A wonderful challenge for the patient solver.
In his trademark unique style, IO has set a real brainteaser. If you stuck it out, then good for you and hopefully your sense of satisfaction is as good as mine.
(ABOUT TOWEL)* (*wrong)
TORT< (wrong, <counter)
Cryptic definition
Both of the previous two clues (across clues specifically) contain the word ‘wrong’: this is the ‘something about the last couple’ i.e. TWO WRONGS
PUN< (wordplay, <about); [h]OW (the way, Cockney) introduces it
Stereotypically, the Cockney accent drops the letter H in pronunciation
(AIRSTRIP A FOOTS W (width))* (*out)
‘Two-pair-of stairs’ is a Britishism describing the second floor/storey of a building up two flights of stairs
CON (lag) + VEXED (cross)
CON and LAG both refer to a convict
MAN[a]GER (boss, has mislaid A)
EAR (one hears) + THY (solver, old)
KEEP (guard) for protection of NEED (necessity)
Cryptic definition
‘The Sun’ being the tabloid in question; if their crosswords were syndicated they wouldn’t set these themselves
B[arbarian] (first) + RULE (order)
GO IN GRATE (that firelighters do)
Double definition
For the first: Oaks is one of the Classic English horse races, of which there are five
(PART (character assigned to) + RAIL (bar)) keeps PE (working out, Physical Education)
0 WT (what orbiter has, no weight)
Helen Sharman was the first Brit to travel to space, but relevant here is that she is from the North of England, where ‘OWT’ is slang for ‘anything’
“TOO” (“listener’s” also) + DOWN (depressed)
Cryptic definition
‘Two-up two-down’ describes typical British terraced houses with two rooms per floor (of which there are two: up and down). The ‘last couple’ refers to the last two clues (down clues specifically): TWO< (two, <up) + TWO DOWN
(RE[g]ULA[t]I[o]NS)* (*altering, GOT vetoed)
(S[a]Y IF SO)* (*poorly, A going AWOL)
Double definition
(PRETTY PICS (little pictures))* (*dotted) around S (second)
TICKET (label) attached to BOOTY (prize, for cycling)
O (old) + OVEN< (baker, <turning) + ICE (cold)
BOW RUCK (fight in E3, according to Spooner)
This requires a bit of knowledge: E3 is a London postcode for the area called Bow
(AREA TEN)* (*after scuffle)
[i]MAGINE* (*cryptic, not being able to start)
E[as]EL (art supporter, AS (when) deserting)
Great puzzle. Superb blog (not an easy one to blog, I think).
Thanks Io and Oriel.
Quite difficult to pick my faves.
TWO WRONGS…and TERRACED HOUSES were excellent.
Liked many other clues, including OWT and ROEBUCK.
British born and bred here, yet in over half a century on this earth I have never heard nor seen the ‘Britishism’ phrase TWO-PAIR-OF-STAIRS. Amazing!
Two consecutive virtually impossible puzzles, yesterday and today. I couldn’t even get 24d despite not having to imagine.
Come on FT, let’s be challenged but not crushed.
What kva said @1
Thanks to Io and Oriel
Thanks for the blog , great puzzle , especially the clever idea for the third clue across and down . A friendly grid helped a lot , the perimeter and many first letters .
OWT is simply wrong for the orbiter part . Weight is the force of gravity , nothing will orbit without this force .
Agree with Nudge@2 but had to be that answer .
Sorry Kevin@3 , I have been through this myself , I am sure the FT will balance things out .
As noted by Kevin @3, a really difficult one from Aadvark yesterday and the expected really, really difficult one from Io today – phew! I relied on enumeration and crossers for 10a/9d and 21a and there were plenty of others I couldn’t parse so thanks to Oriel for explaining everything so ably. I eventually completed this unaided with a correctly filled grid, but to be frank it was such a slog I was more relieved than satisfied when I finished. I’ll break the Fifteensquared rules and the habit of many years to give my solving time which was a lightning fast 2 hours 55 minutes; yes, patient if nothing else.
Thanks anyway to Io and Oriel
“OUT AT ELBOW”?
“TWO-PAIR-OF-STAIRS”?
“TICKETTYBOO” with two Ts and just one word?
Never ever heard or seen any of these before and I’m a northerner.
impossible for me too
I feel like I’ve learned a lot of British English, British turns of phrase, British slang, British terminology, and British cultural references over my 15 or so years of doing British crosswords. But this one had so many of those all in one place that it felt like I’d made no progress at all. A good fraction of this may as well have been in Swedish. Anyway, I did manage a bit over half of this puzzle without using the cheat buttons, and three or four more answers after I started revealing. To be fair, I also hadn’t heard of either LUNARIES (plants get me every time) or E RE NATA (and I have a law degree!), so it wasn’t all just Britishness getting in the way. Anyway, I’ll stop before it sounds like sour grapes.
Kevin@3 I might agree re the last two days’ FT puzzles, except that I completed (and enjoyed) yesterday’s Aardvark offering. Horses for courses, I guess.
Having opted to pass on today’s Io, I nonetheless find the blog psrsings useful to read, so (belatedly but still sincerely) thanks to Oriel and of course to Io.
Thanks IO and Oriel.
Terrific stuff – both the puzzle and the blog. Thanks for filling the holes in my parsing.
TWO WRONGS top fav plus PAPER TRAIL, ONE VOICE, OSSIFY, CONVEXED make my list.
An anagram for a Latin phrase? Give me strength. This setter is clearly very talented, but a little high on his own supply.
I failed with E RE NATA but should have worked it out. I was flagging after a long slog.
It is good to have a challenge but I hope for something easier next time. Like Nudge@2 I had never heard of TWO-PAIR-OF-STAIRS and I am over eighty.
Thanks to IO for very clever puzzle and Oriel for a brilliant blog
Hehhggzhwhwwwwhhwhhbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbse🍧
Sorry but I do not know what happened at the end of my post!
I have a passionate dislike of, inter alia, latin in crosswords and I couldn’t find any online reference to E RE NATA, only PRO … or EX …
Liked TWO DOWN and the BOW RUCK
Cheers O&IO
It is in Chambers93 , there were very few options with the letters and grid and I got lucky first time . Bottom right can often be a place where setters get stuck , maybe nothing else would fit .
“Two pair of stairs” is in the second paragraph of “David Copperfield.” Betsey Trotwood’s husband “was strongly suspected of having beater Miss Betsey, and even of having once, on a disputed question of supplies, made some hasty but determined arrangements to throw her out of a two pair of stairs’ window.”
Forgive me: “beaten” not “beater”.
Brilliant puzzle. Loved it, especially the Latin.
SM@13 The end of your previous post represents how I felt after trying to complete this puzzle and giving up: frazzled and in need of a bowl of sugary comfort!
As per blogger, immensely smug to have completed eventually, making a start yesterday and giving it the full-on electronically assisted attack today.
19D the very definition of an obscure clue – bottom corner desperation from the setter?
Somehow I worked out the anagram for 12A and to my amazement found it is actually a phrase!
Guessed that Helen Sharman must be from t’north but not happy that we’re expected to know that.
Entertaining AND educational…
Fun and fancy cluing is great. Use of obscure local references that tests ones vocabulary is great. Both together at the same time is impossible
Great stuff-loved the TWO theme including OWT
What a setter. And nice blog too
Gave up with about a quarter to go.
Thought it was very good, but too good for me.
A roebuck is not a stag
It’s a buck.
Some male deer species are called stags (e.g. red deer)
Other male deer species are called bucks (eg Roe and fallow deer)
I write as someone with a qualification called DSC1
Gave up with about a quarter to go.
Thought it was very good, but too good for me in the time available.
A roebuck is not a stag
It’s a buck.
Some male deer species are called stags (e.g. red deer)
Other male deer species are called bucks (eg Roe and fallow deer)
I write as someone with a qualification called DSC1
I doubt anyone will ever read this comment.
Thanks Oriel. I was not in the right frame of mind to tackle this puzzle with any success, but thought I would try to parse the published answers before reading this blog. I still did not make the connection at 3dn between terraced house and two-up two-down, perhaps because my flat is the upper floor of a terraced house and has four decent sized rooms. I am not completely sure that all two-up two-down houses are terraced either.
As to 17dn, the relevant dictionary definitions are as follows:
roebuck
the male of the roe deer – Collins 2023 p 1724 and Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 2007 p 2600;
the male roe – Chambers 2016 p 1349, under the headword roe², “a small species of deer (also roe deer)”;
a male roe deer – Oxford Dictionary of English 2010 p 1539.
stag
the adult male of a deer, esp a red deer – Collins p 1927;
a male deer, esp a red deer over four years old – Chambers p 1514;
a male deer, especially a male red deer after its fifth year – ODE p 1734;
the male of a deer, esp. of the red deer; spec. a male red deer after its fifth year – SOED p 2990.
It may be that the distinction between buck and stag mentioned by Moly @23/24 is upheld within the deer stalking community, but that community does not own the words. The dictionaries are clearly unanimous in the view that, within the general population, the word stag is used at least some of the time to describe male deer of any species.
mrpenny@8, I too have a law degree, and I even took a course on British legal history, and like you I have never heard of E RE NATA. Too obscure even for the jargonistas. Then, finding the anagrist was too difficult – I tried CT AREA X, COURT A X, A SETTER ( 10 = IO = setter), and even ET CETERA (like maters arising).
The rest of the puzzle I enjoyed, even the other ones I couldn’t get or parse, because there was much wit in the cluing.
Thanks IO for the masochistically enjoyable beating, and Oriel for the much-needed pain relief.
PB@25, thanks for the dictionary references for ROEBUCK and STAG. In defence of Moly@24, I would argue that their use of the words “especially” and “specifically” suggests that there is a generally understood distinction between buck and stag that goes beyond the deer-stalking community. Mind you, that didn’t hold me up in the solving, so it wasn’t a problem for me.
Cellomaniac@27: Thank you for that. It was because of the indications “especially” and “specifically” that I put the words “at least some of the time” into my final sentence. I can readily accept that the distinction is maintained in a wider group of people than the deer-stalking community, but not necessarily in the population as a whole. It is not a distinction that was familiar to me, but I do not attach much weight to that statement.
Thanks PB and C for the comments on Buck and Stag. I’m delighted my comments were read and remarked upon.
Incidentally, I got the answer Roebuck, though not quickly, and I was slowed by the (for me as a deer stalker) Stag / Buck “error”. I accept that in crossword land the clue is probably ok, but I thought readers (of which I anticipated very few, if any) might be interested in the point. I thought it might particularly appeal to pedants…….( no names, no pack-drill)
All I can say with confidence is that a deer-stalker would never refer to a male Roe deer as a stag. Nor a male Red as a Buck. Not in the UK anyway.
“I shot an old Roebuck this morning. The beast needed culling because he had been repeatedly damaging poor Mrs Thomas’ prize rose garden”
“I watched a magnificent (Red) Stag roaring in the glen, while holding 13 hinds”
(The stag was holding three hinds.
Not me ………(lots of laughing emojis))
Very late to the party as usual, and wouldn’t normally comment so long after but I had to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this. I Thought it was at the easier end of Io’s offerings. I knew that Helen Sharman is from Sheffield but I have never heard of Two pair of stairs or e re nata, however, they became pretty obvious when I got some crossers in, especially the first e in 19d. Thanks Io for the usual clever clueing which always provides an excellent brain work out and to the blogger for a job well done!
As a more casual crossworder, this completely defeated me. I gave up four solutions and two days in.