I found this to be a distinctly challenging puzzle, although I didn’t help myself by a stupid error which delayed my solving of 26 across, the key to the theme. There seemed to be a lot of homophones and very few anagrams. Some lovely surfaces and the usual wide range of references we can expect from an Araucaria puzzle. Thanks, Araucaria, for a good mental work-out.
| Across | ||
| 1 | NORMAL | 26 — and not bad (6) |
| NOR MAL. | ||
| 5 | APPLIQUE | One thing put on another, as brains turn into fruit (8) |
| IQ U in APPLE. | ||
| 9 | MEDIOCRE | 26 only about part of bishopric (8) |
| DIOC(ese) in MERE. | ||
| 10 | AUBADE | Gold told of song at sunrise (6) |
| AU (chemical symbol for gold), BADE (sounds like BARD). “Song” in the clue is doing double duty, as it is both part of the definition and part of the wordplay, if you accept that a bard is one who tells of song. | ||
| 11 | SWAT | Kill flies? It sounds like hard work (4) |
| Sounds like SWOT. | ||
| 12 | FRATERNISE | Make friends with bird eating French fruit? On the contrary (10) |
| TERN in FRAISE (the contrary of FRAISE in TERN). | ||
| 13 | ATONER | Make-up artist using a chemical modifier (6) |
| A TONER. One who atones can be said to be one who is making up for a previous sin, so the definition is “make-up artist”. | ||
| 14 | ETHIOPIA | Land of the revolution: I have lost my short-sightedness (8) |
| *THE, I, (my)OPIA. | ||
| 16 | WRITINGS | Scriptures prescribe slowdown in theatrical margins (8) |
| RIT in WINGS. RIT is an abbreviation for ritardando or ritenuto, musical directions which basically mean “slow down”. | ||
| 19 | CHARGE | Attack on bill (6) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 21 | REFRACTION | Bend connected with small piece (10) |
| RE FRACTION. The last clue solved for me, mainly through errors in entering 22 down. | ||
| 23 | TAIL | Follower with story to tell (4) |
| Sounds like “TALE”. | ||
| 24,6 | COMMONPLACE | 26 sense with fishy sound (11) |
| Sounds like “PLAICE”. | ||
| 25 | SKYLIGHT | Sun in ceiling? (8) |
| Cryptic definition, I suppose; the sun is a light in the sky, and a skylight is found in a ceiling. Brilliantly concise. | ||
| 26 | ORDINARY | Golden record entered by new bishop (8) |
| OR (heraldic abbreviation for gold), N in DIARY. This is an example of one of the more obscure meanings of “ordinary” when used as a noun. Chambers’ definition of this sense reads: “A judge acting in his own right by virtue of his office, eg an ecclestiastic such as a bishop..” | ||
| 27 | DELUDE | Cheat American guy, inserting Spanish article (6) |
| EL in DUDE. | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | ONE TWO THREE FOUR | Said to have acquired chopper when on the rocks (Guardian’s series) (3,3,5,4) |
| Sounds like WON TOOTH REEF, OUR. The final three letters are not part of the homophone, but the wordplay for them is inside the brackets. | ||
| 3 | MOISTEN | Give licking to setter with gun (7) |
| MOI, STEN. | ||
| 4 | LUCIFERIN | Devil at home possessed by glow-worms (9) |
| LUCIFER, IN. Luciferin is defined as a protein-like substance in the luminous organs of animals such as glow-worms (which are beetles, not worms), so the definition is “possessed by glow-worms”. | ||
| 5 | AVERAGE | Say how old is 26 (7) |
| AVER AGE. | ||
| 6 | See 24 | |
| See 24 | ||
| 7 | IN BANCO | Icon smashed without prohibition by full judicial authority (2,5) |
| BAN in *ICON. My legal training helped with this now obsolete term to describe a decision reached by a group of judges sitting together. | ||
| 8 | UNDISTINGUISHED | 26 lingerie, say, with money I was effusive about (15) |
| Sounds like “UNDIES”, TIN, I in GUSHED. | ||
| 15 | HACKNEYED | 26 East End journalist (9) |
| HACKNEY, ED(itor). The original meaning of the term is “devoted to common use” (deriving from the hackney carriage) from which it has evolved into meaning trite, or dulled by excessive use. | ||
| 17 | THROMBI | Obstructions to first of the parallelograms twisted at the top (7) |
| T(he) RHOMBI (with the first two letters transposed). | ||
| 18 | SPILSBY | Accidents with liquid reported near Lindsey town (7) |
| Sounds like “SPILLS”, BY. | ||
| 20 | ANT-HILL | Name kept by writer Diana for raised nest (7) |
| N in ATHILL (Diana Athill). | ||
| 22 | CINNA | Conspirator sounded like a bad guy (5) |
| Sounds like “sinner”. One of the conspirators (and also an innocent sound-alike) in Julius Caesar. I stupidly entered BRUTE originally and then compounded the error by spelling the name as SINNA. | ||
*anagram
Thanks, bridgesong. Great puzzle, which took me a fair bit of Saturday morning to complete. A couple of points:
I think you are being over-complicated in your parsing of AUBADE: BADE = told.
You’ve left out sense = COMMON in 24/6.
The Art of Atonement – a guide for serial adulterers who want to keep their marriages intact.
Well, maybe when at one, men t. As would I, given the circumstances.
Thanks bridgesong. It took me a while too and I had to search around to find the RIT abbreviation in 16. Even without the benefit of legal training though 7 was quite evident from the wordplay.
I see 10 NeilW’s way.
Thanks bridgesong. 16a and 17d needed to be slept on, mainly because ‘webbings’ fitted neatly into the former, though made no sense as ‘scripture’ : RIT needed reluctant recourse to Google. While dozing, the ‘rhomb’ notion struck. Otherwise straightforward and enjoyable. I liked APPLIQUE.
T’was when into sunday aft when I finished. brilliant! Thanks all
I really enjoyed this puzzle. Luckily I solved 26a relatively early via 15d HACKNEYED, so thanks to the East End! I could definitely parse it, but come to think of it I forgot to look for the definition. I suppose I was just pleased that ORDINARY = HACNEYED. For me, 21a and 22d were the last two to go in.
My favourite clues were 14a, 8d, 12a, 5a, 17d, 16a and especially 3d MOISTEN.
New words for me were LUCIFERIN, THROMBI & CINNA.
Thanks to Araucaria for the puzzle, and to bridgesong for the blog. I needed help to parse 2d which I had wrongly assumed to have something do with “getting the old one-two” => “getting one’s marching orders” => “getting the chop” = “getting fired, sacked”.
I appreciated the correct parsing of 1a, which I had simply seen as “not bad” = “okay” or “ordinary” which of course in retrospect is not very cryptic. Oh well, I got there anyway!
I parsed 10a in the same way as NeilW.
Thanks Araucaria and bridesong
Got into a grumpy mood early on with the first couple of clues in. First in was SWOT (with the ? as the indicator of the ‘sound like’). It was also my last one in as SWAT with the ? indicating swat rather than spray to kill a fly and the ‘sound like’ referring to swot. Even though I got it right this time, I just don’t think it’s fair to have this sort of ambiguity with the key letter blocked – especially in a prize puzzle!
Second in was MOISTEN and cos I was already grumpy considered the French me as a step too far without foreign indicators.
Put it down for a while … and came back to thoroughly enjoy the rest of the challenge! Liked 2d a lot – thought it was a novel way to blend a homophone with the last three letters defined differently – plus was not expecting a counting sequence.
Many thanks Bridgesong & Araucaria.
This was yet another wonderful puzzle with a few new words for me but nothing too obscure.
A Perfect Prize Puzzle!
Thanks for the comments. I accept the consensus about AUBADE; it was the difference in pronunciation which misled me.
Bruce @8: I too had some reservations about MOI, but decided it was sufficiently well-known not to require comment. FRAISE of course was clearly signalled as a French word.
Thanks bridgesong and Araucaria
A fine puzzle with some inventively witty clues which gainsaid the ‘unassuming’ theme. I did not know Spilsby but it was clear that was the answer.
I was a little troubled by 11a since swat and swot seem to be alternative spellings for ‘hard work’ as well as sounding alike.
I particularly liked 1a, 5a, 14a, 26a and 2d.
Thanks for the blog. Good puzzle – thought ETHIOPIA was brilliant. Several words I didn’t know, although RIT wasn’t one of them as those are my initials… and I am slowing down now!
Thanks bridgesong,
An excellent puzzle from A. My only small reservation is the homophone in 2d. I think ONE=WON is vague to say the least
although A. is a libertarian I suppose.
Thanks to bridgesong for the blog. I needed you to explain 2d: I had ‘chopper=axe’ fixed in my head so as to forget another usage.
Davy @13: “I think ONE=WON is vague” implies that you pronounce the two differently. “to say the least” suggests that you think yours is the correct way.
Collins makes no distinction but Chambers offers two alternatives for ‘one’. One places it, like ‘won’, in the lexical set STRUT, rhyming with ‘bun’. The other places it in the LOT set, rhyming with ‘con’.
I can just about hear Princess Anne saying “When one won one’s gold medal in 1971 …” and distinguishing ‘one’ from ‘won’ and ‘1’, but, really… .
(If you’re interested in pronunciation Google John C Wells, who invented lexical sets.)
In any case it’s not unfair to use a word with only one pronunciation to match another with more, even, I think, when it is the non-rhotic alternative that is used. (Wells coined ‘rhotic’ too.) Even very approximate homophones are OK in my book if the clue is funny.
I do enjoy reading complaints when a clue violates Received Pronunciation. The BATH vowel still provokes some.
Well Betty, he might have been more exercised by UNDIES sounding like UNDIS which, in UNDISTINGUISHED, is most questionable.
Re ONE and WON, I would have thought it one of those pairings that travels well, i.e. both go through the same changes wherever they are spoken. But I don’t actually know that.
Thanks rhotician for putting me right, I knew somebody would. In terms of my pronunciation, ‘one’ rhymes with con and ‘won’ rhymes with bun,
assuming of course that bun is not poshly pronounced as ‘ban’ as in ‘bun the bomb’. Brings back memories of the old Scotland Yard phone number
Whitehall WON 2 WON 2.
Yes UNDIES struck me too. And your point about consistency over changes in time is also good. Generally there’s consistency within accents too. ‘porn’ rhymes with ‘corn’, rhotic or not. Which reminds me of a discussion of a spoonerism where some objected to a rhyme which relied on a non-RP use of the bath vowel. Someone said that he pronounced pass, grass and glass the posh/proper way because that’s how he was brought up. Then he said “I say lass like, erm, lass’.
Thanks, Araucaria, for a good work out and laughs along the way (larfs!).
Thanks, too, to Bridgesong for the blog.
ORDINARY eluded me for a while, although at the back of my mind was a mediaeval usage which wouldn’t come out.
IN BANCO was perfectly fair and gettable and conjures up an image of a group of judges huddled together on a bench.
Looking forward to the next one from my favourite setter.(Love them all!)
Giovanna x
Thanks, bridgesong.
An entertaining puzzle from Araucaria that was anything but run-of-the-mill, despite its theme.
Several clues elicited a smile, 2d a broad grin. I had no issue with the RP ‘wun’, though that isn’t how I pronounce it myself. My feeling is that the pronunciation to rhyme with ‘gone’ is winning out generally, whereas ‘glass’, ‘pass’, ‘grass’ etc are still pronounced to rhyme with (non-rhotic!) ‘arse’ by all socioeconomic groups in the Home Counties.
bridgesong quotes from Chambers in saying that LUCIFERIN is ‘a protein-like substance…’. This is plainly wrong – and in this case there is no possible defence around usage. Luciferins are the compounds which are oxidised in the light-emitting organs of bioluminescent organisms, this reaction producing light as a by-product. So far, so good – but there isn’t just one, there are several, not particularly closely related luciferins, and they are emphatically not ‘protein-like’!