An enjoyable solve, with some particularly satisfying constructions that raised a smile. Favourites 1ac, 12ac, 14ac, 22ac, 1dn, 4dn, 7dn, and 9dn. Thanks to Imogen.
| Across | ||
| 1 | ALCOHOLIC | Spirited French not good digesting salmon (9) |
| Definition: as in alcoholic spirits [g]ALLIC=”French” minus G for “good”; around COHO=species of “salmon” |
||
| 6 | EDNA | In bed, naked woman (4) |
| Hidden in [b]ED NA[ked] | ||
| 10 | RUING | Having second thoughts about toupee, staying at home (5) |
| RUG=slang for “toupee”, around IN=”at home” | ||
| 11 | BRIC-A-BRAC | Endless enthusiasm taxi drivers put into various items (4-1-4) |
| BRI[o]=”enthusiasm” without its end letter; CAB=”taxi” and RAC (Royal Automobile Club)=”drivers” | ||
| 12 | MOROCCO | Louis Quinze style, missing nothing on way of working leather (7) |
| Definition: morocco is a type of leather, often goatskin ROC[o]CO=”Louis Quinze style” minus O=”nothing”; after MO (modus operandi)=”way of working” |
||
| 13 | ENTICED | Drew a short space attached round entrance to cell (7) |
| EN=”a short space” in typography; with TIED=”attached” around the opening letter of C[ell] | ||
| 14 | NOLI ME TANGERE | No citrus flavour before with balsam? Leave well alone! (4,2,7) |
| Definition: a Latin phrase [wiki] meaning ‘Touch me not’, which is the name of a balsam plant [wiki] NO LIME TANG ERE=”No citrus flavour before” |
||
| 17 | PAINT STRIPPER | Makes picture of tourist, one cleaning graffiti perhaps (5,8) |
| PAINTS TRIPPER=”Makes picture of tourist” | ||
| 21 | DEAD SEA | These days needing backing to keep daughter in comfort in depressed area (4,3) |
| Definition: the Dead Sea is an area of very low elevation, or “depressed” AD (Anno Domini)=”These days” reversed/”backing”, around all of: D (daughter) inside EASE=”comfort” |
||
| 22 | INSIGHT | Encourage to use ears for special understanding (7) |
| Homophone/”use ears” of ‘incite’=”Encourage” | ||
| 24 | ANDROMEDA | Stars also wandered, Alpha moving (9) |
| Definition: Andromeda is the name of a constellation AND=”also” + ROAMED=”wandered”, with the A or “Alpha” moving to the end |
||
| 25 | ANTON | Chekhov, say, heading off from part of Switzerland (5) |
| Definition: Anton Chekhov the Russian playwright [c]ANTON=”part of Switzerland” with the head letter taken off |
||
| 26 | ECRU | Last of the vintage in the shade (4) |
| Definiton: an off-white colour or “shade” last letter of [th]E + CRU=”vintage” |
||
| 27 | FARANDOLE | Dance a long way with cry of approval (9) |
| FAR=”a long way” + AND=”with” + OLE=”cry of approval” | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | ACRIMONY | A bloody year, with no small ill-feeling (8) |
| A + CRIM[s]ON=”bloody” + Y (year), minus S (small) | ||
| 2 | CRIER | Town official rather a baby? (5) |
| a baby would also likely be a CRIER | ||
| 3 | HIGH COMMISSION | In building, flagged excessive agent’s fee (4,10) |
| Definition: an embassy for a Commonwealth country, with their flag on the building could also be read as HIGH=”excessive” + COMMISSION=”agent’s fee” |
||
| 4 | LAB COAT | Experimental wear for cold dog? (3,4) |
| a LAB[rador] COAT might be suitable for a cold dog | ||
| 5 | CHILEAN | Having washed all over, greeting American (7) |
| CLEAN=”washed” around HI=”greeting” | ||
| 7 | DIRT CHEAP | Scandal man’s kept under hat, not causing much damage (4,5) |
| Definition: “damage”=’cost’ or ‘price’ e.g. in the phrase ‘what’s the damage?’ when asking for a bill DIRT=”Scandal” + HE=”man” inside CAP=”hat” |
||
| 8 | ARCADE | Robbed a craftsman, holding up a series of shops (6) |
| hidden and reversed/”holding up” inside [Robb]ED A CRA[ftsman] | ||
| 9 | CASTLES IN SPAIN | Unrealistic plan to broadcast Saint-Saëns clip (7,2,5) |
| (Saint-Saëns clip)* | ||
| 15 | LAPLANDER | Northerner in run getting map for one day (9) |
| LA[D]DER=”run” as in stockings, with one D (day) replaced with PLAN=”map” | ||
| 16 | PRETENCE | It’s just make-believe, if 12-year-old hides a tablet at church (8) |
| PRE-TE[E]N=”12-year old” minus E=ecstasy “tablet”; plus CE (Church of England) | ||
| 18 | TEA LEAF | London criminal, one going to pot (3,4) |
| Double Definition: =’thief’ in rhyming slang; and something going in a tea pot | ||
| 19 | THIN AIR | Feature of an Everest ascent, in which one may disappear (4,3) |
| Definition: a state of nothingness which you can appear from or disappear into THIN AIR [less oxygen per volume] at high altitude is also a “Feature of an Everest ascent” |
||
| 20 | ADWARE | A challenge to include whiskey in selling software (6) |
| Definition: computer software containing advertisements A DARE=”A challenge”, around W or “whiskey” in the phonetic alphabet |
||
| 23 | GET-GO | In America, start to win game (3-2) |
| Definition: US phrase for a beginning or “start” GET=”win” + GO=board “game” with black and white stones |
||
Ta for the details of the balsam in 14ac.
Bet I’m not alone in wondering what that was doing.
Yet another rapid solve, all went in smoothly from 6A to 20D, with every solution readily parsed (including 27A, which was a new word to me, as confirmed later)
I could not parse 1d, 18d, the RAC in 11a, and 22a (did not pick up that it was a homophone.
My favourites were LAPLANDER, DEAD SEA.
New for me was CASTLES IN SPAIN.
I thought I had parsed 14a but now I see that I had forgotten to do anyyting with the balsam part.
Thanks manehi and Imogen.
*anything
Phew, not rapid at all here, and damn! bunged in a stupid darn cheap and should have revisited it. Enjoyed it all though. Scanning for the fourth letter of t_n_e_e and getting to g had tangere and then the rest of it surfacing from the depths but I had zero memory of what it was, thinking ‘aria, maybe?’ Also no memory of balsam as touch-me-not, or the shade, so ecru was a guess. So, hats off to all fully-parsed completers today, and thanks Imogen and Manehi.
..and other dnks were the dance and coho the salmon (fish names, thousands of the buggers, more than antelopes!), but both solutions were certain, and also castles in Spain was only vaguely familiar. So, a lesson in obscurities from Imogen, for me anyway.
Another bemused by balsam (even after I’d looked up noli me tangere and learnt == touch me not, didn’t realize it named a plant)
Wow! Some of these were quite convoluted, but some I liked a lot – I especially like clues where when you’ve done them if you can mentally turn off “cryptic mode” the answers look nothing at all like the clues.
I thought Chilean=American was a bit of a liberty, but probably OK. The Dead Sea is certainly below sea level (that sounds a bit self-contradictory!), but using “depressed area” as a definition is a bit vague, I thought.
I thought 14a could do just fine without the “with balsam”, but the extra meaning probably makes it a better clue. BTW it literally means “be unwilling to touch me”, the construction the Romans used to tell you not to do something. I wondered the other day whether anyone who missed it in school was tempted to take Latin now in order to do better with crucial instructions – the same applies here again.
Yeah! We’re back to cooking on gas. Hugely satisfying after 2 days of head scratching. Only morocco went unparsed. Thanks Manehi for that and Imogen for the confidence restorer.
Thanks Imogen and manehi
I’m starting really to enjoy Imogen. Favourites were FARANDOLE and LAB COAT. I liked the construction of several others too, though the surfaces weren’t as good.
With a few crossers, I tried to justify CHICKEN (as in “US chlorine-washed”) for 5d – it didn’t work, of course.
Himalayan Balsam is called “touch-me-not” because when the seed pods are ripe, touching them makes them fire off the seeds. Kids find this great fun, but it’s also a worry, as the plant too readily colonises wet area.
A hard slog at the upper end of my ability range but I got there in the end (needed some internet help). Needed Manehi for the parsing of all 1 across, the balsam from 14, the Anno Domini bit of dead sea, everything in Laplander, and the missing E in pretence – thanks to setter and blogger, an enjoyable challenge.
Thanks, manehi, big “Aaah” moment reading your balsam explanation. Makes it a fine clue, now.
Like DocWhat @8 had qualms over Chileans being referred to as Americans. Technically, it has to be right, but I wonder if a Chilean would be happy to be referred to thus?
Didn’t know the coho salmon and didn’t quite parse LAPLANDER properly, but otherwise really enjoyed this.
Could someone (perhaps from the other side of the pond) explain GET GO to me? I’ve never understood its derivation or how it works syntactically. If it simply means you start when you “get” [the] “go”, it seems awfully clunky to me. (Mind you, I suppose it’s no worse than “what’s not to like” (retch, retch).
Many thanks both, nice week, all.
Lovely set of clues.
Really enjoyed this, but it was hard. Thanks for the Balsam ref. I had no idea! Pity 20 has “ware” in clue and solution. I too didn’t know Coho. Wonderful puzzle, though.
Bah, wrote GET TO at 23d which spoiled what would have been a clean sheet for me. COD EDNA, he he for surface.
Loved it. Led myself up the garden path trying to fit a salmon into MAL before the crossers rescued me. 14 was my LOI – I didn’t know the phrase but followed the instructions although I was briefly reluctant to put NO in unchanged but what else could it be? Thanks all – a great few days so far!
bodycheetah @16. I was led up a different garden path, trying to fit PARR in 1A, a word I’ve learned from cryptics, although. from the same source, I vaguely remembered COHO. Great misdirection. I was looking for a cognac, or a French word meaning spirited.
William @12. GET-GO is also familiar downunder, but then unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for cruciverbalists, we tend to be very osmotic about things from other hemispheres.
PAINTSTRIPPER tickled me. Good crossie, as James @14 said, just a shame about the ‘ware’ doubling up in 20d.
Got 14a from wordplay, but couldn’t explain the balsam bit. Thanks manehi.
@#12 William:
I was interested in GET-GO as well and found the following:
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/335638/where-does-get-go-come-from
http://www.wordwizard.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=21342
This was a very enjoyable crossword. I particularly liked LAPLANDER and PAINT STRIPPER (someone was talking about charades split in non-obvious places the other day).
I must be tired though as when I read the blog I realised there were 4 or 5 clues I’d put in and forgotten to parse.
DrWhatson@8 and William@12: I lived in Latin America for over 30 years, though Chile was one country I didn’t get to. I would say that for most people in the region, saying that Chileans (and Peruvians, Venezuelan, Colombians etc.) are American is entirely legitimate, and any resentment would tend to come from suggesting that they are not. It’s something of a sore point in fact. People from the USA are referred to as norteamericanos (though one could argue that should also apply to Mexicans and Canadians). Language is messy.
I thought 20d was poor for repeating -ware in both clue and answer.
A satisfying and challenging puzzle (one comes with the other!). I particularly liked NOLI ME TANGERE, with its two (related) definitions and neat construction, as well as ACRIMONY and DIRT CHEAP.
I failed to parse four clues, and in two cases it was because I have never met ‘coho’ or ‘rug’ before. It’s a pity that ‘ware’ is in both the clue and the answer for 20d.
Thanks to Imogen and manehi.
poc @19
We crossed concerning that particular point about ADWARE.
Not easy – got stuck in NW corner, so needed Bradford to give me the balsam (I knew it as muffin@10 describes, but had forgotten about the Latin version)
Thanks to Manehi for elucidation of several entries which I’d not parsed properly.
I found this tougher than either Vlad or Tramp and seem to have found all the challenges and garden paths referred to by everyone above. I did like LAB COAT and PAINT STRIPPER and agree there were some neat constructions. I needed help with parsing ALCOHOLIC DEAD SEA LAPLANDER for which thanks to manehi and to Imogen for the puzzle.
I found this enormously satisfying, even though several were wild guesses with a few parsed afterwards. I’m another who hadn’t heard of Coho and the dance was a new one to me, too – though I’m tickled by the idea that “Olé!” is part of its name. LAB COAT, PAINT STRIPPER and THIN AIR made me grin – whilst TEA LEAF and DIRT CHEAP are giving me the faintest suspicion that Imogen may be a Londoner.
14A was my LOI: I had all the crosses and spent an age staring blankly at it, till inspiration suddenly hit. Mind you, I missed the balsam reference completely. Huge thanks to Manehi for all the help with those pesky extra details and, as ever, I’m in awe of the peerless Imogen.
Isn’t an EN a measurement rather than a space? I know typographical spaces are often measured in ENs but the EN describes the size, not the space itself. Also, why is repeating NO in 14 ok but WARE in 20 is not? Apologies for the pedantry …
bodycheetah @ 25
an EN is the width of an n character.
Similarly, an EM is the width of an m character.
First read through, I only filled in the 2 four-letter answers, but it slowly revealed itself. I believe COHO and ECRU are words that only exist in crosswords. I had to look up the dance and the Latin.
Having got BRI(o) and CAB, I took RAC on faith. Sure enough, it meant something British. So is HIGH COMMISSION, which I filled in without parsing — I knew it was something I’d heard of, didn’t know exactly what.
Tried BARCAROLE first for 27a, which fit but didn’t parse, and anyway I think it’s a song, not a dance.
This side the pond, “from the get-go” means “right from the start.” Once you’ve solved whatever problems were impeding your endeavor, we can say, “Now you’re cooking with gas.”
I was beaten by this one.
It’s a fine line whether Latin phrases are acceptable in crosswords. “Noli me tangere” seems rather too obscure to me.
Bodycheetah @25
A good point about EN. It’s true that the space is actually an ‘en space’, but to the best of my knowledge a space (or a dash, for that matter) can legitimately be described as an ‘en’, just as it could be an ’em’ (in full: ’em space’) if it was twice as long.
As for ‘-ware’ in ADWARE, my point was that this is the same part-word with exactly the same form and meaning in both software and adware. That’s not the case with NOLI ME TANGERE, in which the English word NO is not part of the Latin word-form NOLI, even though it does share the negative connotation (indeed, the word means ‘do not’).
A demanding but great puzzle. Never heard of coho but it had to be. If only there were a dance called a farencore, I’d have finished it correctly and it would have parsed, as well. Thanks to all.
Copland smith@27 – like all GK it depends on what you know! ECRU is an everyday term if you work in fashion and with fabric colours – which I happened to – so for me it was one of the few obvious ones I knew to be right.
Good fun today, though I needed Manehi’s help for some of the parsing – for which, thanks.
We seem to have Edna the Inebriate in the top row. Is there anything else related?
My first-ever completion of an Imogen after about a dozen tries, with several things learned along the way, including a new dance, a new Latin phrase, and a new bit of rhyming slang. I got THIN AIR pretty quickly from the title of the Jon Krakauer book about the 1996 Everest disaster. Thanks to Vlad and also to manehi, as I came her with several unparsed.
Alan B @30 good points well made as a former colleague used to say 🙂
Can anyone further explain RUING for me – I have my dunce’s cap on today – I get the RUG & IN but I can’t see from the wordplay how IN gets inside RUG?
bodycheetah @35
Thank you.
synescent @36, I wasn’t quite happy with that clue either, but Collins gives “to hold back or restrain” as one meaning of “stay,” which makes it work to my satisfaction.
The balsam is one of the “impatiens” plant family, most of which share the exploding seed-pods: the common Busy Lizzie bedding plant also has them. Hence the name: they are impatient to shed their seeds.
pfr@18. Thanks for the etymological work. I always assumed that it was a shortening of ‘get ready, get set, go’, which the sources don’t indicate. On google ngram the phrase ‘get go’ has a longer history than they suggest, and even ‘get-go’ has an extremely minor bump in the early twentieth century.
As with many, I couldn’t parse ‘basalm’ – thanks, manehi.
Hi synescent, the word stay can mean support, so I guess rug, supporting in. Bit of a stretch, I agree.
Thanks for clarifying some unparsed clues, manehi, and Imogen for the challenge.
Ah, I prefer DaveinNCarolina’s explanation. Sorry, I missed it.
Every time I see Noli Me Tangere in print, I’m taken straight away to The Goodies’ ‘Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me’. See YouTube . . .
Really enjoyed this.
“Staying” is fine for me as inclusion indicator, but what about “kept under” in 7d?
Thanks all
One last thought about RUING: the definition is ‘Having second thoughts about’, not just ‘Having second thoughts’. The rest is explained by ‘staying’ meaning ‘restraining’, as pointed out already.
DuncT @44
Perhaps a slight liberty was taken with ‘kept under hat’ to indicate ‘in cap’, but I thought it was ok.
14a I think that the best known use of this phrase is in St John’s gospel where Jesus tells Mary Magdalene not to touch him when she meets him outside his tomb after his resurrection. It’s a scene depicted by many artists, the most well-known being Titian. It doesn’t mean ” Leave well alone” or ” If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.
Thanks to Imogen and manehi
Imogen, you are my sunshine my only sunshine.
Thank you.
Only one I didn\’t get was \”Noli me tangere\”, not surprising, even though I got all the elements it still didn\’t make sense to me. Didn\’t like the puzzle overall, it included some dodgy things for me – 7d \”kept under\” being the worst. Actually, that\’s not dodgy, it\’s just wrong.