Imogen provides this week’s prize puzzle.
Apologies to those expecting to see Eileen’s name at the top of the blog: she is still recovering from recent emergency surgery (see her comment #27 on last week’s blog) so I am standing in for her this week.
Timon and I enjoyed this puzzle; the grid was friendly and the perimeter entries were all fairly straightforward, so we finished it in good time. There were some tricky parsings, e.g. SIMPATICO, IGNORAMUS and OCCIPUT, but also some relatively easy cryptic definitions, such as ROCK OPERA. My only quibble relates to the use of CILIA in the answer to 25 across.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | CHARIOTS OF FIRE |
A historic offer to edit film about race (8,2,4)
|
| *(A HISTORIC OFFER). | ||
| 8 | ALBAN |
Vestment taken by a new saint (5)
|
| ALB (a vestment) A N(ew). | ||
| 9 | INCREASE |
As precaution, banking extremely rare profit (8)
|
| R(ar)E inside IN CASE (as precaution). | ||
| 11 | HARD ROE |
Pregnant fish has this laborious progress through water, we hear (4,3)
|
| Sounds like “hard row”. Can fish be said to be pregnant, we wondered? | ||
| 12 | PUDENDA |
Naughty bits of dessert to finish at end of tea (7)
|
| PUD (dessert) END (finish) (te)A. | ||
| 13 | ASSAM |
Gather in numbers for cycling, then drink (5)
|
| AMASS (gather in numbers) cycled (letters moved from front to back, or vice versa). | ||
| 15 | SATIRISES |
Pokes fun, having posed by van Gogh painting (9)
|
| SAT (posed) IRISES (this is one of the paintings) | ||
| 17 | DAMP SQUIB |
Swear non-stop: question in pub is ridiculous non-event (4,5)
|
| DAM(n) (swear non-stop), *(Q IS) inside PUB. Timon originally entered this as DAMP SQUID! | ||
| 20 | CANON |
In author’s works, chapter is not by her? (5)
|
| C(hapter) ANON(ymous). | ||
| 21 | NIAGARA |
Across Aegean regularly terrible rain falls (7)
|
| *RAIN, alternate (regular) letters of AeGeAn. | ||
| 23 | CHOC-ICE |
Bar is excellent but cold inside (4-3)
|
| C(old) inside CHOICE (excellent). Do choc-ices still exist, or have they been entirely supplanted by Magnums (or similar brands)? Incidentally, I can find no evidence to support the claim that it was Pierce Brosnan who first came up with the idea of a choc-ice on a stick. | ||
| 25 | SICILIAN |
Islander wrong to coat eyelashes (8)
|
| CILIA (eyelashes?) inside SIN. Any experts out there care to comment on whether eyelashes can be defined as cilia? Chambers defines them as “hair-like structures …. on the surface of a cell”. | ||
| 26 | EPICS |
Spice up the Iliad, etc (5)
|
| *SPICE. | ||
| 27 | COMMON OR GARDEN |
Choice of grassy areas, nothing special (6,2,6)
|
| Cryptic definition. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | CRASH LANDING |
Have to sleep outside bedroom, it may appear, a disastrous comedown (5,7)
|
| CRASH (have to sleep) LANDING (outside bedroom). | ||
| 2 | AMBER |
Light warning room has no central heating (5)
|
| (ch)AMBER. | ||
| 3 | IGNORAMUS |
Fool, I sound hesitant to wear skirt when getting up (9)
|
| I, UM (sound hesitant) inside SARONG (skirt, all rev) | ||
| 4 | TRICEPS |
One extending journeys round continental Europe in the first instance (7)
|
| C(ontinental) E(urope) inside TRIPS. The triceps is an extensor muscle. | ||
| 5 | OCCIPUT |
Still up in Ohio canal? Head back (7)
|
| O(hio), PIC(ture, or still, rev) inside CUT(canal). The definition (it’s the back of the head) looks like wordplay. | ||
| 6 | FREUD |
Analyst runs into protracted quarrel (5)
|
| R(uns) inside FEUD (protracted quarrel). | ||
| 7 | RISING SUN |
Students suggested national flag design (6,3)
|
| NUS (National Union of Students, rev). The clue is self-referential; reversing (or raising, as this is a down clue) NUS suggests the rising sun, which is the design of the Japanese national flag. | ||
| 10 | HANS ANDERSEN |
Husband to Anne Sanders, novel author (not Christian) (4,8)
|
| H(usband) *(ANNE SANDERS). In fact Hans Christian Andersen never married. | ||
| 14 | SIMPATICO |
Congenial, so admitting I love my country, suppressing riot (9)
|
| S(I’M PAT(riot)IC)O. | ||
| 16 | ROCK OPERA |
Concept album from Gibraltar? (4,5)
|
| Cryptic definition. | ||
| 18 | URANIAN |
Middle Easterner gets a new leader, one who is out of this world (7)
|
| IRANIAN, with U for the initial I. | ||
| 19 | BACONER |
Pig slaughtered once in pub (7)
|
| *ONCE inside BAR. | ||
| 22 | AXIOM |
Maxim: one not the first that’s empty? (5)
|
| O (nothing, or emptiness) inside (m)AXIM. | ||
| 24 | IVIED |
One short film about castle finally covered in greenery (5)
|
| (castl)E inside 1 VID. |
According to Google Cilia is the anatomical word for eyelashes, whereas in biology they are the hairs on cells.
As you said the four long answers went in fairly quickly, but the south-west corner held out the longest, but was a very satisfying solve.
Thanks B & I
Cilium is Latin for eyelid. Merriam Webster gives eyelash as 2nd meaning.
Nice to see Imogen in the prize slot with her usual flair and wit. The four long clues proved quite accessible with CHARIOTS etc. our FOI, but not leading immediately to any of the down clues! Our LOI was TRICEPS with NIAGARA, CHOC-ICE, AMBER, OCCIPUT, SIMPATICO and RISING SUN (last parsed) highly recommended. We do have a reservation with the double use of AXIM in 22dn, but otherwise is was most entertaining.
Thanks to I and the gallant b, with best wishes to E.
Thanks bridgesong. A good and enjoyable workout. I never did quite come to terms with 5d so thanks for that. Unlike you I didn’t find 16d relatively easy, I had pencilled in ‘rock mania’ which Google told me was a music album and that held things up for a while.
I too had a question mark next to cilia/eyelashes but Collins, ODE and SOED have cilium as a technical name for eyelash.
I’m struggling to convince myself that “non-stop” is a valid last letter deletion indicator in DAMP SQUIB given that it means ‘without any stop or halt’ or ‘uninterrupted’.
DAMP SQUIB
I think it is:
Q in (PUB IS)*
Usually find Imogen’s puzzles very difficult but did better than usual with this one although I seem to remember I didn’t parse them all.
Favourites were: SATIRISES, TRICEPS, RISING SUN, SIMPATICO, IGNORAMUS
Thanks to Imogen and Timon
Thanks for the blog , found this very good with many neat clues . AXIOM has clever double use of maxim , I do think of axiom as much stronger than maxim but there is some overlap.
Like Tim@5 I wondered about non-stop but decided it could mean without end .
Chambers93 gives eyelash as the original Latin meaning of cilium .
Part of a run of (for me) tough puzzles over the past week and a half. Fewer than half complete. Several I probably could have solved had I more time available to stare at empty squares! Of those solved I especially enjoyed 23a CHOC-ICE (cute), 14d SIMPATICO (neat construction)
I was pleased to get nho 17a DAMP SQUIB, and agree with KVa’s parsing @6
Enjoyable and with some neat clueing. I thought AXIOM was clever both for the double use of maxim and for ‘that’s empty’ = ‘includes nothing’ trick. It was well after the event that I realised where the students fitted in RISING SUN – and I have been a member of the NUS, presumably like many others. I didn’t really see how Gibraltar, while certainly a rock, led specifically to ROCK OPERA so am I missing something? Thanks Imogen, thanks bridgesong.
I parsed ALBAN as LBA (Lightweight Body Armour) ‘taken by’ A N but ALB+A+N is clearly what was intended.
Quite straightforward, I thought, but enjoyable with no quibbles that I remember.
Liked PUDENDA (there was a 1970 Monty Python sketch about ‘naughty bits’ – did they invent the phrase or was it in use previously?); also C OF F and quite a few others.
KeithS@10 – Gibraltar is sometimes known simply as ‘the Rock’ so I thought the clue worked well.
Thanks Imogen and bridgesong.
I found this one reasonably straightforward albeit with a couple of jorums which I enjoyed teasing out. In particular I thought there were some clever, natural-sounding surfaces.
So AXIOM was suddenly a leftfield. I guessed the answer from the A and M checkers and its near-anagram of maxim but it took a good while and some lateral thinking to unpick!
Thanks both
Just read the news about Eileen’s surgery; wishing her a speedy and full recovery
Well constructed I thought. If you fancy more Imogen/Vulcan, I note in his guise as Fieldfare that he sets this week’s Spectator which is also good and a good way in to barred puzzles. It’s blogged here after the close date.
Best wishes to Eileen. Thanks for the blog.
Thanks Imogen and bridgesong
All fish eggs are fertilised externally – i.e. the eggs are released into water to meet the sperm – so fish cannot be pregnant. In some species one of the parents – usually the male – guards the eggs in his mouth, but this hardly equates to pregnancy. “Fertile” would have been better.
Fiona@7 your thanks should go to Bridgesong for the blog ( as do mine), unless it is due to my faux pas for initially entering SQUID. It certainly made us laugh., but I did ask for stronger coffee.
Thanks also to Imogen for an enjoyable puzzle and best wishes to Eileen for swift recovery.
Great thanks, Imogen. Some really neat clues. Particularly enjoyed PUDENDA … not just for the naughty bits and Python thoughts. I liked the neat double appearance of END in the clue and then in the solution.
Thanks, bridgesong. I didn’t quite parse AXIOM and mine for IVIED was definitely suboptimal. A French film “La vie de château” stuck inside I for one and D for finally covereD. The bonus was that I got to read about the Australian classic “The Castle”. Must look out for that film.
Very good. I needed help with a couple of parsings so thanks to the blogger(s). Eileen, I hope you are well cared for during your recovery and can keep yourself occupied as you don’t strike me as a ‘take it easy’ type!
Yes, somewhat more tractable than some previous ones by Imogen. I was pleased to get 1A straightaway, which helped. I liked the PUDENDA naughty bits, the CHOC-ICE bar, the IGNORAMUS wearing a skirt, the OCCIPUT ‘head back’, and the SIMPATICO loving his country.
Thanks Imogen and bridgesong.
Marser#3
Imogen is male, Richard Browne, a former Times crosword editor (as is Brian Greer, aka Brendan).
I enjoyed this apart from 10d which I thought looked like a fairly desperate attempt to fill the grid to fit the crossers. No-one ever refers to Hans Christian Andersen without the Christian and Anne Sanders is a name made up to provide an anagram, unknown to those not familiar with attorneys in Connersville, Indiana.
5d Is O a conventional abbrevation for Ohio?
25a I remembered “cilia” from “supercilious’ ”
Thanks to Imogen and bridgesong
Thanks all for your comments; with reference to cilia I accept that it is the Latin term for eyelashes, since of course the ancient Romans did not have microscopes with which they could examine cells and see the hair-like structures which help with navigation at a cellular level. But Chambers is at fault here for not including eyelash as at least a secondary anatomical definition for cilium (unlike the ODE, which I failed to consult before writing the blog).
Chambers does give O as a conventional abbreviation for Ohio.
Thanks Pino#20 (and Jay#12). Originally, when writing the blog, I had put ‘the’ rather than ‘her’, since I was not sure, but wished to sound more personable – doh!
‘Jorum’ as used in crossword speak (courtesy of Eileen) is fully explained by an entry in fifteensquared by the admin. on 20/02/2025 and can be found using ‘jorum in the urban dictionary’.
Like Rich@11 I had been trying to justify LBA inside A and N, misled by ‘take’. I even tried a different saint, but A(UBI)N was no better, so eventually I just wrote in ALBAN. Thanks for the correct parsing – must brush up my knowledge of vestment synonyms.
My other unparsed was the NUS ‘rising’, but that was shear laziness on my part
Thanks to Imogen, and to Bridgesong for taking the time to fully parse all the clues so that I don’t have to 😁
Thanks Imogen and bridgesong. A finished-by-Tuesday solve this week, with a bit of cheating for OCCIPUT and ALB. I parsed 1d as CRASH on LANDING rather than separate definitions of CRASH and LANDING. Speedy recovery Eileen!
Chambers is only partly right. Cilium in classical Latin means eyelid. Mediaeval Latin adopted the eyelash meaning.
Thanks Timon @ 16
My thanks to Bridgesong for the very helpful blog
OCCIPUT LOI as not familiar with the term and as always I’m always misled when common wordplay is the actual clue. Also never heard of BACONER but parsing was kinder in this instance.
As a novice to cryptics I’ve started to attempt the Saturday prize puzzle after having completed the quick cryptic, which has been exceptional learning material. I stare at it till Friday night and usually have worked out 4 or 5 answers so this blog is immensely useful. Thank you. This week I’m well chuffed to have correctly filled in all but 4 answers. I found it tough, but persistence and frequent revisits paid off – though I didn’t correctly parse them all. I had TOURIST for 4 down which seemed to fit well, but stopped me getting its crossers. I hope I have enough stamina for this week’s!
Well done Tim@28 , perseverance and being stubborn are the best qualities for solving crosswords . I used to carry the Everyman Observer crossword around with me all week , trying for 20 minutes here and there . I think it is better to try fewer puzzles and keep at them for as long as you can . Good luck with Brockwell , it is not too tricky .
Re O for Ohio: it’s a very old usage, not part of either set of standard abbreviations still in use. (The USPS abbreviation is OH; the AP style guide says that Ohio should be written out in full.)
In my youth, I used to go to or through Indianapolis fairly frequently. The interstates that meet downtown there are I-65 and I-70; back in the day, the sign telling you which way to go for eastbound 70 used announce that it was the road to “Columbus O.”, with the period, to distinguish it (I eventually figured out) from the much smaller Columbus Ind., for which you’d want 65 south. This is the only place I’ve ever seen O for Ohio in the wild, and it’s long gone: the sign now reads “Columbus OH” as you’d expect.
(I guess I also have seen O for Ohio in compound abbreviations, such as OSU for The Ohio State University. But of course those don’t count, because if you allow those, a letter can stand for just about any proper noun it starts.)
Thank you for the encouragement Roz@29! I’ve stuck with the Guardian. I’m also trying Monday’s if I’ve had no luck with the prize one by then. Blogs like this are essential though.
Tim@31 , the Everyman used to be very like a Guardian Monday . I agree with your switching tactic , there used to be a fearsome setter called Bunthorne and I would try all weekend and sometimes solve zero clues and then switch to Monday . You can still keep trying the Monday for five days , the blog will still be here to look at . Maybe if the Prize is by Enigmatist just have a go but change plans if you get nowhere .
Enjoyable and testing, as one expects from Imogen.
I had ‘pudenda’ from the wonderful Larkin poem which begins ‘Tonight we dine without The Master’, and where the high table conversations include ‘names for pudendum mulieris’: why is Judas like Jack Ketch’
Thanks to setter and blogger, and hopes for Eileen’s speedy return to full health.
Setting my mind back a week I recall an enjoyable solving session. The long ones going in early helped, as others have said.
CHARIOTS OF FIRE: I watched it ages ago, and enjoyed it. Then I read up about its central event, Liddell’s last-minute refusal to run on a Sunday, and found that it never happened – at least nowhere near like as portrayed ( see wiki: Paris Olympics 1924 section). He and the BOC knew months before hand about the scheduling of the critical race, and the rearrangements were made long before the team went to Paris. There were many other smaller changes made to historical reality for the sake of drama, but this near-complete untruth in a central part of the story left me feeling thoroughly cheated and I have had quite a down on the film ever since.
Rant aside…. lots to like in this puzzle, but I’ll single out DAMP SQUIB for its evocation of a fractious pub quiz night.
Thanks to Imogen and bridgesong, and I wish Eileen a speedy and full recovery.
Bridgesong, my wife lived in the UK for many years, so the term CHOC-ICE (23a) conjures up the event (theatre intermission) rather than the foodstuff. Whether it still exists is therefore immaterial to us.
I usually struggle with Imogen, but the wavelengths seemed to overlap today, and I thoroughly enjoyed the wit in surfaces and constructions in clues such as 22d AXIOM (empty = with 0 in it) and the aforementioned CHOC-ICE. And unlike Pino@20, I especially liked 10d for the (not Christian) qualifier to HANS ANDERSEN’s name.
Thanks Imogen and bridgesong (do you know any songs about bridge?) for the fun.
Cellomaniac@35 – We have ” Ace of Spades” homage to the most valuable card from Lemmy , avid bridge player and one-time partner of Omar Sharif .
“Diamonds” by Jet Harris and Tony Meehan (ex of the Shadows)?
Tim@28
Good for you tackling prize cryptics. As well as the heplful suggestions from Roz, see if any of your friends & acquaintances do (or want to) crosswords. Though reasonably profificient before, solving Saturdays’ with Bridgesong has not only made it more fun – eg. sharing jokes and light bulb moments – but it has expanded my vocabulary and understanding of setters techniques/devices.
Finally, i should make it quite clear that while we share the solving and parsing, the blog is all his own work (as a presenter used to say many many years ago).
Good luck!
Cellomaniac @35: I adopted my sobriquet because I play bridge and at the time I sang in a choir. But if you’re asking, there are two by Paul Simon that come to mind. Although they are songs about bridges, I suppose.
Cineraria@35 et al: “Queen of Hearts” by Dave Edmunds (among others)? Though, given the kerfuffle over FIRTH OF FORTH in the Omnibus puzzle yesterday, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” might be more to the point.
Sorry – Cellomaniac, not Cineraria.
Deck Of Cards by Tex Ritter?
[Hector@41: I fairly often have occasion to drive down to Exeter, and each time I pass what may be the worst services on the M5, if not on the whole motorway network, I think “I shall not trouble over Bridgewater”.]
DTS @44
Absolutely agree – the “Bridgewater Services” are a complete disgrace!
bridgesong et al: Here’s one that really IS about bridge, to the music of Frank Loesser (no lesser).
Cilia did not pose a problem to those of us familiar with French – “les cils” = eyelashes. LOI was Axiom, I think because it seemed too close. Thanks to Imogen and Bridgesong.
cilia is the latin word for eyelashes, still used e.g. in italian in the form of ‘ciglia’
its scientific use is limited to hairlike structures on cell membranes, but the original meaning comes from eyelashes
I love Imogen’s clues (esp RISING SUN and IGNORAMUS), though I struggled to parse OCCIPUT and didn’t write in HARD ROE for ages as I couldn’t equate roe with ‘pregnant fish’.
A fun puzzle, thank you.
Thanks bridgesong and Imogen. A fun puzzle but (with respect) I’m not at all persuaded by bridgesong’s parsing of AXIOM: how does the surface indicate that the O goes inside (m)AXIM (or else that the whole thing is an anagram)? The answer could hardly have been anything else but I was unhappy filling it in as the clue makes no sense to me. Removing the first letter from MAXIM is clear enough, but from there I don’t see how the answer follows from the clue. Thanks in advance for setting me straight!
Chris @50: my reasoning was that if something is empty, there must be nothing in it, and O = 0 = nothing. So you put O inside (m)AXIM. Does that help?
bridgesong @51 – I see it now! Thank you.
Re choc ice. It was Roger Moore, not Pierce Brosnan, who claimed to have told Wall’s Ice Cream in the 60’s that they should make a choc ice on a stick!