[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here
As ever, Phi has provided us with good value for money in today’s crossword.
Whenever I complete a grid with a number of names and slightly obscure word these days, I thend to think they have been used because the setter has created something beyond a simple crossword and has found at the end that the only way to fill the grid is with such words.
I had noticed that the top and bottom rows of unches were possibly spelling out something, although neither ONDINE nor SCARBO meant anything to me before an internet serach. All was then revealed and a couple more thematic entries or rows of unches became apparent.As this Wikepedia entry Gaspard de lan Nuit explains Maurice RAVEL sought to create a particularly difficult set of piano pieces based on a set of poems by Aloysius Bertrand. The top and bottom rows relate to the names of two of the movements. The third, LE GIBET is in the unches in row 5.
The full gtid is shown below.
There were some excellent clues today. I particularly liked the clue for IN VINO VERITAS with it’s use of tavern vision in the anagram. Refrence to VLADIMIR as a waiter was excellent misdirection. Philistine that I am, I was thinking first of Basil from Fawlty Towers.
I can never remember how to spell PLEIADES and had it wrong for a time before I checked it for the blog.
I expect there is a term for words like FAST which can have meaning that are almost the opposite of each other, but such words generate good crossword clues.
Although there were many names and some obscure words, I thought the cluing was fair. The entry I struggled most with in terms of knowledge was RAGNAROK. Being a Scot myself, ISEABAIL wasn’t too difficult.
As many people know, Phi lives in Wellington so there are frequently references to that country in the clues or entries. Today we had NAPIER. RED PANDAs aren’t native to New Zealand buit I did find that three cubs were born in a New Zealand zoo last December.
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Clue | Wordplay | Entry |
| 7
|
Cricket side, almost in prime position, played smoothly (6)
|
LEG (one of the sides of the field in cricket terminology, OFF is the other side) + (ATOP [on top of; in prime position] excluding the final letter [almost] P)
LEG ATO |
LEGATO (a musical term to describe the style of playing, smooth or smoothly, the notes running into each other without a break)
|
| 8
|
Independent refusal from France to adopt water sources when crops are ready? (2,6)
|
I (independent) + (NON [‘no’ in French; refusal from France] containing [to adopt] SEAS [water sources])
I N (SEAS) ON |
IN SEASON (the time when crops are ready)
|
| 9
|
Theatrical lawyer left one before start of arraignment (6)
|
PORT (left side in nautical terminology) + I (one) + A (first letter of [start of] ARRAIGNMENT)
|
PORTIA (a character who disguises herdelf as a [male] lawyer in Shakespeare’s play [theatrical] The Merchant of Venicie)
|
| 10
|
Rival upset about stupid theatrical waiter (8)
|
Anagram of (upset) RIVAL containing (about) DIM (stupid)
VLA (DIM) IR* |
VLADIMIR (one of the main characters in the play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett; VLADIMIR is therefore a waiter)
|
| 11
|
Feet on pitches holding rugby back – incomplete team? (8)
|
Anagram of (pitches) FEET ON containing (holding) (RU [rugby {union}] reversed [back])
FO (UR<) TEEN* |
FOURTEEN (a rugby union team has fifteen players, so fourteen would be one short. Note that a rugby league team has thirteen players, but the use of RU in the wordplay implies the union form of the game)
|
| 12
|
Arab in a good hotel produces appalled cry (5)
|
AR (Arab) contained in (in) (A + G [good] + H [hotel])
A (AR) G H |
AARGH (an appalled cry – frequently spelled out in cartoons))
|
| 14
|
Some ruddy error – and it’s perpetrator? (4)
|
DYER (hidden word in [some] RUDDY ERROR)
|
DYER (some one who might create a ruddy [reddish] colour and make an error in applying it)
|
| 16
|
Party line in tangle (5)
|
RAVE (lively celebration; arty) + L (line)
|
RAVEL (tangle)
|
| 17
|
Unable to move rapidly (4) note: rapidly could akso be the definition
|
FAST (fixed; unable to move)
|
FAST (rapidly) double definition
|
| 19
|
Plant book brought in to put right forgetting name (5)
|
B (book) contained in (brought in) (EMEND excluding [forgetting] name N)
EM (B) ED |
EMBED (plant firmly in)
|
| 21
|
Artist resonated in turn – acceptable in Götterdãmmerung? (8)
|
RA (Royal Academician; artist) + (RANG [resonated] reversed [in turn]) + OK (acceptable)
RA GNAR< OK |
RAGNAROK (an event in Norse mythology popularised in Wagner’s Götterdãmmerung)
|
| 23
|
Uninformed? I leave tirade having received little new (8)
|
(I + GO [leave] + RANT [tirade]) containing (having received) N (abbreviation for [little] new)
I G (N) O RANT |
IGNORANT (uninformed)
|
| 24
|
Religious community remains on strike (6)
|
ASH (remains) + RAM (strike)
|
ASHRAM (place of retreat for a religious community or the community itself)
|
| 25
|
Asleep, I’d misconstrued night-time sight (8)
|
Anagram of (misconstrued) ASLEEP I’D
|
PLEIADES (a group of six stars visible to the naked eye and a multitude of telescopic stars in the shoulder of the constellation Taurus; night-time sight)
|
| 26
|
Actor also in difficulty, missing opening (6)
|
TOO (also) contained in (in) (HOLE [difficulty] excluding [missing] the first letter [opening] H)
O (TOO) LE |
O’TOOLE (reference Peter O’TOOLE [1932 – date] English actor)
|
| Down | |||
| 1
|
Wine knowledge elevated individual in circles attracted to good year (8)
|
(LONE [individual] reversed [elevated; down clue] contained in (in) OO ([two] circles]) + G (good) + Y (year)
O (ENOL<) O G Y |
OENOLOGY (study of wines)
|
| 2
|
Gas source? Note disorderly retreat (8)
|
N (note) + an anagram of (disorderly) RETREAT
N ATTERER* |
NATTERER (one who talks a lot; gasbag; source of gas [empty talk]))
|
| 3
|
Party’s mature, offering quantity of drug (6)
|
DO’S (paty’s) + AGE (mature)
|
DOSAGE (quantity of drug)
|
| 4
|
One main reassurance of attendance provided by Gaelic woman (8)
|
I (one) + SEA (main) + BAIL (the [usually monetary] security given to procure the release of an accused person by assuring his or her subsequent attendance in court)
|
ISEABAIL (Gaelic form of Elizabeth)
|
| 5
|
A wharf provided by Northern NZ coastal city (6)
|
N (northern) + A + PIER (wharf)
|
NAPIER (city on the East coast of North Island New Zealand)
|
| 6
|
Work on weeds, involving lot of work on soil, turning up stone tool (6)
|
HOE [work on weeds] containing [involving] [TILL {cultivate; work on soil]} excluding the final letter {a lot of} L]) all reversed (turning up; down clue)
(EO (LIT) H)< |
EOLITH (a very early roughly-broken stone implement,)
|
| 8
|
Tavern vision, I fancy – or something about tavern talk? (2,4,7)
|
Anagram of (fancy) TAVERN VISION I
|
IN VINO VERITAS (literally, in wine is truth, hence, truth is told under the influence of alcohol; something about tavern talk)
|
| 13
|
Prick loses daughter in Indian region (3)
|
GOAD (provoke; prick) excluding (loses) D (daughter)
|
GOA (Indian region)
|
| 15
|
Tree man erected after one’s cut (3)
|
(MALE [man] excluding [cut] A [one]) reversed (erected; down clue)
ELM< |
ELM (type of tree)
|
| 16
|
God held in awful dread is something like a raccoon (3,5)
|
PAN (Greek god of pastures, flocks and woods) contained in (held in) an anagram of (awful) DREAD
RED (PAN) DA* |
RED PANDA (small arboreal mammal with markings similar to a raccoon)
|
| 17
|
Sudden mass of people, unwanted mass, stifling quiet moment (5,3)
|
FLAB (excess body fat; unwanted mass) containing (stifling) (SH [{be} quiet!] + MO [moment])
FLA (SH MO) B |
FLASH MOB (A group of people who arrange to assemble briefly [and suddenly] in a public place to perform some activitiy, usually of a humorous or surreal nature)
|
| 18
|
Bellow, perhaps, about American operation beginning to obliterate Latin city (3,5)
|
(SAUL [reference SAUL Bellow {19125 – 2005}, Canadian-born American writer] containing [about] [A {American} + OP {operation}]) + O (first letter of [beginning to] OBLITERATE)
(S (A OP) AUL) O |
SÃO PAULO (largest city in Brazil; Latin city)
|
| 19
|
Early Communist set occupying hideouts dismissing leader (6)
|
GEL (set) contained in (occupying) (DENS (hideouts] excluding [dismissing] the first letter [leader] D)
EN (GEL) S |
ENGELS (reference Friedrich ENGELS [1820 – 1895] German social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx
|
| 20
|
Superhuman couple holding on in British Columbia (6)
|
(II [Roman numerals for two, couple] containing [holding] ON) all contained in [in] BC [British Columbia)
B (I (ON) I) C |
BIONIC (superhuman)
|
| 22
|
Endless splendor surrounding American? (6)
|
(GLORY [splendor, as Americans would spell it] excluding the final letter [endless] Y) containing (surrounding) AM (American)
GL (AM) OR |
GLAMOR (could be defined by the whole clue as ‘endless spledor surrounding American’ in the American spelling)m &Lit clue
|
H Duncan – the word you were was searching for which describes a word possessed of opposite meanings (like 17a ‘Fast’) is contradictonym – there’s a list of several in ‘Schott’s Miscellany’.