An entertaining puzzle from Paul – reasonably straightforward, I think, with some ingenious constructions and several smiles to help things along. Many thanks to him.
Across
8 Granny made beastly remark about president and king (8)
BABUSHKA
BAA [beastly remark] round BUSH [president] and K [king]
9 Into food, almost everyone going back for cake (6)
ECLAIR
Reversal [going back] of AL[l] [almost everyone] in RICE [food]
10 European steering mechanism announced (4)
FINN
Unequivocal, I think, homophone [announced] of ‘fin’ [steering mechanism] and no ambiguity as to which definition this time – hurrah!
11 Half way through second red wine, out of one’s box, nowadays? (4-6)
WIDE-SCREEN
Anagram [out] of SEC[ond] RED WINE – one of my favourite clues
12 More like rubies, either way (6)
REDDER
It’s a palindrome [either way]
14 One with teeth hadn’t been biting one back (5,3)
TENON SAW
Reversal [back] of WASN’T [hadn’t been] round [biting] ONE – another favourite
15 Setter‘s genital abnormality (7)
GELATIN
Anagram [abnormality] of GENITAL
I thought it seemed strange if Paul, of all setters, hadn’t spotted this rather obvious anagram before, so I had a hunt through the archives and found that he did, a couple of years ago, cluing it with ‘Coming unstuck, genital glue’: I prefer this one, I think. [It was interesting to see that several other setters had clued this word – but much more coyly, not going down the anagram road at all.]
17 Ludicrous to provoke outstanding relative (7)
RISIBLE
RILE [provoke] round SIB [relative]
20 Picked by Michelangelo, nice rare plant (8)
LONICERA
Hidden in michelangeLO NICE RAre
I thought I hadn’t heard of this ‘rare’ plant but it turns out to be honeysuckle
22 Consecutive figures passing exchange (3-3)
ONE-TWO
Chambers: ”a blow with one fist followed by a blow with the other [boxing, etc; a movement in which a player passes the ball to another player, then runs forward to receive it again [football]’ – so, in either case, an exchange, which is rather neat, I think
23 A rowing team down on Windermere, initially floating (10)
WEIGHTLESS
EIGHT [a rowing team] + LESS [down] after W[indermere]
24 Show of affection in “peck” is seen (4)
KISS
Hidden in pecK IS Seen
25 Queen sees a country in recession (6)
REGINA
Reversal [in recession] of A NIGER
26 Rough copies, American, misleading (8)
SPECIOUS
Anagram [rough] of COPIES + US [American]
Down
1 Family in common is Asian (8)
BALINESE
LINE [family] in BASE [common]
2 Blacken water in Scotland (4)
BURN
Double definition
3 Scruffy lot getting cleaner? (6)
SHOWER
And another one
4 Authorisation also held by partner (7)
MANDATE
AND [also] in MATE [partner]
5 Where Catalans might wash in the middle of this European city (8)
HELSINKI
EL SINK [where, whimsically, Catalans might wash] in HI [middle of tHIs]
6 Iron shackling Italian actress, metal is Italian (10)
FLORENTINE
FE [iron] round [Sophia] LOREN [Italian actress] + TIN [metal]
7 Arboretum where evergreen’s first put in some milk (6)
PINETA
E[vergreen] in PINTA [some milk – referring to the ’60s Milk Marketing Board’s advertising slogans, including the much-maligned – because it didn’t do a lot for children’s spelling standards – ‘Drinka pinta milka day’
I have a quibble with this clue: PINETA is the plural of ‘pinetum’
13 ’Ard up? Then it’s an arm and a leg for stationery equipment (7,3)
DRAWING PIN
Reversal [up] of ARD + WING [arm] + PIN [leg] – another favourite, perhaps the top one
16 It’s argon? Neon? Neither taking on being reactive (5,3)
INERT GAS
Anagram [reactive] of IT’S + ARG[on] and NE[on] – I liked this one very much, too
18 Contortionist’s leg wins, gripping top of upper arm (5,3)
LEWIS GUN
Anagram [contortionist’s] of LEG WINS round U[pper] – my last one in, as I’d never heard of this gun
19 Japan etc quick to bandage damaged ear (3,4)
FAR EAST
FAST [quick] round [to bandage] an anagram [damaged] of EAR
21 One going in first to get key (6)
OPENER
Double definition: even I know that an opener is one of the two batsmen who go in first
22 Only select emptier shells for seafood (6)
OYSTER
First and last letters [shells] of OnlY SelecT EmptieR – another favourite
24 Dagger bringing danger, if heading for the bottom (4)
KRIS
RISK [danger] with the last letter first
Thanks Paul and Eileen. I liked 24ac – peck is also a kiss.
Thanks Paul and Eileen
I had a mixed experience with this – most was of “write-in” standard, but the NE was like pulling teeth.
I thought the clue for PINETA was simply and editorial error – “Aboreta” is fine in the clue (which doesn’t have a great surface anyway). 11 was also rather contrived and didn’t flow well, I thought.
Paul missed a chance of a nod to the famous Chambers definition for ECLAIR.
Thanks Eileen. I did this at the dentists’s having a crown replacement: useful distraction, with occasional grunts as the EL SINK in 5d and the SIB in 17a dawned. Thanks for that, Paul.
Re muffin @2: for those without a Chambers, the definition is “a cake, long in shape but short in duration, with cream filling and usually chocolate icing”: ECLAIR has been clued many times but I can’t find any instance exploiting this entry, although it has been mentioned in several blogs.
A previous Paul clue that I found is ‘Even bits of pencil show something long and thin’.
Thanks, Eileen. The bottom half was a doddle but the top half was a different story, probably not helped by the difficult grid but, more seriously, by the time I spent trying to shoehorn KIN into PEESE(!)
Some nice clues, though. My choices were pretty much aligned with yours, although I thought that EL SINK merited a question mark!
Hi NeilW
‘…the time I spent trying to shoehorn KIN into PEESE(!)’
Me too!
Thanks Paul & Eileen. I took a long time to get the last few (babushka, wide-screen and mandate.) I particularly liked Finn and Helsinki – and have just checked that “el” indeed is the definite article in Catalan as well as Spanish!
Eileen, you’ve forgotten Brendan 25,438:
“Destroyed a relic that’s long in shape but short in duration, as 13” The answer to 13 was “IN CHAMBERS”! 🙂
Thanks Paul for an entertaining crossword.
Thanks Eileen; I’m not surprised that you spotted PINETA with arboretum. I was another ‘Pekinese’ for a while.
‘EL SINK’ indeed; not sure why Catalans were used as they have their own language (although I think they still use ‘el’) My favourites largely as Eileen with the addition of HELSINKI.
Hi again NeilW
Darn it! – I did find that one but it was in the days before we put clues in the blogs and I thought the quotation was the blogger’s comment. I should have looked it up in the Guardian archive – thanks, anyway!
NeilW @8
Excellent = I must have missed that crossword.
I tried PEKINESE too.
1 dn… If paese is a commune it is common, and pakinese is mixed Asian ???
I tried Pekinese too, although that’s a puppy, not really an Asian (the good folks in Beijing might disapprove of the spelling). On that note, Balinese are strictly speaking Australasian, not Asian, but who’s to quibble?
I didn’t know Pineta or Kris. As others have said, I found the bottom half easier than the top. I often wonder about that, since that’s often the pattern. My theory is that I start at tbe top, but my brain really isn’t in gear, on my first pass, until I get down a ways.
One question: how is “shower” scruffy lot? Presumably some slang I don’t know…
EL SINK indeed, indeed, Robi. Whimsical, indeed, Eileen. El mot juste.
Chambers’ eclair is one of Dr Johnson’s whimsies.
mrpenney:@13
Shower was indeed slang for being scruffy and/or disreputable. Perhaps most famously as in ‘you’re an absolute shower’, the catchphrase of the much missed Terry-Thomas. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry-Thomas
Thanks, Conrad @15 and apologies to mrpenney @13
Both Collins and Chambers define ‘shower’ as ‘British slang’, so I should have explained it. [It’s an expression I’m rather fond of.]
mrpenny
Shower as in “what a shower”. Partridge (apparently) says it comes from shower of s***.
My tatty 1972 Chambers omits the “short in duration”, which I think has now been reinstated. But it does have for Welsh Rabbit: “sometimes written “Welsh rarebit” by wiseacres”. Alas deleted from later editions.
I’m another who found this only really a struggle in the NE. Really though HELSINKI is very gettable from the HI envelope, more so given the FINN at 10, and with FLORENTINE having been an early answer I’m not sure why it should have taken so long. For a while I didn’t reverse the RICE so ending up with RILACE for a cake. Happily I eat enough different types of cake to soon realise that this was, um, RISIBLE.
Completed
Thanks Eileen and Paul.
I’m not sure about 24d. Does “… if heading for bottom” not give the meaningless ISKR, or am I missing something?
Thanks, Eileen
Like NeilW et al, I found the bottom half very straightforward but the top half much harder work. And I also spent ages trying to justify PEKINESE… My LOI was HELSINKI, ‘Catalan’ rather than the more usual ‘Spanish’ having led me into thinking there was more to this clue than was the case. 7d is unworthy of Paul: bad grammar and meaningless surface.
Indeed, there are quite a few inelegant surfaces in this one, but I did enjoy 10a, 23a, 3d, 4d and 13d.
Hi, BillyK. I think you have to read it as “KRIS produces RISK if the top letter moves to the bottom.”
A bit more obscure vocabulary here than we’re used to from Paul – I didn’t remember KRIS though I’m sure I’ve seen it in a crossword before, and LONICERA was new to me. Last in (and biggest groan) was HELSINKI. Count me in the PEKINESE camp too, though the crosser from BABUSHKA confirmed that it couldn’t be right.
Thanks as always to Eileen and Paul.
Thanks Paul and Eileen.
Like many others, I made the acquaintance of PEESE before I realised it was a blind alley.
Had to cheat on 3d, which helped to get 8a, but 11a still didn;t come.
Nothing wrong with 7d – PINETA is plural in Latin, but not in Italian!
I too struggled with NE, and top west for a while having tarn rather than burn. I thought tarn worked rather well, though I suspect it is a Northern English word rather than Scottish. All very enjoyable. Thanks Paul and Eileen.
My initial difficulty with 8A was my stubborn insistences that granny was the envelope and that “nana” was the signifier. “BUSH” for president and “K” for King were gettable, however. Thanks for the blog, Eileen, and thanks to Paul, my favourite setter, for the grid.
A lot of gadgeting for me, but got there eventually.
Kris was easy for me as that was the name we gave to our first whippet.
xjp @25 Yes, tarn is northern.
But oh what a shame? Lovely clue construct for 16, but sadly we now know that only helium and neon are actually inert gasses. And there are theoretical doubts about helium, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_gas_compound 60 years ago the clue would be perfect, quick find a TARDIS!
Derek L: ‘Tarn’ is Northern English (like ‘beck’ and ‘fell’ – all Scandinavian words introduced by the Vikings); if you are a Scot, they are southern terms!
And you’re right about the ‘inert’ gases; ‘noble’ gases is the more commonly used term now. Originally they were also referred to as ‘rare gases’ – even less appropriate as argon (constituting about 1% of Earth’s atmosphere) is pretty common locally and helium is the second most abundant element in the universe (though there’s not a lot of it round here). Of course you could be pedantic and use ‘Group 18 elements’ but this is a lot less snappy.
Mac Ruaraidh Ghais @24
SOED: ‘pinetum: [plural -a, -ums] a plantation or collection of pine trees of various species’
Chambers: ‘pinetum: [pl plneta] a plantation of pine trees…’
No mention in either of PINETA as a singular – in any language!
Eileen at 18d. If you haven’t heard of a Lewis Gun, you will! It was a standard British weapon in WWI.
Hi harhop @30
Thanks, yes, I saw that from the link that I supplied. 😉
Thanks Eileen another for kin in 1d as others.
yup NE corner was a bit of a pig today.
Count me as another who found the top half trickier than the bottom half, and I had similar thoughts about a couple of the clues that others had, namely the singular/plural issue with PINETA and trying to unsuccessfully parse Pekinese until the BALINESE sen dropped.
SHOWER was my LOI, and I couldn’t see it at all until I got the final checker from the excellent WIDE-SCREEN.
DL @27 and Gervase @28
There is nothing imperfect or inaccurate about 16dn, INERT GAS.
The term was invented by chemists. Argon and neon both belong to the group of elements so described. When it was discovered that these interesting elements were not in fact inert the chemists modified their jargon.
Meanwhile the phrase had passed into ordinary language. Both Chambers and Collins give accurate descriptions of the inert gases which do not say that they are inert. For the layman the expression ‘inert gas’ is more useful and meaningful than ‘noble gas’. In what sense is argon noble?
The question marks in this excellent clue I take to allude to the scientists’ difficulty with English.
‘La pineta’ is the strip of pine forest down much of the Tuscan Coast (la Versilia region around Viareggio). Might be a local word, though.
All good knockabout, though we found the NE hard.
As a grower’s son LONICERA was a present; EL SINK, well as everyone else; a couple of old chestnuts e.g. KRIS, but all in all a pleasantly diverting puzzle.
Thanks Paul, Eileen and posters.
Eileen @ 29 and Dd robson @ 35.
I wasn’t suggesting that the Italian ‘pineta’ (pl ‘pinete’) had made its way into English dictionaries, simply that it does exist as a word.
It is not local to Tuscany, but can be found all over Italy.
rhotician @34 (if you’re still there)
I wasn’t quibbling about the clue, which is fine and employs a commonly used term for these elements, as you say. I was just agreeing with Derek that the higher members of the group have been discovered to react, albeit under extreme conditions, so the term is misleading.
They are ‘noble’ by analogy with gold and the platinum metals. These have long been described as ‘noble metals’; they are certainly not inert – they have an extensive chemistry – but in their elemental form they don’t corrode and are relatively unreactive.
rhotician, which just goes to show how stupid dictionaries can be. You’ve basically just said that black is white and that is fine because a dictionary says so. Only you could try to justify such a peverse situation. Try saying something sensible next time.
Oh and by the way, you patronising person you, you aren’t the only one who know the history of this. Ever heard the saying about grannies and eggs? So zip it.
Only just finished this!
I found this difficult. Perhaps it was the distraction of “Emmerdale” which my beloved insisted on watching followed by the interruption of Seville v Seville with beers!
I too was a PEKINESE proposer. Never met “KRIS” or “LONICERA” either. 11A had me spending far too long searching for answers to do with the “out of the box” relating to the “psychobabble” of the 1990s! How many corporate millions were squandered on “education” in such nonsense?
Thanks to Eileen and Paul
Gervase @38 (if you’re passing)
I realise that, unlike Derek, you were not criticising the clue. I only mentioned you because you said that the term ‘noble’ is more “commonly” used. Rather it is the term preferred in scientific literature. It will never pass into common parlance because the idea of the nobility of gases is rather absurd. In fact I did not know the term even though I was taught at O-level what were the so-called inert gases, and that they are not completely inert.
Thank you though for your explanation of why ‘noble’ is a more appropriate technical term than ‘inert’, by analogy with its use in connection with metals. I was vaguely aware of the term ‘noble metal’ and took it to be a technical term coined to describe some chemical property of certain metals related to, but not the same as, the terms ‘base’ and ‘precious’ in common parlance. I now find that its meaning is more interesting than I thought it would be.
Inertia is a quite interesting word.
Rather late but I have been too busy to do the crossword earlier. So thanks, Paul and Eileen.
Loved BABUSHKA and SHOWER – lots of good things and HELSINKI was a laugh, too.
No problem with PINETA but you could argue either way.You still hear pinta occasionally.
Giovanna xx
@Eileen please excuse lateness of post & brevity – on holiday in Cambodia & only just finished this.
Re eclair, Maskarade used this clue in his Christmas special
a gimme for me as I was familiar with the Chambers definition.