The puzzle may be found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26774.
Mostly typical of the Don’s puzzles, not too difficult, but with a few less common words. Then there are 10A and 7D, of which I can make only partial sense – enough to make me feel that I am on the right track (or enough to blind me to other possibilities), but not enough to complete the parsing. So it is over to you.
| Across | ||
| 1 | CHANCER |
Self-interested type takes hours to penetrate group of stars (7)
An envelope (‘to penetrate’) of H (‘hours’) in CANCER (the constellation, ‘group of stars’). |
| 5 | AROUSED |
Employment in a bar makes one excited (7)
An envelope (‘in’) of USE (’employment’) in ‘a’ plus ROD (‘bar’). |
| 9 | ISLAM |
Is priest or monk not entirely necessary for religion? (5)
A charade of ‘is’ plus LAM[a] (‘priest or monk’) minus its last letter (‘not entirely’). |
| 10 | MALIGNANT |
Bad name acquired by head worker good at heart (9)
Am I missing something? MAIN ANT could be ‘head worker’, and we have G in the middle (‘good at heart’); but that leaves L for name, which does not say much to me. |
| 11 | VERNISSAGE |
Private viewing is flop, somehow never entertaining (10)
An envelope (‘entertaining’) of ‘is’ plus SAG (‘flop’) in VERNE, an anagram (‘somehow’) of ‘never’. A new word for me, but clearly clued; it means “varnishing day”, when, prior to an exhibition, painters may make final adjustments to their work, such as varnishing. It is also an opportunity for private viewing. |
| 12 | EDEN |
Place of iniquity after hint of ecstasy? (4)
A charade of E (‘hint of Ecstasy’) plus DEN (‘place of iniquity’), with an &lit reference to the Fall of Man. |
| 14 | MADE A GO OF IT |
Lunatic put away — having admitted mistake, I succeeded (4,1,2,2,2)
A charade of MAD (‘lunatic’) plus EAGOOFIT, an envelope (‘having admitted’) of GOOF (‘mistake’) plus ‘I’ in EAT (‘put away’). |
| 18 | COTONEASTER |
Plant mat without colour (11)
An envelope (‘without’) of TONE (‘colour’) in COASTER (‘mat’). |
| 21 | AXIS |
A symbol for unknown is accompanying it? (4)
A charade of ‘a’ plus X (‘symbol for unknown’) plus (‘accompanying it’) ‘is’, with an &lit reference to the x, y or z axis. |
| 22 | OLIVE GREEN |
Legion ever on the move in something like khaki? (5,5)
An anagram (‘on the move’) of ‘legion ever’. |
| 25 | POP SINGER |
Vocalist with bell conveying love with extra note (3,6)
An envelope (‘conveying’) of O (‘love’) plus PS (‘extra note’) in PINGER (‘bell’). |
| 26 | MINCE |
Rodents eating last bit of rotten food (5)
An envelope (‘eating’) of N (‘last bit of rotteN‘) in MICE (‘rodents’) |
| 27 | RADIANT |
Brilliant mathematician’s angle, central feature of lecture (7)
A charade of RADIAN (‘mathematician’s angle’, a measure of angle a little less than 60º) plus T (‘central feature of lecTure’), |
| 28 | LAST OUT |
The French drink in bars to keep going (4,3)
A charade of LA (‘the French’) plus STOUT (‘drink in bars’). |
| Down | ||
| 1 | CHIVVY |
Harry and Henry nabbed by someone not in uniform (6)
An envelope (‘nabbed by’) of H (‘Henry’) in CIVVY (‘someone not in uniform’). |
| 2 | ALLURE |
Charm everyone with a flower (6)
A charade of ALL (‘everyone’) plus URE (river, ‘flower’). |
| 3 | COMMITMENT |
Remark about American university’s dedication (10)
An envelope (‘about’) of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ‘American university’) in COMMENT (‘remark’). |
| 4 | REMUS |
Rock band followed by American uncle telling folk stories (5)
A charade of REM (‘rock band’) plus US (‘American’). |
| 5 | ALLEGIANT |
Orchestra losing leader, a man very great and loyal (9)
A charade of [h]ALLÉ (‘orchestra’) minus its first letter (‘leaderless’) plus GIANT (‘a man very great’). A Shakespearean word. |
| 6 | ORGY |
Binge in which Bess’s partner loses head (4)
A subtraction: [p]ORGY (‘Bess’s partner’ in the opera composed by George Gershwin) minus the first letter (‘loses head’). |
| 7 | STANDOFF |
Employees restricting production ultimately creating deadlock (8)
What is going on here? It seems to be an envelope (‘restricting’) of N (‘productioN ultimately’) in STAFF (’employees’), but where does the DO come from? ‘Creating’?? There are various words ending -NDO, but I cannot think of one that might be relevant. |
| 8 | DETONATE |
Set off from school in the course of a particular day (8)
An envelope (‘in the course of’) of ETON (‘school’) in DATE (‘a particular day’). |
| 13 | BOARD GAMES |
Go with others abroad — gems found travelling (5,5)
An anagram (‘found travelling’) of ‘abroad gems’. Go is one such board game. |
| 15 | DEADLIGHT |
Joy gets hold of Bill, maybe for protective cover (9)
An envelope (‘gets hold of’) of AD (‘bill’) in DELIGHT (‘joy’). A deadlight is a shutter over a ship’s porthole which can be closed in a storm. |
| 16 | SCRAPPER |
Fighter discarded document apart from a page (8)
A subtraction: SCRAP P[ap]ER (‘discarded document’) minus AP (‘apart from a |
| 17 | STRIPPED |
Son experienced hallucinations in the nude (8)
A charade of S (‘son’) plus TRIPPED (‘experienced hallucinations’). |
| 19 | LEAN-TO |
Shelter quietly demolished in naval battle (4-2)
A subtraction: LE[p]ANTO (‘naval battle’; 1571, fought off the Gulf of Corinth in Greece, in which a European coalition defeated the Ottoman fleet) minus the P (‘quietly demolished’). |
| 20 | INTENT |
Design fashionable accommodation for holiday-makers? (6)
A charade of IN (‘fashionable’) plus TENT (‘accommodation for holiday-makers’ – some of them, anyway). |
| 23 | VIRAL |
As some disease gives you runs, you get medicinal bottle round (5)
An envelope (’round’) of R (‘runs’) in VIAL (‘medicine bottle’). |
| 24 | MIRA |
Star gets less than complete admiration (4)
A hidden answer (‘less than complete’) in ‘adMIRAtion’. Mira is a red giant binary star in the constellation Cetus. |
Thanks PeterO.
Couldn’t sleep so gave this a go, and found it reasonably straightforward for a Pasquale.
I couldn’t see 10a and 7d either; does do = production, but then the N is not explained?
Mira is better known as being a variable star, rather than a red giant.
10 looks like MALIN (head) + ANT (worker) around G, but I’m left with “name” being redundant in that case. I can maybe explain it if “Bad name acquired by” means A word for bad is acquired by…
I don’t see where DO comes from in 7 either. Perhaps “create” (= DO) was edited to “creating” during publication.
The &Lits 12 and 21 were beauties and the disguised definition in 13 was very cleverly done.
Thanks Peter and Pasquale.
Thanks to Pasquale for a relatively mild crossword and PeterO for the blog, which I needed for the naval battle and the POP SINGER
In 10a, could L come from name = label?
In 7d, perhaps production does double duty for DO and (ultimately) N?
In 21a, surely ‘it’ refers to the x-axis only? How do the y- and z-axes fit into the wordplay?
Confession time
I corrected ‘create’ to ‘creating’ at proof stage — a post-Christmas aberration.BUT the head is MALIN (shipping forecast)
Oh dear — Little good in head worker — bad!
Bad day fro me too
And I can’t even type correctly — I give up!
Genuine query: does the crossword editor not have the puzzle test-solved pre-publication?
Thank you, PeterO and many thanks to The Don for dropping in with the mea culpa. From a meticulous compiler such as he, a rare slip.
Enjoyed looking up VERNISSAGE and well clued to be able to derive it. Similarly with Lepanto which seems to have been a very important sea battle I was ignorant of.
Was going to get all indignant about part of speech of ALLEGIANT but I discover that it’s both a noun and and adjective.
Freddy @3 I was rather with you on this but, having looked at it for a while, I think it’s OK as an &lit. The ‘X’ referring to the symbol ‘on’ the X axis etc.
Not terribly happy with INTENT = design, though. Sure, one can have ‘design intent’ but can they be interchanged? Only a small point in an otherwise enjoyable puzzle towards the easier end of Mr Manleys range.
Nice week, all.
Apart from the errors I found this to be relatively easy with enough new words (for me at least) to make it interesting. Liked (and learned) vernissage and allegiant.
Thanks to Pasquale, especially for confessing so early in the day (thus saving endless discussion!). Also, thank you to PeterO for the blog and for confirming my doubts about 10a & 7d.
if Pasquale is seriously trying to justify HEAD=MALIN, then I suggest hedgehoggy will emerge from retirement quicker than Farage after the last election. Some wonderful clues here of course, for which many thanks to Don and thanks to PeterO for the blog (something of a collector’s item)
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO.
I really enjoyed this, even the time hopelessly spent on MALIGNANT and STANDOFF. MALIN Head did not come to mind, Beachy Head might have if it had been part of the answer – must bear this use of “head” in mind for the future!
I, too, did not remember the naval battle “Lepanto”, it only rings a very, very faint bell. I guessed MIRA, but had never heard of it.
Isn’t Malin ‘name acquired by head’? Not great but passable. Thanks Pasquale and PeterO.
Thanks PeterO and Pasquale for the crossword and for dropping by with explanations. A good puzzle nevertheless. Typo in the blog for 16d where the last word should be page, I think.
As it is the Don, fair enough for VERNISSAGE and ALLEGIANT, both of which were well clued. However, with ?I?A why opt for the relatively obscure MIRA when there are myriad other opportunities for better-known words? I thought the clue was somewhat weak anyway.
I thought at the beginning that 1a would include egoist somehow – CHANCER was, surprisingly, my LOI. I liked MADE A GO OF IT for the misleading ‘succeeded,’ which I thought indicated an ‘s.’ I also liked the scrap paper.
Malin Head is the northernmost point of Ireland. Just thought I’d mention that. Lepanto was the battle at which Cervantes was captured. In Spanish culture he is sometimes called “el manco de Lepanto” (manco meaning one-handed) because of an injury received in the battle. Luckily this didn’t impede him from writing Don Quixote and using his experience as a prisoner in the story.
Xjpotter @12
Oh yeah, of course!
Pasquale
No worries. Fun puzzle. Thanks for popping in here and over yonder.
Thanks, PeterO and Pasquale.
I knew the battle of Lepanto from reading Chesterton’s poem at school: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177439
Stirring stuff, with a great rhythm – try reading it aloud.
The usual mixture of easy, challenging and obscure. Started this on the train, and hadn’t solved either of the dodgy clues, and by the time I looked at the online version both had been edited, so no comment on those. Liked COTONEASTER and BOARD GAMES
|Well, I had trouble with clues that others swept through, but got MALIGNANT from crossers and parsed it at sight as Bad name ‘acquired’ from MALIN/Good/ANT. Thanks, Pasquale, especially for the laugh at 14a.
re 5a – Get with it old timers! Allegiant will be one of the happening words of 2016. Possibly. Check out the trailer.
5d … of course … got over-excited.
Eileen @16 My goodness, that’s a whopper – glad I was spared that at school. Vivat Hispania! Domino Gloria!
Thanks to Pasquale for the crossword and his comments above, and to PeterO for his helpful blog.
My favourite clue was 13d – very clever definition.
I knew Lepanto as it was one of the four houses my school in Greenock used when dividing us up on sports days etc (to increase competitiveness, I presume). There was Matapan (the best), Narvik, Atlantic and Lepanto. My second place in the P7 egg-and-spoon still rankles.
Slow but steady solve, not too bad for a Pasquale, with similar parsing problems to everybody else (thanks Don for dropping in to explain). Was expecting several more rare words but of course VERNISSAGE was the inevitable last in. Makes perfect sense though. I did like the def for BOARD GAMES. Anybody remember the Waddingtons version of Go, international travel with international currency?
One of those days when it’s a good thing that I wake up several hours after most people have solved the crossword! The online version is now corrected. Enjoyed it very much.
If I missed someone else saying it then apologies, but 7 & 10 have been changed online.
Thanks to Pasquale for coming by to explain my bewilderment. MALIN was not one of the names that I could drag up from dim memories of the shipping forecast; I think I would have explored that line further in the revised version of the clue. For those who have not seen it, the clues to 10A and 7D now read:
10 Little good in head worker – bad (9)
and
7 Employees restricting production ultimately create deadlock (8)
When solving 19D LEAN-TO, Lepanto registered as a battle, although I had to look up the when, where and why. I had not come across the poem, so thanks for the link, Eileen @15 (the third stanza in particular would have caused him some grief nowadays, would it not?); thanks to Poc @14 for the Cervantes connection – I am sure that is where I had come across it before.
William @8
I do not think I would be likely to use “design intent” together as a phrase. How about “Don constructs his clues with the intent of misleading us” as a case for the substitution?
Freddy @3
I think we just have slightly different ways of interpreting the clue. I saw it as a true &lit: the entire clue, read as a definition, does not mention any specific axis; read as wordplay, ‘accompanying it’ says that ‘is’ follows ‘a’ plus X – i.e. ‘it’ refers to the letter pair AX. If I interpret you correctly, you are taking ‘it’ to refer to only X (from the wordplay), and applying it to the answer AXIS. Perhaps this is more like scchua’s WIWD (wordplay intertwined with definition) than an &lit.
I got MALIGNANT without the correction and I thought LE(P)ANTO was one of the easiest. I was interrupted several times while doing this so my train of thought faltered but I thought this rather a good puzzle.
Liked CHIVVY.
Thanks Pasquale.
What an enjoyable crossword, which got me thinking in all sorts of different ways to solve my way through it. I’m chuffed to have seen through the misdirection in 13D (BOARD GAMES) fairly quickly, and that and 14A (MADE A GO OF IT) were my favourites.
I’m so pleased Pasquale popped in to explain the mystery concerning 7D (STANDOFF). I guessed that was the error.
Today we had PS = extra note; yesterday we had (cryptically) PS = second thoughts. Just thought I’d mention it.
Eileen @16
I was forced to read Lepanto at school. That and another poem were what started my lifelong appreciation of good narrative verse.
Thanks to Picaroon and PeterO. VERNISSAGE and COTONEASTER were new to me (though I could parse the latter). Not parsed were MALIGNANT (Malin was new to me), POP SINGER (I missed “pinger”), STANDOFF (working from the original online version), and SCRAPPER (I missed the “scrap paper” subtraction). As always, I enjoyed a puzzle from this setter but needed PeterO’s help to see all the ins and outs.
I don’t think I usually fall short on the etiquette (as I did @28). Many thanks to Pasquale for the crossword and PeterO for the blog.
Like ACD @29, by the way, I failed to parse all of 16D (SCRAPPER). Also, when I got to the last clue, 24D (MIRA), I was far from any reference source, so I left it. (It turned out to be easy, but I hardly know any stars, only constellations.)
I got started on this one more easily than usual for a Pasquale, but really struggled towards the end. I’ve been to quite a few private views and I’m familiar with the term “varnishing day”, but VERNISSAGE was new to me, so had to be deduced from the wordplay. DEADLIGHT and ALLEGIANT were also new but closer to familiar words. I saw that the clue for MALIGNANT referred to Malin Head, but obviously couldn’t fully parse that or STANDOFF. If I’d thought to refresh the page when I came back to the puzzle on and off during the day, I’d have seen the corrected versions. RADIANT was my favourite.
Thanks, Pasquale (for the puzzle and for explaining the problems) and also PeterO.
Enjoyed this from the Don, despite the somewhat iffy clues. The last three days have all been a bit easier, I thought, than their setter’s usual offerings but fun all the same. New Year kindness perhaps.
On the question of the editor, I once emailed him about a clue in an Araucaria which seemed to me to have a very rare – for the great man – error. I made the mistake of being a bit ironic and asked if he solved the crosswords before inflicting them on us and got a tirade of abuse back. I wasn’t impressed but didn’t complain anymore. Job done perhaps? (He didn’t deal with my point either.)
Finally, and perhaps only of interest to Steve L and me, I looked it up and found that a ‘kisu’ was a Karrimor Instructor’s Survival Unit. I haven’t been in one since about 1980 on Ben Mor Coigeach but we were all very grateful for it at the time.
Bob @32
Again on the subject of the crossword editor: I wrote a letter to the Crossword Editor at the Guardian on 30 December explaining and summarising, with a couple of examples from a very recent puzzle, the sorts of error that we find, mentioning also their frequency, and asking him/her to do something about it.
As it was not a letter to the Editor for publication it might get read. It was polite and mildly flattering. I’ll let you know if I get a response.
I enjoyed this. The usual Pasquale with the “odd” words but all gettable.
I do my crossword on line in the evening so no problems as the corrections were in place.
Very amusing to see the questions about the role of our illustrious ed.
Of course he’s too busy to reply with all the crossword checking, choosing and proofreading he has to do. 😉
Thanks to PeterO and Pasquale
I print out the crossword. Online version corrected, but not online print version. This took all the enjoyment away.
Then again, it`s the Grauniad.
I’m relatively inexperienced at this game, but it seems to me that the “correct” answer to 5a is “arouses” with the definition being “makes one excited”. If the solution is aroused, the “one” doesn’t, seem to be doing anything, or the clue should be “made one excited”. Am I missing something?
I enjoyed this despite the parsing difficulties that others have mentioned and managed to get all the solutions except for guessing diva for 24a (with not a clue how to parse it, obviously).
Thanks to pasquale, and to PeterO.
another Andrew, ‘excited’ is the definition.
Years ago we had a discussion on a similar thing and it took me a while to get it then.
Think of this: “Eileen makes one a cup of tea”.
Eileen produces ‘a cup of tea’.
So, A makes one B = A produces B (or A leads to B as the solution).
‘One’ being the solver.
Thanks Sil & Paul B @ 37 and 38. I think I get it – “makes for the solver “excited”. Though I’m not sure I like it too much!
Sil and Paul (37, 38)
I’m sure you’ve hit upon the only proper interpretation of this deceptively simple clue, which another Andrew @36 rightly raised a query on.
While I was solving this puzzle I got AROUSED without any problem (please read this correctly!) and didn’t notice anything wrong until I read another Andrew’s post. I then thought, like he did, that the ‘and’ was superfluous (being put there just to make a decent surface). The explanation we now have seems spot on to me.
The alternative
“Stimulated employment in a bar”
would have worked too, but the setter may have thought putting it that way round would make it too easy.
Does anyone else anticipate a new poster called Dinsdale or Spiny Norman? Will the new persona be cheerful enough to disguise their true identity?
In a similar vein, ‘makes you’ and ‘gets you’ occur quite regularly.
Obviously in my post @40 I meant to write “… the ‘one’ was superfluous” (not “…the ‘and’ …”).
Thanks, Paul B @42. The examples you gave seem to have passed me by.
baerchen@10 and Ralph@41 – At least hedgehoggy merely commented on the crosswords – you seem incapable of letting go of a personal mission to belittle him. It’s time to move on.
Thanks PetetO.
I printed my copy off on Saturday so already had the corrected versions of 10 and 7.
Sailed through this. Managed to resuscitate LEPANTO from the canyons of my mind and new word of the day was VERNISSAGE – clearly clued.
Not too sure about the clue for EDEN. Was there anything iniquitous about the fall of man? Probably got what we deserved!
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO
One of the advantages of coming to a puzzle late is that obvious troubles in publication issues are usually sorted out. Well, sort of … I wouldn’t have drawn the line between MALIN and head – had opted to go with L and G in MAIN (head) ANT ((worker) and had a ? over why they were separated.
There were three others wholly or partially unparsed before coming here – forgot about the (H)ALLE orchestra at 5d, just didn’t see SCRAP P[AP]ER at all and did not know of the Battle of LE[P]ANTO.
As usual a sprinkling of new terms to further the education on words one is most likely only ever going to make use of in a crossword – but still fun to know that there is always new learnings to be had – even at my age.
Finished in the SW corner with POP SINGER, the clever RADIANT and the previously unknown to me MIRA star.