An entertaining puzzle from Tramp, with a couple of nice anagrams and a few easy clues to get use going. Thanks to Tramp.
| Across | ||||||||
| 1 | BEAUTY PARLOURS | Change Labour party: use consultants for new style (6,8) (LABOUR PARTY USE)* |
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| 8 | UNDUE | Security organisation cut short fight that’s excessive (5) UN (United Nations, a “security organisation”) + DUE[L] |
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| 9 | EXPLOITS | Uses old charts to get around India (8) EX (old) + I[ndia] in PLOTS |
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| 11 | CORPSES | My son has sixth sense around group of mummies? (7) Reverse of ESP in COR (my!) + S |
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| 12 | SERIOUS | Drug to port smuggled by suspect that’s dangerous (7) E (drug) + RIO in SUS |
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| 13 | CITER | One quotes King, penning short article (5) ITE[m] (article) in C.R. (king) |
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| 15 | DESICCATE | Daughter eats ice cream, initially is prepared to dry up (9) D + anagram of EATS ICE C[ream] – this word is a trap for the unwary, who might suspect it’s spelt DESSICATE |
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| 17 | SPEED HUMP | Drug to have sex? It might slow you down (5,4) SPEED (drug) + HUMP (have sex) |
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| 20 | ACERB | One case of beer switched for bitter (5) ACE (one) + reverse of B[ee]R |
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| 21 | LAWYERS | Briefs of wife found in sheets (7) W in LAYERS |
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| 23 | OSSUARY | Piece together back of diplodocus, say – our bones kept here (7) Anagram of [diplodocu]S SAY OUR |
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| 25 | INITIATE | Found fake Titian that is for framing (8) TITIAN* in I.E. (that is) |
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| 26 | CAPRI | Cold month mostly for island (5) C + APRI[L] |
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| 27 | COUNTERBALANCE | Equalise in match, getting behind marker (14) COUNTER (marker, e.g. in a board game) + BALANCE (to match) |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1 | BOUNCY CASTLE | Jump on this bus, not a cycle, after crash (6, 6) (BUS NOT A CYCLE)* |
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| 2 | ADDER | One put on scales going over this (5) Double definition: one who has added has put something on, and the snake has scales |
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| 3 | TREASURED | Did value fine stamp for collection (9) SURE (fine!) in TREAD |
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| 4 | PLEASED | Delighted prince getting let out (7) P + LEASED |
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| 5 | REPOSES | Sits around first and rests (7) RE (about, around) + POSES |
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| 6 | ODOUR | Perfume from men about to cheat on you (5) DO (cheat) U (you) in OR (other ranks, men) |
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| 7 | RATIONALE | Reason to restrict booze (9) RATION + ALE – this construction must have been seen a few times over the years |
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| 10 | ASSEMBLY LINE | Row following meeting in part of factory (8,4) ASSEMBLY (meeting) + LINE (a row – rhyming with hoe) |
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| 14 | TAE KWON DO | Take out women paid for by party; one might kick back in this (3,4,2) TAKE* + W + ON (paid for by – “it’s on me”) + DO (party) |
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| 16 | CLASSICAL | Callas in production keeping so elegant (9) SIC (so) in CALLAS* |
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| 18 | UPSTAGE | Dwarf raised leg (7) UP (raised) + STAGE (leg, of a process) |
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| 19 | PROVERB | Saw deliveries bowled with spin (7) PR (spin) + OVER (deliveries, in cricket) + B[owled] |
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| 22 | EAT IN | Each container to corrode (3,2) EA[ch] + TIN |
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| 24 | ASPEN | Like fence and tree (5) AS (like) PEN (to fence) |
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I wrongly entered SPEED BUMP at 17ac and wondered why BUMP = to have sex. In Collins I discovered that ‘bump uglies’ = to have sexual intercourse. Never heard that before!
I couldn’t parse 2d.
I also considered bump, but plumped for hump.
Nice puzzle, friendly grid, cheers Tramp and Andrew.
Entertaining puzzle. At the risk of seeming picky I thought “for collection “ was a bit misleading in 3 down. Doesn’t it suggest the two parts are the other way round? I wasn’t sure about Re meaning around in 5 down. About, yes. Thanks to Tramp and Andrew
I didn’t know bump was another of the scores of words we are privileged to have to choose from for sex. In fact, I had SPEED HUMP.
And I had to reveal ADDER. Having come here for the parsing I don’t think much of the clue.
Everything else fell into place — no particular favourites.
I puzzled over Speed Bump like michelle @1 for a while until HUMP hit me over the head. “bump uglies” sounds a bit Urban Dictionary, like “do the nasty”.
I did wonder about some of the wordplay order, like in PROVERB and wondered whether ‘saw deliveries bowled after spin’, or simply ‘saw spin deliveries bowled’ would be an improvement.
I used to teach my English classes that deSiCCated CoConutS both have 2 Cs and 1 S. A useful mnemonic!
An elegant puzzle, except for the same slight problems mentioned already. Considered SPEED Bump at first too, and was left wondering whether ADDER could possibly fit the bill.as my loi. As often happens with Tramp, a lovely pair of long generous anagrams at 1ac and 1d to get things launched…
Whenever I see DESICCATED, it always reminds me of the comic queen of malapropisms, Hylda Baker, and her “desecrated coconut”.
A dnf for me, as having the final P, I overconfidently put SPEED TRAP, assuming that trap was, as GDU@4 puts it, another of the scores of words for ”have sex’ – so I didn’t get UPSTAGE. And I agree with GDU about the clue for ADDER.
ACERB was new for me, though easy enough as I did know ‘acerbic’.
Thanks both.
Quite often one or two bits of gnarl in a Tramp, like in 25ac you have to read “that is for framing” as “[with] that is [used] for framing”; and in 3d “for collection” somewhat perversely means ‘stamp is collecting‘ rather than ‘fine is collected‘. Plus there’s the odd normal obliquity, like “paid for by” cluing for “on” in 14d. All part of the fun, cheers T n A.
A typically classy offering from Tramp – I am astounded to read on BlueSky that it was written 3 years ago. Surely not been sitting in the editor’s tray for that long??? The two long anagrams to get us going – BEAUTY PARLOURS and BOUNCY CASTLE – were splendid, as were EXPLOITS, SPEED HUMP, LAWYERS, CLASSICAL and PROVERB. All that said, I do agree with SueB@3: I, too, interpreted ‘… fine stamp for collection’ in 3d as meaning the second item being inserted into the first rather than the other way round.
Thanks Tramp and Andrew
… and yes “one put on” has to work as “one [who] put[s] on”, a bit of a curly pretzel …
PostMark @11, surely you, for one, should have known about “fine stamp for collection”… 😉
Liked a lot of the puzzle, though I agree with many of the small quibbles already raised. Did DNF as I could not get ADDER…
Also, I got 17ac wrong twice: settling on SPEED BUMP as well, after first having confidently entered SLEEP PILL, which I contend fits the clue very well too as a cd/dd (though I understand that sleeping pill is more idiomatic).
Thanks Tramp and Andrew!
Re 17ac, I forgot to add that I totally forgot about hump = to have sex. I think that the answer works much better as speed hump compared to speed bump.
I agree with TimC that bump uglies sounds rather horrid, but it was in Collins as in British English
US vulgar, slang
Regarding the misleading way in which things are put on or contained, I think it is all part of the fair tussle between setter and solver (settee? Surely there’s a clue in the making “You, joking, relax here? (6)”). On first few readings I was trying to put things the wrong way round but with sufficient crossers to have a stab at the solution I could see how it worked. I enjoy that kind of battle.
On “adder” does anyone else remember having to learn which is the addend, the dividend, divisor, quotient, the multiplicand etc? I fear those terms have rather gone the way of abscissa and ordinate for the x- and y-axes.
Thanks Tramp and Andrew.
Postmark@11 (good to see another Bluesky user. On what account did you find that obscure fact!)
Thanks Tramp and Andrew
DF @ 17 Tramp is on Bluesky ( @tramp1.bluesky.social )
I found this much easier than usual for Tramp, and am astounded at having managed without artificial aids, though some of the defs are to my mind a bit ‘tangential’, such as POSES for ‘rests’, and CLASSICAL for ‘elegant’.
poc@19. It’s RE POSES for rests. No problem with that.
I also don’t see an equivalence between classical and ELEGANT, but I’m sure someone will tell me it’s in Chsmbers.
poc @19, but the definition is not POSES for ‘rests’. It’s REPOSES for ‘rests’.
Also for CLASSICAL, Chambers Thesaurus gives…
classical
adjective
1 classical style/form
traditional, elegant, refined, excellent, plain, pure, simple, restrained, well-proportioned, symmetrical, harmonious
OK paddymelon @20, maybe not the BRB for “elegant” but close with the Thesaurus with me @21. 🙂
I had the common quibbles. I still don’t get “RE” for “around”, if anybody can clarify?
I failed to parse the intersecting 2D and 11A. In hindsight I can just about make 2D work, but it’s not my favorite. And I could have started at 11A until Saturday without seeing the parsing. I remember COR = MY about half the time.
Thanks for the blog, Andrew. Thanks to others for the kind comments. I wrote this puzzle in September 2022. I think I have about fourteen puzzles in the pipeline. I don’t want to appear more than once a month; my productivity with crosswords has slowed as other things have arisen. In all honesty, through one thing and another, I no longer get the same buzz when a puzzle appears as I once did.
Neil
Impressed with the puzzle as a whole, but not with ADDER, unfortunately.
I entered SPEED BUMP, as many did, but the B was rejected when I pressed Check All. Going through possible alternatives, I noted that JUMP and PUMP might slangily refer to sex, but it had to be HUMP in the end. No pun intended!
Although SPEED BUMP is probably more common, the road sign warning of a series of them is always “HUMPS IN THE ROAD” rather than “bumps” (nearly all roads having bumps, of course!)
Right on cue Tim C@22. 🙂
muffin@26. That sign “Humps in the Road” must bring a few chuckles. Not quite the same thing but we have “Falling rocks. Don’t stop.” ?!
PDM @27
The Beatles recorded a song “Why don’t we do it in the road?”
Yeah muffin. What were they on?
For some reason I find this almost impenetrable at first, probably starting at 4am was the cause. All clues seemed fair when my brain finally clicked into gear allowing for Tramp’s occasionally idiosyncratic wordplay order.
Adder/undue were my last pair, mainly because I assumed the security organisation was UNSC, briefly UNS, and spent a lot of time trying to think of a
word UNS-E which fitted the wordplay.
I also had Speed bump for 17a, assuming bump uglies was meant, having as others first thought trap must be one of the myriad English slang terms for sex.
Paddymelon @ 29, LSD mainly. 😁😁
Tramp @24: unlike you, I still get a little buzz when I see your soubriquet over a published puzzle. Long may you set. Thank you.
I join those who object to RE = “around.”
I had SPEED BUMP and forgot to press “check all.”
poc@19, “poses” doesn’t equal “rests,” it “Tjamlssits.”
What’s BlueSky?
Thanks, Tramp and Andrew.
I really should know better that DESICCATE is spelt that way, although dessicate looks more likely when one writes it. My Latin is obviously not up to scratch.
I liked the anagram for BEAUTY PARLOURS, the surfaces for LAWYERS and SPEED HUMP (never heard of bump uglies, which apparently is North American), and the CORPSES wordplay. I don’t like you = U, but I think I am losing that battle.
Thanks Tramp and Andrew.
Ace@23: RE means ‘concerning’ (short for Latin in re, ‘concerning the matter (of)’), so stand-ins such as on, about etc. are common. ‘Around’ is just a slightly more tenuous one.
Thanks to those who enlightened me on the definition in 5d.
Valentine@33 , BlueSky is an alternative/similar platform to Twitter/X . Tramp is still on X (which I still prefer) , but there is a lot of crossword chat to be found on BlueSky , so all good .
Maybe it’s just one of those days, but I found this really difficult. I completed the grid but wouldn’t have won a prize due to two errors, which I can’t blame on typos.
A learning experience.
Thanks Neil and Andrew.
1a and 4d were my solved clues. Nowhere near any other clues.
Thanks both,
I parsed 2d as ER – a lady who famously referred to herself as ‘one’ – with ‘add’ = ‘put’ on top.
Jay@36. Thanks for the hint re X. I found his account, @_Tramp, along with a lot of NSFW stuff when searching for his name.
I had fun with this despite shrugging at a few bits and pieces, most of which have been mentioned: “re” for “around”; the strange charade ordering in TREASURED, UN for security org (only one of many ‘branches’ concerns security, I thought); “to” for “next to” or “by” or something to that effect in “drug to port” for SERIOUS (I’d welcome any guidance there); and also “so” for “sic” instead of “thus” and “with” for “any ordering of the pieces”, both of which are perfectly fine but I need to remember them!
None of which lessened my enjoyment much, because the grid filled out fairly evenly for me and so there were always enough checkers to be confident of the answers…. except for:
ADDER. Completely flummoxed me – and I still can’t make much sense of either parts of the cryptic reading. I revealed it to because I needed more checkers to progress with BEAUTY PARLOURS.
Favourite was TAE KWON DO.
Thanks both
Lots to enjoy here as usual with Tramp. All the long clues were lovely. Favourites today were INITIATE, OSSUARY and PROVERB.
I am probably being unfairly nitpick-y (or just plain wrong – which is equally likely), but ESP is not a sixth sense. It is perception that is outside of, or without the use of, the senses. ‘Extra-sensory’ – in the same way that we say ‘extra mural’ or ‘extraterrestrial’.
Andrew Sceats @43
There are far more than five senses anyway. It was Aristotle who defined the five – things have moved on since then! See here. Some authorities get to 33.
Muffin @44
Good point. But however many there are, ESP is not one of them.
AS @45
Agreed, but ESP and “sixth sense” are frequently (incorrectly) equated, so I expect the equivalence will be in dictionaries somewhere.
My understanding is that speed humps–wider and somewhat more gradually rising than speed bumps–are the modern preference among traffic engineers, for safety reasons. So your “speed bump ahead” signs will slowly be replaced by “speed hump ahead” ones.
Regarding “Why don’t we do it in the road?”, apparently during a trip to India, McCartney saw some monkeys doing…that. So the song is actually about monkeys.
BlueSky has become popular as a place to flee Twitter/X to, since it isn’t run by E**n M**k.
Thanks Tramp and Andrew, I had a few quibbles as raised already but heavily outweighed by positives including my favourites LAWYER and PROVERB. always good to see a BOUNCY CASTLE, and I was reminded of the classic letter to Viz: ” These so-called speed humps are a con. If anything, they slow you down!”
Andrew Sceats@43, Wikipedia believes ESP and sixth sense to be the same thing (though of course one can’t take it as a first-hand authority). See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasensory_perception
The point it makes is that extasensory signifies outwith the physical senses (however many there really are!), ESP referring to sensing with the mind. And “sixth sense” in contrast to the traditional five physical senses, of course.
Thanks Tramp for an excellent crossword. For some reason I found this to be difficult; I began it last evening, put it aside, and then tackled the ‘friendlier’ (and very good) Goliath in the FT. I returned to this today & finished it with only a few errors, one of which was speed bump instead of SPEED HUMP. (Apparently they are somewhat different, with the ‘bump’ being more severe than the ‘hump’.) In any event I liked many of the clues including ACERB, LAWYERS, ODOUR, and CLASSICAL (great surface). Thanks Andrew for the blog.
Thanks Tramp@24. I suppose it’s inevitable when you’re at the top of your game the “buzz” will diminish a bit (e.g. Ronnie O’Sullivan, Scottie Scheffler).
As with others above, I always get a buzz when a Tramp puzzle appears. I just love the way the clues read so naturally, and for me a good surface like “Saw deliveries bowled with spin” justifies any looseness with the order.
I was another who put BUMP, but it seems that almost any verb can mean to have sex, just as any adjective can mean to be drunk.
Thanks all.
I’ve never heard them called SPEED HUMPS. As I am solving with pen and paper, came here to find myself wrong. With *U*P my first thought was PUMP, from rumpy-pump, but then SPEED BUMP came to mind.
Of the dictionaries I own, only HUMP fits *U*P and means to have sex. I think bump can mean to thrust your pelvis.
Tsk. You dictionary owners eh? 😉
Things I didn’t know about that slowed me down in this puzzle:
-“Brief” can mean “a lawyer” (and not just a document associated with lawyers).
-“Eat in” means “corrode” (“eat into”, yes, but “eat in”?)
-“Booze” can refer to ale. (I use it only to refer to distilled spirits.)
Some of these may be transatlantic differences (I’m a lifelong US resident), and some may be my own idiosyncrasy. I’m not complaining about any of them.
If I were to complain, it would be about “around” for RE, which I don’t think has yet been satisfactorily justified.
I’m another who confidently wrote SPEED BUMP, assuming that BUMP was one of the many euphemisms for “sex”. Both “bump” and “hump” are used for this device, in my experience, so I have no excuse. (Don’t you lot call them “sleeping policemen,” by the way?)
Hi Ted,
Now that you mention it, I did crinkle my nose a tad at RE = “around”.
Yes, we may write RE, or about a matter, but an equivalence for “around’ doesn’t easily come to mind.
It was good to learn about the difference between a speed bump and a speed hump. I always thought the former was a fast dance, and the latter was quickie sex.
Thanks, Tramp, for giving me a not-so-quickie buzz.
I also had BUMP instead of HUMP, but didn’t correct it before checking, so dnf — defeated by one letter. I imagined that BUMP was some kind of slang for sex related to “bump and grind”
Consistently outstanding surfaces, including 9a EXPLOITS, the aforementioned SPEED HUMP, 21a LAWYERS, 3d TREASURED, 6d ODOUR, 18d UPSTAGE, 19D PROVERB, and more — too many to list. A great puzzle!
15a, yes I started with DESSICATE, then DESCICATE, then finally DESICCATE
1d, Who would ever have thought that BOUNCY CASTLE would appear in the Guardian crossword? Delightful!
Tramp @24 I hope you might get a buzz from hearing that I really enjoy your puzzles and hope you continue setting many more! 🙂