I solved this in about half an hour but spend a lot more time being distracted, first by playing Spice Girls songs and then Queen’s haunting Bohemian Rhapsody a few times here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ. Very entertaining and quite enough to alleviate the intense disappointment that we did not get a new government after all. Thank you, Paul.
| Across | ||
| 1 | BLOSSOM | Charged item almost consuming deficit, so thrive (7) |
| Ins of LOSS (deficit) in BOM |
||
| 5 | MISTRAL | Film star’s last drink almost producing wind (7) |
| Cha of MIST (film) R (last letter of star) AL |
||
| 9 | ARENA | Place rings close to golden ring (5) |
| Ins of N (last letter of golden) in AREA (place) | ||
| 10 | SALOON CAR | Vehicle wound round a bird (6,3) |
| Ins of A LOON (bird) in SCAR (wound) | ||
| 11 | DIDGERIDOO | Was there nothing Ginger Spice accomplished that’s musical? (10) |
| Re-write this as Did Geri Do O ? and if you remember Geri Halliwell, one of the Spice Girls, was also known as Ginger Spice then you will understand the clue for this Australian Aboriginal musical instrument, consisting of a very long tube producing a low-pitched resonant sound. I was privileged to see this being played by none other than Rolf Harris at a concert in Kuala Lumpur many years ago. | ||
| 12 | MAKO | Knife initially piercing Chinese red shark (4) |
| Ins of K (first letter of knife) in MAO (Zedong, sometimes called just Mao, was the founder of the People’s Republic of China) for any of several sharks of the genus Isurus | ||
| 14 | LABOUR LEADER | L for Lansbury, long ago? (6,6) |
| L is the first letter or leader of the word, Labour and the man was George Lansbury (1859–1940), British politician who led the Labour Party from 1932 to 1935. | ||
| 18 | HEART-TO-HEART | Frank feeling nothing, man tucking into dessert (5-2-5) |
| HEART (feeling) & ins of O (nothing) + HE (man) in TART (dessert) | ||
| 21 | DADA | Early expression from baby’s movement (4) |
| dd My grand-daughter still calls my son this and Dada was a short-lived (from 1916 to c.1920) movement in art and literature which sought to abandon all form and throw off all tradition. | ||
| 22 | GENERALITY | Lack of detail yet in Elgar’s variations (10) |
| *(YET IN ELGAR) | ||
| 25 | VENTILATE | Wind in vet, behind producing air (9) |
| *(IN VET) + LATE (behind) | ||
| 26,7 | KEITH RICHARDS | Stone deep in earth kids played with (5,8) |
| Ins of RICH (deep) in *(EARTH KIDS) for English musician, singer-songwriter and founder member of the English rock band the Rolling Stones | ||
| 27 | See 6 | |
| See 6 | ||
| 28 | SATANIC | Canonisations without pickled onions, devilish (7) |
| *(CANONISATIONS minus ONIONS) What a devilish annie clue 🙂 | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | BRANDY | Kind granny’s ultimate drink (6) |
| BRAND (kind) Y (last letter of granny) | ||
| 2 | OVERDO | Exaggerate content of book about composer, no end (6) |
| Ins of VERD |
||
| 3 | SPARE PARTS | Order papers on music, dance, etc, extra bits (5,5) |
| *(PAPERS) + ARTS (music, dance, etc). In Malaysia and Singapore, we use this term to also denote the edible insides of animals like liver and intestines | ||
| 4 | MESSI | Christ with Noah booted genius (5) |
| Jesus Christ is the MESSIAH and with NOAH (written as NO AH or minus AH) will give you Lionel MESSI Argentine footballer who plays as a forward for La Liga club FC Barcelona and the Argentina national team. With his scoring prowess, he is indeed a genius on the football field | ||
| 5 | MELBOURNE | Spice Girl on tour topless, one topless in Australia (9) |
| MEL B (another handle for Melanie Brown, one of the Spice Girls) |
||
| 6,27 | SNOW LEOPARD | Ounce — or oodles with prawn crackers (4,7) |
| *(OODLES PRAWN) Ounce is defined in Chambers as formerly a lynx; now generally the snow leopard, a big cat of Asia with markings similar to a leopard’s; the jaguar; the cheetah; sometimes vaguely any moderate-sized wild beast of the cat tribe | ||
| 7 | See 26 | |
| See 26 | ||
| 8 | LARBOARD | Pig in fat gets left of old (8) |
| Ins of BOAR (pig) in LARD (fat) for a nautical term (now obsolete) for left which is PORT. The counterpart STARBOARD for right survives | ||
| 13 | BEAR MARKET | Risk holding onto reserve when stock prices are falling (4,6) |
| Ins of EARMARK (reserve as in This piece of land has been earmarked for a monument) in BET (risk) for a condition in a bourse when stock prices are falling | ||
| 15 | ON ONE HAND | Where you can count up to five, for example (2,3,4) |
| Quite self-explanatory | ||
| 16 | SHE-DEVIL | Dispense with nefarious vixen (3-5) |
| SHED (dispense with) EVIL (nefarious) | ||
| 17 | FANDANGO | Dance where canine bites joiner on middle of groin (8) |
| Ins of AND (joiner, conjunction) in FANG (canine, tooth) + O (middle letter of groin) for an old Spanish dance which I first came across in Queen’s Bohemian RhapsodyI see a little silhouetto of a man Scaramouch, scaramouch – will you do the fandango Thunderbolt and lightning very very frightening me Gallileo, gallileo, gallileo, gallileo, Gallileo figaro magnifico |
||
| 19 | TITIAN | Individual giant houses for Renaissance man (6) |
| Ins of I (one, individual) in TITAN (giant) Titian, a Venetian painter of the Italian Renaissance | ||
| 20 | MYTHIC | Paul’s fat bottom wiped — fabulous! (6) |
| MY (first person’s, Paul’s) THICK (fat) with bottom K omitted or wiped for mythic or fabulous or celebrated in stories. My COD for making me laugh … and I remember another Queen hit Fat Bottomed Girls | ||
| 23 | EVENS | Chance in rugby game to get head ripped off (5) |
| SEVENS (rugby game) minus S (the first letter or head) A few years back, I attended the Hong Kong Sevens with Dr G and what a scream. An Australian warship in the vicinity suddenly developed engine problems and had to make for the nearest port and at the quayside, someone was spotted handing out tickets to the seamen walking ashore. We were told that if the HK Sevens ever got boring, to turn around and watch the rugby 🙂 | ||
| 24 | RIGA | Capital invested in sugar, I gathered (4) |
| ha | ||
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
yfyap88 at gmail.com = in case anyone wants to contact me in private about some typo
Thanks, UY. Sorry you didn’t get your result.
Am I missing something or is devilish doing double duty in SATANIC?
No, the anagram indicator here is “pickled”
Yes, but the word order doesn’t seem right…
That is why he has, like Araucaria, been labelled “libertarian”
You need another A in your canonisations explanation, but otherwise brilliant solutions. Really enjoyed this one. Thank you to Paul and Uncle Yap.
Thanks for the humorous and informative blog Uncle Yap. I needed you to explain how to parse 18a, 13d, 5a.
I failed to solve 4d but I see it is a very clever clue (even though I have never heard of Lionel Messi).
Some new words for me were ‘larboard’ and of course the Labour leader George Lansbury who I found via google.
My favourites in this puzzle were 11a, 5d (my home town), 26/7 (my favourite Rolling Stone), 16d, 20d, 17d, 28a.
Sylvia, I’m not sure you’re right. The problem is that the canonisations without onions (correct letter order so no need for pickling) have to be pickled.
Libertarian, yes but perhaps more ala Gordius than Araucaria? [Dives for cover. :)]
Thanks, Uncle, rotten news about your government – next time perhaps.
Loved KEITH RICHARDS & MESSI.
Neil W – I agree with you but PLEASE don’t kick off the Gordius thing again. Let’s just agree all setters have rules but some are more bound to them than others!
Thanks for the fun, Paul.
I’ve never attended a canonisation and I’m quite partial to pickled onions. Are they normally served? If so I’ll make a point of attending the next one.
Many thanks both.
Made a meal of it but was rewarded with extra PDMs – it all evens out. 28a went in first shot. Obviously the material there is used unconventionally but I kind of like it as it is. You could apply “devilish” to the wordplay itself as a sort of justification.
Or maybe it’s a rare example of a genuinely libertarian clue. Most non-ximenean clues are in no way libertarian in any normal sense of the word – they just work differently.
William @8, I intended nothing disrespectful to any of the three setters. Uncle Yap kicked off the comparison and this blog is about discussion of the construction of clues including setters’ styles, is it not?
It’s disappointing that my jokey comment about diving for cover should prove correct.
Talking of styles, our friend Tramp aka Jambazi is doing his finest impression of Paul but with his own particular stamp over the way today – highly recommended! 🙂
NeilW @10 – Sorry Neil, of course you meant nothing of the sort – you’re usually on the calmer side of those sort of exchanges! Didn’t know Tramp was also Jambazi, I’ll take a look.
Have a nice day.
Thanks for the blog, UY.
I agree with NeilW [on all counts!] How about ‘Concatenation without onions [pickled] – devilish’?
Lots more to admire – the hilarious 11ac and the excellent 4dn to name but two.
Many thanks, Paul, for lots of smiles.
I heartily endorse Neil’s recommendation of the Jambazi, which you can find here: http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/puzzles/crosswords/?crosswordType=cryptic
I’d steeled myself a bit for this so was pleased and a bit surprised it went in so smoothly. Lots of lovely clues but that for Messi was really inspired, I thought.
Thanks to setter and blogger today.
Thanks, UY.
Up to Paul’s high standards, despite the apparent fluff at 28a.
A lot of good clues here, with some trademark lavatorial humour. I noted 5a, 9a, 26,7, 17d, 20d and particularly 13d, which has an excellent surface.
But it was worth it just for 11a: amusing construction framed in a question I have often asked myself.
Got nowhere with Paul last week but this was much more to my taste. MESSI and DIDGERIDOO came one after the other, a double ‘aah’ moment!
Thanks UY for parsing MISTRAL for me. I was working with FILMSTAR* sans F but knew that could not be right. I first came across the word as the pre-TGV Paris to Nice express. Both went very fast down the Rhone valley.
Thanks Paul and UY.
Pleasant crossword with some outstanding clues. I particularly liked MESSI and DIDGERIDOO. I didn’t mind the ‘pickled onions.’ It was fairly obvious that ‘onions’ had to be removed and the rest pickled, I thought, despite the word order.
Putting ‘bottom wiped’ into the search facility brings up a number of Paul’s clues!
Trailman @16; me-too with FILMSTAR,* which is how I arrived at the answer.
Thanks Paul and Uuncle Yap.
Morning all! I find myself almost bereft of points to add, as it’s all been covered by you early birds, but I did want to say thanks for a light-hearted and light-of-touch puzzle to ease us back into the working week (bank holiday here in Blighty yesterday for those that didn’t know). As for many others, it seems, MESSI and DIDGERIDOO were stand-out favourites.
I think, perhaps, that NeilW has a point at #1 – it could be said that “devilish” is doing double duty (although I can see where others are coming from). I just wanted to throw into the mix that the “double duty” complaint nearly always makes me instinctively respond with “so what?”
Just for the record, I actually like the SATANIC clue, and was only asking if I was missing something… it’s a rather uncharacteristic approach from Paul, is all!
I haven’t been able to finish a Guardian in weeks – it must be the local knowledge that is finally catching up. However, I have now finished the Prize, the easy Monday, and the not-so-easy Tuesday.
I had never heard of ‘Messi’, but fortunately the cryptic gives it to you. I thought ‘Did Geri do 0?’ was brilliant, but the instrument has come up a few times before.
As for ‘Mistral’ and ‘fandango’, they are a Maserati and a dance that is replaced by a march through the mud in the Marriage of Figaro.
Thanks Paul and UY
Started off a bit here and a bit there with 24, 12 and 13 first in – but gradually got into his rhythm and picked the way through. Nice to see some Australiania in there (my home town too) and has been a part home to Mel B lately as well (for better or worse).
Many great clues as has been mentioned with 11a and 4d (my last in) my favourites. Didn’t fully parse 18 (missed HEART for feeling) and had to really think hard through both 5a and 9a.
Good fun.
So SATANIC is wrong really, in Rowly Wrold anyway!! And crazy, because ONIONs are NOT pickled — it’s the SATANICV that is!?! That clue needs a rewrite.
And two ‘almosts’ in the first two clues? What has gone wrong with the world?!! And I am finding the Spice Girls one familiar, don’t know why, maybbe Paul has re-used it. But it’s brilliant.
Thank-you setter, blogger, everyone
Rowly
Devilish canonisations – pickled onions left out?
Trailman@16 & Robi @18
I also tried to parse 5a MISTRAL as ‘film star’ sans ‘f’. Well, we get to the right answer somehow or other, don’t we? I certainly never heard of the film ‘MIST’….?
Michelle @25: Film can be defined as “a fine mist, haze or blur”. I don’t think the intention was to refer to a movie by the name of “Mist”.
PJ@26, thanks, of course you are right! I jumped to the conclusion that it must be a film entitled ‘Mist’. And in any case, earlier today I was trying to parse it as an anagram of (f)ILMSTAR.
“Canonisations” might still have “pickled onions” to become devilish or satanic if we start from the first “n”. It might have been merely an oversight on Paul’s part, that on another reading, there is no need for pickling!
Well it was always a WEEIIRRD sense for the surface!!
An opportunity lost! Keith Richards and Satanic in the same puzzle and no mention of Majesties!
I know many think of them as a rock band, but at heart they are a blues band. Just look at all the covers of blues standards in the early work, and the continual drip feed of 12 bar numbers since.
Gave up on 4dn – I had heard of Messi, but his name didn’t come to mind when looking for m.s.i
If the clue for SATANIC had appeared in The Times I would have cried foul, but here I had no problem with it. I hadn’t heard of MAKO but the wordplay was clear enough, unlike the clue for Jambazi’s fish over in the Indie. For some reason this didn’t feel like a typical Paul puzzle when I started it, but it grew on me and I really like the clue for MESSI.
I gave up on Paul last week, so was pleased to get so far with this one, although it took me a while. The only clue I couldn’t get was MAKO, and it’s so obvious now! Needed help to parse heart-to-heart and was also in the (f)ilmstar group. New word for me (apart from mako) was larbord, and I enjoyed finding out the etymology of it’s counterpart starboard too. Fave clue was didgeridoo, with messi a close second, even though I have never heard of him. I’m coming round to Paul’s way of thinking, but did get stuck for a bit, knowing his humour, trying to think of a four letter word for bottom to come after ‘my’ in 20d (fans of Ricky Tomlinson in The Royle Family will know what I mean!)
I’d just like to point out that originally the result quoted ‘canonistions'(since corrected), which is what I was referring to (or is my computer at fault?)
Thanks all.
I enjoyed this: the Spice Girl/Oz clues, and especially 4d for its short, sharp slickness.
I note Paul’s avoidance of some tempters too.
14a is, partly, an example of the fashionable reversal. Novel I think. And controversial, as some find ‘Labour leader’ for L unacceptable.
There are ten “real” people in the answers and/or clues, including the man himself.
Derek @ 30, you’ll probably never read this, but did you catch Tom Waits sitting in with the Stones last weekend?