[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here
Thanks to Vlad for the challenge. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Crazy house internally a big let-down (6)
BATHOS : BATS(crazy/nuts, as in “bats in the belfry”) containing(… internally) HO(abbrev. for “house”).
Defn: …/an anti-climax.
4 Fat — pull the whole lot in (6)
TALLOW : TOW(to pull/to drag along) containing(… in) ALL(the whole lot/everything).
9 Regarding last of houses (2,2)
AS TO : Hidden in(… houses) “last of“.
10 Criticised adopted child’s query (4,2,4)
TOOK TO TASK : TOOK(adopted/embraced) + TOT(a very young child) + ASK(to query/question).
11 Cured ailing animal in India (6)
NILGAI : Anagram of(Cured) AILING.
12 ‘Blimey, that’s not right!’ after drain almost gives way (8)
SUCCUMBS : “crumbs!”(like “blimey!”, an expression of dismay or surprise) minus(that’s not) “r”(abbrev. for “right”) placed after(after) “suck”(to drain/to withdraw fluid by suction) minus its last letter(almost).
13 This will show when undressed (5-4)
ROUGH-HEWN : A reverse clue/this – Anagram of(ROUGH) HEWN =/will show “when“.
15 Dark and twisted, first king abdicates (4)
INKY : “kinky”(twisted/in coils) minus(… abdicates) first “k”(abbrev. for “king”).
16 Woman has new uniform (4)
EVEN : EVE(a woman’s name) plus(has) N(abbrev. for “new”).
17, 7 Yes, saw a Cambodian for treatment for a very long time (5,4,3,1,3)
SINCE ADAM WAS A BOY : Anagram of(… for treatment) YES, SAW A CAMBODIAN.
21 Russia often put this out: ‘Support an idiot as leader!’ (8)
AGITPROP : PROP(a pole or beam to support something in danger of falling) placed after(… as leader) [A GIT](an idiot/an unpleasant person).
Answer: Originally from the Russian for “agitation” and “propaganda”.
22 ‘Injecting disinfectant can make everything OK’ initially baffled doctor (6)
MEDICO : Anagram of(… baffled) [1st letters, respectively, of(… initially) “‘Injecting disinfectant can make everything OK’“].
Advice from a certain non-medical President?
24 Ruling Tory’s name repeatedly disturbing people (10)
GOVERNANCE : GOVE(Michael, Conservative politician/Tory) + N(abbrev. for “name”) contained in(disturbing) twice(repeatedly) RACE(a people/members of an ethnic group).
25 Grub up — fish (no starter) (4)
ROUT : “trout”(a freshwater fish) minus its 1st letter(no starter).
Defn: …/to root/to turn up ground in search of food, as an animal does with its snout.
26 Very shamefaced about time in order (6)
SORTED : [SO(very/to a high degree) + RED(shamefaced, from the colour of the complexion of one who is)] containing(about) T(abbrev. for “time”).
27 Removed undesirables from garden — both of us tricked, some might say (6)
WEEDED : Homophone of(…, some might say) [“we”(both of us) + “did”(tricked/swindled, as in “what can we do you for”)].
Down
1 President’s instinct at the end — no moral code (7)
BUSHIDO : BUSH(George, former Presidents of the US) + ID(in psychology, that part of the mind from where instinctive impulses surface) plus(at the end) O(letter representing 0/none/no).
Defn: … of the Japanese samurai.
… part of the code.
2 It hardly covers resistance from crowd (5)
THONG : “r”(symbol for electrical resistance in physics) deleted from(from) “throng”(a crowd/a mass gathering of people or animals).
and then there’s the micro-version: 
3 No way! Preposterous one won’t face up to reality (7)
OSTRICH : O(letter representing 0/none/no) ST(abbrev. for “street”/way) + RICH(preposterous/describing, say, a remark, that causes indignation and invites disbelief, as in “that’s rich, coming from a non-medical President”).
Defn: …, and metaphorically with one’s head in the sand.
5 Sally picked up a drawing pin (6)
ATTACK : Homophone of(picked up) [A + TACK(a drawing pin/a small nail with a broad head)].
Defn: …/a sortie/a sudden charge against the enemy.
6 Following one day in city, in a terrible state (9)
LITHUANIA : [I(Roman numeral for “one”) + THU(abbrev. for the weekday, Thursday)] contained in(in) LA(abbrev. for the US city, Los Angeles) + anagram of(… terrible) IN A.
Defn: … in the Baltics.
7 See 17
8 Violently beating ill-wisher inside — how mad can you get? (13)
HORSEWHIPPING : Anagram of(ill-) WISHER contained in(inside) HOPPING(in the phrase “hopping mad”/extremely angry).
14 One invited to the pub (5,4)
GUEST BEER : Cryptic defn: A brand of beer available in a pub, but not produced by the parent brewery of the pub, or else one available, only temporarily, in a pub.
16 Force loosened Ron’s extremely strong grip (7)
ENGROSS : E(or, strictly, the lower-case Greek “Epsilon” written large, symbol for “electromotive force” in physics, not to be confused with E for “energy”) + anagram of(loosened) [RON’S + 1st and last letters of(extremely) “strong“].
Defn: …/to hold one’s attention or interest.
18 School garden party — head not required to take part (7)
COMPETE : COMP(informally, a comprehensive school in Britain) + “fete”(a garden party/an outdoor social function with entertainment and refreshments) minus its 1st letter(head not required).
19 Grew in volume during a bad-mannered broadcast (7)
ACCRUED: CC(abbrev. for “cubic centimetre”, a volumetric measure) contained in(during) [A + homophone of(… broadcast) “rude”(bad-mannered/behaving badly)].
20 Country house is good place for shooting (6)
GRANGE : G(abbrev. for “good”) + RANGE(a place to practise shooting of firearms)
23 Challenged person prosecuting left-winger (5)
DARED : DA(abbrev. for “District Attorney”, the public prosecutor in the US) + RED(a left-winger/a communist).
Thanks for the blog Scchua – a tough one to parse and I did not understand the “E” in engross even with a PhD in physics. Probably because it is wrong – EMF is not a force so taking just the “force” part is incorrect. A compressive force is a force, a sea lion is not a lion. And the symbol is not “E”, it’s a curly E like a lower case epsilon but written large (capital epsilon is like our capital E). So I think I was never going to get near that. I was not a fan of “o” for “no” though I guess “I have no bananas” and “I have zero bananas” is about OK.
Also “nigali” is an alternative name for “nilgai” which is a tad unfortunate given it is only clued as an anagram. Held me up on “thong”!
I was pleased to get the reverse clue “rough hewn” which was clever and many other clues had excellent surfaces. A tough workout but not too obscure! Thanks Vlad.
Possibly something to do with the less-than-2-hours-sleep, but as my day 3 of Guardian cryptics, this was a toughie… Looking forward to the next challenge!
Stumbled horribly over 17a/7d. Felt an idiot when I finally got there.
So glad to see Scchua come on line at last and explain a few of the clues today. Very definitely a DNF, ground to a halt. Was even trying to fit in SONSOFBITCHES where HORSEWHIPPING rightly belonged, as I had Government in instead of GOVERNANCE. Found some of this very difficult indeed, a proper challenge, perhaps succumbed to defeat to easily…
Thanks Vlad and Scchua. A good, tough challenge. I didn’t understand the E in ENGROSS but that had to be the solution. You have a small typo in the explanation of 19d – it should be A + CRUDE, not RUDE.
Thanks Vlad and scchua
I found this too hard to enjoy it. I filled the grid, but it took several wordsearches. I didn’t parse MEDICO or the E of ENGROSS (though I can be forgiven for the latter, in view of TheZed’s explanation, I think!)
LOI was the (not so) obvious AS TO!
…too easily, Great respect to all who battled on to the very end with today’s toughie…
I must admit to using the check button a few times, but everything parses cleanly. Didn’t know that definition of ROUT and it is a long time since I heard talk of AGITPROP. All very entertaining – a top class puzzle.
Thanks to Vlad and scchya
Sorry scchua – what I was hamfistedly (or han fingeredly) typing on the phone was hidden by a text box…
… ham!
19 ACCRUED. I parsed for the definition Grew as in CC (volume) in (during ) A____REUD (bad-mannered broadcast).
It took me ages and there were a couple of guesses – 11a NILGAI and 14d GUEST BEER. I liked 17a,7d SINCE ADAM WAS A BOY and 1d BUSHIDO. Thanks to Vlad and scchua.
I too found this quite tough – I filled the NE quadrant first and then seemed to be pulled anticlockwise round to the NW, where I finished with BATHOS. All very enjoyable, though.
I got WAS A BOY before I got the first part of that answer! I have only come across the shorter phrase SINCE ADAM before, not the longer one, although it rolls off the tongue easily enough.
I liked the reverse clue ROUGH-HEWN – also AGITPROP.
Thanks to Vlad, and to Scchua for some clarifications and the pictures.
Hr is a great setter,OF.THAT.THERE.CAN.BE.NO.DOUBT.
Where is everybody? There are usually dozens of posts by the time I’ve finished, especially with a Vlad.
So maybe a good day for me. Didn’t see the reverse clue in ‘Rough-hewn’, so not parsed, though it did occur to me that ‘hewn’ was an anagram of ‘when’. Enjoyed this. I liked ‘since Adam was a boy’, although I’ve only ever heard it ‘as a lad’. Thanks to Vlad and Scchua.
Where I said ‘anticlockwise’ I meant ‘clockwise!
Thanks to to Pentman
and to TheZed for the clarification. I had found both the regular and written large lower-case “epsilon” but this site would not recognise either font. I had read that the upper case was “E”, but, too hastily, ignored it, and used “upper case” to refer to it instead. So how do physicists refer to that symbol in their conversations?
Blog amended for both above.
Phew! That was tough for me. I hate Vlad puzzles. I can very rarely get on his wavelength and today was no exception. I only had four or five clues solved on first pass, so spent an age on 17a/7d thinking that would be my way in. Got it eventually, but in pencil as had never heard it before. The few crossers helped in the SE corner and ground my way around anti-clockwise to end up stuck in the SW. A DNF for me, unfortunately. Vlad always beats me, really putting me in my place after completing pretty much every puzzle I attempt.
Not heard of 11a or 1d, unsurprisingly but clueing was fair, as with every one. Not pleased when finished, just felt flat. I’m off for a lie down…
Sadly a DNF for us today as we put LINGAI instead of NILGAI.
We parsed accrued the same was as @10 Pentman 🙂
Some new and unknown words were BUSHIDO, AGITPROP, and BATHOS but we managed to parse and put them in with confidence.
Favourites were LITHUANIA and SORTED.
Thanks Vlad and scchua
Quite a struggle for me, but I finished it with a bit of guessing and checking. The NILGAI (11a) is not as popular a crossword antelope as the okapi or the eland, but I did remember it from previous outings. I wasn’t familiar with that meaning of ROUT (25a). Chambers says it is an irregular variant of “root”.
In 18d COMPETE we have a device similar to that in Brummie’s 6a HOLD yesterday, which got quite a lot of criticism. Yesterday we had to get LD from “vacant grounds”, ie you have to get “land” and then vacate it. Today we had to get ETE from “garden party – head not required”, ie you have to get “fete” and then remove the first letter. Do people have the same objections as they did to the Brummie clue? Is removing the first letter of a word not included in the clue regarded as fairer than vacating it?
Strewth, got there finally but not without a lot of aids such as Google and word-searches.
Many thanks to TheZed @1 for spelling out so clearly my own feelings on the E of ENGROSS.
There are some excellent clues here including ROUGH-HEWN, BATHOS, HORSEWHIPPING and the long anagram but I found it too tough to really enjoy.
Many thanks for the excellent blog.
Yesterday we were asked to take a synonym for “grounds” – LAND – and disembowel it to give LD. Today we have a synonym for “garden party” FETE and we’re asked to decapitate it to give ETE. I’m curious why people would get annoyed by one but not the other as the principal seems the same. I’m fine with both. Great crossword by the way! Thanks scchua & vlad
In the BUSHIDO clue, I took the final O as “at the end, nO” although sschua’s suggestion works too.
Thanks, scchua.
Tough but fair and most enjoyable.
I was held up at the very end with no answers for 12 and 15ac, because, like Benchiilian @14, I knew the expression in 17,7 as ‘Since Adam was (or were) a lad’ and automatically entered that. 12ac SUCCUMBS (which I very nearly did) ended up as one of my favourites, once I got it, along with 21ac AGITPROP, 22ac MEDICO and 24ac GOVERNANCE ( I love Vlad’s political clues) and I thought 5dn ATTACK was cute.
Many thanks to Vlad for the fun. Phew!
Lord Jim @19 you beat me to it. Fastest finger first as Mr Tarrant used to say. When I first saw Russina and idiot I immediately thought “cossack” and while it obviously wasn’t right I couldn’t help wondering how much fun you could get away with cluing that 🙂
So did I, William – otherwise, what’s ‘at the end’ doing?
Well I suppose it could simply mean that 0 (no) is at the end of BUSHIDO.
Lord Jim. I agree with you. I’m not a fan of clues in which I’m required to “think of a word meaning X, do Y to it, now use what’s left to add to Z to get the answer.
Eileen, in my haste to post (my LOI was 1d after finishing most of the blog) I did not, but I had intended to, include “at the end” in the parsing. I’ve amended the blog accordingly.
William, you beat me to it!
Good workout for me.
Favourites were: INKY, SUCCUMBS, rough-hewn, ostrich
Could not parse COMPETE, the E in engross, bush/IDO
New word: BUSHIDO.
Thanks B+S
A dnf, as I had to reveal HORSEWHIPPING in order to finish, but there was much to admire along the way. Vlad is a master at working political commentary into his clues, expertly skewering our President at 21a, 22a, 1d and 3d. Several answers went in unparsed, including ROUGH-HEWN, which I now like, although I’m not sure I buy it as a synonym for undressed
I didn’t have a problem with the decapitated garden party, as it seems to be a commonly used device. I did raise an eyebrow at MEDICO, which seems to me to be a forbidden indirect anagram.
Thanks to scchua for sorting it all out, and thanks to Vlad for defeating me without making me feel like too much of an idiot.
DaveinNCarolina – …”ROUGH-HEWN, which I now like, although I’m not sure I buy it as a synonym for undressed.” I would. Everytime I look in the mirror.
DaveinNC @31: well it depends what you mean by an indirect anagram. In 22a the letters required for the anagram are in the clue (they just happen to be at the beginnings of the words in question). I think that’s generally thought to be ok.
scchua @16 TBH I have always called it “curly E” when teaching it! My criticism, to be clear, was of the clue not your explanation i.e. Vlad’s use of “force” for a symbol (“E”) which is actually associated in physics with energy.
On the fated fete and the vacated land it seems the acceptable line is not to have double ambiguity. So acting on a synonym is OK if the action is unambiguous (reverse, vacate, behead, de-tail etc) and (usually) clearly defined. We have also seen “cycling” which is not unambiguous but has a limited number of possibilities. Anagrams of synonyms are seen as a step too far. Once that point is accepted, both “ete” and “ld” are OK but the latter is much more difficult because of fewer crossers and less help from the rest of the word. Once crossers were in 18D could only be “compere” or “compete” so the hunt for the synonym was rather easier. In my opinion it made “hold” a much harder clue (as short ones often are – “as to” was one of my LOI today) but not an unfair one. It didn’t cross the line but by gum it didn’t offer much help getting up to it either!
DaveinNC @31 think of “undressed stone” as being “rough-hewn”?
DaveinNCarolina: Interesting observation regarding your President. I’ll look out for them in future and maybe get some joy from Vlad.
Re (F)ete in 18D, I think it’s more clearly signposted in the clue than yesterday’s.
For me ‘School garden party’ immediately brought to mind ‘school fete’, and there it was.
The sight of Vlad’s name always immediately causes a furrowed brow although I actually sped through the right hand side. The left took longer particularly NW with BUSHIDO and NILGAI new to me and ROUGH- HEWN taking time for the penny to drop.
Te bodycheetah@21 to me the main differences are ete is closer to fete than ld to land in both number of subtracted letters and the remaining letters being next to to their normal neighbours, and the sheer number of synonyms for a word like grounds (in Chambers both a noun with 5 definitions and verb with a further 2) means to ask for a mauled synonym is right at the line for fair play for me. Put simply, I looked at COMPETE and knew it must be right and where ETE came from instantly, I looked at HOLD and thought “I guess so if we assume he wants vacant grounds to mean LAND minus the middle letters, but it could be all sorts of other things I’ll have to wait until I have the checked letters to be sure”
I was surprised it took until Dave@31 to see a mention of the Trump Takedown Theme (although granted it was entirely in the surfaces). I think there are a few others too beyond Dave’s 4: 19d and 23d and maybe some others with a little bit of a stretch.
I was not terribly happy with the E for force, as others have also said. However, Chambers has it, so we can go either one of two ways it seems: accept it because Chambers does, or stop accepting everything Chambers says as a green light.
DaveinNCarolina @21: Among dozens of other meanings for dress, Chambers has “to adorn, to finish, to trim”. I think that’s fair enough, don’t you?
I don’t suppose there’s any relevance to Tomsk and Garna going up the sides? Garna is a tiny settlement in Iran, apparently. I’m guessing coincidence.
Nice puzzle, the right amount of risque for me. Had to consult a mammal biologist friend for nilgai. Thanks Vlad and scchua.
@bodycheetah
In answer to your question about why a headless garden party is not as bad as yesterday’s empty grounds, I agree with TheZed, but would actually add a couple of points.
First, there are so many different words that could have been a synonym for “grounds”: beyond the land-related ones, you have those related to “reasons” (and all synonyms thereof), and then all those verbs relating to the process of a ship getting stuck on land (or aircraft being directed to ground), the act of punishing a child by deprivation of privileges, the process of basing an argument or contention on something, the processing of earthing an electrical cable etc.
Even if one correctly guesses that it’s the land-related meaning of grounds that is intended, “grounds” is not in my view a synonym of “land”, it is a way of referring to certain types of land.
By contrast, fete is a direct synonym of garden party. And there are not many other words that could possibly be a synonym of garden party. I can’t really think of any.
Added to which, today’s word play not only makes it obvious that one has to look for a synonym, but also gives a clear indication of the length of the word one needs to decapitate in order to fit into the solution. This is because there is no space in the solution for “ARDENPARTY”, which in any sense is meaningless. Yesterday’s reference to vacant grounds seems to indicate that it is a clue for only two letters, which could in principle be derived from the word “grounds” itself, and it offers no clue whatsoever as to the potential length of the word one is expected to empty.
As with so many contested types of word play, there is never a problem if you happen to see the answer. The question is how fair or meaningful the clue is and how apt to narrow down the potential solutions when the solver is struggling to see the solution. I feel that yesterday’s empty grounds failed entirely on that front.
As it happens, I’m personally not that enamoured of decapitating a synonym of garden party to to get ETE either. But if we allow degrees of disapproval (as I think we should), those are the reasons why I would say yesterday’s L[an]D is far more egregious than today’s [f]ETE.
@SimonS and AC87
Sorry, you posted while I was writing my post above, which I now see anticipates mine, far more succinctly.
Didn’t quite finish as COMPETE fooled me, as I failed to think of the fete worse than death. But this was on the pleasurable side of challenging. Thanks to Vlad for the problem and scchua for the explanations, especially ROUGH-HEWN.
This was tough. After the first pass, I only had EVEN and MEDICO. Some lengthy sifting for possible words in the long anagram got me some more crossers, but even then, each success took hard yakka. The East fell gradually, and then it took a lot more work – and some guessing parts, entering them and checking, which I only do when getting desperate – to get further. Though I could usually parse them post facto, quite a few were pretty convoluted. AGITPROP and HORSEWHIPPING, when they eventually fell, were pleasing. Thanks for the mental impaling, Vlad, and to sschua for sorting out the few I couldn’t suss – e.g. ROUGH HEWN and ENGROSS are exceedingly obscure.
Isn’t 17,7 more commonly expressed as ‘Since Adam was a lad’ or in northern dramas ‘Since Adam were a lad? I’m so used to hearing that I wrote in the former but immediately realised my error on rechecking the anagram.
Dr. WhatsOn @39 Does your chambers have “E” for “force”? Mine only has it for energy? Or is it “E” for “electromotive force”. In which case, equating it to “force” is an error of understanding like thinking a fungus is part of a house (“bedroom”, “bathroom”, “mushroom”…) because of its name. That’d be like cluing “room” and expecting us to come up with “cep”!
With you there Feliks – I wrote in “lad” too…
Question for Eileen — am I dreaming or was ROUGH-HEWN in an FT crossword recently? Wasn’t it also a reverse clue there but with a different surface?
Dr. WhatsOn
You are so right in what you say about Chambers (which we all know to be the standard source for so many crossword editors, setters and solvers).
To the physicists among you, just have a look at the way Chambers defines the W particle and the Z particle, noting the difference not only in the wording of the entries but also in their placement. (Collins is the model to emulate for these entities.)
In recent months W = weak has been used twice that I know of in Guardian crosswords, and it’s ‘correct’ and uncontestable because it’s ‘in Chambers’. But the W particle is not ‘the weak particle’. ‘W particle’ is its full name, just like the Z particle (both of which are weak particles, by the way).
“TheZed says:
July 2, 2020 at 11:26 am
Thanks for the blog Scchua – a tough one to parse and I did not understand the “E” in engross even with a PhD in physics.”
Thanks. I was worried that the last trace of my ancient MSc in physics was slipping away from me, but it now rings a bell about EMF not being a Force.
“Dryll says:
July 2, 2020 at 12:09 pm
Phew! That was tough for me. I hate Vlad puzzles. I can very rarely get on his wavelength and today was no exception.”
Me too. I always groan a bit when that name comes up for the puzzle.
I have enjoyed Vlad’s recent puzzles more than his earlier ones but, for me, this was a return of bad Vlad. I found several of the clues ‘over-engineered’. I eventually managed to untangle everything without recourse to aids, but the pleasure factor was lacking.
Alan B @50 You might have to enlighten me as to the Chambers definitions as my copy of the tome dates from 1983, the year those particles were first observed at CERN! Oddly it does have w=weak but with no context so possibly from some other usage?
In terms of physics, W=weak might be justified in things like “theta subscript W” which is called the Weak (or sometimes Weinberg) mixing angle and “Y subscript W” the weak hypercharge. Both of these require a capital W where the “w=weak” example in my dictionary is lower case. Case, of course, is vitally important in abbreviations in science and a constant source of frustration when journalists happily tell us a project costs so many millipounds (m£) instead of megapounds (M£), for example. Still, what’s a factor of a billion between friends?
Tony @49
No, you’re not dreaming – but I must have been! Wanderer, just last Friday and I didn’t remember it. 🙁
Weak also used in the rock world
Not the musical type
PS: Sorry, the link didn’t work: “. . . . perhaps, when being uncouth? (5-4)”
TheZed @53
There are too many words to copy out if I were to do exactly what you ask, and I can do no better than refer you to Comment 14 on the current General Discussion page on this site, where I set out the arguments I used in my approach to Chambers in December on this very subject.
I was taken aback that w = weak is in that older volume of Chambers, indicating that I need to have a bit of a rethink about that abbreviation. It is not in Collins, by the way. In Chambers the only context given for W = weak is the W particle in physics.
Tony Santucci@49
Yes. ROUGH-HEWN was in FT by Wanderer (Puck) on Jun 26, last Friday.
Also, GUEST BEER was the theme in a Picaroon puzzle and GOLIATH in FT (Philistine) had AGITPROP, both earlier this year.
Remembering these was helpful to me…..giving several crossers.
11a — antelopes again! This one’s a boselaphus tragomelus, I now know, which sounds like a cross between a cow and an elephant. Looks like one too!
I’ve learned here about guest beers, unknown in the US, where we don’t have tied pubs.
I do have to point out that while Hector may have been a pup, Adam never was a boy. He and Eve were created as adults, and Cain and Abel were the first children.
I got to ROUT by beheading a trout (by a method under discussion here of processing an unspecified word), but “rout’ for “grub up” is foreign to me. I think of “root” as what pigs do.
Dave @31 “dressed stone” is stone that has been cut to its final shape with smooth sides. Before it’s dressed it’s rough-hewn.
We don’t have fetes over here, so my ideas of them come from fiction about church fetes and the like, where I totally missed the outdoor connotation. Hence “garden party” went right past me. I bunged in “compete” anyway as “take part,” and figured (rightly) that somebody would explain the pieces.
I don’t mind Vlad, I just plunge on in. Thanks, Vlad and scchua. (Including for the pictures!)
[Does the W in “W particle” stand for “weak”? W and Z are intermediate vector bosons, which are involved with weak force interactions, but I thought there wasn’t any particular association between the letters and any other words – rather like tau, for example.]
[muffin @60
I’m not an expert, but I’m sure it’s wrong to say the W in W particle ‘stands for’ weak. That is how and why that particle was named, but that’s just a matter of origin – etymology, if you will. The W particle is not the ‘weak particle’. I can also guess why the Z particle was named as such (zero charge), but again Z is not an abbreviation for zero, by the same argument.]
[Thanks Alan]
Eileen @55, ilippu @58 Thanks to both.
… and Raich in the Indy had GUEST BEER (‘Occasional visitor glassed?’) on Monday this week.
I can confirm what my fellow physicist says, namely that electromotive force is not a force. I too had no idea how we were supposed to get from force to E. But the name “electromotive force” certainly seems to suggest otherwise, so it’s hard to get too upset with Vlad for being misled.
One introductory textbook I’ve used introduces the term “emf” but refuses to acknowledge that it stands for “electromotive force” — or rather, acknowledges this as a historical fact in passing but urges the reader to forget it and simply call this quantity emf, without making the letters stand for everything. It’s rather like the fast-food chain KFC: the original name was of course “Kentucky Fried Chicken” but now it’s officially just called KFC (in an attempt to distance themselves from the negative associations of the word “fried”).
Wow – that was a struggle. Put it aside with three clues unsolved for most of the day, and just now found BATHOS which led to BUSHIDO and ROUGH-HEWN. Loved OSTRICH. Many thanks to Vlad and scchua.
To TheZed@47. I checked two sources, Chambers online, and a book I had squirreled away that I had forgotten about until this morning called Chambers Crossword Abbreviations. Both had E as electromotive force. So in answer to: is E an abbreviation for electromotive force?, Chambers says yes, curliness ignored. But I think your contention is that that is not sufficient to say E is an abbreviation for force. Ordinarily I would agree with you, but one could make the case that this is just another flavour of indirection, as in the fete/land discussion, and the inferred ground rules for at least this Vlad puzzle seem to say that indirection is to be accepted.
Like many others I found this super-tough, and although I filled the grid I had to guess at 1d and 11a and got them both wrong. I think Vlad’s clues have been described as tough but fair, but I would dispute that in the case of an obscure Indian animal clued by an anagram. I wrote in LINGAI, but as well as NILGAI we could have had NIAGLI, AINGLI or several other variations, including as TheZed points out @1, NIGALI (which is only ruled out by crossers). Perhaps some people have a different idea of fair. Personally I don’t accept “well known in crossword land” as an excuse for a difficult clue for an obscure word.
I made things tougher for myslef by thinking that 21a had to end in ARCH (support): government by idiots has a name, which wouldn’t come to me so I looked it up after changing tack and solving the clue – kakistarchy, so an idiot as leader would be a kakistarch
Self (not slef) @68 (pressed submit by mistake). Here’s the link for kakistarchy.
Also meant to say that I forgot about instincts=ID, having become used to it meaning “must go for a drive to Durham with my wife and child; hope my eyesight is ok – never mind, I can always go to Barnard Castle for an eye test.”
Thanks Vlad for the challenge and scchua for the illustrations.
SH@68
As ever, differing GK – NILGAI was one I didn’t need a wordsearch for. It was in a book of antelopes I had when I was quite small! (Not quite sure why I had it – probably a present – but I was – and still am – a compulsive reader.)
Eileen @64 And “staff nurse” appeared yesterday and today in the FT. Is all this repetition merely coincidental?
…actually, I think it might have been one of those promotions – breakfast cereals? – where you collected cards and stuck them into a book. Does anyone else remember those? There were always some cards that were much rarer and sought after. What was the product?
If ever there was a game of two halves… the entire East side slipped in almost immediately and I was wondering if this really was Vlad – then I started on the West. I emerged, battered, bruised but triumphant only after several sallies, as ever in awe of the clueing. 14 and 21 particular favourites, 11 new – many thanks to Vlad and scchua.
Late to the party today (lovely long visit, normalcy returning, hooray! And apologies in anticipo, will read all the above after posting). Well, stared dumbly this morning at the mostly empty left side, then cheated by looking up synonyms of crowd to get th[r]ong (great pics, Scchua), which enabled bathos and the NW, and then finally the SW fell. So, thoroughly impaled by Vlad today, thanks mate for a typically gnarly puzzle.
Tony @71
I didn’t do either of those puzzles but I think the beleaguered Guardian editor might have come in for some stick for that.
@muffin 72 I mostly remember those from packets of Typhoo tea, though Weetabix occasionally did similar – still got a couple of sets of Dr Who cards from them somewhere.
In the hours since I posted, I’ve taken a proper drubbing from at least four commenters for questioning ROUGH-HEWN. I hereby raise the white flag and apologize to Vlad.
Tan Coul @76
I think it must have been tea – it would have taken ages with Weetabix!
@muffin 72 – when I was a lad, it was Brooke Bond tea that included the cards, which I methodically glued into the books they provided. I particularly remember the dinosaurs. Does Brooke Bond still exist, I wonder?
Thanks Vlad for a hard but enjoyable workout, and to sSchua for some necessary parsing. The ingenious disobliging references to the current occupant of the White House added greatly to the enjoyment.
Thanks to scchua and Vlad
13a These clues normally take the form of “may/could show”
21a To turn “idiot” into “git” needs an exclamation mark and a couple of Hail Marys
1d I think the “o” comes from (n)o
partly because two clues later “no way!” = zero streets
That device has some bearing on the E =force debate:
“E” is not an abbreviation for “force”, but then “st” is not an abbreviation for “way”
Thanks g larsen
Well, glad I didn’t read the above first, esp with only undergrad physics; not to mention routing in headless garden parties with Panglossian beers.
GinF
I suppose a Panglossian beer, would be OK, but I would hope for better (or bitter?)!
Tan Coul @73
So many commenters here, you and I included, have described the experience in the same or a very similar way (a game of two halves): one first had to conquer the east, then the west. Perhaps the message for Vlad is to make the west a bit more accessible in future – the alternative opposite message doesn’t bear thinking about.
The best of all possible beers, muffin.. (current fave, Peroni, aih)
Sorry – I really didn’t enjoy this at all. It was a DNF with about 5 clues left, and too many that I got but absolutely couldn’t parse until seeing the explanations here. Oh, well…
…but the best of all possible worlds allows for something even better, GinF?
I’m looking forward to draught beer sometime soon, though I’m not going to join in the rush on Satrday.
@g larsen 79 Indeed, I think BB may have been the first, and then imitation became… I’ve also found some PG Tips cards from the 70s in the spare room trunk.
Thanks scchua and Vlad.
You can get Greek letters etc here using the codes at
https://www.freeformatter.com/html-entities.html
ε
me @87
Perhaps I’m being unduly pessimistic!
ε
It used to work…
I think I still have several complete books of PG Tips cards stashed away somewhere. We used to collect them avidly, and when the subject changed sent off for the missing ones. But I suppose they were really a more-acceptable-for-minors version of cigarette cards (which my grandfather and uncle used to collect).
Re NILGAI being ‘obscure’, it is as ever a personal thing. It was my FOI.
Thanks to Vlad for yet another tremendous puzzle, very tough but fair, as usual, and to scchua for the blog.
Many thanks to scchua for the blog and to others who commented.
DNF 5 short and reading this wouldn’t have got there in a month of Sundays.
Late to comment as attempting early night last night and too early for blog. But interesting to read the blog and comments. This was a workout and I struggled in particular with the NW corner, using a dictionary to complete BUSHIDO and NILGAI, both of which were new to me. Stared at BUSHIDO for a while till realised ID was being used as a synonym for instinct, which doesn’t quite work for me.
The discussion re E was interesting – I assumed it was referring to E=mc2,(which seemed a poor fit for force) but am now enlightened.
Still, lots to enjoy and fav was MEDICO- great surface.
Thanks to Vlad, and thanks for dropping in and Thanks to you, sschua, for the helpful and colourful blog.
A slow start with only four or five entered after an hour, so took a break in the park! Completed it after two more separate sessions. Definitely more challenging than yesterday’s, but mostly enjoyable nonetheless. Had to check some guesses from definitions and crossings when parsing was too tricky/convoluted for me, but still chuffed as I only started doing crosswords about a month ago (starting with Quiptics and then moving on to Cryptics).
First one in was TOOK TO TASK and last was LITHUANIA. Did not know GUEST BEER. I recognised cured as an anagram indicator for ‘ailing’, but still googled ‘Indian animals’ and found the one fitting – – – G – I . BUSHIDO is the the samurai/warrior code; calling it a moral code (like Zen) is a stretch. Nice anagram in 17,7. I liked ROUGH-HEWN, INKY, EVEN, GOVERNANCE, ROUT, AGITPROP. Phew!
Thanks to Vlad and esp. scchua for the necessary explications.
I think “force” and “energy” can be synonyms if considered in the non-physics meaning – like “life force”. Bit of a stretch but well within bounds imho
I did this one on paper at lunchtime today and it took me a while (!), but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Getting BATHOS was the key to unlocking the West side for me, giving OSTRICH then ROUGH-HEWN, HORSEWHIPPING and AGITPROP in that order. Interesting E = force debate. I now vaguely remember my high school physics teacher pointing out that EMF was a misnomer. Vlad could have ducked the issue by inserting a sneaky finally as second word.
Thanks to commenters for pointing out the Trump-bashing surfaces which I somehow overlooked. Beautifully done, Vlad. Thanks, and also for dropping in.
Thanks, too, to scchua. Funnily enough, I parsed ACCRUED the way you originally did, with “Grew in volume” as the def and CRUDE as a synonym for bad-mannered. I admit that the newer parsing is much nearer the mark.
Gamla @97
I agree that, in everyday usage, force and energy can be used interchangeably. But the trouble here is that you need a two-step process to get from Force to Energy to the symbol E, which I think is not really going to fly. I guess Vlad did rely on the Chambers validation of E = force. And, if that’s the case, I have no objections, unless Chambers recants.
I was misled by the fact that the apostrophe ‘s’ in 10a and 24a seems not to be a part of the word play.
Nigali cannot be an alternative to Nilgai (TheZed). Nil means blue gai means cow/bull.
There are examples of a two-step process in this crossword:
Way – choose an example of one – street – abbreviate it = st
Ditto
Day = Thursday = Thu
Volume = cubic centimetre = cc
Force = electromotive force = E is no more indirect than any of those.
Immediately thought of the correct solution to 16dn, but could not justify the E. There must be better ways of cluing an E? Currently reading Life and Times of E. by Ronald Clark.Recommended.
I’m a week behind in my crosswords, so only sschua will see this, but I’m surprised that no one else was defeated by entering INGALI (Indian scorpion) at 11a. It seemed so indisputably correct that 1d and 2d were impossible to get.
I thought the a antipotus clues were brilliant. Thanks Vlad and sschua for the fun.