A welcome midweek return by Qaos
As expected, I enjoyed this generally straightforward solve – all the time looking out for a theme, because Qaos’ puzzles always have one and initially failing to find one. After a couple more hours’ sleep, I was alerted by a couple of spoilers on the G thread to (how to) TRAIN YOUR[ts] DRAGON, a series of books I was familiar with only from their title but a quick visit to Wikipedia revealed VIKING, TOOTHLESS, HICCUP[s], FURY, TOOTHLESS, BERK, CHARIOT[s] and there are no doubt more, all wrapped up in Qaos’ characteristic witty and ingenious clues.
I had ticks for 8ac FASTENER, 15ac ESOTERIC, 24ac VIKING, 6dn FEATURE, 7dn RHODESIAN, 13dn OTHERWISE and 22dn PENCE.
Thanks to Qaos for the fun.
Definitions are underlined in the cues.
Across
1 Also, the ship outside left without power (9)
TOOTHLESS
TOO (also) + THE SS (ship) round L (left)
6 Boxer, turn into cook (4)
FURY
U (turn) in FRY (cook)
8 Frenchman retires following quick tie (8)
FASTENER
A reversal (retires) of RENÉ (Frenchman) after FAST (quick)
9 Like TV’s fabulous creature? (6)
DRAGON
DRAG ON (like TV, transvestite)
10 Pay company to be involved in Minecraft? (6)
INCOME
CO (company) in an anagram (craft) of MINE
11 In December on retreat, large corporation is in fancy dress (8)
COSTUMED
OS (large) + TUM (corporation) in a reversal (retreat) of DEC[ember]
12 Dairy products not good in tents (6)
YOURTS
YO[g]URTS (dairy products) minus g (good)
15 Private Harry cries over broken toe (8)
ESOTERIC
An anagram (harry) of CRIES round an anagram (broken) of TOE
16 Diagrams describe Number 10’s vehicles (8)
CHARIOTS
CHARTS (diagrams) round IO (number 10)
19 PR wins hearts with “Vote for Monster” (6)
SPHINX
SPIN (PR) round H (hearts) + X (vote)
21 British heavyweight losing no time with friend in a cruel manner (8)
BRUTALLY
BR (British) + ALLY (friend) – but I can’t account for the UT
Edit: (Frank) BRU[no] (British heavyweight) minus no + T (time) + ALLY (friend) – thanks to comments 2 and 4
22 Nuts in games headphones (6)
PECANS
PE (Physical Education – ‘games’) + CANS (headphones)
24 Scandinavian against topless rambling (6)
VIKING
V (against + [h]IKING (rambling) topless
25 Communication network to estimate when metal gets twisted (8)
LANGUAGE
LAN (Local Area Network) + GUAGE (GAUGE – estimate) with AG (silver – metal) with the letters transposed, twisted
Edit: the metal is AU (gold) – thanks, Aoxomoxoa @10
26 Idiot stealing contents of bicycle rack (4)
BERK
B[icycl]E R[ac]K
27 Wealthy travellers’ bad teeth, black and small within (3,3,3)
THE JET SET
An anagram (bad) of TEETH round JET (black) + S (small)
Down
1 Essentially stretches to exercise (5)
TRAIN
[s]TRAIN[s] (stretches)
2 Old Tudor building inspires love in the open air (7)
OUTDOOR
O (old) + an anagram (building) of TUDOR round O (love)
3 Joint fishing expedition or something else inside? (5)
HINGE
Contained in fisHING Expedition
4 What? Bottle upended spilling a bit of fluid? That’s painful (7)
EARACHE
A reversal (upended, in a down clue) of EH (what?) + CARA[f]E (bottle) minus f (bit of fluid)
5 Teams who struggle with scoring initially become secondary attractions (9)
SIDESHOWS
SIDES (teams) + an anagram ( struggle) of WHO + S[coring]
6 Fellow heading to Eastbourne – a funny, true story (7)
FEATURE
F (fellow) + E[astbourne] + an anagram (funny) of TRUE
7 Henry travelled around with Welsh woman and old African (9)
RHODESIAN
RODE (travelled) round H (Henry) + SIAN (Welsh woman)
13 Novel she wrote about one being different (9)
OTHERWISE
An anagram (novel) of SHE WROTE round I (one)
14 Best to be standing when overwhelmed by little attention (9)
SPOTLIGHT
A reversal (standing, in a down clue) of TOP (best) in SLIGHT (little)
17 Reconsider skating here round the resort (7)
RETHINK
RINK (skating here) round an anagram (resort) of THE
18 Broadcaster unhappy with colour of Manchester club (3-4)
SKY-BLUE
SKY (broadcaster) + BLUE (unhappy) – colour of Manchester City Football Club
20 Minor setbacks; involuntary complaint (7)
HICCUPS
Double definition
22 Criminal reducing volume of capital money? (5)
PENCE
fENCE (a receiver of stolen goods – criminal) with the f (forte) replaced by P (piano) – reducing volume
23 Drink served up by host on vacation after dark (5)
NIGHT
A reversal (served up) of GIN (drink) + H[os]T
I found this very testing, no easy clues and lots of puzzling out required. Excellent. Many thanks
I was also drawn to the theme by a massive spoiler on the G thread, but it didn’t really help as I’m totally unfamiliar with the franchise. Despite that, this was great fun. BRUTALLY is Frank Bruno minus no. My favourites were SPHINX and PENCE. NIGHT (FURY) is also part of theme
Ta Qaos & Eileen.
Toothless was featured in Pointless recently – still didn’t help me with theme. Thanks to Qaos and Eileen
BRUTALLY – British heavyweight (Bruno) losing NO + T + ALLY
Comment #5
The HOW is in SIDESHOWS and the TO in TOOTHLESS, just to finish of the title. The A in FEATURE isn’t accounted for Eileen.
Thanks to AlanC @2 and Crispy @4.
Yes, entertaining even without seeing the theme. My favourite was SPHINX for the amusing surface.
HINGE is also contained in something else.
Many thanks Qaos and Eileen.
3d: HINGE is also concealed in someTHING Else
Thanks both. In 25, I think it’s the AU (gold) that gets twisted.
Perhaps the surface for OTHERWISE is referring to the author, Cressida Cowell? Well spotted Lord Jim and Mike @8 & 9. Agree with Aoxomoxoa @10.
Thank you, Aoxomoxoa @10 – quite right: that was careless.
I agree with Matthew @1 that very little of this was easy and that it was good. I also agree with AlanC and Crispy on the BRUTALLY parsing (one of the few that I wrote straight in).
I struggled at the end with LANGUAGE, FEATURE and RHODESIAN, hindered by my dimness in the face of FURY.
Many people do daily puzzles but here you have 30 self-contained riddles, many of which are tougher than a full Wordle, Zip, Polygon etc. Of course, we do some of those too, but the cryptics are best for the brain!
Thanks Qaos and Eileen.
I’m confused. I had the metal as gold (AU) transposed not silver (AG)
The double hidden for HINGE was clever, though I tried to convince myself that Ankle(angle with something else in the middle) was the answer. I have happy memories of reading the books with my grandchildren.
Well it may be childish but I enjoyed the animated film of HTTYD and the score by John Powell is first rate (it got an Oscar nomination). My earwyrm for today has to be Anna Lapwood’s transcription of “Test Drive” from the film, played on the RAH organ. Read about it and hear it here. 1ac immediately tuned me in to the theme but it only really helped with “hiccups”, “dragon” and “viking” as I was enjoying the puzzle too much to bother to work through theme names etc in my head.
Many thanks Eileen and Qaos.
Theme – I guessed it was based on ‘how to train your dragon’ but as I never saw the films (or knew of the books) it did not help me much so I had a look at the wikipedia page to see what words fit the theme after I finished the puzzle.
New for me: CANS = headphones (24ac); 12ac spelling of YOURTS which I usually see as YURTS; the relationship between sky blue and Manchester City F.C.
Also 6d – I have vaguely heard of Tyson Fury but had to google him to check he is a boxer.
I could not parse 1d and 22d. For 21ac like Eileen, I could not parse the UT bit, having assumed that BR=British (and ALLY=friend) in this clue. Never heard of Frank Bruno…
Favourites: CHARIOTS, LANGUAGE.
Total theme bypass. Top ticks for DRAGON, INCOME and the crafty PENCE
Never seen YOURTS spelled like that but there it is in Chambers
Cheers E&Q
No wonder I couldn’t parse BRUTALLY, as I’d never heard of Franc Bruno.
Missed the transvestite, and couldn’t parse LANGUAGE or TRAIN. It took me a while on the internet to find yurts spelt with an O — archaic apparently?
Thanks. Managed to get the solve with some difficulty (never fun coming up blank on the first 4 or 5 clues), and although I’m quite familiar with How to Train Your Dragon I didn’t notice the theme until after… I had solved 26A based on checking letters and wordplay, assumed that it must be British slang, and thought to myself that it’s just like the town from HTTYD and moved on none the wiser. Silly.
Never seen “reducing volume” used to clue F -> P so was quite confused as to 22D, but it was clear nothing else would work so made sense in the end.
Fun puzzle, 12A a highlight!
Tougher than usual from Qaos but still an enjoyable and reasonably speedy solve.
I could see it had some mythical/fantasy theme but I am not familiar with the HTTYD franchise.
Liked the misdirection in DRAGON and the double hidden for HINGE.
As a boxing fan I also enjoyed both Bruno and Fury making an appearance.
Thanks Eileen and Qaos
Sorry – I like Qaos and am often on their wavelength, but this was helped by knowing the books and films / TV show – so having written in TOOTHLESS, I looked at DRAGON, left it for crossers, and then came back to be certain that I was looking at HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON – partly from the books, but also introduced to the (cartoon) films by my daughter. Not that I needed the theme to solve most of this, it just confirmed the odd clue. I found this easier/quicker to solve than the Brendan and Pasquale.
Thank you to Qaos and Eileen for an entertaining puzzle.
The crossers gave me Rhodesian, but I got bogged down in the parsing with Rhoda and failed to spot Sian, despite it being the name of my sister in law! What a fool.
An enjoyable romp and an improvement on Mon&Tues, both of which had three unsolved at the end of the day.
Needless to say I also failed to spot any theme.
I wasn’t familiar with the franchise (heard the title of course), and luckily only read the Guardian comments after completing the puzzle. Had difficulty with some parsing, but overall very much enjoyed it; favourites YOURTS, PENCE and SKY-BLUE. Alas, no math clue but no biggie. Thanks Qaos and Eileen!
ESOTERIC is one of those strange words in the English language, for me, in that I almost always have forgotten its true meaning when it pops up yet again. I have to go and check. And does anybody still use the Hiccoughs variation of HICCUPS any more? Just a couple of thoughts. Found this fairly gettable throughout though unaware as ever of the Qaotic theme. Last one in was the Tyson F one, surprisingly, as he seems to be in the sporting news recently…
I found this tough and a dnf. The theme was unknown to me so no help. Failed to parse BRUTALLY. And as for YOURTS, I had no chance with that archaic spelling. After revealing the answer I parsed it as O in YURTS meaning a dairy product. Ah well.
Some nice clues in there though so enjoyed it.
Thanks to Qaos and Eileen.
Nice puzzle, though I was a bit disappointed by the absence of Qaos’s usual alphanumerics. No theme for me, of course, but all to the good for the solving challenge. Some good constructions – I liked DRAGON, OTHERWISE and PENCE.
ronald @25: ‘hiccoughs’ is a later spelling based on mistaken folk etymology. HICCUPS is the original and only kosher version. (As for strange spellings, YOURTS looks as though Qaos had painted himself into a corner! Always a risk with a themed puzzle).
Thanks to Qaos and Eileen
All good fun – thank you, Qaos: and as usual I failed to get the theme, despite the popularity of the books with my children and now grandchildren. Gosh – how time passes.
I was puzzled over LANGUAGE as “gauge” is one of those words that I consistently can’t spell correctly – either way round of the “a” and “u” look as wrong as each other, so I couldn’t see what the business with the metal was all about. Thanks Eileen and earlier commenters for putting that to rights! (Another such word for me is buoy/bouy.)
BERK has its origins in rhyming slang, being a contraction of “Berkshire Hunt”, something that never fails to amuse when I pass “Welcome to Wesr Berkshire” signs on the A34.
I have seen the films (I have grandchildren) but I never look for themes so that was moot. Lack of familiarity with boxers prevented me from getting 6a and from parsing BRUTALLY. SPHINX was a favourite. The unusual spelling of YOURT is actually the first given in Chambers, with YURT as an alternate, but I think I’ve only ever seen the latter.
I always enjoy Qaos’s crosswords and Eileen’s blogs. Managed to fill the grid, but hadn’t fully parsed DRAGON, BRUTALLY, LANGUAGE and PENCE.
Well done to all those who spotted the second HINGE. Nice, because I think they usually come in pairs.
There seemed to be something familiar about DRAGON and FURY, but despite looking, I failed to find the theme. I liked DRAG ON, the ESOTERIC Private Harry, the twisted LANGUAGE, the well-hidden (twice) HINGE, the upended bottle giving EARACHE, the FEATURE funny true story, and the reduced volume in PENCE.
Thanks Qaos and Eileen.
After TRAIN and DRAGON went in, I guessed the theme. I’m not that familiar with HTTYD series, so it didn’t give me an edge in the solving, but it helped confirm a few of the clues after the fact, particularly YOURt, which is not a spelling I’m familiar with. Lots of fun. Thanks Eileen and Qaos!