Another brain twister from Wanderer! No clue that could be termed obvious yet upon solving seemed like they should have been easier than they appeared to be. Exactly what a good crossword clue should be. I have 1 clue that I am not sure I have solved fully …
FF: 9 DD: 10
| Across | ||
| 1 | MINIM | Measure small, short male (5) |
| MINI (small) M (short Male) | ||
| 4 | SWANSDOWN | Perhaps a pen’s blue material (9) |
| SWAN’S (pen’s, female swan) DOWN (blue) | ||
| 9 | GRANDMA | Moses’s nickname, given by fine old woman (7) |
| GRAND (fine) old woman (MA) – referring to the nickname of anna mary roberstson moses, a famous folk artist from the late 19th century. Could be viewed a double def / semi &lit with ‘old woman’ being the definition as well. | ||
| 10 | TRODDEN | Among this number, a man and daughter walked (7) |
| TEN (this number, of the clue) containing [ ROD (man, rodney) D (daughter) ] | ||
| 11 | DUSTIN HOFFMAN | One often taking part in unfinished housework – Philip Seymour, perhaps (6,7) |
| DUSTINg (unfinished housework) HOFFMAN (philip seymour hoffman) | ||
| 14 | CURT | Short man, say (4) |
| sounds like KURT (man) | ||
| 15 | REVERENCE | Mention Vatican City having replaced France in that respect (9) |
| REfERENCE [mention with V (vatican city) replacing F (france) ] | ||
| 18 | NIHILISTS | Frightfully thin lips – is first layer of paint not needed for such as Warhol and Duchamp? (9) |
| THIN LIpS IS* (without P – first later of Paint) | ||
| 19 | UFOS | In which space travellers allegedly returned from moons of Uranus (4) |
| semi &lit, hidden reversed in “…moonS OF Uranus”. | ||
| 21 | CALENDAR MONTH | An old merchant put away for about 30 days (8,5) |
| AN OLD MERCHANT* | ||
| 24 | ARMREST | Part of sofa in which a jolly group sit (7) |
| A RM (royal marines, jolly group) REST (sit) | ||
| 26 | NEMESIS | Sailors reportedly backing one’s arch-enemy (7) |
| SEMEN (sounds like seamen, sailors) containing IS (one’s), all reversed. ‘backing’ on double duty here. | ||
| 27 | MAN AT ARMS | Article by a sailor writing after first having married soldier (3-2-4) |
| [ AN (article) A TAR (sailor) MS (writing, manuscript) ] after M (first letter of Married) | ||
| 28 | SHANE | In Spanish, a nearly man? (5) |
| hidden in “.. spaniSH A NEarly..” | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | MAGI | Three males in a crèche showing endless charm (4) |
| MAGIc (charm, endless) | ||
| 2, 25 | NEANDERTHAL MAN | Surprisingly maternal, Anne Hathaway’s daughter, initially a reactionary person (11,3) |
| MATERNAL ANNE HD* (Hathaway’s Daughter initiatlly) | ||
| 3 | MODISH | Fashionable second course? (6) |
| MO (second) DISH (course) | ||
| 4 | SPANIARDS | Natives suffering pains on a road south (9) |
| PAINS* followed by A RD (road) S (south) | ||
| 5 | AITCH | A hankering or hunger, primarily (5) |
| A ITCH (hankering) – the letter H which is the first letter of Hunger | ||
| 6 | SCOFFERS | Men mocking small chests (8) |
| S (small) COFFERS (chests) | ||
| 7, 12 | OLD MAN OF THE SEA | One carried by Sinbad the Sailor – Caspian’s father, perhaps? (3,3,2,3,3) |
| OLD MAN (father) OF THE SEA (caspian, an example of) | ||
| 8 | NO NONSENSE | Northern artist with new square easel, at first doubly simple and straightforward (2-8) |
| N (northern) ONO (artist, yoko) NSENSE (first letters of ‘..New Square Easel, repeated – doubly) | ||
| 12 | See 7 | |
| 13 | ICONOCLASM | Attacking what is believed by man – colic, so painful? (10) |
| MAN COLIC SO* | ||
| 16 | VESTMENTS | Time people must wear underwear as outer garments (9) |
| [ T (time) MEN (people) ] in VESTS (underwear) | ||
| 17 | PLANGENT | Intend man to be loud and resonant (8) |
| PLAN (intend) GENT (man) | ||
| 20 | ANIMUS | Awfully glad this inner man, to be served salmagundi? (6) |
| I am going to take a shot at this and am not sure that this is right.
ANIMUS refers to the masculine part of a woman’s personality – SALMAGUNDI refers to a minced meat dish but also means something that is a medley. If you remove the letters of GLAD from SALMAGUNDI, the resulting letters become the anagram fodder for the solution. |
||
| 22 | ASTER | Bloomer by man in charge first off (5) |
| mASTER (man in charge, first letter removed) | ||
| 23 | ISLE | Man, possibly one half-asleep (4) |
| I (one) SLE (half of aSLEep) | ||
| 25 | See 2 | |
*anagram
By the way, I noticed that there were lot of references to MAN / MEN in either the clues or the solutions. Is there a theme here?
TL
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
I also noticed a lot of references to MEN/MALES throughout, which must be deliberate, as there’s no need for a gender reference in 6D, but I’m generally rubbish as spotting themes, so can’t really take it any further.
I think 20 is a curious sort of clue. SALMAGUNDI is certainly an anagram of GLAD & ANIMUS, but I’m not clear what ‘this’ is doing. I saw the definition as simply ‘inner man’, so it appears centrally after the rest of the grist, which seeems unusual. Again, I can’t really take it any further.
According to eChambers, animus is the male component of the female personality in Jungian psychology, which seems to flow against the male-dominated theme (?) of the rest of the puzzle.
I’m sure Turbolegs is right about ANIMUS – it’s more of an Azed-style clue than an FT one though.
Can’t see any further significance in the Man theme – today’s date doesn’t seem to be significant, and no Nina either (bottom left/bottom right/top right says MEN, but probably a coincidence).
Cheers to T and W.
Once more a very nice offering from Wanderer but I don’t think this was as hard as this setter can be.
Not many real problems until I came to my LOI, the much-mentioned ANIMUS (20d).
It’s a type of clue that is maybe Azed-like but I know it more from the puzzles by Redshank (/Crucible/Radian).
There was a time that he did this in virtually every crossword he had on offer, it was really one of his trademarks.
That said, in recent times he seems to have put it on a shelf.
It is, as others said, (GLAD plus “something that we want”)* that might give us SALMAGUNDI.
Compound anagram, subtraction anagram – call it watever you want.
Years ago, we used to have quite a few discussions about this type of clue/device – in the FT space!
Anyway, just like Simon S I see the definition as ‘inner man’ and I am sure that Wanderer added ‘this’ to tell us that this is the thing that we need.
After all, the definition is somewhere in the middle – so, it’s quite nice/helpful that Wanderer does this.
Good stuff!
Thanks, turbolegs.
Agree with FF but if DD is about the level of difficulty, I would have rated that much lower.
(IO would have been 15 then ….)
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
A good level of difficulty which I started off over dinner last night and got about 3/4 finished. Had to mop up this morning.
Have become better at spotting the clue device used in 20d and was able to solve it quite early on – I took it as ‘Awfully’ (as an anagram indicator) for GLAD and ANIMUS (this definition of ‘inner man’) ‘to be served as SALMAGUNDI’. Liked it !!
With 26a, I didn’t think that you needed to insert I’S – it is just SEMEN backing then I’S.
Had to do a double take with ‘half asleep’ – unusual to have a half in the middle – but it works. Lots of really nice and tricky clues here – apart from ANIMUS, also liked NO NONSENSE (cute word play) and MAN-AT-ARMS (liked working it up from the building blocks).
Finished in the top left with GRANDMA (which took a while to work out that it was her nickname that was the answer and not some ‘Ma Moses’ that was helping build the ‘old woman’), MINIM (with a definition I didn’t know) and MAGI (with the quaint definition) as the last few in.
I was able to hash this one out with some confusion over a couple of parsings – ANIMUS to be sure, also I missed the anagram for CALENDAR MONTH and the ASTER-master connection.
I had NO x2, NSE x2 for 18D, but I guess that doesn’t account for “artist” very well. Here in the US there’s been some discussion of a “new” category of clue called a “letter bank,” not sure if this would really be considered as one.
This is probably the hardest cryptic I’ve managed to fill completely – for a while I was staring at a grid with just UFOS and ISLE in it, I was quite the down swan until GRANDMA Moses showed up.
My fave was 2D because Anne Hathaway is so adorable.
Thanks to setter, blogger, and commenters all!