It’s a Saturday Prize puzzle, and it’s a Brockwell…so there MAY be a theme or Nina…
…although this bear of little brain failed to spot it until almost the last minute!…
I solved and submitted this last weekend, quite blithely ignorant of any sort of linkage or theme, and it was only when I started to write up the blog and create a grid that I saw – in plain sight – KENTUCKY, FRIED and CHICKEN! Then JERK, KORMA and NUGGET…WOODSTOCK, DEBONE, SOUP…gahhh…how could I have missed all that?!
I had to look up COCKSHY as I wasn’t familiar with the word or definition – bit Cyclops-ean? – and the chicken references kept on coming – WIRE, CAPON, EGG…
I’ve probably missed a couple in the animation below – LEG HORN, cockSPURS – but I think you get the picture…
What an EGG-cellent puzzle – my brain was obviously ‘scrambled’ when I first solved it, but it didn’t ‘tikka’ much to ‘crack’ the theme and even your ‘hard-boiled’ correspondent had to ‘(ome)let’ a wry grin and an eyebrow raise cheer up his usually grumpy countenance…the ‘yolk’ was on me!
My thanks to Brockwell, and I trust all is clear below.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 7A | MAHARISHI | Joint rolled by a Tory guru (9)
MAH (ham, joint, rolled over) + A + RISHI (Tory, remember him?…no, me neither!) |
| 8A | KORMA | Nothing stopping wacky Mark Curry (5)
K_RMA (anag, i.e. wacky, of MARK) around (stopped by) O (zero, nothing) |
| 9A | WOODSTOCK | Festival has Rolling Stone fronting The Animals (9)
WOOD ( |
| 10A | SPURS | Urges on team (5)
double defn. – to SPUR is to urge on; and SPURS is the nickname of Tottenham Hotspur (a football team, m’lud) |
| 12A | DEBONE | Finished eating skinned sea bass fillet (6)
D_ONE (finished0 around (eating) ( |
| 13A | EXIT POLL | Former pilot confused about line in survey (4,4)
EX (former) + IT_PO_L (anag, i.e. confused, of PILOT) around L (line) |
| 16A | COCKSHY | Cast member at first is an object of ridicule (7)
COCK (male member) before SHY (cast, throw) |
| 19A | JERKING | Waistcoat good for pulling? (7)
JERKIN (waistcoat, sleveless jacket) + G (good) |
| 22A | ACENTRIC | Eric Cantona missing last three starts for lacking focus? (8)
subtractive anag, i.e. starts, or is surprised, of ERIC CANT( |
| 25A | GINGER | Annoyance after opener getting dropped by Joe Root (6)
GI (GI Joe, American serviceman) + ( |
| 27A | TWIGS | Gets syrup in this on vacation (5)
T( |
| 28A | IRON LUNGS | Training run is long for life-savers (4,5)
anag, i.e. training, of RUN IS LONG |
| 29A | FRIED | Cooked drug in two days (5)
FRI (Friday, a day) + D (day), so two days, around E (ecstasy tablet, drug) |
| 30A | ONLOOKERS | Witnesses in the matter of king and queen breaking thrones (9)
ON (in the matter of) + LOO_S (toilets, or thrones) around (broken by) K (king) + ER (Elizabeth Regina, queen) |
| Down | ||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 1D | CAPONE | Don Corleone ultimately plugged by new gangster (6)
CAPO (mafia don) + N (new) + E (ultimate letter of corleonE) |
| 2D | HANDBOOK | Manual worker is on top of work (8)
HAND (worker) + BOOK (work) |
| 3D | LITTLE | Young darts player scratching bottom (6)
LITTLE( |
| 4D | CHICKEN | Stylish dolly bird (7)
CHIC (stylish) + KEN (dolly, friend of Barbie!) |
| 5D | SOUP UP | Give a boost to Stokes with three overs (4,2)
S (stokes, physics) + O (over, cricket notation) + UP (over, as in the game’s up) + UP (a third ‘over’!) |
| 6D | AMORAL | Unprincipled monk about to pick up men (6)
AM_AL (lama, or Tibetan monk, about, or reversed) around (picking up) OR (Other Ranks, men, as opposed to officers) |
| 11D | WIRE | Telegraph and Guardian setters probed by the taxman some time ago (4)
W_E (Guardian setters, of which Brockwell is one, wo ‘we’ from his perspective) around (probed by) IR (the Inland Revenue, former name, i.e. some time ago, of HMRC, the taxman) |
| 14D | OBI | Fetish of British industry leaders (3)
leading letters of ‘Of British Industry’ |
| 15D | LEG | On stage (3)
double defn. – the ‘on’ side is the LEG side, in cricket; and a stage can be a LEG |
| 16D | CHA | Bloke doesn’t finish drink (3)
CHA( |
| 17D | CUE | Rod and line picked up (3)
homophone, i.e. picked up – CUE (rod) can sound like QUEUE, a line of people |
| 18D | HORN | Romeo consumed by love for the hard stuff? (4)
HO_N (honey, love – term of affection) around (consuming) R (Romeo, phonetic alphabet) |
| 20D | KENTUCKY | National food introduced to island state (8)
KE_Y (island) around (introducing) N (national) + TUCK (food, grub!) |
| 21D | A CORUÑA | Carmen welcoming business career in Spanish city (1,6)
A_A (the Automobile Association, so car men – and women) around (welcoming) CO (company, business) + RUN (career, race) |
| 23D | COWARD | Playwright is 4 (6)
double defn. – Noel COWARD was a playwright; and 4D ‘chicken’ can mean COWARD |
| 24D | NUGGET | Putting the boot into No.10 raised lump (6)
N_ET (number TEN, raised) around UGG (a brand of boot) |
| 25D | GUN DOG | Piece on track for setter? (3,3)
GUN (piece, firearm) + DOG (track, follow) |
| 26D | EGGARS | Moths helping to make flipping clothes ragged (6)
reversed hidden word, i.e. ‘helping to make’ and ‘flipping’, in ‘clotheS RAGGEd’ |
I also saw: Chicken Little, Chicken Run, Ginger Chicken. Not the easiest puzzle, but spotting the theme helped a lot.
The blog is as witty as the puzzle! Enjoyed both. Thanks!
Just the right level of difficulty – took a few sittings. I especially liked WIRE and EXITPOLL, mainly for the surprise that popped out on doing the wordplay.
I couldn’t figure out a complete justification for SOUP UP. For me that’s a DNF (but I’m a bit picky).
Liked it a lot, although I didn’t get COCKSHY. I also couldn’t parse SOUP UP, but then I think there’s a mistake as Stokes is St, not S. Favourites CAPONE, CHICKEN, KENTUCKY, GUN DOG. I missed the theme. Thanks Brockwell & mc_rapper67!
I could see the theme, but failed to complete this one: did not know COCKSHY (I wondered if it might be CUCKOLD but of course I couldn’t parse it). Also defeated by MAHARISHI, DEBONE, GINGER, LITTLE, HORN and SOUP UP. I usually enjoy Brockwell, but this was hard work and not much fun, I’m afraid.
Well well, surprised never to have heard of the brilliant and prolific George Gabriel Stokes (only fluid dynamics name I remember from undergrad physics is Bernouilli).
Noticed a few chook bits — KFC, nugget, capon, cock — but didn’t bother much.
[instead musing about language ‘colonising’, eg our Leghorn is Livorno, their Tamigi is Thames]. Always stimulating, crosswordland, thanks both.
mc rapper, thank you for your blog. Had me laughing out loud.
I looked back on the puzzle before the blog came up, and found I still had a few to solve. I only got the theme post-solve. I got held up by what I thought was reasonable for the clue for HORN. I parsed that as Romeo in love> NIRL, which is a lump, or a nodule. Hard stuff?
Thanks Layman #4 for St for Stokes. I had no idea how that clue worked (and apparently it doesn’t).
I would add, if they haven’t been mentioned by now, COWARD, and CHICKEN SPURS (or COCKSPURS as our blooger said) which roosters use to fight or defend, and as well as LEGHORN, just the plain old CHICKEN LEG.
Sorry mc crapper you did highlight COWARD. It was fun to go back over your comments below the animated grid.
And sorry to the vegans here, but as it’s this time of year, I have memories of Christmases at my grandparents’ home in Queensland. They had chooks in the chicken-wire enclosure, which also supported a passionfruit and choko vine, fertilised by the chook poo.
Those were the days when we only ate chicken on special occasions, long before mass production. They were mostly kept for egg-laying. We kids watched while Grandad put the chook on the tree stump under the shade of the macadamia tree, and chopped its head off with an axe. It did run around a bit, and that’s where I learned (in later years) the meaning of the phrase “running around like a headless chook”. That may sound gruesome, but I think it was a great lesson to appreciate where your food comes from.
Thanks, mc for the entertaining blog. This bear of even littler brain missed the theme entirely, despite feeling there should be one there somewhere. I had trouble parsing a number of these, particularly A CORUNA and SOUP UP (despite a physics background, it never occurred to me that Stokes might be the Stokes with the parameters). But what really held me up were the intersecting 16a and 18d, where, like Gladys @5, I had an unparsed Cuckold pencilled in for quite a while. Finally, I resorted to reading through Chambers for the few words starting with ‘cock’, found COCKSHY, realised it fitted the wordplay, and discovered it had none of the meanings I’d thought it might have. So, a learning exercise; I also learned of EGGARS, that ‘wig’ could mean ‘syrup’, that OBI was a fetish, that CORUNA started with A, and that I can’t spot a theme (but I already knew that). Thanks, Brockwell.
It took me several days, but I got it done! SE last in. A lot of entertaining clues. The short three-letter entries were nicely done. Interesting to learn about Luke Littler, a young darts phenomenon
17d CUE, I thought of “line picked up” as a theatrical reference
Thanks mc_rapper67 for highlighting the now obvious theme
SOUP UP
(Kind attention: Layman and paddymelon)
Stokes=St. Yes, but S was used previously. In Crosswordostan
we have come across Stokes=S, a number of times. And the
holy red book supports this abbreviation.
The clue seems to work all right to me.
paddymelon@8
Though I am a vegetarian (Not a vegan. I take dairy products), I am able to
relate to your post.
What a great blog! Thanks mc_rapper for the amusement.
Great puzzle as well, made more fun by finding the many themed answers.
I was unable to parse SOUP UP (nho that Stokes) and GINGER.
My favourite was MAHARISHI for the surface – those Tories seem to be gifts that keep on giving to setters.
Thanks both.
Great blog, and an enjoyable puzzle which I spoilt by accidentally cheating: I looked up the frankly unlikely MAHArIgHt and alas Google told me the correct answer immediately.
Faves were the succinct LEG and the variously amusing DEBONE, JERKING, GINGER and SOUP UP (took a while! Defo seen S for Stokes many times before).
I think I had CUE as per the blog when I solved and as per Mig@10 when reviewing it just now, so take your pick.
Has to verify OBI for fetish and COCKSHY, which made me chuckle as it intersected with HORN. What with that and JERKING I was beginning to suspect a theme and had to check the setter… shows how my mind works because in contrast I didn’t spot the chickens until just now when reviewing my grid and KFC jumped out.
A tip of the hat to Brockwell for the Spanish indicator for A CORUÑA as yet another Ñ gets decapitated. (It’s pronounced Corunya; no idea how the older English spelling Corunna given by Wiki was pronounced but I daresay it shan’t be missed.)
Thanks both
I found the NE corner a real challenge. The key to opening it was a ton of internet research enabling me to get LITTLE (requiring absurd GK,particularly for those of us outside UK). So saying, GINGER was my LOI and gets a tick for its surface.
I also ticked CHICKEN
A few loose synonyms took me a while to see and I did not understand how Carmen = AA in the NHO A CORUNA (which I only solved care of more internet research). Thanks for explaining
Thanks Brockwell & mc_r
Thanks Brockwell and mc_rapper67.
I thought there was a metaphorical theme involving 23d – hidden between 12a and 10a.
Thanks for the blog. I think the Rolling Sone is Ronnie Wood, not Keith.
*Stone
Didn’t get far last Saturday but returned to it on Thursday and nearly finished it. Like others I bunged in an unparsed cuckold for 16ac and then lore for 18d and didn’t parse a couple.
Favourites were: GINGER, ONLOOKERS, DEBONE, KENTUCKY, TWIGS (which I thought might have something to do with rhyming slang but hadn’t heard of)
And I still call the taxman the inland revenue.
Thanks Brockwell and mc_rapper67
Fabulous blog, thank you for the humour, mc_rapper67!
I could not parse 1d and 5d (I’m not familiar with S=stokes or anything else to do with physics).
New for me WIG=syrup / syrup of fig (Cockney slang) for 27ac; Luke Littler, darts player for 3d.
I did not see the theme (or even look for it).
SOUP UP certainly worked for me and S on a standalone basis is in Chambers with ST reserved for stone, stumped, saint, street and one or two more but not the unit of viscosity. It seems to be one of the occasions where dictionaries disagree as Collins does give ST. Seems a bit harsh, though, to tell a setter his clue doesn’t work when he has the backing of the BRB.
Another thematic tour de force from one of my favourite setters. Fizzing with ideas.
Thanks both
I don’t have the book itself but the online version of Chambers doesn’t have S for Stokes and instead has:
stokes and US stoke noun, physics (symbol St) in the cgs system: the unit of kinematic viscosity.
This is not to negate any of the comments above (KVa, PostMark, others) – I believe you
Hmm. Well, now I know why I couldn’t parse SOUP UP, since like michelle@19 the Stokes unit, whatever its correct abbreviation may be, is an unknown for me. I’ll have to put that in the etui for future reference.
And yes, it’s Ronnie WOOD: Keith is the apparently indestructible Mr. Richards.
Did I see the theme? Do I ever?
Ah well.
It took a lot of mental dredging to haul RISHI out of the swamp of history. Sic Transit Toria…
Like Michelle@19, despite a physical science background I didn’t recognise S as being to do with the viscosity unit; I thought it was just one of those mildly annoying times when a setter intends without specific indication that the first letter of a word be put in.
With my interest in football being only measurable using sqrt(-1) units, I was stuck on SPURS until Mrs Sheep, who uses late-night radio sports programmes via earphones to put her to sleep, looked over my shoulder and filled in the blank.
Thanks to Brockwell for the entertainment and to mc_rapper67 for the splendid blog.
S for stokes is in my Chambers app:
Chambers
Stylish dolly bird, who’d guess was the star of the Sunday Lunch, my favourite clue.
Also liked SOUP UP, which went in early for me, but struggled with HORN, my LOI.
Didn’t see the theme, so was fun to find out here. Thanks B and MC
I had cockshy pencilled in (electronically) for some time, but online searches didn’t find that definition for me. I ended up replacing it with cockeye (cast as in eye problem) and an unparsed eye for object of ridicule. I somehow failed to see hon for love when I had the H in place.
And I failed again to see the theme. And as a couple of other ex-physicists I failed to see Stokes as the unit, being so caught up in the Ashes I fell for the misdirection. (Although I may turn off the TV soon.)
I wasn’t able to get round to this until yesterday, and my high expectations were all fulfilled.
I saw the theme quite early on but I’m not surprised to see that I didn’t find absolutely all the components – but I had great fun along the way.
Brilliant puzzle, brilliant blog.
Huge thanks to both setter and blogger.
Found this quite tough but got there in the end. Nho WIG=syrup. Just how much Cockney slang are we expected to know? I regularly get the feeling that a lot of this is just made up and not genuinely Cockney (i.e. part of everyday speech), but no doubt someone will disabuse me.
And of course the Spanish city is A Coruña.
Doh! I had MALONE for 1d because apparently there’s a Don Malo in the Godfather universe. Was Bugsy a gangster? He certainly hung about with some gangsters, albeit fairly benign ones. An independent contractor perhaps.
Lots of new GK for me here — Maharishi, Littler, Stokes as a unit, obi, Coruna, eggar, syrup of fig, that cockshy is a word at all and not just an improvised insult… so quite a bit of guessing and googling to see if the word exists / is relevant!
Agree with the above that I thought there was a theme, but one that belongs in the back pages of Private Eye!
Oh yeah and, thought of and dismissed Ron Wood cos he’s in The Faces of course, not the Stones! Who knew they persisted beyond 1972… 😉
[My daughter told me that “Look at aaaall those chickens!” (said, of course, in a very particular way) is an Internet meme. I have taken to saying it from time to time, which causes amusement in a dad-dance kind of way.]
Brockwell does love bogus celeb references so the genuine Rolling Stone in WOODSTOCK made me laugh
SOUP UP was brilliant – we’ve had S for Stokes before and bonus points for all the cricket references
Cheers MC&B
Thanks Brockwell and mc_r
poc @ 28 The syrup / wig combination previously occurred in Picaroon’s 29580 on Jan 1 this year and Paul’s 29452 on Aug 3 last year, both of which you commented on here.
5d Not knowing the unit I parsed this as “Give a boost to, stoke (lift and separate) S + O + UP + UP” and must admit to being a bit pleased with myself.
16a COCKSHY is only defined as something put up for people to throw things at in my 1993 Chambers, with no hint of ridicule, but it had to be the answer. As with others, CUCKOLD was my first guess.
16d ALE would have fitted if the clue had read “start” instead of “finish” and held me up for a while.
Thanks to Brockwell and mc_rapper67
Thanks to mc_rapper for the typically excellent and very funny blog and to everyone else for the comments. GINGER is the lead character in CHICKEN RUN and Spanish speakers may have spotted another themer in the final four letters of the 6th row and the first letter in the 7th. There’s also the IRON CHICKEN from the Clangers, of course. All the best, B
Great fun. 5d was an abbreviation jorum for me — I thought “This clue only seems to make sense if S is a standard abbreviation for Stokes, which seems unlikely”, looked in Chambers and there it was!
mc’s slip about Keith / Ronnie is understandable as Ronnie is the new boy in the Stones, having joined the band only 50 years ago.
Many thanks both.
We started with KORMA, then via a LITTLE CHICKEN DEBONE(d), to GINGER, but alas with five clues unparsed! A further session completed the job with CAPONE explained at last by realising that Capo and Don are Mafia terms for boss.
Expecting a theme, we thought along sporting and then food lines, each with many references, but probably too general. However, as with mc rapper_67, on review, KFC stood out and the rest is history.
Many ticks included MAHARISHI, ACENTRIC, ONLOOKERS, SOUP UP, KENTUCKY and, of course, a real NUGGET. Another excellent puzzle, so ta to B and mcr.
22a A shrug at starts as an anagrind. If it indicates movement it seems to be OK.
Me@34. I was going to say a big thank you to grantinfreo and our other Australian friends for restraining themselves from intruding on private grief then I realised that they had posted before the full horror was apparent so it wiil have to be a thank you in anticipation.
Pino @38 Chambers – start: “to cause or undergo displacement or loosening”
Also it is the Guardian so if it indicates an anagram it’s anagrind 🙂
I thought the thematic connection in WOODSTOCK was probably to the Peanuts character rather than the proto-soup? Though both work. Great puzzle, thanks to setter & blogger.
SImon S@33: No doubt you’re right. I can only say that it’s so far-fetched (not least because the origin is ‘syrup of FIGS’, plural) that it didn’t enter my brain and I’ll probably fail to recognise it again.
It took me two sittings, but I got there.
Thanks to Brocky and Emcee.
A philosophical point:
I’m up there with the best for not liking to enter an answer if I can’t parse it fully – but if you put it in, and enter your finished grid in the competition, the panel of 63 judges who administer the prize allocation will neither know nor care if you can parse it or not.
Thanks for all the comments, so far, and particularly to Grecian/Brockwell for popping in at #35 – much appreciated, as usual.
Apologies for mixing up Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood from that popular beat combo the Rolling Stones. I will correct that, as well as the squiggle over the N of ‘A Coruña’ – if I can work out how to do it – presumably some sort of hex-y/ASCII character…but I don’t have the bandwidth to redo the grid!
Thanks also to all the extra suggestions of thematic material – this puzzle really was the gift that kept on giving. Not sure about Woodstock though, Rob in Brussels at #40 – Professor Wikipedia and several other online sources have Woodstock down as a ‘small yellow bird of indeterminate species’, although his indecipherable speech, which only Peanuts can hear, is also referred to as ‘chicken scratch’…
Lots of debate on S = Stokes, but I have only ever known it as S from Chambers – interesting that Collins has it as St.
And Pino at #38 – just to redress the balance a little, an Englishman beat an Aussie in the F1 (;+>)