With Dac we became used to Wednesdays being a fairly gentle day, and the gentleness continued after his death. Eimi evidently wants to call a halt to this, not for the first time I remember struggling with a Wednesday crossword once before. Today’s Filbert was I thought incredibly difficult certainly I took ages over it but that is no criticism. It is a first-rate crossword and there are some stunning clues. All the surfaces are good, nearly always conveying a pleasing image.
Definitions in chocolate, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.
Nina? You must be joking. I’ve used up all my energy getting this far. But I have looked a bit and can see nothing.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | PELMANISM | People generally entertained by deceptively simple memory test (9) |
| man [people generally] in *(simple) people younger than a certain age will surely know the matching card game that I played as a boy by some name other than ‘pelmanism’ and in fact this Wikipedia article doesn’t mention it, so was the card game just a fleeting thing? | ||
| 6 | PSHAW | Mum interrupts Dad with expression of contempt (5) |
| P(sh)a w | ||
| 9 | ON TAP | Some don’t appreciate being available 24/7 (2,3) |
| Hidden in dON’T APpreciate I dislike ‘some’ as a hidden indicator: it doesn’t mean ‘Some of the letters in the following:’ although by widespread use that is what it has come to mean perhaps it’s just a personal and irrational gripe | ||
| 10 | PARTNERED | Some geek full of energy played with … (9) |
| part [some] ner(E)d | ||
| 11 | EARNEST | … assurance to win tight set (7) |
| earn [win] *(set) | ||
| 12 | LEANDER | Cross channel swimmer not covered in fat rejected warning to stop (7) |
| lean [not covered in fat] (red)rev. the channel isn’t the one we tend to think of, but the Hellespont in the Greek legend of Hero and Leander | ||
| 13 | BUSMANS HOLIDAY | Leader of orchestra and his lady abroad, if following conductor, perhaps? (7,7) |
| busman [conductor, perhaps] (o{rchestra} his lady)*, &lit., the only trouble with which is that you don’t get many bus conductors nowadays | ||
| 17 | CONTRACT BRIDGE | Game of catch crossing over the road? (8,6) |
| contract [catch, as an illness] bridge [crossing over the road] | ||
| 21 | MUSCLED | Fool leaves class in thought, probably having done a lot of working out (7) |
| mus(cl{ass})ed | ||
| 23 | DOGWOOD | Tree with instruction not to sin, presumably including women (7) |
| do g(w)ood the ‘instruction not to sin, presumably’ is ‘do good’ another little thing that irritates me but probably few others is the use of ‘with’ as a link-word: how can ‘with’ properly indicate that the wordplay leads to the definition? | ||
| 25 | ASIA MINOR | During Christmas I am in Orpington, an exotic place SE of London (4,5) |
| Hidden in ChristmAS I AM IN ORpington well yes, Asia Minor is, amongst many other places, an exotic place SE of London hope I’m not missing something obvious here | ||
| 26 | LIEGE | Whopper filling found in recipes in Burger King? (5) |
| lie ge the ge is the filling found in the two occurrences of r in Burger a king is a sort of lord, or liege lord | ||
| 27 | THEFT | Tons to carry? Lifting that will get you in trouble (5) |
| t heft ‘that’ as in ‘which’ | ||
| 28 | EUPHRATES | Superheat boiling water (9) |
| (Superheat)* the River Euphrates is running water | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | PROVERBS | Show bank book (8) |
| prove [show] RBS [the Royal Bank of Scotland], and the whole a book of the Bible | ||
| 2 | LATER | Sell up when independence goes, not before (5) |
| (reta(I)l)rev. | ||
| 3 | APPLE TART | Sweet little program the work of creative types (5,4) |
| applet art very nice Filbert hasn’t clued ‘apple’ and ‘tart’, but has been more imaginative | ||
| 4 | IMPETUS | Force favourite stuffing into mouth, using spoon at first (7) |
| pet in i{nto} m(outh} u{sing} s(poon} | ||
| 5 | MORELLO | A little fruit Romeo traded, pocketing £50 (7) |
| ll [LL, the first of which is £, the second 50] in (Romeo)* | ||
| 6 | PUNKA | Fan first in line for the Sex Pistols, say? (5) |
| All the punks are queueing up for a Sex Pistols concert, and the first in line is punk A I learnt something there: a punka(h) as in a ‘punkah wallah’ was a fan used (especially in India) to keep someone cool | ||
| 7 | HIRED HAND | Temp visibly embarrassed to be welcomed by greeting cards (5,4) |
| hi (red) hand one’s hand in cards | ||
| 8 | WADERS | Pile of cash the queen’s protection against a rainy day? (6) |
| wad ER’s | ||
| 14 | SCOTS PINE | Tax back that might go into sawmill (5,4) |
| scot [tax] spine [back] again the nice splitting of the words as in 3dn | ||
| 15 | IRREGULAR | Extraordinary rear girl jiggles around for all to see (9) |
| (rear girl)* round U [the film category] | ||
| 16 | WEEDLESS | Wife with rash repelling husband, so nothing to do in bed? (8) |
| w {h}eedless nothing to do in the flower bed I’d have thought ‘weedless’ was a made-up word, but there it is in Collins | ||
| 18 | ANDANTE | Tiny spirals rise over volcano, climbing quite slowly (7) |
| (DNA)rev. (Etna)rev. the tiny spirals are DNA, the double helix | ||
| 19 | TIDE RIP | Rough ride through peak turbulence (4,3) |
| *(ride) in tip | ||
| 20 | IMPACT | Main road heading north jammed, according to report – a crash (6) |
| (M1)rev, “packed” | ||
| 22 | LIMIT | I will chase after lecturer’s cap (5) |
| I’m ‘it’ [I’m the chaser in the children’s game] after L | ||
| 24 | OVERT | Clear hint one missed (5) |
| overt{one} an overtone is a hint, presumably as in ‘the wine has overtones/hints of …’ | ||
Definitely south east of London with a few hours flying.
But Brick lane is exotic enough for me and you get a pint in the Pride of Spittlefields.
Didnt care much for P(SH)AW -some subtle US indicator maybe?
But many fun clues and no pushover-not at all.
Thanks all.
Not for the faint hearted but absolutely loved it. Struggled with a few clues but they all fell eventually with no recourse to aids. LIEGE & LIMIT both took some head-scratching but all the more enjoyable in the getting. PARTNERED gave rise to a chuckle (may have worked better as a homophone?).
Thanks to Filbert and John.
I too struggled, not without a little help from the excellent ‘What’s This Word’ app, I’m afraid. No problem with ‘pshaw’: it’s very often heard on this side of the pond these days, and the W is from ‘with’, not ‘Paw’. Very enjoyable nonetheless, so thanks Filbert and John.
First-rate, difficult and a very enjoyable stretch of the cryptic grey matter
Thanks to Filbert and John
As expected from Filbert, a stiff challenge. Thanks for explaining LIEGE, LIMIT and COVERT, all of which went in from def and crossers. I particularly liked the def for WEEDLESS and the excellent BUSMANS HOLIDAY.
Thanks to Filbert and John.
Very difficult and very good.
Looks like it is Thursday today ….
Definitely a struggle and we eventually had to use a wordfinder for PROVERBS – doh! But we did work out LIEGE and decided that 24dn had to be OVERT, though we couldn’t parse it. BUSMAN’S HOLIDAY was good (but when did you last see a bus with a conductor?) DOGWOOD came quite easily, probably because we have one in our garden.
Thanks, Filbert and John.
Found this quite tough – especially for a rainy Wednesday – but the quality of the clues made the struggle worthwhile.
I think 27 was my favourite – when I eventually got it!
Many thanks to Filbert and John
After fully completing a puzzle for the first time on Monday, and only missing two yesterday, this brought me back down to earth with a whump. Only managed 21a, 23a, 25a, 28a & 16d fully parsed, and 22d from L and the crosser from 25. Tough.
There are two parsings I still can’t see, can somebody explain why tax = scot in 14d, and tight means that set is reordered in 11a? Many thanks.
El_Gwero scot (with lowercase S) is, at least historically, a type of tax. Also tight can mean drunk and such words are often used to indicate the letters are muddled.
Much obliged Hovis, that meaning for scot is completely new to me; drunk usually gets my anagram/reordering radar twitching, now I know to look for euphamisms for inebriation too – although English contains a seemingly inexhaustable supply of those.
True. A sneaky word for tipsy is on. Not many setters use it as an anagram indicator. Ive seen Hoskins use it a few times.
Thanks to John and Filbert
Cracking crossword
I think copmus @1 must be thinking of the old joke about Deputy Dawg limping into Dodge “looking for the man who shot my paw”
Great attention to detail – e.g. the “if” in 13a, but although it’s a common device I don’t see how “at first” in 4d applies back further than “spoon”.
I would have preferred “may” to “will” in 27a , and I’m not sure “repelling” means “expelling”, but they’re minor quibbles.
I loved the contest.
We also parsed 6ac with ‘paw’ and wondered why US usage wasn’t indicated. ‘Paw’ also occurs in this pair of limericks:
There was an old man of Nantucket
who kept all his cash in a bucket.
Then his daughter named Nan
ran away with a man,
and as for the bucket, Nan tucket.
He followed them all to Pawtucket
his daughter, the man, and the bucket.
He said that the man
was welcome to Nan,
but as for the bucket, Paw tucket.
I’ll get my coat π
Dansar @ 13
Surely if you repel something you push it off, so as H is the first letter of heedless I think it works. If the H were not first or last letter, repelling in another context might not be so defensible.
John,
23ac: ‘with’ can mean ‘using’, as: I made a working model of Tower Bridge with sealing wax and string.
3dn, 14dn: I’m pretty sure you will never see Filbert clue a two-word phrase as a charade with the clue elements breaking in the same place as the answer.
bit late to this excellent puzzle, many thanks to Filbert & John. I didn’t find this quite as difficult to finish as I have other puzzle from F, but plenty of chewy parsing kept me at it for a few minutes longer.