A challenging crossword from IO.
In typical IO style, this is no walk in the park, with some very tricky clues. Inventive and fun all the same! I have done my best in parsing but do share your thoughts if you saw things differently. Thanks to the setter.
(BE THAT)* (*excited) right of CHAMP (title-holder) to get on with IT – &lit (sort of)
MISTER ED (equine TV star); IN parts
EASY (like pie); OVER (perhaps too much)
Double definition
(HE (helium) + NITROGEN)* (*supply)
For ‘supply’ think ‘in a supple way’
PLUM* (*pies) during (LONG DRINK OF)* (*bubbly)
(MOD TARGET)* (*rotten) + ME (setter) + RUNG (called)
Work: the final opera of Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung
(H[e]R[e] (on and off) IS ALTO)* (*flourishing) within C[hance]L (limits of) – &lit
AHAB (obsessive captain, from Moby Dick) following OM (order, Order of Merit) on EACH (every)
LEPERS (outcasts); (APE (do) + OP (work) + ON) cases
CHI (cross) + CON (rip off)
Chi is the Greek letter symbolised as X
ALE (perhaps porter) has (IF (provided) + TO (for) + FAT (big) + HIS (guy’s) penetrating GT (film, Grand Theatre))
There may be a simpler parsing – not too sure about the GT element!
‘A gift of a thistle’ is the theme tune to the film Braveheart
TB (consumption, tuberculosis) on board (P + O + OILER (vessel))
TAR (sailor) + WEED (went)
JIHAD (holy war, leaders (i.e. first two letters) brought down)
(E (earl) + L (left) + C (college) with PEER< (fellow, stuck-up<)) wearing BROTHER’S (sibling’s)
SET< (what I do, <about) keeping HE (explosive, ‘high explosive‘) + PE (games) + NN (news, as in 2 x new) + IN (within)
(Involving OOO (love repeatedly); ER (old queen) + P[reoccupation] (principally) + HABIT)* (*forming) I can’t see this as an &lit, so I assume the definition is cryptic – any ideas?
A TEAM (elite competitors, off cycling) overwhelmed by MILL (millions)
(E.G. (for instance) + A + NAPA (Californian wine valley))< (<up)
LOO (aptly heads) embarking on SP (special)
‘Heads’ is nautical slang for a ship’s toilet, hence ‘aptly’
Thanks for the blog , very tricky indeed , the long entries and the grid helped a lot , not much cold-solving .
A GIFT O A T – I could not see the GT unless it is Gran Turismo which is a film . I was thinking the definition was film tune but this misses the GT completely .
EROTOPHOBIA – I do not see a definition , as an &Lit it reads more like erotophilia . Also a severe Paddington stare for the indirect anagram .
Another unenjoyable crossword from IO.
I just don’t even attempt IO grids anymore. Not on the same wavelength and too many obscure references for me i’m afraid :-/
I fondly remember the days when Io was the (relatively) friendliest of this setter’s alter egos but those days are gone
I got so far and then came here for considerable assistance so a big thank you to Oriel.
roz @1 this setter would never ever use an indirect anagram so I’d be interested to know where you think there is one
For MAMILLATE, I had: M (millions) on top of (overwhelming) [A-TEAM (elite competitors) + ILL (off)] “cycling”
I also had some leftover letters for A G OF A T. I agree with your parsing as far as it goes, but the GT does not seem to work. Maybe Roz@1 has it, but that seems farfetched, even for Io. I thought GIF might be “film,” but that doesn’t really work, and then there are other leftovers.
A little bit of me lives in hope that one day I might be able to do an IO crossword, or solve (on a good day) a couple of clues, but I took one look at this and realised it was not going to be any time soon. Now I’ve seen the solutions and the parsing I think I’ll be waiting for ever . . .
A very slow solve for me. A lot of these clues were pretty straightforward, provided that I correctly guessed some element, such as AHAB or BROTHER’S or NAPA that provided a base to work around. I am disappointed when I cannot parse a clue because Io is usually pretty precise (apart from the &lit clues that seem to stretch for a definition).
I can only presume IO knows more about some old queen’s sexual predilections than I do. The Virgin Queen maybe?? Too hard for me to finish unaided, but OMAHA BEACH is a beauty, and Gotterdammerung pretty good, too.
Way off finishing.
How does ‘just to your right’ suggest ‘left a bit’?
I put MAMILLARY instead of MAMILLATE, because it could be defined by ‘of tits’. MAMILLATE means possessing nipples. The same difference as dentate and dental.
Can’t help with the film tune. It looks to me like the GT has just been missed.
Some questions:
1a Seems to lack a definition
10-20a How does left a bit act as a definition of just to your right?
12a why is a one nighter a series of bangs?
13a why are “pies” or “bubbly” anagram indicators? Norfolk dumpling? Me neither.
15 of all the “work”s ever created why is this a definition of gotterdammerung?
17a what is the definition here? It’s not & lit is it, really?
1/22d Chicon? NHO.
2d nho the theme tune and clue appears not to work
11d what is the definition here
14 really?
Are these clues up to the ft’s usual standard?
Having read through all of the clues I solved one (LEFT A BIT) and guessed another unparsed (POTBOILER) so came here and got confirmation that this was not for me.
For those who asked: ‘left a bit’ is a stock request by a photographer who wants his/her subject to move a little to the photographer’s right.
Thanks, anyway, IO and huge thanks to Oriel
If I am giving you directions, and I am facing you “Left a bit” is to your right.
I presume during a One nighter you have sex more than once – hence a series of bangs
I can’t see anything wrong with CHOIR STALL as an &lit.
A CHICON is the very tasty result of forcing chicory.
Making pies involves mixing the ingredients up.
Another week another wasted morning. No fun.
I’m not as negative as some about this, although I only really managed about three-fourths of it without cheating, and even that three-fourths was quite challenging. But many of the ones I could get were clever, so there’s that. I had never heard of the song, the shoes, or the dumplings, so those were a guess and two reveals, respectively.
I do not understand how, in 13A, “plum pies” can serve to provide an anagram of PIES. Unless I am missing something here, it seems to me that “pies” must be being used as a verb in its present tense. If so, in order for the letters of PLUM to be disordered, the verb would need to be intransitive. According to Chambers, however, the verb “to pie” means “to reduce to pie”, where “pie” here means a state of confusion. That is transitive. There is no entry in Collins for “pie” as a verb. The Clue Clinic includes “pie” as an anagram indicator if used in the form of an imperative, but, again, that must have a transitive function.
Well that’s just ruined my evening. Unforgivably horrible.
Io’s grids have ruined too many evenings so we don’t even attempt them now as we don’t want to feel like Colin@16 – we have the news for that. Dug out an old Artexlen. Much more enjoyment to be had. Thank you Artexlen.
I got LEFT A BIT and…. that was it.
Being Autistic I often struggle to tune in to someone else’s thinking, but I just can’t tune in to IO at all. The clues read to me more like the output from a random word generator. Add to that that I just can’t seem to guess the individual elements of the parse and – it just isn’t fun and then there’s the obscure words this setter picks…..
I just can’t understand how anyone could finish this one.
I look forward to IO Wednesday , I like the challenge and the imagination but this one was no fun at all . I was reduced to just using the grid , the letters I had and the enumeration to guess an answer from a possible defintion and then work backwards through the wordplay . Fortunately the long answers seemed to work doing this and gave lots of letters to help with others but I do not enjoy solving this way .
Made the mistake of not even looking until after supper so very late to the party. After much staring I got no further with 2d but cannot see the “GT” part at all – there is, as Roz says, a film called Gran Turismo and that phrase is abbreviate GT but the film title is not. Ditto the rather good Clint Eastwood film Gran Torino.
In answer to James P I would say that 1a is probably intended as an &lit, i.e. the whole clue acts as the definition and I did eventually see “bubbly” as an anagrind (if the letters are bubbly then they would dance around). I cannot help you with the rest though – a “one nighter” is the opposite of a series of bangs, and ditto if erotophobia is meant to be &lit. Perhaps it is “opposite day” like in Calvin & Hobbes?
I do enjoy a tough struggle sometimes, but there has to be satisfaction in piecing together the parsing afterwards and that was often lacking here.
Thanks Oriel for the hard work and IO for the setting.
I had no confidence at all in my GT , just scratching around for something , in fact I solved it as “film tune” so never found the GT at all .
I’m glad when Io’s puzzles appear on a Wednesday because that’s often a day when I can ignore the FT puzzle and do the crossword in Private Eye instead. I had a look at this one and couldn’t immediately see an answer to any clues, though I have to admit I didn’t try all that hard. I recall Azed saying that if a crossword is difficult, at least one clue should be easy to help the less able solvers get started. It gives encouragement and doesn’t compromise the difficulty of the puzzle as a whole.
For EROTOPHOBIA I took the definition to be ‘involving love’ with ‘repeatedly, old’ providing the Os. One OED definition of involve is to tangle in trouble… to embarass.
There appears to be a 2017 film called ‘Good Time’ which might account for GT in AGOAT.
I don’t even bother trying Io any more. I came here this morning to see what others have made of what I had avoided.
Onanism for the setter and little / no pleasure for anyone else
It’s not that I wouldn’t be able to solve a chunk of it; it’s that the other part would be simply impossible for me and no fun whatsoever.
Weird thing is I remember solving Io in the past.
I blame the editor.
Moly@24 Your reference to Onanism is in contravention of site policy. I understand that you may consider that you have good reasons for continually making your objections to particular FT setters clear to other users of this site, but that can be no justification for the use of offensive language. Constructive criticism is fine, provided it is expressed in acceptable terms.
Even later to this, and lots of plodding through using everything to solve it and not everything parsed. ONE-NIGHTER made me laugh. However:
Diss is a railway town in Norfolk, a Norfolk Dumpling is a boiled dumpling or a variety of apple.
I wondered about Queen Victoria for EROTOPHOBIA – it’s not accurate but she was supposed to have told one of her daughters to “lie back and think of England” on her wedding night – and 9 children would suggest repetition. It’s an old-fashioned image of Queen Victoria, whose diaries (expurgated versions released in 2012) have made a nonsense of that picture.
Thank you to Oriel and Io.