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A mostly gentle Good Friday offering from Brendan, though I was briefly held up (for no good reason) in the NW corner. Thanks to Brendan
The obvious ENEMIES and FRIENDS across the middle give us the theme, and there are a number of pairs of these throughout the grid: MORSE and LEWIS (more colleagues than friends, surely), Wile E COYOTE and the ROADRUNNER, Clark KENT (Superman) and Lois LANE, Sherlock HOLMES and MORIARTY, and BRUTUS as an example of both. We also have NEUTRAL and FRENEMY in the middle column, which are neither and both, respectively.
| Across | ||||||||
| 8 | TRUE-LOVE | Regret nothing after short time, sweetheart (4-4) T[ime] + RUE + LOVE (nothing, in tennis scores) |
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| 9 | MORSE | Expert solver of clues needs extra, consuming seconds (5) S in MORE. The solver is Inspector Morse, or possibly the real-life solver Sir Jeremy Morse, after whom the detective was named |
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| 10 | STET | Take part in taste test, etc. sooner or later? Don’t touch it (4) Hidden twice (“sooner or later”) in taSTE TeST Etc – stet is a proofreader’s instruction to ignore a correction, or “don’t touch it” |
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| 11 | MATERIALLY | King and I protected by partners in terms of wealth (10) R + I in MATE + ALLY (two partners) |
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| 12 | BRUTUS | Far from sweet superpower, onetime ally turned deadly foe (6) BRUT (dry, as wine) + US (superpower) – Julius Caesar’s friend and later assassin covers both parts of the theme |
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| 14 | ARCHIVAL | Chapter penned by a competitor relating to record collection (8) CH in A RIVAL |
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| 15 | ENEMIES | Bad men I see? (7) Anagram of MEN I SEE, &lit |
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| 17 | FRIENDS | Run into fanatics, members of religious society (7) R in FIENDS |
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| 20 | WALLOPER | Striker’s corrupt power ensnaring everyone (8) ALL in POWER* |
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| 22 | COYOTE | Wild dog you almost trapped in sheep pen (6) YO[u] in COTE (sheep pen) |
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| 23 | ROADRUNNER | Central American native reportedly went on racehorse (10) Homophone of “rode” (went on) + RUNNER (racehorse) |
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| 24 | LANE | Length once more uncompleted in part of pool (4) L + ANE[w] |
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| 25 | LEWIS | Oxford writer in North Island (5) Double definition: C S Lewis (who spent much of his life in Oxford, though he as born in Belfast), and the Isle of Lewis, which in the Outer Hebrides but not actually an island |
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| 26 | MORIARTY | Master criminal orchestrated army riot (8) (ARMY RIOT)* |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1 | BRETHREN | Comrades almost chucked in firearm (8) THRE[w] in BREN (gun) |
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| 2 | KENT | Part of England Scots understood (4) Double definition |
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| 3 | HOLMES | Detective returns to familiar territory in hearing (6) Homophone of “homes” (returns to familiar territory) |
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| 4 | NEUTRAL | Otherwise learnt outside University, unlike 15 or 17 (7) U in LEARNT* |
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| 5 | EMBRACER | Affectionate type picking me up with Dutch courage (8) Reverse of EM + BRACER (a stiff drink, Dutch courage) |
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| 6 | CREATIVELY | Reveal city must be reconstructed in original way (10) (REVEAL CITY)* |
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| 7 | REALIA | Concrete help for teaching about others (6) RE (about) ALIA (others). Realia are “objects and material from everyday life, especially when used as teaching aids” |
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| 13 | TUMBLEDOWN | Corporation showed sign of cut – admit it’s in very bad shape (10) TUM (stomach, corporation) + BLED (showed signs of a cut) + OWN (admit) |
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| 16 | EUPHUISM | Stylized language I use with umph, bizarrely (8) (I USE UMPH)*. Euphuism, not to be confused with euphemism, is “an artificial, highly elaborate way of writing or speaking” |
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| 18 | DETONATE | Set off with girlfriend outside boys’ school (8) ETON (boys’ school) in DATE |
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| 19 | FRENEMY | Hiding name, discharge Brendan’s buddy? Not always (7) N[ame] in FREE MY (Brendan’s) |
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| 21 | APOLLO | Learner in a sport becoming top Olympian (6) L in A POLO |
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| 22 | CURARE | A doctor finally got in antidote for poison (6) A [docto]R in CURE |
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| 24 | LEAR | King Edward the humorist (4) Double definition |
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Happy Birthday AlanC , many happy returns of the day . I hope you choose the right route to get your kicks . ( I promise not to tell anyone how old you are ) .
Got Endeavour & Robbie; Sherlock & Professor James; Marcus Junius & Julius; Lois & Clark; even meep-meep & Wile E. But Euphues was a new one on me.
[🎂AlanC🎂]
KENT and LEAR were also FRIENDS, so the 24’s are both linked to 2. Agree with Andrew that this was not Brendan at his trickiest, thought REALIA was new to me. Liked 12 BRUTUS for the surface and TUMBLEDOWN. Thanks to Brendan and Andrew.
Thank you Andrew. I only noticed the central horizontal and vertical columns on completion.
KENT was my first one in. Guessed it must be a Scots word for ”understood”. Looked it up and that gave me the part of England.
My favourite was 12 across BRUTUS. I thought of POTUS until I checked the enumeration and the wordplay. Great clue. Still laughing.
ENEMIES. On a wrong track thinking it might be nemesis/nemeses, but grammar and crossers fixed that. I was familiar with REALIA from my teaching days. Don’t know why a ”date” has to be a ”girlfriend”. Don’t others say they have a date?
Not quite an earworm but a great mini doco (5 mins) on road runners (and a brief appearance of a coyote.)
The U×2 eventually forced the rare euphuism to the surface, but realia was totally new; I like it, like paraphernalia. In all, a nice stroll, ta B & A.
Thanks Brendan and Andrew
When my first two were MORIARTY and HOLMES even I suspected a theme, but the only other ones I saw as thematic were MORSE and LEWIS (how well known is Morse as an expert solver, I wonder?)
I used an anagram solved for the NHO EUPHUISM. I had heard of REALIA from teaching, though.
REALIA and EUPHUISM were new. I enjoyed the friends-and-foes theme, which helped to get ROADRUNNER – though when I had only got as far as MORSE, LEWIS and HOLMES I thought it was going to be detectives.
[To clarify Andrew’s comment about Lewis, Lewis and Harris is an island. There is a very narrow neck at Tarbert, but oddly this isn’t where the change is made; the mountainous part north of the neck is also part of Harris. The part regarded as Lewis is much flatter.]
There is an earlier Julius Brutus who from a bit of googling has some sort of connection with Apollo. I failed to find a Caesar or Cassius. Happy birthday Alan C. One of the most welcome on here. Thanks to Brendan for yet another entertaining puzzle. Also to Andrew.
Enjoyed this – I don’t often spot a theme but this was hard to miss. I quite like Embracer and Walloper as antonyms too!
Another pair of enemies are Wile E. COYOTE and the ROADRUNNER…
[Sorry FrankieG @2. I didn’t spot that you’d already signalled them]
This was Good Friday fun, only stumped by REALIA at the very end, which I simply didn’t know. Eyebrows arched over the exact parsing of LANE too. Liked MATERIALLY and the energetic WALLOPER. Many thanks Brendan and Andrew.
LEWIS I can’t see anything cryptic in the clue. Is it just GK? Not sure how to break it down.
What a treat, so soon after Brendan’s appearance in the Prize slot last weekend!
A superb collection of clues, with the central row and column illustrating once again Brendan’s mastery of grid-filling, which he manages to make seem so natural.
My individual ticks were for 9ac MORSE, still so sadly missed, 11ac MATERIALLY, for the construction, 12ac BRUTUS – same thoughts as paddymelon @4, 13dn TUMBLEDOWN – great surface (not that any of them were poor), 21ac APOLLO, for not being a sporting Olympian and the little gem 2dn KENT.
Many thanks to Brendan for a super end to the week and to Andrew for an excellent blog.
C.S.Lewis was at Oxford Uni, apparently.
Paddymelon@13. CS Lewis + Northern Island of Lewis : double def.
Never knew there was a real bird called a roadrunner. The things you learn from crosswords!
Yes Dave@15. Was aware of that, and as Andrew said in his blog above. Muffin has further commented @8.. My question is what is the cryptic element of the clue?
Just saw your comment Davey@16. I may be a bit thick but I just don’t see it as cryptic, but like a quick crossword, two definitions, but not a double definition, as in a cryptic. Must be my bedtime.
Fiery Jack@17. Take a look at my link@4 for some fun facts and vision of the roadrunner.
PM@18
The cryptic element in double definitions is to my mind the misleading way in which they are presented eg 2d and 24d. In the case of Lewis, I agree that it is not particulary cryptic, although the capitalisations might be intended to make us think New Zealand.
I love Brendan’s puzzles and this fairly gentle one was a delight. But I take exception to COYOTE being clued as a wild dog. They are both canines but that doesn’t make them a dog.
This was delightful.
For once, the theme helped (eg. having solved LEWIS, MORSE was a write-in), though I did spend some time trying to fit friends/enemies of APOLLO & BRUTUS into various slots.
Like FrankieG @2, I assumed KENT’s partner was LEAR (I know very little about comic-book characters).
My fave was KENT: a little beauty.
Thank you Brendan and Andrew – and happy birthday AlanC
Ticks for FRENEMY, BRETHREN & MATERIALLY
STET felt a bit shoehorned in by necessity – do we have a word like JORUM for those?
Cheers B&A
Fairly straightforward. REALIA new but gettable from wordplay. Failed on EUPHUISM – signalled as an anagram but even with crossers none of the possibilities seemed convincing.
I suppose one could argue that LEWIS is the ‘north [part of the] island’ of Lewis and Harris but it’s not really satisfactory – a very minor quibble, though.
Favourites include KENT and ROADRUNNER.
[Roz@1 reminded me of the only time I ever saw a roadrunner in the wild – while driving along Route 66 (nowadays designated ‘Historic’) in Arizona. It was indeed running along the road.]
Thanks Brendan and Andrew
Quite a timely theme considering the world news.
New for me: EUPHUISM; Isle of LEWIS, REALIA.
I could not parse 7d.
Thanks, both.
So many smooth surfaces, this was a joy to solve.
paddymelon@18: I think the clue is really just a double definition but presented in such a way that it could be almost anything else – anyone apart from me try to put “pen” in “n” and “i” or some variant thereof? Or to think of shoes, ties and the myriad other things Oxford can be? In the end, it was deceptively simple for me! In terms of the definition, the island is “Lewis and Harris”, which is one landmass confusingly referred to as two islands, or which Lewis is the northern one – that’s how I read the definition. In some ways, it refers back to the pairs theme again.
Many thanks to Brendan and Andrew.
Well, how delightful to have Brendan on my birthday and a wonderful surprise to be referenced @1 by Roz, surely a first and thanks to the others who also wished me a happy birthday – most kind.
It was KENT and LANE which made me wonder about pairings and when I solved MORIARTY it was game on. Good spot by Tomsdad @3 with the LEAR/KENT connection. Great fun with BRUTUS being my standout of the week. I’m 65 you know.
Ta Brendan & Andrew.
Beaulieu @24 it was so clearly an anagram of EUPHEMISM that I confidently wrote it in. Until it didn’t fit 🙂 In biro too
Loved this one. LEWIS was last one in as I was obsessed with Oxford referencing footwear or ties… so the clue was definitely cryptic for me! I watched MORSE last night so he was first one in followed by MORIARTY which alerted me to the theme (for once). Thanks Brendon and Andrew!
Can’t say I found this especially gentle tbh.
Bren and Cote I managed to reason out as words I’d just not heard of. Realia, Curare, Euphuism all new on me.
Can’t help but stand back and appreciate the number of themed pairs though even if it was difficult.
Thanks B + A
To add to the Morse theme there’s a WPC Truelove in the prequel Endeavour. That led me astray a little; I was looking for more Morse connections.
Also, Morse’s mother was a Quaker, hence FRIENDS.
Thanks everyone for LEWIS and a better night’s sleep ahead for me.
See you all again on the morriw.
Nicely engaging, this. I can appreciate Tachi @30 not finding it gentle, I think my level is that it was approachable as far as Friday puzzles go. I half-got the theme, thinking more just around tv characters. But I was too embroiled in the actual solving for it to click, obvious as it actually is.
Annoyingly I revealed KENT, where I currently reside.
Lovely crossword as usual from Brendan. ENEMIES was a great &lit. KENT going with both LANE and LEAR was very clever. I hadn’t heard of REALIA but it was solvable from the wordplay. I did remember Lyly’s Euphues and EUPHUISM from school.
Many thanks Brendan and Andrew.
Thanks Brendan and Andrew
Superb puzzle.
I took the Oxford writer to be Lewis Carroll.
Given the theme, I can’t help feel there is an extra R missing in ARCHIVAL. Really enjoyed this and learnt two new words, REALIA and EUPHUISM – time will tell whether they will stick in the memory bank.
Thanks to Andrew and Brendan.
I assumed the reference of the Oxford writer was C S Lewis . Typical Brendan. A real pleasure to solve. Calm before the Maskerade tomorrow I wonder. Ta for the blog and hope Brendan’s coping with life in Trumpland .
What Eileen said @14
Thanks to Brendan for the fun and Andrew for explaining the two that went in unparsed. They were LANE and BRETHREN, both of which involved thinking of a word and removing the final W: ANE(w) and THRE(w).
I think it’s odd that when letters are added, the clue has to indicate which letter it is, but if a final letter has to be removed there’s no need to say what it was. A bit unfair? I know, I know, I’ll just have to put up with it – and crosswords like Brendan’s make it well worthwhile.
I loved every minute of this one and the clever idea of FRIENDS and ENEMIES being highlighted at opposite ends of the middle across row at 15 and 17, and NEUTRAL and FRENEMY at opposite ends of the middle down row at 4 and 19. How does Brendan manage to achieve such a pleasing symmetry? My top favourites were 10a BRUTUS (my LOI!) and 2d KENT. I learned some new words along with some colleagues above. Huge thanks to the wonderful Brendan for brightening up a rather sombre Good Friday and to Andrew for a fine blog.
Yet again a very impressive grid-fill from this setter.
I had to look up EUPHUISM and REALIA but both were well-clued. I liked the FRIENDS in MATERIALLY, the &lit ENEMIES (good spot), and the surface for CURARE. Lots of other good clues and a very satisfying solve.
Thanks Brendan and Andrew.
Lord JIm @35 Cripes! That was some school curriculum that incorporated Lyly’s Euphues! It featured in my doctoral work, but even a very rigorous undergraduate curriculum had not touched upon it.
I had nothing in the top half on a first pass and thought this was going to be a real struggle, and then I must have hit Brendan’s wavelength and the rest fell steadily into place. Not a stroll by any means, but gentler than the usual Friday. I even spotted the theme and it helped me to KENT in particular.
NHO: cote, euphuism, curare,
Thanks Brendan and Andrew.
AlanC @27, you’re just a spring chicken at 65. I’ll guarantee that no-one wishes me happy birthday on here.
Well, my day got spoiled as I was dragged away half way through this crossword to go and meet the relloes from the Banana Benders’ State (QLD) and never finished so I had to come on here to fill in and understand the blanks.
Bodycheetah @23, STET and “shoehorned in by necessity”…. after being in the position a few times where a superb gridfill has ended up with the last entry resulting in a word with only one example of use ever, there should be a word like Jorum to describe it. Maybe a Matchless. I’ll sleep on it.
What Eileen said! Superb puzzle.
I solved 15a.
In 17a, what do FRIENDS have to do with a religious society?
Sreffen @47 The Quakers also go by the title, ‘ The Society of Friends’.
Thank you Balfour.
[ AlanC you are now in your 66th year , hence on Route66 , anyway have a great day , go easy on the iron jelloids tonight and remember it is the RED fire extingusisher for candle fires .
I will spare you the bad news today concerning the competition score . ]
Tim C @45 (& Bodycheetah @23) Is STET really so esoteric? In retirement I dd a bit of professional proofreading, so it is very familiar here in Balfour Towers, but I can’t remember a time when I did not know it. Latin present subjunctive meaning ‘Let it stand’ if I am recalling my Latin accurately. Hereabouts I recollect it being intrinsic to the parsing of STRETTI in a puzzle Vlad set in March last year. {Pause to check back] – ‘Don’t change it round! Composer in the end kept faster pieces of music (7)
Super grid. EUPHUISM held me up a tad, as it’s an anagram of a word hitherto unknown to me, so happy to see some checkers for that one.
Excellent themed crossword. Perhaps ‘bad men I see’ is the favourite for today.
Thanks Andrew and Brendan
Thanks to Brendan for a most entertaining workout. Some excellent surfaces and always happy to find new words. Brendan always makes you feel you are in the presence of someone at the height of their powers. Favourites were: lol 10 ac 12 ac 22 down 23 ac
Thanks also to Andrew for the blog and unpacking a couple I could not parse.
I fell into all the elephant traps listed by JOFT@26 before I realised that LEWIS was a simple double def, so yes, it’s cryptic.
Thanks for the blog , many good clues , I like the sooner or later for STET , TUMBLEDOWN flows very nicely . REALIA used by Azed last summer but I have never seen EUPHUISM , think it was just an awkward place in the grid and I like learning new words .
Steffen@47 If you’re not finding many answers, you might want to try my method, if you do the crosswords online. I imagine purists would consider it cheating but I’m not competing with anyone, merely trying to learn, so anything goes in my view. I start by answering all of the clues I can, which might be only one or two but it’s often many more now. When I’ve done that and I’m stuck I try to find the vowels in an answer, using the check button, and that gives me a start. If I think there’s an anagram, I might try one or two of the consonants from the word(s) that look likely. I’ve made good progress doing this, far more than when I was just revealing answers. Sometimes I can figure out half an answer or a few letters which could help with crossers – it all helps. Works for me anyway.
Balfour @43: it’s all a bit hazy now, but I think I had to do a special project on Elizabethan literature in which Euphues cropped up. I have a memory of sitting in the school library and reading it, or reading about it, I’m not sure.
Amma @56 and Steffen @47: the online “check” button is a great aid for learners. (Note: it doesn’t work the same on the app – check just says correct or incorrect. The web version throws away the wrong letters). I found it invaluable when starting out and sometime you just need to use it for one or two clues to unlock the puzzle. As well as Amma’s trick to find vowels you can use it to confirm or reject a “hunch” that the wordplay means certain letters. I used to use it extensively to help when I started a few months ago, but now very rarely and only on very chewy crosswords. I didn’t need it today. Other tools I found helpful when starting were online anagram solvers and WordHippo crossword helper. I would say don’t hesitate to use them. You’re not cheating, you’re learning and over time you will need them less and less.
And, of course, the most helpful tool of all is this blog. Thanks again to all the bloggers and expert commentators here.
Amma@56 it is definitely not cheating , it is only a battle between you and the setter and you set your own limits which may change over the years . When I was learning what I found difficult was the lack of letters to help , you had to get started in order to get started . Sometimes I would treat it as a quick crossword and just look for definitions at each end and I used a Chambers thesaurus which was very helpful .
MuddyThinking@58 I’m very impressed if you’ve made such progress in a few months! I’ve been doing this since the first Quick Cryptic appeared, so just over a year, and still consider myself a beginner. I can complete the Quick Cryptics with ease but it’s quite a leap to some of the more challenging weekday cryptics.
Roz@59 you’ve summed it up nicely – you have to ‘get started in order to get started’. Exactly. I find my various tricks creative and they make the whole process satisfying. I wouldn‘t be without the blogs and comments here though- so helpful.
Nice puzzle, spotted the theme early for once though I didn’t get MORSE/LEWIS which made I had to do a bung/check/bung/check cycle there. Amma@56 etc. I still use the check button pretty liberally and it is definitely not cheating! These puzzles are for our own pleasure. Also needed some check for BRETHREN where I was trying to make STEN happen, and I was trying to see if there was a TARTUS I hadn’t heard of.
I had heard of EUPHUISM, I think from The Art of Fiction by David Lodge, RIP. Not REALIA though.
Judge@37, nicely spotted! Thanks Brendan and Andrew and happy birthday AlanC!
Balfour @48 almost correct: The Religious Society of Friends is the full name of the group informally known as Quakers. It derives from Friends of the Light.
Thanks Brendan. I always expect excellence from Brendan & I’m never disappointed. I enjoyed the theme as well as clues like ENEMIES, FRIENDS, TUMBLEDOWN, DETONATE, and APOLLO. Thanks Andrew for the blog.
I was doing very well at this puzzle until I came to a crashing halt with the final three clues, which defeated me: BRUTUS (which I definitely should have gotten), BRETHREN (didn’t know the firearm but should have figured it out), and REALIA (never heard of).
I’d never seen the past tense of KEN, and I didn’t know that sheep as well as doves were found in COTEs. And EUPHUISM was definitely a jorum for me. Like Bodycheetah, I kept trying to squeeze EUPHEMISM in even though it wouldn’t fit and didn’t really match the definition.
[Roadrunners live in North America as well as Central America. I’ve seen them in Arizona. For someone who was raised on the cartoons, the real-life bird is quite disappointing in appearance.]
Thank you reveal button.
Does anyone else associate MORIARTY with Count Jim ‘Winds’ Moriarty, international leaper and balloonist extraordinary, late of the Goon Show?
I saw the theme! For the first time ever! And it helped me with the solve! What a great puzzle to start the weekend! Thank you, Brendan! How’s that for a record use of exclamation marks?
Zoot @ 66: I’m going to go out on a limb and say no, but I admire your embrace of the bizarre.
Ravenrider @62. Maybe excessively pedantic. Brittanica’s entry under ‘Society of Friends’ has this headnote: Also known as: Friends, Friends Church, Quakers, The Religious Society of Friends.
[Roz @50: even KPR came through for me today. Loved the Route 66 gag 🤣 ]
Zoot@66, yes, me too. One of their great characters.
Brendan must be just about the greatest grid-filler ever, and this was a gem.
To consolidate the various comments about 25 LEWIS, yes, the island is Lewis and Harris, but the North of the Island is Lewis. That gives the double definition a more cryptic quality.
Like Judge@37, I wanted 14a to be ARCHRIVAL, to fit the theme.
I confess to failing with 7d, where I entered REALTA; it fits the definition (sort of), and it almost parses – REAL for “concrete” and TA for “help for teaching”. Ah well, close but no cigar, REALIA (nho) is obviously much better.
Thanks, Brendan for the absolute walloper of a puzzle, and Andrew for the creatively friendly blog.
And happy birthday to the young whippersnapper AlanC.
[ AlanC @69 you had a good day all round then , you have solved a mystery , I half heard a report on local radio about a big robbery in Preston , police were setting up roadblocks . Does this mean I can now mention the R word ? ]
Loved this, Brendan is truly one of the great Guardian composers. I’d never met EUPHUISM but have enjoyed reading up about it, Euphues the apparent origin of “All is fair in love and war”. I was left wondering if the thematic pairings (HOLMES/MORIARTY, FRIENDS/ENEMIES etc) might even be Brendan’s own nod to the antithesis that characterises EUPHUISM? Or maybe it was the only word that fitted those particular crossers. Whichever, masterful, thank you Brendan, and Andrew
Cellomaniac@70 I wondered about REALTA as well, as TA could stand for teaching assistant.
Zoot@73, Cello@70 we too fell for the concrete teaching assistant, so did not get it all right.
Many comments here about using the cheat buttons on the app – obviously fine in the each to his own department, but I worry that a rapturous reception here (from button pushers) might give setters the wrong impression of what constitutes a good crossword.
I myself am not a button pusher, but a button pusher’s son. And I’m only pushing buttons til the button pusher comes…
Me@74, oh alright, I’m just a paper solver – no pigging buttons in sight.
Caroline@74,75. LOL. I tend to agree with you, although there are many expert solvers here who are pen and paper pushers.
With no paper where I am, and no working printer currently, I try to test myself and get through to the end without checks or reveals, and pretend I’m having to wait for the paper to ”reveal all”. My collection of pencils and erasers is sitting idle. I’m impressed by those who enter it straight in with pen
Pushing buttons may be the new way of learning, so that’s okay. But it’s a very different solving experience to be able to get partial confirmation along the way.
I suspect that many are driven by the incredible output of our daily Guardian setters, and maybe other time constraints, to try to solve these puzzles within the time they’ve allocated to it on the day.
I learned the ”old way” by waiting until the next day for the answers, by which time I’d often cottoned on to the ones I missed earlier. Always better after a good sleep.
[In “Jurassic Corner” of the teachers’ common room we always did the Times puzzle, but I do think that, on the whole, the Guardian ones are much better.]
Balfour @68 normally I might hesitate to criticise the Encyclopedia Britannica, but as a member of the Religious Society of Friends, I think I might on this occasion claim to know better.
Coyotes are a not only a problem in the southern USA, hence this sign at Juneau International Airport in Alaska: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.kym-cdn.com%2Fphotos%2Fimages%2Foriginal%2F001%2F495%2F336%2F0f8.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=8165b28d796c96df7621776c614952511fd6a8b04873cb68ecae1d39b555b6d2
Had no idea who Edward Lear was, but Poetry Foundation calls him a “wandering nonsense minstrel”, which is now my career goal.
CORRECTION – I have absolutely heard both the Owl and the Pussycat and the Jumblies, though I have mixed them up in my memory into a beautiful pea green sieve
REALIA and EUPHUISM were jorums. I had to look up COTE to see if had uses other than doves.
Otherwise a slow and steady solve over the next morning’s cuppa.
And for once the theme helped with one answer, MORIARTY!
CanberraGirl @21: would you also take exception to lion, tiger, cougar and (crossword favourite) ounce all being clued as “cat” in one way or another? I don’t see a problem with a coyote being a dog in this sense.
Didn’t know REALIA, so “solved” it in a totally inaccurate way, with REAL = concrete, IA as a reversal ( “about”) of AI as “help for teaching”, and an end result of REALIA as a word meaning others I’d never heard. Not sure I can claim the completion given how off target that entire process was!
The cheat and reveal buttons can be a primrose path although so useful as many have said. I rarely get 100% completion on a cryptic because I get frustrated and am not strong-minded enough not to do a reveal. But I often finish the Prize as there are no check or reveal buttons and you just have to plod on, stop for a while and come back to it and so on, as in the paper days.
Delightful puzzle and brilliant grid
I solved all…but got one letter wrong, in 7d. Like Cellomaniac@70 I had REALTA, which is “real” (“concrete”) in Italian. Just to fill in the wordplay: “about” = RE, “others” = AL (as in “et al”), “help for teaching” (noun) = TA (Teaching Assistant). I’m claiming it as a win
I held off entering HOLMES at 3d because I couldn’t believe it was a soundalike of “homes”. Really?
Favourite was 24a LEAR for “King Edward the humorist”. Great!
Zoot@66, yes, love the Goons. Ying-tong-iddle-i-po!