Tees is occupying the Thursday slot this week.
I found this to be an enjoyable, medium-difficulty puzzle, which I was able to solve independently with the exception of the WHO Director-General, whose name I didn’t know and couldn’t tease out from the anagram. I wonder if it would ever have occurred to a setter to include such a name in the pre-COVID era.
I am happy with all my parsings apart from 2, where I suspect that I may be missing something – please enlighten!
My favourite clues today are 25, for its definition; 6, for smoothness of surface and for catching me out once again with “rail” in its ornithological sense; and, most of all, 21, for smoothness of surface.
*(…) indicates an anagram; definitions are italicised; // separates definitions in multiple-definition clues
| Across | ||
| 01/5D/13 | TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS | See rough-and-ready hospital boss met misguided WHO man
*(ROUGH-AND-READY + H (=hospital) + BOSS MET); “misguided” is anagram indicator; the reference is to the current WHO Director-General, from Ethiopia. |
| 05 | ACCIDENT | Chance one day to cut stress
[I (=one) + D (=day)] in ACCENT (=stress, e.g. in word); by accident = by chance |
| 09 | BIG BROTHER | Much ado about Republican as dystopian leader
R (=Republican) in [BIG (=much) + BOTHER (=ado)]; the reference is to George Orwell’s novel 1984 |
| 10 | GUTS | Cleans out // bottle
Double definition: to gut is to clean out a fish AND guts are bottle, nerve |
| 11 | BANISH | Drive out in attempt to cross North Island
[N (=north) + I (=island)] in BASH (=attempt, as in to have a bash at) |
| 12 | NO CHANGE | Wanting coin? Twas ever thus
Cryptically, a person wanting (a) coin has no change on him! |
| 14 | DEEP | Bottomless river with source in Pennines
DEE (=River, in UK) + P<ennines> (“source in” means first letter only) |
| 15 | COMMANDEER | Seize public land we’re told, and forest creatures
Homophone (“we’re told”) of “common (=public land) + DEER (=forest creatures)” |
| 17 | THREADBARE | Hackneyed article about studied line in music?
[READ (=studied) + BAR (=line in music?)] in THE (article, in grammar) |
| 19 | WARP | Buckle after fighting pressure
WAR (=fighting) + P (=pressure, in physics) |
| 20 | ANIMATES | Perks up when embracing chum in the Six Countries?
[N.I. (=in the Six Counties, i.e. Northern Island) + MATE (=chum)] in AS (=when, as conjunction) |
| 22 | STRAYS | Dogs unleashed possibly taking steamship around carrier
TRAY (=carrier e.g. of crockery) in SS (=steamship) |
| 23 | OBAN | Whisky certainly available here over bar
O (=over, in cricket) + BAN (=bar, block); Oban is located in Scotland, the home of whisky; semi -& lit. |
| 25 | HOROLOGIST | One tends to watch crazed girl shoot having loaded round
O (=round, pictorially) in *(GIRL SHOOT); “crazed” is anagram indicator; a horologist is a maker and repairer of clocks and watches, hence “one tends to watch” |
| 26 | INTREPID | Brave upstanding character died after Pinter plays
I (=upstanding character, i.e. in alphabet) + *(PINTER) + D (=died); “plays” is anagram indicator |
| 27 | POTASH | Prize tree and fertiliser
POT (=prize, trophy) + ASH (=tree) |
| Down | ||
| 02 | ELIZABETHAN | Shakespeare’s age when he wrote Hamlet?
Shakespeare wrote Hamlet during the Elizabethan age, i.e. when Elizabeth I was on the throne; Shakespeare’s own age at the time of writing is irrelevant here |
| 03 | RABBIT PIE | Dish, Jewish leader initially put in hamper
RABBI (=Jewish leader) + [P<ut> (“initially” means first letter only) in TIE (=hamper, impede, as verb)] |
| 04 | SLOTH | Don’t talk about fate or sin
LOT (=fate, destiny) in SH (=don’t talk) |
| 06 | CORNCRAKE | Rail about dissolute fellow’s sentimentality at first
CORN (=sentimentality) + C (=about, i.e. circa) + RAKE (=dissolute fellow); a corncrake is a bird of the Rallus genus, hence a “rail” |
| 07 | DOGMA | Deity elevated old woman showing blind faith
DOG (GOD=deity; “elevated” indicates vertical reversal) + MA (=old woman) |
| 08 | NET | Fortune Truss keeps after taxes
Hidden (“keeps”) in fortuNE Truss” |
| 15 | CADETSHIP | Time served in rebel vessel for training
T (=time) in [CADE (=rebel, i.e. Jack Cade in 1450) + SHIP (=vessel)] |
| 16 | DOWNRIGHT | Unqualified and not working properly
DOWN (=not working, of e.g. computer system) + RIGHT (=properly); unqualified is unmitigated, sheer |
| 18 | ASSURED | Certain country dropped backing one journalist
ASSUR (RUSS<i>A=country; “dropping one (=I)” means letter “i” is dropped; “backed” indicates reversal) + ED (=journalist, i.e. editor) |
| 21 | MINOR | Carla gutted to leave Mediterranean island, but no big deal
MINOR<ca> (=Mediterranean island); “C<arl>A gutted” means all middle letters are dropped; “to leave” means that letters “ca” are then dropped from the name of the island |
| 22 | SALOP | Old county girl needing surgery
SAL (=girl, i.e. a girl’s name) + OP (=surgery, i.e. operation); Salop is the old name for Shropshire |
| 24 | BEN | Man-mountain?
Double definition: Ben is a man’s name AND a “ben is a mountain, especially in Scotland |
Abubakar Tafawa Balewa next week?
An easy elegance on display here, we thought, with perhaps HOROLOGIST the pick today. Nice Trump reference at 9 across? We thought it might be!
Nice to see the WHO’s DG making an appearance. He has worked tirelessly to try to get countries, including poor old UK, to do the right things, quite often to no avail.
Blimey! I didn’t know the WHO D-G (must pay closer attention to Covid-related news) and only had this left at the end, but despite realising it was an anagram I had to resort to an online search. Hearty congratulations to Tees for working out the anagram. I don’t think there’s any more to 2D – is this what’s known as an ‘&lit’? Thanks to Tees and RatkojaRiku.
Enjoyed this, particularly HOROLOGIST but really disliked 1/5D/13. Anyone who knew the guy’s name gets 24 letters filled in with ease. Anybody else (I would venture most people given the strangeness of the name) have an impossible anagram to use. Clever to construct it but forcing a use of google so not really satisfying to solve. Sorry 🙁
1/5d/13 was always going to split the pack. Nice to see him acknowledged but, as Hovis says, likely to force resort to Google for most of us, rather than a solve of the anagram. To be fair to Tees, the fodder is fairly clearly indicated but, even if it’s the last one in and all the crossers are there, still nigh impossible to complete without knowing the name. We often commend setters who clue unusual words with wordplay that enables a solve; the anagram is the least solver-friendly device, albeit I can’t imagine any other technique delivering the result.
That said, everything else was up to Tees’ usual standard. RABBIT PIE, ACCIDENT, BIG BROTHER and HOROLOGIST were favourites. CORNCRAKE defeated me – like RR, the word rail sent me down the wrong track. I wonder if ELIZABETHAN is a double definition rather than an &lit. “Shakespeare’s” (as in Shakespeare is an Elizabethan) and “age when he wrote Hamlet” describing the period?
Thanks Tees and RR
I liked HOROLOGIST, too, apart from the increasing usage of ‘tend to’ to mean ‘tend’, ‘attend to’. (I’m not blaming Tees – everyone seems to do it these days.)
Other favourites coincided with RatkojaRiku’s, with the addition of 20ac ANIMATES, 15dn CADETSHIP, and 16dn DOWNRIGHT – all for the surfaces
Re 2dn: I don’t think there’s any more to it but it’s perhaps worth mentioning that we tend to (sic) think of Shakespeare as an Elizabethan writer – Hamlet (1599-1601) just squeezes in – but quite a few more of his plays, including Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Macbeth and The Tempest, were written during the reign of James I (1603-25).
Many thanks to Tees (chapeau for 1/5D/13) and RatkojaRiku.
It was solvable from the wordplay (unlike our WHO friend I’m embarrassed to admit) but I didn’t know the ‘hackneyed’ sense of THREADBARE. I also had the wrong end of the stick for ‘rail’, latching on to ‘rail against’ (undoubtedly as intended) as a verb, and so missed out on CORNCRAKE.
I’m with others on the HOROLOGIST definition as my pick of the day.
Thanks to Tees and RR
I too solved everything apart from not being bothered to find the WHO man
Lots to enjoy including, as others have said, HOROLOGIST
Thanks to Tees and RR
As Hovis@4 says… also Jack Cade isn’t at the top of my rebels list.. maybe he should be? So I struggled more than usual.. but some excellent clues also as already mentioned..
Thanks Tees n RatkojaRiku
Thanks both. The WHO anagram is so clever, but I would have booked myself in for reprogramming had I solved it unaided – or will simply head for the dentist if I get close to a correct pronunciation
What Hovis said @4.
As for 1a etc I just looked him up to get it out of the way and enjoy the rest.
Thanks both Tees and RatkojaRiku
Yet another WHO Head googler here. No chance of a solve without knowing the entire name.
Also another who fell for the magicians misdirection at 6d with RAIL. To be fair I’d never heard of the make or model of the bird so hardly surprising I had to use a word finder even with all the crossers in place. (LOI)
Didn’t get all of the parsing of CADETSHIP, and DOWNRIGHT was my favourite today.
Thanks to Tees and RR for the enlightenment.
Like others we googled the WHO chief for the spelling rather than identify the anagram fodder and then unscramble it, and we didn’t quite know what to make of 2dn (thanks, Eileen, for the date of Hamlet – we knew it dated from the Globe period but weren’t sure if it was before 1603).
But it was all an enjoyable solve. Our favourites were CORNCRAKE and HOROLOGIST.
Thanks, Tees and RatkojaRiku.
Okay okay I’ll do ROGER DALTREY next time! (I did get warned by A Crossword Editor and A Proof Solver about this one, but I insisted.)
Eileen has it re ELIZABETHAN, as Shakespeare wrote in two ages, the Eliz (during which he would write Hamlet) and the Jacobean (during which he would not).
Take heed of the warnings next time!
Spoilt the whole thing for me and I’m too polite to mention here what I wrote when I finally googled the guy.
I really cannot see the point of such a clue/answer.
I’m another fan of DOWNRIGHT and HOROLOGIST, and someone else who knew who was intended by the long anagram but couldn’t get further than Tedros. Surely Tees had no choice, though, once having committed — is there another set of three words that would fill those slots?
Managed to enter everything bar the man, because my phone app wouldn’t let me enter the unches in 13dn.
Across/down combined clues have always been a pain.
Enjoyed it tho, and nearly midnight so a Phi along in a minute.
Thanks to the prolific Tees and RR.
Tramp, in the Guardian last month, had the same definition for HOROLOGIST (Does one tend to watch hot girls soon to get stripped off) … and Eileen@6 made an identical comment about the use of “tend” “:)”
Well I thought I’d come up with a really good one there, but hey, such is life. Tramp is a talented man, and well done to him for getting there first (and thanks for the cheque btw, although he could also pay me with his drawings).
On longer, more obscure, and often anagrammed entries, I’m sure we used to see more of them back in the day, especially in the Graun. I’m equally sure half the fun of it (in an Araucaria or a Bunthorne for example) was realising that we had no idea what the old fool was on about, stood absolutely no chance of getting it, at least not without solving everything else, and even then! But we got there in the end.
Regardless of what you think of Tedrosses then, has this practice gone to hell in a handcart? Over at TfTT solvers scream blue murder if they’re ever required to have even the slightest GK (as it slows them down when they’re trying to beat the clock), where of yore we might have seen see all sorts of ridiculous references to Thor’s hammer (Mjölnir obvs) or that squirrel in the World Tree (Yggdrasil obvs), Ratatoskr (obvs). I see too that the recent trib to JG also came in for a bit of a drubbing from some pundits, due to obscurity.
Well whatevs. The Sun and Mail crosswords are a bit easier, generally.
Tees, don’t worry about the moaners, as usual, it was a fun crossword. So what if you have to Google a name, we’ve learnt something new and thickos like us often have to use the dictionary for obscure meanings of everyday words. Like rail. 😀
I’m all for mythological and/or cultural refrences even if they are obscure as, generaly, one person’s obscure is another’s well-known but transient indiviuals who can only be clued via insoluble anagrams crosses the line for me. YMMV.