A superb challenge from PHSSTHPOK today.
The two long across clues at the top and bottom need to be corrected for enumeration as they did delay the solve a bit.
FF:10 DD:9
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | CROSS ONES HEART |
Swear when angry with your lover (14)
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CROSS ( angry ) ONE'S HEART ( lover ) |
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| 10 | EXIST |
Finally, revolving doors keep going (5)
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EXIts ( doors, with the last two letters exchanging positions – revolving ) |
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| 11 | TARANTULA |
Terrifying arachnid starts natural evolution! (9)
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semi &lit; [ TA ( Terrifying Arachnid, starting letters ) NATURAL ]* |
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| 12 | OFFENCE |
Crime committed by criminal (7)
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OF ( by ) FENCE ( criminal ) |
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| 13 | DESKTOP |
Counter to initialisation of programmable computer (7)
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DESK ( counter ) TO P ( Programmable, initial letter ) |
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| 14 | SHRUG |
Gesture for quiet before game gets good (5)
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SH ( quiet ) RU ( game ) G ( good ) |
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| 16 | OSTRACISE |
Throw out sample of clothes I cart softly back (9)
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hidden, reversed in "..clothES I CART SOftly.." |
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| 19 | DREARIEST |
Processed desert air is the most dry (9)
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[ DESERT AIR ]* – my foi |
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| 20 | ENSUE |
Succeed in dash to start legal proceedings (5)
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EN ( dash ) SUE ( start legal proceedings ) |
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| 22 | STROBES |
Quickly flashes empty suit and gowns (7)
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ST ( SuiT, empty i.e. without inner letters ) ROBES ( gowns ) |
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| 25 | LACONIC |
Brief the French on the Louvre Pyramid, for instance (7)
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LA ( the, french ) CONIC ( louvre pyramid for instance ) |
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| 27 | ROYALTIES |
Commissions dynastic marriages (9)
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ROYAL ( ~dynastic ) TIES ( marriages ) |
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| 28 | LEAST |
Did rent get picked up for next to nothing? (5)
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sounds like LEASED ( rent ) |
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| 29 | EVENING DRESSES |
Removing the creases from formal wear? (14)
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cryptic def; EVENING as in de-creasing |
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| DOWN | ||
| 2 | REINFORCE |
Steel bar goes on railroad (9)
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REIN ( bar ) FORCE ( railroad ) |
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| 3 | SATIN |
Demonstrated what sheets might be made of (5)
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cryptic def; read as SAT IN ( demonstrated ) |
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| 4 | ON THE NOSE |
Exactly the worst place to get a spot? (2,3,4)
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cryptic def |
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| 5 | ERRED |
Miscalculated blood needed by hospital department (5)
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ER ( hospital department ) RED ( blood ) |
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| 6 | HANDSHAKE |
Agreement offers head and knee alternately (9)
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HANDS ( offers ) HAKE ( HeAd, KnEe, alternately ) |
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| 7 | ADULT |
In the centre of Stalingrad, ultramicroscopy is developed (5)
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hidden in "..stalingrAD ULTramicroscopy.." |
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| 8 | TRAIPSE |
Tramp has pastier complexion (7)
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[ PASTIER ]* |
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| 9 | SEROUS |
Watery grave after one is dispatched (6)
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SERiOUS ( grave, without I – one ) ; elegant surface i thought |
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| 15 | GARIBALDI |
American soldier captures a vulgar Republican general (9)
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GI ( american soldier ) contains [ A RIBALD ( vulgar ) ] |
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| 17 | TOTALISER |
Betting system? Loser at it, unfortunately (9)
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[ LOSER AT IT ]* |
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| 18 | INSINUATE |
Suggest how unmarried couples live together initially in Middle Eastern federation (9)
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IN SIN ( how unmarried couple live ) [ T ( Together, initially ) in UAE ( middle eastern federation ) ] |
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| 19 | DESERVE |
Merit book switches Republican to Democrat (7)
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rESERVE ( book , with R – Republican changed to D – Democrat ) |
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| 21 | EXCITE |
Arouse former lover with glimpse for audience (6)
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EX ( former lover ) CITE ( sounds like SIGHT, glimpse ) |
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| 23 | RHYME |
Rhesus monkey head / To half a year is fed? (5)
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RH ( rhesus ) [ M ( Monkey, head ) in YEar ( half of ) ] |
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| 24 | SLING |
Bandage or cast (5)
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double def |
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| 26 | CELLS |
Particles of living matter are found in dungeons (5)
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cryptic def |
Can someone please tell me the meaning of FF:10 DD:9 shown at the start of Turbolegs’ blog.
Thank you.
FF is Fun Factor. DD is Degree of Difficulty. These are my own ratings. YMMV.
Cheers,
TL
Aside from the extra spice created by the lack of enumeration top and bottom (14-letter word for ‘swear’ anyone?), this was an occasionally tricky but enjoyable challenge from Phssthpok.
16a was a neat reversal, also ticked 3d, 11a, 18d and 4d, which made me laugh.
Thanks to Phssthpok and Turbolegs for the blog, needed to fully explain 20a, didnt see EN for ‘dash’ but it had to be ‘ensue’.
Grrr … wasted half an hour tearing my hair out trying to come up with fourteen-letter words for 1a & 29a. Even resorted to online crossword solvers, that assured me no such words existed.
A pity, as otherwise this was very enjoyable. The pyramid at the Louvre isn’t conic, is it? Cones are round. I learnt a new meaning for “fence”.
Apparently, Geoff, it’s a conic solid with a polygonal base. I’m sure the mathematicians among us will explain.
It’s certainly i-conic!
Excellent puzzle, though the mis-enumeration at 1a and 29a was off-putting until I realised (belatedly) what was going on. Some tricky ones with LACONIC and the ‘Finally, revolving doors’ wordplay for EXIST holding me up longest.
My favourite was the original device for RHYME.
Thanks to Phssthpok and Turbolegs (and to Diane @5 for the whatever the subject is lesson!)
No trouble with 29a but had to cheat to get 1a. Grrr! How do these mistakes get through proofreading?
Can’t see ‘bar’ = ‘rein’. I had ‘steel bar’ = ‘reinforce’ (which can be a noun) and ‘re’ = ‘on’ with ‘inforce’ = ‘railroad’ (apparently ’inforce’ is an alternative to ‘enforce’). Quite willing to be proved wrong on that though.
I agree with Hovis about the tricky parsing of ‘reinforce’. I looked upon it as ‘steel (reinforce, as in steel or gird one’s loins)), ‘rein’ as ‘brake’ or ‘bar’, I suppose, and ‘railroad’ as in to ‘force’ someone to do something. I’m not sure if the ‘bar’ as ‘rein’, either.
Diane, I don’t want to get into an argument, but I can’t find any references to anything conical about the Louvre pyramid.
I had the same initial reaction as you, Geoff! I’m waiting for our mathematician friends to explain how pyramids and cones can be similar because apparently, they can.
To help answer your query, Diane, when talking about a cone most people thing of a circular cone (much like we consider cylinders). However the base can be any shape that tapers to a point at the apex, such as a pyramid.
Thanks, Hovis. A straight-forward explanation that slips down nicely.
Well, I’ve learnt something today. The dictionary I consulted said cones were circular, but on Wikipedia (not the most authoritative source, but still), it says “frequently, though not necessarily, circular”. Who’d’ve thunk it?
Thanks Phssthpok and Turbolegs
2dn: Chambers 2014 gives rein vt as “to restrain or control”. That is near enough to “bar” for me.
You may be correct, Pelham, but there seems to me to be quite a bit of space between ‘bar’ (ban) and ‘rein’ (restrain). I appreciate definitions in cryptics are sometimes a bit loose and it isn’t always easy to gauge how loose.
Hovis @15: I was thinking of “bar” in the sense of “bar/block the way”, rather than “ban”.
My maths degree is 100 years old, and was light on geometry to begin with, but I’ve never seen pyramids describes as cones.
A cone could be described as an infinitely sided pyramid, but a 4 sided pyramid is not a cone. It is, however, “cone like”, in that it’s pointed, so I think this is a stretch, but legitimate
For what it’s worth, the OED gives one meaning of rein as a transitive verb as “to restrain from something” which gets near enough to “bar” for me, though I accept it’s probably a rather old and infrequent usage.
A pyramid is a polyhedron not a cone.
Thanks Phssthpok for an entertaining crossword. The enumeration errors didn’t slow me down in solving 29a but did delay my solving of 1a. There were many good clues and I ticked the semi &lit TARANTULA, the playful RHYME, and LACONIC despite the loose use of “conic.” (Maybe a better clue would have read: Brief the French on dunce caps, for instance.) Thanks Turbolegs for the blog and explaining the clever EXIST as well as REINFORCE.
Pyramid? Conic? hmmmm :-/
Well, we just about got there with the help of Word Wizard for 1ac (we guessed it wasn’t a 14 letter word but couldn’t see how to split it). But what with faulty enumeration and iffy definitions this didn’t really float our boat. Sorry, Phsstpok.
Thanks, though to Turbolegs for the explanations.
Just quietly, I still regard cones as round. 😉
For once the techie definition (of conic) is broader than the lay one. It’s usually the dictionary that rescues setters when they want to define, say, a spider as an insect or a salamander as a reptile, but I’m not sure it helps in this case. Conic as a noun (which the clue seems to require) is only defined as a conic section, which a pyramid is not. As an adjective, it depends on cone. Chambers only allows for the circular type. SOED has, for cone, ‘a surface or solid figure generated by the straight lines drawn from a fixed point (the vertex) to a circle or other closed curve in a plane not including the vertex’. Is a square a closed curve?
Late thanks turbolegs, obvious hold up from enumerations plus my own difficulty getting a few of these. I was going to add to the conic grumbles but recall some ice cream cones of my youth having a rectangular end section to hold a slice from those oblong blocks that we had to make do with before fancy flavours and soft scoop came along, though it is still a stretch! I enjoyed a tough but witty battle, especially the invention of 23d, bravo and thanks PHSSTHPOK.
PS James@24 it is a long time since my formal maths education ended but i would say that a square is a closed curve since it divides the 2D plane into 2 distinct regions such that if you pick any point ‘inside’ the square, I can always pick a point ‘outside’ it (or vice-versa) so that any continuous line joining those points must cross the square somewhere. Same goes for the surface of a sphere but NOT the surface of a torus (ring doughnut) which is a simple demonstration that the sphere and the torus are not topologically equivalent. I think…
thanks
It is a bit more complicated for a sphere and a torus , they have a surface rather than just a curve. The surface of a sphere is simply connected, any loop drawn on it can be reduced to a single point , not so for a torus. You can cut cleanly through a sphere and always get two distinct parts, not always for a torus.
They are both however closed surfaces .