I’m deputising for Eileen again and it’s Vlad again only two weeks after his last appearance in the prize slot.
I’m pleased to say that Eileen is back home again and making steady progress with her convalescence and hopes to resume her blogging duties early next month.
It was a surprise to encounter Vlad again so soon after what I described as a chewy challenge a couple of weeks ago. This one was even chewier and I confess that in a couple of places we resorted to word-finders to reach the answer. Although there are no particularly obscure words, some of the definitions are really quite cryptic and the wordplay in places is challenging. There is only one clue that I haven’t been able to parse to my complete satisfaction (IMPASTO) so I look forward to seeing your suggestions.
Given that this puzzle appeared on 14th February, we were expecting a Valentine’s Day theme, but if there was one, we couldn’t see it.
Many thanks to Vlad.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | HORATIO |
Hamlet’s first speech interrupted another character (7)
|
| H(amlet) ORATIO(n). Not the Shakespeare play we were expecting to find on 14th February. | ||
| 5 | PUB BORE |
Opening B&B after Union admitted one wouldn’t be welcome locally (3,4)
|
| U(nion) B B all inside PORE (opening). This was one of the last ones we solved, partly because the phrase (which is common enough) is not to be found in Chambers. “locally” (like “conveniently” in 21 down) was the key. | ||
| 10 | OGLE |
Search for information out of turn – not a good look? (4)
|
| (go)OGLE (search for information). A go is a turn. | ||
| 11 | PERPLEXING |
First Mrs Vlad occupying a place in government – bewildering! (10)
|
| The first Mrs Vlad would be the setter’s EX, which must be inserted in PER (a) PL(ace) IN G(overnment). | ||
| 12 | UNITES |
Cross-country guest forced to leave golf links (6)
|
| NI (Northern Ireland, a country) inside *(g)UEST. “Forced” is the anagram indicator, “golf” is G in the NATO phonetic alphabet. | ||
| 13 | SOCRATIC |
Used actors’ piece occasionally as a way of teaching (8)
|
| *(ACTORS (p)I(e)C(e)). I initially came up with ACROSTIC, which would work but it’s not really a way of teaching. | ||
| 14 | ACROPOLIS |
Grain perhaps and where to store it round highly secure location (9)
|
| A CROP, SILO (rev). The definition of acropolis is a secure citadel. | ||
| 16 | NEIGH |
Reported denial that comes straight from the horse’s mouth (5)
|
| Sounds like “nay”. | ||
| 17 | EMOTE |
What unsubtle actors do with direction – test the limit of patience (5)
|
| E(ast – a direction) MOT (test) (patienc)E. | ||
| 19 | IGNORAMUS |
Roaming round country as its leader, some might say (9)
|
| *ROAMING US. Further comment is unnecessary. | ||
| 23 | TRAIN OIL |
Blubber once when affected in Rialto (5,3)
|
| *(IN RIALTO). Chambers defines this as “whale oil extracted from the blubber by boiling”. | ||
| 24 | PUNDIT |
Expert parking? One’s over edge of driveway (6)
|
| P(arking), D(riveway) in UNIT(one). | ||
| 26 | POOHSTICKS |
Backing band stays for game of bridge (10)
|
| HOOP(band, rev) STICKS (stays). The game is to be found in The House at Pooh Corner, by A.A. Milne; we had to use a word-finder to get the answer, although the wordplay is perfectly clear. | ||
| 27 | HEAL |
Get better describing Meghan’s number 2 – Prince Harry (4)
|
| (m)E(ghan) inside HAL (Prince Harry). | ||
| 28 | SEASICK |
On the drink but not feeling great (7)
|
| I’m not sure how to classify this clue: is it an & lit, or just an extended cryptic definition? | ||
| 29 | PREMISE |
In short Starmer’s point accepted – we assume it’s true (7)
|
| PREMIE(r) (Starmer in short) including S (point of the compass, or possibly the first letter of Starmer). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | ORGANIC |
Naturally growing old interfered with racing (7)
|
| O(ld), *RACING. | ||
| 3 | ALERT |
Warning from distant relative rebuffed (5)
|
| Hidden and reversed in “distant relative”. | ||
| 4 | IMPASTO |
Painting I think about no more (7)
|
| If this is a charade of I’M PAST O, then I don’t fully understand it. Any suggestions? | ||
| 6 | UNLOCK |
Release one French rugby player (6)
|
| UN (one in French) LOCK (rugby forward). | ||
| 7 | BOX CAMERA |
Shooter turned up after strapping fellow wearing underwear (3,6)
|
| OX (strapping fellow), CAME (turned up) in BRA (underwear). An elusive definition, coupled with the possibility of a reversal (“up” in a down clue) made this one hard to solve without quite a few crossers. | ||
| 8 | RANTING |
A little narrow-minded in judging crosswords (7)
|
| N (a little Narrow-minded) inside RATING (judging). You have to separate CROSS and WORDS. Our LOI. | ||
| 9 | TRYSTING-PLACE |
Clanger! Typist accidentally reveals where lovers are meeting (8,5)
|
| *(CLANGER TYPIST). The only clue/answer with any reference to St Valentine, so far as we could see. | ||
| 15 | OSTRICHES |
Birds over the road getting bread (9)
|
| O(ver) ST(reet, or road) RICHES (money, or bread). | ||
| 18 | MARLOWE |
Old dramatist in Hackney perhaps depressed (7)
|
| LOW (depressed) in MARE (like hackney, a word for a horse). | ||
| 20 | OPPOSER |
One not in favour of bringing up Vennells’ former business model (7)
|
| PO (Post Office, of which Paula Vennells was once chief executive) (rev), POSER (model). We had a reference to the Post Office Horizon scandal in the previous Prize puzzle from Vlad a couple of weeks ago. | ||
| 21 | URINALS |
Where to stand conveniently keeping in range (7)
|
| IN (keeping?) inside URALS (a mountain range). I guessed this immediately from “conveniently” but it took a while before Timon came up with the parsing. | ||
| 22 | POETIC |
Writer gets a lot of credit for being imaginative (6)
|
| POE (writer) TIC(k) (credit). | ||
| 25 | NAHUM |
Human failing in book (5)
|
| *HUMAN. Nahum is perhaps one of the less well-known of the minor prophets whose books are to be found in the Hebrew Bible. |
Many thanks. I enjoyed this, but took all week to parse IMPASTO.
I think it’s IMO (I think – i.e. in my opinion) about PAST.
Another Vlad prize (just two weeks after the last one) I didn’t quite finish that one but did better than expected.
And was encouraged by Roz’s comment about trying harder puzzles to try again.
I found this one much more difficult. On the first try I only managed half the clues. So I left it – the next day I got another eight – so still some to go- and I did try again but no success.
Liked: ACROPOLIS, EMOTE (I kept trying to fit HAM into the answer) IGNORAMOUS, POOHSTICKS (for the definition), BOX CAMERA, POETIC
Thanks Vlad (I think) and bridge song
I can’t believe I finished this one. Probably my toughest completion ever, so very satisfying. Take that Vlad! Quite the slog, worked on over several days. LOI, 5a, was sitting there for a long time with all the crossers. When I finally twigged to the wordplay, I popped the question to Mrs. Mig — “Is PUB BORE a thing?” — and she made me very happy by saying yes!
A lot of very tricky constructions, with superb surfaces. Apologies for so many notables: 3d ALERT (very well hidden), 11a PERPLEXING (dastardly wordplay, took a while to parse), 26a POOHSTICKS (nho, “game of bridge” clever definition), 4d IMPASTO (“I think” = IMO), 8d RANTING (“crosswords”), 22d POETIC (great surface), 20d OPPOSER (took a lot of digging to find “Vennells’ former business” = PO. Really? We’re supposed to know all the people who ran the UK Post office?), 21d URINALS (all-round excellent clue), 25d NAHUM (cue the tea tray)
For URINALS, I parsed it as “keeping in, range” = “range keeping in” = UR(IN)ALS
Thanks to Vlad for a great puzzle, and to bridgesong for stepping in — rock on Eileen!
Re. 12A, Northern Ireland is not a country. I should know – I come from there. I spent ages trying to parse UNITES ;(
I agree with jkb_ing@1 on IMPASTO.
I am not at all persuaded by the parsing for UNITES. [G]UEST minus G (golf) is OK, and forced as anagram indicator is OK, but I do not see Northern Ireland as a country, nor does that explain what “cross” is doing in the clue. I thought perhaps “cross-country” might be a synonym for “in,” that is also not very satisfactory.
Good blog on a hard puzzle.
I think you have to read 21d as “keeping in, range”. Meaning that URALS is “keeping” IN.
Thanks to Vlad and bridgesong, and jkb_ing for the parsing of 4d.
Edit – I see Mig@3 has typed faster than me, apologies!
Can someone explain how in 8D “a little narrow-minded” = N. Got the answer and the rest of it, but couldn’t quite parse the above.
I agree with earlier comments about the NI in UNITES – I finally figured it was very likely Northern Ireland they were referring to, but wasn’t very convinced.
Shafar@7, “a little” is often used as a first-letter indicator
Echo jkb_ing #1.
Another tour de force from Vlad – certainly chewy. We started a bit late with a funny NEIGH, (Oh yes, we did!) and proceeded slowly to UNITES, via a host of clever and entertaining clues, but we saw no theme.
We laughed at our favourites: POOHSTICKS, BOX CAMERA and URINALS; appreciated the intended digs in IGNORAMUS, OPPOSE, and possibly PREMISE; struggled to explain IMPASTO, PERPLEXING and EMOTE and enjoyed ACROPOLIS, OSTRICHES, PUB BORE with OGLE (almost a triple!)
Thanks to Vlad for the challenging fun and bridgesong for the usual clear blog.
Thanks bridgesong. 1a and 2d went in immediately but like you and others I found this needed quite a lot of time and I had to wait to come here before understanding 7d and 29a. I’d been fixated on Starmer’s=PM+is+E and trying to account for RE. Maybe ‘cross’ is the anagrind in 12a.
@Mig, thanks! I knew about “little” being a first-letter indicator, but the use of a hyphenated word “narrow-minded” as the target threw me off! Thought there was more to it.
I read the “a little narrow-minded as N from narrow, minded (found in, kept by) rating, to get the RANTING, the hyphen helping to misdirect.
BOX CAMERA was my LOI, which I found the most tricky, till the penny dropped.
I think NI in 12a must be Nicaragua (website country code).
Fine puzzle. PUB BORE was hard to see. Vlad does seem to enjoy his Yoda-esque constructions.
Faves were ACROPOLIS and URINALS. Some nicely disguised definitions here.
Thanks, Vlad and loonapick.
Bridgesong, not loonapick. My apologies!
Thanks Vlad and bridgesong.
Liked PUB BORE, IGNORAMUS and URINALS.
PERPLEXING
First Mrs Vlad: Should that not be ‘my ex’?
UNITES
NI is a country just like Wales, England or Scotland. Not a sovereign nation, but a country.
I didn’t get RANTING – put in RANKING without really parsing it. For IMPASTO, I couldn’t account for O but jkb@1 nailed it. For SEASICK, I thought of it as being sick on the water (which is a drink, albeit, in the sea, not a very good one but I guess one can be seasick on a lake and even on a river). Liked HORATIO, PERPLEXING, ACROPOLIS, OSTRICHES. Thanks Vlad and bridgesong!