Knut is more likely to be found compiling a weekday Indy puzzle, but it’s not unknown for him to give us a Sabbath offering. I was pleased to see his name crop up on my watch this morning. There were lots of carefully crafted surface readings, a wide variety of subject matter, and one or two smiles along the way. Which makes you ask: what’s not to like?
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Exhaust dog with constant exercise
TAILPIPE
A charade of TAIL, PI for the mathematical ‘constant’ and PE. TAILPIPE is standard AmEng for a car exhaust. PI is endlessly fascinating, is implicated in life, the universe and everything, and has its own special day, March 14th. Why March 14th? Go figure.
5 Trade tax spat involving alpha Republican
TARIFF
An insertion of A and R in TIFF. The insertion indicator is ‘involving’ and A for Alpha is from the phonetic alphabet (strictly, it’s Alfa, but nobody ever writes it like that, in crosswords at least).
10 Quick! Area 51 base invaded by leader of Vulcans!
ALIVE
An insertion of V for the initial letter of ‘Vulcans’ in A, LI for the Roman numerals and E for the mathematical ‘base’. ‘Quick’ in this sense is an archaic usage, most often seen in the phrase ‘the quick and the dead’. The expression is found in the New Testament (2 Timothy 4:1):
I testifie therfore before god and before the lorde Iesu Christ which shall iudge quicke and deed at his aperynge in his kyngdom (William Tyndale 1526 translation).
11 Dembélé, Agüero defending attack from all sides
BELEAGUER
Got to love the Indy for an excess of footie clues. Hidden (cleverly, in fact) in DemBELE AGUERo. Those that care less about the beautiful game won’t need to know that the former is a French international and plays for Barcelona, and the latter is Argentinian, joined Barcelona in 2021 after a long period at Manchester City, and has now retired from the game.
12 Second time Knut’s university starts to limit inoculations (shots in the arm)
STIMULI
A long charade: of S, T, I’M, U, and LI for the initial letters of ‘limit’ and ‘inoculations’.
13 Order to ploughman to work up to this point
TILL NOW
A dd cum cd.
14 Bet against Stroll – he’s all over the place
SELL SHORT
(STROLL HES)* To SELL SHORT is a practice in financial markets where city wide boys speculatively borrow assets, sell them, and take a punt on them dropping in value, allowing them to pocket the difference when they buy them back at a lower price. Or something like that. Hence ‘bet against’.
15 Question Time deleted from advertising placard
POSER
POS[T]ER
16 Mum’s dumping Mike for somebody else
OTHER
[M]OTHER. More phonetic alphabet, and a great surface.
18 Flared trousers open, almost entirely like Droopy?
FLOP-EARED
An insertion of OPE[N] in FLARED, with ‘trousers’ as the insertion indicator. Forgotten Droopy? Here he is.
20 One who doesn’t mind being told to take a hike?
RAMBLER
A cd.
22 Burglars this evening staying in?
THIEVES
Another cleverly created, concise surface reading. An insertion of EVE in THIS. The insertion indicator is ‘staying in’.
23 Temperature in Granada bothered knight, a dashing blade
D’ARTAGNAN
An insertion of T in (GRANADA)* followed by N for the chess ‘knight’. The anagrind is ‘bothered’, the insertion indicator is ‘in’, and D’ARTAGNAN is one of the protagonists in Dumas’ work The Three Musketeers. But he was also a real ‘dashing blade’ – Charles de Batz de Castelmore d’Artagnan, who died in the Siege of Maastricht in 1673.
24 Bikini? Perhaps Lolita doesn’t need one
ATOLL
(LOL[I]TA)* The anagrind is ‘perhaps’ and the removal indicator is ‘doesn’t need’.
25 Victim of robbery by The Pearly Queen?
OYSTER
I think this is just a cd, but I have a strange feeling I’m missing something.
26 A sharpness of tongue, funny: RIP Yeats
ASPERITY
(RIP YEATS)*
Down
1 Wireless broadcast on air distorts artist being showcased
TRANSISTOR RADIO
An insertion of RA for ‘artist’ in (ON AIR DISTORTS)* The anagrind is ‘broadcast’ and the insertion indicator is ‘being showcased’.
2/4 Ripon’s unrestricted, expanded inaugural sale of stock
INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERING
Knut is inviting you to remove the outside letters of ‘Ripon’, which leaves you with IPO; when you expand that abbreviation, you get the answer. The ‘stock’ is of the financial, rather than the bovine, kind.
3 Herald regularly spurned flashing light on computer screen
PRECURSOR
A charade of PRE for the even letters of sPuRnEd and CURSOR.
6 Use American ski resort in The Rockies
AVAIL
A charade of A and VAIL, which is, er, a ski resort in The Rockies. No, I hadn’t either.
7 Area including French overseas department’s promoting island lizards
IGUANAS
Knut is referencing the GUIANAS, an area in northern South America which includes Suriname, Guyana (formerly British Guiana) and French Guiana. La Guyane française is indeed a département français d’outre-mer. And the setter is asking you to ‘promote’ the I in GUIANAS to give you the solution.
8 Florida Keys rip-off stealing women’s showy sparklers?
FIREWORK DISPLAYS
An insertion of W in (FLORIDA KEYS RIP)* The insertion indicator is ‘stealing’ and the anagrind is ‘off’.
9 In which people attempt to reduce stress when 2 4 goes badly?
FLOTATION TANKS
A dd cum cd. An INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERING could be described as a FLOTATION; if it went wrong, it could be said to have TANKED. The stress reduction stuff is a real thing, apparently: look here. Yours for around £10K, so you might need to have made some money from an IPO before you invest in one.
15 Affirm cider is being served up with terrine outside
PREDICATE
An insertion of CIDER reversed in PÂTÉ. The reversal indicator (since it’s a down clue) is ‘being served up’ and the insertion indicator is ‘with … outside’.
17 Partially exhume Russian body part
HUMERUS
Hidden in exHUME RUSsian.
19 VAR overturned goal slashing the odds in 1-1 Italian classic
RAVIOLI
More footie. A charade of VAR reversed and OA for the even letters of gOaL (‘slashing the odds’) inserted into II. Aficionados will appreciate the surface; if you’re not in that category, I’d just move on to the next clue.
21 Exit the Parisian boulevard
LEAVE
A charade of LE for one of the words for ‘the’ in French, and AVE.
Many thanks to Knut for the Sunday morning entertainment.
The Pearly Queen robs oysters of pearls… ??
That sounds a bit simplistic. There must be something more…
FLOTATION TANKS, IGUANAS and THIEVES are my favs.
I didn’t see what was going on for 2/4 (and therefore 9d) until the very end so found this quite hard. I couldn’t parse OYSTER satisfactorily either, but wondered if it might have something to do with an East End “[h]oister” or robber. Still, not convinced. The word order is wrong, but I tentatively parsed 20a as RAMBLE (= ‘a hike’) + R (= ‘take’). Again, not convinced.
The football references went straight over my head, but I liked the surface for 14a which I presume refers to Lance ‘Stroll’, the F1 driver. Favourite was the surface (poor old canine creature) and parsing for for 1a.
Thanks to Knut and Pierre
Don’t know why 3d is missing from your grid, Pierre.
Another who took OYSTER as a CD but wondered about it.
Hope everyone gets the “go figure” pun in your 1a, Pierre, where yet again an Americanism is needed – 14/3 doesn’t work at all.
WordPlodder @2
RAMBLER (a hiker) won’t mind being told to take a hike. Looks fine to me.
Droll. ‘Flotation tanks’. The verb ‘trousers’. Lolita’s bikini. Tried to parse ‘thong’ because I had the ‘o’ in ‘ravioli’. Superb. Thanks.
The final two sentences of Pierre’s prologue say it all
Thanks very much to Knut for a very fine Sunday treat and to Pierre for the blog
Thanks for the blog, dear Pierre, and to those who have commented. Just popped in to say to our illustrious blogger that he shouldn’t think he got away scot-free with that two-footed, out of control lunge that is the Tom Cleverley gag in the comment at 11 across. There are cameras everywhere.
Apologies, Hovis @3. I thought it was all over. But it wasn’t. It is now.
Hovis and Pierre the American date format 3/14 is almost irrational as far as I am concerned. I thought the IPO was very clever. I tried to work something with Angela and then “see” before the penny dropped.
Many thanks, Knut, for another super puzzle and Pierre for a good blog.
Petert @9. Hah! Mind you, irrational it may be but it’s also transcendental and so surpasses all other formats. Month – day – year always struck me as a weird order.
Oyster = ‘oist (robbery by cockney/pearly queen) + er (queen doing double duty) with a type of extended definition?
My parsing of 25 is the same as Engineerb but it took me a while to see it. Great puzzle and blog. Thank you, Pierre and Knut.
Well wasn’t that an absolute pleasure from first to last. I thought Dada was good in this morning’s Telegraph but this pipped it.
Amongst many fine clues 19d was my favourite.
Thanks to Knut and Pierre.
Stephen L @ 15, it was. Nuff said. Thanks to Knut and Pierre
Thank you Knut, that was fun. Pleasant surprise to see you here on a Sunday. I found this quite gentle, both for the solver and in terms of subject messaging. . Didn’t know about the resort in the Rockies, though, and didn’t spot the oyster trick.
I thought the 2,4d-9d quickstep was especially cunning.
Thanks also to Pierre.
Made life difficult unnecessarily by carelessly putting in short sell instead of SELL SHORT (combination of crossword fatigue & watching the golf). Pleased to complete without a letter reveal but needed Pierre to explain a few. Thought the 2/4d Ripon uncovered very clever but tops for me BELEAGUER
Thanks Knut &to Pierre.
Thanks Knut, I enjoyed this with TAILPIPE, THIEVES, and ATOLL being favourites. Missed OYSTER. Thanks Pierre for the blog.
Coming late to point out the International Pi day is 22nd July (my birthday). 14th March is American Pi day. (They wrote a song about it.)