I’m deputising for Eileen again and it’s Vlad again only two weeks after his last appearance in the prize slot.
I’m pleased to say that Eileen is back home again and making steady progress with her convalescence and hopes to resume her blogging duties early next month.
It was a surprise to encounter Vlad again so soon after what I described as a chewy challenge a couple of weeks ago. This one was even chewier and I confess that in a couple of places we resorted to word-finders to reach the answer. Although there are no particularly obscure words, some of the definitions are really quite cryptic and the wordplay in places is challenging. There is only one clue that I haven’t been able to parse to my complete satisfaction (IMPASTO) so I look forward to seeing your suggestions.
Given that this puzzle appeared on 14th February, we were expecting a Valentine’s Day theme, but if there was one, we couldn’t see it.
Many thanks to Vlad.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | HORATIO |
Hamlet’s first speech interrupted another character (7)
|
| H(amlet) ORATIO(n). Not the Shakespeare play we were expecting to find on 14th February. | ||
| 5 | PUB BORE |
Opening B&B after Union admitted one wouldn’t be welcome locally (3,4)
|
| U(nion) B B all inside PORE (opening). This was one of the last ones we solved, partly because the phrase (which is common enough) is not to be found in Chambers. “locally” (like “conveniently” in 21 down) was the key. | ||
| 10 | OGLE |
Search for information out of turn – not a good look? (4)
|
| (go)OGLE (search for information). A go is a turn. | ||
| 11 | PERPLEXING |
First Mrs Vlad occupying a place in government – bewildering! (10)
|
| The first Mrs Vlad would be the setter’s EX, which must be inserted in PER (a) PL(ace) IN G(overnment). | ||
| 12 | UNITES |
Cross-country guest forced to leave golf links (6)
|
| NI (Northern Ireland, a country) inside *(g)UEST. “Forced” is the anagram indicator, “golf” is G in the NATO phonetic alphabet. | ||
| 13 | SOCRATIC |
Used actors’ piece occasionally as a way of teaching (8)
|
| *(ACTORS (p)I(e)C(e)). I initially came up with ACROSTIC, which would work but it’s not really a way of teaching. | ||
| 14 | ACROPOLIS |
Grain perhaps and where to store it round highly secure location (9)
|
| A CROP, SILO (rev). The definition of acropolis is a secure citadel. | ||
| 16 | NEIGH |
Reported denial that comes straight from the horse’s mouth (5)
|
| Sounds like “nay”. | ||
| 17 | EMOTE |
What unsubtle actors do with direction – test the limit of patience (5)
|
| E(ast – a direction) MOT (test) (patienc)E. | ||
| 19 | IGNORAMUS |
Roaming round country as its leader, some might say (9)
|
| *ROAMING US. Further comment is unnecessary. | ||
| 23 | TRAIN OIL |
Blubber once when affected in Rialto (5,3)
|
| *(IN RIALTO). Chambers defines this as “whale oil extracted from the blubber by boiling”. | ||
| 24 | PUNDIT |
Expert parking? One’s over edge of driveway (6)
|
| P(arking), D(riveway) in UNIT(one). | ||
| 26 | POOHSTICKS |
Backing band stays for game of bridge (10)
|
| HOOP(band, rev) STICKS (stays). The game is to be found in The House at Pooh Corner, by A.A. Milne; we had to use a word-finder to get the answer, although the wordplay is perfectly clear. | ||
| 27 | HEAL |
Get better describing Meghan’s number 2 – Prince Harry (4)
|
| (m)E(ghan) inside HAL (Prince Harry). | ||
| 28 | SEASICK |
On the drink but not feeling great (7)
|
| I’m not sure how to classify this clue: is it an & lit, or just an extended cryptic definition? | ||
| 29 | PREMISE |
In short Starmer’s point accepted – we assume it’s true (7)
|
| PREMIE(r) (Starmer in short) including S (point of the compass, or possibly the first letter of Starmer). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | ORGANIC |
Naturally growing old interfered with racing (7)
|
| O(ld), *RACING. | ||
| 3 | ALERT |
Warning from distant relative rebuffed (5)
|
| Hidden and reversed in “distant relative”. | ||
| 4 | IMPASTO |
Painting I think about no more (7)
|
| If this is a charade of I’M PAST O, then I don’t fully understand it. Any suggestions? | ||
| 6 | UNLOCK |
Release one French rugby player (6)
|
| UN (one in French) LOCK (rugby forward). | ||
| 7 | BOX CAMERA |
Shooter turned up after strapping fellow wearing underwear (3,6)
|
| OX (strapping fellow), CAME (turned up) in BRA (underwear). An elusive definition, coupled with the possibility of a reversal (“up” in a down clue) made this one hard to solve without quite a few crossers. | ||
| 8 | RANTING |
A little narrow-minded in judging crosswords (7)
|
| N (a little Narrow-minded) inside RATING (judging). You have to separate CROSS and WORDS. Our LOI. | ||
| 9 | TRYSTING-PLACE |
Clanger! Typist accidentally reveals where lovers are meeting (8,5)
|
| *(CLANGER TYPIST). The only clue/answer with any reference to St Valentine, so far as we could see. | ||
| 15 | OSTRICHES |
Birds over the road getting bread (9)
|
| O(ver) ST(reet, or road) RICHES (money, or bread). | ||
| 18 | MARLOWE |
Old dramatist in Hackney perhaps depressed (7)
|
| LOW (depressed) in MARE (like hackney, a word for a horse). | ||
| 20 | OPPOSER |
One not in favour of bringing up Vennells’ former business model (7)
|
| PO (Post Office, of which Paula Vennells was once chief executive) (rev), POSER (model). We had a reference to the Post Office Horizon scandal in the previous Prize puzzle from Vlad a couple of weeks ago. | ||
| 21 | URINALS |
Where to stand conveniently keeping in range (7)
|
| IN (keeping?) inside URALS (a mountain range). I guessed this immediately from “conveniently” but it took a while before Timon came up with the parsing. | ||
| 22 | POETIC |
Writer gets a lot of credit for being imaginative (6)
|
| POE (writer) TIC(k) (credit). | ||
| 25 | NAHUM |
Human failing in book (5)
|
| *HUMAN. Nahum is perhaps one of the less well-known of the minor prophets whose books are to be found in the Hebrew Bible. |
Many thanks. I enjoyed this, but took all week to parse IMPASTO.
I think it’s IMO (I think – i.e. in my opinion) about PAST.
Another Vlad prize (just two weeks after the last one) I didn’t quite finish that one but did better than expected.
And was encouraged by Roz’s comment about trying harder puzzles to try again.
I found this one much more difficult. On the first try I only managed half the clues. So I left it – the next day I got another eight – so still some to go- and I did try again but no success.
Liked: ACROPOLIS, EMOTE (I kept trying to fit HAM into the answer) IGNORAMOUS, POOHSTICKS (for the definition), BOX CAMERA, POETIC
Thanks Vlad (I think) and bridge song
I can’t believe I finished this one. Probably my toughest completion ever, so very satisfying. Take that Vlad! Quite the slog, worked on over several days. LOI, 5a, was sitting there for a long time with all the crossers. When I finally twigged to the wordplay, I popped the question to Mrs. Mig — “Is PUB BORE a thing?” — and she made me very happy by saying yes!
A lot of very tricky constructions, with superb surfaces. Apologies for so many notables: 3d ALERT (very well hidden), 11a PERPLEXING (dastardly wordplay, took a while to parse), 26a POOHSTICKS (nho, “game of bridge” clever definition), 4d IMPASTO (“I think” = IMO), 8d RANTING (“crosswords”), 22d POETIC (great surface), 20d OPPOSER (took a lot of digging to find “Vennells’ former business” = PO. Really? We’re supposed to know all the people who ran the UK Post office?), 21d URINALS (all-round excellent clue), 25d NAHUM (cue the tea tray)
For URINALS, I parsed it as “keeping in, range” = “range keeping in” = UR(IN)ALS
Thanks to Vlad for a great puzzle, and to bridgesong for stepping in — rock on Eileen!
Re. 12A, Northern Ireland is not a country. I should know – I come from there. I spent ages trying to parse UNITES ;(
I agree with jkb_ing@1 on IMPASTO.
I am not at all persuaded by the parsing for UNITES. [G]UEST minus G (golf) is OK, and forced as anagram indicator is OK, but I do not see Northern Ireland as a country, nor does that explain what “cross” is doing in the clue. I thought perhaps “cross-country” might be a synonym for “in,” that is also not very satisfactory.
Good blog on a hard puzzle.
I think you have to read 21d as “keeping in, range”. Meaning that URALS is “keeping” IN.
Thanks to Vlad and bridgesong, and jkb_ing for the parsing of 4d.
Edit – I see Mig@3 has typed faster than me, apologies!
Can someone explain how in 8D “a little narrow-minded” = N. Got the answer and the rest of it, but couldn’t quite parse the above.
I agree with earlier comments about the NI in UNITES – I finally figured it was very likely Northern Ireland they were referring to, but wasn’t very convinced.
Shafar@7, “a little” is often used as a first-letter indicator
Echo jkb_ing #1.
Another tour de force from Vlad – certainly chewy. We started a bit late with a funny NEIGH, (Oh yes, we did!) and proceeded slowly to UNITES, via a host of clever and entertaining clues, but we saw no theme.
We laughed at our favourites: POOHSTICKS, BOX CAMERA and URINALS; appreciated the intended digs in IGNORAMUS, OPPOSE, and possibly PREMISE; struggled to explain IMPASTO, PERPLEXING and EMOTE and enjoyed ACROPOLIS, OSTRICHES, PUB BORE with OGLE (almost a triple!)
Thanks to Vlad for the challenging fun and bridgesong for the usual clear blog.
Thanks bridgesong. 1a and 2d went in immediately but like you and others I found this needed quite a lot of time and I had to wait to come here before understanding 7d and 29a. I’d been fixated on Starmer’s=PM+is+E and trying to account for RE. Maybe ‘cross’ is the anagrind in 12a.
@Mig, thanks! I knew about “little” being a first-letter indicator, but the use of a hyphenated word “narrow-minded” as the target threw me off! Thought there was more to it.
I read the “a little narrow-minded as N from narrow, minded (found in, kept by) rating, to get the RANTING, the hyphen helping to misdirect.
BOX CAMERA was my LOI, which I found the most tricky, till the penny dropped.
I think NI in 12a must be Nicaragua (website country code).
Fine puzzle. PUB BORE was hard to see. Vlad does seem to enjoy his Yoda-esque constructions.
Faves were ACROPOLIS and URINALS. Some nicely disguised definitions here.
Thanks, Vlad and loonapick.
Bridgesong, not loonapick. My apologies!
Thanks Vlad and bridgesong.
Liked PUB BORE, IGNORAMUS and URINALS.
PERPLEXING
First Mrs Vlad: Should that not be ‘my ex’?
UNITES
NI is a country just like Wales, England or Scotland. Not a sovereign nation, but a country.
I didn’t get RANTING – put in RANKING without really parsing it. For IMPASTO, I couldn’t account for O but jkb@1 nailed it. For SEASICK, I thought of it as being sick on the water (which is a drink, albeit, in the sea, not a very good one but I guess one can be seasick on a lake and even on a river). Liked HORATIO, PERPLEXING, ACROPOLIS, OSTRICHES. Thanks Vlad and bridgesong!
Speaking as a US citizen, IGNORAMUS was apropos! We all hope that this too shall pass soon!
Just finished the puzzle (took a week). IGNORAMUS made it all worth it!
Thankyou Bridgesong. Good to hear Eileen is convalescing and may be able to join us again soon. Please give her our good wishes for her reccovery.
URINALS and IGNORAMUS two of my picks. I could link them, but best not to go there.
I really thought that for once I’d not only completed a Vlad puzzle and got it right, but had understood all the parsing. Then I read the blog and realised I’d never properly understood IMPASTO. Thanks bridgesong for making me feel I wasn’t alone there, and jkb_ing@1 for the explanation. Otherwise, this took me a while but was worth the effort. I particularly liked IGNORAMUS (it seems even the supreme court would agree…) and POOHSTICKS, because I can never walk across a small bridge without looking for a couple of sticks to drop in the water. Thanks Vlad, bridgesong, and A.A.Milne.
Thanks for the blog , good to see Vlad in the Prize slot again , keep tryimg Fiona@2 , I had a similar experience with Bunthorne . RANTING very sneaky with the fission and the devious first letter , URINALS a clever definition and PDM@19 has stolen my joke . Hardest for me was HEAL , in the paper the clue is split across two columns so hard for me to read as a whole .
Well done Jkb@1 , much better than my idea .
Mig@3 , Vennels a bit UK specific but the scandal did last over a decade here .
Tone@13 a neat suggestion for NI , I have seen this used for other two letter codes and it avoids any controversy .
This was hard work – I didn’t parse IMPASTO, MARLOWE (hackney=mare??) or PERPLEXING and I still don’t understand how UNITES works even after the explanation. Maybe the anagrammed (g)UEST is a-cross the country (whatever the country is if it isn’t Northern Ireland)?
Like Marser@9, NEIGH was my first in, and was pretty lonely for a while until others joined it one by one. I enjoyed PUB BORE and URINALS, SEASICK, ACROPOLIS, ALERT and POOHSTICKS (yes, I needed the wordfinder too, followed by a shower of pennies dropping as I realised what the “game of bridge” meant) and of course IGNORAMUS. Let’s hope the gent in question never attempts the Guardian crossword: somehow I doubt it.
Well, after complaining two weeks ago that Vlad and I didn’t get on, I found this much more enjoyable.
Maybe he came up with a kinder version of himself, just for me.
This was splendid. Very inventive and original.
Loved POOHSTICKS and MARLOWE.
Looking at the blog and the comments, I feel quite happy with myself having completed this while watching sports last Saturday. I too used a wordfinder for POOHSTICKS. It originates in my county, well the Eastern half, but I’d never have thought it was a single word.
Thanks for a good blog Bridgesong and for including the grid which always makes for a better experience.
Ok. Time for breakfast and further progress on Imogen.
Great spot, jkb 1, thanks.
I’m not quite sure what the relative amounts of hydrogen and oxygen in 1a would be, however.
Cheers one and all.
Thanks Vlad and bridgesong
Hard but fun. I laughed at POOHSTICKS and URINALS.
Someone elsewhere pointed out that for 18d, the main road through Hackney is called Mare Street!
I didn’t solve all of the SW corner but after reading the blog am glad I completed the rest of the grid. Agree with phitonelly @13 that NI is Nicaragua. POOHSTICKS defeated me as I couldn’t get beyond thinking it must end in LACES (stays)! Please will someone explain why PER means A in 11a, which I put in despite not fully parsing. Favourites were HORATIO and URINALS. Great brain workout, thanks Vlad.
Thanks for the blog, bridgesong. An excellent write-up of a good challenging prize IMO 😉. My experience was
similar to yours with PUB BORE last to
yield.
gladys @ 23: Hackney as hackney carriage (black cab) is believed to have its origins in the name given to a horse drawn carriage and an old french-derived name for the horse that drew the black cab’s forerunner.
Well done Fiona@2. It’s worth the patience in my view.
Great news about Eilleen’s progress.
Other than Gladys @23, has anyone else got any idea what CROSS is doing in the clue for UNITES? Is it simply that the flag of Northern Ireland has a cross making it a cross-country?
Thanks for all the comments, and particularly to jkb_ing @1 for coming up with the correct parsing for IMPASTO.
NoryN @28: per = a is one of those crossword conventions that you come across every now and then, often in more advanced cryptics. The best example I can give is the greengrocer who offers six apples per pound, or six apples a pound.
In the clue to UNITES, I agree with Gladys @23 that “cross” is an envelope indicator. That’s how I understood it, anyway. Any reference to the flag of Northern Ireland is just coincidental, in my view. And I agree with KVa @15 that Northern Ireland is the country in question, mainly because Chambers does not give NI as an abbreviation for Nicaragua (the International Vehicle Registration code is NIC, which is in Chambers).
But Vlad usually reads these blogs and drops in to make a comment, so perhaps he will clarify what he had in mind?
Crispy@28 I think the cross is an insertion indicator for NI within the anagram part of the clue.
me@33 I crossed with you, bridgesong@32. At least I was on your wavelength though as well as gladys who i realise now said it first anyway. Thanks again for stepping in today. I agree with Martin@25 that the grid is a nice to have but I appreciate the varied styles of you and your fellow bloggers.
Bridgesong @31 – thank you! That makes sense. (Am still fairly new to this.)
Thanks all – I understand now.
Layman @16 The drink was RAF slang for the sea. I remember a book of Air/Sea Rescue stories called Down in the Drink.
Zoot @38: thanks for enlightening me!
Noryn@28: a=per fools me almost every time, even now I know of it; “a” being such an easy little thing to disguise (which is undoubtedly why the more devious setters are so fond of it).
Thanks bridgesong; it wouldn’t be a Vlad without something to clarify, and you sorted everything out nicely. Also thanks for passing on the welcome news that Eileen is recovering enough to return to her duties soon (no reflection on anyone who has deputised in the meantime).
As for the setter, I can recall being utterly defeated by a Vlad some years ago: after a few hours I had a couple of clues filled in (both of which were guesses, and turned out to be wrong!). Admitting defeat I came on here looking for fellow posters who were equally beaten and frustrated, but instead the consensus was that the Impaler had done it again, “classic Vlad”, and how much everyone had enjoyed “a proper challenge, tough but fair”.
My reaction to this was appropriately mature: bitter resentment and envy of all who had solved this impossible puzzle. But when I reverse engineered it from the blog, I found that everything worked, and came to the conclusion that Vlad was in fact an evil genius. I also realised that this site had much to teach me. And it has. I can’t say my heart leaps with joy when I see Vlad is the setter, because I know it won’t be a breeze, but I’m no longer daunted.
I really enjoyed this latest one: “classic Vlad, a proper challenge, tough but fair” as they say. Favourites were PUB BORE, IGNORAMUS (we know who you mean), and another well deserved dig at a reprehensible former Post Office boss in OPPOSER.
Less keen on NAHUM due to my aversion to all things biblical; perplexed by PERPLEXING due to not spotting the a=PER chestnut, and google required to confirm IMPASTO, TRAIN OIL and POOHSTICKS.
Thanks to both.
Anne@4 et al: I’m also from NI and it didn’t even occur to me to call it a country. Some call it a province, others a region, but (as with many things here) calling it a country is at best contentious. At the same time, the UK is often described as having four nations. This stuff is complicated.
NAHUM is possibly better known (to me, at least!) through the poet Nahum Tate. He wrote, amongst other works, “While shepherds watched” amd the libretto for Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.
KVa @15
Northern Ireland is most certainly not a country.
poc @ 43
> Some call it a province, others a region
And some call it The Six Counties. Others call it The North. Yet others refer to it as Ulster.
Complicated, I give you 😉
Strictly, Ulster isn’t the same as Northern Ireland, as it includes three counties (Cavan, Donegal, and Monaghan) that are part of the Republic.
@Various re “cross” in 12a, just to underscore gladys@23, I thought of “cross” as short for “across” as a container. Thus “Aross-country, (g)uest forced”
muffin@47
That’s right. Ulster comprises nine counties, not six.
Favourites:ENGINE OIL, PENGUINS,CHOPSTICKS,METROPOLIS and SEPARATES.Ta both.
If you follow international football Northern Ireland is definitely a country
[ Although I am sixth generation Canadian, my heritage is 50% Scottish, and if anyone says that Scotland is not a country my thistle-ly hackles get raised.
Country, nation, state, all with overlapping meanings. Here our country is made up of many founding nations – several First Nations, Inuit, and what my musician friends call Francophones and Anglo-Saxophones. ]
[Cellomaniac @53
Scotland (and Wales) are clearly “countries”, as they used to be such. “Northern Ireland” never was, as it was created by the division of Ireland (a “country”) after the rebellion.
btw I like “Anglo=Saxophone!]
Re#54, while there cannot be absolute hard and fast rules on this, a country is, I think, usually seen as a “political unit”.
Northern Ireland, created after the division you mention, would seem to fit that description as part of the UK, as Scotland and Wales that you also refer to, are.
Relieved to find others struggled with same clues as I did in solving this. Overall enjoyed it, and great to come here to get my head around the remaining ones I couldn’t fully parse (IMPASTO + MARLOWE).
My main gripe, to be honest, is with the grid. The Guardian has been (cf. yesterday’s) using quite a lot like this recently, where 5/7 letter words only have 2/3 crossing letters respectively. For solutions like PUB BORE I just don’t think that’s good enough – ?U? B?R? – combined with such a cryptic definition just strikes me as unfair. It’s a good clue, but it’s very very hard with those crossers.
Thanks to bridgesong for the blog and to others for their comments.
Surprised by the dogmatism about what constitutes a country when perceived wisdom suggests a precise definition is not possible.
My last effort at Vlad 2 weeks ago was a near miss (1 error preventing 2 other answers). Frustrating as the clues seemed hard but logical. I still hadn’t finished the bottom RHS of this one yesterday, but I had a last look on my exercise bike this morning and saw NAHUM, then the others, with some groaning at URINALS. Glad to read in bridgesong’s blog and other comments that others found the puzzle hard but well-constructed. I was pleased to work out the long romantic anagram, and I ticked a lot of clues for their quality. PUB BORE and RANTING got double ticks. I also got UNITES, but with a ? about NI. I note Vlad’s reply above, but that one didn’t really work for me. Still, an excellent puzzle overall. Glad that I stuck at it. The satisfying opposite of a ‘timewaster’ puzzle.
Mig#3
We’re not expected to know all the names of people who have run the Post Office, but Paula Vennells was much in the news for her part in the appalling scandals that ruined the lives of many subPostmasters and mistresses wrongfully accused of financial mismanagement due to a failed IT system.
Thanks KateE@59 (and Roz@22). Didn’t know about the scandal. I figured there was some reason the name was notable, though, so my comment @3 was slightly tongue-in-cheek! I’m often suprised (and amused) by the information we’re expected to know 🙂