Difficult to solve and difficult to blog. Just plain difficult really. There are a couple of solutions that I still can’t explain even after a protracted search. Thank you Io for the mental workout and another chastening experience!
The crossword commemorates the Battle of the Boyne (this day, 1st July 1690) fought by KING WILLIAM III (1650-1702), Prince of Orange and King of England. William was a Protestant in a fiercely sectarian era and died in a riding accident, his horse reportedly stumbling on a mole-hole. The Jacobites raised an ironic toast to “THE LITTLE GENTLEMAN IN THE BLACK VELVET WAISTCOAT”.
William fought the NINE YEARS War with France. Presumably the “bellicose orang” in 17ac gives a nod to this.
| Across | ||
| 1 | NIKAH | Suffering rejection by relatives joins husband for Islamic wedding (5) |
| A (by) KIN (relatives) both reversed (suffering rejection) with H (husband) | ||
| 4, 24 | THE LITTLE BEAR | Stars I bet he’ll treat suspiciously (3,6,4) |
| anagram (suspiciously) of I BET HE’LL TREAT | ||
| 9 | GENTLEMAN | Elegant, refined male accepted by nobility at the outset (9) |
| ELEGANT anagram=refined contains (accepted) M (male) following (by) Nobility( first letter of, at the outset) – definition is &lit | ||
| 10, 21 | IN THE EXTREME | Hitmen shot outside Exeter rehabilitated, remarkably (2,3,7) |
| HITMEN* anagram=shot contains (outside) EXETER* anagram rehabilitated | ||
| 11 | BLACK VELVET | East End journo’s split level TV ruined by bloody drink (5,6) |
| ‘ACK (hack, journalist in East London accent) goes inside (splits) anagram (ruined) of LEVEL TV all following (by) B (bloody) | ||
| 15 | WAISTCOAT | Winding in and out of Ascot Henry covered up with a garment (9) |
| 17 | SATYR | Orang-utan? It’s being bellicose (5) |
| 18 | NELIS | Something fruity you’ve the good sense to remove from wine-list (5) |
| wiNELISt with WIT (good sense) removed – a type of pear | ||
| 20 | ODD MEN OUT | Those excluded from adult learning facility getting into a scrap (3,3,3) |
| OU (Open University, adult learning facilit) inside ODDMENT (scrap) | ||
| 22 | FLABBERGAST | “Fat” Alban canonised? Blow me down! (11) |
| if you canonise a fat Alban Berg then you make FLAB BERG A ST | ||
| 26 | VISOR | On top of ventail is alternative protection (5) |
| Ventail (top of) with IS and OR (alternative) | ||
| 27 | RELIEVERS | What asthmatic carries about drug in the interest of hepatologist? (9) |
| RE (regarding, about) then E (ecstasy) in LIVERS (the interest of hepatologist) | ||
| 28 | NINE YEARS | Period Poles span in merging organs? (4,5) |
| N and S (poles) contain (span) IN EYEAR (EYE and EAR, two organs, merged) | ||
| 29 | EARLY | Like bird enjoying breakfast in the garden, not quite topless (5) |
| nEARLY (not quite, topless) – the early bird catches the worm | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | NOGO | Hopeless faux pas by player in eastern drama (2,2) |
| OG (own goal, faux pas by player) in NO (Japanese drama) | ||
| 2 | KING | A big piece of luck in golf (4) |
| found inside lucK IN Golf – a big chess piece | ||
| 3 | HALIBUT | Occupants of sea shanty having a little party (7) |
| HUT (shanty) contains (having) A LIB (Liberal, political party, ltttle=abbreviated) | ||
| 4 | TAMPA | In Florida resort to work corruptly for auditor (5) |
| sounds like (for auditor) “tamper” (to work corruptly) | ||
| 5 | EON | A long time in the past a gambling game, never ever forgotten (3) |
| EO (gambling game, in the past=obsolete) and Never (missing ever) | ||
| 6 | ICINESS | Movie-cameras one’s keeping cool (7) |
| CINES (movie-cameras) inside (kept by) I’S (one’s) | ||
| 7 | TITIVATION | Smartening it up, repeatedly given a hand but no head (10) |
| IT IT (it repeated) reversed (up) with oVATION (a hand, missing head) | ||
| 8 | ELECTORATE | Teacher’s briefly taken lunch outside – they’re on roll (10) |
| 12 | KITED | Flew alien over in hoax (5) |
| ET (alien) reversed (over) in KID (hoax) | ||
| 13 | SWAN OF AVON | Bard, looking sickly in Seat 5, willing to participate (4,2,4) |
| WAN (looking sickly) in SOFA (seat) V (five) and ON (willing to participate) – Ben Jonson’s nickname for Shakespeare | ||
| 14 | WILLIAMSON | Claim from hypochondriac’s won round writer (10) |
| ILL I AM (claim from hypochondriac) inside (with…round) WON – writer David (?) Williamson. There are other possibilities too. | ||
| 16 | ODOUR | Work at expanding crossword compilers’ repute (5) |
| DO (work at) inside (expanding) OUR (crossword compilers’) | ||
| 19 | SOBERLY | How judge operates? Utterly British, and not a minute too soon? (7) |
| SO (utterly) B (British) and EaRLY (minute too soon) missing A (not a) – as sober as a judge | ||
| 21 | See 10 | |
| 23 | ATLAS | Finally reducing support for the head (5) |
| AT LASt (finally) cut short (reducing) – the top vertebra | ||
| 24 | See 4 across | |
| 25 | I SAY | Given the odds, it’s easy for old Gordon Bennett! (1,3) |
| It’S eAsY (odd letters from) | ||
| 27 | RIA | Completely dry up? Unlikely for this feature (3) |
| AIR (completely dry) reversed (up) – a flooded valley | ||
*anagram
definitions are underlined
8d: It is E(LECTOR)ATE[n]
Lector has the sense of ‘teacher’
If you type ‘orang-utan’ and ‘satyr’ into a search engine there is lots of ‘stuff’ about the mythical connection between the two.
A lector is a teacher – EATE(n) taken lunch ‘briefly’ goes outside the teacher
It is always a delight to click on the FT puzzles site and find an IO and today was a lovely treat of a puzzle. Far too many favourites to list while I’m pretending to work.
Thanks to IO and PeeDee too
15a WAISTCOAT. May I hazard an explanation?
Winding in and out – appearing at intervals in the word – of ASCOT is WIT – the word ‘with’ with H (Henry) covered up, deleted – and also A.
Phew…
Rishi@1-I had that for 8d
22 I had FLAB-BERG a ST.
Havent parsed 15 apart from ASCOT*
And wrote on SPA and SILVERERS for the 27’s DOH!
Great puzzle- as was Screw.
15ac is an anagram (Winding in and out) of ‘Ascot… with a’ minus the h for Henry (covered up).
17ac Orang -utan were once associated with Satyrs and were seen as aggressive, so bellicose may fit here I think.
8d I don’t clearly understand the clue either, although ‘ate’ must be the had lunch. Lector to do with a lecturer? Or a reader?
Agree this was a struggle but quite a satisfying solve in the end.
Thanks a lot Io and PeeDee.
Thanks PeeDee
There is some wordplay for 17ac – SA (it) TYR (being bellicose). Tyr was an old Norse war god and so could be described as a ‘bellicose being’.
And who is ‘The little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat?’
Thanks to all for the help with the explanations and especially Steven for pointing out the theme which passed by by completely.
You might want to tweak your recent addition of the theme to your introduction as I’m sure today is only the 1st June 😉
I had a feeling he’d used the black velvet waist-coated gentleman before:
http://www.fifteensquared.net/2014/01/30/independent-8516-nimrod/
and I was right!
crypticsue – what a shame about the date. I was looking through Wikipedia for some anniversary date to go with the puzzle, spotted 1st of Ju.. and the rest is history, as they say.
Thanks again to everyone pointing out the ghost theme. there are often added extras in any of JH’s puzzles.
Excellent puzzle as always from one of the best in the business. Missed the theme totally, alas. I did wonder about the inclusion of NINE YEARS as an answer but failed to investigate further.
I still don’t quite get 1 across. I’m probably being stupid but in what context does A = BY?
I think it’s meant to be one usage of AKIN.
Yes, that makes sense. Thanks!
Would not have finished that in a million years and frankly, looking at some of the answers, not 100% satisfying with the contrived or obscure definitions. However, brilliant effort by the team here to come up with the answers and manage to parse them too! Need to do a bit of deeper thinking next time I try a Io puzzle.
A brilliant effort by the team indeed AFWard @16, especially to come up with so many plausible but unintended links to (the cause of the death of) King William, e.g. NINE YEARS – that’s what the late great Araucaria would have called serendipity.
Until Cryptic Sue reminded me, I’d forgotten the previous puzzle, in which the theme was more specific. The little blighter is shown in his appropriate colour (breaking the stride of KW’s horse) in today’s solution, so many thanks to the ed for that – and to all who commented and speculated.
Here’s to…
John
Thanks Io (and for dropping by) and PeeDee
Dodged this until the weekend … and what a delight !!! As hard as it was, there was always something there to keep one chipping away at it. I must confess for the help of a word finder in about half a dozen clues here – of the 2-3 that generated a suitable answer, there was still a whole pile of work to justify why it was !
Managed to parse all except the OG (own goal) of 1d, so was very happy with that – cos it was hard work – an elapsed three hours !!!
Further to the SATYR clue – ‘orang-utan’ is Malaysian for man of the forest – that should suffice on it’s own to define the woodland creatures (with the ? to give the benefit of the doubt to man=creature (generically)). Then there is no need to work belligerent in to the definition.
Don’t think that there was a dud clue amongst the lot of them – a couple of easier ones such as VISOR, KING and TAMPA to keep one going. Finished in the central band of the grid with ODD MEN OUT, ODOUR (in an unusual context of the word) and that SATYR as the last few in.
Always apprehensive when I see that name in the banner – you know you’re in for a good fight … fishing for marlin and not trout here for sure … and always good to land them !!! Another boat leaving with Saturday’s Guardian prize … so I’ll repair the kit and get ready again! 🙂
Thanks PeeDee and Io.
I completed this but felt like I’d been through the mill and still couldn’t fully explain SATYR, EON (I couldn’t find Eo in any of my on-line tools), or ICINESS.
And of course I missed the theme.
Because this was right at the extreme top of my capability, and so had to grind it out, I cannot claim to have enjoyed it (doing it on a sticky day in London probably hasn’t helped).
But immense respect to Io and to all of you that fully parsed this one. And thanks again to PeeDee for your lucid explanations.