Guardian 27,997 – Nutmeg

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A puzzle of the high quality we’ve come to expect from this setter; not too hard (though I struggled slightly to finish the SE corner), but very satsfying and enjoyable. Thanks to Nutmeg.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. AFTERS Pudding where we’d expect to see tea, it’s said (6)
We have to take a homohone of “tea” to get the letter T, which comes AFTER S in the alphabet
5. ACCOST What some solicitors do on hearing a charge (6)
Homophone of “a cost”
8. SENHORA Lady from Lisbon hears no evil (7)
(HEARS NO)*
9. MILDEST Most equable ladies regularly appearing in film (7)
Alternate letters of LaDiEs in MIST (film)
11. HANGING ONE’S HEAD Putting self-portrait on display, bashfully (7,4,4)
Cryptic/double definition
12. OMIT Skip university in pursuit of love (4)
O (zero, love) + MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
13. STAN LAUREL Patriots withdrawing singular honour for Hollywood legend? (4,6)
Reverse of NATS (nationalists, patriots) + LAUREL (perhaps more often seen as a plural when referring to honours, as in “rest one one’s laurels”)
17. MARGUERITE French madame and monsieur have words before ceremony (10)
M[onsieur] + ARGUE + RITE
18. SCOW Boat from south Jersey or Guernsey? (4)
S + COW (Jersey and Guernsey are breeds of cattle)
20. TAKE IT ON THE CHIN Gather where beaver’s seen and weather the storm (4,2,2,3,4)
TAKE IT (to gather) + ON THE CHIN (a beaver is a beard – in this sense from from French bavière meaning a child’s bib, not the animal)
23. SUNRISE Nurses treated current stabbing early in the day (7)
I (electric current) in NURSES* – perhaps slightly unfortunate wording in view of the recent events in London
24. ONWARDS Sailor looking fatigued aboard, running back and forth (7)
Reverse of DRAWN (looking fatigued) in O[rdinary] S[eaman]
25. MOLTEN Playwright once releasing book to be grabbed by males ready for casting? (6)
[B]OLT (Robert Bolt, whose plays include A Man For All Seasons) in MEN – the definition refers to the casting of metal
26. ESTEEM Judge from Spain comes across the wrong way (6)
E (Spain) + reverse of MEETS (comes across)
Down
2. FINANCIER One furnishes capital home with more elaborate fencing (9)
IN ([at] home) in FANCIER
3. EXOTIC Allude to trapping beast coming up from foreign parts (6)
Reverse of (OX in CITE)
4. SLAUGHTER Take out child, heading off after school on vacation (9)
S[choo]L (i.e. “vacated”) + [D]AUGHTER, with “take out” being slang for “kill”
5. ADMEN Democrat moving in to make changes for promoters (5)
AMEND (make change) with the D relocated; Chambers gives this as both a single word and hyphenated
6. COLESLAW Merry monarch’s order for salad? (8)
COLE’S (Old King Cole was a merry old soul) + LAW (order)
7. SWEDE Countryman to consider keeping wife and daughter apart (5)
W and D separately in SEE (consider)
8. SCHOOLMATES Young peers happily sharing a mistress? (11)
Cryptic definition
10. TIDDLYWINKS Result of making mini bats for children’s game? (11)
Batting your eyelids leads to a wink, so if the bats were “mini” you might get TIDDLY (small) WINKS
14. NOT AT HOME Uneasy and unready to receive, getting out (3,2,4)
I think this is a triple definition: to be at home with something is to be comfortable with it, so uneasy would be the opposite; the next two literally refer to being not at home
15. RACEHORSE Careers madly round house for something to put shirt on? (9)
HO in CAREERS*
16. PUGILIST Breed of dog, one lean aggressive type (8)
PUG + I + LIST (to lean)
19. PEEWIT Bird going up rubbish heap gets very little to eat (6)
Reverse of WEE (very little) in TIP (rubbish heap)
21. KENDO Japanese art, complete with fine raised frame (5)
END (to complete) in reverse of OK (fine); Kendo is a Japanese martial art that uses bamboo swords
22. OCEAN Eastern firm set up by an Indian, perhaps (5)
Reverse of (E CO) + AN

41 comments on “Guardian 27,997 – Nutmeg”

  1. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew

    Lovely crossword. Lots to like, but I’ll mention specially AFTERS and FINANCIER.

    I fell into the trap of SARK for 18a, but it was obviously RACEHORSE for the crosser.

    I thought the third definition for 14d was unnecessary, as it’s exactly the same as the second one. 8d was a bit loose.

    I must confess that Nutmeg’s idea of the location of a hairy beaver is rather north of mine!

  2. For 13 Across I had Tans (as in Black and Tans) with S (singular) moving backwards. Wrong, but it worked in my head.

  3. Agree muffin; didn’t know the French origin and hadn’t heard the expression ‘chin beaver’, apparently arrived at by northward migration. So, yes, a nice end of the working week from Nutmeg, lots of neat clues as always, though dnk the playwright, and thought exotic a bit loose, ditto winks for bats; mere quiblets. And didn’t think of ‘at home with’ as ‘comfortable with’ to justify 14d, still not sure. Very enjoyable though, in fact a pretty nice cw week in all. Thanks both, and everyone.

  4. Thanks Andrew – great blog of a lovely puzzle.

    I didn’t know the beard meaning of beaver but I see it now in Chambers. I got the answer from Hamlet [again], referring to the appearance of his father’s ghost: ‘Then saw you not his face?’ – Horatio: ‘Oh yes, my lord. He wore his beaver up’ – a beaver being a piece of armour protecting the lower part of the face.

    My favourites today were 17, 18, 25ac and 2, 4, 6, 19dn – and 8 and 10dn made me laugh.

    Many thanks to Nutmeg for brightening up another gloomy day and giving me a cheerful start towards helping to set up our Christmas Tree Festival.

  5. [btw the lapwing (or Green Plover) has lots of local names. PEEWIT is commonest, from its cry, though where I am this is rendered as “tewit”.]

  6. Made a right hash of it.  Thoughtlessly bunged in SHOWING ONES FACE, ILL AT EASE and less thoughtlessly SCHOOLGIRLS.  Oh well, it turned out ok.

    Muffin @1 Being not at home when you are in is not the same as being not at home when you are out.

    Thanks Nutmeg, Andrew

  9. Very enjoyable puzzle to solve. My favourites were RACEHORSE, PEEWIT, ESTEEM (loi).

    I was unable to parse 1a – haha, that is very clever!

    Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew.

  10. Somehow didn’t see anagram at 15d, got “horse” from crossers, then I wanted to hang shirt on a clothes-horse but it wouldn’t fit. Then the penny dropped.

    My simple mind enjoyed 18a & 10d

  11. Muffin, I’d have thought the second and third definitions of NOT AT HOME quite different. In the last, you are genuinely away from home, but in the second you are probably in but behind closed doors. Thanks for the rest of the comment, though, plus Andrew for the blog and Nutmeg for the puzzle.

  13. Dashed in ACCUSE instead of ACCOST for 5ac, and struggled with MOLTEN which was LOI. Found this tough in places. SLAUGHTER for “Take out” did not seem obvious, though the cluing pointed clearly towards this solution.

  14. Lots to enjoy in this. TILT beaver for beard; didn’t know the Hamlet quotation, thanks for that Eileen. Favs were MOLTEN and AFTERS. Thanks to Andrew for the blog and Nutmeg for the fun.

  15. Very good puzzle, which I made a mess of, being stuck on ‘hears’ as a homophone indicator for 8a  and Joe Orton as the ‘Playwright once’ at 25a. Several others unparsed including the nice SCHOOLMATES cryptic def.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew and to all for the erudite discussion about the non-dam building ‘beaver’.

  16. Cracker!  Many thanks both.

    Some nice concealment here, such as ONWARDS, OCEAN, ESTEEM etc.

    I agree with James & Roger re the 3 defs of NOT AT HOME.

    Slight concern over bashfully at HANGING ONES HEAD.  I always took the phrase to infer shame, whereas bashful infers shy, modest, or lacking confidence.  Anyone?

    All in all, however, an excellent crossword.

    Nice weekend, all.

  17. I’m having a really bad run of one-error completions. For some reason, I failed to see the anagrind in 8a and failed on the Portuguese lady. I think that senility is creeping in.

  19. I found this difficult but slowly cracked it. Lots of EXOTIC ladies about.

    I would have thought that ‘frames’ would have been better in 21D and wouldn’t have spoiled the surface.

    Thanks Nutmeg for an entertaining crossword and Andrew for explaining one or two of the parsings.

  22. My experience and appreciation of this puzzle match Andrew’s almost exactly. (I struggled more than slightly with four clues in the SE corner!)
    I particularly liked MARGUERITE.
    Thanks Nultmeg and Andrew.

  23. Many thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew for a pleasurable puzzle and a good blog. Also enjoying the discussion. I really liked 11a HANGING ONE’S HEAD (I can see it as a posture of shyness as well as in the sense of feeling shame, William) and the already-mentioned 10d TIDDLYWINKS.

  24. There is another I’m sure UNintended meaning of NOT AT HOME which almost works, and that is in baseball: home base (home) is where the batter is located; the catcher, who does the receiving, is just behind him.

    The comedian Dick Cavett supposedly once said “Baseball is the boring version of cricket – or is it the other way around?”

  25. Many years ago I received an invitation that I didn’t really want to accept in the form of “X and Y will be at home on [date]”.  I was strongly tempted to reply “So will I”.  (But I didn’t.)

    Many thanks Nutmeg and Andrew.

  26. Thanks for the blog, helpful on some of the parsing. Gave up on molten and {too early) on esteem which I should have got.

    Low rent and juvenile humour in one of the “Naked gun” spoofs when detective Drebin is standing below an attractive girl in a dress up a step-ladder, who is retrieving some objects from the top of a cupboard, passing them down to him. At the start he interjects “nice beaver!” – as she then proceeds to hand down a stuffed beaver a second or two later… Which is how I knew that beaver is slang for pubic hair – on the face or elsewhere.

     

  27. A very much younger Detective Drebin aka Leslie Nielsen can be observed in a straight role in the magnificent “Forbidden Planet”.

  28. Late to the party today, trying to get outdoor jobs done before the rain hit. A fun puzzle with some lovely invention. 1ac went in immediately but was clever. I wasn’t convinced by “nats” for nationalists, or “take it” for gather – more “assume” when you say “I take it you mean me?”. For a while I was looking for parsing along the lines of “take in” around something. Lots of misdrection in smooth surfaces, which is a pretty pleasant way to end the week.

    CotD for me was “tiddlywinks” as a former player of this highly technical game.

  29. Thanks much both.  I am confused re 8dn – am I missing a reference … I don’t see the need for ‘happily’ …. surely that depends on the teacher?

  31. Roy Blake @30:  Point taken, but Chambers includes “a son or daughter” among the many definitions of child.

    However, I agree it would be somewhat odd to be referring to a 50 year-old daughter as “a child” although, oddly enough it would seem fine to describe her as “one of my children”.  Hmm?

  32. Geof@29 – yes I blinked at happily too at first, but I think if you are school ‘mates’ as opposed to pupils, you enjoy each others company, so AOK IMO.

    Roy@30 – my daughter, now aged 35, was and continues to be, my child.

  33. Roy @30

    As ‘daughter’, an example of a child, is in the answer and not the clue, the clue is sound.  If it had been the other way round, with the example in the clue, it would be a ‘definition by example’, which by general agreement has to be indicated in some way: a ‘?’ at the end, ‘say’, ‘e,g,’ or whatever.

  34. Nice chewy puzzle for a Friday. I particularly liked ONWARDS, because of the misdirecting phrase “running back and forth” which suggested a palindrome, RACEHORSE and OCEAN, for their surfaces. I thought the SCHOOLMATES cd was a bit weak and agree that “happily” seems redundant.
    Interesting discussion about children. Underlines how oxymoronic the phrase “adult children” is.
    Thanks, Nutmeg and Andrew.

  35. Thanks both,
    There was a young lady named Eva
    Who fllled up a Bath to receiva
    She took off her clothes
    From her head to her toes
    And a voice from the keyhole yelled, ‘Beava!’

    This limerick from Lure of the Limerick by WS Baring-Gould apparently derives from the fashion among young men in the 1920s for shouting ‘beaver’ whenever they saw a man with a beard, which I take as evidence that the beard meaning came first.

  36. @geof

    Spot on. I rarely find any fault at all with Nutmeg’s clues but ‘happily’ is completely unnecessary and was making me look for something that just wasn’t there

  37. Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew.

    But I didn’t enjoy this. “Happily” needlessly thrown into SCHOOLMATES cramped my style on the western front, “judge” as an equivalent of ESTEEM (can someone HELPPP!!) made the south pole inaccessible and “nats” – I really don’t know what to say about “nats”. “Nats”?  As for MOLTEN it seems to me that to indicate “OLT” by decapitating some obscure playwright is, dare I say, somewhat inelegant? SWEDE didn’t work for me either (“see” = “consider”?).

    Sorry to be a moaning Minnie. Lots of good stuff here too I suppose.

  38. Satisfyingly meaty and deceptive cluing from Nutmeg, with the SE corner in particular taking some time to unravel. Sometimes brevity is not everything. Excellent!

  39. Presumably “happily” in 8d is a reference to the saying “The happiest days of your life”, as in the excellent 1950 comedy film, for example. Superb cast including Margaret Rutherford, Alastair Sim, and Joyce Grenfell.

  40. muffin@21 The third definition of not at home may not be necessary, but it is entertaining.

    This was fun.  Thank you Nutmeg and Andrew.

  41. Alphalpha at 37. Robert Bolt obscure ! He wrote A Man for All Seasons and the screenplays for that, Dr Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia and won Oscars for two of them. Define “obscure” please.

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