Some good Puckish fun today…
… with a bit of a numerical theme around the boundary. I’m baffled by 26a – commenters to the rescue please.. Thanks to Puck
| Across | ||||||||
| 1. | ONE AND THE SAME | The very thing I do? (3,3,3,4) ONE (I) + DO (ditto – the same) |
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| 10. | HYPERTEXT | What links husband with awfully pretty ex (9) H + (PRETTY EX)* |
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| 11. | GET TO | Reach deprived area with no hospital (3,2) GHETTO less H |
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| 12. | EPOCH | What about political correctness around “old age“? (5) O[ld] in PC in EH (“what?”) |
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| 13. | ALEXANDER | A regular swimmer’s taken by to see the old king (9) A + X (by, as in multiplication) in LEANDER (who swam the Hellespont every night) |
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| 14. | DULLEST | Least exciting airport to start from (7) DULLES (airport serving Washington DC) + T[o] |
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| 16. | TOBACCO | Commander and navigator retired for shag? (7) Reverse of OC + CABOT |
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| 18. | YAMMERS | Complains noisily, if sweet potato gets immersed after two peelings (7) YAM + [im]MERS[ed]. Technically Yam and Sweet Potato do not mean the same thing, except in some parts of the USA |
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| 20. | SEXTANT | How’s your father to beat time as part of a circle? (7) SEX (“how’s your father”) + TAN + T |
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| 21. | VIENTIANE | 9 ate out after 6 in Asian capital (9) VI + (NINE ATE)* – Vientiane is the unlikely-looking capital of Laos (its spelling is of French origin): useful to know for pub quizzes.. |
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| 23. | DEBAR | Exclude being served by rude baristas (5) Hidden in ruDE BARistas |
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| 24. | NADIR | Darn it! Whipping time — poor bottom! (5) (DARN IT)* less (“whipping”) T |
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| 25. | OLIVE TREE | Source of peace symbol appearing as repeated note by tenor in musical (5,4) T in OLIVER + E E |
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| 26. | TWO LITTLE BOYS | Those keeping note of regnal number? (3,6,4) I have absolutely no idea what this is about – it’s the title of the song made famous by Rolf Harris, so perhaps “number” is the definition, but otherwise…Thanks to Rullytully and JuneG for the explanation: the TWO LITTLE BOYS are Reg and Al, who are “keeping” a “note” (n) in Reg(n)Al |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 2. | NO PROBLEM | Don’t worry, if some reported missing? (2,7) If the “sum” is missing then there is “no problem” |
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| 3. | AARGH | Oh no, that’s horrible as Hagar (5) HAGAR* – a reference to the cartoon strip “Hagar the Horrible” (which, I’ve just discovered, should have an umlaut on the first A) |
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| 4. | DIE CAST | Made in the mould of a Conservative rising at beginning of speech in parliament (3-4) Reverse of (A C) + S in DIET |
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| 5. | HOT SEAT | Tricky place to put sexy bottom (3,4) HOT (sexy) + SEAT (bottom) |
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| 6. | SIGNAL BOX | … includes a short new blog about red light area? (6,3) (A N BLOG)* in SIX (the clue number), with a quirky defintion – the signalman might set red lights |
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| 7. | MUTED | Quiet time, briefly, before playing duet (5) M (minute, I suppose) + DUET* |
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| 8. | THREE-DAY EVENT | Badminton, say, for the long weekend? (5-3,5) Double definition – the Badminton Horse Trials are a three-day event (in the technical horsey sense); and a long weekend might last three days |
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| 9. | FOUR-POSTER BED | Boundary sign on border out here, perhaps (4-6,3) FOUR (boundary, in cricket) + POSTER (sign) + BED (border, in a garden) – you might be “out”, i.e. asleep, in one of these |
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| 15. | ELECTORAL | Exam initially chosen for a type of college in the US (9) ELECT (chosen – too close to the meaning of the full answer for my taste) + ORAL (exam) |
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| 17. | CRANBERRY | Lament about surprisingly barren bush (9) BARREN* in CRY |
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| 19. | SEAPORT | It’s key to adult having fun around Hull or Grimsby, say (7) E (key) + A in SPORT (fun) |
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| 20. | SPECIAL | Battered plaice’s a dish not on the menu (7) PLAICES* – specials are dishes served by pubs that are (usually) written on blackboards rather than the main menu |
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| 22. | ENDOW | Leave from 19 down (5) Hidden in nineteEN DOWn |
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| 23. | DWEEB | Dead small and born a fool (5) D + WEE +B |
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Is 26a Reg(n)Al,ie 2 little boys with n for note inserted, the definition being “number”?
Thanks Rullytully for putting me out of my misery.
@Rullytully – brilliant, obvious in retrospect.
Thank you for the blog, Andrew. I was baffled by 26a too, but it’s just dawned on me that Reg & Al are two short boys’ names and they’re keeping note (n) – not sure where the “of” fits in. The whole is, as you say, a song.
A bit of a challenge today, but much to like. Thank you Puck.
Oops! Sorry to cross, Rullytulllly @1 – I had trouble submitting.
Thanks Rullytully and JuneG!
Rullytully@1-thanks for the Reg n Al parsing
Dunno if I love it or hate it.
This was made difficult for me for not solving 1a until later
Loved it though.
Some weeks ago, the Indian newspaper, The Hindu, carried a cryptic crossword in which some lights had numbers in words just as in this puzzle.
Thanks for the blog, Andrew.
I don’t think I would ever have got 26ac – I stared at it for long enough – so many thanks to Rullytully and JuneG. 1ac took a while to see, too – a real penny-dropping moment.
I enjoyed the devices in 6 and 22dn particularly. Both involve numbers [21ac, too] which made me wonder whether there was a bit more going on.
Witty surfaces throughout, as usual from Puck – all in all, a fun solve. Many thanks, Puck – I really enjoyed it.
Many thanks to Puck and Andrew. Great fun even though some of the parsing baffled me. Wasted some time trying to think of a five letter word for “darn it” as I thought the end “r” derived from “poor bottom”.
I shall now unfortunately have 26ac going through my head all day, darn it …
Thank you Puck and Andrew.
I enjoyed this puzzle. I failed to solve 9d, and I actually sleep in one, and to parse 26a, thank you Rullytully and JuneG.
ENDOW was really good, no complaints yet? I thought of a homophone “endhow” at first, but there is no word other than embark for going aboard a ship, even though “entrain” can mean to get on a train.
Thanks to Puck and Andrew. I had a lot of trouble parsing the longer clues, not only TWO LITTLE BOYS but also FOUR-POSTER BED (I did not get the “four” from cricket), NO PROBLEM, and ONE AND THE SAME. NADIR was last in because initially I did not catch “whipping” as an anagram indicator. Still, lots of fun.
Lots of inventive cluing.
Don’t like “sum” being equated with “problem”, though. Is that a local usage?
Oddly enough I saw 26a fairly early on but couldn’t explain it. The best known singer of this song being, now, in disgrace I found it highly unlikely so I came to 225 to see what everyone else thought. A fair clue though. Thanks Andrew and Puck
I’m another who couldn’t parse 26ac for the life of me. So happy this site exists… Thanks all.
To say that 26 is ‘obvious in retrospect’ is, with respect, absurd.
Fun solve – as expected.
I think I find medium-hard curly puzzles easier than medium-easy plain ones. Maybe it’s because, after a few, you pick the setter’s wavelength – so you’re on the qui vive – and you know what to look for.
22d we were ready for – having had one like that yesterday. Not wishing to boast but I twigged 26a – well – I thought I did – but AAGH (3d) – I now see (#4) that “of” is unaccounted for. Oh great – thanks so much – now I won’t get a wink of sleep for worrying.
Thanks S&B
Easy enough to fill the grid, but I gave up the parsing of TWO LITTLE BOYS and a couple of the others needed a bit of thought. All quite entertaining
Thanks to Puck and Andrew
Thanks Puck and Andrew
26a was obviously TWO LITTLE BOYS from the crossers, but I too had no idea how it worked, and am not all that impressed by the clue now I know (though I am impressed by those who saw it). I too will now have the appalling Rolf Harris song (punctuate as required) in my head for the rest of the day.
I wasted a lot of time trying to make an anagram (“perhaps”?) of BORDER OUT HERE for 9d – all the crossing letters are there. I only got on the right lines by deciding that the only possible first word was HOUR, then checking to discover that it wasn’t.
All enjoyable, though.
Unsure of 4D – th link between ‘diet’ and ‘parliament’. Also still struggling to ‘get’ 1A. A few new words and names or me, including yammers,Vientiane and Leander. And is it just me, or is Puck’s smut-o-meter off the scale this week? Quite off-putting at first and a bit tiresome, really.
bobloblaw @20
It seems that you haven’t come across every schoolboy history student’s favourite parliament, the Diet of Worms!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_of_Worms
muffin @21
every day an education!
Started out steadily and then it fell into place quite quickly. Excellent fare for patio lunch. Currently 29°C in the shade and, as they say, there ain’t no shade! Thanks to Puck and Andrew.
My favourite was EPOCH.
I was unable to fully parse 2d, 26a, 6d, 13a, 9d.
Thanks Puck and Andrew
The solutions were quite easy but the parsing was very difficult. Both TWO LITTLE BOYS and FOUR POSTER BED eluded me until coming here, but others needed some thought as BH says. I liked HOT SEAT,DWEEB and THREE DAY EVENT-the latter got me started. I think this rather cleverer than I first thought.
I haven’t completed yesterday’s puzzle yet- too many political distractions- but I note the high number of responses to it. I’ll see how I get on with what seemed a rather difficult puzzle.
Anyway, thanks Puck.
This time it was the NE corner that gave me problems. Since I was convinced that 5d was HOT SPOT, ALEXANDER was bound to elude me. Not my best couple of days.
JohnNM @13, having arrived in the UK 20 years ago from across the pond, and long after the subject was relevant to me, I have gleaned that “sum” is used in schools in the UK (I assumed throughout, but correct me if wrong) to refer to any sort of arithmetic problem, whereas in the US it could refer only to addition — and it would refer only to the solution rather than the question, though in “working out the sum” it comes close to transferring to the whole problem.
In India too we use ‘sum’ to refer to any math problem, not just addition.
A tough puzzleI kept getting distracted by interruptions and forgot to go back to finish parsing ALEXANDER, NO PROBLEM and SIGNAL BOX, but I’m not convinced I would have got them even if I’d remembered. I’ve no excuse for FOUR-POSTER BED, though, as I spent a long time trying to explain it and totally failed even though I see now that it was very fairly clued. As for TWO LITTLE BOYS, I understand the clue thanks to Rullytully @1 and JuneG @4, but I can’t imagine how anyone managed to go from clue to parsing.
Favourites are ONE AND THE SAME (once the penny finally dropped) and HYPERTEXT.
Thanks, Puck and Andrew.
Lots of solve first and fail to parse later. 26a of course (I thought I remembered that this was one HM’s favourites which might have explained “regnal”) and also 13a – did anyone first think “regular swimmer” that must be Leander?
Pino @30, I am one of the dumbest solvers, but LEANDER immediately came to mind – perhaps we have had him somewhere recently – just checked and we did in another Puck puzzle in June.
bobloblaw @20
I’ve only just got 1ac myself.
I = ONE
do = abbreviation for ditto = THE SAME
Mike
Puck is always good fun – and this no exception. Exactly as a great crossword should be. Thank you both (26ac a lovely construction that foxed me for a long while – I love it when that happens!)
Thanks Andrew and Puck.
Fun and creative. I really enjoyed this – especially ONE AND THE SAME and SIGNAL BOX and only failed to parse 26ac – so I’m in good company.
Ref 15dn, don’t we have Electoral Colleges in Blighty too?
Thanks Puck and Andrew
Pleased to say that the puzzle lost none of it’s enjoyment being done three months later. Lots of interesting clue devices, even if three of them played a variation on a theme with the use of numerals that needed to be converted into words to become part of the wordplay – each with an original take – enjoyed them a lot.
Was pleased to have lost phone signal with the last half dozen clues still to go – managed to derive all of the answers. As others have said, many of them the parsing was as hard as finding the word in the first place. Also did not work out why TWO LITTLE BOYS was the answer … apart from it being a song and the only thing that would fit into the grid.
Finished in the NE corner with FOUR-POSTER BED (which took some time to drop), ALEXANDER (guessed that it should be the answer for quite a while, but couldn’t convince myself why till much later) and HOT SEAT (after eventually fixing up ONE AND THE SAME (originally had written in ONE AND ONE ONLY).
Very satisfying as per normal from this setter.