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The crossword may be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/cryptic/25966.
I found that the solution went in at a remarkably smart pace, but some of the wordplay and definitions took more time to sort out.
| Across | |||
| 1. | Crackling in exaltation, having left the City (6) | ||
| STATIC | A subtraction: [ec]STATIC (‘in exaltation’) less (‘having left’) EC (‘the City’) | ||
| 5. | On a ship overseas subject to right promotion (6) | ||
| ABOARD | ABROAD (‘overseas’) with the R ‘promoted’ two to the right. | ||
| 8. | One might 18 12, amazing feat involving beer (3,4) | ||
| TEA LEAF | An envelope (‘involving’) of ALE (‘beer’) in TEAF, an anagram (‘amazing’) of ‘feat’. Unlike 24A, 6D and 8D, the 18 12 here does refer to the clue answers, and like there, we here have rhyming slang, for thief. | ||
| 9. | Slight one who’d be profligate with a penny for a pound (7) | ||
| SLENDER | SPENDER (‘one who’d be profligate’) with the P (‘penny’) replaced by L (‘pound’). | ||
| 11. | Out of sight tonight, no possibility of wild goose chase (6,2,7) | ||
| HIDING TO NOTHING | A charade of HIDING (‘out of sight’) plus TONOTHING, an anagram (‘possibility’) of ‘tonight no’. The phrase is new to me, and describes a situation, say in a horse race, where a bet would be futile because the outcome is near predictable. The ‘wild goose chase‘ of the definition had an equine connection, now lost, but which comes out clearly in a quotation from Nicholas Breton’s The Mother’s Blessing of 1602:Esteeme a horse, according to his pace, But loose no wagers on a wilde goose chase. | ||
| 12. | See 18 | ||
| – | See 18 | ||
| 13. | Trivial about one role in three (10) | ||
| TRIPARTITE | An envelope (‘about’) of I (‘one’) plus PART (‘role’) in TRITE (‘trivial’). | ||
| 17. | Keeping page almost at start of chapter in honour (10) | ||
| OBSERVANCE | An envelope (‘in’) of SERVAN[t] (‘page almost’) plus C (‘start of Chapter’) in OBE (‘honour’). | ||
| 18,12. | Appropriate short distance (4-4) | ||
| HALF-INCH | Double definition: ‘appropriate’ as a verb, HALF-INCH being rhyming slang (with the rhyme, for once) for pinch, steal. | ||
| 20. | The very one, she’d accepted climax frequently sinful (5,2,3,5) | ||
| SPEAK OF THE DEVIL | An envelope (‘accepted’) of PEAK (‘climax’) plus OFT (‘frequently’) in ‘she; plus DEVIL (allusively referenced as the adjective ‘sinful’). | ||
| 23. | Desired study reversed after a long time (7) | ||
| YEARNED | A charade of YEAR (‘a long time’) plus NED, a reversal of DEN (‘study’). | ||
| 24. | The ultimate in domestic energy distribution for 18 11 to 20 (7) | ||
| REGENCY | The wordplay is an anagram (‘distribution’) of C (‘the ultimate in domestiC‘) plus ‘energy’. The definition is nothing to do with clue numbers – the period from years 1811 to 1820 was the Regency in Britain, when the Prince of Wales ruled as regent because of the apparent madness of his father, George III. | ||
| 25. | Oldest ancestor’s position (6) | ||
| STANCE | A hidden answer in ‘oldeST ANCEstor’. | ||
| 26. | Bananas ordered right away and eaten (6) | ||
| ERODED | An anagram (‘bananas’) of ‘orde[r]ed’ without an R (‘right away’). | ||
| Down | |||
| 2. | Trade cuts out sad flowers (4,5) | ||
| TEAR DUCTS | An anagram (‘out’) of ‘trade cuts’. | ||
| 3. | Finished clue for “E” (3,3) | ||
| THE END | thE end. | ||
| 4. | Restaurant music finale: celebration in song (9) | ||
| CAFETERIA | An envelope (‘in’) of FETE (‘celebration’) in C (‘musiC finale’) plus ARIA (‘song’). | ||
| 5. | Crime of boy on a rooftop (5) | ||
| ARSON | A charade of ‘a’ plus R (‘Rooftop’) plus SON (‘boy’). | ||
| 6. | Clear river akin to 18 12 (8) | ||
| OVERTURE | A charade of OVERT (‘clear’) plus URE (‘river’). See 8D. | ||
| 7. | One for love in wireless spokes (5) | ||
| RADII | RADIO (‘wireless’) with the O (‘love’) replaced by I (‘one’). | ||
| 8. | 18 12 6 writer starting to compose short poem broadcaster heard of first (11) | ||
| TCHAIKOVSKY | A charade of T C (‘starting To Compose’) plus HAIK[u] (‘short poem’ – even shorter than a full haiku) plus OV (‘heard of’, homophone) plus SKY (‘broadcaster’), for the composer of the 1812 overture (with cannons and bells). Or what about that other, very short, piece? | ||
| 10. | Really gutted, having eaten bird, no longer hungry, alas (11) | ||
| REGRETFULLY | An envelope(‘having eaten’) of EGRET (‘bird’) plus FULL (‘no longer hungry’) in RY (‘ReallY gutted’). | ||
| 14. | Cards shuffled or he’s one with a load (9) | ||
| PACKHORSE | A charade of PACK (‘cards’) plus HORSE, an anagram (‘shuffled’) of ‘or hes’. | ||
| 15. | At home having a ball around five — that’s early (2,7) | ||
| IN ADVANCE | An envelope (‘around’) of V (Roman numeral, ‘five’) in IN (‘at home’) plus ‘a’ plus DANCE (‘ball’). | ||
| 16. | Not wild or forced entry (6,2) | ||
| BROKEN IN | Double definition. | ||
| 19. | Cockney tried to let one in at a leisurely pace (6) | ||
| ADAGIO | An envelope (‘to let … in’) of I (‘one’) in [h]AD A GO (‘tried’) with the aspirate dropped (‘Cockney’). | ||
| 21. | Spot on skirt’s first to go in intercourse (5) | ||
| EXACT | [s]EX ACT (‘intercourse’) without the S (‘Skirts first’). Any reference to Monica Lewinsky is entirely intentional. | ||
| 22. | Sweet cheat (5) | ||
| FUDGE | Double definition. | ||
Thanks to Philistine for the puzzle and PeterO for the blog. HIDING TO NOTHING was a new phrase for me also. Liked TEAR DUCTS and EXACT.
Cheers…
I thought that I did not really understand the theme as I could not fully parse 8a & 24a which referred to the “half” or “half-inch” key clues, so I am now very thankful for PeterO’s explanations. Anyway, I enjoyed the puzzle, with my favourites being 3d, 4d, 8d, 19d & 26a.
New phrases for me were HIDING TO NOTHING, and the Cockney rhyming slang HALF-INCH = pinch.
I parsed 20a as [SHE’D with insertion of PEAK + OFT] + EVIL (sinful).
Thanks for the blog, PeterO.
Thanks, Peter, for the explanations. Like you I finished this in no time, but was stumped by the reasoning in numerous places. Only in the wash up, googling the three words 18 12 6 did the penny drop re the year 1812 and its music; and it never did re the rhyming slang. I’m still puzzled by “akin” in 6d
molonglo, as clued 6d is overt[space]ure, akin to 18[space]12.
Thanks PeterO for digging out the origins and good morning everyone.
Enjoyed this and it all tumbled out pretty sharply once I twigged the enumeration misdirect gags.
Molonglo @3 – me too. What’s “akin” doing in the 1812 reference?
Love the idea of TEAR DUCTS being “sad flowers”! Also enjoyed (S)EXACT.
Not keen however on clues like 1a where one has to strain the stress of the wording in order to take The City out of Ecstastic. A bit Joda-esque I always think.
Thanks, PeterO, for the blog.
I thought this was quite delightful. I was able to finish it before I got up, with no obscure words to look up or references to google [I knew the rhyming slang and HIDING TO NOTHING] – just one gem after another, with lots of ingenious wordplay and witty misdirection.
I was disappointed to find that I’d entered the last answer: I’m not saying that it was ‘too easy’ – just that I’d have liked more of it! Many thanks, Philistine.
Thanks PeterO and Philistine. I was reminded of my mother here and her expression “I’ve been ‘alf-inched” if she found money missing from her purse; I also knew 11ac thanks to her “You’re on a hiding to nothing, there, I’m afraid” 🙂
I didn’t, however, see the connections to the nineteenth century, and so was puzzled by Tchaikovsy’s “half-inch overture”! And of course the phrase resulting from the clue to 24ac. was gobbledegook 🙂
I disagree slightly with your parsing of 20ac: is it not SHE’D + EVIL?
As Eileen said the other day, we so often agree with our views on particular crosswords. Today just read what she said at 6 and you will know what I think too.
Thanks to Philistine – that was great fun, particularly the ‘misleading’ numbers – now if only I didn’t have to start working…. Thanks to Peter too.
Yes, a lovely puzzle with lots of clever misdirection, which I didn’t fully understand until I read Peter’s blog. Although I was pretty sure that Tchaikovsky had never written the HALF-INCH OVERTURE.
I too liked EXACT, but as Eileen says, there was wit throughout the puzzle. It’s interesting that those who were unfamiliar with HIDING TO NOTHING are overseas solvers (I think, anyway). It’s a pretty common phrase in British English, with its modern – and rather ugly – equivalent being A NO-WIN SITUATION.
Thanks to Philistine for this morning’s crossword.
I agree with all the plaudits above – good fun, with clever use of the numbers. Like K’s D I think HIDING TO NOTHING is a common phrase in the UK and I was surprised that several people weren’t familiar with it.
My only niggle is that REGRETFULLY doesn’t really mean “alas” – that would be REGRETTABLY. (Cue discussion of prescription vs description, language evolution, etc.)
@Andrew
Chambers seems to be more or less on Philistine’s side (Regretfully = “to be regretted”) but I take your point. I had a teacher who used to poor scorn on us every time we used “hopefully” for “I hope” and I still feel guilty every time I do it. In that case he blamed Americans for mishearing the German “hoffentlich”. (He blamed Americans for quite a lot of things.)
I thought this puzzle straightforward, but in comparison to Monday’s Rufus and Tuesday’s Gordius, at least there was some enjoyment to be had from proceedings. It may have been just as easy, but it wasn’t as prosaic and boring as the other two. Where Rufus and Gordius plodded, Philistine ran like a gazelle, I’m afraid.
Thanks PeterO and Philistine
Very enjoyable with lots of ‘aha’ moments when answers finally understood.
The ‘theme’ was very cleverly done.
I ticked 1a, 8a, 18,12, 20a, 24a, 10d and 19d as I went along.
I assumed that ‘akin to’ meant ‘of the same general type as’.
Oh, Andrew @10 – what a can of worms!
Thomas99 – I think you may have misread Chambers: the 12th edition has:”regretful adj feeling regret. regretfully adv. regrettable adj to be regretted. regrettably adv in a regrettable way, I’m sorry to say, unfortunately.”
Collins has an unusually long entry on this: “‘Regretful’ and regretfully’ are sometimes wrongly used where ‘tegrettable’ and ‘regrettably’ are meant. A simple way of making the distinction is that when you regret something you have done, you are regretful: he gave a regretful smile; he smiled regretfully. In contrast, when you are sorry about an occurrence you did not yourself cause, you view the occurrence as regrettable: this is a regrettable [not regretful] mistake; regrettably [not regretfully i.e, because of circumstances beyond my control] I shall be unable to attend.”
‘Hopefully’ is one of my bêtes noires but I have always been rather uneasy about that as I think of ‘thankfully’ as being, illogically, more acceptable. I’ve been moved to look that up in Collins, too, and find it equally inconsistent! ” Some people object to the use of ‘thankfully’ to qualify a complete statement, as in ‘that conflict is, thankfully, over’. However, this use is now very well established and far more common than, e.g.’she drew some smoke in thankfully and settled herself more comfortably in her chair'” [What an odd illustration!]
Thanks, Peter
Splendid puzzle from Philistine, which looked as though it was going to be tough but which fell out quite easily in the end. My only hold-ups were caused by first putting TRIPLICATE as 13a (reverse of ‘a clip’ in ‘trite’, although I was dubious about the parsing), and REGRETTABLY as 10a (having spotted R_Y and the EGRET and jumping to conclusions).
REGRETFULLY and ‘regrettably’ did originally have distinct meanings, as Eileen @14 points out, but I am relaxed about conceding that the distinction is weakening. (‘Disinterested’ for ‘uninterested’ is another matter….). However, the same cannot be said for ‘hopefully’, the furore over the usage of which has always seemed to me to be as misplaced as the horror of split infinitives, or the strange idea that the preposition of a phrasal verb cannot be placed at the end of a sentence. Adverbs like ‘thankfully’ and ‘happily’ have long been used in this ‘absolute’ sense, so there is no reason why ‘hopefully’ can’t be. Any ambiguity can be resolved by word order (as in the ‘thankfully’ example which Eileen quotes). ‘Hopefully, to travel is better than to arrive’ does not mean the same as ‘It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive’.
I loved the date misdirections.
Many thanks PeterO & Philistine. This was very enjoyable, although I didn’t understand the clue for TCHAIKOVSKY – until now.
Thanks for the blog PeterO.
I was duly misled by the half-inches all over the place — thanks to the blog for explaining how these worked!
A wonderfully witty puzzle which I enjoyed very much and solved pretty smoothly, despite not seeing the wordplay in places.
Thanks to Philistine!
Eileen@14
Yes – sorry, misread “regrettable” as part of the definition for some reason. Ignore my Chambers reference, everyone. Regrettably, there’s no edit function here…
Gervase @15
The OED says “hopefully” as “it is hoped” only goes back to 1932 (the other meaning they trace to 1639). It also seems to agree with my late schoolteacher:
Hopefully […]
2. It is hoped (that); let us hope. (Cf. German hoffentlich it is to be hoped.) orig. U.S. (Avoided by many writers.)
(The reference is right this time – I pasted it in!)
The difference from “regretfully” is, I suppose, there isn’t a “hopably” or “hopingly” to use instead, but there are a lot of equivalent phrases (“I hope”, “let’s hope” etc.). One advantage of keeping the distinction is, perhaps, that breaking the rule can then be more effective – so if I say things are hopefully looking up I might actually be personifying them, or imagining them to be suffused with (my own?) hope. Otherwise it might just end up meaning something like “probably”. But usage will always win…
Can of worms, Eileen? More like a big fat barrel of worms. Those who object to ‘hopefully’ should also on that reasoning eschew ‘thankfully’, ‘apparently’, ‘happily’, ‘sadly’ … since they are all performing exactly the same function. ‘Sadly, we couldn’t make it’ doesn’t mean we are sad, does it? If you insist, then stick to sentences like this: ‘Jack and Jill went to bed hopefully on their wedding night’.
Those objecting to ‘hopefully’ will be telling me next that I can’t start a sentence with ‘and’. And that’s my last word on the matter.
Thomas99@19:
You’re quite right about the dates.
This ‘absolute’ usage of adverbs to modify an entire sentence seems, on the evidence provided by the OED, to have been slowly growing. ‘Happily’ was used in this way very early (though, or course ‘happy’ originally meant ‘lucky’ rather than ‘cheerful’, and ‘luckily’ and ‘fortunately’ are also early absolutes). ‘Apparently’ has now more or less lost its meaning of ‘clearly’ (as in ‘to see apparently’ = ‘to see clearly’), whereas ‘clearly’ is still used both as a sentence and a verb modifier. ‘Thankfully’ has only recently been grudgingly accepted as usable in this way. Hopefully, ‘hopefully’ is well on its way to joining the party. I’m with K’sD on this one.
Luckily, I saw the 1812 after a while. Thanks Philistine and PeterO. Very good puzzle.
For ‘alas’ my Chambers Crossword Dictionary gives ‘waesucks’ as a synonym – perhaps known to Eileen and others with Scottish connections.
Topless sex act in the Guardian – what ever next? 😉
Gor blimey, strike a light, TEA LEAF and HALF-INCH first in plus ‘AD A G(I)O for us Cockneys too. Philistine, you spoil us.
Enjoyed the linkages, especially once I’d got the OVERTURE.
K’sD and Gervase are in good company – see Prof Sidney Greenbaum’s Good English and the Grammarian for instance.
In any case, even if the first usage known to OED is 1932, that still means it’s been in common use for long the most of us have been alive
Re the puzzlement over ‘akin’ in 6d – maybe 18[space]12 is akin to 1812? However, that leaves no excuse for 18[space]11 to 20 😉
Had to work quite hard to get some bits of this, having made a couple of silly mistakes early on.
I didn’t like the use of the space in between 18 and 12; I realise that it is necessary for the theme, but I didn’t get that at all until I looked on here.
At least there were no unknown words for me today!
Lot of aggro for cmpiler on techni cal points, whch says much?? I agre this micjh better than other two days, but just a hoovver and a tidy woulsd have made things nuch better, for me.
Rollo.
Thanks to PeterO for the blog. You explained a couple of cases where I had the right answer without understanding the reason e.g. REGENCY. I had already spotted a couple of cases where 18space12 really meant year 1812 but 18space11 to 20 beat me. And I am a fan of Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances 🙁
I take issue with Peter’s solution to 9. In 7d the clue says “one for love” which means replace O by I. Logically, therefore, 9 should be SPENDER because the clue has “penny for a pound” i.e. put P in place of L.
Very enjoyable. Thanks Philistine and PeterO. You can put me down as an overseas solver who is familiar with “hiding to nothing” but I seem to have known it forever so perhaps it has disappeared from use “overseas”.
Re the “ly” debate, my pet hate is “we will be landing momentarily”. I certainly hope not! When we land I want the plane to stay on the ground.
HKColin, presumably you don’t like ‘At this time we are ready to deplane’ either? ‘We are now ready to disembark’ would be favourite in my view. And yes, I have heard the former. And yes, since we are doing pedantry today, ‘disembark’ can be used for getting off a plane.
Sorry for hogging the blog. Bit bored with work today.
Thanks Philistine and PeterO
Enjoyed this crossword a lot – especially when it clicked with the 1812 OVERTURE. Still the REGENCY period took just as long to see (wasn’t expecting the same trick again).
Wasn’t all that happy with R being promoted towards the rear of the word – originally had written in ABROAD until the crossers – the same with SLENDER which I got wrong using the logic of chas@28 – surely the clue can be read either way and with the critical letter blocked, it depends on how one ‘punctuates’ the clue.
Slight (SLENDER) – one who’d be profligate (SPENDER, after I swap P for the L).
Apart from that niggle, thought it was a very clever, amusing and for Philistine quite a risqué puzzle.
Michelle @2
You are of course right over 20A. There are times when the pressure of blogging can concentrate the mind wonderfully, to unravel some complex wordplay; but it also seems to make it difficult to see past a chosen parsing, even when, as here, it is decidedly dodgy.
Molonglo @3 and Col @25
I felt that the ‘akin’ was not necessary to justify the space (nor that it would do that job adequately) – the work is known as the Eighteen Twelve Overture, even though I would hyphenate the date were I to write it out in full. I think the clue is in greater need of an indication that the 1812 is only an example of an overture, not a definition. Hence I interpreted ‘akin’ as something like ‘associated with’, along the lines of Tupu @13. Not ideal, but perhaps this is a chance for for Rowland to do some hoovering and tidying.
Skimmed this and thought it would be very difficult. Half an hour later, it was done. I particularly like crosswords like this! Very fair, I thought.
Thanks.
I liked tear ducts and the 18 12 overture trick was clever.
Didn’t understand 2nd half of regency until reading here.
I agree with most of the posters above that this was a very enjoyable crossword.
It had the right feel.
Yet, it was not clean enough to my taste (me, the grumpy old man :)).
Just like William @5 I am not keen on the way Philistine wants us to delete EC from ‘ecstatic’.
It was only in post #31 that someone made clear that 9ac (SLENDER) is ambiguous.
The ‘promotion’ bit in 5ac (ABOARD) doesn’t work for me either. Would have worked much better in a Down clue. Plus that it is not clear what ‘promotion’ means here, to the left, to the right? It is perhaps even ambiguous in the same way as 9ac.
In 8ac we wondered where the T was coming from. It took a while to see that ‘starting to compose’ = TC. But is it?
My PinC found 3d (THE END) quite clever but I have been drawn (by Paul B) into the other half (perhaps, a quarter :)) of Crosswordland – the place where they prefer “the’s end” over “the end”, just like in 4d “music’s finale” over “music finale”.
I liked the misdirecting spacing of 18 12 in 6d (OVERTURE).
But I would have left it there.
Repeating it in 8d (and in a similar way in 24ac) ruined the effect.
Sometimes “More = Less”.
But, but, but.
This crossword had the right feel.
Which is more important than whatever I think goes against it.
I thought in particular 26ac and 21d were highlights.
Many thanks PeterO for your splendid blog (which should be amended for 20ac – see several posts above).
Good entertainment.
No objections whatsoever to this puzzle.
As has been said it at first appeared a real challenge but the clear cluing soon led to the solution.
Great misdirection and a really enjoyable solve.
I don’t understand how many people that are obviously very good at “cryptics” can’t understand that language is a flexible thing and something that naturally evolves. Something that was a grammatical dogma 20 years ago very often has isn’t today! That’s how language works! It’s not people making errors!!!!
Thanks to PeterO and Philistine for another great puzzle.
Rufus could learn a thing or two from Philistine – ie how to do a straightforward puzzle but with entertainment aplenty.
Bullhassocks, I would say: please leave Rufus out of this.
Rufus crosswords are a completely different type of puzzles.
Where Philistine’s cluing is more adventurous and mainly based on constructions, Rufus likes cryptic and double definitions.
You just can’t compare them and you shouldn’t.
That aside, I think Rufus surely does offer entertainment.
And saying that Rufus ‘could learn a thing or two’ from Philistine, well, er, it is a bit like saying that Araucaria could learn a bit from Qaos.
Apples and pears.
The “theme” blew right over my head even after penciling in 8d. In retrospect, sad that I didn’t get it and enjoy as much as I could have.
Thanks for the missed opportunity, Philistine, and the explanations of my loss, PeterO!