Bonxie, cor, not seen that name in many a month.
A veritable election special here with some very unusual cluing in places, not really sure about 18’s definition though.
Across
N(umber) X (ten) both in (g)aiety
TWEE(t) is short
Without U (for everyone) KIP = REST & STOPS = suspends, transatlantic means US version
As in the Welsh Nats, double def
CAFF & german for a (EINE)
DIE (singular of dice) & (vo)T(e) (last but 1 letter)
POE’S & fourth letter of (jul)Y
Double def, first being for shots of spirits
[IS RACIST]* organised. Now the definition has me non-plussed – is this just a joke about UKIP being a bunch of dinosaurs or is there something whizzing over my head here? [Edit: indeed the whooshing noise is explained below, thanks Cookie]
L(abour)’s leader in CAVE (hole), I guess a new birth creates a new head (poll)
OVER (set of balls) & POWER (might)
G.I. ( a grunt in the US army) & B(efore)E
HAL (man) & YARD (3 feet)
RES(earch) around PAIR (two zero scores in cricket)
Down
[WARD OSBORNE]* off
LIFER (prisoner) & AFT (back)
RATS (blast) reversed – flipping & ED (miliband)
Well well this surprised me. A CLEG is a horsefly so CLEG broadcast audibly is CLEGG = Lib Dem leader.
Double def
Initial letters of Policies Environment And Sustainability
DACRES* tricked & COW (galloway – type of)
OR following P.R. (proportional representation) & 1
Hidden reversed answer
PASS (to vote for – passing a motion) & PORT (left)
TEL (phone) & MARGE (Mrs Simpson) reversed
AYE twice
Whimsical def, 0 removed from CAMER(o)N* rattled
T(ime) removed from (t)OKAY
B is BORON less the O gives BORN (b)
18a, FAR AGE constituents?
I like Cookie’s explanation @1, although it didn’t occur to me, I just went for the obvious “UKIP members are dinosaurs” line. Good puzzle, a welcome return. Thanks, Flashling, for the blog. That’s the second time “the other” Mrs. Simpson has come up in as many weeks (can’t remember where else it was) so this time I wasn’t caught out by it.
Thanks flashling. The politics, fun for UK residents, was an unhelpful distraction for others – eg HORSEFLY, gettable despite the clue. Distracted, I failed on 18A.
Thanks Bonxie and PeterO.
I felt trapped in this grid, it seemed like a maze; ANXIETY did not help. However, the crossword was fun.
Needed aid with parsing REST STOP, GIBE and HORSEFLY.
I did like the ‘slugs for children’, CALVE and TELEGRAM (caught out with Wallace for a while!).
typo 15a, DIE (singular of dice) {fixed ta}
Very enjoyable – and I found it quite tough overall.
18a I agree with Cookie @1.
4d my first thoughts were Hore-Belisha (who was a Liberal) but I couldn’t get rid of Belisha and couldn’t generate FLY. It was later, by elimination, that I thought: He must have a crack at Cleggie somewhere surely – and resolved it.
Many thanks setter and blogger.
Re 20across: Red Poll is a breed of cattle; “poll” in this context means cattle without horns.
Haven’t we seen a lot of snowboarders recently?
Thanks Bonxie, you can’t get away from the election, it’s everywhere!
Thanks flashling, I didn’t know cleg but solved it anyway thinking Derby candidates were horses that fly. đŸ˜‰ BORN had the old periodic table trick, which I saw eventually.
I like REST STOPS & HORSEFLY, now I know its derivation.
@4, apologies flashling and PeterO, I hadn’t woken up properly and thought it was yesterday!
I found this hard work and I almost resorted to aids. My last six answers took as long as the rest of the puzzle combined. These were ANXIETY, STARED, REST STOPS, GROOVE, REPAIRS and BORN. A good mental workout nonetheless.
Thanks to flashling for the blog.
19d had me puzzled: how does AYE=tree hugger?
[Off topic: 19d reminded me of the Matt cartoon on the front of today’s Daily Torygraph. It showed a scene in a submarine (presumably Trident) where the captain says to the lookout “I don’t care about the Russians but alert me if you see a small Scottish woman”]
chas@11 – “aye” doesn’t. An AYE-AYE is an arboreal squirrel-like nocturnal lemur from Madagascar and it most definitely can be described as a tree-hugger.
chas – the tree-hugger is the Aye-aye. The single “aye” is “Nicola Sturgeon‘s vote”.
Thanks for the blog, flashling.
Late to the party today. What a super puzzle! Really clever cluing throughout, with too many favourites to list – most enjoyable.
Welcome back, Bonxie, and many thanks.
Nice to see Bonxie back for the first time since I’ve been commenting here! Found this quite tricky in places, and couldn’t parse HORSEFLY – last in was REST STOPS. Liked TRIASSIC…
Thanks to Bonxie and flashling
Thanks to Andy B: I must try to remember this animal.
Andrew @14: I was happy with Nicola Sturgeon voting Yes=AYE it was the tree-hugger that fooled me.
I see Bonxie’s last puzzle before this one drew a mere 9 comments here – that doesn’t happen these days!
http://www.fifteensquared.net/2013/10/12/guardian-26071-bonxie/
Very happy to welcome Bonxie back and I hope we’ll see him on a more regular basis.
He defeated me in the SE corner, as I didn’t know GI = grunt, nor that a pair of ducks was a cricketing term, and with the absence of crossers my mind went blank on the fake mathematical formula.
Among my favourites were 10a, where the party was irrelevant, and 18a, where Nigel was irrelevant.
I hesitated over 20d, because I couldn’t what “Fat” had to do with – it is presumably there for the sake of the surface
Hi beery hiker @18
The last one was a Prize puzzle and, for various reasons, they rarely attract so many comments. The Bonxie puzzles immediately prior to that one drew 43, 35, 32, 43, 45 comments.
Sorry to hear you’re not coming on Saturday.
Mac – it’s not over till the fat lady sings
Thanks to Bonxie and especially to flashling for the parsing. I had lots of problems here – and not only because of election-related items. E.g., I missed the B-Boron link and got PLAID but not the double definition. The TRIASSIC anagram emerged but not the “far age,” and I missed the kip in UKIP (or was neatly misled). I did get HORSEFLY but without the Clegg connection. GI-grunt finally came to me for GIBE, but I was defeated by the “pairs” from cricket for REPAIRS.
Eileen @20 – yes, I’m sorry I can’t make it too, but I’m sure you’ll all enjoy Cambridge, and I’ll probably be up for the next one whenever and wherever that is.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that Bonxie prize was the last Guardian puzzle with a single figure comment count – there certainly haven’t been any so far this year.
I did this last night during a hockey game (on TV)–mostly during intermissions, though I did manage to get a few answers in during boring stretches of play. Fortunately, the game went to triple overtime, so I was able to get it done before the final goal. That was past 1 a.m. Chicago time, but I was not in any shape to stay up until this blog dropped!
There were many answers that I had to enter without parsing. HORSEFLY, REST STOPS (which I had parsed incorrectly), and GIBE. I also incorrectly figured, as Flashling did, that the TRIASSIC clue was an editorializing dig at the UKIP folks.
New knowledge for the day: “Rest stop” is an Americanism. (I’ve never driven in Britain–it would drive me mad, I’m sure.)
I found this rather difficult and none the worse for that but I really didn’t like TRIASSIC.It was clearly an anagram but I thought the suggested parsing far too loose. Managed to work out AYE AYE and CALVE. I knew that poll had something to do with cattle but I did have to look it up. I didn’t manage to parse REST STOPS so thanks for that. LOI was PEAS which unaccountably took me a long time to get.
Thanks Bonxie
Really enjoyed this, although it took some time and I failed on BORN. Favourites were POESY, OVERPOWER, SACRED COW and REST STOPS. Thanks to Bonxie and flashling.
I didn’t finish this as I got stuck in the bottom left corner by partially inserting a wrong answer in 24. I was trying to come up with a man’s name to follow TRIP (tackle) to give a possibly obscure word meaning ‘with three feet’, e.g. TRIPART, TRIPERN, TRIPEDD, etc…. I even pondered the unlikely sounding TRIPHAL without for a moment considering that I had the clue bass-ackwards. I also ‘solved’ REST STOPS and HORSEFLY without getting the wordplay, so Kudos to Bonxie for the fun, and thanks to flashling for the explanations.
jeceris @ 21
I got the reference – that is what I meant by it only being there for the surface!
My quibble is that the ladies in Carmen are not fat.
Thanks, flashling.
Good fun, and great to see Bonxie back in the saddle.
I started well but slowed down considerably toward the end (LOI = DIET). Theme is handled skilfully and elegantly, with both good surfaces and (largely) straightforward constructions, together with a lot of humour.
Favourites were TRIASSIC, OVERPOWER and LIFE RAFT.
This will probably be my last post before Saturday – hope to see some of you there.
Thanks all, just a reminder that we have a get together this Saturday in Cambridge, see the announcements. Were expecting about 50 attendees but anyone who fancies a day of beer chat beer crosswords quizzes beer and more beer.
Ok beer isn’t obligatory but it’s a social do and a chance to meet some like minded folks and look around the lovely city.
[flashling@30 going to the Castle and not sampling their fine beers would be a crime]
I’ve had a busy day, so I’ve only just finished this puzzle. The SE corner stumped me for a very long time, but I finally got BORN and then, just as I was going to give up and use a word finder, REPAIRS in the sense of withdrawing to another room leapt out at me.
I got REST STOPS but I justified the UKIP as “U (you) KIP” = REST and thought perhaps Bronxie was stretching to get UKIP into the puzzle somehow. Sorry, Bronxie, I should have realised you had a better reason, and thank you, flashling, for the correct explanation. Parsing TRIASSIC beat me too. I got the word but not the “Far age”. Instead I spent far too long trying to find a geological explanation connecting Thanet (where Farage hopes his future constituents live) with the Triassic, such as hoping that perhaps the Isle of Thanet split away from the Kent mainland during the Triassic period (it was much, much later).
I particularly like HORSEFLY and AYE-AYE.
I did look to see if thanet was a good reason but the far age bit got me, well done Bonxie, wasn’t expecting a device like that in the definition.
MRG @28, there is some play here about fat ladies and Carmen. I was hoping someone would explain it …there is a Simpson connection…
“It’s not over till the fat lady sings”
I had always thought this was a description of a tedious night at the opera – think Wagnerian heroines, all bosom and bullhorn helmets – but Google indicates there is debate about this.
My (very) minor quibble with this fun crossword came with 6dn. It had to be PEAS but, to me, greens are overcooked watery smelly vegetables from the brassica family which one was exhorted to eat by one’s elders on the grounds of “they’re good for you”. Well, maybe. Some readers of this site may find the following amusing, most will be repelled:
Q. What’s the difference between Brussels sprouts and snot?
A. You can’t get children to eat Brussel sprouts.
I’ve been in several productions of Carmen and never with a fat leading lady. The lazy vague opera reference couldn’t be less applicable.
Didn’t enjoy the crossword. Too many strained explanations and obscure words or abbreviations for me. Won’t try Bonxie again!
The CARMEN Opera Singer was a soprano who played a character in Carmen at the Springfield Opera House. When Homer asked when the show would end, Bart replied “It’s not over till the fat lady sings”. Homer then points to her and says “Is that one fat enough for you, son?”.
Simpson’s Episode, “Bart the Genius”. I think Homer was bored and wanted to leave.
mark @36, probably the clue 20d is hinting at the possibility of the show being over for Cameron.
Incidentally, the Carmen Opera Singer character, apart form being fat, has grey hair…