A headscratcher from Azed.
I struggled with this one if I’m honest. The right half went in fine, and then I hit a wall. I haven’t been able to parse R AND A, and I can only partly parse LOCKMEN. I only saw the parsing of LUES as I was writing this blog late on Saturday night. I’m sure my readers will be able to help me out, though, and perhaps explain how SACCULI collect in the vestibule.
I found the clue to UTTEREST extremely convoluted for a setter who is normally economical with his wording.
Thanks Azed.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | YPLAST |
Plays out time once arranged (6)
|
| *(plays) [anag:out] + T (time)
“yplast” is an archaic version of “placed” |
||
| 6 | DAMSEL |
Girl had briefly excited males (6)
|
| ‘D (had, briefly) + *(males) [anag:excited] | ||
| 11 | ERYTHRINA |
Red-flowered tree the rain battered around year’s turning (9)
|
| *(the rain) [anag:battered] around <=yr. (year, turning) | ||
| 12 | NOTT |
Close-cropped number, excessive (4)
|
| N (number) + OTT (over the top, so “excessive”)
“nott” is an obsolete term for “bald”. |
||
| 13 | ANCLE |
Without involving iodine shield old joint (5)
|
| ANC(i)LE (“shield”) without involving I (iodine, on the periodic table)
“ancle” is an old version of “ankle”, and Ancile was the sacred shield of the Ancient Romans, said to have fallen from the heavens |
||
| 14 | IMPETICOS |
Fool’s invention is holding together tip come adrift (9)
|
| IS holding *(tip come) [anag:adrift]
A word from Shakespeare, coined by the fool in Twelfth Night. |
||
| 15 | LOCKMEN |
Such as Derrick making contribution to horological repairs? (7)
|
| My best guess is that “making contribution to horological repairs” could mean that it is part of “cLOCK MENding. I have no idea who or what the Derrick in the clue is referring to, however. | ||
| 18 | IMAGE |
Mirror that is framing periodical (5)
|
| i.e. (id est, so “that is”) framing MAG (“periodical”) | ||
| 21 | CAPLET |
Old Dobbin with a touch of tussis? Vet may prescribe this (6)
|
| CAPLE (“old” word for horse, so “old Dobbin”) with [a touch of] T(ussis) | ||
| 22 | SECURE |
One third of eglise its vicar assured (6)
|
| [one third of] (egli)SE + CURÉ (French word for parish priest, so “vicar”) | ||
| 23 | NEIST |
Swarm maybe circling island that’s most local (5)
|
| NEST (“swarm, maybe”) circling I (island)
“neist” is an old form of “next”. |
||
| 25 | RATHOLE |
Place to set a trap – gunners (especially Scots) endure (7)
|
| RA (Royal Artillery) + THOLE (chiefly Scots word for “endure”) | ||
| 28 | PIPERONAL |
One puffing away on a last bit of bowl, fragrant stuff (9)
|
| PIPER (“one puffing away”) + ON + A + [last bit of] (bow)L | ||
| 29 | RANDA |
Club for golfers in Argentine? (5, 3 words)
|
| R&A (Royal and Ancient Golf Club, the home of the game in St Andrews)
I don’t understand the reference to Argentine? |
||
| 30 | DIME |
Small amount of money, very small, last in purse (4)
|
| Dim. (diminutive, so “very small”) + [last in] (purs)E | ||
| 31 | EPHELIDES |
Hide peels untidily in blotches (9)
|
| *(hide peels) [anag:untidily]
An ephelis (pl. ephelides) is a freckle. |
||
| 32 | STARVE |
End of beer in bar? It makes one go without perhaps (6)
|
| [end of] (bee)R in STAVE (“bar”) | ||
| 33 | DEVEST |
To build on, lop off stone strip (6)
|
| LOP off DEVE(lop) (“to build on”) + St. (stone) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | YENGLISH |
I.e.Hyman’s lingo, tortured? I moan this maybe (8)
|
| *(iehynslg) [anag:tortured] where IEHYNSLG is IE HYMANS LINGO without the letters of I MOAN. | ||
| 2 | PROSO |
Type of millet fancy women love (5)
|
| PROS (prostitutes or “fancy women”) + O (love, in tennis) | ||
| 3 | LYTIC |
Left municipality on the way up, far from critical (5)
|
| L (left) + <=CITY (“municipality”, on the way up) | ||
| 4 | SHIMMERY |
I’m captivated by lilting rhymes, sparkling (8)
|
| IM captivated by *(rhymes) [anag:lilting] | ||
| 5 | TRIPE DE ROCHE |
Edible lichen, mature, used to stuff three cod cooked (12, 3 words)
|
| RIPE (“mature”) used to stuff *(three cod) [anag:cooked]
Known as “rock-tripe” in English. |
||
| 6 | DISENCHANTED |
Lives in wretched place, celebrated, embittered (12)
|
| IS (“lives”) in DEN (“wretched place”) + CHANTED (“celebrated”) | ||
| 7 | MANIA |
One under prayer wall in frenzy (5)
|
| A (one) under MANI (“prayer wall” in a Tibetan temple) | ||
| 8 | SACCULI |
Conveyance, half to do with the kitchen, we’ll collect in the vestibule (7)
|
| SAC (“conveyance” in old English law_ + [half] CULI(nary) (“to do with the kitchen”)
I think I’d need a medical degree to understand and/or explain this. |
||
| 9 | ECLOSES |
Emerges as is not seen in form of isosceles (7)
|
| *(soscele) [anag:form of] where SOSCELE is (i)SOSCELE(s) with IS not seen | ||
| 10 | LUES |
Pip displaying depression when book opens (4)
|
| (b)LUES (“depression”) when B is added to LUES
“lues” and “pip” are both alternative words for syphilis. |
||
| 16 | PANTABLE |
Part of kitchen furniture maybe displaying slipper (8)
|
| A PAN TABLE may be “part of kitchen furniture” | ||
| 17 | UTTEREST |
As in Rome when going round street diverted à l’outrance conveys what’s this? (8)
|
| UT (“as” in Latin, so “in Rome”) when going round *(street) [anag:diverted] | ||
| 19 | MEDIANT |
People will accept a tax rising with time – it’s within scale (7)
|
| MEN (“people”) will accpet <=AID (“tax”, rising) with T (time) | ||
| 20 | ACAPNIA |
Gas shortage causing wild panic among drivers (7)
|
| *(panic) [anag:wild} among AA (Automobile Association, so “drivers”) | ||
| 24 | SEDER |
One looking ahead around start of Diwali for ceremonial meal etc (5)
|
| SEER (“one looking ahead”) around [start of] D(iwali) | ||
| 26 | OXIDE |
What covers ’eifer in compound? (5)
|
| OX (h)IDE covers (h)EIFERS | ||
| 27 | LIMES |
West Indian is hanging around for boundary (5)
|
| Double definition, LIME being a West Indian word for “hang around” | ||
| 28 | PROS |
No cons here giving cheers? It’s banned (4)
|
| IT banned from PROS(it) (“cheers”) |
Thanks loonapick.
Derrick was a notorious hangman aka lockman.
R and A would be Republica Argentina?
SACCULI can be parts of the vestibule of the ear I think.
I too needed lots of electronic help to complete and understand this one.
Thanks as ever to Azed.
…it took me a shameful amount of time to get OXIDE – ‘er’ide? ‘is’ide? an’ide?
Almost total defeat for me. By Monday, I’d got less that a quarter done and realised I wasn’t going to get any further. Worst I’ve done on a plain Azed for years.
Agree with Gonzo @1 for Thomas Derrick (who ended up ironically executing the Earl of Essex who had pardoned him and given him the job in the first place).
Also with RandA (IVR for Argentina) and SACCULI. When I saw Vestibule I immediately thought of the inner ear as I’m currently grappling with vertigo (possibly).
I think YENGLISH is a candidate for an &lit given that Hyman is a Yiddish name, the equivalent of the Hebrew Chaim,
Favourite has to be OXIDE.
Tim C@4
What do Sacculi ‘collect’? Sensory information? That’s what the ‘collect’ in the clue implies?
Loved OXIDE and LOCKMEN.
RANDA
I have a doubt. As Argentine means ‘of Argentina’/’a native of Argentina’, how does RA equate to ‘Argentine’?
KVa @5: perhaps RA can be used adjectivally? “The RA delegate”.
KVa @4 the saculus (also sacule) along with the utricle collects acceleration information. The 3 semicircular canals collect motion information.
Argentina is officially the Argentine Republic so I guess Argentine is a short way of saying The Argentine.
TimC@7
SACCULI
So it’s about collecting information. It works. Thanks.
Gonzo@6 and TimC@7
You must be right about RANDA. Let’s see what others
have to say on this.
Thanks for the blog, Derrick actually gets a mention in Chambers93 as a famous hangman, not conviced by RA=Argentine , maybe a misprint ? For SACCULI I just took collect=gather in the sense they are found in the vestibule.
PANTABLE is one of those guesses you do not believe exists and then there it is in Chambers.
PROSO was in very recently but without being such an insulting clue.
Thanks Azed and Loonapick
15ac: Azed may have felt that the “indirect hidden” was acceptable with only the one unchecked letter in a seven letter word. I just hope that he has not set us on a slippery slope by doing that.
29ac: I was happy with Argentine = Argentina = RA.
8dn: I think Roz@9 has it. Chambers 2016 gives “collect vi come together”
Thanks for explaining the Derrick reference which I’ve now located in Chambers as mentioned by Roz. I drew the same conclusion as the blog regarding the indirect hidden element of that clue and marked my paper with an “!”.
I hadn’t noticed that the puzzle contained PROS and PROSO as solutions which seem a bit too close, but that’s not a complaint just an observation.
Thought this was one of the trickiest of recent times but managed to complete it in stages.
Thanks to Azed, Loonapick and other commenters.
SACCULI
Roz’s interpretation makes better sense than ‘collect outside information’.
Thanks.
For 8dn, I initially thought, like Roz@9, that collect=gather, but my understanding of the definition is that there is only one sacculus per vestibule, so I think Tim C@7 has the right meaning. I struggled to come up with PANTABLE – I had TABLE, but couldn’t think what kind of table – but once PAN occurred to me, I was fairly confident, as I was familiar with ‘pantoufle’ as the French for slipper.
In 23ac, ‘local’ seems to be doing double duty, as the definition is most local (nighest), but it’s also a dialect word.
Gonzo@2 – I was much the same with ‘eride’ and ‘anide’ – but surely ‘iside’ wouldn’t work with heifer? 🙂
Thanks for the blog, loonapick. I hadn’t a clue about LOCKMEN, so that’s very helpful until I inevitably forget it. In 1d I think there’s a reference to Hyman Kaplan in the books by Leo Rosten, a Yiddish speaker who struggles to learn English and mangles it somewhat. I think the books aren’t as well known now as they used to be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_Kaplan
Ouch, gloves off this week – got there only with some electronic nudges.
I don’t know anything about sacculi, but was satisfied by my ignorant assumption that they are pouches in which stuff collects.
The Hyman I remembered was Hyman Roth from The Godfather, but only to confirm the Jewishness, I don’t think he had any linguistic tics.
OXIDE was good, PANTABLE seemed a bit random, needed help for that one with the difficult crossing NEIST.
Thanks for explanations, baffled by Derrick
Very good, liked TRIPE DE ROCHE and PANTABLE.
[The clue for PROSO is not “insulting”.]
I didn’t find this very difficult but it took me all week to calm down. I cannot believe we have sixteen comments and only Pelham Barton (referring to the “slippery slope”) and Jay (with a single ‘!’) are those who have pointed out that 15 is a disgrace. It is a shameful embarrassment to Azed. It is so shocking that I never thought I’d see it after all these decades. It is appalling. I could weep. I could swear. It is an offensive abomination.
We all know it’s a clue-to-a-clue. There can be no doubt at all. It’s not particularly clever. Azed has been pushing limits in later life and I think some of his compound anagrams are clues-to-clues though others disagree. But this is out-and-out unacceptable behaviour. It is a gross and flagrant breach of even Azed’s (and Manley’s) own written rules. I’m fuming, if you hadn’t noticed.
The only other thing I’d say Is that I went to a school, in the 1960s, which had some fairly severe teachers. We boys (only boys) learned that ‘Argentina’ was the country and the people who lived there were ‘Argentines’. We were also hearing about ‘Argentine beef’. ’Argentinian’ was an English non-word formed as a double noun or adjective. One of those teachers reprimanded me for using ‘adaption’ in an essay: the word is ‘adaptation’. Both Argentinian and adaption are in the dictionaries now.
Stefan
Stefan @17, agreed, 15a is a very odd clue. You occasionally refer to ‘a clue-to-a-clue’, but I’m not sure what you mean by it.
This clue by Anto I would certainly say is a clue for a clue: He proved drug is the same; host agreed (8).
The solution is EINSTEIN. The explanation is E (drug) is the same (equals) MC (host) squared (agreed). I didn’t come across it in a puzzle, but if I had I would no doubt have been spluttering for some time. On the scale of indirectness, Azed’s clue is must closer to what is acceptable. We are asked to find an alternative for ‘horological repairs’ and do something to it. That is quite normal. Where this clue is pushing it is in its vagueness, not its method. If, say, the clue had said ‘horological repair’, that could be clock mend, which could have had its end letters deleted. As it is, we are probably doing something to clock mending, or clock mends; that is more uncertain, but the mechanism is the same.
I suppose because of the indicator, ‘a contribution to’, you are looking at the clue as a hidden word, but with only a clue for the fodder. Then it is a clue to a clue. But hidden word indicators are just the inverse of removing ends, and we are often asked to remove ends from things we only have a clue to.
How many people solved LOCKMEN from the word play – ie deduced that “horological repairs” referred to clock mending and found the hidden word? For myself, I guessed at the answer when I had enough crossing letters, then looked up Derrick, found the hangman definition and looked up Lockman and found the hangman definition for that. Only then did I ‘solve’ the wordplay. Of course, I don’t solve every clue via wordplay, but I do think it should be possible in principle – or, at least, the wordplay should be a big help. Here, the definition part is obscure (an unusual definition of both Derrick and Lockmen) and the “contribution to” in the wordplay is very vague – it’s not a straightforward case of chop the ends off. As PB@10 says, the one saving grace was that six of the seven letters were checked.
I thought 16dn was weak as well – who keeps pans on a table? I found NEIST difficult, so I didn’t have the help of the N – but maybe that was just me.
Hope it’s not too late to join in- Sunday is too busy to see the blogs. Greetings all and thanks to Azed & loonapick.
I did complete this on the day though there were hitches. LOCKMEN did seem to lack something more to indicate the lost C. One has the expectation that every Azed clue will be perfect but, as the man said “nobody’s perfect”,
Now it’s down to the monthly struggle to get the right words (not necessarily) in the right order.