The usual pleasant and sound crossword from Phi. I can’t see that there is anything really to ask questions about, which suggests to me that there will be few comments, since everything seems to have been understood.
The last time I blogged someone suggested that I described the Nina at the end of the clues, not here, so as not to give anything away before the reader begins (something the software I use doesn’t seem to allow). No danger of anything being given away this time, though. I can’t see anything, but I’ve learnt through experience not to agonise for too long over Phi’s Ninas.
Definitions in italics.
Across
9 Caught celebrity between the Parisian and American following sexual urges (9)
LECHEROUS
le(c hero)US
10 Wool supplier backing a lot of shops (5)
LLAMA
(a mall)rev.
11 Con chasing gold carried by man’s transport business (7)
HAULAGE
h(au lag)e
12 Red spy sheltered by mother (7)
MAGENTA
m(agent)a
13 Tragic line accepted by sponsor (5)
BLACK
b(l)ack
14 Worried men distributed money to accommodate second mother of nine (9)
MNEMOSYNE
(men)* s in (money)* — Mnemosyne was the mother of the nine muses
16 Computer peripherals harm letters badly (including press release, I note) (7,8)
THERMAL PRINTERS
(PR I n) in (harm letters)*
19 Report government invested in working on ice at low temperatures (9)
CRYOGENIC
cry g in (on ice)* — cry = report so far as I can see, but although this is in Chambers Crossword Dictionary I can’t think of two sentences where the words are interchangeable
21 Bill loves Prohibition (5)
TABOO
tab 0 0
22 Boorish fellow about to follow retiring giant (7)
GOLIATH
I had the checkers and the definition seemed to indicate this, but I left the parsing until later because I couldn’t see it — now it’s perfectly clear, and I almost said that this seemed to be wrong: it’s (h(tail)og)rev. — the ‘retiring’ in the clue refers to the whole thing, not just ‘to follow’
23 Accommodation‘s rather too much, being confined in prison (7)
COTTAGE
c(OTT)age
24 Second lot of old jokes provokes derision (5)
SCORN
s corn
25 Upset them also, while containing nothing nasty (9)
LOATHSOME
0 in (them also)*
Down
1 Almost capable of satisfying such an order? (10)
ALPHABETIC
I think that all that’s happening is that the words Almost, capable, of and satisfying are in alphabetical order and alphabetic = alphabetical — although I’d use the latter they are apparently interchangeable
2 Meticulous churchman all but occupying a church (8)
ACCURATE
a C(curat{e})E
3 Town ready for another flood? (6)
NEWARK
new (in the sense latter-day) ark
4 Supposed migrant worker in staff (4)
POLE
2 defs, although ‘supposed’ seems a bit odd — supposed by whom?
5 First of milestones in cryptic mastery, I see? Not like this puzzle (10)
ASYMMETRIC
m{ilestones} in (mastery)* I c — c = see — this puzzle is, as one would expect, nicely symmetrical
6 Stop / response to death of prominent person? (4,4)
FLAG DOWN
2 defs, one of them referring to the fact that the flag is flying at half-mast, so is (at least a bit) down
7 Little interest in light delicate food item (6)
DAINTY
da(int.)y — odiously twee, but acceptable in Crosswordland
8 Coffee containers, both reduced (4)
JAVA
ja{r} va{t}
14 Sad Hindu festival initially not considered religious (10)
MELANCHOLY
I apologise to Hindus for my ignorance of your festivals, but after a long search I find that there is one called ‘Kumbh Mela’, which presumably is what is being referred to as just Mela here — Mela n{ot} c{onsidered} holy — initially I was hunting for a Hindu festival of the form _melanc, which seemed unlikely
15 Film defeats one, after reviewing (4,2,4)
EAST OF EDEN
Oh dear, was my first thought, some modern film of which I’d never really heard; but no, nice and 1950s — (defeats one)* — early James Dean out of Steinbeck
17 The writer, swallowing one rye, say, getting headache (8)
MIGRAINE
m(1 grain)e
18 Doctor London’s foremost street guide in one peculiar display (8)
EMBLAZON
(MB L{ondon} A-Z) in (one)*
20 Cowardly to evince pain? (6)
YELLOW
yell “ow”, which is what you may do when you evince pain
21 Good at IT, though keeping tense and irritable (6)
TETCHY
te(t)chy
22 Blast endless enthusiasm (4)
GUST
gust{o}
23 Blue? No Conservative’s upset to be that (4)
CYAN
(nay C)rev.
*anagram
John, I read 1dn as A L M O S T in alphabetical order. Another enjoyable Phi solve for which I can’t see a nina or a theme. MNEMOSYNE went in as vaguely familiar and the most likely construction from the anagram fodder. CYAN was my LOI.
Thanks John. Re: 19a – a town crier issued reports, so cry definitely fits ‘report’ for me.
I think there may be a small Nina here linking THERMAL PRINTERS with the colours CYAN, MAGENTA, YELLOW and BLACK, known as the CMYK colours. K comes from the last letter of BLACK.
A pleasant way to spend breakfast solving this today.
Thanks to Phi and John
duncan@3 – I should have seen that mini theme.
Thanks Phi for a thoroughly enjoyable crossword and John for the blog.
Andy@1: I took “almost” the same way as you. As I remember it, there are only three words in the English language which have six different letters in alphabetical order, the others being biopsy and chintz – I am not sure if that is all words in the language or words in (reasonably) common use.
Duncan@3: Thanks for that. It might be worth adding that K is used for black in the colour scheme for printing as B is used for blue in the RGB colour scheme used for visual displays.
Kumbh mela is a religious festival in which pilgrims gather in huge numbers on a particular occasion.
Let’s set aside the word ‘kumbh’ and take the word ‘mela’. It is defined in Chambers as ‘a Hindu festival or fair’.
Actually’ ‘mela’ is a Hindi word, from the root ‘mil’, meaning ‘to meet’ or ‘to unite’.
A mela often may not have any religious significance. It could be a gathering, often held in open air, where people gather for entertainment and where there are stalls selling all kinds of things and also eats. It would be correct to call mela a ‘fair’.
Sometimes banks hold a ‘loan mela’ – it’s a sort of open house where customers walk in for enquiries about loans that they can get on a fast track to buy car, house or household articles. On that day the bank may offer lesser interest rate to attract customers. There’s nothing ‘Hindu’ about this mela. Customers would be from any religion.
All reasonably straightforward today. Missed the theme, natch.
Interesting comments from Pelham and Rishi – thanks to them, and to S&B today as well.
Well, I sort of half guessed the theme, in that I recognised cyan, yellow and magenta as the secondary colours when mixing light, but I failed to notice black and the connection to printers.
1dn was my LOI – just couldn’t see it and had to do an electronic search after failing to spot any likely answers in Chambers. It was staring me in the face, literally. When the search came up with only one answer, I noticed that Chambers was open in front of me to the entry for “alphabet”.
We missed the theme unfortunately so thanks to Duncan for spotting that.
We didn’t start this one until after midnight and as Joyce couldn’t keep her eyes open we left it until this morning.
Our last one in was Newark – can’t believe we needed an electronic search to find it – it’s close by and Joyce worked there for the last five years of her career!
Thanks John and Phi.