Guardian 26,318 / Shed

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A friendly grid and impeccable cluing, as ever from this setter, are a great help with several less familiar words in this puzzle from Shed, who, for me, doesn’t appear often enough.

When two names which are surnames, but not clued as such, emerged at 21ac and 5dn, I wondered whether there was going to be a theme but I haven’t been able to detect one. However, I did get diverted for quite a time by some research, especially for 25ac, which I found very interesting. Many thanks to Shed for a most enjoyable puzzle.

Across

1 Flier shot firearm, blind (8,4)
RIFLEMAN BIRD
Anagram [shot] of FIREARM BLIND

8 Not wholly uncorked wine, perhaps, is unusually like hard work (7)
OPEROSE
OPE[n] [not wholly uncorked] + [perhaps] ROSÉ [wine] – ‘unusually’, presumably, because Chambers calls it ‘rare’. [It looked for a few minutes as if ONEROUS would fit but 3dn put paid to that and, of course, it wouldn’t parse.]

9 Increase length of  time (7)
STRETCH
Double definition

11 Arundel crumbling into Wash? (7)
LAUNDER
Anagram [crumbling] of ARUNDEL – this would be a bit of a 9ac!

12 Dinner, maybe, with no starter, involving bird with no end (7)
ETERNAL
TERN [bird] in [m]EAL [dinner, maybe]

13 Come to pan Spain and Norway (5)
WOKEN
WOK [pan] + E [Spain] + N [Norway] – ‘come’ as the past participle rather than the present tense

14 Musicians‘ dosh reportedly censored (5,4)
BRASS BAND
BRASS [dosh] + homophone [reportedly] of banned [censored]

16 Alarming disclosure of beauty (9)
BOMBSHELL
Double definition

19 Submission to no-good people of social standing (5)
ENTRY
[g]ENTRY

21 Craftsperson‘s fruit keeps men right (7)
LORIMER
LIME [fruit] round OR [men] + R [right] –  a lorimer makes the metal parts of a horse’s harness

23 Returned, say, to die, say, in Hell (7)
GEHENNA
Reversal [returned] of EG [say] + HENNA [dye – ‘die, say’] for the Hebrew place of eternal torment

24 Right to agitate about type of cup (7)
STIRRUP
STIR UP [agitate] round R [right, again] – I thought a stirrup cup was specifically the drink presented to the Master of the Hunt before the hunt sets off, but it’s simply a drink given to a person on horseback on arriving or departing – what the Scots call a Doch-an-doris

25 Interval with money invested in annuity scheme (7)
TONTINE
TIN [money] invested in TONE [musical interval]
This word immediately rang bells as one that had particular significance in one of  Agatha Christie’s novels, read many years ago.  Google revealed that it was ‘The 4.50 from Paddington’ and, if you have a few minutes to spare, you can read all about it here.
I had a feeling that Miss Marple woke up with this word popping into her head [as they do] but I was quite delighted to find that she was actually doing a crossword when it occurred to her!
“I wish I had a dictionary here. Tontine and Tokay – I always mix those two words up. One, I believe, is a Hungarian wine.”
Wikipedia: ‘A tontine is an investment plan for raising capital, devised in the 17th century and relatively widespread in the 18th and 19th centuries. It combines features of a group annuity and a lottery. Each subscriber pays an agreed sum into the fund, and thereafter receives an annuity. As members die, their shares devolve to the other participants, and so the value of each annuity increases. On the death of the last member, the scheme is wound up. In a variant, which has provided the plot device for most fictional versions, upon the death of the penultimate member the capital passes to the last survivor.’
I found that this is also the theme for a film called ‘The Wrong Box’, which I think I shall have to seek out, as it sounds like a lot of fun [anything with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore has to be good value, for me].
Please forgive the digression. 😉

26 Medical expert to sprout in wet season? On the contrary (5,7)
BRAIN SURGEON
RAINS [wet season] in BURGEON [sprout]

Down

1 Animal turning king to solid gold (7)
ROEBUCK
Reversal [turning] of K[king] + CUBE [solid] + OR [gold]

2 Little person brought up to adopt peculiar name — Battle? (7)
FLODDEN
Another reversal [brought up] of ELF [little person] round ODD [peculiar] for the 1513 battle in which James IV of Scotland was killed

3 Loathsome river water-dweller gets article in Paris Match (9)
EXECRABLE
EXE [river] + CRAB [water-dweller] + LE [article in Paris Match]

4 Beer is consumed in passageway (5)
AISLE
IS in ALE [beer]

5 Former magistrate drives into empty bus (7)
BURGESS
URGES [drives] in B[u]S

6 Barrel in middle of road smashed into building (7)
ROTUNDA
TUN [barrel] in an anagram [smashed] of ROAD

7 LA district (but not “hood”), clad in stones, generates queasy feeling (12)
COLLYWOBBLES
[h]OLLYW[ood] [LA district minus ‘hood’] in COBBLES [stones] – a lovely word, which both Collins and Chambers suggest might derive from ‘colic’ and ‘wobble’

10 Random swipe catches smelly tourist (12)
HOLIDAYMAKER
HAYMAKER [random swipe] round OLID [smelly]

15 Snapper of everyone on list soldier’s drawn up (9)
ALLIGATOR
ALL [everyone] + reversal [drawn up] of ROTA [list] + GI [soldier]

17 Like the more when more inebriated? (7)
MERRIER
Reference to the saying, ‘The more the merrier’

18 Fighters concocting a tiramisu? Forget it! (7)
SAMURAI
Anagram [concocting] of A [ti]RAMISU minus ‘it’ – a lovely picture!

19 Improve space beside Chinese church (7)
ENHANCE
En [space in printing] + HAN [Chinese dynasty] + CE [church]

20 Fraught atmosphere generated by headless 25s (7)
TENSION
Anagram [generated by] of [t]ONTINES

22 What experts know — their onions? (5)
ROPES
Cryptic definition
Brewer: to know the ropes: ‘to be thoroughly familiar with what is to be done; to be up to all the tricks and dodges. The expression derives from the days of sail, when a sailor or apprentice had to become thoroughly familiar with the details of the rigging and how to  handle the ropes’;
To know one’s onions: ‘to be knowledgable in one’s particular field. The expression is sometimes jokingly said to refer to the lexicographer C.T. Onions, co-editor of the Oxford English Dictionary and author of books on English, but it may also derive from rhyming slang, with ‘onions’ short for ‘onion rings’, meaning ‘things’.’
The clue refers to this method of storing onions

40 comments on “Guardian 26,318 / Shed”

  1. Thanks Shed and Eileen

    I enjoyed this, though the SW took some time to complete. “Rifleman-bird” is in Chambers, but in New Zealand (where I have seen them) they are simply known as “Riflemen” – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifleman_(bird)

    When you get hold of “The wrong box”, Eileen, look out for one of the classic film mistakes. The pan over the rooftops of Victorian London is studded with TV aerials!

  2. P.S. (as we are digressing today) the most familiar words to the Scots tune “The flowers of the forest” are a lament for the fallen at Flodden, though the text wasn’t written until 1756 (by Jean Elliot).

  3. Thanks, muffin – I gave that link in the blog. 😉

    ‘The wrong box’ should be even more fun, then!

  4. So you did, Eileen – sorry, I hadn’t spotted that it was a link.

    According to Chambers, there is also an Australian bird of paradise called a rifleman-bird.

  5. Thank you Eileen, I needed you to unravel OPEROSE. I couldn’t justify the “unusual” part. (Surely Rosé couldn’t be described as ‘rare’ could it?)

    Isn’t it a delight to come across words like TONTINE in crosswords? Thank you so much for the full quote, I really enjoyed it. Can you imagine such a scheme today where the remaining capital passed to the last extant member? What larks, what skullduggery, eh?

    As you said, flawless clueing from Shed and I, for one, would like more of it.

    Nice week all.

  6. I really enjoyed this puzzle, especially after I had parsed 26a, where I tried for some time to make ‘urge’ or ‘surge’ fit the clue.
    I see that there have been a number of complaints on the Grauniad site about obscurities, but I have to say that most of the vocabulary was within my ken, and the words I did not know could be easily deduced from the wordplay (‘rifleman bird’ and ‘operose’).
    Many thanks to Shed, and to Eileen for the blog (it’s many years since I saw ‘The Wrong Box’, but I remember enjoying it).

  7. Thanks Eileen. I thought this was a fine puzzle.

    The Wrong Box is well worth seeking out. A little uneven but lots of laughs and some great performances. My favourite is Ralph Richardson as a pedantic bore (”Did you know the word ‘whip’ appears 136 times in the bible ?”).

    Thank heavens one never meets anyone like that in crossword land :0)

  9. Thanks for the blog, Eileen — and the very entertaining digressions! I agree that we don’t see Shed often enough. I missed the parsing of 23ac and 8ac.

  14. William @12 the BRB gives OR as an abbreviation of Other Ranks. I’ve never run across Officers’ Regiment, and I am sure those elect personages would resent being classified as “men”.

  16. Like you Eileen I looked up TONTINE on Wikepedia. Unlike you though I omitted to solve ONEROSE – a complete oversight on my part, only realised when I read the blog and found a word I hadn’t entered. I would have course have got it straight away … Memo to self: look more carefully next time.

    Thanks Shed for an enjoyable puzzle.

  19. I thought I remembered ‘tontine’ from ‘kind Hearts and Coronets’.

    I liked 12ac but enjoyed it all.

    Thx

  20. Many thanks, Shed and Eileen.

    In the unlikely event anyone is interested, the tontine is alive and well across the channel, though not in a form that could be described as an “annuity scheme.” Fortunately I was familiar with both uses.

  22. Enjoyed this a lot – several unfamiliar or barely familiar words (TONTINE, GEHENNA, LORIMER and OPEROSE) but all quite guessable from the wordplay so not too difficult (olid was also unfamiliar but had to be right). Last in was GEHENNA once I saw the dye part.

    Thanks to Eileen and Shed

  23. Thanks to Eileen for the blog. I had thought the definition in 13a was ‘come to’ in the present tense so the answer should be WAKEN – but the pan then did not fit. You cleared that up.

    [The film The Wrong Box has a small part for Peter Sellers as a doctor going rapidly downhill through booze. Peter Cook asked him “Do you have any death certificates?” Sellers is outraged. “How dare you insult me like that? Of course I’ve got death certificates! How many do you want?”] 🙂

  24. Held up by opting sloppily for ‘onerous’ for 8. Serves me right. Loved ‘collywobbles’ and ‘ holidaymaker’. Brilliant. Thanks, Shed and Eileen.

  25. I was a little rude before – thank you Eileen and Shed. Having now refreshed in my local hostelry I shall re-enter the fray. Is it not offensive for “other ranks” to be defined as men? I am sure that there are many “other ranks” who are patently not “men”!

  27. I am going to ramble on now having been encouraged by colecyst@26. I remember in North Wales many years ago that a Christmas TONTINE used to be held. This involved a maximum of 90 subscriptions of one pound which purchased you a number. A lottery “Bingo” machine was then used to draw the numbers which had been purchased. If your number was drawn then you were excluded from the draw and therefore the last number not to be drawn was then the winning number.

  28. I first came across 25a 25 years ago on holiday in Ironbridge, Shropshire. There’s lots to enjoy in and around there. And much of great interest, including the Tontine hotel bang opposite yer actual Iron Bridge. Wiki has all the details.

    In 23 ‘die,say’ = (sounds like)’dye’ = HENNA is new to me.
    Unlike the usual ‘reportedly censored’ = ‘sounds like banned’ = BAND in 14.

  29. Thanks all
    Enjoyable with enough rare words to spice things up a bit.
    Last in was the SE 19, 25ac and 20d.
    Iliked 19ac and 22d. I took the ropes to be the conventional way we store onions, I think CT is a red herring!

  30. RCWhiting @29

    I think Brewer included C.T. Onions as an interesting aside [and so did I ] but I’m pretty sure that Shed meant that to know the ropes = to know one’s onions.

  31. An excellent puzzle IMHO, and you can count me as another who is of the opinion that we don’t see enough of Shed. Like quite a few of you the first time I came across TONTINE was in The Wrong Box, a film that I remember really enjoying at the time. I didn’t have a problem with the more obscure words like OPEROSE (my LOI) and LORIMER in the sense required (even if it did bring back less than pleasant memories of Revie’s Leeds team) because of the fairness of the cluing.

    I’m genuinely surprised by rhotician@28’s comment about “dye, say” because Paul for one has used that type of clue in the past, although maybe not for the last couple of years.

  33. Interestingly, the worshipful company of loriners now spell the word as shown (with an “n”), and say that lorimer is french. I put lorimer in, as I thought that was the correct word (and because I don’t know a fruit called a “line”). The WCOLs are very active in their support of Riding for the Disabled, and sponsored a pony at a centre I used to work for.

  34. I knew Tontine from the film The Wrong Box, one of my all time favorites with an amazing cast, I would recommend it to anyone. Really enjoyed this puzzle!

  35. Thanks Shed and Eileen

    I enjoyed this a lot, and as a result of all these posts have ordered the DVD of The Wrong Box – no more spoilers please 😉

  36. It seems that I’ve so far managed to miss [I don’t really know how, since it has so many of my favourite people in it] a real treat with ‘The wrong box’ – and I only came upon it by chance this morning – so many thanks to all for your recommendations. Pure Serendipity – one of my favourite words. [I’m with Simon @35!]

    Sorry, Shed, if you’re listening in, for initiating the digression. I suppose it’s still early days and I may be offering a hostage to fortune but it seems that most people enjoyed the puzzle as much as I did, so thanks once again. 😉

  37. I hope that you won’t be disappointed, Eileen. It’s a long time since I saw it, but I recall that I thought that the all-star cast were all trying a bit too hard, with mixed success.

  38. I enjoyed this as ever with Shed’s meticulous cluing.

    Didn’t know GEHENNA, OPEROSE or BURGESS but worked them out by various devious methods 😉

    I came up with TONTINE with the crossers and wordplay but couldn’t see a definition for the Haitian Secret Police in the clue? (It’s old age!)

    I grumbled to myself for ages that I was expected to know the names of LA districts. Humpph. Then I got the answer from the crossers and realised I did.

    “What larks”

    Thanks to Eileen and Shed

  39. Having been one of the winners of the previous crossword I only managed 7 of this one. It does not pass my ‘train’ test, i.e. if using the crossword as a diversion when travelling on a train one does not have any dictionary, thesaurus, Google, etc, to refer to. It must be possible to have clever clues to well known words.

  40. Thanks Shed and Eileen

    Late to this one … and agree with most that it was an excellent puzzle. Unlike most, I finished up in the NW with ROEBUCK, FLODDEN and OPEROSE the last ones in.

    We have an Aussie Rules football team over here called Collingwood, one of those teams that you either love or hate. They had a history of making the final series but always not able to win the Grand Final. This phenomenon was coined the COLLYWOBBLES … it certainly used to bring a queasy feeling to those who loved them!! And much joy to those who didn’t!

    I’ve known TONTINE from a book by Thomas B Costain called “The Tontine” – it was always a curious concept to me. I used to use it as my own ‘pension fund’ by putting collects from my punting in it … :).

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