It’s Phiday again!
Another interesting puzzle from our Friday regular setter. We had half-expected something seasonal today, but apart from that very word at 21ac, we can’t see anything going on.
However, we think there must be something happening to justify the inclusion of the unusual entries at 3d (unpronounceable!), 13d, 15ac and 17ac.
Could THEORY, POSIT and GUESS be connected in some way? Any thoughts out there?
Happy Christmas to one and all – and of course to Phi!
Traditionally, Christmas pudding was formed into a ball and boiled in a bag (a duff or even plum-duff), so something associated with it might fancifully be referred to as DUFFY – a reference to Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate from 2009 to 2019
STABLE (fixed) LAnD (soil) with the ‘n’ (nitrogen) removed
An anagram (‘rocks’) of AGAIN ATOP
ES (French for ‘are’ as in ‘tu es’ – ‘you are’) in or ‘enthralled by’ GUS (Augustus)
THEY (those people) round or ‘keeping’ OR (other ranks – ‘soldiers’)
THe (article) missing the last letter or ‘truncated’ + wATCHER (observer) missing the first letters or ‘dropping leader’
RID (free) E S (first letters or ‘outset’ of every Saturday)
An anagram (‘rocks’) of COOLING and E E (‘earth repeatedly’)
APPAL (shock) O O (‘couple of rounds’) + SA (sex appeal – ‘it’) – a new word for us
I in or ‘filling’ POST (job)
SEAL (confirm) round or ‘accommodating’ A SON (boy)
IS after T (time) in pART (role) missing the first letter (‘not lead’)
D (democrat) RIFT (schism)
tUNE (air) missing the first letter or ‘not at first’ + sQUALLY (windy) missing the first letter or ‘not at first’
CAN (‘amount of film’) round LEVEL (flat) + D (deserted)
ENSUrE (make certain) with the ‘r’ (King) missing or ‘fleeing’
If you were to move plants out of pots to transplant them you could be said to DE-POT them
A THE (couple of articles) in or ‘probing’ FAD (passing fashion)
An anagram (‘raunchy’) of DAYS and GIRL rounder ’embracing’ G (grand) – definitely a new word for Bert but Joyce vaguely remembered meeting it in a previous crossword although she could only remember the first three letters.
A cryptic definition: a reversal (‘on reflection’) of NO (number) in G and S
An anagram (‘disorder’) of IN A HANDCAR
sLIGHT (insult) ‘dismissing’ ‘s’ (son)
LEECHEs (an archaic vulgar word for physicians) missing the last letter (‘most of’) + E (first letter or ‘beginning’ of eat)
SORE (uncomfortable) round or ‘involving’ I (one) in DINT (effort)
An anagram (‘could give you’) of A CAROL TOUR – another new word
An anagram (‘concoction’) of HARP and DISCO
PORT (left) with OP (work) in front (‘initially’) + UNE (French for feminine ‘a’)
An anagram (‘revamped’) of PLAINER
SH (quiet) fIELDS (farming areas) missing ‘f’ (first letter or ‘heading’ of farmer)
T (tense) in OUR (this county’s) + E (English)
A homophone (‘spoken’) of TIME (sentence)
RED (‘another colour’) with an extra E (middle letter or ‘heart’)
Hmm. Held up by OLIGOCENE for a short while, having dismissed an anagram, given that Phi used ‘rocks’ as his anagrind only five clues earlier. And I don’t think it works the second time – it’s surely a directive instruction if preceding the fodder so should be ‘Rock’ – but I’d have preferred a different indicator altogether tbh.
YGGDRASIL is a devil of a word to incorporate – not least as it has several spellings, just to make life difficult. I do recall seeing it most beautifully defined in a clue (with a surface involving fire) as simply ‘…ash everywhere’. As B&J observe, one feels there has to be a reason for those four long, unusual – and intersecting – words but I haven’t spotted it yet.
Thanks Phi and B&J
SONG
Is it intended to be &lit?
Is there a Carol/song/music theme?
Carol Ann, Carol Thatcher …
REED, TUNE …. & other obvious music references
Also, there is a mini horse theme (?)..STABLE, APPALOOSA, RIDES etc., (PATAGONIA has some connection here, it looks).
I am usually wrong in the theme-finding game. Just felt like sharing some thoughts…
Carol REED, Carol SHIELDS…Must be more of this variety…????
As mentioned in blog, there’s also Carol DUFFY.
Yea. I mentioned that as Carol Ann…
So we have a number of Christmas Carols (add Duffy to KVas list) Christmas THYME, A SONG and (OPPOR)TUNE. I still think we are missing something. DISORIENT did what it asys on the tin for me and so was my LOI.
There’s also a STABLE, an EVE in CLEVELAND…
At least multiple exposures to Tolkein over the years gave insight into 3dn… less certain about the necessity to carry the type of horse or singing around as cerebral baggage…
Thanks Phi n Bertandjoyce
.Carol Cleveland was the (actual) woman in Monty Python.
Thanks to Phi and B&J
Just realised the significance of 13, the puzzle is indeed a carol tour.
It’s… Carol Ann Duffy’s 68th birthday tomorrow.
As it’s coming up to Christmas cracker time, can I point out how rare it is for Phi to come up with a duff clue? Apologies in advance.
We three kings of DISORIENT are
The Forest of Wild THYME
…continued from 13
Westward leading, | Still proceeding, | Guide us to Thy perfect LIGHT.
…And his shelter was a STABLE, | And his cradle was a stall…
Thanks both. I won’t name them to save the extra typing but the long obscure words and the variant spellings were always going to partially defeat me here, in many cases even where I knew the construction, I simply had not heard of the answer. Like B&J I remembered only that a word began YGG and that I’d seen it before, but ask me to spell it all correctly on Boxing Day, and I will probably go cold turkey.
DJ Play A Christmas Song: THAT CHER all of us know (and the setters often invite to their grids)!
And to go to extremes the INE in PRALINE could be sweet CarolINE.
One I discovered and did include was the less well-known US writer Carol GUESS. I would just note that Carol Reed is definitely the Odd Man Out.
Merry Christmas everyone. Seasonality will continue next week.
Carol GUESS doesn’t appear here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_(given_name) – how remiss…