Vulcan with a typical Monday puzzle…
…at least in terms of the number of cryptic definitions and homophones, although this wasn’t as easy as some Vulcan puzzles have been in the past. Most of the homophones were OK< although where I come from ASTA and ASTER are pronounced differently and HONEY and FUNNY don’t quite rhyme, but I accept for many, these are perfectly valid. My only quibble was the repeated us of SPEAK to indicate the homophones at 14ac and 23dn.
Thanks, Vulcan.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | BLUE SKIES |
Fine weather that came from Berlin (4,5)
|
| BLUE SKIES was a song by Irving “Berlin” that featured in the first talkie, “The Jazz Singer” | ||
| 6 | WINCH |
Hoist weight a tiny distance (5)
|
| W (weight) + INCH (“a tiny distance”) | ||
| 9 | AD-LIB |
I’m not prepared to come out with this (2-3)
|
| Cryptic definition | ||
| 10 | FROCK COAT |
Fact: crook sports a very formal garment (5,4)
|
| *(fact crook) [anag:sports] | ||
| 11 | STATIONARY |
At halt, a railway is stuck? (10)
|
| At STATION (“halt”) + A + Ry. (railway) | ||
| 12 | VETO |
Power to reject spoiled vote (4)
|
| *(vote) [anag:spoiled] | ||
| 14 | CANASTA |
In card game, is Daisy able to speak perhaps? (7)
|
| Homophone/pun/aural wordplay [to speak, perhaps] of CAN ASTER (“is Daisy able to”) | ||
| 15 | DISMISS |
Allow to go and be rude to teacher (7)
|
| DIS (“be rude to”) + MISS (“teacher”) | ||
| 17 | CADAVER |
Body of potholer a daughter buried (7)
|
| A + D (daughter) buried in CAVER (“potholer”) | ||
| 19 | CURIOUS |
Inquisitive scoundrel is casing university (7)
|
| CUR (“scoundrel”) + IS casing OU (Open “University”) | ||
| 20 | RUBY |
Wax and massage at end of play (4)
|
| RUB (“massage”) at [end of] (pla)Y
Ruby Wax is a British-American actress and comedian. |
||
| 22 | GOLDILOCKS |
Hungry and sleepy girl who found her comfort zone? (10)
|
| Cryptic definition, referring to the fairy tale, “Goldilocks and hte Three Bears”. | ||
| 25 | ANTARCTIC |
Circle Line train cat disturbed, finally caught (9)
|
| *(train cat) [anag:disturbed] + C (caught, in cricket) | ||
| 26 | GHOST |
Good landlord offers spirit (5)
|
| G (good) + HOST (“spirit”) | ||
| 27 | HONEY |
Funny rhyme for a term of endearment (5)
|
| HONEY “rhymes” with “funny” | ||
| 28 | POLARISED |
The Northern Star edition sharply divided opinion (9)
|
| POLARIS (“the North Star”) + ed. (edition) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | BEATS |
Pulses that sound like roots (5)
|
| Homophone/pun/aural wordplay [that sound like] BEETS (“roots”) | ||
| 2 | UNLEARNED |
Ignorant, or deliberately forgotten? (9)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 3 | SUBMISSIVE |
Deferential communication from Captain Nemo? (10)
|
| Captain Nemo was the captain of a fictitious submarine so a “communication” from him could be described as a missive from a sub, so SUB-MISSIVE | ||
| 4 | INFANTA |
Popular soft drink for princess (7)
|
| IN (“popular”) + FANTA (“soft drink”) | ||
| 5 | SCOURED |
Went off to capture carbon: thoroughly cleaned! (7)
|
| SOURED (“went off”) to capture C (carbon) | ||
| 6 | WAKE |
Come to late party (4)
|
| Double definition, the second cryptic, the “late” referring to the dead. | ||
| 7 | NO ONE |
Is 4 minus 3 two? Not a person answers (2,3)
|
| The “answer”, to “is 4 minus 3 two” could be “NO, (it’s) ONE“ | ||
| 8 | HOTHOUSES |
You once put in pipes for orangeries, for example (9)
|
| THOU (“you, once”) put in HOSES (“pipes”) | ||
| 13 | ASTROLOGER |
One predicts you a starry future (10)
|
| Cryptic definition | ||
| 14 | COCKROACH |
Pest chewed rock in bus (9)
|
| *(rock) [anag:chewed] in COACH (“bus”) | ||
| 16 | IRON CROSS |
Smooth illiterate’s “signature” for military decoration (4,5)
|
| IRON (“smooth”) + CROSS (“illiterate’s signature”) | ||
| 18 | ROOFTOP |
Exposed position of troop destroyed (7)
|
| *(of troop) [anag:destroyed] | ||
| 19 | CODICIL |
Formal new instructions here for leaving (7)
|
| Cryptic definition, a CODICIL being a supplement to a will, which could be described as “instructions here for leaving”. | ||
| 21 | BATON |
A stick and a bit of carrot? (5)
|
| Double definition, the second being a piece of sliced carrot. | ||
| 23 | SITED |
In place, observed to speak (5)
|
| Homophone/pun/aural wordplay [to speak] of SIGHTED (“observed”) | ||
| 24 | TROY |
Old city Des goes on to devastate (4)
|
| If DES goes on TROY, the result is DES-TROY (“to devastate”) |
Reasonably straightforward with only 1a parsing eluding me until a Google search revealed all.
Thanks to Vulcan and loonapick.
BEATen! A bit tougher than usual, and obviously clever enough to fool this punter. Thanks both.
I found I needed all the crossers for CODICIL and GOLDILOCKS, so the bottom went in slower. Not that it wasn’t Monday-ish.
Thank you to Vulcan and loonapick
Well, I didn’t know a baton was a bit of carrot. Someone needs to tell Collins.
I initially had SCENE for 23d. Justifiable?
Thanks Vulcan and Loonapick
Happy Bank Holiday Monday (EW and Nl only I think)
Perfect Monday crossword too
Thanks loonapick.
I spent way too long trying to come up with an anagram “prepared” for I’m not in AD-LIB, same letter count, until I had crossers.
I don’t understand why CODICIL wasn’t simply clued as new instructions for leaving. Would that not have been sufficiently cryptic? Or does formal mean that’s in the form of something written?
Couple of GK elements slowed me down. POTHOLER, meaning caver, and BATON meaning a stick of carrot. Knew about julienne but dictionaries tell me a baton’s bigger. That’s funny. Has someone been watching while I try to julienne without one of those gadgets?
Liked WAKE, NO ONE, POLARISED, UNLEARNED and SUBMISSIVE for the quirky surfaces.
GDU@4. I found BATON on Wiktionary through Onelook. (Didn’t look at any other references.) However, I found on Wiki a very precise definition of a baton or batonet, under List of culinary knife cuts.
Batonnet; French for “little stick”, the batonnet measures approximately 1⁄4 by 1⁄4 by 2–2+1⁄2 inches (0.6 cm × 0.6 cm × 5 cm–6 cm). . I’m going to have to get out my magnifying glass next time I try to julienne or I might end up with a baton, which is what I suspect anyway, or whatever is the next size up.
Liked this with GOLDILOCKS as a favourite. INFANTA raised a smile. Thanks V and L. Good blog. Enjoy the day everyone.
Seem to be a lot of clues about dying. Is he trying to tell us something?
GDU @4 and pdm @7, I’d heard of BATON (it’s the size you cut to stick into dips), but I’m surprised, like you, that it’s not in Collins, Chambers 2016, New Oxford American Dictionary or SOED. It is in the ODE (that’s not the same as the OED and I can’t be bothered to get out of my chair to see what the OED says).
As one who used to do a lot of caving, I knew that the Poms called us potholers, pdm@6, but the BATON was new to me, too. BLUE SKIES gave me an earworm once a couple of crossers pointed me in the right direction. I liked TROY (after toying with UR**). I was a bit slow to get started, but it all came together well in the end. Thanks, Vulcan and loonapick.
Thanks, lunapick and Vulcan. Not quite in the GOLDILOCKS zone for me – all over a bit too soon. Are we all missing something in the clue for CODICIL? Like paddymelon I suspect the word ‘formal’ is doing something but can’t see what.
I found this tough to start with but it got easier as I progressed.
Favourites: INFANTA, TROY.
New for me: carrot batons (21d).
I am intrigued by loonapick’s comment that ‘HONEY and FUNNY don’t quite rhyme’. Even Winnie the Pooh thought they rhyme when he wrote it as HUNNY 😉
Thanks, both.
Very surprised to find oed.com’s entry for 21d BATON knows nothing about carrots, either. [They only found out about drum major(ette)s’ batons in 2013.] …
… Though It does have ‘carrot stick, n. A piece of raw carrot cut into a rectangular baton.’, which it dates as ‘1931–‘, but didn’t notice the existence of until 2017.
Those harmless drudges need better motivation. Fewer carrots, more stick.
Very nice.
Ta Vulcan & loonapick.
Like Michelle@13, I’m intrigued as to in which dialect honey and funny don’t quite rhyme, as loonapick indicates in the preamble. I have another question, did anyone else try to anagram rhyme (funny) to come up with a term of endearment apart from me? No, probably not.
Why doesn’t Vulcan listen to Spotify? Because he already has a vast CD collection 🙂
Ticks for HONEY, ANTARCTIC & NO ONE
Cheers L&V
Paddymelon – it may be my Scots accent, but to me, money has a short N sound and funny a slightly longer one, however now that I have sat here repeating the two words over and over again, the difference is slowly disappearing. 🙂
A vital piece of missing information – the writer of the song in 1a – meant BLUE SKIES was unparsed but everything else went into place. I’d agree this was a tad trickier than a typical Monday Vulcan. WINCH, CADAVER, RUBY, SCOURED and HOTHOUSES were my faves this morning.
Thanks Vulcan and Loonapick
Nice for me as I don’t do Paul or Prize crosswords.
As usual for Vulcan, precise cluing.
HOTHOUSES and TROY my favourites.
Thanks both.
Bodycheetah@18 😉
Tried OneLook.com’s new Lyric function on BATON – it returns lots more Bs: BobbyD, BarbraS, & The Beach Boys. Nice. …
I thought ROOFTOP was very neat. I fell for bothe the anagrams that weren’t, so paddymelon you are not alone. Hymer sounds like it could be a term of endearment.
paddymelon@17, I tried the anagram too, and like Petert could only come up with HYMER – which could be an endearment but is actually an American make of motor homes.
Certainly had its tough aspects, but without being inaccessible. I enjoyed the cryptic definitions, and the homophones didn’t pose any problems for my accent at least.
Like paddymelon @6, I spent a long time trying to get something from ‘I’m not’, before AD LIB finally presented itself.
The only thing which raised an eyebrow for me is DIS (in DISMISS), as I thought it was usually spelt DISS. But it could be that DIS is equally valid as being short for ‘disrespect’?
Thanks Vulcan and loonapick
Very enjoyable. NO ONE was neat!
According to Nigella Lawson, carrots should ALWAYS be cut into batons. NEVER discs.
It took a while to spot BATON since I don’t usually eat raw carrots (the usual use for batons). I liked the SUB MISSIVE (even if I did start with SUBMISSION), TROY, NO ONE, the late party and the kids dissing Miss.
I’d forgotten who wrote BLUE SKIES (if I ever knew) so I needed all the crossers for that.
BobW@27: I expect carrots cut into discs are “common”. I’m common, and can’t be bothered with fancy batons and juliennes – they are for people who can pay a cook to do it for them.
Paddymelon et al: My Google search history now includes HERMY and HEMRY!
The rhyme works for me, and the N’s are the same length Loonapick.
I was misdirected for some time about the carrot and the stick in BATON. 5 letters, inducement didn’t fit. I was actually looking at something like bribe, which is ok for carrot, but not for stick. Couldn’t come up with anything else so let it go. Very clever clue. Made me laugh at myself, and appreciate Vulcan’s humour.
gladys@29. You don’t need a cook for raw carrot batons or discs. All you need is a good knife, a steady hand, or a mandoline. We’re pretty common down here in Ozland too. Some of us still call them crudités, which is probably apt.
Good Monday puzzle with the SW yielding last.
I liked DISMISS, although some similar have been done before, eg: Be contemptuous towards teacher — and send her packing. Yes, I also tried to make an anagram of rhyme at first, but I appreciated the clue when the penny subsequently dropped. A tick also for CODICIL.
Thanks Vulcan and loonapick.
Comments on the Guardian webpage indicate a theme. I can’t see it. Anyone?
Happy Monday.
On homophones, I’ve learned to live with the English disappearing trailing R but where on earth does honey not rhyme with funny? Honey money funny bunny?
Thanks both.
Having thought more about it, I have now completely convinced myself that Honey and Funny are perfect rhymes and can only imagine it was my fuzzy early morning head that thought they sounded slightly different. Solving and blogging puzzles the moment you wake up plays tricks with your senses.
A quick google confirms that you can buy bags of pre-sliced carrot batons in all the major UK supermarkets. I consider that sufficient evidence to support the definition even if the dictionaries are playing catchup.
Overall, a fun and breezy puzzle, right in the GOLDILOCKS zone for a Monday. Thanks, Vulcan and loonapick.
There are a few climate/weather references but not enough for a theme, I thought.
Liked HONEY, INFANTA and NO ONE. Thanks Vulcan, thanks loonapic (is that a capital i or a lower case L, of which I just reversed?) for clearing up BLUE SKIES, TROY and the second half of BATION pour moi. Slightly held myself up by initially putting SCENE in for 23. Only when nothing could work with G_O_E for 26. did I drop the idea and the solution GHOST jumped straight out.
GDU@4. I commented first, read second, but you can probably guess my reaction to your question on 23?
Fairly straightforward, as a Monday should be, although I’m not convinced by BEATS = roots, and certainly not if you’re Australian!
Thanks for the blog, good for the Monday tradition and the grid is very helpful for newer solvers.
The theme is from the classic film – A Landscape of Lives .
BATON:
Since baton is a French word (meaning stick), it’s probably chefs and cookery writers (eg Nigella) who have introduced this meaning of baton into English. As you can see from the link, there are rules for chefs.
https://guide.michelin.com/en/article/dining-in/knife-cut-types
No, I missed the connection.
Always a gentle pleasure for me with a Vulcan offering on a Monday. Though couldn’t quite see why BATON should be so, and was completely baffled by loi BLUE SKIES even when I had inserted the penultimate, rather awkward, UNLEARNED to provide the final crosser. Too fixated by the city rather than the songwriter, I imagine.
GOLDILOCKS is an oft used expression by solvers on here to describe their comfort zones, I have noticed. Many thanks Vulcan and Loonapick…
[ Gladys@29 I agree , the thing with Nigella Lawson’s cooking is she always uses lashings of servants . ]
I also missed the DES TROY connection, didn’t know who ‘Des’ was, though I did get TROY – what else could it be?
Lovely puzzle, dare I say GOLDILOCKS for me today. Well clued, a light touch, nice humour. Ticks for BLUE SKIES (now an ear worm), SUBMISSIVE, INFANTA, DISMISS, CODICIL, ANTARCTIC.
Thanks Vulcan and loonapick.
WD @ 41 BEATS doesn’t equal ROOTS. It’s BEETS that does.
Worth the entrance fee for SUBMISSIVE alone – though DISMISS, RUBY, GOLDILOCKS, INFANTA and HONEY also made me snigger.
I also enjoyed the lengthy and detailed discussions about cutting up carrots; I’ve never given the matter any thought before now – but will henceforth…
Thanks to Vulcan for the fun, and loonapick for the blog and for explaining BLUE SKIES (an unparsed guess). Like Winston Churchill, I had the wrong Berlin….
Great fun, with too many good clues to list. Like most of us, I tried to anagrammatise ‘rhyme’ before spotting the entirely kosher homophone (BTW, the old word for rabbit – coney – also rhymed originally with ‘funny’, but because this sounded rather rude the pronunciation was changed to rhyme with ‘boney’ 🙂 ).
BLUE SKIES is a classic of the Great American Songbook, unusual because the cheerful lyrics are set to music in a minor key, suggesting that the singer has some doubts about their good fortune.
Thanks to S&B
[I confess to cutting carrots into BATONs sometimes, but it would be less wasteful if carrots were square rather than circular in cross section 🙂 ]
Enjoyable quick solve for us.
BATON – Where I’m from in Yorkshire we always called stick of carrot “carrot batons” … irrespective of their thickness.
[Gervase @50: I have seen videos of gardeners sowing seed into small square containers which the growing plants fill – thus producing square crops. No idea if you could do it with carrots but, having seen how they will grow around stones etc, I suspect there’s a chance of arriving at square roots! ]
It’s all been said, so I won’t, as far as clues go.
White Devil@41 BEETS = roots.
loonapick on GHOST. HOST = landlord, not spirit, which is the definition.
I saw her standing on her front lawn
Just a-twirling her baton
The haunting opening lines of Bruce Springsteen’s seminal ‘Nebraska’.
Who knew that finely cut carrots could lead a boy astray?
Americans may be mystified or amused by the use of BATON as a food shape. (We can still make each other smile by whispering “granary baton” in a supermarket aisle.)
Pianola@55 Was Baton Rouge not named after the beetroot stick?
Roz @42: can you tell us more about the film A Landscape of Lives and how Vulcan uses it?
Found this pretty straightforward and finished quickly.
Didn’t think much of the homophones, fortunately I didn’t have to depend on them to solve the clues.
Had no idea carrots could be divided into batons…
Liked “submissive” and “dismiss”.
Thank you to Vulcan and Loonapick.
As a novice I like Vulcan especially when it is more challenging. Loved 3d esp as Nemo is Latin for no one (in 7d). Big thanks for the puzzle and help with the parsing (1ac was unfathomable to me). Thanks
Well, this for me was a perfect puzzle – loads of garden paths and pennies dropping. And no Roman Numerals.
Enjoyed this, definitely in the GOLDILOCKS zone for me. I laughed out loud at NO ONE – thankfully I was sitting in the kitchen and not anywhere public.
paddymelon @6 and @17 – I also tried to anagram both “I’m not” and “rhyme”. The former was dropped fairly early on, but I did spend a bit of time checking dictionaries for “herym” and “hymer” before the penny dropped.
Petert @56, very good 🙂
Thanks Vulcan and loonapick
[Quenbarrow@47 I think Roz is just going for the IRONY CROSS. Never trust her when she talks of themes. She should have written Landscape of Lies]
Petert @62, yes indeed… It was great fun checking out the saga of the tax-scam film Landscape of Lives/Lies, so thanks to Roz for supplying the incentive to do so!
All very neat and tidy as always from Vulcan. Needed the blog to understand BLUE SKIES, and have greatly enjoyed the BATON debate. INFANTA made me smile a lot. Thanks to all.
Sorry Queenbarrow , somebody mentioned a theme so I had to invent a spoof one.
Sorry Peter@62 it is definitely LIVES , that was the fake film involved in the tax fiddle . Landscape of LIES was the film actually made when they tried to get out of trouble.
So Five Go In Some Sort of Picture of Deceit, then???
Thanks both.
Not convinced that UNLEARNED=’deliberately forgotten’.
Edit (immediately on posting): Oh I get it now. 1984-speak….
I went for hunny bunny, I blame the carrots next door.
Postmark @52 🙂 square roots.
Gervase@49 And bone(y) isn’t rude? 🙂 (I see it means the same in both American and Australian English.)
WhiteDevil’s comment @41 about beets and roots needs to be read in the context that we don’t call root vegetables roots in Oz, and that roots is slang for sexual intercourse. The Australian version of the old joke (and the title of a book on punctuation) has the wombat, who Eats Shoots Roots and Leaves.
Funny thing, while doing my research on beetroots I found that the botanical name is Beta vulgaris 🙂
A yorkshire man asks a jeweler to make a little statue of his late beloved dog. “I want him in a natural pose and gold plated”.
The jeweler asks “do you want it 18 carot?”.
No – chewing bone you dafty. Bobby wernt no rabbit.
This was great. Finished it quite speedily for once, but not so quick that it wasn’t enjoyable. Really clear clues and nice surfaces. Thanks Vulcan and Loonapick.
Could GOLDILOCKS be a double definition? The girl who “found her comfort” and the planetary zone?
Thrilled to complete.
Liked blue skies and hothouses the most.
Could only think of Des Lynam for a while!
Late comment, but here it is anyway. I’m another with SCENE for 23dn. I think both answers work. (By the way, unlike some, I don’t think that’s a flaw as long as the crossers resolve the ambiguity.)
To the best of my recollection, I’d never heard of potholer, Ruby Wax, or carrot batons, but that’s OK.
I don’t understand the definition “Circle line” for ANTARCTIC.
Ted@74 , as well as the Equator and the Tropics we have an (ANT)ARCTIC Circle line at about 66.5 degrees .
Roz@75 Thanks for that! I’d never heard of that either, so was mystified, although the answer was pretty obvious.