The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/28756.
I think this is just the second Guardian crossword from Harpo, and as knotty as the first. Harpo seems to like presenting the elements of wordplay out of order – with indication of such.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | FULL STEAM AHEAD |
Adult female has messed about with speed (4,5,5)
|
| An anagram (‘messed about’) of ‘adult female has’. | ||
| 8 | STOIC |
Way to bitch regularly — not if this (5)
|
| A charade of ST (street, ‘way’) plus OIC, alternate letters (‘regularly’) of ‘tO bItCh’, with an extended definition. | ||
| 9 | MALVOLIO |
Stage name of chairman carrying large first book? (8)
|
| An envelope (‘carrying’) of L (‘large’) plus VOL I (Volume 1, ‘first book’) in MAO (‘chairman’). | ||
| 11 | AMADEUS |
Film literally produced down under (7)
|
| An implied envelope: the answer is MADE in AUS (Australia, ‘down under’). | ||
| 12 | SHATTER |
Proverbial madman on tail of nervous wreck (7)
|
| A charade of S (‘tail of nervouS‘) plus HATTER (‘proverbial madman’). | ||
| 13 | DOJOS |
Simpson breaking bugger’s back where fights occur (5)
|
| An envelope (‘breaking’) of OJ (‘Simpson’, that one) in DOS, a reversal (‘back’) of SOD (‘bugger’). One meaning of dojo is a training hall for Japanese martial arts. | ||
| 15 | EXPLETIVE |
Blast, say, dynamite left by sailor around vacated emplacement (9)
|
| EXPLOSIVE (‘dynamite’ – ‘say’ doubles here and the definition) minus (if it seems the wrong way round – “the meeting was left by several people”) OS (‘sailor’) and replaced by ET (‘vacated EmploymenT‘), with a suitably mild example in place of definition. | ||
| 17 | HIT-OR-MISS |
Unpredictable state — storm is brewing (3-2-4)
|
| A charade of HI (Hawaii, ‘state’) plus TORMISS, an anagram (‘brewing’) of ‘storm is’. | ||
| 20 | ASKEW |
Bent solver caught by question (5)
|
| A charade of ASK (‘question’) plus EW, sounding like (‘caught’) YOU (‘solver’). | ||
| 21 | PETCOCK |
Cherished getting nonsense on tap (7)
|
| A charade of PET (‘cherished’, as “a pet project”) plus (‘getting … on’) COCK (‘nonsense’). | ||
| 23 | EDITION |
Rabble-rousing shunning leader in newspaper issue (7)
|
| A subtraction: [s]EDITION (‘rabble-rousing’) minus the first letter (‘shunning leader’). | ||
| 25 | KEELBOAT |
Yacht leak to be fixed (8)
|
| An anagram (‘fixed’) of ‘leak to be’. | ||
| 26 | ALAMO |
Way to work on sadly curtailed mission (5)
|
| A charade of ALA[s] (‘sadly’) minus the last letter (‘curtailed’) plus MO (modus operandi, ‘way to work’). I spent far too long trying to shoehorn a la mode into it somehow. | ||
| 27 | EMERGENCY EXITS |
Deviant sex in cemetery introducing good ways to escape (9,5)
|
| An anagram (‘deviant’) of ‘sex in cemetery’ plus G (‘good’). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FISH AND CHIPS |
Meal deal might be used by him, if served up with drink shortly beforehand (4,3,5)
|
| A charade of FI, a reversal (‘served up’ in a down light) of ‘if’, plus SHAND[y] (‘drink’) minus its last letter (‘shortly’) plus CHIPS (a carpenter, ‘deal might be used by him’), with ‘beforehand’ indicating the order of the particles. | ||
| 2 | LOOFA |
Sponge John having picked up a bit of fluff (5)
|
| A charade of LOO (toilet, ‘john’) plus FA, a reversal (‘up’ in a down light) of ‘a’ plus F (‘bit of Fluff’). I hope we have exhausted the dispute over the definition of LOOFA as ‘sponge’ – it came up not so long ago. | ||
| 3 | SUCCESSOR |
One who follows somebody on Radio Four, ultimately (9)
|
| A charade of SUCCESS (‘somebody’) plus OR (‘radiO fouR, ultimately’). | ||
| 4 | EN MASSE |
Service breaks in general essentially all together (2,5)
|
| An envelope (‘breaks in’) of MASS (‘service’) in ENE (”gENEral essentially’ – a little off-centre).
As DougV @1 & 2 points out, moving the ‘in’ to ‘in gENEral’ places the particle squarely in the centre. |
||
| 5 | MILKSOP |
Masculine types work for wimp (7)
|
| A charade of M (‘masculine’) plus ILKS (‘types’) plus OP (‘work’). | ||
| 6 | HOO-HA |
Commotion in area south of back-to-back houses (3-2)
|
| A charade of HO plus OH (‘back-to-back houses’) plus A (‘area’), with ‘south of’ indicating the order of the particles in the down light. | ||
| 7 | A BIT THICK |
Unreasonable dunce would be this (1,3,5)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 10 | ORIEL WINDOWS |
Through these you can see jockey ride lions — wow! (5,7)
|
| An anagram (‘jockey’) of ‘ride lions wow’. | ||
| 14 | JET STREAM |
Current example in New Street covered by press (3,6)
|
| An envelope (‘covered by’) of ETSTRE, an anagram (‘new’) of ‘street’ in JAM (‘press’). | ||
| 16 | ERADICATE |
Get rid of character abroad, caught by international venture being withdrawn (9)
|
| A reversal (‘being withdrawn’) of ETA (Greek ‘character abroad’) plus C (‘caught’) plus I (‘international’) plus DARE (‘venture’ – “I dare to say that is the intended meaning”). | ||
| 18 | IRKSOME |
Old tax office work finally getting a little tedious (7)
|
| A charade of IR (Inland Revenue, up tp 2005 ‘old tax office’) plus K (‘worK finally) plus SOME (‘a little’). | ||
| 19 | SCEPTIC |
One refusing to buy anything (7)
|
| Cryptic definition, with ‘buy’ in the sense of believe. | ||
| 22 | OILER |
Mathematician once picked up in tanker (5)
|
| Sounds like (‘picked up’) EULER (Leonhard, ‘mathematician once’ – and one of the greats). | ||
| 24 | IRAQI |
Starts to interrupt reporter, asking questions in a form of Arabic (5)
|
| Primarily (‘starts to’) ‘Interrupt Reporter Asking Questions In’. |
I think that, in 4, ENE is “in gENEral” essentially.
And, of course, the envelope indicator for MASS is simply “breaks”.
Nice puzzle – I thought we were heading for a pangram, so at one point was trying to justify AZALEAS instead of AMADEUS, but despite the crossers working nothing else did. Talking of that clue, I think it is better than Peter gives it credit for: “down under” is commonly an adverbial phrase, i.e. “in Australia”, so the containment is indicated, although cryptically.
No pangram, but there were 4 K’s – just saying!
There were a couple of surprises. For MALVOLIO, “stage name” seemed very unspecific at first, but then I realized we get clues for “girl” all the time. I also had not seen an off-centre “essentially” before, but DougV@1 gave a reasonable explanation.
22d seemed to more naturally clue EULER, which is what I had at first, but OILER works fine too (and better with the crossers).
Nho petcock before, or keelboat I don’t think. Some neat stuff here, like stoic, and the proverbial madman, but some Lego-ish ones, like expletive and Malvolio, that I bung in from def and a couple of crossers and just can’t arsed parsing. Enjoyed it though, ta Harpo and Peter.
… ps, agree with Dr Wh about made in aus, pretty neat …
Quite chewy to parse with the word order in the clueing, but all fair with some nice touches, A BIT THICK (lovely clue) described how I was feeling after a first pass.
LOL @ AMADEUS too.
Thanks to DougV@1 for resolving my only remaining quibble with 4D. It’s accurate fair, and nicely misleading after all.
Thanks Harpo and PeterO.
Maybe its because I’m unfamilier with this setter but I found myself solving most by the definition alone, except for MALVOLIO which I’d never have found without the wordplay. Thanks PeterO & Harpo.
Thanks Peter for the parsing of 26 and for confirming my memory of this setter having appeared previously. I just thought 26 was ‘a la mode’ curtailed but I see I hadn’t accounted for ‘sadly’ in the clue. I was also held up like Dr Wh by entering EULER for 22 which made solving 21, a new word for me, quite difficult until the K at the end helped with the ‘nonsense’ part of the clue. I was defeated by 11, panicking a bit as I don’t know a lot of films and now kicking myself as it’s a clever clue and a film I did actually see. Thanks Harpo and Peter
That was a curate’s egg, some straightforward anagrams and clue building, others more convoluted.
PETCOCK was new to me and the wordplay made sense when I’d given up and used a word finder. I also gave up on parsing how to get to EXPLETIVE and ERADICATE.
KEELBOAT I knew and most bigger sailing boats are keelboats, which puts them on their sides when aground. The alternatives, usually found in shallower areas, are centreboards (found in most dinghies) arrangements of three smaller keels like legs (some smaller traditional gaff riggers and the Drascombe Drifter), or the leeboards found on Thames barges.
Thanks Harpo and PeterO. A steady and enjoyable solve for me. As someone who works through the clues in order, I was feeling after the across clues that it was going to be a bit of a slog, but the down clues seemed to be a lot more accessible, and the crossing letters then proved very helpful. So I managed to fill it all in, but couldn’t parse AMADEUS or DOJOS, which were biffs – many thanks for the explanations, PeterO. Amadeus is especially sneaky – I like it!
Agree with DougV on the parsing of 4d, but, unlike DrW, didn’t spot the near-pangram (lipogram?) until after completion.
Quite a few I didn’t parse (I could only think of chips being used by a dealer in a casino, so deal was a nice misdirection) but still managed to fill it in correctly. Thanks for the clarifying blog PeterO. I was another one that initially inserted Euler until PETCOCK didn’t work.
Favourites were AMADEUS (similar in form to the “canned” Caftan yesterday) and EXPLETIVE.
Beaten by PETCOCK which was a dnk, even with the crossers, so a dnf. Like some others, a few went in from definitions and I waited to come here for the unpicking of the wordplay. And the Euler/OILER homophone inevitably went in the wrong way round on first parse. As did FULL SPEED AHEAD until MILKSOP corrected it. Stage name for MALVOLIO raised the slightest of eyebrows but it was forgiven for the lovely surface.
Thanks Harpo and PeterO
I got there but needed a lot of explanation from PeterO, for which thanks. Still not sure why Success equals Someone in 3dn? Also, not aware of A Bit Thick to mean unreasonable? Nice to see ilks appear again though. Thanks to Harpo for a nice challenge, if perhaps a little ‘fussy’ at times.
Yes my heart sank at the prospect of another round of the LOOFA wars 🙂
Worth the price of admission for AMADEUS but several others had that IKEA quality of being able to see what you’re trying to assemble but the instructions are almost more trouble than they’re worth
Many thanks Peter for putting the hard work in
JerryG @13 if you’re a SOMEBODY you could be said to be a SUCCESS
“Still not sure why Success equals Someone”
As in “I could’ve been a contender. I could’ve been somebody”
For what it’s worth I parsed 8ac as S (way) TO then ‘bitch regularly’. Both work.
Thanks to both.
Failed on 11a. No complaints, just me being dense.
Thanks Harpo and PeterO
Not for me. Lots I couldn’t be bothered to attempt to parse. LOOFA is a poor clue anyway – “bit of fluff” to give F? – and I’m sure that 7d contravenes the Guardian’s style guide.
I remember Harpo’s impressive debut, so was looking forward to this. Top half went in quickly but the bottom half was quite gnarly. I too thought like Tim C @11 that CHIPS were referring to a casino dealer, so thanks for the explanation along with ERADICATE. PETCOCK was new and big ticks for MALVOLIO and AMADEUS. Another non-contentious outing for MILKSOP.
Ta Harpo & PeterO.
Petcock is a new one to me. And jockey as a pointer to an anagram is new to. Simpson I read as Homer and his exclamation of Doh! No wonder I was confused
When I blogged Harpo’s (Guardian) debut, on New Year’s Eve, I said that, like AlanC @20, I was looking forward to his next outing. It was worth the wait!
I really enjoyed this – and found it slightly easier than the previous one. Perhaps I knew a little better what to expect. Like others, I’d never heard of PETCOCK but the wordplay made it straightforward.
I had ticks for MALVOLIO, which I enjoyed piecing together (it’s a while since we saw the Chairman, I think), the clever AMADEUS, EXPLETIVE, FISH AND CHIPS, ERADICATE and IRKSOME (I like the word, too).
Many thanks to Harpo – come back soon – and to PeterO.
Started off quickly with the four long ones round the sides then slowed down. A few I didn’t get. Never heard of PETCOCK or KEELBOAT.
Favourites included SHATTER, EXPLETIVE, ALAMO, MILKSOP
Got MALVOLIO but didn’t parse it – seems obvious now….
Thanks Harpo and PeterO
Like others I would also have appreciated more indication about which of Euler/oiler was the solution for 22d.
How come no one has yet complained about the homophone? (Someone always seems to whenever they crop up.) Maybe a German speaker will tell us that they don’t sound the same at all…
Thanks Harpo and PeterO – I needed help with ERADICATE and with 1a, which I foolishly saw as ‘meal deal’.
HIT-OR-MISS and the ‘leak to be fixed’ are pretty neat.
I really like that STOIC precedes MALVOLIO in the grid and also the proximity of ALAMO to EMERGENCY EXITS
Yes, Euler was indeed one of the greats. There is an equation linked with him which links e, i (the square root of -1), pi and zero, which is so elegant a mathematician friend of mine once mused that it came closer than anything else to making him believe in God.
I’d been troubled by gENEral not being in the middle; but DougV @1 was of course on the money, as was Harpo.
7d is a bit un-Guardian, but apart from that I thought this was a very enjoyable job. Favourites probably MALVOLIO, SHATTER, EXPLETIVE, EMERGENCY EXITS, FISH AND CHIPS. I suspect I’ve encountered a PETCOCK somewhere along my travels, but I’d forgotten it; the wordplay was clear enough to get me there, though.
Thanks to Harpo and PeterO
There were some real gems in there and MILKSOP took first prize for me .
Also beaten by PETCOCK (dnk).
Only quibble is that 3 random internal letters to create EN MASSE was not very tight clueing.
Thanks all
When Kane took the penalty I dived the way he looked at me so I had a clash between 21 and 22
VAR allowed the pen to be retaken and I put in the oily answer.
Why dont we see more of this setter?
I liked Malvolio but favourite was AMADEUS (and LOI)
Thanks Peter and Harpo
For the definition of OILER to be EULER wouldn’t the wordplay then be “picked up in tanker”?
So doesn’t the “in” clarify things and get Harpo off the ambiguity hook?
Martyn@16 To Be Someone by The Jam. (Sorry don’t know how to do links on this site.)
The ‘literally’ in 11 across was intriguing while trying to solve the clue. In the end I failed, and now it is merely puzzling. Can anyone explain why it is in the clue?
Mostly very enjoyable, if tricky, but I have quibbles with 19d (could have been ‘skeptic’, which while technically an Americanism is common enough over here), and 21a (an uncommon word, and PATCOCK fit the crossers and wordplay perfectly well). Also not keen on ‘state’ to mean any one of 50 possible 2-letter combinations!
Wouldn’t have known how to pronounce EULER, but every day’s a school day. I thought the ‘in’ just about made it clear which was the def.
MALVOLIO was probably my pick, but lots I liked here.
Thanks Harpo and PeterO.
My! after a short while I was filling in clues mainly/purely in some cases, based on the definitions and thinking that I’d come on here afterwards and discover how the parsing actually worked. Seat of the pants stuff. So was quite amazed when I had finally filled in the grid to discover that I hadn’t in fact made a single mistake. Last one in SCATTER. I can’t say that this was an enjoyable solve, just a sense of relief that I had successfully survived this…
NeilH @21 e to the power of (i times pi) = -1. e is the base of natural logarithms and i is the square root of -1. It looks much better in symbols.
Mathematicians like this because there is no obvious reason why two apparently unrelated irrational numbers, a rather abstract number (square root of -1), and a slightly abstract number (-1) should have any relationship to each other.
Jim @32, I remember a teacher at secondary school pointing out that as he was Swiss, Euler would be known as Herr Euler – pronounced “Hair Oiler”. Over 40 years and I haven’t managed to forget it.
I’m going to need time to get on Harpo’s wavelength. A challenge!
I’ve never heard of PETCOCK or DOJOS. I was really A BIT THICK with MALVOLIO, even though I knew MAO was lurking there somewhere. Guessed KEELBOAT (what else could it be).
I was another one dithering over OILER/Euler. But i don’t put these in until I have some crossers, as I almost always put the wrong one in otherwise.
I liked SCEPTIC (I’ve never seen it with a K, Jim @32). [I liked the surface as I’ve just been having a long email conversation with a well known retailer about a pair of shoes I bought recently on line. I received one size 5 and one size 7. This was followed by two unsuccessful attempts at returning the purchase using a well known courier.]
So all in all I was in desperate need of the blog.
Many thanks PeterO. And Harpo. I look forward to your next one, so I can hone my skills.
Doesn’t the anagram fodder for FULL STEAM AHEAD have an extra A and mot enough Es?
Don’t think so Iroquois @37 2 Es 3 As
I started rapidly with a lot of the top filled in, but then took my time for an enjoyable solve.
Some good clues – I liked DOJOS for the ‘wrong’ Simpson, FISH AND CHIPS for the deal-er, and the superb AMADEUS for the ‘produced down under’. I started with ‘a bit silly’ for 7D, which seems to work until you get the crossers. EN MASSE couldn’t be anything else from the definition but I didn’t like the in … essentially to clue some internal letters – words like scenery or openers would give ENE essentially. I also wasn’t sure about ‘withdrawn’ in 16D as a down reverser.
Thanks Harpo and PeterO.
Sorry, I retract my comment above about essentially. I didn’t fully understand DougV @1’s comment, but he’s right that it’s (ing)ENE(ral) essentially, doh!
Very enjoyable, with some tricky parsing. Nho PETCOCK but it really couldn’t be anything else.
Didn’t parse ASKEW or OILER.
Thought AMADEUS, MALVOLIO and JET STREAM were first-rate.
Thanks Harpo and PeterO
Tough puzzle.
Liked EMERGENCY EXITS, AMADEUS.
I did not parse:
15ac apart from L + ET? – oh I see I was on the wrong track with the L anyway
20ac ASK + EW?
1d FISH AND CHIPS?
New: PETCOCK.
Thanks, both.
Thank to Harpo for a very challenging puzzle. Some excellent surfaces, misdirection and wordplay, together with ‘knotty’ parsing all made for much head scratching. Especially liked ERADICATE but had a number of favourites inc AMADEUS, MILKSOP, MALVOLIO, DOJOS, PETCOCK and IRKSOME. Thx also to PeterO for blog and help with 16d.
[Crossbar @36: good luck in your discussions. If you can’t put your best foot forward, at least you can put your biggest … ]
I agree with Eileen @22 that this one was a bit easier than Harpo’s (scary) first offering. A couple of new words in PETCOCK and DOJOS and I missed the parsing of HI for ‘state’, but otherwise everything seemed fair enough. I really liked my last couple in – the MADE in AUS and MALVOLIO.
By the way, there was a lot of discussion on the blog for Harpo’s first puzzle as to his or her identity, with some features in the grid suggesting it may be Monk, a setter for the Indy and FT, who in real life is the mathematician Prof. Mark Kelmanson. Particularly in light of the Euler discussion above, does anyone have any further news on this?
Thanks to Harpo and PeterO
Thanks PeterO, looks like I am not the only one feeling 7D today and you (and DougW) have sorted out a fair few parsing blanks. On top of that I had a PETCOCK failure but at least using a wordfinder there allowed me to resolve Schrödinger’s Euler.
Crossbar@36: Baldrick’s solution would be to cut off all the toes on whichever foot needs to fit the smaller size, but it is a bit extreme.
James@31 I found the “literally” helpful as it somehow suggested a slightly cryptic construction, which is odd as literally is pretty much the opposite of cryptically, so now I am also confused! I think maybe it is just to indicate that we can read AMADEUS that way whereas when it is spoken we would not make the connection.
Thanks Harpo, some great clues here that kept me plugging away.
[PostMark @44 All sorted out to my satisfaction now, but only because I can be persistent when the mood takes. I have a refund and a pair of odd shoes that I am free to dump, or give to anyone with odd feet L7, R5 (UK sizing) ]
James@31 – I think if you didn’t read ‘down under’ as an adverbial phrase (i.e. in Australia) as Dr. WhatsOn@3 suggests then ‘literally’ might work to indicate the containment. So there is some redundancy in the clue.
Gazzh @46 That sounds like one gory version of the Cinderella story and the desperate attempt of one of the sisters to fit the slipper. In my case it was the smaller shoe that was a good fit so no need for surgery.]
And of course the Alamo @26 was a “sadly curtailed mission”.
simonc @24
Even recognizing that “German” is no more a single dialect than “English”, the Wikipedia article on Euler does give pronunciations in English (final R pronounced) and German (ending in a schwa), with an audio link for the latter. Thus between the two, the usual rhotic/non-rhotic complaint is covered!
DougV @1 and 2
Thanks. Indeed that eliminates my quibble over 4D.
Defeated today, thanks to entering EULER for OILER. Still think it is ambiguous, but then I guess I should have tried the other one. Otherwise, all good fun!
Could never have parsed FISH AND CHIPS, though I bunged it in.
[I knew of somebody who had a cat named Chairman Meow.]
It’s true that yachts are boats with keels, but I’ve never heard them called keelboats. I think of those as working-class boats carrying cargo on rivers — the opposite of yachts.
I have to leave now, can’t read the whole blog, but thanks Harpo and PeterO.
Hi WordPlodder @45
I’ve just looked up the blog of Harpo’s first puzzle. There was the fact, pointed our by DuncT, that the central letters of the grid spelt MONK, a long-established setter for both the the Indy and the FT.
Spooner’s catflap noted Monk’s real name and commented, ‘To adopt the pseudonym of a Marx brother might therefore be a covert homophonic admission of ownership (‘Mark’s’).’
PUN-CTU,ATION@90 claimed to have ‘good authority’ for the possible amendment of the enumeration of a couple of clues in the puzzle. As I think you all know, bloggers receive emails of all comments on their blog. It was easy enough to confirm just now that PUN-CTU,ATION’s email tallies with that of Professor Mark Kelmanson.
I think Harpo left enough clues to his identity for me not to be guilty of giving the game away!
Re Eileen@54 and the identity of the setter. I mentioned earlier (me@3) that I noticed 4 K’s in the grid, which is a little unusual since with standard English letter frequencies you’d expect only 1 K per puzzle, on average. I was just looking at the other Harpo grid and counted 5 K’s. This is still morning here and I haven’t had my full dose of caffeine yet, so I haven’t bothered to calculate statistical significance, but it does seem as if something is being signalled, or am I reading too much into this?
Thanks Harpo for the challenge. I revealed AMADEUS and could not parse 1d, ALAMO, EXPLETIVE, and ERADICATE so this was a clear DNF. Still I enjoyed much of this with SHATTER, KEELBOAT, MILKSOP (nice surface), and JET STREAM being among my favourites. PETCOCK was familiar to me from having had a motorcycle decades ago that had a petcock to turn on the fuel supply before riding. Thanks PeterO for managing to make sense of so many dense clues.
Thanks for the blog, pretty good but a shame the difficulty has been dialled down since the last one .
The EULER equation is best written in the form e^( i x pi ) + 1 = 0 . It then contains probably the most important seven symbols in one short line.
Roz @57
Seven? If you are referring to the seven symbols on the left hand side of your formula, you are overlooking the right; the invention of nothing is one of the most important advances if mathematics.
e i pi plus one equals zero . The times sign does not need to be there , we would just write ipi normally if I could do symbols. Times can be defined using just the plus symbol.
I wrote it this way specifically to include the zero.
Crossbar@36 Skeptic with a K is the American spelling, since otherwise it looks as if it ought to be pronounced as in “scent” or “science.” C before e is almost never pronounced like K except in imported words like “Celtic.” Of course, “sc/keptic” is itself imported from Greek, so maybe I’ve shot myself in the foot.
[Valentine @60
“Celtic” is always “keltic” apart from the Glasgow football team, which is “seltic”. I wonder why?]
Valentine @ 60, perhaps we should spell it scheptic, then at least there would be some consistency with school, scheme etc. But where would the fun be in that?
Crossbar@62 Scheptic just looks like Yiddish.
muffin@61 The Boston Celtics basketball team are also pronounced like the Glasgow team.
Gikk @21
I construed it as the letters in an anagram jockeying for position.
Markfieldpete@ @65
I think we’ve seen ‘jockey(ing)’ as an anagram indicator, as you interpreted it quite frequently – and I like it.
Like DrWhatsOn I was expecting a pangram and also tried to fit AZALEAS into 11ac. I wonder if Harpo started with AZALEAS and then thought of AMADEUS as a clue too good to give up? Anyway who cares about pangrams, unless the missing letters really do provide needed extra help? Thanks Harpo and PeterO.
Snap with Fiery Jack @52. Obsessed with the e-number, now more familiar with so much about “exponential growth” by people who don’t even know what it means, nor that the R-number is the base.
Happy start when I got 1A on first try!
An enjoyable puzzle. Even though I gave up before finishing, the only true new word was DOJOS. (Spent a lot of time reading about Arabic dialects.)
Forgot the deal is a word for lumber in UK, and while I had heard of a chippy, I didn’t know ships.
A little surprised at how many people didn’t know petcock, which was in another puzzle a few weeks ago.
Thanks, Harpo and PeterO
Calgal @69. PETCOCK may have been in another puzzle as you say, but it doesn’t appear to have been one that is blogged on this site, as a search for the word only brings us back to this one. I didn’t recognise it either, and having written in EULER I was too tired or perhaps obstinate to change to OILER. I think it’s just that I forgot that the wordplay was a homophone and never went back to check it.
Given my user name, I am ashamed of how long it took me to get ‘proverbial madman’. I’m still waiting for Harpo to get as easy as some people find him. Still looks pretty fiendish to me. Or perhaps I’m just 7d. 🙂
Thanks to PeterO for the enlightenment, and I suppose it’s thanks to Harpo as well, though it’s a bit much to have A BIT THICK as a constant reminder while the rest of the grid is still mostly blank.
A belated thanks, Eileen @54. Harpo’s real identity seems to be pretty clear then. He’s tough as either of the two Monks but the first Harpo was even more difficult. I’m glad this was a bit more accessible and look forward to more.
Late to the party as I was waiting till this morning for the last three clues to reveal themselves to me. But they didn’t. 🙁
I knew it was OILER or EULER, but not which. I hadn’t got IRKSOME (now I can’t see why I found it so tricky!). Which made the unknown to me PETCOCK too difficult for me to derive. I had thought of PET or PAT, but COCK never came to mind.
What’s happened to AZED and Everyman today?
Oops! Nothing, because it is still Saturday!!
Dr Whatson@55: the UK rock magazine Kerrang! uses the letter K to rate albums – KKKKK being the best possible. So maybe Harpo is a metal fan, rating his own crosswords for difficulty by the number of Ks contained? Perhaps he even eschewed the US spelling “skeptic” because it would have messed up his rating system? Well OK, probably not.
Gazzh@75 Harpo didn’t eschew the American spelling, he employed it! (Possibly because of the scoring system you suggest.)
Bit of a WHINGE from me but no one will read anyway…. I was disappointed with the clichéd definition of EXPLETIVE rather than the accurate one. It’s not just swear words.
Thanks both