We found this puzzle by Rodriguez quite tricky at times.
We’re not complaining though as everything was clearly clued and when the penny finally dropped in the parsing, we ended up kicking ourselves. We hate to admit it but STING for ‘Police Leader’ had us puzzled for longer than it should have done.
The last Rodriguez puzzle we blogged contained Americanisms in all of the across answers. Some of his other puzzles have a theme but we cannot see anything in today’s offering.
Thanks Rodriguez for the workout this morning.
SELL (trade) O (disc) TAPE (record)
FAIR (pretty) around or ‘clothing’ L (line)
RUN (hurry) ICe (rocks as in ‘diamonds’) missing last letter or ‘a lot of’
MARK OF THE BEST (top grade) around or ‘hiding’ A
BUT (only) TRESSED (with locks)
ME ME (the first person) repeated twice or ‘cloned’
LOW (blue) DOWN (blue)
IDIOm (turn of phrase) missing last letter or ‘endlessly’ + CIT (abbreviation for cited – ‘quoted’) reversed or ‘flipped’. We had to check this. Our Chambers app did not help but our old dead tree version of Collins did.
Hidden within or ‘essential to’ inteGRITy
An anagram (‘desperately’) of DRY I CLAM UP
LEVIS (jeans) with TEES (flower) on the outside
An anagram (‘travelling’) of ALAS after N (noon)
ADULT (no minor) ER ER (hesitations)
TEN (figure) ALP (mountain) reversed or ‘climbing’
O (last letter of Nero or ‘finally’) underneath or ‘supporting’ CONCERT (unity). When we checked the answer we found out that Beethoven’s Concerto No5 is also known as the Emperor Concerto.
W (wife) ARM (prepare for conflict)
An anagram (‘staggering around’) of CIDER I (one) SEEN
A (American) FOR (pro) with the O (ball) ‘dropping’ to the end. The ‘shock’ obviously refers to a hairstyle.
MALT (alcohol) and an anagram (running’) of TEAR
BRIE (cheese) FEN (soggy ground) COUNT (matter) RE (on) reversed or ‘back’
STING (Police leader – the band leader not the force leader) around or seizing’ ROBE (garment) LIGHT (easy to lift). Both of us were hooked on P for Police leader at the beginning.
An anagram (‘in disguise’) of A BLESSING and R (right)
WASH (clean) around or ‘trousering’ HIP (in) L (lake)
IN (at home) ATE (fed) around or ‘entertaining’ CUB (young animal)
M (maiden) ERE (before) around or ‘stealing’ AG (silver)
reVOLT (rebellion) with RE (soldiers) leaving or ‘deserting’
Double definition
Yet another beautiful Rodriguez crossword – I’ve really enjoyed his puzzles from the get go. Such a clever clue for AFRO and a neat construction for BRIEF ENCOUNTER. The only query I had was cit. for “quoted”. Chambers has it for “citation”, which can equate to “quote”, so thanks for clearing that up. I have a Collins but didn’t check there.
Couldn’t parse AFRO or RUNIC, but enjoyed this!
Liked MEME, CONCERTO and WARM.
Thanks Rodriguez, and Bert and Joyce
I wondered if there was a mini theme around relationships and their associated problems: we have ADULTERER, BRIEF ENCOUNTER, SINGLES BAR, DECREE NISI. Add in the surfaces for WARM and GRIT and possibly even MALTREAT.
I was chuffed to spot CONCERTO and STING in STROBE LIGHTING and absolutely delighted when, at 22ac, I read the clue and thought ‘jeans must be either denim or Levis and I wonder if the flower might be Tees’ and there it was! Lovely when that happens.
AFRO brings back some painful memories – solvers of the G will know what I mean.
Thanks Rodriguez and B&J
Postmark – I know this may be off topic and get us into trouble with Gaufrid – but you cannot leave us hanging in mid-air! We solve the G but rarely bother to trawl through all the comments.
[B&J: AFRO was clued quite some time ago in the G in a way that could be interpreted as a racist slur. Which many of us saw as an unfortunate coincidence but which some, inevitably, perceived as exceedingly out of order leading to a vituperative blog, some very harsh words, the departure of some bloggers etc etc. AFRO hasn’t appeared in the G since then.]
Just to add to PostMark’s comment – the clue (something like ‘shock for a criminal’) led to, quite possibly, a 3 figure number of comments, spilling over from the Guardian thread to the General Discussion one. Let’s put that one to bed forevermore please.
This was at the lighter end of Pickers’ range but the quality shone through,Suited me fine as I started it 6 45am with a cuppa then went back to bed for another hour.Thanks all.
Another treat from the Pirate – thanks to him and B&J
I agree with both Hovis’ and copmus’ first sentences. Now that Mr Brydon is setting for all three papers’ puzzles blogged here, we’re getting an almost constant stream of delights. copmus has commented elsewhere that he doesn’t know how he does it – and I agree there, too.
My ticks today were for SELLOTAPE, RUNIC, PLAID CYMRU, TELEVISES, CONCERTO, and STROBE LIGHTING.
Many thanks to Rodriguez and to Bert&Joyce.
Another gem, as expected. Thanks to Rodriguez and B&J. I enjoyed the construction of the clue for STROBE LIGHTING although the wording of the surface caused a tiny Roger Moore-style eyebrow raise
Good piratic fun as always. Just IDIOTIC unparsed, didn’t know CIT for quoted, I briefly wondered if endlessly was doing double duty, with the end being (de)TIC. Thanks for clearing that up B&J, and thanks of course to Rodriguez.
Hovis @1 – in what is now ‘old-fashioned’ academic footnoting, which has been almost entirely superseded by in-text referencing, of which several versions are practised, a quotation from a text previously quoted and whose publication details had been given in full in an earlier footnote, could be referenced as, for example, Bloggs, op.cit., p.107. Here op.cit. was short for Latin, opus citatum, work cited.
Being a retired academic, I should probably have seen this, Sc. Mind you, I still blush in embarrassment when I think back to my youth when I asked a librarian where I could find a journal called “ibid”.
Quite a challenge but we solved and just about parsed it all – we got ‘cit’ from ‘quoted’ but had forgotten about ‘op cit‘. LOI was WHIPLASH once we saw ‘hip’ for ‘in’. We guessed the jeans had to be Levis or possibly denim but it wasn’t till we got STROBE LIGHTING (our CoD) that we actually got TELEVISES. Others we liked included MEME, PLAID CYMRU and CONCERTO.
Thanks, Rodriguez and B&J.
I actually found this one slightly milder than some of our setter’s previous offerings and more enjoyable as a result!
No contest for favourite clue – has to be STROBE LIGHTING.
Thanks to Rodriguez and to B&J for the review.
I found parts of this quite tricky but overall it was very enjoyable. I admired the brevity and accuracy of the cluing making the whole thing a rewarding challenge.
Many thanks to Rodriguez and to B&J.
Must admit when I saw the clue for Plaid Cymru I thought “that’ll be some UK political party I’ve never heard of with some whacky non-english spelling”, so I went straight to an anagram solver. I’ll do that sometimes if it’s a known unknown.
Fortunately I remembered decree nisi, but no doubt first time I came across it i’d have done the same. I think they gave up teaching Latin here about 60 years ago.
Thanks to a previous poster I found out my favourite setter posted as Buccaneer and Rodriguez two other publications. I now don’t have to wait 2 weeks for a Picaroon in the Guardian. 🙂
A very enjoyable crossword.