The puzzle may be found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26333.
A steady solve, but with one oddity: in the ‘man’ clues, ‘man’ means servant, and would seem to be a perfectly good definition, despite the rather intimidating preamble.
| Across | ||
| 1 | VIKINGS | Shortly to compete with notable college from Scandinavia (7) |
| A charade of VI[e] (‘compete’) cut (‘shortly’) plus KINGS (‘notable college’, the Cambridge college noted for its choir, and the annual Christmas Service of |
||
| 5 | JEEVES | Man in France I see regularly in Verviers (6) |
| A charade of JE (‘in France I’) plus alternate letters (‘see regularly’) in ‘VErViErS‘. | ||
| 9 | NUTRIENT | Nourishment can be obtained from a ginger biscuit — tip off football team (8) |
| A charade of NUT (‘a ginger biscuit’) plus [o]RIENT (‘football team’, probably Leyton Orient) without its first letter (‘tip off’). | ||
| 10 | APODAL | A case most of all descriptive of snakes and eels (6) |
| A charade of ‘a’ plus POD (‘case’) plus AL ‘most of ALl’). | ||
| 12 | PASSEPARTOUT | Man is the key to everything (12) |
| A charade of PASSE (‘key’) plus PAR (‘to’) TOUT (‘everything’; we have slipped into French, not inappropriately). Jean Passepartout is Phileas Fogg’s servant in Around the World in Eighty Days. | ||
| 15 | ENCYCLICAL | Bishops can get this cycling endlessly about in back lane (10) |
| An envelope (‘about’) of CYCLIC (‘cycling’) in ENAL, a reversal (‘back’) of ‘lane’. An encyclical is a letter sent by the Pope to his bishops. | ||
| 17 | ACE | One is back in intensive care (3) |
| Hidden reversed (‘is back in’) in ‘intensicE CAre’). | ||
| 19 | TEA | Type of potplant easily kept inside (3) |
| A hidden answer (‘inside’) in ‘planT EAsily’). | ||
| 20 | DISGRUNTLE | Cause displeasure when drugs let in another way (10) |
| An anagram (‘another way’) of ‘drugs let in’. | ||
| 22 | RECRUDESCENT | Earthy smell from refuse tips is re-emergent (12) |
| A charade of RE (‘RefusE tips’) plus CRUDE (‘earthy’) plus SCENT (‘smell’). | ||
| 26 | AVIATE | Fly first by way of the original Terminal One (6) |
| A charade of A (‘first’) plus VIA (‘by way of’) plus T (‘The original’) plus E (‘terminal onE‘). | ||
| 27 | IN NO TIME | One has got to mention mess up right away (2,2,4) |
| A charade of I (‘one’) plus NNOTIME, an anagram (mess up’) of ‘mention’. | ||
| 28 | FIGARO | Man fails to open a giro transfer (6) |
| A charade of F (‘Fails to open’) plus IGARO, an anagram (‘transfer’) of ‘a giro’. Figaro is the central character in Beaumarchais’ trilogy, and, although working for a time as a barber, was most of the time servant to Count Almaviva. | ||
| 29 | HOTLINE | Special link for mobile in hotel (7) |
| An anagram (‘mobile’) of ‘in hotel’. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | VENT | Release issued from the Royal Opera House? (4) |
| The Royal Opera House, also known as CoVENT Garden. | ||
| 2 | KATO | Man knows all the opening leads (4) |
| First letters (‘leads’) of ‘Knows All The Opening’. I take it that the Kato here is Inspector Clouseau’s sidekick (with the accent on kick). | ||
| 3 | NUISANCE | Renewed life insurances rule out fliers — what a pain in the neck (8) |
| An anagram (‘renewed’) of ‘life insurances’ after removing ‘fliers’. | ||
| 4 | SINKS | Declines to hear same time occurrences (5) |
| A homophone (‘to hear’) of SYNCS (‘same time occurrences’). | ||
| 6 | EXPERT | Next centre forward is a skilled performer (6) |
| A charade of EX (‘nEXt centre’) plus PERT (‘forward’). | ||
| 7 | VIDEO NASTY | Controversial film cut you deviants out (5,5) |
| An anagram (‘out’) of YO[u] (‘cut’) plus ‘deviants’. | ||
| 8 | SPLIT LEVEL | Stagger inside to get separate uniform (5,5) |
| A charade of SPLIT (‘separate’) plus LEVEL (‘uniform’). | ||
| 11 | SPRANG | His last car crash is jumped up (6) |
| A charade of S (‘hiS last’) plus PRANG (‘car crash’). | ||
| 13 | BETTER HALF | Partner has recovered with a short drink (6,4) |
| A charade of BETTER (recovered’) plus HALF (‘a short drink’). | ||
| 14 | SCRATCHING | Withdrawal can be a topical relief (10) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 16 | IBIDEM | I’m having to live in the same place (6) |
| An envelope (‘having’) if BIDE (‘live’) in ‘I”m’. | ||
| 18 | BURNT OUT | Exhausted flower seller (5,3) |
| A charade of BURN (‘flower’) plus TOUT (‘seller’). | ||
| 21 | BUNTER | Man confused brunette unendingly (6) |
| An anagram (‘confused) of ‘brunet[te]’ without its last two letters (‘unendingly’). Billy Bunter was not a servant, but Mervyn Bunter was butler to Lord Peter Wimsey. | ||
| 23 | CINCH | Decorative shell — getting one for nothing is a certainty (5) |
| CONCH (‘decorative shell’) with the O replaced by I (‘getting one for nothing’). | ||
| 24 | KIWI | Chinese fruit totally fails to get off the ground (4) |
| Double definition: the fruit is also known as the Chinese gooseberry, and the New Zealand bird is flightless. | ||
| 25 | FETE | Celebrate a lot by the sound of it (4) |
| A homophone (‘by the sound of it’) of FATE (‘lot’). | ||
*anagram
I don’t think Passepartout needs such elaborate parsing — a passepartout in French is a master key that opens everything. Jean Passepartout worked for Phileas, not Phineas, Fogg, in Around the World in Eighty Days. (David Niven played Fogg and the Mexican actor Cantinflas played Passepartout in the memorable fifties movie.)
I should add — delightful who’d-a-thunk-it theme and enjoyable puzzle. Thank you Otterden and PeterO.
Thanks PeterO and Otterden.
I parsed 15ac ‘CYCLI’ (‘cycling endlessly’) + ‘C’ (= about) in (in) ‘ENAL’ (‘back lane’).
Thanks Peter. Solved without aids but I was a bit bamboozled even at the end by the ‘men’ and their connections. Loads of clues with ends chopped, lopped, tipped, and similarly clued: that made it easier. I liked (aft struggling with) both 13 and 14 down which made the SW (and its two men) tricky. Good fun, thanks Otterden.
The Kato in the Clouseau films is spelt CATO….!
Thanks Otterden and PeterO
I liked 5a.
I needed help to parse 9a and 1d, and I now realise that I did not fully appreciate the significance of all the men/servants. Passe-partout = master key was enough for me to feel confident that it was the right answer.
“The Kato in the Clouseau films is spelt CATO”
Indeed he is….tut tut!
Although a quick Google gives Kato as The Green Hornet’s assistant. Surely not?
In the sense that the linked clues are all man(-servants) I find it hard to believe Otterden meant Kato as in the Green Hornet’s assistant. Tut tut indeed!
I take that back immediately. Wiki gives Kato as the Green Hornet’s valet.
My profund m’pologies, as Hercules Grytpype-Thynne might have it.
When Clouseau’s man(servant) first appears, in A Shot in the Dark, he’s credited as Kato. The K becomes a C in the later movies.
Thanks Otterden and PeterO
I must say that I didn’t enjoy this, and thought that several of the clues were dodgy. VENT from “Royal Opera House” is rather a long chain of connection; no indication that 12a is a French word; unchecked critical letter in 23d (I entered CONCH).
I was pondering 28a as Radio 3 played the overture from Rossini’s “Barber of Seville”, so that helped!
I looked up “Kato” too, as I thought the spelling was “Cato”. Apparently it was EXCEPT in “A shot in the dark”, where it was “Kato” (although how you could tell what the spelling was in a film I’m not sure). See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pink_Panther#Cato_Fong
……..and you could make an argument that 4d is SYNCS rather than SINKS. (I’ve only just realised that, as that one I had entered the “correct” solution.)
In the Clouseau movies, I seem to remember that Clouseau refers to Kato in terms that make it clear he is supposed to be Japanese. Kato is a common Japanese surname, and would normally be spelled with a K.
By the way, as a Kingsman I was pleased to see the college referred to as notable (Araucaria was an alumnus, so it’s notable even in crossword terms!). I was also pleased that PeterO instantly assumed it was the Cambridge college being referred to, and not, for instance, the London one or indeed the Taunton one. But as you can imagine, the academics there are not always thrilled to be told that the college is known mainly for its chapel and choir. It has *notably* strong traditions in economics (Nicholas Kaldor, Richard Kahn, JM Keynes, Arthur Pigou, Richard Stone), and in literature (EM Forster, Rupert Brooke, Zadie Smith) as well.
I enjoyed this puzzle, as I usually do enjoy Otterden’s challenges. I also had reservations about the cluing of ‘vent’, and thought that it was unusual (but not incorrect) to need to remove two letters from a word (‘cycling’) to make it ‘endless’. (i parsed the clue in the same way as AndrewC).
The problematic spelling and identity of ‘Kato’/’Cato’ never crossed my mind; I just thought of Clouseau.
The Green Hornet’s alter ego, Britt Reid is, according to folklore, a descendant of the Lone Ranger, whose real name was (try and stay awake at the back, there) John Reid. Well, I suppose they both wore masks, and both had non-WASP companions. Quite when this piece of revisionism appeared I don’t know, possibly the sixties when there was an ill-fated attempt to ape the success of Batman with a Green Hornet series (to the extent that the Green Hornet and Kato guested on Batman).
Thanks, PeterO. One small point re your comment on 1 across – the Christmas service is of NINE lessons and carols (not seven).
As a solver via the Guardian’s iPad edition, I am usually frustrated by the absence of ‘special instructions’ in that version, but on the other hand it’s an interesting test in itself to see how quickly I realise that there must be such instructions. I’m getting better at spotting them (having moved to iPad from the print edition in January). In this case, I solved it without realising that there were instructions, only discovering this when I came here. which I think justifies PeterO’s comment. Got Kato first, then Jeeves, and it was from then on obvious that all the ‘men’ were men in the sense of servants.
Re 1dn: as a frequent visitor to the ROH, I was immediately attracted to this clue, but then struggled with it. I agree that it’s pretty tenuous.
I should add that I enjoyed this overall: a relatively easy-going end to another good week in the Guardian.
Thanks PeterO and Otterden
Got the theme fairly early on starting with Figaro though I thought at first they would all be opera characters. I assumed Kato was the right spelling. Jeeves seemed the most interesting of these clues. I did not remember Bunter as Lord Peter’s manservant but it had to be.
My favourite clue was 14d – an unlikely DD.
I was stuck on 24d and turned to my wife for help. A clever clue if a bit wordy.
Thanks, PeterO.
Pleasant solve – mostly straightforward clues with a few that are anything but (e.g. VENT). I got the theme very early from KATO (I wasn’t aware of any spelling controversy) and PASSEPARTOUT, so the other three were practically write-ins. I agree with PeterO that the rubric is unnecessary.
LOI was IN NO TIME, inexplicably. I saw KIWI as a possibility almost immediately, but I was looking for a charade in the subsidiary part, and toyed with ‘goji’ and ‘kaki’ before spotting the DD. The kiwi fruit is indeed a Chinese native, as its specific name (Actinidia sinensis) indicates.
Loved the ‘burn tout’.
PS: What makes 24d less than obvious it that ‘totally fails to get off the ground’, if a definition rather than a charade, suggests a verb rather than a noun.
Valentine @1
Corrected now – also Christopher Henton @17 (I do not know of what I was thinking!), and while I was about it I cleared up far too many other typos.
muffin @12 and 13
Clues like 4D and 23D can be ambiguous, but here I think both of them follow the more natural interpretation – particularly 23D, with its ‘one for nothing’. It is a long time since I last saw A Shot in the Dark, and I cannot recall whether the credits list Burt Kwouk as playing Kato by name – otherwise it must come from publicity handouts. Certainly, imdb lists the character as Kato, but as Cato Fong in the later films in the series.
Gervase @22
I think that some would label clues like 24D as cryptic definitions, since the fruit is named after the bird and its New Zealand connection. In this particular case, that view would avoid any problem with parts of speech.
My entry into the ‘man’ clues was JEEVES.
FIGARO first, then BUNTER: no link suggested itself there, an opera character and a schoolboy? KATO didn’t help much, but I googled it (assuming it was nothing to do with Clouseau, which I thought has a C) and got enough to work out manservants, hence JEEVES and PASSEPARTOUT in short order thereafter.
But the NW corner was a real struggle. Like Rog @18, I’m familiar enough with the ROH and its repertory to go on a wild goose chase when all I should have been looking for is a selection of letters from the district of London in which it happens to be situated. Humph.
DLS and PGW are two of my most read authors so they led me to the other men.
Never heard of 18d.
Enjoyed.
Thx
Loved this, tho’ I expected some squeals of anguish re obscure English football teams ( ‘ Orient’) from our antipodean chums.
This was rather a relief after yesterdays teaser from Tramp which took a looong time to finish.With todays I got BUNTER first, which meant the MEN were easy-although I’d forgotten FIGARO was a servant. I wasn’t entirely happy with VENT but I suppose it works.
Generally enjoyable though
The Kiwi fruit is not only also called the Chinese Gooseberry, it is also originally from China and was turned into a commercial success by the Kiwi’s who renamed it Kiwi.
I found this one trickier than recent Otterden puzzles. ENCYCLICAL and KIWI were my last two in, and I parsed the former the same way as AndrewC@3, because otherwise the “about” in the clue makes no sense whatsoever.
I don’t think I would ever have got 12a without some assistance from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valet#Famous_fictional_valets. Nor would I have got to “Bunter” instead of “Nutter”, which surely fits the wordplay better than removing two letters from one end. Did strike me as a weird name for a valet though.
Cyborg @30
Great site – I think Otterden might have found it too!
4dn. SYNCS does not mean ‘same time occurrences’; that would be coincidences. SYNCS means (and is an abbreviation of) syncronises. So this clue is simply wrong. 1dn VENT is unacceptable.
Sorry – synchronises. Typing on iPhone!
Thanks all
Possibly syncs is for syncopations, a noun.
I wondered what I pay £40 a month for, now I know it’s for the preambles! (@18)
… of course it’s doubtless Klouseau’s Cato, but I did like this: “Bruce Lee played Kato in a performance that quickly outshone his co-star Van Williams in the show’s titular role and began Lee’s journey to international stardom. The Green Hornet, which was called the Kato Show in Lee’s native Hong Kong, gave Asian Americans something they could point to with pride to show America that Asians aren’t the villains, perverts, enemy soldiers or servants that they’d been characterized as in popular culture, but could be ass-kicking American superheroes worthy of respect.” – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-kim/rethink-review-the-green-_b_809097.html
Just wanted to point out – since I don’t think it has been yet – that the day of the week on which this puzzle appeared further specifies the kind of “man” being referred to in the theme!
Crossbencher @32
SOED has sync as a simile for SYNCHRONISM. So this just about works.
I think this was the most enjoyable one I’ve seen from Otterden – once again the last few held us up for quite a while in the Friday night pub session, and once again I was away from the Internet all day yesterday. Last in was KIWI – like Gervase we took far too long to read the clue the right way (which for me makes it a good clue). Also failed with APODAL since I wrote in the unparseable and misremembered APEDAL. Also failed to get the servants from the collection of fictional characters – had FIGARO and BUNTER early on (before JEEVES) so wasn’t thinking on the right lines, and would never have got the Sayers reference.
Thanks to Otterden and PeterO
Thanks Otterden and PeterO
Looked up and saw that this is the first appearance of this setter since March (26,215) when he had a bit of a mixed reception here.
This was a very enjoyable puzzle with an unobtrusive theme of lesser known valets / ‘men’, for me at least, apart from JEEVES (who was my way into the theme). Knew of FIGARO but did not realise that he had been a valet before being a barber.
The last one in was VENT and took a while to join the dots of Covent Garden to Royal Opera House and extract the answer from it. Next to last was NUTRIENT and for the second time recently had to go hunting for a minor league football team in Orient (think the other one was Plymouth).
Did wince at both 4d and 23d – which are my pet hate in which there can be non-ambiguity with multiple answers. Agree with PeterO in this instance they ‘follow the more natural interpretation’ and at least I was able to get the correct answers for them this time.
A good mix of devices used in a welcome return … hope that it isn’t as long till his next one.