[New comment layout] - details here
Maize’s crosswords have always struck me as extremely good, and probably lots of people will sing this one’s praises, for there are plenty of lovely neat clues. But I’m afraid I’m less positive than usual, because so many of the definitions, either of the whole clue, or in the wordplay, seemed to be a stretch. No doubt people will point out to me that I’m being precipitate in my judgements and am simply missing something.
Definitions in lightslategray, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.
No sign of a Nina, which means little, especially since I took so long to solve this.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | DOUBLE-BARRELLED | Looked at one way, 2020 was first of two parts (6-9) |
| If you treat 2020 as 20 and then 20, you have double 20, which is double 20dn; 20dn is BARREL, then led [was first] | ||
| 9 | SOLICITED | Sold vice, but not very subtle about it? (9) |
| I think it’s a complete &lit. Some may disagree and call it a partial &. lit or something like that. The wordplay is (sold {v}ice)* round it. | ||
| 10 | CANAL | Physical river cut (5) |
| &lit,: a canal is a physical river cut, and ca{r}nal | ||
| 11 | See 23 | |
| 12 | MILLIONAIRE | Factory that is invested in by broadcasting tycoon? (11) |
| mill i(on air)e | ||
| 14 | DISCOMFITURE | Dance medium with chairs etc. – missing 11 could make for awkwardness (12) |
| disco m f{urn}iture, 11ac being URN | ||
| 18 | MERETRICIOUS | Courtier is upset with me having beauty not brains (12) |
| (Courtier is me)* — the link with the definition seems to me to be a bit of a stretch: so far as I can see meretricious just means superficially attractive, having no lasting qualities, but surely not specifically having beauty but not brains? | ||
| 21 | BRAGGADOCIO | Showy type of fake silver dress returned before ten (11) |
| (cod Ag garb)rev. 10 — |
||
| 23/11 | TEA URN | Nature could be somewhere to find refreshment (3,3) |
| (Nature)* | ||
| 24 | CARGO | Contents of 17? (5) |
| Hidden in esCARGOt, 17dn being ESCARGOT — but what’s the definition? I suppose it is a sort of &lit. where the wordplay is the whole clue and the cargo is what a snail is carrying (doubtful?) | ||
| 25 | DRIBBLING | Bit of delicate bone jewellery coming in droplets (9) |
| d{elicate} rib bling | ||
| 26 | SILENT TREATMENT | Manipulative behaviour could make you listen (6,9) |
| One of those reversed clues: if you treat ‘silent’, ie form an anagram of it, you could get ‘listen’ — I have my doubts about whether silent treatment is the same as manipulative behaviour, although who knows in what dictionary you might find an equivalence | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | DISSUADE | Stop close to road and, if empty, put in children (8) |
| {roa}d issu(a{n}d)e | ||
| 2 | UGLINESS | Fruit on head – not a good look (8) |
| ugli ness | ||
| 3 | LOCUM | Substitute ballplayers for pacey but outnumbered centres (5) |
| {ballp}l{ayers} {f}o{r} {pa}c{ey} {b}u{t} {outnu}m{bered} — I’d have thought it was ‘pacy’ but ‘pacey’ is in Collins | ||
| 4 | BATTLEFIELD | Fight here if held up by British PM or ignored by Lord (11) |
| b Attle((if)rev.)e l{or}d | ||
| 5/25 | RED DOT | Marksman‘s target finally hit by stranger from the South (3,3) |
| 6 | ECCENTRIC | Being fixated with what Europe used to be is odd (9) |
| EC-centric | ||
| 7 | LENTIL | Nearly sick after fast food for vegetarians? (6) |
| lent il{l} | ||
| 8 | DULCET | Soothing music for two opened by lush chords at the beginning (6) |
| (l{ush} c{hords}) in duet | ||
| 13 | INTERACTIVE | Virgin Queen brought in wives essentially for exchanging information (11) |
| int(ER)act {w}ive{s} | ||
| 15 | OVERGROWN | Deliveries with wrong, wrong, wrong quantity of Flora (9) |
| over (wrong)* — over = deliveries (cricket) — Flora? | ||
| 16 | CONTRITE | Apologetic but right to stop idiot wearing item stolen by student? (8) |
| con(t(r)it)e — the idiot is a tit, the student steals traffic cones (not I should have thought the first thing one would think of as something a student steals) | ||
| 17 | ESCARGOT | Starter in Le Mans makes car go through clutches (8) |
| Hidden in makES CAR GO Through — I had all the checkers and was struggling to find a word that fitted; what a good hidden — I didn’t see it until the very end | ||
| 19 | ABACUS | A church abandoning God for something they can count on (6) |
| a Bac{ch}us — not quite sure who ‘they’ are | ||
| 20 | BARREL | Tavern ale could be thus: without a receptacle to put it in (6) |
| bar re{a}l — real ale | ||
| 22 | ORBIT | Ring, ring, ring – being incredibly tolerant to start with (5) |
| O r{ing} b{eing} i{ncredibly} t{olerant} — an orbit is a curved path going round something else, so can be seen as a ring | ||
| 25 | See 5 | |
5/25 is (hi)t + reversal of odder. A red dot appears on a marksman’s target if they have one of those scary laser devices. I am not sure whether that means the red dot is itself a target, but it is certainly what they shoot towards.
I thoroughly enjoyed this. Just the right level of difficulty for me. Had 5/25 as muffyword. MERETRICIOUS was new to me but, once I had all the crossers, was the first anagram I tried so maybe I had heard it before and my brain knew it even if I didn’t???
Thanks all.
Had a go at this, and enjoyed it thoroughly. I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something going on here that I’m missing, an overarching theme or trick that I just can’t see, which is usually the case with Maize…
Thanks to Maize and John
I really liked this not having any problems with the defs. But I agreed with parsing
so thanks Maize and John
I enjoyed this although I did need John’s review to parse 1a.
Wikipedia has this to say about red dots: “A red dot sight is … a type of … sight for firearms, and other devices that require aiming, that gives the user an aimpoint in the form of an illuminated red dot”. So “marksman’s target” is clearly an accurate definition.
Many thanks to Maize and John.
Thanks Maize and John
John, for future blogs could you possibly use a stronger shade for the definitions? Against the somewhat off-white of my ipad screen today’s aren’t very distinct. Thanks.
I found this the most difficult of the three puzzles I’ve done today – very satisfying to finish. Like copmus, I had no problems with the definitions.
I enjoyed building up MILLIONAIRE, BRAGGADOCIO and DISCOMFITURE and liked the surfaces of LENTIL and DULCET. ESCARGOT was indeed extremely well hidden.
Many thanks to Maize and John. (I’ll echo Simon’s request @6. 😉 )
After the first run through I only had ugliness and lentil, and thought I was doomed. But I guessed 1a from those two letters and then it was steady work, at the top end of my abilities, so I was very pleased to finish. Thanks to Maize and John. Colours fine on Android.
15 D – is overgrown an undesirable or wrong quality of flora or plants? Perhaps Flora should not have capital letter? Rules about the presence or absence of these confuse me. Agree about the pale shade. Thanks to all.
Eileen @7 I also had this as my pick of the day-quality wise
I absolutely loved this puzzle – so many clues to admire. Loved millionaire, locum and the playful overgrown and orbit in particular.
Putting in ‘contrite’ from the crossers and then parsing it after the event to discover the cone – a lovely thing.
I’m a little confused as to why anyone would query Braggodocio being a showy type… it’s defined as a braggart or a boaster. A show-off to be sure!
Like JayJay this was at top end of my abilities but really enjoyed it. I can’t see any issue with 24a. Surely “contents” is the definition of cargo?
I thought, this was a truly magnificent crossword.
I hadn’t heard of the marksman’s target (in 5/25) and I was also slightly puzzled by the definition of 15dn.
But apart from that, all top-notch.
On previous occasions Maize was, at least in my opinion, somewhat showy (multiple pangrams etc).
No such thing here.
I really find it hard to choose my Clue of the Day (but both 17dn and 18dn are gorgeous) as this is such a balanced puzzle.
But I know, not everyone will agree.
No theme, no nina, no pangram – just real quality.
Many thanks to John & Maize.
Like Eileen @7, I’ve done three and this was the hardest. But I enjoyed it and didn’t share John’s slight ‘meh!’ feeling. I’m not sure if I’m reading the comment on CANAL correctly or whether you might have overlooked that a canal is also known as a cut, certainly here in the Midlands, Another layer to the clue. BRAGGADOCIO is defined as ‘braggart’ in a couple of the online sources I’ve looked at so is OK with me. RED DOT caused me no probs whatsoever but I probably watch too many movies. And I’m not sure why there’s a question mark following Flora in your comment on OVERGROWN. ‘wrong quantity of Flora’ seems a decent definition to me but I may have misinterpreted you. And, finally, (we certainly aren’t aligned today, John), I thought CARGO was rather neat and, yes, &littish for sure. I think the carrying is being done by the word rather than by the snail per se.
Again, like Eileen, I found myself building up quite a few solutions, step by step – the aforementioned BRAGGADOCIO in particular. BATTLEFIELD as well. I thought SOLICIT and CANAL were superb (I hadn’t even seen the ‘carnal’ element).
Thanks Maize and John
I’d just done yesterday’s Io in the FT before tackling this one and if anything found this harder. Some difficult parsing which repaid a bit of nutting out, eg for DISSUADE, BATTLEFIELD and INTERACTIVE to mention a few.
Yes, I was fooled good and proper by the hidden ESCARGOT. I liked the def as well.
As others have said, a very enjoyable and satisfying puzzle.
Thanks to Maize and John
Philip @9. The issue of capitalisation is a thorny one with some (not me). If the surface reads better with the capital letter (as here, where the surface refers to a certain butter substitute) even though the definition wouldn’t have one, then I say go ahead and put one in.
Re #9, the convention is, I think, that a word can be capitalised in a clue, as here. This gives more scope to the setter to create a sentence and perhaps a misleading context. I often wondered about the logic of it, but it’s accepted, and I’d not be looking to change it now. Not permissible to do the reverse, eg the country China could not appear as china.
A bit of research into Flora seems to indicate that Maize is, perhaps, open to mild criticism with the capitalisation since Flora is apparently the word for a specific document listing the flora (small ‘f’) of a particular region. Needless to say, news to me. That said, I’m probably with Hovis (highly appropriate that Hovis should be involved in a discussion on this topic!): if the capital serves the surface, publish and be damned. BTW, I totally agree with Raich @17 that the removal of necessary capitals would be a Bad Thing.
Upcasing has been an accepted deception for as long as I can remember doing cryptics, and downcasing forbidden. I’m not sure why OVERGROWN should suddenly be an issue.
Re MERETRICIOUS, I think it was Gore Vidal who when accused of being meretricious responded with “… and a Happy New Year”.
Maize being Maize I was also looking for something hidden, maybe in connection with DOUBLE-BARRELLED, but apart from ECCENTRIC + ORBIT I don’t see anything (yet!).
Took me several ‘pick up and put down’ attempts to get through this one and I did have to consult a dictionary for 21a.
Shared our reviewer’s reservations where some of the definitions were concerned but my 14a was obviously not shared by others.
Rather liked the clue for ECCENTRIC!
Thanks to Maize for the challenge and to John for the decryption.
Braggadocio: Collins has ‘Vain, empty, boasting’ for its first definition, but I missed the second definition, which makes it quite OK. Chambers even has Collins’s second definition as its first, so I’m sorry, a mistake in the blog.
As for my Flora?, surely it should be ‘Flora, for example’ or some such. If something’s overgrown who’s to say that it’s a whole lot of flowers that are overgrown? It could be one’s hair or many other things. I know some people are relaxed about defintions by example, but I’m not.
Perhaps I should have been a bit more enthusiastic about this. Now I look at it again I see that I could well have been. But I did say that there were plenty of lovely neat clues.
Sorry about the faintness of the definitions — the software I use gives many different options and I choose one that looks OK to me. But what looks OK on my computer evidently doesn’t look OK on some people’s. I’ll choose nice bright colours in future.
On a different matter….in 6dn is the suggestion that Europe was formerly EC being European Community? Does not align to my knowledge, if so, as the EU replaced it….still a superb puzzle, but wondering if, as often, I have missed a trick.
Yes, Europe used to be known as the EC. Once it was the EEC, the European Economic Community, but I was always a bit vague about whether the E in EC stood for European or Economic.
Thanks to John and to commenters who persevered with a pretty tough puzzle – well, it is Thursday in the Indy after all.
Back in my youth I received my first ever review for my part in an am-dram production of ‘Arms and the Man’. The reviewer described my character as a ‘meretricious braggadocio’. Unfortunately I understood neither word at the time, but given that it was ‘just’ the Reading Times, I felt I really should have, and the phrase has stuck with me. That’s not a theme of course, but every puzzle is seeded somehow or other.
TFO @22 6d does indeed refer to the now defunct European Community.
As others have already said difficult but very satisfying.
Thanks all
John @ 21 Chambers has overgrown defined as ‘covered over with uncontrolled vegetation, weeds etc.’
Flora is indeed false capitalisation of flora, and flora means all forms of vegetable life as distinct from animal life (fauna, of course).
Great puzzle – thanks Maize! CANAL was last one in – I’d missed the (r) part! Thanks also to John.
Thanks John@23 and Maize for clarifying. My view remains that the EC consisted of European nations, but was not the old name for the continent. Dangerous ground, I know, to add the UK is now outside of the EU, but for the good or the bad, still in Europe
I wonder if we’d have had the puzzle if the review had said ‘Maize played with _ _’ rather than ‘played a _ _’.
CANAL was v good.
Thanks to meretricious braggadocio Maize, and John, who I think a meticulous blogger, don’t you?
In my comment @13, I said that I thought this was Magnificent (with a capital M).
But I also mentioned the definition in 15dn’s OVERGROWN.
The solution seems to me an adjective and, therefore, I still don’t fully get “wrong quantity of Flora”.
So, it’s not about the capital F (which is totally OK) or what Maize means to say but I just don’t fully get it ….
It may be because I am not a native speaker.
Maybe there’s something else, something that I missed.
Anyone out there (perhaps Maize himself) to put me out of my misery?
We thought, too, that many of the definitions, either of the whole clue, or in the wordplay, seemed to be a stretch. We did almost get there in the end, but slipped up on 22dn where we had ‘oobit’ Chambers has this as a varaint of ‘woubit’, a species of hairy catertpillar, and gives one meaning of ‘ring’ as a segment of a caterpillar or worm – so we just about justified the definition, ‘ring’, as yet another stretch. But we can’t say that this puzzle floated our boat.
Thanks, though, to setter and blogger.
Hi Sil, it’s maybe a no-ball, but if I remember correctly my intention was to use the ‘with’ from the clue as part of the definition, because ‘with wrong quantity of flora’ is an adjectival phrase that equates to the answer, I think. But if that’s the case, the definition is either split, or else the second and third ‘wrong’ must also be part of the definition, and that would mean they’re doing double duty.
Mmm, I see what you say.
Let’s leave it there (but surprised no-one else made a comment).
a late but enjoyable finish.. some new stuff here! 1ac .. i thought 20 was a gauge of shotgun? hence the double-barrelled ?..but cute association with 20 down also… impressive
thanks John n Maize
Little previous experience with Maize, but I found this highly enjoyable and had no issues with cluing. Definitely on the challenging side, though. Thanks to Maize.
Very late to the party but found this very tough but found the cluing of CONE within CONTRITE to be worth the struggle alone. Like Bluth, I got it from crossing letters then the penny dropped as I parsed the clue. MERETRICIOUS was also a new word to me.