Lohengrin made his debut in the Indy/Sindy only a few months ago. It has taken me a while to get used to his style, but I thought that this was generally a well-constructed crossword. Just one or two niggles, but that’s probably just me. As the advice for newer setters goes: you can’t please all of the people all of the time.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) missing
definitions are underlined
Across
1 City area blue collars won’t fancy
DOWNTOWN
A charade of DOWN for ‘blue’ and (WONT)* I’d normally look for ‘collars’ to be an insertion indicator, but I suppose that in the sense of ‘gets hold of’ it works here.
5 Rise when about to finish
ASCEND
A charade of AS, C for circa or ‘about’ and END.
10 Payment to return fan mail regularly creating paperwork?
ORIGAMI
A reversal of GIRO followed by AMI for the regular letters of fAnMaIl. The clue is fine, but do GIROS even exist any more?
11 Kind of glass work in beer barrels
OPALINE
A charade of OP and IN in ALE.
12 Quits function abruptly before end of speeches
EVENS
EVEN[T] plus S. Are we quits/evens?
13 Sees end in desperate poverty
NEEDINESS
(SEES END IN)*
14 Working out corporation structure
BODYBUILDING
A charade of BODY and BUILDING.
18 Attraction experienced by fair-headed romantics?
TUNNEL OF LOVE
This was my last one in, since I’d ballsed up 3dn. It’s a clever cd, though, and I like it. A TUNNEL OF LOVE is an attraction found at the fair. Geddit?
21 Course that circuits a pit, namely around carts
ANTIPASTI
Hidden reversed in circuITS A PIT NAmely, but the clue appears to be faulty, because ANTIPASTI is plural, so we’d need ‘courses’ in the surface, or ANTIPASTO as the answer. The setter used this in his October puzzle:
Not keen on tagliatelle? Ultimately, there’s nothing for a starter
ANTIPASTO
I suppose that ‘first course’ could be ‘starters’, but I still don’t like it much.
23 Put on account to evade draconian tips
ACTED
A charade of AC and TED for the first letters (‘tips’) of the fourth, fifth and sixth words in the clue.
24 Musical effect tool designed around band
TREMOLO
An insertion of the group REM in (TOOL)* Hank Marvin, for those of you old enough.
25 Have sleeping partner perhaps in company practice?
COHABIT
A charade of CO and HABIT. The ‘perhaps’ is there, I hope, because you can COHABIT without doing the sleeping together bit, although that’s its generally accepted meaning.
26 Character ending play getting prompt on a regular basis
YEARLY
A charade of Y and EARLY.
Down
1 Ruined party rally from the south
DOOMED
A charade of DO for ‘party’ and DEMO reversed. ‘From the south’ works because it’s a down clue.
2 What’s left with scrambled eggs missing yolk?
WHITES
No, the answer’s not MERINGUE, because it doesn’t fit. It’s a charade of (WITH)* and E[GG]S and is a clever &lit.
3 Change trains avoiding current model
TRANSPOSE
This caused me to spend much longer on this puzzle than I should have done. I put in TRANSFORM (which works: ‘model’ and FORM are synonyms in my Thesaurus). But then of course TUNNEL OF LOVE became unsolvable and held me up completely in the SW corner. Whatevs, it’s TRA[I]NS plus POSE. ‘I’ is the symbol for electrical current.
4 Concert shone without New York diva
WHITNEY HOUSTON
(SHONE WITHOUT NY)* with ‘concert’ in its ‘arrange’ sense as the anagrind. For those of you who (like me) aren’t that familiar with the American songstress, she had a bit of previous for being a prima donna. As well as for drug abuse. But she had a great voice, so nil nisi bonum and all that.
6 A mystic originally found in south west India?
SWAMI
An insertion of A and M for the first letter of ‘mystic’ in SW I, and another &lit clue.
7 Medic sacked following record international outbreak
EPIDEMIC
A charade of EP for the long-extinct ‘record’, I and (MEDIC)*
8 Groom on time in equestrian event
DRESSAGE
A charade of DRESS and AGE for the event that posh folk with double-barreled surnames do for sport.
9 Order in church group covering comprehensive take on former state
COME FULL CIRCLE
Bit of a meaningless surface, but it’s OM for ‘order of merit’ in CE followed by CIRCLE for ‘group’ with FULL for ‘comprehensive’ inserted.
15 Huge sale via thankful stores
LEVIATHAN
Hidden in saLE VIA THANkful.
16 Rich way for women to be cunning
STEALTHY
The setter is asking you to think of WEALTHY for ‘rich’ and then replace the W with ST for street or ‘way’.
17 Curse of drivers inhaling endless methane supply
ANATHEMA
An insertion of (METHAN[E])* in AA for ‘drivers’ with ‘supply’ as the anagrind.
19 Firm beginning to trade fur coats
STABLE
An insertion of T in SABLE.
20 English right infiltrated by the same heartless journalist
EDITOR
An insertion of DI[T]TO in ER.
22 Press release flyer offering cruise
PROWL
A charade of PR and OWL for ‘flyer’. PR for me is Public Relations; but Lohengrin’s version will be in a dictionary somewhere, no doubt.
Thanks to him for the start to the Indy week.
I’m old enough to know Hank Marvin was not in REM- the classic purveyor of tremolo would have to be Mr Duane Eddy.
I wasn’t suggesting that Mr Marvin was in REM, copmus … but if you want to nominate Duane Eddy as tremelo king, then I shan’t argue with you.
Pierre, you’re right of course (no pun intended) about the clue to 21ac. It was one of my last in and I saw that ANTPASTI was the only word that would fit so didn’t think about the parsing. I think we have to live with ‘course’ (singular), though, otherwise ‘circuits’ would have to be ‘circuit’. We’re perhaps into menu-speak here, where you have starters, mains, sides etc but you only get one of each.
Otherwise, all quite straightforward, though some answers took a bit of teasing out.
Thanks, Lohengrin and Pierre.
Pierre@2- I know you werent suggesting that- but Hank normally used a tape-echo contraption with his Strat- and used the whammy bar a fair bit.(Peter Buck is/was a far better guitarist) but Hank was of that time.) Duane used a large Gretsch (maybe a Country gentleman) and the tremolo was probably an effect built into his amp ,modulating the volume.The modern exponent (although he is no youngster) is T Bone Burnett.
Nice blog- agree about antipasto/antipasti.
I wondered about ‘collars’ in 1ac as well. I suppose it could be DOW(town*)N
DOW(wont*)N even
And for the record 27 across is …. Reindeer – rein = check plus reed over
Of course that’s what 1ac is, Paul A. Thank you. And thanks to Rob for 27ac. Another bit of cut and paste gone missing.
Thanks Lohengrin and Pierre
I’ve just checked the menu of an Italian restaurant I’m going to at the weekend, and the first course is labelled, with the English translation in brackets on the menu, ANTIPASTI (starters). The following courses are labelled ZUPPE (soups), PASTE (pastas), followed by PESCE (fish, which can be its own plural, of course) and CARNI (meats). So the Italian usage would seem to be that the course names are plural, from which you choose a singular dish. So Lohengrin’s clue/solution combination seems fair to me.
Re ANTIPASTI, I went the other way with ANTIPASTO and defined it as ‘dishes’ in one puzzle. I got away with it as in the singular it is ‘a course of hors d’oeuvres in an Italian meal’ according to Collins, and thus, I suppose, a dish composed of dishes. Anyway, Collins doesn’t have ANTIPASTI, preferring ANTIPASTOS for some reason, whilst Chambers is more generous.
A very nice puzzle today from Lohengrin, I thought.
Steady on, Paul B – we’ll be going into Subway and ordering two PANINIS next. Let’s not get into a big debate about Italian plurals in English: you are right, it was a good puzzle from our Wagnerian setter today.
Oh, I know, I know.
Thanks for your nice blog too, Pierre.
Thank you for all the comments. I think most parsing issues are sorted now: 1ac, I knew it worked both ways but was intending the container reading that Paul A pointed out.
Sorry about 3d: I didn’t spot the alt and it’s valid of course as per Pierre’s blog. Doh! I had a different synonym for POSE originally, but am not sure it would have fixed it.
Re: ANTIPASTI – for me, you have the antipasti course and eat an antipasto but I agree with Pierre – there’s too much he said she said whataboutery 🙂
(though I was surprised not to find in in the usual books when looking before writing this).
All said, thanks for the blog, the critique and the compliments. Hasta pronto.
I wouldn’t run away from it. It is interesting to me to discuss whether the correct form has been used. For me the course is ANTIPASTO, which is made up of small dishes.
@bill_taylor but, would we not say: for out first -course- we had x y and x? I do agree there’s ambiguity, but I think the clue is fair. :/
Hi Lohengrin
Nice puzzle.
You’ve put me right on the spot now, so I’d better get clear what I think! I wish I could afford to hang around in restaurants more, that’s for sure. So, you’ll realise I am no expert on the terminology the foodies use, especially re your argument above, but I will stick my neck out and say that antipasti, or antipastos, for Paul B and Collins, means ‘more than one dish made up of smaller dishes’. You’re saying ‘for the first course, we had more than one antipasto’ I think. I see that idea, but I’m unsure.
Exactly that, Bill – it was the course we had. As mentioned, I am sketchy about it now.
at the risk of prolonging…
bill_taylor @ 16: ‘for the first course, we had more than one antipasto’ is absolutely right, unless you both/all had the same dish
😉