It’s Pan to help cheer up a rather chilly Bank Holiday, with a puzzle with a bit more bite to it than the Monday usual. (That isn’t a criticism.)
I really enjoyed this puzzle, with its nice mix of clue types, some innovative anagram indicators (14 and 19ac) and wittily smooth surfaces throughout.
Many thanks, Pan.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Naughty boy keeping eagle’s last brood in an unhealthy condition (7)
OBESITY
An anagram (naughty) of BOY round [eagl]E + SIT (brood – like a hen on eggs)
5 Swaggering hitman accepting promotion (7)
BRAVADO
BRAVO [hitman – I didn’t know this definition but found it in both Collins and Chambers) round AD (promotion)
10 Monster interrupting progress (4)
OGRE
Hidden in (interrupting) prOGREss
11 Animal in popular end of cattle market bought by writer (4,6)
PINE MARTEN
IN [popular) + [cattl]E + MART (market) in (bought by) PEN (writer)
12 Prince entering capital city of ancient Greece (6)
DELPHI
P (prince) in DELHI (capital) – not really a city but certainly one of the most awesome places I have ever been to
13 Enter lab for training that’s available for hire (8)
RENTABLE
An anagram (for training) of ENTER LAB
14 Result during soccer replay causing increase in noise (9)
CRESCENDO
END (result) in an anagram (replay) of SOCCER
16 Writer‘s wife managed deli (5)
WILDE
W (wife) + an anagram (managed) of DELI
17 Credit given to adult in charge of a good time (5)
CRAIC
CR (credit) + A (adult) + IC (in charge) – a lovely Irish word, perhaps not familiar to some but very clearly and fairly clued
19 Support saving breadcrumbs for bird (9)
REDBREAST
REST (support – as in snooker) round an anagram (crumbs!) of BREAD
23 Almost stop ruler after game? (8)
STALKING
STAL[l] (almost stop) + KING (ruler) – I smiled at the witty definition
24 Bachelor wearing smart watch chain (6)
ALBERT
B (bachelor in ALERT (smart) – here’s the watch chain
26 Master invited graduate and two lecturers to dance (6,4)
MASKED BALL
M (master) + ASKED (invited) + BA (graduate) + LL (two lecturers)
27 Old politician‘s hot in synthetic headgear (4)
WHIG
H (hot) in WIG (synthetic headgear)
28 Nasty round scarlet snake (7)
MEANDER
MEAN (nasty) + a reversal (round) of RED (scarlet)
29 Correct uniform for sappers (7)
REDRESS
RE (Royal Engineers – sappers) + DRESS (uniform)
Down
2 Insect on animal’s a source of annoyance (7)
BUGBEAR
BUG (insect) on (in a down clue) BEAR (animal)
3 Clean close to aisle in upturned seats (5)
SWEEP
[aisl]E in a reversal (upturned) of PEWS (seats)
4 Joint favourite team (7)
TOPSIDE
TOP (favourite) + SIDE (team)
6 Book by Royal Society featuring old fellow (6)
ROMANS
RS (Royal Society) round O (old) MAN (fellow) for the sixth book of the New Testament
7 All-purpose taser shot into base (9)
VERSATILE
An anagram (shot) of TASER in VILE (base)
8 Proper Liberal went first and fought for his honour (7)
DUELLED
DUE (proper) + L (Liberal) + LED (went first)
9 Actor‘s dream bringing trouble (6,7)
INGRID BERGMAN
An anagram (trouble) of DREAM BRINGING
15 Shed on island given to family for Jack Straw? (9)
SPILLIKIN
SPILL (shed) + I (island) + KIN (family) – a reference to this game
18 Attention surrounding vehicle turning up for daily grind (3,4)
RAT RACE
RATE (attention?) round a reversal (turning up) of CAR (vehicle) – or, rather, a reversal of EAR (attention) round CART (vehicle) – thanks to greensward @4 and Mark @5
20 Liberal translation of writing system (7)
BRAILLE
An anagram (translation) of LIBERAL
21 Schoolmaster’s first sign about new items in lunch boxes (7)
SARNIES
S[choolmaster] + ARIES (sign) round N (new) – an informal UK word for sandwiches
22 Light cattle eating primarily dandelion leaves (6)
KINDLE
KINE (cattle) round D[andelion] L[eaves]
25 How to greet the Queen in shady part of garden? (5)
BOWER
One might BOW to greet ER (the Queen)
Again, Pan has delivered a Monday challenge that’s a step up from the norm without being, in any way, fiendish. I felt, as I solved, that there might be the odd construction that raised eyebrows – ‘bought’ to mean ‘contained within’ in PINE MARTEN or ‘round scarlet’ to mean ‘der’ in MEANDER – but they worked for me. The latter was beautifully misdirectional and one of my favourites.
I enjoyed Pan’s playful definitions – ‘after game’, as Eileen has noted, for STALKING was exquisite; ‘light’ for KINDLE and ‘correct’ for REDRESS weren’t obvious at first; ‘items in lunch boxes’ made me smile and took me back. Ticks also for the clever anagrams and nice surfaces in CRESCENDO, REDBREAST and INGRID BERGMAN. I also enjoy it when a setter conjures up clever clues for the shorter clues: WILDE and CRAIC both impressed in that respect. I’ve already noted MEANDER as a contender for COTD; MASKED BALL would be my other, again for a lovely surface.
Thanks Pan and Eileen for the blog.
I agree that this was a slightly crunchier offering than for most Mondays, and all the better for it. I had the same ? pop up in my mind for attention in 18d.
I thought this was a really smart bit of setting. Very few obvious write-ins on first pass, but there was a gradual absorption as you knocked down bits and pieces of the wordplay. Very much a ‘four corners’ crossword with lots of helpful crossers. I didn’t know BRAVO=‘hitman’ either, so BRAVADO and ROMANS were tentative last-ins.
Best clue of the day was STALKING and I doubt that will meet with much disagreement. I also enjoyed SARNIES and KINDLE which misled me satisfactorily. Thanks Pan and Eileen.
Eileen, 18d is ‘ear’ around ‘cart’, all reversed.
Thanks Pan and Eileen, very good Monday fare.
I think RAT RACE might be EAR (attention) around CART (vehicle) all turning up?
Of course, Mark – many thanks. (I couldn’t see the wood for the trees.) I’ll amend it now.
Thanks both. I can’t be the only one who tried to hammer in CANDLE instead of KINDLE.
In 12a, does the “city” belong to Delhi rather than the definition?
Well done Mark@4. I was struggling to parse RAT RACE. I was thinking ‘attention’ would be care.
I’ve never heard of bravo as a hired assassin, so was considering West Indian batsmen Dwayne an Darren Bravo.
Billy Bragg resurrected Woody Guthrie lyrics for a lovely song about INGRID BERGMAN.
Indeed, Mark. Comment in §2 withdrawn.
Shirl @6 – I did wonder for a minute but I don’t think so: otherwise, we don’t have a proper definition. It didn’t really bother me, as I meant to imply.
Enjoyed this, but had to come here to see how BRAVADO was parsed…
greensward @4 – my apologies; I didn’t spot your comment. i swear it wasn’t there when I posted – I had Mark @4!
Yes, lots of panache in this, with no ache, although a slow start..only ogre and rentable through the acrosses, but the brain soon warmed up. Smooth synonyms..brood/sit as verbs, proper as due in duelled, after as part of the def and not wordplay in stalking, resonance between aisle and pews in sweep, and so on. Spillikin we’ve had recently (called Fiddlesticks here), and sarnies I knew via Pom connections (sangers here). Kine for cattle I knew (most recently from Mrs ginf’s Outlander series), and 25d was neat too (though I always wonder if I’d have the bottle to just say g’day, as Denis Lilly allegedly did on meeting ER!). Fun Monday puzzle, many thanks to Pan and Eileen.
…oh yes, another who didn’t know any Bravo hitmen..shrug..
..Dennis Lillee, beg pardon DK…
Eileen @12, don’t worry, it wasn’t! It’s only just appeared. No idea why the delay, but I’ll settle for a dead-heat with Mark.
My apologies too to greensward (now)@4: I appear to have garnered some of the praise due to you for correct parsing of RAT RACE. We appear to have crossed but, for some reason, you were definitely held up in the works somewhere and only popped up on my screen when we were up to 10 comments. Ghosts in the machine this morning.
We parsed RAT RACE the same way as Eileen initially – thanks to the commenters for clearing that up!
Favourites were CRESCENDO and SARNIES ( I had to check with cobro that it was a word, I vaguely remember hearing it before).
Had to hold our breath and hope for the best with KINDLE, as we had not heard of kine before.
Thanks Pan and Eileen!
Brilliant! We’ve done it again! Two minds most certainly thinking alike.
Hello again, greensward and Mark – thank goodness for that: I thought I must be going (even more) bonkers! You are both acknowledged in the blog now.
Mark and Eileen, keep your eyes peeled for the Quiptic blog. It would be very spooky if this happens again.
gif @13: I only just got your panache joke. Lovely. Mondayish in the nicest possible way!
I knew bravo from Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere” – one of my all time favourite books, read it it if you haven’t.
Thanks for the blog.
Enjoyed the puzzle, just right for me.
Ta Eileen for the blog.
Andy Smith @23. Also loved Neverwhere (and just about everything else Neil Gaiman has written) but didn’t remember “bravo” from it. Also have the DVD of the TV series co-created by Lenny Henry and starring such luminaries as Tamsin Grieg and Peter Capaldi.
I read 25d as BOW before ER but that’s a minor comment.
Tougher than the Quiptic, which hasn’t been the norm for a while. I thought Crescendo Redress were excellent and the use of breadcrumbs made me smile. Ta Eileen for another informative blog and Pan for the tough workout on a lovely sunny London morning (sorry Eileen).
Very good puzzle – stretching for a relative newbie but gradually got there. Loved REDBREAST, PINEMARTIN, MEANDER. Thanks to Eileen for parsing a couple I couldn’t get. Thanks Pan
Busy day ahead so I was looking for a quickish solve which Pan thoughtfully provided. All very smooth with some classy surfaces eg for INGRID BERGMAN but it helped to have been solving for a while to turn ALBERT into a write-in.
My moment of horror was very nearly a ‘pink marker’ at 11a, on the grounds that it writes. Thankfully this was not Vlad so the fact that there was no sensible parsing led me to PINE MARTEN with relief.
Fiona Anne ’26 – I’m glad you enjoyed this, an ideal puzzle for a relative newbie, I think: interesting and stretching enough to give you a sense of achievement, with several smiles along the way.
[AlanC @25 – the sun keeps peeping out here, now. 😉 ]
Hovis @24 – the would-be bodyguard, beaten by Hunter – “I am the greatest bravo in London below”. Didn’t end well well for him, with Croup and Valdemar …
Ha, seemingly you’ve stolen it Eileen. (Smug face evaporates) 🙂 I liked your opener as well grantinfreo @13 – v droll.
Thanks Pan and Eileen
Lots to like. I’ll single out “breadcrumbs” in 19a.
Congratulations to Pan for getting the definition of CRESCENDO right – too often we hear “the noise rose to a crescendo”!
The usual high quality fare from Nutmeg.
Lots to like, and I agree that the COTD could be for STALKING for its cheeky definition. Interesting that an anagram included ‘bringing’; I stopped for a moment to consider that. I didn’t know the hitman.
Eileen, Wiki seems to think that Delphi can also be a city, viz:
‘Delphi would have been a renowned city regardless of whether it hosted these [Pythian] games.’
Thanks Nutmeg and Eileen.
A strange Monday morning when the only subject for controversy is what happened to greensward’s post…
…and whether it’s a nice day or not. Sunshine with a few fair weather clouds here in Sheffield.
Thanks to Pan for hitting the right note pretty accurately (“after game” deserving special mention), and ditto Eileen for the blog.
Thanks, Robi @32. I’m not convinced but, as I said, it didn’t bother me: it’s a lovely clue, evoking lovely memories.
sheffield hatter @33 – why don’t we just leave it like that and be thankful? 😉
After getting back from a 3 hr walk along the Deben this morning in glorious sunshine (following the comments about the weather from others) I sat down and enjoyed this puzzle. All good for me .
Muffin@31 I totally agree with you on the misuse of CRESCENDO. It is one of my BUGBEARs!
I didn’t know the use of ALBERT for a watch chain though.
Thanks Eileen and Pan.
Eileen @34; thanks, it’s a small point but Collins calls it an ancient city and Wiki says: ‘By the 4th century, Delphi had acquired the status of a city.’
Thanks for the explanation for SPILLIKIN. I’m used to the game being called Pick-Up Sticks, though my association with that name at my age is more likely to be this. (To be clear, since I’ve phrased it unclearly, that piece is well before my time! I just haven’t played pick-up sticks since childhood, whereas the Dave Brubeck I think I may have played last week.)
I agree with your assessment both that this puzzle was chewier than usual for a Monday, and that that’s not a problem at all.
Since weather has come up, here in Chicago it is a smidge cooler than expected for the last days of August, but after a string of very hot days last week, no one is complaining. It’s sunny and looking to be a beautiful day.
I’ve enjoyed both the puzzle and the cheery chat in the comments above. Here in Connecticut it’s going to be in the 70’s and sunny, a relief from the 90’s we had earlier this month. A day to enjoy.
Our upcoming “bank holiday” is Labor Day, which is the first Monday of September, coming next week. (Our other two are Memorial Day, the last Monday in May, established after the Civil War to be a celebration of peace and now dedicated to war veterans, and weekend nearest the Fourth of July, which nobody calls Independence Day. We also observe Nov 11, of course, once called Armistice Day after the First World War, but now called Veterans’ Day to include those of the second.)
4d I put in TOPSIDE from the wordplay without having ever heard of it and having no idea it was meat — the word isn’t used over here, and “joint” in that context isn’t either, though I did know that.
Delightful puzzle, Pan, and Eileen, thank you once again for inviting us into your life and experience in your enjoyable blog.
Lovely crossword, thanks Eileen for the parsing of 5a, never heard of the use of Bravo, one to remember, but will probably be forgotten in 10 minutes time.
Bravo, Pan!
Breadcrumbs?
[Valentine, don’t forget Thanksgiving (fourth Thursday in Nov), Christmas, New Years, Martin Luther King Day (third Monday in January), and the two that not everyone observes–Presidents Day (a Monday in Feb) and the Controversial One In October that My Employer Calls Indigenous Peoples Day.]
Thanks Pan, thanks Eileen (especially for BRAVADO).
Astonishing that CRAIC is now accepted as a pseudo-English word? Or is there a better term for such, em, parvenus?
The notion of a “gentle” Monday did not pan out with this crossword. CRAIC, SPILLIKIN, ALBERT, and SARNIES were all beyond my scope. Nonetheless I enjoyed much of this puzzle — MASKED BALL, WHIG, MEANDER, VERSATILE, and the great INGRID BERGMAN were favourites. Thanks to both.
Alphalpha @42: Your second query makes me suspect your first is tongue in cheek. But, just in case it isn’t, I think the term is loan words, or borrowed words. Craic will never be an English (or pseudo-English) word; neither will menu or blitzkrieg or spaghetti – or parvenu – but it’s understood and used by English speakers.
I suppose it is being absorbed just as Tory and Hooligan were in the past.
I knew about paid bravoes but why is EAR attention? (Apologies if this has already been explained; I started writing the commeng hours ago and then had to deal with some work issues.) Otherwise I much enjoyed this and parsed everything. Mamy thanks to Pan and Eileen.
Some lovely ones in there today and no Bank Holiday rest here! FOI strangely was CRAIC which popped straight off the page at me but then made heav-weather of most of the rest.
Thank you Pan and Eileen for the fun!
Beobachterin @46
I have the ear of the minister?
muffin @49: could just mean you’ve kidnapped him!
Mark @49
What’s this ‘ere?
Beobachterin @ 46
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.”
Alphapha @42 – loan words are ubiquitous in most languages – restaurant, cafe etc ?
Rather tasty puzzle to start the week. I enjoyed the use of Breadcrumbs very much. Also thought the INGRID BERGMAN anagram was a beauty (like the lady herself!).
A couple of things struck me. Does “alert” really mean “smart” (in the ALBERT clue)? It seems to me they’re related but different. Also “bought by” as an inclusion indicator (PINE MARTEN clue) is unusual and seemed a step too far for me.
Overall, lots of fun. Thanks, Pan and Eileen.
Great Cryptic and great blog for a Bank Holiday Monday – couldn’t parse PINE MARTEN or RATRACE, so thanks to Eileen, Greensward and Mark for those. I too know BRAVO through Neverwhere, which we just watched again recently. Also excellent, if you can access it, is Neil Gaiman’s production of GOOD OMENS, a book he wrote with the sadly missed Terry Pratchett. Loved SARNIES and INGRID BERGMAN – and thanks to Penfold for the Billy Bragg link -just lovely.
Mank thanks Pan and Eileen
Mark@44, Yellowblue@45 and Andy Smith@52 – thanks all. I think perhaps that CRAIC was a loan word to the Irish language which was returned with interest. It doesn’t feature in Dineen’s authoritative Irish-English dictionary of 1904 so is a recent enough coinage in Irish.
Andy @ 52, a fortiori, English is more rapid to accept and nativise loan words than almost any other language, and also more wide-ranging in the languages from which we borrow. Consider ukulele, thug, boondocks, tornado, powwow, sauna, intelligentsia, algebra, hurricane, leitmotiv, chutzpah–and that’s even before you go to an ethnic restaurant, where as soon as we’ve eaten it for a few years–boom, it’s English. My spell-checker still throws up on pho and bibimbop, but happily digests enchiladas and knows what tandoori chicken is.
[Me at 56: Boondocks has an interesting history–borrowed by the U.S. army from the Tagalog word for “mountains” during the American repression of the Philippine independence movement in the first decade of the 20th century. The Philippine guerrillas (Spanish loan word, from the same era even) used to disappear into the boondocks–the word got generalized somewhere along the way to mean “the rural middle of nowhere” whether mountains were involved or not.]
Thanks Eileen for clearing up Bravado, Mark and greensward for Rat Race and mrpenney and other recent contributors for interesting discussion of loan words – has there ever been a crossword where all answers are clearly loan words? Anyway i had to do lots of looking up for this one which led to plenty of new things learned. Eg spillikin came from disambiguation of jack straw on wikipedia. I concur with Boffo@3 re Stalking, thanks Pan, this was ideal today.
Munromad @35; perhaps, like me, you just knew ALBERT as a rather more personal attachment.
Gazzh @58: This one from late last year comes close, although several of the words are truly foreign, not loaners, and several others are sufficiently Anglicized that they don’t really count as loan words any more.
Saldosweat@59: I was thinking that too…and am glad I wasn’t the first to say so. (But that’s a Prince Albert, isn’t it?)
[I wasn’t going to mention that Sadoldsweat!]
Sadoldsweat @59, mrpenney@60 & muffin @61: I knew someone would bring it up but it wasn’t going to be me! If you search Albert and jewellery – which would seem reasonable in the case of a watch chain, you do encounter some unusual results!
Interesting to see kin and kine in the same puzzle, as by chance I was just listening to “She moved through the fair” and wondering whether the difficulty for the marriage was lack of kin(d), i.e. wrong family background, or lack of kine i.e. no cattle hence no wealth.
Could the surface of 9d INGRID BERGMAN be a reference to one of her most famous roles; “Joan of Arc”, and her character’s ‘visions’ (dream?), followed by war, martyrdom (trouble), or is that too obvious to mention? Or too convoluted to be a fair part of the clue? And if a fair reference, would that make it a bit of an &lit clue? I’m still occasionally unsure about things like that… An enjoyable Monday workout; thank you Pan and Eileen.
mrpenney@41 I wasn’t trying to include all American holidays, just the equivalents or near-equivalents to bank holidays, of which (not counting Veterans’ Day) we have three in summer as do, I think, those in the UK.
alphalpha@42 We’ve had “parvenus” in English since we’ve had English, or any of the languages that gave birth to it. Latin ones during the Roman occupation, French ones after 1066 and all that, more Latin and Greek ones in the scientific revolution, and all along ones from dozens of languages (Dutch, Japanese …) where we’ve picked them up, or they’ve picked us up. One thing that all human languages are very good at is taking up words from other languages if they look handy. We call them loan words till they take root, and then they’re just words. (Mark@44, I think menu and spaghetti and parvenu have become English words.) Thanks to the other commenters who played variations on this tune.
Valentine – I think the Roman occupation predates the arrival of Anglo-Saxons in the British Isles, so it would be a bit tricky for English to have borrowed Latin words at that time!
Shouldn’t this be filed under 28226?
JM @67
Thanks for the heads-up. I have corrected the puzzle number.
Re loan words, I once read somewhere (I think it was Private Eye) that a sports commentator had been heard to say ‘A tremendous forward surge from the Germans! I wonder if they have a word for ‘blitzkrieg’ in their language’.
sh @66
I thought the same as you at first, then I saw that Valentine had actually phrased it quite precisely, referring to “parvenus” in “English, or any of the languages that gave birth to it”. In this sense it’s possible to include words imported during the Roman occupation, since the Proto-West Germanic dialects spoken in Continental Europe (from which Anglo-Saxon diverged following the settlement of England in the mid-5th century) did indeed borrow from Latin at that time.
An example is *skriban, borrowed from Latin scribo (I write), from which modern German schreiben and English shrive both developed – though in the latter case the meaning clearly underwent a shift, and is preserved in modern usage mainly in ‘Shrove Tuesday’.
Shed @69: 🙂
Btw thanks Pan and Eileen – I came late to this one but enjoyed it!
Thanks for that, Shed @69 – shades of George W Bush’s apocryphal “The problem with the French is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneur.”
[Thanks to everyone for this discussion – I was too busy yesterday to join in!]
essexboy – yes, thanks for that. You are right, a more careful reading of Valentine leads to the conclusion you suggest.
‘leaves’ standing for the letter L? (22d)
OD @73 – the clue reads ‘light candle eating primarily dandelion leaves’ – KINE (cattle) round the first letter of D [andelion] and L[eaves] – my apologies if that wasn’t clear.