Another Tees to tease us this Thursday.
Whenever we solve a Tees puzzle we are always on the look out for the obscure word (or two!) that he tends to include in each of his puzzles. Today it was 7d although we did manage to work it out from the wordplay.
The rest of the puzzle was what we have come to expect from Tees – smooth surfaces and crafty wordplay. We did appreciate the long anagram at 6d.
Finally, apologies for some of the colouring. for some reason or other, the website refused to change the colouring on parts of the text.
Double definition
An anagram (”when drunk’) of NEEDS A SLAP
Sounds like (‘that’s said’) BUY AND BUY (‘shop till you drop’)
HOUnD (dog) missing N (name) or ‘nameless’ + IN (at home) + I (one)
Double definition
VIOLA (plant) in wINTEr (‘mid’dle letters only)
A reverse anagram (‘BATS’) of HE OR SHE SO – hence the inclusion of ‘cryptically’
18. Spiced rice, alluring eastern cuisine: just having seconds? (5)
Second letters (‘just having seconds’) of sPiced rIce aLluring eAstern cUisine
PRESS ON (persevere) around or ‘over’ EA (each)
PINE (long) ALE (drink) around or ‘containing’ PP (first and last letters only or ‘peel’ from PlumP)
TIps To HElp (missing last half of each word or ‘dodging 50%’)
E (energy) MOTION (movement)
An anagram (‘changed’) of SCENE after or ‘with’ AB (sailor)
An anagram (‘organisation’) of AND SO IS THE
An anagram (‘rebuilt’) of SHOP AT BIBa (missing last letter or ‘endlessly’)
ST (stone) underneath LEA (meadow)
An anagram (‘manoeuvring’) of THIS SLY
EH (what did you say) in LAV (loo) + RE (about)
An anagram (‘confused’) of SEE INSTRUCTION
DEAR O (old) US (American) about or ‘keeping’ I (one) P (quiet) – a new word for us, referring to the Virgin Mary
S (first letter or ‘beginning’ to Scissor) WIPE (cloth)
Initially we were completely baffled by this one – when we had all the crossers, we realised that it must be ADULT EDUCATION from the enumeration, but after a lot of head-scratching, we realised that it is a very crafty clue-as-definition – an anagram (‘what can be’) of INCLUDED, AT, AT (‘repeatedly’) and OU
GOUT (complaint) after L (learner) is placed or ‘involved’ in RUIN (smash)
It’s almost two definitions SENSE LESS (without feeling) and SENSELESS (foolish)
An anagram (‘out’) of CLOSE SONG with POP (music) at the beginning or ‘starting’
VAT (tax) inside or ‘within’ E (European) LEE (sheltered zone)
PI ETA (two Greek or Athenian characters)
Hidden (‘parked in’) clifTON GArdens
I thought this was Tees at his best. The clues for ADULT EDUCATION & NEUROSCIENTIST were truly outstanding. Lots of sneaky wordplay. In the end, I failed to get SWIPE. Could only think of “seize” which wouldn’t parse. Rats!
No colouring on my webpage. Very nice. Tonga (in this sense) and deiparous were new to me and my spellchecker. At 23D my first thought was that there was a two-wheeler called an Ongar, similar to a Hackney perhaps – soon sorted. Thanks Tees and B&J.
Tee’s teasing gets better every week – thanks very much to him and B&J
Great puzzle.. altho couldn’t parse everything, except retrospectively.. new words already mentioned above.. as Hovis@1 1dn caused a disproportionate amount of trouble.. my favourite was ESPLANADES.. I love an anagram anyway and its just such a properly splendid word!!
Thanks Tees n Bertandjoyce
Pretty hard going. Well done for working out ADULT EDUCATION. I didn’t have a clue how to parse it. Like Hovis @1 and Undrell @4, SWIPE caused me more trouble than it should have and was my last in. I ended up having to do a long alphabet trawl, all the way through to W, to finally get the answer after not being convinced by ‘seize’, which was also my first guess. Next to last in was NEUROSCIENTIST, as I was initially unable to think beyond a “neurologist” or “neurosurgeon”.
TONGA and DEIPAROUS also new to me, worked out from wordplay and def. respectively.
Thanks to Tees and B&J
As usual, I agree with crypticsue.
My favourites were HOUDINI, HORSESHOE BATS, NEUROSCIENTIST, RULING OUT, PIETA and ADULT EDUCATION (once I’d sussed it!).
Many thanks to Tees and B&J.
The one thing I don’t like about the Independent online is that, once you have completed the crossword, the clues disappear, which means you can’t go back and try and parse clues like ADULT EDUCATION. Apart from that, a great crossword. The use of a noun “organisation” as an anagram indicator was new to me.
Petert: if you click on the “paper with writing” icon to the right of the tick, the clues will be revealed again.
Andrew@8 Thanks.
There is a Horseshoe Bay where I live but I knew of no such beast so I went fishing-or went bats
Excellent puzzle with scrupulously fair clueing. I also took an age to parse 9dn. I’m always pleased to learn a new word, today’s being DEIPAROUS.
[Tatrasman@2: Ongar is a town in Essex. Its local newspaper once carried a story about a strike by its librarians. Can you guess what the headline was?]
Plenty to enjoy in this one with HORSEHOE BATS heading the leader board for me.
Thanks to Tees for the fun and to B&J for the review – well done for working out ADULT EDUCATION!
Very enjoyable – thanks to Tees for the entertainment.
Thanks also to Bertandjoyce, in particular for the parsing of ADULT EDUCATION; we were trying to use the fact that OU may refer to Oxford University or the Open University.
Thanks to Andrew @8 too for the useful tip.
Finally, special thanks to Quizzy_Bob @11 for drawing our attention to the newspaper headline – brilliant!
Deiparous didn’t even look like a correct spelling of a real word but I knew it had to be, because Tees’ clueing is just so good. Same favourites as already mentioned plus esplanades for reminding me of the lovely Widow of Bridlington by Jake Thackray. Been singing it all day. Thanks to Tees and Bertandjoyce
Thanks both. ADULT EDUCATION parsing so clever. Assume the headline referenced by Quizzy_Bob@11 is “Book lack in Ongar”?
Early morning attempt for me today – stumbled at the first hurdle as I was convinced 1d’s clerical anagram had to have ‘Bishop’ in it , however the best I could do was “BAT-BISHOP” who I imagine is a hard working Rt Rev ministering to his flock by day , but by night clad in cape, cowl and mitre prowls the mean streets of his diocese dispensing his own form of justice via his holy hand-grenade
Once that was sorted I made good progress , needing minor help along the way as ever in what felt relatively gentle for a Thu
Favourite was PILAU as I thought the surface was very clever
Thanks a lot Tees and Bertandjoyce
Love the idea of the Batbishop, Tombsy.
Too much of a slog to be really enjoyable. Only got 7dn with a word search, and didn’t get 8dn at all.
Thanks B&J and all.
Peter @ 7 well, as you spot correctly that anagrind is a noun, and so anathema under normal circumstances to saddos like me who do so-called Ximenean clueing (i.e. try to get the grammar right). But having painted myself into a corner, as we gridsters say, I thought the best thing to do was stick a massive qm on the end and hope for the best.
Cheers
Tees
Enjoyable despite the unknowns deiparous and Tonga. The latter is apparently a vehicle in India, which I assume our blogger thought was known to all!
Tees@18 Thank you for responding. I thought the clue was clear. I was genuinely just asking. 9 months ago I would have thought a Ximenean was a lover of outdoor ceramic heating devices,
We went steadily at this and found it a satisfying solve. DEIPAROUS needed confirming in Chambers but nothing else was new. Favourites were PILAU and PIETA.
Thanks, Tees and B&J.
Nounal anagrind? Another great light in Ximenean firmament goes supernova? 🙂
Loved this. I had an awful day with multiple irreconcilable demands at work today and only started this late in the evening. What a relief.