Non-prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of August 8, 2020
We have not had a Chalmie in our weekend space since 2018 and this time he treats us to a puzzle with an unannounced but substantial theme, The Seven Ages of Man.
It took me a while to solve partly perhaps because I am not very accustomed to Chalmie’s cluing but also very much because I was hopelessly slow in realizing that there even was a theme, despite the “seen here” in the relevant clue! The theme is named in 26,22,3 (THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN) and exposed in 8dn (INFANT), 2dn (SCHOOLBOY), 24dn (LOVER), 21ac (SOLDIER), 5dn (JUSTICE), 27ac (PANTALOON) and 21dn + 17dn (SECOND CHILDHOOD).
If you would like to read more about the Shakespearean reference, try “All the world’s a stage” on Wikipedia.
My favourite clues are 11ac (SHELF), 25ac (ODES) and 6dn (BE SENSIBLE). And I acknowledge Chalmie for what must have been a lot of work putting this together and squeezing in all seven ages.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | ASSUME | Like total energy? Take it! (6) |
| AS (like) + SUM (total) + E (energy) | ||
| 4 | DJIBOUTI | Sail away when detective goes round capital city (8) |
| JIB (sail) + OUT (away) in (when…goes round) DI (detective) In my original posting of this blog, I made a mistake with this one assuming that “jib out” was an expression meaning to sail away. As is now clear, the two words are actually meant to be take separately. I did discover that “jib out” is a known expression nevertheless, meaning “to procrastinate over a task or to completely forget it.” |
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| 10 | ATHENIANS | Contents of mail described answer for city-dwellers (9) |
| A THEN I (contents of mail described) + ANS (answer) | ||
| 11 | SHELF | Will novelist take hours to find place to store books? (5) |
| H (hours) in (take) SELF (Will novelist) | ||
| 12 | ATOP | Supported by Q’s predecessors (4) |
| A TO P (Q’s predecessors) | ||
| 13 | INDIAN CORN | American cereal is old Bollywood joke (6,4) |
| INDIAN (Bollywood) + CORN (old…joke) Indian corn is a type of maize that is barely edible because it is very hard but can be colourful and so is usually used for decoration, for example at Thanksgiving time in the U.S. |
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| 15 | SUBUNIT | Smaller piece of cake in clubs? (7) |
| BUN (cake) in (in) SUIT (clubs) | ||
| 16 | EVINCE | Show pairs of events, including ceilidhs (6) |
| EV[ents] IN[cluding] CE[ilidhs] It took me some time to understand the wordplay here. I started looking for what letters there were pairs of in the relevant words. |
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| 19 | DYNAMO | Cheat a lot, coming back in for generator (6) |
| MANY (a lot) backwards (coming back) in (in) DO (cheat) | ||
| 21 | SOLDIER | Squaddie starts to sing raucously, covering 60s hit? (7) |
| OLDIE (60’s hit?) in (covering) S[ing] R[aucously] | ||
| 23 | GOLDEN DUCK | Nasty dung locked out at the first opportunity (6,4) |
| Anagram (nasty) of DUNG LOCKED. “Golden Duck” is a cricketing term for the occasion of a batsman’s being out on the first ball. |
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| 25 | ODES | Writes programs, not third-rate poems (4) |
| [c]ODES (writes programs, not third-rate). First rate being A, second rate B…. | ||
| 26, 22, 3 | SEVEN AGES OF MAN | Gove fan seems an anomaly in Shakespearean list seen here (5,4,2,3) |
| Anagram (anomaly) of GOVE FAN SEEMS AN | ||
| 27 | PANTALOON | Gasp at a diver becoming Italian comedy character (9) |
| PANT (gasp) + A (a) + LOON (diver) I believe the more common use of ‘pantaloon’ is in the plural as a kind of trousers but it also refers to a Venetian character in Italian commedia dell’arte represented as a foolish old man wearing such trousers. |
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| 29 | FORTYISH | Middle-aged swimmer takes in oxygen pretty regularly (8) |
| O (oxygen) + [p]R[e]T[t]Y together in (takes in) FISH (swimmer) | ||
| 30 | TENDER | Number – the German kind (6) |
| TEN (number) + DER (the German) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | ANAPAEST | At sea, Pan broke foot (8) |
| Anagram (broke) of AT SEA PAN. An anapaest is a metrical unit comprising unstressed-unstressed-stressed syllables. This is a deceptive clue because “at sea” is so often used as an anagram indicator. | ||
| 2 | SCHOOLBOY | Some sharks possibly near to eating ordinary student (9) |
| SCHOOL (some sharks possible) + O (ordinary) in BY (near to) | ||
| 3 | See 26 | |
| 5 | JUSTICE | Bench-sitter merely rocks (7) |
| JUST (merely) + ICE (rocks) | ||
| 6 | BE SENSIBLE | Book containing directions to act rationally (2,8) |
| ESENS (directions) in (containing) BIBLE (book) | ||
| 7 | UREDO | Plant rust in pasture doubles (5) |
| Hidden word. Well, here we have an obscure term. ‘Uredo’, I discovered, refers to a stage in the life history of certain rusts, rusts in the sense of fungal diseases of plants. | ||
| 8 | INFANT | Actually dropping around for new baby (6) |
| IN FACT (actually) with the ‘C’ (around) replaced by N (new) | ||
| 9 | GANNET | Greedy-guts princess seen in sports car (6) |
| ANNE (princess) in (seen in) GT (sports car) This meaning of ‘gannet’ was new to me and I solved the clue from the wordplay. One dictionary tells me that it is informal British usage for a greedy person. |
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| 14 | IN NAME ONLY | Many online somehow not living up to their description (2,4,4) |
| Anagram (somehow) of MANY ONLINE | ||
| 17 | CHILDHOOD | Nearly cool down criminal minority (9) |
| CHIL[l] (nearly cool) + D (down) + HOOD (criminal) | ||
| 18 | PRISONER | Captive rips off a Republican (8) |
| Anagram (off) of RIPS + ONE (a) + R (Republican) | ||
| 20 | OEDIPUS | Greek myth I souped up (7) |
| Anagram (up) of I SOUPED | ||
| 21 | SECOND | Following the leader back (6) |
| Double definition | ||
| 22 | See 26 | |
| 24 | LOVER | Enthusiast finished Latin first (5) |
| L (Latin) + OVER (finished) | ||
| 28 | ARE | Australian engineers’ land measure (3) |
| A (Australian) + RE (engineers). I started off wondering if this might be a double definition with ARE referring to some professional association of engineer in Australia. As best I could determine there is none such. | ||
Thank you to both setter and blogger. With the help of my wife and daughter (a recent convert to the joy of crosswords) who is currently (and still) sheltering with us in California from London, we struggled through the puzzle and managed to finish, with some verification of words in the OED:the unknown UREDO and ANAPAEST, an unfamiliar term despite A- level Latin a long time ago. Favorite clue was ATOP which took a while to parse (duh!) and an honorable mention to the SEVEN AGES OF MAN, remembered with thanks to Frank Whateley my O-level English teacher.
Jktiffin, Welcome to the blog and thank you for commenting. I knew ANAPAEST vaguely, maybe only because it had come up in crosswords before.
This was a great themed crossword from Chalmie, whose cluing I generally enjoy.
A few hiccups here and there: first, I was sure it was Pantalone at 27ac and bunged it in without checking but PRISONER and TENDER forced me to look again more closely.
Then ANAPAEST, new to me, puzzled because again, I’d hastily entered PROP instead of ATOP. Luckily, the clear anagram at 1ac had me back on the straight and narrow. UREDO was also new but, thankfully, a hidden answer and so gettable.
I admired surfaces including the principal SEVEN AGES OF MAN clue, along with DYNAMO, FORTYISH, GOLDEN DUCK and DJIBOUTI.
Finished in the NE quadrant, taking a while to parse ASSUME and failing utterly on SUBUNIT.
No matter, this is exactly the sort of contemplative entertainment I relish of a weekend. Thanks Chalmie and also Pete for an illuminating blog.
4a I think you are slightly wrong in your analysis. I think it is JIB (sail) and OUT (away).
I found this easier than I expected. I have had a Chalmie crossword before. Your comment on Chalmie’s cluing struck to you a chord. My favourite English philosopher is John Locke (1632-1704) and I have been led recently to a short essay of his “Association of Ideas” which deals with one way in which an author constructs his work. It became one of the foundations of 18th century literary criticism and is embedded in modern psychology.
Thank you both.
Thanks Pete and Chalmie.
I enjoyed this apart from 6 down. Including a random selection of compass points looks casual to me.
Is 40ish middle aged ?
Thanks everyone. Trenodia is right that “Sail away” is not to be construed as a single phrase but as two separate words.
The baggy trousers are in fact pantaloons, as I discovered when checking the definition of PANTALOON and finding that in the singular, it’s the comedy character.
When composing themed puzzles which have to include a certain selection of words, I allow myself one obscure word which no-one’s heard of, as long as I can clue it in a way which allows the solver to write in the solution even though they’ve never heard of it, which explains UREDO’s presence and the type of clue I used for it.
Failed in the NW corner though I realised that “at sea pan” were the letters for the anagram; just couldn’t solve it. I had Anne for the princess too, but just couldn’t call to mind the correct sports car, and gannet never leapt to mind. Oh well
Thanks Chalmie for a most enjoyable crossword. I ticked many clues with INFANT being my favourite followed by DJIBOUTI, SUBUNIT, SECOND, BE SENSEIBLE, and PRISONER. Great surfaces all around made this a cut above. Thanks Pete for the write-up.
trenodia, Thank you for the correction on 4dn.
Chalmie, Thank you for commenting and for such a clever and carefully crafted puzzle.
Thanks Chalmie and Pete
Did this one last weekend, starting with the clue with its local (to me) surface at 28d. An enjoyable puzzle and knowing that there is usually a theme with this setter’s work looked for one afterwards and took ages to see the obvious reference being made in the signal clue at 26a, 23d, 3d. Nice work to be able to fit the seven ages into the grid.
No real issues getting it done, but with distractions along the way, it took well over the hour to finish filling the grid. Took some more time to fully parse the clever ATHENIANS and SCHOOLBOY though. Liked the wordplay for DJIBOUTI.
Finished in the NE corner with GANNET (which was commonly used down here), SUBUNIT (quite tricky to see) and SCHOOLBOY the last few in.