(Please post comments on ONLY the picture quiz hereinbelow. To post comments on the crossword puzzle, please click here.) Imogen is a new Guardian Cryptic setter. A check of the Guardian archives shows her (him?) having had a Prize puzzle in October 2003 and another last month, both of which I hadn’t attempted. And for me at least, this was more of a Prize puzzle than a weekday one, notwithstanding it’s later in the week. I found this hard going, and had to surrender on the last answer. Thanks to Imogen, and I hope I’ll have better luck with her future puzzles. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Are you Ben? Apparently not (6)
ARTHUR : ART(olden term for “are”) + HUR(Ben, fictional character).
Answer: If you’re Arthur, then, on the surface, you can’t be Ben.
5 Bronz? (8)
SHORTAGE : A reverse clue – the answer provides the wordplay: Bronze (AGE, a prehistoric period) minus its last letter(SHORT) = Bronz.
9 Loaf taken from wrapper and chewed noisily (8)
BAGUETTE : Homophone of(noisily) “bag”(a container you could regard as a wrapper) plus(and) “ate”(chewed – “ate” could be pronounced to either rhyme with “at”, or to rhyme with “eight”).
10 Roar away on time to see 5 down here (2,4)
TV ROOM : VROOM(onomatopoetically, to roar away, in your Ferrari perhaps) placed after(on, in an across clue) T(abbrev. for “time”).
Defn: Where to watch competitive games broadcast on the telly;the answer to 5 down).
11 Very sad to find out what’s popular on Twitter (5-7)
HEART-RENDING : HEAR(to find out by word of mouth) + TRENDING(Twitter-speak for what many people are following or discussing).
13 Cent remains legal tender (4)
CASH : C(abbrev. for “cent”) + ASH(the remains after burning).
14 Quiet delicacy in which I go to jug (8)
TACITURN : TACT(delicacy shown by, say, diplomats) containing(… in which … go) I plus(to) URN(a jug).
17 Circle Line trips are timed (8)
DIAMETER : Anagram of(trips) ARE TIMED.
Defn: A line joining 2 points on a circle passing through its centre.
18,19 Your team bats, but … dangerous topics! (10)
MINEFIELDS : [MINE FIELDS](in eg. cricket, if your team is batting, mine will be fielding).
Defn: Controversial issues that one should disengage from in order not to get into trouble.
20 To play, I set up soccer for those who dislike union (12)
EUROSCEPTICS : Anagram of(To play) I SET UP SOCCER.
Defn: Those who dislike their respective countries joining the European Union or any such.
23 Show responsible attitude to how the cards may fall (4,2)
FACE UP : Double defn: 2nd: How playing cards may literally land if thrown up.
24 Appeared to have made a fag? (6,2)
ROLLED UP : Double defn: 2nd: Made your own cigarette by rolling cigarette paper into a tube and filling it with tobacco. Does anyone do that nowadays?
25 Is going to increase the population? Extremely grave conditions (8)
GESTATES : 1st and last letters of(Extremely) “grave ” + STATES(conditions;sets of circumstances one is in, or attributes one has).
Answer: Is carrying developing young during pregnancy.
26 Offensive breaks through peace line in village (6)
SHTETL : TET(in the Vietnam War, the military campaign launched by the North against the South and its allies, in 1968 during Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year) contained in(breaks through) [ SH(an interjection to request for quiet, as is, apparently, the interjection “Peace!”) + L(abbrev. for “line”) ]
Defn: Formerly, a Jewish village in Eastern Europe. This one stumped me.
Down
2,22 Tweak what the barely literate can do? (8)
READJUST : [READ, JUST](if you’re barely literate you could just about read).
3 You struggle to gut two hens to feed the Queen’s horse (9)
HOUYHNHNM : { Anagram of(struggle) YOU plus(to) 2(two)x [ “hen” minus its inner letter(gut)] } contained in(to feed) H.M.(abbrev. for “Her Majesty”, the Queen).
Defn: Well-misdirected, as the Queen owns many famous horses, but this one is of a fictional breed found in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
4 Wretch lying in the sun may cop it — the cane! (6)
RATTAN : RAT(a wretch;a despicable person) + TAN(what you may cop;get, by lying in the sun).
5 Boxed games? (9,6)
SPECTATOR SPORTS : Cryptic defn: Refering to games you could watch on the box;the television.
6 Widening of appeal in a court, he resolved (8)
OUTREACH : Anagram of(… resolved) A COURT, HE.
7 Ready for bed, attempted to move one along a bit (5)
TIRED : TRIED(attempted) with “I”(Roman numeral for “one”) moved to another position in the word(to move … along a bit).
8 Flat charge being made much smaller brought a tear (6,4)
GROUND RENT : GROUND(made much smaller by grinding, eg. pepper seeds) plus(brought) RENT(a tear, in, say, cloth).
Defn: … paid by a lessee to a lessor for use of land.
12 Fix for rival to lose head, having drunk a little whisky? (10)
MANIPULATE : “emulate”(to rival;to be similar to) minus its 1st letter(to lose head) containing(having drunk) NIP(a little amount of whisky).
Defn: To influence or arrange an outcome or behaviour through improper or illegal means.
15 Spare tyre going down, not at first being inflated (9)
TUMESCENT : TUM(short for tummy;stomach, which could be covered by a layer of fat;a spare tyre in slang) + “descent”(the act of going down) minus its 1st letter(not at first).
Defn: Swollen.
16 Have cannabis for sale: one could find a meal here, too (8)
STOCKPOT : Cd If one is selling pot(slang for cannabis;marijuana), then one will have a stock of it.
Defn: A pot in which is cooked stock for soup, etc.
19 See 18
21 Lover taken in secret? Yes and no (5)
OVERT : Hidden in(in secret? Yes) “Lover taken “.
Defn: No, it’s not secret.
22 See 2
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The following pictures have unidentified links to the puzzle.
Some I liked a lot (5, 18/19, 26), some I loathed (3, 10). Understood 3 but. misspelled the solution, so a dnf for me. Certainly found it 15, so to speak.
Sorry, should have been in the other place, I’ll repost a d try the quiz later.
#1 Sly Stallone as Rambo, a Vietnam veteran
#2 Handbags?
#3 Bob Dole who might be a bit TUMESCENT after his Viagra commercials 😉
#4 Well, it’s not a skeleton cos you can still see the head – might be ‘taken in secret?’ at airports or somewhere
Baguette handbag??
Might #1 also refer obliquely to the Vietnam Era Veterans’ READJUSTment Assistance Act of 1974? And #4 clearly illustrates an OUTREACH (or not).
Hi Robi and Ian SW3.
Well done on TUMESCENT. He did the Pepsi commercial after the Viagra one, and the script was quite humorous, eg. playing on the similar colours of the 2 products.
The BAGUETTE is, as you say, a model of handbag.
that leaves 1and 4, which both link to crossword answers rather than something in the clues.
Connection of Rambo (Stallone) with ‘Arthur?’ – Rambo pronunciation was similar to the surname of Arthur Rimbaud, the title of whose most famous work A Season in Hell, seemed to him “an apt metaphor for the prisoner-of-war experiences that I imagined Rambo suffering”. Furthermore, an Arthur J. Rambo was an actual U.S. soldier in Vietnam.
Sorry Robi, still cold…Stallone has unfortunately been so typecast as Rambo, it’s hard to see him as anything else!
Stallone was in Tango & CASH, but he played Ray Tango rather than Gabriel Cash
I was hoping that Sly was “Cash” in the film “Tango and Cash” … But he wasn’t.
Sorry PeeDee – crossed
Sylvester Stallone was Lt. Raymond Tango in the film “Tango and Cash” (Kurt Russell was Lt. Gabriel Cash); so I suppose one could argue that links Stallone to 13 across?
If scchua had not said that the link was to the answers, not the clues, then I would have been tempted by “Boxed games” (given Stallone’s role as Rocky) in 5 down.
Apologies – crossed with previous answers! )-:
PeeDee, Shirl and Rick. The link is indeed simply between Sly and “Tango and CASH”. I thought that putting up Kurt Russell might have been too obvious.
Soooooooo………..what about #4?
Sorry Robi, was just getting to it.
Pic 4: A recent medical invention is the use of RATTAN to produce artificial bones for transplants. It has been tested on sheep, and I guess trials on humans will be next (maybe even started already).
Thanks scchua, I certainly hadn’t heard of that!