First time I’ve blogged a Maize puzzle, and it was a bit of a treat …
… except if you’ve ever visited a Disney world and have that earworm lodged in your brain, waiting to be activated.
The theme was not advertised, but after a while I spotted that the across answers are all place names, mostly towns and cities, and the long answer at at 1/4 binds them together (together with inciting a stream of La-la, lah, lah, lah. La-la, lah, lah. —- Aaaaargh!). I have tried to discern some deeper connection between all these “Across” places but cannot see anything common besides being geographical sites.
This kept me occupied and interested for a very long time. Answers came both fast (e.g. 9A) and slow (e.g. 23A), with much misdirection and head scratching over some of the wordplay. I had to look up several things just to be sure – spelling of Emmental, origin of Angela Merkel, nickname of Plymouth FC – and still have a few queries.
Help still needed with 16A Kandy, and 13A food, and no doubt I have other stuff stuff wrong or incomplete.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1/4 | IT’S A SMALL WORLD | Biosphere 2, then the Eden Project – that’s quite a coincidence! (3,1,5,5) I have marked this down as a triple definition. Certainly Biosphere 2 is separate enough to count as a “small world” in its own right. Eden Project has too many visitors traipsing through it – such as me this summer (it’s worth a visit). |
| 9 | LIMERICK | Five funny lines of fruit by a farmer’s store (8) LIME (fruit) RICK (farmer’s store). First one in. Limericks are generally funny, and consistof 5 lines, except for the works of “The young poet from Crewe, whose limericks end at line two” |
| 10 | GUINEA | Each half of stout initially for just over a pound (6) GUIN[ness] EA[ch] |
| 11 | BOLT-ON | Attachment of officer being in favour (4-2) LT (officer, lieutenant) inside BOON (favour) |
| 12 | EMMERTAL | Cheese and crackers to accompany starters of evening meal (8) E[vening] M[eal] MENTAL (crackers, bit non-PC) Where’s the “H”? – Turns out it’s usually without an H |
| 13 | ANCHORAGE | Harbour a seething anger about food being cut (9) ANGER* AInd: seething, about CHO[c] ? I’m not sure which food beginning CHO is intended. |
| 16 | KANDY | Yak and yeti hides – about 500 pounds in India (5) Hidden in yaK AND Yeti Last one in. After seeing the theme I made some effort to find some town or city fitting _A_N_ and e.g. thought of Sandy, in Beds. When I saw Kandy hiding I knew it must be the answer but what is the second half of the clue about? Kandy is in Sri Lanka not India and I haven’t found any other mening for the word. |
| 18 | WELLS | Sources of water, each lending life succour (5) First letters: W[ater] E[ach] L[ending] L[ife] S[uccour]. Water doing double duty between Definition and Wordplay – so semi-&Lit |
| 20 | ASCENSION | Canonise saint making journey up to heaven (9) (CANONISE + S[aint])* AInd: making |
| 23 | BURGUNDY | Merkel’s town and country finally produces wine (8) BURG UND “town and” in German, then [countr]Y. I knew it was misleading us, but this one had me looking up where Angela M was born – Hamburg, surprisingly. I knew she spent her early years in East Germany. Turns out she was an infant when her family moved there. |
| 25 | CONDOM | Johnny Mathis’s debut next-door to his apartment (6) CONDO (apartment) M[athis] |
| 27 | PANAMA | Parents collecting a new hat (6) A N[ew] inside PA and MA |
| 28 | COLUMBUS | Narrow procession drops behind carrier, one crossing the Atlantic (8) COLUM[n] BUS (carrier) |
| 29 | WELLINGTON | Military commander gained victory over significant leader going east (10) WON (gained victory) around (over) something meaning “significant leader going east” that delivers ELLINGT <later> A friend points out this is TELLING (significant) with the “leader” T moving “east” to the other end. |
| 30 | BEDS | Borders of blue delphiniums? (4) B[lu]E D[elphinium]S Borders doing double duty as def and wordplay indicator – whole clue could be def. – so that’s an &Lit then. |
| Down | ||
| 2 | TRICORN | For professor to attempt Maize is old hat (7) TRI homophone “try” (professor HInd) CORN (Maize) |
| 3 | AVERT | Prevent promotion being undated (5) A[d]VERT |
| 4 | SPINNERS | Criminals pinching soft tops? (8) P (soft) inside SINNERS (criminals) |
| 5 | ANKLE | It’s over a foot and a quarter to killer, oddly (5) A N (a quarter) K[i]L[l]E[r] |
| 6 | LEGUME | Limb on long-limbed bird raised pulse (6) LEG (limb) EMU< (long-limbed bird, raised) |
| 7 | ORIENTALS | Poor relations who live in Asia (9) (RELATIONS)* AInd: poor |
| 8 | LEEWARD | Lazy talk, coming from below, about nude seen on one side of ship (7) DRAWL< (lazy talk, reversed up) around [s]EE[n] |
| 14 | HOLY GRAIL | Pilgrims briefly climbing through hot oil to attain their goal? (4,5) ARGYL[e] inside H[ot] OIL. Argyle comes from Pilgrims through Plymouth Argyle F.C.: “The Pilgrims” refers to the religious group that left Plymouth for the New World in 1620. The club crest features the Mayflower, the ship that carried the pilgrims to Massachusetts.  |
| 15 | GAS | He’s one originally given arsenic (3) “He’s one” “What a Gas!” – Ha, ha. No! – He = Helium, a gas. Wordplay: G[iven] AS |
| 17 | MESCALIN | Some scaliness produced in part by this drug (8) Hidden in soME SCALINess |
| 19 | EDUCATE | English queen possibly on board anticipated train (7) E[nglish] CAT (queen) inside (on board) DUE (anticipated). I wrote in EMANATE first thinking queen = MAN in the chess sense and not thinking too much about the definition. |
| 21 | OROTUND | Sonorous ring ring rings beginning to toll (7) O (ring) ROUND (ring) around (rings) T[oll] |
| 22 | IN VAIN | One entering within wagon as Richard battled? (2,4) I (one) in IN VAN (within wagon) . Def. refers to the well known rainbow colour acronym “Richard Of York Gave Battle I Vain” |
| 24 | YACHT | German rowing crew trailing unknown boat (5) Y (unknown) ACHT (8 in German) |
| 26 | NAMIB | Rubbish collector forgets first name upon return into desert (5) BI[n]MAN |
Another really enjoyable puzzle from Maize.
I think the food “cut” in 13 might be “chow” but I suppose it could be “chop”.
I’ve no idea why KANDY is KANDY, either. I wondered if 500 pounds accounted for an insertion of D in KANY but if it does I can’t find the ref.
Thannks to Maize and @beermagnet
Thanks beermagnet
In 13ac, the ‘food being cut’ is CHO[w].
For 16ac, Chambers has “candy – a S Indian weight, generally containing 20 maunds, approx 500 imperial pounds (also candie or kandy)”.
I also had CHO(w) and KANDY as Gaufrid. I parsed 13a as AN + RAGE around CHO but I think A + ANGER* works better. Took a while to see professor as a homonym indicator and had to google to find use of ‘pilgrims’ in 14d. Didn’t spot the theme, as usual. Clever and enjoyable fare.
Thanks Maize, beermagnet, beermagnet’s friend
Clever stuff. I didn’t understand the pilgrims, kandy or ellingt, but they all went in OK anyway.
I like the mixed set of locations, particularly BEDS
What’s the significance of ‘professor HInd’ in the blog?
James@4
Homophone indicator?
I agree that CHO[w] works best. Thinking of food beginning CHO I couldn’t get chocolate off my mind and it seemed wrong to shorten a word that much.
I never thought of looking up Candy with a “C”. I see Wikipedia has it under “Candy (unit)” mentioning a wide variety of other spellings: candi, candee, kandi, khandi and kanti but strangely not Kandy!
James: Yes. HInd is short for Homophone Indicator. I type in shortcuts like that when making notes for the blog. I also use AInd for Anagram Indicator. I have often failed to expand them when polishing the words for publishing and these days I don’t worry too much about it.
Thanks Maize and beermagnet
In 18, I had the definition simply as ‘sources’ (think oilwells too), which stops ‘water’ doing double duty.
That kept me occupied for quite a while! Had to check on the sonorous rings and the desert and didn’t manage to parse the ‘pilgrims’ part of 14d, although something tells me that we’ve seen them before.
Thank you for the challenge, Maize, and thanks to beermagnet for the blog. Glad you elucidated about AInd!
I enjoyed this puzzle. KANDY was my LOI and I assumed it had something to do with Indian weights or currency. My FOI was TRICORN. A steady solve with no other unknowns apart from the hidden MESCALIN which was only vaguely familiar. Lots of cunningly disguised definitions and penny drop moments. Thanks Maize and beermagnet.
Yup, the Kandy entry had actually been Sandy in an earlier draft, but Kandy provided a bit of Asian representation for the ‘small world’.
In common with some of my earlier puzzles for the Indy, the only connection between the across lights is that they all have a second meaning, which can be clued without referring to the theme, so keeping it nice and ghosty.
I had the misfortune to work night-shifts building EuroDisney back in 1992. My recall is that ‘It’s a Small World’ was played over the Tannoy non-stop …or maybe it just seemed that way.
This kept me entertained for quite some time yesterday and, though I didn’t get around to commenting then, I liked it too much not to come by and say so.
Had a couple of questions outstanding after filling the grid (most notably how WELLINGTON worked).
Thanks to Maize for another amaizeing puzzle and to beermagnet for the decipherment.
Another enjoyable outing from Maize. I spotted the theme pretty early on, and must admit to chucking loads in based on checking letters and a fair idea of what the answer might be. Sorry Maize! I only really came unstuck on 21d, where I had too many synonyms of ring to pick from, and by which point my common sense regarding what the answer might be had deserted me.