A typical Monday puzzle from Vulcan.
This was a fun but fairly straightforward puzzle, with RITENUTO being the only word that gave me pause, although I’m sure the musicians among you would recognise the term. The two long answers are the key. Once they’re in place, the rest slots in nicely around them.
Thanks Vulcan.
| ACROSS | ||
| 9 | LEMON SOLE |
Fish and fruit wonderful in Spain (5,4)
|
| LEMONS (“fruit”) + OLE (“great in Spain”) | ||
| 10 | INANE |
To be mad not having succeeded is foolish (5)
|
| IN(s)ANE (“mad”) [not having] S (succeeded) | ||
| 11 | PRESSIE |
Printing house that is making a gift (7)
|
| PRESS (“printing house”) + I.E. (that is) | ||
| 12 | CLEAR UP |
Become fine again? Explain (5,2)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 13 | ACID |
A team of detectives is sharp (4)
|
| A + CID (“team of detectives”) | ||
| 14 | FORERUNNER |
Favouring English athlete: one came first (10)
|
| FOR (“favouring”) + E (English) + RUNNER (“athlete”) | ||
| 15 | JACOBIN |
Extremist Rees-Mogg elected (7)
|
| JACOB (Rees-Mogg) + IN (“elected”)
Jacobins were anti-Royal French revolutionaries, and Jacob Rees-Mogg the kind of person they would have beheaded. |
||
| 17 | PROSAIC |
Capri: so awfully dull (7)
|
| *(capri so) [anag:awfully] | ||
| 19 | NOVA SCOTIA |
Free, so vacation in province (4,6)
|
| *(so vacation) [anag:free] | ||
| 22 | KNEE |
One may be bent back, needing to be shortened (4)
|
| Hidden in [to be shortened] “bacK NEEding” | ||
| 23 | TARRIED |
Hung about with protective coat, I can enter (7)
|
| I can enter TARRED (“with protective coat”) | ||
| 24 | MISSTEP |
Young lady repelling favourite put foot in it? (7)
|
| MISS (“young lady”) + [repelling] <=PET (“favourite”) | ||
| 26 | OFFAL |
Lungs not working? Not quite all (5)
|
| OFF (“not working”) + [not quite] AL(l) | ||
| 27 | ASSAULTER |
One attacking a holy book in speech (9)
|
| Homophone [in speech] of A PSALTER (“holy book”) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | CLAPHAM JUNCTION |
Joint camp launch in chaos, so many changes to be made here (7,8)
|
| *(joint camp launch) [anag:in chaos] | ||
| 2 | AMNESIAC |
Liable to forget one’s problem (8)
|
| Cryptic defintion | ||
| 3 | ANTS |
Soldiers, perhaps: GI avoids huge types (4)
|
| GI avoids (gi)ANTS (“huge types”) | ||
| 4 | TONE DOWN |
Reduce intensity? No we don’t, unfortunately (4,4)
|
| *(no we dont) [anag:unfortunately] | ||
| 5 | RESCUE |
After short pause, signal recovery (6)
|
| [after] [short] RES(t) (“pause”), CUE (“signal”) | ||
| 6 | RITENUTO |
Musical direction we hear written out badly (8)
|
| Homophone [we hear] of WRITTEN + *(out) [anag:badly]
Ritenuto, in music, is an instruction to slow down suddenly. |
||
| 7 | BARREN |
Said noble is without hope of heir (6)
|
| Homophone [said] of BARON (“noble”) | ||
| 8 | JEEPERS CREEPERS |
People in SUVs? Ones like Virginia — heavens! (7,8)
|
| JEEPERS (“people in SUVS” or jeeps) + CREEPERS (“ones like Virginia”) | ||
| 16 | BASTILLE |
Be outside a quiet prison (8)
|
| BE outside A + STILL (“quiet”) | ||
| 17 | PRIMMEST |
Most prudish minister receiving medal (8)
|
| PRIEST (“minister”) receiving MM (Military “Medal”) | ||
| 18 | ANNOTATE |
Mark up article not consumed (8)
|
| AN (“article”) + NOT + ATE (“consumed”) | ||
| 20 | VERIFY |
Check five fiery bursts (6)
|
| V (five) + *(fiery) [anag:bursts] | ||
| 21 | OLDHAM |
Athletic team‘s out-of-date meat (6)
|
| OLD (“out of date”) + HAM (“meat”)
The clue refers to Oldham Athletic, an English football team. |
||
| 25 | SOUR |
Whisky cocktail perhaps disagreeable (4)
|
| Double definition |
An enjoyable one for a Monday morning as the snow falls.
RITENUTO was a new one but the wordplay was so clear that wasn’t a problem.
CLAPHAM JUNCTION was a delight, as was the dry (and completely accurate) comment about Mr Rees-Mogg.
Thanks to Vulcan and loonapick.
Yes, an enjoyable Monday morning with the cricket. Like NeilH @1, RITENUTO was a DNK
Favourites were CLAPHAM JUNCTION and JEEPERS CREEPERS, took me back to the lovely city of Savannah, Georgia and seeing Johnny Mercer’s grave in the Bonaventure Cemetery. TARRIED was a reminder of The Owl and the Pussy-Cat: ‘O let us be married! too long we have tarried. I smiled at ASSAULTER as I’m currently reading a book called ‘The Saltergate Psalter.
Thanks to Vulcan and loonapick
[ Van Winkle, re: our exchange on Friday’s Crucible blog @117 and 118, I have replied on the General Discussion page @7, in case you are interested. ]
I found this crossword good but unexceptional – all the clues were good, but I had no laugh-out-loud moments. No quibbles, either, so nicely done, Vulcan.
Re 25d SOUR, I prefer my whisky with just a drop or two of water, so I read that clue as a CAD, with “perhaps” being unnecessary.
Re 11a PRESSIE, I have always thought it should be spelled prezzie, because the double S produces the wrong sound.
Loonapick, I like your comment about Jacob R-M at 15a. However, you have made a mistake in 6d RITENUTO, which means to slow down suddenly, as distinct from ritardando, which means to slow down gradually. Speeding up would be accelerando, but I know of no exact antonym for ritenuto – for suddenly faster, composers usually say plus vite, or molto presto.
Having but little musical knowledge, RITENUTO was a dnk but everything else was fairly straightforward with KNEE hiding in plain sight until the end. The two long clues were clearly signalled but I liked them both. OLDHAM made me smile but tested my recollection of football sides.
I’m with cellomaniac on PRESSIE/PREZZIE although I read that the former is the preferred British spelling. AMNESIAC, apart from the Yoda -esque phrasing, hardly seems cryptic. 26a made me feel liverish.
Thanks Vulcan and loonapick
Very nice. RITENUTO new. I also like your comment, loonapick, on JRM.
Fairly chewy for a Monday, I thought. My first pass didn’t produce a lot, but slowly, steadily, they fell. Succeeded = S (in 10a)? No doubt it is in Chambers, but really. ASSAULTER is unusual – surely assailant is more common. I couldn’t see that AMNESIAC is more than a relatively straightforward definition. NHO RITENUTO, so that was a guess and check it exists – hardly GK, I would have thought. Still, nice clues in JACOBIN, FORERUNNER, VERIFY, BASTILLE, OLDHAM (lol when the penny dropped – but needed some knowledge of UK soccer). Pressie sounds very Aussie, and is always (to my knowledge) spelt with SS (just like Aussie). Thanks for the crossie, Vulcan and loonapick. [PS – Quiptic late again? – though it has appeared now]
Thanks Cellomaniac @3.
I have now edited the blog to reflect your comments re ritenuto.
After last weeks struggles (and I didn’t really bother with Saturday’s which was only for the experts), it was good to have a reasonably easy but satisfying solve. My only quibble was s=succeeded, why?
Thanks Vulcan, and loonapick, for reminding me that I can do these crosswords!!
Yes, a good one for Monday. CLAPHAM JUNCTION immediately came to my mind, and I thought JEEPERS CREEPERS and LEMON SOLE rather good. For me also RITENUTO was unknown, but gettable after a bit of thought. Many thanks to Vulcan and loonapick.
JerryG @8 – my guess is that S is an abbreviation for succeeded in lists of monarchs. As I said, I imagine it is in Chambers, but I don’t have a copy, and it is just another example of random words standing for their initial letter just because someone, somewhere uses that abbreviation.
Jerry G – s for succeeded is a standard abbreviation in formal family trees.
[cellomaniac: there’s also più mosso for a sudden increase in tempo.
You’re right about the distinction between ritenuto and ritardando; it’s rather unfortunate that both can be abbreviated as rit.]
Thanks Tim’s @10 and@11.
Nice and quick for a Monday and good to get the “brain” back in gear after another hectic weekend of socialising and partying hard… Yes, I’ve been on Facebook for 48 hours solid.
Nothing too difficult and CLAPHAM JUNCTION was FOI which started me off nicely.
On the ritenuto vs ritardando Grove has this to say:
Ritenuto (It.: ‘held back’; past participle of ritenere , ‘to detain’, ‘withhold’ ) An instruction normally implying a more sudden and extreme slowing down than by the terms Rallentando and ritardando.
… and…
Ritardando (It.: ‘holding back’, ‘becoming slower’; gerund of ritardare ) See Rallentando.
… which takes me to …
Rallentado – relatively recent usage, being scarcely encountered in scores before the 19th century; now it is perhaps the most common of such terms, though ritardando and ritenuto both occur frequently. Each word has different shades of meaning, but each composer has interpreted these shades in his own way, if at all.
Nothing like a circular defintion for a Monday morning!
Thanks Vulcan and loonapick!
Fairly straightforward Monday puzzle.
Surprisingly, KNEE was my LOI; nicely hidden, I thought.
I liked JEEPERS CREEPERS – does anyone say that these days?
Thanks Vulcan and loonapick.
[Robi @15: After listening to this, they should
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPS4U6btANM Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden and Fats Waller – sheer class.]
Got my peepers fixed on 8d as last one in this morning. Some nice fun and games, thanks Vulcan and Loonapick…
Came to a Ritenuto on this on Ritenuto!
Favourites: TONE DOWN, FORERUNNER.
Thanks, V and loonapick.
[I will do the Qyiptic now – I see that it has turned up online]
Very enjoyable. Loved the two long ones. AMNESIAC wasn’t very satisfying so I waited for the crossers before writing it in. I don’t think of lungs as OFFAL; I’m not aware of ever having eaten them! All musicians will be very familiar with the two rits and rall but most of us don’t know the difference between them; we just slow down. I’ve seen one or other of them on the motorway gantries in Italy. Thanks to MaidenBartok@14 for a very full explanation. Also thanks to Vulcan and Loonapick
Double S for [z] sound in PRESSIE: compare not only AUSSIE but also POSSESS and SCISSORS.
John Wells @21 Dessert, dissolve, hussar, brassiere and Tassie Tim.
Finished roughly in time with the tedium that was the England second innings, lack of on-field action allowing no distraction to solving. I’m not too bad on my musical terms but RITENUTO was LOI – the homophone for ‘written’ was there in plain sight all along.
LEMON SOLE pick of the crop (catch of the day?).
If we’re to be picky, ritenuto is simply an instruction that the tempo be “held back”, or in concrete terms, to suddenly go more slowly with no gradation; it’s not really “to suddenly slow down” with a sharp gradation. Italian composers would use “molto rall[entando]” for the latter. (“rit.” for the Italians is almost always “ritenuto”, not “ritardando”, for which “rall.” is used to avoid ambiguity).
But yes, as MaidenBartok quotes, each composer has their own version! So there’s nothing really wrong with cellomaniac’s definition, I just fancied indulging in some pedantry!
An enjoyable puzzle, and thanks for the blog post.
Yes, wondered about the two rits and the rall, cello@3 and MB@16, don’t think I knew the diff even back then, when I read music decades ago. [Now, I can only just remember that the treble clef spaces are ‘face’]. Pleasant Monday puzzle, Vulcan, skilful change of pace from the other day, thanks both.
My quickest ever solve, but I’ve subsequently spent more time trying (and failing) to figure out a satisfying parsing for AMNESIAC than I did on the rest of the puzzle put together. As a bit of a pianist I was happy to be enlightened here on on my rits.
I’m not going to forget 3d though – I’ll check back later to see if anyone comes up with a better suggestion.
Thanks as ever to Vulcan and loonapick
Julia @20
Regarding LUNGS (lights), I don’t expect you have ever eaten them; but, then, you’re not a cat.
Julia @20
Traditionally haggis was made with the heart liver and lungs of a sheep – so if you’ve eaten traditionally made haggis you will have eaten lungs.
[Jerb @24: Of course music is all in the interpretation…
My school used to put a couple of choirs in to the Llangollen Eisteddfod even though we were from Southend (music master was called Dennis Evans so that may have had something to do with it…). One year, said music master declared that the set work was in the “wrong” tempo and he was going to take it at least 2/3 slower and not to worry as it was a printing mistake and everyone else would be doing the same.
On the morning of the competition, our 5 minute dirge eclipsed everyone else’s ~2 minute jolly jaunt in a not-good way and we were duly rewarded with bottom place.]
A fun puzzle to come back to, thanks Vulcan and loonapick. Like Robi, KNEE was my last in, just felt there had to be a hidden word somewhere…
MaidenBartok!
Thanks Vulcan and loonapick
I find myself in agreement with several previous posters – I loved the long ones, KNEE was LOI, and I’ve always written PREZZIE!
Cookie, lovely to see you again!
@Maiden Bartok (great user name) thanks for link-What a line up!!
Spent quite a while looking for non existent wordplay for AMNESIAC – most unsatisfying. Liked LEMONS OLÉ and JACOB IN and the two long ones, and couldn’t find KNEE.
Tassie Tim@10: I’ve given up complaining about random words being their first letter: somebody can always find an unknown abbreviation to justify it.
MaidenBartok et al: Don’t get me started on tempi! Time wasted on this subject in our orchestra comes a close second to time wasted on interpretation of baroque trills, mordents and turns.
Enjoyed this crossword with the majority of time spent on the last two, KNEE and SOUR.
Many thanks, both.
[MB @29, nwst your choir’s placement, Mr Evans would’ve got the tick from my dad, who was a tempo purist; he insisted that, eg, Bach wrote with a lilt, a lyricism, that was lost if played too fast. Similarly, for Beethoven he favoured Furtwangler over Karajan and Klemperer].
So Eurocentric these days that I spent ages thinking of Madrid and Bilbao before coming to Oldham, despite appearing as an extra in Meat Pie, Sausage Roll (Come on Oldham, Give us a Goal!) at the Oldham Coliseum. All good fun, both the crossword and the play.
Good fun for a Monday; LOI = Knee: how do I never see them when they are written in plain sight? Couldn’t parse AMNESIAC so I was pleased to find it was just a cryptic definition. Enjoyed TONE DOWN but my favourite today was RITENUTO which took me ages trying to find a homophone for a word that means written before the penny dropped.
Thanks Vulcan and loonapick
[Like TimW, I’m grateful to be enlightened on the rits 😉 ]
Thanks V & L
[essexboy @39: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLMTMK-mp7w ? ?????? ??????]
Here’s my attempt at musical definitions. RITENUTO is to “hold back” a few notes within a constant tempo, usually for emphasis at the beginning or near the end of a phrase. RITARDANDO involvess “delaying” the arrival of a musical moment. RALLENTANDO is “slowing down,” usually to transition from one tempo to another. Does that help?
Thanks both,
As a choral singer, I usually encounter rit. over a single note, when it is an instruction to elongate the note and is often a welcome opportunity to take a good breath before resuming, at the old tempo unless otherwise instructed.
[grantinfreo @36: slower than Klemperer is really slow.]
[Peri1561: we crossed, I agree with what you say.]
[essexboy @39 Excellent. Of course I then had to hear Hugh as Bertie playing ‘Nagasaki’:
Hot ginger and dynamite
There’s nothing but that at night
Back in Nagasaki where the fellas chew tobaccy
And the women wicky-wacky-woo
Another Harry Warren tune, same as JEEPERS CREEPERS.]
For me this had the feel of a setter slightly losing interest in the Monday gig – ANNOTATE just seemed lazy
And anyone reminding me of Jacob Rees Mogg gets an instant demerit
But at least there was a welcome reminder to listen to Radiohead’s Amnesiac album
Ah well, I’m off to the butcher to satisfy my Urge For OFFAL
Cheers all
[MB @40: 🙂
Now I know how sheffield hatter’s (eye)balls felt on Friday.]
[Penfold @44 : Scusami, ma mi piace di più Napoli (ting-a-ling-ling)]
I agree with penfold@2 about ASSAULTER. Some words just don’t sit right with the affixes convention might call for — as I said yesterday about ILLER.
JEEPERS CREEPERS took me back to — was it the fifties? “Jeepers Creepers, where’d you get those peepers?” was on the radio then. Google assigns it to Frank Sinatra, could be what I remember.
Thanks to Vulcan for a Monday puzzle somewhat more challenging than usual, and defniitely fun, and to manehi for straightening me out where I needed it.
[bodycheetah @45: Maybe my memory is playing tricks, but shouldn’t you be looking in the freezer section for Birds Eye potato offal as they are offally versatile?]
Valentine @47: Much older than that – 1938 film Going Places hence the link I put up earlier. Sinatra covered it in his usual manner – about 1/4 tone out…
[bodycheetah@ 45: A favourite of mine, unreconstructed carnivore that I am, is Andouillette which MasterBela always tells me smells of “fried zoo.” I initially thought that Andouille in the US but discovered that offal is virtually unheard of in the States and that Andouille there is just a slightly spicey smoked sausgage.]
re bodycheetah post 45 Not having journeyed to the end of our road my urge for offal is denied. I’m chuffed that I managed to do the crossword without eating a biro and that you have referenced Half Man Half Biscuit to raise the tone a little. Thank you
That was a bit more challenging than I expected for Vulcan on Monday but it was mostly achievable. I didn’t know CLAPHAM or RITENUTO but everything else fell into place. Favourites were ANTS and VERIFY. Thanks to both.
[Julia @20: OFFAL refers to the parts of the animal left over after the standard cuts of meat are removed including the lungs. I’ve heard some who call this AWFUL instead.]
[ grantinfreo@36,
Late in his life Beethoven became fascinated by the newly invented metronome, so he went back and put metronome markings in a lot of his scores. His tempos were much faster than almost anyone plays nowadays. I read somewhere recently that he misread the metronome, and his markings were as much as 20 beats per minute faster than he intended. (How anyone would know this is a mystery to me.) ]
[ Thanks MaidenBartok and essexboy for the ritzy links – jeepers creepers, they were crackers. ]
I have no musical ability, but am pretty good with languages. If you know Italian, musical notation is a slam dunk, but if you only know French you can begin to get to grips with these terms (but it does help to recognize Italian present and past participles). So ritenuto corresponds to “re” (back) and “tenir” (hold). Retardando corresponds to “retarder” (delay) or “en retard” (late). Rallentando corresponds to “rallentir” (slow down) and “lent” (slow). That’s probably not enough to put these in any order, but it might help someone get the general meaning.
[Dr. WhatsOn @53 Being a doctor with knowledge of Italian, you’ll be aware that
‘testicolo ritenuto’ are undescended testicles.]
Thanks to those who have updated me about offal. I have tried haggis and enjoyed it the first time but not subsequently. I have just read today it is banned in the US because of what’s in it.
Regarding the rits and rall: as I said, slow down, but do it musically and always follow the conductor
Penfold@54 – I’m not that kind of doctor, but the meaning was clear. The technical medical term for this is undoubtedly in Latin, so it will likely be close, but it wasn’t anything Caesar or Virgil mentioned so I’ve never seen it!
Quite a nice Monday puzzle.
I also looked for non-existent wordplay in 2. It’s often a problem with CDs that they are not cryptic enough to fool and so become straight definitions. I think KNEE was only difficult because the indicator (to be shortened) is not quite right. Shortening to me implies reducing a bit at one end, not a lot at both! JEEPERS CREEPERS reminded me of Robin when anything unusual happened at all – Jeepers Creepers, Batman, the mail is 10 minutes late today!
I liked VERIFY and NOVA SCOTIA very much. Spent too long trying to wedge BELMARSH into 16.
Thanks, Vulcan and loonapick.
DNF, but one of those on checking the hints, I jolly well should have, but someone who cannot construe ‘miss’ from ‘young lady’ is bound to struggle.
Thanks Loonapick for the answers.
[MaidenBartok @49 fried zoo does sound intriguing – I once ordered tripe sausages in a french restaurant and it was the most inedible edible thing I’ve ever found – tbf the waiter did try to warn me and they didn’t charge me for it]
[greyscrubber @50 I like to irk the purists on occasion]
[MB/Penfold/cellomaniac: just one more contribution re Putin and the Ritz. I’m indebted to OddOtter for introducing me to Randy Rainbow; I think in this song there’s also a nod to Rick Hughes.]
Contrary to what Loonapick wrote in the blog, I only got 8d after I had all the crossers! And like yesyes @38 the unknown (or at least unrecallable for ages) RITENUTO “took me ages trying to find a homophone for a word that means written before the penny dropped.” I was stuck for ages on the US version of ‘mad’ at 10a, having a possible IRATE rather than INANE before that penny also clanged. Oh, and I put SLUG at 25d, which was obviously wrong but ‘perhaps disagreeable’ seemed so obviously descriptive of slugs that I just left it.
[Thanks to other commenters for more information than I ever knew I would need on Italian musical notation and the contents of haggis, and to essexboy @46 for reminding me of the painful perpendicular through my eyeball on Friday.]
[cellomaniac @3: Thanks for your reply to Van Winkle’s remarks about all the unwelcome clutter on this site. Anyone interested in how welcome (or at least, understood and tolerated) all the socialising, punning and swapping of links to videos is to Gaufrid should check out his response to cellomaniac on General Discussion. My thanks also to Gaufrid for hosting us.]
I failed to parse LEMON SOLE because I forgot that “fruit” can be plural — a nice little misdirection on Vulcan’s part.
I didn’t know MM (although with a few crossers the clue was quite gettable). Is there any more uninspired name for a military medal than “Military Medal”?
I’ve seen “rit.” on musical scores and knew that it meant to slow down, but I didn’t know what the full word was, let alone that there were two of them. But I figured it out from the wordplay, and now, thanks to the contributors here, I know about both terms.
Thanks to Vulcan and loonapick. I enjoyed this well enough, with not a lot to say about it and avoid repetition.
I know that “mild” Monday is not written in stone and as often as not Monday offerings are from new-ish setters cutting their, so to speak, teeth (and chipping ours). Vulcan today has a more well-established and toothsome alter ego (one of my clerks will research the matter) so we can take license to assume that the intention here is to offer towards the novice.
I can’t see that this purpose is served by solutions such as JEEPERS CREEPERS (1950s), RITENUTO (18th century (19th?)), I’m gonna say ASSAULTER, JACOBIN (18th century), OLDHAM (FA League 2), all in their way registering on the dusty end of the obscure scale. If the target novice is a nonagenarian polymath then fine.
On re-reading that it all seems a tad harsh on Vulcan who has produced a puzzle with elements of inaccessibility in order to keep us all entertained (from the French “entre”… (but I digress)). In the meantime potential recruits are put off: “if that’s “mild” Monday what’s the point of engaging?”.
Ted @ 63
As so often in Britain it’s a class thing
Military Cross for officers, Military Medal for other ranks.
Ditto Distinguished Flying Cross, Distinguished Flying Medal
Julia @55
I think people in the USA are missing out. I love haggis and in Scotland I can buy slices of haggis – they are square just like square (or Lorne) sausage which is something else only available In Scotland – as are mutton pies (although now they seem to be made with beef mince).
Alphalpha @64. I see where you’re coming from with your “tad harsh” query about whether the purpose of the “gentler” (I hate that term) Monday crossword “is served by solutions such as JEEPERS CREEPERS (1950s), RITENUTO (18th century (19th?)), I’m gonna say ASSAULTER, JACOBIN (18th century), OLDHAM (FA League 2), all in their way registering on the dusty end of the obscure scale.” May I suggest that the difficulty of the puzzle is not predicated so much on the obscurity of the answer (which depends to some extent on life experience, general knowledge, inquisitiveness, retention and recall) but on the accessibility of the cryptic and definitional elements in the clue.
To some extent this accounts for the prevalence of cryptic definitions (with some setters on Mondays more than others), and to a certain extent double definitions too, as long as they’re not too Pauline, because beginners are likely to read the surface of the clue expecting the answer to jump out at them, whereas experienced solvers mistrust the surface and look for wordplay which may not be there; thus both sets of solvers may be provided with misdirection/diversion and the possibility of a satisfying PDM.
In the examples you give, the two parts (and the whole) of 8d are each clued by semi-cryptic allusions rather than definitions, with no other wordplay; I found this hard, and required all the crossers – whereas loonapick in his blog implied it was one of the first in. The definition in 6d is clear, but may be unknown or difficult to recall, and the wordplay (depending on a homphone of ‘written’ (or a synonym of same)) is not a gimme. The first thought in 27a is probably ASSAILANT, but the wordplay, which again involves a homophone, makes this unlikely, and getting the answer depends on specialist knowledge (of a psalter). JACOBIN and OLDHAM are specialist knowledge (French history/UK politics and football respectively); the former is unhelpfully clued for those not prepared/able to Google ‘Rees-Mogg’, the latter has helpful wordplay.
My last one in today was INANE, which I felt was strangely clued: ‘to be mad’ had me puzzled for a long time, because if the answer (or wordplay leading to the answer) is a synonym for ‘mad’, what function do the words ‘to be’ have? There’s a subtraction, but I was misdirected into looking for WON to be subtracted (=’not succeeded’) from a word for mad. Maybe I was looking for something that wasn’t there, because the answer was fairly obvious in the end: IN(S)ANE. But I’m still left with my initial thought, why ‘to be mad’ when just ‘mad’ would have done nicely? (Mad not having succeeded? Foolish!)
Sorry, long post, late at night. Hope I’m making sense. I guess I’m leading up to suggesting that the problem with a puzzle like this, if it is aimed at relative novices, is not so much the solutions as the clues, which need to be fairly straightforward (as more than 90% of this one was) – but particularly so if the solution is an uncommon word!
sh@67. Don’t disagree – and I feel your pain with INANE. I got JEEPERS CREEPERS after mousing towards the SE and fairly early but it put a pause to the gallop of my interest – I just knew there were going to be, well, impenetrabilities.
The last time I heard the expression it was from (a young) Mickey Rooney in Boystown (or some such b/w “movie”).
On the other hand it must be hard to come up with 15-letterers and hopefully it provided a PDM for many.
Alphalpha@68: Jeepers Creepers harks back to the days when euphemisms were needed for blasphemous swear words. (Jesus H Christ just didn’t cut it in some circles.) I can remember it still in use as late as the 1960’s. I sometimes think that the demise of the need for such euphemisms has diminished our language.
I always found it interesting that in eastern Canada some of the most common swear words used by francophones were the words for chalice and tabernacle, sometimes prefaced by maudit (=accursed).
A fairly steady workout. Re JC, I had to go and spend a penny after reading the clue, and Virginia creeper came to mind. By the time I got upstairs, the song about the peepers came to mind. FOIs ACID and the one-time “busiest railway station in the world”. LOI KNEE.
Knee was also my LOI – and I would argue that, strictly speaking, it’s not the knee that may be bent but the leg it is a part of, which may be bent AT the knee….
…although it’s true that we do say to go down on “bended knee” when proposing.