A tricky puzzle from NEO this morning.
Many thanks to the setter for a very well composed puzzle. An enjoyable challenge, with some excellent surfaces.
ACROSS
1. Power-mad sort from an isle in a claim skewed with ego (12)
MEGALOMANIAC
MAN (an isle) in (A CLAIM with EGO)* (*skewed)
10. Ancient ascetic catching cold shows perfect form (7)
ESSENCE
ESSENE (ancient ascetic) catching C (cold)
11. Free ale left out needs advertising? (7)
LEAFLET
(ALE)* (*free) + (LEFT)* (*out)
12. Checked garment very French wife wears (5)
TREWS
TRES (very, French); W (wife) wears
13. Stuart eviscerated by Helen, thespian in Scottish club (2,6)
ST MIRREN
S[tuar]T (eviscerated) by MIRREN (Helen, thespian)
Scottish football club
15. Course includes bread and Irish cheese (10)
LANCASHIRE
LANE (course) includes CASH (bread) and IR (Irish)
16. What sewer may carry in central areas gets fruity (4)
ETUI
[g]ET[s] [fr]UI[ty] (in central areas)
18. Our trash regularly removed in state (4)
UTAH
[o]U[r] T[r]A[s]H (regularly removed)
20. Little son carrying weight (10)
SMATTERING
S (son) + MATTERING (carrying weight)
22. Material from Web in plan approved to hold crowd back (8)
GOSSAMER
GOER (plan approved) to hold MASS< (crowd, <back)
24. Little bird, duck joyful at last in rain? (5)
OWLET
O (duck) + ([joyfu]L (at last) in WET (rain?))
26. Finished drink — lay on another? (7)
OVERLAP
OVER (finished) + LAP (drink)
27. Driver takes a road westward — new woman going that way (7)
DRAYMAN
A RD< (a road, <westward) + (N (new) + AMY (woman))< (<going that way, i.e. westward mentioned previously)
28. Absorbing information, cast eye at nasty letters found here? (6,6)
ESTATE AGENCY
Absorbing GEN (information), (CAST EYE AT)* (*nasty)
DOWN
2. Band manager’s recordings with One In Ten (7)
EPSTEIN
EPS (recordings) + I (one) in TEN
Brian Epstein, famously the manager of the Beatles
3. Americans ignoring Republican reforms as one unable to recall (8)
AMNESIAC
(AME[r]ICANS)* (ignoring R (Republican), *reforms)
4. Skinned foxes and bovines trained to work (4)
OXEN
[f]OXE[s] [a]N[d] (skinned)
5. Do this with a tall tree tumbling that traps one? (10)
ALLITERATE
(A TALL TREE)* (*tumbling) that traps I (one) – semi &lit
6. Asian occasionally fiery ran quiz (5)
IRAQI
[f]I[e]R[y] [r]A[n] Q[u]I[z] (occasionally)
Hm. I suggest that in this type of clue it needs to be exactly every second letter removed, but a minor point…
7. Criminal partner dismissed by primate in sect (7)
CULPRIT
PRI[mate] (MATE (partner) dismissed) in CULT (sect)
8. Canine expert lets a dog run wild round men, slipping lead (6,7)
DENTAL SURGEON
(LETS A DOG RUN)* (*wild) around [m]EN (slipping lead)
9. Menhir bearing weight (8,5)
STANDING STONE
STANDING (bearing) + STONE (weight)
14. Macbeth unstable crossing two rivers in wee vessel (10)
CHAMBERPOT
(MACBETH)* (*unstable) crossing R (river 1) + PO (river 2)
17. Working inside, the French manufactured drink (8)
LEMONADE
ON (working) inside (LE (the, French) + MADE (manufactured))
19. Sour and astringent wind from the south east (7)
AUSTERE
AUSTER (wind from the south) + E (east)
21. Muslim, constant Neo’s returned to Scots girl (7)
ISLAMIC
(C (constant) + I’M (Neo’s))< (<returned) to ISLA (Scot’s girls)
23. Frequently nurses left parcel out (5)
ALLOT
A LOT (frequently) nurses L (left)
25. Work from Sturluson in unremembered days (4)
EDDA
[unremember]ED DA[ys] (in)
Very entertaining puzzle from Neo with just the right level of difficulty.
Liked the surfaces of LANCASHIRE and AMNESIAC, the ‘canine expert’ (8d) and most of all, CHAMBERPOT.
Thanks to Neo and Oriel for the parsing of AUSTERE which went in from the definition alone having toyed unsuccessfully with ‘a(s)cetic’ and ‘acerbic’.
Thanks, Neo and Oriel!
Enjoyed the puzzle and the blog!
Loved ALLITERATE and CHAMBERPOT (a funny surface)!
A very enjoyable crossword. I must admit I didn’t even notice the problem with 6d. Liked the misleading surface for DENTAL SURGEON and who’d have thought Macbeth could be found hiding in a chamberpot.
Enjoyable, plenty of smiles. I only got stuck on the UK-specific things, namely Isla, St Mirren, Brian Epstein, trews. But Google and Wikipedia came to the rescue.
Fortunately, the Auster did come to mind but only when I had written in the answer from the def; so many super named winds around the world. Which meant everything solved and parsed apart from IRAQI which, at this point, appears to be a glitch. Like KVa, I was very taken with ALLITERATE – what a cracking surface – and CHAMBERPOT – ditto plus an amazing anagram find. DENTAL SURGEON is very clever but somehow my spidey senses were alerted by that ‘canine’ at the beginning. LANCASHIRE, SMATTERING and STANDING STONE were my other favourites.
Thanks Neo and Oriel
2d – EPSTEIN – the italics and capitals attempting to misdirect us to a different band – One In Ten
Was I the only person to have an entirely different NEO puzzle to solve in today’s FT, one with instructions to obey the answer to 1d?
[Yes, Frankie, a Brummie reggae earworm stayed with me all day].
Thanks Neo and Oriel
6dn (IRAQI): Had the clue said “regularly” it would need the letters of the answer to be evenly spaced in “fiery ran quiz”. It seems to me that “occasionally” is the opposite of regularly, and therefore is telling us that the letters are not evenly spaced. Alternatively, Neo could just have made a mistake.
Pelham Barton @9: it’s a neat argument but, insofar as there are some conventions in crosswordland, one of them is that both occasionally and regularly are taken to mean alternately in a clue such as 6d. Indeed, occasionally used as per your suggestion could give setters free range to pick any old letters from a string which would be palpably unfair to the solver. I suspect Occam’s razor is best applied here.
PostMark@10:; Since typing comment 9, I have remembered a discussion some years ago, possibly on a puzzle in the Independent, where the wording in the clue was very explicit that we to find some letters irregularly distributed from a word or words in the clue. I remember welcoming it as being about the same level of difficulty as an anagram. The idea that there is a fixed set of conventions applied throughout crosswordland is just factually incorrect. When I last looked, Azed was holding out against such stretches of language as “extremely silly” for SY, “oddly coloured” for CLUE, “first lady” for L, and “fathead” for F. And do not get me started on that ghastly device, the unsignalled requirement to split a clue word.
PostMark @10 That may all be true, but what Pelham Barton says about occasionally is also true, and whereas Pelham Barton is relying on what the word actually means, you are relying on convention, which is really just an admission of being on shaky ground. I expect it’s a slip (not one I noticed) but it does illustrate why it’s a bad indicator. Isn’t it usually used when the setter has already used regularly in another clue?
Further to my earlier comments on 6dn, my interpretation asks us to choose 5 letters without changing their order from 12, so one of at most 792 possibilities – actually slightly less because of the two Rs close together. In 8dn, we are asked to put 11 different letters into a new order, so one of 39,916,799 possibilities. Even if it was not Neo’s intention today, the device that would make 6dn work as I have parsed it seems perfectly fair to me.
Wow, some unknowns to me: Edda and Sturluson. Drayman. Menhir.
GDU: Brian Epstein is probably one of the most famous pop managers, almost or even better known than Colonel Tom Parker – manager of Elvis.
12A – I only managed to solve this from the Andy Stewart song “Donald, where’s your trewsers?”
I found this a bit challenging too. I enjoyed it, but thought a few too many clues required specialist or UK knowledge.
Same as Diane @1 – thanks for explaining AUSTERE. Auster was one the unknown words I could not deduce. Favorites are all of those mentioned above.
Thanks Neo and Oriel
I really enjoyed solving this crossword. Favourites included Helen the thespian, 5d and Macbeth’s wee vessel
Thanks very much to Neo and Oriel
One of my pet peeves is when setters use “frequently” to mean “regularly”. I expect Neo may pop in and admit (or not) the error so, until then, I feel enough has been said.
This is bizarre. I think I slipped into a parallel universe. I printed out and solved the PDF of a completely different puzzle, also numbered 17,575 by Neo. It was quite hard, and I am not sure that I have solved it correctly. I will try to blog that puzzle if I can reconstruct it. The online puzzle (solution provided here) is numbered 1,575 by Neo.
O me gawd. I think I know what’s happened, but I shouldn’t really attempt to clear this mystery up without the ed coming in.
Thanks to all esp Oriel btw.
19dn: It may or may not be worth pointing out that AUSTERE comes from the same root as the Latin adjective australis, which of course gave the name to the southern land Australia.
[Hovis @17: on the distinction between frequently and regularly, I was once talking to a senior colleague and we swapped nominations for the most regular bus service we knew. Mine ran once a week on a day beginning with T (I forget which), so it was not affected by most bank holidays, but stopped running over Christmas and New Year in some years. My colleague’s suggestion ran once a year on Remembrance Sunday, which meant a 2 percent variation in the gap between services, which could be either 52 or 53 weeks.]
Correction to 23: I should have said that AUSTER is linked to Australia. The word austere comes from a completely different origin.
Something odd going on. My online version is numbered 1575 instead of 17575. This could be the source of the muddle.
However, I enjoyed this and learnt some new words::EDDA and ETUI as well as Auster the wind.
Thanks to Neo and Oriel
EDIT – Update to this in a later comment
Hi everyone. I have amended the number of the puzzle here to how it appeared in the FT app. I now have the puzzle numbered 17,575 and will upload a blog for that solution as soon as I can. Seems the FT had two different puzzles published today. Double the fun!
Thanks for all the comments and input.
The Gremlins are certainly out in force at the moment, problems with the FT and Guardian puzzles on several occasions. I will let the dust settle on this one before I comment.
Oriel @ 24: I am unable to find the original 17,575 puzzle for which a new blog will appear; the FT app and this site both connect to the puzzle for this blog, and the 17,575 number now appears on the app. If anyone can provide a link, I would like to give it a go.
ub@26: My apologies, and also some context below for anyone who missed it…
There was some confusion with two different puzzles published earlier today depending on where you accessed it, but the FT has now removed one of them (the one as yet unblogged) entirely. I have to assume that the other ghost puzzle (some were able to access earlier) is perhaps intended for publication in the near future, so rather than spoil the fun I think it best to hang tight and see if it appears soon!
I read 6d IRAQI as occasionally fiery = IR, occasionally ran = A and occasionally quiz = QI. Repeating the “occasionally” instruction allows it to provide for a different sequence for each word.
I quite liked this puzzle, with too many ticks to list. Thanks Neo and Oriel for the fun.
Thanks Neo. My reaction to this masterful crossword (No 17,575) is “airlocks get destroyed (5,6)” My many favourites included 1a, 8d, 9d, ST MIRREN, OWLET, EPSTEIN, CULPRIT, and CHAMBERPOT. I utterly failed with GOSSAMER, I couldn’t parse AUSTERE, and I parsed IRAQI like Cellomaniac @28. Thanks Oriel for the blog.
Oriel @ 27 probably very wise 😀
Cellomaniac@28 and Tony@29 re 6dn: It seems to me that you are creating two further problems of your own. For “occasionally” to apply separately to the three words really needs something like an “and” before the last of them, which would of course ruin the surface. Also is it sensible to use “occasionally” to indicate just the middle letter of a three letter word? All you gain is support of an unnecessary convention. Simply let “occasionally” apply in its normal meaning across the three words together and there should be no problem in the first place.
Peter @ 14, I’ve missed those golden days a year or so ago when you used to start every reply to me with “I can’t believe you haven’t heard of …”
PB @ 31 If you’re parsing 6dn like that (and it seems logical to me), then IRANI is probably just as valid an answer. Given that I got stumped on quite a few clues, I need all the successes I can get!