Another pleasing Sunday morning crossword from Everyman. One or two old chesnutty friends making an appearance, but it’s a puzzle for improving solvers, so we won’t quibble.
Appearances from PORTIA and LADY MACBETH, so a theme, perhaps? Nah, thought not …
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) missing
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Remnant, keepsake close to heart
RELICT
A charade of RELIC and T for the last letter of ‘heart’. A word which also means ‘widow’, something to store away for future crossword reference.
4 Cola – a cup drunk in Mexican resort
ACAPULCO
(COLA A CUP)*
9 End of play is completely perplexing
STUMPS
Not that sort of play: it’s a cricket reference, and where would cryptics be without cricket? STUMPS is an informal term for the end of play in a day’s cricket, because often the umpire will pull up the stumps at that time. A dd.
10 Copper – check it in chemical vessel
CUCURBIT
Everyman doesn’t often use unusual words, but here’s one. When in doubt, follow the instructions: it’s CU, CURB and IT. ‘A vessel or retort for chemical use’, says my SOED, which I had to turn to to check the word.
11 Pet using force digging out new plant
DOG VIOLET
A charade of DOG and VIOLE[N]T.
13 In favour of retaining the old entrance hallway
FOYER
An insertion of YE in FOR. YE is not really an old version of ‘the’, since it was pronounced the same way as ‘the’, but try telling that to the owners of YE OLDE TEA SHOPPE.
14 Makes a faux pas plugging bishop, American, with old handgun
BLUNDERBUSS
An insertion of B and US in BLUNDERS.
17 Nobbled proceeds – men indemnified
RECOMPENSED
(PROCEEDS MEN)*
20 Boy round cliff
OSCAR
A charade of O and SCAR.
22 Slash girls with swords
CUTLASSES
A charade of CUT and LASSES.
24 Generate changes in youth
TEENAGER
(GENERATE)* GREEN TEA, anyone?
25 Sign, say, knocked over by car
GEMINI
A reversal of EG followed by MINI.
26 Article on sailor, vice, and drink
ABSINTHE
A charade of AB, SIN, and THE.
27 Notice slit in garment is good for appearance
ADVENT
A charade of AD for advertisement or ‘notice’ and VENT. Most likely that you’ve heard of this in ADVENT CALENDAR. Only 87 days to go to Christmas. Are you excited? If you’re like me, you’ll get slightly excited around the 24th December. However, Christmas-themed mince pies have been on sale in my local Sainsbury’s for the past week if you really need to get in the mood.
Down
1 Live on edge
RESIDE
A charade of RE and SIDE.
2 Boulanger playing in part of hotel, perhaps
LOUNGE BAR
(BOULANGER)*
3 Cold month, mostly, in Bay of Naples island
CAPRI
A charade of C and APRI[L]. Everyman could have left out ‘Bay of Naples’ from the clue, but he’s being kind to us.
5 Forge iron bar originally on it
COUNTERFEIT
A charade of COUNTER, FE and IT.
6 Sportswear, and more feminine, belonging to us
PLUS FOURS
A charade of PLUS, F and OURS. Often worn for golf, hence ‘sportswear’. Although golf isn’t really a sport, so the clue is perhaps a bit faulty.
7 Solicit in entrance
LOBBY
A dd.
8 Shed tears after blooming protest
OUTCRY
A charade of OUT and CRY.
12 Ably matched, surprisingly, in a Shakespearean role
LADY MACBETH
(ABLY MATCHED)*
15 Slaughtering centaur popular? Not sure
UNCERTAIN
A charade of (CENTAUR)* and IN.
16 Criticism of face-lift?
SIDESWIPE
A charade of SIDE and SWIPE in its ‘steal’ sense.
18 Left one by a rich heiress
PORTIA
A charade of PORT, I and A. Referring to the character in The Merchant of Venice.
19 A Society is in street to help
ASSIST
A charade of A, S and an insertion of IS in ST.
21 Some coaches spoil game
CHESS
Hidden in coaCHES Spoil game.
23 Correct soldiers in short commercial
AMEND
An insertion of MEN in AD. Second use of AD for ‘commercial’ or ‘notice’, so we’ll only give Everyman 9.5/10 for this offering.
Many thanks to him for this morning’s puzzle.
re 6D: so Rory won’t be winning BBC Sports Personality of the Year?
Well, perhaps there’ll be A Good Walk Spoiled trophy, Everyman, in which case …
We’ll just have to agree to disagree about the attractions of golf, I think. Thanks again for the puzzle.
A couple of clues seemed more Pasquale than Everyman. For me RELICT and CUCURBIT both had to be solved from the wordplay rather than the definition. I can only remember having come across relict as a widow before, and “keepsake” isn’t the first definition I think of for “relic”. A cursory scan of a few online dictionaries post-solve seemed to show that cucurbit as a plant is more common than cucurbit as a chemical vessel. Not that I’d come across it before in either context …… An enjoyable puzzle nonetheless.
No matter how often I came back to it, I couldn’t get 1a,9a ,1d,20a and 18d.
I didn’t help myself by putting pug violet in 11a, as only pig and pug occurred to me and I doubted if a pig was a pet.
I think 1a ,10a and 18d are a bit over the Everyman boundary. While I’d heard of Portia , I wonder how many knew she was a rich widow? I thought that knowledge of the bible, Shakespeare and Classical Music was a 1 across of the past?
Just interested to know what you do consider to be a sport , Pierre!
Thanks for this enjoyable Sunday morning offering, Everyman and Pierre for the blog.
Thanks Everyman and Pierre, thoroughly enjoyed this as about my level.
Think 6d might be referring to sports of the hunting, fishing and shooting type, plus fours often being worn by “shooters” of the glorious twelfth sort.
Liked LADY MACBETH and COUNTERFEIT amongst others.
A Good Walk Spoiled …
A caddy at St Andrews was teaching the noble game to one of the
professors of the university. The professor was not a promising pupil.
When the caddy lost patience he said to him: ‘Ye see, Professor,
as long as ye are learning thae lads at the College Latin and Greek
it is easy work, but when ye come to play golf ye maun hae a heid!’
Nice one! Liked the reference to Nadia Boulanger, the doyenne of post war classical composers – bit of a contrast to last weeks R.E.M.!
I had to check out10a as did some of our Pommy friends above.Relict was new to me, I wanted relich in 1a, but that did not compute. I flew through the south but north east was troublesome. A fine day looms after a fairly torrid week.
I have a few gripes I’m afraid. Repetitions of Entrance, Ad and Side, if you indemnify someone you don’t necessarily recompense them, you just promise to, Cutlasses is a dreadful old chestnut, a blunderbuss is not a handgun, it’s more like an old rifle, and since when was S short for Society? At least I got the ‘close to’ in 1ac this week. God I must be getting an old grump. Like everyone else I had to verify 10 and 11 ac but got them all. Stumps was the best clue and loi by a good half hour. Time to don my plus fours and hit the golf course (except mine are actually plus twos and I’m not playing this week – er indoors has a lady coming round to quote for the new kitchen).
Hi fellow cruciverbalists (a word that appeared in a friend’s crossword). I was sent an article from a former colleague on the Bletchley code breakers which highlighted the need to get into the mind set of the puzzle creator. Hence I’m surprised that Barrie (cricket fan) didn’t get stumps straight away! As I read some of the clues (22a for one) I could hear the groans! And Blunderbuss was very obvious-I know its not a pistol per se but it is hand-held and relatively short-not a rifle. 10a was my loi and it took some research (second dictionary) to elucidate gourd=vessel I’d originally thought crucible but that was soon discarded. Plus Fours and Plus Twos were popular wear amongst my golfing friends in ChCh and as commented above they are frequently used in other sports with wet terrain and am I correct in thinking that golf is soon to become an Olympic sport?
Thanks to Everyman, Pierre and fellow contributors.
Ian you are right on all counts. I used to play a lot of cricket, but as I’m currently in rehearsals for “journey’s end” I had Curtains on my mind for 9 ac and it took a lot of shifting.
I plant cucurbits in the garden i.e. Melons, cucumbers etc. never heard of it as a chemical dish. But I knew 1 ac as my grandmother’s funeral notice in a 1948 paper said “relict of ” so and so.
I enjoyed this puzzle and got them all after a bit of thought.
This was a much easier solve for me, thanks to the help of my dictionary. 10a, 11a are both in there. The only one I didn’t solve was 18d. I will remember to think ‘port’ when I see left now. Does it really matter if a blunderbuss is handheld or whatever. I had heard of it and thought the clue was clever.
How is on = re? Never seen that before.
Rats, re = about. Answer a question about sport and it’s a question on sport. Re = on isn’t that uncommon and not too much of a leap.
Margie I agree it was a good clue, just thought the handheld was both unnecessary and a bit inaccurate. Old gun would have been fine.
Now off to make scrambled egg and bacon wraps to watch the All Blacks in the other Windy City.
Found this hard and never got that stupid cucurbit. or the dog violet. thought i was doing really well having put Bluff in for Boy Round Cliff -the definition of luff worked quite well at a pinch. Isnt it frustrating when you have come up with an answer that you are pretty pleased with…then another renders it must be wrong. hate when that happens. corrected myself later but i still quite like bluff for 20a
I like Bluff too, Vanessa. Clever little sailing interpretation.
Rats @15. Next time you reply to an e-mail, look at the what comes up in the subject line. It will most likely be re: In other words, ‘about’ or ‘on the subject of’. It comes from Latin, but I wouldn’t worry about that. It’s a good one to store away, though, because it comes up often.
Always good to hear from those in a different time zone (four weeks different …)
Hi Margie I too sometimes wonder if solvers can be too pedantic and demanding. I really enjoy cryptic crosswords and Knowing that I’ve got the one and only correct answer is obviously very gratifying but there are times when all I can do is fill in the blanks! If it’s of any help/guidance I recently googled Ximenean and read articles about this particular compiler and his rules for crosswords which I found interesting and illuminating. Cheers.
Pierre @19
Stored for future use!