A wonderful and tricky challenge.
A trademark witty puzzle from Monk.
Technical issues this morning mean I have not included the grid this time, and are also the reason for the delay getting this up.
FUR< (down, back<) before US (you and me)
OBE (honour, Order of the British Empire) linked to [au]DIENCE (group of spectators, repeatedly denied opening)
T (tense) + SUN (half of weekend, i.e. Sunday) + AMI[d] (in the thick of, endless)
T[ake] (initially) + ON + ALLY (supporter)
GREEN (olive perhaps) introduces HORN[y] (lustful, chiefly)
Double definition
ED (journalist) + [accessin]G (at last) + SITE* (*bombed)
(AS ARE)* (*somehow) including U[k], I[ran] (their leaders) – semi &lit
(L (left) + K[gb] (head of)) in T[e]A[r]S (on and off)
LIABLE (obliged by law) to include [brie]F [balanc]E [shee]T (conclusions of)
(M (male) + I I (ones) with TAIL)* (*spinning)
The British Territorial Army members are known as ‘terriers’
EDAM< (cheese, <rolls) on MAN (hand)
TA (cheers) engulfing RAVERS (massed partygoers) + L[eve]L (either side of, just one (either) of the Ls of course)
US (America) kept in SHI[p] (vessel, that doesn’t close)
DOWN
WIT (satirist); [commentato]R (finally) stops
F[our]/F[ive] (at the very least; only one F (or)); [r]EFUSE (rubbish, unopened) bags
(NZ LOTHARIO)* (*crashing) + BARS (pubs
(SUITE AREN’T SUNG)* (*in performance)
(S)UNBLOCK (Factor 50, say) when cycling
W[id]E M[ahogan]Y S[helve]S (extremely) + “WEAR” (carry, “delivered”)
ST (good man, saint) + (IN SALES)* (*working) + “STEAL” (rob, “picked up”)
Cryptic definition
By extending KIN (family) we may get KIND
In GUST (outburst); E (English) + I (India) + MATE (china)
16. New deal in sport that will always be beaten (4,4)
DEAL* (*new) in GOLF (sport)
I’S (islands) checked by BR (British) + A[ttach]E (on vacation)
(TIE (bond) welcoming X (kiss))< (<over)
Didn’t enjoy it much today. I’d not heard of Rufus Wainwright, nor the nickname of the British Territorial Army. Couldn’t parse EXTENDED FAMILY or EURASIA. I still don’t understand EFFUSE. Never heard of a LIFE TABLE, nor WEMYSS WARE (nor indeed Kircaldy).
I finished, but it was hard work, with lots of help from Google & Wikipedia.
An enjoyable workout from Monk with some very helpful long entries, the pick of which, for me, was HORIZONTAL BARS for its droll surface.
SUSHI and BRAISE had nice misdirection. It was fortunate that the unknown Kircaldy pottery had a surface that could be clearly broken down (though the crocks looked familiar when I checked on line).
I smiled at the definition for GOLD LEAF, ‘always be beaten’ (actually, sometimes eaten!)
Thanks to Monk and Oriel (especially ‘ami[d]’ in TSUNAMI).
LIFE TABLE was also new to me but easy to guess. Didn’t get the unknown WEMYSS WARE though. Should have guessed that as well but didn’t think of applying “extremely” beyond “wide”.
Rufus Wainwright has been known to me ever since his dad wrote the contentious song Rufus is a tit man which may have been apt as a baby but not as an adult. (He’s gay for those who don’t know of him.)
Solid puzzle, took a while to finish.
Loved sunblock & signature tunes.
Grateful for the explanations in the blog for rufus, militia, and esp extended family which is a beauty.
Thought a couple of clues on the loose side: greenhorn, Eurasia, effuse,
Solid puzzle, took a while to finish.
Loved unblocks and signature tunes.
Grateful for the explanations in the blog for rufus, militia, and esp extended family which is a beauty.
Thought some of the clues were on the loose side: greenhorn, Eurasia, effuse.
I liked EXTENDED FAMILY and got RUFUS Wainwright early on. I was more familiar with his parents. Wagon maker wouldn’t fit.
Chuffed to solve the unknown WEMYSS WARE from wordplay, thanks to Monk. I see it’s pronounced as “weems”, apparently correctly, and less commonly as “wims”.
After half an hour I had one and a half answers in. But perseverance pays off, or it does if you have breakfast, go shopping, do something else, have lunch, watch some snooker, and in among those things pay a visit to the crossword. Eventually answers arrive.
I’m another who hadn’t heard of WEMYSS WARE, or Kirkcaldy, but Señor Google set me straight. I knew of Rufus Wainwright, though. And LIFE TABLE was my first in–my father was a math professor, but in the second half of his career, he started teaching his department’s actuarial classes. He had to learn the subject first, so his family got a good dose of it secondhand. (The actual math that an actuary needs isn’t too taxing for a math PhD; the part he had to learn was the insurance side.)
I found myself on Monk’s wavelength and galloped through this one – something that is most unexpected for this setter and even more surprising given comments above. Getting three of the long down clues early certainly helped.
Liked SUSHI
I had the same unknowns as others. I was not sure I had correctly parsed EURASIA, but I had the same parsing as Oriel. WARE in 6d held me up at the end, otherwise no issues
Thanks Monk and Oriel
I hadn’t heard of WEMYSS WARE either but I did work it out. Further to the pronunciation noted at #6, is that what the backing vocalists were singing about on The Lion Sleeps Tonight?
Thanks for the explanation of EFFUSE’s Enigmatist-like syntax – I didn’t quite get there though I could see it was the answer. My favourite clue was TALKS – not too difficult but the surface paints a picture.
A challenge and a half but we eventually managed it all. RUFUS was our FOI, although we only knew the name. `We’d also heard of Wemyss pottery, but were puzzled by Kircaldy as the only Wemyss we knew of was Wemyss Bay on the west coast of Scotland. We were also puzzled by the inverted commas in the clue for GREENHORN – we couldn’t see any reason for them. The spelling GUESTIMATE was new to us; we’d always spell it with a double S, but we see Chambers gives both spellings. And a minor quibble: the Territorial Army was known by the Terriers nickname, but what was the TA is now the Army Reserve so the Terriers name is probably little known these days.
Thanks, Monk and Oriel.
Thanks Monk for an impeccably clued crossword with TSUNAMI, SIGNATURE TUNES, and STAINLESS STEEL among my favourites. I looked for ‘something extra’ like a Nina or pangram but was unable to find any. There were a few bits I couldn’t parse — thanks Oriel for the help.
Thanks Oriel and Monk.
Solid puzzle.
Didn’t parse MILITIA and EXTENDED FAMILY, so thanks.
UNBLOCKS, STAINLESS STEEL and GUESTIMATE are favs.
Tony@12 note that all across answers comprise an odd number of letters …😉
Thanks to all for the positive comments, and to Oriel for yet another in a series of super-duper blogs providing perfect parsings 🤗.
PS not sure why the answers listed at @4 have “loose” clues. To my mind they all have air-tight CRs and half-decent SRs 🤔.
Sorry, but what are CRs and SRs?
I had just about heard of Rufus Wainwright but his name didn’t spring to mind so I made a wild, inexplicable stab at “Rebus” and so also failed to get EFFUSE. I remembered being shown a Wemyss pig once (presumably a favourite subject of theirs) which helped considerably, but only today do I learn that it comes from Kircaldy.
I also used the spelling “Guesstimate” on the regrettably frequent occasions I had to use the word at work, but luckily that didn’t put me off.
Thanks Monk and Oriel
Indeed, Babbler@15, I just read Wikipedia’s overview of Wemyss ware. It confirms that pigs are very popular and are often counterfeited.
The places these puzzles take me!
Babbler@15, CR = cryptic reading (the grammatical accuracy of the orchestration of wordplay components) and SR = surface reading (the little vignette/story painted by each clue). Hope that helps .
Martyn@16, your story has left me with an indelible image of forgers putting “swine before pearls” 🤭.
I (and other setters) am genuinely glad that puzzles ‘take you places’. There seems to have been a sea-change in blogs in recent years, in which the “NHO brigade” have taken the fore. Part of the fun is to learn new vocab from tight CRs.
Digger@ 10. 🙂 Very good!
Monk@17. Part of the fun is to learn new vocab from tight CRs. Exactly! Thanks for your craft, and the craic.
Monk @ 17
I agree with your third paragraph.
NHO and “obscure” (= “I didn’t know it”) are both excuses for not wanting to extend one’s vocabulary (less so in the case of the former).
It’s a persistent bugbear of mine that frustrated solvers parade their lack of knowledge as grounds for criticising a puzzle.
I too enjoy discovering interesting new words from well-designed wordplays. All part of the fun. Two or three times per puzzle, perhaps, but when there are half a dozen or more and I need to spend long periods trawling the internet I don’t enjoy it as much. This puzzle was borderline for me. But I’m not so arrogant as to fail to recognise that many solvers are more knowledgeable than I.
Late as per usual, but none the worse for that… methodology more akin to Eric E@7… WEMYSS was clear enough, but still required confirmation… loved the image of a “NZ lothario”, and from now on the word ‘horizontal’ will be thought of as just that… sadly I tried to include ‘pubs’ in the fodder, with only marginal success… with a couple of crossers, there were some really good available solutions, in particular SS, the melodies, OBEDIENCE, TSUNAMI (altho tried to get SAT in first), MAN-MADE. Having spent a long time in the lake district Rufus wasn’t the first Wainwright I thought of, but again a crosser or 2 helped me on my way…
Thanks MONK n the impeccable blogger Oriel
Very late to be commenting, but thank you Monk for the CR / SR explanation. I seldom notice the SR, which is sad, because you obviously take a lot of trouble over it.
Re learning new words or other things, I see NHO as a neutral expression, not necessarily negative, while TILT (thing I learned today) says the same thing but with a positive connotation.
The acronym for the negative connotation would be TILTBWIH (thing I learned today but wish I hadn’t), or NHOT (never heard of, thankfully).
My NHOs today were WEMYSS WARE and the TA TERRIERS, and they were both TILTs, for which I thank Monk (and Oriel for explaining).
sorry, could someone spell out how “at the very least four or five” clues “F”? Enigmatist style is a little beyond my current level…
2dn: “at the very least” indicates first letter only. This indicator can be applied to either “four” or “five” to give the letter F.
I’m an intermediate solver and found this challenging but doable and fun. I really enjoyed it! Thank you Oriel and Monk.