Tees in the Monday slot again, with a puzzle I found hard to get into, but which fell once I had a few clues in the top and bottom halves. There’s a wide variety of references, and a theme. Perhaps there is more going on than I have discovered.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 2 for Molly and Poldy
BLOOMS
Tees is such a careful setter that I’m sure I must be missing something here, since it looks just like a GK clue. I didn’t know who Molly and Poldy were; turns out that they are the protagonists in James Joyce’s Ulysses. They are Molly and Leopold (‘Poldy’) Bloom. Thus BLOOMS, which is a synonym for 2 down, OPENS, a clue with which it intersects. Which is v. v. naughty.
4 Hound finds an elusive burrowing creature
BADGER
A dd. Since they are elusive, I’ve never understood why we’ve made a verb of the noun, but it turns out that it’s to do with badger-baiting, where the animals
are hounded.
10/9 Here one may order round after round
NINETEENTH HOLE
The fictitious hole after the eighteenth, which is of course the last hole in golf, where trebles all round are ordered by the winner. Or something like that. A cd.
11 Line that woman takes in was knotted
HAWSER
An insertion of (WAS)* in HER. The anagrind is ‘knotted’, which is a clever choice for the surface reading.
12 Spray with greater frequency pressing rumpled suit
MOISTURE
An insertion of (SUIT)* in MORE. ‘Spray’ for MOISTURE? I suppose so.
13 Flagging energy’s signal asset in this!
SEMAPHORE
A cd, whimsically suggesting that lots of energy would be useful when waving flags about for SEMAPHORE.
15 25 supports in river
TEES
The little plastic things on which golfers put the round dimpled things and hit them with a stick. Also a river, and our setter today. But just a dd.
16 Moved suddenly – photograph ruined
SHOT
Here’s the td (triple definition).
17 Freetown’s wild countryside area
NEW FOREST
(FREETOWNS)*
21 Good to follow girls on Twitter
BIRDSONG
A charade of BIRDS, ON and G. Another very good surface.
22 Victorious flag officer in the hold
NELSON
Another dd, referring to the ‘hold’ in wrestling.
24 Gang brought in to pull massive vehicle
STEAM TRAIN
An insertion of TEAM in STRAIN. ‘I’ve pulled/strained my hammy.’
25 Sport where learner driver in bewilderment’s reversed
GOLF
An insertion of L in FOG reversed gives you the world’s most fascinating sport. I love it, but I know not everyone does.
26 Hoax over rubbish presented as decree
DIKTAT
A charade of KID reversed and TAT.
27 Be annoyed about children crowding round
SEE RED
An insertion of RE for ‘about’ in SEED for a (biblical?) definition of children.
Down
1 Material ordered to dress huge bird
BROCADE
An insertion of ROC for the legendary gigantic bird in BADE, the past tense of BID.
2 Initiates in love with Romantics ultimately embracing Pound
OPENS
A further insertion, of PEN for ‘pound’ in O for ‘love’ and S for the last letter of ‘Romantics’. And of course, a further nod to 25ac.
3 One stops damage when mounting candelabrum
MENORAH
An insertion of ONE in HARM reversed gives you the candlestick used in the Jewish faith.
5 Martini shaken puts off 1 Down’s neighbour
ANTRIM
I’ll put my hand up to say that I fell for it. You? Nowt to do with 1 Down: it’s County Down, and (MARTIN[I])* Antrim and Down are contiguous.
6 See stars with really good ecstasy taken in pub
GREAT BEAR
A charade of GREAT and an insertion of E in BAR. Ursa Major, visible mainly in the northern hemisphere, and also called The Plough or Big Dipper. Unusually, the definition is the second word of the clue.
7 Rook in tree is knackered and goes to bed
RETIRES
I laughed out loud at the image conjured up by the surface, which annoyed the children (‘How can crosswords be funny?’) (TREE R IS)*
8 Crooked Mr Big near FBI agent and Director
INGMAR BERGMAN
A charade of (MR BIG NEAR) and G MAN for ‘FBI agent’. Not come across the last bit before? Worth remembering.
14/19 Faked apologies odd about tramp appearing in so-called 25
A GOOD WALK SPOILED
An insertion of WALK for ‘tramp’ in (FAKED APOLOGIES)* Mark Twain’s famous quote. How wrong could he be about the sport? Very wrong, because it wasn’t him who said it. It was first seen in 1948 and he died in 1910.
16 Prow on sloop inclined to be wooden
STILTED
The first letter of ‘sloop’ plus TILTED.
18 One’s intended to collect new money
FINANCE
An insertion of N in FIANCE.
20 Shakespearean character content to support Iago
PORTIA
Hidden answers always stare you in the face, I tell friends to whom I’m trying to explain cryptics. Not for this solver this morning: this was my LOI. Hidden in supPORT IAgo.
23 Winter Olympian‘s weapon
LUGER
A dd. Not that it matters, but I fancy they would be pronounced differently, the first with a soft G and the second with a hard G.
Many thanks to Tees for a pleasing puzzle to start the Indy week. Please can we not have a golf-themed puzzle in four Mondays from now? I thank those responsible in advance.
Lovely to see Tees today. I really enjoyed this but struggled with the Molly and Poldy thing for quite a while. Thanks to Tees and of course to Pierre; anyone might think your card is marked, what with golf being your bogeyman (as it were)
ANTRIM was a little corker, I thought.
I too struggled with 1a, but persevered, wondering, “Will I ever get this answer?”, then the penny dropped and Yes I said yes I will yes.
Good puzzle, thanks to both.
Pretty tricky which is welcome on a Monday. I spotted that my entry for 16 was wrong then I twigged 14/19 which was great. However I came a cropper on MENORAH.
Thanks Tees and Pierre.
Great puzzle, in which I think BLOOMS is a dd.
I don’t know what the thing is about Pierre and golf. can I be admitted to the enlightened?
Is the intersection of BLOOMS with OPEN all that naughty? We started off thinking the ‘2’ in the clue to 1ac was a reference to 2dn but then decided it wasn’t and we were looking for what Molly and Poldy were two of. So when we eventually twigged ‘pound’ = ‘pen’ to get OPENS one of us remembered Molly Bloom so we just stuck in BLOOMS without thinking of it as a synonym for OPENS. But perhaps we were misled by earlier having to separate ‘1’ from ‘Down’ in 5dn – an excellent clue, that, btw!
14/19 was great, too, even though it was a write-in from the enumeration – we enjoyed a good chuckle at that. Other ones we liked were STEAM TRAIN and GREAT BEAR.
Thanks, Tees and Pierre
It’s not that exciting, NHS. Just that I have a history of giving golf a hard time whenever it comes up in my blogs, because I can and because golf is not really a sport, imho. It has now got a bit out of hand because I suspect setters are deliberately throwing in golf clues when they know I am down to blog. Normal service will, I hope, be resumed from now on, since it’s not really interesting for those not in on the joke …
Hi Pierre
Ah I see. So you probably do think it is a walk spoilt!
Thanks for that.
Spotted 5d straight away, but I’m embarrassed to admit I guessed PORTIA and didn’t even suspect the hidden until I came here. Held up in the NW by PEN for ‘pound’ and I thought BROCADE was quite tricky too.
Thanks to Tees (bring on the golf themes as far as I’m concerned) and to the long-suffering Pierre
Was out today having a lovely time with a Fifteen Squared blogger, so unfortunately didn’t have time to solve – but, as always, a nice blog and, from looking at the clues, nice stuff from the setter (thought 10/9 lovely). Thanks to The Tease for the puzzle and to Pierre for continuing stoic amusingness in the face of g**f.
Believe it or not, we have only just finished this puzzle. We had forgotten that we still had 1ac and 1d to complete.
A word search gave us 1d fairly easily but we were stuck with 1ac. Was it BLOOMS? If so why?
Thanks Pierre for explaing it all.
Neither of us know anything about James Joyce apart from his name and his Nationality. – oh, and he wrote Ulysses.
Thanks to Tees.