A tough puzzle form Io but well worth the effort is you have the time. Many inventive ways to clue words here that you don’t find in a typical FT puzzle. Thank you Io.
I had to drive my wife to the airport this morning so sadly I didn’t get as much time to write up the blog as I would have liked. There is still one clue I have not quite got to the bottom of yet (19 across). Any help would be appreciated.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1, 3 | SCRIP ISSUE |
Priest is taken in by “Exotic Cruises” share bonus (5,5)
|
| P (priest) IS inside anagram (exotic) of CRUISES | ||
| 4 | AGREE |
A not altogether traditional area for village cricket match (5)
|
| A GREEn (traditional area for village cricket) missing last letter (not altogether, mostly) | ||
| 9, 17 | LANCASHIRE HOTPOT |
Network Kitty introduced to her ego over fare up north! (10,6)
|
| LAN (network) CASH POT (kitty) contains (introduced) TO HER I (ego) reversed (over) | ||
| 10 | HASH |
Stew you could make of 9, 17 with 7 (4)
|
| LANCACHIRE HOTPOT (9 across, 17 across) is something that can be made from HASH (this solution) and LACTOTPROTEIN (7 down) | ||
| 12 | ST VALENTINE’S DAY |
With love, shall we mark it off in Advent, say? Let’s! (2,10,3)
|
| anagram (off) of IN ADVENT SAY LETS | ||
| 13 | UP-TO-DATE |
Designer doing time (2-2-4)
|
| UP TO (doing, what are you up to?) and DATE (time) – definition as an adjective, fashionable | ||
| 15, 23 | A TOUGH NUT TO CRACK |
Tricky opposition, Brazil! (1,5,3,2,5)
|
| double definition | ||
| 17 |
See 9
|
|
| 18 | THESAURI |
He’s endlessly bullish about wordfinders (8)
|
| HE’S inside (has…about) TAURIc (bullish, endlessly) | ||
| 19 | REVERSING LIGHTS |
Warning signs given here by tonk, soh & te – and by making 25 24? (9,6)
|
| TONK SOH TE is ETHOS KNOT (6, 22, two lights in the grid) reversed. Can anyone explain the last bit? | ||
| 22 | KNOT |
Bird seen along the shore took no time to strip off (4)
|
| found inside (to strip off, when removing outer letters) tooK NO Time | ||
| 23 |
See 15
|
|
| 24 | TAILS |
Dogs opening counter to bite a tosser’s backside (5)
|
| SLIT (opening) reversed (counter) contains (to bite) A, and also the back side of a coin, that may be tossed by a tosser | ||
| 25 |
See 21
|
|
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | COCK-A-HOOP |
Dog, reportedly, and bear launched over the moon (4-1-4)
|
| COCK-A sounds like (reportedly) “cocker” (dog, Cocker Spaniel) then POOH (a bear) reversed (launched, sent upwards) | ||
| 3 |
See 1
|
|
| 5 | GREENGAGE |
Plum tie to do the job again after taking scalp of Gunners? (9)
|
| RE-ENGAGE (tie to do the job again) following Gunners (first letter, scalp of) | ||
| 6 | ETHOS |
The spirit people show recycling them there (5)
|
| THOSE (them there) as either an anagram (recycled) or with the letters cycled (recycled, cycled again?) | ||
| 7 | LACTOPROTEIN |
Not notice lad perform work routine in something from Cream? (12)
|
| Lad missing AD (notice) then ACT (perform) OP (opus, work) ROTE (routine) IN | ||
| 8 | SIXTEENTH NOTE |
What’s surprisingly next in sheet to a little bit of Bernstein? (9,4)
|
| anagram (what is surprisingly…) of NEXT IN SHEET TO – a semiquaver, American usage, as used by Bernstein perhaps | ||
| 11 | SWAGGER STICK |
Staff seen on the square with TMS man in two seconds (7,5)
|
| W (with) AGGERS (Jonathan Agnew, man from Test Match Special) in S TICK (second, twice) | ||
| 14 | ARTISANAL |
“Lionheart” is an ale which keeps in the traditional way (9)
|
| found inside (which is kept by) lionheART IS AN ALe | ||
| 16 | ORANGE-RED |
Yellow wound up a different colour (6-3)
|
| OR (yellow) and ANGERED (wound up) | ||
| 20 | EXTRA |
More outside (5)
|
| double definition | ||
| 21, 25 | LOOSE HEADS |
Beside hookers, these people – see – had bonked behind toilets (5,5)
|
| anagram (bonked) of SEE HAD following LOOS (toilets) – short for loose head prop, a position in Rugby Union to the left of the hooker |
Answers to clues 25 and 24 (lights) are HEADS and TAILS, i.e. reversing.
Hi Vannucci, can you explain some more why HEADS and TAILS is reversing please?
Thanks Io and PeeDee. For the last part of 19ac, heads is officially the obverse side of a coin and tails the reverse side.
I went the same way as Vannucci @1. If you reverse the lights in the sense of right hand solutions becoming left hand solutions (without reversing the letters in the words though) then HEADS becomes TAILS. The actual answers could then be anything as long as they are symmetrically placed. The H should go with POOH in 2d.
Thank Pelham, but I am still struggling to get it.
If I make HEADS into TAILS I am reversing coins, I can see that, especially with the obverse/reverse clarity. I can’t see how I am reversing lights. If I make HEADS into TAILS I am reversing one light (25 across). I am not reversing lights.
Took too long typing and crossed with Pelham Barton. Prefer his explanation (didn’t know that particular nomenclature).
PeeDee @6. I see what you mean. Perhaps it should say making 25 24 and vice versa so that the lights at 24 & 25 are reversed to become 25 then 24.
Thanks for the blog. For this crossword , Heads and Tails are both lights i.e. entries for 24 and 25. If we reverse both these lights , Heads becomes Tails and Tails becomes Heads.
Sorry Hovis , you beat me. I am slow typing.
Possibly my quickest ever solve of a puzzle by JH. Not suggesting that I had parsed everything, but it was complete and it was all correct.
I feel I should have already thanked PeeDee for parsing several solutions which I got but couldn’t parse: “Designer” as an adjective in 13a; the meaning of “sixteenth note” (but could have looked that one up); the meaning of TMS in 11d and who it referred to; and the meaning of LOOSE HEADS (me being lazy again).
Just on 19a again. As I mentioned, making 25 24 (and vice versa) can be considered as reversing lights irrespective of the two words. Perhaps Io also intended their meaning in terms of car lights to be an added extra?
I managed this tricky puzzle but am very grateful for the blog as IO moves in mysterious ways
I was thinking all the many possibilities for 24 until i saw it was opposite HEADS and that one took a while,
Sixteenth note is much more sensible than semiquaver and it is used in Germany as well as USA
Steinways are (or were) made in Hamburg and New York
Thanks Pee Dee and IO
Another playful and irreverent grid from Io which, thankfully, was not so much A TOUGH NUT TO CRACK as to parse.
Really enjoyed the nimble wordplay, misdirections and double entendres such as 25a/21d. Feels like there’s so much going on here with ‘heads’ also being toilets in the nautical world.
The untangling of 19/24/25 was similarly rewarding once I finally got the definition at 24. I too thought of head and tail lights but never would have parsed this correctly.
Also liked THESAURI and ORANGE RED.
Thanks to Io and for the keenly anticipated blog from PeeDee. A valiant effort!
Thinking a bit more about 19ac, the best suggestion I can come up with is that the definition is just “Warning sign” and the wordplay starts with “given here” (in the crossword) and refers to reversing the three lights 22ac, 6dn, and 25ac, the first two letter by letter and the third in meaning. I am not sure if that is any better than any of the other suggestions made.
Incidentally, I think 6dn should be taken as a cyclic rearrangement of THOSE rather than as a full indirect anagram.
I always enjoy an IO crossword – they don’t seem to mangle the grey matter as much as some of John’s other aliases do – mind you that’s all relative, they are still a good mental workout
Lots to enjoy as always so thanks to him and PeeDee
This was tough and I had to come here to fully understand the parsing of 19ac and 8d. I thought 19ac could be referring to headlights and tail-lights on a car, but I couldn’t work out the first bit.
Many thanks to IO and to Peedee for a great blog.
I like the headlights and taillights idea suggested by some people. Io has done the lights-in-the-grid idea in the previous part of the clue so this makes a lot of sense to me.
Brilliant Sourdough @16 , head lights become tail lights when you are reversing.
What is in the grid is a “heads light” and a “tails light”, not “head lights” and “tail lights”. I am leaning back towards the two side of a coin idea again.
Maybe JH will pop in and let us know his intentions for the clue.
Wow… pleased to see there’s some confusion going on… not just me then.. tbh I’m confused why HEADS n TAILS are lights ..unless they are like head lights n tail lights.. !? In which case the reversals of ETHOS n KNOT just emphasises the reversing… wish I’d spotted the reversals of ETHOS n KNOT as they both escaped me .. not convinced by the parsing of ETHOS anyway.. 1ac/3dn was a new term to me so made the anagram virtually impossible unless u were actually looking for it.. all good fun..
Thanks IO n PeeDee
Underlying @6. In a crossword, lights refer to the squares where solutions are entered. I have always assumed (perhaps wrongly) that this is because of the white colouring, in contrast to the darkness of the non-solution cells.
Whoops! Auto correct at work again. Obviously I intended Undrell not Underlying. How I managed @6 not @20 remains a mystery.
Yes, we found this quite 15/23 – not helped by the fact that for some reason we failed to think of ‘tough’ and pencilled in ‘stiff’. But we got there in the end after also realising that TMS was not the medical process as defined oin Chambers.
We don’t quite follow the explanation of 10ac. We saw it as meaning that if you add lactoprotein (e.g. cheese) to a Lancashire hotpot you make a hash of it – the hotpot should consist only of meat and vegetables, topped with sliced potatoes.
A satisfying solve in the end, though. No real favourite but we did like the misdirection to a different time of year in 12ac.
Thanks, Io and PeeDee.
allan_c – LANCASHIRE HOTPOT is an anagram of HASH + LACTOPROTEIN
PeeDee@24: D’oh!
Thanks for the workout Io. I needed your explanations today as well PeeDee, so thanks.
I am another who smiled at the nautical toilet reference in 21,25. All good fun but it took me a while to really get going.
No worries Hovis@22.. my name confuses the hell out of autocorrect.. n thanks for the enlightenment! Every day a school day..
Good lord PeeDee @24 yet another layer of complexity..! I had been on the point of whingeing about HASH.. but chapeau to both u n IO..
PeeDee @ 24
I did say I hadn’t parsed everything. How does he come up with these compound anagrams?
This was at the outer limits of my solving ability and beyond my parsing in many cases. Thank you to PeeDee and everyone for enlightening me and to Io for the puzzle.
Thanks Io and PeeDee
Only got to this on the weekend and it needed both days to get it out. Had got through the last few by this setter quite comfortably, but this one was a hard grind to get the answers and then try to parse them. Failed badly with the latter, unable to parse 10a (clever in hindsight), 19a (even after seeing the reversed KNOT), 24 (didn’t think to reverse it), 7d (too complicated for this brain), 11d (no hope without knowing TMS nor Jonathan ‘Aggers’ Agnew) and 16d.
Finally finished with ARTISANAL (new word), that TAILS and the impossible to understand why SWAGGER STICK. Appreciate the cleverness of the puzzle, but it left me with a brain ache, I’m afraid.