I enjoyed this, but there is one I can’t get and one not fully explained. I am away from home writing this from a hotel room. I have to leave soon and I am not sure if I will be able to update the blog again today. Please add your own explanations on the comments section. Thank you Julius.
| Across | ||
| 9 | BIRTHDAY PRESENT | Dressed in her party best, daughter welcomed gift (8,7) |
| anagram (dressed) of IN HER PARTY BEST contains (welcomes) D (daughter) | ||
| 10 | INFER | Make a deduction? Hell, no! No! (5) |
| INFERno (hell) missing NO | ||
| 11 | ACID HOUSE | Oh I caused chaos in the 80s Chicago music scene! (4,5) |
| anagram (chaos) of OH I CAUSED. Did anyone alse see DISCO in there first? | ||
| 12 | GO BERSERK | Corrupt Greeks borrow half upfront; lose it completely (2,7) |
| anagram (corrupt) of GREEKS and BORrow (the front half) | ||
| 14 | RABID | Army tender out of control (5) |
| RA (either Regular Army or Royal Artillery) then BID (tender) | ||
| 16 | WALL STREET CRASH | A shock to the system, working car wash around edges of Liverpool road (4,6,5) |
| anagram (working) of CAR WASH contains (around) LiverpooL (edges of) STREET (road) | ||
| 19 | YONKS | That knighthood’s taken a long time! (5) |
| YON (that) and K’S (knighthood’s) | ||
| 21 | HESITATED | Having paused to listen, welcomes Jacques’ return (9) |
| HEED (to listen) contains Jacques TATI’S reversed (return) | ||
| 23 | INTERRUPT | Stop Bury game for a pint (9) |
| INTER (bury) RU (Rugby Union, game) and PT (pint) | ||
| 25 | HYENA | Say hello to old Corrie character (she’s good for a laugh) (5) |
| HY sounds like (say) hi (hello) then ENA Sharples (Coronation Street character) | ||
| 26 | CARNAL KNOWLEDGE | Animated row; England lack energy, penetration (6,9) |
| anagram (animated) of ROW ENGLAND LACK and E (energy) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | EBBIBG AWAY | Dying English poet in Irish city left neglected (6,4) |
| EBB (Elizabeth Barret Browning, English poet) then IN GALWAY (Irish city) missing L (left) | ||
| 2 | PREFAB | Ready for assembly, lead carrying notes (6) |
| PB (lead, chem symbol) contains RE and FA (notes of the scale) | ||
| 3 | CHARTRES | Beautiful cathedral, clean, very French (8) |
| CHAR (clean, for someone) and TRES (very in French) | ||
| 4 | JAVA | Have Ms Gardner and Jack over for coffee (4) |
| AVA Garnder and J (jack) reversed (over) | ||
| 5 | SPRINKLERS | They supply water for brewing Kronenbourg’s top Pilsner’s recipe (10) |
| anagram (brewing) of Kronenbourg (first letter of), PILSNER’S and R (recipe) | ||
| 6 | ZEPHYR | Meze Phyrgian ate gives wind (6) |
| found inside (eaten by) meZE PHYRgian | ||
| 7 | PENUMBRA | Unfeeling, a salesman comes back round; shady character! (8) |
| NUMB (unfeeling) reversed (comes back) inside (with…round) A REP (salesman) | ||
| 8 | STYE | Oddly set type is something not easy on the eye (4) |
| SeT tYpE (odd letters of) | ||
| 13 | EARTHQUAKE | Underground movement at fault, delivering shock? (10) |
| QUAKE (movement) under EARTH (ground) | ||
| 15 | DEHYDRATED | Some rude, tardy hedonist turned up dying for a drink (10) |
| found inside (some of) ruDE TARDY HEDonist reversed (turned up) | ||
| 17 | Coined neologism for academic period (4,4) | |
| I don’t know this. Could be LENT TERM or LONG TERM? | ||
| 18 | CATCH-ALL | Boo Henry in The Kitchen Sink? (5-3) |
| CAT CALL (boo) contains (with…in) H (Henry) | ||
| 20 | SURTAX | Soul label, having original content, demanded premium charge (6) |
| STAX (Stax Records, soul label) contains UR (??) – I can’t fully explain this | ||
| 22 | TRENDY | In goal, attempt to get out (6) |
| END (goal) inside (to get…out) TRY (attempt) | ||
| 23 | INCH | Batting first, Switzerland make slow progress (4) |
| IN (batting) and CH (Confederation Helvetica, Switzerland) | ||
| 24 | TROY | Old city Conservative upset his constituents! (4) |
| TORY (Conservative) with the middle letters (his constituents) reversed (upset) | ||
*anagram
definitions are underlined
Excellent again from Julius.
I put in long term but I cant quite justify it.Just seemed more likely as an academic term but what would I know.
Cracking pangram Grommett!
20D I think it’s UR = original (prefix). The other one is, I think, LENT TERM which is equivalent to “coined neologism”, I’d say.
PS re #2, LENT TERM is the definition, I think – academic period (spring term at Cambridge). The other part is wordplay.
Always knew i shoulda gone to Cambridge!
Thanks Julius and PeeDee
I agree with NMS that it’s LENT TERM, with COINED as in X lent its name to Y.
I think that 13 is a straight double definition, “Underground movement at fault [line]” plus “shock”.
There also seem to be linked pairs of solutions, which wouldn’t altogether be a surprise, given Julius/Knut’s penchant for themes: 1 & 23D, 12 & 14, 4 & 13, 13 & 16, 2 & the second part of 11. But maybe I’m imagining it!
Since “Coined neologism” is a pleonasm, I thought it was a LENT TERM, the verb “lend” here meaning contribute or add (a quality) to, but the explanation of Simon S @5 is probably better.
copmus at #4, the only time I was in Cambridge was at last year’s S&B…
Collins dict my source for that – an expression I came across for the first time in an earlier crossword.
Cookie @6
I think it’s down to interpretation: just because two words are adjacent in a clue doesn’t necessarily mean that they should be read together. It also depends on whether you see ‘coined’ as adjectival or a subjectless verb (eg ‘Made a cake’ as a diary entry).
Thanks all. 17dn does not work for me. In COINED NEOLOGISM the
subject is the thing doing the coining, a person for example. In LENT TERM the subject is the thing doing the lending, a language for example.
Thanks for the blog, PeeDee.
I had LENT TERM, too: I thought it might be an allusion to ‘loan word’. [PeeDee -have just seen your comment @9: I took ‘coined’ and ‘lent’ both as participles.]
I was very impressed by the hidden DEHYDRATED.
5ac made me laugh: I once had a next door neighbour called Ena and had to stop myself saying ‘Hi’!
Many thanks to Julius for another excellent puzzle. We’ve been really spoilt today in all three papers.
[copmus @4, cheer up, plenty of other choices for LENT TERM…]
Thank you Eileen, I get it now.
Cookie@11-alas i was at Leicester.
I really enjoyed this.
I also went for LENT TERM, but not with any great degree of confidence. I thought DEHYDRATED was brilliant and was impressed by the long anagrams. CATCH ALL made me smile.
And I didn’t notice it was a pangram.
Thank you Julius and PeeDee.
Great fun, DEHYDRATED was so well hidden, but I still do not get 22d: I think a nut must have set this clue, here is what Wikipedia says, “In psychiatry, the term neologism is used to describe the use of words that have meaning only to the person who uses them, independent of their common meaning. This tendency is considered normal in children, but in adults it can be a symptom of psychopathy or a thought disorder…”.
Not as difficult as the first Julius, but still plenty that took a bit of thought, with plenty of mischief and devious misdirection.
Thanks to Julius and PeeDee
Thanks PeeDee
In 1dn, EBB could be ‘BB’ the pseudonym of the poet Denys Watkins-Pitchford
after E for English: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denys_Watkins-Pitchford
RE 6dn: Is Phyrgian the same as Phrygian?
Great work. Could not get SURTAX, and I had long term but LENT TERM looks correct to me.
Thanks!
mike04 @17 – I thought that too, but though some of his books did contain some verse Watkins-Pitchford is known as a children’s author and illustrator rather than a poet. Even the books containing verse are primarily prose.
The solution, which appeared today, indicates that LENT TERM is the answer.
Thanks PeeDee and Julius.
Having got the anagram for 9ac straight away and then 4, 5 and 6 dn, I was pretty sure I was looking to complete a Pangram – but it took tilll my LOI – SURTAX – to find the elusive X.
I lady a question over BB (or EBB) for Poet and am still not sure we have a definitive answer.
I had EARTHQUAKE as a cryptic rather than a double definition and quite a good one at that, even if simple.
I just couldn’t get the parsing for SURTAX – didn’t know the record label I’m afraid. If that is the case, then is UR perhaps original in terms of where Abraham came from? A bit lame I know.
It would be nice if Julius paid a visit to confirm.
Enjoyable by the way.
Hi Hamish, UR is a prefix meaning original (thanks to nmsindy). I looked it up on Wikipedia and it lists the words in English that use it, and I have to confess that I do not recognise even one of them. You can have a look for yourself here.
Thank PeeDee.
Ur…… Don’t recognise any of them either.
Thanks Julius and PeeDee
This was up there with the hardest puzzles that I’ve done for a while from either the current crop or my backlog lot, taking a couple of hours of actual time spread over a couple of weeks to complete. L
Had issues with all of the ones discussed above and failed to parse EBB at 1d,, properly understand the word play of LENT TERM and had no idea of why SURTAX was it other than the definition having neither heard of STAX, the record company, nor the prefix UR-
Those last two were my last two entries to finally be written in. Hard as it was, it was at least satisfying that I was able to finally complete the grid … and learn some more stuff along the way !!
PS. Notice that you never updated the grid with that LENT TERM – assume that it is non-trivial.
Hi Bruce – I have forgotten about the grid. I will get it updated later on today.
Ha … I don’t think that anyone would ever notice !!! 🙂
Hi bruce, it turned out that I can’t update the grid as I have deleted the original.
All good … doesn’t surprise 12+ months on !!