Imogen brings up the century
This was Imogen's 100th outing as a Guardian setter, and it was worthy of the occasion.
As a bibliophile, I loved this puzzle, which had references to Proust, Dickens and Rand among others.
I think I gave at least a tick to almost every clue, but double ticks were awarded to the clues for EPHEMERA, ODETTE, OOZING, NEGLIGIBLE, STAIRS, CAPTOR and (my favourite) DO-GOODER.
Thanks, Imogen – here's to a hundred more.
| ACROSS | ||
| 8 | DO-GOODER |
Mrs Jellyby, for one, should improve, speaking ungrammatically (2-6)
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DO GOODER ("improve", speaking ungrammatically) Mrs Jellbyby is a philanthropist in Dickens' Bleak House. |
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| 9 | PRESTO |
Fast direction out of city (6)
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N (north, so "direction") out of PRESTO(n) ("city") |
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| 10 | RAPT |
Made a sharp noise, talking in a trance (4)
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Homophone [talking] of RAPPED ("made a loud noise") |
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| 11 | TENDERLOIN |
Cut being painful, get on computer to cancel golf (10)
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TENDER ("painful") + LO(g) IN ("get on computer" to cancel G (golf, in the phonetic alphabet)) |
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| 12 | OTIOSE |
Superfluous measure, so I took some back (6)
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Hidden backwards in [some back] "measurE SO I TOok" |
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| 14 | ENERGISE |
Fill with enthusiasm to revolutionise green lives on Earth (8)
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*(green) [anag:to revolutionise] + IS ("lives") on E (earth) |
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| 15 | WEST HAM |
Club swam the Serpentine (4,3)
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*(swam the) [anag:serpentine] Refers to West Ham United, currently sitting in the top four of the Premier League in England. |
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| 17 | SABBATH |
Tenor joins singing group during quiet day off (7)
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T (tenor) joins ABBA (a "singing group") during SH ("quiet") |
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| 20 | SCIMITAR |
Appalling racism — it can be very wounding (8)
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*(racism it) [anag:appalling] |
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| 22 | APERCU |
Glimpse a drum kit, half missing (6)
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A + PERCU(ssion) ("drum kit", half missing) |
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| 23 | SPY STORIES |
Agent finally disowns politicians, a spooky set (3,7)
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SPY ("agent") + [finally] (disown)S + TORIES ("politicians") |
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| 24 | GOON |
Sellers say ‘Don’t stop’ (2,2)
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(Peter) Sellers was one of the GOONs in the radio show of that name. |
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| 25 | OOZING |
Drinking too much, bishop goes off dribbling (6)
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B (bishop) goes off (b)OOZING ("drinking too much") |
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| 26 | SHRUGGED |
Extremely selfish, muscular Atlas did (8)
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[extremely] S(elfis)H + RUGGED ("muscular") Atlas Shrugged is a dystopian (and rather depressing) novel by Ayn Rand |
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| DOWN | ||
| 1 | IOLANTHE |
I look up one article on another fairy tale (8)
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I + <=LO ("look" up) + AN on THE ("one article" on "another" (article)) In Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera, Iolanthe was a fairy, so Iolanthe could be described as a "fairy tale". |
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| 2, 24 | MORTGAGE |
Time to joke, entering into extra financial burden? (8)
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T (time) + GAG ("joke") into MORE ("extra") |
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| 3 | ODETTE |
A little poem for Proust’s girl? (6)
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If a small kitchen is a kitchenette, then "a little poem" or ode could conceivably be an ODETTE. Odette de Crécy is a character in A la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust. |
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| 4 | GRANDEE |
Noble rank open to knight: earl (7)
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GRADE ("rank") open to N (knight, in chess notation) + E (earl) |
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| 5 | EPHEMERA |
Strangely, a peer and me touring Hungary may fly together (8)
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*(a peer me) [anag:strangely] touring H (Hungary) For the definition, the setter instructs us to put "may and "fly" together to get "mayfly". |
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| 6 | NEGLIGIBLE |
One lawyer in casual dress beneath consideration (10)
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I (one) + BL (Bachelor of Law, so "lawyer") in NEGLIGÉ ("casual dress") |
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| 7 | STAIRS |
Looks for audience: they fit in well (6)
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Homophone [for audience] of STARES ("looks") For the definition, think "stairwells". |
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| 13 | OPTIMISTIC |
Confident visionary said alternative’s not on at first (10)
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Homophone [said] of MYSTIC ("visionary") with OPTI(on) ("alternative", not ON) at first |
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| 16 | ALTHOUGH |
Granted that a large idea may fall short (8)
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A + L (large) + THOUGH(t) ("idea", short) |
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| 18 | TICK OVER |
Be inactive, as old vein’s opening in heart (4,4)
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O(ld) V(ein) ['s opening] in TICKER ("heart") |
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| 19 | ORGIAST |
Goat is ready to start getting drunk, a debauchee (7)
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*(goat is r) [anag:getting drunk] where R is R(eady) [to start] |
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| 21 | CAPTOR |
Kidnapper‘s instruction to make a turn in vehicle (6)
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PTO (please turn over – an "instruction to make a turn") in CAR ("vehicle") |
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| 22 | ABSURD |
Ridiculous way muscles bend at the top (6)
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Rd. (road, so "way") with ABS ("muscles") + U (-bend) at the top |
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| 24 |
See 2
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Solved about half and decided to give up. Way too difficult for me today!
I enjoyed reading the blog.
Worth mentioning the boundary text, perhaps? Or did you think it was too obvious?
I find Imogen to be one of the setters whose wavelength I struggle to find. In a positive way. The misdirection and unusual perspectives get me time and again. The grid was filled with the exception of APERCU which was a dnk and I couldn’t find the drum kit synonym. I was surprised to find Black SABBATH clued as a singing group – Ozzy, a singer? – and now see how the parsing was meant to work! And, for some time, I was working towards a word ending in LOON for 11a – log on minus the G. And I raised an eyebrow at GRANDEE = noble until discovering the Iberian alternative. And Atlas clearly had shoulders but I haven’t encountered the book.
All that said, no quibbles with any of the clueing. PRESTO for the brevity, ABSURD for the construction, STAIRS for the delightful definition and WEST HAM for the anagram indicator are my faves of the day.
Thanks Imogen and loonapick
OMG! Just posted and now see TonyG’s wonderfully understated comment @2. What a spot and what an achievement, in every sense.
Imogen wins! I was not on any sort of wavelength this morning, and needed help.
Thanks loonapick for showing me how to parse TENDERLOIN (log-in, of course!) and EPHEMERA (wow, that was clever) and OPTIMISTIC (missed the homophone).
Thank you Imogen for giving my tired brain a thorough work out.
TonyG @2
Thanks for pointing out my omission – I did actually see it (which is how I knew it was Imogen’s century), but forgot to mention it in my blog – d’oh!
I was surprised to see from the Nina that this was only IMOGEN’S ONE HUNDREDTH CROSSWORD but it was an excellent one, even if most of the literary references went over my head. Peter ‘Sellers’ as one of the GOON(s) was more at my level. Lots of challenging clues to get the solver thinking with the reward of the Nina, which also helped with a few answers toward the end.
Thanks and congrats to Imogen, and to loonapick.
Bravo! Superb crossword, I needed help to parse optimistic, and feeling rather daft now also captor, I was trying to make an instruction out of otp and failing.
Serpentine is a wonderful anagrind.
Thanks loonapick, thanks and congratulations Imogen.
Imogen might support West Ham. I’d be disappointed if she thought Ayn Rand had literary value though!
A couple I didn’t parse fully (like GRANDEE) until I got here. I was distracted today trying to think up a clue for “mountain pass”. I did finally get PRESTO which became a favourite, but kicking myself for taking too long because Preston is my home town. I still have trouble thinking of it as a city. Other favourite was STAIRS.
Oh and congrats loonapick and TonyG@2 for spotting the hidden phrase. And congrats Imogen for the ton.
I’m with Michelle@1, although after a lot of hard work I got all but 5 clues. Thank you loonapick for explaining those I failed plus a few I guessed. ( I didn’t help myself by putting stripped in for 26ac. Ripped= muscular and I thought Atlas was unclothed!) Reading the blog, I can’t complain about the ones I missed and I can only admire the outside message. Astonishingly clever. Many congrats to Imogen and thanks for the blog.
Thanks Imogen and loonapick
I found the LHS much harder than the RHS, but got there in the end. Favourites the very neat GO ON and also TENDERLOIN
EPHEMERA is also very clever, but I don’t think it quite works, as “fly” isn’t one of those words that is its own plural, and Ephemera are “mayflies”.
Nice to see Mrs Jellyby, having studied Bleak House at school and what a great clue. Agree with your double ticks, loonapick, and well done TonyG @2 as well; great spot. WEST HAM, of course, very topical for animal lovers. I thought TENDERLOIN and SABBATH were marvellous.
Ta loonapick & congrats to Imogen for the ton.
I’m totally with loonapick’s preamble, except that EPHEMERA is my top favourite and I’d just add WEST HAM, for the indicator, SABBATH, for the construction and surface and GOON, for the happy memories.
Many congratulations and thanks to Imogen, especially for the very neatly placed Nina, which even I couldn’t miss, and to loonapick for a fine blog.
Lovely! Took some time to get DO-GOODER and ODETTE, and had INELIGIBLE that didn’t parse before seeing IMOGEN along the top and thus NEGLIGENT. Wasted time trying to make an anagram of politicians minus t plus a for SPY STORIES. Favourites were TENDERLOIN and APERCU. Congrats to Imogen and thanks for all the fun.
Oh, and the Nina (which I didn’t notice) is very clever too.
Got all the answers right but did not parse everything and missed the Nina completely.
Thanks to setter and blogger
What an achievement – both the fabulous crossword (complete with nina) and the century. A great way for me to start the day – am glowing with admiration.
Something for everyone here-Proust, Dickens, West Ham and Sabbath-what a line up
I was struggling a bit until i saw the top row emerge and that helped immensely.
Proust’s girl had me intrigued-good misdirection but Swann’s femme fatale would have been a giveaway
Albertine was too long and Andree wasnt right so I waited for a few crossers
I liked the Jellyby clue-and of course APERCU
Thanks Imogen and loonapic-a cracker of a puzzle
An absolute tour de force – every clue a belter, and a wonderful way to mark the occasion.
Imogen’s Guardian debut was way back on 18th October 2003. However, he then spent several years as editor of the Times crossword, so his second here didn’t appear until 8th February 2014 – easily the biggest gap in the archive. As a result, even though since becoming a regular contributor his puzzles have appeared like clockwork once a month, he has supplanted Enigmatist as the slowest to reach 100 – 6,689 days after his first. He is the 25th setter to have 100 dailies in the archive; the 11th whose debut came since 1999.
Imogen has the full set of dailies:
Monday – 2
Tueasday – 27
Wednesday – 30
Thursday – 16
Friday – 14
Saturday – 11
None in the Genius slot to date, but I reckon he could do a good ‘un.
Roll on the next 100 – scheduled to reach 200 on Saturday 8th June 2030…
I thought the setter had made a mistake at 5d, EPHEMERA being the plural of ephemeron, but was surprised to see it in Chambers as a singular noun – “an insect of the mayfly genus Ephemera” – with the plural forms ephemeras and ephemerae. Plurals of a plural: English is strange.
muffin@ 13, you are muddling ephemera, the plural of ephemeron, and EPHEMERA, the singular for the insect, the plural of which can be ephemerae or ephemeras.
Congratulations Imogen, a super crossword, and thank you loonapick for the helpful blog.
Cookie @23
Ephemera is the genus of mayflies. There are lots of them – see here. Hence Ephemera are mayflies. not mayfly.
Thanks Loonapick and congrats to Imogen on the milestone
The usual tricky challenge, but there are some real weirdnesses in the clues here that surprised me from, as mentioned above, an ex Times editor:
improve for DO-GOODER is funny, but what is should doing? I can’t see how it fits, even speaking ungrammatically
SCIMITAR either needs it to work twice or is defined by a verb
Atlas did for SHRUGGED is just cluing by vague association
Muffin @13 Collins has ephemera as a mayfly, with the plural being ephemeras or -ae. Just because ephemera is the genus of mayflies it doesn’t mean an ephemera can’t be a mayfly. There are many such examples: e.g. fuchsia.
Miche @22 apologies, of interest, according to the OCED, the insect EPHEMERA comes from “modern Latin from the Greek ephemeros ‘lasting only a day’ (as EPI-, hemera ‘day’).” That explains the A at the end of the singular word.
muffin @24, from the OCED “ephemera n. (pl. ephemeras or ephemerae) 1 a an insect living only a day or a few days. b any insect of the order Ephemeroptera, e.g. the mayfly.”
Well I was already impressed before I came here – and was then blown away by TonyG at 2’s observation.
Ye gods!
Congratulations Imogen on making your century, and heartfelt thanks for your ever delightful way with clueing. Amongst a lengthy list of stunners, my stand-out faves today were GOON and OOZING, WEST HAM and SABBATH.
Brilliant stuff – here’s to many more!
Lucky loonapick, to be blogging this one…
I’m another with Michelle@1. I didn’t give up but revealed many to complete the grid. Way too difficult for me, worst showing in at least a year. The synonyms for my vocabulary don’t seem to overlap with Imogen’s.
A tour de force which I struggled through. On seeing the grid I thought it’s a good one for a nina and then forgot to look until the very end when I had one to go. It would have been helpful earlier! My favs similar to others for similar reasons. Thanks and congratulations to Imogen and to loonapick for the blog.
Just great fun, although a DNF (APERCU) for me (time is the master today) but I forgive myself. If only I’d spotted the nina – grrrr. (Congrats to Imogen – several thousand clues of the highest quality.)
No bifds and the one I enjoyed most from the process of grinding the wordplay through my struggling reason was ABSURD. CAPTOR was great. I’m sure both MORT and GAGE appear in some dictionary or other and I enjoyed that one too.
ENERGISE reminded me of the (apocryphal?) story of a new CEO explaining to the management that he hoped to enervate the entire company from top to bottom. Someone offered: “I think you mean ‘energise'” – sacked.
I’ve heard “the mayfly are out”. Never ‘mayflies’ – must pay closer attention.
Thanks Mitz@21 for the APERCU and to loonapick for the top-notch blog.
Thought this was terrific, rewarding a great deal of time and patience today. Clue of the day for me, a cut above the others let’s say, was TENDERLOIN, closely followed by NEGLIGIBLE, which allowed me to insert loi SABBATH. Did wonder with first clue in IOLANTHE whether we’d be in for a Gilbert and Sullivan theme. OOZING did make me smile, in a rather off piste (ha!) cryptic way, reminding me of those Greek holidays in the distant past with too much Ouzo consumed. Many thanks Imogen and Loonapick…
Thanks for the blog, great puzzle, quite tricky but always seemed to find something to help in each corner.
We have Playtex for 24Ac and the much rarer Gossard for 5D , my favourite clue.
I am surprised MrPost Mark has not complained about 2D
Completely missed Imogen’s message round the exterior, that only adds to my praise for this today
[ An earlier work by Ayn Rand – The Fountainhead , had the stunning review – Anyone who is taken in by this deserves a stern lecture on paper rationing . ]
Thanks loonapick, and congratulations to Imogen for marking the century with such a great puzzle.
Although I don’t doubt the intention of having “may fly” in the clue, it’s also the case that these insects are famous for emerging in huge swarms and so truly “may fly together”.
Excellent puzzle which I found pleasantly chewy – if I had spotted the Nina it would have helped quite a lot…
Several clever cryptic definitions and too many good clues to list them all, but I particularly enjoyed WEST HAM.
An apt quotation from Cymbeline would be timely, but I can’t think of one 🙂
Congratulations to Imogen and many thanks to him and loonapick.
Thank you loonapick and others for discussion of the mayfly as I had that def as a bit loose in the sense of things that don’t last long in general (eg time flying by) – much happier now. Thanks also TonyG for the nina which would have helped me on quite a few. WEST HAM reopened a few barely-healed wounds but at least helped me to get started whereas Rand should remain unmentionable imo. Thoroughly enjoyed a stiff challenge (I had a few question marks but all fell into the tough but fair category after further research), can’t choose between SABBATH and OPTIMISTIC as favourite, congratulations and thanks Imogen.
Congratulations to Imogen who has celebrated a centenary with a tour de force. Spoilt for choice of favourites but double ticks go to the clues for EPHEMERA, ODETTE, OOZING, NEGLIGIBLE, STAIRS, CAPTOR and DO-GOODER. DNF due to APERCU, and thx to loonapick for help in parsing the ones I couldn’t.
Congrats on the landmark, Imogen! And on a super crossword to mark the occasion. Thanks also for the blog, loonapick.
I was another “log on,” — was there a word that ended in ‘LOON? Well, no, as it turns out.
Why should H be the abbreviation for Hungary? Its name in English begins with H, but in Hungarian it’s Magyarorszag (imagine an acute accent on the last a). We don’t use S as an abbreviation for Spain, after all, since in Spanish it starts with E.
PTO for “please turn over” was a new one for me.
Daniel Miller@9 Imogen is a he, not a she.
Thanks, Imogen, and congratulations too, for 100 puzzles, many of which I’ve enjoyed. And thanks loonapick for an excellent blog.
Valentine@41 H is the International Car Registration letter for Hungary.
8 across reminds me of Dickens’ wonderful term for Mrs Jellyby’s particular kind of do-gooding- “telescopic philanthropy”. She expends all of her energies on people thousands of miles away while completely neglecting her own family.
Sometimes the blooming obvious escapes me. Spent far too long trying to work out why 25 across would be toping.
To be pedantic, the only blemish on an otherwise great clue for EPHEMERA is the ungrammatical ‘a peer and me touring’ rather than ‘a peer and I….’ But this use of ‘me’ as a disjunctive pronoun (like the French ‘moi’) is well on the way to becoming standard.
rullytully@42 Well, it shouldn’t be. Is S the International Car Registration letter for Spain? F for Finland? C for Czechoslovakia?
What impeccable cluing! And a fitting way to mark a century. I didn’t get the nina (I was just happy to finish). My LOI was WEST HAM, such was the sneaky indicator.
Thanks Imogen for a brilliant crossword and loonapick for adding to the enjoyment.
Very good, and rather tough. I enjoyed IOLANTHE, which was at my level, and ABSURD among many others. The enumeration helped with GO ON – it would have taken me much longer if it had been (4) rather than (2,2).
I was not helped by the background reading list, books I would not particularly wish to read. Paul Simon told me all I needed to know about Ayn Rand in ‘A Simple Desultory Philippic’.
There was a NINA, I’m told. It must have been very satisfying for those who noticed!
Alphalpha @31, I’m fairly sure someone sometime has picked a MORT of GAGEs from a tree.
Gervase @44, the ungrammatical form probably helped you and I 😀 – there had to be a reason for choosing it.
Since it would take a number of mayflies to fly together ephemera worked for me as in “may fly together”
Very nice – I should’ve been looking for a nina, but wasn’t… Would’ve considerably sped up 22A, my LOI. 15A and 25A were the picks.
NHO Jellyby or Odette, but no complaints.
Thanks loonapick, and thanks and congratulations Imogen
Thanks Imogen for a great crossword & nina to mark your 100th.
Thanks to loonapick for help with 11 & 26
A very enjoyable crossword and stupendous nina but for me a direction out of PRESTON would leave PRETON. PRESTO would be a direction away from the city.
Congratulations to Imogen, a tough one as usual.
I solved at two sittings, so forgot to look for a NINA. I had to look up the literary references – if you didn’t know who Mrs Jellyby was, it was difficult to solve DO-GOODER. Good setting to have a complete boundary without any real obscurities. I remained OPTIMISTIC about the puzzle, although I didn’t notice the mayfly.
Thanks Imogen and loonapick.
Roz @33, Alphalpha @31 & Monkey @48: I’m not going to raise the issue every time I encounter it. (If I set that precedent, the rhotists will see it as an excuse to query homophones on a regular basis, I suspect). It’s a personal foible – like some folk don’t like hidden words if they’re only half hidden… And, yes, as Monkey notes, they are both words. GAGE, I think I’ve encountered as a shortened greengage – though it’s also an object deposited as a guarantee of good faith. Quite why a piece of soft fruit would guarantee good behaviour etc, I do not know. MORT, I expected to simply be the French word but can also mean a great many as per Monkey’s example. But it can also be a note blown on a hunting horn to signify the death of an animal! What a language we have!
Just checked GAGE , three meanings plus several variants of gauge. I only knew the greengage version.
So a mortgage is a death pledge ??
Congrats to Imogen of course, but what impressed me most about this puzzle was that the gridfill did not appear forced, despite the lack of degrees of freedom in wording the boundary.
Did anybody notice while doing 17a that Domingo is both a tenor and a day off (for many)?
[Indeed so Roz, I remember looking this up a while ago, I can’t remember why, but it is an old French legal term, meaning ‘death contract’.]
The first meaning of GAGE offered by Chambers, i.e. “something thrown down to signal a challenge, eg a glove,” will be familiar to Shakespeareans from its prominent occurrence in the first scene of Richard the Second, where Mowbray and Bolingbroke both throw down their GAGEs (gauntlets) as a means of referring their dispute to mortal combat.
A tour de force as has already been said. So many brilliant clues and surfaces but the crème de La crème is EPHEMERA (“May fly together” indicates the plural neatly).
Thanks and congratulations Imogen, and thanks loonapick
Congrats on the ton to Imogen. However I had a few quibbles with this, ‘city’ at 9a being one of those wide-ranging definitions that doesn’t help very much until you have all the crossers! I felt the def at 26a to be wrong. Perhaps ‘as Atlas did?’ or something like that. At 2 24 I felt that ‘gag’ could not be a verb meaning ‘to joke’, but the noun. Otherwise the ‘to’ has be doing something else. That said, I did like the ‘open to knight’ ruse. Very nice.
I actually managed to finish this, slowly, this morning, although only posting now (after all sorts of issues with the building standards people and the roofers) but what a fantastic crossword! Forgot to look for the Nina, magnificent and congratulations to Imogen! Thanks loonapick for helpful blog.
[ Thanks for the extras on mortgage/gage , unfortunately gauge bosons have the u so I cannot lecture on gauge theory. ]
Bravo to Imogen. I’m full of admiration (and a bit bruised from the tussle!)
[I for one would be glad to see the ‘u’ in ‘gauge’ dropped as it seems to serve only to confuse. The last time I used the word in this forum I was truly astonished when the auto-correct took issue with ‘guage’. (It’s at it again….)]
PostMark@54: I hoped@31 to incarnate your unexpressed distaste for these cur ios: MORT? really? (But no one provided a dictionary definition. My baiting skills are waning…)
[Alphalpha@64: do keep it up! There are plenty of things to which I will rise – like a fish to an EPHEMERA 😉 As a Terry Pratchett fan, I, of course, can’t see MORT without thinking of the Discworld character.]
guage
Valentine @ 45
I don’t comment much these days because I tend not to start the puzzle until quite late in the evening, and also because it can be quite difficult to actually access the site on the internet.
But I felt I had to comment. You sound like a man after my own heart. When I was a youngster the international Car Reg for Finland was SF – Suomi Finland, being the names of the country in Finnish and Swedish, the two national langauges.
Alas, everything must be in american these days and the official ICR for Finland is now FIN. I refuse to recognise FIN and, when I had a car, crossed out the IN and put an S in front.
It is almost as if nothing is allowed to be Finnish any more. Everything must be american.
And this is happening in countries all over the world. I hate it.
And I fear it will cause a lot of trouble in the future when people realise, too late, that their language and culture has been destroyed.
As I tell people ad infinitum: English is not an international language. It is (mainly, nowadays) american. And spreads american ‘culture’.
Oh, and congratulations to Imogen. Excellent puzzle and achievement. And to loonapick for the excellent blog.
Monkey@47 You don’t have to have read Ayn Rand (not worth it, I’d agree), just have heard of the title. Bleak House, on the other hand, I think was fetching a little far; it’s one thing to know the major characters in Hamlet and another to know a supporting role (among dozens) in a Dickens novel. Either you recognize it (I did) or you don’t. I haven’t read Swann’s Way, but the wordplay was very clear.
Anna@67 I’m glad my alphabetical proposition reached someone. But I’m not a man after your own heart or after anything else, I’m a woman. I’d forgotten when I joined in that my name is androgynous and has occasionally led to confusion.
As far as I’m concerned, using F for Finland (and S for Spain and so on) isn’t limited to being American, it’s Anglocentric, since Finland starts with F in any country where English is spoken.
Couldn’t get a foothold in this one. Only managed and parsed GOON because it was obvious. Rest too hard.
I enjoyed this very much and got there in the end with the help of the perimeter. Congratulations to Imogen. The only thing I don’t get is why ‘a spooky set’ is SPY STORIES?! No one else has mentioned it so I must be dim.
Myself @71 — Duh, I just got it!
Too hard for me too. Congratulations to Imogen and thanks to loonapick
Mike@71 (if you’re still watching): spook is both US and UK slang for someone involved in espionage.
[Valentine@69 in case you pop back – I was prompted by your mild tirade (if there is such a thing) to have a look on wikipedia at the full list of international registration codes and enjoyed discovering a few suprising choices so thank you. I wondered if the Anglocentric nature came from the dominance of USA and thus English in international affairs when these things were being set up (see also phonetic alphabet that was discussed a while back). But despite Finland’s switch in 1993 as mentioned by Anna@67, I hope it cheers you that newly independent Croatia was able to register under HR rather than CRO or similar in 1992, so it is not all one-way traffic.]
[Gazzh: had a look at that list and discovered that GB plates have now been abolished in favour of UK. I expect it’s been done so that people can’t legally continue to use their old GB plates with the EU ring of stars on them. Brexit, the gift that keeps on giving.]
[Thanks, Gazzh@75. I had a look and had fun with it. Who’da thunk that SMOM was the Sovereign Military Order of Malta?]
As has been stated above, what an outstanding achievement. I wonder how long Imogen spent on this masterpiece.
I will add: I did not finish, as was stuck on the bottom half. I came to look in here for some direction, and then stopped at TonyG’s comment @ #2, and the perimeter text helped me (largely) get the rest.
PostMark, re your refusal to rise to the bait from Roz, Alphalpha and Monkey:
When I got MORT/GAGE, my first reaction was like Roz’s – Oh good, we’ll have some fun with PM – and so I was disappointed at your restraint. Bete noires need feeding, too.
My foible, which you alluded to @54, is the folks (usually rhotists) who insist on complaining about homeophones. (Thanks for reviving that word, by the way.) I just can’t leave them alone. As a great poet once wrote,
There was a young belle of Old Natchez
Whose garments were always in patchez.
When comments arose
On the state of her clothes,
She replied, “when Ah itchez, Ah scratchez”.