A really elegant and thoroughly enjoyable puzzle from Nutmeg today.
There’s nothing too taxing: the clues slipped in at a satisfying rate and then amply repaid a further look, to appreciate the silky smoothness of the surfaces and lightness of touch. I knew, by name, all of the 18s apart from 11ac but enjoyed finding the links to see what some of them looked like.
Favourite clues, from many excellent ones: 22ac and 1, 3, 16 and 20dn. Huge thanks to Nutmeg for a delightful start to a wet and dismal day.
Across
1 Clothes from Home Counties transported to the west (7)
ENROBES
Reversal [to the west] of SE [Home Counties] + BORNE [transported]
5 Lightweight Manx cat’s a killer at sea (7)
GRAMPUS
GRAM [light weight] + PUS[s] [‘Manx’ cat]
9 One of 18 rounds about to come round (5)
COMMA
Reversal [to come round] of AMMO [rounds] + C [about] – a nifty piece of cluing
10 One of 18 having weight on the borderline (9)
BRIMSTONE
BRIM [borderline] + STONE [weight]
11 One of 18 that might take its toll? (10)
GATEKEEPER
Cryptic definition
12 Sportsman, could be one of 8 or 11 or one of 18 (4)
BLUE
Double definition: one of 18, certainly, but nothing to do with SHEBEENS or GATEKEEPERS: it’s a reference to Oxford and Cambridge University Blues, originally awarded for the three senior sports [rowing, cricket and athletics] – hence ‘could be one of 8 or 11’
14 Shut up about EC when one’s admitted lack of accuracy (11)
IMPRECISION
IMPRISON [shut up] round EC + I [one]
18 Polite padre converted large group of fliers (11)
LEPIDOPTERA
Lovely anagram [converted] of POLITE PADRE
21 Mark off second account (4)
TICK
Triple definition
22 One of 18 Dominicans, say, could keep cash here, by the look of it (10)
FRITILLARY
Well, if we look at it, we see TILL in FRIARY – where Dominicans could keep cash!
25 Potentially one of 18 lyrics has to be revamped (9)
CHRYSALIS
Anagram [to be revamped] of LYRICS HAS
26 Leading chess player‘s member of 18 (5)
WHITE
Double definition: I confess I did go looking for a chess champion by the name of White – then remembered that white makes the first move
27 Youngster, running round shop from rear, caused a crash (5,2)
PILED UP
PUP [youngster] round a reversal [from the rear] of DELI [shop]
28 On the base, nursed sick bears (7)
ENDURES
[th]E [I wasn’t happy about this – see muffin’s comment 1] + an anagram [sick] of NURSED
Down
1 Spots rebellious young rogue, finally put behind bars (6)
ENCAGE
Reversal [rebellious] of ACNE [spots] + [youn]G [rogu[E]
2 Weighty book penned by the Queen turned up far away (6)
REMOTE
Another reversal [turned up] of TOME [weighty book] + ER [the Queen]
3 Sooty tries to pinch recipe for traditional nursery pie filling (10)
BLACKBIRDS
BLACK [Sooty] + BIDS [tries] round R [recipe] – reference to the nursery rhyme, ‘Sing a song of sixpence’
4 Firm with no time for 50% of 3 (5)
SABLE
S[t]ABLE [firm, minus t] = BLACK – half of 3dn
5 Queen by tradition always in the country, interminably (9)
GUINEVERE
EVER [always] in GUINE[a] [country without end]
6 Some decimals overlooked in addition (4)
ALSO
Hidden in decilmALS Overlooked
7 Publish demand made by authority (8)
PROCLAIM
PRO CLAIM – demand made by authority?
8 Worker taking small females round shady bars (8)
SHEBEENS
BEE [worker] in S [small] HENS [female]
13 Forbidden pasty’s finished outside (10)
DISALLOWED
DIED [finished] round SALLOW [pasty]
15 Press cutting? This could keep it in place (5,4)
PAPER CLIP
Double / cryptic definition
16 Liberal Catholic chucking one penny in hat (5,3)
CLOTH CAP
Anagram [Liberal] of CATHOL[i]C [‘chucking one’] + P [penny]
17 Phantom PC alerts crook (8)
SPECTRAL
Anagram [crook – in the Australian sense of ‘ill, unfair, wrong, dubious’, etc – Chambers] of PC ALERTS
19 More delicate feature of Antarctic defaced (6)
LACIER
[g]LACIER [‘defaced’ feature of Antarctic]
20 Labour leader and I agree about church schools (6)
LYCÉES
L[abour] + YES [I agree] round CE [Church of England}
23 Experience worry over arresting good man (5)
TASTE
Reversal [over] of EAT [worry] round ST [good man – I think Arachne might have had ‘good woman’ 😉 ]
24 Fellow dropped by United brought into play (4)
USED
[f]USED [United] minus ‘f’ [fellow]
Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen
I wasn’t happy about (th)E in28a, but I think that what is meant is e (2.718………..) the BASE of natural logarithms.
I found this very easy, in fact. The anagram for LEPIDOPTERA was very obvious, and I was familiar with all the examples (we had an even more butterflyey crossword recently).
Is LYCEE a word in English? If not, a foreign language indication would have been preferable.
Thanks, muffin – I’d forgotten ‘base =E’.]
Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen
This seemed thematically related to Brummie’s 26392 of October 16 this year (which you also blogged Eileen).
That one also featured COMMA (clued in very similar fashion to Nutmeg’s), BRIMSTONE, and PAPER CLIP…small world isn’t it 🙂
Thanks Eileen, including for 24D, last in without my understanding it. All my butterfly knowledge comes from this site so it was good to finish this without any aids.
Thanks for 1d – I was looking too hard at “finally put behind bars” = CAGE to see the spots!
Thanks Nutmeg for a very enjoyable crossword – though I wasn’t too sure about PROCLAIM either.
P.S. I didn’t realise that football had Oxbridge Blues before rugby did – I was expecting a 15 in the clue.
muffin, I think the ’11’ refers to cricket – see blog comment.
Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen
I found this a lovely puzzle and a very helpful blog. Did you forget the link for FRITILLARY, Eileen?
Out of interest, there is a ‘silver & SABLE’ butterfly, and a GUINEVERE butterfly bush, and, of course, the butterfly PAPER CLIP as in Brummie’s crossword.
I could not parse 24d. Favourites were, amongst others, ENCAGE and DISALLOWED.
Hi Cookie
Yes, sorry, I did: I was too busy smiling at the clue! Here it is: http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/species.php?vernacular_name=High%20Brown%20Fritillary
I had to look up all but the commonest butterflies but otherwise this was straightforward. I thought I recognized the odd clue. PAPER CLIP and COMMA for example but quite enjoyable-but not perhaps as enjoyable as some others have said.
Thanks Nutmeg
7d, PROCLAIM, ‘Oxford Dictionaries’ on the web, ‘he was an authority on the stock market’, synonym professional, informal pro. Does this help?
Thanks, Eileen.
Nicely crafted puzzle, not difficult, but with some interesting constructions and good surface readings. 18a was a write-in, as muffin @1 noted, which made the rest of the crossword pretty straightforward.
Anyone remember the letter to The Times, which went something like: ‘Here on the seafront at Eastbourne, Red Admirals can be seen cavorting with Painted Ladies, despite the presence of several Small Coppers’?
No problem with 11ac, as all the new pubs here were named for lepidoptera. This is the first one after you come off the M11.
Eileen @9. Thank you. I also smiled at FRITILLARY. Googled, just for fun, LACIER thinking there might be a lacier Lacewing, of course there wasn’t, but there was a Butterfly Glacier in Washington State.
Many thanks, Eileen, lovely puzzle. Really satisfying pace as they went in.
Not sure I agree about E for base in ENDURES. I read it as E = base (end) of “the”. Either works, of course, be nice if Nutmeg would drop in to let us know.
Nice week, all.
Gervase @12 Ha-ha! No I don’t but wish I had. What a beauty, any idea when it was?
Thanks Nutmeg for a good crossword.
Thanks Eileen, I was looking for some moths as well but didn’t find any (apart from ‘puss.’) Butterfly would have fitted in 10 instead of LEPIDOPTERA but I guess she liked her ‘polite padre.’
When will I remember rounds=ammo? Took me a while to see that one. Nice clue for 14 to get the double insertion into IMPRISON. I particularly liked the pie filling.
Thank you Eileen and Nutmeg. I enjoyed this one better than some recently. However I did frown at 9a, for my usual reason. Very clever of course, but the wordplay does rather assume that the solver already has the answer.
Thanks to Eileen for the blog. You explained a couple where I had the answer but not the parsing.
I am not good on butterflies apart from one or two so I had more work to do than some people who have commented here.
Gervase @12, wonder if there were any Grizzled Skippers or Gold Hunters among them?
A rare chance for a mathematical debate here…
A logarithm can have any positive base (apart from 1). The natural logarithm is a special name for the log with base e, so to suggest e = base is just as logical as saying pi = base or three = base. Eileen’s original explanation of the E of ENDURES sounds much more convincing.
Found this pleasant and not too demanding. Most of the bottom half went in very quickly but it took me a while to sort out the NE corner, with SHEBEENS last in. Liked LEPIDOPTERA, DISALLOWED and IMPRECISION. Like molonglo @4, most of my knowledge of butterflies and moths comes from crosswords (shame there was no Cosmia since that means no excuse to talk about Joanna Newsom).
Thanks to Eileen and Nutmeg
Stephen @21
I didn’t say that e had to be the base for logs – I said it WAS the base for natural logs (and hence a very significant number, as in the relationship e^(i pi) = -1).
You right about the 11 in 12a, Eileen – cricket, not football – but on second thoughts shouldn’t the other be 9? I know they are referred to as “rowing eights”, but doesn’t the cox get a Blue too?
Muffin @23
You missed my point. The fact that almost any number can be a base for a log means that base could be a synonym for any number, hence not suitable for use in a crossword clue. We would object if a compiler used “letter” in a clue to signify any particular letter. Similarly, they shouldn’t use “number” or “base” to represent any particular number.
I see what you mean, Stephen, but in practice only two numbers are ever used, and one of them is e (the other being 10). It would be interesting to hear what Nutmeg meant. I didn’t like “base of the” because why should the base be on the RHS? (It’s not even a down clue, which might give some justification for “base”.)
Stephen @24 – I’m with muffin – I don’t understand which “rule” you think is being broken. Just because it is mathematically possible to use any real number as a base doesn’t mean that anybody would except for obscure mathematical purposes – in practice e and 10 are by far the most common, hence describing e as a base is more specific than describing it as a number.
Number is also quite often used as a definition for numeric answers but the values chosen tend to be low-value or “round” integers and therefore in common use.
sorry muffin – we crossed
I don’t go a bundle on thematic crosswords of this ilk, but 1d was worth the admission price on its own.
University Challenge this week had a question where candidates had to evaluate log to the base x of x (1, of course), so any number can indeed be a base. Doesn’t matter much to me whether the constant e or the final letter of ‘the’ was intended, this was still one of my favourite crosswords for some time. Like Eileen and others, GATEKEEPER was the only unknown thematic answer, but the T and the K were enough to give it away.
Being rather ignorant when it comes to butterflies, I had to resort to google but was rewarded by this absolutely brilliant website:
http://www.ukleps.org/CommNamesAlphabetical.html
A very enjoyable puzzle, I am still smiling at 5 across.
Thanks to Nutmeg and Eileen
beery hiker @ 27
No need to apologise – I’m pleased that you agreed with Eileen and me.
[btw the Gatekeeper is quite a common butterfly, and pairs do frequently fly in spirals in gaps in hedges, around gates etc., hence the name.]
Another graceful crossword from Nutmeg (and likewise blog, as ever, from Eileen).
I have led a life almost totally sheltered from butterfly knowledge…which is when “Chambers Complete Crossword Companion” really starts to earn its corn!
7 proclaim = claim by a pro = demand made by authority
Gsol @30, quite a list, what a lot of moths there are. However, quite a few butterflies seem to be missing, among them the Camberwell Beauty; perhaps she has gone off with one of the Large Coppers who seem to have been shirking their duties in Eastbourne.
Hi Cookie
Funny you mentioned “Camberwell Beauty”. Firstly I used to live in Camberwell; secondly (and more interestingly), while I was walking in Northern Italy this spring, one took a liking to me and hitch-hiked on my rucksack for a mile or so – it fact it liked all of us in the party, and we took turns taking its picture perched on other’s fingers (the butterfly, that is, perched – not us!) We think it might have been the sugar on the doughnuts we had with lunch.
Thanks Eileen (and Nutmeg for an entertaining puzzle).
re 23, why is EAT a synonym for “worry” ?
While I liked the puzzle, I thought that many of the anagrams might as well have been lit in Neon, particularly 18 – which I thought might have been better hidden since it was the key to the puzzle.
I enjoyed this. (Unusually as I don’t usually “get on” with Nutmeg)
I thought this was going to be a long “Google exercise” as my knowledge of Lepidoptera is scant. However I got them all without aids except 11A which was obvious once I was confident about the ENCAGE I had posited from early on. (Took me ages to see the “rebellious acne”.)
Also no problem with e as base. Although there are an infinite number of possible bases e is without doubt the one most commonly referenced. (since calculators & computers killed the base 10 log tables as a calculation aid)
Thanks to Eileen and Nutmeg
andy smith @ 37 asks:
re 23, why is EAT a synonym for “worry” ?
I don’t know. It’s been eating at me.
I agree with Eileen’s “..silky smoothness of the surfaces and lightness of touch”.
Thanks to Nutmeg for another gem.
Our first one in was 18ac (LEPIDOPTERA) which immediately annoyed me because of the fact that a recent Brummie was also full of butterflies.
But after ticking off myself for being grumpy a very nice puzzle unfolded itself. Albeit a relatively easy one for Nutmeg. Some solutions fell in place from the defintion alone (eg 14ac, 2d and 13d).
For me, ‘the base’ led to E through logarithms but I am not sure that that was Nutmeg’s idea (as it’s not THE base – well, for many mathematicians it is, so there we go). ‘The base’ for [th]E is a bit un-Nutmeg but in the same category as the ‘Labour leader’ at 20d, so I think that was Nutmeg’s intention.
My take on 12ac was slightly different.
The “8” were the rowers of the Cambridge Blue.
But the “11” made me me think of Chelsea, nicknamed the Blues.
A lot of nice clues but always good to see a familar word clued differently: USED in 24d.
Many thanks Eileen for the blog (and I can assure you that we try to go for 25 April now 🙂 ).
Excellent puzzle from Nutmeg – for daytime. Try the puzzle on this page by Araucaria for after dark.
Tricky, Eileen have a go at last weeks Enigmatist, think you’ll enjoy that if you have an hour or three to spare.
Phil PS Cambridge do likely to be Apr 25, we want you there 🙂
Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen
Did complete this on Wednesday, but have only got around to checking it now. Can remember solving 18a quite early and knew what we were up for … still enjoyable for that.
Like the correct parsing of 12a – I had tenuously linked BLUE to policeman to ‘gatekeeper’ – not very satisfactory ! FRITILLARY was my second last in … and became my favourite. LACIER was last.