The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27231.
The end of another good week at the Guardian. There are a couple of things that raised an eyebrow, but mainly I found this a very good puzzle, neither too hard nor too easy; I solved it top half first.
| Across | ||
| 1 | RED ALERT | Angry porter right to provide a warning (3,5) |
| A charade of RED (in the face, ‘angry’) plus ALE (‘porter’) plus RT (‘right’). | ||
| 5 | BOMBES | Crowd around unfinished cream puddings (6) |
| A charade of BOM, a reversal (‘around’) of MOB (‘crowd’) plus BES[t] (‘cream’) minus its last letter (‘unfinished’). I included a mouthwatering thumbnail of a bombe in a recent blog. | ||
| 9 | CHOICEST | The very best church? Hey, it’s in Paris! (8) |
| A charade of CH (‘church’) plus OI (‘hey’) plus C’EST (French for IT IS – ‘it’s in Paris’). | ||
| 10 | SLALOM | Look into crash at downhill race (6) |
| An envelope (‘into’) of LO (‘look’) in SLAM (‘crash’). | ||
| 12 | ROUGH | Wild bird called out (5) |
A homophone (‘called out’) of RUFF (‘bird’ – the female is called a reeve, and does not have the male’s neck ruff and topknot). |
||
| 13 | AMORPHOUS | Irregular hours working with a mop (9) |
| An anagram (‘working’) of ‘hours’ plus ‘a mop’. | ||
| 14 | PRIDE OF PLACE | Applied force, popping the most noticeable spot (5,2,5) |
| An anagram (‘popping’) of ‘applied force’. | ||
| 18 | ANAESTHETISE | One hesitates to revive English leader after knockout (12) |
| A charade of AN (‘one’) plus AESTHETIS, an anagram (‘to revive’) of ‘hesitates’ plus E (‘English leader’). I think the verb is generally rendered in two words, knock out. | ||
| 21 | SEA CHANGE | Marked transformation in main coins carried (3,6) |
| A charade of SEA (‘main’) plus CHANGE (‘coins carried’). | ||
| 23 | UPEND | Seconds left to postpone trip (5) |
| [s]U[s]PEND (‘postpone’) minus S S (‘seconds left’). | ||
| 24 | LOOFAH | Send back dessert, a hot sort of sponge (6) |
| A charade of LOOF, a reversal (‘send back’) of FOOL (‘dessert’) plus ‘a’ plus H (‘hot’). A loofah or luffa is the fibrous skeleton of a cucumber-like fruit,and serves for the scrubbing function of a sponge. | ||
| 25 | MATA HARI | Spy network endlessly stifling triumphant outburst (4,4) |
An envelope (‘stifling’) of AHA (‘triumphal outburst’) in MATRI[x] (‘network’) minus its last letter (‘endlessly’). Mata Hari, real name Margaretha Geertruide Zelle, was a Dutch exotic dancer, executed by a French firing squad during the First World War, as a spy for the Germans. |
||
| 26 | FARMED | Cultivated fellow with battery (6) |
| A charade of F (‘fellow’) plus ARMED (‘with battery’). | ||
| 27 | CLOTHING | A shoe lined with light threads (8) |
| An envelope (‘lined with’) of THIN (‘light’) in CLOG (‘a shoe’). | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | RECORD | Minute button on some devices (6) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 2 | DROGUE | Parachute initially deployed by villain (6) |
| A charade of D (‘initially Deployed’) plus ROGUE (‘villain’). | ||
| 3 | LOCK HORNS | Struggle to drape hair over a growth on the head? (4,5) |
| An envelope (‘to drape … over’) of HORN (‘a growth on the head’) in LOCKS (‘hair’). | ||
| 4 | RISE AND SHINE | Reforms inside NHS are a wake up call (4,3,5) |
| An anagran (‘reforms’) of ‘inside NHS are’. | ||
| 6 | OXLIP | Plant kiss on cheek after presenting ring (5) |
A charade of O (‘ring’) plus X (‘kiss’) plus LIP (‘cheek’, in the sense of impertinence). If you think you have seen it in England, it is more likely to have been the similar cowslip. |
||
| 7 | BALMORAL | Workshop knocked up decent hat (8) |
A charade of BAL, a reversal (‘knocked up’ in a down light) of LAB (‘workshop’) plus MORAL (‘decent’). |
||
| 8 | SEMESTER | Term for odd steamy compound (8) |
| A charade of SEM (‘odd StEaMy’) plus ESTER (organic chemistry, ‘compound’). | ||
| 11 | GO FOR THE BALL | Tackle, with gravity, O Flower of Scotland at key social event (2,3,3,4) |
| A charade of G (‘gravity’) plus ‘O’ plus FORTH (‘flower of Scotland’) plus E (musical ‘key’) plus BALL (‘social event’). | ||
| 15 | POSTULANT | Candidate to put up first part of capital on time (9) |
| A charade of POST (‘put up’ bail, for example) plus ULAN (‘first part of capital’; ULAANBAATAR, the capital of Mongolia, was formerly anglicised as Ulan Bator; or there is the less well-known Ulan-Ude, the capital city of the Republic of Buryatia, Russia) plus T (‘time’). | ||
| 16 | BASS CLEF | Scored symbol on fish caught by port, mainly (4,4) |
| A charade of BASS (‘fish’) plus C (‘caught’) plus LEF[t] (‘port’) minus its last letter (‘mainly’). | ||
| 17 | PARAMOUR | Soldier has written understanding to meet royal mistress (8) |
| A charade of PARA (‘soldier’) plus MOU (Memorandum of Understanding, ‘written understanding’) plus R (‘royal’). | ||
| 19 | NEPALI | Write up on the greatest Asian (6) |
| A charade of NEP, a reversal (‘up’ in a down light) of PEN (‘write’) plus ALI (Muhammad, ‘the greatest’). | ||
| 20 | ADDING | Lacking head protection, though putting two and two together? (6) |
| [p]ADDING (‘protection’) minus its first letter (‘lacking head’). | ||
| 22 | HEAVE | Ambassador has a very English fling (5) |
| A charade of HE (His Excellency, traditional title of ‘ambassador’) plus ‘a’ plus V (‘very’) plus E (‘English’). | ||
Agreed, a good puzzle, and a good week altogether. And thanks to PeterO for the colourful and informative blog: nice to know about those capital cities.
Thank you for the very informative blog, PeterO. While I share your cavil about 18ac I agree that this was a very good puzzle. Some really nice surfaces and just enough to make me think for a while.
Thank you poor a good start to the day Bonxie.
Me @2: for “poor” read “for”!
Thanks Bonxie and PeterO
I found this hard and not as much fun as Bonxie usually is. Favourite was MATA HARI. I needed the blog for the MOU part of PARAMOUR.
I think you’re being a bit generous in accepting LOOFAH as “serves the scrubbing function of a sponge”, PeterO. Sponges aren’t used abrasively, and genuine ones are (or were) animals, not plants!
Thanks Bonxie and PeterO. I also got wadding and cladding as alternatives for beheading for 20d
Thanks Bonxie, PeterO
Tricky, but just on the right side of fair. I particularly liked the PRIDE OF PLACE and RISE AND SHINE anagrams.
I’ve no problem with LOOFAH and nor does Chambers: ‘used as a hard, rough sponge’
‘Knockout’ rather than ‘knock out’ caused me to put in ‘Anaesthetist’, reading the clue as an &lit. with One’ at the beginning referring to the person. Then I spent a while tutting about the parsing, thinking there was a mistake, with an extra E instead of T having been inserted. ‘One hesitates to revive patient at the end?’ would have done it for me, though without the satire. Got there in the end, though.
Thanks to Bonxie and Peter for your helpful parsing.
Am I the only one stuck for a short while with RAVEN at 12a? A pretty ropy homophone thought I but shoved it in anyway.
No? just me then!
Thank you Bonxie for a challenging puzzle and PeterO for a colourful blog.
1a had to be RED ALERT, but I tried to get the RED from ‘redcap’ for ‘porter’ (apparently the ale was originally brewed for porters). I also failed to fully parse POSTULANT and PARAMOUR, and DROGUE was a new word.
Very enjoyable. Best of the week – but had to bash the ‘check this’ button a fair bit! Thanks Bonxie
I thought this was a good end to the working week (for some anyway!). No particular favourite clues though the use of Flower of Scotland was very clever. However it has to be said that not every tackler goes for the ball – as we shall no doubt see tomorrow morning! Thanks to Bonxie and PeterO, whose pictorial blogs are always appreciated.
James @6
I wish that Chambers were more prepared to add “incorrectly” when reporting incorrect usage. A loofah isn’t a sponge; it isn’t even like a sponge, as it is hard and non-absorbent.
For the most part this went in quite smoothly despite a few tricky parsings, but it took me ages to see BOMBES and BALMORAL – the latter was new to me.
Thanks to Bonxie and PeterO
muffin @11, it is not like me to support Chambers, but the COED gives for LOOFAH “the dried fibrous vascular system of this fruit used like a sponge” and my compact Collins gives “pod of plant used as sponge”.
Hi Cookie
You’re making my point! The defining characteristic of a sponge is that it’s absorbent; it soaks up water. If you compare something to a sponge, this is the property you are alluding to. A loofah isn’t absorbent, so can’t by any stretch correctly be called a sponge. People use sponges in baths, and also loofahs, hence the confusion.
Thanks for the piccies!
Oh and puzzle werent bad either
muffin, the definition is good enough for a crossword – ‘animal’ sponges can be used to gently exfoliate the skin, as can loofahs, and loofahs can be soft when wet and do stay damp…
muffin @11 &14
To the quotes from Cookie @13 I could add:
OED: The fibrous substance of the pod of the plant Luffa aegiptica used as a sponge or flesh-brush.
Oxford online: A coarse fibrous cylindrical object used like a bath sponge for washing.
Collins: The fibrous interior of the fruit of the dishcloth gourd, which is dried, bleached, and used as a bath sponge or for scrubbing.
Merriam-Webster: A sponge consisting of the fibrous interior of the mature dried fruit of a loofah (especially Luffa aegiptica synonym L. cylindrica).
Webster:The dried vascular skeleton of the pod of the dishcloth gourd, used as a sponge.
It should keep you busy for quite a while to see that all these are corrected.
Thanks to Bonxie and PeterO. I much enjoyed this puzzle and did get through but had trouble parsing several items. I did not know the MOU in PARAMOUR (though the solution was clear) or BALMORAL as hat, missed FORTH in GO FOR THE BALL, and did not parse UPEND. SEA CHANGE, on the other hand, is familiar to me from The Tempest, where Ariel brings in Ferdinand in 1.2 with a song “Full fathom five thy father lies” that includes “Nothing of him that doth fade / But doth suffer a sea-change / Into something rich and strange.”
Muffin – as one who has (rather unsuccessfully) tried to grow loofahs in the past, I am with you on the subject, dictionary definitions notwithstanding…
They’re all wrong, PeterO 🙂
(Thanks, Andrew – we crossed)
It’s interesting that PeterO and most of the dictionaries, M-W excepted, are careful to say ‘used like a sponge’, and not ‘like a sponge’. We use sponges for scrubbing, because they are mildly abrasive, as is a loofah. It’s surely unarguable that they can both be used similarly. But maybe that’s not sufficient. A pen could be ‘used like a pencil’, but would be a terrible definition for one.
I’m changing sides.
muffin, there are coarse species of animal sponge used to scrub horses, I have used them in the past but am not sure if one can still find the real thing, I could only find this on the web.
Thanks to Bonxie and Peter0
This was gentler than I have come to expect from the skua.
21ac was my favourite, as immediately the lovely “Full Fathom Five” from the Tempest came into my head, in a version we sang at school nearly 50 years ago.
Terriblyslow @5 – I too thought “cladding” at 20dn, although the recent terrible event shows that it does not always afford protection.
As James @6 said, this was “tricky, but just on the right side of fair.”
Another enjoyable puzzle to follow yesterday’s Screw, and for me equally challenging. I happily left BALL (in 11d GO FOR THE BALL) and 27a (CLOTHING) unsolved because I had no way of getting or confirming either of them. (I cannot remember hearing the phrase in 11d before, despite having played rugby for two years at school, and I didn’t know that meaning of 27a.)
Quite a mixed week, but mostly entertaining. The Arachne was more like an exam paper with exemplary clues (which I passed 100% with some effort!); the Screw I solved in spite of some of the clues; and this Bonxie was the only one that I couldn’t solve unaided – but it was a rewarding experience nonetheless.
My favourites, among many great clues, were 14a PRIDE OF PLACE (which for a while I could not believe was an anagram) and 19d NEPALI.
Thanks to Bonxie and PeterO.
PS
muffin @ various
My 1972 Chambers has, under Welsh Rabbit, “sometimes written ‘Welsh Rarebit’ by wiseacres”. There is no mention of sponge under the loofah definition (which, being Chambers, is under “luffa”). Instead it says “used as a flesh brush”. Perhaps you suggest using “wiseacres” when you write to them …
Having read all the comments, I’m really bored with the sponge/ loofah debate. LOOFAH was one of my first entries and seemed perfectly reasonable to me.
Like Doofs @7 I had RAVEN for a time.I had to look up RUFF/ROUGH and what an attractive bird it is!
Not a bad puzzle but not especially easy. I liked MATA HARI.
Thanks Bonxie.
Have to say, although PARAMOUR was an easy enough write-in from the crossers, I gave up on the parsing: never come across MOU as an acronym. Where did that originate from. For me, “mou” is a French word for “soft” or “pliable” – also means “lights” in the sense of offal. An offal choice for the wordplay! 🙂
[As a final comment on the topic, I must say that I am baffled at the prevalence of the equivalence between sponge and loofah. I agree that not all sponges are animals in the phylum Porifera – nearly all now encountered are synthetic – but surely all sponges are absorbent? Loofahs aren’t!]
A very fair crossword which took me double the time it normally takes to complete. The hold up was in the NW quadrant. I thought wild was going to be rabid but rabid did not parse. I went through the list of birds beginning with R – robin, rook, raven, rhea then suddenly ruff came to mind. After that, the other clues fell into place quickly.
Muffin, loofahs are definitely spomges. You obviously don’t know how to use one. 🙂
Here’s a guide
Does it never occur to you that when one of your “certain facts” is widely and categorically contradicted that you just might be wrong 😉
In 2d parachute initially deployed should be underlined. As the drogue is the small parachute that pulls out the main one.
BNTO @31
Chambers: sponge – any member of the Phylum Porifera, sessile aquatic animals with a single cavity in the body, with numerous pores, the fibrous skeleton of such an animal, remarkable for its powers of holding water, a piece of such a skeleton, or a synthetic substitute, used for washing, absorbing, etc…….
No mention of cucumbers! The only thing that a loofah has in common is “washing”; by that standard a flannel or a dolly tub is also a “sponge”.
muffin, the French dictionary Larousse gives under the heading EPONGE “Eponge végétal voir LUFFA”
LUFFA n. m. Cucurbitacée grimpante d’Afrique et dAsie, dont la pulpe fibreuse, déssechée, constitue l’éponge vegetale.
No looseness of definition is allowed in French, every word and meaning has to be passed by the Académie Française.
“L’Académie française, institution créée en 1635, est chargée de définir la langue française par l’élaboration de son dictionnaire qui fixe l’usage du français”.
Cookie @34, muffin @33
I know the (long) debate on loofahs had the potential to be boring, but I’m fascinated by it all. From knowing something about sponges and very little about loofahs I know a lot more now.
I note that ‘éponge végétale’ and ‘luffa’ self-refer, but there is no direct translation of ‘éponge végétale’ in English as far as I know. We just say ‘loofah’.
Looking at the Collins definition, I note that ‘sponge’ is in effect the general term for things that are like sponges and used as sponges; and the alternative to a ‘real’ (animal) sponge does not have to be synthetic – unlike what Chambers says. To me, that means that a loofah can validly be said to be an example of a sponge.
I hesitated over the clue to LOOFAH at first, thinking there was always a clear distinction between a loofah and a sponge, but I am of a mind to be guided by Collins and am happy with the clue now.
I hope this helps.
Doesn’t ‘sort of’ also mean similar to but not quite?
Rumpelstilskin @36
One of my points is that a loofah is not “similar to but not quite” like a sponge, in that it lacks a sponge’s key property of being absorbent.
Muffin @33
Your response to my question is obviously No it doesn’t!
However I’ll make one last comment. You are obviously (again) mixing up Science and Language. One is by definition a lot more flexible than the other. If it wasn’t it wouldn’t exist. (I’ll let you work out which one)
It’s also amusing that if the world followed your ideas then Cryptic Crosswords couldn’t exist as there’d be no such thing as “cryptic”.
(Sorry, I slipped in an extra comment jyst for the hell of it.)
Weekend catch up. Feel bound to make mention (not for the first time I hope) of how spot on I always find Peter O’s blogs. And to remind him that his generosity (along with other bloggers and Sir Gaufrid, of course) are recognised. I feel sure that his efforts are playing a part in the future popularity of good cryptics. (I have certainly pointed new, and potential, converts – young and old – to fifteen squared’s site).
Yes I agree this was a good week – certainly for favourite setters; Arachne, Tramp, Paul and Bonxie are an enticing line-up. I enjoyed solving each one. And yet somehow I was disappointed. Perhaps the aftermath of all that heat or maybe the price of too high expectations. Yet I wouldn’t choose any one of these as a paragon of its creator’s work; so perhaps I’m right in feeling a little short-changed that not one of them would I describe as coruscating! Given such abundant talent (way beyond anything I could achieve, I’m sure) am I being unfair to have hoped for more?
Thanks to everyone!
William F P @39
You mention Tramp as one of this week’s setters, but in fact Wednesday’s setter was Screw, not Tramp.
I wouldn’t have posted this correction but for the fact that of this week’s puzzles I thought the Screw was the one that didn’t live up to expectations for me either. The others I thought were fine, and overall it was an interesting week of contrasts.
It’s not good form to comment in any detail on any puzzle other than the one on this page, but I will go as far as too say that although I enjoyed the Screw puzzle (and said so on the day) I thought that the setter took too many liberties. You might agree.