Looking back on my previous blogs of Jack’s puzzles, I see that I have twice said, ‘A fairly tricky but enjoyable and rewarding challenge, meticulously clued, with excellent surfaces, from Jack’, which once again applies today.
As I worked my way through the clues, as well as a fair sprinkling of ticks, I had a number of question marks regarding parsing but, as I started writing up the blog, with a bit of head-scratching, things started falling into place, producing several grins and sighs of satisfaction. I was impressed to see no fewer than three triple definitions, which seem to be one of Jack’s fortes.
My favourites were 9ac TUBA, 17ac EMPLOYING,22ac COLUMN, 24ac STABLEMATE, 1dn CAUTION, 3dn ASCETIC, 7dn ECOCIDE and 8dn ENVIRONMENTAL.
I’m generally not good at spotting the underlying theme, Nina or any other device in Jack’s puzzles but light finally dawned today as I blogged the very last clue – a wonderful way to finish.
Many thanks to Jack for a most enjoyable puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Clubs are able to sell back drink (6)
COGNAC
C (clubs) + a reversal (back) of CAN GO (are able to sell, I think)
4 Moderate payment in advance expected to arrive (6)
SUBDUE
SUB (payment – of wages, for example – in advance) + DUE (expected to arrive)
9 Boat with advanced instrument for making deep soundings (4)
TUBA
TUB (boat) + A (advanced) – a neatly misleading definition
10 Discount Conservative being supported by meeting on record (10)
CONCESSION
CON (Conservative) + CESSION, which sounds like (on record) ‘session’ (meeting)
11 Order cheap clothes child rejected (6)
DIKTAT
A reversal (rejected) of TAT (cheap clothes) + KID (child)
12 Condition that makes one restless? (8)
INSOMNIA
Cryptic (?) definition
13 Officer belonging to precinct protecting chief of police (9)
INSPECTOR
IN (belonging to) SECTOR round P[olice]
15 Boring sample comprising carbon and rock (4)
CORE
C (carbon) + ORE (rock)
Collins: ‘a cylindrical sample of rock, soil etc, obtained by the use of a hollow drill’
16 See report have an effect (4)
TELL
Triple definition
17 Taking on English politician making false claims about leader of opposition (9)
EMPLOYING
E (English) + MP (politician) + LYING (making false claims) round O[pposition]
21 Criticise article about temple (8)
PANTHEON
PAN (criticise) + THE (definite article) + ON (about)
22 File that may be used to support newspaper article (6)
COLUMN
Another clever triple definition
24 Impasse broken by British person working with me (10)
STABLEMATE
B (British) in STALEMATE (impasse)
25 Expert tackling new problem one may have to face (4)
ACNE
ACE (expert) round N (new) – witty surface
26 Joint bank statement revealing some doubts (6)
REEFER
REEF (bank) + ER (statement revealing some doubts)
27 Ambassador is partial to caramel cheesecake (6)
ELCHEE
Hidden in caramEL CHEEsecake – a new (Turkish) word for me – I liked the use of ‘partial’
Down
1 Warning gold is going down in sale (7)
CAUTION
AUCTION (sale) with AU (gold) moving down
2 Acknowledge actor‘s gift (5)
GRANT
Yet another triple definition
3 Doctor cites case of agoraphobic recluse (7)
ASCETIC
An anagram (doctor) of CITES + A[goraphobi]C
5 Anxious to be seen as chaste? (6)
UNEASY
A whimsical double definition – (Collins: ‘EASY: sexually available’)
6 Novel by me is odd and free from physical constraints (9)
DISEMBODY
An anagram (novel) of BY ME IS ODD
7 Author audibly expressed regret for destruction of life-support system (7)
ECOCIDE
(Umberto) ECO (author) + CIDE, which sounds like (audibly) ‘sighed’ (expressed regret)
8 Green energy company operated illegally retaining six employees regularly at fault (13)
ENVIRONMENTAL
ENRON (company operated illegally round VI (six) + MEN (employees) + alternate letters (regularly) of aT fAuLt
14 China tea lab brewed is delicious (9)
PALATABLE
PAL (China) + an anagram (brewed) of TEA LAB
16 Rat‘s characteristic yellow pigment (7)
TRAITOR
TRAIT (characteristic) + OR (yellow pigment)
18 All excited about cold drink of milk (7)
LACTEAL
An anagram (excited) of ALL round C (cold) TEA (drink)
19 Person put forward new rule in overbearing manner after taking sides (7)
NOMINEE
I need help here: it was only at the point of posting that I realised that I hadn’t managed to untangle all the parsing here, so, rather than delay the blog, I’ll hand over to you.
Thanks to everyone for the help: I had a real blind spot there.
N (new) + [d]OMINEE]r] (rule in overbearing manner) taking ‘sides’ away
20 Go back on unrealistic promise we’d made ultimately (6)
RECEDE
RE (on) + last letters (ultimately) of [unrealisti]C [promis]E [we’]D [mad]E
23 Start to learn every single actor’s first name (5)
LEACH
L[earn] + EACH (every) – I found several actors called Leach and couldn’t choose between them and it was only when writing up the blog and getting to GRANT (symmetrically placed in the grid) at 2dn that I saw the significance of ‘first name’: Cary Grant was born Archibald Alec LEACH – and he starred in ARSENIC AND OLD LACE which suddenly leapt out at me in rows 2, 8 and 14 – a very satisfying conclusion
Absolutely loved this. Very clever. perfectly clued and entertaining.
ARSENIC AND OLD LACE(1944) – an Oak anniversary – Cary GRANT hams it up something rotten.
N for New plus [D] OMINEE [R] – Rule in overbearing manner, sides removed.
Spotted the NINA and indeed the GRANT / LEACH connection – Archie Leach – born in Bristol
Thank you Jack and Eileen
many thanks to Jack and Eileen.
i think 19d could be N for new then (D)OMINEE(R) without its “sides”
oops beaten to it!
Thanks for the link, FrankieG – which I’d already supplied. đ
I think N + DOMINEER (to rule in overbearing manner) taking sides
Ah, I see I was beaten to it!
NOMINEE maybe DOMINEER ( rule in overbearing manner) sides taken off? With N (new) at start.
N + dOMINEEr ? Can’t quite get the parts of speech right.
I obviously type too slowly!
My thanks to Jack and Eileen.
Crikey! LEACH was a bung and shrug for me and, having paid a price on yesterday’s FT for relying on dictionary rather than Google, I turned to the web and found lots of Leaches but not the connection to Cary Grant which I wouldn’t have got in a month of Sundays. The dictionary did help with the nho ELCHEE which, unhelpfully, intersects with the aforementioned, making the SE a tricky corner. And REEFER and TRAITOR combined to delay the SW too! I confess to being nowhere near getting the clue for the first so that’s a win for the setter and I did not think of OR as the yellow pigment.
Those failings aside, another good if pretty testing Jack with TUBA, EMPLOYING, ACNE, CAUTION, GRANT, DISEMBODY and NOMINEE being favourites. As this is a short essay, someone else will have answered Eileen’s query on the latter which I parsed as new = N and rule in overbearing manner =(d)OMINEE(r) after the sides are taken (away).
Thanks Jack and Eileen
Thanks, all, for the help. đ
INSOMNIA
Looks like it’s a Playtex action in play (rest less/sleep less)!
Thanks Jack and Eileen
A DNF for me – no ELCHEE (NHO) or LEACH (which I might have got if it had been linked to 2d). Some Byzantine parses too – ENRON? SECTOR=precinct? ER – revealing some doubts?
I did like TUBA and STABLEMATE.
This was quite tough for me – I solved quite a few that I had to parse afterwards. But I could not parse 1ac GO=sell; 1d apart from AU = gold; and 26ac.
For once I saw the nina ARSENIC AND OLD LACE – I have never watched this movie but I see it stars Cary GRANT and it allowed me to finally parse the ‘actor’s first name’ bit of 23d.
New for me: ELCHEE – a borrowing from Turkish. Etymons: Turkish īlchÄ«.
I parsed 19d NOMINEE in the same way as Flea@3 et al.
Thanks, both.
KVa @ 12 – yes, that’s how I read it but it didn’t seem very cryptic.
I wasn’t sure how to account for GO (=sell?) in COGNAC either – maybe as in something being a popular product which will go/sell? Nho ELCHEE, which is apparently usually spelt ELCHI: a Turkish diplomat. Surely in the same class of GK as Reginald Perrin’s Bolivian poets?
Failed to parse CAUTION (I can never spot those sliding-letter jobs), UNEASY (didnât think of EASY in that sense) or ENVIRONMENTAL (forgot about ENRON). My favourites were two of the little ones: TUBA and ACNE (and a fun Nina too).
Eileen@15
INSOMNIA
Agree. Crypticity index low!
Eileen@5 – I noticed you’d already supplied the link, so I used the edit time â° to remove mine @2. đ
I thought that INSOMNIA was a bit of a turkey, in what was a very clever puzzle. I clocked the GRANT/LEACH link (first name – beautifully misleading) and eventually the AAOL nina. Top favourites were TUBA, STABLEMATE and REEFER. Also needed help with parsing NOMINEE so thanks for that.
Ta Jack & Eileen
Fantastic. Best Jack yet. Top ticks for ECOCIDE, REEFER & ENVIRONMENTAL as not only did I used to work for ENRON but when they went bust 6 of us were retained to run all the systems for the administrators. And given our propensity for spending too much time in the Old Cheshire Cheese pub I think Itâs fair to say we were regularly at fault đ
Cheers E&J
COGNAC
GO(dictionary.com)
to be sold [sell/sells?]
The house went for very little.
I have a bid of two hundred dollars. Going! Going! Gone!</em
Some other dictionaries give similar examples.
Somewhat indirect?
gladys @16
Thanks – that’s what sprang to my mind, too: ‘go / sell like hot cakes’ (and when they’re sold out they’re all gone!)
I see I’ve crossed with KVa – thanks to you, too. đ
I never know what to expect from Jack. Sometimes enjoyable, sometimes it ends in tears. I completed today’s with plenty of smiles, but I did have a “Huh?” list of six, some of which were a bit odd, methought. ELCHEE was the only one I’d not heard of. Ta for the blog, Eileen.
I got GRANT & LEACH fairly early and went hunting for a Cary and/or an Archie.
I even spotted A-R-S-E in the second row – but, klutzlike, didnât make the connection till reading Eileenâs excellent blog.
And boy did I need the blog today! I often guess-first, parse-second, but with much of this I guessed based on crossers, attempted to parse, gave up partway and moved on, again and again and again.
Definitely âbyzantineâ parsing! (Thank you, Muffin@13!)
As for ELCHEE: my Turkish vocab being non-existent, a guess was all I could ever hope for.
Mind you, ECOCIDE & PANTHEON were fun – and the nina made it all worthwhile.
Thank you Jack and Eileen
Greatly helped by the sharp definitions of several clues this morning, and then working out the parsing thereafter. Though I still couldn’t quite see how ECOCIDE was put together. So many thanks as ever to Eileen. Took a while to accept See as the third definition for TELL. And even though I often have conversations with a niece who works in the Foreign Office I’ve never come across ELCHEE before, even though it was hidden snugly in plain sight. Last one in the delightful ACNE. So glad to have come through my adolescent years not blighted too much by that affliction. None of these comments are in any way objections to an excellent challenge from Jack today, simply observations…
Looking back at some recent past blogs I saw that, when comments reference earlier comments using @, the number quoted is often one or two adrift. Is there a moderator going through and adding/removing posts after the event?
2d was among my last few in, a triple tea tray ( đ ) and even then was thinking Hugh not Cary until prompted bt the G-ers to find the nina. [There were a couple of aunts in our tribe, one sharp-tongued, the other fussy, who my dad used to call Arsenic and Old Lace]. Great puzzle, ta Jack and Eileen.
muffin@13
ENVIRONMENTAL
ENRON (energy company (that) illegally operated)
Enron was an energy-trading and utility company based in Houston, Texas, that perpetrated one of the biggest accounting frauds in history.
The clueing seems fair to me.
INSPECTOR
precinct=SECTOR looks loose (is it possibly in a military context?) but someone may have an explanation.
REEFER
ER
The ‘statement’ part seems odd. Does the ‘statement revealing’ simply mean ‘expressing’? Not quite clear.
Thanks Jack & Eileen. I failed to see the Nina, didn’t know ELCHEE and failed to parse NOMINEE, but very much liked ASCETIC, TUBA, EMPLOYING & STABLEMATE.
After solving LEACH & COLUMN I was determined to find an Archie!
Following on from my earlier post (currently showing as @26): Just to give examples: in the blog for Picaroon’s puzzle on Tuesday comments 45, 46 and 52 clearly refer to posts with different numbers.
Thanks to Jack for the splendid crossword and to Lucky Eileen for the blog
What Eileen said! Did not know ELCHEE but it was fairly clued. Could not parse NOMINEE so my thanks to the collective brains trust. My favourites, out of so many to choose from were UNEASY and PALATABLE. It was lovely to find out from the blog about AAOL. Eileen and Jack – brilliant job. [gif@27 I like the sound of your dad đ]
Yes, simonc@ 26. . If you have a comment which is ”awaiting moderation”, your number still stays in the queue. It does throw later comments out when that comment is deleted, as I requested for one of mine recently. Ken Mac from the Admin team told me that a comment with 3 links will trigger moderation. And once I inadvertently said something really innocuous, quoting the clue actually, which turned out could have looked like ”offensive” language, obviously picked up by a bot.. Can’t remember now. It was funny at the time as it was so innocent. But I asked Admin the question and they put the post through.
Edit. And simonc@30.
KVa @28: wrt ‘statement’, setters seem to take two approaches to the classic ‘hesitation’ references, ER and UM. Some are happy to go with ‘hesitation’ on its own = ER/UM. Others prefer to recognise that ER/UM are ‘expressions of hesitation’ which is arguably more accurate. So ‘statement revealing some doubts’ is an accurate synonym for ER. Mind you, it’s ironic I’m commenting on this since that’s a clue on which I comprehensively failed!
Great stuff from a top setter.
I first saw GRANT and LEACH , then I spotted AND in the middle row, then looking up saw ARSENIC so looked towards the bottom and OLD LACE supplied a missing letter
I knew of the book so I googled and found the film of course had Cary Grant in it but it was not Hitchcock and it was 1944-great start to a day
Thanks J
PostMark@34
REEFER
ER
So I read it correctly (expressing some doubts-ok quite close. Ain’t it?). Thanks.
What crypticsue said @31.
Didn’t get the GRANT LEACH connection or see the ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, but no matter, every other bit of it was as delicately palatable as a fine cognac. Liked the triples and DISEMBODY and ECOCIDE (as clues that is).
Slow but enjoyable solve with the NW corner the last to yield.
I did realise that LEACH was Cary GRANT’s first name but thought that was pretty obscure until I saw the NINA after completion of the grid. I particularly liked the surface for DIKTAT and the wordplays for REEFER, CAUTION, ENVIRONMENTAL and NOMINEE.
Thanks Jack for a super puzzle and Eileen for explanations, including the parsing of INSPECTOR, which flummoxed me.
Typical Jack puzzle with a lot of clever clues and a Nina – which I spotted about halfway through and which helped with some tricky corners.
ELCHEE was new to me but not hard to find. I didnât parse NOMINEE (though I didnât spend more than a few seconds trying).
TUBA, EMPLOYING, STABLEMATE , REEFER and LACTEAL were favourites. One little quibble: why âyellow pigmentâ for OR? It is the name of the colour in heraldry but not, as far as I know, the name of a substance. âRatâs characteristic yellow colourâ would work, and also gives a more plausible surface.
Thanks to Jason and Eileen
“… Arsenic and Old Lace (8)” often used to clue SCENARIO, most recently in February by Tees here and previously by Redshank(2022), Nutmeg(2014), and Hectence(2013). [I’ve been sent to moderation with only two links, most recently yesterday. This post has two links now – Let’s see what happens…
I won’t know until the four minutes runs out.]
paddymelon@33 (or is it?): the problem could be avoided by substituting a dummy entry (e.g. “comment removed/deleted/moderated”) for deleted comments in order to preserve the enumeration.
Finished this, but with so much guesswork and enough unparsed so that there was no real feeling of accomplishment.
Thought Hugh was the Grant in question, dismissed Leach as “probably some obscure English actor in a TV series which ran one season”, and missed the Nina and theme altogether
So, not a good day…apart from learning a new word viz ELCHEE
Thanks to Jack and Eileen
I thought this an excellent crossword without even noticing the theme. The clever NINA/mini theme added to that.
Didn’t we have similarly clued DIKTAT a few days ago?
Thanks Jack and Eileen
I am struggling with tell as a synonym for see and could not find an example, would someone please put me out of my misery?
edit: doh! just got it – you can tell by the way I use my walk etc…
[poc@40. It’s worth asking the question. I’ve posted it in Site Feedback .]
@39 Gervase. Was interested by your comment (I knew heraldry used some terms in un-usual ways) so ended up down the rabbit-hole of reading up on heraldic lore. As you say colour would have been better – but the die-hard (dye-hard?) heraldic painter would call it a tincture ( a metal form of tincture as opposed to a colour or stain) .
Crossword setters would be lost without these little spheres of specialist terminology – heraldry, cricket, the military …
About the only part of this that came easy to me was LEACH, a piece of otherwise-useless GK that has been hanging around in my brain for a very long time.
Fun fact: Leach was briefly at the same Bristol school as renowned physicist Paul Dirac.
TELL
(Collins)
If you can tell what is happening or what is true, you are able to judge correctly what is happening or what is true.
It was already impossible to tell where the bullet had entered.
I couldn’t tell if he had been in a fight or had just fallen down.
You can tell he’s joking.
You can tell/see what the setter intended (Hope this usage is correct).
Just seen your edit ludd@43. Typed a lot. I don’t want to delete it. đ
Liked the Cary Grant references, but it seems ELCHEE was necessary because Jack painted himself into a corner with LEACH (LEARN gives more options).
In my world, PALATABLE and delicious occupy different points on the yucky-to-yummy scale. I checked a few dictionaries and found that US-based ones don’t go much further than agreeable, but UK-based ones allow delicious. Interesting usage difference I wasn’t aware of.
REEFER and TUBA were faves.
[Fun fact #1: the film of Arsenic and Old Lace was based on a Broadway play. The contract with the play’s producers stipulated that the film would not be released until the Broadway run ended. The original planned release date was September 30, 1942, but the play was hugely successful, running for three and a half years, so the film was not released until 1944. Fun fact#2: the lead role in the film was meant to be played by Bob Hope, but his studio wouldn’t release him, so Cary Grant got the job. He was about fourth or fifth choice.]
Really good puzzle and, thanks to spotting the Nina, I cracked 7d, my LOI.
Thanks to J & E
FrankieG @40
Two links sent it over the edge (as predicted). Iâm still trying to figure out why.
In the meantime, Iâve approved it (obviously)
poc @41
See Site Feedback
Dr WhatsOn @48: Like you, I would consider describing a foodstuff as PALATABLE would be damning it with faint praise, but I reckoned that its usage could be an example of litotes.
Lovely puzzle. It may have helped that I walked to work this morning past the statue of Cary Grant in Millennium Square, here in Bristol…
Please…what is a nina
Heather@56, from the FAQ on fifteensquared:
What is a Nina?
A Nina is a message (or theme words etc) hidden in the grid, sometimes round the perimeter, sometimes along a diagonal or sometimes in the unchecked squares in a particular row or column (or more than one of each). Its name is derived from the American cartoonist Al Hirschfeldâs habit of hiding his daughterâs name, Nina, in his cartoons.
Jacob @46, someone will riff on quantum field theory and… a charade, or catching a thief ..
Heather@56 Did you see ARSENIC AND OLD LACE today? Rows 2,7 and 14 across.
Thanks paddymelon.
This was new to me.
Is there a part of the clue 23 down that indicates there’s a nina?
Heather @60; there isn’t usually any indicator that there is a NINA. You just have to scan the completed grid to see if you see one (see PM@57, it’s hidden in the grid).
Gervase@54 Well all I know is that if someone here described a home-cooked meal as palatable, they won’t be invited back.
No , Ninas are a find. I didn’t see it today because I wasn’t looking for it, although I should have been as Jack always (I think) has one. You get to know which setters might. I didn’t see the connection between GRANT in 2 down and LEACH 23 down, not knowing that was the actor Cary Grant’s original surname. Although I think the setter was giving people who had some idea a pretty big hint what to look for in 23d as the actor and first name were in the clue.. The last letter of the Nina, E from LACE crossed the clue for LEACH and it gave a bit of thrill to some solvers on seeing LEACH complete the Nina.
The short answer is no. đ But now you know about Ninas you’ll probably go looking for them. Sometimes they’re connected with the crossword, as in today’s, and sometimes not, just a bit of fun or something personal to the setter.
I didn’t see the Nina, but knowing whose name was originally LEACH helped me to solve 2d, so I’m fairly satisfied. I thought of TELL but wasn’t convinced as I was confused/misled by ‘see’. And ‘pigment’, as Mark@10 has pointed out, made TRAITOR hard to spot. I never think of drugs when I see ‘joint’, despite mixing with many users in my youth, so REEFER also remained unsolved. (Full disclosure: I never inhaled.)
For those who didn’t see ‘precinct’=SECTOR, it’s used in American police forces, and hence in police procedurals – it’s in Chambers, anyway. (I also remember it from a song called My Wife by The Who from their Who’s Next album of 1971: “All I did was have a bit too much to drink/And I picked the wrong precinct/Got picked up by the law/And now I ain’t got time to think.”)
Thanks to Jack and Eileen.
Thanks Jack, that was super. I spotted the nina as it was forming and that helped me with a few solutions. I did not, however, make the GRANT/LEACH connection. I did notice LANE in the SW corner. (Start with the 2nd ‘L’ in PALATABLE, go left one square, then up.) Priscilla Lane was the lead actress in the film. In any event I had many ticks including TUBA, INSPECTOR, ACNE, REEFER, CAUTION, DISEMBODY, ECOCIDE, and LACTEAL. Thanks Eileen for the blog.
Quite a struggle to get to the end, with a few unparsed. Despite knowing Archibald LEACH as Cary Grant’s real name, I missed the nina as usual. And despite my many years in the diplomatic service I had never heard of ELCHEE, which seems to have fallen out of use in the early 1800s; some indicator of ‘archaic’ would have been nice. Some great clues, including the triple definitions, ECOCIDE, ACNE, and CAUTION. Not so keen on COGNAC, TUBA (my usual gripe about using a word’s first letter), INSOMNIA and UNEASY. Thanks Eileen for the wonderfully clear blog and for the AAOL reference. Very redolent of Sunday afternoon British TV in the 70s when classic comedies wre staple fare. Thanks Jack for a lot of fun as well as some hard work.
paul @66
I do sympathise with your gripe about the seemingly random use of initial letters but, here in the UK, at least, A Level exams are common enough for A to be acceptable for Advanced. It certainly is for me but then I was a teacher!
Thanks to Jack and Eileen. LEACH went in early, and struggling to parse it, I thought âwasnât there someone famous called Archie Leach?â. Mr Google quickly confirmed that, but it wasnât until my LOI (GRANT) that I realised there might be a theme⊠and even then I didnât spot the nina until Eileen explained! ELCHEE and ECOCIDE were both new to me. Seems from the comments that most others had come across ECOCIDE before⊠another of those invented âwordsâ used by youngsters / the media, I guess.
Following on from sheffield hatter’s comments@64… 13ac was – rather appropriately – made even more straightforward for me with the memory of that excellent if quite violent 1976 John Carpenter film Assault on Precinct 13, set in Los Angeles…
Fine puzzle with some meaty parsings, of which ENVIRONMENTAL takes the cake. I failed to see the theme, so the LEACH definition was a mystery to me.
Looks like CONCESSION was a down clue originally, otherwise what is âsupported byâ doing?
Thanks, Jack and Eileen for the entertainment and elucidation.
phitonelly @70: You make a good point about ‘supported by’ in an across clue. The clue would work without any juxtapostion indicator e.g. ‘Discount Conservative meeting ….’
phitonelly @70 and Tony @71
I initially had the same thought about ‘supported by’ being more suited to a down clue but decided to leave it to others to comment. (I’m rather surprised that it has taken so long. đ )
In the meantime, I decided that ‘supported by’ = ‘backed by’ is perfectly justifiable in an across clue – in fact, I rather like it!
This discussion of ‘supported by’ in an across clue reminded me of this Marx Brothers gag.
As a Mephisto solver, I saw elchee at once – those puzzles like obscure Ottoman and Mughal titles. However, I had no idea what was going on with Leach, and didnât inspect the unches – Iâll leave that to 13 across. Nice puzzle – environmental was brilliant.
Hi Eileen @72,
I understand your logic, but thatâs the sort of 2-step process that I donât think is fair. I think Jack should just have gone with âbacked byâ in the first place.
Thanks Eileen for reminding me of ENRON (how soon we forget, plenty more corporate scandals since, I suppose) and the justification of “supported by” just now, and the gang for NOMINEE. HoagyM@68, at the risk of getting philosophical, aren’t all words invented? [speaking of which thanks for late set theory discussion yesterday everyone, and paper link TimSee.] I have always struggled with Jack and no change today but somehow found it much more enjoyable: remembering to look for, and finding, the nina helped, (but didn’t realise AL/CG was in it). I see 12a and 14d came in for some mild stick and understand why, but they were two of my first in a very slow start, so I was happy enough to be thrown the bones. Thanks Jack.
Thanks Eileen as I had forgotten all about Enron somehow (plenty more corporate scandal since, I suppose) and gang for sorting out NOMINEE. Remembered to look for a Nina, found it, and spotted the Grant/Leach link but didn’t know he was in the film! But this spurred me on after a very slow start (I was glad of the mildly rebuked 12a and 14d to get a toehold) and enjoyed this challenge, thanks Jack. PS HoagyM@68 – all words are invented, aren’t they?
[admin/kenmac, i have tried to post twice and neither appeared (as far as i can see), if they do appear in future, please feel free to delete either one, and this!]
Sides in DomineeR could also be democrats and republicans (D,R)?
Eileen @72: Your rationale for ‘supported by’ makes sense to me but clueclinic.com, a primary resource for fledgling setters, says ‘supported by’ can only be used in down clues.
Usually not a fan of Jack but I loved this one. ARSENIC AND OLD LACE was the cherry on top. Great job Jack!
Only just finished. Traitor loi. Clever clues.
Who is this lunatic?
Eileen@72
CONCESSION
I decided that âsupported byâ = âbacked byâ is perfectly justifiable in an across clue â in fact, I rather like it!
Ditto.
I have seen this device used before in an across clue. I will post it when I locate it.
paul @66: I too was in the diplomatic service (25 years) and never once heard of ELCHEE. Not a great clue.
Finished this too late last night (Australian time) to get (or google) who LEACH might be at 23d (my LOI) or to look for, much less spot, the Nina. But I am so glad I came to the blog today. The preamble, Eileen’s explanations and the comments were all entertaining in themselves and helped me to understand the unparsed clues in my grid that I found tough. But to cap it off I learned that there were bonus points for the clever solvers who went those further steps!
A clever clever clever puzzle from Jack, a superb blog from Eileen, and lots of good times for the solving public!
Michelle @14 &Gladys @16, maybe the ‘go’ might be just a simple football reference to the custom of when clubs want to move a player on, ie sell them, they say the player is available and they are happy for the player “to go”.
Like so many others, I’d never heard of ELCHEE, but guessed it due to knowing the Turkish word for envoy or messenger, which is “elçi”. Ambassador is “bĂŒyĂŒkelçi” (big envoy), papal nuncio is “papalık elçisi”, and the prophet Muhammad is often referred to as “Allah’ın elçisi” (messenger of Allah).