(Please click here for this same blog but with a picture quiz added. Please do NOT post hereinbelow any comment relating to the picture quiz. Thank you.) 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
(Please do NOT post hereinbelow any comment relating to the picture quiz. Thank you.)
Note the letters in the first column. Often clued as ‘note’. But not here.
Thanks sschua – and Imogen. This was really good, with a wide spread of techniques and some tricky clues. SHTETL was one of them, and last in. But I also liked 12 and 15 down, as well as the anagram in 20A which took to long to crack.
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 a bit 15, so to speak.
Thanks, scchua.
So hard to solve, so easy to parse after the event (well, for me at least1) MINE FIELDS was my favourite.
The clue to 3 summed up how I was feeling midway through this! 😉
Well spotted rhotician – I was lying down after completing this with no energy left to look for Ninas.
Thanks for the blog, sschua. I particularly enjoyed this for the variety. 5ac and 18,19 made me smile.
I thought the homophone of ‘chewed’ was a reference to ‘et’ rather than ‘ate’.
Missed the Nina!
By the way, lots of people still smoke roll-ups, especially students etc. Cheaper.
Thanks Imogen & scchua.
After a word search revealed 3d I rather lost interest, although my computer and I struggled on to the finish. I agree with scchua that this would have been better as a Prize Puzzle.
I did like MINEFIELD, which went some way to alleviate my grumpiness.
Thanks Imogen & Scchua & rhotician! I didn’t spot the nina either – wish I had done! This was tough at first but seemed to get easier. I loved BAGUETTE, MINEFIELDS, HEART-RENDING and READJUST. Not so keen on ARTHUR and SPECTATOR SPORTS. HOUYNHNM was a struggle to spell!
For 1 across, more specifically ART is archaic second person singular as in “Art thou…?” for “Are you…? – and I think that Shakespeare sometimes has just “Art…?” for “Are you…?” (though I can’t cite an instance off the top of my head).
Thanks, scchua.
Curious puzzle. I didn’t spot the Nina, but it wouldn’t have helped much anyway.
I did find it tricky in parts, and failed totally on 10a. Strange to say, my first entry was HOUYHNHNM as it was top of the second column of clues in the paper version and practically a write-in for me. I thought 5a and 5d were both rather too vague to share an initial letter; this did hold up proceedings.
Some rather clunky surfaces, but others are much better. Favourites were 1a, 11a, 2,22, 18,19, 15d.
Thanks scchua, good job on a tricky puzzle!
I failed hopelessly on 3dn, tried to parse it roughly like you and decided that those letters could not possibly make a word and gave up. Like Alan @7 I was not keen on SPECTATOR SPORTS, there wasn’t enough of a connection between spectators and TV for it to work as a cryptic definition. Overall a very good puzzle.
Thanks Imogen.
Thanks, Imogen and scchua (always enjoy your pictures)
This took a bit of getting in to but was an enjoyable solve.
Favourite was MINEFIELDS – a super clue.
Geoff W @ 8, ART was still in use in the Yorkshire Dales dialect when I lived there for several years and yes, crops up in Shakespeare, too.
Giovanna xx
This puzzle was a nice hangover cure this morning. I still have a headache, but at least I’m awake now.
Nice to see a cricket clue that also works for baseball. In general, I liked this puzzle a lot–lots of puns and other cleverness.
I got the houynhnhm clue fairly early, in a general sense (“Oh, it’s those horse people from Gulliver’s Travels–Hounyhms or whatever”) but was unsure enough of the spelling, even with wordplay that comes pretty close to spelling it letter by letter, that I held off putting it in until fairly late.
I was defeated by Arthur and shtetl. Shtetl, I feel, violates a rule of thumb: give plain clues for obscure words, and obscure clues for plain words, but not obscure clues for obscure words. Unless it’s a prize puzzle, of course.
Quibble about the Arthur clue that just occurred to me: the character’s name isn’t Ben Hur, with Ben as the first name. Rather, it’s Judah Ben-Hur, with a hyphenated last name. So he’s not Ben either…
Further quibble with mrpenny @13! I don’t think Ben Hur is a last name but a patronymic – Judah son of Hur.
I agree that this was tough in places, which was welcome after yesterday. I found it a very enjoyable challenge, and was really struggling with the west side until I finally saw ARTHUR – not remembering the exact spelling (let alone the pronunciation) of HOUYHNHNM didn’t help. I ticked ARTHUR, EUROSCEPTIC, GESTATES (my last in) and STOCKPOT. I was familiar with SHTETL since I remembered it from Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Everything is illuminated”, but that was the last in on the east side so I must have needed the crossers, and S?TET? didn’t leave many possibilities.
Thanks to Imogen and scchua
I finished, but I thought the cleverness was more suited to those who do the Genius puzzles than to everyday solvers like me. In fact I managed to solve only a half a dozen or so clues directly. After that it was using the crossers to guess words 🙁
I understand the pedantry over Mr. Hur, but surely the playfulness is indicated by the question mark, and to me at least the liberty is justified by the entertainment. Whereas SHORTAGE (which the libertarian in me also enjoyed) lacks a definition and is more Paulish/Pauline Dingbats than crossword clue…
Sorry if it’s a stupid question but what’s a Nina?
Bad Shape @18:
What is a Nina?
A Nina is a message (or theme words etc) hidden in the grid, sometimes round the perimeter, sometimes along a diagonal or sometimes in the unchecked squares in a particular row or column (or more than one of each). Its name is derived from the American cartoonist Al Hirschfeld’s habit of hiding his daughter’s name, Nina, in his cartoons.
Thanks scchua and Imogen
Got to this this afternoon and found it pretty hard. Like proverbial exercise it felt good when it was finished. I enjoyed seeing several answers, including those which seemed to involve impossible spellings (I had to check how to spell 3d).
I saw that 26a should be shtetl, but wondered if it might have another spelling (shtatl with ‘tat’ for ‘offensive’). I then remembered the Tet offensive.
I ticked 10a, 20a, and 5d – but could have added a few more.
I thought some of the surfaces were a little wordy while actually solving, but I’m less sure on a re-run.
I missed the nina.
Thanks Bryan never heard of it before, I shall take another look at the grid
Can’t see the nina though!
Bad Shape @ 2
The clues down the LH side start in alphabetical order
hth
ABCDEFG…..and note the four black-square shapes running across the grid…
I thought this was a superb puzzle, and my GK was sufficient for me to complete it without aids and all clues understood, although it took a while. I needed all of the checkers before I attempted to spell HOUYHNHNM even though I knew the clue was referring to the race of intelligent horses in Gulliver’s Travels. For those solvers who have never read the book or heard of the word it must have looked highly unlikely even though the wordplay told us how to spell it. MANIPULATE was my LOI after ARTHUR, READJUST and SHTETL. The clue for MINEFIELDS was indeed superb and reminded me of Paul at his best.
Thanks scchua and Imogen
This was really tough. I was close to getting some of the clever ones (3, 5, 26) but didn’t quite get there.
What a great ‘new’ presence – I must have missed the 2003. Quirky, amusing, funny and erudite, with a personal ‘twist’ in what I thought was mainly rather elegant/engaging cluing that I enjoyed getting the hang of. I suspect that those of us (including me) who at times wondered if it was more Prize (and in places Genius) than daily might think differently after we’ve ‘got on to Imogen’s wavelength” (Horrible expression really, isn’t it). I agree with NeilW @4 about the retrospective easy parsing – always a good sign that familiarity will ease (but I hope not too much – the challenge was great) and please.
Thanks to Imogen and to Scchua.
Jury is still out on this one. Lot’s of very nice clues, some dodgy ones (5D for instance) and some horrible ones (26A).
Definitely should have been a prize.
Anyway, despite slow progress, I got there in the end.
I still don’t understand why some of you out there forgo the use of a dictionary? The word play in 3D was pretty straightforward except for the Queen reference. Once I’d seen that H.M. was a possibility the answer was obvious. But I cant spell or pronounce this word. So I looked in the dictionary! Why do some cryptics recommend a dictionary if we are not allowed to use one?
By the way I still don’t know how to spell or pronounce this word.
I’m now dying to know why Imogen took over 10 years to produce her second puzzle but only 3 weeks to produce her third!??
Thanks to Scchua and Imogen
“By the way I still don’t know how to … pronounce this word.”
Neigh like a horse. It’s meant to be onomatopoeic.
As for the spelling, thanks to this puzzle I probably won’t forget how again.
A splendid puzzle (give or take 5ac). Unlike some I didn’t find it too hard – today’s Indy was a good deal harder, at least for me.
Why all the fuss about 3d? I couldn’t remember the exact spelling either, but the wordplay spelt it out.
MINEFIELDS a highlight. ‘Bronz’ is all very well but where is the def? Now, ‘Need bronz?’ would have been a great clue.
Is it my imagination or are there i’s as well as H’s in the blocks of the grid?
Would it be relevant to note that Ben Arthur, one of Scotland’s Arrochar alps, is the correct name of the peak better known as The Cobbler?
Hello Brendan(nto) at 28.
The reason I try to avoid using a dictionary, or other aids, when attempting the daily crossword is that I tackle the puzzle as if I were competing in the annual Championship, where such help is not allowed. It is many years now since I actually entered the competition (back in the Michael Rich regional heats days), but I get more fun from the puzzles in this way. If I have to resort to a guess and get it right, that’s o.k., and I put it down to subconscious knowledge. If I guess wrongly, too bad, but nobody dies and I generally check the dictionary for both good and bad guesses.
Puzzles like the Mephisto are a different proposition, and use of a specified dictionary is not only accepted but almost recommended practice.
At the end of the day, we enjoy crosswords in different ways, and long may it continue.
Regards,
George
Don’t suppose at this late stage anyone will read my confession. I could not fathom TV ROOM but put in TO RIOT having decided
Roar away = to riot
parsed as to + see 5 down here = Rio + t(ime)
. . . I’ll get my coat!
George @32
Of course I understand your reasons for not using reference materials.
I apologise for my post as I have just read it and it did come over a little proscriptive, which was not its intention.
You may have seen some of my earlier posts regarding this as it is a “hobby horse” of mine. I am very aware that a lot of people starting to do cryptics pick up the notion that reference materials are not allowed and that this is considered “cheating”. I just like to state my opinion that this is not the case as there are no rules and each person decides what is and isn’t allowed. The only requirement is that we all have to fill in the grid in the same way the setter did initially. (Of course invigilated competitions have their own “extra” rules.)
Sorry again if I seemed to be criticising you.
Brendan @28 – I’m happy to use a dictionary when I have one to hand, but as a Guardian reader I normally do the crossword on the paper, usually offline (on buses and trains or away from the desk during lunch hours) and I don’t carry a dictionary around with me (and I haven’t yet succumbed to the smartphone) – like George @32 I find that adds to the challenge, and I don’t always remember to look things up afterwards. I’d agree that tackling (say) an Azed needs a dictionary to hand but most Guardian dailies don’t except for the odd word or two.
Ponticello @31 – talk of the Cobbler may only be tangentially relevant but is always welcome (I’ve been to the north top twice, but I must admit to not attempting Argyll’s eye and the summit scramble). I’d love to see a Munro-themed crossword but that would probably be a bit too niche for the Guardian daily (and I know Ben Arthur is only a Corbett, but it is much more interesting than at least half of the Munros).
Had to cheat shtetl and two others – a rare occurence.
Brendan @ 34.
Hello again Brendan.
I don’t know whether you’ll get to read this, but I assure you that no apology is necessary, and I have certainly taken no offence.
Yes, I have seen many of your earlier posts: I always enjoy reading them, and usually agree with your comments, though I expect that we will differ today on the Tramp puzzle. Once again though, every solver has their individual likes and dislikes, and, while I will express my personal opinion, if I don’t like a puzzle it doesn’t imply that I think it has no merit, or that I begrudge others the enjoyment they receive from tackling it.
Regards,
George
Beery Hiker@35 – I love the idea of a Munro-themed puzzle. But CHLAIDHEIMH or CEATHREAMHNAN would make HOUYHNHNM seem like child’s play!
G Larsen @38 – I agree that Gaelic spelling is challenging (and there wouldn’t be much scope for homophones). But there are some friendlier names – FIVE SISTERS, BEN HOPE, THE DEVIL’S POINT, LORD BERKELEY’S SEAT and the IN PINN spring to mind…
Thanks Imogen and scchua
Another one that I printed out and didn’t get to until now !
Found it pretty tough going as did many – even after getting off to a reasonable start. I found that I needed a lot more electronic help than normal – especially with 3d, 15d and 26a.
Finished with the EUROSCEPTICS as the last one in … and afterwards didn’t understand why it was so hard to get.
I thought ARTHUR was quite brilliant inasmuch as BEN ARTHUR is not quite a mountain (Sc: Ben) as at 2900ft, it falls short by 100 ft of the Munro height of 3000ft to be recognised as one!
I still do not understand ARTHUR. I see how art and hur are got, but why ARTHUR? Otherwise, loved it.