I always enjoy Julius’s puzzles as they have a definite character. I never feel like I’m just churning out another FT post which can sometimes happen. As usual with Julius there are a couple of clues that I can’t fully explain – any thoughts welcome. Thank you Julius.
| Across | ||
| 1 | MALEFACTOR | Reviewed bistrot/cafe La Maison: sandwiches “criminal“ (10) |
| found reversed (reviewed) inside (sandwiched by) bistROT CAFE LA Maison | ||
| 6, 10 | KING LEAR | Steer clear of wildcat general strike; it’s a tragedy eerst (4,4) |
| anagram (wildcat) of GENeRAL strIKe missing (clear of) STEER. I’ve no idea about “eerst”, all I can gather is that it is Dutch word meaning before and an anagram of steer. Maybe another typo? | ||
| 9 | NASAL SPRAY | New salary caps not introduced at work; it gets up my nose (5,5) |
| (new) then anagram (at work) of sALARY cAPS missing first letters (not introduced) | ||
| 10 | See 6 | |
| 12 | FOREIGN PARTS | Live like a king with dad in castles in far-flung places (7,5) |
| REIGN (live like a king) with PA (dad) in FORTS (castles) | ||
| 15 | ROLLED OUT | Got up and prepared the pizza base (6,3) |
| double definition | ||
| 17 | ERATO | She’s an inspiration for occasionally weird author (5) |
| every other letter (occasionally) of wEiRd AuThOr – one of the Muses | ||
| 18 | FOCUS | Heads of Foreign Office committee unusually struggle to concentrate . . . . (5) |
| first letters (heads) of Foreign Office Committee Unusually Struggle | ||
| 19 | CONFLUENT | . . . . as multiple channels stream Tory with excellent oratory skills (9) |
| CON (Conservative, Tory) and FLUENT (with excellent oratory skills) | ||
| 20 | LIQUID ASSETS | Design squalid sites as means to raise quick cash? (6,6) |
| anagram (design) of SQUALID SITES | ||
| 24, 26 | PEER GYNT | Suites arranged to suit Norwegian’s booking? (4,4) |
| Peer Gynt suites by Grieg, but I can’t explain the rest. My guess is that it s some sort of cryptic definition about Hall of the Mountain King or something. Peer Gynt was not a king and and the suites were for a play, so not the king of a book either. Can anyone explain this? | ||
| 25 | CAUTIONARY | Like the tale of bird fencing Romeo’s mate’s stolen car? (10) |
| CANARY (bird) contains (fencing) mercUTIO (Romeo’s mate) missing (stolen) MERC (Mercedes, car) – like a Cautionary Tale, one of Hilaire Belloc’s perhaps | ||
| 26 | See 24 | |
| 27 | UNDER SIEGE | Fake uni degrees heavily attacked (5,5) |
| anagram (fake) of UNI DEGREES | ||
| Down | ||
| 1, 2 | MONA LISA | Somewhat hormonal, Isabella is an enigmatic figure (4,4) |
| found inside (somewhat) horMONAL ISAbella | ||
| 3 | FOLLOWED SUIT | Didn’t Trump go after journalist with court case? (8,4) |
| FOLLOW (go after) ED (journalist) with SUIT (court case) – a super bit of misdirection in the definition! | ||
| 4 | COPSE | Old Bill gathered wood (5) |
| sounds like (gathered) “cops” (Old Bill) | ||
| 5 | ORANGUTAN | Hirsute character in Oxford University called Brown (9) |
| OU (Oxford University) contains (in OU…you will find) RANG (called) TAN (Brown) | ||
| 7 | INEBRIATED | In European empty bar I had dinner date resembling Edna (10) |
| IN E (European) BaR (empty, no middle letter) I ATE (had dinner) D (date) – drunk. I can’t explain the definition. The best I can come up with is Edna, the Inebriate Woman, a 1970s TV episode of Play for Today which seems a little obscure for a weekday puzzle in 2018. See Eileen’s comment @3. | ||
| 8 | GIRL SCOUTS | Rustic logs chopped for those making camp fire? (4,6) |
| anagram (chopped) of RUSTIC LOGS | ||
| 11 | APPELLATIONS | Names US mountains as stated by Yankee (12) |
| sounds like (as stated) Appalachians (US Mountains) | ||
| 13 | TRUFFLE-PIG | Let rip guff; foul smell gets up one’s nose! (7-3) |
| anagram (foul) of LET RIP GUFF | ||
| 14 | BLACK QUEEN | Piece of ebony ruler? (5,5) |
| BLACK (ebony) QUEEN (ruler) – a chess piece | ||
| 16 | ONCE AGAIN | Not for the first time, falls over, leaving artist to support old morthern church (4,5) |
| NIAGAra (falls) reversed (over) missing RA (artist) all under (to support) O (old) N (northern) CE (church) – I assume morthern is a misprint | ||
| 21 | SATIE | Composer putting note in envelope (no stamp required) (5) |
| TI (note, of music) in SAE (stamped and addressed envelope) | ||
| 22, 23 | JANE EYRE | Book a month to take over from glum donkey (4,4) |
| JAN (a month) EEYoRE (glum donkey, in Winnie the Pooh) missing (to take from) O (over) | ||
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.
dear PeeDee
Thank you for the blog. The superfluous letters “eerst” in 6,10 seem to be gremlin related, as does the northern/morthern typo.
With any luck, the tech folks will at least spot these errors before they do the upload to the interactive version but I fear my name will be mud on the 0650 into Cannon St (although it wasn’t my doing this time)
Yes, I had also assumed ‘eerst’ was a mistake, like ‘morthern’, possibly writing the letters of ‘steer’ in the order of removal. I also could not parse PIER GYNT or the UTIO bit of CAUTIONARY, not being familiar with ‘Mercutio’. For a short while, I wondered if a ‘Gruffle Tip’ was something you could stick up your nose but sense soon came in solving 13d. Kind of like the sound of it for some strange reason. Thanks to Julius and PeeDee.
Thanks, Peedee. for a great blog and to Julius for stepping in so promptly to explain the rogue ‘eerst’.
I thought this was a splendid puzzle: for me, it had everything – a great start at 1ac, super anagrams [20ac, 8dn], and scrupulously intricate constructions, causing a sigh of satisfaction as they emerged [25ac, and 3, 5 7 and 16dn, for instance] and several chortles to boot – eg the hormonal Isabella, the American mountains and yet another Julian exploitation of Trump!
PeeDee, you may be too young but ‘Play for today’ was a weekly must-see in the 70s and ‘Edna the inebriate woman’, played by Patricia Hayes, was an absolute classic.
Many thanks, Julius- hugely enjoyable.
Thanks PeeDee. I thought the PEER GYNT clue was just a kind of extended definition of Grieg’s suites, which are arranged from the incidental music that he wrote for Ibsen’s play (which is a kind of “book”).
I was going to complain about the unusual spelling of “bistrot”, which isn’t in Chambers, but I see it does seem to be a valid alternative.
I agree with Eileen about “Edna” – I think I missed seeing it on TV at the time, but the title is unforgettable. Rather unfair on the younger solver, though.
Too late to defend you on the Train, but your explanation is sound. As soon as I see something concerning drink and Edna in the same clue, I immediately think of Patricia Hayes in the role!
Thanks Julius, Peedee
Excellent and tough – only just crawled over the line with CAUTIONARY, not knowing how it worked. I couldn’t see the canary and kept wanting to fit Juliet in even though there was no way she’d fit. Some pretty sharp clues – FOLLOWED SUIT was favourite, also UNDER SIEGE and MALEFACTOR. I thought BLACK QUEEN must be an actual historical figure, with piece of ebony being the wordplay, so a bit surprised to find it’s the other way round. I really liked the four (4,4)s in the corners, though not getting the lower pair for ages made things quite hard for the long crossers. I took PEER GYNT to be a plain CD, referring to Ibsen’s play. I’ve noticed a few CD clues recently where spotting it’s a CD doesn’t get you over the line. ORDER ARMS in a Pasquale puzzle a few weeks ago – something to do with butts on the ground. I’d never heard of it, and no other way to get the solution. I enjoyed the typos – morthern and eerst both fine words
Nice puzzle. I too couldn’t make head nor tail of the rest of the PEER GYNT clue even though it seemed to be the obvious answer.
Edna is freely available on Youtube – be quick or they’ll push it off.
Please complete the following sum: 8 x 7
Tsk tsk.
That’s not a sum – it’s a product.
Lucky Im not a pedant.
Now I’ve got:
Please complete the following sum:
? – seven = 1
That’s not either.
Thank you Eileen, I do remember Play for Today but I would have been 11 at the time of Edna’s broadcast so even if I had seen it I’m sure the play would have gone right over my head.
Whilst reading about this on Wikipedia I notice that one of the cast was apparently the model for the character Withnail in the film Withnail and I. This is my elder daughter’s favourite film and I’m sure that she will want to know more. I will try and get hold of a DVD of Edna the Inebriate Woman on Amazon or somewhere.
JS @8 ? – seven is just adding a negative number, so definitely a sum.
Andrew @4 – I would certainly say a play is a book if and when it has been published as such. Grieg wrote the music for the stage performance, in collaboration with Ibsen as he wrote the play. I don’t get the impression that he wrote the music for a, as then, future book of the play.
I do hope the FT goes on with the inter-active version as I am often
away from a printer and therefore from Julius as well.
Thoroughly enjoyed this today. Favourite and LOI was CAUTIONARY, as I currently have what UTIO lacks!
Thanks to Julius and PeeDee.
Hi Andrew @4 – I’ve been out, so have only just seen your comment. East Anglia seems to be sadly deprived: I have just looked on the website of Bistrot Pierre and found that your nearest one is here in Leicester – 60 miles away – but well worth it if you’re over this way. 😉
What Eileen said including the thank you to setter and blogger
“Suites arranged to suit Norwegian’s playing” might be better than “Suites… Norwegian’s booking” as Peer Gynt was a play.
Many thanks Julius, very enjoyable. Thanks also PeeDee, I missed REIGN (doh) and I didn’t know the composer.
GIRL SCOUTS made me laugh, my daughter goes to GUIDES, and if I ever lapse and call them them girl guides I’m in big trouble. Chambers seems to agree with her. Girl Scouts seems to be a US thing.
Cautionary was definitely a case of parsing after guessing the answer!
I didn’t know Edna, thought it might have been dame Edna, though I seem to remember it was Les Patterson who was the more inebriated.
I liked the symmetric 4,4 clues.
PEER GYNT seems to have beaten everyone. A non CD CD, I cannot see how one might deduce it except by guessing from the crossing letters.
Thanks to Julius and PeeDee. For me this puzzle was an exercise in getting answers, then parsing, a process that did work except of course for PEER GYNT (which I assumed, apparently wrongly, had something to do with Grieg and Ibsen even though “booking” does not fit comfortably with a play). I did parse CAUTIONARY and INEBRIATED but again thought wrongly that Edna was somehow linked to panto. I did have fun working through the long solutions, so I enjoyed the process.
Thank you, Julius and PeeDee. I enjoyed this despite the gremlins. Fond memories of play for today and Patricia Hayes was superb in the role.
Thanks Julius and PeeDee
If the interactive version of the puzzle has resulted in this sort of response to the FT world, then it has been a gem of an idea.
This was a lot of fun and very educational with a lot of the parsing taking as long if not longer than the actual writing in of the answers – particularly PEER GYNT (where had to look up the Grieg suite), CAUTIONARY (took ages to track down Romeo’s close friend), JANE EYRE (actually worked backwards from this guessing that EEYORE was somehow involved), SATIE (my last one in and held up a bit as SAE is seldom used down here) and the compound anagram of KING LEAR. Could only get the relationship between ‘Edna’ and INEBRIATED by googling those two words to find that BBC play which I had never heard of.
Had all of the complexity of an Io / Enigmatist puzzle with the degree of difficulty ratcheted down just those few pegs to make one not sweat so much !!!