We had the pleasure of blogging Eccles’ most recent Indy puzzle last month, and here he is again!
All good fun – nothing too tricky, lovely surfaces, and some ingenious definitions. Our only slight quibble is that two of the wordplay elements are not in Chambers. They were checked easily enough online, but we thought Chambers was generally considered to be the ‘bible’ for crossword buffs (see 20d?) and we can’t help feeling that it should be possible to construct clues for weekday puzzles without having to go beyond Chambers. How do others feel?
| Across | ||
| 1 | John Goodman’s with a redhead on vacation, which is nothing out of the ordinary (3-8) | |
| BOG-STANDARD | BOG (John, as in toilet) ST (saint – ‘good man’) AND (with) A R |
|
| 7 | Lout from Austria punched (3) | |
| OAF | OF (from) round or ‘punched by’ A (Austria) | |
| 9 | Poet died at the stake (5) | |
| DANTE | D (died) ANTE (stake, in betting) | |
| 10 | Self-righteous type hides shameful European birthright (9) | |
| PRIVILEGE | PRIG (self-righteous type) round or ‘hiding’ VILE (shameful) + E (European) | |
| 11 | Intrinsically sexually attractive torture (9) | |
| PERSECUTE | PER SE (intrinsically) CUTE (sexually attractive) | |
| 12 | Shot in the arm? Put on ice packs (5) | |
| TONIC | Hidden or ‘packed’ in ‘puT ON ICe’ | |
| 13 | Australian stuffs herb in meat product (7) | |
| SAUSAGE | AUS (Australian) in or ‘stuffing’ SAGE (herb) | |
| 15 | Document concluded detectives must leave (4) | |
| DEED | DE |
|
| 18 | Piercing songs for two, reflective but lacking energy (4) | |
| STUD | DU |
|
| 20 | Writers penning strange tales, primarily, in restaurants (7) | |
| BISTROS | BIROS (‘writers’) round or ‘penning’ S T (first or ‘primary’ letters of ‘strange tales’) | |
| 23 | Passage from article in French by Matisse oddly disregarded (5) | |
| AISLE | LE (‘the’ – definite article – in French) after or ‘by’ even letters only of mAtIsSe (‘oddly disregarded’) | |
| 24 | Referee‘s spoken about seafood she had consumed (9) | |
| OFFICIATE | A homophone (‘spoken about’) A FISH (seafood) SHE ATE (‘had consumed’) | |
| 26 | Halt shape problem here? (6,3) | |
| HEALTH SPA | An anagram of HALT SHAPE (anagrind is ‘problem’) – if you had a ‘shape problem’ you might ‘halt’ it at a HEALTH SPA | |
| 27 | Rich man to suddenly take over Belgium (5) | |
| NABOB | NAB (suddenly take) O (0ver) B (Belgium) | |
| 28 | Party drug that’s popular at stag parties? (3) | |
| DOE | DO (party) E (drug – ecstasy) – lovely definition!!! | |
| 29 | Agreement to swindle gracious actor (11) | |
| CONCORDANCE | CON (swindle) COR (gracious – as an exclamation) DANCE (Charles Dance – actor) | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | City figurehead defends date with Primate (8) | |
| BUDAPEST | BUST (figurehead) round or ‘defending’ D (date) APE (primate) | |
| 2 | Lavish things that define us, including our evolving (8) | |
| GENEROUS | GENES (‘things that define us’) round or ‘including’ an anagram of OUR – anagrind is ‘evolving’ | |
| 3 | Those people start to engage in subject (5) | |
| THEME | THEM (those people) E (first letter or ‘start’ of ‘engage’) | |
| 4 | Record melody following new composition by Holst (7) | |
| NEPTUNE | EP (record) TUNE (melody) following N (new) | |
| 5 | Is overwhelmed by a desire for flatulence cure? (7) | |
| ANISEED | IS in or ‘overwhelmed by’ A NEED (desire) – we didn’t know that this could be a cure for flatulence – must bear this in mind!! | |
| 6 | Strident female damaged fishing equipment (5,4) | |
| DRIFT NETS | An anagram of STRIDENT F (female) – anagrind is ‘damaged’ | |
| 7 | Lots of outrageous cons are heartless (6) | |
| OCEANS | An anagram of CONS A |
|
| 8 | Intense exclamation of disgust by rabbi next to church (6) | |
| FIERCE | FIE (exclamation of disgust) R (an abbreviation for ‘rabbi’ – it’s not in Chambers, but a search revealed that it is in Collins – would ‘rector’ have been better?) CE (church) | |
| 14 | Somehow teach unit to be reliable (9) | |
| AUTHENTIC | An anagram of TEACH UNIT – anagrind is ‘somehow’ | |
| 16 | Bribe and corrupt food store (5,3) | |
| BREAD BIN | An anagram of BRIBE AND – anagrind is ‘corrupt’ | |
| 17 | Make fool shake, not too roughly at first (8) | |
| ASSEMBLE | ASS (fool) |
|
| 19 | Pops round with something to do at Lent? (5,2) | |
| DROPS IN | During Lent you might, if you were a practising Christian, DROP SIN | |
| 20 | Look after muscular adult animal (7) | |
| BUFFALO | LO (look) after BUFF (muscular – another definition that isn’t in Chambers, but appears in Collins as an Americanism) A (adult) | |
| 21 | Observed upset boss wanting area cleaned (6) | |
| WASHED | SAW (observed) reversed or ‘upset’ HE |
|
| 22 | With Will, head off in large car (6) | |
| ESTATE | ||
| 25 | Punished drunk (5) | |
| CANED | Double definition | |
A very enjoyable puzzle from Eccles and thanks to B&J for the blog. Lovely surfaces indeed; funny, too.
I think we’ve seen buff=toned recently (Hoskins?) and I imagine it’ll make it into Chambers 16th ed. or whatever is up next but I was a bit surprised by r=rabbi and also thought that rector would have fitted the Chambers bill better. We see r=royal a bit now too which is in Collins but not in Chambers (12th)
Great crossword from one of my favourite setters. Got stuck in the NE, but eventually got OAF, then OCEANS but failed on FIERCE. My Chambers app on iPad has ‘buff’ meaning ‘having attractively well developed muscles’. Listed as informal rather than American. I always thought this was a well known meaning so live and learn. Lots of great clues but 1a was my stand out favourite for its cleverness and witty construction with a wonderful surface. Thanks to S&B.
Good fun, BOG-STANDARD getting the whole thing off to a flying start. Thanks Eccles, B&J
In my paper Chambers (13th) buff is defined as Hovis gives it. It was in Tramp’s puzzle, December 15th clued as ‘muscular admirer’
Good fun indeed – I particularly liked 28a
Thanks to Eccles and B&J
Had me hooked from 1a – wonderful clue, Eccles.
Slight hesitation over piercing=stud but Chambers appears to support its use in that way.
Many thanks Eccles and thanks to B&J for blogging this one.
Great entertainment as expected. I was held up for some time on the last few.
I thought BOG STANDARD anything but and, like B&J and others, loved the definition of DOE. Again like our reviewers, the use of ANISEED was new information to me.
Thanks Eccles and BertandJoyce.
An enjoyable puzzle which held me up for quite some time in the SE corner, as I had BEEFALO at 20d which made OFFICIATE, my LOI, impossible, until I revisited it. BREAD BIN took far to long to decode too. I also liked 1a and 28a. Great puzzle. Thanks Eccles and B&J.
Great stuff Eccles, many thanks, superb puzzle
And thanks B&J
We couldn’t parse FIERCE at first, not thinking that ‘rabbi’ could be abbreviated as ‘r’. We wondered if ‘fier’ for an expression of disgust might be one of those words that has come into English from Yiddish and hence likely to be used by a rabbi. But no, luckily we have a copy of Collins to fall back on and there it was. Agree that ‘rector’ would fit the surface better but might have made it too easy. As for ‘buff’ we guessed that meaning since the answer to the clue was obviously BUFFALO.
BOG STANDARD? No, much better than that – and it has to be our CoD, with DANTE a close second. 7dn more to like as well.
Thanks, Eccles and B&J
Cheers for the blog and to all who commented. The comments about dictionaries are interesting. Anax wrote about it a while ago at http://www.crosswordunclued.com/2011/06/think-of-letter.html . It appears that The Times uses Collins, The Telegraph uses Collins, and others aren’t fussy. I tend to check Collins first, probably because I would worry if something was in Chambers but not in Collins as Chambers sometimes has meanings that most people do not use. Abbreviations are a bit different, though, and I would use either if I thought it was reasonable, but still sway towards Collins. Quite a few I wonder in what context it could be used (e.g. s = sun is in Chambers and is very useful, but I have no idea where that comes from), so I try not to go too obscure – maybe rabbi is a little bit. That wasn’t actually the question asked, though. Should a solver be expected to have more than one dictionary for a puzzle? That is a good point, although Collins does appear to be fully online for free, so perhaps they only need one. As for r=rabbi, I did consider rector too, it just seemed six and two threes for slightly different surface stories.
Also a good time to admit that a couple of improvements for definitions – including the nice stag party one – were suggested by test solvers. Many thanks!
Took me a while, but I managed to finish it. I really liked the clue for DOE too (btw, B&J, your underlining misses that’s, which I see as part of the definition); DANTE and BOG STANDARD, too, but those were amongst the first in. OAF took me a long while, and I wonder if hardline Ximis accept this Latinate word ordering (object, subject, active verb)? Getting that allowed me to solve FIERCE from F*E***. Once I saw the answer, I just accepted rabbi must abbreviate to R. Thanks to those who were more scholarly about that. I really liked PERSECUTE, too. It’s funny to think it contains CUTE. HEALTH SPA was a good semi &lit, and I messed about with the letters for ages without seeing the anagram, then just as I was about to move on, having decided those letters had too few vowels to make anything, I got it from the defintiion.
Cheers, Andy. Very whimsical!
Eccles @10
I wrote my comment before yours appeared (late again!). About dictionaries, I always used to think that Chambers was the holy writ, but since following crosswords on the internet I often see Collins cited as well. I remember when crosswords were still just a thing you (I, anyway) did in the paper, the Guardian started offering Collins as the Saturday prize, which I found confusing at the time. (Sadly, by the time I eventually won the prize, it was just a Guardian Style Guide and Secrets of the Setters — telling me how to do what I had just triumphed at). Thanks for the Anax link, which I wll have a look at in due course, and thanks for an excellent puzzle.
Tony
I think Chambers is the holy writ for barred puzzles, where the delving reaches depths that other dictionaries don’t (so the wordplay has to be absolutely precise), and the Telegraph. Anax explains that The Times uses Collins, and others a mix.
Really enjoyed this, first time for a while I’ve felt up to doing a crossword and it was a cracker. 1a v.g. and as for aniseed it could well destroy Harry Hoskins career as a setter!