Happy New Year everyone!
First day back at work today, so had to tackle the 100+ e-mails awaiting my return before I could turn my attention to the crossword.
A real mixed bag as far as I am conmcerned.
I really liked 9ac, 7dn and 28dn.
However, there were some clues that came across to me as demonstrating laziness by the setter, especially 23ac, 4dn, 5dn where LI was indicated by “number”, STELLA and STELLAR are too alike in meaning, and RI was indicated by “some rice”.
I also didn’t like “surf” as an anagrind in 11 ac.
Also, the EDDA (10ac) were written in Norse, but in Iceland, so “Scandinavian” is misleading.
| Across | ||
| 8 | WAGONS |
Working in footballers’ wives cars (6)
ON in WAGS |
| 9 | TOE TO TOE |
Three little piggies – one’s not English – in close proximity (3,2,3)
TOE TO(e) TOE
|
| 10 | EDDA |
Scandinavian myths collected by gifted Dane (4)
Hidden in “giftED DAne” As far as I know, although I am no scholar on the subject, the Edda were Icelandic sagas, rather than Scandinavian? |
| 11 | MULTIMEDIA |
Me, I’m adult; I can surf all the different channels (10)
*(me Im adult I) Not convinced by “can surf” as an anagrind. |
| 12 | STY |
Pen for hairdresser with no schedule (3)
STY(list) |
| 13 | ARMADA |
A jolly commercial set on a number of ships (6)
A + R.M. + AD + A “jolly” is a slang word for a Royal Marine |
| 14 | RAGS |
Take the tops of red and green strips of cloth (4)
“The tops of” Red And Green Strips |
| 16 | TILLING |
Bell sound welcomes the weak doing work on the farm (7)
T(ILL)ING |
| 18 | DISTORT |
Girl’s wrong to misrepresent (7)
DI’S + TORT |
| 21 | ECCE |
Behold! The city church (4)
EC + C.E. Ecce was the first word I learned in Latin class, many moons ago. |
| 23 | MUESLI |
Breakfast fare a number heard to consider first (6)
Homophone of MUSE +LI “Number” is too vague for my liking. |
| 25 | ONE |
Individual comes into money (3)
Hidden in “mONEy” |
| 27 | REVENGEFUL |
Bitter when jungle fever affected all but Jack (10)
*(ungle fever) |
| 29 | BARR |
“Dam’ right”, Roseanne (4)
BAR + R Referes to Roseanne Barr, American comedienne and actress. |
| 30 | NATIONAL |
It’s grand in Liverpool once a year, of course! (8)
Cryptic definition, referring to the Grand National, which is run in Aintree every April. |
| 31 | TREPAN |
Parent clumsily handled old medical tool (6)
*(parent) A trepan was a surgical instrument used to remove fragments of bone from the skull. |
| Down | ||
| 1 | BANDITTI |
Pirates prohibit song (the way it’s sung) (8)
BAN + homophone of DITTY |
| 2, 15 | ROYAL BLUE |
Tone adopted when Queen Victoria was depressed (5,4)
ROYAL + BLUE |
| 3 | ISOMER |
Radical few recruited by Inland Revenue (6)
SOME in I.R.
|
| 4 | STELLA + R |
Girl with recipe having star quality (7)
STELLA + R I may be being picky, but this smacks of lazy cluing, given that Stella means “star”. |
| 5 | TERIYAKI |
Tomato and egg starters, some rice and ox I make, Japanese style (8)
T(omato) E(gg) + RI(ce) + YAK + I Don’t like “some” as it’s too vague. |
| 6 | OOZE |
Sediment got with 80% of beer, say (4)
(b)OOZE |
| 7 | LOSING |
Behold! Carol is down (6)
LO + SING |
| 14 | RATE |
Consider standard class value (4)
Quadruple definition |
| 15 |
See 2
|
|
| 17 | NOMOGENY |
Money gone (almost), determining how life started, some say (8)
*(money gon) |
| 19 | RING ROAD |
Route taken by boxer to the bout? (4,4)
Cryptic defintion |
| 20 | DEWFALL |
Hitch up, then come down; it happens early in the morning (7)
<=WED + FALL |
| 22 | COEVAL |
Contemporary officer takes Ms Herzigova in (6)
EVA (Herzigova) in COL. Eva Herzigova is a Czech model and actress. |
| 24 | LOLITA |
Temptress has split loyalties, yes? No! (6)
*(loyalties – yes) |
| 26 | IBSEN |
Old writer playing in a doll’s house? (5)
Cryptic definition. The Doll’s House is a play be Ibsen. |
| 28 | ERIE |
Hears idea revealing alternate water source (4)
(h)E(a)R(s)I(d)E(a) Refers to Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes. |
Thanks loonapick. My reaction to this was pretty much the same as yours. In addition, the four definitions in 14d are all rather simliar.
I assumed Pabus was a new setter, but he/she has appeared once before, in September 2014.
Is not MONOGENY the word for how life started?
@2 It has to be NOMOGENY as it has to cross with TILLING and MUESLI.
NOMOGENY is defined in Chambers as “the origination of life according to natural law, not miracle” (ie the opposite of thaumatogeny).
Thanks Pabus and loonapick
No-one has yet mentioned the Nina: The unchecked letters down the sides of the grid spell WESTERN and EASTERN, appropriately placed. Less clear (to me, anyway) is the logic behind BRISTOL at the top and LEYLAND at the bottom.
@4 My oversight of Ninas is becoming legendary!
Bristol, Leyland and Eastern have something to do with buses, but I don’t know if that apples to Western.
Having looked at Pabus’s previous puzzle (see the first comment above), and the name PaBUS, I wonder if this is an infrequent nom de plume for another setter.
Well, I never expected to solve a bus-related crossword in a national daily. I have always
considered my abiding interest in the bus world to be a niche and “ANORAKy” pastime. But having
completed this puzzle, I am minded to set a puzzle of my own which would be far more extensively
bus related — watch this space FT solvers!!!
So what does Pabus’ puzzle offer?
TILLING was a transport holding company of which WESTERN NATIONAL and its ROYAL BLUE coaching subsidiary,
EASTERN NATIONAL and BRISTOL were constituent companies, operating in Devon, Suffolk and Essex, and Bristol respectively.
Many of the vehicles built for the Tilling companies were based on BRISTOL chassis.
The LEYLAND NATIONAL was principal single-deck bus built during the 1970s and 1980s after bus de-regulation, and so it
became the workhorse of the NATIONAL Bus Company.
And if your appetite is whetted for this theme, you can always hunt down a copy of my Malta Bus Handbook published in 2011
by British Bus Publishing!!!!
Tom Johnson
In 14a I thought that ‘strips’ was perhaps doing double duty ie also part of the definition (strips of cloth)
Thanks loonapick and welcome back Pabus.
Good in parts, iffy in parts.
I actually thought ERIE a bit odd. The construction was good but is it really a water SOURCE? The other upstream Great Lakes and rivers surely have more right to that epithet.
Enjoyed Busman’s contribution above – much of which was long forgotten to me.
Missed the Nina – so no change there!
Thanks Pabus and loonapick
From the Christmas break pile. This was only my second Pabus … and see that the other one also had a BUS theme !
There were some clunky clues … which I guess is par for the course with these one-off compilers (see similar clueing from the specialist Wimbledon setter). Anyway the grid managed to get filled without error – so that is at least job done from the setter and me.
Completely missed the theme, so thanks to TJ for spelling out in detail what had been so deftly woven into the solutions. Didn’t realise that folk got so passionate about buses – great work, guys!
Didn’t have issues with the four definitions of RATE – they were all there in different context.
Finished with the three down clues in the central bottom – NOMOGENY (which was a new term for me), LOLITA (with an original approach which was good to see) and DEWFALL (which was clever and for some reason took quite a while to spot).