Serpent provides our Thursday challenge today.
When I saw AND right in the middle of the grid, it occurred to me that this might be part of some sort of pattern to the clues. It didn’t take long to spot: four rows each contain two words commonly joined with “and” to make a stock phrase.
- RAGTAG and BOBTAIL: a longer version of “ragtag” to describe a “rabble” = the common people, or a poorly-organised group.
- TIRED and EMOTIONAL: a euphemism for “drunk”.
- SWEETNESS and LIGHT: a phrase meaning pleasantness (of a situation or of someone’s behaviour), sometimes with the implication that things aren’t quite so pleasant below the surface.
- FLOTSAM and JETSAM: a general term for debris, but originally two specific categories of goods lost from ships at sea.
Plenty of good non-thematic clues too: I enjoyed the anagrams (and appropriate surfaces) of 5d and 16d, the neat clue-as-definition of 8d, and the penny-drop moment when I finally saw what was going on in 21d. Thanks Serpent for the fun.
Definitions are underlined; BOLD UPPERCASE indicates letters used in the wordplay; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | RAGTAG |
Gunmen joke about tense rabble (6)
|
| RA (Royal Artillery = “gunners” in the British Army) + GAG (a joke), around T (abbreviation for tense). | ||
| 4 | BOBTAIL |
Cut short reporter’s story on books about love (7)
|
| Homophone (reporter’s) of TALE (story), after BB (plural of B = abbreviation for book) around O (zero = love in tennis scoring).
Adjective describing an animal with a docked tail – a variant of bobtailed. |
||
| 9 | SOVEREIGN |
Ultimate authority on electronic signal boxes (9)
|
| OVER (on) + E (prefix meaning electronic), contained in (. . . boxes) SIGN. (Which is really too close to “signal” to work properly as a synonym.) | ||
| 10 | RISKY |
Smallest state broadcaster is likely to fail (5)
|
| RI (abbreviation for Rhode Island, the smallest US state by area) + SKY (Sky Group, broadcasting organisation). | ||
| 11 | TIRED |
Showing signs of age is bound to inspire resistance (5)
|
| TIED (bound), containing (inspiring = breathing in) R (scientific symbol for electrical resistance). | ||
| 12 | EMOTIONAL |
Second broken toenail’s bitten and sensitive (9)
|
| MO (slang for moment = second = a short time), contained in (bitten by) an anagram (broken) of TOENAIL. | ||
| 13 | ELEGANT |
Classy stage actor’s first to fill English National Theatre (7)
|
| LEG (stage, as in an element of a long journey) + first letter of A[ctor], all contained in E (English) + NT (short for the National Theatre in London, though there are many other National Theatres elsewhere). | ||
| 15 | BARFLY |
Enthusiastic patron of local obstacle race (6)
|
| BAR (obstacle) + FLY (race = move very fast).
Slang for someone who spends a lot of time drinking in bars; “local” = short for a local public house. |
||
| 17 | AND |
Centres of gas planets ultimately aligned in conjunction (3)
|
| Centre letters of [g]A[s] [pla]N[ets], then last letter (ultimately) of [aligne]D. | ||
| 19 | DISPEL |
Get rid of piles and onset of diarrhoea with treatment (6)
|
| Anagram (with treatment) of PILES with the first letter (onset) of D[iarrhoea]. | ||
| 20 | IKEBANA |
Flower arranging stock reduced in store (7)
|
| BAN[k] (stock = a large quantity of something held for future use), with the last letter dropped (reduced), in IKEA (furniture store chain).
The Japanese art of arranging flowers. |
||
| 23 | SWEETNESS |
Pleasant character of street going round small headland (9)
|
| ST (abbreviation for street) around WEE (small), then NESS (headland). | ||
| 25 | LIGHT |
Settle match? (5)
|
| Double definition. Light = alight = settle = to land on a surface after flight; or as in “have you got a light?” for a cigarette. | ||
| 26 | APACE |
Great service provides accommodation for old man quickly (5)
|
| ACE (a service in tennis that beats the opponent, hence “great service”) around (provides accommodation for) PA (old man = slang for father). | ||
| 27 | ASCERTAIN |
Get to know sectarian in an unusual way (9)
|
| Anagram (in an unusual way) of SECTARIAN. | ||
| 28 | FLOTSAM |
Celebrity snubbed over many items in the main (7)
|
| FAM[e] (celebrity, as a noun = the state of being famous), with the last letter dropped (snubbed), around LOTS (many).
Goods found floating on the sea after a ship is sunk or damaged. |
||
| 29 | JETSAM |
What men threw overboard set out to clog nets (6)
|
| Anagram (out) of SET, contained in (. . . nets) JAM (to clog).
Goods intentionally thrown overboard from a ship, usually to lighten the load when the ship is in danger of sinking, as opposed to flotsam (28a) which is lost accidentally. |
||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | ROSETTE |
Corrupt drug firm probes what may be gleaned from competition? (7)
|
| ROT (corrupt, as a verb) + E (slang for the drug ecstasy), with SET (firm, as an adjective) inserted (probing it).
A decoration made from pleated ribbon, sometimes awarded for a competition prize. |
||
| 2 | GOVERNESS |
Song verse transposed into A minor’s source of educational material? (9)
|
| Anagram (transposed) of SONG VERSE.
We need to read “a minor” (a child) rather than the musical key of A minor. Governess = a private teacher for children, usually living in the family home. |
||
| 3 | AIRED |
Broadcast rage-filled promotional material (5)
|
| AD (promotional material), filled with IRE (rage).
Broadcast = aired, as a verb in the past tense: “The programme was aired / broadcast last week”. |
||
| 4 | BUNION |
British League’s problem affecting one member (6)
|
| B (British) + UNION (league, as in “in league with”).
Member as in a limb; bunion = a painful deformity of the big toe joint. |
||
| 5 | BARRICADE |
Cab driver’s not very bothered about a roadblock (9)
|
| Anagram (bothered) of CAB DRI[v]ER, without the V (very), around A. | ||
| 6 | ARSON |
Criminal Act renders minister powerless (5)
|
| [p]ARSON (church minister), without the P (power).
Arson = deliberately setting fire to property = a criminal act. |
||
| 7 | LOYALTY |
Fidelity of commission primarily requiring change of sides (7)
|
| [r]OYALTY (commission = a share in profits in return for one’s contribution to creating them), with the first letter (primarily) changing sides from R (right) to L (left). | ||
| 8 | BIRETTA |
Attire that’s worn by bishop? (7)
|
| Anagram (worn) of ATTIRE, next to B (abbreviation for bishop in chess notation).
Clue-as-definition: biretta = a hat sometimes worn as part of formal Roman Catholic clerical dress. |
||
| 14 | ADEPTNESS |
Expertise of some teachers sent pedagogy up (9)
|
| Hidden answer (some . . .), reversed (up, in a down clue) in [teacher]S SENT PEDA[gogy]. | ||
| 16 | FRANGLAIS |
RAF signal broadcast garbled language? (9)
|
| Anagram (garbled) of RAF SIGNAL.
A mixture of French and English. To the French, the word means the tendency of some French speakers to mix English words into their usage (annoying other French speakers who want to keep the language pure). To the English, it usually means clumsy attempts to speak French (with bits of English mixed in) by those who don’t really know the language, or a mixture of the two languages for humorous effect. |
||
| 18 | DISSECT |
Analyse lives taken by leader of death cult (7)
|
| IS (lives, as a verb), contained in (taken by) the leading letter of D[eath] + SECT (cult). | ||
| 19 | DISTAFF |
Female teachers having papers returned first (7)
|
| STAFF (teachers, as in “staffroom”), with ID (papers = identity documents) reversed (returned) coming first.
An old term for the female side of a family, as opposed to the “spear side” for men. The name comes from a tool used in spinning thread, in the days when it was considered acceptable to make broad assumptions about gender roles. |
||
| 21 | ANTONYM |
Author’s not upset by article’s reason for insanity? (7)
|
| MY (the author’s) + NOT, reversed (upset = upwards in a down clue), by AN (a form of the indefinite article).
Definition by example, indicated by the question mark. “Reason” is an antonym for “insanity” = a word with the opposite meaning. |
||
| 22 | BECALM |
Reduce jitter in new cable modem’s lead (6)
|
| Anagram (new) of CABLE with the leading letter of M[odem]. (For the surface, a cable modem is a device in telecommunications networks, which would need an electrical power lead, and jitter means unwanted variations in the frequency of a signal. Yes, I used to spend my working days writing about this stuff.)
Becalm = a rare word meaning to calm (someone or something) down; most often encountered in the sense of a sailing ship being becalmed = unable to move because of calm weather with not enough wind. |
||
| 24 | ERATO |
Make speech confusing extremists with inspiring figure (5)
|
| ORATE (make a speech), with the first and letters (extremes = extremists?) swapped over.
In ancient Greek mythology, the Muse associated with love poetry. |
||
| 25 | LARGE |
Generous drink’s raised spirits essentially (5)
|
| LAGER (a drink), with the R (the middle letter, “essentially”, of [spi]R[its]) moved two places towards the start (raised = upwards, in a down clue). |
Another excellent Serpent crossword. Managed to complete, apart from IKEBANA, which I didn’t know and couldn’t work out, so resorted to a word fit. Spotted the theme. Nearly cheated on BARFLY but spotted it at the last minute. Glad I did because I remember failing on a similar clue in the past.
Despite the similarity between ‘sign’ and ‘signal’, 9a was a favourite due to the clever surface. BIRETTA & ANTONYM were also favourites.
Splendid crossword – and I spotted the theme, although being of a certain age, my thoughts on 1/17/4 were connected more with a Watch with Mother programme!
Thanks to Serpent for the excellent crossword and to Quirister for the blog
As is normal for me with Serpent, this was a struggle, especially in the top half, but once I saw FLOTSAM and JETSAM along the bottom row the others fell into place. Thanks Serpent and Quirister.
I found this more tractable than most of Serpent’s offerings. I liked the word pairs connected by the central AND, which I only belatedly picked up near the end.
I won’t dwell it, but the anatomical and pathological references in the surface for DISPEL were (sort of!) my favourite bits of today’s puzzle.
Thanks to Serpent and Quirister
What crypticsue said!
Brilliant puzzle, same as crypticsue re ragtag & bobtail!
Many thanks to S&B
Ditto. Rag, Tag and Bobtail was a favourite (along with Bill and Ben of course).
Quite a quick solve for us as (a) we must have been on Serpent’s wavelength and (b) we spotted the theme early on. In fact having got RAGTAG as FOI we thought ‘could that be BOBTAIL at 4ac?’ – and it was! But there were plenty of non-themed clues to savour, too, including IKEBANA, GOVERNESS and FRANGLAIS. The comment on Franglais as a mixture of the two languages for humorous effect reminded us of the brilliant Let’s parler Franglais series by the late, and still much missed, Miles Kington.
Thanks, Serpent and Quirister
That was the longest I’ve spent on a crossie for ages. Quite a lot of ‘A B contains’ type clues, sometimes hard to spot. SOVEREIGN was a particularly satisfying example. I got in a terrible tangle over BARFLY, thinking patron was the landlord. How does patron come to be boss in French but customer in English? FRANGLAIS was a blind spot too.
I liked BARRICADE and ANTONYM
Thanks Serpent, Quirister
Like James I spent far too long on this puzzle but was chuffed to complete, albeit unable to properly parse one or two. Missed the theme as per (well I twigged top & bottom) usual. ANTONYM, IKEBANA & GOVERNESS were my picks in a very challenging & thoroughly enjoyable puzzle.
Thanks Serpent & Quirister
Given how often I am driven mad by my inability to find the right word on crosswords, SYNONYM is also a reason for insanity in my case. Nice puzzle and blog. Thanks, both.
Many thanks to Quirister for the excellent blog and to everyone who has been kind enough to leave a comment.