Thanks to Bruumie for today’s puzzle…
…with a rather morbid theme, an impressive number of answers being words for dying: EXIT, KICK the BUCKET, PERISH, POP one’s CLOGS, GO WEST, BITE the DUST, DEPART, DIE itself, PUSH UP the DAISIES and PASS.
(Sorry for the late appearance of this blog – I thought I’d published it earlier but obviously failed to do so properly.)
| Across | ||||||||
| 8 | POPULOUS | Packed Oslo twice up for development (8) Anagram of OSLO UP UP |
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| 9 | INURE | Get into a habit that is holding back career (5) Reverse of RUN (to career) in I.E. |
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| 10 | EXIT | No longer the thing, to retire? (4) If it’s no longer the thing then it’s EX-IT |
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| 11 | EXPRESSWAY | Means to go east of state road (10) EXPRESS (state)+ WAY (means) |
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| 12 | BUCKET | Pretentious sitcom character by chance catching cold in this country (6) C[old] in UK, all in BET (chance). The character is Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced “Bouquet”) from the sitcom Keeping Up Appearances. The Special Instructions say that “the clue for 12ac has been amended to provide the correct complement of vowels”: I didn’t see the previously incorrect version |
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| 14 | IMPURITY | My name is – goodness – dirt! (8) I’M (my name is) + PURITY (goodness). A very weak clue in my opinion, with PURITY having the exact same meaning in both definition and wordplay |
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| 16 | DEGRADE | Date agreed? Possibly lower (7) D + AGREED* |
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| 18 | C P E BACH | Musician reversing taxi, grabbed by the male police officer (1,1,1,4) Reverse of CAB in HE PC. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was one of the many children of Johann Sebastian, and a notable composer in his own right |
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| 21 | ANATHEMA | Key used in song of praise – a bugbear (8) A (musical key) in ANTHEM + A |
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| 23 | PERISH | Paper is, however, full of decay (6) Hidden in paPER IS However |
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| 24 | MARCH PASTS | Now into April and start of Spring presidential reviews of troops? (5-5) If April is here then MARCH [is] PAST, plus S[pring] |
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| 26 | KICK | Give up blow? (4) Double definition |
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| 27 | CLOGS | Loud footwear is tacky (5) Double definition |
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| 28 | EMULSION | Paint bird and cat soaking up sun (8) EMU + S[un] in LION |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1 | NO EXCUSE | Every reason you should order sex on cue! (2,6) (SEX ON CUE)* |
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| 2 | DUST | Clean break when book replaced by daughter (4) BUST (break) with B replaced by D |
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| 3 | GO WEST | Follow the sun and be destroyed? (2,4) Double definition |
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| 4 | ASEPTIC | One month before electronic components will be contamination-free (7) A SEPT + IC (integrated circuit) |
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| 5 | BITE | Smart but somewhat inhibited (4) Hidden in inhiBITEd |
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| 6 | SUBSCRIBER | Paying member, inferior to writer, Regina (10) SUB-SCRIBE (an inferior to a writer) + R |
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| 7 | DEPART | Caught ascending with loss of pressure to achieve take-off (6) Reverse of TRAPPED less one P |
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| 13 | KARATE CHOP | Handy means of felling oak with the car’s explosive power (6,4) (OAK THE CAR)* + P |
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| 15 | POP | Report the old man (3) Double definition |
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| 17 | DIE | Something spotted when one had got up, eyes opening (3) Reverse of I’D (one had) + E[yes] |
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| 19 | CASH CROP | Commercial produce around tree cut (4,4) C (circa, around) + ASH + CROP (to cut) |
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| 20 | DAISIES | Stand is protecting England’s earliest plants (7) DAIS (stand) + E in IS |
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| 22 | NUANCE | Parvenu ancestral housing shade (6) Hidden in parveNU ANCEstral |
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| 23 | PUSH UP | Hike – or gym exercise? (4,2) Double definition |
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| 25 | PASS | Fool around with second hand (4) Reverse of SAP + S[econd] |
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| 26 | KISS | Klimt’s definitive work? Plonker! (4) Double definition. A plonker can be “anything large, esp. a smacking kiss” |
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Came to a standstill on the west side last night but fresh eyes and spotting the deathly theme, certainly helped this morning. I also included DEGRADE in the list. I enjoyed the amended BUCKET, CPE BACH, ANATHEMA, MARCH PASTS, EMULSION, SUBSCRIBER and KARATE CHOP. I also liked GO WEST v go east in the EXPRESSWAY clue. Great stuff from the setter.
The previous BUCKET had ‘however’ in the clue, rather than chance, thereby giving BUCKUT.
Ta Brummie & Andrew.
Late appearance of the blog is very on brand for this particular crossword so consider it a happy accident?
Enjoyable for the most part, but I don’t quite see the similarity between CLOGS and tacky, and although KISS falls in readily enough, it was my least favourite clue.
I also struggled to create a sentence in which NO EXCUSE & every reason (you should) could be exchanged. No doubt someone will provide an example.
Glad that 12 was amended as it was sort of central to the theme
Good puzzle otherwise
We (my infinitely better half and I) twigged the theme. We included PERISH and considered also DEGRADE as the theme embraced rotting away. Looked hard for kiss goodbye and cash in your chips – but no success there. Great fun. CPE BACH took a long time but was convinced about the reversing taxi so that got me there. Loved the knottiness and cleverness today. Marvellous work Brummie and thanks for blog, Andrew.
Took me a while to get started in this with my FOI being 3d DUST.
Favourite: EXIT.
New for me: 12ac BUCKET = pretentious sitcom character. An initial google search showed me a British TV sitcom series with that name. And then AI/google tried a bit harder and found pretentious social climber Hyacinth Bucket from the British sitcom Keeping Up Appearances, pronounced “bouquet” by the character herself. I had never heard of either series!
Also new for me IC= integrated circuit = electrical components for 4d (loi).
Found the theme after I finished the puzzle, as the Guardian btl bloggers mentioned there was a theme 😉
Some amusing clues – thanks Brummie. I missed the theme while solving but went back to look for it having seen the comments beneath the crossword. I think it’s a bit harsh, Andrew, in 14A saying it is a very weak clue. The ‘goodness’ in the surface reading means ‘deary me / oh dear’Thanks to both Brummie and Andrew.
Me @1: it was the East that held me up, not the West.
TerriBlislow @5: Andrew mentioned PERISH in his preamble.
Thanks AlanC@8. Sorry Andrew. I am often very careless in my haste to comment. Must take m ore time in future.
I’d have said that an IC is a single component, or is so regarded by electronic engineers. That’s what ‘integrated’ means. Of course components almost always consist of other components when you look more closely, but that doesn’t negate the accepted terminology.
Luckily I was able to remember BUCKET though I’ve never seen the sitcom (I lived abroad when it was popular).
Larry@7: IMPURITY — I think the grump (one which I share) is that ‘goodness’=purity in the wordplay (irrespective of the surface) and the solution repeats the same semantics (purity=goodness) plus the negation prefix ‘IM-‘.
Missed the theme as usual. Failed to parse some but now see that was my fault, not the setter’s.
Thanks both.
A morbid theme indeed. It wouldn’t be allowed in some other publications, perhaps rightly.
AlanC @1: the clue for 12a was originally “Pretentious sitcom character nevertheless catches cold in this country (6)”.
I’m not sure the definition works for INURE which is a transitive verb — “Get into a habit” would surely mean “inure oneself” or similar.
Even though I knew that Brummie normally has a theme, I failed to spot it! I was doing an after-midnight solve, though, and it was going a bit slower than usual, so all parts of the mind not immediately dedicated to parsing clues had possibly shut down.
Well, I hope Brummie’s OK, and that there’s no deeper hidden import to the theme.
No especially stand-out clues today for me. I was slightly unsure about the Klimdt KISS, memory failing me about that painting, so LOI, and confirmed by the “all done” tick.
Thanks Brummie and Andrew.
KISS
I think ‘definitive’ plays a role.
Klimt’s definitive work? The KISS
DNF – didn’t know CLOGS in any of the meanings (neither did I know “pop one’s clogs”). Had “Crocs” instead as a homophone of “crocks” but it didn’t really work anyway. Also constructed BUCKUT before the correction. Missed the theme 🙁
Liked the puzzle overall; favourites C.P.E. BACH and MARCH-PASTS. Thanks Brummie and Andrew!
Pserve_p2@11 but surely that occurs in many cryptic ‘charade’ clues e.g. 19D where CROP meaning ‘cut’ appears as such in the wordplay, the surface reading and is an actual word in the answer. At least in 14A ‘goodness’ is used in a different sense. As Andrew has underlined, in 14A the definition is ‘dirt’ not ‘purity’.
INURE – LordJim@13: As you say, INURE is a transitive verb; so if I inure someone I get them into the habit. That person might then correctly say that (passively) they have been inured — by me.
The setter seems to me to have got it right.
Lord Jim @13: thanks, I knew it was something like that.
IMPURITY – Larry@17: Well… not really, because in the CASH CROP charade clue the semantic equivalence crop=cut (as in “he cropped her hair”) is necessary in the wordplay but the solution and its definition depend on a different semantics: crop=’farm produce’ (as in “cereal crops” or “a crop field”). Notice that in the IMPURITY clue and its solution purity=goodness (as in “saintly purity”) in both the wordplay (because one must read ‘goodness’ in the wordplay as equivalent to PURITY) and in the solution (because IMPURITY = absence of goodness = dirt)
INURE
“Get (someone) into habit” is implied.
We have seen this format a number of times. I remember that all don’t agree with this kind of def.
Thanks Brummie and Andrew
William @ 3: I saw the equivalence in 27 as ‘clogs’ / ‘is tacky’, as something tacky is likely to clog up the works.
IMPURITY – Larry@17: The thing is there are 3 levels at work in a cryptic clue: 1) the solution semantics 2) the wordplay semantics 3) the surface semantics. I agree that the surface reading is different (where goodness=’an expression of astonishment or surprise’) but that’s one of the fun and clever things about cryptic crossword setting — and different setters devote varying amounts of care to that third level of surface sematics. Brummie wasn’t bothered about surface semantics in 22d clearly: the clue “Parvenu ancestral housing shade” shows little regard for surface meaning, but the wordplay and solution levels work just fine.
CLOGS
Some folks seem to have missed the fact that the second definition is “is tacky”.
e.g. Self adhesive paper IS TACKY, it CLOGS the shredder.
Thanks Brummie n Andrew
My personal u.s.p. is that I claim to be the last person ever to run down Great Ancoats Street in clogs in the course of my daily employment.
pserve_p2 @18 and KVa @21: thanks, yes that works. I had been tricked into thinking that “Get into a habit” was referring to oneself, which was no doubt intentional. Objection withdrawn.
Goodness, pserve_p2 @23, we shall have to agree to differ. I don’t see the word ‘goodness’ being used as meaning purity in either the wordplay or surface meaning in 14A and I still find the comment, that it is a very weak clue, unfair. I liked the clue!
I failed to notice the theme but got there anyway. I liked the car’s explosive power in KARATE CHOP, the well-hidden PERISH, the presidential April reviews for MARCH PASTS, and the take-off for DEPART. I failed to parse ASEPTIC, thinking the month was SEP, but TIC didn’t seem to involve electronic components!
Thanks Brummie and Andrew.
Nice puzzle. I cheated on ANATHEMA (seems a bit strong for “bugbear”, and I’ve now learnt that anthem has an ecclesiastic meaning.) Took a while to sort out the fodder for POPULOUS.
I’m one of those who don’t much like “get something” for “get somebody something” in definitions and wordplay, re KVa@21. But I’m slowly beginning remember to apply the “maybe the setter really meant the latter version” mentality when solving.
I don’t see the problem with IMPURITY; when the word means ‘dirt’ the purity part is (or at least can be) referring to physical impolluteness (of substances etc), not the spiritual goodness that is one reasonable interpretation of the wordplay. [Edit to acknowledge cross-post with Larry@26. We’re saying the same thing.]
Thanks both
A Norwegian Blue of a theme, which I didn’t see until it was too late (ha ha) to be any help. I agree with SimonS@22 about CLOGS, and blinked a bit at INURE, though it seems to be OK. Didn’t know the electronic IC.
Was anyone else looking for cattle in 16a?
Worth pointing out that Dame Patricia Routledge, who played Hyacinth BUCKET in Keeping Up Appearances, died recently? A couple of months ago to the day in fact. I hope this didn’t prompt the theme, but a coincidence perhaps. Great crossword, only KISS and my sketchy knowledge of Bach’s descendants held me up.
Mainly looking forward to the blog to see how BUCKUT could be BUCKET, and of course it was a Grauniad special. [I have always assumed that setters employ testers, and that the G. has someone check the “typesetting”, so errors are minimized from either source, but there is frequent evidence this is not the case. Who knows what the editor does!]
I was also wondering where the “The” went in KISS, but KVa@15 nailed it.
Before 12a was rectified, after several attempts I parsed it as BUT (however) round C + KE (Kenya)! Not satisfactory, since logically the C was to be inserted in UK.
Thanks to Brummie and Andrew.
gladys@29: yes, my first thought was some kind of cattle… but I saw through this double-bluff once my limited word-hoarde of large ruminants had been exhausted, and soon saw the light.