A relatively rare, but welcome, appearance by Vlad in the prize slot this week.
We found that this was tougher than average for a prize, with 1 across being a term we had never previously encountered, and others involving subtleties of wordplay that made parsing the answers more of a challenge than usual. 21 across proved particularly stubborn. But no complaints: we particularly enjoyed 26 across.
| Across | ||
| 1 | BAIT-AND-SWITCH | About to stop bandits with a naughty retailers’ trick (4-3-6) |
| C (about) in *(BANDITS WITH A). “Naughty” is the anagram indicator. The term refers to the practice of tempting shoppers in with what appears to be a bargain, then pointing out its defects so that they buy a more expensive item. | ||
| 10 | OCTAHEDRA | Cast do care — that largely figures (9) |
| *(DO CARE THA). | ||
| 11 | OKAPI | 20 across content to look a pillock (5) |
| Hidden in “look a pillock”. “content” for “contained in” is a bit of a stretch. | ||
| 12 | BRAVE | Defy British party (5) |
| B(ritish) RAVE. | ||
| 13 | SWINDLING | Fraud succeeded, turning over liberal (9) |
| S(ucceeded), L in WINDING. | ||
| 14 | EXEMPTS | Expenses claims politician tried at first to make excuses (7) |
| MP T(ried) in EXES (expenses). | ||
| 16 | TERBIUM | Element of fear oddly gone but I’m unhappy boxing (7) |
| Even letters of fEaR in *(BUT IM). | ||
| 18 | EASEFUL | Roughly spoken bloke’s eaten enough to be comfortable (7) |
| Sounds like “e’s full”. | ||
| 20 | BROWSER | Safari for one brother involves disagreements with sweetheart (7) |
| ROWS (sw)E(et) in BR. | ||
| 21 | LOOK AFTER | Guard resembled Luxembourg’s new leader (4,5) |
| TOOK AFTER (resembled) with L(uxembourg) for the initial T. Thanks to Timon for working this one out: it had me baffled! | ||
| 23 | TIMID | It’s stupid — both rejected retiring (5) |
| DIM and IT both reversed. | ||
| 24 | NOMAD | Agree without speaking about old woman — she won’t settle (5) |
| MA in NOD. | ||
| 25 | RETENTION | Keeping on temporary accommodation (and keeping old home) (9) |
| RE (on) TENT (temporary accommodation), O(ld) in IN (home). | ||
| 26 | SHARP PRACTICE | Do angels have to do it after start of show? It’s a bit naughty (5,8) |
| S (how) HARP PRACTICE. | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | ANTEATERS | Time to go in a smarter direction — they’d like to have lunch with workers (9) |
| T(ime) in A NEATER S. | ||
| 3 | TAHOE | Nameless brown weed in US lake (5) |
| TA(n), HOE. | ||
| 4 | NUDISTS | Perhaps exposed campers to insult, surrounded by fanatics (7) |
| DIS in NUTS. I don’t think that nudists are necessarily campers, but that’s covered by the “perhaps”. | ||
| 5 | SEA-GIRT | Like Britain in decline — capital’s revolting (3-4) |
| RIGA (rev) in SET (decline, e.g. of the sun); “revolting” shows the reversal. | ||
| 6 | IN ORDER TO | That one may work or not — dire! (2,5,2) |
| * (OR NOT DIRE). You have to put the stress on “that” to make it work. | ||
| 7 | COATI | Film wildlife — only the second omnivore (5) |
| COAT (w)I(ldlife). | ||
| 8 | DOUBLE-DEALING | Easily beguile Donald with this? (6-7) |
| *(BEGUILE DONALD). Solvers can select their own Donald to make the clue make sense. “Easily” is the anagram indicator, but again it’s something of a stretch. | ||
| 9 | DIEGO MARADONA | God to blame ultimately in drama (foul one)? No, it was this bloke (5,8) |
| *(GOD (t)O (blam)E IN DRAMA) A (one) is the best parsing that I can come up with, but it seems somewhat contrived. The clue refers to this celebrated foul: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_hand_of_God | ||
| 15 | PUFF ADDER | Spin doctor, you might say, is poisonous (4,5) |
| Cryptic definition. One who adds puff (spin). | ||
| 17 | INSOMNIAC | Current issue involves money — first clue one probably won’t enjoy retirement (9) |
| IN (current), M(oney) in SON (issue) IAC (one across, first clue). | ||
| 19 | LETS RIP | Novice priest breaks down and loses restraint (4,3) |
| L (learner or novice) *(PRIEST). | ||
| 20 | BIRETTA | Chance to get hold of Irish teaching assistant — it goes to father’s head (7) |
| IR in BET, TA. | ||
| 22 | OOMPH | Drive round? We won’t be moving at this rate (5) |
| O (round) 0 MPH. | ||
| 23 | TENET | Article ignoring centrist’s clear belief (5) |
| T(h)E NET. | ||
*anagram
Thanks bridgesong. Not an easy one, it took me a long time to get started and a long time to finish too. I had to play around with a number of combinations to account for the anagram fodder in 9d and still don’t much like ‘ultimately’ applying to ‘to’ as well as ‘blame’. Why not ‘God’ as well if it comes to that? I needed Timon’s explanation to understand 21a and still think something is out of sequence there. 1a is a term more common in US I believe and Australians will be familiar with 5d.
Thanks bridgesong and Vlad. Good fun.
Didn’t get SEA-GIRT with all crossers.
9d parsed the same way as you did, but for finding the ‘foul’, I turned to my friends who are football fans.
Liked SAFARI OKAPI connection and INSOMNIAC, SHARP PRACTICE.
Thanks bridgesong, I recall this was tough. I never did parse DIEGO MARADONA.
I think the containment indicator in 11 is ‘content to’, and the definition in 14 is just ‘excuses’.
Thanks to Vlad. Bit of a mini-theme of skulduggery.
Oh, and Nudist Camps are, or were, a thing so that’ll be the reference.
Thank to Vlad, and bridgesong. Very difficult for me so that it took most of the week to complete. I knew BAIT AND SWITCH and finally got SEA-GIRT but was slow to get DIEGO MARADONA because I started with retentive, not RETENTION.
Gonzo@3…thanks re mini-theme. Didn’t notice..preoccupied with 9d.
I had just finished watching a documentary on 9a (he was very involved with the Italian mob, I learned) when this puzzle broke, so he was top-of-mind and went in right away, which helped open things up. Who would have thought that TV watching was a benefit here?
I meant 9d.
My margin scribbles say ‘hard work, NE last’ and ‘thank muffin for last week’s Lord Lundy link, I only remembered the fleas in the Pyrenees’.
As Biggles A@1says, 5d helped by the Oz anthem (about which much controversy, esp the line ‘For we are young and free’, discounting the prior 65,000 years of occupation and the use of shackles and manacles). Only vaguely remembered ‘bait and switch’, didn’t twig ‘took after’ for ‘resembled’, d’oh, or ‘adder of puff’, also d’oh, and still think ‘that one may’ really needs ‘so’ in front of it to mean ‘in order to’. So, grid filled, but still somewhat impaled. Thanks Vlad and Bridgesong.
… and yes, thanks Gonzo re the theme (in which one could include the footballer!) and yes, agree re 11 and 14.
Very enjoyable puzzle with lots of good clueing. I particularly liked LOOK AFTER, RETENTION, SHARP PRACTICE, and TENET. I was a little worried about how TIMID worked until I remembered that apostrophe s can be ‘has’.
I was nicely misled into thinking that ‘dire’ was the anagram indicator in 6 ac. Another very good clue.
Nothing much to dislike about this puzzle.
Thanks to Vlad and to bridgesong.
With hindsight, the theme was clearly indicated by the use of “naughty” in the clues for 1 and 26 across. I vaguely remembered “sea-girt” as Shakespearean; I didn’t know about the Australian anthem.
Thanks Vlad and bridgesong
I had several unparsed too, and also raised an eyebrow at “easily” as an anagram indicator. SHARP PRACTICE was my favourite too.
I don’t suppose there’s any point in insisting that PUFF ADDERs are venomous, not poisonous?
Nearly went in the recycling on Saturday night but had another look on Sunday and things started clicking.
Couldn’t get 5d despite all crossers, and am about to look it up.
I have same concern as muffin regarding ‘easily’
Highly enjoyable as always and kept me going well into the week. I failed on 5d which seemed (like a lot of clues I can’t solve!) a little unfair – I hadn’t heard of sea-girt, ‘capital’ could be any number of cities or currencies and I think I recall from QI that ‘set’ is the word with the highest number of definitions in English
I’m always excited when I see Vlad’s name on a puzzle although am a bit undecided how I feel about clues like 26a. I can’t believe many people got it without crossers based on either ‘it’s a bit naughty’ or ‘do angels have to do it’(?)…but it raised a big smile when I did eventually fill in the gaps with the crossers and initial S
9d I loved the reference to the infamous ‘hand of God’ and is even better now I see it fits a theme, although I must admit I gave up trying to find the anagram fodder
Completely foxed on parsing of LOOK AFTER so thanks for that – excellent!
A great prize puzzle which kept us going well into Sunday – and looking back it was a dnf as I only got as far as an unparsed SEA MIST for SEA GIRT – and I agree with Nobby’s doubts over its clueing. It’s also interesting to know about SET and its many definitions.
Favourites were BROWSER (big tea tray moment) SHARP PRACTICE DIEGO M and OOMPH. I didn’t parse SWINDLING (which made 5d even harder as I wasn’t convinced about the I).
Muffin – I said to MrsW that you’d comment on 15d – I didn’t appreciate the difference until you pointed it out a couple of weeks ago.
Thanks to Vlad and Bridgesong.
I enjoyed this and even finished eventually. Took a long time even to get my FOI which was 24a. I too found a lot of the clues un-parsable (if that’s a word) and I’m still unhappy about several of the explanations (though thank you for them of course, Bridgesong). For example 21a is the wrong way round to my mind – it’s not Luxembourg which has a New leader, which is how it reads, and there are no anagrams as inferred by New. But I got it so clearly it was doable – I’m definitely B league at these things. But I loved 26a and 2d. Actually laughed! So thank you too Vlad.
Jaydee@17. I’ve already expressed my doubts too about 21a but it now occurs to me that if the apostrophe represents ‘is’ it makes more sense.
I found this quite tough and there was a lot of parsing after the event. I’d never heard of BAIT AND SWITCH and I’m not too sure how I got SEA GIRT. I did like BIRETTA, chestnut though it is.
Thanks Vlad.
I have never heard of Sea Girt and had Ala Pict for 5d. I thought it was an anagram of capital. Like = a la and Britain in decline = Pict (obviously it does not) then thought Ala Pict was some phrase I had never heard of. I knew it wasn’t right but would never have got the correct answer in a month of Sundays.
23d H is the centre of THE but is it the centrist, which my Chambers defines as one holding the middle ground, especially in politics? Chosen by Vlad to improve the surface, I suspect.
1a I am familiar with the marketing ploy but not this term to describe it. I suspect that it is an American usage as Biggles A suggested.
Sense of achievement at completing but too many “unfair” as Nobby at 15 said of 5d which I got early on but didn’t fill in until I had the crossers.
Thanks to Vlad and bridgesong.
muffin @13
Good point about the puff adder, which is a non-poisonous venomous snake, to the best of my knowledge. It’s a venomous snake in all the dictionaries!
Alan B @22
As in the great loofah/sponge debate earlier in the week, I hate it when two words with different meanings become used interchangeably 🙂
Tenuous and impaling!
I do not understand the parsing of puff adder and didn’t know sea girt. Great puzzle though.
Woodbine @25: puff equates to spin – both terms for advertising or public relations material, particularly of a political kind. An adder could mean someone who adds, so a puff adder is one who adds puff.
5 down was one of the ones I didn’t get, but I do get the irony of my not getting it!
I had to ask a friend who got BAIT AND SWITCH for me, but enjoyed the rest of the challenge, even though I hadn’t worked out why the answer was LOOK AFTER.
Although to a zoologist the puff adder is venomous rather than poisonous, I’m not sure a lay person (like Vlad?) necessarily always makes the distinction. My advice to muffin et al (that’s Latin for ‘and Alan’) is, if they ever find a snake in their path and are warned that it’s ‘poisonous’, don’t press on, remarking that they weren’t going to eat it anyway, but back off and clarify. Of course, there aren’t many venomous snakes in the UK so we don’t often have to refer to their potentially deadly nature, but I wonder (probably idly as it’s so late in the day) whether our American and Australian friends here always make the distinction in casual speech?
One might also object to 15d in that it seems to use an adjective to define a noun.
I wasn’t familiar with the term BAIT AND SWITCH, but worked out what it must be from the anagram after finally identifying the fodder. SEA-GIRT took me a long time, too, but I got it eventually once I had the S from SWITCH. I didn’t get the wordplay for 21a, LOOK AFTER, or at least not until someone who did gave me a hint.
Pretty tough all round, but satisfying to finish. Favourite clues were 20a, BROWSER; 26a, SHARP PRACTICE; 4d, NUDISTS; 6d, IN ORDER TO. Didn’t notice the ‘naughty’ theme.
Many thanks to bridgesong and to others who commented.
Thanks for dropping in, Vlad: looks like there was nothing of real controversy for you to respond to. But it always keeps us bloggers on our toes to know that a setter may be reading our comments!
Tony @ 29
As per the blog, the definition is “is poisonous”, ie a noun, not simply “poisonous”, an adjective.
Thanks to bridgesong and Vlad
Not perfect, but challenging and inventive as always from Vlad. My pet hate is the stretching of L=learner driver=learner= student=novice, but I’m probably in my own bubble.
“Is poisonous” may be a third person transitive verb form, but it is not a noun.
Apologies to Vlad. The term “bait and switch” isn’t only used in America. It’s also in the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. I came across it yesterday at the CAB where I’m an adviser. A lady rang in who had been taken in by an offer of a photo shoot for £50 and had been pressured into paying £800.