A tougher than normal Monday puzzle.
I didn’t sleep well last night, so I might just have been tired, but this was definitely a tougher than normal Monday puzzle.
Some of the solutions went in fairly easily, but were tough to parse (AFFAIRE, for example took me a while to see, and I’m not sure I’ve parsed CONDEMN properly).
As usual, some of Arachne’s definitions were very clever – I especially liked “drops measuring instrument”.
Thanks Arachne.
| Across | ||
| 1 | ERASMUS | Great scholar of arithmetic is retiring (7) |
| <=SUMS ARE (“arithmetic is”, retiring) | ||
| 5 | HERETIC | Nietzsche reticently welcoming dissident (7) |
| Hidden in “nietzscHE RETICently” | ||
| 9 | SAFFRON | Stigmas and timeless indignity attached to homelessness, ultimately (7) |
| AFFRON(t) (“indignity” with no T [timelss]) attached to (homelessnes)S [ultimately]
Saffron is made from the dried stigmas of a certain type of crocus. |
||
| 10 | MOISTEN | Slightly wet, Maureen is figure on the left (7) |
| MO (“Maureen”) + IS + TEN (“figure”, on the left) | ||
| 11 | FAIRS FAIR | It’s only just light and RAF is on manoeuvres (5,4) |
| FAIR (“light”) + *(raf is) | ||
| 12 | GORGE | Defender of England, not Europe? Get stuffed! (5) |
| (St) G(e)ORGE (“defender of England”, not E (Europe)) | ||
| 13 | LIEGE | Superior pork pie and case of Grenache (5) |
| LIE (“pork pie”) + [case of] G(renach)E | ||
| 15 | DISBURDEN | Rubens did work for free (9) |
| *(rubens did) | ||
| 17 | GRAND PRIX | Eric heartily cross after relative loses last big race (5,4) |
| (e)RI(c) [heartily] + X (“cross”) after GRANDP(a) (“realtive”, losing last) | ||
| 19 | EXTRA | Member of crowd texts Mrs May after banks fail (5) |
| (t)EXT(s) (m)R(s) (m)A(y) [after banks fall – ie remove first and last letters] | ||
| 22 | AMASS | Gather together in the morning, when heading to school (5) |
| A.M. (“in the morning”) + AS (“when”) + [heading to] S(chool) | ||
| 23 | MEANS TEST | Good people conserving energy, following cruel benefits assessment (5,4) |
| St. St. (saints, so “good people) conserving E (energy), following MEAN (“cruel”) | ||
| 25 | SERIOUS | Earnest and oddly sweary notes from short people (7) |
| [oddly] S(w)E(a)R(y) + I.O.U.s (“notes from people short” (of money)) | ||
| 26 | INWARDS | Moderates finally dragged Italy back towards the centre (7) |
| (moderate)S [finally] <=DRAWN I (“dragged I” (Italy), back) | ||
| 27 | SAMOYED | South American dictionary describing unknown dog (7) |
| S.Am. (South American) + O.E.D. (Oxford English “dictionary”) describing Y (“unknown”, in maths) | ||
| 28 | YARDMEN | Arachne interrupts randy, riotous railway workers (7) |
| ME (“Arachne”) interrupts *(randy) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | EASEFUL | Articulate letters from unfaithful lover initially bringing comfort (7) |
| Homophone [articulate] of Es (“letters”) + F(rom) U(nfaithful) L(overs) [initially] | ||
| 2 | AFFAIRE | Nothing stops ardent romance (7) |
| F.A. (“nothing”, short for Fanny Adams, or f*** all) stops AFIRE (“ardent”) | ||
| 3 | MORES | Ways of life further south (5) |
| MORE (“further”) + S (south) | ||
| 4 | SANTANDER | Bernie shortly hosting function in Atlantic City (9) |
| (“Bernie”) SANDER(s) [shortly] hosting TAN (tangent) (“function”)
Santander is a city on the Atlantic coast of Spain. |
||
| 5 | HOMER | Epic poet, big hit in America (5) |
| Double definition, the second referring to a home run in baseball. | ||
| 6 | RAIN GAUGE | Arguing violently about a drug, drops measuring equipment (4,5) |
| *(arguing) about A + E (ecstasy, “drug”) | ||
| 7 | TUTORED | Educated workers with books about leftist (7) |
| T.U. (trade union, so “workers”) with <=O.T. (“books”, about) + RED (“leftist”) | ||
| 8 | CONDEMN | Censure Conservative Party over end of compassion (7) |
| CON (Conservative) + DEM (Democratic “party”) + [end of] (compassio)N | ||
| 14 | ENDOSCOPY | Internal examination of huge parrot after death (9) |
| O.S. (outsize, so “huge”) + COPY (“parrot”) after END (“death”) | ||
| 16 | SEXUALITY | Wrongly say I exult in carnal desires (9) |
| *(say i exult) | ||
| 17 | GRASSES | Gutless gangster mugs shoppers (7) |
| [gutless] G(angste)R + ASSES (“mugs”) | ||
| 18 | ANAGRAM | Half of banana spread over corset of escort, perhaps (7) |
| [half of] (ban)ANA + <=MARG (margarine, so “spread”, over) | ||
| 20 | THEOREM | Proposition from Mike after love-filled word of comfort (7) |
| M (Mike) after THERE (“word of comfort”) filled with O (“love”) | ||
| 21 | ARTISAN | Crafty type taking money from supporter (7) |
| (p)ARTISAN (“supporter”, with P (penny) taken) | ||
| 23 | MUSED | Considered emus edible, in part (5) |
| Hidden in “eMUS EDible” | ||
| 24 | SOWER | Farmhand and pig on edges of Exmoor (5) |
| SOW (“pig”) on [edges of] E(xmoo)R | ||
*anagram
Tougher than normal for a Monday, but a delight nonetheless. There were some crackers – FA for nothing in 2d was inspired, notes from short people in 25a brought a laugh, as was huge parrot in 14d. Also loved 18d for its literality, if that’s a word. Probably not.
Tougher than we’d expect for a Monday – but no complaints from me when a crossword as great as this brightens up the first day of the working week. So many splendid clues with great misleading surfaces. My top favourites were 25a – ‘notes from short people’ is just brilliant – and 18d – ‘literality’ as coined by uncleskinny @1 – is the perfect word for this
Thank you to the lovely Spider Lady for the fun and Loonapick for the explanations
Thanks Arachne and loonapick, loved this puzzle. Some excellent clueing in both definition and wordplay. To the clues mentioned by loonapick, Uncleskinny @1 and crypticsue @2, I would add 9, 11a, and 17d (def.), and 1a, 1d (wordplay.) Coupled with today’s Quiptic, a great start to the week.
Maybe somebody can clarify a couple of points. Why is “ten” ‘figure on the left’ when it’s on the right? How can E be short for Europe (12a) when it is actually an abbreviation for European?
Hovis @4. Ten is the clue number, ie. the figure to the left of the clue.
This was certainly difficult for a Monday, but what a great puzzle. Some lovely funny surfaces, eg 10a, 13a and 14d. In Paul’s prize that was blogged on Saturday we had the word “anagram” as part of a clue, and here we had it as an answer. Brilliant.
Greensward@5. Thanks. As it happens, I just thought of this after posting. I think the use of E for ‘Europe’ is something that has been criticised in the past. Certainly not in Chambers.
Arachne’s are always a pleasure, even when not a great challenge, as I found this today…must have been in the right groove, although just realised I bunged in anagram without parsing the reverse spread. Ticks for the same ones as Loonapick and Uncleskinny, the short people, the drops measurer, as well as mores. Took a minute to remember the meagre smattering of highschool botany–sepal, stamen, stigma–from aeons ago, for saffron.
Most enjoyable, thanks to Loonapick and the web weaver.
PS was that the George that slew the dragon, or….?
Thanks Arachne and loonapick
I had a 3/4 completed puzzle with the NW blank for ages. Not sue “Bernie shortly” is entirely fair for SANDER – he’s no longer in the news, and it’s the type of clue that can only be parsed retrospectively. I too wasn’t convinced by the DEM part of CONDEHN.r
RAIN GAUGE was my favourite too.
(the r after CONDEMN was supposed to go in “sue”!)
grantin@ 8: yes, at least thats how i took it.
It seems to me that this was just thrown in today as there wasn’t another ‘Monday’ one available.
I would have enjoyed it more mid-week
Like starting the week with a glass of Bolly.
I’m with copmus @12 – a lovely surprise for a Monday. [Of course, Arachne is welcome on any day of the week.]
I agree with everyone’s favourites and loved the inclusion of the lovely word EASEFUL [from my favourite poem, Ode to a Nightingale:
“Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death…”]
Many thanks to loonapick and Arachne, as ever.
I think it’s all been said, so I’ll just add my thanks to A & L.
(Tramp was tough, wasn’t he?)
NW corner was last in for me too – a nice mix of write-in answers and real puzzlers, clever devices and misdirection. I am not a fan of clues with names – how many Bernies are there in the world? A pleasure to see so many gorgeous surfaces – “great scholar”, “only just”, and many more ticks from me with the biggest tick reserved for the huge parrot – I nearly fell off my perch when I parsed it.
Many thanks Arachne – woke up my brain on a fabulous sunny morning, and thanks loonapick for unpicking the “tu” in tutored and the “condemn” for me, which I had in unparsed.
To follow up poetry corner, as started by Eileen, should we have “Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn” (or should that have been “contemn“). Came to mind as I was particularly vexed by the new documentary film about World War One was released last week, entitled “They shall not grow old” which made me scream at the radio “They shall grow not old!”. One is prosaic, one is poetic. It’s not hard to tell the difference, honestly. Sorry – rant off 🙂
Thanks to Arachne and loonapick. Great fun, as usual from this setter. Both SAFFRON-stigma and SANTANDER were new to me (though I did parse both) and I took a while before getting YARDMEN. I recently had an ENDOSCOPY so that item brought back a less than EASEFUL memory.
Many thanks for the link, thezed @15. [Our previous vicar always ‘corrected’ Binyon’s syntax and I was similarly vexed.]
Looking back, after afternoon constitutional with Mrs ginf, several instances of not being as au fait as I thought, despite easy gridfilling. 26a was a total biff, no idea how it worked at the time. Dnk the Atlantic City, although the wp was easy (was initially thinking San..something as in California; d’oh, wrong ocean: read the question, Sunshine!). And have ‘slow!’ next to grasses, tho the def and both wordplay bits are chestnuts, which shows the skill of the surface.
Lesson: never take the Spider Woman for granted!
Really enjoyed it; loved not having to look up anything. I particularly liked some of the misdirections (stigmas, shoppers). Agree with previous posters favouring ANAGRAM at 18d. Getting 27a SAMOYED was a PDM for me. I loved the poetic reference, Eileen@13, and the follow-up poetic point you made @15, thezed. Funnily enough, grantinfreo@18, I was also thinking San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Monica early on, before I came back and did the word play properly – function is often sine, cos or tan… and for me, SANDER(S) was the most topically well-known Bernie I knew! How embarrassing to mix my Atlantics and my Pacifics! Geographically challenged Aussie ‘fessing up here…
Thanks to Arachne and loonapick.
Like others, I don’t think E for Europe is in the main three dictionaries. I wonder if it was originally Defender of England not English? Get stuffed! but was changed at a late stage because it could be interpreted as xenophobic.
Great puzzle for a Monday. Thanks tp both.
Re the WW1 film, I saw it last week at the cinema…… it was stunning. It’s being shown on BBC One on 11 November as part of the Armistice coverage. I doubt they’ll show it in 3D which, unfortunately, will certainly reduce its impact.
I queried [not for the first time] E for Europe in my blog of Pan’s puzzle on October 1st, where it appeared twice. No one came up with a convincing reference.
Thank you Arachne for a lovely puzzle and loonapick for a helpful blog.
GRASSES took a while to click as did SANTANDER – we have a friend, GeORGE, with an aunt called Bernie …
The clues for SERIOUS, ANAGRAM and RAIN GAUGE were hilarious!
I’ll join in the admiration for this puzzle which is witty and elegant as always from Arachne – I don’t care what day she appears as long as she gets a slot. I had lots of ticks and like thezed my favourite was ENDOSCOPY for the huge parrot. I struggled with the parsing on CONDEMN and had to call in Mrs W to finish off the NW corner. Excellent fun – thanks to Arachne and loonapick.
Thanks to Arachne and loonapick. A bit of a shock to the system for a Monday, but nonetheless very enjoyable. Mostly went in quite steadily, but then like some others came to a grinding halt in the NW. Last ones were mores (not known on that sense) and affaire (laugh out loud when I saw it). I also liked fairs fair, saffron and endoscopy, but many other nice clues. Thanks again to Arachne and loonapick.
Good to see so many others got stuck in the NW. I was stuck on 5 clues there but after a break I got 11 by seeing that 1d would end with “ful”, then the rest fell into place.
A really wonderful puzzle with lots of laugh-out-loud moments when the answers were seen. Many thanks to Arachne and loonapick.
Thanks Arachne and loonapick – great crossword.
Like some others I got stuck in the NW corner at the end, and had a broad smile at AFFAIRE.
Actually E = European is in Chambers [Revised 13th Edition] as in E number, so the spider lady is on firm ground after all.
I did like the shoppers, which took me an age to see.
… sorry, of course that’s European, not Europe; my mistake!
Loved this puzzle, especially Saffron.
Thanks both,
Great puzzle – I especially liked the misdirection in 5d where ‘dissident’ had me trying to do something with the ‘che’ in Nietzsche.
Isn’t the rule that the answers need to be in one or more of the canonical dictionaries but not necessarily the components of the clue and answer? I’m perfectly happy with E= Europe or European. It’s obvious and widely used.
Thanks to Arachne and loonapick.
It seems that the Monday = easy puzzle paradigm has been taking a knock for long enough now for it to be considered defunct: is it still stated editorial policy? Anyway who cares – I prefer today’s offerings from contributors to the wailing wall of Mondays of yore.
Favourites were SAFFRON for the surface (but so many elegant competitors) and MOISTEN for the trickery.
I cannot see why “shopper” is “grasses”
A shopper could be someone telling tales about someone else – a grass.
Thanks Arachne and loonapick
Expat @ 33: a grass is someone who shops/tells on someone else, so that person could be described as a grasser/shopper.
hth
Muffin @9 Many Bernies in the world, sure…but his name is Bernie SANDERS, so ‘short’ surely works?? Definitely tougher than a usual Monday, but really enjoyed this – thanks Arachne and Loonapick
I loved this and it all went in pretty smoothly – I even completed the NW first. Sanders was the second Bernie that came to mind luckily (after Bernie Spain). I must have just been on Arachne’s wavelength today. Agree with most of what’s been said.
How did everyone feel about FAIR(E) crossing FAIR(S) FAIR?
Thanks to Arachne and loonapick.
LilSho @36
Yes it works of course, but it didn’t occur to me until after I had entered SANTANDER. I initially tried BERN around something, then Bernie Winters and even “Bernie the bolt” from The golden shot!
Wonderful! I’m just belatedly adding my appreciation to the other voices at the end of my morning.
I too enjoyed ENDOSCOPY with its huge parrot! GRASSES with mugs and shoppers took me a while, but it was well worth a laugh when the penny dropped. I also laughed at MOISTEN with the figure on the left, also SERIOUS with short people – very inventive. Parsing SANTANDER was straightforward, but my geography was lacking; the bank with that name was familiar, so it presumably had an original location. Although there seems to be some purist dislike of E for Europe, the essence of cluing is clarity; this was my FOI.
I could go on, but won’t. Very enjoyable, so thanks a bunch to Arachne and loonapick.
I like Arachne’s puzzles and I liked most of this but I got bogged down in the NE. I didn’t think that AFFAIRE could be right as it crossed with FAIRS FAIR which had to be right and SAFFRON as STIGMA was new to me so I couldn’t reconcile the answer with the definition until looking it up. SANTANDER took a while as well. In the end this took two sittings and the aforementioned SAFFRON was LOI.
I can testify that ENDOSCOPY was more pleasurable to solve than it was to experience!
Thanks Arachne.
Many thanks Arachne – great stuff as always. A joy to solve.
and thank you loonapick.
E for Europe. I did come up in a previous comment with a possible solution and I shall repeat myself.
The web site of the Council of Europe is coe.int and that of tha Church of England is churchofengland.org.
trenodia @42
I didn’t object to E for Europe, but I don’t think picking one letter out of an acronym really can justify its use. By the same criterion, B stands for “broadcasting”, as that’s the second B in BBC 🙂
[Actually, do you need to be able to pronounce it as a word to call it an “acronym”? What else would you call BBC, though?]
I’m gutted that my favourite setter should serve up such a dreadful crossword.
muffin @ 44:
Acronym, per eChambers: “A word formed from or based on the initial letters or syllables of other words, such as radar”, so the implication is that you should be able to pronounce it. [my emphasis]
Grumpy @ 45
Please would you be so kind as to substantiate your assertion? Thank you.
No-one does misdirection as well as Arachne, 9A is brilliant
Muffin, BBC is an initialism, fyi.
Belated thanks to both!
Thanks Simon S and Ralph Houston
I think “initialism” is an ugly word, and unnecessary when I can just write the word “beebeecee” to justify BBC being an acronym. It’s as much of a word as “nato” is, IMO.
As to E for Europe, well VE Day springs to mind.
What a fine puzzle for a Monday! It went down a treat, except perhaps for the NW corner, which for me (as with others, I see) was a bit of a gear-grinder. I join others in praise of “notes from short people” (which immediately got this earworm going for me, for the rest of the puzzle), ANAGRAM, and FAIR’S FAIR, and to that list I will add EXTRA, which I thought was brilliant — clearly the CotD for me. Also, I had to come here to understand fully the parsing of MOISTEN — thanks for Greensward @5 for explaining the “figure on the left” part — but now that I get it, that clue has been added to my list of favorites.
Many thanks to Arachne and loonapick and the other commenters. This week is off to an auspicious start!
Can someone explain why “OT” = “books” ? (In tutored) Asking as a newbie!
Rachel M @52
Old Testament – that and NT are crossword standbys.
DaveMc – what a contrast; MOISTEN was second in for me (only because I had read HERETIC before!)
Aha! Thanks:)
muffin @53 –
MOISTEN was also very early in for me — third in, as I recall, because I got the easy (especially for a baseball-loving US solver) HOMER as my FOI, followed by HERETIC — but I did not have a satisfactory feeling about how “figure on the left” could be the signifier for TEN. The best parsing I came up with at the time, before moving on to other clues (and, honestly, forgetting to circle back at the end to noodle on it a bit further), was that the “tens” column is one to the left of the unit column. Learning here that “figure on the left” was a literal reference to the clue number appearing to the left of those words — well, that was a creative and playful bit of clueing by Arachne, much appreciated now even though I failed to spot it at the time.
Is E for England acceptable because we see CE Church of England? If so, E for Europe works the same way with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
Regardless, one of Arachne’s best, full of witty surfaces. Most favoured of many favourites were SERIOUS for the notes from short people, and ENDOSCOPY for the huge parrot.
It was a dnf, as Santander was foreign to me, even though I saw the Bernie Sander(s) bit.
Thanks Arachne and loonapick for a great start to the week.
An enjoyable puzzle as ever from Arachne but sadly in need of a functioning editor.
Surely 9A needs a question mark? E for Europe again. Etc.
If I go into Waitrose tomorrow and ask for a packet of stigmas will I get some saffron? I doubt it.
Cellomaniac @56, I’m pretty sure E for England is as invalid as E for Europe is, at least as far as Collins, Oxford and Chambers are concerned (English and European are fine). It’s generally accepted that those three dictionaries are the guideposts, but I can see that there’s a lack of logic with many dictionary initialisms. E can be Egypt and Egyptian, for instance.
I got distracted after lunch yesterday and forgot to comment, which was remiss since I loved this puzzle, even if it was a little trickier than we usually see in the Monday slot. Last two in were SAFFRON (the stigma part was unfamiliar but plantys have never been my area of expertise) and the lovely AFFAIRE.
Thanks to Arachne and loonapick
Help! Still don’t get why 18D ANAGRAM is a corset and it’s driving me bananas.
Ali T
‘corset’ is an anagram of ‘escort’ so it is a definition by example indicated by the ‘perhaps’.
Ali T @60 – corset is an anagram of escort!
Alex @ 57 – the solution needn’t be a direct definition, but one of a set. Of all the types of stigma, saffron is one. In the same way as “city” is the indicator for Santander, “stigmas” is the indicator for saffron. To use your analogy, if I go to the travel agent and ask for a city break, I might expect Santander to be an option, but not that it will be the only option. Santander is part of a set of possible cities on the Atlantic, which may also include Biarritz, Lisbon, New York and Rio de Janeiro, but, because this is a cryptic puzzle we get other clues (the extra wordplay) as well as the number of letters in the solution, allowing us to filter out many of the other options.
Same applies to Samoyed (dog), Erasmus (great scholar) and Grand Prix (big race), by the way.
Thanks to Ali T for asking and Gaufrid and Loonapick for explaining the corset anagram. I was beginning to think I was the only one scratching my head! . Thanks for a brilliant puzzle Arachne, and a great blog..sorry for the late response, its been a busy week! 🙂
Despite muffin’s explanation, I can’t equate “grass” with “shopper”.
Anyone?
Geoff@66 – I think muffin@34 explained it, but a grass is someone who tells secrets about someone or gives the game away, as is someone who shops on some one else, i.e. he would be a shopper, therefore “grass” and “shopper” could be seen as synonymous.
Thank you Loonapick. (And thank you for visiting this now extremely quiet webpage!) I had never heard of “shop” used in that sense. I don’t think it is here — I’m in Australia. Indeed the Oxford dictionary online seems to indicate it’s a British usage. Thanks again for clearing this up!