Goliath is on top form with this puzzle.
Fabulous fun.
ACROSS
1. Clever bit is to drink whisky (6)
SHREWD
SHRED (bit) is to drink W (whisky, NATO alphabet)
4. State of wordplay just as bad to begin with (6)
PUNJAB
PUN (wordplay) + J[ust] A[s] B[ad] (to begin with)
8. Say why following pointer is not thorough (7)
CURSORY
“Y” (why, “say”) following CURSOR (pointer)
9. My kind of moulding (7)
CORNICE
11. Regulator’s improper threat to incarcerate the majority (10)
THERMOSTAT
THREAT* (*improper) to incarcerate MOST (the majority)
12. On the way back, touch brass (4)
TUBA
ABUT< (touch, <on the way back)
13. A hundred bullets ricocheted, (5)
COMMA
C (a hundred, Roman) + AMMO< (bullets, <ricocheted)
14. Jagger, say, welcomed as a nonconformist (8)
MAVERICK
MICK (Jagger); AVER (say) welcomed
16. What tyre can be indeed (8)
DEFLATED
FLAT (what tyre can be) in DEED – &lit
18. Gangster hiding ale? That’s chicken (5)
CAPON
[al] CAPON[e] (gangster, hiding ALE)
20. Prison coverage not over (4)
CAGE
21. Proposal includes one barrel as incentive (10)
MOTIVATION
MOTION (proposal) includes 1 VAT (one barrel)
23. Some thought it a nice ship (7)
TITANIC
[though]T IT A NIC[e] (some)
24. Distillery discarding DIY dodgy framework (7)
TRELLIS
[di]STILLER[y]* (*dodgy, discarding DIY)
25. Modern song on the radio lacking coverage (6)
NUDITY
“NEW DITTY” (modern song, “on the radio”)
26. Starter is able to mimic (6)
CANAPE
CAN (is able to) + APE (mimic)
DOWN
1. Be quiet! Be quiet! Be quiet! That includes you at the back! (5)
SHUSH
SH (be quiet) + SH (be quiet) that includes [yo]U (at the back)
2. Sort out unusual platform (7)
ROSTRUM
SORT* (*out) + RUM (unusual)
3. Fine argument over wind installation (4,2,3)
WORK OF ART
(OK (fine) + ROW< (argument))< (<over) + FART (wind)
5. Vessel about to change course (1-4)
U-BOAT
ABOUT* (*to change course)
6. Start of year with rising rubbish? He’ll clear it up (7)
JANITOR
JAN 1 (start of year) with ROT< (rubbish, <rising) – semi &lit
7. Support artist getting some breakfast (4,5)
BACK BACON
BACK (support) + BACON (artist)
Referring to Francis Bacon, famous 20th century painter
10. Thanks politician involved in study to reform tax (5,4)
STAMP DUTY
(TA (thanks) + MP (politician)) involved in STUDY* (*to reform)
13. Woman’s heart in the beginning of it all, and the end for some (9)
CREMATION
[wo]M[an] (heart) in CREATION (the beginning of it all)
15. Wild raves after debauchery? The other way round (4,5)
VICE VERSA
RAVES* (*wild) after VICE (debauchery?)
17. Small rise in fat downwind (7)
LEEWARD
WEE< (small, <rise) in LARD (fat)
19. Start to tuck into Spanish dish to find a bone (7)
PATELLA
T[uck] (start) into PAELLA (Spanish dish)
21. Communist not a wet (5)
MOIST
M[a]OIST (communist, not A)
22. One out of six is sheepish (5)
OVINE
ONE out of VI (six, Roman)
The sun is sparkling on the sea as I take the ferry to a waterfront cafe: the perfect setting for completing a typically playful – and gleefully silly – puzzle from Goliath.
All’s well with the world!
Ticks: CURSORY, WORK OF ART, COMMA (almost missed it), TITANIC, BACK BACON, VICE VERSA and that novel tune at 25A!
Great stuff.
Thanks to Goliath and Oriel (didn’t think you’d tarry long with the blog as it was short and very sweet).
Superb puzzle. No gripes at all and plenty of laugh out loud moments. Loved capon, cage, nudity, vice versa, but most of all, moist.
I completed it clockwise, working from PUNJAB down the right, got stuck on NUDITY for a while (I was sure it was something to do with radio lacking coverage, -adi-) and finished with SHREWD.
Do I see a slight alcohol theme? Whisky, vat, distillery, ale? Any more?
Never heard of BACK BACON. Google tells me it’s a UK thing. I didn’t like the clue for DEFLATED, although I can see why some might think it’s clever. Otherwise most enjoyable.
What a delightful romp! More clues left unticked than ticked and at least half a dozen raised more than a smile – certainly too many to list.
Huge thanks to Goliath and lucky Oriel for a splendid start to the day.
Most enjoyable with lots of lovely puns.
The answer to 19d is an old favourite,once memorably clued as « two girls , one on each knee ».
Thanks Goliath and Oriel.
Liked DEFLATED, SHUSH, WORK OF ART, VICE VERSA and OVINE.
COMMA
Does the surface demand a COMMA there?
Liked the clue, though.
Thanks Goliath and Oriel.
GDU@4: I’m with you on DEFLATED. A lot of people like this so-called lift-and-separate device, but not me. You have to rewrite the clue to arrive at what the setter really means. Mind you, when I see ‘indeed’ in a clue these days I’m alert to what it might signify.
GDU @4, it might be what in Oz we call rib bacon, as distinct from shoulder which has less ‘eye’ and more streaky rasher.
btw couldn’t/shouldn’t 15d be clued as “Debauchery after wild raves? The other way round (4,5)”
giving “versa vice” then putting the other way around to get the answer? just sayin’
Great puzzle.
Why aren’t they all like this in the financial times?
I’ve been doing fewer of late because I find myself no longer enjoying many of them (bobcat being a prime example recently).
Thanks Goliath and Oriel
Loved it!
JP @ 10 Seems to me that either your clue lacks a definition or “The other way round” is doing double duty.
James P @10. Personally, I wouldn’t like that double duty for 15d. ‘The other way around’ is best left for the definition and not also used in wordplay.
Simon, you just beat me.
Thanks Goliath for a top-notch crossword. I ticked THERMOSTAT, MAVERICK, DEFLATED, TITANIC (COTD), WORK OF ART, CREMATION, & VICE VERSA as favourites but there wasn’t a clue I didn’t like. Thanks Oriel for the blog.
Agree 100% with Moly @11
Lovely crossword today with just 1 that I got but couldn’t parse entirely.
Not one ridiculous obscurity in it thank god.
Thoroughly enjoyable! I shall keep this as an example for newbies
of great compiling. Thanks Goliath.
I thought this was the best puzzle this year. Really enjoyed it. Thank you Goliath and all.
Back bacon is a thing here in Canada as well.
Why aren’t they all like this in the FT? Because Goliath doesn’t set all the puzzles. And what’s wrong with that? It’s true that I can’t have enough of Goliath/Philistine, but variety….
Favourites for me were the life cycle at 13d from birth to death, the licentious parties at 15d, and 25a, which conjured up the great Canadian pop group, the Bare Naked Ladies. 1d SHUSH was also a fun reminder of unruly schooldays.
Thanks Goliath and Oriel for the great puzzle and blog.
Cor! Nice! Having given up on a particularly evil Paul in today’s Guardian, I was delighted to discover this lovely Goliath instead. Too many good ones to list, from SHUSH to LEEWARD, and a Mick Jagger reference as a bonus. Annoyed at how long it took me to spot TITANIC, and I thought the breakfast clue started with BRA(support) until I solved CORNICE.
Poor show, Moly@11. Disparaging other setters implicitly (in this case, one very sound setter explicitly) without giving concrete evidence is not what this site is about.
It might have been more useful (and helpful to beginners learning from such blogs) to stick to factual comments, eg: ‘whisky’ should be ‘whiskEy’ at 1ac; ‘say’ should be ‘said’ at 8a; ‘out of’ means ‘not included within’ which is not the same as the ‘physically around’ required at 22dn — ‘I am out of the loop‘ does not mean ‘I am enclosing the loop‘; ‘rise’ should be ‘raised’ or ‘rising’ at 17dn; ‘to reform’ should be ‘reformed’ at 10dn; etc.
Caper Cluesader @20 – Whiskey refers to Irish whiskey in British English; the British version of the NATO phonetic alphabet uses alpha and whisky – although it’s a bit of a search to find it, as Wikipedia and other sources default to American English spellings.
I also disagree that 8A, 10D and 17D are incorrect, the instructions are clear and I find Goliath’s surfaces so good some slight variations to provide the entertainment are forgiveable. I would suggest following your suggestions would make the clue surfaces clunky and the word play boringly obvious.
I really loved this, didn’t post earlier as I didn’t get to start solving it until waiting for the sleeper train north.
Shanne@21 – Collins, Chambers and ODE, in which UK crosswordese is predominantly verified, all contain only whiskey for W in the NATO phonetic alphabet, (all of) which SOED curiously excludes. The relevant wikipedia page has, inter alia, “The 26 code words are as follows (ICAO spellings) … Whiskey …”, though there does seem to be an inconsistency here with the ICAO table further down the page. So I think we can agree that the extra “e” is indeed required within the context of a UK broadsheet.
The examples listed (along with others, eg the terminal floating comma at 13ac) do indeed have grammatically incorrect parsings, whether or not one finds them clear; effectively, by a mixture of intuition and guesswork. That is, although some solvers are able to guess what was intended, such clues don’t actually say what they mean to those — the many beginners/newbies who stand to benefit the most from such online discussion — who lack your intuition and experience.
Re your suggestion, I wasn’t implying that the suggested replacements were adopted verbatim, as that would indeed make the surfaces very strange. Rather, that clues with good surfaces should preferably (and invariably can) be constructed within the constraints of grammatically air-tight orchestration of wordplay that is anything but “boringly obvious”. For the Ximenean fraternity, that’s where the real fun (and admiration for the setter) lies: cracking a clue that is a seemingly normal sentence that in plain sight masks an intricate, meticulously precise, and grammatically sound instruction that on first reading may seem anything but.
Poor show, and rude, from you, Crusader.
Good job, we don’t know each other because I’m certain I wouldn’t like you.
Over the years I’ve given plenty of examples what I don’t like. And tons of what I do And strangely, it often upsets people when I’m unequivocal in my dislike. Because I don’t think this site is should only be about sycophancy
And I often like Bobcat, which if you visited regularly, you would know.
Moly@23, your original comment was a “poor show” because you took the exceptional and entirely unnecessary decision to disparage one setter within the blog of a puzzle by another. Your latest retort, implying that this somehow balances out site sycophancy, neither remotely nor logically excuses that unqualified slight.
On which note you have “previous” (see Moly#13) of attacking Bobcat without qualification, on that occasion being called out (see Rudolf#14) for comments (the valedictory one, particularly offensive) that were “insulting to the setter and fail to comply with site policy”. Rudolf’s defence of Bobcat, tantamount to my comment above, was that “every clue complies with the Ximenean principles of fairness, and I challenge you to provide actual evidence to the contrary”. You never rose to that challenge.
It’s not a question of saying what you don’t like — that’s cheap and easy — but rather of giving concrete reasons for why you don’t like what you don’t like, which is effectively echoing the gist of the site policy. Constructive criticism is always welcome, but throwaway negativity — and snippy personal retorts worthy of the kindergarten — serve no purpose. Over and out.