[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here
We have a puzzle by Serpent on Thursday this week.
If I see Serpent as a setter, I know I’m in for a tricky time. That’s what I found in today’s puzzle. There is one entry that I can’t parse to my satisfaction and that is GARRISON at 17 down. The wordplay as I interpret it, seems to leave me an R short as I explain in the detailed blog below. I expect I am missing something obvious and look forward to having my shortcomings pointed out to me.
There is a message round the outside of the grid which helped towards the end . The message start in the perimeter at top row, column six and reads THE DOT AND THE LINE NORTON JUSTER. This book is described as a Romance in Lower Mathematics which is a phrase you don’t see very often. You can read about this book by clicking on this link here
| No | Clue | Wordplay | Entry |
| Across | |||
| 8 | Pause attempt to shoot after four failures? (4,4) |
TAKE (amount of film [eg one scene] photographed [shot]at any one time) + FIVE (one after four). TAKEs are usually repeated until the Director of the film is satisfied that the desired result has been achieved, so the fifth TAKE is likely to occur after four failures. TAKE FIVE |
TAKE FIVE (TAKE a short break for FIVE or possibly a few more minutes) |
| 9 | Plug gap at sea (6) |
AD (advert; plug) + RIFT (break; gap) AD RIFT |
ADRIFT (loose from moorings; at sea) |
| 10 | Jazz singer’s first attempts to produce a hit (6) |
SWING (big band jazz music) + S (initial letter of [first] SINGER) SWING S |
SWINGS (a novice golfer may have a few SWINGS before hitting the ball at all) |
| 11 | What presumably inspired UKIP with right to destroy Britain’s sense of well-being (8) |
EU PHO EU PHORIA |
EUPHORIA (exaggerated feeling of wellbeing, which may also be irrational) |
| 12 | Repulsive state‘s government policies welcome by America (8) |
(G [government] + LINES [policies]) contained in (welcome by) US ([United States of] America) U (G LINES) S |
UGLINESS (repulsive state) |
| 14 | Former pupil wearing clothes I’m obliged to get (6 |
(OB [old boy; former pupil] + IN [wearing]) containing (clothes) TA (thank you; I’m obliged) OB (TA) IN |
OBTAIN (get) |
| 15 | Gag judge standing in for start of trial (4) |
J (judge) replacing (standing for) T, the first letter of J EST |
JEST (joke; gag) |
| 17 | Material university dons regard with wonder (5) |
U (university) contained in (dons) GAZE (look fixedly, or long and steadily, especially in admiration or abstraction; regard with wonder) GA (U) ZE |
GAUZE (type of material) |
| 18 | Rather tasteless savage upsetting lead character (4) |
WILD (savage) with the first letter (lead character) W turned through 180 degrees (upset) to form the letter M M ILD |
MILD (not sharp or bitter, rather tasteless) |
| 19 | Fish Spooner says is unable to reproduce (6) |
NEUTER (Reverend Spooner would pronounce says] NEUTER as TEUNER sounding like TUNA [fish]) NEUTER |
NEUTER (castrate; deprive of the ability to reproduce) |
| 21 | Part of Homer’s issue about main representation of figures (3,5) |
BART (reference BART Simpson, son of [issue] Homer Simpson in the cartoon series The Simpsons. BART is one of three children, so he is part of Homer’s issue) containing (about) ARCH (chief; principal; main) B (AR CH) ART |
BAR CHART (graph showing comparative quantities by means of rectangular blocks of varying proportional height; representation of figures) |
| 24 | Contrary attitude about relations putting work first (8) |
OP (opus; work) + (POSE [attitude] containing [about] IT (sexual relations]) OP POS (IT) E |
OPPOSITE (contrary) |
| 26 | Spank husband mixing with riff-raff (6) |
H (husband) contained in (mixing with) TRASH (riff-raff). I have parsed this as a container and contents clue rather than an anagram of (mixing H with TRASH) H and TRASH as the word TRASH is not spelled out in the clue. The use of TRASH in that parsing would therefore involve an indirect anagram which is considered to be a no-no in crossword circles |
THRASH (spank) |
| 27 | Military display to bestow decoration on soldier? (6) |
TATTOO (mark the skin of person, a soldier for example, with a decoration formed from an indelible dye) TATTOO |
TATTOO (military entertainment, with marching, displays of prowess, etc, often held at night) double definition |
| 28 | Cut off air supply when Lambert’s trapped by alien (8) |
L (lambert; a unit of brightness) contained in (trapped by) STRANGE (alien) STRANG (L) E |
STRANGLE (constrict by cutting off air supply) |
| Down | |||
| 1 | Try to catch calendar girls wearing cycling gear (6) |
WI (Women’s Institute. The reference is to a nude calendar produced by the Knapely branch of the Women’s Institute in 1999. A film depicting the events surrounding the character was made in 2003) contained in (wearing) a version of GEAR with all the letters moved one place to the left and the first letter positioned at the end (cycling) to form EARG EAR (WI) G |
EARWIG (eavesdrop; try to catch) |
| 2 | Staggered entries will finally join up again (2-6) |
Anagram of (staggered) ENTRIES and L (last letter of [finally] WILL) RE-ENLIST* |
RE-ENLIST (join up again |
| 3 | Paper used to cover model turning up to go to court (6) |
SIT (model) reversed (turning up; down clue) + SUE (take to court) TIS< SUE |
TISSUE (thin, soft, semitransparent paper used for tracing, wrapping [cover] delicate or breakable objects, decoration, etc) |
| 4 | Present component of further education (4) |
HERE (hidden word in [component of] FURTHER EDUCATION) HERE |
HERE (present) |
| 5 | What would enhance the sound of new opera he composed? (8) |
Anagram of (composed) N (new) and OPERA HE EARPHONE* |
EARPHONE (device that enables the wearer to hear more clearly; device to enhance sound) |
| 6 | Doctor gets young man wanting heroin to undergo therapy for addiction (3,3) |
DR (doctor) + YOUT DR Y OUT |
DRY OUT (stay off alcohol or some other drug; undergo a therapy for an addiction) |
| 7 | Authority figure in charge I refuse to accept (8) |
OFFAL (waste; refuse) containing (to accept) (I/C (in charge) + I) OFF (IC I) AL |
OFFICIAL (person of authority) |
| 13 | What generates report from second question on exam? (5) |
S (second) + QU (question) + IB (international Baccalaureate; exam) S QU IB |
SQUIB (a firework that generates a bang [report]) |
| 16 | Politician introduced to corrupt earl by former model (8) |
EX (former) + (MP [Member of Parliament; politician] contained in [introduced to] an anagram of [corrupt] EARL) EX E (MP) LAR* |
EXEMPLAR ( person or thing to be imitated; model) |
| 17 | Soldiers besieging area take heart from corps supported by defence force (8) |
I can’t work out the parsing for this. I seem to have an R unaccounted for. I have GIS ([American soldiers] containing (about) (A [area] + R [middle letter of [heart of] CORPS) + ON (supported by) to form GARISON as G (A R) IS ON but this parsing only accounts for one of the two Rs required. |
GARRISON (body of troops stationed in a town, fortress, etc to defend it) |
| 18 | Dress Armani has shortened for member of royal family (8) |
Anagram of (dress) ARMANI HA MAHARANI* |
MAHARANI ( wife or widow of a Maharaja [Indian prince]; member of a royal family) |
| 20 | Liked friend of Dorothy receiving fine (4,2) |
TOTO (pet dog who accompanied Dorothy along the Yellow Brick Road) containing (receiving) OK (fine) TO (OK) TO |
TOOK TO (became fond of; liked) |
| 22 | Financial report concerning new routine brought up (6) |
RE (concerning) + (N [new] + RUT [routine]) reversed (turned up) RE (TUR N)< |
RETURN (financial report, of one’s taxable income for instance [tax return]) |
| 23 | Regularly orders new lines to make use of eBay? (6) |
RESE (letters 2, 4, 6 and 8 [regularly] of ORDERS NEW) + LL (lines) RESE LL |
RESELL (many people uise the online site eBay to RESELL products) |
| 25 | Moderate quits after being exposed (4) |
EASE |
EASE (become less acute; moderate) |
Thanks, duncan. The Nina helped me too with the NW. “Take” = R and the rest as you parsed it.
i always look for a nina in Serpent puzzles but I was also checking for a pangram which turned out.
The perimeter didnt quite make sense at first so i googled The Rod and the Line
I doubt if I willl read that but I’ll always be back for more Serpent.
Thanks all
Yet another superb puzzle from Serpent. Managed to complete but with a lot of effort, with Garrison being the last to fall. Saw the nina after completion. For a bit of light reading, I recently read the illustrated phantom tollbooth so the author and his works were easy to recall. Thanks to Serpent and Duncan.
NeilW@1 and copmus@2
Thanks fto NeilW or reminding me that TAKE= recipe=R, I should have got that. I fell for the misdirection and read ‘take heart’from’ as a single instruction.
Thanks to copmus for seeing the pangram.
Thanks Duncan: another great one from Serpent. I saw the Nina emerging early on, which was some help. I hadn’t heard of the book in question, but I’ve always loved Norman Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth. (Duncan, you have a typo in the author’s name in your preamble.)
.. and by Muphry’s Law I misspelled his surname!
..I mean his first name! I’ll get my coat..
yes! first ever Nina seen! excited.. especially as it appeared in the nick of time to help the stumbling around i was engaged in in the top L corner… i had at one stage thought there might have been a jazz/music theme emerging when 8ac emerged, not sure but some more hits at 1ac, 11ac, 9ac, ans 17dn.. either tunes or recording labels… there are of course links between music and maths… and before i looked it up i thought dot and line referred to musical score… just a thought
thanks to Serpent (for my first Nina!) and Duncanshiell
I spent more than half my time on the the last two in, GARRISON and NEUTER. Yes, the Nina helped me too, even though I wasn’t familiar with the book. Good to have a pangram to go with the Nina.
Thanks to Serpent for the as ever enjoyable challenge and to Duncan
It has been quite a challenging day in Crosswordland today and Serpent has continued the trend.
Thanks to him for the most enjoyable challenge and to Duncan for the blog
An enjoyable challenge from Serpent this morning. We had to google ‘the dot and the’ to be able to complete the nina and get our last few entries, and even then we couldn’t parse GARRISON (forgot take = R) and OPPOSITE (forgot relations = IT). And we took ages to get 21ac, only realising which Homer was referred to once the answer could only be BAR CHART; at one stage we wondered if Homer meant a pigeon except that we couldn’t make anything with SQUA[b], a young pigeon.
Otherwise everything was fine, and we spotted it was a pangram. Thanks, Serpent and Duncan.
Not such a good day in crosswordland for me today with defeats by both Vlad in The Guardian and Serpent here. A couple of Reveals required – JEST and SWINGS, both of which were totally fair and simply escaped me and NEUTER which was a bit yuk: I enjoy some Spoonerisms but this was a bit forced imo. BAR CHART was a lol, UGLINESS had a topical surface and EXEMPLAR a totally believable one. I was pleased to parse OPPOSITE. And I spotted neither the pangram, which I normally see once a J comes up, and the Nina which, I’m afraid, would have never meant anything to me – had I even looked for it.
Thanks Serpent and Duncan
17D: I hope I’m not being thick, but can someone please explain how Take = R ?
Quizzy_Bob @13: it’s medical shorthand. ‘r’ stands for recipe which is Latin for take and it’s used when noting prescription regimens. So the ‘area take heart from corps’ bit gives you a, r and r which sit between ‘gis’ and ‘on’. Hope that helps.
Quizzy_Bob@ 11
R representing Take is one of those arcane crossword usages that frequently baffle newcomers to solving and as I have shown by missing it in today’s blog it can fool people with a bit of experience as well.
The entry in Chambers is as follows:
r or r.
abbrev: radius; recipe (Latin), take; right; rule (); run(s).
I suspect some Latin scholar might be able to throw more light on the direct link, but my pocket Latin dictionary translates the root recip plus various endings as take back, retake, regain.
Thanks PostMark and duncanshiell for the explanation. If only I had the excuse of being a newcomer – but I’ve been doing cryptics for decades and have never come across this before! Oh well, always good to learn something new, even at my age.
Quizzy_Bob @16: only learned it myself a few months ago and, like you, I’ve been in this game for some time! As has been observed in some of the lengthy discussions over on the other page, participating in these blogs certainly educates. Though it didn’t help me enough today!
I agree with the above comments, it is another very fine puzzle from the excellent Serpent but with one exception for me.
I do not normally count myself among those solvers who hate homophones and spoonerisms, mostly I enjoy them but today’s 19a in my view was appalling. Sorry J.
Just to add to the R = take discussion; ‘take’ is not telling the patient what medicine to take but an instruction to the pharmacist and dates back to the time when pharmacists actually made up medicines rather than reaching a box of the shelf. (Nowadays they do more important things such as giving healthcare advice).
Couldn’t parse GARRISON either. I had everything filled in except five in the NE corner, so I googled “THE LINE NORTON JUST” and got the five letters I needed to complete it.
As soon as I solved GAUZE I thought about a pangram, but then it slipped my mind. It may have helped me finish the NE corner, because at that point there was one letter of the alphabet missing!
Excellent stuff as always from Serpent. I assumed that ‘ar’ was another abbreviation for area, but obviously no.
In 18ac it isn’t turned 180 degrees; it’s reflected in a horizontal line halfway up. It only looks as if rotation might be OK (you see this mistake on the London Underground, too) because W and M have vertical lines of symmetry. Thus if S is turned 180 degrees it becomes S; if it’s reflected it becomes a shape I can’t draw here.
I realise my last post isn’t clear (it was a rewrite of a rather longer post that wouldn’t upload because of broadband problems, then got lost). What I should have also said was that ‘upset’ surely implies reflection not rotation.
Many thanks to Duncan for the excellent blog and to everyone who has taken the time to comment.
I, too, read and much enjoyed The Phantom Tollbooth as a child. I chanced upon a copy of The Dot and the Line in a second-hand bookshop some years ago. There’s an animated version of it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwEeL0d9xdU) that is worth a look.
A swing and a miss for me today. DNF
Don’t quite get 27a – what’s the soldier adding to the clue. R=take always gets me and always annoys me. No idea what you’re talking about with the Nina. But on the plus side there were some clever clues and we made it with a little help.