A puzzle with some contemporary political, sporting and cultural references this week, but I was troubled a little by the plural of certain fish(es).
The contemporary references are to be found at 6 across, 21 and 28 across (not very contemporary), 23 and 25 down.
The fish(es) are at 1 down and 33 across. It seems to me that some names for fish are the same in the plural, e.g. cod, whereas others, e.g. herring, do take an s. I wondered if the scad came into the same category as the cod, but apparently not.
Anyway, a friendly enough grid, with only two four-letter words (which always seem to present the most difficulty – eg 28 ac last week). Thanks as usual to Azed.
| Across | ||
| 1 | SPUTUM | Deposit in total, what you’ll cough up (6) |
| PUT in SUM. | ||
| 6 | BAD ASS | What Trump’s opponents call him, crudely: ‘Low, grabbing advantage’ (6, 2 words) |
| AD in BASS. Chambers has this as one word, not two. | ||
| 11 | CONARIUM | Gland that’s uric an MO treated (8) |
| *(URIC AN MO). It’s actually the pineal gland. | ||
| 12 | STROMATA | Tissue frameworks giving support – second’s folded in layers (8) |
| MO (a second) (rev – folded) in STRATA | ||
| 13 | DRENT | Drowned of old in Dee rip (5) |
| D RENT | ||
| 14 | ABEAR | End of ale in a pub put up with locally (5) |
| (al)E in A BAR | ||
| 15 | SIRCAR | Indian factotum, knight of the road? (6) |
| SIR CAR | ||
| 17 | AVOSET | Wader rolling eggs to mount (6) |
| OVA (rev) SET | ||
| 19 | DALMATIA | A tidal surging round dam in Mediterranean region (8) |
| MA (dam) in *(A TIDAL) | ||
| 21 | CONTESSA | She was barefoot on screen – see stories with special appeal (8) |
| CONTES S A – it was a 1954 film with Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner | ||
| 24 | ADDICT | Cold inside, put it on – one can’t help oneself (6) |
| C inside ADD IT | ||
| 26 | PUDENT | Place including study, rarely modest (6) |
| DEN inside PUT | ||
| 28 | BIONT | Girl filled with love – what Cliff sought early on? (5) |
| O in BINT; what Cliff (Richard) wanted was A Living Doll, so I reckon this qualifies as an & lit. A biont is a living organism. | ||
| 29 | ACTOR | Company member? One program for training officers backed (5) |
| A ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) (rev) | ||
| 31 | RAVINGLY | Navy girl going out in crazy fashion (8) |
| *(NAVY GIRL) | ||
| 32 | LETRASET | Scots advance in Latvian system for transferring alphabets (8) |
| RASE (Scots form of RISE) in LETT (Latvian) | ||
| 33 | DOREES | Mimic female birds or sea fish (6) |
| DO (mimic) REES (female birds). This is an alternative spelling for the dory, and Chambers does not give the plural form. | ||
| 34 | HONEST | Just about in command, though old (6) |
| ON in HEST (old word for command) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | SCADS | Fish, a lot no decent chap’s taken on board (5) |
| CAD in SS. We seem to have two definitions here: the fish (the plural form is authenticated in the OED) and the American term meaning a lot (of money). | ||
| 2 | PORRIGO | Irregular or GI consorting with pro, resulting in skin disease (7) |
| *(OR GI PRO) | ||
| 3 | UNDER-AND-OVER | Two-barrelled gun: one on redan blasted channel port (12) |
| UN (one) *REDAN, DOVER | ||
| 4 | TARN | High water cheers sailors (4) |
| TA RN. I like the definition here – it’s a mountain lake. | ||
| 5 | MITHRA | Deity bishop removed from mosque niche (about time) (6) |
| T in MIHRA(b) (mosque niche). | ||
| 6 | BURSAL | Pouch-like undergarment regularly making room for US line (6) |
| US L interpolated in BRA (undergarment) | ||
| 7 | DAMBOARD | Restrain flow of poet about love? Chequers needs one! (8) |
| DAM O in BARD. It’s a draughtboard. | ||
| 8 | ANAESTHETISE | Ena hesitates, quivering, ready for op? (12) |
| *(ENA HESITATES). “ready” in the clue must be read as a verb. | ||
| 9 | SETAE | Bristles, minimum of effort having been put into food served up (5) |
| E in EATS (rev) | ||
| 10 | SPARTAN | Bleak role in hospital (7) |
| PART in SAN | ||
| 16 | COTININE | Indicator of smoker’s intake? Poisonous stuff holds it up (8) |
| IT (rev) in CONINE (poison). | ||
| 18 | SCABRID | Rat set free? That was harsh (7) |
| SCAB (rat) RID (set free). | ||
| 20 | IGNORES | Snubs foreign ladies, first to last (7) |
| SIGNORE with the first letter moved to the end | ||
| 22 | STAGES | Unaccompanied men at dance with energy in legs (6) |
| E in STAGS | ||
| 23 | SPILTH | Jordan, say, showing line for start of effluvium, a great outpouring (6) |
| (Jordan) SPIETH (US golfer) with L for E | ||
| 25 | DIAZO | Sort of photocopy made by Cameron, old (5) |
| (Cameron) DIAZ (US actor) O. | ||
| 27 | TRATT | Pastry served up with slice of tomato in ristorante (5) |
| T(omato) in TART (rev) | ||
| 30 | CYAN | Tin containing a bit of yellow or blue- green (4) |
| Y(ellow) in CAN | ||
*anagram
I don’t really understand the definition part of 28, BIONT. I assumed the “Living Doll” connection at the time of solving but wasn’t really happy with it. The song lyrics start off “Got myself…a living doll” so Cliff wouldn’t have been seeking it as suggested by the clue. It also seems strange to use an imaginary “living organism” as an example when there are so many real ones to choose from.
I’m probably over-thinking this – or being dim – but to me this is like those cryptic definition clues from the 1950s which don’t bear close analysis, and that’s not Azed’s style at all. Am I missing something?
I was not convinced by 28ac either. When I was solving it, I guessed we might be looking for a word meaning something like “android”, a constructed biological machine. But I can’t find anywhere where BIONT is defined as that.
I have spent the last week, on and off, trying to make sense of 28ac, but I still can’t. I thought of “Living Doll” too, but for reasons already stated, it doesn’t really fit. I hope there’s another explanation, but if “Living Doll” is the right reference, it’s an uncharacteristically woolly and inaccurate definition.
So of the lyrics in that song would be frowned upon today:
Take a look at her hair, it’s real
If you don’t believe what I say, just feel
I’m gonna lock her up in a trunk so no big hunk
Can steal her away from me
I think the Living Doll reference has to be correct, given the reference to Cliff in the clue. It is a bit weak, perhaps, although it is followed by a question mark. BIONT is interesting in that the OED only gives it as a suffix, but Chambers gives it as a word in its own right.
I’d agree with woolly and weak for 28 Ac but I can’t think of anything better.
At 32 Ac I can’t find anything for “advance”. My 2006 Chambers might be out of date but I haven’t found Chambers online contradicting me. Is there a meaning for “rase” related to advance other than as “past tense” in Scottish for risen? Should the clue therefore have “advanced”? A trivial point but the clue would have read equally well. Honour the Scots—they gave us Chambers in the first place.
Stefan
Stefan @6: I note that Chambers gives both to raise and to rise as meanings of “advance” but you’re right that “rase “ only appears as a past participle in this particular sense. There are two other meanings of “rase”in Chambers, but nothing that equates to “advance”.
Bridgestone, Stefan; you are both missing what C says:
rise /r?z/
intransitive verb (pat rose /r?z/, Scot raise or rase /r?z/, US dialect riz; pap risen /riz’n/, US dialect riz)
The first pat applies to rise. It then gives the Scottish words for rise, not the pat of rise, and then the US word for rise followed bit it’s pat.
Nick
I hadn’t missed the Chambers entry, but I do interpret it differently. In my view, pat (past tense) governs rose, raise, rase and riz (all separated by commas); pap (past participle) governs risen and riz. Are you seriously suggesting that “riz” equates to a present tense usage in the US?
OK, put on a Scottish accent. Are you going to rise/rase to the top of Ben Nevis or are you going to rose?
It seems rase is the past tense indeed:
https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/rise
I should have said to Stefan in my post @ 7 that “rase” was the past tense, not the past participle.
Orville:. Great stuff.
ne.Sc. 1964 People’s Jnl. (12 Sept.) 20:
Some of our Scots North-East expressions were a great source of amusement to Irish and English fellow travellers. We “rise” in the morning. They informed us, “We just get up”.
Oh dear—you get an entire education here.
We might all be right. Or we might all be wrong, including Chambers and Azed. Chambers is no use nor ornament when it comes to clarifying what it calls its “Part of speech label”. Have a look at the equivalent setting out of the information under ride. If that’s anything to go by, rase can only be the Scottish past tense of rise.
Then along comes Orville with his spanner. DSL has this: Ras(e) a charge or attack in battle. It doesn’t use the very word “advance” but I think we’d all allow Azed to use it, wouldn’t we?
https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/rase_n_1
Stefan