Tough going, mostly done a corner at a time and ending in the bottom right. Favourites were 25ac, 26ac, and 5dn – thanks, Crucible.
A loose [as far as I can tell] theme with many of the clues and solutions relating to “notes” [musical or otherwise] and other musical terms.
| Across | ||
| 1 | AUDITOR | Judge ejects disc jockey, accountant and book reviewer (7) |
| =someone who goes over a company’s financial books A[DJ]UDI[CA]TOR=”Judge”, ejecting DJ=”disc jockey” and C[hartered] A[ccountant] |
||
| 5 | GAUCHOS | Ungainly, short, very withdrawn cowboys (7) |
| GAUCH[e]=”Ungainly” short one letter; plus SO=”very” reversed/”withdrawn” | ||
| 9 | FIVER | Note writer’s visiting father (5) |
| =a five pound note I’VE=”writer’s”, inside F[athe]R |
||
| 10 | STEEL DRUM | Rob caught Dutch liquor in pan (5,4) |
| STEEL sounds like ‘steal’=”Rob” with “caught” as the homophone indicator; plus D[utch]; plus RUM=”liquor” | ||
| 11 | INTONATION | Pitch closed after popular race (10) |
| TO=”closed” as in ‘pull the door to’=’close the door’; after IN=”popular”; plus NATION=”race” | ||
| 12 | TOOT | Warning by driver heading left or right (4) |
| a palindrome, so “heading left or right” | ||
| 14 | DISTINCTION | Celebrity makes speech about last of his money (11) |
| DICTION=”speech”, around [hi]S plus TIN=”money” | ||
| 18 | ADOLESCENCE | Youth has trouble with classes, I’d say (11) |
| ADO=”trouble”; plus LESCENCE sounds like ‘lessons’ or “classes, I’d say” | ||
| 21 | HEED | Note helped after record disappeared (4) |
| HE[LP]ED; with LP=music “record” disappearing | ||
| 22 | DESCENDANT | Issue notes for treble tackling finale (10) |
| DESCANT=”notes for treble”, a harmony above the main melody; around END=”finale” | ||
| 25 | TRAGEDIAN | A red giant explodes, becoming a dark star, perhaps? (9) |
| =a [starring] actor in a dark drama or tragedy (a red giant)* |
||
| 26 | ENTER | It is lost from medical complaint record (5) |
| ENTER[ITIS]=”medical complaint”; but IT IS are lost | ||
| 27 | RESTORE | Bring back remaining Danish settlers (7) |
| REST=”remaining”; ORE is Danish currency, used to ‘settle’ bills | ||
| 28 | NATURAL | Note jury not taking sides in old African province (7) |
| =a musical note that is not sharp or flat [j]UR[y] with its sides removed; inside NATAL=”old [South] African province” [wiki] |
||
| Down | ||
| 1 | AFFAIR | Just after A Fine Romance (6) |
| FAIR=”Just”, after A F[ine] | ||
| 2 | DEVOTE | Give county short note (6) |
| DEVO[n]=”county” short one letter; plus TE=”note” in the sol-fa scale | ||
| 3 | THRENODIES | Note: his red mobile produces gloomy tunes (10) |
| =songs of lamentation (Note his red)* |
||
| 4 | RESIT | I take five outside to do test again (5) |
| I, with REST=”take five” outside it | ||
| 5 | GREGORIAN | Pope’s choice of Scotsmen? (9) |
| =belonging to Pope Gregory GREG OR IAN=”choice of Scotsmen” |
||
| 6 | UGLY | Unprepossessing nasty guy belts lecturer (4) |
| (guy)* around L[ecturer] | ||
| 7 | HARMONIC | Wrong keynote doesn’t start as overtone (8) |
| HARM=”Wrong”; plus [t]ONIC=the first note of a scale or “keynote”, without its “start” letter | ||
| 8 | SEMITONE | Discharge some after second interval (8) |
| =an interval between musical notes EMIT ONE=”Discharge some”, after S[econd] |
||
| 13 | SCREEN TEST | Studio check to televise big match (6,4) |
| SCREEN TEST could=”televise big match” of e.g. international cricket or rugby | ||
| 15 | SECRETIVE | Release includes one volume that’s reserved (9) |
| SECRETE=”Release”, around I=”one” and V[olume] | ||
| 16 | CATHETER | Supply food, catching the tube (8) |
| CATER=”Supply food”, around THE | ||
| 17 | NOTEPADS | Bed in flats, perhaps, yields 24 books (8) |
| =books to make MEMOs in PAD=”Bed”, in NOTES=”flats [as opposed to sharps or naturals], perhaps” |
||
| 19 | CANTOR | Lean men service leader (6) |
| CANT=”Lean” plus O[ther] R[anks]=military “men” | ||
| 20 | STEROL | Pious person learning about alcohol (6) |
| ST=saint=”Pious person”, plus LORE=”learning” reversed/”about” | ||
| 23 | CANON | Roughly nothing found in notes works (5) |
| CA=circa=”Roughly”, plus O=”nothing” found in N[ote] N[ote]=”notes” | ||
| 24 | MEMO | Note clip from home movie (4) |
| hidden in [ho]ME MO[vie] | ||
There are those who would have clued 8 differently. Not to say that I am one of them.
Yes manehi, like you I found that the bottom right went in last, and not without some difficulty, 20d STEROL being an unfamiliar word. Also had not heard of 3D THRENODIES. I also enjoyed 25a TRAGEDIAN and 5d GREGORIAN. Also appreciated 13d SCREEN TEST.
For once the theme was really obvious, as “notes” featured so much in the clues.
Thanks, manehi, and thanks also to Crucible.
Loved this noteworthy offering from Crucible. Struggled in the SE corner. Liked Gregorian the best. Couldn’t parse cantor which was the LOI.
Many thanks Crucible and Manehi
Yep, SE corner for me too – with STEROL and CANTOR the last two in.
Thanks, Crucible and manehi.
Thanks Crucible and manehi
SE last for me too, with STEROL last one. I liked AUDITOR as I was able to construct it “bottom-up”. I was confused by NOTEPADS as I took “pads” as the “flats, perhaps”.
“Some” is surely not the same as “one” in 8d – “some” implies plural.
Muffin @5 I totally agree about the parsing of 8d, ‘one’ is either singular or universal and cannot possibly be an indicator of ‘some’.
I got to GREGORIAN @5 using GREGOR and IAN, after Gregor Fisher who played Rab C Nesbitt, a famous Scotsman!!
Thanks, manehi.
As so often, I agree with your favourites and would add 1 and 27ac.
muffin @5 and Robert @6: – Chambers: ‘some: [a] certain [undetermined] one[s]’. ‘Some’ / ‘one’ [or another] – or ‘a certain’ – can be [usually disparagingly] put before a person’s name.
Lovely stuff, as usual from one of my favourite setters – many thanks, Crucible.
Anybody else have “fore” for 12ac?
Eileen
It might be in Chambers, but for me “some” cannot mean “one” – if you meant “one”, you would say” one”, surely? “One or more” also makes better sense.
Yet for me “threnodies” was the FOI! Perhaps it comes of having a classical education. But I couldn’t finish the SE corner.
muffin @5&10. ‘Last night I met some guy who said…’ But it is admittedly a bit tricky to think of contexts in which ‘one’ and ‘some’ are interchangeable, except perhaps (disparagingly) before proper names, as indicated by Eileen @8. Incidentally, muffin, thanks for explaining your misgivings about the ANALYSIS clue a couple of days ago. As someone who is probably in need of it myself, I perhaps too readily equate ‘analysis’ with ‘psycho-a.’.
Thanks for your thanks, barker – I attracted rather more response that I really wanted 🙂
[Is there a mechanism for suggesting corrections to Chambers? For instance, I’ve seen elsewhere that it defines “Rogan Josh” as ‘an Indian dish of curried meat in a tomato-based sauce’, but many recipes contain no tomato…]
I had ‘FORE’ for 12 across but couldn’t parse it. 8d made me laugh as I took it to mean ‘break wind’ = ‘discharge some’ = ’emit one’.
I fail to see what is Scottish about Greg.
Thank you manehi for a comprehensive blog.
OR (other ranks = men) still catches me out!!
I thought 23D was C (circa = roughly) + ANON (nothing?) with the definition being “notes work”, but I see that your answer makes more sense (though I don’t like the use of N to mean note)
Thanks manehi. Re 10ac: ‘steal’ is not strictly speaking a synonym of ‘rob’. Re 8d: ‘one’ = ‘some’? I don’t think so. Re 18ac: the ‘-lescence’ bit of the solution really does not rhyme with ‘lessons’. ‘Adolescence’ ends with a voiceless sound, ‘lessons’ with a voiced one.
Thanks Crucible and manehi.
I gave up on this after using an anagram solver to find THRENODIES. Probably just above my pay grade but I thought the setter was trying a bit too hard in places e.g. ‘settlers’ for currency.
I did quite like GREGORIAN though.
Had no trouble with STEROL or THRENODIES but failed to get CANTOR. Like others, I don’t like ‘one’ for ‘some’. Also wasn’t sure about ‘distinction’ meaning ‘celebrity’ but then thought about saying something like ‘she has some celebrity’ perhaps. Great crossword overall.
muffin @13, perhaps Eileen’s @8 example form Chambers could give “He will come back some day”, “He will come back one day”, the COED indicates this usage.
Eileen @8 I guess it’s another example of being able to find a precedent for almost anything nowadays given that usage seems to define (rather than modify) meaning.
Some as in someone, some guy, something, etc is used to denote an unknown quantity or quality.
Recently we had pass=predicament because of the phrase ‘come to a pretty pass’ where pretty does all the work, now we have some=one because of words like someone / something! Too much of a stretch for me unfortunately.
poc@15
I parsed Gregorian as being of Gregor, rather than Greg or Ian.
Few too many difficult leaps needed for me, but some very good clues as well.
Thanks to Crucible and manehi.
27a Danish currency – strictly speaking ‘ore’ (there are 100 to the kroner) should be written as ‘øre’.
Good puzzle.
Couldn’t parse several completely but enough to fill the grid, aided by the obvious theme.
I thought 18a was pushing the “homophonicity” of lessons and “lescence” as another poster pointed out, whereas something along the lines of “Youth has trouble with not as much nous, reportedly.” might have been better.
[That reminds of the story of a Dane called Høst attempting to check in to a French hotel. He signed the register. The concierge said “Bonjour Monsieur…” and then came up short, as an initial H and -st ending aren’t pronounced, leaving him with just the o, and that was crossed out….]
Thank you Crucible and manehi.
I was surprised that I managed to parse most of the answers but, like muffin @5, I was confused by NOTEPADS, since I took PADS as ‘flats’, and I failed to get the “Danish settlers” in RESTORE. STEROL was my last in.
THRENODIES rang a bell, but I had to check in the dictionary, the answer to one of my favourite clues along with those for AUDITOR, TOOT, TRAGEDIAN and SECRETIVE.
Very hard going for me. I spent ages at the end up in the NE with both SEMITONE (I’m not a fan of ‘one’ for ‘some’ either, although I admit that ‘some day’ does work) and HARMONIC. Like muffin@5 and Cookie@26, I had PADS for the wrong part of the wordplay in 17 and also missed the ‘Danish settlers’ in 27. Had never heard of NATURAL in a musical sense. The ‘dark star’ at 25 was my favourite, an example of just how clever an anagram can be.
Challenging but worth the effort.
Thank you to Crucible and manehi
A little more challenging than this week’s earlier puzzles, which was welcome, but nothing too obscure so no complaints.
Thanks to Crucible and manehi
I didn’t enjoy the SE corner at all, and 8d SEMITONE wasn’t brilliant either, but I found the bulk of this crossword very much to my liking, with very few giveaways and plenty of neat clues that others have highlighted. I particularly liked 22a DESCENDANT and 13d SCREEN TEST.
Many thanks to Crucible and manehi.
[muffin @13, yes, there is a mechanism, although I’m assuming you have the BRB, i.e. the print edition. Just send a letter by snail mail to the address of Chambers Harrap Pubishers Limited as printed inside. I would encourage it. Many years ago I did that very thing with the Collins Dictionary, second edition, and received a very nice letter back accepting my six corrections and adding further information of interest. To state the obvious, you do have to check what you are suggesting very carefully against other proper authorities.]
Araucaria had a better version of 5d:
Church music for either Chappell (9)
Ado – lessons = adolescence? No comment! Otherwise a challenging but do-able puzzle. Thanks to everyone.
Rather liked this. I had trouble with the SE as well but it was ENTER that foxed me and was my LOI. I thought CANTOR and STEROL were excellent and there were many others that I liked. I was tempted by FORE for 12 ac but I couldn’t make it work,TOOT is much better. I first encountered THRENODIES via a rather odd record by Freddie Hubbard called Threnody for Sharon Tate-worth a listen!
Thanks Crucible.
A real struggle. If it hadn’t been raining so much I might have walked away. Coming here, I was worried that people might have been saying “Good to see the gentle side of Crucible today” but thankfully not. I too finished in the SE and thought that 8d doesn’t really work; I didn’t go a bundle on closed = TO in 11a either.
Trailman @33
I’m with you with regard to ‘to’ = ‘closed’ in 11a INTONATION. I believe ‘to’ as in ‘push the door to’ means ‘towards a closed position’, not ‘in a closed position’. Collins says just that, whereas Chambers gives more latitude [as it often does], allowing the latter meaning as well as the former.
It’s one of those instances where it is not difficult to pick up what the setter meant but doesn’t seem quite right.
A fine, very tough shot from Crucible. I have a bit of a gripe over the use of OR for ‘men’ in 19d – hasn’t that been queried before? Rather dated.
As to 23d: my parsing of CANON, for what it’s worth, is: CA (as above) followed by NON (“nothing”, stretching a point perhaps), with “found in notes works” being the definition. A canon is a contrapuntal section usually found as part of a musical work, rather than its entirety. Hence the “found in”.
FirmlyDirac @35
Collins: ‘canon: a piece of music in which an extended melody in one part is imitated successively in one or more other parts’ – as in this well-known piece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvNQLJ1_HQ0
‘Found in’ refers, as manehi says, to O [nothing] being found in NN [notes].
But that’s not the meaning of canon that we’re looking for here – despite the musical theme. Collins’ [again] definition – canon: a list of the WORKS of an author that are accepted as authentic.
A clever clue, in my book.
[“Canon” reminds me of this. (I think I may have posted this before.) After T.S.Eliot was awarded some prize or other, a reporter asked if it was for his poem “The Waste Land”. Eliot said “no, it was for my entire corpus.”.
Headline next day “Eliot awarded prize for his poem’My entire corpus’.]
I’m another who struggled in SE and also had FORE (which I parsed as going off the fairway to the left or right) so didn’t get the controversial SEMITONE. I liked lots of clues with some original synonyms like settlers for a currency and definitions like CATHETER for tube. I don’t see myself as qualified to quibble with clue construction – I’m happy as long as I come to a solution and am always impressed with the level of detail in the comments here. Thanks everyone, and to Crucible and manehi.
TM @31
The “homophone” indication only applies to “lescense”, “ado” has a straightforward definition of “trouble”.
So “lessons” = “lescence”
Where’s the problem?
As ever though Crucible tries a little too hard and is a little boring for me. I always feel that he wants to set puzzles like Pasquale but hasn’t got the nerve. (At least that’s one blessing 🙂 )
Well, BNTO, Crucible tries a little too hard?
He is actually one of the most prolific setters in the business and there’s really no need for him to be like Pasquale.
That said, I am also slightly (?) more positive about Pasquale than the average solver here, a setter who knows all the ins and outs of Crosswordland.
Unlike many others (I know!) I do not find his crosswords boring – my LOL moments [if ever I have these [I am boring 🙂 ]] are surely not defined by predictable ‘laddish’ humour.
And Crucible? I like both intricate constructions and lightness of touch (that’s why I admire Rufus, for example), exactly the things I find in the clueing of Man from Northern Ireland whether he presents himself as Crucible, Radian or Redshank (cannot say anything about The Daily Mail, for obvious reasons (for those who know me)).
Ergo, just like Eileen, I am a fan.
As to the crossword, yes it was quite hard but really well-constructed.
One cannot blame Crucible for using OR (= men) and CANON (as it is used here, see Eileen @36), not even for ‘one’ = ‘some’ which can be interchangeable (and that’s all it needs to be).
The homophone is perhaps dubious as one is voiced and the other is not.
For us it was close enough.
And talking about ‘close’, only last week we had a Hob puzzle in the Independent which had CLOSED as one of the answers.
The definition turned out to be ‘to’!
One of the posters said: ” ‘TO’ as def for ‘CLOSED’ was a highlight, even though – irritatingly – I’d seen it before somewhere”.
I thought it was clever too.
Today, some criticised Crucible for using it.
I agree with those who thought this to be an excellent puzzle from a ditto setter.
Many thanks, manehi for another fine blog.
Well Sil, something I said obviously “rattled your cage”! 🙂
However the meaning of your initial statement of He is actually one of the most prolific setters in the business and there’s really no need for him to be like Pasquale. eludes me!
You’re second statement regarding Pasquale who knows all the ins and outs of Crosswordland seems equally meaningless in the context of my comment.
Despite the fact that this setter apparently is very prolific, as is Rufus, I still find both of them rather tedious in their own way. I am pleased that they obviously bring you joy.
I will however retain the right to have my own opinion and do object slightly to your schoolmasterish tone of reproval.
Sorry, but in my book neither ‘flat’ nor ‘natural’ are notes. They are called ‘accidentals. IE they modify the pitch of the note. Cant agree with ‘pad’ as meaning ‘bed’ either
P.s. ‘sharp’ is another ‘accidental’. A’natural’ returns the note to its ‘natural’ state from being either ‘sharp’ or ‘flat’
Phyllida: I’m glad someone said this at last. For me this was a glaring fault in the cluing, and I was surprised that it wasn’t picked up on earlier.
Late to the party, but a couple of points are worth mentioning.
Phyllida @42
It seems to me that you are defining flat etc. essentially as the symbol prepended to a note in a score to modify its pitch. This is fine, but the words are also regularly used as the note so modified. I see no justification for discarding either meaning.
11A: no-one has yet mentioned perhaps the most famous use of TO in this sense, so here goes:
“Tehee!” quod she, and clapte the wyndow to
I think that ‘closed’ would be an acceptable synonym here.
PeterO, I don’t think so. You say A or B etc flat or sharp. I’ve never heard anyone referring to a note without its denomination. You wouldn’t know what they were talking about!
I agree about ‘to’ meaning closed though
Another one who tried ‘FORE’.
Its sunny today so unlike Trailman @ 33 we did give up and start hitting the reveal button (and still couldn’t parse 18, 22 & 5d)
Phyllida @46
In vain his tuneful Hand the Master tries
He asks a Flat, and hears a Sharp arise.
Francis
Late to the party, just wondered if anyone else confidently put in STEAL FROM from ‘rob’ and the crossers in 10ac, then gazed blankly at the clue for a parsing. Got it eventually, but too much musical knowledge required for me to finish without wordsearch help e.g descant for treble.
Thanks to setter and blogger.