A nice puzzle from Shed – I found this on the easier side at first but tough to finish. Favourite clues were 5ac, 24ac and 4dn. 29ac was new to me.
Slight shame to have limb=member twice in the same crossword.
Across
1 Like, essentially, to spread malicious rumours (7)
ASPERSE
=”spread malicious rumours”. AS=”Like” plus PER SE=”essentially”
5 Vie for domestic income? (7)
COMPETE
=”Vie”. PET=”domestic” as an adjective describing say a cat, “in / COME”
10 Member taking nothing from nowhere (4)
LIMB
=”Member”. LIMB[o]=”nowhere”, with the o=”nothing” removed
11 Something dentist may have to do with lineage (10)
EXTRACTION
=”Something dentist may have to do with”; =”lineage”
12 Repeat usual rubbish (6)
PARROT
=”Repeat”. PAR=”usual” plus ROT=”rubbish”
13 A friend in America with endless addiction to emirate (3,5)
ABU DHABI
=”emirate”. A plus BUD=”friend in America” plus HABI[t]=”endless addiction”
14 Member of clergy apprehending fairy inverted in mirror (9)
REFLECTOR
=”mirror”. RECTOR=”Member of clergy”, around rev(ELF)=”fairy inverted”
16 Stick to game (5)
POKER
=”Stick”; =”game”
17 Introduction to Strange Fruitcake? (5)
SCONE
=”-cake”. S[trange], plus CONE=”Fruit” of a conifer
19 Sellers, turning round recreational area, left fire extinguisher (9)
SPRINKLER
=”fire extinguisher”. rev(REPS)=”Sellers, turning”, around RINK=”recreational area” plus L[eft]
23 French paper absorbing a drink (8)
LEMONADE
=”a drink”. LE MONDE=”French paper” around A
24 Left to replace inner parts of Tchaikovsky score (6)
TWENTY
=”score”. WENT=”Left”, replacing everything but the outer letters of T[chaikovsk]Y
26 Piano music Nero performed in front of stage (10)
PROSCENIUM
=”front of stage”. P[iano] plus (music Nero)*
27 Debate quelling monarch’s fever (4)
AGUE
=”fever”. A[r]GUE=”Debate”, minus r[ex]=”monarch”
28 Food and drink obtained from catering establishment (7)
INGESTA
=”Food and drink”. Hidden in [cater]ING ESTA[blishment]
29 Compound of steel, sulphur and oxygen creating problem for horse (7)
OSSELET
=”problem for horse” (arthritis of the fetlock). (steel S[ulphur] O[xygen])*
Down
2 Edible fungus — upset after eating it? (7)
SHITAKE
=”Edible fungus”. SHAKE=”upset”, around IT
3 Last vestige of topped limb (5)
EMBER
=”Last vestige”. [m]EMBER=”topped limb”
4 Thomas the Tank, perhaps, cradling Controller’s head (7)
SCEPTIC
=Doubting “Thomas”. SEPTIC=”Tank, perhaps”, around C[ontroller]
6 Pop a question that’s not entirely obscure (6)
OPAQUE
=”obscure”. Hidden in [P]OP A QUE[stion]
7 Collage of meat-eating vigilantes, top to toe (9)
PATCHWORK
=”Collage”. PORK=”meat”, around W/ATCH=”vigilantes” with the “top” W moved to the end (“toe”) of ATCH
8 Blue or turquoise top causing ruction (7)
TROUBLE
=”ruction”. (Blue or t[urquoise])*
9 Port drunk with chasers -— it gets you very high (13)
STRATOSPHERIC
=”very high”. (Port chasers it)*
15 Crustacean to depose government before entering thoroughfare (9)
LANGOUSTE
=”Crustacean”. OUST=”depose”, with G[overnment] before it, inside LANE=”thoroughfare”
18 V-sign scrawled on her CV (7)
CHEVRON
=”V sign”. (on her CV)*
20 Wrung this headless bird’s neck (7)
ISTHMUS
=”neck”. (this)* plus [e]MU’S=”headless bird’s”
21 Put out electronic message, not initially vulgar (7)
EXTRUDE
=”Put out”. [t]EXT=”electronic message, not initially”, plus RUDE=”vulgar”
22 Progenitor’s yearly charge (6)
PARENT
=”Progenitor”. P[er] A[nnum]=”yearly” plus RENT=”charge”
25 Wipe out head of regiment in comfort (5)
ERASE
=”Wipe out”. R[egiment] in EASE=”comfort”
Thanks to Shed and manehi. Had the same experience – quick start and slow finish. OSSELET was new to me too. Also, LANGOUSTE. Couldn’t parse 5ac so thanks for that.
Cheers…
Thanks manehi. I’m not sure 7d is really top-to-toe: more like a Spoonerism gone horribly wrong.
The opposite experience to the blogger and the first commenter: slow to start but swift to finish (in the NW). A couple of instances of words which are not common sharing stems with words that are more common – ASPERSE and INGESTA – to add to the unknown, but eminently gettable, ODSSELET. Thanks to manehi for sorting out PATCHWORK for me.
Thanks, manehi. I enjoyed this, completing the bottom half quite easily but then I had to “reverse into” the top left.
PATCHWORK seemed fine to me.
I assumed the “crossed legs” were deliberate.
Thanks for the blog, manehi.
I agree with all three of NeilW’s comments.
It was a delight to see Shed back and the puzzle certainly lived up to expectations. Clever anagrams [26ac, 29ac, 18dn] and ingenious constructions [5ac, 23ac, 20dn] combined with excellent surfaces [throughout – but must highlight 24ac, 26ac, 28ac, 4dn, 9dn, 20dn].
[Slight confusion caused by the paper version splitting the clue for 8dn thus:
‘Blue or turquoise top ca
using ruction’ ]
Many thanks to Shed for a great start to the day.
Failed on two today (29a and 2d).
As a proud Honorary Member of The Quilters’ Guild of the British Isles, I have to cry foul over the definition of ‘patchwork’ as ‘collage’ – they are very different things, although the solution was eminently gettable.
A nice one for my birthday. Particularly liked 5ac and 23ac. First read through only got 8dn, though. LOI 28ac – took a while to see the hidden word, also stared at 22dn a long time before getting why!
Thanks Shed & manehi. Like others I found this quite slow going in parts (although not so much as yesterday.) Doing it on the bus I wasn’t sure whether a cone could be considered a fruit. Also had to check that osselet existed. Some nice words here!
Shiitake has two i’s. Never seen any other spelling.
I too was surprised to see SHIITAKE spelt with only one I. Is that really legitimate?
@9 Shiitake does indeed have two i’s. Shitake has one.
@10 What do you mean by legitimate? Collins and Wiki acknowledge both spellings. Chambers does not.
Thanks for the blog, manehi. A couple of the parsings eluded me.
I enjoyed this very much. I often find Shed’s puzzles very hard, but got into this one quickly. Slowed down towards the end, with the unfamiliar OSSELET.
As Eileen says @5 lots of great surfaces.
I didn’t query the spelling of SHITAKE at all, but my Chambers app only gives SHIITAKE.
Thanks Shed and manehi for an enjoyable puzzle, and explaining Compete which I got but didn’t know why. Langouste and Ingesta were new words for me. My favourite was Sceptic which led me down many wrong tracks until I finally got a green signal.
One of my favourite setters and didn’t disappoint. My favourites tally with those of others, though I’m not sure if the surface of 4d ever occurred to Rev Awdry!
I had to check between OSSELET and OSTELES (something an ostler used to deal with?), both seemed roughly possible. The other unknown word for me, INGESTA, was incontrovertible of course.
Thanks, manehi.
Good puzzle, which I found rather easier than many by Shed.
As Eileen says @5, there are some particularly good anagrams here. Favourite clues were 1a, 24a (inventive clue for a numeral), 28a (great surface for a rather unusual hidden word), 4d, 9d.
I did have to check OSSELET, but it seemed the most likely answer, given the crossing letters. I failed to parse SCONE, having read ‘fruitcake’ as the definition. Alan R @8 is right to question CONE = ‘fruit’: conifers do not enclose their seeds in a fruit (hence ‘gymnosperms’, literally ‘naked seeds’) unlike the flowering plants. For me, Shed’s question mark is good enough to indicate that there is something not strictly watertight about the clue. (Though he might just have intended this to indicate the lift-and-separate, as in 5a).
Like others, I finished up in the NW quadrant – I was also puzzled by the spelling of SHITAKE and was reluctant to put it in until I had all the crossing letters; the SOED (more definitive, innit?) gives only the double i version.
Thanks manehi and Shed
A very good puzzle with elegant surfaces as others havealready said.
I did not completely sort out ‘patchwork’ but moved on after seeing the main components. I did research on vigilantes some years ago and discovered then that ‘vigil’ and ‘watch’ are etymologically connected words.
I ticked lots of clues including 1a, 5a, 12a, 23a, 24a, 4d, 18d, and 20d.
Thanks, manehi. This was tough in places, especially as I entered START for 17: INTRODUCTION = S (strange) + TART (fruitcake) which, given the question mark in the clue, seemed fair enough at the time. SHITAKE and OSSELET were new words to me.
Thanks, manehi and Shed.
I found I made steady progress throughout this, today, with no need for reference books, save to confirm osselet.
Is “sulphur” now officially “sulfur” (not that I like it)?
Mostly enjoyable, but annoyingly I failed on POKER (the crossers didn’t help but it should have been obvious). OSSELET and INGESTA were new to me but easily guessable. Liked SCEPTIC and PROSCENIUM. My paper copy was missing a hyphen in 8d so it took me a while to realise what “ca using” meant!
Thanks to Shed and manehi.
Dave, yes it is. I don’t like it either.
Thanks to manehi for the blog. You explained a couple of cases where I had the answer but not the parsing.
On 7d I took ‘meat-eating’ to mean that the meat was inside the rest of it so I had the right answer but no understanding. 🙁
In response to the comments regarding the spelling of the mushroom at 2dn, it is a Japanese word and since it is highly unlikely that there are any Japanese readers of Fifteensquared, that makes me the expert. In Japanese the name of the mushroom is written as two kanji characters so it is not possible to debate correctness of any spelling in what the Japanese call Romaji. The first character is the name of the tree that the mushrooms, second word, are found on. When writing Japanese words in English, a double vowel is used to indicate a long vowel sound. So Shitake would be read as shit-ake, whereas Shiitake is shee-take which is how it is pronounced in Japan. But this practice is often simplified to make life easier for foreigners since the Japanese have their 2 kanji and don’t really care. The capital, universally written in Romaji as Tokyo, should really be Toukyou reflecting the fact that it is correctly pronounced as a 2 syllable word, each with a long o sound, not the 3 syllable to-ki-oh that grates on residents’ ears. So this is one case where the dictionaries can spell it any way they like because the correct spelling is locked away in those 2 kanji.
HKColin…Thanks! That was most illuminating. As I have said before, it’s surprising what you can learn here.
Thanks Shed and manehi
Didn’t parse COMPETE or SPRINKLER.
I liked LEMONADE particularly – so nice (and obvious?) that I’m surprised I haven’t seen it before.
I’m fairly sure that they are SHITAKE is Sainsbury’s.
Dave Ellison @ 18
I’m a little confused by your question! Sulfur is now (unfortunately) the accepted spelling – however my paper has “sulphur”.
muffin@25 yes, exactly, I was querying whether the Guardian should have spelled it “sulfur” and not as in my paper edition “sulphur”.
I originally thought to say: “Isn’t “sulphur” now officially “sulfur” (not that I like it)?”, but when I googled this I could find only that august chemistry bodies had decided on “sulfur”, so I wasn’t sure about what us mere mortals should use.
us -> we
Lovely crossword and thanks for the blog.
George C. @6 glad you fly the flag for quilts, but there are patchwork collages.
Thanks all
Enjoyable although a shade easier than most Sheds.
I particularly liked ‘Thomas the Tank’,witty.
I am with George C @6. A collage is stuck and patchwork is sewn. You can use patchwork descriptively as in a phrase such as ‘a patchwork of small fields on the hillside’ and you could describe a collage as having a patchwork effect but it doesn’t make them the same thing.
16ac seemed a really feeble clue in an otherwise ingenious crossword.
muffin @24 – I think you’re wrong about Sainsbury’s mushrooms!:
http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/groceries/index.jsp?bmUID=1395944722499
‘Sulfur’ has been the spelling used by the Royal Society of Chemistry for quite a few years (the ‘ph’ is anomalous as the word comes from Latin, not Greek – in which the name for the element is ‘theion’) but there’s no reason why the ‘ph’ spelling can’t be used in more general contexts. However, Shed’s context is chemical, because the name clues the chemical symbol!
Gervase @31
It looks like you are correct. I’ve found both spellings with a Google search on “shitake Sainsbury’s”, but the primary sources have shiitake – shitake tends to be secondary ones.
I’ve never noticed the “ii” spelling!
Thanks all. This seems to have gone down well, which is always gratifying. As for sulphur and shitake, both spellings can be found in reputable dictionaries, so whether or not that’s how they should be spelled is irrelevant as far as I’m concerned.
Bah no it’s Sulphur and Aluminium, this a British paper surely.
thanks manehi and Shed
An enjoyable and challenging crossword, as ever, from Shed. Not as challenging as some of his offerings but at least I’ve finally had something to take me over half hour mark this week.
I appear to be with the minority today as I too started very slowly but finished rapidly LOsI were the two along the bottom.
I’ve never noticed the two i’s in the mushroom either. Bizarrely when you look up shitake in my WordWeb SOED PC version it takes you to the entry for shiitake which actually doesn’t mention the shitake spelling!!
Thanks to manehi and Shed
flashling @ 34
Sorry – it’s the Royal Society of Chemistry (British) who have decided to go with sulfur (though not aluminum, thankfully!)
The RSC may be experts in chemistry – but they clearly can’t spell !
Sulphur it remains to me !!
Mr Beaver
Thanks for your sulphurous comment!
The American ‘aluminum’ is a strange one. The ‘-ium’ ending is standard for metals. (Helium is the exception; it was ‘discovered’ by its characteristic lines in the solar spectrum and was at first assumed to be a metal). The oxide is known as ‘alumina’ rather than ‘aluminia’,which might have been the reason, but we all say ‘sodium’ and not ‘sodum’ – at least not when referring to Na.
I didn’t understand the ‘to’ in 16ac’s ‘Stick to game’. Is it superfluous?
Loved Lemonade. One of those clues that suddenly goes “click”!
Aluminium would not be alone if we called it aluminum. Platinum, anyone? Also tantalum.
Also can’t see a reason to be annoyed at sulfur, given the Latin / Greek business mentioned above.
Did this a day late and found it enjoyable.
Smiled at SCEPTIC, and was reminded that “septic” is my perhaps favourite cockney rhyming slang, (with apologies to our friends over the pond) for an American.
Thanks everyone.
Thanks Shed and manehi
Took an age to get really started on this with a sprinkling of words throughout the grid until I got a foothold in the SE corner. Finished as did others in the NW with SCEPTIC and SHITAKE the last two in. Had no problems with the spelling of SHITAKE … and thought for a moment we were going to have a Paulesque style clue …
Did flinch at CONE being a fruit though. A few new words with PROSCENIUM, INGESTA and OSSELET.
Nice puzzle!