Apologies for the delayed blog. Thanks to Vulcan for the puzzle, my favourites were 14ac, 16dn, and 24dn.
edit thanks to comments, starting from the bottom right and going clockwise around the sides of the grid, there is A RARE NINA TO SPOT IN MY CROSSWORD…
| ACROSS | ||
| 8 | OILSHALE |
Hallo – is energy briefly produced from this? (3,5)
|
| definition: energy-producing fuel can be extracted from oil shale
anagram/(produced) of (Hallo is e)* with e = e-[nergy] briefly |
||
| 9 | ADAGIO |
Notice an attempt to restrict one, so scored slowly (6)
|
| definition: adagio means ‘slowly’ on a musical score
AD (advertisement)=”Notice” + A (“an”); plus GO=”attempt” around/restricting I=”one” |
||
| 10 | PETE |
Boy’s favourite drug (4)
|
| PET=”favourite” + E (ecstasy, “drug”) | ||
| 11 | BASE METALS |
Copper and iron for example in mass with the others in depots (4,6)
|
| M (mass) + ET AL (et alia, “with the others”); all inside BASES=”depots” | ||
| 12 | SIDLED |
Son lazed about and moved furtively (6)
|
| S (Son) + IDLED=”lazed about” | ||
| 14 | ALLEGROS |
Austins age, Rolls get replaced (8)
|
| definition: the Austin Allegro was a model of car | ||
| 15 | ORIGAMI |
Art without tears? (7)
|
| cryptic definition: a form of art where paper is folded (without tearing it)
surface can mislead if “tears” is read as relating to crying |
||
| 17 | BESTREW |
Scatter finest roses (except white, initially) (7)
|
| BEST=”finest”, plus initial letters from R-[oses] E-[xcept] W-[hite] | ||
| 20 | TORTILLA |
Wrap everything before I jog back (8)
|
| ALL=”everything+ I TROT=”I jog”; all reversed/”back” | ||
| 22 | FOREGO |
Go without, to feed my pride? (6)
|
| FOR EGO=for my pride/ego=”to feed my pride” | ||
| 23 | ATTRACTIVE |
Pretty drawing (10)
|
| double definition: second definition as in drawing/attracting something closer | ||
| 24 | BOAR |
Provision of food cut down a bit for pig (4)
|
| BOAR-[d] (as in ‘bed and board’)=”Provision of food”, without its last letter i.e. “cut down a bit” | ||
| 25 | NO BALL |
Extra reason cricket was held up? (2,4)
|
| definition: in cricket, a “no ball” is a type of ‘extra’ where the battings side can score a point that is not credited to the batter
the rest of the clue: a game of cricket might be held up if there is NO BALL to play with |
||
| 26 | ASTEROID |
Foolishly rides to a distant rock (8)
|
| anagram/”Foolishly” of (rides to a)* | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | TIMELIER |
More opportune to stretch out during watch? (8)
|
| LIE [oneself out horizontally]=”stretch out”; inside TIMER=”watch” | ||
| 2 | I SEE |
Result of my eye operation? You’ve explained it (1,3)
|
| I SEE could also be the “Result of my eye operation” [that restores my sight] | ||
| 3 | NABBED |
Veto being lifted, rest seized (6)
|
| BAN=”Veto” reversed up/”lifted” + BED=”rest” | ||
| 4 | MESSIAH |
The oratorio one long expected (7)
|
| double definition: Handel’s Messiah is an oratorio; or an awaited saviour | ||
| 5 | YARMULKE |
Rearranged Mary, Luke and Jacob’s headgear (8)
|
| for the definition, I think “Jacob” refers to the Hebrew patriarch
anagram/”Rearranged” of (Mary Luke)* |
||
| 6 | CASTIGATOR |
Severe critic of players, one fierce creature (10)
|
| CAST [in theatre]=”players” + I=”one” + GATOR (alligator, “fierce creature”) | ||
| 7 | RIALTO |
Canal bridge to rail off (6)
|
| definition: the name of a bridge of the Grand Canal in Venice
anagram/”off” of (to rail)* |
||
| 13 | LIGHTERMAN |
Docker who has lost a lot of weight? (10)
|
| definition: a dockworker operating a lighter (a type of barge)
someone who has lost a lot of weight might have become a LIGHTER (less heavy) MAN |
||
| 16 | MOLECULE |
Tiny thing, skin blemish? Bad clue (8)
|
| MOLE=”skin blemish” + anagram/”Bad” of (clue)* | ||
| 18 | EX GRATIA |
Former soldier, American, shielding deserter as a favour (2,6)
|
| definition: a phrase describing an action done voluntarily / “as a favour”
EX=”Former”; plus GI (as in ‘G.I. Joe’, a soldier) + A (American), both around RAT=”deserter” |
||
| 19 | LAMINAR |
River creature’s back consisting of thin plates (7)
|
| R (River) + ANIMAL=”creature”; all reversed/”back” | ||
| 21 | OCTROI |
Old French tax in force – tire of it regularly (6)
|
| definition: a tax on bringing certain goods into a city [wiki]
regular letters from [f]-O-[r]-C-[e] T-[i]-R-[e] O-[f] I-[t] |
||
| 22 | FIESTA |
Holiday by car (6)
|
| double definition: second definition refers to the Ford Fiesta car | ||
| 24 | BRRR |
I’m shivering in second class, getting basic education (4)
|
| B=”second class” (if A is first class and C is third class, etc); plus RRR=the ‘three R’s’ of basic education, reading, writing, arithmetic |
Number 1 at last , even beat AlanC who must be cheating .
Tougher Vulcan than usual and what a wonderful Nina to cap it all. A RARE NINA TO SPOT IN MY CROSSWORD. I liked the motoring and musical clues along with TORTILLA, ASTEROID, CASTIGATOR and BRRR. Slight quibble with the use of go in FOREGO, which was a good clue otherwise.
Ta Vulcan & manehi.
Thanks manehi
I think I’d parsed them all anyway. I didn’t notice the spectacular nina that was commented on elsewhere (and now by AlanC who beat me to it).
Thanks Vulcan and congrats on hitting 200.
Thanks Vulcan and manehi
I thought this was harder than a usual Vulcan, but very enjoyable.
It’s sad how the distinction between FORGO and FOREGO has been eroded. Chambers now accepts the latter as an alternative spelling of the former.
My usual sort of moan – the Rialto isn’t a bridge; it’s the commercial area of Venice, based around the old market. The Rialto Bridge crosses the Grand Canal to get to it. Vulcan could have used a more accurate definition.
Lots to like. Favourites ORIGAMI and ATTRACTIVE.
I didn’t see the Nina until it was referred to on the Guardian site. Very nice!
Well done Roz @1: any comment on the puzzle perchance?😉
Thanks for the blog , this seemed just right for a Monday , OCTROI a bit obscure but the clue was very fair . MOLECULEs are quite big really .
I did not see the message , sometimes I check the perimeter for a sticklebrick grid .
As per, I neither looked for nor spotted (chapeau, AlanC) the superb NINA, but a slightly more taxing Monday than usual. TTS&B
So do I balk at FOREGO, which definition is “go before,” not “go without” (FORGO).
[ AlanC @6 , I typed ONE letter straight away and your whole comment came in a fraction of a second later , there is no way you could have typed it . ]
I thought Vulcan got closer to Monday territory with this one, though still tricky in places. SE took the longest, with loi 24d BRRR providing an enjoyable pdm (more specifically the three Rs are readin’, ‘ritin’, and ‘rithmetic). I also liked 10a PETE (concise, with a good surface), 23a ATTRACTIVE (ditto), 26a ASTEROID (surface, anagram)
Agree with AlanC@1 — oops @2 — 22a FOREGO suffers from “Go” repeated in the clue. I guess the definition is problematic, too
Well done spotting the Nina AlanC! I don’t usually expect or look for anything extra in a Vulcan puzzle
My first one in 24D – I’m shivering: clearly the split word “iced”. Took a while to correct – intentional misdirection?
Even if the dictionary doesn’t offer us ‘foregive’ as an alternative to set our teeth on edge, I’m sure we can forgive the last-ditch use of the word ‘Octroi’ (here in Lincolnshire we talk of little else) in pursuit of the brilliant Nina. If setters and solvers can both have fun, then the world takes on a Panglossian. . .er. . . gloss.
[Tricks of the trade, Roz @10. When you have spotted something in a puzzle that you think the blogger may miss, you can type your comment in advance and save it so as to be in first with an instant CTRL+V. I confess to having done this myself, for example with the Enigmatist puzzle several months back which referenced the film, The Court Jester. In fact, as Martin @4 notes, the nina had been ‘commented on elsewhere’ – i.e. on the Guardian thread – but Alan C my have spotted it independently.]
I have a suggestion as to why there might be something extra in Vulcan’s puzzle today – this is his 200th daily puzzle for the Guardian (under that name). Congratulations!
He is the 21st to reach that mark and the 6th fastest – he has taken less time to get there than either Rufus or Paul did. His debut was 26th February 2018, so that’s 2,954 days, compared to 3,042 days for Rufus and 3,458 for Paul.
Lavengro (987 days), Janus (1,469), Araucaria (1,514), Altair (1,697) and Custos (2,076) were the five to get there even more quickly, all of them in the 1970s.
To make it a nice double: Imogen’s Prize on Saturday was his 159th daily, taking him level with Xerxes and into the top 30 all time.
22 across is simply wrong. FORGO and FOREGO are completely different words.
I thought this was the trickiest yet of Vulcan’s increasingly tricky Monday puzzles, with the superb nina demanding a few relative obscurities (OCTROI, ALLEGROS, LAMINAR and BESTREW being words of less than everyday use). Favourite NO BALL.
Balfour @14: I genuinely didn’t see the G thread today, but I’m always looking for extraneous stuff like Ninas and alternative themes as Roz has sometimes commented on. I saw OSSWORD down the right and went from there. The fact that Vulcan never seems to add the extras, makes this even more apposiite.
[Mitz @15. Are you perchance ‘moaljodad’, as featured on the Guardian thread?]
First couple flew in, then I slowed down a lot, but there in the end.
(btw, the explanation for 14a above forgets to mention the anagram)
I’m another who thinks 22ac is wrong.
[No problemo, Alan C @18. I do not usually frequent the G thread, but in the absence of a 225 blog this morning I went thither to see, among other responses to the puzzle, whether the nina had been spotted there. It seemed to be 20-odd comments in before it was remarked on.]
[Thank you Balfour@14 , I can scarcely believe that the head of Special Branch would use such tactics . I need to review the scores from a competition we had a few years ago . ]
Cross bencher and Zoot
I agree about FOREGO, but as I said @5, unfortunately it’s in Chambers as an alternative spelling of FORGO.
On RIALTO, it has occurred to me that it would be just like defining Westminster as “bridge”!
Zoot @21 et.al. I agree in principle, but in practice descriptive lexicography, which won the battle over prescriptive more than two centuries ago, has the disadvantage that it can, over time, simply normalise ignorance. I believe some dictionaries now accept ‘disinterested’ as an alternative to ‘uninterested’ because it has become such a common misuse. It raises my hackles too.
[@Balfour – yes! The clue is in my icon…]
Mitz@15 thanks for the extra information .
You probably know this but for the 20000th puzzle there was an article by John Perkin in the paper on the day , very interesting . I have the original in my diary but I guess you can find it online .
@Roz – yes, I have a copy (from 11th April 1994) – fascinating stuff.
Well that was a miracle, I spotted the Nina but only because I was looking for cars. I spotted ALLEGRO, RIALTO, FIESTA and ADAGIO but guessing there were others.
Enjoyed BRRR (after much head scratching)
LAMINAR is a word I learnt a few weeks ago from a crossword where there was a similar construction.
Thanks Vulcan and Manehi
Mitz@28 , my copy is quite yellow now , only two setters still going I think , also a reprint of the first ever Guardian crossword . A great Guardian misprint – Quantum was a PSYCHICS lecturer .
Balfour @25. Yes, but we don’t have to give in without a fight. By pointing out the error we may be be enlightening someone previously unaware of the distinction.
14ac is also an anagram of age. Rolls isn’t it? Loved the surface, had an Allegro many years ago and always regretted it! Many thanks to Vulcan and Manehi.
Thank you Vulcan and manehi! I missed the excellent nina, but I enjoyed the puzzle plenty before having it pointed out. Relatively smooth sailing for me, though I had to infer the existence of OCTROI, LAMINAR, and EX GRATIA, not too much of a stretch from the clues and similar more familiar words. And of course I had to guess at the cricket term as usual. YARMULKE, TIMELIER, and MOLECULE were favorites for me.
Thanks Vulcan and manehi! Α nice puzzle; a pity that I was sloppy and confused my Latin putting “ex gratis”… A few jorums but also some enjoyable wordplay as usual with Vulcan. I would have been surprised though if patriarch Jacob had actually worn a kippah/yarmulke…
Quite a few chuckles along the way, TORTILLA was a lovely surface. FOREGO my favourite, which I’m sure makes me a philistine. A very fun puzzle!
Can any kind soul help me find an example for bed=rest? I’m sure it’s obvious but I’m stumped
Thank you Vulcan (and congratulations for the milestone!) and manehi.
Calabar Bean@35 – ‘putting something to bed’ and ‘putting something to rest’ are synonyms I think.
LHS was easy enough, RHS a mystery.
Thanks both.
I was glad to see TORTILLA clued as a wrap, rather than some of the more ridiculous things we’ve seen, such as “pancake” or “dish.” British ignorance of Mexican cuisine may finally be on the wane.
Calabar Bean@35: I wondered about bed=rest in 3d too. Chambers gives bed=a place in which anything rests, and rest=a place for resting, so I guess that’s the justification. But I can’t readily think of a context in which either would work equally well.
Forgive my obtuseness, but how does rigami relate to “tears”, meaning rips?
Sorry but I don’t understand about Nina…
mrpenney@38: I’ve munched my way through many a “Tortilla de Patatas”, aka just “Tortilla” in Northern Spain, as well as great piles of Maize Tortillas in Mexico. Both types are delicious. It does seem to be quite hard to get hold of the real-deal maize tortillas in the UK, instead of those hideous “El Paso” wheat ones, at least in supermarkets. Diligent searching of the back corners of lower shelves has sometimes provided the necessary stuff for making proper quesadillas. Don’t, just don’t, get me started on supermarket “guacamole”…
Oh, what, the crossword? Yes, quite chewy stuff, I thought, for a Monday. Never heard of OCTROI, but so clearly clued that I simply needed to check it was a real word and that I hadn’t missed the point somehow. Lots to like, but I’ll give my COTD to ORIGAMI for its devious definition. We used to have an origami club at school: I could turn out a jumping frog, water bomb or flapping bird at the drop of a hat once. How soon we forget those vital skills…
I completely missed the Nina, but there you go – a nice bonus to find it on coming here.
Thanks Vulcan & manehi !
Sorry poloyphon@36. For some reason your post wasn’t showing when I added mine@39.
Hector @43
Yes, that’s odd. The “⚠️ This comment was deleted or is awaiting moderation.” message was there for a long time before the comment actually appeared.
poloyphon: Prior to yours appearing @36 I was about to make a similar post. This does raise a question for me: is an equivalence justified if it works only for a particular phrase, or a tightly circumscribed set of phrases?
I found this “tough-for-a-Monday” too. Only four entries on first pass. Got there, though, with more than a few “oh, of course”s along the way. I shared the misgivings about FOREGO (both of them). Coloradan@45: I think it does only have to work for certain usages, otherwise the setter’s job would be so much harder – and ours easier. The beauty of English… Thanks, Vulcan and Manheim.
As an apprentice pedant I’m not sure that the E in FOREGO is a hill I would be happy to die on. The singulars of criteria and bacteria, on the other hand…
Thanks and congratulations to Vulcan (though I have a feeling that Imogen may have been looking over his shoulder while he was working on this one). And thanks and commiserations to our blogger – I think my spell checker once wanted to call him Mannheim, but unlike Tim@46 it actually managed to spell the name of that city correctly. 🙂 Thanks, manehi.
I take your point TassieTim@46, and all-in-all I’m good with the clue. Maybe it’s a matter of the degree to which the words connote something similar absent their appearance in a particular phrase. “up to snuff” and “up to scratch” are equivalent, but can “snuff” legitimately clue “scratch”?
Sorry, manehi! And thanks, sheffield hatter. Proof read, Tim! Never trust autocorrupt, er, correct.
&40
In true origami you never tear the paper
Gill #41 From 15 squared’s home page. FAQ.
A Nina is a message (or theme words etc) hidden in the grid, sometimes round the perimeter, sometimes along a diagonal or sometimes in the unchecked squares in a particular row or column (or more than one of each). Its name is derived from the American cartoonist Al Hirschfeld’s habit of hiding his daughter’s name, Nina, in his cartoons.
In today’s puzzle, in case you haven’t found it yet, see the grid above, starting from the bottom right hand corner, moving clockwise, A RARE NINA TO SPOT IN MY CROSSWORD. Vulcan isn’t known for ninas, but as Mitz said #15, today is a special occasion, his 200th puzzle, and he may just have had his own little joke in celebration.
poloyphon@36: Ohh, that’ll do it! Thank you 🙂 And to Hector@39 as well.
Coloradan@45: imo, as long as the words are equivalent in at least one use, it’s all kosher! It makes the penny drop moment very satisfying.
Failed to solve 19d LAMINAR.
New for me: OCTROI; YARMULKE; and Austin ALLEGRO car. Surely setters can be more creative when writing clues rather than falling back on car brands so often. It seems to be a lazy way of clueing 😉
Favourite: FOREGO.
I didn’t notice the nina until after I read the btl comments at Guardian.