A super puzzle from Loroso who is back making regular appearances again. Long may this continue. I found this pretty tricky and I made it extra-hard for myself by writing in a couple of incorrect answers at 14d down and 26 across. Thank you Loroso.
Each across entry contains opposites: thanks to Richard Heald for pointing this out.
| Across | ||
| 1 | A GOOD FEW | Many a duck fed crackers in past week (1,4,3) |
| O (a duck, cricket score) with anagram (crackers) of FED inside AGO (past) W (week) | ||
| 6 | FORBAD | Blocked airline stops car (6) |
| BA (British Airways) inside (stops, like a cork) FORD (car) | ||
| 9 | DO GO ON | 10, describing sentiment, gets ironic encouragement (2,2,2) |
| DON (educator) contains (describing) GOO (sentiment) | ||
| 10 | EDUCATOR | Academic turned dirty without censor (8) |
| RUDE (dirty) reversed contains (without) CATO (censor) | ||
| 11 | INHERENTLY | Basically, like rambler without company (10) |
| INcoHERENTLY (like a ramble) missing CO (company) | ||
| 12 | THIS | What ultimately welcomes the caller? (4) |
| whaT (ultimately, last letter) and HIS (hi plural, welcomes) – the person calling on a telephone | ||
| 13 | OFFSET | Balance in the dressing room? (6) |
| if an actor is OFF SET they may be in their dressing room | ||
| 15 | ETON MESS | Sweet seems strangely out of fashion (4,4) |
| anagram (strangely) of SEEMS contains (out of) TON (fashion) | ||
| 18 | FROG SPIT | Spooner’s baby-size bubbly stuff? (4,4) |
| Spoonerism of SPROG FIT (baby-sized) | ||
| 20 | EXTORT | Milk and old cake unfinished (6) |
| EX (old) and TORTe (cake, unfinished) | ||
| 21 | OVER | End of message cut short in public (4) |
| OVERt (in public, cut short) | ||
| 23 | THUNDERING | Extremely tough guards cooked dinner (10) |
| THUG (tough) contains (guards) anagram (cooked) of DINNER | ||
| 25 | AGNUS DEI | Silly idea about animals in prayer (5,3) |
| anagram (silly) of IDEA contains GNUS (animals) – nice to see the Gnu is getting an outing again. Can I be the only person who has a compulsive desire to write this as Angus Dei? | ||
| 26 | ANTHEM | Country air on part of colony’s border (6) |
| ANT (part of colony) on HEM (border). I was distracted by the erroneous ANTRIM for a long time. | ||
| 27 | IN GEAR | Nothing earned, I’ll keep working (2,4) |
| found inside (I’ll keep) nothING EARned | ||
| 28 | MONMOUTH | Welsh town’s second university in about 30 days (8) |
| M( (second) U (university) in MONTH (about 30 days) | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | GROUND FIR | Moss pulverised with shortened axe (6,3) |
| GROUND (pulverised) with FIRe (axe, shortened) | ||
| 3 | OZONE | Australian joke a breath of fresh air? (5) |
| OZ (Australian) ONE (joke, have you heard the one about…) – once thought to be a healthy component of bracing and fresh sea air, though actually fairly poisonous | ||
| 4 | FINGERTIP | Delicate – and more so – about good clue (9) |
| FINER (more delicate) contains G (good) then TIP (clue) | ||
| 5 | WRESTLE | Fight with others, being gutless, like (7) |
| W (with) REST (others) and LikE (outside letters only, being gutless) | ||
| 6 | FLUKY | Chance to escape to border country (5) |
| FLY (to escape) contains (to border) UK (country) | ||
| 7 | REATTEMPT | Fine header’s off – invite another shot (9) |
| gREAT (fine) missing first letter (header is off) then TEMPT (invite) | ||
| 8 | AIOLI | Clay pots I love for mayonnaise (5) |
| ALI (former Cassius Clay) contains (pots) I O (love) | ||
| 14 | SUGAR-CUBE | Die from something added to drink (5-4) |
| double definition? cryptic definition? – a sugar lump is a small cube, a die, that is added to a drink. I had SUGAR-LUMP written in here for a while which caused me problems later on. | ||
| 16 | OVERDRAWN | On twisting road, new RV in red (9) |
| anagram )on twisting) of ROAD NEW RV | ||
| 17 | STRINGENT | Tough line over one area of treatment (9) |
| STRING (line) on ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat, one area of treatment) | ||
| 19 | TOURISM | At sea, mist encompasses our travel concerns? (7) |
| anagram (at sea) of MIST contains OUR | ||
| 22 | VEGAN | Particular eater of Dutch sandwiches for example (5) |
| VAN (of, in Dutch) contains (sandwiches) EG (for example) | ||
| 23 | TUDOR | Royal house staff heading off but returning (5) |
| ROD (staff) and bUT (missing head) all reversed (returning) | ||
| 24 | RETRO | Old car with alien passenger, 21 (5) |
| RR (car, Rolls Royce) contains (with passenger) ET (alien) then O (over) | ||
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
Special thanks today, PeeDee – I had to give up [having other urgent things to do] with the bottom half completed but entries in the top half being woefully sparse. It’s such a good puzzle that I wish I’d waited to come back to it later this afternoon.
I couldn’t figure 1ac at all and would never have got FORBAD, because I don’t spell it that way [but I know now that it’s a perfectly acceptable alternative] so that was a poor start – but I did immediately see EDUCATOR, thanks to the good old censor.
I, too, was initially beguiled by ANTRIM, thinking that ‘country’ might be a misprint for ‘county’ – but that still didn’t account for ‘air’ – so that was a nice pdm when it came. [My apologies to setter and editor.]
I smiled at 25ac, because it reminded me of Hardy’s lovely poem, ‘The Oxen’ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/53215 – and I’m glad I’m not the only one unable to resist giving a link to the gnu song. 😉
I don’t reckon to like Spoonerisms but there have been so many good ones lately that I’m beginning to be won over. Today’s was lovely.
Many thanks to Loroso for a super puzzle – I’m sorry not to have given it full justice but I thoroughly enjoyed what I did do.
LoveAnax/Lorosoo/Dean.
Particularly liked the Spooner but couldn’t make up my mind on 12a.I finally settled on TAIL as that would respond if you called your dog.I had considered THIS but I couldn’t come up with the cunning wordplay for which I am grateful to Pee Dee.
This was so welcome what with a particularly tail-wagging puppy of a Chifonie in the Graun
So, that’s for 2017: Loroso 2 Anax 0.
Lots to like here with the bottom half [indeed, Eileen] easier than the top half.
12ac was my last one in, I saw the construction but wasn’t convinced by the definition.
Perhaps, that is because Dutch people always just mention their name when taking up the telephone (unlike most Brits, who are less explicit).
And, believe it or not, I couldn’t see where ‘van’ was coming from in VEGAN (22d) – ha ha ha!
Perfectly doable crossword of a great setter.
Thanks PeeDee
[btw, also for your advice on last week’s FT puzzle – all done and dusted]
“And, believe it or not, I couldn’t see where ‘van’ was coming from in VEGAN (22d).”
Sil, that’s priceless!
Yes, good stuff. Some v. hard ones with simple/misleading defs, including 1a, 23a and 24d as well as other challenging clues such as DO GO ON, the Spoonerism at 18 and my favourite, FINGERTIP. The setter’s name didn’t ring a bell and I thought I was making heavy weather of things, but it makes sense now I see it was Anax in another guise.
Thanks to Loroso (look forward to the next tussle) and to PeeDee
Nice Nina formed by each pair of Across answers in the same row.
Richard Heald – I am the world’s worst Nina spotter (though I expect this claim may contested by crypticsue). Would you mind explaining some more for me please?
Eileen – thank you for the Hardy reference, what a lovely poem. Angus Dei = Holy Cow?
Nice one, PeeDee 😉
Re @7 – I have just got it now. I will update the blog with the Ninas.
I interpreted 24D differently
OVER as RETRO and O for OLD
So old Rolls Royce containing ET
Well spotted, PeeDee, but I think the pairs in rows 9 and 15 should be FRO/TO and IN/OUT.
Crikey this was hard; too good for me- I failed on INHERENTLY, FINGERTIP and DO GO ON, so many thanks PeeDee for putting me out of my misery (well, curtailing the exquisite torture more like).
I genuflect in the direction of Richard Heald; well spotted dear sir
I can’t take all the credit. DM himself did tweet a warning that all was not as it seemed.
Like Eileen I found the bottom half a lot more friendly than the top but I got there in the end and I noticed the opposites too.
Thanks to Loroso for the brain stretching and PeeDee for the explanations
Thank you again Richard, I said I was bad at it!
This was a tough one. But we got there in the end. LOI this. Thanks to everyone
Lovely blog PeeDee, and sorry about the second try at the grid!
Richard is being overly modest about spotting the gimmick. I only mentioned that there was something unusual, so it was very well found. The gimmick isn’t really opposites (although there are some) but words that often appear in pairs, and for me it was purely an exercise in technique because I set myself the task of not using those gimmick components in wordplay.
Thanks for the comments everyone.
Thank you anax for dropping in. FYI… I had to have two goes at filling in the Nina too. The first time I had PIT and TOR (a lowered landscape feature and a raised landscape feature) and EAR and MOUTH (something sound goes into and something sound comes out of)
I did myself no favours by first entering “Scales,” as in Prunella, at 13a. Otherwise, notwithstanding severe reservations about 12a, I thought this a terrific workout.
Thank you PeeDee – I needed your blog to get about a quarter of the answers and half the parsings. I’m comforted that others who I believe to be much better solvers than me found it a challenge.
I can’t say I found it enjoyable, but I did find it instructive – I’d not come across Cato as a censor for example. The nina was a lovely reward for at least seeing it through to the end – thanks Loroso/Anax.
Thanks Anax and PeeDee
It may be sour grapes because I didn’t finish, bur I have a number of quibbles with this puzzle:
9A: Why is DO GO ON ironic? And my eChambers thesaurus doesn’t have GOO/SENTIMENT as synonyms in either direction
12A: Why does THIS welcome the caller? I would say something like “Hi, it’s Simon here”, not “This is Simon”
13A: OFFSET doesn’t necessarily balance, it counters. SCALES, absit crossers, is equally feasible
18A: SPROG FIT isn’t anywhere near a common phrase, and FROG SPIT (hyphenated in eChambers) is a little arcane as well – to my mind, Spoonerisms should feature ‘common’ phrases in both halves
6D: FLUKY to me is ‘chancy’ – a chance is a fluke (somewhat obliquely) – could anyone give me an example of CHANCE and FLUKY being interchangeable?
14D: DIE = SUGAR-CUBE? Examples please!
As I said, it may well be me. I don’t believe there are rules for setting crosswords, but there does need to be a sort of connection between clue, wordplay & solution…
Let’s see what tomorrow brings….
Simon,
Loroso has the support of Chambers in many of your quibbles:
goo noun any sticky substance; sentimentality;
this pronoun (when telephoning) the person speaking or the person spoken to
offset noun a thing set off against another as equivalent or compensation
fluky adj (of) an accidental success
chance adj happening by chance
For 14dn I think my blog is at fault. The clue is just a cryptic definition, not a double definition at all. A sugar cube is “a die in your tea” for example
Took this one to the pub last night and found it pretty tough, even with a couple of helpers. Needless to say we missed the pairs – that makes it very clever.
Thanks to Loroso and PeeDee
Thanks Loroso and Peedee
Found this extremely tough with it spilling over a couple of elapsed days to get finished. By then there was no energy to even think of anything going on, let alone find the word pairs ! It was a great challenge and worth the effort to finally get there.
Was another initial ANTRIM enterer as well as writing in MONSOUTH ( S=second, OU= Oxford University) until checking my geography more closely. Had not seen the FORBAD variant as the past tense of forbid. GROUND FIR and FROGSPIT were both new terms as well.
DO GO ON took ages to see and needed the last crosser from FINGERTIP (hadn’t thought of it as being delicate before) to have had any chance of getting it at all. They were my last couple in.