Lots of fun with some very nice misdirection – favourites were 14ac, 20ac, 23ac, 5dn, and 15dn. Thanks to Nutmeg
| Across | ||
| 1 | PHOBIC | Obsessive elf in film (6) |
| HOB=a fairy creature=”elf”, inside PIC=”film” | ||
| 5 | HOME PAGE | Domestic servant needed for main site (4,4) |
| HOME=”Domestic” + PAGE=”servant” | ||
| 9 | SNACK BAR | Pub on fire, engulfing end of kitchen where food’s served (5,3) |
| BAR=”Pub”, after SACK=”fire” around [kitche]N | ||
| 10 | LASTLY | Endure lampoonery, losing heart in the end (6) |
| LAST=”Endure” + L[ampooner]Y losing its “heart” or central letters | ||
| 11 | SCARLET FEVER | Bloody female constantly making complaint (7,5) |
| SCARLET=”Bloody” + F (female) + EVER=”constantly” | ||
| 13 | JAPE | Gag journalist’s initial copy (4) |
| “initial” letter of J[ournalist] + APE=”copy” | ||
| 14 | MORNINGS | Instant calls blocked by new PM’s predecessors (8) |
| definition: PM as in afternoon hours MO (moment)=”Instant” + RINGS=”calls” around N (new) |
||
| 17 | PLATONIC | Unromantic pal screwed up introductory note (8) |
| (pal)* + TONIC=the first note of a scale=”introductory note” | ||
| 18 | FATS | Food constituents employees mostly rejected (4) |
| most letters from STAF[f]=”employees”, reversed/”rejected” | ||
| 20 | BASS BARITONE | Singer from ABBA is tenor? Soprano, surprisingly (4-8) |
| (ABBA is tenor S)*, where the S is an abbreviation for “Soprano” | ||
| 23 | LEARNT | Was inclined to absorb one basic subject? (6) |
| LEANT=”Was inclined”, around R=”basic subject” as in the ‘three R’s’ of reading, writing and arithmetic | ||
| 24 | LAID DOWN | Relinquished set (4,4) |
| double definition | ||
| 25 | STAYED ON | Remained sober on air, with no backsliding (6,2) |
| STAYED is a homophone/”on air” of ‘staid’=”sober”; plus NO reversed/”backsliding” | ||
| 26 | ERRATA | Mistakes catching Quisling in time (6) |
| RAT=betrayer=”Quisling” in ERA=”time” | ||
| Down | ||
| 2, 12 | HUNG PARLIAMENT | Members in suspense when ruling’s tricky? (4,10) |
| PARLIAMENT=”Members”, who are HUNG=”in suspense” | ||
| 3 | BACKSWEPT | Defenders greeted, sloping off from the front (9) |
| BACKS=”Defenders” + “greeted” is Scots slang for WEPT | ||
| 4 | CABMAN | He once drove a medic back into jail (6) |
| A + MB (Bachelor of Medicine); all reversed/”back” and inside CAN=”jail” | ||
| 5 | HAROLD MACMILLAN | Stalwart Tory earl shunned by Camilla and her old man, mistakenly (6,9) |
| Harold Macmillan was a Tory PM and became the Earl of Stockton Edit thanks to Lord Jim: (Camilla her old man)* minus an ‘E’ for “earl” |
||
| 6, 19 | MILITARY POLICE | MP‘s car I impolitely pranged (8,6) |
| (car I impolitely)* | ||
| 7 | PASTE | Thrash late attendee’s bottom (5) |
| PAST=”late” + the last/”bottom” letter of [attende]E | ||
| 8 | GOLDEN GATE | Facts surrounding past newspaper scandal that’s familiar in SF? (6,4) |
| definition: a famous part of San Francisco, a strait spanned by the Golden Gate Bridge GEN=”Facts” around OLD=”past” + -GATE=a suffix used by newspapers to describe scandals |
||
| 12 | See 2 | |
| 15 | INFIELDER | Pagan with 500 depressed troops going up gully? (9) |
| definition: “gully” is an infield position in cricket INFIDEL=”Pagan” with D=Roman numeral for “500” pushed down/”depressed”; plus RE (Royal Engineers)=”troops” reversed/”going up” |
||
| 16 | UNSALTED | Last nude sculpted with no particular relish (8) |
| (Last nude)* | ||
| 19 | See 6 | |
| 21 | SPRAY | Apply water to cut flowers (5) |
| double definition, the second referring to a bouquet/arrangement of flowers | ||
| 22 | TWIT | Make fun of wife’s parting boob (4) |
| definition: TWIT can mean ‘taunt’ W (wife) inside TIT=”boob” |
||
Another first class puzzle from Nutmeg, although I am not convinced by 23a, and 22d is straying somewhat into Paul territory: Nutmeg’s taste is usually impeccable.
I think 5d is an anagram of “Camilla” and “her old man” less the E for earl.
As you say manehi, some really clever misdirection. I was initially looking for something to do with science fiction in 8d and for an MP’s name in 6, 19. Very enjoyable.
Many thanks Nutmeg and manehi.
All gettable due to Nutmeg’s clever clueing, although I was unfamiliar with that meaning of TWIT as a verb (22d). Like George@1, I was a bit surprised at the use of slang in that clue seeing it was a Nutmeg puzzle (don’t mean to sound prudish). But lots to like with ticks for 11a SCARLET FEVER and 2/12d HUNG PARLIAMENT as well as three already nominated by manehi: 14a MORNINGS and 20a BASS-BARITONE and 5d INFIELDER. I did need to come on here to parse a few fully. A very likeable puzzle. Thanks to Nutmeg and manehi.
Fine crossword! I did not find a dud clue anywhere. Was stumped for a long time by MORNING but when it finally dawned it became my COD. Other favourites among many were BASS BARITONE and JAPE for its simplicity. Very many thanks to the Spice Girl for another stunning crossword. Thanks to manehi for the early, informative blog. Oh and I did enjoy TWIT sorry!!
Sorry mine @ 5 MORNINGS!
Thanks Nutmeg and manehi
Very nice. I particularly liked the misdirection of PM and SF. I confess that I solved the long one from definition and crossers, and thought” that’s an anagram of something”, but didn’t bother to work out what.
I suppose LEARNT is an attempted &lit, but it doesn’t quite work for me either.
Thanks to Nutmeg and manehi. Like SPanza I liked JAPE – elegant and simple as well as all the abbreviation clues which all misled me with their plausible surfaces. LEARNT was loi; I didn’t know WEPT as Scottish slang or TWIT as a verb. I also had SCARLET WOMAN then OHARA before eventually arriving at the much better FEVER! Great stuff – I’ll have to print off the FT to have with cuppas during another beautiful day here in the UK. Lockdown upside.
That was fun with much to enjoy. I thought LEARNT was very good, and I also enjoyed TWIT, which was my first one in. I was pleased to have parsed everything except STAYED (duh: I missed the homophone) and GOLDEN (also duh: must remember facts = GEN…). Thanks to Nutmeg and Manehi for a good beginning to Maundy Thursday.
Same here re 5d muffin.
Excellent misdirections. Thanks for top crossword.
Some very clever anagrams here – I do think it is a sign of masterly cluing to come up with both a neat anagram and an appropriate context, like the Macmillan one. Bu comparison “last nude sculpted” is almost prosaic, though it does have a clean surface.
I am another misdirected by PM, MP etc which was a nice mini-theme. I was looking at “OL” as PM’s predecessors for a while. With the SF clue I was thinking “golden eyes” as in The Midwich Cuckoos, but to no avail. So many clues looked so difficult at first but then turned out to be straightforward when looked at from the right angle. A sort of cruciverbal Necker cube.
Thank you Nutmeg, and Manehi for educating me about “wept” – a TILT.
Very enjoyable. Like Whiteking@8 I toyed with O’HARA but remembered for a recent Everyman (?) that although she moaned a lot she had two tees. However I was held up by confidently inserting HOME HELP for 5a.
Great! Took forever to get INFIELDER even though I was sure infidel was in there somewhere. Also MORNINGS and the other misdirections were great. Many thanks to Nutmeg and manehi.
Well, can’t verify but I’m sure Nutmeg has on occasion been more risque than the hardly eyebrow-raising twit. Yes pretty much on form, tho agree that learnt is a bit hmmm? The Scots greet for weep learnt from tv dialogue (an old miniseries about fish farm processors comes vaguely to mind). Like muffin, bunged in Harold M, and wrote ‘too lazy’ in the margin but on review did work it out. Liked the mechanics of infielder, but wrote ‘wot?’ about the surface, and another hmmm at unsalted. Enjoyed it all, thanks MandN.
Lovely stuff with some classy surfaces to ice the cake. SPRAY could also be taken &literally? I held back PHOBIC to the end as I’m not convinced that it’s a synonym for obsessive but ultimately it couldn’t be anything else. Similarly delayed by BACKSWEEP as it’s not in my Chambers but the wordplay was clear. Great stuff overall. Thanks M&N
This revealed its secrets at a slow pace for me; never quite stuck but requiring a fair bit of lateral thought.
The &lit-ish LEARNT is a little odd but still quite inventive.
Loved the misdirections caused by SF and PM.
Another smooth offering from Ms Irvine, thank you very much.
Stay safe, everyone.
Ah, that was a pleasure. I was clear-headed today and thought I was suitably ready for any attempts at misdirection; I was suspicious of MP and SF, and yet I was STILL coshed over the head by the PM. MORNINGS was a gem, my simultaneous COD and LOI (which always lets you walk away with a warm feeling). INFIELDER was another favourite, even though I never refer to the gully or other close fielders as an infielder. I was happy that ABBA’s singers are sufficiently well known to me that I didn’t spend too much time trying to get an anagram from “tenor soprano”. I didn’t know that S was an abbreviation for soprano, but it made sense, and helped me get through another lovely surface to the real anagram. And so nice to see greeting make an appearance…
As I came in by Inverness,
?The simmer-sun was sinking down,
O there I saw the weel-faur’d lass,
?And she was greeting through the town.
The gray-hair’d men were a’ i’ the streets,
?And auld dames crying, (sad to see!)
“The flower o’ the lads o’ Inverness,
?Lie bluidie on Culloden-lee!”
Thanks as ever to Nutmeg for the pleasure, and to manehi for the rapid and excellent blogging
Apt ref to Necker, TheZed; multi-stable states and hysteresis (lag), the essence of cw-solving, shifting between ‘views’. (Ambiguous figures led to Bela Julesz inventing the random dot stereogram, and to its then becoming an artform).
As a lowland Scot I’d take slight issue with ‘greeted’ as a synonym for wept or cried. This may be grammatically correct but I’ve never heard it spoken and, on trying to structure a sentence, it just sounds wrong.
Around my way we would say ‘gret’. As in ‘the bairn gret aw nightlang, ah dinna ken whit’s wrang wi him’.
ginf @19 “hysteresis” in reference to crossword solving – excellent analogy…multiple values of output for the same input, the answer depending on the route you approach it by…and often a big gap in the middle!
Nothing to add, really, except my thanks to manehi for the blog [once again I agree with your favourites, with the addition of 6,19, MILITARY POLICE for its lovely surface and misdirection] and to Nutmeg for another classy puzzle.
..and the delicious bit is that you can’t really ‘will’ leaping the gap…
[I knew “greets” from this song, which my mother used to sing (though she wasn’t a Scot)]
Scutter @18 Four part choir music usually has ‘arranged for SATB’: meaning soprano, alto, tenor and base so I had no problem with this!
Another lovely puzzle, which I will admit to struggling a little with. Since the lockdown started and I no longer have to commute, I have been doing the crossword on the phone before getting up – my brain doesn’t always function as well first thing in the morning and as always with Nutmeg there is plenty of clever misdirection. Needed all the crossers to see PHOBIC, which was last in.
Thanks to Nutmeg and manehi
Thanks for the song, muffin. It immediately sprang to my mind, too: my choir has sung it several times, in John Rutter’s arrangement from his ‘The Sprig of thyme’. [I knew the word, anyway, from my Scottish husband – but I never heard him use it in the past tense, McPedant. 😉
Another, high class enjoyable puzzle from Nutmeg.
Yes, I fell for the PM, SF misdirections – lovely! So, GOLDEN GATE, MORNINGS, INFIELDER and SCARLET FEVER were my picks. The clue for the latter might have attracted scorn if it had been set by a man, but was great fun.
More, please; thanks Nutmeg and manehi.
I too took a while at the end to get the interlocking MORNINGS and INFIELDER. And I thought I knew my cricket. Both had clever misdirections as elsewhere in this very nice puzzle…
Not much to add except to join in the general praise for this puzzle, which was certainly up to Nutmeg’s high standard with plenty of ‘aha’ moments. All my favourites have been mentioned. I can now add gully to my growing body of cricket terminology. Thanks to manehi and several commenters for the elucidation of ‘wept.’
Thanks to Nutmeg and manehi.
On a normal day I wouldn’t offer here as it’s all been said, but with the only alternative involving the garden and the application of tools…
I always approach a Guardian crossword with a faintly pungent sense of foreboding: perhaps this is the day when I will crash, staring blankly, getting nowhere. Had that today almost all the way through and couldn’t believe I had finished when BACKSWEPT emerged from the miasma. FOI was, ironically, LASTLY and didn’t build much confidence, especially with all the MPs dashing themselves against my auto-disenfranchisement (now I’m jibbering).
So a struggle, yet I got it all in one not so long sitting. In many ways a perfect distraction, a fair test and a confidence builder to boot. COD was TWIT which got the wiggling eyebrows treatment for longer than was necessary.
[I suppose I should be grateful to have a semi-wilderness to attack for further distraction, as many do not and would love it.]
All been said but I just want to add to the chorus of approval – three cheers for her spiciness.
The wonderful MORNINGS detained me the longest pondering names for Boris’s Turkish forebears and thence to his’the Turks are coming’ Brexit lie.
Thanks N&M.
I normally think of SFO or Bay Area so the SF was a great misdirect for me-back in the day driving over the GG bridge at sunset was a fine experience.It seems to me there are certain similarities between Nutmeg and Arachne- both setters of the first order.
Thanks all.
I know “greeeting” from Coulter’s candy”. (Remember Robin Hall and Jimmy McGregor, anyone?) I’d have said it was dialect rather than slang.
Good puzzle and thanks for the blog.
TWIT came as no surprise to me at all, despite speculations about Nutmeg’s impeccable taste, possible prudishness or what have you. I remembered her profile in The G a while back. She was asked about her favourite clue; the solution to which was MASTITIS. The clue itself can be seen in the archive should anyone care to look it up. It was simple, elegant and amusing, so I won’t attempt to render it in my own words. Suffice it to say, it involved a mother and an unfortunate medical condition.
Thanks to Nutmeg and to Manehi and best wishes to all in these bizarre times.
Many thanks to Nutmeg and Manehi… I really enjoyed this puzzle. In the long-ago “normal” times it was my habit always to do the crossword on a real copy of the Guardian… which of course is a lot harder now. Mostly I have settled for working on a printout from the website, but today I was very grateful for the use of the mobile version. I found that this puzzle took almost exactly the right time for me to progress through the queue to get into the supermarket. Not sure whether this says more about my skills or the length of the queue!
This one was a game of two halves – all complete in the west before much of anything in the east. The two long anagrams held out until I had a few crossers. Quite clever that HAROLD MACMILLAN was in fact an earl. Took me an age to see INFIELDER. The parsing for this one was quite chewy. MORNINGS was nicely done and provided my PDM of the day.
For BASS-BARITONE, I wondered if there was a corresponding term tenor-soprano, but can’t find any evidence of it. I had the uncomfortable feeling at one point that it was an anagram of “tenor soprano” and that I was expected to remember the ABBA members names :o( .
Thanks for another entertaining puzzle, Nutmeg and for the blog, manehi. Puzzling is helping a lot to keep me somewhat sane during these bizarre times.
phitonelly @38
“tenor-soprano” would be unlikely, as they (usually) would be different sexes. However there is a “soprano-contralto” voice, generally referred to as a “mezzo(-soprano)”.
Absolutely loved today’s tussle with Nutmeg’s very clever misdirections.
Under normal circumstances I would have perhaps run out of time but given the current state of affairs, plenty of time to mull over each clue until it yields.
14 and 23 across and 6/19 and 8down were absolutely superb.
Thanks all
phitonelly @ 38 and muffin @ 39: contralto perhaps! Kathleen Ferrier was a good example!
Very enjoyable. I confess I was fooled by SF – thanks to manehi for the explanation. I had HOME HELP at first for 5 across, with domestic as the definition, servant = HELP, and main site = HOME. Sort of works. CABMAN could alternatively be parsed as an insertion of A BM after the C, rather than an insertion of BM A after the CA. Both seem equally valid.
PS Harold Macmillan is famously associated with the phrase “You’ve never had it so good” although what he actually said was “most of our people have never had it so good.” Ah, 1957.
Brava to Nutmeg – elegant as always, and thank you Manehi.
We are lucky to live in age of Cecilia Bartoli, who could be described as a soprano, mezzo-, or contralto depending on the role in question. Occasionally she has an aria that proves she can be all three at once.
Thanks, muffin, SPanza and il principe. I’ll have to check out youtube later.
buzzbuzz @42, Good point re: CABMAN. The use of BM allows the (possibly neater) surface “He once drove a medic into jail (6)” avoiding the use of the “back” indicator in a down clue, which some find uncomfortable.
Can anybody explain why the word stalwart is used in the Harold Macmillan clue. It seems a bit unnecessary!
Relating to discussions of prudery vis-a-vis TWIT, I note the following from Arachne’s 27,873:
Decrepit old man’s boob (4,2)
Re 15d, why 500? The D is already there with ‘infidel’.
Liked this,fell for all the misdirection initially and got rather stuck on both PHOBIC and BACKSWEPT which were the last two to go in. BASSBARITONE was FOI.
Thanks Nutmeg.
I found this very hard. I only got six answers last night, and filled the rest in this morning with generous use of the check button for one letter or another. (I didn’t have to go so far as “reveal”, though.) But it is a beautiful job, and so is the blog (thanks, manehi).
Scutter@18 — I spent more time than you apparently did trying to find and anagram of “tenor soprano.”
And thank you for the Culloden poem — you make the point I was going to, that “greet” for “weep” isn’t slang, it’s guid Scots. You find it in many a traditional song. As in the one about the speaker’s tiresome old husband: “the very first nicht that he got wed he sat and grat for gruel.” (Different past tense from McPedant’s.)
SF had to be either science fiction or San Francisco, and it’s a common abbreviation in that city (written, not spoken). I can’t say the same for NY — New Yorkers and others refer to the big city as NYC, not NY, to distinguish it from NYS, which is also commonly used. I’ve lived in both cities, so that makes me an expert, doesn’t it?
GULLY is on my list of indeterminate length of “words I recognize vaguely once I hear them as having something to do with cricket.”
@Mystarsngarters, the d from infidels is depressed, which somehow seems to mean shifted to the end. I don’t understand where the definition for 23A is. I see the implication, but the clue seems incomplete.
CountFosco, I see, the d is simply moved down.
Barbay @ 49 I wondered about ‘stalwart’ as well.
I most liked the bloody female always making complaints, though i feel like i shouldn’t say that too loudly.
Many thanks Nutmeg & Manehi
I forgot to say — where is the difinition in 23a, LEARNT? Is it an &lit?
Valentine @54, CountFosco @50. Re; LEARNT Yes, I see it as an &lit – the whole clue is needed for wordplay and definition. Somewhat elaborate definition, but I think it works quite well, in that, to learn something, you have to be inclined to do it.
Valentine @54, as I understand the term, LEARNT is a true &lit; that is, the entire clue is both definition and wordplay. I see from the comments that at least a few people found it questionable, but I rather liked it and see nothing wrong with it.
Sorry, phitonelly, we crossed.
Well, there’s a coincidence. Just grabbed a book from my unread shelf (obviously not going to bookshops or buying online while we are where we are). I chose Alan Warner’s Morvern Callar more or less at random. The words greet, greeted, or greeting, are used four times on the first page!
Excellent as usual.
Too many lovely clues to list them all but I particularly enjoyed the ‘greeted’ bit of BACKSWEPT, ‘pub on fire’ in SNACK BAR, and SF turning out to be something other than ‘science fiction’.
I was also pleased to be reminded of this song by 1a:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgwFv5gc0D0
I’m with Valentine. Where I come from originally, the past tense of greet is grat and I was going to quote the same song.
Sean Hesketh <sean.hesketh@googlemail.com>
12:18 AM (2 minutes ago)
to Sean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D3-OQID1-0
Phitonelly: this may save you some searching. At 44 minutes and 30 seconds Cecilia proves the point. However, I’d recommend watching this from the beginning and to the end; we all have time to kill.
Dear Gaufrid,
I’m sorry but I’m very clumsy; I shouldn’t have included my details but I do wish that the link is passed on.
[il principe @61, I listened to the performance tonight and thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks for taking the trouble to find and post it.]
Thanks Manehi and Nutmeg. A DNF for me as I had LONG PARLIAMENT, and got trapped looking for other parliamentary nicknames during the English Civil War as I realised it wasn’t correct.
Splendid puzzle, many thanks to Nutmeg and Manehi for the parsing help on BACKSWEPT (as an ignorant sassenach, I’d never have got WEPT for GREETED without help).
PS Ignorant sassenach – tautological?
Blue Canary @ 33 –
To take a swipe at a man (no matter your views of him in ‘normal ‘ times) when he is in intensive care, as he was when you commented, is nasty and inhuman.
I’m surprised this sort of thing is allowed here. Why is it allowed?