Gozo is today's setter.
If you like general knowledge, some of it obscure, then this may the puzzle for you as you need to know about 70s cars and TV, American/German composers, Maltese ports, African wagons, shipbuilding etc to solve this. I slotted in a lot of answers on my first pass, and thought I'd finish quickly but the SE corner held out for a bit as I don't know what a rivet span is, and to be honest, I still don't, but it's all that fits. The puzzle feels like it was meant to be a pangram, but Gozo couldn't find somewhere to use a Z. I'm not keen on the VJ DAY clue, as Jeremy Vine wasn't even born in 1945, nor on the repeated REs in ERROR FREE, and the clue for AQUARIA includes the word "songs", while ARIA is singular, the plural being either ARIE or ARIAS. Those quibbles apart, it was a fun solve in the end.
Thanks, Gozo.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | LAAGER |
Destroyed a large ring of ox-wagons (6)
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*(a large) [anag:destroyed] A laager was a southern African defensive encapment forned by a ring of wagons, especially during the Great Trek of the mid-19th century, |
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| 4 | U-BOATS |
Enemy threats to a sub at sea (1-5)
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*(to a sub) [anag:at sea] |
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| 8 | ACQUIRE |
Get a 100 and 24 sheets of paper (7)
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A + C (100, in Roma numerals) + QUIRE ("24 sheets of paper") |
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| 9 | IDAHOAN |
Statesman arranged aid with disheartened hooligan (7)
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*(aid) with [disheartened] HO(olig)AN |
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| 11 | PEER GROUPS |
Lords’ cliques who have much in common (4,6)
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PEER ("lord") + GROUPS ("cliques") |
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| 12 | A FEW |
Some cafe with sandwiches (1,3)
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Hidden in [sandwiches] "cAFE With" |
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| 13 | MGARR |
Sports car and a Roller at my island’s ferry port (5)
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MG ("sports car") + A + RR (Rolls Royce, aka "Roller") Mġarr is the main ferry port of the `Maltese island of Gozo. |
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| 14 | THROTTLE |
Accelerator and choke (8)
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Double definition |
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| 16 | MILANESE |
Divisions of motorway to east of Italian city (8)
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MI LANES ("divisions of motorway") to E (east) |
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| 18 | VJ DAY |
Initially Jeremy Vine backed Sir Robin on August 15 1945 (1,1,3)
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[initially…backed] <=(J(eremy) V(ine)) + (Sir Robin) DAY |
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| 20 | SKYE |
Channel broadcasting cricket to eastern isle (4)
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SKY (TV "channel broadcasting cricket") to E (eastern) Not sure why Gozo has specifically chosen cricket, as Sky broadcasts a lot of sports, and "channel to eastern isle" would probably have sufficed. |
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| 21 | ALLOTMENTS |
Grants for rented gardening plots (10)
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Double definition |
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| 23 | EMIGRES |
Asylum seekers from corrupt regimes (7)
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*(regimes) [anag:corrupt] |
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| 24 | ANTLERS |
Bucks’ trophies? (7)
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Antlers are often diaplayed as hunting trophies, and they belong to bucks, but I don't like this clue. |
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| 25 | FOREST |
Leading medic has left wooded area (6)
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MO (medical officer, so "medic") has left FORE(mo)ST ("leading") |
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| 26 | SPIRES |
Winds on peaks (6)
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Double definition |
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| DOWN | ||
| 1 | LUCRE |
Some other culprit turned up the spoils (5)
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Hidden backwards in [some…turned up] "othER CULprit" |
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| 2 | AQUARIA |
In American university Queen songs tanks (7)
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Q (queen) in A (American) + U (university) + ARIA ("songs") The clue says "songs", but ARIA is singular, the plural being either ARIAS or ARIE. |
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| 3 | ERROR-FREE |
No mistakes here for Rupert Everett — thrice initially troubled (5-4)
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*(for re re re) [troubled] where RE is R(upert) Ev(erett) [initially] |
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| 5 | BIDES |
Waits for former president’s name dropping (5)
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(Joe) BIDE(n)'S ("former president's") with N (name) dropping |
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| 6 | ASH CART |
Broken coat-hangers gone missing on refuse truck (3,4)
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*(cathars) [anag:broken] where CATHARS is C(o)AT HA(nge)RS with the letters of GONE missing |
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| 7 | STAGE-PLAY |
Drama coach with freedom of movement (5-4)
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STAGE ("coach") with PLAY ("freedom of movement") |
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| 10 | KURT WEILL |
Brecht’s collaborator provides short, disagreeable sounds (4,5)
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Homophone/pun/aural wordplay [sounds] of CURT ("short") + VILE ("disagreeable") German playwright Bertolt Brecht and comoposer Kurt Weill collaborated on musical versions of Brecht's plays, especially "The Threepenny Opera". |
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| 13 | MEIN KAMPF |
Autobiography of member — fame and kin involved (4,5)
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*(mp fame kin) [anag:involved] where MP is Member (of Parliament) |
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| 15 | RIVET SNAP |
Five painters redesigned panel-fastening joint (5,4)
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*(v painters) [anag:redesigned] where V is five in Roman numerals |
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| 17 | AVENGER |
Hillman marque for Steed or Purdey (7)
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The Hillman Avenger was a British car of the 1970s, and Steed and Purdey characters in the New Avengers TV series. Purdey, played by Joanna Lumley, didn't appear in the original 60's show The Avengers, but in the reboot (The New Avengers), but I suppose the characters were avengers. |
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| 19 | DWELLER |
Resident departs with Dickens’ Sam (7)
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D (departs) + (Sam) WELLER (a character in Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers") |
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| 21 | AXELS |
Manx recluse regularly performing ice-skating feats (5)
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(m)A(n)X (r)E(c)L(u)S(e) [regularly] |
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| 22 | TYRES |
They could be spare in city restaurant (5)
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Hidden [in] "ciTY REStuarant" |
Thanks Loonapick. I agree it was solvable but too many obscurities and loose clues for my liking. Are we really expected to know the names of Maltese ferry ports?
Thanks for the explanation of error free, and I share your reservation on this clue. Anagrams are hard enough with needing to guess what the fodder is first. I thought mein kampf was border line but this was too much.
I took buck as a synonym for stag in 24a but even then it’s not the best clue.
I agree with all of your moans but nevertheless filled it in without too much cheating. But stuffing in answers without fully understanding them and upon seeing the blog/google realising you never would have fully worked them out is not satisfying compared for example to Goliath’s witty grid yesterday.
Liked peer groups, to end on a positive note.
2d: is ‘songs’ simply a misprint? ‘Song’ would deliver the required wordplay and be grammatically correct in the surface reading.
I usually like a Gozo puzzle but agree with the moans about this one. It was a mixture of quite easy clues combined with some obscurities e.g. MGARR.
How is SPIRES a double definition?
Thanks Gozo and loonapick
I needed Chambers to make sense of SPIRES. To “spire” is apparently to coil in a spiral.
26ac further to Petert@5: Chambers 2016 p 1502 has spire¹ a summit, a peak (think tall buildings) and spire² to wind, mount, or proceed in spirals. Two words of different origins that have converged in spelling, which in my view is a desirable feature of a double definition clue.
What JamesP@2 wrote
Thank you Petert@5 and Pelham Barton@6.
I agree with the comments above, especially about the indirect anagrams and the general knowledge required. I don’t particularly like clues like “avenger” where there is no way in if you don’t have the GK. I think a crossword clue should supply wordplay or something cryptic. I’d be interested to know how people who had not heard of “Kurt Weill” got on with that clue – if you knew of him and Brecht it was a write-in.
I am with Pelham Barton @6 a good double definition should derive from different roots which “spires” achieves, but “throttle” doesn’t as the reason the accelerator in the car is a throttle is because it chokes or throttles the air/fuel mix.
I’ve used many a “snap rivet” in my time and never seen a reference to a “rivet snap” but it seems to be an alternative name so fair enough and a thing I have learned.
Much to like, however, so thank you Gozo and loonapick for the blog.
Well I usually complain about too many obscurities, but not in this case.
Just couldn’t get 6D
For the record, the AQUARIA clue appears in the online version now with “song” in the singular.
I agree that the obscurities were pretty obscure. My last one in was AVENGER: it was the only word that fit the crossers, which is all I can say, since none of the names in the clue meant anything to me. Is this crosswords or pub trivia? On the other hand, the Maltese port was clued so clearly that it couldn’t be anything else, even though the answer looks *extremely* improbable.
There was a lot here to like, and I did finish in a reasonable amount of time, so I shouldn’t be heard to complain.
What James P (and Martyn) wrote.
It is only very rarely that I defend myself in Fifteen Squared, but I feel jubilant that today’s Gozo puzzle in the FT has defeated allcomers, just as my puzzle 15000 in the FT did, all those years ago.
One commentator had realised that only Z was missing from the puzzle to make it a pangram, and he wondered why I had not tried to include one Z. However the very nature of this puzzle precluded it appearing. I would suggest you all look at the second letter of each Across solution in order, and then continue with these ten Down solutions: 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 17, 19, 21, and 22.
Hence the appearance of few unusual words, such as Idahoan Mgarr and VJ-Day. Other more GK-type solutions appear because of the cross-checking of letters in the Across answers.
Hi Tom,
Thank you for popping in and explaining the missing Z. It’s a pity that your cleverness eluded all of us.
I’m afraid I had the same grumble as the others above too much GK. Maybe we needed a clue that there was something clever to look for…..
Mark
Tom@13: I solved all of the clues correctly and without guesswork in a time somewhat less than my “par” time for a daily FT puzzle. I did not find the additional pattern you mention. I do not accept that an explicit statement of that pattern was part of the published puzzle. I do not accept that you defeated me.
Themes like the cropped alphabet are nice if the solver knows to look for “something”. Hiding the alphabet in second letters of fills, and then not all fills, is something that there is absolutely no reason to notice. Perhaps if these puzzles had titles and the titles gave some casual reference to the theme then the solver could hunt for the Easter egg. However, as currently presented, these additions are usually missed.
I agree with many solvers that this puzzle required too much general knowledge.
Jay@16
When some time ago, the reference to the theme in one of my FT puzzles was included as a preamble, commentators complained. I just cannot win.
Pearls before swine!
Gozo@16
Sadly, it was ever thus. Sympathy.
Tom@17
Good point. Perhaps the best tack was provided by Ricky Nelson in Garden Party;
“ya can’t please everyone
So ya got to please yourself”