A pleasant diversion this week . . .
. . . with a theme, as is usually the case with Brockwell, here flagged by the solution to 3D, TIGER. I have marked the thematic references that I saw, but please note any that I have missed in the comments.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | COTTONY |
Soft rabbit eating too much (7)
|
| CONY (rabbit) around (eating) OTT (too much), thematically referring to the cartoon mascot of Frosties cereal (or Frosted Flakes in the US) | ||
| 5 | STRIPES |
Nazis inspiring rubbish bands (7)
|
| SS (Nazis) around (inspiring) TRIPE (rubbish), thematically referring to a feature of the big cat | ||
| 10 | STAG |
Male has time to stop droop (4)
|
| T (time) inside (to stop) SAG (droop), possibly a thematic reference to a dramatic bronze sculpture by Antoine-Louis Barye, Tiger Attacking a Stag | ||
| 11 | TAIL GUNNER |
Lofty marksman to follow Arsenal player (4,6)
|
| TAIL (to follow) + GUNNER (Arsenal player, referring to the team nickname), the definition cryptically referring to the crewmember of a warplane, and the solution thematically referring to another feature of the big cat, or possibly also to “a type of fast-growing hybrid worm” | ||
| 12 | AMUR |
A drink from the East River (4)
|
| A + RUM (drink) reversed (from the East), with a capitalization misdirection, thematically referring to a tiger subspecies, better known as the Siberian tiger, endangered in the wild | ||
| 13 | HULL CITY |
Lucy Liu’s first hit about footballers (4,4)
|
| Anagram of (about) {LUCY + first [letter of] L[IU] + HIT}, thematically referring to Hull City A.F.C., whose team nickname is the Tigers | ||
| 14 | CLOTH-EARS |
One not listening to Charles rambling (5-4)
|
| Anagram of (rambling) TO CHARLES, perhaps thematically referring to another notable feature of the big cat | ||
| 16 | WOODS |
3 of clubs? (5)
|
| Cryptic definition, referring to the solution to 3D TIGER, i.e., the celebrated golfer | ||
| 17 | RAJAH |
Prince Harry initially somewhat open to return (5)
|
| {First letter of (initially) H[ARRY] + AJAR (somewhat open)} all reversed (to return), thematically referring to Princess Jasmine’s tiger in the Disney cartoon movie Aladdin | ||
| 19 | APPEASERS |
Looks around the borders of Singapore for peacemakers (9)
|
| APPEARS (looks) around the outside letters of (the borders of) S[INGAPOR]E | ||
| 23 | MAN-EATER |
Perhaps 3 more ordered by mum (3-5)
|
| MA (mum) + NEATER (more ordered), thematically referring to the solution to 3D TIGER | ||
| 24 | TEAM |
Cook dropping starter and side (4)
|
| [S]TEAM (cook) minus first letter (dropping starter), thematically referring to “a group of counter-intelligence agents who test the security of military bases” or “a group of computer hackers who are employed to test the secureness of a computer system” | ||
| 25 | PRIVATE EYE |
Dick Emery on vacation kidnapped by short pirate (7,3)
|
| Outside letters of (on vacation) E[MER]Y inside (kidnapped by) PRIVATEE[R] (pirate) minus last letter (short), thematically referring to another feature of the big cat, or the stone named after it | ||
| 26 | MOTH |
Winger from United going missing in opening (4)
|
| MO[U]TH (opening) minus (going missing) U (united), with a capitalization misdirection, thematically referring to a tribe/subfamily of moths | ||
| 27 | SMASHED |
Drunk mothers in Slough (7)
|
| MAS (mothers) inside (in) SHED (slough), with a capitalization misdirection | ||
| 28 | STALKER |
Lecturer’s cycling becoming obsessive? (7)
|
| TALKER’S (lecturer’s) “cycling” the last letter to the front, thematically referring to the big cat’s “stalk and ambush” hunting method | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | OPTIMAL |
Surgery on broken 24d is best (7)
|
| OP (surgery) + anagram of (broken) TAMIL ([solution to] 24d) | ||
| 3 | TIGER |
Cat ultimately getting into row (5)
|
| Last letter of (ultimately) [GETTIN]G inside (into) TIER (row) | ||
| 4 | NUTCASE |
Canute’s messed up fruitcake (7)
|
| Anagram of (messed up) CANUTE’S, thematically referring to an edible tuber of the sedge family | ||
| 6 | TOGGLE |
Leg got injured in fastener (6)
|
| Anagram of (injured) LEG GOT | ||
| 7 | INNOCUOUS |
Unions prepared to accept old copper is harmless (9)
|
| Anagram of (prepared) UNIONS around (to accept) {O (old) + CU (copper)} | ||
| 8 | EVERTED |
Journalist following Wimbledon champion gets turned inside out (7)
|
| [Chris] EVERT (Wimbledon champion) + ED. (journalist) | ||
| 9 | RICHARD PARKER |
Wealthy lady’s chauffeur taking A-road for 3 (7,6)
|
| RICH (wealthy) + [Aloysius “Nosey”] PARKER (lady’s chauffeur, i.e., driver for Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward of the TV series Thunderbirds) around (taking) {A + RD (road)}, thematically referring to the Bengal tiger in the novel/film Life of Pi | ||
| 15 | TEA LEAVES |
Cockney criminals make getaway in SEAT hybrid (3,6)
|
| LEAVE (make getaway) inside (in) anagram of (hybrid) SEAT, Cockney rhyming slang for “thieves” | ||
| 18 | ANAGRAM |
Letters represented genuine class from Alec Guinness? (7)
|
| Double definition, the second by way of example | ||
| 20 | EXIGENT |
Urgent introduction to intercourse welcomed by old man (7)
|
| First letter of (introduction to) I[NTERCOURSE] inside (welcomed by) {EX- (old) + GENT (man)} | ||
| 21 | ROASTIE |
Potato cake containing American and English potato (7)
|
| {RÖSTI (potato cake) around (containing) A (American)} + E (English) | ||
| 22 | STATUE |
Panic about uniform revealing bust perhaps (6)
|
| STATE (panic, as in “in a . . .”) around (about) U (uniform) | ||
| 24 | TAMIL |
Sri Lankan capital’s temperature rising (5)
|
| {LIMA (capital, of Peru) + T (temperature)} all inverted (rising), thematically referring to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a former militant separatist group |
Wow, so many tiger references went completely over my head. A few others too (such as the name of Lady Penelope’s chauffeur or the tiger in Life of Pi). Thank you for explaining them all Cineraria.
I found this a good challenge and needed a few sessions to finish it. It exceeded the limit for new or novel words, but I worked my way around them. For example, I was slowed by entering RICHARD driver instead of RICHARD PARKER, then soon saw the error.
Along the way, I ticked SMASHED, WOODS, APPEASERS, PRIVATE EYE, MAN EATER, and RAJAH (even though I did not know the cartoon tiger)
An enjoyable challenge and a first-class blog. Thanks Brockwell and Cineraria
I think this has come up before. A PRIVATEER was not a pirate. It was a private warship operating under licence ( a letter of marque ) from its government allowing it to prey on the shipping of the said country’s declared enemies and noone else.
Brockwell could have included TIGER Pataudi, the Indian cricketer.
Thanks Cineraria. I struggled with this for a session or two but got there eventually, recognising the theme but not to the extent you have demonstrated. I was a Tiger Moth pilot once too. Never did realise the derivation of PARKER.
I liked ANAGRAM but it took me a while to see how the example was so cleverly constructed.
If I wanted to nitpick, I’d say that to cook and to sTEAM are not the same – only certain things get cooked when steamed. Luckily, though, that set includes most things you’d want to eat.
Why does hybrid indicate anagram (TEA LEAVES)? Sure, a hybrid is a mixture, but a mixture of two or more distinct entities, not one thing mixed up.
In trying to complete 9d, I figured it was either RICHARD PARKER or RICHARD PORTER. I looked both up and found the Life of Pi connection to the former (are we supposed to have watched a specific film in order to complete a crossword? I suppose so). PARKER in the wordplay only made sense to me as a slur on women parking, which seemed very unacceptable for nowadays. So I’m glad there’s another explanation, but it must win the prize for obscurity.
zoot@2: And the unforgettable Shere Khan of Jungle Book
Thank you, Brockwell and Cineraria
An excellent puzzle from Brockwell with some imaginative clu(e)ing and (surprise, surprise) a theme! Cineraria has outlined 18 tiger references, with 5 being only partial or/and simply body parts. We had the same 13 complete ‘tigers’ but with a further 10 requiring varying degrees of licence! Maybe tail gunner referring to the Flying Tigers in WWII; the innocuous tiger painting by Kushan Magedara and Alyssa Day’s Private Eye books should be allowed, but perhaps not Churchill’s famous tiger quote concerning appeasers and probably not ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’ for 15d!
Our FOI happened to be TIGER (lucky or what?) with LOI being MOTH. Strictly we were DNF with an unexplained HELL CATS, changed to HULL CITY on advice – the chagrin since I am a keen football fan!
So many ticks, but perhaps favourites were PRIVATE EYE, MOTH, SMASHED, INNOCUOUS, ANAGRAM and especially RICHARD PARKER. Many thanks to B and C for the entertainment.
Good fun which took a couple of sittings. LOI was COTTONY, which took a great deal of thinking; I’ve never seen coney spelt that way before, but in any case I was convinced that rabbit would mean chatter. Penultimate one in was the straightforward STALKER; it just wouldn’t come to mind.
Faves, for the great surfaces, were HULL CITY, PRIVATE EYE (though I take Zoot@2’s point), TEA LEAVES (though I take Dr. WhatsOn@4’s point and indeed it held me up too), SMASHED and EXIGENT; plus WOODS for the cryptic misdirection and conciseness, and ANAGRAM for the, well, anagram.
Along the way I learned EVERTED (a nice complement to “inverted”) and RICHARD PARKER; I’d read the book in the distant past but I seem to be the only human alive who didn’t think much of it. As per Dr. WhatsOn@4 I struggled to get Parker even though I surmised I was looking for something like Lady Penelope’s driver. But we’re going back a fair bit with that one, eh… I had to look it up.
Thanks both
WOODS
Could be seen as two defs?
Liked ANAGRAM (letters re-presented), PRIVATE EYE, RICHARD PARKER and TEA LEAVES.
Thanks Brockwell and Cineraria.
Some interesting cultural knowledge required here: you needed to be familiar with both Life of Pi and Thunderbirds to get RICHARD PARKER. I only knew Thunderbirds. Although I knew Life of Pi involved a tiger, I had no idea of its rather implausible name. So I wasted a deal of time Googling for ‘list of wealthy ladies’ and variations on that. (I hate to think what Google’s search algorithm will think of me, or what sort of ads I’m going to start seeing.) Finally, I stopped trying to make a woman’s name fit, and discovered to my surprise that Richard Parker was a tiger. My LOI was actually EXIGENT – I’m not quite sure why that took me so long, although three unchecked letters in a row didn’t help. So not the easiest of challenges, but one I enjoyed. Thanks Brockwell for the cultural lesson, and Cineraria for finding so many tiger references – impressive.
Dr.WhatsOn @4. (S)TEAM. I didn’t take cook and steam in the literal sense, ie with food, but possibly someone experiencing hot weather, especially down here, eg I was cooking/steaming (in the high humidity heat). Also in the emotional sense: cooking, steaming, or even stewing,
No real problems with this that I remember. Missed the theme as usual despite getting RICHARD PARKER which reminded me of the Crossword Centre’s April puzzle this year, “Tan Goes So Stripey” by Vismut in which RP, TONY, TIGGER and SHERE KHAN appeared in diagonal lines in the final grid.
I also had TIGER LEAVES – various plants have tiger leaves. The theme was fun, but even though I spotted it early, I wasn’t sure it was that helpful, except with the big one down the middle.
There were enough reviews around of Life of Pi for me to know the tiger was called RICHARD PARKER, even if I haven’t read the book or seen the film. And there were a fair few jokes around featuring Lady Penelope and Parker for that one have stuck, so I didn’t think that was particularly esoteric knowledge.
Thank you to Cineraria and Brockwell.
I think 22d is thematic. There’s a famous thematic one in Oslo, which city has a thematic nickname.
2d could be thematic. There was a Tiger Tim comic, and there’s a Scottish DJ.
But maybe just a coincidence.
Fantastic puzzle, though tough. Lots of great surfaces, misdirection, and pdm’s. I also clocked the “tiger” theme. Too many ticks to list, but I’ll single out two candidates for clue of the year in one puzzle:
18d — what a wonderful ANAGRAM! Genuine class indeed! I have to sheepishly admit that it took me all week to solve this one. Cue the tea tray
…and 16a WOODS — meaningful surface (playing card), misdirecting (“clubs” can mean so many things), concise (three words), tricky but gettable, great penny-drop moment, funny
13a HULL CITY, I also had HELL CATS but figured it was wrong. There’s a fighter plane called a Hellcat, and I thought that might be it, in keeping with the theme. Also 26a Tiger MOTH another fighter plane
Life of Pi, the book was enjoyable, the movie was disappointing
No reference to the Hamilton Ontario Canadian football team, the TIGER CATS! 🙂
Thanks Brockwell for a cracker, and Cineraria for elucidating the theme so beautifully
Surprised to see triple unches in 4 and 20. I’m pretty sure Hugh didn’t permit this grid. Just an observation.
Brockwell confirmed last weekend that there were 16 intended TIGER references which I think is what Cineraria has.
Fun puzzle, thanks to Cineraria and Brockwell.
Great puzzle and blog. Thanks.
I got the theme but not all of the well-hidden references.
Fun fact: Hull City is the only team in the football league none of whose letters can be coloured in.
Really liked this and I did better than usual for a Brockwell puzzle
Favourites included: COTTONY, STRIPES, MAN-EATER, PRIVATE EYE, MOTH, RICHARD PARKER
Thanks Brockwell and Cineraria
Super puzzle and great blog.
I saw the theme with RICHARD PARKER, which helped a lot. Though not if you haven’t read Life of Pi, as has been observed.
As for the “genuine class” anagram, this came up in a Simpsons episode where Lisa finds herself in a new school, among child geniuses. The teacher challenges one of them to find an anagram for Alec Guinness and “genuine class” is the response. When it’s Lisa’s turn she gets landed with Jeremy Irons and, a bit nonplussed, she offers “Jeremy’s Iron?”
Worth it for 18 Down alone; and, for once, I got the theme early on. Still needed several cherry-bites, mind you. TTS&B.
Failed 11ac apart from GUNNER – football and warplanes are obviously not my forte!
New for me: AMUR river, HULL CITY football club, CLOTH-EARS, ROASTIE = potato.
I couldn’t parse 18d and only just understood it after ready Woody@19 – haha, that’s very clever.
Really enjoyed this! I liked the references to The Life of Pi and Thunderbirds… these are much more gettable for me than anything to do with cricket or football, so no complaints here! Thanks Brockwell and Cineraria
I found this a lot less difficult than Brockwell’s puzzles generally are. There seemed to be fewer clues than usual which have real names of people that have to be split between definition and wordplay – Dick Emery is an example in this puzzle. I didn’t spend a lot of time on Alec Guinness, as I had all the crossing letters for 18d, and ‘letters represented’ was a pretty good definition for ANAGRAM.
There’s too much being made of the themes in Brockwell’s puzzles. All mammals have EARS (14a) and all vertebrates have TAILs (11a). There’s a song called EYE (25a) of the TIGER, but Brockwell seems to have missed a trick by not cluing TIGER feet, a big hit in 1974. There are about a dozen UK pubs called the TIGER INN (7d). That’s enough. Stop it now. 🙂
Thanks to setter and blogger as always.
Close but no cigar for me – and that’s despite several sittings.
Looking back, things must have started going awry when I put REAR GUNNER, figuring a rear, being at the back, followed…. I then tied myself in knots trying to make sense of 4D, and whilst Lady P’s adenoidal chauffeur Parker came to me immediately, the first name I finally settled on was Zachary. Since there really is such a gent (thanks, duckduckgo) I presumed there had to be some connection between him and tigers.
I also had HELL CATS. My knowledge of tigers being minimal, perhaps a footie nickname???
Oh well. Fail again, fail better…
Thanks Brockwell and Cineraria.
I’m not embarrassed that I didn’t spot the relatively blatant theme because I wasn’t looking for one. At the time, I remember thinking that the combination of references sat up well for me. Aircraft, nature, Thunderbirds, The Life of Pi and The Simpsons (Alec Guinness | Genuine Class is from the episode “Lisa’s Rival” inspired by Poe’s The Telltale Heart, where Lisa meets an intellectual superior, played by Winona Ryder, ends up sabotaging her diorama and then briefly goes mad with guilt. I fear the show hasn’t reached those heights for two decades or so). A Calvin and Hobbes reference may have made me realise, maybe the CLOTH EARS belonged to Hobbes?
PS. I once annoyed an AMUR tiger in the Scottish Highlands, it was quite scary.
Thanks Brockwell,
Another HELL CATS here – it sounds like a plausible tiger-related nickname for a team, and I had no idea about the real candidates (or the parsing). That was the only one I had real trouble with. The theme was fun, though I’m not sure exactly how far it extends (besides the EYE of the TIGER, there is also a TIGER EYE gemstone, but some of the remoter ones like EARS and STAG and STATUE are debatable).
RICHARD PARKER the tiger was fairly well known even if you hadn’t read the book (I had), and pops up in quiz show lists of “fictional tigers”. It sounds as though Thunderbirds isn’t general knowledge outside the UK: Parker’s “Yuss, me lady” is a little soundbite lodged in the memory of most kids of my generation.
Thanks Brockwell and Cineraria.
Newcomer here. Please would someone explain the ‘capitalisation misdirection’ at 27. I worked out mashed but couldn’t parse smashed. TIA
Welcome NoryN @27 Slough is the name of a town in England, but the meaning in the clue is for the verb slough – to shed. So, the capital S is making us think in the wrong way. While capital letters are often added for this reason, the setters don’t generally decapitalise proper nouns.
Enjoyed this one from Brockwell although (because?) it took most of the day. However, it ultimately ended in failure as I convinced myself Georg Wilhelm STELLER was enough of an obsessive to go in 28A.
Many thanks, Martin @28. Embarrassingly, I miscounted the S’s in mas and shed.
Thank you, Brockwell, for a fun theme. And thanks to everyone who posts. Am learning a lot and enjoying the wealth of knowledge you all share.
Many thanks to Cineraria for the excellent blog and to all the solvers for your comments. I’m very glad that it went down well with most of you. All the best, B