After wrongly predicting a Paul on Friday last week, my psychic powers returned today when they told me I’d be blogging a Vulcan. I’m afraid I can’t summon up much enthusiasm for his puzzles, with their mostly very straightforward clues mixed with some rather weak cryptic definitions, but I know he has his fans. Thanks to Vulcan.
| Across | ||||||||
| 8. | DECKHAND | Ordinary seaman‘s two sets of cards (8) DECK (pack of cards) + HAND (cards held by a player) |
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| 9. | BARGE | Lighter to bump into (5) Double definition |
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| 10. | AREA | Extent of some software amazing (4) Hidden in softwARE Amazing |
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| 11. | HALL OF FAME | Welcome s-success, to be admitted here (4,2,4) HALLO F-FAME |
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| 12. | CHASES | Runs after luggage round hotel (6) H in CASES |
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| 14. | SEMINARY | Marines trained for a year in academy (8) MARINES* + Y |
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| 15. | INTENSE | Serious tennis played by European (7) TENNIS* + E |
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| 17. | ALGIERS | Gangster catcalls heard in capital (7) AL + homophone of “jeers” |
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| 20. | SACK RACE | Competition one may have in the bag (4,4) Cryptic definition |
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| 22. | MAYDAY | Holiday emergency! (6) Double definition |
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| 23. | PREHENSILE | Such a gripping tale we hear (10) A homophone in the clue itself, describing a prehensile “tail” |
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| 24. | JUTE | Old British settler needed for 20? (4) Double definition – sacks may be made of jute, and the Jutes (the name is probably related to the Danish peninsula Jutland) invaded Britain in the 4th century |
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| 25. | STERN | Rear small bird (5) S + TERN |
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| 26. | CHLORINE | 150 of the Romans stand for disinfectant (8) 150 is CL in Roman numerals, and Cl is the chemical symbol of, or stands for, Chlorine |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1. | WEAR THIN | Patience when abused may succeed in circling the world (4,4) EARTH in WIN |
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| 2. | SKUA | Bird that sounds piercing (4) Homophone of “skewer” |
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| 3. | PATHOS | Ways to secure love that inspires pity (6) O (zero, love) in PATHS |
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| 4. | IDOLISE | Look up to speaker’s lazy eyes (7) Homophone of “idle eyes” |
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| 5. | ABNORMAL | A British girl put on pounds: unusual? (8) A + B + NORMAL + L (pounds, in the money sense) |
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| 6. | PROFUNDITY | Don’t purify murky depth (10) (DON’T PURIFY)* |
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| 7. | WEIMAR | Before St David’s Day the Guardian declares a republic (6) WE (the Guardian) + 1 MAR (St David’s Day) |
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| 13. | SNEAK THIEF | Petty criminal who tells on his accomplices? (5,5) Double/cryptic definition, relying on sneak = tell on |
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| 16. | STAGNANT | Only for men: old woman has time still (8) STAG (for men only) + NAN (old woman) + T |
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| 18. | ROASTING | Call about oven for cooking (8) OAST (oven) in RIN (call) |
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| 19. | BEWITCH | Dog we held up in entrance (7) Reverse of WE in BITCH |
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| 21. | ARREST | Stop thief! (6) Arresting a thief would stop him, so it’s a (rather weak) cryptic definition. A pity that “thief” appears in the clue so soon after 13d, where it’s part of the answer |
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| 22. | MUESLI | Mule is chewing cereal (6) (MULE IS)* |
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| 24. | JURY | Panel put into a box (4) A barely cryptic definition – a jury sits in the jury box in a courtroom |
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Started off rather too quickly then got stuck in the bottom left for a while.
Hadn’t thought of OAST as an oven but it obviously is, now I think about it. (Typo RING rather than RIN, Andrew).
Still don’t fully get CHLORINE. QUite liked SACK RACE and JUTE but less keen on SNEAK THIEF and IDOLISE ( with the eyes being there already).
Thanks, Andrew and Vulcan for starting the week though.
Thanks for the parsing of 7d WEIMAR, Andrew, the only one I couldn’t see fully when I got it, even though I was aware (from posts on the forum last week) of the celebrations of St David’s Day on 1 Mar.
Too many homophones for my liking (in 11a, 17a, 23a, 2d and 4d), though in a perverse way I did kind of like IDOLISE at 4d.
With appreciation to Vulcan and Andrew.
Apologies, 11a HALL OF FAME is not a “sounds like” clue.
Andrew summed it up well, thanks (A second typo, btw, an extra L in 5d). I don’t even think 23a works – there is no standalone definition.
I had never heard of a hall of fame before I moved to the States in 1975. When did it gain currency in the UK?
Thanks Andrew – I think the girl in 5D is Norma with LL for pounds
Hedgehog @ 1: You’re not alone in struggling with CHLORINE. I’m having a job trying to explain to Mrs pex that its just the chemical symbol which is the same as the Roman numerals.
I found this somewhat harder than usual for Vulcan
I failed to get PREHENSILE but thought the clue was ok in hindsight. I also needed to check the blog for the parsing of CHLORINE. My Roman numeral knowledge is pretty good, but not my chemical symbols, so I had C & L and was (unsuccessfully)trying to make the rest of the clue work around it. Apart from that, a fairly gentle start to the week. Thanks to Vulcan & Andrew.
As is often the case with this type of puzzle I laboured over it. I’m sure a lot of it has to do with my mindset. I did have ticks against INTENSE ALGIERS PREHENSILE (despite the reservations noted here) and ROASTING – nice to see OAST rather than AGA which I was trying to work in. I didn’t get the parsing of CHLORINE and am still struggling with it, nor do I see why ARREST is anything more than STOP.
On reflection this is a better puzzle than I thought when I was doing it – mindset again – so thanks to Vulcan and Andrew.
Very unsatisfactory cluing, as Andrew has pointed out.
I particularly disliked ARREST and JURY. I only got the latter when I thought of Juke Box Jury!
And SEMINARY from Gilbert and Sullivan.
Some clues got a tick, though. I liked WEAR THIN and CHLORINE. (Loved both Latin and chemistry at school).
Thanks to Vulcan and to Andrew.
I know it’s bad form to comment on live puzzles but Alberich’s prize puzzle in the FT on Saturday is one of the best I’ve ever done and we’ll worth a look imho.
Once I’ve stopped trying to justify my inability to parse it I now think CHLORINE is an excellent clue!
Held up briefly in the SW, mostly by thinking rhere must be more to sack race and arrest. Did like prehensile, didn’t mind its homophone-within trick. Bunged in hall of fame without even thinking about the s-s/f-f trick, quite neat.
Thanks Andrew and Vulcan.oo
Thanks Vulcan and Andrew
Had no idea what ws going on in HALL OF FAME or CHLORINE (the latter despite being an ex chemistry teacher!) I thought ARREST was very weak, and I’m in the “don’t like PREHENSILE” camp too.
SACK RACE was my favourite, in fact.
Another who found this a mixed bag. Given it’s a Monday and meant to be “crossword-lite” the straightforward wordplay in many cases is not an issue. However, in simplicity often one finds elegance, but not too often here. I liked 8ac for the role reversal (so often sailor = OS), 12 for the misdirection using “runs after” (so commonly = r) and 20 as a cryptic def (helped very much by the letter count). 24 raised a smile. 25 was simple but fun, with a good surface – elegant. 1dn I thought a very good example of Monday cluing too, ditto 7 using a non-standard technique but one, I think, new solvers would be delighted to guess. I was less impressed by 10ac – in a hidden answer I’d hope for a smoother surface reading. In 11ac the solution and wordplay depend on the same thing – fame being clued as success. 23 got a smile from me when I had sufficient crossers and I was less bothered by the clue not quite being a perfect &lit. And as others have said, 13dn is just a bit weak, and 21dn best left alone.
I was another who did not spot the CL = Cl = chlorine link, in spite of getting both CL and knowing the periodic table intimately. Sigh – thank you Andrew for putting me out of my misery. I think the Roman reference here, which was clearly unnecessary as numbers are so often Roman numerals, was actually a very clever blind to make the solver look for more in the clue than there was. It goes from “huh?” to CotD for me. Thank you Vulcan.
Ahh..I have just got CHLORINE…thank you!
Pretty decent Monday fare I’d say with enough complexity to add interest. Yes a few were weak but made up for by PREHENSILE PROFUNDITY WEIMAR and (post blog) CHLORINE.
Seeing JUTE always reminds me of the late period Sir Grump of Grouchshire (Van the Man) song Burning Ground.
Agree this is a mixed bag, with 21dn particularly poor while 1dn best clue. Not happy about 26ac – although it’s OK to use lower case for Roman numerals, the mixture of upper and lower needed to make the clue work isn’t allowed normally.
I think it should be remembered that Vulcan is deliberately setting to appease the plethora of Rufus fans (or at least I imagine that was his brief)and i thought he upgraded today which was very welcome after the very quiptic Friday puzzle.
I thought this was perfectly acceptable and challenging enough for a Monday puzzle, with 1 Down a satisfying last solve…
5D. It should be NORMA + L in the parsing.
18D. It should be RING in the parsing.
Sorry but I still need a full explanation for “Chlorine”. Guess it’s my turn to wear the donkey ears today…
Barobalti @21: No need for the ears, it’s quite neat. Cl is the symbol for Chlorine and CL is 150 in roman numerals.
Thought this was a distinct improvement on the usual fare from this setter, with ticks at WEIMAR, JUTE, HALL OF FAME & PREHENSILE.
I’ve always thought IDOLIZE was spelled with a Z. Is that only in the US? Rejected it once ZEMINARY looked a bit strange!
Many thanks, both, nice week, all.
copmus @18: That’s what I meant to say, only better put!
This was completed much more quickly than Matilda’s Quiptic, which I didn’t think was the point of having Quiptics. I liked CHLORINE, but didn’t much like WEAR THIN & ARREST.
Thanks to Vulcan and Andrew. Most of this went in quite readily, but the last few at the bottom seemed to take more than the rest out together. I get the explanations but still remain unconvinced about arrest and prehensile (last two in with no great confidence). That said still largely enjoyable and liked chlorine and
Weimar. Thanks again to Vulcan and Andrew.
Well,I enjoyed this. For bears of little brain (I know that should really be Pooh bear), Mr Paddington bear and I could do this one without all day head scratching and we parsed all except Chlorine which was obvious when explained.
Thanks both,
I’ll confess to using a wildcard search in Chambers for 18 and 26 when the time budget ran out, but this grew on me for a Monday puzzle. 14 doesn’t work for me as ‘y’ doesn’t stand for ‘for a year’.
Tyngewick @28, the COED gives y abbr. year(s).
PS, @28 & 29, to me, y stands “for a year”, but agree that it might be confusing…
All straightforward enough in retrospect, but this took me ages to finish by Monday standards. Annoyingly, I needed all the crossers to think of PREHENSILE, whcih was last in…
Thanks to Vulcan and Andrew
16D was my LOI – it eluded me for a long while, even though I had all the crossers
Tyngewick @ 28 / Cookie @ 29/30
Y = year is a standard abbreviation in accountancy,with CY (Current Year), LY (Last Year) and FY (Fiscal/Financial Year).
Probably from the same source, it’s also more widely used as part of YTD.
Thanks to Vulcan and Andrew. I got CHLORINE but was dubious about the second meaning of ARREST.
Thank you Vulcan and Andrew. Enjoyed reading the responses to see how sentiment shifted in favour of chlorine, a clue which my wife had failed to persuade me was very clever.
I found this mostly easy, even for me, but failed on 16d (fair clue, thick solver). I agree with others regarding ARREST and thought that MAYDAY was rather weak, but I did like CHLORINE (thanks, Andrew, for the parsing) and HALL OF FAME. One other quibble: shouldn’t “bump into” = “barge into” rather than just “barge”?
Not difficult in retrospect but this took longer than usual for a Monday. The criticisms have all been made so I won’t repeat any of them. Liked WEIMAR and JURY.
Thanks Vulcan.
I beg to differ with some in this forum, l thought PREHENSILE was a great clue. LOI JURY.
A fine Monday offering, albeit with a few iffy/loose clues and one real clunker. My FOI was STERN, and the next clue I looked at was 21d, where I thought of ARREST and *hoped* that would not eventually prove to be the answer! I thought SNEAK THIEF was pretty weak also. But on the positive side, I liked PROFUNDITY, DECKHAND, and my CotD, WEIMAR, which I’m sure I would have struggled to parse, had it not been for Friday’s Maskarade puzzle and Andrew’s blog, and comments to same, about St. David’s Day — my favorite TILF (thing I learned Friday). [Or perhaps co-favorite TILF, since I also listened to some rousing YouTube recordings that day of “Land of My Fathers”, a song not previously known to me.]
Many thanks to Vulcan and Andrew and the other commenters. Hoping we are in for a great selection of puzzles, the rest of this week. March Forth, everybody!
Fun coincidence: ABNORMAL MUESLI was Jackson Pollock’s original working title for Autumn Rhythm (Number 30).
Sorry, folks, but after all that I still don’t get the chlorine clue. Is chlorine CL (as in 150 in Latin, in which case the clue is fine), or CI (capital i, in which case it is not)?
If it is an L, so the clue works, then why is it written CI? All help gratefully received – perhaps I shouldn’t have had that third pint of beer …
Oh dear, what a fiasco.
Not fit to bear the name cryptic crossword.
Obviously this somehow slipped by the Ed. 😉
Appalling!
@41 Chlorine is capital C, small L…
And we wondered if Weimar was WE + I’M A R (declares a republic somehow)
Thanks V & A
21d is the weakest clue I have seen for some time.
23ac seems quite illegitimate because, as has been pointed out @4, there is no definition.
Having had 26ac explained I suppose it is quite clever, though indeed the symbol is capital C, small L.
Hi Wheal Dreath @41 – chemical symbols in the periodic table are either a single capital eg. O for Oxygen or a capital followed by a small (what should I call a non-capital? regular? we always said small in school) letter: eg. He for Helium or Cl for Chlorine. I have found that because the chemical symbols are often radically different than the element they denote (Fe = Iron, Hg – Mercury etc. etc.) that they have cropped up often in crosswords to make for interesting surfaces and difficult clues. Cl for Chlorine is surprisingly close in this respect. There are new elements on the periodic table that exist briefly in laboratories with 3 letter symbols, but these still have only a single capital.
Ah! Thank you so much for the help – especially Paulus for the very full explanation.
Oh, and to answer your question, the official terms are “upper case” and “lower case”.
I was unable to parse 26a and 7d.
Thanks Vulcan and Andrew
In many crosswords, one/1 = capital I = lower case i. Thus 50 = capital L = lower case l, is perfectly acceptable too. So Cl from 150 to me is OK/Ok/ok – even though I personally couldn’t parse it 🙁 … thank you Andrew!
The PREHENSILE is it’s own clue, i.e. &lit. This device seems to be popping up more often. I guess it should have a ? to indicate its &lit-ness though.
I guess my sense of “what is cryptic” must more liberal than most – loved all those clues.
@49 In (most) American cryptics, an &lit. clue is indicated not by a ? but by an exclamation point. That said, 23A is not a good example of such, since “tale we hear” does not render PREHENSILE.