Enjoyable and all fine with me. Thank you Puck.
| Across | ||
| 1, 4 | SENIOR MOMENT | Empty nest and no memories — bad time for OAP? (6,6) |
| anagram of NesT (empty, no middle letters) and NO MEMORIES – an embarrassing lapse in the mental faculties by an older person. I think you could regard “bad” either as an anagram indicator or as part of the definition. | ||
| 4 | See 1 | |
| 9 | SEMI | As part of time-sharing, taking turn in house (4) |
| found inside (part of) tIME Sharing reversed (taking turn) | ||
| 10 | APPALACHIA | Horrify a mate, forgetting name for mountain area (10) |
| APPAL (horrify) A CHInA (mate, rhyming slang) missing N (name) | ||
| 11 | CHEAPO | Pensioner cycling by checkpoint made from shoddy material (6) |
| OAP (pensioner) with letters cycling (to become apo) following (by) CH (check) and E (a point of the compass) | ||
| 12 | EXPLICIT | Out of power, allowed to be smutty? (8) |
| EX (out of) P (power) and LICIT (allowed) | ||
| 13 | INTERLUDE | Rest of Italian team’s smutty, reportedly (9) |
| INTER (Inter Milan, Italian team) has LUDE sounds like (reportedly) “lewd” (smutty) | ||
| 15 | RACY | Tory wearing light blue (4) |
| C (Conservative, Tory) inside (wearing) RAY (a light) | ||
| 16 | DIOR | A Christian GP, say, covering 10 (4) |
| DR (doctor, GP say) contains (covering) IO (ten) – Christian Dior, an example of a Christian | ||
| 17 | OFF CHANCE | Remote possibility of bad luck (3,6) |
| OFF (bad) and CHANCE (luck) | ||
| 21 | AD-LIBBER | One performing unprepared, left holding a hole-boring tool? On the contrary (2-6) |
| A DIBBER (hole-boring tool) containing (holding) L (left) – the contrary of left holding boring tool | ||
| 22 | ON HOLD | Definitely happening — keep waiting to be connected (2,4) |
| ON (definitely happening) then HOLD (keep) | ||
| 24 | PLENTITUDE | Abundance of fast sex between dessert and coffee, ultimately (10) |
| LENT (a fast) IT (sex) between PUD (dessert) and coffeE (ultimately, last letter of) | ||
| 25 | NOEL | Sign new back for present season (4) |
| LEO (a sign, of the zodiac) and N (new) reversed (back) – the season for giving presents | ||
| 26, 27 | SILVER IODIDE | Photographic chemical uncovering magic (6,6) |
| mAGIc (uncovered, no outside letters) – AgI is the chemical formula for Silver Iodide, a highly photosensitive chemical used in photography | ||
| 27 | See 26 | |
| Down | ||
| 1, 16 | STEPHEN DEDALUS | Joyce’s alter ego, in phase with male name (“boy raised in God”) (7,7) |
| STEP (phase) with HE (male) N (name) LAD (boy) reversed (raised) inside DEUS (a god) – character in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses | ||
| 2 | NAIRA | Writing up article about show in African capital (5) |
| AN (indefinite article) reversed (about) containing (about) AIR (show) – the currency (capital, money) of Nigeria | ||
| 3 | ON A ROLL | Having prolonged good luck, film here once? (2,1,4) |
| double definition – a film is more likely to be found on digital storage these days | ||
| 5 | OXLIPS | Kiss one of two kissers wearing very large bloomers (6) |
| X (a kiss) LIP (one of two kissers, lips) inside (wearing) OS (very large) | ||
| 6 | ENCHILADA | Woman with adopted youngster eating a Mexican dish (9) |
| ENA (a woman) contains (adopted) CHILD (youngster) containing (eating) A | ||
| 7, 19 | TRINITY COLLEGE | Reticently, I log off site that’s educational (7,7) |
| anagram (off) of RETICENTLY I LOG | ||
| 8 | SPLENDIFEROUS | Fantastically fine and super, so extremely delightful? (13) |
| anagram (fantastically) of FINE, SUPER, SO and DelightfuL (extremely, outside letters of) | ||
| 14 | EMOTIONAL | Moving in Puck’s direction, turned up on island, then left (9) |
| TO ME (in Puck’s direction) reversed (turning up) on IONA (an island) then L (left) | ||
| 16 | See 1 | |
| 18 | CLOSE TO | On the point of cupboard love (5,2) |
| CLOSET (cupboard) and O (love, zero score) | ||
| 19 | See 7 | |
| 20 | OBLIGE | Make former pupil tell story about the origin of greed (6) |
| OB (old boy, former pupil) LIE (tell story) containing (about) Greed (origin of, first letter) | ||
| 23 | HINDI | Language coming from noisy party after stripper’s act (5) |
| sHINDIg (noisy party) removing outside letters (after having acted like a stripper) | ||
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.
A DNF for me. I had NYALA for 2dn – capital of South Darfur, and LAY (to show, as in “lay before”, I thought) in AN, all reversed. So I never saw the obvious SEMI at 9ac. Hey ho…
Thanks, Puck and PeeDee.
Same as Chris@1 but without anything for 2d – despite capital as money being a familiar crossword device – doh! Nice one Puck!
Other than that this went in fairly easily and was enjoyable with favourites being EXPLICIT RACY SPLENDIFEROUS and CLOSE TO. I did go online to get 1d as I had the fodder but had never heard of JJ’s alter ego.
Thanks to Puck and PeeDee.
I didn’t know STEPHEN DEDALUS or SILVER IODIDE and with tricky parsing was unlikely to get either. Can see the latter was very clever with ‘uncovering magic’ but was too hard for me. Did get NAIRA although I have only ever seen this in a crossword!
Really enjoyed the rest of it, 8d probably favourite. I considered splendiferous but discounted it initially thinking it was one of Ken Dodd’s made up words, or possibly Roald Dahl. I see from a quick search that it’s been around since mid 19th century though
Over too soon for me, with 1,4 and 1,15 going straight in. Small delay in SE.
I’d never heard of NAIRA and like @1 and @2 above failed to get it, but it does seem a more reasonable definition of capital than Karachi which we had the other week. I also failed to parse SILVER IODIDE so thank you PeeDee for that and Puck for the puzzle
This puzzle actually proved how dim I actually am.
My first thoughts on 26,27 A were this is obviously Silver something. However I wasn’t sure what the something was!
Later on when some crossers had confirmed my suspicions I surmised that SILVER IODIDE was likely but I couldn’t parse it. So this turned out to be my LOI although unparsed but the crossers left no alternative. I had even previously written down the formula AgI!
When I finally saw the parsing I did think about going to the nearest knackers yard and asking to be put down.
Enjoyable puzzle I thought.5
Fun crossword. The parsing for SILVER IODIDE is genius and while it was my “LOI” (I thought) had completely eluded me.
@lurkio if you are feeling dim at not parsing that one imagine my feelings on realising I had written in NAVY for 15A and never going back to check and put in the obvious RACY. Doh
Thanks Puck and PeeDee
Thanks to Puck and PeeDee. Most of this went in quite steadily, but got held up on the last few. Another who could not parse sliver iodide, event it had to be the answer. I parsed Naira on the cluing but had to do a dictionary check. That and racy were the last ones in. I also toyed with navy (written twice on the paper in front of me) but it did not make much sense, and then the penny dropped. I liked senior moment because I often have them. Thanks again to Puck and (PeeDee).
Not too challenging with a friendly grid etc but delicious clues.
Interesting quiz fact-the original JJ Stephen Hero (before Portrait) had Stephen’s name spelt like the original (DAEDALUS).Thought I’d bore one and all with that and you probably knew anyway.
Grouchily, not really a fan of 1D, which really was little more than an (easy if you know it) GK clue. I don’t think you could have built it up from the world play.
By contrast I have been wondering why silver iodide was silver iodide, as clearly it was, all week, and now feel rather slow on the uptake. Very nice
26,27. I didn’t work out that “uncovering” indicated topping and tailing and it wouldn’t have made a difference if I had. A handful of chemical symbols are sufficiently GK to be OK but AGI!
1d, 16d. Quickly solved from GK. Surely no-one who didn’t know the answer solved this from the rather tortuous wordplay.
Thanks to Puck and PeeDee.
Thanks to Puck and PeeDee. To my surprise (given my weak science background) I did get SILVER IODIDE (though my first notion was Silver Phosphate) and did spot the mAGIc clue (I needed a Google check), but NAIRA and the NW corner gave me trouble until I got SENIOR MOMENT (a phenomenon well known to me).
An excellent puz.
Thanks PeeDee and Puck.
Enjoyable.
I had unparsed NAVY for 15a and, also, couldn’t parse HINDI.
25,26 had me going all the way through, but I only understood it once I’d got it from crossers. I enjoyed the realisation, having studied a little Chemistry. AgI is a bit tough if you haven’t, though. Excellent clue if you get it.
@Pino, actually I worked out DEDALUS from word play and then recognised the name I’d forgotten. I got STEPHEN from a search result which mentioned Stephen Hero and saw it fitted the wordplay then solved the remaining wp to complete, with a satisfying “Ah, yes, that was the name”.
An enjoyable Prize challenge from Puck: I liked 7/19d TRINITY COLLEGE the best. Other fun clues were 25a NOEL, 18d CLOSE TO and 20d OBLIGE, and I agree with others about 8d SPLENDIFEROUS – a “super” clue! 15a RACY took me ages to get (I concur with previous comments re its difficulty, though the use of “smutty” in the two preceding clues did form a bit of a pattern). With the other four letter after it, 16a, DIOR and RACY became my LOsI. As others have remarked, I too had no joy with AgI as I didn’t see the” hidden” – just thought silver nitrate might be used in some magic tricks* – again my lack of Chemistry savvy as discussed in the recent Qaos was the problem! So for such reasons the blog was much appreciated, PeterO; many thanks to Puck for your clever setting, and gratitude to other forum colleagues for the discussion.
[*The Deputy Principal and I once “painted” some on a purse we planted in a locker room in a school to try to catch a thief, however it didn’t work, as on inspection of students’ hands on Assembly, no black fingers were revealed, even though the purse had been opened, the money taken and the purse abandoned. It was a good idea but perhaps the thief wore gloves???? Another unsolved mystery.]
[BTW, I expected there might be some hoo-ha about 1a SENIOR MOMENT clued by using “OAP” and 11a where “Pensioner” was the first word in the clue, giving the scrambling of OAP in the answer CHEAPO. I really noticed those two clues as they came in the Prize Puzzle the day after I read this wry comment from Van Winkle on the Paul blog for 27 April.
Van Winkle says:
April 27, 2018 at 5:27 pm
As one of this website’s regular guardians of morals and re Tc @6, I can confirm that the biggest crime against the newspaper’s Style Guide is the use of OAP in 1d, a phrase outlawed to avoid offence to those slightly less young than those of us who still have to work for a living.
The use of OAP in this Puck was also noted by “Lord Jim” in the blog on the Paul. There was further discussion on that Paul forum regarding The Guardian’s policy regarding political correctness in terms of sexist and other types of language that can be seen as discriminatory.]
Fairly gentle by Puck’s standards which was just as well because I had to do this one online. Had to look up NAIRA which was last in
Thanks to Puck and PeeDee
Fairly tough this one (in contradiction to other posts) – but eventually came home. Couple of unknowns: STEPHEN whoever (never read Joyce) – some mis-parsing there, I thought the “male name” was simply, STEPHEN, and that “in phase” was part of the definition. The other, unsurprisingly, was NAIRA but the clueing was perfectly fair.
I’ve gone walking in the APPALACHIANS but never heard the region referred to by this truncated name. I suppose it must be OK. Maybe a wandering bear got the last two letters (there are warning signs about bears all over the place…)
I am an OAP and I don’t mind being called one: not at all! But if it really causes offence let the debate continue – but not with me in it! And yes, I do get the odd SENIOR MOMENT. Don’t we all! 🙂
Anyway, plenty of SPLENDIFEROUS long words in this puzzle. Thanks to Puck and PD.
As to this weekend’s Arachne – no spoilers of course but I think I’ll have a word or two to say once the quarantine period ends. Talk about webs of intrigue! But I’m glad she made mention of a significant anniversary (this is not a spoiler: she says so in the preamble).
JinA@16 and Laccaria@18: As a person who is grateful for having reached the age of eligibility for OAP (OAS in Canada, S standing for security) I don’t mind the phrase at all. If the term OAP is discriminatory, then the old age pension itself must necessarily be discriminatory. I doubt the complainers would willingly give it up.
Another delightfully puckish puzzle. Favourites were INTERLUDE, DIOR and EMOTIONAL. The parsing of AgI and HINDI eluded me, and the rhyming slang in 10a was beyond me (but not the solution) so thanks PeeDee for the explanations, and thanks Puck for the fun.
Thanks, PeeDee, for clarifying the cryptic part of the SILVER IODIDE clue. I could only get it using the Down clues, and even then I had to look it up to make sure it was correct. Therefore, by now it goes without saying it was my LOI. I also have to say using the phrase “stripper’s act” to signify removing the first and last letters of SHINDIG to get HINDI was very clever indeed. All in all, a great offering from Puck! To coin another bit of hockey terminology, he really got it past the goalie that time!