Today’s puzzle can be solved online here.
A gentle offering from Brummie, which was solved in a couple of run throughs, assisted largely by the very easy long down clues (1 and 6), which gave a few free letters for some of the slightly tougher across entries.
Thanks, Brummie.
| Across | ||
| 1 | GOLDEN SYRUP | Ends up overwhelmed with glory, which is very sweet (6,5) |
| *(ends up glory) | ||
| 9 | ALL OVER | Done being Pacino fan? (3,4) |
| AL (“Pacino”) + LOVER (“fan”) | ||
| 10 | ENDPLAY | Put a stop to power plant’s strategy for bridge (7) |
| END (“put a stopto”) + P(ower) + LAY (“plant”) | ||
| 11 | SWEAT SHOP | Labour’s bound to reveal the exploitation business (5,4) |
| SWEAT’S (“Labour’s”) + HOP (“bound”) | ||
| 12, 19 | CLEAR SOUP | Spooner could polish off this limerick writer, son, in a stroke! (5,4) |
| (Edward) LEAR (“limerick writer”) + S(on) in COUP (“stroke”), so C(LEAR-S)OUP | ||
| 13 | ECHO | Parrot house downsized after first signs of economy cuts (4) |
| HO(use) (“house, downsized“) after E(conomy) C(uts) | ||
| 14 | UNDERLINED | Stressed but having fewer wrinkles than you should? (10) |
| Double definition, the second being a cryptic one. | ||
| 16 | GANG OF FOUR | Political clique‘s go-go fun — far out (4,2,4) |
| (*go go fun far) This could be referring to either the four Labour politicians who formed the short-lived Social Democratic Party in the UK in 1981, or to a political faction in China in the 1960s and 1970s. | ||
| 19 | See 12 | |
| 21 | BOSUN | Hairstyle covers very retro crew member (5) |
| BUN (“hairstyle”) covers <=SO (“very”, retro) | ||
| 22 | EGREGIOUS | Say euro is around about $1,000, gross (9) |
| E.G. (“say”) + *(euro is) about G (“$1,000”) | ||
| 24 | STACHYS | Retiring Kitty’s oddly shy, producing lamb’s ears (7) |
| <=CAT’S (“kitty’s”, retiring) + *(shy) Stachys is a genus of flowering plant that includes the lamb’s ear. | ||
| 25 | VERDICT | Finding composer’s taken to court (7) |
| VERDI (“composer”) taken to Ct. (“court”) | ||
| 26 | EMPOWERMENT | Women met with pre-arranged authorisation (11) |
| *(women met pre) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | GOLDEN HANDSHAKE | Midas-like grip necessary to get rid of employee? (6,9) |
| In Greek mythology, King Midas certainly would have had a golden handshake. | ||
| 2 | LOVAT | Blue-green, large old vessel (5) |
| L(arge) + O(ld) + VAT (“vessel”) | ||
| 3 | EARTHEN | Are rocks, therefore, like pottery? (7) |
| *(are) + THEN (“therefore”) | ||
| 4 | STEEPLE | Author of romances claiming page has English construction (7) |
| (Danielle) STEEL (“author of romances”) claiming P(age) + E(nglish), so STEE(P)L-E | ||
| 5 | RIDICULE | Scorn queen? Brummie would, with one fine-tuned clue (8) |
| R (“queen”) + I’D (“Brummie would”) + I (“one”) + *(clue) | ||
| 6 | PALAEONTOLOGIST | No forward-looking scientist freely goes to an oil plant that’s nameless (15) |
| *(goes to an oil pla(n)t) | ||
| 7 | HASSLE | Nuisance Hardy appropriates pair of shorts (6) |
| HALE (“hardy”) appropriates S(hort) + S(hort) | ||
| 8 | HYBRID | Cross Henry I appearing in Byrd composition (6) |
| H(enry) + I appearing in *(byrd) | ||
| 15 | TOWNSHIP | Nowt wrong with singular joint settlement (8) |
| *(nowt) + S(ingular) HIP (“joint”) | ||
| 16 | GO BUST | Fail to progress sculpture (2,4) |
| GO (“to progress”) + BUST (“sculpture”) | ||
| 17 | FRETSAW | Worry, saying: “That will make a fine cut” (7) |
| FRET (“worry”) + SAW (“saying”) | ||
| 18 | UPRIVER | Away from the estuary, excited motorist loses lead (7) |
| UP (“excited”) + (d)RIVER (“motorist”, losing head) | ||
| 20 | PASHTO | Feeling common to language (6) |
| PASH (“feeling”) + TO | ||
| 23 | GORSE | Prickly shrub‘s stick pierced by sun (5) |
| GORE (“stick”) pierced by S(un) | ||
*anagram
Whilst I appreciate the clever misdirection in 12ac I have to take issue with the use of “spooner” to mean one who uses a spoon. Neither my Chambers nor the OED allow this although I have seen it in one or two less-reputable online publications. STACHYS and PASHTO were both DNKs for me but worked out OK from the word play. I found 26ac a thing of beauty. I also pleased myself by getting PALAEONTOLOGIST without writing down the anagrist.
Though I don’t usually like repetition of words in a crossword, I loved solving GOLDEN SYRUP and GOLDEN HANDSHAKE (1a and 1d) in this puzzle. Like Frankie the cat@1, I didn’t know 24a STACHYS or 20d PASHTO. While I solved STACHYS from the wordplay, I couldn’t get PASHTO at all, as (a) I failed to solve the Spooner clue CLEAR SOUP 12a16a so I did not have the first letter, and (b) I have not heard of “PASH” as a synonym for “feeling” (in Australia a “pash” is a passionate kiss, and “pashing” refers to what used to occur when the lights went down at the pictures!).
So a DNF for me today. Such a pity as I really liked it, and ticked so many clues – and there were lots of smiles along the way.
Thanks to loonapick for putting me out of my misery with those last two, and thanks to Brummie for the “EMPOWERMENT of women” in 26a, on the eve of International Women’s Day!
I enjoyed this puzzle, even though I failed to solve 12/9 and 20d.
New words for me were STACYS although I know the plant & FRETSAW.
Gang of Four I know from China, not UK.
My favourites were UNDERLINED, TOWNSHIP & ALL OVER – and I am a Pacino fan 🙂
Thanks Brummie and loonapick
Defeated by Brummie today, but no complaints.
Well, I did know the language in 20d, but like Julie @2 I hadn’t seen PASH as a synonym for “feeling” before – and I’m not in Australia! Though I guess it could be argot or txtspk for “passion” – perhaps that’s what “common” is doing in the clue.
All in all, an enjoyable puzzle though it required a little too much checking (24a, for example, and 21a which I couldn’t parse). And the repetition of “GOLDEN” did raise an eyebrow, but I rather liked it.
So thanks to Brummie and to loonapick for the explanations.
Gentle indeed for a Brummie but very enjoyable. I expect it helped that I knew the lamb’s ears and the language.
Thanks to Brummie and loonapick
Very enjoyable. I thought 12, 19 was great. Frankie @1: I don’t understand your complaint about “spooner”. Maybe dictionaries don’t have this as one who spoons, but then they don’t “flower” to mean river – it’s a cryptic crossword!
A few weeks ago there was some discussion here about clues using “Spooner” other than to indicate a Spoonerism – did this possibly inspire Brummie?
(That should have said ‘they don’t have “flower”’…)
I’m another for whom STACHYS was new. I loved CLEAR SOUP, EARTHEN and FRETSAW, and like Frankie@1, PALAEONTOLOGIST went straight. Many thanks to Brummie and loonapick.
er . . . went straight in. Not meant to be a comment about the sexual orientation of palaeontologists.
I too enjoyed this – so many thanks to Brummie! I found some of the parsing a bit tricky and so loonapick’s excellent blog was (as always!) very helpful and much appreciated. I wasn’t familiar with Lovat or Stachys but the answers were clear from the clues and the crossers. I was a bit puzzled by some of the synonyms at first (“gore” for “stick”?) but, on reflection, they do seem reasonable.
Only problem was with 1D – a golden handshake is used to acquire an employee, not get rid of them
Not being a huge fan of Spooner clues, I was delighted when the penny dropped. Perfectly fair misdirection. BCOTD!
Botany is a blind spot for me, but the wordplay was clear enough.
My thanks to loonapick and Brummie.
Thanks Brummie and loonapick.
Gareth @ 12: I think you may be confusing golden handshake, which is given to someone leaving a company, generally unwillingly, with golden hello, which is a lure.
Gareth@12: My understanding of “golden handshake” is not the same as yours; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_handshake for example.
Perhaps PASH=feeling isn’t as common as the clue suggests: I didn’t know it either. I used to grow STACHYS so that was lurking in a forgotten corner. Has everyone but me met STEEL from 4d?
And of course the un-Spooner was fun.
Thanks Brummie and loonapick.
Enjoyable crossword; I particularly liked the ‘Spooner’ clue – Frankie @1, Chambers gives the verb to spoon as: to transfer with, or as if with, a spoon.’ You can also find ‘spooner’ with this meaning in Merriam-Webser.
It’s funny how sometimes I’m just on the setter’s wavelength – this was one of my quickest solves ever – and certainly much quicker than the two “gentle” puzzles so far this week. It helped that none of the words were new, although PASHTO was second to loi and allowed me to see through the clever Spooner misdirection and get CLEAR SOUP – a lovely clue. I also liked ECHO for the definition HASSLE for the Hardy misdirection.
JinA – thanks for putting the case forward for the two GOLDENs – my immediate reaction was to be disappointed.
Thanks to Brummie for getting me back on track and to loonapick for the blog.
I seriously got nothing on my first pass through this, but once I got my eye in it flowed nicely. I always groan when Spooners appear – that was quite the misdirection.
LOVAT a new word today,
[WhiteKing@18 – are you a mindreader?
This would have been my post exactly
It’s funny how sometimes I’m just on the setter’s wavelength
until I lost the connection with Brummie at the very end with two unsolved clues…]
Post-script: Well done to all who solved this to the end.
[However WK, you and I differed on the repetition of GOLDEN, and I do get that – can I say when “sack”/”sacked” was repeated with different meanings on Monday, I made a note to self critiquing the repetition….? Inconsistent, moi?]
Did anyone else think the IWD reference was intentional, or was it just happenstance and my reading something more into the clue?
JinA
Good stuff from Brummie, which I managed to finish with minimal use of the reveal button, apart from stachys, a new word for me. Thanks to loonapick too.
Trismegistus @5: I took ‘common’ in 20d to possibly indicate ‘slang’ and that helped me to guess it was probably short for ‘passion’, which Chambers confirmed.
I found this surprisingly easy for a Brummie, but highly enjoyable nonetheless. Like others, I loved the false Spoonerism when it became… ahem… clear. 3d EARTHEN was also a lovely clue.
Thanks to all.
When I was growing up “pash”, a word that could only be used by girls, meant a crush, obviously short for passion. Somethng said with passion is said with feeling.
Thanks to Brummie and loonapick. Strange sort of solve for me. I thought at first that this was going to be a stroll in the park with most of it in on first few passes. However the last few clues took me much longer to solve than the rest of it put together. Last two in for me were stachys and Pashto both of which were not familiar and required a bit of a dictionary checking. Thanks again to Brummie and loonapick.
Thanks to S & B. A good puzzle, though I needed the BRB to check STACHYS and PASHTO (I was more familiar with other spellings for this). As others have said, comparatively gentle for a Brummie.
JinA @20, I believe “Mrs Brummie” also sets crosswords, or helps with the setting, so perhaps she mentioned the IWD.
A lovely crossword, thank you Brummie, and thank you loonapick for the blog, PASHTO was new to me.
Thanks to Brummie and loonapick
As others have said, gentle for Brummie, aided by the brace of goldens and the palaeontologist.
I don’t like Spooner clues, so greatly enjoyed the misdirection in 12,9. I see nothing wrong with the use of spooner here – as others have pointed I=out there are many -er misdirections in crosswordland: flower, banker, shower…
16a … or that other political clique that banged out such classics as Damaged Goods, I Found That Essence Rare and I Love a Man in Uniform. More apposite for the clue surface.
I don’t like the use of Spoonerisms either- too often it looks like a sign of desperation, so, for me,12,9 was therefore a brilliant misdirection
20d reminded me of the two strawberries in the torte who fell desperately in love- it didn’t last- it was just a pash in the flan
Bart Edmondson @29 – very good!
Enjoyed this, found a few of these quite tricky, with the clever CLEAR SOUP last in – fortunately I remembered PASHTO, though STACHYS was new to me (botany is always a blind spot).
Thanks to Brummie and loonapick
Thanks to Brummie and loonapick and nothing much to add to PetHay@24.
Bart Edmondson@29 – I enjoy spoonerisms and don’t find they represent deperation – on the contrary a well turned spoonerism will usually raise a smile. I hesitate to suggest that you can’t have it both ways, since with spoonerisms you obviously can, but “pash in the flan” is, well, itself a spoonerism. But it reminds me of the soldier who, grateful to his CO for a lenient verdict when court-martialled for cowardice, sent him a strawberry torte and was then shot for posting his dessert.
I liked HYBRID and was grateful for the parsing of EGREGIOUS which I don’t have as a synonym for gross, but I suppose it will pass muster.
Thanks both,
The penny was a long time afalling for CLEAR SOUP, even tho’ I’d twigged the misdirection. Otherwise some fine clues.
Thanks to Brummie and loonapick. I had the same problems as those noted above (e.g., with PASHTO, LOVAT, and STACHYS) and am continually thrown off by the spelling of words like PALAEONTOLOGIST with the AE.
Thanks, Brummie, for a most enjoyable puzzle and to loonapick for the parsing.
Like others above, LOI 12, 19 – and I too loved the misdirection. 26ac was indeed a thing of beauty, as noted by Frankie the Cat @1. We also noted its apposite timing.
Very pleased that lovat came up – I only came across the word last week in a different context. Stachys also new – we were thinking of lamb’s lettuce (corn salad) or whether lamb’s ears might be L and B, but the word became the only option with the letters/answers from the down clues.
Blimey- Scritti Politti on Wednesday, Gang of Four today – what’s next? Swell Maps on Monday….? Kudos to Brummie for 12,19 even if I was completely stumped by it, and thanks to loonapick for the parsing.
Whoops me @ 36 – today is Wednesday isn’t it, it was Scritti on Monday….
Well, on this occasion, no question which was the clue of the week – if not of the year! I vaguely recall making a post in which I threatened to devise a clue containing the word “Spooner” which was not a spoonerism! Brummie has beaten me to it – superb!
A pity that it intersects what I consider the worst clue of the puzzle – PASHTO. Oh dear! why oh why do we have to fall back on ‘eschoory inglish’ or whatever it’s called? The word ‘Pash’ may be ‘common’ in some isolated linguistic circles, but it’s certainly not ‘common’ in the language as a whole – and non-existent in any conversation I can recall ever having (does it feature in some soap opera perhaps?). It took me a long time to get PASHTO even though I guessed quite early on that the last letter was probably ‘O’.
Other than that a fine puzzle from Brummie. I suppose as a bridge-player, I must give a ‘plus’ for ENDPLAY. I only wish it would happen (to opponents that is!) so easily at the bridge-table, as it does in the crossword!
Thanks to Brummie and LP.
Pash is very old teenage slang, going back to the 40s, with particular reference to girls schools and none at all to physical contact
pash A n. Abbreviation of passion; esp. in phr. to have a pash for, to be infatuated with, to have a ‘crush’ on; transf. a person who is the object of an infatuation. B adj. Abbreviation of passionate a. OED
First citation is 1914.
I came late to this so I was quite glad that this was so gentle and so enjoyable. I loved CLEAR SOUP and fell for the clever misdirection until quite late in the proceedings. Once I had got it I had the initial letter of PASHTO which was my LOI. PASH is quite dated and I only knew it from middle class school storieS of the 1930’s-so not common even if it is slang! I think it is the equivalent of CRUSH.
I didn’t know STACHYS but the wordplay could hardly be clearer so no problem there.
Thanks Brummie
Re Midas, see this cartoon
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/business-commerce-golden_handshake-severance_package-midas_touch-executive-bonus-smgn49_low.jpg
and also, rather more rudely, this one:
http://brendinicartoons.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/two-naked-men-in-urinal-what-could.html
Thanks Brummie and loonapick
All went smoothly up to PASHTO, which needed a wordsearch and two goes!
I quoted this Radio Times clue on the “General Discussion” thread a few days ago. I’ll repeat it for those who didn’t see it:
Spooner’s metric conversion of crime series (9,5)
Laccaria @38: yes I mentioned (@7) the previous discussion about possible clues using the word “Spooner” other than to indicate a Spoonerism. I’ve now managed to find it, at 27,410 by Screw on 19 January, last few posts.
My contribution on that occasion (@77) was, for CANOODLER:
“Spooner’s got Leonard and Co in a frenzy (9)”
Muffin@43 – Got it at last! Can see why you like it. Brings back fond memories for me – or it would if I could remember them. More Proustian madeleines……
I loved the “Spooner” misdirection. It took me forever to get that clue, but how satisfying when the penny dropped.
The only problem with Spoonerism clues, in my opinion, is that they have to be indicated by a reference to Spooner, which makes the clue type uncryptically obvious. Using “Spooner” in a non-Spoonerism clue is a brilliant way to turn this flaw into an advantage.
Pretty straightforward for the most part, though I had to look up 20d at the close. The TO bit was plain enough, but the rest a bit of a guess I needed to confirm. 24ac was new but pretty painstakingly clued with little room to go wrong. The Spooner misdirection caught me out for a long while, but with C.E.R and the mention of limericks… Nice puzzle.
I came flying out of the blocks on this one, but the last six or so went in rather like a castellan singing a coronach for his dead agouti.
Like many others above, I thought 12,19 was brilliant – clearly my COTD.
Like my fellow American ACD @34, I (once again) forgot to account for the “AE” in the UK spelling of the word we know here as “paleontologist”, so I had to correct a good number of letters after trying to enter the American spelling into the grid.
As a Big Fan of the color green, my favorite TILT (Thing I Learned Today) was a new (to me, after confirming by Google) term for a greenish hue, in 2d. I LOVAT!
I also had to Google Lamb’s Ears to confirm 24ac.
Many thanks to Brummie, loonapick and the other commenters.
JimS@44 – thanks for pointing me to the right blog (haven’t figured out how to properly do a search on this site, yet). Was Brummie indeed casting an eye over us, that day? But I reckon it’s just coincidence – I think the lead time between submission and publication, for Grauniad puzzles is fairly long.
Looking at your example clue, I’m just wondering what solvers would have made of it if it were an actual spoonerism. “Kennard and Low”? I recall, there used to be a department store in Croydon called Kennards – long since taken over by Debenhams. Not much help! Maybe there are other instances of the name.
Good crossword, as others said at the easier end of what Brummie can produce.
One ‘complaint’: the S for ‘short’ in 7d.
As far as I know, there’s no dictionary supporting it. Surely, someone will come up with SW = ‘short wave’ but my reply to such suggestions is always: if UK = ‘United Kingdom’ then K = ‘Kingdom’?
Sil van Hoek@50
I thought of commenting on that because I once had a proofreader pull me up for using S for short.
Personally, I think it’s a very good device. If you go to buy a pair of trousers, for example, you will often see 34S, 34M or 34L to indicate the length of the trouser.
But S is ‘small’ then, isn’t it?
I came here today just to see if anyone queried S for Short (which is usually Small as opposed to L for large). So I agree with Sil.
Sil van den Hoek @51
I do not think that trousers with a 34″ waist would be described as small – and Loonapick @51 could have made his example even clearer by giving 42S, 42M and 42L, say.
PeterO
I actually wear 36!!
In the case of trousers, it is definitely Short and Long. Come to think of it it would be 34R for regular rather than 34M.
Loonapick @55
So it looks as if we have another pair of viable abbreviations – R for regular (in addition to rare, which produces the occasional complaint) and L for long.
An elderly acquaintance of mine was very pleased when the suit he was fitted for was labelled as “SP”. He was somewhat less impressed when he discovered that it didn’t stand for “Special”; instead “Short and Portly”!
Muffin @57, I trust your last words were Spoonerian, anticipating an aperitif (in France if not here) soon after your post?
4, and 7.