Despite a few very obvious clues (e.g. 11a, 19d) I found this a bit of a struggle, though I got there in the end, with 12d (unknown to me) being the last in and needing some searching. Thanks to the setter.
There’s almost always a “ghost theme” in a Qaos puzzle, but I couldn’t see anything – apart from some Shakespearian characters and mythical characters – until on looking up NESO I realised that these are the names of moons of the Solar System: we have RHEA and TITAN for Saturn, PUCK, PORTIA and OBERON for Uranus and NEREID, NESO and TRITON for Neptune, with THE MAN IN THE MOON giving a hint. (As far as I can see none of the many moons of Jupiter are included)
| Across | ||||||||
| 1. | TRITON | Sea snail from Turkey into paddling (6) TR + INTO* |
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| 5. | THROTTLE | Cricketer catches hard ball at last, before England’s opener can check (8) H in TROTT + [bal]L + E[ngland]. The cricketer could Jonathan Trott, or Albert from about 100 years earlier. |
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| 9. | PEAR-TREE | Peter Pan, ’e carries fairy, regularly seen in orchard? (4-4) [f]A[i]R[y] in PETER* (“Pan” as anagram indicator)+ E |
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| 10. | MOTIVE | Reject the origins of theory of mind? I have a reason (6) First letters of Theory Of Mind, reversed, + I’VE |
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| 11. | UNITARIANISM | Narnia? Um, is it about Christian doctrine? (12) (NARNIA UM IS IT)* |
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| 13. | KALE | Vegetable for royal beer (4) K (King, a royal) + ALE |
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| 14. | ICE STORM | Bad weather that’s most cold, right? (3,5) Anagram of I.E (that is) + MOST + C + R |
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| 17. | SEAT BELT | He leaves the Beatles playing around to Hold Me Tight? (4,4) (THE BEATLES)* less HE |
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| 18. | PUCK | Fairy king’s vessel capsized (4) Reverse of K CUP |
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| 20. | GROUP THERAPY | How to get over the Beatles breaking up? (5,7) Cryptic definition |
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| 23. | PORTIA | Shakespearean character left Italy with a … (6) PORT + I + A – Portia is a character in The Merchant of Venice |
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| 24. | OPERATED | … piece of music, emptied out those diamonds and ran! (8) OPERA + T[hos]E + D |
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| 25. | TELETHON | Terry manages the live charity event (8) TEL (short for Terry) + THE + ON (live), with surface reference to Terry Wogan’s regular hosting of such events. |
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| 26. | OBERON | Fairy king has special robe on (6) (ROBE ON)* |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 2. | RHEA | Bird found in or near Headingley (4) Hidden in neaR HEAdingley, with the “or” being just padding |
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| 3. | TURBULENT | Posh French wine tipped over fast, making a mess (9) Reverse of U BRUT + LENT |
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| 4. | NEREID | Sea nymph: I need to swim around river (6) R in (I NEED)* |
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| 5. | THE MAN IN THE MOON | He has a heavenly face (3,3,2,3,4) Cryptic definition |
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| 6. | REMAINED | Band-aid covered knee evenly and lasted (8) Even letters of kNeE in REM (band) + AID |
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| 7. | TITAN | Giant bird, one with green tail (5) TIT + A + [gree]N |
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| 8. | LOVESTRUCK | Infatuated fool exchanges I for U following scrabble solve (10) SOLVE* + TRICK (fool) with I replaced by U |
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| 12. | RARE GROOVE | Excellent channel for funky music? (4,6) RARE (excellent) + GROOVE (channel). Not being familiar with the phrase, I guessed GROOVE fairly easily, but filling the blanks in ?A?E was a bit harder.. |
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| 15. | TIPSY CAKE | Merry Christmas begins with vigil, not with pudding (5,4) TIPSY (merry) + C[hristmas] + WAKE less W |
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| 16. | REATTACH | Bill overwhelmed by threat to break nail again (8) AC in THREAT* |
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| 19. | GAZEBO | Summerhouse is roughly 83% double-glazed, polished, but not dull (6) Taking the first 10 letters (about 83%) of DOUBLE GLAZED and removing DULL leaves OBEGAZ, which is an anagram of GAZEBO. Ingenious, but as I guessed the answer immediately from the definition and having the O of Oberon, this felt rather more trouble than it was worth. |
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| 21. | UNTIE | Separate union supported by 1 in 10, maybe? (5) U + I in TEN* |
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| 22. | NESO | Nymph born thus (4) NÉ + SO – one of the NEREIDs, but also a moon of Neptune |
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Thanks Quos and Andrew
RARE GROOVE was new to me. Liked SEAT BELT, REMAINED and PORTIA among others. Needed help with some of the parsing.
14a ICE STORM needs the R from Right
Thanks, Cookie, 14a corrected.
I spotted the fairies but not the moon theme, which I suppose justifies the otherwise distinctly obscure Neso. Can’t say I enjoyed the clues; Qaos seems to take the view that anagrams don’t need to be indicated at all or can be indicated with any random word. ‘Manages’ (25a), ‘Pan’ (9a), ‘polished’ (19d) have nothing to sugest anagrams that I can see. 24a is the nadir, with an indirect anagram (‘That’s’ -> IE -> anagram fodder) and no indicator at all.
Grr sorry, I meant 14a.
Thanks, Andrew.
I agree with your assessment, especially regarding 19dn, where, for once, I didn’t persevere with the parsing [I was glad I wasn’t blogging!] as I’m just making inroads on writing a pile of Christmas cards – but 10 / 10 for effort and ingenuity for Qaos and for the enjoyment of the rest of the puzzle.
I didn’t make the final step of recognising the moons, I’m afraid. If IO had been there I might have twigged.
Favourite clues: 23 / 24 and 25ac and 8dn. Thanks, Qaos.
KALE, believe it or not, is a moon of Jupiter.
Thanks Qaos & Andrew.
I missed the moons and didn’t know RARE GROOVE, although groovy was much used in the 1960s. Amazingly, I managed to remember the nymphs and Shakespearean characters apart from NESO, which was new to me.
I liked LOVESTRUCK (min. 19 points in Scrabble)
Thanks Qaos & Andrew. There was obviously a theme, but the exact nature of it eluded me. Still, NESO and TRITON felt a bit too obscure.
Like Andrew, the second part of RARE GROOVE came easily but the first part not so, expecially as I was unfamiliar with the term.
But I’m not sure about an opera being one piece of music; if anything it’s a number of them. In fact, I have a vague feeling that the word, at least in Italian or Latin, is a plural – can anyone confirm or deny that?
Nice end to the week and nice surfaces. 25a very nice indeed. Had ‘dumbstruck’ as a possible for 8d, ‘dum’ replacing ‘dim’ (fool) but stuck with the parsing of the rest!
Re John Appleton comment on op. Pieces of music have an opus number (op) to go with them.
Thanks Qaos and Andrew
The moons theme went way over my head [ 😉 ] but it does explain Qaos post on twitter “My latest #crossword is in the @guardian today, full of lunacy.”
Never heard of Tel as short for Terry (which is already short for Terence). Can anyone explain the ellipsis between 23a and 24a?
Poc @12
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Venables
As Andrew says, the surface refers to a different Terry, which, for me, makes it a nice clue.
The ellipsis in 23/24 is there simply for the surface, I think, to make a complete sentence, since the A in 23 is needed for the wordplay. Again, I rather liked it, as I said @5.
Did anyone else try to get Pete Best into 17?
My heart fluttered when I saw the name Qaos (after that outstanding recent example), but this one never really took off for me, even if there was the odd good moment. It often seems that the coherence (and satisfaction level) of a crossword is inversely proportional to the amount of theme present!
By the way Andrew, tiny detail, but the ‘THE’ in TELETHON is anagramatised (‘manages’).
I also missed the Moonies and was in the GROOVE, but not excellent. I like THROTTLE and especially PORTIA if only because it reminded me of “Port is left and red” – are reds still allowed in the Grauniad.
Anyway that’s a knap-hand for me this week, yet another record!!
Mr A Writinghawk @3 has said it for me. Thank you Andrew for elucidating 5a, 14a, 6d, and 12d.
Thanks to Qaos and Andrew for a good work-out and some helpful explanations. I also needed computerised assistance to find RARE to go with GROOVE.
I’m another who agrees with the grumbles of Mr A Writinghawk @ 3 about anagram indicators. The one for 14a is just ‘?’, which is a convention I’ve never been fond of.
As often seems to be the case, I like one of the straightforward clues the best – I think the surface for 11a is superb.
Thanks Qaos and Andrew
Qaos is one of my favourite compilers, but I thought this wasn’t up to standard. I thought that the clues for 9a, 8d and 19d were really “clunky” (btw is PEAR-TREE usually hyphenated?).
I woked out NESO, but I couldn’t find her in any of my reference books and, without power this morning, I was unable to confirm online.
I didn’t get the “rare” part of 12d – never heard the expression.
Thanks to Andrew for the blog. I needed you to explain quite a few cases where I had the answer but not (all of) the parsing.
John Appleton @8: in musical terminology opera is the plural of opus. I do not see how opera is also the name of a form of music+singing.
Gasman jack @ 14: Yes, I thought about Pete Best but already had the T at the end of 3down. Also I thought the clue would have been “Hew left the Beatles” rather than “He leaves”.
Struggled with SW corner, but there were some good clues (esp. GAZEBO and SEAT BELT). Didn’t clock the moon theme – thought there was a Shakespearean theme. Worked out NESO but when I googled it, couldn’t find it as a mymph!
Thanks to Qaos and Andrew.
Thanks, Andrew
Quite enjoyable. Some good stuff here but not Qaos at his very best, IMHO. I registered a satellite or two as I was working through but failed (didn’t bother?) to register a theme.
I agree with previous comments that several anagrinds are either dubious or non-existent – I couldn’t see ICE STORM for a while, for that reason, not helped by my first putting HAPPY CAKE in for 15d (there is such a thing, not to be confused with hash brownies…).
I always think that ellipses without real meaning are inelegant in clues. 23a could easily have been ‘Left Italy with a Shakespearian character’ – leaving the opportunity to recast 24a with a more sensible surface.
However, I did like the good spread of clue types in the puzzle. Favourite was 11a, for its clever allusion to CS Lewis’s Christian allegorical novels.
John Appleton @8: ‘Opera’ is indeed a Latin neuter plural (singular: ‘opus’), but is a feminine singular noun in modern Italian. The Latin neuter gender disappeared in the evolution of the colloquial speech into the Romance languages; most Latin neuters became masculine, but some neuter plurals (which always ended in -a, like a lot of feminine singular nouns) were reinterpreted as feminine singular. Thus ‘folia’ (‘leaves’ in Latin) became ‘foglia’ (‘leaf’ in Italian).
I found this quite an entertaining challenge, and didn’t see the theme until very late on. No problems with RARE GROOVE, and although NESO looked plausible from the wordplay, I had to check it, certainly not one of the most familiar moons (or nymphs), so that was last in.
Thanks to Qaos and Andrew.
Did anyone else think 17a was going to be “Pete Best”?
Barry @24 – see Gasman jack @14! I’m sure that was done deliberately but it was never going to parse…
Another supporter for Mr Writinghawk @3 from here. Most of these were guess the answer and fit the clue as far as I was concerned, which didn’t work too well with tithe for 21d! Thanks to both.
Thanks chas @20 and Gervase@22 for the explanations regarding opera. I’m guessing that whereas we’d now say “an opera”, we’d once have simply said “opera”, referring to the stage production as a collection of works. I think the same applies to “agenda” – originally the plural of an item on what we’d now call “an agenda”. “Data” seems to be going a similar way as a mass noun; I often hear “this data” rather than the more correct “these data”.
Awful technique used to create ‘story-telling surfaces’ no doubt. Badly-made, and thus hard to solve.
hedgehoggy @28 Are there any setters at all of whom you approve?! You seem very hard to please.
Of course there are Drofle, and many. But The Guardian, which ethos in crossword-making I will stand for notwithstanding, at the moment features a higher number of persons who aren’t really clever enough to be proper crossword-makers, in my view, than is desirable. Have to lump it I suppose, but I’ll say what I think. As will others, I note!
It’s still possible to have good, ‘story-telling’ surfaces (OMG look at me) AND have good technique. Today’s is only excellent as an example of COMPILERITIS.
hedgehoggy @28/30 – I’d rather have Qaos than order, if order means what is easy, predictable, dry and boring…
drofle @29, hedgehoggy commented “excellent” on a Dac puzzle recently (Independent, 8779).
At least Qaos avoided the self-referential (or “Guardian-referential” at least) temptation in clueing PUCK, though in Shakespeare he is described as a “sprite” rather than a “fairy”.
…Puck, not Qaos is the Shakespearean sprite!
I did like this despite having some trouble with it. Said trouble could have been avoided if I’d twigged the MOON theme but needlessly to say-. Is KALE really a moon of JUPITER? Not much trouble with the rest of it. RARE GROOVE was a record collectors term for a species of Soul music. TEL is surely quite commonly used as an abbreviation of Terry and I thought TELETHON rather clever. I did struggle a bit with THROTTLE, but generally enjoyable.
Thanks Qaos
Peter Asplnwall @35, yes, KALE is really a moon of Jupiter. I have been trying to find ‘which’/’what’ kale but only get the plant/vegetable on the web. Does anyone know?
Cookie @36
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kale_%28moon%29
……or http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Jup_Kale
Found it. Kale is named after one of the Charities, a daughter of Jupiter.
Thanks muffin, think I was googling that while you posted.
John Appleton @27: By about 1600, when the first of the musical dramas which we now call ‘opera’ was composed, the former Latin neuter plural noun had long become a feminine singular in Italian, the language from which English took the term, together with many others relating to music. So we have never used ‘opera’ as a plural in English in this sense.
But of course you’re right about agenda and data, which are following the same path.
And don’t get me started on ‘panini’….
… or phenomena!
…or media!
…or criteria
Aorry – missed this ! out!
I wont, then. I get annoyed enough when I hear “stadiums”.
Sorry again – didn’t think to preview such a short comment!
[Off topic, but related. A recent Radio Times crossword had a clue that had “bureaux” or “bureaus” as the answer, and the wordplay with “beaux” or “beaus”. Last letter unchecked!]
I’m still taken aback that Tel can be short for Terry. Does anyone know the origin? It sounds like either baby talk or a Jonathon Ross-type speech impediment.
BlueDot @49: I’m not sure myself, but David Jason’s character in ‘Only Fools And Horses’ was formally Derek but always known as Del – so perhaps this is a London trait. However, the transmogrification of consonants in given names has a long history. For instance, Margaret became shortened to Meg or Meggy, which was mutated to Peggy. And Mary gave Molly and thence Polly.
Dennis Waterman’s character in “Minder” (Terry McCann) was often referred to as “Tel” by George Cole (Arthur Daley). This was also London (East End rather than Peckham).
BlueDot @49, I have been googling and googling to try and get to the bottom of this TEL thing, and in doing so have become goggle eyed. I assumed it was Spanish, as the real nickname is El Tel, given to this Terry when he went to Barcelona. Unfortunately my son who speaks fluent Spanish is now moving around NZ and I cannot contact him. Someone here must be able to explain it?
“El Tel” was, of course, the footballer and manager Terry Venables (has anyone said this already?)
muffin @53, Eileen @13 mentions Terry Venables. The nickname seems to have been given him in Barcelona when he joined the Spanish giants.
Yes – Eileen @13, of course.
The change of final (and sometimes initial, as in Margaret -> Peggy etc) consonant in nicknames dates back a long way. As Gervase says, Mary -> Moll(y), and we also have Henry/Harry -> Hal and Sarah -> Sal(ly). A simple explanation is that if you truncate these names then you have to change the consonant to make them reasonably pronounceable. Modern examples are Barry and Gary, which for some reason tend to be abbreviated to Baz and Gaz rather than Bal and Gal.
Interestingly, most of these shortened nicknames originally showed the same r -> l mutation: Terence (Terry) -> Tel; Derek -> Del; Henry (Harry)-> Hal; Sarah-> Sal. But now the tendency, as Andrew points out, is r -> z. Boris Johnson is sometimes referred to as ‘Bozza’.
The initial consonant change was formerly common: Richard (Rick) -> Dick; Robert (Rob) -> Bob
More recently, in the NW of England, names are sometimes truncated to open syllables (i.e. without a final consonant). Thus Stephen becomes Ste (pronounced ‘Stee’), Graham becomes Gra (pronounced ‘Grey’) etc.
Tonight, talking about Tel seems to be more important than having a view on what’s happening in 14ac.
This is a puzzle full of creative ideas.
Some work brilliantly (6d), some are a bit over the top (19d), some are really nice but perhaps impure (17ac).
However, 14ac leaves me puzzled.
I cannot believe Qaos uses “?” as the anagram indicator.
Or did he?
Sil @58, the lack of anagram fodder, apart from ‘?’, for 14a was first mentioned by Mr A Writinghawk @3 and @4, and grumbled about again from time to time, @17, @18, @26… What more was there to say?
I don’t know why hedgehoggy bothers with Guardian crosswords. He will never approve so I don’t know why he posts here, either. As for ‘compileritis’, as ever he completely misses the point of the diversion and entertainment value of a crossword.
By the same token, I don’t go to footbal matches. I don’t begrudge those who do, but I don’t feel the need to criticise the game on ‘their’ fora…
Incidentally, I tried to see if ‘cold’ could serve as anagram indicator, but came up with nothing. Mr A Writinghawk considers ‘that’s’, ie, and others ‘?’ are the indicators. It seems to be a cold case.
Long live compileritis.
I only just finished this puzzle this evening, having failed miserably to complete it in the spare hour I had yesterday. I am pleased to say that I managed to work out all the parsing myself for once.
I agree with the grumbles about weak anagrinds, but I still found plenty to like here, with a few mini themes here and there and the overall moon theme – which I also only spotted after looking up NESO on Wikipedia.
As for 14a: I think it’s meant to be a semi-&lit clue with ‘weather’ serving double duty as the anagrind. Whatever the intent, it gets an award of nul points from me I’m afraid.
Thanks Qaos and Andrew.
Re 14a – isn’t the anagram indicator “Bad”? “ice storm” could be clued by “weather” rather than “bad weather”.