An absolute treat from a very rare Friday setter. I thought the puzzle was serious, but surely you are joking Basilisk.
The nina around the sides gives the name of 2 renowned theoretical physicists and nobel laureates. I managed to google and find the paper the two wrote together in 1958. Link here for the curious.
Edited to add: I cant think of another grid which had so many 4-letter solutions.
FF: 10 DD: 9
| ACROSS | ||
| 8 | MEANER |
Lower quality of average TV programme (6)
|
| MEAN ( average ) ER ( tv programme ) | ||
| 9 | APERITIF |
What one has to start a fire pit going? (8)
|
| [ A FIRE PIT ]* | ||
| 10 | URGE |
Physician’s son embracing this desire (4)
|
| reverse clue; URGE in SON = SURGEON ( physician ) | ||
| 11 | BEHIND TIME |
Responsible for retrospective issue being overdue (6,4)
|
| BEHIND ( responsible ) TIME ( issue = EMIT, reversed ) | ||
| 12 | REEL |
Dance to rock and roll (4)
|
| triple def; another beauty of a clue | ||
| 13 | INSECURELY |
Surly niece dances with no confidence in herself (10)
|
| [ SURLY NIECE ] | ||
| 17 | REAP |
Gather summary lacks focus (4)
|
| REcAP ( summary, without focus i.e. without central letter ) | ||
| 18 | EXAMS |
Constraints on system cut back testing sessions (5)
|
| SM ( SysteM, constraints on ~ end characters ) AXE ( cut ), all reversed | ||
| 19 | PAIN |
Every year at home brings anguish (4)
|
| PA ( every year ) IN ( at home ) | ||
| 21 | AGGRESSION |
Government organises indiscriminate use of armed forces? (10)
|
| [ G ( government ) ORGANISES ]* | ||
| 23 | BEAM |
Broadcast live in the morning (4)
|
| BE ( live ) AM ( morning ) | ||
| 24 | YARDSTICKS |
Measures beginning to suppress insect in enclosed areas (10)
|
| [ S ( Suppress, first letter ) TICK ( insect ) ] in YARDS ( enclosed areas ) | ||
| 28 | IOTA |
Letter in A, B,…, I written backwards (4)
|
| cryptic def; “A,B..I” is writing letters from A TO I => backwards is “I OT A” – 9th letter of the greek alphabet | ||
| 29 | GENE POOL |
Inheritance fund used to maintain family properties? (4,4)
|
| GENE ( ~inheritance ) POOL ( fund ) | ||
| 30 | REASON |
Genuine issue ultimately destroyed sanity (6)
|
| REAl ( genuine ) SONs ( issue ), without end characters | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | RETRIEVE |
Rescue attempts almost always upset guards (8)
|
| TRIEs ( attempts, almost ) in reverse ( upset ) of EVER ( always ) | ||
| 2 | INTERLOPER |
International role ruined through being in wrong place at wrong time (10)
|
| INT ( international ) [ ROLE ]* PER ( through ) ; had to use ocd to confirm PER meaning through. | ||
| 3 | CRABBINESS |
Catholic head depressed by teacher’s irritability (10)
|
| C ( catholic ) [ NESS ( head ) after (depressed, in a down clue ) RABBI ( teacher ) ] | ||
| 4 | HASH |
Mess that’s created by cutting into chunks of hard wood (4)
|
| H ( Hard ) ASH ( wood ) | ||
| 5 | AEON |
Even places in Cameroon provide a great time? (4)
|
| even letters of cAmErOoN | ||
| 6 | RIOT |
Striking display of corruption engulfing India (4)
|
| I ( india ) in ROT ( corruption ) | ||
| 7 | DISMAL |
Heart of niggard is malicious and cheerless (6)
|
| hidden , centrally in “..niggarD IS MALicious..” | ||
| 14 | SWAMI |
Wise man endlessly confused wise man (5)
|
| [ WISe MAn ( endlessly ) ]*; clever clue | ||
| 15 | COSA NOSTRA |
The mob starts on a socialist backing banks (4,6)
|
| hidden reversed in “..stARTS ON A SOCialist..” | ||
| 16 | REPUBLICAN |
British soldiers host American politician (10)
|
| RE ( british soldiers, Royal Engineers ) PUBLICAN ( host ) | ||
| 20 | INACTION |
Aware of being bored by start of play’s inertia (8)
|
| IN ON ( aware of ) containing ACT I ( read as ACT 1, start of play ) | ||
| 22 | GOATEE |
Work had employees cutting off almost all facial hair (6)
|
| GO ( work ) ATE ( had ) E ( Employees, cutting off all letters except the first ) | ||
| 25 | DUEL |
Expected Labour leader to resolve dispute honourably? (4)
|
| DUE ( expected ) L ( Labour, leader ) | ||
| 26 | TOOL |
What starts to offer one leverage? (4)
|
| &lit; starting letters of “..To Offer One Leverage” | ||
| 27 | CALM |
Quiet, silent type has change of heart (4)
|
| CLAM ( silent type ) with inner letters AL switched |
Thanks Turbolegs and Basilisk.
Saw Richard Feynman early and sussed the other, that opened up nicely. Felt my degree in Physics was useful, for once!
URGE, AGGRESSION, SWAMI, EXAMS and GENE POOL are my favs. Love this setter.
Thanks for the blog and for explaining sURGEon, I did not see that idea.
I cannot see any other links to Fevnman and Gell-Mann in the puzzle.
Maybe it is your idea of so many four letter answers representing the four fermion process of beta decay.
[Sorry I must have a bit of a rant here. The Feynman and Gell-Mann paper was largely prompted by an incredible experiment by Chien-Shiung Wu, she managed to show non-conservation of parity in beta decay of cobalt 60. Needless to say , she did NOT win a Nobel prize. Along with Lise Meitner and Jocelyn Bell these are the three worst cases , amongst many, of women not receiving proper recognition. ]
Yet again the Nina helped me to finish. Even though I’d never heard of MURRAY GELL-MANN, with only a few letters to go it wasn’t hard to guess his name. I did know RICHARD FEYNMAN as a physicist though not specifically what he was famous for. Thanks for going to the trouble of finding the journal article, even if it might as well have been written in Martian for someone with my knowledge of physics! Roz @2 & 3, I’m very impressed with your obvious expertise and you make a good point; Rosalind Franklin is another.
The REEL triple def was helped by Eccles’ almost identical clue (only the word order was different) in the Indy on Wednesday. URGE was good and it took a while until I twigged to it; a SURGEON is a medical doctor, or ‘physician’ in a general sense, but a specialist ‘physician’ is not a SURGEON. Think Royal College of Physicians v. Royal College of Surgeons.
I loved GENE POOL which I parsed as a cryptic def.
Thanks to Basilisk for the usual treat and to Turbolegs
[ Thank you WordPlodder, Rosalind Franklin certainly never got the recognition she deserved for her work on DNA, sadly she died so young that she could not receive the Nobel Prize with Crick and Watson. Of course she may not have been given the award anyway, we will never know. ]
Wow! 5 comments and it’s not even 7:30. Brilliant as ever. Needed the Murray Gell-Mann part of the nina to finish.
Very enjoyable. I didn’t see the nina.
I seem to remember that Murray Gell Mann hated his name being hyphenated. At one time, another of his pet hates was Richard Feynman.
Great to see so many people appreciate an excellent treat from BASILISK. While I didnt note this in my blog, so many clues had such smooth surfaces that its hard to pick a favorite.
Roz@2,3 – I concur with Wordplodder@4 on his comments about your physics knowledge.
Regards,
TL
A very helpful Nina and another fine crossword from Basilisk. Thanks to him and Turbolegs
Andyb@8 I have read many Gell-Mann papers and I am pretty sure it is always hyphenated, that does not mean of course that he did not object.
He did fall out with Feynman in the early 1960s mainly over the naming of quarks, Feynman called them partons, George Zwieg developed the same ideas independently and called them aces. Quarks eventually won the battle.
[I clicked the link to the paper, only to be reminded of why I scored zero marks in the third year quantum mechanics paper in my physics degree.]
Roz@3: plenty of us male scientists are in compete agreement with you.
Genius. As an absolute non-scientist, I have to say that Feynmann is my go-to guy when the double-slit experiment starts to fry my brain and Brian Cox gets a bit too cuddly.
This is why we do crosswords. Favourite solve of the week, maybe the year.
Thanks to both.
He sure does a mean nina-always helps in confirming answers
Very enjoyable solve, Thanks Bas &Turbo
Roz@11
The fog is beginning to lift – Gell-Mann hated it when people did not enunicate Gell and Mann seperately, and used Gellmann (which is what his family name was before his father introduced the hyphen).
I also remember (hopefully accurately) that it was Feynmann who tirelessly promoted Gell-Mann’s Nobel candidature, even though relations between the two were strained at the time. Great man, Feynmann. James Gleick’s book ‘Genius’ is a very fine tribute to him.
Sorry, meant to bring this up before. I’m being picky (probably unfairly) about such an excellent puzzle, but shouldn’t ‘mob’ in 15d be capitalised? The organisation referred to is usually written as “the Mob”, rather than ‘the mob’.
Wow! What a treat. Saw it was Basilisk this morning and was champing at the bit to have a go but was out all day so I’m late to the party.
A liberal arts degree was of no use whatsoever today but I knew there would be a NINA and the names were partly guessable anyway. They in turn were a big help with all those four letter words.
I echo the sentiments of those who have already commented (take a bow, Roz – same as it ever was!). Impossible to pick a favourite but I will just say:
COSA NOSTRA – great camouflage
URGE – great reverse clue
REEL – great triple definition
GENE POOL – great surface
Most satisfying and hearty thanks to Basilisk and Turbolegs.
Thanks Basilisk and Turbolegs
4dn: I think the words “that’s created by cutting into chunks” are either part of the same definition as “Mess”or form a second definition. It could be either, but there needs to be some justification for those words in the clue.
Many thanks to Turbolegs for the great blog and to everyone who has taken the time to solve and comment on the puzzle.
I can confirm the clue for:
– GENE POOL is intended to be a cryptic definition (WordPlodder @4)
– HASH does comprise two definitions and wordplay (Pelham Barton @18)
Pelham@18: Interesting comment. I interpreted the clue as HASH is created by cutting hard and wood into chunks, but I like your interpretation better, since one makes hash by cutting food into chunks.
WordPlodder@16: I’ve always understood that ignoring capitalization, or the lack thereof, is fair wordplay.
Thank you Diane and others, we all have our specialist subjects and particle physics is mine, very rarely in crosswords though. When it comes to languages ……….
3. Roz: I think you’re confusing Feynman & Gell-Mann (wrt CS Wu) with Lee & Yang.
Thanks Basilisk for another expertly crafted crossword. I had heard of Richard Feynman and I guessed at Murray Gell-Mann so for once I saw the nina. I missed SWAMI/EXAMS but all else fell into place. Favourites included RETRIEVE and the &lit TOOL as well as COSA NOSTRA after I saw that it was a great reversal. Thanks Turbolegs for the blog.
Not at all Coby. Lee and Yang produced the theory for non-conservation of parity. C-S Wu produced the experimental result that everyone thought was impossible. Feynman and Gell-Mann tried to modify the tensor for beta decay to allow this.
Feynman got his Nobel for QED , Gell-Mann for the quark model. Lee and Yang for parity theory.
C-S Wu got nothing.
Well, we expected a nina from Basilisk and we actually spotted it – but it only confused us. We saw RICHARD across the top and ELLMANN across the bottom and googled ‘Richard Ellmann’ to get the name of an American writer; googling Feynman gave us a theoretical physicist and Google also turned up a Richard Murray – which left us with an extraneous G. However, we got everything in the end, albeit with a few unparsed and a niggle about 10ac – a surgeon is not the same as a physician altough admittedly a medic can be both. A bit too much of a slog to be enjoyable, although we liked APERITIF, IOTA and CRABBINESS.
Thanks, though, to Basilisk and Turbolegs.
Love the Nina!
Wow, I see that, here in New York City, I am 5 hours behind you.
Thanks Basilisk and Turbolegs
Have a few very old puzzles that only come to the surface every now and then – this being the earliest of them. Took nearly twice as long as usual to complete this one which is no surprise with this setter. Thought of a nina when I saw the grid but promptly forgot about it, didn’t look and didn’t see !!!
Couldn’t properly parse REAP and GOATEE. Particularly liked the IOTA trick, the excellent reversal of COSA NOSTRA, the clever word play of SWAMI and the great definition of the GENE POOL.
Finished in the NW corner with that REAP, the reversed wordplay of URGE and MEANER as the last one in.