A fun solve – I particularly liked 24ac, 12dn, 15dn and 20dn. Thanks to Vulcan for the puzzle
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | LIGHTER |
Arsonist in boat? (7)
|
| =a person who sets something alight, and =a type of barge/boat used to load and unload ships | ||
| 5 | DESPAIR |
Sadly, one may be in its depths (7)
|
| cryptic definition: if one is sad, one may be in the depths of despair | ||
| 9 | COLON |
Mark firm losing half of capital (5)
|
| CO (company, ‘firm”) + LON-don=”capital” city losing half of its letters | ||
| 10 | PRACTICAL |
Exam is a sort of joke (9)
|
| reference to a ‘practical joke’ | ||
| 11 | GEORGE HARRISON |
Two men in a boat, working: one was a guitarist (6,8)
|
| definition: lead guitarist in the Beatles
GEORGE and HARRIS, plus ON=”working” reference to Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat [wiki] – two of the three men were named George and Harris |
||
| 13 | EARS |
Corny stuff for listeners (4)
|
| reference to ‘ears of corn’ | ||
| 14 | BAR STOOL |
A local perch? (3,5)
|
| cryptic definition: a ‘local’ as in a pub/bar | ||
| 17 | RETROFIT |
Consciously old-fashioned, suitable to modernise later (8)
|
| definition: to add modern features to old hardware
RETRO=”Consciously old-fashioned” + FIT=”suitable” |
||
| 18 | EWES |
Said to employ females (4)
|
| sounds like ‘use’=”employ” | ||
| 21 | PRIMARY COLOURS |
School flag: red, green and blue, say (7,7)
|
| definition: the primary colours of light as used in e.g. TV or computer screens
PRIMARY=”School” + COLOURS=”flag” |
||
| 23 | LIVE ON AIR |
Survive without food, broadcasting in real time (4,2,3)
|
| ‘live on air’ can be read with ‘live’ as a verb, to mean “Survive without food” | ||
| 24 | AD HOC |
For the occasion, speaker’s to take more white wine (2,3)
|
| sounds like/”speaker’s”: ‘add hock’=”take more white wine” | ||
| 25 | STREETS |
Ways one may be so far ahead? (7)
|
| reference to the idiom: one may be said to be ‘streets ahead’ [of the competition] | ||
| 26 | HOT SPOT |
Pot shot taken wildly in a potentially dangerous area (3,4)
|
| anagram/”wildly” of (Pot shot)* | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | LOCK |
Contributor to second row that’s in a canal (4)
|
| a lock is a rugby player in the second row; and a lock is an enclosure in a canal to raise or lower boats to different levels of water | ||
| 2 | GOLDEN RETRIEVER |
Jason’s dog? (6,9)
|
| in Greek mythology, Jason retrieved the Golden Fleece | ||
| 3 | TUNDRA |
Drive to spear fish in part of the Arctic (6)
|
| DR (Drive) inside TUNA=”fish” | ||
| 4 | RAPIER |
Repair broken sword (6)
|
| anagram/”broken” of (Repair)* | ||
| 5 | DRAW AWAY |
Secure a point on the road to leave others behind (4,4)
|
| ‘draw away’ can refer to e.g. a football team getting a draw away from home=”Secure a point on the road”, or it can mean to move ahead of the competition=”leave others behind” | ||
| 6 | SATIRISE |
At the weekend I get up burlesque (8)
|
| definition: burlesque as a verb meaning to mock
SAT I RISE=’Saturday I rise’=”At the weekend I get up” |
||
| 7 | ANCESTOR WORSHIP |
Past caring for religion? (8,7)
|
| cryptic definition: a religious way to care about the past | ||
| 8 | RELENTLESS |
Implacable, passed on loan with deductions (10)
|
| RE-LENT=’lent again’=”passed on loan [to another person]”, plus LESS=”with deductions” | ||
| 12 | NECROPOLIS |
To replace relic, snoop in cemetery (10)
|
| anagram/”re-place” of (relic snoop)* | ||
| 15 | COMATOSE |
Come across a drunkard, upside down and unconscious (8)
|
| COME, around both of: A plus SOT=”drunkard” reversed/”upside down” | ||
| 16 | LILYPADS |
In pond leaves large mixed display (4,4)
|
| L (large) + anagram/”mixed” of (display)* | ||
| 19 | FOURTH |
Not placed in a quarter? (6)
|
| not in a ‘top 3’ or ‘gold/silver/bronze’ place=”Not placed”; or one in four parts=”quarter” | ||
| 20 | BOGART |
What Humphrey hung in the loo? (6)
|
| Humphrey Bogart the actor
BOG ART might be ‘hung in the loo’ |
||
| 22 | SCOT |
Highlander, perhaps heading away from the racecourse (4)
|
| Ascot=”racecourse”, or a-SCOT without the heading/first letter |
quick and fun, thanks to Vulcan and manehi… didn’t know about the names of 2 of the 3 chaps in the boat. Gave me a few chuckles here and there, including 20d even if I felt pretty juvenile
This was a bit trickier than the usual Vulcan Monday fare, with some easier clues to balance it, such as EARS, EWES and SCOT. Nice sense of humour on show with BOGART being groan of the day. I managed to remember the names of the men in the boat after last week’s discussion, never having actually read it. Ticks for GOLDEN RETRIEVER, ANCESTOR WORSHIP, BAR STOOL and AD HOC.
Ta Vulcan & manehi
Someone’s going to say it. Might as well be me. Easier than the Quiptic.
Very enjoyable.
Thanks Vulcan and manehi.
This was an enjoyable romp. I ddin’t find too many problems. BOG ART was delicious. More men in a boat, too – lovely way to get the quiet Beatle. Thanks, Vulcan and manehi.
I could not parse 1d apart from the lock bit – clearly I know nothing about rugby!
Thanks, both.
Vulcan in Christmas Cracker punning form. Corny stuff. A bit of a joke. Made me laugh. Liked COMATOSE, ANCESTOR WORSHIP, and BAR STOOL.
Pleasant enough Monday morning fare, though if I’m going to be picky 9a doesn’t really work; CO gains half of the capital, you can surely only lose what you’ve already got.
Some very enjoyable clues – GEORGE HARRISON (sadly missed; a man who seemed to have achieved the feat of being fabulously wealthy and a decent human being with it), COMATOSE, LILY PADS, and the simple but delightful BOG ART.
I shall try not to be too envious of michelle @5 having managed to avoid making the acquaintance of “the game for hooligans played by gentlemen”.
Thanks to Vulcan and manehi.
[michelle @5 – when I played lock in the school Rugby team, I was on the back of the scrum. Those in the second row were called… second rowers (fancy that!) and those on the side were breakaways, with the half behind the scrum, who passed to the five-eighth. But then the Pommy terms took over. Stil, it’s an inferior game to Aussie Rules (I know, I have played both).]
ANCESTOR WORSHIP was new to me.
Thanks both
BOGART… classic
As others have said some typical Monday clues and some more challenging with nice solutions.
I was pleased to see RGB as primary colours, it’s one of my pet hates when so many people I know insist that only yellow, blue, and red are primary colours. These are not true primary colours at all (you can’t create a full palette from them), merely poor approximations to cyan, magenta, and yellow. I understand though that artists do use RBY for reasons I don’t understand.
I remember that when I was taught YBR as primary colours at (coincidentally) primary school, the teacher could not explain why a mix of all three was muddy brown, not black. Later I learned why.
Loved BOGART, my LOI and a total head-slap moment. Lots of fun. Thanks Manehi and Vulcan.
The two sport allusions (1d & 5d) were unknown to me. Everything else was hunky dory. I liked BOGART.
Blimey – that lasted about as long as my cup of coffee. Held up briefly by 7d; didn’t know the term
A fairly rapid solve but plenty of smiles along the way. Loved the BOG ART and GOLDEN RETRIEVER was so good I’m astonished not to have seen it before.
Re LOCK, curiously, about 100 years ago when I played rugby, it was the No 8 who was always referred to as ‘the lock’, with the 2 monsters in front of him simply called ‘second row’. No idea how or why it was changed – I suspect our antipodeans friends had something to do with it.
Most enjoyable and thanks for the fine blog, manehi.
ravenrider @11: Why?
[TT@8, yes, scrum half, five-eighth, inside and outside centres, then wing. Aren’t they still called that … obvs I haven’t been paying attention. I played fullback … indifferently!]
Nice gentle Monday. Humphrey deserves better than loo art and bogarting the joint 😉
I enjoyed this even though I wavered between DESPAIR and DESPOND, but I remember now that it’s the Slough of Despond rather than the depths.
Really nice puzzle. Was really lucky to get front area tickets to The George Harrison Tribute Concert at The Royal Albert Hall, 20 years ago next Monday. He had so many great friends who did him proud. Thought BOGART a stroke of genius.
Ta M & V
[William @15 – that chimes with my experience – in Canberra. When I got to the UK (teacher training in Aberystwyth, so very deep in Rugby territory) I found ‘lock’ had shifted to the second row, and the mysterious ‘No. 8’ appeared – plus other misnomers for the positions I mentioned @8. So it wasn’t the antipodeans – maybe it was the Welsh. GinF @17 – the Poms call the five-eighth a stand-off half or something bizarre. I played fullback precisely once – one experience of a huge prop breaking the line and I was back to lock, on the back of the scrum. Much safer there. ]
‘Guy’ clued GEORGE HARRISON very similarly in the FT cryptic on September 7th: “Guitarist running after two men in a boat”.
[Yep, TT, I’ve still got a cartilage line where the top of ear mended from a split, tackling a monster forward … ]
I found this nicely Vulcanian but slightly on the tricky side for him (which is still suitably gentle for a Monday morning.) BOGART is a classic. Guessed LOCK but had to come here to look up the parsing, as I tend not to know rugby/cricket/most other sports things except what I learn in crosswords.
Forgot to add—thanks Vulcan and manehi!
Thought I was on for a fast time but got held up in the top right – a lot of “cryptic definitions” I couldn’t spot and not much wordplay to get a purchase on. I liked BAR STOOL and of course BOGART was hilarious. Thanks Vulcan and manehi.
I think that was the fastest I’ve ever completed a Guardian cryptic which suited my timetable this morning. I did enjoy it especially another Beatle. Last weeks 3 men in a Boat discussion certainly helped. ( Flea@19, I’m very jealous. Going to put the CD on now!)Thanks Vulcan and manehi.
BOGART has been round the block some but I did like the 2 men in a boat(which is more than i can say about the three in the book!
Thanks Vulcan for early Christmas gags
OUCH of the day for BOGART. As it happens, I’m reading Three Men In A Boat right now, having found it in a charity shop, but even so it took me a couple of Hard Stares to get the Beatle. I also liked Jason’s dog – the Argonaut film was on TV yesterday, with the wonderful stop-motion effects by Ray Harryhausen.
Oh dear! I’ve come here this time not for enlightenment but as a refugee from the pretty vapid stuff said on the Guardian page today. This puzzle for me served as proof that an easy one (even cereal wasn’t finished, let alone mug of green tea) can be very enjoyable. Several laughs out loud (BOGART, GEORGE HARRISON, BAR STOOL) and a happy atmosphere. I grew up in the time when my O-Level Physics was confirmed by those wonderful daytime explanations on BBC2 of (among many wondrous other things) how a colour TV set worked (if only you had one – I didn’t until about 1983). Phosphor dots in those three primary colours. Never mind the Team Primary chant: that’s for pigments.
TassieTim @15: You’re probably right – the Welsh have always been troublesome.
FYI, we Poms call your 5/8 a ‘fly-half’. So called because, by golly, he does have to fly to steer clear of the flankers whose job it is to try to dismember him.
A brief bit of good fun. Liked RELENTLESS and BOGART (of course).
Thanks Vulcan and manehi
On Sunday nights (Monday mornings for most of you) I usually do the Cryptic until I reach a slow-down or temporary stop, switch over to the Quiptic, then come back and polish off the Cryptic. This time there was no such slow-down; when I got there later the Quiptic took a bit longer than the Cryptic. Just my 3 cents worth (inflation).
What makes for me a good CD is when a phrase has two interpretations with vastly different tendencies to jump into my mind (and the less expected one is the one that makes the clue work). For BAR STOOL the two seemed equally likely, so it didn’t have the desired effect on me, but YMMV. Otherwise, nice puzzle, tx.
…and I always thought the PRIMARY COLOURS were red, blue and yellow, rather than green, but I’m sure the Scientists on here will put me right. And in a large field horse race, i.e a 16-runner handicap, the bookies on course would normally pay out on the FOURTH placed horse. Though I imagine Vulcan was thinking about no gold, silver or bronze medal for a fourth place finish in other sports. Very straightforward as others have said, with plenty of double meanings
1a Rugby meaning of LOCK was lost on me, as is everything else about rugby.
I agree, easier than the Quiptic. Last night I got all but LILY PADS, whereas with the Quiptic I had six still blank.
Thanks, , Vulcan and manehi.
7d ANCESTOR WORSHIP’s clue was a bit scattered. I don’t think it works.
William @16, Ronald @33. It depends a little on your definition of primary colours. The most useful definition to me is a set of colours from which you can make any other colour. It’s a set of three because our eyes (usually) can detect red, green and blue. There are two sets because pigments subtract colour from the light they receive, hence colour inkjet printers use the subtractive primary colours cyan, magenta, and yellow, whereas things that emit light like phones and TVs etc use the additive primary colours red, green and blue.
I’ve never fully understood why primary colours are so often defined as red, yellow and blue. They kind of work because they are vaguely similar to CMY. Artists seem to like them for some reason, something about they make colours that appear correct to the eye.
Much fun – held up by putting “reknob” as broken sword repair. Thanks to setter & blogger
ravenrider@35 Red, yellow and blue are primary colors if you are dealing with paint. Red paint mixed with yellow makes orange, yellow mixed with blue makes green, blue mixed with red makes purple.
Thanks for the blog, Three Men In A Boat has been in a lot of puzzles lately, about time we had poor Montmorency .
For light, the cones in the eye are sensitive to photon energies in the red, green and blue wavelengths, not very sensitive to violet which is why we see the sky as blue.
valentine @37 This is the brick wall I keep hitting when I bring the subject up. You can’t mix a full palette of colours from red, yellow and blue; in the end it comes down to agreeing it’s a different definition of what a primary colour is. The subject of colour perception is very complex and mixes biology, physics and psychology. It’s mostly beyond me, I only understand how they are defined in physics.
The problem with paint pigments is that they aren’t pure pigments, so most reds either have a touch of blue to get a crimson, or red to get a poppy red. You can, in watercolours, mix viridian (green), cobalt blue and carmine (dark red) to get a satisfactory black. You can choose to produce perfectly satisfactory English watercolour landscapes using yellow ochre, cobalt blue and dark sienna (as the red) and mix the range of landscape colours, or a different set of yellow, red and blue to produce a different Mediterranean landscape.
I’m with those who solved this faster than the Quiptic, nice satisfying solve, thank you to Vulcan and manehi.
Pennies embarrassingly slow to drop but unlike the Quiptic (1 short there) they at least did eventually. BOGART my clear fav.
Thanks both
M Beak @25 expressed most of my thoughts.
I found the Quiptic both easier and more consistently fun, though Vulcan did provide some good moments.
Loved the puzzle – excellent for a Monday. Favourite was 4 down (Rapier) for it’s elegance.
I was also pleased that Red, Green and Blue were given as the primary colours. Whilst I started out using paint (Red, Blue, Yellow), I moved on to computer art (which I had a career in), and realised Red, Green, and Blue was correct. As others have noted with paint, you mix red and yellow to get orange, yellow and blue to get green, and blue and red to get purple, but that’s about paint, not light.
With light you’ve got to consider the whole spectrum which makes white light. When we view objects the colours we see are the light it reflects. Going back to paint. Red paint reflects mostly red light, blue paint reflects mostly blue light and green paint mostly green light. But yellow paint reflects both red and green light (orange paint reflects lots of red, but less green – hence it looks redder).
If you’ve got a flatscreen TV or monitor, flick a tiny drop of water on the screen, and if you look at it from various angles you’ll probably see it split the light into the red, green, and blue elements that are making up it’s display.
Komornik @29
Your comment prompted me to read the comments on the Guardian. How can so many peopie have avoided studying physics at school? The difference between light-blending and pigment-blending is pretty bastc!
….and a lot of people don’t realise that colour-blending isn’t really a feature of the colours, whether they be lights or pigments, but a feature of the colour receptors in our eyes.
Actually, thought of maybe a better way to explain the paint/light thing. As I mentioned white light is made of all the colours, so when we see white paint your eye is getting all of the light reflected. When you see red paint you’re only getting red.
If you want to make red paint paler though, you mix white paint in to make pink – the more white you add, the paler the pink. You’re adding something that will dilute the pure red with more of the other two primaries. Basically what was 100% red light starts tending towards an equal mixture of all three primaries. So with a little white it might be 80% red, 10% green and 10% blue (pinkish-red), but with a lot it could be 40% red, and 30% each of the others (very pale pink).
With light it doesn’t quite work the same way, because it “stacks”. Red is just 100% of the red light possible, yellow is 100% of the possible red and 100% of the possible green (which is why it’s a “lighter” colour – there is literally more light reflected), and white is 100% of all three (all of the light).
It seems, from the frequency with which it comes up in these puzzles, like we’re all supposed to be familiar with Three Men in a Boat. Not only have I never read it, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a copy. Also unfamiliar with the rugby positions, so LOCK went in for me based only on the other definition. I’ve only occasionally watched rugby, and never 100 percent understood what I was seeing. It’s supposedly growing in popularity here. Supposedly. But it’s got a long way to go before it’ll catch up to the (at least) six sports ahead of it enough that non-enthusiasts will know the terminology. [Among team sports, American football is still king, followed (probably in this order) by basketball, baseball, soccer, ice hockey, and lacrosse–yes, I think it’s correct that soccer has passed hockey.]
Forget about light – far too technical. Computer science is a Jonnie-come-lately. Through the ages artists have known red, yellow and blue as the primary colours. It is impossible to create these three colours by mixing. On a simple six colour wheel green orange and purple are the secondary colours achieved by mixing the two on either side. So red and yellow flank orange, complementary to blue opposite, blue and yellow make green, etc. It is elegant and simple although of course endless subtleties can be achieved by varying the intensities. Anyway thanks Vulcan for a nice accessible and amusing puzzle.
Theologically speaking, DESPAIR — the absence of hope that leads to suicide — is much more serious than mere sadness, especially when one is in the depths of it. As Hamlet observed about Ophelia’s funeral procession: “…This doth betoken/The corpse they follow did with DESP’RATE hand/Fordo it own life…”
Never heard of “streets ahead” and naturally I was unable to get DRAW AWAY or LOCK because, you know, sports, but otherwise a very nice puzzle for a Monday.
The main reason I’m commenting is to thank whichever blogger or commenter (as well as the setter) who mentioned that “Three Men in a Boat” was as enjoyable as ever. I’m in the middle of reading it and have loved it from the first paragraph.
Job @ 48: The device you are reading this on only works because people know how light works now. I’ll accept that red, yellow and blue can be called primary colours because it was what I was taught when I was five, but I’m happy the crossword acknowledged what I now know to be true.
This is how light works.
Job @48
You miss the point that there are two different sets of “primary colours”, depending on whether you are talking about light or pigments. This has been know for a couple of hunderd years at least (I haven’t checked!), so is nothing to do with Computer Science.
Blue Dot @50 I always read it when I am feeling poorly, which is not very often fortunately. You still have the delights of the weather and the fishing to come.
A great puzzle for a Monday. The guitarist was the LOI, I read JKJ 30 years ago and the only character’s name I recall is the dog’s!
Favourites were Jason and Humphrey.
Thanks to Vulcan and manehi.
Great fun from Vulcan. Terrific explanations from manehi.. thanks much
As many people have said, easier than the Q.
I’m fairly sure my rugby days in the early 80’s saw LOCKs in the second row. The terminology may have changed earlier, when flankers moved from behind the second row to alongside them (packing down 3-4-1 rather than 3-2-3), leaving the No 8 as more akin to the ‘loose forward’ in Rugby League.
Further to the Antipodean nomenclature, I thought the No 12 position down under was the second five-eighth?