Maize has given us a puzzle with the type of wordplay that I most enjoy.
There’s quite a lot of components to the wordplay today as evidenced by the many colours used in the detailed blog.
We started off with two really good anagrams – the one using COVID 19 was clever, and I think I can guess what words Maize first wrote into the grid that had a 7 letter slot at 19 down. and a another slot for a 12 letter entry. With what little I know about the background of the current Telegraph puzzles editor, I believe there would be a time in his life when he was balancing puzzles with IT work, so I think the anagram at 9 across is also very clever.
I also did a bit of research on the footballers named in the clue at 3 down. I knew that Jose Mourinho [the Special One] was manager of Spurs and that Gareth Bale had joined Spurs on loan recently, but it wasn’t until I did the research that I realised that Matt Doherty also plays for Spurs thus making the clue even better than I first thought.
There was a bit more sport with reference to the controversial cyclist Lance Armstrong, an entry that us Rugby Union team and a link to climbing in YOSEMITE
Overall, a very enjoyable crossword – thanks Maize.
| No | Clue | Wordplay | Entry |
| Across | |||
| 1 | Original form of Covid 19 not yet found (12) |
Anagram of (original form of) COVID and ENDURES UNDISCOVERED* |
UNDISCOVERED (not yet found) |
| 9 | He’s good at balancing Telegraph puzzles with IT work (9,6) |
Anagram of (puzzles … with) TELEGRAPH and IT WORK TIGHTROPE WALKER* |
TIGHTROPE WALKER (a person who is good at balancing) |
| 10 | The other half of Dutch budget (7) |
HUSBAND (Dutch is a term for a wife, so the ‘other half ‘ of Dutch will be HUSBAND) HUSBAND |
HUSBAND (manage with economy; budget) |
| 11 | Not a drunken follower of Falstaff but the opposite (7) |
Anagram of (drunken) NOT A + NYM (Corporal NYM is a fictional character who appears in two Shakespeare plays, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry V. NYM is a soldier and criminal follower of Sir John Falstaff) ANTO* NYM |
ANTONYM (word opposite in meaning to another) |
| 12 | Wally’s clothing for golf hotel after dark (5) |
NIT (fool; wally) containing (clothing) (G [GOLF is the International Radio Communication code word for the letter G] + H [HOTEL is the International Radio Communication code word for the letter H]) NI (G H) T |
NIGHT (time after dark) |
| 14 | For good measure, not married with new partner (9) |
ETER N ALLY |
ETERNALLY (for ever; for good) |
| 18 | Lance Armstrong at the front – he’d set about it to go first (9) |
SPEAR (lance) + (HE‘D containing (set about) A (first letter of [at the front] ARMSTRONG) SPEAR HE (A) D |
SPEARHEAD (lead; go first) |
| 21 | Rugby club women as an afterthought (5) |
W (women) + AS + PS (postscript; supplement; afterthought) W AS PS |
WASPS (Currently a Coventry based Professional Rugby Union side. Founded in London in 1867 where it was based for many years, the Club moved to High Wycombe in 2002, before the switch to Coventry in late 2013) |
| 22 | Line of sunbeam reflected in Earth (7) |
RAY (sunbeam) reversed (reflected) contained in (in) LAND (earth) LAN (YAR<) D |
LANYARD (short rope or line used as a fastening or handle in sailing terminology) |
| 24 | Bishop’s fitting takes place before mass religious ceremony (7) |
B (bishop) + APT (fitting) + IS (takes place) + M (mass) B APT IS M |
BAPTISM (immersion in or sprinkling with water as a religious ceremony) |
| 26 | One talking carelessly with fellow freedom fighter leads to the inevitable gallows (15) |
F (fellow) + LIBBER (liberationist; freedom fighter) + TI (first letters of [leads to] THE and INEVITABLE) + GIBBET (gallows) F LIBBER TI GIBBET |
FLIBBERTIGIBBET (flighty, gossipy or mischievous person; one talking carelessly) |
| 27 | Squat maybe located, it’s said, without planning (5-7) |
SHORT (squat) + SIGHTED (sounds like [it’s said] SITED [located]) SHORT SIGHTED |
SHORT-SIGHTED (lacking foresight; without planning) |
| Down | |||
| 1 | Eggs swell with sulphur settling to the bottom (5) |
SURGE (swell) with S (sulphur) moving to the bottom of the entry (settling; down clue)to form URGES URGES |
URGES (encourages; supports; eggs) |
| 2 | Critic to ban mechanisation in farming? (9) |
DE–TRACTOR (remove or ban the TRACTOR [mechanical equipment]) DE TRACTOR |
DETRACTOR (critic) |
| 3 | ‘Special One’ recruits Doherty’s left and Bale’s right foot (7) |
SP (special) + (ONE containing [recruits] D and E [first letter of [left] of DOHERTY and E [final letter of [right] BALE] ) SP ON (D E) E |
SPONDEE (a foot of two long syllables)) |
| 4 | Meet a reporter to describe upcoming work in theatre (7) |
OPERATE (reversed [upcoming; down entry] hidden word in [to describe] MEET A REPORTER) OPERATE< |
OPERATE (work in a hospital surgical theatre) |
| 5 | Heartlessly xenophobic about a parting alien? Just so (5) |
(XC [letters remaining in X E (X (A) C) T |
EXACT (precise; just so) |
| 6 | Family bathed in almost continuous lights (9) |
KIN (family) contained in (bathed in) ENDLES EN (KIN) DLES |
ENKINDLES (sets of fire; lights) |
| 7 | You might be asked to come up and see these electronic items around college (8) |
E (electronic])+ (THINGS [items] containing [around] C [college]) E T (C) HINGS |
ETCHINGS (the Internet offers a wide variety of sources for the clichéd chat-up line ‘Come up and see my ETCHINGS‘ supposedly frequently used by gentlemen trying to seduce a lady) |
| 8 | Short acting lesson made shorter (4) |
DRAM DRAM |
DRAM (a short drink of spirits, usually whisky) |
| 13 | New church to accommodate singers of Jerusalem, where East meets West? (9) |
(GREEN [new] + CH [church]) containing (to accommodate) WI (Women’s Institute, an organisation whose members are often characterised as singing Blake’s Jerusalem) GREEN (WI) CH |
GREENWICH (the GREENWICH meridian is the line of zero longitude; the line where East meets West)
|
| 15 | Tree as regularly picked (3) |
TEA (letters 1, 3 and 5 [regularly] of TREE AS) TEA |
TEA (a TEA bush / tree is something that is regularly picked for its crop) |
| 16 | Young hare makes for dead trees (9) |
NEW (young) + SPRINT (run fast; hare) NEW SPRINT |
NEWSPRINT (print material for newspapers and magazines is made from felled [dead] trees) |
| 17 | With joyous heart, Middle-easterner is climbing Mecca (8) |
YO (middle letters of [heart] JOYOUS) + SEMITE (member of any of the peoples said (in the Bible, Genesis 10) to be descended from Shem, or speaking a Semitic language [including Assyrian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Phoenician, Arabic, Ethiopic]; Middle-easterner) YO SEMITE |
YOSEMITE (YOSEMITE National Park is in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains and is a mecca for climbers) |
| 19 | Deer getting frisky with sun bears (7) |
Anagram of (getting frisky) DEER and SUN ENDURES* |
ENDURES (tolerates; bears) |
| 20 | Polish alternative government to deliver alternative speech (7) |
DUBBIN (preparation of grease for softening leather; an alternative to polish) + G (government) DUBBIN G |
DUBBING (giving a film or television programme a new soundtrack, eg one in a different language; deliver alternative speech) |
| 22 | Saul of Tarsus reveals place of conversion? (4) |
LOFT (hidden word in [reveals] SAUL OF TARSUS) LOFT |
LOFT (part of a house, immediately under the roof, that is often converted into another room) |
| 23 | It gives instruction to stop parliament ignoring children (5) |
AMBER |
AMBER (light on a set of traffic lights that on it’s own is a signal to drivers to stop unless it is unsafe to do so) |
| 25 | Plant having branches pollarded (5) |
IMBED |
IMBED (plant firmly in a mass of matter) |
Very enjoyable! Thanks Maize and duncanshiell.
We enjoyed a lot of the clever and/or disguised definitions, such as in 9ac, 14ac, 3dn, 13dn, 16dn, and 17dn.
We were also pleased to remember NYM, which we didn’t know when it appeared in an Indy crossword a couple of weeks ago.
Thanks Maize for a superb crossword. Didn’t complete, so thanks also to Duncan for the explanations.
Forgot NYM and missed ANTONYM & DRAMA. Got YOSEMITE but the “climbing Mecca” was lost on me. The “singers of Jerusalem” was another unknown. I assumed it was Women’s Institute rather than West Indies.
I always thought amber was a signal to put your foot down.
This was a clever and challenging puzzle, but, unusually for me with this setter, one that I didn’t particularly warm to, although I can’t put my finger on why.
I rarely pick an a anagram as my favourite but TIGHTROPE WALKER takes the honours today.
Thanks anyway to Maize and to Duncan.
Some very clever anagrams, I agree. Despite being a soccer fan at a lower level (National League), the upper echelons are an overblown mystery to me, so the significance of the elements of 3D escaped me. At 17D I got hung up on the ‘Yosemite Kingdom of Jordan’ (actually Hashemite, of course) but the penny eventually dropped. I thought 15D was a bit weak, and I do wish setters would avoid using ‘wally’ as a synonym for ‘idiot’ etc. Overall very enjoyable though, so thanks Maize and Duncan.
Absolutely splendid puzzle which was a joy from first (ETCHINGS – definitely brought a smile; I wonder how long it has been since someone really used etchings as an aid to seduction? Wouldn’t you just look at them on your iPhone these days?) to last (FLIBERTIGIBBET which jumped out once I had the crossers but which I doubt I’d have got from wordplay alone). I’ve only encountered a few from Maize but I recall similar admiration for both wordplay and techniques on those occasions. Mildly surprised to discover it wasn’t a double pangram containing a festive Nina and a reversed acrostic in the clues!
Other highlights: the clever combined/split anagrams linking UNDISCOVERED and ENDURES, the brilliant anagram for TIGHTROPE WALKER (especially with the extra dimension identified by Duncan – I should say, I do appreciate the additional research today’s blogger puts into his analysis), the surface for WASPS and the misdirection for both SHORT SIGHTED and SPONDEE (funnily enough someone was unsuccessfully attempting to insert TROCHEE into a Guardian solution this morning). I also liked the misleading definition for NEWSPRINT, the ‘singers of Jerusalem’ device (yes, Hovis, it’s definitely the Womens Institute though I quite liked the image of Curtly Ambrose et al bellowing out the green and pleasant land) and, finally in what has been a long list, my COTD YOSEMITE for the brilliant definition.
Thanks Maize and Duncan
My fave was WASPS for some reason. Thanks Maize and dunc
Lovely puzzzle.
A few bits unparsed (eg the ‘singers of Jerusalem’) didn’t interfere with the overall enjoyment. Among other highlights, I liked the definitions for YOSEMITE and NEWSPRINT and the witty surface for WASPS.
Thanks to Maize and Duncan
Very enjoyable. We got off to a good start by sussing out the 1ac/19dn connection and getting 9ac from the definition and enumeration before discovering the anagram fodder.
We liked ETCHINGS, although ‘Come up and see my etchings’ appears to be one of those mythical quotations (like ‘Elementary, my dear Watson’) that isn’t actually a quotation; it could originate from Mae West’s ‘Come up and see me sometime’.
Favourite, though, was LOFT for the misdirection in the surface.
Thanks, Maize and Duncan.
took a while to get a foothold but after a few crossers were available it was all plain sailing.. except for some parsing that is..
thanks Duncansheill n Maize
The sporting references were somewhat lost on me but there were compensations to be found in the likes of FLIBBERTIGIBBET (Sound of Music, anyone?)SHORT SIGHTED & NEWSPRINT. I also included TIGHTROPE WALKER on my list of likes, having our long-suffering DT Puzzles Editor in mind.
Thanks to Maize for the puzzle and to Duncan for the review – best of festive wishes to both of you.
I thought this a fantastic puzzle, with lots of cleverness and great surfaces throughout. I really liked ETERNALLY and SPONDEE, but LOFT takes the top spot. Thanks Maize and Duncansheill.
Surely at 20dn the definition is juat ‘alternative speech’, otherwise the clue would have said ‘delivering’. To ‘dub’ is to ‘deliver alternative speech’, but not ‘delivering alternative speech’, and dub = dubbing, in the sense that dubbing is the act of delivering a dub. Or is this all rather convoluted?
Thank you Duncan – impeccable as ever.
The grid fill came about just as you suspected. In fact 1ac started life as ‘Cure for Covid 19…’ then, when a vaccine was developed it had to change of course, and indeed it could have changed again to ‘New variant of Covid 19…’ now that that term is so much in the news. Anagram indicators can be beautifully adaptable like that!
Wil @12
Yup, the words ‘to deliver’ were indeed intended merely as a link between wordplay and definition.
Good research on Doherty, but, as one who takes an interest in such matters, the clue is even more accurate, as Doherty (like Bale) was recruited by Mourinho, being signed from Wolves this summer.
Thanks Maize and Duncan.
An excellent puzzle. Superb surface readings and impeccable – and very imaginative – clueing. I so wanted it to be good, and it exceeded my expectations.
A wonderful puzzle, every clue a gem. Thanks Maize and to duncanshiell for the blog.