Tough stuff and a nice theme from Gaff this Tuesday morning.
I said last week I’d try it without a grid today to see what people think, so I have. Of course, it would be one of those rare Tuesday’s when there’s a theme to be highlighted but I think it’s obvious enough without the graphic. Whatever: a good, tough puzzle with some very cunning cryptic defs. Thanks to Gaff.
| Across | ||
| 1 | MANSFIELD | Town race’s runners (9) |
| MAN’S (human “race’s”) + FIELD (the ‘runners’ in a horse race). MANSFIELD + PARK at 6 down give us our first thematic answer. | ||
| 6 | PRIDE | Many cats purr first then hack (5) |
| P[urr] + RIDE (‘hack’), for a ‘pride’ of lions. | ||
| 9 | SENSE | Detect smells in the ear (5) |
| ‘In the ear’ gives a homophone, or nearly, of SCENTS. Not quite accurate, imho. | ||
| 10 | PAPER CLIP | How leaves may be connected to ridiculous apple price cut (5,4) |
| Anagram (‘ridiculous’) of APPLE PRICe, ‘cut’ at the end, and cryptic def. | ||
| 11 | CROSSBONES | Old women seizing corrupt boss is a bit of a warning sign (10) |
| CRONES (“old women”) surround anagram (“corrupt”) of BOSS. | ||
| 12 | EMMA | She’s not completely jammed in reverse (4) |
| Reversed inclusion in jAMMEd. Another Austen title. | ||
| 14 | ABILITY | Power from a dual-fired electricity terminal (7) |
| A + ‘BI-LIT’ (or ‘dual-fired’) + Y (= diagrammatic symbol for electrical ‘terminal’). Tricksy. | ||
| 15 | EGERTON | New to green part of Manchester (7) |
| Anagram (‘new’) of TO GREEN. Thomas Egerton was Austen’s publisher. | ||
| 17 | ONGOING | Gaff caught by two endless congas in progress (7) |
| ONG, repeated gives 2 X ‘endless’ cONGa. The included “I” indicates our setter today. | ||
| 19 | RUSTLED | Took stock of red light (7) |
| RUST (‘red’) + L.E.D. (a ‘light’) with a neat if sneaky definition. | ||
| 20 | RUDE | Rough sport ends in damage (4) |
| R[ugby] U[nion], a ‘sport’ + each end of DamagE. | ||
| 22 | PERSUASION | U person is a bad influence (10) |
| Anagram (‘bad’) of U PERSON IS A. | ||
| 25 | PREJUDICE | Before acting, dame chose extreme intolerance (9) |
| PRE- (‘before’) + JUDI (Dench, ‘acting dame’) + ‘extremes’ of ChosE. | ||
| 26 | ANGER | Out of range of fire (5) |
| Anagram (‘out of’) of RANGE. | ||
| 27 | ABBEY | A black governor of Westminster, perhaps (5) |
| A + B[lack] + BEY, a Turkish ‘governor’) | ||
| 28 | GOLD TOOTH | Source of a glint displayed by those looking old to others (4,5) |
| Clever inclusion in lookinG OLD TO OTHers. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | MUSIC | Notes plug about FT (5) |
| MIC (one many kinds of electrical ‘plug’) surrounds US, the Financial Times, natch. | ||
| 2 | NON-VOTING | Marking tours on Civic Centre, having no choice (3-6) |
| NOTING (‘marking’) surrounds (‘tours’) ON + ‘centre’ of ‘ciVic’. | ||
| 3 | FREE SPIRIT | Bohemian popular with drinkers? (4,6) |
| Jocular double definition. | ||
| 4 | EUPHONY | Fake from Brussels makes agreeable sound (7) |
| E.U. PHONY. | ||
| 5 | DEPLETE | Run down steep hill, bathe hot feet in river (7) |
| ‘Feet’, or ends of steeP, hilL, bathE, and hoT in river DEE. | ||
| 6 | PARK | Graham’s miner loses old piece of land (4) |
| Winston Graham is the author of PoldARK, the tale of a miner. | ||
| 7 | ISLAM | Mali’s new religion (5) |
| Anagram of MALI’S. | ||
| 8 | EXPLAINED | Set out climbing Ulster mountain, heading off cursed outside (9) |
| N.I. (Northern Ireland, ‘Ulster’) + ALP (‘mountin’), all reversed inside hEXED, a headless ‘cursed’. | ||
| 13 | TEASE APART | Clear spaghetti from meal, the main portion (5,5) |
| TEA (‘meal’) + SEA (‘the main’) + PART (‘portion’), though the def’s a bit iffy, I thought. | ||
| 14 | APOCRYPHA | A cheer burst out having started books (9) |
| A + CRY (‘cheer’) with POP (‘burst’) outside it, then either HA! (a cry made by one having suddenly started) or simply HAving’s starting letters. I like ‘HA!’ better. | ||
| 16 | TALKING-TO | Addressing lecture (7-2) |
| Double def. | ||
| 18 | GREYING | Elderly man briefly hides dark side (7) |
| GREG[ory], ‘man briefly’, surrounds YIN, the (inter alia) darker side of the yin & yang of Chinese philosophy. | ||
| 19 | ROSWELL | Bedrooms essentially make larger place for visitors to crash, allegedly (7) |
| RO, the centre (‘essentially’) of bedROoms + SWELL (‘make larger’) to give the alleged USA site of an alien landing. Shelby Roswell is also a character in ‘Pride and Prejudice’. | ||
| 21 | DWEEB | Level of noise overwhelms little nerd (5) |
| DB (for dB, decibel, ‘level of noise’) surrounds WEE (‘little’). | ||
| 23 | NORTH | One Direction exposed by minor third (5) |
| Inclusion in ‘miNOR THird.’ NORTH + ANGER at 26 across + ABBEY at 27 give us another title, of course. | ||
| 24 | BUSY | Purchase skirts son is pressing (4) |
| BUY (‘purchase’) around S[on]. | ||
*anagram
I was slow on the uptake and only saw the theme at the end so had to grind out a few of the more difficult clues such as MANSFIELD from the wordplay. I counted ABILITY as a semi-thematic clue, if there is such a thing.
The theme was the highlight, but there were some quite hard clues and clever touches, including the ‘dual-fired’ BI LIT in ABILITY and the parsing for APOCRYPHA.
Very enjoyable and a good way to acknowledge such a noteworthy bicentennial.
Thanks to Gaff and Grant
Thanks Gaff and GB.
Ref 14ac, I parsed the ‘Y’ to be indicated by “..electricitY terminal”, with ‘terminal’ referring to the last letter of “electricitY”.
Regards,
TL
Nearly gave up after a handful solved but boy am I glad I didn’t. Found this to be the best Gaff I’ve ever completed, although I couldn’t parse PARK. Shame about SENSE, which is weak at best imo. Personally, I thought TEASE APART was a fantastic clue, referring of course to a spaghetti (tangle) of cables or some such. Too many brilliant clues to list. Thanks to all.
You wouldn’t think watching the BBC Breakfast weather forecast at 7.15 today would help with crossword solving, but as soon as I saw the word ‘anniversary’ at the top of this crossword, I knew what I had to look for thanks to the presenter who was at Jane Austen’s house
Quite tricky in places but an enjoyable whole
Thanks to Gaff and Grant
Thanks Gaff and GB
9 SENSE may be a tad iffy, but if you combine it with 14A you get SENSE-ABILITY, making another themer in my view.
I gave up on this. Some unforgivable clueing. Are people really expected to know that ‘Graham’s miner’ is Poldark, FFS?
Thanks for the blog.
Thanks to all for posting.
I didn’t flag all the thematics – I assumed we’d all get that this was a list of all the novels, plus a couple of incidentals – because of all the talk about ‘spoilers’ a week or so back, which is also why I’m trying this ‘gridless’.
To Turbolegs: you’re right about ‘electricitY’ in ABILITY. Duh.
To Mary @6:
Not sure where you’re posting from, but the dramatisation of ‘Poldark’ is HUGE on UK TV at the moment, so fair foddder, I’m sure you’ll agree. But you’re right, it was Hard Sums today. Though worth it, as you can see from comments above. Tuesday’s FT ain’t usually this wicked. Give it another go.
Grant, as to spoilerisms,
I think the recent criticism was about giving things away in the visible part of the blog when opening Fifteensquared, the part above ‘Read the rest of this entry’.
Also, someone asked for including a completed at the end rather than at the beginning of the explanations.
I don’t think anyone asked for not including a grid.
As to including a grid, I too think that a completed grid is much more apt at the end.
Perhaps, a thought for PeeDee?
Hi, Sil @8,
You’re right, but the question of Style remains. Some bloggers – notably Bert & Joyce – never include a grid. Some – eg Flashling – always include the fullest possible all-singing-and-dancing grid. I usually include one and I’m happy for the feedback of not so doing.
To all: feel happy to leap in again, or set up a topic in General Discussion.
That’s what I did.
You’ll have to scroll quite far down to get to post 182 in General Discussion.
Thanks Gaff and Grant
The second cracking Gaff puzzle for the month- this one much harder than the one set as the Saturday prize a few weeks ago. There were three clues that I didn’t / couldn’t parse here – NON-VOTING (more about forgetting to go back and try), APOCRYPHA (another that I forgot to get back to) and PARK (my last in and one that I wouldn’t have seen for way longer than I had to time to spare).
Also missed the accessories to the theme in EGERTON and ROSWELL. Did manage to twig to the theme earlyish and spotted all of the books, including MANSFIELD PARK (which was the only way that I could bung in the answer to 6d).
Not only a cleverly interwoven ghost theme, but many very well put together and tricky clues to get there with !
PS With the General Discussion – a couple of things:
– I agree with Sil’s comments about the spoilers
– I’d be in favour of putting the grid back in at the top
– not sure why the GD comments are not sorted in reverse order that would show the newer posts at the top … who really cares what was discussed an eon ago.
Good point, Bruce.
GD comments should indeed be visible with the newest at the top.
Not sure whether that is something dictated by the software or something that Gaufrid could have a say on.