A rather tough challenge from Paul today, especially in the parsings, one of which I’m still not sure of.
Thanks to Paul for the workout.
Across
8 Italian broadcast in stereo (8)
TORINESE
Anagram [broadcast] of IN STEREO
9 Sharp needle — no need for it, day surgery’s ending (6)
LEMONY
[need]LE + MON[day] + [surger[Y
10 Player is inspired by Milton (abridged) (6)
OBOIST
IS in [inspired by] OBOT[e] [abridged] – Milton Obote, Ugandan leader
11 Beauty in unelected British leaders? (3,5)
MAY QUEEN
[Theresa] MAY and the QUEEN are both unelected as leaders but Theresa May is an elected MP – getting lots of exposure here at the moment!
12 House backing newspaper, though not leader (4)
SEMI
Reversal [backing] of [t]IMES [newspaper] minus its first letter [leader]
13 Fancy dealings with church look anything but straightforward? (4-6)
SIDE-GLANCE
Amagram [fancy] of DEALINGS + CE [Church of England]
15 Agonising facts cut into me (7)
PAINFUL
INF[o] [facts cut] in PAUL [me]
16 Difficult taking wrench into work (7)
PRICKLY
RICK [wrench] in PLY [work]
18 Why Saturday never comes alone? (10)
FRIENDLESS
If FRI[day] is ENDLESS, Saturday never comes
19 Team gloated (4)
CREW
Double definition – I’ve seen versions of this clue before but, although I have heard ‘the cock crew’, I don’t think I’ve ever heard this [valid] variation of the past tense to mean ‘gloated’
20 Pretty me in female bowler, say? (8)
SOMEWHAT
ME in SOW [female] + HAT [bowler, say?]
23 Bird entrails, but not of rook (6)
FALCON
[of]FAL [entrails – but not ‘of’] + CON [rook] – both as verbs
24 Piece of meat stuffing baguettes, I once recalled (8)
NOISETTE
Hidden reversal [recalled] in baguETTES I ONce
Down
1 Hand in middle of puppet, possibly? Show two little boys (6,4,5)
DOUBLE PAIR ROYAL
DOUBLE P [middle of ‘puppet’] + AIR [show] + ROY AL [two little boys]: I’m one of those who are not keen on ‘little boy’ cluing abbreviations of male names and I didn’t think ROY was an abbreviation – meaning ‘king’, surely? This led to a bit of research and I found that ROY is derived from the Gaelic ruadh (red) – or an abbreviation of Leroy [the king]
A double pair royal is a hand in cribbage, a set of four cards of the same denomination, scoring twelve points
2 Within lateral partition, hairlike structures, indefinite number opening (8,7)
SICILIAN DEFENCE
CILIA [hairlike structures] + N [indefinite number, which we had yesterday] in SIDE FENCE [lateral partition]
The Sicilian defence is a chess opening
3 The sad criminal with muscle in band of assassins (5,5)
DEATH SQUAD
Anagram [criminal] of THE SAD + QUAD[riceps] [muscle]
4 Insults thrown after end of four months on a British Overseas Territory (7)
BERMUDA
MUD [insults] after BER [last letters – end – of the last four months] + A
5 Earth healing heart? (4)
CLAY
I think I’m being dim here: HEART is an anagram [healing?] of EARTH but I can’t see how that leads to the answer
6 A doctor unfortunately can heal and cures lawyer after an accident? (9,6)
AMBULANCE CHASER
A MB [a doctor] + an anagram [unfortunately] of CAN HEAL CURES – a nicely allusive surface
7 Member welcomed by literati once shifting between Yale and Harvard, say? (15)
INTERCOLLEGIATE
LEG [member] in [welcomed by] an anagram [shifting] of LITERATI ONCE
14 Cog so pricy to fix, spinning as a ship’s navigational aid, say? (10)
GYROSCOPIC
Anagram [to fix] of COG SO PRICY
17,22 Elderly, compatible to some extent (7,2,1,3)
GETTING ON A BIT
Double definition
21 Female animal is back (4)
HIND
Double definition
thanks Eileen – definitely a toughie!
in 5d, “healing heart” = ALI = [Cassius] CLAY
Many thanks, Andrew: I’d actually thought of him and still didn’t see it – in spite of having had the DOUBLE P!
Thanks you Eileen – really clear explanations. I thought this was a really well constructed puzzle – tough but well crafted
Thanks Eileen
In 14dn I think the anagram indicator is ‘to fix’ with ‘spinning’ being part of the definition.
Crikey this was tough, but very very good.
It’s a bit unfair to describe Theresa May as “unelected” I think; as Eileen points out, she was returned as MP and she won the leadership contest which was decided on a vaguely democratic process within the Tory party (who at least have a procedure!)
I needed help with OBOIST (wrong Milton, obviously). Twigged CLAY eventually. TORINESE a great clue, I thought.
Many thanks to Paul and Eileen.
Thanks Eileen. I enjoyed almost all of this including fun clues giving OBOIST and F RIENDLESS. But knowing nothing of cribbage and a bit about poker I plumped for ‘double pair jacks’ and that fouled up the bottom left, until I cheated on 1D and so polished it off.
(Probable justification) Theresa May wasn’t elected as PM but got the job by default since Andrea Leadsom stood down when she realised she couldn’t win.
Thanks, Gaufrid @4. That is the way I read it initially – one of those blips twixt solve and blog, amended now.
Strictly speaking ALL British (or rather UK) Prime Ministers are unelected, in the sense that they are not directly elected by the electorate. But ‘unelected Prime Minister’ is well-known common parlance for a PM who takes over mid-term. So I think it’s fair. And it made for a very fine clue.
I too found this very difficult. Was stuck on 8 & 10 ac & 5d – had the right answers but couldn’t parse them for the life of me. Thank you very much for your help, Eileen & Andrew. I did like 6 & 7d, but the other two long down answers took some getting as I play neither cribbage nor chess.
Somewhat grudging thanks to Paul for the challenge, without his usual fun!
I didnt change my entry in 5 which was PLAY-play on words as earth is an anagrind of heart.
A pretty tough Paul but very good.
Thanks Paul and Eileen
The RHS went in quite quickly, but the LHS was much harder. I’ve never heard of 1d even though I used to play cribbage (and poker) – the schools I played in referred to “two pairs” rather than “double pair”. I didn’t parse 2d or 5d either.
Though I solved and parsed OBOIST, I thought “Milton (abridged)” for OBOT(e) was bordeline unfair.
On the other hand I enjoyed a lot of this more than I generally do with Paul. I loved FRI ENDLESS and AMBULANCE CHASER.
Thank you Paul and Eileen.
Perhaps Paul is GETTING ON A BIT, none of his usual fun today, however FRIENDLESS and AMBULANCE CHASER were really good, as others have said.
Strangely I found this rather straightforward although a bit too much of guessing from crossing letters and retrospective parsing for my taste. And quite a few clunky ones. 11 and 19 are cute. But where is the smut one associates with Paul?
Definitely one of Paul’s full strength ones – it seemed quite friendly at first but it took me ages to get any of the 4 long ones and even after that MAY QUEEN and CLAY held out – I gave up trying to parse that so top marks to Andrew. Ticked MAY QUEEN, PAINFUL and FRIENDLESS.
Thanks to Paul and Eileen
Thanks to Paul and Eileen. I started this puzzle last night as usual but gave up on the left side as fatigue kicked in, then finished this morning. I did finally get Obote-OBOIST but could not parse FRIENDLESS, CLAY, and FALCON. I knew SICILIAN DEFENCE but not DOUBLE PAIR ROYAL. Definitely a challenge.
I wish Paul would stop trying to be too clever – he’s at his best when he goes for wit rather than complexity. Be honest now, how many of you immediately though ‘ah, it’s SIDE FENCE around CILIA with an N in front’? Me, I got the N, then wondered from the crossers if DIVISION worked.
Played crib, but never heard of a DOUBLE PAIR ROYAL. And my Uncle Roy didn’t use a shortened version of Leroy. Hence all in all the W side was more of a problem that the E, ground out eventually thanks to FALCON et al.
However I smiled when my second possible Milton led to OBOIST, and at the endless Friday in 18a.
Wrong Milton of course. Last in Sicilian Defence. Great stuff from my favourite setter. Thanks to Paul and Eileen.
This took me longer than usual especially the LH side.I have played cribbage
in the past but I don’t remember DOUBLE PAIR ROYAL which I guessed,googled
and then parsed. OBOIST was lovely but took a long time to get as did FALCON.
FRIENDLESS,SOMEWHAT and SEMI finally yielded, and, in the end, the puzzle
was very satisfying.
MAY QUEEN was FOI. When someone becomes party leader unopposed it is usually
referred to as a coronation. This is what happened with May and with Gordon
Brown for that matter.
Thanks Paul
I’ve played cribbage for most of my life but never heard of DOUBLE PAIR ROYAL. Oh, well.
I was relieved to see that others here thought this was a tough puzzle, as I sure did. Had to cheat on SICILIAN DEFENCE (by searching for words that matched the crossers for SICILIAN). Then I was finally able to finish off the SW corner, but with more than the usual number unparsed.
Superb – I enjoy Paul greatly, and increasingly. We are so lucky to have this Beethoven of crosswords to entertain us. I guessed it might be a challenge as it appeared on a Thursday; I wasn’t disappointed. The first two long down entries eluded me, and eluded me some more, until I had FALCON. I too was unsure about CLAY until just before I came here. I take (one of) my hat(s) off to Eileen – the other being removed for Paul. I’m sure that had I had the pressure of blogging this to a deadline I would have failed. Ticked TORINESE, LEMONY, BERMUDA and MAY QUEEN.
Played cribbage with my father as a boy and knew “pair royal” as “prial” and this double one as simply “four of a kind”. We live and learn. I think around half of all post war PMs were ‘crowned’ as Brown and May (not a box of matches!) but don’t recall complaints before…
Great stuff and thanks again to the respective shining stars of setting and blogging.
A fine puzzle. Failed to get the DOUBLE P and parse CLAY, well done Eileen and Andrew on those two.
Thank you Paul and Eileen.
William F P @21
As you say, you learn something every day. I knew the term “prial” from crib, but never knew it referred to “Pair Royal”!
A real toughie! I only completed it (after a fashion) this morning over breakfast as I had to wait for my DH to look up the solution and steer me away from some false trails I had been following. I had completed the RHS last night (except for 22a) but there were a lot of gaps on the LHS. 1d was new to me – though I did play cribbage with family as a child, we didn’t use that term. The parsing of CLAY completely escaped me too.
Favourites included OBOIST (clever misdirection), FRIENDLESS and GYROSCOPIC.
Thanks, Paul and Eileen.
Trailman @17
2d is complex, yes, but I got it through parsing once I had 2 crossers, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only person to do so. I wouldn’t call it “too clever”, just clever.
I thought of CILIA from the start, so once I had the second and third crossers, that seemed the right place to put it. SIDE for “lateral” was also an obvious possibility, so starting with the SI gave SICILIA-. That gave the place for the N, then trying the DE left over from SIDE as the start of the second word led immediately to the rest of the answer, even though I haven’t played chess or over 30 years.
me @23
Actually, “prial” is used in 3-card brag. It means three cards of the same denomination; three 3s being the best hand. A brag site did confirm that it derives from “Pair Royal”, but I’m not seeing how that gives three-of-a-kind. Any suggestions?
Not sure if they really are connected, but it seems reasonable to me that Pair Royal would be from Cribbage or an earlier game, and was later adopted by brag and subsequently contracted to prial. In cribbage part of the scoring is for Pairs, so obviously if you have three of kind those can generate three separate pairs and hence scores as three pairs, a significantly higher score than just one pair, and therefore the hand gets a name of it’s own. Presumably the Royal bit is just a way of saying “big score made from pairs”.
I could be wrong, but it works for me as an explanation!
Thanks, Derek.
Thanks Eileen and Paul.
It took me a while to get going – as usual for Paul – and it took an overnight break before I twigged DOUBLE PAIR ROYAL and OBOIST but I didn’t find this as tough as some of the others above.
I even got the parsing of CLAY.
MAY QUEEN, FRIENDLESS and BERMUDA were all top notch.
Great puzzle. Loved the creativity.
Thanks Paul and Eileen
Like others, I found this one tough as well – up to a level as hard as I’ve seen this setter go so was pleased to get it finished and fully parsed. Some really clever tricks employed here, including the DOUBLE P in 1d and the definition misdirection used in 9a, 18a, 20a and 2d.
Thought that FRIENDLESS was very good in his typical style.
Finished in the difficult left hand side with SICILIAN DEFENCE (which was as difficult to parse as to find the actual answer), TORINESE (which was totally new to me and hard to find even after being convinced that it was an anagram) and FALCON (which needed all of the crossers to get … and then some more thinking to figure out why).