There was a time when to see Nutmeg meant an easy ride in the Quiptic on a Monday and a few clues seem to be from that time.
The rest weren’t. Since promotion to the premier league of puzzles Nutmeg has produced quite a few challenges and beaten me here in a couple of places so assistance would be welcome.
Quite a smattering of political allusions in the clues. Previous Nutmegs have had Ninas in the grid but I can’t see anything today.
Defintions underlined where appropriate.
Across
9 Distress at leaving embassy man following judge (9)
HEARTACHE
HEAR judge & AT removed from (at)TACHE
10 Worthless politician, boring yet ludicrous (5)
EMPTY
M.P. boring inside YET* ludicrous
11 English writer hits cart track backing motor (7)
TURBINE
E(nglish) & NIB & RUT all reversed
12 First lady protects clan, roaming isolated part of country (7)
ENCLAVE
CLAN* inside EVE
13 Work of potter, dextrous, about 50 (5)
DELFT
L fifty in DEFT
14 Messenger‘s chief innovation in American contact sport (9)
ARCHANGEL
Hmm first assistance time, ARCH = chief, but the rest is currently beating me. [edit see several comments below]
16 “No party”? 4, 8 or 24 would do (alternatives are here available) (3,4,2,1,5)
ANY PORT IN A STORM
NO PARTY storming gives ANY PORT, of which 4, 8 and 24 are PORTS, any ideas on the others, WICK?
19 In trouble over time, student essentially shows guts (9)
FORTITUDE
T(ime) in FOR IT & (st)UDE(nt)
21 Division ends without Liberal backing (5)
SPLIT
L(iberal) in TIPS (ends) reversed
22 Old Tory leader gains weight (7)
WINSTON
WINS & TON
23 French wine producers don’t like a copper coming round (7)
CHATEAU
HATE & A all in CU copper. Slight qualms about producers being plural.
24 Group of settlers cutting last section of canal (5)
COLON
Section of Alimentary canal and COLON(y)
25 Small banker getting bad service on jet (9)
STREAMLET
Got myself hooked thinking about gnomes here. jet STREAM & LET poor service in tennis.
Down
1 Star‘s very small part, theatre’s last panto role (5,5)
WHITE DWARF
Red Dwarf’s less funny cousin. WHIT very small, (theatr)E & DWARF a panto role.
2 Clement Attlee’s initial cuts pursue justice (4,4)
FAIR PLAY
FAIR clement & A(ttlee) in PLY for pursue, as in pursue a trade=ply a trade
3 Authoritarian detective’s leaving the area (6)
STRICT
D.I. removed from (di)STRICT
4 Imperial measure about to go up and down (4)
ACRE
CA about, reversed & RE about, not reversed.
5 Two versions of scene confused in old age (10)
SENESCENCE
[SCENE SCENE]*
6 Old soldiers entertaining staff at camp (8)
REDCOATS
Double definition as in for example Butlin’s holiday camp staff and army regiment
7 Second collision happened unexpectedly (6)
SPRANG
S(econd) & PRANG
8 Car component subject to inflation (4)
TYRE
Umm well unless I’m missing something, this just seems a not very cryptic defintion
14 Craft making false turns at sea (10)
ARTFULNESS
[FALSE TURNS]*
15 Volume turned up recently in middle of bulletin, it should be said (2,3,5)
LE MOT JUSTE
TOME reversed & JUST recently, all in (bul)LE(tin)
17 Old hand stripped dingy bar (8)
OMITTING
O(ld) & MITT hand & (d)ING(y) stripped
18 Source of crude artworks skilfully concealed (3,5)
OIL WELLS
WELL skilfully in OILS
20 Offensive Little Englander starts to cause irritation (6)
RANKLE
RANK & L(ittle) E(nglander)
21 Prisoner supports opening of tunnel in it (6)
STALAG
T(unnel) in S(ex) A(ppeal) (it) & LAG. Not an &lit but you get the drift. Well actually it is an &lit, I blindsided myself by missing the fact that “in it” is absolutely integral to the wordplay when underlining/writing up.
22 Part of oil lamp with twinkling top removed (4)
WICK
W(ith) & (t)ICK a short time without its top.
23 Archetypal Aussie briefly over limit (4)
CURB
BRUC(e) reversed. Fair? I’ve known at least one teetotal Australian.
*anagram
Lots of ports – Split, Colon, Archangel, Delft, Acre
Really hard work but I think I enjoyed it – I’ll let you know after the lie down in the darkened room.
thanks to Nutmeg and Flashling too.
Tyre and Wick are ports too. Excellent challenge from nutmeg. Thanks for the blog flashing.
Thanks, flashling.
You have a typo in 10. The anagram is of YET not ply.
I think 14 is Messenger’s Chief = Def. Change (innovation) in A (American) R L (Rugby League = Contact sport)
Thanks, flashling.
Re 14ac: I started off as you did, then changed direction to ARCHANGEL being ‘messenger’s chief’: CHANGE [innovation] in A [American] R L [contact sport].
I felt a bit like cryptic sue at the end, but I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it. Classy stuff, I thought. Many thanks to Nutmeg for the work-out.
Snap, Mickinely!
@Billy #3 indeed, I had the bit of 2d still in my head, thanks. @CS yes but I saw some ports and left the rest as an exercise for the readers 🙂
Thanks, flashling. Good fun from Nutmeg; got the PORTS bit halfway through, but still struggled to finish.
ARCHANGEL: the definition is ‘chief messenger’ and it’s CHANGE in A RL (Rugby League). You should have paid more attention in Sunday School, flashling.
I think CHATEAU is faulty: you can’t have ‘wine producers’ unless it’s CHATEAUX, and you can’t have ‘producer’s’ because the surface doesn’t make sense.
I’m always pleased to see a Nutmeg cryptic puzzle now that she’s got this gig, but I wouldn’t necessarily say ‘promotion’. Setters generally say that compiling an ‘easy’ puzzle like the Quiptic is a harder gig. Whatever. I enjoyed tussling with this one, so thanks to her.
Bronze medal for explaining ARCHANGEL …
14: archangel = messengers’s chief. Innovation = change. A= American, and contact sport= RL (Rugby League.
Beat me to it, Kathryn’s dad!
I think I’m going to have my lack of biblical knowledge beaten into me for a few days to come 🙂
Thanks all.
Re 23a I don’t think there’s anything wrong with chateau = wine producers, any more than there is with W H Smith = Stationers. Nutmeg is just making us think, as she did throughout this puzzle, I found.
@Kathryn’s dad
i think the “plural” chateau is pardonable inasmuch as it is a collective enterprise, and can be thought of both singly and plurally – a bit like football teams: Melchester City is the richest team in the Premier League. Melchester City are a bunch of overpaid mercenaries.
Archangel (in Russia) is also a port, something Nutmeg appears to have missed. I thought this a terrific puzzle. Nutmeg is rapidly becoming one of my favourite setters.
Enjoyed this one very much. Not over easy with just enough thinking. Groaners of the day for me were 19ac and 16ac when I finally got the ‘ports’ bit well after finishing (and yet it was one of my FOI). LOI was 23dn – a very good clue.
Very enjoyable puzzle. Well-buried cluing devices. Unfolded slowly but steadily for me.
I think CHATEAU is OK. Eg “We are wine producers. Our wines our sold as Chateau X” One of the first things one learns working for a traditionally minded company – the firm is “we”.
The temporary harbour for the Normandy landings at at Arromanches was nick-named Port Winston.
Port is of course a fortified wine – bit of a stretch but cryptically FORTITUDE.
Hi Meic Goodyear @18
Look again at the clue for 16ac. 😉
Sorry, @15
I just cannot understand why a number of contributors to the Grauniad blog disliked this puzzle. I thought that it was another tour de force from a setter who is rapidly becoming one of my favourites, along with other female compilers, as it happens. Without checking, I can’t be sure, but I think it was Jolly Swagman who commented ‘What’s not to like?’, and I can only agree. The wit, range and variety of clues were all excellent, and it was a tough but fair challenge.
My only reservation was the clue for ‘chateau’, where I thought that a singular would have been better, though I did come to the same conclusion as mickinely @14 that the ‘collective singular’ does work – it’s just that I would have had a personal preference for a singular in the clue.
By the by, while I find some of the contributions to the Grauniad blog thoroughly tiresome, I find those from Mick in Ely an honourable exception, and often very funny, so thank you Mick.
Not wanting to start one of those old ding-dongs going but I think it’s OK to call 21d an &lit.
I imagine it’s the def side which is the least obvious – but surely there the whole surface makes one of those descriptive defs with “it” keying the word itself.
Often many “semi-&lits” (or whatever you want to call them) are like that with the “it” being left over in the wordplay but in this case it is also an intrinsic part of the WP.
@JS I agree re #21 I’d misread things slightly when writing this up.
Aha! I couldn’t parse 25a because I had the definition as streamlet=jet – so no wonder it wouldn’t work. Agree about ARCHANGEL (messengers’ chief), and I didn’t like the singular chateau either. Couldn’t do WICK or the PLAY part of FAIR PLAY, so thanks for the enlightenment. A very enjoyable workout, and no need for Who’s Who or the encyclopaedia, either.
Great crossword but hard going for me.
Thanks flashling; TYRE seemed to be the only answer with a weak clue. I thought STALAG had a great clue although I’m not a great fan of it=s.a. I also particularly liked LE MOT JUSTE.
Nutmeg is rapidly becoming one of my favourite setters.
Thanks Nutmeg and flashling. I hadn’t noticed all the other ports in the puzzle (apart from 4, 8 and 24) – very nice! Favourite clue was probably 16ac.
I don’t think “banker” will do for “streamlet.” It’s bad enough for a river, which doesn’t bank but may have banks, but streamlets just don’t. To have a bank a waterway has to be big enough to do some eroding.
Thanks to flashling for the blog.
I also disliked plural producers leading to singular CHATEAU.
Valentine@26 the clue says ‘small banker’ and a streamlet is exactly that.
Thanks flashling and Nutmeg
Tough but 2d. I eventually got and understood the answers to the individual clues and the link to 4, 8 and 24. I also noticed most of the other ports but failed to read the clue to 16a with all the care it demands.
A very good work-out, though perhaps a little more topping and tailing than usual.
Favourite clues at the time of solving were 9a (where I first thought of
leg(at)e), 16a, and 15d.
Magnificent puzzle. Loved the ‘Bruce’ clue and rationalised the singular chateau on the same grounds as mickinley. Even as a southern softie, I applaud the use of ‘the professional code’ in place of the gentlemen’s game.
Thanks Nutmeg and flashling
Like many others I thought that this was excellent … starting off simply enough with EMPTY … but a lot of effort to get to the last one in CURB … Monty Python has a lot to answer for … for that skit – life was not really ever the same after it !!! 🙂
Was able to guess 15a easily enough from just the last M, the word numbering and TYRE – still thought that it was very good !
Took a while to understand WICK … but eventually did.
Really enjoyable solve ….
Thanks Nutmeg and flashling
I found this very difficult, and didn’t parse several. I didn’t get OMITTING at all.and still don’t understand it – in what way does “omitting” = “bar”? They seem to be different parts of speech.
@31 Muffin, there’s an expression “Bar the rest” meaning excluding or omitting the rest.
Thank you Nutmeg (I think) A lot of lovely surfaces and some very clever cluing. But sometimes a bit too clever for my taste.
I remember the pleasure I had years ago when Araucaria’s wordplay allowed me to construct a 15 letter word I didn’t know. But in several places here (eg 15d) I was just guessing at answers from the crossers and trying to work back to see if they fitted the clue. (Definite thank you to flashling for explaining 21d.)
I don’t want to clog up flashing’s blog of an excellent puzzle with convoluted discussion about 23ac, but …
The château is wine producers? Don’t think so. The château are wine producers? Mebbes, but only if you twist my arm behind my back until I cry out in pain. Château Lafite are wine producers? Mebbes a bit more, but it doesn’t define Château Lafite in the surface, so I rest my case, M’Lud.
So if you are happy with it, I salute you and will wish you bonne continuation. Me, I’m following mickinely’s comment and am getting ready to see whether Sunderland is/are staying in the Premiership after tonight’s match. Because we are the Great Escapers, bar/omitting none.
Thanks flashling and Kathryn’s Dad
“bar none” did actually occur to me later. I suppose it works, but “barring none” would be a better fit for “omitting none”, I think.
On the Chateau thing – I did wonder about that too, but justified it as the “Chateau” doesn’t produce anything – it’s the workers (plural) who work there that make the wine. (It did grate a bit, though.)
(Good luck Sunderland.)
Superb puzzle – definitely in the Arachne class, with added Brendan.
And many thanks to flashling and everyone else – I don’t remember having so many lights with all their crossing letters but no solution! Grateful for all your explanations.
@muffin as a child I remember a chocolate bar called Bar 6 (it was similar to a kit kat my hazy memory tells me). I always wondered why not 6…
‘Twas a struggle but got there eventually.
And the most frequent use of bar = omitting can hardly be called uncommon as it is used daily on the telly, radio, newspaper sports pages, bookies shops and pitches when giving lists of odds in short form.
@Derek I was waiting for you to say just that. ????
…………..and I spent a couple of summers working in a bookies! Oh well.
Another entertaining workout that I finished on the way home having failed to complete it at lunchtime. Last in was STREAMLET which I thought of much earlier without entirely convincing myself – needed the crosser from CURB which also took longer that it should have. Agree with most of the positive comments – I think this was the most enjoyable yet from Nutmeg. Liked the FAIR PLAY clue.
Thanks to Nutmeg and flashling
flashling, Well I wouldn’t want to disappoint. Perhaps you also expected a word of advice as to the inadvisability of omitting to wear ones hat on Ilkley Moor?
muffin…. DOH!
Derek @ 42
DOH! occurred to me too – but it was a VERY long time ago.
I struggled with this one much more than the others I did today, but I got there eventually and it was an enjoyable challenge. Everything that needs to be said about specific clues has been said above. WHITE DWARF was my LOI after HEARTACHE.
@Derek as the site’s gambling terms expert yes I was expecting you to pipe up on that. Thanks all for your clarifications etc.
Still not happy with chateau(x)
This was one of the most exciting puzzles in a long time. thank you Nutmeg. I have been waiting for last half hour with smell of nutmeg filling the house as the carrot cake cooks.
She’s good, isn’t she?
A group of French wine producers working in the same place constitute a chateau.
A group of British wine producers working in the same place constitute a winery.
A group of British beer producers working in the same place constitute a brewery.
I started slowly on this. Then things slowed down. Gave up this morning with slightly over half the answers in place. But really enjoyed the (slow) ride.
Only just got to finish this due to very little time being available preparing for today’s long trip!
Just back and I found this a difficult puzzle, but OK (I think).
I didn’t finish as I couldn’t complete 25a. This was due to having CRIM for 23d
“Archetypal Aussie briefly” as def “over” = C “limit”=RIM. It worked for me!
Thanks to flashling amd Nutmeg