Thank you, Phil Ashling for filling in so admirably for me last Tuesday when I was among 1,500 having a celebration lunch in a remote village in Fujian, China. We, all surnamed Yap, had come from many parts of the world for the consecration of a Taoist temple set on top of a hill. The Chinese are very big into ancestor worship and filial piety.
Today’s puzzle by Bonxie is very challenging in places but also very entertaining, creative and enjoyable.
For a change, I am using another of the many formats devised by fellow-blogger and IT wizard, PeeDee. The definition in each clue is highlighted in bold.
Postscript : Thanks to EllisB@15, we now see a cleverly hidden theme as hinted by 16Across, Girls Girls Girls. The answers contained very many names of girls. Thank you, Bonxie, you have made a good puzzle into a brilliantly great puzzle.
| Across | ||
| 9 | ARGENTINA | Man enters dock, heading off for the country (9) |
| Ins of GENT (man) in |
||
| 10 | LOUSE | Contemptible person steals one from a woman (5) |
| LOUISE (name of woman) minus I (one) | ||
| 11 | EXTRUDE | Trespass in exchange for mould (7) |
| INTRUDE (trespass) with EX substituted for IN, indicated by in exchange, a device that befuddled me for many minutes. My COD for this novel cryptic device | ||
| 12 | AMERICA | The place to give us capitalisation? (7) |
| A tichy way to say us in upper case, US stands for United States or America | ||
| 13 | EXTOL | “Praise first wife”, many reflected (5) |
| EX (former wife as implied by first wife) TOL (rev of LOT, many) | ||
| 14 | PETULANCE | Stroke uncle with a ruptured spleen (9) |
| PET (stroke) *(UNCLE + A) | ||
| 16 | GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS | The King’s film shows soldiers holding hands, again and again (5,5,5) |
| 3 x Ins of RL (Right & Left hands) in GI’S (soldiers) for an Elvis Presley (aka The King) film | ||
| 19 | HARMONICA | Music maker is hurt tossing a coin (9) |
| HARM (hurt) + *(A COIN) | ||
| 21 | MOSUL | Order back ruler ceding half an Arabian city (5) |
| MO (rev of OM, Order of Merit) SUL |
||
| 22 | ROSEHIP | Thorny fruit cut nurses tights, top to bottom (7) |
| HOSE (tights) with first letter moved to bottom -> OSEH inserted in RIP (cut) | ||
| 23 | DILEMMA | Puzzle book — turn cover first (7) |
| DIL (rev of LID, cover) EMMA (book by Jane Austen) | ||
| 24 | BLEAR | Dim headlights when animal crosses (5) |
| Ins of L (first letter of lights, creatively indicated by headlights) in BEAR (animal) | ||
| 25 | CRESCENDO | Cut short street party building to a climax (9) |
| CRESCEN |
||
| Down | ||
| 1 | WAVELENGTH | On mine, you’ll get this: “A bore has a big one” (10) |
| If you are on my wavelength, you will understand me or get this. A bore is also a tidal flood that rushes with great violence up the estuaries of certain rivers; so you can say the wave is long or has a big length | ||
| 2 | AGITATOR | Georgia flicked it at soldiers, being a troublemaker (8) |
| AG (rev of GA, Georgia) + IT + AT + OR (Other Ranks, soldiers) | ||
| 3 | ANNUAL | Obsessive about Homeric character in book (6) |
| Ins of NU (Greek character indicated by Homeric) in ANAL (slang word for being obsessive) | ||
| 4 | NIKE | Looking up a little, seeking victory (4) |
| rha for the Greek god of victory | ||
| 5 | TARANTELLA | Dance on pitch before animal drops off parent (10) |
| TAR (pitch) + ANTE (before) LLA |
||
| 6 | BLUE FLAG | Iris pursues a butterfly seen flying on some beaches (4,4) |
| BLUE (a butterfly of the family Lycaenidae) FLAG (iris, see Chambers 4) for the Blue Flag, awarded to beaches meeting European Union standards of cleanness. | ||
| 7 | JULIAN | Calendar guy? (6) |
| dd | ||
| 8 | MEGA | Great match — second half on top (4) |
| GAME (match) with second half ME moved to the front | ||
| 14 | PHILIPPICS | Tirades delivered after man snaps (10) |
| PHILIP (name of man) PICS (pictures, snaps) for discourses full of invective after anti-Philip of Macedon speeches by Demosthenes | ||
| 15 | EL SALVADOR | American state where dollars ’ave circulated since 2001 (2,8) |
| *(DOLLARS ‘AVE) Brilliant &lit annie as the country adopted the US$ as its currency, replacing the colon in 2001. | ||
| 17 | SMOTHERS | Wraps up old woman in smalls (8) |
| Ins of MOTHER (old woman) in SS (smalls) | ||
| 18 | ROSAMUND | Groundsman extremely relieved, falling for a woman (8) |
| *( |
||
| 20 | ROSIER | Tree south of Reading, for example, is looking more healthy (6) |
| R (Reading, one of the 3 R’s, reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic) OSIER (tree, position indicated by south in this down clue) | ||
| 21 | MALICE | Rising before noon, 10s reveal hostility (6) |
| MA (rev of AM, before noon) LICE (plural of LOUSE, answer to 10Across) | ||
| 22 | RUBY | Stone put in ground, the odd bits moving (4) |
| BURY (ground) with the odd letters R & B changing places | ||
| 23 | DEEP | Learned judge gave millions to gain power, ultimately (4) |
| DEEM (judge) minus M + P (power) | ||
Key to abbreviations
dd = double definition
dud = duplicate definition
tichy = tongue-in-cheek type
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
*(FODDER) = anagram
Down4: TAR + ANTE(before)+ LLA(ma)animal
oops! It is Down5
Thanks Uncle Yap and welcome back. I quite like this one of Bonxie’s, despite giving up on 4d and nearly on 23d: little brutes. 11a, I agree, was excellent. “Old” in 17d seemed gratuitous.
We are familiar with Father, Pa, Pop, Old Man, etc but Mother, Ma, Mum work as well for the counterpart; whereas to call any female person “old” will invite trouble. Nope, “old” in the context of the clue is not gratuitous although I challenge Bonxie to address his mother as “Old Woman”
Related information Crosswords
Cryptic crossword No 25,816 11 Dec 2012 …etc
On further investigation, problem is browser dependent. It does not occur with Internet Explorer, but does occur when printing from Firefox which suggests it is some kind of software error.
When printing from Firefox, I now have to select the crossword and exclude the “related information” bit, or print the pdf file.
Hope this is useful, Paul
PaulW: Thanks for the information. I (Chrome browser) had the same problem but now print only Page 1 to solve it.
One or two lovely clues today – 16a, 22a (CoD, made me laugh out loud), 18d and 22d. Thank you, Bonxie and Uncle Yap. Wondered about ‘maxi-length’ for 1d as I had ‘intrude’ for 11a.
I thought this quite tough, but generally fair and entertaining.
I too had ‘intrude’ for 11a – it’s another of those ambiguous clues which can be read either way.
I often seem to get stuck on four letter words – very frustrating, because I know they must be simple – and couldn’t solve 23d at all, because I was distracted by the ‘ultimately’, which I thought meant the letter R from ‘power’. What purpose does it serve, apart from distraction?
Thanks UY and Bonxie
Quite challenging and enjoyable.
I was puzzled at first re 23d, since I took the ‘ultimately’ to relate to the P in power (which seemed odd) but I then saw it related to P’s being the ultimate letter of ‘deep’.
I toyed with ‘rock’ and ‘cork’ for 22d before seeing the answer.
Many clever clues with quite a lot of letter substitution and movement. I particularly liked 11a, 22a, 3d, 14d, 18d, and 22d.
Thanks UY for the total parsing of 1d. I got most of it but did not get the ‘get’ bit!
Thanks Uncle Yap, hope you enjoyed your family get-together.
I certainly wasn’t on Bonxie 1d – it was my last in, and only because it fit and the check button didn’t eliminate anything 🙂
I didn’t see 23d either, but had forgotten about it till I came here, so it doesn’t count as the last in.
There were some good devices here, and all in all an entertaining near-solve
A really hard grind.
I spent some time with 7d as August before the cross clues convinced me I could be right!
Only solved by cheating…
meant ‘couldn’t’ of course!
Thanks Bonxie and Uncle Yap.
Ouch. Really struggled with this, even though I had a good start, with plenty of the longer answers including 16 (which I loved) going in early. Like so often it was the little ones that held me up longest – NIKE was last in. I failed to parse a few properly: 11, thinking it was TR (short for trespass) inside EXUDE, meaning exchange in some obscure definition I wasn’t aware of; 22a – I thought HIP = “top to bottom”; 5 – I had in mind that ANTELOPE was the animal in question and gave up trying to understand the rest; 23d – I thought maybe there was a set of letters that judges have after their names that I didn’t know – the reality was much more straightforward!
Looking on the bright side, WAVELENGTH, EL SALVADOR and the link between 21d and 10 were all excellent, PHILIPPICS was new for me but nicely gettable, and while the whole was certainly a sticky old challenge it was satisfying to finish.
Thanks all
I enjoyed this although it was only moderately challenging.
For example I thought 12ac was a nicely constructed clue but I wrote in the solution immediately.
Others I liked were 22ac, 8d and 18d and best of all was ‘extrude’. I do not think 11ac is ambiguous; The first word is ‘tresspass’ = intrude, then instruction to do a ‘in’/’ex’ change to give ‘extrude’ = mould.
I did hesitate over ‘ultimately’ being ‘r’ but as tupu says it is valid and more than distraction.
My last in was ‘Nike’ in the trickiest corner (NW).
There are a lot of pedants around who frequently complain about the misuse of ‘crescendo’ so they will no doubt be very pleased that Bonxie used it correctly.
Like Mitz I enjoyed 16ac, rather more than I enjoyed the film. I gave up very disappointed after King Creole.
Thanks Uncle Yap & thanks Bonxie for an ingenious crossword – hard, I found, but great fun.
Unless I’ve missed it, nobody has yet mentioned the very clever/well-hidden theme based on 16ac.
I’ve counted 18 ‘themed’ words – any advance?
@15 – Make that 19!
@15/16
This is getting silly – I think a case could be made for 23 or 24 – maybe more.
Woah, EllisB is right, and it is indeed very strange that no-one else has mentioned it!
TINA, LOU[i]SE, TRUDE, ERICA, PETULA, MONICA, ROSE, EMMA, RUBY, ROSIE, ANN, ELLA, DEE, ALICE, JULIA, ROSA, ROSAMUND, SAL, not to mention references in the clues: wife, Georgia, Iris and three x “woman” (10, 17 and 18). Have I missed any?
Belated hats off, Bonxie – very good indeed.
Thanks to UY for the blog.
I remembered Nike as the goddess of victory but quite failed to see it in the clue 🙁
@18 Mitz
How about – Mo (as in Little Mo Connolly), Lea, Elen, Gita, Nike and Meg?
Very enjoyable; more than moderately challenging for me.
Thanks UY; I like your revised format. You could even follow Eileen’s lead and underline the definitions. Well done EllisB @15; I got 3 GIRLS early on, but failed to see the significance. I, too, tried August for 7d, before changing to Julius and then JULIAN. Nicely hidden NIKE, which I failed to spot. Excellent clues, I thought, for PHILIPPICS [I smiled and groaned at the same time for snaps=pics,] SMOTHERS, ROSEHIP and RUBY……… and WAVELENGTH.
I’ll add ‘Di’ to the list. 25 and counting.
Tara, Elsa.
Gah 11 = no no no! I hate that sort of thing. Some good ones, like ROSIER, but a few old chestnuts like the US one, and lots of overblown ones for me.
Cheers
Rowly.
Thanks Uncle Yap and Bonxie
Enjoyable but frustrating – I didn’t get DEEP, and had to use the “check” (rather than “cheat”) function on several.
I may be missing something, but wouldn’t the “top to bottom” in 22ac work better in a Down clue?
@ Mitz and EllisB
There’s Ita and Alva too. As for abbreviated names, there’s also Ali, Sam and Phil.
Oh, and the lass from the East End, Efl.
… and Dee !
One can argue about ‘headlights’ for L, also about ‘old woman’ for ‘mother’ and about Bonxie using ‘ultimately’ in 23d. Not even sure whether ‘ex’ is (always) one’s ‘first wife’. One can also be annoyed by that linkword ‘on’ in 5d. And perhaps some would agree with me that, however clever, the definition in 15d was spread out a bit in an impure way.
But, yes but.
This was all in all a Great Crossword.
For us, Bonxie normally produces puzzles that are a bit of a slog.
However, this one was transparent as can be and provided a Brendan-like aha-moment when we discovered all those girls!
I am sure that it is quite a tour de force to fill a grid with words that suit the theme. It is also a tour de force to write clues in such a nifty way (as my PinC put it).
I am not a real Bonxie fan, but for me this was a contender for the Guardian Crossword of the Year. Beware, Picaroon! 🙂
Thanks UY.
Let’s put some music on now – what about “Girls Girls Girls” by Sailor?
When we got the marvellously clued Girls Girls Girls I was rather hoping for an Elvis themed crossword. Despite the disappointment it was a fine workout, though a bit too tough for the 45 minutes we had available tonight.
A really great crossword. Didn’t start off promisingly but there was enough steady progress to keep plodding on.
Last in was NIKE. Why do some hidden words hide so well?
Thanks to BONXIE for another great crossword and to UY for the blog.
Wow what a crossword. On and off took me all day, but worth it. All fair, and I didn’t have to google anything. Not that I object to googling, just enjoyed a crossword that relies on pure thought.
Thanks Bonxie and UY
This setter usually gives me a lot of trouble and although there were some challenges with the parsing – particularly with 22a, 22d, and 5d, it wasn’t quite as bad as the normal Bonxie. Many clever clue devices such as 1d, 8d, 11a, 20d and 23d and the brilliant surfaces such as 15d.
All in all a pleasure to do.
PS I’m having the occasional print problem with IE8 🙁
Well!!! Two cracking crosswords, one even nominated for crossword of the year followed by this.
Must be the easiest crossword of the year. Not expected on a Thursday.
Thanks to Manehi.