A rare appearance by Nutmeg in the “prize” slot this week.
This is Nutmeg’s first appearance in the prize slot for over a year; I don’t remember blogging one of her puzzles before, and indeed, as I don’t now regularly do the weekday puzzles, it’s a long time since I last solved one of them. Timon and I tackled this together via Zoom and found it quite challenging. There are some excellent clues, of which 26 ac was my personal favourite, but I did have trouble with the parsing of a couple of the others; I did wonder if achieving a good surface had been allowed to take priority over accuracy in one or two cases. But many thanks to Nutmeg for a most enjoyable puzzle.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | SCHNAPPS | Drunken announcement of breaks for booze (8) |
| Sounds like “snaps” as pronounced by a drunk. | ||
| 5 | FRESCO | Forces assembled for The Last Supper, say (6) |
| *FORCES. The capitalisation very fairly indicated the sort of answer required. | ||
| 9 | INKWELL | Small reservoir provided by king on ruling favourably (7) |
| I think this parses as K(ing) inside IN WELL (on ruling favourably?) but I’m not entirely happy that I’ve got it right. | ||
| 10 | SETS OUT | Kentish solicitor wrapping son’s presents (4,3) |
| SE (South East, hence Kentish), S(on) in TOUT (solicitor). One who touts for business can be said to solicit trade, hence a solicitor; nothing necessarily to do with the profession of which I was once a member. | ||
| 11 | HERON | He’ll eat his own catch and not what’s thrown back (5) |
| HE, NOR (rev). This was our last one in; again I’m not entirely confident about the parsing. I don’t really understand what “his own” is doing in the clue. I suppose that “catch” could (just) equate to EH (rev). | ||
| 12 | CAVALCADE | Moving show about rebel on throne returning (9) |
| CA (about) LAV (rev; “throne”), CADE (Jack Cade, leader of a popular rebellion in 1450). | ||
| 13 | ENCOUNTERING | Running into bar during finale, penniless (12) |
| COUNTER (bar) inside EN(d)ING. | ||
| 17 | CLASSIFIED AD | Notice corrupt fiscal aides beginning to defect (10,2) |
| *FISCAL AIDES + D(efect). | ||
| 20 | DINING CAR | First of Aylesbury ducks cooked in Cardigan eatery? (6,3) |
| *(IN CARDIGAN) minus (“ducks”) A(ylesbury). | ||
| 22 | INANE | Old lady’s stabbing that is senseless (5) |
| NAN in (“stabbing”) IE. | ||
| 23 | MUNSTER | Call up troops to seize northern province (7) |
| N in MUSTER (call up troops). | ||
| 24 | WHACKED | Dog-tired wife produced chops (7) |
| W(ife) HACKED. | ||
| 25 | COSTLY | Dear officer on retirement given sheltered housing (6) |
| LT (rev; “on retirement”) inside COSY (sheltered). | ||
| 26 | ARDENTLY | Where to find Orlando at play, oddly struck with passion (8) |
| (Forest of) ARDEN (where to find Orlando in As You Like It); even letters (odd ones being struck) of aT pLaY. A lovely clue. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SMITHY | Where Vulcan worked with German in cast? (6) |
| MIT (German for “with”) inside SHY (cast). Vulcan in Roman mythology was the god of fire, including the forge. | ||
| 2 | HIKERS | Travellers from Berkshire leading trio lost at sea (6) |
| *(ber)KSHIRE. “At sea” is the anagram indicator of the letters remaining after removing the first three in Berkshire. | ||
| 3 | APENNINES | Like touring state in eastern mountains (9) |
| PENN(sylvania) IN E, all inside AS (like). We would have got this a lot quicker if I hadn’t for some reason been convinced it was spelled Appennines. | ||
| 4 | POLICE OFFICER | Busy international clubs blocking European bid twice (6,7) |
| IC inside POLE (European) and again (twice) in OFFER (bid). | ||
| 6 | RATEL | Carnivore of the woods distressed in middle of moorland (5) |
| ATE (distressed) inside (moo)RL(and). This word was new to us; a retal is a kind of badger, apparently. This usage of “ate” to mean worried or distressed is not uncommon in crosswords, and you can see why, but I challenge anyone to come up with a real example of its being used with this meaning. You might say “he was eaten up with worry” but never ” he ate with worry”, would you? Apologies for mistakenly entering this as RETAL; the grid is wrong. | ||
| 7 | SPORADIC | Scattered crop said to be spoilt (8) |
| *(CROP SAID). | ||
| 8 | OUTWEIGH | Trump‘s unacceptable manner spoken of (8) |
| OUT (unacceptable?); WEIGH (sounds like “way”). | ||
| 10 | SEVEN YEARS WAR | Was every sane soldier ultimately involved in it? (5,5,3) |
| *(WAS EVERY SANE) +(soldie)R. There’s no real definition, but I don’t think that you can say that this is an example of an & lit clue, because the components of the anagram do not themselves define the war. | ||
| 14 | ERADICATE | Dispose of mouse finally caught in shed (9) |
| (mous)E, C(aught) in RADIATE (shed). | ||
| 15 | ACADEMIC | Scholarly accounts, second cut by half (8) |
| AC, DEMI (half) inside AC. | ||
| 16 | EARNINGS | Wishes to forgo initial salary (8) |
| (y)EARNINGS. | ||
| 18 | BASKET | Carrier‘s chance to frame question (6) |
| ASK (question) inside BET (chance). | ||
| 19 | HEYDAY | Prime gay rhymes (6) |
| Gay rhymes with “hey” and with “day”. | ||
| 21 | NATAL | Charlatans claiming elevated birth (5) |
| Hidden and reversed (“elevated”) in charLATANs. But birth is a noun, and natal is an adjective, so the cryptic grammar isn’t quite right. | ||
Thanks to Nutmeg and bridgesong. BUSY as police office was new to me and I did not parse HERON. For 6 down THE solution for RATEL is printed as RETAL.
HERON… the definition is “He’ll eat his own catch” and its a reversal of “not what” NOR EH perhaps?
Thanks Nutmeg and Bridgesong. I enjoyed this puzzle. For INK WELL, I took IN to be “ruling” and WELL to be “favourably”. I had RATEL for 6d
I think HERON is “and not”=NOR, “what”=EH, both reversed. And I tend to agree with Bridgesong’s ?s in 8d, and in 9a. In 21d birth can act adjectively, as in birth date, birth place, so I didn’t have a problem with NATAL (natal day).
A dnf for me, as I couldn’t fully recall 6d (I was stuck on RETEL), but couldn’t get the middle part from the wordplay – and I agree with Bridgesong that distressed=ATE is stretching things too far; 26d had me thinking of Florida, Virginia Woolf and the marmalade cat – unfortunately not familiar enough with As You Like It to get Arden; and 19d was just a sit and stare as far as I was concerned.
There was lots to like about this one (particularly the long ones, plus WHACKED & DINING CAR), so my thanks to Nutmeg (despite my disappointment at not fully understanding some of the clues) and to Bridgesong for the effort with the blog.
I parsed heron as nor (and not) plus eh (what) reversed; and parsed inkwell as Eurobodalla did.
I parsed HERON as you did, ant–one of my favorite clues!
This took me a while and was actually a four-part puzzle for me – my only “way in” was the SE corner – then I solved the SW, then the NE, and finally the NW, where I was held up by having confidently entered FORGED at 1d [blacksmith’s forge plus D for German(y)]. I couldn’t parse HERON so thanks for your further thoughts on this one, Ant@2. Several others went in only partially parsed, especially some of the down clues – 3d APENNINES (and I agree with the blog that it still looks like it’s spelt incorrectly!), 6d RATEL (also an unfamiliar word for me), 8d OUTWEIGH (I still don’t really get the “out” part in the latter) and 14d ERADICATE. I agree with bridgesong about 26a ARDENTLY: it was also my favourite clue, but then I always like a literary reference in a puzzle. It took me a long time to get SCHNAPPS at 1a but it was a fun clue so was worthwhile when I cracked it, mostly from the crossers. Thanks to Nutmeg, bridgesong and Timon.
Having confidently put in FORGED for 1d threw me off completely (Vulcan worked in FORGE, with German D[eutscheland]) and I never recovered. So, a miserable DNF.
Thanks bridge song. This was nicely testing, right to the end with last-in HEYDAY. Had to thesaurus ‘prime’ where the answer was the first option given. Many ticks inlanders for the Aylesbury ducks and the Berkshire travellers. ‘Busy’ baffled but had to be right. The beast in 6D incidentally is RATEL.
ticks INCLUDING for the ducks
Was thinking about 4d while doing yesterday’s police themer, because ‘busy’ is not one I’ve heard. And yes, can’t think of a direct substitution re 6d..it really distressed/ate AT him, perhaps, but not ate alone. Plenty to enjoy though, like the subtractive ducks in 20ac, the passion in 26, mit in shy in 1d, the neat acac around demi, and the cute heyday. All good fun, thanks Nutmeg and Bridgesong.
Thanks Nutmet and Philistine,
enjoyable puzzle, many good clurs. I was relieved on coming here to find no ‘hidden theme nor ‘ninas’.
I wrote everything in correctly, but this would have been a DNF since i need to use the ‘search’ facility on my CHambers app (brilliant by the way) to uncover RATEL (though I do think the clue is fair and ‘ATE’ works okf for distressed (“IHis money worries ate him up…”)
I needed a search engine to tell me the location for As You Like It, though really it is one of those clues that should be gettable without the GK needed to know. It is a neat clue, almost &lit since ‘Orlando at play, oddly struck with passion’ seems a good description of the play (going on the summary from Wikipedia, not actually read/seen it).
Shamefully I also needed to resort to my CHambers app to derive HEYDAY, unusual wordplay, but again no complaints, just slowness on my part. I only got HERON once all 3 crossers were in, when it was just H—N for some reason I kept thinking it might be HAYDN; I agree with the parsing offered by some learned contributors above!
Thanks again Nutmet and Philistine and to all other contributors to the blog!
oops meant to say thanks Bridgesong, for the blogging and clear explanation not Philistine (who set yesterday’s puzzle). Bedtime (in fact past it) for me.
A case of know your setter, JinA and TTim.. Nutmeg is usually precise, so if she says German and not Germany, the d in forged has to be fudged.. a reason to hesitate before you commit..
Thanks bridgesong. My experience was like yours, I only do the weekend puzzle and it took some time to get on the same wavelength as Nutmeg. I had similar reservations about NATAL and ATE. I wondered about PENN as an abbreviation for Pennsylvania, I know about Penn State University but that’s different and PA is in general use. Vulcan is the god of fire of course but I can’t find a particular association with the forge.
As ginf @14 points out, Nutmeg’s clues are generally precise, so I was a bit surprised to find some of the looseness described above, but there was still lots to enjoy. Some nice bits of misdirection, such as ENCOUNTERING, where I spent far too long focused on ‘penniless’ as the definition. Ultimately a dnf, as I couldn’t see HIKERS and couldn’t parse it after revealing it. Thanks to bridgesong for clearing that up, and thanks to Nutmeg for the challenge.
Liked ARDENTLY, OUTWEIGH (loi).
Took me ages to solve ENCOUNTERING but I like it!
New: busy = police officer.
Did not fully parse COSTLY, HERON.
Thanks to Nutmeg, bridgesong and Timon.
Thanks to those who pointed out my error at 6 down; I’ve corrected the entry but I’m afraid the grid is still wrong, as it would mean creating an entirely new one. In my defence, I did get it right when solving, it was just a careless error when writing the blog.
Many thanks to bridgesong for blogging this and to nutmeg for a tough challenge. I also needed a little digital assistance for RATEL which was pretty obscure and HEYDAY as LOI. Enjoyed ARDENTLY, SCHNAPPS and the ducked out A in 20a. Thanks for help with parsing on 1d and 4d, busy was new to me.
Thanks Nutmeg and bridgesong
SCHNAPPS made me chuckle. I didn’t parse HERON, and still think that the definition part is rather strange.
I got through about three quarters of this and then gave up. It was fine in itself but lacked the pizzazz of previous Saturday puzzles. I couldn’t help thinking that the Paul one-letter masterpiece the day before should have been the prize and this one the Friday one. That said, there are plenty of positives for it on here so it’s probably me not being on the setter’s wavelength. Thanks to Nutmeg for his/her efforts and the blogger too.
DNF for me, as I could not get OUTWEIGH or ENCOUNTERING, but it was entertaining nonetheless. Unlike some, I did know RATEL, the honey badger, and I think I did so mainly because I had met it in crosswords before – has anybody else? And like many, I had to check that ‘Busy’ meant a policeman.
Like BigglesA@15, I wondered about PENN as an abbreviation for the state, but on checking I find that the familiar two letter abbreviations, such as PA, date back only to 1963, before which writers used whatever they preferred, and PENN was a common one for Pennsylvania.
With ‘ate’ and ‘distressed’, I think I read an article about why D Trump has tried to reverse all his predecessor’s measures – the respect given to Obama, in contrast to the scorn against Trump, ate him from the inside.
Parsing INKWELL, I suggest that a political faction is ‘in’ when it is ‘ruling’, and ‘well’ is ‘favourably’, so K is inside these words, but I share bridgesong’s uncertainty. Any other suggestions?
Thanks, Nutmeg and bridgesong.
I would love to see Nutmeg in the Saturday slot more often – I think this is only her second after her century puzzle. Nothing too tricky here but all of the smooth misdirection she is so good at.
Thanks to Nutmeg and bridgesong
Nice to see Nutmeg in prize spot. I agree with the parsings @2&3 for HERON and INKWELL and I was ok with those. 8d I was less sure about, perhaps OUT in a tennis sense? RATEL I also hesitated over as I knew them as a creature of the savannah.
Held myself up on COSTLY for a long time assuming the officer had to be OC! HEYDAY was LOI by a mile and only came to me on Sunday I think. I don’t remember seeing a device like it before (which is generally a good thing in my book) it also felt like a bit of an odd surface to me though
Thanks Nutmeg, Bridgesong and, especially, all the contributors above who have cleared up a couple of queries I also had over parsing and increased my appreciation of the puzzle as a result!
sjshart @22 We also often see “cal” for “state” in these puzzles, and occasionally “fla” so definitely a thing to remember. When I live in Connecticut, way back in the 90’s, I’d see “Conn.” written about as often as “CT”. Our US followers on here can doubtless comment more on the timeline but my understanding is that the Zip code system and tidying up of state names was very slowly adopted by the masses. I know when I was there they had “improved” the system by adding a 4 digit suffix to the standard 5 digit zip (as you can imagine, 5 digits covers a pretty wide area, more like the NW1 or LS6 part of ours. I knew literally no-one who used it.
I was held up in the NE corner after having entered OVERRUFF for 8D, which I still think is a better answer. Otherwise an enjoyable puzzle.
Togs @26
“Trump” would be just “ruff”, so “overruff” would need something added to the definition.
Started slowly, continued slowly, finished slowly, with quite a bit of staring at unfinished words like R-T-L and slowly imagining what letters might go in there.. in this case, they had to be vowels, so there weren’t many to try, and there was RATEL, which I’d never heard of, in Chambers. I then kicked myself for not realising ‘ate’ might just mean distressed, but not very hard, because I thought it was a bit of a stretch (I thought of it the same way as sjshart @ 22, in the end). I seem to hear of ‘Penn State’ , either as a College or a football team, often enough that I was happy enough to accept ‘penn’ without worrying about it too much, although on reflection I’m less sure about it. Oh, and I’m another who had to Google to remember where As You Like It was set. So, not exactly finished unaided, but enjoyed nonetheless. Nice to see Nutmeg in this slot, and thanks bridgesong for the explanations.
I had to have two separate goes at this before managing to finish it.
I agree with Ant@2 and others about the parsing of HERON. Also I agree with Eurobodalla about INKWELL. I didn’t have a problem with ate in RATEL a creature I had to dredge from the subconscious. Equally I have come across a busy for a P.O. so that was fine. The one I couldn’t parse at all was CAVALCADE so thanks to Bridgesong for explaining it.
After yesterday I am suitably chastised so no soprano references today.
Thanks to Bridgesong and Nutmeg
Thanks for the blog, Bridgesong (and Timon),
I’m a great admirer of Nutmeg’s puzzles and, like beery hiker, was pleased to see her in the Saturday slot. Apart from 11ac HERON, which is a little odd, I think this is up to her usual high standard of meticulous cluing.
Like Sheffield hatter @4, I took ‘birth’ in 21dn as adjectival, so it caused no problems.
Biggles A @15, Vulcan was, as Bridgesong says in the blog, the god of fire and the forge: he made arms for gods and heroes and lightning bolts for Jupiter and is often depicted holding a blacksmith’s hammer.
Like sjshart @22, I was surprised that RATEL was unfamiliar. the last time. I thought it was about as regular as OKAPI et al. I think the last time I saw it (as part of a word in an answer) it was clued as ‘honey badger’. I agreed with him / her, too re ‘ate’, which, again, crops up fairly regularly. I always think of ‘What’s eating you?’, although it’s not an expression I would use.
I share others’ liking for ARDENTLY, my favourite along with FRESCO.
Many thanks to Nutmeg.
Apologies for the rogue ‘the last time’.
I parsed 11a as NOR (and not) and EH (what – interjection) both reversed.
Like Eileen and others I’m a great admirer of Nutmeg and we finished and parsed this over two days – I’m always happy when the Saturday puzzle leaves something for the Sunday. I remember RATEL or honey badger from Brooke Bond tea cards back in the 60s and didn’t pick up on ATE as a query. I did find it more difficult than other Nutmeg puzzles and felt some of Nutmeg’s lightness of touch was missing. Thanks to Nutmeg and Bridgesong/Timon.
[Munromad @29 – no sopranos, so can we expect something alto-gether different?]
Slightly surprised no-one has picked up on our blogger’s comment on “Seven Years War”. I’ve mentioned this before (with respect to Everyman puzzles as they often contain this kind of approach, and this week I think Qaos did it) but there does seem to be an increasing number of “not quite &lit” or “some of the clue as definition” clues. I can see how purists may not like them as they are not purely &lit and not every word in the puzzle can be assigned to one specific role. I really like clues where words that are part of the wordplay also hint at the direction for the definition (just enough to get you thinking in the right general area). But 10d is something different from both of those. Is it uniquely solvable? yes (and, more importantly for me, once I see what I think is the answer can I feel reassuringly certain? Again yes.) Is ti fun, with a clever surface or a good degree of misdirection or misinterpretation? Yes. Is it purely Ximenean? No. To quote Meatloaf, “two out of three ain’t bad”. Rather than complain about such a clue’s shortcomings, I’d rather think of it as a different kind of clue and judge it on its own merits.
Naturally others may want to disagree – but where would we be without that on fifteensquared?
Interesting to see Orlando and Vulcan both making an appearence, presumably just a coincidence.
Thanks to Bridgesong and Nutmeg
I always admire Nutmeg’s brevity and this week all the clues were single line.
I didn’t parse INKWELL, not spotting in=ruling. Now that’s been pointed out I’m not that happy with “on” which I would normally take as indcating that “k” was at the beginning.
“He’ll eat his own catch” is an unusually loose definition by Nutmeg’s standards. If it hadn’t been for the desire to misdirect I wonder if she would have clued it as “She”ll eat her own”.
Thanks to Nutmeg and bridgesong.
TheZed@34 You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth.
Penfold @37 Bravo!
I agree with Eileen @30 that I thought this was up to Nutmeg’s usual high standard and very enjoyable.
TheZed @34; I believe that the clue for SEVEN YEARS WAR is usually described as a semi-&lit or ‘extended definition.’ These type of clues seem to be quite often used by a variety of setters.
Many ticks against multiple clues. The clue for HEYDAY was unusually quirky for Nutmeg, but interesting to solve. I’m another NOR EH reversed.
Thanks Nutmeg and Bridgesong.
Thanks Nutmeg and bridgesong
Pino @ 36: ‘on’ in a down clue normally means ‘precedes’, but in an across clue, for reasons I’ve never fully understood, it means ‘follows’.
TheZed@34. No I am bass-ically giving up as I can’t stand the tenor of the discussion.
[Munromad @41 Good that you get to voice your opinion without being censored]
To add to the comments of TheZed @25, most Americans now use the two-letter postal abbreviations for the states, but we’ve never warmed to the nine-digit zip codes (nine digits being enough to give every US resident three personal zip codes!). I don’t even know the last four digits of mine.
I failed on HEYDAY – thanks bridgesong for the explanation.
Too late to add to add much to the discussion, except to say that I’d like to stick up for HERON. The wordplay (“and not what’s thrown back”) was beautifully devious, leaving the definition (“he’ll eat his own catch”) as a clever cd. Most human catchers of fish don’t ‘eat their own’ any longer, so the solver’s mind was nudged gently in the direction of non-human piscivores – of which the heron is a prime example.
[Btw wiki tells me that herons may hunt “either from an upright posture, giving a wider field of view… or from a crouched position, which is more cryptic…” If any potential contributor to 15² is in need of a pseudonym, crouchedheron has a nice ring to it 😉 ]
All hail Nutmeg. I don’t mind losing to you.
Re: “distressed”=ATE in 6d, I have followed the discussion here with particular attention to Eileen @30. “I always think of ‘What’s eating you?’, although it’s not an expression I would use.” And of course Chambers: “to upset, irritate or worry (colloq)”.
Perhaps I was precipitate at 12:37 this morning (see#4 above) when I said I agreed with the blogger that the setter had stretched things too far: “You might say “he was eaten up with worry” but never ” he ate with worry”, would you? ” I think Bridgesong was using ate in the wrong way there, so it’s no wonder his example looks clunky.
How about “It distressed him that she was now in another man’s arms” ==> “It ate him that she was now in another man’s arms”? (Perhaps “ate him up” would be read better.) As Eileen says, it’s not an expression I would use, but I can see how it could be used.
Sheffield hatter@45: I think your example makes my point. You just wouldn’t use “ate” in that way, even with the addition of “up”. The example given by sjshart @22 is better, but isn’t really a synonym for “distressed”.
sh @45, the ‘ate debate’ rang a bell, and after a little searching I realise why – it was your own comment (@61) on Qaos’s recent London-themed puzzle.
10a was ‘Tense worried comedian’ (4), and it sparked the Catherine v Harry TATE discussion.
I didn’t know The Last Supper was a FRESCO and in fact, technically, it wasn’t, apparently (according to Wikipedia). I just thought it was oils on canvas, but I am very ignorant.
I parsed HERON as “and not” + “eh” backwards, but wondered if there was something about the remaining words as definition I hadn’t twigged. Apparently not.
I had to Google Orlando to get the As You Like It reference (not being familiar with the play). It was interesting to read about why Shakespeare might have chosen the name Arden for the location.
I had to Google Vulcan to discover his association with the forge.
I did know “busy” for police officer. I think it derives from the meaning of ‘interfering, nosy’, as in busybody.
I think I have met RATEL before (clued as “honey badger”, as others have pointed out), but I had to work it out from wordplay then confirm it with a lookup.
Re OUTWEIGH, isn’t acceptibility the crux of what what’s ‘in’ and what’s ‘out’? I had trouble thinking of ‘weigh’ as a homophone of a word for “manner” and only realised OUTWEIGH was the answer after resorting to a wordsearch using crossers.
The same goes for HEYDAY, which had me totally foxed as to its structure, despite the fact that I once used exactly the same device in an entry to a cluing competition (“The actual mechanics of witty rhymes (5-5)“).
From the point of view of some here, then, this was very much a dnf, although I did achieve the delight associated with filling in every square of the puzzle correctly while understanding (pretty much) exactly how each clue worked. Most enjoyable!
essexboy @47. Sorry for that, I appear to be a bit of a one-trick pony.
I know that comments on the current prize are not acceptable, but it appears the Guardian’s gremlins have been at today’s puzzle as 9 down is clued as 5, 2, 7 but there are only 7 spaces in 9 down.
Can anyone help us to find the other 7, or is the answer only 7 letters in total?
We have looked on the Guardian site for any explaantion of corrections without success.
Many thanks
Too much arcana for me to fully enjoy — RATEL, “busy” as a police officer, Orlando in Arden, and the Cade rebellion are examples. SCHNAPPS sounding like drunken snaps was a stretch to my ears. Nonetheless I had satisfying moments with INANE, SEVEN YEARS WAR (great surface), ERADICATE, and HEYDAY. Thanks to both.
Shirley @50 I hope this doesn’t count as a spoiler. I interpreted it as being an additional clue in that the answer could be read as both (5,2) or as (7). Not a trick I’ve seen before.
Sheffield hatter @49 – no need to apologise, going back to the previous blog illuminated the debate for me – it reminded me both of PeterO’s referring to the device as a crossword staple, and of your questioning of it, based on a little cruciverbal archaeology.
Tony @51 – re SCHNAPPS – referencing The Big Bang Theory is probably going to bring me down in the eyes of everyone, but reading your comment I couldn’t help thinking of this. (Though to be fair it doesn’t invalidate your point as they aren’t trying to say ‘snaps’.)
JinA @7 Out = unacceptable.
Thanks The Zed – I’m afraid it got us stumped!
TheZed@34 (re-) opens an interesting discussion on the ‘validity’ of clues. I vaguely recall Araucaria defending non-Ximenian clues along similar lines, ie. Is it solvable? There is perhaps a natural tendency to put things in categories but that leads ultimately to more rigid, formulaic puzzles. This isnt a test, its meant to be fun!
That said, thanks to my learned solving partner for the blog and for mentioning, er, ‘ambiguities’ in clues – that after all is the role of the blogger.
Thanks also to Nutmeg who is a new setter to me; hope the editor can put her in the Saturday slot more often.
I’m surprised by the implications of looseness in some comments. I don’t see any.
OUT as unacceptable is commonly used. Here’s an example. Thanks to Eileen for the best example of eat and distress being synonymous, as in the expression “what’s eating you?” If the words are synonymous here, then I’m prepared to accept that they’re synonymous in all tenses, even if examples of that are not common.
Re: the convention of the indicator ON that Simon S @40 refers to: I think the usage in down clues is explained by On meaning Above and the usage in across clues is explained by On meaning Forward (as in “Let’s move on”).
Thanks, Nutmeg and bridgesong. Lots of fun.
Pino @36 – “on” meaning “after” is not unusual, in across or down clues. “On hearing the news, he fled the country.”
Essexboy @53: Thanks for the link. The Big Bang Theory was one of the more intelligent American sit-coms but that might be similar to saying that Moe was the smart stooge.
phitonelly @57. That link in your post doesn’t seem to be working properly. It just leads to a Monty Python sketch about the use of sarcasm. Oh…
Started this on Thursday and just finished it. A few people moaned that they were not on Nutmeg’s wavelength. For me, as here, sometimes not being on the setter’s wavelength produces even more pleasure – the extra struggle produces more tea-tray moments when the solutions finally come to you. But only when the clues are as well crafted and fun as they are in this crossword (as in all of Nutmeg’s).
Thanks Nutmeg for the exercise and bridgesong for the helpful blog. And thanks, TheZed@34 for the excellent analysis of what makes a good (and enjoyable) clue.
SimonS@40, Miche@58
I had thought of “on” meaning “after” but then I thought that the answer would have been INWELLK.
DNF here – no heron or ratel….just too obscure and hard to parse. In truth, not much fun :-(.
Pino @ 62
You need to deconstruct it as ‘king’ ‘on’ ‘ruling’, then ‘well’ (favourably), not ‘king’ ‘on’ ‘ruling favourably’.
Pino, you have to treat it as (king on ruling) + favourably
SimonS@64, Tony Collman@65
Thanks for that. It occurred to me after posting 62 that the clue could be read that way but I was too busy with other things aka lazy to come back. A bit grudgingly I have to admit that the clue is fair.
Late to the blog, though I did this last Saturday. It was the first prize I have mangaed most of on my own, so very chuffed. I had not parsed HERON or the ruling/IN bit of INKWELL so was grateful for the explanations and discussion. Many thanks to Nutmeg and to Bridgesong and Timon.
Many thanks to Nutmeg for what I found to be quite a tricky puzzle, which required much use of the check button, and to bridgesong for his enlightening blog.
Like others here I’ve never come across busy = police officer before, so resorted to google. The only reference I could find was to Liverpool slang, apparently because the place were always too busy to help! But it was spelt BIZZY or BIZZIES. Can anyone justify the spelling BUSY for me?
AllyGally @68: I imagine, as I think someone suggested above, that it’s an abbreviation for “busybody “. My impression is that it’s primarily an American usage, but your research may contradict that. My link to the online OED isn’t working, so I haven’t been able to check further.
2. British slang. A detective; a police officer. Frequently in plural, with the.
1904 Daily Chron. 17 Sept. 6/6 We had better slide; he looks like a ‘busy’.
1925 E. Wallace Mind of Mr. J. G. Reeder ii. 22 ‘It’s that busy from the Yard,’ whispered Bride… The ‘busy’ was Sergeant Allford, CID,..a detective of some promise.
1948 M. Allingham More Work for Undertaker (1949) xiv. 179 I don’t know ‘ow long we’ve got before the busies come trampin’ in.
1989 in R. Graef Talking Blues iii. 108 Black guy walks in, spots me for a ‘bizzy’ and spits on the floor.
2004 H. Walsh Brass i. 12 And these knobheads, they starts trying to grab her and saying let’s call the busies and what have you.
Thanks, Biggles. My link to the OED (whose entry you reproduce) is now working again. I was clearly wrong to suppose it was an Americanism.
I’m from Merseyside and busy is a very common name for the police (amongst other names !)
many thanks to bridgesong and Biggles. I clearly didn’t search hard enough!
@allygally, I think you are right to associate the word with Liverpool. I thought that from the first and was going to mention it in my first comment, but I couldn’t find confirmation quickly with the ‘busy’ spelling. ‘Bizzy’ quickly turned up a piece in the (Liverpool) Echo about Scouse slang and it’s claimed as their own there.
Henning Wehn illustrates: https://youtu.be/gPZ6vSN-VDU?t=500
Thanks, BigglesA, for the OED. Any etymology for that usage?
Tony @ 74: the etymology is the same as for the adjective.
Thanks, bridgesong. I wonder if there is any reference source which could tell us whether or not the slang usage originated in Liverpol?
@59, re THe Big Bang Theory. I once saw a thing where they played a scene from that sitcom but without the screaming canned laughter. It was painfully unfunny.