[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here
Tees is becoming quite the IoS regular. Another sound puzzle with a good range of subject matter and clue types. Those who get anal about cryptic grammar might not like a construction that Tees has used, but I was fine with it.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
9 Volunteer involved with region in Persian protests
GREEN REVOLUTION
(VOLUNTEER REGION)* The ‘Persian protests’ bit meant nothing to me; if you are in the same position, then I can do no better than direct you to this article. Confusingly, this week the Government has lauched a series of environmental measures under the same title.
10 Vote to exclude leader’s share
ALLOT
[B]ALLOT
11 Accountant with vivacity allowed in carriage
CABRIOLET
A charade of CA, BRIO and LET.
12 Thorn at the start to be in red, red rose
TOWERED
A charade of T for the first letter of ‘thorn’, OWE and RED. Clever clue, with the ‘to be in red’ leading to OWE and the misleading ‘rose’. Pretty girl in crimson rose, and all that.
13 State emphatically cleared out disreputable Irish county
DECLARE
A charade of DE for an eviscerated ‘disreputable’ and CLARE.
15 Legally land aquatic reptile losing leg
TERRA
TERRA[PIN]
16 Have some tomorrow night
OWN
Hidden in tomorrOW Night.
17 Scornful sort called out for coffee
MOCHA
A homophone (‘called out’) of MOCKER.
18 Warned a recording contains issues regularly avoided
ADVISED
A charade of A and an insertion of ISE for the odd letters of ‘issues’ in DVD.
19 Confusion as base guards left gate unoccupied
MELANGE
An insertion of L in MEAN followed by GE for the outside letters of ‘gate’.
21 Stop woman receiving fine for misleading statement
HALF-TRUTH
An insertion of F for female or ‘woman’ ‘fine’ in HALT RUTH. Well, strictly the F is inserted into HALT. You can argue among yourselves if that doesn’t work for you.
23 The girl alas in retreat releasing the odd cry
AARGH
Hidden reversed in tHe GiRl AlAs.
24 Spar with clever dicky over money for PM
SPENCER PERCEVAL
An insertion of PENCE in (SPAR CLEVER)* The insertion indicator is ‘over’ and the anagrind is ‘dicky’. Next time you’re doing an in the flesh pub quiz (around June next year) you’ll thank me for reminding you that SPENCER PERCEVAL is the only British PM to have been assassinated.
Down
1 Horror-struck scallywag has turned to bottle
AGHAST
Hidden in scallywAG HAS Turned.
2 Thought one would snarl about contemptible supporter?
FELLOW TRAVELLER
An insertion of LOW in FELT RAVELLER. See my comment on 21ac.
3 Believers in AA run it out, initially sceptical
UNITARIANS
(IN AA RUN IT)* plus S for the first letter of the last word of the clue.
4 Protected church — provide walls
FENCED
An insertion (‘walls’) of CE in FEND.
5 Badly need job — one installed as Democrat
JOE BIDEN
An insertion of I in (NEED JOB)* He’s now installed as the next President of the United States. We trust.
6 Amazonian people in one place to the north
TUPI
A reversal of I PUT. ‘To the north’ works as a reversal indicator, since it’s a down clue.
7 First from Christopher Marlowe, living deceptively: English dramatist
WILLIAM CONGREVE
(C MARLOWE LIVING)* plus E gives you the Restoration period poet and dramatist. It was he who gave us the (para)phrase ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’.
8 Answer found in song to lift a curse
ANATHEMA
An insertion of A in ANTHEM followed by another A. I took ‘to lift’ to mean ‘to steal’ to give me the A at the end.
Edit: our setter has kindly dropped into the blog to explain that ‘song to lift’ is the ANTHEM, which makes much more sense than my explanation.
14 Mad comic panel doing what’s expected
COMPLIANCE
(COMIC PANEL)*
15 Leaves box and coaches close to street
TEA CHEST
A charade of TEACHES and T for the last letter of ‘street’.
16 Reactionaries one used to give protection on train?
OLD GUARD
Well, in the old days we did used to have GUARDS on trains. If one was retired, then he’d be an OLD GUARD.
19 Man first to recover without heroin: he used to score
MAHLER
An insertion of H in MALE R. See my comment on 21ac.
20 Puff away: not fit any more?
EXHALE
If you are fit, you would be HALE. If you weren’t fit any longer, you’d be EX HALE.
22 Flab-tightening procedure for corpulent friar
TUCK
A dd.
Many thanks to Tees for the Sunday morning entertainment.
No problems with any of the insertions as far as I’m concerned.
Not doing any pub quizzes but thanks for the info on Spencer Perceval anyway.
Didn’t get the “lift” in 8d and still don’t. The lift=steal is an idea but doesn’t work for me. Maybe Tees, or someone else, could clarify.
Thanks to Tees and Pierre.
Hovis@1 One of the many definitions of lift in the BRB is indeed ‘steal’ – another is to ‘take and carry away’ which I suppose amounts to the same thing
No complaints from me about having regular crosswords from Tees (or indeed any other of Mr B’s aliases)
Thanks to him and Pierre
My take on 8 d is that an anthem is an uplifting song, thus song to lift great fun, thanks S & B
Jmac has it. ‘Song to lift’ is ANTHEM.
As to insertions, as far as I’m aware none of those mentioned features a grammatical indiscretion.
Song to lift – of course. Not nearly as sneaky as TOWERED (which I did get – great clue) and yet it passed me (and Pierre) by. Crypticland is a strange world.
Surely 21ac is an insertion of F (fine) in HALT RUTH (stop woman)?
As one of the many whose early introduction to French was reading the HP sauce bottle at the table, (“Cette sauce de haute qualite est un mélange de fruits orientaux, d’epices et de vinaigre.”) I was surprised by MELANGE at 19ac, thinking it should be melee: Chambers has (only) ‘a mixture, a medley’ but Collins adds ‘confusion’, so that’s all right, then.
I’m with crypticsue @3 regarding Tees’ appearances. Many thanks to him for another fine puzzle and to Pierre for the blog.
Indeed, Eileen, concerning HALF TRUTH. I was just hinting at the fact that those who are more analytical and picky than I am about the famous subject of cryptic grammar might point to the fact that the F is inserted into the first word, not the whole phrase. Not that I would ever impugn the opinions of those people who worship at that altar. By calling them anal, for example.
I took 21a as Eileen did, and rather liked it. Also 12a. Lovely surfaces and enjoyable all round. Thanks to Tees and Pierre. Now to have another (probably futile) look at the headache that was yesterday’s Nimrod.
Hi Pierre – I know what you meant but I meant that the F came from ‘fine’ not ‘female’. 😉
A pleasant Sunday solve and all very satisfying apart from not being sure about the green revolution. No complaints about cryptic grammar.
Thanks, Tees and Pierre.
For the avoidance of doubt, (to choose just one of the clues highlighted) you’re inserting F into the entity ‘HALT RUTH’. Where you make that insertion is thus irrelevant in terms of cryptic grammar, as far as I know, although you might struggle getting HALT RFUTH to fit the other answers in the grid.
You might now be thinking that instructions in crossword clues are not always as accurate as they seem, but this is true for all insertion clues including containers (and certain other clue types). For example ‘one container placed inside another’ could lead, unproblematically as far as the cryptic instructions are concerned, to V(CAN)AT and be just as valid as VA(CAN)T: it is completely up to the solver to deduce what best corresponds to the supplied definition.
I’ve signalled before my enjoyment of Tees’ output; rather like Paul in the Guardian (and, as far as I can tell so far, Phi here), if you’re going to appear frequently, you need to be good and Tees hasn’t let me down yet.
No issues with the grammar for me and I agree with Eileen (and Jayjay) on the parsing of HALF TRUTH; I’m not sure whether Pierre is answering her point in the response @8 or making another about pedantry. I don’t think the blog parsing is correct as it stands with ‘woman’ being used twice and ‘fine’ redundant.
GREEN REVOLUTION was a shrug so thanks for the link to the article; I’m afraid I associate the phrase ‘Arab Spring’ with that period so it rang no bells. I loved the use of anthem in ANATHEMA, the potentially risque OWN, the nicely hidden AGHAST, FENCED and EXHALE which are beautifully simple, COMPLIANCE and MAHLER for their surfaces. I wonder if I’ve seen something similar to TEA CHESTS before but don’t mind if I did. TOWERED was clue of the day; as Pierre said, very clever and a lovely surface.
Thanks Tees and Pierre
Thanks Pierre and Tees.
Don’t know if it’s intentional, but 13a DECLARE is also “CLEARED OUT”.
normal service resumed after yesterday… restoring faith in many things
thanks Tees and Pierre
I don’t think even the most fervent Zoilist would complain about the half-truth clue. Tees has explained perfectly clearly that there really is no problem.
What a good crossword. Tees produces these excellent things at quite a rate.