A tough solve, and a lot of parsing slowly worked out while blogging. Favourites were 9ac, 10ac, and 18dn. Thanks to Vlad for the challenge
| ACROSS | ||
| 9 | IMPERFECT |
Continuing past main road turning right? Absolutely! (9)
|
| definition: the past imperfect tense is used for actions that were continuing in the past
MI=the M1=”main road” reversed/”turning right”; plus PERFECT (e.g. said in reply to a suggestion)=”Absolutely” edit thanks to Quirister in comments: reversal indicator “turning” and PERFECT from “right? Absolutely” |
||
| 10 | HEADY |
Over here taking puff, it’s exhilarating (5)
|
| HEY=called out to get attention=”Over here”; around AD (advertisement)=”puff” as in praise, promotion | ||
| 11 | HASTENS |
German takes road east and puts his foot down (7)
|
| definition: to put one’s foot down meaning to accelerate
HANS=”German [name]”; around ST (street, “road”) plus E (east) |
||
| 12 | ILLYRIA |
Wrongly flippant about ancient region (7)
|
| ILL=”Wrongly” plus AIRY=”flippant” reversed/”about” | ||
| 13 | ALLOT |
Set aside vote to sack leader (5)
|
| [b]-ALLOT=”vote” without the leading letter | ||
| 14 | SET THEORY |
Put right over what reactionary branch of mathematics? (3,6)
|
| SET=”Put” plus TORY=Conservative=”right”; around/”over” EH=exclamation similar to ‘what?’ reversed/”reactionary” | ||
| 16 | MISS OTIS REGRETS |
Card rejected, sisters got angry on being detained – apology noted (4,4,7)
|
| definition: the name of a song [wiki]; “noted” meaning ‘set to musical notes’
SIM (sim card for a phone)=”Card” reversed/”rejected”; plus anagram/”angry’ of (sisters got)* with RE=about, concerning=”on” detained inside |
||
| 19 | NAMESAKES |
Foreign seamen’s applications kept upfront – they’ll all be handled the same (9)
|
| for definition: ‘handle’ as in a name, which will be shared / “the same” between namesakes
anagram/”Foreign” of (seamen’s a k)*, with the a k from the “upfront” first letters of a-[pplications] k-[ept] |
||
| 21, 6 | GO THE WHOLE HOG |
Become a total bore, might you say? (2,3,5,3)
|
| I think the core idea of the wordplay is that “bore” sounds like (“might you say”) ‘boar’ i.e. a HOG
not sure if there’s something more to the definition/wordplay |
||
| 22 | YEAR DOT |
Still escorting Desperate Dora, a very old date (4,3)
|
| YET=”Still” around anagram/”Desperate” of (Dora)* | ||
| 23 | INFIELD |
Ground with different entrance nearer the action (7)
|
| [A]-NFIELD the football stadium=”Ground”, with a different first letter/”entrance” | ||
| 24 | DELTA |
Passed out moving closer to Bermuda Triangle (5)
|
| definition: the triangular shape associated with a capital Greek letter delta
DE-[A]-LT=”Passed out [e.g. playing cards]”; moving the letter A which is the end/”closer” of Bermud-[A] |
||
| 25 | PROFANITY |
Don very deficient in self-regard? F——-! (9)
|
| PROF (Professor, “Don”); with [V]-ANITY=”self-regard” missing V for “very” | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | HIGHWAYMAN |
One holding up other road users (10)
|
| cryptic definition: a highwayman ‘holds up’ as in ‘robs’ road users; the surface could instead be read with “holding up” meaning ‘delaying’ | ||
| 2 | EPISTLES |
Premature ejaculation initially upsetting – maybe it’s the French letters (8)
|
| initials of P-[remature] E-[jaculation] reversed/”upsetting”; plus anagram/”maybe” of (it’s)*, plus LES=”the [in] French” | ||
| 3 | PRIEST |
Minister a bore about his subject (6)
|
| PEST=”bore” around RI (religious instruction, a priest’s subject) | ||
| 4 | TEAS |
Guy called out for drinks (4)
|
| sounds like (called out) ‘tease’
to ‘guy’ can mean to ‘tease’ |
||
| 5 | STRICTURES |
Half of street parking removed, snaps seeing constraints (10)
|
| half of STR-[eet], plus [p]-ICTURES=”snaps” with p for “parking” removed | ||
| 6 | GO THE WHOLE HOG |
See 21 Across
|
| 7 | BARRIO |
Cut in pub brawl in Mexican neighbourhood (6)
|
| definition: a Spanish word meaning ‘neighbourhood’
BAR RIO-[t]=”pub brawl”, cut short |
||
| 8 | MYNA |
Picked up small bird (4)
|
| definition: a type of bird
sounds like (“Picked up”) ‘minor’=”small” |
||
| 14 | STICKY TAPE |
Joiner Snug’s first key tip – act differently (6,4)
|
| first letter of S-[nug], plus anagram/”differently” of (key tip act)* | ||
| 15 | YESTERDAYS |
Previous times OK – runs during training steady (10)
|
| YES=”OK”; plus R (runs, cricket scoring abbreviation) inside anagram/”training” of (steady)* | ||
| 17 | OBSIDIAN |
Rock band’s origin occasionally embellished (8)
|
| anagram/”embellished” of (bands o i i)*; with the last three letters of the anagram fodder taken occasionally from o-[r]-i-[g]-i-[n] | ||
| 18 | ESTHETIC |
Cast! She finally got callback regarding American Beauty (8)
|
| definition: an American spelling of aesthetic, which means ‘regarding beauty’
anagram/”Cast” of (She t)*, with t from final letter of [go]-t; plus reversal/”back” of CITE=”call” |
||
| 20 | MEASLY |
Very few spotted? (6)
|
| could also be ready as ‘measles-like’ i.e. having spots like measles | ||
| 21 | GUFFAW |
Have a good laugh at bull that’s cute? (6)
|
| GUFF=nonsense=”bull” plus AW=exclamation/comment meaning “that’s cute” | ||
| 22 | YODA |
Why worry about alien? (4)
|
| definition: reference to the alien character from Star Wars [wiki]
Y (letter pronounced as “Why”); plus ADO=”worry” reversed/”about” |
||
| 23 | IRON |
Going over the top, Romeo’s tackling very hard (4)
|
| reversal/”Going over” of NO I (No. 1, number one, “the top”); with R (Romeo, NATO alphabet) inside |
thanks M for the clear blog and V! I was very amused by the EPISTLES surface reading. I thought though the definition of MISS OTIS REGRETS deserved a question-mark
In 9a, I think the reversal indicator is just “turning”, then PERFECT = “right? Absolutely” = absolutely right.
For no apparent reason, my comment @2 has been “deleted or awaiting moderation”.
Anyway, thanks Vlad and manehi
Lots not parsed. I had HARDENS @ 11a first, which I think works quite well (put foot down = harden attitude). I also put HAIRDO (cut) for 7d until I checked – the “in” is very misleading.
I see what he meant for 21,6, but I don’t think it works. There’s no definition, for one.
I was unsure how to parse check 21ac/6d but I like manehi’s idea of bore/boar.
23ac I see I parsed it incorrectly, never having heard of Anfield stadium. I was thinking of OUTfield changed to INfield ie different ‘entrance’ (IN/OUT) with infield being closer to the action on the sports field 😉
Favourites: SET THEORY, PROFANITY, IMPERFECT, STRICTURES, ESTHETIC.
New for me: MISS OTIS REGRETS (thanks, google), and RI = religious instruction (but guessable) – I am more used to seeing RE = religious education in cryptics.
Tough – on my first run through the only one I managed to get was the splendidly Pauline EPISTLES (see what I did there?). But immaculately clued, and a rewarding way to spend an hour or so first thing.
I have banged on of late about the Graun’s fondness for unfriendly grids. I did note that Vlad made use of one of the friendlier ones – lots of initial letters from the crossers, and no lights with a majority of unchecked letters.
Not really fair to single things out, but MISS OTIS REGRETS was especially fine, I thought.
Thanks, both
I thought the puzzle was hard but very rewarding. I had never heard of the Cole Porter song “Miss Otis Regrets” which made for some strange expressions when I had some of the crosses. Once I figured out that SIM was card things fell into place and after googling I discovered what the phrase meant. That led to listening to a few of the different recordings (I prefer Bette Midler’s version to either Ethel Waters’ or Ella Fitzgerald’s). So, a fun puzzle and lots of enjoyment beyond the grid. Thanks Vlad, time well spent!
A joyless grind that I was just glad to have over.
Quote a step up in difficulty from the week’s earlier puzzles. Finally solved before the third mug of coffee cooled too much. NW corner remained empty until the very end.
Nice PDM for MISS OTIS REGRETS – once the crossers pointed at regrets as the last word I dimly remembered the song from I don’t know where. Had to come here for the parsing, though, as I hadn’t thought of SIM for “card”; one to tuck away for future use. COTD.
A bit of PROFANITY is often a good start to the day…
Thanks to Vlad for a muscular workout and to manehi for clarifying several parses where I couldnt quite see it.
I too had HARDENS at first for 11a.
Failed on most of this so I won’t elaborate, other than to protest (again) the supposed MYNA=minor equivalence in 8d. A real fingernails on blackboard moment.
GO THE WHOLE HOG
The WP: as in the blog
+
The whole clue could act as a humorous/whimsical def:
If you want to be a bore, become a total bore—GO THE WHOLE HOG
michelle@5
You have company here in respect of INFIELD.
Me@9 – add EPISTLES in as joint COTD. Nice fluid (ahem) surface leading one from the profane to the possibly sacred.
“St Paul the Apostle,
He had an epistle
So very colossal
It made the girls whistle!”
Thanks manehi for parsing the many I couldn’t get anywhere near. Vlad is nearly always tricky, but usually more fun than this, so I gave up about halfway through.
poc@10 re MYNA / minor… It depends on your accent. Mine is a bit of a north Midlands – central southern hodgepodge (Nottingham/Oxford), and, by me, myna and minor are pronounced very nearly the same. (I have just now been practising sotto voce.) The more rhotic (Scots?) would distinguish between them much more clearly.
Recently we’ve had TOOK and TUCK , and there the regionality of the homophone was rightly flagged, but I think that for minor / myna(h) it’s not so local.
Opinions will vary, no doubt!
Muffin@4: another HARDENS here, which I think does fit the clue if not the crossers.
Well and truly impaled today with many unparsed and several unsolved, but I liked PROFANITY, ILLYRIA, YEAR DOT and MEASLY.
For the record, MYNA/minor works for me.
DTS@12: presumably the Epistle to the Colossians?
This was hard, and I needed loads of help from checking letters and google. Like Michelle@5 and KvA@11, I didnt know Anfield, so this one was left uparsed, as several others. NHO Miss Otis Regrets, but was happy I managed to parse it after getting the answer from google. Revealed Delta (kicked myself afterwards) and myna (NHO, and these soundalikes don’t work for me; I pronounce the final letter at least to some extent). Some ingenious clues and surfaces, but most too difficult for me. Thanks, Vlad and Manehi
Meh, only 60% done before I started using the reveals and checks. Shame as I had finished the last few Vlad puzzles and thought I had cracked him.
Did like GO THE WHOLE HOG and YODA
Thanks Vlad and Manehi. Back to my bloody impalings from this setter
3d still confuses me. RI is fine, by how is PEST derived from BORE?
I’m another whose pride at completing recent Vlads has come before a fall today. Whij@19 both a bore and a pest can be annoying people.
Yes, this was very hard, which I/we’ve come to expect from Vlad. Finished, but missed the “handled” bit of NAMESAKES – very clever. Also liked IMPERFECT.
Another thoroughly disappointing effort.
I’ve never heard of Miss Otis Regrets.
Being a photographer, I can’t handle the word snaps to mean pictures
Very difficult for me. For many, I just looked at what might fit in and then parsed. The only one I didn’t understand was OBSIDIAN. I liked the whimsical GO THE WHOLE HOG, the DELTA Bermuda Triangle, the EPISTLES of Paul (the setter!), and the American Beauty’s ESTHETIC. poc @10, you might save your fingernails if you listen to dictionary pronunciations eg the ODE, Collins etc. 😊 My pet hate is Y being clued as why (it is normally wye when written) unless it has a homophone or text indicator.
Thanks Vlad and manehi.
I got a right drubbing here and only managed about half of it before giving up and revealing most of the remaining answers. Excellent blog, which was very helpful for parsing several clues.
Tough one. Enjoyed the ones I did get, and well done to those who solved the whole thing.
I really struggled, particularly an obscure song from 1934. Got about a third, guessed at another third, revealed the rest. Thanks Manehi for explaining the many clues I couldn’t parse.
Ed@22 – When a clue happens to involve a solver’s specialism, I think we have to take a deep breath and look slightly the other way if the setter’s or popular usage isn’t strictly correct or what we’d prefer.
For example, in this puzzle, with my materials scientist’s hat on, IRON for “very hard” is more than a bit iffy. Firstly, you couldn’t really swap “iron” into a sentence as a direct replacement for “very hard”. Secondly, iron (the metal) in unalloyed form, isn’t even especially hard. Steels can be, as can Cast Irons, but not (fairly) pure iron. But it was pretty clear was the setter intended, so I’m not going to pick my professional nits about it. Tolerance is all.
Anyway, maybe one could IRON a top, going over it repeatedly, until the required smooth surface is achieved?
[The Hat, by the way, was forged in 1875 from an exotic unobtanium alloy, by a now defunct team of Black Country dwarves. It has been handed down ever since by generations of PhD supervisors to graduating students, with the time-honoured blessing of “here, have this, it’s been cluttering up my desk for years.”]
I had to practically reveal every clue and yet nothing made sense.Really torturous,a sheer waste of precious time deciphering a code meant only for extraterrestrial beings.
DTS @12, cute rhyme!
DerekTheSheep @26. Does the expression “IRON muscles” pass the substitutability test?
Blaise@29 – I’d more usually expect “Iron-hard muscles” than just plain iron, but I guess so. There is most likely some Greek rhetorical term for this implied transference of characteristics, but I can’t quite call it to mind.
… the use you suggest might also have a secondary implication: “I played like an idiot in goal today. I must be getting a bit rusty.”
Truly humbled by this. DNF by a long shot, but thanks to Vlad for the challenge and to manehi for showing me how everything works. I would note that 24 seems perfectly ambiguous: WP + defn gives DELTA, defn + WP gives DEALT, so for me required the crosser before I could enter. (Is it ever legit for a crosser to determine the correct entry?)
Blaise@29 and DerekTheSheep@30: Ironman competitions are very hard…
DutchGirl@32: Fair enough! The One Great Umpire shakes his head. I put my bat on my shoulder and begin the long walk back to the pavilion. I believe that the bar might be open…
Thanks for the hints, absolutely no idea about the crossword.
“Iron will”.
Got it all except for that touchstone of the musical canon, “Miss Otis Regrets”. I should have realised that “noted” meant a song, then I might have worked it out, but I do find it a bit obscure. Tough puzzle but not what I would call a joyless slog – BARRIO and PROFANITY are good examples of difficult but fun clues.
Rather late to the party – I’ve been out since before the blog was posted – but just wanted to register my appreciation of another fine puzzle from Vlad.
Nothing really to add to the comments above (gladys, I liked yours@16 🙂 ).
My favourites – I’ll list them all – were IMPERFECT, NAMESAKES, for the pdm ‘handled, YEAR DOT, DELTA, PROFANITY, EPISTLES, STRICTURES, STICKY TAPE, for the appearance of Snug the joiner and ESTHETIC.
Many thanks to both Vlad and manehi.
Thanks to Manehi for such a clear blog. I was thoroughly beaten on this one though I managed to guess my way through the grid. And thanks to Vlad of course for a taxing workout.
This was really tricky and I needed to resort to a bit of cheating to finish. But a great puzzle with some excellent clues. I was completely bemused by GO THE WHOLE HOG at first, but the more I thought about it the more I liked it.
Yes Eileen @36, I liked Snug the joiner in 14d, and YESTERDAYS in the plural made me think of “And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death”.
Many thanks Vlad and manehi.
Really pleased to have finished but a strong reliance on Google. If you Google Miss Regrets Miss Otis Regrets comes up.
Lord Jim@38
Yes, that’s something else I can recite word-perfect from English O or A Level, yet, every time I pick up whatever book I’m currently reading, I have to go back a number of pages to remind myself of what’s been happening. 🙁
[LordJim and Eileen
I sometimes think that Shakespeare wrote his plays by stringing together loads of quotations 🙂 ]
Not for me. I got a few clues, which was a result when absolutely nothing yielded on the first few passes: so I’ll take that as a positive.
#20 Pest – Bore works for me
Defeated by most of this, and didn’t have much of a clue about the parsing of some of those I did tentatively insert.
17 Down raised a wry smile, as in my recent foray into learning Italian on Duolingo elevated me into an OBSIDIAN league. In my ignorance I remember having to look up what precious stone or rock that was. As with cruciverbalism, so with a new language, you learn something new every day…
I got GO THE WHOLE HOG and HASTENS straight away. Don’t worry, it still took ages, I assume the etiquette about not sharing times doesn’t apply when we’re over two hours? I had to research the song. YODA and DELTA were the last two in. I won’t forget ado for worry again, I know it comes up a lot.
I liked the aforementioned porcine extravagance and YEAR DOT.
Thanks Vlad and bravo manehi.
Iron grip?
This was one of the tougher puzzles in the last 3 or 4 weeks.
Derekthesheep @ 26, perhaps a footballing usage. Norman Hunter was an iron man in defence is pretty much equivalent to “hard man”.
Eoink@47…snd now I’ve got Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” stuck on my inner soundtrack. Aargh!
Yes indeed, I concede the point.
I’m glad we got that ironed out. Though I had to steel myself to keep my temper… I’ll go now to quench my thirst.
A bit surprised so many people hadn’t heard Miss Otis Regrets. I suppose that means not many will know Jerome Kern’s YESTERDAYS, a favourite of Billie Holiday’s and recorded by hundreds of jazz musicians and others.
And another nod to Shakespeare — ILLYRIA, a region of what more recently was Yugoslavia, is the setting of Twelfth Night, and I remember lots of that because I played Viola in college.
Thanks to Vlad and manehi.
Many thanks to manehi for a great blog and to others who commented.
No reveals but a lot of Wikipedia. I didn’t know of MOR but got to ‘Miss Otis’ and wondering if ‘Ms. O. Redding’ inspired a song.
PUEBLO seemed like a reasonable guess for 7d which had me bogged down until I got HEADY.
HIGHWAYMAN was my favourite, some light relief and a fillip halfway through.
As a Scot my Myna doesn’t sound remotely like Minor.
Good, meaty stuff as usual, so thanks Vlad.
My minor reservations about IRON were more than offset by the outstanding 1ac, with what I though was a brilliant cloaking of the definition.
Have a pleasant day all.
Robi@23 et. al.: The OED gives two pronunciations for ‘minor’, one rhotic (labelled US) and the other not (labelled British). However many people in the UK, mainly in Scotland, NI and parts of the North of England, are rhotic, so the universal presumption in cryptics that non-rhotic is correct and that rhotic is some kind of weird distortion is simply wrong. Some setters are considerate enough to acknowledge this by such phrases as ‘according to some’, but sadly most are not.
Unfortunately for the rhotic speakers, the lazier non-rhotic pronunciation offers more opportunities for sound-alike clues to – er – sound alike. I have yet to see a complaint that such a clue works only in rhotic pronunciation. “According to some” is polite, but the universal use of this or some similar phrase would be a dead giveaway that “this is a non-rhotic homophone clue.”
Sorry, I meant 9ac.
I was encouraged by the many comments affirming the difficulty of this puzzle. After a lot of effort, I only missed “ imperfect” and “teas”. Vlad’s construction with so many Y words and their intersections raises the question Why? I suspect an undiscovered theme.
That was hard. Despite Spotify saying our music listening age is 87, we’d never heard of Miss Otis Regrets, which was our last one in (thanks Google). Thanks to Vlad and to manehi for the invaluable blog.
Yes, a tough one. I gave it a couple of days and made some slow progress, but couldn’t get past the 1/3 mark. Some very tricky synonyms — 10a both “over here” for HEY and “puff” for AD, 23a “ground” for ANFIELD?? — and solutions — 12a ILLYRIA, 16a MISS OTIS REGRETS, 22a YEAR DOT, 25a PROFANITY (why seven dashes after “F”?), 7d BARRIO, 8d MYNA (annoying non-rhotic soundalike — poc@54 and gladys@55, agreed!). I should have given up sooner!
2d EPISTLES is a most outstanding clue. 20d MEASLY also good
DTS@25, how about “Rule with an iron/very hard fist”
Esthetic is an obscure spelling even in American English. Again. Same problem with aegis not that long ago?
I got about halfway and then gave up. And seeing what I was missing, that was the right decision.
I download the crossword to my laptop daily but don’t always finish it in one day so keep the tabs open while I work on it/them Now the crosswords are disappearing after a day or so, leaving me with a 404 page not found error message. I reported this to the Guardian tech guys a few days ago, but no response yet. Is anyone else having the same experience I wonder?
Thanks, Vlad. Very pointed. A tough solve with some very nice clues. We especially liked 22a, 23a, 25a and 21a & 6d. NW corner was last completed (although we really should have got 1d) except for 18d—“American” for the spelling got us. Tough but pretty.