(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.) This was a bit of a challenge, especially the upper half, but I did eventually finish it. Thanks to Otterden. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
9 Swift horse you resolved to enter in very hard inaugural National Hunt November meeting (9)
HOUYHNHNM : Anagram of(… resolved) YOU contained in(to enter in) HH(abbrev. for very;doubly hard, as found on lead pencils) + the 1st letters, respectively, of(inaugural) “National Hunt November meeting “.
Defn: Cryptically, one of a breed of intelligent horses in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
10 Friend finishing up a complete fool (5)
CHUMP : CHUM(a friend) + the last letter of(finishing) “up “.
11 Adversary in military manoeuvre has a tricky problem (7)
OPPOSER : OP(short for “operation”, a military manoeuvre, way) plus(has) POSER(a tricky problem).
12 Nectarine not an unusual tempter (7)
ENTICER : Anagram of(… unusual) [ “Nectarine ” minus(not) “an ” ].
13 Detailed perfect scheme (4)
IDEA : “ideal”(perfect) minus its last letter(Detailed…).
14 Recent maps show this landscape feature (10)
ESCARPMENT : Anagram of(… show) RECENT MAPS.
15 Internal airline reportedly to keep in touch with receiver (7)
TRACHEA : Homophone of(reportedly) [ “track”(to keep in touch with;to follow another’s movements) plus(with) “ear”(the sound receiver on you)] .
Defn: Cryptically, the internal tube;line carrying air from larynx to lungs, your windpipe.
17 Sale with a changed drawing power (7)
SUCTION : “auction”(a sale) with “a” replaced(with … changed).
19 Ring for this appointment? (10)
ENGAGEMENT : Double defn: 1st: … given as a token of betrothal; and 2nd: …, of the social sort, and one that might perhaps;? involve a marriage proposal and a ring.
22 Bird found mostly in the same place (4)
IBIS : 3 out of 4 letters of(mostly) “ibid.”(abbrev. for “ibidem”;in the same place, used to refer to the same book, chapter, etc. cited just before). The wordplay for “s” seems to be missing? I thought of “ib.”(alternative to “ibid.”) + “is”(found in), but then, “mostly” would be incorrect.
23 Reformed paper not the middle state school one (7)
ORIGAMI : The central letter of(… the middle) “not ” + RI(abbrev. for the US state of Rhode Island) + GAM(a school of whales) + I(Roman numeral for “one”).
Defn: Cryptically, a product of the Japanese art of folding paper into representative shapes.
24 Harangues one involved in deals (7)
TIRADES : I(Roman numeral for “one”) contained in(involved in) TRADES(deals;what a trader does, or concludes).
26 Counts as a run outside (5)
EXTRA : Double defn: 1st: … in cricket; and 2nd: A prefix signifying “outside of”, as in eg. “extragalactic”.
27 South African golfer’s clothing reportedly lacking presence (9)
ELSEWHERE : Homophone of(… reportedly) [ “Els”(Ernie, South African golfer)’ “wear”(clothing) ].
Down
1 Concede when worth toilet training (5,2,3,5)
THROW IN THE TOWEL : Anagram of(… training) WHEN WORTH TOILET.
2 Author not available to support small firm over summons (8)
SUBPOENA : [ POE(Edgar Allan, American author) + N.A.(abbrev. for “not available”] placed below(to support, in a down clue) reversal of(… over, in a down clue) BUS(short for;small “business”;a commercial firm).
3 It is so evident in one famously very old (4)
THUS : Contained in(evident in) “Methuselah”(Biblical patriarch supposed to have lived for 969 years, and, since then, famous as an epitome of longevity).
4 Lure fish to island on the fringes of Malaysia (8)
CHARISMA : CHAR(any of several fish related to the trout and salmon) plus(to) IS(abbrev. for “island”) placed above(on, in a down clue) the 1st and last letters of(the fringes of) “Malaysia “.
Answer: Personal magnetism and charm that could lure others into being influenced and inspired.
5 Organism takes a short time first emerging by artifice (6)
AMOEBA : A + MO(short for “moment”;a short time) + the 1st letters, respectively, of(first) “emerging by artifice “.
6 Scoot off with photograph of vision in darkness (8)
SCOTOPIC : Anagram of(… off) SCOOT plus(with) PIC(short for “picture”;a photograph, say).
7 Strength required for first managing cryptic clues (6)
MUSCLE : The 1st letter of(first) “managing ” + anagram of(cryptic) CLUES.
8 Computer essential for hospital activity to get statutory covering support (15 (sic))
OPERATING SYSTEM : OPERATING(a hospital activity;performing surgery) plus(to get) the 1st and last letters of(… covering) “statutory ” + STEM(a support, eg. that of a plant, leaf or flower) (9,6).
16 Pig farmer gets extremely angry at the end of the year (8)
HOGMANAY : [HOG MAN](whimsically, one with hogs;a pig farmer) plus(gets) the 1st and last letters of(extremely) “angry “.
Defn: The last day of the year, as called in Scotland and Northern England.
17 Sterilise hospital shortly before it is stripped clean (8)
SANITISE : SAN(short for;…shortly “sanatorium”;a hospital for the treatment of chronic diseases) placed above(before, in a down clue) IT IS + the central letter of(stripped, of not just one, but two, layers) “clean “.
18 Firmly fixed that setter is to be tucked up for the night (8)
IMBEDDED : I’M(contraction of “I am”;setter is, self-referentially) + BEDDED(tucked up in bed for the night).
20 A verdict on mulligatawny soup, given without lawman being present (6)
GUILTY : Anagram of(… soup) [ “mulligatawny” minus(given without … being present) “lawman” ].
21 Poster writer (6)
MAILER : Double defn: 1st: …;advertisement or form letter sent out in the mail; and 2nd: US writer acclaimed for his war novel, The Naked and the Dead.
25 Argues over part of the make-up of crosswords (4)
ROWS : Double defn: 2nd: …, seen in the grid to be entered … and, also contained in(part of the) reversal of(make-up of) “crosswords “.
(Please do NOT post hereinbelow any comment relating to the picture quiz. Thank you.)
Finished very quickly, (admiiedy looking up spelling of houyhnhnm) but many because the right word happened to occur to me, so thinks for parsing scchua. Glad to see you you also doubt that opeatiingsystem 8d has become one word!
Can’t shed any light on 22a though.
Thanks scchua, including for clearing up 17A for me: I got the answer, couldn’t figure the A change and even ludicrously wondered if there was a word ‘saction’. 8D is two words, n’est-ce pas? The ‘reportedly’ in 27A is pretty loose, too.
Thanks both – I warm increasingly to Otterden’s style.
But I agree that 8d should be one word – also 22a – I prefer to be fed every letter. Maybe “places” was intended giving the final S with a “courageous” word-split.
Wasn’t thrilled with this one today. A bit disappointed with some of the clues and answers. Felt it lacked the elegance of some other setters and there was a definite lack of originality in places eg old Ernie turning up again, Swift’s horse, 19ac among others. I couldn’t find an indicator for the final letter of 22ac or the first letter of 17ac. However, that said, I did finish so I guess it can’t have been too bad. I can’t pick a favourite though.
I’m going away today, so won’t be able to fail again on your picture quiz, Scchua! But thanks for the blog
Thanks Otterden and scchua
Much as above – I too couldn’t see where the S in IBIS came from, was held up by the wrong word count for 8d, and had to look up how to spell HOUYHNHNM (though I shouldn’t have had to, as it is spelled out in the clue – just couldn’t believe all those consonants in a row!)
SCOTOPIC was a new word for me, though easily clued.
Took an age to see 8d because of the enumeration. Also I am not sure anyone should have to try to spell 9a first thing in the morning even with the helpful wordplay.
Thanks to Otterden and scchua.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you scchua, I needed you to parse ORIGAMI. I’m so disappointed when I have to write something in unparsed. (I missed GAM – again!)
Was rather hoping to find the end of IBIS and the beginning of SUCTION here, alas.
I think we’ve had Swift’s clever horses before haven’t we?
All pretty fair, I thought.
Nice weekend, all.
PS The Gotchas are getting harder aren’t they? We’ll be seeing logarithms and trig functions soon.
I’d worked out HOUYHNHMHNNHMHNMHHMN or whatever from the wordplay, but dismissed it as nonsense and eventually had to look it up. Not sure if I’d have done so had I clocked the reference to Jonathan Swift.
TRACHEA was my favourite, lovely definition. Thanks both.
Hi scchua
You have missed out the anagram fodder (“you”) in your explanation for 9a.
Thanks, muffin. Omission rectified.
As is often the case, the homophone in 15a will not be obvious to North Americans, who pronounce TRACHEA with a long A. Otherwise, a nice straightforward solve.
Thanks Otterden and scchua.
Well, I was a chump about 1a and had to throw in the towel, though it was spelt out in the clue and I had read Gulliver’s Travels about 50 years ago.
Liked SUBPOENA, though the BUS bit of the parsing had me stumped.
This had lots that I liked and lots that I didn’t.
I thought “Swift horse”, “internal airline”, “reformed paper” were all fantastic definitions. We had HOUYHNHNM from Imogen back in March, but it still took me a while to pick it up this time around. My favourite was 4d for the surface which was just misleading enough to throw me off until the end.
I spent a while trying to decide between IBIS and IBID and I think they both fit the clue equally well. 14a was a bit lacking in anagram indication for my liking.
This has got to be one of the worst crosswords we have seen in the Guardian for a while. ‘Operating system’ is unequivocally two words. Then, on the contrary, the cluing for 17ac is ambiguous as one is only told to change ‘a’, leaving 25 possibilities and the spelling of ‘imbedded’ is also slightly unconventional. Add in the totally useless cluing for ‘ibis’ and I begin to think the setter is a bit of a 10ac.
AngryCat @14
I was surprised by Imbedded too, so I did some research through Google. Apparently the I spelling just predates the E variant. Though it has mostly fallen out of favour, it is still a valid alternative.
See, in particular,
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1440571
This was probably the most difficult Otterden the Guardian has published so far, and I must admit to having failed the test, largely because despite having seen it in at least two other crosswords this year, I managed to mis-spell HOUYHNHNM (I had the right letters but not necessarily in the right order, and didn’t think of checking it), which explains why I couldn’t parse my guesses (ENOS and AMBROSIA) at 3d and 4d!
I have worked in IT for 24 years and I’ve never seen OPERATING SYSTEM as one word (no matches on Google either). SCOTOPIC was new to me to but was the only plausible anagram once the crossers were in place. Favourite was TRACHEA
Thanks to Otterden and scchua
Thanks to scchua for the blog.
I came here hoping to find explanations for 17a and 22a but it looks as though everybody is as baffled as me.
AngryCat @14: I wouldn’t say that 17a is that ambiguous, 25 theoretical possibilities but I can only think of SUCTION or RUCTION, and from there it’s not a great leap. Decent enough for me but I understand if the more Ximinean among us have a problem with it.
I had to run to the laptop to check OPERATING SYSTEM which surely has to be (9,6). If that is Otterden’s error, it should have been picked up in editing, and if it’s not, well … And once on line, I had to check IBIS as well, for the same reasons as scchua in the blog. Not good.
But on the other hand ‘internal airline’ = TRACHEA, ‘reformed paper’ = ORIGAMI, so it’s not all bad.
Well, just to take the time line further back, I worked in the computer industry from the time we invented the term Operating System, and it was always two words.
“Swift horse” was delightful. But as an American, I couldn’t get TRACHEA; we say TRAY-kia, and our “ear” does not sound like “ia.” As for ORIGAMI, maybe I’m alone in disliking so encrypting only one and two letters at a time — four for a seven-letter word — and “state” for its too many possibilities (50).
I think we’re all agreed about 8DNA. I put it in reluctantly because having got all the cross letters it couldn’t be anything else. I got HOUYHNHNM from swift horse and didn’t bother parsing further.
I can’t say I found this difficult but it was rather less satisfying than it should have been.
Managed this in the end and enjoyed it, with same provisions as everyone else about 8D, and I agree with Quilty about ORIGAMI.
Tried it; failed. What the chuff HOUYHNHNM is doing in a daily cryptic I have no idea; OPERATINGSYSTEM, well; and I could go on. So overall not a pleasing solving (or non-solving)experience.
Thanks to scchua for the blog.
A good challenge, IMHO.
I parsed IBIS as I (mostly IN) plus BIS (the same place). Both a bit loose but I can’t see anything else.
Even though I needed to follow the wordplay closely for HOUYHNHNM it was all there in the clue. I can only imagine that those people who are complaining about it have never read Gulliver’s Travels or come across references to it in other puzzles. I was held up on the RHS because of the enumeration error for OPERATING SYSTEM at 8dn and having entered “embedded” at 18dn. Once I sussed what had happened at 8dn I entered the correct answer, realised 17ac had to be SUCTION (which fixed 18dn), and then SCOTOPIC was my LOI as the most likely arrangement of the anagram fodder.
Some enjoyment from this – but spoilt by 9a & 8d.
In case anyone cares, I worked in IT (then EDP) from 1965 and in my days operating systems (TWO WORDS) were the likes of George 1, 2, 3,
IBM TOS, DOS, OS etc. That’s 59 years of provenance!
For what it’s worth, I think the definition of 6dn is “of vision in darkness”. I initially thought the solution might be “scotopia” which would equate to the noun describing “vision in darkness” but of course that doesn’t parse and the answer has to be “scotopic” which is the relevant adjective.
Found this very easy but also very poorly clued.
Only held up briefly by 8D.
Just to add to other comments, I worked in IT for almost 40 years. At least 30 of those as a Systems Programmer installing IBM Operating Systems. (MVS, MVS/XA, MVS/ESA (1985), OS/390 z/OS). I never once installed or met an “Operatingsystem”!
Looks like the editor is still on his “holliers”.
Thanks to sschua and Otterden
Thanks Otterden and scchua
Another mixed bag from this setter – in only a handful of outings in the Guardian, there has a similar response as today to what seems to be at least one or two very contentious clues. THUS almost falls into this category too – a bit of a stretch to look for a hidden answer in a word that needs to be defined from another cryptic definition.
Overall I found this puzzle his best so far with the beautifully disguised definitions at 9a, 15a and 23a. Thought that there was some inventive devices throughout the rest of the grid – such as SUBPOEANA, MUSCLE and CHARISMA. The anagram and surface at 1d was very good.
I am always on the setter’s side but tonight I am tempted to say that someone has to take over the torch from Gordius.
Now, I know, that’s not very nice for either of them but this was a real curate’s egg, wasn’t it?
I cannot be bothered too much by the wrong enumeration of 8d (though someone should have spotted it before publication) nor by the much discussed 17ac (yes, it’s a bit incomplete but I’m with John Appleton @18, and let’s face it, Otterden is not the first one to do this).
The definitions in 9ac, 15ac and 23ac were really nice, top-notch.
We also liked the Crucible-like subtraction anagram in 20d (GUILTY).
We did find THUS (in 3d) but only because we spelled HOUYHNHNM right (did we?). Didn’t think for a moment that the ‘very old’ one was Methuselah. An example of indirect clueing but eventually OK.
In three clues ( 10ac, 5d and 7d) Otterden made clear where he stands when it comes to the use of words like first, initially, heading, start etc. I have become one of those who prefer “first(s) of” to just “first”, so I didn’t like Otterden’s use of it here very much.
In 26ac I don’t think “Counts as a run” is a proper definition for EXTRA. I don’t know much about the sport (even if, a couple of months ago, I was drawn into a one-day course for dummies) but I think the definition Otterden gives us is not a noun, as it should be. Don’t worry I understand what he means, “It (or something that) counts as a run”, but then write it in the clue.
Another clue I was wondering about was 25d (ROWS).
For me, “make-up” doesn’t work as a reversal indicator.
Also, IMO, the definition is “Argues” and not “Argues over”, so I thought perhaps “over” is the reversal indicator. But then we don’t need the make-up thing at all. It would give us a better clue, even more when using ‘crossword’ instead of ‘crosswords’.
Yes, and then there’s 22ac.
I have nothing to say about it other than that I think it’s just a sloppy mistake. Unless, Otterden himself can make it clear to us all.
Despite my criticism I found (I must say, we) this puzzle still a pleasant solve which was surely Otterden’s intention. So thanks for that.
And apologies to Gordius. I know not everyone likes your crosswords and I have been critical in the past too. But I genuinely hope you’re alright and not just ditched as a result of the Guardian’s new crossword policy.
Many thanks, scchua for blogging.
I’m another Ameican who has a “trake-i-a” and an “ear” with a decidedly voiced final R. But I’ve posted here about non-rhotic dialects so often that it hardly seems worth repeating. Suffice it to say that homophone clues often seem to be dialect-dependent, and we should simply treat this as a feature rather than a bug.
I foound this quite easy, despite the same quandaries everyone else did with the various faulty clues.
Sil @ 31
Whatever the general merits of 25D, I think the structure of the clue works fine:
‘part of the make-up of crosswords’ SWOR reversed ‘over’ = ROWS = ARGUES.
Sil@31 – I am afraid “curate’s egg” means that it is actually all bad …
I enjoyed this, and enjoyed the sideways look of bafflement from the person next to me in the tube as I wrote out various assemblages of HNNM etc.
Marienkaefer @34 – “curate’s egg” means: ‘anything of which some parts are excellent and some parts are bad’ (Chambers).
And that’s exactly how this puzzle felt to me (and to many others above).
That said, I didn’t use the word ‘bad’ and this was certainly not a ‘bad puzzle’. I also said that I found it ultimately a pleasant solve.
Simon S @33.
Your parsing of 25d (ROWS) is spot on. I mentioned this clue for two reasons. (a) Because the blog does not give the (read: your or our) correct parsing, and (b) because, if this is the right parsing, there are too many superfluous words. The latter is not wrong but some editors don’t like (or even want) that. Moreover, in my opinion, a more concise clue would have been better. Just a matter of taste.
I don’t always write such extensive comments as @31, surely less frequently than three or four years ago, but when I do it is because I really like to share my thoughts with others hoping that I have something to say or add.
Today was such an occasion, in which I tried to give room to the good and the bad.
A curate’s egg, indeed.
Sil – sorry to be late to reply, but the original joke was “I am afraid you have a bad egg Mr Jones” to which the reply was “Oh no my Lord I assure you, parts of it are excellent” – the joke being that no bad eggs could have good bits. I expect it was a satire on the CofE