A pretty straightforward puzzle from Gordius, which, yet again, I have to describe as a fairly typical mixed bag of easy clues and some more obscure answers. I have, perhaps, fewer quibbles than usual! Thanks to Gordius.
Across
1 Accidentally delivering scars to the unwary? (8,7)
CARELESS DRIVING
Anagram [accidentally] of DELIVERING SCARS
The whole clue is the definition – but the grammar is rather dodgy.
9 Soldier voices his bitterness (7)
RANCOUR
Sounds like [voices] ‘ranker’ [soldier]
10 Believed to be like Moses? (7)
REPUTED
I like the idea of this but it doesn’t quite work: it refers to the story of the baby Moses being hidden by his mother but he was not PUT in a single REED!
11 Pity it’s a plant (3)
RUE
Double definition [though I was surprised to find that it does have the other ‘feel sorry for’ meaning – I’m used to it as meaning ‘regret’ or ‘repent’]
RUE is one of Ophelia’s flowers: ‘There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me. We may call it “herb of grace” o’ Sundays.’ It is a symbol of repentance in folk lore, so the two definitions are connected.
12 L (4-7)
HALF-CENTURY
L – Roman numeral for 50 – a rather easy dingbat-style clue
13 Good health on the face of it! (6,4)
DOUBLE CHIN
A reference to the old toast, ‘Chin chin’
15 Pinch head off a duck (4)
TEAL
[s]TEAL [pinch]
18 Catch sight of clairvoyance unknown (4)
ESPY
ESP [Extra Sensory Perception – clairvoyance] + Y [unknown]
20 Rise to a fielder’s position (10)
STANDPOINT
STAND [rise] + POINT [fielder]
23 Series of events gets evangelist round church in vain (6,5)
MARKOV CHAIN
MARK [evangelist] + O [round] + CH [church] in VAIN
‘a mathematical system that undergoes transitions from one state to another’ – a new one on me but I was able to get it from the straightforward cluing.
25 Go to court a girl (3)
SUE
A rather neat double definition
26 Liberty formed by first English revolution (7)
FREEDOM
Anagram [revolution] of FORMED and E [first letter of English] – no comment!
27 Took in what hen laid scrambled? (7)
INHALED
Anagram [scrambled] of HEN LAID
28 Tories with savings accounts? (10,5)
INTERESTED PARTY
Cryptic definition – Tories being, presumably, simply one example of a party, hence the question mark? I suppose they’re perhaps more likely to have savings accounts, which yield [or used to] interest.
Down
1 Vehicle journey carrying good missile propellant (9)
CARTRIDGE
CART [vehicle] + RIDE [journey] round [carrying] G [good]
2 Verse or a nude dancing (7)
RONDEAU
Anagram [dancing] of OR A NUDE
3 Way out with triumphal expression after toilet at the local (8)
LOOPHOLE
LOO [toilet] + PH [public house – local] + OLÉ [triumphal expression]
4 Social philosopher vexed by student (5)
SOREL
SORE [vexed] + L [student]
5 Command of engineers, in a manner of speaking (9)
DIRECTION
RE [Royal Engineers] in DICTION [manner of speaking]
6 Threaten one member’s demise (6)
IMPEND
I MP [one member] + END [demise]
7 Under it maybe become unwelcome (7)
INTRUDE
Anagram [maybe] of UNDER IT
8 Light-headed Bible giver not on by the sound of it (5)
GIDDY
GIDDY + ‘on’ sounds like ‘Gideon’ – reference to Gideons International, who distribute free Bibles.
14 Mexican dish in county for ancient burials (9)
CATACOMBS
TACO [Mexican dish] in CAMBS [county]
16 In recent times rattled off for ever (6-3)
LATTER-DAY
Anagram [off] of RATTLED + AY [for ever]
I have a slight quibble with the definition here: LATTER-DAY means ‘of recent times’.
17 Space and quiet between works begin business (4,4)
OPEN SHOP
EN [space in printing] + SH [quiet] between OP OP [works]
19 Proportion of soft centre perhaps? (7)
PERCENT
P [soft] + anagram [perhaps] of CENTRE
21 After endless affront there’s a right to be detached (7)
INSULAR
INSUL[t] [endless affront] + A R [a right]
22 Rather brave, sound as a rock (6)
BOLDER
Sounds like ‘boulder’ [rock]
23 Rig for conductor without forte? (5)
MUFTI
MUTI [Riccardo, conductor] round [without] F [forte]
24 Sprightly for one over 12 in years (5)
AGILE
I [one] over L [clue to 12ac] in AGE [years]
Well done Eileen. Although I eventually managed to complete this successfully without aids, I found it difficult. I did not know ‘Sorel’ or ‘Markov Chain’ and deduced them from wordplay.
The clues seem to me to cover a range from banal (12a and 25a) to inadequate (28a) to questionable (1d) to clever and witty (10a – even if a plural would have been better).
As always, personal opinions and, of course, I have probably missed the subtleties as usual.
Little typo in your 23ac. Eileen. Agree with your comments – bit of a curate’s egg from Gordius.
‘Reed’ can be a mass or bed of reeds so REPUTED just about works.
Thank you, greyfox – rogue punctuation now corrected!
sidey, I see now that SOED [alone of my dictionaries] gives ‘a growth or bed of reeds’ but I’m afraid that still doesn’t make it work for me. I’d be interested to hear from anyone who has actually come across that meaning!
No such plural usage of REED in Chambers, which I’ve always seen as the authoritative voice on these things. So undoubtedly dodgy. But that’s to be expected with Gordius, alas; sees a good device, but cuts corners in the clueing when he can’t make it work.
I was diffident about entering HALF-CENTURY for L. If it had been a quick crossword, straight in, but a cryptic …?
I’ve quite enjoyed Gordius at times but there were far too many loose ends in this puzzle. Got a bit of a chuckle out of LOOPHOLE because, constructing the charade, I was mentally pronouncing it as loo – ph=f – olé till the penny dropped.
Thanks Eileen; you won’t be surprised to learn that I agree with your assessment..
People over at the Guardian site are raving about 12a: e.g. “as near to clue perfection as you can get. Brilliant.” but it seems very weak to me.
Thanks for the blog, Eileen. I’m with you — this seemed patchy to me. I didn’t see the parsing of 10ac, which is perhaps not surprising! Markov Chain was new to me, but gettable.
And I’m another one who thought 12ac barely cryptic. I enjoyed 25ac.
I’m among the few who actually has heard of a Markov chain–I spent my college years (Princeton, 1992-1996) surrounded by math and physics majors–but I couldn’t actually tell you what the term means. One of those terms that you never expect to see in a crossword puzzle! Even so, I suspect that defining it as “series of events” is perhaps a bit off.
Another vote that “L” for half-century is a poor clue. Feels like half the clue is missing–the cryptic half, specifically.
Re 10a I thought “reed” referred to the basket Moses was in (an “ark of bulrushes” according to wikipedia) so I took reed to be identifying the material – he was put in reed a you might put on silk, tweed, motley etc. Eccentric I suppose, but it seemed to work. There is also the naturalist’s way of using the singular to refer to collections of plants and animals, which may be what SOED is indicating.
Alternatively – I just thought of this – was Moses “put in a reed bed” (as “put” is embedded in “reed”)?
This is made hard by the ‘didgy’ clues. The ideas are quite simple, we are surprised to find. but the DEFINITIONS are all over the place. Difficult and un staisfying.
Thanks Eileen and Gordius
Usual mixed bag as said. I liked ‘loophole’.
My first thought for 12a was ‘half-measure’ – summarising the puzzle?
24d could also have been clued ‘one under 12 in years’.
@tupu
Some say that would clue “agxlixe”…
Thank you Eileen, excellent blog as ever.
I normally like to be in the, “say nothing if you have nothing positive to add”, camp. However, I seem to have difficulty enjoying this setter and this offering has a number of reasons why:
REPUTED for the reasons many have stated.
L is simply not a crossword clue for me.
For FREEDOM to work “first English” has to be read as E. (Ask The Don what he thinks of this device!)
INTERESTED PARTY again is only half a clue. Perfectly solvable but unsatisfying.
There are some decent clues too, of course, MUFTI & LOOPHOLE were fine for example.
Hey-ho.
If I can join the party again! I thought a lot of loose cluing. My bugbear was 22d. ‘rather brave’ is ‘bold’. ‘Bolder’ is ‘more brave’ – it’s comparative is it not.
Thanks, Eileen and Gordius. I enjoyed this, finding it harder than the usual Gordius.
10a REPUTED was my last in, and I didn’t see the REED explanation. I just thought it referred to Moses as a man of repute; either way, a bit weak.
I thought 1ac and 12ac were splendid clues, and transferred to, say, a Paul puzzle would surely have evoked praise. I have no problem with “first English” as a device.
Not sure your refernce for a Markov Chain is the best – it’s a bit wooly, though it does get a little more precise and technical soon after! “sequences of random variables in which the future variable is determined by the present variable but is independent of the way in which the present state arose from its predecessors” might be better – see Andrei Andreyevich Markov in the excellent U of St Andrews’ “The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive”
Wiki :- “A Markov Chain… is a mathematical system that undergoes transitions from one state to another…”. In the vernacular that means a series of events. Is that a cause for sniffy comment? I think not.
Herb @12
You are right as I realised after my comment.
Thanks to Eileen for the blog. You cleared up a couple where I had the right answer without understanding the parsing.
I was quite happy with ‘first English’ giving E: to me that is a common crossword device.
On 23d I spent quite some time trying to think of a conductor in 6 letters with FF in the middle. I was then going to remove one F i.e. without forte. Eventually I spotted the other meaning of without ðŸ™
While I can see the faults, I actually quite enjoyed it – although it felt a bit like it must be Monday!
But sometimes it’s nice to have a fairly straightforward solve for a change. The synonyms were all fairly direct, which I think is what made it quite friendly.
If you think of Moses being “PUT” in a container made of “REED”, then I think that works OK.
Thanks to Eileen and Gordius (it’s way better than anything I could create!)
Tiresome trudge through this I’m sorry to say, but at least, like Eileen, I saw merit in the Moses gag, or potential or something like that. Heigh-ho, as they say. Onwards and hopefully upwards.
Re: Markov chain. It is often used in statistical modelling for a series of events. As Wiki puts it, “A series of independent events (for example, a series of coin flips) satisfies the formal definition of a Markov chain.
Thanks all
I enjoyed this, but then I am not as pedantic as some of you!
‘Markov chain’ was very familiar but then it is a mathematical expression so everyone can feelvery free to show ignorance (remind me next time we have an obscure WS reference).
I thought for a long time that 12 ac was ‘hell finishing?’ or similar which would have been cryptic.
Favourite 13ac.
I agree with all the various quibbles. I don’t normally criticise Gordius but I didn’t enjoy this puzzle much. My last three in were MUFTI (didn’t know the conductor but eventually saw the definition), MARKOV CHAIN (gettable from the wordplay once all the checkers were in place), and INTERESTED PARTY with a “what else can it be?” shrug.
Well bootkins got this right for me.
A “tiresome trudge”.
What a ragbag of a puzzle ranging from the tenuous to the downright wrong!
As others have said many went in because they had to be what was intended even though they were either dodgy or wrongly defined.
Does nobody check these puzzles before printing them?
Thanks to Eileen and Gordius
A very, very slow start for Sue and me on this one, but worth the effort in the end, we found.
It seemed different in character from many puzzles of late, and I struggled in particular with finding the necessary synonyms to make progress.
There were a few write-ins, but generally the clueing was pretty fiendishly surfaced, with some real beauties, as has been said. I’m happy to take ’em as they come.
Thanks all.
Excellent puzzle but what a dreary (with a couple of honourable exceptions) and of course predictable, chain of comments.
I fail to see anything in the least bit obscure in it save for those who are ignorant of maths, music and the norms of non-ximenean cluing – well – let’s just say ignorant.
Anyone who can’t get E from “first English” after noticing that the setter is not a card-carrying ximenean (or some schism thereof) really needs to get help.
10a “reed” is (or can be) a “mass noun” [google it if you don’t know] – perfectly valid construction.
Loose -sloppy – didgy (sic) – usual stupid comments. This is how Gordius sets – this is how his grammar works – it ain’t the same as Manley and co. If you don’t like it for Heaven’s sake don’t do his puzzles.
Re 28ac, I think quite a few Socialists as well as Tories are likely to have savings accounts these days, though not many with the Co-op Bank, I grant you.
Jolly – dreary, predictable, ignorant and stupid. Yes. Stuff and nonsense. There’s a lot of it about.
Yes RHOTICIAN! I am glad you have spotted it tioo.