Crosophile is here to entertain us in the Tuesday slot this week.
Our setter seems to have been looking in the dustier corners of the dictionary for abbreviations – there are a couple here that I wouldn’t have recognised, but they were guessable. I liked the appropriately “dotty” umlaut (two dots over a vowel in German) and the choir members rearranging the furniture; my favourite was the delightfully misleading adjustable chair found on the web.
A Tuesday theme started to appear as I solved this: there are a number of British TV comedies, mostly sitcoms (but not all). In no particular order we have ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS, The GOOD LIFE, The LIKELY LADS, DAD’S ARMY, [d]RIPPING YARNS, RED DWARF, RISING DAMP, SPACED and (Monty) PYTHON, with a guest appearance from The YOUNG ONES in the clue text. As themes go, this one has a very wide range of possible entries; if there’s a more specific link between the ones we have here, you’ll have to point it out to me. Thanks Crosophile for the fun.
Definitions are underlined; BOLD UPPERCASE indicates letters used in the wordplay; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.
| ACROSS | ||
| 6 | PLACEBO |
Locate bad smell for questionable treatment (7)
|
| PLACE (locate = to work out where something is) + BO (abbreviation for body odour = bad smell).
A “medicine” that doesn’t contain any active ingredients, but might work just because the patient thinks it will. |
||
| 7 | PYTHON |
Snake around much of The Prancing Pony (6)
|
| TH[e] without the last letter (much of . . .), with an anagram (prancing) of PONY around it. | ||
| 8 | MUTUAL |
Umlaut’s dotty on both sides (6)
|
| Anagram (dotty = crazy) of UMLAUT. | ||
| 9 | DRIPPING |
Fat duke’s tearing off (8)
|
| D (abbreviation for duke) + RIPPING (tearing off, or perhaps more usually tearing apart).
The fat that escapes from meat during roasting. |
||
| 10 | ABSOLUTELY |
Quite skilfully packaging instrument on special order (10)
|
| ABLY (skilfully), containing (packaging) LUTE (a musical instrument) after SO (abbreviation for special order, according to the dictionaries).
Quite = absolutely = an expression of strong agreement. |
||
| 12 | ARMY |
A lot of men in farmyard (4)
|
| Hidden answer (in . . .) in [f]ARMY[ard].
Well, not necessarily just men these days . . . but “men” is general army terminology for soldiers. |
||
| 13 | DADS |
Mixed-up loveless saddo – they have issues with women (4)
|
| Anagram (mixed-up) of SADD[o] without the O (zero = love in tennis scoring).
Issues = children or later descendants, as in the legal term “died without issue”. |
||
| 15 | YARNS |
Stories for instance, going back, enthralling a lot of sailors (5)
|
| SAY (for instance), reversed (going back), including (enthralling) RN (abbreviation for Royal Navy = a lot of sailors).
Yarn = a long and involved story, which may not be entirely true. |
||
| 17 | RENT |
Split money for accommodation (4)
|
| Double definition. Split, as a noun = rent = a tear in fabric; or rent = money paid for accommodation. | ||
| 18 | LADS |
Young Ones dressed up as nothing short of old (4)
|
| Anagram (dressed up) of AS + [o]LD, without the O (zero = nothing). | ||
| 20 | RISING DAMP |
A problem with the wet amid spring dances (6,4)
|
| Anagram (. . . dances) of AMID SPRING.
Moisture from the ground that rises through the walls of a building. |
||
| 22 | SHRAPNEL |
Product of explosive shell part, no ends missing (8)
|
| Anagram (product of explosive . . .) of SHEL[l] PAR[t] N[o], with the end letters of all three words missing.
I think this is intended as a clue-as-definition, but I can’t see what “no ends missing” contributes to the definition. |
||
| 24 | SEWAGE |
Half of rise added to income? – refuse to get carried away (6)
|
| Half of [ri]SE + WAGE (money paid for work = income).
Refuse, as a noun = waste; sewage = foul waste water that is carried away in pipes for treatment. |
||
| 25 | LIKELY |
Promising a flower to border most of famous garden (6)
|
| LILY (a flower), around (bordering) KE[w] (Kew Gardens = botanic garden in London) without the last letter (most of . . .).
Promising = likely = descriptive of someone or something expected to do well. |
||
| 26 | FUNERAL |
Sombre event’s gone wild outside one local (7)
|
| FERAL (descriptive of a formerly domesticated animal that has gone wild) around ‘UN (northern English dialect for “one”, as in “wrong ‘un” = a local version of “one”; or perhaps our setter was thinking of un = French for “one”). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FABULOUS |
Wonderful bananas of usual breadth (8)
|
| Anagram (bananas = crazy) of OF USUAL + B (abbreviation for breadth, according to the dictionaries). | ||
| 2 | JEALOUSY |
In Versailles I initially abhorred miserable envy (8)
|
| JE (French for “I”, as in the French palace of Versailles = “I in Versailles”) + initial letter of A[bhorred] + LOUSY (slang for very unsatisfactory = miserable).
Originally envy and jealousy were slightly different concepts, but in modern usage the distinction seems to have been lost. (Envy = something belongs to you, and I want it; jealousy = something belongs to me, and I don’t want you to have it.) |
||
| 3 | GOOD |
Benign deity full of love (4)
|
| GOD (deity) containing O (zero = love in tennis scoring). | ||
| 4 | UTOPIA |
An ideal place for everyone, the best current answer (6)
|
| U (film classification certificate meaning “suitable for everyone to view”) + TOP (the best) + I (scientific symbol for electrical current) + A (abbreviation for answer).
An imaginary perfect place to live, from the title of a 15th-century book by Thomas More. |
||
| 5 | TOWNSMAN |
Urban guy wants money up front? No, that’s dodgy (8)
|
| Anagram (that’s dodgy) of WANTS + M + NO, where M = first letter (up front) of M[oney]. | ||
| 6 | PLUMB |
Spot on fruit we gather (5)
|
| Sound-alike (we gather = we hear) of PLUM (a fruit).
As in “plumb centre” = exactly = spot on. |
||
| 7 | PRIVY |
Peer is with four in lavatory (5)
|
| PRY (peer, as a verb = look closely at something), containing (with . . . in) IV (four in Roman numerals). | ||
| 11 | EUROS |
Sex god accepts universal currency (5)
|
| EROS (ancient Greek god of love and sex) containing U (abbreviation for universal).
Currency in many European countries. |
||
| 14 | ARACHNID |
Adjustable chair – and it might be found on the web (8)
|
| Anagram (adjustable) of CHAIR AND.
Scientific term for a range of creatures including spiders, which spin webs. |
||
| 16 | SINGSONG |
Table tennis after two sopranos push out pianos for choral revel (8)
|
| [p]ING[p]ONG (another name for table tennis), with two S (abbreviation for soprano) instead of the two P (p = abbreviation for Italian piano = musical term for quiet).
Singsong = a session of communal singing for pleasure. |
||
| 17 | RED DWARF |
Star on the left with density rising far off (3,5)
|
| RED (slang for politically on the left), then W + D (abbreviations for with and density) reversed (rising = upwards in a down clue), then an anagram (off) of FAR.
Red dwarf = a small faint star. |
||
| 19 | SPACED |
Increased intervals between square and measured steps (6)
|
| S (abbreviation for square) + PACED (measured steps = estimated a distance by counting the steps walked to cover it).
Space, as a verb = to move things further apart. |
||
| 20 | RUNNY |
Liquid nitrogen stored in broken urn – ultimately leaky (5)
|
| N (chemical symbol for nitrogen) in an anagram (broken) of URN, then the last letter (ultimately) of [leak]Y.
Runny = description of something liquid, especially when one might expect it to be more solid; for example “runny honey” as opposed to the thicker “set honey”. |
||
| 21 | MOGUL |
Half-hearted Gollum could become this influential individual (5)
|
| Anagram (. . . could become) of GOL[l]UM with only one of the two middle letters (half the heart).
A rich and powerful business owner. |
||
| 23 | LIFE |
Prison island held by the French for endless sentence (4)
|
| IF (Île d’If = “island of If” = former prison island off the southern French coast) contained in LE (French for “the” = “the French”).
In principle (though not always in practice), “life” as a prison sentence means permanent imprisonment (without end). |
Spotted the theme in time for it to be useful with some of the two word sitcoms though I did not recognise SPACED and have only the vaguest memory of RIPPING YARNS. The dotty umlaut and the sex god were both nice and SING SONG is an amusing substitution.
Thanks both
Although possibly not intended to be part of the theme, UTOPIA is the name of an Australian comedy series.
Liked PYTHON, MUTUAL, DADS, LIKELY, UTOPIA and SINGSONG.
SHRAPNEL
As the blog says, it looks like an intended CAD. Someone will
explain how the def works, I think.
Thanks Crosophile and Quirister.
I took the definition in SHRAPNEL just to be “product of explosive” with the rest just being the wordplay. As others have said it doesn’t quite work as a CAD
Hounddog @4: yes, but then “explosive” (or “product of explosive”) has to do double duty as the anagram indicator, because there’s nothing else to suggest one.
A very entertaining puzzle and, had I spotted the theme I would have opted for SPACED (A sitcom I liked very much) instead of SPACES, which is grammatically as correct an answer as SPACED.
Otherwise all solved and parsed correctly and very much enjoyed.
Enjoyed this, and spotted the theme, although the heavy lifting had been done by then.. re SHRAPNEL, I must admit I gave it no thought until reading the blog! Having looked more closely at the mechanics, “no ends” works by itself to lose the ends of the fodder, so can we accept “missing” as an indicator? The contenders for anagram indicators are very wide ranging, and I have ceased to question them…
Thanks Crosophile n Quirister
Thanks both. My only complaint is that the high entertainment didn’t last so long. Similarly to the above, I had initially entered spaces for SPACED; dissimilarly to the above, I had spotted the theme and it assisted hugely, although the sitcom Spaced is the only one I don’t recognise.
Further to my stupid comment above (undrell@7), obviously “ends missing” is fairly essential to the mechanics of losing the end letters… I shall shut up now..
Hi. Thanks for the blog and comments.
Just to say, if you haven’t seen Spaced it’s one of my favourites and well worth looking out for. (Warning: I had to watch the first few minutes of episode one a few times before it started to make sense. It’s clever.] Written by Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson [now Hynes] who star with Nick Frost, Mark Heap and others, it’s directed by Edgar Wright with wonderfully creative visuals full of sly allusions to famous film moments. The Wright/Pegg/Frost trio went on to make the ‘Cornetto Trilogy’ [Hot Fuzz etc].
Thanks Crosophile for an enjoyable crossword. I knew there was a theme with GOOD LIFE, PYTHON, & AB FAB jumping out but again my GK did not go much further. The clues themselves were the treat for me with my favourites being PLACEBO, ABSOLUTELY, UTOPIA, and ANACHRID. Thanks Quirister for the blog.