An entertaining and enjoyable puzzle from Paul, with a few smiles along the way.
With my Grammar Police [see yesterday’s Vlad] helmet on, I winced immediately at 1ac but was completely won over when I got to 7dn, only to be confounded [again] by the dictionaries.
Many thanks to Paul.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Unbeliever me, suspicious fiend ending in hell (7)
INFIDEL
I [me?] + an anagram [suspicious] of FIEND + [hel]L
5 Tool had been picked out by journalist? (7)
HACKSAW
HACK [journalist] + SAW [picked out] – I’m not sure why ‘had been’
9 Reportedly burn gift (5)
FLAIR
Sounds like [reportedly] ‘flare ‘- burn
10 Business people, a number getting to grips with shattered dreams (9)
TRADESMEN
TEN [a number] round [getting to grips with] an anagram [shattered] of DREAMS
11, 28 To cover debts, pinch my wages from safe (3,5,2,3,4)
ROB PETER TO PAY PAUL
Cryptic definition, PETER being a safe – this fanciful derivation made me smile: several other suggestions are all ecclesiatical, see here
12 Pull something that’s nailed, did you say? (3)
TOW
Sounds like [did you say?] ‘toe’ [something that’s ‘nailed’]
14 Bound to get hard in prison, this employed with force! (12)
SLEDGEHAMMER
EDGE [bound, in the sense of boundary] + H [hard] in SLAMMER [prison]
18 Revealed where stud may be ditched unceremoniously (3,2,4,3)
OUT ON ONE’S EAR
OUT [revealed] ON ONE’S EAR [where stud may be]
21 Victoria’s Englishman, hair combed back (3)
POM
A reversal [combed back] of MOP [hair] – a neat definition
22 Result of sin clear when screwed (5,5)
FINAL SCORE
An anagram [when screwed] of OF SIN CLEAR
25 Rump of venison possibly festers (9)
STAGNATES
NATES [rump] of STAG, so venison, possibly
26 Transport network for island under discussion (5)
ROADS
Sounds like [under discussion] Rhodes, the Greek island – Thomas Telford, the great Scottish civil engineer, was dubbed ‘The Colossus of Roads’ by his friend, the poet Robert Southey [he built bridges, too]
27 Looking at regular intake, conclusions of the provost scheduled, it’s suggested? (7)
DIETARY
I was despairing of parsing this until the very last minute: it’s the last letters [conclusions] of thE provosT in DIARY [suggesting it’s scheduled]
Down
1 Tell man from Belfast to stand? (6)
INFORM
A reversal [to stand] of MR [man] OF [from] NI [Northern Ireland – so Belfast, possibly, hence the question mark]
2 Loose skin punctured by bees, we hear? (6)
FLABBY
BB [bees, we hear] in FLAY [skin]
3 Abroad, I start to eat angel cakes for tea (10)
DARJEELING
DARLING [angel] round [cakes – as in caked {covered} with mud] JE [‘I’ in French – abroad] + E[at] – my favourite clue, I think
4 Drink less bubbly, taking lips away (5)
LATTE
[f]LATTE[r] [less bubbly] minus outside letters [lips] – I shall not be disappointed if no one objects to the definition š
5 Cold about right? (9)
HEARTLESS
HEA[r]TLESS [cold]
7 Previous excerpt from poem, item ostensibly uplifting (8)
SOMETIME
Clever hidden reversal in poEM ITEM OStensibly: so often wrongly [as I thought] used for ‘some time’, as in, ‘I’ll see you some time next week’ – but I’ve just seen that all my three dictionaries give it as ‘at an unspecified time’ or similar [oh dear]
8 Caribbean islands where snake gets protection (8)
WINDWARD
A simple charade of WIND [snake] + WARD [protection]
13 Fifty shells initially loading rocket launchers, hope that makes you breathe easier (5,5)
NASAL SPRAY
L [fifty] + S[hells] in [loading] NASA [rocket launchers] PRAY [hope]
15 I’d sent off essay, painful work? (9)
DENTISTRY
An anagram [off] of I’D SENT + TRY [essay]
16 Third of colony, a thousand sat together (8)
COMPOSED
CO[lony] + M [a thousand] + POSED [sat]
17 Gaze round capitals of Egypt and Morocco with glasses? (8)
STEMWARE
STARE [gaze] round E[gypt] M[orocco] W [with]
19, 6 Restraint maintained by pro sent up in novel (5,1,4)
ROMAN Ć CLEF
MANACLE [restraint] in a reversal [sent up] of FOR [pro]
20 Ship in a bottle, perhaps (6)
VESSEL
Double definition
23 Every other part of tale is so apt for storyteller (5)
AESOP
Alternate letters of [t]A[l]E [i]S [s]O [a]P[t]
24 Girl going up and down (4)
ANNA
A palindrome
Thanks Paul and Eileen
I enjoyed this. Favourites were INFORM, STAGNATES and ROMAN A CLEF (which took some time to parse!). DARJEELING went in unparsed from definition and crossers.
The SW took longest. I was initially a bit irritated with 24d, as 5 seconds thought turned up two possibilities – ANNA and ELLE – so I couldn’t enter anything without crossers. After I finished, I thought “If I can think of two 4-letter palindromes for girls’ names in 5 seconds, I bet there are more”. A quick Google search managed only to turn up ANNA…
I was pleased with myself for being able to parse all of my answers today.
My favourites were DARJEELING, INFORM, HEARTLESS, ROMAN A CLEF.
New for me was PETER = safe or trunk.
Thanks Eileen and Pul.
Thank you Eileen – it isn’t much fun being a member of the grammar police is it?Ā Ā One of those ‘tough jobs but someone’s got to do it’ things – just don’t get me started on apostrophes and the wrong use ofĀ ‘myself’
I enjoyed the crossword – not as tricky as many a Paul offering apart from a couple in the SW corner that made me pause and mutter
Thanks also to Paul
Eileen, in 16 you haven’t made it clear that CO is a third of the six-letter word “colony”. I spent some time trying to find a word starteing with L. (I thought this definition was a bit loose.)
3d somewhat contrived and couldn’t parse 27a either.
Thanks Eileen
Thanks Paul and Eileen.
I liked this a lot. I had no problem with the I/me issue in 1a – while the pronouns differ, they both mean “Paul” in this context. My only niggle is with 11,28: ROB (“pinch”) and PETER (“safe”) are indicated in the wordplay, but PAY seems to be indicated twice (“pay” and “cover debts”) and PAUL could be any 4-letter name if one didn’t already know the expression.
DARJEELING, OUT ON ONES EAR and INFORM were among my favourites, as was COMPOSED; muffin@4 – “together” can be used informally to mean “well-organised” or “level-headed” – and it seems to me COMPOSED means pretty much exactly the same .
Sorry, “pay” should read “wages” in my previous post.
beaulieu @6
Thanks – I hadn’t thought of that meaning – for either word, in fact!
I managed to parse 27a DIETARY, but I thought it didn’t rank as one of the best clues ever. Does the surface make any sense? DIARY from ” scheduled, itās suggested” is very vague and ungrammatical, as is DIETARY = “Looking at regular intake” as definition.
Otherwise I found this quite enjoyable, especially 11, 28, and a little easier for Paul than of late – I wonder if tomorrow’s MASKARADE will be?
Thanks Paul and Eileen
David Ellison @9 – I’ve no qualms about ‘It’s in [the] diary’ to mean ‘scheduled’ but I rather agree about the definition [‘looking at’ for {eg} ‘concerning’] – and I thought the choice of ‘provost’ was rather odd!
I wasnt keen on 1d because it was obvious what the answer was with FROM in the clue and Northern Ireland so I thought I’d let you do the hard work, Eileen. A bit fiddly for me.
But I liked other things like ROMAN A CLEF and ROB PETER TO PAY PAUL-and DARJEELING.
Thanks all.
I enjoyed most of this a lot. I am still not sure how much I enjoyed teasing out exactly how darjeeling worked, but I got there in the end. Roman a clef was clever with so much of it hiding one word. Indeed, this was quite a topsy turvy crossword with some long answers having short clues, and short ones long clues. I can’t remember the last time I hated quite so many clues until I understood them and then loved them. “mop”, “robbing Peter” (thanks Eileen for the safe meaning – new to me and until then I thought it very vague), “composed” (again once I saw the correct meaning) and quite a few others.
On the other hand, “dietary” was IMO dreadful. The surface makes no sense, the cluing is vague at best as others have commented, and it just seems over-complex for no particularly nice outcome. A pity as for me it mars such an otherwise clever crossword that really had me thinking at least twice about everything.
Thanks Paul – I feel I’ve been on my toes for a good while, and Eileen the enlightener.
Me@6 – having thought a bit more I now understand the parsing of ROB PETER… My brain is getting old I think!
David @ 9
I understood DIETARY as ET in (the) DIARY = scheduled (or suggesting itās scheduled)
Got going late today but, like others, I thought it was a bit easier than Paul puzzles normally are.Ā In fact, some of the clues were really quite easy, FINAL SCORE, AESOP …
Didn’t we have a clue the other day, in which we had to hear the name of the letter.Ā (I mean, like B in FLABBY).Ā Is this now a standard trick?
But a lot to like.Ā Good clueing and some neat surfaces.Ā Liked FLABBY, TOW, ROMAN Ć CLEF.
Thanks to Paul and Eileen.
Second Paul in a row today as I only this morning got around to printing out Saturday’s. Today’s was pretty cruisy. I too wondered about ‘had been’ in 5ac, looking for a phrase like ‘was [something]’ to suit; shrug. My Collins gives edge for bound, ok, but with rider ‘usu pl’, ie bounds; I only know bound, noun sing., in maths, as in upper and lower bound. I think I’m missing something in pom…Vic Regina, Spice Girl, or..? The stag’s nates were a hoot, and I had no trouble with 27’s wordplay, are dietary and the long def interchangeable? Groaned and grinned at the upstanding Mr of NI, liked the double duty of cold in heatless about right, but ward as protection was unfamiliar (I surrender him unto your ward, m’liege…?). Altogether a nice Thurs, with just enough chew. Ta Eileen and Paul.
Grantinfreo@16 – if you are in Victoria you are in Australia and might, therefore, refer to a gentleman as a POM.
Grant@16
I agree with Larry@17 – that is how I parsed it, too.
Re POM: sorry, I didn’t think I needed to explain it, especially to Australians! [I thought grantinfreo @16 was having me on!]
Anna @15: did you mean the EXCEL yesterday?
Thanks Larry and michelle, nothing obscure then, just the good ole Oz expression Pom.
My grammar police helmet winced at breathe easier rather than more easily but, as no one else has mentioned it, It must be just one of my misinformed foibles.
This was challenging but fun, although my daughter completed it much more quickly (not quicker) than I did. Is it just me, JinA and Eileen?
Thanks, Paul and Eileen.
To Hedgehog @20
No.Ā I haven’t been able to look at many crosswords this week.Ā I can’t remember where I saw the clue I am thinking of, but I’ll get back to you if I find it …
Love your name, btw.Ā There’s a Siilitie (‘Hedgehog Street’) metro station in Helsinki.
Not quite, Hedgehog: see crypticsue @3 – and I know there are others. š
Anna; I love the idea of Hedgehog Street as a real street.not just a passageway across gardens for hedgehogs.
Anna
Did you like ANNA, though?
Hi muffin @26
Oh yes!Ā Makes a change (no pun intended) from being an Indian coin.
All very straightforward by Paul’s recent standards, and quite enjoyable. STEMWARE was last in.
Thanks to Paul and Eileen
Thanks to Paul and Eileen. Again I think I found this tougher than most people see to have done. In the end managed to solve it all, but needed to come here to clarify some parsing. Like others I found the SW particularly difficult, but last one was Roman a clef. New to me and only worked out from the wording of the clue. Favourites for me were rob Peter to pay Paul, stemware and Darjeeling. Thanks again to Paul and Eileen.
Thanks Eileen & Paul. I really enjoyed this, especially ROB PETER TO PAY PAUL, DIETARY & HEARTLESS/HEATLESS. Annoyingly, I couldn’t see why it was DARJEELING, so thanks, Eileen, for the explanation.
In 5ac āhad been picked outā meaning āsawā as opposed to just āpicked outā which could be āseenā? Maybe?
A very satisfying offering from Paul and an excellent blog from Eileen
I started out with 5d thinking that āhad beenā could be WAS and spent more than a few minutes to unsuccessfully convince myself that āpicked outā signalled a reversal
In 7d,Ā āpreviousā could mean mean jail time perhaps.
Thanks Paul and Eileen
grantinfreo @16 ward as protection is a great example of English having two very similar words for the same thing based on the difference between standard French and Norman French preferences for starting words with a G or a W (for example in the names Guillame and William). So we ended up with warranties and guarantees, and wardrobes and garde-robes, and as in this case – wards and guards.
Thoroughly enjoyed this one myself. Darjeeling was a cracker, as was Rob Peter…
Took sometime to mean erstwhile, ie previous; has this been obvious all along (it’s late here!)?
Lovely scholarly etymology of ward, MarkN, thanks for that.
DNF as I couldn’t get ROMAN A CLEF (and hadn’t heard of it) but at least a quick look-up in wiki afterwards introduced me to the ‘small penis rule’, so lots of fun things to learn all round. Needed the blog for the tea parsing (d’oh! Obvious when you see it!). Challenging overall (for me) but very enjoyable. COTD was NASAL SPRAY.
Thanks to Paul and Eileen.
Enjoyable puzzle that I got very little of last night
As a card-carrying pedant I have to thank you, Eileen, for pointing out the difference between SOMETIME and some time.
I can’t decide whether I think 5d HEARTLESS is shifty or nifty.Ā Isn’t there some double-dutying going on?Ā If so, is it okay?
beaulieu @6 on 11a “To cover debts” is the definition, and “my wages’ is part of the worldplay.Ā There are lots of four-letter names, but only one of them refers to “my” — the setter Paul’s.
Hi Valentine @37 – thanks for that but, as I said, I discovered that, according to the ‘authorities’, there isn’t any difference!
I wondered about HEARTLESS, too. I almost added ‘I don’t quite know how to define this’, then decided against it and waited for someone to comment.
Eileen @10 and michelle @14. Thanks both, I see now, and that improves the clue somewhat, but still don’t like the definitionĀ of surface
or surface
Nothing to add really. Rather more straightforward than Paul has been lately and none the worse for that. Liked OUT ON ONES EAR.
Thanks Paul.
Thanks Eileen – when I got SOMETIME I immediately thought of this song.Ā I’m perfectly happy with as a single-word adjective. It’s similar to the (often-ignored) distinction in “an everyday occurrence” as opposed to “I solve crosswords every day”.
On 4d – I don’t think anyone could object to LATTE defined asĀ drink, whatever their opinion of it as meaning a kind of coffee…
Andrew @42 – I thought I made it clear that I was quite happy with SOMETIME as a single-word adjective [as it’s defined in the puzzle]. My concern is with it being used as an adverbial phrase – which, apparently, is ‘correct’. Everyday / every day is another concern of mine, too. [Thank you for the song. š ]
Re 4dn: but they often do!
Pretty standard Paul offering.
In 5a, I think HACK SAW is synonymous with the whole phrase āhad been picked out by journalistā. E.g Hack saw elephant = Elephant had been picked out by journalist.
The VESSEL dd was a bit weak. Liked DARJEELING, DENTISTRY and STAGNATES. I agree HEARTLESS needs double duty from ācoldā. Still liked it.
All good fun. Thanks, Eileen and Paul
Thanks Eileen and Paul. Nothing much to add here as it’s all been said already. However I have to say that I rather dislike answers like OUT ON ONES EAR because it’s impossible to know whether to put ONES or YOUR without the appropriate crossers. I’ve seen both in crosswords before now.
Came to this late and a dnf as Iād never heard of ROMAN A CLEF and would never have come up with MANACLE as a synonym for RESTRAINT or FOR for PRO without knowing the phrase. Did anyone who didnāt know the phrase work it out from the wordplay? Even tougher _O_A_ as the unhelpful crossers. Always good to have an interesting TILT so thanks to Paul for that and the rest of the puzzle and to Eileen for the blog.
@hedgehog @25
As it’s coming up to time to plant out the dahlias, I can’t wait for someone to clue slug pubs…
“SOMETIME” as in sometime Professor of Roman Law in an obituary…Thanks to the blogger and my favorite setter!
Incidentally, the Caribbean islands are called the WINDWARDS
Actually, jeff, they’re called the “Windward Islands“.
Someone earlier said that “sometime” is equivalent to “erstwhile”. That’s exactly how I read it.
Eileen and Andrew — i share your position on everyday/every day, and extend it to backseat and backyard.Ā A backseat driver sits in the back seat.
Good puzzle from Paul.
Re the sniffiness about “easier” as an adverb.
OED has
easy
…
B. adv. In an easy manner.
Thesaurus Ā»
Categories Ā»
1. Without difficulty. Chiefly in comparative or superlative; now colloquial or vulgar.
1400 in Pol. Rel. & L. Poems (1866) 239 For esye he comun al esye ho ssuln wende.
1564 Briefe Exam. ***b This thyng is easyer..saide of you, then proued.
1590 Spenser Faerie Queene i. viii. sig. G6 Three miles it might be easy heard.
1609 Shakespeare Sonnets cix. sig. G3v As easie might I from my selfe depart.
a1653 R. Filmer Patriarcha (1680) iii. Ā§12 The voice of a multitude is easier heard.
a1774 A. Tucker Light of Nature Pursued (1777) III. ii. 345 The good man can easiest persuade himself that God is good.
1823 Byron Don Juan: Canto XIV lxxxv. 157 A wavering spirit may be easier wreck’d.
1871 S. Smiles Character v. 134 All the easier led away by bad example.
Of course there are several on here who will still claim this is incorrect. š
Thank you for the reminder, Alex. The comment re ‘easy’ came just as I was about to go out and I forgot to return to it when I came back this afternoon.
I didn’t think twice about it as I solved the clue, or I would have commented: I would naturally say, ‘I’ll sleep easy / easier’Ā – ‘easily’, in this context, doesn’t sound right. All my dictionaries give ‘easy’ as an adverb as well as an adjective [‘now mostly colloquial’ SOED]. Collins gives as examples ‘go easy’,’ take it easy’, ‘easy does it’ and the military ‘stand easy’.
To be fair, there was only one comment, Hedgehog @22, which I wouldn’t call at all ‘sniffy’, and no one has responded to it, so it seems that we’re generally happy.
Eileen would probably remain in constant cringe mode from my writing. I can never remember whether it’s every day, some time, etc. or their one word counterparts.Ā I do often feel, though, that we tend to stray too far from our Germanic roots and separate too many words that are perfectly fine in their compound forms. I think that separation is due mainly to word processor spellchecks with vocabularies that are too strict or are incomplete.
I often complain to my colleagues that, in hydraulic engineering, a “wetwell” and a “wet well” are two entirely different things and that, regardless of what MS Word tells them, they should use the former unless they are planning to fetch a pail of water.
Bluedot @54 — the distinction is pretty easy.Ā One word if it’s an adjective (everyday clothes, backseat driver) and two words if it isn’t.Ā (I sing every day in the back seat.)
Eileen — adjectives have a habit of sometimes acting like adverbs.Ā “And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow…”
The first by Paul that I have completed in a long time. Ā I could not parse DARJEELING, DIETARY, or ROMAN A CLEF but I got them via definitions and that’s OK by me š
Though solved last week, only now reading blog – which I tend to do for completeness even when not drawn to comment. Visiting 225 late has the advantage of meaning that quibbles have been ironed out, as here. I had no problems or quibbles with this typically enjoyable offering from Paul, and ticked ROB PETER TO PAY PAUL, DIETARY, HEARTLESS and VESSEL.
But I did learn something from Eileen’s blog. I had never known that Robert Southey was also a bridge builder, I’m ashamed to say, but it adds weight to his well-known quotation about Telford. I must research him further!
So many thanks to Eileen for that nugget and to Paul for (yet another) good puzzle.
Yes, William FP @57 – I did spot the ambiguity after I wrote my comment. I can’t think of a witty riposte.