The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29574.
Some tricky stuff here, with one, 12A FOURTH which is beyond me. The top and bottom lines of the grid read MERI KIRIHIMETE; one hardly needs to know the language to recognise this as the Maori rendering of MERRY CHRISTMAS. I wish the same to Pangakupu, and to all.
| ACROSS | ||
| 8 | PANTHEON |
President in the immediate future blocked by the gods (8)
|
| An envelope (‘blocked by’) of ‘the’ in P (‘President’) plus ANON (‘in the immeddiate future’). | ||
| 9 | OSMIUM |
I’m into band performer backing heavy metal (6)
|
| A reversal (‘backing’) of an envelope (‘into’) of ‘I’m’ in MUSO (musician, ‘band performer’). | ||
| 10 | BATH |
Ancient city hospital getting behind cricketer (4)
|
| A charade of BAT (‘cricketer’) plus H (hospital’), with ‘getting behind’ indicting the order of the particles. | ||
| 11 | INTOLERANT |
Keen on tirade about the French being prejudiced (10)
|
| An envelope (‘about’) of LE (‘the French’) in INTO (‘keen on’) plus RANT (‘tirade’). | ||
| 12 | FOURTH |
Podcast’s out a fraction (6)
|
| It’s open season: I have not the slightest idea about the wordplay here. | ||
| 14 | COARSELY |
Vehicles circling old cathedral city in a rough manner (8)
|
| A charade of COARS, an envelope (‘circling’) of O (‘old’) in CARS (‘vehicles’); plus ELY (‘cathedral city’). | ||
| 15 | INCURVE |
Rascal in rude vein making bend (7)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of CUR (‘rascal’) in INVE, an anagram (‘rude’) of ‘vein’. | ||
| 17 | MISRULE |
One’s run into stubborn guy offering traditional Christmas festivities (7)
|
| An envelope (‘into’) of I”S (‘one’s’) plus R (‘run’) in MULE (‘stubborn guy’). In mediaeval times, the Lord of Misrule was appointed to oversee Christmastide revelries, and the New Year Feast of Fools. | ||
| 20 | SHOETREE |
Footwear support: repositioned toes here? (8)
|
| An anagram (‘repositioned’) of ‘toes here’. | ||
| 22 | SHOGUN |
Ancient governor retaining corner in fine weather (6)
|
| An envelope (‘rataining … in’) of HOG (verb, to take all or almost all, ‘corner’) in SUN (‘fine weather’). | ||
| 23 | IMMACULATE |
Well-turned-out – obvious personal statement about actual dressing (10)
|
| An envelope (‘about’) of ACULAT, an anagram (‘dressing’) of ‘actual’ in I’M ME (‘obvious personal statement’). | ||
| 24 | WHEY |
Question about energy in dairy product (4)
|
| An envelope (‘about’) of E (‘energy’) in WHY (‘question’). | ||
| 25 | CROCUS |
Flower pot not finished by our group (6)
|
| A charade of CROC[k] (‘pot’) minus its last letter (‘not finished’) plus US (‘our group’). | ||
| 26 | HITHERTO |
Success for woman also curtailed till now (8)
|
| A charade of HIT (‘success’) plus HER (‘woman’) plus TO[o] (‘also’) minus its last letter (‘curtailed’). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | MACAROON |
French biscuit? French politician consuming one with doughnut separately (8)
|
| MACRON (Emmanuel, President, ‘French politician’) with A (‘one’) and O (‘doughnut’) inserted ‘separately’. | ||
| 2 | ETCH |
Diet challenging to some extent? Eat away (4)
|
| A hidden (‘to some extent’) answer in ‘diET CHallenging’. | ||
| 3 | RELISH |
Enjoy hard currency, not against piling it up (6)
|
| A reversal (‘piling it up’ in a down light) of H (‘hard’) plus SIL[v]ER (‘currency’) minus V (versus, ‘not against’). | ||
| 4 | IN STOCK |
Ready to be displayed, given traditional punishment? Not quite (2,5)
|
| IN STOCK[s] (see here; ‘given traditional punishment’) minus the last letter (‘not quite’). | ||
| 5 | KOHLRABI |
This vegetable supplies make-up material, mostly wild (8)
|
| A charade of KOHL (‘make-up material’) plus RABI[d] (‘wild’) minus its last letter (‘mostly’). | ||
| 6 | IMPRESARIO |
One is Mr Opera, when working? (10)
|
| An anagram (‘when working’) of I (‘one’) plus ‘is Mr Opera’, with an &lit definition. | ||
| 7 | RUNNEL |
Regret accommodating two navies on large or small stretch of water (6)
|
| An envelope (‘accomodating’) od NN (‘two navies’) in RUE (‘regret’) plus L (‘large’). | ||
| 13 | ROUTE MARCH |
Corps in the armour failing extended military training (5,5)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of C (‘corps’) in ROUTEMARH, an anagram (‘failing’) of ‘the armour’. | ||
| 16 | VIRTUOSI |
See one tour is arranged for top soloists (8)
|
| A charade of V (vide, ‘see’) plus I (‘one’) plud RTUOSI, an anagram (‘arranged’) of ‘tour is’. | ||
| 18 | LAUREATE |
Honoured recently after burying waste? (8)
|
| An envelope (‘after burying’) of UREA (‘waste’) in LATE (‘recently’ – late can be an adverb). | ||
| 19 | TERAOHM |
A lot of resistance to harem pants (7)
|
| An anagram (‘pants’) of ‘to harem’. Indeed ‘a lot of resistance’ – 10 to the power 12 ohms to be precise. | ||
| 21 | HUMERI |
Buzzing with rising passion, they respond sharply when struck (6)
|
| A charade of HUM (‘buzzing’) plus ERI, a reversal (‘rising’ in a down light) of IRE (‘passion’). The definition refers to the sharp response on hitting the ulnar nerve at the elbow, where it is trapped between the outer end of the humerus and the skin – commonly referred to as “hitting the funny bone” (probably with a pun on humerus and humourous). | ||
| 22 | SVELTE |
Elegant articles taken from bar near midnight? (6)
|
| A subtraction: S[a]VE (‘bar’) plus L[a]TE (‘near mignight’) minus two As (‘articles taken from’). | ||
| 24 | WHET |
Sharpen question having European instead of American (4)
|
| WHAT (‘question’) with E replacing A (‘having European instead of American’). |
The parsing of SVELTE was completely beyond me. Thank you!
I got, but couldn’t understand, FOURTH and MISRULE. Thank you PeterO for explaining the latter.
I would have thought it was OF LATE that meant the same as recently. Can someone provide a sentence where you can use either LATE or recently, to mean the same thing – I seem to be having a mental block right now.
I was very glad that the nina was topical; it is somehow so much better than being a random word.
There were a few here that I bunged in without understanding the parsing. My only guess at 12 is ‘out’ indicates a homophone, and a podcast is sent FORTH. Thanks and Merry Christmas to all!
I parsed FOURTH as sounding like (podcast) of FORTH (out) but honestly I had a big question mark by it.
I had the same parsing as you for MISRULE and SVELTE, both with question marks.
Many thanks to PeterO for the blog and to Pangakupu for a very challenging offering. Seasons greetings everyone 🎄.
FOURTH . The explanation is clear:
Copilot said
Ah, I see! The answer “fourth” to the crossword clue “podcast’s out a fraction” plays on a specific wordplay.
Let’s break it down:
The phrase “podcast’s out” suggests an anagram (a rearrangement of letters).
“A fraction” hints at something related to parts or positioning.
If you take “podcast” and rearrange the letters (anagram), one possible result is “castpod.” However, the clue also involves a fraction, which might point to a specific position within an ordered sequence.
In this case, if you look at the position within the sequence (the fourth letter of “castpod” is “s”), it’s clear that anagramming and the concept of positioning or ordering combine to lead to the answer “fourth.”
Crossword clues often have these clever twists! Need help with another clue? 😊
So much for AI!
I found this quite tricky. Nice Nina – I googled the most obvious letters to get it.
I couldn’t parse FOURTH or RELISH. Thank you PeterO for explaining RELISH.
I hadn’t known that meaning of MISRULE until I googled it, at the suggestion of a contributor to the G site – interesting.
I thought IMPRESARIO was a clever clue. (So that’s an &lit?) My other favourites were LAUREATE, IMMACULATE and SVELTE (Svelte took a while to parse).
Thanks for the challenge Pangakupu and for the explanations PeterO
Wishing setters bloggers and solvers a happy, safe and peaceful holiday season.
FOURTH: I like the simple explanation by Pauline in Brum@4.
I’ve never had much success with puzzles by this setter, and usually don’t attempt them, but I did today. Only solved four after half an hour, went for a long Christmas Eve walk, then returned to see if I might better tune into the setter’s wavelength. But no. Gurney’s in the FT restored my faith in myself.
Happy Christmas all.
@4Dr.WhatsOn
You can say as late as the 1960s or as recently as the 1960s
Thanks P and P. Took longer over misrule and svelte than the whole rest of the puzzle. And for fourth I even looked up fourath and fourtah in case either was a thing .. very improbable! So, as for others, it was something of a shrug.
Happy Season all.
Pauline in Brum @4 is correct with FOURTH IMO. Chambers has Forth = Out and Podcast is the “sounds like” indicator (please note I didn’t use the dreaded H word 😉 )
FOURTH
I agree with Pauline in Brum@4. I have seen ‘podcast’ used as a homophone
indicator before.
Faves: IMPRESARIO, IMMACULATE and SVELTE.
Thanks Pangakupu and PeterO.
Parsed 12a FOURTH as MAC089@3 & Pauline in Brum@FOUR
[OED’s LATEst sightings of 18d LAUREATE as an adverb: ”
2005 She arrived at the restaurant a few minutes late. B. Keating & S. Keating, Blood Sisters (2006) xix. 417
2003 Coming home stressed, eating late and then expecting to get a good night’s sleep. Independent 2 July (Review section) 6/2
2011 Woodall further upset them late in 1980 by backing Denis Healey for the party leadership. Daily Telegraph 12 January 29/1
2011 I late have been in Scotland, and I fear Macbeth is dead. P. Pontac, Codpieces 22
1995 Mo Karrouze (late of London, England) and his staff..invite you to experience the most advanced permanent waving technology. Prairie & City
(Western Manitoba) 10/1 (advertisement)”]
In common with everyone else I parsed FOURTH as a soundalike of forth / out. Needed the blog to parse RELISH and SVELTE.
Thank you to PeterO and Pangakupu with a Merry. Christmas to everyone.
Merry Christmas everyone. I would like Mr Ellison’s post gift-wrapped and under the tree, please.
“A lemon entry…..”was the punchline in an 80s joke about Holmes and Jeremy Thorpe!
Sorry wrong puzzle
It had to be OSMIUM though I have never heard of a muso.
I also guessed the nina before doing the puzzle, it couldn’t be anything else today, could it?
Wish you all a HAPPY CHRISTMAS, specially to all the other, er … , detractors out there 🙂
Never completely on wavelength with this setter but soldiered on to the end. Spent an inordinate amount of time staring at the interlinked LOI’s – SHOGUN and SVELTE before the parses came to mind. FOURTH did not occupy the mind for terribly long – I quite like to see contemporary references pop up occasionally and reference to a podcast, if not a L&S anagram, was highly likely to be a homophone indicator. (I’m expecting to see references to streaming/Twitch ere long). I was surprised to see president = P which is not in my Chambers but it is in POTUS (which presumably means we can use ‘of’ to indicate O and ‘the’ to indicate T in the future). And I needed Wiki to confirm that TERAOHM is a thing, Chambers again failing to support the setter. SVELTE, MISRULE and IMMACULATE were my podium today.
Thanks Pangakupu and PeterO
I couldn’t get beyond a homonym of ‘forth’ for FOURTH either. Merry Christmas, Pangakupu, but can you confirm whether that was your thinking? Other than that one which I entered reluctantly, I got there in the end, ashamed how long it took me to get KOHLRABI despite growing it regularly. Liked MISRULE and IMMACULATE. Thanks to Pangakupu and PeterO.
Finished and parsed all of them if PaulineinBrum is right
It took a while. Save =Bar took a long time to click, as did removing the V in Silver to get RELISH.
Thanks both.
Much too difficult for me. I saw the anagram in 20a, SHOETREE, but the rest . . . !?
Happy Christmas, everyone.
thanks! I gave Gemini solution (wordplay elements and definition) and it still complicated things:
Yes, that helps immensely! Thank you! Knowing that “out” is a homophone for “forth” clarifies everything. Now I can break down the clue correctly:
Podcast: This is likely a reference to a cast of people.
‘s: Indicates possession, suggesting the cast has something.
out: This is a homophone for FORTH.
a fraction: This is the definition.
The Solution Path:
Homophone: “Out” sounds like FORTH.
Podcast’s Forth: This suggests a cast has, or is associated with, a “forth.”
Fraction: A cast often has a FOURTH member.
Therefore, the answer is FOURTH.
Definition: “A fraction” (specifically, one-fourth).
Wordplay: A “podcast’s” (a cast’s) “forth” (a homophone of “out”) could be its fourth member.
Key to Solving:
Homophone: Recognizing that “out” is a homophone for “forth.”
Context: Understanding that “podcast” can refer to a group of people, a cast.
Association: Connecting “forth” to the idea of a fourth member in a group.
This makes perfect sense now. This clue relies heavily on the clever use of the homophone and the contextual understanding of “podcast.” I’m ready to tackle another cryptic clue if you have one!
A good mental workout, with about half going in relatively straightforwardly (well, on the first or second pass) and the rest taking rather longer, especially the SE corner. I was beaten by the parsings of FOURTH and SVELTE though in both cases it couldn’t be anything else from the def and crossers. My LOI was TERAOHM, which failed my usual obscure anagram test (i.e. the Chambers app word finder feature), but I now see that TERA- as a prefix does get its own entry.
Many thanks to Pangakupu and PeterO, and Merry Christmas one and all!
Dave Ellison@5 — yes, so much for AI indeed 😀
Copilot can’t even count — the fourth letter of castpod is “t”.
… and
AI is as much Artificial Intelligence as “Love Island” et al are Reality TV
Artificial Intelligence hasn’t been invented yet!
Stupidly I stayed up until the early hours to complete this but I was determined to finish and find the nina, which like Anna @ 18, I second guessed in the end. I hope it was my suggestion, SueM48 @6, to google MISRULE (I go under AlanCroons on the G site). Like PostMark @19, SVELTE and SHOGUN held out way too long and thanks for putting me out of my misery by parsing the former, along with FOURTH. Despite the insomnia, I really enjoyed this, with IMMACULATE and RELISH being my standouts. Festive greetings to everyone.
Ta Pangakupu & PeterO.
Thanks Pangakupu and PeterO
Several unparsed – FOURTH, of course, but also RELISH and SVELTE.
LAUREATE is a good example of my least favourite type of clue. You aren’t going to say “waste – that’ll be UREA, then”, so it’s very much “guess, then parse”.
PANTHEON makes up for it, though. I was quite happy with P for president once I had stopped trying to fit TRUMP in.
Anna @18, if ur Anna in Helsinki I’m somewhat amazed. Muso, journo, weirdo, pinko etc. Not to mention lingo!! It’s such a common linguistic-argot device!
Even crossword solver doesn’t have TERAOHM, so I feel justified in calling it a rubbish clue. 3 crossers, all the letters and I still gave up.
I thought FOURTH was quite clever, and a couple of others very neat, but this setter continues to irritate.
Hi g-in-f@30. Yep, Anna in Helsinki, the One and Only. Yes, I suppose it is a common device linguistically, I just hadn’t come across it though.
Sheldon says it’s OK though.
Today is the Big Day here, the Joulupukki has come. He lives on the Korvatunturi, you know.
Oofyprosser @31
I thought TERAOHM was quite good. TERA is a common scientific prefix, and the surface was nice.
Indicates one of (many) problems with AI- doesn’t know how to say “sorry, I don’t know”
Thanks to previous posters for parsing FOURTH. Favourites KOHLRABI and RELISH among others. I wondered about TERAOHM since I’d have spelt it without the ‘a’ – but Wikipedia suggests the ‘a’ is optional for meg(a)ohm, so presumably this is the case here, too.
I wasn’t sure about Pangakupu when s/he first appeared but now find the puzzles very good.
Thanks both.
I liked the What and Why in the South East corner. For once, I was on this setter’s wavelength, though I wondered about the use of “ancient”.I suppose it’s ok for Bath but Shogun’s don’t seem ancient enough to me. Happy Christmas one and all.
Very tough. Like Postmark@19, I am “Never completely on wavelength with this setter but soldiered on to the end.”
The top and bottom lines of the grid totally passed me by but I wish a happy holiday season to all.
I could not parse:
22ac HOG = corner
3d apart from H=hard.
New for me: OSMIUM, RUNNEL; Lord of MISRULE (for 17ac); INCURVE; TERAOHM.
I parsed FOURTH in the same way as Pauline@4, and I laughed/groaned at copilot/AI’s explanation in Dave’s post@5.
Thanks, both.
A really stiff workout, but very satisfying. I eventually parsed ‘fourth’, but it took a long time as I have not previously encountered ‘podcast’ as an homophone indicator – I shall watch out for it in future.
Season’s best wishes to everyone.
AlanC@28. Yes, it was your suggestion that I followed to google MISRULE. I recognised the similar handle. I then googled the Nina as well.
Dave Ellison @5
I was on the verge of deleting your comment as totally nonsensical until I realised you were quoting one of the solvers of the future. On reflection, it’s brilliant!!
Makes me tempted to get AI to do my next blog for me. What can possibly go wrong?
💻🖥️⌨️💥
I’m amazed to say I found this relatively straightforward, which seems to have been an unusual experience. I failed to parse FOURTH – is ‘podcast’ ever used as a verb?
I don’t have a problem with TERAOHM – the word is properly formed, though it seems an unusually large measure. As a chemist, I always like to see words like OSMIUM (and as metals go, there’s none heavier). Great to see Ely clued as cathedral CITY 🙂 . I would have thought the French biscuit was a ‘macaron’ – the MACAROON is usually a bastardised version bulked out with a lot of coconut.
Top likes: INTOLERANT, IMPRESARIO, HITHERTO, SVELTE – and the two interlinked questions are neat.
Thanks to the Kiwi and PeterO, and season’s greetings, one and all
AI is like a lot of blokes I know. Always knows the answer even when it doesn’t, and is happy to waffle. Also, warms to its subject on which, like Daddy Pig, it is a ‘bit of an expert’. And is boring, but thinks itself helpful and amusing. Come to think of it, rather like me.
Yuletide felicitations.
Oh, and I had GATH not BATH, with the cricketer being Mike Gatting aka Gat. And GATH is way more ancient than AQUAE SULIS, isn’t it?
Alec @42: I can identify with that description as well, made me chuckle 🤭
Found this one fairly straightforward, but came on here to try to discover the parsing of FOURTH and RELISH. So thanks to PeterO for explaining the latter and to everyone else on here (including the AI assistant!) for trying (and failing?) to make sense of FOURTH, which does seem to be the weak link in what was otherwise an excellent crossword.
Ticks for SVELTE for the neat trick, which I twigged to quite quickly, and IMPRESARIO for the lovely surface. NHO of KOHLRABI, but had heard of KOHL which got me there.
Also very happy to see MISRULE get a callout, a tradition that should in my opinion be revived. Similar traditions used to exist on other festive days, of which the only remaining vestige seems to be April Fool’s Day.
I am among the half who scratched their heads over 12A, but concur with Pauline@4.
This took several heavy helpings/attempts/goes. And I ended up feeling rather unsatisfied with the number of tentative insertions I made without proper clarity about the parsing. Shan’t even join the lively debate about how FOURTH deserves its place in the grid. Remembered the Lord of MISRULE from a Primary School Christmas play I recently enjoyed, and good old Ely with its magnificent cathedral gets yet another airing at 14ac, though not utilised for the See at 16d…
re. MUSO, I don’t know about New Zealand, but in Australia it seems to be common slang to take almost any word, shorten it, and add an O; for example, “ambo” for ambulance or “Melbo” for Melbourne.
As for AI, at least the subset of it represented by ChatGPT et al., in it’s current form it is basically Clippy on steroids and occasionally LSD. Sadly, the unrelated and very useful forms of AI are getting tarred with the same brush.
Like PostMark @19 & Michelle @37 I’m never on this setter’s wavelength – but it’s been an unsatisfactory crossie-week so I stiffened the sinews, summoned up the blood – and dived in. Got there in the end, and came here for help parsing MISRULE & LAUREATE, with SVELTE & FOURTH completely beyond me.
The fact that the erudite PeterO also couldn’t parse FOURTH was a great comfort tbh.
I loved Dave @5’s comment – and Pangakupu’s response.
Gervase @41: I used to work in broadcasting – and I’m sorry, but “podcast” can frequently be a verb. Depressing, innit?
Whatever you each celebrate at this time of year – have a good ‘un! Warmest regards to you all from a corner of rural SW France
Thanks Petero and Pangakupu. I’ve not come across muso before today….it’s in today’s Moriarty.
Hi Rik@9 – thanks for the answer. I would say those are the “same” in the same way that “half-empty” is the same as “half-full”. Perspective is different, but probable samey enough for here.
Final score: Pauline in Brum … 1, AI …. 0.
So thanks to Pauline in Brum @4 – and to Dave Ellison @5 for supplying that hilarious piece of gobbledegook (“Need help with another clue?”).
Dave Ellison.
The fourth letter of castpod isn’t S it’s T
I really enjoyed this one. Good Yule to all here, espeically Admin, PeterO and Pangakupa (and Margie and the cats!)
Re, Dave@5: the fourth letter of castpod is t, not s.
So I don’t understand your logic.
Dave@55 – his point was that this was the answer an AI chatbot came up with. They are bad at advanced cryptic clues and even worse at counting.
I got stuck about 3/4 of the way there, and cheated on both SHOGUN and VIRTUOSI to get myself unstuck. So a DNF. Otherwise very chewy and very enjoyable.
This is one of the rare years when Christmas and Hanukkah coincide (12/25 is the second-latest possible starting date for the latter). So happy whichever one you do, and if you do neither, enjoy the season and (for most) the time off work.
England vs New Zealand, next year.
You’ll have to do better.
PeterO and ronald@47 – for 16d I assumed V = Vatican (Holy See).
[Anna @32, I’ll ask my mate Pirkko how she celebrated The Big Day …]
Managed about half.
Too difficult for me.
Thanks both.
Ed@53
It is AI!
What did you expect?
🙂
Jonathan @59 – ‘V’ isn’t a dictionary-recognised abbreviation for ‘Vatican’, although it is for ‘Vatican City’. Whereas ‘v’ is in Chambers as ‘vide’, the Latin word adopted into English to mean ‘see’.
I’ve spent time on this periodically during the day, getting perhaps half of it completed: some parsed, many not. Explanations in the blog and the comments show this is way off my wavelength, for those I got and many that I subsequently revealed. Perhaps I’ll remember v=vide=see for future reference.
Not my day today – ah well, food prep to be done and then a drink to be poured…
With further regard to 12a, I don’t know about New Zealand English but in UK English a “fourth” is not really a fraction but much more commonly an interval in music. We say “quarter” and we don’t say “second” for “half”.
Solved and parsed, but it took several goes spread out over the afternoon and evening, so perhaps a pyrrhic victory. FOURTH was among my first few in; parsed too. Clever use of ‘podcast’ as pun indicator.
Less clever is giving Ely its full definition of ‘cathedral city’ – this is pandering to those who dislike metonymy, and makes the clue far too easy.
I wish I’d thought of Alec@43’s alternative solution for 10a. Mike Gatting => GAT(H) is brilliant!
Thanks to Pangakupu and PeterO.
SH @66
I think you are referring to me! I really appreciated “cathedral city”.
A real struggle but a sign of my improvement that I completed all the squares, albeit with 3, 12, 18 & 22d unparsed. I even found the nina!
One surprise to me is that no-one else has commented on the horrible “till” in 26! It has to be either “until” or “’til” surely, the clue has nothing to do with ploughing nor a cash register?
Thanks to Pangakupu for the workout & PeterO for the blog.
Graham @ 68
Chambers has ‘till’ as ‘up to the time of’, so the clue seems fine.
Don’t like bat for cricketer – I struggled with this but thought what the heck it’s Christmas eve and I’ve nothing better to do. Some really good clues though.
Can someone explain the nina please?
astral@71. Not sure if you want to know what a nina is, or what this one means.
As PeterO says in his preamble: The top and bottom lines of the grid read MERI KIRIHIMETE; one hardly needs to know the language to recognise this as the Maori rendering of MERRY CHRISTMAS. Pangakupu is from New Zeland and always has a nina in Māori.
astra@71. From the FAQ on the fifteensquared home page:
A Nina is a message (or theme words etc) hidden in the grid, sometimes round the perimeter, sometimes along a diagonal or sometimes in the unchecked squares in a particular row or column (or more than one of each). Its name is derived from the American cartoonist Al Hirschfeld’s habit of hiding his daughter’s name, Nina, in his cartoons.
I learned on Great British Bake Off that the French filled delicacy is Macaron, while the more rustic chewy British item is Macaroon. So perhaps “French Biscuit? Not quite!” may have been better. I’ve resigned to perhaps never being able to enter the CryptoSetter’s labyrinthine mind with FOURTHS!
Thanks both and
Season’s Greetings all!
Well, the FOURTH in PODCAST (c) is indeed OUT (caught) ?
sheffield hatter @66: I’m with muffin on this one. ‘Ely’ can refer to the diocese but NOT on it’s own to the building. Would you accept Liverpool or Sheffield as solutions for ‘cathedral’? By your logic they would be equally valid. If you thought it made the clue too easy, would you have preferred just ‘city’? 🙂
Muffin @67: Yes, it was you that I was referring to! 😁
And Gervase, too. The letters ELY are so common in English words that Ely’s is the most often referenced ‘cathedral’. To the extent that it’s almost the first thought on reading the clue. Does it really need to be made more obvious still?
I asked Gemini for a three letter ancient city and it suggested Jericho. I think we’re safe from the bots for a while yet 🙂
Happy Christmas all
Cheers P&P
Bodycheetah@78. To be fair, Jericho does have three letters. It also has four more! 😜
sh @77: Of course it’s an instantly recognisable device (‘chestnut’ would be a more seasonal title), but that doesn’t make it kosher. Remember how often we saw ‘in [somewhere]’ to signify ‘a place in [somewhere]’? Lots of muttering seems to have cured setters of that one 🙂
How do you like: ‘Beginning quietly in cathedral peal’ (10)
Gervase, just as dictionaries describe how language is used, rather than how it was intended to be used, so in crosswords (for example the recent slightly inaccurate clue for MOMENTUM) people with a scientific background are to an extent happy to accept general rather than specific definitions.
We should also – however reluctantly – accept the guidebook shorthand of “Ely has a spectacular octagonal lantern”. I understand yours and muffin’s abhorrence, but I still think it’s legitimate.
Did Steffen ever complete a Guardian cryptic puzzle? If so, Christmas Day evening would be a great time to sip a glass of Veuve Clicquot, if that’s how you spell it?
Merry Christmas 🎶
Dave Ellison, 5:
Thanks for that Dave.
It’s great to be bullshitted, especially when chummily patronised at the same time, and even more so by a collection – even if large – of semiconductor logic gates and other such hardware.
Happy times all.
PS, Cathedral City cheddar cheese is made by a company originally based in Wells.
Anyone think that Cathedral City is better than Canadian?
Rob T @63 Thanks for the clarification. Nevertheless V = Vatican (not vide) did take me to the answer. All roads lead to Rome.
I found this pretty difficult, especially on the right side, but I got there in the end.
I particularly liked the homophone indicator in 12ac, although (or perhaps because) it took me quite a while to figure out what was going on there.
1dn definitely seems like an error to me: as others have pointed out, macarons are French, but macaroons aren’t.
Personally, I don’t like “dressing” as an anagrind in 23ac, but I’ve gathered by now that I’m the only one who dislikes the fact that practically anything can be an anagrind, so this is my problem.
Podcast = sounds like forth (out). Fourth is the fraction.
Mauled by this one. Just got ten. Pangakupu wins this time!