An enjoyable solve, with many tricky clues that look much simpler in hindsight. Favourites 19ac, 15dn, 20dn, and 23dn. Thanks to Nutmeg
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | HAVING A BASH |
Trying person in party may be doing so (6,1,4)
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definition: to 'have a bash' at something is to give it a try BASH="party", so HAVING A BASH may be something a person at a party is doing |
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| 9 | MOLE RAT |
African rodent, squealer with dark patch in front (4,3)
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RAT=informant="squealer", with MOLE=skin blemish="dark patch" in front |
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| 10 | LIMOGES |
Go miles abroad for source of fine porcelain (7)
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definition: Limoges is a French city known for its porcelain [wiki] anagram/"abroad" of (Go miles)* |
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| 11 | STIPULATE |
Demand turning up, it’s overdue (9)
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reversal/"turning" of UP IT'S, plus LATE="overdue" |
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| 12 | GRETA |
Climate activist‘s share of meagre takings (5)
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definition: GRETA Thunberg, the climate activist [wiki] hidden in mea-GRE TA-kings |
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| 13 | SIGN |
Initial clue (4)
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double definition: to initial/sign an official document; or an indication/"clue" |
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| 14 | HELLO THERE |
Greeting from hotspot, with further line conclusively appended (5,5)
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HELL="hotspot" with OTHER="further" and lin-E appended |
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| 16 | PROVIDENCE |
Care I’d taken in Cannes and thereabouts (10)
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I'D inside PROVENCE=region of France="Cannes and thereabouts" |
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| 19 | PUNT |
Bet it’s a boat! (wordplay terrible at first) (4)
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double definition, ="Bet" and a type of "boat" …plus wordplay: PUN="wordplay" + T-errible |
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| 21 | SCAMP |
Rascal‘s trick piano (5)
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SCAM="trick" + P (piano) |
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| 22 | FLAMBEAUX |
Torches moving abeam in uncertain motion (9)
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anagram/"moving" of (abeam)* inside FLUX="uncertain motion" |
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| 24 | BUSTIER |
Level of public transport with more up front? (7)
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BUS TIER="Level of public transport" |
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| 25 | CONNIVE |
Plot in bay surrounding retro pub (7)
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COVE="bay" around reversal/"retro" of INN="pub" |
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| 26 | MOTHERS RUIN |
Parents manage to crush one’s spirit (7,4)
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MOTHERS="Parents" + RUN="manage" around I="one" |
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| DOWN | ||
| 1 | HOLDING TO RANSOM |
Bowling legend with ball in sort of window demanding concessions (7,2,6)
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Holding="Bowling legend" plus O="ball" inside TRANSOM="sort of window" Michael Holding [wiki] was a famous pace bowler for the West Indies cricket team |
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| 2 | VIRTU |
Upset about rivals displaying fine artworks (5)
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definition: virtù is a term from Italian for works of art – I was more familiar with its other meaning of 'appreciation for fine art' reversed/upset and hidden/displayed inside abo-UT RIV-als |
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| 3 | NITRATE |
Donkey to value fertiliser (7)
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NIT=a fool="Donkey" + RATE="value" |
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| 4 | ALLHEAL |
Medicinal plant, originally at £50 topping list, we’re told (7)
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definition: a name applied to a number of herbs used as medicine A-t, plus L (libra, pound, "£") plus L="50" in Roman numerals, plus HEAL which sounds/"we're told" like 'heel'=to lean to one side="list" |
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| 5 | ALMIGHTY |
Almost everyone could ultimately slay giant (8)
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definition: 'almighty' as an adjective as in 'an almighty coincidence' AL-[L]="Almost everyone" + MIGHT="could" + sla-Y |
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| 6 | HIGHER EDUCATION |
Advanced instruction from Red China toughie garbled (6,9)
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anagram/"garbled" of (Red China toughie)* |
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| 7 | AMUSES |
Diverts rising waters, skirting problem (6)
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reversal/"rising" of all of: SEA="waters" around SUM="problem" |
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| 8 | ESCAPE |
Take off enormous unlined cloak (6)
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E-normou-S without its insides/"unlined", plus CAPE="cloak" |
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| 15 | MISPRINT |
‘Setter in mile race’ (now proverbial Guardian feature?) (8)
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I="Setter" in M (mile) + SPRINT="race" |
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| 16 | PASS BY |
Go on through, with prior authorisation (4,2)
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BY="through", after PASS="authorisation" |
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| 17 | ENFORCE |
Apply in French on behalf of church … (7)
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definition: as in 'to apply/enforce the rules' EN="in [translated to] French" + FOR="on behalf of" + CE (Church of England) |
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| 18 | CHANCES |
… part of church cut off on Sunday, creating opportunities (7)
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CHANCE-[L]="part of church" cut off, plus S (Sunday) a chancel is part of a church around the altar |
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| 20 | TAXMEN |
Revenue staff, no more than half score, Spooner says (6)
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Spoonerism of 'max ten'="no more than half score", with a "score" meaning 'twenty' |
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| 23 | BANTU |
Anti-labour slogan in this sub-Saharan speech? (5)
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definition: a family of languages spoken in southern and central Africa BAN TU='ban trade union'="Anti-labour slogan" |
Got stuck for a while but the usual remedy, take a break and look again, worked it’s magic. Nice puzzle. Thanks Nutmeg and manehi.
Very enjoyable, thank you, Nutmeg. The southwest quarter took me the longest. I’m uncomfortable with “abroad” as an anagrind — if I recall, it’s based on a rather outdated usage. I’d not heard of VIRTU nor ALLHEAL, and was unaware of the connection between “list” and “heel”.
Much easier than usual Nutmegs, and very enjoyable. Thanks for this, and for parsing VIRTU for me!
“Red China Toughie” was a great anagram, one of those you can’t quite believe even when you’ve guessed it.
Remembered ALLHEAL eventually but failed to parse it. Had fun trying to find a word ending with an unlined CloaK for what turned out to be ESCAPE. Favourite definitely PUNT.
Needed the h to get 1d, despite being well acquainted with the great bowler both on field and on microphone, and needed help with another h before guessing allheal. Hadn’t met virtu either, and had to check the Provence-Cannes connection. Always a pleasure to be tested by the Spice Lady, and thanks manehi.
Thank you manehi for the blog, and for virtù. Never heard of. Should that have been indicated as a ‘foreign’ word?
The fine art meaning was about 16th on the list that google threw up.
Didn’t find Nutmeg’s usual sparkle but good to see her again.
Old enough to remember Michael Holding, and chuffed to solve ALLHEAL.
Liked HAVING A BASH, TAXMEN, BANTU, MOTHERS RUIN, FLAMBEAUX, and MISPRINT and BUSTIER for the chuckles.
PUNT is great. I think double definitions + wordplay must be rare. PROVIDENCE and FLAMBEAUX were also excellent. ALLHEAL and MOLE RAT fell in that strange territory between jorum and half-remembered word.
… and gently sending up our much-loved news organ at 15d is ok, but in general I have great sympathy for struggling print outlets (i.e. those not run at a loss as a tax deduction in vast multimedia empires)…
Thank goodness nobody has mentioned “The bowler’s Holding, the batsman’s Willey”
NHO the bowler and generally know nothing about cricket, so I could only get 1d with crossers. NHO VIRTU either but it was gettable on its own. As to the rest, knotty enough but generally fair.
Tough and enjoyable. Liked PUNT, ESCAPE, TAXMEN, SIGN, AMUSES, HOLDING TO RANSOM (I saw Michael Holding bowl in Test matches in Melbourne); MOTHERS RUIN, MISPRINT (loi).
I could not parse 18d as I was fixated on chancery but that didn’t make sense!
Thanks, both.
Don’t get us started Shirl or we’ll have Aggers and legover over yet again …
Shirl@10. Classic. And it was true! ( the quote that is). I really appreciate coming from a cricketing family. It’s helped a lot with cryptic crosswords.
Very enjoyable puzzle – cleverly clued, as usual, and right in the Goldilocks zone for me. I particularly liked HOLDING TO RANSOM. Last one in was ALLHEAL – an unfamiliar word but it just had to be that.
Thanks to Nutmeg and manehi.
Thanks for the memory grantinfreo@13. Haven’t stopped laughing after 35 seconds in.
https://theconversation.com/crickets-famous-legover-moment-and-why-getting-the-giggles-is-so-contagious-63851
Shirl@10, paddymelon@14 – you both beat me to it re the Brian Johnston unintended and hilarious pun on the radio ! So I’ll just have to say re 26 ac, a team called MOTHERS RUINED absolutely thrashed a team called CRYPTICS on Only Connect last evening ! Doesn’t say much for us lot ; seems we would be better off swigging the bottle !
Thanks manehi and Nutmeg
An easier puzzle than normal from Nutmeg, but I don’t know any:=
Desert Rats
Porcelains
Fine Artworks
So the top half was a reveal fest
Thanks both
Brian Johnston was full of them ! He said many including “Neil Harvey, standing at leg slip with his legs wide apart, waiting for a tickle” !
One of those very satisfying puzzles which on a first read through I thought I’d have no chance of completing. I started in the south west and gradually built up. 7D AMUSES was the last in. With a Nutmeg puzzle I always enjoy spotting the odd religion related clue (e.g. 18 D). With thanks to both.
Sparkling wit as to be expected from Nutmeg
I gave up trying to squeeze PONY into 4 when I had a crosser or two.
Thanks also to manehi
[Flea@17 Here’s some useless information relating to crosswords, from House of Games last night. The largest crossword published had 66,666 clues. Don’t suppose it was cryptic though.]
Thanks Nutmeg for another enjoyable puzzle, and manehi for the blog.
Another that looked tricky at first, but like manehi states, easier with hindsight. Like others, didn’t know VIRTU or ALLHEAL. Liked HAVING A BASH, PUNT, FLAMBEAUX and BUSTIER. PASS (BY) made me think of another meaning for PUNT as in punt it long up the pitch to the forwards in football/soccer.
Ta Nutmeg & manehi.
Very nice indeed, only managed to twig the second meaning of HAVING A BASH when I paused for a while and was having a wash in the shower. Lightbulb moments often happen there for me. I think the explanation mark at 19ac was an indication that Nutmeg was particularly pleased how PUNT had been clued. My COTD amongst several excellent other ones this morning…
Thanks Shirl @10 for nudging so many amusing memories among cricket lovers everywhere.
As we seem to be rather fixated this morning about warm memories of cricket commentaries of the past, perhaps those that had to face Michael Holding, who was dubbed Whispering Death, might not have had quite such amusing recollections…
Thanks manehi, I woke too early today but worth it to have a good crack at this, and I needed some time unlike some above – 13a needed both crossers as the two aren’t directly equivalent for me but can see that they occupy the same conceptual space, 1A held out the longest as again needed the crossers and even then had to think on whether the “person in party” could mean the host – i suppose the host is generally in attendance, and “partygoer” would not have worked, so fair enough! I really enjoyed the PUNT, TAXMAN and both long down clues, and plenty of smooth surfaces as usual, thanks Nutmeg.
Oh dear, my comment has been removed, no doubt because of my quote from Philip Larkin:
They f*** [changed this time] you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had. And add some extra, just for you. This was with reference to the lovely surface for MOTHERS RUIN. I also liked BUS TIER.
Thanks Nutmeg and manehi.
Fun puzzle, once I’d got BASH in 1a rather than SHOT. I liked PUNT, PROVIDENCE and FLAMBEAUX.
Re the Holding/Willey quote, didn’t Brian Johnston foresee the possibility. I thought I’d read somewhere that he’d been waiting for the opportunity to use it?
Thanks Nutmeg and manehi
Having lived in Nice I am ashamed at failing to parse 16a.
Enjoyed this and did better than I usually do with a Nutmeg puzzle although still needed help parsing a couple. Like others hadn’t heard of VERTU, ALLHEAL.
Favourites included; FLAMBEAUX, HELLO THERE, MOTHERS RUIN (and no mention of gin)
Thanks Nutmeg and manehi
Threads to run with, like doubles (cricketing, and/or entendred), and Larkin on parental inadequacy. Lots of tickles, all fun. (Neil Harvey was a heartthrob of the teenage mrs ginf).
[Indeed Ronald @26, both he and Marshall were indeed deadly … ]
I am surprised people have not heard of allheal. It is a curse for gardeners. If you get it in your lawn, it is a devil of a job to get rid of it!
[If we’re doing cricket:
Lillee c Willey b Dilley
Perth, 1979]
Jacob @30 – I live in Nice now and the parsing of that took me a while! I rarely think of this region as ‘Provence’… Côte d’Azur, Alpes-Maritimes, the French Riviera etc, but Provence to me always sounds more like it describes the inland bit of the south rather than the coast as well. I accept that I am technically incorrect with that, but there you go, the mind is a funny thing…
¯\_(?)_/¯
(Reference Michael Holding being a force to be met with try reading his recent book where he interviews his heroes on the subject of racism such as Rashford. He is now quite calm! ). Enjoyed the crossword. Nutmeg giving us a few Paul would be proud of!
offspinner @35 I still remember a Guardian editorial at the time of a world cup in the eighties. They trawled the football league to come up with a team to confuse the Argentinians. Unfortunately I have forgotten the final two, perhaps some here with long memories can remember too. “Waddle, Hoddle, Broddle, Waddle, Hoddle, Broddle, Waddle, Hoddle, Broddle, …., ….”
Last night I got everything except MOTHER’S RUIN across the bottom, because I’d carelessly put in “chancel” instead of CHANCES at 18d, which left me with M_T_E_L U N. This morning I thought of “manage? = RUN around I, and RUIN tipped me off to the rest.
Thanks for parsing FLAMBEAUX — shouldn’t there be an indication for French or foreign? Has “flambeau” become an English word?
8d How does ESCAPE = “take off”?
Thanks to Nutmeg and manehi for a fine diversion.
copmus@21 I stopped trying to work ASS into 3d after a while in the same situation.
Famous bit of commentary . The bowler’s Holding the batman’s Willie. ?
Valentine @39 – escape / take off for the weekend?
I made heavy weather of this from the outset by putting TAKING A SHOT for 1a. Finally sorted out after staring at the Red China toughie anagram for ages.
I liked STIPULATE very much. In 1d, I was looking for an anagram of legend + O with bowling as an anagrind. I was a bit surprised when Michael Holding emerged. Seemed like not quite general knowledge these days, although I remember him well. I once saw him in the nets in Oxford warming up and was able to appreciate firsthand what an amazing athlete he was.
Thanks, Nutmeg and manehi.
Valentine @39. “Take off” = get out fast = escape (in some situations).
Thanks both,
Some smiles along the way in solving this. Not that I’m quibbling, but is ‘Bantu’ a language? When discussing the family of Bantu languages informed commentators seem to use ‘Bantu’ as an adjective rather than a noun. Kibantu seems not to be a language natively spoken but rather to be a lingua franca for speakers of different individual languages from the family. While ‘Chinese’, say, could be used to describe various Chinese languages and one could happily say ‘He was speaking Chinese’, I don’t think I’ve heard ‘He was speaking Bantu’ – people would either be more specific as to the language being spoken (eg Chibemba) or not know whether it was a Bantu language or from another family or be ignorant of varieties of local language and say something like ‘an African language’.
However I’m sure Chambers or some other imperfect dictionary will define it as the language.
BANTU: Chambers: group of African languages; ODE: group of Niger–Congo languages; Collins: group of languages of Africa.
Thanks Nutmeg for a nicely clued crossword. I ticked SCAMP, FLAMBEAUX, NITRATE, AMUSES, ESCAPE, and MISPRINT as notable. I revealed ALLHEAL, not knowing the plant nor heel being list. I hadn’t heard of Holding but guessed it from the crossers. Thanks manehi for the blog.
talking of Larkin, and of cricket, there is an interesting centenary piece on the topic in Wisden 2022. Not sure if it is accessible online, but worth looking at if you have access to this issue of the ‘Cricketer’s Bible’
A very enjoyable puzzle. PUNT was deservedly popular, and I was impressed also by the very neat BUSTIER and MISPRINT. I too had to learn ALLHEAL along the way.
Thanks to Nutmeg and manehi.
Enjoyed the crossword and needed the blog for ALLHEAL (not solved) and
PROVIDENCE (not parsed). Thanks Nutmeg and Manehi.
Continuing the cricket thread I have no doubt that Stokes, Woakes and Foakes are all good blokes.
Never heard of ALLHEAL but disappointed I failed to twig it from the wordplay. Saw the reverse lurker with VIRTU but thought that couldn’t be right & then promptly forgot about it. No problem elsewhere. TAXMEN my fav.
Thanks to Nutmeg for a fun solve & to Manehi
A long slow satisfying puzzle. Only two on the first pass, but some Paddington stares at recalcitrant clues resulted in surprisingly steady progress. Excellent, Nutmeg.
[Thanks to Muffin and Essex Boy for their discussion of ruination at the tail end of yesterday’s blog. In response to the House of the Rising Sun reference (“…the ruin of many a poor boy…”) I suggested MOTHER’S RUIN. What’s it called when the thing you were talking about one day appears serendipitously in another context the next?]
[A happy coincidence?]
Thanks, Shirl@10 – I know the square root of diddly-squat about cricket, but that quote was the first thing that came into my mind too.
For 9a, I got stuck for a while on BUSH RAT, for reasons I won’t go into.
It’s almost a shame that Nutmeg didn’t take the opportunity to give us something like MIRPSINT at 15d. That would have been fun.
Despite being a cricket fan (first Test was England v Australia at Headingley in 1948 where I saw mrs grantinfreo’s heartthrob’s first Test century) my first thought for bowling legend was Drake.
Thanks to Nutmeg and manehi.
By the way, I tried to buy Ken a few doughnuts but the site wouldn’t accept my British postcode. It insisted on a zipcode, perhaps in deference to the location of what sometimes seems to be the majority of contributors here!
[Andrew@51 … well the obvious word a la Jung is synchronicity, which I find hard not to believe in even though most examples can be put down to ‘there’s a lot of stuff going on in your life and in others’ so it would be surprising if things didn’t jive occasionally’. Have thought of this lately wrt to similar clues in crosswords one or two days off – when we know that the time of setting and the time of publishing are way different … though I could come up with a causal explanation of this.]
Most enjoyable thank you Nutmeg! Couldn’t do 4d so thanks Manehi for explaining. I’m a cricket scorer from a cricketing family and agree with Paddymelon@14 that this comes in very useful for crosswords. Agree with Gazzh@27 that someone “having a bash” is the host rather than someone “in” (in?) a party – found 1a a bit clunky. But still solved it. Great fun, thanks all.
Like GregfomOz @54 I also thought of bush rat, no doubt for the same reason.
Love this puzzle, favourites were : enforce, stipulate, mothers ruin, misprint.
Had to Google Sub-Saharan languages and didn’t get Allheal. Only criticism is that Cannes is in Alp-Maritime and not Provence. Why not use a place in Provence for this clue ?
Ok so I looked up Provence and it does cover Cannes… I thought it was a department and not a wider region..