Another of Bluth’s regular Indy appearances: they’re always a fun challenge.
A good mix here, with a few contemporary music and sports references along with some old crossword favourites like CHE, AU and “six footer”. I liked the four long entries around the edge, particularly 1d (a neat construction for an enjoyable word). I also liked the surfaces of 16a (sadly too topical), 4d (though these days most leaders don’t seem to have the foresight to resign before being shown up as idiots, nor even after in some cases), and 18d (nice misdirection). Thanks Bluth as always.
Definitions are underlined; BOLD UPPERCASE indicates letters used in the wordplay; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | WALTZING MATILDA |
Harry, Liam, Louis, Niall and Zayn initially await G&T mid song (8,7)
|
| Anagram (harry, as a verb = harass) of the first letters (initially) of L[iam] L[ouis] N[iall] A[nd] Z[ayn] with AWAIT + G + T + MID. The gentlemen in question (including Harry) are the original line-up of the boy-band One Direction, or so I’m told; I’m not really their target audience. | ||
| 9 | AD LIB |
Spontaneously rejecting German newspaper article (2,3)
|
| BILD (German newspaper; the title means “picture”) + A (indefinite article), all reversed (rejecting). | ||
| 10 | GINGER TEA |
Red colour finishing off drink (6,3)
|
| GINGER (as in hair colour = red) + TEA[l] (a blue-green colour) without the last letter (finishing off). | ||
| 11 | CHARADE |
Revolutionary touring a radical pantomime (7)
|
| CHE (Che Guevara = Argentinian revolutionary) around (touring) A + RAD (slang shortening of radical). | ||
| 12 | HARPOON |
Spike not good after tip removed from pointed spear (7)
|
| [g]OON (Spike = Spike Milligan, one of the Goons, from the radio comedy The Goon Show) without the G (good), after [s]HARP (pointed) with the first letter (tip) removed. | ||
| 13 | ASYMMETRY |
Irregularity of arrangement up to now – with millions invested in railway (9)
|
| AS YET (up to now), with M M (millions) inserted (invested in), then RY (abbreviation for railway). | ||
| 16 | TENET |
Belief of refugee finally making it into temporary accommodation (5)
|
| Last letter (finally) of [refuge]E, inserted into TENT (temporary accommodation). | ||
| 17 | APING |
Copying flap in GAP trousers (5)
|
| Hidden answer (. . . trousers, as a verb = takes) in [fl]AP IN G[ap]. | ||
| 19 | LOINCLOTH |
Look, including books with introduction to hell is Jeremiah’s habit (9)
|
| LO (lo! = look!) + INCL (short for including) + OT (Old Testament = books) + first letter (introduction) of H[ell]. | ||
| 22 | AUTOCUE |
Gold – something Trump uses after Tax Officer’s support for those speaking publicly (7)
|
| AU (Au = chemical symbol for gold), then CUE (something used by the snooker player Judd Trump) after TO (abbreviation for Tax Officer). | ||
| 23 | SHINDIG |
Group of tongues wagging – ultimately following small party (7)
|
| HINDI (language used in India, but the name is also used for a few other more or less related languages, hence “group of tongues”) + last letter (ultimately) of [waggin]G, all following S (small).
Slang for a party, especially a noisy or riotous one. |
||
| 25 | LUNCHTIME |
Perhaps one Munich let out (9)
|
| Anagram (out) of MUNICH LET.
A typical time for lunch is “one” = 1 pm. |
||
| 26 | LLAMA |
A pedestrian shopping area turning back one that spits (5)
|
| A MALL (a pedestrian shopping area), reversed (turning back).
Animal related to the camel, with a similar habit of spitting when annoyed. |
||
| 27 | THROW THE TOWEL IN |
Concede it’s not worthwhile scrambling to take in film (5,3,5,2)
|
| Anagram (scrambling) of NOT WORTHWHILE, taking in ET (the Steven Spielberg film).
Perhaps the more usual form is “throw in the towel”, but both are used to mean “concede defeat”. |
||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | WHATCHAMACALLIT |
Wozniak’s first to develop an Apple product complete with IT support widget (15)
|
| First letter of W[ozniak] (Steve Wozniak, one of the founders of Apple Inc) + HATCH (develop) + A MAC (short for a Macintosh computer = an Apple product) + ALL (complete), with IT at the end (support = at the bottom, in a down clue).
A word for something when you can’t remember its correct name, or when the name isn’t important. [My former colleagues in the software industry would claim that “widget” has a specific meaning, but that’s because the software industry has a bad habit of re-using existing words to mean something different and expecting everyone to understand what they mean. Or expecting technical authors to sort out the mess for them as usual . . .] |
||
| 2 | LULLABY |
The sort of song you can rock out to (7)
|
| Cryptic definition: a song sung while rocking a baby to sleep (out = asleep). | ||
| 3 | ZEBRA |
A&R man from The Happy Mondays recalled one of many bands? (5)
|
| A + R (Artists and Repertoire = record company employees) + BEZ (stage name of Mark Berry, from the rock band Happy Mondays), all reversed (recalled).
An animal with many stripes (bands). |
||
| 4 | NEGLECT |
Honourable, say to replace old boy before court reveals carelessness (7)
|
| N[ob]LE (honourable), with EG (e.g. = say = for example) replacing OB (old boy = former pupil), before CT (abbreviation for court). | ||
| 5 | MONTHLY |
Don of gardening framing cover of horticultural magazine? (7)
|
| MONTY (Don of gardening = Monty Don, presenter of TV gardening programmes), containing (framing) the cover (outside letters) of H[orticultura]L.
A magazine or newspaper published once a month. |
||
| 6 | THEORETIC |
Academic to mention upset after different zip’s lowered almost all the way (9)
|
| CITE (to mention) reversed (upset = upwards in a down clue), after OTHER (different) with the O (zero = zip = nothing) moved almost to the end (lowered, in a down clue).
Academic = theoretic = something that can be discussed logically but won’t happen in practice. |
||
| 7 | LETDOWN |
Miserable service begins disappointment (7)
|
| DOWN (miserable = in a low mood), with LET (a service in tennis that brushes the net) at the beginning. | ||
| 8 | AGAINST THE GRAIN |
Ariana Grande’s debut set night apart somehow as contrary to norm (7,3,5)
|
| Anagram (apart somehow = taken apart and mixed up, I suppose, but the “apart” isn’t really needed except for the surface) of ARIANA + first letter (debut) of G[rande] + SET NIGHT. | ||
| 14 | MAGIC SHOW |
Something meant to stun soldier in field hospital with a little cut – that hurt (5,4)
|
| GI (US soldier) + first letter (a little) of C[ut], in MASH (US army abbreviation for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital), then OW (ow! = that hurt! = expression of pain).
Stun = amaze. |
||
| 15 | ROO |
Remove jacket to smarten up jumper (3)
|
| [g]ROO[m] (smarten up), with the outer letters (jacket) removed.
Slang abbreviation for kangaroo = an animal that jumps. |
||
| 18 | INTONER |
Singer performing in Italian club (7)
|
| ON (performing = on stage or on a sports field) in INTER (abbreviation for Football Club Internazionale Milano, otherwise “Inter Milan”). | ||
| 19 | LIE WITH |
Prospect having 1000% growth at the start must have hit supply partner (3,4)
|
| [v]IEW (prospect), with the initial V (five in Roman numerals) growing 1000% to L (fifty), then an anagram (supply = in a supple manner) of HIT.
Partner, as a verb, in the personal rather than the business sense. |
||
| 20 | INSPECT |
Check out six footer’s boxing power (7)
|
| INSECT (six-legged creature = six footer) containing (boxing) P (scientific symbol for power). | ||
| 21 | ODDBALL |
Unpaired dance card (7)
|
| ODD (unpaired, as in an odd sock) + BALL (dance).
Card = oddball = an eccentric person. |
||
| 24 | IN-LAW |
Relation coming from International lawn bowling (2-3)
|
| I (abbreviation of international) + anagram (bowling = rolling around) of LAWN. Or perhaps LAWN “bowling” so that the last letter rolls around to the front. |
Great fun, as always, figuring it all out.
A couple of misgivings. I felt that ‘with a little cut’ in 14d would work better if placed immediately after ‘soldier’. I didn’t think 19d was correct. Need to increase 5 by 45 to get 50 which is a 900% increase. After all, if you increase 5 by 100% say you wouldn’t still have 5 would you?
Bez an A&R man? I dont think so-and not everyone in UK is aware of him
Played percussion and danced-and probably scored from an A&R man.
But the word ZEB occurs in ,my translation of 1001 Nights-but maybe that would be better left for a Cyclops.
As for 1a-rather you than me for parsing, @Quirister
Throw the Towel in just doesnt sound right.
This was OK as a first course (although I may have sent it back)
Friendly edges helped. Liked INSPECT (ah, that’s a six-footer, very good), HARPOON (great memories of this man on that show), ASYMMETRY (tight parse), NEGLECT (ditto), THEORETIC (‘lowering’ is fun) and MAGIC SHOW (memories again). Bring back the sixties. Some parsing eluded me (LIE WITH – no maths, please – and 1A/1D which were guessable) so much obliged to Quirister and to Bluth.
A fun challenge indeed – some parts more challenging than others!
Thanks very much to Bluth and Quirister
As always, Bluth has a number of clues which took quite a while to parse, but I did enjoy the considerable challenge.
At first I thought 1a was a bit strange but, with the aid of Google, I discovered that the list of names was not random.
Hovis @1. If a price is increased by 100% it is doubled. To increase by 1000% means a tenfold increase.
I’m not entirely convinced by the definition for 14d nor that Bez was an A&R man. I also agree with Quirister that “apart” in 8d seems to be surface padding.
Many thanks to Bluth for the fun and to Quirister for the review.
Copmus @2 I don’t know why you think the clue calls Bez an A&R man. In the surface, Bez isn’t even mentioned. In the cryptic reading, he is simply ‘man from The Happy Mondays’.
Hovis @1 I know what you mean about the little cut but X in Y with Z can certainly mean X with Z in Y. Bob is in a bar with his friend, Steve” is a perfectly understandable construction. In a cryptic sense it could of course mean either (X+Y) in Z or X in Z + Y but having more than one potential reading is of course commonplace. But I think the more natural, conversational use of language is to say someone is in hospital with a given issue, rather than with a given issue in hospital. ‘My sister with a broken arm is in hospital’ feels odd, somehow, as if the broken arm is an incidental fact rather than the reason for being there. ‘My sister is in hospital with a broken arm’ feels far more likely a phrase.
A couple of corrections to my comment @5.
When I solved 3d I realised what Bluth is saying @6 about Bez, but I forgot the logic when I was posting!
Regarding 19d, I think I should have said “1000% growth means a tenfold increase”.
You are saying the same as me, Rabbit Dave, but don’t seem to be aware of it. If a 100% increase means an increase of 5 to give 10, then a 1000% increase is an increase of 50 to give 55.
I too felt uncomfortable with “Throw the towel in”, would anyone say that? Otherwise all up to Bluth’s usual high standard so thanks to him and Quirister.
Me @1 and @8. Looking back at the wording for 19d, I think that you can read it as the size of the growth rather than the resulting amount but I don’t think that is the natural reading. I shall now shut up on the matter.
Re ‘throw the towel in’ – I agree that as a stand-alone phrase, throwing in the towel is far more common. But when someone isn’t ready to quit… the construction “not ready to throw the towel in” is very widely used.
Bluth@6
I stand corrected but still wonder how many solvers are aware of Bez- good clue anyway
Copmus @12 oh, of course some solvers won’t have heard of him. I regularly encounter clues that mention classical composers, Shakespearean references, Greek gods and titles of operas that I’m completely ignorant of. I never complain – it’s all fair game and a learning experience. And, outside of crossword land, I dare say more people are familiar with Bez than, say, Sibelius.
Lots of complicated parsing on display here, most of which I was able to work out eventually, except for HARPOON which I gratefully just bunged in from the def and yes, guilty, the ‘man from The Happy Mondays’.
I liked plenty of the clues, but the crossing 1a and 1b and the sneaky ‘one of many bands?’ def were my favourites today.
Thanks to Bluth and Quirister
Thanks both. I agree the maths in LIE WITH is open to debate, but I knew what it was telling me. For what it is worth, I only properly encountered Sibelius on a recent trip to Helsinki – there is a unique if bizarre monument; I knew Bez far better, if only to wonder for years what besides personality he added to the band.
As always, thoroughly enjoyed Bluth earlier today but a bit late to the commenting plate. I don’t know what it says about me – I must be getting old – but I had no problem connecting Monty to Don yet have never heard of Bez, the non-A&R man (very nice bit of deception – seems to have caught out one or two). And I guessed the first names in 1a were from a boy band but couldn’t name an example of the category. Oh dear!
HARPOON, ASYMMETRY, SHINDIG, WHATCHAMACALLIT (I have heard of Steve Wozniak – hooray!), NEGLECT and MAGIC SHOW were favourites.
One query – as Bluth has dropped in a couple of times: genuine curiosity from aspirational setter, not nitpicking from pedant! I am forever trying to find interesting hidden word indicators but know I have to steer clear of words that suggest insertion. A favourite indicator used by quite a few setters is ‘trouser’ – a lovely word – and it’s used today. That strongly suggests insertion to me yet clearly not to setter, blogger or commenters. Yet trouser means appropriate or take. Even the blog says ‘trousers i.e. takes’. How is that not insertion? Apologies for asking and no offence intended!
Thanks Bluth and Quirister
PostMark @16. It’s a kindness to solvers if instructional words in the wordplay are unambiguous, but if they are – e.g. ‘trousers’ being either insertion or hidden as you say – then that’s fine; all you’ve done is make the solver have to work a bit harder. Consider ‘about’ or ‘say’for example which have many instructional meanings in Crosswordland as well as possibly meaning an abbreviation or a synonyms.
Great puzzle by the way, Bluth.
Thanks PostMark (& a belated thanks to Quirister for the blog).
As far as indicators go for insertion/containment or hidden words and/or phrases, I’m not sure the “I know I have to steer clear of words that suggest insertion” is particularly helpful advice. There’s a big overlap. The phrase ‘flap in Gap’ contains the solution.
This site https://cryptics.fandom.com/wiki/Cryptipedia has lots of useful indicators in different categories, but on the page regarding hidden words https://cryptics.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_hidden_word_indicators it says, “This is an incomplete list of specific hidden word indicators. Note that almost any container and contents indicator may be used to specify a hidden word, and as such, these have been omitted here; additionally, some word arrangements may permit other verb forms to be used as hidden word indicators (e.g. Paul’s “Sheep farmer in ovine shackles (6)” for MERINO).”
So long as it means what it’s supposed to mean in the cryptic reading and makes sense in the surface then I think it’s fair. At the end of the day, that’s the only rule.
As often with Blyth, a nice mix of clues I could put together from the wordplay and then see the definition, like ZEBRA and others I could only parse after bunging in, like HARPOON (too many Spikes)
Not Blyth, Bluth. Northumbrian or maybe Spartan autocorrect.
PostMark @16, I think your difficulty with trousers as an indicator for a hidden word lies in the fact that for A to trouser B, we want A and B to be separate things. That is not the case when indicating a hidden word; in this case it’s really fl..ap that trousers aping, not flapingap.
Some words don’t run into this problem; e.g. contain seems to me to work equally well to indicate a hidden word or an insertion.
I’d put shackles in the Paul clue in the trousers rather than the contains category. I’m not aware of the Cryptipedia guide which cites it, but would note that most such guides to cryptic usage merely give examples of words that have been used in published puzzles, without necessarily examining their credentials. So where it says ‘almost any container and contents indicator may be used … ‘ I’d take that to mean ‘you might see almost any container and contents indicator used …’ rather than ‘you are allowed to use …’ You have to be convinced of it yourself.
Brilliant crossword Bluth, and thanks to Quirister.
Bluth @13. A spot-on comment. I don’t complain as such, but I do get irked when literati types on here say “all perfectly gettable” when a clue, to me, is effectively , because the 7 letter word is some minor operatic character or something equally unknown and unguessable. The idea that the “all perfectly gettable” types got the answer from some giant letter-sudoko-like process rather than simply knowing the obscure word, spotting it from the crossers, and reverse-parsing, I find a tad disingenuous. I’ve often considered what would be made of a cryptic chock-full of obscure 21st century references..esoteric tech..modern music..reality stars.. etc
That said, I’m with you on the sentiment that all is fair and every day is a school day, so I am not criticising the setters.
BTW, if you had the crossers, our friend Bez contributed one vowel to the answer so hardly a struggle to get to!
Brilliant crossword Bluth, and thanks to Quirister.
Bluth @13. A spot-on comment. I don’t complain as such, but I do get irked when literati types on here say “all perfectly gettable” when a clue, to me, is effectively (fiendish cryptic bit)(any 7 letters) (7), because the 7 letter word is some minor operatic character or something equally unknown and unguessable. The idea that the “all perfectly gettable” types got the answer from some giant letter-sudoko-like process rather than simply knowing the obscure word, spotting it from the crossers, and reverse-parsing, I find a tad disingenuous. I’ve often considered what would be made of a cryptic chock-full of obscure 21st century references..esoteric tech..modern music..reality stars.. etc
That said, I’m with you on the sentiment that all is fair and every day is a school day, so I am not criticising the setters.
BTW, if you had the crossers, our friend Bez contributed one vowel to the answer so hardly a struggle to get to!
Never heard of Bez and thought parsing for harpoon a bit complicated (though answer obvious).
Hovis is 100% right about 19D it should be a 900% growth (100% growth is a doubling, 200% a trebling etc DO THE MATHS!!).
Thanks to S&B
Cheers Bluth for the response (and Maize too for popping in).
A source I’ve used quite a lot is the clue clinic clinic http://www.clueclinic.com/index.php/clinical-data/where the advice was somewhat more polarised: In addition to the indicators listed below, any containment/insertion indicator that suggests something being found within something else (eg ‘framed by’) can also be used; containment/insertion indicators that suggest something being placed into something else (eg ‘entering’) cannot.
I have to offer thanks for the links posted here especially the one for Clue Clinic from @26 PostMark. These are very useful for novice solvers wanting to make headway in the cruciverbal world.