I made a bit of a slow start on this, but once a few answers were in the rest mostly fell satisfyingly into place. Thanks to Brummie.
I noticed while solving that a lot of the answers are names, but I can’t see any connection between them that would constitute a theme. I hope someone will enlighten me…
| Across | ||||||||
| 9 | ERICA | Bush envoy opening Republican art venue (5) E[nvoy] + R[epublican] + ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts – a gallery in London) |
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| 10 | VALENTINE | Name Spike (after farewell) as sweetheart (9) VALE (farwell) + N[ame] + TINE (spike on a fork etc) |
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| 11 | TITHE BARN | Old store of brine that fermented (5,4) (BRINE THAT)* |
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| 12 | WALTZ | Progress easily in Disney zone? (5) WALT + Z |
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| 13 | LORELEI | I say Gable’s last seen with Garland in Fatal Attraction! (7) LOR’ (I say!) + [Gabl]E + LEI (Hawaian garland) |
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| 15 | CRYSTAL | Glass makes blubber last — weird! (7) CRY (to blubber) + LAST* |
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| 17 | NGAIO | Marsh transformed in Goa? (5) (IN GOA)* – Ngaio Marsh, crime writer |
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| 18 | TOM | Bell, British soldier: well out of it (3) TOMMY (British soldier) less MY (well!). Tom is a name sometimes given to large church bells |
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| 20 | BARON | Stop working for an aristocrat (5) BAR (stop) + ON (working) |
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| 22 | ENTASIS | In torment, as I survey columnar distortion (7) Hidden in tormENT AS I Survey. Entasis is ‘the convex curve given to a column, spire, or similar upright member, in an attempt to correct the optical illusion of hollowness or weakness that would arise from normal tapering’. An obscure word, but very helpfully clued |
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| 25 | DRESSER | Actor’s assistant of no use in a strip club? (7) Definition + hint – the strip club would prefer an undresser |
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| 26 | FAITH | Trust it to enter note (5) IT in FAH |
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| 27 | RECLAIMED | Miracle worked — Sheeran’s won from evil! (9) MIRACLE* + ED (Sheeran, singer) |
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| 30 | RESURRECT | Inject new life into right sort of rest cure (9) R + (REST CURE)* |
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| 31 | CAROL | Two sides missing from Lewis’s song (5) [Lewis] CARROLL less one each of L and R |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1 | NEWT | It’s not gross to eat with pond inhabitant (4) W[ith] in NET (not gross, as in profits etc) |
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| 2 | VICTORIA | Hugo and I at the premiere of African Queen (8) VICTOR (Hugo) + I + A[frican] |
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| 3 | JADE | Become weary of Green (4) Double definition |
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| 4 | AVIARIST | ‘Restricted flight area manager‘ used as trivia (8) (AS TRIVIA)* |
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| 5 | CLINIC | Presidential candidate loses weight with microchip surgery (6) CLINTON less TON (probably referring to Hillary, though of course Bill was also a candidate) + IC (integrated circuit) |
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| 6 | UNSWAYABLE | Refusing to alter one’s view cannot be spoken of around wife! (10) W in UNSAYABLE |
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| 7 | VIOLET | Nameless wild flower (6) VIOLENT less N |
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| 8 | METZ | Opera house, the last for French city (4) MET (nickname of the Metropolitan Opera in Ne York) + Z (the last) |
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| 13 | LANCE | Weapon‘s look not good (5) GLANCE less G |
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| 14 | LION’S SHARE | English international lacks energy to run, for the main part (5,5) LIONESS (member of the England women’s football team) less E[nergy] + HARE (to run) |
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| 16 | LONER | Unsociable type, single, welcomed by political extremes (5) ONE between L[eft] and R[ight] |
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| 19 | MEDICATE | Drug referee outside college (8) C in MEDIATE |
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| 21 | ROSEMARY | A flavouring of wine: tip of pear in blossom (8) ROSÉ (wine) + [pea]R in MAY (blossom) |
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| 23 | THIRST | Long time with artist (6) T + [Damian] HIRST |
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| 24 | SORREL | Herb‘s sort of horse (6) Double definition |
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| 26 | FORD | Supporting duke’s cross (4) FOR D[uke] |
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| 28 | ARCH | Sly has stiffener — way to go (4) STARCH less ST[reet] |
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| 29 | DALE | Drink taken after entrance to Death Valley (4) D[eath] + ALE |
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Thanks, Brummie and Andrew!
Liked TOM (Bell, the Cat! Well My fave),
FAITH (Believe it or not. IT is as IT is. FA is FAH? DO may not be DOH (unless it’s a wrong note?)),
AVIARIST (What a def! A feather touch. Birds under the manager’s wing? Irony. Cage-y),
CLINIC (When I C an e-thing, I remember my old circuit and connections) and
ROSEMARY (Tip-sy one. Rose May smell sweet as ROSEMARY may! Talk of wine. Talk of Nose!).
Enjoyed that! Thanks to Brummie and Andrew
Yes, quite tough but enjoyable. Didn’t really get LOR’ = I say, so LORELEI was a bit of a mystery. Liked AVIARIST, METZ and NEWT. Thanks to B & A.
Responding to Andrew’s speculation about connection, I tried putting two or three of the names into Google – and rather rapidly found myself in rather steamy territory. You have been warned! Suffice to say, I stopped looking for any theme …
For 18A I thought of the actor, Tom Bell, but he’s far from a household name. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Bell_(actor)
Favourites were LORELEI for a great surface and Lor as a change for “I say”, and NGAIO just because it had me searching for synonyms of marsh.
I think the theme is rather obvious. It’s just a lot of first names that can (mostly… Victoria?) be used as words that mean something else.
Like Ian @5, I thought it was referring to the excellent Tom Bell. A smooth offering from the setter, with lots of names in view. I liked AVIARIST, NGAIO, TOM, ENTASIS, RESURRECT, LIONS SHARE, UNSWAYABLE and THIRST.
Ta Brummie & Andrew.
For what it’s worth CRYSTAL WALTZ is an actress.
Thanks Brummie and Andrew
I didn’t know ENTASIS or AVIARIST, but they were, as you say, fairly clued.
Favourite BARON for the misleading wordplay.
The note is FA. It can’t be FAH as it is derived from “famuli” – see here.
Tough puzzle for me. I found the lower half easier but struggled with the top half. Failed to solve 9ac ERICA and have no idea how this is parsed. Oh I see now – I should have remembered ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts – a gallery in London) as it appeared recently in a puzzle.
I also could not parse 5d. I know of Clinton, but IC (integrated circuit) is new for me.
New for me: ENTASIS, METZ (city).
Favourite: THIRST.
Thanks, both.
Re 18ac, I too was thinking of the actor Tom Bell.
It’s in Chambers:
fa /fä/ (music) noun
The fourth note of the scale in sol-fa notation (also anglicized in spelling as fah)
ORIGIN: See Aretinian
[Chambers Dictionary (iOS) © Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd.]
kenmac @11 to paraphrase a certain dad-dancing, cokehead: “I think the people of this country have had enough of Chambers”
Another Tom Bell eyebrow raise here
Standard Brummie stuff – solid, well-constructed and comfortable
Mandatory LORELEI earworm here
Cheers B&A
One famous Lewis loses an R and an L, yet another famous Lewis has nothing added.
Re 18a, I thought it was specifically referring to the Great Tom bell in Christ Church college, Oxford ( the quiz team of which coincidentally appeared on University Challenge last night ).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Tower
Thank you Brummie and Andrew.
TimC@6 – a Victoria is a type of horse-drawn carriage, so your theme suggestion works perfectly well.
Didn’t enjoy today’s. Too many obscurities and Britishisms, and groans outnumbered smiles.
LORELEI was my favourite, once I had dismissed CORELEI, which sounded like something in the back of my mind, probably a misremembered Coriolis effect.
Could not make IAN fit in 18a no matter how hard I tried. I deduced it must be TOM, once I recalled “tommy” as a term for an English soldier, but I had no idea on the parsing. Thanks for the explanation Andrew, and thanks to Brummie for the puzzle.
This took me a while to get going. I especially liked LORELEI, METZ, and LION’S SHARE. It’s worth reading the wiki entry for Tom Bell (Ian @5) above). There are not many who’d have been brave enough to heckle Prince Phillip! With thanks to Brummie and Andrew. PS for anyone who didn’t see it, Arachne came late in the day with a comment on yesterday’s puzzle.
Fun puzzle, with lots to like. Good variety of clues, with some entertaining cryptic defs, though perhaps rather too many of the ‘think of a word and chop a bit off’ type. I couldn’t recall ENTASIS, though I’m sure I must have come across it before, but this was clearly clued, as a rarity should be.
My favourites were TITHE BARN, LORELEI, BARON, NEWT, AVIARIST, LIONS SHARE. I did raise an eyebrow at FAH but assumed Chambers probably lists it as a variant (thanks kenmac). Pah!
Thanks to S&B
After a first pass revealing nothing but lance, it all fell into place quite naturally. Very fairly clued I thought. Thanks Brummie and Andrew for explaining the ic in 5
OK, given what I said @6, here is a list of the theme (names which mean something else)….
ERICA Bush
VALENTINE Sweetheart (hello Valentine from the USA)
LORELEI Siren
CRYSTAL Glass etc
NGAIO NZ Tree
TOM Male (esp. cat), prostitute, bell
FAITH Trust
CAROL Song
NEWT Animal
VICTORIA Water Lily, four-wheeled carriage
JADE Stone, worn-out horse, a worthless nag, a woman, esp perverse, ill-natured, or not to be trusted (often ironic)
VIOLET Flower
LANCE Weapon
DALE Valley
I may have missed some.
Don’t overthink things (a useful injunction in crossword land). Hope this helps.
I really enjoyed this, most satisfying.
Top half came easily, bottom half stalled me for a bit but then I got TOM and it all fell into place.
Only got the theme after completion.
Many thanks Brummie and Andrew.
(I was going to say something about Australians and British GK but I won’t as I am of NZ heritage. Except surely there is always google?)
Thanks Saggitarius @15, I didn’t see your post before mine @ 22
Found this tricky, with several not very obvious named people to dredge up from one’s memory, and then the clues that didn’t need them at all – LORELEI and VALENTINE. Put in AVIARIST from the crossers, nothing else fitted, and last one in after a long pause was JADE. Pleased to have completed, though not a huge amount of pleasure this morning…
With 16 names (both forenames and surnames) in the clues and 18 names (mostly forenames) in the answers, I thought the the theme was just ‘names’ and didn’t try to link them to look for anything deeper.
A slow start for me but it then came together well. The NW was tricky. I assumed that 1dn was NEWT but it took ages to complete the parsing. 3dn was last in after toying with Fade, Sage and Wane. My earworm today is also Lorelei but the Wishbone Ash song!
Thanks Brummie and Andrew and Nuntius@19 for the tip off.
I think it was Roz yesterday who mentioned the “Paddington stare”. Rather nice that. I had one of those at CLINIC and another at THIRST. Apart from that it was comfortable enough although I couldn’t get the spelling “Tommie” out of my head which meant I had to come here for the parsing. Nobody else flickered at JADE as an intransitive verb?
Tx Andrew and Brummie.
Nick @28, Jade is intransitive “to become weary” and also transitive ” “to exhaust or cause to flag from overwork; to satiate or weary from excess”
Yes, started slowly but then accelerated with a pause to Google some name combinations without any result. I think FORD is another one.
I liked the surfaces for LORELEI, UNSWAYABLE and LIONS SHARE, and the simple FORD. ENTASIS is a strange word; it must have been thought up by an old architect, I suppose.
Thanks Brummie and Andrew.
PS FAH is in the ODE and Collins as well as Chambers.
Muffin@9: It really doesn’t matter what the Latin derivation was. It’s usage alone that matters. When I was taught music at grammar school in the 1960s solfa was taught as Doh, Re, Mi, Fah, Soh, Lah, Te. As an adult I took to leaving the “H” off.
Thanks for the blog , I thought this was really good, I did notice a lot of proper names but made nothing of it, well done Tim and others.
CRYSTAL was very neat, CAROL a neat trick (Lewis gun from Dad’s Army ? ) , great defintion for AVIARIST , VIOLET very concise. Good to see the old favourite LORELEI , I only knew NIAGO because the books are advertised on railway platforms.
I saw the theme early – there were so many names! After 14 down I started to get excited – ah, the Lionesses! Sadly , it wasn’t to be. Enjoyed the solve though Thanks, Brummie.
I found this to be a slightly unusual mixture of the very easy (LONER, FORD, SORREL etc.) and the quite tough (ENTASIS, CLINIC). Liked AVIARIST, which I lit upon quite quickly but then looked at for a while before grasping why it was the answer.
Thanks to Brummie and Andrew.
Agree with Flea@14 , the bell is in Tom Tower , designed by Wren, overlooking Tom Quad.
Nick@28 the Paddington stare is one of disapproval, mainly used for people talking about IT or cricket but also for dodgy clues. The head scratch is for clues needing more thought.
Roz@33 Always cheaper to buy books that have been remaindered because of the typos. ?
So the theme wasn’t ERIC(A) Trump, BARON Trump. CLINT(on), NEWT (Gingrich), FORD, DALE somebody, or somebody DALE, and there were a few famous ARCHDALEs. There have even been notables by the name of ROSEMARY SORREL.
It goes on.
LET IT GO 🙂 Thank you Nutmeg for the earworm.
Chambers defines tom as “a big bell”. See also Dorothy Sayers’ The Nine Taylors. Nothing to do with the New Wave actor from Liverpool.
I seem to agree with Charles@35 again! As paddymelon@38 I saw ERIC(A) and BARON (and shuddered). Not just a Trump bump, when least expected, but a reminder that his spawns may bedevil us for decades to come; happily, I swiftly disabused myself and then forgot to look again!
This was a worthwhile puzzle
Many thanks both and all
Tim C at 22.
Sorry, I spent so long going back, counting and composing before posting that I missed you posting fully in the meantime. :-).
This board in a church in Fowey gives support to the idea of “Tom” as a generic name for the big tenor bell that “comes rowling in the rear” (though I rang church bells for some years and wasn’t aware of it until now.)
This is a job for Wikipedia’s disambiguation pages, eg:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrel_(disambiguation)
‘Sorrel Carson (1920–2005), Irish actress, director, and teacher who formed the Academy of Live and Recorded Art in London
Sorrel Hays (1941-2020), a female American pianist, composer, and artist’
Thanks Brummie for a well-crafted crossword. I suspected a theme with the large number of names but I thought they might be part of a novel or play that was unknown to me. (It’s easy to overthink when solving a cryptic.) In any event I enjoyed many of the clues including WALTZ, CAROL, NEWT, VICTORIA, LONER, and DALE. I couldn’t understand TOM, CLINIC, and ROSEMARY so thanks Andrew for explaining.
Never heard of the ICA. Didn’t know that zone could be abbreviated as Z.
ENTASIS was a TILT.
‘Nuff said about FAH.
Has anybody actually seen JADE as a verb, transitive or not, without its final D?
AVIARIST stumped me because I couldn’t get past some imagined derivative of “aviation” to “aviary.” IC = “mocrochip” was beyond me, and I apparently recognize “surgery” as a clinic in Britspeak but don’t come up with it on my own.
I’m hearing the round “Great Tom is cast” in my head, but have no idea of a link to it. Anybody else know it?
Thanks to Andrew and Brummie.
Thank you so much gladys@42 for the information about Fowey church. Despite being married there I didn’t know of the board’s existence, let alone its content. Fortunately am very familiar with Great Tom in Oxford, as was Dorothy L Sayers, who mentions it in Gaudy Night as well as The Nine Tailors.
Valentine@45 in the UK we often call it a doctor’s surgery (GP) which can often be in a clinic. Nothing to do with surgeons and operations, we call that theatre.
Valentine@45 and Roz@47, I suspect, with no evidence beyond plausible intuition, that the use of “surgery” for a family doctor’s clinic in the UK has its origins in the days when the distinction between physicians and surgeons (and indeed barbers!) was less clear than it is today.
Charles@48: I don’t get your point – the age-old distinction between physicians (usually clergymen, therefore not allowed to draw blood) and surgeons (as you say, often barbers) has always been clear-cut. Indeed, those who achieve the qualification of FRCS still call themselves ‘Mister’, rather than ‘Doctor’, in order to preserve that distinction.
[Ian@5: you have reminded me of ‘Out’, a particularly fine series from 1978, starring Tom Bell. I was probably too young to watch it, but enjoyed it muchly nonetheless.]
Roz@47 I knew that about “surgery.” What I was saying was that it seems to be in my passive but not my active vocabulary.
RamonSauvage@49: I had no idea that physicians were often clergymen, but will take your word for it. What I was thinking about was the fact that people would often resort to surgical means, especially bloodletting, to treat ailments (fevers etc) that we would now regard as the domain of the physician. Hence the “doctor’s surgery”. But as I said, I’m speculating.
Greatly enjoyed this, though my parsing of NEWT was very off the mark (not = n’t, around ‘ew!’, gross to eat….). Hey ho.
Thanks to Brummie and Andrew.
I struggled through this and eventually got all but the NW corner, despite NHO of ENTASIS (yes, it’s reasonably clued) and bunging in NGAIO with no clue why (I only know it as a shrub from New Zealand). I guess I’m just not on Brummie’s wavelength.
Thanks bodycheetah@12 for the Ella song I hadn’t heard before. Loved the rhymes for LORELEI: “immoral eye” & “HI-DE-HI” – “Hello, Campers!”
Hovis@13 – Carol Lewis (born 1963), American track and field long jumper – celebrating her 60th birthday today?
18a, TOM, left me with an earworm, at which point I stopped worrying about the parsing. 🙂
“Ding dong bell, Pussy’s in the well. Who put her in? Little Johnny Green. Who pulled her out? Little Tommy Stout”
We have bell, well, TOMmy and even TOMcat at a stretch (the soggy feline identifying as she/her).
Thanks Brummie and Andrew. Enjoyable puzzle.
Valentine@45
https://www.chimeworks.com/products/great-tom-is-cast/
My appreciation for Brummie grows and grows. I couldn’t quite get to the end because I didn’t know TOM, Tommy or Lioness but it was a great puzzle.
I can’t bring myself to consider any political themes in the puzzle because I’m too focused on the vote in Ohio today. VOTE NO!!!
…and here’s an AI version by Melody Assistant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_T6_j9xUUo
Hovis@13 – …not to be confused with Carl Lewis (born 1961), American track and field long jumper/sprinter – not celebrating his birthday today.
I thought they were 50’s singers: Jim Dale, Dickie Valentine, Adam Faith….
Teeth-grinding and enjoyable in about equal measure today. I especially struggle with the ‘think of a word and subtract some letters’ type clues, so it was good of Brummie to provide lots of practice! I’m another who thought of Tom Bell the actor – a bit obscure, but probably less so than the bell tower in Oxford. Missed VIOLET so DNF. Thanks Brummie, especially for CAROL, CLINIC, and LIONS SHARE with its topical reference to the football tournament currently taking place in Australia and New Zealand (I flew down from HK for one match in Sydney and it was worth the trip). Thanks Andrew for enlightening me on VIOLET, TOM and ARCH.
Charles @ 48 I do see the point you are making, in the not too distant past some surgery would not have been carried out in hospital theatres.
Here’s my earworm for LORELEI from yet another 50-year-old album:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Your_Pleasure
‘For Your Pleasure(1973) is the second studio album by the English rock band Roxy Music … their last to feature … Brian Eno.’
“Editions of You” – ‘And as I was drifting past the LORELEI | I heard those slinky sirens wail, whooo’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kxfGPWGaJ0
FrankieG @55, 60. Had no idea there was a Carol Lewis athlete. I was indeed referring to Carl Lewis (with a cryptic reference to ‘nothing’ added). Are they related? Thought it interesting to compare the names, Lewis Carroll and Carl Lewis but that may just be me.
Enjoyable puzzle once I realised that Nitre Bath was not the answer to 11A. It kind of worked until Newt forced a re-think.
Thanks Brummie & Andrew.
For 5D, how long does someone remain a presidential candidate? Ms Clinton is certainly not a candidate currently. The clue would have been better as ex-president, with reference to Bill.
Ian@5 & RamonSauvage@49:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_(TV_series)
Yes, Trevor Preston’s ‘Out’ is “a particularly fine series from 1978” starring Tom Bell.as Frank Ross.
Brian Cox has a memorable role as gangland rival McGrath, playing it with a speech impediment, referring to Bell’s character as Fwankie Woss.
He’s been in a whole Succession of other stuff since then – Get it? 😉
Just noticed TOM FORD in the solutions and VALENTINE is very close to Valentino. Both could be described as DRESSERs, Clearly I’m trying to hard here.
Hovis@65 – So I failed to solve your cryptic message – D’oh! 🙂 But Happy 60th birthday to…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Lewis
‘She is the sister of 9-time Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis, and former professional soccer player Cleveland Lewis. She is also the daughter of retired American hurdler Evelyn Lawler.’ – Quite a family!
This went in fairly smoothly, but I didn’t know integrated circuit for IC, so I parsed it as a chip of the word mICro.
Theme as a list of names seems a little vague to me.
Thanks, Brum and Andrew.
FrankieG @70. Quite a family indeed! By the way, liked your comment on Waitrose elsewhere.
Considering I spent some time recently in a clinic having micro surgery I ought to have solved 5d more quickly than I did!
I failed pretty dismally on this puzzle, having to cheat on three clues (JADE, CLINIC, VIOLET). All are perfectly reasonable clues, so I guess I was just having a bad day. The fact that I’m from the US partly explains my failure on CLINIC, as we don’t use the word “surgery” in that sense over here, but I do know of that usage, so I should have gotten it.
I didn’t know about TOM meaning a bell. My knowledge of campanology comes entirely from Dorothy Sayers’s The Nine Tailors. Unlike copland @39 and MikeB @46, I don’t remember Tom being mentioned in that book, although I certainly won’t swear that it’s not there.
Ted @74
As I remember, the big bell in The nine tailors was called Tailor Paul.
Late today, as I saved thus for my lunch hour. I was another American who knows surgery=CLINIC but failed to think of it. A clinic here is a clinic; a place where operations happen is an OR (operating room), and surgery can only be a synonym for operation. Theatre makes it sound like they should sell tickets.
I also didn’t know the artist needed at THIRST, or that TOM could be a bell, though that one I did get from the wordplay. I was defeated by several others as well, with my only excuse for the rest being that I was in a bit of a hurry.
Though on “operating theatre” I do imagine a large lecture hall at an old medical school (as seen occasionally in period films) with surgeries performed for the edification of the students, so the phrase has never bothered me much.
mrp @76
Tickets were sold for operations! There’s a famous painting of an operation with spectators, though I’ve not been able to find it. I think it was Abraham of Darby.
There is this Rembrandt, but I don’t think it;s the one I was thinking of.
[The Gross Clinic by Thomas Eakine, 1875, in the Philadelphia Museum of Art]
[*Eakins]
Thanks Andrew, but I don’t think that’s the one I remember either. Could it have been a popular subject?
There are a few (some rather gruesome) paintings of surgery here.
21d – is there a way of knowing to use R as opposed to P for “tip of pear”?
Steffen: I’ve seen “end” refer to either end of a word but I’ve never seen “tip” refer to anything but the 1st letter; I guess “tip of the tail” would justify that use. I couldn’t fully parse ROSEMARY due to that bit of wordplay. Next time I’ll be smarter about it. Solve and learn.
Steffen
I couldn’t get anything to work with the P, so I just tried the R instead. I agree that “tip” to mean the last letter is unusual, at least.
Steffen@84: you try both. One works, the other doesn’t.
Chambers Crossword Dictionary has tip as a head indicator but not as a tail indicator.
Tom Bell the Liverpool actor sprang to my mind. Surely a DRESSER would be needed before a stripper can undress?
Thanks both
[muffin @75 — Yes, that’s right: the big bell was Tailor Paul. None of the bells in the church in the novel is named Tom, although I certainly can’t swear that there’s no mention of a bell elsewhere named Tom. And it’s quite likely, as MikeB @46 suggests, that the name comes up in Gaudy Night, which is set in Oxford and which certainly mentions church bells.
]
This was essentially undoable with so many out of the way clues and references. Would be nice to have had warning