It’s less than three weeks since the last Qaos puzzle, but I’m always glad to see his name. Thanks to him for this one.
I’m afraid I’ve been unable to identify today’s theme, so I hope someone can help. I wonder if it’s to do with something that STARTS TOMORROW.
| Across | ||||||||
| 1 | BREATH | Soldiers infiltrating abbey get life (6) RE (Royal Engineers) in BATH |
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| 4 | STATIC | Noise on the radio still (6) Double definition |
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| 9 | WIND | Perhaps North’s to achieve success with diamonds (4) WIN + D |
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| 10 | ON ONE’S GAME | Man goes wild securing ace when playing well (2,4,4) ONE (ace) in (MAN GOES)* |
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| 11 | STARTS | Begins with small puddings (6) S + TARTS |
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| 12 | TOMORROW | Also, stealing money not a pointer to the future (8) M[oney] in TOO + ARROW (pointere) less A |
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| 13 | CLERGYMEN | They provide regular services for the masses (9) Cryptic definition, with masses in the religious sense |
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| 15 | ROLE | Part of quiche Lorraine slice sent back (4) Hidden in reverse of quichE LORraine |
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| 16 | DUMP | Party accepts 1,000,000 deposit (4) M (million) in DUP (political party in Northern Ireland) |
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| 17 | SPIKEFISH | US swimmer oversleeps if he’s shattered (9) Reverse (“over”) of KIPS (sleep) + (IF HE’S)* |
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| 21 | OBLIVION | Black cat chases ball catching 6 in limbo (8) O (ball) +VI (6) in B[lack] LION |
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| 22 | SPEARS | Weapons and fruit onboard (6) PEAR in SS – i.e. “on board” a Steam Ship; this is an old trick but I don’t remember seeing it recently |
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| 24 | STRIPOGRAM | Messenger’s very good memory about outing (10) TRIP (outing) in SO G[ood] RAM (computer memory) |
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| 25 | FALL | In New York, season top of fajitas with everything (4) F[ajitas] + ALL |
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| 26 | DAGGER | Blade of green grass, damp after early rain, initially flourished (6) Anagram (flourished) of first letters of Green Grass, Damp After Early Rain |
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| 27 | ARENAS | Article describes hesitation in retreat, like in scenes of conflict (6) Reverse of ER (hesitation) in AN (article) + AS (like) |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1 | BRISTOL | Side of ribeye smothered in gravy – starter for lunch in City? (7) R[ibeye] in BISTO (gravy) + L[unch] |
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| 2 | ELDER | Senior wife divorced by one forming bond (5) WELDER (one who forms a bond) less W[ife] |
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| 3 | TROTSKY | Hiding in ancient city – not a task for revolutionary (7) TASK less A in TROY |
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| 5 | THERMS | The Royal Marines: the ultimate in peerless British units (6) THE RM + [peerles]S – the Therm is a unit of heat energy, familiar to some from domestic gas bills |
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| 6 | TIGER WOLF | Chasing rabbit’s tail, biting foot of hare, I growl savagely and loudly (5,4) [rabbi]T + [har]E in (I GROWL)* + F (forte, loudly) – presumably intended as an &lit, though I don’t know how accurate this description is |
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| 7 | COMPOSE | Conservative politician wearing glasses has scheme on vacation to make notes (7) C[onsrvative] + MP (politician) in O O (glasses) + S[chem]E, with the notes being of the musical kind |
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| 8 | BOTTLE‑OPENERS | They remove caps from batsmen to sustain courage (6-7) BOTTLE (courage) “sustained” (i.e. held up) by OPENERS (opening batsmen) |
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| 14 | REMAINING | Left Italy in German translation (9) Anagram of I[taly] IN GERMAN |
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| 16 | DEBATED | Argued about backing Democrat plot to imprison separatists once (7) Reverse of ETA (Basque separatists) in D BED |
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| 18 | KASHMIR | Making his mark in disputed region (7) (HIS MARK)* |
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| 19 | SCROLLS | Documents civil service retiring with expensive cars (7) Reverse of C[ivil] S[ervice] + ROLLS. A Rolls [Royce] is already an expensive car, so the singular might have been better here |
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| 20 | RIMOSE | Building is more cracked (6) (IS MORE)* – sneakily, “cracked” is the definition, not an anagram indicator |
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| 23 | ELFIN | Delicate flower picked up by female? On the contrary (5) F[emale] in reverse of NILE (river, flower) |
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(Should be “Troy” in 3 down)
One thing that STARTS TOMORROW is that 28th Feb is apparently Open That Bottle Night, where we are encouraged to try new wines with family and friends. Struggling to see too many themed answers though, beyond BOTTLE OPENERS and possibly OBLIVION.
Thanks Qaos and Andrew
Never heard of TIGER WOLF or RIMOSE, so needed help with those.
I don’t think I’ve seen a clue like 26a before. My first thought was “first letters, but they are in the wrong order”. I didn’t spot flourishing as an anagram indicator.
Favourite OBLIVION.
I imagine Paul might have clued BRISTOL differently.
This seemed an odd mix of straightforward and obscure. NHO tiger wolf, spikefish or rimose. Should there have been some indication that tiger wolf is extinct and antipodean? Spikefish is not particular to the USA according to Wikipedia. The answers were possible to work out, though and I enjoyed it,
Fiery Jack @2 And just maybe FALL?
But stretching it a bit
Wikipedia tells me there’s an action ROLE GAME called The ELDER SCROLLS, which has editions called ARENA, DAGGERFALL, (TO)MORROW(W)IND, OBLIVION, (TROT)SKYRIM(OSE) and Blades (SPEARS and DAGGER?).
Thanks to Qaos and Andrew.
The first time in my life that I have ever thought “Ah, Bisto”. With TOMORROW and DAGGER I was looking for a MacBeth theme to no avail.
Nho Bristo gravy, or rimose. Thought Tiger Wolf might be a type of game with chasing as the def. The fish was unknown too bit din’ madder none. No idea of theme, but all good, thx both.
I googled scrolls elfin dagger elder (they felt like they might be in a computer game) but the result didn’t click with me, so I missed the theme.
Thanks Q and A for the questions and answers
SPIKEFISH was easy to work out, but RIMOSE had too many variables for such an obscure word. That makes it unfair, imho. Otherwise not- too-taxing and pleasant puzzle to end the week. Thanks both.
Thanks DuncT, that looks very plausible, if obscure.
I like DuncT’s find – ELDER SCROLLS, which also features a TIGER, a WOLF, and various Dragons named one sort of BREATH or another.
tsk.
Skyrim is one of the most culturally significant video games of all time, and Bethesda, one of the most celebrated developers.
Is Game of Thrones obscure? Is The Lord of the Rings?
I agree with ozof @13 that Skyrim is culturally significant and not obscure, not that that helped me any more than Game of Thrones would have, as I know almost nothing about them.
I got through this quite quickly. Many of the clues were simpler than they first appeared. I agree with Muffin @3 that the DAGGER setup was a bit unusual, but I knew I was right; I could see all the first letters. I didn’t think 13A (CLERGYMEN) was the vaguest bit cryptic and proactively avoided all things ecclesiastical (a habit of a lifetime) on the basis that that was the misdirection. A few moments were also wasted trying to turn IT and German into emigrated (yes, I know it doesn’t work, it was early!).
Thanks Qaos and Andrew
my working theory is that qaos was playing Skyrim when he set this (ON ONES GAME) and had decided, for the lols, to play the Companions of Jorrvaskr questline as a Khajiit! (TIGER WOLF)
très amusant
A tamer end to the week then we have become accustomed to. I did get lucky with last one in RIMOSE with every combination of the letters seemingly plausible.
Good to see my home city get a mention.
Liked STRIPOGRAM. Always forget the message part of their role. Rarely hear that word anymore I guess society has thankfully moved on from it.
Thanks QAOS and Andrew
Entertaining puzzle with clues of widely varying difficulty (at least for me). I didn’t know TIGER WOLF or SPIKEFISH, but the parsing was straightforward, unlike that for the unfamiliar RIMOSE – were we supposed to find a synonym for ‘building’ or ‘cracked’?
DAGGER is pleasingly unusual, I liked the gravy insertion, and the clue for OBLIVION (though I don’t quite equate this with ‘limbo’)
ozof @13: You’re right that Skyrim is not objectively ‘obscure’ but I suspect that few Guardian solvers – at least those who contribute here – are video gamers
Thanks to Qaos and Andrew
@ozof
Someone here once opined that The MCU in general and The Avengers in particular were “a bit obscure”.
After Paul yesterday I over-thought this puzzle to begin with. Actually it was mostly straightforward. I agree with Oofyprosser@10 about RIMOSE. I needed to trawl the dictionary for anagrams of more is. I didn’t like TIGER WOLF but worked it out. Agree with SueB@4 that Spikefish is not a US fish but again easy to work out. Liked BRISTOL.
RIMOSE was new, and I googled RISOME first; likewise, nho SPIKEFISH and checked SPANEFISH as my first option – I was just pleased to have spotted the fission trick on “oversleeps”.
All else went in fairly easily, which was a pleasant change from yesterday.
Many thanks to Qaos and Andrew.
First of all – or rather last of all – I had to guess what the small matter of the 6 letter anagram at 20d could possibly be. With all its crossers in place. Guessed incorrectly, so strictly a dnf. Also struggled with the interlocking SPIKEFISH and TIGER WOLF, managing to solve them from their cryptic components, but not having come across either of those before.
The STRIPOGRAM took a lot of time of putting together too, rather the reverse of what he or she does in delivery. Some excellent clues, didn’t bide my time looking for a theme, but enjoyed the solve today…
I’ve Googled TIGER WOLF and discovered that it’s the extinct thylacine, which I had heard of – also it’s referred to as “Tasmanian tiger” and “Tasmanian wolf”, but the “tiger wolf” combination seem much less common.
SureB@4: the term TIGER WOLF for the Thylacine, aka the Tasmanian Tiger, probably died out before the Tassie Tiger itself did. Indeed, until I read your comment, I didn’t even think of the Thylacine in relation to that answer. No chance of me spotting this theme, even though I tried. But I enjoyed the crossie. Thanks, Qaos and Andrew.
I got stripogram from the clue, but have never seen it spelled that way before, usually strippergram, sometimes strippagram, always with double p.
Disappointed not to spot the theme, as that is so much a feature of Qaos puzzles, but this one is not something I’m familiar with so it was unlikely. I am keen to watch Game of Thrones as I have heard great things, but Mrs 1961Blanchflower remains sceptical.
The nice thing about Qaos themes is that they are not essential to solving the puzzle, and this was a fun and reasonably straightforward crossword, with lots of interesting constructions.
SPIKE FISH and TIGER WOLF were new to me, though both were fairly clued, and join the ever-lengthening list of things I have learned from crosswords, one of which I believe was RIMOSE, though I have no idea when.
Thanks to Q&A.
As one of the small intersection between 225ers and video game players I appreciate the theme, although missed it entirely during the solving of what I thought was quite a gentle crossword for a Friday (I’m still chipping away at yesterday’s). Then again I’m more on the Nintendo end of the spectrum. I’ll mention it to my PC-gaming partner who I suspect will be… well ambivalent if I’m honest.
Thanks to Andrew, and to Qaos for helping to validate my nerdery. May all three of us live to see the release of TES6.
[Ignore the reference to Game of Thrones in my comment above @25: I misread an earlier point made by ozof about cultural significances.
As for gameplaying, I’m afraid I never got beyond Tetris on the Gameboy, but I accept there are millions who did, so yes, the big games are indeed significant and Qaos-theme-worthy.]
For me this felt like a gentler Qaos offering (especially after yesterday’s from Paul). I was unfamiliar with “kips” for sleep in 17A, and a few others were bung and parse. I actually knew RIMOSE, but seem to be in the minority. The theme eluded me entirely. Thanks Qaos and Andrew.
Comment #29
[The last computer game I played was Elite on the BBC B. I got to “Deadly”, but not “Elite”!]
Didn’t know the theme but enjoyed the puzzle.
Doesn’t ELFIN need a second “on the contrary”? Sorry, not caffeinated yet, and can’t get the reversals to work.