Alberich is one of my favourite setters.
I smiled when I saw who today's setter was. I enjoy the challenge of an Alberich puzzle because of his clever clues, smooth surfaces and his intelligence.
All three were in evidence today. I only had three entries in on my first pass over the across clues, but a few guesses on some of the others. The down solutions slotted in much more quickly, and the rest of the puzzle revealed itself pretty quickly thereafter.
One minor quibble at 19dn, but otherwise a perfect puzzle. If there's a them or a nina, it passed me by.
Thanks, Alberich.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | KEEP ONE'S HAIR ON | Mobile phone’s extremely expensive Nokia, constraining Rex to not lose it (4,4,4,2) |
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*(phones ee nokia) [anag:mobile] where EE is [extremely] E(xpensiv)E, constraining R (Rex) |
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| 10 | HEGEL | Incline to embrace German philosopher (5) |
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HEEL ("incline") to embrace G (German) Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 – 1831) was a German idealist philosopher. I only know of him from the Monty Python Philosophers' Song in which it was suggested that "David Hume could out-consume Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel". |
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| 11 | GO BEGGING | Be unwanted and become mendicant? (2,7) |
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Double definition |
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| 12 | CONTENT | Happy to comply with tradition, primarily for son (7) |
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CON(s>T)ENT ("to comply, with T(radition) [primarily] for (i.e in place of) S (son) |
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| 13 | MANDATE | The two parts needed to make friend give authorisation (7) |
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M and ATE are the "two parts needed to make" MATE ("friend") |
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| 14 | ADMIT | Bill wants American university grant (5) |
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AD ("bill") wants MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, so "American university") |
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| 16 | ARCHITECT | Wren, maybe, or the Arctic cuckoo (9) |
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*(the arctic) [anag:cuckoo] |
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| 19 | RECIPIENT | Person who’s given one parting instructions to cook books (9) |
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I (one) parting RECIPE ("instructions to cook") + NT (New Testament, so "books") |
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| 20 | ACHED | Did long moustache droop to some extent? (5) |
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Hidden in [to some extent] "moustACHE Droop" |
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| 22 | DESPOIL | I start to laugh after autocrat almost gets sack (7) |
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I + [start to] L(augh) after DESPO(t) ("autocrat", almost) |
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| 25 | ALBUMEN | White vestment, uniform given to bishops? (7) |
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ALB ("vestment") + U (uniform) given to MEN ("bishops" in chess) |
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| 27 | AMBULANCE | Vehicle – medic treated ulna in one? (9) |
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MB (Bachelor of Medicine, so "medic") + *(ulna) [anag:treated] in ACE ("one") |
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| 28 | SCREE | Endlessly sift loose pieces of rock (5) |
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[endlessly] SCREE(n) ("sift") |
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| 29 | ENTERPRISINGLY | Boldly go into western part of prison alone (14) |
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ENTER ("go into") + [western part of] PRI(son) + SINGLY ("alone") |
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| DOWN | ||
| 2 | ERGONOMIC | Good to occupy awfully nice room designed for efficiency (9) |
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G (good) to occupy *(nice room) [anag:awfully] |
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| 3 | PULSE | Stroke kitty, changing sides (5) |
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PU(r>L)SE ("kitty" changing sides, i.e. R(right) becomes L (left)) |
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| 4 | NIGHTMARE | Close mate upset about right nasty experience (9) |
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NIGH ("close") + *(mate) [anag:upset] about R (right) |
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| 5 | SEBUM | Special oriental sponge produces natural lubricant (5) |
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S (special) + E (eastern, so "oriental") + BUM ("sponge") |
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| 6 | ARGENTINA | Arabic fellow elected leader of Arabic country (9) |
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Ar. (Arabic) + GENT ("fellow") + IN ("elected") + [leader of] A(rabic) |
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| 7 | RAITA | Educated woman eats a dish from India (5) |
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RITA ("educated woman" from the Russell play Educating Rita) eats A |
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| 8 | NEGLECT | Manuel’s the dope up before court for lack of care (7) |
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<=(EL (Spanish for the, so "Manuel's the") + GEN ("dope"), up) before Ct. (court) |
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| 9 | CHA-CHA | More than one tea dance (3-3) |
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CHA ("tea") [more than once] |
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| 15 | TOP DOLLAR | Parking in toll road involved a lot of money (3,6) |
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P (parking) in *(toll road) [anag:involved] |
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| 17 | CUT CAPERS | Prune culinary shrubs and behave playfully (3,6) |
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CUT ("prune") + CAPERS ("culinary shrubs") |
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| 18 | EPHEMERAL | Passing English pub on green shortly (9) |
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E (English) + PH (public house on a map, so "pub") on EMERAL(d) ("green", shortly) |
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| 19 | RADIATE | Relief after rising in rank makes you beam (7) |
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<=AID ("relief", after rising) in RATE ("rank") The "you" in the clue is required only to make the surface smooth, so is superfluous in wordplay terms. |
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| 21 | DANGER | Knot garden creating hazard (6) |
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*(garden) [anag:knot] |
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| 23 | SABOT | Clog half of 26s up over time (5) |
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<=([half of] BASins, up) ("26s" – 26dn is BASIN), + O (over, in cricket) + T (time) |
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| 24 | LONER | Individual in Luxor on vacation is reclusive sort (5) |
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ONE ("individual") in L(uxo)R [on vacation, ie having been emptied, leaving only its shell] |
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| 26 | BASIN | North of Indiana boats regularly sink (5) |
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B(o)A(t)S [regularly] north of In. (Indiana) |
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A true master of clue construction. Beautiful!
I was ok with 19d. I thought wordplay makes you (provides you with) answer works as a construction. Don’t recall seeing “knot” as an anagram indicator before (and had to look up what a knot garden is). Didn’t know the phrase CUT CAPERS and needed help with that one.
Wondered if Alberich had Star Trek in mind when writing 29a. What with The Enterprise and “Boldly go”. Thanks to Alberich and loonapick.
Thanks for a great blog, loonapick. I’m in total agreement with your first two paragraphs.
(The ‘you’ in 19dn didn’t bother me: I’d call it an ‘ethic(al) dative’.
I have far too many ticked clues to list them all, so I’ll pick out 1ac, for its construction and surface , 16ac ARCHITECT, because it made me laugh and 18dn EPHEMERALLY, for the lovely picture it painted. I also like ‘boldly go’ in the clue for ENTERPRISINGLY.
Huge thanks, as ever, to Alberich, for a super start to the day.
Hovis @1 – I spent too much time checking on ethic datives. I should have refreshed before posting, sorry.
Though I also failed on CUT CAPERS, the cluing today was so neat and clever that this Alberich grid was a joy to solve with pen and paper alone.
I loved RAITA, the two long across clues and NIGHTMARE. Greatly appreciated the setter’s wit overall and being artfully misled, as with 6d in particular.
Thanks to Alberich and for a fine blog from Loonapick.
Thanks both. For 13ac, I thought that the two parts needed to make a friend were MAN and DATE. Your parsing is probably better.
My initial reaction of despair was soon dispelled and I finished at a steady pace having completed a few of the longer clues early. Some cunning misdirections which were fun.An excellent puzzle with a blog to match. Thank you both.
Thanks Alberich and loonapick
A single sitting solve that was very enjoyable – made even better when coming here and seeing a couple of my parsing flaws that brought what I thought average clues up to the high standard of the rest. M AND ATE was certainly better than my tenuous MAN + DATE and failed to take proper account of the s in ’26s’ so that it made the ‘half’ valid. Didn’t find it particularly hard, but the fine nuances with the word play provided high satisfaction – even with those two that I had to wait until the blog to see.
Started off with GO BEGGING and finished with the crossing RADIATE and RECIPIENT in the SW corner.
Thanks Alberich and loonapick
I think 28 is subtler than may appear at first sight: to get aggregate (ie loose pieces of rock) of particular sizes quarries screen them through meshes of decreasing size. Hope the clue wasn’t a complete fluke!
Thanks Alberich for a very well crafted crossword. ARCHITECT, ACHED, SEBUM, and RAITA stood out for me but really all of it was a cut above. As Hovis mentioned, 29a made me think of Star Trek as well. Thanks Loonapick for the blog.