Guardian 27,548 – Vlad

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A meaty challenge from Vlad today. I made slow progress at the start, but gradually speeded up as I went along, with some satisfying penny-drop moments. I can’t see any themes or Ninas here, but am open to enlightenment. Thanks to Vlad.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. CLASS ACT Stylish performer in form on Court One (5,3)
CLASS (form), and “Court One” could be the A C[our]T
5. INCHON Korean port a short distance ahead (6)
INCH + ON – Inchon or Incheon was the site of a major battle of the Korean war
9. SIDEREAL Not affected by team of stars (8)
SIDE (team) + REAL (genuine, not affected)
10. MINNOW Wanting a woman in work, though not much of a catch (6)
(A WOMAN IN)* less (“wanting”) A
12. OWN UP Admit it’s a bit limp — unworthy of review (3,2)
Hidden in reverse of limP UNWOrthy
13. TOWN HOUSE Accommodation in Euston? Who’s travelling? (4,5)
(EUSTON WHO)*
14. DAYTONA BEACH Time to arrest every person racing cars here (7,5)
DAY TO NAB EACH – city in Florida known for car racing
18. BACK OF BEYOND D’s place out in the sticks (4,2,6)
D is the “back” (last letter) of beyonD
21. DEATH BLOW Doctor hated smack — it’s a killer (5,4)
HATED* + BLOW (smack – both blow and smack are slang terms for various drugs, but they don’t overlap, so I think this is just in the sense of hitting)
23. RALPH He runs a large pub (5)
R A L P[ublic] H[ouse]
24. EXPORT Sandwich maybe for selling abroad (6)
Sandwich was one of the Cinque Ports, so it’s an EX-PORT
25. UNCLOTHE Uncomfortably hot relative’s about to strip (8)
HOT* in UNCLE
26. TIRING Turning it round is laborious (6)
Reverse of IT + RING (round)
27. AYRSHIRE Lower rent after Ray’s moved (8)
RAYS* + HIRE – referring to Ayrshire cattle
Down
1. CASTOR Twin‘s shy with men (6)
CAST (shy = throw) + OR (Other Ranks – men)
2. ARDENT Third of Nottingham supports Forest with passion (6)
ARDEN (Forest of Arden – an area of Warwickshire, and the fictional setting of As You Like It) + noTtingham
3. STRAPPADO Catch Penny breaking down — love is torture (9)
TRAP P in (“breaking”) SAD (down) + O
4. CHASTITY BELT Itchy? Tablets ordered that should prevent it (8,4)
(ITCHY TABLETS)* – “it” = sex
6. NEIGH Refusal reportedly straight from the horse’s mouth? (5)
Homophone of “nay”
7. HONDURAN Band not repeating support for hard working American (8)
H + ON (working) plus DURAN (a non-repetitive Duran Duran)
8. NEW DELHI Naked woman picked up in capital (3,5)
Homophone of “nude Ellie”
11. TWENTY‑TWENTY Scores showing great sharpness (6-6)
A score is TWENTY, and we have two of them. Contrary to popular belief, and the definition here, 20/20 means “normal” visual acuity rather than anything particularly unusual
15. BANKROLLS Finances prevent Kelvin getting really good car (9)
BAN + K + ROLLS (Rolls Royce)
16. OBEDIENT Plot to replace queen in east, following orders (8)
ORIENT with R replaced by BED
17. SCRAPPER Rubbish for a fighter (8)
SCRAP + PER
19. GLUTEI I get Nuala regularly playing cheeky parts (6)
Anagram of I GET [n]U[a]L[a] – the Glutei are muscles in the buttocks
20. WHEEZE Gets relief from hearing joke (6)
The third homophone in this puzzle, this time of “wees” (urinates, so “gets relief”)
22. HERON Drama over bagging royal bird (5)
ER (our favourite royal) in reverse of NOH (Japanese drama)

60 comments on “Guardian 27,548 – Vlad”

  1. Thank you for explaining MINNOW especially, Andrew. I sort of knew it must be something like that, but was too lazy to tease it out. INCHON and STRAPPADO were new to me, so thanks to Vlad too for the education, and for the entertainment aplenty here. A CLASS ACT indeed.

  3. 27 ac
    RAY* + HIRE – referring to Ayrshire cattle

    Should read RAYS*, I think.

    Many thanks to V & A.

  5. Many thanks Vlad and Andrew.  A lovely puzzle.  Too many favourites to mention them all, but I thought ARDENT was brilliant, with a very clever surface.  Also HONDURAN with the “band not repeating” device – this was really satisfying to solve, thinking initially of a band whose name repeats and then working from there.  “Nude Ellie” was very funny.

    I couldn’t parse EXPORT because I didn’t realise that Sandwich is no longer a port – a bit embarrassing as I originally come from Kent!

  6. I enjoyed that tussle, though I found the NW particularly unforgiving. I thought the torture at 3d was BASTINADO as in previous crosswords but that wouldn’t parse so resorted to some googling. Same with Korean ports to give me 5a INCHON. As always, it was less than satisfying to have to look things up. I circled 9a SIDEREAL, 4d CHASTITY BELT and 20d WHEEZE as clues I particularly liked. Thanks Vlad and Andrew.

    [PS I also enjoyed the “Aussie name-droppers off track” and midnight feast stories yesterday on the Paul blog – thanks to contributors for the extra interest this forum affords me.]

  8. For 9a I was thinking about football side  Real Madrid, known as the Galacticos, but didn’t know whether that would parse?  Is there any sense in that?

  10. Thank you Vlad and Andrew.

    An interesting crossword, lots of geography, very enjoyable.

    STRAPPADO was new to me, an older sort of bungee jumping, but with an ordinary rope …

    10a should be (WOMAN IN)* less (“wanting”) A, it brings to mind  the description of a plain woman as being “A poor fish”.

  12. Hard work for me, and has to guess STRAPPADO (couldn’t parse) but satisfying enough. Favourites were MINNOW, BACK OF BEYOND and AYRSHIRE. Many thanks to V & A.

  13. Pretty straightforward for a Vlad I thought. Unlike JinA my NW went in first, once I’d remembered what ‘it’ refers to. I dnk the port and only (dimly) recognised the Florida racetrack town post-solve. The ‘with passion’ in 2d sounds adverbial, but maybe I’m missing something.

    Thanks Andrew and Vlad.

  14. Thanks Vlad, Andrew

    I had sitter for a while for 10a, being both a woman in work, and not much of a catch.  Otherwise not to much of a struggle, but the usual interesting spread of references.  Liked RALPH, TOWN HOUSE and CHASTITY BELT

    In Monday’s Times, at 29a (i.e. also bottom right) : Lower rent Ray’s splashed out up front (8)

  15. Thanks to Vlad and Andrew. I struggled at times here (not unusual for me with this setter), especially with MINNOW (which I did not parse) but also with GLUTEI and RALPH, my LOI.

  16. grantinfreo @13: yes I think you might have spotted a slight flaw in 2d, which had been my favourite clue.  Perhaps it would have been better as “Passionate third of Nottingham supports Forest”.

  17. PS re 2d: as Eileen said a few weeks ago about another almost brilliant clue (Philistine 27,513), “A real shame: I would just love it to work.”

  18. Lots of smiles today, many thanks V&A.
    Re 2d, I think it can describe a person therefore an adjective and therefore COTD for me.

  19. This seemed impenetrable at first, but managed to get a foothold in the south-west corner. Some lovely clueing…

  20. Digbydavies@18, and Lord Jim, yes “She is a person with passion” and “She is an ardent person” is close but, as per Eileen’s regret, not quite.

  21. Thanks to Vlad and Andrew. Well I got there but unlike some I found it a bit of a struggle. For me there was quite a bit of guess and then parse, most of which I did with the exception of heron (thanks Andrew). Last ones were in the SE with wheeze, glutei and Ralph last ones. I really liked the two long ones across and thanks again to Vlad for a challenging puzzle and Andrew for clearing up the parsing.

  22. Oh, I got so close! But it turns out that Anmyon, despite being A + nanometre + yon=further, and despite also being in South Korea and by the sea, isn’t a port – or at least not the right one!

  23. Julie@6: two incidental Australian connections today, to which I am perhaps more alert after a recent rare visit (and kept alert by your welcome presence here most days). THE BACK OF BEYOND made me think instantly of the classic Australian mid-length documentary of that name of the 1950s, centred on the Birdsville Track. More esoterically, SANDWICH is one of the historic ‘Cinque Ports’ of the SE English coast: the ceremonial post of Warden goes back for centuries; in between Churchill and the Queen Mother, the post was occupied, a rare honour, by the anglophile Australian PM Robert Menzies, after he left office in 1966 to his death in 1978 (thank you, wikipedia). So that was my immediate association for Sandwich, along with the Open Golf, which it hosts regularly (was Menzies a golfer as well as a cricket fanatic?).

    In a class-act crossword the recurrence so soon of AYRSHIRE was strange, as James@14 points out.

  24. @23: Sandwich should not have gone in capitals since it was in the cluing, not the answer. And of course Andrew had already pointed out its status. Thanks to him and Vlad

  26. [Ta JinA for the nod to yesterday’s off-track comments]

    quenbarrow@23 yes Menzies’ royal paean (I did but see her passing by, and I shall love her ’til I die) earned him quite a few honours, Thistle and Cinque Ports among them.

  27. Very enjoyable puzzle. My favourites were 18a, 4d, 1d, 3d, 15d.

    New word for me today was STRAPPADO.

    Thanks Vlad and blogger.

  29. Took ages to get a foothold and then it all opened up quickly (but with a fair amount of guessing rather than solving I have to admit). A couple of them made me actually laugh out loud, for their cheek and bravura. Maybe it’s just me but I don’t enjoy the seemingly random grabbing of letters (h from hard in 7d; lar [reversed] from large in 23a) – but it’s entirely possible I’m missing some known crossword rule…

    On 4d, rather than ‘it’ = sex, I took it as a jokey play on the device preventing the contraction of an itchy disease!

    Overall, a lot of fun and a good stretch. Thanks to Vlad for the puzzle and to Andrew for the (very) helpful blog.

  30. Most enjoyable. I saw somebody describe this as “a bit of a slog”…each to his/her own but to me it was like a series of extra cover drives from IR Bell and MP Vaughan.

    Cheers Vlad & Andrew. Nice weekend, all

  31. Lord Jim @16:  I can sort of see how to justify the ARDENT clue but I like yours better.

    Like others, NW corner last to yield and then only uncertainly.  Failed to think about Hondurans as Americans.

    Nude Ellie was great fun as was BACK OF BEYOND.

    Fine end to an enjoyable crosswording week.

    Nice weekend, all.

  32. A very fine puzzle, perhaps at the more accessible end of Vlad’s range but great fun to solve

    Thanks to Vlad and Andrew

  33. Keyser @ 29

    I understand that you’re a relative newbie, so I hope this helps:

    H = HARD is a standard abbreviation, derived from pencils, which range from multiple-H (the hardest) via HB (Hard Black, the most common sort, to multiple-B, which are the softest.

    RALPH doesn’t randomly reverse LAR from large, as the blog says it constructed from R = Runs (cricket), A (speaks for itself) and L = LARGE (clothes sizing: XS S M L XL etc).

  37. Thanks both,

    Curiously, 9a almost works if the ‘not’ is removed so it becomes something like ‘Affectation by team of stars’ when the parsing becomes Affection= Side and Real (Madrid) = Team. Which is a roundabout way of admitting that that was my parsing of the original clue, without enquiring too closely.

  38. This was excellent and, while it was at the easier end of his puzzles, I enjoyed it very much. Too many goodies to list but I did smile at AYRSHIRE.
    Thanks Vlad.

  39. One of those days when you just hit the wavelength. I used to dread seeing Vlad’s name on a puzzle; too many wilful obscurities, I felt, but after the last couple of efforts, I can’t wait till the next time. Whether that is me getting better tuned to his style, or Vlad by accident or design knocking off a few rough edges, I don’t know – maybe it’s a bit of both.

  40. Baerchen@30 – I’m with you, although I’d have DI Gower. I had ticks galore and plenty of pdms. Like JinA I tried to get BASTINADO in for 3d and was surprised just how many forms of torture there are listed in Wikipedia. The SE corner was the last to yield and included my cotd WHEEZE – a homophone which hasn’t yet generated any challenges. Our loi was actually HONDURAN where the old “I’m going to 225” trick made Mrs W’s brain find the answer just in time.
    A 1a indeed from Vlad for the puzzle and from Andrew for the blog.

  41. Many thanks to both.  This is probably way too obscure, but ‘heron’, ‘ardent’, ‘minnow’ and ‘sidereal’ are all terms used in heraldry – and the USMC has a coat of arms ‘celebrating’ the Battle of Inchon.  There’s a red dagger representing a death blow; and representations of chastity too.  Castor is the beaver.  There’s an Ayreshire coat of arms  and of course a Honduran one.   OTOH, heraldry seems to use so many words, I suspect this doesn’t narrow the search space enough to be interesting.

  42. I read 9a as ‘Not affected by’ = SIDE, as in ‘that is a side issue’, followed by REAL, a team from Madrid.

  43. Thanks to Vlad and Andrew.

    Another Vlad that I really enjoyed; it’s becoming a bit of a habit.  CHASTITY BELT was my COTD but I needed Andrew’s help with a couple of parsings, MINNOW for instance (and I think there might be an “A” too many in Andrew’s version of the anagram fodder) and RALPH since I don’t have PH for public house. Meaty indeed!

  44. A Friday Vlad?  I’m So Glad!  (Cue the earworm of that song by Cream — you know, the one with the very elaborate lyrics.)  I thought this puzzle was fantastic, one of Vlad’s best that I have seen.  MANY clever and amusing clues.  I had tick marks beside MINNOWS, OWN UP, DAYTONA BEACH, UNCLOTHE (which had an amusing surface), HONDURAN, NEW DELHI, OBEDIENT, WHEEZE, and my CotD, CHASTITY BELT.  Laugh out loud PDMs on the last five I just listed.

    Great blog and comments also.  My favorite comment above is @12, because of the commenter’s name:  “minnow, back of beyond, chastity belt”.  Whoever you are, PLEASE keep that name, it is outstanding.

    My LOI today was STRAPPADO, a new word for me that I was able to guess from the crossers and wordplay but needed to Google-confirm.  Like WhiteKing @40, I feel like Wikipedia contains an overabundance of information on forms of torture.  STRAPPADO, and in a recent puzzle BASTINADO (as Julie @6 and others have mentioned), and a few months before that, KNOUT.  All things about which I wish I knew less than I now do!

    A more enjoyable Wikipedia excursion today was confirming why Sandwich is an ex-port.  That search led me to learn a little of the history of the Cinque Ports, as mentioned by Andrew in the blog and some of the commenters above.  (And also about the coat of arms of Sandwich (and the word “dimidiation”) — tip o’ the hat to geof @41!)  The Sandwich stuff, rather than the torture stuff, was my favorite TILT.

    Many thanks to Vlad and Andrew and the other commenters.  It has been an enjoyable week of puzzles.  Nice weekend to all.

  45. An excellent puzzle that was well worth persevering with.
    ARDENT was already a very good clue, and I think Lord Jim’s suggestion @16 would make it even better.
    I didn’t parse MINNOW or HERON, but all is explained now. I liked all three homophones NEIGH, NEW DELHI and WHEEZE (not taking exception to any of them).
    Being a Kent dweller I just had to get the significance of Sandwich without a second glance. It was indeed one of the Cinque ports.
    GLUTEI was unfamiliar but not hard to get. I was slow to get DAYTONA BEACH, despite knowing of both the city and the venue.
    Many thanks to Vlad and Andrew.

  46. Enjoyed this lots. Chastity belt is a, well, belter. I’ll have to brush up on my Korean geography though. Thanks Andrew for wheeze which I didn’t see and strappado where I missed the down=sad (duh).

    Many thanks Vlad

  48. Great crossword, thanks to all.

    The various interpretations of 9ac in the comments are fascinating – taking them all into account suggests a clue along the lines of “team team of stars of stars”.

    I’ll rise to the challenge of complaining about the “homophone” in 20dn – I don’t pronounce them the same. I know all the arguments that it is fine if it gets you to the answer, but it does make it a much more difficult clue (presumably similar to the efffect of a UK cultural reference for a non-UK solver). I would never have been able to “cold-solve” this one.

  49. geof@20 Surely you’re onto something there with the heraldry references. Thankyou.

    As others have commented, I  used to find Vlad almost impenetrable, but his clues are delightful.

    I didn’t know CASTOR, and now I do, I think the definition is a bit wide .

    BACK OF BEYOND tickled me. Thought it was an Australian expression, but wiki tells me Sir Walter Scott used it, and there’s an older possibly Irish origin.

    DuncT@48. I don’t have a problem with the homophone in wees/WHEEZE. Is it the [h] for some speakers?   I am surprised that no one commented on the homophone in nude Ellie/NEW DELHI. Suppose it’s all right if you’re a Scot or American.

    Interesting  puzzle. Cosmopolitan, and cosmic. References across the globe, in time and place, and even outer space.

     

  51. paddymelon@49:  My only comment about Nude Ellie is that it’s the third time I’ve seen her in crosswords in the last year.

  52. Andrew — it’s “woman in” you subtract the a from, not “a woman in,” which has two a’s.

  54. paddymelon@50 and DaveMc@44.  Dave – note that ‘dimidiation’ is the opposite of ‘impaling’.

  56. DuncT @48 – it would be fascinating if Real Madrid were commonly referred to as Real, but they are not.

  58. No – they are differentiated from Atletico by being referred to as Real Madrid. Too many other Reals.

  60. caprimulgus @59 – I am being either highly pedantic or irritatingly misguided but I would need a Spanish reference to be convinced. In Spain they are either Madrid or Real Madrid. But quite happy to end the discussion here with me up against the ropes.

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