Donk a month or two ago with a Monday crossword that wasn’t exactly on the easy side; Tyrus giving everyone a hard time in last week’s Monday puzzle; now Crosophile is getting in on the act. To help me feel better about myself, please tell me that this was difficult.
It’s all fair as far as I can see, but there are several where my parsing is a best guess; so if you have a better idea, then I’d be happy to hear it. Normally I’d have a mild bitch about the chestnuts of (CARTHORSE)* and (THING)*, but I was glad to see a couple of old friends in this one, I can assure you.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) missing
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Maybe bro returns clutching bit of greens on credit – it’s worse than carrot!
BIG STICK
Thank you, Mr Setter – if you’re going to give us a clue that’s hard to solve and parse, just stick it in at 1 Across, why don’t you? Then solvers like me who have to start with the first across clue because otherwise the universe will implode can spend inordinate amounts of time trying to get it before becoming frustrated and moving on to the next across clue. It’s an insertion of G for ‘bit of greens’ in BIS for ‘maybe bro’ or SIB reversed, followed by TICK for ‘credit’. Not my favourite ever Crosophile clue, but we’ll move on.
5 Yes, a machine for removing beards – he might well gape
YAWNER
A charade of Y and AWNER. The latter is not in my edition of Collins, but online dictionaries give it as ‘a machine for removing awns from grain’. And since AWNS are the bristles growing from the spikelets of grains, you could say that it removes ‘beards’.
10 Salon, say, that’s rather snotty?
RHEUM
A ‘salon’ is a room, which is a homophone of RHEUM, another word for snot.
11 Fired up – what’s that when cooking in degrees?
ENERGISED
(IN DEGREES)* with ‘cooking’ as the anagrind, but I’m not entirely sure how the surface reading works.
12 Old-fashioned disagreeable church – we need to get work elsewhere
OUTSOURCE
This seems to be OUT, SOUR and CE, but the definition seems a bit vague to me.
13 Unspecified illness left one a bit short of drive before the end
LURGI
I think this is a charade of L, URG[E] and I, but I’m not entirely sure how the clue is telling us to get there. I’d always spell it LURGY, and that’s the only option that my Collins gives.
14/16 Gaping like a tourist seeing amorous kissing behind section of bridge
RUBBERNECKING
Crosophile’s definition is spot on, but the term is probably used more often these days to describe motorway drivers slowing down to have a butcher’s at the accident in the opposite carriageway, thus causing tailbacks in both directions. A charade of RUBBER (a part of ‘bridge’, the card game) and NECKING, which is a slightly old-fashioned term for ‘kissing’. What you did as a teenage boy before you got into a top-half only fumble, if I remember well.
18 In addition, we have 3 (not quite right) with taking away from 2
THERETO
My Collins marks the ‘in addition’ meaning as ‘obsolete’. I think it’s THREE with the R moved forward to make THERE, followed by T[W]O.
20 Money we handed over for a tasty snack perhaps
CASHEW
A charade of CASH and WE reversed. CASHEWS could certainly be considered a snack, but whether you find them tasty or not is clearly a matter of personal preference.
22 Dark and horrible thing
NIGHT
(THING)*
24 Talk about ‘De Camptown Races’ here?
DISCOURSE
Well, if you talked about ‘De Camptown Races’ you might be talking about DIS COURSE. It’s a minstrel song – hugely popular in its day – which used exaggerated dialect in its lyrics.
26 A band for injured carthorse
ORCHESTRA
(CARTHORSE)*
27 One gapes at Charles Manson’s leadership
CHASM
More gaping. A charade of CHAS for ‘Charles’ and M for the first letter of ‘Manson’. Charles Manson was not a nice man.
Down
1 Very good food brought round Spanish city
BURGOS
A reversal of SO and GRUB.
2 Fens river bird about to feed
GREAT OUSE
An insertion of EAT in GROUSE for the mainly Cambridgeshire river that discharges into The Wash.
3 Supply worker will get nothing at this rate
TEMPO
A charade of TEMP and O.
4 Raiser of spirits beneath church’s even more creepy after one leaves
CHEERER
A charade of CH and EER[I]ER.
6 Might such plants be analgesic?
ANGELICAS
(ANALGESIC)*
7 He’s Snoopy but appearing in Beano – seriously?
NOSER
Hidden in BeaNO SERiously.
8 Making clear it’s a racket inside the bank mostly
RIDDING
An insertion of DIN in RIDG[E]. Nice surface.
9 Hill in Edinburgh around cathedral area, make yourself visible!
BE SEEN
An insertion of SEE in its ‘diocese’ sense in BEN, which is what folk in Edinburgh would call a ‘hill’. As in BEN NEVIS.
15 Nearly there but almost bust doing a circuit – rests are needed
BREATHERS
I am going for a lie-down in a bit. I finally worked out that this is THER[E] in BREAS[T].
17 Selects the best lying beneath skimmed rice puddings?
ICE CREAMS
[R]ICE CREAMS. More often expressed as CREAM OFF.
18 Group of academics – they’re able to articulate
TENDONS
A group of academics, whimsically, could be TEN DONS. But since TENDONS attach muscles to bone (like the Achilles tendon), I’m not sure that tendons could be said to ‘articulate’. Bones do, certainly, but not tendons.
19 It’s unusual in makeover to render home improvements but about time
ODDITY
This puzzle has taken a bit of parsing. A reversal of DO for ‘render’ and then T in DIY. I think.
20 Exemplar of 17 domestic pet with a round backside
CASSATA
A type of Italian ice cream: it’s an insertion of ASS in CAT A.
21 Seen my jumping crawlers?
YES MEN
(SEEN MY)* with ‘jumping’ as the anagrind.
23 Good butcher’s cutting head off lizard
GECKO
A charade of G and [D]ECKO, as in ‘Give us a decko’, meaning ‘Give us a look’, or ‘Give us a butcher’s’. It comes from Hindi originally.
25 Man with razor company’s over, affected after onset of pound’s falling
OCCAM
A charade of OC for a reversal of CO for ‘company’ and CAM[P]. Referring to OCCAM’S RAZOR, a philosophical principle from the 14th century.
Many thanks to Crosophile for this morning’s puzzle. I am definitely going for that lie-down now.
People are awfully different, aren’t they? 1 Across was my first one in: ‘carrot’ prompted the thought of ‘stick’, reinforced by the presence of ‘credit’.
I find it hard to believe that there are solvers who dislike cashews.
I found this a bit of a grind with the NW corner proving particularly difficult. I found it very difficult to get out of the idea that 1ac was just “the stick”. The abbreviated bro slightly put me off rather than helping and I think I’d probably have got it more quickly if it had just said brother (although I can see the logic of them both being abbreviated).
Some of the surface readings seem quite poor. 18 is an example of one of those clues which read so badly that you don’t even want to bother solving it. I couldn’t really work out what the “De Camptown” was all about in Discourse and thanks for explaining Gecko – I knew it was G + [?]ecko but didn’t know what the [?]ecko was supposed to be.
It took me years to understand Occam’s razor because I kept reading the waffly and very technical definitions in philosophy books or in Wikipedia, which went straight over my head. It was only when I went to a talk where they gave about 50 examples of using it that I followed what it was all about.
One solver’s cashew is another solver’s Marmite, Quaiteaux … and indeed one solver’s write-in is another solver’s ‘what the chuff is that about?’ I can take a cashew, as it happens, but I still don’t much like 1ac.
I am also mystified about 13a, normally thought of as lergy in my neck of the woods. I thought it might be derived from ‘energy’ or perhaps, rather L plus a shortened ‘energise’. Any use?
Definitely another Monday Indy puzzle that wasn’t too easy. I didn’t have a problem with the wordplay for LURGI because I thought it was quite clear that Crosophile was telling us to put URG(E) before the I (one), although the instruction is a little Yodaesque.
I had the most trouble in the NW even after I got BIG STICK. It took me much longer than it should have done to get BURGOS, and it was only once I had that I saw OUTSOURCE. After that I finally got GREAT OUSE once I realised that “Fens river” was the definition, and THERETO was my LOI, another clue where I really had to concentrate on what the wordplay was telling me.
On the tricky side, I will agree, but every crossword solver needs at least one challenge on a Monday. I had no trouble spelling lurgi because I’ve been suffering from a particularly nasty one that’s been sweeping East Kent.
With regard to cashews, Mr CS eats both cashews and Marmite. I don’t!
THanks to Crosophile and Pierre.
FWIW the Goon Show relevant to 13 has Peter Sellers imitating Churchill in Parliament saying (I render this phonetically) ‘What is lurg eye?’
Well, I enjoyed this! I have waited all my crossword life to find the orchestra/cart horse anagram knowledge useful and here at last it is! I liked 24ac, 10ac among others and loved the soused old lady parking her car. Maybe the rubberneckers were watching her! Never heard of Occam and thought cheerer and yawner were a bit contrived but I liked both clues. Didn’t mind about lurgi although I would have spelt it with a y.
Thx both
I cannot believe we see the orchestral horse. OMG.
There’s a nina…I don’t understand it, however!
Yes, some clunky cluing but forgiven, as overall interesting and different.
The Crossword is misnumbered 8741 online.
No problem with the spelling at 13A. The Goon Show episode was entitled Lurgi Strikes Britain! (aka Lurgi Strikes Again).
The last syllable was pronounced throughout “ee” except for the one instance mentioned by @7Conrad Cork. Don’t think Sellers was doing Churchill on this occasion (although he did on other occasions), but representing a typical out-of-touch (and from the voice Conservative) MP who did not know the received pronunciation despite its widespread use throughout the terror-stricken country.
Thanks to Crosophile and Pierre.
Hi gwep
“The Crossword is misnumbered 8741 online.”
No, the on-line number is right, it was the blog title that was erroneous (now corrected).
@13Gaufrid Mea maxima culpa; but I’m sure you knew what I meant.
I was barely able to parse some of it; I put the wrong puzzle number; and I can’t see the nina. I’m not being much use to you today, am I?
Open letters in 4th row from bottow spell ‘dehisces’.
Ditto 4th line down spells ‘gapeseed’, which is either trying to tell us something or is another appearance of gape to go with the 3 in the clues.
Ah, okay. On a second look we have GAPE and SEED across row four, and DEHISCES across row twelve. And when a SEED bursts and GAPES, it DEHISCES. Is that it, or is there more?
In 12ac I think the definition is “get work elsewhere” – or even “to get work elsewhere”.
GAPESEED/DEHISCES is as far as I got. Very strange!
It is esoteric to say the least, that Nina! I wonder what is going on.
Hmm Gapeseed is an actual word. Who knew.
Still none the wiser though
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gapeseed
Wasn’t as troubled as our resident Mr Grumpy mind you as his football club did rather badly I can forgive. The Nina outright didn’t help as I didn’t have the first letter and convinced myself it was going to be RAPESEED.
Thanks Crosophile and Pierre.
One thing in this crossword’s favour – it certainly made one forget it was a Monday!
Pierre – as per your request, I will happily agree that I found some of this quite difficult and verging on the over-convoluted. But I do admire the setters, and also have great respect for people like you who are prepared to step forward and offer to blog, having no idea in advance what you will be presented with. Don’t forget that if the blogger is uncertain about some things, most people’s reaction is not to think less of the blogger but rather to feel better about themselves – that they have completed a puzzle that others too found a challenge.
Having said that, I still don’t think I would dare volunteer to blog!
So, many thanks you to both.
…or even “to you both”
Thanks for blog and comments [even the picky ones! 🙂 ].
Picking up on a couple of points, Yep, Allan_C @17 is right.
NealH @2, hope De Camptown Races makes sense now it’s explained. As a clue idea I felt it rather neatly fell into my lap, with that ‘De’ and all.
Pierre: I couldn’t really see the problem with the surface of 11A, alluding to eg a pizza oven or cooking kiln?
18D I’m now unsure whether tendons articulate or not. Googling’s not really helped me. Any medical opinions out there?
As for all the gaping, well spotted. I was looking for a nina and chanced on the lovely word Gapeseed in Chambers dictionary:
“an imaginary commodity that the gaping starer is supposed to be seeking or sowing; hence, the act of staring open-mouthed, or the object stared at.”
Hence all the yawners and chasms etc and I felt that a gapeseed would certainly dehisce. 🙂
Thanks CP guessed that, pity gape has a rather rude meaning online.
Mind you since when did family newspaper mean much in the Indy or Grauniad?
Tough, certainly, but not the toughest of recent days. I completed it without even opening the dictionary, let alone doing an e-search or checking stuff on the net. 1dn, I had just been thinking of the Spanish conductor Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos who died earlier this year but still spent ages trying to work out why it was BILBAO.
I’m of the generation whose exposure to The Goons was mainly through The Telegoons, but Lurgi strikes Britain was one of the episodes, so no trouble there. Yack-a-boo!
You don’t mean Sunderland do you Flash?
That … that 0-8 drubbing at, er, St Marys, the home of my own home club, er …
SOUTHAMPTON
… you don’t mean that do you Flash?
I will remind the author of the last two comments of site policy: ‘inflammatory comments are not acceptable and will be removed.’
Yes. Quite. Sorry.
But it’s one helluva way to travel to get thrashed.
No, that’s puerile. Sorry.
Would I? Sorry to NMS too, and to Gaufrid sorry to take this off topic. PB yes I thought of you too when I saw the scores go in.
Thought there must be a gaping hole in my knowledge at times, the internet proves there are places I’d rather not visit again…
Just finished the puzzle! We were defeated by OCCAM!
Merci Pierre for the parsing. We’ve now got to start today’s offering!
Bit late to this but if a medical opinion on tendons is still wanted, this one would say that tendons do not articulate; bones do. Wouldn’t have interfered with obtaining the answer but since you asked… 🙂
11 Ac is straightforward: people who are energised are fired up. Couldn’t be bothered to find out what an ‘awner’ might be, but guessed it had to be that.