I was slightly nervous that I might be getting the Grauniad Christmas Special by Maskarade as the Prize puzzle to blog, but it seems the new normal is to have a ‘regular’ Prize puzzle and the Maskarade as a ‘bonus’ on the side…
…either way, I would have been ‘double-blogged’, as Maskarade is also Doc in the Spectator, and I am down to blog his Xmas special, and Brummie is Cyclops in Private Eye, and I am blogging his Xmas special (for the final time (;+<) at the same time as this one…
But back to the puzzle at hand – Brummie must have to rein in his Cyclops-ean instincts when setting for the Grauniad, but we have a FOUR-LETTER WORD at 6D/26D, and I initially put in BOOB at 2D – OB, outside, or live, broadcast, twice in different directions?…
Fortunately for me, after that diversion, I seemed to get on the wavelength of this puzzle fairly quickly and things fell into place in quite good order and timely fashion…
I enjoyed the ‘NHS paragon’ at 8A NONESUCH; I’m not much of a ‘Strictly’ fan, but 14A LENIENCY pulled some nice threads together in that space; the clue for 24A BRIGANTINE was neatly concise.
(Apologies for the brevity, but I am currently in the sunny climes of Barbados celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary, and I have to go out to Oistins for ‘Friday Fish Supper’ – so rushing this out before deadline and I may be in a ‘rum fog’ tomorrow morning, rather than on a foggy golf course…talk amongst yourselves, as usual, and I will chime in when I can!…)
My thanks to Brummie (and his Cyclops alter-ego), and I trust all is clear below…
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 8A | NONESUCH | Doctor on cue: NHS paragon of old (8)
anag, i.e. doctor, of ON CUE NHS |
| 9A | ADOPT | Trouble getting a short drink? Take over! (5)
ADO (trouble) + PT (abbreviation for pint, drink) |
| 10A | STUB | Put out, objections being overturned (4)
BUTS, objections, overturned = STUB |
| 11A | INFILTRATE | Get inside when hot female launches line in fancy attire (10)
IN (trendy, hot) + F (female) + I_TRATE (anag, i.e. fancy, of ATTIRE) around L (line) |
| 12A | PHOBOS | Moon: top-of-the-range feature to be put in position shortly (6)
P_OS (position, shortly) around HOB (feature found on top of a range cooker!) |
| 14A | LENIENCY | Kindness of Mr Goodman: ‘Awfully nice being on the right side of Strictly’ (8)
LEN (Len Goodman) + IENC (anag, i.e. awfully, of NICE) + Y (right-most letter, or right side, of strictlY) |
| 16A | REJOICE | Celebrate on joining innovative writer on radio (7)
RE (on, regarding) + JOICE (homophone, i.e. on radio – James JOYCE, innovative writer, can sound like JOICE) |
| 18A | SPOTLIT | Crack about our tank tops being illuminated (7)
SP_LIT (crack) around OT (top letters of Our Tanks) |
| 21A | DEED POLL | Exploit survey that legitimises using a different name? (4,4)
DEED (feat, exploit) + POLL (survey) |
| 23A | TUREEN | Dish of egged escalope starters stuffed in roll (6)
TUR_N (roll, e.g. of the dice, a turn) around EE (starting letters of Egged Escalope) |
| 24A | BRIGANTINE | Ship set out bearing tin (10)
anag, i.e. set out, of BEARING TIN |
| 26A | WELL | The Guardian’s intending to stream? (4)
punning double defn, ignoring punctuation – WE’LL, we intend to, from the Grauniad’s point of view; WELL – to gush out, well up, or stream |
| 27A | PHLOX | Maybe the perennial sound of groups of birds (5)
homophone, i.e. sound of – PHLOX, a perennial plant, can sound like FLOCKS, groups of birds |
| 28A | LEVERAGE | Bank restricting newspaper’s influence (8)
LEVE_E (river embankment) around (restricting0 RAG (newspaper) |
| Down | ||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 1D | SOFT-SHOE (SHUFFLE) | & 4 Tap-dance footwear stuck under piano? Move around (4-4,7)
SOFT (piano, musical instruction) + SHOE (footwear) + SHUFFLE (move around) |
| 2D | BEEB | Two-way live broadcasts from this (4)
BE (live) + EB (be, the other way) = BEEB (the BBC, broadcasting institution) |
| 3D | QUOITS | Goes to limit ball game (6)
QU_ITS (goes) around (limiting) O (round letter, ball) |
| 4D | SHUFFLE | See 1 (7)
see 1D |
| 5D | BAWL | Bellow’s book – boring thing (4)
B (book) + AWL (boring thing, drill bit!) |
| 6D | FOUR-LETTER (WORD) | & 26 I swear I might well use it! (4-6,4)
CD – someone who swears might use a ‘FOUR-LETTER WORD’! |
| 7D | STATIC | Still, that’s how it appeared to take in rubbish (6)
S_IC (that is how something appeared, usually in print) around taking in) TAT (rubbish) |
| 13D | BOONDOGGLE | Futile project – but benefit to boxer with broken leg? (10)
BOON (benefit) + DOG (boxer, for example) + GLE (anag, i.e. broken, of LEG) |
| 15D | NAP | Drop off vessel that’s capsized (3)
PAN (vessel) capsized = NAP |
| 17D | COO | I say a bird should be tailless! (3)
COO( |
| 19D | IDEOLOGY | Faith’s video log not very funny ultimately (8)
( |
| 20D | PLAINLY | ‘Got horizontal’ in ferry, in an obvious way (7)
P_LY (ferry, transport over a reguar route) around LAIN (got horizontal) |
| 22D | ENRAPT | Focus of eleven rap tunes shows intent (6)
hidden word centrally in, i.e. focus of, ‘elevEN RAP Tunes’ |
| 23D | TWELVE | Lead vocalist starts in cute number (6)
TWE_E (cute) around LV (starts of lead Vocalist) |
| 25D | NEXT | Succeeding vote is in bag (4)
NE_T (bag, catch) around X (vote mark) |
| 26D | WORD | See 6 (4)
see 6D |
Thanks mc-rapper67 for QUOITS confirmation (incidentally I think it should be QU_ITS (goes) , not QU_ITE), the only one I needed in this somewhat benign Prize.
Thanks Brummie, too
24a was my LOI because sometimes I miss the fact that a clue is an anagram 🙁
Thanks mc-rapper67 (I hope that the ‘Friday Fish Supper’ turned out well) and Brummie
Goodman to me means Benny, Len I don’t know, so that was a shrug. And eyes stream after they well up, but not to worry. Otherwise yep, pretty benign from the Brum. Best wishes to him, to rapper and missus in the Caribbean, and to all for the new year.
Approachable and enjoyable
I liked best BRIGANTINE, BOONDOGGLE (a great word), and STATIC
Thanks for help parsing ADOPT. For 17d I confidently entered “I say” = GOD, with godwit as the tailless bird. It took a while to sort out that error. FOUR LETTER WORD was my LOI, and I think I know what Brummie is getting at but that clue still does not quite gel in my head.
Thanks to Brummie for a fun puzzled and to mc_rapper67 for a great blog.
Evidently not one of my better weeks. I went through this fairly quickly, then hit a block at top-right where I guessed but couldn’t parse ADOPT and for some reason didn’t think of BAWL – partly because I had an unparsed ‘Saul’ (for Bellow) pencilled in and that’s how it stayed. So, a DNF, and tripped on not too hard a pair of clues in retrospects. We all have our off days, and I may have been recovering from struggling with the Kin William quiz (still unfinished). Still, I enjoyed this right up to the final hurdle – I liked BEEB, and PHLOX and NONESUCH, among others, so thanks to Brummie, and, of course to the always entertaining mc.
‘King William’ of course – even went wrong typing that…
Sheepish to say my last letter in, the middle letter of the little three-letter 17d COO, took far too long. CHO? CRO? Didn’t know the bird “Coot” for the wordplay, but I eventually got it. A fun puzzle
I liked 10a STUB (“objections” = “buts”), 12a PHOBOS (“top of the range feature” = HOB), 18a SPOTLIT (neat word), 23a TUREEN (surface), 24a BRIGANTINE (ditto), 5d BAWL (rare Canadian reference, author Saul Bellow), 19d IDEOLOGY (cleverly hidden in plain sight, and precisely clued), and others
Couldn’t parse 9a ADOPT — “A short drink” = PT? Best I could find was Passion Tea? Pint makes perfect sense, though
Thanks both, and Happy Anniversary to the mc_rapper67’s! Above and beyond…
Thanks for the blog , enjoy the sunshine and the warm sea .
Good range of clues , IDEOLOGY a bit unusual , an almost hidden .
For BEEB I think the definition is – broadcasts from this .
PHOBOS the closest known moon to its parent , spiralling inwards and will crash in the near future if it does not fall apart first .
Thanks, mc_rapper, from snowy Britain, and congratulations to you both.
I was surprised I completed the Christmas special in a day but this took me till midweek to finish. I could only think of crow at 17d until I looked up the list of birds in Chambers Crossword Dy. BOONDOGGLE is new to me, but it sounds worth using. At 26a I tried ‘weep’ initially. But despite false directions I got there in the end.
Thanks too to Brummie.
Good clean fun. Faves were STATIC (that’s how it appeared) and PHOBIS (hob). BOONDOGGLE was a nho and I enjoyed working it out from a couple of checkers. I’m another who failed to parse BRIGATINE because I didn’t spot it was an anagram rather than an envelope of TIN.
It’s a Z short of a pangram, right? Which had me scratching my head for the final few lights wondering where it would go.
Thanks both, and congrats to our blogger.
A good mix of humour and inventiveness. The wonderful BOONDOGGLE was a new word for me.
I liked the PHLOX clue, to which Fed’s recent BIENNIAL was complimentary.
[Roz, I’m relieved to read elsewhere that by “near” future you mean in cosmological, rather than in terrestrial political terms . I’d expect that such an event would probably cause quite a large meteor shower here?]
Cheers all.
AP @10, I had the same thought, but strangely enough, there is no K or M either. A very straightforward solve, BOONDOGGLE, IDEOLOGY and PHLOX were my favourites. Hope you have a great silver anniversary, sounds exotic.
Ta Brummie & mc_rapper67.
I found the majority of this a breeze after the preceding Enigmatist puzzle (and IO which I did alongside this). PHLOX and ADOPT held out longest.
Only stumbling block was ‘Triton’ initially for PHOBOS.
Enjoyable puzzle.
New for me: BOONDOGGLE which was well-clued and gettable even though I did not know this word.
Favourites were my last two in: PHOBOS & QUOITS which made me think this might be a pangram but I see there is no Z. (* also see AlanC@13 re no K or M)
14ac I didn’t realise there is a Len Goodman (I don’t watch Strictly Come Dancing) – I think I mixed this up with the musician Benny Goodman but switched Ben to Len somehow 😉 I see that grantinfreo@3 was sort of similar to me on this.
Mig@7 – the bird COOT was on my mind as I did the puzzle this morning (ie a week late), because coots feature in the wonderful new documentary by 99 year old David Attenborough Wild London which is showing on the BBC. I highly recommend this programme, it brought a smile to my face the whole way through and I will watch it again sometime soon.
Happy holidays to mc_rapper and I love the contrast between rum fog and foggy golf course!
PHOBOS was my favourite. I wonder if Brummie toyed with the idea of leaving out the definition for LENIENCY and making it semi &lit.
Thanks for all the comments so far – and the anniversary congratulations (‘I would have got less for murder’ is the stock response!)
Good spot on quite/quits, Dave Ellison at #1 – duly corrected.
Ringwood Boondoggle is an ale I frequently enjoy, although I vaguely (mis?)remember that Ringwood Brewery got swallowed up by a larger organisation fairly recently?. I wasn’t aware that it was a real word though…so I learned something new there…
Roz at #8 – what a pleasant New Year surprise to see you commenting again – lovely to have you back…
I forgot to do the usual pangram check on the PD utility as I created the grid – close, but no ceegar!
The rum fog is clearing, and I am waiting to see the scores of my golfing pals as they grapple with temperatures of minus several back home – I’m sure none of the scores will be minuses!
Oistins Fish Friday was wonderful – everything we had been led to expect, and more. We ended up on a table with a charming young American couple on their honeymoon, serendipitous juxtaposition with our 25th, and they were happy to chat with a couple of old f@rts, well one, at least, as they set out on their own journey through life together…
Still suffering from the confusion caused by two-cryptic-Saturday, I had forgotten that the blog got the prize crossword was due today! Nevertheless, a nice puzzle from Brummie and an amusing blog by mcr, but a 25th anniversary hardly qualifies for the old f@rts club!
I started with BOOB, corrected to BEEB, and PLAINLY finished (with it), then adding full explanations for ADOPT and QUOITS, but damn if I’m happy with 6/26 unless ‘well’ is picked out? Tickled by INFILTRATE, LENIENCY (but good point Petert@16), DEED POLL, BRIGANTINE, STATIC, BOONDOGGLE (drunk it but never realised what it meant – thanks to mcr@17) and COO. HNY to one and all.
Thanks michelle@15. We (especially Mrs Mig) love the Attenborough nature documentaries and look forward to seeing Wild London (an urban nature documentary is a brilliant idea). When we do, we’ll keep an eye on the ol’ COOT 🙂
Thanks Brummie and mc. Got absolutely nothing on the first pass through. Left it a couple of days and then it all fell into place quite smoothly, without cheating, starting with SOFT SHOE SHUFFLE and ending with QUOITS.
Thank you MC@17 , very kind . You picked a good time to go away , I had to make do with the Irish Sea this morning , rather fresh brrrr but a spectacular moonset , perhaps the best I have ever seen . It is our 33&1/3 anniversary soon ( we married young ) I have a rather special present in mind .
Thanks for the tip Michelle@15 , I will get someone more adept than me to find it for us to watch .
[ Etu@12 I think the effect on the Earth will be minimal , Phobos is very small for a moon . A big event for Mars and would look impressive through telescopes for us depending on relative orbits plus the landing site , it may land on the far side . ]
[Yes Roz that’s all reasonable.
On the other hand Phobos is perhaps about two thousand cubic miles of space rubble and – as I understand it – quite well aligned with the ecliptic in its orbit. I’d expect the violence of its collision with the mother planet to result in much of that escaping Mars’s gravity and entering the Earth’s orbit?]
Thanks to Brummie and mc_rapper67 (enjoy Barbados!). I also liked 16a REJOICE and 25d NEXT. An enjoyable puzzle and blog.
Thanks mc_rapper67. I enjoyed this and didn’t need to spend too long on it. With michelle QUOITS was my LOI which resulted in some self recrimination. I’d originally entered ‘weir’ for 26a which didn’t help.
[ETU@23 nobody knows for sure but seems likely that Phobos will break up before impact , Mars may get a ring . Substantial parts should hit the surface causing a lot of damage . Martian escape velocity is about 5km/s but a few random rocks will probably escape , some may eventually end up on Earth , this has happened before , we have Martian meteorites .
If you read papers on Phobos from the 1950s there was a lot of discussion about it being hollow and artificial . ]
mc_rapper67@17
I’m more of a fan of Ringwood’s Fortyniner and Old Thumper. I knew that the brewery had been taken over by Marstons though I was surprised to read that it was as long ago as 2007. The brewery is still brewing but its future is doubtful as Marstons sold its brewing interests to Carlsberg in 2024.
[Roz 26: yes, the scope back then for flights of fancy was evidently greater than it is today. For instance, the existence of millions, billions perhaps, of ‘phone cameras has pretty well scotched the myth of ball lightning, as well as reports of “regularly” sighted ghosts.]