A themed offering from Qaos this fine Tuesday morning.
Qaos has managed to not only get in the title of a movie, TOP GUN, but also the call signs of at least eleven of the main characters in the 1986 film.
Among clues or solutions, I counted MAVERICK, CHARLIE, ICEMAN, GOOSE, VIPER, JESTER, COUGAR, WOLFMAN, MERLIN, SUNDOWN and STINGER.
Thanks and well played, Qaos, although I’m not sure about the “spoonerism” at 20dn.
| Across | ||
| 1 | FREIGHT | Huit cargo? (7) |
| “Huit” is EIGHT in Fr. (French), so FR(ench) EIGHT | ||
| 5 | SUNDOWN | Students, upset by low grade, now rioting at the end of the day (7) |
| <=N.U.S. (National Union of “Students”, upset) by D (“low grade”) + *(now) | ||
| 10 | ICEMAN | I see handle turned by superhero (6) |
| I + C (“see”) + <=NAME (“handle”, turned) | ||
| 11 | OVERALLS | In general, small clothes (8) |
| OVERALL (“in general”) + S (small) | ||
| 12 | GUN | Weapon £1,000? Nice one! (3) |
| G (grand, ie “£1,000”) + UN (“one” in Nice, France) | ||
| 13 | COUGAR | Caught taking back Silver, our cat (6) |
| C (caught) + OUR taking <=Ag (“silver”, back) | ||
| 14 | GRUESOME | Multiplied total? Sounds horrible (8) |
| Homophone of [sounds] GREW SUM (“multiplied total”) | ||
| 15 | SNEAK | Cheat bridge partners, each with king (5) |
| S (South) and N (North) (“bridge partners”) + EA. (“each”) + K (king) | ||
| 16 | WELL SPENT | Profitable spring’s exhausted (4,5) |
| WELL (“spring”) + SPENT (“exhausted”) | ||
| 19 | HOME BREWS | Craft beers — how? Add a bit of malt (4,5) |
| *(beer how) with [a bit of] M(alt) added | ||
| 21 | GOOSE | Bird goes wild protecting egg (5) |
| *(goes) protecting O (“egg”) | ||
| 24 | CREVICES | Roman Catholic’s revolted by online sins and splits (8) |
| <=R.C. (Roman Catholic, revolted) by E-VICES (“online sins”, think e-mail, or e-commerce) | ||
| 26 | MERLIN | “Magician” Messi evades Ronaldo’s lunges in netting headers (6) |
| [Headers of] M(essi) E(vades) R(onaldo’s) L(unges) I(n) N(etting) | ||
| 27 | TOP | Favourite jumper (3) |
| Double definition | ||
| 28 | DISPROVE | Maverick provides show? False (8) |
| *(provides) | ||
| 29 | ORANGE | Fruit prepared over cooker (6) |
| O (over) + RANGE (“cooker”) | ||
| 30 | CHARLIE | Cocaine found in tea, right? It’s not true (7) |
| CHA (“tea”) + R (right) + LIE (“it’s not true”) | ||
| 31 | JESTERS | Fools subdue good man with taunts (7) |
| St. (saint, so “good man”) subdued by JEERS (“taunts”) | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | RACCOON | US mammal managed to inhale cold carbon dioxide? (7) |
| RAN (“managed”) to inhale C (cold) + COO (CO2 – “carbon dioxide”) | ||
| 3 | IMMIGRATE | Come in, I’m travelling both ways with great excitement (9) |
| IM + MI (“I’m”, travelling both ways) with *(great) | ||
| 4 | HUNGRY | Adult leaves country with longing (6) |
| A (adult) leaves HUNG(a)RY | ||
| 6 | USEFULLY | American lorry emptied after fuel spill in practical way (8) |
| US (“American”) + L(orr)Y [emptied] after *(fuel) | ||
| 7 | DEANS | Martin and James, as heads of school? (5) |
| Refers to actor/singer DEAN (Martin) and actor (James) DEAN | ||
| 8 | WOLFMAN | Fellow left to turn into female monster (7) |
| F(ellow) + L(eft) [to turn, so LF] into WOMAN (“female”) | ||
| 9 | TONGUE-TWISTER | Stuttering woe produced by this? (6-7) |
| *(stuttering woe) and &lit. | ||
| 17 | PROCREANT | Cor! Parent in the making? (9) |
| *(cor parent) and &lit. | ||
| 18 | BROCCOLI | Vegetable producer (8) |
| Double definition, the second referring to Albert R (“Cubby”) Broccoli, the producer behund the Bond movies until his death in 1996. | ||
| 20 | OARFISH | Sea creature Spooner has around 4? (7) |
| I think the compiler wants us to image that “fourish” is a Spoonerism of OARFISH, but I don’t think this is a Spoonerism as there is no transposition of opening sounds. | ||
| 22 | STINGER | Isn’t busy good queen bee? (7) |
| *(isnt) + G (good) + E.R. (“queen”) | ||
| 23 | IMPOSE | Politician enters No 10 with special European charge (6) |
| M.P. (“politician”) enters IO (“No 10”) with S (special) E (European) | ||
| 25 | VIPER | Privet trimmed unusually as a snake (5) |
| *(prive) i.e. “privet” trimmed. | ||
*anagram
Didn’t get the theme, I’m afraid, but enjoyed it anyway…especially the double clues like PROCREANT, HOME BREWS and TONGUETWISTER. Found VIPER a bit thin but enjoyed FREIGHT and happy with the OARFISH.
Thanks both – and happy to be still on track so far this week. Expect it will get trickier.
Thanks Qaos and loonapick
No chance of the theme as I’ve never seen the film. First pass gave only SNEAK (I don’t think sneak and cheat are interchangeable without altering the meaning), but thereafter it went steadily. TONGUE-TWISTER favourite.
Reasonably straightforward gentle solve, but enjoyable enough. Thanks Qaos and loonapick.
Completely missed the theme, of course.
18d: BROCCOLI also = Albert’s daughter Barbara, still going very strong as producer of Bond and other films.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0110483/?ref_=nmbio_bio_nm
As for the theme, I’ve seen TOP GUN years ago but don’t recall the names; much more esoteric than, say, the Hitchcock titles in a recent Qaos. A good crossword anyway, despite a few clunky surfaces (22d?)
Thanks both,
I liked the the misdirecting punctuation in 28.
This was almost a write in, perhaps the type of grid helped, missed the theme though…
I enjoyed this puzzle much more than some of Qaos’s more demanding offerings. I did not see the theme as, like muffin, I have never seen the film. I thought that there might have been a superhero/comic book theme, but I was barking up the wrong tree.
No idea of theme, not my genre, but a Tuesdayish stroll anyway, clockwise from the NW, which wrote itself, NE and SE a bit more thought, finishing in the SW with charlie (which is post my youth jargon but remembered from Line of Beauty, great book and miniseries).
Dnk the superhero o(a)r the fish, but the wp was definitive; the latter sounds like fourish, Loonapick, i.e. ‘about four’ to the reversing rev.
No quibbles at all; thanks to Q and L.
Thanks, loonapick.
I had the same thoughts as George @7 about the theme but didn’t get very far with that – and had no hope of seeing the real one.
Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle. Like Tynewick, I liked MAVERICK and also 5ac and 6 and 23dn for their construction and surfaces and the clever anagrams at 19ac and 9dn.
Many thanks, Qaos for the fun.
grantinfreo@8 – I get what Qaos was trying to do, but my contention is that there is no reversal here – to get from FOURISH to OARFISH, you are taking the F and moving it to the start off the second syllable, (homophonically that is). Where is the other side of the equation? Nothing has been moved to the front of the first syllable.
When looking for a theme I wondered (for a moment) if Broccoli had produced TOP GUN and maybe films called VIPER and MERLIN. Thats as close as I got to finding one.
To quote Eileen if I may, I thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle.
loonapick @10: ‘from FOURISH to OARFISH’ (as in the blog itself)…. FOURTHS would add an unnecessary confusion! I tend to sympathise with Qaos on this one, for what it’s worth. Pity we can’t go back to the Rev himself for a definitive ruling.
I think the strict rule of Spoonerisms can be loosened somewhat, as Qaos has done here. If not, we’d have to disqualify “a well-boiled icicle” too, and that would be a shame.
Thanks to Qaos and loonapick.
I thought 20d was fine. Normally in a spoonerism, a vowel at the start of one element just means the absence of a consonant. So “cold air” gives “old care”, and “four ish” gives “oar fish”.
The Rev Spooner did not invent a game with precisely defined rules: he had an idiosyncrasy of speech, and I think this is just the sort of slip he would have made.
Yes I see the technicality loonapick, to get from fourish to oarfish you have to take the whole of ‘our’ (sounding like or) as one phoneme and swap it with the ‘f’, changing the spelling to ‘oar’ as you go. Worked for me though. [I’m assuming your ‘fourths’ is an error].
A lot of fun. I agree with Loonapick, 20d doesn’t work. A Spoonerism would produce something very strangulated. (Clearly fourish got spell ‘corrected’ to fourths in Loonapick’s last post. Mine tried to put in flourish.)
I see I’ve crossed with others…yes the judgement of the Rev himself would be interesting.
To defend my position on spoonerisms, the solving/blogging community often have discussions and arguments about definitions/abbreviations not appearing in dictionaries, so to ensure that this followed the dictionary definition of a spoonerism, I went to Chambers and it says;
spoonerism – a transposition of initial sounds of spoken words e.g. ‘shoving leopard’ for ‘loving shepherd’
Collins is even more specific.
spoonerism – the transposition of the initial consonants or consonant clusters of a pair of words, often resulting in an amusing ambiguity of meaning, such as hush my brat for brush my hat
The Oxford Dictionary of English gives:
spoonerism – a verbal error in which a speaker accidentally transposes the initial sounds or letters of two or more words, often to humorous effect, as in the sentence, you have hissed the mystery lectures
That was the basis of my comment. I actually agree with Chris in France, as to lose “a well-boiled icicle” would indeed be a shame.
Chris’s boiled icicle has just hit my funny bone and given me a total fit of the giggles.
Theme wasted on me but impressive cluing to get that lot in.
Easy enough although WOLFMAN caused me to pause to work out the exact construction.
20d is fair enough and everyone seems to have ‘got it’. Is it fair play though to put a ? between show and false in 28a?
Thanks as ever to setter and blogger.
Absolutely loved it (but then it’s my favourite film). Perfectly happy when I don’t know the theme too, but this is extra-special!
BlueCanary @20 – my short answer is ‘Yes’. 😉
Very straightforward for Qaos and despite looking I didn’t see the theme – and even if I’d been told it was Top Gun I wouldn’t have got the names. I spent most time trying to get a Spoonerism of OARFISH related to HUNGRY!
I feel we’re being lulled into a false sense of security. Thanks to loonapick and Qaos.
I was not au fait with the theme/s – the film characters from “Top Gun” – but I still liked Qaos’ offering today.
I wondered if it was actually a “double theme” if there is such a thing. Others seem to have discounted the Marvel superheroes as a theme. But I thought there was a bit more to the parallels with the names of the Marvel characters than the intersection with the film characters’ names, eleven of which are also Marvel characters. (Sorry, am I just stating the bleeding obvious about a film which I have never seen? I am not a fan of Tom Cruise).
When I looked on google after I had completed solving, I “got” the Top Gun theme, but as I looked up each character’s name, I found a Marvel parallel. Pursuing the Marvel theme, I found there were other comic characters called Agent ORANGE (29a), CHARLIE 27 (30a) and Rocket RACCOON (2d). There are also comic characters called GOOSE (21a) Rider, one called GUN R (4d) and another called Hunger (cf HUNGRY 4d) …
1a FREIGHT, 11a OVERALLS and 4d HUNGRY were my favourites of the non Top Gun clues…
My only bum note was that I thought that the surface for 24a CREVICES was terribly awkward.
Thanks to Qaos and loonapick.
Well, we have had this discussion about Spoonerisms a number of times before, and I recall quoting ” a well-boiled icicle” like Chris @13. It seems fine to me.
I have seen the film and remember a lot of the names, but I didn’t notice during solving, doh! This seemed to go in fairly easily for a Qaos until I got to the NE corner, which took a bit more effort.
I did enjoy HOME BREWS and TONGUE TWISTER. I didn’t much like ‘upset’ as an across reversal indicator in 5a, if loonapick is correct in the blog – I thought it was one for down clues only. I suppose it could be an anagrind instead.
Thanks to Qaos for an entertaining crossword and loonapick for the good blog.
Can someone help me out on 13 Cougar? How does the backward silver end up INSIDE the ‘our’?
“taking back Silver, our” means “our” is taking Silver (Ag) reversed. Tricky wording!
The C comes from “caught”, of course.
Thanks to Qaos and loonapick.
Was I the only one skull-scratching over Martin Dean (who he?)? A themed crossword which was nonetheless penetrable, so fair play and I enjoyed FREIGHT and WOLFMAN in particular, the latter for the surface.
C=”see” seems to be acceptable, when it crops up, as a homophone, but I don’t like it and wouldn’t be keen for the same licence to be taken with any of the many other letters which have the same capacity. Y? M…..
I can’t believe I had to come here to parse TONGUE TWISTER. Off to the head-butting wall.
Oh and OARFISH would have to be enumerated (3,4) for the Spoonerism to work?
My thanks to muffin, #27 – I clearly should have studied the clue a little longer!
As I have never heard of Top Gun, I didn’t get the theme. Mr Paddington Bear thinks I should become a high court judge – as be describes me as completely oblivious to any popular culture. However we did manage this one in under an hour.
Please tell me if it was 100% obvious to all concerned that “Top Gun” characters took on the Marvel comic heroes’ names – or am I just going crazy here in the southern hemisphere trying to force an additional theme?
Sorry JinA, love to help but totally ignorant in both genres.
I too suspected a comics theme, but perhaps “Superhero” was deliberate misdirection. I only recognise a few of the Top Gun characters but Maverick together with Top and Gun really should have given the clue. The number of names in common seems beyond coincidence to me
.
I am behind you 100 percent, Mrs Paddington Bear. I have never heard of Top Gun either.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed the puzzle, even though it was perhaps a little easier than usual for a Tuesday?
A TOP doesn’t have to be a jumper. Can be a blouse, cardigan etc etc. I think the clue needs a ‘perhaps’.
I think we are all used now to the use of ‘nice’ to mean: ‘as they say in Nice, ie in French’. As a linguist I am all in favour of the use of foreign words and phrases, but I have asked the question before, and I’ll ask it again, – which languages are acceptable? We live in the computer age, it is so easy to find a word in almost any language. What do people think?
Would it, for example, be acceptable to clue: A Frenchman in Ireland is an unpleasant creature (3)
By the way, my only problem with 1 ac is that the surface is meaningless.
(I’ve got to go out now, but I’ll pop back later today just in case anyone wants to shoot me down).
Oops, I forgot to thank Qaos and loonapick.
So ….. thanks!
Thanks to Qaos and loonapick. Enjoyed this a lot and only spotted the theme when it was too late to help. I was another who was looking for a comic book theme because some of them definitely are names in comic books. I got myself in a muddle in the NW because of unthinkingly putting in hunger for 4. However cougar out me right and finished off with charlie (which also took much longer than it should). Liked freight, cougar and home brews. Thanks again to Qaos and loonapick.
@Anna:For non-linguist thickies like me, perhaps you could explain the Frenchman/Ireland thing?
Thank you.
Afternoon all. Many thanks to loonapick for the blog and everyone for all the comments – they’re always appreciated. I’m glad to see most of you flew through this puzzle.
Best wishes,
Qaos.
Thanks to Qaos and loonapick. To my great surprise (given past difficulties with this setter), I not only got all the solutions but managed to parse everything, even OARFISH.
Another very enjoyable puzzle from Qaos – not his most difficult and a theme I knew almost nothing about.
Thanks to Qaos and loonapick
Been following the 15^2 blog for sometime, but having never managed a full solve, didn’t feel right to contribute to the comments. However, today was the day (excl. OARFISH) and I was delighted it was compiled by Qaos!
Easy for most I’m sure, but I certainly enjoyed it.. Theme kicked in when Kenny Loggins – Danger Zone came up randomly on my iPod (planets were aligned for me today!). FREIGHT was instant but raised a smile.
Thanks Qaos & Loonapick
Congratulations, Charlie Bird!
Charlie Bird @42 – no shame in not completing a crossword. I don’t manage it very often. The only limitation it should give you to contributing on this site is that you are happily unable to join in the usually tedious discussion of the last one in.
This was fun! Never seen Top Gun so oblivious to the theme. Made no difference. Oarfish was my favourite. What’s wrong with that? Made me smile. Liked gruesome too. Gruesome oarfish? ? Thanks Qaos and Loonapick
What a fun crossword! I’m another who originally thought it was a superhero theme and frankly it’s an eternity since I saw Top Gun so most of that’s a blur…
I had no problems with OARFISH, which made me giggle (as does well-boiled icicle: nice one!) and I loved the economy of ORANGE, HUNGRY & BROCCOLI. My fave two were TONGUE-TWISTER (what a brilliant anagram) and the unlikely pairing of James Dean and Dean Martin… Big thanks to Qaos and Loonapick
Thanks to Loonapick and to Qaos! Well,that was surprisingly easy. It helped that three of my first four solutions were COUGAR, GOOSE and MERLIN. I then went looking for Maverick and – surprisingly for Qaos – found that in one of the clues, after which I was certain I’d spotted the theme. This was followed by a quick furkle for the other call signs in Top Gun and a tour of the clues trying to fit them all in. After that the rest went in without problems. Favourite probably has to be MERLIN, kudos to Qaos for such a cute clue.
Oh, and the film is pretty good too!
Alphaalpha@28: see for C is actually in the dictionary (well chambers at least) as well as all other phonetic alphabetic characters. Hence completely fine.
The thing that bothered me about the spoonerism was the “has”. I’m surprised with all the discussion, no-one mentioned that. Or perhaps I am alone.
I saw top gun and assumed there would be stuff related to the movie. Those familiar with my theme spotting will understand that I call that a success.
My favourite was tongue-twisters.
Dutch – I see no problem with “has”.
Great puzzle but is there not an ‘s’ too many in 16?
To Jeceris @38
In Irish the word ‘Francach’ means both ‘rat’ and ‘Frenchman’.
I’m sure I shall bore you all again in the future with linguistic comments 🙂
I always enjoy Qaos and his ghost themes, and today’s puzzle was no exception, even though I was not fully knowledgeable regarding today’s theme. I have never seen Top Gun, but it is one of those movies that (at least here in the US) has been so heavily referenced in pop culture over the past three-plus decades — here’s just a partial list — that many of its character names, plot points, memorable lines, signature songs, etc. etc. are familiar even to those who never actually saw the movie. So, while I did not spot every themed clue or answer, I spotted enough of them (including the very title of the movie itself) to be confident that I had the right theme, and that allowed me to guess GOOSE before I read the clue or had any crossers for 21ac. Favorite clues for me included DISPROVE for its punctuation misdirection, the “Nice one” in GUN, and my CotD, TONGUE-TWISTERS.
[I didn’t recognize ICEMAN as the name of a superhero, Marvel or otherwise, but that entry did summon the memory of a Three Stooges short where the trio played icemen (“An Ache in Every Stake”, I learned from Googling it). I just watched a few bits of it on YouTube — it is an unsophisticated, slapstick brand of humor, and pretty violent in places … and it’s just as funny as I remember it.]
Many thanks to Qaos (for the fun puzzle and also for stopping by to comment above) and loonapick and the other commenters.
Loonapick@49 – thanks for the reply. I would have expected something like “Spooner’s around four” or “Spooner mentioned around four”, but the “has” still confuses me. How does “has” imply something said?
In its entry for “have”, Chambers has “to put, assert or express” which is what Spooner was doing, even if erroneously.
I have heard of TOP GUN but I’ve never seen it and I can say that I’ve no intention of rectifying that omission. I did wonder about a comics theme but I didn’t think ICEMAN was a super hero so I gave it up. I couldn’t make much sense of the Spoonerism either so I tend to agree with Loonapick.
The puzzle was a game of two halves for me. TONGUE TWISTER and the Eastern half were almost a write in but the Western half seemed much more difficult. I did like FREIGHT but I came a cropper with COUGAR and I’m kicking myself for that.
Thanks Qaos
Never thought the Spoonerism would be so controversial! When Azed sets them, he allows for vocalic as well as consonantal ones; that’s good enough for me.
Having now learnt what the theme was, I find the achievement of fitting all those words is
breathtakamazing. More power to Qaos’s elbow.And to answer GaryRB: don’t forget that ‘s can designate has – i.e. has standing next to it.
I’m astounded by the number of people who have never seen Top Gun. I’m not alone in the world after all! Hands up if you’ve never seen any of films in the Rocky franchise!
BlueDot @ 57
Count me in – on both counts…
Komornik @ 56 – I see what you did there… Even though I missed the theme until loonapick pointed out there was one, I found the crossword itself quite cruise-y.
Thanks to Qaos and Loonapick
BlueDot @57, count me in both as well. And American though I am, I’ve not only not seen Top Gun but had no idea about it — I think I vaguely assumed it was a Western. Sorry, DaveMc, but the pop culture totally eluded me.