Once again, we have to apologise to Serpent for another Bertandjoyce blog. We are certainly not complaining – hopefully Serpent won’t either.
Our LOI was CARGO CULT which we had not come across before. We needed a word search to find the answer and we had to check the meaning of ARGOT.
We should really have spotted the theme during the solve but maybe we both solved one from each pair and didn’t connect them. However, there was hint from Serpent when he mentioned ‘partners’ in 25ac. We have COCKLES and MUSSLES, NOUGHTS and CROSSES, ALPHA and OMEGA, TOSS and TURN plus WEAR and TEAR. All very cleverly positioned too.
Thanks Serpent for the Tuesday fun.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | Yielded, with the understanding … (8) | |
| PROVIDED | Double definition | |
| 3 | … rent rate has to change (4) | |
| TEAR | Anagram of RATE – anagrind is ‘to change’ | |
| 9 | They’re shelled before the French prepare to fire (7) | |
| COCKLES | COCK (prepare to fire) before LES (French for ‘the’) | |
| 10 | Most angry to lose time for incorrect marks (7) | |
| CROSSES | CROSSES |
|
| 11 | Shock wave’s broken up poor dam (9) | |
| POMPADOUR | Anagram of UP POOR DAM -anagrind is ‘broken’ – the ‘shock wave’ refers of course to hair! | |
| 12 | The end is nothing great (5) | |
| OMEGA | O (nothing) MEGA (great) | |
| 13 | Chuck Norris wants to fight, ultimately making a comeback (4) | |
| TOSS | Last or ‘ultimate’ letters in NorriS wantS tO fighT all reversed or ‘making a comeback’. We’d never heard of Chuck Norris and did not realise that he was an American martial artist | |
| 14 | Sense it’s not a serious condition (10) | |
| MENINGITIS | ME |
|
| 18 | Wounding appraisal of flimsy material? (10) | |
| LACERATING | LACE (flimsy material) RATING (appraisal) | |
| 19 | Rotation while receding from planet (4) | |
| TURN | AS (while – reversed or receding) removed from |
|
| 21 | Beginning of record covered by Norwegian band (5) | |
| ALPHA | LP (record) inside or ‘covered by’ AHA (Norwegian band) | |
| 23 | Catholic vernacular embraces every other aspect of cruel religion (5,4) | |
| CARGO CULT | C (Catholic) ARGOT (vernacular- we had to check this definition) around or ‘embracing’ alternate letters or ‘every other aspect’ of CrUeL | |
| 24 | Gunshot wound leaves round marks (7) | |
| NOUGHTS | An anagram of GUNSHOT – anagrind is ‘wound’ – the past tense of ‘wind’ and nothing to do with being injured! | |
| 25 | Partners of 9 months less aroused with you and me round (7) | |
| MUSSELS | M (months) plus an anagram of LESS inside US (you an me) – The ‘partners’ are COCKLES (9ac). | |
| 26 | Sport is primarily entertainment inspired by conflict (4) | |
| WEAR | E (first or ‘primary’ letter of ‘entertainment’) inside or ‘inspired by’ WAR (conflict) | |
| 27 | Lose suspect with court case abandoned (8) | |
| DESOLATE | An anagram of LOSE (anagrind is ‘suspect’) inside or ‘with case’ of DATE (court) | |
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | Choir mucks about avoiding hard compositional style in modern idiom (4,5) | |
| ROCK MUSIC | An anagram of C |
|
| 3 | Barbarous and wild leaders of Visigoths ravaged Gaul (6) | |
| VULGAR | An anagram of GAUL and V R – first letters or ‘leaders’ of ‘Visigoths Ravaged’ – anagrind is ‘wild’ | |
| 4 | Not good – does things deviously (9) | |
| DISHONEST | A play on the fact that it is an anagram of DOES THIN |
|
| 5 | Designer’s environmentally friendly replacement for interior colour scheme and furnishings (5) | |
| DECOR | ECO (environmentally friendly) replacing the inside or ‘interior’ of D |
|
| 6 | Sweeping gutter outside house (8) | |
| THOROUGH | TROUGH (gutter) outside HO (house) | |
| 7 | Writer will read out passage in theatre (5) | |
| AISLE | When read out loud sounds like I’LL (writer will) | |
| 8 | Makes a killing after one’s invested in three pairs of buttocks! (12) | |
| ASSASSINATES | ASS ASS NATES (buttocks repeated three times) around I (one) | |
| 9 | First-rate gossip carrying home proceeds of sale (7,5) | |
| CAPITAL GAINS | CAPITAL (first rate) GAS (gossip) around or ‘carrying’ IN (home) | |
| 15 | Illiterate design or a museum’s centrepiece (9) | |
| IGNORAMUS | Hidden centrally in ‘desIGN OR A MUSeum’ | |
| 16 | Aggressive culture destroyed books (9) | |
| TRUCULENT | An anagram of CULTURE – anagrind is ‘destroyed’ NT (books) | |
| 17 | Traces of raw effluent found in swimmer’s lung? (8) | |
| BREATHER | First letters or ‘traces’ of Raw Effluent in BATHER (swimmer) | |
| 20 | Ambassador seeks advice following departure of evacuated tourists (6) | |
| CONSUL | CONSUL |
|
| 22 | Break dictator’s 22 hands (5) | |
| PAUSE | When ‘dictated’ sounds like PAWS (hands) | |
| 23 | Checked out potential crime scene when patient died (5) | |
| CASED | CASE (patient as in medical case) D (died). When writing up the blog Joyce had to check the parsing of this one. It brought back memories of the many times her father was in hospital. He was definitely not a ‘patient patient’ despite us all reminding him to be one! | |
I actually managed to get CARGO CULT entirely from the clue and crossers. I did have to check that it wasnt a hair style.
Lovely puzzle from Serpent and thanks to B&J
Superb.
Superb indeed. Looked for a theme after finishing and was amazed at the ingenuity. Bravo Serpent. I did wonder about ‘laryngitis’ as the answer to 14a but thought that would be a poor clue – the actual answer was brilliant. Why have I never seen that clue for 8d before? 24a was beautiful in its simplicity. Too many good clues to mention.
Like @copmus, I was quite pleased to get CARGO CULT from the clear instructions. Great puzzle and I only really twigged what was going on when I too saw the COCKLES/MUSSELS linked clues. I bet S regrets that now!
This was comfortably my quickest ever solve of one of this setter’s puzzles, fwiw
Thanks to Serpent, B&J
I found this quite hard work. Couldn’t get ALPHA and missed the theme, despite assuming there must be one. Lots of good clues though, including the hidden IGNORAMUS, the def. for POMPADOUR and the misdirection of ‘it’s not a serious condition’.
Favourite was TRUCULENT which always reminds of Ivan Skavinsky Skivar as he ‘donned his most truculent sneer’ in ‘Abdul Abulbul Amir’.
Thanks to Serpent and B&J.
A tricky crossword – fortunately for me I noticed the links – I’m another one who’d never heard of CARGO CULT
Thanks to Serpent and B&J
Thanks Serpent and bertandjoyce
I didn’t see the linked answers of course, but I did know about CARGO CULTs (building fake airstrips to try to attract planes with “cargo” back, as had happened during World War II)
ASSASSINATES, although clever, is a bit American. It reminds me of doing an Everyman years ago; I can’t remember the exact clue, but the definition was “deep in trouble” and the word play was an anagram. I had UP TO HIS ???? IN IT, and the remaining letters were A R S E.
…it was EARS, of course!
Like everyone else I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle but the investing pedant in me must take issue with 9 down.
If only PROCEEDS OF SALE were CAPITAL GAINS. A question mark, or two, might have assuaged me.
Thanks to all.
I found this tricky but satisfying once I got to the end. I actually spotted a couple of the pairs, NOUGHTS and CROSSES and COCKLES and MUSSELS, for a change. I had a few interruptions while solving, so my just over the hour can be reduced to somewhat under the hour, still tough going by my standards. DECOR went in first and MENINGITIS last. Various ITISs were considered before the penny dropped. HE(a)RINGITIS anyone? Thanks Serpent and B&J.
Oh and ALPHA and OMEGA 🙂
Started off thinking this was really gentle for a Serpent then ended up with another DNF (including finding the theme). A few in the south beat me.
So not so easy, but great clues with a lovely bonus in the grid. I can console myself that I knew about cargo cults, having encountered them some years ago in The God Delusion and been fascinated.
Many thanks Serpent and BertandJoyce.
(Muffin @7 – haha!)
Fine puzzle; blog the same. I did spot the pairs eventually, which guided me to enter MUSSELS.
DISHONEST was my favourite today – cleverly clued. Agree with you about ‘&lit’, though – I’m sure it was invented as a label with the best of intentions, but it’s certainly not clear to learners – or indeed others – what exactly it is, even when you extend it to ‘and literally so’. And folk get over-excited sometimes about what actually constitutes an &lit. Maybe we need a new term – I have heard ‘extended definition’ (I think Peter O might use that), or what about ‘clue as definition’?
Thanks all three.
A fine crossword. No problems with CARGO CULT but PAUSE was last in and took me far too long.
Thanks to Serpent, B & J
bh@13: Got PAUSE fairly early. However, as whenever there’s a homophone clue someone says “That’s not a homophone!” this time it’s my turn. In my idiolect PAUSE and PAWS have completely different vowel sounds.
Apart from that, no trouble. Did spot ALPHA and OMEGA but didn’t stop to think if there were any more pairs. And I did know CARGO CULT.
Dormouse @14
I have been known to complain bitterly about “homophones” (mainly on Guardian threads), but I have to say that PAUSE was my favourite in this puzzle 🙂
Brilliant. Every clue a gem. When I saw NOUGHTS and CROSSES, I got ALPHA. MUSSELS led me to COCKLES. Great fun and very smooth. Too many good clues to mention (well, all of them), but I did like MENINGITIS in particular. There’s a bit of a worry about mentioning debilitating diseases in crosswords but this is done rather well.
I did not remember cargo cult despite having read the god delusion.
I did notice that two anagrams were reversals (25a, 27a), just an observation – obviously it doesn’t matter at all.
Great stuff, many thanks Serpent, and thanks B&J as always
Kathryn’s dad@12
I think an extended definition is different. Big Dave’s site tries to avoid Jargon and there we use “all-in-one” as a simpler term for an &lit – perhaps I should help learners with the reminder that this is a clue type where the whole clue is pure wordplay but also the whole clue doubles as the definition.
The problem with “all-in-one” is that it leads to the unpalatable “semi-all-in-one”.
The semi-version being where the wordplay doesn’t quite cover the whole clue, often involving a word like “this” ( for the learners)
Many thanks (again!) to Bertandjoyce for an excellent blog. And thanks, as always, to everyone who took the time solve and comment on my puzzle.
Jason
I am a bit puzzled by the fact that some solvers (also rather experienced ones) often cannot handle the term ‘&lit’. IMO, it is quite simple and I am also not sure that calling it an ‘all-in-one’ clue makes life easier.
And Dutch, ‘semi-all-in-one? Well, there are also ‘semi &lit’s.
As to this puzzle, I found it on the easy side for a Serpent (easier than yesterday’s Kairos which I couldn’t complete [not seeing the nina]) – most enjoyable though.
I saw the couples – splendid bit of grid construction (!!) but they didn’t help me filling that grid.
Thank you B&S.
A late start on this having been busy all day but we completed it all without help in under an hour despite nodding off once or twice. We spotted WEAR and TEAR first and thought it was just coincidence, then when we got NOUGHTS and realised we’d already got CROSSES the rest of the pairings virtually jumped out at us and helped a great deal. The SE corner held out the longest but once we got CONSUL it didn’t take long for CARGO CULT to emerge from the subconscious.
A great puzzle. CoD was NOUGHTS.
Thanks, Serpent and B&J
… and having now tackled the 2013 reprint in the i, is it just coincidence that the theme there was snakes?
Sil@19 – agree, i wasn’t defending ‘all-in-one’, just pointing out it is actively being used in at least one environment that tries to reduce jargon for learners. I’ve always been happy with semi&lit, but was trying to say the translation to semi-all-in-one sounds somehow self-contradicting and i’ve never liked it.
Come to think of it, I quite like KD’s “clue as definition”, which would cover the semi as well.