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Vlad rounds off a good week of puzzles with a reasonably tough challenge.
The four long perimeter clues helped, as usual, but there were some rather tricky bits of parsing and one I’m still not sure of. Lots of smiles along the way, at Vlad’s customary wit.
Many thanks to Vlad for a most enjoyable and ultimately satisfying solve.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Man of God supposedly leaving — settle on replacement (13)
TELEVANGELIST
An anagram (on replacement) of LEAVING SETTLE
10 Senseless getting Serco, you said — maybe give someone else the job (9)
OUTSOURCE
OUT (senseless) + an anagram (maybe) of SERCO + U (‘you said’): a brilliant surface – see here for SERCO
11 Star name following a particular diet (5)
VEGAN
VEGA (star) + N (name)
12 Let‘s wish leader gone (5)
LEASE
[p]LEASE – I was struggling to equate wish and please but then thought of ‘If you wish / please’
13 PM accepts a sign something’s wrong following b___ difficult woman (9)
BATTLEAXE
B + ATTLEE (Prime Minister) round A X (a sign that something’s wrong) – here are some examples of ‘difficult women’
14 Trump’s around providing a little bit of ‘culture’? I kept trying to calm down (7)
PACIFIC
A reversal (around) of CAP (trump) + IF (providing) C[ulture] round (kept) I
16 During lecture deliberately overlook deception (7)
SLEIGHT
Sounds like (during lecture) ‘slight’ (deliberately overlook)
18 Army personnel backing Queen stand around (3,4)
RED ANTS
A reversal (backing) of ER (queen) + an anagram (around) of STAND
20 Issue 100 in book for adult students? (7)
OUTCOME
C (100) in OU (Open University – for adult students) TOME (book)
21 Dry wit rarely Oscar’s way? I shouldn’t say this (5,4)
DIRTY WORD
An anagram (rarely) of DRY WIT + O (oscar) + RD (way)
23 Submit — it’s Vlad! (5)
PUTIN
PUT IN (submit) – great clue!
24 What makes music fresh — it’s live, mostly (5)
SITAR
An anagram (fresh) of IT’S + AR[e] (live – as in yesterday’s Tramp puzzle)
25 Sure can — fellow returned piano to top of house (9)
FOOLPROOF
A reversal (returned) of LOO (can) + F (fellow) + P (piano) + ROOF (top of house)
26 Might relish habitually doing this to impress? (5,8)
POWER DRESSING
POWER (might) + DRESSING (relish)
Down
2 Bowled over to England openers last month — new technique picked up (9)
ENTRANCED
EN (England openers) + a reversal (picked up) of DEC[ember] (last month) + N (new) + ART (technique)
3 Degrade what a Norseman did in speech? (5)
ERODE
I’m not sure of this – is it sounds like (in speech) ‘he rowed’? Edit: sounds like ‘an ‘orseman’ – thanks to Peter W, Carthusus and essexboy
4 Writer propping up bar as a kind of exercise (7)
AEROBIC
BIC (writer) after (propping up, in a down clue) AERO (chocolate bar) – two product placements in one clue!
5 Reach hotel passing through South’s traditionally impoverished areas (7)
GHETTOS
H (hotel) in GET TO (reach) + S (South)
6 Footballer previously not inclined to give maximum effort (5,4)
LEVEL BEST
LEVEL (not inclined) + (George) BEST (footballer) – ‘previously’ could be doing double duty
7 Letter writer occupied by government flip-flopping (5)
SIGMA
G (government) in a reversal (flip-flopping) of AMIS (writer – Kingsley or Martin)
8 Dodgy polaroids safe? Happiness short-lived (5,8)
FOOL’S PARADISE
An anagram (dodgy) of POLAROIDS SAFE
9 Neither funked playing different role in theatre (5,3,5)
UNDER THE KNIFE
An anagram (playing) of NEITHER FUNKED
15 Emotionally detached, as football stadiums this year, completely empty inside (5-4)
FANCY-FREE
C[ompletel]Y in FAN-FREE (as football stadiums this year)
17 Good landlord won’t rent — place now empty (5,4)
GHOST TOWN
G (good) + HOST (landlord) + an anagram (rent) of WON’T
19 Pampered, wanting nightcap initially sent up (7)
SPOOFED
SPOO[n]-FED (pampered) minus n[ightcap] initially
20 Look up info about King — you’ll easily get cash for it (3,4)
OLD ROPE
A reversal (up) of LO (look) + DOPE (info) round R (king)
Brewer: ‘In former sailing days, crew members would unpick the odd lengths of rope lying about the ship and sell the strands and strips to shipyards in the next port of call. There they would be hammered into the gaps in the deck planking before being covered in pitch’
22 One going through most of shop’s correspondence (5)
RATIO
I (one) in RAT O[n] (shop, mostly)
23 Immature creatures are protected by others (5)
PUPAS
A (abbreviation of are, metric measurement) in PUPS (other immature creatures)
That was tough but I was helped with a very lucky guess on 8d (FOI). Loved 13a and the surface reading of 10a says it all. Technically a DNF with 1a refusing to yield as my LOI.
Thanks for the tough but nicely-done challenge Vlad and the blog Eileen!
A Norseman equals an horseman. He rode.
A very slow start with this one, but once we cracked the long anagrams, everything started to fall into place.
Could not parse PUPAS, and agree with Eileen about wish/please. I parsed ERODE as a homophone of HE RODE (a horse??) but I think Eileen’s version is better – Vikings are more often associated with boats than horses!
Favourites were UNDER THE KNIFE and FANCY-FREE.
Thanks to Eileen and Vlad
As Peter W says, A Norseman = An ‘Orseman. Erode = ‘e rode
I loved Putin! COTD for me
Goodness, that was hard. For me, without question, toughest for quite some time. Vlad stakes his claim, once again, as one of the most challenging setters. For ages, I only had BATTLEAXE, which has arisen recently in a similar context, VEGAN and POWER DRESSING. I wouldn’t normally associate ‘habitually’ with clothes but it raised a smile.
Slowly, then, the grid began to unfold and give up its secrets, pretty much every one delighting in one way or another. One or two slightly clunky surfaces but more than made up for with some quite brilliant ones and lovely topicality. OUTSOURCE is brilliant – I wondered why Serco had popped up and the whole surface is wickedly apposite. Both the superb PUTIN and RED ANTS misdirected me beautifully; FOOLPROOF fell in two halves with ‘proof’ on its own for a while before the lol moment when ‘can’ made sense; Eileen – I would not have got SITAR without the live/are clue in yesterday’s Tramp; AEROBIC is brilliant though the bar could be difficult for non-UK solvers (I do wonder if I’ve seen a similar clue before but it doesn’t matter if I did); RATIO, again, misdirected and SPOOFED was a lovely spot by Vlad. I could go on – but had better save some for others to praise!
Splendid test, Vlad, and thanks to Eileen for the helpful blog. Our favourites appear to coincide again! (And we share the one parsing quiblet)
Peter W @2 & Canthusus @4: thanks so much. That’s brilliant – again. No quiblets at all now.
Eileen – at 3d it’s the ‘eadless ‘orseman – ‘e rode!
There’s definitely an 80s vibe here – POWER DRESSING, TELEVANGELISTs, AEROBICs, and one particular woman came to mind at 13a.
And on the musical front The Specials’ GHOST TOWN, VANGELIS hidden in 1a, Suzanne VEGA, and a lot of half-hints: LEVEL without the 42, the ANTS without Adam, RED but no Simply, another lonely day in PARADISE, GHETTO but no blasters, DIRTY but no dancing, no Footloose but FANCY-FREE.
My least favourite musical decade, but my favourite puzzle of the week. PUTIN was just superb.
Many thanks Vlad and Eileen.
Thanks both. Didn’t think I’d get anywhere with this one but it gradually yielded.
(8d needs an anagram indicator, Eileen)
Re 3d I see I crossed with several others – apologies
Thanks Shirl – I’d missed out the parsing altogether! Will fix it now.
Thanks, everyone for the ‘orseman – of course!
For once I was on Vlad’s wavelength today. Woke at 3:30am and had it done by 4am, breaking my PB by a good 15 minutes, though I confess a couple were not entirely parsed. Favourites were ERODE and PUTIN
Thanks to Vlad for the ego boost and to Phi for polishing off the parsing.
What fantastic fun 🙂 I had hoped that all the outer 13s would be anagrams but POWER DRESSING let me down and that’s the full extent of my gripes today
Having got the four 13s and after yesterday’s romp, I decided to try and complete this in symmetrical clue pairs. It’s an interesting approach and one that requires a bit more self-discipline than I seem to possess. Needless to say, hubris was duly chastised.
So much to enjoy here – especially the lovely linguistic legerdemain in GHOST TOWN & FOOLPROOF
Many many thanks to Vlad, Eileen & top marks for Peter W
I got the joke at 3d – parsed as Peter@2 and others had it – but I had an additional nuance: the Northern man or woman might – if they come from Yorkshire for eg – drop the aspirate. I loved this crossword. Just the right amount of challenge whilst being very gettable. I balked a bit about the alternative plural for pupa but I knew it could not be a mistake and a quick check showed me it is acceptable. 23ac might be my clue of the week. Thoroughly enjoyed the political commentary and refs to contemporary issues also. Some might find it hackneyed but, for me, it is sly enough and even-handed enough to entertain. Re 13ac I do NOT enjoy stereotyping dysphemisms for women but I was glad to see your link, Eileen, offers a counter narrative. Thanks for that – and thanks to Vlad for his wit and ingenuity (plus thanks to the hand of fate that has capped the POTUS).
Had to take a deep breath at 10ac… corporate cowboys milking human services budgets ..fume! Moving along, yes Eileen that’ll do for wish/please which wouldn’t quite gel, and pacific too is a bit hmmm, while the 16ac homophone totally eluded me…thick! ‘Rarely’ as anagrind is surely rare (ever before?). And yes are/live again so soon. Speaking of ‘are’, 23d was neat, but might niggle the abbreviation police and/or the classicists (pupae?). So, this took me a couple of hours cogitating and muttering, but was pleasurable. Thanks Vlad and Eileen.
I have often found that if I leave a grid and come back to it, clues which have previously been impenetrable fall easily into place. So it was this morning; I’ve no idea why I found GHETTOS, OUTCOME and OLD ROPE tricky first time round.
Annoyed with myself for not parsing SITAR, and PUPAS, though given by Chambers, was made more difficult to see by remembering the Latin.
Some beautifully constructed clues here, particular favourites being 1ac and 10ac.
And, as so often these days, an amusing little message in the clues. 10ac with a well-justified dig at Serco; 12ac a sentiment many of us share; 13ac referring to his predecessor who now seems so marvellous in retrospect, and probably 14ac and 16ac as well. And a different, but related, message in the down clues, with reference to impoverished areas, fan-free stadiums and vacant rental properties…
Many thanks to Vlad and Eileen
essexboy @7 has done us proud on the musical front but in other tenuously related news …
Trading standards have confirmed that reports of counterfeit AERO bars turned out to be a case of Chinese Wispas
Thank you for the unravelling, Eileen.
I came at please = wish via the french s’il vous plaît.
Would never have parsed SLEIGHT. Isn’t lecture reading, rather than speaking?
Some gems here including OUTCOME, PUTIN, LEVEL BEST, & FANCY FREE but my COD goes to GHOST TOWN.
Will I never remember the unit of area are?
Lovely puzzle, full of invention – many thanks to The Impaler.
bodycheetah @16: …get your coat.
A proper challenge from Vlad today – thank you to him and Eileen
1ac TELEVANGELIST: shouldn’t the underlined definition be extended: Man of God supposedly? Otherwise what is the fourth word doing? And it contributes to the robust note of the puzzle overall. I agree with all the positive comments: thanks to Eileen and others, and of course Vlad. The grid with four long perimeter solutions does often work very well- if skilfully filled, as here.
quenbarrow @20: I agree with you. There is plenty of (generally deserved) cynicism about televangelists and, you’re right, ‘supposedly’ is, otherwise, redundant. Likewise, as I hinted in my earlier post, I wonder if ‘habitually’ should also be included in the definition of POWER DRESSING for similar reasons? Tongue in cheek, for sure, but what else is the word doing in the clue?
quenbarrow @20 – yes, that was my intention: one of those slips between solve and blog, with a bit of sleep in between. I’ll amend it.
Mark – similarly with ‘habitually’ – thanks, both.
Well, that was HARD, but satisfying to finish eventually.
Some really excellent clues; my special ticks went to those for RATIO and PUTIN (COTD, I thought).
In 11, I don’t think ‘following’ needs to be underlined (a Vegan diet) and, of course, I don’t think the ‘a’ was needed in the clue; seems to work fine without it.
Thanks Vlad for the impalement and Eileen for an expansive blog.
At first very nearly put off by how wordy the clues were, and then didn’t help myself by imagining OLD GOLD instead of OLD ROPE, RED HATS instead of RED ANTS and PUPAE instead of PUPAS might be the right solutions. Last two in were the intersecting RATIO and SITAR. Certainly a challenge this morning, not sure if I enjoyed the experience particularly! Thanks Vlad and Eileen…
Thanks Vlad and Eileen
William @ 17: if you give someone a (strong) telling-off you lecture them. Cf also university lectures, which generally involve listening to the lecturer.
That was a challenge for me, but a great puzzle. Like so many others I loved OUTSOURCE and PUTIN (never thought I would catch myself saying that, as I usually hate both) My fitbit buzzed twice telling me to move before all the pieces finally fell into place. Thanks to Vlad and Eileen
essexboy @7 What is so clever about 13a is that not only does THAT woman PM come to mind but the next woman PM asserted that she was a bloody difficult woman – Theresa May. Remember her? No – me neither…
Sorry Eileen – no idea why I though Phi was blogging today! Great blog.
MB @28, yes I’m sure you’re right – the intended reference is to St Theresa rather than the Blessed Margaret – but by the time I solved 13a I was already in an ambiance of aerobics, power dressing and Ghost Town getting to No. 1 amid the riots of ‘81…
Such a pleasure to see Vlad’s name this morning. He’s still being kind to us so pleasure short-lived. Though it can require that extra bit of concentration to get started (BATTLEAXE my FOI. Ive always kept such and similar – harridan, termagant, virago etc. – close at hand!) I find that once one’s in it all unravels sweetly.
I felt bound to pop in simply to praise ERODE and the joy of it. Many here are forever wryly smiling or laughing out loud at clues but my solving generally less gay. This clue, however, did actually cause me to smile – and not just inwardly! Many thanks both and all.
Thanks to Mark for his advice, I really enjoyed today’s as a consequence.
Lots to amuse me and hard enough to make the time I took worthwhile.
I thought 13 was interesting “PM accepts a sign something’s wrong following b___ difficult woman (9)”
I entered both BROWN and B*ROWN as my answer and checked it , confident the jokey “b_ difficult woman” must refer back to Gordon.
Was surprised when both produced the B alone! Guessed Battleaxe and assumed it was an impolite description of the lady connected with a PM – more of Vlad’s humour I suppose?
BATTLEAXE
B + ATTLEE (Prime Minister) round A X (a sign that something’s wrong) – here are some examples of ‘difficult women’
PUTIN fooled me for longer than it should. Using Vlad without meaning the setter , was funny.
Really enjoyed the subtlety of this one, correspondence to ratio , Vlad , theatre to operating table, and several others. LEVEL BEST amused me most!
Great stuff, and thanks to Eileen too, especially for CAP from Trump.
BAR was Aerobic so Aero went over my head like an Acrobat (my first answer), as was Salad Dressing!
Much to admire today!
Nothing on first pass…first time for ages and ages. Second pass only yielded RED ANTS. Left it, got a coffee and the SE yielded and the rest gradually flowed. Thanks Vlad…the impaler
essexboy @30 You must predate me by only a few years then. My biggest recollection of the 80s is as a student boycotting our campus branch of Barclays until they finally backed-down in (I think) 1987. [I’m also an Essex Boy – Southend (Leigh, actually 🙂 ) and WHSB]
Oh yes, I remember Boerclaybank 😉
I’m chuffed, as they used to say. I think this is the first Vlad puzzle I’ve managed to finish without resorting to sources of help. It took two sessions totalling about an hour and a half and I managed to parse everything except SLEIGHT. I’m someone who normally resorts to aids if he hasn’t completed a puzzle in about an hour, but this one felt worth persisting with. I particularly liked BATTLEAXE and OUTSOURCE.
Thanks to Vlad and Eileen.
I enjoyed this more than most Vlads, all the reasons previously covered above. The only qualification to that was mentioned by grant@14= but I’ll go further: if we had a competition for the most unsatisfying anagrind of the year, I’d nominate “rarely” in 21a.
Many wonderful clues, especially 10ac which is a work of genius. Thank you Vlad for a testing and enjoyable morning.
After my first pass yielded nothing, I was tempted to take Vlad’s advice at 23a, but perseverance ultimately paid off. Memories of recent crosswords helped, with BATTLEAXE and live = are making repeat appearances. Lots of clever clues, but my favorites were PUTIN for its brevity, PACIFIC for the surface, and TELEVANGELIST for the well-disguised anagram, along with FANCY-FREE and GHOST TOWN. Didn’t know ‘money for old rope,’ but the wordplay clearly suggested it, and google confirmed it. Thanks to Vlad and to Eileen for explaining how the clue for PUPAS works.
Tough but got there eventually. COTD PUTIN. Thanks Eileen for the helpful and informative blog; I had no idea who/what Serco was, so found tgat link useful. And loved the “difficult” women article.
Thanks to Vlad fof yhecfun
Oops thanks to Vlad for the fun
Always chuffed to finish a Vlad relatively unscathed. One of those days when everything, let’s say, just worked. The mark of fine setting I’m sure. But I am kicking myself for not seeing the full beauty of 3d. I only had the vision of a Viking rowing across the North Sea. I feel much better knowing that Eileen had the same.
Relatively little politics for Vlad. Hope he’s not getting soft.
Due to my performance in the past, the name of Vlad instills fear and I was stuck staring at the grid eyeing 23ac with quavering knees. Thankfully, my partner shares none of my prejudices, and the two of us had a lovely hour with this grid. Now, I look fwd to the next Vlad offering (and that’ll surely skewer me, but I will have this one to give me the strength to fight) 😀
As owned up to by a couple of others, I had nothing at all on the first pass, though a couple of long anagrams were spotted which I left until at least one crosser had gone in. I don’t know how TimW @11 completed this in half an hour – it took me well over an hour if I take off the time taken to do two killer sudokus as distraction.
The SERCO+U anagram was first in for me, helped by being on Vlad’s political wavelength if nothing else. Last one in was RATIO, which I didn’t fully parse as I saw shop=RAT rather than RAT ON, so thanks to Eileen for putting me right there; I wasn’t sure about the accuracy of the definition here, either, but I see that Chambers has correspondence=relation, so no problem there.
PUTIN & PUPAS also held out for a long time (with an initial doubt about the plural form of the latter), with appropriate groans when they fell.
My clue of the day was ERODE, which provoked a guffaw when I saw the double homophone.
Lots to like about this crossword, as the impenetrable misdirectional surfaces gradually yielded their cruciverbal meanings. Many thanks to Vlad for the pleasurable torture.
I reckon Vlad’s puzzles have improved a great deal recently. This was tough but very rewarding. Like others I loved PUTIN; also ticked BATTLEAXE, FOOLPROOF, SPOOFED and LEVEL-BEST. Many thanks to V & Eileen.
What a splendid way to end a very good week. I definitely seem to be getting closer to Vlad’s wavelength. A couple of iffy definitions, but I didn’t mind a bit. I loved SPOOFED for its simplicity, AEROBIC for its wanton use of brand names, and PUTIN just because it was flat-out silly. Bravo!
I finished a Vlad! Excellent fun.The grid was almost blank for the longest time, until I ravelled/unravelled (see yesterday!) the anagrams at 8d & 9d.
Still not sure of 18a – RED ANTS aren’t soldier ants, so not sure this fully works (but happy to be enlightened). 1a – I can see why ‘on’ was needed in the sentence but ‘on replacement’ seems clunky to me. Minor quibblets though, in what was a brilliant puzzle.
I laughed at the viking rowing his longship (I rarely laugh at puns but that tickled me).
Many thanks Vlad and Eileen.
I’ve been trying to make ‘rarely’ work. I dismissed the cooking option – underdone doesn’t really do it and whilst rare is a degree to which something is cooked, it’s not actually the cooking. No joy there. Rare can be ‘out of the ordinary’: maybe some justification in that? The closest I feel I got was recognising a relation between rare and refined. Refine might just do the job. But Vlad could have chosen from many other indicators and still kept the bulk of his clue intact. Given the quality of the puzzle overall, I’m in a generous mood when it comes to cutting some slack but I do agree with Dr WhatsOn @37 that it’s in the relegation zone of the anagrind league.
Mark @48. “The truth is rarely pure and never simple” is a quote from The Importance of Being Earnest. Maybe Vlad was influenced by this in using such an unusual anagrind? And as for the relegation zone, I’m fully aware (being a Luton Town fan) of how committed, engaging and emotionally draining the football can be at that level – not sure how this translates into the anagrind league, though.
[hatter @49: rugby’s my game and I’m a Worcester Warriors follower due to location rather than choice! Relegation battles are our life! We’re normally in it from the first weekend of the season with every game a “must win!”]
This was great. The two standout clues for me were 3d ERODE (very funny) and 23a PUTIN (brilliant).
Mark and others: wouldn’t we accept “unusually” as an anagram indicator? And doesn’t “rarely” mean roughly the same?
Many thanks Vlad and Eileen.
Thanks Vlad and Eileen
This took me two (long) goes, but I completed and largely parsed in the end (though I don’t see what “different” is doing in 9d).
In addition to other favourites mentioned, I liked the neat SPOOFED.
Forgot to say that I didn’t appreciate the two product placements in 4d.
Muffin @53: sorry you had a gripe. Intriguing that Paul’s recent Prize featuring Pepsi Cola didn’t result in a single word of complaint and I’d have thought that to be a brand more likely to generate a negative reaction than the two fairly harmless and elderly ones in 4d.
muffin @52
Re 9d, I interpreted ‘playing different role’ as the anagram indicator (justifiable I think, since if you look at ‘neither funked’ as a collection of letters, they do indeed ‘play a different role’ by being placed in a different order) – which then leaves ‘in theatre’ as the definition.
Thanks essexboy @55. That makes it one of the longer anagrinds I’ve seen!
Thanks both,
How does one get from ‘ratio’ meaning one quantity divided by another to ‘correspondence’ meaning ‘similarity, equivalence; agreement’ (Chambers)?
A super puzzle, right up my street: some meaty clues, with plenty of originality, wit and precision. I liked PUTIN, RATIO and RED ANTS most of all.
Thanks to Vlad for the puzzle and Eileen for the blog.
And now I’d just like to say that I shall visit the Guardian thread of this forum more as a lurker than as a contributor from now on, except at weekends. The only reason is that I am now finding most of the weekday blogs too long to read [today’s, ironically, being one of the exceptions!]. This thread has evolved in recent months – in a consensual way, I must emphasise – into one that hosts many more and/or much longer discussions than before, to the extent that I can no longer take in the full context of any topic that catches my interest. (I have been caught out a couple of times very recently and have felt the need to acknowledge that I have repeated or missed something.) I nearly always like to tackle the day’s puzzle quite late in the day, and that was another factor.
Thanks to all contributors for their comments today – I shall finish reading them very soon!
Lord Jim@51 reminds me of the advice that a synonym of a synonym is not (necessarily) a synonym, except here the demonstration is that a synonym of an anagrind is not (necessarily) an anagrind.
Bit of a headscratcher for me, but all the better for it. Fridays ought to be hard IMO. OUTSOURCE, PUTIN and SPOOFED were particular favourites. Came here for the parsing of RATIO and ERODE, which had to be right, but I just couldn’t see.
Thanks a lot Vlad and Eileen!
muffin @ 52 / essexboy @ 55
I took ‘different role’ to indicate that the solution was the subject, rather than the more usual practitioner when this sort of theatre is referred to.
Dr WhatsOn @59 (and Lord Jim @51): thanks for that. You’ve said (I think) what left me slightly uncomfortable with Lord Jim’s question. ‘Uncommonly’ means ‘unusually’ means ‘rarely’ – yes. But ‘oddly/strangely’ means ‘unusually’ means ‘rarely’ doesn’t work for me.
Hewn rather than teased out. Needed two visits, including 30 minutes at start with zero answers. Today, I happened to be on leave, but otherwise would have been unlikely to have finished. Needed crossers for many answers, but why not in a crossword? I suppose it’s because we’re Guardian readers that we have similar political sentiments, as Vlad skilfully expressed.
Many thanks to Vlad and Eileen
I’ll withdraw my remark @24 that following didn’t need to be underlined. If VEGAN was a particular diet it would be a DBE and would have needed qualification.
Wonderful puzzle!
I read 9d like essexboy @55; perhaps revised blog underlining warranted?
One might choose to read 6d w/double duty… but plenty of ways to read it without so I think it fine.
Per Mark, AERO is new to this non-Brit, but crossers+BIC got me there, and I just presumed it another UK product… but RATIO stumped me for a bit, as shop/rat-on is a DNK Britishism… got the answer but needed Eileen to parse it.
I too thought of unusually/rarely… but see rarely as more re frequency, less re oddity, so still an iffy anagrind to me.
COTD: PUTIN, esp. for its freshness even after having POSIT/submit just yesterday.
Hardy cheers to our blogger, commenters, and esp. our setter!
Dr WhatsOn @59 and Mark @62: I must admit that I wasn’t entirely sure, which is partly why I phrased it as a question. I do have a feeling though that we’ve seen “rarely” as an anagram indicator before (not that that necessarily justifies it).
AlanB @58, I’m sure I speak for others here in saying that your comments will be missed, but I can understand your decision. Happy lurking!
Tyngewick @57. Ratio: ‘one quantity divided by another’, or in other words a relationship, one thing to another. Chambers: Correspondence: ‘relation or agreement, part to part, or one to one’.
I’ll echo DinC @67.
Alan B @58 – like DaveinNCarolina, I understand exactly where you’re coming from and, like him, I really appreciate and look forward to your comments and would be very sorry to hear from you less regularly.
I’d really like to expand on the (understandable) way the nature of the blog has slightly changed in the last months (and might well do so, in my blog on tomorrow’s puzzle, when I’ll have so much more time) but, having spent some of the small hours on the blog and a large part of the day on family matters, I’m too tired just now.
I’ve done a quick catch up on the comments and I think all I want to add is that I stand by my underlinings at 11ac and 9dn and renewed thanks to all for comments.
AlanB @58: I’m with muffin and Dave. Your comments are always constructive and, for my part, enjoyed. Hopefully, in the future, you’ll find the time to re-engage more regularly but, until then, I shall look out for you on a Saturday.
PS: oops, my blog of tomorrow’s puzzle – not solved yet! – will not appear for another week, so please ignore my comment above. I hope to have another opportunity, but, in the meantime, others might like to reflect on how the pandemic has affected our blogs.
PS: I really did mean to say, early on, that, as one of the long-standing ‘Classicists’ here, I wasn’t in the least put out by PUPAS 😉
DaveinNC, muffin, Eileen and Mark
Thank you for your kind remarks – all much appreciated.
I do hope and expect to back at some point. Meanwhile, these puzzles keep coming – let’s enjoy them!
I’ll just add the ‘rare’, presumably in the sense of unusual, is on the Chambers list of anagrinds, so maybe there is some justification for ‘rarely’.
Yep, a very good and challenging puzzle. I had no entries at all after scanning the across clues and, like Shirl @8, thought I’d have to ditch it. Glad I didn’t. Almost every clue seemed to provide a satisfying PDM.
I agree with essexboy @55 on the parsing of 9, reading “in theatre” as being like “in surgery”.
Terrific fun. Thanks, V&E. I loved the explanation of the phrase “money for old rope”. Thanks for digging it out, Eileen.
Many thanks to Eileen for the blog and to all who took the trouble to comment.
And thank you, Vlad, for a challenging but most enjoyable puzzle. I completed it this morning and have only had a chance to look at the blog now. Thank you also to Eileen clarifying a few parsings that had puzzled me, but like others I was pleased to find myself more on Vlad’s wavelength than off. Too many great clues to mention. Have a good weekend everyone!
Great challenge. But…
3D “degrade Norseman in speech”? I just wrote in “deign” (Dane) with full confidence.
I was wrong and it stopped me finishing.
Simon S @61, I entertained that idea too, but the difficulty for me is that the answer is a prepositional phrase, while “different role in theatre” is a noun phrase… a diff. part of speech and unable to pass the plug&play test. The subject of the latter is “role”, which I struggle to equate with the prepositional answer… while the prep. phrase “in theatre” seems to correspond nicely; of those two possibilities, Occam’s razor impels me to the latter.
But as always, differing views are par for the course here, so no worries 🙂
Thank you Vlad and Eileen. I too enjoyed this immensely. Never thought I’d finish it, but in fact only got stuck on power dressing. Can’t see why now!I too didn’t know that ‘a’ could be ‘are’, so couldn’t parse pupas. But a lot of fun
Foxed by 23a, not normally thinking about the Russian leader in the diminutive. Help from Mrs L. on a few. Thanks to Vlad and Eileen.
Thanks Vlad and Eileen.
I parsed 6 thinking of Clyde Best, although I accept that outside of east London, George Best might be marginally better know! #COYI
I doubt anyone will ever see this, but sheffield hatter @68, if I divide 3 apples by 14 light years. what is the ‘relation part to part or one to one’ between them? In the sense used by Chambers that you cite, ‘relation’ refers to mapping from one entity to another ‘part to part or one to one’, not a ‘relationship.
Tyngewick @84
As I think you know, bloggers get emails of all comments on their blog, so yours has, at least been seen – but I’m afraid I don’t understand it, so I just hope that sh sees it, too. 😉