A new setter for me, I think, and a very decent puzzle, too. Thank-you, Armonie. Apologies for my brevity…
ACROSS
1. INDIFFERENT In [on good terms] + different [another story]
7. BOP B [second-rate] + op [opus, work]
9. LARGE Hidden in molecuLAR GEnetics
10. POSTULATE Post [picket] + u [university] + late [unpunctual]
11. PUNCH BOWL Punch [abusive husband (as in Punch and Judy)] + bowl [deliver, in cricket]
12. PANIC An [one] in pic [photograph]
13. NEEDLES Needles(s) [unwanted]
15. NUTS Double definition
18. AMPS A + MP’s [representative’s]
20. BARMAID B [bishop] + arm [might, strength] + aid [help]
23. HOTEL Anagram of lo(a)the
24. SHORTFALL Short [squat] + fall [collapse]
26. EVERGREEN Ever [increasingly] + green [naive]
27. SCANT Scan [screening] + t [time]
28. DID DI [Detective Inspector] + d [dead]
29. TO THE LETTER Anagram of ethel within totter [scrap dealer]
DOWN
1. ILL-SPENT Anagram of ten pills
2. DERANGED Rang [called] within deed [action]
3. FRESH Double definition
4. EMPLOY Ploy [tactic] within ems [measures]
5. EPSILON Reversal of lisp [speech defect] within eon [time]
6. TRUMPETER T(o) + rum [drink] + Peter [disciple]
7. BRAINS In [at home] within bras [supporters]
8. PIERCE Pier [support] + CE [Church of England, Anglican]
14. LIMELIGHT Lime [tree] + light [fire]
16. CATARACT Double definition
17. IDOLATER Anagram of oil trade
19. SUSPECT US [American] + P [parking] within sect [camp]
20. BROWNIE Own [individual] within brie [cheese]
21. THREAD Anagram of hatred
22. ATTEND A + TT [bike race] + end [finish]
25. TASTE S [society] within Tate
Lovely puzzle with some great clues. 11ac is a classic
Thanks Armonie for an enjoyable crossword with some lovely smooth surfaces – my favourite was 20ac. Thanks also to Ringo for the blog.
6dn: The one blemish on this puzzle for me. I cannot accept “first to” as a satisfactory indication of T. The nearest I can get to a justification of this device is by analogy with (say) “1st November” being short for “first of November”, but to me that is context specific. As always, I have no quarrel with those whose preferences differ from mine.
Armonie is Chifonie from the Guardian.
Pelham i was dubious about first to being t but i really don’t mind the device. Was surprised Ringo hasn’t come across the setter before but thanks both.
29. To the letter
The wordplay suggests that scrap dealer is “totter.”
Shouldn’t that be “Trotter” which is the name of the two main characters
(scrap dealers) in “Only Fools and Horses”, an old TV series?
Very nice puzzle. Top left took a while to finish.
@PB
6d I thought “first to” for T was a nice bit of misdirection – obviously our first thought was D.
It’s the same as the first lady for L argument.
To anyone steeped in maths/computer languages etc wordplay evaluation is a mathematical process.
On the cryptic reading the words are variously functions, operators and parameters.
[partial answer ] = first(lady)
What does the function first() do?
Well – there’s not much else it can do – it returns the first letter of the supplied parameter.
Of course the funny thing is that when you read it out loud most people will read first(lady) as “first of lady”.
Bsrbara@5: Chambers 2011 gives totter² scrap dealer (among other meanings): it is found as an agent noun under tot³.
JS@6: I stand by the last sentence of my comment @2.
Barbara @5
More about Totter
Full article at Scrap Metal Forum: http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/off-topic-discussions/7155-scrapping-through-ages-from-totters-scrappers.html#ixzz2m1aGarzt
A totter is a rag-and-bone collector.
The totters’ name is from the old slang term tot for a bone, as in the nineteenth-century tot-hunter, a gatherer of bones, a word also used as a term of abuse; both may come from the German tot, dead.
Totters were once a familiar sight in the streets of every town and city in Britain, often announcing their presence with the ringing of a handbell and the cry of “rags, bones, bottles” that had been so often repeated it had been reduced to a hoarse, inarticulate shout. The original totters, of nineteenth-century Britain, really did collect rags and bones, among other items. The former were sold to a rag merchant who sold them on to firms that reprocessed them into the cheap material called shoddy. The latter were the remnants of families’ meals, which were sent to firms that rendered them down for glue. Some even swept out the fireplaces and ovens of the more prosperous households, sifting out the ashes to sell to soap-makers and selling on the half-burnt coals and logs to those in need of cheap fuel. It was recycling at its most basic.
Later, the cry was often “any old iron”, commemorated in a famous music-hall song. By the early 1960s, when BBC Television produced Steptoe and Son about two rag-and-bone men in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, the totting trade in its old form was pretty much extinct: nobody wanted rags and bones any more. The men of that period and later were scrap merchants, picking up any unwanted item of junk that looked as though it might be worth a few coins.
Before mass transport (and long before regular bin men) he would not only collect unwanted materials but supply those unwanted objects to others who needed them. He was the original recycler. Household bones, for example, were sold on to be boiled down to produce glue and bone meal fertilizer. The rags were *re-used to make cheap cloth known as “shoddy” or paper.
He would frequently ring a hand bell to announce his arrival – a hangover from the Great Plague of London in 1665 when carters rang a bell and cried “bring out your dead” – so that householders had enough time to put their junk outside for collection. And often the horse would be festooned with *balloons, which he gave to children in exchange for old rags. Over the years those rags – which were liable to spread diseases – and the bones gave way to unwanted metal objects (bedsteads, prams, lawnmowers and the like).
Despite this change many of the old timers would still cry “rag ’n’ bone”, while in my street in East London my merchant with his cart pulled by a shire horse would shout: “Rag and bone, donkey and stone.”
Totting:”In the Victorian days, totters used to get money for rags and bones, “If people had roast joints, the rag-and-bone men would collect the leftovers to make glue and soap. Bones were used for oil and soap. People collected bottles. Bottles and bones. Anything was saleable: mattresses, rubber tyres, inner tubes. Iron was four shillings a hundredweight.”
Hello, all.
@ Pelham and Swagman: I’m with Pelham on this; I don’t find it quite satisfactory.
@ Flashling: I did wonder if this was Chifonie in another guise, but didn’t have time to check. Big fan of Chifonie’s work but think this was the first time I’d met him in the FT.
@ N_R: thanks for the background; I had to look up “totter” in Partridge’s Slang Dictionary.
A superb puzzle. Surface readings were air-tight and limpid; some of the best I’ve seen in any 15×15 for ages. Very skilful cluemanship using minimal complexity: all clues in 1 or 2 printed lines. Well done that setter!