Another enjoyable puzzle, with no special instructions this time. Thank you Gozo.
Early on I thought we were headed for a double pangram, but one did not materialize. The thought still helped with solving the clues though.
Gozo kindly emailed me to elaborate on the grid fill. It is indeed intended to be a pangram, but not a simple one. Each letter in teh pangram is preceded by the letter A in one of the solutions. So the grid contains AA, AB, AC … AY, AZ Top marks to anyone who spotted this!
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | COAXED |
Gently persuaded the two having got the chop (6)
|
| CO-AXED (having got the chop together) | ||
| 4 | ABSEIL |
Get down to rock bottom (6)
|
| cryptic definition | ||
| 8 | LAZARUS |
Beggar cut both loaf and a biscuit (7)
|
| a shortening (cut) of both LAZe (loaf) and A RUSk (biscuit) | ||
| 9 | MACAQUE |
Primate and staff drinking most of the water (7)
|
| MACE (staff) containing (drinking) AQUa (water, most of) | ||
| 11 | ISRAELITES |
Biblical tribesmen realise it’s wrong (10)
|
| anagram (wrong) of REALISE IT’S | ||
| 12 | ADDS |
Tots — a couple of daughters and son (4)
|
| A with D D (daughter, twice) and S (son) | ||
| 13 | AVOWS |
Declares river’s showing change of direction (5)
|
| AVOn’S (the river Avon is) with N (north, a direction) changed to W (west) | ||
| 14 | MASSEURS |
Manipulators in large numbers about centre of Bourne (8)
|
| MASSES (large numbers) containing (about) middle letters (centre) of boURne | ||
| 16 | ORGANDIE |
Material a publication has to pass over (8)
|
| ORGAN (a publication) with DIE (to pass over) | ||
| 18 | MAJOR |
Grown-up officer (5)
|
| double definition | ||
| 20 | AKIN |
Related, taking heart (4)
|
| the middle letters (heart) of tAKINg | ||
| 21 | AGE BRACKET |
18 to 30-year olds, say, break Gate C sadly (3,7)
|
| anagram (sadly) of BREAK GATE C | ||
| 23 | FAIRWAY |
Quite a distance to the golfer’s green (7)
|
| a FAIR WAY is quite a distance | ||
| 24 | STASHES |
Stows away in chest, as he searches (7)
|
| found inside cheST AS HE Searches | ||
| 25 | STEADY |
Stable boyfriend, say (6)
|
| double definition | ||
| 26 | ENRAPT |
Ecstatic new parent (6)
|
| anagram (new) of PARENT | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | CHAOS |
Origin of creation hastened appearance of stars (5)
|
| first letters (origin) of Creation Hastened Appearance Of Stars – the state of matter before the universe evolved to its present ordered state, or you could take the Greek mythology definition too | ||
| 2 | ARAPAHO |
Native Indian given a knock and a call (7)
|
| A RAP (knock) and A HO (call) | ||
| 3 | EQUALISED |
How evenly balanced side struck out? (9)
|
| EQUAL (evenly balanced) and anagram (struck out) of SIDE | ||
| 5 | BRATS |
Annoying children – crazy right through (5)
|
| BATS (crazy) containing R (right) | ||
| 6 | EDAMAME |
Bean-cheese and pheasant, say. No good (7)
|
| EDAM (cheese) and GAMe (pheasant, say) missing G (good) | ||
| 7 | LAUNDERER |
One who cares for our dirty habits (9)
|
| cryptic definition – habits are clothes | ||
| 10 | STAMPEDES |
Frantic steps made on the Serengeti? (9)
|
| anagram (frantic) of STEPS MADE | ||
| 13 | AFRIKAANS |
Language from Asia, Frank translated (9)
|
| anagram (translated) of ASIA FRANK | ||
| 15 | SAMARITAN |
The Devil grasps French husband — he may save him (9)
|
| SATAN (the Devil) contains (grasps) MARI (husband, in French) | ||
| 17 | AINTREE |
Track Scots own pedigree (7)
|
| AIN (own, Scots) then TREE (pedigree) – a horse racing track | ||
| 19 | JOCASTA |
March girl given part in play – a tragic queen (7)
|
| JO (march girl, Jo March from the book Little Women) then CAST (given part in play) and A | ||
| 21 | AWARD |
Prize for a protégé (5)
|
| A then WARD (protege) | ||
| 22 | EXEAT |
River at the pass (5)
|
| EXE (the river Exe) and AT |
An enjoyable puzzle, thanks Gozo. Apparently there is an Avern River, so I was sure I had 13a right with “avers”, which made 2d impossible. Not having read “Little Women” I couldn’t fully parse 19d. Hadn’t heard of edamame — will add it to my lexicon!
A good mix of the familiar and others which took some working out. I recognised the ‘March girl’ at 19d, but had no idea about Queen JOCASTA, thinking she must be a Shakespearean character – wrong again. I didn’t know much about LAZARUS either, so he was my second last in, before the crossing EQUALISED which I saw as a ? cryptic def though I still don’t really get it.
Favourites were CHAOS and ABSEIL.
Thanks to Gozo (including for the double pangram minus three) and to PeeDee
Wordplodder @2 – I don’t have a really concise explanation for he definition of EQUALISED either. Are there any sports where “strikes out” has some technical meaning?
PeeDee@3: in baseball the batter has three strikes and then he/she is out but I cannot see how this helps.
Thanks for the blog, EQUALISED is a bit of a puzzle, I sort of see how it works but no definite example. I agree with all the good clues mentioned.
For ARAPAHO I think Native American would have been better in the clue.
Thanks to Gozo and PeeDee. Very enjoyable. I normally don’t pay attention to possible pangrams, but when trying to work out my LOI, LAZARUS, I noted the presence of X, Y, and Q but no Z so for once that thinking paid off. Otherwise, I would have struggled with the beggar connection.
An enjoyable puzzle completed fairly quickly without looking for pangrams, double or otherwise. Had we looked for one we might have got LAZARUS, our LOI earlier. As it was, we thought of Lazarus from the biblical reference (Luke 16, 19-31) right at the start but couldn’t see how to get it; only when we had the crossing letters and found ‘rusk’ for ‘biscuit’ in our thesaurus did the penny drop – D’oh!
Like others we couldn’t quite understand EQUALISED although it was obvious. And we agree with Roz about ARAPAHO – they should be called Native Americans these days; ‘Indians’ is considered somewhat pejorative.
But it was all good stuff. Thanks, Gozo and PeeDee.
Expecting special instructions I was a bit disappointed and when I couldn’t solve CHAOS, LAZARUS, ORGANDIE, JOCASTA, AINTREE, or ABSEIL I decided that this crossword was not my cup of tea. Thanks to both.
Roz@5 and allan_c @7: The National Museum of the American Indian explains that either Native American or Indian is perfectly acceptable so I defer to them for proper terminology. “Native Indian,” however, seems to be an awkward blend of the two.
Thanks Tony @8 I am sure no insult was intended , just a little slip somewhere along the line.
I believe EQUALISED works in much the same way as STAMPEDE where the clue as a whole is the definition. The side that is now evenly balanced ‘struck out’ by equalising.
Hi Steevo – thanks for that. Could you elaborate a little further please? For example: the side of what? A football team? A weighing scale? And what does the phrase “struck out” mean?
Hi PeeDee. My apologies, that wasn’t very clear – I normally come here to get the explanations as you probably gathered!
‘The football team that was losing (the side that is now balanced) retaliated (struck out) when they equalised’
I hope that’s a little clearer on how I read it.
Thanks Gozo and PeeDee
Sorry – very late for this one – it was trapped in the pile.
What an incredible effort to create a prefaced pangram – unfortunately completely wasted on me – didn’t even think to look for the normal one. Knew about both JOCASTA and JO March so that one was pretty much a write-in when I came to it.
Actually found this a little easier than his normal crossword and finished the grid fill under my average time, however missed the anagram with STAMPEDES and the construction of EQUALISED (cannot add any more to what the whole definition is).
Finished in the NW corner with that EQUALISED, LAZARUS and CHAOS (easiest clue type but sneaked in last).