Surprise, surprise! I certainly wasn’t expecting to find Phi’s latest puzzle waiting for me when I sat down this morning. And no, I didn’t go to bed on Monday night and sleep straight through to Friday morning!
There must surely be some reason why Phi is not occupying his usual Friday slot this week. I don’t see any reason why this puzzle should logically appear today, unless I have missed another ghost theme, so perhaps there is a special reason for Friday’s puzzle to appear on precisely that day? Let’s keep our eyes peeled!
I actually found this quite a tough solve. After entering the first ten or so entries, which were dotted around the grid, I found that I hadn’t really got a handle on any one of the four quadrants, and although the NW quadrant revealed itself to me soon after, the other three proved a lot more stubborn. The presence of more extraneous vocabulary than is perhaps usual for Phi – 6, 12, 15, the wordplay at 17, 19 – probably contributed to the slowness of the solve. My last one in was 12, where I needed to search the dictionary to find the word, which I did not know existed In English. (I had been determined to make Assam fit, as a place name (“here”), but the wordplay would simply not allow it!)
On 17, I hope I have parsed the wordplay correctly, with (to) indent/(to) apprentice as verbs. Overall, my favourite by some margin was the brilliant & lit. at 18, with 21 coming a respectable second for its clever splitting of “spotted dick”.
(…) indicates an anagram; definitions are italicised; // separates definitions in multiple-definition clues
| Across | ||
| 01 | THROW | Confound attack, we hear
Homophone of “throe” (=attack, fit) |
| 04 | BALLYMENA | Blessed end to prayer, first to last in Irish town
BALLY (=blessed, i.e. mild expletive) + MENA (AMEN=end to prayer; “first to last” means last letter moves to end to word) |
| 09 | RIOTOUS | Very lively SA city, as viewed by NA?
RIO (=SA city, i.e. South American) + TO US (=as viewed by NA, i.e. North America) |
| 10 | TANT PIS | Time opponents seized leadership of Paris, so much the worse for Hollande
T (=time) + [P<aris> (“leadership of” means first letter only) in ANTIS (=opponents)]; “tant pis” means “so much the worse”, too bad, in French, the language of French President François Hollande |
| 11 | ILLOGICAL | Gallon I consumed in pub after one left – not sensible
I (=one) + L (=left) + {[G (=gallon) + I] in LOCAL (=pub)} |
| 12 | ADSUM | Cut in business money here
AD<o> (=business, fuss; “cut” means last letter dropped) SUM (=money); adsum is used to indicates one’s presence during a roll call, hence “here!” |
| 13 | POST-DOCTORAL | Job to accomplish court examination, requiring much education
POST (=job) + DO (=accomplish) + CT (=court, in addresses) + ORAL (=examination) |
| 18 | ABNORMAL LOAD | One beginning to bother all on road when travelling round motorway?
A (=one) + B<other> (“beginning to” means first letter only) + [M (=motorway) in *(ALL ON ROAD)]; “when travelling” is anagram indicator; & lit. |
| 21 | KNEES | Joints and spotted dick finally returned
SEEN (=spotted) + <dic>K (“finally” means last letter only); “returned” indicates reversal |
| 23 | OVEREXERT | English king limited by clear strain?
[E (=English) + REX (=king)] in OVERT (=clear) |
| 25 | OVERACT | About to carve ham
*(TO CARVE); “about” is anagram indicator |
| 26 | VINTAGE | Superior contest involving two different names
[N (=name) + TAG (=name)] in VIE (=contest, as verb) |
| 27 | METAPHORS | Figures of speech – the writer’s touch hack fails to complete
ME (=the writer) + TAP (=touch) + HORS<e> (=hack; “fails to complete” means last letter dropped) |
| 28 | STUFF | Boss finally dismissed following unspecified things
STU<d> (=boss, on shield; “finally dismissed” means last letter dropped) + FF (=following, of pages, lines, etc) |
| Down | ||
| 01 | TURGID | Turned up to make furrow over-extended
DIG RUT (=to make furrow); “turned up” indicates vertical reversal |
| 02 | ROOTLE | Grub, mostly baby turnip?
ROOT-LE<t> (=baby turnip, cryptically); “mostly” means last letter dropped; to rootle (around) is to grub, poke (around) |
| 03 | WRONGDOER | Criminal rode?
The entry is a cryptic clue to the wordplay: “rode” is an anagram, indicated by “wrong”, of “rode” |
| 04 | BASIC | Some academic is about to take up language
Hidden (“some”) and reversed (“to take up”) in “some academiC IS ABout”; Basic is a computer language using a combination of simple English and algebra |
| 05 | LITTLE OWL | One flaps quietly till towel is disentangled
*(TILL TOWEL); “is disentangled” is the anagram indicator |
| 06 | YENTA | A bit of conviviality entailed gossip
Hidden (“a bit of”) in “convivialitY ENTAiled”; a yenta, from Yiddish, is a gossipy, shrewish woman |
| 07 | EXPOSURE | Threat for lost hiker //– getting shot?
Double definition: exposure to the elements is a “threat for lost hiker”, while an exposure is a “shot”, photograph that has been exposed to light |
| 08 | ASSEMBLY | Group with skill covering chaos up
SSEM (MESS=chaos; “up” indicates vertical reversal) in ABLY (=with skill) |
| 14 | TEA FOR TWO | Noted drink – brew of ‘ot water?
*(OF ‘OT WATER); “brew” is anagram indicator; the reference is to the song (“noted”, i.e. set to music) Tea For Two from the 1925 musical No, No, Nanette |
| 15 | TSAREVNAS | Russian noblewomen, one with various servants about
A (=one) in *(SERVANTS); “various” is anagram indicator; a tsarevna is the daughter of a tsar or the wife of a tsarevich |
| 16 | BACKROOM | Stress success for Spooner should be kept secret
R-ACK (=stress, strain, as verb) + B-OOM (=success); “for Spooner” means initial sounds are exchanged; a backroom deal is one that is “kept secret”, not concluded transparently |
| 17 | INDECENT | Rude apprentice seen around church
CE (=church, i.e. Church of England) in INDENT (=apprentice, i.e. to take on as an apprentice) |
| 19 | LE FANU | Irish writer quit, replacing last letter with a Greek character
LEF<t> (=quit, in past tense) + A + NU (=Greek character, i.e. letter of Greek alphabet); the reference is to Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-73), an Irish writer of Gothic tales and ghost stories |
| 20 | ITSELF | The actual thing is a fairy clutching top of tree
T<ree> (“top of” means first letter only) in [IS + ELF (=fairy)] |
| 22 | SWAMP | Damp area took to water power
SWAM (=took to water) + P (=power) |
| 24 | EAVES | Overhanging items – i.e. line removed from top of pages
<l>EAVES (=pages); “line (=L) removed” means letter “l” is dropped |
Thanks for explaining 1 across – obviously, I realized it was a homophone but couldn’t work out what the other word was. Throe isn’t a word you hear much now apart from the plural form of “in the throes of..”.
I was quite grateful for 14 because I couldn’t seem to get started at all until I saw that. Even then, it was a struggle to finish with adsum taking me ages (I was also convinced it must be Assam).
I also fell down slightly on 8 by putting assemble. Looking at the clue, I really think it could be either – with skill could point to able or ably and group could be a verb.
I’m the one that’s been moved to accommodate another’s special. But there is a hidden theme here – anagram one answer to get a name, and then look for titles!
Phi, I would love to look for the hidden theme (actually, I probably wouldn’t) but I gave up with only two-thirds done. Too many obscure words and too much tricky wordplay for this solver today.
Thanks to both.
It’s Tom Sharpe (anagram of metaphors @ 27).
Riotous Assembly, Indecent Exposure. Both are comic masterpieces. Can’t see any more, but that is probably just me.
Didn’t mean to be discourteous in my rush to out the theme first.
Thanks (again) Phi, and RatkojaRiku for the great blog.
Got it! Start from 27.
Sorry Conrad, you got there while I was still working it out.
That’s another scotch I owe you then. 🙂
Vintage Stuff
Thanks Phi and RR. I got most of the way through, but guessed wrongly between MU and NU for the Greek letter and cheated on ADSUM. One feature I always admire is the last-minute sidestep around crossword cliches – skill wasn’t ART, king wasn’t R, the opponents weren’t bridge players, and consumed wasn’t ATE.
Just a bit too hard for me I’m afraid. I also had ASSEMBLE for 8D, using group as a verb. A major error was putting SCREW in for 1A, assuming Phi didn’t know his tacks. More fool me.
Since I’ve never heard of Tom Sharpe, the theme passed several thousand feet over my head.
Thanks to both.
This one defeated me, I’m afraid. When I went out this evening, most of the left hand side was blank and when I got back it required a search to get 18ac, which at least allowed me to complete the bottom half. The top left I just couldn’t see.
Never read any Sharpe, so the theme escaped me, but I do remember the amazing exploding condom scene from the Channel 4 dramatisation of Porterhouse Blues.
9across: the thrill of googling RAUCO and finding it is a Chilean town partly made up for the fact that I got the answer wrong (and stuck with R_U_L_ for 2down).