The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/28795.
That was a work-out, The theme is announced in the middle row, as NOUGHTS and CROSSES – separately, and together as the game. I think the clue 7D deserves a special award for opacity. Bravo, Brendan, for that and the rest of the puzzle..
| ACROSS | ||
| 9 | IMPROVISE |
Is appearing in better act with zero rehearsal (9)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of ‘is’ in IMPROVE (‘better’). | ||
| 10 | OKAPI |
Took a picture that includes this game (5)
|
| A hidden answer (‘that includes’) in ‘toOK A PIcture’ | ||
| 11 | PRETEXT |
Excuse expert fabricated ahead of time (7)
|
| A charade of PRETEX, an anagram (‘fabricated’) of ‘expert’; plus (‘ahead of’) T (‘time’). | ||
| 12 | OXONIAN |
Inconclusive row echoed in article relating to old university (7)
|
| A charade of OXO (‘inconclusive row’ in noughts and crosses) plus NI, a reversal (‘echoed’) of ‘in’ plus AN (indefinite ‘article’). | ||
| 13 | AXLE |
Something intoxicating about kiss? A lot could turn on it (4)
|
| An envelope (‘about’) of X (‘kiss’) in ALE (‘something intoxicating’). | ||
| 14 | TRANSITION |
Change leader of tiny organised protest about nothing (10)
|
| A charade of T (‘leader of Tiny’) plus RAN (‘organised’) plus SITION, am envelope (‘about’) of O (‘nothing’) in SIT IN (‘protest’). | ||
| 16 | CROSSES |
Intersects with 4, like 23 and 26 (7)
|
| ‘23’ HINNY and 26 TIGON are genetic 4 MIXTURES, hence CROSSES | ||
| 17 | NOUGHTS |
Modified shotgun — Bond has two (7)
|
| An anagram (‘modified’) of ‘shotgun’, with reference to 007. | ||
| 19 | BREVETTING |
Moving to another rank, bishop checking again (10)
|
| A charade of B (‘bishop’) plus RE-VETTING (‘checking again’), for a military term. | ||
| 22 | PAIR |
Skin, so to speak, brace of ducks (4)
|
| Sounds like (‘so to speak’) PARE (‘skin’, verb). | ||
| 24 | NILOTIC |
Like part of Africa, loves idiosyncrasy (7)
|
| A charade of NIL plus O (both representing zero, ‘loves’) plus TIC (‘idiosyncrasy’). | ||
| 25 | SNIDEST |
Playing duo that is in a way most unpleasant (7)
|
| A charade of SN (south and north, in bridge ‘playing duo’) plus ID EST (‘that is in a way’ – in a Latin way) | ||
| 26 | TIGON |
Result of unusual match can, eclipsing game for two (5)
|
| An envelope (‘eclipsing’) of GO (‘game for two’) in TIN (‘can’), for a cross between a lion and a tiger. | ||
| 27 | INCENSING |
Getting cross belonging to church, with new hymn (9)
|
| A charade of IN (‘belonging to’) plus CE (‘church’) plus N (‘new’) plus SING (‘hymn’, verb), with the definition ‘getting’ in the sense of making. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | DISPLAY CABINETS |
Showing cases spread out over part of plane in consumer guides (7,8)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of SPLAY (‘spread out’) plus (‘over’ in a down light) CABIN (‘part of plane’) in DIETS (‘consumer guides’). | ||
| 2 | APPEAL TO |
Petition befitting love, bearing ring (6,2)
|
| An envelope (‘bearing’) of PEAL (‘ring’) in APT (‘befitting’) plus O (‘love’). | ||
| 3 | CODEX |
Letter and next two found between opposing letters in manuscript (5)
|
| A charade of C (‘letter’, arbitrary) plus ODEX, an envelope (‘found between’) of DE (‘next two’ letters following C) in OX (‘opposing letters’ – noughts and crosses again). | ||
| 4 | MIXTURES |
Vote with workers in messy situations — their constituents are diverse (8)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of X (‘vote’) plus TU (Trade Union, ‘workers’ in MIRES (‘messy situations’). | ||
| 5 | ZERO IN |
Focus Louis, for one, found in meditative practice (4,2)
|
| An envelope (‘found in’) of ROI (French king, ‘Louis for one’) in ZEN (‘meditative practice’). | ||
| 6 | NOTORIOUS |
Turns I botched, including three in game of ill repute (9)
|
| An anagram (‘botched’) of ‘turns I’ ‘including’ O O O (‘three in game’ – three turns in noughts and crosses). | ||
| 7 | TAHITI |
Island that’s taken over island that’s taken over island (6)
|
| I think I have the right definition! A reversal (the second ‘that’s taken over’) of I (the first ‘island’) plus TIHAT, an envelope (the first ‘taken over’) of I (the second ‘island’) in ‘that’ (the first). And the party of the first part …. | ||
| 8 | WINNING STRATEGY |
Women’s part of test? Attempt, having secured a get-up that ensures success (7,8)
|
| A charade of W (‘women’) plus INNINGS (‘part of test’ cricket) plus TRATEGY, a envelope (‘having secured’) of ‘a’ plus TEG, a reversal (-‘up’ in a down light) of ‘get’- in TRY (‘attempt’). | ||
| 15 | ASSENTING |
Like unedited report and leader in Guardian, agreeing (9)
|
| A charade of AS SENT IN (‘like unedited report’) plus G (‘leader in Guardian’). | ||
| 17 | NONESUCH |
There’s nothing like it on bone — is much initially cut? (8)
|
| First letters removed (‘initially cut’) from ‘oN bONE iS mUCH‘. | ||
| 18 | HEADED IN |
I had need to be converted — used cross to achieve goal (6,2)
|
| An anagram (‘to be converted’) of ‘I had need’, with the answer a reference to soccer. | ||
| 20 | EULOGY |
Eg you exploded about line in speech containing nothing bad? (6)
|
| An envelope (‘about’) of L (‘line’) in EUOGY, an anagram (‘exploded’) of ‘eg you’. | ||
| 21 | TACTIC |
Exchange first two pieces in game as gambit (6)
|
| The ‘game’ being TIC-TAC-TOE, better known in England as noughts and crosses. | ||
| 23 | HINNY |
Sound made by horse shedding weight at the start, or another equine (5)
|
| A subtraction: [w]HINNY (‘sound made by horse’) minus the initial W (‘shedding Weight at the start’), for the cross of a stallion and a jenny, a female donkey (as opposed to a mule, which has a donkey for father, and mare for mother). |
When I reveal 25 across it came up as Onidest. No wonder I’ve never heard of it.
Thought this was tough, but the theme helped. Liked NOUGHTS and CODEX. Is there any way to rewrite 7d a bit to include HAITI as a fourth island – it seems so inviting?
Hard going, but very clever, both for the theme and related Ninas. A “conclusive diagonal” in the grid was the only way I could solve my last in CODEX, which I barely knew. TAHITI was sort of parsed with one ‘that’ as anagram fodder and two l’s but I can’t explain it in any more detail; I’m sure you’re right though! Never heard of BREVETTING or HINNY and NILOTIC just remembered.
A real workout and satisfying to at least fill the grid correctly.
Thanks to PeterO and Brendan
Yep, hecn make you work can St Brendan, a dnf for me today. Had to alphacheck to get the double t before brevetting rang a faint bell, and similar for codex, which I also had no idea how to parse. Because I noticed the tic tac toe idea, then promptly forgot it when solving codex and Oxonian … thick! The couple of hybrids thrown in were fun. Well worth the effort, thx BnP.
Thanks Peter O and Brendan.
What a feat fitting in so many Os and Xes in the solutions, even between the lines, and zero, nil, none etc in the answers.
My take on PAIR, a brace of ducks, is two failures to score in consecutive innings in cricket.
As grantinfreo@4 said the hybrids/crossbreeds/MIXTURES/mismatched PAIRs TIGON and HINNY were also fun.
I had never heard of BREVETTING and can’t see the benefit if you don’t get the pay that goes with the rank. But maybe that’s just a modern take on it. The honour may have been reward enough?
Yes, a struggle for me. Didn’t know BREVETTING and didn’t parse DISPLAY CABINETS although I got the Cabin bit after going through rib, spar, longeron, doubler, stringer, intercostal etc.
C2014 has the third definition of HINNY as “the sound a horse makes, whinny” so the clue could have just been “Sound made by a horse or another equine”!
Enjoyed the game.
An alternative for TAHITI (not the parsing, that’s doing my head in, I thought I had it until I read PeterO’s explanation):
Island that’s taken over. Island. Island? (def at the end)
Actually, I thought the parsing was def at the beginning, a reversal in a down clue of ‘that over/containing I’, and all that over/on top of (in a down clue) I. (although in that case the second ‘that’s taken’ is redundant or just a bit of fun)
Scrap my attempt at TAHITI. I’ve got a better one, but I think I should stop there. This is from someone who tried to fit in HAWAII with a couple of crossers, until I got OXONIAN. Also only got ZERO IN on my third attempt after trying ZOOM IN, and ZONE IN for ‘focus’. In the zen zone, but took a while to wake up to Louis.
7d I took it to be:
Island – definition
that’s taken over island – TIHAT
that’s taken over – TAHIT
island – I
but maybe that’s what PeterO and Paddymelon were saying
Thanks Brendan and PeterO
That was a bit of a workout with a few tricky words – HINNY, TIGON, BREVETTING, SNIDEST, NILOTIC … The middle one of those defeated me. I’ve heard of brevet but wouldn’t have been able to define it if I’d met it. CODEX was my way into the theme as the only way to explain the O and X – at which point I realised I had the two completed solutions, CROSSES and NOUGHTS already in place and staring me in the face.
paddymelon @5: you are right that the brace of ducks in 22a refers to two consecutive zero innings in cricket.
AXLE was my favourite today for the misdirectional surface. Nice to see the entwining themes.
Thanks Brendan and PeterO
Just to elaborate on WordPlodder @3’s comment about ninas, we have a ‘winning’ diagonal XXX and a diagonal OOO facing each other across the centre of the grid.
Kudos also to pdm @5 for picking up on all the ZEROs, NONEs, NILs, ducks, etc which I hadn’t fully appreciated.
Looking again now at the clues and solutions, there’s either a cross, or a nought, or a reference to (the) game, in nearly every clue – including the kiss in AXLE, and 2d which has both a ‘O’ for love and a ‘non-O’ ring.
Just BREVETTING, SNIDEST, DISPLAY CABINETS, ASSENTING and TAHITI with no thematic element – but maybe I’m missing something?
Another tour de force, thanks Brendan and PeterO.
essexboy @11… I did wonder briefly whether an Ass was a cross in Assenting but they’re not and I always confuse them with mules which are a cross.
I’m sure this was great fun to set
Thanks Brendan, PeterO
Didn’t manage CODEX or SNIDEST (stumped by ‘in a way’, which I assumed must be the S…T), and found the rest very hard.
For TAHITI, David Ellison’s @9 version seems equivalent to PeterO’s, but it looks to me like both have too many is’s to make grammatical sense. In PeterO’s version, for the wordplay we have ‘A is containing B that is reversed’; because of the ‘is’ after the A the ‘that is’ can only refer to the B, and not to A with B in it. In David Ellison’s version, we have ‘A is containing B that is reversed C’ with the same problem.
[Why is it called tic tac toe in US? ]
Tim C @12 – yes, that’s a shame, isn’t it? If it’s a she-ASS, she could be the mother of the HINNY.
The clue for DISPLAY CABINETS could be thematic if we understand ‘cases’ as in French (= squares) spread out over part of a plane (= flat surface = sheet of paper). OK that is a stretch (almost got Tahiti in there 😉 )
James @14 – I agree the surface grammar reads that way – but for the cryptic grammar, surely we can imagine a dash between the 2nd ’island’ and the 2nd ‘that’:
Island that’s taken over island – that (i.e. all that)’s taken over
giving
I + TIHAT – then reverse it
(the first ‘s being understood as a ‘has’, the second ‘s as an ‘is’)
(same in principle for David E’s parsing)
I found this tough despite getting 8d as my first entry. Fortunately, knowing NILOTIC, TIGON and BREVETTING, and helped by the theme, it all worked out in the end.
Soundly beaten today by BREVETTING, NILOTIC and CODEX but in total admiration of the setter and the clever contributions on here regarding the hidden Ninas etc. We called it exy oseys in Ulster. My favourite was DISPLAY CABINETS.
Ta Brendan & PeterO
essexboy @16, my post originally contained that same suggestion at the end but I deleted it because 1) it deals with punctuation that is not there, and I think Brendan would put such necessary punctuation in the clue and 2) I couldn’t work out if it does in fact get over the problem. I have stared at ‘A is containing B; that is reversed’ till it’s all gibberish. Does the ‘that’ after the semicolon not have to refer to an earlier ‘thing’ (for want of the technical term)? The problem is that a phrase of the structure ‘A is containing B’ is not a thing. ‘A containing B’ would be a thing, because ‘containing B’ just describes A, but the ‘is’ mucks it up, and I can’t see why putting the semicolon or dash in changes that.
I’m not with you on your distinction between surface/cryptic grammar. My comment was about the cryptic grammar. The surface grammar is ‘I that has taken over I that has taken over I’.
This was a brilliant puzzle – but, like a sleepwalker, I kept getting close then stumbling off in another direction.
I was on the lookout for a theme right from the start and gradually unearthed a number of nothings (zero, noughts, none, nil and Bond’s 00) and host of the letter o.
I half-guessed CODEX by hunting around for a manuscript synonym that had three alphabetically consecutive letters in it (CDE) without twigging the link between the other two letters – and then noticed the three diagonal x’s and o’s. But STILL didn’t make the connection!
I understood where 16A was heading – and spent an age looking for a synonym for crossbreed. In fact, CROSSES was just about the last one in.
So, I completed it, but not in style.
Hey ho
Hearty thanks to Brendan – and to PeterO for the blog.
James @19 – I think of it in the same way as
“Boris thinks he’s a vote-winner; that’s the problem.”
Here the ‘that’ which is the problem doesn’t refer back to Boris, or to the vote-winner, but to the whole idea expressed in the first clause of Boris thinking he’s a vote-winner.
If it helps, in French the distinction would be between qui/que, which refer back to a specific noun, or noun phrase (such as your ‘A containing B’), and ce qui/ce que, which refer back to the totality of the preceding clause.
[Alan C: exy oseys? – a thoroughly confused essexyoy 😉 ]
Splendid puzzle from Brendan, whose thematics, not based on noun lists, are nonpareil.
Favourites were TAHITI, NILOTIC and NOUGHT. IMPROVISE took me a while because I didn’t spot the caesura immediately. OKAPI was an unlikely hidden clue.
I confess that I didn’t stop to parse DISPLAY CABINETS….
Thanks to S&B
Very clever. I particularly liked TAHITI, and didn’t find BREVETTING difficult, although nho NILOTIC. However I thought several clues rather unfair (12a, 3d and 6d) as they rely on the solver noticing the theme but make no explicit reference to it. I also don’t understand why OXO should be an “inconclusive row”.
And why “ducks” in 22a?
Absolutely brilliant – as ever with Brendan. Many thanks both (put me in mind of Times 26,000 a few years back where every unch was an I or an O and when ‘stringed’ out yielded 26,000 in binary! The final across answer was BABOON, 26,000 in base 16! Does Brendan set for the Times?)
poc @23… The winning lines in Noughts and Crosses are either OOO or XXX, hence OXO is not a winner and therefore an inconclusive row (although row could also be column or diagonal).
In an attempt to make everything thematic, you could say there are a few zeros in our current CABINET. My brain is still spinning in the attempt to parse TAHITI. Brilliant puzzle, but I am afraid I needed a bit of assistance to finish it.
James, my version differs from PeterO’s in that the first island is the definition and my version reverses TIHAT rather than ITIHAT. Peter’s version is:
Island – I
that’s taken over island – TIHAT THAT is taken over I
ITIHAT
that’s taken over – TAHITI that (ITIHAT) is taken over
island– definition
We both use that’s as that is.
poc@23 for ducks see paddymelon@5
Nothing (ha!) much to add to all the praise above but have to give a hand to essexboy @11 for noticing the ‘winning diagonals’ which I totally failed to spot despite getting other theme parts – of which there are many. BREVETTING and NILOTIC new to me as well.
Not even going near the TAHITI debate but I suppose, seeing as HINNY is so thoroughly defined in the blog, that it is worth saying that a TIGON is a cross between male tiger and female lion, as opposed to a LIGER which is a cross between a male lion and female tiger. Or is it the other way around? No matter. For balance, there it is.
Cracking puzzle Brendan! Thanks to you and to PeterO
Good lord that was tough. I was finding it a slightly unenjoyable slog till I spotted the theme about 80% through, then the brilliance of the puzzle suddenly became clear. Thanks Brendan!
Thoughtful theme with lots of good grid-filling.
I saw the XXX, OOO NINAs at the end. I thought OKAPI was well-hidden, and I enjoyed the surfaces for AXLE, DISPLAY CABINETS and NOUGHTS. I also liked OXONIAN for the inconclusive row, and NOTORIOUS for the three in game, where I determinedly tried to fit in tri or ter at the beginning.
Thanks Brendan and PeterO.
Petert@28: thanks. My ignorance of cricketing argot can be a significant disadvantage in some cases.
Crossbar @15, in case no one has answered.
Lots and lots of impressive Brendan-type clever-dickery here, some of which I spotted and some not. I enjoyed the hybrid “crosses” TIGON and HINNY, which were almost my first ones in, but found some of the parsing impenetrable: it’s a while since I’ve bunged in so many unparsed.
I think I agree with poc that clues like OXONIAN, TACTIC and NOTORIOUS, which require you to interpret parts of the wordplay in the light of their meaning in an undeclared theme, are hovering on the edge of unfairness, but that’s probably just sour grapes on my part. Favourite clue: NOUGHTS. I am not going to attempt the grammar of TAHITI: I got it and that will have to be enough.
essexboy @21 You might persuade me with an example, but that one won’t do it. It is insufficient because its words are not being asked to hold a natural and a cryptic meaning simultaneously.
You can rewrite it as ‘the problem is that Boris thinks he is a vote winner’ (or if you prefer, as people seem to these days, ‘the problem is is that Boris thinks he is a vote winner’)
But that won’t work with the clue. Starting with ‘A is taken over B; that is taken over’ and unravelling it in the same way we get ‘the thing that is to be taken over is A is taken over B’ in which the final ‘is’ prevents the phrase from being treated as an object, as it is required to be in its role as wordplay.
I think the ‘mistake’ is there because A in my terminology is equivalent to ‘island that’, which means ‘that’ is part of the fodder and not, as we naturally want to read it, part of the grammatical structure. If the cryptic grammar was ‘A that is taken over B that is taken over’ that would be fine because ‘that is taken over B’ would then be just an adjectival phrase attached to A, with the whole being acted on by the second ‘that is taken over’.
David Ellison @27 Yes, equivalent was the wrong word, I just meant that your explanation was just as (un)convincing.
Made a pretty good first of this, I thought, but as I had rather dashed in Impromptu instead of IMPROVISED at 9 ac, I was unable to solve MIXTURES and ZERO IN at the very end. Defeated by CODEX too. Though I had both NOUGHTS and CROSSES in place early on I wasn’t at all sure how these might help as a theme, apart from the solving of OXONIAN. Tough stuff from Brendan today for me, and many thanks PeterO for explaining how several of these worked…
…thought TAHITI could have been anything, but with all the crossers eventually in place, bunged it in and prayed and came on here…
…fist…
Tough puzzle, this was hard work and I was unable to parse many of my answers which made it a less than satisfying experience. Gave up on NE corner – failed to solve 12, 14ac and 4 5 6 7 down.
Of the ones I solved:
I did not parse 1d, 2d, 3d, 24ac or 25ac apart from def.
I did not understand 18d.
New: HINNY, BREVETTING, TIGON.
Liked ASSENTING.
Thanks, both.
[Thanks Robi @33 🙂 ]
I hated it.
As ever with Brendan, pretty, no, totally clueless.
Fun to go through the hints though.
Thanks both.
I got the crosses/hybrids, thought that was a minitheme, and totally missed the noughts half of the game. I did notice a lot of zeroes in the clues, but didn’t make the connection.
Dr Whatson@2 Haiti isn’t an island, it’s half an island, the other half being the Dominican Republic and the island Hispaniola.
I think CODEX far surpasses TAHITI in opacity.
I tried to squeeze TRIO in NOTORIOUS, which got me nowhere. Anybody else? Robi@31, for one.
“AS SENT IN” = “unedited”? and why “report”?
NONESUCH is delightful.
Essexboy@21 Thanks for the French grammar tip. I think I knew it but didn’t know I knew it — that is, I couldn’t have quoted the rule but would observe it in speech.
Thanks to Brendan for the puzzle and PeterO for the much-needed untangling.
Valentine @43
15D: journalism. A reporter submits material (‘report’); AS SENT IN is before the editor has got his grubby hands on it.
Thanks for the blog , I actually got the theme when I got to NOTORIOUS with the three noughts. The best I can say is that the two long answers were put together neatly and at least the theme is not quite as boring as tennis.
I hope we are not approaching another eight themes in a row.
Island (definition) that’s taken over island (TAHT<+I) that's taken over island (TAHT<+I placed outside the first I). So in all it's TAH(I)T<+I.
Not hard to see really, but the repetitions are somewhat distracting.
Some nice things here, including the by now 6 Down 7 Down, but also one of those rather silly Guardian themes, for this solver at any rate. Speaking of 6 Down, I found the reference there to noughts impenetrable unfortunately, and I still don’t really understand how one is expected to glean those three Os from the clue as written. I think, as it stands, the puzzle is unnecessarily difficult.
Yep-7d certainly a contender for surface of the day/week…..?
Great stuff-Yeats and Wilde would have dug it(but they werent Plantagenets)
Thanks Brendan and Peter
paul b @46, I don’t think anyone’s had any difficulty spotting how it’s supposed to or might work; your construction is different again to the two already suggested, but it still has that extra is. I know you’re interested in that sort of thing because you kindly pointed out the very same error in my first puzzle.
One day I will finish a Brendan without revealing the last half-dozen words.
Today is not that day.
Too many new-to-me words (some I managed through wordplay but a couple just stumped me) and some intricate clueing beyond my current capabilities (CODEX was a whole puzzle in itself)… But bravo for the thematic wizardry! The winning diagonals in particular were a lovely touch.
PeterO@44 Thanks for the journalism. If that phrase is current in US journalism (and it may very well be) it has totally passed me by.
essexyoy@21 I think “exy oseys” is Ulsterish for “game of X’s and O’s.” Or was that already obvious to you and I’m just missing the mickey …
Unusally tough for Brendan, I thought, with several sittings and a bit of outside help needed to fill the grid — fortunately I saw the theme/gimmick so that helped a bit. Since I know the game as tic-tac-toe I spent too much time looking for the word toe. Some of the parsings were beyond my ability but that’s not unusual. Thanks to both.
Wonderful fun! Brilliantly put together. I searched long and hard for the Ninas.
Aside from the theme itself, some of the clueing was superb eg TRANSITION and APPEAL TO
Thanks Brendan and PeterO (needed your help for the “inconclusive row”)
Far too devious and esoteric for me. Lots to dislike especially codex. Only solvable for me by frequent use of check
Thanks Brendan – a real tour de force, only fully revealed for me on arriving here. Thanks to PeterO and the many posts that offered insight into Brendan’s craft.
This was tough.
Paddymelon@5: my understanding from military histories I’ve read (I had a thing for that about 15 years ago; my memory may be shaky) is that you’re given a brevet rank if you’re (usually temporarily) doing a job that requires a specific rank to do. So you get a temporary promotion that you haven’t technically earned for only the duration of the temporary assignment. (Have you seen Downton Abbey? In the second season, when Barrow is put in charge of the Downton convalescent centre, he’s given a brevet promotion from corporal to sergeant because the job requires someone with authority over all the other enlisted personnel. They call him “acting sergeant,” probably because the modern public wouldn’t understand “brevet sergeant.”)
I’ve seen LIGER more commonly than TIGON. I’ve never once seen the animal itself though.
Island that’s taken over island that’s taken over island
Island = def
+ taht (that is taken over; the ‘s = is, which is fine)
+ i (the final island)
all of which has taken over i (= has surrounded i, where I = the second island).
I’m sure one or more of the above parsings has already said this, but it’s hard to tell.
James @35/49: I’m not sure this will satisfy, but here goes:
“A is subtracted from B; that is multiplied by C”
i.e. ‘that’ is understood as the end result of the operation described in the first clause, and is then further operated on as per the second clause.
Parallel to
“ ‘Island THAT’ (funny name for an island, but hey ho) has taken over, i.e. has swamped, has enveloped, (another) island”
That (the end result of the takeover operation) is then ‘taken’, i.e. received by us, ‘over’, i.e. in a reversed orientation.
Does that help? (if not, I think I’ll need to sleep on it!)
[Valentine @52: Yes, yes! XO 🙂 ]
[sorry ginf, was typing slowly and didn’t see yours @58 – we seem to have had the same ”has surrounded” idea]
Hinny sounds sweeter than horkey or donorse ?
? = 🙂
… no prob eb, gmti and all that …
… gmta …
James @49 sorry if I was annoying regarding your puzzle. I don’t know, or can’t remember what your pseudonym is, so perhaps you could let on/ remind. I think I’m right in saying that you occasionally enjoy commenting on my own puzzles 😀
Anyhow, this clue is currently being discussed in FB at The Crossword Centre, among some real giants of the game, if you want to go an have a look.
I’m currently desperately hanging on for it to have, for the cryptic parts, something like ‘a string of letters t,h,a,t IS reversed (onto) a single-letter indicator for i, that HAS contained another instance of the same single-letter indicator for i’. With the def being the first ‘island’ of course.
For James et al, I’ve just had another look over there, and this is what Brian Greer’s had to say about it, having been quizzed by Richard Heald:
“I started to give my interpretation and realized I was wrong. So I finally figured it out: Island [definition] / ( that’s taken over = TAHT / + island = I makes TAHTI) that’s taken over (covers) island (I)… I like ambiguity”.
Valentine @52 & essexyoy (sic) @21: that was my feeble attempt to describe phonetically what us youngsters called it. Taking the mick is fine by me 🙂
…and I saw what you did there essexboy. Lol
Wow! I didn’t think I would finish this, but somehow managed it! I totally missed the theme (as usual), even after putting in the last answer CODEX, where I got the OX as opposing letters in noughts and crosses! I reckon I miss the themes because after I’ve put in an answer, I concentrate on the next clue and previous answers are clean forgotten. I attribute it to my age! Thanks to both setter and blogger – I needed help explaining OXONIAN, DISPLAY CABINET, NOTORIOUS and TACTIC.
paul @65, thanks for the tip off. I’ve looked at that discussion, noted that what we are doing here is ‘squabbling’, whereas no doubt what you are doing there is far more civilised. I note also that Roger Philips (Listener editor) has the same problem as I do about the phrases being treated as nouns, which Brian Greer’s explanation does not deal with. I’d comment there but have no FB account. No problem about your comment on my puzzle, it was a useful point. As for your puzzles, yes, but I try not to (for which it helps to know who is writing the puzzle!).
essexboy @59 I understand that example; thanks, I appreciate your persevering. To recap (for my benefit), we have:
ITHAT is taken over I; that is taken over / island. I am now with you as far as that goes, but still think that Brendan would have explicitly punctuated it that way if he’d meant it.
Brendan’s explanation as quoted by Paul above is:
Island as def / THAT is taken over I that is taken over I
i.e Island/ THAT is reversed I that is containing I
That seems like a more complicated (and therefore worse) explanation than yours, because it not only needs the break between ‘that is reversed I’ and ‘that is containing I’ but also has an awkward charade (THAT is reversed + I) as its first half, which needs more punctuation added of its own. Given that it seems to be an explanation constructed ad hoc by Brendan because he decided that what he originally intended didn’t work, I don’t feel too cheeky about rejecting it.
I found this puzzle too full of ultra-obscure words. Guess I wasn’t up to this level of word-play (and it’s only Tuesday…).
Special thanks to David Ellison @9 for his explanation step-by-step of TAHITI.
(I tried BIKINI, just because of the 3 Islands.) After revealing the answer, I could see HI, (the US postal abbreviation for Hawaii), so wondered if there were islands of TA and TI somewhere.
I thought this was incredibly hard for a Monday until Calgal@71 reminded me that today is Tuesday! I did not have time to do yesterday’s which may explain my mistake. I now think it was just incredibly hard. Finished but many unparsed.
Santo cielo! And I thought I was pedantic 🙂
To add to the mix, could the case not be made that the clue employs a kind of “Reverse-Polish Notation”, albeit linguistic rather than mathematical? Pretty sure I’ve seen it many times in several organs: sequential elements of wordplay (WP) minimalistically juxtaposed in a way that may violate standard grammar/punctuation whilst leaving the surface (S) grammatically sound? Of course, ideally one wants both WP and S to be sound, the former as a coherent instruction to the solver. I have a nice can of worms here but cannot for the life of me find a tin-opener … 😉
Just a thought – could it be that the definition in 7d is ‘island that’s taken over’, i.e. by the French in 1880? That makes the whole thing much simpler.
Island seized by Henry I? (5)
was possibly better for that sort of idea.
It’s very hard to read all above. Just too many notes…as someone one said.
Anyway very hard to get going and vaguely aware of themes but not the actual one.
Great effort by Brendan and thanks to PeterO for all the parsings I missed.
I’m extremely late to this, and not able to improve on the tricky parsings, but I couldn’t let the day go by without praising Brendan’s puzzle, exceptional in every dimension, especially the diagonal (1). And all credit to those commenters who dnf’d but still saw its merits (on another day, these could have easily included me).
1. Yes, I realise that the diagonal is the combination of at least two dimensions!
I was particularly charmed by the presence, alongside TIGON and HINNY, of OKAPI: an animal that looks like a cross between a zebra and a giraffe but isn’t.
Petty, but I didn’t like the reference to OKAPI as “game”. That’s not an idea that should ever be spread.
GregfromOz, I thought that defining okapi as game was at the least in very poor taste. I don’t think that I’ve ever done a harder Brendan, and somehow managed to miss the theme, which would have made some of the clues slightly less opaque.
Girabra@79. Like your moniker, not very well camouflaged? 🙂
Thanks for pointing out yet another mixed up animal. I didn’t know anything about okapis. But I do now. Fascinating.
Thanks PeterO, sorry this is late but I wanted to sleep on 3D to see if it came to me in a dream – it didn’t but despite the failure I am not cross and have nought but praise for this fantastic puzzle. I got the animal hybrids early on but the full ‘theme’ only came to light much later and I still missed the winning diagonals so well spotted wordplodder, essexboy et al. Have enjoyed the fuss over TAHITI but I was happy to parse it per David Ellison@9 with definition at either end. But more on that one later. Thanks Brendan for a stern challenge full of good things and the usual slow dawning of enlightenment enhanced by a trip here.
PS re TAHITI – I think this can be tenously and possibly inadvertently linked to one half of the theme. In “The Island of Dr Moreau” by Wells we encounter a number of hybrid creatures. Many years later Gene Wolfe wrote a story “The Island of Doctor Death and other stories” which was collected in a volume “The Island of Doctor Death and other stories and other stories”. This title structure is echoed in Brendan’s clueing of TAHITI. Well I did say it was tenuous.
Thank you James and eb for an enlightening and entertaining discussion.
Late to this party, but my GW only arrived in the Alice Springs (out)post today. Thank you Brendan for distracting me from my +ve RAT (rats!) this morning. What better way to start a week of iso than to play noughts and crosses with the master. Many pearls to choose from, but 3D (aided by the XXX nina), the elegantly thematic 21D, and the tantalising surface of 7D (which, by the way, is eminently parsable in my book) were my faves.
Michelle @39 I didn’t understand 18 down either, but my sports watcher hubby explained: goals which are “headed in” are usually scored as the result of some clever double play where 1 player kicks a “cross” so the ball goes fairly high across the goal mouth where his partner in crime can head it in. The footballing fraternity would all recognise the term, just as the cricketing fraternity would all recognise “pair” (of spectacles – resembling 2 zeros) as a brace of ducks – a duck in each innings.
Give me a game of chess any day!