An enjoyable puzzle from Knut, with a mini-theme; a few slightly obscure references but they’re all clearly clued.
It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to work out what the theme is here: the relevant entries are highlighted below as “a study in scarlet”. I can’t help wondering whether Knut came up with 2/21 and then built the rest of the puzzle around it. Apart from the theme, I liked the very neat surface of 15d.
Thanks to Knut for testing our powers of reasoning and deduction: I think I’ve managed to eliminate the impossible so that what remains is the truth.
Definitions are underlined; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.
| Across | ||
| 1 | ABSEILS | Sailor reportedly does what he does: descends with a rope (7) |
| AB (able seaman = sailor) + homophone (reportedly) of SAILS (does what he does). | ||
| 5 | HUDSON | Rock in river (6) |
| Double definition: the actor Rock Hudson or the Hudson River in New York. Mrs Hudson was Sherlock Holmes’s landlady. | ||
| 9 | SKATES | Small shrew, beginning to shiver, moves across the ice (6) |
| S (small) + KATE (title character in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew) + beginning letter of S[hiver]. | ||
| 10 | HALLOWED | Venerated husband given the thumbs-up (8) |
| H + ALLOWED (thumbs-up = approval). | ||
| 11 | BRIE | Larson taking Uber rides regularly (4) |
| Alternate letters (regularly) of [u]B [e]R [r]I[d]E[s]. The actress (or actor, if you prefer) Brie Larson; it’s short for Brianne. | ||
| 12 | ROSIE | She suggests tea…or perhaps cider (5) |
| Rosie Lee = Cockney rhyming slang for tea; or a reference to Laurie Lee’s book Cider with Rosie. | ||
| 13 | FLEW | Illness reportedly went quickly (4) |
| Homophone (reportedly) of FLU = illness. Flew as in “the time just flew by”. | ||
| 14 | INFRA DIG | Rag I find appalling; below the salt (5,3) |
| Anagram (appalling) of RAG I FIND. The definition is a little loose, though I see what Knut means: “below the salt” refers to low-status people (sitting at the less privileged end of the table), whereas “infra dig” refers to a low-status activity that one would feel undignified in doing. | ||
| 16 | GLOBE | Ball: good place for piercing? (5) |
| G (good) + LOBE (earlobe, which may be pierced). | ||
| 19/24 | PLAINTIFFS | Ex-UEFA bigwig: “time to move on, for ****’s sake; we’ll see you in court!” (10) |
| Michel PLATINI (former president of UEFA), with the T (time) moved on a couple of places to make PLAINTI, then FFS (abbreviation of the expletive phrase in the clue). Plaintiff = someone who initiates a lawsuit in court. Any similarity between this clue and the later stages of Platini’s career is entirely coincidental, I’m sure. | ||
| 20 | OLIVE OYL | Old Head of Intelligence introduced to lovely, lively sailor’s girl (5,3) |
| O (old) and I[ntelligence] in an anagram (lively) of LOVELY. Olive Oyl is a cartoon character, generally known as the girlfriend of Popeye the Sailor, though I discovered while finding these links that she first appeared some years before he did. | ||
| 22 | SPRY | Constance succeeded to poke her nose in (4) |
| S (succeeded) + PRY (poke one’s nose in). Constance Spry, florist and cookery educator. | ||
| 24 | See 19 | |
| 25 | PAGE | Leaf no stranger to Plant? (4) |
| Jimmy Page and Robert Plant were band-mates in Led Zeppelin (and later collaborations). Leaf = page = sheet of paper in a book. | ||
| 27 | FLAMBEAU | Torch carried by Florida married boyfriend (8) |
| FLA (abbreviation for Florida) + M (married) + BEAU (boyfriend). | ||
| 29 | UNPAID | Outstanding university pad in Barking (6) |
| U (university) + anagram (barking = mad) of PAD IN. Outstanding (payment) = overdue. | ||
| 30 | CREDIT | Breaking sacred Italian trust (6) |
| Hidden answer (breaking) in [sa]CRED IT[alian]. | ||
| 31/5D | MYCROFT HOLMES | Big brother, 50, staying in Knut’s Scottish farmhouses (7,6) |
| MY (Knut’s, as the crossword setter) + CROFT HOMES (Scottish farmhouses), with L (Roman numeral for 50) inserted. The older brother of Sherlock Holmes. | ||
| Down | ||
| 2/21 | BAKER STREET | B flat here? (5,6) |
| This one doesn’t make sense unless you read the clue numbers as part of the wordplay – and then it’s brilliant. Sherlock Holmes had a flat at 221B Baker Street. (Baker was also once used to represent B in the radio alphabet, later replaced by Bravo, but I think that’s coincidental.) | ||
| 3 | EAT HEARTILY | Tuck in early; hate it, tossing and turning (3,8) |
| Anagram (tossing and turning) of EARLY HATE IT. | ||
| 4 | LESTRADE | Left dearest bent copper (8) |
| L (left) + anagram (bent) of DEAREST. Copper = policeman, in this case Inspector Lestrade in the Sherlock Holmes stories. | ||
| 5 | See 31 Across | |
| 6 | DUO | Party hosting Uzbekistan’s first couple (3) |
| DO (party, as in “a posh do”) hosting the first letter of U[zbekistan]. | ||
| 7 | OBESE | Poor Seb Coe, ex-Conservative, getting very overweight (5) |
| Anagram (poor) of SEB COE, without the C (Conservative). Lord Coe, formerly a Conservative MP, but not overweight as far as I know. | ||
| 8 | THE SIGN OF FOUR | IV (3,4,2,4) |
| Sherlock Holmes novel, also known as The Sign of the Four. IV = four in Roman numerals. | ||
| 13 | FILTER PAPER | Screen Daily Mail, perhaps, as a barrier to unwanted content (6,5) |
| FILTER (screen = select, as in candidates for interview) + PAPER (Daily Mail perhaps). | ||
| 15 | NIL | Holland taking on Italy – no score (3) |
| NL (abbreviation for Netherlands, sometimes called Holland although strictly that’s the name of a region within the Netherlands), containing I (abbreviation for Italy). | ||
| 17 | BAY | Sound article in Times (3) |
| A (the indefinite article) in BY (times, as in multiplication: 3 by 2 = 3 times 2). Sound = a large sea inlet. | ||
| 18 | FINSBURY | Anger about rubbish bins in part of North London (8) |
| FURY (anger), around (about) an anagram (rubbish) of BINS. Area of London, now within the Borough of Islington, and not to be confused with Finsbury Park which is a bit further north. | ||
| 21 | See 2 | |
| 23 | PALER | A sample of cheap ale, rough, somewhat lighter than IPA (5) |
| Hidden answer (a sample of) in [chea]P ALE R[ough]. IPA = India pale ale, so a lighter beer would be paler. | ||
| 26 | GRIEF | Torment poor Fergie endlessly (5) |
| Anagram (poor) of FERGI[e] (endlessly). Torment as a noun. | ||
| 28 | MAD | Wild Bill’s after Mike (3) |
| M (Mike in the radio alphabet) with AD (bill = advertisement) after it. | ||
Gradely!
I liked this, completely missed the excellent 221b reference for BAKER STREET which went in pretty much unparsed but fitting the mini theme. On which subject I did start to wonder if there was a more general detectives theme developing with FLAMBEAU being a Father Brown character. There may be others but if there are they have flown straight over my head.
Thanks to both setter and blogger
Super puzzle, very neatly blogged. Thanks Knut and Quirister.
Those of us who do the Toughie in the Telegraph will note en passant that Hudson is the pseudonym Knut uses there.
Thanks for the blog, Quirister, especially the parsing of PLAINTIFFS. I liked your study in scarlet.
Copmus succinct as ever! I’d just like to expand sufficiently to express appreciation for the brilliant 221B – I liked ROSIE, too.
Huge thanks, Knut – highly enjoyable, as ever.
Very enjoyable – and our setter will be delighted to know that I spotted his theme very early on (well it wasn’t that well hidden – 2/21 confirming my earlier suspicions)
Many thanks to Knut and to Quirister
I missed the 221b reference as well; spotting it would have made this even more enjoyable. I didn’t know the CRS for ROSIE and the LED Zeppelin reference also passed me by.
I particularly liked seeing some of the bit players making an appearance, rather than the two main protagonists, who I couldn’t see were hidden elsewhere in the grid, or as a Nina.
Thanks to Knut and Quirister
IV was clear from the enumeration, and set the scene for the theme from the outset. Found myself wishing for more themesters.
221B was indeed brilliant. Many thanks Knut.
hi @Quirister…thanks for the blog. I can confirm your suspicion that the grid was specifically designed to deliver the 2 21 gag (harder, as it turned out, than I’d first thought for some reason).
Thanks to others who have commented on the puzzle.
Found this a bit tough until I saw the theme about halfway through. A fine crossword.
Thanks to Knut and Quirister
As someone who is usually on Knut’s wavelength, I had no problem to finish this puzzle within reasonable time (although, for me, the latter is not something that is part of measuring the quality of a crossword).
Understanding everything that I entered was another matter.
I had never heard of Brie Larson and Constance Spry.
Of course, my ‘fault’.
But Platini was right there, just like Holmes & His Friends.
Unfortunately, I must admit that my inside knowledge of Sherlock is very limited.
I know, it’s a basic part of education in this country.
And therefore I am prepared to fully take the blame.
Quite unlike (y)our PM who is neither ‘prepared’ nor ‘takes any blame’.
So, for me, indeed Quirister, 2/21 didn’t make any sense.
Now that I know what it’s all about, I can only join the Choir-with-a-capital-C.
Yet, something deep inside me tells me that something is missing in this clue.
Great idea, though! Like 8d (even if it turned out to be a write-in for some).
The only thing I found a bit of a pity in this really enjoyable crossword was the double use of ‘poor’ as an anagram indicator (in 7d and 26d).
In 30ac, we have ‘breaking’ as a hidden indicator. These kinds of indicators are pretty close to insertion indicators, aren’t they? To be clear, this is no criticism but something I thought about quite frequently in recent years: when you think about it, ‘credit’ is actually breaking ‘sa/alian’ and not ‘sacred Italian’. But don’t worry, fine by me.
Finally, Quirister, why did you like the surface of 15d …. ? ?
I enjoyed this!!
Much better than elementary, my friends. I can sometimes struggle with the GK in Knut puzzles (I don’t have much knowledge generally) but the only real mystery for me today was why SPRY might be Constance.
Like Conrad Cork @3 I noted the other Hudson. 🙂
Thanks to Knut for the fun and to Quirister for enhancing the experience with a fitting blog.
Sil – re 15d, it’s good to see a surface that could be a genuine sentence (or in this case perhaps a headline in a sports news summary). No reference to the performance of any national sports teams intended. And yes, “hidden answer” indicators can be a bit obscure and “breaking” wouldn’t be my favourite, but it works for the surface.
Q, my remark about 15d should have been followed by 🙂 !!