When I logged on last Saturday, before attempting the puzzle, Google informed me that March 14th was Pi Day, so I was feeling rather trepidatious as I opened my paper, knowing the fondness of some of our setters for themed puzzles.
Mercifully, nothing mathematical here but what turned out to be an interesting and absorbing puzzle from Tramp, one of my favourite setters. It was good that it was a Prize puzzle, allowing for opportunities to set it aside from time to time and come back with fresh eyes, as I found it quite a challenge – an ideal Prize puzzle in fact. There was lots of wily misdirection, leading to many ‘ahas’ and groans, some ingenious and intricate constructions, cannily concealed definitions and a rueful grin at the surface of 18dn, following my Paul blog in the previous week. Much to my chagrin, the parsing of 4dn held out for longer than it should have. I shan’t be surprised at complaints re the enumeration of 21ac but I don’t see how else it could have been clued and, in fact, the construction is quite straightforward.
My favourites were 14ac MAMMOGRAM, 16ac CORRECTING FLUID, 19ac PEN-PUSHER, 22ac LUMBAGO, 8dn DETERMINER and 15dn MEDALLISTS.
I think I (more or less) got there in the end – there are just a couple of places where I’d be glad of confirmation. Many thanks, as ever, to Tramp.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
9 Tuchel on playing over one side of pitch (9)
TOUCHLINE
An anagram (playing) of TUCHEL ON round I (one)
10 Eat in bar filling beer out of case (5)
ERODE
ROD (bar) in [b]EE[r], without its ‘case’ – definition better as ‘eat into’
11 One tells Romeo to come back for coffee first (7)
RELATER
R (Romeo – NATO alphabet) + ‘back for’ (last letter of [coffe]E, first, then LATER (to come) – I think!
12 Admissions with nurse getting samples (7)
ENTRIES
EN (Enrolled Nurse) + TRIES (samples)
13 Forces American to accept idiot (5)
UNITS
US (American) round NIT (idiot)
14 Scan, mark and tick in school going over stuff (9)
MAMMOGRAM
M (MARK) + MO[ment] (tick) in a reversal (going over) of GAM (school of whales etc) + RAM (stuff) – as well as GAM, it’s worth making a note of ‘pod’, also a word for a school of whales and dolphins, quite often found in crosswords
16 Sort out clothing for catholic girlfriend: something to cover boobs in work? (10,5)
CORRECTING FLUID
An anagram (sort) of OUT + ‘clothing for’ C[atholi]C + GIRL FRIEND
19 Life around north: show one with boring job (3-6)
PEN-PUSHER
PEP (life) round N (north) + USHER (show – to one’s seat, for instance)
21 Doctor from department parking by hospital on single line (5)
DPHIL
D (department) + P (parking) + H (hospital) + I (single) + L (line) – there may be objections, as always, to the enumeration but these are the rules, which are not laid down by Tramp
22 Release album: sound issue with disc, perhaps? (7)
LUMBAGO
An anagram (release) of ALBUM + GO (sound??): my immediate thought was of how we might have said at school, ‘Has the bell gone/sounded?’ and found, in Chambers,'(of eg a bell or gun) to sound’; then, lower down, I found ‘go’ informally as an adjective, ‘ready; in perfect condition’ and, under ‘sound’, ‘in good condition’; I think either works for me – how about you?
23 Cut chicken to eat roast; they have skins on top (7)
TIMPANI
TIMI[d (chicken, cut) round PAN (roast – as in to criticise)
24 Man that could be a hunk (5)
PIECE
Double definition, the first as a chess piece
25 Set off with Tom after thrills (4-5)
KICK-START
KICKS (thrills) + TART (tom – slang for prostitute, which I learned a while ago, from crosswords)
Down
1 Parting shot to provoke interrupted by Republican mug (7,3)
STIRRUP CUP
STIR UP (provoke) round R (Republican) + CUP (mug)
2 No end to deception? Bank more responsible (8)
GUILTIER
GUIL[e] (deception) + TIER (bank)
3 Model that’s short inspired with sexy pictures (6)
PHOTOS
POS[e] (model, short) round HOT (sexy)
4 Newspaper plugging a column (4)
PIER
I or, rather, ‘i’ – newspaper – in PER (a)
5 Any, perhaps put off by Tramp’s ribaldry, initially? (10)
DETERMINER
DETER (put off) + MINE (Tramp’s) + R[ibaldry]
6 Singer of core piece in heavy metal on tour (4,4)
MEAT LOAF
An anagram (on tour) of OF [he]A[vy] (core piece of) + METAL
7 More sentimental movie occasionally entertained by promiscuous type (6)
GOOIER
[m]O[v]I[e] in GOER (promiscuous type)
8 Fix gates having lost a sheep (4)
TEGS
An anagram (fix) of G[a]TES minus a – for a sheep in its second year
14 They shot once in game with forwards (10)
MATCHLOCKS
MATCH (game) + LOCKS (forwards, in Rugby)
15 They might have finished second drink, primarily restricted by menus? (10)
MEDALLISTS
D[rink] primarily, in MEAL LISTS (menus)
17 Use team with changes to draw in league matches (8)
EMULATES
An anagram (changes) of USE TEAM round (to draw in) L (league)
18 Have erred cracking Paul cryptic leading to confusion (8)
UPHEAVAL
An anagram (erred) of HAVE in an anagram (cryptic) of PAUL
20 Figure in a dress? (6)
NUMBER
Double definition, the second as in ‘a little black number’
21 Clear religious person is bored by mass (6)
DEMIST
M (mass) in DEIST (religious person)
22 They kiss with small tablet, shortly getting erect (4)
LIPS
A reversal (getting erect, in a down clue) of S (small) + PIL[l] (tablet, shortly)
23 Lorry driver finally going for food (4)
TUCK
T[r]UCK (lorry) minus [drive]r
I agree with your parsing, including RELATER (tough for me to see at first) and LUMBAGO (I was thinking of the auditory option).
Me too for ‘go’ as in ‘the bell will go/sound’ Loi was 9ac, many decades since kicking for touch as rugby fullback in my youth. In 10ac, Eileen, I took the ‘in’ as a link word. And for tom meaning prostitute I immediately thought Oh yeah, standard term in The Bill (but I could be back-confabulatiing 🙂 ). Anyway, nice puzzle, and a blog with full health clearance!
Thanks Eileen. Hard. I filled in all the squares but had to come here for full explanations of rather too many. Still don’t follow the connection of i and newspaper and not sure what you mean by the enumeration of 21a. I just thought it might have been fairer if it had been annotated (1,4).
Like a lot of people (I suspect), I initially put Correction Fluid rather than Correcting Fluid (not worrying too much about the nitty gritty of the anagram) only to get stuck later on. Correction Fluid is the correct term according to online retailers but we’ll let Tramp off given the clue’s ingenious surface.
PS 1d was loi-but-one; immediately thought ‘Now what’s it called when fox hunters have that nip before the off?’, but needed all crossers to remember ‘stirrup’.
4D parsing was a struggle (even though I did guess the answer based on the def), and still is a struggle.
At the risk of sounding dumb, why does NEWSPAPER=I ?
Still not getting it!
Shafar@6
Wiki:
The i Paper, known as i until December 2024,[6] is a British national newspaper published in London by Daily Mail and General Trust and distributed across the United Kingdom.
I is clued as newspaper quite often. Worth remembering this.
LUMBAGO
I was thinking ‘The cat goes meow’ (This is similar to the bell example in the blog and so I go for the first option
mentioned by Eileen. That’s sound to me).
Liked RELATER, STIRRUP CUP, MEDALLISTS and DEMIST.
Thanks Eileen for the great blog.
Thanks Tramp for the nice puzzle.
Enjoyed this.
Regarding DEIST, Chambers has for deism: belief in the existence of God without acceptance of any religion or message revealed by God to man. So by that definition a deist is arguably the least “religious” of believers – so the clue is not exactly wrong, but maybe pushing it a little.
Thanks T&E
Ah well, I only missed on one. Given I couldn’t justify either ‘relator’ or ‘relater’ for what turned out to be RELATER it was a 50% chance and the coin came down wrong way up. There were another three I couldn’t parse (PEN_PUSHER, MAMMOGRAM, and the ‘go’ part of LUMBAGO (although I did wonder about “It’s a go” ~= “it’s sound”) but they didn’t have two possible answers for their definitions. But I did see how PIER worked, and I enjoyed the exercise, so thanks, Tramp, and thanks to Eileen for explaining how it all worked.
Managed all but PIER. Forgot about the a=per convention. RELATER I thought had something to do with LATTE with an alternate spelling and didn’t quite parse MEAT LOAF, but all the explanations are clear. RELATER and DETERMINER are clunky words which I can’t imagine ever using! Thanks for the enjoyable puzzle and the necessary explanations in the blog.
We can count on Tramp for an enjoyable puzzle. Favourites 13a UNITS (surface), 22a LUMBAGO (ditto), 7d GOOIER (great word), 15d MEDALLISTS (“menus” = MEAL LISTS), 20d NUMBER (nice concise clue)
Couldn’t solve 11a (RECITER? REFUTER? ROASTER? I thought of RELATER but couldn’t parse it (but “latte” has two T’s!) — yours looks good Eileen) or 2d GUILTIER. Small kicks to self — should have had them
4d PIER, Eileen, I was chuffed to finally catch “a” = PER (as well as 24a “Man” = PIECE!)
Fun fact, 16a CORRECTING FLUID known as Liquid Paper, invented by the mother of Michael Nesmith of The Monkees
22a LUMBAGO, Since you ask, I think I thought of “sound” = GO as in an alarm. It was a week ago so I don’t remember for sure! 🙂
Thank you both for a great puzzle and blog