Cracking puzzle from Io. There were many of WTF? moments in this puzzle where I had no idea at all about what was going on. Thankfully it (mostly) became clear in the end. Overall this was pretty tough! Thanks Io .
There are still a a couple that I can’t quite get to the bottom of. Any help with the finishing touches appreciated.
| Across | ||
| 1 | VERANDA |
Queen Victoria & Albert are absorbing the terrace (7)
V AND A (Victoria & Albert) contains (are absorbing) ER (Elizabeth Regina, queen) |
| 5 | YORK |
Bowl a ball Rob Key plays and misses opening for England B (4)
(ROb KeY)* anagram=plays missing E (opening letter of England) and B – to bowl a yorker in cricket |
| 7 | FRA |
Father and No 1 brother (3)
FR (father) and A (the first, No. 1) |
| 8 | QUEEN ANNE |
Question Inland Revenue about spouting drivel on English monarch (5,4)
Q (question) then (iNlANd rEweNUE)* anagram=about missing (spouting, throwing out) DRIVEL then E (English) – thanks to crypticsue |
| 9 | LOGO |
Losing half its red and blue bits, new Google design? (4)
gOOGLe* missing one blue letter and one red letter, anagram=new – the letters of the Google logo are coloured: 2 blue, 2 red, 1 green and 1 orange. The wordplay for this is guessable, but out of interest I wonder if anyone could remember the actual colours of each letter in the the Google logo? Certainly not me! |
| 10 | VIRGIL |
Roman poet’s sex with exciting girl (6)
VI (six, sex) with GIRL* anagram=exciting |
| 11 | EXTRA-DRY |
Brut was traditional line (5-3)
EX (was) TRAD (traditional) RY (railway, line) |
| 12 | REVERE |
Forever English, in this respect (6)
found inside (in this) foREVER English |
| 14 | DEVICE |
Plan to make second-in-command third-in-command? (6)
in rank VICE denotes second-in-command, so removing this (de-vice) would make someone third-in-command |
| 17 | KNAVES |
Scoundrels of old church body in Kansas (6)
NAVE (the main part, body, of a church) in KS (Kansas) |
| 18 | LAID ON |
Provided assistance through west side of the capital (4,2)
AID (assistance) in (though) LONdon (capital) letters on the left (west side, on a map) |
| 20 | KICKFLIP |
To quit beer and spirits, sweet, jump on board! (8)
KICK (to quit) FLIP (cocktail of beer, rum and sugar) – a skateboarding manoeuvre |
| 23 | HEAVEN |
My way to penetrate layer! (6)
AVE (avenue, way) inside (to penetrate) HEN ( a layer) – Oh my! It’s heaven! |
| 24 | MIRE |
Road about marshy area (4)
MI (M1 motorway, road) RE (about) |
| 25 | PURGATORY |
Suffering guy unhappy with “remarkable” parrot (9)
anagram of GUY and PARROT – “unhappy with remarkable” acting as a sort of joint anagram indicator? I don’t quite get this one. |
| 26 | LIE |
This may mislead Klingon, say, getting out of his skin (3)
aLIEn (Klingon, say) missing the outer letters (out of his skin) |
| 27 | HELL |
This man is going to ruin (4)
HE’LL (this man is going to) – could also be “this man is” and “going to ruin”. I don’t know which. |
| 28 | INFERNO |
Is this 27? (Conclude it’s not) (7)
INFER NO (conclude it’s not) – 4dn’ 27 |
| Down | ||
| 2 | EVERGREEN |
For Hardy Evening outside church official wrong-footed Laurel? (9)
EEN (evening, poetical, for Thomas Hardy) containing (outside) VERGER (church official) with the bottom letters (foot) in the wrong order |
| 3 | ANNAL |
Obsessive rewriting new entry in yearbook (5)
ANAL (obssive) with N (new) twice (re-writing) |
| 4 | DANTE |
Wanting an evenly expressed poet (5)
anDANTE (evenly expressed, music) missing (wanting) AN |
| 5 | YALTA |
Location for war meeting that’s close to consecration point after extremists disappear (5)
bY ALTAr (close to consecration point) missing outside letters (extremists) – location of the Yalta Conference where Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met. |
| 6 | ROGERS |
Demanding large starters make cook fry bacon and black ginger? (6)
I can’t figure out what “demanding large starters” means – definition is Roger Cook (journalist), Roger Fry (artist), Roger Bacon (philosopher), Roger Black (athlete) and Ginger Rogers (dancer). “demanding large starters” indicates that words following require capitalisation as they are proper nouns |
| 7 | FESTIVAL |
Forte beginning for what’s not initially a summery Glyndebourne? (8)
Forte (beginning, first letter of) and aESTIVAL (of the summer months) missing initial letter |
| 8 | QUIRES |
Taking the second note needs quite a bit of paper (6)
taking RE (the second note, music) QUIRES would become REQUIRES (needs) |
| 13 | ENVELOPE |
Gasbag sometimes caught on bicycle in Calais gym (8)
EN VELO (on bicycle in Calais, French) then PE (gym) – the balloon part of an airship. I’m not sure what part “sometimes” plays here, Io doesn’t usually add words in for no special reason |
| 14 | DIS |
Diameter = 27 (3)
D (diameter) IS (=) – another name for hell |
| 15 | CHINATOWN |
In pow-wow about private area of W1 (9)
IN inside (with … about) CHAT (pow-wow) then OWN (private) – area of West London (W1 postal code) |
| 16 | COMEDY |
Form of entertainment served up in illusory democracy (6)
found reversed (served up) in illusorY DEMOCreacy |
| 19 | DIVINE |
Long to drink Beaujolais, possibly the best (6)
DIE (long, to die for) contains (to drink) VIN (Beaujolais possibly) |
| 21 | KNELL |
It’s the end, we hear, that Allen key’s locked up (5)
found reversed inside (has locked up) aLLEN Key – the sound of a funeral bell |
| 22 | PERON |
Musical heroine shows us a leg (5)
A (per) ON (leg, side in cricket) – Eva Peron, heroine of the musical Evita |
| 23 | HEAVE |
Feel swell? Yes and no (5)
double cryptic definition – to feel the swell (as of a boat) and to be sick (not to feel swell) |
definitions are underlined
Brilliant – thank you IO and PeeDee too
8a Q (Queen) and then remove (spouting) ‘drivel’ from INLAND REVENUE and make an anagram (about) of the remaining letters and finish with an E (English).
25a I had ‘unhappy’ as the indicator for guy and remarkable for the parrot anagram
Hopefully someone else can explain the ‘demanding large starters’ and the ‘sometimes’
Thanks PeeDee and Io,
I didn’t understand what the beer was doing in the clue for KICKFLIP – thanks, but that sounds a yucky drink.
8ac Queen Anne is Qu + ((Inland revenue) – drivel)*.
Is the wordplay at the beginning of 6d ROGERS just indicating that these proper nouns would require capitalisation?
There is a devilish theme referencing 4d’s 28 and 19/16.
CS @ 1 has got QUEEN ANNE properly down.
Thanks both, blog updated.
On 25ac if GUY and PARROT have separate anagram indicators this suggests to me that one should follow the other, not that they are both mixed together. I suppose “suffering” could indicate this (an anagram of two anagrams), but this leaves the definition a bit iffy and the whole this a bit convoluted.
muffy @2 – I dearly wanted to describe this puzzle as “devilishly difficult” in the preamble, but site rules on spoilers forbid this.
Quite a challenge, thank you Io. Special thanks to PeeDee, crypticsue and Muffyword for their much needed help with the parsing of quite a few of the clues.
Just a comment about 11 across. Ingenious as the word play is, if we are talking champagne, brut is not the same as extra dry. Despite the words extra and dry, extra dry champagne is in fact semi-sweet.
Great puzzle, great blog- I got hoodwinked by the theme, lazily putting divine instead of device.
That’ll learn me.Wrong place!
I’m not sure about how to parse 13 down. If “sometimes” seems redundant, isn’t “caught” equally so? And would you say “en vélo”? “En” implies “in” rather than “on”. You travel “en voiture”, but “à bicyclette”, so presumably also “à (or sur) vélo”.
But I don’t understand what’s intended. Is it something to do with the first syllable of “envelope” being sometimes caught (i.e. heard) as “on”, from those who affect a semi-French pronunciation of the word? Seems a bit tenuous, I know. Any other thoughts?
Tom_I – I just looked up velo in my Le Petit Robert and it gives all three of a velo, en velo and sur velo as examples, so fair enough
You are right about “caught” being redundant too. Unless it is a homophone indicator, in which case it could just mean “you might hear this phrase in Calais”. There again why a homophone indicator is required I don’t know.
I think “sometimes caught on” means the first syllable is sometimes pronounced “on” (and sometimes “en”).
13d Perhaps Io is just indicating that ‘envelope’ only sometimes means gasbag as opposed to other more common meanings and ‘caught’ is merely a link word.
PeeDee for 24a you meant to say RE for about.
Thanks to Io for a stiff test.
13d, I assumed it was some ball game on bicycles, ballon is French for a football etc., hinting at balloon perhaps …
Just checked, ballon also means an airship.
@9
Sorry Tom_I I hadn’t noticed your second paragraph re 13d. I’m pretty sure we’re right. Chambers very clearly says “sometimes pronounced on. I can’t dee another parsing that works. I had no doubts solving it.
Very nice – quite accessible – initially at least – then the thumbscrews tightened – but we wanted them to. All sorted with enough staring.
In the classification of champagne “extra dry” is not as dry as brut (or extra brut obviously) but it is drier than sec – which of course is the French word for “dry” – so the clue at 11a and its answer are quite accurate, in normal parlance at least.
Personally I dislike champagne and sparkling wine generally but I have learned not to spoil social occasions by saying so – announce that you have to drive your car later – get away with a small helping and swig it down quickly like medicine followed up with a forced smile – job done.
It doesn’t do to say that you’d prefer a small beer or a cup of tea. That can cause offence.
Demi-sec (which literally means half-dry) is the sweetest (ie least dry) that you can normally find – hence the easiest to swallow. Theoretically there’s doux (sweet) but it is rarely seen because Johnny-come-lately wine snobs think it’s clever to prefer everything ultra dry.
They grow the stuff around here – but they have to market it as sparkling pinot noir/chardonnay or some such.
Thanks for the blog PeeDee
Thank you John for a mention in a fabulous puzzle! (6 dn and 8 dn make my name Roger Squires, usually appearing appearing in the FT on Mondays under DANTE, who wrote about hell and infernos!
Aha – ROGERS QUIRES! Another hidden gem. Thanks you Roger/Rufus/Dante for pointing this out. John Henderson is a genius.
One hell of a crossword!
Didn’t quite make it – failed on 20 and 22 – and needed your help in parsing too many.
Thanks to Io, PeeDee and of course Dante(s).
I just remembered that John Henderson (Io) moved to YORK recently. The racecourse there is situated on KNAVES MIRE. Just a coincidence you think?
With a setter of this quality, I suspect coincidences will be rare.
Although in the Inferno, well done would be more apt!
This was a stinker … but like a good blue cheese … it made for a very pleasant experience !!
Started this one from the backlog in mid-November (had waited until I got one of his other ones finished – two Io’s on the go at the same time would have made my head explode !) and finally got my last pair (which were the same two that Hamish failed on) with a final bout of inspiration late last night.
Missed the theme, but happy enough to have just correctly completed the grid !!
This guy almost adds another dimension to the art of cryptic crosswords – like there is layers within the clues that need to be unravelled – it took almost as much effort to parse most of the answers as it did to get the word in the first place. Even then, there were two or three that I still needed help from the blog to see how they worked:- QUEEN ANNE (compound anagrams are hard enough in an easier puzzle, didn’t spot this one), EVERGREEN (started down the path of a reversed REV – that would have been way too easy for this setter, when there was a VERGER to play with) and PER (always miss the ‘a’ synonym for it).
A good example of this complexity was the solving experience of KICKFLIP – firstly an unusual word unless one is into skateboarding. I looked at this one on and off for weeks without seeing an entry point to it – even looked up a word finder without success (hadn’t made it on to their dictionaries yet). Finally saw KICK as an option for ‘quit’ … and still nothing to finish off for a while longer. Then the penny dropped with the type of board and a visit to a glossary of skateboarding terms to find the answer. Not over yet … had to confirm that a concoction of ale and rum would make up a FLIP. An ingenious clue !!!
A feeling of real accomplishment to get this one done at last.
The cleverness of the theme … that is a whole other rant … just a brilliant crossword. And now to look through the ‘undone’ to find another that I have dodged to date !!!
brucew – I met Io once, he is not only a great crossword setter but also a very nice guy and very approachable.
Hi PeeDee … it doesn’t surprise!
We’ve been blessed with two of his puzzles on the last day of the year … and this time only two to go in the Enigmatist one already !!! 🙂