I’ve been hoping for a more challenging Tuesday FT since I bgan blogging it. Be careful what you wish for…
This is my first PHSSTHPOK – I think I’d remember the name – and a real toughie for a Tuesday, I thought, taking me about thrice my average time.
There were some great clues, almost no easy write-ins and some smiley moments: PLANT was a corker. One or two niggles about tenses – are you reading this, Sil? – but on the whole an entertaining challenge. More, please.
| Across | ||
| 1 | MANIFEST | Open directory (8) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 5 | ARCTIC | Freezing cold in lorry (6) |
| C (‘cold’) in ARTIC (articulated ‘lorry’) | ||
| 9 | TURN AWAY | Decline to go on holiday (4,4) |
| TURN (‘go’, as in ‘it’s your turn’) then AWAY for ‘on holiday’), though what that ‘to’ is doing is anyone’s guess. | ||
| 10 | OBTAIN | Get combat rations handed out alternately (6) |
| Alernate letters of ‘cOmBaT rAtIoNs’. | ||
| 12 | LEAVES OUT | Misses what trees get in spring (6,3) |
| Double def. | ||
| 13 | NINON | What some knights say to no French fabric (5) |
| In ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’, some knights say ‘NI!’, to terrifying effect which is absurd and very, very funny. Follow that with the French NON, et voila. | ||
| 14 | QUAY | Mole was wanting in the capacity of male chromosome (4) |
| Great clue. Chambers has 5 defs, all very different for ‘mole’. QUA is your ‘in the capacity of’ and Y is the uniquely male chromosome. Still not sure about that past tense ‘was’ though | ||
| 16 | PROWESS | Bravery that hurts newspapers on both sides (7) |
| My only write-in. OW (‘that hurts’) in PRESS (‘newspapers’). | ||
| 19 | LOUVRES | “Blinds with science” is initially written by home of art (7) |
| S (‘Science’, initially) beside LOUVRE (a French ‘home of art’). | ||
| 21 | MADE | Headed West to steal diamonds (4) |
| The capital ‘W’ of West was a clue that we were looking for a famous West. MAE, of course. An apparently true (and appropriate) quotation; when asked,”Goodness, Mae! Where did you get those diamonds?”, she replied, “Goodness had nothing to do with it.” | ||
| 24 | SINAI | Break the Ten Commandments on road to where they were received (5) |
| To SIN is to break the commandments and the A1 is a road. Moses received said tablets of stone on Mount Sinai. | ||
| 25 | GANGPLANK | Chasing king, mob work out how to get on board ship (9) |
| GANG (‘mob’) PLAN (‘work out’) and K (‘king’). | ||
| 27 | EXOTIC | Striking old girlfriend about the ears (6) |
| EX (old flame) and OTIC (‘about the ears’). | ||
| 28 | SHRAPNEL | Fragments of shell almost strike knight in the heart (8) |
| Subtle, this. Shrapnel indeed means ‘fragments of shell’ but the shell here is part of the word-play and not the definition. It’s SHELL minus the last ‘L’ surrounding ‘(in its ‘heart’) RAP (‘strike’) and N (for ‘knight’ in chess). | ||
| 29 | SITING | Protest against good location (6) |
| SIT-IN (‘protest’) and G for Good. | ||
| 30 | CLUTCHES | Grasps desire I lacked to crack signs (8) |
| ITCH (‘desire’, with its ‘I’ lacking) inserted (‘cracks’) in CLUES (‘signs’). | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | MOTTLE | Spot test terrified learning establishment leaders (6) |
|
‘Spot’ as verb. ‘Test’ is MOT, then the first letters ‘(leaders’) of Terrified Learning Establishment. |
||
| 2 | NORMAN | French people run into a woman, perhaps (6) |
| R (a run in cricket) inside NO MAN (‘a woman, perhaps’). | ||
| 3 | FRAME | Skeleton is standing without radius (5) |
| FAME (‘standing’) outside (‘without’) R for Radius. | ||
| 4 | SHADOWY | Flamboyant display took in the obscure (7) |
| SHOWY (‘flamboyant’) taking in AD (advertisement, a ‘display’). Again, the grammar’s a bit iffy, implying the display was ‘took in’ which ain’t yer good English, innit? | ||
| 6 | ROBIN HOOD | Outlaw what mugger might do to conceal himself (5,4) |
| ROB IN HOOD. | ||
| 7 | TRANNIES | More than one of these men attempts clothing for a girl (8) |
| TRIES (‘attempts’) surrounding ANN (‘a girl’) &, I may safely say, lit. The word is somewhat un-PC these days, it seems. Ah, well, whatever they wish themselves. That Grayson Perry’s a marvel. | ||
| 8 | CANONISE | Bless an icon with heads of six elephants mashed together (8) |
| Anagram (‘mashed together’) of AN ICON with heads of Six Elephants. | ||
| 11 | ATOP | Where a busy surgeon might be superior (4) |
| AT OP. Double def. | ||
| 15 | UKRAINIAN | In this country, Iranian is disguised as East European (9) |
| UK (‘this country’) + anagram of IRANIAN. | ||
| 17 | PLASTERS | After taking off top, repair strapless dresses (8) |
| Anagram of STRAPLESS without its top ‘S’. ‘Dresses’ as in ‘treats a wound’, of course. | ||
| 18 | BURNT OUT | Smart salesman gets exhausted (5-3) |
| BURN (‘smart’ as verb) + TOUT (a ‘salesman’). | ||
| 20 | SAGE | Philosopher didn’t finish chronicle on irrational number (4) |
| Endless SAGA + E (‘irrational number’: Google it, it’s something to do with logarithms, you’re talking to the wrong chap here). And I find ‘didn’t’ to be another irritating past tense. | ||
| 21 | MENTHOL | Hot molten rocks used as decongestant (7) |
| Anagram (‘rocks’) of H for ‘hot’ + MOLTEN. | ||
| 22 | PAUNCH | Firstly, air pumped in to puncture spare tyre (6) |
|
‘A’ for Air (‘firstly’) slipped into PUNCH (‘puncture’). Excellent clue, nothing to do with wheels at all. |
||
| 23 | SKILLS | Society destroys facilities (6) |
| ‘S'(‘Society’) + KILLS. | ||
| 26 | PLANT | Inspire 18th alternative to Plan B? (5) |
| A good clue and very nearly a great one, except for the definition: to ‘plant’ an idea is to ‘inspire’, I s’pose, but they’re hardly synonyms. Still, good fun counting on one’s fingers from PLAN B to PLAN T. | ||
*anagram
must say Quay and Plant are rather clever 🙂
Really needed your help with this, Grant, so thank you for the early blog. I can’t see the need for “was” in 14ac either, unless it was to misdirect – in which case it succeeded.
This was a bit of a curate’s egg for me, so grudging thanks to Phssthpok!
I’m afraid a have to disagree with Grant here – I thought it was packed with imprecision and superfluous words.
How can 14 be a great clue when the difficulty comes purely from using a barred puzzle definition and an extra word?
Ditto 26 – facile wordplay + inaccurate definition is surely not ‘very nearly great’
A big tick from me for this one which I found harder than the last couple of Tuesday FT’s. It doesn’t look to difficult once solved but I was held up in the NW as well as by a few others such as GANGPLANK. I don’t get the ‘was wanting’ bit of 14 and guessed NINON, but otherwise parsing was OK. I thought PLANT was excellent – yes the fingers had a real workout!
Thanks to Grant and Phssthpok
Re 26, I can’t find inspire for plant in Collins or Chambers, but infuse is one of the words listed in Collins’ Thesaurus, so I think it’s okay. I have seen the Plan T idea in clues before though (and Plan E for plane).
Thank you Grant, and, since you asked, yes, I read your (and others’) comments earlier today.
This crossword took me a few sittings to finish.
I am not very familiar with Phssthpok but I must say I found this pretty hard.
Of the four little puzzles the NE was cracked rather quickly but I could finish the NW only just before I left home for a concert tonight.
Having to ‘fight’ to complete this puzzle (with quite a few nice ideas) was in a way satisfying.
Glad I persevered.
But yes, some odd things indeed.
I am not that bothered by ‘to’ in 9ac or the definition in 26d but using past tense where present was just as easily possible, is not very elegant to say the least.
I am talking, of course, about ‘was’ in 14ac (which is superfluous anyway) and ‘didn’t’ in 20d.
Agree with DMT @3 that there are places where words could have been left out (like ‘is’ in 10ac).
The only really dubious clue is 4d.
How can ‘the obscure’ be the definition if SHADOWY is an adjective?
And if it is just ‘obscure’ what is the point of ‘the’?
I actually parsed the clue wrongly because I added an extra H – silly me.
SHOWY around [display] HAD (took in).
Clearly not right and ‘display’ should have been ‘displays’ then.
But the clue as it is now is just as wrong, in my opinion.
Ultimately, I enjoyed solving this crossword despite perhaps too much ‘imprecision’ as DMT @3 calls it.
Thanks to the setter (and Grant, again!).
Thanks Grant and Pssthpok. I enjoyed this. I can see that there redundant words in some of the clues.
It doesn’t bother me so not a problem. I enjoy setters whose clues are strictly watertight and I enjoy setters whose style is more relaxed. From my perspective I win both ways!
Thanks Phssthpok and Grant
Found this a good challenge with a lot of interesting and entertaining clues throughout that I was able to complete over a lunch time session and a couple of shorter ones to mop up. I parsed 13a as “KNI” (sounds like some ‘knights’) + NON – it seemed a bit of a stretch for folk to know / remember what characters in a Monty Python film were chanting. Got my comeuppance with 20d though – had entered SAGA (Carl SAGA[N} who didn’t finish – was he really a philosopher though? … and there was still that pesky ‘irrational number’ as well).
Finished in the SW with SINAI (clever!), EXOTIC (slightly humorous in a nasty way) and BURNT OUT (which I had to work out from the word play) as the last few in.
There is one thing I sometimes do not like at Fifteensquared.
One asks a question, one does not get an answer.
4d is still unexplained.
Anyone out there?
Hey Sil
I was still out there …
As per your original post and as Grant pointed out in the blog, I think that it is just a dodgy clue. The definition can only be ‘obscure’ so as well as the questionable grammar of how to insert AD into SHOWY, the ‘the’ is redundant.
Did it stop us from getting the answer, nope! Did it stop us from getting what he was getting at, nope !! Was it correct grammar and a good clue, nope !!!