Thanks Vlad for the workout. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
9 Total nonsense from the start in one statement (9)
UTTERANCE : UTTER(total/absolute) + 1st letter of(… from the start) “nonsense” contained in(in) ACE(one/a single spot on a playing card or die).
10 City giving Hearts a goalkeeper? (5)
HANOI : H(abbrev. for the Hearts suit in card games, like bridge) + A + NO.I(the number 1, usually, on the jersey worn by the goalkeeper in a football team, with the Roman numeral substitution).
Defn: …, capital of Vietnam.
11 Trod carefully with advice to my boss (7)
TIPTOED : TIP(a piece of useful advice) + TO + ED(abbrev. for “editor”, the boss of the setter using the latter’s self-referential possessive pronoun).
12 Determined to achieve results from speech, you are being frank (7)
CANDOUR : [CAN-DO](describing a determination to achieve results, as in “his can-do attitude when presented with a problem is admirable”) + homophone of(from speech,) “you are“.
13 Congress in recess — why? (5)
NOOKY : NOOK(a recess/a small space partly sheltered or hidden) + Y(letter representing “why” in mobile phone texting).
Defn: …/intercourse of the sexual kind, the name perhaps derived from the root noun.
14 Statesman right at home in city and country (9)
OKLAHOMAN : OK(abbrev. for “okay”/right/agreed) plus(at)H(abbrev. for “home”? or “house”?) contained in(in) [LA(abbrev. for the US city of Los Angeles) + OMAN(a Middle Eastern country)].
Defn: One from the US state of Oklahoma.
16 The idea (not at first accepted) I felt certain worked (8,7)
DEFINITE ARTICLE : Anagram of(… worked) [“idea” minus 1st letter of(not at first …) “accepted” + I FELT CERTAIN].
19 Harass Cambridge head in dark blue truck (9)
PERSECUTE : 1st letter of(… head) “Cambridge” contained in(in) [PERSE(a dark greyish-blue colour) + UTE(in Australia, a utility vehicle/truck)].
21 Paul, Harry and Nick displaying hearts of gold (5)
AURIC : Middle letters, respectively, of(… displaying hearts) “Paul, Harry and Nick“.
22 Nothing left of Neymar? Card following (3,4)
FAN CLUB : FA(abbrev. for the expletive “f**k all”/nothing) + 1st letter of(left of, in an across clue) “Neymar” + CLUB(one of 13 cards of the suit of clubs in a deck of playing cards).
And if you hated maths, you might express it thus, limerick-ally:
A mathematician named Hall
Had a hexahedronical ball—
And the square of its weight
Plus his pecker’s times eight,
Was four fifths of five eighths of f**k all.
23 Successful investment in the stock market? (4,3)
CASH COW : Cryptic defn: A lucrative/successful investment in the share/stock market, with “stock” also referring collectively to farm animals like cows, etc./livestock.
24 Top one with murder conviction finally (5)
CROWN : CROW(a group of which birds is called “a murder of crows”) + last letter of(… finally) “conviction“.
25 Row about drugs backfired for criminal (9)
RACKETEER : RACKET(a row/loud unpleasant noise) + reversal of(… backfired) [RE(about/with reference to) + E(abbrev. for the drug, Ecstasy)].
Down
1 Restrained individual behind leading politicians (8-2)
BUTTONED UP : [ONE(an individual) placed below(… leading, in a down clue) BUTT(one’s buttocks/behind)] + DUP(abbrev. for the Democratic Unionist Party, Northern Irish politicians).
2 Breaks journey — road bad after work’s ending in chaos (5,3)
STOPS OFF : ST(abbrev. for “street”/a road) + [ OFF(bad/gone rotten) placed below(after, in a down clue) + OP(abbrev. for “operation”/an organised activity involving a number of people) + last letter of(ending in) “chaos“].
3 Ship‘s store close to empty (6)
ARGOSY : ARGOS(a general merchandise store of the Argos retail chain in the UK) + last letter of(close to) “empty “.
Defn: A large merchant ship.
4 Lady turned up naked in exotic shows (4)
ENID : Reversal of(turned up) and hidden in(… shows) “naked in exotic“
5 Nice places abroad where writers gather (6,4)
PENCIL CASE : Anagram of(… abroad) NICE PLACES.
Defn: …, not authors, but writing implements.
6 Winger listened to talk of success? (8)
WHINCHAT : Homophone of(listened to) [“win chat”](what one might term talk about a win/a success).
7 Grass is doing well (6)
INFORM : [IN FORM](doing/performing well, as one might describe a sportsman).
Defn: To tell the police of someone’s criminal activities.
8 Train’s turned up? Don’t believe him! (4)
LIAR : Reversal of(…’s turned up, in a down clue) RAIL(to go by rail or train/to rail/to train).
14 Has more than university books to accommodate — this is one (10)
OUTNUMBERS : U(abbrev. for “university”) contained in(… to accommodate) OT(abbrev. for the Old Testament, collection of books in the Bible) + NUMBERS(one of the books/this is one, in the Old Testament).
15 Writer depicted old queen briefly imprisoned after revolution (4,6)
NOEL COWARD : Reversal of(… after revolution) {DRAWN(depicted graphically) containing(… imprisoned) [O(abbrev. for “old”) + CLEO(briefly/short for Cleopatra, queen of Ancient Egypt)]}
17 Short of Liberal dons? That’s annoying (8)
NEEDLING : NEEDING(short of/wanting) containing(… dons) L(abbrev. for a Liberal, a politician of the Liberal Party).
18 ‘These boats have a wickerwork frame’ — see, they are founts of wisdom (8)
CORACLES : C(acronym for “see” in mobile phone texting, as in “c u”) + ORACLES(founts of wisdom/persons or things regarded as sources of infallible advice).
20 Chance of money abroad lifted doctor (6)
RANDOM : RAND(unit of money abroad, viz. in South Africa) + reversal of(lifted, in a down clue) MO(abbrev. for “Medical Officer”, a doctor who heads a public health organisation).
Defn: …/accidental/happening without method or conscious decision.
21 Wears scruffy clothing for November comeback (6)
ANSWER : Anagram of(… scruffy) WEARS containing(clothing for) N(letter represented by “November” in the phonetic alphabet).
22 Rich with a hundred, in truth (4)
FACT : FAT(rich) containing(with …, in) C(Roman numeral for a “hundred”).
23 His mate lays one decrepit redhead off (4)
COCK : “crock”(one who is decrepit/worn out or ruined because of old age or neglect) minus(… off) 1st letter of(…head) “red“.
Defn: … eggs.
“The” is possibly the only word in the English language that cannot be defined without using itself. It’s definition is “The Definite Article”, so 16ac is technically wrong, though a bit of flexibility is reasonable.
I’ve often thought that “The Definite Article” would be a good name for a rock band. Also Perhaps “The M”, “The Y” etc leading to apparently mistyped sentences like “The Y are …”
Brilliant puzzle (surprise surprise!)and great blog. Thanks scchua and
JimVlad.Dare I say -in 25 can drugs be e or should it be “drug” (I’m bit shaky on drug grammar)
howard @1-wasnt there an act called THE THE? Silly if you ask me.
Thanks Vlad and scchua
A combination of appreciation and bafflement for me. I loved TIPTOED, CROWN and PENCIL CASE.
I couldn’t parse HANOI, didn’t know PERSE as a colour, and had no idea (except for the CLUB) about 22a.
Not that keen on the equivalence of “rich” with FAT.
…I did know PERSE as a school (in Cambridge) though – do they have perse uniforms?
Vlad’s work is commonly, as here, the very essence (for me) of ‘a good workout’. Initially quite daunting, but scrupulously fair, and thus manageable in the end. Many thanks to him, and to scchua for the careful unravelling: only one illustration this time, but beautiful and informative.
Usual Vlad experience for me. A slow plod through treacle. No momentum. I like a crossword that races to a conclusion as all the elements come together, not slows down as allusions become over-extended and anagrinds too obscure. Not a common view, of course.
Yes copmus there was a The The, no idea what they sounded like. Stared at the last four in the NE for at least as long as all the rest, not sure why now; inform was pretty standard after all, which led to the rest. Dnk the bird, but guessable with crossers. Ditto persecute, blue for perse was a definite nho, and ditto Argos the shop chain, but again all gettable. Eyebrow raised at 12a, different parts of speech, and a quibblet at h for home in 14a, but all up a great Vlad, thanks, and to Scchua too.
Couldn’t get 3d ARGOSY as I hadn’t heard of the store even though I had heard of the ship, or WHINCHAT, again an unfamiliar word. So an epic fail for me. muffin@4 has already cited the two I did like, 24a CROWN and 5d PENCIL CASE. I guessed PERSECUTE at 19a, NOEL COWARD at 15d and COCK at 23d from the crossers but couldn’t see why they were the answers.
[I liked the idea of the new name for the rock band, howard@1. I might have mentioned before that I want to name our next sailing boat “The Floating Apostrophe”.]
Thanks Vlad, but for me the puzzle today was just too hard to be really enjoyable. Thanks scchua for helping me to see the light.
[We crossed, gif@8, or I would have acknowledged some similar points made.]
… on second thoughts, ‘She’s known for being frank/candour’ works ok …
No momentum for me either, Van Winkle. In fact I ground to a halt, so a DNF for me today. The parsing of Hanoi and Fan Club I think meant that I did the right thing in pulling up stumps early…
Thanks both,
gratiinfreo @8: H is often used as an abbreviation for ‘home’ when describing sports fixtures.
I liked No 1 for goalie; can’t recall seeing that device before. FA for ‘nothing’ is now quite common, it seems. ‘Fanny Adams’ if you prefer a euphemism.
howard @1: 16 was fine for me; other languages have definite articles, too.
Following my usual tactic – particularly with Vlad – of bung it in, parse later I ended up with ANY MORE for 22a. With Nothing (0) + (NEYMAR)* it seemed an unparsed fit for a definition of ‘nothing left(?)’. Wrong in so many ways but held me up for some time. Failed miserably with ARGOSY despite being a UK resident so dnf.
Many other enjoyable clues with wit and charm.
Thanks to setter and blogger
Failed on HANOI (knowing nothing about soccer/roundball/football. Did anyone else try to bung in something like IT IVI (City giving hearts?) thinking it might be the name of a goalkeeper? And also failed on the crossing WHINCHAT and didn’t know ARGOSY. Harrods, Marks and Sparks and any other store I could think of wouldn’t fit.
Got tricked by NICE PLACES …. lieus?!
But happy to get the rest. I think the definition for 23 down is the mate of the hen/the one who lays (not eggs).
Quibble with CANDOUR = being frank? Determined = CAN DO? Grammar in both wordplay and solution seem to be iffy.
Why is ENID a lady? (My middle name, after my grandmother, embarrassed as a child, so perversely put the initial in my signature daring someone to ask me. I didn’t think Ms Blyton was (be)knighted, was she?
Agree with copmus @2. I was looking for ‘e’ plural in 25. I think that was a mistake.
Did like THE and NOOKY and DEFINITE ARTICLE.
Typical Vlad solve for me, very little at first and generally slow going. However as ever with some perseverance it all began to unpack. Last ones were candour and answer, and I liked fan club and Oklahoman. Thanks to Vlad for the challenge and scchua for clarifying some parsing. A glutton for punishment so now for an old Tyrus in the i.
This was both difficult and enjoyable. My favourites were NOEL COWARD, TIPTOED, NOOKY, DEFINITE ARTICLE, CANDOUR.
Quite a few new words for me: PERSE = dark blue, argos = store, WHINCHAT, and the fact that a goalkeeper usualy wears the number one.
I was unable to parse BUTT in 1d, and ANCE in 9a.
Thanks Vlad and scchua.
copmus @3 – I agree “The The” is silly, but imho “The Definite Article” scans well, works even if you don’t notice the pun, and gives satisfaction to those who do notice it.
Julie @9 – I like “The Floating Apostrophe”. How about “The Floating Rib” – particularly if applied to a Rigid Inflatable Boat, or perhaps if womanned by feminists. There must be dozens of similar expressions.
I was convinced 23a was going to be Bull (something), referring to a bull market. So near yet so far!
Hard-going but persevered (sorry) to the end. For once though nothing stood out. Didn’t pick up the left of Neymar construction just assumed his giant ego meant he called himself N. Can’t work out the UR homophone either.
Muffin – used to play sport against The Perse. Their rugger/hockey jerseys and cricket caps were purple to my eyes. There again my colour pronouncements are forever being corrected!
Started off feeling very “impaled”, but got over it. Loved “Nothing left of Neymar”. As far as goalkeeper (HANOI) is concerned, the same device was used by Picaroon in March, so that helped. All the necessary pennies dropped in the end, but some took quite a while (the last one as I was writing this, so Never mind!)
When I was younger and listened to the radio a lot I thought a great name for a band would be The Way. “And now we have the latest record by The Way. I mean …”
I must have been on Vlad’s wavelength today as I solved this in two sessions which is a first for one of his puzzles – and I enjoyed doing it. I didn’t parse PERSECUTE or NOEL COWARD – but it’s always better to come here with something to find out and learn – PERSE as a colour is new to me. I also didn’t see the definition in 16a – very clever. The The still are a band.
Thanks to Vlad for the poke with a sharp stick rather than anything bigger and to scchua for the enlightenment.
Muffin @4, “fat”=”rich” raised my eyebrows too, but having thought about it I think it does make sense in the context of fat cats, or “the fat of the land” being the best or richest thing available.
Vlad to follow Nutmeg and Puck – this is turning into a very good week. A top-class puzzle – everything fell into place at a very satisfying rate after a slow start.
Thanks to Vlad and scchua
Gingerfuzzball @23
I agree that though it is possible to find instances where “fat” and “rich” are related, in general many (most?) fat people aren’t rich, and many rich people aren’t fat.
I wondered if the reference was more food-related – “rich” foods are often heavy in fat. Still my least favourite clue, though.
Hi there. I thought nooky was from rhyming slang nook and cranny
I must be missing something. If I remove the letters from “I FELT CERTAIN” from the letters of “DEFINITE ARTICLE”, I’m left with “IDE”.
hapdaniel @27
Yes – as scchua says, IDEA without an A
hapdaniel@27 Yes, you do get IDE; I think “not at first accepted” means not to include the first letter of “Accepted”, so take the A from IDEA. Clumsy in my view.
Van Winkle@7 I agree
Tthanks Vlad and scchua
I didn’t think 16 was clumsy or unfair. I picked out the anagram fodder straight away (though it took a little longer to resolve it).
Funny that some found this difficult, I completed it early in the morning. IMO, Nutmeg was harder yesterday. LOI RAND-OM.
I found this tough but enjoyable to tease out. I got stuck for quite a while in the SW until I guessed OUTNUMBERS and PERSECUTE. Lots of good chewy clues. My favorites were PENCIL CASE and OUTNUMBERS.
I think 25 works. “Drugs” is often used to mean one particular drug, as in the phrase “he’s on drugs/on heroin”.
Thanks, Vlad and scchua. I needed your help on HANOI.
A mixed experience for me today, as I worked through the tougher clues but had to reveal BUTTONED-UP and OKLAHOMAN. I was initially unhappy with “at” in the latter, but on reflection it seems to work. I’m another who admired CROWN and the long anagram. Thanks to Vlad and Scchua.
It struck me as interesting that Vlad provided us with a homophone indicator in 12a (you are = UR), but not in 13a (why = Y) or 18d (see = C). If the latter two are legitimate, I think that 12a would have been just as legitimate without a homophone indicator.
Personally, I find these texting abbreviations to be an ugly device in a crossword clue, so I would have preferred homophone indicators throughout, but no doubt I’m just being a crotchety old man.
I found this puzzle quite difficult, but as a result it was all the more satisfying when I managed to complete it. And I even parsed everything, except for 10a (HANOI), where I hoped in vain to find a famous goalkeeper named NOI or OI.
One addendum: Ironically, crotchety old folks like me are actually more likely to use those texting abbreviations. Young folks are so good at typing with their thumbs that they don’t need to abbreviate.
My heart sinks when I see Vlad’s byline, as I generally fund the wordplay hard. This was no exception with too many parsed with difficulty after entering a speculatively defined answer.
The use of c for ‘see’ and y for ‘why’ really gr8s with me.
However, we finished in good time (had to go out before the blog appeared), and were entertained by CROWN, CASH COW, COCK AND TIPTOED, so thanks anyway, Vlad. And thankyou scchua for your explanations of those, like NOEL COWARD which I never did parse correctly
This is John at 36 – I normally post as Job, but, on a different computer today which didn’t remember that.
Like many of the above, we started slowly but made steady progress and finished eventually. A few unparsed, so thank you scchua. Other than CANDOUR happy with the clues.
When our children were at home they would mark my obscure/pedantic observations out of 10 – encouraged by Yorkshire Lass – and an 8 was exceptional. So chapeau to howard@1 regarding THE definite article: would have scored 8 easily!
Most gratifying to solve this quite quickly today, having been utterly defeated by Vlad in the past. I’ve been crosswording since the 1970s, and I may be getting the hang of it now. Discovering this site has been most helpful; where were you when I got stuck on that first New Statesman puzzle in 1974?
Today’s, overall I would rate as a jolly good puzzle, fair, challenging and diverse. ANSWER, HANOI, CROWN and PENCIL CASES (both definition and anagram equally clever) were my favourites, along with DEFINITE ARTICLE for hiding its definition in ‘the’, the word we usually overlook.
WHINCHAT was an educated guess; PERSECUTE was clear from the definition but I only parsed the C!
My usual atheist resentment at being required to know OT and NUMBERS from the Bible, though both crop up so often I can hardly be agnostic about them any more.
I’m not sure about ‘at home’ for H in OKLAHOMAN – though could it be a reference to football matches played at home appearing in the H column?
Great stuff Vlad and thanks to scchua.
All been said. Much to enjoy but on balance with Van Winkle@7.
Thanks to Vlad and to sschua for in particular the picture of a whinchat (new one on me).
Loved PENCIL CASE. Still chuckling several hours later 🙂
Thanks to scchua for the blog and to those who commented.
Just managing to post before midnight. I enjoyed the puzzle in which only ARGOSY was new and not worked out. PERSE was new and I was surprised that our antipodean friends were not more appreciative of the inclusion of UTE in the same clue which is new to me as an Aussie term (I do love an Aussie abbreve).
Many Thanks Vlad for a good workout which spread out from the South East for me with some really clever clues as pointed out above. Thanks too to scchua for rapid dissection. Thanks too to the earlier contributions which were most amusing too. Particularly enjoyed the pedantry score from Irishman to Howard@1.
I was very late coming to this, but I’m glad I took it up. It was one of Vlad’s best – devious and devilish in places, but everything working out as it should. I sometimes need help with parsing after the event, but not this time.
All in all, a challenging puzzle, and a very enjoyable one.
Thanks to setter, blogger and all other commenters.
A good challenge from Vlad again though, as usual, it took me ages.
Muffin @5. I went to the Perse school and the school colours were purple and black stripes; the blazers were striking and hideous. Thus I was completely unable to parse persecute having never heard of the shade in question, or an “ute” for that matter. Thanks to scchua for enlightenment.
To muffin @5 (and Blue Canary @20, and the previous speaker):
When I came to the UK some 12 years ago, the first that struck me were those school uniforms.
In the Netherlands there is no such thing, neither in primary nor secondary schools.
Living in Cambridge, it was The Perse’s outfit that hurt my eyes most.
I just googled it and here is a jacket, available from John Lewis:
https://www.johnlewis.com/the-perse-preparatory-school-unisex-blazer-multi/p391111?sku=231853941&size=chest-32&s_kwcid=2dx92700046988661840&tmad=c&tmcampid=2&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsZfTgtLv5AIVSImyCh3zDQrkEAQYASABEgLj6PD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
£ 110, that’s quite outrageous, isn’t it?
Well, if you can afford the annual fees, you won’t complain about it, will you?
Now back to the crossword.
I am a great fan of Vlad but like others I wondered about why ‘see’ and ‘why’ weren’t signposted but ‘you are’ was.
E just for ‘drugs’ was already mentioned too.
I didn’t like 22d that much.
Not because perhaps ‘rich’ = FAT was dubious – there is something like a ‘fat cat’.
More because ‘a hundred’ for C (which is strictly speaking totally fine) was unfortunate here as there was an A in front of the C in the solution.
Also, the insertion indicated by ‘with … in’ was broken by a comma.
The surface needs it, true, but it felt uncomfortable to me/us.
All in all, a nice crossword but Vlad can be more politically outspoken in his clues, which I like.
So, I am not with Alan @ 44 that this was one of Vlad’s best.
Surely a lot better than ye average crossword.
We particularly liked 5d and 7d.
Keep an eye on next week’s Independent!
Many thanks to scchua & Vlad.
Haven’t read all the posts, but it was very cool to see the whinchat perched on a gorse bush. Whin is another name for gorse.
I don’t like the term, but i suppose i am a “lurker” – read this blog now and then, especially when I have an answer I can’t parse. Kinda feel like i know some of you regular posters.
Vaccinium from NZ.
Bardell@45. This has probably been explained above… but a ute is sometimes called a “pickup truck” We have s**t loads in NZ 🙂
*(Short for “utility vehicle”)
*I have one myself
Dil
All your points appreciated. I’ll just pick up on the clue you referred to just before you mentioned my post: 22d FACT.
I thought it was ok, just a bit devious. I think ‘C’ can be clued by ‘a hundred’ just as well as by ‘hundred’ or ‘one hundred’ because they are words or word phrases that define (or translate, if you will) the Roman C. ‘100’ is ok too, but not ‘a 100’, which, if it were ever to appear in a crossword clue, would in my view indicate AC, not C.
As for the comma, the relevant rule is ‘ignore punctuation’. As you say, the comma is for the surface, and the solver has to pause (without assistance from any punctuation) before the word ‘truth’, the definition, and not where the comma is.
Me @ 51
Sorry, Sil. That is the name I typed, not ‘Dil’!
I thought the clue for 8d could easily have been re-punctuated to give RAIL as the answer as a reversal of LIAR.
Sadly a DNF for me. Got OUTNUMBERS but couldn’t parse it as I had OU for the uni. Got as far as ONE CLUB from the cryptic, and I’d forgotten about a murder of crows. So missed that bottom left completely.