The puzzle maybe found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26625.
The grid was looking distinctly underpopulated for long enough for me to wonder if I was going to finish in good time. Then 1D SKOPJE gave me the key 11A JACK LEMMON, and there followed quickly three of his best-known films (all defined just as 11’s), for all of which he received Oscar nominations. After that it was a mopping-up operation, although not helped by a glitch in the compiling software.
| Across | ||
| 1 | STETSON |
Let it remain the issue — on your head be it! (7)
A charade of STET (‘let it remain’) plus SON (‘issue’). |
| 5 | MAESTRO |
Great player joining line running backwards before pace cut (7)
A charade of MAES, a reversal (‘running backwards’) of SEAM (‘joining line’) plus TRO[t] (‘pace’) without its last letter (‘cut’). |
| 9 | OLIVE |
OBE for tree! (5)
A charade of ‘O’ plus LIVE (‘be’). |
| 10 | HISTAMINE |
Cause of reaction in time has transformed (9)
An anagram (‘transformed’) of ‘in time has’. |
| 11 | JACK LEMMON |
Old player putting salt on fruit, say? (4,6)
A charade of JACK (‘salt’ i.e. sailor) plus LEMMON (‘fruit, say’), |
| 12,25 | SOME LIKE IT HOT |
11’s male priest, boy in the black stuff (4,4,2,3)
An envelope (‘in’) of M (‘male’) plus ELI (‘priest’) plus KEITH (‘boy’) in SOOT (‘the black stuff’). Billy Wilder’s classic comedy starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe. |
| 14 | THE APARTMENT |
11’s bit of skirt to keep aside in temporary accommodation (3,9)
An envelope (in’) of HEAPARTM, an envelope (‘to keep’) of APART (‘aside’) in HEM (‘a bit of skirt’), all in TENT (‘ |
| 18 |
See 20
|
|
| 21 | NOON |
12‘s leg gone? (4)
NO ON (‘leg’ as ON side in cricket). |
| 22 | PROPAGANDA |
Hype for US lawyer defending one with unorthodox religious views? (10)
An envelope (‘defending’) of PAGAN (‘one with unorthodox religious views’) in PRO (‘for’) plus DA (‘US lawyer’). |
| 25 |
See 12
|
|
| 26 | HOURS |
Some time for us to talk? (5)
A homophone (‘to talk’) of OURS (‘for us’). |
| 27 | DERWENT |
River first in turquoise, fresh colour returning (7)
A reversal (‘returning’) of T (‘first in Turquoise’) |
| 28 | PONTIFF |
Religious leader in power — looking back, no difference (7)
A charade of P (‘power’) plus ON, a reversal (‘looking back’) of ‘no’ plus TIFF (‘difference’). |
| Down | ||
| 1 | SKOPJE |
Choose between blue and black all detailed in capital city (6)
An envelope (‘between’) of OP[t] (‘choose’) in SK[y] (‘blue’) plus JE[t] (‘black’), all three words without their last letters (‘all detailed’). |
| 2 | EVINCE |
Show weakness carrying pole under lowest part of bridge (6)
An envelope (‘carrying’) of N (north ‘pole’) in E (‘lowest part of bridgE‘) plus VICE (‘weakness’). |
| 3 | STEALTH TAX |
Underhand robbing of the electorate at last with the rigged vote (7,3)
An anagram (‘rigged’) of ‘at last’ plus ‘the’; plus X (‘vote’). |
| 4 | NAHUM |
Bustle following an upstanding Hebrew prophet (5)
A charade of NA, a reversal (‘upstanding’) of ‘an’ plus HUM (‘bustle’). |
| 5 | MUSCOVADO |
Short kind of duck, a d-duck that’s sweet (9)
A charade of MUSCOV[y] (‘kind of duck’) without its last letter (‘short’) plus ‘a’ plus ‘d-‘ plus O (‘duck’). It’s a kind of brown sugar. |
| 6 | EXAM |
Highest point lifted as a test (4)
A reversal (‘lifted’) of MAX (‘highest’) plus E (‘point’ of compass). |
| 7 | TAILORED |
Elasticated leotard, one fitted perfectly (8)
An anagram (‘elasticated’) of ‘leotard’ plus I (‘one’). |
| 8 | OMELETTE |
European capital lacking leadership over European directive ultimately, one’s panned (8)
A charade of [r]OME (‘Eurpoean capital’) without its first letter (‘lacking leadership’) plus LETT (‘European’) plus E (‘directivE ultimately’). |
| 13 | STRENGTHEN |
Run into gents, bursting, after which brace (10)
An envelope (‘into’) of R (‘run’) in STENG, an anagram (‘bursting’) of ‘gents’ plus THEN (‘after which’). |
| 15 | ALDERSHOT |
Place in Hampshire, wood-fired? (9)
A charade of ALDER (‘wood’) plus SHOT (‘fired’). |
| 16 | SWINDLED |
Worm found in slipper taken to the cleaners (8)
An envelope (‘found in’) of WIND (‘worm’ as a verb) in SLED (‘slipper’). |
| 17 | ONLOOKER |
Observer seated in private accommodation with royal couple (8)
A charade of ON LOO (‘seated in private accommodation’) plus K plus ER (‘royal couple’). |
| 19 | INCUBI |
Evil spirits, two capturing new baby (6)
An envelope (‘capturing’) of N (‘new’) plus CUB (‘baby’) in II (‘two’, Roman numeral). |
| 20,18 | DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES |
11’s drunk finds woe with a dry season (4,2,4,3,5)
An anagram (‘drunk’) of ‘finds woe’ plus ‘a dry season’, again with an apposite anagram. Blake Edward’s film with Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick. |
| 23 | PUT UP |
Build from either the floor or the ceiling? (3,2)
A palindrome. |
| 24 | FINE |
Outstanding payment for an offence (4)
Double definition. |
Thanks, PeterO. Propaganda and Put up were the early ones in, and after Some like it hot, Jack Lemmon and his movies followed. Wasn’t quite satisfying for me, as I found that I am parsing after getting/guessing the answers, rather than the other way around, like in Skopje and Omelette. Well. Liked 9a and 21a as typical Paul. Thanks, Paul.
Thanks Peter. Wrote in 1A and a couple of others then languished a bit. Got the 12, 25 movie but could only think of Marilyn; then 14 before SKOPJE and the main man. The novelty MUSCOVADO one of the last in. All good, thanks Paul.
Thanks, PeterO, for your help in explaining a couple I guessed without parsing: MAESTRO and SKOPJE. I liked OLIVE, NOON and PROPAGANDA. 13d and 17d are typical Paul 🙂 Forgive me PeterO, but I picked up a couple of typos (years of reading PhD theses, I regret): fot in 11a; temporary in 14a; pluss in 27a.
Re 9a OLIVE: I think setters are now increasingly deploying this device where we have to break a word or letter string (OBE in this instance) and get multiple components (O LIVE, in this instance).
Has this trick become acceptable?
BTW, is the surface reading “OBE for tree” plausible?
Is there any implied commentary that the honour has become less attractive nowadays?
Finally, is the setter’s use of EM rather self-congratulatory?
I liked the clue for PROPAGANDA very much. The word is broken up into three pieces but the WP takes them all in one go in a meaningful group of words. Great!
Thanks Paul and PeterO
My way in to this themed puzzle was JACK LEMMON so the 3 movies were very easy to fill in after that so it was not really very satisfying I guess.
New words for me were NAHUM and MUSCOVADO (as well as Muscovy duck).
I failed to solve 21a NOON and needed help to parse 3d.
I liked PROPAGANDA & ONLOOKER and my favourite was OLIVE.
MikeP
I am afraid there’s a typo in your comment, if you get what I mean.
Sorry, couldn’t resist this.
Thanks PeterO and Paul
Rishi@4:
“BTW, is the surface reading “OBE for tree” plausible?”
I couldn’t make much sense of it either; perhaps “OBE for Tree” was intended.
I’m rather with ilippu@1 insofar as there were too many “get the answer” and then parse it for me, but it has past a very enjoyable hour or so on a lovely fine morning. Thanks to both.
Thanks Paul and PeterO.
With many clues I found myself parsing after having entered the answer, but failed to fully parse SOME LIKE IT HOT and SKOPJE.
I particularly liked PROPAGANDA, LEOTARD, OMELETTE and ALDERSHOT.
The actor, and founder of RADA, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree received the OBE.
From yesterday’s comments and MikeP@3’s today, I’m beginning to wonder whether more than half the posters here have PhDs!!
Lovely puzzle that yielded slowly for me too. SKOPJE was clever, as were STETSON, MAESTRO and EVINCE. My knowledge of Jack Lemmon’s films is sparse, and with the crossers I had I pencilled in LAND OF MILK AND HONEY rather than DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES, but soon realised that that didn’t work.
I think OBE for OLIVE is just about OK – it’s clear that some lateral thinking is required.
Many thanks to Paul as ever, and PeterO.
Very nice. Paul on his usual good form.
@Rishi – The OBE is usually only awarded to trees which bend easily with the prevailing wind.
Re word-splitting. Barnard (1963) thought it unremarkable – eg indeed -> in deed – that particular example of the device becoming rather overworked some time back. Maybe that pushed the whole thing out of fashion for a while.
Used sparingly I think it’s fine – but it’s by no means a modern innovation.
Many thanks S&B.
I thought OLIVE from OBE was pretty good. It took me a long time to get JACK LEMMON but once I did it was plain sailing-with the exception of SKOPJE which I was unable to parse.
Not one of Paul’s best.
Thanks anyway Paul.
drofle @11
Of course not all solvers are PhDs. Some of us are DPhils.
MikeP @3
I have corrected the typos you pointed out, and have not spotted any others. I am not very surprised by their presence; ad I said in the preamble, I got off to a slow start with this one (maybe I was feeling particularly thick), and on top of that it looked for a while as if I could not access the blog, and would have to reconstruct it all by hand. Proofreading suffered. In the cold light of day, getting (eventually) to JACK LEMMON via SKOPJE seems a bit improbable, but that’s the way it was. At least, the lateness of the arrival meant that the writ-ins of the films was a relief rather than a let-down, so perhaps as a result I enjoyed the crossword more than someone who spotted the theme earlier.
Rish1 @5 etc
I read the exclamation point in 9A OLIVE as pointing out the ludicrousness of the surface, although Paul may have had the actor in mind.
OBE = o be needs indicating, just as in-deed etc. Generally it is a cheap way to get a surface to work in my view.
Was this Barnard (1963) a noted setter at all? Ximenes was, as we know.
I have a feeling we are in the’mad Guardian surface’ department for OLIVE, and Herbert Tree has nothing to do with the ‘idea’.
😀
Found this pretty tough for a Paul but entertaining. Only one of the films occurred to me straight away – the others needed to be squeezed out from the wordplay. Last in was OMELETTE. Liked PROPAGANDA, OLIVE, ONLOOKER and INCUBI.
Thanks to Paul and PeterO
HH
D. St. P. Barnard was the author of Anatomy of the Crossword. The 1963 book is in my shelf.
He was well-known problemist and published scores of mathematical brain twisters (some slim Penguin paperbacks were in my father’s library).
He was a crossword compiler for The Daily Telegraph.
Thanks all
That was exciting; googling Jack Lemon and scanning 40 odd films!
Thanks all
That was exciting; googling Jack Lemon and scanning 40 odd films
Hoggy 15, I am sure you are right; by coincidence Jack Lemmon’s second wife Felicia Farr was really named Olive.
Phew, thanks PeterO, found this a bit of a slog.
STETSON and SKOPJE went in so quickly I thought I was in for a romp…then ran into the sand.
A fair few went in as the answer was obvious, but then took a while to parse. No complaints, but this isn’t my favourite way to do a crossword puzzle – I prefer to be able to unravel the clue and derive the answer – not the other way round.
None of the usual Halpern fun either, nevertheless, good crozzie from this excellent setter.
That he was a Telegraph compiler says it all!
My uncle and I would sit and solve The Daily Torygraph puzzle, but it was very much his fare. I could never work out what the clues were on about, so badly-written were they. I say that is still the case, certainly for me. The Toughie is sometimes quite good.
I don’t understand the mindset of solvers who get the gateway answer for a theme, google it, and then trawl through a list of connected items to find the ones that fit. I didn’t know two of the films but I had fun working out the answers from the wordplay once I had enough checkers in place.
Andy B (at 23) won’t understand my mindset either! After solving Jack Lemmon I went straight to this blog and had the three films read out to me. I was convinced these clues all had to be solved backwards from a conjectured answer, like several others today, so I saved myself time and trouble. That way, I enjoyed what was left of the crossword, which was most of it. The theme was boring (for me), but the clues were excellent, as is usual for this setter, and I enjoyed those which I had to guess first as much as the ones where I had to work, or struggle, forwards to the answer from the clue.
PeterO – Snap! ’twas via Skopje that I too confirmed that ‘salt’ converted to Jack and so to Lemmon.
On the one hand, am always pleased to find a Paul; on the other, I hope for something more challenging on a Thursday. I did enjoy the construction of SKOPJE.
Thanks both.
Rishi@4 – I’m probably being dim, but could you (or anyone) put me out of my mystery? I don’t understand your reference to EM and self-congratulations….
William @26, I think Rishi was referring to the Exclamation Mark in 9a and speculating that it was there to signal “Aren’t I clever!”. Personally, I think it was a useful hazard warning for the split in “OBE”.
Got a good chuckle from 24 across, but must note that while a DA (District Attorney) indeed is an American lawyer, she or he is never defending, always prosecuting.
Still my favorite clue!
I found this a little unsatisfying.
As with PeterO I got to Jack Lemmon via SKOPJE. I then realised that the 3 long clues were probably films starring Jack Lemmon. (Although I’m not sure that “Jack Lemmon’s” is a suitable definition for these!? Or am I missing something?)
As the only Jack Lemmon film I have heard of is “SOME LIKE IT HOT” I was off to a good start! However I then had to decide whether a visit to Mr Google was in order. This I could see would fill in a considerable amount of the remaining clues so I decided to struggle on without help.
I eventually got there although the films didn’t ring any bells (As you may know I’m not a Yankophile see this Guardian article for my permission to use such an outlandish word without being panned again 😉 )
So not much fun for anybody. If you knew the films, which apparently a lot of you did, the puzzle was too easy and if you didn’t it was a bit of a slog!
Anyway, thanks to PeterO and Paul
Splitting up words (in the surface of clues) is quite a common and accepted thing in the world of The Guardian.
Paul, however, hardly does it and when he does, well, apparently some like to criticise him for doing so.
Odd.
That said, the surface of 9ac is nonsensical and I agree with Dave Ellison @8 that perhaps using ‘Tree’ was Paul’s intention.
But why point your arrows at Paul when Philistine, Boatman and Shed (to name three) do it ever so often without being panned.
In fact, many posters here often see these clues as highlights.
Personally, I am certainly not against them – had to get used to them, though.
Agree with Jolly Swagman that it should be used every now and then, rather than it dominating the overall feel of a crossword.
But when I do object like in this week’s Quiptic, no-one seems to care.
Odd.
As to this puzzle as a whole, I’d like to echo Andy B @23, Alan Browne @24 and William’s last line @21.
Although, ‘none of the usual Halpern fun’? 13d?
This crossword was much harder than most of this setter’s recent Guardian offerings, including prize puzzles.
None the worse for that, in my opinion.
Brendan @ 29
Don’t presume to speak on behalf of those you don’t know.
“So not much fun for anybody”
I am not familiar with the films of Jack Lemmon. I do know Some Like It Hot, so after I got JACK LEMMON on a standalone basis SOME LIKE IT HOT went in without crossers. For the other two, once I had a single crosser each they emerged from my (limited) knowledge of film in general, not Jack Lemmon specifically.
I thought the whole puzzle was, as ever with Paul, a bundle of fun, and really enjoyed solving and parsing it.
Speak out by all means, but don’t assume the mantle of a spokesman for anyone other than yourself.
Thanks.
I arrived at Skopje via letters in other words and ‘capital city’. The explanation of the clue baffled me until I read this blog. I hadn’t come across this use of ‘detailed’ before. Doh!
Thanks PeterO, and thanks Paul: you are some kind of MAESTRO, and this one had the usual quota of pleasing clues, plus reminders of a Hollywood great. JACK LEMMON was a maestro in his own right; I found it a little sad that some posters are relatively unaware of his films, but maybe it’s my age.
Speaking of which, my struggle against the crosswords has endured for decades now, and shows no sign of ending. In that time there has always been room for both parsing a solution out of the wordplay, and for spotting a solution, then reverse-parsing it for verification. For me, both are legitimate and enjoyable parts of the game, so again I am a little surprised at posts which seem to object to the latter process.
I enjoyed the OBE clue, though the suggestion above (for Tree rather than tree) might have made a better surface than just ending with an exclamation mark.
@32 David Birkett — like yourself, I was completely fooled by “detailed” in SKOPJE, but I have added it to the list to watch out for in future (though no doubt I will forget and be equally surprised next time!).
Brendan @29 – you certainly do not speak for me. I don;t see how you can justify a statement like “not much fun for anybody” when several other comments have already contradicted you. I for one enjoyed working out the titles I was less familiar with – I could easily have gone to Wikipedia but that would have been too easy. Had heard of The Apartment but didn’t know JL was in it, and WINE and ROSES looked right when they dropped out of the fodder.
I accept 1961Blanchflower’s criticism @33 – I have nothing against Jack Lemmon or old films but I just don’t watch many films at all – too many books to read.
It was interesting to read Sil’s comments on nonsensical surfaces – if something makes me laugh I’ll say I like it regardless of the technical flaws…
Apparently my “not much fun” comment has upset some of you!
It was just an honest reaction to the puzzle.
As I saw it, you would have a very easy puzzle if you knew the film titles and a bit of a slog if you didn’t. (The wordplay for the more obscure two wasn;t very helpful if you didn’t know the titles!)
Obviously I was wrong and much fun was had by all (except me). I must be an old grump! 😉
@34 beery hiker — I certainly didn’t mean my post about old films as a criticism of esteemed fellow posters such as yourself; I was trying to strike a wistful note of sadness that others do not get the same pleasure from them as I do.
beery hiker, my comment was not on nonsensical surfaces (even if it seems to be so, re-reading post 30).
When I say that Philistine et al are doing it, I meant: splitting up words.
The whole second paragraph was about that, including my reference to the Quiptic.
I was surprised to read so many comments on O/BE while things like that happen virtually every week (in the Guardian).
Thanks Paul and PeterO
Enjoyed this … started it on the day and got diverted from it – had not made much progress in that first short session. Returned to it early this morning and after getting 2d and 4d – saw that it was JACK ‘LEMON’ – couldn’t remember if he was ON or EN. When looking it up in Wiki, there was a list of films – to look or not … I did !!! Still found enough grist in solving the wordplay to keep up the interest.
Lots of other good clues, including the dinky 9a. Be interesting if Paul had of used Tree to ‘fix the surface, to hear the purist’s howls of ‘unfair mid-stream capitalisation’ again.
PROPAGANDA, MUSCOVADO and STEALTH TAX were the last three in from all over the grid.