Thank you to Paul. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1, 11. Dictator broken by dismissal, rub salt in wound (3,3,4,2)
PUT THE BOOT IN : PUTIN(Vladimir, Russian dictator) containing(broken by) [THE BOOT](dismissal/the sack).
4. Peer offering testament on seafood, shortly (6)
SQUINT : NT(abbrev. for the New Testament in the Bible) placed after(on) “squid”(seafood) minus its last letter(shortly).
9. Sea monster finishing off Balearic islands? (4)
ORCA : Last 2 letters of(finishing off) [“Minorca” and “Majorca](two of the Balearic Islands).
Answer: …/killer whale. And which can be found in the waters off the Balearic Islands.
10. Pressure on America if a shambles, to all appearances (5,5)
PRIMA FACIE : P(symbol for “pressure” in physics) plus(on) anagram of(… a shambles) AMERICA IF.
11. See 1
12. See 22
13. Will claims Dick works near building site? (9)
BRICKYARD : BARD(a poet, and example of which/? is William – Will in short – Shakespeare) containing(claims) RICKY(like Dick, a diminutive of the name, Richard).
15. See 21
16. Deal stuffed, by the sound of it? (4)
PACT : Homophone of(…, by the sound of it) “packed”(stuffed/crammed into).
17. Good to see message about humanity originally attributed to monastery (9)
WATCHABLE : [ CABLE(short for cablegram, a message sent over the telegraph lines) containing(about) 1st letter of(… originally) “humanity” ] placed after(attributed to) WAT(a Buddhist monastery).
21, 15. Party leader has admitted tellin’ stories to lose the plot (3,4,1,4)
FLY INTO A RAGE : FARAGE(Nigel, leader of the political party, Reform UK) containing(has admitted) [ LYIN’(lying/telling, without the “g”, stories/lies) + TO ].
An appropriate surface?
22, 12. Particular area, part of body doctor showed: foot (4,2,3,5)
NECK OF THE WOODS : NECK(part of the body) + anagram of(doctor) SHOWED: FOOT.
24. Having curbed expression, 1-0 ahead of an Italian team (5,5)
INTER MILAN : TERM(a descriptive expression) contained in(Having curbed …, …) [ I(Roman numeral for 1) + NIL(zero/0) ] plus(ahead of) AN.
Answer: Italian football team.
25. Bluenose Republican in scumbag (4)
PRIG : R(abbrev. for a member of the Republican Party) contained in(in) PIG(a scumbag/a despicable person).
Defn: …/a prude.
26. Sun features European article in reports (6)
RELAYS : RAYS(sunbeams/sun features) containing(… in) EL(the article “the” in the European language, Spanish).
27. Credit given to journalist via bank (6)
BYLINE : BY(via/through) + LINE(a row of similar things/a bank).
Down
1. Issue hurdling boat in discipline with obstacles (7)
PARKOUR : POUR(to issue/to flow out of) containing(hurdling) ARK(a boat, like Noah’s).
Answer: An activity/discipline of moving rapidly through an area while negotiating obstacles.
2. Dead round (5)
TOAST : Double defn: 1st: …, as in “you overstep and you’re toast!”; and 2nd: A slice of bread, toasted bread included.
3. Old money has Ivy League member in clover, say (7)
HA’PENNY : PENN(abbrev. for the University of Pennsylvania, a member of the Ivy League of American universities) contained in(in) HAY(animal fodder made from, eg/say, clover).
Answer: … or halfpenny, former/old British money, viz. a coin worth half a penny.
5. One not drinking alcohol, tiniest amount of Cinzano spat out by duck? (6)
QUAKER : 1st letter of(tiniest amount of) “Cinzano” deleted from(spat out by) “quacker”(slang for something that quacks, eg/? a duck).
Answer: A member of the Christian group, the Religious of Society of Friends, which advocates not drinking alcohol (or drinking in moderation).
6. Very soon plague carrier brought a flame (9)
INAMORATA : [IN A MO](or “in a moment”/very soon) + RAT(a plague carrier) plus(brought) A.
Defn: …/a female lover.
7. Play with leading character in turmoil, case of denial in general (7)
TWIDDLE : 1st letter of(leading character in) “turmoil” + [ 1st and last letters of(case of) “denial” contained in(in) WIDE(extensive/general) ].
Def: …/fiddle with.
8. Spectacular drop as champion hits the canvas, Ali’s arms held up (8,5)
VICTORIA FALLS : [ VICTOR(champion/winner) + FALLS(collapses/”hits the canvas”) ] containing reversal of(… held up, in a down clue) 1st and last letters of(…’s arms) “Ali”.
14. Ridge in black rock for insect (9)
COCHINEAL : CHINE(a mountain ridge) contained in(in) COAL(black rock).
From which comes the dye:
16. Used up, looking at new token for beer (7)
PILSNER : Reversal of(Used up, in a down clue) [RE(with reference to/looking at) + N(abbrev. for “new”) + SLIP(a coupon/token) ].
18. Grant that’s secured absolutely not for the French clergy (7)
CANONRY : CARY(Grant, American movie actor) containing(that’s secured) NON!(“absolutely not!” in French).
19. Beastly and brave rule on ineffective banks (7)
LEONINE : Hidden in(… banks) “rule on ineffective”.
Double defn: 1st: … like a lion; and 2nd: … like a lion.
20. Squat where food processor stored by operative (6)
STUMPY : TUM(like “tummy”, slang for “stomach”, a food processor) contained in(stored by) SPY(an operative in an intelligence agency).
23. Afford to listen to island? (5)
CAPRI : Homophone of(… to listen to) “Afford”.
Answer: …, an island and also a Ford motorcar:
The first generation:
OMG, as i believe they say. I was dying for your blog to come in, scchua, as I could not for the life in me crack 23d. Thanks so much. Am administering the ritual self-kicking. I did think of “a ford” – but only as a crossing. Have not even read properly the rest of your work. Will do so now. Should add grateful thanks to you and to Paul for the very enjoyable work out.
I believe 9A refers to MinORCA and MajORCA.
I parsed 9 as (Men)ORCA and (Mall)ORCA.
re 9ac – I simply read this as the suffix to Menorca and Mallorca (aka Minorca and Majorca). Still reading …
26ac – the article is EL in RAYS? Will stop it now and just read happily….
RELAYS
a minor correction
EL in RAYS
Liked SQUINT, BRICKYARD, FLY INTO A RAGE, INTER MILAN, VICTORIA FALLS, STUMPY and CAPRI.
Thanks Paul and scchua.
Thanks for the corrections. Blog amended.
The Chines that I know about are the steep dried out river valleys particular to the Bournemouth in Dorset area. I felt the 4 letter sea monster at 9ac had to be ORCA, but was clueless as to why. And the only one I wrote in on first run through was PARKOUR, which I knew from a very active group practising this called Storror, based in Brighton and with hundreds of thousands of followers online.
Having said all that, most of this was beyond me, so well done those that did manage to complete the grid today ..
Didn’t think of a homophone in the wordplay for 23d, so thanks for the elucidation. Been a while since Ford made Capris, I think. Parsed ORCA like @2, @3 and @4. Thought the definition for QUAKER a bit loose. Realise I misspelled PARKOUR. Liked PUT THE BOOT IN, BRICKYARD, NECK OF THE WOODS. Thanks to Paul and scchua
so glad it wasn’t me blogging this – I don’t think I parsed more than a third … well done, scchua. The only chine I ever experienced was at Shanklin, IOW as a small boy – and that was a ravine.
As a geography graduate, the only chines I had heard of were the ravines on the south coast of England (Shanklin Chine on the IOW is famous as the starting point for the PLUTO ‘Pipeline Under The Ocean’ in WW2). However, looking it up in Chambers, that appears to be from a different word. Chine is also an old word for the spine, and I suppose that is where it developed the meaning of a mountain ridge from.
Very hard work, but worth it. The last time WAT formed part of a clue, it was a “temple”. This time it’s a “monastery”, and both times it defeated me, as did NECK OF THE WOODS and CAPRI (Ouch). I resorted to a list to find the Ivy League member (the right one was immediately obvious), and went through several lists of ducks before the quacker gave me QUAKER, though according to a Quaker contributor on the Guardian, they are not necessarily teetotal.
Lots of nice penny drops: the food processor in STUMPY, the clever ORCA (maj and min), INAMORATA, TWIDDLE, and finding the right grant for CANONRY.
Definitely a dnf. Among other failings, I pressed the wrong button for the anagram helper and accidentally revealed PRIMA FACIE: turned out I had the wrong fodder anyway. But good fun – thanks Paul and scchua.
Many thanks Paul and Scchua – a lot of fun this morning. I was defeated by WATCHABLE despite getting the ‘H in CABLE’ bit, partly because I’d had wats down as temples rather than monasteries (though I guess they are both, so fair enough) and partly because I hadn’t thought of “attributed to” as ‘coming after’ (on reflection that’s fair too). Like others I also missed the second step needed to parse CAPRI. Many favourites, though a concern is that having previously described inclusion in a national cryptic as an honour second only to a Desert Island Discs invite I’m now worried that the party leader will take 21/15 as an accolade. Please, nobody tell him!
Andy@11, if ever you’re feeling rich and carnivorous enough to buy a rib of beef you’ll find the butcher asks you if you want it “chined” – the spinal ridge removed … so it’s still in current use for that.
Thank you scchua. Quaking in my boots even trying to imagine myself in your shoes.
Completely fooled by the Putin / Farage envelopes. Thank you scchua and Paul
Tomsdad@9 there’s a new Ford Capri though inevitably it’s now an SUV 🙁
Loved INAMORATA, COCHINEAL (which now has to be called carmine in food ingredients) and the Cinzano swigging duck
Grid filled but definitely a points victory for Paul today
Cheers S&P
I can’t see INAMORATA without thinking of this line from the Hippopotamus song:
His inamorata adjusted her garter
And lifted her voice in duet,
A worse (!) rhyme later in the song was:
A regular army of hippopotami
Forgot about Wat of the Angkor variety, and wondered about line = bank (overthinking, maybe the bank gives a line of credit …).Slip for token also a bit oblique. Vaguely remember parkour from somewhere, very slow to surface. As for af Ford … d’oh! So, chewy but worth the effort, thanks Paul and scchua.
haggis@16
These dictators are all the same…
This was really hard. I didn’t get anything last night except PRIG and CAPRI — the latter from the definition, not a clue about the wordplay. This morning with assiduous use of the check button I slowly pieced the rest together.
Never heard of PARKOUR, what a weird-looking word. I’d never have guessed it, had to reveal (as an alternative to trying every consonant to see what check thought of it).
I don’t think of slices of bread as rounds, so my take on Toast/Round was more alcoholic, and perhaps un-Quakerlly, though I know a good many Quakers and don’t think they’d all be averse to a glass of wine.
Thanks, Paul and scchua.
Very fiendish offering today, and probably the toughest Cryptic for me in a long time. Glad I persisted (I think) as some of the clues were brilliant, especially PUT THE BOOT IN, FLY INTO A RAGE, INTER MILAN and VICTORIA FALLS. The nho PARKOUR was guessable and CAPRI elicited a chuckle along with QUAKER, which was a bit loose, as evidenced by two members on the G site. Brilliant puzzle.
Ta Paul & well done scchua for disentangling everything.
Phew, glad that ordeal is over, and can’t believe we completed it tbh. Bung-ins for Pilsner and Capri, but struggled to get many of the answers and those Ha’penny drop moments were very slow in coming
So many thanks to scchua for explaining everything and to Paul for a bruising workout
Thanks for the blog , LEONINE took me the longest , could not see it because ineffective started on the next line and I was fixated on its banks being ie at the end . Only one three-line clue which is a good sign .
Farage cowering below Putin very appropriate after all his crawling on Russia Today .
Agree with Valentine @21 , the Quakers I know do drink alcohol .
I eventually put this together with a lot of help and parsed everything except the f-ford CAPRI, doh! It took far too long to see the nicely hidden LEONINE. I liked the topical FLY INTO A RAGE – for our overseas visitors, FARAGE is our Trump-lite. I think I’ve seen the -ORCA trip before somewhere. I don’t often applaud Paul’s surfaces but I did like those for PRIMA FACIE and VICTORIA FALLS. I also appreciated the wordplays of INTER MILAN and CANONRY, and the part anagram for NECK OF THE WOODS.
Thanks Paul and scchua for the pictorial help.
Wow that was tough – but I got there in the end with some help from the check button.
Thanks to P and S
Why would a brickyard necessarily be anywhere near a building site?
Great fun but had to reveal CAPRI, BYLINE and WATCHABLE. I was none the wiser after despite having owned a Ford Capri. Cheers for the blog clearing it up.
Favourite today VICTORIA FALLS
Cheers schuaa and Paul
I found this very tough, and was pleased to only have to reveal 4 or 5, including the nho INAMORATA.
Got LEONINE from the crossers and was shocked reading the blog to see it was a hidden word!
Bluenose means something entirely different in the West of Scotland (derogatory term for a supporter of Glasgow Rangers FC, or a person of the Protestant religion) so PRIG was my loi.
Many thanks to Paul and to sschua, especially for the parsing of CAPRI which did make me laugh out loud.
TanTrumPet @29: I had the same thought about bluenose. Remarkably few comments today on such a great puzzle. Perhaps many gave up on this one, as I almost did on a few occasions.
Wow, both Putin and Farage in the same puzzle; I guess Paul’s political leanings are obvious. As to his prediction (or preference?) for the Champions League winner – not PSG – we’ll see tomorrow…
Excellent, challenging puzzle. INAMORATA was a jorum for me, brilliant clue. Needed the blog for lots of parsing e.g. PILSNER and the superb CAPRI. It all works, but favourites were STUMPY and QUAKER.
Finished Vlad yesterday, bar a couple of nudges.
As usual with Paul, no idea with this, 1a the only clue I could get.
Thanks both.
This was hard, and like many others, I finally had to reveal a couple.
Fun fact: the athletic teams for PENN (from HAPENNY) are referred to as the QUAKERS (Pennsylvania being the Quaker State). Less fun fact: the most famous Penn graduate is a certain controversial politician/felon you might have read something about this morning (and possibly every morning for, oh, the last ten years or so). Less said about him the better.
Another fun fact–and this one brought a smile to my face as an Indiana boy–the racetrack on which the Indianapolis 500 is held, officially the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, is colloquially called the BRICKYARD. (During its early decades, the track was made of brick, hence the name. When they finally paved it over, they left a three-foot-wide stripe of bricks at the finish line so there would still be a BRICK YARD.) The 500 is, alongside Monte Carlo and Le Mans, one of the three most prestigious auto races in the world, so there’s your most famous BRICKYARD. No building sites involved.
Thanks both.
Very few comments as has been noted and I suspect Thumpers’s father in the chair. On INAMORATA I offer (in the absence of Eileen (pace muffin)) this for the entertainment of initiates (it’s a tradition in this parish).
Alphalpha @35
Yes, I took Mr. Hare’s advice.
I used to look forward to a Paul puzzle, he was the heir apprent. Nowadays, my first impulse is to avoid even trying to parse. Gone are the days where you could ferret around the edges looking for a way in which would reward the effort with some excellent clues, but now all I see are painfully contrived clues. Maybe there are still gems but all I feel is being dragged into ever more contrived parsing for the sake of obscure revelations that are more about how the setter has cleverly tried to confuse the solver ss opposed to taking you on a journey.
Well said, Alan D@37.
Well done scchua for the blog.
Paul, I feel, tries too hard these days.
Oh no! This was one of those crosswords where getting one more answer never lead to sunny uplands but cast you back immediately into the ever encircling gloom!m from whence you came.
Congratulations (mega) to all those who managed to complete this without electronic aids. As proud paper solvers we got our comeuppance today.
I have heard Paul say that he never knows if one of his crosswords is hard or easy. So, despite the great many complimentary comments above (check / revealers?), I would say to him that this was far too hard and it’s about time he did!
I’ve not said nothing at all.
Thanks scchua and Paul. I was battered here. Got half a dozen and not all of those parsed. Normally with a Paul I find a few I can do to get a foothold which allows me to get others from the definition and crossers. Not today. Hardly any ‘easy for me’ clues, and plenty of stuff I’ve never heard of. I’m hoping this is one for the experts only rather than I’m being dumb.
I usually get on well with Paul, but this was very difficult! I managed to get there in the end, but with quite a few unparsed.
For the record, “American” movie actor Cary Grant was in fact born in England. It took me forever to spot how that one worked.
I had no idea that Quakers are supposed to eschew alcohol. In my experience, that practice is not widely followed these days.
I couldn’t for the life of me see how 19dn (LEONINE) worked. It’s amazing how hard those hidden clues sometimes are to spot, when the answer is literally right in front of you.
I know a few Quakers, and they seem to rather enjoy a drink or two (though not three or four)
This was hard! And yet in the end I finished it without resorting to any help, and enjoyed it.
I couldn’t parse 23D but everything else made sense.
Some that I liked:
– Put the boot in
– Fly into a rage
– Orca
I confidentially began by putting in brimstone (the butterfly) at 15d. It didn’t get much better for me.
Xjpotter@45 , snap . I fold my paper when trying the Down clues so that I can not see the grid . For 15D I thought brimstone straight away , it works perfectly and the b and the stone came to mind immediately . When I came to put in the Downs it would not fit and I had to think again .
Pretty well same on all points as Roz, 24.
I managed to finish this last night, so got off to sleep more quickly than I otherwise might have.
Thanks all.
Bruised but eventually (1 1/2 days later) not beaten. WATCHABLE was LOI. I don’t want to preach but – @37 AlanD, @38 nametab @@39 Caroline – I’m convinced that the difficult puzzles stop being frustrating if you trust that it might take a few sittings before the answers reveal themselves. Congratulations to the Editor for making this a Friday one, it would have stressed me out at the beginning of a week. Thank you P&s!
23d was a guess with crossers, but after I had typed it in ‘A ford’ almost knocked
me out of the chair…DOHH!
Tough but ultimately enjoyable. Annoyed that I didn’t try harder to parse CAPRI, but it was my penultimate answer (PRIG was last) and I had resigned myself to having to consult references to understand wat/monastery and bluenose/prig
Often a case of guess the answer and then parse it rather than work out the answer from the clue. Some very clever clues, and some brand new words.
I don’t exactly mean this as a criticism, but I live near Puget Sound where orcas are struggling to survive and they are highly intelligent (their intelligence may rival ours) with complex language and devoted family groups. And, yes, they are carnivores and therefore hunters. But they in no way deserve to be called “monsters.”
https://youtu.be/G93beiYiE74?si=bCCYsA81_5BTZSzB
Finished! And in under a week!
I really enjoyed this on a wet Sunday (8 June), having quickly finished yesterday’s Matilda prize.
It took me a while, but I got there in the end.
I love a Paul puzzle, as I’ve said before.
I do the puzzles on paper and don’t always start them on the day of publication. Not sure when I started this one but it’s taken me at least a week, possibly more. Stuck for several days on squint and Quaker.
I can’t believe I completed this puzzle. It seemed so opaque for the longest time, and then gradually fell into place. Not all parsed, but all correct
2d TOAST, I also thought the second definition had to do with a round of drinks
Best was 8d VICTORIA FALLS — brilliant surface
This is one of the puzzles I’d saved for a holiday with my brother, as we don’t often get a chance to work on them together. We did the contentious Enigmatist (29,750) yesterday and finished it today, and started this one between clues as a palate cleanser. It wasn’t as hard as the Enigmatic one and had at least one laugh out loud moment when we got CAPRI. 😂
Last one in was PILSNER as we thought RE for “looking at” was a bit of a stretch, but we just shrugged at SLIP for “token” and wrote it in.