It’s Imogen providing the challenge today, with a mix of straightforward and more tricky clues.
As one who works through the clues in order, I was not delighted when the first clue directed me to 1dn, especially when I actually reached 1dn and realised that there were still more parts of the answer strewn around the grid, which I always find mildly irritating. However, there were enough crossers to give me the first four words and, going back to 1ac, the second part of the clue fell readily into place. I then had to wonder whether the answer indicated that there was a theme (as often with Imogen puzzles) but, if there is, it’s 27ac to me (as is the parsing of 5dn but I’m sure help is at hand).
Thanks to Imogen for a mostly enjoyable work-out.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
9 Argue about pound coins (5)
CLASH
CASH (coins) round L (pound)
10 Restricted by court, easily clear (5,4)
BOUND OVER
Double definition, the first involving the past tense of ‘bind’, the second as in clearing a hurdle
11 Quarrel following strike call (4,3)
FALL OUT
F (following) + ALL OUT! (call to go on strike)
12 Caught up with Dynasty and got ahead (7)
TANGLED
TANG (Chinese dynasty) + LED (got ahead)
13 Money bet on gorilla (10)
SILVERBACK
SILVER (money) + BACK (bet on)
15 Question imbibing English dairy product (4)
WHEY
WHY (question) round E (English)
18 Works in bed turning ends of socks (4)
HOES
HOSE (socks) with the last two letters reversed
19 Has bath just before bed for a fresh start (5,5)
CLEAN SLATE
CLEANS LATE (has bath just before bed)
22 Get pumped up about female behind (7)
REFLATE
RE (about) + F (female) + LATE (behind)
25 Twitch is part of villain’s complaint (9)
CRITICISM
TIC IS (twitch is) in CRIM (slang for criminal – which I’ve never seen before but it’s in Chambers)
26 One may be clapped into these clubs (5)
IRONS
Double definition, the first meaning chains, the second golf clubs
27 It’s obvious I don’t think casual dreams need interpretation (2,5,2,3)
AS CLEAR AS MUD
An anagram (need interpretation) of CASUAL DREAMS – I think the cryptic grammar needs ‘needs’ but that’s probably a quibble
Down
1, 23, 24 across, 1 across Given suggestion to do manual work, I collapse or die, first to suffer really terrible death — fracas on a foreign street (2,3,4,5,4,3,12)
IF ALL ELSE FAILS READ THE INSTRUCTIONS
Having got the answer, I left the parsing to the end, half-expecting an anagram of Araucarian proportions but, in the end, it fell out quite readily, with only one five-letter anagram in the middle:
I FALL (I collapse) ELSE (or) FAIL (die) + first letters of Suffer Really + an anagram (terrible) of DEATH + EIN (German – foreign – for ‘a’) + ST (street) + RUCTIONS (fracas)
2 Ship, rather infested with cockroach, cleaned out (8)
SCHOONER
SOONER (rather) round C[ockroac]H, cleaned out
3 Programmed factory worker to steal books (5)
ROBOT
ROB (steal) + OT (Old Testament (books)
4 Hardbacks from Sweden in accurate translation (9)
CRUSTACEA
S (Sweden – International Vehicle Registration) in an anagram (translation) of ACCURATE – my favourite clue, I think
5 I must have bits to eat (6)
IODINE
I’ve stared at this for ages: I (chemical symbol) is the definition and DINE is to eat but that’s as far as I can get; Edit – please see Daniel @1
6 Scar is sort of orange (5)
NAVEL
Double definition
7 Wears shoes? (6)
SCUFFS
Cryptic (?) definition, depending on two senses of ‘wear’
8 Period in which I would always support father (6)
FRIDAY
I’D (I would) + AY (always) after (supporting, in a down clue) FR (father)
14 At work, my partner may give me a lift (9)
BALLERINA
Cryptic definition
16 Try a couple of old drawers at first — trunks hold me in (9)
HEARTWOOD
HEAR (try) + TWO (a couple) + the first letters of Old Drawers – a new word for me but easy enough to guess: ‘the central core of dark hard wood in tree trunks’ (Collins)
17 Vault across ship is our aim, ridiculously (8)
OSSARIUM
An anagram (ridiculously) of OUR AIM round SS (ship) – I had to resort to my Latin dictionary for this, as it’s not in my Collins, Chambers or SOED; the more usual form is ‘ossuarium’, from which we get the more familiar ‘ossuary’ – ‘a container for the burial of human bones, such as a vault or urn’ (Collins)
18 Poet in hot competition to secure love (6)
HORACE
H (hot) RACE (competition) round O (love) – the Roman poet and satirist Quintus Horatius Flaccus – I rather liked this one, too
20 Very eager to start next page after turning (4,2)
EVER SO
E(ager) + VERSO (next page after turning)
21 Guide round home, a turn up for the book (6)
DANIEL
A reversal (turn up) of LEAD (guide) round IN (home) for a book of the Old Testament
24 In second city, head to the bottom area steps (5)
RUMBA
BRUM (informal name for Birmingham, England’s ‘second city’) with its initial letter moved to the end – bottom – in a down clue + A (area)
Re 5, 1 and 0 are binary (bits)
[Eileen – typo in your first answer – second “1” should be “1 down”]
Got lucky and guessed the long 1, 23, 24 across, 1 down straight off and the rest mostly fell in except 17d which was new (although I think it is in there somewhere).
Crunchier than yesterday but a reasonable solve.
Thanks Imogen and Eileen!
Thanks, Daniel – I did wonder about something like that but knew I had no chance there!
5d ‘bits’ of data. Ones and zeros
Thanks Imogen and Eileen
I always feel a bit short-changed when there’s a very long solution, as there are fewer clues to solve. I had a particular problem with this one as I had a blind spot to the answer; even when the last 4 blanks in the grid were ?L?E,F?I?S it took me ages to see it – though when I did, I rather liked the definition!
I confess that I used the Check button more than usual today.
I didn’t know or like CRIM, but if it’s in Chambers…
I didn’t enjoy this I fear. Too contrived for my personal taste, but I hope others enjoy it.
MaidenBartok @2
[Eileen – typo in your first answer – second “1” should be “1 down”] – sorry, I don’t understand.
This certainly met the tough-challenge criterion, but was somehow unsatisfactory throughout. RUMBA was fun, and ROBOT raised a half-smile, but otherwise it was a joyless slog for me, and I often wish I had the character to walk away from puzzles such as this, but I don’t, and I persevered to the grim end. Eileen was perhaps being diplomatic in using the term mildly irritating for the 21-word clue to a 7-word answer, I can certainly think of stronger words. If anybody managed to solve this by other than solve-first, parse-and-groan later, you have my admiration.
I too only knew OSSUARY but worked out OSSARIUM at 17d. The ones I couldn’t fully parse were 15a HOES (got the gardening reference but missed the old-fashioned HOSE trick) and 5d IODINE (I saw the chemical symbol but coudn’t work out the rest). I actually really liked the long multi-worded sayings at 1d through to 1a (“IF ALL ELSE FAILS”) … and at 27a “AS CLEAR AS MUD”. Thanks to Imogen and Eileen.
[Eileen @7 – In you “Down” answers, you have “1, 23, 24 across, 1 across” It should read “1, 23, 24 across, 1 down“]
Like Eileen I had no idea about IO in IODINE. Also I got rather waylaid by pencilling in SPORTS for ‘Wears shoes’ (7d), and couldn’t parse HOES. But I loved the puzzle, especially SCHOONER, FRIDAY and CRUSTACEAN. Many thanks to Imogen and Eileen. E
Imogen used to be one of my favourite setters but today, possibly for the first time, I find myself in total agreement with rodshaw @8
RTFM was the first thing that came to mind for the long one but the pennies didn’t drop until much later
I thought the wordplay for the long solution was brilliantly put together, though it took me several goes to deconstruct it – the definition is neat, too.
I have evidently been doing too many Paul crosswords – I had CLEAN SHAVE for 19, taking “have” as a synonym for “bed”.
Annoyed with myself for not parsing 5 and 18ac, but at least where 5 is concerned I find I am in good company.
Thanks to Imogen and Eileen
[Eileen – forget that! Old and confused…]
I think I know CRIMS from watching Aussie cop shows? Maybe JinA can confirm 🙂
CoD IODINE, LOI DANIEL.
Am I missing something in SCUFFS? I can only see one meaning.
Thanks to Imogen and Eileen.
MaidenBartok @10 – that isn’t the answer, it’s the clue, which I copied and pasted from the online print version. The last word of the clue / answer is at 1 across.
Thanks for bits, D J @1 and Jay @4, it had me scratching. Ditto Eileen for the long one.. it went in once I’d hunched instructions from crossers, but was too lazy to nut out how it all worked. Having recently had ‘as’ as currency, was wondering if there was an ‘h’ coin…dim! Hoes was a chuckle..took a bit to see it, and ditto rumba, neat. Nice work from Imogen, and ta as ever Eileen.
Don’t like ‘has bath’ for ‘cleans’. Cleans implies that you are cleaning something else, having a bath means you are cleaning yourself.
Otherwise an enjoyable puzzle.
Thanks Imogen and Eileen.
Eileen @17 – yeah, I know… I got myself HORRIBLY confused 🙁 As you were (and sorry!!!)
Enjoyed this Imogen challenge, but remarkably my last one in was 1d, 23d etc. as I just didn’t see it, and thought the cluing looked impenetrable, anyway. Thanks Eileen for some of the parsing…
…we have a Scruffs hairdressers in town, but SCUFFS was a new one for me today.
Thanks Eileen and Daniel, I was stuck on 5 too.
“Must” seemed unnecessary until I found this ….. The body needs iodine to make thyroid hormones.
HOES was welcome too, I couldn’t see how TOES (ends of socks) changed to hoes :O)
Aside. BGT Steve Royle (should have won imho) asked what is the difference between a sock and a camera?
Thank you Imogen, I appreciate quite a few of the clues more now than when I was trying to solve them.
Answer 5 and 4 toes (sounds like).
I’m afraid I found this joyless. The best crosswords manage to raise a chortle (or at least a grin) and that was not a feature of today’s solve. Some messy surfaces too,
Auriga @16 – re 7dn: I read it as ‘wears shoes’ = ‘has shoes on’ and scuffing shoes wears them out.
Anna @19 – I agree with you: I didn’t like it, either!
[MaidenBartok @14 and 20 – following the new guidelines, I didn’t want to post simply to say ‘We crossed’ – but I’m glad we’ve sorted that out. 😉 ]
Not only an entertaining puzzle but great blog. Thanks Imogen , Eileen and maybe Ikea!
Pauline in Brum will be doing the RUMBA when she sees our second city getting a mention.
When I got AS CLEAR AS MUD, I thought that’s right, that’s right, that’s right,
that’s right, that’s neat, that’s neat, that’s neat, that’s neat.
Agree with Rodshaw. Too contrived in places and few smiles or lightbulb moments.
Thanks, Eileen @ 25. I was looking for a subtlety that isn’t there.
As a Liverpudlian remarked: I never understand why they call Birmingham the Second City. I thought that was London.
I’ll fetch my coat…
Scuffs are a type of shoe, apparently
NB 15 – I think I knew “crim” from Neighbours.
Ah! Now I understand. Thank you CamBorne @ 31
“a loosefitting house slipper, esp. one without a built-up heel or a counter” [American usage, Collins online]
I was initially turned off by the long 1,23,24,1 clue which made no sense to me. Eventually solved it by guesswork, but did not bother to parse it.
Liked HORACE (loi)
I could not parse 10a, 11a, 18a, the IO in 5d, 20d, BRUM in 24d.
Thank you, Eileen
Typically impossible Imogen, which I ground out eventually. That’s just a comment about my solving ability, not a criticism of the setter, although I echo muffin @5 about the very long answer.
There were some good clues; I quite liked the simple HOES. I was another trying close shave but it obviously didn’t work. BTW, OSSARIUM is in Chambers but it is listed under ‘osseous’, at least in the Revised 13th Edition …
Thanks Imogen for the torture and Eileen for a great blog.
[Yes bodycheetah@15 (and Grim and Dim@32) – it could be just an Aussie thing but we often call the “bad guy” a CRIM.]
I liked the cryptic/double definition of 7d SCUFFS, and I don’t think the clue is improved by the information from Camborne @31 and Auriga @33. Is that really what Imogen intended? (If so, then yuk.) Or is it just a coincidence? 🙂
Held up rather than helped by the long one starting at 1d, which is not a phrase I’ve ever used, read or heard, but more so by putting MINGLED instead of TANGLED at 12a, which made 4d impossible until I had a rethink. (I was thinking of catching up with people by mingling at a party. Sort of works.)
This seems to have been a Marmite puzzle, with rodshaw (“grim”, “unsatisfactory”) and tandemist (“joyless”, “messy”) in one camp and copmus (“entertaining”) in the other. I’m betwixt and between, having enjoyed CRITICISM and EVER SO, but not so much BALLERINA and the long one. I hate to disagree with both Anna and Eileen in one post, but I thought has bath=CLEANS was just fine!
I wondered if the theme was a comment on Covid regulations, but then the clue to BALLERINA might have been Rishi wants me to retrain in a real lab without the initiation of art. I got to the long clue by parsing I FALL ELSE and then jumping to the definition
I quite enjoyed Imogen’s challenge. I liked IODINE which was my LOI and CRUSTACEA, my favourite.
The 1D phrase jumped out after having just the L crosser from FALL OUT, suggesting ALL for its second word which is pity given the work that went into clueing it. Never thought of navel as a scar nor heard of the oranges so that was a guess.
Hated RUMBA and only got it from the crossers. Second city and a colloquialism for it, is hardly fair. How many second cities are there? Perhaps “English second city…” might have been better.
I thought the long clue was amusing in a meta sense, as referring to what one should do with crossword clues (‘read the instructions’).
Otherwise, I’m afraid it was DNF for me. Never heard of SCUFF as a shoe and am doubtful that a NAVEL qualifies as a scar, though I’m not a physician.
This was indeed tough. The long phrase at 1d seemed vaguely familiar after I’d eventually guessed it with nearly all the crossers in place. (I certainly wasn’t going to try to work it out!) And having two unfamiliar words in the same area, HEARTWOOD and OSSARIUM, made that corner very tricky.
Eileen, in 27a I think either “need” or “needs” would be OK for the cryptic grammar – the words, or letters, need interpretation, or the phrase needs interpretation. (The surface obviously required the former.)
sh @37: I also prefer Eileen’s explanation @25 about “wears”.
Many thanks Imogen and Eileen.
Agree it’s a curate’s egg today. Could not parse HOSE, many thanks Eileen. Unhappy with REFLATE as doesn’t fit the definition. Many thanks to Imogen and Eileen.
PS Can’t get tablet to do square brackets, but you are so right Penfold! You spotted my COD.I am indeed rumba-ing with my tiger feet on:-)).
Hi Robi @35 – I’m always careful to say, ‘my Chambers (dilapidated 12th Edition), Collins (even older, a Guardian Prize, which I can’t bear to discard) and SOED (even older still (vastly reduced – an inducement to join a Book Club, decades ago) but I see mine does have OSSARIUM under ‘osseous’ – just one of the things I dislike about Chambers: there are ten associated words under that heading, while ‘ossuary’, an exact synonym, has an entry of its own (and I’d looked for OSSARIUM there!).
sheffield hatter @37 re 19ac: would you really use ‘clean’ in that sense? And I didn’t really like ‘just before bed’ = ‘late’, either – not a favourite clue.
Lord Jim @41 – thanks for that: I think you’re right – I was interested to hear what others thought.
“SCUFFS” are signs of “wear” and SCUFFS are “shoes”. To me 7D’s clearly a double definition.
[Hi Eileen @43; I use the online version of Chambers in WordWeb Pro, which makes finding the words in Chambers very easy. When I checked with my dead tree version, I couldn’t find it at first, like you! As we have said before, if you have a smart phone, you can download the complete Chambers Dictionary (and separately the Thesaurus) for a modest sum. The online version of Collins is pretty comprehensive, I think, and for UK library users, one can access the OED online (or ‘Oxford’ in onelook.com). I’m just providing this information for the benefit of all.]
Re Pentman@44.
My mistake. I should have read the clue more carefully. Perhaps the clue should have been “Wear shoes” and that “wears” in the clue is an error.
I enjoyed the long clue definition-wise, actually laughing aloud when I got the “If all else fails” half – though parsing the wordplay was entirely ignored until the very end.
I agree with Eileen about the cryptic grammar of 27a, which threw me off track.
Re 8d, I see “always” = AY (and AYE??) in Bradford’s crossword solver’s dictionary, but I have no idea why, even after googling it. Can anyone assist?
A curate’s egg indeed. I did like CRUSTACEA and also, now I understand th parsing of bits, thanks Daniel@1 and others, IODINE. [Which reminds me that there are 10 sorts of people, those who understand binary and those who don’t…].
Crim is familiar on this side of the ditch(Tasman Sea) too.
Poc@40;I have never thought of navel as a scar either, but I guess, given that it is the mark (so to speak) left behind after the umbilical cord remnant withers and drops off, it could be classified as such.
ContrapuntalAnt @47
Elderly relatives used to sign letters “Yours ay…” meaning “yours ever…”.
As OSSARIUM was new to me, it took a long time to realise that it wasn’t an anagram of IS OUR AIM. I usually get monsters like the long one once I have sufficient crossers to guess from the enumeration, and today was no exception. I like the saying, but not the laborious clue. I did like CRUSTACEA and the bits, but not much else.
Eileen @43: would you really use ‘clean’ in that sense? I knew from “fresh start” and the enumeration that we were looking for either CLEAN SLATE or CLEAN SHEET, so didn’t think too much about it. It’s a bit of a throwaway clue. From the setter’s point of view ‘has bath’ would be an obvious synonym – perhaps ‘does housework’ might have been better. Would I use it in this sense myself? Perhaps not, but I don’t think it’s as egregious as you and Anna do!
I do agree with you about Chambers, though. Luckily I knew OSSARIUM (or thought I did), so didn’t bother to look it up, but my 10th edition, like your 12th and Robi’s 13th, has it under osseous rather than ossuary. My older paperback edition (late 20th century) was arranged differently, and I don’t understand why they went for this new arrangement.
A mixed bag for me with lots of good clues, including several mentioned above along with FALL OUT, but I didn’t like IF ALL ELSE … and didn’t bother trying to parse it (kudos to Eileen for that Herculean effort). I was happy to get two unfamiliar words (REFLATE, OSSARIUM) from wordplay alone but didn’t enter the latter until all crossers were in, Collins online having assured me that it wasn’t a word.
Came here to say what Pauline in Brum has already said – there seems to be a missing ‘again’ in the definition for ‘REFLATE’, but Collins says “to inflate or be inflated again”, which I guess means the former meaning does exist, although it’s not British English that I’ve ever come across.
ngaiolaurenson@48: I see that Chambers has (as one definition):
scar: a mark at a place of former attachment, eg of a leaf
so I suppose it passes muster.
I was more than Eileen’s mildly irritated when I saw how much of the grid was devoted to one clue I had no chance of getting by itself, so it being Imogen, with whom I normally have difficulty, I decided an attitude adjustment was in order, and was going to beat him at his own game. I deliberately went for those little words you normally gloss over but are likely to play an outsized role: I, bits, very, following. It really helped, and I recommend it.
For Imogen, this was not as hard as he can be, but things like the def of FRIDAY as a ‘period’ give no joy. Technically correct and all that but not exactly what we think of as we anticipate the excitements of the weekend!
I confess, despite the long clue falling reasonably early, I did not have the will to struggle through its parsing. After all, that’s why we’ve got Eileen.
But the bits in IODINE were rather clever and I only wish I’d seen them.
Thanks, Eileen. I thought this was a gem: almost impenetrable on first scan, but unfolding nicely as I obeyed 1d etc and unpicked the wordplay.
ContrapuntalAnt @47 and Auriga @49 – Chambers says ay/aye for ever, always is “now Scot and N Eng or archaic.” Not unknown in Northern Ireland, either: an old aunt of mine always signs off emails with “Yours aye till the ship sinks.”
[Robi @45 – I second the recommendation of the Chambers apps. I use the dictionary every day: not only is it pocketable and searchable, but it gets updated too; when I bought it, it had the full text of the 11th edition, and now it has the 13th. Dead trees don’t do that.]
Being able to complete the puzzle is one thing. Being able to parse the 1d etc is pure genius
This was pretty slow going until the long one went in (about two thirds parsed) despite a few easy starters. An enjoyable challenge which might have made a good Saturday puzzle, which would have removed the temptation to use the Check button for a few shortcuts.
Thanks to Eileen and Imogen
Auriga@49 and Miche@57: thank you both!
I actually have the Chambers apps (dictionary and thesaurus) which are incredibly helpful, but for some reason I looked up “always” in both, but didn’t check “ay(e)” in the dictionary which would have solved it. Clearly not at my best today…
Going back to the grid: I should have praised 5d too. Struggled in solving, but clever and very pleasing once discovered.
I am actually quite pleased as I usually struggle on “difficult” cryptics. Thought 1d was ok. I got CLASH but surely doesn’t parse well should be’ coins about pounds’. Agree 8d not great but plenty of good ones 10a and learnt some new words which can’t be bad.
Nicholas @ 61
It’s a bit yoda-speak: ‘about pound’ [is] ‘coins’.
Unlike Pentman@35, RUMBA was not only my LOI, but also my COTD. It occurred to me that the 2nd city might have been LA because of the useful letters and I was glad it wasn’t – because a) it isn’t Chicago and b) there was nothing to indicate it was American. Seeing that this is a British oriented newspaper I feel that a) Birmingham is the city that should immediately come to mind and b) its moniker BRUM is universal GK in the UK, as Paula would attest.
Like Eileen, I was mildly annoyed by the long clue, but knew that some would bwe incandescent about it. It took a long time to fall, but when it did I became quite fond of both it and its parsing.
Thanks to Dr.WhatsOn @55 for the hints. I seem to remember a racehorse from many years ago called Attitude Adjuster, so your suggestion of “attitude adjustment” rang a bell. I’ll give it a go!
Trailman@56: I remember getting the same deflated balloon experience when that particular manky penny dropped, but it’s a bit like my beef with Eileen about bath/clean, it is what it is. Just solve it and move on.
Support for Gert Bycee re RUMBA. The main thing for me about this clue is that once you’ve solved it, there’s no doubt that it’s right. (Mind you, I thought that about MINGLED a few hours ago – see 37 above).
I invariably struggle with Imogen’s puzzles and today was no exception. Although I like a monster answer from time to time, the verbose cluing is hard work, and this was a trend carried over to the shorter answers too.
I though SCUFFS was quite clever (I read it purely as a cd) and CRUSTACEA raised a smile. IODINE was smart (but maybe too unforgiving). The SE corner was a DNF, though.
Gert Bycee @63.
Of course, I’ve heard of a brummie coming from Birmingham. However, I have never heard anyone refer to Birmingham as Brum, so that universal GK has passed me by but I did make the association after solving the clue.
I liked CRUSTACEA. I really did.
(A news editor once told me feedback should always start with the positive stuff.)
Apart from that, er, I’m with rodshaw at 8, and Eric, and tandemist, and every single word of the comment by bodycheetah at 12. Like Robi I felt this was indeed torture and yet I ploughed on grimly, determined the complete the beggar. Then I came here to see if I was alone in being irritated by so many aspects of it. I wasn’t, but they’ve all been raised already and discussed sufficiently.
Thanks to Imogen for the challenge, to Eileen for heroically parsing the mammoth-clue – and, above all, thanks to Penfold for cheering me with the happy earworm of Tiger Feet. I’m now off to see if I can still do the little dance….
Belatedly found out what RTFM means (thanks bodycheetah @12). I did say @37 that the answer at 1d ff did not ring any bells, but I must admit remembering a long ago story from my mother about my father trying to make ‘custard’ (or was it blancmange?) from a packet without reading the instructions, so perhaps it’s universal after all.
I enjoyed this despite the odd rough edge – there were some great ideas.
Thanks Imogen and Eileen.
I’m going to have to comment just this once to claim the rodshaw@8 admiration. Did not have any crossers in NW corner, so needed to read the clue for 1A etc. Got “ructions” from the crossers and the wordplay, then st, then e-in, so the e at the end of the previous word came for free. It now had to be “the”, yielding ead-th, then s-r, then fail (until then, “flies” for 23D had seemed plausible). So now I had “fails read the instructions” and it was only at this point that I resorted to solve-first, parse-later for the first three words. Which is fair enough and far from groan-inducing. As you can figure from this, I enjoyed the clue very much; the way that the fodder finished one word and helped with the previous one was very neat.
Thanks Imogen and Eileen.
I enjoyed this puzzle immensely. For me, the fact that 1d etc did not fall immediately made the whole puzzle much tougher and more rewarding as a result. I read SCUFFS as a straightforward double definition, after finding a SCUFF is a shoe in Collins online. In HEARTWOOD, I read it as HEAR + TWO O (a couple of old) + D (drawers at first).
DaveinCarolina @52, I was surprised Collins online didn’t have OSSARIUM too. In situations like this, I usually try OneLook next. It’s rather a useful all-in-one site for unusual words.
My one quibble was with HOES, which I entered as HOSE. I don’t think there’s sufficient indication as to which is the desired entry. Held me up (even further!) in solving the long one.
Thanks, Imogen and Eileen and all commenters for an interesting range of opinions on this one.
Pentman @66 – interesting. Even here on the other side of the world, I know Brum for Birmingham (being married to a Brummie probably helps, though). I do hear it in the UK quite often, along with Brummagem (just looked that up for the spelling – interesting Wikipedia article).
Pentman @66 – Adding my six-penn’orth, the clock tower on the Council House in the centre of Birmingham is sometimes referred to as “Big Brum”.
Simon s Thanks for the info
[When we first arrived in Sydney, we were a little surprised to hear an evening TV newsreader say, with a perfectly straight face, “Two crims bashed a shopkeeper ….”.]
Coming late to the blog… The main problem with this for me was that the first clue could not be read in its entirety in the Guardian app on my phone when working on the puzzle, and that was profoundly irritating. Kudos to Eileen (and Ian) for working through the parsing! That irritation, however, for me rather set the scene for the whole crossword which was a shame as actually I think there was lots to like. There was also lots I could not parse, so many thanks to Eileen for the explanations. Those of us who live in Glasgow know that it was the second city (if the empire) but Eileen specified “of England” so Brum it is. Thanks to Imogen for the challenge.
I can’t believe how dim I was yesterday.
In the preamble, I said that the answer at 1dn etc made me wonder if there was a theme and in the blog I said that, once I finally came to parse it, it was nowhere near as difficult as I’d feared.
All day, people were saying how they couldn’t be bothered to work it out and thanking me for my patience in doing so. All day, I was thinking how straightforward it had turned out to be if you just did as it said on the tin. It really only took a couple of minutes.
Then I woke up this morning feeling as if I’d been hit by a sledgehammer – one of the best ‘clues as definition’ I’ve come across! I haven’t been back through all the comments but Beobachterin’s @76 above suggests that only Ian @70 actually went through the process, albeit from the other way round.
I’m mortified. My apologies to Imogen and my thanks again.
Eileen @77 – if you work in IT, reading instructions is the last thing you do… In fact, I seem to remember when Apple products first came out their (then rather arrogant) claim was that a) if you needed an instruction book you shouldn’t be buying an Apple product which later morphed into b) the design of the products should be so intuitive in their use that no instruction book is required.
This really did cause a change in the way that all IT is built – documentation, instructions, etc. are all really seen as superfluous, especially when it comes to the myriad open-source software which prides itself sometimes on not documenting anything!
This is quite a long way of saying that for me, the 1d answer fell in as with Ian @70 without too much parsing at all and that helped what otherwise would have been a nightmare of a puzzle.
One of the reasons some of us were lazy about parsing the long one is that solving the crossword on the small phone display makes it impossible to see the clue and partial solution at the same time because wordy clues overwrite the top line of the grid, and gou can only see the clue when the first light is highlighted. I did parse enough of it to know it had to fit.
Am I the only person in the world to have never heard the phrase in 1D etc? In what situations is it commonplace? Given that, you may not be surprised to know I failed today, got about 40% including a bit of googling (ossarium)….on a separate note, how does ‘turning ends of socks’ get from HOSE to HOES? Surely it gets to EOSH? Turning end (singular) of socks might get you from HOSE to HOES?
Thanks Imogen and Eileen
beery hiker: I also suffer from that infuriating phone habit of overwriting the top line of lights – not only for wordy clues but also any with italicized words, where the coding remains in the highlighted clue, rendering it all but unreadable. And I can’t address you by your post number, because fifteensquared on a phone doesn’t show them. Aaagh!
Stuart: certainly commonplace in an IT context – though I usually resort to it when faced with IKEA furniture and the like.
Stuart @80 – Really? I’ve used it (sarcastically) for years! My usual MO is to throw the instruction book away, try and work it all out myself, fail and then reprimand myself with said phrase.
This is VERY common in IT not to read any instructions (or to HAVE any instructions). I used to work for a West-Coast hi-tech company who made it a point of pride that if anyone asked for help, a manual or instruction booklet the answer would be “RTFW.” Newbies found this attitude quite hard to adapt to but the truth in much of IT these days the web is a much better source of informtion and instruction that the original manufacturer…
Thanks for the replies … happy to admit it must be a blind spot of mine alone (or I’m in Very small company), despite being a user of pcs, tablets, Smart phones etc for years…I do find it interesting to come on hear and see what words and phrases other people have heard of, and what comes in for criticism …. Crim as a short form of criminal I thought was quite common (not just Aussie) slang? Maybe not!
“I belong to the only wimps use manuals school of computing,” was a phrase often used in riposte to “If all else fails…”, (which certainly wasn’t limited to IT).
Got around to finishing this one today, a couple of times I was off to Google something to see how it parsed, only for the penny to drop before I hit the “search” button! Scuffs as a type of shoe is new to me, snd that was the only one left unparsed at the end. Personally, I quite enjoyed it, including the long clues/answers.
Eileen, I am confused as to why you are saying it is a clue as definition. (And, although I didn’t state this y’day, I did solve and then parse to see how the clue worked)
ngaiolaurenson @87 – if you look at the parsing of the clue in the blog, you’ll see that the answer is perfectly straightforwardly built up, in order – all you have to do is read the instructions!
So, the answer tells you how to get the answer by reading the clue, which would be handy, if only you knew the answer…
Tough but good one. I was defeated by the ballerina/criticism crossing…
Thanks Eileen
Eileen that’s all very well, but if the technology means that the instructions cannot be read then they cannot be followed either! I see I was not the only one with this problem.