Anto is providing our entertainment today: mostly straightforward with a few tricky moments.
I made steady progress with this, then realised I’d got absolutely nothing in the SW corner. That held out for a while until (appropriately enough) 13d provided the way in.
There are a couple of slightly iffy clues (noted below), and I think I must be missing something in 21a, but mostly this was an enjoyable solve. Favourites were 18a (simple when you see it), 25a for the cleverly appropriate surface, and 23d for just being a neat idea. Thanks Anto.
Definitions are underlined; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | COLD WAR | Conflict provided communist leader with a world unsettled (4,3) |
| Leading letter of Communist, then an anagram (unsettled) of A WORLD. Good extended definition too; sadly a bit too close to the truth at the moment. | ||
| 5 | MATCHES | Check inside friend’s suits (7) |
| CH (check in chess notation) inserted into MATE’S (friend’s). | ||
| 9 | FULL BOARD | All the directors get meals thrown in (4,5) |
| Double definition: the complete board of directors of a company (as in “we have the support of the full board”), or accommodation with catering included in the price. | ||
| 10 | RABBI | Teacher rebels against bullying by insensitive principals (5) |
| Initial letters (principals) of Rebels Against Bullying By Insensitive. | ||
| 11 | SCAB | It covers physical damage caused by small carrier (4) |
| S (small) + CAB (vehicle = carrier). Though SCAR would work almost as well; it’s a pity the crossers don’t help here. | ||
| 12 | TOILET SEAT | Up or down? Its position is largely gender based (6,4) |
| Cryptic definition. | ||
| 14 | MYOPIA | Work is advanced initially, following my closely focused vision (6) |
| OP (abbreviation for opus = a musical work, esp. in a numbered catalogue) + initial letters of Is Advanced, all following MY. Commonly known as short-sightedness. |
||
| 15 | AMASSED | Gathered together, dressed up as dames (7) |
| Anagram (dressed up) of AS DAMES. I love the image of a convention of pantomime dames – wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall? | ||
| 16 | ARSENAL | Magazine passages artist retracted (7) |
| LANES (passages = paths) + RA ( Royal Academician = artist), all reversed (retracted). Magazine = arsenal = ammunition store. |
||
| 18 | ENDIVE | Vegetable seen in middle of bendy river (6) |
| Middle (removing first and last letters) of [b]END[y] [r]IVE]r. | ||
| 20 | THE MENDIPS | Subject number falls within this range? (3,7) |
| THEME (subject) + N (number) + DIPS (falls). A range of hills in south-west England. |
||
| 21 | SNOT | Common secretion gets much use when scrubbing bottoms (4) |
| I can’t parse this one: I think it might be TONS (slang for lots = much use?), reversed (scrubbing bottoms = upside down?), but that seems a bit obscure. “Scrubbing bottoms” might work in a down clue for “removing last letters”, but I can’t see any phrase that would work for, and anyway this is across not down. Any better ideas?
EDIT: as Cookie @3 suggests, the intention might be MUC[h] US[e] (scrubbing bottoms = last letters removed); mucus = snot. |
||
| 24 | SHIVA | Weapon improvised by a god (5) |
| SHIV (improvised or home-made knife) + A. | ||
| 25 | USE-BY DATE | Deadline for eating food could perhaps be Tuesday (3-2,4) |
| Anagram (perhaps) of BE TUESDAY. The grammar of the sentence doesn’t quite work, because “be” is doing double duty [clarification: the anagram indicator looks like “could perhaps be”, but “be” is part of the fodder], but I’ll let that pass for such a good clue. | ||
| 26 | NO SWEAT | Simple indicator of a healthy dog, they say (2,5) |
| Homophone (“they say”, although it’s a fairly loose one) of NOSE WET, which a healthy dog should have. | ||
| 27 | DRONE ON | Keep talking as doctor begins opening gas (5,2) |
| DR (doctor) + beginning of O[pening] + NEON (gas). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | CUFFS | Smacks son climbing to the top, getting graze (5) |
| If you move the S to the start (top in a down clue), you get SCUFF (graze). This might work better as a clue for SCUFF than for CUFFS, though. | ||
| 2 | LULLABY | Quiet infant (not the first born); this must have worked! (7) |
| LULL (quiet, as a verb = soothe) + [b]ABY (infant, with the first b for “born” removed). Extended definition. |
||
| 3 | WEBS | Fly traps made from empty wine bottles (4) |
| W[in]E B[ottle]S: empty = remove middle letters. | ||
| 4 | REASONABLE DOUBT | Jury may have such trouble based on a misrepresentation (10,5) |
| Anagram (misrepresentation) of TROUBLE BASED ON A. | ||
| 5 | MIDDLE AGE SPREAD | Medieval banquet might add to it (6,3,6) |
| MIDDLE AGE (medieval, though I’d spell it mediaeval) + SPREAD (food laid out for a banquet). Extended definition: excessive weight as one gets older, possibly the result of too many banquets. |
||
| 6 | TAROT CARDS | Cheers corrupt characters that deal out fortunes (5,5) |
| TA (cheers = slang for thank you) + ROT (corrupt) + CARDS (characters = eccentric people). | ||
| 7 | HEBREWS | He makes tea for old people (7) |
| HE BREWS = he makes tea. | ||
| 8 | STILTED | Awkward when trying to gain height thus? (7) |
| Double definition: the second refers to walking on stilts. | ||
| 13 | OPEN SESAME | Inaugurate plant that’s key to discovering riches (4,6) |
| OPEN (inaugurate, for example a festival) + SESAME (plant grown for its seeds). The fairy-tale magic words to open a treasure hoard. |
||
| 16 | ARTISAN | Thatcher, for example, sent up some policemen as it raged (7) |
| Hidden answer (some), reversed (sent up, in a down clue) in [policeme]N AS IT RA[ged]. Artisan = traditional craftsman, for example one who repairs thatched roofs. |
||
| 17 | SPECIES | Type notices about English clubs (7) |
| SPIES (notices, as a verb = sees) containing (about) E (English) C (clubs in playing cards). | ||
| 19 | VINTAGE | Classic contest to acquire National Trust silver (7) |
| VIE (contest, as a verb = compete), containing (to acquire) NT (National Trust) + AG (Ag = chemical symbol for silver). | ||
| 22 | TIE-IN | Link that is preserved? (3-2) |
| IE (id est = that is), in TIN (in a tin = tinned = preserved, as in tinned soup). The question mark admits that this is a bit sneaky, but I like it. | ||
| 23 | TYPO | Keying error deleted note from blood description (4) |
| TYPE O (one of the major blood groups), with E (a musical note) deleted. | ||
Thanks Anto and Quirister
I found this rather difficult, but there were several clues I liked – COLD WAR, USE-BY-DATE, TIE-IN, and WEBS in particular.
I had SCAR, and couldn’t parse SNOT either. I too thought that 1d gives SCUFF rather than CUFFS.
Thanks both. I had SCAR at first, but SCAB fits better with the definition. SNOT evades me too
MUCh USe
I had SCAR at 11a, so a dnf for me. I agree that SCAB is a slightly better fit, but a clue shouldn’t have two plausible answers that fit the crossers. Otherwise a good challenge with some clever clues. I especially liked TIE-IN, USE-BY DATE, and MIDDLE AGE SPREAD. “Begins opening” was a bit awkward as an indicator for O in 27a, but the intent was clear. I also thought that 1d pointed to SCUFF rather than CUFFS, but I already had the crossing C, so no problem there.
Thanks to Anto and Quirister, and to Cookie @3 for putting us out of our misery regarding 21a.
Cookie @3: yes, I think you’re right. I did initially see MUCUS but decided it couldn’t be the answer because I couldn’t find a four-letter form. It’s slightly odd to make the wordplay give another definition, rather than leading directly to the clue, but maybe that’s what Anto intended.
Well done Cookie! Thanks for putting me out of my misery
Very enjoyable this morning, towards the challenging end of the Quiptic spectrum but maybe all the more enjoyable for that.
[Quirister, I was just going through the blog out of interest (I find two crosswords on a Monday too much for me now that I am getting older) when SNOT caught my eye and made me laugh – it put me in mind of a Swiss-German television programme, the main one for the evening, entitled Nasenschleim…]
I have been critical of Anto in the past but I thought this was an excellent crossword, maybe a bit tough for a Quiptic.
I agree that 1D would more naturally lead to scuff, although the crossers would prevent that. I’m not sure I see why ‘be’ is doing double duty in 25 as the definition is as underlined in the blog.
I liked MATCHES, TOILET SEAT, THE MENDIPS, NO SWEAT and TIE-IN.
Thanks Anto and Quirister.
Robi @9: re 25, I was originally thinking that the anagram indicator is “could perhaps be” and the anagram fodder is “be Tuesday”, so “be” gets used twice. I suppose it works if you just take “perhaps” as the indicator, though.
A nice workout. Most of the left side went in very quickly; the rest needed a break to enable me to come back with a fresh mind. Favourite clues: NO SWEAT and THE MENDIPS, which despite being well known to Troglodytes, was my loi. Thanks to Cookie for sorting out SNOT, to Anto for the fun and Quirister for the blog.
A very good quiptic, I thought. Not at all like Anto of old. I didn’t get SHIVA as I’ve never met SHIV before and I read out the clue for SNOT to my wife, who parsed it instantly. Thanks all.
I’m surprised at the generally favorable responses to this puzzle. I thought it was a return to Anto’s bad old days, with too many dodgy clues, especially for a Quiptic. Maybe I’m just in a bad mood because I failed to finish the puzzle due to my own ignorance of English geography: I couldn’t come up with THE MENDIPS, although this is a perfectly fair clue.
I have no doubt that Cookie’s parsing for 21a is the intended one, but this device is definitely not OK. This is clearly a clue whose answer is MUCUS, not SNOT. If this is allowed, then the answer to any clue could be replaced by any synonym. That way madness lies.
I had SCAR instead of SCAB for 11a. I agree that SCAB is slightly better, but not clearly enough to make this clue acceptable. I also agree that 1d would prefer to be SCUFF rather than CUFFS, but since the crossers remove the ambiguity this doesn’t bother me.
The indicator for 18a is inaccurate: the middle of BENDY RIVER is NDRIV (or a variety of other things that are not ENDIVE).
The grammar for 25a (USE-BY DATE) isn’t quite right, although I agree with Quirister that some latitude is justified here because it’s otherwise such a great clue.
I think of myself as someone libertarian regarding homophone clues: if it’s a homophone to any reasonably large population of English speakers, it’s OK with me. But 26a (NO SWEAT) doesn’t pass that test.
The looseness of SCAB/scar peeved me a bit, and I wasn’t entirely sure why HEBREWS are “old” – don’t they still exist? However, I forgive Anto for these two, because I thought MIDDLE AGE SPREAD was delightful and, although I couldn’t parse ARTISAN, with the benefit of Quirister’s explanation I now think it’s rather impressive – with a neat bit of misdirection in the choice of artisan, too. Many thanks to Anto for tying me in knots, and to Quirister for untangling me.
Never heard of the Mendips or ‘middle age spread’, so that threw a roadblock in my way. I liked MYOPIA, STILTED, TYPO, and OPEN SESAME.
@Ted Yeah, the ‘s’ is voiced in ‘nose wet’ and voiceless in ‘no sweat’. I got the answer, shrugged, and figured that sure, I guess a healthy dog doesn’t sweat. It’s not like I know enough about dogs to say otherwise.
@Wellbeck – ‘Old’ in this case means ‘been around a while’, not past or gone by. According to the Hebrew calendar, this year is 5780. so that’s a pretty hefty number of years.
Words: 1
Characters: 6
Ted @13. Re 18 across, I saw middle of bENDy and went looking for a river I’ve. Found one in Cumbria.
I was unable to parse SNOT – that’s a very clever one!
My favourites were TOILET SEAT, CUFFS, LULLABY.
New for me were THE MENDIPS & shiv = weapon.
Thanks Anto and Quirister.
Similar feelings to most about this crossword. Hadnt thought of scab but it is a much better answer. A scab covers where a scar doesnt
I liked HE BREWS
I’m sure “He brews” is the punchline of a joke that I once heard. Raised a smile anyway when I saw it.