The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27829.
Mid-solve, my description of this puzzle was” workmanlike”, but as I progressed, I warmed to it considerably.
| Across | ||
| 1 | PITHILY | Without wasting words, show sympathy, capturing child’s heart (7) |
| An envellope (‘capturing’) of HIL (‘cHILd’s heart’) in PITY (‘show sympathy’). | ||
| 5 | EXPOSED | Revealed orgy of dope and sex (7) |
| An anagram (‘orgy’) of ‘dope’ plus ‘sex’ | ||
| 9 | TRAMP | Backing role, embracing male — one of slender means (5) |
| An envelope (’embracing’) of M (‘male’) in TRAP, a reversal (‘backing’) of PART (‘role’). | ||
| 10 | HAPPINESS | Peculiar shapes securing fastener produce contentment (9) |
| An envelope (‘securing’) of PIN (‘fastener’) in HAPESS, an anagram (‘peculiar’) of ‘shapes’. | ||
| 11 | GRASS COURT | Squeal ‘Woo!’ in type of 20 (5,5) |
| A charade of GRASS (‘squeal’) plus COURT (‘woo’). | ||
| 12 | BLUR | More despondent, dropping drug in haze (4) |
| A subtraction: BLU[e]R (‘more despondent’) minus E (‘dropping drug’). | ||
| 14 | HUMAN RIGHTS | Stink horribly, trashing universal values (5,6) |
| A charade of HUM (‘stink’) plus ANRIGHTS, an anagram (‘horribly’) of ‘trashing’. | ||
| 18 | IRIS MURDOCH | Philosopher of language chewing over fish with booze (4,7) |
| An envelope (‘chewing’) of MURDOC, a reversal (‘over’) of COD (‘fish’) plus RUM (‘booze’) in IRISH (‘language’). | ||
| 21 | AXLE | 10 in something to buy in 19 bar (4) |
| An envelope (‘in’) of X (‘Roman numeral ’10’) in ALE (‘something to buy in 19’, the answer to 19D being TAVERN). | ||
| 22 | DILAPIDATE | Speak at length about a short swim around and leave to decay (10) |
| An envelope (‘about’) of PIDA, a reversal (‘around’) of A DIP (‘a short swim’) in DILATE (‘speak at length’). | ||
| 25 | TANGERINE | Fruit of foul temper skewered? On the contrary (9) |
| An envelope of ANGER (‘foul temper’) in TINE, If ANGER were ‘skewered’ it would have a TINE in it; here ‘on the contrary’. | ||
| 26 | GREEN | Energy endlessly recycled would be so (5) |
| An anagram (‘recycled’) of ‘energ[y]’ minus its last letter (‘endlessly’), with an extended definition. | ||
| 27 | CARVERY | Bear eating gutted veggie in non-veggie establishment (7) |
| An envelope (‘eating’) of VE (‘gutted VeggiE‘) in CARRY (‘bear’). | ||
| 28 | TYRANTS | Totally heartless diatribes from dictators (7) |
| A charade of TY (‘TotallY heartless’) plus RANTS (‘diatribes’). | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | POTAGE | Broth, say, over? Over (6) |
| A reversal (‘over’ – the second one) of EG (‘say’) plus ATOP (‘over’). | ||
| 2 | TEABAG | Drink producer‘s sheep receiving a degree (6) |
| An envelope (‘receiving’) of A BA (‘a degree’) in TEG (‘sheep’ in its second year). | ||
| 3 | IMPOSTHUME | Setter’s after Scottish thinker’s abscess (10) |
| A charade of I’M (‘setter’s’) plus POST (‘after’) plus HUME (David, ‘Scottish thinker’). An improbable word, clearly clued. | ||
| 4 | YAHOO | Cry of delight from vulgar sort (5) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 5 | ESPERANTO | Fourth letter in Oscar Peterson’s made-up language (9) |
| An anagram (‘made-up’) of A (‘fourth letter in OscAr’) plus ‘Peterson’. ‘Made-up’ would apply to the definition, but we would not want a double duty, would we? | ||
| 6 | PAIN | Annoyance caused by French bread (4) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 7 | STEALTHY | Being furtive, make off with your old … (8) |
| A charade of STEAL (‘make off with’) plus THY (‘your old’). The ellipses just serve … | ||
| 8 | DISTRESS | … 6, first in costume (8) |
| … to allow the previous clue to end in ‘your old’. An envelope (‘in’) of IST (‘first’ with the common substitution of I for 1) in DRESS (‘costume’). | ||
| 13 | FISH FINGER | Seek information with which to identify malefactor’s food item (4,6) |
| A charade of FISH (‘seek information’) plus FINGER (‘identify malefactor’) | ||
| 15 | MORBIDITY | Sickliness results in dim boy getting no points in resit (9) |
| An anagram (‘results in’?) of ‘dim boy’ plus ‘r[es]it’ minus ES (‘no points’ of the compass). | ||
| 16 | DIDACTIC | Performed deed in college, initially providing instruction (8) |
| A charade of DID ACT (‘performed deed’) plus IC (‘In College, initially’). | ||
| 17 | MILLINER | Popular novelist embraces headdress-maker (8) |
| An envelope (’embraces’, with a convoluted word order) of IN (‘popular’) in MILLER (Henry, ‘novelist’) | ||
| 19 | TAVERN | Pub where brown cleric gets round in (6) |
| An envelope (‘in’) of VER, a reversal (‘gets round’) of REV (‘cleric’) in TAN (‘brown’). | ||
| 20 | TENNIS | Keyboard instrument — no piano — raised in sport (6) |
| A reversal (‘raised’ in a down light) of S[p]INNET (‘keyboard instrument’) minus the P (‘no piano’). I would spell the instrument with one N, but Chambers and the OED give the alternative here. | ||
| 23 | ADEPT | Expert has a profundity that’s bottomless (5) |
| A charade of ‘a’ plus DEPT[h] (‘profundity’) minus its last letter (‘that’s bottomless’). | ||
| 24 | MEME | Sheds uninherited characteristic? (4) |
| ME ME (‘Sheds’, two of them). | ||
This was my first complete solve of a Friday cryptic, so at least to me a bit easier than most. Didn’t know IMPOSTHUME, IRIS MURDOCH, or teg = sheep, but the cluing was clear enough to get me there. No quibbles about anything with the possible exception of 25a, where I’m only half convinced that ‘skewered’ isn’t doing double duty. As mentioned in the blog, ‘made-up’ in 5d need not be seen as doing double duty, but it was still helpful in pointing to the answer. Thanks to Shed and PeterO.
I too couldn’t see a real indicator for morbidity, and a hmmm next to tangerine. Hadn’t ever come across dilapidate as transitive, but there it was in the SOED. The clue parts for the finger bit of 13d looked sort of quaint, ‘with which to identify’ being like ‘that with which one identifies’; I’m probably overfussing it. So, for a Shed, who I sometimes find pretty devious, this rattled in pretty smoothly; until I got to 2d last and went blank. Didn’t remember teg, but it should at worst been a bung in and look up, so he got me in the end, dammit! Thanks for the fun Shed, and thanks PeterO.
I really liked this one, just the right level of challenge I thought. Amongst my earliest entries were HAPPINESS and TAVERN, and I was hoping these might be the start of what would be a fun theme, but alas, no.
The only question I had was re: MEME. I loved the Sheds part of the clue, and I know that memes are likened to genes but they (memes) aren’t characteristics, and a question-mark doesn’t help. So I don’t think it quite works, unfortunately. Maybe behaviour?
Thanks Shed and PeterO.
When I started this puzzle, I thought it was going to be a Quiptic, but then I slowed down and I failed to solve 24d. I never would have gussed it was MEME – I only know that word as the thing one finds on the internet (“an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations.”)
My favourites were AXLE & TEABAG (loi). New for me were IMPOSTHUME, and ‘teg’ = sheep in its second year.
Thanks Shed and Peter.
Thanks Shed and PeterO
Not hard (though I didn’t parse IRIS MURDOCH), but enjoyable. Favourites were MEME (I think the definition is spot-on, Dr WhatsOn) and IMPOSTHUME – my favourite sort of clue, where the wordplay leads to a correct solution that I’d never heard of! (btw I checked it on Google, and IMPOSTUME is by far the commoner spelling).
Thanks both
Anyone else try to to fit “tup” into 2d? (E.g. teacup)
That went in rather quickly for a Friday – one of those cases of being on the right wavelength. Alas that meant few examples of being wonderfully sent all round the houses before seeing the obvious. “Axle” was rather good, I thought, but too many clues here were “bung in then parse with a bit of dubious construction” – “tangerine”, “esperanto” and “morbidity” all requiring some post-hoc justification which I did not feel was quite right.
“imposthume” was new to me but emminently gettable with the odd crosser, and I’d forgotten “teg” but as LOI it has to be teabag and I did not feel bad looking up “teg” to confirm its meaning.
Another one of those crosswords where a bit of editing of the clues would have made it a very satisfying solve but a few niggles distracted me from things like the simplicity of “grass court” or the surface of “exposed”, along with numerous other elegant and clear clues.
Thank you Shed – the more I look back the more I think there is much to like in this puzzle, and thanks PeterO for the elucidation.
Enjoyed this very much. We used to be scared of Shed in our early days of taking a week to complete the prize, so hope completing it this morning is because we have got better with retirement rather than that this was easy for Shed!
As others have said, the obscure words were gettable from the parts which is always satisfying. It is also pleasing when words you haven’t thought about for years emerge from somewhere – MEME and ESPERANTO.
Thanks, Shed and PeterO
Always good to see Shed. This was fairly straightforward by this week’s exacting standards but none the worse for that. IRIS MURDOCH used to appear more often in Araucaria’s day…
Thanks to Shed and PeterO
Shirl @6
TUP did cross my mind first, but, with all the crossers in, it was difficult to see where the U would go!
Like hedgehog, I used to dread shed but enjoyed this one which had so many excellent clues.
I had trouble parsing the ‘on the contrary’ bit of TANGERINE, thinking that if ANGER were ‘skewered’, it would have a TINE sticking out from either end, but I suppose it can be interpreted in the opposite way.
TEG was new – I think it’s the same as a ‘hogget’. IMPOSTHUME is a great word, even if it is described as ‘archaic’. It’s much more interesting than plain old ‘abscess’ and deserves to be resurrected.
Thanks to Shed and PeterO.
I agree with PeterO’s analysis.
I really don’t think that ‘results in’ can be said to be an anagrind though.
I didn’t know IMPOSTHUME and perhaps an ‘old’ for the archaic usage could have been warranted.
As beery hiker said @9, it’s always good to see Shed back.
Enjoyable puzzle, as usual – many thanks to both.
Thoughtlessly entered STEALING at 7d instead of STEALTHY, which delayed me for a while. I hesitated over the aforementioned 22a DILAPIDATE. I couldn’t fully parse 25a TANGERINE or 24d MEME: I guessed the latter. Didn’t know 3d IMPOSTHUME but do now and wonder if I shall ever be able to use it. It was quite gettable from the wordplay.
I ticked 5a EXPOSED, 11a GRASS COURT, 18a IRIS MURDOCH (though I would have called her a novelist rather than a philosopher, but I guess she did write a lot about the human condition), and was also with michelle@4 in liking 2d TEABAG.
Thanks to Shed for the fun and to PeterO for a good blog.
Thanks all – great puzzle
Shirl@6 – Yup
Shirl@6:me too for a while. Amazing how many terms there are for specific age/gender of sheep when I confirmed Teg.
11 and 24 my favourites today.
Thanks PeterO for the blog and to Shed for the neat puzzle.
Thanks to Shed and PeterO. I’m another who had trouble with teg and with IRIS MURDOCK as philosopher.
Never heard of IMPOSTHUME but pretty easy to get. TEABAG was a bung so I didn’t bother to look up the TEG bit. Overall I thought this was a pleasant solve but by no means easy.
Always nice to see you Shed.
Sometime ago I wished political oblivion on Theresa May. The curse of Aspinwall takes its time but gets there in the end!
Coming late to the site today, I thought someone would already have quoted Shakespere for 3 down. Hamlet’s reflection on preparations by Fortinbras to fight for ‘ little patch of ground’. Wonderful metaphor.
Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw:
This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies.
This was a Goldilocks puzzle–not too easy, not too hard; just right. IMPOSTHUME was a new word for me (as it seems to be for just about everyone here), but the rule “clue obscure words plainly” was obeyed, so there was no complaint from me. I’m a fan of interesting surfaces, so EXPOSED was a favorite, along with IRIS MURDOCH (though like others, I think of her as a novelist, not a philosopher).
@20, sorry, I left out ‘a’ twice: in Shakespeare (but then he did get spelled in various ways) and also in ‘a little patch of ground’.
I think (?) this is only the fourth puzzle by Shed since the start of 2018. By then he was already getting less hard than he used to be. I hope we’ll be seeing him more often. Thanks to him and to PeterO.
Much too like and no niggles noticed by me. Despite it being clearly clued I still ended up using word search to get IMPOSTHUME as I was stuck on setter being the ME at the end, although MrsW had come up with HUME the philosopher by then. Thanks to quenbarrow for the excellent Shakespeare reference, and to Shed for the puzzle and PeterO for the blog.
Thanks all.
Iris Murdoch taught philosophy at Oxford University and wrote several books on the subject so I think she has a better right to be called a ‘philosopher’ than a lot of people, almost all of them male, who routinely get referred to as such. She’s better-known as a novelist, sure, but you could say the same of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus.
thezed@7: when people accuse me of ‘cheating ‘ for using a dictionary when I’m solving a puzzle, I say something along the lines of ‘I’m not cheating, just testing a hypothesis’.
Shed @24 re hypothesis testing (which raised a smile) – it’s all very well, but it depends on how many previous hypotheses you test before it becomes cheating! I suspect the number is related to the square root of the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin. Thanks for the reminder re Murdoch’s philosophy credentials as well as the puzzle.
Another satisfying puzzle to follow others this week. There were fewer unknowns today, and they caused no trouble: ‘teg’ in TEABAG, IMPOSTHUME and ‘spinnet’ in TENNIS. I liked IMPOSTHUME because it could be built up and then looked up.
Thanks to Shed and PeterO.
I’m not afraid to admit I thought this was hard. But we did get there.
Tricky but enjoyable: TEG and IMPOSTHUME came from hypothesis, but I always enjoy the process of generating a plausible-sounding word to fit the clue. I might be one of the few who recognised Iris Murdoch fairly quickly – my mother was one of her students. Thanks to Shed and PeterO.
For 22a dilapidate, I thought the short swim was 1 lap, then invented a new word didate to cover it.
Thanks to PeterO and Shed
Shed@24
I generally hypothesize that they should **** off.
Shirl@6 No, but I did wonder how to squeezi in jogger for a short while.
Me@above: jogger = hogget (sic, predictive text!) squeezi, of course = squeeze (fingers!)
quenbarrow@somenumberIcan’tbebothered tocount: That is indeed a fantastic metaphor from Hamlet. (I played the Dane once many, many moons ago, but I’m guessing that might have been one of the lines we cut.)
At this end of the blog one can waffle on for ages safe in the knowledge that one is only waffling on for oneself. (I enjoyed the puzzle, by the way, and I enjoyed a lot of “testing the hypotheses”. Thanks to all concerned.)
I’m still here Gert Bycee@various. I liked your posts, especially learning about your acting career. I once played (very badly) Tweeny in “The Admirable Crichton”, an inglorious memory.
Shed@24, if you see this. I appreciated both your argument regarding the clue for Dame Iris, as well as your defence of dictionary useage.
Did nobody else bung in NOAM CHOMSKY at 18a then puzzle over the cryptic part? Mind you, I couldn’t parse IRIS MURDOCH either.
Thanks to setter and blogger.
Had to look up the answer for imposthume. In a 63 year medical career starting as a student I never knew a boil could be called that! What a missed opportunity all that time! Thanks all for the fun of crosswords.
Imagine my horror at having to put in Teabag. I biffed Teacup! But it had to be Grass,so……
DNK Imposthume, guess my Bard isn’t so good! Not sure about Dilate meaning to speak at length, although it had to be right. LOI And COD Meme. Thanks to all.
Paul t-o-o @ 36
I didn’t bung it in, but I certainly considered it. Couldn’t find any way to parse it, though.