I find myself blogging – for reasons too embarrassing to elucidate in public – in the Thursday slot. Which is usually hard, and is indeed hard today. Since I am out of my depth, any help with the ones I couldn’t quite parse would be welcome.
There appears to be a reason for the degree of difficulty: there’s a ‘ghost theme’, where references are scattered around the grid and the clues but you don’t have to know anything about it to finish the solve. It’s ASTERIX and OBELIX, the creations of René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. There’s a nod to the protagonists in 14ac and 17dn, to their antagonists in ROMANS, mention of Gauls a couple of times, and finally French/Belgian in 1ac. The original cartoons were published in a Franco-Belgian magazine back in 1959. There may well be other stuff that I haven’t seen, although I did enjoy the stories a long while ago when I read them. There has been a film as well, I think.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) missing
definitions are underlined
Across
9 Banish farm vehicles back across French/Belgian river? On the contrary
OSTRACISE
The ‘farm vehicles’ are CARTS and the river is the OISE. So it’s an insertion of STRAC in OISE rather than the other way round.
10/15 Six non-English stories director originally translated in, say, six measures in three parts
VITAL STATISTICS
It’s – I think – VI for ‘six’, TAL[E]S for ‘non-English stories’, TATI for ‘director’ (referring to Jacques Tati), T for the first letter of ‘translated’ in SICS for a homophone of ‘six’. They ideally used to be 36-24-36, but it’s probably gone metric now.
11 Complaint from setter before son gets in beers
MEASLES
An insertion of S in ALES with ME (‘setter’) to begin with.
12 Outgoing raids? No
INROADS
(RAIDS NO)* with ‘outgoing’ as the anagrind and an &lit. I think.
13/4 System of principles authoritatively set by setter? Then I’m cast out!
DOGMATICS
More setters, but this time it’s the doggy type. A charade of DOG and (IM CAST)* with ‘out’ as the anagrind.
14 Some swearing, perhaps, as broken seats involve potential hazard
ASTERISKS
An insertion of RISK in (SEATS)* with ‘broken’ as the anagrind. Because this is a *****ing difficult puzzle.
16 Clip of fab Arsenal save
BAR
Hidden in faB ARsenal.
17 Runner by chorister forgetting Queen hit
OSTRICH
If you leave out ER for ‘Queen’ from ‘chorister’ then you get (CHORIST)* which gives you an anagram of OSTRICH, which you could certainly describe, in the broadest sense of the word, as a ‘runner’. The surface is not putting a picture in my head. The anagrind is ‘hit’.
18 See article on duck eggs
OVA
A charade of V for ‘see’ and A for ‘article’ following O for ‘duck’ in its cricketing sense. V – if I remember well – stands for the Latin vide, which is the imperative of the verb ‘to see’. A Latin scholar out there can correct me if I’m wrong. It refers a reader to another entry in a dictionary, for example.
19 Layer of skin from duck, punctured by power spray briefly
EPIDERMIS
The duck (non-cricketing this time) is the EIDER: you need to insert P for ‘power’ in that and then follow it with MIS[T]. There is no obligatory Pierre bird link because the duck is not the solution. It is a handsome bird, though, and responsible for EIDERDOWNS.
21 Marrow’s essential content for bones
RADII
This is getting a bit convoluted for my liking. It’s clever, though, and a good surface. The ‘essential content’ of ‘maRRow’ is two Rs . In mathematical terms the abbreviation for ‘radius’, half the diameter of a circle: area of circle = Pi r² and all that. But in anatomical terms they are the bones in your arm that run alongside the ulnae, which is what Hob is getting at.
22 Loner? Perhaps Napoleon I’s tendency at first
SOLOIST
Not your French General, but your Man from U.N.C.L.E. So if you are a young person, you will have had no idea about this, because the programme was very popular in the 1960s. Napoleon SOLO plus I plus S plus T for the first letter of ‘tendency’.
23 Get off! Turn me over! Get back on!
REMOUNT
I think this is (TURN ME O)* with ‘get off’ as the anagrind, but someone out there may have a better idea.
24 Slum in Skopje’s inner city
MINSK
Hidden in sluM IN SKopje.
25 Like some that roll around with Cyril and Cindy, endlessly cavorting
CYLINDRIC
(CYRILCIND[Y])*
Down
1 Model bra, if bust awesome
FORMIDABLE
(MODEL BRA IF)*
2 Unknown distance covered by steamer
STRANGER
An insertion of RANGE in STR for ‘steamer’. The abbreviation is a new one for me, and I’m not entirely comfortable with ‘unknown’ as the definition.
3 Secretary girl’s dish
PAELLA
A charade of PA for ‘personal assistant’ and ELLA. Don’t overcook the rice; still needs to be nice and moist when served up.
5 Spice Girl on a run amongst 4 old people
GERIATRICS
The ‘Spice Girl’ is GERI Halliwell, then it’s A and an insertion of R in TICS, which is 4dn.
6 Span of time supporting 5 in orchestra
OVERARCH
An insertion of V for ‘5’ and ERA in ORCH, which is apparently an abbreviation for ‘orchestra’.
7 Cooks meal during text messaging
STEAMS
An insertion of TEA in SMS, Short Message Service, or ‘text messaging’.
8 Friends heading further south to find what once divided Gaul and Rome
ALPS
‘Friends’ are PALS: put the heading nearer the end (‘further south’, since it’s a down clue) and you’ve got your answer.
17 Needles one bold entrepreneur launched in sewing kit, successfully initially
OBELISKS
Initial letters of One Bold Entrepreneur Launched In Sewing Kit Successfully.
18 Gaul regularly ordered around group’s conservative element
OLD GUARD
Gaul is featuring heavily this morning, for reasons mentioned in the preamble. As is some intricate cluing. The anagrind is ‘around’ and the anagram fodder is (GAUL O[R]D[E]R[E]D)*
20 Label from Linda’s pants
ISLAND
(LINDAS)* with ‘pants’ as the anagrind. It’s a record label, but you knew that already.
21 Book about male horses
ROMANS
You have to read the instructions as ‘horses about male’, when it’s M in ROANS.
22/14 Customise Amati fiddles around small arms
SEMI-AUTOMATICS
(CUSTOMISE AMATI)*
23 Part where Hero and Leander come together
ROLE
Nice surface to finish. When Hero and Leander come together, you’ve got ROLE in the middle.
Many thanks to Hob for this one. I’ll crawl back under my stone and stick to blogging the Monday Indy puzzle.
Thanks for the blog Pierre. Had we been blogging today we would have had red faces too, we had no knowledge of the theme!
All the parsings seem fine to us.
Thanks Hob for a really good Thursday workout.
Dogmatix, Vitalstatistix, Geriatrix were all characters in the stories as well.
In the french version, Dogmatix was called Idefix, which seemed like a very indirect pun for the french readership – cool!
The words “and Rome” seem superfluous in 8d. The Alps divided Gaul, or rather the provinces of Cisalpine Gaul and Transalpine Gaul. I suppose as the former was later absorbed it became part of “Rome.” Anyway, like the rest, this was eminently gettable with some pleasant head-scratching along the way. A lovely little puzzle. Thanks to setter and blogger.
I’d never heard of the man from uncle, though whether this is because of my age (b. 1965) or because my parents didn’t have a television, I’m not sure. I’d assumed it was something to do with card games – I see SOLO is defined as a card game in which one player plays against all the others, and it seems to me that NAPOLEON may be one such game, though I’ve never played either. Jason
Impeccably blogged, I should say, Pierre. You should venture out on Thursdays more often.
I needed your help in parsing RADII and REMOUNT.
Like you I wasn’t familiar with STR for steamer and ORCH for orchestra, though I see they’re both in Chambers XWD.
Thanks for pointing out the theme too. It had, as usual, completely passed me by. Very clever.
All in all, an enjoyable solve.
Thanks all for adding the details of the theme – I did say that I would have missed something. Jason, you could well be right about the card games reference in SOLOIST. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. just popped into my head. And it works, so maybe only the setter will know what was intended.
14a: Asterisks are also related to the cartoon theme for they are now often (sadly) mispronounced as the name of the cartoon hero Asterix!
Thanks Hob and Pierre. Good work, both. I go for the man from uncle as well, although I never really watched it.
Cétautomatix is another character in the stories; in several languages he is simply Automatix, but, according to Wikipedia, in Croatian it’s Poluautomatix which can be rendered as Semiautomatix.
Quite good.
Thanks Pierre, I couldn’t get RADII so well done for that.
Your write-up seems pretty good to me, not sure why you are so down on yourself today!
To answer your question, PeeDee, the shock of running into a Thursday puzzle through incompetence … good job it wasn’t Nimrod.
Mind you, the Monday puzzle has had some tricky ones recently.
The number of times a hidden theme passes me by. This time, when I was filling in 10/15, I recalled there was an Asterix character of that name, and I still failed to spot the theme!
I recall at work once a colleague had written in a document about “items marked with an asterix”.
An enjoyable puzzle, and a beautifully clear analysis from Pierre.
I, too, think “unknown” does not work as a definition for “stranger” in 2dn.
He’s an unknown, he’s a stranger works for me. **** Hob thanks, enjoyed that and thanks Pierre for the unexpected blog. You can do mine next time I get a nimrod too 🙂
Didn’t get to do this on the day so picked it up this afternoon and thoroughly enjoyable it was too. Loved the cartoon theme in answers and clues.
I also put STRANGER in at 2D feeling uncomfortable as I wrote it, so it’s good to hear that str is, apparently, legit.