This morning's puzzle should be "food and drink" to the "seasoned" cruciverbalist.
A themed offering from Crucible with some unusual twists (two ways to get to the answers in 16ac and 17ac, for example, and "toast" as an anagrind)
Fun, though, as long as you're not solving on an empty stomach.
Thanks, Crucible.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | BAY LEAF |
Article in Times left unfinished without a herb used in soups (3,4)
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A ("article") in BY ("times", as in 4 by 2) + LEF(t) [unfinished] without A |
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| 5 | CATERER |
One feeds three queens (7)
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CAT ("queen") + ER (Elizabeth Regina, so "queen") + ER (ditto) |
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| 10 | FOAM |
It emerges from opening a 12, initially (4)
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F(rom) O(pening) A M(agnum) [initially] where 12 = 12ac, so "magnum" |
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| 11 | BLOODY MARY |
Drink left over in group refreshed army (6,4)
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L (left) + O (over) in BODY ("group") + *(army) [anag:refreshed] |
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| 12 | MAGNUM |
Parent drinks a gin, disposing of one big bottle (6)
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MUM ("parent") drinks A G(i)N [disposing of I (one)] |
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| 13 | DECANTER |
Tin in hamper, second container of 25? (8)
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CAN ("tin") in DETER ("hamper") The 25 in the clue refers to 25dn. |
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| 14 | TOP BANANA |
Leader to lead with three articles (3,6)
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TO + Pb (chemical symbol for "lead") + AN + AN + A ("three articles") |
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| 16 | WHITE |
Pale Guardian covers bestseller with renewed energy (5)
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WE ("Guardian") covers HIT ("bestseller") and *(with) [anag:renewed] + E (energy) Not sure why we are getting two ways of getting to "white". |
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| 17 | SCOLD |
Carpet that is ancient, small and austere (5)
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sc. (namely, so "that is") + OLD ("ancient") and S (small) + COLD ("austere") Again, two ways to get to the answer. |
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| 19 | CHIPOLATA |
Fruit in soft drink that’s oddly part of 9, maybe? (9)
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HIP ("fruit") in COLA ("soft drink") + T(h)A(t) [oddly] |
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| 23 | CRAYFISH |
29‘s wi-fi picked up bang outside (8)
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Homophone [picked up] of WI-FI with CRASH ("bang") outside The 29 in the clue refers to 29ac. |
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| 24 | LARYNX |
Cat grabs a radio’s top sound producer (6)
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LYNX ("cat") grabs A + R(adio) ['s top] |
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| 26 | PEACH MELBA |
PM devouring every island’s dessert (5,5)
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PM devouring EACH ("every") + ELBA ("island") |
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| 27 | OVEN |
Almost completed northern range (4)
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[almost] OVE(r) ("completed") + N (northern) |
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| 28 | BY HEART |
From memory, boy’s gutted, given red card (2,5)
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B(o)Y ['s gutted] given HEART ("red card") |
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| 29 | DECAPOD |
Cook stepped around lobster for one (7)
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<=(DO ("cook") + PACED ("stepped")) [around] |
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| DOWN | ||
| 2 | AVOCADO |
A very old poster in firm’s green (7)
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A + V (very) + O (old) + AD ("poster") in Co. (company, so "firm") |
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| 3 | LEMON |
Most of French paper’s yellow (5)
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[most of] LE MON(de) ("French (news)paper") |
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| 4 | ALBUMEN |
Coach unable to accommodate male, 16 (7)
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*(unable) [anag:coach] to accommodate M (male) The definition is at the answer to 16 ac. |
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| 6 | ADDUCE |
Cite a fruit extract that’s talked about by some (6)
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Homophone [that's talked about by some] of A JUICE ("a fruit extract") |
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| 7 | EMMENTHAL |
Colonist guzzling new prince’s dairy product (9)
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EMMET (ant, so "colonist") guzzling N (new) + (Prince) HAL |
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| 8 | EARNEST |
Austere English composer’s blocking film (7)
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(Thomas) ARNE'S ("composer's") blocking ET ("film") Thomas Arne (1710-1788) was an English composer, best known for "Rule Britannia!" |
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| 9 | TOAD-IN-THE-HOLE |
Battered dish? He loathed it on toast (4-2-3-4)
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*(he loathed it on) [anag:toast] |
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| 15 | BELLYACHE |
Result of eating too much beef? (9)
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Double definition |
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| 18 | CARVERY |
Transport about half of veal where it’s sliced? (7)
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CARRY ("transport") about [half of] VE(al) |
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| 20 | PALE ALE |
Staff regularly asleep? It’s the drink (4,3)
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PALE ("staff") + [regularly] A(s)L(e)E(p) |
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| 21 | TANGELO |
Cross to put outside old Islington pub (7)
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TO put outside ANGEL ("old Islington pub") A tangelo is a cross between two citrus fruits, such as a tangerine and a grapefruit. The Angel, Islington appears on the traditional London Monopoly board. |
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| 22 | SIMMER |
Seethe a short way into series (6)
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A + MM (millimetre, so "short way") into Ser. (series) |
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| 25 | RIOJA |
A carpenter from the south put away nearly new wine (5)
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<=(A JOI(ne)R) [from the south, ie upwards] put away [nearly] NE(w) |
Great puzzle! Really chewy. Loved TOP BANANA, DECAPOD, BY HEART among others. Didn’t understand why there was ‘second’ in the clue for 13; and having consulted Chambers, still can’t reconcile PALE with staff in 20d, although I presume we are talking about rods here. Many thanks to Crucible and loonapick.
Thanks Crucible and loonapick
I had lots of queries, but the blog has resolved most of them. I won’t comment on the”homophone”. However, is DETER the same as “hamper” in 13a? A MAGNUM will only foam when opened if it contains fizzy wine, which isn’t necessarily the case.
Quite a lot of GK needed Le Monde, ANGEL Islington, EMMET (also applied by Cornish people to visitors!)
I loved the construction of TOP BANANA.
Able was I, ere I saw… not Elba, but ADDUCE, which I’m ashamed to say is a word I didn’t know. Some really imaginative cles, especially the two triples.
I was held up by putting CRAWFISH first for 23a. It very nearly works, though CRAYFISH is better.
Some great clues, Crucible. Got TOP BANANA straight away but took me ages to see that PB = lead! Favourites included TOAD IN THE HOLE and ALBUMEN.
Did not parse EMMENTHAL (didn’t spot that ant = colonist) and SCOLD (I assumed that scold was an old carpet) so many thanks loonapick.
ADDUCE????
[…which had me wondering whether anyone had ever produced a palindromic pangram. This page has three.]
Much harder work than the past two days and a DNF…
The spelling of EMMANTHAL really tripped me up for ages; I’ve not seen it with an ‘H’ in for a very long time and certainly the place is EMMENTAL. Hmm…
COTD was TOP BANANA – very nice and a chuckle.
Many thanks to Crucible and loonapick!
Some rather dodgy synonyms, which have been mentioned already, but a really enjoyable and. challenging puzzle nonetheless.
Thanks to setter and blogger.
I do love a WHITE MAGNUM ice cream. TOP BANANA, EMMENTHAL, CATERER, TOAD-IN-THE-HOLE and TANGELO were superb. The homophone for ADDUCE was spot on as well, and I don’t care where you hark from. As loonapick implies, a lot to chew on after the two previous smoothies. Great fun.
Ta Crucible & loonapick
Enjoyable Xword. Thanks Loonapick and Crucible.
PS – thematic edible fungus is hidden in vertically aligned answers adduCE Pale ale.
Thanks both.
I think that 23 is a homophone of WI = Y only,and the FI bit is just fodder.
Droflle @ 1 – I think the first container is the magnum.
Thanks to blogger and Crucible for very enjoyable start to the day
Thanks loona , I did not like this puzzle but you have enlightened me on some new tricks of the trade.
BY (Times) , WE (Guardian), sc (that is) , Emmet (ant) , ser (series) were all outside my compass.
FOI was Toad in the Hole which we had for tea last night! This was a really enjoyable solve. Thanks Crucible and loonapick for some help parsing.
drofle @1, “second” in 13: presumably the wine first arrives in bottles prior to decanting??
Shirley @12 – I’d seen the MAGNUM, but I didn’t think Crucible would refer to another clue without any direct reference.
Trovatore @15 – Good point. I think that’s it!
Lovely quirky puzzle, expertly parsed. The ‘second’ in 13a might be explained by the fact that wine generally comes to you first in a bottle; if you decant it, it’ll then be in its second container.
Desperately tried to squeeze a sausage in 19a 🙂
Had to come here to see what the apparently superfluous words were doing (in 16a & 17a).
Thanks loonapick and Crucible
Thanks for the blog. Missed FOAM (doh) and didn’t parse decapod but obviously the answer from the linked clues.
Maiden @7 – THAL is a German word for valley – so Emmenthal is correct spelling – emmental is an anglicisation I think – cf Neanderthal (Neander valley) not neandertal etc.
Lovely puzzle, with clever clues and some great surfaces.
Favourites were CHIPOLATA, PEACH MELBA, BY HEART, TOAD-IN-THE-HOLE, PALE ALE and TANGELO.
Many thanks to Crucible and loonapick.
Now for the second course: Redshank in the FT – Hurrah!
Forgot emmet the ant though I’ve seen it very recently, so the cheese was a shrug, and forgot sc namely yet again, so just as well for the second wordplay. Fun to see our Dame Nellie’s dessert get a mention, but years since I had a magnum, either the bottle or the ice cream. Thought austere a bit strong for earnest, but a mere quibbletino. All fun, thanks both.
22 has to be 1 mm, not a mm. Thanks to both for a good puzzle
Eileen@20-I dont mind two puzzles by the same setter if its this one.
Lovely clues and grid fill
Thanks Crucible and loonapic
Thanks Crucible and loonapick
drofle @ 1: Pale as ‘staff’ is probably seen more often as ‘(chestnut) paling’, the sort of wood & wire barrier that used to be seen around holes in the road/ground before the advent of hi-vis plastic mesh.
Very strange, my connections with this tasty puzzle this morning. Sipped a BLOODY MARY outside our top of the road cocktail bar yesterday evening, having delivered an Aunt Bessie’s ready meal TOAD IN THE HOLE to my 95 year old mother. Having also grabbed a packet of cut price WHITE MAGNUM’s from our local Co-op. No Bellyaching from me today about the difficulty levels of this crossword on the (Manchester) Guardian’s 200th birthday. Thought the grid very helpful too, at times. An enjoyable solve, thanks Crucible and Loonapick…
A veritable smorgasbord of culinary delights from Crucible this morning which, due to a particularly noisy Dawn Chorus, I was solving well before breakfast so I certainly had an appetite by the end. Yes, there are opportunities for raised eyebrows here and there but, such was the pleasure of the solve, it feels curmudgeonly to review the clueing again with a pedant’s eye. I loved the quirkiness, and the construction of solutions like BAY LEAF, BLOODY MARY, TOP BANANA, DECAPOD, PALE ALE and CARVERY. TOAD-IN-THE-HOLE is masterful – anagram, surface and definition.
MB @7 & Andy Smith @19: I also thought EMMENTHAL to be the place and am slightly surprised to find that initial research shows the ‘authorities’ to use the two spellings almost interchangeably. THAL is certainly the German word for valley: I recall being introduced to the concept of the ‘thalweg’ in O Level Geography. Basically, the line connecting the lowest points of a valley, it’s pronounced ‘taal vague’ (apologies to our phoneticists) but the teacher insisted on pronouncing both syllables as if they were English words with a soft ‘th’ and a hard ‘w’. Very ugly.
Thanks Crucible and loonapick for the blog
[Andy Smith @19: THAL is an older German spelling for Tal. Many more ‘t’ words used to be ‘th’ –
Mephistopheles to Faust:
Grau, theurer Freund, ist alle Theorie
Und grün des Lebens goldner Baum.]
A very tasty treat, thanks Crucible and loonapick
Enjoyable puzzle, with two sneaky double clues. FOAM, CHIPOLATA and PALE ALE were my favourites, for the smoothness of their surfaces.
After finding Pb in TOP BANANA I tried to fit Sn (tin) into 13ac but gave up quickly…
The homophone for ADDUCE is iffy in RP, but it is often pronounced as ‘a juice’, which is why the clue states ‘that’s talked about by some’ (ie not everybody).
Thanks to setter and blogger.
[Shirl @11: I remember when WiFi was a pretty-new thing and I’d flown to a conference near Nice from the US, walked into the hotel and asked in my best (awful) French ‘Vous avez le Why Figh?’ followed by a very blank stare. Ever the engineer, I thought that maybe it was known by the standards name 802.11 so I tried to spell that out (huit-cent deux point onze) – glazed-over look from the receptionist (I have this effect quite often).
‘Ah! you mean WHIFFY?’]
PostMark @26: Hmmm. I stayed in a hotel in a place called ‘Langau im Emmental’ once where the road outside my window had been blocked and made a horrible noise every time a car drove over, keeping me awake.
I called down to reception to complain but it was only the night porter.
He told me to stop by in the morning if I was still cross and talk to the big cheese.
drofle@1 and Simon S @24:
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/beyond-the-pale.html
Enjoyed more of ths than not, in spite of the vague synonyms alluded to before.
Took me far too long to get 21d as I didn’t believe the clue would refer to a real pub in Islington! But since the only other one I can recall is the King’s Head, my choice was narrowed by feasibility.
Thanks Crucible and loonapick for good start to the day.
I suppose that most Brits would know of the Angel, Islington through the British form of Monopoly.
Gervase @28, re ADDUCE – yes, ‘iffy in RP’ sums it up.
John Wells (occasionally of this parish) wrote an interesting piece some years ago on changes to RP over the course of the twentieth century. See especially paragraphs 9 and 16 on ‘yod coalescence’, as phoneticians call it. It has a long history in English – no one today, for example, would pronounce nature as nay-tyoo-er. What has changed in the late 20th/early 21st century is that ‘Estuary English’ speakers, and increasingly RP ones as well, now extend yod coalescence to stressed syllables, hence Tuesday becomes Choosday and adduce becomes a juice.
As you say, the caveat in the clue makes it fine.
Maybe it’s food and drink to celebrate the Guardian’s 200th birthday, but I was a little disappointed there wasn’t a more obvious tribute. However, the crossword was very enjoyable anyway.
I particularly liked TOP BANANA, ALBUMEN, TOAD-IN-THE-HOLE, BELLYACHE and TANGELO. I thought the carpenter was A JO [for Joseph], leaving IR hanging, doh! Is 1mm really a short way?
Thanks Crucible and loonapick.
Didn’t get why *staff* gives you PALE so thanks Simon S @ 24.
Not heard of SC as *namely / that is* or EMMET as an *ant / coloniser*. More to add to my list.
Also not sure why CAT = *queen* could someone please explain – thanks.
Found this tough and needed help from check button etc and still could not parse several. Some lovely clues though – all mentioned already including TOAD IN THE HOLE which just sprang into my mind.
Thanks to Crucible and loonapick
FA @35; see Chambers: ‘An adult female cat’
Fiona Anne @35
A female cat is known as a “queen“.
PS, I was once told by another esteemed setter never to use double wordplay in a clue …
… and Eileen @20, you’re the language expert, but can you have more than one favourite clue, dunno? 😉
Thanks Rob @36 and muffin @37.
I did not know that an adult female cat was a queen.
muffin @32: we had the British Monopoly board when I played the game in Australia 60 years ago, so I remember “Angel, Islington” but had no idea it was a pub until just now. But I was also flummoxed at the time by “Strand”, “Pall Mall”, “Mayfair” etc. Added to the exotic, other-worldliness of the game. That’s my TILT. Oh, and I enjoyed the crossword. Thks to Crucible and loonapick.
Lots and lots to love here; a real class act from Crucible. TOP BANANA, the triple-def in WHITE and having to die tangle all the cross-referencing: these all hit my buttons. With a sensible theme tying it all together, this might well make my puzzle-of-the-year shortlist.
Thanks to loonapick for parsing EMMENTHAL for me.
I did wonder whether 5ac might parse as CATE (queen as in 3 of Henry’s 6) + R (regina) + ER ?
KLColin @40: One of the oldest Inns in the country, I believe, now a ‘spoons so there is no-way I’d be seen within 100 yards of it.
That was my undergrad stomping ground – Angel was the closest tube to City Uni and many an hour was spent in-and-around Islington. Angel Tube Station was one of the last to retain the very narrow central platform which was downright dangerous (coupled with the fact that it is on the Northern line so a deep-level station with lifts that always packed up). https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2017/07/21/40-minutes-of-london-underground-nostalgia/
A nice use of the theme. TOAD IN THE HOLE was excellent.
On the quibble side, I don’t really see how “austere” (“severely simple, without luxury”, Chambers) = EARNEST (“sincere in intention”). And I’m not a fan of double-wordplay clues. It seems to me that the wordplay in 16a and 17a leads to WHITE WHITE and SCOLD SCOLD. (Yes I know we can have double and triple definitions but I think that’s a bit different.)
Thanks Crucible and loonapick.
Some good stuff despite the dodgy synonyms (EARNEST = Austere?) and superfluous fodder. The homophones are uncontroversial in my book. They are unaffected by rhoticism and in the case of ADDUCE the clue says “talked about by some”.
Thanks loonapick for pointing out those two double-wordplay clues which had me puzzled (I nearly entered GREEN instead of WHITE but had some unparsed elements and fortunately decided to plod on) – as did the inclusion of an H in Emmental, but not fatally.
[This led me down a rabbit hole to the 1901 German Orthographic Conference, which resulted in that H of THAL being jettisoned, although this policy seems to have been implemented with less ruthless efficiency than is stereotypically the case. Nor would it have held much sway in Switzerland and I haven’t found anything to tell me when Emmental lost its H – but it was there in 1542 when the cheese was mentioned in something called an Idiotikon! (Speaking of which,
a happy corollary for me that I learned what may have been obvious to all of you, that Neanderthals are so called because of the Neander valley where they were discovered.)]
Thanks also to Robi and muffin for explaining CAT just now. Anyway I benefitted today from an early decision/awareness to read the clues carefully and “just do what it says” which helped with some intricate parsing right from the start, and eventually got me the LOI and favourite DECAPOD, thanks Crucible.
Great puzzle with another from him in the FT to come. I didn’t know EMMET for ant and didn’t equate PALE with staff. Loi in was the HEART part of 28a – setters are so clever at tapping into our preconceptions so we mislead ourselves – or at least mislead me. Lots of favourites all of which have been mentioned. Thanks to Crucible and loonapick.
With respect, MaidenBartok@43, I imagine the area in question was your “stamping ground”, as the American form “stomping ground” was not used in this country until quite recently! Cf. “champing at the bit” and the American “chomping at the bit”.
Hi Robi @38 – sorry for the delay: I’ve kept being interrupted by phone calls.
Well, you should know by now that, as far as crossword setters and crossword clues go, I, at least, can have more than one favourite. 😉
It’s commonplace for people here to say ‘Too many favourites to list’, isn’t it?
Just for fun, I went to Chambers and Collins and found, in both, ‘a person or thing regarded with special preference’ , which I don’t think suggests exclusivity, and also, of course, ‘a website that has been bookmarked on one’s computer’ – and I certainly have more than one of those!
I had trouble to get going due to all the inter-related clueing. Ended up being reasonably enjoyable.
New: Thomas Arne (composer), TANGELO = TO around ANGEL but I did not really understand why ANGEL = old Islington pub. But now I remember it from Monopoly.
Favourites: TOP BANANA, EMMENTHAL, LEMON, CHIPOLATA.
I agree with Russtoo@22 – SIMMER = 1mm in SER.
[Eileen @49: Perhaps Robi @38 was thinking of the usage of ‘favourite’ in horse racing? There is normally just one favourite, but if two horses are equally favoured by the betters they are termed joint favourites, while three or more equally fancied are co-favourites. So in yours @20 you had co-favourites of six. It’s not going to catch on, is it? 🙂 ]
Re the synonyms in 8d, the nearest I can find in Chambers is austere=severe, stern; EARNEST=serious, esp. over-serious. The wordplay could not have been clearer, though.
Thanks to Crucible and loonapick.
Some people have objected of late to the GK required to solve this or that clue, and there’s plenty of that here — Thomas Arne, Prince Hal. Le Monde, Peach Melba, top banana, the ingredients for toad-in-the-hole (I didn’t know them, just knew it was some sort of meat dish), the Angel pub and the British Monopoly board … They’re all okay by me. I’m not sure where the dividing line is between GK and vocabulary — you do or you don’t know that a lynx is a cat. Or that a queen is, for that matter. And if GK is in fact general knowledge, where’s the problem? If somebody has to know the 1936 secretary of agriculture in Moldova (if there was one), that might be a bit far-fetched, but the setters mostly are reasonable in what they ask us to know. I barely know much of what’s on a US Monopoly board, based on Atlantic City of all places, but it’s fair.
Thanks, Crucible, I enjoyed that. It took me a while to parse RIOJA and I never did work out what the extra words in 16 and 17 were for. I always forget that pesky ‘sc’ and I haven’t met ‘ser’ for series before. Favourites TOAD IN THE HOLE (though I don’t like the actual dish much) and CATERER. A “queen” is usually an unneutered female cat kept for breeding.
[A bit late posting today as I have been tidying up the church garden, disturbing lots of EMMETS].
[Valentine@53: for Londoners, ANGEL is also a Tube station on the Northern line (in Islington, of course).]
Thanks Crucible. When the 1st answer I enter (BAY LEAF) gets a tick I know I’m going to like the crossword. Other favourites were CATERER, LARYNX, PEACH MELBA, and LEMON. The ones that stumped me were due to a lack of GK — ANGEL (pub), CHIPOLATA, and DECAPOD. I also missed ADDUCE, the homophone being a stretch to my ears. Thanks
Gladys @55 Knowing that Angel was a tube station wouldn’t help me in my search for a pub.
Nice puzzle but like Robi @34 I would have liked a celebration of all things Guardian on this it’s 200th birthday, it’s not as if there hasn’t been time to prepare. I take it all back if there’s something special as the weekend prize.
Never knew how many legs a lobster had till now. Ten seemed too many, six seemed about right until I tried reversing ‘hexapod’ and got nonsense.
Thanks both,
Tourists in Cornwall are called ’emmets’ by the locals. Given the way incomers are hoovering up second homes and pricing the natives out of the market, not too far from ‘colonists’, maybe.
This was a mixed bag for me – I managed to complete it, but without being able to parse some of the clues (I’m still not sure I understand 25d) and despite finding a couple unsatisfactory (eg: austere=earnest, and ‘cross’ as a definition for tangelo).
@Valentine #53 – I agree with you that the level of GK required for this one was firmly on the acceptable side of the line. ‘Hal’ for Prince Henry (later Henry V) is Shakespearean and I’ve seen it used in crosswords many times before. I remember once, some years ago, Pasquale got a lot of stick here for having GADSDEN PURCHASE as a solution – that’s the kind of knowledge that I would consider to be the wrong side of the dividing line between general and specialist, but there’s nothing even close to that here.
Interestingly, I’ve never heard of ’emmet’ meaning ant before, but I’m familiar with the term from my Cornish ex-girlfriend (this is going back many, many years) – she used it to mean any outsiders interloping in Cornwall, and the clue made perfect sense to me with that definition!
@Tyngewick your post came in while I was typing… glad to see I’m not the only one who took that angle on it.
[Eileen @49; looks like you cannot have more than one favourite clue because: Favourite can also be used as an adjective. When we use it like that, favourite has only one meaning—“most liked” or “preferred” However, when used as a noun, it would seem that one may have multiple favourites (unless it’s horse racing, sh @51] 🙂
Gladys @55. I’m not sure but I think that Angel is the only London tube station named after a pub. There are, however, many bus route destinations named for pubs which has led to recent confusion with the inexplicable fashion for renaming pubs. The Plough at Dulwich was a long standing destination until the pub was renamed The Goose and Granite (!) London Transport took some time and expense changing the timetables and route signs to “Dulwich Library” (on the opposite corner). The pub has now reverted to its traditional name. Sadly owing to Covid-19 both pub and library are closed.
[Robi @62 – these are a few of my favourite clues 😉 ]
Nice crossword. I checked here to see if adduce was really the answer. Still uneasy, perhaps they are speaking with a cold
[roughtrade @63
Not far from where I live there was a crossroads with 2 pubs. One was called “The load of mischief”, and was a bus destination. This pub was demolished when the M65 was built, so the powers that be (I’m not sure who – council, bus company?) renamed the other pub “The load of mischief” to keep the bus destination, but the pub’s adherents weren’t having it, and it reverted to its old name, “Hare and hounds”, within a few months.]
@roughtrade #63 – Swiss Cottage is another. You could also tenuously argue that Blackfriars is named after the pub across the road from the station, although I think the truth is that both the pub and the station (and the bridge, for that matter) are named after the monastery that used to occupy that area.
The Eagle in Islington has an earlier fame than the Monopoly board: ‘Up and down the City road/ In and out the Eagle/ – That’s the way the money goes/ Pop goes the weasel!’
[TimV @48: My only excuse is that I probably morphed from one to the other during my stint living in the US but I stand stamped and corrected.]
[widdersbel @67 & roughtrade @63: Elephant and Castle surely? The area takes its name, like Swiss Cottage, from an earlier inn, and although that is long gone there is a modern E&C pub on the edge of the hideous convergence of traffic routes round Elephant Square.]
Quite the repast. I took Irish nationalist (Robert) Emmet as the envelope in 7dn.
Late today. Of course I didn’t finish it: the ADDUCE homophone was too far out of my dialect (even after I hit reveal, I was wondering what part of what fruit gets referred to by Britons as a “deuce”), and I only know the Atlantic City Monopoly board, so had no hope at all with the TANGELO clue. But there was lots of cleverness here. To be fair about ADDUCE, the clue does tell you that it only works for some dialects.
roughtrade@ 63: your comment and others following made me thirsty and so I found this interesting link, as I thought surely Royal Oak must be another
https://londonist.com/london/drink/can-you-name-all-six-tube-stations-named-after-pubs
[Hard to configure Robert Emmet as a ‘colonist’, Robbo @71 – rather the opposite; but I am reminded of ‘September 1913’ by Yeats:
Was it for this the wild geese spread
The grey wing upon every tide;
For this that all that blood was shed,
For this Edward Fitzgerald died,
And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,
All that delirium of the brave?
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.]
Thanks to Crucible and loonapick.
I don’t always have all the time needed for a crossword and in this case I was glad I didn’t persevere. “Austere” and EARNEST don’t equate, “hamper” and “deter” don’t equate. Throw in ser=series and 1mm=short “way” combined with the paint-by-numbers CHIPOLATA and RIOJA and I was glad to have grabbed the life-jacket from under my seat and made for the exit.
Not that there wasn’t much to enjoy, there was, and I don’t want to appear ungrateful. Ta muchly but the prize goes to loonapick – I wasn’t going to have had a good experience here and that he is willing to persevere and illucidate all is a matter for some considerable admiration (as is true of all our bloggers) – I am always impressed to see someone doing something that I couldn’t/wouldn’t do and that’s every day in 15^2. (Setting a crossword would also be one of those things.)
Alphalpha, you seemed to be able to make the time to be sadly negative. Was that really necessary after a a super crossword. I despair sometimes!
[Gazzh, if you’re still around – re the disappearing H in THAL – thanks for your post @46, which sent me down the same rabbit hole! It appears that the decisions of the 1901 German Orthographic Conference, which included getting rid of the H in THAL, but not in foreign words like THEATER, were largely based on the spellings already set out in the first Duden dictionary of 1880, known as the ‘Urduden’. In 1892 ‘wurde der sogenannte Duden als amtliches Wörterbuch in der Schweiz offiziell eingeführt‘ – so that looks like being the point at which the valley, and its cheese, went H-less. But by that time the aitchified version must have already made its way into English-speaking mouths and dictionaries.
Interestingly (for some of us!) the Swiss were using the spellings with ß in 1892, and carried on doing so for the next half-century. Augenfällig ist, dass in der Schweiz das Eszett (ß) im Laufe des 20. Jahrhunderts (vor allem zwischen den 40er und 70er Jahren) sukzessive ausser Gebrauch geraten ist; an seiner Stelle wird immer ein Doppel-s geschrieben.]
AlanC @76
I think that’s a bit harsh. There are too many problems in this to regard it as “super” crossword; quite good, but not super, for me.
Enjoyed this one a lot.
I had no issues with AUSTERE/EARNEST, nor with HAMPER/DETER and indeed Collins allows both.
My LOI, embarrassingly was the almost trivial OVEN – duh.
Tim @79
If Collins equates AUSTERE and EARNEST, and HAMPER and DETER, I suggest that you use a better dictionary! (Though Chambers isn’t infallible….)
Tim @79
If Collins equates AUSTERE and EARNEST, and HAMPER and DETER, I suggest that you use a better dictionary! (Though Chambers isn’t infallible…)
Sorry – my first post was rejected.
Thanks muffin. It’s a wavelength thing maybe….
AlanC@76: I suppose I could have done a “Thumper” (I very often do). But in this occasion the NE corner was, to me, rendered impenetrable by wordplay which was less than definitional (but see Chambers apparently) – indicative at best – and I didn’t think there was fair play afoot. And the SE similarly, clues like that for RIOJA which require the solution to a clue within a clue (“I’m saying “carpenter” but I want you to come up with another word for that and then manipulate it in a way which I will cryptically indicate (in this case by subtracting “ne”)) just leave me cold: it’s a long-standing theme of mine and I seem to stand alone.
To illustrate: Refuse to stand reverend gent, out of work, behind non-revolutionary choir member (7)
That didn’t take long – even though I have more time in the evenings I still wouldn’t have the inclination to do a full crossword. The point is that even I, a mere putative solver, can come up with this type of, for me, spoiler. So not super for me and I don’t mind if I say so.
Roughtrade @63, Alanc @ 7£
There are six London underground stations named after pubs.
Angel, Swiss cottage, Royal Oak, Manor House, Maida Vale, and Elephant and Castle.
There is also New Cross named after the New Cross Inn, when the underground arrived the area was known as Hatcham, where I went to school, and there is a ghost station at Hampstead Heath on the Northern Line, that was to be called Bull and Bush but was never completed.
After Dean Inge the other day, Thomas Arne. Just like the old days. Once overly loved by crossword setters, not so much by anyone else, ever probably. Such is fame.
Xjpotter
And – to complete a veterans’ hat-trick – last week we had actor TREE. I really thought we’d heard the last of him!
PS: sorry, it was in an Indy Sunday puzzle
MaidenBartok@69: Having jumped on my linguistic high Suffolk punch, I then had the sudden thought that you might have American blood (as well as Hungarian?) and was getting ready to apologise !
Eileen @ 88. What next, the reappearance of the old Indian copper?
Thanks to Crucible and Loonapick. No real problems with the synonyms but Ser for series is something that didn’t occur in my maths long ago.
Nice to see comment from Tim who must have been early adopter on 225.
[ Trovatore@15, drofle@1 & 16, et al: Re 13a DECANTER, would it not be at least the third container for the RIOJA, after the cask and the bottle? ]
Thanks Loonapick for the parsing – I was completely defeated by this. For whatever reason, I found this the most impossible puzzle in recent times, even outdoing anything from Paul!