Too many issues in this puzzle for my liking…
Although there are some neat clues in this offering, the overall puzzle is let down by too many poor clues, in my opinion.
My main gripes are:
16ac – The A in the solution is not indicated in the clue.
3dn – poor definition.
7,26 dn – don’t like what the setter has done here.
14dn – horrible clue.
My favourites were 5ac, 23 ac, and 2dn.
Thanks, Chalmie.
| Across | ||
| 1 | STALKERS | Followers succeeded people on the radio (8) |
| S + TALKERS | ||
| 5 | DOOFUS | Complete, our lunkhead (6) |
| DO (“complete”) + OF US (“our”) | ||
| 10 | ATLASES | Very close to girl collecting English books (7) |
| AT (“very close to”) + LASSES “collecting” E(nglish) | ||
| 11 | ALGERIA | Country song about leg getting broken (7) |
| ARIA “about” *(leg) | ||
| 12 | CHEMISTRY | Science film covers first sign of rot in fruit (9) |
| MIST replacing the firdt R in CHERRY | ||
| 13 | NOOSE | Something to hang with energy returning shortly before (5) |
| <= E SOON | ||
| 15 | SHRUG | Be dismissive of quiet game by leaving (5) |
| SH + RUG(by) | ||
| 16 | DIATRIBE | Excellent! Former BBC man is coming back in to finish rant (8) |
| <=BIRT in DIE, but the A is not clued anywhere!
John BIRT was a former DG of the BBC. |
||
| 19 | DOORMATS | Subservient people’s party creating a storm (8) |
| DO + *(a storm) | ||
| 20 | OTTER | Draw naked swimmer (5) |
| (l)OTTER(y) | ||
| 21 | RAGED | Saw red journalist on rotten paper (5) |
| ED on RAG | ||
| 23 | RIFLE-SHOT | Possibly report disturbance involving meat (5-4) |
| RIOT “involving” FLESH | ||
| 25 | ALMANAC | Annual battle in the Crimea may return (7) |
| ALMA (“battle in Crimea”) + <=CAN | ||
| 27 | OPEN SEA | A lot of water around in buffalo pens earlier (4,3) |
| Hidden in “buffalO PENS EArlier” | ||
| 28 | SADDER | Second snake further down (6) |
| S + ADDER | ||
| 29 | INSTINCT | Bee, possibly short of energy, keeps egg back, having a gut feeling (8) |
| INS(e)CT “keeps” <=NIT | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | SCARCEST | Very difficult to find mark on box, having wasted hours (8) |
| SCAR “on” C(h)EST | ||
| 2 | ALL YEAR LONG | Count on good support for partner during The Four Seasons (3,4,4) |
| EARL (“count”) + ON G “support for” ALLY | ||
| 3 | KISSINGER | 70s figure opening for Kraftwerk belts out a few numbers (9) |
| K(raftwerk) + IS SINGER
Definition is poor, in my opinion. |
||
| 4 | RESET | Hold a grudge, having lost new boot again (5) |
| RESE(n)T | ||
| 6 | ORGAN | Stops controlling this publication (5) |
| Double definition | ||
| 7, 26 | FAR MED | Cultivated US officer carrying gun? (6) |
| FED “carrying” ARM
Don’t like this at all – splitting one wors to put it across two places in a puzzle is ugly. |
||
| 8 | SHARE | Heard singer give out (5) |
| Homophone (supposedly) of CHER, but not where I come from. | ||
| 9 | MAN-YEARS | A lot of body parts make a lot of effort (3-5) |
| MANY EARS | ||
| 14 | ORBIT THE SUN | What planets do is burn to the ground (5,3,3) |
| *(is burn to the)
Is ORBIT THE SUN in the dictionary? Evem if it is, having THE in the solution and in the fodder is clumsy. |
||
| 16 | DRAG RACE | Learned fellow has a prayer for motor sport (4,4) |
| Dr. + A GRACE | ||
| 17 | ROOSEVELT | Resolve to out Teddy? (9) |
| (*resolve to) | ||
| 18 | PROTRACT | Make longer right turn after quiet hill-climbing (8) |
| R + ACT (“turn” on the stage) “after” P + <=TOR | ||
| 21 | ROADS | Poles embracing American ways (5) |
| RODS “embracing” A | ||
| 22 | DENSE | Thick studies finally complete (5) |
| DENS + (complet)E | ||
| 24 | FROWN | Women in line of battle mostly look unhappy (5) |
| W in FRON(t) | ||
| 26 | See 7 | |
*anagram
For 16ac I took the A as “Excellent” so (A + <BIRT) in DIE
7,26dn splitting of a clue seems quite common and provided each part is a valid word in its own right I can live with it.
I also felt slightly hard done by in 12ac with the use of "covers" to mean "replace" rather than "wrap around". Though I suppose "cover" does have the sense of hiding the coveree.
For the record I failed on DOOFUS and SHARE. I feel both "70s figure" and "singer" are a bit too generic.
Thanks Loonapick and Chalmie
H Loonapick, I think you are being a tad harsh. I go along with your reservation re 3dn, but agree with Peterj @1 re 16 ac & 7,26 dn (quite a common device these days. RE 14 dn, yes, having “the” in both fodder and answer is not ideal but why does the phrase have to be in a dictionary? It’s a well-known fact after all (at least since early modern times).
I thought there was plenty to enjoy. I particularly liked 1 ac with its nice misdirection re “radio” and 23 ac which you mention. Thanks for the blog and thanks to Chalmie for the fun.
Thanks for the responses – I get the A in 16ac now.
We’ll agree to disagree on the others though – I think a phrase should be in the dictionary, otherwise we’d end up with solutions like “eating lasagne”, I think split solutions work where the split Leeds to a phrase, so MAN and YEARS may work, but not FAR MED.
Thanks Chalmie and loonapick
I don’t mind splitting a word across disparate lights, as long as the components exist independently.
I’m sure there have been other instances of solutions not being in the dictionary, for instance in the graun recently we had “The old man and the sea”, and, for what it’s worth, neither Kissinger nor Roosevelt are in mine.
Absolutely nothing wrong with this puzzle – in fact I thought it extremely good.
LP – I think you’re out of your depth here. Not only your failure to parse straightforward wordplays but your views on split clues. The “rule” – ( or at least observable standard practice) seems to be that it’s OK to clue the whole thing as one whole provided that when the answer is written across the two lights each one is itself a proper word – neither word necessarily having any connection with the clue. Araucaria did it all the time – lots of current setters still do.
Still – at least you splelt out your issues – so we can respond.
Many thanks S&B and all above. I really enjoyed it – and it was no pushover at all. Faves – maybe 3d, 6d
I think you are being rather harsh here, it felt like a good puzzle to me. Still at least you make it cleat that these are just your personal dislikes. 14dn was one of my favourites, far from horrible!
One can have style guidelines for puzzles, such as “words should not be repeated in the clue and solution”, but these are just that: guidelines. If a clue works well by breaking these then go ahead and break them I say.
A repeated “the” does not make it obvious to me that “is burn to the” is an anagram of “orbit the sun” and is nicely disguised in the surface reading of “burn to the ground”. Great stuff, and bugger the rules!
Thanks to the commenters who have sprung to my defence.
I agree that the “the” being in both anagram fodder and solution is not ideal, but I took PeeDee’s view about it being a neat surface with enough disguise to make it entertaining. That the phrase isn’t in the dictionary is also questionable, but it is the answer to a sensible general knowledge question. I wouldn’t put “eating lasagne” into a puzzle – unless it were well-known that Abraham Lincoln had been eating lasagne rather than watching a play when he was assassinated.
As to split lights, my main reason for doing it is that it’s difficult to write non-trivial clues for three-letter words. It is a bit ugly, but on the other hand, the solver gets the extra information that the two halves of the word are independent words in their own right, and because the two words are in different parts of the grid, it gives the solver a couple of free letters in the corner they haven’t got to yet.
It is difficult to write good clues for three-letter words, but I’m sure Chalmie is up to that challenge, given the quality of his general clueing. Nonetheless FAR and MED are words, so that would be in keeping with a long-standing Guardian convention, and I’d like to think that the FT is as adventurous. For example we once had GENERA plus LABILITY from Enigmatist, though it was clued like that with the answer definition being ‘intelligence’. I’m sure I’ve done something similar in The Indy.
Regarding the likes of ORBIT THE SUN, I’d go with Loona here, as it’s not as far as I know some kind of well-known idiomatic phrase: ALL DAY LONG is, though you may not find that either in the dictionaries. Don Manley didn’t think you should have YELLOW SHIRT, as I recall, whilst YELLOW RIVER was okay. Famous quotes are okay too, but it is a little bit horses for courses with this sort of thing: it’s what your editor will allow, in the end.
I look forward to seeing MANY EARS over two lights in the not-too-distant.
JS@5 – sorry you feel I’m “out of my depth” – I’ll try to do better in future!
Thanks Chalmie and loonapick
I certainly don’t think that you’re out of your depth and enjoy your blogs a lot, but I come down on the side of the yay-sayers here and thought that it was a terrific puzzle. I’ve seen the split word technique used oftenish in the Guardian and think that it adds another dimension to a clue when used – it was in my first half dozen entries.
I like the style of this setter – the way he disguised both definitions and word play – ALMANAC was a case in point – it just had to be, but it took an age to separate ‘may’ out by itself for CAN. The KISSINGER definition was interesting and I didn’t have any hesitation with it – he was such a presence during that time and the wordplay wasn’t difficult.
Finished in the NW corner with STALKERS, RESET and SCARCEST the last few in.
Re “splitting a word across disparate lights”.
I don’t think this is any recent device.
I have seen it in crosswords ten or more years ago.