[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here
A fine puzzle with several unusual constructions and a tribute hidden within…
I’m not at all sure of the parsing of EN GARDE. There’s bound to be something staring me in the face. Would someone please put me out of my misery? [Edit: they have. See posts 1 & 2 below].
(It would be marvellous if that someone was the FT crossword editor himself. He‘s been in charge for forty years and is quite properly name-checked in today’s grid. Hats off, ladies and gentlemen).
Thanks to him and to Basilisk for a little corker.
| Across | ||
| 1 | BETRAY | Shop beginning to trade in live fish (6) |
| 1st of ‘Trade’ in BE (to ‘live’) + RAY (‘fish’). | ||
| 4 | CARCASE | Body or exterior of vehicle? (7) |
| I.e., CAR CASE. | ||
| 8 | EN GARDE | Warning fencing’s about to start blocking neighbouring gardens (2,5) |
| Can’t see how this works. Were ‘neighbouring’ replaced with, e.g., ‘opEN’ then ‘blocking’ would indicate an inclusion clue, but… What am I missing? [And now they’re queueing up to put me right. Thanks to muffyword & crypticsue: see their parsing below. Another ingenious clue]. | ||
| 9 | AIR-RAID | Resistance jamming broadcast to assist attack (3-4) |
| R[esistance] in AIR (‘broadcast’) + AID (‘assist’). | ||
| 11 | DEDUCTIONS | Take away those that are charged for valid reasons (10) |
| DEDUCT + IONS (‘those that are charged’). | ||
| 12 | ASTI | Booze repeatedly brought back sex appeal (4) |
| S[ex] A[ppeal] + IT (‘sex appeal’ again), both reversed. | ||
| 13 | SHEAR | Physical stress is clear to the audience (5) |
| Homophone of ‘sheer’ (‘clear’). | ||
| 14 | INTERNET | Imprison leaders of encrypted terrorist communications infrastructure (8) |
| INTERN (‘imprison’) + 1st letters of ‘Encrypted Terrorist’). | ||
| 16 | IRRITATE | Put out and angry about instruction to reduce speed (8) |
| IR.ATE (‘angry’) around RIT[ardando], musical instruction to slow down. | ||
| 18 | EASES | Mitigates complaints not involving detective inspectors (5) |
| ‘disEASES’ without D[etective] I[nspectorS]. | ||
| 20 | TALC | Fine material found in continental crust (4) |
| Inclusion in ‘continenTAL Crust’. | ||
| 21 | GRAND PIANO | GP wants extensive treatment for Joanna (5,5) |
| G[rand] + P[iano], whose abbreviations are here re-extended into the full words, ‘(the old) Joanna’ being rhyming slang for “pianner”. | ||
| 23 | OILSKIN | Waterproof material used to paint family (7) |
| OILS (‘material used to paint’) + KIN. Or perhaps ‘material’ belongs with the def. It’s immaterial, ho, ho. | ||
| 24 | VINTNER | Inventor yielding nothing ruined trader in hock? (7) |
| Anagram (‘ruined’) of INVENToR without 0, w cryptic def. | ||
| 25 | REDRAFT | Communist paper taking on artist to create new sketch (7) |
| RED + FT (this ‘paper’) surround RA (‘artist’). | ||
| 26 | FLURRY | Commotion when anger consumes both sides (6) |
| F.UR.Y (‘anger’) surrounds both L[eft] & R[ight]. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | BINGE | Session for one writer in retreat (5) |
| EG (‘for one’) + NIB (‘writer’), reversed. | ||
| 2 | TRADUCE | Malign exchange about University College (7) |
| TRAD.E (‘exchange’) around U[niversity] C[ollege], my alma mater. | ||
| 3 | AUDITORIA | Where one may hear tenor interrupting Carmen by second half of aria (9) |
| T[enor] in AUDI (‘car’) + O[ther] R[anks] (‘men’) + back half of ‘arIA’. Fun clue. | ||
| 5 | AMISS | Protestant sect cut short Sabbath wrongly (5) |
| AMISh (‘protestant sect’, shortened) + S[unday]. | ||
| 6 | CORSAIR | Pirate recording of rude song (7) |
| Homophone of ‘coarse’ (‘rude’) + AIR (‘song’). | ||
| 7 | SWIFTNESS | Speed with which author gets point (9) |
| Jonathan SWIFT + NESS (geographical ‘point’). | ||
| 10 | POLICEMAN | Constable’s first to portray new male icon (9) |
| 1st of ‘Portray’ then anagram (‘new’) of MALE ICON. | ||
| 13 | SERIALISE | Breakfast viewers reported issue in a number of episodes (9) |
| Homophone of CEREAL EYES. | ||
| 15 | TREADMILL | Time to study English philosopher’s routine (9) |
| T[ime] + READ (‘study’) + (John Stuart) MILL, another U.C. alumnus. | ||
| 17 | INCISOR | Cutting edge dental equipment (7) |
| Cryptic whole-clue definition. | ||
| 19 | SNIFTER | Tot’s feet caught in twisted reins (7) |
| F[ee]T in anagram of REINS. | ||
| 21 | GRIEF | Figure out leaving university causes trouble (5) |
| Anagram (‘out’) of FIGuRE minus U[niversity]. | ||
| 22 | NEEDY | Born desperately short of essentials? (5) |
| NEE (‘born’) + ‘DesperatelY’, deprived of its interior letters (‘essentials’), the def doing double duty as part of wordplay, hence q-mark. | ||
*anagram
gardEN GARDEn
Muffyword beat me to it
Lovely crossword with a Nina even I could spot
Congratulations to Colin and thank you to him, Basilisk and Grant
Found the bilateral EDITORs — but fell down on 22D – unquestionably NEE,DS right? so got stuck on 26d and didn’t question myself… lesson (probably not) learnt.
Nice crossword. Managed to get all the harder clues but failed on the relatively easy FLURRY. Drat! Thanks to Basilisk and Grant.
Basilisk following a theme of Fawlty Towers episodes in the Graun!!
Wondering who this Basilisk is.!
i was themed out today with Teardrop Explodes and Hotel Inspectors so i sort of trotted this one out without looking carefully
Thanks GB Basilisk.
Nice one. Thanks Basilisk, and thanks for the blog, Grant Baynham.
Thanks Basilisk and GB
From his twitter feed, Basilisk is a new pseudonym for Jason Crampton, aka Serpent & Skipjack.
A self-referential Nina? Apparently not – thanks Simon S @7 – but anyway this was fun. Favourites were the AUDITORIA surface and the ‘cereal eyes’ homophone. I was obviously barking up the wrong tree trying to link Joanna Lumley with a GRAND PIANO, which remained unparsed
Thanks to Grant and thanks and welcome to Basilisk.
While correctly guessing 18a, 21a, and 3d I could not fully parse them, so thanks Grant. Favorite was 13d, SERIALISE. Thanks Basilisk.
Many thanks for kind comments.
Thanks to Grant and Basilisk
I assume this celebrates an anniversary, in which case congratulations!
It did seem rather accomplished for a new setter and so it proved, but I’m not sure about the double duty in 22d – is nothing sacrosanct?
Thanks, Basilisk, and many congrats to Colin. Re Dansar at #11, I think that clue might be seen as an @lit clue where the full clue is also the definition.
Many thanks to Grant for the excellent blog, and to everyone who has taken the time to solve and comment on the puzzle, especially nmsindy @12 for identifying the intended parsing of NEEDY.
Thanks Basilisk and Grant
What a classy debut puzzle ! Struggled to get on to his wavelength initially and even after the grid was filled, there were a number of clues that I had to go back to parse properly (IRRITATE, AUDITORIA and NEEDY) and one that I needed the blog to parse for me – EN GARDE (which was my first one in).
Liked nearly every clue, but the SERIALISE homophone raised the biggest grin.
Finished in the SE corner after recognising that NEEDS needed to become NEEDY and then was able to get FLURRY to finish it off.
I considered the possibility of an &lit before commenting but I couldn’t (still can’t), see it.