[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here
IO is a bit gentler today (and has been for his last few appearances).
I really enjoyed this one. A couple of new terms and ideas. Some great long anagrams, and 25a was a brainteaser. Many thanks to IO.
[met]AL FAS[teners] (secured by)
The solution is A’s (the letters) for radio transmitters: ALFA is ‘A’ in the NATO alphabet, used over radio transmission
STOP CHICK (put an end to child), Spooner says
(OUR (the compilers’) filling LIES (is)) in FT (this paper)
For LIES/IS think ‘is situated’ or ‘exists’ in the sense of a landmark for example
TO A T (perfectly done); S (square) cuts
Cryptic definition
“On with the motley” is a theatrical expression, meaning to continue performing despite personal difficulties or challenges. Yorick is a ‘character’ in Hamlet, but given he is deceased and appears as a skull, the difficulty is clear.
[the]ATER (off-Broadway, i.e. American, rejects THE (article)) containing LIE (fabrication)
A (adult) + FF (very loudly, musical) getting “LICKED” (battered, “on the ear”)
(GREEN (fresh, cycling) + PE (class for games))< (<back)
[songst]RESS ARG[uably]< (part of, <retiring)
Cryptic definition
Double definition
(SIMO[n] + [s]TIPE)< (US songwriters Paul and Michael, N/S (poles) apart , <returning) + [hom]E (at last)
Paul Simon of Simon and Garfunkel originally; Michael Stipe of REM
Apologies, I’ve got stuck here and run out of time this morning, so will come back to this, unless someone else can explain?
[w]EDGE (gold club, W (with) missing) + S[ix] (6 – (minus) IX (9))
U (university) putting on AFRO (big do) + MEGA* (*crackers)
(ONE’S FIRM MIGHT WRITE)* (*angrily)
SUNG (celebrated); THEIR* (*fancy) coming in
HE (man) implicated in (SECRET LETTERS)* (*naughty)
ON (after) + (DASHING LETTER)* (*off)
Double definition
[f]INALL[y] (at the end, stripping)
Cryptic definition
FLAT BROKE[r] (estate agent, R (rector) evicted)
(T[he]Y RAN (managed) NESS (monster’s home, the Loch)) in the absence of HE (male)
C (Catholic) + (AT CH (church), i.e. worshipping)
Cryptic definition
In a NONET, there are nine in the group; TEN ON (i.e. this group <rising) gives 19 in total
[colo]URED O[ne’s] (dresses)
HOTFOOT IT
Money=OOF
To from the surface
OOF TO returned=OTFOO
Bristol=TIT
H (hospital) nurses=H looks after? –H comes before OTFOOT IT?
KVa just beat me to it as I had to check the money
Io in entertaining and, for him, friendly form
Thanks to him and Oriel
Unlike Oriel, I found this tough. Of course, quite entertaining.
Brilliant blog.
Thanks Io and Oriel.
Loved ALFAS, FLOURIEST, EPITOMISE (Still has a pole left in it), EDGES, TYRANNESS, CATCH and UREDO.
ON THE MOTLEY
Is this the reference? Yorick, the jester from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the jester’s motley attire.
Like KVa@1 I find the connection between ‘nurses’ and the initial H very tenuous. The wordplay would work perfectly if the clue read ‘Fly returned money to Hospital Bristol nurses’ [(OOF TO) rev. in H TIT], but then the surface would make even less sense than it does at present.
Oh!
Hector@4
Apply nurses. Then reverse everything, including H and TIT
Thanks. It works.
H TIT nurses OOF TO ….all reversed
Sorry. TIT H nurses OOF TO….all reversed.
NONET
Is ‘this group’ doing double duty?
KVa@6: yes, of course.
I think ‘this group’ might well be doing double duty in NONET. You seem to need ‘the number in this group’ for 9, and ‘this group rising’ for TEN ON, 9 with 10 on making 19. But I didn’t get HOTFOOT IT quite right so maybe someone will put me straight on NONET.
Hector@7
NONET
You are right. There must be a better explanation.
On second thoughts, maybe ‘the number in this [ie NONET]’ gives 9, and ‘group rising’ gives TEN ON [ie NONET rev.].
Quite tough for me too, thinking No gimmes from Enigio, keeps making you work. Lots of clever ploys. Thanks both.
OOF, indeed! Others might have found this more approachable but not I. Though, that said, I probably did fill in more answers than usual but with plenty of use of the Check button and a need to dive into the dictionary on several occasions. Of those I solved CHESTER LE STREET, FROM WHERE I’M SITTING and FLAT BROKE were the faves.
Thanks both
NONET
A vast number of past clues for NONET played on NO NET. Here, 19 being CATCH, I initially thought on those lines.
Later, I shifted to the logic employed by the blogger (and Hector). Still, I feel I am missing something.
I parsed all of this except NONET. I considered the “10 + 9” idea, but that really does not track with the way the clue reads. Reversing NONET is not the same thing as “the number in this group rising,” (which would literally be ENIN) and then there is still nothing indicating “add ten plus nine.” I thought maybe “19” was a cross-reference to the solution to 19D CATCH, since a TENON in joinery is a type of fastener, but that seems pretty farfetched, even for Io.
Cineraria@13
NONET
We are on the same page. I tried one more thing: I tried to build on ONE (the number in N ONE T), but couldn’t
proceed further.
Hector@9: I also thought of that as a possible parsing, but that also seems terribly strained. Maybe.
“Gentler” but still had me beaten hands down. If I ever complete an IO, I will be a happy man.
KVa & Cineraria passim: I hadn’t thought of a cross-reference. There’s scope for a clue on the lines of ‘With this group making 19 [ie CATCH] might be difficult’, but I can’t see that interpretation in the clue as written.
Whatever Io’s intention, this is one of those clues where I get the answer from the crossers and try to work out the parsing afterwards. You’d have to be a lot smarter than I am to solve it cold.
NONET
Call it a stretch
The number in this group=ONE
rising=UP
ONE UP=19=CATCH=take advantage of
Also, the 9+10 explanation should also
somehow work.
Finished by fair means but also by foul. Didn’t love it. 1) chopstick spoonerism is feeble. No one calls children chicks. 2) Flouriest is a word which no one has ever uttered and to clue an obscure word with an obscure clue seems OTT. 3) epergne? Seriously? 4)grasser has also never been uttered by anyone, ever 5) time is not a synonym for tense 6) do we really not mind Bristol/tit? Sorry to be a prig. 7) edges an impossiclue 8) ok I admit the anagrams were good
Personally I think a good clue is one where you can get it from the cryptic part. Far too many of these needed to be guessed from the crossers then try and work out why the cryptic bit worked. Or maybe I’m just not in the zone today. Moan over.
Try as I might I cannot tune in to IO’s wavelength. This had me beat all ends up.
Btw Bristol is not even the correct rhyming slang, as well as being mildly offensive
For what it’s worth, I parsed NONET as no for number leaving NONET to form net, catch, but I wasn’t convinced.
This took me more than double my par time for an FT weekday crossword to fill the grid with some answers unparsed but only one wrong letter: for some reason, I did not think of the eminently reasonable NESS for “monster’s home” in 16dn. I am pleased to say that I had the parsing for 24ac as given by KVa@6 before I first read the blog. I am unable to find a convincing way of making 20dn fit the notion of ten more than nine being 19, which I think must be the setter’s intention.
However, let us not go overboard with the criticism.
9ac: flouriest is explicitly in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (2011 p 547) and the Oxford Dictionary of English (2010 p. 673) as the superlative of floury.
22ac: Chambers 2016 p 1607 gives us tense¹ n time in grammar, the form of a verb to indicate the time of the action. I think it is reasonable to allow that as just “time” for the second definition of a double definition clue. To my mind, this is the best type of double definition clue, where two words of different origin have converged in spelling in their English forms.
24ac: While Chambers 2016 (p 192) only defines bristols in the plural, it gives the origin in the singular as “Cockney rhyming sl from Bristol City, titty¹“.
Thanks to Oriel for the blog.
18ac: Chambers 2016 p 667 has grasser n an informer (sl); a extra or temporary printing worker (archaic). The first of these meanings is also in Collins 2023 (p 853, marked informal). It is perhaps a good thing that Io chose not to use the second meaning from Chambers.
Correction to 25: Of course Chambers has “an extra or temporary printing worker” as its second definition for grasser. Apologies for missing out the N.
Further on 24ac: oof meaning money is in ODE 2010 (p 1242, marked informal), Collins 2023 (p 1393, marked slang), and Chambers 2016 (p 1077, marked old sl). all stating that it comes from a Yiddish root. I knew it because there is a character called Oofy Prosser, who occurs in various works of P. G. Wodehouse.
Fwiw the OED has GRASSER in this sense as first mentioned in a 1950 dictionary of slang. Apparently it’s derived from (grass)hopper = copper.
Chambers Dictionary of Slang says it stems from the 1940s.
Thanks to Io for a somewhat gentler than usual puzzle and to Oriel for the blog.
4ac: For the definition of chick as “child”, we have the following:
“A child”: SOED 2007 p 395, first of three meanings and marked as archaic;
“a child, as a term of endearment”: Chambers 2016 p 271, second of three meanings;
“a young child, used as a term of endearment”: Collins 2023 p 359, last of three meanings.
Since the clue contains the words “Spooner says”, I think it is reasonable to consider the language as it was in his time. His dates are given in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (2014, p 743) as 1844-1930, so I would regard the SOED marking this meaning as archaic as being less of a problem than it otherwise might have been.
Added in edit: SOED gives meanings in chronological order of first use; the other two dictionaries cited give most common current meaning first.
I can sympathise with the view that the Spoonerism used was not very good, but I can see no reason why “child” is an inappropriate definition for chick as part of that definition.
[Note: I posted a comment some minutes ago but realised within the time allowed for editing after posting that the logic of that comment was flawed, so I have deleted it and submitted this one instead.]
A chick is a child (offspring) of a cock and a hen.
QED
A grass is crs for an informer, derived from grasshopper = shopper (ie informer), rather than copper (policeman). A grass shops the villain to the copper.
Tense relates to the state of completion of actions not just their timing. Past perfect and past imperfect are two different tenses which relate to the same time, ie the past. So time and tense are not synonyms.
Bristol city is crs for titty not tit, usually in the plural form Bristols as someone has pointed out.
You people have obviously not watched enough episodes of Minder, although their tense game was weaker than their use of rhyming slang.
I must get out more
One of my grandmothers called us grandchildren CHICKS – she was born in 1913, also duckies. There’s something similar in Shakespeare: Macduff, when he finds that Macbeth has had his family killed says “What, all my pretty chickens and their dam. At one fell swoop?” (Act IV, scene 3).
I did solve this, using the check button for bits, and it wasn’t quick, nor was everything parsed, I’d forgotten about Oofy Prosser and had managed to forget about that slang use of Bristols.
I’m happier with removing the number (NO) from NONET to get net = CATCH (19D). To net something is to catch it.
Thank you
I’m glad some people found this “gentle”. Like a few others I found it impossibly difficult. As Autistic Trier @21 says, I think it is a question of “wavelength”. I didn’t have much time today but even after an hour had managed only four answers.
22ac: Maybe my argument in comment 24 is not convincing. I have no quarrel with anyone who says that. But the sort of argument advanced by James in comment 31 can never work. It is usually the case that some word (call it Word 1) has a meaning that does not match with any meaning of some other word (Word 2). That does not preclude the possibility that Word 1 may have some other meaning that does match with a meaning of Word 2. A glaring example is that “best” and “worst” are opposites as adjectives, but mean the same thing as transitive verbs.
24ac: Saying that “Bristols” is usually used in the plural is to say that it can be used in the singular. “Bristol” is rhyming slang for “titty”, and the relevant meaning of “titty” is the same as one meaning of “tit”. This makes “Bristol” a valid definition for “tit”, in just the same way that “China” is often used as a definition for “pal”, through the rhyming slang China plate = mate.
Pelham Barton @34 – continuing from your tense argument, I was firmly told that that a clue in the Quick Cryptic last weekend was incorrect because it’s not the perfect tense it’s the perfect aspect. Having looked it up, it’s suggested that the term aspect is used because of that time element embedded into the use of perfect tense/aspect. (There’s also a tense-mood-aspect conflation that says these features of language are difficult to untangle.)
I had to guess MOTLEY as I hadn’t heard that expression
Fine puzzle-no complaints re chopstick
Shanne@35: thanks for that. I wonder how many of the people who try to foist their own jargon on to the crossword solving public are assiduous in conforming to the jargon of people in walks of life other than their own. I suspect that the number can be counted on the thumbs of one hand, without unfolding the thumb.