Nutmeg’s Wednesday offering was challenging, but fun and fair.
Some of the clues took a little while to parse (15ac took me a few minutes alone), but I got there in the end. Now that a couple of comments have been added by fellow solvers, I can see some of my parsing was inaccurate, so I have edited 13dn and 22dn
Thanks, Nutmeg.
| Across | ||
| 1 | MELODIST | Singer from Blur accepting back payment (8) |
| MIST (“blur”) “accepting” <=DOLE (“payment”) | ||
| 5 | METHOD | Carrier following police procedure (6) |
| HOD (brick “carrier”) “following” MET(ropolitan “police”) | ||
| 9 | SHAMBOLIC | Utterly confused bishop, briefly calm after Reformation (9) |
| *(bisho calm) | ||
| 11 | PELTS | Quickly runs and hides (5) |
| Double definition | ||
| 12 | SLIDING SCALE | More and more bread on this slippery bit of fish? (7,5) |
| SLIDING (~ “slippery”) + SCALE (“bit of fish”)
If you’re paid on a sliding scale, you earn more and more “bread” as you progress. |
||
| 15 | NOES | They’ll oppose candidates other than mine (4) |
| NO(mine)ES (“candidates”) | ||
| 16 | GRILL ROOMS | Persistently queries limiting space for eating places (5,5) |
| GRILLS (“persistently queries”) “limiting” ROOM (“space”) | ||
| 18 | ACT ONE’S AGE | Don’t be childish, like pundit at start of play? (3,4,3) |
| SAGE (“pundit”) “at” ACT ONE (“start of play”) | ||
| 19 | YEAR | Long, endless length of time (4) |
| YEAR(n) | ||
| 21 | UNCHARITABLE | Harsh island superficially off-limits to map-makers (12) |
| I(sland) in UNCHARTABLE (“off-limits to map-makers”) | ||
| 24 | THIRD | Theatrical dame, succinctly recorded, just placed (5) |
| Thora Hird, a theatrical dame, succinctly recorded, would be T. HIRD. | ||
| 25 | GOING DOWN | Setting award blocked by Nutmeg not working (5,4) |
| GONG (“award”) “blocked by” I (“Nutmeg”) + DOWN (“not working”) | ||
| 26 | DYNAMO | No sluggard: a lot put back into party (6) |
| <=MANY (“a lot”) “into” DO (“party”) | ||
| 27 | ANCESTRY | Subtle ascent by railway line (8) |
| *(ascent) “by” RY (“railway”) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | MASH | Mummy’s hot potatoes? (4) |
| MA’S + H(ot) | ||
| 2 | LEAD | Premier article in key write-up (4) |
| A (“article”) in <=DEL(ete “key”) | ||
| 3 | DABBLE | In valley, very black ducks do it (6) |
| BB (“very black”) “in” DALE (“valley”) | ||
| 4 | SALAD DRESSING | Israeli regularly speaking with relish? (5,8) |
| iSrAeLi + ADDRESSING (“speaking with”) | ||
| 6 | EXPOSURE | Alpinists must guard against such publicity (8) |
| Double definition | ||
| 7 | HALF A DOZEN | Barely any sleep before noon or six? (4,1,5) |
| HALF A DOZE (“hardly any sleep”) “before” N(oon) | ||
| 8 | DISPENSARY | Chemist‘s putting small enclosures in log (10) |
| S(mall) PENS (“enclosures”) “in” DIARY (“log”) | ||
| 10 | CONFLAGRATION | Conspicuous consumption from Tory on standard allowance? (13) |
| CON(servative, thus “Tory”) + FLAG (“standard”) + RATION (“allowance”) | ||
| 13 | INFATUATED | Awkward characters from FA at United transported (10) |
| *(fa at united). The definition should be “transported”, and the anagrind is “awkward (characters from)” | ||
| 14 | KENTUCKIAN | Statesman‘s acquaintance given a parting invitation to dine (10) |
| KEN (“acquaintance”) + A “parting” TUCK IN (“invitation to dine”) | ||
| 17 | IN TANDEM | Saint and emissary keeping close together (2,6) |
| Hidden in “saINT AND Emissary“ | ||
| 20 | PLAGUE | Harry‘s little medal good for Queen (6) |
| Replace the Q(ueen) in PLAQUE (“little medal”) with G(ood) | ||
| 22 | PORT | Drink left on coaster (4) |
| Double definition, with “left on coaster”, being the same as “left on ship” ie the port side. | ||
| 23 | ONLY | Just individual (4) |
| Double definition | ||
*anagram
Is 13 down not transported as the definition and awkward the anagram indicator?
Thanks for the puzzle, Nutmeg and for the blog, Loonapick. Very difficult … and very enjoyable. UNCHARTABLE was the hardest, I thought and I’m still struggling to see how it is indicated to insert i(sland) into unchartable? Also, in what sense is PORT equivalent to coaster?
Very nice Nutmeg, and thanks to loonapick for the parsing of NOES…easy when you know how.
I think PORT is simply the word for left on a coaster(boat)
My thoughts exactly match Baerchen@3. Also failed on 15a, so congrats to Loonapick on parsing.
A great puzzle; thanks to Nutmeg. Just on the right side of difficult for me, though not impossible.
I’m another solver who couldn’t parse 15a NOES; like matrixmania@2, I could not see where “i” for “island” was indicated as the insertion; I agree with gsol@1 regarding that parse of 13d; and like baerchen@3 I saw PORT at 22d as meaning “left” on a boat.
For a while I was misled by filling in “SOLE” instead of ONLY at 23d.
My only quibble was that I was not sure that I would call SALAD DRESSING (4d) a relish. Mind you I still really “relished” that clue. My other favourites were 7d HALF A DOZEN and 20d PLAGUE.
Your blog was much appreciated, loonapick.
This was a difficult puzzle and I am glad to have completed it even though I could not parse 15a, 18a, 24a (never heard of Thora Hird), 6d.
New word for me was HOD (part of 5a/METHOD).
My favourite was PLAQUE.
Thank you loonapick and Nutmeg
For 21a, I just took ‘superficially’ to refer to uncharitable on the outside of i for island in answer to the queries @2,5
9A is anagram of BISHO CALM (not BISHOP CAL)
Great puzzle! Loads of clues ticked, but favourites were KENTUCKIAN, NOES (managed to parse this), PLAGUE and UNCHARITABLE. I thought the only slightly iffy definition was SLIDING SCALE. Many thanks to Nutmeg and loonapick.
PLAGUE was a fave of mine too.
This lass is very consistent
Found this very tough in places
For 9a, shouldn’t it be bisho + calm?
Thanks to loonapick & Nutmeg both
re Malmesbury Road @ 8
Whoops, hadn’t refreshed page before commenting and so didn’t see your entry, sorry
Thanks to Nutmeg and PeterO.
I=island with UNCHARTABLE placed on top of it (superficially)=UNCHARITABLE, I’m ok with that. Just about. Only just. [I think people’s spell-checks are insisting on UNCHARITABLE in some places where UNCHARTABLE is intended, including in the blog?]
Enjoyed the SW corner particularly, but eyebrows a-twitch in NW at MELODIST=singer, PREMIER=lead and, like Julie@5, SALAD DRESSING=relish. A bit loose for my butter-knife brain, not inaccurate as such. Fav was EXPOSURE. Got held up by having BADGER instead of PLAGUE; plaque=little medal is, again, a bit loose imho.
But I enjoyed it, let me be clear, and was glad of the blog for the parsing of NOES (- rings a vague bell…)
Thank you Nutmeg for a fun puzzle and loonapick for the parsing of NOES, I should have tried harder.
I am not surprised that Alphalpha @13 entered BADGER at 20d, a ‘plaque’ in the ‘little medal’ sense according to the COED is “a small badge of rank in an honorary order”, so with BADGE + R (queen, Regina) the parsing is perfect.
Alphalpha@13, thanks for spotting the spell-check error in my entry@7. Usually notice these but, not for the first time, I didn’t spot it at the time.
LOI was ANCESTRY. “Subtle” too subtle for me as an anagrind.
Another neat puzzle from the ever inventive Nutmeg – as always plenty of clever disguise.
Thanks to Nutmeg and loonapick
Thanks to Nutmeg and loonapick. I’m another who started with “badger” as opposed to PLAGUE, did not know Dame Thora Hird, and could not parse NOES – and the dabbling duck was new to me. Difficult but enjoyable.
Help wanted, please! How does “no” equal “mine”, how are “es” candidates, and how is a comflagration conspicuous consumption? Drivng my new Porsche around with the roof down and the stereo blaring might be conspicuous consumption, but it would need an electrical fault or somethig similar for it to become a conflagration
Thesauvianscrabbler@19:
“nominees” are candidates; “other than mine” indicates that only the n,o,e,s should be used.
A conflagration is a large and therefore conspicuous fire which requires the consumption of fuel of some kind (think of the phrase “consumed by fire”).
Nice puzzle but I had difficulty in the SE. PLAGUE was my LOI and I never managed to parse it. I saw GOING DOWN from the wordplay but I’m not sure how this equals “setting”? Is this the “setting” on a lift? Don’t like it much. Liked the rest of it though!
Thanks Nutmeg.
This was hard and we failed on Kentuckian! Note to self – statesmen are not always politicians!!!
Thesauvianscrabber@19
Those two clues do not work imo either. But the rest was solid.
Peter Aspinwall @21
“I saw GOING DOWN from the wordplay but I’m not sure how this equals “setting”?” Think of the sun.
Rather late to the party today and it’s really all been said.
Many thanks, Nutmeg, for another elegant puzzle and thanks, loonapick, for the blog.
Excellent puzzle. Loved ‘setting’.
I ain’t gonna lie… that was a put-it-down-for-half-an-hour-then-look-at-it-again type puzzle. Twice. But I got there in the end, with the infuriatingly-obvious-once-I-got-it PORT the LOI.
SLIDING SCALE and ACT ONES AGE were the highlights for me.
Thanks Nutmeg and loonapick.
copmus @10. I thought Nutmeg was a bloke.
Can anyone tell me how a duck dabbles?
jeceris @27
See: Nutmeg
From Chambers: “dabble – (of ducks) to feed by moving the bill around below the water”
To beaulieu -thank you for the explanation of noes. As for conflagration, I had thought of a conflagration as consuming whatever was burning, but I don’t think it’s very good, even with the question mark
Another one I was pleased to complete before coming here. I nearly gave up with 2d (the keyboard again!) and 22d (nice clue) still to do but had pdms just in time. Favourites were MASH (FOI, but inventive clueing that made me smile) and 7d – I had HALF A in for ages before DOZEN came to mind and then another smile when I parsed it. Like many I failed on parsing NOES and like drofle I found SLIDING SCALE very iffy. My least favourite was KENTUCKIAN – just too contrived for my taste, but these are quibbles in an all round enjoyable solve – thank you Nutmeg and loonapick.
jeceris @ 27 – probably much too late to comment – but this from The Wind in the Willows:
All along the backwater,
Through the rushes tall,
Ducks are a-dabbling,
Up tails all!
Ducks’ tails, drakes’ tails,
Yellow feet a-quiver,
Yellow bills all out of sight
Busy in the river!
Slushy green undergrowth
Where the roach swim–
Here we keep our larder,
Cool and full and dim.
Everyone for what he likes!
WE like to be
Heads down, tails up,
Dabbling free!
High in the blue above
Swifts whirl and call–
WE are down a-dabbling
Up tails all!
`I don’t know that I think so VERY much of that little song, Rat,’ observed the Mole cautiously. He was no poet himself and didn’t care who knew it; and he had a candid nature.
Another gem of a puzzle by Nutmeg: an attractive grid-fill with a set of completely fair and elegantly constructed clues to match. I particularly like some of the shorter entries, where I suppose it must be a challenge to come up with something original; however, Nutmeg manages it here with distinction – e.g. 15a, 19a, 24a, 1d, 2d and 22d. As mentioned by previous commenters, 20d is also excellent.
Many thanks to both setter and blogger.
It’s all been said. A super crossword and good fun. My favourite was my last one in: 22d PORT, which I thought was brilliant.
Thanks Nutmeg and loonapick.
A bit of a challenge, but very enjoyable. Thanks to setter and blogger.
Held up for a time by putting MALT in at 22 – a drink I like nearly as much as port. I should know by now that when a word has two distinct meanings (as in this case ‘coaster’) it is unlikely that the meaning in the surface will be the one leading to the answer.
I agree with others that defining CONFLAGRATION as conspicuous consumption is too much of a stretch.
Thanks to judygs @31 for reminding me of the definitive text on ‘dabbling’ – back to childhood instantly. Last week on the beautiful River Test I was watching the ducks enthusiastically feeding, and ‘dabbling’ perfectly describes what they do.
Thanks lunapick and Nutmeg.
At first I had BOLTS at 10a which fits fine (as in bolt hole), but that delayed solving 6d.
At first I had BADGER at 20d; little medal BADge, + G + ER, but ANCESTRY put paid to that.
William @ yesterday’s 18. I hope your key lesson helped you today; it did me with 2d 🙂
Thanks for the “key” lesson – as a result of it I was able to get 2d (the one with “Del” backwards). Kentuckian defeated me though I parsed Statesman correctly, because I didn’t think of ken=acquaintance.
A great puzzle. Thanks Nutmeg and Loonapick.
Eileen @ 24
Thanks- I never thought of the Sun!
Gaufrid @ 28 -thanks for the link. I was thinking of Imogen.
judygs @ 31 – I will henceforth never forget the dabbling of ducks.