A sweet musical interlude from Crosophile today
Bit stuck for the def in one but I’m sure you good chaps can help, can’t see anything beyond a theme for Ninas but knowing Crosophile there probably is.
Across
1,23 What one has coming from barely arid regions (4,7)
JUST DESERTS
JUST barely & DESERTS arid regions
23 See 1 across
DESERTS
See 1a
3 Plenty may come from this seed and an ideal place that’s cold for short time (10)
CORNUCOPIA
CORN seed & C(old), not T(ime) in UTOPIA
10 Eagle in tumbling descent (7)
LINEAGE
[EAGLE IN]*
11 Counter-productive jingle? (7)
ADVERSE
An advert verse as it were
12 I might stand by the church yet we’re two couples swapping partners (3,4)
YEW TREE
[YET WERE]* although I must admit I don’t really get yet what the anagram indicator is really getting at.
15 Here’s me taken aback by concert, put in a flutter by musical item, … (9)
IMPROMPTU
I’M & PROM & PUT*
17 … instrument section, leader of orchestra, … (5)
CELLO
CELL section & first letter of O(rchestra)
19 … instruments pitched too high with leader coming in late (5)
HARPS
SHARP with the S moved to the end
20 On retirement eat out with experienced men? He’s loaded (9)
STEVEDORE
Well more he loads but I guess he’s loaded in the past, ERODE eat out & VETS (veterans) reversed
21 Reflectively express satisfaction after eating Georgia’s 27 (6)
HAGGIS
GA (Georgia) in SIGH all reversed, 27 is pudding, I know, I know, but haggis for pudding still seems so wrong
26 After absorbing bit of play I left easily breakable complex shape (7)
FRACTAL
ACT in [I removed from FRA(i)L]
28 Chosen to change one atonalist for another (10)
SCHOENBERG
Extended def, CHOSEN* & BERG
29 A portion of caramel tart in a dish (4)
MELT
Hidden answer
13 See 8 down
TRIFLE
see 8
27 See 22 down
PUDDING
See 22
Down
1 Complement of 13’s provided but sent back to shut up a stingy sort (9)
JELLYFISH
13 is TRIFLE so JELLY & IF reversed & SH (be quiet!)
2 Strength of oscillation graph showing zero amps, volts and energy (5)
SINEW
SINEWAVE without A(mps) V(olts) or E(nergy)
4 Make too much light of exhibition centred in love poetry (10)
OVEREXPOSE
EXPO (exhibition) in O love & VERSE
5 A regular event of one apt to avoid extremes? (4)
NEAP
hidden in oNE APt, as in neap tides, not come across it elsewhere
6 Potholer, caught, to utter oath (5)
CAVER
C & AVER
7 Tie this up to stop artwork falling out or fit loop around (9)
PORTFOLIO
[OR FIT LOOP]*
8,13 Nothing important seen on circling lake with gun (1,4,6)
A MERE TRIFLE
AT (seen on) around MERE lake & RIFLE
9 Where Americans have beer arriving in spurts (8)
BARROOMS
ARR in BOOMS
14 Very fine meal with awful rude interruption (5-5)
SUPER-DUPER
RUDE* in SUPPER
16 Article from Standard and a broadsheet paper when tele’s off (9)
PARAGRAPH
PAR & (tele)GRAPH
17 Maybe she’s drunk sidecars? (8)
CRESSIDA
Well it’s SIDECARS* but as far as the def goes I’ll leave that to more learned folk
18 Management failure (9)
OVERSIGHT
Double def
21 Hello! Salmon maybe is almost done and these sound good (2-3)
HI-FIS
HI hello & FIS(h)
22,27,25 Expecting ecstasy pills for a start entering inside drum&bass-heavy hot spot? (2,3,7,4)
IN THE PUDDING CLUB
E(cstacy) P(ills) in IN THUDDING CLUB
25 See 22 down
CLUB
see 22
24 Produce a pair of skates, say? (5)
RAISE
Sounds like RAYS
*anagram
I finished this enjoyable puzzle faster than I thought I was going to after the first read-through of the clues. IN THE PUDDING CLUB was the answer that opened it up for me, and then I saw the related (from an “afters” perspective) A MERE TRIFLE and JUST DESERTS (homophonically). BARROOMS was my LOI after the penny dropped that the definition wasn’t “in spurts”.
If “two couples swapping partners” was the anagrind for YEW TREE it was certainly a convoluted one, and I’m also wondering if I have missed something. For CRESSIDA I saw the definition as simply “maybe she”. HAGGIS is a pudding in the same way a steak & kidney pudding is.
Took a while to get on the wavelength with this, finished in a rush after some slow progress.
5D I took to be [o]NE AP[t], ie with the the extremes avoided, rather than a simple hidden.
14D I wonder why Crosophile has used the colloquial and ungrammatical “awful” when surely “awfully” would be quite OK (in fact better).
16D Small typo with the “a” missed out before graph.
17D I presume the definition is “she” or “maybe she”.
Thanks to Crosophile (enjoy trickier Mondays) and flashling.
Thanks, flashling.
Can you elucidate the AT = ‘seen on’ in the A MERE TRIFLE clue? I’m being dim and can’t quite see it.
Can’t help with the parsing of YEW TREE, I’m afraid. Nice def, though, I thought.
I understood CRESSIDA in the same way as Andy B. Don’t know if she was a drunk or not.
Haggis. Very nice with ice cream and custard 🙂
Thanks flashling
I don’t think 12ac is an anagram. The ‘two couples’ in ‘yet we’re’ are TW and ER. When these ‘partners’ are swapped you get WT and RE which gives the YEW T REE.
I can’t get 12 either: looking for East/West somehow, but it’s not there, I think. Maybe just a loose anagram. Rather like ‘Cressida’, as I can’t think of any drinking or motorcycling associated with anyone of that name. She was just a rather pathetic tragic heroine but not a lush.
I think ‘impromptu’ actually starts with ‘im’ = ‘mi’ reversed. ‘Mi’ is alternative spelling of ‘me’, musical note.
Thanks Gaufrid suspected something like that, yes Colin that’s probably right. @NMS2 I see AT = SEEN ON in the sense of the theatre or cinema.
YEW TREE is probably unsolvable, but never mind. It’s a nice enough puzzle.
I suppose the idea of 17 is just that a she might be called Cressida (as in the policewoman Cressida Dick). I found this enjoyable but quite slow going with the NW corner proving the most difficult to finish. Barrooms was my LOI as well, largely because I was convinced it was going to be some sort of word for a bar followed by US.
Re reading 21d keep seeing Salmond and thinking, yes he’s well and truly done. 🙂
By a nice coincidence, I’d been listening to Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder last night (OK, pre-atonal Schoenberg) and 28ac was more of less the first clue I read, so a write-in. Conversely, 21dn when I saw it ended “fis” I assumed this was some French phrase I didn’t know, and even when I got all the letters from the word play, I couldn’t first see what it meant.
I parsed 12ac as Gaufrid.
AndyB methinks the whoosh went over your head…
I’ll retire and let CP reply in a bit
Thanks, flashling.
Enjoyed this one; bit of a musical, puddingy theme, but no more than that as far as I can see. I particularly liked LINEAGE for its nice, misleading surface.
I think Crosophile may just have been referring to the fact that STEVEDORE is a rather old-fashioned word for ‘docker’ when he used the past tense in the surface.
Very good puzzle; I’ll just add that YEW TREE is possibly not this setter’s finest clue. But a small niggle.
Thanks, Flashling, for the blog – and for reminding me it was Crosophile today! 🙂
Thanks for all other comments, too. It’s funny, and I’m clearly outvoted, but YEW TREE was my personal favourite as it combined a decent-sounding [ok, indecent-sounding] surface with a neatly offbeat clueing device, rather than just an anagram. [And well done Gaufrid for being the first to crack it.]
As for stevedore, he’s loaded [=rich] is in past tense simply because ‘he loads’ is not devious. 😉
The nina was indeed ‘just des[s]erts’ with references to the pudding club, a mere trifle, jelly[fish], clues to melt and haggis…
Flashling@11 – what am I missing?
And Charybdis @ 13 – are you the setter today?
Oops! No, Kathryn’s Dad. I’ve got my Crosophile hat on today. Or I’m supposed to have. 🙂
Thanks, Crosophile. It’s just that when I first started commenting on 225, I got really confused when setters used another moniker when they dropped in to comment, because I couldn’t understand how they knew so much about the puzzle. And thanks again for a good’un.
Came late to this after failing miserably at the pub quiz – too much sport, celebrity and pop music! Anyway back to sanity with this nice puzzle. It moved along at just a nice speed, not too fast and not too slow so thanks to setter and blogger.
I liked YEW TREE – it was my doh moment!
21a re Haggis. Eh? Not a pudding?? Have all the Scots gone after all?
I thought someone would quote this:
Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin’-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye worthy o’ a grace
As lang’s my arm…
(Burns, Ode to a Haggis)
Hi Herb. I had that exactly in mind. I’ve only had it a couple of times. Delicious, but not with ice cream and jelly to be honest. 🙂
A super crossword but all over far, far too quickly – still it’s a Monday puzzle, so fair enough. Of course, Burns’ chieftain of puddings sprang to mind.
My thought for 15ac was ‘here’s me’ for I AM without the A from ‘taken (a)back’ which I thought rather clever of Crosophile. Other explanations offered here seem wrong somehow. If Crosophile still around – do tell please.
Thanks to C and flashling.
Thanks William F P. 🙂
Re 15ac, that’d ingenious but no, it was meant to be ME=MI [as in do, re, me/mi], and then reversed.
PS. By the way, I wouldn’t go along with ‘taken aback’ meaning ‘taken “a” back. Someone pointed out to me when I was a beginner crossword setter that by that reckoning ‘friends’ could indicate FI [ends of FrI 🙂 ]. Which would be a bit mad! I took the point. 🙂
Crosophile – Thanks for kindly coming back – a good point well made. Shame though – and I rather like the idea of ‘friends’ indicating FI (think of the great possibilities of a clue using that exact example given current infighting in Formula 1!) Of course I accept your point – I’m but a mortal solver amongst you divine setters! But would it not be just a “lift and separate” devise. For me, a great part of the cryptic’s artistry is its evolution, something which you yourself seem to embrace quite deftly. Perhaps I’m being perverse – and there was I thinking I’d found another pioneering example (like your yew tree, which I rather enjoyed.)
Respect!
You’re too kind! 🙂 But no, I’m not a fan of ‘lift and separate’ as I think a clue should have a ‘nice’ surface but should also work precisely in the cryptic reading without the solver having to insert spaces mid-word that aren’t actually there. Though I can’t claim I always succeed! And perhaps ‘lift and separate’, for or against, is just a matter of personal taste, but I’m getting too old to change! 🙂
Again a puzzle for the super boys, of the ex Independent, not for me I’m afraid, i got about a half dozen clues then gave up. Far to clever for me, ah well keep on plodding.