A most enjoyable, albeit very difficult I thought, crossword today. There are lots of extremely clever clues, as we have come to expect of Maize. I thought 20dn and any number of others were outstanding.
Definitions underlined, in maroon. Anagram indicators in italics.
There is a geometrical theme here: we have octahedron, regular pentagon, golden rectangle, (T-)square, {eternal) triangle, (celestial) sphere, circle, parallel, crescent, dice (which are the shape of cubes) and no doubt others that the eagle-eyed will spot. Is it just that, which is quite enough, or are they in some way linked?
| Across | ||
| 1 | DICE | Game of chance could finally kill someone (4) |
| {coul}d ice [= kill someone, an American term for killing] | ||
| 3 | OCTAHEDRON | One of five of Plato he’d put in sort of cartoon (10) |
| (he’d) in (cartoon)* — the Five Platonic Solids (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, icosahedron) are demonstrated here | ||
| 10 | GOLDEN RECTANGLE | Harmonious shape of retro timber shelter with play area and maze (6,9) |
| (log)rev. den [= shelter] rec [= play area] tangle [= maze] — the golden rectangle is supposed to be a thing of great beauty. I may be lacking in sensitivity, but it looks to me much like any other rectangle; we get told that classical artists used it, after someone has plonked a golden rectangle down on top of a painting, as if this proves something. | ||
| 11 | AUSTRALIA | Part of the Alps which surrounds a Latin country (9) |
| Austr(a L)ia | ||
| 12 | TILDE | Diamonds sewn into hat, as seen on top of señora (5) |
| til(D)e — that little squiggly thing on top of the n of senora | ||
| 13 | ICIEST | For Parisians, here is the ultimate in cool (6) |
| ici est — the French for here is | ||
| 14 | T-SQUARE | E Landseer appointed it a tool for draughtsmen? (1-6) |
| Landseer appointed (ie provided the sculpture for — the lions in) Trafalgar Square, although this is the first time I’ve ever heard it called T-Square | ||
| 18 | ALMANAC | Annual volume of a transport route crossing motorway roundabout (7) |
| a (cana(M)l)rev. | ||
| 19 | VENEER | Go off track to get round edges of Eastern Front? (6) |
| v(E{aster}n)eer | ||
| 22 | TAPAS | Assorted dishes of pasta salad (5) |
| (pasta)* | ||
| 24 | AESTHETES | Arty types reviewing main article by teacher’s paper (9) |
| (sea)rev. the TES [= Times Educational Supplement] | ||
| 25 | ETERNAL TRIANGLE | Constant problem with relating in ménage à trois (7,8) |
| eternal [= constant] (relating)* — are eternal triangle and ménage a trois the same thing? | ||
| 26 | THEODOLITE | Use it to survey the back of old limestone circles (10) |
| the o({ol}d)olite | ||
| 27 | KNOT | Bird of reef? (4) |
| 2 defs | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | DOGMATIC | Overbearing, uppity Lord and Master gets boundless criticism (8) |
| (God)rev. MA {s}tic{k}, although the last bit could equally well {?} be {cri}tic{ism} — but perhaps in this case the bounds are less clear | ||
| 2 | CELESTIAL SPHERE | Surprisingly, a site within prison field is home to the stars? (9,6) |
| cel(estia)l sphere [= field], the estia being (a site)* | ||
| 4 | CIRCLE | Temptress of Ulysses ensnares his second group of friends (6) |
| Ulysses’ second, his second letter, being l, this is Circ(l)e | ||
| 5 | ARCHAISM | It was once said I should invade Arabian Gulf (8) |
| Ar. cha(I)sm | ||
| 6 | EXACT | Demand money from Congress, bypassing leader of Senate (5) |
| {S(enate}}ex act | ||
| 7 | REGULAR PENTAGON | Even US Defense department provides a bit of football? (7,8) |
| regular [= even] Pentagon [= US Defense department] — those footballs that were widely used about 40 years ago, and which I still think are the best-looking, were made up of regular hexagons and regular pentagons; they were truncated icosahedra, or buckyballs — that picture at the top shows the equivalence of a football and a truncated icosahedron | ||
| 8 | NEEDED | Articulated joint performed as required (6) |
| “knee did”, the homophone indicated by ‘articulated’ | ||
| 9 | NEBRASKA | Where to find Lincoln’s supporters, practically naked, cavorting outside (8) |
| bras in (nake{d})* — Lincoln is the capital of Nebraska | ||
| 15 | URETHRAL | The rural complex of tubes animals go through (8) |
| (the rural)* | ||
| 16 | PARALLEL | In correspondence, mean each and every reply? Oddly not (8) |
| par all {r}e{p}l{y} | ||
| 17 | CRESCENT | Acre’s centre contains an example of what comes next (8) |
| Hidden in ACRE’S CENTre — what comes next is street and this is an example of a street — a hidden that detained me until almost the very end, not helped by the fact that ‘what comes next’ was my last one | ||
| 20 | STREET | St Thomas’ latest doctor for the ears (6) |
| {Thoma}s “treat” | ||
| 21 | ESPRIT | Revealing lively wit, clergyman points to go heavenwards (6) |
| priest with the es (ES, points of the compass) moved to the front | ||
| 23 | SYNOD | Ministerial meeting ends up in accord to ban dirty bombs (5) |
| Reversal of {accor}d {t}o {ba}n {dirt}y {bomb}s — years ago this was the clue word in one of Azed’s clue competitions, and I spent ages on it trying to clue it by normal means. In the end I gave up and entered what to me seemed rather a lame hidden, which to my surprise got a VHC. It looks as if Maize has given up in the same way, although his clue is far better than mine. | ||
*anagram
Loved this. As a retired mathematician, this was squarely in my bailiwick (nice word).
Great blog. Nice to see you mention Bucky balls which can be thought of as an extension to the idea of Platonic Solids. The interested reader may wish to look up buckminsterfullerene if they don’t already know about it.
Thanks to Maize and John.
A nice change from Maize looping the loop at least twice round the alphabet. Thought VENEER was rather neat as was NEBRASKA.I worked out the football .clue without twigging it. Still dont.
Reminds me of the centre forward who looked a bit disappointed after nodding in a corner from Tom Finney. When questioned he said “well its just when Stan centres the ball he has the laces facing the other way.”
Thanks John and Maize for all those shapes.
tremendous puzzle; I love the variety of Maize’s crosswords, rather like Serpent in this regard. I thought this was quite hard and seemed to find that progress was slowed by only ever getting common vowels as crossers. I needed your help John for the thinking behind t-square, which I’d never have figured out. The 4×15 interlocking thematic answer trick was very impressive.
Many thanks to both
Yet another cracker from Maize. Spotted the theme about half way through and it definitely helped my progress. I had the same problem with CRESCENT – I thought ACRE’S CENTRE just gave the CR.
Another thumbs-up from me. Like NNI @4 I spotted the theme early enough for it to help with what would otherwise have been impenetrable definitions at 3a, 14a and 7d. The polyhedra brought back happy memories of making cardboard models of a cube, icosahedron and dodecahedron in Year 8 maths years and years ago.
Not a thematic clue, but the ‘of tubes animals go through’ was a great def.
Thanks to Maize and John.
A really challenging puzzle that took me half the day. Did spot the theme eventually and it certainly helped, otherwise would probably not have finished. As it was, I got a lot of answers by enumeration and fillers before I got round to parsing them. Also particularly liked a couple of the non-thematic clues, NEBRASKA and URETHRAL.
The shapes meant little to me; loved algebra, couldn’t do trigonometry/geometry.
Thanks to Maize and John
Found this one a hard slog – didn’t manage to parse 14a satisfactorily and couldn’t work out what football had to do with 7d, a figure I hadn’t heard of before today.
Despite John’s decryption I’m still struggling to understand how 26a works – would someone be kind enough to spell it out for me?
Liked the surface read of GOLDEN RECTANGLE although, like John, I’ve never been able to ‘see’ it and ICIEST took my clue of the puzzle.
Thanks to Maize and to John – particularly for working out 14a!
jane @7
“I’m still struggling to understand how 26a works – would someone be kind enough to spell it out for me?”
It’s THE followed by OOLITE (limestone) around (circles) [ol]D (back of old)
One could be forgiven for not knowing OOLITE I’d say.
There were one or two other somewhat create ploys that might have upped the difficulty without reference to wordplay, but a very enjoyable puzzle.
Which took me 40 minutes!
Many thanks Gaufried@8 – lack of GK let me down, what a strange word! I’d looked in vain in Chambers but now see that it’s listed under oo- rather than having its own entry.
Excellent blog, many thanks John. Nice link to the buckyballs too and yes, this probably was harder than my average to date.
The four 15-letter compound entries formed the seed for the puzzle, other shapes filled the grid later on if they fitted. All correctly identified by you… unless we’re allowed to include the start of 5d as well.
Jill there was indeed some specialist GK required – Maybe oolitic limestone isn’t known to many away from the Mendips!
Initially, this crossword seemed te become a jane-like slog. However, after it shaped itself up, things weren’t too bad at all.
Great crossword, full of clever clues [yes, indeed, John & thx for the blog].
Not sure whether it is was harder than Maize’s previous outings but I liked not be forced this time to look at one, two or even more pangrams.
That said, a pangram could have been of use today. Instead, I got the theme relatively early on, ‘relating’ [being a familiar anagram of ‘triangle’ (and ‘integral’!)] and 7d’s ‘pentagon’ opened up the theme. However, I don’t think I’d heard of ‘golden rectangle’ before – ‘golden ratio’, yes.
By the way, is Austria part of the Alps? Or are the Alps part of Austria? Neither, I think, although the first one comes closer.
I find it very difficult to pick particular favourites, so the favourite is the crossword as a whole.
Most enjoyable!
I got an O-level in geology about fifty years ago, so I had heard of oolitic limestone (although my school was on the Magnesian limestone) and about the same time I read a couple of books of Martin Gardner’s mathematical columns from Scientific American, two of which dealt with the Platonic solids and the Golden Ratio. Having got DICE and OCTAHEDRON, and as a die is an example of a hexahedron, I was looking out or the other three solids.
19ac, 20dn and 21dn were the three that beat me. I needed word searches to get them, and even then I couldn’t parse the last two. Thanks for the explanations.
Late to the party (well, this one) as we’ve been out celebrating a birthday. But still sober enough to work steadily through this and appreciate lots of brilliant clues as well as the theme. Not too difficult for a Tuesday, we thought.
Thanks, Maize and John.
A cleverly compiled and well-connected puzzle. Thankfully the theme helped enormously. The answer to 14ac was a write-in from the enumeration and definition but we still don’t like the parsing in the way it refers to Landseer ‘appointing’. We would never refer to the Square as T Square and have not seen it written in that way either.
However, it didn’t spoil the enjoyment.
Thanks to Maize and John.
At the time, I didn’t parse that clue properly either.
I just think the ‘joke’ is that when E Landseer = Edwin Landseer, then T Square = Trafalgar Square.
True, nobody calls Trafalgar Square T-Square but no-one refers to Landseer as E Landseer either.
It’s just a linguistic gag. Like it or not.
A bit like our old Roman friend AntonyM.