A 13 x 11 grid this week.
I was able to solve quite a good deal of this puzzle without having to refer to Chambers, but needed it towards the end to verify a few usages. There are two clues where I can’t fully explain the answer: 17 ac (where I fear Azed may have erred) and 9 down. I look forward to reading your suggestions. Thanks as always to Azed.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | ACTA SANCTORUM |
Court cast man out after one produces very good deeds (13, 2 words)
|
| A (one) + *(COURT CAST MAN). Azed takes advantage of the 13 x 11 grid to offer us a somewhat obscure Latin phrase at 1 across. | ||
| 12 | RAPPAREE |
Wild Irish robber getting cut in loot (8)
|
| PARE (cut) inside RAPE (loot). | ||
| 14 | AHOY |
Cry from anonymous boat? (4)
|
| A(nonymous) HOY. According to Chambers, it’s just a coincidence that this nautical call incorporates a word meaning a type of boat. | ||
| 15 | BABE |
Some dub a beauty this (4)
|
| Hidden in “dub a beauty”. | ||
| 16 | TOLUIC |
Acid that ruins coutil (6)
|
| *COUTIL. | ||
| 17 | TIERCET |
Falconer’s charge, one held in three lines (7)
|
| I’m struggling to parse this accurately. A tiercet or tercet is a group of three lines that rhyme together. A tercel or tiercel is a male hawk, also known as a tercelet or tiercelet. I don’t read anything in the clue to suggest that we should replace the final letter l with t, so it’s unclear where the reference to a hawk comes from. I wonder if Azed has misread the two words? | ||
| 18 | EOLITHIC |
Badly hit in outbreak of E. coli, very early (8)
|
| *HIT in *ECOLI. | ||
| 19 | CHAI |
Carmen, say, individual life-force around opera’s denouement (4)
|
| (oper)A inside CHI (life-force). In Bizet’s opera, Carmen is a gypsy girl and CHAI is the female form of the Romany word CHAL, meaning a person. | ||
| 21 | STELLAR |
Brilliant performer topping bill, taking wing with luminance (7)
|
| EL (wing) and L(uminance) inside STAR (performer topping bill). | ||
| 24 | APSE |
Choir’s niche filling the space from the east (4)
|
| Hidden and reversed in “the space”. | ||
| 26 | BOUTONNE |
Reticent nursemaid, thoroughly contained (8)
|
| OUT (thoroughly) inside BONNE (maid or nursemaid). Reticence appears as the answer to 13 down, which crosses with this answer. | ||
| 27 | STIMULI |
Cues if botched limit us (7)
|
| *(LIMIT US). | ||
| 28 | THE CAN |
Case, note, leading to jail (6, 2 words)
|
| THECA (a case, in zoology or botany) N(ote). | ||
| 30 | SIND |
Geordie’s washing down third of vodka after gluttony, say (4)
|
| SIN (e.g. gluttony), (vo)D(ka). And this answer crosses with SINDI! | ||
| 31 | TORC |
Necklace for Roman (4)
|
| TO RC (i.e. a Roman Catholic). | ||
| 32 | STRESSOR |
One applying pressure or trailing calamity? I’d back off (8)
|
| DISTRESS (calamity) with the first two letters (reversed) removed and OR added. | ||
| 33 | REINSTATEMENT |
Instalment as before controls a wee bittie mixed (old) (13)
|
| REINS (controls) TATE (a Scottish term meaning a small portion) MENT (old past participle of MING, itself an archaic term meaning mix). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | COHO |
Chef after removing tail brought round hot salmon (4)
|
| H(ot) inside COO(k). | ||
| 3 | TROLLY |
Patterned lace forming lines tyro spins round (6)
|
| LL (lines) inside *TYRO. | ||
| 4 | SPLIT TRUSTS |
Estates of a kind, special, landed with time in a bundle (11, 2 words)
|
| SP(ecial) LIT (landed), T(ime) in TRUSS (bundle). I take issue with the definition here: a split trust is a kind of investment trust, which would not normally be described as an estate of any kind. | ||
| 5 | APACHE |
Tough apparently, and long (6)
|
| AP(parently) ACHE (long). Not the native American, but the French gangster. | ||
| 6 | NAUTILOIDEA |
Molluscs? There’s adult out in lake swimming with purpose (11)
|
| *((A)dult OUT IN L(ake)), IDEA (purpose). | ||
| 7 | CRAIC |
Gossip from Dublin or circa (roughly) (5)
|
| *CIRCA. | ||
| 8 | TELEPATHISE |
Practise mind-reading? These leap out with it (11)
|
| *(THESE LEAP IT). | ||
| 9 | ROACH |
What’s left of joint cut short? (5)
|
| This is another clue where I’m struggling to explain the wordplay, unless the whole clue is just a cryptic definition. “Joint” here refers to a reefer. But I can’t think of a word for which “roach” is a shortened form, meaning cut. | ||
| 10 | UPBEAT |
Cheerful maestro lifts his stick for this (6)
|
| Definition plus cryptic definition. | ||
| 11 | MATELASSE |
To marry girl ’e’ll display jacquard material (9)
|
| MATE (marry) LASS (girl) ‘E. | ||
| 13 | RETICENCE |
Being shy, one constant in make-believe, hiding head (9)
|
| I C (one constant) inside (p)RETENCE (make-believe). | ||
| 20 | OPTIME |
Period after work for high achiever in maths (Cantab) (6)
|
| OP (work) TIME (period). An honoured position, below the wranglers. | ||
| 22 | LUTIST |
Musician as once found in catalogue (6)
|
| UT (old form of AS) inside LIST. | ||
| 23 | ENCORE |
Extract from flamenco recording – it rarely features in programme (6)
|
| Hidden in “flamenco recording”. | ||
| 25 | SINDI |
One’s found among Pakistanis (indigenes) (5)
|
| And another hidden clue: “Pakistanis indigene”. | ||
| 26 | BLURT |
Lancaster’s pierced by his first (rare) outburst (5)
|
| L(ancaster) inside BURT (Lancaster). | ||
| 29 | ARAN |
Knitwear style ma’s half unravelled (4)
|
| (m)A RAN (unravelled). |
ROACH is a double definition. Look at the second entry in Chambers.
I agree that TIERCET is erroneous somewhere.
Thanks bridesong. I’m afraid I relied on fallible memory for TIERCET so missed what does seem to be an error.
9 down is a double definition – see roach³.
Thanks as ever to Azed. Quite a gentle one I thought too.
Gonzo@2: Oops, yes, third entry, not second. Commendable blog as usual, bridgesong.
For ROACH, C2016 has “roach 3 ….vt…to cut short…” so I took it as a double definition.
I’m also stumped by TIERCET. There is Tiercelet as an alternative spelling for tercel/tiercel, but that still leaves the problem of how to remove LE or EL to get Tiercet.
Thanks, Cineraria, Gonzo and Tim C for pointing out my oversight re ROACH; don’t know how I missed it. Relieved that my analysis of TIERCET seems to be correct.
TIERCET
Agree with the blog and the comments above.
SINDI
I am used to SINDHI but the clue was clear. Just had to look up SINDI. Loved the clue.
BABE and AHOY were short & sweet.
ROACH
Cineraria@3
In my Chambers App under roach³, the second entry. In a way second as well as third! 🙂
Excellent blog bridgesong as usual.
SPLIT TRUSTS
Collins has this under estate:
Someone’s estate is all the money and property that they leave behind them when they die.
SPLIT TRUSTS are ‘estates of a kind’ in this sense (somewhat whimsical?)?
Thanks for the blog, managed it without Chambers but the checking after was quite tricky. I had exactly the same thoughts for TIERCET , strange to have three words very similar , each working with or without I , I think the clue is a mistake.
TROLLY not in Chambers93 , just TROLY or TROLLEY.
For SPLIT TRUSTS I had similar thoughts to KVa@7 , are they used to dodge inheritance tax?
OPTIME , I would not class them as high achievers , only the wranglers.
BLURT was very good.
Enjoyed this one.
I like that “wee bittie” acts as the definition for TATE and also as a self-indicating Scots indicator.
Two notebook entries this week, UT = “as once” and EL = “wing” (makes a change from railway).
I was surprised to see that Chambers (and the clue) note BLURT as being “rare”.
Thanks to Azed and bridgesong.
Wee bittie is clever equating two Scottish terms , it avoids things like – Jock’s small portion.
BLURT is still common as a verb but I never hear it as a noun.
IHTM2055 in HMRC’s Inheritance Tax Manual will explain how an ‘Estate’ can become involved in a ‘Split Trust’.
Lovely blog. Thank you
Spent a long time puzzling over 9ac, glad it was not just me. Several others this week for which I was glad of the blog in parsing. I had similar thoughts to Roz@8 about OPTIME, but Chambers supports it and I suppose that anyone who gets a maths degree at Cambridge is a high achiever compared with the rest of the population. Thanks to bridgesong and as always to Azed.
Like everyone else, I couldn’t parse TIERCET. Somebody here will explain.
Oops. I meant, “Somebody here will explain, I thought.”
Late to comment, as I’ve been away and have only just done the puzzle! So glad I wasn’t being stupid over 9ac; I’d put in TIERCEL, thinking TERCE would be three and L for line, then wondered how I could make the L fit into (P)retence and “one constant” for 13dn, before coming up with TIERCET and then finding it not confirmed by Chambers.
Bridgesong: split capital trusts are a type of investment trust (where some shares receive all the income and the rest all the capital growth), but split trusts are a way of giving away part of an investment while retaining access to the rest of it, to mitigate inheritance tax. (It used to be my job to understand these things!)
MunroMaiden @15: thanks for the explanation about split trusts. I only looked at the entry for split capital trusts and didn’t realise that split trusts are also used in inheritance tax planning. Still don’t think it’s a very good definition!
I see there was no explanation for TIERCET in the published solution.