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The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29178.
Perhaps a little knottier than usual for a Monday, but an excellent offering from Brummie, to rank with his best. As often with him, there is a theme, a very famous equation.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | OVERALL |
Accomplished lines about a comprehensive (7)
|
| An envelope (‘about’) of ‘a’ in OVER (‘accomplished’) plus LL (‘lines’). | ||
| 5 | SQUARED |
Settled on entering working party (7)
|
| An envelope (‘entering’) of RE (‘on’) in SQUAD (‘working party’). | ||
| 9 | SPEED |
Career that’s stimulating (5)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 10 | GARROTTED |
Choked elongated fish perished (9)
|
| A charade of GAR (‘elongated fish’) plus ROTTED (‘perished’). | ||
| 11 | FIGURATIVE |
Symbolic 5 includes guitar riff (10)
|
| An envelope (‘includes’) of IGURAT (or GURATI if you prefer), an anagram (‘riff’) of ‘guitar’ in FIVE (‘5’). | ||
| 12 | SPEC |
Detailed description of small muscle (4)
|
| A charade of S (‘small’) plus PEC (‘muscle’). | ||
| 14 | TERCENTENARY |
Anniversary bash outside eastern entrance out of control (12)
|
| An envelope (‘outside’) of ERCENTENA, an anagram (‘out of control’) of E (‘eastern’) plus ‘entrance’ in TRY (‘bash’). | ||
| 18 | WEATHER FRONT |
Guardian articles on Republican political group that heralds a storm? (7,5)
|
| A charade of WE (‘Guardian’) plus A THE (‘articles’) plus R (‘Republican’) plus FRONT (‘political group’). | ||
| 21 | MASS |
State service (4)
|
| Double definition, the first being an abbreviation for Massachusetts. | ||
| 22 | MARTINIQUE |
Drink that in Spanish means ‘island‘ (10)
|
| A charade of MARTINI (‘drink’) plus QUE (‘that in Spanish’). | ||
| 25 | ULTIMATUM |
Umlaut scrawled over man’s name; accept it or else! (9)
|
| An envelope (‘over’) of TIM (‘man’s name’) in ULATUM, an anagram (‘scrawled’) of ‘umlaut’. | ||
| 26 | FRAUD |
Brother gets over Dutch scam (5)
|
| A charade of FRA (‘brother’) plus UD, a reversal (‘over’) of DU (‘Dutch’). | ||
| 27 | TROUGHS |
Sought to circulate around river’s low points (7)
|
| An envelope (‘around’) of R (‘river’) in TOUGHS, an anagram (‘to circulate’) of ‘sought’. | ||
| 28 | SPLASHY |
Ostentatious as kids in a puddle? (7)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | OSSIFY |
Loss, if York houses become fixed (6)
|
| A hidden answer (‘houses’) in ‘lOSS IF York’. | ||
| 2 | ENERGY |
Go grey, perhaps, after near death (6)
|
| A charade of EN[d] (‘death’) minus its last letter (‘near’); plus ERGY, an anagram (‘perhaps’) of ‘grey’. | ||
| 3 | ANDERLECHT |
European football team abroad clear end by half-time (10)
|
| A charade of ANDERLEC, an anagram (‘abroad’) of ‘clear end’ plus HT (‘half-time’). | ||
| 4 | LIGHT |
Fair‘s awkward situation: no parking (5)
|
| A subtraction: [p]LIGHT (‘awkward situation’) minus the P (‘no parking’). | ||
| 5 | SCRIVENER |
US state split by ex-monarch’s notary (9)
|
| A charade of SC (South Carolina, ‘US state’) plus RIVEN (‘split’) plus ER (‘ex-monarch’). | ||
| 6 | UFOS |
America’s holding of heaven-bound heavenly objects (4)
|
| An envelope (‘holding’) of FO, a reversal (‘heaven-bound’ in a down light) of ‘of’ in US (‘America’). | ||
| 7 | RATAPLAN |
Drumming sound coming from grass on a plot (8)
|
| A charade of RAT (‘grass’) plus ‘a’ plus PLAN (‘plot’). | ||
| 8 | DIDACTYL |
Performed turn on ends of rickety stool, being two-toed (8)
|
| A charade of DID (‘performed’) plus ACT (‘turn’ – vaudeville, for example) plus YL (‘ends of ricketY stooL‘). | ||
| 13 | MEANINGFUL |
Significant base in Gulf conflict (10)
|
| A charade of MEAN (‘base’) plus ‘in’ plus GFUL, an anagram (‘conflict’) of ‘Gulf’. | ||
| 15 | CERVANTES |
Versace, not busy, dropping round to see writer (9)
|
| An anagram (‘busy’) of ‘Versace n[o]t’ minus the O (‘dropping round’). | ||
| 16 | SWIMSUIT |
Feel dizzy taking diamonds, say, for beachwear (8)
|
| A charade of SWIM (‘feel dizzy’) plus SUIT (‘diamonds, say’). | ||
| 17 | FALSETTO |
Wrong time and time again â love rather strained (8)
|
| A charade of FALSE (‘wrong’) plus TT (‘time and time again’) plus O (‘love’). | ||
| 19 | EQUALS |
Matches squeal when lit (6)
|
| An anagram (‘when lit’ – i.e. drunk) of ‘squeal’. | ||
| 20 | DEADLY |
Implacable insensitive heartless sexual partner (6)
|
| A charade of DEAD (‘insensitive’) plus L[a]Y (‘sexual partner’) minus the middle letter (‘heartless’). | ||
| 23 | TIMES |
Newspaper ‘X‘? (5)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 24 | SMUG |
Sticks up for superior (4)
|
| A reversal (‘up’ in a down light’) of GUMS (‘sticks’). |
Tough for a Monday but I got there in the end although I needed help with RATAPLAN. Missed the theme.
So there was a theme? Missed it again.
ANDERLECHT & RATAPLAN were new to me. Couldn’t parse FRAUD.
DEADLY/implacable?
I’d imagine that a professional counter-tenor might be disappointed to hear his voice described as “rather strained”.
I agree with Tim C @1 that this was a bit tough for Monday, GDU @2 on FRAUD and DEADLY, and both on missing the theme. I dredged up ANDERLECHT, but it is obscure. Thanks, Brummie and PeterO.
Have to agree with Geoff Down Under — falsetto is exactly the opposite of “strained”. I’m guessing Brummie is not a singer.
Alternate solution for 4 Down: LEGIT (“Fair”) with “Leg it” (you have to walk) as the awkward situation due to no parking.
Despite my M.Sc. in physics, I completely failed to notice the theme. As another non-European, I found 3dn impenetrably obscure. 5dn was also tough, even though I drive over the wall of Scrivener Dam on a regular basis. As a singer, I also take exception to the characterisation of falsetto as ‘strained’. Next weekend I shall be employing it in a concert to sing high notes which would otherwise be strained (or loud!).
Is it my imagination or are the clues for the theme answers a touch less satisfying than the rest? It would be understandable if that were the case.
Another word (Implacable) missing from Bradford’s, so had to resort to Crossword Solver; Deadly = implacable, who knew?
I found the top half very tough, and didn’t look for a theme.
Very nice, thank you PeterO and Brummie. Hadn’t heard of the football team but it’s very fairly indicated from clue and crossers. *Pedant alert* – PEC is already shortened from Pectoralis so the S remains unclued.
Another who missed the theme. Was Brummie throwing us off the scent by scattering the themesters in a non central position? I did wonder who was garrotted 300 years ago on Martinique.
Fav ENERGY. It packed so much punch. Disguised def at the beginning of the clue. Anagram at the end of the answer and subtraction at the front with a position indicator. A formula all of its own.
A few of the European teams have become vaguely familiar, by osmosis aiw, but not that one. Wasn’t looking, so didn’t see the famous formula. Rataplan too a bit of a biff, tho probably seen here before. Nice Monday puzzle though, ta B and P.
I confess I only looked for the theme when I noticed it mentioned by commenters on the Guardian site, but was pleased to find it ( I did study it at Uni, so would have been shameful to miss it). Took me a long time to get a foothold in the puzzle, with the NW corner holding out to the last. Thought 3d would be a European, so only realised what the definition was when I saw the crossers. I agree with DrW@6 that the themes clues seemed a little easier and perhaps not quite as well defined as the rest of the puzzle, but liked 5, 8 and 15. Thanks to Brummie and PeterO
Missed the theme, of course. I had this notion that it might be the TERCENTENARY of something, but neither Adam Smith nor Christopher Wren seemed to fit.
I needed many checks to nut out ANDERLICH, but I forgive myself because I know little of football, even less of European football, and nothing of that club.
That’s a novel mini-theme idea. Nicely put together. I somehow dredged ANDERLECHT out of the memory banks. SCRIVENER, GARROTTED and CERVANTES were my podium, RATAPLAN my nho.
Thanks Brummie and PeterO
Despite being a singer (but in my defence I’m a bass baritone) I failed to get FALSETTO and was also defeated by ENERGY. Missed the theme, too, but then I usually do.
I don’t mind obscure words (RATAPLAN, DIDACTYL) if they are clued as clearly as Brummie managed here. I can see, however, that ANDERLECHT might be a bit much if you were not a European.
Some delightful stuff – I particularly liked FIGURATIVE, TERCENTENARY, MARTINIQUE and CERVANTES.
Thanks to Brummie and PeterO
ChambersâŚ
falsetto /fĂśl-set??/
noun
3. False or strained sentiment
Very similar experience to others in missing the theme and not knowing RATAPLAN for instance. But just as I love a good lurker so I notice the average ones. Here the surface for OSSIFY was so strained that the whole thing screamed ‘lurker’ straight away.
The theme was too clever for me, though I suspected something possibly mathmatical from TIMES, EQUALS & SQUARED. Rather strained is a bit harsh on FALSETTO. Quite possible to sing falsetto without it being strained! But I thought this a splendid Monday puzzle.
Jay @ 15, so Chambers to the rescue! That meaning certainly wasn’t in my dictionary. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m increasingly regarding Chambers as a work of fiction.
Don’t think that counter tenor and falsetto are synonymous…. falsetto is defined as a strained or forced high voice, counter tenor is a naturally ( nowadays) high male alto.
Earworm for today
https://youtu.be/DvIrvlQw1RQ?si=BdHBBU-qrD_vGqGh
Effortless and unstrained counter tenor
All the countertenors I’ve has anything to do with used falsetto exclusively.
On a lighter note, someone told me once that to sing in a falsetto voice you need a false set o’ teeth.
had
Definitely difficult for a Monday. I failed to parse FRAUD, being unfamiliar with the DU abbreviation and vaguely thinking it might have something to with Dutch = wife = FRAU.
“Go grey” in 2d was a very nice lift-and-separate (in the sense discussed by Eileen a few days ago).
I think there are contexts where FALSETTO can imply “strained” – perhaps more when referring to speaking rather than singing. Chambers says: “a forced (esp singing) voice of a range or register above its natural one”.
Many thanks Brummie and PeterO.
I parsed FRAUD as FR (brother) AU(over) D(dutch) – wasn’t convinced, but couldn’t find anything better
Liked 11a FIGURATIVE – lift-and-separate “guitar riff” to get the innovative anagrind “riff”
Quite tough – I was pleased to be able to complete it.
Favourites: FIGURATIVE; TERCENTENARY (loi).
I could not parse 20d and 26ac apart from guessing that FR = brother.
New for me: ANDERLECHT (thanks, google); HT = half time (3d); RATAPLAN.
Thanks, both.
* Totally missed the theme.
Definitely tricky for a Monday! I follow football enough to get ANDERLECHT once I’d discarded the idea it might start with INTER.
I also couldn’t parse FRAUD, and originally had BROOD, which apart from not being a scam, fit the wordplay rather well.
Missed the theme, natch.
Thanks both.
Geoff Down Under, I agree, re Chambers. Some of the phrases they have down as Australian slang are rather bizarre. I like your description. Some of the links between synonyms are, to me, quite a stretch.
There was quite a lot I didn’t know (or could not think of) in this, and I could not quite finish it. But TIMES and EQUALS led me to believe (1) there was a theme and (2) the theme was likely to be the famous equation. That helped with MASS and then the other parts.
Thanks to Brummie and PeterO.
As I typed in QUE the parsing penny finally dropped for MARTINIQUE. I’d assumed it was something to do with the cocktail – rum and absinthe – not for the faint hearted đ
I wasn’t aware of the less-common meaning of FALSETTO identified by Jay @15 but I am now. All part of the fun of doing cryptics
Great to have a bit more meat on the Monday bone
Cheers P&B
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_production_in_Martinique
‘Coffee production in MARTINIQUE dates to 1723’ – a TERCENTENARY.
Panthes Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater is beautiful indeed. He is singing in full falsetto here. The tone is much thinner than a fully voiced note in chest register. Counter tenors do sing in the female alto range and mostly in falsetto. I have a B. Mus. in classical singing and work as a singing teacher. And no, it is most definitely not strained, despite what Chambers says. It is actually easier for males to sing in falsetto than full voice up on the high notes.
As so often I’m going against the grain, struggling on the days most people find it easy and finding today’s just right for a Monday. Oh well.
In common with many others I missed the theme and nho rataplan.
Great fun, though I forgot to look for the inevitable theme. Nothing here that was unfamiliar, but RATAPLAN I know from French and Italian – I was unaware that it had crept into English.
ENERGY is clever, and I liked âguitar riffâ. SCRIVENER took a while because my first thought was that âsplitâ was an envelope indicator (a scrivener is just a writer, surely. A notary does much more than that, but perhaps the words were more interchangeable once upon a time).
Thanks to S&B
I think our musical friends here are missing the entry of Jay@15!
A touch on the tricky side for a Monday and all the better for it.
Thanks Brummie and PeterO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969%E2%80%9370_Inter-Cities_Fairs_Cup#Final
Knew ANDERLECHT from the 1969â70 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup Final. Arsenal lost 3-1 away to them, but beat them 3-0 in the return leg at Highbury.
Remember the scorers – Ray Kennedy, Eddie Kelly, John Radford, Jon Sammels.
Arsenal’s first European trophy, followed by the League and Cup double the following season. And you could see a match for 2s6d (ÂŁ0.12p)
Yes, I think you are correct AshLark @35. The “forced” part of the definition in Chambers refers to sentiment, not to singing. To quote the entry in full….
“falsetto n (pl falsettos) (usu in a man) a forced (esp singing) voice of a range or register above its natural one; a person who uses such a voice; false or strained sentiment. adj and adv in falsetto. [Ital falsetto, dimin of falso false]
I made heavy WEATHER of this. Strangely, WEATHER FRONT is not in the main (Chambers, ODE, Collins) dictionaries (but it is in Wiktionary), although I think it’s used quite a lot in WEATHER forecasts.
TILT was RATAPLAN. I liked TROUGHS for the ‘sought to circulate’, SPLASHY for the image of muddy kids, LOI ENERGY for the ‘go grey’, SCRIVENER for the unusual split, and MEANINGFUL not being involved in the Gulf War.
Thanks Brummie and PeterO.
RANTAPLAN
And no falsetto. đ
Me@39 A variation on the onomatopoeic sound of a drumbeat in French (ratatatat in English) . A memory of my French learning school days, still remember the lyrics. Beautiful boys’ choir.
Struggled to get a toe hold in the top half, not having come across a SCRIVENER for a while, nor RATAPLAN, ever. Liked the WEATHER FRONT, though not the one last night that kept me awake with its flashing and crashing. Last one in had to be DEADLY via the definition with all the crossers settled firmly into play. Needed PeterO to explain the provenance of that one, lay as sexual partner. I see. I’m more familiar with the Lays of Ancient Rome, something else altogether…and the theme totally passed me by as usual.
I must be thick but is the formula E equals MC squared in which case where do you find MC?
Cedric @43: That is the formula – âcâ (lower case, properly) is the speed of light (others can elaborate under precisely what conditions) and so mc squared is MASS TIMES SPEED (of) LIGHT SQUARED
Paddymelon – you seem to have posted something to do with RATAPLAN on yesterday’s Everyman blog.
ronald@42. toehold đ DIDACTYL a beauty. lay first occurred to me as L(ad)Y and I thought what about all the other sexual partners?
Another earworm from Bob Dylan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhzEsb2tNbI
but if you like classical/Romance languages I’d go to the Paris Boys Choir @39
Gervase many thanks get it now!
Oh, Crispy@45. Really? I thought I was here and the link was so long it got caught in a spam filter. Time for bed.
Missed the theme, despite a physics degree and having set a Listener puzzle in the late 1980s based on Einstein’s Theory of Cricket (E=MCC).
As an early musician I have never found counter tenors singing falsetto to sound strained, whereas the haut-contre of, say, Russell Oberlin, certainly can.
Paddymelon@48. Sleep well!
I wouldn’t ever have got the theme, even though I know the equation. Thanks for that, PeterO, and for the others I couldn’t parse. Never heard of ANDERLECHT and didn’t know DU stood for “Dutch.”
SCRIVENER reminds me of the Melville short story, “Bartleby the Scrivener,” set in an office where Bartleby never says anything when asked to do something except “I prefer not to.”
I don’t think DEADLY = “implacable.” That implies intention, while a wound or a poison can be deadly.
Goujeers@49 what’s the difference between a countertenor and a haut contre? I rather liked Russell Oberlin’s singing myself.
Thanks, Brummie and PeterO.
Good to see the old Mass for Massachusetts. It’s one of the older state abbreviations that still has legs, since Massachusetts is too much of a mouthful for most purposes. For example, the thoroughfare that connects Harvard and MIT may technically be named Massachusetts Avenue, but there’s no one anywhere in greater Boston who doesn’t pronounce it “Mass Ave.”
The word DIDACTYL reminded me of the double dactyl, a poetic form best illustrated by an example of my own devising:
Higgledy-piggledy,
Barney the Dinosaur ,
Noxiously wholesome from
Nostril to tail,
Bears no relation to
Paleontology,
He’s just a big purple
Beanbag for sale.
I totally missed the theme, of course, and cheated on a couple items. But I had fun otherwise.
No theme and failed on RATAPLAN. Tough solve, favourite ANDERLECHT who were more famous in the 70s, as FrankieG points out.
Ta Brummie & PeterO.
Missed the theme and couldnât parse FRAUD (I played with the Frau and D idea too, but naturally couldnât make sense of it) but otherwise enjoyed this enormously.
A stint in my youth in the DâOyly Carte opera orchestra (dedicated to the works of Gilbert and Sullivan) has left the duet from Cox&Box âRataplan, rataplan, Iâm a military man..â etched in my memory. I now have it as an earworm, and wish I hadnât!
[Ah, mrpenney @52, you remind me of one of MY own devising, which I entered many, many years ago for a competition in the New Statesman (I think it was) for original and witty double dactyls. How It did not win remains a mystery to me – perhaps the judges were so attuned to commentators’ mangling of Czech woman players’s surnames, which persists to this day, that they didn’t ‘get it’ …
Wimbledon-dimbledon
Hana Mandlikova
Came to the West and fell
Victim to Fame.
Fame moved the stress from the
Antepenultimate
To the penultimate
Vowel of her name.
Thank you for giving me even a feeble excuse to give it one last outing.]
Thanks for the blog , very good puzzle but not for a Monday, when I was learning cryptics I would have been pretty miffed with this.
Missed the theme of course , actually – Energy squared = rest mass squared X c to the fourth power + momentum squared X c squared.
I liked this crossword, but I found it too hard for a Monday – more the strength of a mid-week puzzle. 3d ANDERLECHT was a NHO, and I couldnât get it even with all the crossers. I also didnât know DU for Dutch, so I couldnât parse 26a FRAUD. Like several others I raised a musical eyebrow at the definition of 17d FALSETTO, and I have never heard that word in the meaning that Chambers cites.
Gervase@43, I read the theme equation as ENERGY = MASS x LIGHT SPEED SQUARED, so no need to interpolate the âofâ. And I will now always think of it as Einsteinâs Theory of Cricket, thanks to Goujeers@49.
Thanks Brummie for the fun and PeterO for the much needed blog.
Roz@56, we crossed, and as you can see, I concur with your assessment of this puzzle.
[mrpenney @52 and Spooners cf @55: how good to be reminded of the double dactyl verse form, both fine examples. I remember the NS comp well: one of the winning entries went as follows:
Higgledy-piggledy
Dorothy Richardson
Wrote many books with her
Delicate muse,
Where, though I hate to seem
Uncomplimentary,
Nothing much matters and
Nobody screws.
Good, but imo yours more ingenious, Scf]
Thanks to Brummie and PterO. Wish my ancient brain had been up to spotting the “ENERGY EQUALS MASS TIMES LIGHT SPEED SQUARED”. Re ANDERLECHT I was in Manchester to see United beat Anderlecht 10-0 in 1957. Their win meant they flew to Munich for the next round in Europe. Everyone knows about that. 10-0 is the largest margin in Euro-cup history.
Thanks Brummie. The Guardian editor must not know that solvers expect something gentle on Monday. This was challenging and I ended up revealing 3d (never in a million years),14a (bash=try was new to me), and DEADLY (not what comes to mind when I hear implacable). I liked much of this with CERVANTES, ULTIMATUM, and MARTINIQUE being my top picks. Thanks PeterO for revealing the theme and the overall blog.
[Sâs c @55: Nice poem, pity about the tonic stress. All native Czech words, including personal names, are stressed on the first syllable. So MandlikovĂĄ was never antepenultimate đ ]
[RobertMac @59. Thank you – that is very gracious. I do not recall the Dorothy Richardson example, but I think one of the other winners featured Anna Karenina. Clearly, the NS favoured literary over sporting themes. I should have devised one that involved Titus Andronicus. Rats! And it must have been around that time that I saw, twice in quick succession, the unforgettable production of the play by Deborah Warner at the Swan starring Brian Cox.]
I had POTAPLAN for 7d; seemed reasonable but definitely hindered solving for 5a SQUARED.
Fun puzzle but definitely a Thursday or Friday masquerading as a Monday. Good job by Brummie but shame on the editors for not putting the puzzle in its’ proper place.
Gervase @62. You are much given to linguistic pedantry, most of it soundly based. However, I spent several years in the Czech Republic, where I met my current wife, Mrs C, who had been previously married and whose Czech married name comprised four syllables. She never pronounced her married name as in CATflapiA, with the elongated final A, but rather, the normal stress on the initial syllable was over-stressed by that on the second, so it was CatFLAPiA. Unless you want to tell her that, despite being Czech, she was wrong, in which case I shall pass on your view.
Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Beyond brutal for me.
If the rest of the week becomes more difficult than this (I thought Monday was supposed to be more gentle?) then I give up.
So many fancy âtricksâ.
#lostconfidence
#demoralising
Missed the theme, of course. And since when has DU meant DUTCH? Thanks for the fun, Brummie, and for the parsing of FRAUD, PeterO.
DP@54
I also remembered RATAPLAN from Cox and Box as performed by the D’Oyly Carte. I remembered that the words weren’t by Gilbert but had to look up F. C. Burnand
I had the same idea as Amoeba @27 on INTER for the European football team. Also spent a lot of time looking for a solution beginning with E-XI.
Steffen @67 You’ll get ’em next time champ!
Looking up âstrainâ as well as âfalsettoâ in Chambers we reckon all is well. In a proper falsetto the vocal ligaments are highly stretched by the cricothyroid muscles. And the main definition of âstrainâ is just that: âto draw tightâ, from the Latin âstringereâ to stretch tight. It doesnât mean the voice needs to SOUND forced in a Monty Python âwomanâ way. Anyway, great crossword, thanks Brummie, and PeterO for the parsing.
Cellomaniac@57 there is of course an OF in the grid, albeit upside down within 6d. Also unusual to see OF participating so actively in a clue.
What a brilliant theme! Totally missed it, of course. Took me all week, but I’ve been busy, honest … I was stuck for a good while thinking the European football team would be INTER, and I had to look up RATAPLAN – a new one for me.
Too many ticks to mention, but DIDACTYL was a delight.
Those offended by âstrainedâ need to relax: 2. âProduced by deliberate effortâ OED.