Guardian 27,219 – Crucible

by

On a morning where Schadenfreude at the election result gives some small comfort from the state of the world, Crucible (mostly) takes our minds off it with an entertaining puzzle…

… with a theme of pirates or BUCCANEERS, and some links to the novel TREASURE ISLAND. I’ve noted some of these below, and I can also see the SPANISH MAIN, GALLEONS, the Spanish ports of CADIZ and BILBAO, and (perhaps more tenuously) ADRIFT and SEABIRDS – and maybe there’s more. Thanks to Crucible.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
9. HEARTLAND Catch tense boy touring Norway (central region) (9)
HEAR (catch) + T[ense] + N in LAD
10. URINE Wee one blocks vessel close to shore (5)
I in URN + [shor]E
11. VOLCANO Oval cone not completely reshaped? (7)
Anagram of OVAL CON[e], &lit
12. SACKBUT Old instrument still in position after fire (7)
SACK (to fire) + BUT (still) – the sackbut is an early form of the trombone
13. ROOK Man on board, occupant of crow’s-nest? (4)
Double definition – chess piece; and the rook is a member of the crow family
14. HISPANIOLA 20 Polish in a rocky area (10)
(POLISH IN A)* + A[rea] – the name of the ship in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, as well as the Caribbean island
16. ENSLAVE Force to work in small space to free about 50 (7)
L in EN (printer’s space) + SAVE (to free)
17. TREASON He avoids the motive for crime (7)
THE minus HE + REASON
19. ITINERATED Current point estimated to have moved around (10)
I (symbol for electric current) + TINE (point) + RATED – an odd word, though obviously related to “itinerant”
22. MAIN Principal sea area off Ireland, not large (4)
MALIN (sea area in the Shipping Forecast) less L
24. BALFOUR Labour fails to suppress female PM (7)
F in LABOUR* – at the time of writing it’s not clear whether this “prediction” will come true…
25. SPANISH Bridge is beginning to hinder one means of communication (7)
SPAN (bridge) + IS + H[inder]
26. RANGE Top fruit variety (5)
ORANGE, “topped”
27. FORBIDDEN Foreign Office ordered to tackle Republican taboo (9)
R in F.O. + BIDDEN
Down
1. SHIVER ME TIMBERS Irish member vets bogus oath (spoken in 1720, perhaps) (6,2,7)
(IRISH MEMBER VETS)* – a traditional pirate’s oath, maybe spoken in 1720, but more relevantly in the answers to 17d and 20d: TREASURE ISLAND
2. GALLEONS Old sailing ships vex Times (8)
GALL + EONS
3. AT BAY A river protects British on the defensive (2,3)
B in A TAY
4. CAROLINE Old queen makes love among ship’s timbers (8)
O in CARLINE – Chambers defines this as “a strong beam used for supporting the deck in a ship, etc”, so it’s a timber rather than timbers. The echo of 1d is also perhaps a bit of a blemish. There have been various Queen Carolines, incuding the wives of George II and George IV: I don’t know if any of them (or other Carolines) have particular pirate-y connections.
5. ADDS UP Notice small boarding party? Makes sense (4,2)
AD (notice) + S in DUP (political party in Northern Ireland)
6. BUCCANEER I’d say young US man is able to pick up a Corsair (9)
Homophone (-ish) of “buck can hear”
7. BILBAO Airline carries 16oz duck and port (6)
1 LB in BA + 0
8. RESTRAINING HAND Support wet crewman controlling aid (11,4)
REST (support) + RAINING (wet) + HAND (crewman)
15. WAVE POWER Hesitate limiting English prisoner’s energy source (4,5)
E POW in WAVER
17. TREASURE Team leader to cheer up, having lost second prize (8)
T + REASSURE minus one S
18. SEABIRDS Perhaps divers sidebars need editing (3,5)
SIDEBARS*
20. ISLAND One’s left with kitchen unit (6)
I’S + L + AND (with)
21. ADRIFT A doctor provided time off course (6)
A + DR + IF (providing) + T
23. CADIZ Goldsmith holds papers up in port (5)
Reverse of ID in ZAC

38 comments on “Guardian 27,219 – Crucible”

  1. Lovely stuff, and I even spotted the theme (right at the end!)

    I was slightly held up by wanting to enter RESTRAINING HOLD. Carline was a new word to me.

    Thanks, Crucible and Andrew!

  2. Thanks Crucible and Andrew

    I guessed 1d early and searched Google, which informed me that 1720 was the end of the “golden age of piracy” (odd term). I forgot to look back at it after solving 17 and 20.

    I knew CARLIN (not CARLINE) as a ship’s timber. Oddly, neither is in my (oldish) Chambers. I didn’t know 8d, but it couldn’t be anything else.

    David Balfour is the protagonist in another Stevenson novel, <i?Kidnapped.

    Favourites were TREASON and ADDS UP,

  5. Thanks Crucible, Andrew
    Super puzzle.
    Cone is fine as a def. for volcano, for me.
    I liked BALFOUR, SHIVER ME TIMBERS, CADIZ, many others.

  6. I like the way Mr Goldsmith, fresh from a very narrow victory in Richmond Park, sneaks into the clueing for 22 Down…

  7. James @5
    The definition would have to be “oval cone”. I suppose some volcanoes are oval cones, but how does “not completely reshaped” relate to a volcano?

  9. An enjoyable exercise for my brain. Thanks to Crucible, and to Andrew for the blog, which gave me several parses I missed.

    12a SACKBUT was a guess confirmed by Google.
    I didn’t know MALIN as the fodder for 22a MAIN, but the answer felt right.
    I got 5d ADDS UP but didn’t know the Irish political party.
    I hadn’t heard of ZAC Goldsmith but think 23d CADIZ has been a solution before, so this was a guess bunged in.

    Favourites were 10a URINE and 1d SHIVER ME TIMBERS.

    Great theme which I really enjoyed.

  10. muffin@5
    It’s an &lit. clue, not a dictionary definition. Not all of the elements have to contribute equally.
    Volcanoes are always being reshaped.

  13. Thank you Crucible and Andrew.

    I found this crossword fun to solve even though some of the parsing took me a while – had not heard of ZAC Goldsmith.

    Muffyword @12 seems to have nailed CAROLINE, all I can add is that the author’s name was Robert Louis BALFOUR Stevenson.

  15. Julie in Australia, I didn’t know much about the DUP until tonight. Very timely. They may add up.

  19. Really enjoyed this, though held up at the end by my inability to see SPANISH when I already had MAIN, the theme, and needed something to go with RESTRAINING. I blame being bleary-eyed after last night – but at least not depressed.

    I can now mentally rejoiin Mrs Trailman as we walk round some pretty gardens in the sunshine.

  23. Prescient of Crucible to include the DUP at 5dn. And it looks as if 24ac MAY turn out to be true after all.

  24. Another entertaining puzzle – easier than it seemed at first sight.

    Thanks to Crucible and Andrew

  25. Thanks to Crucible and Andrew. I did not know carlin-carline, Malin, or Zac Goldsmith and had trouble getting “wave” in WAVE POWER, but I did know DUP (even before the latest news) and managed to get through. Very enjoyable.

  26. Nice enough puzzle, but that is quite an ordinary attempt at an &lit for VOLCANO, if I may say. He’s onto something though, as a volcano can be a cone with an elliptical base. Maybe it was better to take the ‘one might be’ route for it, and try to lose the E gracefully. OVAL CONES = VOLCANOES of course 🙂

    Isn’t that awful about the Tories running to the DUP? Anti-abortion, anti-women’s rights, anti-lgbt, and linked to terrorism. I don’t know how much worse it can get.

  27. A volcano is hardly a cone. I thought the oval cone was the shape before the volcano first erupted i.e. when it was a mountain. The eruption would reshape it for ever.

  28. I took that idea from an internet page about volcanoes, so not as guilty as I might be. ‘Oval cone endlessly erupting’ wouldn’t do it for you either, I’m guessing.

  30. Julie@9, Cookie@13, and ACD@25 – you don’t want to have heard of Zac Goldsmith! But alas you probably will, seeing as he’s just become an MP again 🙁

  31. Guys, I’ve been up Vesuvius, and can testify that it’s definitely a cone. And it still erupts from time to time (not usually as violently as in 79AD :-0). And it’s still a cone afterwards.

  32. Late to this as a result of the election last night and the analysis this morning. Not to mention the humiliation of May. I don’t think I gave this the attention it deserved and I didn’t spot the theme. Should have done having got HISPANIOLA and 1dn.
    Belated thanks Crucible.
    Pity Goldsmith got back!

  34. Thanks to Crucible for an enjoyable chew and to Andrew for parsing CADIZ (it had to be CADIZ but why?) and of course the rest.

    How spooky that the DUP should turn up today in ADDS UP (of all things) – I wonder when the cruciverbalist maximus coined this puzzle? Surely it has to be a coincidence given the timings involved?

    But I came on not to invoke memories of Utah etc [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1460892/D-Day-crosswords-are-still-a-few-clues-short-of-a-solution.html] but to draw the line at ITINERATED. I know it’s a word, and the gerundive(? out of my depth here) survives but really when is the last time anyone used it in speech or in a referable source? Yes I got it but I didn’t like it.

    But a lovely puzzle on a very interesting day.

  35. Very late to the party but we thought this was a lovely crossword.
    It had the lightness of touch we often see in puzzles from Crucible’s alter ego in the FT, Redshank.

    All the fuss about VOLCANO (11ac) is, I think, a bit of chit-chat.
    As the aforementioned Redshank our beloved setter frequently comes up something that may be seen as an &lit.
    And just like here the definition is not always pitch-perfect.
    But so what? The answer was easy to find and the ‘definition’ was imaginative enough to pass the test.
    Well, that’s what I think.

    Just like Alphalpha @34 my crossword partner questioned ITINERATED, being a word nobody ever uses.
    But hey, this is a crossword and it is not the first time that this happens.
    Happy to see the homophone police being absent tonight (6d).

    Spooky indeed to see DUP and Goldsmith making an appearance in this puzzle.
    Pity Goldsmith got back [Peter Aspinwall @32]
    A bigger question is how is it possible that he got back, especially in a strong Remain constituency like Richmond that chose a Lib Dem not so very long ago.

    In tonight’s Question Time a very outspoken Alistair Campbell said ‘if you really want democracy, stop buying the bloody Daily Mail’.
    Now, I do not wish to start a political discussion here but the downside of that would be that today’s setter from now on has to rely on food banks ….. 🙂 🙁

    Back to Crucible’s crossword, we thought the very simple 26ac (RANGE) was actually a really good clue, worth a mention.
    Many thanks Andrew for a blog that has it all.

  36. Sil @35 –
    [I assume Goldsmith’s win was down to the third runway at Heathrow (concerning which he earlier resigned his seat). I lived in Richmond in the ’60s and ’70s and, even then, we were accustomed to having outdoor conversations being halted every few minutes while a jet ‘plane passed over; goodness knows what it’s like now?! (Though one was soon inured.)]
    I seem to recall RANGE being clued similarly before (possibly in the Times) so not as impressed as you.

    Great crossword. Thanks to Crucible and Andrew.

  37. Thanks Crucible and Andrew. Only just caught up after election night. Very enjoyable.

    BTW re 12a. “A crow in a crowd is a rook. A rook on its own is a crow.”

  38. I remember a twitcher (from many years ago) who used to refer to them as ‘crooks’ if they were too far away to differentiate (or if he couldn’t be bothered to turn his binoculars towards them). Needless to say, he wasn’t really interested. Now, if a raven showed up – or a chough ….

    I can sense a crossword clue germinating here! C + ROOK in the wordplay?!

Comments are closed.