Firstly, many thanks to Gaufrid, who has been standing in for us while we were away.
Hob definitely gave us the run-around today. It took us longer than normal to complete the puzzle and there were a few that took both brains to sort out the parsings. We’re still not happy with our thoughts on 11ac. Hopefully someone will be able to put us straight. Also, we are not confident about MIC being ‘Digital Appliances Ltd? in 26ac – the ‘gateway’ clue to two sets of thematic entries – one open and the other hidden.
Thanks Hob. 5ac was a favourite of Bert’s whilst Joyce was a regular reader of 9ac. We did however wonder why there was no reference to 26ac in 9ac, 21ac and 5D.
| Across | ||
| 1 | 26 has position with money | |
| JO BRAND | JOB (position) + RAND (money) | |
| 5 | Former 26 hero, another that’s desperate to get read about | |
| DAN DARE | DAN (a comic hero who was desperate, as in Desperate Dan) + anagram of READ (anagrind is ‘about’) | |
| 9 | 7-0? Party? | |
| BEANO | BEAN (actor, 7D as in Sean Bean) + O (zero) | |
| 10 | Worships round about 10, as ever | |
| VENERATES | An anagram of TEN AS EVER (anagrind is ‘round about’) | |
| 11 | Home team’s top in the second league as things begin | |
| INITIALLY | IN (home) T (first letter or ‘top’ of team) inside II (second) + ALLY (league) | |
| 12/27 | 26 has Friday night’s first clash with heckler? No end of cheek involved | |
| HARRY ENFIELD | An anagram of FRIDAY + N (first letter of Night’s) and HE |
|
| 13 | Family group with time for texting you in the toilet | |
| GENTS | GEN |
|
| 15 | Mixed-race Bury bishop, a socialist | |
| INTERBRED | INTER (bury) + B (bishop) + RED (socialist) | |
| 18/28 | Club offering drink and food between 10 and 12? | |
| TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR | The second part of this one really had us guessing – the first part is straightforward: TOT (drink) + HAM (food) round TEN (10). We can only assume that HOTSPUR refers to Sir Henry Percy (1364 – 1403) who was commonly known as Sir HARRY (12ac) Percy or ‘Hotspur’ – one of the hidden thematic entries. | |
| 19 | Is Barking where prog-rock band cut album? On the contrary | |
| YELPS | YES (prog-rock band) around LP (album) rather than the other way around | |
| 21 | 2 under tree a gleaner’s collected | |
| EAGLE | Hidden or ‘collected’ in the clue: treE A GLEaners | |
| 23 | The drag is being forced to perform without preparation | |
| SIGHT-READ | An anagram of THE DRAG IS (anagrind is ‘being forced’) | |
| 25 | 7 11 volunteers to follow Henry out of airport topless, the sausage! | |
| CHIPOLATA | A (‘actor initially’- 7d 11ac) + TA (volunteers) following |
|
| 26 | Funny business with Digital Appliances Ltd? | |
| COMIC | The gateway clue - CO (business) + MIC (is MIC is supposed to stand for ‘Digital Appliances Ltd?’ We can’t work out how – please help!) Thanks Herb for the parsing – the MIC is MIC |
|
| 27 | See 12 ac | |
| 28 | See 18 ac | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | Working casually, little woman in good books earlier | |
| JOBBING | JO (little woman) + IN with G (good) + BB (books) beforehand or ‘earlier’ | |
| 2 | One supporting unknown until knocked out by seed | |
| BRAZIL NUT | BRA (one supporting) + Z (unknown) + anagram of UNTIL (anagrind is ‘knocked out’) | |
| 3 | Oil spilt in main road in Mayo | |
| AIOLI | An anagram of OIL (anagrind is ‘spilt’) in AI (main road) | |
| 4 | Swimmer left his 5D out | |
| DEVILFISH | An anagram of L (left) HIS FIVE D (anagrind is ‘out’) | |
| 5 | Excellent characters for day on vacation? | |
| DANDY | D AND Y or the two characters left when the middle has been taken out of DaY or ‘vacated’ | |
| 6 | Throne room’s top tip, when troubled by extremely leaky wind | |
| NORTHERLY | An anagram of THRONE and R (room’s first letter or ‘top tip’) – anagrind is ‘troubled’ + LY the first and last or ‘extreme’ letters of LeakY | |
| 7 | Player, possibly 1D or 26, caught having roll-up outside | |
| ACTOR | C (caught) with ROTA (roll) reversed or ‘up’ outside | |
| 8 | Tried out unoriginal ideas? Yes | |
| ESSAYED | An anagram of |
|
| 14 | Dock worker rode around after Martin, the 26? | |
| STEVEDORE | An anagram of RODE (anagrind is ‘around’) after STEVE (the reference is to Steve Martin) | |
| 16 | Writing to doctor, ultimately putting blame on hospital X-ray machine | |
| 17 | TOMOGRAPHRELIEF MAP | TO + MO (doctor) + G (last letter of puttinG or ‘ultimately’) + RAP (blame) + H (hospital)It charts the ups and downs – of annual charity work by 26s?
A play on the fact that a relief map gives you the contours and various comics raise money via Comic Relief! Thanks to Gwep for pointing out the error and the omission. Apologies for the presentation – when you add things afterwards, you cannot align things correctly! |
| 18 | In Montmartre, a clergyman’s blandishments | |
| TREACLE | Hidden within the clue MonmarTRE A CLErgyman | |
| 20 | Cocktail a doctor’s drunk with ice | |
| SIDECAR | An anagram of A DR’S (doctor’s) and ICE (anagrind is ‘drunk’) | |
| 22 | Bother! No English fellow, Mel’s 26 partner | |
| GRIFF | GRI |
|
| 23 | Bear this up for 26 | |
| STAND | A play on the fact that if you add ‘up’ it could refer to a type of 26ac | |
| 24 | A church in Trinidad and Tobago is silent. Following on from various comments, we’ve now underlined ‘is’ in the definition! | |
| TACET | A + CE (church) inside TT (Trinidad and Tobago) | |
I thought the digital appliances (26a) were MICE – limited to MIC. I enjoyed this a lot and also found it quite hard; going back over the clues I found they were far more scrupulously constructed than I’d realised – though there are certainly some innovations!
DOH! Well done Herb. We will amend the blog later when we have more time.
Thanks, B&J, for blogging.
Unlike Herb, I didn’t enjoy this at all. I was on the point of throwing in the towel when I guessed BEANO, which gave me COMIC, and I did eventually finish it, but without being able to parse a good number of clues.
Here’s why I didn’t enjoy it. The gateway clue is really obscurely clued (yes, I know it’s clever, but it’s only clever when you’ve solved it). Let’s try 17dn to see if we can get the middle letter of the gateway clue. Oh dear, it references it. Elsewhere, there was so much cross-referencing that I was practically disappearing up my own arse and squeezing through a wormhole into a parallel universe where easier crosswords exist.
Someone in Another Place recently coined the term ‘compileritis’. I think this might be what he/she meant.
Thanks to Hob.
I mostly enjoyed this, although I share some of the frustration of K’s D that the amount of cross-referencing made it hard work to get going. It was probably a puzzle you enjoyed more once it was finished than while completing it. I didn’t understand the comic clue, which meant that even though I guessed it quickly, I didn’t write it in for a long time.
There was much to admire such as the cunning shown in using 5D as Five D rather than a reference to the grid entry.
It was pretty hard as you say, though I got on quite well using my aids (Sorta & Crosswordsolver).
Hotspur was a boys’ comic.
I have to admit that i saw ELP in the yelps but of course it doesnt quite parse.
Thought it was quite funny.
Yes, difficult to get into. Also exasperated for a while by multiple cross-referencing, entered COMIC without parsing and gradually got it all out, admiring the ingenuity of much of the wordplay, which, as some say, gives post-solve satisfaction or relief.
Talking of which, in the blog TOMOGRAPH is misnumbered and RELIEF MAP omitted.
Thanks to Hob and Bertandjoyce.
I must have been on Hob’s wavelength for the most part because I didn’t find it too tricky, although I admit that COMIC went in unparsed. The answer that opened up the puzzle for me was STEVEDORE and the reference to Steve Martin in its clue. I didn’t get the congratulatory message at the end and it took about 5 mins before I realised I had entered an unparsed “tacit” at 24dn, so I read the clue again and decided to trust the wordplay for TACET.
Took a while to get going as KsD said about going round in circles trying to find a clue you could cold solve. This leads to a very frustrating experience.
When I finally got going out was over quickly but I can understand many giving up on this.
There were some good things here and I did enjoy it, but I agree the crossword might have benefitted from the gateway clue being less obscure, given how much of the rest of the puzzle depended on it.
“Funny business by master in charge (5)” or something similar would have been enough I would have thought.
Clever and fun though, so thanks all three.
Haha…I’ve just found a Nina which must surely be accidental…
If you look at the grid and take the top left square, the top right, the middle(ish) right, middle(ish) left, bottom left and bottom right you get JESTER.
Would be lovely (particularly for me as I never spot them! 🙂 ) if it were intentional.
Definitely a bit of a slog, but I got there in the end, and without aids.
Curiously, I did it all except 5ac which I couldn’t see and then I had a visitor and some business to attend to. Came back to it four hours later, looked at the letters in the grid and immediately saw the answer. (Dan Dare was a favourite character of mine back in the sixties, and I still have all my old Eagles upstairs.)
I’m afraid I stuck in ‘tacit’ and left it.
Hotspur and Eagle were comics…a lot of people would be too young to remember them.
Good point Gerry why TACET when TACIT the more normal form would fit, it’s not like the theme uses it. It’s not a prize and no need to weed out the careless. Bit naughty really.
NB The definition for 24d is “is silent” – I think that makes it a better clue than if it was tacit (with def. “Silent”)
TACET translates as ‘is silent’ and so works perfectly if one includes ‘is’ in the definition.
Sorry Herb – you beat me to it!
Yes but that’s my point why have that answer which is rare, and not change the clue, it seems like “I’m being difficult for the sake of it” from the setter.
Dormouse @12 – Bert still has his Eagle comics too. He even bound them after learning how to do it in one of their articles!
I found the comments about some of these clues rather depressing – e.g. flashling @18 on TACET and Kathryn’s Dad @3 on COMIC. Both were excellent clues that avoided the obvious to give us a better puzzle (having a good gateway clue, to make the theme work well, is particularly important and Hob did brilliantly here – remember we have multiple ways in to such a clue; people often complain that the theme “collapses” if it’s too easy). Like hedgehoggy’s “compileritis”, but without even the suggestion that the clues have broken any rules, these criticisms are basically asking for setters to be more boring.
It was a really good puzzle.
Thanks Herb@20 – We tend to agree with you. Although we did not parse COMIC from the wordplay, we enjoyed the challenge and thought it was a very inventive puzzle.
Owing to an inordinately busy schedule I have only this morning tackled this one. I rather enjoyed it – a little different, but pleasant in that the sum was at least as good as the parts (if that makes any sense?!) Glad the hog wasn’t about! My first in, after DAN DARE, was COMIC which was sweetly clued (and received a, currently rare, tick) which perhaps helped my enjoyment. Though I agree with my esteemed gurus B & J about INITIALLY.
Many thanks to Hob!