A nice puzzle – I particularly liked 11ac, 25ac, and 18dn. Thanks to Vulcan
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | CLUTCH |
A lot of eggs in such a bag? (6)
|
| double definition: a group of eggs; or a type of small handbag | ||
| 4 | ABUSES |
Is rude about area transport (6)
|
| A (area) + BUSES=”transport” | ||
| 9 | CRAB |
Grumble – this apple is sour (4)
|
| double definition: to grumble; or a crab apple | ||
| 10 | PROMENADER |
One doesn’t want to sit through a whole concert? (10)
|
| cryptic definition: someone who attends a concert but not in a seated section
the surface is meant to mislead with “doesn’t want to sit through” suggesting not wanting to stay at the concert at all |
||
| 11 | CORRAL |
As one of three subjects, writing in pink pen (6)
|
| definition: ‘pen’ as a verb meaning to confine
R (writing) in CORAL=”pink” “writing” is one of the ‘three Rs’ (reading, writing, arithmetic) |
||
| 12 | CAUSEWAY |
Car’s first off, about to take advantage of high road (8)
|
| C-[ar] (“Car’s first”) + AWAY=”off” around/”about” USE=”take advantage of” | ||
| 13 | PLATITUDE |
Pressure on freedom of action is commonplace (9)
|
| definition: “commonplace” as a noun = a remark that is used [too] often
P (Pressure) + LATITUDE=”freedom of action” |
||
| 15 | WEND |
Make one’s way with purpose (4)
|
| W (with) + END=”purpose” | ||
| 16 | MILL |
Move about in confusion in factory (4)
|
| double definition: to mill around; or e.g. a steel mill | ||
| 17 | TAX RETURN |
A refund from the government, after you submit this? (3,6)
|
| definition: a TAX RETURN is a form submitted to the government
for the wordplay, TAX RETURN might also be read as the government returning/refunding [part of] one’s tax payments |
||
| 21 | DROP DEAD |
Stunning, rude dismissal (4,4)
|
| double definition: ‘drop dead [gorgeous]’; or ‘Drop dead!’ meaning something like ‘go away!’ | ||
| 22 | SCRUBS |
Regularly sick, chafes in prison (6)
|
| definition: Wormwood Scrubs prison in London
regular letters from S-[i]-C-[k] + RUBS=”chafes” |
||
| 24 | BLOOD DONOR |
One’s voluntary contribution to the NHS may be of various types (5,5)
|
| cryptic definition, referring specifically to blood types
surface could be read as describing more general types of volunteering/contributions for the NHS |
||
| 25 | LEEK |
Returning ship, poetically, is a national symbol (4)
|
| definition: the leek as a symbol of Wales
KEEL=”ship, poetically”, reversed/”Returning” |
||
| 26 | SHOVEL |
Tool in small shed (6)
|
| S (small) + HOVEL=”shed” | ||
| 27 | JERSEY |
Top cow? (6)
|
| double definition: a knitted top; or a breed of cow from Jersey | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | CAR POOL |
Vehicle, battered Polo, that is eco-friendly for commuting (3,4)
|
| CAR=”Vehicle” + anagram/”battered” of (Polo)* | ||
| 2 | UMBER |
Mineral found in quantity, but unnamed (5)
|
| [n]-UMBER=”quantity”, minus n for ‘name’ i.e. “un-named” | ||
| 3 | COPILOT |
Cabin colleague has care of chart I submitted (7)
|
| CO (c/o, “care of”) + PLOT=”chart” around I (from surface) | ||
| 5 | BLEW UP |
Filled with air, became very angry (4,2)
|
| double definition: to blow up e.g. a balloon; or to blow up in anger | ||
| 6 | STATEMENT |
Bank account details the police may take (9)
|
| double definition: a bank statement; or a [e.g. witness] statement taken by the police | ||
| 7 | STEWARD |
Attendant chucked waste on road (7)
|
| anagram/”chucked” of (waste)*; plus RD (road) | ||
| 8 | FORCED LANDING |
Need to go to ground in England, for CID are circling (6,7)
|
| anagram/”circling” of (England for CID)* | ||
| 14 | TELEPHOTO |
The pothole not hard to snap with this lens? (9)
|
| definition: a type of camera lens used for photography
anagram/”snap” of (The pothole)*, with “not hard” indicating that the h for hard is removed from pothole |
||
| 16 | MARBLES |
Children’s game lost by the witless (7)
|
| to ‘lose one’s marbles’ = to become “witless” | ||
| 18 | RESERVE |
See further military action, but not the front line (7)
|
| definition: a military reserve might not be at the front line
for wordplay, RESERVE could be read as ‘re-serve’ = ‘serve again’ = “See further military action” |
||
| 19 | ROBBERY |
Overcharging done in the daylight? (7)
|
| referring to ‘daylight robbery’ as a description of over-charging | ||
| 20 | MEDDLE |
Stick nose in, announcing award (6)
|
| sounds like (“announcing”): ‘medal’=”award” | ||
| 23 | ROLLS |
Goes round in luxury car (5)
|
| double definition: second definition referring to a Rolls Royce car |
I found this tougher than the usual Monday Vulcan, with the top half more of a challenge, PROMENADER being the LOI. I liked CORRAL, DROP DEAD, SCRUBS, COPILOT, MARBLES and ROBBERY. Sadly a TAX RETURN doesn’t always lead to a refund! Great start to the week.
Ta Vulcan & manehi.
I’m with AlanC – I completed the bottom first and had to work upwards to the top half. Although having given up on the top half until I finished the bottom, when I went back, I found it went in pretty smoothly.
PROMENADERS is probably there as we’re in the middle of the BBC Proms – their promenade concert series.
Thank you to manehi and Vulcan.
Years ago I read somewhere that calling the car brand “ROLLS” for short was considered vulgar by the sort of people who actually bought them; the correct term was/is “Royce”. I have no idea if this is actually true.
Rather too many double and cryptic definitions for my taste, but a decent enough crossword. Favourites CORRAL, CO-PILOT (which I would hyphenate).
Thanks both.
Failed on CAUSEWAY. Tricky WP and not the high roads I had in mind.
Fav PLATITUDE.
Thanks Vulcan and manehi
I got off to a poor start by confidently writing BASKET inat 1a. “Basket of eggs” is quite a common expression, and there’s even a folk song about it!
I had WEND, but wasn’t at all confident about it. Several other letters in front of END make a sort of sense.
A little more challenging than usual maybe but none the worse for that.
Ticks for CORRAL, CAUSEWAY, WEND, and the delightfully simple JERSEY – my overthink of the day
Cheers V&M
Double first for me: finished by 10:30, 10 hours ahead of normal, and before the blog was published.
Solving the top half made me think “Alright, you fiend, what have you done with the REAL Vulcan?” The bottom was rather more typical of the fire god, but I hope he continues in this more challenging vein.
@3 beaulieu, me too, although it started to get easier once I was past the top few rows. Not being English I had never heard of the term PROMENADER before.
Yep, toughish, needed a bit of help, but then same for Everyman yesterday, and lots of help needed for Filbert, so might just be aging brain. Ta both
Basket was also my first thought muffin @5 before CLUTCH became obvious. Not the folk song, but a distant school memory in Geography of a basket of eggs topography
[Tim C @11
The topography should have occurred to me too, as I live in an area that has some of the most obvious drumlins in England, the region south of the Yorkshire Dales glaciers (that were). However I used to perform that song in college folk clubs (a long time ago…)!]
Thanks for the blog, bit of a Spock puzzle really , the clues were very neat and tidy.
[ AlanC , I hear that your pre-season optimism lasted nearly an hour this year , Never mind , I am sure that with your guidance in the background KPR will reach League 1 at the end of the season. For some real shooting stars try the Perseids tonight . ]
For once this all went in quite smoothly for me in two passes through the clues. Thank you Vulcan and manehi
[Roz @15: lovely words🤣 ].
I liked it a lot, with ticks for quite a few, some already mentioned: 11a CORRAL, 24a BLOOD DONOR, 16d MARBLES and 19d ROBBERY. I was a bit disappointed with 17a TAX RETURN which I felt was barely cryptic, but overall it was an entertaining crossword. Thanks to Vulcan and manehi.
Nice one from Vulcan. Unlike most of you, it was the bottom half which gave me a wee bit of trouble. Some of the double defs and cryptic defs held me up a bit (as they used to with Rufus).
Favourites were CORRAL, RESERVE (probably not the first time that wordplay has been used, but if so I don’t remember it). And the small but perfectly formed WEND – that word may seem archaic, but its past tense, ‘went’, has supplanted the original past tense of the verb to go, ‘yode’, which has been unaccountably lost. (In Scots, ‘go’ has also lost its past participle and ‘I have went’ is standard).
beaulieu @3: In EF Benson’s ‘Mapp and Lucia’ the ostentatious Mrs Wyse always refers to their car as ‘the Royce’, but this is the only context in which I have seen it.
Thanks to S&B
Like some others I worked from the bottom up as I found the top half quite chewy. Some great clues in this very enjoyable puzzle. I was unable to parse CAUSEWAY so thanks for the explanation. I didn’t find TAX RETURN very cryptic.
Last in was CORRAL, my favourite. Ticks also for CO-PILOT, PROMENADER, FORCED LANDING, BLOOD DONOR.
Thanks, Vulcan and manehi.
For me it was the down clues which went in easily (obviously I had started with the accrosses) – but all very satisfying
Thanks Vulcan and manehi
Many thanks to Vulcan and Manehi. This was perfect for a Monday. I found the bottom half harder. Hopefully some of the new solvers from the QC will try this because some clues are pretty friendly. My favourites were BLOOD DONOR, FORCED LANDING and WEND. Thanks for the earworm muffin 😎
Quite tough.
I couldn’t parse 12ac apart from USE = take advantage of; 21ac – the rude dismissal bit; 18d.
My FOI was 22ac – I have heard of Wormwood Scrubs prison but I didn’t know that it is nicknamed “The Scrubs”.
Thanks, both.
Never attempt these while half-asleep. I did; I wound up revealing both JERSEY, which I should have gotten, and PROMENADER, about which I can’t quite say the same thing. I know the annual summer concerts are called “the proms,” but how does it work? Do promenaders take a stroll round the Royal Albert Hall while taking in their dose of classical music, or is there no promenading in that sense?
[MrP @22
Normally the central flat oval area in the Albert Hall has rows of seats, but during the promenade concert series it is left open for people to stand and listen to the concert. Tickets for standing are only sold on the day, in contrast to the sitting tickets, so people just turn up hopefully before the concert starts. Those standing are the “promenaders”.]
When I was a student I used to go for a week , great variety and dirt cheap , was just 4 or 5 pound. Would be hundreds of tickets for standing , some in the gallery as well . Just make sure to avoid the last night.
[muffin @23 and Roz@24: thanks. Sounds like more standing than I’d be up for these days, of course, but then I’m not in what I presume is the target audience anymore either.]
[ I think the target audience is everyone , there was a wide age range but mainly younger people because of the ticket prices. You could buy a ticket in the morning , minimal queues , and have all day free before the concert. This was late 80s/ early 90s so probably all different now. ]
The Pink Pen was the last to yield at 11ac. Plenty of fun along the way ..
Gervase @13 – I was going to mention Mrs Wyse but you beat me to it. Love those books!
Also enjoyed this puzzle – just right for a Monday, I reckon. Thanks, Vulcan and manehi.
Beaulieu@3 and Gervais@17, I always thought the snobs called them their ROLLERS.
Inexplicably (because the wordplay was clear in hindsight), I needed manehi’s help in parsing 12a CAUSEWAY, which, once he explained it, became my favourite clue. I also liked 27a JERSEY for its brilliant brevity.
Thanks Vulcan and manehi for the fine Monday diversion.
cellomaniac @29
“Rollers” reminds me of George Cole as Arthur Daley. I suppose he might have been a snob too, though probably not a cobbler!
Re:Beaullieu,
If you were employed by Rolls-Royce in Derby,you worked at Royces’.F.H.Royce was the engineer and the Hon.Charles Rolls provided access to the desired market.
oed.com dates Roller n,4
to 1979 and Ian Dury’s Songbook, followed by a citation for L(eon) Griffiths’ Arthur Daley’s Guide to doing it Right (1985).(I thought it was older than that.)
Here’s Ian Dury’s My Old Man (1977): “Later on he drove a Roller, chaufferin’ for foreign men”.
Roz@26, different indeed – the tickets are now sold on line, but still only on the day. I was working a summer vac job in London in the mid 70s and used to buy a season ticket for the gallery (where there was usually space to sit on the floor by the railing). Gave the last night ticket to my future mother-in-law one year.
Thanks Tim@32, I did suspect it would be different , they sell you a ticket and get to sell all your data as well.
Thanks both.
I am contriving an index involving cross-pollination of ‘time spent doing a crossword’ and the ‘amount of satisfaction it gives’ (often inversely proportional). At the moment I’m thinking 1-7 with 1 meaning a ‘write-in’ and 7 being a ‘meh’. A perfect 4 would mean enjoyment commensurate with the time spent (often directly proportional).
Monday experiences of 2s and 6s led me to adopt a ‘reveal if defeated after one pass’ methodology (life, though not necessarily short, grows no longer). I was sorry I did as it would have scored a solid 3. Not sure I understand PLATITUDE but I did bung it in (if not exactly ‘from definition’).
muffin@12: May I affectionately imagine you with your pipe, pint and autoharp….?
25a – where/how does “poetically” fit in?
“Rollers” was the name of a not very upmarket hairdressing salon at the top of our street not so long ago. Not posh customer’s cars parked outside, but certainly lots of ladies of a certain age inside in fluffy slippers getting their hairdos seen to…
Steffen @35: Using the term “keel” (a part of the boat) for the whole boat is a form of synecdoche, a literary device often used by poets.
Famous folk song The Keel Row, which sings about the boat being brought in safely (O weel may the keel row.)
[Alphalpha @34
Sorry, just voice and guitar.]
muffin@39: Lovely picture too. I’d have enjoyed that.
My comment@32 is still awaiting moderation 9 hours later. So here it is again, split in two:
oed.com dates Roller,n,4 to 1979 and Ian Dury’s Songbook, followed by a citation for L(eon) Griffiths’ Arthur Daley’s Guide to doing it Right (1985).
(I thought it was older than that.) …
… ‘British colloquial. A Rolls-Royce motor car. Cf. Rolls n.’. Here’s Ian Dury’s My Old Man (1977): “Later on he drove a Roller, chaufferin’ for foreign men”.
As per the apocryphal 4 word school report
Could have done better
Only got the bottom left quarter, yet most if it all are within my capability