This was very difficult, and it took me a long time. But everything seems to be sound (except in a couple of places, and if the past is anything to go by then I’m the one at fault) and there are some very good clues, many of which at first sight were impenetrable and afterwards were quite clear; the sign of a good crossword.
The grid is one that I’ve never seen here before, not that it seems to me to be a bad grid. I associate it with one particular paper whose crosswords we Independent solvers tend to be snooty about, but actually they’re usually fine.
Definitions in cadetblue, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | LIBERTY CAP | Presumptuous act put a limit on personal cover (7,3) |
| liberty [presumptuous act] cap [put a limit on — I knew it was going to be some sort of cap, but I’d never heard of a liberty cap — which seems to be some sort of mushroom, but a personal cover, a cap? Yes, I was looking too hard at Google, which seems reluctant to mention what Collins gives: ‘a cap of soft felt worn as a symbol of liberty, esp during the French Revolution, from the practice in ancient Rome of giving a freed slave such a cap’ | ||
| 9 | E LAYER | Part of rarefied atmosphere related to prestigious university’s backing (1,5) |
| (re Yale)rev. — I’d heard of the E layer without knowing what it was: perhaps this will help; perhaps | ||
| 10 | SYSTEMATIC | Miscast yet somehow acting using established method (10) |
| (Miscast yet)* | ||
| 11 | CYSTIC | Emergency sticking plasters associated with the bladder (6) |
| Hidden in EmergenCY STICking — plasters the imaginative hidden indicator | ||
| 12 | ESPYING | On-line adversarial agent elected government is observing (7) |
| e-spy in [elected] g — an e-spy can be regarded fancifully as an on-line adversarial agent | ||
| 15 | DRY CELL | Charged item to teetotal brother’s room (3,4) |
| dry [teetotal] cell [as in a monastery] | ||
| 16 | ALLOY | Member of coalition receiving nothing to amalgamate? (5) |
| all(0)y | ||
| 17 | IDLY | Writer had vacated library in vain (4) |
| I’d l{ibrar}y | ||
| 18 | PITY | Devoutness lacking core element is source of disappointment (4) |
| pi{e}ty | ||
| 19 | DRYER | Doctor drinking whisky in tumbler? (5) |
| d(rye)r — tumble dryer | ||
| 21 | CHOOSEY | Selective church returning positive response about circular letters (7) |
| ch. (o o) (yes)rev. — I think most people would spell it ‘choosy’, but no doubt this spelling does exist — it’s given as an American English alternative spelling in Collins | ||
| 22 | NEW YEAR | Drunken Hogmanay ultimately leads to this (3,4) |
| {Drunke}n {Hogmana}y gives ny, or NY, which are the lead letters of New Year — some &littery here, not exactly sure how to define it | ||
| 25 | PAY FOR | Witter on about what auditor believes to be a square foot (3,3) |
| (yap)rev. “four” — yap = witter on, four is a square number, you foot the bill when you pay it | ||
| 27 | ANY OLD IRON | Song reflecting one’s lack of interest in swingers’ clubs? (3,3,4) |
| The swingers are golfers, and there is a lack of interest in their clubs | ||
| 28 | CANARY | Informant about to spin a yarn (6) |
| c *(a yarn) — the canary sings = informs | ||
| 29 | SNOWY EGRET | Grey, wet second half of season upset winger from overseas (5,5) |
| (Grey wet {sea}son)* — a winger tends to be a bird in crosswords despite a surface that often, as here, suggests football | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | IDYLLS | One’s penning extremely dreamy lines to create these (6) |
| 1(d{ream}y l l)’s — with some &littery going on | ||
| 3 | ENTITY | About to leave the whole thing (6) |
| enti{re}ty | ||
| 4 | TYMPANA | Raise article associated with the Speaker in appropriate instruments (7) |
| (an ap(my)t)rev. — I seem to remember this coming up recently: tympana is the plural of the tympanum that is something in the ear, or something in architecture — although timpani appears to be plural, it seems to be used musically as a singular word — in my perambulations round Google I came across the fact that tympani and timpani (the musical instruments) are not to be confused — I’m very confused | ||
| 5 | CITY | Large settlement requires wisdom to discount substantial account (4) |
| {saga}city | ||
| 6 | PECCARY | Animal reportedly resembling a hen? (7) |
| “pecker-y” — this is a peccary | ||
| 7 | SYNTHESISE | Unite disparate elements of argument framed by limits of sociology and nature (10) |
| s{ociolog}y n{ature}e gives syne, and it’s syn(thesis)e | ||
| 8 | BRICKLAYER | Squabble over right to take on non-professional course developer (10) |
| b(r)ick(lay)er — a bricklayer lays courses — ‘over’ an inclusion indicator, which I don’t like but perhaps it’s OK | ||
| 12 | EPISCOPACY | Bishops cope badly with fast taking lives (10) |
| ((cope)* pacy) round is [lives] | ||
| 13 | PILLORYING | Criticising nosiness about sick story’s central character (10) |
| p(ill {st}o{ry})rying | ||
| 14 | GLORY | Horrific cases start to libel celebrity (5) |
| g(l{ibel})ory | ||
| 15 | DOYEN | Senior figure‘s urge to support party (5) |
| do yen | ||
| 19 | DEFRAYS | Settles noisy dispute of French guards (7) |
| de(fray)s, the des is guarding the fray — not guards = defends, as I was sure for a long time it somehow was when I had de _ _ _ _ s | ||
| 20 | REGALLY | Largely represented as a head of state (7) |
| (Largely)* — represented = re-presented | ||
| 23 | YOKING | Man depressed by second person almost getting into bondage (6) |
| yo{u} king — the man is a king in chess | ||
| 24 | ANYONE | Single person annoyed about missing date (6) |
| (annoye{d})* | ||
| 26 | TYPO | Error in manifesto perhaps attributed to party politics (4) |
| Hidden in parTY POlitics | ||
Not a grid I’d use myself as I think the cross-checking less than ideal. That may be why it took me a while to get wise to the Nina.
Spotted the Nina. Serpent used to do these letter bases ninas with a grid displaying the chosen letter a while back. Very clever as per usual. Love clues like 25a which take a lot of figuring out. Thanks all.
Didnt spot the nina in spite of looking but it didnt stop me from thoroughly enjoying the puzzle
Thanks to Serpent and John
Saw what was going on, and it help me complete the grid quicker than usual. Not as good as the double dagger, 10226, but still good.
How on earth does he do it?! Wonderful constructions every time. I only got the Ys trick right at the end. By the way I followed the link and the Peccary is incredibly cute.
A proper beast of a crossword but I got there in the end – I had to check the first part of 1a.
Clever Nina – thanks to Serpent and John
Serpent back to his former self.
I’m not talking about quality but, as Hovis said, he used to set puzzles like this (quite) a while ago.
I saw the Y-‘gimmick’ very quickly, confirmed by the four Ys in the grid.
It was of great help in finishing the crossword.
Unfortunately (for me), that was a bit undone by the many double unches, something I don’t like (even if the checking was never <50%).
But yes, another splendidly clued crossword.
[that said, I didn’t like 27ac very much, I still do not have a proper antenna for cryptic definitions, so mea culpa]
As always, difficult to nominate a CoD.
Many thanks to John for the blog & Serpent for the entertainment (and the occasional head-scratching).
Well everyone was going on about the Nina and not giving it away, but eventually Herb@5 led me towards it: is it that every answer contains the letter Y or is there something more?
In any case I can’t alter the blog now because when I was doing it I put a filler in the part that can’t be seen by a passer-by in case I eventually saw something. Failing to do so I deleted it and now I can’t put anything up there. Anyway, people seem to be so au fait with it that perhaps it’s not necessary.
John @8. Not just the Y’s in every answer but the 4 Y’s formed by the black cells in the grid. This is what I alluded to @2 and Sil spelt out. I think Phi was “wise” to this in his excellent, punning fashion @1.
It occurred to me quite early on that there were a lot of Ys (including a diagonal row of five near the centre), which helped a lot with solving most of the clues. I didn’t spot the four Ys in the unches, though I did try to see if there was something else. Very clever. Thanks Serpent and John.
We struggled with this but finished eventually without recourse to aids other than checking in the dictionary that words (such as PECCARY) actually exist. DEfinitely an occasion when two heads are better than one – one of us says ‘the only word I can think of to fit — is ——–‘ the other pencils it in, looks at it and sees it will parse, and that’s anothert one solved. But we failed to spot the nina/theme despite knowing that Serpent usually has one. Don’t know if it would have helped anyway.
We weren’t happy, though with TYMPANA. Chambers does allow the Y spelling for the instruments but neither Chambers onr Collins have ‘tympana’ as a plural for the instruments, even though Collins has ‘timpani’ as a plural sometimes used as a singular.
Lots of good stuff, though. Favourites were DRY CELL and ANY OLD IRON.
Thanks, Serpent and John.
allan_c @11
Sorry to disagree with you but all my electronic references give TYMPANA as a plural of ‘tympanum’:
Chambers
tympanum
noun (pl tympana or tympanums)
1. A drum
Collins
tympanum
noun (pl -nums; -na)
4. music A tympan or drum
ODE
tympanum
noun (plural tympanums or tympana)
3. Archaic a drum.
just recently, I seem to have done a few puzzles which have had terrific gridfills but where the quality of the clueing hasn’t really matched up to the idea. This definitely wasn’t the case here – as usual with Serpent. A really top-notch puzzle, despite the iffy bare grid design. Thanks to S & B
I loved it. It took a while, but then I expect that from Serpent.
I can see the view on the double unches, but without them you could’t have the Ys in the grid. Fair enough.
Thanks Serpent and John.
I’m normally pretty nina-blind, but even I saw this one after all the Ys started falling out. Which was a help, because you were looking for Ys in the ones you hadn’t solved. And the Y shapes arranged symmetrically around the centre was a nice post-solve pdm confirmation.
Thanks to Serpent for the entertainment and to John for the blog (excellent choice of cadet blue).
Thanks to John and Serpent
Didn’t notice the y’s (in the clues, or the grid). or the double unches.
Very good crossword but I don’t get “what auditor believes to be a square” for “for”.
Dansar, sounds like four ie two squared.
Thank you NNI but it’s the “believes” part which I don’t get.
Dansar,the auditor (i.e. hearer) hears the word ‘for’ and believes he/she is hearing ‘four’.
Well, I sort of finished it but it’s taken me a while. And for 8dn I at first thought of (and entered) TRACKLAYER, but then realised that BRICKLAYER would also fit, but I couldn’t parse either.
Many thanks to John for the excellent blog and to everyone who has been kind enough to comment.
The grid is derived from one in the set presecribed for use in the Telegraph Toughie, which also includes the double unches. I wouldn’t normally use a grid with double unches (or the overchecked entries around the centre square for that matter), but I was drawn to the possibility of a puzzle in which every entry contained a Y, reflecting the block patterns in the grid.
Ingenious puzzle, as always from Serpent.
The Times library has quite a few grids with double unches. However, from the point of view of fairness, this is balanced by the fact that no Times grid contains words with less than 50% cross-checking letters. The % of cross-checking letters in an answer, rather than the question of double unches, appears to be the important criterion for fairness to the solver in that series.
I don’t think the Guardian grid library contains any double unches, although there is one grid with two triple unches, which I have always studiously avoided!
Yes, the Guardian seems to have a grid with three triple unches (see e.g. Quiptic, 19 Aug 2019).
On top of that both these entries are less than 50% checked!
I don’t think that is acceptable.
And to make things worse, that particular grid has a further 9 (!!) words that are less than 50% checked.
It really puzzles me why it hasn’t been dumped.
allan_c @19
Thanks, I see what you’re saying, it’s just that the homophone indicator would normally be simply something like “auditor’s”.
The Telegraph’s set of grids certainly includes several with double unches. Like the Times, I think at least 50% of the cells are checked in all the entries. However, the Telegraph also has some grids in which some entries have less than 50% checked. I try to avoid those grids, especially if the underchecked entries are short.
@Sil, I couldn’t agree more: I think it should never see the light of day again!
When it comes to the difficulty of solving a puzzle, grids make an enormous difference. I tend to think of solver-friendly grids versus setter-friendly grids. The former are harder to compile on but easier to solve: several answers of over 10 letters connecting different areas in the grid, 50% cross-checking in every answer, average light length over 7.5, lots of checking first letters etc. The latter are easier to compile on but harder to solve: a predominance of shorter answers, under 50% checking, grid divided into sections with few pathways between them, few checking first letters etc.
Personally, I think the latter are fine if they enable a really interesting and ingenious thematic grid-fill, but I feel we see too many of them without good reason. Otherwise, I think a good daily crossword grid is the former and, like Jason / Serpent, I try to stick to grids I find fair. I have no problem at all with double unches as long as the checking is at least 50%.
To be clear, I wasn’t criticising the choice of this grid.
[nor the puzzle as such – it was superb]
For me personally, as a solver, entries with, say, 3 out of 7 checked I find less annoying than those with double (let alone triple) unches.
[I admit I’ve been a sinner myself]
But if the ones with multiple unches are also <50% checked, then I will become really annoyed.
That won’t happen in The Times (and most other publications).
And it shouldn’t happen.
When I first encountered that particular Guardian grid, I thought ‘how on earth ….’.
And when I encountered it the second time, I thought again ‘how on earth ….’.
@Sil, agreed again. Serpent is a consistently first-rate compiler, one of the best.
@Serpent
Re the, er, unusual grids in the Telegraph library…pure speculation on my part but I reckon Elgar’s themed offerings are likely to be the root of some of them