I am filling in for Eileen today. I cut my teeth on the Guardian crossword, but unfortunately, I seldom have time to solve the weekday puzzles anymore.
While I did recall that Qaos usually has a theme, I did not see today’s theme until after I had completed the grid. In addition to the theme word HEAD itself, I spotted at least 24 “head”-related words. Remarkable.
| ACROSS | ||
| 9 | CAIRO |
Look into firm’s capital (5)
|
| AIR (look) inside (into) CO. (firm), referring to Egypt | ||
| 10 | UP THE ANTE |
‘Increase risk from chopped peanut’ – inspiring article (2,3,4)
|
| Anagram of (chopped) PEANUT around (inspiring) THE (article) | ||
| 11 | EPHEMERON |
Record bird circling me – it won’t last long (9)
|
| EP (record) + {HERON (bird) around (circling) ME} | ||
| 12 | STAND |
In Polish, ‘time’ means ‘resistance’ (5)
|
| T (time) inside (in) SAND (polish), with a capitalization misdirection | ||
| 13 | STARTLE |
Perhaps the Sun let being hacked shock (7)
|
| STAR (perhaps the sun) + anagram of (being hacked) LET, with a capitalization misdirection | ||
| 15 | STICKER |
Dagger, not a dessert, smuggled into prison (7)
|
| C[A]KE (dessert) minus (not) A inside (smuggled into) STIR (prison) | ||
| 17 | AUDIO |
Car with one wheel – sound? (5)
|
| AUDI (car) + O (one wheel) | ||
| 18 | SET |
Firm sofa 50% off (3)
|
| SET[TEE] (sofa) minus latter half (50% off) | ||
| 20 | LAMPS |
Punches produce shiners (5)
|
| Double/cryptic definition | ||
| 22 | EMBOSOM |
Clasp them briefly with heaving moobs (7)
|
| Abbreviated form of (briefly) ‘EM (them) + anagram of (heaving) MOOBS | ||
| 25 | ASSISTS |
Helps donkey get first and second (7)
|
| ASS (donkey) + IST (first, stylized form of “1st”) + S (second) | ||
| 26 | LINER |
Ship to remain without any goods (5)
|
| LIN[G]ER (remain) minus (without any) G (good[s]) | ||
| 27 | STEEL DRUM |
Must elder play this instrument? (5,4)
|
| Anagram of (play) MUST ELDER | ||
| 30 | CLEANSERS |
Not half clever getting solutions without soap? (9)
|
| CLE[VER] minus latter half (not half) + ANS[W]ERS (solutions) minus (out) W (with), with a spacing misdirection | ||
| 31 | CASES |
Examples of luggage (5)
|
| Double definition | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | ACHE |
Companion enters hospital department in pain (4)
|
| CH (Companion [of Honour]) inside (enters) A&E (hospital department) | ||
| 2 | HIGHLAND |
Trip to arrive in mountainous area (8)
|
| HIGH (trip) + LAND (arrive) | ||
| 3 | ROOM |
Ring in memory of 13 down (4)
|
| O (ring) inside (in) ROM ([read-only] memory), referring to the solution of 13D SPACE | ||
| 4 | QUARTERS |
3 + 3 + 3 = 1/4 + 1/4 +1/4? (8)
|
| Double definition, the first a cross-reference to the solution to 3D, ROOM, thus three of these would be “rooms,” and the second, 1/4 being a quarter, three of these could be described as “quarters”; for another plausible parsing (which I think might be the intended one), see Layman@6. | ||
| 5 | STONES |
Last one standing carries lots of weight (6)
|
| Hidden in (carries) [LA]ST ONE S[TANDING] | ||
| 6 | VERSAILLES |
Silver seal broken in palace (10)
|
| Anagram of (broken) SILVER SEAL | ||
| 7 | UNMASK |
Expose country defending man’s rambling (6)
|
| UK (country) around (defending) anagram of (rambling) MAN’S | ||
| 8 | HEAD |
Discovering they made leader (4)
|
| [T]HE[Y] + [M]AD[E] minus outside letters (“dis-covering”) | ||
| 13 | SPACE |
Well, church builds no character (5)
|
| SPA (well) + CE (church), as on a keyboard | ||
| 14 | TROUSERING |
Stealing fancy store jewellery – you involved? (10)
|
| U (you) inside (involved) anagram of (fancy) STORE + RING (jewellery) | ||
| 16 | RESTS |
Soundly twists snooker equipment (5)
|
| Homophone of (soundly) WRESTS (twists) | ||
| 19 | TRAVERSE |
VAR rewound during short cross (8)
|
| VAR inverted (rewound) and inside (during) TERSE (short) | ||
| 21 | MISTRESS |
Film on extremely serious Lady Hamilton? (8)
|
| MIST (film) + RE (on) + outside letters of (extremely) S[ERIOU]S, notably, of Nelson | ||
| 23 | BANGER |
Don’t allow mirrored license plate with old car (6)
|
| BAN (don’t allow) + REG (license plate, short for registration number) inverted (mirrored) | ||
| 24 | MASTER |
Ruler quicker to change gender? (6)
|
| [F]ASTER (quicker) exchanging the F (female) for M (male) (to change gender) | ||
| 26 | LICE |
Cops missing work over bugs (4)
|
| [PO]LICE (cops) minus (missing) OP (work) inverted (over) | ||
| 28 | LOCK |
South of the border, we’re told lake is secure (4)
|
| I think this parses as: Homophone of (we’re told) LOCH (lake), with, I assume, “south of the border” indicating the tendency outside of Scotland not to pronounce the “ch” as a voiceless velar fricative | ||
| 29 | MOSS |
Plant grasses someone up inside (4)
|
| Hidden in (inside) [GRASSE]S SOM[EONE] inverted (up) |
Thanks Cineraria. Didn’t spot the theme, but what a numerous one.
Put in QUARTERS (LOI) but didn’t understand it until I read your parsing. And still unsure about LOCH/LOCK.
Thanks Qaos for a pleasant romp
In QUARTERS I just thought the 3s referred to the quarters on a clock face (both multiple 3s and the sum equal to 9), but your explanation, Cineraria, makes more sense.
Thanks Cineraria and Qaos! Great puzzle, even before I knew there was a theme for so much of the grid. Ephemeron and trousering were both new to me but gettable from the wordplay, and I had to look up Lady Hamilton. I liked the 13D/3D/4D combination a lot.
Yes, never met the singular of ephemera before, and in 30ac the outing of with was pretty cute. And yes, all the heads went straight over ginf’s, as per. Otherwise not too gnarly [unlike today’s Enigio]. Thanks Q and C.
Thanks for stepping in Cineraria, and for spotting the incredible theme… which I missed completely.
Dave Ellison @1: it’s assumed that people darn sarf pronounce ‘loch’ as LOCK, i.e. without the softer Scottish ch ending.
Great puzzle, thanks, Qaos.
Thanks Qaos and Cineraria! A great puzzle, and a first one by Qaos that I finished. Couldn’t see the theme despite learning on the Guardian site that there is one. I like his math clues. I parsed QUARTERS a little differently: the definition is “3+3” (“room”+”room”=“rooms”=“quarters”) , and the clue is “1/4+1/4+1/4-3”, i.e. “three quarters” minus “three”
I thought my work was done but will now have to research ‘voiceless velar fricative’. Thanks anyway C and thanks to Q for this elegant offering.
Very enjoyable, found it the easiest of the week so far despite missing the theme as always. Couldn’t parse QUARTERS, but now I can see it’s very clever. Enjoyed the surface for UP THE ANTE. Thanks.
Great fun by Qaos. ROOM was the last one in which finally gave me the “oh I see” moment for quarters. I completely missed the theme despite looking for one. I spotted the placement of HEAD ACHE and MASTER/MISTRESS but couldn’t put the pieces together. No excuses here really as the examples were numerous.
Liked TROUSERING and MISTRESS
Thanks Qaos and cineraria.
Quite an enjoyable puzzle by Qaos, thank you! I was unaware of the fact that the setter usually has themes, which makes the puzzle even more special. Thank you to Cineraria for pointing that out.
Best one for a while, for me.
Hadn’t fully parsed CLEANSERS – clever. I don’t generally care about themes and didn’t spot this one, but I see it’s impressive, especially STEEL DRUM with the theme used twice in a single answer. Don’t think I’ve come across EPHEMERON or EMBOSOM before but both very good. Favourites these four, plus LOCK, LICE and several others.
Thanks Qaos and Cineraria.
I have Qaos = theme etched on my brain after cover blogging one last year and not being able to see the Clangers theme, so it was nice to be able to spot this one, albeit after I’d finished solving.
Fun puzzle, thank you to Cineraria and Qaos.
Today I learned what an EPHEMERON is and, sadly, the HERAL bird does not exist 🙂
No doubt someone will be along shortly to complain that sand and polish are not synonymous
Cheers C&Q
I’m guessing our blogger included STEEL DRUM in the themed answers for steelhead (fish) and drum head (vellum). Yes?
Oh dear. Another theme missed.
William@14: Yes. Also MOSS-HEAD, which apparently is a kind of fish.
gif #4. Over this side of the continent, we call a joke which goes over our heads a Mascot (the Sydney Airport name.) Actually, we don’t say anything, just a hand wave over the head, like an aeroplane flying. Translation: I missed that. Went straight over my head.
All done this morning with time to comment, so it must have been Qaos in friendly mood. Missed the theme completely – no surprise. Thank you Cineraria for the parsing of QUARTERS – would not have got that in a thousand years. Fave was CLEANSERS. Thanks to Qaos too. Seeing the theme when I came here was an added bonus. Clever.
Collins (online) has under sand
verb
7. (transitive)
to smooth or polish the surface of with sandpaper or sand
to sand a floor
Bodycheetah@13
Chambers has almost the same definition.
A bit of a write in, with a nice theme, so Qaos at his most benign. I was also wondering about the Heral bird, therefore EPHEMERON an educated guess. My favourites were EMBOSOM, STEEL DRUM, CLEANSERS and MISTRESS.
Ta Qaos & Cineraria.
Is a HEAD MASK a thing?
Excellent start to the morning. Favourite TROUSERING. Struggled to parse QUARTERS, largely due to me misreading the reference as being to SPACE SPACE SPACE (hmph).
Kva@19 I’m aware but not everyone bothers to check the dictionary before quibbling 🙂 we can dream
Tough puzzle and I forgot to look for a theme.
A DNF for me – I failed to solve 9ac and 3d.
New for me : EPHEMERON although I am familiar with ephemera.
I didn’t parse 4d apart from thinking that the three 1/4s = quarters. Was not helped by the fact that I had failed to solve 3d anyway!
bodycheetah@13 – I also put in ephemeral first before settling on ephemeron after I realised there is no such thing as a HERAL bird 😉
There are three things that always seem to occur with a Qaos puzzle: a theme, a numerical clue and a comment that it was easier than usual for Qaos.
Thanks to Qaos and Cineraria
bodycheetah@23
Lol!
Actually, if everyone starts referring to dictionaries, I will
have to find an alternative occupation to my copy-pasting job!!!
Anyone else have “racks” (wracks) at 16d? Held me up for a bit.
We did this crossword standing on our (4)… An enjoyable solve and not too challenging for a Wednesday. Thanks Qaos.
well done for spotting the theme – and so many of them – on just an occasional visit, cineraria. (I always associate the plant with Cynara in one of my favourite poems, but I don’t think there’s any connection ….)
HEAD held HIGH, AUDIO HEAD.
AIRHEAD ?
I kept catching myself checking that Qaos was indeed the setter today, as this seemed so much more straightforward that I usually find him. And is it a while since he last appeared? Anyway the vague remembrance that he always has a theme did not indicate one to me even when I had completed. Most strange. I am usually perplexed by these mathematical clues, and QUARTERS was the very last one in today. EMPHEMERON and EMBOSOM perfectly gettable, even if I hadn’t come across them before. Many thanks Qaos and Cineraria…