Bluebird flies in for today’s challenge.
Unfortunately, we were rather disappointed in this as a Saturday puzzle. There are some very original clues, but, for us, too many of the entries were write-ins and a few were rather contrived. As it is Saturday, we wondered whether there might be a theme, but we can’t see anything – perhaps the USP is the crafty connection of 1, 2 and 3 down with 25 / 18 – which initially we completely missed.
BREAD (money) ‘invested’ in RYE’S (Sussex town’s)
A reversal (‘turning’) of ON (about) A 1P (one penny – ‘copper coin’)
Hidden (‘a small extract from’) in stranGE Text
A cryptic definition – CUCKOO CLOCKS typically come from Switzerland – the cuckoo appears regularly on the hour
ARE round or ‘worn by’ E O L A (first letters or ‘leads’ in Eugene, Onedin, Lohengrin and Aida)
STING (lead singer or ‘chief’ in the band Police) round or ‘holding’ R (last letter or ‘end’ of rubber) – how long is a piece of string?
Hidden in grandMA’S House
A in or ‘sealed by’ TU (French, as spoken in Senegal, for ‘you’)
OUR with COL (colonel) in front or ‘leading’
ACE (great) TATE (Victorian industrialist – of Tate & Lyle and Tate Gallery fame)
THE (article) in or ‘seen amongst’ OFF (rotten) and an anagram (‘decomposing’) of FLESH
O (nothing – 20 down) A F (fellow)
N (first letter or ‘head’ of Nike) IN O (love) N (new)
A (first) PO (post office) LOG (account) IS E (middle or ‘essential’ letter of discredited)
PRO (in favour of) GRAMME ((part of) the metric system) – we’re not happy with defining ‘gramme’ as ‘the metric system’
E (last or ‘final’ letter or mayonnaise) in or ‘eaten by’ FATHERS (parents)
DR (doctor) A CU (copper) LA (Los Angeles)
A clue-as-definition: M (last letter of Oldham) AN CHESTER (English city)
An anagram (‘dodgy’) of LOOS
E-PICtURE (‘online photograph’) with the ‘t’ (first letter of Tik-Toker’s) missing or ‘taken’
BAN (bar) round or ‘broken by’ BOOt (kick) missing the last letter or ‘short’
Double definition
S (small) AU (gold) SAGE (green) DOG (tail)
U (united) + an anagram (‘when injured’) of DEFENDER
O (doughnut) RA (artist) TORI (doughnuts) O (doughnut)
OFF (kill) END (kill)
Initially, we thought this was a weak and not-at-all cryptic clue, but with a little assistance we realised that it is actually rather crafty: COUNT (say, Dracula – 3d) DOWN (feathers – 2d) – the definition is ‘programme’ (1d)
An anagram (‘off’) of BlAST missing or ‘abandoning’ ‘l’ (first letter or ‘part’ of launch)
I enjoyed this a lot, also wondering if there was a programme-related theme (there’s MASH too), although I can’t find others.
I don’t think ‘gramme’ is being defined as ‘the metric system’ per se, but if you take the phrase as a whole, someone in favour of the metric system would be ‘pro gramme’, rather than ‘pro ounces’. Works fine for me.
The COUNTDOWN trick sailed over my head at first too, but it’s excellent now I properly understand it. I also really liked the “layer upon layer of egg” definition for FEATHERS, into which I was trying to cram HEN for ages!
Thanks Bluebird & B&J.
COTD: COUNTDOWN (had a similar experience as our bloggers).
Other faves: OFF-THE-SHELF, MANCHESTER and SEAFOOD.
Thanks Bluebird and B&J.
Like Amoebe, I read ‘pro gramme’ as a phrase and loved the ‘layer upon layer of egg’. Another favourite was the clue for ORATORIO. Yes, I also missed the cleverness of the COUNTDOWN clue.
Wondered whether soufflé or saffron had anything to do with the diner going without drink, before waking up that the food itself was ‘without’ the ‘drink’ — good clue. Otherwise, yes, a gentllish affair. Thanks Bluebird and BandJ.
I am a Bluebird fan and certainly agree with our bloggers’ observation about original cluing – and with other posters that COUNTDOWN is a particularly good example of that, together with the cunning ‘layer upon layer of egg’ as noted by Amoeba. For my own nomination, I’ll highlight the piled up doughnuts in ORATORIO which I thought was very neat. I did not find it particularly tricky – IP for the coin in PIANO being the only bit that held me up right at the end. As for the surfaces, I’d agree that the odd one – AREOLAE, OFF-THE-SHELF and perhaps DRACULA – are a little awkward but plenty of others read very nicely.
Tiny observation re the blog: I think ‘one end of rubber’ in STRING is not so much pointing us to the last letter as to either end, given that the word is bookended by R’s.
Thanks Bluebird and B&J
CUCKOO-CLOCK
The ‘Swiss home’ bit probably hints at ‘a chalet’
(and the clue on the whole at traditional chalet-style cuckoo clocks).
Well, no disappointment for this solver, I found this be an entertaining and clever puzzle, throughout.
I loved CUCKOO CLOCK, 12(ac), and, stone the crows, it appears in a different guise in another cryptic today. ( no spoiler).
I generally detest ellipsis clues, but of late, setters seem be using the device to genuine effect, as here… where it is borderline genius.
I’m not sure that I “like” ταυ in 17(ac), a mash up of French and Greek in a tiny solution; the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet, but the Anglicised transliteration from Greek characters is a bit dodgy, “TAU”: the letter “T” in Greek is actually “TAF”. (a bit like β, which is not “beeta”, but “veeta”). The setter’s solution is correct, of course.
Anyhoo, all round great stuff from Bluebird. I am waiting for this setter to give us a wordplay for EIDERDOWN.
Thanks, and thumbs up, BB & BJ
Tended to agree with our blogger that this was an odd mix of very straightforward write ins and contrived clues, but I admit that I had missed any significance to the 321 clue! I guess I’d been irked by gramme, which looks ridiculous to a scientist (always gram in SI units)!
Thanks both. Thought MANCHESTER was very neat, and the 3,2,1 device for COUNT DOWN assisted me to eventually see FEATHERS. I still do not have a complete understanding of the parsing of SEAFOOD; are we saying seafood minus food equals sea??
TFO@9 I just took this (21d), as a punny, cryptic definition.
The “Seafood” part of a menu, i.e. “dish”, consists of fish/ shellfish, that were once in the sea ( “the drink”).
They left “the drink”, to become a type of food on a plate.
I liked the clue, though perhaps not the trickiest.
ENB@10 Many thanks, I was over-engineering evidently – on reflection, ‘was’ appears superfluous….
TFO…aha, I get you, the opening “was”, in the clue.
I took it, just implying the past tense, that the fish left the sea, some time ago. Hopefully, not too long.
Fun fact: Mr Tate and Mr Lyle were bitter rivals who never met. They both had sugar refineries in Silvertown on the north bank of the Thames, but their sons ensured they never met on the trains from central London.
Thanks for that fun fact Dormouse – hope you have fully recovered.
Well, I’m still in hospital, I can’t walk without a zimmer frame, and most of the medical staff are away for the holiday. They want to make sure I can do stairs, and the like before releasing me.
Thanks Bluebird. I missed PIANO & ROCKY and I failed to parse COUNTDOWN but all else made sense with my favourites being AREOLAE, MANCHESTER, OFFEND, & STAB. Thanks B&J for the blog.
I thought this was a splendid puzzle, with particular admiration for the Countdown cleverness, and how it was tied to STAB in the clueing. ORATORIO was tremendous and much more besides.
Those disappointed seem to have missed the artistry in it so it seems just a little bit unkind to leave this at the setter’s feet.
Yes I missed the artistry in this one too, so thanks all above for explaining it. COUNTDOWN was a little gem, on reflection. I also laughed at FRIENDS. Thanks Bluebird and bloggers.