A curious mix of easy and difficult clues form Boatman.
I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of time this morning, so I hope the explanations in the blog are satisfactory. A great many of the down answers were much easier to get than most of the across answers, one of which I have failed to parse (DRAG QUEEN anyone? – see comments below for the answer to that question)).
I can’t quite make up my mind about Boatman. He is no doubt an ingenious setter, but I think sometimes he is too verbose, with very long clues that are often a nightmare to parse, although I think I managed to get most of this morning’s without too much trouble, and solving was certainly made easier by some of the “gimmes” he put in TALENT, QUESTION etc.
Thanks, Boatman.
| Across | ||
| 7 | SATURATED | Despondent about you in France, stuck with tariff and unable to take any more (9) |
| SAD (“despondent”) about TU (“you in France”) stuck with RATE (“tariff”), so SA(TU-RATE)D | ||
| 8 | SHOUT | Call round (5) |
| Double definition; for the second think of it being your round at the local, “It’s my round” = “My shout” | ||
| 9 | BELTED OUT | Sang loudly with band, due to being drunk (6,3) |
| BELT (“band”) + *(due to) | ||
| 10 | PROSE | Type of writing of period seen regularly (5) |
| P(e)R(i)O(d)S(e)E(n) [regularly] | ||
| 12 | ETYMON | Note my oddly original word (6) |
| *(note my)
An etymon is a word from which other words are derived, so for example “etymos” (Greek for true) is the etymon of the English word “etymology”. |
||
| 13 | LAKE ERIE | To want not a cent? Weird this is in both the US and Canada (4,4) |
| LA(c)K (“to want”, not a C (cent)) + EERIE (“weird”) | ||
| 14 | LIBRARY | Top pieces of literature in bookcases, recording and retelling yarns (7) |
| [top pieces of] L(iterature) I(n) B(ookcases) R(ecording) A(nd) R(etelling) Y(arns) and &lit. | ||
| 17 | SAVANNA | Habitat of Tasmanian devil, evolving with limited parts lost (7) |
| *(asananv), being the letters of “tasmanian devil” with the letter from ‘limited” removed, ie (t)AS(m)AN(i)AN (de)V(il) | ||
| 20 | KARL MARX | Capital writer, initially keen to meet aristocrat, loses head and gets kiss after a month (4,4) |
| [initially] K(een) to meet (e)ARL (“aristocrat” loses head) + X (“a kiss”) after MAR (March, “a month”) | ||
| 22 | LECTOR | Potentially constituent narrative ultimately lost for reader (6) |
| (e)LECTOR (“potentially constituent”) with (narrativ)E [ultimately] lost | ||
| 24 | DENSE | Old penny dreadful seen as impenetrable (5) |
| D (“old penny”) + *(seen) | ||
| 25 | DRAG QUEEN | One has bras etc in drawer! (4,5) |
| DRAG (“draw”) + ER (“queen”) and semi&lit. | ||
| 26 | BLEND | Stir up novel so it ends in twist (5) |
| (nove)L [so it ends] in BEND (“twist”) | ||
| 27 | SCHNITZEL | Cutlet of muscle core, chopped thin, zebra’s head and veal, even (9) |
| (mu)SC(le) [core] + *(thin) + Z(ebra’s) [head] and (v)E(a)L [even] | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | TALENT | Genius of story books (6) |
| TALE (“story”) + NT (New Testament, so “books”) | ||
| 2 | CUSTOMER | One who buys key American book by King (8) |
| C (“key”) + US (“American”) + TOME (“book”) + R (Rex, so “king”) | ||
| 3 | GARDEN | Study follows paperback’s plot (6) |
| DEN (“study”) follows <=RAG (“paper” back) | ||
| 4 | SEQUELS | Continuations of story speak of search for sources of water (7) |
| Homophone of [speak of] SEEK WELLS (“search for sources of water”) | ||
| 5 | CHARGE | Book about gravity’s reach in translation (6) |
| *(g reach), where G is gravity | ||
| 6 | QUESTION | ‘Mystery novel’ in quotes (8) |
| *(in quotes) | ||
| 11 | OKRA | Vegetable in book? Radish? (4) |
| Hidden in “boOK RAdish” | ||
| 15 | ISABELLA | She jointly made Columbus sail and able to roam (8) |
| *(sail able) and &lit.
Columbus’s expedition which mistakenly (re)discovered the Americas was funded by Ferdinand and Isabella |
||
| 16 | READ | Learn from a book: note, a hardback (4) |
| RE (musical “note”) + A (har)D [back] | ||
| 18 | ACCOUNTS | Stories in books (8) |
| Double definition | ||
| 19 | EXTRACT | Passage from a booklet (7) |
| EX (“from”, as in “ex libris”) + TRACT (“booklet”) | ||
| 21 | LOSING | Opposed to opening, dropping, opening, dropping? (6) |
| (c)LOSING (“opposed to opening” dropping opening) | ||
| 22 | LEGEND | Old story offers a clue to boot (6) |
| A boot could be found at the LEG END (ie. at the end of a leg) | ||
| 23 | O-LEVEL | Epistolary novel: badly written letters in yarns? I opt out (this was pre-GCSE) (1,5) |
| *(elovel), being the letters of “epistolary novel” with the letters of “yarns i opt” removed [out], so “E(pisto)L(ary n)OVEL“ | ||
*anagram
In 25a you have to split “drawer” as draw (=DRAG) + ER (Queen)
I parsed 25a the same, eventually! In 2dn king is just “R” as the “e” comes from “tome” btw.
What a bizarre mix. Ticks for “shout”, “dense” (penny dreadful…clever) and “drag queen” once I saw it. “talent” simple but effective, ditto “question” and “isabella” was COD for me. “losing” and “legend” also groaners and brought a smile. But the other clues were so laboured as to be painful.
And where were F, J and W? Is there a reason they are missing when this seemed to be a pangram at first? Still, I enjoyed the bookish theme and thanks Boatman and loonapick for the smiles.
Thanks, both
Now edited – as I said, short of time this morning, so may have got there in the end…
A dnf as bunged in a hasty slang instead of blend…I blame Mrs ginf for dragging us off for her walk. As said, some head scratchers among the gimmes. O level biffed without doing the subtraction, missed the ER bit of drag queen, ta Andrew, and slow to get the old leg end wheeze, d’oh. Not a great effort but quite fun. Thanks Boatman and Loonapick.
Thanks Boatman and loonapick
thezed @2 – I have F, J and W written alongside the puzzle too!
Several were obvious from the definition but the parsing escaped me.. I didn’t even attempt to parse O LEVEL – this was far too wordy a clue. I thought the grid was unhelpful – very nearly 4 separate puzzles.
“Book” for CHARGE seems very loose (and that’s generous!)
Favourite by a long way was SEQUELS.
muffin @5: “Book em, Danno!“
Thanks Andrew. Never seen it! I don’t think we would say “book” in Britain, would we? A football ref might book someone, but this isn’t the same as charging him.
Thanks Andrew @6, like muffin @5 I was struggling for a reason why “book” = “charge”. Although I agree with muffin re the homophone in “sequels” being fun I couldn’t get past the definition, with the rather clunky “continuations” being a bit rough.
In Indian newspaper reports “book” in the sense of “charge” is used quite commonly. “Vijayalakshmi was booked for murder and produced before the magistrate on Tuesday,” goes a report.
I too dnf because of Blend.
Agree this was an odd mix of clue levels. Liked savanna (no h?), and belted out which reminds me of that Harry Secombe singing style Can Belto.
Nice mix of clues – 21d excellent in the depth of its possibilities. Solving 23d gave method for Tassie devil, which until then had been quite cryptic (as it’s meant to be!). 6d (mystery quotes) elegant in it’s simplicity.
I have the same issue with veranda[h], Rewolf.
The last paragraph of loonapick’s introduction sums up my sentiments exactly.
For what it’s worth, a dnf for me as I failed on 26a: in my world, bend and twist are two different things.
Much the same here – it almost seems like Boatman is trying too hard in places. As it happened I started at 27a which is such a bizarre surface that for a moderately experienced solver it immediately clear what to do and there is no misdirection. As SCHNITZEL is the only word to fit _C_N_T_E_ maybe I’m being unfair. 20a was similarly telegraphed although the definition was clever. Time to stop carping and highlight the excellent BELTED OUT SHOUT DRAG QUEEN LEGEND and BLEND which I didn’t get so a dnf. I thought CHARGE was fine for book and have heard in plenty of police dramas. I also liked the book theme through the clues, especially OKRA. Thanks to Boatman and loonapick and with apologies to people I’ve crossed with whilst typing this.
“This was pre-GCSE” (1,5)? As my Mum might have said, a one-eyed man on a galloping horse would write this in without parsing!
Some of the other clues were lovely though.
Thanks, all, so far. It’s always interesting to see how people respond to the difficulty levels in the clues – I’m generally happy to have a mixture, as there’s no point setting a puzzle where every clue is equally fiendish but which nobody can finish (and, worse, many would fail to start) as a result.
As for SAVANNA, I’d normally spell it with an H too, and the OED agrees, although Chambers gives equal weight to both spellings. This was actually a late substitution, as the word that I originally had in the grid had been taken by another setter by the time it came to editing. You can work out what the original solution was, if you like …
As so often with Boatman the theme is apparent on the surface rather than being hidden, and the cleverness lies in the varied and misleading uses of “book”, “novel”, “paperback” and so on. In this respect I thought it was excellent.
However as others have said, some clues were just a bit too convoluted, particularly 23d, which I wrote in from the definition without trying to parse it. I did like 13a LAKE ERIE, despite (or because of?) the Yoda-ish phrasing!
Is this the first Boatman puzzle ever not to feature the word “Boatman” in a clue?
I didn’t see the split in drawer, thinking it was just a rather weak cd; I suppose strictly ‘er’ should be capitalised for queen.
Some nice clues like those for ISABELLA and SEQUELS. My LOI was BLEND – a pity ‘end’ is in both clue and answer.
Bookish theme with some QUESTION MARX.
Thanks Boatman and loonapick.
Thanks to loonapick and Boatman
The French against it going to pot in Turin?
I too liked the book theme. However I was a dnf as I failed my O-LEVEL at 23d – indeed I was totally defeated in the SE, where I also missed 17a SAVANNA, 25a DRAG QUEEN and 18d ACCOUNTS. Perhaps if I had persevered a bit longer, they would have come to me. Meanwhile I ticked 24a DENSE and also enjoyed the aforementioned 4d SEQUELS. Thanks to Boatman, loonapick and others who have commented.
Here in America, I think spelling SAVANNA without the H is more common; Merriam-Webster lists the shorter spelling first.
Naturally I had to look up what a GSCE was; I don’t think that counts as cheating, personally. I had to stare at both BLEND and DRAG QUEEN for quite some time after putting them in to work out how they were constructed. I liked all the literary references scattered throughout the clues. Side note–is this the first Boatman without any boatmen?
Note that the clue for SCHNITZEL is also a semi-&lit, though I doubt anyone has ever served zebra schnitzel!
In 22a it seems to me not so much that an elector is a potential constituent as the reverse. Liked the clue, though, as well as other favorites already mentioned. Thanks, Boatman and loonapick.
Thanks to Boatman and loonapick. No great surprises here in that I agree a mixture of easy and fiendish clues. At one point I had almost all the top half filled in and nothing in the bottom half. Eventually I got a couple of breakthroughs and was left with 17a and 26a, neither of which I could see for the life of me. Eventually I guessed at Savanna but another DNF here because I guessed at slant for 26. Still I enjoy a challenge and I liked belted out and shout. Thanks again to Boatman and loonapick.
“The motorist was booked for speeding; the police threw the book at him.” Apologies if someone’s already done this.
I got a bit stuck on this one because I thought that 26A was ‘Plots’, as in Stir uP noveL sO iT endS in twist (5) It just seemed like too much of a co-incidence 🙂
Excellent alternative solution, NM – accurate enough to be highly tempting, to say the least, but missing enough of the necessary indicators to give you a growing feeling of disquiet! One for the next book, should I get round to it …
Boatman @16: “Endless salad, no egg: rubbish pasta dish” would do for 17ac if the word had not been nicked by someone else.
Thanks to Boatman and loonapick. I had the same problems as already noted, especially with the parsing of O-LEVEL and DRAG QUEEN.
Thank you Boatman and loonapick.
I, too, enjoyed the book theme. As regards the clue for SCHNITZEL, mrpenney @21 might be interested to know that my local supermarket here in France was selling, zebra, emu, crocodile and kangaroo meat last month as well as frogs legs …
Took me ages to see LEGEND and DRAG QUEEN. The rest were relatively straightforward, and they all make sense in retrospect…
Thanks to Boatman and loonapick
I thought this was fine (notwithstanding the booked/charged debate which I think passes muster given Andrew’s Columbo allusion)and quite enjoyed the inventiveness in the longer-winded clues.
Can only echo what others have said: we too were defeated on 26a, but found lots to enjoy in the rest. Without any seafarers, this didn’t feel like a genuine Boatman at all! Thanks to both Loonapick and Boatman.
Nodded off in the middle of this and had to be rescued by Mrs Job with a few solutions and explanations before I could finish. We both failed to parse DRAG QUEEN before coming on here, but then we ticked it. Quite a lot more unparsed as well. Like others, I found the puzzle a mixture of easy and fiendish, and I too thought the grid was unfriendly, with too few crossers – and they mostly vowels – in a lot of the lights. But I very much enjoyed LOSING, SEQUELS, SCHNITZEL and LAKE ERIE.
I hope this is a permissible digression: Mrs Job and I have just been on holiday and, correctly predicting that newsagents and Guardian on line would both be unavailable (all right, boasting, we were in Antarctica) we provided ourselves with Boatman’s admirable and chatty book ‘The First 50’, which gave us a daily challenge. Contributors here who have not come across it may like to know of its existence. As well as offering 50 crosswords, it also provides an interesting commentary on each, as well as including some nice quotes, from 15 squared and other sources. So special thanks to Boatman, and thanks to Loonapick and correspondents here for filling in the too many gaps in my parsing.
As everybody has said this was a real mixture of the really easy and the downright ‘orrible. O Level was FOI and I didn’t bother to parse it. I couldn’t parse DRAG QUEEN either and I’m still not sure I see it. I didn’t like either SAVANNA or BLEND. I thought the cluing for the latter was dreadful and it was my LOI.
I first came upon the chestnut LEG END on an old, late seventies album by the pub rocker Mickey Jupp. His band was called Legend and the album cover featured a red winkle picker boot. I think of that cover every time I see LEGEND in a crossword. The album’s pretty good too.
Thanks Boatman.
I actually was able to put DRAG QUEEN in based on solving the cross letters and guessing via context, but I think the clue is actually pretty weak. To get DRAG QUEEN by separating draw + er is more of a stretch than required for the hosiery around RuPaul’s hip padding. 🙂
Save for CLINK instead of BLEND, (as stir=clink), got the rest. COD 20ac.
Some of these were just painful (KARL MARX, SCHNITZEL), others a bit too obvious (OKRA, O-LEVEL). I liked ISABELLA and BELTED OUT. So wanted 8 to be RINGO. I missed BLEND and couldn’t parse DRAG QUEEN either.
Unusually low on the entertainment scale for a Boatman, IMHO.
Thanks anyway, Mr B, and to loonapick and posters for the “drawer” trick.
PA @ 34: that album came out in 1970, in fact. Then three years later Henry Cow relesed their debut album LEGEND with a knitted-paint sock on the front. That style was repeated on their next albums, albeit with different titles.
Thanks Simon S. You’re quite correct..Indeed it would be odd if a pre punk album came out post punk. I’d forgotten Henry Cow even though I’ve got a CD version of that first album.
Italy’s main gas supply network covers Austria
The recently blogged Cyclops 646 kicks off with LEGENDARY.
For us, this was a puzzle of two halves.
The top half was almost a write-in but the lower part of the crossword took significantly more time.
In the end, we spent some 20+ minutes [don’t know why] on 26ac. BLEND did come along but we couldn’t see how that would work. I think the thing here is the indicator ‘so it ends’ – it tells you more something like ‘in L’ than what Boatman intended. Like NM@25 we initially entered PLOTS which indeed not fully worked. Because of this clue a DNF today.
That said, this crossword being much easier than the average Boatman puzzle also provided the kind of ‘light touch’ that is not a feature of most of Boatman’s output. We thought it was most welcome!
What happens in 25ac (DRAG QUEEN) is a ‘device’ that many years ago was introduced as a novelty to Crosswordland by this very setter. So no complaints here, although, for me personally, er = queen is a bit impure because it should ultimately be ER (upper case). But the surface offers more than enough compensation for that.
And ‘boot’ = LEG END? I wasn’t born like that.
Many thanks to loonapick for the blog & to Boatman for keeping us off the street for an hour or so.
Alan’s abroad taking a gondoliers’s beginner course in Venice
Needed an explanation for 25 – consider excellent now I know. Particularly liked the cunning simplicity of DENSE. Overall an entertaining solve while it lasted. Thanks Boatman and Loonapick
This was difficult for me! I could not parse 13a, 4d, 26a, 25a.
My favourites were 3d. 16d, 19d.
Thanks Boatman and blogger.
For me, on occasion this puzzle crossed the generously wide line (as opposed to a traditional thin one) between admirably witty, if sometimes impenetrable cluing, to absurdly convoluted verbosity. But it would be dreadfully boring if we all liked exactly the same thing.
Another creatively constructed puzzle from Boatman, one of my favourite setters. I felt it was definitely at the easiest end of his spectrum so that there was little of the tussle I was hoping for.
I did enjoy SEQUELS and would confidently describe SCHNITZEL as a bona fide &lit with any arguments against being solely culinary!
Chadwick Ongara – Yes! Clink, for 26ac crossed my mind too! I was hoping for an alternative spelling as Klink of course. And plots…
thezed – a lovely alternative clue for 17ac’s crossers in response to Boatman@16. And no fewer than three from dansar, each excellent (and allowing for different endings too!). There is much talent on this site.
So, not quite so easy next time, please, Boatman. And many thanks for what was still a quality puzzle in my opinion.
And many thanks to loonapick.
William F P @47
I’m glad you enjoyed them, just one more then:
Get a flat, past a junction, by dip in the road
[Dansar – see what you’ve done with the definition (flat pasta – I ask you – and your ‘junction’ explains) but not sure whether such crypticism, just for definition, is really fair?! Sometimes we can try too hard….? But I did enjoy your earlier versions. x]
The DRAG QUEEN clue is unbelievable. Even if you buy the DRAW ER thing, that leaves you with “One has bras” as the definition,
Which is about as vague a definition as you’ll get. Completely unsolvable without working back from the checkers