The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/28609.
A puzzle awash with cryptic and double definitions, but overall more pleasant than that description generally suggests to me. One of the quicker solves.
| ACROSS | ||
| 9 | HYPHENATE |
Break one’s word (9)
|
| Cryptic definition. | ||
| 10 | CURIO |
Dog number ten, a rare item (5)
|
| A charade of CUR (‘dog’) plus IO (looking like 10, ‘number ten’). | ||
| 11 | SHIFT |
Change loose dress (5)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 12 | PRESERVED |
Kept quiet, being shy (9)
|
| A charade of P (piano, musically ‘quiet’) plus RESERVED (‘shy’). | ||
| 13 | OFFENCE |
The indignant take it as a violation (7)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 14 | PHOTO OP |
Get snappy here when very warm in rear of ship (5,2)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of HOT (‘very warm’) in POOP (‘rear of ship’). | ||
| 17 | HET UP |
Agitated by the disorder at university (3,2)
|
| A charade of HET, an anagram (‘disorder’) of ‘the’; plus UP (‘at university’). | ||
| 19 | VAN |
Part of a Dutch name for a vehicle (3)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 20 | ASSAI |
When spoken endlessly, very Italian (5)
|
| A charade of AS (‘when’) plus SAI[d] (‘spoken’) minus the last letter (‘endlessly’), for an Italian word used in musical directions (e.g. Allegro assai). | ||
| 21 | ROBOTIC |
Such repetitive work attracts no living wage (7)
|
| Cryptic definition. | ||
| 22 | UFOLOGY |
Naughtily fool guy with mystery science (7)
|
| An anagram (‘naughtily’) of ‘fool guy’. | ||
| 24 | EYES FRONT |
Military command contemplates where armies clash (4,5)
|
| A charade of EYES (‘contemplates’) plus FRONT (‘where armies clash’). | ||
| 26 |
See 19 down
|
|
| 28 | EQUAL |
The quality is not entirely the same (5)
|
| A hidden answer (‘not entirely’) in ‘thE QUALity’. | ||
| 29 | INDOCHINA |
Had coin in change for part of south-east Asia (9)
|
| An anagram (‘change’) of ‘had coin in’. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1, 13, 24 | THIS OTHER EDEN |
Alternative PM that represents England for Shakespeare? (4,5,4)
|
| Double cryptic definition, the first a reference to Anthony Eden, former Prime Minister, and the second a quote from Richard II. | ||
| 2 | SPLIFF |
Joint almost broken with doubled force (6)
|
| A charade of SPLI[t] (‘broken’) minus its last letter (‘almost’) plus FF (‘doubled force’), for a marijuana cigarette. | ||
| 3 | MELTING POT |
A stirring race meeting? (7,3)
|
| Punning definition. | ||
| 4 | MAGPIE |
Bird‘s periodical food (6)
|
| A charade of MAG (magazine, ‘periodical’) plus PIE (‘food’). | ||
| 5 | PETER PAN |
Apostle meeting God? It’s child’s play (5,3)
|
| A charade of PETER (‘apostle’) plus PAN (Greek ‘god’), with a cryptic definition for J M Barrie’s play. | ||
| 6 | ACNE |
Youth spotted this problem (4)
|
| Cryptic definition. | ||
| 7 | PREVIOUS |
I prove criminal American gets a police record (8)
|
| A charade of PREVIO, an anagram (‘criminal’) of ‘I prove’; plus US (‘American’). | ||
| 8, 16, 27 | LORD PRIVY SEAL |
Dolls are scattered round outhouse: one should be in cabinet (4,5,4)
|
| An envelope (’round’) of PRIVY (‘outhouse’) in LORDSEAL, an anagram (‘scattered’) of ‘dolls are’, for an office which has long outlived its original function; as the holder Ernest Bevin said, he was “neither a Lord, nor a Privy, nor a Seal” (but had a place in the Cabinet). | ||
| 13 |
See 1
|
|
| 15 | OVAL OFFICE |
No square dealings in this seat of power? (4,6)
|
| Cryptic definition. | ||
| 16 |
See 8
|
|
| 18 | TABLEAUX |
Bill sounds cheap for pictures (8)
|
| A charade of TAB (‘bill’) plus LEAUX, ‘sounds’ like LOW (‘cheap’). | ||
| 19, 26 | VICTORIA FALLS |
Another royal pulled down, one in Africa (8,5)
|
| Definition (just) and literal interpretation. | ||
| 22 | UNTIDY |
Scruffy representation of nudity (6)
|
| An anagram (‘re-presentation’) of ‘nudity’. | ||
| 23 | OIL RIG |
Shout at youngster climbing platform in the sea (3,3)
|
| A reversal (‘climbing’ in a down light) of GIRL OI (‘shout at youngster’). | ||
| 24 |
See 1
|
|
| 25 | FELL |
Took a tumble from deadly hill (4)
|
| Triple definition: verb, adjective and noun, all of different derivation. | ||
| 27 |
See 8
|
|
Enjoyed this one. Not too taxing. Not seen ASSAI before despite long term chorister.
Thanks Vulcan and PeterO
A lovely Monday puzzle, a stroll but not a doddle. Remembered allegro assai from fiddle playing as a youngster, but the addled brain was mixing up This sceptred isle with Henry V’s St Crispin’s Day number; oh well. And, misspent youth notwithstanding, was trying to think of a carpentry joint ending in ff, d’oh! Very enjoyable ntl, ta VnP.
Nice puzzle, just the right level of difficulty.
Funny how HYPHENATE can be viewed as either breaking or joining words. Not a complaint about the current clue, but made me think there may be a more mischievous way to clue the word. Maybe some other time.
HET was clued as “the disorder”, and the following clue mentioned “Dutch”, which is curious since “het” is Dutch for “the”. Nothing devious, it seems, just a coincidence.
I found this rather tough, mainly because it took a while for me to solve the two long ones which would have helped. Solved RHS first.
Favourites FELL, PETER PAN, MAGPIE, SPLIFF, ROBOTIC, TABLEAUX (loi)
I did not parse 13ac.
New for me: THIS OTHER EDEN (thanks, google – I found it after I had guessed the first two words were ‘this other’ due to the crossers).
Thanks, both.
An odd mix of the very straightforward – VAN is barely cryptically clued – to the very clever – HYPHENATE is absolutely splendid. VICTORIA FALLS doesn’t seem at all right. Why “another” royal and PeterO seems generous with his (just) in the blog? Tenses, plurals all seem a bit off.
Thanks Vulcan and PeterO
23D. The entry needs a small correction. It is a reversal of GIRL IO.
A bit chewier that most Monday fare but quite enjoyable.
DrW @3: Nice spot re het, thanks.
VDS @6. 23D is OI (shouted at), followed by a reversal of GIRL.
Thank you Vulcan and Peter O.
I was struggling to see FELL as an adjective, before realising there is one example used regularly, i.e ‘in one FELL swoop’.
Thanks for the blog.
I enjoyed this, but spent an age staring at spliff and hyphenate, lois, for no good reason other than brain-fade. Still don’t fully understand parsing of Victoria Falls.
…. “And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
E’er since persued me.”
12th Night [found it, not off the top … ]
I think the idea in 19,26 is that “Victoria falls” in contrast to the other royal who was pulled down.
Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO
Like Michelle@4, it took me an age to get the 2 long down clues so this took longer than it should. But I agree with general comments that this was a good Monday crosser. Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO.
Thanks Vulcan and PeterO
Is it fair to expect English speakers to know an Italian word? I did, but I can speak Italian.
MELTING POT was the only thing that fitted, but I don’t really understand it. Is it to do with interbreeding?
Good job it isn’t a prize, as TABLEAUS is a valid (though less correct) spelling.
I liked the neatly hidden and defined EQUAL.
I liked this. Most of my favourites already mentioned – michelle@4 pretty much summed mine up. Fortunately LORD PRIVY SEAL at 6,16,27d rang a bell as it has always struck me as odd that PRIVY would apply to UK politics (Hang on – maybe not!). I didn’t exactly like ACNE at 6d but it was a clever clue – sometimes the short ones are more satisfying. Appreciate the “Twelfth Night” reference, gif@11, as I had trouble seeing 25d. Many thanks to Vulcan and PeterO.
Like Michelle@4 and JerryG@13 this took me some time. Never heard of ASSAI; liked PHOTO OP a lot; and took some time to get the long down clues. All in all a good Monday puzzle. Many thanks to Vulcan and PeterO.
Found this very tricky with some of the definitions not particularly sharp enough for me. Not at all sure about MELTING POT precisely fitting the bill for “race meeting”, so last one in, reluctantly. Perhaps I got out of bed the wrong side this morning to appreciate Vulcan’s more demanding than usual offering to start the week off…
Another fun one from Vulcan.
EYES FRONT, MAGPIE and SPLIFF made me grin. I wondered if John of Gaunt had ever been Lord Privy Seal – or, if not him, maybe Anthony Eden was. Spent a pleasant few minutes rambling about in the fields of google, but it seems neither was. Never mind…
Thanks Vulcan and Peter O.
muffin @14: here’s a great big MELTING POT ( Caution: there are one or two expressions you won’t find in the Guardian)
I had TABLEAUS at first, then I realised it would spoil the homophone.
I share PM’s bamboozlement re VICTORIA FALLS (and I’m still a bit bamboozled despite DuncT’s explanation) but there was plenty here to enjoy. Thanks Vulcan and PeterO – also for pointing out the three distinct etymologies for the three meanings of FELL. There’s also a fourth (= animal skin); I wonder if there’s ever been a quadruple def clue?
@essexboy……..but you cant take the Essex away from the boy.I’m a Southender!
[essexboy @19
Thanks! Sadly, I remember that…]
Two weeks ago, I said, ‘Vulcan is not among my top favourite setters but I did enjoy this one’ and I could say the same again.
I particularly liked ASSAI (perfectly fair, I think, muffin @14, since, as PeterO says, it’s part of a musical direction and in the dictionaries), ROBOTIC, UFOLOGY, PREVIOUS (I don’t know why but this word always makes me smile when used by the police), OIL RIG and THIS OTHER EDEN, reminding me that our school choir sang Parry’s arrangement of John of Gaunt’s speech, giving me today’s earworm. (Fortunately, I couldn’t find a YouTube version. 😉 )
Re 4dn: MAGPIE is also a crossword periodical.
essexboy @27 – I’m sure there’s been more than one fairly recently – could even have been quintuple – but can’t call them to mind.
Thanks to Vulcan for a good start to the week and to PeterO for the blog.
essexboy – here’s one to be getting on with, from Klingsor in the INDY, July 14th:
Send Pole to announce appointment (4)
… and the quintuple from Radian (our Crucible) in the Indy, on April 20th:
Offer kind young nurse a dinghy (6)
[Thanks for reminding us of the song “Melting Pot” by Blue Mink, essexboy@19. 1969 seems such a long time ago and the lyrics so non-PC and very dated, but it really was a bit of clarion call at the time for acceptance, inclusion, multi-culturalism and opposition to racism.
Lovely clue from Klingsor, Eileen@23. Thanks. JinA]
[Eileen@24, and a brilliant clue from Radian/Crucible!]
It helped when I stopped trying to persuade myself that 24a was EYES RIGHT. Although I know ASSAI as a musical direction, I have trouble associating it with “very”, since I don’t speak Italian, but I do speak French, and I get it mentally mixed up with “assez” = enough.
HYPHENATE was my last in (after spending ages staring at the final double F of SPLIFF), but certainly worth waiting for. Other favourites PETER PAN, VICTORIA FALLS, THIS OTHER EDEN.
Assai was new to me. Is it possibly related to assez in French although the meanings are different? Meanings do tend to drift and even change over time.
Thanks Eileen @23/24: I got more than I bargained for! 🙂
[And thanks JinA @25 – I agree. Sometimes it’s better to look beyond the words and see the heart.]
[copmus – no spoilers, but I felt quite at home with today’s Quiptic]
OK. Time for a bit of public personal humiliation. I am still totally in the dark with regard to VICTORIA FALLS. Despite DuncT’s assistance. Which other royal and who or what was pulled down? There’s 30 odd comments from at least a couple of dozen solvers, only two of whom have even suggested puzzlement. Could someone kindly put this miserable twit out of his misery?
PM @30. I thought it was fine. Plenty of royals have fallen: Harald in 1066, for one.
I liked this – no pushover, but I parsed everything in the end and never was held up too long. Nice mix of easier Quiptic and chewier – but not too chewy – Cryptic. Thanks, Vulcan and PeterO.
A very pleasant start to the week. I even enjoyed most of the dd and cd.
ASSAI was relatively easily pieced together, and is in all the main dictionaries, so I don’t think one can complain about that. Perhaps DuncT @12 can clarify; I assume he was thinking about Prince Andrew, but perhaps there is a better fit.
I particularly enjoyed HYPHENATE and ROBOTIC. I remembered ‘this sceptered isle’ but took a while to figure out the PM to complete it.
Thanks Vulcan and PeterO.
gladys @27 and ravenrider @28 – although I know it in music, I’ve always been puzzled by ASSAI = very, since Chambers gives it as coming from Latin satis – enough (cf ‘satisfactory’).
And I now see that Collins (but not Chambers) gives ‘assez’ as ‘adv music (as part of a musical direction) fairly; rather’. (I’m imagining an Italian conductor conducting a French orchestra. 😉 )
No particular royal in mind. An example of the type of clue I was thinking of would be “Ben gets off the bus but….” for “billboards”.
It’s the only reason I can see for “another” in the clue, and “falls” and “pulled down” are contrasting ways of going over.
Niltac@8. Thank you. Happy to be corrected.
gladys/ravenrider/Eileen
Perhaps Gervase can help us out with how ASSAI came to mean very/extremely in Italian? Both ASSAI and French assez are from Latin ad satis, as Eileen suggests. The French meaning of enough/fairly/quite/rather seems to have stuck closer to its root, while the Italian has undergone semantic inflation.
I can hazard a guess about how it happened – think of English expressions like ‘it took you long enough’ = ‘it took you a very long time’, or ‘he was going at quite a lick’ = ‘he was going very fast’. At some point the litotes stopped being litotical?
Re VICTORIA FALLS, just had a thought – could it be a reference to the pulling down of statues?
Dantheman@9
… and don’t forget this fell sergeant death is swift in his approach…
I’m with PostMark @30. VICTORIA FALLS remains totally unparsed, as far as I can see. Are we all missing something? Vulcan, are you there?
muffin @14: so glad you’re an Italian speaker, I’m an intermediate learner and the other day I ordered pizzas from the local Italian tratt. When the little van arrived and the man was at the door I thought, this is my chance…” Sto cercando di imparare l’italiano” says I in my best accent. The nice man replied. “Aah…me too…I am from Estonia!”
[William @39
Sophisticated verb form!
I surprised two Italian girls who had got slightly mislaid walking near Grassington by answering their request for directions in Italian…]
Enjoyable quick Monday puzzle. Clue of the day – HYPHENATE and like others – ASSAI is a new word for me.
Thanks to Vulcan and PeterO
Good fun – can’t understand ‘Robotic’ at all, though!
TonyG @38 et al, I too am a bit lost by VICTORIA FALLS. I read it as “Victoria is pulled down” = “Victoria falls”, being passable synonyms whether we are talking about a statue (essexboy @36) or a revolution, or simply falling over. But I have no idea what “another” is doing there. Sure, we have overthrown a couple of monarchs in the past, and some have died in battle, but I am not sure why we need “another”, unless it is to indicate that it is a royal who did not fall in reality? Bit confused about that one still.
Nice one for a Monday. I’m also bemused by VICTORIA FALLS. DuncT @12 gives the only half-convincing explanation, but it seems strangely tenuous for a puzzle of this level. I particularly liked HYPHENATE.
essexboy @36: Re ASSAI, the Italian dictionary which I usually refer to (Zingarelli) gives ‘abbastanza’ (enough) as the first meaning, but marks this as literary. The second meaning given is ‘molto’ (very), with an exemplification from Dante, so the usage is long established. No reasons given for the semantic shift – looks like litotes, as you suggest. Incidentally, one of the possible English translations of the literal meaning which you listed is ‘quite’. This has drifted in the opposite direction; the original (and still current) meaning is ‘totally’ but from the 18th century it started to be used to mean ‘somewhat’. Curious.
Thanks to S&B
Assai often just means enough in Italian. I think essexboy is right in thinking that the musical use is a kind of litotes.
Thanks Gervase @44 and Petert @45 (and Gervase, good to know you have a hotline to Inspector Montalbano… well, almost 😉 )
[I wonder if Vulcan composed the puzzle around July this year?]
muffin@14 It’s fair to expect English speakers to know an Italian word when (as some have pointed out) it’s a musical direction, or part of one.
Fiery Jack@43 Were you thinking of Richard II again?
For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings —
How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed,
All murdered.
(Are there kings whose wives poisoned them?)
Thanks, Vulcan and Peter), for an entertaining morning.
Italian musical directions have always seemed to me to be something you have to learn, rather that work out. Andante comes from andare, which means to go, but how fast? In some contexts it means run, in some walk, so go figure! (Slow is the answer).
Pretty standard for a Monday although I too was bemused (ie unconvinced) by VICTORIA FALLS and ROBOTIC.
But I did like LORD PRIVY SEAL and PETER PAN
Thanks Vulcan and PeterO
This was definitely Vulcan on steroids, or maybe with a wee touch of Imogen thrown in to the mix. Either way very enjoyable with many smiles and a few laughs along the way.
As I’ve said before my Shakespeare is lacking, so I recognised 1D from the Ben Elton book (I know he got it from Richard II but I remember more of the book)
Re Victoria Falls, my take is that ‘another’ is to distinguish the answer from the King Edward or King George falls, somewhere in South America ( I forget where exactly) hence the slightly loose definition ‘one in Africa’.
Thanks Vulcan and PeterO
Thanks Vulcan and PeterO. Interesting comment about the number of cryptic/double definitions. I can see why this one probably won’t appeal to the more analytical kind of solver (who might prefer the very precise wordplay of Azed, for example) but as someone of a more literary mindset, I do enjoy a good cryptic definition, so I found this mostly very enjoyable.
Like everyone else, I remain baffled by VICTORIA FALLS. Also like several others, I spent ages staring at H_P_E_A_E before the penny finally dropped with a very satisfying clunk for my LOI. Lovely clue! (Nice observation, Dr W @3 – I’m filing that one away for future use.)
MrEssexboy, and MrPostMark , statues were recently pulled down in Canada after a scandal involving deaths of Native Canadians in the past, although one statue may have been Victoria. Our Canadian friends may know much more.
I think ROBOTIC means repetitive work, the robots are not living and are not paid. There was a famous advert, Fiat I think ” Handbuilt by robots ” .
Sometimes it vaguely worries me how knowledgeable you have to be about illicit drugs to do Guardian cryptically. And I remember the shocked look on some American friends’ faces when I said “it’s the tradition to have a joint for dinner on Sundays in the U.K.”
Finally , thanks for the blog, found it trickier than a normal Monday and took me twice as long.
ASSAI was new but very well clued for a word obscure to some. FELL was my favourite for the deadly definition.
Thanks Roz @53 – that’s exactly what I was thinking of when I posted @47. I know you don’t do links, so I’ll just quote the main points here:
Statues of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II torn down in Canada
[…]
More than 150,000 indigenous Canadian children were taken from their families and forced to attend the schools during the 19th and 20th Centuries with the aim of forcibly assimilating them into society.
An estimated 6,000 children died while attending these schools. Students were often housed in poorly built, poorly heated and unsanitary facilities.
Municipalities across Canada cancelled celebrations and statues of figures involved with residential schools have been vandalised or removed…
Roz @53, thanks for that, and yes indeed one of the toppled statues was Victoria. It wasn’t big news in the UK though AFAIK, so that can’t be it, surely?
Thank you EB@57 that is exactly what I was thinking of and there may even have been mass graves in one place.
eb/Roz – hmmm… that does sound the most likely explanation, but if so, the clue is unsatisfyingly vague (which is where cryptic definitions start to become a problem).
Fiery Jack @ 58 I agree it does not really solve the mystery of the clue, I was just adding to the statue debate although I now see EB beat me to it.
[ MrPostMark I did read ALL the comments before posting, but not the links. ]
Dr W @49: …and allegro means happy. Go re-figure.
Thanks to all who’ve contributed thoughts on VICTORIA FALLS. If the Canadian incident is the one Vulcan had in mind, it makes some sense though it requires a fair degree of lateral thinking as well as GK of which this solver was unaware. If statues toppling was the idea, I think it could have been worded better. I do quite like Blah’s suggestion @51 but, all in all, not my favourite clue from today.
essexboy @19: One of my very favourite clues is this quintuple def. by the wonderful Arachne:
Blue swallow feathers fell from above (4)
Found this a little trickier than the usual Monday, but very enjoyable. Hyphenate took me so long to get, but was very satisfying when it finally dawned on me.
Fun one in the end, despite an initial complete failure in the NW corner on first run through. ASSAI I put in and hoped from knowledge of Italian but didn’t expect it to be correct; I didn’t realise it was used in sheet music, despite having seen plenty of that in my time. It’s definitely frequently used here to mean ‘very’, especially in the south.
Thought PHOTO OP and THIS OTHER EDEN were very neat. Thanks Vulcan and PeterO!
25d: “the pass and fell incensed points of mighty opposites” (Hamlet)
19, 26: did nobody else think of “another royal” recently fallen from grace, “pulled down” by an unfortunate transatlantic association?
Not a huge fan of this one. Just a few in the NW I didn’t get, but it’s rare that I finish a Cryptic (although I do sometimes manage an Everyman or a Monday)
I’ll accept that ASSAI is in the dictionaries, and musical notation is used in clues a lot, but still seemed odd to have an Italian word (apparently, though it sounds like it might not be from what others are saying) as a full answer. Maybe that’s just on me for not knowing music though, fair enough. Having to know Shakespeare quotes also rubs me the wrong way a lot – I studied Richard II at uni but I don’t remember a single line from it (or most Shakespeares tbh)
I don’t think these were unfair clues, necessarily, just didn’t feel approachable(?) to a newer solver.
At least I’m not alone in not fully parsing ROBOTIC.
Thanks both,
In 19dn I assumed that an ‘is’ was missing and the ‘another’ was referring to the monarch in 1,13,24.
I was another ‘tableaus’ for 18d. OED gives both forms of the plural and I chose the anglicised version. I don’t see how (muffin @14) it is less correct than the x form. When people say the word one can’t generally tell how they are spelling it mentally, if they don’t vocalise the s.
Tyngewick @68
I meant that as TABLEAU is French, the French plural form would be more appropriate, though the English form is acceptable. As someone said earlier (I forget who), the “s” might well be pronounced in “tableaus”, though, making it not a homophone.
Vulcan is more and more reminding me of Rufus. I remember the latter being vilified here for his puzzles being too easy; and I was struggling to even get going because of the plethora of cryptic definitions. So, obviously, I found this hard but once I got a few, it did yield OK. Favourites were LORD PRIVY SEAL and VICTORIA FALLS which I bunged in with little thought, only to realise, on coming here, that it was controversial! Many thanks Vulcan and PeterO
If I had to vote on “another royal” it would be Andrew, per duff@66.
LORD PRIVY SEAL & THIS OTHER EDEN both excellent clues in a lovely puzzle to kick off the week. VICTORIA FALLS & HYPHENATE were two other ticks. Unfortunately beaten by ASSAI which I’d never heard of.
Thanks all.
I took exception to LORD PRIVY SEAL. You can most certainly have a Cabinet government without one; indeed the UK is probably the only place in the world where you “should” have one.
Can anyone explain why ‘UP’ is clued as ‘at University’? Feel like I’m missing something obvious here… an abbreviation maybe? As a University lecturer, I can’t help feel that I should know…
VICTORIA FALLS aside, I thought this was pretty good for a Monday. ACNE was LOI for me. I didn’t know whether to smile or groan when the penny dropped. Thanks Vulcan and PeterO.
Stuart @74…. I believe this is Oxbridge parlance and not used much outside thereof. “Up” to Uni…then if a failure…..”Sent Down” or “Rusticated”. Each to their own eh? LSE for me…none of these terms in use.
Stuart@74: it’s now very old-fashioned, but people used to say that one went “up” to university when they meant that one attended university. I was the first of my family to go to university (a provincial redbrick) and my delighted mum — a ferocious social climber — used regularly to say to neighbours, friends and acquaintances “oh yes, our son is going up to read English” or, when I was slumped in front of the TV while at home in the summer vac, she would pointedly ask me “and when do you go back up?” Of course, one went “up” to Oxford or Cambridge until the middle of the 20th century, but the rapid expansion of tertiary education post-1960 widened the semantics of going “up”.
Many thanks Taffy and pserve_p2. Oxbridge – no wonder it’s unfamiliar! Joking aside, I have heard that phrasing used, but would never have thought of it as a recognised expression. Always happy to learn, especially about my own line of work…
I went to bed with five unsolved, but woke up after a vivid dream and was able to solve all five, without having to look at the grid or the clues, while trying unsuccessfully to go back to sleep. This has never happened to me before – just one clue, yes, but five? – and I hope it signals the end of a three week period when I have not been on *any* setter’s wavelength. This “Monday puzzle”, with its cryptic definitions such as ‘break one’s word’, ‘stirring race meeting’ and ‘work attracts no living wage’, I found particularly difficult. Onwards and upwards!
Wellbeck@18 – Yes Sir Antony EDEN was LORD PRIVY SEAL.
I had “THAT OTHER HOME” as a possible Shakespeare quote, but Google put me straight and threw up the quote from Richard II.
ASSAI was easy to get from the charade.
Too late I imagine for anyone still to be reading this, but just listening to the beautiful ‘Caruso’ by Lucio Dalla and he’s belting out…
Ti voglio bene assai,
Ma tanto tanto bene sai…
‘I love you very much,
So so much, you know…’
ASSAI was a new one to me, otherwise fairly straightforward. THIS OTHER EDEN (demi-paradise) is from John of Gaunt’s deathbed speech iirc, and was used to close a Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes film, which is where I saw it first.
Also a near pangram (no Z).
Ignore the above, no K either.