Some more Qaotic fun…
… with a theme of the films of Alfred Hitchcock. PSYCHO is perhaps the most obvious example, though I think VERTIGO and NOTORIOUS first gave it away to me, and I can also see NORTH by NORTH WEST, TORN CURTAIN, The WRONG MAN, The BIRDS, REAR[er] WINDOW, SABOTAGE and ROPE. Thanks to Qaos
| Across | ||||||||
| 9. | OVERISSUE | Money problem for the shoe-dwelling old woman? (9) In the nursery rhyme, the old woman who lived in a shoe “had so many children she didn’t know what to do”, so she could be said to have over-issue. The word also means an issue of shares, banknotes, etc in excess of demand or ability to pay |
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| 10. | ALAMO | Siege in the style of Farah? (5) A LA MO (Sir Mo Farah, athlete) |
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| 11. | NORTH | Bearing of player in the Iran-Contra affair (5) Double definition – the second referring to Oliver North |
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| 12. | CARNIVORE | Tip of rhubarb? No, I crave tripe! (9) Anagram of R[hubarb] + NO I CRAVE, with a kind of &lit definition, though speaking as a carnivore myself I have no desire ever to eat tripe again after the one occasion on which I ate it |
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| 13. | VERTIGO | Green Goblin initially breaks into Number 10 — Spider-man’s unaffected by this (7) VERT (green) + G[oblin] in 10 |
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| 14. | CURTAIN | Uri can’t bend screen (7) (URI CAN’T)* |
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| 17. | WRONG | Grown out of Nick Park’s 1993 trousers? (5) GROWN* – a helpfully explicit reference to The Wrong Trousers |
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| 19. | MAN | Crew finally returns from Vietnam (3) It’s reversed at the end (finally) of vietNAM |
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| 20. | GREED | Country ignoring church, starting to descend into sin (5) GREECE less CE + D[escend]. Greed is one of the Seven Deadly Sins |
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| 21. | LATERAL | In the future city goes left, then sideways (7) LATER (in the future) + L.A. (city) reversed, i.e. going “left” |
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| 22. | POST-WAR | Stop fighting when armistice really starts (4-3) STOP* + first letters of When Armistice Really, with the second part of the clue also providing the definition |
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| 24. | COMPLAINT | Trouble in bed? Politician’s nail breaks (9) MP + NAIL* in COT |
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| 26. | RENEW | Continue with German sausage roll? Not I (5) Reverse of WIENER, less I |
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| 28. | BIRDS | Offers to capture rebel leader and those taking flight (5) R[ebel] in BIDS |
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| 29. | NOTORIOUS | Infamous doughnuts, with holes on the outside, eaten in North America (9) TORI (“dougnuts”) in O O (holes), all in N US |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1. | TORN | Ripped into eight or nine pieces (4) Hidden in eighT OR Nine |
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| 2. | REARER | One bringing up children behind the Queen (6) REAR (behind, as a noun) + ER |
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| 3. | FISH FINGER | Griffin she turned into food (4,6) (GRIFFIN SHE)* |
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| 4. | PSYCHO | Like Jack in The Shining: extremely scary – chop, chop! (6) Anagram – indicated by the second “chop” – of S[car]Y + CHOP. I had some doubt about this parsing, as the CHO at the end is CHOP “chopped”, but that doesn’t account for the initial P, so I think I’m right. The reference is to the novel and film The Shining and the character Jack Torrance – played by Jack Nicholson in the film, handily |
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| 5. | JERRYCAN | Fuel container Tom can’t use, but ___? (8) Tom [cat] can’t but JERRY [mouse] CAN |
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| 6. | TAXI | Vehicle that carries regular team and another (4) Alternate letters of TeAm + XI (eleven – cricket or football team) |
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| 7. | SABOTAGE | Spoil bag, so tea’s stewed (8) (BAG SO TEA)* |
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| 8. | ROPE | Men’s back exercise — skipping, say? (4) Reverse of OR (Other Ranks, men) + PE (exercise) |
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| 13. | VOWEL | Maybe I swear to overthrow the French (5) VOW (swear) + reverse of LE. I is an example of a vowel |
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| 15. | REGISTRARS | Officials arrest girls misbehaving without latitude (10) (ARREST GIRLS)* less L |
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| 16. | NADIR | Bottom of messy drain (5) DRAIN* |
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| 18. | OUTSMART | Take for a ride via trams? (8) A “reverse cryptic” – TRAMS is an anagram (“out”) of SMART |
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| 19. | MILLIONS | Mmmm … I’m upset by large cats (8) Reverse of I’M + L LIONS |
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| 22. | PETITE | Small European bird spotted in outskirts of Prague (6) E TIT in P[ragu]E |
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| 23. | WINDOW | Dowager welcomes knight’s opening (6) N (symbol for knight in chess) in WIDOW |
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| 24. | CUBE | Young English 8? (4) CUB + E – 8 is the cube of 2 |
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| 25. | LUST | Craving for flour — is it regular? (4) I think this is supposed to be alternate letters of fLoUr iS iT, but I don’t think it quite works because two consecutive letters (r and i) are omitted |
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| 27. | WEST | Direction to the Guardian’s street (4) WE (The Guardian) + ST |
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25d It’s the even letters of those 3 words
Gosh! An unusually early finish this morning.
Thanks, Quas and Andrew. Gettable without the theme but it helped towards the end.
Only quibble from Mr H is whether millions should be capital Ms!
Thanks Qaos and Andrew
I didn’t see the theme, of course, even after LOI PSYCHO.
I thought that this was rather GK heavy – Oliver NORTH, WRONG trousers, The Shining, Spiderman. It wasn’t difficult to solve, though.
I don’t think CARNIVORE works as &lit. I’m also not convince that RENEW and “continue” are synonyms.
CUBE was favourite – when I read it I thought “I’ll come back to that when I’ve solved 8d”.
Lovely puzzle and one of the very few where I spotted the theme early on. The m/M query for 19d is a case where correct scientific use is at odds with everyday journalistic use, e.g. mention of a £10m debt (which I could settle with the cash in my pocket).Thanks to Qaos & Andrew.
Many thanks Qaos and Andrew. An excellent puzzle, with the two 13s among my favourites. The theme added to the experience but as Hedgehog says, everything was solvable without it.
SABOTAGE is a great word, deriving (I believe) from the practice of French industrial workers throwing a clog (a sabot) into machinery. I suppose if the term had an English origin it would have been “spannerism”.
Thanks Andrew and Qaos.
Enjoyed this, getting the theme from ROPE and TORN quite early helped with VERTIGO and several others.
“5a: Qaos realised it wasn’t quite regular: “..is it regular?”
Agree with you muffin @3 about the GK. And I didn’t see the theme either. I suppose if you RENEW a subscription you “continue” it.
Anyway, now that’s done can carry on with the rest of the day.
Thanks to QAOS and Andrew.
25d, that is.
Thanks Andrew and Qaos that was fun, despite missing the theme as ever (saw The Birds as a teenager and went ho hum). Took a bit of nutting out; stared at 9a, even with crossers and thinking ‘so many children’, for ages; ditto carnivore for some reason. The apostrophes bothered me a bit; if the one in 24a is shortening ‘has’, can it go with present tense ‘breaks’? Would ‘broken’ be better? And I think 8d would be better off without its ‘ ‘s’ (esp in a down clue).
Minor points tho among many great surfaces, eg 12a (agree about tripe, Andrew), 22a, 26a and the topographically mysterious 29a. And 17a reminded how delightful mrs ginf and I found Park’s Creature Comforts, for the voices as much as the creatures.
So, thanks Qaos for the entertainment and Andrew for the blog.
Dunno why, but for 5d I was thinking not of Tom and Jerry, but J(G)erry as in German and Tommy as in Atkins.
Like Hedgehog says an unusually early finish – and surprising in my case as the first pass only yielded 3 solutions. I had the same query over Mmmm as well but John M’s contribution does away with it.
I was looking for but failed to see the theme. Ticks went against down clues today – PSYCHO JERRYCAN VOWEL WINDOW and ROPE (my cotd) for the same reason as muffin.
Many thanks to Qaos and Andrew.
All very entertaining as usual from Qaos – for once I saw the theme early and it helped.
Thanks to Qoas and Andrew
Like gratinfreo I missed the theme as ever, but loved the puzzle, particularly NOTORIOUS, MILLIONS and CARNIVORE (LOI). Qaos seems to be getting easier (I’m definitely NOT getting better!). Many thanks to Q & A.
[ignore my final bracket above, it’s tripe!]
Loadsafun although a few too many anagrams for me. Saw psycho then rope and thought Mmmmmm but forgot about the theme until the end.
Second/third on tripe. Isn’t it one of the three things never to try alongside incest and camel riding?
Thanks to setter for the fun and blogger the illumination.
I loved it – saw the theme about half way through, which made the second half even more enjoyable.
Many thanks for a super puzzle, Qaos and a great blog, Andrew.
[The best description of tripe I ever heard was ‘like boiled knitting’. I loved your ‘spannerism’, Lord Jim. 😉 ]
Thanks for a great puzzle, Qaos. I really liked the theme, which I didn’t see until about halfway through when I solved PSYCHO and VERTIGO in quick succession. I am a big fan of Hitchcock; again seeing those films in my teens and twenties (having read my first AGATHA CHRISTIE as referred to in yesterday’s Nutmeg when I was 14) led me to a love of crime films as well as crime fiction. (Mind you, these days, if I pick up a Christie or look at a Hitchcock and they do seem very dated!
I also enjoyed the blogs and the comments so far, so thanks to Andrew and other (Bill) Posters. I really like the sense of humour of so many of our contributors.
And now I am going to go out on a limb (sorry in advance muffin@3 and others ff). I really think a broad General Knowledge is required for tackling cryptics. I don’t think it is too much of a stretch for us to know that Nick Park created Wallace and Grommit, or to recall that memorable and really scary role Jack Nicholson played in “The Shining”. Just as yesterday “knowing” the author Agatha Christie might be called GK, one person’s general knowledge (which I prefer in this puzzle to call “popular culture”, such as who Spiderman is and why he doesn’t get vertigo) might be another person’s TILT, as Dave Mc might say (or new information). I hope am not being too critical here – I know we have discussed specialist knowledge versus general knowledge on this forum before. But I didn’t think today’s puzzle referenced anything too obscure: all the answers were pretty-much gettable from the wordplay, and we all have days when we spot the theme and when we don’t, or when we meet unfamiliar things and then when the puzzle yields more easily with familiar solutions.
Bravissima, Julie! 😉
I second all that JinA, the range of tastes in knowledge fields, footy to physics via everything else, is part of the rich tapestry of life and crosswordland.
We all have our areas of General Ignorance (football, soap operas and higher mathematics for me) and sometimes EVERYONE knows that – but I don’t, and it’s annoying but inevitable. The range of knowledge considered “general” in crosswordland is gently changing as the years go by (more science and less Greek mythology and Biblical characters), but there’s always a grey area – when will we cease to be expected to know who Oliver North was, for instance? At the moment he’s fair game, but maybe not for much longer. Some outdated bits of slang survive just because setters find them so useful (PI = good springs to mind). Some setters don’t think they have done their job unless we’ve learned six obscure new words before breakfast.
There will always be things you never knew. Accept that you never stop learning and it’s much more fun.
Very good fun from Qaos. Favorites were CUBE, RENEW and TAXI, but for me VOWEL takes the crown for today. I also liked MMMMillons- I feel a bit shortchanged when a Qaos puzzle doesn’t have one of his trademark numerical clues!
I would agree with other commenters that a sprinkling of general knowledge is fair enough. NORTH was the first of such clues I looked at today, and it wasn’t someone I’m familiar with, but with theme and “bearing” I eventually got the point, so I can’t complain. Spider-Man and The Shining are far better known than the average Shakespeare character, in any case, but nobody minds when you need to know Pistol or Falstaff.
Many thanks to Qaos and Andrew for the doughnuts
Thank you Qaos and Andrew.
Great fun, but I was too distracted by the old woman, Spider-man, Wallace and Gromit, Tom and Jerry etc. to spot the real theme.
My mother made the most delicious tripe dish with a thick white sauce and parsley when we lived in NZ, but never when we lived in England – here in France the tripe looks awful, in NZ it was white and thick.
Many thanks Qaos and Andrew. Of course I missed the theme.
Lord Jim @5: I’ve always relished the sabot/sabotage parallel in English – to ‘clog up the works’.
I cannot get Andrew’s references to come up – perhaps these will
Oliver North
The Wrong Trousers
Thanks Cookie, and sorry for the duff links – now corrected.
Great post Julie@17 – just the right attitude to GK in cryptics, I think.
Thanks for a stimulating pre-weekend canter, Qaos and Andrew for the excellent explications (attempting to continue the French theme). There, I’ve managed to be slightly humorous. Good weekend to all. Oh, and I missed the theme as well, though it did bring back memories of actually ducking down in my cinema seat in the Psycho shower scene.
I don’t remember ever seeing more than one alternate-letters clue in one puzzle before (not that it made a difference, though). Or maybe it’s just that I used to miss them a lot. Anyone?
I always like puzzles where the clues encompass a nice range of themes and references, so I loved this one. If I had to be pedantic, I’d say the wiener is actually an Austrian sausage (the name comes from the German word for Vienna, “Wien”). Thanks to Qaos and Andrew!
A fine Qaos puzzle to cap off a highly enjoyable puzzling week. I love this setter’s ghost themes — at least the ones that cover topics I am familiar with! I spotted today’s theme in the very early going, so it was fun seeing how many Hitchcock titles would appear as I went along. [I was hoping there might be “Hitchcock” (or perhaps just “Hitch”) somewhere in the puzzle, like the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo appearances he made in many of his movies.] Apart from the ghost theme, I thought there were some great clues today. NOTORIOUS had clever wordplay, SABOTAGE had a great surface, and I thought that both POST-WAR and PSYCHO were excellent.
Great comments from Julie in Australia @17 and the others who responded to same.
The word SABOTAGE always makes me think of William Shatner’s argument with the recording engineer.
For those who don’t know about Oliver North, here’s a short but accurate cartoon musical summary (which is mentioned in the Wikipedia page that Cookie @24 and Andrew linked).
Many thanks to Qaos and Andrew and the other commenters. Wishing a happy weekend to all.
Schroduck @28, it is called a frankfurter in Austria …
I’m not against GK in cryptics. Just commented on it because there seemed to be quite a lot in this one, which I either knew or guessed at.
Thanks to Qaos and Andrew. Very enjoyable if at the somewhat easier end of the Qaos spectrum. Knowing it was Qaos I actually looked for a theme, however it still passed me by (doh). Lots of nice well crafted clues and particularly liked vowel and vertigo. Needed help to parse cube and thanks again to Qaos and Andrew.
Thanks to Qaos and Andrew – and I agree that this setter’s puzzles of late have been more accessible (at least for me). Wrong Trousers is not part of my GK (and I am weak overall on “popular culture”) but I take such gaps as a small price to pay for the enjoyment of doing Guardian cryptics.
For ACD, and anyone else who is unfamiliar with The Wrong Trousers, I can recommend the legendary Train Chase sequence as a taster.
ACD @33 –
In the name of “research”, I recommend watching The Wrong Trousers (and the rest of the Wallace and Gromit oeuvre, not to mention other Aardman productions) whenever you can. Fun for kids between the ages of, say, 3 and 103.
Andrew @34 –
We crossed!
Thanks both,
On the subject of GK, I’m a chartered accountant and (emeritus) professor of accounting; ‘overissue’ was a new one to me. It pretty much had to be the answer from the word play and in OED it is the only word that fits the crossers.
Good fun, apart from the poor clue at 25d. Ok, I’ll say it – tripe is pretty ‘offal’.
Afternoon all. Many thanks for all the comments and to Andrew for the blog. Enjoying a nice relaxing afternoon here with the (not so) relaxing cricket on TMS.
The first draft of this grid contained both HITCH and COCK too, but required some pretty obscure words to achieve it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from setting, it’s that fun should come before a grid fill. Today’s comments confirm to me that sometimes “less” is “more”. Besides, you’ll need to save some of your solving strength for tomorrow :-).
Best wishes,
Qaos.
I thought this was a great crossword with some excellent, imaginative clueing. My favourite was NOTORIOUS, which got me started on the bottom right.
I’m grateful to Julie for posting that comment (@17) on GK in crosswords as that is my view also, but I know I have not stated it recently or as eloquently.
I should have spotted the theme, with NOTORIOUS and PSYCHO there. It was pleasant to go back over the answers to see all the other references. (I think one reason why I miss themes so often is that I never complete a crossword in one session. A crossword usually takes two or three sessions – today it was two – and that’s only because life interferes with crosswords so much (!), not because I am particularly slow.)
Many thanks to Qaos and Andrew.
I saw the theme for once. I noticed TORN and CURTAIN and didn’t pursue the theme until getting PSYCHO – perhaps my favourite film of all time-towards the end. VERTIGO -a very overrated film- was LOI. Overall I enjoyed the puzzle very much.
Thanks Qaos.
In answer to JinA and others, I said “GK heavy”. I don’t object to some GK (and would think it would be difficult to set a puzzle without any); I just thought that too many of these clues relied on it.
In fact they didn’t pose any problem for me to solve, despite never having seen Spider-man or The Shining.
If you ask me (which nobody did, of course), there is no hard line between general knowledge and specialist knowledge, at one end, and what we might call common-sense knowledge at the other. Every clue requires some knowledge, whether it is the definition or in part of the indication, or both. The only way to determine if a fact is something that “everyone knows” requires going the route of 8 Out Of 10 Cats, or Family Feud (well that’s the Atlantic covered, don’t know about Oz).
If you go to other websites looking for answers, you’re cheating.
There. I’ve said it
The setter gives you the material to build a solution, so use it or accept defeat
AdamH @44
Exactly my point. There was a clue yesterday that needed 2 bits of GK to solve it, with no other wordplay. If you didn’t have the GK and couldn’t use Google (for example – though in this case it wouldn’t have been obvious what to enter), you would have a DNF.
Thanks to Qaos and Andrew.
Muffin@42 et seq. It’s a fine line isn’t it? Today, for a kick-off, we were required to know:
Overissue is a money-related problem (but see Tyngewick@37);
The Alamo was the site of a siege;
Oliver North was involved in that Iran-Contra episode;
A carnivore would eat tripe (not this carnivore, no matter what Cookie’s mother poured over it);
Spider-man doesn’t fear heights (I do and I well remember, PA@41, watching VERTIGO through my fingers as a very scared small child although I was in my twenties at the time).
I’ll draw a veil over CURTAIN etc, but there is no escaping the need for general knowledge, or associated vocabulary, in enjoying crosswords. I enjoyed this; never (I never do) spotted the theme; favs were TORN and – great clue – PSYCHO.
Hi Alphalpha @46
Yes. I suppose that all of those, though, have alternative ways of solving. I don’t think there is any excuse for the one from yesterday that I referred to (even though it wasn’t a problem for me).
Many thanks, as ever, to Qaos @39 for dropping in, with more insights – HITCH [COCK] would have been lovely but, as you say …
Your “Besides, you’ll need to save some of your solving strength for tomorrow 🙂 ” seems to have escaped notice. For me, it suggests only one thing, which strikes dread – I’m glad I’m not blogging! [But I’m sure I’ll enjoy it. 😉 ]
Many thanks to both for the enjoyment.
As usual, I come late to any conversation but I must add my support to the general tenor of the comments with regard to GK and learning new things. After all, isn’t that one reason to do crosswords? I always read the blog the next morning, partly for parsing explanations and partly to enjoy the comments from the rest of the solving world. They get my day off to a good start. So thanks to all who contribute.
This puzzle? Looked sideways at NORTH and never clicked to the theme, despite watching many Hitchcock movies when growing up. A lot of smiles – ALAMO for instance – and moments of clanging coppers. OVERISSUE was my problem because I had to convince myself it was a word. Of course, google and electronic Chambers sorted that. I must also confess they helped with Nick Park too and I watched many of them over the years as well. Sitting in the sun solving the crossword was preferable to doing things outside at this time of the year here.
Loved this but I do have a complaint about COMPLAINT. Surely politician’s is not = MP. No-one else mentions it so maybe its OK?
Perhaps Paul could follow with a clue for the themed author.
I agree particularly with DrWhats0n and Adam H (43 & 44) although I concede that some compilers (eg Masquerade) give words that could only be found by searching the internet
Great grid! Particularly memorable for me since it’s the first Qaos grid I’ve solved without any help #chuffed