A proper head-scratcher from GAFF !
FF: 8 DD:10
I need help in several places to fully parse the grid. Apologies for the pedestrian effort.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | DREARY |
Dull crisp grabs attention (6)
|
| DRY ( crisp ) containing EAR ( attention ) | ||
| 4 | CHAPATIS |
Man, it’s a crazy lot of bread (8)
|
| CHAP ( man ) [ IT’S A ]* | ||
| 9 | FRINGE |
Trimming border (6)
|
| double def | ||
| 10 | IMPLORES |
Begs that simple forest boundaries are removed (8)
|
| sIMPLe fORESt ( without boundaries, i.e. end characters ) | ||
| 12 | ALBANIAN |
Balkan included in criminal ban I announced (8)
|
| hidden in “..criminAL BAN I ANnounced” | ||
| 13 | BREEZE |
Wind block (6)
|
| double def; the latter was something i had to google for | ||
| 15 | EURO |
Regret returning old coin (4)
|
| reverse of RUE ( regret ) O ( old ) | ||
| 16 | WOMANISERS |
Sow remains disturbed by rakes (10)
|
| [ SOW REMAINS ]* | ||
| 19 | BOHR THEORY |
Outright horror by the revoutionary model of basic structure (4,6)
|
| [ HORrOR BY THE ( outright i.e. without R – right ) ]* | ||
| 20 | BULL |
Buoyant market for animal rubbish (4)
|
| triple def | ||
| 23 | SUMMIT |
Petition about length of meeting (6)
|
| SUIT ( petition ) around MM ( length ) | ||
| 25 | COCKTAIL |
Mixture for bird to follow (8)
|
| COCK ( bird ) TAIL ( follow ) | ||
| 27 | TAFFETAS |
Silks excited by a feast with FT (8)
|
| [ A FEAST FT]* | ||
| 28 | ATTILA |
Mongol from a race partly Milanese (6)
|
| A TT ( race ) ILA ( mILAnese, partly ) | ||
| 29 | PEAR TREE |
Conference could be holder of first Christmas present (4,4)
|
| ? | ||
| 30 | CRANNY |
Opening for relative to start anew (6)
|
| gRANNY ( relative, with C replacing G at the start ) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | DEFLATE |
Let down by Aberdeen runner without accommodation (7)
|
| DEE ( aberdeen runner) around FLAT ( accommodation) ) | ||
| 2 | EDINBURGH |
Bride hung around city (9)
|
| [ BRIDE HUNG ]* | ||
| 3 | RAGING |
Mad Republican leader getting older (6)
|
| R ( republican ) AGING ( getting older ) | ||
| 5 | HOME |
Sort of run-in (4)
|
| cryptic def; referring to a HOME RUN in baseball | ||
| 6 | POLAROID |
Removes glare in an instant (8)
|
| cryptic def? | ||
| 7 | THREE |
Wishes kings and lion counted (5)
|
| cryptic def; three wishes, three kings, three lion(s) ? | ||
| 8 | SISTERS |
Relations toward bosses (7)
|
| ? | ||
| 11 | HANOVER |
Surrender missing daughter in city (7)
|
| HANd OVER ( surrender, without D – daughter ) | ||
| 14 | TAPROOM |
Pub cleaner covers half a year (7)
|
| ? | ||
| 17 | EDUCATION |
Time to keep bike in study (9)
|
| EON ( time ) containing DUCATI ( bike ) | ||
| 18 | STRIDENT |
Screeching pace of books (8)
|
| STRIDE ( pace ) NT ( books, New Testament ) | ||
| 19 | BUS STOP |
Kiss at best place to get off (3,4)
|
| BUSS ( kiss ) TOP ( best ) | ||
| 21 | LULLABY |
Night air (7)
|
| cryptic def | ||
| 22 | SKATER |
Cousins perhaps at fish supper finally (6)
|
| SKATE ( fish ) R ( suppeR, last letter ) – robin cousins, competitive skater from the uk as i found out from google | ||
| 24 | MAFIA |
To some extent from a fiancee’s family (5)
|
| hidden in “..froM A FIAncee’s..” | ||
| 26 | TAPE |
Leaders of tournament are passing every record (4)
|
| starting letters of “..Tournament Are Passing Every..” |
And a partridge in a pear tree.
polaroid made anti-glare sunglasses as well as instant cameras.
B(AR)ROOM
I think 14D might be barroom: B(AR)ROOM. If that’s right I think it’s a bit rubbish . . . Is a pub a barroom?
THREE is correct
FrankieG and I think alike: almost simultaneously . . .
A conference is a type of pear, so double/cryptic definition.
HOME: This is a double definition: (1) Sort of run, (2) In
SISTERS: Another double definition: (1) Relations, (2) Ward bosses (need to break up to-ward)
BARROOM: Broom (cleaner) covers [ye]ar (half a year)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bar_room#English
Noun – bar room (plural bar rooms) – (Canada, US) A room where alcoholic drinks are served over a counter.
Usage notes – In the US, the terms bar room and barroom are uncommon, eschewed in favor of bar.
Synonyms
See also Thesaurus:pub
Also, I am not sure what the “festive” epigram referred to, except for the reference to RAGING BULL, and August 17 is Robert De Niro’s birthday. I also see MAFIA, but also THREE SISTERS, which I associate only with Anton Chekhov, so perhaps multiple events are being celebrated . . . ?
Not “epigram”–what are these little introductory blurbs called? There is a technical term for them. I think it appeared in an Azed once not too long ago???
Also, POLAROID is another double definition: (1) Removes glare (i.e., sunglasses), (2) Instant (i.e., snapshot)
apart from “Pear Tree”, also struggling to see why this was “festive”
Edinburgh Fringe venues
A very strange crossword – very easy with lots of smiles on the left side, and nothing but frustration on the right. The most annoying of the setter’s devices was to tell partial word selection (Milanese and year) with no indication of how many letters and/or which part of the word. I finished, but it took a long time and there was more than one unparsed clue. Thanks for the super effort Turbolegs.
I did manage to parse BARROOM and PEAR TREE. I agree with above comments, but, while I can see how PEAR is clued by conference, I cannot see where TREE is clued. Also, it is difficult to agree a SISTER is a ward boss – the matron is in charge usually, right?
In summary, I could have spent my time more wisely doing other things.
oops – hit Post Comment button accidentally. Not “to tell partial word selection”, but “to use partial-word indicators”. Apologies
I fully concur with Martyn , my experience exactly but thanks anyway to Gaff and Turbolegs .A very hard puzzle to parse.
Ps was not Attila a Hun rather than a Mongol?
David@13: Other than Three Sisters, what are the other theme solutions/venues?
Martyn@14: Surely, conference pears come from a conference pear tree.
SM@16: Yes, I, too, thought the Mongol reference was a bit off.
The other typos (19A, 7D) in this puzzle led me to believe that perhaps this puzzle needed another pass with the editor before publication.
Hanover Tap, Raging Bull, Mafia, Home Bar. I may have missed some!
and Pear Tree.
Thanks Gaff for the challenge. I found this a mixed bag; some clues I liked e.g. BUS STOP, CRANNY, DEFLATE, COCKTAIL, and HANOVER but there were too many where I made wild guesses and then checked their accuracy. I had no problem with BARROOM for pub; as FrankieG pointed out, a BARROOM is simply called a bar in the US but a fight in a bar is often called a “barroom brawl”. Thanks Turbolegs for the blog.
Cineraria @17 – I take your point about PEAR TREE.
SM @16 good point about the Huns. I somehow had it in the back of my mind that the Huns were from Mongolia, but subsequent reading tells me that is not accurate. The origin of the Huns was likely a combination of different backgrounds, with Mongol one of several in the mix
Is it seriously being suggested that given ‘toward bosses’, we must just discard part of a word? What a load of scrap
Martyn@14: The matron would have been in charge of the nursing staff for the whole hospital, so to describe a sister as a ward boss is correct. Having said that, I still dislike 8dn as a clue for all the other reasons that have been mentioned in various comments.
I share some of the concerns, but I thought PEAR TREE was brilliant.
This was certainly a tricky one and though I completed it, a few remained unparsed.
Thankfully, the blog and subsequent comments have cleared up those questions.
I did eventually get the theme and wasted some time wondering if FESTIVAL would be included.
I enjoyed HOME and concur that it’s a double definition. And I rather liked PEAR TREE for the reminder of the carol.
Thanks to Gaff, Turbolegs, Frankie G, David and Cineraria!
Gaff is now right up there with the hardest setters. Like Martin @14 I found the right hand side especially difficult. Same problems as parsing as noted by others and in the end I failed on EDUCATION which was annoying. Saw the theme though I’m sure I haven’t spotted all the references.
Now for a bit of gentle relaxation with Io.
Thanks to Gaff and Turbolegs
THREE
‘wishes, kings & lion‘ counted: And the count is THREE.
Please could someone(Gaff?)explain the festive connection
And, by the way, it struck me that THREE is inaccurate. Each of things being counted is expressed in the plural, which means there must be at least 2 of each. So SIX is the minimum count.
THREE categories maybe, but that is not what the clue is asking for
Martyn@29
THREE
Counting only the words: 1. wishes 2. kings & 3. lion
Just like a Word File does, a word count.
Will Smith@28
Please see the comment from David@13, 18 and 19.
KVa@30 – yes but the word count is four: Wishes kings and lion
And, I made a mistake – only wishes and lions are plural. I still hold to my comment, but the count is five at min
Martyn@31
The ‘and’ is not counted.
Only
wishes, kings, lion-counted.
When we say, “a, b and c are counted”, the ‘and’ is not
counted.
Anyway…
I understand your point. We can stick to our respective positions.
As it’s unlikely that Gaff will drop in to clarify, we can move on
without really knowing what the setter intended.
THREE wishes, THREE kings and THREE lions are all proverbially ‘counted’. Typo missing the s off lions though. AFAIK Nils Bohr didn’t have a theory named after him – he pioneered the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Theory. Overall a tough workout. Thanks to both.
KVa @32. Of course! Thanks for the discussion
Very late , been away , just the BOHR THEORY, he did propose the first atomic model with electrons in quantised orbits and used it to explain the spectrum of hydrogen, it is quite primitive and before actual quantum mechanics. A sort of hybrid between the classical Rutherford model and new quantum ideas from Planck and Einstein.
PEAR TREE is a pub in Edinburgh
HANOVER street is in Edinburgh also.
Rather late post as we’re late doing this crossword!
Also a BULL Inn and a culture SUMMIT, which could be coincidental of course….