Another Tees ‘n’ Pierre show for your Sunday delectation and delight (well, the Tees bit, anyway …)
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Misplaced call to musician produces error
MISCALCULATION
(CALL TO MUSICIAN)*
9 Angered animists taking line in totalitarian ideology
STALINISM
An insertion of L in (ANIMISTS)*
10 Organised discharge of colossal volume
SALVO
Hidden in collosSAL VOlume.
11 Contrive to wipe out each unfinished city square
PLAZA
PLA[N] ZA[P] with ‘each unfinished’ as the instruction to remove the last letter.
12/13 Looking ridiculous after carelessly consuming chocolate at Easter?
WITH EGG ON ONE’S FACE
A cd cum dd.
14 Arab sycophants shunning second one
YEMENI
A charade of YE[S]MEN and I.
17 Attending Oxford maybe Ruth becomes arrogant
UPPITY
A charade of UP for being ‘up at university’ and PITY for ‘ruth’. The second element is archaic: it’s in dictionaries but is not in contemporary use. However, you can still be RUTHLESS if you are without pity.
19 Cook too little grub for starter and unfancied competitor
UNDERDOG
A charade of UNDERDO and G for the first letter of ‘grub’.
22 Get lost on the moors?
TAKE A HIKE
A cd cum dd. TAKE A HIKE is an interjection for ‘go away’ or ‘get lost’.
24 Leaders among the rabbinate examining food ascertain it to be so?
TREFA
When in doubt, follow the instructions: it’s the initial letters of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh words of the clue. The word means forbidden as food, or non-kosher, for Jews, so it’s a cad.
25 Initially obstructive wife to enable young head-turner
OWLET
A charade of O for the initial letter of ‘obstructive’, W and LET, and a trigger for the obligatory Pierre bird link. These ones are preternaturally cute, but like all owls have the ability to turn their heads through as much as 270º. Their neck vertebrae and arterial connections to the brain are specially adapted to allow them to do this without passing out.
26 Greeting Scottish banker and a regressively religious authority
AYATOLLAH
A reversal (‘regressively’) of HALLO, TAY and A. ‘Banker’ is being used is its (essentially only crossword) sense of ‘river’.
27 Outstanding leader — but one below par?
STANDARD BEARER
A cd cum dd, with a play on the meaning of the word ‘par’ for ‘standard’.
Down
1 Work for Schubert perhaps making multiple copies
MASS PRODUCTION
Schubert was well-known for composing Masses, so I’d parse this as being a charade of MASS and PRODUCTION for ‘making’ with the definition being ‘multiple copies’.
2 Man blocks view in main route
SEA LANE
An insertion of ALAN in SEE. ‘Main’ is used in its maritime sense.
3 Plate served up with stout is dripping?
ANIMAL FAT
A charade of a reversal of LAMINA and FAT. The animal in question is the cow, because dripping is always beef dripping where I come from. Accept no substitute.
4 Charlie getting on man’s nerves in wealthy district
CHISWICK
A charade of C, HIS and WICK (as in ‘the setter is really getting on my wick/nerves this morning’.) CHISWICK is a district of London, whose Wiki entry describes it as a ‘leafy, affluent district with a village feel’.
5 Checks borders
LIMITS
A dd.
6 Have trying experience?
TASTE
A cd.
7 Creditor showing explosive ego and bile
OBLIGEE
(EGO BILE)* gives us a word that must exist but which I’ve never personally seen before.
8 Patriarch discovered during harvest grabbing female
FOUNDING FATHER
A charade of FOUND, IN and an insertion (‘grabbing’) of F in GATHER.
15 Conductor travelled to support those chosen
ELECTRODE
A charade of ELECT and RODE. ‘To support’ works as the indication of which way round to put the particles because it’s a down clue.
16 Single chap died embracing daughter as requested
ON DEMAND
An insertion of D for ‘daughter’ in ONE MAN D.
18 Crumpet and cooked leek in bread: no thanks
PIKELET
An insertion of (LEEK)* in PIT[TA]. The anagrind is ‘cooked’; the insertion indicator is ‘in’; the removal indicator is ‘no’. Is a crumpet a pikelet? One for discussion if full lockdown re-emerges. Depends where you come from is the answer, I think. To start the argument, the word in fact has a Welsh origin and has been anglicised. Allegedly.
20 Duke with healthier — though incorrectly formed — liver
DWELLER
A charade of D for ‘Duke’ and WELLER for the grammatically incorrect comparative form of the adjective ‘well’. If one more person answers my question ‘How are you?’ with ‘I’m good, thanks’, I swear I will do them a mischief.
21 Scoundrel in American intelligence finds bug
CICADA
An insertion of CAD in CIA.
23 Man soon consumes ton
ANTON
An insertion of T in ANON, a rather old-fashioned word for ‘soon’.
Many thanks to Tees for this Sunday’s puzzle.
Another enjoyable Tees crossword – my particular favourite was the head-turner in 25a
Thanks also to Pierre for the equally enjoyable blog
What crypticsue said (unsurprisingly).
[It’s a pikelet where I live. When I was a child, my uncle worked in a bakery and I was told that his job was to make the holes in the pikelets with a matchstick.]
Quite agree with Sue, also loved 25a. Thanks to Tees and Pierre.
The expected pleasant Sunday puzzle, but with enough to keep things ticking over – an unknown in TREFA, an unusual term in OBLIGEE and less than obvious parsing in PLAZA. WICK for ‘nerves’ didn’t spring to mind instantly either. My favourite was OWLET too – an avian friend who’s been getting quite a bit of crossword exposure lately.
Thanks to Tees and Pierre
For some reason I couldn’t do any of the acrosses on first run-through, but then the downs slipped in quite quickly and I was able to finish. Trefa occurred to me immediately but I couldn’t find it in any of my usual references so that was my LOI as it had to be that. Thanks Tees and Pierre.
TREFA unknown to me – but nice to have a clue where the wordplay leads you there with some certainty.
Like everyone else, I liked the headturner.
I didn’t parse PLAZA but only realised that when I read the blog, having written it in without pause.
I know next to nothing about classical music so 1D was all about getting the crossers and supposition.
I very much liked 20D also. With a 4 year old, we meet plenty of such incorrectly formed words on a daily basis.
Ta Tees & Pierre
Enjoyed both crossword and blog, thanks. Loved D-weller. Reminded me of a sign currently outside a local business – “Education is important, but keeping pubs open is importanter”
Does it add to the discussion if I say I have never heard of likely before? Thanks all, a nice easy workout for once!
That should have been “pikelet” I hadn’t heard of – clearly the spellchecker hasn’t heard of it either.
If you’ve got this far in your life, Eric, without knowing what a pikelet is, then I’d stick to crumpets. Your spellchecker will like them better too.
I’m a great fan of Schubert’s music but his mass production is not what I first think of. I have all his songs on disc (37 CDs), I know his piano music, his symphonies, his chamber music (including 14 string quartets, apparently) but he only wrote 6 masses that I can see.
Thanks to Pierre and Tees
I’m never sure what people mean by “cad”. If it’s an alternative to “& lit”, then 24a is not one.
In 1d I saw the def as “making multiple copies”, and “work for Schubert perhaps”, as a cryptic example, equivalent to “work for farmer” cluing “food production”.
That was the idea. Schubert as far as I know is known for his masses, and even though he may not have produced masses of masses, the cryptic bit of the clue doesn’t depend on it.
The TREFA one has too many extraneous bits to be &lit, but it might be a sort of ‘first letters extended definition’ or something. What is a cad, apart from a rotter?
The rubric at the top of my blogs tells you, Tees – clue as definition. Intended to indicate that the clue, when read as a whole, points the solver to the definition, and to avoid endless and ultimately uninteresting arguments among those who insist on pigeonholing every clue about what is &lit, semi-&lit and &littish. I discovered yesterday on another of my blogs that ‘encapsulated indicators’ are a sub-set of ‘elision’ type clues, which should fascinate those who are interested in that sort of thing.
Ah okay. I should have read that I suppose!