Kairos has provided this week’s Tuesday teaser on what is traditionally theme day, of course.
I enjoyed working through what I consider to be a medium-difficulty puzzle, solving and blogging a Kairos puzzle for the first time in a good long while. Kairos has had the last laugh on me, though, since I have no idea how to parse 9, assuming that I have found the right answer – thanks to fellow solvers for the explanation, without which I would never have understood the wordplay; the blog has been amended accordingly.
As for the theme, on scanning my almost complete grid, I noticed that quite a few names of butterflies were to be found in it: at 1; 05/13, 6, 15, 25, 32 and perhaps elsewhere too. A nice summery theme for today, then.
My favourite clues today were 6, 24 and 28, all for surface reading; and 14 and 31, for overall construction.
*(…) indicates an anagram; definitions are italicised; // separates definitions in multiple-definition clues
| Across | ||
| 01 | MONARCH | Ruler against stopping progress
ON (=against, as in leaning against/on the wall) in MARCH (=progress) |
| 05 | PAINTED | Described little bear following father home
PA (=father) + IN (=(at) home) + TED (=little bear, i.e. teddy bear) |
| 10 | APSE | Members of people’s party held back in recess
Hidden (“members of”) and reversed (“held back”) in “peoplE’S PArty” |
| 11 | RANSOMWARE | Arrow’s men shot defending a Trojan vehicle
A in *(ARROW’S MEN); “shot” is anagram indicator; the Trojan of the definition is the ostensibly helpful, but in reality harmful, computer software |
| 12 | CREDENTIAL | Cretan lied appallingly in testimony
*(CRETAN LIED); “appallingly” is anagram indicator |
| 13 | LADY | Rector leaves obese woman
LA<r>DY (=obese, overweight); “rector (=R) leaves” means letter “r” is dropped |
| 14 | LUMBERERS | Fellers taking the lead from those who sleep
<s>LUMBERERS (=those who sleep); “taking the lead from” means first letter is dropped; the “fellers” of the definition are people who fell trees! |
| 18 | HOBBY | Pursuit // of raptor
Double definition: a hobby is a free-time interest, “pursuit” AND a hobby is a bird of prey, “raptor” |
| 20 | MERIT | Weary maiden returns showing virtue
TIRE (=(to) weary, fatigue) + M (=maiden, on cricket scorecard); “returns” indicates reversal |
| 21 | ADULATORS | Grown-ups welcoming article defending soldiers and lackeys?
OR (=soldiers, i.e. Other ranks) in [A (=article, in grammar) in ADULTS (=grown-ups)]; adulators are hopeless admirers, servile followers, hence “lackeys” |
| 24 | ACTS | Information Faraday omitted in book
<f>ACTS (=information, data); “Faraday (=F, unit used in electrolysis) omitted” means letter “f” is dropped; the Acts of the Apostles is the fifth book of the New Testament |
| 26 | GATEKEEPER | Supervisor has to punish footballer
GATE (=punish, e.g. schoolchildren by confining them to school premises) + KEEPER (=footballer, i.e. goalkeeper) |
| 29 | IMPOSITION | Introduction of setter’s site
I’M (=setter’s, i.e. Kairos’s) + POSITION (=site); the imposition of new rules, say, is their introduction |
| 30 | NOON | New Orleans working time
NO (=New Orleans) + ON (=working, as in I’m on at 8) |
| 31 | PALERMO | Port and beer imbibed by priest and doctor
[ALE (=beer) in PR. (=priest)] + MO (=doctor, i.e. Medical Officer); Palermo is a port and the capital of Sicily |
| 32 | ADMIRAL | Notice star left Nelson?
AD (=notice, i.e. advertisement) + MIRA (=star, in Cetus) + L (=left); the reference is to Admiral Lord Nelson, who led the British Navy to victory at the Battle of Trafalgar |
| Down | ||
| 02 | OPPORTUNE | Suitable work left with one in France?
OP (=work, i.e. opus) + PORT (=left, i.e. side on boat) + UNE (=one in France, i.e. a French word for one) |
| 03 | AMEND | Element to stop change
AM (=element, i.e. Americium) + END (=(to) stop) |
| 04 | CORONER | Judge’s expression of surprise over expert
COR (=expression of surprise) + ONER (=expert, one who is outstanding at something); a coroner acts as a judge at an inquest into a death |
| 06 | APOLLO | God’s a cut above ordinary
A + POLL (=cut, e.g. top off a tree) + O (=ordinary, as in O level exams) |
| 07 | NEWEL POST | Slope went awry in part of stairs
*(SLOPE WENT); “awry” is anagram indicator |
| 08 | ERRED | Offended by earls entertaining bishop and duke
[RR (=bishop, i.e. Right Reverend) in E E (=earls, i.e. 2 x E=earl)] + D (=duke) |
| 09 | ANTI | Against Jude and others employed by Claude?
NT (=Jude and others, i.e. books in the New Testament) in AI (=Claude, i.e. a generative AI tool) |
| 15 | BRIMSTONE | Sulphur and bromine site regularly mixed
*(BROMINE + S<i>T<e>); “regularly” means alternate letters only are used in anagram, indicated by “mixed” |
| 16 | ERA | Age of Father Abraham
Hidden (“of”) in “FathER Abraham” |
| 17 | SOU | Reportedly claim small amount of money
Homophone (“reportedly”) of “sue (=claim, to make a legal claim)” |
| 19 | BARCELONA | Ben and Carol composed a musical number
*(BEN + CAROL) + A; “composed” is anagram indicator; Barcelona could be the 1987 song by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé, or the song in the 1970 Stephen Sondheim musical Company. |
| 22 | LIKENED | Made a comparison with light surrounding President Nixon’s head
[IKE (=President, i.e. Eisenhower) + N<ixon> (“head” means first letter only)] in LED (=light, i.e. light-emitting diode) |
| 23 | EGOISM | Say order preserves island’s self-interest
I(=island)’S in [E.G. (=say, for example) + OM (=order, i.e. Order of Merit)] |
| 25 | COMMA | Smallest division // of winged insect
Double definition: a comma marks the “smallest division” of a sentence AND is a type of butterfly, hence “winged insect” |
| 27 | TOIL | Work with cut linen
TOIL<e> (=linen, i.e. dress material); “cut” means last letter is dropped |
| 28 | ENNUI | Boredom of sister cycling in East India
NNU (NUN=sister; “cycling” means last letter moves to front of word) in [E (=East) + I (=India, in NATO alphabet)] |
Thanks for the blog RR.
I came here hoping to find a parsing for 9d!
Thanks for the puzzle Kairos. I enjoyed spotting the butterflies once I’d discovered the theme.
I also came here looking for parsing for ANTI, then it hit me it’s NT for New Testament (incl Book of Jude) contained by AI for artificial intelligence, Claude being the name of a large language model developed by Anthropic. I’m not sure if Jude and Claude have any significance in the surface. I enjoyed this but couldn’t parse CORONER or AMEND either. Element going to any one of the 120ish elements is a tall order!
9d Claude is a form of AI (similar to Chat GPT) employing a set of books in which Jude is one
Don’t recall doing a Kairos puzzle before and this was a rare time I actually spotted the theme after COMMA fell.
Liked the RANSOMWARE and BARCELONA anagrams.
Still don’t have a clue about ANTI but atleast the crossers were kind.
Thanks Karios and RR
Can’t remember a named form of AI being part of wordplay or clue before — the logosphere’s always a-changin’.
(Mind you, happy to be corrected!)
Feeling smug that I guessed Claude was a kind of AI, though it was still a bit of an Obscure clue. Gif@5 We have had ChatGpt as an answer a few times, usually with a doctor being eaten in the process. As soon as I saw PAINTED LADY, I was looking for COMMA and ADMIRAL, though half expected to see Heath.
I just searched for a Palermo butterfly. It seems to be a kind of chair.
Even more obscurely Butterfly McMillan is the coroner in the film Psych.
Not a familiar setter, to me, but a tiny whiff of a Greek sub-plot, what with Trojan, Cretan and Apollo appearing, and Kairos him/herself in 2(d).
A few clues were ” join-the-dots”, and I felt some definitions were perhaps stretchy ( such as testimony/introduction ).
Then I made an ass of myself going first for BOOKKEEPER instead of GATEKEEPER in 26(ac), whilst thinking….loose definition! Bookkeeper is, of course, “Yellow for seaman – perhaps one that will count?”
Overall, an immensely enjoyable puzzle, with an unobtrusive
theme, some great surfaces and ideas. I look forward to another. Opa! kai Yamas! Kairos + Riku
Barcelona also a George Ezra toon.
Jimboeb@10: I thought it was a reference to the song BARCELONA from the Sondheim musical Company.
Several I couldn’t get. not helped by thinking 26ac must be GOALKEEPER.
Thanks both. I’m with ENB@9 in finding parts of this ‘stretchy’, examples being AMEND with AM clued as element, and even GATEKEEPER wherein I couldn’t see gate as any form of punishment unless you hit someone with one. I was nearly opting for goalkeeper with a punishing gaol for dyslexics.
TFO@12, I have a very vague memory of gate being used to mean send away from school in the sort of public school
books (Billy Bunter, Jennings) I read as a child in the ‘60s. but wouldn’t swear to it, my state comprehensive in the ‘70s didn’t have school slang that I remember.
I had bookkeeper for a long time until the crossers’ failures to work make me revisit, although bookkeeper is a very loose connection to supervisor, book keeper feels a more satisfying way of punishing a footballer.
TFO & Eoink
‘Gating’ as a punishment meant being confined to the premises out of school hours (you had to be able to go out to get to classes): the next stages were ‘rustication’ (being sent away from school for a set period), and, the final punishment, ‘expulsion’ (permanent exclusion’).
Late to this; it seems I’ve been playing catch-up with the crosswords for a couple weeks now.
“Element” for the sequence AM, if it really means americium, is really taking things to extremes. Yes, we’re used to the likes of Au, Fe, and Cu; but those are all generally given by their names. There are, what, 120-odd elements now, and using “element” to mean “the chemical symbol for an arbitrary element” seems a little on the vague side.
To be fair, we’ve long seen “state” to mean “the USPS postal code for any of the fifty states”, so I guess this isn’t much different. But americium? Really? It’s artificial!
Simon S@14 Thanks, those come back to me now (and I think my previous use of slang wasn’t correct, those terms are descriptions of specific punishments).
I don’t think anyone has mentioned Gatekeeper as another butterfly species.
Thanks to RatkojaRiku for the review and to everyone for the comments. For E.N.Boll& @9, there is no specific Greek connection to Kairos. It is more of a theological reference alluding to one of the strings in my bow as a Church of England priest. I also appear as Zenas in the DT. A minor reference to Zenas the lawyer in the book of Titus neatly links that to my main occupation as a solicitor and my crossword setting.
Kairos@18 My word, a priest AND a lawyer….I must tread more carefully! Here in Greece, Kairos has a few usages, such as “time”, and “weather”, but rather abstractly, “an opportunity”, hence my reference to 2(d), OPPORTUNE.
Many Greek names seem to be derived from “God’s Gift” ( as it were) ….Theodoros being the classic, of course, literally “God” + “gift”. I think Zenas is one such, an abbreviation of ” gift from Zeus”.
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my post, much appreciated. I will repeat, OPA! which covers a multitude of sins over here, but mainly….”it’s a wonderful life” ! and cheers, (yamas!) IanB
Hounddog @17 – I have Gatekeepers visiting my garden right now. Lovely things. Hard to get any good pictures of them as they barely stay still for a moment.
Very enjoyable puzzle if you like butterfly spotting – which I do!