This pleasant crossword from Crosophile took me slightly longer than usual. No good reason for this though, since it all seems to be pretty sound now the challenge is over.
Definitions in maroon, underlined.
No theme is apparent here. But that’s not the first time I’ve said that and shown my failure to see things.
| Across | ||
| 1 | TAKING | Thanks to the powerful one for what we have received? (6) |
| ta king | ||
| 4 | MOUNTAIN | Horse that’s wild in a rocky place (8) |
| mount (in a)* — at first I thought this was an extraordinarily feeble DD, with ‘horse that’s wild’ as one of them; I’d never heard of a mountain horse but the Camargue … and the mountain goat … | ||
| 10 | GREAT | Wonderful place to keep ashes say? (5) |
| “grate” | ||
| 11 | PRETENDER | Would-be ruler before submission? (9) |
| pre tender | ||
| 12 | RICOTTA | Take last couple of bits of rich cottage cheese (7) |
| ri{ch} cotta{ge} | ||
| 13 | AVERAGE | Mean to make known how old you are (7) |
| aver age — strictly speaking a definition by example since a mean is only one type of average, but the two are so inextricably linked that perhaps Crosophile just about gets away with it here | ||
| 14 | PHENOMENON | Amazing person spreading new hope to enthral dissenters (10) |
| (new hope)* round no-men — dissenters are no-men as opposed to yes-men, but in my anguished efforts to justify nomen = dissenters I found this | ||
| 15 | TRUE | The Northern French road is straight (4) |
| t’ [the Northern] rue | ||
| 18 | TASK | Time to make enquiries for a job (4) |
| t ask | ||
| 19 | EPIGLOTTIS | Cut long story short, rough gist about bundle, it’s stuck at top of windpipe (10) |
| epi{c} (gist)* round lot | ||
| 23 | ITERATE | With no student initially able to read, say it again (7) |
| {L}iterate | ||
| 25 | EYEBROW | This might be raised in surprise report of London’s elite (7) |
| “‘ighbrow” | ||
| 27 | EGLANTINE | Plant sprawling in tangle by base of tree (9) |
| (in tangle)* {tre}e — but for e to be the base of tree it needs to be a down clue; alternatively ‘of tree’ could be omitted for the wordplay (although of course the surface would be ruined); but in an across clue surely it needs to be something like ‘end of tree’. But perhaps I’m not seeing it. | ||
| 28 | AWAKE | A Thousand Detained In Terror Alert! (5) |
| aw(a k)e | ||
| 29 | STRATEGY | Design that traps rodent say in animal pen (8) |
| st(rat eg)y | ||
| 30 | DENTAL | Sign of damage that’s nearly entirely to do with teeth (6) |
| dent al{l} | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | TIGER | Fierce creature concerning foolish man when rearing (5) |
| (re git)rev. | ||
| 2 | KVETCHERS | With bits of kitchen vegetable stuck to metal drawers they complain (9) |
| k{itchen} v{egetable} etchers — from Yiddish | ||
| 3 | NOTATION | How to record e.g. dance movement? Thanks for putting in the idea (8) |
| no(ta)tion | ||
| 5 | OREGANO | Seaweed and gull waste university’s taken away to make aromatic ingredient (7) |
| ore g{U}ano | ||
| 6 | NEEDED | One’s leader is spiked; two editors required (6) |
| {O}ne ed. ed. | ||
| 7 | ALDEA | Hamlet produced by Almeida with no hint of Moriarty. I’ll go with that (5) |
| (Al{M}e{I}da)* — a village in Portugal, as I didn’t know — this is a reference to Andrew Scott (Sherlock’s Moriarty) as Hamlet at the Almeida Theatre, not that I knew that either | ||
| 8 | NERVELESS | Composed cleverness that’s heading off for disaster (9) |
| ({c}leverness)* | ||
| 9 | UPTAKE | Apprehension as kaput English got beaten (6) |
| (kaput E)* | ||
| 14 | PITHINESS | Slim tucked into pasties with seconds indicating quality of meat (9) |
| pi(thin)es s — nothing to do with meat like beef or ham, rather the meatiness of something. I’m not sure of the place of ‘indicating’ — just a link-word I think. | ||
| 16 | RETARDANT | Insect that infests crossing bitumen? It slows things down (9) |
| re(tar)d ant | ||
| 17 | COVERAGE | Media reporting of old fellow’s anger? (8) |
| cove rage | ||
| 20 | PEELING | Skin from wee fish (7) |
| pee [= wee] ling | ||
| 21 | GEEZER | We hear one gets hot in the spring, old man (6) |
| “geyser” | ||
| 22 | WALNUT | Tree climbing enactment enthusiast (6) |
| (law)rev. nut | ||
| 24 | EULER | Mathematician/engineer looking for regularity in equal gears (5) |
| e{q}u{a}l {g}e{a}r{s} — surely Euler is remembered mainly as a mathematician, not really as an engineer | ||
| 26 | WHEEL | It goes round back of elbow and back of foot (5) |
| {elbo}w heel | ||
*anagram
A pleasant enough solve. Didn’t know ore was a type of seaweed, probably better known as oarweed. Favourite clue was WHEEL – simple but nicely constructed. When ‘great pretender’ appeared across row 3, I thought of the song best known, by me at least, as sung by Queen but it didn’t seem to lead to any theme. Thanks to Crosophile and John.
Quite a lot of this seems forced, which is not usual for this compiler.
If John is looking for a partner to the nitpick for 27 across (with which I agree), how about ‘back of elbow’ in the down clue at 26?
Many thanks.
I had no idea about ALDEA, but everything else went in steadily apart from KVETCHERS which had to be retrieved from the murky depths. The version of The GREAT PRETENDER I remember was part of the soundtrack of ‘American Graffiti’ and looking it up I see was sung by The Platters. Released in1956! Still doesn’t seem to help with a theme.
EULER being an ‘engineer’ was news to me too, although I see it is mentioned, almost in passing, in his Wikipedia article. I liked. GEEZER, mainly because I’m about to join the club.
Thank you to Crosophile and John.
Enjoyed this and, as usual, Crosophile had some interesting constructions and made me think in a bit of a different way.
Quite a lot of this went in smoothly, but I made a mess of the NE by stupidly biffing ‘stallion’. Once I’d realised the error of my ways, I went on to almost complete, but got beat by a couple here and there. My honours today go to the surface of 22a, the idea of which I thought hilarious and that made it for me one of the best gently amusing surfaces I’ve seen this year.
Many thanks to Croso and to John for the blogs.
* for anyone looking in vain for a 22a, I meant 22d, of course.
Jeez, I also forgot to say that Euler was news to me full stop! 🙂
Kvetchers and Aldea were obscurities too far, and we didn’t quite see TAKING as what we have received – TAKINGS, plural, perhaps as money received, as in “yesterday’s takings were £xxx”.
As regards ‘base of tree’ in 27ac, we raised a similar point in commenting on Monday’s Indy blog re ‘bottom of egg’, though we think ‘bottom’ has a bit more justification than ‘base’. We weren’t too bothered, though, by the ‘back of elbow’ in a down clue. Incidentally these anomalies can be avoided without affecting the grid fill if a grid is rotated 90 degrees anticlockwise then flipped top to bottom – all the acrosses become downs and vice-versa; the clues need to be renumbered, of course, but that’s a fairly simple matter.
Apart from our kvetches, though, this was reasonably straightforward. Favourites were PHENOMENON (taking ‘no-men’ as opposite to ‘yes-men’) and EPIGLOTTIS.
Thanks, though, Crosophile and John.
I really enjoyed most of this, but stupidly failed to climb the MOUNTAIN. Had not filled in ALDEA at that point either, despite having played around with the correct letters. (When I did at the end, it was a guess.) Grr!
Not sure about a favourite. There are a few contenders, but I’ll be loyal to the clan and choose my cousin TIGER.
Thanks to Crosophile and John.
Is there anyone out there who can tell me why the words in the clue of 28ac (AWAKE) are capitalised?
@Sil
To make it look like a newspaper headline, perhaps?
I don’t read The Daily Mail. 🙂
That said, everything’s capitalised there.
Just had a look at the front page of today’s Times.
I’m afraid I don’t go along with you this time, Kitty.
For what it’s worth, I thought the same as Kitty. It’s probably more of an American than British thing, but e.g. the New York Times and Washington Post use that style in some headlines and sub-heads (although I don’t think “in” would be capitalised. Or capitalized. 🙂
OK, I surrender.
That’s probably it.
But I still don’t see why or how this improves the clue.
I think it may hinge on the idea of a thousand people being simultaneously arrested, hence the capitals and exclamation mark which transforms it into a “screamer” in newspaper jargon. The surface might seem far-fetched otherwise, the solver perhaps thinking “A thousand? That’s not very believable”.
Probably nobody will see this belated comment; I’ve been offline in Andalucia for a week. But thanks for the comments, blog, and lively debate.
Yes, a parody newspaper headline was intended for 28Ac.
The missed nina was the album [one of my favourites] TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN by STRATEGY (including the tracks the GREAT PRETENDER and the TRUE WHEEL) by ENO [phENOmENOn]) 🙂
Well, I read it. 🙂
A long time ago Crosophile had guitarist (and Bowie adept) Adrian Belew as a theme, ungettable for many.
For me too but at least I knew who he was.
This time Brian Eno was all over the grid, apparently.
Having three of Eno’s early albums (Here Come the Warm Jets, Another Green World and this one too!), things still passed me by.
In the 70s (and early 80s), the days of only vinyl, I could tell anyone who’d ask exactly which tracks were on the A- and B-side of an album.
For that reason, I should perhaps have recognised what was going here.
But as you get older it becomes less important to be seen as a Pop Encyclopedia on Two Legs.
And a mild form of Alzheimer’s starting to develop, perhaps.
So, there you are.
Nice puzzle.
And a good reason to re-visit Eno’s 1974 album – more than 40 years ago, quite incredible.
Just saw Taylor Swift’s new video and I thought …..
Even more mega-belatedly…
Good to know there are other fans of early Eno out there, Sil. I think both Tiger Mountain and Warm Jets are extraordinarily inventive and as fresh and exciting as ever after all this time. Maybe a Warm Jets nina will be on the way??