A reasonably straightforward offering from Maskarade
As usual from this setter, a good variety of clue types with a fair sprinkling of anagrams to help things along. I enjoyed the perimeter clues and also had ticks for 12ac DECIBEL, 14ac ART DECO, 29ac RAISE CAIN, 4dn ORINOCO and 5dn AMENDED. I have one or two quiblets regarding definitions or constructions, as indicated in the blog.
Thanks to Maskarade for the puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Currently attractive? (15)
ELECTROMAGNETIC
Cryptic definition
9 Tree sounding cool for long (5,4)
CHILE PINE
Sounds like ‘chilly’ (cool) + PINE (long)
(Another name for the monkey puzzle tree, Araucaria, Guardian pseudonym of crossword setter John Graham and an anagram of Cinephile, his pseudonym for his FT puzzles, reflecting his love of film)
10 Weight gain shed in horse-drawn carriage (5)
TONGA
TON (weight) + GA[in] minus (shed) in
11 Girl sent back too much food colouring (7)
ANNATTO
ANNA (girl) + a reversal (sent back) of OTT (over the top – too much)
12 Sound measure could be credible – not right! (7)
DECIBEL
An anagram (could be) of C[r]EDIBLE minus r (right)
13 Rod’s letter is spoken of (3)
CUE
Sounds like Q
14 C20th style affected trade company (3,4)
ART DECO
An anagram (affected) of TRADE CO[mpany] – but please see miserableoldhack @4
17 Reserved half the area with worker (7)
DISTANT
DIST[rict] (area – half of) + ANT (worker)
19 Gives the cold shoulder to Italian fellow cycling (7)
IGNORES
SIGNORE (Italian fellow) with the letters ‘cycled’
22 Vicar on lake, musing (7)
REVERIE
REV (vicar) + ERIE (lake)
24 Previously Argo had leading role cut (3)
AGO
A[r]GO minus first letter (?) of r[ole]
25 Composer is otherwise in inn, drunk (7)
NIELSEN
ELSE (otherwise) in an anagram (drunk) of INN
26 T20 batsman as small Canadian woodsman (7)
SLOGGER
S (small) + LOGGER (Canadian woodsman) – I can’t find the specific Canadian definition
I hope we don’t need to reopen last week’s discussion of batsman/woman (batter)
28 Heartless Elgar and I confused Shakespearean spirit (5)
ARIEL
An anagram (confused) of EL[g]AR (heartless) and I
Ariel is the spirit in ‘The Tempest’ – I am looking forward to seeing Kenneth Branagh as Prospero in the play at Stratford in May
29 Cause trouble, as Adam and Eve did? (5,4)
RAISE CAIN
Double definition – not the first time I’ve met this clue but it’s a good one
30 Stay away from far off fortress (4,2,1,8)
KEEP AT A DISTANCE
Double definition
Down
1 The last thing you’ll see here! (11,4)
EXCLAMATION MARK
Cryptic definition
2 Turned up, unsophisticated in French spa town (5)
EVIAN
A reversal (turned up) of NAIVE (unsophisticated)
3 Support from unsettled settler (7)
TRESTLE
An anagram (unsettled) of SETTLER
4 Gold coin tossed over Womble (7)
ORINOCO
OR (gold) + an anagram (tossed) of COIN + O (over)
5 Changed what happened at noon? (7)
AMENDED
AM (morning) ENDED at noon
6 Lack of commitments, around a hundred spies (7)
NOTICES
NO TIES (lack of commitments) round C (a hundred)
7 Only a Brit worried former PM (4,5)
TONY BLAIR
An anagram (worried) of ONLY A BRIT
8 Acton let brother bother sister (9,6)
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
A clever anagram (bother) of ACTON LET BROTHER
Acton (Bell) was the pseudonym of Anne Brontë, sister of Charlotte (Currer Bell) – their brother Branwell was a source of great ‘bother’ to the rest of his family
15 Fruit perplexed generations – not so! (9)
TANGERINE
An anagram (perplexed) of GENERATI[o]N[s] minus so
16 Canoe from which falls an athlete (3)
COE
(Sebastian) C[an]OE
18 Fish that is around delta (3)
IDE
I E (that is) round D (delta)
20 Two girls touching Australian parakeet (7)
ROSELLA
ROS ELLA (two girls)
21 Squealed about tune for drink (7)
SANGRIA
SANG (squealed, in the sense of informed on) + a reversal (about) of AIR (tune)
22 Putin is so reactionary – some back out for composer (7)
ROSSINI
Hidden reversal (reactionary) in putIN IS SO Reactionary – putIN is part of the wordplay – ‘some back out’?
23 Furious as flower’s name concealed (7)
VIOLENT
N (name) in VIOLET (flower) – we need to take ‘flower’s’ as ‘flower has’
27 Good supply of water for seed (5)
GRAIN
G (good) + RAIN (supply of water
Thanks Maskarade and Eileen
Good example that a crossword doesn’t have to be difficult to be fun!
We had a very similar clue for TRESTLE quite recently.
Furious and VIOLENT aren’t synonyms. He could have used the more accurate parrot rather than parakeet for ROSELLA.
Lots to like. My favourite was AMENDED.
Agree this was enjoyable. I hadn’t heard of Annatto before, so had wrongly entered Annetto. In 4D, Eileen, you’ve omitted the final O (over). Thanks Maskarade and Eileen.
Thank you, Larry – corrected.
Super puzzle – as Muffin says, they don’t have to be tough to entertain. Thanks Eileen for the excellent blog and especially for pointing out the hidden (to me) subtext in CHILE PINE. Brilliant clue, as was that for CHARLOTTE B.
OK, can’t quite resist being a total nerd-pedant about the parsing of ART DECO – I’d say it’s an anagram of ‘trade’ + a charade with ‘co’, rather than an anagram of both. Makes not a blind bit of difference, of course.
I agree with muffin @2 that this was fun (and an excellent demonstration of Maskarade’s skill) without being gratuitously difficult.
Chambers has ROSELLA as “Any of several varieties of Australian parakeet with brightly-coloured plumage…”
Thanks to Maskarade and Eileen.
Would 4d more accurately be ORO (gold) around (over) anagram (tossed) of COIN?
I am a bit confused regarding the meaning of Womble. Is it referring to the “meandering” of the river?
Eileen, re 23d. In your parsing ‘concealed’ isn’t doing anything. I think it’s actually the inclusion indicator.
Thanks to both.
itch @6 – I did intend to include the link to these lovable creatures, for those who hadn’t encountered them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wombles – they got their names from an atlas that they found.
itch @6
Orinoco was one of the Wombles of Wimbledon Common. A bit niche.
NeilH @5
I went to Wiki. They certainly look like parrots rather than parakeets, and “parakeet” isn’t mentioned anywhere in the article.
Russthree @7 – sorry if it wasn’t clear: I meant ‘we need to take ‘flower’s’ as ‘flower has’ name concealed.
I tried seeing how 25 could have been ROSSINI until 1d scuppered that, it made 22d jump out though.
LOI was RAISE CAIN as I only have a vague memory of a movie title (Raising Cain) which I’d assumed was just used for marketability.
Re 23d My editing time as expired as I was writing that, on second thoughts, I agreed with Eileen , and ‘concealed’ is the inclusion indicator.
Eileen in SANGRIA the tune reversed is AIR, not ARIA. Agree with your estimation of the puzzle. A few examples of deja vue I thought. Had to look up ORINOCO and ROSELLA , Thanks Eileen and Maskarade.
Liked this as it was mostly elegantly clued. NHO of Annatto though gettable. In 21d, it is a reversal of Air Eileen
Great fun! Thanks both. Isn’t the tune in SANGRIA an air rather than an aria?
Tomsdad, SimoninBxl, Nicole @13, 14, 15 – Thanks: another careless slip: I’ll correct it now.
Much more Monday than yesterday’s puzzle I thought.
Thanks to Maskerade & Eileen
Muffin@1 Chambers – furious: “violent or raging” e.g. “muffin flew into a violent/furious rage when the quibble was questioned 🙂
I did wonder whether the “touching” might indicated an overlap of ROSE & ELLA for ROSELLA but I’m happy with the homophonic namecheck for our very own Roz
Cheers E&M
miserableoldhack @4 – as a fellow-pedant, I totally agree: you’re right, of course
Please tell me that Tonga, rosella and ide aren’t part of everybody else’s day to day vocabulary!
I liked AMENDED and CHARLOTTE BRONTE. Was it a bit odd to have DISTANT and DISTANCE in the same puzzle? I was hoping there would be a Better to go with the SLOGGER.
ELECTROMAGNETIC and EXCLAMATION MARK made this rather a breeze from the outset. I personally don’t care about difficulty levels and days of the week, and, as others have said, it was enjoyable. A typo on my part briefly held up the anagram solve for CHARLOTTE BRONTË, which I saw straight away (without Eileen’s GK on the subject) once my DECIBEL levels were adjusted. I first noticed that Evian reversed to naive in my teens and was struck by its anagrammatic pertinence.
NIELSEN was maybe my favourite. Partly because the clue forced me to spell it correctly!
Thanks, Eileen and Maskarade.
2D is the origin of my username! Chuffed!
New for me: TONGA = carriage; ANNATTO; composer Carl NIELSEN; CHILE PINE (loi).
Favourite: AMENDED.
4d – I did not understand why ORINOCO = Womble until I looked it up online. [thanks also to explanation by muffin@9 which I have just seen]. I have never seen that TV show but vaguely heard about it via cryptic crosswords in the past.
Mrs Sandgrounder #20. Yes, very familiar and part of my vocabulary.
Tonga, an island nation north of here, and home country of many Australian Rugby League football teams’ players; roselllas are regular visitors on my back vetandah and also a fruit/jam, and I have heard of the Ides of March, etc. 🙂
MrsSandgrounder@20: the IDE is worth remembering because it offers setters a useful sequence of letters, so this fairly obscure fish pops up quite often in crosswords. The one I didn’t know was the composer NIELSEN.
I wondered if the “touching” in ROSELLA indicated an overlap, but the clue works either way.
Good fun from Maskarade – I liked AMENDED and RAISE CAIN, and appreciated the Bronte references in the clue for Charlotte (I spent too long looking for a religious “sister”).
NeilH @5 (and me @9)
Apologies. I’ve used Wiki the other way round, and under “parakeets” it does include rosellas.
Beautiful anagrams, and amazing grid-filling, too, for such an open structure. Thank you, Eileen and Maskarade.
Thanks for the blog, Eileen! I agree with you about DECIBEL and AMENDED.
8D was indeed a clever anagram, but requires rather more K about the Brontë family than I would have thought classes as “G” – and with 4D, I did feel for non-Brits who may not have watched that many BBC kids’ programmes.
Mrs S @ 20: rest assured, those 3 words don’t feature in everyday chat in this neck of the woods! I know of the Ides of March, but the fish was a newie. Mind you, like with Scottish islands, there do seem to be oodles of fish names that crop up in crosswords….
CHARLOTTE BRONTE was excellent. Hadn’t heard of ROSELLA but the rest was pretty straightforward, unlike this setter’s usual form.
Are SLOGGERs something specific to this particular version of cricket? I wouldn’t know.
A fun puzzle. Thanks Maskarade and Eileen.
A remarkable number of clues involving subtraction of letters – 10, 12, 17, 24, 28, 15 & 16!
bodycheetah@18 cites Chambers in support of the furious=violent synonymy, responding to muffin@1’s quibble. But Chambers lexicographic approach is notoriously slack — they seem to use a loose substitution criterion (as demonstrated in the example given by bodycheetah) where one might say “a furious rage” or “a violent rage”) but the substitutability test has to be tied to some sort of semantic criterion which leads the lexicographer to evaluate the closeness of the substituted word(s). Otherwise I could claim that ‘morose’ is a synonym of ‘diffident’ because both “he’s a morose fellow” and “he’s a diffident fellow” are plausible, well-formed utterances in English. A red/pink rose? Hey! “red” and “pink” are synonymous! Oxford and Collins dictionaries are compiled on better-developed linguistic principles. Chambers trades on its long-established reputation as a “crossworder’s” and Scrabble dictionary.
A fun puzzle. Thanks Maskarade and Eileen.
A remarkable number of clues involving subtraction of letters – 10, 12, 17, 24, 28, 15 & 16!
Not too hard and good fun. Nho TONGA but easily gettable from the clue. Also nho ROSELLA and had to confirm from Wiki.
Favourites: CHARLOTTE BRONTË and RAISE CAIN.
Thanks Maskarade and Eileen for her as always excellent and informative blog.
All very jolly.
EXCLAMATION MARK was my LOI – sometimes the bleedin’ obvious is the thing that eludes the eye. CHARLOTTE BRONTE was neat – I was scratching my head for an order of nuns before the penny dropped.
Thanks Eileen for the blog, especially the information about the CHILE PINE, and Maskarade for my breakfast entertainment.
Very pleasant solve and I’m another who thought that ROSELLA was an overlap and too noticed that TRESTLE was very similar to a clue last week. I appreciated the extra gen on CHILE PINE and CHARLOTTE BRONTË. Favourites were EXCLAMATION MARK, AMENDED and ORINOCO, (I was walking around the Common yesterday but didn’t spot any of them).
Ta Maskarade & Eileen.
Paddymelon #25. Yes, I was aware of Tonga the place and the ides of March but hadn’t heard of them as a carriage and a fish! Still, you learn something every day and, as another commenter said, if they provide a useful combination of letters they are likely to crop up again.
While the puzzle was not hard (and the grid is super friendly) there were too many (10 or more) unknown words that had to be guessed for me to properly enjoy it. That’s probably just me though. Thanks Maskarade and Eileen!
When I saw the clue for 23D, I was instantly reminded of the classic “Two Girls, One on Each Knee” by Alan Connor. (Highly recommend, for those new to cryptics.) Today’s puzzle was straightforward though I needed to google Womble after putting in ORINOCO. Thanks Maskarade and Eileen.
I briefly considered TWENTY-SEVEN DOWN for 1d, but rejected it because of the lack of a hyphen in the enumeration.
New to me: CHILE PINE (is there any flora or fauna that is not new to me?), TONGA, ANNATTO, IDE, and ROSELLA. However, all were fairly solvable from wordplay.
On the other hand, I did recall the utterly useless trivia of the name of one of the Wombles.
Thank you Eileen for elucidating the hidden levels to Charlotte Bronte, and to Maskarade for the puzzle.
This meaning of TONGA was last clued by Qaos on June 9, 2022. …vehicle clamped in Kensington Gardens.
Mitz @40 – that struck me, too. 😉
Nakamova @39 – the author of the classic clue for PATELLA was Roger Squires, aka Rufus – see Alan Connor’s article here:
https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/shortcuts/2012/feb/21/guardian-crossword-setter-rufus-80
I did make this harder for myself by doing it at midnight whilst waiting for my wife to finish a late shift, a time when my brain isn’t at its sharpest. It must have been straightforward as I didn’t need to pick up any stragglers this morning.
Two words that were new to me but both fairly clued.
Enjoyed the CDs in this one
Thanks Maskarade and Eileen
My apologies, Nakamova @39 – I realise now that it was Alan Connor’s book that you were referring to.
I’m surprised that people hadn’t heard of IDE – it’s the crossword fish (along with orfe, I suppose, which is the same fish!)
No worries Eileen@45 Can’t hurt to credit the clue author in addition to to the book author. 🙂
muffin@46: Also gar, eel and cod! But agreed that IDE is top fish in the grid.
Good puzzle with amusing perimeter. Thanks to Eileen for providing the interesting background for Acton in the clue to CHARLOTTE BRONTE, I wondered why the definition was only sister! I liked RAISE CAIN, although I suppose it should have been raised, the EXCLAMATION MARK that I didn’t spot at first, the AM ENDED, the spies with NO TIES (not very smart), the generations perplexed by TANGERINE, and the well-hidden ROSSINI.
Thanks Maskarade and Eileen.
I think of ling as the crossword fish! Maybe one of our analyst types could run the numbers.
As a newish solver I’m making notes of all the useful fish to remember!
Martin @50
LING is also Erica or Heather quite often.
Re 26a if I were Harry Brook, Abishek Sharma or Phil Salt to name but three, I would be sorely offended at being called a slogger.
Robi @ 49: What Adam and Eve did was raise Cain, works fine.
This was a fun one, although as others have said, I would never describe a rosella as a parakeet. I see rosellas every day, and live near a Rosella Rd. I’m familiar with tongas as a lover of old Bollywood films. But the IDE fish was a new one for me.
My reading of 22dn has “some back out” as the reversal indicator with “reactionary” as part of the fodder. Otherwise the “r” is doing double duty.
poc @ 30
Yes a ‘slogger’ is a term for a batter who perhaps eschews defence and style somewhat in favour of striking powerful somewhat uncontrolled shots in search of boundaries.
Really enjoyed this puzzle some very elegant cluing and a special tick for the CHARLOTTE B clue and it’s clever inclusions as explained by Eileen.
Nice puzzle, blog.
For CB, on the one hand, just having “sister” as a definition might seem incredibly vague, since there are literally billions of them to choose from, but on the other hand “Acton” was a good hint and I solved it right away, as probably did many others. Go figure!
Tx.
Comment #59
Very entertaining. I agree that CHARLOTTE BRONTË was the standout.
muffin @1 and pserve_p2 @32: “Oxford and Collins dictionaries are compiled on better-developed linguistic principles”? Collins also gives for “furious”: “violent, wild or unrestrained, as in speed, vigour, energy etc”. Seems ok to me.
Eileen, I note your question mark querying “leading role” for R in the clue for AGO. No one really seems to be bothered about this any more, but it always sticks out for me!
Many thanks both.
Comment #61
I have been asked to check my email address on fifteensquared before my comment can be posted.
Second attempt:
Lord Jim @60 – bless you for noticing! I hadn’t noticed that no one seemed to be bothering about it any more. I was expecting some sort of outcry and thought a question mark would be sufficient.
I’m also surprised at IDE seeming to be such a mystery today. I almost (automatically) wrote ‘the classic crossword fish’ in the blog.
Can I add dab and par to the crossword fish tank?
JJimps@57: yes, I got that, but what does it have to do with T20 cricket specifically, as the clue seems to imply?
The first full cryptic I’ve enjoyed, finished and (almost) parsed for some days. I loved all of the perimeter clues which were helpful with other answers and thought AMENDED was very neat. I didn’t know IDE was a fish but the wordplay was straightforward. Ditto TONGA.
poc @65
In Twenty20 “dot-balls” are a no-no, so is defence (most of the time). It’s a “shot-a-ball” format.
Got off to a good start by getting 1a ELECTROMAGNETIC right away, which gave me lots of starting letters. Held up by having WHITE PINE for 9a — CHILE PINE didn’t show up on any lists of pine trees, and was only confirmed by direct search — which delayed 1d EXCLAMATION MARK
Though I’m always happy to see a Canadian reference, I, too, was surprised to see LOGGER = “Canadian woodsman” at 26a. Are there loggers in other countries?
A few classics. In addition to 29a RAISE CAIN, also 3d TRESTLE and 5d AMENDED
As well as “leading role” for R in 24a, I also raised an eyebrow at “about tune” = RIA in 21d SANGRIA
Yes, there did seem to be more than the usual quota of anagrams and subtractions. Further to Prospector@31, subtraction isn’t my favourite device, and seems to be used far too often by setters
Can’t really identify any favourites — just a good steady puzzle, quibbles aside. Many thanks both
Good fun.
An added titbit, which I don’t think anyone’s pointed out: Carl NIELSEN is the composer of the opera MASKARADE!
If IDE is the crossword fish, ERIE is the crossword lake. I wonder if it swims there? And does Derek’s collection here of three-letter fish swim in any of crosswordland’s many three-letter rivers?
Thanks to Maskarade and Eileen.
LordJim@60: Ah! Thanks you. Fair enough, then. I didn’t check Collins’s or Oxford’s “furious” defs. I just get really irritated by the weirdnesses that Chambers so often throws up, and like muffin I don’t see ‘furious’ and ‘violent’ as synonyms.
Pozern @69 – many thanks for that!
Valentine @70
🙂
Darn. I put ‘annetto’ instead of ‘annatto’ for 11ac. I’d not heard of that food colouring and guessed wrongly.
[ Is Maskarade really implying that T20 cricket lacks sophistication? And that the ECB would move the County Championship to Good Friday to make room for inferior forms of cricket? Surely not.]
To add to the discussion of furious and violent, the OED includes for furious
“a) … fierce, raging, destructively or menacingly violent
…
b) Of the elements: Moving with or as if moved by fury, violent, raging”.
I hope no one would question the OED’s linguistic principles!
Valentine@70: There’s a chippy in south Devon that serves up locally caught fish, fried in a special crispy coating. It’s called the Exe-Ide Battery.
Or there ought to be, anyway.
I always wanted to be a lumberjack
Leaping from tree to tree
As they float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia
I wonder if Michael Palin’s famous sketch factors into the Canadian connection at 26. I see also that the term lumberjack itself is of Canadian origin. Then again, maybe the setter just felt that a Commonwealth association would be a natural one for UK solvers.
Thanks for the blog , good puzzle and perhaps the friendliest grid , every first letter checked and more than half for every entry . I fully support two puzzles a week for newer solvers but why are seasoned solvers ignored ? Three months now and I have not scratched my head this year .
Having a month off from Guardian weekly blogs , back in May apart from one flying visit , blink and you will miss it .
Another Annetto here, so a DNF. The rest was fairly tractable, although I had to wait until the second pass to see EXCLAMATION MARK. This trick gets me every time.
The superfluous “for” in 9a bothers me a little. Liked CHARLOTTE BRONTË.
Thanks, M & E.
AlanC@36, I believe Wombles used to nick stuff for a living, so perhaps not surprising that they scrupulously avoid coppers, ex or otherwise 😉.
phitonelly @79
They would have said “recycle” rather than “nick”, I think.
Well beyond me. 1a is the sort of clue I can’t ever solve.
Thanks both.
I’m glad it wasn’t just me bunging in ANNETTO. Surely the clue could have been a little friendlier by noting that the girl is palindromic? The answer was in one of those memory cells that get a little bit hazier as the years pass. Must read some more food labels soon.
All the other clues were super friendly, including the crossword fish, which my hypothetical crossword spread sheet tells me has made 247 appearances in the Guardian cryptic since I started in 1972.
Thanks to Maskarade for including one of my favourite composers (and obviously yours, too). And thanks to Eileen for all your efforts on this website.
CHARLOTTE BRONTE was a very clever clue indeed.
Very enjoyable.
Well, I got it all, in the end, with no look-ups (as is my wish). Of course, that meant (for this Yank) a couple of them insufficiently parsed, with only guesses, so I still consider that a dnf. “Wombles” somehow = “Orinoco,” and “Slogger” in cricket apparently = “Slugger” in baseball. Very deep in the shed, this one. But I loved it! Thanks to setter and blogger! Love this site.
A little off topic but I’m scratching my head trying to find a three-letter word meaning Insufferable.
Lord Jim@59, Eileen@63: if it’s of any comfort, I don’t like leading role = R either. But I suspect we’re in the minority here.
Wow. It’s all kicked off!
Muffin@67: Sorry I asked. I’ve no idea what any of those words mean, or how they relate to the solution. It looks like the clue is even more obscure than I initially thought.
Roz 78.
“Seasoned” is a relative term, surely?
On a scale of korma to phall, I’d probably put myself at “Madras”, and I find myself well-supplied with decent challenges by the G.
Thanks all (if anyone’s still around).
Super crossword which appealed to a newbie too. Kicked myself for missing EXCLAMATION MARK (d’oh!), and didn’t have a scooby about TONGA (but got it by trial & error). SLOGGER lost me completely. Got the PINE but not the CHILE.
But delighted with ORINOCO, ANNATTO & ROSSINI and much more.
Looking forward to more from Maskarade & thanks to Eileen.
Another puzzle I couldn’t entirely solve but I did a lot of it. Getting better. Thank you to the setter and blogger.
Mig#65, I assume Maskarade made it a Canadian woodsman to distinguish it from the American woodsman, which of course is a tiger.
Thanks Cellomaniac@92 — never heard that term before
Thanks Eileen! I’ve now finished two-in-a-row in my Guardian Weekly! Dreading that the next one will be impenetrable…
Never fear, fifteensquared will be here to help out in an emergency.