A great Thursday challenge from Klingsor this week that we really enjoyed.
The NE corner went in fairly quickly and as soon as 10 across was solved we both thought – pangram? With a few left to solve in the NW quadrant we checked to see whether any letters were missing to help us fill in the gaps. We were both convinced that there was no U with only 1d left.
Regular readers of our blogs may remember comments about Bert and his Latin and Joyce with her very limited German and Greek. You may be interested to know that Joyce checked on possible words in Chambers and came across the answer, PASSIM – “It comes from the Latin”, she said with an amused grin on her face.
We then checked the grid again and eventually found the U in REGULATOR making it a pangram after all.
We’re still in Greece so if there are any errors or omissions we will not be able to sort them out until later in the day. It seems that for a few days whilst we have been away the UK has had better weather than we have. We’re not complaining though!
| Across | ||
| 1 | Part of address book is deleted from PCs booted badly (8) | |
| POSTCODE | An anagram of PCS |
|
| 5 | Rope wife in to hunt missing 100 nicker finally (6) | |
| HAWSER | W (wife) in |
|
| 9 | Lazy sons throw man out of work (8) | |
| SLOBBISH | S (sons) LOB (throw) BISH |
|
| 10 | Heartlessly taunted about New Cross being cursed (6) | |
| JINXED | JI |
|
| 12 | Asian returned intelligence on terrorists (5) | |
| IRAQI | IQ (intelligence) reversed or ‘returned’ on IRA (terrorists) | |
| 13 | Negotiate difficult terrain in the East continually (9) | |
| ORIENTEER | ORIENT (in the East) EER (continually) | |
| 14 | Place in heart of Australia is possibly good suggestion for a start! (5,7) | |
| ALICE SPRINGS | An &lit perhaps? An anagram of PLACE IN, R (middle letter or ‘heart’ of ‘Australia’) and IS – anagrind is ‘possibly’ + G (good) S (initial letter or ‘start’ of suggestion) | |
| 18 | Fish coated in batter’s following cold dish of offal (12) | |
| CHITTERLINGS | LING (fish) in HITTER’S (batter’s) after C (cold) | |
| 21 | In a month, ransack African city (9) | |
| MARRAKECH | RAKE (ransack) inside MARCH (month) | |
| 23 | Not all backed National Lottery, that’s plain (5) | |
| LLANO | Hidden (‘not all’) and reversed or ‘backed’ in natiONAL Lottery | |
| 24 | Run from venomous creature by lake (6) | |
| LADDER | ADDER (venomous creature) by L (lake) | |
| 25 | Ring newspapers frequently (8) | |
| OFTTIMES | O (ring) FT and TIMES (two newspapers) | |
| 26 | It’s hard cracking cipher without old instrument (6) | |
| ZITHER | IT and H (hard) inside or ‘cracking’ ZER |
|
| 27 | Try stopping geeky husband turning around for gas (8) | |
| HYDROGEN | GO (try) inside or ‘stopping’ NERDY (geeky) H (husband) reversed or ‘turning around’ | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | Let slip about following secretary everywhere (6) | |
| PASSIM | MISS (let slip) reversed or ‘about’ following PA (secretary) | |
| 2 | Salvation Army entertains record number, producing War Cry (6) | |
| SLOGAN | SA (Salvation Army) around or ‘entertaining’ LOG (record) + N (number) | |
| 3 | Carriage etc, British Rail rolling stock primarily obsolete (9) | |
| CABRIOLET | An anagram of ETC B (British) RAIL – anagrind is ‘rolling’ – around or ‘stocking’ O (first letter of obsolete or ‘primarily’) | |
| 4 | Record in the past rather oddly getting daughter upset (12) | |
| DISCONCERTED | DISC (record) ONCE (in the past) plus odd letters of RaThEr and D (daughter) | |
| 6 | American, one involved in transport of birds (5) | |
| AVIAN | A (American) + I (one) inside or ‘involved in’ VAN (transport) | |
| 7 | Cheap drink around ten – 50% off Kilkenny (8) | |
| SIXPENNY | SIP (drink) around X (ten) + |
|
| 8 | Article in Bild upset and annoyed relief organisation (3,5) | |
| RED CROSS | DER (a German article – Bild is a German newspaper) reversed or ‘upset’ CROSS (annoyed) | |
| 11 | This PG film extremely gory? Somehow that’s very unlikely! (4,5,3) | |
| PIGS MIGHT FLY | An anagram of THIS PG FILM and G |
|
| 15 | Turned up list by gun controller (9) | |
| REGULATOR | A reversal or ‘turning up’ of ROTA (list) and LUGER (gun) | |
| 16 | Master interrupts school dance, heading off soppy stuff (8) | |
| SCHMALTZ | M (master) inside or ‘interrupting’ SCH (school) and |
|
| 17 | Doctor doctor, I’m a little shot! (8) | |
| MICRODOT | An anagram of DOCTOR I’M – anagrind is ‘doctor’ | |
| 19 | Furious convict initially exchanged men’s periodical (3,3) | |
| LAD MAG | MAD LAG (furious convict) with initial letters exchanged | |
| 20 | Oscar tucked into porridge right away – it’s inedible! (6) | |
| POISON | O (oscar) inside or ‘tucked into’ P |
|
| 22 | Porter perhaps carries case for divine woman (5) | |
| ADELE | ALE (porter perhaps) around or ‘carrying’ D |
|
Enjoyable stuff. Didn’t know slogan as war cry, Scottish it seems. PASSIM was new to me and, although I got 14a straightaway from the numeration, I failed to parse it. Never thought to look for an &lit. Difficult to pick favourites but HYDROGEN and the anagram for 11d come to mind.
Thanks B&J and enjoy Greece. Thanks Klingsor. Very enjoyable.
Re ‘slogan’ being a war cry. In the last stanza of Browning’s “Child Roland to the Dark Tower came”, in which the hero sees the ghosts of all those who died trying to reach the Dark Tower before him, we find:
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew.
But Browning had not realised that when Scots sounded the slughorn as they charged the enemy, they were not blowing a musical instrument but shouting a war cry. From the Gaelic sluagh-ghairm, a word that became our ‘slogan’.
back under my stone now.
Fascinating stuff, Conrad, for which many thanks. I remain doubtful about RAKE = RANSACK and MICRODOT = A LITTLE SHOT. But all gettable, I suppose.
Thanks for blogging, B&J and thanks to Klingsor for a (for once) easyish Thursday puzzle.
All went in pretty straightforwardly – just got stuck at the end in the NW corner with PASSIM and SLOBBISH until I remembered Private Eye when they want to refer readers back to previous articles on the same scandal (Eyes, passim).
Interesting stuff, Conrad – thanks for that.
And even I spotted the pangram.
I found this one a thoroughly engaging puzzle, but nowhere near as straightforward as KD @4 as it took a while to get in, but then it was solid solving until I was finally beat by a few here and there after the solving hour was up.
Like Jason @3 ‘ransack/rake’ gave me pause for thought until I found enough evidence for it in the dictionaries and thought it fine. I got sidelined by ‘microdot’ knowing only the LSD meaning, but then on seeing the photograph dictionary def I was happy it worked, especially with the EM.
My honours today go to Klingsor for the enjoyably absorbing solve and to CC for the interesting info so thanks to them. BTW, I fancy there’s a need to form an anti-stone returning league to avoid us missing out on all the good stuff, you know (unless of course the stones provide solid protection from fools such as I, in which case: rock on).
Thanks also to B&J for the blog (though one mark down for B for missing the Latin that J picked up). 🙂
A couple of things I needed to verify – the plain in 23a and the German newspaper. Haven’t come across 7d before either – assume that, like the amount the tooth fairy pays out, the cost of something cheap has risen since I was a youngster!
Always forget about zero = cipher and still don’t like the fact that a single ‘S’ can stand for either son or sons.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed the solve and would award top prize to 25a.
Thanks to Klingsor and to Bert & Joyce for the decryption.
I found this pretty tough and would probably have made a cheeky cheat or two on another day. On this occasion, however, I had time to devote to head-scratching and space in which to mutter to myself. So I got there (in fact in less time than it felt) all on my own, with the checks I needed to make left until the end. I enjoyed learning a second LL- word.
It’s one of those puzzles where a favourite is hard to decide on through too much, rather than too little, choice. So I will leave it at that other than to say thankyou to Klingsor for the fun and to B&J for the blog.
Another puzzle solved without help, having once again been out of reach of either e-help or even a dtv dictionary for most of the day. But it all came together slowly, with several ‘aha’ moments and a lot of parsing only seen several minutes after getting the answers.
A lot to like but my favourite is LAD MAG simply because Klingsor has clued it without mentioning Dr Spooner!
Thanks, Klingsor and B&J.
To allan_c @8:
Re LAD MAG, …
True, re Spooner, but I still groan inwardly & often outwardly when a Spoonerism – no matter how thinly disguised – turns up. This post falls under the heading of ‘why-oh-why?’ or ‘is it only me?’ so might be better General Discussion fodder, but…
Does anybody at all ever go, “Oh, great, a Spoonerism! Huzzah, let’s see what we might have here…”?
No, they do not.
They might have a guess at a def, and get an ‘aha’ that way.
They’re might get a crosser or two, have another guess at a def and then get an ‘aha’ that way.
‘Nobody in the history of crossword solving ever solved a Spooner clue first shot from the Spoonerism. They are are always word-played in retrospect’. Discuss.
I hate ’em.
GB @9 – I think I’m pretty much in agreement with your assessment of Spooners.
However, I would add that there are exceptions (which prove your rule, natch) in that sometimes you know as a setter that folks have got the Spooner from the Spoonerism rather than def or crossers. Reason I know this (and this is the rule proving bit) is that the solvers are so happy/excited/effusive in their comment related to said Spoonerism that you just know it is the first one they have got that way in ages because the majority of other Spooners require reverse engineering or a def-led solve or crosser-led solve as you mention.
In an additional thought, I reckons it’s okay for the odd clue to be more likely to be reverse engineered or got from def or crossers as that’s part of the joy of crossies. We have a grid with crossing letters and more than one way to get the answer with def and subsidiary indication so that’s all part of the game: in fact, sometimes a lot of the pleasure of solving comes from knowing what fits the def and the crossers and then hitting upon why it does.
Having said that, I think these sort of reverse-engineered clues etc should be used sparingly in a crossword as if you miss the def and don’t have the crossers you iz banjaxed as a solver. In the end the use of these clues is all about gridcraft when setting (though that’s an easy thing to get wrong as I have often shown in me own puzzles).