(Why have they stopped giving the number and author of the crossword, so that one has to put it in by hand?)
As always with Radian, an utterly satisfactory experience. Many can be explained very simply, although that doesn’t mean they were trivially easy. There is one (22ac) which I can’t understand, but usually in these cases the parsing is perfectly obvious once it’s explained. (There was one … but it became clear when I was looking over what I wrote. Yes quite obvious.)
Definitions in maroon, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.
As is Radian’s wont, he has taken a famous speech from Shakespeare (in this case from Henry V) and used many of the words in it. I won’t bother to specify which ones: many will stand out and in any case I’ll probably miss a few. The nine that I found were probably not all of them. All I’ll do is give the speech here:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man,
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage:
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry through the portage of the head,
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide;
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument.
Dishonour not your mothers: now attest,
That those whom you call’d fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture: let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit; and upon this charge,
Cry ‘God for Harry! England! and Saint George!’
Needless to say, it was possible to solve it all straighforwardly without any knowledge of this, but the many mentions of Henry directs one here.
| Across | ||
| 1 | CATBIRD | US flier‘s disease, one caught by king maybe (7) |
| ca(TB 1)rd — although if this is to be believed, a catbird isn’t specifically US — the king is a playing card | ||
| 5 | DROPPER | Dispense with this clothier taking in work for amateur (7) |
| The clothier is a draper: replace the a by op. to get dr(op.)per | ||
| 9 | AFOOT | Going on a short distance (5) |
| a foot | ||
| 10 | UNSECURED | A foreign broadcast about mongrel on the loose (9) |
| un se(cur)ed | ||
| 11 | GENERATION | About thirty years’ quota of DNA? (10) |
| Quota of DNA is ration of gene, or gene ration | ||
| 12 | MORE | Extra victim of Henry (4) |
| Sir Thomas More was a victim of Henry VIII | ||
| 14 | RATIOCINATE | Terrible action with a tiger without good reason (11) |
| *(action a ti{g}er) | ||
| 18 | SAINT GEORGE | Henry’s patron condemned segregation (5,6) |
| *(segregation) | ||
| 21 | RAGE | Fashion spread rapidly (4) |
| 2 defs — a fire spreads rapidly when it rages | ||
| 22 | GREYHOUNDS | Henry’s dog runs round tight bend with these? (10) |
| (Henry’s dog)* round U, a sort of &lit. | ||
| 25 | STILLNESS | Calm way with ailment (9) |
| st illness | ||
| 26 | PEACE | Gym expert, 25 (5) |
| PE ace, which is stillness (25ac) | ||
| 27 | OVERACT | Ham‘s old and green, including even bits of sauce (7) |
| o ver({s}a{u}c{e})t — vert is green in heraldry, amongst other things | ||
| 28 | SINGLET | Top former record time (7) |
| single t | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | CHARGE | Offensive cleaner, say, turns up (6) |
| char (eg)rev. | ||
| 2 | THORNY | Tricky warning device in tricky case (6) |
| t(horn)y, the ty being the case of tricky, t{rick}y | ||
| 3 | INTERPRETS | Bury favourites to host first of ‘Richard’ plays (10) |
| inter p(R{ichard})ets — a musician interprets a piece, playing it in a certain way | ||
| 4 | DOUBT | Question the Parisian leaving Elizabethan jacket (5) |
| doub{le}t | ||
| 5 | DISHONOUR | Is Henry acting in severe disgrace … (9) |
| d(is H on)our | ||
| 6 | ONCE | … formerly locked in prison cell? (4) |
| Hidden in prisON CEll | ||
| 7 | PERSONAL | Intimate friend welcomes first royal offspring (8) |
| p(ER son)al — quite what the function of ‘first’ is I’m not sure, as the clue would be perfectly good without it — perhaps it’s saying that the Queen’s first offspring was Prince Charles, so a son for ER, or ER son? | ||
| 8 | REDEEMED | Rescued troops crossing river delta (8) |
| RE(Dee)ME D | ||
| 13 | PIPES OF PAN | Devout pop fans madly clutch European music-maker (5,2,3) |
| pi p(E)sofpan, the psofpan being (pop fans)* | ||
| 15 | THE ORIENT | Eastern hemisphere ideas finally swapped for books (3,6) |
| theories with its final s swapped for NT, making theorie(NT) | ||
| 16 | ESPRESSO | Journalists in teashop occasionally drink (8) |
| es(press)o, the eso being {t}e{a}s{h}o{p} | ||
| 17 | DISGUISE | Mask detective’s men during talk (8) |
| DI’s “guys” | ||
| 19 | ENTAIL | Call for old volunteers to fill row up (6) |
| TA in (line)rev. — I find it a bit hard to tell from the Wikipedia article, but it seems the TA, or Territorial Army, stopped in 2014 (hence the ‘old’), although what it’s been replaced by, if at all, I can’t say. No doubt some reader will know about it all. | ||
| 20 | ASPECT | A cult hiding priest’s face (6) |
| a s(p{riest})ect | ||
| 23 | YESES | Votes for Sussex town rising, not large (5) |
| (Se{l}sey)rev. — no, Selsey isn’t large, but that’s beside the point | ||
| 24 | PLEA | Some people anticipate request (4) |
| Hidden in peoPLE Anticipate — when are setters going to stop using ‘some’ as a hidden indicator? Not only is it an absolute giveaway, it only means ‘some of the letters of the following’ at a stretch. | ||
*anagram
Thanks Radian and John
My knowledge of Shakespeare is fairly limited (that’s probably a sacrilegious remark, I know), so the theme was invisible to me. But all eminently solvable despite that.
The Territorial Army is now known as the Army Reserve.
I think the T_Y in 2D is the case of tricky, which ends up being the case of thorny.
Thanks Simon, silly error. Blog amended.
Thanks John
Regarding your opening question, see eimi’s comment on yesterday’s Indy blog.
I got confused with Henry Rollins and Sonny Rollins (Theydon Bois on guitar and clam on bass)…..Nice!
Welcome to (puffs…) Jazz Club.
Thanks
CrucibleRadian andLouisJohnApologies to all, I’ve been reading about Dortmunds new approach-its all Scott Murray’s fault
Time for my meds.
I have to admit I missed the theme. No excuses except an almost complete ignorance of all things Shakespearean I’m afraid.
I didn’t know RATIOCINATE and put in the consonants incorrectly. I couldn’t parse CATBIRD – “perfectly obvious once it’s explained” as you say.
I took the ‘first’ in 7d as referring to Queen Elizabeth (ER of course) being the first, = most important, member of the Royal family.
Thank you to Radian and to John
Seriously, this was a very impressive piece of setting.
Thanks for the blog, John.
Yet another example of what copmus said @6. And still he keeps them coming – and can go on doing so until the cows come home, as far as I’m concerned. [This time, SAINT GEORGE and the GREYHOUNDS were the giveaway. I spotted fifteen words [SAINT GEORGE counting as one] from the speech, including three in the clue for 14ac, which I thought was particularly clever.
Super cluing and surfaces throughout, as always. My top favourite today was GENERATION, which sounded like a word which should be in the speech.
Huge thanks, Radian – I loved it, of course.
PS: I meant to say that I was particularly impressed by the four different uses of Henry in the clues.
Eileen @ 8: it’s a shame there weren’t 5!
Hi Simon S – that’s what a 15² friend said to me yesterday. 😉
I must have meant this morning – time flies!
My knowledge of Spokeshave is even more limited than Simon’s. I only knew the first 2 lines. Hadn’t heard of RATIOCINATE but guessed it, and hadn’t come across the Saint George anagram before.
Thanks to John and Radian
And thanks to eimi for caring enough to communicate. I’m sure I’m not alone in appreciating it.
We ground to a halt in the SE corner; thought 22ac had to be an anagram of Henry’s dog (not to be confused with Henry’s Cat of children’s TV fame) plus U, and needed electronic assistance to unscramble it, plus wordfinder for 23dn and 28ac. Regarding the latter we were puzzled by the ‘old’ – singles aren’t quite extinct – there are CD singles around.
It being Tuesday and Radian we thought there must be a theme but we missed it, despite the fairly obvious pointers.
Thanks, though to Radian and John.
A great puzzle – it took me most of the evening on and off but I always felt engaged because the clues were clean and concise and I was confident the answers would come in the end and there would be no “that’s just ridiculous” moments. I missed the theme of course. Has anyone ever heard of RATIOCINATE before? Loi was REDEEMED which only came when I wrote it out horizontally. Thanks to John for the blog and help with parsing GENE RATION (brilliant clue) and DISHONOUR (when will I remember acting=on?) and to Radian for another gem.
Whiteking@15: Actually, I had come across RATIOCINATE before, but I can’t remember where. Maybe whilst browsing through Chambers. I don’t think I’ve ever used it in a sentence, but it had certainly stuck in my memory, and when I jotted down the anagram fodder for 14ac it sprang out at me. Still had to get a couple of crossers to convince myself it was the correct answer.