Very hard work today. Kairos has produced a sound enough crossword so far as I can see, but I have to admit that I didn’t really enjoy it much, probably my fault because some of the clues are nice now I peruse them properly. It was very difficult and took me ages (again my fault), but the enjoyment and aha! moments one often gets from some setters were absent for me. But I suppose it is Tuesday.
Definitions in darkorchid, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.
Well I did look for a Nina for a while but could see nothing as usual.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | MISTLETOE | Scotch Elm I test with old parasitic growth (9) |
| *(Elm I test o) — yes, it’s a parasitic growth | ||
| 6 | EARTH | Where we are requires some clear thought (5) |
| Hidden in clEAR THought | ||
| 9 | U-BOAT | Uruguay originally stole Thailand’s torpedo carrier? (1-4) |
| U{ruguay} boa T | ||
| 10 | PIG-HEADED | Stubborn brute meets top journalist (3-6) |
| pig head ed. | ||
| 11 | HOLY SPIRIT | Counsellor’s morally perfect strength of character (4,6) |
| holy [morally perfect] spirit [strength of character] — quite how a counsellor = holy spirit I wasn’t sure until I read this quotation from the Gospel of John: ‘ But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you’ (I suspect the single l is because it’s no doubt an American website where I saw it) | ||
| 12 | NOSE | Gutless viking informer (4) |
| No{r}se — shouldn’t it be Viking? | ||
| 14 | GRENADE | Pineapple cocktail mixer’s not cool (7) |
| grenad{in}e | ||
| 15 | HEAVE-HO | Notice that man’s greeting American tramp (5-2) |
| he ave ho — a ho is an American tramp, a prostitute (US, very offensive according to Collins) — if you give someone the heave-ho you get rid of them, give them notice | ||
| 17 | OBSCENE | Scandalous judge dismissed from career prospect (7) |
| {j}ob scene | ||
| 19 | SOCIALS | Withdraw call for help about secular parties (7) |
| (S(laic)OS)rev. | ||
| 20 | EARS | More than one listener oddly ignored legal risk (4) |
| {l}e{g}a{l} r{i}s{k} | ||
| 22 | DIPLOMATIC | Exactly represented tactful foreign minister (10) |
| 3 defs, the first of which eludes me, the second of which is straightforward: diplomatic = tactful, and the third of which uses ‘diplomatic’ as a noun (? again} | ||
| 25 | INCLOSURE | Curse lion prowling in fenced-off area (9) |
| (Curse lion)* — a variant (American?) spelling of enclosure | ||
| 26 | KNEES | Observed man returning attacks (5) |
| (seen K)rev. — the K is a king, a man on a chessboard | ||
| 27 | HEADS | Call captain makes in ship’s toilet (5) |
| 2 defs, one referring to a captain of a sports team at the toss, the other a naval term | ||
| 28 | EXECRATES | Deplores old City business tax (9) |
| ex- EC rates | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | MOUTH | Spokesperson‘s unwelcome in the outskirts of Middlesbrough (5) |
| out in M{iddlesbroug}h | ||
| 2 | SHOULDERS | Accepts the queen ought to lead society (9) |
| ER, with should [ought to} leading it, ie coming first, then S | ||
| 3 | LOTUS-EATER | See a trustee about indolent person (5-5) |
| lo (a trustee)* | ||
| 4 | TOPSIDE | Kills fish and meat (7) |
| tops ide | ||
| 5 | ENGLISH | Lesson in cooking shin and leg (7) |
| *(shin leg) — the subject taught in school | ||
| 6 | EYES | Seed-buds shooting up in Japanese yew (4) |
| Hidden reversed in JapaneSE YEw — I’m a bit vague about this but it seems that seed buds and eyes are the same thing in something; potatoes? | ||
| 7 | RADIO | Call old man up in port (5) |
| (Da)rev. in Rio | ||
| 8 | HEDGEROWS | Growing divisions when bank is involved in financial transactions (9) |
| hedge(row)s — nice definition, the divisions between fields — hedges are financial transactions, as in hedge funds — this will confirm, not that I’ve read it | ||
| 13 | MATCHMAKER | Striker and manufacturer meet union organiser (10) |
| match [striker] maker [manufacturer] — the union organiser is an organiser of a wedding union | ||
| 14 | GLOBEFISH | Theatre’s search for swimmer (9) |
| Globe [theatre] search [fish, a verb] — here are lots of images of globefish | ||
| 16 | ENACTMENT | Authorisation to work with soldiers in hospital department (9) |
| EN(act men)T | ||
| 18 | EPICURE | Great musician and bon vivant (7) |
| epic Ure [Midge Ure] | ||
| 19 | SOLFEGE | Loud, for one, seen in unique singer’s exercise (7) |
| sol(f eg)e — in what sense is a solfege a singer’s exercise? At first it seemed to be just another name for sol-fa notation, a system of musical notation — but one of the senses Collins gives is solfeggio and one of the senses of that is ‘a voice exercise in which runs, scales, etc, are sung to the same syllable or syllables’ | ||
| 21 | RECTA | Gunners receive therapeutic treatment for back passages (5) |
| R(ECT)A — electro-convulsive therapy — the plural of rectum | ||
| 23 | COSTS | Coffee shop closes early with onset of substantial overheads (5) |
| Cost{a} s{ubstantial} | ||
| 24 | TOES | Kicks and pulls we hear (4) |
| “tows” | ||
Thanks, John. I think the first definition in DIPLOMATIC refers to re-presenting the exact truth (but might be wrong!) I presume the theme is parts of the body.
The children’s song, “Heads and Shoulders, Knees and Toes”. I’ve just looked it up and Mouth, Ears, Eyes and Nose also feature, as do Shins and Legs (the clue for ENGLISH.)
Too tough for me and needed a couple of cheats to complete. No complaints though.
27a reminds me of the film where they removed the door from the Captain’s toilet – The Crew’ll See.
Thanks to Kairos and John.
Pretty hard going, with the same uncertainties as our blogger and I also didn’t know about COST{A} coffee (shops). Identifying the body parts was about as far as I got with the theme. I tried to read the ‘Hedge (finance)’ link, but can’t say I’m really any the wiser. Chambers has lower case ‘viking’, either as noun or adjective, as well as the more usual (for me anyway) upper case spelling.
A good one to get back up to speed after a few gentle puzzles yesterday.
Thanks to Kairos and John
I thought Diplomatic must be a triple definition but had to come here to see the first. I thought ‘diplomat IC’ could be the ‘diplomat in charge’ i.e foreign minister. Thanks for the explanation of Counsellor, which I didn’t understand either. Didn’t see the theme. Thanks Kairos and John.
I found this mostly enjoyable and, as is usually the case with this setter, there were a handful of clues which required quite a bit of head scratching. I couldn’t parse HEAVE-TO (thanks for the enlightenment, John) and SELFEGE was a new word for me. I wasn’t keen on 22a.
Thanks too to Kairos.
Surely exactly represented is not a definition of diplomatic? Not that I understand it. Like Tatrasman I wondered about diplomat IC, but given that the whole word can be a noun my best guess is that we have a double definition and exactly represented is some sort of indicator that putting both definitions together you get exactly the same. But that’s just as weak. Anyway, the tactful and minister parts are just two sides of the same coin.
I think in my first ten entries, quite by chance, I had heads, shoulders, mouth, toes, ears & eyes, so my next two were knees and nose. Didn’t know the legs and shins part.
Thanks Kairos, John
James @7
Both Chambers and the ODE have “(of a document) copied exactly from an original”, or similar, as a definition of DIPLOMATIC which is surely the same as ‘exactly represented’ (or re-presented, if you prefer).
Gaufrid, thanks, apologies to Kairos. I had my Chambers open as I wrote my comment, must have been wilful blindness.
We didn’t find this too difficult getting the answers; parsing some of them was the difficult bit. 8dn was a case in point, but we found one meaning of ‘hedge’ in Chambers as ‘an act of securing … protection against (esp financial) loss’. And we didn’t know the first definition of DIPLOMATIC but as Gaufrid points out it’s there in Chambers; incidentally regarding the third definition, the formal title of an ambassador can be ‘Ambassador and Minister Plenipotentiary’.
U-BOAT was a bit of a write-in as Tees had clued it with stole = boa in Sunday’s puzzle. But we took a while to get HOLY SPIRIT (we should have remembered that Kairos is, as far as we’re aware, a part-time priest) and were also held up on 28ac by falling into the old city = Ur trap.
We liked the misleading surface of 18dn; had it been a straight rather than a cryptic clue the answer could have been ‘Rossini’
Thanks, Kairos and John
Similar views here; got about two-thirds through steadily but ground to a halt in the SE corner. The use of Costa brought a smile though.
Two red herrings on the bottom row for me: I had in HEAVE as being a double definition for a nautical instruction and a noise made while vomiting! Then for EXECRATES I had blinkers on (geddit) for EBOR (York; horserace), not helped by a blank for SOLFÈGE which was entirely new to me and one of my cheats.
Smiled again at HEDGEROW and my way (tangentially) to HOLY SPIRIT was that “Counsellor” is in Handel’s “For Unto Us A Child Is Born”, itself from Isiah 9:5, it sez ere.
Got the HSK&T link but only at the very end.
Thanks Kairos and John. I’ve enjoyed the last few days’ grids.
Not keen on the clues for KNEES and TOES and don’t recall the ‘legs and shins’ part of the rhyme – must look it up to refresh my memory.
19d was new to me and sadly doubt that I’ll remember it!
May well be in ‘chestnut’ realm but my favourite was MATCHMAKER closely followed by HEDGEROWS.
Thanks to Kairos and to John for the review.
Not keen on heave-ho for notice myself. One is surely advance warning of something while the other is the act of eviction or throwing or whatever.
That coupled with an iffy triple for diplomatic and the unheard of solfege made me feel less than ecstatic about this one.
Thanks to S&B