The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29730.
Perhaps not as knotty as Enigmatist can be, and with enough simpler clues for me to complete the blog at a reasonable hour, with everything parsed to my satisfaction. And with someone at the helm who can come up with 14A RAITAS, who can complain? I hear that we are not the only ones sweltering at this time – it is 10pm. here, and the temperature outside is 30C.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1, 4 | SEWING CIRCLE |
‘Bee’ for braiding, basting, backstitch – and blather (6,6)
|
| Cryptic definition, with ‘bee’ as a gathering (for sewing in this case) as well as the letter. | ||
| 4 |
See 1
|
|
| 9 | NOT A HAPPY CAMPER |
But in the cryptic world this person would be content (3,1,5,6)
|
| Cryptic definition, with play on ‘con-tent’ | ||
| 10 | SANSEI |
Partisan seizing a little Japanese-US grandchild (6)
|
| A hidden answer (‘a little’) in ‘partiSAN SEIzing’. Japanese immigrants are issei, their children born in the adopted country, nisei, and the third generation, sansei. | ||
| 11 | MOSQUITO |
Bomber Harris finally left low barracks (8)
|
| An envelope (‘barracks’) of S (‘HarriS finally’) plus QUIT (‘left’) in MOO (‘low’). The de Havilland Mosquito was a World War II warplane, and Bomber Harris, Marshall of the RAF, was CinC at the height of the bombing campaign. | ||
| 12 | PATHOGEN |
Patient’s originally malign agent checked by hospital oxygen? (8)
|
| A clue with the main definition (as part of an &lit) in the middle: a charade of P (‘Patient’s originally’) plus ATHOGEN, an envelope (‘checked by’) of H (‘hospital’) plus O (‘oxygen’) in ATGEN, an anagram (‘malign’) of ‘agent’. | ||
| 14 | RAITAS |
Boob initially pops out of bra when it splits sides (6)
|
| An envelope (‘splits’) of ‘it’ in ‘[b]ra’ minus the B (‘Boob initially pops out’) plus AS (‘when’); ‘sides’ as side dishes, condiments (often cucumber raita). | ||
| 15 | ON SPEC |
Millions, peculiarly, invested as a gamble (2,4)
|
| A hidden answer (‘invested’) in ‘milliONS PECuliarly’. | ||
| 18 | PUSSYCAT |
Gentle person acts up, say, extremely odd (8)
|
| An anagram (‘odd’) of ‘acts up’ plus SY (‘SaY extremely’). | ||
| 21 | ST GEORGE |
Dragon-fighter gets mauled by man-eater, stomach churning (2,6)
|
| A charade of STGE, an anagram (‘mauled’) of ‘gets’ plus ORGE, which is OGRE (‘man-eater’) with the two internal letters reversed (‘stomach churning’). | ||
| 22 | ARCHER |
Increasingly shrewd politician and author sign for Advent (6)
|
| Triple definition: the second is a reference to Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare, and the third to Sagittarius, the astrological sign of the zodiac, with the sun in that sign in the season of Advent. | ||
| 24 | MARIE ANTOINETTE |
Her termination at the guillotine ultimately, following Revolution (5,10)
|
| This harly needs any wordplay, but yes, it is there: an anagram (‘following revolution’) of ‘termination at’ plus EE (‘thE guillotinE ultimately). | ||
| 25, 26 | FIGURE SKATER |
Cousins maybe think sister’s taking care of William’s wife (6,6)
|
| A charade of FIGURE (‘think’) plus SKATER, an envelope (‘taking care of’) of KATE (Prince ‘William’s wife’) in SR (‘sister’). The definition is a reference to Robin Cousins, former UK figure skater. | ||
| 26 |
See 25
|
|
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | STOMATA |
Openings perfectly captivating Master in it (7)
|
| A double envelope (‘captivating’ and ‘in’) of M (‘Master’) in TO A T (‘perfectly’) in SA (sex appeal, ‘it’). | ||
| 2, 13 | WHAT’S HAPPENING |
How are you doing the list of events? (5,9)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 3 | NEARING |
With one’s love expressed, appropriate item about to be produced? (7)
|
| A charade of ‘[o]ne’ minus the O (‘love expressed’) plus A RING (‘appropriate item’ – to express one’s love, that is). | ||
| 5 | INCISOR |
Apple piercer saving son, William Tell’s father keeps child’s head up (7)
|
| A reversal (‘up’ in a down light) of an envelope (‘keeps) of C (‘Child’s head’) in ROS[s]INI (‘William Tell’s father’ – well, he was the author of the opera, with its famous overture) mnus an S (‘saving son’). | ||
| 6, 23 | COMMUNITY CHEST |
NYC custom: I’m working with the Greenwich Village fund? (9,5)
|
| An anagram (‘working’) of ‘NYC custom I’m’ plus ‘the’. | ||
| 7 | ELECTRA |
Complex individual soon to take over the Army (7)
|
| A charade of ELECT (‘soon to take over’ daughter-in-law elect) plus RA (Royal Artillary – not the whole ‘Army’) | ||
| 8 | APEMAN |
Primate standing out each year (6)
|
| A reversal (‘standing’ in a down light) of NAME (‘out’ as a verb) plus PA (per |
||
| 13 |
See 2
|
|
| 16 | NOT HALF |
School falling short, girls excepted? Undoubtedly (3,4)
|
| An anagram (‘school’) of ‘falling short’ minus the letters of ‘girls’ (‘girls excepted’). | ||
| 17 | CORSAIR |
Old pirate radio station primarily on air south of Colombia (7)
|
| A charade of CO (‘ |
||
| 18 | PRETTY |
Fairly clever (6)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 19 | SEASICK |
Feeling swell? Yes and no (7)
|
| A play on ‘swell’ as waves. | ||
| 20 | ABETTER |
A more suitable partner in crime? (7)
|
| A charade of ‘a’ plus BETTER (‘more suitable’). | ||
| 23 |
See 6
|
|
I disagree mildly with Peter regarding the knottiness – I had a rather hard time with this, as expected with Enigmatist – but agree with him wholeheartedly re: RAITAS. Also liked SEASICK. (btw Peter, it’s annum in 8d APEMAN.)
I got most of this, but without being able to parse most of this. I had to reveal a couple: SANSEI NHO; MOSQUITO; RAITAS. So to me very tough.
Thanks and thanks again, PeterO; and Enigmatist
Well, this was sufficiently knotty to have over-stimulated my brain during my customary 3-4 solving slot, so that I can’t now get back to sleep. Overall, that said, I thought Enigmatist was being a bit of a PUSSYCAT with this one, especially in the bottom half – the top half came together more slowly, and, connected, as they were, by only two solutions, they were in effect two separate puzzles.
Thanks PeterO. Needed you for NEARING, wholly, and some finishing touches to clues where I was almost there.
WHAT’S HAPPENING FOI opened up a lot of the grid for me. STOMATA LOI and kicked myself as I did know it and had got the idea of the WP. Smiled at NAHC, SEASICK and ABETTER.
I thought blather was a bit derogatory for SEWING CIRCLE.
Yes, tough enough for ginf too, a dnf in fact. Didn’t think of the opera, thought Hmm, Swiss father could be in any one of three-and-a-half languages … talk about meandering! So, alphacheck to get the S. enabling the last few in the NE.
‘What’s happening man?” was a standard greeting in the ’60s, nowadays shortened to “‘Sup?”. Hey ho, life’s tapestry, good puzzle, cheers Enig’n’PO.
Liked SEWING CIRCLE (tho I agree with paddymelon@3 regarding blather being a bit derogatory…there should be a better word to mean talk), NAH CAMPER, NEARING, NOT HALF & STOMATA.
Thanks Enigmatist & PeterO.
pdm @4, someone on the G-thread wanted to put stitch and bitch …
Wasn’t entirely familiar with the Electra complex. Chambers has this…
ELECTRA complex /i-lekˈtrə komˈpleks/ (psychology)
noun
A strong attachment of a daughter to her father, accompanied by hostility to her mother
ORIGIN: From the Greek story of Electra, who helped to avenge her mother’s murder of her father
I’m another who found this decidedly knotty. The top half was largely blank until I’d somehow completed the bottom half. Hadn’t heard of SINSEI nor the NOT A HAPPY CAMPER expression (I wanted the last word to be ‘chappy’). I think Rossini as William Tell’s ‘father’ is a liberty too far, though I can see any reference to a composer would have made the clue too obvious. I join in the appreciation of RAITAS for the nicely hidden definition (having tried to think of a word with R and L in). Thanks to Enigmatist and to PeterO.
A lot of routes in for Enigmatist, but I wouldn’t say his easiest offering either, all in and mostly parsed.
Knowing a number of the knitting equivalents of SEWING CIRCLEs, in my experience, the ones that call themselves Knit and Natter tend to be bitchier than the Stitch and Bitch groups. We tend to use machines to sew now, so sewing circles tend to be hand mending circles, because places where you can set up a number of machines and the possible chat ensuing are limited.
Thank you to PeterO and Enigmatist
So Enigmatist turns up today and I wonder how soon it will be before I wave the white flag. Well, not very long, after minor success in the nether regions of the grid. I hope Roz manages to get her INCISORs into this more successfully than I have managed. Though I did get the connection between Cousins and FIGURE SKATER, this setter definitely described rings round me this morning…
Bit of a slog for me too – quite a bit of bunging and checking to be certain, with several parsings unachieved. Wasn’t entirely sure what Greenwich Village had to do with community chest, for instance. In fact, I’m still not. Other than it being, you know, a place, with a community. Question mark for def by eg, I realise, but still… Anyway, thanks to PeterO for sorting out NEARING, NOT HALF and STOMATA, for example. Liked RAITAS and MOSQUITO. Thanks to E for a stiff breakfast challenge.
Well, that was a bit of a workout for this old brain. I did enjoy the challenge though.
Can’t help hearing the ‘William Tell’ overture without seeing The Lone Ranger galloping through sundry rocks with a ‘heigh-ho Silver’ in my mind’s eye… Earworm for the day…
Many thanks Enigmatist and Peter O for the blog… I hope you’re able to cool down 🙂
1ac – “blather’ – derogatory? Of course it is. If a group of sewers were thought to be (or really were) predominantly male then it would be a sewing symposium, or a sewing debate, or a sewing conference, or a sewing summit, or a sewing seminar, or… Well, you get my point. Having often overheard men talking amongst themselves I would say they take the prize for being complete dogs (not the other word).
9 across is a good example of why I can’t be bothered with this setter…
Surely if he or she is “con tent”, ie with tent, then they would be a happy camper.
Perhaps somebody can enlighten me.
MJ @15, I think it’s con as in anti rather than with, ie not pro-tent. I think it’s a bit of a stretch, even so.
Another who needed the bottom half to get a foothold but I gradually cracked the knottier ones, with WHATS HAPPENING opening up a lot. MARIE ANTOINETTE was a write-in but what a clever spot. I also liked MOSQUITO, RAITAS and FIGURE SKATER for the clever surfaces. William Tell’s father was more than a bit of stretch but hey it’s the ‘cryptic world’.
Ta Enigmatist & PeterO.
The challenge for a cryptic setter is to be clever but not too-clever-by-half. Most of the way I think Enigmatist is being very clever – MOSQUITO, RAITAS, MARIE ANTOINETTE, COMMUNITY CHEST, SEASICK.
But for me, WHAT’S HAPPENING is a nothing clue; as has been observed, Rossini isn’t really William Tell’s father and the Royal Artillery isn’t “the Army”.
And for the reason TerriBlislow @14 points out, the clue for SEWING CIRCLE is not very pleasant. Particularly as something like “…and hemming all around?” or a reference to buttonholes would actually have worked better, but without the male chauvinism.
Thanks to Enigmatist for most of it and to PeterO for the customarily helpful blog.
But the mosquito wasn’t a bomber, it was a combat plane
It’s ‘con’ in the sense of ‘against’ not ‘with’. So, ‘against tent’ is not a happy camper
Mosquito was made in two principal configurations, fighter and fighter-bomber.
Liked APEMAN, WHAT’S HAPPENING and MOSQUITO for the Airfix memories
Several other’s felt so desperate to be difficult that they end up feeling a bit amateurish. I’m looking at you INCISOR and HAPPY CAMPER. Probably just sour grapes. I’m sure I’ll come back later to appreciate their true wonder
Cheers P&E
He’s been a lot “knottier” than this in the past.
The bottom half went in relatively quickly and the top half was helped a lot by getting 1/4.
Thanks very much to Enigmatist and PeterO
thanks to you both for putting me right on “con” tent, I hadn’t thought of it in that (surely
not very idiomatic) sense.
I still think it’s a very poor clue, bordering on non-sense.
But hey-ho, it is free, and there’s plenty of brilliant crosswords offered up each week.
Only completed the bottom half with a few stranglers elsewhere. Usually I would be gutted with that but seeing Enigmatist at the top I am quite pleased.
Thanks for the blog. I have it a thorough read in the hope one day I will get onto Enigmatist’s wavelength.
Under the influence of Nessa from Gavin and Stacey I wanted 2,13 down to be “What’s Occurring”
My first feeling on seeing the name on the puzzle was one of relief that I’d missed blogging it by a day. Being able to tackle it, in daylight, rather than the early hours, without the pressure, made it so much more enjoyable.
I made a good start with SANSEI, a word I’d learned from crosswords and was chuffed to recognise, followed up by ST GEORGE, MARIE ANTOINETTE, FIGURE SKATER (Robin quickly sprang to mind at the sight of ‘cousins’ at the beginning), MOSQUITO and INCISOR. Like some others, I had reservations about the happy camper but was amused to receive a text from my grandson, en route for Glastonbury, while I was thinking about it.
I won’t pretend that the parsing fell out as quickly as the solve in some cases (RAITAS being last one in – so satisfying) but I mostly enjoyed teasing them out.
[Shanne @10, I wish you could drop in on our weekly sewing session for asylum seekers, where about a dozen ladies (that’s how many machines we have) engage in amazing chat and camaraderie. It is rather noisy at times – but great fun for all.]
Many thanks to Enigmatist and PeterO.
I had parsed 16d as NOT (Eton – school falling, without the E – short) and HALF as half of humanity, girls excepted, but it got me to the right place!
Needed to come here to clear up quite a lot of parsing so thank you PeterO. Agree with Petert @26 that 2,13 brought the image of Nessa into my head and I can’t get it out. So funny.
Blather is definitely derogatory, it makes sewing circles sound as if they consist of airheads when they are actually very skilled people.
I assumed RA was Regular Army in this case?
Thanks for the blog , just about passed the scratch test , I had two left when my train got home , it has been 47 days .
After cold-solving I had all the bottom in but not much of the top , the rest went in slowly .
INCISOR , I do not usually fuss about definitions , prefer wordplay , but really .
Will @30 – Thank you for that. Yes, if “RA” can be “Regular Army” then ELECTRA would become clever rather than too-clever-by-half. But Chambers doesn’t give that abbreviation and according to Wikipedia it is the American army (you know, the one that Mr Taco J. Bonespurs ducked out of joining) that is the “Regular Army (RA)”.
I spent 20 years going to work at a place with a Vampire (a sort of relative of the MOSQUITO) on a stand out the front. They were manufactured at that site (fuselage made out of plywood). Yes Vic @19 and TonyM @21 the Mosquitos were more than bombers, but by definition they can therefore be described as bombers.
If a setter’s job is to fail gracefully, I’m afraid this one failed for me, although I did like the almost &lit MARIE ANTOINETTE.
Lezzie @28 – I parsed 16d the same way ! Tough crossword with some dodgy clues including Roz @31’s Incisor (7d) which i wouldn’t have parsed in a month of Sundays.
Thanks to PeterO for the excellent blog.
For the trivia people, I recently found out that the de Havilland company and Olivia the actor are linked. The company was founded by the gloriously named aviator Hereward de Havilland, who was Olivia’s first cousin.
My take on the content in 9ac is the person wouldn’t be a camper at all, happy or otherwise, without a tent
I completed this in only the most technical sense, with any number unparsed. And even with PeterO’s help (thank you) I remain unclear on some, e.g. what Greenwich Village is doing in 6D. I’m also unfamiliar with “pretty” as a synonym for “clever”, although I wrote it in and shrugged.
Conversely, there were a couple in the bottom half that were write-ins. And I did have the GK for Sansei and Figure Skater, although I wondered how many people would consider them obscure.
Anyway, congratulations to those of you who completed this, but it was a bit above my skill level.
Vic @19
Wikipedia says of the de Havilland Mosquito: “Originally conceived as an unarmed fast bomber, the Mosquito’s use evolved during the war into many roles …”.
Jacob @37
As far as I can see, the use of Greenwich Village in 6,23D COMMUNITY CHEST is no more than an acknowledgement the it is a well-recognised community within NYC.
For me there tends to be a bit of a fear factor with Enigmatist and I expect things to be a lot more convoluted than they sometimes are. I’m therefore taken by surprise when confronted with some of the cryptic definitions and double definitions.
I liked MOSQUITO. I think Enigmatist is of an age, like me, to have constructed Airfix models of such planes. And like always thinking COR! when I see the word “my”, I now usually remember to think MOO when I see “low”.
I wondered about the relevance of Greenwich Village too, but I think (as Peter suggests @38) it’s just that it’s an example of an area that could have a COMMUNITY CHEST, and it was chosen to go with the NYC earlier in the clue. Just as the slightly odd definition for INCISOR, “Apple piercer”, was chosen to go with the mention of William Tell.
Many thanks Enigmatist and PeterO.
A first for me. Two days in a row I’ve abandoned and not even bothered with reveal to see what I could have solved. Hopefully not a hat trick tomorrow.
Petert @26: same here! It was my FOI and I was feeling very pleased with myself…. until it didn’t work with anything else!
Jacob@37 I do not see PRETTY=clever either but clearly in Chambers93 , perhaps like nice it has had many meanings in the past . I do think of cute as clever , as a student I was often described as extremely cute .
Tim@33 , I am told by people who know these things that the MOSQUITO was superior to other aircraft for a wide range of roles in WW2 mainly BECAUSE it was wooden . ( And they did a lot of specialised bombing . )
Please explain 17. What’s Columbia, IVR, and what’s it got to do with Colombia as in the clue?
Elenem $43
IVR is International Vehicle Registration, the generally two-letter code on a sticker to identify the origin contry of a car travelling abroad; the IVR for a car from Colombia (note the misspelling I have just seen in the blog) is CO.
Hi Lord Jim @39 – I’ve only just seen your comment but I did think of you this morning, when I solved Eccles’ 9ac: ‘My parts extremely shrunken, leading to derision (5)’.
Too knotty for me by a long chalk; so much so, in fact, that I’ve lost the will to unravel it. Thanks to our blogger even so.
I got MARIE ANTOINETTE, so getting one answer represents a success for this setter.
Far too nice a day to waste trying to get any more as miles beyond my ability.
Thanks both.
Roz @42: ‘extremely cute’, NOT HALF, I imagine you were also described by your lecturers as a PUSSYCAT!
My birthday “treat” was this reminder of my inadequacy as a solver, made more painful by the number of people calling this an easier Enigmatist. I had to reveal 8 clues before I could finish this, and still many went in unparsed. I would have felt better if Roz had been challenged by this, but alas it was not to be.
A real birthday treat would have been an Arachne, Brendan or Philistine. Ah well, maybe Guy in the FT will cheer me up a bit.
Thanks Enigmatist for the thrashing, and PeterO for making some sense of it for me.
Found this jolly tough and persevered long enough to leave just a few in the NW but then had to admit defeat.
Am glad for the parsing here of NOT A HAPPY CAMPER (which I should have worked out after biffing it) and INCISOR (which I don’t think I would have parsed, however long I’d stared at the thing after having revealed it).
Tough puzzle and a very good blog.
[ AlanC@48 , I was a very dedicated student , yes , because I love my subject so much but I was often in trouble for other things . I got banned from the Oxford Union for life and I was never even a member . ]
Cellomaniac@49 , this lasted longer than my journey home , this has not happened since May 9th , this is my criterion for a hard puzzle so definitely tough and a challenge .
Have a very Happy Birthday , have you reached your prime ? and the Guy puzzle is a treat .
Hi Eileen @45, that’s a great clue, thank you! (I hope you didn’t think of me because of the surface…)
[Roz @51, The Oxford Union is a very good thing to be banned from, so congratulations are in order. Just as long as you didn’t vandalise the cricket pitches in the Parks… Yes, I was one of those out there in my flannels, I’m afraid, but I’m pretty sure that was several years before your time there.]
Got a couple. Revealing answers didn’t help on bit and even here I don’t understand many of the explanations of the clues. I think the Guardian has decided that it only wants Olympic-standard solvers to do its crosswords. The last week or so has made it clear that solvers of my standard are simply not welcome.
Amy @54: if it helps, even to get one of this setter’s clues is no mean feat. It has been a tough week so far, so please persist. We were all there at one time. Best wishes.
[ Balfour@53 I went to LMH because it had the best gardens in Oxford , I could swim in the Cherwell every morning and walk through The Parks to Theoretical Physics or the Physics Library , nobody warned me about the cricket .I once told Brian Lara to take his silly bat and ball somewhere esle . ]
Amy@54 I totally agree , The Guardian should have two puzzles every week that are very friendly , most weeks there are none or just about one , even Vulcan is often at the top end of easy . When I was learning there were great setters of puzzles suitable for beginners and always two each week , I realize how lucky I was . The range of difficulty now is incredibly narrow .
Lord Jim @52
🙂
Roz @56 – respect for actually enjoying physics and for swimming in the Cherwell (as opposed to falling in gracefully from the Oxford end of a punt).
Are LMH’s gardens better than Worcester’s? Some achievement if they are.
BTW, Balfour @51, agree with you completely about the institution that first foisted Alexander de Pfeffel Johnson on the world…
[Roz @56 That would, at worst, get you banned for life from Trinidad.]
Nice to see Enigmatist in a playful mood but I wouldn’t call it easy. I needed the dictionary for RAITAS, wasn’t at all sure about MOSQUITO and couldn’t get ELECTRA – I’m kicking myself because her complex has come up before and I nearly remembered it, but couldn’t get there.
I thought WHAT’S HAPPENING was quite good and I don’t know if blather is so pejorative. Women (or anybody) often describe themselves as “meeting up for a natter” or what have you so I don’t know if inconsequential talk is always a bad thing. If it was men you’d probably say “putting the world to rights”.
[Neil@59 LMH gardens very natural and informal , college to garden to meadows to river . I could swim every morning before anyone awake . Fortunately I missed Johnson and his cronies by a year or two .
Balfour@60 , you should not put a cricket pitch on the short-cut from the LMH ginnel to Parks road . ]
Amy@54 I agree entirely. I find that I make slow but steady progress until there’s a run of Olympic level puzzles. That then undoes all the progress of the previous few weeks.
I solved six of today’s clues, which I wasn’t too unhappy with, given the setter. I’ve never solved a Paul clue, however, and I understand they’ve appeared three times in the last week. It’s all very dispiriting.
I can only guess that the editor has been unduly impressed by people banging on about how easy the puzzles are.
[ Roz@51, thanks for the birthday wishes. No, I haven’t reached my prime – I’m 2 years away. I’m thinking of all the things that I’ll be able to do that I can’t do yet.(Enigmatist?) ]
[Roz @62, you were lucky to miss the blond b****** – when I was there he was involved with the Monday Club, and I vividly recall every student receiving a leaflet from them calling for Nelson Mandela to be hanged. I can also remember him campaigning to be president of the Union and thinking – if this charlatan ever achieves actual power it will be a Very Bad Thing.]
I thought I was slowly getting on Enigmatist’s wavelength, but not this time. Wrote in most of the answers and had to cheat a bit. I’ll call this a DNF for that reason.
SEWING CIRCLE is just too vague for a CD, if that’s what it is. And same goes for NOT A HAPPY CAMPER. At the opposite end of the scale, MARIE ANTOINETTE was just too easy – a piece of brioche (qu’ils mangent…) literally! It’s not often I have a pop at long ones – usually they’re my favourites – but this time…
As for PATHOGEN – yes good wordplay but not quite an &lit in my books. Sorry.
Liked RAITAS – funny surface and tricky wordplay with good misdirection on the def. My LOI as it happens (did I say I DNF’d this one? Not exactly…)
And it took me a while to remember Robin Cousins the skater. Another good misdirection.
With ARCHER I got just two of the three definitions. I’m afraid astrology isn’t my strong point – especially since precession has resulted in all the ‘signs’ being out-of-place.
With COMMUNITY CHEST, I didn’t see the relevance of “Greenwich Village”: I only know the term from Monopoly.
Other parsings I missed were INCISOR (the word ‘father’ put me off); APEMAN (out=NAME a bit too vague for me)
Sorry, too many gripes this time! I’m always thrilled when Enigmatist makes one of his rare appearances, but this time it was just too tough!!
Thanks anyway to John and Peter.
Very tough for me.
Not sure what “basting” is taking place at a sewing circle.
Also confused by “Greenwich” and “pretty”.
[Was anyone else slightly disappointed when 633 Squadron was played for the recent Lancaster fly past? ]
Wellcidered @67. There is a stitch called a basting stitch
I usually skip Enigmatist puzzles because in the past his were the only puzzles that I normally couldn’t finish. However, I finished the FT puzzle pretty quickly so I decided to take a look. My first pass wasn’t very successful, but then I saw MARIE ANTOINETTE and I decided to give it a shot, and to my surprise I plodded through and just finished it. This is only my second Enigmatist completion and the first when I kept google out of the process. So, thank you Enigmatist and thanks PeterO for a great blog.
I solved this puzzle early, but didn’t get to the blog until late (for some reason I didn’t see it right after I solved; maybe I needed to refresh the page or something). It’s interesting to see that Greenwich Village is bothering people; he obviously chose an arbitrary New York neighborhood, but one that could confuse you slightly as to what was going on. It could have been Tribeca or Williamsburg or Harlem just as easily. Or Chelsea or Soho, but they have those in London too. (The one in New York is actually SoHo, South of Houston St., which is not a homophone for Houston, Texas.) Hell’s Kitchen or the Tenderloin would maybe be too bizarre, and Far Rockaway a bridge too far. Just be grateful there’s a “village” in Greenwich Village to put you on the right track.
Anyway, I agree with the blog that my “oh expletive, it’s an Enigmatist” forebodings were not borne out by the actual puzzle, which though chewy, turned out to be tractable.
mrpenney @ 70
“Rock, rock, Rockaway Beach” – oh, the memories!
Wellcidered @67 – basting in sewing is a form of tacking – to try the garment on or to hold something in place while you do the rest of the sewing – frills sandwiched between layers, for example, are often basted into place before the seam is sewn.
mrpenney @70 – there’s a Greenwich Village in London too – very pretty with the old naval buildings and Greenwich Park, the Thames and all. Liz Truss and Kwasi Karteng came from there.
The wonderful musician Margaret Harrison once warned a famous fellow violinist against “playing for her own satisfaction”. Enigmatist is an amazing setter and I always relish the challenge but I do fear the handful of clues he perhaps sets ‘for his own satisfaction’? Anyway, you can tell by the clock how many sittings this took me, MOSQUITO my LOI.
[MOH@65 , the Monday Club were the worst of all , I remember badges and T-shirts saying Hang …..
They used to hold meetings at Worcester College , the best way to disrupt a meeting is to find a fuse-box for the building , I was good at that and no actual vandalism . ]
I managed about half of an Enigmatist! Calloo, callay!
A difficult solve with the top left corner holding out. With NAHC, ELECTRA and APEMAN only pencilled in, figuratively, I had to do a word search on M…U.T. and R.I.A. to get those two – even though my Dad flew in Mozzies in the war. Obvious answers when you see them. I kept skirting round VATI or VATER as W Tell’s father for too long.
At the other end of the solve, I knew ISSEI and NISSEI, so SANSEI was a write-in. What’s the 4th generation, YONSEI or SHISEI?
Roz 74
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Like many before I struggled with this. Completed the bottom half (albeit with a couple unparsed) but a combination of unknown words and some tricky clues meant I only got about a third of the top half, and I’m never getting 9A without a bunch of crossers.
If anyone is still reading, can someone explain why “standing” is a reversal indicator in 8d? My natural assumption would be that if a reversal is expected, “on its head” would be more intuitive than standing?
Like Balfour@3 I had all of the bottom half and only the two (6,8) links to the top. At one stage I had several ideas for answers but was reluctant to write them in: RA for ‘army’? PATHOGEN with the wordplay all jumbled up with the definition (very groundbreaking) crossing with STOMATA with ‘it’ for SA (very tired)? Gave up in the end on three mentioned by Dave@2 (haven’t read much further in the comments as I’m a day behind). I also didn’t get NEARING even with all the crossers, and Rossini as William Tell’s father? Upside down and with only one S? Give me strength.
Thanks to Enigmatist and PeterO.
Stuart @78,
Standing, synonymous with rising or getting up, indicates that the entry is written upwards rather than downwards in a down clue.
Thanks Phitonelly. I’ll have to try to remember that given I don’t find it intuitive. A bit like I’ve neatly got used to stopping meaning “in the middle of” (I guess imagining a blockage in a straw?) whereas for years I thought it meant “go around” (I was imagining a sheep pen stopping the sheep escaping)
If anyone’s still reading, Mrs E and I did manage to complete the grid, but with a fair bit of searching and checking, then reverse parsing.
I agree with SH at 79 re the feelings engendered. I did think of NEARING, but by then lacked the energy to go through all the possible trial-and-error parsings, and the definition was tenuous enough to make that seem to be not worthwhile.
Cheers all, sleep well.
As a bit of an aircraft anorak, I’d have to disagree with the premise of 11: the De Havilland Mosquito wasn’t really a bomber in the way an Avro Lancaster or a Vickers Wellington was a bomber: it was a multi-role aircraft. More of a fighter/reconnaissance/ground attack aircraft than a bomber. My Great Uncle Albert was a photographer in a reconnaissance squadron based in Nottinghamshire: he flew over the Ruhr dams after the Dambusters had been and done what they did, taking pictures of the ruins and floods, with a whacking great camera, in a Mosquito. He told me the story of his pilot having to outrun German night-fighters on the way back over the channel, which the Mozzie could do with ease.
I’m chuffed that I managed to finish this puzzle at all, but I had to come here for explanations of quite a few parsings. I’m afraid that even after reading all the comments I still don’t understand what’s going on with Greenwich Village in 6dn, and if I understand 9ac I don’t like it. I didn’t know that “pretty” could mean “clever”, but Chambers says so, so that’s OK.
Hi Ted,
Greenwich Village just tells us that the expression COMMUNITY CHEST is an Americanism as I understand it, like Nice or Nancy refers to France – thought not cryptically in this case.
After a brief look on Wednesday I decided to save this for a more leisurely weekend solve. In fact, I was wrong. Apart from the NE corner I found this nicely accessible for an Enigmatist – and echo mrpenney@70’s final paragraph precisely
This was a beautiful creation and gave me a great deal of pleasure. Huge thanks to Enigmatist…
PeterO – an extremely competent blog but I can’t help feeling, given some of the comments, that it may have been just a touch too concise for the learners here… And I think the definition for ELECTRA is simply “complex” with the remainder of the clue being wordplay; perhaps you were in a hurry….
Many thanks both and all
[Roz@74 – Nice! (Re Oxford Union – my dear daddy, a cockney urchin from the pre-first world war city slums was so pleased to see his son’s scholarship in the Times/Telegraph that he ‘treated’ me to life membership, love him, but I have always eschewed its bad graces, save making occasional use of the snooker table – when perhaps I should have been swimming in the Cherwell, perish the thought – and me!)]
PeterO (re mine@86) – I’ve just taken another quick look at your blog, and I’m completely wrong (this has been a week of foolish mistakes by me) … it’s a substantial blog, far from “concise”. I think I may have been affected by the one or two ‘learners’ who have commented here, because I really feel for them and don’t want them to give up. By the time I’d read all the comments (usually more time consuming than the solve!) I’d clearly forgotten the very high level of explanation you’ve given. Sorry! 😇
Ended up with loads of answers I couldn’t parse, can’t say I enjoyed it.
William F P @86
Re 7D ELECTRA: my inclusion of ‘individual’ in the definition was a deliberate choice, not one made in a hurry. If you are taking just ELECTRA as the definition, there have previously been objections on the lines of “ELECTRA is not a complex; Electra complex is a complex” (to use this instance as an example); or, to put it another way, “ELECTRA is a word often linked to ‘complex’, not defined by it”. Certainly some setters have used this kind of association as a definition (and as I say have sometimes been called out for it). Further, ELECT in the sense required by the clue is an adjective, and ‘individual’ does not belong there. I am sure that Mr. Henderson is being punctilious here, with the definition, to paraphrase, of “a personage associated with a complex”. Thus I added ‘individual’ to the definition.
Pretty well mauled by this one. Solved nine, and couldn’t parse most of the remainder even when revealed. Glad Roz got a bit of a challenge. Yes, difficulty level seems to be random these days
PeterO – very well thought through! 😇 Thank you for taking the trouble…