Non-prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of May 1, 2021
Chalmie gives us a puzzle with the theme of famous fakes and hoaxes. With a few checked letters in I easily solved 1a (PILTDOWN MAN) then 18,20 (CROP CIRCLES). 22dn (OSSIAN) came quickly too thanks to a hidden word clue. More difficult were 21, 13 (HITLER DIARIES) which I had forgotten about and my last-in, 11 (ERN MALLEY), a hoax that I had never heard of.
My favourite clues are 1d (PORTENDS), 5 (MARTYRS) (despite an unfamiliar Norse god) and 24 (SPINAL TAP).
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | PILTDOWN MAN |
Fake blue implant about to burst (8,3)
|
| DOWN (blue) in (about) anagram (to burst) of IMPLANT | ||
| 7 |
See 28
|
|
| 9 | RURAL |
Substantial old city for eastern country (5)
|
| REAL (substantial) with the ‘E’ (eastern) replaced by (for) UR (old city) | ||
| 10 | MARAUDERS |
Raiders murder as a sport (9)
|
| Anagram (sport) of MURDER AS A | ||
| 11 | ERN MALLEY |
Fake writer putting navy into space a little way (3,6)
|
| RN (navy) in (putting…into) EM (space) + ALLEY (a little way)
Ern Malley was a hoax that was new to me. Wikipedia has the full story. |
||
| 12 | HORSE |
Pipe across top of radiator on which to dry clothes (5)
|
| R[adiator] in (across) HOSE (pipe). The thing defined is properly a clothes horse. | ||
| 13 |
See 21
|
|
| 15 | SUIT |
Pose holding posh diamonds? (4)
|
| U (posh) in (holding) SIT (pose) | ||
| 18, 20 | CROP CIRCLES |
Fakes haircut, upsetting clerics (4,7)
|
| CROP (haircut) + anagram (upsetting) of CLERICS | ||
| 23 | ISSUE |
Some going west in the USS Independence’s launch (5)
|
| Reverse (going west) hidden word (some) | ||
| 24 | SPINAL TAP |
Slap paint around in American medical procedure (6,3)
|
| Anagram (around) of SLAP PAINT. The usual British usage for this procedure is lumbar puncture. | ||
| 26 | LAICISING |
Making public city is blocking decoration (9)
|
| LA (city) + IS (is) in (blocking) ICING (decoration)
I figure that LAICISING has to be the right answer here because I can find only one other word that fits with the checked letters and it does not fit anything in the clue. To ‘laicise’ means to reduce to lay status, that is to withdraw clerical or ecclesiastical character or status from (an institution, building, etc). Which means that ‘making public’ is a correct but rather vague definition for a somewhat obscure word. |
||
| 27 | SAY SO |
Is quiet, OK? (3-2)
|
| SAYS O (is quiet) | ||
| 28, 7 | RANDOM |
Room with nothing in by chance (6)
|
| AND (with) + O (nothing) in (in) RM (room). I do not recall coming across ‘rm’ as an abbreviation for ‘room’ before. | ||
| 29 | EYE FOR AN EYE |
Year of wandering in space to look at 14 justice (3,3,2,3)
|
| Anagram (wandering) of YEAR OF in EN (space) + EYE (to look at) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | PORTENDS |
Threatens left’s objectives (8)
|
| PORT (left) + ENDS (objectives) | ||
| 2 | LARYNGAL |
Turning all angry about something in the throat (8)
|
| Anagram (turning) of ALL ANGRY | ||
| 3 | DELTA |
Airline was first to go north, initially to Alaska (5)
|
| LED (was first) backwards (to go north) + T[o] A[laska] | ||
| 4 | WIMPLES |
Veils politician in deceitful ways (7)
|
| MP (politician) in (in) WILES (deceitful ways) | ||
| 5 | MARTYRS |
Devotees suffering as one war god punches another (7)
|
| TYR (one war god) in (punches) MARS (another). Tyr, son of Odin, is the god of war in Norse mythology. | ||
| 6 | NAUGHTIER |
Note something that’s right is comparatively sinful (9)
|
| N (note) + AUGHT (something) + IE (that is) + R (right) | ||
| 7 | DREARY |
Boring director back, wary after losing battles (6)
|
| D (director) + REAR (back) + [war]Y (wary after using battles). I do not think of ‘dreary’ as implying ‘boring’. | ||
| 8 | MASKED |
Run away, though not to go off after degree in PPE (6)
|
| MA (degree) + SKED[addle] (run away though not to go off) | ||
| 14 | ISRAELITE |
Current king brought up in location of biblical people (9)
|
| I (current) + LEAR (king) backwards (brought up) in (in) SITE (location) | ||
| 16 | FLAT TYRE |
Obese chap crosses a line emptying out rubble, causing a problem for cyclists (4,4)
|
| L (a line) in (crosses) FATTY (obese chap) + R[ubbl]E | ||
| 17 | I SUPPOSE |
Model has got out of bed before, presumably (1,7)
|
| IS UP (has got out of bed) + POSE (model) | ||
| 19 | PASSIVE |
Unemotional fool a drip during exercise (7)
|
| ASS (fool) + IV (drip) together in PE (exercise) | ||
| 20 | CLING TO |
Persist in belief that company is concealing fish bone (5,2)
|
| LING (fish) + T (bone) together in (is concealing) CO (company) | ||
| 21, 13 | HITLER DIARIES |
Fake attack riled jittery stars (6,7)
|
| HIT (attack) + anagram (jittery) of RILED + ARIES (stars) | ||
| 22 | OSSIAN |
Dross I analysed uncovered fake writer (6)
|
| Hidden word (uncovered) | ||
| 25 | AT SEA |
Confused cats eating preserves (2,3)
|
| Hidden word (preserves) |
I found this very hard and therefore all the more satisfying to eventually solve. Seems obvious now, but I took a while (too long) to twig to what exactly the ‘fake’ was referring to and even when I did, the puzzle didn’t yield easily. I was surprised to see ERN MALLEY and I wonder how many non-Antipodean solvers will have heard of the hoax. I didn’t know the OSSIAN reference and was interested to read about it post-solve. TYR as the ‘war god’ was new and I hadn’t come across the LARYNGAL spelling variant of the more usual “laryngeal”. I didn’t have a problem with DREARY for ‘boring’, but maybe didn’t think about it enough.
Clues I found particularly difficult were the NHO LAICISING (out of ignorance I won’t quibble with the def) and the excellent MASKED, my COD both for the misdirection of the surface and complexity of the wordplay.
Top stuff. Thanks to Pete and Chalmie
I found this one tough from Chalmie and struggled to parse a number but
really liked the theme. I knew something was afoot after spotting ‘fake’ 5 times and CROP CIRCLES told me what to expect. Unfortunately, I wasn’t familiar with or couldn’t parse two of the others. Rather than feel defeated though, I saw the opportunity to learn and laugh over the discoveries.
I liked SAY SO, FLAT TYRE, CLING TO and MARAUDERS best.
Thanks to Chalmie And Pete for the very thorough blog.
I had never heard of Ern Malley, but I was able to guess all the other answers correctly. Thanks to Pete for explaining why some of my guesses were correct. And thanks to Chalmie for a challenging puzzle with a fun theme.
WordPlodder wrote almost everything I had intended to write, so I will be brief.
I was delighted to find a clue that few “non-Antipodean solvers” would know. And, I feel the need to boast that I possess the book of ERN MALLEY poems. They are actually reasonably good.
I shared WordPlodder’s difficulty with MASKED, which I, too, admire now I understand how to parse it. I send thanks to Pete for again explaining the difficult, in a way that is easy to understand. One of my favourites not mentioned so far was PORTEND. Elegant, simple and funny.
Thanks to Pete for explaining some tricky clues, and thanks to Chalmie for managing to put together a themed puzzle that was difficult, yet approachable and enjoyable.
PILTDOWN MAN, ERN VALLEY, and HITLER DIARIES were all mysteries to me and I missed PORTENDS and LAICISING as well so this crossword was clearly beyond my orbit. As always I found things to like — CROP CIRCLES, ISRAELITE, FLAT TYRE, and PASSIVE were among my favourites. Thanks to both.
Great blog , thank you. All my points been covered really.
Were Spinal Tap a fake band ? Was the film a fake ? More of a spoof really I suppose.
MASKED was super with the misleading link of PPE to the degree, when I was a student it was known as Pretty Poor Education, or a slightly ruder version really.
10 correct answers says it all.
Thanks Pete and all.
ERN MALLEY was new to me too: I looked up a list of famous hoaxes and when I read about “him”, I remembered that part of the FT brief is to keep in mind that we have a global solvership and reckoned that it would be familiar to the Antipodeans and interesting to the rest of us who bothered to find out about him.
When I found I was putting MASKED in, the phrase “degree in PPE” decided to tell me it was at the end of the clue, and would I please find some way of indicating SKED which could plausibly precede it. It was not an easy task, but it appears from the comments above that it was worth the effort.
Picked up all the fakes quite early and comfortably, apart from ERN MALLEY, which was my LOI and involved Wikipedia, as it was completely unknown to me. The rest was all fair enough and overall a satisfying solve. I had no problem with “boring” for DREARY: my OED gives “repulsively dull” as a meaning of dreary, which seems to me to cover it.
Thanks, all. ERN MALLEY stumped me, too, and thanks Pete for parsing PILTDOWN MAN and MASKED.
If you take away duties in a church that belong to clergy and let laypeople take charge of them, that’s how I thought of LAICISING, and to me the def fits.
HITLER DIARIES I remembered [and learned in looking it up later that FT is not owned by The Times, whence HD became famous – I had wondered – good to know].
It was the Sunday Times taken in by the Hitler Diaries, mainly due to Hugh Trevor-Roper saying they were authentic.
If the FT was owned by Murdoch I would boycott the crossword.
Thanks Chalmie – you beat me here as I am one antipodean who has never heard of the fake poet. Then again, I am on the other side of the Tasman. The rest was very enjoyable.
Thanks for the explanations Pete and I agree with your 26a as it means to make open and your explanation is better than mine.
I think you are definitely right on laicising. Many former churches are now public buildings with a different use, they have been laicised. It also happens to schools formerly run by the Church .
I think that sometimes a setter must have very little choice for certain entries and they do not want to disturb the rest of the grid.
Thanks Chalmie and Pete
Only got to this one today and it took most of the day on and off to get it completed. Liked the theme which was telegraphed in the clues but still not all that straightforward to get – had to use the word play to generate most of them and then either recognise them or look them up. ERN MALLEY was the first of these and one of the only ones solved from definition first and then worked out the word play – only vaguely remembered the incident.
Thought that both MASKED and SAY-SO were the pick of a very good crop. The political incorrectness of FLAT TYRE brought a wry grin.
I came on to see if I’d missed any hoaxes. I’d like to add The MASKED MARAUDERS a supposed bootleg supergroup album.
Thanks to Chalmie for an interesting puzzle.
Thanks Chalmie for an excellent puzzle and Pete for the blog. I parsed 28,7 ac rather differently. Room with nothing in is ROM – R and OM. I didn’t know of Ern Malley or laicising but parsed them before checking their meaning. Thanks again