Phew! That was tough….
Julius got the old grey matter going this morning. I’ve completed the grid, but there are a couple of unparsed entries here, so I’m going to have to rely on some help to finish the blog. I can’t see the wordplay in ENDEAR at all, and I have no idea why REM is “Julius Caesar’s back”. Edit – Thanks to Louise (comment #2 below) I now understand how these clues work.
Thanks, Julius (I think!)
| Across | ||
| 1 | PACHINKO | After taking in bits of Hong Kong, Al’s game for fun in Tokyo! (8) |
| (Al) PACINO taking in H and K (“bits of Hong Kong”)
Pachinko is a Japanese game. |
||
| 5 | AMIDST | In the middle of Germany, stuck in some fog (6) |
| D (“Germany”) stuck in A MIST (“some fog”) | ||
| 10 | LORELEI | Garland pursuing role playing attractive singer (7) |
| LEI (Hawaiian “garland”) pursuing *(role) | ||
| 11 | SORBATE | Lusatian consumed salt (7) |
| SORB (“Lusatian”) + ATE (“consumed”)
Lusatia is an area in Central Europe which is home to the ethnic group known as the Lusatian Sorbs. |
||
| 12 | CRESS | Leaves Deighton’s file, denied internet protocol (5) |
| (IP)CRESS (“Len Deighton’s file” without IP (“Internet Protocol”))
“The Ipcress File” was a spy novel written by Len Deighton. |
||
| 13 | HEAVY SNOW | White house’s in-depth coverage? (5,4) |
| Heavy snow would cover a house, making it white, or Julius may be referring to an igloo? | ||
| 14 | DOUBLE MAGNUM | Mama wildebeest masters opening three litre container (6,6) |
| DOUBLE MA (“ma ma”) + GNU (“wildebeest”) + M(asters) | ||
| 18 | NUDIST COLONY | I so couldn‘t work in the Big Apple, where there‘s no privacy (6,6) |
| *(i so couldnt) in NY (New York, so “the big Apple”) | ||
| 21 | ROUGH HEWN | Say when, without refinement? (5-4) |
| “Hewn” is an anagram of “when”, so “rough hewn” would be “when” | ||
| 23 | UMBRA | Uninvited guest makes MsThurman a British Rail sandwich (5) |
| UMA (“Ms Thurman”) sandwiches BR | ||
| 24 | GOT INTO | Became interested in new Giotto fresco (3,4) |
| *(n giotto)
Fresco as an anagrind? I suppose, given that it is the Italian for “fresh”, it just about passes muster. |
||
| 25 | ITERATE | Able to read, student not required to repeat (7) |
| (l)ITERATE (“able to read”, without L (“student”)) | ||
| 26 | ENDEAR | “Be charming every now and again” penned le Carré (6) |
| See comment 2 for an explanation of this one – thanks, Louise! | ||
| 27 | EGOMANIA | Self-obsession of Tierra del Fuego man I arrested (8) |
| Hidden in “fuEGO MAN I Arrested” | ||
| Down | ||
| 1, 16 | PALACE INTRIGUE | Stirring up, creating a lie playing politics in the White House? (6,8) |
| *(up creating a lie) | ||
| 2 | CORNET | It’s blown my cover as a sleeper in Africa (6) |
| COR (“my!”) + (mosquito) NET (“cover as a sleeper in Africa”) | ||
| 3 | ILLUSIONS | They’re charged as supporters of sick American deceptions (9) |
| IONS (“they’re charged”) supporting ILL (“sick”) + US (“American”) | ||
| 4 | KNIGHT BACHELOR | Noble king, a high-born Celt originally (6,8) |
| K(ing) + *(a high born celt) | ||
| 6 | MERRY | Happy, Julius Caesar’s back on track (5) |
| <=ME (“Julius”) +(Caesa) R (again, Louise @comment 2 helped me to understand that part) + RY (railway, so “track”) | ||
| 7, 8 | DRAINING THE SWAMP | Washington (not Ohio) PR media rubbished Trump’s campaign objective (8,3,5) |
| *(washingtn pr media) The letter O (“Ohio”) has to be removed from “Washington”) | ||
| 9 | ESTATE PLANNING | Lancelot Brown’s expertise in tax avoidance? (6,8) |
| Double definition | ||
| 15 | AD NAUSEAM | A day going over Northern Australia upset Miss West to the point of sickness (2,7) |
| A D(ay) + N AUS (“Northern Australia”) + (<= MAE (“Miss West”) | ||
| 16 | See 1 | |
| 17 | ADJUSTED | Altered a tuxedo Duke left to have cleaned (8) |
| A DJ (dinner jacket, so “tuxedo”) + (d)USTED (“cleaned” without D(uke)) | ||
| 19 | OBTAIN | Get old baronet on the road to Edinburgh (6) |
| O(ld) Bt. (“baronet”) on A1(N) (“the road to Edinburgh”) | ||
| 20 | FAVELA | Way into Florida slum (6) |
| Ave. (“way”) into Fla. (“Florida”)
A favela is a slum, most notably in Rio de Janeiro. |
||
| 22 | HENNA | Dye chicken then snap wings off (5) |
| HEN (“chicken”) + (s)NA(p) | ||
*anagram
Every one a winner. Thanks, loonapick for plugging up a couple of unparsed bits.
Too hard to pick a favourite. Hail Caesar!
6d: Julius = ME (the setter!), + caesar’s back = R
26a: alternate letters of “penned le Carre”
But I failed completely on 2d!
A fun puzzle, thanks Julius and loonapick.
Thanks, Louise – I have given you the credit for these explanations and updated the blog.
Finished fully parsed but had never met that meaning for UMBRA before. Couldn’t find FLA for Florida but it either has to be or clue should say ‘a slum’ with the ‘a’ giving final letter. PACHINKO was also new but got it from the clue. For 7,8 you need to remove just O not OH for the clue to work. Again, I assumed this was ok and didn’t check it. Thanks to S&B.
Super puzzle.
For 15dn it is A D (day) on (going over) N (northern) AUS (Australia) then MAE (Miss West) reversed (upset) Point is part of the definition only.
Thanks All.
Looks like I was having a bad morning today. I have amended the offending items; thanks Hovis and PeeDee.
A grand battle but an enjoyable one. Hard to pick one favourite but I’d go for 13a (which I thought was igloo-related), the runners-up list being too long to add, particularly as I’m supposed to be working, not looking at crossword blogs
Thanks to Julius and Loonapick too
This was quite fun where it didn’t require obscure general knowledge.
Thanks for the blog.
One of the more difficult Julius (/Knut) puzzles, one in which I failed on CORNET (2d).
Enjoyable as ever, although I am getting a bit tired of this obsession with Trump [in crosswords and in real life].
There are a couple of things that I still do not see (as I think they’re too imprecise):
23ac: ‘makes Ms Thurman a British Rail sandwich’: how does that equate UMA sandwiches BR?
17d: ‘Duke left to have cleaned’: does that really say ‘d’ leaves ‘dusted’?
Sil@9 I didn’t have problems with those. A bacon sandwich is a sandwich with bacon in, so a British Rail sandwich would have BR inside. D(uke) left dusted leaves us with usted and ‘to have cleaned’ , I think, can equate to ‘dusted’ at a push.
A little trickier than most of Julius/Knut’s recent offerings. Inventive as ever, but dare I say it that it might be welcome to have a few less Trump themes, however entertaining he continues to be. Oddly I have just read a book called Pachinko – before that I would never have heard of it. Lusatia and its Sorbs were new to me too.
Thanks to Julius and loonapick
Thanks to loonapick for the blog and to those who have commented and tidied up a few issues.
@Hovis – Fla. gets its own entry in Chambers as an abbreviation for Florida; I’ve no idea why.
@beeryhiker – I do agree about Trump and I promise to stop (although there might be the odd ref. in train, as it were). I wrote this puzzle in the summer when Scaramucci got the heave-ho.
warmest regards to all, Rob/Julius
Thanks to Julius and loonapick. KNIGHT BACHELOR was new to me, I needed help parsing ENDEAR and MERRY, and CORNET defeated me, but I did know PACHINKO and Ipcress File. Lots of fun.
Hovis knows his sandwiches!
A guess as to why Fla. is OK for Florida is that for decades it was Associated Press style when used next to a city, eg Tallahassee, Fla., so it was that way in many news stories and datelines. So I had no trouble with it. FL is the postal abbreviation.
Very enjoyable,though I’m not sure I could have managed without electronic assistance – it would have taken me a lot longer anyway.
FLA and FL, CAL and CA, do all states have 3-letter abbreviations? Then there is OH and O, hoping for a systematic explanation at some point.
Nudist colony also features in today’s telegraph toughie, funny how that happens. Lovely clue.
I thought this was an excellent puzzle. Thanks Julius
I now know about sorbs and wends
And many thanks loonapick as always, especially for the parsing of 4d which I missed.
Dutch, One reason the AP started spelling out the state names is that it thought too many people didn’t know the abbreviations. Alaska was always spelled out so as not to confuse it with Alabama (Ala.), as were other short names such as Ohio and Iowa. I have done these crosswords for only a few years but I think the Fla. in an answer was an outlier. Mostly I’ve seen the postal abbreviations, which I think are all two letters.
Thanks Julius and Loonapick.
My son berated me yesterday for a lack in his education.
He told me that he had just found out that gnu rhymes with new rather than that which he and I had always assumed that it was pronounced g- new.
Apparently the mispronounciation by nearly all the UK population is down to the Flanders and Swann song.
Fla. is the old abbreviation for Florida. The Postal Service standardized abbreviations to two letters (caps) in the 1960s. Before that each state had its own unofficial abbreviation. Shows my age that I remember learning these as a child.
I agree, tough puzzle, several clues I guessed from letters but didn’t parse, and also missed CORNET.
Thanks Julius, Loonapick
Yes, quite hard. Didn’t get PACHINKO, and didn’t know Lusation, but otherwise had all the required GK. Gnu is new? Who knu?
For Trump to take a back seat, doesn’t something more entertaining have to come along? Seems unlikely
Thanks Julius and loonapick
Always find Julius quite tough, but having started in the bottom right, found that the bottom half went in rather quicker than I expected.
The top half was quite a different story, especially the NE corner ! Most of the new terms for me were there – hadn’t heard the phrase DRAINING THE SWAMP previously, didn’t know of the “Lusatia’ region of Europe let alone that the main ethnic group there were SORBS and the HEAVY SNOW clue (which was my last one in) took some getting my head around. Did not know the Deighton “IPCRESS Files” and still don’t get the A1(N) as the motorway – unless it is a local variation to define the northern end of it, near Edinburgh.
Lots of good variation in clue devices and many great clues !