Some nice surface in here I think. Thank you Kairos.
The first line of the grid contains the word PICTURE. I don’t know if this has any further significance or not.
Update: YEW PICTURE FAIN THYME TWO LEAF ME from the Kenny Rogers song Lucille – “You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille…”. Fab!
| Across | ||
| 8 | WARLORDS | Promises to enclose key directions for military commanders (8) |
| WORDS (promises) contains A (key, of music) and R L (right and left, directions) | ||
| 9 | PAY OFF | Result of qualifying match league omitted (3-3) |
| PLAY OFF (qualifying match) missing L (league) | ||
| 10 | EYES | Openings for private detectives (4) |
| double definition | ||
| 11 | CORGI | Toy manufacturer returns from Big Rock (5) |
| found reversed inside bIG ROCk | ||
| 12 | SKUA | Special man on board meets posh Australian bird (4) |
| S (special) K (king, man on a chess board) with U (posh) and A (Australian) | ||
| 13 | YIELDERS | Yankee players loudly dismissed those who quit (8) |
| Y (yankee, phonetic alphabet) then fIELDERS (players) missing (dismissed) F (loudly) | ||
| 16 | HAWAII | State report of prostitute with a football team (6) |
| HAW sounds like (report) of “whore” (prostitute) then A and II (11, a football team) | ||
| 18 | ECHO | Copy Italian author injecting heroin (4) |
| ECO (Umberto Eco, Italian author) contains (injecting) H (heroin) | ||
| 20 | CHAOS | Charles informally describing Oscar’s confused state (5) |
| CHAS (charles, informally) contains (descirbes) O (Oscar, phonetic alphabet) | ||
| 21 | EVEN | Still time to leave function (4) |
| EVENt (function) missing T (time) | ||
| 22 | MUSEUM | Silent about American base’s educational facility? (6) |
| MUM (silent) contains (about) US (American) E (base, of the natural logarithm) | ||
| 23 | FRAILEST | Most delicate feminine line established (8) |
| F (feminine) RAIL (line) EST (established) | ||
| 26 | FIRE | Shoot of tree beginning to emerge (4) |
| FIR (trree) then Emerge (first letter of) | ||
| 28 | ATTIC | Room in the centre of web (5) |
| the central letters of LATTICE (web) | ||
| 30 | PUSH | Illegally supply hard drink from the east (4) |
| H (hard) SUP (drink) all reversed (from the east, right to left on a map) | ||
| 31 | ALLIED | United with everyone that is dead (6) |
| ALL (everyone) IE (that is) D (dead) | ||
| 32 | ATTORNEY | You briefly natter about lawyer (8) |
| anagram (about) of YOu (briefly) and NATTER | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | PAPYRI | Secretary and detective conceal your Egyptian manuscripts (6) |
| PA then PI (private investigator, detective) contains (conceals) YR (your) | ||
| 2 | ILLS | Evils of factories lacking male leadership (4) |
| mILLS (factories) missing Male (leadership, first letter of) | ||
| 3 | CRECHE | Native Americans go around children’s nursery (6) |
| CREE (native americans) contains (go round) CH (children) | ||
| 4 | TSAR | Regularly test a Republican leader (4) |
| TeSt (regular selection from) A R (republican) | ||
| 5 | UPRIGHTS | Thugs rip out goalposts? (8) |
| anagram (out) of THUGS RIP | ||
| 6 | RYAS | For example run up Swedish rugs (4) |
| SAY (for example) R (run) all reversed (up) | ||
| 7 | EFFUSIVE | Gushing notes on safety device protecting Roman square (8) |
| E F (two notes, in music) then FUSE (safety device) contains (protecting) IV (4, a square number, in Roman numerals) | ||
| 14 | LOOSE | Wobbly toilet seat’s half missing (5) |
| LOO (toilet) then SEat (half missing) | ||
| 15 | STAFF | Tough academy for independent teachers? (5) |
| STiFF (tough) with A (academy) repacing I (indelendent) | ||
| 17 | WHEEL | I’m enjoying this opening to Lindisfarne’s disc (5) |
| WHEE (I’m enjoying this!) then Lindesfarne (ppening letter of) | ||
| 19 | CRUCIBLE | Crib clue compiled for melting pot (8) |
| anagram (compiled) of CRIB CLUE | ||
| 20 | COMMANDO | Order nothing for soldier (8) |
| COMMAND (order) O (nothing) | ||
| 24 | ALCOTT | Novelist residing in rural cottage (6) |
| found inside rurAL COTT – Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women | ||
| 25 | SYSTEM | Process top and bottom of strawberry stalk (6) |
| StrawberrY (top and bottom letter of) on STEM (stalk) | ||
| 27 | EVIL | Be up for depravity (4) |
| LIVE (be) reversed (up) | ||
| 29 | THAW | Henry in game of marbles with actor (4) |
| H (Henry) inside TAW (game of marbles) – John Thaw, actor | ||
| 30 | PORE | Minute passage of stream we hear (4) |
| sounds like (we hear) “pour” (stream) | ||
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
Nice and gentle as befits a Sunday. Didn’t know Ryas or the Taw game but both gettable. Not so keen on the HAW part of Hawaii. The rest of the perimeter spells Fain Thyme Two Leaf Me Yew. Mmm, a line from an obscure folk song maybe? Or a Red (sorry, Native) Indian chief? Thanks to Kairos and PeeDee.
Mostly easy but some really difficult ones I thought.
Had to google marble games to get TAW and hence get 29d. This then allowed me to get ATTORNEY & PORE.
Failed to get YIELDERS without using a word fit. Kept coming back to 8a and eventually saw it.
Didn’t know RYAS but easy to get.
Didn’t parse 16a properly. Took the W as being W(ith) leaving HA for the ‘whore’ sound which didn’t work. Your parsing works but, like Paul@1, I don’t like it since it is only how the word HAW is pronounced, not how it is pronounced in HAWAII.
The nina is intriguing and hopefully somebody can explain it. A lot of it sounds like the Kenny Rogers song “(you took a) fine time to leave me (Lucille)”.
Thanks to Kairos and PeeDee.
Just realised it’s yew picture fain thyme two leaf me “you picked a fine time to leave me”.
HAW jarred a bit with me too. Logically speaking I think it is reasonable for Kairos to do this: taking letter fragments from the solution and treating them out of context is what happens in nearly all the clues. It is the bread-and-butter of crossword solving. Nevertheless, from an aesthetic perspective it feels odd to me.
I love the Nina now Hovis has figured it out. Thanks Hovis.
Well I was on the right track, sort of. Suitable groans all round. Thanks Hovis.
For completists, the ‘payoff’ of a dreadful old shaggy dog story goes ‘You picked a fine time to leave me, LOOSE WHEEL’.
Great effort to make sense of the Nina, Hovis and to a Paul A for initially having the right idea. I could see it but could make nothing of it.
An ‘F’ for a ‘Y’ in the unparsed 13a. I wasn’t a great fan of 16a either, but otherwise v. enjoyable.
Thanks to Kairos and PeeDee
16A the least convincing homophone of all time, but more than compensated for by the perimeter message. I could see all the words (except the final YEW) and thought they must mean something, but would never have got it, so well done to Kairos.
YIELDERS (not a usage I’ve ever actually heard or read) stumped me at the end so that I irritably looked up the answer. Then it didn’t seem so difficult.
Thanks to Kairos and PeeDee.
16 is the worst clue I’ve seen in a long time.
Enjoyed this but got stuck on a couple at the end. Not an uncommon occurrence, it’s true. Having spotted the PICTURE across the top, I kept trying – and failing – to make sense of the rest of the perimeter. Grr! Got as far as Paul A did but wasn’t clever enough to go the full Hovis. Well done indeed to him and to anyone else who worked that one out.
Didn’t know RYAS or the TAW in THAW but was able to check those post-solve. For the couple I actually cheated on I have no excuses of ignorance and can only blame a fuzzy brain.
HAW elicited not a “haw haw haw,” but a loud “yuck!” I do take PeeDee’s point @4 though.
Thanks Kairos and PeeDee.
(I hope I won’t now be humming the nina all day … )
gwep @8 – thanks for keeping me company with YIELDERS, which didn’t yield for me either.
Great Nina! I saw picture and the rest, but didn’t convert it to the loose wheel. Telegraph quickie puzzles watch out!
Loved the surfaces of 4a, 5a (a great anagram, you’d never think it started with one of the two vowels). I liked the Roman square. Also the wobbly toilet seat.
I didn’t know the marbles game or the actor, so some guessing and checking involved in 29d. A clue requiring two independent bits of gk. I didn’t know the Swedish rug but clear wordplay, once I stopped trying to use Swedish for the S.
For the homophone I was trying to say Hawaii starting with Ho. Maybe some people do. Using with for w. I didn’t really manage to convince myself, though the answer had to be right.
Many thanks kairos, very entertaining, and thank you peedee.
Glad somebody else did the W for with in Hawaii clue. I should also have mentioned the use of “roman square” in 7d. Thought that was a brilliant innovation (at least I’ve never seen it before).
We just about got it all – wordfinder help needed for 13ac and we failed on 30dn (we thought ‘minute’ might be ‘small’ but didn’t associate it with ‘passage’). We guessed 29dn had to be THAW but took ‘with’ to indicate W so didn’t see how TA was a game of marbles.
We saw there was a nina as soon as PICTURE appeared on the top row, but couldn’t make head or tail of the rest of it, not knowing either the singer or the song.
CoD has to be EFFUSIVE simplr for the ‘Roman square’, with MUSEUM a close second for the ‘base’.
Thanks, Kairos and PeeDee.