Some unusual words in this puzzle from Puck.
Overall, a fairly challenging Wednesday solve with some really good stuff, but this is the third Puck puzzle I have blogged since my return to Fifteensquared, and I don’t think this was up to the setter’s usual standard. There are a couple of lazy clues in there (TICH, eg), and some very unusual words and definitions which required me to consult Chambers (STOTINKA, SHLETL, RATTLETRAP for mouth, eg). Some of the surfaces were a bit clunky, and I may be missing something, but why is the word “wrong” in the clue for 7dn? [EDIT – Cap’n P’ng’n has pointed out where I went “wrong” with my parsing!]
Thanks, Puck
| Across | ||
| 1 | SIDEMAN | Called Island about band member (7) |
| <=NAMED IS (“called island”, about) | ||
| 5 | PILES UP | Accumulates trouble below and on high (5,2) |
| PILES (“trouble below” i.e. haemorrhoids) + UP (“on high”) | ||
| 9 | ONSET | Start working group (5) |
| ON (“working”) + SET (“group”) | ||
| 10 | POOH-POOHS | Dismisses backing band twice before show starts (4-5) |
| <=HOOP (backing “band”) twice before S(how) [starts] | ||
| 11 | JAWBREAKER | King or queen beyond rabbit hole? It’s hard to say (10) |
| ER (“king or queen”) beyond JAW (“rabbit”) + BREAK (“hole”) | ||
| 12 | See 6 | |
| 14 | TONSIL HOCKEY | Start of true love? Licks honey, prepared for French kissing (6,6) |
| *(T O licks honey), where the T is the start of “true” and the O = “love” | ||
| 18 | POINT OF ORDER | Query reason for neatness (5,2,5) |
| POINT (“reason”) + OF “(for”) + ORDER (“neatness”) | ||
| 21 | See 19 | |
| 22 | SONG THRUSH | Air complaint for Mavis (4,6) |
| SONG (“air”) + THRUSH (“complaint”) | ||
| 25 | INANIMATE | Wooden home beside main road across northern China (9) |
| IN (“home”) beside A1 (“main road”) across N (northern) + MATE (“china”), so IN-A(N)1-MATE | ||
| 26 | OMBRE | Ring doctor about card game (5) |
| O (“ring”) + MB (Bachelor of Medicine, so “doctor”) + RE (“about”) | ||
| 27 | GUMSHOE | Detective showing face around Oxford? (7) |
| <=MUG (“face”, around) + SHOE (“Oxford?”) | ||
| 28 | ENTHRAL | Umpteenth rallentando’s hidden charm (7) |
| Hidden in “umpeENTH RALlentando” | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | SKOPJE | Bad jokes about parking in the capital (6) |
| *(jokes) about P (parking) | ||
| 2 | DISOWN | Deny any connection with row about female (6) |
| DIN (“row”) about SOW (“female”) | ||
| 3 | MOTORMOUTH | Car (rattletrap), one that goes on and on (10) |
| MOTOR (“car”) + MOUTH (“rattletrap”) | ||
| 4 | NAPPA | Reportedly one that’s gone off soft leather (5) |
| Homophone of [reportedly] NAPPER (“one that’s gone off”) | ||
| 5 | PROPELLER | Variable length, once absorbed in respectable screw (9) |
| ELL (“variable length, once”) absorbed in PROPER (“respectable”) | ||
| 6, 12 | LIPSTICK | Slap fool that’s left for Germany (8) |
| (d>L)IPSTICK (dipstick = “fool”, but the D (Germany) has been replaced by L (left) [left for Gerrmany]) | ||
| 7 | STOTINKA | Small child gets into wrong Ford in Bulgarian capital (8) |
| My original parsing: S (small) + TOT (“child”) gets IN (“into”) + KA (“Ford”)
Correct parsing (see comment 1) TOT (“small child”) gets into SIN (“wrong”) + KA A stotinka is a Bulgarian coin, one hundredth of a lev, and a Ka is a model of car made by Ford, but I don’t know why the word “wrong” is in the clue? |
||
| 8 | PASS KEYS | Speaks about taking the lead from Yorkshire and Surrey openers (4,4) |
| *(speaks) taking [the leads from] Y(orkshire) and S(urrey) | ||
| 13 | SORE THROAT | Painful condition making a horse trot unevenly (4,6) |
| *(a horse trot) | ||
| 15 | SUFFOCATE | Kill time in US cafe, around about half four (9) |
| T (time) in *(us cafe) about [half]FO(ur) | ||
| 16 | SPANKING | Punishment from cross man (8) |
| CROSS (“span”) + KING (“man” in chess) | ||
| 17 | DISCLAIM | Refuse to acknowledge detective’s right (8) |
| DI’S (“detective” inspector’s) + CLAIM (“right”) | ||
| 19, 21 | RUBBERNECK | Stare at Johnny before kiss (10) |
| JOHNNY (“rubber, i.e. condom) before NECK (“kiss”) | ||
| 20 | SHTETL | Someone having tooth extracted that likely heads for small town in Eastern Europe? (6) |
| Heads of S(oneone) H(aving) T(ooth) E(xtracted) T(hat) L(ikely)
A shtetl is a small Jewish community in Eastern Europe |
||
| 23 | GEESE | Birds raised in these eggs (5) |
| Hidden backwards in [rased in] “thESE EGgs” | ||
| 24 | TICH | Tongue-in-cheek, helpful tips for a small person (4) |
| Tips of T(ongue) I(n) C(heek) H(elpful) | ||
*anagram
TOT (“small child”) gets into SIN (“wrong”) + KA (“Ford”)
But I hadn’t parsed LIPSTICK
Thanks, Cap’n P’ng’n – probably could have looked at that allay and not seen it…
Thanks to Puck and loonapick. The ENT theme seems to be responsible for some of the slightly unusual grid entries.
Yep parsed 7d as per Cap’n@1, and ditto lipstick, a d’oh as D[eutchland] is a regular, tho still don’t get slap as def. A few dnks, eg sideman, Mavis the frush (wiv for’y farsan fevvers), ell the length, and the Ford model. Ever the learning curve, good for the amyloids. And quite fun too from the Goodfellow, with a bit of a giggle at piles (never had them, thank the goddess), Skopje, that sort of hockey (memories….) and the cross man.
Thanks to Puck, keep ’em coming, and to Loonapick.
Well, Brian, I just followed the instructions….
Nice cluing and blog
Thankd loonapick and Puck
Naughty but nice from the funster. Faves were PILES UP RUBBERNECK and PROPELLER. Light and frothy such a difference from yesterday’s dirge.
How on earth though did (s)he end up with SHTETL? Do setters really download a pre-filled grid and then clue it?
Thanks to Puck and loonapick.
grantinfreo@4 – “Slap” is a term for make up in general.
I liked this a lot, especially INANIMATE, LIPSTICK and PASS KEYS. Had to check SHLETL and NAPPA. The only clue that seemed a bit iffy to me was TICH. Many thanks to P & l.
Thanks to loonapick and Puck.
I enjoyed this, as I always do with Puck’s puzzles, but I’m obviously missing something, since no one else has queried baerchen’s comment @3. Please will someone enlighten me?
Not like you to miss trick Eileen. I did too until baerchen pointed it out. Jaw, tonsil, neck, gums, lips, throat and mouth are all there. Any more?
Looks like a bit of a “parts of the body” theme going on – Jaw, Mouth, Tonsil, Neck, Gums, Throat, Nappa (Geordie for head), Disc?
Sorry kpbw – we crossed
Thanks to Loonapick and Puck
With SORE THROAT crossing TONSIL HOCKEY, and MOTORMOUTH crossing JAWBREAKER, and NECK and THRUSH in there as well, I can see a mouth/throat theme but no ear and nose references. I don’t quite get HOLE = BREAK, but some very nice clues esp. 9a and 8d.
Thanks, all – doh! [Knowing Puck, I thought ENT might be some band I’d never heard of. 🙁
Ta Niltac@7, no end to colloquial, and classical, education via 225, the highlight of my day.
Lots of fun and good to have the upper respiratory tract theme as a bonus. I was pleased to remember ‘Mavis’ and the ‘Bulgarian capital’ from previous crosswords and I think 14a has also made an appearance before.
Favourites were the surface for RUBBERNECK and my last in, POOH POOHS.
Thanks to loonapick and Puck.
If you look at the clues, we also have FACE TONGUE CHEEK and TOOTH.
I thought this was great. I missed the theme, however. I had many ticked clues, but my two favorites were PILES UP and especially TONSIL HOCKEY which had a funny surface and a funnier PDM. There were some really nice surfaces as well — such as for SORE THROAT, SIDEMAN, SPANKING and GEESE. SONG THRUSH reminded me of this.
Many thanks to Puck and loonapick and the other commenters.
A moderately challenging solve, though probably still on the gentler end of the Puck scale. Funny how STOTINKA/I are now so familiar (we are now up to 7 appearances since Paul first used it in 2012 – clearly a word with useful crossers).
Thanks to Puck and loonapick
Thanks to Puck and loonpick. I knew SKOPJE from previous puzzles, but not TICH, Mavis-thrush, or NAPPA, and did not parse LIPSTICK (though I did get the definition from “slap”). I needed the crossers to get SHTETL (which I did know) and finished with PASS KEYS.
Thanks to Puck and loonapick. Well I think I enjoyed this, but I generally found it tough going with quite a bit of googling and dictionary checking (which was probably why I totally missed the theme). That said everything was gettable and got there in the end. Nearly gave up a couple of times but pleased I stuck with it. I am another fan of pooh poohs and rubberneck, but I also liked suffocate. Thanks again to Puck and loonapick.
Small point but in 10 ac is the indication of ‘s’ as show starts acceptable? Surely starts suggests more than one letter unless the reading is made very contrived. And anyway elsewhere start is also used to indicate one letter. A lot of clunkiness here I thought. Thanks Loonapick, I think we had much the same experience. And thanks Puck for the challenge.
I found this a very mixed bag, with a number of write-ins and a few that sent me to the dictionary corner and even dunce’s corner. Stotinka was a TILT and I do not see it as being unambiguously solvable from the clue, especially given loonapick could not parse it first time even with the answer in! I didn’t like tich – titch is the normal spelling. Also had to check sideman and ombre were what the clue claimed they were – not words I’d come across with those meanings, but solved from the wordplay which is how it should be. A few I needed help here parsing (lipstick, gumshoe) so thank you loonapick for those. Typically puckish expectations led me to rubberneck and tonsil hockey, along with piles up (tick for that!) and I enjoyed suffocate and geese too. Thanks puck.
Xjplotter @22
I think “starts” in 10a is being used as a verb i.e “show” starts but does not continue. When indicating more than one letter “starts” is usually being used as a noun.
Thanks Puck for a hard workout for me, and to Loonapick for far too much help with the parsing. I did not know TONSIL HOCKEY, but will find every opportunity from now on to use it (the phrase I mean not the………….well you know what I mean). Personally I feel there were a few too many ‘unusual’ words for this to be a classic, perhaps in order to fit in the ‘themed’ words. I am not a big lover of themes so for me this was unnecessary but most seem to like them so I bow down to their wishes. Apart from the aforementioned TONSIL HOCKEY, I enjoyed POOH POOHS and RUBBERNECK.
Some great definitions here…words that are fun in their own right, like jawbreaker, pooh pooh, gumshoe and rubberneck. Unfortunately I struggled with a lot of the oblique parsing and got nowhere near stotinka. As a boyhood birdwatcher it was nice to see Mavis again. Thanks Puck and Loonapick
thezed @ 23
Tich Freeman only had one T.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tich_Freeman
Offspinner @27 Thank you for that – I’d claim that I should be content to be ignorant of people who died before I was born (just) but that would leave me with no defence on completing the excellent Jane Austen crossword the other day! I’ll stick with spelling it “titch” however 🙂
Offspinner@27 (and thezed@23) – you beat me to it. There was also, a bit before legspinner Freeman, the Music Hall star ‘Little Tich’. Didn’t we get Tich, again 4 letters, in another crossword not long ago?
FOI SKOPJE, LOI SHTETL. Had to google ‘johnny’ to get RUBBERNECK. COD 5a, ‘trouble below’ he he.
That was alright. Mrs Lippi helped me with 4d, and I’d seen the Bulgarian centimes in a crossword before, but had to check online. Apart from that, no lookups, which I think is always a result. Thanks to blogger and setter …
Didn’t get the theme but I did get STOTINKA. I didn’t parse the latter or LIPSTICK which was BIFD..I was delayed on14ac by assuming that one of the words was TONGUE. I remembered MAVIS and I think JAWBREAKER has appeared before.
I rather enjoyed this as I usually do with this setter.
Thanks Puck.
Many thank to both. An enjoyable afternoon. I did look sideways at the theme for once. I usually miss them.
Um, Loonapick, in your 16D explanation, you have switched CROSS & SPAN.
As always I am impresssed by the number of things I do not know when I read this blog. Thanks all.
Quick Q/admission of ignorance! Was I alone in having Suede (homophone of swayed = one who’s gone off (changed their mind)) for 4d? I’ve never heard of nappa!
I, of course, loved POOH POOHS, though it took me far to long to see it (as did STOTINKA despite my having been in Bulgaria last week).
Thanks to Puck and Loonapick.
Thanks loonapick. A lot of fun, spoiied by LIPSTICK and STOTINKA for the reasons already stated by others, making me want to use my ice hockey stick.
This took me (and Mrs W) all day on and off until a few minutes ago so definitely not towards the easier end of Puck for us. And yes Stuart@35 I toyed with SUEDE until SIDEMAN went in. I was far too wrapped up trying to tease out each clue to even consider a theme. I needed help with parsing several and realised I’d bunged in a desperate PULLS UP and think the correct solution is very wittily clued. If I’d solved this more smoothly I would have appreciated it more and I’m glad I came here to see what I’d missed – thanks to Puck and loonapick.
No, Stuart, you weren’t alone. I had “suede” and it held me up for ages!
Thanks both,
This was quite difficult for me, and judging from the relatively few comments, probably quite a lot of other people found it so too. I DNK ‘nappa’, ‘stotinka’, or ‘shtetl’ but got the last two from the word play. As others have remarked, one learns a lot from crosswords. Better informed but no wiser, perhaps.
New words for me were RUBBERNECK, SHTETL, GUMSHOE, NAPPA.
I could not parse the KA in 7d, and failed to solve 10a and 7d.
My favourites were INANIMATE, PILES UP.
Thank you B+S.
What-ho chaps. I always thought it was TONSIL TENNIS, not HOCKEY. Maybe hockey is an American version, and played on ice.