The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27696.
I found this an excellent puzzle from Paul, notable for the lack of the bizarre surfaces which some find grating in his output (although I find them often amusing). Indeed, the surfaces here are notably cogent, and the clue constructions are deftly handled.
| Across | ||
| 1 | DEMITASSE | Cup — runner holds it during service (9) |
| A double envelope (‘holds’ and ‘during’) of ‘it’ in MASS (‘service’) in DEE (River, ‘runner’). | ||
| 6 | CONK | Hit — almost hit back (4) |
| A reversal (‘back’) of KNOC[k] (‘hit’, the second one) minus its last letter (‘almost’). | ||
| 8 | CASTRATI | Voices raised in terrible argument, referee initially knocked over by players (8) |
| A charade of CAST (‘players’) plus RATI, a reversal (‘knocked over’) of ITAR (‘In Terrible Argument Referee initially’). Perhaps not so much raised as not lowered, but with a surface like that, who’s grumbling? | ||
| 9 | TAIPEI | Capital idea to start with, after one’s broken record (6) |
| A charade of TAIPE, an envelope (‘broken’) of I (‘one’) in TAPE (‘record’); plus I (‘Idea to start with’), for the capital of Taiwan. | ||
| 10 | STOLEN | In opposite directions, lacquered metalware taken (6) |
| An envelope (‘in’) of TOLE (‘lacquered metalware’) in S N (‘south and north, ‘opposite directions’). | ||
| 11 | KING-SIZE | Big college that is accommodating unknown number (4-4) |
| An envelope (‘accommodating’) of Z (mathematical ‘unknown’) in KINGS (‘college’; the Cambridge College will very shortly be broadcasting the annual Service of Nine Lessons and Carols from the chapel) plus IE (‘that is’). | ||
| 12 | See 19 | |
| 15 | POLO NECK | Jumper in equestrian sport with narrow margin of victory (4,4) |
| A charade of POLO (‘equestrian sport’) plus NECK (‘narrow margin of victory’). | ||
| 16 | VITREOUS | Glassy expression’s first seen in very upset suitor (8) |
| An envelope (‘seen in’) of E (‘Expression’s first’) in V (‘very’) plus ITROUS, an anagram (‘upset’) of ‘suitor’. | ||
| 19, 12 | DIMMER SWITCH | Electrical device — more foolish instrument of punishment (6,6) |
| A charade of DIMMER (‘more foolish’) plus SWITCH (‘instrument of punishment’). | ||
| 21 | STRAPPER | Southern frontiersman, big chap (8) |
| A charade of S (‘southern’) plus TRAPPER (‘frontiersman’). | ||
| 22 | SILAGE | Feed unlimited dill, in herbaceous plant (6) |
| An envelope (‘in’) of IL (‘unlimited dILl’) in SAGE (‘herbaceous plant’, with a slight play on ‘herb’). | ||
| 24 | RIMINI | Car from Providence somewhere in Italy (6) |
| A charade of RI (‘Providence’, the capital city of Rhode Island) plus MINI (‘car’). | ||
| 25 | PREDATOR | Hunter, head in plaster bloodied on a rock (8) |
| A charade of P (‘head in Plaster’) plus RED (‘bloodied’) plus ‘a’ plus TOR (‘rock’). | ||
| 26 | BERG | Sponge cakes right for composer (4) |
| An envelope (‘cakes’) of R (‘right’) in BEG (‘sponge’). | ||
| 27 | TRENDIEST | Most happening to see border in Italian city that’s not closed (9) |
| An envelope (‘to see … in’) of END (‘border’) in TRIEST[e] (‘Italian city’) minus the last letter (‘that’s not closed’). | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | DRAFT | King spoiling absurd plan (5) |
| An envelope (‘spoiling’ – not the most obvious indicator, but I get the picture) of R (rex, ‘king’) in DAFT (‘absurd’). | ||
| 2 | MATELOT | Sailor finds companion on piece of land (7) |
| A charade of MATE (‘companion’) plus LOT (‘piece of land’). | ||
| 3 | See 23 | |
| 4 | STICK-UP | Gun crime at a higher level getting criticism initially (5-2) |
| A charade of STICK (‘criticism’) plus UP (‘at a higher level’). ‘Initially’, for once does not indicate an initial letter, but the order of the particles. | ||
| 5 | ENTANGLED | English books inclined to be involved (9) |
| A charade of E (‘English’) plus NT (New Testament, ‘books’) plus ANGLED (‘inclined’). | ||
| 6 | CRIMSON | Red skirts — rip off skirting (7) |
| An envelope (‘skirting’) of RIMS (‘skirts’) in CON (‘rip off’). | ||
| 7 | NIETZSCHE | Compound of zinc’s the cure in the end for German intellect (9) |
| An anagram (‘compound of’) of ‘zincs the’ plus E (‘curE in the end’). | ||
| 13 | WAISTLINE | Variety in a wine list a growing concern for heavy drinkers, perhaps? (9) |
| An anagram (‘variety in’) of ‘a wine list’. | ||
| 14 | HOOFPRINT | Evidence hack, say, was there to find clue — nothing concerning promotion in it (9) |
| An envelope (‘in it’) of O (‘nothing’) plus OF (‘concerning’) plus PR (public relations, ‘promotion’) in HINT (‘clue’). | ||
| 17 | See 22 | |
| 18 | STROPHE | Greek song others performed around piano (7) |
| An envelope (‘around’) of P (‘piano’) in STROHE, an anagram (‘performed’) of ‘others’. | ||
| 20 | MILEAGE | With drunken glee I’m glugging absinthe to begin with — how far gone? (7) |
| An envelope (‘glugging’) of A (‘Absinthe to begin with’) in MILEGE, an anagram (‘drunken’) of ‘glee I’m’. | ||
| 22, 17 | SPEED READING | Scanning text quickly, Twitter covering fear of urinals? (5,7) |
| An envelope (‘covering’) of PEE DREAD (‘fear of urinals’) in SING (‘twitter’). | ||
| 23, 3 | GHOST TRAIN | Ride straight on up the creek (5,5) |
| An anagram (‘up the creek’) of ‘straight on’. | ||
A rare treat for me to post nearer to the top than to the bottom of the comments! I agree with PeterO about the notably good quality of the surfaces — I ticked several entries for just that reason, such as PREDATOR, STROPHE, WAISTLINE, MATELOT and GHOST TRAIN (and there were others besides). I also enjoyed GHOST TRAIN for its nag a ram wordplay, MATELOT for switching things up and using “sailor” as a definition, rather than the usual litany of possible two, three or four-letter elements of the wordplay, and (going in the other direction, praising one of the chestnuts) the latest appearance of one of The Three Most Important Rivers, in DEMITASSE. CotD for me was SPEED READING. Not one of Paul’s most ribald clues, but the pee-dread still gave me a chuckle.
Many thanks to Paul and PeterO and (anticipatorily) the other commenters.
I liked this much better than last week’s – I suppose everybody is entitled to an occasional off-day.
This puzzle had plenty of clues which on first reading made me think, how can this ever lead to an answer? But they all did. My only grumble was the use of “in” in 25a (“head in plaster”): “of” (or even “to”) would work better locally but would mess up the surface as a whole, so no simple fix.
Re: 11a. When I was a guest at King’s a few years ago for giving a couple of talks, they put me up in the rooms they normally reserve for the Duke of Edinburgh (then Chancellor). Very nice, but no internet!
Thanks all.
Yep, pleasant Wednesday stroll from Paul, though a few unparsed guesses. Dnk tole the laquered metal, forgot the capital of RI, biffed strophe (looks Greek), was slow to switch from wee to pee for speed reading, and had no idea how parse hoofprint (moderately fiendish…clever!). However, all gettable.
Nice one Paul, thanks PeterO.
And nice one Dr Whatson for scoring Duke Phil’s digs!
Thanks PeterO and Paul.
Very good as expected from Paul. Like Dr. Whatson my initial thought was that some clues were unsolvable, but it all slowly fell into place. Favourite was HOOFPRINT, largely for the well-hidden definition. STROPHE and tole were new to me.
PeterO, maybe it’s pedantry, but I did share your implied reservation regarding SILAGE. Sage is a culinary herb, but it is not a herbaceous plant (i.e. one that dies back to below ground in winter).
A tiny typo in the blog, 25a: ‘TOR’ should be ‘A TOR’ (a rock).
Thanks P and P. Have enjoyed the gradually increasing challenges of the week so far. DNK tole but took a guess. Liked the POLO NECK, HOOFPRINT and SPEED READING particularly.
Similar experience here – first read-through of the across clues left me with one solution and the feeling akin to that of the opening pages of “A Clockwork Orange”…I was sure that it’d make sense eventually but right now it was a load of meaningful-sounding gibberish. And like the Burgess, it paid me back for sticking with it. A few quibbles about some rather roundabout constructions in the longer clues, but they were in such fun surfaces that I will quib no more. And who can dismiss a puzzle with “pee dread” as “fear of urinals”? Tole was a TILT for me and I too loved seeing matelot come up having bashed my head against tar, AB, OS, Jack etc. Lots to like here, but especially a puzzle which seemed fair but felt foul – or did it look foul but feel fair? Not sure if it was a Strider or a Nazgul…
Loved it all – so many ticks and smiles! My favourites have already been covered by DaveMc@1, beaulieu@5 and Hedgehog@6. SPEED READING at 22,17d was my COTD. I did like NIETZSCHE as well, despite trying “E before I” instead of “I before E” for a start! My face is 6d CRIMSON for making that error; clearly my German (intellect) is appalling. I also laughed at the definition for CASTRATI and didn’t have PeterO’s objection. As for other commenters, TOLE in 10a STOLEN was a NWILT for me. Thanks a million to Paul and PeterO.
[DaveMc, how did you get to solve so early in the day/night?]
[We crossed, thezed@7, thus the seeming repetition in my post. Sorry I don’t understand your Strider/Nazgul reference though…]
Julie @9 In The Lord of the Rings, the one of the hobbits, Frodo, meets a strange and slightly sinister character calling himself Strider in an inn. Deciding to trust him, Frodo says that “if he was one of the enemy, he would look fairer and…well, feel fouler, if you see what I mean” to which the enigmatic Strider replies “While I look foul and feel fair, is that it?”. The nazgul are the servants of the enemy (Sauron) to whom they were referring. Sorry – off topic and niche reference!
[Thanks to thezed@10. It’s been far too long since I read The Lord of the Rings, and I didn’t see the film. Thanks for explaining something which was probably a very obvious reference for other posters. I like that idea of fair/foul, though that was not my experience of this Paul.]
DNK tole, and thought tin could have been used instead of South and North. Also didn’t know where RI came from. Taipei was last in for me, probably because it didn’t fit in with the European theme.
Thanks to Paul and PeterO. Another typical Paul solve for me. Got almost nothing on first couple of passes and in the words of 7d “was looking over the abyss”. However stuck with it and eventually got a toehold in the bottom. However I found the top half much trickier and matelot (another who spent ages working on ab and os etc) and demitasse were last in. I liked conk draft and stick up, but lots of other nice clues. Thanks again to Paul and PeterO.
Not as tricky as some of Paul’s recent efforts, but still chewy enough to provide the right degree of resistance. STRAPPER was last in.
Thanks to Paul and PeterO
Thanks to Paul and PeterO. I’m another who did not know tole and I took a while with GHOST TRAIN because I did not catch “up the creek” as an anagram indicator. LOI was RIMINI because I needed all the crossers before I spotted the RI-Providence connection.
Julie asked how DaveMc was solving so early – well I don’t know that of course but I can say that those of us on the East Coast of the US have a less-than-optimal relation to this blog. The puzzle opens in the early evening, which is quite convenient, actually, but assuming it’s solved by bedtime the blog is almost never available yet. By the time morning comes, the whole world and his brother has posted already; my personal preference is not to post unless I think I have some insight or experience not mentioned already, so I usually don’t bother.
Today was different, thanks to PeterO’s schedule, so I could post.
The word “strapping” always makes me think of Noel Coward’s song, “A Bar on the Piccola Marina.” Mrs Wentworth-Brewster, a respectable matron who had “two strapping daughters and a rather dull son, And an even duller husband, who at sixty-one, … elected to expire” is now whooping it up on Capri. You can here Coward himself singing it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um7IWdfi8X8.
15a I got stuck on Polo pony, having forgotten that a jumper in the UK isn’t a sleeveless dress worn over a blouse. I now know that a POLO NECK is the same as what I call a “turtle neck.”
A TILT for me today was the meaning of “herbaceous,” which I only knew as a characteristic of Backsons.
Julie@8, what is a NWILT? (I have a big tole tray, though with the designs on it somewhat chipped, so STOLEN came easily.)
Julie @8 —
Dr. Whatson @16 summed up most of it — it was not quite 10:30 p.m. Tuesday here when I posted above, and PeterO is also, I believe, in or near this time zone, so he puts up the blog much earlier than most of the other bloggers, usually before it is very late evening here. The rest was just my luck to have been caught up on solving (which often is *not* the case, especially during these past 2 months or so) and to have happened to have gone online (as I had some work to complete last night from home, alas) probably just a few moments after the blog was available.
BTW, I enjoyed the “fair and foul” Tolkien exchange of comments begun by thezed @7!
DaveMac @18
Indeed, I live on Long Island, and so, as for you, this puzzle arrived at 7pm. Tuesday (actually, I was a little late getting to it, as I was still cooking dinner at that time). This is good for posting a timely blog, but not so for commenting, as the discussion is winding down by the time I get up in the morning. On that subject, the comments have been particularly sparse today, which I hope and expect reflects the lack of controversy, and not any shortcoming in the crossword, which, as I said in the preamble, I thought was excellent.
Yep, thanks to both P’s. Lots of fun challenging stuff; learned or reminded myself of a few words too, without looking anything up – notably demitasse and strophe. Love the ‘feel’ of both those words. And Julie there’s another Coward song in there too, at 2 down. Conk last in for some reason!
Thanks Paul and PeterO
Valentine @ 17: “I now know that a POLO NECK is the same as what I call a “turtle neck.” “
This confused me, as I had always thought they were somewhat different, and Chambers bears this out:
Turtleneck (sic): (a garment having) a high close-fitting neckline
Polo neck (sic): A pullover collar fitting the neck closely and doubling over, as orig in the jersey worn by polo-players
That confirms my impression, specifically that a turtleneck doesn’t fold over.
The third variant is a crew neck, which stops much lower than the other two, and doesn’t fold over either.
Who will be the first setter to create a jumper-themed puzzle, with POLO, CREW, TURTLE, HIGH, LONG, TRIPLE and KANGAROO among the solutions?
I do love a Paul. Impenetrable seeming at first and then it all slowly begins to fall into place. I still don’t know how to read the defining part of hoofprint. I know what hacking is on a horse but that still doesn’t seem to help me. I can see that a hoofprint is evidence of hacking but I can’t quite read that in the clue.
Thanks both,
Defeated by 6ac in the end, I put in ‘cane’ with the (rather weak) rationalisation that it could be enac(t) backwards, which would hit someone or other. Otherwise I enjoyed this a lot, possibly the more so as it seeded so difficult on first run through. Strophe and tole were TILT.
christopher potter
Close: hacking apparently derives from the horse, a hack, which often has a negative connotation like nag, and which gives rise to the dismissive term for a journalist or literary person (as suggested in the surface of the clue).
Fun Paul fare. Loved CASTRATI. FOI 5d, LOI RIMINI though l could not parse it but checkers helped.
Yes, pretty good but I found it easier to get the answers than to parse. The weakness,however, is mine because, as the blog makes clear, all clues are perfectly passable. I liked CONK and MATELOT. DEMITASSE was new to me.
COD was DIMMER SWITCH.
Thanks Paul and PeterO.
Valentine @17 — I didn’t see an answer to your question. Julie can confirm if I am mistaken about this, but I assumed a NWILT is a subcategory of a TILT, when the (first) “T” that has been learned is a new word.
Simon S @21 — Valentine and other US commenters may be able to back me up on this, but I believe that the Chambers definition of turtleneck that you cited does not comport with standard American usage. Here in the US, a garment that matches the Chambers definition of polo neck, having a pullover collar that fits the neck closely and (here’s the important part) doubles over, or at least is long enough to double over, even if the wearer elects not to do so, is referred to as a “turtleneck”. By contrast, if the otherwise identical garment has a high close-fitting collar that is not long enough to double over, then it is a “mock turtleneck”. (And if the very long neck is very loose fitting rather than close-fitting, it may be a “cowl neck”.) [And if it is a very wealthy man wearing a schlumpy t-shirt with a v-neck, it may be a Cowell neck.]
Fun puzzle. I enjoyed the car from Providence and the Pee Dread. I needed all the crossers before being able to spell NIETZSCHE correctly, despite knowing the fodder.
SILAGE reminded me of The Herbs, featuring as it does Dill (the dog) and Sage (the owl). I wonder if Paul was tempted to reference that program in the surface but decided it was a little too niche?
I also wondered whether there was going to be a King theme, with KING-SIZE and (King) CRIMSON appearing, but I don’t see any others.
Good stuff as usual from the prolific Paul. Thanks to him and to PeterO.
Thanks PeterO for explaining hoofprint clue. I didn’t know hack can refer to the horse itself. I accidentally posted under my full name. Was using a different device at the time.
thezed @7 says it all for me.
It is only now, reading PeterO’s blog that I really appreciate how superb some of the surfaces are. 8a being my favourite.
Simon S @21 and DaveMc @27 Yes, Dave, what I (and my compatriots, as far as I know) call a turtle neck folds over. And so does wikipedia, to which I resorted to find out what a polo neck was. There is also a polo shirt, which is a knit shirt with a collar like a shirt collar, divided at the front with two pointed tabs. It has maybe one button down the front but no farther — you pull the shirt on over your head.