Slightly tricky for a Monday puzzle, I thought, but with enough easy clues get going with. Thanks to Brummie.
| Across | ||||||||
| 1 | CAPE COD | US tourist area’s carbon copy hoax (4,3) C[arbon] + APE (copy) + COD (hoax) |
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| 5 | MITHRAS | Fun right to the end, like a god (7) MIRTH with the R moved to the end, plus AS (like) |
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| 9 | CLOUD | Could rocks darken? (5) COULD* |
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| 10 | ENGROSSED | Object about obscene gesture – finally arrested (9) GROSS + [gestur]E in END (object) |
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| 11 | DISHWASHER | Fit type used to be female’s kitchen aid (10) DISH (an attractive person, fit type) + WAS HER |
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| 12 | ORCA | A killer in the main section of motorcade (4) Hidden in motORCAde |
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| 14 | ELECTRIC FIRE | Vital sack for heater (8,4) ELECTRIC (exciting, vital) + FIRE (to sack) |
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| 18 | SUBCONTINENT | Bent on cuts in organisation, India? (12) (BENT ON CUTS IN)* |
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| 22 | ADONIS BLUE | American academic feels sad for flighty thing (6,4) A[merican] + DON (academic) + IS BLUE – the Adonis Blue is a butterfly |
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| 25 | BAMBOOZLE | Gull menagerie’s back in British promenade (9) Reverse of ZOO in B + AMBLE |
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| 26 | GEN UP | Brief from short officer on horseback (3,2) GEN[eral] + UP (on horseback) |
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| 27 | DILATOR | It expands crude oil trade endlessly (7) Anagram of OIL TRAD[e] |
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| 28 | YARDAGE | Police force decline to give area in imperial terms (7) YARD (Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan Police) + AGE (to decline) |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1 | CICADA | Agents interrupted by rogue, noisy male? (6) CAD (rogue) in CIA (agents) |
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| 2 | PROUST | Specialist Guardian/Telegraph leader writer (6) PRO (specialist) + US (The Guardian) + T[elegraph] |
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| 3 | CODSWALLOP | Junk and smack following fish south (10) COD + S + WALLOP |
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| 4 | DREGS | Explosive red gas without a residue (5) Anagram of RED GAS less A |
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| 5 | MAGNETRON | Microwave part (foreign – not German) (9) (NOT GERMAN)* |
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| 6,21 | TOOK ROOT | Purloined jumper and tracksuit top came to be settled (4,4) TOOK (purloined) + [kanga]ROO + T[racksuit] |
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| 7 | RESTRAIN | Check on stock (8) RE (on) + STOCK (strain, I think as in a strain of cattle etc) |
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| 8 | SAD-FACED | Like Pagliacci touching female star on date (3-5) SAD (touching) + F + ACE + D. Pagliacci is a sad-faced clown in the opera of the same name |
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| 13 | ICING SUGAR | On the radio, one croons ‘Darling’ which might be piped (5,5) Homophone of “I sing” (one croons) + SUGAR (darling) |
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| 15 | CÔTE D’AZUR | Resort area lawyer’s overwhelmed by ‘pathetic zero cut’ (4,5) DA (US lawyer) in (ZERO CUT)* |
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| 16 | ASCRIBED | Gave credit to a dead writer taking centre place (8) SCRIBE (writer) in A D |
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| 17 | ABNORMAL | Wayward sailor working up marines a lot at first (8) AB (sailor) + reverse of ON (working) + R[oyal] M[arines] + A L[ot] |
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| 19 | GLINKA | Bond in southern state – he scored! (6) LINK in GA (Georgia) |
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| 20 | KELPIE | Like breaking outside power with English spirit (6) P in LIKE* + E |
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| 23 | NEEDY | Poor Miss ‘Y’ (5) NEED (to miss) + Y |
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| 24 | DOLT | Wally gets told off (4) TOLD* |
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Agree with the blogger that this was tougher than usual for a Monday and all the better for that. The NE corner held out the longest though also had to find out what an ADONIS BLUE is. Liked MITHRAS, GLINKA and KELPIE. Wondered if ICING SUGAR gets piped or if it’s the icing that may contain the sugar, but I appreciated the surface. Thanks to Brummie and Andrew.
I wouldn’t try piping ICING SUGAR, piping is hard enough with icing. The CÔTE D’AZUR needs the circumflex accent for the checker to work.
Thank you to Andrew and Brummie.
Thanks Brummie and Andrew
I couldn’t see where the R came from in ABNORMAL, and don’t think it;s fair now it’s explained. A DNF in fact, as I had to reveal GEN – gen up not an expression I’ve ever heard.
There were several synonyms that had me scratching my head — dish/fit type ; electric/vital ; cod/hoax (British?) ; gull/bamboozle. I was introduced to a butterfly, kelpie as a spirit (I thought it was a dog), and GEN UP was not familiar. So plenty of broadening of my horizons, I guess.
I don’t always finish Brummie’s, but did today, which was nice.
I liked the neat construction of 22ac but had to google to explain it.
I enjoyed the carbon copy in 1ac – other ticks were for 5ac MITHRAS, 18ac SUBCONTINENT, 25ac BAMBOOZLE (a favourite word of mine), 2dn PROUST and 3dn CODSWALLOP (neat surface and another favourite word).
Thanks to Brummie and Andrew.
Like Tomsdad @1, I really struggled with the NE but got there in the end. ADONIS BLUE (nho) is one of those clues, where if you follow the instructions methodically, you will solve the clue. As I’ve said before, The Yard is only a small component of the Met, but it seems to get a pass in crossword land. Liked the tourist areas and CODSWALLOP. Great workout from one of my favourites.
Ta Brummie & Andrew.
Geoff @ 8.59 am (I am going to use time rather than post number from now on, since that can’t be retrospectively changed). I on the other hand discovered that kelpies are Australian sheep dogs! I also hadn’t heard of GEN UP, though it’s easily gettable. COD meaning fake is an adjective in my (British) vocabulary while hoax is usually a noun – but then there are hoax calls, so I suppose it works. I agree that there are some stretchy equivalences today (ENGROSSED=arrested was another) and I had to scratch about a bit to remember GLINKA, PROUST, MITHRAS and the ADONIS BLUE, but I enjoyed the slightly harder Monday.
The enumeration and punctuation of COTE D’AZUR caused some confusion with its unindicated apostrophe and the circumflex that the Guardian’s check button insists on, even though most people solving online have no way of inserting one. Oh well, it wasn’t a Prize so no harm done.
Thanks Brummie and Andrew.
gladys @ 9.23 am – thanks for the tip! 😉
28 across: No, no, no, no, no, no!!!! YARDAGE is a measure of distance not area.
There is an apostrophe in the COTE D’AZUR clue after zero cut — perhaps it was intended to be part of the anagram fodder? But yes, it probably would have been better as (4,1’4).
gladys @9:23 am on 13 Oct 2025… so am I. 🙂
KELPIE also caused me to pause as I knew it as more of a dog (Aussie) than a spirit. The dog that came with us when I came to Aus was described by the Australian vet as a kelpie cross although when she was gifted to my schoolteacher partner in England she was supposedly a German Shepherd/Labrador cross.
You can see Kelpies in action on ABC Iview, or find it on youtube searching for “abc kelpie muster dogs”
Is Côte the first time an accent was actually mandatory? Got quite a surprise when I did Check All, for typos, and the plain o in Cote disappeared!
simonc @9:31am on 13 Oct 2025….. No, no, no, no, no, no!!!! Chambers begs to differ…
yardage noun
1. The aggregate number of yards
2. The length, area or volume measured or estimated in linear, square or cubic yards
3. The cutting of coal at so much a yard
Geoff down Under @557 Kelpies are the Scottish equivalent of bunyips – and there’s also this pair in Falkirk. Kelpies are also one of the names Brownie (Girlguiding) sixes can use.
gladys and Eileen – you’ll probably find time doesn’t work. It shows the BST for us in the UK now, but I will bet good money that those in the US and Australia are seeing the time in their time zones. That’s certainly been my experience on other boards. Us Brits can use it to talk among ourselves, but it will make no sense to anyone else elsewhere.
Very difficult puzzle. Solved it very slowly, NE corner last where I was surprised to see COD in both 1ac and 3d.
Favourites: TOOK ROOT, PROUST.
New for me: ADONIS BLUE butterfly; MAGNETRON; GEN UP = inform (is that archaic? I never heard anyone say that); ELECTRIC FIRE (is this also archaic?). No problem with archaisms, just wondering!
Liked SUBCONTINENT, TOOK ROOT, ICING SUGAR and ABNORMAL.
CAPE COD
hoax=COD (both interchangeable as nouns as well as verbs, I think)
DREGS
(a nano point)
RED*+GAS less A
Thanks Brummie and Andrew.
No, Shanne, we see London times. In our winter we in eastern Australia are nine hours ahead, in our summer eleven hours, but right now, when both of us are in daylight saving, ten hours. So a bit of maths is required of us Antipodeans.
Thanks for the kelpie edification!
I was defeated right at the end by the intersecting MITHRAS – whom I have heard of but it did not come to mind – and SAD-FACED. Not heard of the opera or the character so really didn’t know what I was aiming for. I agree with Eileen in nominating BAMBOOZLE and CODSWALLOP but not SUBCONTINENT: a splendid spot for the fodder but, for me, let down by simply shoving in ‘organisation’ afterwards. I know there will be folk for whom it is sufficient but I’d prefer to see ‘organisation of’ or ‘with organisation’ if that word is going to do the job. It would have been easy to use a different anagrind: even ‘organising’ would have sufficed at a pinch.
Thanks Brummie and Andrew
Another who struggled ultimately with the NE corner, with the likes of the interconnected MITHRAS, MAGNETRON and ENGROSSED. Had to Google Pagliacci as I am by no means an opera buff. But generally a satisfying solve with SUBCONTINENT and BAMBOOZLE the picks for me this morning…
PostMark@577
SUBCONTINENT
I got carried away 🙂
Agree with you.
I now also concur with PM re SUBCONTINENT. 😉
Shanne @9:45am on 13 Oct 2005, as GDU says time works fine. It’s coming up to 8:05 pm AEST which is 10:05 am UK time. I suspect the site uses UTC.
Can I take the bet? 🙂
[Less so in the West. GDU @9.50, where we have survived three daylight saving referenda (evening is what we need after a baking hot, blinding bright Perth day, not yet another baking hot blinding bright hour!)]
I didn’t need the circumflex. Has the Grauniad changed it since the complaints?
I can recall once before seeing an accented letter but I can’t remember the details.
Interesting that a number of folk are unfamiliar with “gen up” but I am sure I’ve seen “gen” = “knowledge” pretty often.
Definitely chewier than expected for a Monday. I also did not like “yardage” for area in spite of Chambers. And AlanC @#561 as always has useful inside knowledge on the Met – my only justification for this would be that the usage is a synechdoche, like using “Number 10” for “government”, however technically inaccurate that might be. A big “however” though – I know I get riled when people tell me that some incorrectly used physics term is “close enough for them” so please tell me if this won’t do!
Many thanks Brummie and Andrew
Yes, the Guardian check is now accepting my un-accented O where it wasn’t before.
I know gen=knowledge, but not that particular phrase.
I didn’t see the circumflex either, so I assume they did change it Lyssian @10.11.
This was more than slightly tricky for a Monday puzzle, so – albeit with a bit of help with a handful – it was satisfying to complete. I’m yet to go through some of the parsings that escaped me, but the only thing I didn’t particularly like was the repetition of COD: it held me up for a while on CODSWALLOP as I didn’t think it would be duplicated so close to CAPE COD.
Really liked SUBCONTINENT.
I need an espresso on a Monday morning not a sledgehammer!A lot of obscurities like Adonis Blue,Glinka,Mithras etc.Not enjoyable!
Failed on COTE DAZUR (DA=’lawyer’ should perhaps indicate an Americanism).
I frowned at ‘stock’=STRAIN, but I can just about see it (‘of what stock are those cattle?’).
I’m old enough to remember the excitement caused by the discovery, when I was at school, of the Temple of MITHRAS – a hitherto unknown god to me and many others at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Mithraeum
For Motown fans, pagliacci also gets a mention in Smokey Robinson’s “Tears of a clown”
Great crossword for a Monday thanks all
I heard that Kelpies, (Australian sheep dogs), were all descended from one collie bitch called Kelpie.
You can be a Kelpie in the Brownies, they are Scottish fairies, I think.
Very nice puzzle , thanks everyone. Had to Google Pagliacci, that one seems to have passed me by, although it seems it is a well-known opera
Shirley@605 who can forget Smokey Robinson-he wrote it too.
Putting accents in clues is opening a can of çwérms
1dn was a write-in for me since Pasquale used basically the same clue in #29,820. Apart from that, a nice challenging puzzle. Thank you Brummie and Andrew.
Anyone who grew up reading Heros the Spartan in the Eagle comic will have been familiar with MITHRAS from a young age — Heros (who was born Spartan but was brought up as a Roman) was given to exclaiming “By Mithras!”. Comics can be educational!
Very enjoyable puzzle. Many thanks Brummie and Andrew.
Another here who found this harder than usual Monday fare, and who had most difficulty in the NE, with the crossing MITHRAS and SAD-FACED being my last ones in. (The former was a semi-jorum, and the latter could have been anything-FACED for me, and my cursory google of the opera name didn’t reveal there was a character of that name, and implied rather the opposite!)
Omitting the apostrophe from the enumeration is Guardian style, IIRC.
I most enjoyed the straightforward but sweet ORCA and ADONIS BLUE.
Thanks both
Never ever come across use of “gull” to mean bamboozle, and I wonder if I ever shall again? Some difficult ones for me, and as soon as I spotted “he scored” I knew this would be associated with the mysterious and fantastical world of sports, with much clicking of the check button.
Eileen @10.57; Mithras is the reason that we celebrate Christmas on Dec 25th – it’s Mithras’s Day. But for a Roman emperor, we might all be praying to Mithras still. Yes, a little trickier than Vulcan. I liked MITHRAS, which was fun at the end, the MAGNETRON anagram spot, the piped darling for ICING SUGAR, and the wayward sailor who was ABNORMAL (not John Major’s wife this time).
Thanks Brummie and Andrew.
I start on the mobile app and migrate the the PC if time demands. The circumflex was required on the phone (just hold the “O” button and one is offered all possible accents) but not on the PC. I see from later comments the requirement was removed anyway.
I had the same reaction as Tomsdad @1 to piping ICING SUGAR and the same as Eileen @5 to ADONIS BLUE.
This was a good puzzle, not too hard but a decent workout. Google gave me an image of Pavarotti instead of a sad clown for Pagliacci, so I read a synopsis of the opera which did not provide much assistance. I had heard the term before and will remember from now on!
Mithras is one of those gods whose story had some crossover with the nativity, although I won’t fall into the trap of saying any more than that. It is also the name of a tired looking brick building at Brighton University which I have visited on occasion. I jumped to MAGNETRON in a way I couldn’t have done without watching Professor Hannah Fry’s (mostly appropriate) Genius of Modern Life series with my son.
Thanks Brummie, Andrew, Ken and fellow commenters.
Tricky for a Monday. NHO ADONIS BLUE, although it was fairly clued, nor GLINKA, so the SE held me up. I feel like we have had KELPIE and CICADA recently in other puzzles?
Dansk404 @12.06pm My (limited) experience is that in Guardian cryptics, any reference to score is an intentional misdirect and refers to a composer.
Gladys @10.16am I usually see it in the form “gen up on”. It feels like “gen” comes up a lot in Guardian cryptics?
Agree with Andrew’s assessment that this was harder than you’d expect on a Monday, you certainly don’t anticipate obscure Russian composers and butterflies to feature. GEN UP was also new to me though not hard to solve. I always have trouble with Brummie (my fault I’m sure).
Thanks to B & A.
Thanks both,
Yardage is not the only length that can be used as an area. Allotments are measured in ‘rods’. What is meant is a square rod. A rod is 5.5 yards, or a quarter of a chain. A chain is the length of a cricket pitch. An acre is a chain by ten chains, which is a sensible way of measuring fields.
In crossword land I shouldn’t be surprised to find GEN UP negative (briefly). Odd how the Yard is in yardage, but the Met is in metre. PostMark et al, I think organisation works ok if we can read it as a compound noun as in “an orchestra organisation could be a chestnut”, but I agree it’s a bit of a stretch for a longish phrase like “bent on cuts in”.
the kelpies at Falkirk are well kent in this part of the world
Thanks for that. I liked 17d A lot going on.
I found this one really tough, especially for a Monday, so satisfying to complete. West went in readily enough, but I really struggled with the East. I almost gave up, but the NE gradually gave way (5a MITHRAS, 10a ENGROSSED, 8d SAD-FACED), and finally the SE, with several crossing nho’s, 22a ADONIS BLUE, 26a GEN UP, 20d KELPIE. At least I knew 19d GLINKA!
Yes, in Canada I see the British time stamps. Always fun to see myself commenting at 3am!
grantinfreo@23 10:11, I was living in Perth the first time daylight saving was tried! 90-91
Thanks both!
TimC @22 – this is the day I have all the plastic coins home to sort for tonight’s Rainbows, so you might not like the sort of money I have to hand!
And an Adonis blue for those who’ve not heard of them. (I don’t currently live within their range, so I’m only juggling common and holly blues, but when I did live within their area there were three small blue butterflies to try and identify.)
Yup, for me, BAMBOOZLE and CODSWALLOP were faves, and although not meaning the same, had a similar feel to them, so great to see them together.
The ô is still required on my tablet, despite having just refreshed. It’s just a bonkers mistake by the Grauniad team, but a little surprising it passed testing. They do test these, don’t they? Oh.
If you can, visit the London Mithraeum referenced by Eileen@30; I did so 18 months ago, it is a short visit but very educational. There are others all around the old Roman empire.
Pagliacci is the name of the opera, not a character – the main character’s name is Canio.
But Pagliacci is also the Italian word for clowns so you could ignore the opera connection altogether?
I like the precise use of “southern state” for GLINKA as there were only two states that would fit the crossers and GLINKA seemed the more likely
My mum would often encourage me to GEN UP on a subject but that meant research / learn rather than brief but probably close enough
BAMBOOZLE was very nicely done
Cheers A&B
Came here for a couple of parsings and reassurance that others also found it tricky (esp NE). Liked ICING SUGAR and DISHWASHER.
For those unable to type an Ô, if you’re solving on your phone or tablet, a long tap on the o gives you a menu of possible diacritical marks. True of the other letters too. It works for most European languages that use the Latin alphabet, but I don’t think they have all the possible choices in Turkish or Vietnamese. Iga Świątek is happy we can spell her name correctly, at least.
On a Mac or PC, there’s a set of control characters you can hit that does the trick, but I haven’t solved on a full-sized computer in years, so I couldn’t say exactly.
BodyCheetah @50: Pagliacci is plural: clowns. But it still works your way. And dcbrookes @49: Canio’s character in the play-within-the opera is Pagliaccio, which is close enough. Anyway, enough on that, or rather, la commedia e finita. (Most famous last line from an opera that I know of.)
Agree this was trickier than usual for a Monday. Favourite was PROUST.
Following on from mrpenney@52…
And for those who don’t know the opera and who don’t speak Italian: the Spanish “payaso” is a pretty close soundalike (good enough for Paul at least 😜) if you know how pronunciation works in both languages, even if you only know vocabulary in Spanish (much more widely known in the UK than Italian I’d guess – and has overtaken French now from what I understand).
…Says me, who doesn’t speak Italian but who does know the basics of its pronunciation and yet who failed to aurally “parse” it and make that connection, and hence who remained no closer to guessing the solution until I eventually, finally, had that leading “S” 🙈
7D you might also need to do this to a culinary stock which you are preparing
Eileen (at 9:01 am) and I seem to share a word-aesthetic – I too love how CODSWALLOP and BAMBOOZLE roll off the tongue. And on these pages, I like how gobbledegook can cause quite a kerfuffle.
I was not familiar with the KELPIE myth, so that was enjoyable learning. (I always associate the Loch Ness monster with experimental submarines – The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes being a favourite movie.)
And like Mandarin at 5:13pm, my favourite clue was the clever charade at 2d PROUST.
Thanks B&A for the breezy puzzle and able blog.
No-one has picked up on my grouse about the R in ABNORMAL. Is it fair to include the first letter of a word that isn’t in the clue? After all, there are lots of marines who aren’t Royal . . .
muffin@57, I have seen marines = Royal Marines = RM often enough in these crosswords that it doesn’t raise an eyebrow. (Just another Britishism in a British puzzle.)
muffin@57, to this Brit, marines (and also “jolly” – something I learnt via crosswords, incidentally) basically means Royal Marines, so…
But on purely technical grounds I second your objection.
Navy is RN, engineers are RE, gunners (when not Arsenal FC in some form) are RA, so marines are RM. I see no reason to object just this time. While yes, marines could also be USMC, I dare you to find someone named something like Seamus McLaren whom you can clue using that one.
[AP @54: if one wishes to become opera-literate (and I certainly am not saying everyone should wish that!), I Pagliacci should be fairly early on your list. It’s one of the most popular, influential, and best of the ones not written by the big 5 (Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini, and Strauss). And it’s short too! ]
Does ‘icing sugar’ mean the same as ‘icing’ to some people? Like Shane at #2, I had trouble envisioning sugar being piped.
MrPenney @61 great work with Seamus McLaren. It couldn’t go unacknowledged.
My knowledge of post-Mozart opera is very sketchy – just a cultural blind spot. However, I know Pagliacci from watching the excellent Italian series, ‘Inspector Ricciardi’, set in Naples in the 1930s, where, in the first episode, during a double bill with Cavalleria Rusticana in the San Carlo, the lead singer in Pagliacci is murdered in his dressing room. On Channel 4 streaming if anyone’s interested.
[Balfour @64: given the plot of I Pagliacci, that sounds a bit on the nose.]
[mrpenney@61, thank you! I’d probably go for that level of renown first, me being me, and so I’ll bear it in mind!]
The marine discussion reminds me of a story from the Korean(?) War. An American outpost radioed HQ to say “We have a case of beri-beri here. What should we do with it?”
“Give it to the Marines – they’ll drink anything”
Among others, how does GDU @4 (or @8.59 a.m.) become @557 in @14?
Tough for a Monday.
The NE corner did for me, MITHRAS, MAGNETRON and the opera were NHO.
Thanks both.
jeceris @68
You missed the controversy over KenMac attempting to redo the numbering. See here.
The one and only time I have come across the word ‘gen’ outside of a crossword was when Alf Tupper (in The Valiant?) was advised by his trainer to ‘GEN UP’ on his opponent in a boxing match. I appreciate that this is not a very reliable memory, Tupper being a runner rather than a boxer….. But it was a very, very long time ago.
Alphalpha
I have several times heard “duff gen” for incorrect information, but never “gen up” – my first thought was SUM UP, unparsed of course.
Alf Tupper was, of course, tough, but I didn’t know he had boxed! Victor, I think.
Thanks for the explanations, just one comment, for beginners there were some helpful details missing, for instance “he scored”, it mightn’t occur to some new solvers that a composer is someone who writes music scores, similarly the “gull” as a word/slang for tricking someone, that “foreign” and “rocks” are yet more way of instructing the solver to look for an anagram by mixing up the letters of a word or phrase in the clue. Otherwise, it’s nice to have some expert explanations/parsing that I missed.
muffin @57 does it matter that not all marines are royal as long as some are? Isn’t a bit like using “car” to clue Maserati i.e. not all cars are Maseratis?
I got off to a flying start with exactly half the clues solved on my first read through the clues, which doesn’t happen to me very often. In fact hardly ever.
I slowed down a bit after that!
Despite knowing the lyrics of Smokey Robinson’s Tears of a Clown SAD-FACED was among my last half dozen, as I thought that ‘touching’ indicated RE or ON, which had me imagining a make up failure leaving the clown RED faced instead. 🤡🤔
Thanks to Brummie and Andrew.
Very disappointing for a Monday. Far too tricky for me.
I struggled with this having just graduated from Quiptics, but got there in a bit of a rush at the end, after staring at 5A, 7D, 22A, 28A, 23D and 19D for days. I guessed that 19D was a composer but had to wait for the crossers, and got 22A without knowing the butterfly. Ditto Cape Cod without knowing Cod. Loved Poor Miss “Y” but lots of really good other clues once I worked them out. Agree about the icing sugar though.