Our regular Phiday challenge.
A rather unusual grid today, for what it’s worth: it has mirror symmetry, but not rotational symmetry like most cryptic grids.
Phi is often willing to give an airing to less common words, and there are two here that I’ve never seen before (at 8a and 13a) – though the clear wordplay allows for the usual exercise of making up a plausible word and then checking. If there’s a theme here I can’t see it, but the setter may enlighten us later.
I enjoyed the long anagrams at 19a and 27a, and the surfaces of 26a and 6d. Thanks Phi as always.
Definitions are underlined; BOLD UPPERCASE indicates letters used in the wordplay; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | GRANDDAUGHTER |
Relative more impressive about degree, taking on anything (13)
|
| GRANDER (more impressive), containing (about) D (degree), and also containing (taking on) AUGHT (anything). | ||
| 8 | WASM |
Failed ideology leads to wretchedness and some militarism (4)
|
| Leading letters of W[retchedness] A[nd] S[ome] M[ilitarism].
An outdated or discredited belief; apparently a somewhat fanciful formation from “-ism” (a current belief), but “was” rather than “is” to put it in the past tense. I’d never heard of this word, but the “initial letters” device was clear enough and Collins Dictionary has it (though it’s not in my copy of Chambers). |
||
| 9 | RICIN |
Cut grass in poison (5)
|
| RIC[e] (botanically a grass) without its last letter (cut) + IN.
A poison derived from castor oil beans. |
||
| 10 | TSAR |
Gutless talentless administrator in authority (4)
|
| T[alentles]S A[dministrato]R with all the inner letters removed (gutless).
Tsar in the metaphorical sense of a government-appointed “expert” with responsibility for a particular area, such as “enterprise tsar”. There’s a hint of extended definition here, if I’m correctly reading our setter’s opinion of such appointments. |
||
| 11 | DRAGGLE-TAILED |
Sleazy newspaper disheartened girl in particular … (7-6)
|
| RAG (slang for newspaper) + G[ir]L (dis-heartened = inner letters removed), in DETAILED (particular, in the sense of being specific about details).
Draggle-tailed = sleazy = dishevelled or disreputable. |
||
| 12 | HEARST |
… courage needed to imprison small newspaper owner (6)
|
| HEART (courage) containing (to imprison) S (small).
William Randolph Hearst Sr, US newspaper publisher. |
||
| 13 | AMERCE |
Conservative restrained by a simple fine (6)
|
| C (Conservative) contained in A MERE (a simple . . .).
Amerce (from French à merci = at the mercy of . . .) = to fine someone an arbitrary sum as punishment. |
||
| 15 | EPIC |
Extensive spread of disease? Not the same (4)
|
| EP[idem]IC (spread of disease), without IDEM (Latin for “the same”, used in lists of citations).
Extensive in the sense of “on a grand scale”. |
||
| 17 | EXAMS |
English instrument-maker taken aback about first of musical tests (5)
|
| E (English), then SAX (Adolphe Sax, instrument-maker who invented the saxophone) reversed (taken aback), containing (about) the first letter of M[usical]. | ||
| 18 | NOSH |
No mum to provide food? (4)
|
| NO + SH (mum = quiet).
Slang for food. |
||
| 19 | BLANDINGS CASTLE |
Dull and acting less foolishly, in a spot in a comic novel location (9,6)
|
| BLAND (dull) + anagram (foolishly) of ACTING LESS.
Fictional location featured in the comic novels of P G Wodehouse. I don’t think we need both “spot” and “location”; I wonder whether Phi started with “location”, then added “in a spot” (a rather Wodehouse phrase meaning “in trouble”) for the misdirection, and forgot to compensate? |
||
| 24 | GALA |
A lot of ill-feeling linked to a celebration (4)
|
| GAL[l] (ill-feeling = bitterness or anger) without the last letter (a lot of . . .), linked to A. | ||
| 25 | INTRO |
I note incompleteness of ancient city for a start (5)
|
| I + N (abbreviation for note) + TRO[y] (ancient city) without its last letter (incompleteness of . . .).
Short for introduction, for example the start of a piece of music. |
||
| 26 | JACK |
Pantomime hero, one likely to encounter woods? (4)
|
| Double definition. As in the pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk; or as in the game of bowls, where bowling balls (called woods because they were originally made from a very dense wood) are played towards a smaller ball (the jack) which acts as a target. | ||
| 27 | ANDROMEDA NEBULA |
Textbook astronomical feature possibly adorable and mundane? (9,6)
|
| Anagram (possibly) of ADORABLE + MUNDANE.
Now generally called the Andromeda Galaxy; the textbooks probably called it a nebula when it was thought to be a cloud of gas and dust within our own galaxy, but better observation and calculation showed that it’s actually “a galaxy far, far away”. |
||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | GUARD-SHIP |
Marine protection from rapid gush at sea (5-4)
|
| Anagram (at sea = shaken up) of RAPID GUSH. | ||
| 2 | ALMA-ATA |
Mother in a US city upset at former Soviet city name (4-3)
|
| MA (mother) in A + LA (Los Angeles = US city), then AT reversed (upset = upwards in a down clue).
Soviet-era name for what is now Almaty in Kazakhstan. |
||
| 3 | DIRIGISTE |
One core component involved in urgent operating under state control (9)
|
| I (one in Roman numerals) + GIST (as in “the gist of . . .” = core component), all inserted into DIRE (very bad, which isn’t quite the same thing as urgent, but I suppose “in dire need” suggests both severity and urgency).
Adjective from dirigisme, from the French for “directing” = state control of economy and industry. |
||
| 4 | ARCHER |
Eros, say, recognised in curved shape of a woman (6)
|
| ARC (curved shape) + HER (of a woman).
Eros = in Greek mythology, god of love and desire, depicted as a boy with a bow and arrows. |
||
| 5 | GENDARMES |
General risks bringing in head of military police (9)
|
| GEN (abbreviation for general) + DARES (risks, as a verb), with the first letter (head) of M[ilitary] brought in. | ||
| 6 | TITULAR |
Tense during arcane ritual, like Harry Potter? (7)
|
| T (abbreviation for tense) in an anagram (arcane) of RITUAL.
Definition by example, indicated by the question mark: titular = named in the title of a work of fiction. |
||
| 7 | READDRESS |
Come back to study costume (9)
|
| READ (study) + DRESS (costume). | ||
| 14 | TARGETED |
Agreed edges of tent should be arranged, precisely positioned (8)
|
| Anagram (should be arranged) of AGREED with the outer letters (edges) of T[en]T. | ||
| 16 | CENTAUR |
Legendary crossbreed: one in a hundred? Not quite (7)
|
| A (one) in CENTUR[y] (a hundred, in cricket scoring) without the last letter (not quite).
Mythological creature, half human and half horse. |
||
| 18 | NOSE JOB |
Audibly apprehends person patiently suffering cosmetic procedure (4,3)
|
| Homophone (audibly) of KNOWS (apprehends = understands), then JOB (Old Testament figure who patiently endured a series of personal disasters). | ||
| 20 | LEARN |
Gather tragic hero’s ending in desperation (5)
|
| LEAR (hero of Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear) + last letter (ending) of [desperatio]N. | ||
| 21 | IDIOM |
Donkey with tail docked has hint of mule, in a manner of speaking (5)
|
| IDIO[t] (donkey = foolish person) without the last letter (tail), then first letter (a hint = a very small bit) of M[ule]. | ||
| 22 | CROWN |
Be exultant over new and old coin (5)
|
| CROW (as a verb = be exultant / gloat) + N (new). “Over” puts CROW before N when reading downwards in a down clue. | ||
| 23 | LOCAL |
Expression of hilarity seen around about pub (5)
|
| LOL (abbreviation for “laughing out loud” = expression of hilarity) around CA (ca = abbreviation for Latin circa = “about” in the sense of “approximately”).
Local, especially “my local” = slang for a pub frequented by those who live nearby. |
8A had to be WASM, which I didn’t know, though on checking online only found it as an abbreviation for “WebAssembly”, which is apparently an improved version of Javascript. Many thanks Phi and Quirister.
I found this a tougher Phi today: dnk DIRIGISTE, AMERCE or WASM (though the latter was easy enough to guess) and RAGGLE-TAILED did not come to mind though that’s a PM failing. I also failed to recall ALMA ATA and didn’t spot the ARC HER parse for Eros (got stuck on ARCH ER). As always, though, very entertaining and tight cluing with favourites including GRANDDAUGHTER, EPIC, EXAMS, BLANDINGS CASTLE (although I agree with the comment in the blog about duplication of ‘location’), GENDARMES (I wondered whether it needed a French indicator but guess they are the most well-known of foreign policemen?), TITULAR, CENTAUR, IDIOM and LOCAL.
Thanks Phi and Quirister
Liked DRAGGLE-TAILED, JACK and NOSE JOB a lot.
WASM is an interesting word learnt today.
Thanks P and Q!
Quite a challenge from Phi today. Never heard of WASM, DRAGGLE-TAILED or DIRIGISTE and didn’t know the ‘former Soviet city’. The subtleties of the ANDROMEDA NEBULA being a galaxy instead also went way over my head. No complaints though as wordplay +/- a semi-educated guess meant that all were possible to solve.
I wondered if the ‘spot’ in BLANDINGS CASTLE might have had something to do with the Empress of BLANDINGS, but I doubt it.
Thanks to Phi and Quirister
Thanks, Phi & Quirister. Enjoyed this – and learned some fun new words too! WASM and AMERCE both very clearly indicated so was able to enter the answer confidently even though I wasn’t familiar with them. The derivation of WASM is amusing.
Coincidentally, I was listening to an audiobook of PG Wodehouse’s Summer Lightning only last night (read by Martin Jarvis, of course) so BLANDINGS CASTLE did rather leap out at me.
“Sagittarius” being too long for a 1-line Nina, I assume we have Archer & Centaur to tell us that this is another in Phi’s zodiac puzzles. 🙂 Same new words for me as mentioned above, but I got there. Thx Quirister and Phi.
Mev@6: … and in that case could the unusual shape of the blocking in the grid possibly represent a crossbow?
WASM was new to us but we did know AMERCE. Favourite was GENDARMES.
Thanks, Phi and Quirister.
SAGITTARIUS is there…easier to find than Aquarius will be!
I thought the spot/location issue had been ironed out at the editing stage but it seems to have crept back in.
I may not be able to go back to the early days of Hubble and his observations, but it was the Andromeda Nebula still in many of my astronomy textbooks.
Just spotted SAGITTARIUS…that’s beautiful.
As an American who is trying to get into cryptics and has very little knowledge of content like the works of P. G. Wodehouse, I was quite pleased to get to the wrong answer of BLUNTINGS CASTLE. I also parsed 26A differently, as I know “jack” as a shortening for “lumberjack,” and they definitely encounter woods.
EXAMS was a personal favorite today. Thanks Quirister and Phi!
Thanks Phi – we guessed something was going on when we looked at the grid. We really should have thought of the next Zodiac sign. SAGITTARIUS was neatly hidden. We agree with allan_c that it forms a crossbow with ARCHER.
Thanks Quirister for the blog. We had to check WASM – never believing that it would be correct. We didn’t want to waste time looking it up in Chambers so are glad that we used the check button instead.
Thanks Phi. I got to this late and found it more difficult than usual but still very rewarding. I was able to solve most of this despite my ignorance because the wordplay was excellent. My top choices were RICIN, INTRO, GENDARMES, LEARN, and LOCAL. I also found it interesting that Andromeda appeared on the Guardian blog today — it must be in the stars. Thanks Quirister for the blog.