Another lazy Sunday lunch type puzzle, in the old tradition of the IoS. Thank you Raich.
The grid contains the locations of three notable WWII conferences where the post-war future of Europe was discussed: the Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam conferences. I don’t know if there is some topical reference here or if they are just a few words to get the grid started.
| Across | ||
| 1 | CLAN | Family noise – not good! (4) |
| CLANg (noise) missing G (good) | ||
| 3 | CASABLANCA | In Bergman film taxi crosses a small canal, exotic (10) |
| CAB (taxi) contains (crosses) A S (small) then anagram (exotic) of canal | ||
| 10 | NOURISH | Provide food for Oscar – in rush unfortunately (7) |
| anagram (Oscar, phonetic alphabet) of IN RUSH | ||
| 11 | CLAVIER | In Clare never ending contest for musical instrument (7) |
| VIE (contest) inside CLARe (not ending) | ||
| 12 | ELITE | Ultimately fat-free with few calories – the best (5) |
| fat-freE (ultimately, last letter of) and LITE (with few calories) | ||
| 13 | RESHAPES | Gives new form to Religious Education, quietly introducing man’s ancestors? (8) |
| RE (religious Education) SH (quietly) before (introducing) APES (man’s ancestors) | ||
| 15 | EMIGRANT | Refugee possibly in English plane encountering tirade (8) |
| E (English) MIG (plane) with (encountering) RANT (tirade) | ||
| 16 | TEHRAN | Moving earth near new capital (6) |
| anagram (moving) of EARTH with (near) N (new) | ||
| 19 | COMBAT | Say World War II search area, tense (6) |
| COMB (search) A (area) T (tense) | ||
| 21 | PORTABLE | Piano or other furniture item easily carried (8) |
| P (piano) OR then TABLE (other furniture item) | ||
| 24 | PATIENCE | Card game money impressing captain, oddly withdrawn (8) |
| PENCE (money) containing (impressing) cApTaIn (odd letters withdrawn) | ||
| 26 | YALTA | Just starting, you ask likely travellers about Black Sea resort (5) |
| just the starting letters of You Ask Likely Travellers About | ||
| 28 | POTSDAM | Trophies female parent displayed in German city (7) |
| POTS (trophies) DAM (female parent) | ||
| 29 | HOUDINI | He provided unconfined entertainment? (7) |
| cryptic definition. I can’t quite explain this, surely he provided confined entertainment if anything. | ||
| 30 | THREESCORE | Trinity’s centre – this figure? (10) |
| THREE’S CORE (trinity’s centre) | ||
| 31 | IN ON | Aware of current refusal from Paris (2,2) |
| I (current, electrical symbol) and NON (a refusal in French, from Paris) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | CONFERENCE | Group of sports clubs opposed to barrier restricting soldiers (10) |
| CON (opposed to) FENCE (barrier) contains (restricting) RE (Royal Engineers, soldiers) | ||
| 2 | ALUMINIUM | A large classy car: I hesitate to say it’s elementary (9) |
| A L (large) U (upper class, classy) MINI (car) UM (I hesitate to say) | ||
| 4 | ADHERENT | Fan’s poster in this place extremely neat (8) |
| AD (advertisement, poster) HERE (in this place) then NeaT (extremes of) | ||
| 5 | ACCOST | Maybe approach in hostile way in move to seize lettuce (6) |
| ACT (move) containing (to seize) COS (lettuce) | ||
| 6 | LEAFAGE | Greenery in meadow fine over time (7) |
| LEA (meadow) F (fine) on AGE (time) | ||
| 7 | NAIVE | Too trusting of source of mineral water from South? (5) |
| EVIAN (mineral water) reversed (from the south, going upwards on a map) | ||
| 8 | AIRY | Fanciful? Indeed, about Irish (4) |
| AY (indeed) containing (about) IR (Irish) | ||
| 9 | LINEAR | One-dimensional person giving false information touring northeast (6) |
| LIAR (person giving false information) containing (touring, going round) NE (northeast) | ||
| 14 | ANNEXATION | Inane tax, criminal, on Austria – its fate in 1938 (10) |
| anagram (criminal) of INANE TAX then ON. I can’t properly explain the definition, particularly as “Austria” is not part of the wordplay. Clearly what it means is “Austria’s fate in 1938” but after that I come to a stop. | ||
| 17 | REBELLION | Dissent about call upset chief (9) |
| RE (about) BELL (call) NO I (No.1, number one, chief) reversed (upset) | ||
| 18 | TOGETHER | Got over there cycling at the same time (8) |
| GOT reversed (over) and anagram (cycling) of THERE | ||
| 20 | ARIADNE | Greek opera feature perhaps done – nothing missing (7) |
| ARIA (feature of an opera, perhaps) and DoNE missing O (nothing) | ||
| 22 | TRY OUT | Test fish over year (3,3) |
| TROUT (fish) containing (over) Y (year) | ||
| 23 | GNOMIC | Coming fashioned like a pithy saying (6) |
| anagram (fashioned) of COMING | ||
| 25 | AFTER | Following redraft, erase selectively (5) |
| found inside (a selection from) redrAFT ERase | ||
| 27 | SPAT | Dad in street quarrel (4) |
| PA (dad) in ST (street) | ||
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
Mostly straightforward. ARIADNE and POTSDAM were last ones in. Didn’t know the WWII conferences mini-theme. There is a typo in answer to 2d, should be MINI. Also, in 18d, cycling doesn’t so much refer to an anagram but to a cycling of the letters – in this case the last letter cycled to the front. Agree that 29a is a bit weak. I guess the idea is that the entertainment was provided by his escape rather than the confinement itself. Thanks to all.
Typo fixed now.
I liked the 1d mini-theme. There was also the CASABLANCA conference and a few other related clues such as EMIGRANT, ANNEXATION and RESHAPES (and at a stretch AFTER and COMBAT) are scattered around.
GNOMIC was new to me and I liked ALUMINIUM.
Thanks to Raich and to PeeDee.
We thought there might be a theme when we got YALTA and POTSDAM, but didn’t pursue the idea further so thanks, PeeDee and others, for pointing it out; in any case CONFERENCE was our penultimate one in so it didn’t really click.
We didn’t have any problem with the parsing of ANNEXATION, though. Raich is simply being a little old-fashioned; instead of “Austria’s” he is using what it can be seen as an abbreviation of: “Austria – its”.
Plenty of nice clues, too many to name a CoD. Thanks, Raich.
I enjoyed this. Have little to add to the previous comments. Missed the mini theme because, well, I’m good at missing things. (Balls in sports, notes in music, targets, deadlines …)
Thanks to Raich and PeeDee.
Thank you for the blog, PeeDee, and thanks also to those who commented. I confirm that the theme was the four conferences (1 Down) of Allied leaders in WWII, presented in date order of their occurrence in the across clues, but knowledge of this not required to solve the puzzle. Two clues, 19A and 14D, hinted at the theme. In the latter “Austria’s fate in 1938” and “Austria – its fate in 1938” were seen as equivalent with the latter being used to help the surface reading.
Thank you for dropping in Raich. I have convinced myself that “Austria – its fate in 1938” defines ANNEXATION.
I write the blogs not as a solver but to explain to beginners/improvers how cryptic clues work . “Austria – its fate in 1938” although it has a sub-clause about fate seemed to me to be fundamentally about Austria. How to explain this to a mystified solver? How can I explain that Austria means annexation? A the name of a country means an act of taking over?
I think this works through metaphor*, the country of Austria embodying its fate. As one might use “the crown” to stand for the power of the state, or “Hiroshima” to stand for an act of destruction.
*If I don’t have the correct linguistic term here someone please correct me.