The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/28936.
It took me a little effort to unravel the wordplay for 6D and 23A, but they were the main stumbling blocks here. Otherwise, a slow but steady solve.
| ACROSS | ||
| 8 | ALFRESCO |
Outside broadcast for scale (8)
|
| An anagram (‘broadcast’) of ‘for scale’. | ||
| 9 | NOOKS |
In retrospect, young man’s fine cutting corners (5)
|
| An envelope (‘cutting’) of OK (‘fine’) in NOS, a reversal (‘in retrospect’) of SON (‘young man’). | ||
| 10 | SNUG |
Bar room finally has cordon bleu cooking (4)
|
| Last letters (‘finally’) of ‘haS cordoN bleU cookinG‘. | ||
| 11, 15 | ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN |
A binman, on working with a womble, describes small mythical creature (10,7)
|
| An envelope (‘describing’) of S (‘small’) in ABOMINABLENOWMAN, an anagram (‘working’) of ‘a binman on’ plus ‘a womble’. | ||
| 12 | STODGE |
On the counter, say with peppers filling dish (6)
|
| A reversal (‘on the counter’) of EG (‘say’) plus DOTS (‘peppers’, verb) | ||
| 14 | EXERCISE |
Queen’s duty-bound to practice (8)
|
| An envelope (-‘bound’) of ER (‘Queen’) in EXCISE (‘duty’-). The spelling ‘practice’ is, at least in British English, used for the noun, but ‘to’ can be a link word, with a nounal definition. | ||
| 15 |
See 11
|
|
| 17 | CORRODE |
4 down, 1 to go — lay waste (7)
|
| A charade of CORR, which is CORONER (‘4 down’) minus ONE (‘1 to go’); plus ODE (‘lay’). | ||
| 20 | PROMPTED |
Expert politician, Kennedy could be motivated (8)
|
| A charade of PRO (‘expert’) plus MP (‘politician’) plus TED (‘Kennedy’). | ||
| 22 | SESAME |
Oil producer‘s assets essentially unchanged (6)
|
| A charade of SE (‘asSEts essentially’) plus SAME (‘unchanged’). | ||
| 23 | ESCRITOIRE |
Weirdly, I censor intern after dismissing the news desk (10)
|
| An anagram (‘weirdly’) of ‘I ce[n]sor i[n]ter[n]’ minus NNN (‘the news’). | ||
| 24 | EONS |
Ages in Westgate-on-Sea (4)
|
| A hidden answer in ‘WestgatE–ON–Sea’. | ||
| 25 | SPEND |
Pass leads to simple poacher’s goal (5)
|
| A charade of SP (‘leads to Simple Poacher’s’) plus END (‘goal’). | ||
| 26 | OFF-WHITE |
First to move on from Cream? (3-5)
|
| A charade of OFF (‘from’) plus WHITE (‘first to move’, chess), with ‘on’ indicating the order of the particles. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | PLANKTON |
Drifters not mountain climbing around North Korea’s capital (8)
|
| An envelope (‘around’) of N (‘North’) plus K (‘Korea’s capital’) in PLATON, a reversal (‘climbing’ in a down light) of ‘not’ plus ALP (‘mountain’). | ||
| 2 | FROG |
King wearing obscure jumper (4)
|
| An envelope (‘wearing’) of R (Rex, ‘king’) in FOG (‘obscure’, verb). | ||
| 3 | ESCAPE |
Copy key to open bolt (6)
|
| A charade of ESC (‘key’ top left) plus APE (‘copy’) with ‘to open’ indicating the order of the particles. | ||
| 4 | CORONER |
Singer’s first disc rising to second place — official! (7)
|
| CROONER (‘singer’) with the first O (‘first disc’) moved up one (‘rising to second place’). | ||
| 5 | ANTI-HERO |
Perhaps Rupert Pupkin‘s on the air, somehow (4-4)
|
| An anagram (‘somehow’) of ‘on the air’. Rupert Pupkin, played by Robert De Niro, is the anti-hero in the film The King of Comedy directed by Martin Scorsese. | ||
| 6 | VOCAL CORDS |
90% discount on opening of neighbourhood business — approach succeeded — they make some noise (5,5)
|
| A charade of VOCAL, which is LOCAL (‘neighbourhood’) with the initial L replaced by V (Roman numerals, 50 replaced by 5, ‘90% discount on opening’) plus CO (company, ‘business’) plus RD (road, ‘approach’) plus S (‘succeeded’). | ||
| 7 | PSALMS |
Songs of praise revealed second thoughts over charity (6)
|
| A charade of PS (‘second thoughts’) plus ALMS (‘charity’). | ||
| 13 | DOWNMARKET |
Investing own money in bad film is common (10)
|
| An envelope (‘investing’) of ‘own’ plus M (‘money’) in DARK (‘bad’) plus ET (‘The Extraterrestrial, ‘film’). | ||
| 16 | ATTITUDE |
Uncover fatty bits with topless, risqué pose (8)
|
| A charade of ATT IT (‘uncover fATTy bITs’) plus [r]UDE or even [n]UDE (‘risqué’) minus the first letter (‘topless’) | ||
| 18 | DOMINATE |
Military Intelligence inside give command (8)
|
| An envelope (‘inside’) of MI (‘military intelligence’) in DONATE (‘give’). | ||
| 19 | ADVISOR |
Guide for audience to put on face mask (7)
|
| Sounds like (‘for audience’) ADD VISOR (‘to put on face mask’). | ||
| 21 | RESIST |
Weather is interrupting break (6)
|
| An envelope (‘interrupting’) of ‘is’ in REST (‘break’). | ||
| 22 | SHEAFS |
Bundles that man and a female on board ship (6)
|
| An envelope (‘on board’) of HE (‘that man’) plus ‘a’ plus F (‘female’) in SS (‘ship’). The plural sheaves is far more common. | ||
| 24 | ECHO |
All wanting a ring to copy (4)
|
| A charade of E[a]CH (‘all’) minus A (‘wanting a’) plus O (‘ring’). |
Enjoyed this, a number of smiles and nothing too esoteric. Somehow took almost as long getting SPEND as the whole rest of the puzzle, just had a mental block.
I noticed we had fine=OK yesterday and ECHO just a few days ago. But no NEMO today.
A subtle point, not a quibble but a question re: 6d. If approach can mean road, and road can be abbreviated as rd, then can road be abbreviated as rd when it is being used in the sense of approach? Similar to the (non-)transitivity of synonyms, I suppose.
Tx F&P
Seen that V = 90% of L trick somewhere, and not too long ago, but even so it didn’t emerge from the neural porridge, d’oh, so bifd. And pretty sludgy in general getting through this, though as soon as the letter count required the s[mall], the snowman did emerge, which helped. Credit to Fed for working the ginf greymatter, and thanks Peter.
grantinfreo@2
Outspoken pub reducing headcount by 90%? (5)
VOCAL
Liked CORRODE, OFF-WHITE and ESCRI-whatever.
Thanks, F and P!
A G-threader suggested that sheafs works as a verb … hmm. And what about off/from … Labuschagne is 132 off/from 269 balls; is the ‘off’ grammatical, or is it like the dreaded ‘off of’ …?
Yep that was it KVa @3, ta …
It seems I’ve been spelling “vocal chords” wrong all my life. I’ve always thought of them in the musical sense, as opposed to the comfy trousers.
I thoroughly enjoyed this with my first cup of coffee of the day; inventive, funny, misdirectional and forever keeping me on my toes. There were some super surfaces that turned out to mean something comprehensively different and a lovely range of devices included. And, like Andy @7, I discovered that vocal cords are not what I thought they were! SHEAFS is an intriguing one – I would expect to see sheaves of corn but, oddly and I cannot explain why, sheafs of papers!
I could tick lots today but folk don’t like long messages so I’ll just highlight the absolute faves: crooner/CORONER and CORRODES, ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN, SPEND, SESAME, ATTITUDE and SNUG.
Thanks Fed and PeterO
Thought this was okay, though 6 down seemed a bit convoluted, which I usually find with some of Fed’s clues. Thanks F and P
I’m in accord with PM @8 – a thoroughly enjoyable crossword from beginning to end. The ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN clue gave me a proper laugh. Thanks, Fed.
And thanks, PeterO, for the blog. 6d was my last in – got it from unraveling CORDS and the crossing letters gave me VOCAL but I couldn’t fathom why. Of course! A very Qaos-like trick. Nice. (It is a rather convoluted clue though.)
Took me a while to twig OFF-WHITE too – from=off isn’t obvious but it works if you think of eg “That Dave Gorman off the telly”
KVa @3 – Ha! That explains why I thought of it as Qaos-like. Strangely, I didn’t have a problem spotting the trick that time – perhaps I’m just accustomed to expect that kind of thing from Qaos.
Re. 19d: seeing ‘adviser’ spelt with an ‘o’ is like hearing a fingernail scraped down a blackboard.
Really enjoyed this, start to finish. Managed to complete it but needed your help parsing 6d, VOCAL CORDS, PeterO. Very clever that V/L thing. I don’t remember seeing it before.
Nho Rupert Pupkin, of course, but that didn’t hold me up, except for briefly thinking Rupert might be the bear.
Many thanks Fed and PeterO
Hmm, GC @12, is it perhaps ‘..er’ for the ordinary doer of the verb, and ‘..or’ for the title of one whose role it is …?
[George@12. Totally agree. I worked in IT for a pensions/insurance company once, and we had to change a load of documents to say ADVISOR instead of associate as a result of new financial regulations. No one could decide whether to use O or E. I think the general feeling was that O was somehow better, in the same way that some people always say “you and I” because it sounds “posher” when “you and me” is often the grammatically correct usage. I’ve finished now.]
14a EXERCISE Ah! I thought , that’s a cunning way of cluing queen (EX ER), but couldn’t see where the cise came from. Thanks for putting me straight PeterO; and thanks to Fed – much as PostMark @8 said.
My first reaction to ‘practice’ in 14 was to groan – “Should be practise, surely.”
However, on reflection, I would prefer to picture the late Queen being duty-bound to following a certain ‘practice’, as in a protocol, rather than being constitutionally required to work on her backhand for 10 hours a day.
Thanks Fed and Peter
This didn’t flow for me. I didn’t parse CORRODE (though, to be fair, I guessed it before I had CORONER and forgot to look at it again). I didn’t see SPEND=pass, though I was able to construct the answer. No idea about Rupert Pupkin – I thought of the bear too!
Not impressed by ESCAPE, as the ESC key is short for “escape”.
Favourite ALFRESCO.
Why does LAY = ODE in 17A?
Jorge Ramon@17:
Very good point eloquently made. This pair of words never ceased to be confused during the 20+ years of my EFL career and the students weren’t even native speakers.
Steve @19
A lay is a term for a ballad or ode.
Steve69 @19……
Chambers…. “lay4 n a short narrative poem; a lyric; a song.”
ginf @14 – I never find that kind of distinction convincing – feels a bit forced and unnecessary. OED simply gives advisor as an alternative spelling (with citations going back to the 16th century) with the same sense as adviser.
muffin/Tim C @21/22 Ah, I see – thank you.
Yep copy that Widders, it was just an idea (then I thought hmm, act-er, one who does whatever … actor, one whose role it is, but then the latter is a special category…)
Obviously practice as a noun can define exercise, but in the clue it’s used as a verb, so if you think the verb must be spelled with an s (unlike Americans) then this would be a typo. Perhaps we could read it: Queen’s duty – bound to practice, i.e. the Queen must skip to her rehearsal.
Nice concise puzzle, not too many boom-booms. I liked DOWNMARKET, OFF-WHITE, CORRODE, ALFRESCO
Thanks S&B
Tough puzzle. I struggled to get on the right wavelength today, baffled by references such as Rupert Pupkin.
Liked PROMPTED, FROG, NOOKS, CORRODE (loi).
New for me: SNUG = a small, comfortable public room in a pub or inn.
I guessed at some answers from the definition but could not parse them: 12ac, 26ac, 4d, 6d apart from CO=business.
Thanks, both.
michelle@9, We’ve had “Corrie” recently in The Grauniad, as a standard expression of “Coronation Street”. In the first five or so years of Corrie, there were constant scenes in the SNUG of The Rovers Return !
Loved ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN and, as others have said, was always trained by my teachers that SHEAVES is the one and only plural of SHEAF !
Thanks PeterO and Fed
Found this an interesting challenge, with loi VOCAL CORDS (simply had to be from the definition) but sadly unparsed. As with SNUG and STODGE. Several of these I wondered long and hard about, but when the penny dropped in each case I realised they were clever clues – DOMINATE, EXERCISE and CORONER and the excellent CORRODE, with these last two subtly interconnected. Never quite know whether it’s Adviser or ADVISOR, so that held up OFF WHITE for a while, another good clue, I thought. ESCRITOIRE makes yet another appearance and another nicely constructed clue by Fed this morning…
An interesting challenge, the left side of which was friendlier than the right
Mr CS grew up in the place in 24a so the clue made me smile as if he took you there, his guided tour would take the solution! When our sons were young they refused to go there as they couldn’t face another tour!
Thanks to Fed and Peter O
Quite a challenge from Fed today. Maybe I was slow with a few but I was never going to get PLANKTON for ‘Drifters’ without a struggle and amongst others, the parsing of VOCAL CORDS and OFF-WHITE needed a lot of thought.
Worthy of the expected hard Friday slot.
Thanks to Fed and PeterO
Slow and steady solve for me. Favourite? STODGE – so simple and fair but clever to the point of it being one of my last.
Thanks to Fed and Peter.
Pleasant solve with some inventive cluing.
I liked the CORONER/CORRODE pairing, ATTITUDE for the humorous surface, and VOCAL CORDS. For those EXERCISEd by ADVISOR, this is given in the ODE: The spellings adviser and advisor are both correct. Adviser is more common, but advisor is also widely used, especially in North America. Adviser may be seen as less formal, while advisor often suggests an official position.
Thanks Fed and PeterO.
I am glad I am not alone in finding this difficult, nor in misspelling VOCAL CORD. [though it’s obvious, really that the chords are the result of sets of cords, with the first being derived from “accord” and the second like the rope. A geometric chord however is derived from the rope sense, apparently, as is Chordata.
Pleased to see the discussion of 19d – my reaction is the same as George Clements@12, and I’m in accord with Crossbar@15’s thinking on it. It’s certainly an Americanism, and it ain’t going away…
I had to rely on the crossers for 6D, and did not get 25A at all.
8D held me up as I had always though of it as two words, lit. “in the fresh [air]”, but apparently the form alfresco is common in English.
Yay Robi @33 re “official position”, a la my thought @14. And yes, sympathy for your boys, crypticsue @30, and for our three boys too, whose eyes roll at my favourite themes (some of which appear here from time to time … any excuse 🙂 )
Jacob @36
It would be two words in the original Italian, but it has become one in English.
Like PostMark and others I enjoyed this a lot, particularly PLANKTON, STODGE, OFF-WHITE and CORRODE. Clever stuff! Many thanks to F & P.
24a I thought the British spelling was “AEONS.”
I enjoyed everybody’s favorites, won’t list ’em again.
I think we often see an element serving as one part of speech in the clue and a different one in the light. So “practic/se” is a noun here and verb there, happens all the time.
Thanks, Fed and PeterO.
Tough but very enjoyable. I didn’t get too exercised (sorry) about PRACTICE / PRACTISE because I read the to as just a link from wordplay to definition. And I may do an EXERCISE as part of a PRACTICE session so no issue there. Or maybe I just didn’t read the clue closely enough!
Tougher than previous Feds for me, took quite a while to get a foothold then slowly but surely one solution led to another and I eventually arrived at the end – albeit with several bunged and unparsed. But all the explanations here check out, so it’s me being hard of thinking.
Add me to the list of people spelling VOCAL CORDS wrong for decades. By the way, the L->V 90% trick was used by Qaos just three days ago. ANTI-HERO held me up for a while as I read the ‘perhaps Rupert’ string separately and assumed one of the two words was ‘bear’…
Thanks both!
If the clue for VOCAL CORDS were top quality I could probably find myself trying to forgive Fed for using approach = RD but as it is it’s a clunky and largely meaningless surface anyway.
I’m sure there will now follow several posters desperate to tell me why it’s acceptable or ‘innovative’ but to this gnarled old setter it simply isn’t in the spirit of cryptics to clue an abbreviation like that by use of a not-that-common synonym for the longer word. It’s exactly the kind of device, in fact, that makes non-cryptic solvers think they are impenetrable nonsense and is off-putting to new solvers.
Tricky, ingenious and fun, though a dnf for me (PROMPTED, ADVISOR and SPEND). I didn’t think SHEAFS was a correct plural, but it must be in a dictionary somewhere (no, I don’t require chapter, verse and page number of exactly where, thank you).
STODGE brought back memories of school dinners where the pudding was always stodge-and-custard of some kind. Never heard of Rupert (I looked him up afterwards) and couldn’t think of the right Kennedy – too many possible candidates. Having the clever local/vocal trick twice in the same week made 6d easier than it should have been.
Favourites SESAME, PSALMS and the CORONER/CORRODE pair, though nearly all of them were good.
Some nice clues here. I liked the ‘filling’ that wasn’t a container indicator, and the Qaotic L/V (though the rest of the clue is rather cumbersome).
Jacob @36: As muffin says, ‘al fresco’ (in the cool) in Italian becomes ALFRESCO in Endlish – and changes its meaning to a generic ‘outside’. Eating ‘al fresco’ in a restaurant in Italy in the summer is more likely to be inside, with the air conditioning on!
Thanks to S&B
…English 🙂
Great fun! Tough to get a foothold but fine after that.
The spelling of practice helped to point in the right direction for EXERCISE.
My favourite was ATTITUDE for the surface combined with the “uncovering” device.
Thanks Fed and PeterO
Thanks for the blog , good to scratch my head a bit for once. PLANKTON was very neat and CORRODE a nice idea, A shame the L/V trick used twice in one week, just unlucky. ESCRITOIRE a crossword staple but clued very well and clever use of small in the clue for ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN .
No theme at last and my second favourite oxymoron in 18D.
Thanks PeterO, I learned the same things as most of the others above and enjoyed the process. I think linking 4d to 17a was very neat – in the former, we don’t really need ‘first’ but somehow I think it adds nicely to the surface. Special tick for 26a, will be on the look out for ivory, beige or bone next. Thanks Fed.
[Roz@48. Yes indeed re military intelligence, though it begs the question of your favorite. Somewhat sourly, ‘social services’ ranks high for me, though that could be just living in the US. Though of course we Brits have the ‘National Health Service’.]
No, I don’t think ODE means LAY. It’s not in my SOD and it’s not in Chambers online.
What’s up?
Jennaralissima@51: both synonyms for “poem”, as in Walter Scott’s “Lay of the Last Minstrel” and Schiller’s “Ode to Joy”. Alternatively, if you’re a Beck fan: Odelay.
Gazzh@49 re 26a – don’t forget ecru. 🙂
As ever with DG all the fun is in the parsing. VOCAL CORDS was masterful & CROONER not far behind. Took ages to drudge up the desk & only then see the wordplay. Just failed with CORRODE.
Thanks to Fed & Peter
Thanks to S & B. I enjoyed this. Alternative parsing for 17a (surely wrong): 4d is coroner + d, less 1 letter – but there’s no anagram indicator! Exit, pursued by a bear?
[ Geof @50 , I should not really say this but very few people will read it, so my favourite is Biological Sciences ]
[Roz @56
Surely you mean “Social Sciences”?]
Liked ESCRITOIRE and STODGE. ESCAPE not so good as it’s the same as the key ESC which is in clue.
Nevertheless, after getting stuck, I came back later and it fell into place so…
Thanks Fed and PeterO
Very interesting, I had 13 down, DOWNMARKET, as ‘own mark’ (own money, mark being the old German currency) inside (invested in) an anagram (bad) of ‘Ted’ (film). Maybe there’s something wrong or implausible about my version, but it’s cool anyway and I’d be interested to know if anyone else thought of this!
Mark@ 59
As you say, interesting. The principal criticism of your version for most people would be the indirect anagram – first identifying TED from ‘film’ and then take an anagram of it. This is generally regarded as a step too far – “unfair”, if you like – and not to be used under any circumstance. Further, in this case there is the choice of a very large number of film names, and I do not think that Ted would be high on most people’s list; but the indirect anagram would be the main black mark.
Thanks Peter O – and thanks all.
For what it’s worth, I used a version of the L/V device in July also. Albeit as Bluth and with it working the other way round – V experiencing growth to become L -> https://www.fifteensquared.net/2022/07/27/independent-11166-by-bluth/
I’m inclined to agree with Tim @58 regarding ESCAPE. An oversight on my part, I think.
I didn’t think of SHEAFS as a plural noun – I intended it to be the verb form.
SHEAF vb- to make sheaves.
BUNDLE vb – to make into a bundle.
SHEAF n – a bundle of things.
Jennaralisima @51 you might want to look again at Chambers – it’s the 4th definition for Lay in mine.
Lay – 1 A short narrative poem
2 A lyric
3 A song
Ode – 1 Orig, a poem intended to be sung
2 An elaborate lyric, often of some length, generally addressed to somebody or something.
For what it’s worth – of the many available Anti-heroes, I chose Rupert Pupkin because – for those familiar with the film, it worked best with the surface. He is a man who goes to extreme lengths in order to somehow get on air.
I was trying to make something of OWN+M inside TURKEY (‘bad film’) but apparently TOWNMURKEY is not a real word in this universe. STOWEMARKET would fit, if only that Suffolk town would agree to a change of spelling. Got there eventually, with NOOKS followed by ANTIHERO my last ones in, but ‘Rupert Pupkin’ has never stirred one of my neurones, as far as I am aware.
Lots of obfuscation in these clues, and I tend to agree with Bingy @43 that ‘approach’=road=RD is a bit of a stretch. And ‘bad’ =DARK is a new one for me.
Still haven’t finished Picaroon’s from last Thursday.
Thanks Fed and PeterO.
Sheffield hatter @62 – I think you – and Bingy – have a point re Approach.
For ‘bad’ = DARK, think ‘dark deeds’.
I was quite happy with approach=RD , we get numerous things becoming ST , same principle, and it was not part of an anagram which would require a severe Paddington stare.