Independent 10985 / Bartholomew

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Bartholomew is the setter today.  I can’t find any previous puzzles by Bartholomew on fifteensquared, so I thought we must have a new setter.  However, I cam up with another idea whilst writing the blog.

 

 

 

As I solved this I thought ‘there are a few obscure or unusla entries here’, e.g. REDRESSER, ENWHEEL, NEWSING, AGATEWARES and GESTALT. I’ve seen many references to Sappho in crosswords recently, so LESBIC wasn’t that unusual.  IMSHI is a word I have come across fairly frequently.

Eventually the penny dropped that this puzzle was published on a Tuesday, so there must be a theme constraining the non-thematic entries.

The theme is the famous MORECAMBE and WISE sketch featuring Andre Prervin conducting the orchestra whilst Eric MORECAMBE was supposed to play GRIEG‘s PIANO Concerto.

The full sketch can be found by clicking here

A bit of background to the involvement of Andre Previn is described here by clicking here

Many of the entries involve a good deal of thematic material.  In the graphic below, I think I have highlighted all the relevant entries, But I wouldn’t be surprised if I have missed something.

Doing the research on the sketch threw up the fact that Eric MORECAMBE was born John Eric BARTHOLOMEW, so I’m guessing now that is where the setter’s name came from and we may well have a fairly frequent setter masquerading as BARTHOLOMEW.

There is one entry where the wordplay defeats me completely and that is MOHICAN.  I’ve looked at many of the possible component parts but am completely stuck.  There is AM for morning but not mornings.  There is MOAN containing HIC but that doesn’t seem to help.  There is I CAN and MOH or HOM or OHM*, but still I see nothing helpful and indirect anagrams are a no-no anyway. We could have MORN with the R replaced by HICA, but… I’ll keep thinking until the blog goes live, but I don’t hold out much hope.  I’m sure the parsing will be obvious when someone shows what it is.

I found the word NEWSING in Chambers and the references to WIGS /syrup [of figs] in the Oxford Dictionary of English.

Complete grid with thematic entries highlighted is shown below.

 

Thanks to Bartholomew for an enjoyable workout.  With the exception of MOHICAN I think I have got the parsing right.  I was hung up on some variant of WARY (cautious; with reservation) in the parsing of AGATEWARES for a while before the more sensible W (with) + A + RES (reservation) became apparent. 

No Detail
Across  
1

British cut (not horse), cured meat and game (10) 

BACKGAMMON (board game)

B (British) + HACK (cut) excluding (not) H (heroin; horse] + GAMMON (type of meat)

B ACK GAMMON
 6

Well-informed questions put to an audience (4)

WISE (knowledgeable; well-informed)

WISE (sounds like [to an audience] WHYS [questions])

WISE
 10

Group performing in comeback to make these? (5) 

NOTES (musical groups sing or play [perform] NOTES)

(SET [group] + ON [performing]) all reversed (in comeback)

(NO TES)<
 11

Wardrobe man going on about The Equaliser (9) 

REDRESSER (one who sets things right and puts them back to where they were; equaliser)

RE (with reference to; about) + DRESSER (wardrobe person)

RE DRESSER
 12

Greek character in charge of a river mouth? (7) 

DELTAIC (relating to [of] the mouth of a river)

DELTA (character of the Greek alphabet) + I/C (In charge)

DELTA I C
 13

Massage one’s husband, squeezing black pants (7) 

RUBBISH (pants)

(RUB [massage] + I’S [Roman numeral for one’S] + H [husband]) containing (squeezing) B (black, on pencil leads to indicate softness)

RUB (B) IS H
 14

Intelligent to get out of head for sure (5) 

RIGHT (correct; sure)

BRIGHT (intelligent) excluding (get out of) the first letter (head) B

RIGHT
 15

Do you have to get up mornings if you’re a punk? (7) 

MOHICAN (hairstyle in which the head is shaved except for a central strip from the nape to the brow, based on a MOHICAN style but now especially associated with punk fashion, in which the hair is spiked into a usually brightly-coloured crest)

? – see preamble

MOHICAN
 19

In the past, go around with nurse and Welsh cad (7) 

ENWHEEL (Shakespearean [in the past] term for encircle; in the past go round)

EN (Enrolled Nurse) + W (Welsh) + HEEL (despicable person; cad)

EN W HEEL
 21

Music producer with leg over a head of Orion (5) 

PIANO (an instrument that produces music)

(PIN [leg] containing [over] A) + O (first letter of [head of] ORION)

PI (A) N O
 23

Recent naughtiness ultimately needing reporting (7) 

NEWSING (reporting; NEWS as a verb ‘to report’ is in Chamber dictionary)

NEW (recent) + SIN (naughtiness) + G (last letter of [ultimately] NEEDING)

NEW SIN G
 26

Quickly list rules at first, then strip lacking priest (4,3) 

REEL OFF (utter or list rapidly and fluently)

R (initial letter of [at first] RULES) + PEEL OFF (strip) excluding (lacking) P (priest)

R EEL OFF
 27

Preening old fools soon to be trading again? (9) 

REOPENING (soon to be trading again)

Anagram of (fools) PREENING and O [old)

REOPENING*
 28

Certain to have hot fellow over end of chair (2,3) 

IN FOR (doomed to receive; certain to have)

IN (popular; hot) + F (fellow) + O (over) + R (last letter of [end of] CHAIR)

IN F O R
 29

Having taken top off, heartily drinks syrups (4) 

WIGS (syrups – In the Oxford Dictionary of English SYRUP is defined as ‘British informal, a WIG, as in the phrase he has been bald for the past twenty years, his shame concealed by a syrup of figs [rhyming slang])

SWIGS (takes a deep draught of drink) excluding the first letter (taken top off) S

WIGS
 30

A crowd with a reservation to see some pottery (10) 

AGATEWARES (forms of ceramic [pottery] made to look like agate)

A + GATE (crowd) + W (with) + A + RES (reservation)

A GATE W A RES
Down  
 1

I’m bored travelling round new resort abroad (8) 

BENIDORM (resort town in Alicante, Spain)

Anagram of (travelling) I’M BORED containing (round) N (new)

BE (N) IDORM*
 2

Dude with a diary you put at No. 2 in best-seller list (9) 

CATALOGUE (systematic list of names, books, pictures, etc)

CAT (showily dressed man; dude) + A + LOG (diary) + U (text message form of you) + E (second letter of [No 2 in] BEST-SELLER) – I’m not sure of the parsing of the U and E at the end, but what I have put seems reasonable to me.  I’m happy for solvers to indicate something better

CAT A LOG U E
 3

An organised unit and salt get the worse for wear (7) 

GESTALT (an organized whole or unit)

Anagram of (the worse for wear) SALT GET

GESTALT*
 4

Bar? Come with me to get smashed in town! (9) 

MORECAMBE (town in Lancashire on the North West coast of England)

Anagram of (to get smashed) BAR COME and ME

MORECAMBE*
 5

Runner in Europe punched by Queen? Do behave! (5) 

ORDER (call for better behaviour, as in the call ‘ORDER, ORDER! used by the Speaker of the House of Commons)

(ODER (river in Germany [runner in Europe]) containing (punched by) R (Regina; Queen)  

O (R) DER
 7

In Australia, go away aboard Trondheim ship (5) 

IMSHI (Australian military slang for ‘go away’ The word has an Arabic background but was adopted by Australian forces in Egypt)

IMSHI (hidden word in [aboard]) TRONDHEIM SHIP

IMSHI
 8

Want to remove cap by yard? That’s crude! (6) 

EARTHY (unrefined; crude)

DEARTH (scarcity; want) excluding the first letter D (to remove cap) + Y (yard)

EARTH Y
 9

Endlessly market revolutionary pen like Sappho (6) 

LESBIC (of the island of Lesbos; Sappho was a poet from Lesbos)

SELL (market) excluding the final letter L (endlessly) and reversed (revolutionary) + BIC (brand of ballpoint pen)

LES< BIC
 16

Little drink good? That’s not entirely accurate! (4,5) 

HALF RIGHT (not entirely correct)

HALF (half pint; small drink of beer or lager) + RIGHT (good)

HALF RIGHT
 17

What the latest two pieces from Ono mean to purchasers? (4,5)

NEAR OFFER (an indication to purchasers that a price OFFERed NEAR the asking price might be good enough to acquire the item for sale)

the abbreviation O N O is short for OR NEAR[EST] OFFER, NO are the last two letters or pieces of ONO

NEAR OFFER
 19

Tory figure at polls finally gets in line with others (8) 

CONFORMS (complies with the practice of others)

CON (Conservative; Tory) + FORM (shape; figure) + S (last letter of [finally]) POLLS

CON FORM S 
 20

Author is more corny, making lead go west (6) 

WRITER (author)

TRITER (more hackneyed; more corny) exchanging the first letter (making lead go) T for W (west) to form WRITER

WRITER
 21

Trailer engineers look at after prang at the front (7) 

PREVIEW (short film or broadcast advertising a forthcoming entertainment on television or at the cinema; trailer)

P (first letter of [at the front] PRANG) + RE (Royal Engineers) + VIEW (look at)

P RE VIEW
 22

You might see me with Her Maj around Windsor primarily (6) 

ANDREW (reference Prince ANDREW, third child of Queen Elizabeth.  ANDREW has been in the news lately for his alleged connection to Jeffery Epstein.  The Queen has spent Christmas at Windsor this year)

AND (with) + ER (Elizabeth Regina; Queen Elizabeth) reversed (around) + W (first letter of [primarily] WINDSOR)

AND RE< W
 24

Wife men sent up? No good and immoral! (5) 

WRONG (immoral)

W (wife) + OR (other ranks; men) reversed (sent up; down entry) + NG (no good)

W RO< NG
 25

Sorrow after female’s left? Head to great barman! (5) 

GRIEG Reference Edvard GRIEG [1843 – 1907], Norwegian composer; barman [one who wrote bars of music])

GRIEF (sorrow) excluding (after … left) F (female) + G (first letter of [head to] GREAT)

GRIE G 

 

41 comments on “Independent 10985 / Bartholomew”

  1. Having watched the M&W 1971 Christmas Special on Christmas Day, the Grieg piano sketch with Andrew Preview came easily to mind. And it was a pleasure to spot the connections. I think RUBBISH was a running gag rather than a part of that particular sketch – in which case, would there be an argument for including WIGS as another? I, too was mystified by MOHICAN unless it’s a cd – I assume such a hair cut flattens overnight and needs to be ‘got up’ in the mornings?

    Somewhat ironic that ANDREW was the prince NOT at Windsor this year!

    A slightly clunky puzzle from Bartholomew, though I’m inclined to cut some slack just because I am fond of the theme. I wonder if it’s a one-off? Some of the clueing was rather contrived and, as answers, NEWSING, ENWHEEL and AGATEWARES were all pretty ‘out there’ and I think our blogger is generous in suggesting IMSHI and LESBIC to be more regularly used. Nonetheless, thanks to both S&B.

  2. Loved Eric and Ernie-and Grieg’s sonata but didnt like this
    Andrew Preview
    Half Right, Right, Wrong,Newsing, Gestalt
    Never heard of IMSHI
    I liked Dave Bartholomew though
    Sorry

  3. My comments on this were to be almost identical to those of PostMark @1 including my best stab for parsing MOHICAN (with ‘Do’ as the definition). I’ll add that I also put DELTAIC in the list of contrived/clumsy clueing given that the river mouth meaning of ‘delta’ simply comes from the capital letter shape.

  4. A chance to remember a favourite duo and one of their best Christmas ‘works’ – I’d include RUBBISH and WIGS in the list of themed words

    I thought IMSHI was an Arabic word which was used as slang for go away by military personnel so I was surprised to find it defined as Australian. Although it would have made for a very wordy clue, I think if ‘mornings’ had been replaced by ‘in the morning’, 15a would have made a bit more sense

    Thanks to Bartholomew but I think your nice idea for a crossword was spoiled by the ‘unknown’ words you had to use in order to get the themed ones into the grid. Thanks also to Duncan for the blog

  5. Gave up on this one. Nothing to do with the crossword per se – the new layout on my iPhone means that only a few words of each question are visible at any one time. Eventually I got fed up with swiping left and right just to get the clue.
    Sorry Bartholomew.
    Come back the old format – even though it often locked up if you entered the last letter of the last down clue before entering all the other letters. Does anyone ever test the software?

  7. Dicho @5 The new layout has completely ruined it for me too on Android phone. I got to 74%, had a break, came back to a cleared grid and far less readable clues. You need to see the whole clue. It’s just not worth trying with the Indy any more, sadly.

  8. They introduced this new unusable format to the Independent Concise crossword at the beginning of December. I’ve been waiting for it to ruin the Cryptic ever since then, and now it has.

  9. Sorry for Bartholomew to have their puzzle affected by this but here’s another downvote for the new online format. I did have the print button on Safari but some of the clues were printed overlapping the grid (which I reported to the authorities). And German Labradoodle had no print button and came a cropper from needing to swipe to see the full clue.

    Enjoyable in parts but we found this a bit unsatisfying due to the number of unknown-to-us words, similar to the above comments. I might have spotted the theme if I’d taken a minute at the end to look through; it is a classic sketch!

    Thanks to Duncansheill and Bartholomew

  11. Spotted the basics of the theme, if not the specifics. No hope in parsing MOHICAN or NEAR OFFER and only vaguely recalled IMSHI, despite living in the country referred to in the clue – not a word in widespread use.

    A few new words added to the vocab which made this more than worthwhile despite a few obscurities.

    Thanks to Bartholomew and Duncan

  12. I don’t like not seeing the whole clue, but I do like seeing the whole grid, so the new format is HALF RIGHT for me. Congratulations to Hovis for spotting the (hair)do for MOHICAN.

  13. I found this really hard – after half an hour had only six answers and from there on a lot of use of the check / reveal facilities – so it was a frustrating time. Seeing the parsings I did have a few “of course!” moments (thanks Duncan!). The theme in part made up for all that.

    I was on my laptop, so didn’t find the new interface quite as much trouble as some of you, but even so found it worse than the previous one. Is this something EIMI would have any influence over?

  14. We struggled in places, which is probably why we didn’t spot the theme, but got it all in the end though we hadn’t a hope of parsing 15ac. We did like the theme, though.
    So is Bartholomew one of the other setters in disguise? Who tends to refer to the Queen as ‘Her Maj’?
    Thanks to our setter, whoever you are, and to Duncan.

  15. A late thought on the double appearance of RIGHT in the puzzle: in response to Previn’s accusation that he was playing all the WRONG NOTES, Eric Morecambe’s famous line was, of course, “I’m playing all the RIGHT NOTES , but not necessarily in the RIGHT order.” 😉

  16. I suppose it’s whether or not a ‘do’ can be interpreted as a ‘hairdo’, then it can be one ‘punks have to get up in the morning’. I knew some punks though who wouldn’t have dreamed of getting up in the morning. Probably coz they were up to speed in the evenings.

    Shame if the new format is turning people off. Maybe the powers can have another look at that.

  18. Was able to solve this, despite knowing nothing about the theme. Can see how all the thematic references forced a few unusual words into the grid, but I got them all via wordplay which I found fairly clear in all cases, though did not fully understand MOHICAN (a familiar word). Favourite clue: RUBBISH. Many thanks to Bartholomew and Duncan Shiell.

  25. Well, I solved this, although I wasn’t sure about RIGHT and I wasn’t convinced NEWSING was a real word. Needed a word search to get AGATEWARES.

    I must have seen the sketch many times, but the theme totally escaped me.

  28. Not the big G? Confound it all, must be that rapscallion Tees then. Either him or Serpent who I happen to know is a big M&W fan, but perhaps we’ll never know. Sigh.

  34. Pretty hard I thought with a number of unusual words, and I failed on MOHICAN. I’ve never seen the sketch so the theme passed me by. I immediately thought “Hoskins” on seeing “Her Maj” but this was not his style at all, and certainly doesn’t feel like Tees. I hope someone can identify the setter, I’m very curious to know…
    Thanks to Bartholomew and duncanshiell.

  35. I see Tees has the form from Flash and the big G is clearly suggesting the clever Tees has used a familiar Hoskinsian device to throw us off the scent! AND he came up with and explanation that turns that Mohican clue into and excellent CD … Will he admit the deed though?

  36. Cross posted with Alliacol who raises a very good point about less common words which both prime suspect Tees and the now in the frame Phi are both fond of. Will the real batholomew please stand up!

  37. When did I get ‘in the frame’? You have me coming coming along on Thursday this week, with something that perturbed the editorial squad. Not taking the rap for this one too. (Besides, I couldn’t see how MOHICAN worked, either.)

  38. Hoskins @ 36
    “Will the real batholomew please stand up!”
    Yes, I think it is about time he did, though it is increasing the comment count on an Indy puzzle, which can’t be a bad thing.

  39. Wasnt me sir!
    Great to come back to the comments
    The change in the site has resulted in clues not appearing 3 x or so
    Printing is fine from an iMac btw-I dare say theyll fix the gremlins
    but please dont forget dave Bartholomew’s “The Monkey Speaks his Mind”

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