Today’s usual FT blogger is away so I’m standing in.
I found this quite hard going at first, particularly the NW corner which held out until I’d done everything else. We had a discussion here a few days ago about setters choosing the least usual meanings of words: definitely a few of those here, where I had to resort to Chambers to check my assumptions.
Worth the effort though, with some very good surfaces (a few of them apparently commenting on the Br*x*t vote today?) and a wide range of constructions. 2d and 17d were new to me, but accessible from the crossers and wordplay. I particularly liked 26a, 6d and 15d. Thanks to Peto for the challenge.
Definitions are underlined; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.
| Across | ||
| 1 | SUBTRACT | Withdraw pamphlet after advance payment (8) |
| TRACT (pamphlet) after SUB (Chambers gives “subsistence payment, hence . . . an advance payment” as one of the meanings). | ||
| 5 | PLACID | Calm in city following the introduction of patrols by police (6) |
| LA (Los Angeles) following P[atrols] by CID (Criminal Investigation Department / Division, depending on where you are). | ||
| 9 | OUTBOUND | Departing in spring – not possible earlier (8) |
| BOUND (spring) with OUT (not possible, as in “ruled out”) before it. | ||
| 10 | STRATA | Sarcastic when describing retrogressive levels of society (6) |
| TART (sarcastic), with AS (when) around it (describing), all reversed (retrogressive). | ||
| 11 | GINGER UP | Make vivacious spice girl take over (6,2) |
| Double definition? Not sure about the second: Ginger is one of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spice_Girls but I can’t quite see “up” = take over (as either noun or verb). Maybe it’s just one cryptic definition?
UPDATED: GINGER, as above, then UP = over = finished, as in “time’s up”. |
||
| 12 | DRILLS | Bores doctor with misfortunes (6) |
| DR + ILLS. Boring as in making holes! | ||
| 14 | FRATERNISE | Associate with retainers thrown out by force (10) |
| Anagram (thrown out) of RETAINERS, next to F (force). | ||
| 18 | CONCERNING | About to make trouble in government (10) |
| CONCERN (trouble, as a verb) IN G[overnment]. | ||
| 22 | IMPURE | Corrupt umpire is troubled (6) |
| Anagram (troubled) of UMPIRE. | ||
| 23 | ASSEMBLE | Me and Abel jogging around ship getting fit together (8) |
| Anagram (jogging) of ME + ABEL, around SS (steamship). | ||
| 24 | BANNER | Military standard of old queen displayed in Britain (6) |
| Queen ANNE within BR. | ||
| 25 | LINOLEUM | Seconds away from emulsion spilling on length of floor covering (8) |
| Anagram (spilling) of EMUL[s]ION (with S for seconds removed), added to L (length). | ||
| 26 | ENDURE | Last to finish and certain to lose a bit of self-confidence (6) |
| END (finish) + [s]URE (certain, removing the first letter of Self-confidence). Endure = last, as a verb. | ||
| 27 | ILL-FATED | Unlucky to be badly entertained in recital (3-5) |
| ILL (badly) and a homophone (in recital) of FETED (entertained). | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | SLOUGH | Left to look into moaning sound coming from shed (6) |
| L inserted into SOUGH (moaning sound, especially the sound of the wind). Slough (verb) = shed, as in a snake shedding its skin. | ||
| 2 | BOTANY | Tasteless clothes mostly edged with thin type of wool (6) |
| TA[t] (Chambers: tawdry or shabby items, especially clothes) surrounded by BONY (thin). Botany wool is a fine type of wool, said to originate from Botany Bay. | ||
| 3 | RHODES | Wandering tribe’s resistance mounting on southern island (6) |
| HORDE (wandering tribe), with the R (resistance) mounting to the top, on S (southern). Greek island. | ||
| 4 | CONCURRENT | Commonly accepted after vote against acting together (10) |
| CURRENT (commonly accepted, as in “current usage”) after CON (a vote against, as in pros and cons). | ||
| 6 | LITERARY | Lear’s wrong to bracket it with lines characteristic of scholarly writing (8) |
| Anagram (wrong) of LEAR, around IT, with RY (railway = lines). | ||
| 7 | CHAPLAIN | Clergyman finds a flat close to church (8) |
| A PLAIN after CH. | ||
| 8 | DRAGSTER | Pulls out eventually edging away from very fast car (8) |
| DRAGS (pulls) + [ou]T (eventually = last letter) + [v]ER[y] (with the edging removed). | ||
| 13 | STANDSTILL | Stop motionless behind bear (10) |
| STILL (motionless) after STAND (bear, as a verb, as in “I can’t stand it”). Stop (noun) as in come to a stop / come to a standstill. | ||
| 15 | SCRIBBLE | Write about damming Scotland’s principal river (8) |
| S[cotland] + RIBBLE (river in the north of England), with C (circa = about) stuck in the middle (damming). | ||
| 16 | UNOPENED | Cavorting nude outside, Frank gets barred (8) |
| OPEN (frank) with an anagram (cavorting) of NUDE outside it. Not sure about the definition, but I suppose a barred door can’t be opened? | ||
| 17 | BEAR’S EAR | Hold up small seed container from species of Primula (5,3) |
| BEAR (hold up) + S + EAR (as in ear of corn). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primula_auricula – I hadn’t heard of this name, but the wordplay is clear enough. | ||
| 19 | SET OFF | Start to rubbish efforts right away (3,3) |
| Anagram (rubbish) of EFFO[r]TS (with R taken away). | ||
| 20 | OBJECT | End of deplorable spectacle (6) |
| Double definition: end = object = something you aim for, and Chambers gives “an oddity or deplorable spectacle” as another meaning of this word. | ||
| 21 | DEEMED | Thought of something done to frame Peto (6) |
| DEED (something done) framing ME (Peto, the crossword setter). | ||
Couldn’t parse SCRIBBLE, but guessed it was probably because there was a river Ribble. Didn’t get BOTANY so thanks for that.
Wasn’t keen on UNOPENED for ‘barred’ and wasn’t too sure about second meaning of ‘object’.
In 11a, I took UP to come from ‘over’ with ‘take’ as a link word but I’m struggling to think of when ‘up’ can mean ‘over’.
12a reminds me of when a work colleague showed me an entry in his Yellow Pages which read:
BORING see Civil Engineering
which made me laugh.
Thanks to Peto and Quirister.
Hovis, how about as in “give UP”and “give OVER”? The NW corner defeated me! Thanks Peto and Quirister.
John, I think you’re on the right track. Over = up = finished is probably what Peto intended. Thanks.
Ah yes. Wasn’t thinking of ‘finished’ at all.
For what it’s worth, the only ‘problem’ would then be the cryptic grammar.
‘Take’ should be the singular ‘takes’ [because GINGER takes UP] which, unfortunately, doesn’t make sense for the surface.
I know Peto as a very precise, almost Ximenean, setter and therefore still put a question mark to what happens here.
But to be clear, I cannot see another plausible explanation either.
Thanks to Quirister and Peto
PU is used as an abbreviation for PICKUP. If TAKE is assumed here to be synonymous with PICKUP, then TAKE OVER can be represented as UP.
I’m not convinced, but it is a possibility.
I guess ‘take’, as opposed to ‘takes’ can work in the imperative. “Spice girl take over, or it’s an early night for you!”.
Yes, it could be seen like that, Hovis.
Yet my gut feeling says that that isn’t very characteristic for Peto’s style of clueing.
But as I said before, I don’t know it either.
Thanks to Peto and Quirister. A long struggle for me. After several tries I got everything but the NW corner but only after repeated visits did I piece out SLOUGH, OUTBOUND, and CONCURRENT and was at last able to figure out BOTANY and GINGER UP though I agree the UP is problematic with an imperative the only likely explanation (maybe an ! should have been included?).
Thanks Peto and Quirster (thanks for filling in)
Always find this setter challenging, and this was no exception. Was busy yesterday, so only got to the puzzle this morning and it duly surpassed my coffee time (with the NW corner still quite empty). Was able to finish it off in a second sitting a little later. Found many of the clues quite complex – either the word play construction or the misdirected definitions that were used. Commendably, he has been able to ratchet up the level of difficulty by still using common language words for the answers – only BOTANY, BEAR’S EARS and the RIBBLE river were new terms for me.
There were no stand out clues but each one felt like a mini-accomplishment to winkle out. Finished in the NW with the three shorter down clues as the last few in. BOTANY, which was my last in, is apparently a term for merino wool that would have come from the flock that John MacArthur established by bringing Merino rams from the Royal Flock to Botany Bay in the early Australian settlement. I had never heard of the wool being described as Botany wool before though.