Like many of you, I was unable, throughout yesterday, to gain access to 15², until early evening and even then I kept getting the error message whenever I moved to a different page. I decided to stay up until midnight, when the puzzle is published, and hope for the best, as far as posting a blog was concerned.
It was a relief to find a congenial puzzle from Maskarade – pretty straightforward but with some really nice clues – which I solved with my fingers crossed. Somehow, I managed to delete my first draft but a couple of hours later, with a few hiccups, I’d written all the blog, apart from the preamble. It was a great relief to be able to find it when I woke up – I hope you are all able to make contact this morning.
I enjoyed this puzzle, with its fine anagrams, with surfaces to match, at 11ac, 14ac, 18ac, 3dn, 4dn,and 13dn. 1ac, 25ac and 5dn made me smile and I also liked 5ac and 22ac.
Many thanks to Maskarade for the puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Missing first dance, policeman comes in for a drink (7)
ALCOPOP
COP (policeman) in [g]ALOP (dance)
5 Empty three-master of the late Renaissance? (7)
BAROQUE
BARQUE (three-master) with O (nothing) inside, so ’empty’
9 Look it up, either way (5)
REFER
A palindrome
10 Old invader cut call for Charlie Parker’s instrument (9)
SAXOPHONE
SAXO[n] (old invader – cut) + PHONE (call)
11 Bangers and mash from a hospital chef for starters (10)
CHIPOLATAS
An anagram (mash) of A HOSPITAL +C[hef] – my top favourite
12 An Indian, oddly, appearing in opera (4)
AIDA
Odd letters of An InDiAn
14 Publicise new tramline for transport interchange (3,8)
AIR TERMINAL
AIR (publicise) + an anagram (new) of TRAMLINE
18 Arrange part of Sachertorte, crumbling (11)
ORCHESTRATE
An anagram (crumbling) of SACHERTORTE
21 Coffee machine capsules for schools (4)
PODS
Double definition
22 Those wandering around county town for trainer (6,4)
TENNIS SHOE
An anagram (wandering) of THOSE round ENNIS (county town of County Clare)
25 Tick in tack? Get away with you! (9)
SKEDADDLE
KED (tick – a new word for me: ‘a wingless louse fly, especially one that is a parasite of sheep’) in SADDLE (tack)
– a lovely word, which I haven’t heard used for years
26 Knotty problem with load, starting from mid-morning (5)
NODAL
[mor]N[ing] + an anagram (problem) of LOAD
27 Man Ray’s art movement keeps Welshmen in check (7)
DADAISM
DAIS (Welshmen) in DAM (check)
28 Comes into force? (7)
ENLISTS
Cryptic definition
Down
1 Father in charge in car club on the continent (6)
AFRICA
FR (father) IC (in charge) in Automobile Association (car club)
2 Commons’ leader leaving in wooden box (6)
COFFIN
C[ommons] + OFF (leaving, as in ‘I’m off’) + IN
3 Strains of carol Pete’s arranged (10)
PERCOLATES
An anagram (arranged) of CAROL PETES
4 Cooked tapas and ziti, say (5)
PASTA
An anagram (cooked) of TAPAS
5 Perhaps Brownie pack arrived with artillery (3,6)
BOX CAMERA
BOX (pack) + CAME (arrived) + Royal Artillery – a lovely picture
6 String of Pearls — part of Meyerbeer opera (4)
ROPE
Hidden in MeyerbeeR OPEra
7 Intelligence rating that results from division (8)
QUOTIENT
A cryptic, rather than a double definition, I think, as they are closely related – see here
8 Looks closely at Cockney cocktails (8)
EYEBALLS
As a Cockney might pronounce ‘highballs’ (cocktails)
13 Cold meal prison dished up (10)
IMPERSONAL
An anagram (dished up) of MEAL PRISON
15 Cad died before noon in Dutch port (9)
ROTTERDAM
ROTTER (cad) + D (died) + AM (ante meridiem – before noon)
16 Calm, having made up? (8)
COMPOSED
Double definition
17 A boss of a detective department who’s hooked? (4,4)
ACID HEAD
A CID HEAD (boss of detective department)
19 Island ways reported (6)
RHODES
Sounds like ‘roads’ (ways)
20 Genuine manuscript showing spheres of activity (6)
REALMS
Real (genuine) + MS (manuscript
23 Riviera city — home to European relation (5)
NIECE
NICE (Riviera city) round E (European)
24 Gershwin’s turned up, covering for Indian (4)
SARI
A reversal (turned up, in a down clue) of IRA’S (Gershwin’s)
Cannot make contact in my favoured way. Can only do it by changing access device and/or browser. I’m wondering how bloggers do it by early morning ?
Loved CHIPOLATAS, ACID HEAD and SKEDADDLE and found myself immersed in Nostalgia particularly arround the places. Had a marvellous May night out at a European football final in ROTTERDAM, hitch-hiked to Nice, overnight, as a teenager and celebrated arrival with a beer at 5 in the morning and partook of a medieval banquet at Bunratty Castle, not too far from Ennis !
Also our first family “snapper” was a Brownie 127 BOX CAMERA. I do hope the https problem can be sorted out, else there are not going to be many contributions/reactions to puzzles per blogging day.
Thank you Maskarade and Eileen.
Thanks Maskarade and Eileen.
I was expecting something chewier when I saw the setter, but I’m not complaining.
Eileen – 27ac should read:
DAIS (WelshmEn) in DAM (check)
Thank you, Crispy – I’ll try to amend it now but I lost access again almost immediately after posting the blog. I hope there are not too many more errors or omissions. It still seems rather hit and miss, Flea @1.
Grrh! – I had to use another circuitous route to reach 15² and now my log-in password is not being recognised, so I can’t reach the blog.
It seems we’re not out of the woods yet. My apologies for possible lack of response to further queries.
I was going to say that I haven’t had any problems accessing this site, but Crispy @2’s comment about expecting Maskarade to be chewier (I’ve found him, especially as Doc, to be on the easier end of the spectrum) sent me checking on the “Setters” list on here and I got the message “SSL_ERROR_NO_CYPHER_OVERLAP” (Firefox on windo$e 11).
I enjoyed this, particularly BAROQUE for the “empty=O inside”, TENNIS SHOE, and SKEDADDLE for the clever juxtaposition of Tick and Tack.
I plonked NINA in instead of AIDA, and thought that that was the first time I’d ever spotted a “nina”. It fit, so I didn’t take too close a look at the parsing, and ended up with the wrong opera. I could not see the dance in ALCOPOP, so thanks Eileen for explaining that. Liked SKEDADDLE and CHIPOLOTAS, and thought that DADAISM was clever. Thanks to Maskarade.
Access okay now I have switched browser to SeaMoney.
Mu only query was shouldn’t the definition in 18ac read ‘Arrange parts’?
jackkt1 @7 – I had that query, too.
Several sticky moments for me. I got DADAISM, but have never heard of Man Ray, and I wouldn’t have associated “dam” with “check”. Never having had much to do with coffee machines, I was unaware that they had anything to do with pods. Never heard of a ked. Didn’t know Dai was a Welsh name. And it took me a bit of searching to find Ennis.
Everything else fell into place and was quite enjoyable. Thanks Maskarade & Eileen.
There’s a post on the Home page with an explanation for the access problems
http://www.fifteensquared.net/2023/06/27/site-access-problems/
but I suppose anyone reading this will have found their own way of surmounting the issue!
[Chrome let me come here, but then refused to let me add my comments, above. Fortunately I was able to copy them then paste them into Firefox to send.]
18 ac. I read it as arrange part, singular… then anagram of sachertorte giving orchestrate
If Orchestrate means to compose or arrange music for performance by an orchestra, I would have thought it could refer to arranging a singular part as well as arranging the combination of parts.
I agree – I think I misunderstood jackkt1’s comment: it seems to be referring to the clue.
Some very clever anagrams – (tramline)*=TERMINAL and C+(a hospital)*=CHIPOLATAS, for example – made this a more-enjoyable-than-on-other-occasions appearance for Maskarade. In fact I struggled for a time with RHODES and REALMS because I was treating them as potentially tricky, whereas in fact they were Monday-ishly facile.
It just goes to show it doesn’t have to be incredibly obscure. Oops, what am I saying? Of course it has to be obscure – let’s have the county town of Clare, the very last PASTA on the alphabetical list and ‘a wingless louse fly, especially one that is a parasite of sheep’, that’ll keep them on their toes.
Thanks anyway, Maskarade. And thanks to Eileen for getting the blog together successfully.
Didnt Steinbeck have a whiskey called Old Tennis Shoes?
sheffield hatter@15: the very last PASTA on the alphabetical list I happened to watch Lucy Worsley’s Puzzling on My5 last night and ZITI was mentioned there – otherwise never heard of it. (I shan’t be watching again, so my solving ability may decline)
Thanks Maskarade for the third easyish puzzle of the week; and to Eileen for the blog.
This is beyond ridiculous: I have had no access again until now – managed to get back through a link on the Guardian thread to some very sad news:
http://www.fifteensquared.net/2023/06/28/rip-nutmeg/
Not sure it’s worth commenting if no one will read it, but here goes.
I found this quite easy – Monday standard of difficulty. That makes three easy ones so far this week, so I’m expecting to be baffled on Thursday and Friday.
My only quibble is air terminal. I’ve never heard anyone refer to an airport terminal like this, bit I’m sure it’s OK. Google says an air terminal is a lightning rod.
Liked CHIPOLATAS and ORCHESTRATE
As someone who gives Maskarade’s bank holiday specials a wide berth I was relieved by the absence of any special instructions
While this was mostly straightforward I did find myself using pencil rather than pen for most of it – not sure why – maybe just not used to the style
Coincidentally I spent Tuesday morning fire-fighting SSL certificate issues on my partner’s website so I have every sympathy for Ken et al
Cheers E&M
ps: given the current volatility you may want to copy your posts to the clipboard before clicking the “Post Comment” button
I can access this site on Edge but not Chromium.
Thanks Masakarade and Eileen
Like bodycheetah, I duck Maskarade’s Bank Holiday puzzles – too much like hard work – so I was surprised by how easy this one was.
[AIR TERMINAL reminded me of when I was little and living in Maidstone I thought that the buses in to town went to the “turnibus”, because that’s what happened there!]
[Chris@21. “I can access this site on Edge.” I have been able to access it on my usual browser, which is Firefox, but I use Edge as an alternative sometimes. When I tried it after reading yours, I got a “connection for this site is not secure” message.
I use Chrome on my phone, but this tells me “this site can’t provide a secure connection”, and rubs salt in the wound with “www.fifteensquared.net uses an unsupported protocol”.]
Thanks Maskarade for a well-crafted crossword. I thought I would be in for a bit of a struggle but I was mistaken. [I guess Monk in both the FT and Indy will give me all the challenge I need.] In any event there were many clues I liked including SAXOPHONE, NODAL, BOX CAMERA, QUOTIENT, EYEBALLS, IMPERSONAL, and SARI. I needed a word finder for ENLISTS, my only stumble. Thanks Eileen as always.
[muffin @ 22 turnibus very nice – pure Stanley Unwin. My daughter when she was very young used to say she liked farties and cream crappers.]
Only 2 comments today and a handful yesterday – shows how many people are not able to get through.
I have just noticed another symptom? The system refuses to remember me, or is it hinting at something?
Only 24 comments
[my keyboard is wayward and doesn’t type numbers very well, also ys and us]
* posting now as I could not access the site since 27 June. I use a Mac and it would not even work with http instead of https
New for me: ALCOPOP.
I could not parse 5ac, 25ac.
Thanks, both.
Eileen – I’ve come to believe you’ve a steel trap memory when it comes to cryptarchivery. So (unless I’m mistaken) was surprised to note your observation concerning SKEDADDLE as I’m sure I’ve gaily welcomed its appearance at least once in recent years in a Guardian crossword (and, incidentally, it’s a word I’ve never stopped using; maybe only once or twice a decade – but definitely in my ‘current’ rather than ‘archaic’ or ‘selcouth’ English vocabularies)
I thought this was a beautifully constructed puzzle – easy, admittedly, but admirable
Many thanks both
William F P – just in case you’re still there. Slightly crossed wires: I wrote,
“a lovely word, which I haven’t heard used for years”. We used it a lot as children – but that’s a very long time ago. However, as you say, it has appeared a number of times in crosswords.
Thanks both…but a chipolata is not a banger in my book!
Eileen – my bad…I assume I read “heard” as “heard of” in its vernacular. I think I’ve heard Susie Dent speak of its American civil war origin; actually, there’s no certainty over its etymology, but I like its similarity with “sgedadol” the Irish for scattered and the Scottish “skiddle”. Having studied (ancient) Greek as a child I’ve also been surprised to learn only this morning of a verb “skedanoumi” (forgive the Roman lettering) with a similar meaning. But you’re right about it being more common when we were children. One younger grandmother (vintage 1880s; I’ve a grandfather born in 1842!) who seemed to care muchly about my levels of “gumption” and “jiggery-pokery” and was never ill but only “queer” may first have fanned my love of the word and had you the misfortune of my company, Eileen, you would still hear it from time to time – though never aimed at you, I’m sure!