I have not solved or blogged many puzzles by Hieroglyph, so I approached this one with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension.
A quick perusal of the across clues revealed a theme (revolving around 24D), which is not unusual for the Indy’s Tuesday puzzle. My way into the theme came very easily, from 12, from which I guessed, and proceeded to confirm, 24D. At this point, I thought that I would sail through the puzzle, especially as something of a twitcher myself, but I actually had to work very hard to crack this one, especially the last third of the puzzle, and above all the SE quadrant.
Solving the puzzle was made a tad more complicated by the fact that not all the birds were that well-known: 24A was completely unknown to me, while 25 I knew from French only and had no idea that it was an archaic English word for the humble blackbird. There were also various items of unfamiliar vocabulary in the non-themed clues: the meal at 1, the roadside robbery at 3, pompous at 11, the fish at 20. I did, however, derive a huge amount of satisfaction from completing the puzzle unaided, although doubtless in more time than I would spend on the average daily cryptic.
My favourite clues today are 18 and 24A, both for their smooth surface readings.
*(…) indicates an anagram; definitions are italicised; // separates definitions in multiple-definition clues
| Across | ||
| 07 | CASSOWARY | 24D’s beast eating another by a railway
[ASS (=another beast) in COW (=beast)] + A + RY (=railway); the definition here and in all other across clues is “bird” (=entry at 24D) |
| 08 | PIPER | 24D’s salesman, one parking in reverse
REP (=salesman) + I (=one) + P (=parking); “in reverse” indicates (here full) reversal |
| 10 | KITE | 24D’s Christopher Marlowe’s end
KIT (=Christopher, i.e. short form) + <marlow>E (“end” means last letter only) |
| 11 | BUDGERIGAR | 24D’s pompous Republican conceals capital
RIGA (=capital, of Latvia) in [BUDGE (=pompous, stiff) + R (=Republican)] |
| 12 | PARROT | 24D’s the usual nonsense
PAR (=the usual) + ROT (=nonsense) |
| 14 | STARLING | 24D’s sunfish?
STAR (=sun) + LING (=fish) |
| 15 | FALCON | 24D’s flower trick
FAL (= “flower”, i.e. river, in Cornwall) + CON (=trick) |
| 16 | BANTAM | 24D’s outlaw cheers Frenchman
BAN (=outlaw) + TA (=cheers, i.e. thank you) + M (=Frenchman, i.e. Monsieur) |
| 19 | FLAMINGO | 24D’s ring of fire?
Cryptically, a “flaming O (from shape)” would be a “ring of fire” |
| 21 | REDCAP | 24D’s sending off: way out for player, to begin with
RED CA-RD (=sending off, in football); “way out for player, to begin with” means letters “rd” (=way, i.e. road) are replaced by letter “p”<layer> (“to begin with” means first letter only) |
| 23 | WOOD PIGEON | 24D’s number, say, Hieroglyph paid back after court
WOO (=court, as verb) + DPIGEON (NO=number + E.G. (=say) + I (=Hieroglyph, i.e. setter of this puzzle) + PD (=paid); “back” indicates reversal) |
| 24 | BARB | 24D’s pub grub after losing key game
BAR (=pub) + <gru>B (“after losing key (=G, in music) + RU (=game, i.e. rugby union”) means letters “gru” are dropped); amongst other things, a barb is a dark-coloured fancy pigeon! |
| 25 | MERLE | 24D’s learner in lake
L (=learner) in MERE (=lake) |
| 26 | CORMORANT | 24D’s my second outburst
COR (=my, as exclamation) + MO (=second, i.e. moment) + RANT (=outburst) |
| Down | ||
| 01 | FARINA | Very much at home before a meal
FAR (=very much) + IN (=at home) + A; farina is ground corn, a mealy powder, cf. la farine=flour in French |
| 02 | ISLE | Man perhaps excised start of passage
<a>ISLE (=passage); “excised start of” means first letter is dropped |
| 03 | TWO BY TWO | Women held in roadside robbery in the first instance talk with officer in pairs
[W (=women) in TOBY (=roadside robbery)] + T<alk> W<ith> O<fficer> (“in the first instance” means first letters only) |
| 04 | ARIDEST | Most dry areas limit journey time
[RIDE (=journey) in AS (areas, where a=area)] + T (=time) |
| 05 | TITILLATED | Excited learners following notes at English Department
TI TI (=notes, 2 x ti) + L L (=learners, 2 x L=learner) + AT + E (=English) + D (=Department) |
| 06 | PER ANNUM | A new northern university’s in style every year
[A + N (=new) + N (=northern) + U (=university)] in PERM (=style) |
| 09 | HERA | Olympian chap runs about
HE (=chap, i.e. a male) + R (=runs, in cricket) + A (=about) |
| 13 | ROLE MODELS | Bad loser admits procedure left examples to be followed
[MODE (=procedure) + L (=left)] in *(LOSER); “bad” is anagram indicator |
| 15 | FOLLOWER | Adherent of retuning Liberal subordinate
FO (OF; “returning” indicates reversal) + L (=liberal) + LOWER (=subordinate) |
| 17 | ACRONYMS | A companion paper for e.g. Ofqual, Ofsted
A + CRONY (=companion) + MS (=paper, i.e. manuscript); for example, Ofsted is the acronym used for the Office for Standards in Education |
| 18 | BOLEROS | Dances thus on pitch when in the ascendant
SO (=thus) + RE (=on) + LOB (=pitch, throw); “when in the ascendant” indicates vertical reversal |
| 20 | NAIL | Catch fish in the Netherlands
AI (=fish, i.e. small edible Japanese fish) in NL (=the Netherlands, in IVR) |
| 22 | ARRANT | Notorious Australian bishop accepted holy books
A (=Australian) + RR (=bishop, i.e. Right Reverend) + A (=accepted) + NT (=holy books, i.e. New Testament) |
| 24 | BIRD | Try restraining right winger
R (=right) in BID (=try); cryptically, a “winger” is a bird in that it has wings and flies; this gateway clue provides the definition for all across clues |
I found this one very difficult. I couldn’t parse 24 across because, having considered bar food, bar meal and bar dinner, the one thing I didn’t think of is that would just simply be the word in the clue. 20 dn also didn’t seem to make much sense because the only ai I could find was a sloth rather than a fish. The SE corner also gave me the most problems. I thought the choice of the Ofqual and Ofsted to clue acronyms was quite misleading because most of those sort of regulators (Ofwat, Oftel) are more like abbreviated words than proper acronyms. I’m not even convinced that Ofsted itself is a proper acronym – the t and d are from shortened versions of standards and education rather than initial letters.
Thanks to setter and blogger,
I spent an unreasonable amount of time on 24d which I only twigged after getting a few across clues. Not too bad after that but I’ve made the acquaintance of a few new avian friends (24a & 25) to add to those who seem, at least to me, to exist only in a cruciverbal sense and not in the real world. Anyway, useful for future reference, as was the fish – 2 letters and vowels at that – in 20 and the initial parts of 3 and 11 as you’ve mentioned.
Thanks again.
Enjoyable, but I needed lots of help from the blog. Perhaps it would be a help to some to add that Hera (9) was the wife of Zeus.
BARB for a bird and in the downs FARINA and ARIDEST I felt were a little strained here, but on the other hand it is a good ratio of somewhat questionable words when there is a theme. I agree with NealH about the difficulty, but enjoyed the solve generally.
11ac: could RR please explain the definition of budge as pompous, stiff. In my Oxford Dictionary the only definition is ‘make or cause to make the slightest movement’. I got Budgerigar, but only because nothing else fitted. The clue defies explanation.
Hi Leon W
In case RR is busy, here is an extract from Chambers:
budge²
noun
Lambskin fur
adjective
1 Pompous
2 Stiff
Thank you Gaufrid, for the clarification. Apologies to Hieroglyph and RR. It must be an obsolete usage for it to be omitted from the Oxford Dictionary (the big one). I used to have the OED on disc, and that would have found it.
I certainly enjoyed the puzzle. A real challenge.
An interesting challenge for a Tuesday. Parsing 11ac stumped me, too. And 20dn held me up for a while; I thought it had to be NAIL but the only ai (another useful word for Scrabble players) I knew is a species of sloth.
Thanks, Heiroglyph and RR
I really liked your blog RR – very clearly set out, and lovely to have no colours in it!
I was grateful for your explanation of the RED CARD.
A lot of this was fun, but like most here I’m in two minds about some of the very obscure words used. On the one hand I do buy the argument that finding out about new words is part of the enjoyment of doing crosswords. But if you’re involving a word that nobody knows, I think the rest of the clue has really to be easier to compensate. With a clue like:
the only thing we have to go on is the R at the end – we need a word we’ve never heard of for pompous, we need one of the dozens of world capitals, and the whole thing means any of hundreds of species of bird…not a lot to go on. Obviously, once you get several crossers in you can start to guess – but is that the point?
Anyway, most of this was enjoyable and there were many good things in it, so thank you h.
By the way, NealH @1, Chambers has as definition for acronym:
So I think Ofwat and Oftel count, but Ofsted is on shakier ground.
Pretty straightforward though somewhat uninspiring I thought. None of my dictionaries has a fish named AI……!
I find it very unsatisfactory (it seems lazy to me) when setters simply use words to represent letters unless the letter is an accepted abbreviation of the word concerned. For example, r for runs is just about OK, but a for Australian and accepted in the same clue certainly isn’t.
2019 the i, I now know why this paper prints this type of puzzle, if I had taken up the option of “stuck on the cryptic crossword “ it would have cost me £40 plus my network charge. I don’t know about calling the help desk, I feel like calling the Samaritans, ah! Well still got the 5 word puzzle to do.