Too much footie in the Indy? Definitely. Too much Tees in the Indy? You might think that; I couldn’t possibly comment.
You want both together? This one’s for you, including a groan-worthy old joke about the team that play at Anfield. As well as a lot of other entertaining stuff from the setter who is currently at the top of the Indy appearances leader board.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 City foremost in commerce one holding record
COLOGNE
A charade of C for the first letter of ‘commerce’ followed by LOG inserted into ONE.
5/21D/13 Champions’ anthem approximately reproduced in chant of 10 18 9 1A?
YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE
Here’s the gag and the punchline. Liverpool are Premier League ‘champions’ and their fans’ anthem is this song, originally from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel (although not a lot of people know that). There is an old joke, which goes as follows: Liverpool FC once tried to get Yul Brynner to advertise their new corporate aftershave, but Yul never wore cologne… If you put together 10, 18, 9 and 1ac, you get YULE NAVARRE WALL COLOGNE, which is a variation on the theme. Don’t mither me about how rubbish the joke (or the clue) is. I’m only the piano player. It was Tees who wrote the music.
8 Maori perhaps sees a ridiculous point made by churchman
ANTIPODEAN
A charade of A, (POINT)* and DEAN.
9 Lehman Brothers went to this wealthy Manhattan street
WALL
They did indeed, and we are still suffering the economic consequences. A dd.
10 Brynner Theatre’s closing for the festive season
YULE
A charade of the aforementioned YUL Brynner and E for the last letter of ‘theatre’. Only 23 weeks till Christmas.
11 Organisation that takes role in energy recycling?
GREEN PARTY
An insertion of PART in (ENERGY)* and a cad.
12 Beer has bit of a head — dash round?
BROWN ALE
A charade of BROW and ELAN reversed. The reversal indicator is ’round’. Newcastle Brown Ale, to be precise, but it is now brewed in Tadcaster. And the Netherlands. And California.
14 Sack belonging to French model
DEPOSE
A charade of DE and POSE. DE in French can mean ‘of’, hence ‘belonging to’.
15 Everyone in Slough is degenerate
FALLEN
Well, Betjeman thought so, I guess. An insertion of ALL in FEN. FEN for ‘slough’ I didn’t twig at first, but it’s given in Chambers as ‘a hollow creek filled with mud; a marsh’, and marked as US usage. Then I remembered The Slough of Despond from Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, which has this ‘boggy’ sense. For our American followers, Slough is a town west of London and is pronounced to rhyme with ‘cow’. And I think your ‘slough’ is pronounced ‘slew’, isn’t it?
17 Substitute with good reputation
STANDING
A charade of STAND IN and G.
19 Solid figure reached out into river
DECAHEDRON
An insertion of (REACHED)* in DON. Yorkshire or Aberdeen are two of your choices for the river. The anagrind is ‘out’ and the insertion indicator is ‘into’.
21 Rotter does away with king in cathedral area
NAVE
[K]NAVE
22 Volume increase at the end almost closed bar
VETO
A charade of V, E for the last letter of ‘increase’ and TO. I think that the last element is shown in a phrase like ‘push the door to, please.’
23 Angry about southern musical styles
CROSSOVERS
A charade of CROSS, OVER and S.
24 Lift small duck
STEAL
A charade of S and TEAL.
25 Sign used by vendors everywhere
ENDORSE
Hidden in vENDORS Everywhere.
Down
1 Crush nut noisily
CONQUER
A homophone (‘noisily’) of CONKER.
2 Knowledge passed down about current in continental river
LOIRE
An insertion of I for the electrical current symbol in LORE.
3 Fabric, mostly repulsive, with appearance of wood
GROSGRAIN
A new word for me, but clearly clued as GROS[S] plus GRAIN.
4 Unruly geezer once sober causes misery
EBENEZER SCROOGE
(GEEZER ONCE SOBER)* gives you the protagonist from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
5 Two articles written to support Yankee in Chinese city
YANAN
And another new word for me, and not one I’m in any hurry to remember. A charade of Y for the phonetic alphabet ‘Yankee’ and two lots of AN.
6 Lacking packing? Not carried away we hear
UNWRAPPED
A homophone (‘we hear’) of the slightly invented word UNRAPT.
7 Records suppressing previous signs of inexperience
L-PLATES
An insertion of LATE in LPS. The insertion indicator is ‘suppressing’.
13 See 5 Across
14 Determined a number climbing in fell
DIAGNOSED
An insertion of A and SONG reversed in DIED. The insertion indicator is ‘in’ and the reversal indicator, because it’s a down clue, is ‘climbing’.
16 Enduring wobbly sea-legs
AGELESS
(SEA LEGS)*
18 Welshman going north has arrived in Pamplona area
NAVARRE
An insertion of ARR in EVAN reversed, with ‘going north’ the reversal indicator, again because it’s a down clue.
20 Do well with fish — ten about to be netted
EXCEL
An insertion of X for the Roman numeral and C for circa or ‘about’ in EEL.
21 See 5 Across
Many thanks to Tees for the puzzle. See you again. Soon.
It’s not that long ago when Paul had a crossword with the “Yul never wore cologne” gag.
I thought this might be a pangram but the letters J & M are absent. Well, it is July and Monday. 3d and 5d were new to me as well, as was 18d.
Thanks to Tees and Pierre.
Thanks for the entertaining blog, Pierre.
Another fine puzzle from Tees. My favourites today were GREEN PARTY, BROWN ALE, STANDING, EBENEZER SCROOGE, L-PLATES and FALLEN (for the lovely Betjeman reference that Pierre points out). And, of course, the outrageously clever combination in the second clue, which adds a bit to Paul’s recent version.
Many thanks, Tees, for a most enjoyable puzzle. Hope to see you again before too long. 😉
Eileen’s right to highlight the clever reference to the Betjeman poem in FALLEN. If you don’t know it, then search for it (it’s just called Slough). The first verse is best known (Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough …) but the degeneracy is probably best expressed in verse four:
And get that man with double chin
Who’ll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women’s tears
It was written in 1937, so I’m sure residents will tell you it’s improved since then.
Slough is soulless from my knowledge of it, the only advantage being proximity to Eton, Windsor and the Thames. Back to the crossword, very enjoyable, well up to Tees’ high standard, so thanks to him and Pierre for the blog.
What Eileen said. Trickier than usual for a ‘Monday Tees’ but I’m not complaining about that or the fact that he’s livening up my crossword day again
Thanks to Tees and Pierre
Right good fun. Even a footie no-hoper like me got the joke (though COLOGNE took me an unforgivably long time).
Thanks to Google maps for steering me to YANAN and NAVARRE.
Took me a while to get to the other slough (the capital S was my banana skin) and I was playing with bog and pit before getting fen.
Also thought, about two-thirds through, that we might be on for a pangram, or even a Nina for Klopp or Anfield or similar.
Most enjoyable, thanks Tees and Pierre.
Oh PS, how smug I felt to get GROSGRAIN. The slightly-ribbed lapels of superior dinner jackets and tailcoats are made of it.
GROSGRAIN seemed vaguely familiar, though no feeling of smugness as it went in as I couldn’t have told you anything about it until looking it up post solve. The River Don that came to mind for me is in Russia; I remember enjoying “And Quiet Flows The Don” when I read it many years ago. I just bunged in 5/21d/13 from the definition and enumeration, thereby missing the delights of the ‘approximately reproduced in chant’ until I took the effort to see what was going on.
Funny how little things can be unsettling, but I didn’t know what ‘written’ was doing in the clue for YANAN and almost put in ‘Yunan’ before opting for the correct answer.
Thanks to the ever prolific Tees and to Pierre
As@8WordPlodder I put in the answer to the 5A/21D/13 clue from the enumeration after looking at 10 Yule. Glad I came here as I would never have noticed the long joke description; I am a big fan of groanmaking puns and wordplay like that engaged in with this clue.
Thanks to Tees for the amusing puzzle and to Pierre, who was perhaps joking (?) about what he purportedly thought of Tees’ very amusing clue.
We got 5/21/13 at once after a quick look at 10 and then 18 9 and 1 practically solved themselves (though we did have to check which par of Spain Pamplona is in). After that, with a good scattering of letters the rest went in very smoothly, although we took ages to see the parsing of BROWN ALE.
FEN for a boggy place isn’t just US usage, we would think. It occurs in Shakespeare – “All the infections that the sun sucks up from bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall …” (The Tempest, act 2, scene 2).
A very enjoyable solve – thanks, Tees and Pierre.
Two short, three quarters parsed, so slightly below par for me, but most enjoyable and educational. 15ac was one of the misses – I’ve never come across that definition of slough and got stuck with “degenerate” as an anagrind, but GHOULS clearly didn’t fit (but perfectly matches the verse @3Pierre).
Thanks Tees and Pierre
It was ‘slough’ that was given as US usage, Allan, not ‘fen’.
Oops! As examination candidates were always advised – read the question carefully before you start to answer. Thanks, Pierre.
Hello! Thanks Pierre et al.
Cheers Tees.