Gila kicks off our new week.
A distinctly American feel in places but a relatively easy solve in the end, thanks Gila.
A broadcast [B(aseball) WORLD SERIES]*. I assume Gila has been watching too much US TV.
NIGH – almost & sTuFf occasionally inside ALL – everybody
L(arge) & EASE – facility
IN – popular & H(earts) inside SORT – person. He’s not a bad sort…
A switch is a type of games console, so a double definition
A re-presented [AS SLIDING]*. Nicely spotted Gila.
Primary letter clue, oh, sorry it’s not Everyman, F(ederer’s) L(ooking) E(xhaused) A(nd)
Sounds like CACHE – store
MAN – jeez, oh man, oh jeez & GET OUT – please leave
DSO – military award inside ANON – unknown
WIN SOME, lose some
I had P?R?? and spent ages trying to make PARIS fit. R(ight) inside POT – vessel & O – round
[(End of) iM ALL TIRED]* out
AND – also inside a new [GRADS TOLD]*
As in a banging tune or so I’m told. GIN – booze in BAN – to bar & end of (readin)G
W(ith) & AGES – lots of time
LOOS – toilets, places to go inside L’ETE – the summer in France
Roasting is where especially comedians tear strips off someone. AS – like inside ROT – nonsense
Alternate letters of mEaLs inside SECTION – part
RE – about & LENT – time for giving up things
A(ustralian) & LT – lieutenant, soldier in P – quiet & most of ALOO(f) – distant.
Not really an expression I use certainly, EVE first woman inside the ever so nice folks the N.R.A.
Sounds like INN CIDERS
NO – Japanese drama & A(merica) inside MINTED – made money
REINE – French for queen & end of (staye)D & IN – at home
APP – software inside CRY – whine. Cue moans from the crowd about bad language
A nuts [R(oun)D BETEL]*
O – ring inside most of BON-BO(n) – sweet
Is west really to the left? Not if I’m heading south it’s not. Hmm anyway R(iver) in WEST
French & German for yes – OUI & JA
Thanks, Gila and flashling!
Liked NIGHTFALL, IN SHORT, PALO ALTO and NOMINATED.
WREST
I agree with the comment in the blog about ‘left=west’.
West is left on a map. Worked for me.
I figure that, in crosswords, we often refer to NSEW as the top, bottom, right and left of the grid. WEST (or, more likely, WESTWARD) is often used in across clues to mean a reversal (to the left). As such, I’m ok with it.
As well as WREST, I thought quite a few of these were a bit of a stretch (bowdlerisers, banging, wages), but mental stretching is just as necessary for good health as the physical sort, so thanks Gila and Flashling.
Thanks, Gila and flashling. A very enjoyable mental workout. Always good to see setters use up-to-date(ish) terms like BANGING – though no doubt my son would tell me no one says that any more apart from old fogeys like me.
I agree with Hovis on west=left – it’s just one of those crossword conventions.
I liked all of this … but it is clearly a very personal thing re West/left. Some respected commenters have already okayed it but it raised an eyebrow with me (somehow, it felt a tad more stretchy as it’s a down clue). But it’s a small thing and probably best left alone.
Whether influenced by US TV or not, the B+World Series anagram is very neat indeed.
Thanks Gila and flashling
Postmark@6
WREST
Agree. It is best west it alone. 🙂
Ooops!
It is best west alone.
I loved this – especially the &littish surfaces: GLISSANDI, TREADMILL, WINSOME
P+(ALO (A+LT)O[f]) was knotty enough for anyone who likes parsing. I liked the simple WREST & WAGES too.
“L’ETE – the summer in France” seems to be cropping up a lot of late – this time with a REINE to boot.
What about le printemps, l’automne & l’hiver? – I believe in equal opportunities for all seasons.
OUI JA is a bit long-in-the-tooth, though.
BANGIN’ – usually followed by CHOON! – was slightly more up-to-date – from the ’90s & ’00s (nineties & noughties)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jul/20/electronicmusic.bbc
contains this comment on the ‘new’ Doctor Who theme:
“Actually, the latest version is bombastic and thumpy. I always expect a delinquent Cyberman to pop up and deem it to be a ‘bangin’ choon’.”
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/banging
can also be ‘Noun – A session of sexual intercourse’ and ‘Adjective – (colloquial, dated) – Huge; great in size’
FrankieG@9
TREADMILL: I noticed this as extended def.
WINSOME: Could work as a CAD. Saw that too.
GLISSANDI: Missed the sliding aspect of GLISSANDI. Thanks for pointing it out.
Watch Obama ROAST Trump (2011)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHckZCxdRkA
KVa @ 7 & 8: glad you spotted that 😀
KVa@10 – I aim to please – yes, GLISSANDI is the standout clue with the “Nicely spotted” and appropriate anagram.
NEVER A – Thought I might have spotted another 50-year-old album, but it’s from ’72 – so I’m a year too late.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_a_Dull_Moment_(Rod_Stewart_album)
I like to misquote Charlton Heston of the NRA over matters of grammar – “I’ll give you my subjunctive when you pry it from my cold, dead hands” .
He was born in 1923 – so I claim a centennial.
Thanks G&f – from FG
V. pleasant way to start the week. My favourites were as mentioned by FrankieG @9 and KVa @10: GLISSANDI, WINSOME and TREADMILL, all of which would do as semi-&lits for me. Good to work out a bit of tricky parsing too, including PORTO (harder than it looked) and PALO ALTO.
Thanks to Gila and flashling
I feel that, although I agree that GLISSANDI is a wonderful anagram, it is far from an original one. For example Picaroon had slides, as sliding rocks a couple of years ago. I imagine if you were to search through the archives, you’d find other instances. Not as many as the OUIJA chestnut I feel safe in saying. This is not a criticism of Gila. Most setters insert the odd chestnut or two in their puzzles, possibly not deliberately in many cases.
Whoops, something went wrong with my italics. Slides, as sliding rocks was the intended bit.
Aargh! It was meant to be Slides, as with sliding rocks. Apologies.
NEVER A is strange, though. Plenty of other single words would fit there.
I think there must be some “well-known phrase or saying” hiding in the grid.
Hovis@15,16,17 – You’re right on GLISSANDI – it’s a chestnut. Here’s a Rufus from 14 years ago:
https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/24756
‘In Italian it translates as “sliding one’s fingers along the keyboards” (9)’
The blog is so old the clues aren’t included. The blogger can’t parse the clue, so Eileen helps, then the man himself turns up to explain.
https://www.fifteensquared.net/2009/07/20/guardian-24756-rufus/
Rufus – July 20, 2009 at 9:56 am
‘Re:GLISSANDI, I didn’t want to use this word but it was the only one that fitted as I struggled to fill in the top right corner! But finding that an anagram turned out to be its English meaning made me think it had possibilities. My intention was that the anagram indicator was “translates” and the letter fodder was “as sliding” – the quotation marks did make it more confusing. I tried to indicate the “I” ending by making “keyboards” plural.’
just a plea for biological accuracy in Crosswordland. Bonobos are apes not monkeys. Quite a big difference. As a long-term attempter of the Indy crossward who very rarely manages to finish it without help, am very grateful to all the more skilled solvers on fifteensquared. Thanks to Gila and flashling
Hovis@15/FrankieG@19 – and, as for OUIJA, you’d be hard-pressed to find any clue in the archive that doesn’t use either the OUI + JA construction or the other chestnut, i.e. some cryptic definition about people being ‘late’ or whathaveyou. The real skill is in avoiding painting yourself into the O?I?A corner in the first place! 🙂
Many thanks to flashling for the blog and to all who’ve commented so far
Thanks both. Didn’t know PALO ALTO and had become preoccupied with fitting the soldier behind the first ‘a’. On which matter, I am still unsure if NEVER A is intended to be seen as an expression in itself, or just an excerpt from everyday speech e.g. ‘never a penalty’?
Something of a mixed bag for me consisting of some I really liked – GLISSANDI, AND SO ON, WINSOME & TREADMILL and some I didn’t – NEVER A, BANGING & CRAPPY. Ah well, so be it!
Thanks to Gila and to flashling for confirming some of my parsing.
TFO @22 – the word for such excerpts from everyday speech is simply ‘adjective’ – ie a word or phrase that modifies a noun such as penalty (nice example that any football fan will be familiar with). ‘Never a’ is listed in Chambers with the definition ‘no’, so the clue is unimpeachable in my book.
Wiktionary doesn’t have NEVER A but it does have this:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ne%27er_a
‘NE’ER A – Adjective – Alternative forms ne’ery, nary – Not a single; no; NEVER A.
Etymology – Univerbation of ne’er +? a.
(univerbation – A single word formed from a fixed expression of several words. For example, the single word albeit comes from the Middle English expression al be it, in which al means although.)’
Etymology – Univerbation of ne’er + a.