By Vladian standards I found that I filled the grid quite quickly. Parsing some of the clues was a lot trickier though. Thanks to Vlad for the challenge.
| Across | ||||||||
| 1. | ABERDEEN ANGUS | Trouble began under sea … or lower? (8,5) (BEGAN UNDER SEA)*, with the definition “lower” meaning “one that lows (moos)” |
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| 10. | UTILITIES | Twice I let suit run public services (9) Anagram of I twice + LET SUIT |
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| 11. | MOPER | Little time for a gloomy type (5) MO (a little time) + PER (a, as in miles a second) |
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| 12. | SIKES | Nancy’s lover is 21 on film (5) SI (IS reversed, or “about face”) + KES (1969 film). Bill Sikes is Nancy’s lover in Oliver Twist |
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| 13. | TREE SHREW | Mammal disconcerted eating Welshman (4,5) REES (Welsh name) in THREW (disconcerted) |
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| 14. | NARRATE | Was a candidate returned? Consider recount (7) Reverse of RAN (was a candidate – mostly an American usage, as in “ran for office”; in the UK we would usually say “stood”) + RATE (consider) |
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| 16. | GOURAMI | ‘Fish good for us’ (Nancy’s friend) (7) G + OUR (for us) + AMI (this Nancy is the French city) |
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| 18. | ENDINGS | Finishes posting, having succeeded at last (7) SENDING (posting) with S[ucceeded] move to the end |
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| 20. | SPLIT UP | Part company after rent increase (5,2) SPLIT (rent) + UP (to increase) |
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| 21. | ABOUT FACE | ‘Answer attack with force’ (one in US military command) (5,4) A[nswer] + BOUT (attack) + F[orce] + ACE (one) |
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| 23. | CAPRI | About to have almost a month on island (5) C (circa, about) + APRI[L] |
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| 24. | UTTER | Brute’s associates in dramatic murder back on run, say (5) Reverse of ET TU (words that precede, or are associated with, “Brute” in the famous line from Julius Caesar, just before his assassination, so a “dramatic murder”. The definition is cleverly concealed in the inconspicuous “say” |
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| 25. | IN TRANSIT | Travelling by rail, I missed getting seat (2,7) IN TRAIN (by rail) less the second I, + SIT (seat) |
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| 26. | FOLLOWING SUIT | Copying the example of fans at match (9,4) FOLLOWING (fans) + SUIT (match) |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 2. | BLINKERED | Narrow-minded and maybe retired? (9) AND (a “linker”) “in BED” (retired) |
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| 3. | RAIDS | Attacks are loud on a Tory leader, initially (5) R (homophone – “loud” – of “are”) + A + IDS (Iain Duncan Smith, former tory leader) |
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| 4. | EPISTLE | Most impressive! Let’s reread communication (7) “Most [of]” EPI[C] (impressive) + LETS* (“reread” as a past participle, rhyming with “bed”) |
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| 5. | NEST EGG | Fledgling gets encouraged to climb, having something to fall back on (4,3) Hidden in reverse of fledlinG GETS ENcouraged. I made unnecessarily heavy weather of this, trying to use fledgling = nestling, before seeing the obvious |
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| 6. | NUMBSKULL | Charlie no longer operating, welcomes doctors into country (9) MBS (doctors) in UK (country), all in NULL (no longer operating) |
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| 7. | UPPER | Part of Oxford University course, right? (5) U[niversity] + PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) + R. PPE is indeed a course at Oxford University (and elsewhere), but for the definition here the Oxford is a shoe |
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| 8. | NUISANCE VALUE | Worth a trial? (8,5) Cryptic definition, as in [his] worth [is] a trial, I suppose. Rather a weak one, I thought – I would have liked some additional wordplay |
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| 9. | BROWNIE POINTS | PM that is prepared to spin, getting credit (7,6) [Gordon] BROWN (former PM) + I.E + anagram (“prepared”) of TO SPIN |
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| 15. | AU NATUREL | One relative without uniform, another without clothes (2,7) A (one) with AUNT (relative) outside or “without” + U[niform] + REL (relative, as in grammar) |
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| 17. | ANTIPASTI | Fabulous body — one quietly captivated for starters (9) I P (piano, quietly) in the contents or “body” of [F]ANTASTI[C] |
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| 19. | SEA VIEW | Prospect of the drink running out — wives each getting stuck in (3,4) EA[ch] in WIVES* – I can’t make much sense of “running” here: it doesn’t seem fit in either the definition or the anagram indicator |
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| 20. | SWEETEN | Make more agreeable to repeatedly small number (7) S + WEE (two kinds of “small”) + TEN (number) |
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| 22. | OUTDO | Better be enough — dismissed previously (5) OUT (dismissed) + DO (be enough) |
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| 23. | CRASS | Grossly stupid councillor Trump’s behind (5) C[ouncillo]R + ASS (American “behind”) |
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The same experience as Andrew, but I confess to losing interest in trying to parse several of the more recondite clues.
19 does running out simply mean not the whole of “wives each” with “getting stuck in” as the anagrind?
19d I took this to be “running out” as the anagrind of WIVES and then put EA in the result.
Thanks Andrew for many needed explanations, and Vlad, too.
Thanks for explaining BLINKERED and the shoe bit of UPPER, among others – I enjoyed this but finally gave up and revealed NUISANCE VALUE and ENDINGS (I can never do those “sliding letter” clues). The interplay between SIKES and 21a escaped me, so I wasted a lot of time trying to make 21 something to do with the film.
But the lower was fun, and UTTER was brilliant… thanks Vlad.
Many thanks, Andrew – great blog!
The parsing certainly took some head-scratching but it was so rewarding to persevere – a cornucopia of excellent clues, with lots of delighted gasps at the misdirection.
I particularly liked the use of the two Nancys: it was good to see the return of old favourite KES – now replaced by ET as the go-to film – particularly clever, with the association with ‘Oliver’ and I enjoyed constructing GOURAMI, an unknown fish but beautifully clued.
I’d have to nominate UTTER for top place, I think.
I could go on [and on] but there’s a Redshank in the FT, I see – this feels like a Saturday!
Huge thanks, Vlad – I feel really set up for the day.
What Eileen says.
I was unable to fully parse 3d (I never would have guessed that IDS = Iain Duncan Smith in a million years!), 2d (very clever), 12a (never heard of KES, the film), 15d – mainly because it is confusing to see which bits ended up where, so I assumed it was an anagram of A + AUNT + REL + U.
My favourites were UTTER, SEA VIEW, NUMBSKULL.
It was interesting to see GOURAMI in this puzzle – this fish is very delicious when deep fried and served with chilli sauce
Thanks Vlad and blogger.
Isn’t the aunt outside ‘a’ in 15d? Otherwise it’s a + (aunt)* outside u. Or am I just being dim, which is not unusual. I’m sure the et tu Brute trick has appeared before; maybe the archivists will say. Otherwise yes, not too tough from Vlad, quite fun. Epi, it turns out, is urban slang for intense… who knew!…so it works both ways tho I’m sure the subtractive ‘most’ is what’s intended. Neat double envelope in 6d, and 14a’s surface was nice.
Ta Vlad and Andrew.
The clue “24. Brute’s associates in dramatic murder back on run, say (5)” is excellent, no doubt.
“Brute’s associates…” for ET TU from JC is brilliant. It is better than those drab word-association clues that we come across in US non-cryptic puzzles. E.g, “‘Kin’ partners”.
However, I thought that in clues in the Across set of UK cryptic puzzles, if A is on B, we get BA rather than AB. Am I right?
PS Nancy’s lover was a biff, no idea of the film, and yet another fish, they’re like antelope ( a new one recently, can’t remember what or when).
Re 19 Prospect of the drink | running out — wives |each getting stuck in (3,4) SEA VIEW
In parsing, let’s put word divisions as indicated above.
First group of words is def
From the second we anagram WIVES, thus: S VIEW
The third instructs us to put EA in, so S(EA) VIEW
Trying to imagine that Nancy’s lover spelled his surname as Sykes completely threw me for the correct cluing for 12 across, and therefore the connection with 21 Across.
Oh, and my favourite fish in my tropical fish tank as a boy was a Gourami, so quickly spotted that…
grantinfreo@8
I see it almost the same as you do
AUNT outside A + U + REL
or
A + AUNT* outside U + REL
A toughie with much to be admired,no doubt, I could only attempt it by generous use the the ‘check that’ button. But, shouldn’t there be a moratorium on the ‘lower equals cow’s construction? It’s the kind of thing that gets non-cruciverbalists shaking their heads and walking away. Thanks Vlad and Andrew
I should know better than to use a tablet to post on-line. That should read ‘ lower equals cows ‘
In 3d, how can “loud” indicate a homophone? I understand “aloud” or “out loud”, but not “loud” on its own.
A good workout this morning, completed either side of a god walk, but I did not parse “blinkered” or “endings” so thanks Andrew for explaining those.
I agree with Andrew that “nuisance value” was weak – to the point of being inadequate to my mind. I honestly do not see how the clue leads to the solution. What indicated the reversal (worth = value, trial = nuisance)? What indicates the whole, as it is not &lit? I put it in, could see it was right but did not like it.
The other one that annoyed me was “antipasti”. “Captivated” does not mean captured. There’s a reason they are two separate words. Now, one might, at a stretch, use “captivate” metaphorically but using metaphors in words which are indicating the construction seems to be a device too far. The same clue has a “two-step” process that I know others object to (think of the word clued by this, then do something to it) which seems to be accepted as long as the “do something” is simple – take the middle out, or the end off, as here. I suspect that there will be mission creep on these kinds of clues as the ambiguity level rises so e.g. “mostly” can mean we lose the first, last or some of the letters. One to watch.
Having been critical of 2 clues in depth, I loved many of the others. “nest egg” was a gimme with the definition but took some parsing until the tea tray hit. “numbskull” threw me in many different directions, and “oxford” had so many misdirections in such a compact clue that I think it deserves a special award category of its own. Ditto “brownie points” for the total confusion over anagrinds and material. Well done Vlad! “sea view” a classic surface, and glad to see “ass” clued appropriately as US slang. I am another who thought the names was spelled “sykes” but worked it out in the end, and admired the double use of Nancy. Rees versus Rhys threw me as I thought of the latter as more Welsh but apparently not. Rhys Rees the rugby player might have something to say about it though! “in transit” and “following suit” both worked well I thought – good surfaces and clues.
For a Vlad, not quite a 10 foot spike, but not a toothpick either. Much to admire here and thank you and to andrew for explaining the bits I could not understand.
I enjoy this sort of crossword where there is so much working out to do on a whole range of setters’ tricks. UTTER was brilliant – I’ve certainly not seen that done before with ‘Et tu, Brute’. By contrast, I thought NUISANCE VALUE was rather weak and out of place among many good clues.
I’m used to seeing ‘lower’ meaning a cow (or something neat like that), and it will be more of a surprise if it used to signify ‘decrease’. (That clue was still slow to yield because I couldn’t think of a cow with the N (of ANGUS) in that position.)
Some indications had me more than puzzled, such as ‘and’ for LINKER in BLINKERED and ‘Fabulous body’ for ANTASTI in ANTIPASTI, making those clues solvable (for me) only by guessing the answer first, but to set against those, I thought BROWNIE POINTS, OUTDO, TREE SHREW, IN TRANSIT and AU NATUREL were excellent and great fun to solve.
Thanks to Vlad and Andrew.
Good crossword, apart from NUISANCE VALUE, which seems pretty arcane to me. For SIKES, two pieces of GK required; I knew KES the film but had forgotten (or did not know) Bill Sikes. Sikhs could have been used instead, although I can see the attraction of using Nancy twice with different meanings.
I particularly enjoyed UTTER after the tea tray moment.
Perhaps not as tricky as Vlad can be, but there were still a few here that took some teasing out. Favourite (and last in) was UTTER.
Thanks to Vlad and Andrew
Thanks to Vlad and Andrew. I parsed “blinkered” [2D] as a double meaning. For those narrow-minded individuals who wear blinkers to bed to block the light.
Thanks to Vlad and particularly Andrew. I found this particularly tough going, particularly in the SW and even though I finished I still needed to come here to clarify some parsing. Loi for me was about face and my favourites were numbskull (felt a bit like one at times), upper and sea view. Thanks again to Vlad and Andrew.
Thanks to Andrew and Vlad
Some enjoyable teasing out here. The only one I really can’t see is OUR = FOR US in 16a.
I can only see it as OURS
thezed@18
I’ve heard of power walking but you seem to have taken it to another level.
More of a challenge today but the answers kept coming – despite some cunning misdirection. Struggled with 8 and 19 which needed here to fully parse. Still can’t quite make 8 work in my head. Didn’t know GOURAMI but very fairly clued. Like others, I thought 24 was superb. Thanks Vlad and Andrew
Phew! Just finished it and had all parsed except 2d which I thought was a cryptic double definition (the second being wearing a mask when sleeping).
Loved it, the construction of so many clues absolutely ingenious.
I singled out 12 and 24a and 4,6,7,9 and 19d.
Thanks all
Dansar @24 oops – I could claim I was visiting all the kami in the park, or walking from church to church or I could simply come clean and admit to a typo. On reflection, the latter I think…given the recent run of form in the Grauniad, with geraniums blooming out of humus, I feel in good company.
Agree with Thezed’s first comment. The two stage clues take away the fun for me and when the blogger struggles to parse, well that says something. Thanks anyway.
Another SYKES here.
Thanks to Vlad and Andrew. I struggled through but, like others, needed a lot of help with the parsing, especially with RAIDS and SEA VIEW.
I thoroughly enjoyed this and am happy to come here with some clues unparsed – although I think today’s 6 is a record. I had ticks by many of the other clues and was another with Y in 12a. My cotd was UPPER for the clever surface. Many thanks Vlad and Andrew. Still time to look at the FT.
Definitely a challenge today but enjoyed it all very much, in spite of failing to parse so many. IDS was particularly obscure.
Particularly liked CRASS and NEST EGG.
Thanks Vlad and Andrew.
I didn’t find this a Vlad Litish at all, unlike apparently some of you above.
Unfortunately, I failed on 12ac (and hence 2d). Couldn’t get Sid & Nancy [who were the subjects of a film] out of my head.
There may be a Holy Trinity (Arachne, Nutmeg, Picaroon – in no particular order) but, for some reason, Vlad always inspires me just a tad more.
Perhaps, indeed, 8d’s not so brilliant but a clue like 17d (ANTIPASTI) is simply superb.
Many thanks as ever to Andrew & Vlad.
There was a time when IDS would have been considered the worst Tory leader ever. Who knew the depths that Cameron and May would reach? Anyway, IDS wasn’t a problem for me so RAIDS went in quickly. The excellent BROWNIE POINTS took longer. NUISANCE VALUE was a guess from the crossers and I’d never have got it without them. UTTER went in from the crossers so I missed the, rather good cluing. Overall, a bit too tricky to be truly enjoyable.
Thanks Vlad.
I am another who managed to fill the lights with plausible answers but no fewer than 8 ‘can’t parse’ marks, so I really needed the blog today. Sti!l, don’t think I’ve completed Vlad before, so things are looking up. Thanks Andrew, you helped me to properly appreciate a number of clever surfaces that had eluded me. Thanks to Vlad too.
This was very slow going for me I’m afraid. Too many times I had to solve the clue through looking for a synonym that fit the crossers and then trying to parse. Mammal and fish seem insufficient as synonyms to me, and there are so many examples of each (oddly, a shrew is the smallest mammal, and from the 4,5 lettering before parsing or crossers I had considered blue whale, the largest). Then, when it comes to parsing, I have to come here to confirm that Rees is a Welshman, or that Most Impressive = epi. Oh well, quibbles surely – Thanks Vlad and Andrew – and to all the bloggers who help me see once again where I have been a fool.
Many thanks to Andrew for the blog and to others for their comments.
Surprised by the reaction of some to NUISANCE VALUE. One’s worth/value being mainly as a nuisance/trial (eg an injured footballer having to stay on the field) seems fair enough to me. And the clue did have a question mark.
Re 17dn a captivating story can be gripping or absorbing.
Gourami was LOI for me – because that Nancy just wasn’t Nice!
That’s all very well Vlad@36, (btw I didn’t have a problem with 8d, I quite liked it), but as you’re (were) here – how does OUR = FOR US? No one else seems to know.
Dansar @ 39
OUR HOME = HOME FOR US ?
Superb puzzle. My favourite was BROWNIE POINTS. I don’t see what’s wrong with the CD of NUISANCE VALUE.
I cottoned on to Brutus but understood ‘associates’ to mean the group he belonged to, so couldn’t get any further. Not happy with it implying ‘et tu’. Am I alone?
Stonking!
Some great wordplay (linker for ‘and’ – lovely; ‘fabulous body’ – superb; ‘Brute’s associates’…), fun definitions (drink running out) etc., etc.
Ticked UTTER, IN TRANSIT, FOLLOWING SUIT, BLINKERED, RAIDS, AU NATUREL, ANTIPASTI and SEAVIEW. Can’t recall when I last ticked so many…
Thanks, Vlad, that’s the way to do it! So satisfying, and enjoyable, to solve. Just wish I’d saved for weekend…printed at teatime and I managed to not look ’til late last night but my willpower insufficient to hold off from solving!
Stonking!
Many thanks to Andrew too. (Do you think you might have enjoyed it more were you not blogging I wonder…?)
… and also spoiled by the fact that “r” is the abbreviation for “run(s)”, not “run”.
….oops. Meant ‘Prospect of the drink’, of course!
Andrew’s take on how 8d works corresponds (I believe) with Vlad’s own explanation. After getting the answer (NUISANCE VALUE), I saw it that way too and could see why the question mark was there. It certainly works as a CD, and I wouldn’t say otherwise.
‘Run(s)’ means either ‘run’ or ‘runs’.
Simon S @40
Thanks but I still can’t think of a phrase where OUR actually replaces FOR US.
Having said that, this has just occurred to me (inspired by your example):
We’ve travelled widely but this is, for us, home.
A bit clunky, but it will do for me.
Vlad @47 – still disagree, I’m afraid – “run(s)” means “run or runs”.
What do you think ‘run(s)’ means then, Van Winkle?
Just curious.
It is the heading R that is placed over a cricket analysis that shows how many runs each bowler has conceded an innings, which might possibly be one, referring to the contents of the whole column and not the individual entries. So it means very specifically “run or runs”, not either “run” or “runs”. Compare a different analysis that had a column containing either “yes” or “no”. The heading for the column would be “Y/N”, but who would argue that “Y/N” then meant “yes”?
Van Winkle @51
So would you say that in the last over a bowler conceded one run or runs?
‘Yes’ and ‘no’ are opposites unlike ‘run’ and ‘runs’.
I know what you’re saying but I think it’s an unnecessarily pedantic interpretation rather than what is generally understood. We clearly won’t agree but thanks for your interest anyway, VW.
I have already blathered on about this too much, but as there is a loose end I will add a little more. PeterO @52 – I would of course say “one run” in that context, but then I wouldn’t shorten it to say “one R”. Apologies to Vlad for being the butt of my pedantry, but this is one of my hobby horses – the use of cryptic content that would perplex the casual solver but be common usage for their experienced colleagues, such that clues are impenetrable for those that would like some gentleness and too obvious for those that might like a challenge. See also recipe = r, good = pi, men = OR, etc … And possibly lower = cow.