Tees on my Monday watch. That’ll do for me to start the week.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Bread from dining room sent back after tea
CHALLAH
Might as well get the only slightly obscure word out of the way early doors. A charade of CHA and HALL reversed. The reversal indicator is ‘sent back’ and HALL for ‘dining room’ has an Oxbridge college connotation, I suppose. CHALLAH is a bread in Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine, I learnt this morning.
5 Excellent sects from the east in island nation
ST LUCIA
A reversal (‘from the east’) of AI and CULTS.
9 Rotten people sin to produce malicious missive
POISON-PEN LETTER
(ROTTEN PEOPLE SIN)* A rather old-fashioned concept these days, when it seems practically every message on social media contains abuse or worse.
10 Black couple to protect composer reversing in road
BOULEVARD
A charade of B and RAVEL inserted into DUO reversed. The reversal indicator is ‘reversing’ and the insertion indicator is ‘to protect’.
11 One bounding area that separates two major cities
NYALA
Tees is asking you to put A for ‘area’ between NY for New York and LA for Los Angeles. The bounder is your antelope, of course.
12 Russian female revolutionary in American election
ELENA
Hidden reversed in AmericAN ELEction.
14 Quietly detests being involved in key software trial
ALPHA TEST
The ‘key’ is the one on your keyboard – ALT – and you need to insert P for musically ‘quiet’ and HATES into that. The insertion indicator is ‘being involved’. ALPHA TESTING is used for software and involves internal acceptance testing to iron out all the snafus before the software goes for BETA TESTING with real consumers.
16 Neglected animal given signal amid tangled gorse
RESCUE DOG
An insertion of CUED in (GORSE)* The insertion indicator is ‘amid’ and the anagrind is ‘tangled’.
17 God needing name for Germanic character
THORN
A charade of THOR for the Norse god and N. THORN (written as þ) is a character in the Old English and Norse alphabets, and continues to be used in modern Icelandic.
19 Net profit at last drawn that voids margins
TULLE
A charade of T for the last letter of ‘profit’ and ULLE, which is [P]ULLE[D].
20 Approaches snooker table but loses form?
GOES TO POT
A whimsical suggestion that if a player approaches the snooker table, he GOES TO POT.
22 Two kids lost? New angle: three lads lost!
HANSEL AND GRETEL
(N ANGLE THREE LADS)* with ‘lost’ as the anagrind. From the story popularised by the brothers Grimm. The elder, Jacob, is of potential interest to word lovers as the creator of Grimm’s Law, aka the First Germanic Sound Shift, which is a set of sound laws that explain the regular correspondence of consonants across languages. One of the main ones is p to f, which is why pater in Latin became father in English; and why fife (as in fife and drum) is a word for a military whistle: it’s cognate with pipe (and Pfeife in modern German).
23 Time pressure on in war zone
THEATRE
A charade of T, HEAT and RE.
24 Characters seen in flannelette or cotton garment?
DOUBLET
There are two Ts together in ‘flannelette’, so that would be DOUBLE T.
Down
1 Old man cutting wire with skill
CAPABLE
An insertion of PA in CABLE. The insertion indicator is ‘cutting’.
2 Intense musicale disrupted contemplative period
A MINUTE’S SILENCE
(INTENSE MUSICALE)*
3 Relaxed game ends on schedule
LOOSE
A charade of LOO, the card game, and SE for the outside letters of ‘schedule’.
4 Bloke caught out, venture being random
HAPHAZARD
A charade of [C]HAP and HAZARD. I’d hazard/venture that Tees is one of the best setters in the Indy stable.
5 Yankee stops lecturers travelling up for meeting
SYNOD
An insertion of Y for the phonetic alphabet ‘Yankee’ in DONS reversed. The insertion indicator is ‘stops’ and the reversal indicator is ‘travelling up’.
6 We initial changes to prepare ambush
LIE IN WAIT
(WE INITIAL)*
7 Doctor at this place? Go to small medical institution
COTTAGE HOSPITAL
(AT THIS PLACE GO TO)*
8 American Satan devouring Republican alongside
ABREAST
A charade of A and R inserted into BEAST. The insertion indicator is ‘devouring’.
13 Diversion giving an essential cover for English soldiers?
AMUSEMENT
An insertion of E MEN in A MUST. The insertion indicator is ‘cover’.
15 Revolting animals were so stubborn!
PIG-HEADED
The reference is to the pigs in Orwell’s Animal Farm. Napoleon led the revolt, assisted by his porcine companions.
16 Mechanical device skinned fantasy author
RATCHET
[P]RATCHET[T] Sir Terry, of Discworld fame.
18 Folded card husband lost in TV fundraiser turned up
NOTELET
A reversal of TELET[H]ON. The reversal indicator is ‘turned up’ and the removal indicator is ‘lost’.
20 Peer outside entrance to Lords in coat
GLAZE
An insertion of L for the first letter of ‘Lords’ in GAZE. The insertion indicator is ‘outside’.
21 Finnish port one from Ankara found acceptable
TURKU
A charade of TURK and U. The second particle is from U and non-U, the terms popularised by Nancy Mitford that nobody outside crosswordland has ever heard of. I’m sure you knew already, but they refer to ‘upper class’ and ‘non-upper class’ and were originally coined by the linguist Professor Alan Ross in a paper on English usage by the upper classes. We don’t use serviettes, dahling, we use napkins; and it is acceptable to ask where the lavatory is, but never the toilet.
A very U puzzle from Tees this morning. Thank you to him. For those who like to know a little more about their setters, Tees is profiled in this month’s Meet the Setter in Another Place. Those who have a mental picture of him as a genteel, pipe-smoking, cat-loving retired clergyman will be disappointed, however. In a previous existence, he got hoyed out of Saatchi & Saatchi for gross misconduct, which is definitely non-U. The cat-loving bit is correct, though.
Enjoyed that, I never learn that TEA=CHA , however like Pierre I’d never heard of the bread (but I did have C_A by then so no excuses!)
Also legged myself up having GONE rather than GOES TO POT (grammatical inexactitude on my part)
TULLE was a new word for me, I didn’t understand the U in TURKU so thanks Pierre!
Fully agree with the comments in 4d , anyone who looks at NOTELET and thinks “That’s TELETHON reversed minus a H” is a corkscrew thinking genius! thankyou Tees
Also enjoyed NOTELET. Never notice ST LUCIA reversal before either.
I think 24a works better with “garment” as the definition since “cotton” also has a double T.
Some beautifully relevant surfaces today from Tees. POISON PEN LETTER, A MINUTE’S SILENCE, COTTAGE HOSPITAL, PIG HEADED were all delightful. There appear to be several Russian revolutionaries called ELENA which is also nice. (Elena Stasova had a particularly stellar career, given the hurdles she faced during her time in the Communist Party: the only 1917 revolutionary to survive Stalin.)
I’d agree with Hovis on the parsing/definition of DOUBLET and with Pierre on the relative obscurity of CHALLAH though it was solvable from the clue and nice to subsequently learn it exists on the Interweb. I agree with the praise for the spot of NOTELET and think RATCHET within the writer is pretty good too, if a tiny bit more visible. The anagrams for the aforementioned COTTAGE HOSPITAL and HANSEL AND GRETEL were splendidly constructed. And well done Tees for an alternative clueing of LOO.
Thanks Tees and Pierre
A nice, gentle start to the week. Challah was a good word to learn. I’ve not heard Satan = beast before, but I suppose it works. Today is International Women’s Day so looking forward to hearing many works that are new to me on BBC Radio 3, on which everything played today will be by women composers. Also several references to women in this puzzle (Lucia, Elena, Gretel and ‘a breast’ – sorry!) but probably unintentional. Thanks Tees and Pierre.
Another great start to the week – thank you to Tees and Pierre
Hovis@2. Regarding 24a. I think the clue is saying that cotton and flannelette both have a double t and the definition is ‘garment’. Maybe it should have been ‘and’ rather than ‘or’.
Tatrasman @4. Although Satan = beast is not often seen, 666 is usually referred to as the number of the beast.
I think CHALLAH is a classic example of a word either unknown or lurking in the depths of the greyness of the noggin
Just follow the instructions and..voila!
Thanks all.
Couldn’t do it. Stumped on the fantasy author and tulles. Aaargh.
E-men also didn’t come to me only solved it from other letters.
Jewish bread obscure but solvable from clue.
I’ve been binge watching “Cracking the Cryptic”- Mark Goodlife- YouTube. This helped because, amongst other things, I only recently learned about T= Cha
Also didn’t know card game loo but loose only thing that fitted. O well,
Finally some insider knowledge of Finland comes in handy.. all the rest I had to work out properly.. faves being all the 15-ers which went in early, thankfully.. trusted Tees’ cluing in 1ac, so didn’t check it..
Thanks Tees n Pierre… excellent Monday so far..
As copmus@8 re 1ac… didn’t register before posting..
I’m a bit late but just wanted to add my two penn’orth on another great puzzle from Tees.
I particularly liked POISON-PEN LETTER, NYALA, DOUBLET, COTTAGE HOSPITAL, A MINUTE’S SILENCE,, RATCHET and HANSEL AND GRETEL.
Many thanks to Tees for the fun (in both the puzzle and the interview) and to Pierre for the blog and the link.
No real problems, it was all gettable. We did wonder, for about a nanosecond, if 1ac could be ‘chapati’ before we worked out CHALLAH (and had to check it in Chambers).
Regarding 21dn and the comment on U and non-U anyone interested further might like to seek out John Betjeman’s poem How to Get On in Society.
Favourite was BOULEVARD but we also liked COTTAGE HOSPITAL for the apt surface.
Thanks, Tees and Pierre
I’m kicking myself because I have had challah in the past (makes divine toast), thanks to a Jewish friend. However I misremembered the spelling as chOllah, and having got 2d early on, the crosser knocked it out of my head.
[Oh, update, Google tells me chOllah is an alternative spelling. Hey ho.]
Greatly enjoyed the surface/misdirection for “peer” in GLAZE.
Thanks Tees and Pierre.
I did this in preference to watching The Interview and I feel I chose well. For once the right author came to mind for RATCHET, which saved me speculating about Stolkie, Oorcock or Sulagui being mechanical devices. I agree with Eileen about the choice of great clues.