Joy. A new setter. And a good' un, too.
Not come across this chap/ess before but gosh, I enjoyed this. Clever, witty and quite a lot harder than yer average Tuesday. More, please.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | REFECTORY |
Official politician touring city where people scoff (9)
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REF ('official') + TORY ('politician') surround E[ast] C[entral], (postcode for London 'city') |
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| 6 | CHOIR |
Endless, boring work plugged by current singers (5)
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CHO.Re ('boring work', shortened) includes 'I' ('current', check any of your electrical appliances). |
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| 9 | BACON |
Painter’s possible reason to have to walk back (5)
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The artist (Francis) Bacon perhaps had to walk home because there was NO CAB (reversed). |
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| 10 | BLUBBERED |
Oaf collared by teacher cried (9)
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LUBBER ('an awkward, big, clumsy person' says Chambers, hence 'an oaf') included in B[achelor] of ED[ucation}, a 'teacher'. |
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| 11 | DISCOURAGE |
Record how old we are to cause despair! (10)
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DISC ('record') + OUR AGE ('how old we are'). Didn't need that shriek, unless you're worried about vaccine and stuff. |
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| 12 | THOU |
Grand, as you once may have been (4)
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Double definition, 'Thou[sand]' + old-fashioned 'you'. |
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| 14 | DEVOTEE |
Choose to enter river in buff (7)
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DE.E ('river') includes VOTE (to 'choose'). Devotee = a fan, a 'buff'. |
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| 15 | RADICAL |
Spoke about Conservative extremist (7)
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RADI.AL (a 'spoke') includes C[onservative]. |
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| 17 | MARQUIS |
Noble resistance in the Resistance (7)
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Abb. of R[esistance] in MA.QUIS, the WW2 French 'resistance' force. |
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| 19 | MAILLOT |
Mike has trouble getting good deal for sports top (7)
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M[ike],in radio-speak + AIL (to 'trouble') + LOT (a 'good deal'). A French referee once gave me a free kick because he'd spotted that an opponent had 'tire mon maillot'. |
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| 20 | NITS |
Shock problem isn’t resolved (4)
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Anagram ('re-solved') of ISNT. 'Nits' (the eggs of lice) might be a problem in a 'shock' of hair. |
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| 22 | VILLEINAGE |
Community keeps a German in subservient state (10)
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VILL.AGE ('community') includes EIN ('a' in German). |
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| 25 | CHARWOMAN |
Daily newspaper’s rejected by top executive (9)
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'Daily' being another word for a cleaner, a 'charwoman'. But a CHA[I]RWOMAN is a 'top executive'. Take away the 'I', these days a British (coincidentally daily) newspaper. |
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| 26 | TRIAD |
Harmonic structure I incorporated into jazz style (5)
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'I' included in TR.AD[itional] the old-fashioned 'jazz style'. A 'triad' is a 3-note chord, typically the 1st, 3rd,& 5th of the major or minor scale. Pretty technical stuff. |
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| 27 | NEEDY |
Unfortunate female born with case of dropsy (5)
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NEE (of a female, 'born' with that name) + outside letters of 'DropsY'. |
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| 28 | LONG-RANGE |
Left running country house over quite some time (4-5)
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L[eft] + ON ('running') + GRANGE (a 'country house'). |
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| DOWN | ||
| 1 | ROBED |
Was a criminal half-heartedly clad like a judge? (5)
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ROBbED ('was a criminal') without one of its middle Bs. |
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| 2 | FACE-SAVER |
Fellow serves state: it preserves honour (4-5)
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F[ellow] + ACES (in tennis, successfully 'serves') + AVER (to 'state'). |
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| 3 | CONSORTIUM |
Playing cousin Tom first in rugby union or league (10)
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Anagram ('playing') of COUSIN TOM +1st of 'Rugby'. |
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| 4 | OSBORNE |
Elevated thus, stood for chancellor once (7)
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SO ('thus', reversed) + BORNE ('stood for') = George Osborne, Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer 2010-2016, |
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| 5 | YOUNGER |
Less mature guy, one off on run (7)
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Anagram ('off') of GUY ONE + R[un] in cricket. |
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| 6 | CUBE |
Dice the buccaneer keeps rolling over (4)
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Reversed inclusion in 'thE BUCcaneer', |
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| 7 | OPRAH |
TV personality’s revolutionary version of Marx (5)
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TV star Oprah Winfrey's first name is famously a reversal of that of comedian 'Harpo' Marx.. |
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| 8 | RED MULLET |
Swimmer’s possibly East German hairdo (3,6)
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DER = 'The' in German. Read that 'east-to-west'', i.e. right-to-left then add MULLET (terrible 80s 'hairdo') to get your fish .('swimmer'). I'm not sure that the East/West, Right/Left thing works, but what the heck. |
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| 13 | ADMINISTER |
Run after Jesus’s birth with man of God (10)
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AD (Anno Domini, "after Jesus's birth" in the old-fashioned way) + MINISTER ('man of god'). Lovely short def. |
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| 14 | DOMINICAN |
Friar’s party vessel holding a little beer? (9)
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DO ('party') + MINI-CAN, which might be a 'vessel holding a little beer'. |
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| 16 | COLLATION |
Assembling for a light meal (9)
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Double definition. |
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| 18 | SEISMAL |
Stunning Melissa making the earth move? (7)
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Anagram ('stunning', h'm, but heigh-ho) of MELISSA. |
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| 19 | MELANIN |
Tanner needs this nail hammered into pieces (7)
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Anagram ('hammered') of NAIL included in ME.N (of chess, 'pieces'). |
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| 21 | THANE |
Scot’s title of one article covering another (5)
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As in Macbeth, Thane of Cawdor. TH.E (one 'article') includes AN (another). |
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| 23 | ENDUE |
Furnish menus, dinner regularly brought round (5)
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'To supply or provide with', Chambers tells us. Reversal ('regularly, brought round') of alternate letters of 'mEnUs DiNnEr'. Sneaky. |
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| 24 | AWAY |
With a will, this is proverbially found out (4)
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Where there's a will, there's 'a way'. |
8d. RED = Communist = possibly East German.
When I saw Buccaneer I immediately thought of Picaroon /Rodriguez but I didnt spot the the JB trademark
Nevertheless very enjoyable. I liked MELISSA/SEISMAL And MELANIN
I liked VILLEINAGE
So who is it if its not JB?
This crossword appears to have two posts
As I said on the other one, some splendid misdirections in a most enjoyable crossword
I also wondered whether this was another alias for a previously encountered pirate
Thanks to Buccaneer and Grant
crypticsue @3
Thanks for drawing my attention to the duplicate posts. This has now been rectified.
Super stuff!
I had the same thought as copmus and crypticsue as soon as I saw the name. I’d put money on it.
i had the same favourites as copmus, plus REFECTORY, DISCOURAGE, NITS, CONSORTIUM, ADMINISTER and DOMINICAN.
Many thanks to Buccaneer and Grant for a most enjoyable puzzle.
Thanks both.
First class crossword. Just the right level for me.
Many thanks to Grant for the excellent blog, and to those commenting: I feel properly welcomed at the FT.
As for the suspicions expressed in the comments, all I can say is that it would be bold on any matter to bet against Eileen, crypticsue and copmus being right!
Great puzzle by Buccaneer and explanations by GB. For 24d, however, I parsed the meaning as just “out”.
Super puzzle. Took me a while. A couple of new words for me, and I didn’t know that other meaning of COLLATION. I also immediately thought of Picaroon when I saw the name.
Yes, very good puzzle and nice to see a newcomer. My LOI was MAILLOT. Two new words for me – collation (as a meal) and endue.
Particularly liked melanin, nits and radical. Wasn’t so keen on the Dominican.
Excellent blog – thanks to all
A thoroughly enjoyable way to spend the late afternoon, thanks Buccaneer. Everything was so gettable. Thanks for the explanations Grant.
Very enjoyable crossword. ENDUE seems a bit obscure but gettable once I had a crosser. I thought that 24d AWAY was a double definition: ‘With a will, this is proverbially found’= a way, and then ‘out’=AWAY (as EdK@USA @8 said more succinctly). I saw 8d as Hovis @1. Thought at first that CUBE was wrongly defined by ‘dice’ as the latter is plural, but if both are verbs the clue works just fine.
Thanks Grant for the super-enthusiastic blog – don’t think I’ve seen “gosh” in a blog on this site before!
Nice to see Picaroon here on the FT, very thinly disguised, but you can’t hide quality.
Despite a big DNF (missed COLLATION, MAILLOT, VILLEINAGE, and REFECTORY) I found much to like including THOU, NEEDY, and DISCOURAGE. I wasn’t sure if OPRAH or Harpo was the answer to 7d — the crossings confirmed OPRAH but “version of Marx” could have been the definition with revoluntionary modifying “TV personality.” Thanks Buccaneer for the twisted fun and Grant for the blog.
A superb puzzle, a good challenge but well within FT’s range of difficulty. I stopped ticking favourite clues when I got to 10. I think 14a DEVOTEE was primus inter pares.
I can’t take Oprah seriously anymore, since I inevitably associate her with my favourite Marx brother.
Thanks, Grant, for the excellent blog (I’m a gosher too), and a big thanks to Buccaneer for joining the FT ship of setters. (I hope this won’t reduce your contributions to the Grauniad.)
An enjoyable puzzle and a great FT debut for Buccaneer.
Lots to like. MAILLOT came easily as we’re 14s of Le Tour each year. VILLEINAGE was interesting as ‘a German’ could have indicated either EIN or AG and if our suspicions of the pirate setter’s identity are correct the ambiguity was probably deliberate.
And two references to the Marx Brothers in three days – Groucho in the Indy on Sunday and Harpo here today. Harpo is probably our favourite for some of the visual gags, such as – the wall in Night in Casablanca.
Our favourite clue here, though, was for MELANIN.
Thanks, Buccaner and Grant.
Hmmm – not quite sure how to stop a link taking over the rest of the comment. It works, anyway.
Just in case Sheffield Hatter reads this, I should point out that, although “dice” comes from “dies”, it has become a singular noun. This has been the case for quite some time and the use of “die” as the singular cube is now classed as archaic in some sources.
Thanks Buccaneer and Grant
Late to get to this one whilst on holidays, but was a good surprise to find a new setter in the FT stable, and even better to see it was one of my favourites from when I regularly did the Guardian puzzles. This one took a few sessions to get on to the wavelength and across some words that were only on the periphery of my knowledge bank.
I was with the East German as a communist rather than a reversed DER. Liked some of the cleverly disguised definitions, including ‘tanner needs this’, ‘reason to have to walk back’, ‘spoke’, etc.
Finished in the NW corner with FACE-SAVER, DEVOTEE (knew where he was going with the clue but took an age to go there) and OSBORNE (who I didn’t know and needed to be checked after working him out from the crossers and word play).
Thanks to a great setter and a great blogger.
I was unable to parse CHARWOMAN; but I thought 9a, 13d, 14d and 24d were excellent.