A payoff awaits at the end of Soup’s tour-de-force series of innovative (unorthodox?!?) clues in this week’s Prize slot . . .
. . . leading us to the RICKROLL theme (hinted at in 1D and spelled out in 16D + 11D).
Here is the Wikipedia entry for more background on the jokey Internet meme:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickrolling
As an added bonus, translating the perimeter nina TINYURLDOTCOMSLASHESITLSAT yields this link:
Clicking on this link allows us to experience the phenomenon for ourselves. Rickrolled by Soup!
I note that “esitlsat” is an anagram of “Astleist” (also “saltiest”), although perhaps that is a coincidence.
Furthermore, July 27, 2024 was the 37th anniversary of the release of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up,” the once ubiquitous megahit/earworm at the heart of it all:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Gonna_Give_You_Up
. . . a sanitized and scrubbed-behind-the-ears paean to committed relationships, perfect for the Reagan/Thatcher Era. Still, simpler times . . . ?
Update: ilippu@2 points out that the clues also contain an acrostic: “Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you,” a part of the lyric.
| ACROSS | ||
| 7 | TRADE-OFFS |
Negotiations’ outcomes finishing early – order staff to get to work (5-4)
|
| Anagram of (to get to work) {ORDE[R] minus last letter (finishing early) + STAFF} | ||
| 8 | APPAL |
Exams proposal (take them infrequently) leads to lecturer’s dismay (5)
|
| Every third letter of (take them infrequently) [EX]A[MS] P[RO]P[OS]A[L] + L (lecturer) | ||
| 9 | ANGLE IRON |
Viewpoint I rule on gets strong support (5,4)
|
| ANGLE (viewpoint) + I + R (rule) + ON | ||
| 10 | HIRED |
Employed, late starting, sacked after an hour (5)
|
| H (hour) + [F]IRED (sacked) minus first letter (late starting) | ||
| 12 | SETTEE |
Rest feet, twice beginning to drop off – here? (6)
|
| Anagram of (off) {[R]EST + [F]EET minus the first letter of both words (twice beginning to drop)}, with the whole clue providing an extended definition | ||
| 13 | TOODLE-OO |
‘Goodbye to love’ looked bad without Karen up front (6-2)
|
| TO + O (love) + anagram of (bad) LOO[K]ED minus (without) the first letter of (up front) K[AREN] | ||
| 14 | LIBRARY |
Outrageous ribaldry department’s banned – here? (7)
|
| Anagram of (outrageous) RIBAL[D]RY minus (banned) D (department), with the whole clue providing an extended definition | ||
| 17 | FLORIST |
Note missing cash once next to tense shopkeeper (7)
|
| FLORI[N]S (cash once) minus (missing) N (note) + T (tense) | ||
| 20 | TRICYCLE |
Near the end, ignored tricky clue – but this one transports you (8)
|
| TRIC[K]Y + CL[U]E, minus the penultimate letter of each word (near the end ignored) | ||
| 22 | MYSTIC |
Arcane setter’s given criticism – back off! (6)
|
| MY (setter’s) + STIC[K] (criticism) minus last letter (back off) | ||
| 24 | IGLOO |
Temporary accommodation? I try and look inside (5)
|
| I + {LO (look) inside GO (try)] | ||
| 25 | MAJOR-DOMO |
Estate manager in foul mood after retreating force meets soldiers (5-4)
|
| JAM (force) reversed (retreating) + OR (soldiers) + anagram of (foul) MOOD | ||
| 26 | STACK |
Layer up fire, taking time (5)
|
| SACK (fire) around (taking) T (time) | ||
| 27 | ULTIMATUM |
Last offer? I’m in a tumult, dithering (9)
|
| I’M inside (in) anagram of (dithering) {A TUMULT} | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | TRANCE |
At number 1, that rogue Astley’s now crooning extremely repetitive music (6)
|
| First letters of (at number 1) T[HAT] R[OGUE] A[STLEY’S] N[OW] C[ROONING] E[XTREMELY], with the clue hinting strongly at the puzzle’s theme | ||
| 2 | IDOLATER |
Lover (inappropriately?) says ‘marry me?’ now, then ___? (8)
|
| Fill the blank in the pun with: “I DO” LATER, referring to the traditional wedding vow | ||
| 3 | NOTICE |
Intimation former Reform leader’s not welcome? (6)
|
| Cryptic definition. If a sign were posted indicating that the former Leader of the Reform UK party, Richard Tice, were not welcome, it might say, “NO TICE,” with the whole clue providing an extended definition. | ||
| 4 | Y-FRONTS |
Examples might include your yashmak and yellow underwear (1-6)
|
| Cryptic definition. Your, Yashmak, and Yellow are all examples of words that have “Y” at the front. | ||
| 5 | UPHILL |
Ascending Ullock Pike’s hard initially; less laborious at the top (6)
|
| First letters of (at the top) U[LLOCK] P[IKE’S] H[ARD] I[NITIALLY] L[ESS] L[ABORIOUS], referring to an apparently popular recreational destination in the Lake District | ||
| 6 | RAVENOUS |
Nervous animal, initially shivering, needing a good meal (8)
|
| Anagram of (shivering) {NERVOUS + first letter of (initially) A[NIMAL]} | ||
| 11 | ROLL |
Drum, drum constantly (4)
|
| Double definition, the first in the sense of a cylinder, and the second in the auditory sense | ||
| 15 | IRRIGATE |
Hose down Irish ship once fighter plane departs (8)
|
| IR. (Irish) + [F]RIGATE (ship) minus (once . . . departs) F (fighter plane, as in: F-16) | ||
| 16 | RICK |
Uncomfortably turn 26 (4)
|
| Double definition, with [the solution to] 26 = STACK | ||
| 18 | RESIDUAL |
Remaining on, one participates in uplifting church service (8)
|
| RE (on) + {I (one) inside (participates in) LAUDS (church service) inverted (uplifting)} | ||
| 19 | BEWAILS |
Troubles dogging Incy Wincy’s work (climbing) makes a sad song (7)
|
| WEB (Incy Wincy’s work, referring to the nursery rhyme spider) inverted (climbing) + AILS (troubles) | ||
| 21 | CROUCH |
Yorkshire’s number 3, in 12, makes duck (6)
|
| Third letter of (number 3 [of]) [YO]R[KSHIRE] inside (in) COUCH ([the solution to] 12, i.e., SETTEE) | ||
| 22 | MYOPIA |
Ocular disorder needs some dreamy opiates (6)
|
| Hidden in (some) [DREA]MY OPIA[TES] | ||
| 23 | IAMBUS |
Uncertainly: ‘Am I on motor vehicle or foot?’ (6)
|
| Anagram of (uncertainly) {AM I} + BUS (motor vehicle), in poetry |
Thanks Cineraria. Can’t say I enjoyed this much, rather too many ‘unorthodox’ clues and I just didn’t get on to Soup’s wavelength. A few too many questionable synonyms too. Unusually I did see the nina – or part of it – but couldn’t apply it. It didn’t help that I had no knowledge of Rick Astley or his ‘megahit’, I’m not of that generation, and had to consult Google for ‘rickroll’ after toying with rock and roll.
Thanks Cineraria and Soup.
Splendid stuff. Got the nina and was led to the song.
Btw, it is an acrostic (Soup points out at Gdn) – see the first letters of the clue – I missed it. Great fun!
Gosh! I finished the crossword but it seems that that was only half the puzzle. I’d never heard of Rickroll and needed Google to confirm 1 down.
I enjoyed doing it anyway so thanks to Cineraria and Soup
Well spotted ilippu, I should temper my comments with admiration for the construction.
What BigglesA@1 wrote in the first half. I do remember Rick Astley though
All solved and in, and part saw the url code around the outside, but didn’t bother checking the tiny url link – although I did know about rickrolling and the song – we had it break out like a rash all over a bulletin board I was involved in a decade or more ago.
Thank you for the puzzle from Soup and Cineraria.
I completely missed the Nina, the acrostic, and the theme. I never think to look for Ninas. Wow indeed. I am surprised that commenters so far have not heard of Rickrolling, which has greatly increased the shelf life of that song.
Slight eyebrow raise re IGLOO being defined as temporary accommodation. Many, perhaps most, igloos are built to be semi-permanent or permanent.
13a TOODLE-OO – Here’s Karen singing Goodbye To Love (1972)…
[…No. She’s here.] Absolutely brilliant. 😉 Thanks S&C
Thanks Cineraria and Ilippu as I missed the acrostic in the clues, most thanks of all go to Soup, loved the challenge and the payoff had me laughing as I spotted it after solving and had forgotten the key entries so was properly ‘had’, well done!
I had quite a few John McEnroe moments during this as in “You cannot be serious!”. Thanks to blogger and setter.
Well, that explains a few things! I had not heard of any of what underlies this, and wouldn’t have spotted the Nina anyway, having got ‘ADULATOR’ instead of IDOLATOR. I thought the pun was that after saying ‘Marry me’ they then said ‘Adieu’ later. It sort of works. I did have a question mark next to that clue. Actually, I had a number of question marks on my printed copy – I still don’t really see ‘ROLL’, which was my LOI – but I felt I was getting the hang of this towards the end. Now I realise I hardly scratched the surface. I’m very impressed! Well done, Soup, and thanks for explaining it all, Cineraria.
I thought this was brilliant. I could see Tiny at the top and then URL and realised something was afoot (missed the acrostic though).
Does anyone technically-minded know if the bit after “slash” in the Nina matters? i.e. is a Tiny web address automatically generated or did Soup have a bit of freedom to add those specific letters to make the left-hand side work? I’m just interested in how it was put together.
Thank you to the setter and blogger.
Appallingly brilliant tour de force from Soup with clues for FLORIST and TOODLE-OO alluding to bygones. Semi-saw nina but esitlsat didn’t seem to work. Thankfully. Especially after we’d had Pantagruel’s Nativity off Aquiring The Taste midweek. MAJOR-DOMO initially had me looking at -ARMY, and was too long looking for the real definition. I love how sometimes the mind gets stuck refusing to budge with some clues, yet others it’ll seek every angle. Massive thanks for the blog Cineraria and the outstanding Soup.
DNF for me as I had not-quite-parsed ‘do’ instead of ‘oo’ at end of TOODLE-OO (only vaguely familiar to me) which messed up NW corner. Don’t really understand ROLL, can’t think of an example where the word could be used in place of ‘drum’. Otherwise many nice clues including HIRED, BEWAILS, IAMBUS. So overall pretty good.
I see from blog and comments that Soup must have gone to a lot of effort to have multiple very clever references to the theme, but like BA@1 I’m afraid this was completely wasted on me – I’d never heard of Rickrolling, and was only vaguely aware of the existence of Mr Astley and the song (which like a lot of ’80s pop seems eminently forgettable to me). I’m glad others enjoyed it.
Thanks Soup and Cineraria
beaulieu@15: For example, a seismograph records earthquake vibrations on a “roll” of paper attached to a slowly spinning “drum.” There are probably better industrial/mechanical examples.
Cineraria@15 – thanks, yes, I suppose so – still don’t think it’s a good clue.
Maybe the Germans have a word that captures a sense of grudging admiration for the effort with a sense of ennui with the result?
A lot of this felt very strained during the solve and now we can see why
From Nick Lowe’s All Men are liars
“Do you remember Rick Astley? He had a great big hit it was ghastly.”
Cheers S&C
Morning, all. Thank you for the blog, Cineraria – and for either enjoying it (some of you!) or persisting with it despite it not being your thing (others!). As you can possibly imagine, I had a quiet giggle to myself when I thought of this. I’ve never done a puzzle with an acrostic before and I’m not sure I would do so again – it’s really, really hard, and it did lead to a few questionable definitions or slightly tortuous clues. But if most of you only thought ‘that was tortuous’ not ‘that doesn’t work’, even without seeing the acrostic, then I guess it didn’t get in the way _too_ much.
‘Drum, drum constantly’ seems to be one which people have found hard. I was meaning it in the context described by Cineraria@16 – some sort of large round thing. Chambers says a drum is a ‘cylinder, esp. a revolving cylinder’, and a roll is ‘a revolving cylinder’ so I think it’s fair.
FF@13: it is possible to specify the bit after the slash if one wants, but it is also possible to get it assigned randomly, which is what I did. That’s how I was able to get RICK and ROLL in – if I’d specified it then there would have been some very odd words in the grid. It was just random, in this case.
Fair cop on igloos being temporary. I was trying to find the reference which I used for that, and I can’t. It was originally AGLOW, which is an even worse word to clue.
Thanks all for solving. I might be let out to play again sometime soon – I will try to make it more orthodox…
H/S
Soundly beaten by some strange constructions, but clever stuff now that it’s been explained. Brilliant spot ilippu @2 as well.
Ta Soup & Cineraria.
I was taught to build an igloo on a mountain snow survival course so didn’t have a problem with ‘temporary’.
Wow. Just wow. Standing ovation for Soup. And a seated one for Cineraria and others who spotted this! Congratulations all round.
Golly, the things you learn from solving the Guardian crossword! Every aspect of the theme passed me by in what I thought was a quirky but interesting solve. A great effort, Soup, and thanks to Cineraria for the illumination.
Spotted the tinyurl link in time for it to be useful in solving one or two, but missed the acrostic and the RICK ROLL because I had a near-miss RACK for 16d. Oh well.
Re: Soup/Hamish’s comments above
I wouldn’t be disheartened by some of the comments on here.
Please continue with the unorthodox!!
This puzzle is the sum of its parts and will live long in the memory.
There was another one from a while back by Picaroon where the clues joined together to make London landmarks. That one lives long in the memory and this one will too.
H/S@19 – when you say the letters after the slash were assigned randomly, do you mean that you were free to pick anything, or that the website itself generated them? If it was the latter then surely that would be more of a constraint on the grid.
Many thanks for the super crossword (and please don’t be too orthodox next time).
Thanks also to Cineraria for the blog.
Like others, I found this ‘quirky’, but also brilliant, and I thoroughly enjoyed solving the clues, including some tough ones. The only one I had any real difficulty with was IDOLATER, specifically the definition. I think that was partly because ADULATOR was lurking in my mind as possibly a better fit, but of course not for the wordplay. ROLL also gave me pause for thought but was clearly ok.
I never saw anything other than the crossword, but now that all has been revealed I’m in admiration at what has been achieved here. Congratulations to Soup and of course thanks to Cineraria.
DuncT@26: I was free to pick anything, so I used what had happened to come out in the grid. Yes, if the website had generate them for me that would have been an annoying constraint!
Looks like I’m the only one who has never, thankfully, heard of Tice.
As for the tune, I’m with Family Guy on this one but I’m sure lots of people enjoy it.
Terrific puzzle even though the hidden meanings evaded me.
Thanks Soup and Cineraria.
[I did briefly meet Rick Astley a few years ago when he was a client of a firm I worked for. I think it felt odd to both of us to call him “Mr. Astley”, but you have to be formal and polite to customers, so I didn’t ask for his autograph.]
After TERCE a few days ago, we have another somewhat obscure church service – LAUDS – but I was prepared for this one!
All good fun and no complaints. I spotted the nina easily enough and tried the link – but apart from the reference to Mr Astley – as in clue 1d, but whom I’d never heard of – I was none the wiser. Never mind. I’ve learnt the hard way that you can’t know all the themes!
Any faves that stand out? I had to laugh at Y-FRONTS: there can’t be many instances of a 1-letter word being a Y! Also ticks for HIRED, SETTEE, MYSTIC, IGLOO, MAJOR-DOMO, RAVENOUS, IAMBUS. But to be honest, they’re all good – only to be expected with Soup! No quibbles.
RICK brought back childhood memories. For some reason, aged about seven, I had a slight mishap and ricked my neck and couldn’t ease the excruciating pain. My parents were worried – polio was still rife in those days – so they packed me off to kiddies’ hospital. There, I lay for some days unable to turn my head, until an orthopaedist came along and gently eased my neck back to normal. I was quite OK after that…
Thanks Soup and Cineraria.
The first I heard of Rick Astley was in the Nick Lowe song linked to by Bodycheetah@18, as I’ve been a big fan and have all his albums and quite a few singles too. And thankfully I have never seen or heard Mr Astley (thanks Gladys@30!) perform his “ghastly” song to this day. If there is such a thing as RICKROLL I don’t think I want to know what it is.
I was really stuck with this puzzle, having about 20 still unsolved this morning. I got going again, then stuck again. Then I saw Soup’s letter in the Guardian which got me started again, but it remains a dnf as I got RICK (doh!) from his spoiler.
TRIC(K)Y CL(U)E was apposite and a satisfying solve, but please could Soup put the word STRAIGHTFORWARD in the grid next time?
Thanks to setter and blogger.
This incredibly inventive puzzle left me gobsmacked – how was it even possible to set? Mrs Claret and I solved this waiting for the next act at the main stage at Latitude Festival last Saturday afternoon. And guess who’d just been performing? Rick Astley! Thank you so much Soup and Cineraria
Never heard of either Rick Astley or Mr Tice or the web gimmick, so it was just a regular solve for me. Now I’m very impressed at the virtuosity! Thanks, Soup and Cineraria.
I looked at the grid last Saturday and my first though was “Oh dear….. ” before I even looked at the clues. I did solve a few but soon gave up, not on the same wavelength at all. Having read this blog and Soup’s letter in today’s Guardian, I see I was entirely correct to do so !!
Oh good heavens. Hat off to Soup. I completely missed the theme even though I’m familiar with rickrolling and invented a paradox of it once.* Could it be more common in the US?
Like Gladys@24 I had RACK (as in a rack/stack of amplifiers) but I don’t think that would have helped me. Now that I look at Collins “hayrick” strikes a faint chord. And like Pete HA3@29 I hadn’t heard of Tice but when I couldn’t get Farage in I looked it up. Y-FRONTS I did know, coincidentally because they feature in Tom Stoppard’s Dirty Linen which was in another puzzle this week.
In any case, very enjoyable puzzle for me even without the theme! I thought ROLL was very clever and fair, a drum of cable is more familiar than some of the things you find in Chambers! Also liked TOODLE-OO (nice surface about the Carpenters). Thanks Soup and Cineraria for cluing me in on all the hidden stuff!
*[Define rickrolling as giving someone a link to “Never Gonna Give You Up” instead of something relevant. Suppose–as actually happened to me–someone asks you what rickrolling is and you send them a link to the song. Have you rickrolled them? If you have, then the link was relevant to the question, and it wasn’t a rickroll, which means it wasn’t relevant to the question, so it was a rickroll….]
Less than half completed which is very poor for me. I was holding on until tomorrow, hoping to solve a few more. I gave up after reading Soup’s letter in today’s paper (over 50 years a reader) with references to a musician who was just an obscure name to me. I have looked at the explanations in Cineraria’s blog (Thanks for that). I should have done better, but I agree with comments by others above that some of the clues were not well-constructed. Soup has put too much effort into the rather niche NINA, and the clueing has suffered. Glad that his letter prompted me not to spend any more time on it.
I have just noticed that JohnB@35 is on a similar wavelength to me and reads the paper as well.
[ Now that I’ve learnt what ‘rickrolling’ means, I should point out that I always have tinyurl set to ‘preview’ mode (go to tinyurl.com/preview to enable this feature). That way you can see what tinyurl points to before you go to it. Not of course that I’d suspect Hamish, or any setter, of leading us astray! – but unfortunately there are some unscrupulous elements elsewhere on the web that we have to be careful of…)
So I knew that Hamish was only directing us to a youtube video – innocuous enough!
Other url-shorteners like bitly have a similar feature. ]
Is there going to be 15sq on Paul’s Jumbo Cryptic in last Saturday’s Summer Puzzles Supplement? Possibly not if it only appeared in the dead tree version.
JohnJB@38 Why thank you, you are very kind. Yes I do indeed read the dead tree version and in fact that is where I solve the crossword when I’m able.
Pino@40 Thank you too for reminding me of the Paul Jumbo Puzzle. My wife has snaffled the Puzzle supplement for future hotel room sojourns, I must remember to sneak it back for a few days !
sheffield hatter @32: I have always enjoyed your comments but I find your denial of ever having heard Rick Astley’s song quite staggering. It haunts us all.
AlanC@42 I’m with Sheffield Hatter on this. Despite being a musician and record collector of over 60 years standing I’ve never knowingly heard anything by him and have only the vaguest idea of who he might be.
AlanC@42. Thanks for your appreciation of my comments. I’ve just googled the singer and the song, and while I didn’t go so far as to play it – I trust Nick Lowe on this: “he had a big fat hit: it was ghastly” – I can confirm that the image of the singer is one that I cannot recall having ever seen.
Checking the dates suggests a reason: my first daughter was born in 1987, and we were a little too preoccupied – not to mention tired – to keep up with popular music trends at the time, and we didn’t have a telly.
Looks like I had a lucky escape.
Late comment here, as visitors yesterday prevented me reading this. I thought I’d finished, but didn’t get rick. I had rack, too. Why not rack? Pretty uncomfortable turning, too, in its historical sense, and I think is like stack. If you’ve never heard of rickroll how could you decide between the two? (OH thought like the compiler for roll.) However, I did enjoy the clueing, thank you Soup, and I’m glad other people appreciate the complications of this.
The only igloos I have seen were in ski resorts and the like where they were obviously not going to last until summer.
Fun puzzle, dnf and didn’t twig to it’s awesomeness so thanks to S&B!