Another excellent puzzle from Nutmeg, which started seeming a bit impenetrable, but yielded steadily and satisfyingly. Thanks to this gem of a setter.
| Across | ||||||||
| 1. | THROUGH TRAFFIC | Finished dealing? It won’t stop here (7,7) THROUGH (finished) + TRAFFIC (dealing) |
||||||
| 8. | KUDOS | Acclaim withdrawal of anti-Brit sentiment? (5) Reverse of SOD UK |
||||||
| 9. | GOD’S GIFT | He thinks he’s Romeo, present on balcony (4,4) GODS (upper balcony in a theatre) + GIFT (present) |
||||||
| 11. | NEOLITH | Tip of tool piercing irregular hole in ancient artefact (7) T[OOL] in (HOLE IN)* |
||||||
| 12. | CHEERIO | See you dispose of last two bits of Stilton, say, with port (7) CHEE[SE] + RIO |
||||||
| 13. | TWILL | Farmer’s work clothes with durable fabric (5) W[ith] in TILL |
||||||
| 15. | TREPANNED | Salesman wearing brown is bored in theatre (9) REP in TANNED |
||||||
| 17. | TREADMILL | On change of trade, factory offers tedious work (9) TRADE* + MILL (factory) |
||||||
| 20. | SHEAR | Female artist’s backing cut (5) SHE + reverse of RA |
||||||
| 21. | SCALLOP | Seafood concession cut by demand (7) CALL in SOP |
||||||
| 23. | WINDBAG | He goes on to land after turning (7) WIND (turning) + BAG (to land, e.g. a fish) |
||||||
| 25. | VIRTUOSI | Sporting tours hosted by seven star players (8) TOURS* in VII |
||||||
| 26. | SALVE | Local’s first in to deliver soothing treatment (5) L[ocal] in SAVE |
||||||
| 27. | GEORGE GERSHWIN | Best of United’s wingers running round Hearts scorer? (6,8) GEORGE (George Best played for Manchester United) + H in WINGERS* |
||||||
| Down | ||||||||
| 1. | TAKING TO TASK | Carpeting and doing well at the job (6,2,4) Double definition |
||||||
| 2. | RODEO | Cattle round-up was carried over (5) RODE (was carried) + O[ver] |
||||||
| 3. | UNSKILLED | Little cakes topped and iced with no training necessary (9) [B]UNS + KILLED (ice, in gangster slang) |
||||||
| 4. | HIGH HAT | Snobbish type going off before Derby, perhaps (4,3) HIGH (going off, like old food) + HAT (a derby is a type of hat); I didn’t know this expression: it means a top hat, and by extension the sort of person who wears one |
||||||
| 5. | RADICLE | Root‘s declaring, with last pair going berserk (7) Anagram of DECLARI[NG] |
||||||
| 6. | FUGUE | Ultimately, if you sing, you make intricate music (5) Last letters of iF yoU sinG yoU makE |
||||||
| 7. | INFERENCE | What’s gathered within barrier engineers brought in (9) RE in IN FENCE |
||||||
| 10. | GOLDERS GREEN | “Goners’ ledger” prepared here in London? (7,5) (GONERS LEDGER)* |
||||||
| 14. | ITERATIVE | Like 10 and 27, not all recurring (9) ALLITERATIVE, as 10d and 27a are, less ALL. The other long answers – 1a and 1d – are also alliterative (1a only by spelling, not pronunciation) so I’m surprised they weren’t included in the clue |
||||||
| 16. | ARSONISTS | Those deserving a lighter sentence? (9) Cryptic definition, arsonists being “lighters” of fires. |
||||||
| 18. | IMPLODE | Cave in Spain, base for one male tramp (7) I + M + PLOD + E (Spain) |
||||||
| 19. | LOW LIFE | Devious fellow circumventing island’s criminals (3,4) I in FELLOW* |
||||||
| 22. | LATER | Future change required, with rise of pound (5) ALTER with the L (£) moved |
||||||
| 24. | BELOW | Subordinate to roar half-heartedly (5) BEL[L]OW |
||||||
As usual with Nutmeg some lovely surfaces in a puzzle with just the right level of difficulty (for me at least!). Particularly enjoyed 27ac & 10d with their links to 7d.
Thank you Nutmeg & Andrew.
Every answer that can be alliterative is, not just the long ones.
Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew (need you to parse 21 – I got hung up on “lop” = “cut”).
Loved this from start to finish, but is 27 really alliterative?
Alliteration denotes a repeated consonant sound, usually word-initial. 1ac and 27 are, therefore, not alliterative. ‘True traffic’ and ‘Gorge (sic) Gershwin’ would be though!
Thanks for the blog, Andrew, and Nutmeg for another super puzzle.
Elegant, witty cluing, with lots of variety and, as JuneG says, lovely surfaces throughout. Charades are not my favourite type of clue but Nutmeg’s definitions / wordplay / surfaces make those such as 1ac, 9ac and 4dn so much more interesting than they often are.
I have ticks all over the place, with two for 27ac. Highly commended: 8, 12, 15, 25ac and 5 and 10dn [&lit?].
Thanks Andrew and Nutmeg.
Mostly very good stuff here. But Epeolater @4 is absolutely correct on alliteration – it only works on pronunciation not spelling.
‘
Also, can anyone explain what “goners ledger” means in 10dn? It had me thinking of Gooners (Arsenal adherents – now there’s alliteration, or is it assonance?) – but it can’t be that.
@6 Golders Green is known for its large Jewish cemetery, and also a crematorium, so both establishments would have a list of the dead or a ledger of the goners, maybe.
Very enjoyable… Stalled on my last at 27 having put iterating:-( Liked 8:-)
Thank you, Andrew.
An excellent puzzle and most enjoyable. I think the 4 long answers were supposed to be alliterative, but I don’t think ‘George’ & ‘Gershwin’ are, nor T’through’ and ‘traffic’.
This is no way detracts from and excellent puzzle however.
Many thanks, Nutmeg.
Epeolater @4 Many apologies – I started my post over an hour ago and got distracted by the postman! Your point is mine exactly.
cholecyst @6 I can only assume it refers to a record or list of the departed, as one might have in any cemetery.
Sorry, forgot to say I thought The GEORGE GERSHWIN clue was one of the best I’ve come across.
Lovely puzzle as always from Nutmeg. I was nicely misled by ‘Cave in Spain’, and couldn’t get IMPLODE. Besdies the long anagrams, favourites were TREPANNED (rather unfashionable nowadays), ITERATIVE, UNSKILLED and KUDOS. Many thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew.
This was a masterclass in setting
Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew.
A great puzzle, GOLDERS GREEN real black humour!
The alliterations (and pseudo-alliterations) gave this puzzle extra spice, but most of all I simply liked everything about the clues today, and I echo what Eileen (@5) and others also say about this.
I spotted that all four long answers were of a kind, not just the two that were indicated, but I had to read Muffyword @2 to see that the three short phrases were also alliterative. Very clever.
Thanks Andrew for the blog – I didn’t fully understand 21A (SCALLOP), 5D (RADICLE) or 22D (LATER) until I read it.
I wouldn’t use ‘running’ as an anagrind (see 27A), although I have found that almost anything can indicate an angram these days! In this case I got the answer easily enough by making that obvious assumption.
Thanks to Nutmeg for such an enjoyable and well-crafted puzzle.
Alan Brown @16, I thought ‘running’ rather a good anagrind, I imagined all the letters in WINGERS setting off and arriving in a different order at the finishing line.
Quite tough (at least for me) but very satisfying. The non-alliterative 27a is mildly irritating, and should WIND be clued as “turn” rather than “turning”, but those are not enough to detract seriously from a splendid puzzle. Favourites include KUDOS, VIRTUOSI and UNSKILLED.
Thanks, Nutmeg and Andrew.
Cookie @17
It takes imagination sometimes to see how some of the huge number of words and phrases used as anagram indicators used by Gusrdian setters can work in that way. I only saw ‘running’ = ‘going’ or ‘going fast’ and didn’t advance to the mental picture that you came up with.
Some time ago it was Eileen who came up with a suitable mental picture in support of a different anagrind that I questioned (I can’t remember what it was). Today it is you. So thank you.
Oops. Gusrdian should read Grauniad, or whatever (@19). Also, delete the word ‘used’ just before that word. It’s not my day, is it?
Nutmeg has become a top class setter, and this was one of her best. Last in was the less than familiar RADICLE, after TREPANNED. Liked WINDBAG, GEORGE GERSHWIN, UNSKILLED and LOW LIFE, could easily have listed many more
Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew
I’d nearly gone through all the across clues before getting a start with VIRTUOSI, but slowly things started to work out – though for some time I had a tentative LAYING IT DOWN at 1d, which alas made some sort of plausible sense (no idea about the ‘alliteration’ at the time of course). Thankfully ITERATIVE, when entered (after 27a but before 10d!), made 13a an unlikely IWI** or I*IW* so it was worth starting again with that one. KUDOS top of my list but there were plenty to admire.
Thanks to Brian-with-an-eye and William for answering my query on “goners”. I never knew about the cemetery and crem at GG. thought it rang a bell but then realised I was thinking of the conclusion to the Chesterton poem “The Rolling English Road” – “For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen; Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.”
If we’re talking poetry, there’s also the famous “rose-red city half as Golders Green”.
Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew. Wonderful stuff. First in was 10d which, until I came here, I thought was a terrible surface and a blot on an otherwise brilliant puzzle. Very happy to be disabused. Strange about other alliterative answers not being signalled. J’accuse the editor.
Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew. I too had a slow start but then much enjoyed the process that followed. I needed help parsing RADICLE (my last in), but HIGH HAT as a verb was familiar to me (though I can’t pin down from where).
Very happy with this. Stared at it for 30 minutes thinking this is cannot be solved ever, but once I got one in, I somehow suddenly was able to gain an insight, and kept putting things in. Highly satisfying, because I did not actually cheat once – I did check things after deriving the answer though. I did not know GODS meant balcony seats, but that was clearly the answer, so I confirmed it by looking it up. Took me 2 hours in all. Thanks Nutmeg. I am particularly pleased with getting GEORGE GERSHWIN and IMPLODE.
Not much to add. I found this difficult to start but, as it yielded, I realised how good it was. Most enjoyable.
Thanks Nutmeg.
I didn’t find this as easy as some of you did. HIGH HAT for me means a type of cymbal rather than a snob. Surely 1d is alliterative and 10 is not, which may have already been said.
Andrew @24: I was puzzled by this, but found the following via Messrs Google:
“Broadbosomed, bold, becalm’d, benign
Lies Balham foursquare on the Northern Line.
Matched by no marvel save in Eastern scene,
A rose-red city half as gold as green.”
from Frank Muir and Denis Norden’s “Balham – Gateway to the South” which I believe was voiced by Peter Sellers.
(Sorry to digress. I’ll get out more.)
Thank you cholecyst for quoting the Chesterton poem, which is a current favourite. Didn’t someone cruelly sponsor Jonathan Ross to read it for a TV charity?
Thanks tyke: I didn’t know, or had forgotten, that the line came from “Bal-ham” sketch. For those who don’t know what we’re on about, see here and here.
@tyke 29
I think the cymbal thingie is spelled “hi-hat” rather than HIGH HAT.
I only popped in to offer another vote of thanks to Nutmeg for a top puzzle, and to Andrew for the blog
Thanks all
I have enjoyed her puzzles but have often failed to complete them.This time I was successful and still very satisfied.
I particularly liked 14 and 19 down. Last in was radicle because from very early I had tried radical without being able to parse it!
Thanks Andrew and Nutmeg.
I usually start Nutmeg with trepidation and later wonder why.
I initially had “some hero” (*he’s Romeo) for 9a, not knowing balcony = Gods, even though “fugue” was staring at me. Liked 3d and 16d.
A fine crossword from Nutmeg. Possibly her best to date!
Thanks Andrew to and Nutmeg
Thanks to Nutmeg for an enjoyable, not just a solvable, puzzle. I got 14D from 10D and 27A and having solved the crossing clues wasn’t misled if “alliterative” was wrongly used. Interested when Muffy pointed out the other alliterations. If they’re not clued I’m likely to miss them as I did the recent pangram. Another reference, by William Plomer, to Flecker’s “rose-red city” begins “Aloft in Heavenly Mansions, Double-you One/Just Mayfair flats but certainly sublime/ You’ll find the abode of D’Arcy Honeybun,/ A rose-red sissy, half as old as time”. I hope you’ll find the rest is worth Googling.
I liked the alliterative theme and didn’t appreciate the fine detail of the definition, so was happy with 14, while being a bit surprised it didn’t say something like “Like some here, not all recurring” rather than specifying the numbers. My favourite was the anti-Brit sentiment one. Nicely done!
Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew.
jennyk@18
I read it as WIND = TURNING as nouns.
phitonelly @36
Thanks, but I haven’t found any dictionary site which has them as equivalent nouns, and I still can’t think of a normal sentence in which one could substitute one for the other. I’m sure it is just a failure of my imagination, but does anyone have any suggestions?
@ jennyk
How about a wind/turning in a river?
phitonelly @38
I wouldn’t use either term to describe a bend in a river myself, but I have finally found a site which has that definition. The problem searching is that “wind” defined as a noun is usually in the sense of air movement, not the “bend” sense. As I’ve also now found a definition of “turning” as a “turn”, I’ll concede that the clue is fine. My apologies for the side-track … or bend … or turning …
jennyk @39
That first definition was for “wind”, of course.
A staircase can have a wind (pronounced ‘wined’) in it in the same way that a staircase can have a turn in it.
Just as an asid, the SOED has two defineitions for “alliteration”. One a general and one poetic. The general def seems to allow same letter!
1 gen. The commencement of adjacent or closely connected words with the same sound or letter; an instance of this. e17.
2 As a principle of versification: in Old and Middle English and other Germanic poetry, the commencement of certain accented syllables of a verse with the same consonant or consonantal group, or with any vowel sounds; in some Celtic poetry also, commencement with consonants related by mutation. l18.
Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew
Very enjoyable puzzle that took about an hour across three short sessions when free time allowed. Her surface readings are very impressive – none better than the superb GEORGE GERSHWIN clue. She is certainly establishing herself as a consistently high standard and fun-to-do setter in the Guardian stable.
Didn’t spot all of the other alliterations throughout which were very good.
Finished in the NE corner with TREPANNED, the clever CHEERIO and the previously unknown RADICLE as the last few in.
Like everyone else it seems, I absolutely loved this.
Thanks Nutmeg & Andrew
Thanks Andrew and Nutmeg.
RADICLE was a new one for me too but clearly derivable.
A good quality puzzle from start to finish.
Put me down as another fan of this puzzle. I didn’t know required meanings of GODS or HIGH, so thanks to Andrew for the help. I also didn’t understand what “theatre” was doing in 15a, but now I get it.
Thanks, Nutmeg!