The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/28383.
Plenty of good clues here, but as a whole, I made heavy weather of the puzzle – which is no criticism of it. I suspect that I have not got the final word on 24D/1D.
| ACROSS | ||
| 9 | IDENTICAL |
Papers can’t lie? Wrong, just the same (9)
|
| A charade of ID (‘papers’) plus ENTICAL, an anagram (‘wrong’) of ‘can’t lie’. | ||
| 10 | AMIGO |
Is Puck good? Ring a friend (5)
|
| A charade of AM I (‘is Puck’) plus G (‘good’) plus O (‘ring’). | ||
| 11 | EMERY |
Some ‘iffy’ remedies returned? On the surface, that’s rough (5)
|
| A hidden (‘some’) reversed (‘returned’) answer in ‘iffY REMEdies’. | ||
| 12 | ROGUISHLY |
Upset our shy girl right away, as a rascal might (9)
|
| An anagram (‘upset’) of ‘our shy gi[r]l’ minus an R (‘right away’). | ||
| 13 | SPOTTED |
Saw son cut down to 1, for easier assimilation (7)
|
| A charade of S (‘son’) plus POTTED (‘cut down to SIZE, for easier assimilation’, as, for example, a POTTED biography). | ||
| 14 | ADMIRER |
Another married lover (7)
|
| An anagram (‘another’) of ‘married’. | ||
| 17 | LOTTO |
Game is second sale item not won (5)
|
| LOT T[w]O (‘second sale item’ in an auction) minus the W (‘not won’). | ||
| 19 | CID |
Department investigating contracted detective’s retirement (3)
|
| A reversal (‘retirement’) of DIC[k] (‘detective’) minus the last letter (‘contracted’). | ||
| 20 | CASTS |
Lots of actors originally starred in a musical (5)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of S (‘originally Starred’) in CATS (‘a musical’). | ||
| 21 | DEADEYE |
Crack marksman departed with detective (7)
|
| A charade of DEAD (‘departed’) plus EYE (private, ‘detective’). | ||
| 22 | FRANCIS |
Name saint or pope? Brother no longer can (7)
|
| FRANCIS[can] (member of a religious order, ‘brother’) minus CAN (‘no longer can’), with a triple definition (or three variations on a theme). | ||
| 24 | KIT CARSON |
Artist back in stock, in refined Colorado town (3,6)
|
| An envelope (‘in’, the first) of AR, a reversal (‘back’) of RA (‘artist’) in KITCSON, an anagram (‘refined’) of ‘stock in’. | ||
| 26 | IVORY |
Creamy-white, like a Welshman? (5)
|
| A play on IVOR as a Welsh name (or, at least, a rendering of the Welsh Ifor). | ||
| 28 | NIOBE |
Stoned female content to down 10 beers (5)
|
| A hidden (‘content to’) answer (sort of) in ‘dowN IO BEers’. In Greek legend, Niobe was turned to stone. | ||
| 29 | DASTARDLY |
Playing darts, lady is mean and wicked! (9)
|
| An anagram (‘playing’) of ‘darts lady’. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 |
See 24
|
|
| 2 | HETERO |
Straight there, after travelling round (6)
|
| A charade of HETER, an anagram (‘after travelling’) of ‘there’; plus O (’round’). | ||
| 3 | STAY-AT-HOME |
Unadventurous guy? Then the woman stripped off (4-2-4)
|
| A charade of STAY (‘guy’, a support for a tent, for example) plus ATHOME, an anagram (‘off’) of ‘the’ plus OMA (‘wOMAn stripped’). | ||
| 4 | SCARED |
Small-minded? Afraid so! (6)
|
| A charade of S (‘small’) plus CARED (‘minded’). | ||
| 5 | OLD GUARD |
Conservatives behind the Times newspaper, not the Scotsman (3,5)
|
| A charade of OLD (‘behind the times’) plus GUARD[ian] (‘newspaper’) minus IAN (‘not the Scotsman’ at least in crosswordese). | ||
| 6 | RANI |
Stood next to current queen (4)
|
| A charade of RAN (‘stood’ for political office) plus I (standard symbol for electrical ‘current’). | ||
| 7 | RICHARDS |
Well-off area: right district selected originally for a Keith or Gordon? (8)
|
| A charade of RICH (‘well-off’) plus A (‘area’) plus RDS (‘Right District Selected originally’). | ||
| 8 | MOBY |
Doctor X, vegan animal rights activist (4)
|
| A charade of MO (‘doctor’) plus BY (‘X’, mathematical symbol for multiplication), for Richard Melville Hall. | ||
| 13 | SOLID |
Humming after crossword essentially well-constructed (5)
|
| A charade of S (‘crosSword essentially’) plus OLID (‘humming’, rank-smelling). | ||
| 15 | MECHANICAL |
Flute? Part played is routine (10)
|
| Double definition, the first being a reference to the character in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; he is a bellows-mender, and one of the manual workers known as mechanicals. | ||
| 16 | RASPS |
After tip-off, gets hold of fruit (5)
|
| [g]RASPS (‘gets hold of’) minus the first letter (‘after tip-off’), for the fruit more generally known as raspberries. | ||
| 18 | TRACTION |
Farm vehicle turned up, worked into drawing (8)
|
| A charade of TRAC, a reversal (‘turned up’ in a down light) of CART (‘farm vehicle’) plus TION, an anagram (‘worked’) of ‘into’. | ||
| 19 | CRESSIDA |
Unfaithful lover is 4 after straying (8)
|
| An anagram (‘after straying’) og ‘is’ plus SCARED (the answer to ‘4’ down); in Shakespeare’s play Troilus and Cressida, for example, she is portrayed as the epitome of unfaithful lovers. | ||
| 22 | FINISH |
Death of European with no middle name (6)
|
| FIN[n]ISH (‘European’) minus the middle N (‘with no middle name’). | ||
| 23 | CROWDS |
Lots of people, 8 being the 25th of them? (6)
|
| 8D is MOB Y; in a Pauline way the 25th after first MOB A. | ||
| 24, 1 | KING-SIZE |
Long for the longer sleepers perhaps half of LNER and one third of LMS used (4-4)
|
| Perhaps (to quite the clue) a charade of KING (‘half of LNER’ could be ER – for Edwardus Rex, obviously, not Elizabeth Regina) plus SIZE (‘one third of LMS’ could be S, an abbreviation which is plausible even though I have not been able to track down a justification for it). The definition refers to the bed size. On the surface, LNER (London and North Eastern Railway) and LMS (London Midland ans Scottish) were railway companies prior to nationalisation in 1948 | ||
| 25 | AHEM |
Attention-seeking expression in article by the Edge (4)
|
| A charade of A (indefinite ‘article’) plus HEM (‘edge’). | ||
| 27 | YO-YO |
More than one solver yet to finish? Child’s play, perhaps, using this (2-2)
|
| YO[u] YO[u] (‘more than one solver’) minus the last letters (‘yet to finish’), with perhaps one-and-a-half definitions. |
24dn/1dn: Large, Medium & Small (sizes)?
Needed quite a lot of online help for the GK and still could not parse four of my answers. I was not on Puck’s wavelength today but via google, I learnt some new trivia that might be handy for future crosswords.
Favourites: RANI, TRACTION, NIOBE.
Failed 16d [g]RASPS is slang for raspberries? I never heard this before.
New for me: MOBY = Richard Melville Hall, KIT CARSON; olid = smelling extremely unpleasant; W = won; IVOR = a typical Welsh name – but would it not be Ifor in Wales?
7ac – never heard of the jockey Gordon Richards, but I do know of Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones.
Did not parse: OLD GUARD, CROWDS; KING SIZE (could not see any connection to LNER + LMS even though I found out they are something to do with railways in the UK); MECHANICAL = flute part played.
Thanks, Puck and Peter.
* I agree with Trovatore @1 that LMS = large, medium, small (clothes sizes), so 1/3 = [one] size]
Not as satisfying to me as last week’s Wanderer in the FT but still plenty good — DEADEYE, RICHARDS, FINISH, and YO-YO were all favourites. I found KING SIZE too convoluted and I never would have parsed MOBY even though I have several of his recordings. Minor quibbles, however, in an overall good crossword — thanks Puck, and PeterO for the blog.
There are several ‘Dicks’ in there..
Some parts a bit of a slog, some parts quite good fun – can’t complain.
I got SIZE but not the meaning of LMS until Trovatore@1. I’m curious if those who did figure it out (well done you!) reacted with a smile or an eye-roll.
Quite a few references to Richards here, ie dick.
Moby Dick, Cressida Dick, Dick Francis, Dick Emery, Dick Dastardly, spotted dick and others.
Just saw passerby@4. Of course, well spotted!
No 21-dick in solving this. Needed check button help in the SW, and had no idea about parsing 24d/1d… vaguely recognised the acronyms as railwayish, but still no idea why. Didn’t know the activist, or the town named after the cowboy but the latter figures I guess. Same as for Dr. Wh, bit of a slog but not without some fun. Ta both.
There was a dick in CID, DICK KING, and all of them suggested by RICHARDS. I thought DEADEYE DICK must be Mexican Pete’s friend, but googling showed there is a Kurt Vonnegut novel by that name. Cressida was the one that led me to the theme, which helped with several others.
Not convinced by the KING SIZE suggestions.
Thanks PeterO and Puck
@Tony Santucci #3
I thought that was a theme too. You could add the “dick” in the parsing for 19a.
Kit Carson population 233 was new to me. I struggled parsing FRANCIS having convinced myself that FRA=brother leaving NCIS unexplained. oh well.
I suppose the KING (ER) as half of LNER and SIZE as one of LMS might work, butit’s a bit of a stretch. Like others I had not parsed MOBY or OLD GUARD and did not know KIT CARSON. RASPS for raspberries was new as well. Lots to like nonetheless: thank you PererO for explaining and Puck for the fun puzzle.
Quite a fun puzzle with a lot of dicks. I thought 24/1 a bit naughty but is was im wot was drawin the dirty pictures
Sadly, I didn’t quite finish this and nor did I see the theme, so I am very grateful for the blog’s early appearance. I missed MOBY at 8d – if only I had seen all the references to Richard and Dick, I would have been able to guess that one for sure. Do you know that I even said “DEADEYE Dick” in my head when I solved 21a? How silly do I feel now?
This was certainly a bit of mischief from Puck, only fully appreciated now that I have read the blog and comments. I really liked some of the clues along the way though – particularly 29a DASTARDLY, 5d OLD GUARD and 22d FINISH. I didn’t understand 24a KIT CARSON – known to me only as a Western character, not a town!
Those who got this all out are “clever dicks” indeed – well done!
Thanks to Puck and PeterO.
@michelle Gordon Richards gave my grandfather (who worked in racing) a signed copy of his autobiography. Grandfather then lent it to someone, forgot who, and never got it back.
[Dai+Lowe@15
thanks for the anecdote. How nice for your grandfather, but how sad that the book was lost.]
I finished this last night after I’d SPOTTED the theme quite quickly with EMERY and DASTARDLY jumping of the screen. Helped me get CRESSIDA and DICK FRANCIS early as well. I was hoping for a Phil K Dick reference but the closest was Solar (LOTTO) Lottery.
I couldn’t parse KING SIZE and was vaguely aware of the cowboy. Didn’t realise RASPS could be shortened either until googled. I thought this was great fun from start to finish.
Ta Puck & PeterO
[As an aside, I’m the very proud owner of a Commissioner’s Commendation Certificate presented to me by Cressida Dick a few years ago, whilst still a serving officer. Idle boast over]
Thanks Puck and PeterO
I thought there was much more looseness here than typical with Puck. I’m sure there are other words for mobs at 23d. (s)PEARS works nearly as well as RASPS. I knew KIT CARSON as a person, and he would have been a fairer defintion than a tiny town. Gordon RICHARDS was before my time, and I’m not young!
I didn’t parse KING SIZE, SPOTTED, OLD GUARD, or FRANCIS – my fault, but it didn’t increase my appreciation of the puzzle!
I loved IVORY. Uxbridge English Dictionary!
Just a mention that Dick Deadeye is a character in H.M.S. Pinafore, the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.
Tough but enjoyable puzzle.
King Dick is a type of spanner!
Tricky, but do-able with a couple of DNKs (NIOBE for one!)
As to KING SIZE. The whole “longer sleepers” thing got me heading off to track gauge which almost went nowhere as both LNER and LMS had standard gauge (4′ 8 1/2″) track… except…. LMS also ran services in Northern Ireland which uses broad gauge, 5′ 3″, so the sleepers would be longer. But this it probably a complete over-working of the clue and the sign of someone who has been indoors for far too long.
An enjoyable but not easy puzzle. Thank you Puck; thank you PeterO.
Several Dicks… and not even Midsummer’s Night (no Bottoms..) and one or two you could stretch to be Dick related.. Very good.
[MaidenBartok @22 Not very long ago, in the top left-hand corner of Wales, there was a railway. It wasn’t a very long railway or a very important railway. I don’t know what gauge it was, but I do know that 26ac could have been: Creamy-white, like a the locomotive of The Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company Limited? (5)]
Thanks Puck and PeterO
Couldn’t parse everything due to lack of required GK but enjoyed the challenge – as inventive as ever from Puck. Despite seeing the theme early, MOBY was ladt in.
Thanks to Puck and PeterO
Thanks for the blog. Too tricky for me – gave up on the last 20%, probably prematurely.
I had “dai-ry” rather than “ivor-y” which sort of worked i thought.
Really struggled with this. In particular I could not parse 24a. However, assuming that the ‘artist’ in the clue was the definition, I eventually remembered the artist Kit Carson – you, know, the lady with the high street shops selling those arty handbags and home furnishings? So I bunged it in and thought no more about it… until I came here.
In case you’re wondering, the lady I had in my addled mind is Cath Kidston. I wonder if she has a Colorado branch…
PS I also missed all the Dicks. Shameful for such an avid Wacky Races fan!
PPS AlanC @18 – no idle boast at all. You’re right to be proud. Thank you.
I enjoy Puck’s capering – don’t really know what to make of KING SIZE, but I think it was stretching a caper too far. IVORY raised a smile though, as did the imagery of Puck happily hitting the ‘Submit’ button and humming his way to a cuppa in SOLID.
Surely CARSON is a city, though? It’s called ‘Carson City’ on most maps, which is a bit of a giveaway. The Americans tend to refer to anything as a City, even residences which would barely pass muster as a large village in the UK.
I once tried to explain this to a bunch of Americans online, and we ended up with the informal-British-locality-classification system of: if it’s got a cathedral, it’s a city; if it’s got a marketplace, it’s a town; if it’s got a church, it’s a village; if it has none of these, it’s a hamlet.
Much appreciated Cynicure and I’m with you on Wacky Races. I mentioned Penelope Pitstop in a blog a few weeks ago 🙂
LNER is based at King’s Cross, half of which is KINGS. But I can’t see where IZE comes from.
Boffo @28 Carson City is the state capital of Nevada. It is home to the 2 ft narrow-gauge Carson & Mills Park Railroad.
You would have to be a bit of a clever Dick to complete, parse and spot the theme for this, and sadly I am not. I had fun trying though
[Is that you, Penfold the Cruciverbalist @24? And here’s more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84sKwU0T-vU ]
Missed all the Dicks, otherwise precisely as Michelle @1.
Not a bundle of fun, this one.
A lot of fun from Puck today and a clever working of the theme – very Puckish.
I thought of the Dicks when I entered EMERY and DEADEYE but it wasn’t until I got to CRESSIDA (congratulations, AlanC) that the penny dropped that it was a theme!
Lots of nice clues – I particularly liked the stoned female (I never see NIOBE without mentally adding Hamlet’s ‘all tears’) and the darts-playing lady. Like some others, I’m still not convinced by KING-SIZE.
Many thanks to Puck and to PeterO
Sorry, William, I missed your last sentence before typing my first. 😉
Not completed and some not parse-able in my view. Counted 10 Dicks including 2 maybes mentioned though]
[SH when you arrive – late comment for you on yesterday’s blog.]
Got there eventually, with SPOTTED last one in. But not an enjoyable experience this morning, too many more than likely correct answers written in, then try and parse them. Or go and see what PeterO made of them. Almost an essay as an explanation to 24, 1 says it all for me…
There is also a Scared(y)dick, and I am sure I remember a folk character called Stay-at-Home Dick, though I can’t now locate him anywhere. He would be a good mascot for the various lockdowns. I think I now see 10 direct Dicks, plus the CID, who are detective dicks, and a Richards. Great fun. Many thanks to Puck and all who got their minds round King Size better than I managed. I think Beobachterin @12 has summarised current collective wisdom on this clue, though perhaps we are all still missing something here.
PS. Despite not finishing, much to enjoy including spotting the Dicks.
btw – I always thought King Size beds were wider rather than longer.
[MaidenBartok @33 Thanks for the Idris episode. I suppose any similar loco could be described as an ivory tower.]
Absy gorgeous, MB @33, diolch.
Am I the only pervert here?
I started speedily but then hit a bit of a brick wall, needing a word search for KING-SIZE, and the parsing was not there for me (thanks bb @12 for the summary). I think that as many experienced solvers could not parse this one, it was probably a bit too clever-clever.
I missed the Dicks, and needed the Web for the classics references. I was pleased, however, to remember the MECHANICALS in MSND. I also liked STAY-AT-HOME (good picture from the clue).
Thanks Puck and PeterO.
Pedro@40: Me too, but I’ve just looked it up and the king-size adds just 10cm (from 190 to 200) to the length of a standard double.
everybody@almosteverycomment: me too: I didn’t parse and don’t really get the wordplay for 24d/1d.
Me too! I didn’t spot the theme — but I rather like it now I see it.
Me too — I found quite a lot to enjoy here, despite the couple of over-convoluted clues. In particular I guffawed at IVORY=like the Welshman.
Thanks, Puck. And thanks, too, to PeterO for rising to the challenge of explaining 1,24.
copmus @40: No. I thought of and included your suggestion in my 10. (I also have a few large spanners with ‘King Dick’ moulded into them.
pserve_p2 @45: Thanks for bed size info.
I’m with TonyS@3 in thinking his Wanderer in the FT (and Hob in the I) we’re better than this – but apart from the still baffling KING-SIZE there were plenty of good clues – and my enjoyment was enhanced by spotting the theme after EMERY and DASTARDLY – a great clue. NIOBE was a tilt for me, but not MrsW, and I also ticked SPOTTED, MECHANICAL for the succinct surface, and FINISH as I was trying to parse DEMISE for a while.
Thanks to Puck – I hope he drops in and comments on 24/1 – and PeterO.
Hmmm. Mostly pretty good, but I didn’t like KING SIZE and my GK, though (I like to think) extensive, doesn’t stretch to what we would call a village in Colorado.
Great blog and comments, thank you. Perhaps people are overthinking 24d/1d, as explained it is just ER for king and L or M or S for size. Super theme and one where you suddenly realise there are more and more.
I enjoyed most of this and got everything except NIOBE. However there were several parsing problems The town KIT CARSON, not to be confused with Carson City, looks pretty small on my map – no wonder we haven’t heard of it. Failed to parse CROWDS, MECHANICAL, and KING-SIZE. Missed the theme, again.Thanks Puck, PeterO and others
[grantinfreo @42: Croeso! (I did 2 years of Welsh and that’s about it…)
copmus @43: Certainly not! To mis-quote Eric Idle, what about; dick?]
[Pedro @46: I’m reminded of the short-lived but very funny panel game on R4, “King Stupid” although better termed ” ‘king Stupid.” It was cancelled after a particularly crude joke went out at 6.30pm apparently. http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/King_Stupid ]
Daniel Miller@23 No Bottom, indeed.The SE corner fell early, and as soon as I saw the allusion to Flute (the MECHANICAL) and 22a FRANCIS, which is Flute’s first name in the play, and with Puck as the setter, I became convinced that I had made my earliest ever discovery of a theme and led myself astray for ages looking for other answers that related to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Missed the Dicks by looking for Bottoms, you might say.
Roz@49 – absolutely! The theme infuses the puzzle – you get little sniffs of it in different guises and then it’s everywhere.
“Dumb theme in charge (8)” – I love it!
Old fashioned greengrocers used to write ‘rasps’ back in the day, along with ‘neckertines’, so I got that one. ?
SinCam @55 – don’t you mean ‘greengrocer’s’? 😉
johnr @54 I think it is fairly modern that the setters no longer explicitly reference the theme, much better. I missed one completely recently on chess and Eileen found about twenty hidden references. In the past the theme would be the answer to one clue and then lots of other clues would reference that particular number.
If you have figured out that to solve or confirm 24a you need the name of a town in Colorado, but shouldn’t be penalized for not knowing obscure facts, there is as always a handy Wiki list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipalities_in_Colorado. If you follow the link and peruse the page you discover a couple of things. (1] KIT CARSON has a population of 235, so no shame in nho it, and (2) there is a Kit Carson County – which is not where the town is!
[MB @52, reminds me of the old one about him meeting her on a narrow bridge: didn’t know whether to block dash dash or toss blank blank]
Thanks to Puck and PeterO.
I liked the use of “Another” as an anagrind in ADMIRER – new to me. Unlike others I parsed KING SIZE without a backward glance once I had all the crossers. I was happy to parse CID as C (“contracted” (well, why not?)) plus a reversal (‘retirement’) of DI (‘detective inspector’) so missed that smoke signal for the theme that eluded me throughout. [I have to learn to identify that strange unease and sense of undermining quicksand which inevitably means that there is a theme in play.] I was very pleased to biff my way through this – it was at the limit of my porridge temperature.
copmus@43: erm, no – now that I know the theme I can’t look directly at MECHANICAL, neither clue nor solution.
Eileen@56: Greengrocer’s certainly did describe them as RASP’S, and some still do, but I didn’t think it was a legitimate word. I expect it’s In Chambers and thus above all criticism.
I eventually saw all the RICHARDS in the theme – though I had HIGHLAND for 7d at first – Keith and Gordon are fine Scottish names… Gordon Richards was a jockey as famous in his day as Lester Piggott or Frankie Dettori – but his day was a long long time ago.
Didn’t get 24/1 even after the clue for SPOTTED told me that the second word was SIZE: a very long stretch as was the 8d connection for CROWDS. Never heard of MOBY anyway.
This all sounds very churlish: I enjoyed a lot of this especially DASTARDLY (pity Muttley got left out) and IVORY.
PS: I actually looked at a map of Colorado and couldn’t find KIT CARSON on it: I obviously didn’t enlarge it enough.
Thanks both,
Roz@57 ‘Richards’ is a pretty explicit announcement of the theme.
Probably best not to google 24,1 followed by the theme.
Enjoyable crossword, though I’d never heard of some of the Dicks and had no hope of spotting the theme.
Didn’t know that meaning of POTTED.
I would never have parsed CROWDS in a million years.
One third of LMS is S, but LMS as a whole stands for “size.” as Trovatore says @1. How is SIZE one third of it?
I’ve heard of Kit Carson, didn’t know he was a town, but he was certainly a Westerner. Grantinfreo @8 or AlanC @ 18, he wasn’t a cowboy, he was a “frontiersman” — fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent, and U.S. Army officer — as well as a legend in his own time for his autobiography. Apparently a village-sized community in Colorado is officially called a “statutory town,” I now know.
DEADEYE gets two Dicks — the Vonnegut character and Dick Deadeye, a sailor aboard HMS Pinafore. A deadeye, for those interested, is that round thing with three holes in it in the standing rigging of a sailing vessel. It’s used to tighten the stays, the lines that hold up the mast.
I had the same problem with FRANCIS as Ilan Caron @11.
Apparently a king-size bed is extra long as well as extra wide, I now know. I remember reading that President Reagan on a European trip had to have a king-sized bed flown in from somewhere because they didn’t have them in the country he was visiting. And he complained about welfare queens!
Thanks, Puck, PeterO and commenting community.
Tyngewick@63, yes I did get this one fairly quickly, I am usually much slower. I just meant that in the past all the other clues involving the theme would refer to 7down in their description, I think it is much better the modern way.
muffin @ 19 – “I knew KIT CARSON as a person, and he would have been a fairer defintion than a tiny town”.
Didn’t realise you were that old.
Quite a lot that was enjoyable, but after struggling with LOTTO (which I couldn’t parse) and FRANCIS (ditto) I ran out of steam and couldn’t find DEADEYE which is straightforward in comparison.
Completely missed the theme.
I think 24A would have been fairer if it had referenced the frontiersman (who, according to Wikipedia, started out hating Native Americans and massacring them but, having been married to two Native American women, eventually ended up respecting and defending some of them) rather than the tiny community which bears his name.
Thanks to Puck and PeterO
V@64 I assumed LMS were sizes so one of them was a SIZE. Didn’t think much of the definition though. Overall I found this a similar experience to yesterday in Bothe the positive and negative senses
And I’ve no idea what a “Bothe” is!
bc@69; BOTHE: ‘Walther (Wilhelm Georg Franz) (?valt?r). 1891–1957, German physicist, who developed new methods of detecting subatomic particles. He shared the Nobel prize for physics 1954
[bodycheetah @69: the confused remains of bodycheetah once his coy head’s removed?]
On reflection I am glad Puck avoided the temptation of including rhyming slang in the theme.
AlanC @17 et al.
It would seem that RASPS is not just an abbreviation – at least, not of raspberries. According to Chambers and the OED, the original was raspis, then rasps, and the berries were only added later.
[bodycheetah @69: not how I would spell a shelter on the Knoydart]
A late start, having been out in the openmmisty air. But I did not enjoy this. Didn’t help myself, it’s true, by spelling DASTARDLY as darstadly, but that got sorted in time. No, it was setter’s sophistries like KIT CARSON = town and EYE = detective, plus the torture of 24,1, that turned me off and slowed me down. Deep sigh and look forward to tomorrow.
… open misty …
Robi@70 there was also a Hans Bethe in physics who once wrote a paper with Ralph Alpher and George Gamow.
Enjoyed the inventiveness of my fellow commenters today: Andy Smith @26: “dai-ry” rather than “ivor-y”; CynicCure’s near-homophone Cath Kidston @27; Spooner’s catflap looking for Bottoms @53; bodycheetah @68 plucking a Bothe from thin air. All very amusing. My own inventiveness was confined to an unjustified TOSCA at 20a: anagram (originally) of ACTO(r)S (most of actors), with musical rather loosely for the opera; I soon changed my mind.
I had 24,1 still blank when I decided to stop; must admit to not having cottoned onto the reference to SIZE in the clue for SPOTTED (which I failed to parse). Also unparsed were CROWDS and the easy 3d and the obscure-to-me 15d (I never really got the hang of MSND). I did get some faint dick-nudges from DASTARDLY and DEADEYE as I was struggling with the last eight or ten clues, but spotting the theme would not have helped me.
Sir Gordon Richards was champion jockey 26 times between 1925 and 1953; another man of the same name also became a jockey and was given the ficticious middle initial W to distinguish them – he went on to have a brilliant career as a trainer of steeplechasers.
My brothers and I were well into the wild west when we were boys, so I knew of KIT CARSON; didn’t know about NIOBE’s stone-turning end; and will use the new-to-me OLID at every opportunity. Thanks to Puck, PeterO and all here for today’s mind-stretching entertainment. LMS and ‘8 being the 25th’ were a stretch too far for me, but it was fun while it lasted.
[Roz @77
Alpher was a doctorate student; Gamow his supervisor, known for his sense of humour. He suggested adding “Bethe, in absentia” to the paper’s authors, as a joke. Somehow the “in absentia” got dropped.]
jeceris @66 Me and Kit, we go way back.
Gaufrid, thanks for whatever you did to the puzzle page so that my name doesn’t manage on today’s puzzle after refreshing or posting (while on yesterday’s it still does).
Ooops, I meant “manage to stay.”
No, I meant, “manage to disappear,” I think. I give up.
[postmark@71 🙂 HMHB aficionados will appreciate my early excitement when a S crosser for 22d suggested DEMISE with its attendant thoughts of death by dehydration on a long jog. In the end I had to make do with the Edge (not a Bono quote – probably)]
[Me @79
I neglected to mention that it was a very significant paper, explaining the origins of many of the chemical elements in stars.]
[bh @84: I think that must be the third or fourth ‘quasi-clue’ I’ve come up with for you at various times! Ref the correct solution to 22d, sadly Finnish without one of its n(ame)s just brings to mind Anna with both of hers. As I’ve said before, I’m not enough of a linguist to tempt her back (if she still reads the blog) with sufficiently weighty questions about her specialist topic. I’m waiting for something pertaining to Suomi to come up. Where the missing ‘n’ has gone is probably not a serious enough query to do the job.]
@Spooner’s catflap – You ‘ad an Andy Capp or at any rate some sort of catflap!!
Thank you Muffin@79.
@83 the paper was completely incorrect in many respects. It gave the correct abundance of hydrogen and helium from the big bang but also assumed the heavier elements were also formed then which was later overturned by Fred Hoyle and colleagues.
Enjoyed this a lot, though despite owning a few of his CDs (including Animal Rights, which certainly helps) I did wonder whether MOBY was unfair. I saw him perform many years ago at Wembley Arena, but even if he was able to sell out that venue he is not exactly on an Elton John level of fame and the vegan animal rights thing may not be well known. That said, the wordplay was clear and once I spotted the theme I thought well of course you’d have to have that one in there. I’ll happily take it as compensation for not being personally familiar with Greek mythology or characters out of Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Other than that, found it a really tough challenge, sufficient to keep me occupied right through some rather long and boring conference calls today.
Many great clues but let’s face it, 23d and 24d were complete stinkers.
CROWDS can be plural of CROWD if you are talking of LOTS OF PEOPLE at different times or places, I guess, but even after working out the obtuse cryptic part, you get MOB A and a mob is not CROWDS.
CROWDS Can someone please explain in a way that will get past the editor the off-colour interpretation of 23 Down?
LMS is a familiar as Little Man Syndrome. Maybe unintended but it made me laugh in the context of the answer KING-SIZE and the ‘theme’.
AHEM also very apt in the context of the theme. Puck being very puckish.
Les @ 90
A mob may not be crowds, but if you’ve got Mob A to Mob Y you have 25 crowds.
paddymelon @ 92
You may have the wrong clue. Concatenate 24/1 with the theme. I’ll say no more.
Simon S @94. Thanks, yes I did get 24/1 + theme as you’ll see from my comment about LMS.
Re: 23D CROWDS. I thought PeterO’s explanation of the clue above, ‘in a Pauline way’, was referring to Paul’s often schoolboyish humour associated with bodily parts or functions, so I went looking for it. I didn’t see Mob A to Mob Y as being Pauline in that sense.
I did like Dr X , even though I had no idea who Richard Melville Hall is. While it’s clear how he got his moniker by association with the author of the @real Moby, Dr Google tells me he’s also a great-great-great nephew.
[Roz @88
Ah well, these things happen!]
Not sure why KING-SIZE is causing headscratching. King = ER (half of LNER). LMS = large, medium and small (sizes) – so one of those is a SIZE.
Not the greatest clue ever devised but I’ve seen far more convoluted ones
Bingy @97
Clearest explanation yet!
Bingy@97 I think it is a great clue, classic misdirection. The use of sleepers in the first half makes us think of railways for the second half where the Railway companies are just used to provide the letters.
Sorry if someone’s already said this, but I think 13ac is actually a triple definition (saw / s + potted / and then also spotted like a leopard is spotted for camouflage = better assimilation). Nice clue I thought
paddymelon@92 I think Pailine here means in the sense of the Paul clue:
JETTY Place to land like an aeroplane?
from Sep 19 2020
Having seen the explanations for CROWDS and KINGSIZE I’m glad I gave up when I did and only sad I spent as long as I did.
Definite dnf here, not on Puck’s wavelength at all. Good fun though! Yes, “half of LNER” is pretty poor for KING but LMS for SIZE is classic misdirection. I also thought instantly of Deadeye Dick and Mexican Pete, misspent youth coming to the fore again. Thanks to Puck and to PeterO.
Dave Ellison @101. Had to laugh at that co-incidence Cryptics 101, for cryptic dummy me, anyway 🙂 That makes the clue even more mind-bending!
Not heard of Moby and but had brain freeze at LNER LMS. Not seen large medium and small as LMS before. To do with clothes shopping I suppose.
And missed the Dick theme of course – such a waste.
Thanks P & P