It’s only ten days since my blog of Imogen’s latest Prize crossword and here he is again…
… and again we have a nice combination of clue types, generally meticulous cluing, ingenious constructions, an interesting spread of GK, a couple of unfamiliar / unknown words and some neat misdirection.
I had ticks for 1ac TIME WAS, 14ac DEMORALISING, 18 NUNC DIMITTIS, 25ac MERCENARY, 27ac RED TAPE, 4dn SOBER and 19dn HERMIA.
Thanks to Imogen for the puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 In the past, cutter put out stern first (4,3)
TIME WAS
A reversal (stern first?) of SAW (cutter) + EMIT (put out)
5 Seeing they help girls, give them a good start (7)
GLASSES
G (good) + LASSES (girls)
9 Peace and quiet in a number of families (5)
ORDER
Double definition: ORDER is the taxonomical rank between class and family: ‘a group of related families’
10 Her career progresses by leaps and bounds (9)
BALLERINA
A (not very) cryptic definition
11 Cushy number, creating alternative to sauce boat? (5,5)
GRAVY TRAIN
A rather better cryptic definition
12 Disgusted expression as one pulls rabbit’s head out of sack (3)
FIE
Fi[r]E, (sack) minus r[abbit], reminding me of Hamlet’s first soliloquy, expressing his disgust and despair at his mother’s hasty marriage to his uncle, after the death of his father:
‘How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on’t! O fie! ’tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.’
14 On march noticing English have left is disheartening (12)
DEMORALISING
DEMO (march) + R[e]ALISING (noticing) minus e (English)
18 About to take pew, shy, after sister’s beginning to chant this? (4,8)
NUNC DIMITTIS
A reversal (about) of SIT (take pew) + TIMID (shy) + C[hant] after NUN (sister) – an amusingly allusive surface (I loved ‘take a pew’)
The NUNC DIMITTIS or Song of Simeon is part of last Sunday’s Gospel reading, when we celebrated Candlemas, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple
21 Secret message doesn’t start in verse (3)
ODE
[c]ODE (secret message)
22 Value bus lane: travelling regularly eases (10)
USABLENESS
An anagram (travelling) of BUS LANE + EaSeS – a horrible word but I’m afraid it’s in both Collins and Chambers
25 Soldier near failing, consumed by pity (9)
MERCENARY
An anagram (failing) of NEAR in MERCY (pity)
26 I’m not straight in the feet (5)
IAMBI
I AM BI (I’m not straight)
27 Bureaucracy offers old advice about where to find water (3,4)
RED TAPE
REDE (an old word for advice) round TAP (where to find water) -‘Hamlet’ again (I’m getting ready for my visit to the RSC’s production in Stratford next week) – Ophelia’s retort to her brother’s lecture on how to behave, while ignoring his own advice:
‘Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.’
(King Ethelred the Unready’s nickname means ‘ill-advised’, rather than ‘unprepared’ and is a pun on his own name, which means ‘well advised’)
28 One coming from nowhere puts out pictures (7)
UPSTART
An anagram (out) of PUTS + ART (pictures)
Down
1 Out of hospital, clear of depression (6)
TROUGH
I’m afraid I’ve drawn a complete blank here: I just can’t see it
2 Some may catch one tampering with fruit tree (6)
MEDLAR
Sounds like (some may catch) ‘meddler’ (one tampering)
3 They may relieve tension, but be sad to do this? (5,5)
WORRY BEADS
BEADS is an anagram (worry) of BE SAD
4 Shed tears over queen’s grave (5)
SOBER
SOB (shed tears) + ER (queen)
5 Seek pleasure in a grand house kept up and not empty (9)
GALLIVANT
A reversal (kept up, in a down clue) of VILLA (house) in A G (a grand) + N[o]T – a lovely word
6 A city rises – from the ashes? (4)
ANEW
A + a reversal (rises, in a down clue) of WEN (city) – literally, a sebaceous cyst, used of a large, overcrowded city, after William Cobbett’s description of London as The Great Wen – it reminds me of this
7 Wrong about a bit of news fodder (8)
SAINFOIN
SIN (wrong) round A + INFO (bit of news)
8 Time we get off this planet? (5,3)
SPACE AGE
Cryptic definition?
13 Gloom and doom crushing popular run of programmes (10)
MINISERIES
MISERIES (gloom and doom) round IN (popular) – this looks odd to me, without a hyphen but neither dictionary gives it one
15 Go en masse to perform, sticking to the script (2,7)
ON MESSAGE
An anagram (to perform) of GO EN MASSE
16 Home-maker and singer (8)
INFORMER
IN (home) + FORMER (maker)
17 Concluded one far-right group was making a mistake (8)
INFERRED
I (one) + NF (National Front – far-right group) + ERRED (was making a mistake)
19 Woman’s purpose, to pick up dreamy lover (6)
HERMIA
HER (woman’s) + a reversal (to pick up, in a down clue, of AIM (purpose) – yet more Shakespeare: Hermia is one of the four lovers in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’
20 Having strong desire, succeeded moving up top (1-5)
T-SHIRT
THIRST (strong desire) with the S (succeeded) moving up
23 Marshy land in inlet edges well away from ground (5)
BAYOU
BAY (inlet) + [gr]OU[nd] minus its edges
24 Cheese knife takes hearty slice (4)
FETA
Hidden in kniFE TAkes
Tough stuff from Imogen with all the usual Yoda grammar and left-field definitions. USABLENESS shouldn’t be a word should it? WORRY BEADS was cute
BALLERINA was barely cryptic but did at least provide today’s earworm from Van Morrison
Cheers E&I
Tough and enjoyable.
Favourites: GRAVY TRAIN, INFORMER, ON MESSAGE.
New for me: REDE = advice, advise (for 27ac); sainfoin; NUNC DIMITTIS.
I could not parse 1ac although I did notice reversal of EMIT but gave up too quickly!
Thanks, both.
1d Out of hospital, clear of depression – I parsed as def = depression/TROUGH. T[h]ROUGH = clear less the H/hospital
8d I saw as a CD – if it is the space age, it is no longer the Earth age.
I think 1d is “out of” = THROUGH, “hospital, clear of” means remove the H, giving us “depression” = TROUGH.
Thanks Imogen and Eileen. It was a tough one today.
Thanks Imogen and Eileen
Very enjoyable, though I found the SE tricky. Favourites WORRY BEADS and T SHIRT.
I took TROUGH as THROUGH (clear) missing H for hospital.
(I was going to make the point about Ethelred, but you beat me to it!)
TROUGH I thought either THROUGH (clear) minus H(ospital)
Or, at a stretch, THROUGH (out of) and a Yoda-ish subtraction of H
1d ‘Clear’ = THROUGH, minus H for Hospital (out of…) giving TROUGH for DEPRESSION.
I take it that 1d is through without the h (hospital out) with the result being a weather depression, trough of low pressure
18a LOi and earworm: Geoffrey Burgon’s NUN+C SIT+TIMID<, as featured in the closing credits of the BBC’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979).
[On seeing the other comments, everyone else’s parsing of 1d makes a bit more sense!]
Thanks, everyone – but I’m still at a loss: ‘clear’ = THROUGH? I’m being particularly dim this morning. 🙁
With just a couple of crossers in place I was soon guessing that 18ac might be NUNC DIMITTIS thanks to a distant memory of my brief time as a choir boy. A bit of retro parsing, so to speak, confirmed my hunch. Defeated ultimately by ANEW (hadn’t seen Wen used for a while) and SAINFOIN, which was a new one for me. Great fun and enjoyment along the way, however…
Eileen @10 – does this example work for through = clear of
We picked up our speed once we were clear of the forest.
We picked up our speed once we were through the forest.
Clear = Through is how I parsed it too.
The idea coming from sports commentary, like football. ‘Through’ (on goal) means he is ‘clear’ of the defence.
Presumably has military usage as well. Others may know better than me.
Goes clear/through to the next round? It’s how I parsed it too.
I’m pretty sure the NUNC DIMITTIS is written round the top of the sanctuary under the barrel roof in the church I mentioned yesterday (and something else around the nave). I got very fed up about the insistence on screens to “help worship” a few years ago and wrote a few prayer walks around the church using the visual aids already in place. But it was a while ago.
And crossed with Michelle @12
Thank you to Imogen and Eileen.
Lots of tricky solutions and some even trickier parsing. Some stitched together with the crossers (e.g. SAINFOIN), some took a hard stare (ANEW – not totally happy with city=wen being a bit unspecific as The Great Wen is specifically London).
Piecing together solutions like NUNC DIMITTIS is, for me, so much more satisfying that double definitions or cryptic ones.
Eileen @10 – I think “clear of” = “through” as in “clear of/through all obstacles” or “clear of/through the field”. It’s not perfect but maybe an adequate synonym? (I see Michelle made the same suggestion and we overlapped)
Many thanks Eileen and Imogen – a tough Tuesday!
I’m through with you, I’m ‘clear of’ you out of h for trough?
Eileen, I thought of the player was through/clear on goal. Funnily enough I also described that word (I can’t repeat it) on the G site last night as horrible, and a number of people agreed. I was chuffed to work out NUNC DIMITTIS from the intricate wordplay. My favourites were GRAVY TRAIN, DEMORALISING, GALLIVANT and MINISERIES.
I see we crossed MCourtney @13.
Ta Imogen & Eileen for the lovely quote from Hamlet.
I would object that a BAYOU is the water, not the land it flows past or over, but I’m sure someone will find a source that supports defining it as “marshy land”.
SAINFOIN was my last one in; I had never heard of it, but the instructions given were clear, and thus it was my jorum of the day.
No hope of getting the nho SAINFOIN, but otherwise a classy puzzle.
This was tricky, and a couple I just entered from the definition and crossers without fully parsing. I rather liked the cryptic definition for SPACE AGE. And TIME WAS immediately brought to mind the Wishbone Ash song, though I haven’t heard it for about fifty years!
Thanks Imogen and Eileen.
[Thanks Bodycheetah @1 for the song from my favourite VM album. As an aside, my house in East Belfast backed on to Dixon Park. His house was in a street that ran alongside the other side of the park. Not the only thing that divided us, miserable genius that he is 😉 ]
… and I always think that MINISERIES without a hyphen looks as if it should be pronounced with the stress on the second syllable.
What a beautiful quotation from Eileen, to illucidate rede.
Really enjoyed this, but missed a few parsings, including INFORMER & SAINFOIN which latter inho.
Strangely, I’ve always heard doom and gloom rather than the other way round as the setter has it. Anyone?
This one stretched me, so I’ll take 3 reveals (for answers I was never going to get) – ANEW, NUNC DIMITTIS and MEDLAR – as a decent outcome.
Also NHO SAINFOIN but got it via word wizard.
Whether I actually retain any of this information is another matter…
mrpenny @18: me too re BAYOU but Chambers has The marshy offshoot of a lake or river, which rather let’s the setter off, I think.
I got tired of looking at A_E_ sitting there obstinately blank, and resorted to a wordfinder: said “oh yes” when I got to the right one, but can’t really claim to have solved it: I kept trying in vain to make it be ADEN. Couldn’t parse BAYOU, and missed the reverse anagram in WORRY BEADS, which was a shame. THROUGH only sort-of = clear, but I did parse it that way.
I thought BALLERINA was a bit vague, but liked GLASSES, INFORMER, NUNC DIMITTIS and SAINFOIN, which I did know – I was into wildflowers as a child.
Does Imogen’s “some may catch” suggest that MEDLAR doesn’t work in some accents?
William @23
Doom and gloom for me too. There’s a Rolling Stones song of that name also.
gladys @26
I tried to fit TRIPLEJUMPER into 10a, but there weren’t enough spaces….
A couple of Imogenish obscurities, like the fodder and the hymn (heard of it, but no way surfacing in crusty old atheist brain). Otoh, Hamlet’s unweeded garden was a no-brainer. And ta to michelle @12 for ‘clear of’ = through. So, needed a bit of help before hurrying back to my current soap, but lots to like, ta both.
Only one possible earworm today: Blue BAYOU.
(though I love Doom and Gloom too)
Gladys @26: Webster gives both two and three-syllable pronunciations for “meddler”, so yes. But the extra sound to get there is just a schwa, so I doubt anyone who says it with three syllables is going to quibble with the homophone.
gladys @26
I pronounce the -ER and -AR differently, but this one is close enough even for me.
Beaten by the nho SAINFOIN due to not thinking of A INFO for the middle string. Otherwise, a steady solve though I do not find it easy to get on Imogen’s wavelength and a few proved tougher to winkle out. DEMORALISING, MERCENARY, GALLIVANT and MINISERIES my favourites today.
Thanks Imogen and Eileen
William@23, In the UK gloom led doom until circa 1976. It took till circa 1991 for doom to prevail In the US.
And thanks gladys@30 for the Big O.
My heart always sinks at the name Imogen as I find the clues awkward and some of the answers use barely acceptable words. Little joy to be had for this grumpy would-be solver!
I got SAINFOIN and NUNC DIMITTIS fairly early on using word searches and considered abandonment thereafter. However, with more computer help I eventually ground this one out, although it was above my pay grade. I liked GLASSES, WORRY BEADS, GALLIVANT and T-SHIRT.
Thanks Imogen for a Friday puzzle on Tuesday and to Eileen for sorting it all out, particularly NUNC DIMITTIS, which I failed to parse.
PS all the main dictionaries include ‘marshy’ as a definition of BAYOU.
somebody may have already said this Eileen. It’s through as in “clear of” – got through it.
SAINFOIN was a jorum for me, having pencilled in INFO from the crossers. IAMBI was also new, although fairly obvious from its relation to iambic. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard ‘iambs’ as the plural?
Other than that, straightforward except for T-SHIRT, which entirely defeated me.
Tricky puzzle with some intricate constructions. A DNF for me, as I gave up on ANEW (like JoFT @14 I’m not convinced by ‘city’ = WEN. As Eileen points out, a wen is a sebaceous cyst; Cobbett called London ‘the Great Wen’, but this disparaging metaphor isn’t applicable elsewhere).
I agree with the consensus on TROUGH. My reaction to USEABLENESS is FIE! ‘Utility’ is the word I would choose 🙂
Fortunately I was familiar with SAINFOIN and the incipit NUNC DIMITTIS, the latter definitely spot first, parse second. Both great clues, to which I’ll add WORRY BEADS, RED TAPE, HERMIA and ON MESSAGE as favourites.
Thanks to Imogen and Eileen
KateE@35, you are not alone.
Taking a bizarro like SAINFOIN, and reversing it into a clunky wordplay, is not my cup of cha, but others obviously rejoice in this kind of setting.
“Having strong desire” [ 20 down ] is “thirsty”, to me, and not “thirst”, but doubtless, that’s cunning misdirection, coupled with the originality of “succeeded” = S. (not).
Different strokes for Diff’rent folks, of course.
If we’re not Happy, we may be Grumpy, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re Dopey.
( ‘though the cap fits, in my case).
Very enjoyable indeed!
Liked WORRY BEADS, NUNC DIMITTIS and GALLIVANT particularly.
Also loved the Hamlet quotes!
Thanks Imogen and Eileen
Thank you Gladys@30 for the link. 😊
I managed to finish this, sort of, having guessed at ANEW. Definitely needed to come here for the parsing. Thanks for the info about REDE Eileen! I’m familiar with Ethelred the Unready but not the origins of his name and nickname.
Too tough for me by some distance but thanks to Imogen and of course to Eileen.
[@Lord Jim 20] I’m still a Wishbone Ash fan after all these years and trot along to the Jazzhaus in Freiburg every January with all the other greybeards to watch them play live. Phenomenal workload. The only original member is Andy Powell who’ll be 75 next month]
Tricky puzzle for me. Lovely blog, especially the quotations.
Beyond my pay grade. Thanks Eileen for explaining everything, which included quite a few of the two-thirds I completed as well as the third that I didn’t. Thanks Imogen.
Frankie @8. Yes the wonderful singing of Paul Phoenix at the end of le Carre’s Tinker Taylor. IMO the Beeb’s greatest drama. Guinness et al just brilliant. Down here in Sussex we heard about the superb Micheal Jayston having passed away last year. I wondered if there might have been a theme but don’t think so. Excellent crossword. Ta Imogen for prodding the memories and Eileen as always the blog
[Cedric @47
I had a double-take when I read that as Pat Phoenix first!
I wondered why the link had subtitles in (?) Spanish.
I loved Tinker Tailor, but I actually thought that Guinness was better in Smiley’s People.]
[Cedric @47: Michael Jayston used to drink in The Dyke Tavern ont Dyke Road in Brighton, at least in eighties, and yes a superb actor].
the Dyke Road and the eighties!
muffin I imagine that’s where the Dyke Road got its name from but the pub wasn’t in the Devil’s Dyke itself.
AlanC @49
To avoid misinterpretation, that was presumably the Devil’s Dyke?]
[AlanC
Last time I was up there (some time ago), we opened the car doors and the car was nearly blown off the carpark by the wind. There was a noticeable dint in one of the doors afterwards.]
The MINISERIES Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979) is available on the BBC iPlayer, [if you’re in the UK, and have paid for a licence (currently £169.50 pa)].
Here’s episode: “1. Return to the Circus“. Turn on the English subtitles and jump ahead to 47:13. Make sure to click “Continue Watching” to hear the whole tune.
“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word. | For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; …” [The continuity announcer, annoyingly, breaks in with “Stay right there. TTSS continues next.”]
“… To be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of thy people Israel.
Glory be to the Father And to the Son And to the Holy Ghost As it was in the beginning Is now and ever shall be, World without end. Amen.”
FrankieG @53
Geoffrey Burgon. One of the CDs I bought for just one track, but I discovered that he had written the music for Brideshead Revisited too. To avoid skipping through TTSS, you could just listen to this!
[muffin, lol, we use to go there to clear our hangovers the next day].
Growing up attending chapel, our congregation used to sing Nunc Dimittis at the end of evening service on Sunday every week so that was easy for me.
I don’t do Imogen puzzles, an even after revealing all the answers, I could parse virtually none of them.
Thanks Imogen and Eileen. I think this interpretation of 10 sits well alongside that of the great Irishman @1.
Had to step away for a few hours, so several in one here.
William @25: I guess so…if the setter has reading-comprehension issues. Marshy waterways are still water, not land! But we seem to be the only ones who had a problem here, so I’ll let it drop.
Ace @38: This came up the last time the I AM BI clue got used, I believe. Most people call an iambic foot an iamb, plural iambs. But there are some (mostly older) sources that call it an iambus, plural IAMBI. [And for the record, I’m not; never been attracted to a woman in my life, with no offense intended.]
[Only slightly changing the subject then, AlanC and muffin @passim: so you’re saying there’s a Dyke Tavern on Dyke Road that isn’t a lesbian bar?]
Coloradan @58
That’s the one that would have sprung to my mind. 😉
[MrP @59 – precisely! The Devil’s Dyke is a well-known site just north of Brighton.]
mrpenney @59 – not surprisingly, for me it’s iambus / iambi. 😉
Ace @38, mrpenney @59, Eileen @62
I got held up a long while by entering IAMBS, which I parsed as I am BS. Chambers does not seem to allow it as a plural though, so fair enough. A downside of not having studied Classics I guess. Anyway, off to wash out my mind with soap and water.
I just looked, and Merriam-Webster also allows iambuses (*shudder*).
Possibly my first ever completion of an Imogen. Very tricky as always, favourite was the neat INFORMER.
ANEW was my LOI, and only after I’d first put in ALEX (EX = from, AL = a city (LA) rising, ALEX is a main character from BBC’s “Ashes to Ashes”) and the App didn’t congratulate me😬 A very slow solve, luckily I had lots of tube travel today which meant there was time to go through the alphabet on crossers, the only way I can grind out the answers if I’m not chiming with the rhythm of a setter. Thanks Imogen and Eileen.
People who say “burglarized” instead of “burgled” might well say “USABLENESS” instead of “use”?
I guessed ANEW but unparsed, and tbh didn’t like it much when I found the analysis here. The word simply means “again”, not necessarily following any destruction, but which the clue indicates to be central to its meaning.
Thanks all.
A tough one that I ultimately abandoned in impatience 80% through, with the SE being particularly stubborn.
The discussion of TROUGH seems to have missed my own observation, which is that the deletion instruction is insufficiently precise! The phrase ‘out of’ means ‘without’, it doesn’t mean ‘having one fewer’… and the word THROUGH has two Hs so the instruction ‘out of H’ actually yields TROUG rather than TROUGH.
It’s a small technical point but such deletion instructions for words containing more than one of the target letter really need to be precise in meaning a single example of that letter, in order to be completely fair.
Ironically a slight variation as in ‘Leaving a hospital…’ could correctly instruct a single H deletion.
Thanks both, even if I was defeated 😁
6d. Surely this is a huge stretch. WEN = city? Anew = ‘from the ashes’?
Solved about half of this one. Imogen and I don’t usually get along too well, so not a surprise
10a instead of BALLERINA I was looking for an athlete who runs (career) and jumps
We had EGRESS just recently as part of an answer
Me@70, my last sentence, added in haste, doesn’t apply to this puzzle but to the next. Apologies if you’re working through the archive one puzzle at a time, as I am