I think this is a debut puzzle by Ouroborus, so Welcome!. Dictionaries tell me that ouruboros means a representation of a serpent with its tail in its mouth, symbolizing completion, totality, endlessness, etc. This puzzle therefore may be tricky.
I reckon this was quite tricky with some quite complex wordplay. One example of this was the clue for announcer at 6 down which had six component parts if you treat news as new + new. I wonder how long Ouroborus played with words to come up with a string where the letters in the first 7 prime number positions spelled OBVERSE.
As well as being complex, the clue at 6 down hid the definition ‘MC’ very well, which makes it my clue of the day.
There was a good mix of clues that gave a reasonably quick foothold in the puzzle, such as those for SIBERIA and RELIC.
Solvers needed a good breadth of general knowledge to crack a few of the clues today, but I don’t think there was anything really obscure. PLIOCENE could be deduced fairly quickly from the anagram and the crossing letters.
When writing the blog, I was a bit surprised to find that the song American Pie by Don McLean was released 54 years ago.
Thanks to Ouroboros for an interesting first offering.
| No | Detail |
| Across | |
| 1 | Hear by means of vibration (4)
PURR (a contented sound generated by vibration) PURR (sounds like [hear] PER [by means of]) PURR |
| 3 | Cancer – not initially just a wild crab? (10)
CRUSTACEAN (a crab is a CRUSTACEAN) Anagram of (wild) CANCER and jUST excluding the first letter, J, [not initially] and A CRUSTACEAN* |
| 10 | Family-friendly parts of stars from the south (7)
AUSTRAL (southern; from the south) U (classification of a film suitable for viewing by people of any age; family friendly) contained in (parts) ASTRAL (of stars) A (U) STRAL |
| 11 | Car-free roads almost certainly carrying dull person back (7)
RUNWAYS (airport ‘roads’ from which aircraft take off and land; surfaces not generally used by cars) (SURe [certainly] excluding the final letter, E, [almost] containing [carrying] YAWN [dull person] reversed [back]) (RU (NWAY) S)< |
| 12 | Dealer up town smuggles blow (5)
ERUPT (of a volcano, to blow [emit a forceful explosion]) ERUPT (hidden word in [smuggles] dealER UP Town) ERUPT |
| 13 | Got to work with limited time (8)
COMMUTED (travelled to work; got to work) COMMUTED (reduced [limited] the length of a judicial sentence) double definition COMMUTED |
| 15 | Sea captain’s log showing location of hidden treasure? (8,7)
OFFSHORE ACCOUNT (a financial holding in an overseas territory where it is possible to maintain secrecy of ownership and value of the money in the account; hidden treasure) OFFSHORE (a sea captain will be OFFSHORE when working) + ACCOUNT (descriptive report; log) cryptic definition OFFSHORE ACCOUNT |
| 19 | Make pear juice for meeting? (5,10)
PRESS CONFERENCE (a meeting of a public personage with the press for making an announcement or to answer questions) PRESS (squeeze) + CONFERENCE (a type of pear), together describing how to make pear juice PRESS CONFERENCE |
| 20 | Penile fractures getting caught after old age (8)
PLIOCENE (an epoch [age] of the Tertiary period following the Miocene epoch) Anagram of (fractures) PENILE containing (getting) (O [old] + [after] C [caught]) PLI (O C) ENE* |
| 23 | Had sex, I understand (3,2)
GOT IT (I understand) GOT (had) + IT (sex) GOT IT |
| 25 | Job I view is reserved in prime positions for heads (7)
OBVERSE (the side of a coin bearing the head; heads) OBVERSE (letters in position 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 and 17 [the first seven prime numbers] in the phrase jOB i ViEw is ReServEd) OBVERSE |
| 26 | Cold region of southern Spain and Portugal (7)
SIBERIA (cold region of the world) S (southern) + IBERIA (Spain and Portugal) S IBERIA |
| 27 | Senior has problem with intellect (4,6)
GREY MATTER (intelligence or common sense; intellect) GREY (middle-aged or old; senior) + MATTER (problem) GREY MATTER |
| 28 | Regret switching hands on golf stick (4)
GLUE (stick) G (Golf is the international radio communication code for the letter G) + RUE (regret) with the letter R (right hand) changing to (switching) L (left hand) G LUE |
| Down | |
| 1 | Ace coppers working for humanitarians (5,5)
PEACE CORPS (in the USA and various other countries, a government agency that sends volunteers to developing countries to help with agricultural, technological and educational schemes; humanitarians) Anagram of (working) ACE COPPERS PEACE CORPS* |
| 2 | Engineers start to sand, fit last two components of mantle and rearrange cabinet (9)
RESHUFFLE (reassign members of the Cabinet to different positions or move them out altogether and bring new people in) RE (Royal Engineers) + S (first letter of [start to] Sand) + HUFF (fit [of anger of sulks]) + LE (final two letters [last two components] of mantLE) RE S HUFF LE |
| 4 | Priest interrupts Roman Catholic memorial (5)
RELIC (memorial of antiquity or object of historic interest;) ELI (Biblical priest mentioned in the Book of Samuel – one of crossword land’s favourite priests) contained in (interrupts) RC (Roman Catholic) R (ELI) C |
| 5 | Player in the middle of team, namely Fulham, runs all over the place (5-4)
SCRUM-HALF (player in the middle of a Rugby Union team, position between the forwards and the backs) SC (scilicet, latin for namely) + an anagram of (all over the place) FULHAM and R (runs) SC RUM HALF* |
| 6 | M C Escher’s gutted after a news column regularly holds suspicion of copying (9)
ANNOUNCER (Master of Ceremonies [MC]) (A + [N {new} + N {new} giving news] + OUN [letters 2, 4 and 6 {regularly} of cOlUmN] + ER [letters remaining in EscheR when the central letters SCHE are removed {gutted}]) all containing C (first letter of [suspicion of] Copying) A N N OUN (C) ER |
| 7 | Times editor’s beginning to strike (5)
ERASE (scrape out; strike out) ERAS (times) + E (first letter of [beginning] Editor) ERAS E |
| 8 | Snoopy‘s very big in New York (4)
NOSY (snoopy) OS (outsize [very big]) contained in (in) NY (New York) N (OS) Y |
| 9 | Order one to infiltrate right after onset of war (4)
WRIT (a written document by which one is summoned or required to do, or refrain from doing, something; order) W (first letter of [onset of] War) + (I [Roman numeral for one] contained in [to infiltrate] RT [right]) W R (I) T |
| 14 | Trees meant to be chopped up to reveal writing on road sign (6,4)
STREET NAME (example of writing on a road sign) Anagram of (to be chopped up) TREES MEANT STREET NAME* |
| 16 | Maybe Robbie’s upset following his chart (9)
HISTOGRAM (example of a chart) HIS + MARGOT (reference the Australian actress MARGOT Robbie [born 1990]) reversed (upset) HIS TOGRAM< |
| 17 | US President‘s grave about to be robbed by liberal, source claims (9)
ROOSEVELT ROOT (source) containing (claims) SEVEre (grave) with RE (with reference to; about) replaced by (robbed by) L (Liberal) ROO (SEVE L) T |
| 18 | Strange peacekeepers catch the sun when travelling up river (9)
UNNATURAL (strange) UN (United Nations [peacekeepers] + TAN (catch the sun) reversed (when travelling up; down entry) + URAL (river flowing through Russia and Kazakhstan in the continental border between Europe and Asia) UN NAT< URAL |
| 21 | Place for Don McLean’s car – Cybertruck, perhaps – in shelter? (5)
LEVEE (reference the lyrics to American Pie sung by Don McLean [born 1945], which include ‘So, bye-bye, Miss American Pie, Drove my Chevy to the LEVEE, but the LEVEE was dry; place for Don McLean’s car [Chevrolet; Chevy) EV (Electric Vehicle, a cybertruck is an EV) contained in (in) LEE (shelter) L (EV) EE |
| 22 | Follow around, nearly unseen (5)
ENSUE (follow) Anagram of (around) UNSEEn excluding the final letter (nearly) N ENSUE* |
| 23 | Turn on live broadcast of desert (4)
GOBI (a large, cold desert and grassland region in North China and southern Mongolia. It is the sixth-largest desert in the world) GO (turn as in ‘it’s your GO‘ [it’s your turn]) + BI (sounds like [broadcast] of BE [exist; live]) GO BI |
| 24 | Pine hedged back by magnolia (4)
LONG (yearn; pine) LONG (reversed [back] hidden word in [hedged by] maGNOLia) LONG< |
Superb debut, if such it is. The 15-letter solutions at 15(ac), 19(ac), are very pleasing.
I’m afraid M C ( Escher ) jumped out at me, so ANNOUNCER 6(d), went in without reading the wordplay: which is darned annoying for a setter. In the clue, “suspicion of” is a new indicator ( to me) for the first letter, and it’s a nice one.
That Snoopy clue ( NOSY) 8(d) rings a bell from recently, but such things happen.
I can’t fault this puzzle, no quibbles, no obscurities, great surfaces, original solutions. The toughie for me was PURR, at 1(ac); but another well-crafted clue.
Big thumbs-up, Ouroboros + Duncan
Liked AUSTRAL, OFFSHORE ACCOUNT, OBVERSE, SCRUM-HALF and ANNOUNCER (for the use of ‘suspicion’).
Thanks Ouroboros and Duncan.
Thanks both. I enjoyed this for some of its novel devices. LEVEE was a write-in but potentially evasive if you don’t know the song
Not as difficult as our blogger feared on seeing the name of the new setter but very elegant.
Smooth surfaces throughout.
A range of difficulty levels made it easy to (almost) complete though I found PURR too difficult as I was stuck on the idea of PER_ as the way to go. I loved it though once I saw the answer!
Thanks all.
How could one not know such a high-earning actress as Margot R in 16d? Well, never watched Neighbours, and while I did see Mary QoS, I didn’t remember Ms Robbie. Hey ho. Welcome Ouroboros and thx duncan.
Very enjoyable
Thanks to Ouroboros and Duncan
@gratinfreo. What, you never watched Barbie? For shame! Personally, I best remember her from the Suicide Squad films.
Welcome Ouroborus. A great first puzzle. Thanks.
This was right up my street, one of my quickest ever grid fills for a regular cryptic I think! Alas I was beaten by the parsing of ROOSEVELT though, as I had got fixated on VET being to “source claims” and hence didn’t see SEVE[RE] nor have any other idea about “grave”. To my shame, I also failed to twig the lovely cryptic definition of COMMUTE.
Some really fun constructions here, and I too am I’m awe of the prime positions achievement, producing a decent surface.
Faves were GLUE, RESHUFFLE, ANNOUNCER and, yes, ROOSEVELT.
Welcome, Ouroboros – bring on the next one!
Thanks both
Not nearly as terrifying as the setter’s name suggests but I made heavy work of this by not being able to get the long across clues before most the letters were in. Once they fell I found myself moving around the grid at some speed.
Liked LEVEE
Thanks Duncan and Ouroburus
Thanks Ouroboros, I thought this was great with favourites being RELIC, ERASE, NOSY, and LEVEE, the latter causing an instant earworm. Thanks duncanshiell for the blog.
Finally got around to this after a busy Thursday. When I saw the setter’s name I immediately thought of the Red Dwarf episode of the same name, which is all about the creation of a paradox – an endless circle of life.
Needed help parsing ROOSEVELT, but otherwise all good.
LEVEE reminds me of the time long before the internet when I was asked to write down the lyrics of American Pie for an Italian lad who was visiting. It was a fair stab for a young naïve Englishman!
Thanks Ouroboros and duncanshiell