Phi has supplied the latest of his regular Friday puzzles for our delectation today.
I found this to be a medium difficulty puzzle on the Phi spectrum. I struggled most in the SE quadrant, with the intersecting clues at 19, 20 and 22 proving the most stubborn of all. I think that I have parsed all the solutions satisfactorily. I haven’t spotted a theme, on elections or anything else, but I am doubtless missing something.
My favourites clues today were 1A/18, for smoothness of surface; 6, for its riddle-like quality; and 13D, for ingenuity.
*(…) indicates an anagram; definitions are italicised; // separates definitions in multiple-definition clues
| Across | ||
| 01/18 | PETER GRIMES | Emerges with trip arranged to see opera
*(EMERGES + TRIP); “arranged” is anagram indicator; the reference is to Peter Grimes, the 1945 opera by Benjamin Britten |
| 04 | CHILDHOOD | Recording gangster, capturing most of his ultimately immoral youth
[HI<s> (“most of” means last letter dropped) + <immora>L (“ultimately” means last letter only)] in [CD (=recording) + HOOD (=gangster, in US slang)] |
| 09 | ALIVE AND KICKING | I’ve to interrupt a country playing football with a lot of vigour
I’VE in [A + LAND + KICKING (=playing football)] |
| 10 | SILHOUETTE | Hotel suite badly represented in shadow
*(HOTEL SUITE); “badly” is anagram indicator |
| 11 | PIKE | Manoeuvre displayed by one diving // fish
Double definition: the piked position or pike is a manoeuvre adopted by a person diving from a board |
| 13 | DETAIL | Small squad spread misinformation round about old reservists
TA (=old, i.e. former, reservists, i.e. Territorial Army) in DEIL (LIED=spread misinformation; “round” indicates reversal) |
| 14 | ANEMONES | Certain marine plants no sailors found in the briny, on reflection
[NO + MEN (=sailors)] in SEA (=the briny); “on reflection” indicates (here full) reversal |
| 16 | PLEIADES | Request to embrace one of French stars
[I (=one) in PLEA (=request)] + DES (=of French, i.e. a French word for of]; Pleiades is a group of six stars in the constellation Taurus |
| 21 | TURN | Go off and // act
Double definition: to “turn” is to go off, sour of e.g. milk AND a “turn” is an act, performance, e.g. in a cabaret |
| 22 | NIHILISTIC | Couple keeping roster in country largely with backing of anarchists?
[LIST (=roster) in II (=couple, i.e. two in Roman numerals)] in NIHC (CHIN<a> (=country); “largely” means last letter dropped; “with backing” indicates reversal) |
| 25 | ONCE IN A BLUE MOON | Weird alien cub found aboard a particular satellite rarely
*(ALIEN CUB) in [ONE (=a particular) + MOON (=satellite)]; “weird” is anagram indicator |
| 26 | GREAT BEAR | Certain stars are annoying in the nude, we hear
Homophone (“we hear”) of “grate (=are annoying) + bare (=in the nude)” |
| 27 | YOKEL | Rustic cry mostly encompassing expression of satisfaction
OK (=expression of satisfaction) in YEL<l> (=cry; “mostly” means last letter dropped); a rustic is a country bumpkin, peasant |
| Down | ||
| 01 | PEARS | Audience, say, supporting piano offering fruitful things?
P (=piano, i.e. soft in music) + EARS (=audience, i.e. things that hear, listen) |
| 02 | TRIPLET | Holiday rental for three?
TRIP (=holiday) + LET (=rental); a triplet is three of a kind, or three united |
| 03 | RHETORICAL | Choir later reformed, not expecting response
*(CHOIR LATER); “reformed” is anagram indicator; a rhetorical question is one which is asked but to which no answer is expected |
| 04 | CONVEX | Rounded study to be a concern?
CON (=study, pore over) + VEX (=to be a concern to, trouble); a rounded lens is convex, the opposite of concave |
| 05 | INKSTAND | Stink erupting with source of writer’s material
*(STINK) + AND (=with); “erupting” is anagram indicator; cryptically, an inkstand is a “source of writer (=pen)’s material (=ink)” |
| 06 | DUCK | Get out of // what one might get out for
To “duck” one’s duties, responsibilities is to “get out of” them, shirk AND a “duck” (=zero score) is what one might get out for in cricket |
| 07 | OPINION | Musical work, repeatedly popular, containing nothing in critic’s view
OP. (=musical work, i.e. opus) + [O (=nothing) + IN (=popular) + IN (=popular)] |
| 08 | DIGRESSES | Follows a distraction (like topless gowns?)
DIG (=like, as verb, i.e. approve of) + <d>RESSES (=gowns, robes; “topless” means first letter only) |
| 12 | EMBROIDERY | Bride more upset over variable stitching
*(BRIDE MORE) + Y (=variable, in algebra); “upset” is anagram indicator |
| 13 | DIPHTHONG | Swim, taking hot, minimal swimsuit? Mean each day to show it thrice
DIP (=swim) + H (=hot, on tap) + THONG (=minimal swimsuit); there are three (“thrice”) diphthongs, i.e. two vowel sounds pronounced as one syllable, in “mEAn EAch dAY“ |
| 15 | CELIBATE | Like a nun in church – able to get involved with it
CE (=church) + *(ABLE + IT); “to get involved with” is anagram indicator |
| 17 | EARACHE | Bodily pain shown by each group of people around hospital
EA (=each) + [H (=hospital) in RACE (=group of people)] |
| 19 | MATLOCK | Immobile state presented by confused mass in town
MAT (=a confused mess, e.g. of hair) + LOCK (=immobile state); Matlock is a town in Derbyshire |
| 20 | PILLAR | Rock column entirely swamped by disturbed sea, rising
ALL (=entirely) in RIP (=disturbed sea, cf. rip tide); “rising” indicates (here full) vertical reversal |
| 23 | CANAL | Stop work on a lake and waterway
CAN (=stop work on) + A + L (=lake) |
| 24 | MINT | Quantity of archaism in the new
Hidden (“quantity of”) in “archaisM IN The” |
I was expecting more on the theme of 1/18, but apart from Peter PEARS (Britten’s partner and first singer of the title role) in 1d, I can’t see anything obvious.
13d: the sounds in “mean” and “each” are surely not diphthongs in most dialects.
Ah, “Now the Great Bear and Pleiades” is an aria from PG.
Thanks, RR.
Not too difficult. There were plenty of straightforward clues to get you going, and then the rest was there if you went looking for it. Which is how a good daily cryptic should be.
I’m not sure that Robin HOOD would like to be described as a ‘gangster’. I think HOOD is a mainly American English slang word for ‘gangster’, derived from HOODLUM.
PETER GRIMES I’d heard of, but the related stuff, no idea.
Bravo, Phi and good weekend to all. Only disappointment for the setters is that very soon they will have to use ‘ex-PM’ rather than ‘PM’ when they want to wangle MAY into a clue. Not a disappointment for many of the rest of us, though.
Kathryn’s Dad@3-fully agree on hood.
Took a long while for penny to drop in 11.
Word count kind of gave 25 away.
Thanks for all the parsing RR particularly on 22.
And thanks Phi.
And thanks Hoskins for popping in yesterday.
Thanks Phi and RR, I enjoyed that. For some reason 5D held me up longer than it should – I was trying to shoehorn in INKSTOCK, which sounded like a thing but (unsurprisingly) couldn’t parse it.
Surprised no-one has grumbled about Sea ANEMONES being animal kingdom and not plants.
Thanks to Kathryn’s Dad for the clarification on “hood” – the blog has been amended accordingly.
Was on track to finish a Phi in record time, then got stuck on 22a and 8d. 11a was my LOI. Loved the anagram in 10a – probably appeared in the past but I don’t recall seeing it before.
Enjoyable stuff that I found quite tough in places. Of course, I didn’t help myself by spelling ‘great bear’ as its homophonic counterpart and I just couldn’t get ‘den’ out of my head for study in 4d. Honours today go to 26a for the lolz, 1/18 for teaching me the name of an opera that sounds more like a character out of a soap, and to Andrew @1/2 for nailing the theme (I reckons). Cheers to Phi for the puzz and to RR for the blog.
Saw the theme but it didn’t help me to finish because by then I’d got all the thematic answers. Didn’t know PIKE in its diving context, and like Hoskins@8 I got fixated on ‘den’ in 4dn.
But very enjoyable; thanks, Phi and RatkojaRiku.
Implausible though it may seem (it has always seemed an awkward thing to sing to me, even though I know Britten makes it work perfectly well), ‘Embroidery in childhood’ is another aria from Peter Grimes, this time for the lead female character, Ellen Orford.