaps, holding up excessively small footwear (6)
BOOTEE : BEE(a social insect, perhaps one from the worker caste) containing(holding) reversal of(up, in a down clue) TOO(excessively;more than required, adequate or proper, as in “you’re too smug”).
Footwear for little people:
7 Mishandled pistol went off (6)
SPOILT : Anagram of(Mishandled) PISTOL.
Defn: Eg. with food past its eat-by date.
8 Tools gripping inside of ear for piercing operations (11)
IMPALEMENTS : IMPLEMENTS(tools) containing(gripping) inner letter of(inside of) “ear “.
14 Bound to find them, oddly, on the left (8)
TETHERED : 1st and 3rd letter of(oddly) “them ” placed above(on, in a down clue) THE + RED(the traditional colour describing those on the political left).
15 Able to figure out true mean, somehow (8)
NUMERATE : Anagram of(somehow) TRUE MEAN.
Answer: Able to use and work with numbers;quantitavely.
16 Skill is found around old part of France (6)
ARTOIS : [ ART(skill) + IS] containing(around) O(abbrev. for “old”).
Answer: A former;old province of northern France.
17 Tree in which rook sits before moving (6)
CORNER : Double defn: 1st: To force into a difficult position, from hunting, where prey may be “treed”, literally forced up a tree, and hence, “to be up a (gum) tree”; and 2nd: The position on the chess board in which the rook sits before the start of the game.
19 First section’s set up for governor once (6)
SATRAP : Reversal of(set up, in a down clue) [PART A](the first section)‘S.
Answer: The governor of a province once in ancient Persia.
20 Piece of furniture in which to put a kind of shirt (6)
SETTEE : SET(to put upon, say, a table) + TEE(short for a kind of outer or inner shirt, short-sleeved and collarless).
(Please do NOT post hereinbelow any comment relating to the picture quiz. Thank you.)
Thanks scchua and Brendan.
I loved this.
Pairs of TEEs cross and some of the “i”s in down clues have “dot” sitting above them.
I always look forward to Brendan’s crosswords! I particularly liked the clues for teen and Poirot. Thanks scchua for explaining corner. I hadn’t heard of tree as a verb but indeed it is defined in Chambers as “to corner.”
I thought the tree was a “coner”, as distinct from a “fruiter”
Thanks, scchua. What a great construction!
I saw the TEEs and the Os above the Is as I went along but it was only when I’d finished that I realised the cleverness, as described by Muffyword @1.
LOI was CORNER – a really excellent clue.
Scchua, many thanks for the blog and for continuing with the pictures – much appreciated
Thanks Brendan and scchua
The theme was very clever indeed – I got MOOT and THRONG early on so hared off looking for one based on gatherings of people…the penny eventually more or less dropped.
Incidentally scchua, TRIP is missing from your parsing of 2.
Thanks, Simon S. blog corrected.
I guess the shortage of comments up till now is a sign that folks are having trouble with this one. I certainly did!
Thanks, scchua.
Thanks Brendan; clever construction.
Thanks scchua; I spotted the TEES but didn’t see the I’s.
I particularly liked THRONG and CORNER. Like tykeitfromme @3 I thought CONER must have something to do with trees. 🙁
Superb as usual, thank you Brendan. Lots to smile at but I will select 10a and the splendid 25a as my favourites. Thanks to schua too.
Very much at the outer edge of my capabilities. Unlike yesterday, the theme didn’t help me much – just once, really, with the last in TUTEES.
Clever theme as always with Brendan – I failed to understand the significance of the DOTs and TEEs – I was thrown by BARDOT and thinking you could get there by DOTting the I in BARI (a place), but I gave up on that fairly quickly. Last in was CORNER.
Thanks to Brendan and scchua
Thanks Brendan and scchua
I was with Robi @ 9 in thinking that a CONER was a sort of tree (slang name for a conifer perhaps?), and I also failed to see the “teens” in counting up to a score (Doh!)
I thought it a bit odd that TEE appeared in both TUTESS and TEE OFF (early solves), but all became clearer and more impressive as the rest fell into place.
Too hard for me although I got most of it after some serious gadgeting.
Toff = good sort? Who but a fellow toff would think that when so many people use it as a faint insult? (Yeah, I know, our believe anything friends in Dictionary Central would!). In case anyone needs an explanation, many below the upper class split that group into two, gentlemen and toffs, where the latter are definitely not gentlemen being the snooty part of that class. So those with that definition are not going to get that part of the clue.
Derek @14 – I’ve always thought that the singular and plural of toff have different connotations, as in ‘You’re a toff’ – appreciative – and ‘They’re a bunch of toffs’ – deprecatory.
Derek @14 – you reminded me that I was going to say the same thing about TOFF, which as you say is normally negative/pejorative/derogatory, at least in England. I also agree that this one was difficult by Brendan’s standards.
Thanks Scchua and Brendan
A nice puzzle.
The parsing of 5a was not wholly clear to me. The clue might in some ways have read better as ‘before opening time’. In the end I thought the publican’s calling of ‘Time’ for ‘closing time’ might somehow explain it.
Re the theme, I simply assumed that there were lots of dots and tees in the answers, while recognising that tees are crossed at 4d and 6a.
I particularly liked 9a, 23a and 17d.
Thanks Brendan and scchua
The hardest Brendan that I can remember – even after the long ‘theme clue’ went in two thirds of the way through.
Ended up getting COD WAR wrong – and I think Brendan may have missed an opportunity from a theme point of view though – when I entered DOT WAR (in texting the conversation degenerates to just sending … backward and forth). The COD WAR clue as explained is very good all the same.
Last one in was CORNER after remembering the tree verb. An excellent offering again from this setter.
Bravo scchua on your innovative solution to last week’s ‘discussion’. Now to go there and look.
Ah, yes but, “he’s a bit of a toff” is singular and not usually a compliment, though I guess it could be.
I know we’re supposed to explain ourselves before we comment here, but this was just way above my head. I gave up with about two thirds of it done. And I’m still not sure what the theme is. Can someone explain what’s going on in words of one syllable? Sorry to be dim.
K’sD @20
If you look at the grid at the when you are done, there are 6 words with “tee” in them. The tees cross:
t
tee
e
There are 4 “dots” in the grid. One is in the key clue at 13/18. The rest have been put so they sit on an “i”:
dot
i
KD @ 20 / MW @ 21
Additionally, 6 could be (mis)pronounced as TWO TEES
Should there be apostrophes in the clue for dot the i’s and cross the t’s?
I’m definitely in the minority here because I didn’t find this as easy or as enjoyable as most Brendan puzzles, and the theme didn’t help me at all.
I got there in the end with the IMPALEMENTS/MICRODOT crossers my last ones in.
I know this is a question of semantics and has already been discussed when it has come up in previous puzzles, but I don’t like “extremely” in 22ac when “most” would more accurately describe the answer.
Wow – that is really something!
…and one of these days I’ll spot these joyful things while solving, rather than needing you lot to point them out!
So clever.
And I really enjoyed MOOT and the hidden clues. (..And many others).
Hats doffed to Brendan, and thanks to scchua.
Nina is marvellous. One of the best “what’s going on here” moments for a while (IQ etc included). Many thanks.
Trebor @ 26
I am probably being thick, but I can’t see a nina. Could you please elucidate?
I’ve re-read Muffyword @21. Not exactly a nina, then? (Still very clever, though.)
Thank you Muffyword at no 21. I’ll start again with tomorrow’s offering.
Well at first I thought this was going to be easy as lots of acrosses were write-ins.
However then it got difficult.
A bit of a curate’s egg for me as I loved most of the clues but wasn’t keen on a few.
I thought MICRODOT was a bit of a stretch for the cryptic definition (my LOI) and I didn’t like the extraneous info in 13 18 whcih was confusing for the clue and didn’t really help with the puzzle!
I parsed 19d as First section’s “S” set up ” A TRAP” but I’m sure your parsing will agree with Brendan’s as he was in a very devious mood when he compiled this 🙂
Thanks to sschua and Brendan
Hmm … having not fully understood the crossed TEEs and DOTted i’s properly until muffyword @21 …my DOT WAR comment @18 becomes irrelevant 🙁
Even more clever effort with the theme than I’d previously realised !
Saran @23 – I read somewhere (Fowler’s) that apostrophes can very occasionally be used when not indicating possessive or missing letters to clarify meaning.
The example was “Mind your p’s and q’s” – this is very similar.
I usually turn to this page after having struggled to complete (or not) a crossword to find folk dismissing it as rather simple. This time, I can smugly report that we got through this in reasonably good time, and spotted the crosses and dots. You’ll have to excuse me – it doesn’t happen often! 🙂
Derek @14
“many below the upper class split that group into two, gentlemen and toffs”
It’s not clear whether or not you subscribe to this view yourself. It’s very simplistic.
I don’t understand your Dictionary Central jibe either. I doubt if Brendan often feels the need to consult a dictionary when choosing his words.
To me the use of ‘toff’ as a pejorative smacks of resentment. Its benign sense, as used in the clue, seems rather agreeable to me.
rhotician
The alternate view is also simplistic.
What I subscribe to is not relevant, this usage exists, end of story. Have you seen that I was not the only one to note that usage, why do you not address your remarks to those people, or is this just personal?
Please tell me how to report an observable general usage, without you immediately presuming that I subscribe to it just because I report it. The usage I reported is widespead, but maybe not in toff circles. Do regard yourself as a toff then?
Of course that usage is pejorative, that is whole idea of it. Why does it surprise you that a usage intended to be pejorative sounds pejorative? You seem to be making a vacuous point.
You have a short memory. Many people, not just me, point up dodgy definitions, only to be told “but it’s in the dictionary”, as though a dictionary is some Holy Writ that can never be wrong. A view which is clearly at odds with reality. So I was pre-empting that response, which anybody should be able to deduce.
However, I was wasting my time on that gambit, as checking further shows it is a clearly marked usage in dictionaries for example, http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/toff?q=toff
So, that usage exists, right? Regardless of what I think, right? End of story?
I have not denied that the pejorative usage exists. Your original comment began “Toff = good sort?” Are you saying that no such usage exists?
No-one else has suggested that the definition is dodgy even. So there was really no need to pre-empt attempts to defend the definition with reference to dictionaries. The definition is not dodgy.
I’m afraid the rest of what you say makes little sense to me, so I cannot sensibly respond further. For which I’m sure everyone else will be grateful.
Didn’t read posts 15 and 16 then.
Oh and you can’t read. I didn’t say the clue was wrong, just that those who only knew the derogatory meaning would be struggling…..
“So those with that definition are not going to get that part of the clue”
Really, you’re supposed to be an accurate reader to do these puzzles. You should apply that to posts as well.
“those with that definition” ? “you’re supposed to be an accurate reader” ?
Finished this at 5 am Thursday. My latest ever I think but really enjoyed it and the comments, which helped me understand why some of my answers were right! thanks to all who left positive remarks.
Sorry Friday!
Just a thought with 17 down as I was not mad on tree as verb although I can see it. You tee off when you make yor first move so you are on the tee. Tee with R – Rook is tree.