Non-prize crossword published in the FT of December 23, 2021
Gozo appears as usual to give us a goody for our Christmas, a semi-alphabetical. I am treating it like a Weekend FT crossword with this blog being published twelve days after the nearest Saturday.
I spent several hours over the Christmas weekend working on the puzzle. Most of the alphabetical clues came quickly but putting the whole thing together took time. The answers include one term that is new to me (HENOTHEISTS) and one term with a new meaning (CORDON). There are two clues that I did not completely understand, 21 (SLOGGER) and 47 (BABY JESUS) and fortunately commenters came to my rescue. My favourites are 11 (GOZO), 20 (ENLISTED), 38 (WAIN), 8 (TERN) and 40 (WHOA). Thank you Gozo for a grand puzzle.
To start with, here are the 26 alphabetic clues with their locations in the grid inserted:
A 36 worked out with first of clues (8)
17. ARMAGNAC – anagram (worked out) of ANAGRAM (36) + C[lues]
B Bistro with wine, reportedly (6)
34. BARSAC – BAR (bistro) + SAC (homophone of “sack” — which is a type of sherry)
C A curry and beer cans ordered (9,5)
55. CRANBERRY SAUCE – anagram (ordered) of A CURRY BEER CANS
D Bermuda rum with a touch of ice added (8)
53. DRAMBUIE – I[ce] in anagram (rum) of BERMUDA
E In Germany, they returned with new cooking about one (7)
10. EISWEIN – SIE (in Germany they) backwards (returned) + I (one) in anagram (cooked) of NEW
F Extremely anxious puss during the day (8)
16. FRASCATI – A[nxiou]S + CAT (puss) together in (during) FRI (the day)
G Travel round the Home Counties ,(5)
22. GOOSE – GO (travel) + O (round) + SE (the Home Counties, i.e. the SouthEast of England)
H Unpleasant surprise with top sponsor leaving (4)
37. HOCK – [s]HOCK (unpleasant surprise with top sponsor leaving)
I The Chancellor moves one to the front (5)
29. IRISH – RISHI (The Chancellor) with the last ‘I’ moved to the front
J Explosive sweet for babies (5)
44. JELLY – double definition
K Chris, drunk, after drop of kümmel (6)
37ac. KIRSCH – K[ummel] + anagram (drunk) of CHRIS
L Meat course not finished, sadly (9)
63. LAMBRUSCO – LAMB (lamb) + anagram (sadly) of COURS[e]
M The London Eye? (5,3)
60. MINCE PIE – Cockney rhyming-slang (I guess)
N Turn round by Kentish house (3,5)
58. NUT ROAST – anagram (round) of TURN + OAST (Kentish house)
O Head’s flippancy (5,5)
23. ONION SAUCE – ONION (head) + SAUCE (flippancy)
P Silk pants being laid out (4,2,8)
19. PIGS IN BLANKETS – anagram (laid out) of SILK PANTS BEING
Q What, in France, I in Germany tucked into! (6)
9. QUICHE – ICH (I in Germany) in (tucked into) QUE (what in France)
R Goes without starter – having fish (8)
1. RIESLING – [t]RIES (goes without starter) + LING (fish)
S Bar has nothing inside (5)
33. SOAVE – O (nothing) in (inside) SAVE (bar)
T New York court loses nothing reassembling (6,5)
13. TURKEY CROWN – anagram (reassembling) of NEW YORK C[o]URT (New York court loses nothing)
U No odd letters from our Gillie (4)
61. UGLI – [o]U[r] G[i]L[l]I[e]
V Rebuilt oven vault (3,2,4)
41. VOL AU VENT – anagram (rebuilt) of OVEN VAULT
W Victor’s successor! (7)
42. WHISKEY – Victor’s successor in the phonetic alphabet
X Max mashed potato (4,3)
31. XMAS PUD – anagram (mashed) of MAX + SPUD (potato)
Y Poor young Nell dropped both names (4,3)
65. YULE LOG – anagram (poor) of YOU[n]G [n]ELL
Z New Zealand openers involved with Anfield (9)
3. ZINFANDEL – anagram (involved with) of N Z ANFIELD
Gozo tells us that these items fall into two groups that turn out to be food and drinks mostly but not all associated with Christmas. The drinks are Armagnac, Barsac, Drambuie, Eiswein, Frascati, Hock, Irish, Kirsch, Lambrusco, Reisling, Soave, Whiskey and Zinfandel. The foods are cranberry sauce, goose, jelly, mince pie, nut roast, onion sauce, pigs in a blanket, quiche, turkey crown, ugli, vol au vent, Xmas pud and yule log.
And here is the completed grid:
And finally the regular clues:
ACROSS
11 What no man is, but I am! (4)
GOZO – no man is an island while Gozo is an island that belongs to Malta!
12 Not off topic, letter which lists courses (2,3,4)
ON THE MENU – ON (not off) + THEME (topic) + NU (letter). I originally had this, wrongly, as a double definition. My thanks to shikasta for correcting me.
15 Scots girl’s saving scheme with pound invested (4)
ISLA – L (pound) in ISA (saving scheme). ISA stands for Individual Savings Account and denotes a financial instrument available to UK residents.
20 Came into force (8)
ENLISTED – cryptic definition
26 Train — or part of one (5)
COACH – double definition
32 Monopoly or chess at the table. Ready? (5,4)
BOARD GAME – BOARD (table) + GAME (ready)
35 Got ale, bananas and ice-cream (6)
GELATO – anagram (bananas) of GOT ALE
38 Large cart at entrance, dropping last of hay (4)
WAIN – WA[y] IN (entrance dropping last of hay). The clue brings to mind one of my favourite paintings, The Hay Wain by John Constable.
48 Amateur warning, previously (5)
AFORE – A (amateur) + FORE (warning, as in golf)
49 Danes crept around stylish Strictly performer? (4,6)
STEP DANCER – anagram (around) of DANES CREPT
50 Team leaves Lake District town for a walk (5)
AMBLE – AMBLE[side] (team leaves Lake District town)
64 The Times obtained from meerkats regularly (4)
ERAS – [m]E[e]R[k]A[t]S
DOWN
2 Those who first pass out here? (10)
SWEATSHOPS – anagram (out) of THOSE W[ho] PASS
4 Bird also heard by prison (6)
TOUCAN – TOU (homophone of “too”) + CAN (prison)
5 Life on Mars singer is around end of concert, with DJ (3,3)
BOW TIE – [concer]T in (around) [David] BOWIE (Life on Mars singer) with “DJ” cluing Dinner Jacket, not Disc Jockey.
6, 62 Single-stemmed fruit tree with flex attached (6)
CORDON – CORD ON (with flex attached). This horticultural meaning of ‘cordon’ is new to me.
7 Collapse of society girl. A non-U clue (7)
DEBACLE – DEB (society girl) + CL[u]E
8 First bird seen in winter nest (4)
TERN – hidden word. I do not recall seeing a hidden-word clue like this one before. The ‘first’ could easily be misleading but it is absolutely appropriate since another bird, erne, is also hidden in the fodder. The clue is also unusual, but perfectly sound I think, in having its definition in the middle.
14 Possible scene of Dr Black’s murder where sweeper guards everything (8)
BALLROOM – ALL (everything) in (guards) BROOM (sweeper) with the definition referring to the board game ClueDo (also known, for example in the US, as Clue).
18 Tea-growing state providing a service, on reflection (5)
ASSAM – MASS (service) + A (a) all backwards (on reflection)
21 T20 batsman and his snack lunch? (7)
SLOGGER – double definition. Apparently in the northwest of England, ‘slogger’ is slang for a kind of pie.
24 Popular school for cricket, say (6)
INSECT – IN (popular) + SECT (school)
25 Name of sister without ring (4)
NOUN – O (ring) in (without) NUN (sister)
27 Funny business with claim being falsified (7)
COMICAL – CO (business) + anagram (being falsified) of CLAIM
28 Famous bowler gets a duck – of sorts! (5)
DRAKE – double definition with the first referring to Sir Francis Drake who famously played bowls in Plymouth.
30 Quickly run through angler’s problem? (4,3)
REEL OFF – double definition
36 Could be danger from garden? (7)
ANAGRAM – definition by example
37 Believers in just one supreme god represented on the thesis (11)
HENOTHEISTS – anagram (represented) of ON THE THESIS. At first I thought that the answer had to be MONOTHEISTS but it quickly became clear to me that that would not fit and I needed a look-up tool to find this new word to me that means much the same.
40 Would horsemen order animals initially, thus? (4)
WHOA – W[ould] H[orsemen] O[rder] A[nimals] and &Lit.
43 Signs of sorrow – but no time for medication (8)
EAR DROPS – [t]EAR DROPS
45 Hugs from the bard at castle windows (10)
EMBRASURES – double definition with the first referring to Shakespeare’s use of the word to mean embraces (in Troilus and Cressida, Act IV, Scene 4).
46 Room – special one (5)
SPACE – SP (special) + ACE (one)
47 Infant’s pet project with paper (4,5)
BABY JESUS – BABY (pet project) + JESUS (paper). ‘Jesus’ is a paper size.
51 Key to a large chop is veal, say (8)
ESCALLOP – ESC (key) + A (a) + L (large) + LOP (a large chop). I originally had this wrong and thank shikasta for setting me straight.
52 Drink bitter from start to finish – just stories (7)
RUMOURS -RUM (drink) + SOUR (bitter) with the ‘S’ moved to the end (from start to finish)
54 Hamburger mascot otherwise named Wesker or Rat? (6)
RONALD – RONALD [McDonald] (hamburger mascot) whose name is an anagram (otherwise named) of writer ARNOLD [Wesker] and television star ROLAND [Rat]
56 Whispers “When?” “About eleven” (6)
ASIDES – SIDE (eleven) in (about) AS (when)
57 Author having tea with cake outside (6)
BUCHAN – CHA (tea) in (with…outside) BUN (cake)
59 Book I inscribed for myself? (4)
TOME – TO ME (I inscribed for myself)
62 See 6
Yes, all good fun. Thanks Pete and Gozo
I cannot help with either BABY JESUS or SLOGGER – I had ?s next to both those clues.
Different to Pete this week, I found populating the grid quite quick and easy (after I had changed MONOTHEISTS to HENOTHEISTS, of course).
As always, there were a few new words. HENOTHEISTS aside, ONION FARCE & NUT ROAST were new, and I knew an OAST as a house for drying hops, not a house in Kent(ish). I have never heard ON THE MENU to mean “not off topic, and who the hell is Roland Rat?
STEP DANCER was also new to me and I must admit I do not fully understand how that means “stylish Strictly performer”. OK I know Strictly is a dance competition, but what is the connection between STEP DANCER and “stylish”, please?
Lastly, the agricultural use of CORDON was new to me too, and I wonder whether the clue is correct. A CORDON is a fruit tree, trained to grow as a single stem (according to the Oxford Dictionary anyway). That is different to a “single-stemmed fruit tree”, which describes every fruit tree, with or without branches.
I went back and forth about the answer to 11, and it may even have been my LOI. SOLO could fit too (there is a SOLO Island and “I” is singular so “I am SOLO” works), but in the end I decided GOZO is the more likely answer and wrote that in.
Let me finish by thanking Gozo and Pete for their excellent contributions to the season.
A fine Christmas crossword from Gozo. I cottoned on to the alphabetical theme fairly quickly and had fun chasing them down. Like Pete, I was puzzled by UGLI’s inclusion and I held myself up for a while having spelt that veal chop ‘escalope’ even though it didnt tally with YULE LOG.
I felt confident of finishing this mammoth grid but in the end, it was the same tricky handful which required help: SLOGGER, RONALD, CORDON and BABY JESUS. I’ve still no idea about two of them.
Thanks anyway to Pete for a well-considered blog and to Gozo for being such a reliable source of entertainment.
This was all great fun, although I had the same question marks as Pete.
I assumed a SLOGGER was snack in some dialect but haven’t been able to find it.
BABY JESUS was the only thing that fitted but once I got past pet=baby, I was lost.
Martyn, I think a step dance is a highly stylised, almost prancing affair.
Pete, I took the two associated groups to be just Food and Drink.
Thanks for the unravelling and thanks Gozo for providing the fun.
Thanks Pete and Gozo.
Great setting.
Re SLOGGER a T20 batsman tries to hit and score runs on every ball, and hence, a slogger, I read somewhere. Never heard of the snack.
Re 47d, pet project, I thought, is BABY, as in ‘that’s his baby’; re paper /Jesus, I have no idea.
Thanks for such a comprehensive blog .
Jesus is a paper size in French , we call it super-royal. Slogger ??? no idea, is it some modern term for a type of snack you might eat for lunch?
Martyn @1 , Kent is traditionally the home of hop picking in England so is where we would find an oast house.
A very clever and enjoyable puzzle , the GOZO clue is a nice touch.
Urban dictionary has a flogger as British slang for a pie, commonly used in theNorth West England. Despite hailing from there I’ve never heard of it.
Sorry, slogger not flogger.
Thanks Tim C @ 6/7 . Never heard it in the NW either, perhaps it is from Wigan, they have over 100 different words for pie.
Thanks Gozo for great fun. I enjoyed counting the food and drink answers, missing only the “roast” of NUT ROAST. I had a few problems with a few of the other clues but not enough to spoil the enjoyment. Thanks Pete for the blog.
In 12a I had ON THEME(not off topic) + NU (letter) = ON THE MENU (though not keen on the definition of ‘lists courses’) – I thought it better than the double definition option (which still has lists courses as the 2nd one)
Similarly I had 51d as ESC (key) + AL (a large) LOP (chop) rather than E SCALLOP.
JESUS is in my Chambers as a paper size.
Like others I could not justify SLOGGER for a snack.
54d – surely this is an indirect anagram (twice!) which I thought were not allowed?
Thanks to blogger & setter
Thanks Gozo and Pete
54dn: I would normally be seriously unhappy with an indirect anagram where we have to take a synonym of a clue word. To my mind, switching between two parts of a name is less of a problem, and the fact that we are given two opportunities here makes it more acceptable than if we only had one.
Thanks Pete and Gozo. This was great fun and I was glad to be able to finish, though SLOGGER and JESUS went in unparsed. Distant memories of college philosophy courses helped me get HENOTHEISTS without a struggle.
Small correction: as the grid shows, the answer for P is PIGS IN BLANKETS, not PIGS IN A BLANKET as the explanation says.
Thank you, Verbose. I have applied the correction.
Thanks, Gozo and Pete. A real challenge!
Worked on this literally for the “Twelve Days” of Christmas and did not finish – unfamiliar terms like SLOGGER, the paper size for JESUS, HENOTHEISTS (looked it up – also tried MONOTHEISTS unsuccessfully), the deceptive BOW TIE (couldn’t figure out DJ), and fitting in things like NUT ROAST and MINCE PIE.
A YULE LOG is a kind of food – a delicious and decadent Christmas cake with chocolate frosting, shaped like a Yule log, called Buche de Noel in France. So I think it could be just food and drinks as categories.
Martyn, you mean ONION SAUCE, not farce.
I had an easier time with this than last year’s, sure there were unfamiliar words and I am no wine expert but with a few lookups I got by. 56 (ASIDES) was baffling to me for the longest time; I was sure VI (eleven)would be in there; bet a few others fell for that one.
However, clues that require knowing Cockney rhyming slang should be banned as Unfair! I can learn cricketing terms, I don’t mind a few local landmarks thrown in but I can’t abide being expected to know what “toes and fingers” is about. (I made that one up, but I bet it means something to someone, anyway using that sort of thing with no hint on how I need to approach it is – not cool. Gozo, you are On Notice, do it again and you’re D.T.M.! Smiley face.)
A very enjoyable puzzle with a topical theme which assisted in the clueing. I did not complete it all but that was from not managing all then answers; the grid itself turned out to be relatively straightforward. I endorse jeff@usa’s description of the Yule Log. Well known in many parts of the UK.
I failed on Nut Roast and Mince Pie but got the rest of the alphabetical.
Peter Mork, VI is six, not eleven; XI would have made it much harder to fit in to an answer. There is nothing wrong in having cockney rhyming slang in a crossword. There are occasional foreign words; are they to be banned too?
Yes, I meant Xi.
If foreign words are used that are not adoptees in English that’s usually indicated in some way – “French one” to clue UN or UNE. Maybe if your clue had some Cockney indicator, like “to Alf” or “‘Arry’s” that would at least point it in a certain direction. But if you didn’t get Mince Pie, I’d say I’m not the only one having trouble with this. It’s not an idiom that’s commonly known, less so in the FT’s global readership.
For those using the US print copy of this weekend’s FT, there are at least half a dozen ‘incorrect’ answers in the solution to the Christmas Crossword.
Mann v wain
Domical v comical
Toddy v coach
Nous v noun
Thea v whoa
Edam v eras
Rankle v Ronald
Spice v space
Interestingly, the Polymath from the same week was missing the last 2 Across clues altogether.
Those relying on the answers.
perhaps unaware of this site will probably be stumped trying to parse them
Thank you. Gozo, and Pete.
Great work.
Hugh
Hugh, same on the UK print copy.
Thank you, jeff@usa. Come to think of it I have heard of Buche de Noel.
Thanks Gozo and Pete
So late to this one – didn’t actually get to it until the New Year and it consumed multiple hours over a number of days to complete. Took almost as long to go over it and double check the parsing of many of the clues with still the BABY JESUS and RONALD (knew neither of the personalities) ones needed the blog to confirm them.
Started out with the topical XMAS PUD (without obviously being able to slot it into the grid) and managed a combination of working out the other alphabetically with filling in the grid with the numbered clues to get a decent foothold. An original concept with enough new terms to ensure that it was going to consume an appropriate amount of time to fill in the holiday period – unfortunately by delaying it until work commenced against, made it much more difficult to find the time required.
A good learning of numerous unknowns throughout and a clever mix of devices to derive them made this an excellent offering. Finally finished with the NUT ROAST, OAST HOUSE and the innocuous RUMOURS after many hours.