In the light of this morning’s news I’m definitely not in a mood to enjoy crosswords, but trying to look at this one objectively I can see lots of ingenious clueing, including a few “lift and separate”s, which are becoming something of a trademark of this setter. A couple of nitpicks noted against individual clues, but nothing serious. Thanks to Philistine.
| Across | ||||||||
| 7. | INDIRECT | Rein charge that’s getting circuitous (8) “RE in” INDICT (charge) |
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| 9. | EMIGRE | Product of an evil regime? (6) REGIME* &lit |
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| 10,24. | DESK LAMP | Elks frolicking in humid light (4,4) ELKS* in DAMP |
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| 11. | PUBLISHING | Local peaceful end is nigh, perhaps, as a perishing alternative (10) PUB (local) + [peacefu]L + (IS NIGH)* – a reference to the academic’s saying “publish or perish” |
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| 12. | ADONIS | He would have said no need for plastic surgery (6) (SAID NO)* &lit |
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| 14. | NOTABLES | Celebrities may be the reason for TV dinners (8) If you have NO TABLES you might have to eat your dinner in front of the telly |
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| 15. | DEBATE | Young lady put away discussion (6) DEB (for debutante, I think, rather than as just a diminutive of Deborah) + ATE (put away) |
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| 17. | CYCLIC | County council Islamic extremists following a regular pattern (6) CY + CL + I[slami]C |
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| 20. | EPILEPSY | Fits a little over three in sleepy disposition (8) PI (3.14…) in SLEEPY* |
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| 22. | ONE-WAY | Some streets are just the ticket for 9 (3-3) Double definition – an emigré would presumably buy a one-way ticket |
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| 23. | STORMPROOF | Rooftops Mr Turner built to withstand the elements (10) (ROOFTOPS MR)* |
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| 25. | NOZZLE | Ignore puzzles set centrally as a dispenser of 21 (6) “Central” letters of igNOre puZZLes sEt – a slightly vague indication: why take three letters from “puzzles”? |
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| 26. | DECADENT | Immoral and indecent commercial (8) AD “in DECENT” |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1,21. | UNLEADED PETROL | Forecourt offering a French guide to Porte de l’Evolution (8,6) UN (French “a”) + LEAD (guide) + (PORTE DE L)* |
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| 2,24. | PINK LADY | Fruit cocktail (4,4) Double definition – a variety of apple (officially called “Cripps Pink”, I learn) and a cocktail based on gin and coloured with grenadine |
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| 3. | HERPES | Some other pestilence (6) Hidden in otHER PEStilence &lit |
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| 4,22. | REGISTRY OFFICE | Unions here have another go at capturing soldiers position (8,6) GIS in RETRY + OFFICE (job, position). I know I’m fighting a losing battle here, but the correct term is Register Office |
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| 5. | DISHABILLE | Attractive person on a poster, primarily exposed in a state of undress (10) DISH + A BILL + E[xposed] – the French form with “dés-” is perhaps more common, but this seems to be a valid anglicisation |
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| 6,18. | PRINCE CHARMING | Frog once found pincer movement by crab’s head pernicious (6,8) PINCER C[rab] + HARMING. To be picky again, I don’t think the frog that turns into a prince when kissed is actually Prince Charming (as in stories such as Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty) |
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| 8. | TUBING | Draw round receptacle for pipes (6) BIN in TUG |
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| 13. | NOBEL PRIZE | Rubbish pile with bronze award (5,5) (PILE BRONZE)* |
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| 16. | TOP SPEED | Fastest at which rise of the Mariana Trench? (3,5) Reverse of DEEP SPOT |
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| 19. | BYWORD | Broadway not as bad as the proverbial (6) BROADWAY* less its “A”s(“not as”) |
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Thanks Philistine and Andrew
Very quick for a Philistine. I had doubts about Prince Charming as a frog too, but apparently he was in the Disney film. I too said “REGISTER OFFICE” in my head!
ADONIS was my favourite.
Not Disney, apparently:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Charming_(2001_film)
25: the centre of a 7-letter word must be either 1 or 3 (or 5, I suppose) letters.
Yes, I meant to say that – he has taken the “central” letters from igNOre puZZLes sEt. (I did try NOZE?? initially!)
Thanks Andrew and Philistine.
I could not parse the ‘publish or perish’ reference in 11a, nor 16d, nor the PI in 20a.
My favourites were DECADENT & BYWORD.
NB. I sympathise with Andrew about this morning’s bad news – however, it is a good time for foreigners to buy pound sterling as the GBP plummeted so drastically today.
I’m with Andrew, both in being appalled by the referendum outcome and by the weak-kneed acceptance of ‘Registry Office’. Although the latter is of very little importance compared with the former, and I acknowledge that language evolves through usage, it disappoints me that a perfectly good term is virtually displaced by one popularised through ignorant misuse. I would wish that the Guardian would take a stand.
Nice puzzle – favourites were BYWORD, EPILEPSY (having tried to shoehorn in APPLEPIE as a clever definition of a sleepy disposition!) and DECADENT. Many thanks to Philistine and Andrew. PS Also appalled by referendum result.
I don’t feel 12A quite works as an &lit. The “he would have” bit seems redundant as regards the wordplay reading of the clue. I thought 19D was clever though.
Thanks Philistine & Andrew.
Registry Office is in both Collins and the BRB, and of course in common usage, so I think the battle is lost.
Good puzzle, I particularly enjoyed the clue for EPILEPSY.
Thanks, Andrew.
Missed Register vs Registry but think you’re quite right.
Failed to parse the plural A’s in the BYWORD clue.
Muffin @4 That’s how I took it but isn’t set also the anagrind?
Nice puzzle on the whole, with some clever constructions although I think his desire for the ‘lift & separate’ ruse lead to some slightly strained surfaces.
Nice weekend all, and au revoir à l’Europe. Oh my!
Hi William
No anagram needed – the letters are in the correct order.
Thanks, Andrew.
I would usually envy you, blogging a Philistine puzzle but not today. Even Philistine could not lift the deep despondency – but that isn’t his fault. Thanks, as ever, to him.
It sounds as though Fifteensquared/Guardian should apply to remain in the EU!
Thanks for the blog Andrew. Whilst I might not have any nits to pick – though I did raise a slight eyebrow at REGISTRY OFFICE knowing the debate it would cause – I completely share your sentiments. Thanks to Philistine.
[My daughter informed me last night that she had seen remain/leave voter ratios in all sorts of different categories. By far the highest remain proportion was of Guardian readers!]
My heart wasn’t in it today so left most of it unsolved. A sad sad day for Britain. What have the Brexiters done to our children and grandchildren?
Having shaken off some of my anger this morning,I enjoyed this a lot…tripping over playtex a bit. Having always, 60+years known it as a Registry Office, I now know better…but will stay with it as usage has changed:-)
Thanks Philistine and Andrew. Solved quite quickly despite my state of shock and disbelief (plus lack of sleep). Particularly liked 25ac – I wonder if Mr Turner has been used in this way before.
Concerning the Register/Registry Office debate:
According to an online list of Register Offices in England and Wales, out of 209 Counties/Districts there is no Register Office that calls itself a Registry Office. 21 of them avoid the spelling challenge by calling themselves Registration Services, Certificates Office or the like.
Comically, the St Helens Register Office has an email address beginning ‘registryoffice@’.
‘Registry Office’ also occurred in a crossword a few months ago (from memory). At that time, there was only one instance of ‘Registry Office’ in existence, and although I’ve forgotten which one that was I have a feeling it might have been St Helens.
Collins is superior to Chambers in its treatment of the two terms, giving Register Office (Brit.) as the real thing and Registry Office (Brit.) as an alternative. Chambers (11th Edition) says under Register Office ‘the less common but strictly correct term for a registry office’. What one can say in support of the BRB, though, is its implicit recognition that people often use the term that you never actually see when you get there!
You are right, Andrew, and it’s a pity that the setter used the inferior form, although the neatness of the wordplay for that phrase would have been hard to replicate.
Enjoyed this despite feeling thoroughly miserable after hearing the result. Thank you very much to Philistine for lifting my spirits a little bit. Favourites clues today were 20ac & 3d.
Thanks too to Andrew for the blog.
I’m with you Andrew – on such a sombre day it is hard to enjoy a mere crossword, but on another day I’m sure I would have loved this. I feel a bit sorry for Philistine drawing such a short straw.
Thanks to Andrew and Philistine
Hoorah for Philistine’s use of the French language! Regarding evolution, by the way, both Nigel Farage and Charles Darwin have lived in the village of Downe, near Bromley, and one of them is a credit to the human race. Moving on quickly before I fall foul of the moderator…
Enjoyed this as much as possible in the circumstances. I like winkling out lift-and-separate which clearly helps – ‘rein charge’ particularly clever. Philistine is good at the defs too, with ‘reason for TV dinners’ and ‘perishing alternative’ particularly notable. But surely there is a missing apostrophe in soldiers at clue 4,22?
Got to cheer up somehow. Leaving the EU may well make a significant difference to our lives in the sun. Nice puzzle but can’t quite parse 7a.
Whoops. Just spotted it. “Re” inside charge. Silly me.
Alan Browne, thank you for your post, most informative.
Thanks to Philistine and Andrew. I have no investment in the Register/Registry debate though I did have close to 50 years in a “publish or perish” environment. I took a while before seeing PINK LADY as an apple and needed help parsing BYWORD (my last in) because I missed the function of the “as,” but I did get through fairly quickly. A very enjoyable puzzle.
I wonder how I’ll enjoy living in Farageland? Not very much, I suspect (my keyboard turned my coinage into Fatherland- serendipitous or what?) Anyway, back to the plot-I always say REGISTRY rather than REGISTER so I can’t say I had a problem with 4/22.I didn’t have a problem with PRINCE CHARMING either although I understand the objections. Indeed, I thought this rather a good puzzle which took my mind off our impending doom.
Thanks Philistine.
Thanks to all, and it is indeed a sad day (here, too). The only two silver linings: (1) Britain has (temporarily, I fear) wrested the “crazy politics” world-championship title from the USA; and (2) for at least a few months until the markets readjust, it might actually be more affordable to go to Britain! We may have to go…I was last over there in ’08.
Anyway, as for the crossword, I did find this more straightforward than the usual Philistine. Lots of cleverness. I failed to parse ADONIS and PINK LADY correctly, in both cases chalking them up to being (rather lame) cryptic definitions. (I hadn’t heard of the variety of apple. A pink lady is indeed a fruity cocktail, and “fruit cocktail,” at least over here, implies mixed chunks of assorted fruits and berries, usually in a sweet syrup. (Same thing over there?) Anyway, that makes it just barely plausible as a CD.)
Also missed on “indirect,” on which I cheated.
“Forecourt” is a Britishism, I’m pretty sure. Petrol is too, but that one’s familiar enough that it caused me no problems.
My mood must be finally improving. I really enjoyed this puzzle. I’m just glad I had the foresight to look up forecourt (semi-pun semi-intentional).
Thanks to muffin and Simon S for their help with MIKE yesterday. What you were telling me FINALLY clicked!
I haven’t relocated yet, muffin! I’m far too ornery. If I move anywhere, it will be to Orlando, just to be contrary and defiant. But I am planning my first trip to England later this year! Can’t wait!
Hi BleuDot
I might be mistaken, but I thought that you used to be BlueDot!
btw I’m not mentioning the other thing. I’m hoping to wake up to find “it was all a dream” (or has that been overdone?)
Hi muffin @30 – totally off topic but no apologies this time – it’s too important.
No hope, I’m afraid – but I share your feelings: I’m still in a daze of disbelief.
As I said @12, I’m grateful that I wasn’t called upon to blog today – and that my blog of last Saturday’s puzzle was already posted. I didn’t have much heart for crosswords today – and that doesn’t happen often. There are some crumbs of comfort in finding that I’m not alone – as I should have expected. Thanks, everybody.
I prefer
Beautiful young man said no to fuck (6)
which has richer imagery. ‘Buggery’ also works, of course.
… and he doesn’t know what he’s missing in either case, IMHO.
Like it, Paul B
Eileen, my wife is just signing a petition to challenge the result, based on an EU regulation – but I think someone has just made it up, unfortunately.
Thanks, all. Sense of solidarity here was just about all that lifted my spirits today. Oh, and the crossword – I weakly put in Byroad for 19d. Excellent clue, crossword and blog.
plotinus @ 35
I tried BYROAD too, and only rejected it after “checking”. I think it’s nearly as good.
I found this rather easier than the usual Philistine but still quite enjoyable.
Not really worth a comment but I had to react to the couple of pieces of nonsense posted above.
Firstly “registry office” has entered the language. It’s in the SOED for ******* sake! That’s the way language works, it evolves.
Also I wouldn’t be too worried about the referendum result as for every 481 of you who are depressed there are 519 people who are delighted.
Obviously some of you are lucky enough not be shat on from above every day with little hope of the same thing not happening the next day. Never mind at least you appear to be as blinkered as the fools that tried to frighten people away from this chance.
For a large proportion of our society whatever happens now can’t be any worse than before. How dare they disturb your comfortable pseudo ideology!
Vive la revolution. Hoffentlich tot ist das viertes Reich. 😉
Paul B you are incorrigible, but funny 😀
BNTO @37
What an extraordinary contribution. What planet areo you on?
Oh dear. Very sorry to have provoked BNTO@37. My German is rusty but I think he says that ‘Hopefully, the fourth Reich is dead’, thus casting the EU in the same mould as the Third Reich.
BNTO @37 – once a contrarian, always a contrarian. All I can sat is that I hope your optimism proves well-founded, but for most of us, experts, especially those without vested interests, remain experts.
An enjoyable crossword on the day that I heard that Kenya has given up independence to join the United Kingdom.
A lot of typical Philistine devices.
Twice the multiple fodder trick (17ac, 25ac), one that he shares with Arachne.
Twice what most people call ‘lift and separate’ (but I do not), in 7ac and 26ac.
For some reason this puzzle had an Araucarian feel to it – quite a compliment, isn’t it?
12ac (ADONIS) was indeed not perfect but acceptable, we thought.
We liked, in particular, 14ac (NOTABLES) and 9ac (EMIGRE), even if we saw this one before.
The clue for the latter should perhaps now be ‘Evil product of regime?’.
Since nobody mentioned it, I am not happy with ‘turner’ as the anagram indicator in 23ac.
Not happy at all, actually.
It seems Philistine only chose it to enhance the surface (which would be a bad reason, in my opinion).
As to the much mentioned REGISTRY OFFICE (4,22d), if Philistine had gone for the preferred version, 17ac would have given him enough options (like e.g. FROLIC).
Wonder why he didn’t do this.
The much admired 19d (BYWORD) I do understand but I do not get the ‘bad as’ bit in the clue.
But then, I’m a bloody foreigner.
BTW, doesn’t Farage sound a bit French?
Thanks, Andrew [Cambridge came 13th, if that’s some kind of consolation].
BNTO @37
On the two very different points you made:
(1) Registry Office
I see your comment as a response to several preceding posts, mine included (@19). I acknowledge of course that Registry Office is a term often used for a Register Office. Not having access to the SOED, though, I am more than curious to know what it says about the popular alternative form.
(2) The referendum
I try to be rational about the events that have, unfortunately, influenced the mood of this page. Many people are apprehensive, and everyone who comments here is intelligent enough to know why. I would expect a down-to-earth comment from you – a blunt one, even – but this time I can’t be sure whether you were airing a grievance or just dismissing some of the moderate views expressed here.
From far away, couldn’t believe the referendum result. What can you say.
Not quite as hard as some of Philistine’s other offerings but interesting device in DECADENT and INDIRECT. I couldn’t understand the ‘bad as’ bit of 19 either. Missed ADONIS – v. annoying.
By the way, sorry to be thick, but what’s the BRB when it’s at home?
Thanks to setter and blogger
WordPlodder @44
BRB is the Big Red Book, which is an apposite description of the Chambers Dictionary. I too had to ask, but this is now in my attic.
Hello Alan Browne @45,
My favourite dictionary, though I’d not heard of it referred to in this way before. I hope I can remember the term for when it next appears, but knowing my memory, I’ll probably be asking yet again.
Thank you for taking the trouble to reply.
Well the impoverished coffee farmers and sugar growers of the developing world might be happier today than the EU apologists, though the Duke of Westminster et al (who trouser millions from the CAP) will doubtless share their grief. And, of course, one person one vote is no type of democracy. Or perhaps: shame on both houses – the Hateful and the Greedy!
Everybody should cheer up – that’s certainly what this delightful puzzle did for me.
Many thanks to Philistine and blogger
Thanks Philistine and Andrew
Didn’t get around to this until Monday so the Brexit news had started to sink in. Followed up by the other exit from Euro thanks to the exploits of Iceland !
Found the puzzle the usual enjoyable journey from this setter completed in a pretty solid session after dinner. I’m another who enjoys his lift and separate clues and particularly liked my last one in, BYWORD. At 17a, I think that it is just the first and last of the first three words. Have always known 4d as a REGISTRY office – so have lived in ignorance for a long time.
I eat a Pink Lady apple most days – a gorgeous sweet firm variety, but didn’t realise that it had been developed in Western Australia until looking it up for this puzzle.
Thanks Andrew and Philistine.
It took a while to get going with only DESK LAMP to show for my first pass but then got going and – what an absolute peach of a puzzle.
Witty and creative from start to finish, and too many favourites to mention.
By the way, I’m starting a campaign for the area inside the M25 to become a province of Scotland. That should fix it. What do you think?