My second Carpathian blog this month
We’re more used to seeing Carpathian at the beginning of the week and the first entry at 8ac made me wonder if there was a personal reason for this one appearing on this date – one or two other clues could be relevant but I’m perhaps being fanciful. Anyway, it provided a breezy introduction to a typically elegantly clued puzzle from this setter.
We have a nice mixture of anagrams (with straightforward indicators) and simple charades, with smooth surfaces throughout, making for a pleasant solve. I had ticks for 11ac ALIENATE, 12ac AXIOMS, 16ac ALREADY, 19ac ABSEIL, 26ac JEHOVAH’S WITNESS, 5dn HAIRBALL, 14dn BLESS YOU and 17dn DEMOLISH.
Thanks to Carpathian for an enjoyable puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
8 Cook left a cut roasting on for well done (15)
CONGRATULATIONS
An anagram (cook) of L (left) + A CUT ROASTING ON
9 Tried to wander next to street (6)
STROVE
ST (street) + ROVE (wander)
10 Herb is strangely arrogant (8)
TARRAGON
An anagram (strangely) of ARROGANT
11 Cut off a story by Nathaniel (8)
ALIENATE
A LIE (a story) + NATE (Nathaniel)
12 Pivotal line about yogic sacred syllable principles (6)
AXIOMS
AXIS (pivotal line) round OM (yogic sacred symbol)
13 Beat young animal with a stone (7)
LAMBAST
LAMB (young animal) + A ST (stone)
16 Both sides of appeal studied by Yankee beforehand (7)
ALREADY
AL (first and last letters of AppeaL) + READ (studied) + Y (Yankee – NATO phonetic alphabet)
19 Sailor leans back in descent with rope (6)
ABSEIL
AB (sailor) + a reversal (back) of LIES (leans)
21 Appeal from cleaner is oddly mean (8)
CHARISMA
CHAR (cleaner) + IS + odd letters of MeAn
24 Campaigner is unusually scared about game (8)
CRUSADER
An anagram (unusually) of SCARED round R[ugby] U[nion – game
25 Annoy weed (6)
NETTLE
Double definition
26 Hates John’s views about person calling round uninvited? (8,7)
JEHOVAH’S WITNESS
An anagram (about) of HATES JOHN’S VIEWS
Down
1 Jog up and I will start to arrange food (8)
TORTILLA
A reversal (up, in a down clue) of TROT (jog) + I’LL + A[rrange]
2 Disregard unsettled region (6)
IGNORE
An anagram (unsettled) of REGION
3 Arrived with artist to get photographic equipment (6)
CAMERA
CAME (arrived) + RA (artist)
4 Doctor hurt ref to a greater degree (7)
FURTHER
An anagram (doctor) of HURT REF
5 Hot tune and dance – something coming out of Cats? (8)
HAIRBALL
H (hot) + AIR (tune) + BALL (dance)
6 Conclude Flipper is inhaling a line and another drug (8)
FINALISE
FIN (flipper) + IS round A L (a line) + E (another drug)
7 Pass on knowledge to popular student group (6)
INFORM
IN (popular) + FORM (student group)
14 Remade blouses to include core of rayon as response to sign of cold (5,3)
BLESS YOU
An anagram (remade) of BLOUSES round raYon – said to someone who has just sneezed
15 Upset about LA pub food offering (5,3)
SALAD BAR
SAD (upset) round LA (Los Angeles) + BAR (pub)
17 Ruin his model arrangement (8)
DEMOLISH
An anagram (arrangement) of HIS MODEL
18 One playing with a carbon lock (7)
ACTRESS
A + C (carbon) + TRESSS (lock)
20 Island carried nothing (6)
BORNEO
BORNE (carried) + O (nothing)
22 After middle of day release relative (6)
AUNTIE
[d]A[y] + UNTIE (release)
23 One with new shelter finding purpose (6)
INTENT
I (one) + N (new) + TENT (shelter)
Toward the easy end of the spectrum, but very enjoyable wity plenty of good clues. Thank you, Carpathian & Eileen for the blog.
Thanks Carpathian & Eileen
Lovely puzzle all round 🙂
Across the top and bottom reads: CONGRATULATIONS OUR SETH
And perhaps BLESS YOU relates? Congrats!
Thanks, Noah @2 – you must be right, I think. How lovely!
(I did think it might be for an AUNTIE.)
Lovely puzzle (Mondayish) and a relief from yesterday’s hard work!
Eileen, you’ve missed the IS in 6d. (Also bold type missing for DEMOLISH.)
Thanks, Hovis – fixed now.
HAIRBALL was my favourite today. An enjoyable puzzle as usual from Carpathian, whose name I was always pleased to see, when I started doing cryptics.
Short and sweet. Liked the long anagrams. Thanks to C and Eileen.
Good spot Noah @2.
This was indeed breezy. A nice one for less experienced solvers, as the plentiful anagrams which were, as Eileen noted, clearly indicated, provided a good line of attack. It may not have taken long, but it was fun while it lasted. There was fleeting resistance from JEHOVAHS WITNESSES and FINALISE and a second recent helping of TORTILLA.
Congratulations Carpathian and thanks to you and Eileen.
Thanks Carpathian and Eileen
Good as ever from Carpathian, if on the easy side.
I’m struggling to see why SALAD BAR is a “food offering“. It’s a place where you pick food, isn’t it?
FINALISE was rather aptly my last entry and possibly the only clue that might have been out of place in a Quiptic?
But beautiful constructions throughout. Would love to see what Carpathian could come up with if the difficulty dial was turned up a notch
You wait all week for a TORTILLA …
Cheers E&C
I wondered too, muffin @10 and was expecting comments.
What kind of food is offered in the restaurant?
There’s a salad bar, a carvery and a desert trolley
I suppose it’s a place where food is offered, but the grammar doesn’t seem quite right.
A pleasant solve. No NHOs for a change for me! Thanks Carpathian and Eileen (my favourite blogger)
Most enjoyable cryptic in ages.Favourites:SALAD BAR,TORTILLA and AXIOMS.Thanks Eileen & Carpathian.
Found myself checking that I wasn’t inadvertently doing the Quiptic, but not complaining. I wasn’t 100% convinced by ‘leans’=LIES but doubtless there is a justification.
It’s always a delight to tackle Carpathian’s crosswords. This one had plenty of her elegant surfaces (my faves being 2D, 7D, 9A) and a couple of her deliciously succinct clues (25A & 20D).
Thank you Eileen for the blog and Carpathian for the fun.
I’m now intrigued about the possible hidden message. I suppose we’ll never know whether it’s true….
Very unusually for me, though aided by the long anagrams, most of the across clues were write-ins; the downs were a bit harder, but I enjoyed the job. Thanks to Carpathian, and to Eileen for a typically tidy blog.
muffin @10 & 14
You’re out of date pal – a salad bar these days is a compact roll of lettuce, radish, spring onions and pickled beetroot covered with chocolate – a food offfering for the sweet-toothed but health conscious person on the go.
Can I get a deep fried one to go?
Showaddydadito @20
Surely you are joking?
Google doesn’t find your monstrosity, so I assume you are!
poc@16: “Where’s the broom?” “It’s lying/leaning against the wall over there” – does that work enough for a crossword equivalence?
Showaddydadito @20 – have you tried offering that on Dragon’s Den/Shark Tank? Worth it just to see the looks on their faces as they taste it.
Thanks Carpathian, especially for avoiding too many double definitions, and Eileen for the blog.
Straightforward but pleasant solve. Good spots for the long anagrams. Some thoughts about SALAD BARs at https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/skip-these-items-at-the-salad-bar-if-you-want-to-avoid-food-poisoning_l_6675e902e4b00383ac7d9e4c [sorry, the edit function doesn’t seem to include links].
Thanks Carpathian and Eileen.
I thought it was Monday! Still enjoyable. Never heard of om for yogic principles but it had to be. Thanks for blog. Eileen enjoy York. I’d love to be there but too expensive (i.e. Travel and accommodation,)
[JWs cultivate rural towns. My ex, breastfeeding our son on our farmhouse veranda when they called, stood up to say Hi, letting the sarong drop .. totally naked. They never returned …]
Yes, a nice straightforward solve this morning. The only one that gave cause for pause was FINALISE, where I was looking at the wrong end of the clue for the definition and thought I might be looking for a drug with an obscure name. A TORTILLA seems popular at the moment, too…
grantinfreo @26 🙂
I don’t think I had a particular stand-out favourite today but pretty much all the clues were really good with entertaining surfaces.
Dr. WhatsOn made a good point yesterday about crossing letters. I spotted JEHOVAH’S WITNESS quite early on and thought, ooh, a J or H or V or W might be helpful — but of course none of those was a crosser! Oh well, we wouldn’t want it to be too easy would we.
Many thanks Carpathian and Eileen.
Lovely. A wee bit too easy, maybe, but sometimes it’s nice to just solve and be satisfied! Entertaining surfaces and brilliant anagrams. Thanks.
15 minutes start to finish.
As soon as I saw 4ac I knew it was a write in.
Breezy though it may be, this was my first unaided solve of a main series Guardian cryptic! After a fair while plugging away on and off, definitely feels good to get that first completed grid.
LOI 26a, took a few go-arounds staring at this one until it clicked!
Well done Tom.
Ed@31. Have you got anything more to say about the crossword, apart from your 15 minutes of fame?
PDM @34
Ed @31 must have done a different crossword. There isn’t a 4ac in this one!
A pleasant puzzle from Carpathian, as always. Maybe a few too many anagrams, but otherwise elegantly clued. Hoping Steffen will try this one
Are we supposed to know who OUR SETH is?
Ed @31 – we don’t reckon to give solving times on this forum
I’ve realised that there was some misunderstanding of my ‘breezy’ description of 8ac. I meant it in the ‘bright and breezy, cheerful, happy, optimistic sense, rather than suggesting that the clue was ‘a breeze’.
[Sarah Hayes, aka Arachne (Guardian) and Rosa Klebb (FT) sets the Spectator today as La Jerezana. Timely theme and a fairly gentle entry to barred puzzles (imho). I mention this as Spectator puzzles are now being blogged on this site.]
Very nice. Particularly like ones like ALIENATE (LOI) where the wordplay is straightforward but still unobvious because everything is pronounced differently. Thanks Carpathian and Eileen!
I was an unexpected blessing to have such a mild and pleasant puzzle towards the end of the week!.. I particularly liked CONGRATULATIONS, JEHOWAH’S WITNESSES, BLESS YOU (yes, all anagrams but very interesting ones) and BORNEO, which was my LOI. Thanks Carpathian and Eileen!
I’ve never owned a cat so don’t know what kind of hairball comes out of them and how (and I guess I don’t even want to know…)
Layman @40: because a cat grooms himself with his tongue, during seasons when he’s shedding, he’ll gradually accumulate hair in his stomach, which he has to cough up (coagulated with other things from down there) onto your rug.
That was fun, I think it’s only my third completed puzzle for the daily cryptics so I didn’t find it as easy as some of you more expert and experienced solvers but it made a nice change from being beaten up, which is how most of this weeks offerings have felt.
As always a great blog from Eileen, I always learn something, and thanks to Carpathian.
Very enjoyable puzzle. I finished it last night, had nothing leftover for the morning (a bit of a disappointment, I enjoy having a bit to do over breakfast).
Eileen, your blog followed the wordplay for FINALISE, but neither follows the word itself. “Flipper is inhaling a line and another drug” would give FIN + I (AL) S, + E or “finialse.” Am I reading it inside out?
Thanks to Carpathian and Eileen.
Valentine, some parentheses will help:
((Flipper is) inhaling a line) and another drug, giving FINIS to inhale AL, plus E.
Valentine @ 43 It’s “Flipper (fin) is”, ie the phrase in toto, inhaling “A L(ine)”.
Seem to be in the minority here, but disappointed it was so easy, was pretty much a write-in from start (CONGRATULATIONS) to finish. Too many fairly simple anagrams, which were clearly flagged as such. Acceptable for a Monday maybe, but surely things should be made a tad more difficult on other days of the week?
There seems to have been several like this recently, which is not a good sign (IMO). I remember being hugely disappointed (many years ago) when the Telegraph decided to make their cryptic much easier (from then on, only the “toughie” was worth doing). Has the Guardian now made a similar editorial decision, to start making their cryptics easier?? I hope not.
It really wasn’t that easy IMO! Nearly every clue had an anagram indicator in it – and many of them were not indicating anagrams! Charades are always hard too – practice makes perfect and all that, but it doesn’t make them easy. I revealed 18, 21, 5, 6 and 16 and I really had no idea on them whatsoever! 60% of these had anagram indicators without being an anagram!
Third day this week with a reference to illegal drugs. They’re not cool, every time you buy drugs you fund the terrorists who are out to kill us. I guess that’s the Grauniad for you?
mrpenney@41: thank you; I suspected something like this, that’s why I didn’t want to know it! – in fact I probably did, otherwise I wouldn’t have mentioned it 🙂
muffin@22
Just a little leg pull.
I hope you don’t mind.
Meanwhile re the crossword: I enjoyed it. It was ideed a bright breezy affair. Quick but fun.
Who’d have thought a setter would include a word which is sometimes an anagram indicator, but not use it as an anagram indicator? Deliberately misleading?
Yup – that’s part of the game.
James@47. Are you OK? Your post here reads more like a plea for help than a comment on the crossword. Please talk to someone about this.
I think I spent about the same time on FINALISE as on the rest of the crossword. My fault, because a precise setter like Carpathian would never use ‘conclude’ to indicate the last letter of Flipper. But then I wouldn’t have thought a flipper was the same thing as a fin. No doubt it’s in Chambers, but without checking, I would reckon that seals have flippers and fish have fins.
Thanks to our setter for sharing her congratulations to her nephew with us, and thanks to Eileen for the blog.