Sunday rolls on and Kairos brings some puzzlement for us.
This seemed to take forever to blog – lots of small length clues. Can’t see anything going on or themes. Got a couple of niggles though. Over to you.
Hidden- eaten by healTHY MEn
RI – Rhode Island inside the LARKINS from Bates’s Darling Buds of May
Cryptic definition
A stewed [BONE SAY]*
Sounds like CUE – prompt in theatres etc
PER(son) removed from (p)INN(er)
I had to check this but it’s a large tanker. Acronym for ORE BULK OIL apparently, Alternate letters of lOgBoOk
The middle of (m)ARC(h) – demo
PL(ace) removed from DIS(pl)EASE
No end of BAN(k)
Leader of U(ganda) & RE – on, about
First letters of R(ead) A(uthor) P(ersonal)
S(urrealism) in the TATE gallery
IAN paisley removed from POLITIC(ian). I thought he was a DR rather then just a MR
ASCOT inside M(auritiu)S
Def By Example as Rutland Water is a reservoir. I remember back in 1976 the flooded villages under it started to reappear because of the drought. A swimming [(a)RRIVE SORE]*
R for king in MITE – child
PETS – tantrums reversed – arising in a down clue
BY – times & GONE – past
My Chambers has A for active so A inside MEL – honey.
Hidden – contents of taBLE Wine
Well PRISON is known as the “big house” in the US and CAMP for party. My issue though is Musk is from South Africa not the US
IT(alian) inside CY for Cyprus
D(irector) & a reviewed [B B MOVIE]*
US & ING which is a Dutch Bank
R(olls) R(oyce) removed from QUA(rr)Y – hunting victim
EN – nurse & DUE – expected
A healed [TORN CUTS]* in IR(an)
ONE removed from OVERT(one) – suggestion
K(ay) & NEE – born
Cryptic def
Well, there is a Nigel Short – chess player and Clare Short – politician
Reversal of E(uropean) & RIPS – tears
O(scar) inside TRY – to judge
Sounds like MAW – mouth
American for lots. SO(uth) M(ain)E
Double def I guess, couldn’t really find race = seed but I guess it could be My Seed = My Race, decendants.
SOME:
Why is SO taken for South? I didn’t get it.
Thanks to K for the puzzle and f for the blog.
Thanks for the puzzle and the blog. I’m not from the UK, and I don’t know my London geography so I got held up for a while after bunging in BAR (= BARKING – KING) at 15 across. Both Larkin and Larrikin were NHO, and I wasn’t familiar with either Nigel or Clare so I put “STOUTS” based on the crossers alone.
Ho hum
Seconding KVa’s comment at no. 1.
This was quite a challenging puzzle in parts particularly in the SE corner.
I couldn’t parse two of my answers. Even as a Londoner, I thought that 15a was rather obscure and didn’t get beyond considered Lincoln’s Inn and Gray’s Inn as London neighbourhoods. The parsing for 5d escaped me completely and, having read flashling’s review, I’m not surprised.
I would have said that SOYBEAN was the American word for soya bean. Collins online agrees.
I’ve never heard of OBO. It’s not in Collins but it is in Chambers.
KVa @1. SO = South is given in Chambers. Collins lists it as an American abbreviation.
Thanks to Kairos and flashling.
Rabbit Dave@3
Noted. Thanks.
Just assumed that it had to be just S (nothing else).
After reading your post, I checked online.
Learnt that No could be used for North.
Thanks, Kairos & flashling. Thought this was mostly a nice gentle puzzle for a Sunday morning but with some fairly chewy bits. TORY was my favourite, for the neat surface that put me in mind of Oscar Wilde, which I expect was the intention. Very strange grid – can’t say I’m a fan of so many 3-letter lights.
Nho OBO but it was clued clearly enough to be guessable.
The late Paisley Sr was a Dr, but Paisley Jr is not, as far as I know.
KVa – SoHo in New York is South Houston. Not sure if So is used this way in English-English – can’t think of any examples off the top of my head.
Racked my brains trying to make net somehow be person to justify BAR from BARNET. Another who couldn’t parse the big house. POOR LAW was clever though many historians might dispute the accuracy of the description. Thanks, both.
RD @3 – until last year I worked on a health magazine that regularly featured vegan recipes, and I was forever correcting soybean to soya bean. I think soybean is acceptable in most contexts though, including crosswords.
Widdersbel @5, SOHO stands for South Of HOuston [Street], but I have no problem with So. for south.
Thanks both. I vaguely knew LARRIKINS but research suggests it is of antipodean origin, so the Newcastle piece would not have helped me. Delighted we appear to have a consensus re INN from Pinner being obscure; perhaps we can weave Penketh (part of Warrington) into a clue one day?
Quite hard for a puzzle with so many “simple” three and four letter answers. Missed out on SEED, never heard of an OBO and couldn’t parse PRISON CAMP. Don’t know how, but I did manage to remember (P)INN(ER).
As mentioned by TFO @9, LARRIKINS is in Chambers as “(Aust)” so, even though it seems unlikely, maybe Kairos is referring to Newcastle, NSW, Aust (especially with the question mark), not the more usual Newcastle in the NE of England; all directions covered anyway.
Thanks to Kairos and flashling
Ian SW3 – ah! Thanks for putting me straight. I had no problem with So for South but that was the only example I could think of – apparently mistakenly.
Had the same problems as others with MORE, SEED, OBO and Elon Musk’s big house but this setter invariably fools me, particularly with some of the abbreviations he uses. Dropped lucky with pINNer because many moons ago I had a boyfriend who hailed from there!
Think LARRIKINS was my favourite.
Thanks to Kairos and to flashling for the review.
We also had problems with Elon Musk’s big house. We entered the answer from the definition and used the check button. We checked OBO in Chambers and were stuck with the last one down. We are not sure whether SEED = RACE but we suppose flashling’s suggestion just about fits. We first wondered about SNEW or SWEN – unsurprisingly they didn’t work but thought that providing order to the bridge players was quite a novel idea. Oh Well!
Thanks for the blog – we needed it today.
Thanks Kairos – we needed more checks than usual today.
This felt hard, though when I finally completed it turned out I hadn’t used help any more than is usual for me.
I was thrown by 29 as Wikipedia listed Mauritius’ ISO code as MU and internet domain as .mu but I see MS is the vehicle registration code.
Also, turning to Google for famous Nigel’s, Nigel and Clare came up as an option (former father and daughter characters in Eastenders) which also threw me off course.
There was plenty to like in the rest of the puzzle though, and at least my general knowledge has increased!
Excellent, thoroughly enjoyed this.
I really liked POLITIC (where it’s quite possible the setter is referring to the current MP of that name who is a Mr), the clever OVERT, BYGONE and SOME (where I wonder if the setter used Trump as the indicator because the solution split 2-2 just about sums him up!)
Thanks Kairos and flashling
Further to my post above I wonder, considering the new supposedly penal regime at Twitter, the choice of Elon Musk as indicator was more than a coincidence?
There was too much beyond my orbit for this crossword to be enjoyable and what I did solve did not impress me that much. Thanks to both.
Quite a lot I didn’t get here but, incidentally, there is a Nigel Short who is the founder and artistic director of the choir Tenebrae. He is the one I thought of first as his recordings often appear on Radio 3.