Thank you to Turnstone (for this debut? puzzle). Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1. Back of glass lamp is flimsy (6)
SLIGHT : Last letter of(Back of glass) “glass” + LIGHT(eg. a lamp).
4. Broadcast lesser-known tracks as well (7)
BESIDES : Homophone of(Broadcast) “B-sides”(the other/lesser known/played tracks of a record or cassette, in contrast to A-sides).
9. No longer needed and turned around (9)
REDUNDANT : Anagram of(… around) AND TURNED.
10. Crush a plant (5)
HOSTA : HOST(a dense crowd of people/a crush) + A.
11. Loch contains third of otters’ dens (5)
NESTS : NESS(the loch in the Scottish Highlands) containing(contains) 3rd letter(third of) “otters”.
12. E Shepard working over introduction to Winnie-the-Pooh laid initial coat of paint? (3-6)
PRE-WASHED : Anagram of(… working) E SHEPARD containing(over) 1st letter of(introduction to) “Winnie-the-Pooh”.
A pre-paint washing (or pre-washing?) is a cleaning (not with paint) of the surface, say, of a house’s exterior in preparation for/laid before painting it. Feels like something is missing in the definition (maybe just me).
13. One holding hot pebbles (7)
SHINGLE : SINGLE(a one/an individual) containing(holding) H(abbrev. for “hot”).
15. Opening part of journo’s trilogy (7)
NOSTRIL : Hidden in(part of) “journo’s trilogy”.
17. Chicken roll includes last slice of tomato (7)
ROOSTER : ROSTER(a list of which personnel doing which tasks/a roll) containing(includes) last letter of(last slice of) “tomato”.
19. Dog tore into moving water (7)
CURRENT : CUR(a mixed-breed dog/mongrel) +RENT(tore into/violently separated into parts).
21. Family ran castle badly (9)
ANCESTRAL : Anagram of(… badly) RAN CASTLE.
23. Norse jug more recently discovered (5)
NEWER : N(abbrev. for “Norse”, as in ON/Old Norse) + EWER(a large vase-shaped jug/pitcher).
25. Reported part of ship scuttled (5)
HOLED : Homophone of(Reported) “hold”(that part of a ship where cargo or luggage is sored.
Defn: Made holes in, say, a ship so that it sank/was scuttled).
26. Ban Charlie dancing alone in the city (9)
BARCELONA : BAN(to bar/to prohibit) + C(letter represented by “Charlie” in the phonetic alphabet) + anagram of(dancing) ALONE.
Defn: … in Spain.
27. Dodgy extract of forest ceps usually sent back (7)
SUSPECT : Hidden in(extract of) reversal of(… sent back) “forest ceps usually”.
28. Secure essential food stuff (6)
STAPLE : Double defn: 1st: To …/fasten together with a staple; and 2nd: …/main constituent of a diet.
Down
1. Suddenly starts special syndicates (7)
SPRINGS : SP(abbrev. for “special”) + RINGS(organised groups of people engaged in illegal activities/syndicates).
2. River shrouded by Berlin dusk (5)
INDUS : Hidden in(shrouded by) “Berlin dusk”.
Defn: … in India.
3. Hid things carelessly in retrospect (9)
HINDSIGHT : Anagram of(… carelessly) HID THINGS.
4. Bird found in freezing north (7)
BITTERN : BITTER(bitingly cold/freezing) + N(abbrev. for “north”).
5. Vowel sound endings in Thomas’ poetic triumph wow Swansea (5)
SCHWA : Last letters, respectively, of(endings in) “Thomas’ poetic triumph wow Swansea”.
6. Free police officers before accusation (9)
DISCHARGE : DIS(abbrev. for “detective inspectors”/police officers) placed above(before, in a down clue) CHARGE(an accusation/an allegation of committing an offence).
7. Shoe absorbs cold mud (7)
SCANDAL : SANDAL(a light open type of footwear/shoe) containing(absorbs) C(abbrev. for “cold”).
Defn: …/defamatory or malicious assertions or information.
8. Portion is small enough (6)
SAMPLE : S(abbrev. for “small”) + AMPLE(enough/sufficient).
14. Cossie designed by the French with two sides the same (9)
ISOSCELES : Anagram of(… designed) COSSIE plus(by) LES(French for “the”).
Defn: … length, when describing a triangle.
16. Tight temporary splint restrains band (9)
STRINGENT : STENT(a small tube inserted into a body’s passageway to improve flow through it – can this be called a “temporary splint”?) containing(restrains) RING(a band/something with a circular shape).
Defn: …/strict.
17. Stretches out concerning pains (7)
REACHES : RE(with reference to/concerning) + ACHES(pains/discomforts).
18. Underdone piece in cheese toastie (7)
RAREBIT : RARE(of meat, underdone/cooked briefly) + BIT(a small piece of a bigger whole).
19. Trader caught with unknown vegetable (6)
CELERY : Homophone of(… caught) “seller”(a trader/a marketer) plus(with) Y(symbol for an unknown quantity in mathematics).
20. Express hesitation in outline for bank (7)
TERRACE : ER(an expression of hesitation/uncertainly) contained in(in) TRACE(to outline/to mark out).
Answer: A row/bank of connected houses.
22. Finally dismiss lazy creep (5)
SIDLE : Last letter of(Finally) “dismiss” + IDLE(doing nothing/lazy).
Defn: To …/move cautiously and slowly.
24. Which person starts to organise party cheer? (5)
WHOOP : WHO?(which person?) + 1st letters, respectively, of(starts to) “organise party”.
Defn: A …/a yell to encourage someone.
A pre-wash might be the preliminary layer of a watercolour painting rather than anything to do with interior decoration? Took me a while to work out why host=crush.
Misled by reading caught=c in CELERY and then being unable to account for ELER.
Thanks gladys. Looking at the online references, if it is the preliminary layer of watercolour, then it’s just called a wash.
Just right for Sunday, I thought. Like Gladys, HOST wouldn’t be high on my list of synonyms for crush and I hadn’t heard of the plant. I took too long on a couple of simple ones, notably SPRING. I hadn’t heard of SCHWA but it was right there.
All good though I liked ISOSCELES, ANCESTRAL and STRINGENT.
Thanks Turnstone and scchua
Thank you for the blog, scchua. This isn’t Turnstone’s debut: I remember the blogger of the day carefully explaining to me that a turnstone is a bird.
I also remember that Turnstone has a fine way with surfaces: the ones for HINDSIGHT, CELERY, NOSTRIL and HOLED are pleasing. (I agree, though, about 12A not feeling quite right. The brilliant illustrator is, of course, always known as E.H. Shepherd, and maybe trying to work him and Pooh into the clue’s wording was a bit too much of a stretch…?)
I only know SCHWA from crosswords.
BESIDES, however, had me chuckling out loud.
Thank you Turnstone for the fun.
A solid quiptic I thought, with some words I needed to double-check in the dictionary but clearly clued. Thanks Turnstone and scchua!
Brill, loved this one – thank you, Turnstone and Scchua!
I struggled with 10A HOSTA: on my own, I couldn’t convince myself that “host” meant “crush” (except it must, to fit the clue). As so often happens, once I saw it in black and white, in Scchua’s blog, I felt more reconciled to it.
Turnstone has set a Quick Cryptic and a Cryptic so far.
Two thoughts on PRE-WASHING – to get emulsion to stick to plaster you start with a pre-wash of watered down emulsion. Or there are techniques in acrylic (and possibly oil) painting when the surface is prepared with a number of layers that can be scratched through to later, or can show through later paint.
Thank you to Scchua and Turnstone
Martin @3 Yes, 1D SPRINGS was my LOI.
Thanks scchua. Not a debut. Turnstone’s first offering for the Guardian was back in early March setting a Genius. Since then there has been a Quick Cryptic and a Quiptic, before today’s puzzle.
scchua, whenever I see your name I think of SCHWA, and wondered if you chose that, but maybe I was doing you a great cultural and linguistic disservice, and it’s your initials and surname, or something entirely different?
As a linguist by training, I’m very familiar with the SCHWA. (from German Schwa, borrowed from the Hebrew shva (שְׁוָא), meaning “emptiness” or “nought”). That’s not really accurate. It’s closer to the meaning of ”schwach” in contemporary German, meaning ”weak”. It’s the vowel sound in many unstressed syllaybles, a bit like ”uh'”, represented by /ə/ in phonetics. It’s always one of my bone of contentions in ”soundalikes”/homophones.
(Some crossing there, apologies. Slow typing, a bit of cutting and pasting, and it’s my bedtime.)
New for me: PRE-WASH paint layer (for 12ac); HOSTA plant.
Favourite: NOSTRIL.
I came here to check the parsing of 25ac.
Never heard of HOSTA — which I had to reveal — and I thought host/crush a bit of a stretch. Everything else fell into place smoothly, as one would expect of a “quiptic”.
I also chuckled at BESIDES, as did Wellbeck @ 4, although it depends on how you say it. and therein lies the joke/pun. There’s a schwa in the first syllable in the answer, in my dialect anyway. Loved the surface of BARCELONA.
Me again. (I really am going to bed now.) Edit @ 9. bones of contention.
A couple of queries:
BESIDES
Lovely clue, but I have a question about the def.
BESIDES and ‘as well as’ are equivalent rather than BESIDES and ‘as well’ are,
I thought. Am I wrong?
PRE-WASHED
Could not find any reference online to back the def, but as gladys and Shanne
have explained it in some detail, I feel the clue is fine.
HOSTA
As GDU@11 says, HOST and crush aren’t exact synonyms.
However, if the meanings are near enough, we accept in
Crosswordistan generally. So, it’s fine, I guess.
Thanks Turnstone and scchua
Thanks Turnstone and scchua, a pleasant Sunday morning solve. I was also doubtful about STENT as “temporary splint” but Chambers says otherwise (and that it’s named after a 19th century dentist!).
Loved the surface of 12 – E H Shepherd being the original illustrator of Winnie the Pooh
When I was solving, I checked the Chambers Thesaurus and crush is listed under HOST.
A good Quiptic – thanks Turnstone and scchua (schwa??).
Nice photo of Trwyn Du (‘Black Nose’) lighthouse – I once had a similar view as my PC wallpaper!
Good Quiptic. I read the definition for PRE-WASHED as cryptic rather than a true synonym, which I presume is why Turnstone added the question mark. Great construction.
BESIDES is nice, though not a strict homophone – I think the first vowel is close to a SCHWA in everyone’s dialect. KVa @14: It depends on the position of the word: ‘there is more besides’ = ‘there is more as well’.
If you’ve never come across a HOSTA it’s probably because the slugs have got there first.
Thanks to Turnstone and scchua
I found this a bit tougher than expected, maybe because I’m still under the cloud of a Scottish cold contracted from grandchildren. The SW corner gave me good toe-holds to eventually fill in the rest.
It’s a sign of my fuzzy-headedness that I had built up 17D correctly as being Re + Aches and then spent some while thinking “Re-aches? That can’t be right: it’s not even really a word, is it? “. It was only when I typed it in anyway that the penny dropped with a loud Clunk.
Thanks scchua for the comprehensive blog, and Turnstone for the entertainment.
Protase@19
Thanks
Enjoyable mostly although I felt some definitions were a bit loose. NHO schwa so had to look it up in a dictionary to confirm vowel sound although the wordplay was obvious. My favourite was 14d. Thanks scchua and to Turnstone.
Paddymelon @9
שְׁוָא in Hebrew also means a vowel sound: it could be a sound close to /ə/ or, more often, it means the absence of a vowel (/Ø/). This term already existed in Biblical Hebrew.
Thank you, Turnstone and scchua.
HOSTA was new to me, so, special thanks for the nice pictures of the plant.
I also didn’t parse CELERY.
Also, thanks Shanne for additional details about PRE-WASHING.
Hold/HOLED was very nice. Thanks Turnstone and Scchua.
DerekTheSheep @20.
I did the same thing with 16d: string-ent
I had no chance of getting HOSTA having not heard of the plant or that use of host. Everything else was fair but I held myself up by putting LANCASTER at 21. I didn’t think of family as an adjective so I couldn’t see what else it could be and I thought the war of the roses connection was just the kind of thing I’ve come to expect. Overall very enjoyable and fit the brief.
Same as a lot of others struggled with HOSTA not having heard of the plant and struggling with host/crush. Couldn’t come up with anything better so opted for it in the end.
Glad I wasn’t the only one to put in LANCASTER.
Rest was a nicely set Quiptic which I enjoyed solving. Liked CELERY.
Thanks Turnstone and scchua
I thought this a very well-pitched Quiptic. Plenty of entry points, but also plenty of clues which required more thought where the defs in the wordplay weren’t the first thing that sprang to mind. I revealed HOSTA in the end, having never heard of it and indeed having not equated host with crush (I’m still not convinced the former implies the latter). But yes, stretchy defs aside, an ideal Sunday puzzle. Thanks both!
I always use a schwa to occupy the final syllable of, say, Queensland or Exmouth, but in Australia at least, I’m rather alone. And I don’t like the way the Americans have banished the schwa from the ultimate syllable of hurricane, which is becoming increasingly common in Australia. Just sayin’ …
Very enjoyable – managed it with no reveals. Though I had to guess 10a – I know the plant, but still don’t see what host has to do with crush. I know host can mean many, as in `a whole host of quiptic setters’ – but there’s no notion of them being crushed (together). I must be missing something!
Thanks Turnstone and scchua.
Thanks Paddymelon#9 for your explanation of schwa. It was new to me.
Hostas are impossible to grow because slugs LOVE them.
Thanks Turnstone and scchua. You didn’t say if schwa had inspired your setter’s handle.
Great Quiptic and lovely blog, thanks Turnstone and scchua. Some clever, funny clues here. All good fun.
I don’t think 20 is referring to terraced houses – a terrace is a bank of earth.
Schwa and host=crowd were new to me.
Learner here. On 19d – I can see how celer is a homophone for seller, and Y is an unknown. But how am I supposed to know that caught is a homophone indicator? Chambers crossword dictionary lists it as a containment indicator. The only hint I can see is that hear is listed as a synonym for catch. Isn’t this a bit obscure; especially for a Quiptic?