GAFF kicks off the week with an anniversary puzzle…
The anniversary in question (I think) being the premiere of My Fair Lady in 1956. A fun puzzle.
Apologies for the lack of a grid image, and irregular formatting. The tool that I normally use for creating the blog was not working this morning.
Thanks GAFF!
ACROSS
1/4 Relax and maybe monitor gigolo (6,6)
LOUNGE LIZARD
LOUNGE (relax) and LIZARD (maybe monitor)
8 Can just be part of London (7)
MAYFAIR
MAY (can) + FAIR (just)
9 Bald guy confused with insect (7)
LADYBUG
(BALD GUY)* (*confused)
11 Links format of deed with latitude (6,4)
STROKE PLAY
STROKE (deed) with PLAY (latitude)
12 Chinese people haul wreckage (4)
LAHU
(HAUL)* (*wreckage)
13 Beat by a distance (5)
METRE
Double definition
14 Human tests contracted officers swallowing tea (8)
CAPTCHAS
CAPTS (officers) swallowing CHA (tea)
Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart
16 Clergyman holds Channel Islands most dear (8)
PRICIEST
PRIEST (clergyman) holds CI (Channel Islands)
18 Opening for light dog investigating leather leads (5)
PUPIL
PUP (dog) + I[nvestigating] L[eather] (leads)
20 Fall for Spain’s plain features (4)
RAIN
Double (cryptic) definition
21 Rose perhaps to be attendant to the bride (6,4)
FLOWER GIRL
Double (cryptic) definition
23 Student is second class breadwinner (7)
LEARNER
[c]L[ass] (second) + EARNER (breadwinner)
24 Let down by third guess in Wordle disaster (7)
LOWERED
[gu]E[ss] (third) in (WORDLE)* (*disaster)
25 Magic cape at Oscars (6)
HOODOO
HOOD (cape) at O O (Oscars)
26 Tell it’s wrong toy (6)
LITTLE
(TELL IT)* (*wrong)
DOWN
1 Inclined to report fast time (5)
LEANT
“Lent” = LEANT (fast time, “to report”)
2 Open in advance (2,5)
UP FRONT
Double definition
3 Did Gauguin ever envision hiding a legendary queen? (9)
GUINEVERE
[gau]GUIN EVER E[nvision] (hiding)
5 At first, ICE terrorises and loots your country (5)
ITALY
I[ce] T[errorises] A[nd] L[oots] Y[our] (at first)
6 Not repeating cataclysmic disaster when mast was lost (7)
ACYCLIC
(C[at]ACLY[sm]IC (mast lost))* (*disaster)
7 Bold laugh misplaced round bread (9)
DOUGHBALL
(BOLD LAUGH)* (*misplaced)
10 Group reduced charge for delivery (9)
ELOCUTION
ELO (group) + CUT (reduced) + ION (charge)
13 Remark has upset city (9)
MARRAKESH
(REMARK HAS)* (*upset)
15 Sleuth holds record for working with Italian banger (9)
PEPPERONI
PI (sleuth) holds (EP (record) + PER (for) + ON (working))
17 Bucking bronco is first injected with energy (3,4)
CON BRIO
(BRONCO)* (*bucking), I[s] (first) injected
19 Swineherds take time in the shade (7)
PIGMENT
PIG MEN (swineherds) take T (time)
21 Fire Spanish leaders for frustrating USA’s excessively gung-ho operation (5)
FUEGO
F[rustrating] U[sa’s] E[xcessively] G[ung-ho] O[peration] (leaders for)
22 It’s official — extremely risible First Lady (5)
REEVE
R[isibl]E (extremely) + EVE (first lady)
Thanks Gaff and Teacow. Loads of references to the show.MAYFAIR RAIN( in Spain),FLOWER GIRL,LEANER and LOWERED( Lerner and Loewe),HOODOO LITTLE( Eliza Doolittle ) and ELOCUTION ( Eliza received elocution lessons).No doubt there are others .
Lovely puzzle to start the week. Of course I didn’t spot the anniversary which now seems so obvious.
LOUNGE LIZARD made me smile
Thanks Gaff and Teacow
A vaguely thematic answer is GUINEVERE, who is a character in Camelot, another L&L musical.
Thanks Gaff and Teacow. Further to the first two comments, note ELIZA on the top row to go with DOOLITTLE on the bottom row.
Second row: FAIRLADY.
PB @4 and SM @5
Well spotted
Loverley puzzle.
Actually, the second row has M(a)Y FAIR LADY
Loved it. I’d say Eliza was Higgins’s ELOCUTION PUPIL.
Liked Guinevere, elocution.
Thanks both.
I am afraid my heart sank when I saw that it was a Gaff anniversary puzzle. In the end I found it far more approachable than I feared and quite enjoyed it. I confess I finished with no idea as to the theme.
Along the way, I ticked CAPTCHAS, LEANT, and GUINEVERE. I would have liked LOUNGE LIZARD had the definition been even close to reality.
I could not parse PEPPERONI. Tell me, does FUEGO just mean fire in Spanish, and if so why I am expected to know it?
Thanks Gaff and Teacow
FUEGO is Spanish for ‘fire’. Even though my geography knowledge is dire, to say the least, I have heard of Tierra del Fuego (the “land of fire”). No idea where it is, mind you.
Sad to say I finished it but still couldn’t see the anniversary reference.
1ac/4ac: Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable has the following entry, which is in the latest (2018) edition (p 847), unchanged from p 719 of the Millennium (1999) Edition, the only other edition of which I have a copy. I will leave it to others to decide whether “gigolo” is a sufficient definition, or whether it should be marked in some way as archaic or dated.
Lounge lizard A popular phrase in the 1920s to describe a young man, a gigolo, who spent his time, or often made his living, by dancing and waiting upon rich women, typically in the lounge of a grand hotel. A lizard is colourful, reptilian, and ‘suns’ itself as if lazily lounging.
I’ve never thought of lounge lizards (when I think of them at all, which isn’t often) as being specifically gigolos; more drones who spend a lot of time having affairs, often adulterous, but I thought “gigolo” was a close enough approximation.
Couldn’t get CAPTCHAS as my modern tech vocab is rather limited. Didn’t spot the anniversary as I forgot to look, but I doubt I would have got it anyway.
I’m not a golfer, but have heard of STROKE PLAY without knowing what it is, though I couldn’t work out why stroke=deed.
We tackled this without looking up possible anniversaries first and were pleasantly surprised to find that we twigged what anniversary it was celebrating. Our only grumble is with LAHU, which is not in either Collins 2006 or Chambers 2014. Admittedly there aren’t many words to fit L_H_ which was presumably dictated by the theme and grid fill, but one possibility would be lehr (a glass-annealing oven) which though perhaps obscure is at least in Chambers.
Thanks, though, to Gaff, Teacow, and those commenters who’ve pointed out the theme words.
12ac: Lahu can be found in ODE 2010 (p 988) and in the two volume Shorter Oxford (2007 p 1536), but I could not find it in any of Collins 2023, Chambers 2016, the Concise Oxford 2011, or even the Collins online English Dictionary. I think it can reasonably be regarded as sufficiently obscure to require a very clear clue, and the anagram really does not give enough help to someone who does not know the word. (I guessed wrong and put LUHA.)
We only got Lahu having guessed luha, but Google corrected it for us.
I agree that LAHU was rather obscure. But, wasn’t Eliza a Lahu? Or was she from Marrakesh?