Ever think you’re missing something?
This puzzle looks like it should have a theme, but I just can’t see it.
Maybe it’s because I’m typing this at 4:45 am, having just got back from a New Year’s party (although I don’t drink, I am beginning to tire a bit now), but I just can’t quite see a theme unless it has something to do woth Cockney or My Fair Lady.
Maybe I’ll get there after a few hours’ sleep and I’ll maybe also be able to work out the second half of 22ac, which must be there for a reason…
Happy New Year, all, and thanks Philistine (I think…)
| Across | ||
| 9 | WATERGATE | Scandal in the sluice (9) |
| A sluice is a gate for regulating water flow. | ||
| 10 | GLORY | Blloody triumph (5) |
| “Bloody” = “gory”, so presumably “b(l)loody” could = “g(l)ory | ||
| 11 | THIRD | Spreading dirt around hospital is what 2 need to become 12 (5) |
| *(dirt) [anag:spreading] around H (hospital)
2 would need a THIRD to become a “threesome” (the answer to 12 across) |
||
| 12 | THREESOME | Trinity Hall, reading electrical engineering, student starts delving into book (9) |
| H(all) R(eading) E(lectrical) E(ngineering) S(tudent) [starts] delving into TOME (“book”) | ||
| 13 | TWEETER | Speaker‘s dainty half-sister (7) |
| TWEE (“dainty”) + [half-] sisTER | ||
| 14 | PHARAOH | Previous Egyptian spy that Iran got the covers off (7) |
| (s)P(y) (t)HA(t) (i)RA(n) (g)O(t) (t)H(e) [covers off = missing first and last letters] | ||
| 17 | NOBEL | Setback for Lebanon, having lost an illustrious prize (5) |
| [setback for] <=LEB(an)ON (having lost AN) | ||
| 19 | MAN | Person in command of isle appears regularly in magazines (3) |
| Two clues in one – hidden [in] “comMANd”, and appearing regularly in M(ag)A(zin)N(e) | ||
| 20 | ABYSM | In Siberia, by small crevasse (5) |
| Hidden [in] “siberiA BY SMall” | ||
| 21 | HAIRPIN | Bend 8 for accessory (7) |
| Double definition, with the 8 referring to “type” (answer to 8dn) of bend | ||
| 22 | CELADON | Greenware from fancy lace fellow (incidentally also here in the absence of conflict) (7) |
| *(lace) [anag:fancy]+ DON (“fellow”) | ||
| 24 | SCHOOL RUN | Fish and rabbit order: parents do it (6,3) |
| SCHOOL (of “fish”) + RUN (an “order” to a “rabbit” as in the song, “Run, Rabbit, Run”) | ||
| 26 | POWER | Might prisoner meet the Queen? (5) |
| POW (“prisoner” of war), meet ER (“the Queen”) | ||
| 28 | OZONE | Layer oddly, ounce after ounce (5) |
| [oddly] O(u)N(c)E after OZ. (abbreviation for “ounce”) | ||
| 29 | HEURISTIC | The obscenely rich use it as a rule of thumb, perhaps (9) |
| *(rich use it) [anag:obscenely] | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | TWIT | Idiot missing half of proclamation in parliament (4) |
| TWIT (twoo) [missing half] (“proclamation” of an owl, the collective noun of which is a “parliament”) | ||
| 2 | STRINE | Language spoken on the other side of the world is music to Eliza’s ears (6) |
| In Cockney, “strain” would be pronounced STRINE, and the Eliza in the clue refers to Eliza Dolittle, the Cockney flowerseller from My Fair Lady | ||
| 3 | CREDIT SLIP | Triple disc may be purchased with this? (6,4) |
| *(triple disc) [anag:may be] | ||
| 4 | FACTOR | Agent‘s player after flying start (6) |
| ACTOR (“player”) after F(lying) [start] | ||
| 5 | TERRAPIN | Soft inland turtle (8) |
| P (piano, so “soft”) in TERRAIN (“land”) | ||
| 6 | OGRE | Rising thus: Shrek? (4) |
| [rising] <=ERGO (“thus”) | ||
| 7 | HONORARY | Yoko hugged by Harry, promoting 11 as a mark of respect (8) |
| (Yoko) ONO hugged by HARRY, with its third (answer to 11ac) (letter) promoted (to second), so HRARY, so H(ONO)RARY | ||
| 8 | TYPE | Eighty percent included? That’s kind (4) |
| Hidden [included] in “eighTY PErcent” | ||
| 13 | TENTH | A fraction in temporary accommodation hotel (5) |
| TENT (“temporary accomodation”) + H (hotel) | ||
| 15 | ANAGLYPTIC | Play acting out in a 3-D picture (10) |
| *(play acting) [anag:out] | ||
| 16 | HUMAN | Individual involved with soldier can become malnourished (5) |
| “malnourished” is an anagram of “HUMAN soldier” | ||
| 18 | BRIGHTON | Ceremony heard in good French city (8) |
| Homophone of RITE [heard] in BON (“good” in “French”) | ||
| 19 | MENARCHE | An experience of women, archetypically (8) |
| Hidden in [of] “woMEN ARCHEtypically” and &lit.
The menarche is a woman’s first menstrual cycle. |
||
| 22 | CONSUL | This diplomat needs to have dined at his place of work (6) |
| CONSUL (“diplomat”), with ATE (“to have dined”) becomes CONSUL-ATE (“his place of work”) | ||
| 23 | DOWN TO | Because of abbey’s location being unfinished? (4,2) |
| DOWNTO(n) (“abbey’s location” (as in TV’s “Downton Abbey”) being unfinished) | ||
| 24, 25 | STOPOVER | Break pots? (8) |
| “pots” is STOP OVER (ie turned in its head) | ||
| 25 | See 24 | |
| 27 | ROCK | Lull to sleep with this music (4) |
| Doubkle definition | ||
*anagram
I think it is: removing “war” leaves “greene,” a homophone for “green,” of which is celadon is an example.
And the theme is Graham Greene.
An excellent puzzle to finish the decade. Too many good clues to mention, but as a Cambridge man I did enjoy the deviousness of 12A.
A steady solve which I made difficult for myself with an easy (ie, wrong) first-one-in .. 20A .. …. this had me staring blankly at the impossible last-one-in (16D) .. finally groaned at the error of my ways, and thanked the setter for a New Years Eve spent far better than among all the glitz and bonhomie happening elsewhere.
The Third Man, The Tenth Man, The Human Factor, Brighton Rock, The Honorary Consul, The Power and the Glory….all Graham Greene novels.
Thanks, loonapick.
For once, I spotted the theme, which made things easier — when I had HONORARY, for example, I knew CONSUL was probably in there somewhere. Couldn’t parse TWIT. STRINE made me laugh.
The mention of the NOBEL prize might not be a coincidence: Greene was often thought to be a contender for the literature prize, though he never got it.
Completed the crossword but would never have seen the theme.
Thanks, as ever, loonapick and a happy New Year.
Thanks loonapick and Philistine.
I did spot the theme late on, when I realised about GREENwarE, but it didn’t help. There were several (PHARAOH, TWIT and HUMAN) I couldn’t parse, so thanks for the help there.
Incidentally, there is a small typo in 19: “and appearing regularly in M(ag)A(zin)N(e)”. The zin should be zi. I was looking for every other letter, but I see it is every other other (What’s the word I want here?)
[I had to fill in my name and email again today; I see every web site I visit is again asking for cookie approval. What a fag – it must be the start of a new year?]
I think the Third Man was written as a film(with Carol Reed helping and then directing)Great film.I had the Tenth Man but dod not remember reading it, I loved the other four but The Quiet Americaqn still speaks volumes to this day
Nice puzzle and blog.
Dave Ellison, “every other other” is surely “third” – giving you the third MAN. It never clicked till I read your comment though
At first glance this looked really tricky, but I managed to finish in due course. Missed the theme, but am not that familiar with Greene’s work. Many thanks to Philistine and loonapick, and a Happy New Year to all.
High quality and very enjoyable, gentle for Philistine with the challenge in fully parsing everything. Didn’t see the theme until afterwards.
No complaints but half of conversation (or ‘reply’) would have been more accurate than half of proclamation in 1d.
Thanks to Philistine and loonapick and Happy New Year to all.
Yes, great start to the New Year (decade even). Only spotted the theme when finished though.
Never ‘erd of STRINE before.
Thanks to Philistine and to loonapick for your late night efforts
Run Rabbit Run Rabbit Run run Run !
… and you will undoubtedly kick yourself when you wake up to spot the theme.
pedro@14 – absolutely, the next audiobook on my list is The Power and the Glory (the irony!!)
Sorry Loonapick, I’m not awake yet and misread 22 as 24.
A fine puzzle and good to the year. Thank you Philistine and Loonapick. Happy New Year to all; I’m going back to bed.
Nice start to the new year. Was unsure about the parsing of TWIT and CONSUL.
Didn’t know that Brighton is a city.
Thanks to Philistine and loonapick.
Lovely puzzle and theme.
Favourites today were OZONE, HEURISTIC and TWIT.
I remember meeting STRINE for the first time when I heard this story about Monica Dickens: “In late 1964 Dickens was visiting Australia to promote her works. It was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald on 30 November 1964 that during a book signing session in Sydney she had been approached by a woman who handed her a copy of her book and enquired, presumably in a broad Australian accent, “How much is it?” Dickens reportedly misheard this as an instruction as to the name which she should include in the inscription (“Emma Chisit”) and thus was born the phenomenon of “Strine” which filled the newspaper’s letter columns and subsequently was the subject of a separate weekly article and, later, a series of humorous books.” [From Wikipedia]
Many thanks to Philistine and loonapick and a Happy New Year to all.
A gentle start to the year (not convinced that the decade is yet complete). Very enjoyable, but I am surprised that one of the dinky-di Aussie contributors hasn’t commented on 2 down. STRINE is not a language, it was a humorous homonym of “Australian” coined by the purported author “Afferbeck Lauder”, itself a similarly mangled homonym (mondegreen?) of alphabetical order, in the book Let Stalk Strine. It seems strange to me to suggest that Eliza Doolittle would say “strain” the same way an Aussie would say “Australian”. Thanks as always to Philistine and loonapick.
Eileen, we crossed. I have always been amused by that anecdote about Emma Chisit. I really hope it is true.
KLColin – I wasn’t sure whether to revive the controversy stirred at the millennium but, since you mention it, I’m one of those who think we’ve another year to go. [Lights blue touchpaper… 😉 ]
Thanks Philistine and loonapick
Several unparsed, so thanks for those, loonapick. Favourites were THREESOME and OZONE.
Surely a CREDIT SLIP is what you are given after the purchase? The purchase is made with a credit card.
[Eileen @21
We, of course, celebrated the start of the new millenium twice!]
Cinephile @1: I think you have nearly got there. When war is removed from Greenware, we are left with Greene, who is “here” throughout the crossword.
Greenware from fancy lace fellow (incidentally also here in the absence of conflict).
Thanks Philistine and loonapick (when you wake up!).
muffin @ 22
If you’ve returned an item, you could be given a credit slip/note to use against a future purchase
I had never seen what owls say as “twit twoo”–here in the US I usually some variant with more syllables, “tu-whit tu-whoo,” for example, or else just “whoo,” so it took me ages to get 1D. Is “twit twoo” a common way to spell it, or is this a homophone?
This was a glorious start to the year – though I, too, didn’t spot the theme until after I’d read Cinephile’s comment. And I’m a huge fan of Greene’s work, too. The hangover must be to blame. In a host of delicious clues, my faves were PHARAOH, NOBEL and GLORY, though I started off assuming the last was nothing more than a Grauniad misprint… Thanks to Philistine for the entertainment, and a big hand to Loonapick for nobly completing the blog before retiring after a NY party (for my part, at 4.45 this morning I could barely manage to write my name in sparklers…)
Re Iroquois
The Twit Twoo sound is of two Tawny Owls, the female sound is ‘kewiick‘ shrill and repeated and the male replies ‘hoooouh….ho ho ‘ho ‘ho hoooouh. One owl never gives the full Twit Twoo call
Finished this last night and was in bed well before midnight (MrsNC and I must be pretty dull folks these days), so I have no excuse for missing the theme, but that didn’t take away from the enjoyment. Favourites were WATERGATE, THIRD, and STOPOVER, and I’ll add HUMAN now that I’ve seen it explained. Thanks to Philistine and loonapick.
Thank you Philistine for a great puzzle and loonapick for a very helpful blog.
The clue for CELADON was super, well done those who spotted Greene!
Bonne et heureuse année à tous.
a fun solve. missed the theme despite being familiar with the titles and the (now) obvious pointer in 22a. Fav clue was MENARCHE – though easily spotted I thought it was a well constructed surface and lit. Did not parse HUMAN and now see it was quite clever.
Thanks to Philistine for the fun and to Loonapick for the helpful blog.
A very pleasant New Year’s Day puzzle. I don’t think I’ve noticed before that OGRE is “ergo” backwards. And I didn’t know (or had forgotten) that ABYSM is a variant of “abyss”.
KLColin @19 and Eileen @21: a decade can be any period of ten years. The decades we tend to mark are those in which the years have a common third digit – the seventh decade of the twentieth century was the years 1961 to 1970, but the sixties were surely the years 1960 to 1969. So the “tens” ended yesterday and the twenties start today.
Thanks to Philistine and loonapick, and a happy new year (and decade!) to everyone.
Thanks for the blog – an “abys” is apparently the name for a Siberian cat breed – next to “s” (small) gives abyss, which seemed to be OK. So cocked up abysm. Missed the theme, natch.
Ta for the blog.
Thank you for elucidating the CELADON clue: I had already got the theme but my brain didn’t go the extra mile. Great start to the year.
In 21a I thought the 8 resembled the shape of a series of hairpin bends rather neatly as well as referencing 8d.
The female tawny owl calls “twit” and the male responds “hoo-hoo”.
Found this easier than yesterday’s, but missed the theme completely: thought it was something to do with threes.
A much better puzzle than yesterday’s effort I thought. Mind you, I didn’t get the theme despite having read most,if not all of the titles cited. I must admit that HUMAN-LOI- was a guess and I’m rather kicking myself now I’ve seen the blog. I’m not sure where I first heard of STRINE. I wondered if it was via the Barrie McKenzie strip in Private Eye?
Thanks Philistine.
Quite a workout for Hogmanay, even without any alcohol last night because of a nasty cold which started on Boxing Day (and isn’t shifting!)
Like many others I didn’t spot the theme. Duh! Thought I was about to finish but got caught at the last hurdles. I didn’t know abysm, though “abysmal” should have given me the clue. So I opted for “abyss” and couldn’t find an appropriate answer to fit h-s-n. Celadon I only got through a wordsearch, too. So I hope my performance improves as 2020 develops.
On the decade question, my inner pedant has to accept defeat! Having wrongly! accepted 1/1/2000 as the start of the new millennium despite incontrovertible arguments, (there was no Year 0!) it was inevitable that 2020 would be seen as the start of its third decade. And as Lord Jim rightly says, when we talk about the Roaring Twenties we do mean 1920-9 not 1921-30.
My first crossword this week and this year, and as everyone says a very good one.
I loved the anagrams in the wordplay of both 15 and 16 down. OZONE and TWIT were two other favourites.
Many thanks to both Philistine and loonapick.
Klcolin at 19 and Eileen at 18. Afferbeck lauder wrote a similar book for the pronunciation of upper class English called “Fraffly well spoken”. Not as good as strine in my opinion but even as an Australian I had to stretch my vowels to work out some of the words. “Em en ex” for ham and eggs for example. Happy new year from down under and thanks to all from a silent lurker. Anna
Too late to add anything of interest, but it is never too late to thank Philistine for a lovely puzzle – for once the theme helped (with “consul”) and also thank you loonapick for your midnight solving! A cracking start to 2020 – what a vision…
As for the decade debate, 2020 is clearly the start of the 20s – otherwise 2030 would be in the 20s which is a stretch. However, we have not started the third decade of this century (and that is down to there being no year 0, which really should only confuse computer programmers and other advocates of 0-based index arrays). Duck and run.
Just want to record my thanks to Philistine and loonapick. I loved this puzzle and its literary theme. So many fabulous words to relish like ABYSM, CELADON, HEURISTIC and ANAGLYPTIC. Of course, 2d STRINE was my (parochial) favourite – and thanks for the explanations re Afferbeck Lauder, Eileen, KLColin and Lord Jim, as I was too late to the party on this occasion to represent the Aussies by backgrounding that solution myself.
Happy New Year to all in this much-valued crossword community.
[P.S. If anyone is still out there: I really liked the use of the anagrind “obscenely” to clue HEURISTIC at 29a, especially because of the distraction created by the phrase “obscenely rich”, but can anyone help me to explain the cleverness of “obscenely” as the anagrind? A family member asked me about the clue and how I solved it, but I can’t put into words why “obscenely” works as the indicator.
And speaking of satisfying anagrams, how clever was 16d HUMAN – who would have thought that one could get “HUMAN soldier” from “malnourished”? Only a super setter like Philistine I guess.]
Julie, I’m still here. I see your point. It feels like a natural anagrind but it’s difficult to justify.
I can only suggest coarsely, loosely, shockingly and in a depraved manner as possibly synonymous.
A bit late for you, but Happy Solving for 2020.
[Thank you, Il Principe. Appreciated. I thought it was an amusing and applicable anagrind, but it is not in an online list so I think it must be uniquely Philistine’s own. Will use your synonyms here to try to explain to my husband (and mother-in-law), but I am still thinking I will get the same blank looks of incomprehension I received yesterday. Perhaps it is like trying to explain a joke – that usually falls flat for me too.
Never too late for wishing the best for the upcoming year – we have to keep hoping for better times for our weather and our world.
Sometimes Sardinia sounds like a good alternative to this hot, dry, burning island I live on.]
Another thought. Perhaps you could try this approach: in the phrase ‘obscenely rich’ the meaning is in a manner that’s not right, rather than in a manner that’s likely to put you in court as a publisher.
JinA, as il Principe suggests, there is a British Law usage of obscene as regards a publication, “tending to deprave or corrupt” (COED).
Almost anything can be an anagrind if you analyse it enough! I often blink and tut-tut at weak ones when they come up, but rather than try to explain them while (or after) solving I prefer to see the very interesting discussions about them like the one here.
The anagrind ‘light’ is another one that rightly generated some discussion the other day, but again the explanations came forth, including one from the setter (Tramp). I saw the other recent use of ‘light’ in this way, but I’ve forgotten on which puzzle, or which thread even, this happened.
Thanks to all for their comments.
29a
Julie in Australia, Il principe dell’oscurita, Cookie, and Alan B.
Obscene is derived from the Greek, meaning “off stage ” in the sense that it was an action in a play like murder, rape, or torture that had to happen behind the scenes. Changing the order of a word wouldn’t qualify, I think. However, I solved the clue and agree with Julie that it seems amusing and applicable so I won’t complain.
Pino @48
Thank you for that enlightening description of the origin of ‘obscene’. It seems a liberty was taken with its use as an anagram indicator, but like you I have better things to do than complain about these occurrences. I knew what was intended.
Pino @48, I like that definition, but it seems to be dubious – I have no complaints about the use of “obscene” as an anagram indicator, the COED definition @46 satisfies me.
[Does ‘cinephile’@1,2 not realise that some may consider it disrespectful to use one of Araucaria’s monickers?]