It’s Peter and Pierre time again for the IoS crossword. We have always been close, but now we are besties because she has given me a bird. As well as a good puzzle that led me to look up stuff that I didn’t know about, which is always a good outcome.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Destructive creature endlessly ensnaring married medics?
LOCUMS
An insertion of M for ‘married’ in LOCUS[T].
4 Graphics in electronic communication causes pain
SMARTS
A dd. The first one I could find only in online dictionaries. I surmise that it’s related to the use of the word in smart phone, or smart devices. As Dilip points out, this is in fact ART inserted into SMS.
9 Dead funny old Scandinavian books
EDDA
(DEAD)* EDDA is worth remembering if you haven’t met it before, since it comes up more often than it ought to in crosswords because of its unusual letter combination. The EDDA are a collection of 13th century Icelandic books containing Scandinavian folklore.
10 Flowers next to cashier’s workstation not shifting
STOCK STILL
A charade of STOCKS and TILL.
11 Fuel stamps on letter
DIESEL
A charade of DIES and EL. I’ve never been keen on things like EL and ESS for ‘letter’, but they are common currency in crosswordland.
12 Firm welcoming head of informatics with new cushy job
SINECURE
An insertion of I for the first letter of ‘informatics’ and N in SECURE.
13 Mention of soldiers about to break barricade
REFERENCE
A charade of RE for Royal Engineers or ‘soldiers’ and another RE for ‘about’ inserted into FENCE.
15 Cook needs to cover joint
KNEE
Hidden in cooK NEEds.
16 Social workers like carrying books
ANTS
An insertion of another set of books, the New Testament or NT, in AS for ‘like’. ‘when’. They are synonyms even to the extent where we use the tautology ‘as and when’.
17 Measuring device in safe containing two notes
PEDOMETER
The setter and I have no difficulty remembering that a PETER is a ‘safe’, but others have professed to not knowing it. It’s DO and ME for the first and third notes of the sol-fa in PETER. Why is PETER a safe? The usual explanation is that it’s Cockney rhyming slang: Peter Pan = ‘can’ or ‘safe’. Only problem with that is that the first recorded use of ‘peter’ for ‘safe’ is in 1859, and J M Barrie didn’t publish Peter Pan until 1904.
21 Start of Christian period reportedly overlooked by one studying clay tablets?
CERAMIST
A charade of C for the first letter of ‘Christian’, ERA and MIST, a homophone (‘reportedly’) of MISSED for ‘overlooked’.
22 Money for puppet given to Arab
DOLLAR
A charade of DOLL and AR.
24 Bird with fat bottom close to swamp
BUTTER-BUMP
I am delighted that my namesake has given me a bird, but have to confess that I had never heard of it. It’s a charade of BUTTER, BUM and P for the last letter of ‘swamp’. It’s an old English dialect word for the bittern, which as you will see from the obligatory Pierre bird link is a handsome if somewhat gangly bird. It’s very secretive and is renowned for its booming cry. Whence the word: BUTTER, sometimes rendered as BITTER, refers to the bird; and BUMP, apparently, to the boom. The dialect would appear to be Northern, as the obligatory Pierre beer link shows, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson mentions it in his poem Northern Farmer: Old Style, which was written in a (somewhat bizarre) way to reproduce the Lincolnshire dialect of the time:
D’ ya moind the waäste, my lass? naw, naw, tha was not born then;
Theer wur a boggle in it, I often ‘eärd ‘um mysén;
Moäst loike a butter-bump, fur I ‘eärd ‘um about an’ about,
But I stubb’d ‘um oop wi’ the lot, an’ raäved an’ rembled ‘um out.
That’s enough beer and birds for this morning.
25 Blunt stick attached to end of rifle
BUTT BATE
A dd. A charade of BAT for ‘stick’ and E for the last letter of ‘rifle’. BATE is a not well-known synonym for ‘blunt’ and is related to ‘abate’.
26 Reddish-brown herb
SORREL
Another dd. The first definition (I learned this morning) is an adjective, most often used to describe the colour of horses.
27 One end of drill breaking stuff found on beach in Corfu, say
ISLAND
A charade of I and L for the last letter of ‘drill’ in SAND.
Down
1 Protester in factory diluted fluid
LUDDITE
(DILUTED)*
2 Runs taken by players in international game
CRAPS
An insertion of R in CAPS gives you the card game.
3 Some bananas left next to the French wine
MOSELLE
A charade of (SOME)*, L and LE for one of the words for ‘the’ in French.
5 King stopping gnome swimming in river
MEKONG
An insertion of K in (GNOME)*
6 Reserve of illicit drug found during recent reshuffle
RETICENCE
An insertion of ICE in (RECENT)* ICE is slang for crystal methamphetamine, but I expect you knew that already.
7 Spend lots of money for plant around lake
SPLURGE
An insertion of L in SPURGE.
8 Animal with trunk upturned cask to get fruit
HORSE CHESTNUT
A charade of HORSE, CHEST and TUN reversed gives you the botanical ‘fruit’ of the tree.
14 Additional cast member losing a fan?
EXTRACTOR
EXTRA plus [A]CTOR. Or it also works as EXTR[A] ACTOR.
16 Hospital leaving asylum to use different approaches
AVENUES
A charade of [H]AVEN and (USE)*
18 European officer featuring in work of Theban king …
OEDIPUS
An insertion of E and DI for Detective Inspector or ‘officer’ in OPUS.
19 … played a part in Scandinavian uprising outside court close to Elsinore
ENACTED
Since it’s a down clue, it’s CT and E inserted into DANE reversed (‘uprising’). As usual, you can ignore the ellipses between the clues. Or almost always as usual: setters in Another Place have recently offered clues where the ellipses did refer you back to the solution to the former clue. But if you’re a less experienced solver and want a rule of thumb, pretend they aren’t there.
20 Patch covering base of rectangular perforation
PIERCE
An insertion of R for the last letter of ‘rectangular’ in PIECE. PIERCE is given in some dictionaries as a noun as well as a verb.
23 Sign book by artist
LIBRA
It’s LIB plus RA. Peter is surely using LIB as an abbreviation for ‘book’, from the Latin liber, but I can’t find it in any of my dictionaries.
Many thanks to Peter for this Sunday’s puzzle.
Another fine and – more importantly – friendly crossword from The Lady from the North (i.e. just about – from the North, I mean).
I finished with SMARTS (4ac), being not familiar with the technology bit. But it couldn’t be anything else.
Only a pity that 24ac (‘close to swamp’) and 19d (‘close to Elsinore’) showed identical devices.
And, while I am not a Brit (so have to rely on dictionaries), I could only find STOCK STILL with a hyphen.
Otherwise, nice crossword.
Many thanks Pierre (lucky you,with that bird!) and Peter.
As usual for a Peter, I found this mainly straightforward but with a few unknown. Had to guess SMARTS but I’m another who didn’t know the first meaning. Cheated with SORREL. Couldn’t think of the herb and didn’t know it as a colour. Got BUTTER-BUMP from the wordplay.
Minor error in blog. In 16a, AS means “like” not “when”.
Thanks to Peter and Pierre.
Thanks, Hovis. Brain fade on my part.
4ac can also be resolved as ARTS(graphics) in SMS(electronic comm.)
Dilip@4. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? (It’s just ART rather than ARTS.) Thanks.
You are of course right with 4ac, Dilip. I’ll amend the blog (again).
Thanks Pierre. 25 is BATE – I was rather surprised when Chambers confirmed “blunt” as its third definition.
I think LIB = book is as a shortening of “libretto”, as of an opera or musical.
I also entered bate BAT + E.
Lovely ‘easy like Sunday morning’ puzzle .
I thought of BATE but dismissed it not knowing it could mean ‘blunt’.
I meant to say earlier that LIB as an abbreviation for ‘liber’ is in my Chambers.
The answer to 25 is indeed BATE, not butt. Bate is being used in the sense of abate, for which it is a (somewhat archaic) synonym – as in, with bated breath.
Thanks for the BUTT/BATE correction. This blog is going to be more amendment than original content soon.
The east side went in first, and all was pleasantly Sundayish, but then had a bit of a butter-bumpy ride with some obstacles over in the west.
Went to the electronics (and then on to the self-kicking station) for a couple of cheeky cheats there, but at least the Chambers checks (of STOCKS, BATE, SPURGE and LIB) could wait until the end. PIERCE as a noun was new to me too.
All good fun. Thanks to the hosts of the Peter and Pierre show for the entertainment.
My belated thanks to Dilip (@4) for the correct explanation of 4ac.
It looks so obvious now and certainly for me as a Dutchman who should have been quite familiar with SMS as it is ‘over there’ the normal, everyday word for what we here call “(to) text message”.
None of your light Mediterranean salad for this Sunday lunch This was a substantial offering of meat and three veg. followed by plum pudding and custard.
Beaten all ends up. Couldn’t get much of the SW and defeated by others such as BATE. I must say though that BUTTER-BUMP made it all worthwhile.
Thanks to Peter and Pierre