Quixote gave us a bit of run around with this one. A run around of just over 12 furlongs.
I hadn’t got any idea what DW might refer to – the first thing that DW meant to me was Dr Who!
I double checked for a preamble but there was none. There was a preamble for Quixote as Pasquale’s Guardian crossword on the same day.
I soon realised the across clues were too tricky without some idea for DW, so I tackled the Down clues first. I solved about half dozen and had crossing letters for 15A that let me see Motivator from the wordplay. So DW was the definition. Would that be true for all Across clues? Assuming this I went through the acrosses – I didn’t solve anymore till the very last one – 27A Mill Reef – then the connection and timing became clear – DW: Derby Winners, and Sat 7th June 2014 was Derby Day at Epsom. (Thank goodness it wasn’t breakfast TV – only connection I could think of for [Mr] Motivator.)
Horse racing is a subject right outside my areas of interest (I have enough things I’m obsessed about without picking up any more) but even I have heard of the famous horse Mill Reef, and when I thought about it Motivator also rang a bell. I got a few more from wordplay but there were some answers I deduced but doubted they were really horse names (Secreto!?). Certainly, I would not have finished this one without use of a Wiki page of Derby Winners (link)
For all the across answers I have given the appropriate year in the table below, so use that page’s list to find the horse and click through to find out more.
I had solved Pasquale’s Guardian “Mathematicians” crossword earlier in the day – a subject squarely in my areas of interest and a crossword which I found greatly entertaining – even for that I had to resort to t’internet to check a few names. I expect horse racing buffs found more pleasure in this one than me.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 6 | GENEROUS | DW: Talented person — courageous type like ‘ector for one (8) (DW 1991) GENIUS (Talented person) replace I with ‘ERO (courageous type like [H]’ector) |
| 8 | EMPERY | DW: What’s weird about someone in Parliament (6) (DW 1976) MP (someone in Parliament) inside EERY (What’s weird – including a weird way of spelling eerie) |
| 10 | BAHRAM | DW: Bishop needing religious retreat, no saint (6) (DW 1935) B[ishop] A[s]HRAM (religious retreat – S[aint]) |
| 11 | HYPERION | DW: Over-excited, a bit charged (8) (DW 1933) HYPER (Over-excited) ION (a bit charged) |
| 12 | SECRETO | DW: Unidentified love (7) (DW 1984) SECRET (Unidentified) O (love) |
| 14 | TULYAR | DW: Sailor keeps threatening, not good (6) (DW 1952) U[g]LY (threatening – G[ood]) inside TAR (sailor) |
| 15 | MOTIVATOR | DW: Four in volunteering group in car (9) (DW 2005) IV (four) in TA (volunteering group) in MOTOR (car) |
| 19 | MELTON | DW: Thaw one side of the cricket field (6) (DW 1885) MELT (Thaw) ON (one side of the cricket field) (1885! Quixote expecting us to have long memories) |
| 21 | SHERGAR | DW: Quiet bit of work with skill lacking final touch (7) (DW 1981) SH (Quiet) ERG (bit of work) AR[t] (skill – lacking its end) |
| 23 | NIJINSKY | DW: Returning home, sign up with TV company — nothing to lose (8) (DW 1970) IN< (Returning home) J[o]IN SKY (sign up with TV company – O) |
| 25 | HENBIT | DW: Bird given morsel (6) (DW 1980) HEN (Bird) BIT (morsel) |
| 26 | CICERO | DW: Decorator engaged by firm (6) (DW 1905) ICER (decorator) inside CO (firm) Icer here dealing with cakes (rather than a kind of contract killer used more recently by another setter for the same answer) |
| 27 | MILL REEF | DW: Bank next to factory (4,4) (DW 1971) REEF (Bank) next to MILL (factory ) |
| Down | ||
| 1 | TENREC | Animal centre reconstructed (6) CENTRE* AInd: reconstructed. These animals (wiki link) |
| 2 | ROOMIEST | Maiden that is lying in bed most spacious (8) M[aiden] I.E. inside ROOST (bed) First answer in. The M, IE wordplay and the likely “most” in the def leading to a word ending in EST meant it fell without a whimper, though roost isn’t the first synonym for bed that springs to mind. |
| 3 | ESTH | One of Finnish stock in nicest home (4) Hidden in niciEST Home Last in. I saw this hidden as a possibility early on and dismissed it – I had never heard of these Baltic people. Always something new to learn |
| 4 | SEXPOT | Physically attractive type creating an exhibition in the street (6) EXPO (exhibition) in ST[reet] |
| 5 | SPARKLER | Diamond in box King and Queen left locked (8) R (Queen) K (King) L (Left) inside SPAR (spar) (where does the E come from?) Edit: That should be SPAR + K + L + ER – SPAR (box) then L[eft] “locked” inside K[ing] and ER [Queen] Thank you Querulous at comment #8 |
| 7 | ELAPSE | Pass degree ultimately ‘failure’? (6) [degre]E LAPSE (failure) |
| 9 | ROO BAR | Shout when old boy gets trapped in fixture on ute? (3,3) OB (old boy) inside ROAR (shout) Second last in – needed all crossing letters before this fell, even though I knew what a ute was and where it originates. |
| 13 | OAVES | Love birds, idiots (5) Alt spelling OAFS O (love) AVES (birds) |
| 15 | MATRICES | Ceramist could produce these rectangular arrays (8) CERAMIST* AInd: could produce |
| 16 | THE WHALE | Moral quality comes with robust work by John Tavener (3,5) THEW (Moral quality – Surely thew refers to physical strength rather than moral? – no, some dictionaries have it as virtues in general) HALE (robust) The Whale (wiki link) is a early work by JT |
| 17 | GEMINI | Game’s beginning and ending with little stars (6) G[am]E MINI (little) |
| 18 | PRAISE | Talks to God audibly in worship (6) Homophone “Prays” |
| 20 | NESTOR | Old king to settle down with common soldiers (6) NEST (to settle down) OR (common soldiers – Other Ranks) |
| 22 | GENTRY | Smart set wanting information on tax (6) GEN (information) TRY (tax) |
| 24 | YAMS | Second month for pulling up vegetables (4) S[econd] MAY< |
Oops! I forgot to set the time to just past midnight before hitting the publish button for this one. It’s only a few hours early so I’ll leave it now.
Doctor Who was my second guess for DW, after Discworld. 15ac was the first across clue I got, too, after which I got 19ac by the word play, although the name meant nothing and 23ac, which did for a moment suggest it was men who jump around to music. Fortunately I remember the horse of that name and it clicked, but I couldn’t have finished this without the list of winners, either.
All of the across answers were eminently gettable form the wordplay (when did the Don ever not play fair with us?) but it took courage to put them in the grid without knowing why.
Even when I had finished I still had no idea. At that point I googled a few of the answers and the penny dropped, as it should have done a great deal earlier.
Bravo.
If a crossword is intended to give enjoyment to the hopeful solver, then this one fell very shortly after the start.
It a crossword is intended to showcase the superior intellect and obscure specialist knowledge of the setter, then this one was a winner.
I agree with Conrad Cork, not with cumbrian. (I know nothing about racing and confess to checking all of the horses but 2 – but only after entering them in the grid.) Thanks to Quixote for something a bit out of the ordinary, and to beermagnet.
Given that many of the horses names were not words in their own right resorting to the wiki list (as a reference point?)seemed a necessity to me and thus much of this became a ‘look-up’ rather than a solve.
Not really my cup of tea but never say die and hope for a new approach next time!
Getting an answer for me is rarely just a matter of solving the word play, it’s a give and take with what I think the definition might be and words that will fit in the grid with the letters already there. It’s a case of, could the answer be that, if so does does that fit with the word play/definition. As reddevil say, many of the horses’ names were a bit obscure and not real words, so I needed the list just to limit the set of possible answers. Eventually, I had to just inspect the list to find names that fitted with what I already had.
I also decided to attempt the down clues first, when I had a few checkers I saw MILL REEF, and that was my way into the acrosses. I almost got there without resort to aids but fell just short. I needed to check that TENREC was an animal, but even after I had entered it I couldn’t see SECRETO so had to check the list of Derby winners on Wiki, although in retrospect I should have seen it. While I was looking at the list I also checked it for EMPERY because I wasn’t 100% convinced that “eery” was an alternative spelling of “eerie” and thought it might have been “eire” and the horse’s name “Empire”. Not my favourite Don puzzle ever but a good mental workout.
Re SPARKLER, I think the parsing is SPAR + K + L +ER
Although I knew a couple of the DWs, to get the rest and fit them to the wordplay would have meant a lot of investigoogling and so I moved on to other puzzles.
Giving up was not an option for me as I did both the Don’s offereings over breakfast in my local Wetherspoons at 8:00 am.
Thank you Querulous for sorting out the SPARKLER parsing. I was completely stuck thinking the insertion indicator ‘locked’ meant everything inside SPAR.
cumbrian: I can assure you this puzzle gave enjoyment to this solver (and blogger). And I can appreciate the skill of the setter to get all acrosses themed like this with minimal use of outlandish crossing downs (in my book only one – that Esth – for which the relatively gentle ‘hidden’ wordplay was used).
I still like it even if I have to lookup or jigsaw answers in from a list – there’s things to learn.
The way I see it anyone can tackle* any puzzle, any way they like – there are no rules except self-imposed.
(*Or not – as per crypticsue – you must get your new verb recognised ‘to investigoogle’)
Conrad, you must have a very relaxed Wetherspoons manager – they turf me out the door of my local soon after midnight.
Though I have heard of some interesting lock-ins from Arthur Smith’s twitter feed:
Apologies – I meant to say “….give enjoyment to the hopeful average solver……” but missed the key word. Ooops!
At the end of the puzzle I was no wiser as to what DW stood for, and it was only on reading the blog that I found out, so many thanks for that beermagnet. Perhaps “Derby Winner” could have been the answer to a clue somewhere and then referenced, which would have made the puzzle less restrictive in its appeal and made it more widely accessible.
Nonetheless I shall look forward to the next Quixote (as long as it doesn’t require watching the World Cup…..).