Vlad gives your correspondent a pretty tough mental workout this week…
…with the top left quadrant proving a little chewy.
At one stage early on I had 14A GET THE PICTURE, 8D CHEESE and what looked like it might be DEVELOP at 4D, so I wondered if there might be a photography theme(ette), but that idea soon turned out to be a negative.
A couple of the long anagrams eventually fell, for 9D ARTICULATENESS and 17A WESTERN SAHARA, and these helped provide a few crossers for the stragglers.
In the end, I was left with 2D and 10A, which probably had to be LOINS (generator) and POINT (O in PINT?), but it took a fair while for the two pennies to drop – POINT being a cricket field position, and COINS losing half of the Roman numeral value of its first letter (100) to give the 50 of L-OINS.
I enjoyed the TOWCESTER/TOASTER homophone, having driven past there countless times on journeys oop to (and from) t’North, but I suspect some people might have some marmite on that toast. The ‘family of biters’ for VIPERIDAE raised an amused eyebrow, especially with the Chinese New Year of the Snake just starting this week, but I think my favourite was the wonderfully succinct juxtaposition of ‘fluster, perhaps’ for 12A RESTFUL.
My thanks to Vlad, for the challenge. (I had the pleasure of meeting our setter at the York get-together the last couple of years, and he is in no way as scary as his moniker suggests!)
I trust all is clear below. I am on a red-eye flight out of Gatwick on Saturday morning, to go ski-ing in Italy for the week, so I may not be very responsive on the comments below, but please keep ’em coming… Ciao!…)
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution / Entry | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 1A | ALLCOMERS | Crummy local’s barring Vlad, initially reassuring everyone there (9)
ALLCO_S (anag, i.e. crummy, of LOCALS) around (barring in) ME (Vlad, our setter) + R (initial letter of Reassuring) |
| 6A | NARC | On the way back catch police agent? (4)
CRAN (a catch of herring) back to give NARC (narcotics agent) |
| 10A | POINT | Local favourite keeps old place in field (5)
P_INT (a favourite thing at a local pub!) around (keeping) O (old) [‘point’ being a fielding position in cricket] |
| 11A | VIPERIDAE | Following assault, I’ve repaid family of biters (9)
anag, i.e. following assault, of IVE REPAID |
| 12A | RESTFUL | Still in fluster, perhaps (7)
anag, i.e. perhaps, of FLUSTER |
| 13A | HEINOUS | What about institute? Sense it’s awful (7)
HE (eh!, or what?!, about) + I (institute) + NOUS (common sense) |
| 14A | GET THE PICTURE | See clearly and shoot (3,3,7)
double defn – if you GET THE PICTURE you see the situation clearly; and you will GET THE PICTURE if you shoot a scene with a camera) |
| 17A | WESTERN SAHARA | Trash new areas developing in African territory (7,6)
anag, i.e. developing, of TRASH NEW AREAS |
| 21A | TREFOIL | Plant official in work (7)
T_OIL (work) around REF (official) |
| 22A | MAE WEST | Film star nuts about female either way (3,4)
MA_ST (nuts, pig feed) around EWE (palindromic, i.e. either way, female sheep) |
| 24A | SETTLES IN | Starts to feel comfortable on bench? Wrong (7,2)
SETTLE (bench) + S_IN (wrong) |
| 25A | ENACT | Pass stick over teacher’s head (5)
ENAC (cane, or stick, over) + T (head, or first letter, of Teacher) |
| 26A | SURE | Yes, take action to keep Republican in check (4)
SU_E (take action, legally) around (keeping in check) R (Republican) |
| 27A | SALES ROOM | Lots here, also some jumping over side (5,4)
SALES _OOM (anag, i.e. jumping, of ALSO SOME) around R (right, a side) [lots in an auction at a sale room…] |
| Down | ||
| Clue No | Solution / Entry | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 1D | AMPERAGE | Current strength of army regulars’ anger over exercises? (8)
AM (regular letters from ArMy) + RAGE (anger), around PE (Physical Education, exercise) |
| 2D | LOINS | Personal generator – 50 per cent reduction for cash upfront (5)
( [one’s loins being the generators of one’s progeny…] |
| 3D | OUT OF THIS WORLD | From here? Yes and no (3,2,4,5)
if you go from ‘here’, our planet, then you are OUT OF THIS WORLD; but if you are something from OUT OF THIS WORLD then you are not from here (?!). Not sure if this is a punning double definition, a charade, or a (semi?) &lit, but whatever, it is a great clue! |
| 4D | ENVELOP | Nurse playing with Rampant Rod underneath blanket (7)
EN (Enrolled Nurse) + V (versus, or playing, as in Team A v Team B) + ELOP (pole, or rod, rampant, or rising) |
| 5D | SAPPHIC | Lesbian in a quiet pub? There’s no mistake about it (7)
S_IC (printing/proofreading, no mistake, as printed) around A + P (piano, quiet, music) + PH (public house) |
| 7D | ANDROMEDA | Stars in capital stopping with lawyer (9)
AND (with) + DA (District Attorney, lawyer), around (stopped by) ROME (capital) |
| 8D | CHEESE | Maybe invoked when wanting to 14, it can be big or hard (6)
double defn(?). – a photographer, trying to ‘get the picture’, 14A, might get people to say CHEESE; and a CHEESE could be big (important person) or hard (bad luck) |
| 9D | ARTICULATENESS | Ability to get through to ancestral suite improved (14)
anag, i.e. improved, of ANCESTRAL SUITE |
| 15D | TOWCESTER | Picked up kitchen appliance in Northamptonshire town (9)
homophone, i.e. picked up – the Northamptonshire town TOWCESTER is usually pronounced like TOASTER, a kitchen appliance! |
| 16D | FACTOTUM | Handyman carrying extra weight round middle, Charlie admitted (8)
FA_T (carrying extra weight) around (admitting) C (Charlie), plus O (round letter) + TUM (stomach, middle) |
| 18D | ENLISTS | Before end of Games, observe cycling recruits (7)
ENLIST (list-en, observe, cycling last two letters to first) + S (end of gameS) |
| 19D | NOMINAL | Not in practice, I’m soon about to climb league (7)
NOMINA (AN_ON, soon, around IM, climbing) + L (league) |
| 20D | STASIS | Snoopers having second period of inactivity (6)
STASI (East German secret police, or snoopers) + S (second) |
| 23D | ERATO | Not a reason to show up one of 9 (5)
reversed, hidden word, i.e. ‘to show’ and ‘up’, in ‘nOT A REason’ [9 being the nine muses, not clue number 9!] |
I like the story of the members of the disbanded STASI becoming taxi drivers. You just gave them your name and they took you straight home.
In 3D, both the clue and the blogparse were out of this world! Thanks Vlad and mc. (And red-eyed rapper, please be sure not to get impaled on one your poles while skiing.)
Seems a while since a Vlad puzzle and when I saw who the setter was I thought I had no chance but I persevered. Last few I got were in the SE yesterday. Did not get 2d and 10a and there were a couple I just couldn’t parse
Liked: MAE WEST, SAPPHIC, STASIS, CHEESE
Thanks Vlad and mc_rapper67
I thought LISTEN for OBSERVE in 18D a bit weak and failed to parse 2D, so thank you rapper67 for that and Vlad for a puzzle at my level, after failing with last week’s Enigmatist
Liked this puzzle. Good blog.
Thanks Vlad and mc.
My faves: NARC, LOINS, OUT OF THIS WORLD, CHEESE and TOWCESTER.
OUT OF THIS WORLD
from=OUT OF, here=THIS WORLD. So yes. From here is OUT OF THIS WORLD.
The second part as mentioned in the blog.
Probably, even my take on the first part is the same as what mc says. Sorry if I have
just reworded the blogger’s parse.
KVa@5: I see what you’re trying to say about OUT OF THIS WORLD, and that’s how I understood it too: great clue however you interpret it.
Last week is a long time ago, but I know this took me a long time to get started from the SE corner, and I ended up staring at POINT/LOINS/ALLCOMERS for ages before the pennies gradually dropped. I never did parse LOINS properly.
I had a similar experience to our blogger, with the exception of TOWCESTER (never heard of it, and needed google) and an upcoming ski trip. I found it tough but got there.
Mc_rapper67 – where are you going skiing that requires a red eye from UK? Anyway have a great trip
Thanks Vlad and Mc_rapper67
Handy having my sis and bro-i-l here on hols from London to confirm that Towcester really is pronounce toaster. I love succinct clues like See clearly and shoot. Thanks Vlad and rapper.
Thanks, Mc. I’m slowly losing my trepidation when I see Vlad’s name, and I thoroughly enjoyed this, but it was a challenge. I’ve learned that I can usually get into a Vlad puzzle through anagrams, and WESTERN SAHARA dropped out quite quickly. However, 9d, ARTICULATENESS, was still blank until almost the very end. And since I’d decided not to think much about 25d until I’d understood what the ‘9’ in the clue meant, my LOI was actually the fairly simply hidden ERATO. So it goes. Being Vlad, I did have a number at best incompletely parsed – thanks for clearing them up, particularly LOINS which I’d justified as COINS with ‘L’ (50) for ‘C’ (cent), but which left out ‘reduction’. Now explained, it’s one a number of very neat clues. NARC I justified simply because it couldn’t be anything else, neither having heard of ‘cran’ nor having the gumption to look it up. Sometimes I think these clues are wasted on me – sorry about that, Vlad, but thanks for the puzzle!
I failed on the SW corner due to having ’employs’ for 18, which I had confidently, but in hindsight incorrectly, parsed as an anagram of shortened ‘Olympics’ (games) and ‘see’ (observe).
The rest was all in place, though 6 unparsed as ‘cran’ is a nho.
The toughest Prize I’ve been exposed to yet, so I am not too down on myself.
Thanks to V for the workout & mc_r for the exposition.
I also had a problem with LOINS and POINT in that corner, but no problem with TOWCESTER: my next sister down won a prize from Magpie for producing a collage of a toaster to illustrate what was at the time a local town. We both attended secondary school there too.
Thank you to mc_rapper and Vlad.
Thought the parsing for 6A was:
Reversal of RAN + C (catch)
Also, 2D
Cash = COINS
with L (50) replacing C (cent)
giving
LOINS
Particularly because of “per cent” instead of “percent”, which i believed was deliberate.
I spent long enough trying to make something of kettle/Kettering as the 9-letter Northamptonshire town. But eventually the TOWCESTER penny dropped, as indeed it should have done as I am fated to drive past the place regularly on the A43. The traffic jams at the two roundabouts are even worse than normal at present as one of them is being rebuilt.
Lovely puzzle, with LOINS the final challenge.
LOi 2d: LOiNS. — [“per cent” is UK; “percent” is US. They’re converging slightly over here, and they completely flip-flopped over there circa 1937.]
Yes this was indeed tough in places so I was glad to have the blog which helped me to understand several clues. I see others had some similar woes in parsing half a dozen or so.
Getting a couple of longer clues earlyish did help somewhat.
I particularly liked 8d CHEESE!
Thanks to Vlad and mc_rapper67, and I hope the ski trip is fun, mc_rapper67.
Thanks for the blog, pretty tough, I only got eight cold-solving but the grid was friendly and letters helped things along . Excellent set of clues with clever and neat wordplay.
ENVELOP stands out for me. Not keen on “stars” for ANDROMEDA but most setters do this.
AMPERAGE is awful usage but the clue is fine and Chambers93 gives cover .
[ For fans of Puck the FT has a Wanderer puzzle today ]
Tough but quite enjoyable.
Favourites: RESTFUL, SALES ROOM.
New for me: TOWCESTER in Northamptonshire; CRAN = a measure of fresh herrings (for 6ac).
I failed to solve 2d and I could not parse 18d ENLISTS = recruits.
mc_rapper67 – enjoy your skiing in Italy! I am currently in Tuscany where the weather has been a lot milder than England the past few weeks.
TOWCESTER reminds me of when I used to sit on the tube in London many years ago going to Empirical College listening to tourists who were talking about going to Lie-ses-ter Square. 🙂
Roz, whatever the Greek myth, isn’t ANDROMEDA best known by people these days as a constellation – perceived arrangement of stars (that just happens to contain a galaxy too)?
I don’t think that the fact that there might also be black holes, dark matter, dark energy and the rest there too undermines the historic usage of the word either.
2D COINS… I think works really simply as 50=L and you reduce COINS per the C, CENT, done, but a very tricky definition!
I totally scuppered my chances of finishing this by putting in NOT OF THIS WORLD for 3 down, and failing to see the obvious alternative…
Etu @22 I am not saying it is wrong , I just find it a bit lame that constellations or galaxies are just clued using “stars” , all setters seem to do it.
Enjoyed that one. I had a good go at it on Saturday and then left it a few days before coming back with fresh eyes.
I liked CHEESE at 8D and SALES ROOM at 27A.
Took me ages to sort out NW corner as I had (lazily) assumed 4D would be DEVELOP not ENVELOP.
I didn’t quite parse NARC as I had “NAR” from RAN backwards (“On the way back”) and the C from the initial letter of catch.
Good solve and good fun.
simonc @24 – another here who had NOT OTW for a good while, and then compounded the problem in the NW by putting ATTENDEES/ATTENDERS for 1a to fit that mistake. It was the middle of the week before I realised my mistake and completed.
Not really completed, though, as I failed to parse LOINS and NARC (having nho cran).
Thoroughly enjoyed this, though – thanks to Vlad and mc_rapper_skier
Enjoyed this although it took some time! However, don’t understand the parsing of Mae West, if anyone can enlighten us we’ll be grateful. Thanks.
Caz@28, MAST is used for nuts , mainly beech tree nuts are called beech mast . EWE is a female sheep whichever direction you write it. MAST is about EWE .
Never having heard of a cran of herrings, I wondered if the French “cran” = a catch such as a tooth on a gear wheel had made it into Britspeak while escaping the notice of the lexicographers. mrpenney, with whom I have some back-channel contact (he introduced me to this place) found the herring word, but I thought that both were a bit too obscure for a non-Azed puzzle and that we must be missing something. I thought of Woody@26’s parsing but that didn’t really work.
Do you all often find yourselves speaking of crans of herrings? “Oh dear, we’re out of herring. Be a love and run down to the fishmonger’s for half a cran, will you, please?”
I reluctantly looked up ‘cran’, thinking it can’t be a proper word, but there it was! I liked the ‘local favourite’ in POINT, the anagram for WESTERN SAHARA, the LOI LOINS with its 50% reduction, the LESBIAN in the pub, and the toaster/TOWCESTER.
Thanks Vlad and mcr.
Enjoyable puzzle by Vlad. I finished it earlier in the week than usual. but I couldn’t completely justify a few of the answers, so it was a relief to read mc_rapper’s explanations just now. I got LOINS as personal generator, but anguished over the rest of the clue despite Latin O-level over L years ago.
Having some spare crossword time, I returned to an old non-completed puzzle, Brendan 29,386, which I managed to finish yesterday after a gritty struggle.
PS. Enjoy the ski-ing, mc_r
Interesting to learn of CRAN. Then delicious thoughts of Craster kippers came to mind – but sadly, I learn that Craster`s name is crow derived.
LOINS was also “Last One In Not Sure” for me.
Roz@25: probably the reason is that “stars” offers opportunities for ambiguity and misdirection that galaxies and constellations don’t.
I’d like to be able to claim that I grew up 60-70 years ago in a Scottish fishing village and knew about CRANs from early childhood. Nonetheless, even as a suburban Scot I knew about a CRAN as a measure of a herring catch from somewhere or other. And if VinnyD @30 were to send out for half a cran, he would find himself with around 19 Imperial gallons of herring, so he would need a very large freezer or smokehouse, a sharp gutting knife and a well-thumbed copy of 100 Ways to Cook Herring.
I liked “playing with”=V at 4d and am surprised I haven’t seen it before but “rampant” means “standing upright” , specifically of an animal on its hind legs in heraldry, so the opposite of upside down.
As a beer- drinking former cricketer 10a was right up my street and I smiled at 22a (nice use of nuts=MAST) and15d.
20d I think the STASI have become something of a cliche and it’s about time they were pensioned off. They were far worse than mere snoopers.
Thanks to Vlad and mc_rapper67
I’d personally consider anyone who said ARTICULATENESS rather than “articulacy” as not the most articulate.
Pino@36. What you say is true. But if the part in question is normally dangling downwards, being rampant would be a reversal. What a great clue!
Thanks Vlad and mc_rapper67 – actually finished this one, but couldn’t parse LOINS, ENLISTS and NARC, as like many on here “cran” was new to me.
I knew “cran” from Ewan MacColl’s song “Shoals of Herring.” “Wi’ a hundred cran o’ the silver darlings.” A lot of folkies will know this song.
Enjoyed the puzzle but didn’t finish much of it before looking at the check button this morning. Thanks to Vlad and mc — enjoy the skiing. I think of a redeye as a flight that arrives in the morning, not one that leaves then. Have you a different definition?
Gladys @ 34 I am sure you are right but it is a bit like a clue for the name of a novel or play using a definition of “words” .
Great reference Valentine@40 , I knew CRAN from Azed but I will now remember it using your song.
Knowing absolutely nothing about cricket fielding positions, I threw in PINOT instead of POINT (grapes grow in a vineyard, which is sort of a field, right?), leaving me completely, er, stumped for 2D.
Gladys@34. I’m with you on the stars. Clues need to be witty and deceptive. Definitions don’t have to be accurate to the nth degree of modern scientific knowledge, especially when the answer is the name of a character from Greek mythology that was applied to a group of – what’s the word again? – oh, yes: stars.
What is the word again? oh yes ; group .
Roz you can probably find a performance of the song on youtube, if you go in for that sort of thing, or at least the lyrics on Google. Mudcat is a site that has lyrics for lots of folksongs.
There are only eighty-eight named constellations I read, so I think that using “stars” to mean any one of them is no more unkind than using “shape” to mean any polygon, figure, or solid, as we quite often find (let alone “side” to mean a football club).
Using stars to mean a named constellation is equivalent to using players to mean a named football club, however if I need to explain there is no point me explaining .
Thank you Valentine @45 , I will use more analogue methods to track this down.
I quite like “players” to mean a named football club. It could also mean musicians, actors, or any other sporting side, which would add to the solving challenge, surely?
This is Vlad, after all.
Roz@44. Yes, group. Chambers: *constellation*: ‘stars which form a group as seen from the earth’.
Origin of the word: Latin constellatus – studded with stars.
Thanks to mc for the blog and to others who commented. Enjoy the skiing, mc.
Enjoyed and finished this with friends but a couple we couldn’t parse. 6a ‘cran’ – ok I’m happy to learn new collective nouns for types of fish, but not sure about (18d) ‘listen’ for observe.
My FOI was 15D. I knew it had to sound kitchen-y and be a town so, because of an episode of One Foot in the Grave, I instantly thought ‘Kettering’. The penny soon dropped that ‘kitchen appliance’ meant ‘applying oneself in the kitchen’ a loose definition of ‘catering’ and a brilliant bit of misdirection. I put the word in but then, because I’m very weak on geography, I thought I’d better check that Kettering is actually in Northamptonshire. Which it is. The certainty I had the correct word caused problems getting off the ground but good news: I eventually spotted the error and went on to complete the grid!
SH @49 as you said @43 , a GROUP of stars , stellar GROUP , star GROUPing , just not “stars” which does not mean a pattern , group , constellation etc .
Roz@53. No, of course ‘stars’ does not mean a group or pattern, just as ‘players’ does not mean Arsenal or Spurs, and so on. But in a crossword clue it’s enough that it makes us think of a group of stars, while at the same time misleading us in the direction of Hollywood, and if the wordplay contains the elements of the word ANDROMEDA, then the clue works.
Would you also complain about a clue which had ‘mountains’ and expected the answer HIMALAYA or PYRENEES? Are they not groups of mountains?
You objection seems similar to those who object to ‘girl’ when the answer is a name. But as Etu pointed out @46, there are only 88 named constellations compared with countless names for girls, so ‘stars’ is fair as well, in my opinion.
Thanks for trying to explain your point of view. Sorry if I’ve misunderstood.
Thanks both and a fine entertainment.
While LOINS is possibly the most exasperating parse I have seen in a while action replays shows it (in extreme slo-mo) to be fair. Another win for Vlad.
And I really (really) enjoyed cracking ALLCOMERS. (I hate to have a setter put one across me.)
SH@54 we are in general agreement , I just think the dfinition is lame, not wrong, and I prefer wordplay anyway. Mountains is not a good example, they form natural groups , stars do not. Andromeda is just from Ptolemy and is Western European , many cultures have the same stars shared in other patterns, there are many more than 88 named constellations world-wide.
My main issue is that setters seem to park their imagination for any hint of science , Gemini=stars is so common and others . The Andromeda galaxy is our most distant naked-eye object , how about – As far as the eye can see. I go to great lengths to see it at least once a year .
Thanks for all the comments and feedback – much appreciated as usual…and to the usual unofficial ‘moderators’ for chipping in with explanations in my absence.
Apart from some confusion over kettles and toasters, and some unfamiliarity with CRAN, oh, and a little philosophical discussion about groups of stars, I don’t think there was anything too controversial.
Skiing is going well – so far! Lovely weather on the first day, no injuries of note, apart from maybe to the liver (;+>)